Field Dispatch
Matt Connarton Unleashed 11-25-23 part 1
Game Plan
Charlie Hallinan of Rollingexile skypes in from London.
w/Jenn Coffey, Ron Laplume
You are listening to w U n H command God, don't get so greenly
died, maself. Thank you, Good morning everybody, welcome, here we
go. It is that time again, Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live
from the studios of w m n H ninety five point three FM and Glorious
Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. Little chili out but glorious nonetheless, also on
Comcast Channel six if you're in Manchester, and hello to all of our online
listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website
Matt Connorton dot com for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact info, show archives, et cetera, et cetera. Today is
Saturday, November twenty five, twenty twenty three, and I am not alone.
Jenny is here at the news desk. Good morning, sunshine, good
morning, and yeah, we have quite a show. But it's weird getting
used to that saying morning on the show. In other word, I'm having
a hard time with it because it was a night shifter for seventeen right right,
a thing. But we've got a we've got a very busy show coming
up. We've got some great guests we're gonna introduce and just a moment,
Uh, we've got the guys from Run Like Thieves here, and then uh
coming up in the second hour we have Charlie from from the band Rolling Exile
skyping it all the way from London. And then third hour we've got Pretty
Late coming in. We just heard one of their songs. Actually, we're
gonna hear some new stuff from them in the third hour, but uh,
pretty late. That's uh my personal favorite of theirs, that song of you
from Here Yet. I really really love that thought. Yeah, that's a
that's a great track. And uh, if you have any questions for any
of our guests today, the studio line is open six oh three two five
six seven six oh three two five oh six oh seven. You can also
text me at six one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm
on social media at Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at Matt Coonnorton
dot com, and of course you can interact endo Pine in the Facebook live
chat. Looks like we've got a busy chat room already. I see Isaac
Banks in there, Jenny, you're in there, of course, I'm everywhere.
Legion of Solis who a great band who've proven to be quite loyal as
well. They say, greeting's friends, Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.
Carol's of Warwiz joins us and says good morning everyone and easy g of course
in the Facebook live chat, maybe he'll call, uh, maybe he'll call
with a question today, And I bet I know what the question will be
if he does. I know, yes, yes, but let me get
the mics up on these guys and we have Run Like Thieves live in studio.
How are you guys? Welcome? Good, hey man, Hey Abe,
Let's start with you because I've known you forever. Yeah, I just
I'd love for each of you to introduce yourselves and tell us what you do
in the band. Hey, I'm Abe. I play the bass and evidently
i'm the technical guy. That's that's what we hear by default. Yes,
and on the couch. Hi, Greg Santini, the drummer for Run Like
the You can find me on social media at Running Drummer because I like to
run a lot. So yeah, mean my channel, Running Drummer. That
makes sense. Yeah, I wondered I didn't know if you had some sort
of gimmick where you run and you play the drums you're running. I'd like
to do that. You get a baseline. It seems like a very obvious
idea. And the gentleman in the corner with the giant cardboard Peter whitehead for
those watching online, And my name is Dan Fallon, and I am the
I am the media front of the band, and you can find me on
only Dan's dot com and pay for my subscription there. Yeah. So I'm
laughing extra hard because when Matt said that, by the look of your face,
I know that you thought he was talking about your head. But I'd
like you to turn over your right shoulder. Oh goodness, Now that's the
giant Peter White had. It's very appropriately placed. Oh yeah, No,
I wasn't referring to your head. No, I was like, how did
they notice? I was checking to see if my fly was down. He's
got a huge head. Now now technically, uh, technically, I am
though allowed to make jokes about people with large heads because I have a large
head. So that makes it okay. I realized that, No, that
makes you self loathing. I realized, I bet you cry yourself to sleep
on your huge pillow. Well that's right, Well you know. I'm Irish
and Irish people we have. I realized that years and years ago. I
was watching Conan O'Brien in his monologue. He made a joke about the size
of his own head, and I never thought about it. I was like,
yeah, he does have a big head, and he but the joke.
It was something about Irish people having large heads. And I was like,
wait, I'm Irish. Do I have a big head? And I
ran to the bathroom mirror and I was like, oh, yeah, wow,
I do I look like a South Park character. I get this giant
Irish melon I'm walking around with. But uh, but I look at it
this way. I needed to hold my enormous sprain. That's right. So
I think that it's an appropriately sized head for your brain. Thank you,
thank you. I am also Irish and I'm very sensitive about the size of
my head. Well it's uh is it too small from over there? You
know? Well anyway, what Marryland anyway, But it looks bigger up close.
That's great, great, it's it's it's uh, it's it's wonderful to
have you guys here and Abe, it's great to see you. You've been
in now when when I first met you. You were in the East is
East back at the old Guildford practice space. Yes, yes, now is
that where? Where is Revelry Studios? Is that where that is? Novel?
What was here in Manchester? The building just sold or something? So
uh mad uh Matt Blanchette is the guy that ran that, along with his
other guys, Tyler Ayers. And they're looking for a new space. Okay,
they'll still like go out and do things. And I would highly recommend
them. I think we all would highly recommend. We were lucky to get
in before they closed. We might have been one of the last people recorded
in our studio. Yeah, oh wow. And they are amazing. They're
incredible. And how did the three of you come to play together? How
did this band form? Well? I, why don't you tell this?
I so I moved up from New York. I retired. I was a
fireman in New York City and I retired and came up to New Hampshire.
And I've been playing drums for a really long time and I wanted to start
a band. So I met two other guys, started playing and then we
played out. We didn't have a singer. We were just too you know,
a trio of Just Music and they were really good and and we're still
friends with One of the bass players is awesome guy, Carmen Serrano, great,
great guy. But anyway, met Dan at an open mic and he
was just the nicest guy and I was like, who is this guy?
And he started singing. I was like, oh, this guy can sing.
We need a singer bad. So he ended up playing with us,
and Dan and I just kind of really became really good friends and continue to
make music. And Dan is just Dan is the kind of guy that just
he'll do anything, like he will just play anywhere, play anytime. He's
got no qualms, you know, doesn't care about what anyone thinks, which
is which is a really hard thing to find in a in a musician,
because a lot of musicians are very you know, they're I guess they're sort
of afraid to insecure. They don't they don't want to play out or whatever.
Dan is the opposite of that, play anywhere anytime, we want to
all you want to play you know the song, Nope, let's play it
anyway, you know. Like That's so I really admired that about Dan,
and then we ended up doing a lot of cover as a cover band thing,
and then we met Abe. Abe was our backup bass player for the
cover band, and he came right in and he was just insanely good.
Yeah, and I was like wow, and I really connected with Abe musically,
and that's a huge thing for drummers. In my opinion, your band
is only as good as your bass player and your drummer. And he was
just right on, you know, right connected right away, and it was
fantastic. And we just started playing together and we dan had a bunch of
music that we thought was great and Abe and I basically put our own thing
on it and you know, help him produce a lot of the stuff and
make it even better than it is. And it's just it's been great.
It's been really great, Yeah, really great. We've been on a really
good run. Excellent, excellent. What what brought you to New Hampshire?
By the way, they don't tax my pension, so you also, we
love to hike and schime. I have two kids and and and my wife
and they just love the outdoors and you know, they're they're really you know,
I just love the the everything about We love being close to the mountains,
the ocean, the city in Boston, only four hours from New York,
so if we want to go back home, it's not a big deal,
you know. So it's it's great. We love it. Yeah,
actually excellent. Are you from here down? I'm from Maldon, Massachusetts originally
okay, okay in the streets? Yeah, and ay are you from here
originally? Yeah? I mean I'm from uh uh Sandwich, uh Sandwich,
tam Worth originally kind of been moving my way south ever since. Yeah,
I won't go too much farther. You're gonna end up in that tax category.
That's all right. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So maybe
I don't need to worry about that. Yeah, that's right. Massachusetts taxes
everything. Yeah, you breathe, I got you. That's a quarter come
back exactly. Hello to our friends Jay fed and Melanie from the great state
of Vermont, who are in the chat room. Speaking of very loyal listeners.
So, how long is how long has this been a band? It's
been a couple of years. Yeah, Well, Dan and I've Dan and
I've been playing together for about a little over two years and then Abe joined
us. I guess in the last maybe a year ago. Yeah, so
I got the call from Brian back in March, right, Yeah, Brian's
our he's our horn player for the cover band. Oh okay, another awesome
musician, great guy plays with the Bulkheads. Yeah, yeah, he's a
Bulkhead guy. Yeah. And then we started writing tunes together. I don't
know, we were going to practice one day and do some covers for like
a trio gig the three of us, and then just start to writing some
songs. So it's pretty dope. I was like, oh, let's try
this, this will be and it sounded awesome. Yeah, we get some
bangers coming and I was like, oh, wow, let's do this,
let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. I've played a lot of bands and
a lot of you know, different musicians and some great musicians, and I've
never been I've never been prouder of what we just did recently recording wise too,
and just musically, the synergy and the connection that we have has been
it's been so good. There's just no no attitudes. You know, everyone
is super nice and you know, everyone works really well together, and we
don't have any you know, weird issues like a lot of bands do.
Yeah, there's no none of that, you know, So we we you
know, we love it. It's really good. Yeah. When it's easy
like that, then you know you've really got something. Yeah. It's very
fair balance, everyone's very honest with each other about things, and it's really
good. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's excellent. Well we should all let's
listen to one of these studio tracks and then and then and then we're gonna
hear you guys live. But I love this, Mamma, come get me
this. This is a great, great song. So we're gonna well,
uh, we'll listen to this, and then we've got another studio track that
we'll play a little bit later, and then you guys are gonna play,
uh tell her as a song, you guys are gonna play live for us,
right yeah, okay, but yeah, let's give this a listen first.
This is really good. And where was this? This was recorded at
Revelry. It was recorded at Revelry and all live and we have never aired
it. Uh. This is the first, very special day, so thank
you for having us here. Absolutely, and technically it was the first song
that we really kind of together as a band, really put together. Yeah,
yeah, it was one of the first excellent Okay, so this is
technically a world radio premiere. Yeah We Love the World Radio premieres here at
Matt Connorton unleash so very good. All right, let's give this a listen.
This is a great song. Mamma, come get me by, run
like thieves. Really give me your ass, grin all your hat made of
stone. Pleased to forgive her where your mind? She could stab me in
the back and kick me when I'm down, ll be kive me there across
the bak. I won't bury it all along burned everyone I ever loved the
cave. Don't need to give us when you never home by her, Come
get me Roba Comb then and bring you home. Yeah, mine o'clock,
getther Mina, come then to bring her home. I hope you find your
deliverance. Hope you fight your way home. I hope you find the love.
He is irrelevant until that stay gone, Mama Columba, get me,
Lama Comb went to bring you home? Yeah, Mina, come pet Pyma
com wan bring you home. Don't until tat that tamping done. Still mana
Coomba given it, Mama Comba, get but bring me home. You'll feel
soap cool, feels silly, steal smart. You can have a millionion dollars.
Boy, you'll never fight a pan of coom. Mama come came here,
Mama con came Mama, Mama Clone to bring home and rush deepen still
Mama comp kailer. Mama Clone writ bling. Oh, oh that is so
good. I love that song. Really good, guys, Mama come to
hear Mama, come get me by Run like Thieves. Hey, where's the
name come from? By the way, that's a cool name. Yes,
thank you. I actually came up with a name. Actually technically not me,
but I used to play with another friend of mine in a band way
back when in Tennessee, and which is actually the name of one of our
songs too, but has nothing to do with that. But anyway, I
used to live in Knoxville, Tennessee, my buddy Will and Will Day and
we had a band that called Nelly Bly and then we I left and came
back and hadn't talked to him in years, and then we ended up connecting
again and I had a home studio and we did some recording and he said,
oh, we got to call it run like Thieves, and that's really
cool. And then we just stopped playing together. And then once we all
got together, we were thinking of band names, and I was like,
you know, I used to have a band name called run Like. It
really wasn't a band. It was just like me and my buddy, like,
you know, doing some stuff and we called it run Like Thieves.
So I called my buddy Will just to make sure. I'm like, hey,
is it cool that we use this name? He's absolutely, He loves
the stuff. So he's like that's He's like, absolutely, you know,
please use it. It's great. And I said, okay, cool.
And we already had a Facebook page that was up run Like Thieves on Facebook
that I had for probably three years and then never did anything with it.
And now we actually start posting everything on there, and we all have our
YouTube channel run Like Thieves and all that stuff. So we're we're slowly but
surely. And all these recordings that we that you're hearing now we're also recorded
with on camera as well, and they came out fantastic, like they did
such a good job at that revery. I can't even say the word you're
right. I'm just so glad aname quickly because yes. And what's what's cool
about the band name is that it's it's three words, which represents the three
of us. And then on the running Drummer, so that's the whole run
was and was also in there, and I was like, that's kind of
perfect. Let's let's just do it. Call it that. So it's it's
got a cool like r L T you know, so you can make like
cool stickers. Yeah yeah, and as the ls the like because everybody likes
abe yeh, and he like listens really well run and then Dan as the
Thief, he's a banker. He's yeah, he's a good thief though.
That's that's the PC version of the thief. Gotcha. Well, let's see
this. I'm dying to hear you guys play live. So you are all
right oh yeah yeah? Uh so if you want to play, yeah,
you're you're gonna do uh Tennessee right, Oh no, I'm sorry. I
tell her, tell her good night, Tell her good night. Tennessee.
Is the other studio also out already, Yeah, on all forms. It's
on Spotify, Apple Music. Uh, you can even ask your Alexa yeah
song and it'll give it to you. I couldn't believe it. I think
that's when I knew I I may it musically. Yeah, recognized me that
was like, all right, I did it. That is pretty cool.
But in this one, we have a video online for so we get in,
uh run like thieves YouTube and it's picking up some steam. Actually it's
very very cool, yes, with very it's really no marketing on it is
just kind of organic doing its things. That's good like that. So if
you're out there, please look it up. It's pretty cool. Yeah,
that's pretty cool. Yeah, that that is extremely cool. Yeah, whenever,
whenever you guys are ready, I'll have to kind of, uh we're
ready, I'll have to kind of you know, I'll move the faders around
and try to try to get the booth balance and what's up. That's amazing,
you're really you're really on this it Today I was, I'm helping him
with his levels. Well, I was just thinking, you're probably not used
to say I used to singing this early right in the day, or maybe
you are. I don't know. I just never stopped singing my mama all
the time. I sing at work. Would you like me to help you
with that all the time? Okay, that's the way to go. All
right, Well, you know I get yelled at by my woman. Oh
I'm so sorry. She loves it. You know, yeah, she can't
stay mad, right, you should have gotten an A plus instead of an
A minus. What are you doing to your dad all the time? Just
keep it low going. Oh, that's good, that's probably very healthy.
It's very very good. All right, whatever you guys are ready? All
right? Lips taste black whiskey, ass smell black. Be here, she
says. Look about the souths. Look how closed they be? You girl,
lehing like your way back home. That's what you should do, because
I know somewhere there's the port like on waiting for you. You gotta tell
a good bye, tell a good night, tell a good boys don't always
do right. Not time out. It's gonna leave you in the morning.
Well, let's cold, I seal the devils. Feal might feel wrong that
and how it feels not time loud. It's gonna leave you with no wanting
girl. Put the slave out right now, or it's just gonna burn us
both because sens you minutes will be gone so far we ain't going home,
and i'd like to leave. We're just a little bad left up my soul,
dear, I have to with me what you will? The snag decides
for to take care. You gotta tell a good bye, tell a good
name, tell a good girls. Don't always do right, not time out.
It's gonna leave you in the morning. Well, it's cold like steal,
the devil steal not be around that. It has to feet, not
time though. It's gonna leave you with no won't even load the miles away
now in the moment's long, un the memory of your love still lingers.
Don hen out. Wonder what you would do if I turn this car around,
head it back to your town. But I I just look up at
the sunder. I have to keep all ride it on. You gotta tell
a good fie, tell a good night, tell the good people. Don't
always do right, not time down. It's gonna leave you in the morning.
Well, it's go like steel, the devil Steel might be around,
daddy, how it feels, not down though, it's gonna leave you,
just gonna leave. Yeah, no moment, Oh my god, you guys
sound amazing. Thank you you guitar fantastic, fantastic, Thank you. If
you're just joining us, We've got run like thieves a lot live in studio
with us. We have Abe, Greg Dan, they are all here and
yeah, you guys sound amazing. That was that was very very cool.
Thank you A. Are you playing out a lot? Are you doing a
lot of live shows? Yes? Yeah, Dan plays out all the time.
This is actually sweat and I can just stick my pick on it.
I don't have to. Dan plays a lot. As far as the band
goes, we play. We we haven't played a lot as Run Like Thieves.
We play a lot as as a cover band quite a bit, but
we haven't actually played a lot as Run Like Thieves. So we're we're excited
to get out there and play and start really playing shows as us and putting
our original content out there. Because nobody wants to hear original content a lot
of times, so we get it. But I think, I feel,
and I think we can all agree that that our original content is pretty universal,
I think, and I think people can hear it and kind of dig
it. You know. It's not like weird and obscure. I'm not trying
to be mister Bungle. Yeah, which, by the way, we've all
done that, which is a huge influence of mine. By the way,
I actually huge love mister Bungle. Yeah, but yes, we're not like
that. But so we're sort of universal so I think we can get away
with even playing bars and places where you know, crowds are hanging out and
they would just be like, oh, that's just good music, right.
But please check out our listings at Run Like Thieves and see where we're playing,
and don't don't be too shy, and please come see Dan Fallon sing
and Abe sings with me and Craig sings with me, and that's Dan Fallon
music. And we will be at the well. Run Like Thieves songs will
be played at the following venues, Yes in the near future, Patties and
Drake It the Wild Rover Manchester, Eric's Church and Wyndam, Maine Foster's Tavin
the Thirsty Pig Songwriter in the Round with Katie Dobbins, The Birch Bar,
Saddle Up Saloon in Kingston, where I just came from a couple of minutes
ago, The Birch Bar, ax and Ale Deps landing up in Tamworth in
that real local job, High for Give Me High Octane Saloon, and Laconia.
We got a gig there too, and we back at Defiant Records.
And that's all I can do right now, because I don't I don't want
to. It's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. That's some of
those gigs aren't full band gigs, but okay, but some of them will
be. Yeah, and it's always it's always a good time, excellent,
we're always entertaining. Yes, Oh, I don't want to forget to.
You guys very generously brought us. Uh, we're gonna we're gonna dig into
those, we're gonna save we're gonna save those for later. But you guys
brought us a box of donuts and they look really good. And where they're
from, Goodies, good goodie good donuts. Well, like I said that,
Good Doughnuts located in Laconia at two thirty five Union Avenue, and they
look awesome. And you guys were saying, like they they open and they
sell out, they sell out, I mean by nine thirty A lot of
times when they open their they close they when they sell out, they close
the store. They open I think at five thirty or five or something like
that. Yeah, what a crazy thing. Yeah, it's amazing. Oh
my god, you're gonna don't just look amazing. They're so good that I
am sorry, Okay, we're gonna I'm sorry. That's how good that.
That's what I'm trying to tell you, Wowl. I got you three dozen,
and I only wound up having six by the time they're flopping around the
bottom flopping going on over here too, it would have been like, here's
two. At least there's not one with like a bite taken out of it.
They're all intact in that way. I've seen that. I've seen that.
I'm looking at this business's pictures and they have like, oh god,
oh fruity pebbles. They're donuts covered in fruity pebbles. I remember fruity pebbles
from my youth. I'm sorry, but that's crazy. I have never seen
that. You know, donuts go good with the season two? Oh yeah,
oh yeah, yes, yes, Hey, the studio donuts. The
studio line is open. Yeah, thank you guys. The donut or do
do? These are do do? They're not donuts their do The studio line
is open if if you have any questions for these guys six oh three two
five six seven, six oh three two five six seven, we have a
few more minutes with them, so don't delay. If you have any questions
or feedback or anything at all for the band. We've got run like thieves
here live in studio with us. We do have another studio track too that
we're going to play at the end of the segment. That's another great song,
Tennessee. But now, when you I wanted to kind of circle back
to this about recording to Revelry, it does it is easier to say it
that way. Give me that donut. Never never, Oh my goodness,
I'm bringing more donuts. Did you guys record these kind of sort of was
it live basically instead of that's the only way we do it too? Yeah?
Yeah, I was just telling telling these guys this morning that that I
was watching a documentary on Tom Petty doing Wildflowers when Rick Rubin took over as
producer and they did it live. They did they did? You know,
they recorded it live as opposed to doing it track by track, which is
a lot of times what people do usually. Yeah, and I do that.
I do a lot of that, just recording for other bands and stuff
just in my studio. So if you have drum tracks, but anyway,
you you miss something when you do that, in my opinion, and when
we recorded there, and of course they did such a great job of mixing
and putting it all together. So I've never you know, I've never heard
myself back like that, and I was like, whoa, that's legit.
Like these guys are really really good. So but you know, they captured
the moment and we just we we did have a good session. We definitely
played well. And I was like, Okay, that was really good.
We do each song took a couple of takes, but but and way way
less expensive, and and and you're like you're not thinking, it's not in
your head, you know, it's almost like you don't have enough time to
think about it, like it's just gonna get done. And that that's that's
a cool thing to be on the you know, like you have to be
right in the edge of disaster, you know, and you're right on that,
like, Okay, this could be not good and and then hopefully just
it goes well. And when when you capture it, you capture something.
And I think for those this LP, we captured something. We hope to
do it again with those guys eventually, wherever they land and wherever they open
up another studio, I'll go back there. And then heartbeat, Yeah,
it was that's what really they did capture the the US they captured us,
and if it's good enough for Muddy Waters, it's good enough for but Abe
did make Abe. It was like, these guys, man, I'm going
to get them lined up. So he before the before U, before we
recorded, we he made we were really ironed out. Yeah, uh,
like every meat, every beat. So I've gotten so used to doing the
recording track by track like that that I just assumed that we would want to
do it that way. So I made click tracks and everything. Yeah,
and we rehearsed with them with them. Yeah, but you know, we
got there with the cameras and everything rolling, and yeah, just become evident
that like, yeah, we're going to throw that out the window, and
you know, luckily we're good enough. It was good to rehearse that way
and then to show up and just relax a little bit and they have to
worry about that so much. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.
You can show up, relax and kind of really bring it. I just
wanted to say, too, Matt and Jen, for all of your listeners
who are shy and haven't asked a question yet, the answer is yes.
I don't mean the answer is yes to your questions. Okay, all of
the questions. Yes, Shirtless, just start Yes, that's how I like
to you know, what the the what's great about Abe too? And just
to give a more accolades, but Abe really he comes in studied like he's
he's the kind of guy that does his homework as as a musician, and
it's it's really awesome to have someone like that who really sits down and dissects
everything and then and then you know, puts his own spin and production on
it. And it's he's been so good like that, and that that was
another reason why we're like, oh my god, he's the dude, like
the guy and actually there and not kidding there really is question. One of
our favorite listeners, Isaac. He always wants to know what people's influences are,
who influenced you musically to be where you are. Well, we did
mention mister Bungle. However, there's a lot more. I'm a huge Rush
fan. So my son is actually here in studio with us, and he
is eleven years old and his name is Neil, after Neil Peartt. And
if you ever see a car driving around with the license plate YYZ Rush,
that's me. So I'm a huge Rush fan. So I'm into like,
you know, progressive stuff and whatever, but I also like, you know,
everything from Tom Petty to you know, so many, so many I
can't even but i'd faith no more. I'm a huge fan, Like,
I just love so many weird things, you know, jazz music, Art
Blakey and Miles Davis and you know, just all the great drummers that I'm
a drummer like, I love drummers. So yeah, there's like Steve Gadd
like whatever band he's in, I'm in, Like I love it, you
know, whatever it is. One of my good friends is an amazing fiddle
player, Eileen Ivers. She's a huge influence. So many people that I
know personally that are great too. So yeah, it's hard. Yeah,
I'm a I come from like definitely like a punk rock, alternative rock background.
That's what I did like for the last twenty years basically. But I
mean, like, my favorite artists is Tom Waits are none. I've listened
to him forever since I was a kid, So that's going to be a
big influence me. But also I mean, like I don't get to do
it here much, but I mean like noise rock. I love Death from
Above nineteen seventy nine stuff like that. But I mean, yeah, also,
I mean originally this was going to be like they said, Americana Country,
yeah, which like I haven't done that yet. Yeah, I should
get I should dip my toes and get that done. So that's a lot
of the reason I signed on, because I haven't been doing a whole lot
recently and what I did do wasn't really working out for me. So I'm
just gonna say screw it and try something. So yeah, that's why I'm
me. And that's what's so cool about this this trio is that we come
from some different places and and you know, we all appreciate everything we've and
we've been playing covers a lot, and we you know, we played covers
enough to we know what covers work, and we know that we're also into
hip hop, so like, you know, we know when we play live
stuff, we do a lot of hip hop, a lot of funk,
you know, stuff that people can dance to, and so we love that
stuff. And then I think we like all the darker stuff too, you
know, anything with minor Chords, Radiohead, you know, stuff like that
we're totally into as well. But you know, he comes from the Tom
Waite stuff, and I'm from the like progressive stuff, and then damage this
I don't even know. Actually, I'm yeah, you know, you know
one of my It's very interesting. I'd like to tell you something. So
I've been playing music for ever, and like I said, since I came
out the womb. I made some noises then and been still doing them.
I just made that noise this morning, same exact noise, and it sounds
like no So I love Woody Guthrie and and I just I just thought he
was amazing. I've been very I have a large family, and they would
blast music all the time, so you'd hear Frank Sinatra, boys to men,
new kids on the block, Allison Chane's sound guard, and everybody listened
to different things, Bruce Springsteen and and then when I started to kind of
develop my own taste listening to what he got there, I love that old
timey. I just love everything about him. I just thought it was fascinating
how he lived and how he traveled the United States, and and just just
sat with people in a room and freaking wrote a song with them about their
heritage. Austrian immigrants in the Great Depression didn't matter to have. He's like,
we're gonna this is That's how we developed. And so I really took
that as kind of a I've written over twelve hundred songs. Wow, never
written a lie. That is the truth he really has. Yeah, it's
insane. They're not all great, but that's true too. Out of twelve
hundred, it was about three decent ones and you have them all here today,
Matt. Okay, we saved them for you. One thing, one
thing about what I love about Dan is that his ability to tell a story
in the song, which I think is really important for people to connect.
Yeah, you have to tell a story that people can and understand the lyrics
and it's not just marbles in your mouth type. You know, I don't
know what that guy said, because people connect with that. I mean,
I I'm not I hardly. I listened to drums and I listened to bass.
Yeah, And now that I've you know, understand the importance of the
story behind the song. It really connects people to the song. So like,
I love that about Dan, Thank you do that. So the thing
is, there was something that happened with me about ten years ago where I
got I started writing songs for songs of Love Foundation and it's for kids with
cancer, leukemia, different illnesses. They get requests through Make a Wish,
Give Kids the World and directly through hospitals and hospice. And and the first
song that I I thought I was I was heard on Reverb Nation on the
World Music things. I was writing some really artistic stuff that I thought was
Amazingah yeah. And then and someone listened to it and he thought I was
funny, and I was like, you think I'm funny? I was like
serious, But he was like, could you write a song for a kid?
And I was like sure, And he was kind of testing me out,
and he had me rewrite it about ten times to get out of the
way of the song. And he's like, you know, the kid that's
listening to this is eight, is going into dialysis a couple of times a
week, driving with their parents to the hospital. They're going to listen to
the song to and from you know, wow. Yeah. Yeah, So
I've done a few hundred for them. Yeah. Once again, Dan is
one of the nicest people I've ever met. Well, but but it helped.
It helped me in a big way because I was like, I'm going
to get out of the way of the song. I'm going to get out
of the way of the song. And then I meet this gentleman who's like,
why are you singing like that? Can't you just be yourself? And
I'm like, who's myself? Right right? I don't And then here we
are. Yeah, this is this is like one of those things. I
would sing Hi, I would sing lo, I would sing like a Disney
guy. I would sing you know, I would do I don't even I
don't know. It was almost like an impression, like I'm going home great.
I would do a reggae voice baby toms to what. I'm very bad
at all of them. The only voice I'm good at is the is Muddy
Waters when I was a young man, you know. But no, but
that's so so my influence. I'm very I'm really influenced by moments and by
like the the whatever we're doing, and I capture it like a picture in
my mind. And then that's why I write the lyrics or a poem or
something like that. And then and then my vocal influence has been from Greg
my drummer, who doesn't let me go crazy. I just don't let him
get away with anything. Yeah, So it's very very helpful. And I've
had great music teacher, Mark Baxter, he's my vocal coach. Is amazing.
He's actually these Greg and Mark Baxter would get along famously like why like
that, don't do that. I'm like, I don't know if you shouldn't
sing that song? And I take it. My wife is really a great
singer. And she is you know, she'll listen to things and and her
and I kind of agree on a lot of it. So we we've listened
to stuff that Dan has done and like, oh, we just got to
get him to go here, you know, and then and then it's perfect.
And luckily, well he's been so good. I mean, he's just
Dan. It's just awesome. I'm a good boy. But he but he
for this particular recording, he just hit it right the nail on the head,
like it was like perfect the whole way through. And I was like,
oh, man, you're that's your that's your sweet spot, man,
that's the money right there, that's the money spot. Well, gentlemen,
this has been uh, this has been fantastic. I wish we had more
time. I'd love to talk to you some more, but we are we
are approaching the top. Of the hour, but we are going to finish
out with this track Tennessee by by Run Like Thieves, who are our guests
in this hour, and it's been wonderful having you guys on and Abe.
It's great to see you, my friend, I've known you a long time.
Yeah, good to see you too many. Yeah, good to see
you and wonderful to meet you guys. Wonderful. Thank you so much for
having us. Please, though, before we before we hit this track Tennessee,
remind our listeners where they should go online to keep up with everything,
so you can go to a run Like Thieves dot com. You can find
us on all streaming platforms, everything from Spotify to Apple Music to YouTube.
We also have a YouTube channel, Run Like Thieves, which is connected to
Dan and my own channel as well, which we're currently building. Is brand
new, so it's not like a crazy amount of views and subscribers, but
it's getting there for a couple of days that it's been open. And Facebook,
obviously, Instagram, pretty much any social media, but we are the
only run Like Thieves band that exists. We did check that and so we're
super happy that we actually trademarked Pendley. We trademarked it and guitars, and
we got the website. So but yeah, so that's basically I think everywhere
that you can find us where and of course whatever Dan mentioned as far as
our live stuff, Run Like Thieves Band is the Instagram handle and Facebook candle
I believe Run Like Thieves band. Yeah, and and but yes, please
go to our YouTube Run Like Thieves and subscribe, and yeah, we like
YouTube. And this is such a special day because we're releasing these songs with
you. Thank you so much for having us to do. This is amazing
and and if you subscribe to our YouTube you'll see our beautiful videos, yes,
as they get released for these unreleased songs that we played here today.
Yep, awesome, awesome, Thank you guys. This has been this has
been absolutely amazing, and so we will close out this segment stick around.
We've got Charlie from Rolling Exile coming up in the second hour. He's going
to be skyping in all the way from London. But we're going to close
out this segment with another great studio track from these guys. This is called
Tennessee Run Like Thieves. Check it out. Mmm mmmmm six sulcol Fool Zamie
and the Osha Bacon, California saw the Tanna lines Expose you lost, Pampel
de Vosa, Hallie Lujah here sheep gone, watch need's watch Sydney's turna see
watch she leaves watched Sydney's Tennessee s by yall up and the children lead the
stricken child fob said, it is long. We gotta leave. I know
it s no watch you do. Just watch your JC she watch you just
watch your j s. What's your lead as watch your JeOS? What's yours?
Watch her jerous watching? What what whattch watch Jesus Chao down by age
jam down my lad? What is you're looking for? You backfire? You
roun five jem the Holly's the lads coming up? Child? They killing man.
It's enough, it's enough. No, it's what you're looking for and
your lie your life. Oh it's getting shown. Still your eye that that
we thought it If your adsease it please and if I find what I'm looking
for, talk the board. It's the sud school chest move my child,
don't li li no, it's what you're looking for in your life. Your
life, Oh job, it's gill show Still your life now that we are,
you don't sas you if I find what I'm looking really hard to be
oh instead of you the love had your other, it's still well, you
know it being as I think that is a beautiful song. Tear Down Angel
from of course Rolling Exile, and we have we have them on Skype,
I believe, Charlie from Rolling Exile, Charlie, are you there? Can
you hear me? Yes? I can? And but it's it's it's always
a relief when it works out on Skype, when it's transcontinental, because it
doesn't it doesn't always work out technologically. Uh so I'm so glad. Yeah,
that is a that is an amazing song. We're gonna be you know,
you send us a bunch of tracks. We're gonna play some more later.
But that that's just a beautiful song. Charlie, I love that.
Thank you. That's that's really appreciate it. Yeah, it's off the latest
album we recorded last year, weather Change album. But yeah, thank you
so much. Yeah, yeah, no, my pleasure really really good.
Yes, Jenny is here well and of course if you're just joining us here
on Matt Connorton Unleashed, we are joined via Skype by Charlie from how do
you say your last name? Charlie? Is it Hallanan? You got to
have to be right, I can't even pronounce it myself. All right,
excellent, We've got Charlie hallenon from Rolling Exile skyping in all the way from
London. And now, so this album Weather Change did this come out?
Is this a recent release or has this been out for a little bit.
Yeah, we've finished recording it. Just trying to think. I think it
was around about May or June of last year, that's right, Yeah,
and then it was basically released late September of last year. Yeah, And
tell me a little bit if you could about Roll in Exile because it's it's
a band, but it's really you're you're the nucleus of it, right,
it's your project essentially. Yeah, the i'd actually left the music business.
I mean there's a lot more to I guess my my history going back to
Dublin and you know, deputizing for Larry Mullins once on You two tour of
the band that I was in. But that's that's maybe for another conversation.
But there was a band, well, there's there's still an existence called the
Boomtown Rats, and they were probably the sort of the ones that really opened
the doors for Irish musicians because I grew up in Dublin, although being born
in London but from the age of two, so I really consider myself more
Irish than you know, English, but not that it matters. But this
friend of mine, Gary Roberts, he was the lead guitarist in the Boomtown
Rats and I'd left the music business for twenty odd years, I think,
and I just got this opportunity to go out and support the Boomtown Rats on
a short tour in Europe, just totally out of the blue. I mean,
it was just one of those kind of moments in life where he's just
thinking, oh, okay, well I might as well do it because I'll
probably never get the opportunity again. And that led to me writing again.
And cut a long story short, I did my foot recording my first album
after that tour and realized after the album that because it was really I was
really just solo acoustic guitar, vocal guitar, you know, that's what I
was doing at the time. But you know, after the album realized you
know, there's drums and this, keyboards and this and this that, and
I thought, okay, well, I think better put a band together if
I've got to you know actually you know, you know, tour tour or
do do shows to promote the album. So that was the start of it.
And I put a band together, and yeah, it's it's I guess
it is. It is my my my kind of project if you like.
But you know, band members are very important and it's some you know,
boy, if I could, I could put a family tree together with the
amount of band members that have gone through the revolving doors. But you know,
you eventually then settle if you're lucky enough with some band members that you
know, you can actually grow together and you know, band's ideas. But
yeah, I mean the straight answer is I'm the sengwriter and lyric writer and
you know, basically the band just you know, play the play the tunes
as it were. But but they have an input. You know, they'll
suggest something and they'll say, oh, you know, maybe we could you
know, move that and put that there and whatever, and sometimes you know,
it works. You know, we're very democratic in in the in the
band. There's there's no sort of dictator if you like, you know,
yeah, yeah, I'm fascinated that you actually left the music business for for
a couple of decades. And part part of why it surprises me in this
sense because when I when I see you, you know, your online presentation,
I look at the pictures and I watched the video for example, Jenny
and I watched of you performing good Morning London with another great song. By
the way, I love that song. We'll probably play that later. Thank
you. But I but I I look at you and it's like you you
seem like you just look like a rock star. Like and it's like and
I look at you, and I hear you say that you left the music
business for twenty years, and I'm thinking, how could this guy have ever
left? Because this is what you should be doing, because just just I
mean not just are the songs great, but also just visually like you,
you look like, you know, like I can't imagine you. I don't
know what you were doing for that twenty years, but I'm very curious why
why did you leave? Well, well, thank you very much for the
rock star It's true. It's true. Though, it's true. I'll take
it if I can get it. Yeah, yeah, don't get don't get
that many compliments but no, Yeah, basically what happened is just going back
to Dublin for a minute. The band that I was in I was a
drummer and ourselves. It was a band called Berlin and not not to be
confused with the one from Top Gun right, and we were a sort of
two up and coming bands. In fact, we were the first to get
a number one in Ireland and we're the first to sign with an English company,
which was a big deal in those days, you know, for for
Irish bands, because it was very very difficult, you know, and you
know, I've been through several bands before Berlin, and we're about to go
in and record the album and then we split up, and I just thought,
you know what, I've had enough of this. And I was sitting
in Dublin after the band had split up, and I was thinking what am
I going to do. My family had actually moved to America, so I
was thinking I might go over there. But then again, and then I
got this phone call from a sound engineer, a good friend of mine.
He's he's done everybody from the Rolling Stones, the team, the Turner.
He's like a live engineer and he just called me a fellow irishman. He
goes, what are you doing and I said, well nothing. He said,
well, I've got a job for you and I said great and I
said He said, yeah, tickically at the airport for you tomorrow and we'll
see you in London tomorrow afternoon. And I said, well, what about
my drum kit and he said, now, no, you won't need that.
And I said, well, what, We're going to hire one and
he said, no, you're not playing drums. And I said, wait
a minute. What is this job? He said guitar roadie and I was
like, oh what. Well. I was a bit of a not a
private donna, but it was like after coming out of a band with our
own road crew, and I was thinking, ah, I said how much
is it a week? And he said whatever it was, I said,
all right, I'll be there. Yeah. And it was really as a
stop gap. I just needed to just sort of clear my head. I'd
had, you know, given you know, my life for the last five
years to different bands and the disappointments and the ups and downs, and then
after i'd done guitar roady or guitar tech whichever the they category as it has,
and did that from maybe eight or nine years and travel the world.
It was great. I worked for lots of different bands. I worked for
a company that supplied crew, you know, and a good learning experience,
and then I got into photography. I mean, the whole thing is pretty
bizarre, and I ended up working for some big rock magazines, you know,
just purely life is funny sometimes like that, and you know, anyway,
and then, as I say, then I got this opportunity in twenty
ten, my friend Gary called me. He said, look, we need
a support band. Have pulled out. And I don't be ridiculous, I
said, I haven't played for twenty odd years. And even then I wasn't
really a singer songwriter. I was a drummer, you know, back back
in my you know, my kind of first music music days. So you
know, it's life is a funny thing, but you know, you kind
of you go from one thing to another and then actually end up back with
the thing that you love. But I must admit I never actually thought of
myself, you know, as a writer or as a perform you know,
a singer. I get away with it. But you know, there's a
lot, a lot more, you know, a lot better singers out there,
you know, obviously, but you know, it works, you know,
and that's that's that's pretty much it. I think. Let's just say
I got I got into it by got back into it by by chance in
a sense. You know. Yeah, yeah, well you kind of went
where the road took you. It sounds like, yeah, exactly, yeah,
yeah, the road. Yeah, and you know, and you never
I mean, it sounds like too, like you never really fully disconnected because
you were still doing things musically, even when you were, you know,
working for for rock magazines. You know, you're still you're you're you're still
in the mix in that sense, so you're still well, yeah, you're
you're you're still a part of it all. But yeah, it was funny,
yeah, because in a way because when I started so it was actually
in the fashion I was doing shots for editorial magazines and models agencies and stuff
like that, and then it led into rock magazines and and I kind of
thought, yeah, how funny. It's it's kind of has gone a bit
of a full circle in the center. I'm still connected to music, you
know, And but yeah, that's that's kind of how how it evolved.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, how did the uh getting to perform? Uh?
Good Morning London on television like that. That was pretty cool. Were
you Is that kind of the the I mean that's I assume that show that
you were on, it looked like it it probably had a pretty big audience.
How does how does something like that come about where you get to do
that, because that's that's a big deal. Well, it was it really,
I mean that that was actually a promo, a promo, actual video,
but it was syndicated or whatever you want to call it to certain small
stations, you know, and purely that was just from literally, you know,
the old expression knocking on the door and saying, look, you know,
we're a band. We've got this, and you know say, out
of every ten people you try, you might get one, you know,
And it's kind of it's like that for a lot of us, you know.
I was listening to the guys is It Run like Thieves? Yea,
that they were on earlier. I really enjoyed this stuff, by the way,
and I found a lot of similarities in what they were talking about,
you know, being an original band, and it is tough when you're trying
to you know, you don't have a record company behind you or a kind
of any kind of you know, at least sort of mid midweight management or
something. You know, you're doing it all yourself, really, you know,
Yeah, it's I often say, and this is you know, obviously
we speak with a lot of musicians, so that it's kind of a one
of the recurring themes on this show in our conversations is about how how the
industry has changed and and it's now, you know, we live in an
era where you really can do it all yourself. You can you can connect
directly with with fans and listeners because of the Internet, and you know,
and of course when I was growing up and you were growing up, we
didn't have that, and so it's yeah, you know, and in some
ways, I mean, it's it's a blessing and a curse. I suppose
it's a curse in the sense that you know, you're competing with everything.
You know, you're literally competing with everything else that's online. But at the
same time, if what you're doing is really good quality and and presented well,
you know, you can you can cut through a lot of that and
find success without a record label. Doing all of the terrible things and some
good things too, but all of the terrible things that's it's sometimes a record
label does to somebody, to an artist. Sure, yeah, no,
absolutely, And I actually like what you said, you know, blessing and
a curse, and you know, it's what I actually feel about it a
lot of the time. I mean I think for me, what I find,
you know, the biggest irritation or kind of it just SAPs me sometimes,
you know, because you're I'm running the kind of show in the sense
of doing all the media, and I'm not doing it particularly well because in
this day and age, you know, you've got these kids out there that
can just you know, what would take me a week to do, they
would probably do it in about two hours, you know, and not only
that, you know, probably get you another ten thousand followers. I haven't
the first idea really, I mean, it's just finding the time because when
you're doing you're doing the media, you're doing the videos because I edit the
videos to promote from promo things, and it's just endless, you know,
And I sometimes finally sit down and go, I wonder, fun I'm going
to actually have time to pick up the guitar and writing the song right right,
But it is what it is, you know. Do you feel a
certain I mean, I I know on that subject, as far as you
know, being able to put content out there, you know, I mean,
that's that's that's really what it is. Ultimately, it's all content.
Do you feel a certain a certain pressure, because I think I think about
this a lot. I feel I feel a certain pressure to try to really
stay on top of what everyone's doing. And part of this too relates to
the work that I do. But there's a there's there's us a pressure to
you don't want to fall behind. You don't want to get left behind.
And and you don't you know, you don't want to be the guy who
uh can't promote what he's doing because he just has no idea and and and
sometimes by the way, people much younger uh even fall into that because they
they feel overwhelmed by it all. But but but I feel like there's a
pressure to try to keep up with it all because the technology moves so fast
and and uh, all of us were where it's like we're all on the
uh, on the precipice of just getting getting left behind if we don't really
keep up. And it sounds like you are keeping up, like you said,
I mean, you're doing it all you know, you're editing the videos
yourself and whatnot, so you're you're, you're, you're. It sounds like
you're pretty much on top of it. But but there's a pressure that comes
with that, right, Yeah, it's it's interesting you bring that up,
actually, because I to be honest, you know, I mean, what
I what I actually achieve is probably the bare minimum, even though it's a
massive struggle for me, but it just about media wise, keeps my head
above water. It could be a lot better, and it could be I
could have a lot more followers and likes and this, that and the other,
but you know, it's just I think it's probably because I'm more focused
on getting out doing it live because we have you know, we have a
good following in Europe, mainly in Germany, but we're kind of working in
other areas. But you know, it gets to a point. I mean,
I'll give you an example, it gets ridiculous sometimes. When we were
touring last year, a fellow musician came up to me friend, and he
was a bit you know, unhappy. I was kind of thinking, you
know, what's going on here, you know, and he goes, oh,
I see you're you're not on media, I don't know what. He
referred to Facebook much and I said, well, what do you mean He
said, well, I don't know. He said, you you haven't liked
any of my stuff. And I'm like, I just wanted to say,
you know, actually there's more to life than you know, spending your whole
day thinking, oh God, I didn't like so and so's things, and
I didn't like this. It's like, for God's sake, you know,
it's like, you know, get a life, you know. But you
know, that's the way some people, you know, they're so you know,
steeved in it, you know, and it's like, you know,
why don't you just you know, relax back off that and just enjoy your
music, you know. But you know, as I say, you have
to do a certain amount. But sometimes it just people just turn into you
know, it becomes manic, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean
that's kind of the dark side of it. Yeah, some people, it
does. It does consume them in terms of uh now, in terms of
recording because you know, you obviously you you you play multiple instruments. You
know, you play drums, you play guitar, et cetera. Are you
on on the recordings? Does your band record with you or does your band
just play with you live, because it seems like you're probably in a position
where you can record everything yourself. No. We we we both record together
and play live. I mean the I would never you know, some people
can do it, but I'm not good enough to, you know, be
a multi instrumentalist. You know, I just need to focus on one thing,
which is which is basically rhythm guitar. But what's important, I think
is, you know, you've got to still maintain some you know, modicum
of kind of soul. What I mean by soul and the recording is that
by doing everything yourself, especially in this digital age, because it's so easy
to do this, that and the other, you know, in logic or
pro tools or whatever you're using to record on. I you know, I
just find it really important that you can hear it when you hear a recorded
track come back. Well, certainly I can anyway, you know that when
it's a bunch of musicians and they're tight and they're enjoying it, you know,
it comes across, you know, in the I'll give you an example.
It was after the second album, the Hardline album. I'd had enough
of all this nonsense of spending two days making up the drum kit and this
and then that and then all the rest of it. So when we came
in to do I've got a great producer. I mean, he's brilliant.
And when we came in to do the third album, I said, right,
that's it. I said, we're going back to the seventies and he
kind of looked at me. It's like what I said, drunkard. You
know, Glynn John's my technique. He's a producer. He did a lot
of people. I can't remember the bands off hand, I think with Zeppelin
and The Stones or whatever, but just two overheads, snare and bass,
that's it. We get on with it. And what it also did was
I got the bass player and drummer to actually play together as they were recording.
Yeah, which is pretty much the way we used to do it.
And obviously the rest then came on later. But what what we I achieved
the result that I really wanted because when you listen to two records, maybe
going back to seventies or whatever, there's that space, you know, between
the instruments. It's also the groove, the feel of it. There's there's
a human element in it, you know, you can it really comes across
and you know, that's that's where we That was the direction that we started
going in and hopefully that you know, also came across in the in the
in the Weather Change album. But you know, it's it's really down to
the individual. The other thing that I used to just speaking of space and
the and the you know, the kind of feeling of of that, you
know, separation between the instruments. I don't mean separation in disjointed. I
just been in the sense of, you know, you can hear everything,
it's balanced, you know. I don't know when it started happening my v
eight nine years ago, but there was this you know, mad frenzy to
compress the hell out of everything so that there was no headroom left in anything,
in any recordings, so there was no space. And I remember saying
to my producer, I said, I do not want this compressed, you
know, right, I said, We're gonna leave headroom because I want to
hear that space. So yeah, recording is it's it's interesting you kind of
learn as you go along, but I guess you need to have a basic
idea of what you want to start with, you know. Yeah, I
know what to mean though about the compression, and there was a I cannot,
for the life of me remember what album it is, but I remember
Jesus might have been twenty years ago. Actually, there was a Metallica album
that came out that people were complaining about because, you know, because everything
just the way it was mixed, like everything just peaked and it was just,
yeah, it was just too much. It sounded horrible, and I
think they ended up re releasing it a different mix of that album because because
yeah, you're right, everything's overcompressed. And my biggest complaint over the Passcades
has been the way the way guitars are recorded and the way they sound.
Now it's it's very guitars just don't sound like they used to do on a
lot of records. But you know, but uh, yeah, every everything
changes and evolves. But uh but I think the sound that you captured on
Weather Change, I think is really good. It's it's it's just really really
good. And the songs are great too, which obviously helps. Oh,
thank you. Yeah, it's it's you know, I mean a lot of
credit to the producer Alessio Gavello. He's uh, I've worked with him actually
on all the four albums that I've done. And funny, you know,
people say, oh, you know, maybe you should try a different producer,
you know, get a different sound. I can. I can kind
of understand that. But you know, there's also the the opposite, which
is, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. You
know, it's like it works, you know absolutely. Oh, by the
way, our friend Nick Murdoch in the chat room says, Maddie, the
Metallica album you're thinking of is Death Magnetic? Yes, thank you Nick,
Yeah, Death Magnetic. Yeah. And I was working in a music store
when that came out, and uh yeah, people would I do remember that
vaguely. I mean, I'm not sort of a Metallica listener. Yeah,
but I do remember some of the guys, I know, maybe even in
the band they were talking about it and saying, my god, you know
what they've done whatever. But you know, but yeah, I guess yeah,
that was a bit of a yeah or whatever. But they you say
they re recorded it, Yeah, I think they did. I think they.
I think they re released it with a different mix. I'm not positive
on that though, but but I'll tell you what, I definitely recall is.
I remember at least one person bringing it into the store and saying,
I think there's something wrong with the CD. It's like, uh no,
no, it's it's believe it or not, it's supposed to sound that way.
It's oh dear. Yeah. Well, Metallica has had a few actually,
if you think about it, over the course of their career. I
mean, they're the biggest rock band in the world, but they've had a
few mishaps. You know, they had a couple albums where you could barely
hear the bass. Oh, and Legion of Solace in the chat room says
I thought you were referring to the beer keg snare tuning on Saint Anger.
No, but that's that's another example of a very poor choice recording. The
drums on Saint Anger sound horrendous. But who can argue with success? Right?
They really are the biggest band in the world. Yeah, well,
yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's it. Who are by the way,
Charlie, So who are some of your influences? And I'm particularly interested to
ask you this question because in reading about you online, I know that you
were born in London, but then you grew up in Dublin and an interview
that I had read, you seem to indicate that it sounded like being in
Dublin really kind of like you feel that that influenced your sound, and so
I'm really curious to hear about where your sound comes from. Well, I
guess, uh, I don't know Dublin as I say, you know,
in the Dublin days when I was in bands, you know, being a
drummer, and I've written a few things, but I've never even sort of
presenting them to the band. There were just something that I was doing,
you know, quietly in the background, you know, and then I just
completely left it because I just kind of thought, oh, you know,
who am I kidding? You know, I just thought this is all rubbish
that I'm writing, you know. But I think if you're asking about,
you know, where the kind of I guess, yeah, you could say
influences or the feelings that bring about songs, A lot of it subconsciously probably
would root back to to Dublin and Ireland in in those days and some very
you know, very special memories and experiences you know, that I had in
that time. It was a very exciting time actually because it was just literally
just after punk in in the UK, so you know, you had the
pistols and the Clash and all the rest of them, and then Dublin sort
of it kind of there was a kind of a musical, you know,
almost what happened in London, sort of explosion of these bands just coming out
of nowhere, you know, slightly punky, but a bit more what they
call new wave, so it wasn't so much the kind of a little less
harsh maybe if you like, I don't know how to describe it. But
and amongst in this melting pot, there was us, there was you two.
There was a whole lot of other great Irish bands that you know,
unfortunately never made it, because you know, it's always a bit of a
lottery, you know, of you know, there were other bands that could
have made it just as big as you two, really really good ones.
But you know, it is what it is, and I guess so as
far as my you know, my influences. It's funny because people sometimes they'll
listen to a song and they'll say, oh, I can hear a bit
of Steve Harley. That's he's a guy from an English band called Cotney Revel,
or I can hear a bit of I don't Tom Petty or I can
hear a bit of you know whatever. And of course growing up, you
know, when my mom was out, you know, she had this amazing
record collection, everybody from Clapton right through to the Who too, you know,
I mean just about every artist, Santana, you could imagine Creeden's Clear
Order Revival, Zeppelin, blah blah blah goes on. So I sneak in
and I you go through all our albums, and that was kind of my
musical education, if you like. And it was incredible library of you know,
records that I could could go through, so I guess. And also
growing up as a teenager, you know, your stuff you hear on the
radio, So I think there's bits of that which do come out in my
songs or you know, there's something there that will remind somebody of you know
that that, So I guess it would be, you know, the soundtrack
of my life, if you like, comes out in in, in,
in my songs, I suppose, you know. Yeah, And are you
are you playing out? Are you doing a lot of shows? Are you
touring much? Or we just finished? I was in America funny enough actually
for a couple of weeks that back in September, just did a couple of
sho I was there and then came back to Europe. Well I literally,
yeah, I came back to I think it was about the not the dates
matter, but it was literally I was. I was in the US for
August till early September and then straight back to London and then out to Europe,
and then we finished that tour at the end of September. And what
we're doing now is we're prepping for the next album, which is a bit
of a nightmare because for me anyway, I mean, we picked some of
the songs, but I was listening to one of the guys in Run Like
Thieves and he was talking about, you know, I got twelve hundred songs,
but you know, Maggie, I'll have three. Well, it's kind
of the same for me. It's like when I'm going through the list,
I'm going, oh god, how am I going to short list this?
And then I'll short list it, and then I'll go, now, well
wait a minute, what about that one? And then you know, suddenly
half the day's gone and then I just have to walk away from it.
I'll stick with the four that the band have chosen so far, driving myself
crazy, but yeah, you know, it's it's it's starting. We're going
to start that probably next week because we've just been prepping. I'm working with
the guitarists, the lead guitarist, just sort of knocking them into shape and
any any changes need to be made before we go into like full rehearsal with
the band. Yeah, and then next year, So that's really what we're
focusing on up to Christmas and into January February, and there was supposedly playing
some shows in Dublin which I haven't haven't played since well god knows why,
some long long time ago. And then we're out to Europe again in I
think the end of July August. There were UK shows obviously in between,
and then I hope to get out to America again maybe September. But we'll
see. We haven't got the we haven't got the sort of itinerary sort of
confirmed yet, but we'll see. Yeah, yeah, very good, very
good. Hey, by the way, where does the name come from?
Rolling exile is a cool name. Well it's interesting, actually. I sometimes
people have said, oh, you know rolling exile, Well, was this
a kind of like a media type of you know, clever sort of by
putting a name like that together, you know, so that in other words,
you know, you could tag it quite easily, or even if you
use the name on its own. And I said no, I said,
because I was asked about it once in an interview, I said, really
what it was as simple as this. I feel that when I when I
left Ireland, I was, as I said earlier, you know, I
was working for bands as a guitar tech and just you know, rolling around
the globe for like ten years. And then you know, I started living
in London as well, and I'd lived in the States for a short while,
but came back and I kind of, you know, just thought,
well, I'm a bit of an exile really and I'm just constantly rolling,
you know, somewhere, you know, And that's that's how it came to
be. I wasn't trying to be clever, you know, because I say,
some people go, oh, yeah, that was a really smart move
that I like it. You lived in the US at one point, yeah,
no, only only for a short time. Okay, it was sort
of batches of time. I lived in New York for a while, probably
about six months, and then Connecticut where my family live and then but but
I was based in London all the time, you know, yeah, really,
but I was just going back and forth initially, but yeah, so
but London has yeah been my base since I left Ireland. Really, you
know, yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool. Well listen,
Charlie, you've been generous with your time. I love talking to you.
This has been wonderful. We're gonna play I'm gonna play a couple more of
your songs to end the segment. What one of them mean Good Morning London.
I also love that song. I don't is there a story behind the
song? I don't speak French. Yeah, it's well, it's or I'm
sorry I said the title wrong. I just realized this can't speak French.
I just want to correct myself. Oh no, it doesn't. I don't
know the same thing. Yeah, there is a little bit. It's kind
of it's just a memory of a place at a city you know that I
that I was in and the times that we had, and it's kind of
a it's looking back a little bit at it in a just remembering the people
that I hung out with and the and the sort of you know, kind
of kind of times we had. But I think Good Morning London is probably
a better example of Good Morning London was really a song about in my it's
going to say, in my irresponsible days. You know, you go into
a club at eleven o'clock at night, you know the nightclubs in London,
and you know, you come out at seven o'clock in the morning on a
Sunday morning, you know, completely obliterated and kind of going, oh my
god, it's daylight and like where am I? And it was you'd start
walking through the streets and soho whatever, and you see all these other characters
kind of like just about able to make it up the sidewalk, you know,
or falling out of the side of a building. Everybody's a little bit,
you know, battle fatigued from the night before. And it was just
a snatch short of London London life, you know, on the Sunday morning
after a hard Saturday night. Yeah, yep, it's a great track.
Those those are both those are both great songs. I think I'm gonna I
think I'm gonna play both of those after we let you go. But absolutely
absolutely, And Charlie, what what should people know about how to find you
online? To keep up with everything that you're doing with Rolling Exile, and
uh yeah, it's pretty much. You know, Rolling Exile dot Com is
the website, but we're on every single music platform you know you can think
of, so we listen the more but the obvious like spot Spotify, Amazon
Music, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then obviously Instagram
and our Facebook pages is rolling exo, which is just one word. When
Facebook, they drove me crazy when I first got into Facebook to put up
a band page, you couldn't do it without a personal page. So I
made my personal page rolling exile. I split the word. Yeah, but
it's you know, sometimes people go to my personal or the van page,
but which really doesn't matter. But the band pages, it's just one word,
rolling exile. Yeah. On Facebook and that's it. Yeah, Instagram,
all the all the usual suspects, you know, yes, yes,
absolutely, all right, Charlie, we'll let you go. By the way,
what what time is it in London? Just out of curiosity, it's
I think it's about twenty to four now, or I think you say twenty
our four. Isn't it coming up to twenty twenty to four? Yeah,
in the afternoon. Oh, okay, okay, cool, yeah, I
was curious. All right, well, Charlie, thank you so much.
Rolling Exile. Love what you're doing. Great band. We'll have to we'll
have to do this again in the future, but we'll let you go.
And then I'm gonna play this track for everybody, Good Morning London. But
Charlie, thank you so much, my friend. It's been wonderful to speak
with you today, and thank you. I really enjoyed it. I really
did. And say hi to Jen, thank you so much. Absolutely all
right, Charlie, thank you, Take care, bye bye, okay,
bye bye bye, all right, very good Charlie. I got his name
right, Hallanon, yes he said. I said it correctly on the first
try, which is wonderful. And I'm gonna play this track. Actually,
I'm gonna play both of these. I'm gonna play good Morning London, and
then i'm gonna play I Can't Speak French, a couple of great songs from
the album weather Change from Rolling Exile, and and then when we come back,
we're gonna be crossing into very shortly be crossing into our number three New
Marrow trace of Matt Connorton, unleashed and the band pretty late will be live
here in studio. But they're not late. They are on time, I
believe so. Actually they're early, which is even better. So everyone's been
very punctual today is awesome. It doesn't always work out that way, you
know, especially on a Saturday morning with musicians, but everyone's been punctual,
which is fantastic. And yeah, check these out. I'm gonna play both
of these. We're gonna do this one first. Good morning, London,
although in London it's afternoon. Oh, we have a call. Maybe we'll
uh who's on the let's uh, we'll we'll grab this and then we'll hit
that track. Hi, Welcome to Matt Connorton Unleashed. Who's this. I'm
Matt Ronny. Hey Ron, how you doing? My friend good? Hey,
you gotta get that guy's number for me. I need a roady you
do well. It sounds like he's pretty busy these days, but I think
his roady days are behind. Very very cool. Actually, Oh, thank
you, Ron, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah, he's a great
guy. I really enjoyed speaking with him, and I love his band,
love his music. Yeah, it was good so that in the beginning of
the show that was his band playing at the beginning of the show was well,
the song that we opened with the show with today. I don't know
if you were listening from the very beginning. We opened with a track from
the band Pretty Late, who are actually our guests coming up in the third
hour. But then we had in studio, we had a run like Thieves.
They were with us for the first hour, and then Charlie, of
course we just talked to, is from the band Rolling Exile. Okay,
so see, I've been bomping back and forth. I did catch the first
show first, you know, bandit nine ish yeah, and now the first
music. Hey, listen before we go, you gotta tell me. I'm
curious that picture on the corner of your desk, that thing goes back and
forth, back and forth. Is that a personal photo of a portrait or
something or other than that belongs to you? That is from the band Infinity
Vein. They're from Texas and they were on the show, and then they
sent us that autographed picture, so I display it proudly during the program.
Great, now, you answered, now you know that's curious. Minds wanted
to know, and I said, Jesus, you know, one minute,
is you know postcard and the next thing it's a picture and I've seen it
go back and forth. But anyways, I don't want to take up any
more of your time. I have a great day, buddy. All right,
thanks Ron, thank you for the call. I appreciate it. Yeah,
all right, bye bye. All right, that was our friend Ron.
Always nice to hear from him. And all right, let's hear these
tracks we've got. We're gonna start with good morning London from Rolling Exile and
then coming up in the third hour. We have pretty late joining us a
live in studio, so plenty more to come. We'll get to the bone
and kissing on the corner and ever still walking candy from about a job cot
bone it Yeah, good old another do falling off a side, can see
how long giving in a beach you just get into the come on bonde it
to yup, good old another do? Throw the damping phone out his side
stream? Ye who's traveling that way? D and going again? I got
a pot and change and a half four of streamers. Never know now I
find my bred good bard it, good hod it another time, good board,
the good God, the IPCs and never a silver prees. What you
need now? You won't give it anyhow, God moan it you yah goodbod
and nondo every now then I'll leave my friend. What do you want to
see? I want to sna be God morn into yuh goodbod tondo come abound
your falling out of side street seven hour when you're lining the come again.
I'm gonna go at the trees and a half of the stings every now then
the five month forever, good modes, good old is b good bard is
good boy, loved good by good love, good old, good old bu
good morn among my wides, just another day street dimonst live in the city
job, there's your open job. Only watch you say, Jill. Now
it's a level while we live those stays, the times places, there's a
many of Fabi says. They are so long walking down the streets and suns
the battery gays away. I wish for you, I wish for me to
cryd yesterday call loud it sound love. Why w a those days times races,
those cony uses lay so long us search. I don't speak French.
I can't speak French. I can't speak French. I can't speak French.
I can't speak French. I can't speak French. I didn't speak French.
I don't speak Fish speak fresh
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