Matt Connarton Unleashed: Ian Hemi presents Silicon Kong

0:00 Speaker 1: That is such a cool vibe. I didn't even want to talk over it at the end. That is Silicon Kong broken Down, really really cool. This is Matt Connorton unleashed. Of course, we are live on this Saturday morning, August twenty four, twenty twenty four. Jenny is here as well at the news table, present and account of our and we've actually played a few Silicon Kong tracks so far this morning, but we have is this the man himself joining us via SKYPEP Hello, Hello, welcome.

0:28 Speaker 2: Oh can you hear me? Yes?

0:29 Speaker 1: Yes? Can you hear us? Yes?

0:31 Speaker 2: I can?

0:32 Speaker 1: Very good, very good. Yeah. We played out England, Yes, yes, So we played Broken Down, and we did play a little bit earlier before the break Cosmic Groovepool, and I also played even though the let's see what was it computer? I'm trying to get back to it now. I played a couple of older things as well, because.

0:55 Speaker 2: Was that do you Compute? Oh?

0:57 Speaker 1: Yes, do you compute? I was listening of that last night and I was like, I gotta play this one too, because.

1:03 Speaker 2: That associated with downy Iris.

1:05 Speaker 1: Cover is it?

1:06 Speaker 2: I didn't realize that from Pittsburgh. Yes, I had no idea.

1:11 Speaker 1: I had no idea. I really liked that song.

1:14 Speaker 2: Thank you, thank Donnie Iris too.

1:16 Speaker 1: I'll have to check I'll have to check out the Donnie Iris.

1:19 Speaker 2: Yeah.

1:19 Speaker 1: When I think of Donnie Iris, the only Leah Ah Leah, which is a personal favorite of mine, and what's the other one? Love is like a rock? Is that? Yeah? Yeah?

1:29 Speaker 2: Being that I'm a ynger and I grew up on in Pittsburgh, you know, I'm just so used to it. I grew up listening to Donnie Iris. I loved him. I mean, he's awesome, He's he's king cool to us. He's like, uh, he's like an icon. So, I mean, so it was only fitting that I did a suitable cover that fit him and hopefully he liked it.

1:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you know if he's ever heard it? Like, have you ever met him or talk to him?

1:53 Speaker 2: You know, I can't say I have. You know. I actually just released that not too long ago, maybe a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, you know, because uh, I I do uh like my My covers are very as you can tell, they're very unique. I'm sure if you would go to my Reverb Nation page or my uh Facebook page, I do covers, but they're different.

2:15 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no they are. I also listened to maybe I'll play later I listen to your cover of Destroyer. Oh yeah, it's awesome.

2:23 Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thank you.

2:25 Speaker 1: It's really really cool. By the way, So what is a Genser?

2:30 Speaker 2: Genser that's a pittsburgher. Okay, it's it's just you know that, it's a it's it's a form of identification for Pittsburgh, Okay, because you know, because we uh you know uh and that, and you know Yun's and you know, we have our own little dialogue out here in Pittsburgh's.

2:47 Speaker 1: Well, apparently I had no idea. I don't know what any of these things are.

2:50 Speaker 2: Well, I work with you know what. I worked with a lady here and she's actually from New Hampshire, and her accent is you know, I can tell she's definitely from New Hampshire. I mean, you have your own little dialogue accent thing going on up there.

3:03 Speaker 1: Right right, Well, we have the It's It's strange though, because in New Hampshire we have variations of it. For example, there's that classic well not just New Hampshire, there's that classic New England thing of which I think with every generation becomes less and less prevalent prevalent where people drop their rs, you know, like insaid of park the car, they say pack the ca ah. But but there's also but but there's also variations where uh, you know, where you do pronounce your rs. But but there's something else weird going on where people can still tell that you're from here even though you do pronounce your ours.

3:43 Speaker 1: It's it's strange, there's different, there's there's levels to it, you know what.

3:48 Speaker 2: A couple of years ago, I was traveling down south. This is just a cool story, and I stopped in this little mini mart. It was Bowling Green, Kentucky. Outside Bowling Green, Kentucky, there's two in the morning, and there's this nice little girl working the counter, and I was looking around, say, hey, where do you put the cigarettes at? She said, you're from Pittsburgh, ain't you.

4:06 Speaker 1: Oh she could tell huh.

4:07 Speaker 2: Yeah, because the jinns oh.

4:10 Speaker 1: So not not just so that's that's not like a Pennsylvania thing. That's very specifically a Pittsburgh thing.

4:16 Speaker 2: It is definitely a Pittsburgh thing, a Steel city thing.

4:18 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, all right, very good, And so Silicon Kong is from the Steel city of Pittsburgh.

4:25 Speaker 2: Well, suburb of Greensburg, Pennsylvania. It's about about twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh southeast.

4:32 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, and tell us about now there's a movie coming right, the Steel City Architect.

4:37 Speaker 2: Yes, there is. I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, it's a movie called it's called The Steell City Architect, a Pittsburgh rockumentary. What that is. That's a movie that will be released in January. It's with with Drew Moreland of Improv Chills Studios and uh Santo's or Tess Patrick of downcast Burg. Now what that is. It's kind of like years and years ago. I'll tell you what I guess. I have time, I can tell you this story. Yeah, a couple years ago, a couple of years ago, there was a producerritter, like I said, her name is Drew Morland, and she was a filmmaker.

5:11 Speaker 2: She's she's won quite a few awards, and she's also an author of a couple of books, which I'll post on my Facebook page if I wants to check it out. But anyway, what happened was she was looking for she was doing a zombie movie, and I was like, well, you know, somebody contacted me. One of her affiliates to contact me, and I was like, well, hey, you know, I wouldn't mind doing like a soundtrack. You know, I do some songs for a because I love horror movies. I grew up with horror movies. And I was like, wouldn't that be really cool?

5:37 Speaker 2: I said, well, I'll tell you what. How about you know I'm playing this show. It was a place called Casey's in Pittsburgh, and I said, come out, check out the show, and you know, if you like it, maybe we can arrange something. I can do some soundtrack work. So make a long story short. She came out with her constituent at the time and she was like, I came out and had I come out. I'm a one man show, much like grim Rock. I know, you know grim Rock.

6:00 Speaker 1: Yes, and he's in the chat room by the way, and yes, we.

6:05 Speaker 2: Love Grimmy, we love me and grim got a lot of things going on, so people please stay. But anyway, back to the story, and she came out and she was like, well, hey, you know, I was like, we'll come out, and I come out. I opened that particular set with the Ballad of Dwight Fry cover by Alice Cooper, Oh nice, yeah, and I come out in a straight jacket and the mask and she was she lost it. She was like, oh my god, get my camera and she said, do you mind if I filmed this. I was like, no, you go right ahead and cool.

6:31 Speaker 2: I like to have a little video thing anyway and make a long story short after the set, after I was done playing, I was like, so, is there a chance of me getting in the soundtrack. She's like soundtrack? She said, I want you in the movie.

6:43 Speaker 1: Yeah.

6:43 Speaker 2: And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I'm just a musician. I'm not an actor. She said, you know what you was doing up on stage, that was acting and you should look into it to make a long story short. We've had a long, good, uh a long relationship with each other since then, and we've done a couple of movies Hidden behind a Veil, which was like by Drew Moron in Santos Patrick's Past k as well. We also did Pizza Musical. These things will be get released within due time, so if people just want to stay tuned to my Facebook page, I will be releasing the links to the YouTube in any anyway.

7:19 Speaker 2: So I was like, we know what I had this cool idea I wanted to do like kind of a spinal tap movie, you know, I want to do a song. It was basically Silicon Kong is totally a character, and what he is is he is a guy that has been in Yinzer, a steel city guy who's been trying to pound a pavement in Pittsburgh and trying to get recognition for years to no avail. So people just kind of overlooked him.

7:43 Speaker 1: Yeah.

7:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, what it was was like, and I like to kind of do tie that in. I always had this cool idea of tying out into it like a movie, and I explained it to him. I told her about it, and she came back to me a couple of weeks later she said, let's do it. I was like, dude, what she said, Let's do this movie? I was like, WHOA wait a minute. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah, but to make a and uh now we started filming in twenty two. Okay. What she wanted was she wanted a nice timeline of a struggling musician in Pittsburgh.

8:14 Speaker 2: Okay, And we just finished the last scene I think a couple of months ago, and that's due for release and like I said, in the new year, it'll be due for release. Like sa If anybody wants to keep up on my Facebook page, I also have a Reverb Nation page, some music page, Silicon Kong. I always put the links to everything on that. So yeah, like I said, so that's exciting for me. I mean, it's it's uh, you know, it's it's it's just kind of kind of strange anoid because like I said, I was for years. I've just been a musician and I've all of a sudden, i see myself on camera and I see myself on and it's like whoa, yeah, but it's cool, it's cool, so.

8:51 Speaker 1: So so Silicon Kong is the character you Ian hemy are the are the You're the trayer, the portrayer trade. But do you always are you always Silicon Kong on stage or are you okay?

9:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah on stage? You know what I've been, Uh, I've been around and pitt Like I said, this is my home, this is my home area. Like I'm definitely a Yen Durum from the Pittsburgh region. I've been in countless bands, Leaping the Bull, f six Aprils Full Still mana. You know, I've always been the singer and a bassis in a band of some kind of band. Yeah, but the Silicon Kong stuff. Actually, what happened there, uh, Pseudo Aniam was another one I was in. What happened there was I have I'm a multi instrumentalist, so everything that you're hearing, I play everything.

9:35 Speaker 2: Oh wow, Yeah, I play it all. I mean, I I play there's songs I'll play mandolin. There's songs I'll play harmonica. There's songs I'll play drum. You know. All the drums are me or were they're drum machines, but there's some kinds sometimes I use live drums as well.

9:48 Speaker 1: Yeah.

9:49 Speaker 2: Yeah, all the intruments, I play them all. So yeah, that's and what happened was because I've always just had a love for music and I just enjoy it so much, right, So I taught myself every you know, And there's particular songs that I could couldn't really divulge with another band. You know. There's certain certain feelings with certain songs that I needed to get across in my own dialogue, in my own way. Yeah, and it just in a live band, it just wasn't working. So I credit, like I said, the new wave movement in the industrial metal music is a huge influence to me, so as well as the progressive rock.

10:25 Speaker 2: I mean, of course, let's go back to Pink Floyd, Yes, Crack the Sky, which actually West Virginia's guys, Cracked the Sky. Great band, if anyone has a chance to check them out. They were kind of overlooked, very very good progressive rock band. I actually covered one of their songs called from the Greenhouse. They could probably find out on my YouTube. So if yeah, family, almost go on my YouTube. I have a YouTube channel. Ian Hemy just pulled up and it'll pull everything up. I have I think eighty videos around.

10:52 Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so and that is actually one of them. But anyway, and so I just started tinkering around. I built my own little home studio, and you know, much to my, much to my how can I put it? And well, my wife's used to it, so I've been married thirty two years. She's used to it. She supports it. But anyway, and I would just sit around and just you know, I get ideas. Sometimes I start with the drum line. Sometimes it's a bass line, a piano line, or guitar line of lyrics, and I would just sit down and tinker with them, and they've become songs, and they become the material that is now Silicon Kong.

11:33 Speaker 1: Well, it's it's got to be very sort of liberating to be able to do that. I mean, obviously I wonder what it would be like to do that. I've I've played in a lot of bands. I'm not currently active with that, but I've played in a lot of bands, but I've never done anything where it was just me creating. And I'm not although I'm not a multi instrumental, you know, I play bass. I can play a little bit of guitar.

11:55 Speaker 2: And bass is my actually bass is my primary primary instrument. That's why I start playing.

12:00 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, And so in the bands that you fronted, you were the the bass player and lead singer.

12:06 Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I was the bassis and lead singer.

12:08 Speaker 1: Did you get I'm curious about this. Did you get a lot of people who would be like WHOA, that's unusual? Even though it's not that unusual. I mean there are there are singing bass players like Geddy Lee and Tom Area.

12:18 Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, book foreigner, But what would people come up to you and be like WHOA, I've never seen that. Yeah, you know what. The reason you do that is because I only play six string basses. Oh yeah, I'm a huge Primus fan as well.

12:33 Speaker 1: Okay that makes sense. Yep.

12:35 Speaker 2: So and you know Steve Harris, yeah, Getty Lee of course, uh Les Claypool. Let me see who else there's there's a Mark Antois the who I mean I've always uh what happened was from how I started out as I was fifteen years old and a friend of mine who was in a neighborhood kid excellent guitarist. This was back when Metallica was huge. Just was during the one Yeah Metallica and he was like, dude, we're gonna do man oh you And I was like, dude, I could play a guitar because at that time I could play a little bit of guitar.

13:04 Speaker 2: And he's like, oh no, we already have enough guitarist. I was like, man, if you're if you can play bass, you can be in So what happened there is my grandmother guard rust Soul. She went to a flea market. Okay, remember keep in mind I'm only fourteen fifteen at the time. She went to the flea market and found this old Gibson p bass and she brought her home. I told her, you know, she said, you know, I was actually talking to her about and I was like, well, you know, I wanted to be in this band, but they need a bassis.

13:30 Speaker 2: And she said, what's a bassis. It's a guitar four strings, you know. Of course I had to explain it to her, and that woman came home the next week with one from the flea market, and I learned to play it nice and and that's where it all started. And I played bass in that band for a while. And the thing about a bassis is we're as hard to find as drummers. Sometimes I think we're harder to fine than drummers. And so I just stuck to it. But what happened there, man, It is like I perfected it within a year, and then I got bored.

14:00 Speaker 2: So that's when I started turning to Steve Harris, okay, Eddie Lee, and I started to really really perfect the base and in ways that played. I wanted to play it the way no one else did and with you know, locally, no one else late, and so I did.

14:17 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I can relate to what you're saying about bass players being in high demand. You know when I was when I used to be really active. I played, and at one point I was in three different bands that were all actively playing out and I was I was kind of sought after in the scene. But in my case it was never because you know, I would rate myself as a bass player as average, you know. But but I had a good reputation, you know, I know, no drugs or alcohol or anything. People knew they would depend on me to show up and that went a long way.

14:51 Speaker 2: I agree with you there, yeah, yeah.

14:53 Speaker 1: But but with drummers, it's interesting because you mentioned drummers being hard to find. A lot of the guests that we have on the show, and Jenny can attest to this too, it's like, you know, the drummer, if we have a band on the drummer will be the one member of the band who's in like multiple bands, because drummers are so hard to find. And my theory about it is when you're first, when you're growing up and you start to get interested in playing an instrument, when you got to have the conversation with the parents about how I want to start playing something.

15:21 Speaker 1: If you say drums, that's like the one thing, and maybe the tuba, maybe those are the two things that they're going to try to talk you out of, Like, oh, it doesn't have to be that because nobody wants all that noise. So yeah, drummers are really hard to find. Like every drummer I know is in like ten bands. It's amazing.

15:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, the drum I have a studio. Drummer's names Kane Cross. People want to dig him up. He's on Facebook too. But in the last due actually Leaping the Bull was a due or we was in. It was kind of like Royal Blood, but we as a more creepier, kind of gothy version of Royal Blood. We had a run since we started. What happened there was we started finished our first CD in November of twenty nineteen. Okay, now you know where this is going. I was like, oh, yes, dude, let's get out there. We're going to get out there and nail it.

16:10 Speaker 2: You know how many months there boom, pandemic, no one's doing nothing, yep. So what we did is we continued. What we did is we continued to do some really cool videos like say, femone goes on my YouTube, they can find them. They're Leaping the Bull videos. They're like many horror movies. Oh yeah, they're really really actually cool kind of both. They're cool to watch. It's like a mini horror movie. But anyway, so we continue doing that up until well, just recently he sustained an injury on a bike, act a motorcycle accident, so he's unable to play, so, you know, unfortunately.

16:43 Speaker 2: But anyway, so yeah, I mean, and you know, we was like, oh yeah, you know, but the pandemic came in. The pandemic, I mean, I'm sure effect that everybody as first being an artist, and we were all just knocked down one you know, and it was sad. It was really sad actually in this area. It's sad because I want to say, fifty percent of the bands that I used to play with and eighteen and nineteen yeah, never came back. Yeah, half of the venues never reopened. Yeah, you know, because it was that was really hard on everybody.

17:17 Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, absolutely.

17:20 Speaker 2: Yeah. So during that time period also whenever I was doing Leaping the Bulls, that's whenever I really started to focus on doing a you know, releasing more Silicon klong things. You know that I had lots of downtime because you know, I actually in twenty twenty we actually leaped in the bull was a schedule to play all year. I mean we had to cancel every show. Wow.

17:41 Speaker 1: Yeah, it's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, you know.

17:44 Speaker 2: You know, what can you do though, I mean pandemic. I'm you know, I work in health field myself, so I know that it was terrible, you know.

17:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and who knows, I mean you might not. You know, we have to find these silver linings where we can. And it did. It did kind of worse a lot of people to be creative in ways that maybe that and considered. And you know, some of the projects you know that we talk about on the show, different guests that we've had, you know, some of them found themselves kind of in scenarios very similar to yours, where they started just creating their own music on their own, where they didn't necessarily have to be in a room with anybody, and and really doing something like Silicon Kong where you know, like you said, you know, you're doing it all yourself and you know, which is which is pretty cool?

18:29 Speaker 1: Is by the way, so when you play live, because you talked about playing live, when you play live as Silicon Kong, are you with a band or is it all you or does it vary or.

18:40 Speaker 2: I'll tell you how I do that. I have a like I said, I have an a home studio. And what I do, like I said, I record, Like I said once again, I play everything. So what I'll do is I'll take my laptop when I have two or three of them. And what I have is I have those songs on a playlist. I use Sony products, recording products, yeah, studio, and what I'll do is take them, you know, I'll take the lyrics out or and and I'll just get up and sing to them. Or sometimes i'll play I'll take a guitar line out and play guitar, or take a bass line out and I'll play bass.

19:10 Speaker 2: I mean, it varies, I mean, but usually on stage. Yes, it's just me, okay, okay, some kind of outrageous outfit.

19:17 Speaker 1: Yeah.

19:20 Speaker 2: Like I'm also a very big Alice Cooper fan, so.

19:22 Speaker 1: Oh me too, me too. Absolutely. If you're just joining us, we're talking with Ian Hemy about Silicon Kong and uh Ian of course is a yinser? Am I saying that correctly?

19:35 Speaker 2: Yes, Matt, I just want to point out I know you're New England. Hey, just we can still be friends man.

19:43 Speaker 1: Okay, oh, why is there some sort of sports rivalry I don't know about.

19:49 Speaker 2: Now we're just referring to the NFL.

19:52 Speaker 1: Okay, see, I don't know. See I'm not I'm not. Bruins, Bruins, Bruins. Jenny knows her.

20:00 Speaker 2: I got it. I gotta, I gotta stay true. Steelers, Steelers, and speaking time.

20:07 Speaker 1: I have no clue. Jenny knows more about sports ball than me. I don't. I know nothing. I don't even know. I don't know how many Indians are in a football game. I don't know anything. I'm just again, I'm completely lost.

20:19 Speaker 2: But like I work with one lady. She's from New England, and we always discussed the football. You know, she's a huge Patriots and you know, me and her are always kind of going at it.

20:27 Speaker 1: So yeah, So, so I'm really curious to see this movie. I'm a huge by the way, this is Spinal Tap. Happens to be my favorite film of all time.

20:41 Speaker 2: Wow, and you'll love it. You'll love it, you love it.

20:44 Speaker 1: So I'm I'm very curious to see it. And this is this is supposed to come out in January of twenty five, is that correct?

20:50 Speaker 2: Right now? It's on YouTube and my producer, like I said, Drew Moreland is working on various streaming platforms. Yeah, she's working on those now. So by the time it happens, and by the time she's I mean right now, the movie is in post production, so by the time she's done with all of that. And I mean, the woman is awesome. I mean she does so much. Like I said, she's a producer or director, an actor or an author. Oh my god, like I said, I definitely. Like I said, I can't stress enough. But I'm going to put on my Facebook page after we're done here a link to her book.

21:21 Speaker 2: It's called The Horrific This is Cool, The Horrific Tales of Artificial Intelligence, and her full name is Drew Lenney Morland. And I will post that on my timeline on my Facebook, so if people want to go and check it out, it's an awesome read. Actually back to that real fast, and I'll get back to the movie. She actually started writing the book I want to say eight months ago, okay, and we was talking about it, you know, me and her were just kind of brainstorming about it because as Silicon Kong, as you can tell, has a AI thing going some kind of AI vibe going.

21:57 Speaker 2: And we was talking about it, and and she was like, you know, we was discussing how it just h mankind becomes a really dependent on u A in various in various reasons, in many ways. I was like, well, you know what, when you write the book, I will write a song. So when your book is done, we'll let people know, Hey, here's the book, and this is a song inspired by that book. Actually, I'll have to send that to you. It's actually a song called Cyber Jesus. Okay, And I will be releasing it here within the next week because her book, Like I said, you just finished her book and just put it up for Cell last week.

22:34 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, so I will be releasing that. It's a brand new tune and it's pretty it's pretty cool.

22:40 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, send it to us. You know something something that we love to do here on the show. We do world radio premieres. Okay, So we would love to be the first FM station to air it.

22:50 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I said, I have I have an internet an internet station waiting forward to but the first FM. Yeah you can have the first FM. Yeah, you can have it.

22:59 Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, we love it. Yeah, yeah, very cool, and we'll.

23:02 Speaker 2: Back to thee. Back to so what about the movie again?

23:07 Speaker 1: No, I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

23:09 Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I like said she's working on a Yeah, back to that, she's working on various streaming platforms. Uh we like I said. Her ultimate release dates she like to do January twenty five. Yeah, and uh, like I said, I mean, as soon as that's up, and as soon as the information is released to me, you know, I will be putting it up on all my social media's. I have Instagram, I'm on x TikTok, I'm on Facebook, i have YouTube reverb Nation. Like I said, all you gotta do is typeing I hemy on your Google time.

23:41 Speaker 2: It'll pull up everything, okay, and you can anyone and everyone can find me.

23:46 Speaker 1: Hey, where's the name come from? By the way, Silicon Kong.

23:49 Speaker 2: Ah, good story, I got time. I'll tell you.

23:52 Speaker 1: Oh we got time? Yeah?

23:53 Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, cook uh on a. See my general I grew up in the late late seventies and early eighties. Okay, so every year at I don't know if they did the same thing in New England, but here in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh and NAT every year at Thanksgiving time, It was kind of like a tradition with my family. You know. Of course, Thanksgiving the big, a big bit, you know, big holiday for a lot of families. But anyway, every year they would play King Kong on Thanksgiving Day. It would be uh, I'll never forget.

24:30 Speaker 2: It was always uh, Wizard of Oz was first, and then they would play King Kong. That's back when we only had three or four channels to watch.

24:36 Speaker 1: Remember, yeah, I remember when they would play Wizard of Oz. They might even still do that.

24:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they still do, but I remember back then, and they would always play King Kong right up the original King Kong of course, and King Kong was always kind of like my favorite monster movie. I mean, I love Godzilla and Gammer and all that, but King Kong was always the top. Anyway, back to the name. I was sitting around, like I said, uh, you know, coming in and out of bands like I've done, like I was doing, and I was trying to think of a cool thing. I was just like, well, maybe I just released you know these songs under Ian Hemi, and I was like, nah, it's not really that cool.

25:12 Speaker 2: Anyway, I was sitting down one day and I was talking to a friend of mine. Now, I was just kind of kind of messing around and the newest King Kong with Jack Black. Do you ever see that movie?

25:22 Speaker 1: Oh, I'm aware of it. I've never actually watched it though.

25:25 Speaker 2: It's a newer movie. I mean it was like the whole start of it all. But anyway, maybe was on and it was it was on a Sunday, and we was watching it downstairs, and I was just that's at that time my home studio was downstairs, and I'm looking around, you know, I was just kind of messing around with my music and that nutry and I was like wow, I said, you know, the new remake of the King Kong with Jack Black is excellent. So if anybody gets a chance, definitely check it out. Anyway, so I was like wow, you know, and I just kind of reverting back to my childhood how much I loved King Kong.

25:54 Speaker 2: Yeah, and wow, I wish I could use that somehow. And I was like, Kong Kong Kong, you know, I could be like I could be King King of the Electronics. And then my friend said, hey, wait a minute, why don't you go with Electronic Kong? And I was like wait, And jokingly I was Actually it came upstairs and my son was watching something on YouTube or something like that, and they mentioned Silicong Valley. Okay, I was going to the restroom. I went back downstairs and just half heartedly and I don't know where.

26:21 Speaker 2: I just said, how about I just go to Silicon Kong.

26:23 Speaker 1: And he was like, dude, yep, yep, yep.

26:27 Speaker 2: So I'm the king of the electronics.

26:30 Speaker 1: I can tell you. So Friday nights, I'm a co host on a show called retro Spectrum Radio with poly C and so during the show, Paul always asks me to plug whatever I'm going to be doing here on Saturday morning. And so I mentioned I said Silicon Kong, and he loved the name. He had not heard it before. He was like, that's great. He loved that.

26:51 Speaker 2: You know, Lass Halloween. Another local band, Jessica Bella band a good band. Check them out. You can find them on the internet. To Jessica Bella, She's a cute, cute little Pittsburgh pop singer. Anyway, Uh, we work, uh have a feel. They have a company called MP Records. Being being an artist, you know, an actor and a musician. We all try to help each other out here, you know, that's what you do. You know, if we can help each other out in some form artistically, we will. Anyway, she was doing a show and she invited me to come up to her show last Halloween, and h kind of make you know, I'm kind of promoting the movie.

27:27 Speaker 2: I've been promoting the movie probably really hard for I'd say about eight months now, because like I said, I knew we was wrapping it up and finishing it anyway. So I got up on stage. Before I went on stage, I came out. I was outside of this place called Gerbils in Pittsburgh, and uh, you know, this one lady came up and she, you know, hey, how are you doing? You know, of course, you know, and we're talking. You know, I'm dressed up almost, you know, dressed up and everything except for my mask. So she knew I was some kind of some kind of artist there for a purpose anyway.

27:57 Speaker 2: So she said, oh, yeah, who you are. I said, yeah, I'm here. I'm gonna do a little thing on stage. She said, what what's your name is? Said Silicon Kong. She said that is an awesome villain name.

28:04 Speaker 1: I was like, yes it is, Yes, that's true.

28:10 Speaker 2: So that just stuck to me, I just kind of remembered that.

28:13 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's great. And uh, I think it's cool that you're doing stuff with grim Rock. But you you you awesome Graham. You kind of you kind of hinted, but it sounds like you've you've got things in the works that you can't can't necessarily talk about yet.

28:27 Speaker 2: Or not right now, man, Grima, we have a plan. Okay, all like Italians. All Italians is your listeners and not just a state, you know, stay posted to me or grim Rock. Uh and for for further information.

28:43 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, did you say all like Italians? Is that? Uh?

28:49 Speaker 2: That's that's Pittsburgh right there, Pittsburgh Dialogue.

28:53 Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha. I do feel like I feel.

28:55 Speaker 2: Like I've got that in that and at N and that and that.

29:03 Speaker 1: Well, you really do have your own dialect there.

29:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, we do.

29:08 Speaker 1: That's amazing. Are there a lot of are you able to play out a lot? Are there a lot of good you did mention after the pandemic or during the pandemic, a lot of venues closed, but yeah, a.

29:18 Speaker 2: Lot of them just never reopened and it was just so sad.

29:21 Speaker 1: And what you're doing is unique. Are there still a lot of places to play, or do do you hit the road and get out of the area and play some places.

29:28 Speaker 2: I'll tell you what, Matt. I just we just recently thanks to grim Rock. Actually, you know, I'd have to say I have to thank grim Rock for that, but just recently I've been racking shows up left and right back. Now I can also say, like Silicon Kong was somewhat around during the pandemic and that, but prior to that, I was in a real quick story here. I've always kind of liked it strange musical combinations, Like there's a b I was an industrial metal band called F six. Now. What that consisted of was me playing bass and singing and a my friend guitarist at the time, Dustin Marx was guitarist, and we would come up on stage with just a computer, you know, wow, and we would play guitar.

30:11 Speaker 2: I would play bass and sing. So years and then after that, I also did another thing called Pseudo Ano with Jeff Kettemy and we would do the same thing, you know, we would he would do the singing part and I would kind of do the rapping, kind of creepier a rock vibe. The strange thing about that. Why I'm mentioning that is then this is we're talking. This is between two thousand and five, and I'd say fourteen or fifteen, and we would go out there and people would be like, dude, where's your drummer, where's your drummer?

30:44 Speaker 2: Where's your band? So at first we want like this kind of coincides with what I do. It really wasn't well accepted. People in Pittsburgh want to see bands. They see an old stage full people headbanging, playing ner infunts, whatever the case may be. So for me to get up Aaron grim could a'test this. He's he's actually had to deal with this as well. Getting up on stage as a just you playing something or what I back then was not accepted. But since the pandemic, I will say this, I mean that's nothing.

31:18 Speaker 2: Really, nothing good came of that pandemic. I don't care what analysts. It was terrible in every possible way. But the only thing that did come out is we decided, you know, going out on stage with a computer or whatever and like a like a lot of the rappers or hip hop artists would do. Now it's accepted. Now people are like, hey, that's pretty cool. Now, so it kind of works out for that. So because of that, like I said, yeah, now, because of that, and it's more widely accepted in the area. Yeah, I got lots of shows coming up.

31:54 Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

31:55 Speaker 1: Well, plus I would imagine too, other bands must love playing with you, because when you get to play with someone who like like if you're if you're opening for somebody and they have to follow you and you're not going to take you don't have a you don't need twenty minutes to break down a drum set, you know what I mean?

32:16 Speaker 2: And dat And like I said, you know, the thing about it is, there's a few bands excuse me out here, uh, God hates Unicorns, prime Eate, there's a few of the bands that did survive the pandemic.

32:27 Speaker 1: Uh.

32:28 Speaker 2: And we're all really all of us are really tight in the area. Yeah, Curshiables. There's a couple other bands, like I said, And the thing about that is we just all even though we may be different, different styles and different genres, we all support each other. I mean, there's a handful of us that support each other. Of course, it's just like any of the big city there are some bands that are like, yeah, great, shown as soon as you turn around there stabbing me in the back. Sure, you know, there's there's quite a few of those two.

32:54 Speaker 2: But the thing about it is like these guys, like I said, back to the God Hates Unicorns and Prime Aid and Parcial, these are guys that are really down to earth, excellent human beings.

33:05 Speaker 1: That's good.

33:06 Speaker 2: Yeah, so we stick with that. We basically like to stick with our low circle of various bands that we like to play with. So yeah, and we we enjoy playing for each other. I mean I've opened up for God Hates Unicorns. I've done stuff with Prime Eate uh, you know, and we always had a great time. You know, we loved it. We all support each other.

33:26 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's really cool. God Hates Unicorns. I've heard that name. That name came up on the show recently.

33:35 Speaker 1: Grim might have might have mentioned them.

33:36 Speaker 2: But awesome. I will say, I can't really prevey much better just to be saying they'll be they'll be around with us in one form or another. Yeah, just stay tuned. Like I said, people just gonna have to go on the Facebook pages mine and Grim's and Grim's website and you know, just keep keep posted because there's some surprises coming. That's all I got to say.

34:01 Speaker 1: Oh, very cool, very cool. Well we look forward to that. Well listen, uh Ian hemy also known as Silicon Kong. We're gonna have to let you go in a moment. But it's been wonderful having you on. I've really enjoyed talking with you.

34:14 Speaker 2: I enjoyed being here and.

34:15 Speaker 1: I'm I'm a big fan of what you're doing. I love your music.

34:18 Speaker 2: Thank you very much, and I really appreciate uh you for supporting you know, guys like me and grim. Uh. It's awesome because every little bit helps. And like I said, back to the Facebook pages, you know, going to Facebook pages, likes are cool, shares are better, you know.

34:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely. What should people know about where to find you online?

34:41 Speaker 2: Like I said, really back to what I said. You just type in Ian hemmy and every anything that has is affiliated with Silicon Kong in any possible way, we'll pull up on one of the if not all. I'm on the id MB, the actors thing on you know, the Hollywood actors thing. I mean, I'm also a producer and a writer, you know, like I've done things with Mow and stuff like that. So anywhere you type in Ian Hammy and pull it up. Just click the link and I'm sure you'll find a link to take you to everything that I do.

35:07 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, you are very googleable.

35:10 Speaker 2: Yes, very googleble I like that.

35:13 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, very good, very good. I'm gonna close out this segment with it. This is another track that I found on Reverb Nation that I really like. Twitter padded, I really.

35:24 Speaker 2: Yeah, you got real quick. I'll tell you the story behind that. You know where that came from? Jen? Do you know where I came from?

35:30 Speaker 1: Oh, she's she's actually out of the room for a moment.

35:33 Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well growing up you know Disney. Let's go back to you and growing up Bamby the movie Bamby, Remember ever Bamby's like, what's wrong with them? Oh? They're okay, they're just Twitter paid.

35:47 Speaker 1: Oh okay, I got you.

35:52 Speaker 2: Cartoons are my life. You know. I love Kromedi's and cartoons. I'm very animated, as you can tell.

35:56 Speaker 1: Yeah.

35:56 Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's also the John Burrows remix. Oh okay, you know John Burrows.

36:06 Speaker 1: I feel like I do.

36:08 Speaker 2: Look it up.

36:09 Speaker 1: All right, all right, very good? All right, Ian Hemy aka Silicon Kong, thank you so much, my friend. I can't wait, I can't wait to see the movie. And uh, I'm sure we'll what's that?

36:21 Speaker 2: I'm sorry? I select some people, ye have I said? Just find me mainly A lot of that stuff will be released on my mainly my Facebook pages. Okay, so people just follow me, friend me, whatever you want to do if you want to get more information on it, and also on my Facebook pages, you can scroll through it and know take you. I had to also have a Facebook page for Silicon Kong. Okay, so I also have another Facebook page for the Still City Architect of Pittsburgh documentary itself too, oh on Facebook.

36:49 Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent. All right, ian Hemy, We'll let you go for now, but I'm sure I'm sure we will talk again.

36:55 Speaker 2: In the future, I hope. So thank you, all.

36:57 Speaker 1: Right, man, thank you, take care bye bye.

36:59 Speaker 2: All you take care now, Matt.

37:03 Speaker 1: All right. That was ian Hemy, Yes from Pittsburgh.