I'm No Superman (Theme from "Scrubs") w Chad Fischer of Lazlo Bane

(This is an automated transcript.)

Turn up the radio and sing long time for another great song. This is the great song podcast. Season's greetings and welcome once again to the great song podcast. I'm Rob Alley. I am JP Moser and we're here to celebrate the greatest songs in modern music. We're going to tell you what makes them great, why we think they're awesome and why you should to JP, how are you doing?

I am doing fan testing. Okay. So we're coming in at the covenant number three spot in season nine, two bangers out the gates already with Y YMCA and Lanco. And today we went with a TV theme song that is, oh, so much more. So if you're picturing Zach Braff and Donald Faison yes, the guy that plays PD and remember the Titans you're in the right place as this is Superman by Lazlo bane.

Rob played a little bit of it too.

just in time down the 4 0 5. Got to meet the new boss by

this work hard she's run in late.

You got to work to feed this. So I can't do this.

Yes, sir. There we go. Get out your red Cape and your blue tides. That is Superman by Lazlo. Bane. Not to be confused with Superman. By five for fighting Superman parentheses. It's not easy, which we did a couple seasons ago with our boy, John. My plan is to cover every Superman song ever in existence at some point, except for kryptonite by three doors down.

That's the only one I think I'm okay. Leaving out. That is Superman by Lazlo bane. Also known sometimes as I'm no Superman. I think actually if you look it up on YouTube, they're official. For it sometimes says I'm no Superman. Cause I think that's what people search for and it helps differentiate it from all the other Superman songs.

It was written by Chad Fischer. It is from the 2002 album all the time in the world by Lazlo bane. And it is of course the theme from the TV show scrubs, which you probably know it. I imagine you may know it on its own also, but it's known worldwide as the TV theme for the show scrubs. And Rob mentioned Chad Fischer police hang around to the end cause we're chatting it up with him.

Yes, we are great dude. A lot of fun. He builds rocket ships. That's all I'm going to say. This song has been included in several best slash most iconic TV themes of all time lists, including pace magazine, the New York observer and. I didn't go through them all, but it's in a bunch of them. And Rob loves lists.

I love a good list. I didn't include them on because it was, it was all too much. There was, I couldn't pick which one to, so, but it's, it's on them. Okay. It's up there with like mash, cheers. You know, all the one name shows the ones we talked about before. I think when we did the cheers theme song, we, you know, we, we talked about a lot of those, so I'll not rehash all that territory.

Okay. Let's listen through a few things here. First of all, let's go all the way back to the beginning. Now, if you've only heard. The single version or the scrubs version. You haven't heard this very beginning with the count off and. Vocalization here. Why to do it, baby. Then we get a little banjo before adding banjo to your tracks was really cool.

There's 2002. We haven't quite hit the banjo boom yet. So the banjo,

and then you get this from sample. Here's the hit.

I love the big race, open high hat. You know what I mean? That is actually a sample. And I'll play you. What it's from that is from impeach the president by the honey drippers.

Let's feel it out a little bit.

That's good stuff right there. Did you get that nice clean drum sample?

That's very sampled, but because there's no distraction. Yeah, exactly. There's nothing to, so that's all the best drum samples are just clean with very little else going on. So so yeah, that does impeach the president by the honeydripper. And then in the, after the course ends, when he lands the hook, I'm no Superman.

You get the little well, we'll talk about that in a second, the little solo deal, but you get this tambourine that comes into that. I love a laugh. You got to work to feed this, but I can't do this.

Superman. Nice big tambourines to fix it up a little bit, the little lift, and then you get that sound kind of sounds like a theremin. The thing you hear in old speaky movies. I think what it is after watching their YouTube performance of it is a six. That would be what you would call a sine wave.

And it's just the, the, the purest simple form of a sound wave with a synth effect, that's called a slide. So it it's a portamento slide setting. That means instead of if you hold down one note and then you press another, instead of it going E. It goes so it gets there. Yeah. And so the way it gets there, instead of just switching notes, you can make it slide from one to another and you can change the like rate at which it slides how fat, where that goes.

you know what? That's cool. And so I think that's what it is that it's just going set to go

We also have in the song, a harmonica solo prayer. Now I noticed by the way, don't think I don't see the hypocrisy that you love the harmonica solo here on Superman. But last season, when I wanted to do karma chameleon, it's going to harmonica solo and that's stupid. The well-placed harmonica solo is the difference.

Here it is. Here's a bit of a harmonica.

There's something about this. That's a country guitar solo there, a pal. That is a, and not just because it's playing over a banjo following our harmonica. Yeah. It as a country. So like, this is a rock band, you know what I mean? Like there's straight up rock band. That is a country guitar solo. That is some Albert Lee special going on right there.

You know what I mean? That is, but it's beautiful. I love it. I love that. I don't know. It's really thin. It's. Instinctively you want it to be a Telecaster because the way it sounds down on the lower register, that's the giveaway for Telecasters when it gets in the middle of my own narrow, those ranges them ranges.

It's making them. Yeah. But I don't, I don't know. I was having a little hangover from the Lanco. I know I still got some country coming out there. Yeah. But that is a, that is a beautiful country guitar solo. And I love it. A little more about the song. It was originally featured on the soundtrack to the 2002 movie, the Tao of Steve starring Donal Logue you know, Donal Logue that has been in a bunch of stuff.

The things I think of him, primarily as two things in no particular order, recently he was on the TV show Gotham as detective Harvey Bullock about, I don't know if you remember that show. But when we were teenagers, he did a series of commercials on MTV for MTV as a character called Jimmy the cab driver.

And trying to remember that he would play, I'll play you a little bit of one, but he was this like obnoxious cab driver. And he was always talking to the people that he was giving rides to about about these videos that he had seen on MTV. So here's a little Jimmy, the cab driver talking about. Like, you know, I want snow to come over and Dr.

Dre and I said, bring it back. All right. You know what I mean? And that, Hey, Jimmy, what up? And I said, you know, I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind that smoking man though, and drinking. Though they ain't all night long, which is what I like to do. Not before I drive a cab though, a lot. Do you remember , there's one where he's talking about the rolling stones.

When we're talking about Metallica, there's one we're talking about smashing pumpkins that I remember very, very specifically anyway. Great. But that's what, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, and Gotham, like he's been in other stuff, but anyway, yeah. So a 2002 movie, the dowel, Steve, starring Donal Logue Then Zach Braff, as I understand it, heard the song on that soundtrack and pitched it to bill Lawrence, who is the executive producer of scrubs and bill Lawrence.

Also the executive producer of several of the shows, spin city numerous been sitting so good, Michael Fox Cougar town other stuff. And we talk with, I believe about how that got on the show. That's my interview. So here. Let's talk for a second about how this song hit different in the pandemic.

First of all they read did Lazlo bane did a series of YouTube covers in quarantine cars and quarantine covers, and eventually put them out as their latest album. And this one just hit different dude. It's the song from the hospital show. Okay. These are all things stacking up on each other. It's the song from the hospital show that says I can't do this all on my own.

I'm no Superman. And then the big refrain someday we'll be together. With all these faces appearing. You know what I mean? This group of people who appear at the end of the video, including cast members and music industry people, and it's dedicated to Chad Fischer's cousins who are frontline healthcare workers.

And then add to that, the final moments of the video, where an acapella version of amnio Superman is performed by the blanks, which is the band, which included Sam Lloyd. Who played Ted the hospital, lawyer on scrubs who died the week before the video came out as crazy. It is all very highly emotional.

Yeah. I mean, it's a lot, if you, if you watch this thinking about it being in, in the parental effect and the timeliness of it that's right. Let's play a little bit about. I mean a little bit of that version. Cause it is really nice. I mean, it's, it doesn't sound much different, but let me play the ending.

When they come in Sunday, we'll be together. And it's, I mean, it's, it's really not. We even talk about with Chad is a lot of his covers. He stays true to the original, so he's not a Bruce Hornsby. Do it completely different for accounting crows. You're going to hear it different cover. You're right. He wants to.

So this is listed on the, on the album someday. We'll be together by Lazlo, bane, and friends as I'm no Superman versus the original that is just listed as Superman. One, two. Wurlitzer at the beginning, Stacy,

let's get in toward the end here.

A little straighter vocal sound, not the effective vocal.

got Neil Flynn, Zach Braff. Lisa Loeb is in there. It's a little about, no, you're listening. We want you on the show.

I mean, really? It's really is very touching. If you watch it in the wrong head space, you're going to end up crying into your wine. That was good. Gotcha. Choked me up. Okay. I think this is probably a good spot to meet the bank. Let's do it. It's time to meet the man. Hey, mama was meet the man.

All right, guys, we're going to meet the band of Lazlo bane that plays on this track. I'm on bass guitar bay and Joe backing vocals. Chris link in a band called give, had a five song EP called the dog. Days of summer also had a solo project. Called songs from the basement. Chris link. I like the sound of the bass and this, I wish I would have looked up gear.

I normally go a little deeper, but it sounds real good. Not in fact Tim bright on lead guitar keyboards and backing vocals also played guitar with Lisa Loeb on the non-stories album site song. You may have heard of called stay little, little difficult stuff. There you go. Timber. On drums chicken Andrew backing vocals, Robert chicken Burke.

So Robert Burke also known as chicken was in a band with George Clinton called drugs, also in a band called the duke and the king. Yeah man. Good, good drummer, good tight drummer. On Lincoln. The duke and the king, but that's just, that's just lyrical imagery right there. Vocab vocab notes galore I'm on lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, keyboards, harmonica mixing, Chad Fischer, spelled a F I S H F a S C H E R.

I didn't want to make, make sure to leave the C out of there. So Chad Fischer and we talk a lot with him. Lot of stuff on him, you guys are really gonna love. We. School of fish. And the song, these three, these these three strange days in our interview with Chad, Chad ended up being the drummer for school of fish, and recently did a.

Of this song and dude, I love it so much. Can we just hear a little bit of the verse and the chorus? Because we talk about this song later in the episode, and I just want to hear the songs right now, and this is listed as on the, on the album, Lazlo, bane, and Fran Sunday, we'll be together strange days featuring school of fish.

I don't know if the school of fish gang came back and played. So the the lead singer is no longer with us here. So this is, this is Chad taking on lead vocal duties. As, as Josh has passed, Great song.

I haven't talked with him how much I thought I was not going to like it. Cause it's a little more Kostick at the beginning, but then the full band kicks in and I'm like, nah, so good.

anyway, I just love that. That album, by the way, while we're on it also features a very fun rendition of Billy Joel's big shot featuring Larry Goldings on keys. That's so good. And we talk with him in the interview about this rock and red suit that he's wearing in the video. So good. This like emotional interview

sounds like. It sounds like the way they'll play it at Billy Joe's funeral. John forbid, God, God, keep it preserved. Billy Joel forever.

Okay. Let's see how the song, just so God kills Dom Perignon in your hand.

Anyway, I love it. That is in the running for my favorite building, man. That's a conversation for another time though, right? Good. So yeah, so let's take a a little break here and play a little game. Let's play, let's play the jingle and boy, little stumped, the genius genius going on. There we go. Wow.

The genius genius, genius. Genius. All right. So I know Rob sometimes tries to prep in his mind where he thinks I'm going with this one. May haven't done it. Maybe he could have guessed on this, but I'm going to go Superman quotes. So I'm going to give you five Superman quotes, and you're going to tell me which Superman movie this is from.

This is up Rob's Allianz. Superman got so five Superman movies, obviously the first one, Superman two Superman, three Superman four, and then Superman returns is the one that we'll do to get our five. Just those, just those five. You shouldn't have even told me that. Ah, so anyway, there's your, there's your clue?

I'll try to put you under that. So we've got five. So here we go. I'm just going to throw them out in random order. Okay. Do you know what the sun is? It is nothing more than a huge nuclear bomb that would be Superman for that is Superman for peace. You don't have to know. Oh, these are not Superman quotes.

That's gotta be Lex Luger. Yeah, that's correct. Yep. I went five different characters to help you out with that as well, too. Okay. For one for one, here we go. Let's go. Let's give you an easy kneel before Zod at Superman two to general. Zod good job to man process of elimination. I need to see how to, you should have told me, I should have told you that.

Either something wrong with the elevator. That is let's see. That is, yeah, that's a Superman one. That's the guy climbing up the window. Good job. Three for three. Okay. So we're down to two. He's a little fragile or fragile, but he's going to grow up big and strong, just like his dad. Oh, that's Superman returns.

Superman retired, Kate Bosworth as Lois lane. And well, we know what this was from, so I don't want to go to jail just because they're robbers and rappers and rape robbers and rapers and rapers who raped robbers. That would be Gus Gorman, guns, Superman. The best Superman ever. Rob hates three, but I love three.

So good job. Five for five. When you wrap with nail the nail, the Superman quotes so well done, it was an unexpected delight there. I appreciate that. It was a little, little, little gift to you there. We can do those every week. I wouldn't mind Petra trivia for me. There you go. Superman trivia. That's right.

We want to know by the way, last year. It's been speculated that no one could have possibly beat in JP on Petro trivia. If you were listening. That's right. If you're a Petro super fan, I bet John Schlitt didn't even know all those. If you, if you happen to beat JP. Let us know and we'll send you something all right.

Let's see a little more on Lazlo bane. It is reported that Lazlo bane is named after the lead character in a novel entitled theme park roadkill by Rachel Andrews. I have no contact with that whatsoever, but the internet says it's true. So I believe it not verified, but. That's right. They released all the time in the world independently after having been dropped by their label in one of those like takeover slash buyout situations with universal, they were on a label universal bought out the label or merged with the label or whatever.

And a bunch of people get dropped in those, in those things. So that was there, but that worked out well for them. I'm sure because if they released it independently, that means they own the master dollars dollars dollars. The there's a song on that album called hold me. It's my favorite. One of my favorite songs on the project.

And Rob mentioned Larry Goldings who played on, on big shot. He plays on this as well. Those that don't know that aren't big on Larry Goldings he's in a trio beyond with John Scofield and Jack Dajanae pick it up. It's awesome. Is he Ellie Goldings no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. She's not even a Golding.

She's Golding stops singular. Yeah. She's one golden. If her and Larry hung together, there would be two Goldings. Yeah. Geldings is gold. Let's not forget that Mary. Less Lillian's cover of overkill by minute work reached MTV twos, top 10 videos of 1997. Now, you know, I tried to find that list. I try to find that list and I couldn't find it and you know, how badly that kills me, but yeah, apparently it is reported again and the internet tells me and I believe it's true.

All things overkill feel free to go back to season eight and here our interview with Colin. Hey, if you want to get deep on. That's right. He was also let's see, was that episode three of season eight. So a little synergy, number three in the family. Yeah, a new album someday we'll be together was released October of 2021 with the new version of Amna, Superman, and 11 other tracks mostly recordings of previous Lazlo tracks and stuff they did during quarantine.

A little bit about scrubs, unless you've got more or less the way and all right, let's go a little scrubs do where you a big scrubs scrubs guy. So you'll, you'll teach me things here. I've seen every episode. I've not seen one all the way through. Wow. I've seen parts, but I've never sat and watched an episode from start to finish.

Really funny show one of my. Definitely one of my top five sitcoms all time. Wow. You know, maybe even one of my top five shows all times. Wow. My friends tell me, I need to watch it. It's very funny. They say that I'll like it, it's funny. And you could love the humor, if nothing else, there's a pair of best friends.

So Zach Braff is sort of the protagonist slash narrator. He is the eyes through which you view the show. Right. And and then he, so he plays a doctor named J D John Dory. And his Donald Faison is his best friend, Turk who also works at the hospital. He's a surgeon and their friendship is worth, worth the price of admission alone.

Like they are just always over the top, you know, friends, they're like, you know, piggybacking on each other and stuff. It's just, they're always at home. And so but yeah, so it also started Sarah Chalke, John C McGinley Judy Reyes, Ken Jenkins and Neil Flynn, Neil Flynn plays the janitor and he, you know who Neil Flynn is?

No, no, no, no. Oh, Neil Finn. Yeah. Yeah, no, Neil Flynn. He plays the dad on this show called the middle. If you've seen ads for that anyway, you probably know his face. If you saw him, what's the deal. There's a whole thing of running gag in there that he was in. Oh gosh, what's the move of the fugitive. I think he played a cop in the fugitive and I think they allude to it on the series at some point that they're like, they're watching the fugitive them and they're like the janitor, you know what I mean?

It's like a joke that they play on, but anyway, he plays this janitor. Who's just the meanest, grumpiest, whatever. And he hates the lead character and he's always. Messing with each other or like thinking that they're messing with each other. He's a fantastic character. It also included multiple appearances from Colin hay.

As we mentioned in our overkill episode, he was on there at like six or seven times, did a full version of overkill. They sang his song waiting for waiting for my moment to arrive. So it's called no. Oh, this T that's Blackbird. What am I thinking of? Someday gosh, what is it? Oh, ship is con it is.

Waiting for my real life to begin you waiting for my real life to begin. You see my confusion. We just had, we just had another who's crying now slash a moment. That's what I did.

my brain did another one of those just now. Wow. Anyway. Yeah, scrubs really funny. It ran for nine seasons on NBC and ABC. It switched networks for the last two seasons. It was it was an unusual thing to begin with to be on to mainstream. Yeah. So here's what happened. Produced by ABC studios the whole time, but then it ran on NBC for the first seven seasons.

So AB studios produced it and NBC, why would they share the rights to air it? I have no idea why, and it's kind of an old school thing that doesn't ever happen anymore, but with scrubs it happens. And so basically NBC was going to. Cancel it. And so NBC ABC said, okay, we'll air the last step. And last season, which was supposed to be season eight, then there was like a rider strike or something.

And they they've finished it out with another season with a mostly different cast in a different setting in the last season. But ABC aired the final two seasons. So it really weird kind of thing. And then the final season had a. Cover of I'm no Superman as the theme song by different artists. I think an artist's name was but it was a, it was still I'm no Superman, but it was a cover.

So it kind of lent itself to the different feel of the last season, but it still had like yeah, Zach Braff, Zach Braff in a different role and it kind of showed the kind of like, say a new character. Yeah. A little bit like say by the build the new class. Exactly. Yeah. So, and it was, it was still funny.

It just doesn't, it just didn't last after that. So, but really funny show has some all-time great moments and stuff that I literally, I just quote in my everyday life from scrubs you know, just random things. One of my favorite lines is Turk, who is the best friend? He is in a relationship with a nurse named Carla.

They have an apartment together and she at one point she reaches in she's like making breakfast or something and she says, why is there a pancake in the why is there a pancake in the silverware drawer? And he goes, why, why is it a civil war in the pancake drawer? And you know, it's just great. I don't know.

Great comedy, good stuff, good stuff, scrubs. I think that's all I got for now on this. You guys are gonna love this interviews hanging around with us and Chad that's right. Cole, dude, we're going to talk to Chad Fischer in just a second, but first stop what you're doing, even if you're, even if you're giving somebody CPR, don't do that.

Don't stop. But as soon as you're done with the CPR, get out your phone after you call nine one one, and then. Go to Facebook, go to Instagram, go to Twitter, follow us at great song pod. Join the Facebook group. We have a lot of fun in there. Great songs and the great people who love them. Or if you want to be a part of producing the show, helping us get this thing made, you can go to patrion.com/great song pod that's P a T R E O n.com/great song pod.

When you blow up on the media for saving that guy's life videoing it that's right then. Yes. And you decide to support the show. Then we can say thank you by giving you extended episodes, bonus bonus shows all kinds of extra goodies as our way of saying thank you. So. If you want to do that, go to patrion.com/great song pod.

We're going to talk to Chad Fischer and then we'll be back at the end to tuck you in. This is the great song podcast, ladies and gentlemen, as promised we are here with Chad Fischer of Lazlo, bane, and so many other things. Chad, thank you so much for joining us today on the great song podcast. Hey, my pleasure.

Great to be here, guys. Excellent. It's looking like, are you you're in like you're in like a real studio right now. I mean, I see just guitars all over the place. And, and where are you at your studio at home? Yeah, actually this is a room I just finished building about eight months ago. It's I used to have a, an old garage converted recording studio, and then I wanted to put an art studio above it for my wife.

She's a, she's a painter graphic artist and the city said. Can I do that. You've already maxed out square footage on your property. So we found out that actually, if you tear down the building and rebuild it into a hillside, it becomes a subterranean basement, essentially. And that's what I'm in now, I'm in the new really a newly rebuilt recording studio.

And I was able to kind of do all this Sound treatment and everything which we just finished building and yeah, it's it's, it's kinda my dream studio. That's great. So you basically have a bat cave for a suit? Yes. This is basically a, it's a, it's a mausoleum. They're going to bear me in this. Yeah.

Awesome. All right. Let's see, we got so much to talk about 18 questions. We're going to have to chisel them. Let's let's start with I know you started as a drummer in some of your in some of your earlier iterations of, of musical stuff. We got to know who are your drum? Ooh, drum idols. Well, it definitely started with Stewart Copeland.

Well, no, it started with Ringo as probably for most people. And that was my entry into music, which was the tiny little drum play drum kit. I was given when I was about eight years old or seven or eight years old. And then my obsession with the Beatles setting up the boxes and my father who was a brain surgeon, was utterly horrified and did everything he could.

To keep me away from this idea of going into music as a profession, which by the way, was what is his brother and sister were both professional musicians and it was, and it was a tough going for those guys. It was not an easy life to carve. So my dad saw that struggle and was mortified, but I was totally obsessed.

So yeah, drums Ringo then in high school. It was Stuart Copeland, major police fan. And then, and then of course Neil Peart and, but yeah, those were, those were definitely the idols for, I just pictured like your dad, like trying to, you know, trying to hand you like a, a stethoscope and, you know, whatever, all the things and it'd be like, oh God, he's beating on the boxes.

as a drumstick. Yeah. The only solace is later on in my life. I was able to go, dad, you know, I'm sorry that the medical thing never worked out. However, I I'm working on some shows about doctors. Great segue. That was the, that was the closest that I ever got. And, you know, it turned into a decent living. So yeah.

Very relieved. Well, we might as well. We might as well go there since you brought it. You gone, you got scrubs, you've got private practice you know, all this, all this, these medical shows that you've been a part of. Why don't we, why don't we go ahead and start with scrubs? We'll we'll go backwards in time to some Lazlo bane and some Collin hay.

But w since we're, since we're talking about medical shows, why don't we go ahead and get into scrubs and tell us the story. First of all, I'm no Superman the song kind of how it came to be, and then how it ended up on. Great. Yeah. Actually really interesting story. So Laszlo band, which was my band in the, in the late nineties, where I decided to switch from being a drummer and to being a singer and a songwriter, that band we did two albums on a major label.

As we handed in the second album, the label was folding we're at the end of the nineties. Now it's like, Industry collapsing. We get our, we get our record back. They give it to us. They feel so sorry for us after making this thing. And then I don't know what to do. I'm I'm, I'm living in Laurel canyon. I'm, I'm having barbecues.

I'm producing a lot of other singer songwriters in my old studio there, which was in a garage. And I'm handing out this CD going, Hey everybody, this is the CD. We don't know what to do with now. And and one of the guests at that, one of my barbecues was Zach Braff who happened to live right up the street from me.

And I'd also produced a few of his buddies from college. There was Carrie brothers and Josh Raiden, all who have gone on to have great careers. Anyway, he got a copy of the the CD and was listening to it. And then he called me up and said, The song Superman I'm in a, I'm doing a pilot for this show.

I'm going to nobody. He's actually still working as a, as a as a in a restaurant, as a waiter at the time he goes into the producer's office for scrubs and says, guys, this is our theme song. What are you talking about? We don't have time for a theme song, but you've got a half an hour get tons of dialogue, no theme song for the show.

He's like, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. Just listen to it. He plays it for them. And he had told like the makeup artists, when you walk by the office at about 10 0 5, just stop and say how much you love this, that orchestrated the whole thing. So he convinces them. They're like, all right. All right, Zach, we'll we'll, we'll edit it down.

We can get about 12 seconds of the song in there. And that. Basically started my whole career in film and television, because from there of course a lot of people thought I was scoring the show, which I wasn't, it was just, it was the song. But that about a year ago, Garden state. Yep. Zach ended up doing garden state and again, just came down the street.

He's like, Hey man, I need some music for some scenes and blah, blah, blah. That turned into scoring that film. And then it was sort of off to the races at that point. And that this life after Laszlo. We talked earlier about you as a drummer early introduction to you as a drummers with school of fish. So three straight days, the song that I loved with school of fish, like growing up, like I was a huge fan of that, and I know you pretty much played with them lav.

You're not on that studio project. Correct. But played with them love. So here's a story, but that is that I was in college. I went to brown university and And we're best buddies in college. We met freshman year. We started a band before even classes started. We had already formed a band called the eyes and we would play around, play at frat houses and stuff and different parties.

And then we decided after freshman year, Hey, let's drive to California. The Mecca. We need to go to LA and see what's happening. Cause we both had that vision of like, we wanted to be in rock bands. Record deals after that visit, Josh said, you know what? I can't go back to brown. I gotta, I got to pursue this.

And I'm like, I would follow you. But my parents will chop my head off because it took everything to get into this school. So I stayed, I stayed at brown by the time I was graduating, four year, three years later, Joshua was, had a band school of fish just got signed to Capitol records and. Three strange days was premiering on MTV.

Literally the day I was graduating from brown and I would, you know, I'm in touch with, you know, we're still really close at this point and he's telling me, well, look we got a drummer, but if things don't work out, I'll let you know. And within about a year, things didn't quite work out with that drummer.

And they started auditioning new drummers and I went out and auditioned and got the gig and that's how I joined. So I was already, they were already in, had their album. And then I was basically touring with them, but the first day in that band was, I was rehearsing to go on tour and open up for crowded house in England.

So. Yeah, that's amazing. That's awesome. And I love your 2020 version of it. Full disclosure, as much as I love the guitar in the original, when you start with kind of the more acoustic feel, I'm like, oh, I'm not going to like this. I was like, this is not going to be. And then the full band comes in and I'm like, ah, there it is.

So I think Josh would be proud of you. I think you did it, did it justice. So I'll give props to. To you on that. And for the listeners that don't know that Josh passed away in 2000 from testicular cancer, we had actually just finished. I finished helping him produce an his last solo album. And he was literally in the studio complaining of back pains and things.

And then. Within a month that cancer had taken his life. This is the same time that my label is folding and we're giving, given our record back. So it's a very, very dark time to go through the, sort of the death of the music industry, my best friend, seeing. Happened. And that was, you know, a lot sprung from that.

As far as where I ended up going with my life, but an incredibly difficult time to go through that, an album that you would just, that would have been the, all the time in the world album. Correct. Was it that one? All the time. So there's, there's other good hits that I love off that project. Hold me, I think is my other favorite song on there.

It's got Larry, Larry Goldings on fender Rhodes. He's in trio beyond I went and we saw, I was just telling Rob before I saw James Taylor and Jackson brown on Monday and he played with them. I was like, shut up. That's awesome. And for those of y'all that don't know Larry, he does stuff with John Scofield and Jack Dajanae like, he's a jazz legend, so, so good.

And Larry and I go by. When we were chilled, we, we met as a kids at a music camp called camp Encore, Coda up in Sweden, that I'm walking into this little cabin with a little rickety, upright piano in this guy. Some kids playing every Billy Joel song and Elton John, whatever that's on the radio at the time.

I'm like, holy. And there's this little kid with a huge fro and it's Larry and we became fast friends and to this day are still the best of friends and he appears on a few. So I've been doing all these videos recently, or the, you know, a lot of quarantine videos, a lot of musicians are doing now. And on my YouTube channel, you'll see it, there's a bunch and a couple of them are just Larry and.

Having fun. And we recover a Billy Joel song. That's going to say, since you touched on Billy Joel, and since you touched on the version of big shot with you rocking that red said, that's the best cover of big shot that I've heard. I told Rob I'm like, this is my favorite big. And obviously our house is great with dog Don Cooper in there.

And uh, you got a friend who's good. So good stuff. Check out. Quarantine covers. That's good stuff. And it lets we're gonna release. That's gonna be an album. That's going to come out in the next few months actually. Excellent. That's fun. The 2020 version of amnio Superman is really touching. I wasn't quite ready.

You know what I mean? For the, for the refrain, the someday we'll be together at the end. Just really everybody. It really hit with Lisa Loeb and the Carter nail Colin. Hey everyone. It's so good. It was like. But by the way, if Lisa Lowe was my gig, when I graduated from brown and when I was in New York for about a year before I joined school of fish, I was playing with Lisa Love.

We went to batter another brown connection. Yeah, Lisa and I are very close friends. W we've been, we we need to get Lisa on. So go ahead and hook us up with Lisa gear, our connection, what we're going to reach out the way I'm fully aware. I'm fully aware that I'm being used here to not only Lisa, but Colin.

Hey, I want to interview, we already had calls Colin he's on next week. So if you listen to our episode, we talked about, we talked about overkill. We talked about you and everything. So he's on next week. Yeah, beat less than next week. We used him to get to you.

So let's, let's talk about that connection. Know, I just, because I got to know how, how it all started. I know, you know, you played drums on his album to panga and he lent vocals and, and blessing to the, to the overkill cover. And, and you guys have had a relationship since then. Where did that? Well, then another, you go to brown with, you know well, so when I'm at school of fish and after playing with them for about a year, year and a half is now we're in the early nineties, 92.

That band starts to dissolve actually, before it dissolves, I'm still going out and playing gigs. I'm living in Los Angeles. I'm renting a room out from this a woman's house in the Hollywood Hills. And we kind of started kind of started a little relationship in, but I'm still going out and doing these tours.

And on one of the tours, I call it to check in on our CC, how she's doing. And she tells me she was, she's kind of met another guy. And I'm like, oh, cool. Yeah. And you might know him. I'm like, oh really? It's like, well, you might know of him. His name is Colin. Hey, I'm like really? Wow. Okay, cool. I love that guy.

I come home. I come home with the backpack and you know, everything's the duffel bag from Torah and there's Colin hay sitting in the kitchen having coffee. So I'm totally nervous. I'm like, you know, like AUSTRAC starstruck. And he ends up kind of overhearing some music in my set up in my bedroom. He hears some of the music.

He's like, oh, what's going on there? Meanwhile, the girl the, the w our mutual friend, she's apparently she's a little annoyed, like, well, don't worry about that guy. He's just renting a room from me. And then Colin ends up, we ended up striking up a friendship and he's needs a drummer at that time.

He's starting to record an album and Topanga, that album called to Banga. And then we strike up a really great friendship. And that's a great story. We tell this story, like we both left her for each other. I love that. Wow. That's my favorite story today. That's a good, that's the best one of the day so far.

That's a good one. That, that woman, her name is Malora harden and she went very successful act successful actress who was in the office and Jane Jane. Oh, damn. This story just had many layers to a teaser for the episode. Yeah. That album is good too. The pink album. I love the drum sound on track to, into the cornfields.

Sounds so good. So, and I like, I like road demand delay as well too. So those are my, my tracks off at Topanga album. So nice tasty work on. Yeah. And so then you, so Colin ends up coming onto the Lazlo bane version of overkill and the great video if you're listening and you haven't seen the video, go watch the video cause it's.

Colin as the sort of annoyed, like a bellhop or attendant at the front, you know, and then eventually he just comes in and I've, I've never seen him be more of a rock star than he is in that video. He's got so much swag, he's dripping with swag in that video. And he just comes in and kills that third verse.

The Okta that must've been such a great time for you guys. To this day, it still gives me chills when he comes out and he hits those notes. It's just like, and no one else I could never, when I had to go out and play that live and I was like, and I would strain, I couldn't even come close. So that video is, is just captures that moment so well, and we were definitely going for a little Barton think vibe.

I saw that movie, but like that old 1930s hotel. Which is where we shot it in downtown LA. And yeah, so that was, that was a lot of fun. That's a, that's a great album to the 11 transistor album. I heard you can answer you. Can I heard that maybe y'all tried to do that whole album. Was it all done on 16 channels?

Is that correct? That was done that was done in my studio back in Laurel canyon. And it was basically me a little bit of like a foo fighters scenario, w oh wow. Drummers becoming singers and doing all the instruments themselves. This must be a thing let's sign this guy. And it was, and, and we also, there was kind of a Weezer sound and Weezer was blowing up.

Point, you know, this is like 94, 95. And yeah, so that's kind of what that first album is really me in the studio playing everything. And, but as soon as it a label was interested, I knew I had to put a band together. I had to go play live. I had to learn how to like actually be in front of an audience with a guitar in my hand.

And I also knew. That I really wanted a band of brothers of really close friends. And that's what I got the guys, Chris, Tim, and chicken are a guys that grew up together in New York. I played with some of them when I was in New York and I knew that there was a brotherly love there. And that's kind of, I almost was joining their band in a way, cause they'd all played together and in band since high school.

So anyway, that's what Lazlo bane is. And to this day, still like a brother. Love between us all. And we when the second album came around and I was like, Hey, we're going to do this all together. This isn't my thing. This is our thing. And we co-wrote everything. We tracked everything together. They would all fly out and stay and live with me.

And that's how. I made that second album, Chris, Chris link, Tim bright and Chris leak on bass and a band Jones backing by Tim bride on lead guitar and keyboards and chicken on drums. For those of y'all that are listening to everybody needs a chicken, chicken. I highly recommend that you say that to Lazlo.

Bane is except for part of the time when the. Who Lazlo bane isn't and that's when Lazlo, bane is the rage. Tell us about the rage. It actually makes me want to hear Bruce Hornsby and the rage actually, but tell us about the idea to come up with sort of an alter ego for the. Yeah, so, well at the end of our shows, we would usually get up switch instruments.

Cause we all play different instruments and chicken has this incredible voice that, I mean, he can basically, he can do anything. He's got an incredible soulful voice, but he also has this secret weapon bond, Scott, like just like just daggers and thought and like pouring gasoline down your vocal chords scream.

So. He would get up and he would grab the mic I get on the drums and we would, the last song of our set would be just this crazy heavy metal rock out jam. And then we were like, we got to do this in the studio and we would do the same, apply the same method to song writing that we would put in our Lazlo bane songs we would do in this seventies, heavy metal ACDC style.

Basically where the rage was born and, and usually it would be about a bottle of Jack Daniels, then be consumed by, by chicken alone to get those vocals. But yeah, and that's. That's cool. So before we, before we segue completely off of the 11 transistor album, there is one song that you did to throw back to.

Recently 1975, there's a line, there's a line in there. The 1975 red socks were on fire. Now, are you a baseball fan? Were you a red Sox fan of that era? So I grew up in Boston. Okay. By law, I have to be a red Sox and the Patriots and the Celtics. And, and also this is like in the seventies and eighties where they were just, well, the Celtics and the Bruins were killing it and the red Sox.

But I was living at the time that I made wrote that song. My roommate guy named Jeff Rosenthal, great comedian and writer. He was also from Boston and he's like an obsessive red Sox fan. He actually, I think it was. May have sold peanuts at or hotdogs at one point. Anyway, he, anyway, he was the one that would, would kinda keep me up informed on what was going on and all the historical references for 1975.

He was the one that goes well. Don't don't you know, about the socks and 75. Yeah, what was going on? So yeah, he schooled me on all that. We're both huge baseball fans. I've been to every major league baseball park. I'm a big guy, a big baseball fan. So I'm a big guy. You're a big baseball. We were going to, I was going to see how well you would do well on the red Sox versus reds lineup.

But we'll do that another day. So. That ain't going to happen. Couple other things. We, we always have this little section where we talk about things that we really love about the artist. So I know I've hit on a lot of highlights, but a couple of things that I don't want to leave out are your guilty pleasures albums?

The one from 2007, I was like, man, this is the best thing this guy has ever did. It's awesome. It's got a loan again. And then I'm like, well, no, he writes really good stuff too. I like that. The guilty pleasures album with baby come back. We actually have. Coming on here. We already had him on man lonely boy, the Andrew gold song, huge fan of that alone again.

So good. And then I was like, and then you, it, you have, could it be magic by Barry Manilow towards the end? I'm a huge fan alone. Seen him multiple times. And then one of my favorite songs did I love it so good. And then you follow it up with the guilty pleasures eighties album, which me and Rob were talking about before space.

These love songs. Wonderful. Help me now take on me. So good. So good, good stuff. A lot of people are always saying, why don't you do like more, you know, different versions? Why do don't, don't just do a karaoke version of the track in some cases. Yeah. We'll we'll stray, but in a lot of cases, we'll just try to capture not only the, the craftsmanship of the production and the song, but like the specific drum sounds like there is no jucier snare drum sound, then, then great Eagles album and a lot of those.

Yeah. So, so a lot of that is trying to really recreate those sounds, which I'm as a studio producer, nerd, you know, there's nothing more fun than. And trying to do that. So that was the vibe, especially I got on like a electric avenue. I was like, oh, they really went through like fidelity to the original electric avenue.

I love that. Great. Cool. When you want to touch on your national parks instrumental album. I didn't want to talk in that. I love Yosemite and Yellowstone, so good. So everybody everybody's got their own favorite. My mom and dad are huge national park visitors. Oh, my mom said that they actually, my middle son just got back.

He got back the day that school started from Yellowstone, they took him out for his 30th birthday on a big trip and he got back hopped off a plane at like midnight 30 went to school the next morning for the beginning of the house. So.

Yeah, national parks. I was, we were visiting there with my family and my daughter who, and we all just, I mean, I, you hear about all these places, but it's not really until you go there and you're like, whoa, this is. This is like another planet pass. So it was definitely an incredible inspiration for writing all that music.

And that was definitely an attempt for me to, to, to do some instrumental work and, and expand upon this, the whole scoring side of you know, as a composer and trying to recreate. Just the emotions of those places. And and hopefully I'll, there'll be more albums in the future that are in the same vein.

I think the next one's going to be about space. Okay, excellent. Which is a theme. We have a space theme going on here, which is that I finished building and Apollo space capsule, which is in the bathroom.

If you go on my Instagram account and if you look up DIY Apollo space capsule, that's the hashtag you'll see the whole progress of what it went through, building this basically one-to-one replica of the Apollo space capsule, and it's a hangout for the kids and the adults. You're like Bob Vila on sterile air.

That's amazing. That's incredible. Wow. Well there's one question we ask everybody chats, spend a lot of fun, man. Glad we get to meet you. You're a, you're a rock star. This has been great. So you're on tour either. Solo project, Lazlo, bane, whatever you're on tour. With Colin, whoever you go into a gas station, what is your gas station?

Snack, food of choice. And while you're thinking of it, I'll tell you mine. I get a three Musketeers bar when I was growing up. My mom would say, you can have any candy bar you want, they're all the same price and that's the most answers. So I get a three Musketeers bar. What is your guest station? Snack.

Food of choice. Well, you know, everyone is always talking about the diets that they're on and how they will avoid all that junk food. I'm like, no, no, no, no stop. All bets are off. You can have whatever you want, whatever you want. And it's kinda, you know, old school, we just go for the Dorito, a good, good nacho cheese Doritos.

And while you're. Grab some Twinkies. Love it. Great answer. A tear in my eyes. We have had a lot of healthy people lately, water and corn. That's right. I'm like, no, no. Give me that guy, Chad, you're welcome to jump on the bus with us anytime we'll do it. So this has been fun, man. Thanks so much. We're hanging out with us.

This is the great song podcast hidden that was Chad Fischer of Laszlo bank. So excited. That was fun. He was fun. Fun, dude. I feel like we could hang out. If we were just hanging out in California, we would be hanging out with buddies. Someday someday we'll be together with Chad Fischer in his rocket ship, in his Apollo spacecraft.

I want to sleep in that thing. I just want to take a nap in it. That's all so cool. Yeah. So yeah, so we got one more week before we hit our first theme month of the season. March will be our first theme month. What are we going with? There's a little teaser. I don't know. Do we want to tell them no. There you go.

I see you guys next week for the last week of the non themed mind, which will be week four of season nine, and then we'll be back to keep it going. So trekking along, we're going to theme it up. They made a C all next week with another great song until then. I'm wrong. I am JP go listen to some music.