- 5/9/2025
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00:00alice cooper's been supportive in theory so we've been on his show i think two or three times
00:04and actually because of alice in theory he's already had two top 10 hits it's because of alice
00:10rock metal frog and everything in between welcome to this episode of talk and rock with meltdown
00:18don't forget to follow the audio only talk and rock podcast on all podcast platforms
00:23and now it's time for today's conversation here's meltdown i'm sorry mike you're making
00:29coffee right now is what you said i'm making coffee how about that yeah where you at i'm in muscle
00:34chills okay so it's not exactly the crack of dawn out there not really you know i'm recuperating from
00:42uh it's just been a long several months but i just did a studio run uh two days ago and when i'm doing
00:51a studio run this one was like a 16 hour run so i started i think about two in the afternoon i get
00:56home at six in the morning so it was my whole clock off for a couple of days so oh i see a few
01:02days ago you did this that was yesterday i came in at 6 30 in the morning something like that no i
01:08think i saw on your facebook it says uh muscle shoals alabama so do you work there i i live here
01:15now um i'm originally a new yorker okay then a californian and for the last eight years i've
01:21been in muscle shoals okay i i guess is like a guitar player of your ilk that's kind of a place
01:28where you probably long to be right it's great for music it's great for studio the studio world
01:36um there's probably more a higher concentration of studios in a 10 mile radius than probably anywhere
01:43in the world here yeah i live up here obviously in detroit and there's some uh studios up here
01:50where there's been a lot of uh classic albums uh made uh uh rust belt studios is right down the
01:55road where alice cooper records kid rock recorded his debut gretta van fleet i mean the list goes
01:59on and on and on uh studios where ted nugent recorded a lot of stuff here bob seeger and all
02:04that so uh yeah there's a there's a few of them up here but we don't want to talk about that we
02:08want to talk about in theory and what you guys have going on normally when i interview bands
02:12a lot of the bands like uh i already kind of know about i knew i know a little bit about you guys but
02:17i didn't want to get into the weeds too much because i wanted you to tell everybody uh about your band
02:21and what you have going on you got some really cool stuff in the works sure um you know we need
02:28like a 10-hour show to talk about the band there's such a long path to it um what kind of band are
02:35for for people i don't know what in theory is tell me about like what what you guys do
02:39well the best way i can say is we're like either a modern zeppelin or like a swampy sound garden is
02:47the best way to describe our sound um you know singer tony covino you know he's got a cornell thing but
02:53he's definitely got the arrange of a plant um you know and i think the fact that i'm down here
02:59muscle shoals i think that the r&b and the blues have rubbed off on me um but you know i'm more of
03:06a rock guy but still the blues and it's just it's just seeped into me big time i was gonna say it
03:13kind of kind of speaks to you so you got this uh news led zeppelin cover speaking of zeppelin
03:17with uh eric gales out tell us about that and how does one get eric gales to play on as one of your
03:21tracks that's the million dollar question i get that all the time right right um well eric you know
03:28how i got him to play was um through victor wooten do you know victor uh i know that refresh my
03:34memory all right he's probably one of the most historic bass players in history so if you're in
03:39a rolling stone most influential bass players in history victor is usually number four number five
03:46and what was happening victor's a family friend uh eric has been one of my idols and eric was playing
03:53at one of his camps so i had called up victor i said you know i want to come up and play uh but
04:00unfortunately on the flip side of the thing um outside of in theory and producing and doing all
04:05and touring um and the companies that i own i also the care i'm also a caretaker for my parents
04:11so two weeks out of uh the month i take care of my my father and mother my father has a
04:18last stage of dementia he's blind my mother's deaf and um yeah it's a whole long thing but
04:25essentially i did two weeks my sister does two weeks we have someone try to fill in a date so
04:29i can go on the road i can do other things um but on this particular time i couldn't make it up
04:35because i had to take care of my parents so i didn't get to meet with eric and sure enough
04:41by fate or however you want you know if you believe in those things fate destiny uh maybe it was two or
04:47three weeks later eric was playing by my parents house and um so i reached out to eric and you know
04:53victor's been trying to reach us and um you know and eric got back to me as well come down to sound
05:00check let's see how we vibe let's see what we got so uh went down to sound check and you know in a
05:07most polite way i don't know if you can curse on your show but he's like fuck sound check he goes
05:12let's do something okay i mean to me that's way better yeah right and uh this was in october so he
05:22goes look after the tour um he goes i have a place you know i have a studio by my place let's let's do
05:28something so i thought he was either for real or he was you know just being polite and uh so i
05:35call him for his week of december and i said well what's what do you want to do he says well it was
05:40same thing what do you want to do well you know what let's let's do a song you know i had the band
05:45in theory let's do a song let's have you and a guest he says okay and you know he goes looked at
05:49his calendar he goes i got these two days open whatever they were and i just jumped in the studio
05:56i think it was like the tuesday and i had to be there friday afternoon so tuesday i jumped in
06:02put one set of rhythm section in it didn't work out with that rhythm section then i brought in um
06:08some heavyweights so i brought in glenn sobel from alice cooper hollywood vampires to be the drummer
06:12i brought in the bass player from jason isball that's joe hart and i brought in clayton ivy who's
06:18one of the original swappers and all that and of course the singer from inferior myself
06:22um finished the tracks that thursday night it was such a challenge even that night the bass player
06:29had covid so we actually had to record his tracks even though it was a half mile away
06:33with the video screen and through this app called audio movers so whatever he was playing was going
06:40right through my speakers in the studio so i could actually hear in real time and so we got his his
06:45thing done it was maybe nine o'clock that night ten o'clock next morning i'm in greensboro i mean i
06:51fly to raleigh then it was in greensboro and then eric and i proceeded to uh to record the track and
06:57you know from there was it was magic that's awesome and uh so this track's obviously a zeppelin cover
07:03you just kind of you know mentioned uh zeppelin obviously a huge influence on you it's it's a yes
07:09and that's a good question um when i was younger of course you know you listen to all the iconic
07:15zeppelin riffs but on the reason i picked that song is part of my my daily practicing you know i
07:23practice this on youtube there's things that touch my ear and strangely enough that the version i always
07:30practiced is the one by the band europe they do the same version but they play with the orchestra
07:35and i doubt to look that up yeah it's really cool they do it live um so they did a great version
07:43guitar player killed it on it but the reason i picked their version is because when zeppelin does
07:49it the temples are all over the place and i was going to try to lock something to a grid and have
07:53the singer play to to something structured if this wasn't going to work so i was like well if it's to
07:58the orchestra it'll be right in line in time oh no it wasn't but look so i'm the poor singer he i made
08:06him sing the entire track he spent a couple days doing it and then the day i was bringing everybody
08:13in like nothing's going to line up so i gave him an hour so he redid all the vocals that you hear on
08:19the record it was first take in an hour an angry singer and it came out fantastic but really yeah so
08:27that was it so it was the the europe version and um and then by the time eric and i got on it um
08:34we didn't verbally say what we wanted to do as far as choice of notes but
08:39i think eric and i really made it our own you know we didn't do the jimmy page licks we didn't do
08:46if you're except for the everything else our choice of notes is us how we would play it i mean if you
08:55listen to the song there's even like little queen elements there's a little um a little uh whatever
09:02pointed out to me what i was doing he goes that's a little bit like the beatles a little uh i want you
09:07so i want you so bad that if you hear the beatles song and you hear that you can hear some of the
09:13similarities and if you hear very early queen you hear some of that but again but it wasn't on
09:18purpose it's just as eric and i were uh progressing on it you know so yeah just what's what what comes out
09:24of you with your uh influences and whatnot so uh also you're working with uh vinnie ampesee and uh
09:29in in perry richardson right on some on some tracks yeah on um two tracks that are coming out vinnie did
09:36two of the tracks and um yeah vinnie vinnie's a monster yeah i think people will like it um
09:43and then perry he's just he's another guy who's been a long time friend and it was like
09:48he was one of those said perry you want to do something he's like sure come on up
09:52uh south carolina and we only put one of his tracks nobody but he cut four tracks with us
09:57so but on this album we're just using one with him um and then the other one that we're working
10:03with and releases coming out i think about two weeks is with you know tommy hendrickson yeah
10:08so that one is coming out i think actually the 16th may 16th as the singles coming out that'll be on
10:16album as well um and that's like if aerosmith and muttlang had a baby in 2025 that's what that
10:23song sounds like okay and we've been doing a lot of social media pushing on that and um tommy tommy's
10:29been wonderful on that and um actually he's he's in the video as a band member which was kind of cool
10:34that he did that um even though he's in the vampires and he's got his crossbone scully band but
10:40he was very gracious to jump into that but him and i worked on that for quite a long time to pull
10:45it off and that's the whole story with the alice cooper camp and us and i was just thinking about
10:50that yeah you keep bringing up guys that you know played with alice yeah yeah so i mean i i met glenn
10:57actually glenn sobel who played on since i've been loving you through tommy um it was a man backstage and
11:04when i was having issues i was like you know if we're gonna do a thing with eric it's gotta be great
11:08it can't be good and i'm not sure if you ever spoke with time but you know i lost a lot of my
11:14new york long island accent but his is still thick it's really right so he goes boy just fucking talk
11:21to fucking glenn he'll fucking do it and and i called up glenn that night and uh and you know
11:29glenn and i were on the phone again like for two hours a tuesday night from eight to ten and while i was
11:33on the phone with him he was trying to locate engineers and techs and and by 11 o'clock the
11:39night he said yep i can do it you know but uh it was that thursday morning and then i said this
11:43day that night but the cooper camp has been a really interesting thing for us um the funny thing is
11:51with tommy and i there was a person dear to tommy and myself that has been trying to
11:57connect us and tommy and i through our lives i i was opening up for tommy i was 15 and through
12:05then we've written in the late 90s and then there's so many things it's our lives just every
12:11few years we're in each other's lives and this particular time we didn't we just weren't in each
12:17other's life it was just really funny it was this person goes oh yeah you know i'm a fan of alice
12:21cooper and then they go oh it's tommy tommy's in bad so that's how i just it was like that and
12:27finally um there were two things going on so before alice and them all knew that i was involved
12:35with tommy alice cooper has been supportive in theory so we've been on his show i think two or
12:40three times and actually because of alice in theory he's already had two top 10 hits it's because of
12:46alice and there was he didn't know anything about tommy and my no connection now wait a second
12:53for one second you've been on alice's radio show uh-huh okay i don't know if you're talking about
12:58if you opened up for alice for the show so go ahead yeah we've been on both the shows his first
13:02incarnation in his current show okay and i believe we're going to be on the show again with this next
13:07single um but the funny thing is so i went out there to uh was personally connecting with tommy
13:14and sure enough they ran into tommy at breakfast at the hotel and i get a text i told tommy you were
13:23here he wants to meet you for breakfast cool and it was great you know both of us man we were just
13:29so happy to see each other it was you know two i called the two long island dudes just getting
13:34together they're hugging each other and probably within 10-15 minutes of talking we're like we got
13:40to do something together and we just started talking and talking and then um that night it was
13:47it was interesting he's asking me about how i like to set his new sound and all that
13:52uh but the very next day i saw them again and this other person um that was with me
14:00they bought like the past it's like 900 bucks you know to meet alice right to meet green
14:05and i told tommy about it and time's like you know i'll get you one don't worry i'll get you one
14:11okay um because so the person was asking tommy can i transfer it to micas this other person
14:17you know has met alice you know way too many times you know um and tom's like no don't worry
14:25about it i'll get you a pass so um i'm in line and you know which i thought was it was really
14:32one of like when we talk about faith destiny and all that stuff i was talking to this person and
14:37they go well why don't you go and buy yourself i go no i go you know you've met alice you know alice
14:43you know the photographer you know all the people back there um i said it'll be good for
14:48you to introduce me to these people so um so the funny thing i go back there and you know i see alice
14:54i you know i just want to thank you so you've been we've been on your show several times and because
15:00of you we've charted and we just started talking now there was his assistant and his assistant was
15:05watching the whole thing and he's the photographer and he grabs the person uh that was with me
15:11and he says is that mike monster yeah that's mike that's mike monster and this guy by the way has
15:19also been alice's personal assistant for 20 years something like that yeah you're talking about but
15:25go ahead all right yeah and he's it was almost like he was crying he was so happy he stopped my
15:31thing with alice he goes alice that's my boss he's that's my old boss alice and then alice was so
15:37he went from obviously being very fortunate he's always a nice guy he had the biggest smile on his
15:43face and he grabbed the guy's get in the picture you gotta be in the picture with the bosses it's
15:46your bosses and um yeah and he i mean and i and i always laugh i said that guy wasn't an asshole as a
15:53boss you know but what what a moment i mean you know i mean it really it was emotional to me as well
16:00where he was like oh my god it's mike and then i started telling alice i'm you know i'm working
16:05with tommy and then and the whole history with that and he's he goes look man so i'm like you know
16:11tommy's the glue of alice cooper he's the glue of vampires and then he this is you know and this is so
16:17alice from what i know of him he goes well do you have passes did you see tommy did you need
16:23anything i go no no i said i said i've been seeing tommy for breakfast every morning
16:26and at this show he's okay i just want to make sure if you need anything you just let me know
16:30oh that's cool and then we end up talking for you know about 40 minutes while everybody who paid
16:36is behind us and then sure enough like the sister and i we reconnected after all these years
16:41she was my employee for three years or so and it was nice that i've seen him now a bunch of times in
16:47nashville and um and every time i go see cooper i know i get to see tommy and sobel and um
16:54you have a question we can say his name kyler so you get to see him as well so
16:58um it's cool it's been the reuniting of a lot of friends yeah it's weird like i think that tommy's
17:03i don't know i don't even know if i ever met tommy before but you know glenn and uh ryan i've talked
17:08with a bunch nita i've talked with a bunch of times and alice i've had the privilege to interview
17:13and meet a bunch of times so it's uh really cool hey the the band uh in theory it's kind of funny
17:19because right now there's like there's like there's like several bands with the with the word
17:22theory in the title right sleep theory theory of a dead man just off the top of my head did it ever
17:28cross your mind when you named the band no you know it's so funny uh how we got the name is in
17:34that there was the first incarnation of in theory and you know when people say well in theory this
17:39is supposed to work in theory that's supposed to work and so we just thought it was funny we're like
17:43yeah that sounds like a good name for a band so like it's like in theory we're a band in theory
17:48you know yeah i could play guitar it was it was stupid but yeah that's how we came up with the
17:53name what do you guys have coming up for the uh rest of the year here you got a summer tour
17:57or anything you're gonna hop on yeah we're what we're still we're still touring you know we have
18:01shows um where we're doing we're we have some shows i think some coming up in knox we just played
18:07your area by the way we played the token oh you did oh yeah oh no spin how long ago was that
18:12that was not even 10 days ago it was us and uh the band angel oh no kidding you oh so did you see
18:20angel play that night yeah we we opened up for angel that night yeah you know so um it's funny i i had a
18:26thing to do one night when they were in town and i really wanted to see them and uh i didn't realize
18:31it was like on a sunday or something and this show they they went on stage at like 7 30 or something
18:35so i get there at like 9 30 and like the place is empty i'm like what is going on here
18:38yeah so yeah we we opened up from that was last year that we played on a sunday yeah sunday oh i
18:44didn't know that yeah so i went there that night and uh and punky and a couple of the other guys
18:49signed a few of my angel albums and it's funny because i didn't grow up knowing anything about
18:55angel just i don't know i grew up in the 80s and stuff but i never knew anything about angel now i was
19:00at a record store one time my wife's like you got to get this angel record so i bought it for like a
19:04buck or something then i put it on like five months later i'm like man i love this now i got a bunch of
19:07angel albums yeah there you know there's another you know i have stories apparently right i get the
19:13koopa story down story um angel was an interesting thing for me because growing up you know when my
19:20brother was three years old than me so you know when you're 11 they're 14 they're a big influence
19:25in your life yeah he was a bass player you know i was an emerging rock star at 11 years old truck in
19:32my mind you know yeah and uh but the first three records i he got me was aerosmith rocks
19:38uh kiss alive and an angel on earth as it is on heaven and i still remember that cover you can
19:44turn it upside down it's it's the same yeah no matter how you turn it and at 11 years old my brother
19:50used to call me punky for punky meadows and last year we've done i think now six six different
19:57legs with angel no kidding wow yeah and um so for me you know i mean to play with angel was was kind
20:06of again it was a very moving thing because my brother used to call me punky and unfortunately my
20:12brother died at 30 years old in a car accident and last year when we the first leg of the tour
20:18got announced was actually on his birthday my brother's birthday you know so um wow yeah so i told
20:25punky the story the first time i met him you know you know and again as a as a kid i was like oh my
20:29god punky and uh but since then i've been you know we've become really good friends and punky and i
20:35have been talking about doing something again he wants his bucket list is to come here and muscle
20:40shows and play and he's a big blues guy as well so we talked about our favorite guitar players where
20:45he wants to do he's not that far from me i think he lives up in north carolina so we're just trying
20:51to figure out a time when he could do it and i can do it and we're gonna lay down you know a couple
20:57of tracks and we even made the joke of calling it um the the uh the two punkies he calls me punky
21:03mozart and punky meadows you know so we we've tossed some ideas around it's just we'll scheduling
21:09allow it to happen is the thing you know talking to you it's it's kind of funny because i just saw
21:14the movie um sinners a couple weeks ago are you familiar with it yeah with the gals is on that one
21:18yeah and uh and it also it's it's it revolves around a blues player to a certain degree and
21:27it's down south i'm not exactly sure where i i know it said it in the beginning of the movie but
21:30i can't recall i can't recall because i was sitting in the theater and the couple next to me would not
21:35stop talking i i think it's in memphis because uh eric eric gales is on the sound trick of that
21:41i'm not sure if you there's a i think he does two of the tracks oh my god i'm not sure if you
21:46listen to it but listen to that track in headphones or earbuds and eric's guitar on that is just
21:54ridiculous he plays with an orchestra um and one of the cool things that they didn't usually when
21:58you play with an orchestra you try and sound like the orchestra right you're doing almost classical
22:03theme type of music um whoever was the director on this um or music supervisor had the the blues
22:12players i think that buddy guy i think uh definitely gals maybe marcus king maybe one of the blues guys
22:18but they were actually playing blues style over orchestra and sonically it is amazing i was in
22:25my it's funny i was actually at the token lounge going to the token lounge when i heard it for the
22:31first time and i put my earbuds in i was like wow that's just amazing i'll have to check that out
22:36i don't recall that but i mean there was a lot of stuff you know bb uh i think yeah bb plays uh he's
22:41got a small part in it right yes and it's got to be in memphis yeah yeah i'm not going to give it away
22:48because it's it's it's a small part but it's actually kind of a large part actually so yeah so
22:52so yeah so i didn't get to see the movie but like i said the first i heard about it was gales was talking
22:57about it on our drive up from muscle shoals to uh to detroit that's so cool well next time you come to
23:04detroit you definitely have to uh swing by so how can people uh check you out you got an ep out right
23:09now or is that coming out well yes we do we have we've put out two eps and what we're doing right
23:15now we have a new uh distributor and it's called deco but deco we're actually um distributed through
23:23warner so on digital we're technically warner and when the physical album comes out not our singles
23:29will be on warner brothers united states will be on cargo records in the united kingdom
23:34um so what we did is while we do have two eps previously um we put out the single with eric
23:43on that came out maybe four weeks ago yeah and then on the 16th we put out the single with tommy
23:50and then on friday the 13th you know scary scary um that's when we put out the the full album which
23:57also includes eric and vinnie appasy and perry richardson and tommy henriks that's a whole word
24:03love to say yeah we're just in tommy henrikson you know long names that rhyme um yeah so that comes
24:10out on uh june 13th the full album and um yeah then we'll take it from there that's cool well listen
24:17mike great to uh talk to you and uh good luck with everything the uh the song is out it's killer
24:21uh the old zeppelin cover and uh man just working with some of those uh legends that's uh it's really
24:26cool thank you i appreciate it
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