My Mom's Basement - MINI POD: LONG LIVE ROCK...CELEBRATE THE CHAOS!

Episode Date: March 12, 2021

Jonathan McHugh & Gary Spivack, the minds behind the new 'Long Live Rock....Celebrate The Chaos!' documentary, join Robbie to talk about how the movie came together, their favorite moments in the process of making it, and their personal rock n' roll fandoms! 3Chi: Use promo code ROBBIE for 5% off at 3chi.comYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/mymomsbasement

Hey My Mom's Basement listeners, you can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Hey Robbie, do you like to rock? I'm a huge rock and roll fan. I was raised on rock and roll by my brother. He's 12 years older than me, so I was very much raised on all that old stuff. Kiss, Motley Crue, and Guns N' Roses were my religion growing up. And who are some of your faves today? I love Greta, who you guys got in the trailer, Greta Van Fleet. I love The Struts.

I like the Pretty Reckless just put out a good album. DMA's down in Australia, kind of like an Australian Oasis sound. I mean, I think there's a ton of good rock, and that's kind of what you guys are showing is with this documentary, rock is still out there. The myth that rock is dead is quite that. It's a myth. Yeah, I mean, look, the bottom quite that it's the myth yeah i mean look

the bottom line is it's not a mainstream format you know the loud guitars the piercing vocals they don't exactly you know go right into program with taylor swift and um and you know some of the new hip-hop today it has hip-hop dominates the landscape um you know the the niche formats become even more niche and this is just one of them but what we found is the passionate nature of this fan and like you said your brother turning you on to stuff that never got out of your head you know it goes on from generation to generation whether you're Led Zeppelin to Judas Priest to all the way to today you know people turn their kids and their brothers and their different family members onto the stuff they love. And for some reason, this genre sticks, and it really sticks family-wise.

And that's one of the things we reference in the film, that if your father was a Yankee fan, odds are your son's going to be a Yankee fan. And even though my son grew up in California, he's a diehard Yankee fan. So music is kind of the same thing. Sports and music, your allegiances to that team. And this hard rock fandom team is insane. They just go hard. And when Gary invited me to come out to his festival, and I got to see in Columbus how they roll, you know, where 200 people during the course of a song will crowd surf from the back to the front, and it looks like an ant scurrying on top of people's hands. That level of energy is so vibrant and cinematic that we just had to capture that, and that was just one kernel of it, you know?

Yeah, so you had the background in movies, and Gary, if I read correctly, has the background in music, right? And that's where this sort of meshed and became a documentary here yeah John and I were both from the record label world where we worked at record labels together and and we're our wives are friendly very close and we're tennis buddies and softball team members I play short he He plays third. We take that side of the infield and dominate. We're both rock music lovers. John

has a special kinship to Rage Against the Machine, as do I. John, we haven't talked about this specifically, but man, that has been a complete COVID rediscovery band for me. Yeah? I listen to Rage so much.

Why? It amazing that how this music what it does for you and i go back i listen to led zeppelin i you know i just listen it's black sabbath like i don't know why this music still resonates so well for me even though i'm so like into all these other genres but if I got to get my energy level up, you know, I'll put this music on and it'll just push me through, you know, it's a really fascinating thing about music, what it can do to people. And, you know, look, some of these people we met, these people in the Midwest that, you know, have basic working lives, lunch pail folks, and, you know, trauma nurses and different people like this it's like this music really guides them and they look forward to going to these festivals and communing together and

getting an rv and just making like a weekend out of it as opposed to going to some fancy tropical vacation they go to columbus ohio they go to louisville kentucky you know they go to sacramento like they go to these tertiary markets where these festivals are. And it was just really beautiful to be a fly on the wall. Let these people let me into their lives and come to their homes and, and their fishing, their favorite fishing holes in West Virginia. So the thing about making film, and as Gary said, you know, I come from the record business and I moved into making soundtracks and then music supervising, then producing films. This is the first film I directed. But it's just an evolution of all the things you've been able to do. And Gary, as a fantastic festival producer, just segued really

easily into being a full producer because there's a lot of the same skills involved and it's follow through, follow through, follow through. And that's kind of what we learned in record promotion that, you know, you can't drop a a ball there's no such thing as dropping a ball um because you can get fired in that world uh so the combination of how to get with the softball field and the tennis court too pretty powerful we dominate a lot of different areas robbie that's the idea um so let's bring it back to the start with both of you guys talking about where you first got into rock and roll what was your first introduction to it like i said it was my brother and who was

your first favorite band for me it was kiss i had every kiss action figure i had all the kiss legos the kiss t-shirts you know i wanted to be gene simmons i eventually became a bass player because what's what's really interesting that so your level of your passion for Kiss started at what age for you three that my dad actually told a story of me being in a record store and reading off the track list of Detroit Rock City before I actually knew how to read I had it memorized so for my first show ever was Kiss when I was 13 years old I think and Zeppelin or maybe it was Kiss then Zeppelin but that's really hilarious that this band, you find it when you're young, and something about it is, but that's generational.

Like, you're going through the generations, because you're 22, I'm 59, right? So think about that gap that this band, however nutty this Gene Simmons fella is, what they create with this marketing and this music. So anyway, for me, it was led zeppelin really that's always been my favorite band since i saw first saw them when i was 13 14 um and so that level of passion never left me i moved on to other genres and gary really brought me back like he would always say hey dude uh he would put out the carrot he's like hey eminem's playing this festival in san bernard wherever, wherever that was.

It goes, Gary, was that Orange County? That was Fontana. Fontana. Like he brought the whole friend crew to one of his festivals with a bunch of hard rock bands. Oh, we're going to see Eminem.

And then while you're there, you get turned on a bunch of these other hard rock bands that you don't even know. And so I was like, wow, there's a lot of energy and a lot of power. He goes, well,

you, if you think this is something you gotta come to Columbus and when he finally when he booked Metallica for the 10th anniversary of his festival there I went and we went with a crew we picked up a crew, brought my cinematographer and we just shot the sizzle reel because that's how you

sell documentaries today you have to have a good sizzle reel oh wow I didn't even realize that that's pretty interesting well not for everybody, Ron Howard yeah but we do a good sizzle reel. Oh, wow. I didn't even realize that. That's pretty interesting. Well, not for everybody. Ron Howard should. Yeah, yeah. We do that way, but we do. The little people do.

But that's how we got the funding to birth this movie, just by going to Columbus, getting an interview with Metallica, shooting a little Metallica, finding a woman crowd surfing on top of her husband. I'm like, we need to have these people in our movie. And that kind of thing, it just kind of went from there. And what about for you, Gary? You know, as you asked that,

and I'd thought about it in a while, it really, my love for rock and roll really reads like a timetable because it started with the Beatles and that led to the Stones and the Who and the Kinks, the big four, which led to Cream and Henrix and it got harder. Zeppelin, Sabbath, then became Bowie. And then I took a nice left turn into bands like The Clash and The Police

and Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello. And in college, I was a huge REM and U2 guy and huge with reggae music, huge. And talking to John earlier today, the band that kind of woke me back up for rock and roll was Jane's Addiction. Oh, yeah. Being an LA boy and seeing them early on, that really kind of opened the door.

And then Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice kicked it down. The whole grunge sound? Yeah, very big for me. Because everything I just mentioned was all based in songs. All about songs. I'm a big song guy. And then you listen to a band like Rage Against the Machine, and to me, they check all the boxes.

They have the energy, the chaos, the intensity, political, social, and the songs are there. Those are songs. Those are verse, chorus, verse, chorus, and just complete chaos when you hear that record. You just want to tear something apart. Rage is one of my favorites too. I mean, Tim Comerford's bass tone as a bass player myself

is like across the entire Battle of Los Angeles album. Iterford's bass tone as a bass player myself is like across the entire battle of los angeles album it's my favorite bass tone ever and then brad wilkes drumming me and my brother who is a drummer we always talk about how he's like almost a 90s bottom in the way that he drums it's like such a fascinating style yeah he's underappreciated because he's such a he's such a pocket drummer he's so in the pocket he serves the song really well just like dave girl did with never mind yes you know as you serve songs and there's there's keith moon and there's dan there's there's danny of tool and these and neil pert these insane drummers i'm a drummer so i can go i can go down that drummer rabbit hole very quickly um but the the drummers that are not appreciated enough are ones that kind of,

you almost don't notice. Q, it's like a great editor. You know, you only notice when editing's bad. You never say, Oh my God, the editing was amazing. Yeah. Right. And, and with, with a drummer like Brad Wilk or, or, I mean, Bonham was such a beast, but some of what he was, you know, you know, it was a great drummer. Meg White's a great drummer meg white's a great drummer yeah i watched an interview with taylor hawkins where he's talking about that recently and he's like people always shit on meg white and they don't realize she was playing what was

unique and right for the song serve the song yeah so um yeah that's my uh that's my story all right and then making the documentary i'm such a rock and roll fan and as a 22 year old rock and roll fan i get a lot of my rock and roll from documentaries. I did. I wasn't around to see all this stuff. So I rely on the documentaries. I've seen so many. What are your favorites? Just in terms of like, oh, man, not even maybe let's make our documentary look like this. Or you take inspiration from it in terms of like, let's tell the legacy in the way that this documentary told it. I mean, some of the ones that come to my mind, not we got inspiration from, but just Searching for Sugar Man is a fantastic story. Great one, yeah. A guy who just was totally forgotten. And that's one of the beauties of documentaries

is they are able to talk about things that, like you said, for you, the history, and not just for you, for anybody. Another one I thought was really well executed by Morgan Neville. And both these films won Oscars. And 20 Feet from Stardom is a great about the background singers, the unknown background singers. And the story on that one was my old boss, Gil Friesen,

who was the president of A&M Records, went to a Leonard Cohen show. And he was like, man, these background singers are like really bringing the show out. They're bringing it together. Like how come nobody talks about the background singers? And that's how that movie got made. And unfortunately, he died before the film won an Oscar, which is incredible. But yeah, like I said, I think it's a great medium.

And Gary and I consume a lot of docs ourselves and we just love it. So we just, you know, thought this would be a great idea. We had the inside access with Gary's connection to the format and the genre and the people. And it just seemed like a great don't see that anymore apparently there's rumors that mtv is going to bring that back if they do good for them but man it's been 20 years of no music on that channel yeah that's they they evolved into something else but you're right i think reference point that behind the musics were done much cheaper than a real doc but they were real solid there was you know you learned a lot of information from those uh episodes you got insight and it was just a way to get i mean especially before the internet a way to see that what the band was like when they weren't on stage um gary you mentioned

being a huge beatles fan i have to selfishly just go on a beatles tangent now and ask you who your favorite beetle is and what your favorite beatles album. John Lennon, because of his kind of punk, how he just was always up to me like the other side of the tracks. And they're all, I love them all. You might ask that question a month from now. It could be a different answer. I'm the same way. Lennon, and today I'll go with the Wyatt album,

which is not like your quintessential Beatles record. Cause it's almost four solo albums. Cause at that time they would, they didn't have that kind of community spirit like they did in revolver, which is I usually cite, but yeah. And you said favorite song. I don't know if you did, but I'm going to throw it back to you, Robbie, because in interviews that I've been a part of, one of the greatest questions I was ever asked was the following. An alien comes down from outer space, and you have three minutes with him, and he said, the alien says, who are the Beatles?

And you get to show him one song. What song do you think best describes the Beatles to nobody who's ever heard them? Man, that is a great question. Because there's a couple of different incarnations in the Beatles, right? Exactly, yeah. You could go like the Please Please Me era, where it's the more poppy Beatles. You could go the later era. I mean, I feel like what I'm about,

this is the first one that came to mind feels like a cliche pick. And I feel like I'm like, damn, I don't want to pick the cliche, but I think it's a day in the life. I think you get a little bit of Johnny, get a little bit of Paul, you get a little bit of psychedelic stuff going on there. Right. You can't go wrong with it. At least. That proves you're a Beatles fan because you're right. It has it all in there yeah another one that's not wait what's what's that I'm just gonna jump in and say for me and thinking about the

record that as a kid I listened to the most because my brother had it was five years older than me was Rubber Soul and uh I just remember listening to that over and over and over again and just going god these guys are unbelievable this is like a different level of stuff, you know? So good. So good. Norwegian wood in my life, Michelle. Oh my God. Yeah. Norwegian wood, you know, when you ask me, it comes to mind as a, not my favorite, but just one that really changed my world and listening to it, it was Norwegian wood. Just, I don't know.

Yeah. There was never a song like that maybe dylan touched on that but there was that was that was a imagine hearing that song in 1965 i always think about that when i'm listening to music i always think imagine listening to this for the first time imagine this blowing your mind imagine listening to tomorrow never knows for the first time just what am i hearing right now like i got an interesting beatles thing this morning um the song um what is it uh come on flat top grooving up slowly uh what together so i always thought that was the beatles thing right so this morning i got into chuck berry riff last night i was listening to chuck berry because he is one of

those guys you go back to and you listen to shit and you're like, you can't believe that shit is 60 years old and this guy did it. But there's a song he does about buying a new car and there's the line come on flat top and it's not grooving up slowly. It's grooving

up something else. I go back and listen to it again. I go back and listen to it. I call my son in and I go, Sean, listen to this. He goes, wow, I never knew that. It's kind of like they were ripping off stuff from different pieces that you didn't even know about. Totally. We all found

out later. I think that some kid with the internet found that out and updated Wikipedia in the 90s or something. The story of how John and Paul bonded together because I think John had a Chuck Berry record or one of the two had a Chuck Berry record and the other one took the bus over to the other

guy's house and they would listen to Chuck Berry record over and over again. Then you see that reference for Come On Flat Top coming up slowly, come back years later. Not even in their period where they're covering Chuck berry but i just was thinking about that this morning so it's hilarious you guys bring up the beatles today yeah beatles

are an everyday thing in my world it's like everything is what would the beatles do what would george do what would you know all right what is your favorite movie about music so a non-documentary but an almost famous type one of these movies well you just you just named it okay yeah damn love letter to rock and roll i was that kid i was youngish looking who would always try to get backstage and uh i've i've promoted and book shows at the san diego sports arena where that was taking place and i i even took a photo from that door oh yeah backstage that's a water is back there that's a famous walkway um yeah you know and one other one in mckee i don't know if you and i ever talked about this but as as a kid growing up um and it was kind of like not a big hit but i just loved it was one trick One Trick Pony, Paul Simon's movie. Paul Simon's movie, yeah. God, that's interesting.

Yeah. I was going to go, My Gut Came to Once. Oh, yeah. And for some reason, that song just melts me. You know what I mean? Fantastic movie. Yeah, but there's obviously so many others that I could go to, you know, but that just pops in my mind quickly as a gut reaction. Now, do you guys have a favorite use of a song in a movie?

One song used in a movie? Well, you got to understand, Robbie, that's kind of my life music supervision and placing songs in movies. Oh, true. Yeah. Music supervising. That's a, that's a fascinating job to me because I feel like that's, you know, a rock and roll lover's dream in a way. Well, it is. And, you know, it's still a high when you get a great one and you put something in that you create or you had created.

But, Gary, I don't know if you have one off the top of your head you want to go to. Tiny Dancer, almost famous. Yeah, it's one of those you can't go wrong with. It's like the first one that comes to mind, but how could you go with anything else? Once has, you know, that kind of capture song you know that thing you do um yeah you know i just go with your rest in peace yeah that would be the john cusack movie within your

eyes um say anything say anything right there you go there you go say anything but you know just so many of them and the music supervisor that came before me, that was a guy named Danny Bramson, who's a legendary music supervisor. He did all Cameron Crowe's movies, worked with Cameron for all his big movies. Jerry Maguire. Another one is Secret Garden that they did from Bruce Springsteen's

Secret Garden from, you know, the – what's the movie? Jerry Maguire. Secret Garden, Bruce Springsteen, Secret Guard. Look, we could go on and on. This is a whole topic, Robbie. If you want to get some music supervisors in a round table, Robbie, you would really enjoy that, talking about the- I'm sure I would, yeah.

How the game works. And, you know, I'll just tell you one story from this movie. So we had this great opening with Metallica, right? We had Who the Bell Tells Live, and they gave us their footage, and it's ridiculous. I watched it again this morning going, what a way to open a movie, I was thinking. Anyway, so this girl, Jess, who's one of our characters,

goes, you know, her two loves are, she's a trauma nurse, 16-hour days, tough life. Her two loves are crowd surfing and fishing. So I went with her to West Virginia. We went fishing, packing a 45 in her, in her waistband because we've seen deliverance. So you know about West Virginia and or I should say a girl out on her own in the middle of any stream, not, not to shame on West Virginia. But so, so I tried some classical music.

Gary's like, boring. I was like, all right. And then I tried the the Nordic string band Apocalyptica doing the Metallica song for Nothing Else Matters. And I was like, Gary's like, whoa, that's kind of good. I was like, yeah, that really works. So I was going to New York, and I went to go show Metallica's managers, like, you know, to ask them, like, hey, I don't want to use Two Masters, but I'd love to use another Metallica copyright, but I don't want to be greedy and ask for Two Masters.

And I show it to him. He goes, that's really nice, but why aren't you using our song? And I was like, well, because I didn't want to kind of go there. He's like, no, man, that works great. Use our song. And Gary and I go back with Metallica's managers 20 years since we worked with them. So we've known them a long time.

But it was really beautiful that they got it and, you know, gracious enough to give us a second master for the movie because that's, you know, not everybody's getting to show a fishing stream and play Metallica, nothing else. Exactly. So that kind of stuff, I still take stock in and I still realize how important it is to have, you know, great music in your film and have

relationships for people to play ball with you like that. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, you hear stories like that all the time. I feel like there was one when the wrestler came out, Mickey Rourke said, Axl Rose watched the movie and just let him have Sweet Child of Mine because he was like, man, that movie is like exactly what, you know, I got it. I enjoyed what you were looking to do there. Question for both of you guys. I assume because you've been in the music industry for so long that maybe you're a bit jaded to meeting musicians or your idols, your former idols, but Howard Stern has said the best part of his job is getting access to the people that he grew up watching. Who are those people for you?

Who are the people that when you met him, you were like, oh, my God, this is crazy. I can't believe I'm working with them. I mean, I'll jump in right here. I'll just say, you know, when I was the president of Grammys, I met a lot of people. But, you know, Steve Vaya hired to do a movie. And he's like, hey, we were at a party. He's like, you want to come over and meet Jimmy Page? I'm like, yeah.

As a Zeppelin fan, okay. I told him a story about being a paperboy and saving up all my money to buy tickets in 1977. And when he got hit by a 180 that night, I was praying for him that the show wasn't over and he was going to be okay. That would be my number one, I guess. Gary?

You know, not to sound cliche, but really the people in this film, getting to work with Metallica and getting to know Duff McKagan on a personal level and getting to work with Q Prime, which I just revere them as managers and industry titans so much. And to have mutual respect and just to talk shop with them and to get closer with Lizzie of Hailstorm and Taylor of the Pretty Reckless and to get to know these people not just as rock stars, but as humans. Because when I produce festivals, you get small talk with them and maybe some backstage time. And, you know, it's like cut and paste. But over this course of this actual film of long live rock i've gotten to know people

like jacoby and miles kennedy um really well like exchanging texts like have you seen this movie or you know i know jacoby is like a major nfl fan and will text on sundays so that's uh these are you know that again that brings it whole back to this movie, Long Live Rock, of how there's a real family, a community spirit that is kind of interwoven throughout this film. And you see it with fans as well. Like when I try to put people on to rock and roll music and then someone else finds out in my office, oh my God, you're a Zeppelin fan? I'm a Zeppelin fan. And you get talking right away it's like because it's not that mainstream thing anymore it's sort of tighter knit than it ever has been i'm sure you guys realize that the documentary i'm sure that's basically what it's

about yeah this movie is all about that community and how these people bond and they turn each other on to stuff at a festival and and they you know they uh just, it becomes one, you know, the music makes them one. And that is a beautiful thing, especially, you know, like John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio, has a great line. You know, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, it doesn't matter. The music catches you. It's a classic line. And I'm glad we got him in there because, you know, the country has been so polarized the last four years. And you realize, realize man it's like

everybody should go to a festival together but can leave real yeah we need live music back that's like we're praying whatever the vaccine needs to do to give us live music and festivals as soon as it happens that's what we need but for now we've got long live rock you could relive all the festivals streaming everywhere special global premiere march 11 then to the world march 12 there you go