Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Martin Popoff: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1750

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

In this 1750th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with prolific metal author Martin Popoff about how confusion and uncertainty surrounding tariffs have forced him to pause his mail order enterprise. There's also some Oasis and Ozzy discourse in the mix. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, the Waterfront BIA, Blue Sky Agency and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

The orange stain, he basically like mutters the word all and customs like forgets that books are a different thing than something else. And you know, you know, the, you know, the MAGA people just hate the word books anyways. Welcome to episode 1,750, that's right, the big 1750 of Toronto-Miked, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees

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pillars of the community since 1921. Today, returning to Toronto-Miked, it's the world's most widely recognized journalist covering heavy metal. It's Martin Popoff. Hey, Mike, how are you? Good. How are you doing?

Good. Where are you roll? Well, you know what I say? I say we've already begun. We've already begun. Thanks for making time for me this Monday morning. Or no, afternoon now, this Monday afternoon. Yeah, absolutely. Are you in Toronto right now? Yep. Cool. Ready to go to Oasis, actually. I've got a buddy and from England who's working on a TV series here and he says, I got to take you, I got to take you, got to convert you to Oasis. So, so we're going, going tonight.

Well, this begs the question. So you haven't been converted yet. So what's your current take? Like, what is your current opinion of Brit Pop Phenoms Oasis? Oh, I'm way low on them. I haven't paid very much attention to them at all. I don't really, boy, if I was to go through a checklist of it, it's like, don't like the singing, don't like the lyrics, don't like the production, don't like the guitar work, don't like the album covers. You know, I'm entertained by the interviews,

and that's about it. I can see being converted and maybe go in the back door through Noel's solo stuff, perhaps. But, no, I just haven't been a fan of any of that music, really, except for, and I think it's beneath them to put them in the category. But Manic Street Preachers, I love to death.

I play them all the time. but that's really the only band semi-associated with that that I've been into. Okay, if you tolerate this, your children will be next. Absolutely, yeah. All right, by the way, lucky you, hopefully tonight, when you see Oasis, said it's not going to be as wet as it was yesterday. I saw a lot of picks and stuff from a very wet Rogers Stadium. Yeah, there's still the threat of rain a little bit, I think, but we'll see.

We shall see. So thanks for making the time here. definitively, do you know how many books you've authored in your career? But 135. So you don't have about 135. So it might be 136. It might be 134. No, it's almost like anything when someone tries to think of a short answer of something.

So a lot of them are updates of old books. So do you really count them? There's things like gold mine record price guides that my name is on five of those when I was running those. And am I really writing those? I'm really compiling a pile of data and doing a little writing around the edges. So a lot don't have a lot of writing in them or not that many, but some don't have a lot of writing in them. But some of the updates, you know, they get a new title, a new cover.

They get expanded. You know, when is it a new book kind of thing? So it's just a good round number. Great debate. Like how much new content needs to be in there for you to consider it a new book? Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, you think of the.

reviews book. So I did a, I did, my very first book was a big book of heavy metal record reviews. Then that got hugely expanded in 97. And then we split it into four decades and then it got even more expanded at that point. Well, 135. See, because I'm a big, you know, archiver. I know how many kilometers I bike this month. I know this is episode 1750. So you're the 1,750th episode. So you're about 135. By the way, on that note, let me just tell you. tell the listeners. So I have a very specific reason I reached out to FOTM Martin Popoff today

and we'll get to that in a minute. But I just want to tell the listeners that you can hear Martin Popoff on a previous episode of Toronto Mike because we connected in March 2022. I had Brother Bill and Cam Gordon with me and we dove into the history of

metal in Canada. So this was your second appearance on Toronto Mike and it's long overdue, Martin. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was a lot of fun. That was a cool idea. Well, you know, I look back at that sub-series of Toronto Mike. We called it progressive past of modern melodies

because Alan Cross at Chorus has the ongoing history of new music. And I wanted to like have a title that was kind of like synonyms for those words. So like instead of ongoing history of new music, it's progressive past of modern melodies.

You get that? Nice. Yeah, absolutely. Nice. You could appreciate that. Okay. Yeah. And One other note before we dive into the subject at hand, which is, I do listen. I subscribe and listen to History and Five Songs with Martin Popov. And you do great work on that podcast, Martin. Oh, thanks very much. Yeah.

I mean, it was a pretty simple idea. It took me about five minutes to come up with it. But then it's lasted. It just seems to be a good sort of bone structure to do these things on. I do no editing. I just go for it. All we do is strip in the song. So I just come up with an idea and let a rip.

We're up to 322 of them now. Do you ever get concerned you'll run out of ideas? Yes. Not so much the ideas, but it's like I'll run out of my knowledge base. I'll repeat myself. I do worry that I'm like kind of going over things that I've gone over before. I also worry that I'm going over things that we've covered on our YouTube channel, the contrarians, or I've done on other people's shows.

that's not so much of a concern but uh you know it's uh if i if i want to put the work into it it's funny if you know if you really want to put the work into this stuff you can do lots of things and lots of talks on topics that you have to do a fair amount of research on to come up to speed and and and do them on right um i don't want to do that out of laziness i don't i don't want to actually just go do that work to do a podcast that's number one but number two, I've always found that when I had to do a lot of research on something, it just doesn't come flying out of me super fast, and I'm looking at notes and stuff. And I constantly think, you know, the older you get, the more you know what you don't know. And you're at that

point where, you know, half the time you're going, you're thinking, when you're talking about something you don't know about, you're thinking, oh, they're going to suss me out on this as a fraud. You know, I really, you know, it's going to be obvious to the superficial. fans that I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, like, so I guess after tonight when we get five greatest Brit pop acts, then we'll know, okay, what's going on there? Exactly. Yeah, I'm going in this, you know, obviously having seen, you know, watched Oasis's career

through the years, I'm going into this being like a really low-level fan. I really don't know anything about Oasis. I'll say this again, I'm not a metal head like you and I'm a few years younger, but those first two Oasis albums were so key to my, I had them both on CD and I listened to them both often in the 90s. So I still think, I think, you know, maybe because my ears are, uh, my ears better, they more unlike yours, they prefer that 90s alt-rock sound, maybe even more than a metal sound. And I got to say, I think those are two stellar albums. All right. So we'll see. Let me know. I want to, I look forward to hearing your review on, uh, Oasis tonight. And I want to hear what

you think of the stadium too because I have not seen a concert there but I've heard like logistically I mean personally I biked all my shows I think I'd be fine but logistically I've heard some horror stories getting in and out of the stadium I'm curious I'll be curious what you think of that that's that's an awesome idea yeah to bike to something that like that would be great yeah well you could do that yeah for sure so okay so we mentioned 135 books how like traditionally How do you sell these books? Do you self-publish and then direct sales to the metal fans out there? I really haven't self-published much in a long, long time.

I used to self-publish more. So, you know, for the last bunch of years, it's all through different publishers. I have one UK publisher who has now published about 50 of my titles. And a lot of those titles were self-published in the early days. And then we buffed them off and took, and they took them over. So they're through a publisher, right? And the rest are through, well, ECW Press here in Canada, but also two really good big publishers in the States,

Schiffer Publishing and Quarto, Quote, Quarto, Motor Books, Voyager. They go by a lot of names. So they've done about 25 books of mine. But I just signed on with these guys. You see the Deo book out here, which isn't even out yet. and the big massive 666 page Iron Maiden book and a 640 page deep purple book which is out even after the deal

which I just got my copy in the other day so those two publishers are in the states right and so to answer your question what I've done a lot of over the years is I always buy copies of all my books and I'm a mail order guy of my own books too so when you say how do I sell my books well 95% of them or even more more than way more than that are are just like the

publisher doing what a publisher does and putting them on amazon and putting them in bookstores and and them selling them and maybe some of them will sell direct or whatever blah blah so so you know most of my book sales are are just done the usual way um but uh you know it's a big chunk of my income every year being a mail order guy of my own books when you have that many books because a lot of people are taking two or three at once and all that. And a new book comes out and I'm just instantly moving like 100 copies, signing them, sending them out and stuff. But that's sort of coming to an end right now. And that brings us to this conversation because I know as a listener of your fine podcast history and five songs of Martin Popoff, that's you. Like I know you'll talk about

martinpopoff.com and people can go there and, you know, you'll ship them books, But if I, and again, I got a timestamp this, so, because who knows what will happen 10 minutes from now. But August 25th, 2025, about 1 p.m., if I go to martinpopoff.com, the site's not there. It's more of a, we'll see you later. We'll be back under construction, kind of a notice. So tell us in great detail, because I'm very curious, why did you shut down Martinpopoff.com? Well, I don't want to bore you with this, so I won't give you the massive long answer. I like to be bored.

I like the, maybe I'm the last guy who's curious about the details. Well, okay. So it all started back on May 5th when Trump suspended the de minimis rule for anything made in China, right? So that was the first thing. So the de minimis rule was something made in the 1930s where all packages going all over the place into the U.S. From all over the place into the U.S. Didn't matter what was made, didn't matter where it was coming from, up to $800 value. no duty, you know, it's duty-free, no paperwork, nothing too complicated, right?

So the first test of this whole thing was when this happened with China, turns out a whole pile of my books from Cordo and my big Iron Maiden from Schiffer, brand new books, you know, which I could probably sell a lot of copies of, if I could, they're all made in China. So that caused that problem right away. So the current situation with China is there is tariffs, and it's like 35%. um it's not supposed to be we're all arguing with the mailhouse about that and and kuzma and i e p a and all this and books are supposed to be duty free blah blah blah blah i'll get into that later

but so at that point it's almost like um you know i'm i'm proving i'm proving what i thought was happening with trump's tariffs in most cases right it's like the left all says oh you know what it's the importers that pay all the tariffs and the right is all saying oh we're collecting billions of dollars in tariffs every month, right? So, so it's somewhere in the middle, right? So the point is, is that, is that I write these emails and I swear it's, it's like what's happening on a much, much grander scale where two parties are saying, let's share the pain. You pay half the tariffs, I'll pay half the tariffs and we'll both complain, right? And so, so it's kind of like proving Trump correct in that, in that, you know,

it's not always, it's not going to be the American consumer at the end who's going to pay all the tariffs um you know i'm living proof that we're splitting it right um so that's china and then what happened was on around august first i looked up the big beautiful bill and it said uh the the the de minimis thing was going to end like july 2027 or something then two days later he says no i'm changing that to august 29 this year so now all all stuff coming in from everywhere into the states no de minimis rule so um it's essentially i'm seeing on facebook all my buddies with like cd exporter companies from europe or australia are all saying we're suspending shipments it's too much hassle screw it we're not we're not sending stuff to the states it's cost us money it costs you money

you know right now with my mailing house you got to put in manufacturer situation if it's china so it takes an extra few minutes um and it does cost more There's a little admin fee, but mostly it's the tariff thing, right? So, de minimis is a different thing from how are books supposed to go and how is media mail supposed to go. That's the other thing. So, you know, the orange stain, he basically, like, mutters the word all and customs, like, forgets that books are a different thing than something else. And, you know, you know, the, you know, the MAGA people just hate the word books anyways. It's like an intellectual product.

It's like, so it just puts them in a bad mood probably anyway. So they just say, yeah, we, we don't care. Let's, let's just, you know, everything's got a duty on, right? So, so even with my mailing house, books right now is supposed to work through their little fancy computer system at 7.5%. It doesn't. It's 35. And, and the whole Kuzma thing. So we're having these Ask Me Anythings with my mailing house.

And even this thing, if something's covered under Kuzma, it still means you have to go get this form filled out and do all this crazy stuff. and then prove that it's under Kuzma, you just don't say, oh, guess what, everything under Kuzma's fine, right? No, it's still a bunch more admin. So the bottom line is I closed my site a couple of days ago until whatever changes happen, if it does happen. I mean, August 29th, we're talking right now on the 25th, there may be a threshold where there's so much people complaining that something gets changed. It might have to do with de minimis and stuff. But one thing I've been telling people is that everything in the news, everything, that's big in the news about tariff rates, the tariffs are on,

the tariffs are off, that's all everybody talks about. When these finicky little things like de minimis get done, I swear, like the Democrats might win and everybody will forget to change this stuff back, right? It's all these little things that you wonder that they're going to get to

kind of thing. I mean, it's not really on the radar. You never see any news about this stuff, but a lot of people are complaining. And you know, the reason it was let's let's go back so the reason it was put in in the first place in the 1930s was that it's more hassle and more expensive to collect small amounts of duties than then uh then it is you know just letting them go kind of thing right but the reason the reason he removed it on

china was that these big mailing places like timu or whatever where you know it was basically against them not realizing that everybody all around the world who who exports small packages who runs any kind of mail order business now is a hassle dealing with the states so the rules are all up in the air we're going to see what happens but as it stands right now it's just too much of a pain to uh to want to be selling anything into the state so i haven't restocked stuff so i the main reason i closed my site really more more than even everything i just said is that i've been running this massive fire sales since the beginning of august getting rid of so much stuff that i didn't want people to order things, just hit the PayPal button on things that I don't have

because when I refund them, PayPal keeps the fees now, right? So I was out of so much stuff that I didn't want people ticked off that they're ordering things that I don't have, and I have to refund them, and PayPal keeps the fees. So that's, that was the main reason to take it off. But like I say, the other reason is if everything stays the same after this, every single book, all this stuff, anything that I've made in Canada, which has been fine up until tomorrow, end of day tomorrow, because my mailing house is suspending early because things have got to get through the system. But I left, I've been mailing and selling so much stuff because most of what I have is either made in Canada or made in the UK. And it's just

these other ones that are made in China that have been the problem so far. Even my new Guns and Roses book through Cordo, I happen to get made in Malaysia. so it was fine right my new deal book behind me which isn't even out yet is made in india so i thought oh that's going to be great that's going to be fine business as usual but no now then he changed it to august 29th was every single country so yeah it's uh it's going to be a big deal and it's just going to depend on how much anybody complains about this whether anything gets changed well i mean you know the reason i wanted to get you on is to get the detail straight from the horse's mouth so to speak because, you know, the small guys like you and I, to learn how we're affected by

these, you know, the whims of the, as you come the orange stain, I like that. I'm going to borrow that. But everything's two weeks and everything changes on a whim, and I'm not sure anybody knows exactly the details of what to implement, but it is fascinating to hear how somebody like you is affected by this whole tariff era that the orange stain has brought. in here. Fascinating. Yeah, I mean, we do only really hear about the big macro things like steel and aluminum and all that and just these massive tariff rates that get applied to all.

But I swear, that is how, you know, our mailing house is very strict in going by the book. But the fact of the matter is customs is literally kind of going on his whims as well. And then I'm surprised, you know, there was one little. point there a little while ago where they were saying it may not all happen on the 29th because it depends on how much paperwork it is for them to apply the system so it might even turn out that after the 29th they're they're just kind of kind of let it go but the mailing house also said that the point is on the 29th on a dime it can happen whenever they feel they can make it make it work right so it still might linger on after that but uh yeah who knows who knows uh it's uh

I think Americans, I've noticed on Facebook, I think they're going to find out how much, how many people are little mail order businesses out there and how many are, I've seen a lot of hostility people saying, that's it, not sending packages to the states anymore. Well, I mean, margins are already pretty darn thin, but to deal with, you talk about the extra admin, but then the extra the tariffs and all the, the rigmarole that you got to deal with here, at some point it becomes just, it's just, it's just, not worth it, right? Yeah, yeah. And, but, you know, again, you know, you hate Trump to get his way, but he might actually be right. You know, there may be some industries that, that if it looks like these things are going to actually stick, that they will start producing more things in the states, right?

And printing's a funny one. Printing is not so far-fetched as like iPhones or steel or oil or. or, you know, GM and everybody just, you know, re-engineering all their car plants in the States or Mexico and Canada. Printing is kind of somewhere in the middle where it's not completely out of the question that more books might get printed in America, you know, because of this, right? Let me ask you this question, since you are the world's most widely recognized journalists covering heavy metal, putting that in quotes. everybody knows this Martin but let's let me ask you so the typical metal head if I may that's not an offensive term right I can refer to the the metal shirt yeah the typical metal head because we all know the typical country music fan leans to the right they're typically

Republican like this is something I understand to be true like how does the typical heavy metal fan lean are they to the left are they centrist are they to the right what would you say in your experience i you know it's funny i i think through facebook we found out we've been very surprised that that uh uh you know i would say 25 to 35 people have come out uh as as maga types and then they start arguing stuff you go i had no idea that guy was like that right um so how do they lean i would say um i would say that uh this might be a boring answer but i would say i would say i would say say it reflects the population almost no you know i would say it probably leans a little more left um than uh than the american population at large right because it can you know yeah how much of

the right is maga really right so i i would say two thirds of the right is maga i would say uh you know you know check off many of the boxes put it that way kind of thing um so uh so if forty nine two thirds of 49% 2 thirds of 50% is is what so 33% of that so you know so let's maybe say a third of America's

MAGA I would say that I would say that you know slightly less of that is of the metal heads are like that are you ever afraid as a business person are you ever afraid of like alienating that many metalheads by referring to their president

as an orange stain no i've argued on facebook pretty openly uh on and off and and you get mostly support and you and you do get into some really fun arguments and stuff i mean you do get a lot of pushback and there is a lot of a lot of arguing but no i i think i think my views are pretty well known well you are canadian so uh you know yeah and i watch all that you know guard the leaf has a great channel and uh you know i i i watch a lot of those things about the the tourism stuff and and what's going on there And, yeah, I mean, I've basically boycotted. I'm not going to the States anytime soon. You know, it's, it's, yeah, I get so upset, you know, like some of these channels where, where these, these governors and stuff, want to come here and talk to us and welcome us back and stuff. It's like, well, the point is, no, you got to go to Washington and complain to Washington. And, you know, I literally, I literally want to say, you want the Canadians to come back. You've got to replace all the federal border agents with state border agents.

You've got to abolish ice from your state. You know, all these things that wouldn't even have crossed their mind, right? I'm so happy to hear this. I lately have noticed I've had a very short temper when it comes to people I care about learning that they're going to the USA for purely pleasure. Like if you're going for work, I can wrap my head around it. Or if you're going because you need to visit your old aunt and she can't make it up or whatever. You've got to go down and visit here. whatever, I can wrap my head around it.

But when I hear, oh, yeah, we're going to pop, we're going to go to, I don't know, we're going to go to Disney World or we're going to go check out a concert in Nashville or whatever. That's so funny you say that, Mike, because I've been watching a lot of Jays games lately, right? And, you know, because the Jays are doing really well. And I'm getting really more into baseball, right? Maybe it's a bandwagon thing, whatever. But, you know, I used to think, oh, that's so great, look at all those Jays fans at this

Miami game or whatever or cheering for them. Now it's like, I hate all you people. What are you doing there? Oh, yeah, no, no doubt. Like, exactly, it's then a flip where you were kind of, oh, look, we travel well, we're supporting the team now. I'm pissed off if I find out a Canadian has gone to see, I don't know, a Tigers game in D. J's versus Tigers in Detroit. Yeah, I know.

I know, even that, right? Even just crossing from Windsor to see a game, right? And we used to do that all the time. Like, we are big, big bills, visitors. And, you know, we've been to, we've seen NFL games in probably. six cities. We've seen baseball games and probably around the same. We've gone all the way to L.A. and seen, you know, NHL games in Anaheim and, yeah, we, and we just got back from a very, very nice trip in Montreal, which, by the way, is probably my favorite city in Canada now.

Just loved it to death. It was so cool. But yeah, we're not, we've got no plans to go to the states for anything for quite a while. I've grown quite fond of Montreal myself. My oldest daughter is going to McGill and she's been living there for this is her fourth year there so I'm still a Toronto guy love I have no intention of leaving Toronto but I know you're from out west so it's a little different for you but I got to say a strong second right now for me in this country is Montreal what a great city yeah we were just talking about that yesterday I got a rate Toronto high too but you know the only two places I want to live in in the world you know and are Nelson

BC or Manhattan you know those are those are my two favorites and let london england be be close uh montreal is is not above toronto for me just because i i'm too old to learn the language i'm right you know the french thing right but absolutely it i i think it is my number one favorite city now okay but you know manhattan off the off the list until there's a change down there right yeah well the change like like a lot of people say the change is not trump it's it's it's trump it's all the people at fox news it's uh it's uh it's uh the the 25 most powerful people below Trump, you know, I would love to see a bunch of mega people recant, but, you know, they're always going to be there, right?

So it's like, you know, I get mad when Americans say, I'm not going back to the states until Trump's out of office. It's like, well, no, there's more than Trump's the problem. Yeah, if Trump dropped dead today, cross your fingers, you know, Vance, as president, nothing changes. There's still this 51st state agenda and devastating this country of mine, Canada, economically until we apparently were so devastated will now beg to please become a part of the great United States of America. Yeah, I've been hearing things on Vance lately, and it's like, I'm almost a little optimistic that he would be a very different person than he is now. He's a pretty smart guy. He definitely, David Frum has said that. David Frum is quite impressed with him,

right he he he knew him early on um but um i i have a feeling i have a feeling if he came into power and he showed some uh some power if he if he actually um you know was not scared of maga um i think uh i think he would he would change tack on a lot of different things well you have a more positive attitude than i do that's for sure hey can i go back to something just to clarify something you said early in this chat you talked about over 95% So is that over 95% of these book sales are not through Martinpopoff.com?

Oh yeah, of course, yeah. I just want to make sure because I got to make sure you know, you're still able to sell these books and everything. So this Martinpopoff.com shutting down and the direct sale there, that's just like a small percentage of the actual books that you're selling to mail.

Well, yes, but, you know, I make 20 bucks a book when I'm selling it myself. Right. The margins are higher. Zero to $1.50 when it's through any other thing. Because a lot of books I'm taking a deal now these days where it's like just a flat fee for turning in the text, so I'm not even getting royalties.

And if I am getting royalties, you know, royalties on a book is like a buck 50, right? Kind of thing. Maybe even less. Maybe a buck on a smaller paperback or whatever. So, yeah, I mean, most of the line share of the sales are done the usual

way. But, it's really nice when I'm like constantly pumping books out, you know, 100 packages, 200 packages a month, sort of thing of my own books. You know, generally not 20 a book. I mean, it used to be 20 book. And it's, it is about 20 a book when someone's just going to my site, hit the PayPal button ordering one book, right? So it's got one postage in there and all that kind of thing.

But, you know, as soon as people order a couple or three books from me, I usually waive the profit kind of thing and give them a nice package. package deal but but yeah so so um i i could keep doing these books um but uh but yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna make a lot less money on it even though you know every book that comes out i'm really only selling like um i don't know uh on average i would say 130 copies uh of of a book of mine that i'm buying off a publisher maybe 200 maybe a hundred depends maybe if it's just an update or whatever But that little bit, right, so if it's 100 books and I'm making 20 a book, so it's adding a couple grand onto my deal, essentially every time I buy books and sell 100, right? Put it that way. I find it fascinating, this whole world. I find it fascinating. What is, of these 135 books, approximately, 135, which is your greatest, like your bestseller? Which of these 135 books have appeared on the most coffee tables in this planet?

on you asked that because they just did a very nice Toronto Star article on me right I don't know if you saw that so a full page of the entertainment section turn the page full page article this last Saturday right so but the reason I bring that up is because they they asked me that too and then he went and found the answer Cody the guy who in or hang on Corey just boy I can't remember who interviewed me um hang on was his name Corey? uh anyways he went and got the answer because i wasn't too sure and i i thought it was the very first rush book that i ever put out right right and um it turns out that that probably is correct and uh i think it says in the article 37 000 copies of that book um and then the whole rush trilogy did really well too like when that thing was split into three books and greatly expanded right um so that came out um so that was big. I've got other ones that through Cordo are probably in the

I don't know, what would you say, 12,000 to 18,000 range. Some books, right? You know, they often say like 5,000 makes you a Canadian bestseller, right? Yeah, but I think they're referring to, yeah, so number one, I'm saying

that's worldwide, right? And a lot of my book, like this shelf over here, all these shelves here, that's all foreign language, right? So there's a lot of worldwide, but, but I guess these numbers are more or less worldwide, you know, and I would say 80% of that is in the states, right? But then, you know, a lot of the books we put out through my UK publisher, they're printing a thousand or, you know, and hopefully getting through a thousand, then maybe running another 500 or whatever. So lots and lots of my books are in the low thousands, but yeah, I don't think any of these, you know, most of these American published books, they're wanting to get up.

into the high, high four figures at least. Corey a tad? Corey, yes. Okay, because I just found it. And it's funny because this episode came to, this was literally like, I was thinking, I heard,

I heard you talk about it on your podcast. And then just today, like this morning, I was recording with a client. And then I had this idea like, oh, I haven't, you know, it's rare to have this empty day.

I have no Toronto mic episodes recording today. I'm like, oh, if I can get pop off on the line and get some answers to these questions, but I had no idea. until right now that this Toronto Star article existed. This is amazing. It was great.

It was in print and everything, man. Big huge picture and two pages. This is cool. I'm looking to my left. I had a similar four-color page, two-page thing in the Toronto Star a few years ago. It said, Talk of the Town. I'm looking at it.

I literally got a PDF of that front cover, and I printed it, and it hangs on my studio wall. Nice. Very cool. But I'm looking at it. These are great photos. So you had a Toronto Star guy come over and take photos. Yes, absolutely, yeah.

Do you remember who was? Oh, Richard Loudens. That's who came over to my house. Yeah, of course. Yeah, Richard's a legend. His dad was a legend. His son Christian's getting into it. His daughter's getting into it.

Richard's been there for like 30 years or something. I know him because our sons grew up together. So we'd be sitting at baseball games and stuff all the time. And so, yeah, he came over, took a bunch of shots. Oh, they look great. Okay, so amazing people check out. your Toronto Star for it's called a prolific rock

book. Hold on, I gotta get this right. Oh, Martin Popoff, Toronto author of 135 books on bands like Rush and ACDC created a cottage industry. Here's what might spoil it. So I had no idea that existed, but I'm glad we got to, you know, get the story from you, but I'm going to

ask you about somebody on our way out since I actually have Martin Popov on the line here. In my opinion, I'm not a metalhead, but I do dabble. Okay, I do enjoy some heavier stuff. I don't think on this planet Earth, I don't believe there was a bigger name when it came to your genre of expertise

than the name Ozzy Osbourne. Like I think, is there a big, it was, I have to use past tense, as sad as that is, but was there a bigger name in heavy metal and hard rock than Ozzy Osbourne? Yeah, I was pretty surprised when all that happens and all the brouhaha from it because there was obviously the big concert

that was a big deal we did a couple video shows on that when he died i had i went on a couple radio shows and i was supposed to be on sky tv uh in the uk but then they changed it and but i was on i i went and uh was part of an article for pbs and i was on cbc news i was on the on the news and uh on the website and uh and all that so it just went on and on for a long time a lot of people i know were saying yeah i was interviewed by these guys and these guys and whatever and everybody did video shows on it and uh i did, I, I think I did a two podcast episodes on it. Yeah, he was absolutely, and then, you know, you learn through that process of talking

about him why he was so famous. And then, you know, unfortunately, it comes down a lot to the Osbournes and stuff like that and Sharon Osbournes fame as well, you know, as an American Idol or whatever show that was, she was a, uh, uh, yeah, America's got talent, maybe. Okay, I don't know which one. I know, I know. But, you know, the Osbournes is a big deal. And then Aussie and then a lot of the lurid headlines and biting the head off the dove and the bat and all that stuff.

So, yeah, he was huge. You know, most of us in the metal world, we were always a little uneasy about talking about Ozzy because a lot of people don't realize he wasn't the guy writing the lyrics or the music. He doesn't play anything and all that. So that's always a little. Even in Sabbath, it was Gieser Butler writing the lyrics, right? So that's always a little weird. But yeah, I would say the biggest name. We were all debating this recently in this little industry email group on part of actually just over the last couple of days.

Who's the next biggest name? And we came up with like Alice Cooper, Angus Young. There was a debate about Jimmy Page versus Robert Plant, James Hetfield. then we're starting to split it up by era and generation. People are saying Alice Cooper's may be fading a little bit. Would it be David Lee Roth? You know, people talk about Van Halen being one of these bands that seems to be,

you know, centered out as a band that's going to fade a little over time that people are slowly forgetting about and people are quite surprised. They don't get talked about very much. A lot of guys are putting down Alice Cooper, but yeah, I don't know. biggest name in hard rock and heavy metal? Okay, so I think about this stuff all the time.

I don't know why. I always think about these things. And I think, just to go back to Ozzy for a minute, I think you had the triple, the trifecta, which is he's got the bona fides with Black Sabbath, okay? But of course, Black Sabbath is a harder rock band and won't get you the mass, the Great Unwashed. But he's got those bonifides of Black Sabbath. So there's Black Sabbath, Ozzy. But then there's Solo Ozzy. and this is what actually captures me, at least, my age. I'm kind of growing up in the 80s, and I'm kind of, you know, crazy train, and then I got a no rest for the Wicked.

I had it on CD. I loved that CD. I played it all the time. No rest of way. So there's that solo Aussie, and you'll hear a Q&O7 playing a lot of solo Ozzy. So you got, to recap here, you got your Black Sabbath.

That's the one big thing, captures guys of a certain age. Then you got the solo Ozzy, but what breaks him to make him the most famous name in your genre is absolutely, and I didn't watch a lot of this, but it is the reality show. That's why my mom knows Ozzy Osbourne, right?

So now the Great Unwashed, they know Ozzy as a reality TV stars. So the three come together. And the only name- Well, let's add to that, Mike. Ozzy solo in the 90s, Ozfest, and then Black Sabbath reunion, right? So you add all that together.

I mean, Ozzie was a huge star. He's one of the only metal stars to survive the 90s as a massive act. It's Ozzy and ACDC and Metallica rolling their way through the 90s, maybe along with a new band like Pantera. But he was big then, and he was still big in the 2000s, right?

So as long as he was, you know, and he put out records. And then at the end, you know, surprise to everybody, he got two records, two studio albums out in the last few years, right? Right. Well, I'm going to throw another name at you

because I'm hearing you, Alice Cooper, absolutely, he's a big name. Alice Cooper's greatest hits that he put out whatever in the early 70s. Martin, I can't tell you how many times I spun that CD. I just love that stuff. Anyways, big guys. So, okay, so the name I'm going to throw at you, you tell me if it qualifies if he's hard enough rock for you.

I know you're a big fan, but I think the name Stephen Tyler will be a big one. Well, that's another band that I wonder if they are lasting as well as some of these other guys. right um you're right he'll he'll be up there and uh i would say uh i would say he's fifth or sixth out of all those guys we mentioned right well so you got you got to you got to have your robert plant your jimmy page axel rose as well you've got to have angus young in there you got to have alice cooper in there uh and yeah james hetfield i think the other three metallic guys could go a little further down the list but yeah stephen tyler you're right about that

There are two reasons, again, not to interrupt the great Martin Popoff here, but the two reasons I think Stephen might even, believe it or not, be ahead of some of those people you mentioned, is the two reasons. One is he totally captures what the Americans would call the MTV generation. I'm going to call it the Much Music Generation. But Aerosmith has huge videos with Felicia Silverstone and Liv Tyler and everything, right? So they have this like rebirth and video air there.

But also, of all these bands, how many of them have a build, Billboard Hot 100, number one hit. None of them really do, but Errol Smith does. They didn't write that song, but the Armageddon soundtrack, whatever Diane Warren, I guess, wrote it. But, I mean, don't want to miss a thing, went to number one. So now again, my mom will know that song. Yeah, but they really faded out in terms of the recording career.

People didn't like their albums kind of starting with Get a Grip, even in the early 80s withdrawal, done with mirrors. So, you know, you see that go down with the super fans. I mean, we all love the 70s stuff, right? So the recording went down and then, you know, I would say they haven't been that particularly famous. I mean, that last studio album was 2012, music from another dimension. So that's a long time ago now, right? And then they've had the spotty sort of, you know, a lot of drama lately with,

are they going to continue or not or whatever? I think they seem pretty done. interesting now by any chance will you be at any of these uh the who concerts coming up no we were talking about that yesterday i i've seen them once i think that's good enough um i do love the who i did do a big beautiful who quadrophina book that comes in a slip case with like cloth cover and all this stuff um and i have seen them once um and i i think that's a band that is just too to uh not not really the band anymore with just the two guys and our army of whoever kind of thing.

It doesn't really feel like the who to me. Okay, I picked up a ticket for Tuesday night because it was a promotion by a pizza place. You can guess which one, because the price of the ticket was billed as $11 and $11. Sweet. But here's a little fun, and it's not a big deal to me because it's still worth it, but it's billed as $11 and $11, but there's a $6 venue fee automatically applied and then a $4 convenience fee. so it's actually not the complaint it's $21 and so they'll promote it as hey get a lawn for 1111 to see the who and then you'll buy it for 2111 well you know that's double but i thought you were going to say 60 no no with all the stuff you know and then you realize oh i would pay that money to see tom cochran at budwiser stage yeah yeah no that's that's pretty cool yeah i would go for that amount too well this was pretty cool man we got to do this this more often. At some point I've got to get you

in the basement here because if you come over, you know you get lasagna from Palma Pasta, you get fresh craft beer from Great Lakes, you get a measuring tape from Ridley Funeral Home, you get a Toronto Maple Leafs book. I'm telling you, you get swag for dropping by, so at some point we've got to get you over there. I would totally do that. That

sounds great. What about Martin Popoff kicking out the jams? We literally play and discuss your 10 favorite songs of all time. Wow, that's be pretty cool. Yeah. So you're into that? Is that a commitment? Yeah, yeah, sure. sure we're going to schedule that good luck with the tariff stuff uh i hope this is not i hope it's not too painful and we rectify this because i like your fiercely independent nature and uh you should

be able to direct sell without that bullshit yeah yeah absolutely yeah it's it's a lot of fun uh i i like signing books and sending them out it's it's it's pretty cool it's it's kind of like mindless work that you you know you could watch politics on youtube while you're doing it and stuff right so yeah it's it's too bad but Maybe the silver lining is I'll get to write more books and I'll get them out faster because I just haven't been faster enough with them, right? Wait until the metalheads realize e-books are pretty good, too. Yeah, yeah, got a lot of those out there as well, and that will keep going.

All right, thanks for doing this, Martin. All right, very cool, Mike. Thanks. And that brings us to the end of our 1,750th show. Go to TorontoMike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. Palma Pasta. Toronto's Waterfront, VIA,

Toronto Maple Leafs Baseball, B. At Christy Pits, Tuesday, August 26th. 7.30 p.m. The Leafs can wrap up their first round series against the Barry Baycats. Recycle MyElectronics.ca. Blue Sky Agency. You can write Doug Mills at

Blue Sky Agency. He's Doug at Blue Sky Agency.ca.ca. And Redley Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow for Toast with Rob Pruse and Bob Willett. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be.

You know, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.