I Was Just a Fan; Now I'm in the Band | Damon Johnson | Ep 93

[Music] hello and welcome to this edition of rick and bubba university the podcast now this is a unique podcast that drops almost every week we are also the the co-host of the rick and bubba show that's a full-blown hey i mean it's talking about it's when we're led out of the cage and it's it is five hours of radio extravaganza uh you can hear us all over the country by going to rick and bubba spell out the word anne.com if this is your first step into wrecking bubble world through this podcast and bubba today it is rick and bubba behind the music rick we have one of the most talented guests we've ever had at rick and bubba university an old friend the pride of geraldine alabama you name it he's played it damon johnson damon johnson welcome to rick and bubba university fellas what what a stupendous introduction man i i ca i don't think that's ever been topped so thank you very much i don't even know what to say to you other than i have an ax i will play yeah you know i mean you you have acts will travel i have acts will travel i mean you've done original bands uh some really really good ones you you play acoustic shows you've got you've got the damon johnson world you have been a hired gun for some of the biggest names ever ever in music i mean van halen aerosmith robert plant stephen tyler sammy hagar alice cooper finn lizzie black star writers it sounds like we're talking about the hall of fame but no we're talking about damon johnson and now and now you've been hired you know by by skinnard now when you had the run with damn yankees did that never happen you guys were rehearsing but didn't something fall apart that your run with them somehow was was stopped well i would let's the damn yankees was a moment like 15 minutes rick yeah uh i stepped in to basically take tommy shaw's place because tommy had just acquired the rights to the name sticks oh boy dynasty young was out of the band so he needed to press the gas on that their a r man was the famous john kaladner oh yeah and kalodner had kept he was a fan of my music uh i had sent him some songs randomly he called me the next week and he had jack blades in his office and they said hey man would you come out and jam with us for this damn yankees record and what started is this just maybe co-writing a couple songs turned into them asking me to join the band and it lasted about three months we made a record most of a record and you know it needed some more material and then we just ran out of time before you knew it you know jack had to get back on the road with knight rancher nugent had dates michael carter only had to go back to leonard skinner ironically some foreshadowing there oh yes so you know it was just one of those things but you know guys when you when you read off those names on that resume you know that that kid from geraldine alabama i still can't believe it sometimes you know uh just being obsessed with music at a young age you know 13 14 is when i started playing guitar and put my first garage band together i mean i had every album by all of those bands and if you'd have said to me you know if if some wizard had it dropped out of the clouds and said my son one day you're gonna play with alice cooper you're gonna be in thin lizzy you're gonna perform some shows with leonard skinner it just it's it's just it's not even it just doesn't happen it's still surreal to you now when you get that call to to come and be in leonard skinner or to be in this project or that so it's still even now it's still surreal to you you know what honestly bubba it is i mean it's always exciting and i guess the thing that's different now at this point in my career is that it totally makes sense you know it's like for for ricky medlock and johnny van zandt to be thinking hey we need somebody to come and step in for gary rossington who do we know i know that for ricky medlock i'm gonna be one of three names that he's gonna call first because we've known each other forever and i've been doing this forever you know i i'm as experienced and skilled at what i do as youtube guys are at what you do look don't cut yourself down like that damn come on take the standard yeah take the stand up we don't want you beating yourself up here on this podcast but but you're right bad analogy right how about how about i compare it to dale earnhardt there you go yeah yeah yeah number three get you three that's a much higher stance but but this is this is the thing that i can't get out of my mind and you just touched on it and we think about this you know we grew up as little boys you know i did for sure and you did too bubba wanting to be on the radio i mean i thought about course i also you know wanted to be in there was three things i was interested in and that's it i was not well-rounded i was interested in football being in a rock band and being on the radio nothing else and and really nothing and you know i dabbled in all of it and and of course the radio thing uh by the grace of god has has been something i've been able to live out and i think about it on some of those days i don't want to get up you're welcome but thank you but the the things that yeah i mean if if you had been in one of my early bands i might have made that but anyway so you know david and i were out there hitting the circuit and i was like damn look over here look over here just throw it throw me a rope but anyway so but i keep going back to the little boy and geraldine because ricky medlock i know he had a history with leonard skinner but i didn't know about it as a kid he was blackfoot he was trained he was trained trained he was highway song okay and so to know that you i mean i remember when q104 the first station bubba i ever worked for announced that at murfree stadium in gadsden alabama that blackfoot you remember this i remember the promo i remember the problem yeah i think they were with a little louisiana's larue yeah and uh and i forget who the other band was oh it was mother's finest it was blackfoot mother's finest and louisiana a rude larue or whatever was going on and i remember and for on that day if somebody had walked them and said oh by the way ricky medlock's going to have your cell phone i mean you'd have been like you'd have been like what what what because damon you're the same age we are right you're a 64 guy right yeah 1964. that was a good year and uh how about all of us were born that year is that not fun well you know what's crazy guys i remember that concert i didn't get to go because i was just you know my parents hadn't quite oh yeah open open that door yet for me to be going but i did see blackfoot open for molly hatchet let's go at beltwell auditorium in birmingham in uh i guess that was 1980 yeah so you know it's just again fellas it's really indescribable um you'll you'll appreciate this story uh because my my friends and family have been asking in recent weeks they're like well how did you know how did you get that call about leonard skinner i had just just gone for a walk with my wife i came back to the house got a text from ricky medlock it said call me right now see that's what i'm talking about hey murphy's stadium i mean murphy stadium the bat will auditorium somebody said bother i see the guy out there right at the train he's going to be called he's going to text we wouldn't even know what a text was he's going to do what no he didn't yeah he said call me right now so i called him i said hey man what's up he says damon hang on a minute i'm gonna i'm gonna get van zant on the phone and i'm gonna we're gonna do a three-way call well in my mind right then fellas i knew something was up like that's all i needed to know like all right i'm about to be on the phone with ricky medlock and johnny van gaal at the same time something is happening something is going down yeah yeah and so and then you're playing i mean because we all grew up in alabama you have to understand to skinnard was something you would think well you know skinner i can't imagine you walking out there they were like the official band of our national anthem that's right growing up did you even did you i know you have to rehearse but but this is a tour already underway and those you don't know gary rosington uh had to deal with into the covid protocol and is he doing okay yeah let me clarify that guys yeah gary gary rosington had a heart procedure okay he based he basically had a heart attack you had to go in for heart surgery and then you know the band had all these tour dates booked and after being off the road for a year and a half you know having 40 people on the payroll you know gary gave everybody their blessing to go ahead and and play these shows right right you know so the fans could see the band and it takes a little time to recover from that yeah oh my goodness yeah so we rehearsed uh i did two shows and then ricky medlock got covered okay ricky got covered and then uh then we had to cancel five or six shows while he recovered ricky's doing fantastic okay and uh and everything is you know everything is back so you know gary's recovering and getting healthier and stronger and you know he's hopefully man he's going to be back any day now oh that's a good clarification are you going to be like the the fifth man or the sixth guy off the bench for whoever's got covet when they rotate out kind of bubba you'll love this my dad my dad had a great description he said son skinner is like the braves in the in the world series the second baseman went down so they had to go down to minor leagues and call up one of their star players it's been in the gym he's got good numbers he's got good stats that can step in and play second base so we can win win the world series hold the line hold the line i'm back in that that's a good that's right that's a great position to be here so you're filling in for rosington while he recovers from his heart procedure medlock calls caused some of the shows to be canceled because he tested positive but now he's fine so your gift your gig won't end until gary thinks he can come back and play yeah you know and i've been i've been communicating with gary you know man gary gary's a hero of mine no question about it he remembers brother kane supporting skinner back in the early 90s we did about 20 something shows with them so you know he had some awareness of who i was and you know man he's so gracious and he just he's like man thank you for for filling in for me and i'm feeling better and i want to come back as soon as i can but you know he needs to do what's best for him and his family certainly for his health and uh you know it's not it's not a perfect scenario it's a very unique situation and i'm just committed to to being respectful in every capacity and man playing those songs as note for note the way gary does and you know the music deserves that the fans deserve that and uh it's it's just been incredible fellas yeah it was and if you know the history of skinner what you do and greg and i were talking about this before they i'm talking about back to the original lineup before the plane crash all that they were sticklers that if you came to hear them in concert the the guitar runs would be played exactly the way they were played when you when you heard them on the albums that you had on the record and and so when you step into that role they already had a commitment no matter who's in the band we're going to play it the way that the fans expect it to be played so there's no damon doing his own thing and let me try a little something here you know there's a commitment that if you come to hear this catalog it's going to be played the way you remember it that's well said rick uh you know skinner was very much like the beatles in that way they spent a lot of time in rehearsal working out the parts and when to play when the layout you know background vocals you know double guitar solos all kinds of stuff man and to your point yes every performance they've ever done they've replicated that so as a fan myself i knew that that's what they were going to want me to do that's what i i like to hear when i go see skinner it was the same in thin lizzy when i joined then lizzie uh you know scott gorham said he goes hey man you don't have to play it note for no you i want you to just be damon johnson and i said scott respectfully i'm going to learn those solos like brian robertson played him yeah and like get and like gary moore played him because that's what i want to hear if i go see then lizzy so that really was a great kind of um i guess set up for me to have an opportunity like this now with skinner we'll come back damon johnson there's so much to unpack we don't have some requests we don't have a podcast big enough but we'll try when rick and bubba university the podcast continues all right so we we talk about all these things that we we learned growing up and one of the things that we all let's just be honest when we were growing up we heard when we got old enough to get car insurance or when we got old enough to get married or maybe get our own place we didn't know about getting homeowners insurance and car insurance what we normally did we just went to the same uh company that mom and daddy used and we were probably handed off to mom and daddy's agent son and then and then you just keep on going and you know that's fine if it's working well but i want to introduce something uh to the audience called gabby g-a-b-i stands for get a better insurance this doesn't cost you anything but it is worth your while trust me it's worth it we we found out the savings uh that that are coming in right now by just simply using this service and here's how it works it doesn't cost you anything you go to to gabby.com rick bubba it's totally free g-a-b-i dot com slash rick bubba now enter a little bit of information about your automobile and your homeowner's insurance then gabby will pull up 40 other insurance companies and all the big names are are represented there you'll see progressive and you'll you'll you'll see all the ones that you're you're familiar with nationwide travelers they're all there and then you get a true side-by-side comparison of what they would charge you for the exact same coverage the the folks that that are regulars on rick and bubba university the podcast are saving an average of eighty dollars a month by doing this they were overpaying for the same coverage by as much as eighty dollars a month and some people are saving even more so go to gabi.com rick bubba right now that's gabby.com rick bubba damon johnson the guest on this edition of rick and bubba university the podcast so we've we've kind of covered the skynyrd gig you're doing that right now but you're also as you have been known to do always working on your own projects now we we have been with with you through some i mean some fantastic i go all the way back to witness but we don't have time for that today okay that's back in the clubs that's when we were all playing and out there by the way i thought that was a fantastic band and uh it was a great bit yeah so and then you were with split the dark uh you know with mark phillips who unfortunately the pandemic has taken his life uh but you you played for a stint and split the dark uh and then from there the next thing i know there's more i don't have time for all of it but the next thing we remember from there is brother kane which yeah man that which that was an incredibly successful project you guys were at the top of the rock charts had had uh had outstanding success um take the audience through the the part of your history of brother kane thank you rick yeah there's no question that brother kane was the event that changed my life you know if it weren't for brother kane none of this other stuff that has come afterwards would have ever happened um yes brother cain uh was me and three of my buddies from birmingham uh we got signed to virgin records we recorded our album in 92 and in the summer of 93 our first single was a song called got no shame that you guys know very well we use it as theme music for evil dictators we do love love you love you love that um god no shane was the number one rock track in the country that summer for a week and we were on tour with leonard skinner shortly after that we went out with robert plant we went out with aerosmith we did two more records each of those records yielded another number one hit at radio more touring and you know man i just really started develop as a as a songwriter whereas all those years previous it was more just about my guitar playing so i kind of took on a second skill at that point and you know that band just ran out of gas fellas there were so many changes at our record company there were changes in rock music you know we just didn't really have a home anymore at radio there just wasn't a place for the county because we were just a straight ahead kind of like a classic rock band for the most part you know so um yeah man brother kane i keep in touch with all those guys uh i love them like family and um you know we really went through a unique experience together we felt like we kind of got shot out of a cannon and you know it had great great highs and really deep lows and you know i'm just proud that everybody survived it and it came out the other side so what i don't want to get too technical but again we could do a three-hour podcast because bubba and i have such great interest in music and and know you but can i just add you can answer this quickly and then i'm gonna ask you a question about some rick and bubba history and you can tell me if i can say it or not but anyway because i don't know if i can but anyway the uh and you can just say no but anyway so the brother cain catalog where is it now can can you still get it on all the streaming stuff oh yeah you still get a monthly check from that yeah that's what rick's asking yeah so if you're a songwriter i know that did you do you all have the publishing rights to all that well yeah i mean you know as as songwriters everybody you know participated in that if if they were a writer or co-writer on the song i mean obviously brother cain is not a staple on radio anymore right but except here on our show thank you all the time bless you bless your heart but you know like every other band man you know our music now for all of us we live on the streaming sites and look i'm a fan of streaming we can sit here and argue about how little money it generates for the artist etc etc it does make it tough there we talk about that on the show all the time you you got to get on the road now it used to be you went on the road to get people to buy the record because that's where your money was coming now you put out a record so people will go see you on the road 100 guys and that's another reason why coming out of the pandemic you know we're all just so ready yeah to find a way to safely perform keep our keep our touring party safe keep our fans safe and and you know so far man things are moving in a good direction with that but yeah man all three brother kane albums are on every streaming site spotify apple music rhapsody on and on let me let me ask before you move off of that because we've had this discussion before and rick and i have kind of wrestled with this just in our conversations what streaming to me is a delivery system okay it's uh we we went from physically buying a record to hey it just appears on my audio device why is it that the financial part of that changed so much why why don't the songwriters and and performers make the kind of money they used to make from record sales as as they used to how did that change can you break that apart for us a little bit yeah to tell you the truth bubba they're still making money you know if you have a hit in the new business model that 2021 is that means you're getting millions of streams you're still having that song played on the radio it's showing up in some film and television sync you know spots right you can still do really well with it the bigger the bigger truth that a lot of people in my genre don't like to talk about is rock and roll just is not the cultural influence that it used to be and it's and it's probably never going to be again in our lifetime so you know there there's not a rock 99 in birmingham anymore that's playing the new record by candle box or the new music from kenny wayne shepherd or brother cain or whoever those stations don't exist anymore those outlets don't exist um you know the the key for a guy like me as an independent artist now guys is content if you go yeah you know my new my new record is with my band i gave my band a name by the way uh the get ready damon johnson and the get ready thank you man so that's a separate profile on all the streams streaming sites but if you just go to damon johnson you'll see guys i've got like six albums i've put out seven albums well over time as my fans you know revisit those records and you know turn their friends on to it or i make new fans hey who is this guy filling in for gary rossington oh damon johnson let me go check out his music anything you can do to stay active is just going to bring more attention to your music more ears to it on the streaming sites um you know it just is what it is and i don't i don't feel slighted i haven't invested the time to really complain about it like a lot of other musicians have and it's just the changing times fellas and you have to adapt you have to adapt yeah it's just like people you realize yeah you're on a podcast right now we know about adapting yeah yeah you know we're doing a podcast right now totally yeah you know it's like it's a parish yeah it's back in the early 20th century man when uh people used to warm their homes with quail blubber and then somebody invented kerosene dude well blubber guys were out of business you know yes like horseshoeing well i remember bubba made the statement you know when we first got into syndication and of course that's different now you we you really can be what if you have content it can go anywhere but in this in the terrestrial world syndication involves satellites and being on multiple stations and we're still doing that but i remember the statement that bubba made and he was 100 right and you just said it we better get in the syndication business or we're going to get replaced by it that's right so you have to adapt to to what your industry is now doing that was one of my better quotes it was a good one it was a great book and i probably i probably cleaned it up and not cleaned up like language but i probably organized it a little straightforward i probably stumbled through it really good couldn't spit syndication out or something like that but damon let me ask you just as a as a model just so people can understand it and i'm a non-musical person so you have to put it just you know really simple terms and we're not asking to get into your business on this but let's say that uh that whoever let's say rick burgess puts out a number one hit on the radio what is that worth to rick burgess nowadays what will he make off that oh he'll make see he'll make a lot of money listen man if you have a number one hit at pop radio that's the key though that's the key pop radio but what are we talking about damon give me a real number on that what does that look like well what that looks like is that song is getting tens maybe hundreds of millions of streams on spotify and apple music it's getting millions of views on youtube it is getting radio airplay listen man if i miss anything from back in the day guys i miss that radio airplay right that's you know when fools shine on when and fools shine on and i lie in the bed i make where hits on the radio man those were some that was pretty good mailbox money right there well so what what is it what is the number give me the mail like is that a million dollars damon so a number one hit rick has one number one hit and it goes to the charts and it's number one for four weeks and casey kasem talked about it or whoever's doing his show now you know the modern version of that what is that worth so number number one if i just performed it that's one figure if i wrote it and perform it that's a different figure correct yeah if you were number one at pop radio back then and you had like a co-publishing deal you could still make a million bucks easy on that song again because it's on hundreds of stations it's getting played 40 times a week on each of those days so now modern day so modern day same scenario modern day i'm streaming does not count that i'm on the road just what i would make from streaming and radio play i i believe that it's a similar dollar figure at pop radio again there's no rock platform anymore understood you know there's so few rock and roll stations that you know the foo fighters have hits their shine down i don't even know who's on rock radio anymore guys i don't i don't i don't really listen to it but i just know some of those bands do really well but they have that infrastructure underneath they got a big label working it at the you know it they're working it on facebook and working it on instagram you know that requires a team uh you know a lot of investigations you don't make you don't make as much like you did with the record setters cd per item but you have the ability to have so many more items there's a lot more downloads than there were record sales you don't get as much money per download but but if you get enough of them you can still get back to that same figure is that actually you can still you can still do pretty close to it guys like you said earlier rick the key now is going on the road listen my 13 year old daughter jolene is the single biggest harry styles fan on the planet right dude harry styles is hauling money around in wheelbarrows because he's a solo artist he sells out everywhere he plays he sells out every stitch of merch that's hanging up at the merch table you know if um if you're a young pop artist and and doing okay now in 2021 you're killing it you're killing it we'll come back more with damon johnson when rick and bubba university the podcast continues all right so let's talk a little bit we just talked about streaming one thing that we know is that your activity online unless you're protected is being monitored it is being monetized uh but you can go back to being invisible online with expressvpn uh expressvpn will will keep you from being tracked because let's face it whatever you're doing online whatever your uh you know you're buying your your liking that's your own business uh and and you know what even cnet and the verge and other tech journals have rated expressvpn the number one vpn in the world and remember expressvpn is always blazing fast we can stream videos in hd quality with without the buffering going on uh that they're using a lightweight it's a new vpn protocol that they engineered to make you know the using speeds faster than ever this is so much superior to the other vpns of the past so protect yourself with the vpn that we love here at rickenburg university expressvpn.com rig bubba go today get an extra three months for free on a one year package that's expressvpn rickbubba expressvpn.com rickbubba to learn more damon johnson is our guest on rick and bubba university the podcast damon this is the last thing i'm going to ask you about rick and bubba history then we'll get into the new project that you've got going now and i don't know if i'm allowed to say it because i don't know the state of the brother kane deal but you do know that there's a little known rick and bubba fact about the debut and one and only cd from the world's greatest garage band mr lucky called fat champs nine nine original songs the people who have that cd may not know the brother cane connection and at the time i could not say it because you guys were under contract and all this but do you know what i'm talking about yeah he knows is that can i say it can i talk about that or no i think you have full clearance rick burgess to reveal these secrets like there's there's been a statute of limitations now i think we're well at that at the time brother kane was still happening so we couldn't talk about it but uh you know everybody every now and then there's a little side gig that'll show up and we were putting together a a cd of original songs that really were original songs that came from bands that ryan greenwood and i played in there later on there were some songs that were actually written by the guys in mr lucky but we didn't have a band it was just ryan and me and we were going to form a band and go back and get greg and some of the guys that had played with us before so we needed a drummer and a bass player for the actual recording uh and the keyboard player so mark phillips played keyboards he would go on to be in mr lucky ryan greenwood played guitar and then we had the the two other guys we had your drummer and your bass player uh playing drums and bass so if you have the fat chance cd that is the bass player and the drummer from brother kane that are playing on the studio sessions the brother cane rhythm section rocking those songs from mr lucky i remember it i remember it well and i'm not gonna deny guys i had a little bit of jealousy but y'all didn't ask me you didn't ask me to participate didn't you join us live one of the fat fest and play yeah one of the parts yeah yeah you came out and played rebel with the cause uh yeah and we we rocked that and then we did that was a good simple easy to follow song yeah sorry you you i don't know if you miss you comment down you're like complicated can you show me something a little less complicated than this you could tell a guitar player had written that song i didn't write that one yeah i mean and uh anyway but uh but then we did got no shame also we did a mystery lucky song and then we did a brother kane song guys i'm so indebted to you your your enthusiasm for that song specifically has been unwavering from the first day you ever heard it and let me tell you something i'm not look not just because you're here greg burgess what's up you know and greg's critical of everything yeah let me let me just tell you this in the in the genre of which is my favorite type of music brother kane that style is probably my favorite style of music whatever it's called i just call it great music but god no shame is as good as any rock song has ever been yeah i mean i hope you got it all it's kind of nice i mean you did some other stuff and they were good but i mean they're that's that's special i'm i'm really proud of it you know that song in particular uh like i said earlier it's really opened a lot of these doors man listen ricky medlock was is a fan of brother kane ted nugent was a fan of brother king alice cooper was familiar he had heard the songs on the radio in phoenix he goes oh i didn't know the name of the band but i know i know those songs for sure because i heard them all the time so uh you know man we really we really kind of caught some lightning there for a minute you know credit to my co-writing partner marty fredrickson you know i met marty right at the beginning of brother kane he's a you know los angeles songwriter he lives here in nashville as well now but you know man he talked about somebody that changed my life you know maybe those maybe those songs would have never existed if it weren't for martial the whole catalog is good and but that's a special song and i know we're i don't want to you know i want to get to what you're doing now but i will tell you for guys on the show here i know this is this is a little different a little different avenue you took music wise but i'm telling you whiskey falls yeah ricky you stole whiskey falls was fantastic damon if i if i had been a betting man and we've heard a lot of music over the years and rick obviously is much more into the musical part of it than i am but i would have been all in that whiskey falls is going to be the biggest thing you ever did and it was going to catch lightning again bubba i was a betting man i did battle like i left a cush gig with alex oh that's right you did to get in a van with those guys uh because i knew the songs were there and i knew the sound was there um yeah man whiskey falls was a great band and uh i mean the harmonies the the songs were all great songs the lyrics were great i never will forget though you may not remember this you and i had a phone call about it you're like i got a new thing i'm like okay and you were it's like you didn't want to tell me you know you were like you you were like and i was okay and you know just just stay with me you know i mean and you were like we think we're going to get played on country radio and i said couldn't that is this damon hello damon is this damon country country right here i think i think i'm losing the connection right do your friends know about this but no it was it wasn't look country music's great it's phenomenal this felt more like the eagles to me which would be called country today if they if they put out their first couple albums now we would call that we would call that country uh but the harmonies the original songs what what was what happened because it felt like it was taking off and then it just kind of went away yeah man it was starting to happen that was 2007. if you guys remember the housing market took a big year yeah in the fall of seven so we were signed to a little independent label here in nashville midas records the guys that owned the record label all their investment capital was in real estate so those guys get a phone call from their accountant fellas we're gonna have to circle the wagons and batten down the hatches first thing they did was clip that record company and you know at that moment all the labels in nashville were really kind of tightening their purses like we got to ride out this recession and you know we don't know what's gonna happen the band just wasn't able to get another deal and uh i got a phone call from alice cooper again in early 2009 he said hey man i need a guitar player again can you recommend somebody i said yes i can [Laughter] i got you man it's my makeup kit still back there i'm ready hey rick i want to tell you and bubba this too man to your your uh enthusiasm about got no shame this new record damon johnson and the get ready battle lessons in my humble opinion easy it's loaded easy now now we listen you better you better make sure you're sitting down bubba this record is loaded with that got no shame energy that level of guitar riffs that level of excitement and celebration um i've i said in a lot of interviews this year's guys that you know battle lessons is the record that nineteen-year-old damon johnson dreamed of making you know the the same kid that was listening to aerosmith and you know bad company and you know van halen ac dc just big rock man big rock all right i promise you if you if you listen to that record you go we've seen the video this morning we've watched when we come back we'll talk more about that in our final segment here with damon johnson on rick and bubba university the podcast all right so look damon johnson has to go on the road a lot uh we know what it's like to be out there and and let's be honest um men at one time when we were given our underwear our first you know drawer full of adult underwear meaning meaning we're grown up now this is the underwear we take with us we all believe that that underwear was to last us the rest of our lives yeah i thought it yeah yeah we would but but see at least 10 years and we just thought to ourselves i'll take a pack of the tighty whities and i'm good yeah but let me tell you something tommy john like 50 in the pack right yeah that's but that's over yeah when when you put on tommy john the the apollo men's underwear it it keeps you dry with this heat that we still have uh up to seven degrees cooler than any regular cotton underwear those tiny whities these are even cooler yeah and and i love when tommy john says we do not have customers we have fanatics and when this apollo underwear for men it is soft supportive it stretches for the perfect fit every day and here's i know what a lot of the guys that listen to us right now i want to know yes it comes up to 4x up to 4xl okay there's been over 15 million pairs of this sold to men across america and and and we are loving it you will love it tommy john's new apollo men's underwear uh is is kind of some high-end underwear for urine okay let's just let's just talk about it and you can't get it anywhere else so listen you're going to love these guys immediately 20 off your first order tommyjohn.com rick bubba tommyjohn.com rick bubba for 20 off see the site for all the details damon johnson our guest uh he has played with with everyone in the latest project from damon johnson we talked about battle lessons is the album uh and you can get tour dates so you're gonna do some stuff uh with uh damon johnson and the get ready as well you guys are doing dates along with the other stuff you're doing but the album you can go to damonjohnson.com and you said this album you've done so many different things i'm hearing you say that this new project is almost like you going back to the roots of the kind of music that you grew up on and really probably the kind of music that you probably prefer i mean if you were going to have your own album this this is what it would be like yeah that's that's a straight that's a straight accurate description rick you know um my the thing i do to try to stay healthy is i i go for lots of walks i run a little bit but i try to take care of my knees so i walk a ton put on my headphones and i just listen to music that makes me happy so over the previous couple years man i was going back and revisiting all those albums from my youth you know rush the the first boston record uh you know humble pie deep purple led zeppelin lots of ac dc and van halen and it started to kind of pepper my you know my creativity and i would come in here to my office with this room i'm in right now and i'd just pick up the guitar whatever riff just fell out i'd sit down and force myself to finish it like let's write a song around this red and in a few you know a few weeks man i had eight or ten songs i was like oh this is gonna be fantastic you know so um the other thing that's important to know fellas is that my one of my dearest friends here in nashville is uh grammy-winning world-class rock producer nick rascalinics nick nick is uh we've done three records together we did a couple of those black star writers records together but you know i knew to get him involved the songs were going to have to be there so it was a really big day when i went to his office i said hey man give me 15 minutes let me play you some stuff he immediately got excited you know and he said hey brother you have been very busy let's uh let's figure out a way to to pull this off so he had he had to work me in the schedule between literally producing alice in chains and uh and the new hail storm records so i'm i'm honored man i'm just thrilled to have him in my orbit and he did a great job my band knocked it out of the park it's a great record i'm super proud of it yeah we love the two cuts we've heard now this name that you mentioned this songwriter and and producer a lot of people probably heard that name when he produced bubba's funk album with his band chocolate ripple uh and [Laughter] he probably mentioned that during your sessions chocolate ripple we don't we don't want to we don't want to get anybody in trouble but with all these great musicians you've met legendary people yeah is there one you've already talked about how surreal all of it has been but was there one that sticks out in your mind when you first met him that you just you almost just couldn't talk to him you just buckled under the excitement yes yes it all happens uh in one night in las vegas fellas um i don't think i've i can't remember the last time i was on your show i don't know if we ever even talked about this the night that i played in las vegas uh in a band with stephen tyler jeff beck and sting what all together uh that's the band yes sir listen if speedy can hear me off air right now tell him look it up on youtube there's video proof that what i'm telling you happens um yeah bubba so marty fredrickson my songwriting partner for brother kane he wrote a bunch of songs with steven and the aerosmith guys he calls damon will you come to las vegas and play guitar with me and steven he's going to do this i heart radio thing i was like oh my god yes i said thank you brother yeah man he says well are you okay playing rhythm guitar i said no problem whatever you guys need i said who's playing lead he goes jeff beck i fell out of my chair and he goes he goes wait a minute there's more he goes he goes we're going to have a special guest bass player on one song i said who john paul jones he goes better i said getty lee he goes better he goes we're gonna have sting play bass on sweet emotion no way to your question bubba when i walked into that room carrying my les paul guitar case and there's stephen tyler there's jeff beck in there sting i had to take a minute i had to take a minute and settle down and pull it together i wouldn't i would have had to have said now guys i don't want let's get this out of the way right now don't let me intimidate y'all [Laughter] we're all just guys here man we're all just going well amen you know me fellas i'm a i'm a boy from the south just like the two of you uh my folks brought me up to be social and and be you know comfortable and you know meeting new people my favorite story from that day is i went over to jeff jeff beck we were going to do sweet emotion and it has a talk box on it that joe perry played on the original record so i go walking up to jeff i said hey jeff do you think would you have any interest maybe in play in that talk box part uh you know that starts the song because i know you play the talkbox you know back on those those records of yours and he just kind of goes uh yeah i've got no problem doing that great i said awesome so i go back to my microphone with my guitar and jeff beck's guitar tech comes walking up to me he goes damon did you just ask jeff to play the the talkbox and i went yes i did he goes he goes did he say yes i said yes he did he goes he goes dude he has not played a talk box on stage since 1974. he goes i've always been too scared to ask him because he goes good on you so if you look man look on that video on youtube of us playing sweet emotion jeff back on the talk box thanks to your boy i'm proud of that geraldine alabama made it happen damon thanks for being with us again everything you want to find out go to damonjohnson.com uh damon johnson's footprint and music is everywhere go enjoy it especially the new project battle lessons from damon johnson in the get ready man we love you we're glad everything is still going good for you come see us if you're in the neighborhood guys i will i love you too my best to your families i miss you thank you so much continued success i can't believe this went by so fast we just started well we'll do it again and we'll have you back on the big show too we'll we'll have a little jam session or something i would love to man thank you guys thank you thank you we love you too damon johnson our guest this week on ricky bubba university the podcast [Music]

Channel: Rick & Bubba

Views: 2,503

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: rick, bubba, rick and bubba, rick & bubba, rick bubba live, rick and bubba live, rick & bubba live, rick and bubba show, rick & bubba show, rick bubba show, burgess, bussey, radio, alabama, damon johnson, thin lizzy, van halen, sting, jeff beck, alice cooper, brother cane, got no shame, guitarist, guitarist for hire

Id: An_fb-EIjV0

Length: 46min 30sec (2790 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 11 2021