[00:00:00] Speaker A: You was born on Saturday in 73 in the park. Right? Music on the fifth guitar with the short, with radio.
It's motherfucking Andy calling. Look at my mother fucker cup. Here he comes. Andy calling wearing his orange hat.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Welcome to unsigned five one eight. I am here with Mike Gross. Handler. Mike, how's it going, man? You and Andy going very well. And, you know, before you got here, you know, I always, like, listen to the music that we're going to discuss or that the artist does. Like, if I'm not familiar and you and I have known each other for probably a year or so now, but I listened to that single 15 times today, so very good.
I've heard your other stuff, but the new single is fucking killer. So I just wanted to get that, I guess, out of the way before we get going.
But we want to talk about not only the single, but you've got a solo career, you've got songwriting stuff, you've got a storied music career going back.
Not everybody but the cool people know who the Velmas are for sure.
But I guess let's just kind of talk about what you got going on now as a solo artist. Kind of what you're focusing on, whether it's writing original music or doing shows or a combo of both. I know you're still doing a ton.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Of shows because there's a lot going on, less going on that I want there to be musically, but we grow up and lives get complicated. Right, right.
So as far as original music, I'll start with that. So this new song, about time. I'm super psyched to get this one out.
This song started out as a germ of a song with the Velmas probably pushing 20 years ago now.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:02:05] Speaker C: So we were jamming on it, we played it a little bit, and then we started recording the record station. We're out in Buffalo with Robbie tackick from the Google Dolls little name Drop. But Robbie was a great guy, and recording out there, we had, I don't know, 1314 songs. And this one, we didn't quite finish it. And so we're like, we have enough songs. We'll get to that one on the next record. Quote, unquote, next record, right. We never did another record, right. But for ten years or so, I'm like, oh, I'll hold that for the next Velma's record. This is a Velma song. We just need to finish it.
So I put out blue skies black and about ten years ago now. Jeez. And didn't put it on that one because, like, oh, this is a Velma song. I got to save this for the next Velma's record. And after a while I'm like, guys, hey, what's the plan with this song? Like, oh, well. And Bruce and Todd, I love those guys. We've been jamming together since the late 90s, but they're doing other stuff now. They're not focused on the originals. And so I said, all right, so do I have permission?
I'm going to do this myself now. Is that cool? It's like, yeah, it's your song.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Go for it.
[00:03:02] Speaker C: Right? So having been given the green light probably about five years ago now, I was like, all right, I'm going to actually finish this. So I redid the demo. I changed the key. Used to be in e, now it's in drop D. I messed around with it a bit and it took me a couple of years, maybe three years or so to record it because life, right?
So Ricky, little from above the flood and split second alibi, I got him into Tim lynch, the studio. What are they called?
The recording? Yeah, the recording company. Praying for it. And had Ricky come out there and he played on a few songs on Blue Skies black, too. So Ricky did the drums. And I love playing with Ricky. He's a great drummer. And then know re recorded all the guitars and the bass and vocals and all the stuff, did some keyboards.
And then I'm trying to think of where the story goes. So I sent it to a coworker of mine at the university. I work at U. Albany. And Jason Maloney was working with me. And he's a great guitar player. He plays mandolin. And I just sent him the song as a musician to say, hey, check this song out, I'm working on. And a couple days later, he emailed me some recordings. He said, hey, I did some mandolin parts. See what you think. I'm like, what? And we hadn't talked about that at all. So I listened to him like, this is pretty neat. So I mixed them into the session and made it work in the song. And I think it added a flavor that wasn't there before. And I really like what it did to the song.
And then it was just a matter of finishing the mix and getting it done, which, again, took me way longer than it should have. And it's out now, right? And I'm very proud of it. And as far as more new songs, that was a very long story. I didn't think it would be that long.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: No, we need longer stories. This is a podcast you know what I mean? There's no such thing as talking too much.
[00:04:50] Speaker C: Just put this on 1.5 speed, folks.
Not that I would ever do that to a podcast, but yeah, so I have a bunch more songs in a similar bucket I guess, as that one where it was started years ago. Not all of them are quite that old, but in the last 1015 years, some newer that I just didn't finish for whatever reason. And so now this song is done.
When I started recording this song, I intentionally said I'm going to do one song because when I did blue skies black, if it was like twelve songs and it took me like three years, I'm like, that's a long time to do. I'm going to not bite off as much this time. So I did one song and it took me like almost twice as long, which is crazy. So next time I'm going to do, I don't know, three, four songs at once, make it an ep.
The overhead that goes in with the studio time and the mixing and the copyright and the publishing and the mastering, you might as well do more than one song at a time. So next time I'll do a few more and we'll see what happens.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: And so you do everything yourself essentially?
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Pretty much, yeah. I can't play drums, so I had Ricky help me out with that and I probably could play mandolin. Yeah, but I didn't think of it.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: So the drums and the mandolin.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: Yeah. And I have to give Tim lynch credit. The last day or so, maybe it was two days of mixing, we're listening to it and it was pretty much done. And I said kind of out loud to myself like, ah, this chorus really should have some tambourine in there. He's like, you want a tambourine? I'm like, well, yeah, I guess. Yeah. So he just got a tambourine out. He's like, you want to play? Do you want me to play it? And I'm not a percussion player. So Tim went behind the microphone and did one take literally, I think. And I was like, thank you. Right. And that was so, so I give Tim credit for playing tambourine on that too. But otherwise. Otherwise, yeah, I did all the guitars, all the know there's one bass track, right? Keyboards, all the vocals. There's a bunch of vocal harmonies on the track.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: And so how know we said that you've got more than one single out, know you've got other stuff that you've put out. How far back does that go?
[00:06:52] Speaker C: I've been putting out music at least as a solo artist, I'm trying to think the first one was maybe 2001 or 2002 or so, which doesn't seem like that long ago, but it's, like, 22 years ago.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah, 23 years.
[00:07:09] Speaker C: And those were really the first two. I did a couple of acoustic cds. I called it scales for the first one, and I called the second one wrote myself.
And they were intended to be demos I just did with, like, one microphone just right into my computer's sound card, whatever crappy pc I had in college. And they came out pretty good, so I got them mastered and released them. But they weren't really meant to be releases, but they ended up becoming right.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: And it was just you and a guitar. Like, no overdubs?
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that was a lot of overdubs.
That was me partially teaching myself pro tools and partially just, like, seeing what would stick. So I doubled almost everything because I had the tracks right. And so everything pretty much is doubled. And then there's harmonies. There's a lot of tracks in those.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Cool. And you did that all yourself?
[00:07:57] Speaker C: All by myself.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Is that something that we'd want to play on the show? Is that something like, maybe you want.
[00:08:04] Speaker C: To go different, a different angle of stuff that I've done because it's the same songwriting style, but it definitely presents differently because it's acoustic guitars. Right.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And then we could kind of lead up to kind of show your stuff from early and then lead up to the stuff now. Is there a track that you would want to do?
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Oh, man, let me think. So thinking back of my songs that I did in that time, my favorite one is probably a song called now for then, which the Velmas actually ended up doing a rock version of as opposed to the acoustic version. But I've always had a soft spot, so to speak, for the acoustic version. It came out real good. So maybe that one would be cool.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: All right, cool. So let's listen to now for then, Mike Gross Handler. And I'll be right back to talk some more with Mike.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: How long will this have to last?
When he is my time comes won't you help my hours pass while instrument quiet moment, me and the let me say so now for them now for exhausted body and my mind think of things I've laughed left behind looking up to see what's mine promises and Tokyo rise quiet moment, me and the let me say something now for now for it's quiet for me and let me face up quiet.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Gross. Handler and so, Mike, what do you have? You know, I know you've got obviously this song that you just released that we'll hear coming up in just a little bit. But what else is on the plate there?
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Well, we got a few other things going on, so Brian Gentile is a friend of mine, a great guitar player, and he and I have been playing as an acoustic duo. We call ourselves midnight radio for a few years now. And so we're still doing that. We're still playing acoustic music here and there, but it occurred to us in the last year or so that we'd like to put together an actual band, not just the acoustic guitars. And so we're working on that. We've got a couple of guys, I'm not going to mention names just yet, necessarily, because it's still being formed. They're good guys and we like them, but we're still figuring out what we are and what we're going to do. But it's going to be a rock band. We're going to play covers in that band. We're going to be doing mostly 90s stuff because that's sort of our thing that we love. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alison Chains, Soundgarden, if we can sing it, stp and then whatever else, too. It's not just the grunge stuff, but heavily featured on the early 90s alt rock scene that we grew up listening to and loving. And so that's been a lot of fun, trying to figure out what that's going to be and what we're going to do with it. So I'm excited about that.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: And so that's like real early stages.
[00:13:21] Speaker C: We've had two practices so far and it's coming together and I'm excited about it, but we're not quite ready to be playing out just yet. We need to get a bunch of more songs down and figure out what it is we're going to be and what we're going to do. We got to polish it up a bit.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:13:36] Speaker C: But it's coming together.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: And then obviously, I guess we talked a little bit about the song earlier, but we're going to play the song. So I guess we'll kind of do like a tarantino thing and start and then go back to the beginning, some scene jumps.
Tell us a little bit about. I guess we talked about the technical aspect of the song, but I guess let's hear a little bit about more the heart of the song, what it means.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: So the song is called about time, and it's sort of about.
I'm trying to think of, how do I explain this? It's about frustrations, which tends to be a theme in a lot of my songs, but less down in the dumps, more as my songs have tended to be, I guess, but more now looking kind of to the future and saying, I think now it's time we're going to do something with what we've been working towards in sort of in a meta way and a direct way. That's what I'm doing with this song here. So the idea is you've been working towards something. Now let's make it be real now. Let's see what happens when we actually release this song or whatever it is. The inspiration that you're looking for in your life. Let's make this be a thing and follow it through. So that's the idea of the song. It's sort of an uplifting looking back to the past and saying, all right, that was cool, but let's do something now. Let's go forward.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: All right, cool. Yeah. Well, let's listen to the tune and then we will be right back to wrap it up with Mike Grossandler.
[00:15:11] Speaker A: Let's try something different, not that to live your heart miss the day is night I hope I won't, I won't be crafting it. Just the by outside inspiration share with us your words and see us indignation standing those right to end of the diving waiting for someone to come fill up the floor I wait I I waited savage it just ratio share with us your wild words and just indignation today it just inspiration share with us your wild teacher in shut up inspiration day night.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Mike Gross Handler and Mike, thank you so much for coming out to Dazzledan and sipping some scotch with me and shooting the shit.
[00:19:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I appreciate that. This is good scotch and good chatting.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Shout out to Anne Ellen for giving me a bottle of she also the couch that you're sitting on also came from Anne Ellen.
Anne Ellen for the win. But anyway, before you go, I just want to give you the chance to say what I call your gratitudes or your highs, shout outs, whatever. Basically microphone, it's all yours.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: Well, thank you. Of course, start with you, Andy. Thank you for doing this and putting a spotlight on the local scene and helping musicians like myself and others get the word out. And that's awesome. We appreciate it. I appreciate it.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: Thank you.
Tim lynch over at the recording company, he helped me make the song get ready to be released and helped me mix it and help me record parts of the drums. Not parts of the drums, but parts of the song. Tim is a genius in the studio anybody who needs to record, hit up the recording company.
I don't know. Who else do I thank here?
I don't know. I think that's good. I'll say thank you again and stay tuned. I have a bunch more songs that I'm hoping to not take another five years to get released, and we'll hopefully be back here soon and chilling in the dazzle Dan with you and talking about the next one, too.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah, you're welcome, man. Anytime you don't have to wait for a music release, you could just come chill. Anytime.
[00:20:27] Speaker C: That's awesome. Thanks.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: So that is Mike Gross Handler. I am Andy Scullen. This is unsigned five one eight. I'll see you on the road.
Unsigned five one eight is produced and hosted by me, Andy Scullen. New episodes are available every week wherever you stream podcasts. If you'd like to help support the show, please like and subscribe wherever you are listening. Or you could buy me a
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Take care of one another, and I'll see you next week. Bye.
