Franklin's Garage to Stage
All things starting a musical band. From garage to stage getting your band going and beyond.
Interviews with musician's, Producers, club owners, recording artist's and others in field of recording or performing.
Discussions on pitfalls to avoid and what works from personal and other's experiences.
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Franklin's Garage to Stage
Crafting the Perfect Gig Experience
Remember the rush of your first live performance? Join us as we revisit that exhilarating moment with our brother and fellow musician, John Franklin, sharing our early gigs at places like Duke's Wild Goose Bar in Reno. Get ready to uncover the secrets of live music success, from negotiating set times and mastering sound checks to the art of written contracts that keep your band protected. Aspiring musicians won't want to miss our tales of sound engineers as unsung heroes and how cover charges can be a hidden gem for income.
Laugh along with us as we recount our most awkward stage mishaps, like Dana's bluesy blunder at Tumbleweed and Rob's drum kit disaster at Shady Brady's, narrowly averted by a quick-thinking bass player. We ponder the exciting potential of remote musical collaboration and dream of an all-Franklin band, giving a nod to our cousin Bruce Franklin from Trouble, the Godfathers of Doom Metal. Our stories of wild nights in Redding and hilarious close calls with the law underline the importance of professionalism, stage etiquette, and a solid sound check. These anecdotes remind us that preparation and teamwork are the keys to a successful show.
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I mean not all the time, but just or contribute to the show. So please do supply us with that, and we promise not to share your information. My name is Rob Wardrums Franklin and my co-host is Dana, thunderbase, franklin, how y'all doing.
Speaker 1:Good, good, hey, we've got a special guest we're going to introduce here in a little bit. What this episode is about is we're kind of revisiting the first time hitting a stage, the things that you need to really know from the club or bar owner before getting up there doing your thing and jamming. Um dan, did you want to introduce our special guest today?
Speaker 3:I, you know, I would love to so with us. Today we have, uh, you know, another fellow musician, that's um, played guitar for quite a while and definitely knows the music scene and is involved with local scenes there back in Reno, nevada, and so I'd like to introduce not only a fellow musician but a member of the family, john Franklin. How you doing, bro? I'm good man.
Speaker 1:Another Franklin, oh no.
Speaker 2:So, john man, tell us a little bit about yourself. Uh, all right, well, obviously I'm your guys's younger bro, so I grew up around music. It's like fucking my drug, love it, um, that's it. That's all I got, that's all you got all right.
Speaker 1:Well, well, dana, let's, let's's talk about the first time we were hitting the stage. I know that the things that we really needed to know and really got that information from bar owners was when to start and end, obviously, the length of your sets, the length of the breaks, the volume you play at and, of course, how much you're going to get paid. Of course, the first couple times you get out there, you'd be lucky to make enough to cover your beer bill, but, and also, like sound checks, you don't want to piss off the owners and go in there and like, like play at like a huge decibel level. So, uh, what do you remember from, like, our first time hitting, basically, that wild goose bar?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I do remember that, you know. One of the things you really have to think about is you know, does the venue supply lights? Do they have their own PA system? You know, do they?
Speaker 3:have an engineer that's going to do sound for you. Is that something you got to bring on your own? I think for that first place they pretty much they had their own sound and I think they had a little bit of lights back there, but it's kind of a small place so we didn't worry too much about that. But you know, I mean a sound engineer or sound guy should be like another member of your family or the band.
Speaker 1:I mean, they're equally important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, because you know, if you don't get the sound right whether it's a small place or a big place you're not representing yourself that well. So a sound guy is very important. What about you? What do you remember? I do know that we had, I think, back then we did, five sets. We were doing something crazy like playing from nine at night till two in the morning yeah nowadays, I don't, I think bands only do two sets, three sets maximum.
Speaker 1:So we definitely yeah yeah, and we did like a I think it was a 45 minutes set and then 15 minute break, um something like that I do remember our first time up there we were really good about like playing starting where we were supposed to, ending when we were supposed to, and not taking, like you know, extended breaks. We cut it down to like 10 or 15 minutes and I think the only problem we ran into at first time playing was volume, because when we first went in there for a sound check, it was like a bar slash restaurant and there were still patrons in the restaurant and we kind of like cranked it up a little bit and we were piss. It was like a bar slash restaurant and there were still patrons in the restaurant and we kind of like cranked it up a little bit and we were pissing off people trying to eat their steaks.
Speaker 2:Where was that Wild Goose?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was in Park Lane Mall. It was a place called Duke's Wild Goose Bar.
Speaker 2:The stage was up behind the bar, tiny little stage, and it was first time out. Did you guys play at Cattleman's too once, or?
Speaker 3:something I don't remember that, yeah, no, cattleman's. No, that that dukes, I think, was the only restaurant type place that we played at. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:The other places were all pretty much just bars, yeah I know we were, we were me and you were kind of like, uh, really in charge of things back then and we had our own little contract for bar owners as well. I don't think we did it at Duke's, but I think after that we did, we had this little contract we would bring to the bar owner. Basically, it would tell us what time we're supposed to start and end and how much we were going to get paid, and all that yeah.
Speaker 3:I think it's important for anybody that is out there playing live now nowadays that to have you know something in something in writing. As far as you know, are you getting paid? Are you getting a percentage of the door?
Speaker 1:you know exactly, no, I mean it's you know.
Speaker 3:And then not only that, but you know, if something happens, your stuff and there's a you know a fire, somebody rips your shit off. You know, is there you shit off? Who's held liable for that? So all that kind of stuff needs to be in writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know a couple times we did shows, we actually had somebody sitting at the door doing cover charges and that was basically our only source of income. So these are the kind of things you've got to think about when you're first getting out there. And I know the other thing you've really got to think about, especially nowadays if you're in a rock or metal band, you're usually playing with multiple bands, so you've got to discuss not only with the bar owner but with these other bands how long it's going to take to set up and break down so the other bands aren't stretched for time. And you've really got to coordinate those kind of things with the other bands, otherwise you're setting yourself up for some heartache.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it'll be a fight, It'll be a fight.
Speaker 3:You know one thing I'm hearing from, especially out here and I don't know if this is a new thing, because you know we used to play back in the 80s and 90s and you know if it's but a lot of these bands now are sharing, like they'll share, like a drum kit, like one band will set up a kit and everybody plays through the same kit, or I mean, I, yeah, I, I, I would highly. You know, just, you'll not let people do that, because you know you're not getting the same sound.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like you know how do you control your sound if you're playing somebody else's set, or you know. It's just to me that that seems like it wouldn't be a good idea yeah, plus then you're thinking about like there's damage, who's responsible?
Speaker 1:You don't want to get in that situation either. Like John said, you're looking for fights. You don't want to get in that situation.
Speaker 2:Sorry, don't little places like that have their own PAs and stuff. You've got to use theirs.
Speaker 1:Typically, yeah, typically, some places do, some don't.
Speaker 3:So then you've got gotta set it for your way. You know your sound and oh exactly, then it's then even individually, it's like you know, I mean even just like on my, on my bass head, I mean it's like I got, you know, 30 different knobs. I can turn one way or another. That would, you know, totally change the sound. So you know, if I'm using somebody else's bass head or you know, or amp or something they're trying to use my, it's just no, it would not work. I wouldn't let anybody touch my shit. It's just you know, that's just the way it is.
Speaker 1:So, john, john, what do you remember from? From, like our early gigs, because you were, you're younger, so you weren't really, you weren't really playing with other bands at that time. So what do you remember about us playing the?
Speaker 2:first time you guys were really getting started. I remember I was living in California so I kind of only came up. You guys were practicing back then. I remember fuck, I don't remember how long ago, but I remember you guys did Battle of the Bands at Easy Street. Remember that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, I couldn't remember the name of that place.
Speaker 2:That was really cool. That's when Brian was there too. Brian was there recording it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You had Sammy, who was in the band. I don't know who was singing, I don't remember Sammy.
Speaker 3:Robbie yeah, a guy named Robbie was actually our singer. I don't remember his last name?
Speaker 2:I don't either okay, that was cool, so john.
Speaker 3:So like when you go out to, you'll see bands and stuff. I mean, what's? What do you notice? What do you look for when you go out to clubs and and? Watch bands question do you notice how long they're playing? You know what kind of crowd they're doing? I mean what, as, as someone going and watching other bands, you know what are you looking for?
Speaker 2:mostly looking for a good metal band, but out here lately it's all 21, all ages shows, so really don't do a lot of that, but mostly just look to see how they look, what kind of music they're playing.
Speaker 1:So for you, looks are important in a band.
Speaker 2:I think looks are important.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:They're all like bald-headed and you know dressed in emo and shit. I'm walking and they don't advertise out here that much at all. You know I'm going to have advertising. In the old days people would put up flyers and shit.
Speaker 3:Flyers everywhere, yeah, Social media.
Speaker 1:now, it's like all social media.
Speaker 2:It's all media. Yeah, Bands suck these days. They really do. We'll say what you mean, man.
Speaker 3:You know. So, like the last time you've gone to like a club or a bar to watch a band, are they like original bands or is it mostly cover bands that you're seeing out there? Mostly cover, mostly cover Out here at least.
Speaker 3:Well, it's pretty much what's going on out here in the East Coast too, which is you know and most of them are you know. They're older guys like our age, in their 50s and 60s, that are still playing, because we were playing in the 70s, 80s and 90s and it's like you just don't see young kid bands out there like yeah like yeah, where are they playing?
Speaker 2:I mean, are they just playing it and putting on youtube?
Speaker 3:or I mean well, I think that's what a lot of them are doing now. I think with this whole social thing, it just really breaks up. You know what's going on out there in the bar scene and you know it's just. It's so different out there now than what it used to be 30, 40 years ago.
Speaker 1:It's really. It's really hard for new bands nowadays. You have to do these like four or five band gigs where you only get in like 25, maybe 45 minutes sets. It's, it's real. I think it's really tough for new bands nowadays as well. Plus, you know they're not making any money because even if there's a cover charge of 10 bucks, you have five bands. I mean, come on, what are they really?
Speaker 2:making exactly. Yeah, and why don't you?
Speaker 3:yeah, there really isn't. I know that some of the ones that we've been to you know here, closer to winston-salem, um, that a lot of these bands they'll have literally they'll put out a guitar case or a hat to collect tips and that's how they're making their money. I mean, I don't know if that's a thing of the day I mean I've never been in a band that's ever done that but that might be how people are getting paid now.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 3:I'm't know. Anybody's got comments out there. Please let us know, and let us know what's going on out there.
Speaker 1:And speaking of which, if you're in any of these situations that we're talking about, please do text us your information and if you'd like to be a guest, please text us your uh email address and we'll get. We'll get back to you and we would love to hear from you so that it can help not only you know listeners out there, but fellow musicians. So please do get your information to us. Well, dana going back to.
Speaker 3:Going back to what you said earlier, rob. It's like um, you know, you know people, yeah, definitely leave comments, but I mean we are international now. I mean we've got listeners in europe, england and you know of all places, we got a couple bangladesh. I mean it's, we're going international. So, yeah, so keep you know what's going on out there and, you know, supply us with your information so we can reach out more yeah, especially the other country.
Speaker 1:We would love to see, love to hear you know what, what you're going through as far as getting gigs, or what's your first gigs are like out there, or what you really have to do to like get into the bar scene.
Speaker 3:Well, dan, let's jump into, like all the ones that we've got from england, I mean that's you know. Come on, british wave of heavy metal. That's where all this shit happened.
Speaker 1:That's where it started.
Speaker 3:We were made in Saxon and stuff. So yeah, let us tell us what's going on across the pond.
Speaker 1:That's where all my influences are from. So yeah, please, please do supply us. Dana, let's jump into, give it to me.
Speaker 3:Oh shit, Special Give it to me.
Speaker 1:Oh shit. Special segment. This is where we discuss something embarrassing or funny or just out of the unusual that's happened to us either at a practice or a live gig.
Speaker 3:Dana, what do you got? Well, okay, so mine is a little embarrassing one here. This is when we played. I think it was 1990, 91, we were playing at this place called Tumbleweed Back in.
Speaker 1:Reno Remember well yeah.
Speaker 3:And Rob, I think this was the time that it was you playing this song.
Speaker 3:It was you, me and Gary. I don't know if our other guitar player was just taking a break, and I know the singer did because it was an instrumental, but it was. You know, this blues song that we just learned, like literally two or three days before the show, and Gary really wanted to play it and you know, know, he was, of course, amazing at it and you knew all your chops and you and I just fumbled through it so bad that I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I mean, it's just, you know, when I started playing, of course I was learning all the maiden and you know all the rock and metal stuff and I didn't really take time to learn some of the basics, like the, you know, 12 bar blues and some of the stuff that I know now. And and oh, I was embarrassed as hell because by the time that song was over I was just hanging my head because I sucked and I knew it and I think everybody in the crowd do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I don't, I don't remember that at all.
Speaker 3:So for any musician out there, just like we've said before in some of our other podcasts, be prepared, you know, if know, if you know you're going to do some songs that are a little bit, you know, not out of your league but maybe out of the genre that you used to play in. You know, learn your shit before you try to do a play, before you try to do it live, because it could end up bad, and that moment was really bad for me. I'm glad you don't remember it, rob. I don't, I really don't.
Speaker 1:I honestly do not. Well, mine's from a little bitty bar in Roseville, california. It's called Shady Brady's. It was a killer place. We played there a lot.
Speaker 1:We were pretty much a house band there for a while and they had this really cool like setup where you walk in the bar's like right in front of you, you go up a few steps and there's a dance floor and up a little bit higher was the stage. But the stage was really tiny. They had a house PA there which was cool, but the little drum riser was pretty tiny and at the time I had not a huge kit, but it was probably like a six piece with a DW rack system and it would barely fit on the stage. So we were like halfway through probably our first set and back then I I played kind of heavy and so I was hitting it, hitting the kit pretty hard, and this, the rack started to slide forward. So we were halfway through this one song which was a.
Speaker 1:We did a combination of uh, of war pigs into an original and then back to the back into war pigs, kind of like blended because they were in the same, the same kind of like uh keys and all that. But halfway through the song, my riser starts tipping off the drum riser and so the bass player fortunately his name was dan sores and he noticed what was happening and kind of backed up and put his foot up against my riser so it wouldn't fall off the damn stage. So we ended up getting through the song, but I thought for sure my whole kit was going to fall off the damn drum riser. So that was my kind of embarrassing moment because I didn't know what would have happened if that thing would have fell off. I don't know what we would have done.
Speaker 3:Oh, you would have gone to Dublin. Yeah See, bass players always got your back, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, he definitely had my back, so that was pretty cool. Well, john, going back to you, man, how are you doing on your guitar playing? Are you ready to join us yet, or what?
Speaker 2:I am, but you guys look kind of far. Everyone bailed on me Fucking moving to North Carolina.
Speaker 3:Yeah huh.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, there's ways to do it remote nowadays. I mean, we really haven't looked into it too much, but we actually talked about that in our last episode.
Speaker 2:That's how bands record these days, pretty much yeah Well, big bands, yeah, I've been playing, I've been practicing, that's all I do.
Speaker 1:It'd be cool to have an all-Franklin band. Speaking of Franklins, we have a cousin that's in a pretty famous band, John. Tell us a little bit about it, because you're closer to him than we are. So tell us a little bit about our cuz.
Speaker 2:Bruce Franklin from the band Chicago and from Trouble, the band Trouble. From Chicago. They got 10 CDs, 10 studio CDs, out. He's toured the world. They've played everywhere. In fact, they just got back from Sweden because you know they have all the festivals over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You guys haven't heard of Trouble. Check them out, they're awesome. Oh yeah, cool, very talented dude, very talented. Yeah, it'd be cool to have a. Like it's too, it's too bad, because he started the band in high school and he's really never made that much money off it.
Speaker 1:you know, they just it's too bad, but they just well, I read an article in uh in a modern drummer, because they were talking about one of their old drummers that's that started his own brewery, and they called them Trouble, the Godfathers of Doom Metal, which is pretty cool, that's a pretty good title to have. So they pretty much started it off.
Speaker 2:Oli Olsen, is that who?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:That was the original drummer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess he started a brewery up in. Minnesota somewhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, john, you got any like funny stories of you know times you went and saw bands. I mean, of course, I remember the old classic one of when we went and saw that band and I don't even remember where it was in some club, somewhere out in somewhere in California. I think we were there for our other brother's wedding.
Speaker 2:I know when are you going, oh yeah, you guys came down to see me when I was living in Redding California.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's where it was, and we hooked up. We went to this nightclub in Redding called Doc's and we're watching bands, and we got invited to some house party. Remember that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:And shit went crazy from that. Fill us in.
Speaker 1:Fill us in.
Speaker 3:What do you mean, crazy?
Speaker 2:Enlighten us. I don't even remember the band were they? Was there even a band playing or was it just live music? But we got invited to this party out in fucking hills, up in the dune box, and was that word dune, dune, whatever? You know, we're drinking and having a good time and I met some fat girl and I ended up in the back of her car. You guys came looking for me. You guys were like doing some car hopping and shit. You were jumping from car to car looking for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, jumping up on top of hoods, looking, yelling your name, looking for you.
Speaker 2:It's in the back of a yellow marijuana number. It was a cool car. I hear you guys like, oh shit, here I go, here comes my brothers. So what was?
Speaker 3:the Huh the band or the club Docks? Do you remember what band was playing there? I mean, I remember they actually seemed like they were pretty decent. That's all I remember from it. Of course we had quite a few else.
Speaker 2:Was it Banshee? Was it a band called Banshee? They actually sounded a lot like Judas Priest, really.
Speaker 1:I don't know, Good memory. I don't remember that.
Speaker 2:I can't remember. It was a good band that night. I remember that Because that's a small town. That was the only place bands could play.
Speaker 1:We had a good time None of us went to jail, fortunately, this time Me and Dana almost did on the drive home.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's right. Remember when you fucking fell asleep or something and ended up in the fucking field with cows? Oh, too much.
Speaker 3:We had to change your tire. Okay, yeah, I remember that we had to change your tire. We had it up on a jack and we were hammered and we had it on jack and of course, here comes Highway Patrol coming to check out and see what we were doing, and we were. I mean, if they would have gave us a field sobriety test we would have been done, but this is back in the day, we didn't really care no more. So we're sitting here talking to the cop leaning, leaning on the car, and he's asking us what we're doing, and as he's asking us questions, the car falls off the jack. He just looks like oh, you guys got enough problems.
Speaker 2:He just left, which was absolutely amazing. Yeah, he goes. You guys got enough problem. I'm gonna leave you alone, and we appreciate that, man, I only live down the street. That was the car I had to use like a screwdriver to start.
Speaker 3:Remember that yeah, yeah, I remember using a crowbar too. It's like you know, you jump start the battery at the crowbar yeah, yeah, yeah, not good on a rainy day oh tales from the road
Speaker 3:all this leads into something else that I wanted to mention as far as, like, when you start playing at these places, you know the personnel you have in the band you need to talk about. You know what you're going to do. As far as you know, drinking and drugs, I mean, you know it's a lot of people now is like, oh, rock and roll and drugs and it goes hand in hand. Yeah, but you know, if you want to be a professional band stuff, you really got to discuss this with your band members. As far as you know, know, you're just going to have, you know, a beer here and there to loosen up, or, you know, maybe a smoke here and there. Or, you know, are you going to have one of those band members that are just going to go off the loose, you know, off the off the the end of the razor's edge there, like we've had with one of our guitar players, and end up getting fired from the club because you know you start playing songs that nobody else in the band knows.
Speaker 2:So that's that's a big topic. You can't do both man. You can't be a, can't be an addict and play. And who? Which guitar player was that, by the way?
Speaker 1:uh, let's not, let's not mention names there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we don't want to throw too many names out there, for, but it was, you know, in one of our bands and we were. We were playing at a really well-known club in reno, um, for our first time ever and it only lasted one night, because, you know, he decided to start playing songs that none of us knew.
Speaker 1:And we're sitting there looking stupid for like five minutes and yeah and all of a sudden, hey, you guys want to come back and talk to me in the office. Yeah, that's not a way. You want to end your set, so, dana in closing anything you want, anything else you want to say about, like the first time hitting a stage, anything else that's like comes to mind that you really want to talk about.
Speaker 3:I think the big thing is sound check is you know?
Speaker 3:that's huge kind of back to what I was saying about having a sound guy and a sound engineer. Sound check is so important where you know when you go on and you play that first song, you're not surprised by all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, I can't hear the bass or I can't hear the guitars or the singer's way too loud. I mean, have it dialed in. Then when you go and play, don't touch anything. You know. If you know you got it dialed in, don't mess with it and pretend like you know all of, because, especially in small clubs, you know one little adjustment, as you know, rob, it just makes a difference.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 3:It's huge, you sound clean and you got a clean tone, or it just sounds muddy as hell.
Speaker 1:Not to mention it really affects I mean your attitude towards playing. If you're sounding good and you know the crowd's into it, you're going to play much better than if the sound is shitty and there's feedback and you know it's upsetting the crowd.
Speaker 3:It's just like your whole mood, your whole demeanor just changes and, like we've said millions of times too, it's like you know whether there's 10 people in the crowd or 10 000. It's like you know. Play as if you were playing to you know, in a stadium, exactly, pretend like there's a hundred thousand people out there, even if there's only five, five. You never know who those five people are. You know that five, five can grow into the thousands that you want, but you know every band I've heard black Sabbath. Their first gig was in front of 10 people.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:Laundromat or some shit like that. So I mean, it's you know, be professional at all times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we were pretty lucky. A lot of our first gigs were, you know, pretty big crowds so we I mean that helps you really get into it and helps your first couple gigs get off the ground like rolling really quick. So we were pretty fortunate there.
Speaker 3:I think our first one, yeah, our first one with Monolith. You know that morphed from, you know Vices. I mean, I think our first gig with that band was we had like two, three, 400 people. Yeah, I mean, it was big and it was awesome.
Speaker 1:It was Okay. Well, thank you everybody and, once again, please do email your information if you want to be on the show or just if you want some additional information from us or just want to be a guest. We would love to hear from you, so please do. At the end of every episode, there's a place to text us your information, so please do supply us that information and we really appreciate you listening. And if you haven't listened to our previous episodes, please do so closing words, john.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna give a shout out to my three beautiful daughters, kayla, brianna, erica please say hi for us as well we all gotta get together and jam man yeah, we do oh yeah all right, guys love you and everybody. Goodbye love you guys. Bye-bye peace.
