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
The Day You Discover Why: Musicians' Journey from Garage to Stage
"The two most important days of your life is when you're born and the day you discover why." Mark Twain's profound words resonate deeply with musicians who can pinpoint the exact moment music became their life's purpose. After a three-month hiatus following co-host Rob's life-threatening medical emergency, Franklin's Garage to Stage returns with heart and metal spirit intact.
Rob's harrowing experience with an esophageal rupture left him hospitalized with doctors preparing for the worst. "Metal kept you alive," Dana observes, as Rob confirms that his motivation to play music again helped pull him through. This near-death experience reinforces the podcast's core message: real musicians play for love, not money or fame. As the hosts note, most of their shows barely covered their beer tabs, yet the passion never dimmed.
The episode journeys through recent guest interviews, spotlighting incredible musicians and their stories. Martin Motnik, Accept's bass virtuoso, embodies the musician's dream – growing up with the band's poster on his wall and now performing with them on their 50th anniversary tour. His Nashville studio and diverse musical projects from jazz to metal showcase a true multi-genre talent.
The UK metal scene features prominently with Daz "Evil Hate" from Motörhead tribute band Loser, who impresses not just with his wall of 30 bass guitars but his commitment to supporting local acts wherever they tour. Jay Ball of Gospels of Odin wields his guitar "like a Viking sword" alongside his sons who handle vocal duties, creating powerful tracks that honor influences like Black Sabbath while forging their own distinctive sound.
Michael Carpenter, owner of The Rooster venue in North Carolina, offers invaluable advice for emerging bands: maintain active social media presence, as venue owners scout bands online and want to see consistent fan engagement. His dedication to original music across all genres exemplifies the supportive community spirit essential to musical growth.
Between guest highlights, the hosts share their embarrassing "Oh Shit" moments – from Dana's substance-induced studio fiasco to Rob's post-show walk of shame in full 80s metal regalia after his car broke down. These candid stories remind listeners that the road to musical mastery includes plenty of humbling experiences.
As the podcast approaches its one-year milestone and 50,000 listeners, the hosts express heartfelt gratitude to their growing audience. Have you discovered your musical purpose yet? Join the conversation and connect with fellow musicians who understand that true passion transcends fame and fortune.
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Hello, welcome to Franklin's Garage to Stage podcast. My name is Rob Wardrums Franklin and my co-host is Dana Thunderbase.
Dana:Franklin.
Rob:How you doing, man. It's been a while, huh.
Dana:Oh man, it's been what? Three months or something. Yeah.
Rob:I'll give you a short little explanation here. I had what's called esophageal rupture, and if you don't know what that means, join the club. I didn't either. What that basically means is your food tube the way the food goes down to your stomach had a hole in it. So basically my food was going into my chest cavity, which basically could kill you. So I was in the hospital for a month and a half. Just to give you a short explanation of what happened, so we're back yeah, and you know glad to be back how about you.
Dana:Oh, definitely glad to be back. You know there's there's a while there and you know I don't want to get into this too long, but you know you were sitting in the hospital bed, tubes and shit all over you, and you know dr pretty much said call priests and do the last rites, and you know it was, it was touching over there it was pretty. It was pretty sketch there.
Rob:Chest tubes and all kinds of drains and all kinds of crap sticking to my body.
Dana:You know? That's just another reason to say you know metal kept you alive.
Rob:Exactly exactly and wanting to play again. That was my motivation. So basically, today we're going to kind of do a recap of our last like four episodes with guests that we've had. They've been amazing guests, we've had some outstanding interviews. But first I want to start off with a quote. This is a quote by Mark Twain and I think it really fits musicians, not wannabes, not hobbyists or not, those that had like a little high school band and then stopped because they felt like they outgrew it, but musicians. And the quote basically goes the two most important days of your life is when you're born and the day you discover why. And I think musicians, I think they all know that day. At least I know I do. I know exactly the day when and why I got into music, and I think most musicians are basically fit to that same category.
Dana:Yeah, I think everybody can. Well, the real musicians can pinpoint that.
Rob:Exactly.
Dana:Up to probably to the hour of oh shit, I saw this show or I saw this person or I heard this, and you know, usually it was you know one certain album or song that they heard on you know radio or saw live and they're like, oh shit, this is what I want to do the rest of my life I think musician, real musicians, it's not all about fame and fortune and money.
Rob:Of course, you know that's great if you can get there. But even the ones that get there, you know they continue to play because they're in their heart.
Dana:They're a musician, that's what they want to do yeah, I mean, how long we've been playing, how much money do we have exactly, exactly?
Rob:For many of our shows we didn't even make enough to pay for our beer bills. So it's not really about the money, it's about the love of it. And me personally, I look at my kit and I smile. I mean, even if you have a shitty kit, or if you're a drummer and have a shitty kit, I think just looking at your instrument makes you smile, if you're a real musician.
Dana:At least that's the way I feel. No, that's definitely for sure. Cool, yeah, I hear you.
Rob:Well, anyway, dan, kick us off. My voice is still kind of sketchy because I had like tubes of crap down my throat, so I apologize for that.
Dana:Oh, put your whining. You only had what? 10 surgeries.
Rob:I mean, come on, get over it, nothing but you know I'm going to let Dana do a majority of the talking today, but anyway, kick it off with our first one I think we should recap is the one with Bart Motnik Absolutely, absolutely.
Dana:That was you know, and that one was, you know, just going back, you know, if anybody has listened to that one. It was a special day for us because not only did we get to interview, like rob said, martin motnik, who's the bass player for the, you know german heavy metal band except which they go back 40, 50 years, um, and just amazing one of my all-time favorite bands, but the fact that we got to talk with him live, a bass player because I'm a bass player made it happy. But you know, my brother over here happened to set it up on a special day, on march 26, which happened to have been my birthday. So this is like I mean, it's like a dream come true for me, you know to be able to talk to a professional bass player from a band that I loved on my birthday.
Rob:I mean it's awesome.
Dana:The guy I mean you know, martin, is one of those musicians that just so down to earth you would never know that he's with a huge band like that. Just a really cool guy. I wish we could have talked for him even longer. Maybe we can hook up with him later on.
Rob:I hope so.
Dana:The guy was just amazing. His list of some of the credentials that he has was just amazing. Not only a bass player, but he played upright bass and he does stuff with, you know, jazz bands, funk bands and, of course, the heavy metal and you know rock, I think he. You know he lives in nashville area, so he's doing stuff with some country bands too. Um, he's got his own studio in home that, uh, you know, I gotta think of the name of it now. I think this is called bass studios or studio bass or something like that. Um, you can look online for him and it's just.
Rob:I mean, he, he does everything under the sun, it's just the guy's amazing and check out our website because, uh, franklin's garage stagecom, because we have links to all his socials on our guest page as well. So, yeah, please do check him out and his, uh, his socials, because he does uh recording for for basically anybody that will hire him as well. So, yeah, check out his website. He's a, like Dana said, killer dude. He's beyond talented.
Dana:Yeah, yeah. And that goes the same with any of the musicians or the bands that we're talking about. You know we have links for all of them on our website. So, yeah, definitely check that out. Links for all of them on our website. So yeah, definitely check that out.
Dana:And going back to Martin, he has this. You know I call his stories almost like that. If you've ever seen Rockstar with Mark Wahlberg, it's like you know a guy that idolizes this band and, you know, gets to go see him live and all of a sudden he's on the same stage with him. I mean, Martin went through the same thing he was telling us about. You know he had a poster of Accept in his room when he was growing up as a teenager. What a story, man. And now he's on stage with them. And yeah, accept, of course they're on the road doing a 50-year anniversary thing, I think, with Judas Priest, or if they're done with it, I'm not quite sure. I should probably know that, but I mean, god, what a life. I mean that's. I'll tell you what.
Dana:And he's got a couple solo projects too. You should really check out. You know one that's called Dream Chasers and another one called Bass Invaders Really cool stuff on that. It's like you know some stuff that's really metal. You know some mellow stuff, some metal stuff, rock, I mean just a little combination of everything. It's really really sick, so you know.
Rob:Next, up on.
Dana:You know the recap of what we're doing here with all these. You know amazing musicians and bands and you'll notice. I think all these guys, with the exception of the last one we're going to talk about, are from the UK. I mean, we just got on this big trip from the.
Rob:UK. Well, Martin, he's currently in Nashville, but yeah, yeah.
Dana:And then these next three bands and individuals we're going to talk about. They're all from the United Kingdom and just kick-ass people. So next guy we talked to is a guy named Daz Evil Hate. We just call him Daz. He's just another bass player, but he fronts a band that is a tribute band to Motorhead called Loser, and they have just been on a tear lately. I mean they're doing festivals and all over the UK, Birmingham, I mean just the whole area. I think they even did something up in. Was it Ireland, or maybe Scotland?
Dana:or one of those little places up there, but they're just all over the place doing all kinds of stuff. And Daz is another amazing, another guy that I'm just very jealous of you know. He showed me his wall of basses that he had, and had about 30 of them, you know, a couple of Rickenbackers, of course, just like Lemmy, and I mean it's just really cool. And the guy was know, another real down-to-earth musician and, and what I like about a lot of the stuff that he was doing was, of course, their tribute band. But he's had a couple other bands underneath them that, um, are you know, different styles. I mean, you got the motorhead and you know the band underneath them that, you know, is more like uh, uh, what do you call it?
Dana:like that whole seattle, the grunge grunge band thing and then another band, um, that even opened up around that, which was like a really hard hard metal, I think like a metalcore or black metal, whatever you want to call it. So it's kind of cool that they do all the different influences on that, and I think that, um, he was also saying that they do, uh, you know, try to get local. You know, whenever they go on the road, you know, whatever city they're in, they try to get a local.
Rob:Yeah, they try to get a supporting act. That's uh local.
Dana:Yeah, I think they even did like a comedian or something too right. In fact, they do have one that travels with a comedian that actually opened up the whole thing. So it's like a really cool concept of what he does and he basically was running the show. I mean, like he said, he was driving the band pretty much doing it all and you know it's funny because the two bands that play with them regularly. He's the bass player for both of them too.
Dana:So this guy's playing like four hours in a row driving the band and it's like holy shit.
Rob:What really impressed me about that guy is he's all about supporting other bands too, not about just like pumping his band, but he's all about helping other bands in the area as well. So I think that's just beyond cool.
Dana:Yeah, in fact we had a hard time trying to get him to talk about himself. I know, because he always wanted to talk about the bands that were opening up for him and, yeah, really cool, really cool. So one of the bands that I think it was the next one that opened up for him was a band called Ego Trip. Really cool guys. You know, of course, daz is the bass player, but then they had these other guys that you know pretty much teenagers and 20-year-olds that were just funny as hell.
Rob:Oh, yeah they were. It was really fun, and check out those episodes when you get a chance to, because they are, like, really, really good in my opinion. Yeah, talking to, yeah, talking to these guys was so cool.
Dana:Oh, it was a good time. In fact, we said we were going to do a follow-up with them too when they got done with their tour, because I think they're getting ready to wrap that up. And Eagle Trip they just put out a new album.
Dana:It's a streaming or CD, whatever you want to call it nowadays, but they just put out a bunch of new material, so definitely check them out. I'd like to mention them them uh, the drummer was ellis, uh, non-vocals was will and the guitar player, um, I think I'm saying this right bean or buying something like that.
Dana:I think it was bean. Yeah, and of course, dad's on the bass and, just like I said, really cool guys. Talking to him, you can tell that they were like a little family, you know. Just whenever they're going on the road they, you know, fuck with each other all the time and we're talking about how they mess with the girls and and do all kinds of you know what. What a road trip would really be like as young musicians.
Rob:So so it was really cool guy, really cool guys, fun to talk to you.
Dana:A lot of fun yeah definitely we definitely got to do a follow-up with them yeah, um, and then another band that opened up with these guys, like I said, it was, you know, loser ego chip. And then there's another band that that did that and they were called the bay of pigs oh, that's right.
Dana:I'm sorry, but I forgot about that, yeah bay of pigs and they're like a real heavy metal. We we didn't get a chance to talk with them at all, with the exception of daz, who's the bass player for them also, um, but from what I understand, they're just like a real dark heavy metal, speed metal type band and we'd really like to talk to those guys because that's you know, of course I love that kind of music a little bit more than you know grunge or country or rap.
Dana:Not to say anything bad about anybody, and you know, if you're a musician, you're a musician and we applaud you for any genre you do, because we know what it takes to just to get out there and play.
Rob:So, yeah, for any genre you do, because we know what it takes to just to get out there and play um.
Dana:So yeah, next next here is Thank you, musician, amazing dude, and his, his band, they're called the gospels of odin, out of the united kingdom, and just they fucking rip. I mean I don't know what else to say. It's definitely the kind of style of music that I think we both love and they just they, they fucking kill it. That's all it's to it. Um, the dude is a hell of a guy. Um, his name is Jay Jay ball and he he's just how do I describe it? Um, I think I I read something on there where it says you know, his, his guitar work is like something you know, of course, being called gospels of Odin.
Dana:Um, guitar work is something out of his guitar work is. You know, I read a thing. It says his, his guitar is is like he wields his guitar like a Viking sword and you know, I mean, that fits their style of music and and that's exactly how I would. You know, of course, he keeps mentioning one of his big influences is Tony Iommi from Black Sabbath, which is fitting because they're from the same area, but it's, it sounds like that, and the guy is just like I said he rips, he kills, and he's got his two young sons their first material that he was doing.
Dana:His son, levi, you know, did a lot of the vocals on it and it's more like the screaming vocals which you know he kills. It absolutely kills it. It goes with the work very well. Vocals which you know he kills. It absolutely kills it. It goes with the work very well. Then, on some of the new material he's doing right now, his other son and the name is I'm not sure what his first real name is, but he goes by the name of Screams in Carbonite. So I mean, if that's not a great moniker, I don't know what is, because that definitely fits how they both sound.
Rob:On the new material and we encourage you to check out once again franklinsgaragetostagecom and our guest bio and pics page. We've got their bios. We have two videos on there that you've got to check out. One is called God's Eye and the other one is Spellbinder. You've got to check them out because their videos are amazing as well. So please do check out that page and we will include their new material as well. We haven't done that yet, but I will put his new tracks on there as well.
Dana:Yeah, I can't talk enough about these guys and Jay's very, very good about putting the stuff on the internet. I mean, it's all over the place. Of course they've got a profile on Spotify, but it does a bunch of stuff on YouTube and Facebook and all that Very socially interacted with what they do and is all over the place and you've got to check it out because they're absolutely amazing. Um, their album, uh, the ones that they did earlier this year, called guy god's eye, is just has some killer tracks on it. You know, one of my favorite ones is called welcome to the apocalypse. It's an instrument.
Dana:Yeah, their version of paranoid is very sick. I mean it's. You know, at first, when you listen to it, you can tell the opening rhythm, and then you know opening riffs and stuff, and then after that they just definitely go their own style and it is so fucking cool. Yeah, you definitely got to check it out and you know, since we're we're getting ready to finish up on, you know, mr j bell and gospels of odin, I'd just like to throw out a big thank you to them for all the support that they show us. I mean, you know we do this to. You know, throw out, you know, support the bands and, you know, try to get musicians that are, you know, just starting out and you know we're we try to do the big supporting role, but these guys are really supporting us too and throwing us on their links and and all the stuff know that that we've done for them and they've done for us.
Dana:So it's you know. I mean we're we've only been doing this for a little bit less than a year, just about ready to hit the one year mark actually in our podcast.
Rob:Yeah.
Dana:Yeah, right around the corner. And you know there's a lot of musicians out there that that love not only what we're doing, but they'll love what they're doing and they're supporting us like we're supporting them. It's just, you know it's all one big community and a big, you know, family. You know being a musician is you know we've said this millions of times before it's it's you're, all the other musicians and to you know, cooperate with each other. It's just, you know it's a, it's an amazing little family. You know, to have people do that for each other, absolutely, absolutely, love that, that feeling of camaraderie within each other.
Rob:Well, you know what I think this brings us to our what moment, oh shit.
Rob:Okay, this time I'll kick it off. Uh, this is going back way, way, way back. Uh, I was actually in my second band I'd ever been in uh, not going to mention the name, but it was the second band I was ever in and we were playing. Uh, what for us was at the time was a big show. There was actually the county fair, there was two and we actually got to play on the big stage. It was like the middle of the afternoon, but it was still pretty cool. We got done with the show, which went really well, loaded our shit up into our vehicles and on the way out of the gate of the fairgrounds, my fucking car broke down and everybody else had already bailed. So I was there by myself and ended up having to walk home, which is about a mile and a half from there, and I was in spandex, belts and bandanas and all this crap. So here I am walking down the street looking like this, and it was kind of an embarrassing moment, but that was my oh shit moment, oh damn.
Dana:I could just see you walking down the road in spandex and shititting in reno during during that time. Oh shit, well, my, my oh shit moment goes back to. It's actually in one of the few bands I played in without my brother. Here is like one of the last things I actually, you know, ever did. But before we got back together here, but, um, there's a band called open road and I'll say it just because these guys I don't, I don't even know if they're even still around. Um, yeah, well, it was me and this young guitar player. I mean, of course, I think I was only 26, 27 at the time, but we had like this 16, 17 year old guitar player, you know, out of Carson City. We were based out of Reno at the time. Then, of course, you remember the singer, jamie, that was the yeah from Jersey, the last guy I played with. And you know we actually did this.
Dana:One little demo tape, had like three songs on it and I mean I look back on it as good quality. It's not quite the kind of stuff that I'd like to do. I like to do stuff a little bit harder. But going back to when we were doing a little demo tape, we were in this little studio place and I don't even remember what the name of it was, but it's the only time I've actually done any studio work and I was kind of nervous at the time. So, of course, what do you do when you get nervous? You have a little bit to drink and maybe a little bit to smoke. So I kind of overdid it on the smoking part. Um, you know, only had a shot or two.
Dana:But then you know, I, you know I, I like my Mary Jane, so I I puffed a little bit too much and and going into his time, of course, for me to lay down some bass tracks, and I was just fucking all over the place. I mean I thought I was like Billy Sheehan or Steve Harris. You know I'm just throwing triplets and all kinds of fast stuff in there, trying to make these songs liven up a little bit more. And I look back and when we rewound the tape to listen to it, it was absolute garbage. So I was a little embarrassed. And two hours later, when I mellowed out a little bit, we redid it and it came out much better. When I mellowed out a little bit, we redid it and it came out much better.
Dana:But the oh shit part of it is know what the hell you're doing when it's time to do something professional and be a professional about it. That was probably the one and only time I wasn't professional at my craft. I mean, when we first started out I might not have been the best bass player, but I gave it my best in my all and and this was one moment I was very unprofessional and it just didn't work. And it was thank god. It was in the studio atmosphere and, you know, not in front of live people, because I've never done that. And so people be prepared and don't have an oh shit moment like that so who was our uh next guest on the recap?
Rob:Your last.
Dana:Yeah, the last episode we did was with this guy named Michael Carpenter and he actually runs and operates and owns a club called the Rooster out of Gastonia, north Carolina, and this dude was cool as shit. And this dude was cool as shit, you know, just to hear his story of why. Basically, you know he opened up this club and got it going because he was tired of driving to a big city for him in Charlotte, an hour, two hours away, just to see live bands, because you know they didn't have any original music or original bands or even cover bands or anything in the area that he's from. So he's like you know, fuck this, fuck this, I'm gonna open up my own club. And he took it a step farther, not only just having bands come in, but he does all original bands, which is so cool because that's just hard to come by nowadays. So I'm I mean this guy and so we're talking with him.
Dana:You definitely gotta check out the episode, but we're talking about him, about you know what it takes for a band to get into his venue and what they have to do, and the guy's just full of so much good information and any band out there that thinks that they're ready to play and does original material. You've got to check this guy out, especially if you're in the North Carolina area and you know they've got bands coming from all over the place, especially if you're in the North Carolina area and they've got bands coming from all over the place. They do festivals and all kinds of shows that have bands coming from different parts of the country, so it's not just North Carolina. All genres, all genres. Oh yeah, they have some rap bands, metal bands. I mean he's done it all and he's just so open to get local not local but musicians that are all original just to get out there and get heard. So it was really cool talking to this guy.
Rob:Yeah, he was a really, really cool guy and once again, he was one of those kind of guys that says get out and support musicians. He's all about, even if you're in a different band, get out and listen to other bands and get out and support them. And his main, what I got out of his advice was make sure you're on your socials and that you update your socials if not daily, weekly Because club owners like him that's kind of where they go to see what you're all about, and if you're not updating your webpage or whatever your socials are constantly, they really don't even want to look at you. They want a band that's busy trying to get their popularity and their crowd constantly. So that's something that I got from him. I think it was good advice.
Dana:Oh yeah, I mean, that was great advice. It's like you could be the greatest garage band in the world, but if you don't let everybody know and put it on some kind of social media, you know who the hell is going to know. I mean, it's like you know, and he likes any like we were talking about before any kind of genre of music. It doesn't have to be rock or metal, you know, but country even folk music. It doesn't have to be rock or metal, you know, but country even folk music. I think they had one festival where it's just all folk music and so it's. You know, if you're out there and you think you're ready to play, hit this guy up, but make sure you're ready, you know, have your, have your shit recorded, you know, be on social media Even if you haven't done live shows before show. You know they've got to have something to listen to to, you know. So they know what you're all about. So definitely check him out. Uh, michael Carpenter with the rooster, um, great dude, and out there to support local acts. And it's so, so nice to have somebody that's doing stuff for original bands out there nowadays, because that's hard to find. All right, so you know.
Dana:One other episode we did in between all these guys was an episode that you know me and Rob were actually the ones that were being interviewed, which was kind of. Which was kind of cool, you know, because usually we're the interviewers and this time we were the interviewees, so we've got an episode on there. It's with this individual called Chris Robert. He's the host of On Stage Podcast and, like I said, you know he talked with us about our experience with bands and what we've done with music and it was really cool. So, if you guys are interested in hearing about our story, definitely check that out. It's actually on our website and all of our episodes and stuff, so, yeah, so check that out, it's, it's actually on our on our website and our you know, all of all of all of our episodes and stuff. So yeah, so yeah, I'll check that out and yeah, I'd like to say so I'm going to.
Dana:I'm going to end this with, you know, saying a big thank you to all of us of our supporters and, you know, thanks for sticking with us. We got tons of hits and new listeners and stuff, even while we were away for this brief moment that we well, I shouldn't say brief moment three months. But thank you for, you know, for being there and listening and you know, hopefully, you know you'll, you'll check us out further and you know, keep share us with everybody that you know. You know, cause we'd like to, like I said, we're close to that 50,000 mark and you know we'd love to hit a hundred thousand. You know, and 50,000 mark and you know we'd love to hit 100,000. You know, in half the amount of time it took us to get 50 and you know, pretty soon you'll see us on, you know, on stage.
Dana:You know, maybe doing some emceeing with some big bands and you know who knows. You know, iheartradio Festival, I mean shit, we're gonna be all over the place. So you know, say, you're gonna be one of the first few followers that we had and you know we'll hook you up with some cool swag or something. But I'm going to end this episode with a little phrase and something that cool I just came up with the other day and it's basically, you know, just talks about how I feel about music and it's uh, basically, you know, remember, if it wasn't for music, we would all have to talk to each other more. You know, I'm I'm kind of an antiisocial person and not much of a talker. So, um, and I love listening to music, so you know that that's all I got to say.
Rob:Peace out bitches, thanks again and thank you for being patient with us and thank you very much. See you guys later Later.
