Howling and Crowing about America (and Amorica) as drummer Steve Gorman returns home

Longtime drummer of The Black Crowes and now Minnesota morning rock radio voice Steve Gorman comes home to Maryland to discuss the state of world and his new supergroup Howl Owl Howl, featuring Mike Mills of R.E.M. and Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish. But we can’t just stick to rock band nostalgia and sports halftime shows when The United States Constitution is being shredded in the streets of Minneapolis every day…

Steve Gorman, a Maryland native and former drummer for the Black Crowes, now hosts a morning radio show in Minneapolis on KQRS. He discussed the station’s transition from classic rock to a more modern format, focusing on 80s, 90s, and early 2000s music. Gorman also touched on the political climate in Minnesota, expressing concern over constitutional violations. Additionally, he shared insights about the formation and success of the supergroup Howl Owl Howl, featuring members from REM, Hootie and the Blowfish, and the Black Crowes. Gorman emphasized the band’s enjoyment of playing live shows and the positive audience reception.

• [ ] Release another single from Howl Owl Howl (publish next song soon as stated) to follow up on the band’s recent shows and maintain momentum
• [ ] Complete and release a full Howl Owl Howl album after the next single (plan and finalize album release following the upcoming single)
• [ ] Plan and schedule a Howl Owl Howl tour (book gigs and announce dates), targeting the second half of the year

Steve Gorman’s Career and Current Role in Minnesota

• Nestor Aparicio welcomes Steve Gorman to the show, mentioning his Maryland roots and his current role in Minnesota.
• Steve Gorman discusses his transition to Minnesota, where he has been for three years, and his morning show on KQRS.
• Steve explains the evolution of KQRS from a classic rock station to a more modern format, focusing on 80s, 90s, and early 2000s music.
• The show, “Gorman in the Morning,” features music, current events discussions, and a focus on Minnesota music, including artists like Prince and Semisonic.

Steve Gorman’s Journey and Personal Life

• Nestor Aparicio highlights Steve’s diverse career, including his time with the Black Crowes and his current roles in radio and music.
• Steve shares his journey from Maryland to Kentucky, Atlanta, Brooklyn, and finally Nashville, where he settled for a long time.
• Steve discusses his decision to move to Minneapolis, influenced by his children’s college plans and the opportunity to explore a new city.
• Steve reflects on the stability and happiness he has found in Minneapolis, despite the initial uncertainty of the move.

Steve Gorman’s Relationship with the Black Crowes and Music

• Nestor Aparicio asks about Steve’s relationship with the Black Crowes and his feelings about the band.
• Steve clarifies that he is no longer with the Black Crowes but remains supportive of the band and its music.
• Steve discusses the impact of his book on the band’s fans and emphasizes the importance of separating the music from personal stories.
• Steve expresses his love for the music of the Black Crowes and other bands he has been involved with, despite any personal challenges.

Political and Social Issues in Minnesota

• Nestor Aparicio and Steve discuss the political and social issues in Minnesota, including the impact of recent events and the administration’s actions.
• Steve criticizes the lack of accountability and constitutional violations by masked individuals in Minneapolis.
• The conversation touches on broader national issues, including the administration’s handling of various crises and the impact on public perception.
• Steve emphasizes the importance of staying informed and engaged in the political process, despite the challenges.

Sports and Soccer Fandom

• Nestor Aparicio and Steve discuss their shared love for sports and soccer, particularly the World Cup.
• Steve expresses his disappointment in the U.S. hosting the World Cup due to the current political climate and the ethical issues surrounding the event.
• The conversation highlights the corruption in sports organizations like FIFA and the IOC, and the impact on public perception.
• Steve reflects on the importance of sports and entertainment in society, drawing parallels to historical events like the Roman Coliseum.

Howl Owl Howl Supergroup and Future Plans

• Nestor Aparicio asks Steve about the formation and success of the Howl Owl Howl supergroup.
• Steve explains the origins of the band, involving Darius Rucker, Mike Mills, and himself, and the initial steps to create new music.
• The band’s first tour was a success, with positive audience reactions to both old and new songs.
• Steve shares plans for future releases and tours, aiming to continue the band’s momentum and explore new creative directions.

Steve Gorman’s Radio Career and Future Aspirations

• Nestor Aparicio inquires about Steve’s radio career and his thoughts on the future of media.
• Steve discusses his syndicated show, “Steve Gorman Rocks,” and the flexibility of working in radio while pursuing other projects.
• Steve reflects on the advancements in technology that allow him to work remotely and stay connected with his audience.
• The conversation concludes with Steve expressing his gratitude for the support and opportunities he has received in his career.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Steve Gorman, Minnesota, rock radio, Black Crowes, Howl Owl Howl, classic rock, morning show, KQRS, Minnesota music, political landscape, sports radio, Nashville, World Cup, soccer, supergroup.

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SPEAKERS

Steve Gorman, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W n s t, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore. Positive. We’ll be getting the Maryland crab cake tour out on the road. Hope everyone is enjoying a cup of soup or bowl wherever you are. Spring training in progress. We’ve got Luke and W n s t tech service brought to you by cold roofing and Gordian energy, anything breaking, including Jackson holidays, handmade bone. You’ll get that first in the wnst tech service, also everything brought to you by Farnham and Dermer. They are newest sponsors. They do HVAC. Hopefully you don’t need the HVAC, but when you do I got people. They’re the comfort guys. They will help you out. This is going to be one of my favorite ones. I almost invited John Allen in on this one to double team the rock and roll because we both enjoyed Steve Gorman’s book. If you are a stranger to rock and roll under this program, over the last decade or so, Steve Gorman and I have struck up a strange Sports Radio friendship. But Steve Gorman is a Marylander. He has been on talking about his brother and his old band and other bands and his sports radio gig in Nashville, he is now in Minneapolis, which is a hell of a place to be any winter, but this winter, yeah, and catch everybody up, Steve, because, I mean, I was out with how loud, how we’re going to get to music. We’re going to get the REM and mute all of that. But, like you, sort of flew into a political landscape that you were aware of involved in that has been a part of your life for a long time. But boy, how came to Minnesota the last 90 days?

Steve Gorman  01:31

Huh? Yeah, for sure, I’ve been here three years now, the first, first few years, pretty calm. Comparatively. Why you went there? Right? No comparison. Yeah, I do a morning I got a morning show. I’m still doing radio. I’m on a longtime dominant rock station called kqrs, a station I’ve been aware of since 1990 and I took over the Morning Show in January of 23 so been up here, getting up early, really enjoying it. Just tell a

Nestor Aparicio  02:01

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bit what it is. Because, I mean, you were known for sports radio. Obviously, you’re pretty famous rock and roll band, but what do you do all day on a rock station? Right? Like rock would be here, same thing, kind of thing.

Steve Gorman  02:13

Yeah, yeah. So this, when I got here, the station was very much classic rock. It was a classic rock behemoth, and so the playlist was 60s, 70s, a little into the 80s. We’d go up to the mid 80s, but that was about it. It was old school, classic rock. And the idea of bringing me in after I replaced a guy that had been on the air 30 years was, let’s slowly, let’s get me into the market. If I like it, if the market likes me, we’ll up. We’ll update the format. Eventually, we’ll sort of modernize, because that, that first wave of classic rock stations that hit in the early 80s, they’ve never really changed. You know, the the audience is still there. People still love listening to Led Zeppelin and the stones and sticks and journey. But over the last few years, it has started to, you know, it is time for an upgrade, you know, to or to move forward a little bit. The audience is aging out the, you know, it’s just the natural flow of things.

Nestor Aparicio  03:05

It’s moved to town garden and Green Day in the format here, that’s 100.7

Steve Gorman  03:09

which is class. So, so what we did, so the plan was, come up, do three years, and then let’s see where we’re at. Well, after two years, sitting with the my program director and some people from the network, it was pretty basic. It was, hey, you’re here. The audience knows you. They like you. Let’s go ahead and get to where we’re going to go now. No reason to wait. So almost a year ago, last April, we completely rebuilt the format. We went from the old just straight up classic rock, the station one off air for a couple weeks. We were just playing, basically just played music. We have no shows rebooted all the different day parts, new hosts, completely upgraded the playlist. Now we’re looking at, like, 80s, 90s, early, 2000s so it’s not, it’s not brand new music, but it’s, you know, the, I guess the easiest way to say it is, if you were in high school in the 90s, the station’s for you, you know, it’s stuff that you knew as a kid. It’s the, you know, the middle school and high school. That’s everybody’s favorite music for the rest of their lives. So if you’re, you know, if you were between 8898 if that was your years, we’re probably your sweet spot right now. So it’s just an upgraded and as we’re in Minneapolis, a real focus on Minnesota music. So we are playing Prince. We’re playing hoosker, do the replacement soul asylum, the Jayhawks, you know, semi Sonic. Within the music of Minnesota, there’s a whole wide range of stuff, you know, so real, real cool. The show that I host is called Gorman in the morning. It’s the, you know, I’m on six to 10am my producer, a co host. The three of us just it’s We play a lot of music. We talk a lot of we talk about music. We talk about the current events that are happening. Obviously, there’s been no shortage of stories in Minneapolis, as you said, the last few months. But we just try to have fun in terms of, you know, your average morning show. We’re riding along with people on their way to work and trying to give them a laugh and hopefully playing a song that they haven’t heard in a while, and they want to rock out

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Nestor Aparicio  05:08

to, dude, you’re quite a renaissance guy rolling out of Anne Arundel County, right? I mean, you’ve been everywhere, man, you know what? I mean this is and everywhere you are, you feel comfortable. There’s something about that

Steve Gorman  05:20

that’s that’s very true. I mean, we, you know, it was in Atlanta. I moved I left Maryland when I was 10 years old. 1975 moved to Kentucky, there for 11 years. Then do Atlanta. That’s where we put together. The black crows love, loved Atlanta, and still do to this day. My wife and I, at the end of the 90s, we’re ready to go somewhere else. We ended up in Brooklyn for a couple years. Couple years, then we ended up in LA for a couple years when it was time for school, you know, like the first kid’s going to go into kindergarten. We knew, well, wherever we’re going to be, then we want to stay. I didn’t want to do what happened to me. I didn’t want to have to move my kids at some point during their school years, because my move to Maryland, from Maryland to Kentucky when I was 10 was really traumatic. I mean, it was pretty, pretty bruising thing, and it was, you know, for all my siblings that were involved in that, it’s always, you know, Kentucky was fine, but it’s just a hard thing to do to move anyway. Long story short, we got to Nashville and decided we’re here. As long as the kids are in school, we’re going to be here at least until they’re out of high school. And a few years ago, when I got a call asking if I’d be interested in coming to Minneapolis, my wife and I had just started the conversation of, is Nashville it Are we done? Because our kids were gone? You know, they’re both out of the house. They’re both in college at the time, neither one was thinking they would return to Nashville after college. They love being from there. Neither one has plans to live there at least anytime soon. And we had just started that conversation, well, we don’t have to be anywhere. Where do we want to go? And we were just very casually discussing like, well, you know, we always loved Atlanta. We could go back there. We could just stay where we are. Didn’t really know. And then this phone rang one day, and what about Minneapolis, the city I’ve always loved, a great music town forever, a great sports town. Do you want to come up and do a morning show? And it was just that offer of like, you know what I think the universe is saying? Hey, try one more place. Let’s just see. We can always come back here. We can always go anywhere else. It really wasn’t a lot of thought it was, like, a don’t think just blank, like, yeah, man, let’s go. Let’s see what happens. And so we’re now over three years in, and you know, we’re very happy here. The show’s doing great. And so I don’t know that I’m here for the rest of my life, but I’m not looking around. I’m very, very focused on what’s happening here and now.

Nestor Aparicio  07:42

Steve Gorman is my guest. Is it okay if I say of the black crows, or of how, well, how, or of Gorman in the morning? I mean doing all sorts of things.

Steve Gorman  07:51

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I’ve been called so many things in my life, Nestor, you can say whatever you want, author, author. You know when I’ve been called much worse things, I say of myself I am formerly of the Black Rose. I don’t, I don’t ever want to give the misleading indication that I’m still with the black crows. In fact, yesterday was 12 years since. Two days ago was 12 years since my last gig with the black crows. So it’s been, I mean, a dozen years is a long time.

Nestor Aparicio  08:21

Somebody buys a black crows t shirt. Or do you get money from that? I mean, there’s, is it like, are you still a part of that? But you’re you’re just gone. I don’t understand that, because people want to support the band, but they read your book.

Steve Gorman  08:34

I nobody should read my book and said, decide never to support the band. My story is my story. That’s all it is. And I, you know, it’s a good story. I wrote the book because I was like, This is crazy. What a wild ride that was. And I guess

Nestor Aparicio  08:47

Jimmy Page part, by the way, so what freaks me out? I read that. I get squeamish. Just read it

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Steve Gorman  08:53

was fun. I mean, what a crazy, you know, like, I say, buy the ticket, take the ride. I it was, it was everything it could have ever hope to have been good, bad, up, down, left and right. You know, it was really what it was. It was like a spin cycle for for the better part of 30 years. So it’s answer your question, everybody in every band. It’s different. It depends on what you do. I I’m forever. If you are listening to music, if you’re buying Black Rose music, then I am. I thank you in advance. Perfect.

Nestor Aparicio  09:23

That’s all. That’s all I want to know, because, you know, you made a lot of great music. I can’t just, I can’t quit it, Steve, you know, but you’re also making some

Steve Gorman  09:31

music, right? And you shouldn’t. I mean, when, when the book came out, and there are stories in the book, when I when, when the when I was doing my book events. Fans would come up every night and they’d say, like, it was just so hard to read it. Read. It was so sad. And they were like, they felt bad for me. And I was like, I’m fine. I’m great. It was crazy back then. I’m doing great now. And various people would say it, I don’t know that I can still listen to the music. And I’d say, no, no, no, you don’t understand. If you take away the music, all that’s left is stories like this, the music, it’s all worth. Worth it. You know, it’s like, if you love music, you know, trust the art, not the artist. Is an old it’s an old adage. And it’s like, if you find anything in this world that makes you feel all the things you’re supposed to feel, if please listen to it, it doesn’t. It’s no, it doesn’t hurt me at all. I love, I love the music of the black crows, the music of the black girls that I love. I really love some of it. I listen to like any band, I go, I was okay. Could have been better. You know, I have opinions of it, just like anybody else, but I would never think like somebody should not listen to the band because I had a hard time in the 90s with something. I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s never been the point at all. What do you love the most? What dub the music? Yeah, the easy answer is, the second album is the it’s the best album we made. I don’t go back and listen to Black Rose music. If it comes on the radio, I don’t turn it off. You know, I’ll, in fact, if it’s a song that I don’t hear often, I’ll turn it up. And I’m, you know, there was a over the last few years, stuff from amoreka that pops up. I’ll turn that up and I’ll just think, oh, man, that’s good for us. Yeah, we hit that one that was good. You know? Like, there’s certain stuff. There’s songs from every record that I think are fantastic. If I don’t love the song, I at least love the take. If I’m not crazy about to take it doesn’t matter, because the song is great. You know, my nitpicking, overthinking brain can still dig right in there. But, you know, I remember every song we ever recorded. I can tell you a story about any session. You know, it’s all still up in my head at all. It doesn’t matter to me now, but it was my entire world for so long. It certainly mattered then, and I would never try to act like it didn’t, you know, I was consumed with that band for years and years,

Nestor Aparicio  11:47

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Steve, I got to go back to Minnesota and just, I don’t want to get too heavy, because I want to get into how well I’m we’re going to get in all of it, by the way. Steve Gorman’s our guest, if you’re listening out in the car Minnesota and the last 90 days. And, I mean, as we tape this, we’ve got Bondi this, and we’ve got Epstein, and five days from now, we’ll bomb somebody. I mean it, it is an incredible sort of Russian fascist sort of playlist for being so racist that we don’t notice the pedophilia that that which has happened on Super Bowl weekend?

Steve Gorman  12:21

Yeah, yeah. It is astonishing to be living through a time when all the worst things you suspected or feared are pretty much coming out onto the table, and we just get up and go about our business every day as a country, as if it’s not that big a deal. I don’t know what the what the breaking point is, but I do know that it feels like we have an administration that is intentionally, as you said, they constantly muddy the waters. Just look over here, look over there. It works the amount of stuff that comes our way. It keeps everybody from being able to focus on some very specific things. I mean, for what’s going on in Minneapolis specifically, the simplest thing to me is that you have, you have you have people wearing masks with zero accountability, who never have to identify themselves, who can come in and upturn people’s lives, and they do it every day, hundreds of times. That’s That’s as unconstitutional as anything can get. They’re violating the Constitution countless times an hour in this city, and have been for the better part of a couple of three months now. So just that alone tells you, okay, we’ve, we’ve lost the plot. I mean, you know, left or right isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about constitutional or not in and

Nestor Aparicio  13:38

I don’t even talk about whether he’s a pedophile and I’m Venezuelan, right? Yeah?

Steve Gorman  13:42

Like, yeah, so well, and, like I said, just to speak about where I am and what the story the headlines out of Minnesota are, you know, to me, that’s the blatant disregard for the the inalienable rights, for the things that we’re all supposed to be protected by in the Constitution, the first and the fourth, and you know, all of the amendments that are in there specifically to protect citizens. This administration does not care about. They don’t care. They will spin anything to fit a narrative. And it’s a it’s a nightmare, it’s a dystopian horror show, and it’s happening 247 I can tell you that there’s a there’s a sense of in the national media, and I’ve heard from other people saying, oh, it’s calming down, right? It’s like it’s not calming down here. It’s just everyone’s getting focused on other things, and there’s other things that are worthy of focus. But it’s just as intense here as it’s been.

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Nestor Aparicio  14:37

Well, the Savannah Guthrie situation during the Olympics to an NBC announcer who was very involved in the FC. I mean,

Steve Gorman  14:46

it’s, it’s, you can’t make an accident. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, I’m, well, I hadn’t even, you know, honestly, I hadn’t even considered that there’s a connection

Nestor Aparicio  14:55

in the Munich era. And so did you? You’re a little older than me. One of my first memories was me. Munich and gold and Watergate. Like I was born in 68 that when I think of terrorism, I think of that, you know,

Steve Gorman  15:07

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I certainly, yeah, not. That’s one of my earlier ones, too. I can remember as a kid that was in my Maryland era. In fact, what I remember specifically about Munich was I just kept picturing it all happening by the pool, because that was Mark Spitz’s Olympics. And in my mind, I would hear the headlines by, you know, I’d get a little bit of talk about what was going on with the Israeli wrestlers. And in my mind, it was, I just imagined it all happening at the natatorium, and I was confused and but, yeah, it’s an early memory for me too. There is definitely no shortage of just landmines planted every which way, because we’re trying to keep everybody off of the Epstein files. I agree with you that that’s, that’s what 99% of this is about. Spin it away from those files. And at this stage of the game, anybody who’s claiming that we really don’t know anything, and these don’t prove anything, I can’t take that person seriously. It’s like, Stop, you know, if this were anybody else, if this were any other circumstance involving, if this were happening in another country, and you just saw basic, indisputable information about who’s in these files and how many times they’re there, etc, etc, etc, you wouldn’t have to think about it. You’d just recognize what’s going on. Steve Gorman

Nestor Aparicio  16:21

is my guest, which I guess will take me to the next thing, which was sports in Nashville, and your love of sports and our love of sports, I think the one time you and I almost got together socially was in the parking lot at MetLife Stadium. You and your brother were going in Argentina, Brazil game. Now we’re talking World Cup here, and people around the world are much more. Woke to the news, leading with Greenland and shitting upon Canada and Mexico and bombing Venezuela and stealing their lead. I mean, just as just in a blink of an eye the last couple of months, you travel the world, I travel the world. You love soccer. I love soccer. We both love the World Cup. I went to the World Cup in Germany. I damn near went to the one in South Africa. I wasn’t thinking of going to the one in Qatar or Russia or these other sort of Yeah. But FIFA is the most corrupt of the corrupt of the corrupt of the corrupt, and

Steve Gorman  17:11

they make the they make the IOC look like the Red Cross. It’s incredible.

Nestor Aparicio  17:16

It’s amazing. This is our year, dude, you and I have been waiting 30 years, me on the radio, over 30 years, since Brandi Chastain, since the 98 thing, where they did well, just all of it. You know, you me and Drew Carey and some others that really have been into this thing for a long time. This is unthinkable that people around the world and people who look like me won’t want to come to America in any way at any cost, because this is not a safe place to be. Yeah?

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Steve Gorman  17:50

Oh, yeah, no. I mean, I can’t imagine wanting to come here from somewhere else. I The fact is, I don’t know that I’m going to see any games live here, and it’s in my own backyard. I mean, it’s not in Minneapolis. But I hadn’t even it hasn’t even occurred to me to look at the schedule yet to see where I might pop in for a game. I’m not interested. I’ll watch on TV some of it, but every, every four years, and it’s not unlike the Olympics. My my, my enthusiasm before it starts is just down to nil, almost. It’s really not of concern once it gets going, if the US look okay, I’m not going to say I wouldn’t watch it. I can’t watch but I’ll just say that I’m less and less interested. And it’s sad, but it’s also there’s just only so much. You know, the whole the World Cup in Qatar, just the stories of who was building those stadiums and how many people died doing it. And, you know, the sports washing thing, just after a while, I’m not going to go out on the street and, you know, sling a sign around. And it’s not something that’s necessarily keeping me up at night, but it’s reminding me that there’s still plenty of great books I haven’t read. There’s other things to do.

Nestor Aparicio  19:02

Yeah, one thing that, and I don’t know that I’ve ever talked about this, Steve, how music and sports. You mentioned sports washing and I remembered seeing the Marley biopic and seeing him getting usurped politically, and being very involved in that in Jamaica, in a small place that Trump would usurp Kid Rock and bad bunny on Super Bowl weekend in the midst of all of this, that golf in the live thing, and just how much dirty money and where this is all bought off through sports entertainment, and we’re back to The Roman Coliseum, right? Just the opiate for the masses, right?

Steve Gorman  19:44

Yeah, oh. I mean, it’s none of it’s new. It’s just got the the audacity, the the lack of concern for any, the understanding that there will be no consequences. I mean, I just watched some, some of Pam Bondi today. You don’t act like. That if you, if you suspect anywhere in the back of your mind, there may be blowback for this, she in her mind, she can say and do anything she wants. It’s an embarrassment to me that that’s the Attorney General the United States. You know what? Obstructing justice in literally, yeah, it’s crazy. It’s nuts. It’s a very, very dark time. But you know, at the same time, it’s certainly, you know, you could say Watergate was a very dark time, but it inspired the Vietnam War was a very dark time, and it got a lot of young people to start paying attention. So you just have to focus on, I guess, the fact, well, there’s too much to focus on. It’s not all bad when, when young people suddenly realize, like, oh, I need, really need to pay attention to this stuff. And if there’s one thing the internet’s done, it’s the exact opposite of what I would have thought it was going to do 30 years ago. It’s made it so people don’t have to pay attention. Everything’s so filtered and siloed. You know, when we were kids, I watched Nixon resigned in from Ocean City, Maryland. You know, I was nine years old. My whole family, or I was about to turn nine, we’re all sitting around the TV for days, and then when the announcement came and he did it, we were all watching together. We walked out onto the boardwalk, and that’s all anybody was talking about. That wouldn’t be the case now. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  21:15

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let the country heal, right? Yeah, in the middle of this conversation, I don’t know that we’re healing, right?

Steve Gorman  21:21

No, no, not at all. I think just the idea of the fact that everybody’s getting news from the same sources. Everybody has that, but now it’s just not an option to it’s hard to have a conversation with somebody that you bump into, because you have no idea what bit of information you know, where they’re receiving information you know. And as much as, excuse me, we can all say like, oh, I try to be well rounded. I try to do this. I have a bunch of sources that I trust, but at the same time, it’s that’s really only good for me. It’s only good for, you know, it helps me to get my understanding of things. But, you know, some of my favorite people see the world entirely differently than I do, and now it’s just much easier than it’s ever been to keep that perspective and not have to consider other, you know, other other angles, and certainly other sources.

Nestor Aparicio  22:08

Well, you know, I’m an old media guy here. I’ll pull this up for anybody that wants to go back here. So Cameron Crowe of me to be in the middle of you guys here. This was 36 years ago, and we meet through rock and roll, and you’re so you’re an Oriole fan by birth. The how, ow, how. Thing, not just the fact that all three of the bands came through. My life, I remember being at mountain stage in Charleston, West Virginia, with REM doing, losing my religion on the mountain, mountain stage radio thing, my time with meeting you, and then I guess the Hootie guys who also have the Maryland thing through my relationship with Mark Bryan and Sony and Dean. And I just assume you all knew each other. I knew you knew Mike Mills. I knew with your radio show, you were booking other rock guys in I think the story of how you came together is cool, and people can go find that elsewhere. But what are you up to? Man, I loved coming out. I love seeing you in New York. I saw you in DC, almost went to Philly. People dug it. It was a little mini, mini tour. Having a great

Steve Gorman  23:19

time, right? Yeah, the tour was, that was our canary in the coal mine. You know, we made a record we really like, and as we were trying to think about what to do with it, it was, it was almost like, Okay, we, you know, there’s a couple things that makes this band really easy. And the main overriding principle is we can just do whatever we want. We don’t have to do anything. We’re not in a position where we didn’t put this band together with the idea of, let’s go do something and make it huge. It was, this will be fun. Let’s enjoy it. We all, we’re all friends, and let’s get together and write some songs. And if they feel cool, let’s record them. And if those feel good, let’s do more. It was always very one little step after another over the course of a few years? Well, last year, at some point it hit us, Hey, we’ve got a record here, and we think it’s really good. We’ve taken our time with it. We dig it before we go put out an album and call it an album, and say, how loud, how this is real, before we get ourselves. You know, we never wanted to do anything where we came out of the gate and then wanted to slow it down. You don’t want to go too far and then realize, oh, we overstepped. You know what? I mean, it’s like, Let’s go really slowly and not, not paint ourselves into any corners. And so the idea of just going out and doing a couple of weeks of shows was really very simply that it was, well, you know what? We can probably go out and play some clubs. People will come out and see us just because of who we are, we’ve got some great equity built up. Let’s just go see if we enjoy it. If this is something that makes us feel really excited, or if it’s going to be, yeah, we can do that whenever, every year, every couple years, we’ll go have a fun weekend. Let’s, let’s just see what we really feel. And we did those two weeks of shows, and it didn’t take. It took three nights, not even hell. The second night we were all making plans, it was like, Oh, this is great. It clicked. We had so much fun. And the audience was we knew they would like the old songs. You know, we did a couple of crow songs, a couple of Hootie songs, a bunch of REM songs, and we knew people would like to hear the stuff they know. But what was really mind blowing to us was the reaction to songs that nobody’s heard yet because we played a lot of our new music, and they were the fans were great. They were very receptive each each night. The audience was like, Yeah, bring it on. What else you got? What else you got? And that just that made us feel great. And without overstating it, because we really didn’t talk about it too much, it was very clear to us right away, like, Okay, this is something we all really want to do. And so we’re, we’re figuring out the plan right now. We’re going to put out another song soon. We’re going to put out a song and a record, a full out, you know, full probably album after that, and then we’re going to hit the road and go out and play, you know, some real gigs.

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Nestor Aparicio  25:57

When can I expect gigs? What should we tell people summer,

Steve Gorman  26:01

I would say, second half of the year. You know, there may be a couple of one offs here, you know, the here and there, but we’re just looking at it as, okay, back after this year, we’ll be busy.

Nestor Aparicio  26:11

You said, Let’s get together and write some song. How do you get together? It’s, isn’t an online relationship or No, no, no, it’s beers in the beginning, right? Well, it started, you know, years with you, but you know, again,

Steve Gorman  26:25

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we’ve all been buddies. It was just a conversation Darius and I had had over the years. Is that, man, we should do something someday, like, real simple. Well, he, at the same time, is talking, and he and Mike Mills were very close, and they would say, man, we should do something someday. Now, every musician I know has that conversation with all their other musician friends, and 99% of the time, you never get together and do something someday, everyone’s too busy. You think it’s cool, and you hop up with your friends on stage and do a song or two, and that’s usually all it ever ends up being. But when Darius said to me, I’ve been thinking about this, like, let’s get a new band going. You Me and mills. And you know my answer that was, Sure, let’s go. Let’s see what happens. Knowing, okay, there’s a million hoops to jump through before we could actually say, like, we have a band, and the step one is just that, let’s get in a room, bring some ideas and see if there’s a spark, if we enjoy working together and putting songs together, and so that, I mean, the conversation started in 2019 we didn’t get in a room together until, I think, 22 because covid, you know, we made a plan. Let’s get together in the summer of 20 Well, nothing happened like as planned in 2020 and by the time we maybe it was the end of 21 at some point we finally, I still lived in Nashville. Darius was living south of town, Mike came up. He, you know, said, I’ll come in for the weekend. So he came in for a long weekend. And after, you know, a couple years of just texting and talking about it, we finally got together. Okay, Anybody got an idea? You know, here’s something in B and we just start playing, just like any songwriting session, it’s like, I got an idea for a song, or I’ve written, I’ve got a great I got a cool part, but it needs a chorus. I’ve got a chorus. I don’t know what else to do with it. Everybody brings their little pieces in, and it was just a series of sessions like that, two days here, three days there, over the course of a couple of years, because we’re all living in different cities in 22 towards the end of 22 I’m getting ready to come up to Minnesota. So I’ve been here now three years and so. But everything we’ve done is always in Nashville. We meet in Nashville. Have a great studio down there, our buddies place. We get in and we just, we just, you know, very efficient work. The number of hours spent over the few years, it’s actually not many at all. Like when we work, we get a lot of work done. We just don’t, we just haven’t been had the opportunity. You know, when we were, when you’re kids in your first band, you’re together every day of the week, every month of the year. You know, like with the with the the the efficiency rate we now operate at. If we were a full time band, we’d be cranking out an album every three months, I think.

Nestor Aparicio  28:57

Well, inspiration strikes, and for Darius, selling the, not just the authenticity, clearly, he loved REM, right? And the way that just putting, I believe, into the set. I mean, I’m up at the top down at the 930 club, and there might have been 6% of the place that knew some deeper tracks, in some ways. And I was like, why that one? You know, you you guys had had so much catalog to pick from, yeah, you know, you seem like you had fun with the songs you did, because you there’s a lot of things you

Steve Gorman  29:30

could have done. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we’ve said, like, you know, we’re not going to just, you know, every time we go out, it will be okay. What do we want to do this time? You know? Because, yeah, yeah, Darius and I are both a few years younger than the REM guys. You know, we were when REM hit, when chronic town came out. I was about to be a senior in high school, and so, you know, and that’s when I first saw them. I go back to when they just had an EP out. And the same thing for Darius, you know, when, when he got to college, he got into. The REM records like we’re I REM sort of my favorite bands, but, but I’m an 80s REM guy, by which I mean, that’s when they became so important to me, the 90s version of that band that took over the whole world. I knew those records, but I was doing my own thing. By that Darius was in his own band, by that, it wasn’t the same. The 80s. Rem was the band that I was just a straight fan of, like I was, like, everybody else in the house, like, Oh, my God, this music means so much to me. So when we started thinking about songs to play, Darius and I both immediately go to the night. I mean, go to the 80s. We’re thinking early stuff, like we were suggesting things from the EP and the first five albums, you know, and then, and then, at some point it’s like, well, I guess, I guess, you know, losing my religion kind of makes sense. We should. That’s a pretty great one. And dairy and hooting and blowfish have done that for years. They’ve done that and, you know, it would, the conversations were funny. But to your question about, I believe that that’s just one. Darius always loved. He’s like, man, that’s my favorite. Might be my favorite rock song of all time. And so, you know, it’s like, a no brainer, like anybody that really wants to do one, it’s like, Sure, let’s do it because we because it doesn’t matter, we’re going to, we’re going to play different songs from everybody’s catalog, and

Nestor Aparicio  31:13

they’re all cool, dude. I bought tickets the minute they went on sale, and I got excited. I threw you a note. I went down. I didn’t know what to expect. I’m up on the roof. I purposely stayed away from the National Early shows because I wanted to be surprised play old school. And I just it made me smile to see joy for you. For Mike, who I saw, dude, don’t go back to rockville. I saw Mike in Jim, or say, his band. I got invited in New York, and he was Mel all the melon camps. Guy, Kenny Aaron, off all of that. Kenny Wayne, it’s just a joy to see you guys. Be relevant, be excited. And get me excited about like, hey, second half. I hope it intersects with some rush dates where I can go out and see you guys on the road. But man, I love you. I appreciate you. Thanks for giving me some time as always, and support. How well, how? Don’t be mad at the Black Crows by Steve Gorman’s book, because it’s the best book about rock and roll ever written. And and folks can tune into your show, right? Anytime, right? Interwebs, right? Anytime.

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Steve Gorman  32:11

The internet makes it easy. I have so it’s, yeah, it’s, it’s mornings in Minneapolis. I still have my syndicated show, Steve Gorman rocks that’s on a bunch of stations at night. You know, that’s classic rock. That’s old school classic rock. So And thankfully, you know, technology’s caught up to my weird ideas, which is, I can go out and play shows and still do radio, morning radio from wherever I am. So nothing like nothing like the future. Man, the future is pretty great. I watch live soccer from England multiple times a week. I love living in the future.

Nestor Aparicio  32:41

I listened to the black crows multiple times a week. So good. Steve Gorman, formerly of the black cars, and you know, now, when I google you, says super group. How? But he does morning radio in Minneapolis, and he’s one of my favorite dudes. Any Marylander forever, don’t clean that Kentucky and all of that now, yeah, take the take the Maryland side here, because

Steve Gorman  33:03

you still got, Hey, man, hey, listen, listen, the O’s are forever going to be my team. And if the Colts have never left, they would still be my team. So, yeah, I mean, trust me, I get it’s some things are always there, and I still have family in the area. So spiritual home of the spiritual home, will forever be Maryland.

Nestor Aparicio  33:21

I believe in Pete Alonso before we Steve Gordon was our guest here to find him out on the internet. Luke will keep you informed. Anything going on sports wise. I am Nestor. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive.