Episode transcript:

Angela Barrett – “Steven Wilson 3 to 1. Hey, guys. And welcome back to top in South Carolina. Do that again.”

Angela Barrett – 3 to 1.

Angela Barrett – “Thanks for joining me for another episode of Talking South Carolina. Now today, guys, I have Steven Wilson with the trolls of Amsterdam band. Now, guys, this. He’s a hoot. I just can’t wait. So y’all hang on one side and I bring you in.”

Angela Barrett – Let’s.

Angela Barrett – “All right. Three. Two. One. Well. Hey, Steven, how are you today?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Hey, Angela. I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.”

Angela Barrett – “Thanks for being here. How exciting. So, first of all, half Moon Bay. That had to be like heaven to live.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man. Absolutely. Still, over 18 years of my life there, it was pretty, pretty magical. And, good. Good part of my good part of my history for sure.”

Angela Barrett – “Absolutely. My son lived in California. Not in Half Moon Bay for a while, and I was kind of sad when he moved home, because now I didn’t have an excuse to go over there. It was kind of more in the San Francisco area, but I was like, darn. So Trolls of Amsterdam first. Where did the name come from?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh. You mean he would I like it. So me and my my buddies, the original founding members, Armand and Stephane and myself were sitting in my garage, and, I know Grenada right there and hopping back, and we’ve been playing music together for quite a while, and we’re about to release something. You know, finally going to do like an EP, which came out in 2016.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Well, I guess we need a name of this, of this chaos or whatever. Y’all got. And we shot back a few ideas and then we kind of came up with that. And then somebody said, I think Stefan came up with it because he was he grew up in Germany and, had had some experiences in Amsterdam and, but then our minds as well, how we’re going to call ourselves trolls of Amsterdam, we’re all from California.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I’m like, who cares? It’s just a name. It’s just a name, you know? Right. He’s not a it just kind of stuck in it. There’s some. It gets a little deeper. I think, Stefan might have had some type of, psychedelic experience in Amsterdam where the troll party started chasing him and thought they were going to kill him.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And, that’s that’s the real deep meaning behind the story. But, yeah, that’s kind of where it came from.”

Angela Barrett – “Wow. And so, hallelujah, we were playing together.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man. Oh, well, that’s interesting because, like, right now I’m the only original member. But we started making music together, probably in 2014, 15. And I really only been touring with the band for the last 3 to 4 years. Off and on.”

Angela Barrett – “Gotcha. Yeah. And. Well, I know you off tour. You’ve been back to California. I know that I saw that you had done some shows there, and certainly around in this area. What is your what would you say your biggest, platform has been? Where? I mean, where you played.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man. That’s a good question. We’ve done some, like, outdoor festivals in California. Not been two huge yet. With this project. We.”

Angela Barrett – “Did, what’s your favorite.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Man? You know, there’s a couple other little gems out there. Honestly, one of my favorite places to see or play a show right now in is actually. Oh, and, in South Carolina.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, yeah.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – Have you been.

Angela Barrett – “To a show there? No, but I have heard people say.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “It is epic and it’s, really encourage any and all bands to to reach out to Eddy. They’re super, warm and welcoming or not, they’re easy to work with is kind of how it should be for a, for a venue. I mean, it’s I can’t say enough good things about it and it’s not too big. It’s not too small, it’s family friendly.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “The shows are on Wednesday nights and the vibe there is just unbelievable. People are there to have fun. It’s, So that’s one of my favorite places to play in the, you know, in the Carolinas. For sure.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Now, what would you say? Where would your general be for the band? I mean, because I’ve listened to some of it and, you know, I get a little bluesy feel maybe, we’ll. And then I get a little, what I call shag music kind of feel. And then there’s some horror stuff. So where when you sing along.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man, it’s, you know, it’s it’s tough to put a genre on it. When people ask me what kind of music is I like, it’s eclectic, you know, it’s, there’s a bit of everything. Just kind of a representative of of, of who I am. I say, you know, and my experiences and just, I think it comes out in the music.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So it’s all over the place. I mean, it’s rock and roll, it’s fog. It’s a little. Some of the songs are country leaning. There’s even some reggae vibes in there. Yeah. America, I kind of came up in the late 80s and 90s, and I think that’s reflected in the music.”

Angela Barrett – “So tell me, I understand that you played a birthday bash for James Brown. Yes.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – That’s a true story. That’s a true story.

Angela Barrett – I had to be there. Had to be phenomenal.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “It was off the chain. It was one of the. I was so lucky to get to do that, in my late 20s at the time, probably. And that was back in 90 was in 97. We got to play with the band at the time was, one of my first, actually my first band. My first real bad is a band called mother of two, and we got to play, the James Brown Birthday Bash in Augusta, Georgia at the Bell Auditorium.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “You know, thousands and thousands of people. It was, surreal looking back on it, I didn’t realize how fortunate I was that y’all just didn’t realize what was happening. And, but, yeah, it was cool. Got that? Not only play. I’ve got to meet him a few times, and we’d see him in Augusta. Riding around in his Rolls-Royce or at a restaurant.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – It was pretty cool. And I got the birthday cake with them. So. Yeah. But now and I look at.

Angela Barrett – “You know, only I think I would ask this. What kind of birthday cake? Oh.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah. What was it? I don’t know, is it.”

Angela Barrett – It’s long ago. Yeah.

Stephen Russell Wilson – I they go white like cake. Got a little.

Angela Barrett – So now what point was it. Troll of Amsterdam. That was managed by the same people that managed James Brown. Or was it a different brand?

Stephen Russell Wilson – “No. That was that was my earlier band. That was a mother of two. We, you know, one of the guys working with, Mr. Brown’s organization had found us somehow. And then really, how languorous have really launched our career and kind of catapulted us and that was, that whipped us into shape. Really learned to learned so much from being around that organization.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Sure, sure. Just an amazing.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Because I would say that’s not small town.

Stephen Russell Wilson – Great. It was great.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Now, how many, albums or records do you have published for right now? Okay. All the day, I guess.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Sure. I guess working backwards. I mean, my latest record was, came out in fall of 21. It’s been out about a little over three years. And that was, trolls of Amsterdam Wilson Drive. It’s a full length record, probably. You know, it’s it did good on the college charts there for a minute and, and back up before that.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “2016, we put out an EP, Trolls of Amsterdam. That’s like 4 or 5 songs and really, man, we just put it out, not even worry about anything. It was some of it’s just skits and banter. It’s really kind of quite ridiculous. But, it was fun, you know? That’s where it all began. And, that, that was that’s the only two records that band has out.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I did some stuff out in California, like I helped produce some records. One of them was a reggae record. It was called culture. Culture Canute and the Rock Stone players. Yes. I got some credits on that one. I did like some background vocals, but it wasn’t really my band. And that’s the legendary artists. His name is Can You Davis.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And he’s from Montego Bay, Jamaica. And he would tell us stories of when he was younger kicking the ball with Bob Marley. So that was pretty, well, pretty cool. And the funny thing is about that band culture, Canute, those guys, fast forward to now. Some of them, actually, the majority of those guys will come out and play shows with me.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Or if I go to California, some of them will do shows with, oh, neat. It’s pretty. Who knows? Because back then I was kind of like managing them and running sound for those guys, and eventually I become their reggae. I’m sorry, their rhythm guitar player. And it’s just been you never know what these things are going to fall into place.”

Angela Barrett – “That’s right. Never know. That’s for sure. And so how. Yeah. So we’ll say go ahead, tell me about the records and I’ll go about that. And oh that’s.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Not because it never was. That was fun. It was kind of like getting to do some reggae stuff for a while. We did some shows out West and a little bit of Trail of West Coast of that project. But the, the guitar player from that band, Matt Gilbert, who’s actually now my producer out in San Francisco, is the one I produced.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “My last record, Rolls of Amsterdam.”

Angela Barrett – “Nice, nice. And so how old were you? With the reggae band.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Did you do you probably, probably about 3 or 4 year chapter. Maybe a little longer? Yeah. No.”

Angela Barrett – And that’s nice.

Stephen Russell Wilson – Incarnations. Yeah.

Angela Barrett – “One of my favorites is reggae. And my sons, Omar, especially his, technique is a Bob Marley, you know, big done band. Yeah. In fact, we there is a there’s a joke after we saw the Bob Marley movie, we’re like, oh my God, we really did raise a Bob Marley because he is a very piece, you know, everybody just please go along and you know he.”

Angela Barrett – “Is he doing right? He just fits right into that whole thing. Oh my God, we really did reservoir Marley, which is not a bad thing at all. I think we could all use a little more of that.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, yeah? You any more Bob Marley? You’d realize for.”

Angela Barrett – “Sure. That’s exactly right. So from. So let’s do a timeline. Maybe so your first name was way back. Name one you said, I think.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I went, yeah, by 1991, I would. I got a little time I hear with the started USC Aiken in 91, I think I was in a band by 92, 93. Yeah, that’s kind of where it began. So in and out of bands for the better part of 30 years.”

Angela Barrett – Was the longest band stint you had?

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Probably this one probably. I mean, if you think about when we started Trials of Amsterdam, it’s going on. Wow, over ten years. I’ll get to, you know, quite a while. You think about that.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, absolutely. Now there is a, encounter or story you have that I can’t wait to hear. Bunny Wailer.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, yeah. Speaking of reggae, right.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “That’s right. Okay. So, yeah, it was, man, it was is too surreal looking back on it too. I was playing a show at the House of Blues in Myrtle Beach. Yes. And we were opening up for The Wailers, which was, you know, out of this world in its own right. Again, just had no idea how amazing back then, you know?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “You know, just too young and dumb and full of bubblegum to realize what was really happening. And we were, I’m backstage in the in the green room and, or, like, walking to a bathroom, water and in a serious do. Then there’s reggae guy in there. I realized, oh, man, this is this is one of the Wailers, and it’s Bunny Wells.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And he comes up to me and I say, how’s it going with the all good man? And then he starts asking me if me and my boys had any had any weed. Like, let me get this straight. I said, you’re the you’re you’re in the Wailers, you’re legendary member of the band. And you’re asking me I’m like, oh my God.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So, I said, let me see what I can do. You def. And so.”

Angela Barrett – That’s very.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, it was crazy. It’s just crazy. That’s my Bunny Wailer story. I couldn’t believe it. Wow. You know.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Well, that’s big down there, too. I like it again. I love those guys for sure. So how did where did you start playing music? And then you learned as a child. Were you live by yourself or were you taught?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Not really taught. Not classically trained. I made it in college. I took maybe a piano class or two, took a couple of voice classes. And I just kind of had always been into singing and stuff and started singing very. I remember being at USC Aiken in my dorm, and I was so nervous at first. I go in the bathroom and close the door.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “It had the microphone, but then my guitar player and some other, you know, people be out in the living room with, I would be singing, but you could even see me. Then eventually, take I did. My first ever show was at the Fremont Club in, Aiken, South Carolina, probably 1993, and probably stood there were my eyes closed the whole time, but there was, you know, hundreds of people there, and they were pure.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So no classical training, really just. And mostly I had been a singer and then I, I don’t know, somewhere along the line, I started picking up the guitar just to try to write songs, and I would describe myself as a, a decent rhythm guitar player. Maybe, you know, a not enough to get myself in trouble.”

Angela Barrett – So I ask every musician that I talk with and every answer is different. What comes first? The music or the lyrics?

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man, it just depends. I think it just depends.”

Angela Barrett – I get that a lot.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, it just depends. Sometimes. Sometimes all of it. Sometimes it just depends on how it comes flowing down. You know, a lot of times it’s just like a guitar riff, maybe. And then you just try to put something on top of it. I find for me it’s usually the best stuff is the stuff that comes first, you know, just go try to overthink it.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So maybe, maybe lyrics, mostly, maybe words, lyrics, melodies and then try to work it out on the guitar. Sometimes a piano.”

Angela Barrett – “Is I know you have like you’ve written lyrics and they stay buried. You know what is more down somewhere down the line. And then you come across some lyric or, you know, I even put something to this, or are you one of those that you kind of write the lyrics and let’s go ahead and think of some, well, how the music’s going to play lyrics.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, probably have more lyrics laying around than I’ll ever deal with. You know? It’s like I’m probably lost so many stacks of boxes and stuff. But, you know, one good thing about technology, I feel like with the iPhone, you can just put them in there or make the notes and do a quick little. So that’s been that’s kind of cool.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And I’ll do it. Yeah. I probably got dozens of songs on there that haven’t been released yet and just like ideas and stuff, but, not to mention on my refrigerator, I’ve got probably eight, ten songs that have been up there for about a year, and I want to try to cut somewhere this year. And, that’ll probably be more like my own project.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I just do Steve and Russell Wilson and, finally be myself all these years later.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, somewhere along the way, I heard about you have these crazy dreams. And maybe that’s where song music comes from, but did you actually dream up above Beyonce at one point?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, that’s a true story. That’s that’s crazy. You’re asking me that right on. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Power of dreams, man. Don’t underestimate him. I’m not. Yeah. I’m not. Only have I got them like, songs kind of downloaded that way, but, Wow. And moved back to North Augusta from California. Was it? I guess they moved here July 2021.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And I remember I’d spent 14 days on the road by myself, drive across the country, and I stopped in Nashville to see my album was makes. It hadn’t come out yet. And, I met a songwriter guy there. And next thing you know, on the 5th of July, I’m on stage playing songs off the record before it even came out.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And, I couldn’t believe how wide open Nashville was in the middle of the pandemic because it way different than the West Coast in their part, you know? So it’s too cool. So that was kind of like my trek across the country, like, well, I could I was like, I could stay on the road forever. But I had to get back to Carolina cause my son Waylon was about to have his, it was his 10th birthday.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – 11th birthday? What are you.

Angela Barrett – Doing?

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah. Thank you. Right. As it is a good neck. Anyway, I, I got to Carolina and I’m sitting in my house out in the country, and I’m kind of like, wow, major changes had happened in my life, and I kind of surrendered and left everything I knew and love kind of behind in California. Kind of let the surfing, living at the beach and following my divorce and the pandemic.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And it’s July, August, September comes around and I’m just kind of like, still get my bearings. And I had this dream about this woman, and I’m sitting in this classroom like this old school classroom, and there’s this teacher writing on a blackboard. I’m sitting in the classroom and to my left is one of my best friends and the teacher.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “You can’t see her face. And she turns and looks for the first time, and I see her face, and she looks at the class and she looks at me. She says, so which one of you is coming home with me? And I look at my buddy Jamie and I raise my hand. I’m like, I’ll do it. And and I woke up and so I woke up.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I’m like, Holy, holy moly, what was that? I couldn’t believe it. And I knew immediately who it was. It was, a woman named Marla Gibson, who I hadn’t seen in about 28 years how to talk to her. No contact whatsoever. And I just couldn’t believe it was such a powerful, powerful dream. And I said, man, I gotta find this woman.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “I gotta find her, and I, I like making my coffee, and I’m trying to, like, remember the dream in my head making my coffee. And I finally I get a light and I try to search her up. And I almost gave up because I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find it. And I said, you know what? You can’t give up.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Let me just try one more time. That I remember. Someone had said she was in the yoga like a yoga instructor. So I type her name in yoga and boom, she pops up, but she’s got like a different last name. I’m like, oh, I’m on zoom in. Like, man, that’s her. I’m oh my God. She’s she’s she’s like more beautiful now than I remember us as crazy as it.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh well she’s got a different last name. She’s probably married, but I’m just gonna say hello. We’re old friends, you know, so I find her on, like, Instagram. Two days later, she responds. Long story short, we have talked or zoom every single day sets a year. I’ve been down the matter for our first date in Panama. We just found out an amazing time and proposed to her a year after I found her.”

Angela Barrett – Wow. All from her dream.

Stephen Russell Wilson – Of her dream.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah. Dreams can be powerful. And in both ways good. And sometimes not so. But, my dad and I have this, through dreams a lot of times, sort of an ESB. And we’ll both wake up, we’ll call each other and go, and I’m like, I know what you’re gonna say. Or he’ll say, I know what you’re right.”

Angela Barrett – “But it’s just one of those weird things between dad and I. So I do know the power of great words. Yeah. It’s like, yeah, it is crazy. So now what do we have? Where are you going next? What’s what’s our next steps?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Gotcha, gotcha. Right now I’m waiting to hear back for some folks. Looks like we’re for all shakes out. We might have a nice gig right around Masters here in Augusta.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, that would be. Yeah. I’m kind of waiting to take some meetings and have some sit down with some folks, but I don’t want to say too much about that. I’m at. It is in development. That that would be. That’d be very exciting and pretty. Pretty big time if, if at all transit, you know, comes to fruition, which I think it will.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Other than that, I’ve got a little, like a Lowcountry run, shaping up in April, April 30th. I could I think we got one on the books and all wind up, and the boys have told me they looks like they can come out from, Louisville, Kentucky and Kansas City. My rhythm section, who I used to play with in California.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And if they can come, we’re going to try to stitch a 5 or 6 shows together, maybe do all in, Charleston, maybe hit. I would love to hit Hampton where I grew up, but there’s not there’s really no venues there. And probably so that will stop by Columbia, who knows? Waiting to hear from some folks in North Augusta and then probably wrap it up with a Sunday.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “There’s a festival in Augusta called the Somerville Porch Festival, which we played last year. It was it was one of the coolest things I did all year. I couldn’t believe it. You know, people open up their homes and it was just an amazing turnout. And I was like, wow, I just couldn’t believe it.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. That is that’s that’s pretty cool. So now that you mention your band, they’re not obviously in Augusta with you or.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “No, I’m the only one here. I’m the. Yes. That’s, that’s kind of a trip. You know, that’s like my my ATM. My guitar and I reached out. I always usually games with crazy enough. Speaking of dreams, I mean, it’s like I will if I’m doing myself. I’ll book the shows and not have any idea how I’m going to pull it off.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “You know, either get to get the gig, so don’t worry about the details. You know?”

Angela Barrett – “And so where the rest of the band, where do they live?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “My guitar player and my producer, who was in San Francisco. So that’s.”

Angela Barrett – The whole.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, he’s he more or less the other main part of my band. It is a hall and he’s got obligations and you can’t always get away, but, Oh, we we’ll probably go back out in the fall in California. We try to do like five cities out there. Waiting to hear back from there. So he with Matt Gilbert, Rock Stone records, Caesar, phenomenal producer.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “If you know anything out in California, anybody needs a record out there, he can help you. And then we’ve got, one of my bass players. Diego. Rumor also is in San Francisco. And so, guys, we have a drummer. They Wilmer who helps us out. And also Frannie, they’re all San Francisco bass. So that’s kind of my crew out there.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And then if it’s east of the Mississippi, I’ll do it, of course. And then, my bass player, Rob, Rob Freeland, is in Kansas City, and then Phil Brown lives in Louisville, Kentucky.”

Angela Barrett – “And get a gardens there. So, you know, we are spread out.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “There, spread out. And those guys are bad. Those two are better known as the Blues Brothers. We earned the nickname The Last Tour of the Blues Brothers in the better, for better or for worse, one of them ran into a waffle House neighbor backing up and had a little too much fun.”

Angela Barrett – Oh yeah. Waffle House I was always a good late night place to go.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh yeah, you play. So yeah, the band is scattered. I’m starting to do a few more like solo shows just for the sake of doing shows and, put put myself a little more out of my comfort zone to do stuff like that.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, well, that’s cool, that’s cool. So you didn’t you mentioned Matt Gilbert and, Rock Stone records. How long have you been working with them?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, man, I’ve been working with Matt off and on for fantasy, probably 15, 16, 17 years. We used to work together. Matt and I, we did audiovisual and, like, production work and some high end resorts sell the West Coast. And we did union work in San Francisco. We were always musicians and, you know, I, you know, I used to manage his bands and help him.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And then he offered, after building a recording studio, he said, hey, man, if you ever to record your stuff, you know, you help me build my studio so you can gave me a screaming deal I couldn’t refuse. And sure enough, the pandemic. We worked on my record and he kind of pulled me through and I came out. It just far exceeded my expectations, you know?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So I’m so grateful for the time and energy you put into it. So yeah, we’re pretty tight. We’re it’s nice to work with your wood, your friends, you know.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So I want to know Wilson a Scott Wilson Boulevard. Right.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – What’s his drive.

Angela Barrett – Wilson drive okay. Yeah. So tell me where that song came from.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Well, Wilson drives the name of the album.”

Angela Barrett – Okay.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “It’s. No, no, there is no song. That’s that’s not the name.”

Angela Barrett – “It’s not the song of sound, okay, I gotcha. I thought that was the name. That was one that I think, didn’t get to listen to. Hey, going on on Instagram, YouTube, listening to some of the others, but I go, oh, that’s interesting. So what is the meaning behind the Wilson drive?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Okay. So that, you know, and that’s a great question. Let’s see. So the record trolls of Amsterdam Wilson Drive was fully recorded, fully mastered. But I’m sitting around waiting on artwork right. Oh I reached I had artist and at this point, you know recorded everything at West and had it recorded and mixed and mastered in California and mastered and, and at Los Angeles, Burbank.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So the record is done essentially about a waiting on artwork, waiting on artwork. And I had artists, a couple of artists in California waiting to hear back from a couple of artists in either Atlanta or here in Augusta that I was trying to work with and hoping to work with and, some of them did help me out indirectly, but I didn’t exactly get the full art from the, and I’m talking to a buddy here in here in the CsrA who’s also a musician.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Billy is a very prominent artist and musician in his own right. He’s like, man, you cannot sit around waiting on this. He goes, your record is done, man. You got to get it. You got to let the give it to the people. And it kind of, it kind of stuck with us. Yeah. He’s right. You know what on what am I going to do?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Wait month and I kid you not like not even a few days later. Bing, bing. I get a text from a buddy down in New Orleans. And what it is is this picture of this wolf dog, his dog who looks like a wolf from, on Wilson drive down in New Orleans. You are honest. And for me, you were like, oh my God, that’s it.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Because I have history with this dog. This very dog actually bit me on the beach in Half Moon Bay, California, running down the beach and bit my jacket, shredded my jacket like a mama was like, literally bleeding. I’m a Jim. You’re dog. You. What’s up? So me and this dog had this relationship and I’m like, you know what?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – I’m putting I’m putting magic on the record. That’s my. That’s it. I’m tired of waiting on art. It’s a really cool picture. So I had that picture that you see actually.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, it’s black and white right behind.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – Oh yeah. So this dog is a new update. So this is out all this is the picture. The only thing over the logos overlaid troll’s out.

Angela Barrett – “Well it caught my attention. For one it was black and white photography. And I love black and white photography. I used to fool around with it back in the day. It was film. So I called my attention. That was the first thing that caught my attention eyes. But yeah, so that is so that that became the name of the album, the Wilts and Drop.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s funny and I actually scrapped the name of my working title for the record, wasn’t it? That was not even it, that just came out on a whim, last minute. The working title for the record was like a real, I didn’t even know if I was going to call it Trolls of Amsterdam before I was going to call Steven Russell Wilson.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “That’s a whole nother debacle. And the working title for the record, was actually EEG by the sea, EEG by the sea, because I used to live in L Grenada where, where the bass were the band started and I’m like, man, no, I’m to I’m and I just grabbed that last minute and went with this.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. Yeah. So, last question. You’re any film or TV hitting your direction? Okay. Yes. Yes, yes. Very. Tell me about that.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Well, we’ve been working for a while, to try to get some play some songs and some, you know, film and TV. And I have been talking to music supervisors and so a few writer directors, just a matter of time, trying to sort it all out. But, definitely, if you’re out there listening to this podcast, I could, I could use a little help.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “And, you know, those side, the business side is always so much you can do it. I mean, I prefer I’m more enjoy, like, writing the music, performing the music and concentrating on that. But, you know, that is kind of the business side, but it would definitely be cool and kind of a dream come true to do that.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “So if you’re listening and you got any, you know, projects you’re working on, do you want to source some authentic original material? Give me a holler. Let’s do it.”

Angela Barrett – “Absolutely. And when you say to play in the film or TV,”

Angela Barrett – Just sort of the music in the background of a scene or a beginning or an indie. Gotcha.

Stephen Russell Wilson – “That’s kind of what I have in mind. But I mean, certainly there’s other ways to do it, but, you know, like soundtrack essentially supper. Yeah, yeah. Or maybe it’s opening scene or somewhere in the movie or the series. You, you know, you hear you hear my song drinking problem in the background or in the bar, I’ll be like that or backroads or, I think it’s I think it’s, calling for that, you know, and certainly there’s a few, series that are filmed here in South Carolina to me.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Be cool to work with some people, you know, like here. Really boots on the ground. Maybe Charleston area. Augusta, Atlanta, but certainly whatever. You know, a lot of has done in California and New York and Canada, actually, a lot of it was done in Canada.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Well, that is pretty cool. Yeah. So hopefully that will come to fruition soon.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – That’s right. Thank you.

Angela Barrett – “Well, thank you so much for being here today. And this has been a great pleasure and honor. I certainly appreciate it.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Thank you, Angela, for having me.”

Angela Barrett – “Absolutely, absolutely. So, what do you think you’re headed back to? California?”

Stephen Russell Wilson – “Oh, probably going to be. Actually, I’m definitely heading back to California. I’m heading back in last week of March, first week of April to take away land out there for spring break.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, nice.”

Stephen Russell Wilson – Now to go see grandpa.

Episode transcript:

Angela Barrett – “Hey, Daryl. Thank you for being with me today.”

Daryl Howard – Thank you for having me.

Angela Barrett – Yeah. I’m excited.

Daryl Howard – Pleasure.

Angela Barrett – “To know Daryl. You are, the lead singer with Cash Money Experience Band, right?”

Daryl Howard – “Yes, I am.”

Angela Barrett – And you guys have been together for about 20 years.

Daryl Howard – “Well, this band, that I’m speaking of now, been together for 16 years.”

Angela Barrett – 16. So almost. Yeah.

Daryl Howard – “Yeah, almost.”

Angela Barrett – And you guys are a five piece. R and b.

Daryl Howard – “A we we we classify ourselves as R&B, Motown top 40.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. A lot of beach music because I. I’ve listened and danced. Yeah. So, Daryl, tell me one thing. How do you see yourself as have gotten to where you are today?”

Daryl Howard – “Well, since I’ve been doing this since I was young. My brothers, it’s a family thing with my brothers. We were called what we are called now, the new rods, because we are still together.”

Angela Barrett – “It is, but again.”

Daryl Howard – A new Ron’s.

Angela Barrett – “Okay, Ron.”

Daryl Howard – “That is a group I first started with. With with my brothers. Two brothers and cousins. We’re a family, a group, right? We had some small recordings out, regional stuff still in Philly and, Delaware area. We had a song called I’m a Loner and that put us on the charts a little bit. We used to open up for The Stylistics, The Delfonics, The Temptations, and Gladys Knight and the pips.”

Daryl Howard – “Wow. All that. And, my other brothers, they just decided to go their own way and do their own thing. But I stuck with it right? It’s like a passion to me. Like it wouldn’t let me stop. So I just kept going and getting into different things. And then I came down here, South Carolina, and got with the band called the Ocasiones.”

Daryl Howard – “I’m a girl watcher, right? I was a lead singer for them for, wow, 20 years. Came down here in 93. I was lead singer for them, Wayne Pittman for 20 years. And through that band I came up with Cash Money because a lot of couple his members were in the occasions as well. So they decided to retire.”

Daryl Howard – “But I didn’t want to stop. Sure. They asked. That’s when I put together. I asked my bass player and my guitar player. They were with occasions. I asked him, did you want to keep this thing going? So we all got together and that’s our cash money experience came together.”

Angela Barrett – “Now, how did you guys come up with that name?”

Daryl Howard – “It or not, we were doing gigs and people was paying a spot checks. Couple checks bounced up. So we said we have to make a statement on this thing. Let’s call ourself cash money. So that way that would kind of make it make the people say okay. And it works too, because they say, now we would like to pay you my check, but, does that cash money mean anything?”

Daryl Howard – “I say, well, you know, we we ran into a couple couple problems with checks, so that’s why we came up with the name Cash Money. So they say. Oh, yeah. We just. I mean, well, we we accept checks and everything. Don’t get your. But that’s how that name came up. We said, man, we need to make it.”

Daryl Howard – No cash money.

Angela Barrett – “Right, right.”

Daryl Howard – “And the experience came in. There was a, there’s a famous rap group called Cash Money in Los Angeles. And every time they go on and look for us, they would pull them up because they was more famous than we were. But we said we need something to set us apart. So that’s where the experience came in. Right. Money experience?”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, I get it. That’s a great story. I love it. Bounced checks? Yeah. I now, Do you guys, like, do y’all have other things y’all do y’all work other places besides just playing money or. I mean, music or y’all just, play music?”

Daryl Howard – “No, we are blessed to do this full time.”

Angela Barrett – “Phenomenal. So, how many gigs do y’all do? Let’s just say any given month. Wow.”

Daryl Howard – Well.

Angela Barrett – I don’t know. That varies.

Daryl Howard – “But to sum it up, we do around 82 jobs a year.”

Angela Barrett – “Wow. So where do you feel the. This band. Where’s the biggest place or biggest scene you’ve ever played? Because I know, you know, like, just here and that.”

Daryl Howard – We’ve been in we recently been to California. We did a big car show out there.

Angela Barrett – “Oh, wow.”

Daryl Howard – “And, they they booked us and then and we get a lot of we’re getting a lot of jobs behind my, neurons fame angle is why I say that. Because we have recordings in London. The neurons. We have recordings in California. They love us in California. So when they see my face with the cash money, they automatically go to the new rod’s name.”

Daryl Howard – “So. Right. Matter of fact, people in London think cash money is the new. You know, because I see my face. So, my, one of my biggest things is, is with cash money is what we would do. And, not, I can’t think of the name Fontana, ill. That’s where it was.”

Angela Barrett – Gotcha.

Daryl Howard – “Ontario. Yes. And, we did a big car show out there, and, they accepted it real well. I mean, it was like they made us feel like rock stars.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Yeah, well, you are.”

Daryl Howard – And and we just just had our another one that was up with this. We just had our 16th year anniversary.

Angela Barrett – Right.

Daryl Howard – As knew shows.

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – “The concert that was in May. Our manager, Debbie Fries and and, our PR person, Joanne Benson, they really did their staying on that. I mean, the decorations up, putting it together. Oh. It was nice. It was. Yeah. It was. They they flew my family in which I didn’t know. They said.”

Angela Barrett – Oh.

Daryl Howard – Nice family from new Jersey. They they flew them in and surprise me with that because I didn’t know they was.

Angela Barrett – Just.

Daryl Howard – “If it was that that was another big, big, landmark in, in, cash money.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s great. Now, so about the Bay. Now, what about, you told me a little bit about your background. What about the other guys? What? What? Okay, what backgrounds do they have?”

Daryl Howard – “The name of the guys, in the band or bass? My bass player is named Teddy Jackson.”

Angela Barrett –

Daryl Howard – “Keyboard player Lucious fire. We call him doc. The drummer. Danny Kelly. Guitar player, which he’s from new Jersey with, with where I’m from. That’s why we get along so well. Eugene Williams, he used to play with Kornegay.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, go. One of my favorites.”

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. Yeah. He used to play with Corner Gang because, you know, Corner Gang is from up that way.”

Angela Barrett – “Jersey, right? You know, those long celebration.”

Daryl Howard – “Blues and nation. We, the songs he played on was, celebration. Get down on it. Hollywood swinging and she’s fresh. Yeah, we we do them in our shows. So.”

Angela Barrett – “The celebration song, when I was a very young, white, married woman. That used to be my toilet bowl cleaning. Then I think about it. Several.”

Daryl Howard – “Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, that’s requested a lot. Because when we do birthday parties and stuff like that. Well, can you play celebration?”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. You know.

Daryl Howard – “It’s it’s a, it’s a it’s good too.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry.

Daryl Howard – “And people start singing with it, you know, every night are singing along with it. So what? Yeah. Those guys, like I said, they’ve they’ve been sticking with me for 16 years. We actually took cash money into a business, where it’s not a we play a gig and everybody’s full of money, right? We too.”

Daryl Howard – We turned it into a business.

Angela Barrett – Sure.

Daryl Howard – “Matter of fact, we just got a record deal.”

Angela Barrett – Right? I was going to ask you about that.

Daryl Howard – “Okay. Yeah, we just got a record deal from Stock Warner Records out of new Jersey.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – “Amanda. The music, we’re affiliated with them in, And. And Los Angeles. Wow. Georgia. Atlanta, Georgia. They do all our marketing PR work stuff like that. So we just released a song called outside Looking in, which is one of the neurons that I was telling you about, my brother’s group. It’s an old song that the record company in Atlanta gave us.”

Daryl Howard – “They said, you know, go ahead, take that song and redo it for cash money. So that’s what we did.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. I was going to ask you the story behind that song. Yeah.

Daryl Howard – And so it’s a it’s a new Ron’s a remake of what of the neurons old songs. And we did it our way.

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – “That matter of fact that’s going to be, fully released tomorrow.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, I was going to say the 19th was a day for you guys. Yeah.”

Daryl Howard – “The record company put together a, a big package for us. We have a clothing line, that’s going to be launched. We have a website that’s going to be launched. We also have the the song. So all that’s going to be launched tomorrow.”

Angela Barrett – “So is this coming out as a single or is it going to be in a single a gotcha. Well, great. Well congratulations. That’s phenomenal.”

Daryl Howard – And I’ll send you a copy.

Angela Barrett – “Absolutely. Please do. Now, when you guys are on stage, is is the way you dress a very well thought out, first of all, ourselves. I mean, I know there is, because I’ve seen you play, but, Tell us the story behind how y’all came up with sort of. I’m not going to call it outfits, but costumes are, you know.”

Daryl Howard – “Again, all this is stemming from the neurons.”

Angela Barrett –

Daryl Howard – “When we opened the show for Gladys Knight and the pips in at the Convention Hall in Camden, she called us in her dressing room.”

Angela Barrett – Now we all is this. And oh.

Daryl Howard – Wow. This is back in the 80s.

Angela Barrett – And the.

Daryl Howard – Before I came down here.

Angela Barrett –

Daryl Howard – “And she told us, she said that dressing is a very important part of the show because number one, it shows respect for the audience. If the audience is going to pay money to travel, to come see it, you should have respect enough to look presentable on the show. Sure. She also said that’s how she was taught from Motown.”

Daryl Howard – “Motown taught her that, how to do that because that was part of their success. So all their groups, they went through grooming process, how to talk, how to dress right, how to do interviews and conduct herself on stage. So she sat us down and said, follow that rule. And that is 75% of your show, the dress. Because people, people’s going to see you before they hear you.”

Daryl Howard – “So I told the guys the same thing. I said, look, we’re not going to go out there looking like, we just got off work. If you see cotton grass, you know, jeans, and I’m not down in the other other bands because if that’s that’s the way they want to do, that’s fine. But I want to stand out.”

Angela Barrett – “Well, and you sing a very particular type of music, right?”

Daryl Howard – “Right. We do more show. Show. Our band is more of a show band career and then getting up there and just playing, you know what I mean? We want to entertain our going audience and and, interact with the people and, and make them feel a part of the show.”

Angela Barrett – “And it almost, a little old school bringing you, throwing you back a little bit in time when. Yeah.”

Daryl Howard – “Well, that’s where I came from. The old school.”

Angela Barrett – “Right? Me, too. And. And when and when you could understand the words in the song. Right. And you could say them in front of children saying.”

Daryl Howard – “Right. Yeah. We try to do we try to do shows up now we, we we can get, we can get down that we really wanted to we can we can go there and we, we want to do you know what I mean.”

Angela Barrett – What if requested a lot.

Daryl Howard – “Of our artists, a lot of our, performances is more like, family oriented, you know, and, and older people. So we always try to, respect that some. That’s the thing that we try to do and bring people together to have fun.”

Angela Barrett – “Right, right, right.”

Daryl Howard – “We that’s why we get a lot of gigs. Because they say, man, if you want to have fun, call Cash Money.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, that’s.”

Daryl Howard – “You know what I mean. And and just like, get back to the dress. We got a reputation now where when we walk in, I mean, we’re not dressed when we walk in, because we got to set up and all that. Sure. People come up to which are wearing night club owner, which you are wearing tonight, it’s a surprise.”

Daryl Howard – “We’ll let you know because now it’s got to the thing. They want to come see us to see what we’re where. You know, I got all that works. You guys together?”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Now the creative process with you guys. How how does that work for us.

Daryl Howard – The shows and.

Angela Barrett – Yeah I mean like that. Yeah. You don’t get up there and do the same set every where you go.

Daryl Howard – “We, we had different sets. That goes back to what I said about, different, different audiences. We have different sets for different places.”

Angela Barrett –

Daryl Howard – “If we go, for example, the Myrtle Beach, we got a beach set. Yeah. My girl, under the boardwalk. I know things like that. When we do a dual club. That wants to party, then we come with with, Marvin Gaye, the temptations. You know, Cuzwhen the gang, right? If we don’t like a wedding or something, then we can come with the Righteous Brothers.”

Daryl Howard – “Al Green, you know. So we had eight sets that Sharon’s incorporate with, you know, like last night. It was, like a concert. So we mixed it up, right? Beach for beach people. We did some R&B for R&B people. Then we did some top 40 for the younger people. So, sure, we make sure that we have enough material that we can do that.”

Angela Barrett – “Now, where are some of the top 40 songs that you guys do?”

Daryl Howard – “Well, we they like to we do Bruno Mars. People love Brandy on Mars. We do. Let me see Bruno Mars now. Now that.”

Angela Barrett –

Daryl Howard – “Well, we do most most of the the popular. Not most of it, but the popular stuff that you hear on the radio. Sure. We try to, put do about learn about least 5 or 6 of them. Right. Would cooperate with our show.”

Angela Barrett – “Now, where do you guys practice at?”

Daryl Howard – “My keyboard player’s, he has a building on Beltline.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, nice.”

Daryl Howard – Is set up.

Angela Barrett – And y’all are all here in Columbia?

Daryl Howard – “Yes. He has a studio. He has a studio where we rehearse. Everything’s set up. What we do is go in, plug in, and. Yeah, first. Yeah, we we try to rehearse twice a month. Yeah. You know, at least twice a month.”

Angela Barrett – “Well, I, I say I interrupt you with my celebrations. Say you were, you were telling me about the backgrounds and and of course, we got to the guy that played with Kool and the gang and. Yeah. Tell me about the others.”

Daryl Howard – “And and the other guys, the keyboard player he’s played with, out of Atlanta. He’s coming from Atlanta. He’s played with, artists, R&B artists like, cameo. The Gap Band, things like that. He’s played with them. Bass player. He’s played with old school guys like, Clarence Carter.”

Angela Barrett – Oh.

Daryl Howard – Johnny.

Angela Barrett – “That’s something you can’t play for children. Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. That’s what we’re not saying, that we can go there now when they want us to go there. We bring out class car. You know what I mean?”

Angela Barrett – You got to be from certain places to know. Yeah. Yes. By the way. Oh.

Daryl Howard – Yeah. Yeah.

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – “And the drummer, he he he’s he’s the youngest guy in the band. Matter of fact, he hasn’t played with too many groups, and. But he’s been with us for 16 years, so, you know, we kind of, groupings in.”

Angela Barrett – Sure.

Daryl Howard – “Yeah, we kind of groomed him. So, so. But the rest of the guys have played with, big artists, so they kind of know how to conduct herself. Sure. They, you know, they know the game. We know they know the business.”

Angela Barrett – “So now, how do you think, out of the people that, you know, that you played with Gladys Knight and the pips and I think you said temptations and.”

Daryl Howard –

Angela Barrett – “What do you think was your favorite band that you, you know, played with.”

Daryl Howard – “Well, well I was the nicest and I’ll go back to Gladys Knight.”

Angela Barrett – “So now I know,”

Daryl Howard – “They, they treated us. They I mean, don’t get me wrong. Everybody has an ego to your point. All the other groups, they got a little ego. I mean, of course they got hit records in famous. You know what I’m saying? So. So that the groups were mean to us. They treated us like, musicians and with respect.”

Daryl Howard – “You know, as much as they could, because we were the only one that didn’t had the hit record and stuff like that. Right. Well, Gladys Knight, she took her, took the time to sit down with us. And tell us what I was speaking about, about the dressing and how to conduct herself. She took the time. I mean she is she is a very down to earth lady.”

Daryl Howard – “She is. And, I real and I, I’ve told that story every time because, she, she really gave us some gems on that. I mean, and and we I follow that too, till the day, you know. Right. So I would say Gladys Knight in the pips, and we we we performed. Matter of fact, other top 40 stuff that she was asked me boys to man.”

Daryl Howard – “Oh, I know them box personally. Boys did well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, we met back there from Philly. We’re off in Philadelphia. So I know them guys personally. So, we do. We do a lot of their stuff. You know, speaking up top 40 stuff. We do some of their stuff, like, you know, and, end of the road was our biggest hit, called Engine Road.”

Daryl Howard – “Right? And we do that one. So. So, yeah. We, like I said about Gladys Knight is about my favorite. Get back to that. Yeah. Dance. You question.”

Angela Barrett – “So would you say would you say that was probably the,”

Angela Barrett – I guess the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given by another musician? Or can you think of something else? Best piece of advice?

Daryl Howard – I think that was it.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, that’s a pretty good one, though. I mean, it’s.”

Daryl Howard – “That put me on the right track right there because we was going into it. I mean, we was going into it at that time. We were young. All we wanted to do and, be honest with you, we didn’t care about getting paid. We didn’t care about, the business in all we wanted to do, to be honest, to sing with girls.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. That’s it.

Daryl Howard – “I’ll be honest with you. I mean, we were young boys coming up. Sure. And we loved the girl hollering it all that and making eyes at us. Waving at us. And, that’s that’s that’s all we were really, you know, into it for at the time. But when Gladys Knight set us down and told us, look, you could go further if you follow these steps, because that’s why I’m that, she said, that’s why I’m where I’m at now, because Berry Gordy claimed room the all his groups and yeah, I took it from there.”

Daryl Howard – “So that was one I think that was the best piece of advice. Yeah. That groomed me and made me, think about how to do this, get me in this business, because the business is very competitive and hard. I mean, people see you on stage, and. Oh, he’s having so much fun in which we are, but they don’t know the behind the scenes.”

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. You got to deal with, the rehearsals, traveling and stuff like that. You know, they don’t they don’t see that part. Yeah, you see that part of it? So they buy some. Gladys made me think about it more on a business point of view than just us. And we can do this for a living, you know.”

Daryl Howard –

Angela Barrett – “Right, right.”

Daryl Howard – “So that piece of advice really made me, made us take more.”

Angela Barrett – “So you just mentioned there, about the traveling and sort of what the people don’t see. How do you guys handle all that?”

Daryl Howard – “Well, as far how it far as,”

Angela Barrett – “Dealing with that? I mean, it’s a lot it’s it’s a lot of stress.”

Daryl Howard – “And also I say again or. We we we exactly. We, constructed it so it can be like a job. Like somebody going to a 9 to 5 job. We know yours.”

Angela Barrett – Is not 9 to 5.

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. It’s. No it’s not nine five. But, but we treat it as a job right. And a business. We set it up that way and all the guys know when we, have a gig, we treat it like a business. We be there on time, right? All the time and everything. Even far as the business go.”

Daryl Howard – “As far as money’s. We set it up that we don’t run in the back room, split the money up. We. We have everybody, gets paid at a certain time when they get that pay at a certain time. Now that we had that record deal, we get royalties from, the record company. So we we try to set it up like a business.”

Daryl Howard – “Sure. We have that mindset, you know? And the fun part is onstage. That’s the fun part. Well, we know when we’re not on stage, just like now, I’m doing this right. Always sustain. And this is a pleasure, you know? But these are some of the things people don’t see, right?”

Angela Barrett – “Well, they’ll see this.”

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. I’ve seen it. Yeah. You know, and but.”

Angela Barrett – “Marketing, your marketing and. Yeah.”

Daryl Howard – The marketing. Exactly. Exactly.

Angela Barrett – Which is part of it. With any business. Right.

Daryl Howard – Right.

Angela Barrett – If you don’t have that and you don’t have good marketing. Well.

Daryl Howard – “And I’m proud of the guys because they, they, they, they, we all have the same mindset.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – That helps a lot.

Angela Barrett – Right. That’s right.

Daryl Howard – That you don’t have to explain why I’m doing this or why we’re doing that. They already know.

Angela Barrett – “That. It’s it’s nice to work with people who, not that you want to think alike and agree on everything. It would be. Yeah, that would be a great learning.”

Daryl Howard – Yes. Yes. But everybody knows what the goal is.

Angela Barrett – The same.

Daryl Howard – Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Angela Barrett – “Might be some little trials and trees to get in your. But goals the same. And that’s always nice. Yeah. Yeah. So you mentioned, singing for the girls and all that. Yeah. Well, so give me your most unusual fan interaction.”

Daryl Howard – “Oh, goodness. Oh my goodness. Wow. Wow. Fan interaction.”

Angela Barrett – And you’re very you know you’re the most unusual one.

Daryl Howard – Most most unusual. Well let.

Angela Barrett – “Me, let me, let me one of the give me.”

Daryl Howard – “Give. Gimme a second. Because there’s a lot of stuff happens out there on the shows. I’ll tell you, it’s the in all of that. Yeah, yeah. Let me see. Okay. I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but, but, we’re we’re talking now.”

Angela Barrett – Yay!

Daryl Howard – “And I’m I’m I’m okay. They’re. We was at a show. There was this person sitting over, to my left. Oh, man. I’m just saying. Beautiful, beautiful woman. It was a woman. Sure. I’m just. I’m just a saying in in. Make it eye contact and sang it in. Doing my little moves and everything. So I goes over to the table and saying to all, you know, I wasn’t being disrespectful or anything, but, you know, I seeing that she was really admiring the so I go over and saying to her and hit my high notes and everything.”

Daryl Howard – “So after the show was over, my best friend came over to me. Sit down. You know, that was a man you were singing to.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, okay. Well. See you.”

Daryl Howard – You know who you were singing to? I know that can look good without a doubt. That was a man.

Angela Barrett – Oh my God.

Daryl Howard – “So who right there? I can say that that was one of your. The most the most. Well, yeah. So I’m like, oh my goodness.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Right. That’s a good one. Right. That is a good one I like it. Thank you for telling that story.

Daryl Howard – “Yeah. Well again I don’t tell that to everybody now. Oh. So wow. This is going to be on air, isn’t it? Oh, wow. Oh my goodness.”

Angela Barrett – Not so.

Daryl Howard – “Bad. What are you doing? And, And I’m quite sure, though, it I’m the only one that it that’s happened to.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, yeah. I’m out. Yeah. So now you you’ve done this for a really long time. So tell me what you think’s about the industry, what it was when you started versus now and good and bad.”

Daryl Howard – “Oh, well, let me start. Let me start with the with it. Well, nothing’s really bad about it. It’s just changed a lot. Back in the day, when we first started, for example. Equipment wise, I always tell people that. Now, remember, we had guitar, the bass and and the drummer and the singers plugged into the guitar and the thing out of.”

Daryl Howard – “We didn’t have monitors, we didn’t have ear monitors. We did have, cordless mikes. It all that right? A lot of times the new lines didn’t even have a mic, you know? So, now when you do a show, you got a thousand cords hooked up? Yeah. You got do you got ear monitors? You got, you got, gotta have a sound man to be sure to sound right?”

Daryl Howard – “Right. I mean, that that changed, drastically. I mean, that that’s a big change. Now, that’s in the entertainment part of it. Now, the business part of it really didn’t change a lot, too, because, for example, if you want to get a record deal, you would have to go from, record company to record company. You got to audition.”

Daryl Howard – “And that goes for getting gigs, too. You would have to go sometime. You have to do a gig, you know, the club owner say, well, if you can’t do a gig, I can’t pay you. But that’s exposure, right? Okay. But that’s what we had to do. You know. So. So we had to. We had to do those things, even with a record, with a record labels and stuff like that.”

Daryl Howard – “But you have to go to go and stand up and sing from the record. Exit in front of them, stuff like that. What now? All they got to do click. But let’s YouTube. Instagram. Right. Talk. Yeah. You know, and that part of it I love. I don’t have to leave the house now. Yeah. You know, and club owners and stuff.”

Daryl Howard – “You don’t have to go to their club or they don’t have to travel round to see a band, or they got to do when they call me, they say, Daryl, I never seen your band. Where can I see you? Click YouTube, right click Instagram, Facebook and let me see everything you want to see. How we look, how we sound and everything.”

Daryl Howard – “So that’s what it has come to now. And getting back with the zoom thing, I say I’m kind of new at it. Technology is changed so much even with the equipment. Now the sound man can walk around in the audience with a pat and adjust your sound.”

Angela Barrett – I mean.

Daryl Howard – “Back then you had to sit there on the board, but now he got this, got this pad.”

Angela Barrett – You can just walk around.

Daryl Howard – “He can go into it. He can go, sit in his car if you want to and do the sound. So I guess now that’s how it changed. And it’s good. I mean, it never was bad, like I said, but I love it now the way it is, because it’s more easier. You don’t need as much equipment, you know, equipment is scaled down to speakers.”

Daryl Howard – “Used to be the speakers used to be bigger than the band. You know, to me. Yeah, but now you can carry 2 or 3 speakers and you have the same sound.”

Angela Barrett – Right?

Daryl Howard – “So that that that that’s the way. That’s the way it has changed. You know, from back then till now. And I am blessed to see it.”

Angela Barrett – Right.

Daryl Howard – “Yeah, I am I am really blessed to see it.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. That is. What do you think about your audience. Has that changed.

Angela Barrett – “How they react. No participation. Yeah that’s a good thing. Yeah. Yeah I do think it’s you know I say this with every musician that I ever interview and talk with. Music is the one thing that will bring everybody together because everybody loves it. And it doesn’t matter, I mean.”

Daryl Howard – Right.

Angela Barrett – “You could be country music fan. You could be. Yes. But when you’re at a live performance, like you guys, everybody wants it.”

Daryl Howard – “That that warms my heart to see. To see it. I’m just going to go ahead and say it. It warms my heart to see the black and the whites. Yeah. Everybody’s sitting there laughing, dancing together. Yeah. Clapping.”

Angela Barrett – Almost as if the outside world just stopped.

Daryl Howard – “Exactly. Yeah. And I think, and that is one of the things that fuels me.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Daryl Howard – Because it makes me feel good.

Angela Barrett – Right?

Daryl Howard – I really love that. I love that I can touch people like that. I really do.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah I agree. It’s a it’s a great experience. Oh you’re fine. I’m sure it certainly is. Oh, man. Yes, yes.”

Daryl Howard – Yes it is.

Angela Barrett – “So you you’ve touched on this a few times. But tell me what your favorite part is about being a musician. Well, that.”

Daryl Howard – “Well, that what I just said about bringing people together and making someone smile and of course, doing it for a living and getting paid for.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Well. That’s right.

Daryl Howard – “Don’t worry. And that I love to do. And getting paid for it. I mean, it’s it’s it’s a, it’s a, it’s a real good feeling. And sometime I gotta, I tell the guys, I said, look, man, let’s not take this for granted, because I sure don’t. Because we were up here singing, having a good time, doing what we love to do and making a living that we love going to work.”

Daryl Howard – “That’s one. We love doing it. Yeah. You know, and, that that is my most, most, thing about being a musician. That is one of the most rewarding jobs you can have, right? Is is doing something like that. Getting paid for your talent.”

Angela Barrett – “That’s right. That’s right. So now, we talked about your new single comes out tomorrow. Yes. And along with the merchandise and all that good stuff. What’s next for cash money? More to come?”

Daryl Howard – “Yes, more to come. Well, right as we speak, we’re working on another single. Eventually we want to get a whole album.”

Angela Barrett – And is this going to be original or is it still going?

Daryl Howard – “Well, that’s that’s see. And going back, see, always go back to new bars because a lot of stuff we do stems from them. I left the band here to New Rod’s catalog. They love 2 or 3 songs.”

Angela Barrett – Right.

Daryl Howard – “And we need to redo that one next. We need to do that one next. So we haven’t decided whether it’ll be original. Well, I can I can really I haven’t go off the, reservation right now and say it’ll probably be another new rod.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, because it was not broke. Right.”

Daryl Howard – “I feel like the love of some of our songs. And be honest with you, it’s easier. This something year making up’s making up or, you know, creating something thing already has its own format. All we gotta do is put our ourself into it. So it’ll probably be another new rod salt.”

Angela Barrett – “Well, good. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to it. So the, new website, the, that’ll come out. And I know you can find you guys on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and all those good things, but, what will the website be called?”

Daryl Howard – Cash money experience.

Angela Barrett – Right? Oh. That’s easy. Yes.

Daryl Howard – “Yes. And and also it everything will be incorporated in our link tree. We have a new link tree where, you have links, so you can go to the hear the song, to the merchandise, where we can go to how the books, where you can go to our bio, our pictures. So, everything is going to be linked up to that link tree.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, good. Website. Yeah.”

Daryl Howard – And have all the links that you can click on to try to do all these things.

Angela Barrett – “Right, right. It’s so, tell us, tell me what? Your net. You guys. I guess the next biggest gig you got coming up.”

Daryl Howard – “Let me see the next biggest one. Well, I like to say all our gigs is big because I don’t want to. Well, yeah, nobody’s told but the big, big, big one. Right now, we don’t we don’t. We have a big thing coming up around Christmas time. Oh, yeah. Greenville? Yeah. At the point said a club.”

Daryl Howard – “No, that is, that is a real big thing that we do every year. People have on their gowns and tuxedos and stuff like that. We wear our best suits and stuff. So that right now I think that’s the the biggest, prestigious one that we got coming up right now. And, let me see. It is about the biggest one.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Gotcha. So people will be able to find out, where you’re going, where you’re playing, and, how to put you.”

Daryl Howard – “We have that on our face right now. That’s on Facebook. Facebook. We we we post our schedule on Facebook, a whole mass of our schedule, right? Every month. You can find it on Facebook. Go go to Cash Money Experience. Facebook, go to cash money experience. Instagram. Yeah. And you’ll see all our, performances there.”

Daryl Howard – That’s where we’re going to be at there. We posted the month.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. And when this website, which we’ll come out maybe tomorrow with them released so they can go to the Cash Money.”

Daryl Howard – Dot.

Angela Barrett – “Com and, and do that as well.”

Daryl Howard – Yeah. It’s on the Linktree too.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah.”

Daryl Howard – “So, a lot of ways to find us.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Perfect. All right, last question.”

Daryl Howard – Yes.

Angela Barrett – No. 2 to 2.

Daryl Howard – Okay.

Angela Barrett – “Two questions. Okay. Well, I missed one a while back. If you could explain the band in flavor, what would it be?”

Daryl Howard – Our flavor.

Angela Barrett – “It’s a it’s a bayan. Could be a flavor. What would you. Well, let the experience be.”

Daryl Howard – “Oh, Chocolate.”

Angela Barrett – “I like that. And,”

Daryl Howard – Hot chocolate. There you.

Angela Barrett – Go.

Daryl Howard – Yeah. Absolutely.

Angela Barrett – “Love it. All right, so this is the last question. Promise. Give me your life in five breaths.”

Daryl Howard – In five riffs.

Angela Barrett – In the six.

Daryl Howard – You got me there.

Angela Barrett – “Dang it. So, All right. Well that’s good. Well, thank you so much for being here today. And, I look forward to, talking with you again and, seeing you the next time I have the opportunity.”

Daryl Howard – “Oh, okay. Okay. I’ll be looking forward to seeing, Yeah. When you when you come, to one of our shows, let me know. Oh, well, I know that you there.”

Angela Barrett – I have your cell phone now. Yeah. Okay.

Daryl Howard – Nothing here to douchey to the guys is.

Angela Barrett – “What? Oh, absolutely. A great. Okay. Thank you so much.”

Daryl Howard – And thank you. It was my pleasure.

Angela Barrett – Absolutely.

Daryl Howard – And I’ll be seeing you soon.

Angela Barrett – Okay. Sounds great.

Daryl Howard – Bye bye. Bye bye.

Episode transcript:

Angela Barrett – “Professor, how are you?”

Harold Ballard – “I’m doing well, and I hope you are. It’s good to be here with you.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. It has been a long, long town. Yeah. It has. I got I can’t tell.”

Harold Ballard – “You how much it’s been, but. Well, we’ll be sharing in numbers, so, you.”

Angela Barrett – “Know, I’m going to share. I was going to say winning that in 1986.”

Harold Ballard – No.

Angela Barrett – “85 will go to 80,000.”

Harold Ballard – 18th 1985.

Angela Barrett – Could have been. You’re probably correct.

Harold Ballard – My first day of school.

Angela Barrett – “Oh, really? The 93, as we called it, right.”

Harold Ballard – “Prior to that, before the ownership change in 86, we just called the AC.”

Angela Barrett – “WDC. Gotcha. Yeah, that was a fun town.”

Harold Ballard – It was.

Angela Barrett – We gave away in our Roxy that year.

Harold Ballard –

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Down at the beach, from all the way from DeLand to the beach I guess. Or in however that worked for. That was fun. It was a lot of fun to drive to.”

Harold Ballard – “I know, I remember Friday night, you know the where the studio was located there on 501. Right. And I always come on and say, Will the last person leaving North Carolina please, off the lights?”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, right. That’s right, that’s right. And speaking of old times, don’t you wish we could go to, Johnny Dollars just one more time?”

Harold Ballard – Yes I do.

Angela Barrett – That was fun.

Harold Ballard – “Like the gator, the razzle dazzle. Dad.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah. Yes we did. For it to be such a small town. We certainly had the nightlife.

Harold Ballard – No.

Angela Barrett – “All right. Now, Harold, you’ve been working in broadcasting since you were 16. I understand.”

Harold Ballard – 1968

Angela Barrett – So how many years is that total?

Harold Ballard – We’re in year number 57 right now.

Angela Barrett – “So, how did it happen at 16 that you went into broadcasting?”

Harold Ballard – “I just was always interested in. And I think it probably started. I had a couple of sources. Well, my dad loved radio, and any time I’d be out with him, you know, we always had to be something on the radio. Back when car radios had to warm up before they would start playing, too. Right, right. Yeah. And then there were those times when, the TV would start acting funny and you had to call the local repair company.”

Harold Ballard – But that was another inspiration to maybe pursue the electronics end of it.

Angela Barrett – “Right. So now you were in North Carolina at 69, and I understand it was an alien radio at that point.”

Harold Ballard – “It was in Kannapolis, North Carolina, not far from home.”

Angela Barrett – “Right, right. And then what were you doing at 16?”

Harold Ballard – “Oh, just working weekends.”

Angela Barrett – On the air.

Harold Ballard – On the air.

Angela Barrett – “Nice nice, nice. Now since then, you have been in broadcasting of all kinds, radio, television, motion picture. So fill me in from 16 to now. Where in.”

Harold Ballard – “Okay. 13. Well, we were at one station in Kannapolis, and then, you know, moved over to the other one, which was, in the downtown area. And, you know, I did afternoons, you know, I’m going to going to high school and driving school bus in the morning and being an afternoon deejay.”

Angela Barrett – You know. Yeah.

Harold Ballard – “And then, you know, doing our best to try to graduate. And in 1970, I did and went on off to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and majored in radio, television, motion pictures. And then, you know, got that done. Hard work, campus radio. We had a little station that went out to all the dormitories.”

Angela Barrett – “Now, what was your deejay name, then?”

Harold Ballard – “Well, I think it was just Harold at that point.”

Angela Barrett – I gotcha.

Harold Ballard – “What happened when I went to, WFMU in Fairmont, North Carolina, if you remember them? I do. Okay. Well, the boss said that I wasn’t going to be Harold anymore, because that just didn’t sound top 40 enough. So he sat with Dave and and, well, he signed the check, so, you know, I didn’t have much room to dispute it, even though mama was opposed.”

Harold Ballard – But it sure. But I bet that hung on for a while.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. Then so I interrupted you. You were deejay at college. Now? Now keep going, because I interrupted you.”

Harold Ballard – “Oh, that’s that’s quite all right. We were almost in same progression anyway, so. After finishing Chapel Hill, you know, I’d go out and start looking for, a first work, full time job, which was in that part of North Carolina I had never seen or heard much about. And that was Robeson County. Of course, I didn’t pronounce it correctly when I first got there because one on the other side, North Carolina, thought it was Robeson County, and we found out that that was incorrect.”

Harold Ballard – “So I spent a lot of good years there, and, I got to work with some good radio people and, found out about this place called the coachmen for club and Bennett’s for South Carolina, where over the big time legends of soul would come to play. And we did a lot of, new commercials for them and got to meet a lot of stars.”

Harold Ballard – “It was almost like, you know, it was small town version radio.”

Angela Barrett – “Sure, sure. Yeah. And that was in Bennett’s Mill. Yeah.”

Harold Ballard – “Yeah. Which was just a short drive over from where we are. But it seems like when they would have somebody big at coachman, like, maybe Jerry Butler or Billy Scott and Georgia Prophets, Archie Bell, I mean, you we could just about, quadruple the population of Bennett’s ville in one night.”

Angela Barrett – “That’s that’s a. Yeah, sure. That’s that. That’s funny.”

Harold Ballard – “And. Okay, after after the time at Fairmont, I got, offered a chance to go a little further west. So I worked around Hickory and Lenoir in Morganton, North Carolina for a lot of years. And you know, that would that was also good experience, you know, just to see another market. I think the, the goal was eventually to see if we could get something like, you know, Charlotte Winston-Salem, Raleigh, where, you know, all the bigger operations were but my focus got, changed from on air to engineering.”

Harold Ballard – “And, in 1978, I found my first engineering job at a station in Sylva, North Carolina, which was just, a few miles from Western Carolina University in Culpably. And so I, I stayed there for a, a year or so and, building up some, technical experience and eventually, you know, in I think it was 1992, I crossed over from radio into television, and that was the the engineering and master control side.”

Harold Ballard – “They didn’t they will occasionally they would put me on camera, but they used I did that, you know, that was not the best course of action.”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – “You know, we would I told them, I said, you know, I’ll look after y’all. You you be good and be on camera. You know, I’ll just stay back here and be sure everything’s working right.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, sometimes it is easier back there behind the scenes.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, now, my first television was a TV in Florence. Channel 15. You remember them?”

Angela Barrett – Absolutely.

Harold Ballard – “And I stayed there for about three years, and eventually wound up at a place where I thought I’d always loved work. And that was LTV in Raleigh, and.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Harold Ballard – “Big time. I mean, they.”

Angela Barrett – Absolutely.

Harold Ballard – “Knew how to do it right. And still do. And, the only reason I left was because I got talked into returning to my alma mater, which was the University of North Carolina Center for Public Television, and had the chance to assist in their digital conversion when television was going from analog to a new, new transmission standard. And that was good experience.”

Harold Ballard – “And that led to, 2005 to becoming part of the startup team for Discovery Television’s new facility in Sterling, Virginia, where they originated all their channels, and that at the time was about 14 of them. That every you had TLC had animal Planet, BBC America, again, I’m trying to remember all of them now, but.”

Angela Barrett – There was a lot.

Harold Ballard – “Yeah. We had like control room segmented to where we would probably monitor three channels at a time. And yeah, it was big time stuff.”

Angela Barrett – Yeah.

Harold Ballard – “So then it got to be 2008 and, you know, both, Marilyn and I had decided it was time to come back to North Carolina because, you know, you think about, your parents health. And my mom wasn’t doing all that well at the time. Well, we knew she was getting up there in years, so. Sure. Come on back.”

Harold Ballard – “And I spent, about ten years in Charlotte, and that was initially, they had a facility that was going to be the control point for, Channel three TV, then, NBC 12 and Richmond, Virginia, and their new station, both Myrtle Beach. So, you know what? We we were part of the like, management staff for that for about four years until they decided to, return it the other channels to their own individual bases.”

Harold Ballard – And it just became WB TV Charlotte. So that’s where I finished in 2018.

Angela Barrett – “Gotcha. And now, go ahead, go ahead.”

Harold Ballard – “I was going to say when when it came time to retire, we came down here to, Orry County and. Yeah. So and we fired up the radio again.”

Angela Barrett – “I was going to say you did not retire. No. I said I heard you on the, beach waves.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, I spent, four years, on 94.9, the surf, which, you know, is the the headquarters for Beach Music down here, located in the Ocean Drive beach and Golf resort’s best view out control room window I ever had.”

Angela Barrett – And but.

Harold Ballard – “On,”

Angela Barrett – Right.

Harold Ballard – “Right, then. Well, you know, the way it is. And radio and television, people take different directions. And I had a chance to come over here to, beach waves, the independent, internet based thing. And, we just do it from here in the room every. Every Thursday.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. And it’s a pretty cool, pretty cool to to, So now, out of all of those years in broadcasting, what would be. Well, let’s break it down. What would be the favorite job and then what would’ve been the favorite place? Because that doesn’t necessarily have to would be the same. So what would be the favorite job?”

Angela Barrett – The part you played.

Harold Ballard – “Oh, that is so tough.”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – “I think as far as management, it would have probably been Jerry and Land or North Carolina because their, their, their GM came to be like older, wiser brother to me, Donny Goodale. May he rest in peace. We lost him in 2018 to pancreatic cancer. And I’ll tell you, he it was laid to rest in Chesterfield County and again court casket just the way he wished.”

Angela Barrett – “I love it, I love it.”

Harold Ballard – “I mean, he he was spurs and feathers for the end.”

Angela Barrett – “Right? Right, I love it. Yeah, yeah. No. What about your favorite? I guess, place? And that may be the same,”

Harold Ballard – “Place. Well, well, Lenore is definitely one of them, but I will tell you, there was. And you’ll probably agree here there was nothing like, that old Radio Shack on highway 501 between DeLand and the latter, right. 1000 watt now. 100,000 watt at the, broadcast transmitter and two incoming watts. Lines for a request.”

Angela Barrett – “I remember well, yeah, I it was for a good place. It was, it was.”

Harold Ballard – Or South Carolina. 1-800-327-9393. And if you’re in North Carolina one 803 two eight.

Angela Barrett – “Oh, I’ve forgotten about the two numbers. Oh that’s funny. I did forget about that.”

Harold Ballard – But you can get most interesting people on the telephone.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, true. Now let’s talk about because you’ve been doing this a long time. Let’s talk about the changes, like the physical changes of how you got music for people to hear on the radio. Just that alone. From the time you started tennis.”

Harold Ballard – “Started out with turntables? Some older than others. Yeah. And then I think we we migrated around 86, 87 to compact discs. Some of the content compact disc players for radio were not always reliable. And, you know, we we had a little issue with those, but they got better and that now see we went from the compact disc to the digital audio tape.”

Harold Ballard – And somewhere along the way it all wound up on a hard drive.

Angela Barrett – Right.

Harold Ballard – “There, where a lot of it stays to this day.”

Angela Barrett – “Right, right, right.”

Harold Ballard – And I’ll own this dilapidated cardboard box I still miss lives here around.

Angela Barrett – “Now, what do you think has changed other than just, How you get the music out, you know, in the air. So wait and listen. What else have you say? Got?”

Harold Ballard – “We got a lot of different plant forms going on now because used to be it was just a Am or FM. Now you have web based, you know, that that has also evolved into podcasting. Okay. Let’s see, what else, do we have up ahead? You know, and for television, we went from, four by three analog mono audio to, 16 by nine, ten had progressive scan high def this in television.”

Harold Ballard – “And right at that, there’s we we really probably have no idea what’s coming next. Sure.”

Angela Barrett – “But yeah, if I wasn’t trying to keep up with the new technology as things came along.”

Harold Ballard – “Well for fortunately for me, I was lucky enough when I got to Raleigh and WRAL, they were totally committed to high definition and also to computer technology and that was a good it was a good learning base, to be part of an engineering staff and a management that was committed to it. So, I feel like that was an education in itself.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, well, that’s good, because I imagine some of that could not have been easy floundering around by yourself, trying to learn all that.”

Harold Ballard – “Not always. Because when you go from, standard analog television to, what we see today, it was just, you know, like going from, one, one world to another.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. I mean, most of the but, you know, a lot of that people are not going to understand, but it would be the same as, you know, when I used to be the TV remote right before this came along, what? Angel. Angela, turn the TV. And.”

Harold Ballard – “Then there was the. There were those calls that I used to get, run back home. And mama says, Harold, can you explain this TV to me?”

Angela Barrett – The the like the telephones now.

Harold Ballard – “There’s that king channel, and one of the engineers there in Raleigh said, how can you be so patient? I said, well, you got to have a mama.”

Angela Barrett – “That’s right. And I think I walk into dad’s every time and he’s like, I don’t know what I did. I’m like, well, you keep mashing buttons. How’s that for a Dylan work? Mash buttons, Eric, for your stop.”

Harold Ballard – “I still think one of the funniest, illustrations of it was on an episode of South Park where somebody had a brand new TV, and they pushed the wrong button and turned into a transformer. What, so he doesn’t look?”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah. I’ll have to admit, now, when it comes to, some of the technology today, I’m like, I’d just rather not.”

Harold Ballard – Yeah. I totally understand that.

Angela Barrett – “Right? So, tell me what what the North Carolina Broadcasting History Museum is, and then tell me some of the your parts that you had to do with that. Okay.”

Harold Ballard – “I’ll be happy to. Well, a friend of mine, approached me on, on Facebook and said he. You’ve been at this for so long. Don’t you think you need to start writing some stuff down and book? Yeah, yeah. I not thought about that. I said, well, I know people who can read books and some have also written them.”

Angela Barrett – “Look, look,”

Harold Ballard – “But, you know, I got to thinking, I said, well, I think everybody else’s stories would be a whole lot more interesting than mine. So I, I started the North Carolina broadcast History Group on Facebook and just invited everyone that I knew and had them invite their friends because, you know, in the radio and TV business, you know, somebody and somebody else know somebody.”

Harold Ballard – “And then the chain starts developing and then you before you know it, you got a group with some like 2000 people and many of them have been broadcast heroes of mine since day one. Right now, both in radio and television. And what we started doing, you know, I just told everybody, I said, go out and, find some things that we can archive and remember it.”

Harold Ballard – “You know, just like the, the print ads trying to also assemble any air checks we could find, our old radio shows. And, you know, it’s just a matter of trying to keep alive what, you know, made us want to be in this business.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. And so the the museum is, in fact, open today.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, the Facebook group is. But now the the North Carolina Broadcast History Museum, this is still under development.”

Angela Barrett – I gotcha.

Harold Ballard – “Yeah, we’re still, looking. And I’m very honored to have been asked to be on the board of trustees for this because, I mean, you know, I’ve looked around at some of the guys in the one young lady who is, you know, probably a the CEO, one of the premier broadcasting groups that her, her father established many years ago.”

Harold Ballard – “And that is Beasley broadcast. This is, Caroline Beasley. She’s, one of the members of our, board of trustees and along with several others. But, you know, I’ve been to many meetings and I’m thinking, I said, how did I get in here? I said, it was again, the back. Oh.”

Angela Barrett – Did you?

Harold Ballard – “Well, you know, like they told me, they said, no, you’re you’re our guy who has, you know, assembled all this stuff and, given us something to build on. I said, well, that’s that’s a badge of honor right there. Because they we’re thinking that it is important enough to try to preserve it. And I have to say that we got some people in South Carolina doing the same thing to, there is like a group, they called it slobs, which is an acronym for some legendary old broadcast.”

Harold Ballard – “And I work they work out of Columbia, and it’s right about at this point that I want to recognize and remember a couple of, members of that group that we’ve lost recently, one of them being Woody Windham, who for years radio in Columbia, South Carolina, had a beach club in downtown Columbia. And you know, hung out with his brother Leo.”

Harold Ballard – “And they used to do radio together. And then, I know that a lot of, hearts are broken, mine included, because, I mean, there will never be another Joe Palmer.”

Angela Barrett – “Well, I, you know, Mr.. Knows it. That’s right.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, he was in our North Carolina group, too, because, you know, he’s from New Bern originally and also attended the University of North Carolina. And he he was there for far enough back to have went to college with, Charles Kuralt, and a couple of others, one of them, being, big star on NPR, whose name Carl Kasell.”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – “This to do, all things considered, I believe. And, there was all kinds of the old, old school of broadcasting then. And, you know, Joe took it, to the military and, you know, he was stationed at Fort Jackson, and that’s how Mr. knows it came to be in Columbia.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, really? I did not know that. Interesting.”

Harold Ballard – “I think he also spent a little time in Jacksonville, Florida, where he met his wife, Peggy, and they they spent a lot of years together. Now they’re going to have a memorial service for Joe somewhere in Columbia, I think on November 14th, I, I suggest if you’re going, you better be there early, because.”

Angela Barrett – Right now he’s.

Harold Ballard – “Standing room only, I hope. Absolutely. They have a big enough venue for sure.”

Angela Barrett – There is one.

Harold Ballard – “I don’t know if there is either, but I’ll tell you. Yeah, I guess I’ve always had a special affection for whist, because I think in 1972, you know, daughter had a, a young lady of interest in Columbia who worked, with Britton Wandell or Lakeview. I mean, I think, and I’d go to Columbia and they’d have on Lewis.”

Harold Ballard – Not here. This boy’s doing this. I’d. His name was Dave Rogers. But I’ll tell you what. It was just almost like you had to stand there and listen.

Angela Barrett – “Right? One of those guys, I just sucked right in. Yeah.”

Harold Ballard – “Had that kind of presence. And, you know, ever since then, I said, you know, this has got to be one special place to work.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, yeah, it’s still, it’s still a big network here for sure.”

Harold Ballard – Really?

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. E absolutely. And, now let me ask you, we just went through, Hurricane Helene. And we’re still dealing with the devastating aftermath, especially up in the North Carolina, you know, mountains area. Have you ever had. Had to, I guess, be cover or announce either in your DJ or any of the broadcasting roles in the ever been had to be the one who broke the news or had to cover those kinds of things in a crisis situation, or been a part of that in any way.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, you know, I returned to our old radio home in Dillon in 1989, and that was the place where we were waiting for Hugo to come in.”

Angela Barrett – Yes.

Harold Ballard – “Oh, what a fun night that was. And there was a whole lot of broadcasting going out, because when we lost power and we could fire the writer up.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, no.”

Harold Ballard – “Where it was, it was doomed from the start. And that one I remember well. But another one was Hurricane Fran that, came ashore 1996 Wilmington and then eventually got to the Raleigh area.”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – “I mean, we we’ve got, you know, there, Earl, we’re checking to see if there, there’s water in the basement and we’re doing a live shot from the breezeway that runs between the main building in the administration building there, Capital Broadcasting. And, you know, it’s it’s almost like, you know, we’re having to anchor the the people who were out there trying to report because the wind was so heavy.”

Angela Barrett – “Right? Like a Jim Cantore, you know, flapping around in the rain. It.”

Harold Ballard – “And I’m in Master control that night. And so, we’re we’re getting all kinds of calls. One of them was we were CBS Philly at the end. So we got something coming back from one of the engineers in New York. Can you tell us what’s going on down there? I said, well, there’s a hurricane you on top of us right now.”

Harold Ballard – If you really want to know.

Angela Barrett – “They,”

Harold Ballard – “And, you know, when you’re doing breaking news and live team coverage, it did. This is always a good time.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, I was going to say that’s a whole different. Yeah. Ballgame. I mean, the energy level for one has to be massive when you to cover stuff like that.”

Harold Ballard – “Yeah it really is. And the most, the, the most fun part of it is the, the stuff you’re not seeing and hearing because you got to have a crew and, you know, give it about six hours of doing this thing straight. And so, you know, we love what we do, but we sort of had enough of.”

Angela Barrett – “This stuff, right? So. Right, right, right. So we’ve talked about like, all the technical, changes, for better or for worse, that come along. And now we have social media. What are your thoughts on social media?”

Harold Ballard – “Well, before we proceed into the, world of social media here at Uno illustrate one other change that you have and, and broadcasting that I think is, you know, an important consideration today used to be most of your radio stations were locally owned and operated and as were the TV stations. But now you have these multi conglomerate groups who own.”

Harold Ballard – Countless numbers of radio stations. And you have some groups who have about the same amount of TV stations.

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – “It seems that in that process, you’ve had a lot of stuff that becomes, standardized between the different TV stations all under one corporate banner, and there’s not a lot of individuality left. You used to have that right. You know it. And a lot of what you hear on radio now, is voice tracked because it’s pre-prepared somewhere else and sent in by, by internet to the individual station.”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – Is just.

Angela Barrett – You.

Harold Ballard – “Know, personality.”

Angela Barrett – Right on it. Right. A lot of the iHeart radio hosts are actually done that way. They’re not actually sitting in that little booth.

Harold Ballard – “Right. And that’s why on Thursday afternoons I am doing my part to maintain live radio because, yeah, the show that I do, you wouldn’t want a voice track.”

Angela Barrett – “It’s, so spun. So social media just in general. Your thoughts, what do you think?”

Harold Ballard – “Some. Oh, sometimes I think it’s been a positive for, the calls for communications, and there’s sometimes I wonder, how did I get in the cesspool?”

Angela Barrett – “Right. Yeah. I’m going to agree with you there. Yeah. I ask a lot of people that are questioning because it’s just, you know, younger kids today wouldn’t have a clue. I mean, we didn’t even have cell phones, much less social media. But they just, you know, have no idea that you did not know what everybody was doing.”

Angela Barrett – And nor do I need to know every time you go to get a cup of coffee. That’s right. It’s not necessary. I mean.

Harold Ballard – I’m the kid who came from the street that had a four party line.

Angela Barrett – “Yes. My grandmother, I can remember picking up the phone and there’d be other people on the phone talking in my grandma over the kitchen, listening she go, Angela, hang up the phone. I was just being nosy, you know.”

Harold Ballard – “We want to know what’s happening in the neighborhood, but now you don’t have to eavesdrop because it’s all out there.”

Angela Barrett – That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. I’m so glad we didn’t have that when I was growing up. Thank.

Harold Ballard – “Yeah, no, I have I have to admit, you know, I, I’m primarily, you know, a, a Facebook user and, you know, I yeah, I, I kind of got away from Twitter because they got crazy. Okay. No, no, I have always said that I’m not going to touch that stuff because.”

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, I haven’t either and not yet anyway. Not at all.”

Harold Ballard – “Not I’m not. So I think it comes from some unknown place in us. And, you know, the less I know, the better, right?”

Angela Barrett – “Right. Sometimes I just the that’s the case. So, tell me your biggest live blunder. What was the worst? Or maybe a couple. Okay.”

Harold Ballard – “Oh, well, there were there will be a few. Hold on. Okay.”

Angela Barrett – “At present, going live and recording. You can’t. You can’t undo. You can’t edit it.”

Harold Ballard – “No, no, live is forever. And, you know, had had some of the stuff been on, on the internet. I would still be haunted to this day. One of them being, one day in March 1981. I will know where I had just taken over, for for my shift, which ran through 3 to 7 p.m.. And, you know, back in the day, you wanted to be sure you had all your tape cartridges, ready to go.”

Harold Ballard – “And you also had something on the turntable. Well, I discovered that I did not have something on the turntable when the bulletin broke. This. Somebody had just tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan.”

Angela Barrett – Oh eight.

Harold Ballard – “And so, you know, I’m trying to reach back into the record box, to, get something on the turntable to roll out of this bulletin.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, well.”

Harold Ballard – “Yeah. And what what would it be? That I had selected, you know, inadvertently without a, you.”

Angela Barrett – Ask.

Harold Ballard – “It it was a song by Phil Collins. And Earth, Wind and Fire called I Missed Again.”

Angela Barrett – “I know. But that. So not only did we have dead air, then we had, Probably I missed again.”

Harold Ballard – On.

Angela Barrett – You.

Harold Ballard – I totally inappropriate.

Angela Barrett – Right? Right. Do you remember? The station was always dead air. It’s like I don’t I do.

Harold Ballard – “I remember also causing some of it because I’d be doing engineering during your shift. And, you know, not intentionally. Find Roy anything, but, more or less just the trying to get something done. And I said, no, that won’t work.”

Angela Barrett – “If. Yeah. Well, that’s and that’s a pretty big blunder there. But you lived and like you said, thank God we didn’t have recordings and social media back then for it to be passing around endlessly.”

Harold Ballard – “I think the next one was in, probably 2000, when. You know what? We were running, the CBS show Big Brother. And I was on Master Control that night, and, and it had two local commercial breaks in it. And, you know, we we would always get information from the network as to, how long the break times were.”

Harold Ballard – “So the second break in the show, which was live, originating from Los Angeles, The program log said that it was going to be a minute 34. Well, CBS changed their mind, but, somehow word didn’t get to us because they they shortened the break to a minute or.”

Angela Barrett – “Oh, dear.”

Harold Ballard – Let in that 30s that we were not with network. They announced the winner of the competition.

Angela Barrett – Oh goody. Yes.

Harold Ballard – “And I said, well, I followed my program while ago. I said, you know, but it got written up in the Raleigh News Observer about how they missed the, the 30s where the winner was named. I say, well, I guess I’m in the hall of Shame now.”

Angela Barrett – I let them tell I was totally your fault for sure.

Harold Ballard – “No, no, I won’t take a rap on that one.”

Angela Barrett – “Right, right.”

Harold Ballard – “That those are probably my my two greatest hits, right?”

Angela Barrett – “This, that. So now you’re, down in Orange County at the beach, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Fort Myrtle. Yeah.”

Harold Ballard – We like to think think that this is the better side of town.

Angela Barrett – I don’t tend to disagree.

Harold Ballard – “Only where we got bad Harold’s and ducks and, deckers and the, you know, the galleon snooki’s.”

Angela Barrett – “And, let’s see what else down that way. I think the crown we got.”

Harold Ballard – “All got a good fall, but,”

Angela Barrett –

Harold Ballard – So Archie’s.

Angela Barrett – “Oh, yes, captain. Archie’s right.”

Harold Ballard – Yeah.

Angela Barrett – “That’s right. Live every Thursday. As the professor of beach music, and,”

Harold Ballard – “Bestowed upon me by my friend and brother Mike Worley for more like 94.9, the sir.”

Angela Barrett – “Right, right, right. So and so Thursday’s on beach waves of these waves.com. Y’all also have app. What? I don’t remember the times I think they’re funny.”

Harold Ballard – Noon to three.

Angela Barrett – There you go.

Harold Ballard – Yeah that’s beach waves radio.com. Or you can get our app which is on the App Store.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah. And and listen to surf. It looks like a lot of, like, it looks like you get work with a great group of people. I know that y’all are all doing it individually, but do you ever get to get together? We probably will.”

Harold Ballard – “This year at the Carolina Beach Music Awards. Last year, we all got together out in the parking lot of the Alabama Theater and, spent about three hours before showtime at 3 p.m.. And, you know, we were able to. Just get a bunch of good interviews. I’d see somebody say, hey, if come over here. Actually, I think it got down to being a competition because I was trying to get interviews before surf.”

Harold Ballard – God.

Angela Barrett – “Yeah, right. I can understand that. That’s what you’re sitting there, so. Sure. Well, Harold, thank you for the professor. Thank you so much. As I should say. This has been great. I have been excited about this for a while, and I’m glad that we, called up and were able to get together. I’m.”

Harold Ballard – “All. I’m already planning the sequel, even as we.”

Angela Barrett – “Speak, you know? That’s right. Absolutely. Well, thank you again. And, I hope to see you in a couple of weeks when I’m down your way.”

Harold Ballard – “Well, that would be great. I hope so.”

Angela Barrett – All right. Thanks so much.

Harold Ballard – You’re. You’re welcome. Thank you.