AJ joins Red & Evan J. Thomas of TAG Publicity
Jason Ziolo
Hello everybody, welcome to episode five, season two of Rock Fan Radio. It is 311 day, March 11th, 2026. Happy 311 day guys, pretty fun. It's Wednesday night, Friday is the second Friday the 13th, we're gonna get in a month, which is pretty cool. We have a ton of stuff to talk about today. I'm not even quite sure where to start, but I guess,
Reed
Yeah.
Steve
you
Jason Ziolo
I'll point out who's in the room. I've got Parker, I've got Steve, I've got Dave, and I've got Reed. We also have our new guest ⁓ Evan J. Thomas here today. Evan.
Reed
Our very first
guest on the cast,
Steve
Yeah, congrats!
Dave Cravotta
Welcome, Evan. Welcome.
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yes.
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Thanks for having me.
Jason Ziolo
Yes, so we're gonna let Evan participate in current events and then we're gonna get into a deep dive with Evan and really talk about what he's up to. So looking forward to that. So let's hit it. ⁓ What's new in the world? What you guys, what happened in the past two weeks?
Parker
Era dropped their album on Friday. It's pretty sick. ⁓ It is a little bit different for them, I feel like personally. They've got a lot more kind of...
more metalcore, more kind of like kind of rock and roll a lot of these songs, kind of pulling it back a little bit, but they still have the punch you in the face heavy songs that they've always been dropping. And it's an incredible album. I've listened to it probably five times through already. Honestly, it's probably more outside of my wheelhouse than normal, but they're just
Reed
soul.
Parker
solid musicians through and through and everything they do just turns to gold in my eyes at least. But yeah, it is a little bit different, but it is a killer album.
Reed
No joke, I know it.
Jason Ziolo
been talking a lot about
it right and I actually was texting you guys I tried to bribe you to come last Thursday I was gonna actually VPN that we could get the album early because it came out midnight on Friday morning Thursday night we were gonna do like a live review and we didn't so that's a great story but I listened to it I thought it was cool it's not quite my speed it's a little screamy for me but man some of those breakdowns and some of those bridges are just insane I don't know how you get those noises out of your guitar anymore I couldn't do it
Dave Cravotta
Yeah
Steve
Yeah.
Reed
Legit
we're only into March, but it is unless something crazy happens the rest of the year I'm so in on this album that like it's gonna be my 2026 album of the year like I This because it's not like this is the next generation of error. I think like it is Still true to their roots, but you talk about some of these bridges man that one bridge in what's that? What's the
Steve
Really?
Reed
Number one song they released, Silence, Parker Helmhatter.
Dave Cravotta
Sonata.
Reed
No, the first single they released.
Dave Cravotta
Is that Further Eden? I don't think that is, yeah. Further Eden, Yeah.
Reed
Yes, further even, thank you. Yeah, the bridge at the
Parker
Is it further Eden? The one with all the harmonics.
Reed
end of that has got to be one of the ballsy-est bridges a rock band's ever put together. It is dirty, it's bizarre, it is awesome.
Parker
Yeah. Yeah.
I was talking to my friend about this, I was like, just from the standpoint of playing guitar a little bit, I'm like, dude, I gotta see these guys play this live because that's gotta be the most wild thing to see them just hitting all these harmonics in succession that quickly is kind of insane. And to get it to ring the way it needs to is, dude, the precision is crazy.
Reed
But like...
And
it's just slightly like, I don't know, this is not the right way to say this, but it's like just slightly off key too, that like it just has this very weird dissonant, like dark gloomy, is just, this album, like I've listened to it no less than 10 times already. And it's just, this is my number one rock album of the year so far. Poor Poppy, I've, look, you know guys, I've been hot on Poppy empty hands all year long.
Jason Ziolo
we're doing for is dissident.
Dave Cravotta
Yes, and said by Jason.
Wow. Yeah.
Reed
She's still invited to the podcast But unless something crazy happens, Aira's taking it this year
Steve
you
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
No.
Steve
I enjoyed it, but I'm kind of with Jason. I felt it was a little screamy for my taste. mean, I like the drops that are in it that you guys have already mentioned. And I did like the melodic singing too. I like that aspect of it. But when he starts off screaming that first song off the album, I was like, I almost...
Reed
Mm, scream it.
Steve
hit the skip button. I let it ride today while I was at work, but, you know, it was different for me. I'll say that.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, we saw them. saw them. Dave, think I was with you and Reed when we saw them. Is that true?
Dave Cravotta
never seen him. That's a bucket list band for me though.
Reed
Yeah, that was a... Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
I'm thinking, I thought they opened for sleep token. They opened for bad omens at the salt show.
Reed
They did. they did open for bad omens, you're right. Dude, that was the one time that I was upset at Salt Shed because the guy that does the clean vocals and obviously shreds the lead guitar, they had his mic tuned to backup singer? I don't know. But you couldn't hear him or...
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Can you see the microphone?
Reed
anytime he had like solo like it was the one time at salt shed that like it was not the audio was not right that night and now I gotta go see him again that's all it comes down to
Jason Ziolo
Yep, I'm with you. They played with Icy Stars too, I think. Yeah, I was supposed to go see Gatomans last week and I didn't go because I got pulled into band practice instead and I'm kind of bummed because the reviews were off the chain. It was amazing.
Reed
Yes.
Dave Cravotta
Hmm.
Reed
That was not the show that he walked out on?
Jason Ziolo
What? Bad omens? Who's thinking of bad flour?
Dave Cravotta
You're thinking of bad flower? Different
Reed
I'm thinking a bad flower. There's too many
bads. Yeah, that's bad. Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
bad. Yeah, different bad. Yeah, yeah. Back to the record.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah. And then Beartooth was opening,
which is one of our favorite bands to hate. And so it was like, I'll skip this one.
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Well, I saw I was at that show and saw Beartooth and they were awesome. So I didn't get to photograph President or Bad Omens, I only got to see Beartooth and as a photographer, they only give us three songs and then they walk us right out. So I only got to see the first three and that was it. But Caleb was to me awesome. know, that's that's kind of my style right there. I'm all over the board, though, so.
Jason Ziolo
Also, you went to the Bad Woman show. Tell us about it, Evan.
Parker
Okay.
Reed
Yes.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
I really like them too, but...
Reed
A lot of drama.
There's a lot of drama going on with that new video they just released. ⁓ And he deleted his Instagram and... Right, right. Yeah. Although, you know, the one guy who came to his defense, which I was shocked at, was David Draemon. Did you?
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Yeah, and it's not him, it's people hating on him because they, you know, they call him out being gay or whatever. Who cares? It's the scene.
Dave Cravotta
Yes, I saw that. Thought of you, Reed.
Yes, sure did. Like, ⁓ this is interesting company to keep.
Reed
I look props to David
props to David Draven for being a stand up guy in that particular scenario.
Jason Ziolo
What else we got guys?
Dave Cravotta
The... I'm...
Reed
David Grohl's
19-year-old daughter Violet is releasing an album.
Jason Ziolo
It's not that bad, actually. Have you listened to any of this stuff?
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
first song was pretty
Dave Cravotta
Really?
Reed
I
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
good.
Reed
have not, I've not listened to it.
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Yeah, first song called Thumb and it's T-H-U-M is actually pretty good. Is it Tom? I don't know. I figured it's Tom. Sorry. More of this.
Reed
Really?
Jason Ziolo
Is it toe or is thumb?
Steve
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
either.
Reed
Tune? Tum? Tumble?
Parker
Okay.
Reed
Yeah, I actually just saw this as a headline this week and I was like, okay, I'm intrigued, but I haven't listened to it yet. Is it rock? What is she doing? Yeah?
Steve
There you go.
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
It's rock.
Jason Ziolo
It is rock and it's actually better than I expected. It's better than the new most of the new Foo Fighters I told everybody how much I like the new Foo Fighters song but like, we got it. Heaven's gonna leave. haven't even fought about Foo Fighters and we're not gonna re-hash that but yeah, too many times we've been in that. Let me see if I can play a little bit you guys.
Reed
You
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
Alright, I'm out.
Reed
Ha ha ha!
Evan J. Thomas @EvanJThomas1
No.
Reed
Alright, play a little bit of this track for me. Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
All right, so this is Violet Growl. Let's take a quick listen to thumb here.
Reed
is
Parker
you
Jason Ziolo
Let's see what else has got.
Reed
It's got a metric vibe to it almost, like...
Steve
You guys can keep listening, I'll get another beer.
Jason Ziolo
So I do remember you listening to this now and I remember thinking that my comment was, that's gotta be Dave Grohl playing guitars. It sounds like Dave Grohl's style when he writes a hook.
Evan J. Thomas
Just some music sounds like his style to begin with.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, it
does.
Reed
sounds very indie rock. Reminds me a lot of like like a like a harder edged metric.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Jason Ziolo
What do know about their new drummer?
Evan J. Thomas
I know really nothing about him. For once.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, I haven't really followed much on it either, so yeah, guess we're gonna have to do a research when come back. ⁓ it's right there!
Evan J. Thomas
He came from Nine Inch Nails, didn't he? So he was a Nine Inch Nails
Reed
Yeah, you did.
Steve
Really?
Dave Cravotta
Really?
Evan J. Thomas
guy before... What's his name? Went back to Nine Inch Nails. Crazy, yeah. So they just kind of swapped, even though they didn't really swap, they just... New gig!
Jason Ziolo
Freeze.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Reed
Josh
Freeze come up on every episode of the podcast so far? Okay, I just wanted to make sure we're continuing along, you know.
Jason Ziolo
Yes it has, yes it has.
Evan J. Thomas
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Dave Cravotta
He's our one through line.
Evan J. Thomas
Five times.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, we like Aaron. We like Josh Frees.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, and read total like disturbed. Read really as in like disturbed. ⁓
Dave Cravotta
They've also come up five times. Yeah.
Reed
Evan, know you used
to work with Dave Draymond, right? Back in the day?
Evan J. Thomas
I
didn't work with them back in late 90s, early 2000s. I photographed many shows. I was at the first album release on March 9th, 7th? 2000. So I have...
Reed
Okay, I won't ask any follow
up questions because I don't want to get anybody in trouble.
Evan J. Thomas
Sure, go ahead.
Reed
Is he as big of a dick as I think he is? Really?
Evan J. Thomas
In person? No.
Not to me. This was also 26 years ago.
Reed
That's true. Okay. Well, Dave, you're still invited.
Evan J. Thomas
So who knows now? I haven't talked
to him since, but you know. Yeah, he was never had an issue with him, never had an issue with anybody in the band. Still friends with John Moyer.
Reed
He's so invited on the podcast.
Dave Cravotta
I'm sure you can't wait.
Reed
You
Nice.
Jason Ziolo
just asked AI who Foo Fighters drummer is and it told me it was Josh Friese. So maybe this is the problem with AI. That's hilarious. Reed, did you know that Disturbed went to Midlothian High School, South Side of Chicago, not South Side, but like South Suburbs? And we have a fraternity brother who went to high school with him. Speak of way back in the day. Baldon Chain.
Evan J. Thomas
Nah. Hey, I need to wake up.
Dave Cravotta
No,
yeah, limitations.
Reed
Yeah.
Who?
Yeah? Okay.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah. Okay, cool. What's next? Someone tell me about this corn documentary.
Dave Cravotta
I really don't know anything about it. I said I was gonna look it up and I did not. So I think it's a three-part series. It's gonna come to Netflix. Let see what I can find here. This is not very helpful.
Reed
Steve unfortunately won't watch it unless it's done on a Saturday and
Steve
God damn it, Reed.
Jason Ziolo
It's on a weekday, so you can't watch it.
Reed
Evan, in case you haven't been caught up, we
once talked on the podcast about bucket list bands, like who we want to see live, right? And we all had really good suggestions except for Steve, who said corn. And no, it's not because corn plays Chicago. Right. Yeah. And corn plays Chicago three times a year.
Jason Ziolo
you
Steve
No! That's a good fucking suggestion, Reed. Yes it is. I haven't seen him yet, no. Every time they come in, I have something else going on.
Evan J. Thomas
You haven't seen corn yet?
tattoo
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
It's a three-part
Steve
Like.
Dave Cravotta
docu-series slated for release sometime this year. That's not a whole lot of info, but I think it sounds pretty cool, right? I will be first in line to watch that. That'll be fantastic.
Reed
It's awesome.
Evan J. Thomas
I was going to say if Steve was 22, I would understand him not seeing them yet, but he's not.
Steve
Damn it, Evan. You know you're just a guest here,
Dave Cravotta
I have also never seen Korn. I was supposed to see him at Lala when they came
through Indianapolis in 2002, 2003. Snoop Dogg was the headliner. He was fantastic, loved his set. Korn was supposed to play, but I think Fieldie had spinal meningitis and they had to cancel. So like, well, I mean, I get that. No, Lincoln Park wasn't there.
Evan J. Thomas
⁓
Reed
Mm. Mm-hmm.
Jason Ziolo
I was with Lincoln Park too, wasn't it Dave?
Dave Cravotta
Prodigy the prodigy performed and one of the lead singers yelled at the crowd because they weren't cheering for the dancing enough I was like, I know Not that kind of we were here to see Snoop Dogg. We got we're on a different vibe Maybe than the dancing right now. So but it was it was fun show definitely enjoyed it
Parker
Hmm.
Jason Ziolo
saw, I actually have a story about this show. I saw Korn with Linkin Park and Snoop Dogg. That's the only time I've seen Snoop and it was fun as all. And I want to say there was someone else there. But the woman we were with, this was in my early twenties, was like the office manager where my wife Brooke worked. And she didn't realize it, but she was pregnant at the time. ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
Uh-uh.
Parker
Thank
Dave Cravotta
Boom.
Jason Ziolo
And we went to the corn show and we found out like two weeks later it was twins. And identical twins. And identical twins are like when they start out as one nug and then they break into two nugs, right? And it's usually because of something physical happening. So in my brain,
Reed
Bye Snoop Dogg?
Jason Ziolo
Corn makes babies. It's pretty neat. I'm going go with them. With the story, we always tell is the base effect from that show made twins. So that's pretty neat.
Dave Cravotta
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Steve
Double
babies.
Reed
That's why Steve won't go.
Steve
No, no, no, no, no. It's like two ships passing in the night. You know what I mean? Like, it just never works.
Dave Cravotta
No babies.
Reed
Unless, yeah, if that ship weren't docked
in Chicago every year.
Steve
I got no.
Jason Ziolo
Any questions?
Parker
I never got into corn. I tried and it's weird for me, right? Because like corn is the inspiration for a lot of the stuff I like, but I never really, it's not my jam. Yeah, yeah.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Reed
They're a great gateway drug. That is
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Reed
a little crazy. Parker, have you seen them live? And that didn't change anything, huh?
Parker
I have. I have. It
did not. It did not. In fact, it drew him further away from me. And honestly, it's an unfair bias. ⁓ Yeah, just don't like the vocals is really the only thing I think is my issue. I have a weird thing. If the vocals are weird, I'm not really into it. Yeah.
Reed
Really?
Evan J. Thomas
Wow. ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Oof. Really?
Jason Ziolo
weird, cuz they rule alive, they're fucking
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah.
Reed
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
you
Reed
So David Dreman.
Dave Cravotta
So in
your defense, Parker, in your defense, I think for the rest of us, when we all heard Korn, that first step record dropped in 94. And I remember hearing Blind for the first time, like, what is this? It was not like anything we'd ever heard. was a, life changing is a little strong, but it was a music genre changing. Like that was ⁓ just a killer record, so dark and angry and deep and metal and heavy and.
Steve
first record was fucking fantastic. Yeah. Yeah.
Parker
Yeah, we're sure.
Evan J. Thomas
Exactly.
Steve
I would
Parker
Absolutely.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
sad. was like all that teen angst when we were all like 14, 15, 16 years old. And you probably have a band like that, but for the rest of us, like the corn was that thing when we were in high school, like, ⁓ it's just so heavy.
Steve
Yeah, exactly.
Parker
For sure. Absolutely.
Steve
⁓ for sure.
Reed
That's good.
Steve
Yeah,
Reed
Yeah.
Steve
you nailed it right there. mean, when the first time I saw the herd blind.
Jason Ziolo
You said the first corn song you heard was blind? That's
not my first corn song.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, remember
somebody played the record for me or and I and blind was the first song on it and it just like, are you ready? Like, ⁓ my God, this is just such a like visceral reaction. Yeah, no good. Yeah. Yeah, because I don't remember hearing. remember what singles they had from that record.
Evan J. Thomas
for a song on the album.
Steve
Yeah, it was the first song.
Reed
Yes, I am.
Parker
You
Steve
Yeah,
yes, yes I am.
Reed
I'm ready.
That's it.
Steve
think it was blind and that was it, and shoots and ladders maybe. Yeah. But blind was the first release.
Jason Ziolo
What Shoots and Ladders was my introduction to them. That's the first dance I ever heard. And they used to play it on
Dave Cravotta
⁓ yeah. Yep. Yep.
Reed
⁓ shoots and ladders.
Evan J. Thomas
That was the other single
with chutes and ladders? my god.
Jason Ziolo
Well, Shoots and Ladders used to be on Q1, Q1 back in the 90s. Q1 is the local rock station, huge in the 90s, fell away for like decades and has now come back in the past few years. They used to have Industrial Nation, I think they called it on Saturday nights from like nine to midnight. And that was like, this is before the internet and all this. This is probably back in 1995, 96 when I was into it. And I used to listen to Industrial Nation.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, back in the day.
Jason Ziolo
all the time. And Courtney's played Sheets and Ladders and I always consider them kind of an industrial band. Because they were placed in that genre and they used to play them a lot and that was my introduction to Courtney. And I actually thought it was really stupid when I heard it. So I'm like, this is fucking nursery rhymes. No thank you.
Reed
So.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
It's fair.
Reed
Did they also release Clown as a single off of that record? Or no? No? It's so long ago.
Dave Cravotta
That's such a tortured
Steve
No, I don't think so.
Evan J. Thomas
That's a
bad ass song.
Dave Cravotta
record. Yeah, yeah. No, ⁓ I've never been a big radio listener. I can't stand the commercials. And then they're like, we're going to play modern music. Here's something from 30 years ago. Like, no, I'm out. just never been a radio fan. Forgive me, Evan. I've never been a terrestrial radio fan. And at that time, like I don't remember hearing any corn singles. was something somebody was like, hey, you like Rage. Check this band out. Like, this is...
Steve
It's so good. Front to back, too.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah
Reed
Here's, you know, here's...
Dave Cravotta
Totally different.
Steve
I actually heard it on the radio.
Reed
This also just,
don't ask me why this popped into my head, but I also remember Korn on CD in high school. And it was one of those albums that I just, you you just let it play. And it was like one of the first times that I remembered the hidden track. And like, do they do that? You can't really do that because everything's streamed. So.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Steve
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
Marianne?
Jason Ziolo
Thank God they don't do that anymore.
What a stupid trend that was.
Steve
What?
Reed
It was
really dumb, but also kind of awesome.
Parker
You
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, 25 minutes after the last song ends, the next one goes. Come on. Who sits through that shit?
Steve
Yeah.
Reed
Well, that was like, do
Dave Cravotta
Yep. Or.
Reed
remember
Deaf Tones? That one album on Deaf Tones, was like 15 minutes and it's like, man, come on, man.
Dave Cravotta
tool did discuss the painted track 69. Like can we get more sophomore work than that and then this is necessary.
Steve
Yeah, was tracks. I thought it was, I was going
Reed
BAAAHHHH
Steve
to say it was Nine Inch Nails. It was too old. was, did 69. Yeah. Yeah, it was 69. Okay.
Dave Cravotta
Tool did it, yeah, it disgusts the paid over 69, you know, and I loved it when I was a kid and now
I'm still like, I might listen to that.
Steve
Yeah.
Parker
Hahaha
Jason Ziolo
Remember the tricks they used to do on compact discs? Compact discs, CDs?
Dave Cravotta
Wow. Tell me you're a Jet X without
Reed
Wow!
Evan J. Thomas
That gray is really
Dave Cravotta
telling me you're a Jet X.
Evan J. Thomas
showing right now.
Reed
How old are you?
Jason Ziolo
Anyways, there was a Sponge record, when Sponge is one of my massive influences, and they had the last track of the album was two seconds long. So if you skip to it, it was blank space for two seconds. However, if you played from the last song into it after like the 15 minute pause, it would start at like negative four minutes.
Dave Cravotta
Older than the internet.
Mmm.
Jason Ziolo
and then play off the negative four up to zero and then a couple seconds. And that was uber irritating. That's just stupid.
Evan J. Thomas
Jason, you're getting blurrier and blurrier.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, I am. My camera doesn't like me. Yeah.
Reed
Yeah, what's going on?
Dave Cravotta
Am I getting drunker? What is happening?
Evan J. Thomas
Could be.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
It's not you, it's us.
Parker
Yeah.
Reed
Did you guys hear the Sully Erna took over Turbo? I think it was this month. But he was talking about Tool and how they, Turbo is a channel on SiriusXM hosted by one of the most annoying, nevermind. Anyways, so ⁓ Sully Erna was talking about Tool and he's like, what?
Jason Ziolo
Very, very good.
Dave Cravotta
Yes.
Jason Ziolo
What's turbo, Reed?
Who is still here in a room? Who is still? Who is?
explain to us who Sully Erna is for those who might not know.
Reed
Sully
Erna is the lead singer of God's Smack and he's just also a He is four and a half feet tall thickest Boston accent just awesome thickest Boston accent. You're gonna find in live music Also perennial player of the World Series of Poker main events So basically I love everything about him
Jason Ziolo
and he's like four and a half feet tall.
Steve
little bit.
Dave Cravotta
Man, what an iconic voice.
the end of that.
Reed
⁓ But he was talking about tool and it was a hilarious commentary because he talked about how tool was influential on God smack and He brought up the fact that he met Maynard Keenan the lead singer of tool. I didn't pronounce that right. It's fine And he's like not the nicest guy really doesn't like me at all, but no big deal. We're just gonna play some tool And that parlayed into something we were already talking about and I can't remember what it is So this segment has been brought to you by blood of the unicorn
Jason Ziolo
you
Dave Cravotta
man. I need to get some, you know what? Karen and Jocelyn are going up to Chicago this weekend for a dance competition. I'm going to ask them to find some blood of the unicorn for me and bring it back.
Jason Ziolo
Yes.
Reed
Pipeworks Chicago is just legendary.
Steve
You can't get it done yet.
Dave Cravotta
Yes.
Jason Ziolo
don't mean to get
Dave Cravotta
Okay.
Jason Ziolo
off topic because we could talk about beer all night, but Reed, I think they're in a dry spell. I've been looking at it. I took it all from Binnie's and then I went to Garfield and took all theirs. It's gone. So if you find some, find Gitson.
Dave Cravotta
Stay away from Woodmans in Wakanda, you guys. Stay away. Got your names and numbers.
Evan J. Thomas
you
Jason Ziolo
You ⁓
Steve
Why?
They do.
Dave Cravotta
Made the hook up.
Jason Ziolo
Any Lamb of
Dave Cravotta
⁓
Jason Ziolo
God
Dave Cravotta
I really like Lamb of God. know there are little people bang on them for being like Pantera Light or something like that. Man, those guys can play. They are awesome musicians and they got a new record that drops on Friday. I'm pumped for it. This is the first record label record record name that I've seen that's not have like a religious connotation to it, which I always thought was cool. They did that. They did a like a their own little docu series on making
Parker
They're good.
Steve
I'm excited. Yeah.
Reed
Yes, me too.
Dave Cravotta
Oh shoot, what was that record? This is not going well. It doesn't matter. they argued that their band members have argued in the past about what to name things. I was like, I kind of liked that they did the religious theme sort of thing. Oh, they were at a sacrament when they were going to name sacrament. It was when Chris Adler was still in the band. They were arguing about what to call it and all that. And he wanted to call it something else and blah, blah, blah. It's like, I love that they kind of keep that theme going. But this record sounds like it's super intense and ballsy and heavy.
Parker
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
I've seen lots of, ⁓ Blythe is doing a lot of promo kind of stuff, interviews with people. He seems like a pretty cool dude, very down to earth. Talks about being sober, but this record still hits hard. The tracks that I've heard so far are killer. I'm super looking forward to this one.
Reed
Randy Blythe seems like one of the nicest dudes in metal. Like, he just seems super down to earth, has no, like, expectations of anybody. He recently came out, though, talking about how more metal musicians need to be finding their voice in more of political type of manner, which I thought was kind of interesting. I mean, not like he's never been outspoken, but...
Parker
It's very lamb of God, very, very, very much.
Dave Cravotta
Right.
Yeah. No.
Evan J. Thomas
compared to the other person who said shut the hell up, don't talk about politics, Gene Simmons.
Dave Cravotta
Hmm.
Jason Ziolo
Are we still listening to Gene Simmons of Kiss?
Reed
What?
Evan J. Thomas
No,
Dave Cravotta
No,
no, if I don't want advice.
Evan J. Thomas
but of all people to put advice out there to people to shut up, it's him. Come on, Take your money and sit down. He actually said that the other day.
Dave Cravotta
you
Reed
Yeah, that's not looking in the mirror.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Parker
Ha
Jason Ziolo
I my now
14 year old daughter, her first concert was Kiss. Just because I'm like, how do you get a better story than that than saying my dad took me to Kiss for my first concert?
Dave Cravotta
That's an awesome show. yeah. I've
seen them. I've seen Kiss. It was amazing. Wouldn't want to... somebody else paid for my ticket, but...
Reed
My son wants-
Jason Ziolo
They're pretty washed
Reed
Jason, side note,
Jason Ziolo
up.
Reed
my son, we're going to see Limp Bizkit when they're in Tinley Park, so you should join us.
Jason Ziolo
yes, we actually already discussed this. Your son's first concert was Local H because I dragged him.
Reed
Yes, we did.
Yes it was. And he bought a t-shirt so I think he's now the drummer for Local Age.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Steve
We gotta get George to his first show.
He wanted to go to ⁓ Metallica with us. It was a little bit too much for him, I thought. But we gotta get him out.
Jason Ziolo
He changed him out, I mean, might as well be.
Dave Cravotta
Anybody get sphere tickets from Metallica? Just that in hotel package, running you a cool $5,300.
Evan J. Thomas
I'm
Reed
That's a hard pass for me, son. Ooh, hey, real quick note though, speaking of George's first concert, I will pay good money to have George go see corn before Steve does.
Steve
⁓ fuck you, Green.
Jason Ziolo
That is awesome, I'm totally in love.
Reed
Right? Come on,
Parker, Dave, Jason, Evan, you can be a part of this... this...
Steve
It would be a cool thing to go see him together for the first
Dave Cravotta
100%.
Parker
You
Jason Ziolo
I mean for
25 % of the price of that ticket without a doubt.
Steve
time together.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Reed
That,
yeah, this has gotta happen.
Dave Cravotta
You go fund that, go fund me that ticket, we'll help you out.
Parker
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Thank
Steve
Sons of bitches.
Jason Ziolo
Parker, I know you went and saw Three Days Grace. You had a story.
Parker
I did.
I did, I did. They were playing with I Prevail and we went up to Milwaukee to see them, some scheduling stuff with the people I was going with. yeah, they were playing with I Prevail and Sleep Theory. I, you know,
Jason Ziolo
You went up to Milwaukee though, right? Not to the Chicago show?
Sleep there is cool.
Parker
I walked in, we didn't see the whole set of Sleep Theory, but we did see the end of it and all it is is electronic and heavily autotuned the entire time. So it took me out of it. was like, you know, if you look at their trajectory, they got really popular really quickly because they followed that whole bring me the horizon type.
Dave Cravotta
Go.
Parker
you know, pattern of, of doing that kind of thing. And then they weaned really hard into, into that and good for them. But, ⁓ that kind of stuff just isn't my vibe. I prevail came on next and, ⁓ I'm not going to lie. They were, they were pretty lackluster. I've seen them before a number of times.
Jason Ziolo
short list of bands I haven't seen before. They sucked.
Parker
Yeah.
So every time I've seen them, I've really liked them. They always do this thing because they got really, really popular off of Blink Space when they covered Blink Space by Taylor Swift. they've, they've, they, every single time I've seen them, every time they play that song, as of late, they were doing the, we hate this song. And, you know, at some point it's like, do you really hate the song or do you do this for the crowd? Well, they really hate the song.
Dave Cravotta
cover it. Yeah.
Parker
because I've seen interviews and things and they really don't want to play that song anymore. So they didn't. But it's a moneymaker for sure. So instead, they decided to cover a Metallica song. And it was okay. But it wasn't nearly as punchy as Blank Spaces for them.
Jason Ziolo
It's the moneymaker though, they're obligated to play.
Parker
And then, you know, I don't know, it could have been an off night for them, but just, didn't hit. didn't hit. They've, they've also been leaning into this like, almost like blink one 82 type thing where they try to riff off each other. Yeah. And it's all scripted for them. You know, blink one 82, it worked for them because it was like they were on drugs and they didn't really give a crap about anything. And, it was funny, but, but I prevail, you know, they're up there and they're like,
Jason Ziolo
I'm a telegast
Steve
Mmm.
Dave Cravotta
Uhhhh
Parker
You can tell it's so scripted because it goes into their next song and like the things they're saying and they're trying to like make it like almost shock value for funniness and you know, I don't really even know if pinning I Prevail with Three Days Grace is really the correct audience. But honestly, like I was kind of disappointed for I Prevail just because they've punched pretty hard.
Dave Cravotta
Ugh.
Parker
And you know they have that new song violent nature out Which is like a crazy heavy heavy hitter Go ahead Evan
Reed
⁓ So good.
Evan J. Thomas
All right, I'm gonna ask you a question then Parker Since you said that I prevail isn't the right fit Do you want every band to sound the same on the on the set on the bill? All right
Parker
Absolutely not. just meant trying to riff
with the crowd the way they were riffing with the crowd. it's nothing, it's not, mean like it is what it is. It's almost like, you know, way back in the day, ⁓ Nickelback got tagged onto a super heavy metal concert in Poland and they ended up throwing stones at them. Yeah, they threw stones at him. And it was that kind of thing with the crowd where he was trying to play really into the crowd and the crowd liked the music. They were bouncing with the music, but
Dave Cravotta
I've seen videos of this. Yeah, they walked off.
Parker
Every time he did his thing, it just didn't seem like, not that they shouldn't be on the set list, it just didn't seem like he was vibing with the crowd, kinda like that whole Nickelback thing. Sometimes that just happens, right? And could have been an off night for him, to be honest with you. And then we get to Three Days Grace. Three Days Grace is kinda like a band that I've listened to since their first album. That's my album that came out.
Evan J. Thomas
Understandable.
Jason Ziolo
If you listen to
any radio, you can't get away from that band.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Parker
No,
Reed
Yeah.
Parker
and they came out when I was in high school, kind of like the corn thing for you guys, right? ⁓ That's kind of like one of the bands I still listen to. I've moved into super heavy music. Yeah, for sure. And then I followed the whole thing with them kicking out Adam. And then actually over the summer, I saw them when Adam came back on, on one of their more
Dave Cravotta
Yeah
Jason Ziolo
That's fair, that's actually fair, yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Good coming of age records,
Parker
first earlier stops with Adam and Matt and them doing the duo thing. And when I was ⁓ at Sonic Temple is when I saw him, I actually thought there was a lot of, and it was new for them for sure, because it was the first tour with both of these guys on tour. And I felt a lot of tension between these two guys on stage, kind of like, how are we doing this tandem singing thing? And it kind of took away from the show. ⁓ When I saw him,
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Jason Ziolo
There were really good things like
they were vibing on stage, but you didn't catch that?
Parker
They were this time. It was like a lot better this time. It was a lot better this time. Yeah. Yeah. So it a lot better this time. It's still like missteps I felt like here and there where they're like, I don't really know who's supposed to be in the spotlight. But it was a lot more, it was a lot better choreographed and a lot better like, you know, this is Matt's song. So we're going to let him sing and then Adam plays guitar and then vice versa, right? But...
Steve
Yeah, they've been doing it a lot longer, Yeah. ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, but maybe early
Jason Ziolo
I see.
Dave Cravotta
on not so much. Yeah, that makes sense.
Parker
They did something that I felt like was maybe not the greatest thing to do. And they did an acoustic set in the middle of a show. And what they did is they brought out a bonfire and they sat around a bonfire and they sang songs. They did porn star dancing. Acoustic. Acoustic. Acoustic porn star dancing.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Steve
Bye, amala.
⁓
Jason Ziolo
born to start a death, that's not too strong!
But that's not their song,
right? That's the other sing- That's Matt's old band. And didn't like Chad Krueger write that song too? I think that was like-
Parker
No, that's my darkest days, which was Matt's old band before Matt came in. Yeah.
I don't
know exactly that part of the thing. I know that I heard he was involved, but it's just kind of weird to hear porn star dancing acoustic. And they were doing this whole kind of thing where it's like, this is what we did when we were kids in Canada, blah, blah. And it's like, they lost the crowd. They really lost the crowd. But.
Dave Cravotta
Ahem.
Parker
They did bring it back. They brought it back at the end and they did all their heavy hitters, I Hate Everything About You, Riot, all those old songs, right? And it was a real fun time.
Dave Cravotta
you
Jason Ziolo
Ryan did he come out and say the
venue told us we're not allowed to play this but we're gonna play it anyways and the two times I've seen them that was his line and it's like okay yeah yeah yeah
Parker
What's that?
Yeah, was he in San
Antonio then?
Jason Ziolo
I've seen St. Sonia too. They were not good.
Parker
No, he did, he used to do this thing in San Sonia where he always said, know, this song was from a band I'm not allowed to talk about anymore and they told me I'm not allowed to play this, but I'm gonna fucking play it anyway. And I thought that was really corny because that's obviously not, yeah, yes, yes he was. But overall, it was a good show. It was fun. You know, definitely some nostalgia.
Reed
No.
Yeah, he always seems super, he seems super upset about getting kicked out of three days, three, yeah.
Parker
The fun fact for me is Three Days Grace, and actually they were touring with Breaking Benjamin at the time. That's the first show I ever saw with the group of friends that I went with. So was like a nostalgia thing. We were coming back to see him. Outside of the acoustic thing, I thought Three Days Grace had a real good set. I could tell, Matt and Adam, great vocalists. mean, they don't use autotune.
Steve
Thank
Dave Cravotta
Yeah,
that's cool.
Parker
They're like full blown, you know, sings. I feel like when people are good and they're in their vibe, it's almost like they're screaming into the microphone. It's that loud, you know, ⁓ their voice projection. They still can jam. They still can play all those songs. It was, it sounded real good. The only critique I have is really kind of like the kind of weird choreographed stuff where they're trying to like...
It felt like they were trying to tell a story in between songs and that stuff doesn't work for me a lot of the time, just in general. And then that acoustic set kind of just took me out of it. But ⁓ man, they definitely had the crowd. Everybody was out of their seats. That was not the case for any of the other bands, but every single person was standing up for their big hitters when they were playing them and it sounded great.
Reed
Am I the
only one that's shocked that that band is still together at this point with two lead like super Lead singer e lead singers like I didn't give them a shot at all like I'm surprised they're still touring to be honest with you I guess it's kudos to them Year and a half now, right?
Steve
It's odd,
Evan J. Thomas
They've only been back together for what, just over a year?
Steve
It's not gonna work.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Parker
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
I it's a year and a half, yeah. Because May Day was the first song.
Parker
Yeah, about.
Reed
I thought it was going to be maybe 60
days before one of them killed one of the other ones.
Parker
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
I'm still going to. There
must be some money being made.
Steve
The newest album's pretty
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, that
Reed
That does help.
Steve
good with the two of them.
Dave Cravotta
helps. But still, mean, they got to have some ego too. I imagine that one thinks that they're that and one thinks that they're that. mean, that is a tough dynamic. You got two alphas like they were up there. They must be finding a way to make it work, money or otherwise.
Reed
So my question is always,
my question is always Ben, what made them bring Adam back? Because the songwriting kind of went downhill after Adam left, right? But he was the lead writer. And was this kind of like a Mia Coppa by Three Days Grace to be like, we need to bring him back in order to make the songs better? Or am I just reading way too much into this?
Dave Cravotta
Hmm.
Steve
I felt they
were better with him. know, so bringing him back, I think it was the move.
Reed
That's what I'm saying.
Parker
They are, Adam is the life of Three Days Grace. And Matt is, Matt's very good, but you can tell when Adam's on stage, everybody's locked into Adam, right? When he's doing the full vocals and the old songs, everyone's locked in. And then Matt will come and do his songs. And while people enjoy them, I think your sentiment is right. Adam is the better.
Evan J. Thomas
I get a-
Reed
Yeah, 100%.
Dave Cravotta
Mm.
Yeah.
Parker
I don't want to call them a better songwriter, but they wrote better songs as a band with Adam from the beginning. And I think with how the music industry is kind of right now, there's no record sales, right? And all that stuff is kind of out the door or out the window. But you got to make money somehow if you're going to do it. And I think to bring ticket sales in for someone who's on tour, think Adam's the guy.
Steve
fair.
Parker
Go ahead, Evan.
Evan J. Thomas
So was going to ask this question then. Without Adam, are they as big as they are this past year? Without him? So that whole nostalgia thing that you were just talking about plays into this. So are they selling out as headliners at shows without Adam? No way.
Parker
Yeah, I don't think so.
Reed
I don't think so, no way.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Yeah.
Parker
100%.
Steve
No way.
Reed
No way, no way,
Parker
Yeah,
Dave Cravotta
You're right. Yeah.
Parker
no way. I mean...
Reed
nope.
Evan J. Thomas
I don't see it now
with Adam back. Everybody's like, shit, it's been 12 years. We got to go see him. He's my favorite singer. Let's go out to see him. And that's that's what I heard when I was at the Chicago show this past the other day. So, yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yes, 100%.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Mmm, yeah.
Parker
And we were in a, I can't remember who plays at the stadium, but we were in a basketball stadium, the Feisver, ⁓ up in Milwaukee. Yeah, the Bucks. So, dude, there was like two rows, right, of empty seats, and everything else was full. And the show that I had seen, right, yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, that's the buck.
Yeah, that's it, right?
There you go. That's a 17,000 people seat cedar.
Reed
That's crazy.
Parker
And dude, the last time I saw Three Days Grace with Matt was at a festival, and there were four other bands playing at the same time, and they were like, you know, the smallest crowd was Three Days Grace. So there's something to that for sure. And Sonic Temple, they were headlining. They were one of the, on the main, well, they weren't headlining, but they were on the main stage, and they filled that stadium with Adam Beck. So it definitely, that's on.
Evan J. Thomas
There you go.
Reed
Hey, can we like?
That's
a one of the greatest things. I was talking before the podcast with Evan about his interview with Des Rocks and one of the questions that got brought up was do we you know the death of like rock and roll right and I feel like we went through a slump.
Parker
Mm-hmm.
Reed
a couple of years ago and honestly five six years ago there was just not a lot of really good new bands coming out but i feel like rock is actually stronger than it has ever been within the last year or two
Jason Ziolo
You know why? I have a theory.
Evan J. Thomas
COVID.
COVID.
Reed
Ooh,
theories are good.
Jason Ziolo
I agree with Evan, Evan nails it. It was COVID. It gave everybody a lot of time to sit down and write their songs.
Dave Cravotta
What?
Reed
⁓
Because while unartistic people were drinking their sorrows away, artistic people were like writing shit and being creative.
Dave Cravotta
Hmm
Evan J. Thomas
you
Parker
Yeah
Dave Cravotta
However, if I may, I'm gonna counter this with you, Reed. We are usually very much on the same page, but I'm gonna counter that with, think saying, Rock is dead is just a thing to talk about. I don't think Rock is dying, has ever dead. I think it's just something people bring up to say like, is Rock dying? And it just makes people talk about it. I think Rock has been super strong back from, so Evan and I, very much on the same page.
Evan J. Thomas
Lazy.
Steve
you
Reed
That's what Evan said.
Dave Cravotta
the zeppelin Sabbath days and then all the way forward, it's not going anywhere. Just the fact that we're all here talking about this in two freaking different time zones and still talking about rock and metal. Exactly. It's not going anywhere. Maybe there'll be some shifts in the popularity where it kind of hits the mainstream a little bit more and dials back a little bit and comes back again. man, I bet there's very small fluctuations, but I have to imagine those.
Steve
We named our fucking podcast over it. It's not fucking going anywhere.
Dave Cravotta
streams and views and all that will just continue forever and ever about how all the rock and metal there is. Amen. So be it.
Evan J. Thomas
Well, look at all the
Jason Ziolo
That's why we
Parker
Agree.
Jason Ziolo
have bands like Sade and Wu-Tang Clan and Pink and Whitney Houston that are all gonna line up in the Hall of Fame. Rock is alive!
Evan J. Thomas
big festivals.
Reed
Stop it. Stop it. Evan,
Parker
Yeah.
Reed
go. Take this from them before they keep talking.
Dave Cravotta
Yes, please, Evan. Yes,
Evan J. Thomas
So what I
was going to say. So what I was going to say was look at all the rock and metal fest popping up all over the place and not only just popping up, but completely selling out like they do. You got all those Danny Danny Wimmer festivals. You have Rock Fest up in Wisconsin. You have one that I'm working with called Rock Lansing, which is getting bigger every year. It's it's not going away. It's not going to go away. It's just going to be different types of it.
Dave Cravotta
I passed the torch. You have the ball. You can talk.
Yes.
Mm-mm.
Reed
That's.
Dave Cravotta
Yep. Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
growing as we go. It's like you said, and
it's not going to be the Led Zeppelin, Aerosmiths. It's going to be the Death Rocks and the Bad Flowers and bands like that that are putting the new music out there in a different type of way.
Reed
sons.
Parker
Absolutely.
Dave Cravotta
⁓ I did it. Impressive.
Evan J. Thomas
The grandson?
Reed
That's grandson, that's the inertia, yeah.
Steve
Oh
Evan J. Thomas
Nice.
Jason Ziolo
Steve's
Steve
my
Jason Ziolo
least favorite band according to his bio.
Steve
god, I can't fucking stand it anymore.
Reed
Of course not. my God, because he talks about politics. So Evan, this... No, no, no, we're done. ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
No.
Jason Ziolo
laughter
Steve
No, that's not why. It's because Ziolo plays the shit out of it. And it's
Parker
I'm
Steve
constant.
Reed
He plays the shit out of local age. Do you hate local age too? Come on now.
Steve
hahahahah ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Oh my God, I'm so glad you're here Steve.
Reed
So, but that's, so
here's another question. And actually, Evan, I'm gonna throw this one to you because we all, do you guys, I mean, we all watched that documentary on Led Zeppelin, right? Which was off the charts.
Jason Ziolo
Thank
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
you
know what? your fucking mom made me not watch it so that i could watch it with her she's like i gotta watch this with jason i wanna watch this jason and then she fucking went and saw it without me and i still haven't seen it rant's over anyway woah
Dave Cravotta
⁓
Reed
Whoa, it's amazing. You should go check it out. ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Mother is in law.
Evan J. Thomas
You
Dave Cravotta
Hmm
Reed
But we, so on our text chain, we had this conversation about just these iconic bands, right? And the band Nirvana came up as a discussion. And some of these morons on this text chain were just talking about the grunge scene overall, right? Like Nirvana was a band that was in the right place at the right time. I totally disagree with them because whatever. But that kind of got into
Parker
Thanks.
Jason Ziolo
If it wasn't them, would have
been a different band. I agree with it. Anyways.
Reed
Whatever. But like my point is, that like every band kind of needs a little bit of luck in order to become these icons, right? Every band and every band that's coming up needs a little bit of right place, right time. And you like Evan, you're working with a bunch of bands that are kind of like on their way to getting out there, right? So is there like a formula to this? it hooks? Is it the live band like?
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, 100%.
Steve
No
Evan J. Thomas
It's true.
Reed
How do you just, how does a new band that's coming out find that right place, right time in a really crowded like music landscape right now?
Evan J. Thomas
So the way I see it and what I've been telling the bands that I work with besides the music and we all know 2026 social media takes over. You have to have a good social media platform as well. You have to be doing some kind of content, something that will keep people coming back for more, whether it's like little videos. And that's kind of what I've been doing videos or graphics or something that
Steve
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
to be more and actually just this conversation with a band the other day, more vulnerable so people connect with you better. So that's how it is. And I'm going to go into a little spat about my the the AI article that I wrote. AI will never overtake human music because of the fact there is a human element, there is that personality, there is that passion, there is that connect ability between a human artist and AI.
AI just makes bullshit out there from, you know, all that crap that's around. Boom. It's going to mix it into one, put it in a mixing bowl, spit it out. That's what it is. When you go out there and I'm going to say that's rocks. One of my favorite current guys that dude will bring it every fucking time. He will sweat. He will bleed. His fingers will be bloody, whatever. Just to get that. It's the passion, man. Yeah, right. I mean, you heard that interview.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Reed
every night.
Jason Ziolo
Yes!
Steve
Yeah, hear, hear.
Reed
He'll
play with a herniated disc.
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
He
had a herniated disc coming out to the Bad Flower Show that Jason was at, that I was at. I you read, you said you were there. But yeah, he came out and played with a... He got shots in his back just to play. You don't get that with AI. And so for me, seeing it out there now, the platform and just how he does his stuff, too. He has great little videos. So that personality is already popping out. You already see what he is compared to back in the day.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
All you did was throw on, you you look at to me now, your album cover is your social media. Because you used to buy albums and records because of the graphics and everything on it. Now it's your social media.
Steve
All
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Reed
So
it's almost, it's.
think that's a really excellent point, right? Because we're in the age of social media where there's this constant dopamine drip, right? And in order to get yourself out there, you need to be dripping that dopamine to your current fan base and then your expanded fan base, right? So that's a really good point. So the follow-up to that then is what bands are you following right now that are kind of in that underground scene right now that are most likely going to find that lane to switch lanes and get out into the freeway?
Jason Ziolo
Reed, I'm gonna interrupt that question, I wanna get back to it, but I wanna introduce Evan and give some people his background. that people have an understanding. No, no, and then let's go right into that question.
Evan J. Thomas
You gotta ask me that question.
Steve
Yeah!
Evan J. Thomas
yeah,
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
there you go.
Reed
yeah,
good point. Yeah. Hey, by the way, Jason, you can cut this up and edit it too. So.
Steve
We're just gonna
Evan J. Thomas
No!
Steve
stop
Jason Ziolo
So our guest tonight, Evan J. Thomas.
Evan, you started with a camera on the floor at Disturbed in Soil, she chose way back in the 90s. And you've kind of never let's never stopped. You founded Badass Radio Network, which we're going to be a part of soon, which I'm really excited about. That stations heard in 35 countries runs 24 seven. You're the head publicist to tag publicity, working with bands like Fozzy and Gemini Syndrome. You founded Sound Fury Magazine, which I'm a subscriber. Awesome.
Print Magazine and Digital Magazine. And then you just announced that you're co-founder of Electric River Records, which you started with Brandon Yeagley. I don't know if I pronounced that right, of Crobot. Crobot friggin rules. So I want to hear about your relationship with them too. So you're photographer, a journalist, radio host, publicist. You basically wear every hat in rock and roll, except for the one on stage. So, yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Good music, man.
Reed
I CroBots.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm. School band.
Evan J. Thomas
All right.
Yeah, that's the only thing I don't do is I don't play. I
don't play at all, master. I just listen to it. I tell you if you suck or not. That's basically what I do. And I usually don't tell them they suck. I just say, yeah, you can do better. It's the non passive aggressive way to do it. Well, where do you want me to start? Because I mean, this conversation could go for like six hours if you really wanted to.
Jason Ziolo
So how the hell did you get to this point?
Steve
Yeah, basically what I do too.
Reed
you
Dave Cravotta
down gently.
Jason Ziolo
We could go a billion places.
I mean, let's maybe start with Reed's question. Talk a little bit about, you know, what are you digging on today? Whether it's bands you're supporting and helping out or just stuff you're listening to. You know, what are you riffing on these days?
Evan J. Thomas
So
what I've been looking for lately are bands like Crobot, like Blacktop Mojo, Aeron Jones, Blackstone Cherry, that Southern Hard Rock. Oh, my God. That dude is phenomenal. So those are the type of bands I have been looking for lately. And I've been talking to one recently who actually they're going to be releasing an album soon called Loveless and Company. You're to have to check them out.
Steve
Aaron Jones his stuff is so good as of late. it's so good.
Jason Ziolo
Eron Jones, so good.
Evan J. Thomas
⁓ they're fantastic. And they're actually the guitar player was, is in the band Red Star as well, which is a different type of band. Obviously it's more of the, ⁓ you know, new metal of 2026. So that's kind of where I go to is that newer Southern rock is now dirty honey is another one that I absolutely love mammoth. doesn't have that Southern rock. Who dirty honey? Yeah, they're fucking phenomenal.
Steve
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
I saw dirty honey, they frickin' rule.
Reed
Dirty
honey's amazing. Yeah.
Steve
Yeah. Darn.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
So that's the type of bands I've been looking for. I will work with almost anybody. I've been working with a country artist recently and she's been phenomenal. 22 years old out of Nashville. Her song Go Fish has been good, but it's like it's something that needs to resonate with me too. It can't just be just screaming and going at it. I need some kind of substance. need some kind of, again, personality.
Reed
Sorry, Parker.
Steve
Sorry.
Jason Ziolo
Totally.
Evan J. Thomas
Somebody fart or something? happened over there?
Reed
I said sorry Parker Parker's real big into the screaming.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
Okay. Well, he's wearing an Eagle shirt. So I have to say I love this guy just because of that anyway, because I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Don't... You want to play with... Well, least we've seen a Super Bowl in our lifetime. To them. But yeah, those are the types of bands that I'm looking for currently.
Dave Cravotta
Amen.
Steve
I don't stroke the ego.
Parker
Hell yeah,
let's go, let's go.
Dave Cravotta
Man,
Billy fans are tough as hell.
Steve
Stop it.
Parker
Yeah, absolutely. Go bird.
Jason Ziolo
So Evan, when I first met you, were starting to take over tag publicity because for whatever reasons. And then I seen you were... The owner passed away, exactly.
Evan J. Thomas
Well, I'll tell you the the owner passed away.
Jason Ziolo
And so you took over his spot and I've seen you launch Sound Fury magazine. I've seen you now launch your label, ⁓ Electric River. How do you find time for all this stuff? Is it all kind of the same thing just with different labels on it?
Evan J. Thomas
It's called a whiteboard writing shit down and then crossing it off as you go So scheduling for me right now is very important on my daily schedule I basically have Starting at 9 a.m. Social media for basically an hour and a half and then just go from there I still have a radio two radio shows after record by tomorrow morning, which I need to get done at some point, too So I hope still host my own shows. So I do that in the process ⁓
Parker
Yeah
Reed
Ha
Jason Ziolo
What
are the name of your show so our viewers can go look them up?
Evan J. Thomas
The
first one is Rock Hard with Evan J. Thomas. It's actually on five different radio stations syndicated. It's on Metal Cross Radio. It's on Badass Radio Network. Obviously mine. It's on Metal Shop 101. ⁓ crap. People get mad if I forget the other two. On the Rails Radio. There's one. the Asylum Radio Network. Yes, I got them all.
Dave Cravotta
No.
Steve
Thank
Evan J. Thomas
And then tomorrow I'm debuting a new one and it's called Second City Soundcheck. So it's all Chicago bands. And with tomorrow being 312 as the date. That's when I'm releasing it.
Steve
Nice.
Reed
Ooh.
Jason Ziolo
next topic.
Dave Cravotta
Mmm.
Steve
Wow!
Dave Cravotta
like that props even that three one seven guy likes that three one two well played.
Reed
I don't get it.
Evan J. Thomas
So
you guys were talking about 311 day today, so that's that band. then tomorrow is going to be Chicago Day. So 312 and I'm going to be playing, I think I'm going to have six songs from bands from the Chicagoland area. And every week I'm going to be highlighting six bands, you know, from Chicago, whether it's alternative punk, metal, rock, you know, any of the sort.
Steve
Nice.
Dave Cravotta
cool.
Steve
Love that.
Yeah, fuck it. I'll listen.
Evan J. Thomas
Hey, if it's good, country
sure.
Parker
Yeah
Dave Cravotta
Mm. Mm. Okay. Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
Can't be pop country.
Reed
I mean, man, that's the thing though,
right?
Steve
Agent!
Jason Ziolo
AJ's trying to dial in but he's bad at instructions and didn't use the link. So let me go correct him. I'll be right back.
Dave Cravotta
it's AJ. What's up, AJ?
Steve
you
Reed
He's the youngest guy in
our crew.
Evan J. Thomas
He probably doesn't do
email. mean, come on. Don't they? younger generation not do email like, screw that.
Jason Ziolo
Thank
Parker
Yeah,
what are we thinking? We should have snapchatted him the link. Like, what are we doing?
Dave Cravotta
Evan, do you, that's right, we should have.
Evan J. Thomas
Yes.
Dave Cravotta
Going back to like how you get all this stuff done that you have, I imagine you gotta prioritize things. Do you feel like you're working seven days a week? Like you doing something with your stuff every day? Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
I do. I'm working every day. And
for me, even now, uh, okay. So I was in a regular job, obviously a few years ago, I was working, actually, I was a digital media producer for six 70, the score sports talk radio. had to listen to basically Chicago bears talk four or five hours a day. Wanted to shoot my brains out for listening to all this, you know, Justin Fields talk every damn day. Didn't want to do it anymore. So.
Steve
Yeah.
Reed
Rest in peace, Dan Bernstein.
Parker
Ha ha ha!
Evan J. Thomas
Once
this opportunity came along with tech publicity, I had a jump on it. And since then, like, like Jason said, it's just kind of snowballed from there with me just doing the ideas that I love to do. I want to do this magazine that happened. Want to do a record label brought on Brandon. He and I are doing it. So it's like everything I do in the music industry is fun. And I get paid and I get paid for
Jason Ziolo
you
Thank
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Reed
I can't,
I couldn't imagine like moving from a gig that you're kind of just doing to do, right? Cause it pays to doing, cause I mean, work isn't seven days a week if you're loving what you're doing for seven days a week. It's just playing.
Dave Cravotta
Right. Right on, man. Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
That's exactly what it was.
Exactly
Parker
Absolutely.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, I work Saturday work Sunday I work till like 9 10 at night depending on what I got going on You know if I have a press release and in the morning and somebody forgot something I have to wake up at 630 to put something in okay not complaining to wake up at 630 But I used to have to wake up at 4 for the morning show on 670 the score So I like my sleeping in
Dave Cravotta
yeah. Right.
Reed
who...
Those guys were hilarious back in that day. Who was that? Yes! Love those guys.
Evan J. Thomas
Malian Ha.
Yeah,
I worked with them for five years. So, yeah.
Steve
I listen to them a lot.
Parker
Very cool.
Dave Cravotta
Do you feel like though you
took things from that time and you, I imagine you learned a thing or two about a thing or two and you've been able to apply that to what you're currently doing. Anything specific you can think of like, man, I'm so glad I had that experience because it really has made a difference of what I'm doing now.
Evan J. Thomas
No, I don't think I took anything from that. Honestly, my work ethic was already there before I started all this. It was just the creative process for me. And I wanted I actually wanted to do more with the score. They wouldn't allow me. They didn't want to. There was no growth at all. So I was like, well, there's no growth in this. I can't be here. And it.
Dave Cravotta
Ha ha ha ha ha!
Reed
Really? Seriously?
Dave Cravotta
Really? Yeah.
Reed
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
really?
Hmm. Right. I'm out. Yeah.
Reed
How did you
end up going though from that kind of like, for lack of a better word, nine to five kind of grind, right? Like, do you feel it was right place, right time? Like I kind of already brought up?
Evan J. Thomas
I actually
do. I knew Tom and Tracy were the owners of Tag Publicity for the last 10 years, running my own media network and also doing the radio station. They would send me bands to interview. So this is where I met bands like Blacktop Mojo and Red Star and bands like that to interview, stitched apart back in the day. yeah, so pardon? Yeah, they're still there. They're still out.
Jason Ziolo
I those guys. I said I remember those guys, what happened to that? That's cool.
Evan J. Thomas
So it all kind of just came together. And then obviously with his passing, I got passed the torch. His wife, Tracy, stepped away from the business. She's like, I can't do it without Tom. She's like, you just do what you want to in his honor and his legacy. And I said, I'm down. I'm down for doing that. And basically since that day, since the day after, cause the day after he passed, I got a phone call from Mark Willis who runs Atlantic records.
saying, hey, we have a press release with you with the band Fozzy coming out on Tuesday. It was Thursday. Who's going to do it? I'm like, well, I've never done a press release before, but I guess it's me. And nailed it. And then I worked with them on their last tour that was in the States. And actually, that was, think, the first tour I ever worked on was that one. So, yeah, to be able to say the first tour I worked on as a publicist is Fozzy. It's pretty sweet.
Dave Cravotta
Wow. So it was.
Reed
That's why, I mean, you're just.
just starting in the major leagues. mean, like, you know what I'm saying? There's no warmup to going on ⁓ a Fozzy tour. Yeah.
Steve
Well, feet first, motherfucker.
Evan J. Thomas
No, there was. Think
or swim. Here you go, kid. Jump. Yeah, and since then, obviously, people have taken notice. I don't even have to reach out to bands anymore. I just get emails out of the blue or messages out of the blue. And I absolutely love it. And like I said, my work ethic kind of speaks for itself on how I do things. My social media game is getting a lot better.
Reed
Yep, in you go.
Evan J. Thomas
I kind of changed things up back in November and working with bands on even their own social media platform.
Reed
You know, that's an interesting thing that you bring up too with the social media aspect, right? Because I think that the record industry as a whole took a long time to adapt to, I mean, they take a long time to adapt to anything, right? I mean, they freaked out when tapes came out in the 80s and we could record music off of the radio, right? So they're always kind of behind the times when it comes to technology. But you talk about social media kind of being this ⁓ dopamine drip that we've talked about for bands that are coming out.
Evan J. Thomas
Let's stop doing that.
Steve
Right.
Reed
How are you keeping up with that? Because it changes so drastically every day and you're managing a lot of these different bands and organizations, right? That you kind of have to be on top of more emerging technologies more so than what you're doing on a day-to-day basis already working seven days a week.
Steve
Yeah.
Evan J. Thomas
I'm still
trying to figure that shit out. It's like every day and I I say this all the time every day I'm learning. So I'm never not learning something. I'm either finding something out or I see somebody else's content like, that's cool. I'm to do something like that. So that's kind of how I run things. I actually do social media calendars for all the bands and my own stuff that I do. So every outlet that I have, I have about a six week plan.
what I'm doing and I kind of utilize that. So yeah, it's kind of interesting when you if you look at my computer and see my notes and all the different calendars I have and the different content ideas that I put out there.
Reed
I feel like there's
got to be this, not being afraid to fail kind of mentality, right? Yeah.
Steve
AJ!
Evan J. Thomas
I don't, not anymore.
I never really
Jason Ziolo
we're gonna real quickly here spend a little time with them. Matt, what's up, dude?
Evan J. Thomas
Sure, go for it.
Reed
Dude becomes a major
rock star and now he's only got 10 minutes for us. Do see how this happens immediately? Come on, dude.
Steve
Yeah, what the fuck, ⁓
Dave Cravotta
And
his social media isn't even that impressive.
AJ
Damn!
Evan J. Thomas
He needs somebody like me, there you go.
AJ
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Hey, we can connect you to the publicist if you'd like. Just drop a like and a follow.
Steve
Yeah. Yeah. ⁓
AJ
I need it.
I need it for sure.
Jason Ziolo
All right, AJ, we won't take too much of your time. Well, thank you for dialing and enjoying us. Matt, I see you're back there too. We had you on the podcast last season when we were talking about both of your guys' project Uncapped, which is still going, I believe, right?
AJ
through.
In
another variant, yes. In a very leveled down variant compared to the last time we were talking about it, yes. But it is still going. Acoustic. We are still doing it. Yeah, But it's more of an acoustic stuff now. Yes.
Jason Ziolo
Cool. Well, AJ, want to, you have been given some incredible news in the past couple weeks. Actually, we got the news the past couple of weeks. You've probably known about it forever. I have been told that we can't talk much about it yet. We're gonna get to it.
but I'm gonna set the stage and let you have a couple sentences just to let people know what's going on. I'll set the stage for you. So there's a band called Red. They're a Christian rock band founded about 20 years ago, got some popular radio play and whatnot. I've seen them, they're great band. ⁓
Reed
Great plan.
Jason Ziolo
In 2025, the lead singer Michael Barden stepped away and didn't really tell anybody. He wanted to go focus on his family. And then the rest of the band are two brothers, I believe. And the brothers didn't really tell anybody till the beginning of March. And then two days later, they came out and they said, we found a new...
lead singer to go on tour this summer. And they made this massive announcement that we found AJ Reingart from Okaya. And I was like, holy shit, I know that guy. He's our podcast host.
Steve
Yeah.
Parker
You
Jason Ziolo
and you're going on tour with Red for the next, what, May and June. It's not necessarily a permanent thing, but it's a stepping stone into working with these guys more, I'm sure. And they're going on their 20th anniversary tour for their album, End of Silence, and you're gonna be fronting them. Wow, what a cool opportunity for you. We are so excited for you. Give it, yeah, congratulations, man.
Dave Cravotta
man.
Reed
Who did you have to bribe?
Steve
Thank
AJ
⁓
Jason Ziolo
You can't see much. We're going to dig into this on the padcast over the next couple of months. We're probably going come out on the road with you, but give us a little bit of insight what you can talk to us about and tell us about Okaia, your main project too.
Parker
Okay.
AJ
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, thank all you dudes. It's funny being like literally, I don't know, a month or two, right around the same time they actually hit me up where I had to keep it under the radar because it was still a whole audition process. Jason, you're wanting to kick off this thing and get it going. And so I've had I've known obviously since like January of how things were going to go. And so yeah, it is really funny. And it just makes me appreciate you guys even more for like having a
really cool rock, you know, ⁓ a group of friends, you know, I'd say. Yeah, I can't really speak anything of it. They made me sign something so I can't be on social media and just talk out of my ass or whatever. But I can talk about the obvious. It was was a really cool and the biggest opportunity of my entire life, obviously. And I didn't even expect it to happen just based off of a few negotiating.
terms that we were trying to figure out on like exactly how and which I would fill in. And so it just kind of ended up coming full circle back after he had reached Randy's the bassist, he had reached back out to me and and then we we ended up making it happen and we just signed this agreement for this upcoming tour starting with the Rockville Festival where we're going to be opening for Breaking Benjamin who is opening for
Jason Ziolo
opening for your favorite band first night of the tour.
AJ
It's crazy, dude. I die.
Steve
video.
Evan J. Thomas
Wow.
Dave Cravotta
Cheers.
AJ
No big deal. I need a diaper and like 18 shots of rumplements to get through it. yeah, it's nuts. It still hasn't hit me yet. My biggest concern is just learning all the songs because they've got just the biggest and best catalog. I still hadn't. I grew up listening to them. They were one of my literal favorite bands. You know Andrew, ⁓ Jason.
Steve
No big deal.
Jason Ziolo
No big deal.
Dave Cravotta
Man.
Steve
you
Evan J. Thomas
Thank
Jason Ziolo
you
AJ
That's honestly one of the first bands we like clapped on or like fell in love with together was back in like 2007 they they'd released breathe into me and it was like it like my diary the Jane at the time so ⁓ Yeah, dude, so it's super it's a blessing that they even like had me track it and throw it down as like an acoustic like teaser was like cool to me Yeah, there's so much. want to talk about but you're right just to not like get too much in the weeds
Reed
That song. That song is iconic. Iconic.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah. Awesome songs.
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
So I got a question for you and I'll keep it high level so we don't get you in any trouble. They posted a video with the band Red of you singing and it's literally just your silhouette with you singing a famous song of theirs. And I went to the comments and I'm like, and I thought to myself before I looked, I was like, if I'm AJ, I'm scared to death of these comments right now. What are they gonna say about me? And I went and looked. No, I didn't. I was like, I know I've... You were amazing.
AJ
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Steve
They were good. The comments were good.
Dave Cravotta
They were so
good like his feeling is nailing this like he's got this song is so good like and you've got to nail that song and I thought you killed it but man Yeah I know But they didn't know that they didn't know that they don't know and then but then Well also also true yes
Steve
Awesome dude, it was awesome!
It was so good.
Reed
Have you guys not heard OKAYA? Like, that band Slays. Like, AJ's got a voice, dude. Like, this is a perfect fit.
AJ
you
Jason Ziolo
but your average
right fan has never heard of Threedal.
Reed
That's fair. Well, they need to break. They need to reach out more. Come on.
AJ
No, yeah, read. Hell yeah, read.
⁓ I was extremely, yeah, I was so nervous. The weirdest thing, they didn't tell me when they were gonna release it. So I got no notice. They were like, okay, so what, because I did it with John and John mixed it and we sent it. And then like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday went by and I was like, you guys said you were gonna announce this at like, know, whatever.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, well, I'm.
Dave Cravotta
Haha
Evan J. Thomas
my god.
AJ
And then finally got announced, that video got put out like two days after the announcement, out of nowhere at like 8pm on a random, you know, Sunday or something,
I was like, well, this is happening. So it just derailed my, you know, 24 next hours. But yeah, thankfully it's turned out not too bad. I see some funny comments on there, people just like cooking me for sounding emo, or like, you know, I'm not Michael Barnes, so, whatever.
Reed
Hey
AJ, I don't know if you know this about our podcast, but we got our first professional troll on the last one. Like the more trolls that you can get, like I feel like that just means that you've made it.
Steve
Yeah.
AJ
⁓
Steve
Fall
Jason Ziolo
Hey, don't encourage
Steve
reads
Jason Ziolo
the masses,
Steve
fall.
Dave Cravotta
Then you know you've made it.
AJ
Yeah.
Reed
Don't come back. Don't be fine.
Jason Ziolo
even online, like talking shit to the haters. Being like, he's gonna prove you wrong, just wait, he's gonna blow your mind. And so now, you're not just letting them down, you're letting me down personally if you suck. So don't do that.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah. Yeah.
AJ
No question. No question.
Steve
Hahaha!
Evan J. Thomas
you
Reed
Ha ha ha!
AJ
Yeah,
day by day.
Jason Ziolo
Well, AJ, we are super.
Reed
Dude, I can't wait. Like,
we're obviously gonna come and heckle the shit out of you and Juliet when you guys are ⁓ May 26th there. You gotta be super stoked about this tour though.
Steve
⁓ war bite.
AJ
Yeah, it's it's
it's again like I I played one show my entire life. So I'm like way, way, way under experienced for sure. But and it's funny, I was like, like you guys know my at least Jason does my experience with Okaya. I pretty much graduated school and and got got with this dude to just work on songs that I just written in my phone. And so I I came from like a really unorthodox background anyway, just not playing.
I didn't play shows, didn't jam in garages and learn that way. just kept listening to Breaking Benjamin and stuff as much as could and then wanted to emulate that so it put me behind because I didn't do any of those things. And these dudes from Red, each time we would talk on the phone, they would just more and more be like, oh, so you're green, green. You don't know any. I'm like, yeah. And they kept me. Yeah, they're so.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
You don't know where the bathroom is.
Reed
You're
You're green green. By the way, meet Ben Burley.
AJ
know what to I'll probably have to like
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah.
Good.
Steve
Beat first, motherfucker,
let's go! Woo!
Jason Ziolo
Can't wait to
AJ
man.
Jason Ziolo
can't wait to watch you girl up and then don't have time for us anymore. So we're just going to ride your coattails as long as we can.
AJ
Rock
Reed
Yeah, pretty much. It's gonna be great though.
Parker
Yeah.
AJ
fan radio just became the go. Yeah, no, that's awesome.
Steve
you
Reed
Became, buddy? We were already number one motherfucker in the Chicagoland area.
Jason Ziolo
Come on, let's not give each other that.
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha
Jason Ziolo
Jesus.
Well AJ, next podcast, which we're gonna record two weeks from now, we are gonna do a deep dive on Okai. So everyone will get a chance to learn more about that band. You guys fucking slay. And I think, I think even beyond the red opportunity, I think Okai is gonna be huge. And I'm.
Reed
Great band. Great band.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Reed
Legit
AJ I told you this that last the last song that you released was better than 80 % of the stuff that's on octane right now and that's that's no joke like you guys are putting together something that could be serious and like we were we've already been talking with having Jay Thomas here like it's it's trying to find that green space right and how you can navigate up to to get around the crowd but you guys have a sound that's better than 80 % of octane
Evan J. Thomas
That's not tough.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
AJ
Thank you, man. Thank you.
Dude, I good.
Reed
You, my Taylor Swift?
Dave Cravotta
There's a place for it
Reed
Absolutely. We should dive into that, Jason.
Jason Ziolo
We'll get my daughter out of here. We can talk about Alex Warren too while we're at it. I mean, why not? Well, AJ, thank you so much for spending a couple of minutes with us here and just jumping in. All our audience is gonna be sick of you six months from now. So, you know, enjoy it while we still like you. ⁓
AJ
Yeah.
you
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Hey, hey AJ make
no mistake you are in this dude, you know, ⁓ there's no such thing as luck. It's where preparation and opportunity meet. Had you not put in all the work to be where you are right now, you wouldn't be here. So well done, sir. You earned it.
Steve
Yeah, no shit, dude. Congrats, man.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Reed
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve
That's right. Fuckin' A.
AJ
You guys fucking rock,
Reed
Yep,
yep. And we'll see you May 26th in Joliet, my friend.
AJ
Yeah, I can't
Dave Cravotta
Hell yeah, dude. Kill it out there.
Steve
Go get them, brother.
Jason Ziolo
And that I expect
you on that podcast in two weeks too. You'll get the invite.
AJ
Hey, man, can
Reed
Right? That is insane. Insane.
AJ
can I, and just another thing, the
Dave Cravotta
Hell yeah.
AJ
reason
I'm not making my money.
Jason Ziolo
Where are these 20 stock?
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha!
Steve
Yeah, just slapping the bed.
Reed
It's just bass riffs
though. It's not-
AJ
Yeah,
Now go back and
Evan J. Thomas
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Dave Cravotta
Ha
Jason Ziolo
Well, we were texting the other night, Matt and I, and we were besties now. we're besties.
AJ
We're best used now. are. Perfect.
Reed
Jason's also on the come up, it's great.
AJ
Yeah,
Jason Ziolo
You know, I will say the podcast is starting to pop a little bit. We've gotten a lot of new listeners, a lot in the past two weeks. And it's going to get more as we ride your coattails and start talking about it, and Avin's coattails and all our guests. And before you know it, we're going to tell Poppy face to face what we think about her music.
AJ
Yes. Yes.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Steve
Yeah, pop you on. Reed's
gonna freak the fuck out. He's gonna freak the fuck out, dude.
Reed
love her music.
Jason Ziolo
Hahaha ⁓
Reed
Bye!
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, true. True story.
Reed
She is number
Steve
I
AJ
Yeah.
Reed
one
AJ
⁓
Reed
thing in metal right now. No doubt. No joke.
Jason Ziolo
All right, AJ, thank you
again. You're welcome to hang out and continue to be part of the conversation, but we're gonna move back and finish our interview with Evan here. And we'll probably spend another 10, 15 minutes and call it. There's gonna be a lot of editing today next year.
Reed
Lots of, there's a lot of editing Jason Zio is gonna have to do on this.
Steve
Yeah, the level of editing for this episode.
Evan J. Thomas
You
AJ
⁓ we
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
AJ
really you so much.
Reed
This one will not be coming out tomorrow.
Steve
Cheers, boys.
Reed
Dude, you're gonna crush it out there, man. Good luck out there. We'll see you soon on the road. See you, brother.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, fellas.
AJ
Thank you dudes. See you guys. Bye
Jason Ziolo
Thanks for jumping in, guys.
AJ
bye.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, appreciate
Jason Ziolo
Bye.
Dave Cravotta
it.
Reed
So Evan, when a lead singer gets replaced on a band, ⁓ sorry. I didn't actually have anything there. That was just a weird segue back in. ⁓ please, yes please do.
Evan J. Thomas
Now go for it.
I do I could answer that question if you want me to I kind of know where you're going So
Jason Ziolo
Thanks
Let's do it.
Evan J. Thomas
yes, the dynamic will change with the band, but there's a new sound Just like when what's her name took over for Lincoln Park Emily Like I know I know people still hate on that shit, but you know what I'm sorry
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Right.
Reed
Ugh.
Jason Ziolo
I think
it works totally. I love it.
Evan J. Thomas
There is a new
Reed
to you.
Evan J. Thomas
sound.
There is a new sun. You got to move forward. You're not going to change the band's name because one person died. That's not going to happen. Yeah.
Reed
It's not Lincoln Park.
THE guy died. Not just like
Steve
Yeah, it was like the-
Reed
a
drummer or a bass player, no offense to all your drummers and bass players.
Evan J. Thomas
How
many of these guys died and then have been replaced?
Reed
Well, how many bands now are touring, hang on, I'm thinking of a band, like how many bands are touring right now that have no actual original members? Yeah, it's hilarious.
Evan J. Thomas
there's a few of them out there. Yeah,
obviously, whenever Leonard Skinner goes back and they don't have anybody that's alive. I know there's a few others, think, who didn't? Scorpions? Is that the one?
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Okay
with it.
Reed
I'm sorry.
Dave Cravotta
No. ⁓
Reed
Man.
Jason Ziolo
That sounds
right, but I don't know if that's right.
Evan J. Thomas
I don't know if that's right either.
Parker
On
the heavier side of things, Born of Cyrus is very similar. They're revolving door of members.
Dave Cravotta
this.
Reed
POD, right? POD?
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
In Flames,
Evan J. Thomas
I mean, I think those except for except
Reed
Is that right?
Evan J. Thomas
for Spencer, everybody else has been in and out of that band like they have like 75 members. Machine head, same thing.
Steve
Yeah. And look at Painterra.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Steve
If you remember, he died.
Dave Cravotta
What's interesting to me.
Evan J. Thomas
I'm sorry,
not machine head. Who am I thinking? ⁓ Mushroom head, mushroom head.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah. I think it seems to be much more a seismic shift when the lead singer is swapped out. You can change guitarist. When the Chili Peppers swapped out, when John Franchante, I don't know what happened to him, left, I guess is a good way to put it, wasn't able to stay in the band. ⁓ Then, well, then Dave Navarro came in and did One Hot Minute, which I really like. I think that's a fun record. There's some great songs on there.
Parker
Much remote, yeah.
Steve
I agree.
Evan J. Thomas
shrug.
Parker
left four or five times over the course of their, yep.
Steve
love that hot minute.
Jason Ziolo
Dave, you're
referring to red hot chili peppers, correct?
Dave Cravotta
yes,
right. And Jason is not a Chili Peppers fan, the sound changed, but I still feel like that the lead singer disproportionately holds the essence of the band. And when the lead singer is swapped out, that's a much greater shift than if a different instrumentalist comes in or out. I don't know why that is, because we connect with the vocals, maybe?
Steve
He loves it.
Parker
No, he's not.
Steve
Yeah, for sure.
Evan J. Thomas
sure, I mean I'm gonna just throw out there
Stone Temple Pilots. mean, Scott Welland died and it's not, definitely not the same. Alice in Chains, they are but, but it's not lame.
Steve
That's a good example too. Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
Jason Ziolo
example.
Dave Cravotta
No.
Reed
And yet, I think Alice in Chains is still crushing it. I mean, other than the racist fans that they have.
Jason Ziolo
Yes, they are.
Steve
But it's not the same.
Dave Cravotta
They are. It's not the same. It's just
not the same.
Reed
It's not, it's
not.
Evan J. Thomas
I mean, if Soundgarden makes a return, it's not going to be the same. So it's. Yeah.
Steve
no way you can't do that they can't do that it's got to be like a yeah like a
Dave Cravotta
No, no. I have a buddy who hasn't listened to him since Cornell died.
Jason Ziolo
that you can't do like you can't replace Chris.
Steve
band that
Dave Cravotta
What if...
But if Kim Thayle died, nobody would, I mean, no disrespect to him. It's not, I don't know that it's as different as if Chris Cornell isn't there. You know what I'm saying?
Jason Ziolo
Yeah,
Parker
Yeah.
Reed
You know, I remember of Mice
Dave Cravotta
It's a shame, I hate that.
Reed
and Men, the first time that I saw Mice and Men with Austin Carlisle, like one of the greatest live performances that I've seen out of like a non-like stadium touring band, right? I mean, these, he came out and just absolutely destroyed it, but he's got bar france and his doctors basically said, you can't scream anymore. And that's what his job was. And so they replaced him.
Parker
Austin Carlali,
Reed
and the lead guitarist ended up taking the lead singles and from there the band just kind of, I mean they're still touring, still doing great stuff, but that was another one where they didn't even replace the lead singer with another lead singer, they just took the lead guitarist and made him do both clean and scream vocals and it wasn't the same. ⁓
Jason Ziolo
time for a meal.
Evan J. Thomas
Well, there's another one
out there, too. You have a tray you who went their lead singer left the drummer moved to lead singer and then they have a new drummer. So it's like kind of the same thing. He was never really the lead singer before.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm.
Reed
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Mm.
Steve
Yeah.
Reed
but drugs can be replaced.
Evan J. Thomas
You
Parker
You
Dave Cravotta
Except
the Rev. That I feel like is the exception. A7X, after the Rev died, I would submit they have, but what I've told people who've gotten into them is you have to listen to the stage and those records as if it's a different band. I felt like the Rev was so much A7X, and when he died, the songwriting for me took a big turn. Two different bands.
Reed
⁓
Jason Ziolo
Brooks Lacherman is one of my favorite dramas.
Reed
Yeah. Yep.
But that's the big thing, like he not only was Mount Rushmore drummer, right? Like one of the greatest drummers of all time, he was also one of their main songwriters, which kind of, when you take that out, you know, it's kind of the double whammy. Who was the dude that replaced him originally? Because he came out and was like, I had to practice harder than I've ever practiced in my life to cover what that dude could do on drums.
Dave Cravotta
Yes.
Steve
Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Right.
Aaron
Give me a second.
Reed
Josh Freeze. ⁓ yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Portnoy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Dream Theater dude, the guy with the big ego took over after that.
Parker
Yes, Mike Portnoy took over for him immediately. And he
Jason Ziolo
no, there it is, yeah.
Parker
covered the entire Nightmare and then toured with them on Nightmare. But a lot of Nightmare they kept with the Rev, right? And they have a few songs on that album that are the Rev Raw vocals, just to honor him. But Portnoy left right after that tour. mean, Portnoy has jumped around kind of a lot too. ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Yep. Yep.
Yeah, like fiction.
Steve
Love Nightmare.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah.
I think of Ben Sevenfold said they didn't want him back. They toured and they're like, hey, it's not, it's not you. It's no, it's actually you. And, and then part of the back to dream theater and made a lot of those fans really happy, which totally tracks. was Aaron Illijay was the guy who replaced the rev for their self titled rec. No, not self title. What was the name of that record?
Parker
Yeah, he's got an ego a little bit. Yes, right.
Jason Ziolo
He's got a bad record.
Yeah.
Parker
Right. Right.
Reed
That year was us. Yeah.
Parker
Yes. Yes.
Jason Ziolo
Yes.
Parker
yes,
yeah, like, yeah.
Jason Ziolo
Nightmare.
Parker
The one after Nightmare? don't know. Was it Hailed to the King?
Dave Cravotta
No after that.
Jason Ziolo
Hail to the king or the stage.
Steve
Hell with the king. Yeah.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah,
Hail to the King. Yep. And then Brooks Wackerman came on in 2015. ⁓
Parker
That's.
Jason Ziolo
like whether
he's awesome. His Instagram posts are fun too. He posts a lot of stuff of him playing out to the crowd.
Dave Cravotta
Yes!
yeah, yeah, and that's cool. It's just, it's not the rev. Man, that dude was incredible.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Parker
It's
not.
Reed
You can't replace the rev.
Jason Ziolo
So Evan,
before we go here, I want ⁓ to talk about your record label you just launched. So tell us a little bit about how this came together, your relationship with the band Crobot, because Crobot's Brandon Yeagley, I believe the lead singer, started this with you. So you guys have this joint record label, you're doing things a little different than your average record label. Are record labels even make any sense in the year 2026 anymore? Tell us about it.
Evan J. Thomas
That's a question that
I always ask. if you've been if anybody's been checking out the social media for Electric River Records, I basically put out our stuff every day and I always put out questions on like what record labels actually do right now. So what we did and actually I'll tell you how we kind of came together. I've been following these guys for several about 2015 or so, did several interviews with them. I was
Jason Ziolo
Yep.
Dave Cravotta
you
Evan J. Thomas
working Rock Lansing this past year in Lansing, Michigan, and Crobot was one of the headliners. So I asked them straight up, hey, can I introduce you guys on stage? I've never done it before. Never introduced a band like that. what? Yeah, well, actually, I asked the radio guy who was actually introducing all the bands and he's like, yeah, man, fucking let's do it. So I went up and I already did an interview with Brandon that day. So I've known the guys for a few years. I've met them before.
Jason Ziolo
You just asked him, hey, I want to do this. Make it happen.
Evan J. Thomas
and got some advice, took a couple shots before I went up there and basically went up there and just did just stupid ass little joke. I don't know why, but that's what I did. Kind of, you know, appease me. But then just went right into it on the introduction of them on stage. Chris Bishop, the guitar player, went into the rift, as I said, crowbot. And then Brandon jumped on stage anyway. So after that.
Steve
Yeah. ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
Then about in September, I started working with them on their most recent single called Gun to My Head. Started working together with them, was going over some stuff. Brandon wanted me to critique his social media, which I did. I, you know, told him straight up, you're not doing enough. You need to do more. So he was floating around. So we were working together. Kind of felt like a good little thing that we had in terms of talking together and being open and honest.
And then about two weeks later, I pitched him the idea of the label. Well, he was like he wanted to do it anyway, and he didn't have anybody to work with either. So we put together a plan. So basically for from like October to February, we put together a business plan, how we want to do this, put together the tiers and everything that we got that was released. And then we announced at the beginning of February the collaboration for him and I. So.
To me, what we have is, and actually what I'm reading here, our mission statement is we are an artist first music services collective, not a traditional label. So what we're doing is we help artists live and create a flow by offering a la carte support across every part of their career, musical, visual, merch, publicity, production, strategy, all in one ecosystem. So the ecosystem of this,
Dave Cravotta
Hmm.
Good.
Evan J. Thomas
then falls back to everything that I'm doing. Badass Radio Network, Sound Fury Magazine, Tag Publicity. I got that taken care of. He on the other side does all the recording, does the distribution, the touring. Like we work with a touring agency that he's been working with. So we have that aspect covered by him. So it's kind of like it was a perfect little marriage with everything together. And it just came about. And we're on the verge of signing our first...
⁓ Named artist can't say anything because it's not a hundred percent so It is not who you think it is not shine down we're done anything now I'd probably be get fired from my own position so I have to fire my yeah
Reed
Ooh, obviously.
Steve
You got a set!
Jason Ziolo
So who is it, Evan J. Thomas? ⁓
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha!
Reed
Rock, it's a Rock Fan with Evan J. Thomas.
Steve
Rock Band Radio exclusive!
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha!
Steve
DAAA-
Dave Cravotta
Ha
Reed
from your own label.
So Crobot last released their album in 2024. It's been two years, right? And they did it.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, was, I
forgot the name of it. Obsidian.
Reed
Obsidian, yeah. And they
did all of that self-released, right? They did all of the production and everything. So now that you guys are starting to join forces, I'm assuming Crobat's working on new music. Is this gonna be... ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, they have a new song coming out Friday. So Friday they have it
off. I've been promoting it. I've been promoting it. Then they have a new album coming out in May.
Reed
So is this gonna be kind of like the test run for the label is getting Crobot's new album released through the label?
Evan J. Thomas
Well,
as of right now, Probot is not a part of the label. I'm kind of he and I both have said we want to kind of keep that separate. Because he's and I mean, I'm already working with him anyway, so we kind of have everything already set. So it's not like he has to be covered by a label name. If that makes any sense.
Reed
That's fair. That makes sense.
Jason Ziolo
It's smart.
Reed
Yeah.
Plus you never want to
mix family with work, I guess.
Evan J. Thomas
No, but it's funny because I'm mixing all my business with it. So it's like what?
Steve
I love it.
Jason Ziolo
No, Evan,
Evan, ⁓ I'm a small business owner as well.
And Reed, I know you have in the past. Parker, you're a small business owner. And my mantra has always been, and I will say this, that business is personal. If you can separate your personal life and your business life, kudos to you. I can't do it. I live and breathe my business. It's part of who I am. It's ingrained in my DNA. I mean, know, I'm assuming it's the same way with you. I mean, you're living and breathing what you love to do.
Steve
you
Dave Cravotta
Okay.
Okay.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, so I'm going to go into a little bit too about why we're different from like regular record labels. So we do not do long term contracts. We do not do ownership grabs. We do not keep your masters. You keep all that. All the bands do that themselves. All we do. Yeah. And that's actually the first thing that I was asked by several people that I knew. They're like, so you just want to take our masters and it's ours. Nope. That's not how we're doing this.
Jason Ziolo
Get out.
Dave Cravotta
Thank
Reed
That is huge.
Dave Cravotta
.
Evan J. Thomas
So yeah, we're kind of
keeping that.
Reed
So the main goal
with your label is to just get bands promoted and get them.
Evan J. Thomas
Little bit more than promoted. Promoted would just be with what I do with tag publicity. That's PR. This is the whole distribution business side of everything to outside of recording. And if they need the recording, they have the options. Brandon has a studio up in Pennsylvania. Bishop has one in Austin, Texas. Then they have their producer out of Nashville so that we have different areas where people can go to if they need to.
Steve
that's awesome.
Dave Cravotta
Mm.
Reed
So it's a good fit for those bands that are kind of up and coming.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah,
it's an a la carte as I had mentioned with the services. it's fantastic.
Steve
Kick your ass.
Jason Ziolo
What
Reed
That's incredible.
Jason Ziolo
kind of commitment are you looking for from the band to work with you guys?
Evan J. Thomas
commitment as a as in what
Jason Ziolo
Like,
I'm stuck in the 90s. I think of you got a 10 record deal. They own you for 10 records now, which is probably, can't be the same of what you're doing, but is there a commitment of some sort?
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, not at all.
No, since it's all a cart, you basically pick and choose what you want to do.
Reed
So no six albums of greatest hits. Remember that you you sign a six album deal with a record company and like the last four albums were greatest hits.
Steve
Yeah
Evan J. Thomas
No!
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha!
Parker
Thank
Dave Cravotta
You can.
Evan J. Thomas
Or what they do now is they go to a new record label and they remaster one of their previous albums and re-release it like, this is new with a new song. No, you're just changing it up so the new label will actually cover this for you.
Steve
Yeah. Right?
Reed
Yes. Yes.
Steve
I like that, Evan. You're kind of letting it like
Reed
Still counts.
Steve
your work speak for itself there.
Yep.
Evan J. Thomas
Yeah, so that's exactly what we've been doing. Obviously having Brandon in my back pocket as my, you know, the co-owner definitely helps. I mean, if it was just me, people would be like, who the fuck is this guy trying to do this shit? No.
Reed
No joke,
Mother Brain was one of my top albums of 2019.
Steve
Yeah, I really like that album.
Evan J. Thomas
Dude, that
album is phenomenal.
Reed
just crazy out there pushing boundaries. Sorry, that's just.
Evan J. Thomas
And to think that, know, again, I'm working with one of my favorite freaking bands. got the fact that I just even got to introduce them on stage back in May. I was happy with that. But obviously I wasn't happy with that. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go one up on this one. I'm going to ask him to be a business partner with me on a new label. And he says, yes, I mean, Jesus Christ, what else can I ask?
Reed
some
Jason Ziolo
Yeah.
Reed
be like Scott Lucas coming on our podcast.
Evan J. Thomas
So I gotta say too, if you haven't checked out my magazine, SoundFury Magazine, I just finished putting it together today and it drops on March 23rd. So Monday, March 23rd, it's gonna be an awesome magazine. I think there's 44 pages right now and you can go to SoundFury Magazine, get a digital copy, which Jason will be getting in about a week. And then if you want a physical copy, you can order them online too. Physical copies! Hold on, hold on.
Reed
Awesome. What's... physical?
Jason Ziolo
I'll leave that so checked.
Dave Cravotta
Wow.
Evan J. Thomas
I got a couple of them right here. Ha ha ha! This was my most recent one.
Reed
my god, look at that sexy motherfucker on there. God.
Dave Cravotta
⁓ that's awesome.
Jason Ziolo
Yeah. ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
So that was December. This was July.
Reed
Love that dude.
Evan J. Thomas
So, and then there's one more that was my very first issue, Carla Harvey, Lords of Acid. So I got to do an interview with her. was working with them Lords of Acid last year. So I got an exclusive interview with her. Des Rocks, obviously, like you said, Reed, you know, I did the interview with him. So that whole little feature on him was in there too. So it was pretty cool.
Dave Cravotta
Mm-hmm. Hell yeah.
Reed
⁓ R.I.P.
Jason Ziolo
See you.
Dave Cravotta
Wow! That is awesome.
Reed
that's cool.
Evan J. Thomas
This one, no big interview. Next one, very much so there will be.
Reed
So cool.
the teaser is amazing. So how can people find you, Evan? Like, throw out all of your socials.
Parker
Nice.
Evan J. Thomas
I know.
Jesus Christ. Here's this one right here. That's my personal one. And actually, the easiest way to do this is go to my social media and there's a link tree account to every single one of my things. So you hit the one link. It goes to South Fear Magazine, Tech publicity, Badass Radio Network, Electric River Records, my radio podcast, my Notre Dame stuff that I do for football when I do that.
Reed
I know you got a hundred of them.
Dave Cravotta
Hahaha
Jason Ziolo
We're
gonna post it, we'll post it on our social.
Evan J. Thomas
So everything's right there. sorry.
Jason Ziolo
Cool, I like
Reed
Don't!
Jason Ziolo
So kind of wrap things up here, Evan, thank you so much for coming to the show. We really enjoyed it. What do want our listeners to take away from all this? What should they do right now if they do one thing to interact with Evan Jay Thomas? Yes.
Dave Cravotta
⁓ man.
Evan J. Thomas
⁓ Parker had a question!
Reed
Dude, so great. So great, yeah!
Parker
Thank you.
Dave Cravotta
Yes.
Evan J. Thomas
Rock is not dead. That's one.
It'll never be dead, as we already talked about. I would say go to Soundfury magazine because that's the one I'm pushing right now, because the new, like I said, the new magazine is coming out in less than two weeks.
Reed
obviously preach it brother
Jason Ziolo
Yeah, cool. Go sign up.
Evan J. Thomas
And Parker, what's your last question?
Come on, get in.
Parker
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. We didn't really talk much about your photography stuff. And I want to know kind of how you got hooked up with, you know, disturbed and soil and kind of how things have changed in the photography realm over, you know, these many years.
Evan J. Thomas
That's okay.
You I used to go to shows
and talk to them outside. That was before they before they were big. Yeah, nowadays publicists.
Parker
No shit, okay?
Yeah, okay. What?
Yeah, that's awesome. What's changed? I mean, I know you still do it. You said you were...
Evan J. Thomas
Jesus
Christ. It's not hands on anymore. It's not go up. I mean, you could reach out to bands on social media sometimes, but the bigger ones will not respond to you. The smaller ones will. And the bigger ones will just be like, hey, here's our email to our publicist. Hit him up or her up. But once you get in, you get some amazing photos. So it's awesome. At least I do. I don't know about you, but.
Parker
for sure.
Jason Ziolo
Well, thank you Evan for being a part of this. Thank you guys all for joining us. We've got a pretty long episode today. So we're gonna wrap it up. Hey, Dave told me I have to remind you guys to like our podcast, sign up for reminders about podcasts, give us five stars, do what you do as a podcaster to make us look good. Because we want to keep doing this.
Evan J. Thomas
always.
Yeah, we do.
And when is the first issue or
Parker
Hit the bell.
Evan J. Thomas
when's the first episode on Badass Radio Network? I'm waiting on you.
Jason Ziolo
Well, okay, so this is,
yeah, you're right, Evan. And so we're gonna be on Badass Radio Network. I'm gonna package up the past three podcasts and get them to you so that you can start putting them out there. My concern is we are never consistent in how long we go. And this was a long podcast.
Dave Cravotta
You ⁓
Evan J. Thomas
That's OK.
So what we'll do is we'll put you later in the afternoon so that way you could be the last one so nobody can go past after you.
Jason Ziolo
perfect.
Dave Cravotta
drive
home.
Evan J. Thomas
You can be after my show on Thursdays, eight o'clock, eight o'clock on Thursday. There you go. Thank you guys for having me on. It's always a pleasure talking.
Dave Cravotta
We are at your discretion, Thank you.
Jason Ziolo
we're looking for do it.
Of course, we'll do it again. Gentlemen, have a good two weeks. We'll be talking to Okaya next time. Thanks a lot. Be good. See you on the floor. Cheers. All right, guys, I'll cut it right there. And I think that went really well. Thank you very much for all being here. And yeah, until the next one, I'll talk to you later.
Dave Cravotta
Yes. Thanks, Evan.
Parker
Thank you for coming. Very
awesome.
Evan J. Thomas
Cheers.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah, well that's our...
Evan J. Thomas
That was great.
Dave Cravotta
Yeah. Thanks for joining us, Evan.
Parker
Cool.
Evan J. Thomas
You get welcome guys. Have
Parker
Thank you.
Evan J. Thomas
a good one.
Dave Cravotta
All
right, see ya.
Jason Ziolo
Bye. Bye,
guys.