Carl Verheyen

What if you could capture the essence of legendary live performances while maintaining your distinct sound? Join us in this episode of Chewing the Gristle as we sit down with the iconic Carl Verheyen. From memorable gigs across Italy, London, and the renowned NAMM show to Carl's innovative touring strategies, our conversation is full of captivating stories and practical insights.

Gearheads, this one's for you! We explore the nitty-gritty of achieving that perfect guitar tone, with Carl sharing his expertise on amps and the magic of the Dumble amplifier. Hear the fascinating tale of how a devoted fan gifted him this prized piece of equipment and how he integrated it into his setup. We dissect the balance between replicating recorded solos and embracing spontaneous creativity on stage, providing a treasure trove of technical tips and innovative studio techniques. Whether you're a seasoned musician or an avid listener, you'll appreciate the depth of knowledge shared in this episode.

But it's not all about the gear! Carl shares the joys and frustrations of teaching music, recounting personal anecdotes from his time at Village Recorders and a music school in Minneapolis. We discuss the profound insights gained from legendary musicians and the importance of understanding music theory. You'll also hear about Carl's musical influences, upcoming performances at the Ullapool Guitar Festival, and a special fundraiser with Elliot Easton from The Cars. This episode is a must-listen for anyone passionate about music and eager to learn from one of the greats.

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Transcript

Greg Koch: 0:09

At long last. Ladies and gentlemen, season five of Chewing the Gristle is indeed upon us, a convivial conversation fest between myself, gregory S Caulk, esquire and a variety of musical potentates from hither and yon, brought to you by our friends at Wildwood Guitars and our friends at Fishman Transducers, of course, both of which I've had long-standing and continuing relationships with, and I'm very grateful for their continued support in this endeavor to bring you Chewing the Dog on Gristle. We've got a bunch of fun guests, some you have heard of, some maybe not so much. It'll be a little bit of discovery and a little bit of chaos all rolled into one. Thanks for tuning in folks. Now, without any further ado, let's chew some gristle.

Greg Koch: 1:01

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this week, on Chewing the Gristle, the amazing, legendary axeman hailing from beautiful California, carl Verheyen. You've seen him in Supertramp. He's done a million sessions, been all over the damn world, rocking people's brains. This week, chewing the Gristle, carl Verheyen, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we convene once again for another edition of Chewing the Gristle, with yours truly Gregory Cochrie here, with the immortal and powerful Carl Verheyen, guitar player, extraordinaire sessionsman, super trampsman, world-travel traveling guitarsman and one heck of a nice fellow. What the heck's going on, carl, how are you?

Carl Verheyen: 1:50

Well, it's good to see you, Greg man. I realize we have played on three continents together. We played in Italy the first time when we met, and then we played in London because I had done a master class at some school and you were the next guy along and I had to crash yours, and then we played at the NAMM show. So one of these days we have to do a concert together. That would be magnificent.

Greg Koch: 2:15

I'm all for it. It is time.

Carl Verheyen: 2:17

Yeah, you just got back from a jaunt.

Carl Verheyen: 2:20

Yeah, well, the first thing the band did was five weeks in Europe, which was nine countries. We started in Denmark, sweden, norway, then we went down to Luxembourg, belgium, netherlands, germany, austria, switzerland, italy, and it was gnarly. You know how those tours are. But I've reached a certain age in my aging process. To where I'm going, you know what. I'm going to do this my way and I'm going to do it right Instead of, instead of, killing myself.

Carl Verheyen: 2:53

I've got a guy who's now he is called a back liner, ah, and he, he drives his own truck, his own sprinter, with all the gear, and he goes there. And he drives his own truck, his own Sprinter, with all the gear, and he goes there. And the first time I ever met him he's a 24-year-old guy, you know. He takes a picture of my massive wall of sound mega rig, sees how it's all plugged in, then goes over and sees how the drums are set up, takes a picture of that. So that was, you know, that place, spirit of 66? Yeah, so that was the first gig on this tour a year and a half ago. He takes a picture of everything. Second gig he goes.

Carl Verheyen: 3:32

I showed up for sound check. Everything was set up, guitars were in tune and he goes I hope you guys don't mind I sound checked the drums for you, holy. So you know what that means You're hired for life, right. So so the way I'm doing it now is I have a sprinter with a tour manager taking me to have coffee, check in, nap, whatever I need to do, and he's taking care of all that. So did I make money? Not too much, but the American tour that we just did up the West Coast, which is kind of something I do every year, that cleaned up, that was a good one, excellent, yeah.

Greg Koch: 4:12

Excellent.

Carl Verheyen: 4:13

Yeah, and I have to tell everybody that you were very instrumental of me playing the Lincoln Theater. And how it all came about, folks, is, I was playing this thing called the Orcas Island Music Festival and because they could only put us up one night on Orcas Island, I stayed in the little town of Mount Vernon and in the Wyndham Hotel there's a poster saying Greg Cox coming. And it was you. And it said you know the presented by this guy. So I called you last year and said hey, I want to. I want to play the Lincoln theater. All my friends say it sounds amazing and it's a great place to play. So we did, and thanks to you, and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate it.

Greg Koch: 4:58

Awesome. Well, I'm glad that worked out. Yeah, man I owe you one now. Well, it'd be great to get together and do a do a gig one of these days. We'll figure it out.

Carl Verheyen: 5:09

Yeah, we got to do that yeah, you know, let's uh, let's book something, uh, for nam show 2025 that's not a bad idea.

Greg Koch: 5:19

I'm definitely coming, yeah you're coming.

Carl Verheyen: 5:21

All right, I'll figure out a thing that we can do. That'd be great, that'd be awesome. Yeah, cool, I'm in.

Greg Koch: 5:31

All right, cool. So let's talk a little bit about how you got where you were, and are you a Californian from the get-go?

Carl Verheyen: 5:38

Yeah, born and raised. I was born in Santa Monica and raised in Pasadena and I played with the Van Halen kids and you know went to school with David Lee Roth.

Carl Verheyen: 5:48

Oh no, kidding, yeah, you know. So I'm ground zero Pasadena and pretty much hung around, did various gigs in the area Back in our youth. We could do kegger parties, backyard parties, we could do high school proms, we could work all the time in a band doing dances and everything, and then and then, um, yeah, and then I met. I met this guy. I was.

Carl Verheyen: 6:15

I had a five night a week gig singing and playing my acoustic guitar, you know, like Van Morrison, joni Mitchell, um, uh, jackson Brown, that kind of era, early 70s. And this guy came in and goes hey, I like the way you play. Kid, you ever want to get together? He was an older dude and I said, yeah, I'd love to. How about tomorrow? And I found out he was a pretty well-known jazz dude in the town. So he and I got together the next day day and he put some music in front of me and the first chord was an f major, seven, right. The second chord was a d minor, seven, flat five. And I just kind of my head exploded because I'd never. I go well, oh, now this is only audio, right? Nobody's going to see, that's correct.

Greg Koch: 6:59

yep, no well, I think I can I think, I can, I think I could make a little noise and they'll understand.

Carl Verheyen: 7:05

So the first chord was the F major 7. The second chord was D minor 7, flat 5. And I go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Is this it? He goes yeah, make it like that.

Carl Verheyen: 7:15

This is a richer voicing. You might want to have the open string. It's nice to have the flat 5 on top. You could put it on the bottom, of course, the seventh type is cool or on the bottom. This is my favorite voicing. Of course, this is the one all the chord books give you. This is nice. If you want the root on top, this is nice too. But it's an F minor six, so any F minor six that you know will work.

Carl Verheyen: 7:32

Anyway, it showed me that I pretty much know nothing. I could play Stairway to Heaven, I could play the solo of Crossroads, I knew all these folky tunes, but I really didn't know much more than that. So at that point I go, I need to get out of here. You know, I need to go learn something and I had met a girl that was living in Boston, so I moved East and did um, I did a cement, a semester at Berkeley, just the accelerated semester, and so I was gone about a year. Okay, just the accelerated semester, and so I was gone about a year because I also had the amazing fortune to go on the road with Max Roach, the father of American Drum. Just three gigs subbing for a guy, but that was an amazing experience, of which I, when Berkeley ended and you know I can't just waste my time here I moved back to LA and just started working and then, after about three years of living south of here in Orange County, where there was a lot of jazz work and I was totally had the blinders on, I wanted to play jazz.

Carl Verheyen: 8:41

You know, at that point, after three years of that, I moved up to LA proper. I moved back into LA area, north Hollywood, which is where all the studio guys were and a number of my friends were really starting to break into the studio scene. And then I remember like my first session was Happy Days. And then I remember like my first session was Happy Days oh, no, kidding, yeah, my first I had joined the union to play at Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, you know, to work with like Martin Mull and Elvira and all this stuff, right, as a teenager kind of guy or maybe early 20s. But yeah, I was playing around town and somebody spotted me and said, hey, can you play on this session? It was Happy Days, then Laverne and Shirley, and then that just turned into an onslaught of TV and movies and radio jingles and then people's record dates and stuff like that.

Carl Verheyen: 9:36

So you know, I had this bad. You know, all I ever wanted to do is what you and me do now, which is have my own band tour the world bringing joy to the people. Sing my tunes, play my tunes, shred when needed and, you know, have a good time all the time. So I consider the studio career a massive detour, you know. But one day I did this session for this female vocalist and the engineer was a British guy and he liked my sounds and I liked what he was getting, and so we exchanged numbers, went home last night and I got a call from somebody named Norman Hall, which translates to Norman Hall Right, he was like the front of house engineer for Supertramp and they had auditioned 18 guys and they were looking for a guitar player.

Carl Verheyen: 10:28

Could I come down tomorrow morning and audition? And I did. I said sure, and I wasn't really a fan. So when I showed up at the studio, I go guys, I just have to apologize, I really don't know any of your music. And they go we don't want to play any of our bloody songs, let's play the blues. So we ended up, you know, we ended up playing Willie and the Hand Jive and I sang some blues and played some stuff and by that night I was hired, so as a side man. So I was hired for a few tunes, a few years as a side man, a few tours, and then in the 90s they made me a member, so which was a better profit sharing situation, you know.

Greg Koch: 11:09

I would imagine. Yeah so so how much work did that entail on an? Was it pretty consistent year to year? Or was it like, oh, these years are going to do this and this and this, and then next year we're going to take off? Or was it pretty consistent for the time that you were with him?

Carl Verheyen: 11:25

it was not consistent. There was a, there was an 85 86 tour, a 90, an 88 tour, and then nothing until 97. We made another album and then tour in 97, 99, 2002, then nothing till 2010, okay, 11, 12, and then we had a big tour planned for 2016,.

Carl Verheyen: 11:44

But the lead singer got cancer and, although his name is Rick Davies and he's a real mentor of mine, I love him. He's a really great guy. You know, the show not only must go on, but must be the same, no matter if it's Madison Square Gardens or Moncton, new Brunswick.

Carl Verheyen: 12:06

It doesn't matter he's going to be, it's just going to be the killer, full blown super tramp experience, you know, with the lights and everything. So anyway, that that that was, um, yeah, it's. It's a shame it's over, cause I got, I grew to really love the guys and love that. I really grew to love the catalog of music. It's, it's different than you thought it was. I mean, because you, you always heard this sort of english dance hall music on the radio. Right, take a look at my girlfriend, all that kind of stuff. Right, there's a lot of prog involved, totally, yeah, yeah, crime of the century and stuff. And they were big taller fans, jethro tall fans and everything.

Greg Koch: 12:44

So anyway. So when you were with them, you know, because I always remember, you know Daryl Stermer. He played with Genesis and Bill Collins and he would describe how you know when they were rehearsing. It would be like for weeks and they would run the entire set in the morning and in the afternoon they'd run the entire set again and everything was just so.

Carl Verheyen: 13:13

Was it one of those experiences, or was there some open-endedness for some extemporaneous activities on stage? Well, see, that's a great question, because when I first joined, they'd done a record called Brother when you Bound, and David Gilmour had played like an eight solo and on there and they wanted me to do it. And I go, yeah, I'll play a solo. They go, no, no, we want you to do his solo. And I go you know what? I can take the time, I can write it all out and I can learn it note for note. But it's an okay solo, but why don't you let me play like he starts it and play like he ends it and let it live and breathe every night. I promise it won't suck. I'm going to be going down on the ego ramp and just rocking and the leader of the band, rick, goes, we'll give it a go. So I did that. And he goes okay, you're good to go right. And so that was done. The next one that I had to they wanted note for note was you know, goodbye, stranger. Oh yeah.

Carl Verheyen: 14:15

And that one starts with a wah-wah, right. So I said I'll start it with that and then, uh, then let me go and I will cue the ending by doing that up an octave and it'll give it a go. So I did it and you know the drummer did not like being cute. He wanted it to be. You know x amount, you know 64 bars or whatever it was. But if I just felt like going I wouldn't look behind me. You know X amount, you know 64 bars or whatever it was. But if I just felt like going I wouldn't look behind me, you know, I wouldn't look, I wouldn't look at them.

Carl Verheyen: 14:49

But, um, so some nights it would be so magical that you know, you know cause. You know, with those big stadiums and arenas you know we were using in ears, but I would take one out and get up front and hear the mains. God, that is the biggest thrill of a lifetime. And in the beginning I had a pretty big rig back then too, but I'd be like 30 feet away from my speaker's cabinet, so getting feedback and sustain was not going to happen. So I a combo amp. It was a jim kelly combo. Oh, I love those jim kelly combo yeah, yeah, so there was um.

Carl Verheyen: 15:31

So I had I had two jim kelly's and I think a marshall in an, in an amp rack and an effects. This is in the bradshaw years where we all had bradshaw right, and then two but four, 12. So there was an ego ramp that you that was grading, you know like metal grading, and I had a Jim Kelly down there tilted back pointing up at me and I'd walk out there and my guitar tech would come up underneath me and go, you know okay, and take it off standby, and I could just hold a note and I'm feeding back through that. Oh, awesome, cool.

Carl Verheyen: 16:07

So then I applied that concept on one of my records in the studio where I was in the control room. You got to try this I'm in the control room and I've got a speaker out to something in the room, right, and it's being mic'd. But I also had a 112 cabinet in like the mic closet and when I wanted to play this high B natural on the 19th fret, you know, just hold a B way up there and have it sustained I just would nod to the second engineer and I say open the door. So he'd open the closet door and I'd get feedback with that.

Carl Verheyen: 16:47

Awesome, you can do that in the studio, otherwise you're out there bleeding, you know, Right At that volume that's going to make it do that. But it really needs to be a guitar cabinet, because I tried it with an NS-10, you know studio monitor. It just didn't not the sonic girth we need as men.

Greg Koch: 17:08

It's so funny. You should mention those Jim Kelly apps because I remember when I was, when I was a young, and this buddy of mine moved into town and he was from Texas and he would always tell me he goes these guitar players down in Texas I play with they really love these Jim Kelly amps. He goes. If you ever see one, you should just buy it. And I was in the store and I was in my I don't know, I was probably 23 years old or something and I I walked into the store and I look on the. Uh, there was just one of these stores. They just piles of crap everywhere you know, amps and guitars everywhere.

Greg Koch: 17:38

I loved it. It was one of those old school, just like you know, everything on top of each other, mayhem type of a music store. And I looked down and there was a Jim Kelly combo with the cover on it and I looked down, I go, how much is that? He goes? Ah, 400 bucks. So I bought it. Right, I'd never even heard it, I just bought it. And it was one of the, the two channel. Uh, exactly with the with the. Uh, um, uh, the power, soak power tape power 10 degree.

Carl Verheyen: 18:03

Yeah, foot activated channel switching. I was good friends with Jim and I would go in all the time and I'm a big Princeton fan. I've got four Princeton's, they're glorious. And so I said you're making six V six amps. These are six V six amps. Can you make my Jim Kelly app sound like a giant Princeton? Well, it offended him until later, later down the road, you know, when we met again. You know, a few years later he goes yeah, I see what you were talking about and you were right that that's, that's what I should be going for, isn't that wild? Yeah, he's still around, jim Kelly, great guy.

Greg Koch: 18:41

Well, I got one of the late and I, I, I, I. That was my main amp for quite a few years. And then I blew it up at one point and whoever kind of worked on it just didn't sound the same. So I ended up selling it, yeah and uh. And then years later he started he did a couple years back, maybe 10 years ago now he started making amps again and, uh, I ended up getting one of the the single 12 combos, but it was just the single channel one.

Carl Verheyen: 19:07

Yeah.

Greg Koch: 19:08

Which is cool. Which is cool one, too. There's a lot on the word of God, though.

Carl Verheyen: 19:12

Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, over in Europe my clean sound is I. I always use these four amp rigs. I mean I have for the States I have umoman and a HiWatt stereo clean, oh nice, and then you know, in other words, there's effects that make it stereo Right. And then for the distortion I'm using a Dumble Overdrive Special and a Marshall 100 watt, kind of a wet dry situation. You know, the Marshall is power amp in only and so using a Friatt power station it's really a complicated rig. But over in Europe the rig that I keep there is two Fender Twins for the clean side right, and the dirty side is a Marshall and a little rack-mounted power amp. So I'm getting tired of these Twins because really sound great at when you crank them to four, right. But I have a background singer babe and she's standing right in front of it and it's just killing her. The clean sound kills her more than the crank tone. Interesting, I don't know why.

Greg Koch: 20:20

So tell me a little bit about the dumbbell you have. Have you had it forever?

Carl Verheyen: 20:24

No, I've only had it for about three years. I play this thing called the Guitar Masters Series in Bakersfield every year and I actually sometimes I just did it with my band and I do this thing with this other band I have for their fundraiser. It takes place at the Buck Owens Crystal Palace, which is a 600-seater fantastic place. At the Buck Owens Crystal Palace, which is a 600-seater fantastic place, every year I have a special guest. We've had Sonny Landreth, we've had Jerry Douglas oh nice, he was killer on his electric slide and it's got a B3 and two drummers and two guitars. So it's an Alban Brothers type of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, we actually do the memory of Elizabeth Reed, but we do it at Christmas. So we do these insane Christmas medleys in the style of oh wild. So there's the yes medley, which is Christmas carols, but with yes tunes interspersed, it's like a six-pager, right. And there's a Birds medley. When I bring out, there's a birds Christmas where I bring out my Rickenbacker, and you know. So then we did a Tom Petty one and yeah, anyway, it's a fun thing.

Carl Verheyen: 21:35

Every year there's a special guest. So one year I was going up there I think it was with my band and the promoter is a really good guy. He called me in advance and he goes. You know, there's a guy up here who's been to all 96 Guitar Master Series concerts because there's one a month and he goes you and your band is his favorite and I go, oh, that's great, I'd like to meet him. And he goes and he has a dumbbell that he wants to sell you and I said well, you know, thanks, but that's way out of my wheelhouse, you know, because John Mayer just paid 150 grand, right, exactly, yeah. And another buddy of mine sold one to Joe. Hey, bless you, my wife goes by and sneezes real loud. Anyway, I heard Joe Bonamassa paid to my friend, you know, a big boatload of suitcase of money, right, and yeah, that's a little out of my wheelhouse and I already own a close to 50 amps. I'm, you know, I tell my wife 20, but you know there's way more. So he goes, no, he's a huge fan and he wants you to have it for 5 000 bucks and I go, that's impossible. I said that's pretty much impossible, so I kind of about it. So then we did the concert and I'm doing the selfies with the punters, you know, and I'm doing the selfies with my great fans and signing stuff.

Carl Verheyen: 22:56

And the promoter comes over and goes hey man, you want to meet the Dumble guy? So I go, good night everybody. Hey man, you want to meet the Dumble guy? So I go, good night everybody. So I go meet the guy and he's a sweetheart of an old geezer, really good guy. He pulls out his phone, he goes yeah, it's an Overdrive special, you know, and I've really only taken out of the house about three or four times and I was good friends with Alexander Dumble and he built it to me for me about 12, 15 years ago. And so I go well, how much you want for it? And he goes $5,000. And I go do you realize you could get 50 to 100 times that money? Or you know, 50 to 70 times. He goes listen, you need the amplifier, I don't need the money. He's like bawling me out. So I go God, what a the amplifier. I don't need the money. He's like bawling me out. So I go God, what a lucky bastard am I.

Carl Verheyen: 23:49

So I had to fly to Dallas the next morning so I couldn't take it home right away. So that was a Friday, saturday, sunday, so Monday morning he calls me. Still want the amplifier. I go, buddy, I will be right up. And then I told my wife, carol, I said, honey, if we don't like this we can trade it in on a Ferrari. Yeah, exactly, you know, cause it's that valuable. So it took me a little while, greg, to tame it. I mean you just don't need pedals. But I love pedals. I love the textures you get of the different three or four different distortion pedals. I can get the Klon tone or I can get a real thick, saturated sound or more of the Zen drive tone. You know, you can get these different things. So I ended up working with it for quite a while before I started playing it live, because it was just too thick, too much. You really don't need a pedal, especially with a, with an SG or a three 35 or something any humbucker.

Greg Koch: 24:43

So so, uh, overdrive, especially that doesn't have reverb on it. So did you get like the dumbulator in order to interface effects with it, or you just no, I run it.

Carl Verheyen: 24:52

I run it through a Friant power station. You know what those are. No, it's a thing where it's a little two space rack or you can have it standalone where it takes speaker out. Um, it has. And then it's an attenuator right, but it's active attenuation, much unlike the Jim Kelly or the THD hot plate. It's an active thing. You can turn it way down to the sound of the room. It has an effects loop in it so I can put a sexy reverb pedal in there, Got it. The main thing I like it for it has line level out. And the line level out can go into my lexicon PCM 41,. You know delay, so I don't have delay before the distortion before and then that goes to a power amp, Got it. So you get. You get a wet, dry thing, because the wet side is the delay side, although it's got plenty of love, you know, crank tone mixed in, and the dry side actually has a reverb on it too. So it's really a glorious sound. I mean, I'm thrilled to play it, man.

Greg Koch: 26:04

Excellent, so you find that you? So it's like a channel switching thing with that, or do you just have the one sound?

Carl Verheyen: 26:10

Well, no, so with that dumbbell. So I have an AB box right. I got a pedal board with three or four distortions, a wah-wah, a tuner and an AB, and the AB is one of those, one of these Laylee deals.

Greg Koch: 26:24

Oh Laylee, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Carl Verheyen: 26:27

So here's a beat up, one right. And so if you go on the Laylee website, he, you can do it like. This is going to be your clean, this is going to be your dirty and this is going to be your. You know, the third button is your tuner, but I put it this way in my pedal board and use what he calls the Verheyen mod, which is it's clean, it's dirty. You never have to look down and find the other button, perfect. And so it's switching between the two clean amps, boom to a whole different rig. The dumbo marshall rig got it to me.

Carl Verheyen: 26:58

That's super organic because, if you think about it, there's no channel switching, there's no midi crap, where everything cuts off. It's now like the delays and reverbs of my clean sound hang in the air while I've switched and played a single little line. You know right. So in other words, you could be doing a groove like um, you can go with clean, right, right, and that is the button and you hit. You hit the button and play that lick and then you're back to here, hit it again. So my foot, basically my right foot, just huffers over that button and anytime I think of a line to throw in with distortion and all its delays hang in the air, well, and back to the clean, super organic. Yeah, it's a manly. It's a manly approach. It is, however, however, my tour manager's getting real tired of lifting all that. You know he's over it, you know so. Every tour he has a dark day or he goes. Yeah, I'm not gonna do this next year. Yeah, yeah, ask me in six months if I ever want to do this again.

Greg Koch: 28:08

You know it's funny and then he always does so is is the dumbbell a combo or just the head?

Carl Verheyen: 28:14

just a head, okay, cool yeah, so I'm a forehead guy, so anyway. But then you know, I do gigs with other people where I just bring like a um, a dr z z lux, and that covers it, you know, with a mini pedal board. So I'm not. But I think that I've made a decision early on that the sound of the cvb, the carl verheyen band, is going to be god's playing. You know whether he played that, whether he showed up that night or not, and it's just gonna. You know, it's gonna be a really wonderful guitar sound that I'm inspired by.

Carl Verheyen: 28:49

So now I don't have to use the two, four by 12 side by side, although I did at the Lincoln Theater. I could also do it with two, two by 12. So we have a little club here in LA called the Baked Potato. You know it. That rig won't fit in there. So I take two, two by 12s, and the same rig, same rack, same pedal board, same four heads, but so the outside two are going to be clean, the inside two, but they're single 12s and it sounds amazing for a small place like that.

Greg Koch: 29:21

Awesome. So these days, how much stuff do you divide between doing sessions and gigs and any teaching? Do you do some teaching still at GIT or the or the college, or or not?

Carl Verheyen: 29:37

I pretty much bailed on all that stuff I was teaching at USC of course called advanced electric guitar in the style of Carl Verheyen, that was what they called it. And I decided to say you know that you can't be teaching that 12 week course if you're gone for four of the weeks. Right, exactly, had to bail on that course. If you're gone for four of the weeks, right, exactly, I had to bail on that. Then I just got real tired of the MI thing. It just became monotonous and tedious. I was doing open counseling, like Scott Henderson and Alan Hines. I came out one day and they were towing my car away. The cops were towing my car in Hollywood. I had plenty of money in the meter, but after I'd parked there they decided to put up things saying no parking after 12 noon. I was there from 11 on and they're towing my car away and I go. You know I don't need this anymore, I'm done so and I picked up the straw that broke the camel's back.

Carl Verheyen: 30:32

Yeah, yeah, and I was doing this sessions that summer. I was producing this guy's record at village recorders, which is one of our big temples of tone, you know, in the Fleetwood Mac room, and I had 20 days in a row, 20 days with Monday through Friday there, so I was going to have to sell out the next four weeks. Anyway, I just go, I'm out. But I love to teach. I'm sure you do too. It's a beautiful experience to pass it on to the next generation somehow.

Greg Koch: 30:59

Yeah, and it's fun to deconstruct what you do. You always kind of figure out new things. But, by the same token, I was going to ask you about it because you know it's different when you do like a workshop or if you're doing like a private lesson, where they really want to be there. And the college thing is weird because you got people that are maybe they don't know what they really want to do, so they're going to music school, or maybe their parents are paying for it or whatever the case may be. But man, you know, you're just not used to people not being totally into it, and when you're into it it's it's because we're all in.

Carl Verheyen: 31:36

You know we're all in. You know we're all in, and I can't imagine you not being exactly Exactly. Yeah. One guy said to me I was showing him those harp harmonics, like, because why do I need to know that? All I want to do is play like slash? And I said, buddy, you just need to go to your bedroom and get some guns and roses records, like we all did, and learn, learn that stuff. It's not rocket surgery, right? So anyway, man, I, I, I'm the same thing, see.

Carl Verheyen: 32:00

The other thing is I don't know about you, but it's probably the case I've really not had any other jobs. I've been playing the guitar my entire life, except for summer to pay off a Les Paul. I was a box boy in the Safeway market, but the rest of my life it's been playing the guitar. So my goal in teaching that kind of thing is here's how you make, here's what you need to know to make a living. The college kids they're just going to. You know marking time. You know mom and dad will send me to college. I don't want to go to real school, so I'll go to music school, and you know, see if I can be a rock star, right? So anyway, yeah, that's a weird situation that. So that's why I kind of bailed on that whole program.

Greg Koch: 32:45

Yeah, well, I can relate because you know I was actually talking to. I forgot who I ran into, cause what. I was in a situation where my son, uh, when he just got out of high school, you know, he went on the road with me a bit and then he's like you know, he wanted to go to college, a music school, wanted to have a college experience. One thing led to another, and the school where he went up in Minneapolis and the twin cities, they kind of made me an offer. I couldn't understand where they. You know I only had to be there two days a week kind of doing a survey of guitar styles, and it was both a written and, you know, musical example type of a situation. And then my son went to school for free and then I was, you know, full time two days a week. It was like I had to do it. So, and this was your drummer son, correct? Yes?

Carl Verheyen: 33:34

Yeah, he's a good musician man.

Greg Koch: 33:36

Oh, thank you, we're, we're having a blast, so he still goes with me everywhere and that that's worked out swimmingly. But that situation at that school was so bizarre because I would get so excited. You know putting this stuff together and you know you go up and you, you know, and I, there was stuff, I and you know you'd go up and you know, and there was stuff I learned that I didn't know before. Like one of the things I found out about when I was doing, like you know, the country blues segment, was that they had this thing about. You know, back in the day people were buying, you know, stella guitars and overtones from the Sears catalog.

Greg Koch: 34:09

Yeah, and that was when parlor guitar was the thing, the Sears catalog, and that was when parlor guitar was the thing, and it was mostly women that played parlor guitars, like in the late 1800s, early 1900s, and so they would learn these songs in open tunings like Sevastopol and Spanish Flandango or whatever it was, and so they would have that sheet music in the guitars that they were sold. So the thought was is that these people down in the plantations and the blues folk when they got these guitars, they would open them up and there was this thing of tune your guitar to this open chord. And then they took their glass bottles and started doing it. So because we're like, you know what I mean. So I was like I never even knew that.

Carl Verheyen: 34:51

Yeah, and I never thought of it that way either. So that's probably where a lot of the open tunings came from, exactly. You didn't need fingerings, you just need to bar it. Basically, exactly, finger or fly.

Greg Koch: 35:00

I was all excited they were telling these kids that and they're looking at me and like drool is coming out of the side of their mouth and I and then you know, and then remember, one day I went in and I made them write, you know, and I didn't make them write much.

Greg Koch: 35:15

I was like, just do a single page paper on what this, on what you learned or what you know of this particular segment, of whatever we were on at the time, and they came in and none of them had done the work and these are all like upperclassmen, and there was only like a dozen of them in the class and I remember just saying to him I go, guys.

Greg Koch: 35:33

I don't know if you understand it, but this business is almost impossible to succeed in under the best of circumstances, and none of you motherfuckers are the best of circumstances yeah, yeah, and none of you guys are going to succeed.

Carl Verheyen: 35:46

Yeah, yeah, oh man, I remember this one student came in and he had a Telecaster that was done with total flames, you know, like he'd had it painted with these, you know, like on a hot rod, those kinds of flames, and then his arms had the same flames and his hat you know everything, his whole branding was together Couldn't play a note. The guy was awful, he couldn't, he couldn't play a C chord, you know. So it's like he got everything together except for oh yeah, I better learn to play too.

Greg Koch: 36:16

Yeah, and then, and then you're, you're sitting there and you're like and then you do the private lesson thing, and you're with this person that you know saved up money to go to this school, and you're just like, oh my God, you don't know how to play.

Greg Koch: 36:28

And I remember I was talking to somebody who was teaching at Berkeley, at the time and I said, guys, I just I'm not, I'm not okay with this. You know they're paying all this money to go to this school and it's yeah, it's my job to kind of perpetuate the delusion, you know Right right, you're an enabler, exactly and what you are?

Greg Koch: 36:50

He said something very interesting he goes. You know, I had the same problem and then a guy that had been teaching there for longer than he had said look, he goes, we're all here, and all those other students that really can't play, they're all here so that the one or two that actually have a chance can get their stuff.

Carl Verheyen: 37:09

Yeah right, oh, I see what you're saying. In other words, everybody needs to pay tuition to launch these two guys.

Greg Koch: 37:14

Exactly.

Carl Verheyen: 37:16

You need a village to make two guys get out of here who actually have a chance.

Greg Koch: 37:20

Yeah, yeah. We interrupt this regularly scheduled Gristle Infested conversation to give a special shout out to our friends at Fishman Transducers, makers of the Greg Koch Signature Fluence Gristle Tone Pickup Set Can you dig that? And our friends at Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, Colorado, bringing the heat in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.

Carl Verheyen: 37:48

So I went to Berklee and, yeah, there wasn't anybody. The summer session there wasn't anybody any good. But four doors down from my little basement apartment was Pat Matheny, Jocko and Bob Moses nightly. Oh good God, five nighter for two weeks. Then they take a week off, then they come back and do it again. And Jocko was flying up from Florida and Pat, you know, I sat down and hung with those guys, talked to them and when I first sat down with Jocko at a table I said, man, you just play so amazing, just so different. You're bass playing. Where are you coming from, man? I mean, where are you thinking? And he goes. I come from Florida, man. I listen to a lot of the Island Cats, I listen to James Brown. I was on the road with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and I'm doing this and he goes. And then Bobby Columby, from Blood, sweat and Tears, marched me into Epic Records. We went to the top floor. He said play a little amp, play the bass for the guy. And he got me a record deal.

Carl Verheyen: 38:46

And my record's coming out Hancock, I'm going to have Sam and Dave. Hubert Laws and he's just a guy in a bar, you know, power rapping at me and I'm thinking, yeah, right, I don't know about this. Yeah, Three months later there's that Jocko album with Herbie Hancock and Sam and Dave. I'm going dude, this is so cool.

Greg Koch: 39:08

Yeah, that's wild.

Carl Verheyen: 39:10

Yeah, that is wild, what a life man. So yeah, that semester at Berkeley, the thing I learned, the one thing I learned, and this is a good little thing to be putting out there there was a harmony class, day one, and the guy writes the C major scale on the blackboard. You know C, d, e, f, g, a, b, c. So he goes. Now you've all heard of the one, four, five chord. Everybody goes. Yeah, he goes. Okay, every chord can be harmonized. There's a two chord, it's a D minor, there's a three chord, it's an E minor. So he stacks them up and shows us you know, the minor minor, seventh major, seventh, G7, the harmonized scale. Then he goes your homework, get yourself that. Well.

Carl Verheyen: 39:58

Then he said this is no flats. The first one is F, one flat, then two flats, then three flats, four flats, and then you start with five sharps and go four sharps, three sharps, two sharps, one sharp, nothing. You're back the circle of fifths or fourths. In that case, get yourself some 12-stave music paper and write out all 12 keys and harmonize all 12 keys by tomorrow. So smart-ass Verheyen in the back row goes excuse me, why do we need to do that? Isn't the sixth chord always going to be a minor and he goes. Okay, what's the sixth chord in B flat? And of course I had to go. Let's see b flat c and he, you know I had to count up to the g and I'm going to be fine and he goes and you should instantly know it's a g minor seven and you should know that the g minor seventh is the two in f and it's the, it's the three and e flat and you know's so and it's the sixth in you know.

Carl Verheyen: 40:53

So he was just like it was an amazing, like revelation. And then many, many years later well, actually, probably only about four years later I had a gig in Laguna beach playing this club called the white house, and it was a jazz club, excuse me. And my band played four nights a week. And it was a jazz club, excuse me. And my band played four nights a week. And then they had a big name act like Larry Carlton or Dizzy Gillespie or Carmen McRae or or I remember the, the Jazz Crusaders. They had them come in the weekend Friday, saturday, sunday, so one weekend it's going to be Joe pass, solo guitar. So of course I live there, cause I could. I could play four nights a week, eat there and then get in free the other three nights, right, if I dug the band.

Carl Verheyen: 41:41

So I'm there in the front row watching Joe pass, and after the show I said, is it? I said, joe, I know, I know you're staying at the Ben Brown's motor hotel. Can I come by tomorrow and get a guitar lesson from you? I'm a serious student of the guitar. I'll pay you anything you want. He goes yeah, 50 bucks, 10 o'clock. I mean this is back in the 70s, right? So I got 50 bucks. I am there at five minutes to 10 with my Gibson 175.

Carl Verheyen: 42:14

And I walk around the corner and there's Joe with his two sons and they all have fishing poles and they're heading to the beach across the street Right. So he sees me and he goes ah, for Christ's sake, I got to teach this guy boys. And I go Joe, I'll come back at three, I'll come back tomorrow, we don't have to do it, no problem, I'll come up to your pad in LA. And he goes no, come on, you know. So we go into his bungalow. There were little individual bungalows and, oh my God, I mean, there's cigarettes, butts in cereal bowl, milk, you know, squished out. There's pizza from two days ago, there's it's a disaster beds unmade and of course there's the one chair. So I gotta move everything out of the way, sit on the bed.

Carl Verheyen: 42:54

And he goes I'm not really a teacher. Uh, why don't you tell me you know, why don't we play a tune? And you tell me, you know, stop me when there's something you don't know. So I said, okay, how about what's new, which is a tune I knew and that he played, played the night last night. So he goes okay, what key? And I go C, of course the key it's in he goes listen, if I know a tune in one key, I know it in all 12 keys and that's the one thing I learned, because every five minutes was, dad, can we go play?

Carl Verheyen: 43:27

I think I bailed after about 45 minutes but I reflected on that and it's like you know he can play somewhere over the rainbow in B or E flat or A flat. You know his brain works that way and you know it was a really interesting thing, kind of tied in with the Berklee thing of knowing your harmony To this day. I really love to analyze Paul Simon songs, elton John songs, brian Wilson tunes and analyze like wow, that was so hip, how he got back to the one chord after this bridge that went up a minor third. And then you realize, like you know, a lot of the stuff McCartney and Lennon were doing was, you know, same stuff that Jerome Kern and Cole Porter and those dudes were doing a few, few decades earlier. You know those modulations for the middle eight and stuff.

Greg Koch: 44:22

So so when you were getting into jazz and and doing more jazz gigs, what was your prioritizing of? Of learning standards by heart, cause this is one of the things where, you know, I went to school for for music and it was technically uh uh, you know, for jazz, but I at the time, especially I I just wanted to know how to play over changes and I wanted to be literate in terms of being able to write and read music at a, you know, quasi-professional level. But you know, for me what was such a drag is and again, this is this is really on me but a lot of the jazz educators I experienced were the kind that weren't, you know, the guys that were out gigging all the time and were very accepting of all musical styles.

Greg Koch: 45:13

They were more the academics that if you bent a string, you were somewhere between Satan and yeah, you were slapped. Yeah, exactly, and it was like, unless you played like a 175 with flat wound strings and had a polytone amp, you were a dick, you know. Right yeah exactly, and so I was kind of. It wasn't until like a while later that I actually wanted to learn jazz and learn more standards.

Carl Verheyen: 45:39

And I teach people the same thing. I go. You know you're not going to be the next Joe Pass.

Carl Verheyen: 45:44

You're not going to be Wes Montgomery, but you should know how to play over changes. It'll just make you so much more musical, even if all you do is play the blues, you know Right. So I totally agree. And I had the blinders on for a while. And then one day I know exactly where I was the corner of Laurel Canyon and Riverside Drive. I'm driving in my little white station wagon and I'm flipping through the radio station and this Joe Walsh solo comes on. It was in an Eagles tune called those Shoes. Oh yeah, that one that goes Wow, wow, boat, boat. Anyway, his solo. On that I had to pull the car over because I just went.

Carl Verheyen: 46:25

My God, man, the state of rock guitar has come so far since I left off with early Aerosmith and stuff and I think this is amazing. And it felt to me like the heavens open and a beam of light shone upon me that says you must learn everything you dig, whether it's Albert Lee or Albert Collins or Albert King or, uh, bb King or Alvin Lee. I mean I dig, I if. If you dig it, you must learn it, and it, it. It brought me full circle to my youth, to where I wanted to know. You know, all the Dwayne Allman stuff. You know, I wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to have. If I, if I dug it and I enjoyed it because it made me wake up and go, man, I can play 26 choruses on Stella by Starlight, which is cool, but it's really not the music of my people, you know. I mean, I love Chet Atkins. What am I doing here, you know? So I had a real revelation that happened like in an instant to where I went home and said, all right, I'm done with jazz gigs. And that's when the whole studio world opened up to me.

Carl Verheyen: 47:36

I began to, and a perfect example was you know, we're talking about specialists, right? I got a call to play on this record and the guy says country record, I just need you to bring a telecaster and one of your fender amps. And I said, well, you sure it's going to remain country. Should I maybe have my cartage deliver my trunk or whatever? And he goes yeah, go ahead and throw that in. So I get there, and there's another guy there with a telecaster, fender amp, a cowboy hat, the yokes on the shirt, the belt buckle and the boots, right. So the tune starts going and he's playing all the right Tele country stuff and the guy goes can it rock a little bit more? This is a little bit too old-fashioned. So I just put my Tele down and got a Strat and put a little hair on it and he goes yeah, that's the direction, and let's even more.

Carl Verheyen: 48:25

Pretty soon it was les paul with crunch chords and we cut, we cut. You know a pretty rockin version, you know, like that you might hear on a keith urban record or something, right, so the next day. So they called me back for tomorrow, next day, the guy with a hat gone. It's because he was a specialist and that's all he could do, right, you know? So that that you know you're a player that can play all styles of music. You can play country and blues and rock and all kinds of stuff, and that's why you, you make a living. You know, if you are just, you know who's, there's guys that you know really think they're going to be the next Stevie Ray Vaughan. But man, that guy is once in a generation, right, you know, once in a lifetime we're not going to see another Stevie Ray Vaughan come out of the woodwork. I don't think. Right, you know there hasn't been one yet. That is a fact. He's been gone a while, he's been gone a while.

Greg Koch: 49:23

Yeah, but I don't know about you, but my parents were, you know. I've told this story a million times on this podcast. But you know my dad was a lawyer and they were supportive of me getting into music. But when I decided to do it for my living you know they were they talked to every teacher. Anyone who was older than I was that had any kind of influence on me. They said would you please persuade him not to do this for a living? So I had to talk to you.

Greg Koch: 49:52

My dad, you know, had instilled in me, like, well, if you're going to do this thing, you better be the best that you possibly can, or else you're going to be working at a car wash. Not that there's anything wrong with working at a car wash, but, um know, and so I think that was one of the reasons. I mean I had the. But to your point earlier. It's like everything I dug I wanted to learn and there was a. Everything led somewhere. You know it's like if I I really loved, you know, creamier or Clapton and Hendrix, and then I read well, who is Albert, who is this Albert King guy and who's this Albert King guy, and who's Muddy Waters and who's BB King and who's Otis Rush, and so I got into that. And then, by the same token, I would see oh well, there's George Benson and Grant Green, and Charlie.

Greg Koch: 50:33

Christian and Wes McGarrett, okay. And then when I heard Albert Lee playing with Eric Clapton, on that Just One Night live record.

Carl Verheyen: 50:43

I'm like what is this?

Greg Koch: 50:43

That's not the blue scale, you know. So I just went to all these different places, and because I loved it, but also because I thought again that I better be the best I could possibly be so that if I get caught up on Well, you know, there's a.

Carl Verheyen: 50:58

There's the word ego, right, and the good sense of the word ego for me is if I hear somebody doing something, I can't do my brain inside I don't, this is not the outside talking inside I go, I'm for high and damn it, I gotta know that shit, right, I'm not gonna let this guy know something I can't play, you know, right. So so the ego takes over and it's like I gotta know that if I dig it, of course, right, exactly. So um, there's some guys that are gonna be like, like my buddy, guthrie Govan. I've done a bunch of. That guy has tapping down to a level that cause I gave up on it in the eighties. I went, you know, I don't really like the sound and I don't really like the melodic thing that it does. It's basically calisthenic thing. He does it so well. I thought, man, I should get into that again. And then I tried it and I went nah, I'm the same way, you know, it's like yeah, the the tapping thing.

Greg Koch: 51:54

You you've you said it very well it's like it does a. I mean, the thing I love and I know you're the same way that we love about the guitar is the fact that the way that you articulate with your, your hands, it's your hands on the strings, in terms of bends and phrasing and and vibrato and all that different kind of stuff, versus actually just tap. With the tapping, yeah, you can get some different cool intervals and you can do things that you can't do with one hand, but it doesn't have the same emotive quality as that greasier shit. You know? Yeah, exactly yeah.

Carl Verheyen: 52:30

You know, I mean, and so, yeah, every single one of us can sound completely different. You know, that's what the beauty of the guitar is, and just the way you touch strings Right and your pick, or, if you're like Jeff Beck, the way you use your fingers and the volume knob and the wang bar. You know, it's so amazing how there's just a universe of different possibilities. Totally, yeah, you know so. So that's one of the that's one of the things.

Carl Verheyen: 52:58

Now, I know some incredible piano players and there's, you know, in the studio. I'll go up to one of them. Go, just play me a G chord, bam, and this guy will sound completely different than that guy on the same piano. So, but it's a lot more of a subtle thing. You know, like, like, there's a Nashville guy actually he's retired now a guy named John Hobbs. I used to do a ton of sessions in LA with him and, uh, you know he was tight with Brent Mason and all those guys and produced a lot. His G chord sounded completely different than my buddy Jim Cox or Mike Langer, some of the studio guys out here. It was really, really a revelation. Now, on guitar, you know the difference between your touch and my touch is huge to tell the difference, you know. But piano is another world, man, another thing. Anyway, yeah.

Greg Koch: 53:48

Gosh, what a life. Huh, Absolutely. So, what's next on the docket? What's your? What's the rest of your year looking like here?

Carl Verheyen: 53:55

Well, we mentioned Albert Lee. He and I have we're doing the Ullapool Guitar Festival together in Ullapool, Scotland, and it will be my fourth time there. Oh nice, I've done it solo once, once with my band, once with John Jorgensen. Okay, and Albert and I are doing it this year, and then, believe it or not, my band has been offered to play a festival at CERN. Oh nice, you know the Large Hadron Collider.

Greg Koch: 54:26

Yes, yeah.

Carl Verheyen: 54:27

So we've been asked to play their 70th anniversary festival, so we're flying over for that one gig, which will be a trip That'll be awesome.

Greg Koch: 54:34

Yeah.

Carl Verheyen: 54:36

You know, hey, can I leave with a lovely parting gift of a Higgs boson particle, a God particle, can I have one of those? And uh, you know just a few more little things. No more tours, just a few handful around town type things. So but, um, yeah, there's, there's a club down south, the belly up, we're gonna do that, and you know just a handful of things. And then I always do the the bakersfield fundraiser. This year my special guest is elliot easton.

Greg Koch: 55:07

Oh nice I love elliot's a good dude and I was such a huge cars fan back in the day.

Carl Verheyen: 55:13

Oh man, I'm so glad to hear that you know, because that you were a fan, because me too that stuff is killer so awesome, and his tones are so awesome.

Greg Koch: 55:22

Yeah, one of the first bands I played in we did a bunch of bunch of those cars songs, you know, and you know being a lefty girl.

Carl Verheyen: 55:30

Yeah, yeah, like best friend's girl. You know that little, that little rockabilly thing, that little car from the Beatles, yeah, and you know I watched him do it and I go, wow, you finger that completely different than the way I had it worked out. Yeah, so, uh, so he, yeah, he's a cool guy.

Greg Koch: 55:46

Cause, you know, being a lefty.

Carl Verheyen: 55:48

He never had any really great instruments, you know, he just had to get what he could get. Right, that was obviously a Gretsch, you know, a lefty Gretsch he was playing on. So so we're going to do four cars tunes and he's going to sit in on some of our our stuff with him so awesome, but our stuff with him.

Greg Koch: 56:03

Awesome, that'll be a blast.

Carl Verheyen: 56:04

But, man, you know I'm going to talk the guy into having you do it one of these years. Oh I'd love to.

Greg Koch: 56:09

That'd be great.

Carl Verheyen: 56:09

Albert's done it twice, jorgensen's done it, buddy of mine, lawrence Juber's done it.

Greg Koch: 56:14

Oh yeah, I know Lawrence, yep, yeah, and then I told Lawrence I was that's a nice record. Yeah, that was because you know there was that um that rock for Campuchia concert.

Carl Verheyen: 56:27

Remember that yeah.

Greg Koch: 56:28

I think it was like the last time Bonham actually played Well, one of the last times he played live.

Carl Verheyen: 56:33

but and then the plan singing with.

Greg Koch: 56:35

Uh sat in with rock pile and the who played yeah, but then McCartney played and that was Lawrence and they did you know coming up and all those tunes and I love that record.

Carl Verheyen: 56:45

Yeah, yeah, you know speaking of the who, um, I'll tell you a really funny quick story of super tramp did. Uh, we'd always do a week at the Albert hall, right, and we do a week there instead of one year. We did hide part for 20,000 people, but we did. And one year we did the O2 arena, but many of the tours we just did five days and one of the early tours that was the Prince's Trust concert.

Greg Koch: 57:11

Oh yeah, I remember those.

Carl Verheyen: 57:11

Yeah, remember those. So it's you. So Lady Di and Prince Charles are. We have to have a royal etiquette lesson in the afternoon, and then they come and we have a meet and greet, and so she comes by me and goes. So, carl William Verheyen, what was it like growing up in Pasadena, california, and learning to play the lead guitar? You've done all this homework right. So I said well, I learned rhythm too. Anyway, she kind of moves on.

Carl Verheyen: 57:46

He comes along, and I had read in the London Times that his 50th birthday they had baked him a sheet cake in Houston, texas, the size of a basketball court, a gigantic cake. And you know, I know I'm not supposed to say anything or reach to him or anything, but you know, he, he, he's, he's asked me how I'm doing or whatever, and I go. I just have one question what was it like with that giant sheet cake? So he puts on this Cockney accent and goes well, I wanted to put on me knickers and wait out into the middle of it, you know. And I go oh man, with the frosting between your toes, and you know that'd be so cool. He kind of had a little humor, hang right.

Carl Verheyen: 58:22

So, then the doors open and we go into these royal cocktail lounge room and we're all giving champagne and he comes to me and he's a close talker. He's like in my face, right. But I'm kind of leaning back and I noticed that david gilmore is here, roger daltrey's here, tina turner's here, brian adams is here. That's all the spotters I could get, right, right, and he's talking to me and I'm thinking to myself you may be the future king of England, but that guy's in the who. I got to lose this guy, you know. So I grabbed our champagne, I go, I'll get us some more, and I went and put them down and went over and talked to Daltrey for a while. It was really funny, really good that is humorous.

Greg Koch: 59:15

What did Roger Daltrey have to say?

Carl Verheyen: 59:17

Well, you know, he hired me for a TV show on the BBC. He said are you available next week for rehearsal? And the tunes are Won. Are you available next, you know, next week for rehearsal and the tunes are, won't get fooled again. My new single and substitute, nice, I'm going, buddy, I already know those tunes, I am so ready. And he goes well, we'll have to work out your work pyramid, cause this was going to be the last tour. The last gigs on the tour Got it and work permit ended right, so they couldn't get it together. Oh, couldn't get it together. I did make one rehearsal, you know, which was really fun, playing those tunes with him. Oh yeah, yeah. He kind of was phoning it in on the rehearsal, not really going for it, but I still. It was like you're the guy that sang substitute.

Carl Verheyen: 1:00:04

Yeah, that's so wild, I know, man, what a life absolutely lately I've been playing with this guy with stewart copeland, oh cool, yeah, doing his thing called police deranged for orchestra, cool, which he's. Uh, he's a great writer, you know, and he's taken all the old police outtakes and you know things that they taped over and everything and he's put together kind of orchestral versions of the tunes, with me on guitar, armand Sabuleka on bass and him on drums and three female vocalists. Wow, it's really cool, it's really fun. I've only done it about four or five times and I I'm hoping he calls again from from you know his management calls, because you can really tell, like, where the good symphonies are, like seattle killer, you know, quebec city, canada killers and some of the other, some of the other towns. Yeah, these guys are not that good, you know, interesting, yeah, so anyway, but he's a hang, he's a real hang with a lot of stories.

Greg Koch: 1:01:08

Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure he's got quite the story. I was always a big police fan.

Carl Verheyen: 1:01:12

Oh, me too, and playing those tunes. The very first gig I did was in Salt Lake City and it was right after COVID and the orchestra insisted that everybody needed to wear a mask, sure, at rehearsal. And um, this is my very first gig, right? So they put a microphone, stand in front of me and I told, I told the road manager, hey man, I don't do any of the vocals. And he goes, he goes, he goes, just do this, yo, yo, yo yo, and you won't have to wear a mask. So I go, you're on my team. Not that I wouldn't do it.

Carl Verheyen: 1:01:55

If you've got to do it, you've got to do it, that's right I understand, the gig was outside so we didn't have to worry about it, but that guy was like gunning for me Anyway.

Greg Koch: 1:02:07

So Well, listen, my friend. Thanks so much for taking some time to rap with us. It's been absolutely a pleasure. I knew it would be.

Carl Verheyen: 1:02:14

I knew it would be too, and I was really excited to get your call and I'm so glad we just made it happen now.

Greg Koch: 1:02:20

Yes, Well, listen, I'm going to be out. I don't know if you're going to be around on July 21st, but I'm going to be out at Venice West. Oh yeah, yeah, we're playing out there that particular evening, and I think we were in San Diego the night before, but we're definitely there hanging out in Venice, oh man.

Carl Verheyen: 1:02:35

I'll check that out. That may be the weekend, my son's in town, but I could just go. Hey, you want to go to a concert and see if he see, if he uh see if I can see, or just bet, or just. Oh, that's Sunday, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, we dump him at the airport that day. Awesome. And you know what?

Greg Koch: 1:02:54

I've never played there, so I'd love to go check it out. Yeah, it's a cool joint. We stay with this couple. It was really nice. Couple puts us up in Venice beach it's like two blocks away from there and we hang out there.

Carl Verheyen: 1:03:02

Venice is a trip, yeah, and then are you around that next day. Let's see, are you hitting the road.

Greg Koch: 1:03:10

The 22nd the 22nd, I think we're playing in San Diego. Oh, you're going south? Yeah, but then we come back north again.

Carl Verheyen: 1:03:21

Because I live in Topanga Canyon and that is literally, you know, 20, 25 minutes from Venice Beach. You would take PCH Pacific Coast Highway up, hang a ride on Topanga and you're at my pad. So maybe a breakfast at Verheyen's before hitting the beach.

Greg Koch: 1:03:35

Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah, the 22nd we're in San Diego, but the 23rd is just a travel day for us.

Carl Verheyen: 1:03:42

Oh, do you come back up? Yeah, we're going up to felton and then berkeley oh, you're doing that, felton gig.

Greg Koch: 1:03:48

I love that one.

Carl Verheyen: 1:03:49

That's a good time that's a great sounding room. Yeah, yeah, that's one of those old dance halls, right? So it's got a ceiling, like uh, like the old uh. See, we play yoshis and they've got a 100 mile radius clause, yeah yeah so we sold it out on a tuesday last week, which was nice.

Greg Koch: 1:04:06

What's the capacity of that, of that joint, I think two something.

Carl Verheyen: 1:04:10

Um my, my drummer is, uh, from oakland, so he he rallies some troops and we get it going.

Greg Koch: 1:04:17

So because we've done, you know, we do felton, and then we we've done sweetwater up there and um, yeah, and you know where I'm talking about.

Carl Verheyen: 1:04:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done that one We've done.

Greg Koch: 1:04:30

But we usually go with this place in Berkeley called the Cornerstone Brewery and that's a cool room, so we're doing that one again.

Carl Verheyen: 1:04:38

Yeah. So all that stuff is in this range of the Yoshi's thing and I actually have Jeff Ogg, my agent book. That for me Okay, cool, you know, and we stay a walking distance away from it. But yeah, cool man, hey.

Greg Koch: 1:04:53

I'm sure none of this matters to any of the people on your podcast. Oh no, they enjoy it. They enjoy listening to this stuff, Us talking. You're in the trails.

Carl Verheyen: 1:04:58

Yeah, yeah, all right, we're going to hang. We're going to hang either the 22nd for breakfast or the 23rd on your way back up. I'm in.

Greg Koch: 1:05:04

That sounds good. I'll be in touch. All right, sounds good. Thanks again. Thanks so much. We'll talk to you soon. All right, take care. Thank you so much, folks for tuning in. Special thank you to Wildwood Guitars of Louisville, colorado, and the mighty Fishman Transducers for making this podcast possible. If you enjoyed yourself, ladies and gentlemen, please subscribe and review so that people can get the word out that this is worth experiencing. Can you dig it? Thanks again, we'll see you soon, or you'll hear me soon. We'll see you next time.