Good to see you, man. You're too Jimmy. Yeah. Good to see everybody. You're Jimmy. Yeah. Yeah, you're too Jimmy. I think we're joining us on the Metal Voice, Jimmy. All right. To the great guys right here. Live streaming right now. Hold on. I'm getting some audio problems. Hold on. Fixing. Okay. Good. Done. All right. Streaming on the Metal Voice today. Oh yeah. Two of my favorite guys here. God, of course. This is like Canada, Greece, and the USA. So we got Gus in Greece, of course, his new album, Quantum Leap. We're going to be talking about that today. Thanks, guys, for joining. And of course, my pal, Todd LaTorre, all the way in Florida. Look at that beautiful Florida weather. Look at that. Oh, man. Looks nice. Yeah, yeah. Can we come over, Todd? Anytime. All right. So it's nice that we're doing this today. It's the album was released October 8th, right? And this is one of your first instrumental albums. It's called Quantum Leap on AFM Records. My first instrumental. Yeah, your first. Not your first solo album, but your first instrumental album. Yeah. Correct.  Everybody feel free to throw out questions. Todd, feel free to throw out stories. Oh yeah. There's a few. Let's mix it up. All right. So let's just start off. Why an instrumental album? Right off the bat. Get things going. First of all, I just said that before we went live, but it's really good to see you guys, both of you. Thanks for having me over. Thanks, Todd, for waking up early to join us. I go, I go is Todd going to wake up on time. But he was pretty good. He was good. He was good. Yes. And it was the Greek who was late. That was the Greek who was late. Yeah, it was me. Oh, yeah.  That was the last tour, at least that we did. I know you guys have been playing some gigs lately. But this was the last thing that Firewind did before pandemic, the tour opening for Queensrack. So that was like the last thing, you know, the last thing I saw on the road was, you know, Todd and Queensrack and us. And so, yeah, it's good to connect again. Big time. Yeah, man. So anyways, yeah. Well, what was it about the album, right?  So I was like, well, we're going to be up here for a while. I mean, I could feel I could sense that we were going to be locked up here for for a little bit, at least a year. So I started putting down ideas and pretty quickly, I was like, well, this is a time to really do an instrumental project, a guitar project, like, because I've done instrumental songs before, but not like as a full album type of thing. I've never had the time to really dive into it properly. So now I had all the time of the world to think about it, to do all my demos to because it's different, man. Like when you're writing with a singer, like when you kind of bounce off each other and you feel that everybody, you know, puts their thing there. But when, when it's just you and you're doing, you're doing just instrumental and then the guitar has to take up that space that the vocals occupy normally. So you have to think a little bit different. It does. The songs, as I'm listening to them, have great, what I hear, vocal melodies. So you've got your main melodies, then you get into your solos, which are still melodic, and you leave space to have the vocal, like a melodic lead, that's that hook, right? Yeah. And then you do it into your solos, and then it goes back into what would be like a vocal part, but it's on guitar and it sounds, you did an awesome job. I'm like, wow, I wish I would have wrote that vocal melody or that melody because they're great. Thanks. I mean, I guess that's, I'm kind of used to that as well because I've been working with singers all my life. And so I think like that it has to have like a musical meaning. It's not, I, the last thing I wanted to do was to put out a record that is like an endless guitar solo. Yeah.  Like we've had too many of those around. They're, they're boring to me and I'm a guitar player.  So I went back and listened to a lot of that and get inspired. And I also thought like, well, yeah, we need melodies. We need the hooks. You know, wow, what would a singer do here? You know, so I let the guitar be the voice. But like when you have a song where if you muted the vocal, like almost a vocal guide with, but with, with the phrasings and not just a very linear thing, but you're, you know, all of the bendings, all of the things that the characteristics that go into like how a vocal would move, you're doing on guitar.  You know, you have to be, you have to think as a songwriter, not necessarily as a guitar player, you're writing songs. You're right. And then, and actually, I have to say, this is what I actually learned from this album, doing this, like I had to, like, like you said, learn how to do these little things here and there and develop the melody, not just like play the notes. Right. Like, how do you do those little things and build it up?  You will do some alterations on the second time around. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.  Be honest, I'm being honest. I go, I got to sit through an instrumental album. I feel the same thing. Right? Right? No, no, but, but then when I put it on, and I actually listen to it, it's to both of your points that it was pretty enjoyable, you know? And cause to what Todd's saying, to what you're saying, the guitar is sort of replacing the vocals. So it kind of feels like it's a song in itself, right? It's not that it's not like I'm listening to Mozart's, you know, Seventh Symphony or whatever it is. Yeah, it was enjoyable. I got to say, and the production is stellar too, man. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's Dennis Ward right there, you know, during the mixing and mastering. And he played bass too. Todd, I don't, I'm not sure if you know, I don't think you definitely have a name. I don't know who, if you know who Dennis Ward is. I don't, I'm sorry. He's a, he's a, he's American actually, but he lives in Germany for, I think, 25, 30 years. Okay. And yeah, he, he, he was the bass player of a band called Ping Cream 69. I remember them. Yeah, from the 90s and another band with Michael Kiske called Unisonic. Okay. And, and he's, you know, he's like an all-around guy.  He can sing great. He's a great bass player. He's a great songwriter, and he also mixes and stuff. So, so we work together a lot. He helped me co-produce. So, so did you go, at any time did you leave, probably didn't leave Greece. It was all, okay. So, so, so, did you do drum programming to lay the bed, the framework down, and then did you send tracks to Will? Because I see that Will is credited. No, Will, Will played on the previous album. There was another guy. Oh, I thought that he played, okay. So what, what was this one? A guy called Vincent Velasco. He's a British guy. Okay. It's kind of a funny story. So what, exactly what you just said, what happened was I knew I couldn't leave the country. I couldn't go in the studio and work with somebody. So I program everything. I always do that. Anyways, you know, I use, I have my home studio set up. So I program everything. I always do like nice sounding demos, you know, with drum programming. I play the bass and guitars and everything. So I did everything. I thought, well, this time this is going to be like a hundred percent me, like no outside collaborators in some stuck here. Let's just do this, you know, and so this, this, this drummer that I didn't know of, he contacts me at some point and he says, dude, I saw something on social media that you're doing an instrumental record. If you need a drummer, and he sends me some links and he's incredible. Wow. He plays with a prog band called Pendragon. Okay. And originally I thought I was blown, I was blown away and I was like, well, thanks, man. But, you know, since we cannot go to a studio, I don't think I can, I'm probably going to do this with a drum machine. My original idea was to use the drum. Program everything. Yeah. Yeah. And then I thought about it.  Like you have a great drummer who's offering his services and you're like, nah. So I went back to him and I'm like, hey, you know, I shouldn't have said that. So can you maybe, so like maybe we can, he said, do you have, how can we record this? Because how are we going to do this? And he's like, well, I have my own studio setup so he could record, engineer everything and just hand us the tracks. Perfect. And yeah, I mean, it was pretty obvious that this was a guy for the gig. And pause right there, pause right there guys. Pause right there. I'm going to throw out a question here for both of you. Gus, Spana Copita or Tirapita? Same with Todd. This is Michael. This is Michael. He's saying his wife, his Greek wife asks, what is your preference, please? Me? Yes, you. Just pick one or the other. Spana Copita or Tirapita? You know, there's a, there's a, they make them together as well, half and half. Oh, they do havers. Todd, what about you? I don't, I don't know what the second one is. Spinach pie or cheese pie, so little, those little cheese puffs there. I would pick a cheese pie because I don't like spinach. Your wife never makes that? No, because I don't eat spinach. Really? Yeah. This is a good way to eat spinach.   Sure. What about you guys? Spinach or cheese? Or I guess you like both? I like both. You know, I have different preferences, preferences every, depending on the day. I mean, usually I will go for cheese, but every now and then I like spinach pie and then my grandma used to make half and half and I love that because I was like, ah, my mom makes it from scratch, like scratch, literally from scratch. She knows how to make the filo as well.  And yeah, that's, that's the, that's the apparently, I don't know how to cook, but apparently that's where the secret of the great cheese pie or spinach pie is the filo, you know, how they open that and how they make it. Yeah, my wife knows how to make that stuff. We just got another, I swear it was like 30 kilos of feta and, uh, okay. Now I have to say this story now. Hold on. Hold on. I got a plane flying overhead. Sorry. Yeah. Hey, be quiet guys. We're hanging out. I know. I got, I got Gus G. What's the matter with you? Gus G airplane passing over. This new album, Quantum Leap. Yeah. Um, okay.  So for those of you who don't know, we're not Greek, that's what they are. That's what we're talking about. Just giving some context. Go. When we were on the tour with Queen's ride two years ago and then I think it was the first day or second day of the tour, something like that. It was in Athens. I think I know what you're gonna say. No, no, no, no, wait, no. We didn't, we didn't do Greece with you. We did the, no, when the tour first started, you came on our bus and you're like, Hey guys, check this out. And he shows up with olives. Like I brought this, I brought this. This is from Greece. I'm like, okay, we're like, and then he brings like this big like chunk of feta cheese, puts it on a table. I gave you a, like a brick of the feta. It's like the Thoni, I think, or I don't remember. But anyway, and then my in-laws have tons of property in Sparta and they have olive trees. They have tons of property with olive tree. That's pretty cool. Before this is done, after your thing, I'll show you, Jimmy, I swear to God, these green olives, we have black green and then we got another tub of these olives. But yeah, I would say, Gus, come on, come on our bus. He's like, you know, dude, I feel bad. I don't want to take your stuff.  And so we had feta for almost the whole tour. Oh yeah. And I remember like, my tech, Jimmy, and I remember him going, well, that's strange. I would have never thought that a guy from America would just walk in and give us like the best olives from Greece. Best feta cheese ever. Like that's weird. Why is it like that? So we were just like shaking our hand, but it was delicious, man. Thanks. Yeah.  Like, dude, come hang with us, sleep on our bus. And we had available bunks and everything.  Okay, you know, so yeah. Like in North America, you know, Greek food is sort of prominent on the East Coast, more so in the West Coast, more so than the middle of the US or North America, because it tends to be more of a population there, you know, on the sides, less in the middle of the US. Not to say that it doesn't exist, but I'm just saying that you go to New York, Toronto, Montreal, the huge Greek populations and maybe because when Greeks first, like the immigrants of the 50s or 60s first landed there, so they stayed there and they... The problem is you're not getting real. You're not getting like, it'll say feta. It's a type of, it's a white cheese. It's like not, it's rarely real feta. It's just they call it feta. And then, you know, of course in America, they put potato salad in it and there's lettuce and that's, they don't do that. As we all know, they don't do that there. So you know, maybe a little onion maybe, but cucumber, tomato, olives, feta, olive oil, salt, pepper, that's it. That's the way it should be. But getting...  Same with Greece anyway. Hey Gus, I got a question. So obviously you could have played bass on your record. And was it because this engineer, or actually you kind of engineered it with him, but the guy that mixed and mastered since he plays bass, where you're just like, you know what, I think a bass player is going to do some things that only a bass player would do, not a guitar player, because there are guitar players that can play bass very convincingly where you don't go, oh, that sounds like a guitar player playing bass. It was that kind of your approach. It was exactly that, actually. Yeah, because I think, you know, Dennis, he's just a great bass player and he has great tone. I said, yeah, just do your version of it. I think in the end, he, I think he kept my bass tracks on a couple of songs because he thought that he couldn't do anything much with it. Yeah, yeah, he said, yeah, this is great as it is. I think he kept it on a couple of tracks, but the rest, he did it. Yeah. Right. And you produced, you self-produced it? Yeah, because, you know, I mean... You know what you want? Yeah, whenever I go into a project, I pretty much know already by that time, because I do pre-production demos, so I know how it's going, I want it to sound like, I know what I want. It's not like, I'm not going to go into a production experimenting as much.  The beauty of having it as your own baby is you're in the driver's seat and you've been to the mountaintop. I mean, you've recorded and done the things with Ozzie. You've done a successful band of Firewind. You've collaborated with some of the greatest people out there and you're one of them. So you know from an arrangement perspective what, and of course everything's subjective, but you know what you want to hear and when something becomes redundant that you would shave it down or omit it or whatever.  It's my record. You're right, yeah. I had that feeling on the first record. Like usually, like I said, it's still my band, but everybody shares their opinion and they'd say, hey, maybe not this, like this, and then we'll discuss it and blah, blah, blah, and sometimes this is not such a good thing, but that's a different story. But you know, when I finished my first solo record, that was like, I don't know, that I did six years ago or seven years ago. I remember I was in the studio with the engineer and whenever we're done, he just looks at me and goes, so that's it. We're done. And I said, I look around and I'm like, well, there's nobody else to ask here. So I guess we're done.   So it's, yeah. All right. Gus, let me just ask this, Todd. Gus, for someone who's never heard it, discuss the different genres of, I guess it would be metal in each song. Like, I mean, there's different genres. There's the blues, there's power, power metal. I mean, maybe you want to just talk to that a little bit. Sorry. You mean on the record? Yeah. The thing is, it's like, also with another thing that you can get to do while doing an instrumental record, at least I felt that, because I didn't have to worry as much about, okay, if I'm collaborating with different singers, you're thinking, okay, what is this guy going to sound like over this song or I'm doing this with somebody else, blah, blah, blah, but at least, you know, when you're doing like the instrumental thing, you can branch out a little bit. So I have like a song that's synth waves. It's just like 80s kind of synthy kind of things. And there's like a bluesier track on there. There's a couple of metal songs. It's Night Driver, right? Night Driver, yeah. Yeah. And you have so many, you have so many, I don't know, I guess I'll just say tricks, you have so much in your arsenal that if a song starts to go a direction, it's not like, oh, this guy just shreds neoclassical stuff. It's like, no, no, no. There's blues riffs in here. There's like finger tapping. There's sweet picking. There's, you know, all of the different kind of things that you're able to pull in and make it more colorful. But it was interesting also to try and write in that style as well, to write something bluesier that's, hey, I can turn down the gain on this song. There's a song called Enigma of Life. So turn down the gain and I play, you know, more Gary Moore rather than Ingrid. So yeah. And it's kind of cool. A solo record can allow you to do that. I mean, I'm not saying I can do all styles because I can't. I cannot play jazz and I cannot play a lot of other things, but it's cool to try and branch out a little bit and try it out at least and bring in some influences from other styles that, because we all have, we all love other stuff outside metal, you know, so we, we are our backgrounds and our influences and the things that inspire us. I got a question for you. So did you mic your cabinets? You play Black Star? I do, but you know, on this record, I did everything without amps. Yeah. Did you use plugins or do you use a Kemper or what'd you do? Plug-ins on the whole record. Dennis, yeah. Dennis re-amped all the rhythms later. He re-amped through an EVH 5150, I think. But all the lead tones and the cleans and all those things, they're plugins, man.  That normally distortion and reverb and delays can kind of smooth out, right?  One of the cleanest guitar players I've ever heard. And I would imagine, I'm wondering if when you went through and listened again, you listened dry and went, okay, I'm gonna redo this part because I'm hearing a little something, even though once it runs through the plugin, it goes away. I don't know, do you think that you microscopeed? You're playing a little bit more because it wasn't, you know, obviously when you're tracking, well, let me ask you this, when you're tracking to make it more fun, you're having to go through the plugin to have that lead sound because it makes it more fun, right? Yeah, of course, yeah. But when you go back and maybe you listen to something and you bypass the plugin and you hear just the clean playing, where there are times where you might have redone a part that because you had the in the DI track that you wouldn't have done on, say, a previous recording. Yeah, I did that actually, yeah. And I always do that especially with the rhythm tracks because I don't mind if it's a little bit dirty on the lead sometimes because that's more rock and roll. Right, right. So, but when you do, when you track rhythms and, you know, when you're doing two or three or sometimes quadruple rhythm tracks, two left, two right, that's when I go back and listen to the DI's like I do like a proof listening with distortion and then with just the DI, which sounds kind of funny, but, you know, you have to go back and listen to that. Yeah, yeah. Well, plus, like you say, when you have four rhythms, you know, I'm not a good guitar player, but one of the things that I'm trying to figure out how to do better is when I'm playing rhythm, rhythm thing, how do I get rid of the, the little finger, the sliding noise. Sliding the, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if that's a, if you're using a gate to eliminate that or that's just in the player's hands. It's in the, it's in, for me, it's in like, if I, I've learned at least from back in the day when I was tracking, I remember Frederick Nordstrom in Sweden, he taught me that.  The transitions are clean. Yeah, like if you hear too much, this squeaking noise, just go back and redo it. So I learned like that way of, that's what I need to practice then because there's times where it's like, it's a quick movement. And it's like, well, how, how am I making that slide without sliding on the strings? Maybe you have to program yourself to pick your fingers up off the string instead of gliding it. You know, anyway, I was curious about that. No, no, you have to think about that. You're right about that. You know, it's because if it's too much on, on a couple of tracks, then it can sound like really loud. Yeah.  And these are things that only we can hear, but these artifacts that poke through and you can't edit those out. No, you can't, you can't trim that stuff out. I mean, you have to play better. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you guys are good guitar talk there. You know, I have trouble just playing the C chord. So it's all right. Yeah, we're getting, we're getting a little bit geeky here with things. That's okay. So actually, you went, that you went through plugins because when I hear it, I didn't, I didn't feel, I didn't wasn't hearing that sound. The rhythms are, they're re-amped. Re-amped EVHs, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the leads are not and I mean, nowadays that's the thing. It's as much, and you know me because I play with 200 watt amps on stage and I'm using like tubes. I'm like very old school with that. Yeah, yeah. And, but I have to say also, like for home studio use, these things man, a lot of these companies, the plugins, they have come a long way and they sound so good. Like it's almost like, you're, you still miss that warmth that a tube has. I can, I can tell that difference, but like in terms of playability and the way it feels, it's almost like playing through a real thing then nowadays. Yeah, on mine, we ran through my Kemper and we used the EVH and the Boogie, the Mesa Boogie, I think it was the Mark IV for the rhythms and the leads were EVH, but all through the Kemper.  Anyway, Jimmy. Yeah, yeah, it's all good. You know what, it's good to change it up and give people a little more perspective on, you know, on how it's done. That's cool. Lost my train of thought. Yeah, we'll be talking about that. Go ahead. Because now I was just going to say that today there's like really no right or wrong way. There's just so many, we have so much technology in our hands and so many useful tools. So you can basically do, for example, I used to go in the studio and all these things and expensive studios and all that and the clock is ticking and now I just can't go back there, you know, even if I- It's too comfortable. You can stop and start with the space bar on your own, you know. So I saw that you did a signing for this. I think Hacos was, was that a signing for this record? In Greece? In Greece. A little bit of a signing tour, yeah. Was that it? Was that for this? It was, yeah, for this album. I went out on the week that it came out. I went out on a little tour here in Greece and I did some in-stores, you know. I gotta tell you this, Todd. You know, you don't realize how popular Gus G is. This guy is like, I remember I was in California and the guy walks, he walks into the hotel and he's like swarmed by people saying, sign this, sign this, sign this. Where? Me? This was at the Metal Hall of Fame, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's being swarmed by people. I'm like, what's going on here? It's like. You confuse me with Steve Vai. No, no, no, no, no, no. Steve Vai is another story, but you too, man. People are just like, anyways, yeah, yeah.  I just think you're a stellar guitar player and you've created this sort of niche for yourself that so many people really admire. I'm trying to find the right words, but you really stand out in the metal community as some sort of renowned guitarist. I'm just shocked that you haven't been picked up by a major band and maybe that's not what you want to do. I don't know. I mean, of course, there's Ozzy, but I mean, you have Andy Sneep and Judas Priest and that's going to, and why pick him when you have like this great guitar player? Gee, I mean, I don't know. That just makes sense to me. You know what it is? Sometimes like the bands, they, the way they think when you're in a band, you're like, okay, who is in our immediate circle of people that we trust? It's not just who's a great player out there and who's necessarily like a great guy and a great player and looks good.  You know, we can bring on board. Everybody's going to be comfortable. You know, the guy who's kind of like stepping out has to be comfortable as well. So it's like all those things.  Within the family, yeah.  And so, and I get those things, you know, sometimes it's like, you have to see who are we comfortable with, who can sometimes, sometimes it's also a question who can step into this like right now and do it as well. Right. Yeah.  Everybody loves him. He's a sweet guy. He played the parts great. Yada yada.  And he couldn't, he couldn't tour anymore. So it's like, okay, well, Mike has helped us when we did some shows with the Scorpions when Parker couldn't. And then he already knows the stuff.  So what does it matter? But, but then you have this, this, the optics of what that means. And there was a family familiarity with Mike Stone.  And so it's, it's, it's comfortable. And all of those things.  You're not going to hear what these guys are known for. This is not that band. You're, you're not going to be shredding like you would in some other. So if you're like a guitar player, guitar player that's used to doing all this stuff, Queens rake solos are not like that. They're just a totally different thing. And there's also, and Todd, there's also the factor that some bands, not all bands, they just want that hired hand to do what they want. Do these tricks and that's it. Play it like the record. Play it like the record now.  They just stick to the plan. Not an abandoned, not an abandoned already has such a legacy and a sound already. I don't think anybody would risk that. I mean, Journey didn't risk that. You know, Judas Priest is not going to risk that. Queens rake is not going. I mean, these are like bands that have their own thing, their own sound. It's like a certain blueprint. You're not going to, you're not going to mess around with that man. Carlos is starting a petition. We demand Constantinos in Judas Priest. We have to sign this petition. Costa, we got to put you in Judas Priest. Hey, where do I, where do I find the comments here on YouTube? Is it on YouTube? Yeah, it's, there's a chat going there. Why don't I see it? Send me the link. Everybody, we are going to go on our phones while we're live. That's what I'm trying to do. Well, that's what I read in the comments, but you know what it is, when I'm kind of involved this way, I kind of forget what's going on this way here. Oh, I see it. I got it. I got it. I got it. All right. All right. All right. Okay. All right. So, so the artwork, I love the artwork. Yeah, cool artwork. Let me just put it up here. Yeah. Show everybody the artwork. Let me show everybody the artwork. And who, who did, who did that? Did you do it? No, I didn't. I have, boom, quantum leap. Like who took the photo, like how to tell us about the artwork and the cover? Yeah, I have the photo is actually this friend of mine here in the Salamiki. He's a great, great photographer. His name is Akis Duzladzis. Great names. So, and, you know, we did a great photo shoot and, you know, these, these photos came out amazing. And I was like, dude, I want to use that for the cover. We were originally going to use it for, and I think we used it for a campaign with, with Jackson for my guitars. And I'm like, dude, this is a great photo. I sent it to my graphic artist, a guy from Brazil. His name is Gustavo. He's also not a Gus. Gustavo Sazis. And I've, I've been working with Gustavo for like 14 years. He has done, he does our websites, he designs our backdrops, our merch. He does all the cover. Like he's my main go-to guy. He's your guy. The last 15 years since the album that we did, the Premonition with Firewind. Yeah. So, so he's the guy. And he's done all my solo stuff. He's created the cymbals, like the logos. That's great. So he's the guy I work closely with. So David Reese and Max Norman say they really loved Wicked Sensation. Just a heads up. They sent me a message. David Reese, singer and Max Norman producer just said they loved Wicked Sensation. That's Lynch, Lynch Mob, you mean? No, Wicked Sensation. Did you play on Wicked Sensation? Oh, that's a bad, yeah, you're right. I did a guest solo. Sorry. Too many projects going on with Max Norman. You know who Max Norman is, right? Of course, yeah. Yeah. He's saying hi and he's saying he really liked your, I guess, your solo on Wicked Sensation. Oh, wow. Thank you. Honored. Yeah. Yeah. Max Norman, he's the man. He's the man. Didn't Max Norman do Wicked Sensation, the album by Lynch Mob? I don't know. I don't know. He's done so many albums. I mean, you know. Max, if you're listening, didn't you? I know you did. I could send him a message. We can get him online if you want. I mean, geez. So, Gus, what's the situation like where you're at with COVID? Can you do clinics? Can you do what's going on? Yeah, in Greece at least, right? It keeps changing every couple of weeks. Yeah. Right now there's, I mean, there's talk about another lockdown because cases are rising now. Really? Yeah. So I think you can still do indoor events and things like that. I think it's only for vaccinated people by now. And at 50% capacity maybe. Okay. So I just did like a clinic in Athens or like a limited amount of people like in the music school. So, you know, we're just kind of like talking if we should try and do some shows. The thing is like every two weeks, everything keeps changing. So it's really hard to plan anything ahead. You don't know. It's not like the U.S. It's not the U.S. is sort of still going strong. Like even in Canada, it's the same thing. It's the Wild West, man. It's like Texas, Florida. They're just like frigging who cares. But you know, it's strange enough, the cases are going down in Florida. Here they're going up and we're on with vaccination, passports and such, right? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. It's going up. And I couldn't even, like, even if I wanted to tour America, I think they just opened the borders now. Like all this time, Europeans couldn't fly over there. And who knows? That could change again. It could change again. Yeah. Because we're supposed to come over for this. I mean, you guys are going to be there. The monsters of rock crews, I think you guys are playing there. Yeah, we're scheduled. We are scheduled for it. Yeah. Yeah. Same for us. So if it all goes well, I'll be seeing you there. Yeah, I'm curious. Because I don't, I don't know if Americans can go to Europe right now. Europe might, they can. Okay. There seems to be some sort of vaccination issues in the European Union. Like they're accepting certain ones and other ones. They're not, you know, like I would think AstraZeneca is being problematic. But the thing is Europe is going under another lockdown right now. I heard like Austria is locked down and Germany is discussing about Germany. It's about to, and if that happens in Germany, I think the rest will follow. So we have to probably, yeah, I just talked to my friend Sasha the other day from Germany and he's near Nuremberg and he was telling me, he's like, yeah, they don't call it a lockdown. They call it a restricted, whatever they call it. But he says, yeah, they're getting ready to do that again. And I was like, God, really? Because for so long, it was like, I mean, aside from some serious hotspots like Italy and maybe one or two other countries, like Greece was doing really well. Greece was really low for like a while. I don't know. And everybody was kind of closed. Their own country borders were closed from other surrounding countries. You couldn't get in. You couldn't go out. But now it seems to me like many parts of Europe are not doing well with the numbers. No, they're not. It's going up everywhere. And I mean, basically what they're, they're pushing for the vaccination rates to go up, you know, so I think you can travel. But I think it's they're just making it way more difficult for the unvaccinated ones. So I think that's the main change that we're seeing right now. Well, just so you guys know that here in Montreal, Quebec, the vaccination rate is 90%. Really? For people who are eligible, it's different, right? Eligible people, it's 90%. We have a vaccination passport on our phones. Only vaccinated people are allowed to go eat out or watch shows or go to events. So if you don't have your two shots, you're not allowed on your phone or your card. And the numbers are still going up. So they're still going up. So they were down for a while. I think it does help. It pushes it down. It does push it down. But at the same time, the numbers are still going up because now winter's coming. People are going indoors. People are congregating inside. Families are meeting. So and now you got this other variant coming out. So I'm just trying to say Florida meanwhile, the numbers are going down because I think people are more outside now. They're less air conditioned. Perhaps. Yeah, I don't know what's going on there. I would think the air conditioning plays a role in the summer, you know, that circulation of the air. Now that you guys have nice weather, you don't need it as much. Yeah. So it sort of like brings it down. Then again, I'm not a scientist. So all right, Gus, for what's going on, obviously, because of the COVID situation still, it's hard to plan or book anything. The can keeps getting kicked down the road. As we all know, what's going on with fire wind? We actually, yeah. I mean, we just did our first show like in two years. We just came back from a one-off in Switzerland, like an annual event. Yeah. That was the first show. The tour date. Yeah, yeah. The one. Should have just had that on the back of the shirt. Didn't this final tap do that? Like they were like, world tour just one day. They said, instead of doing a world tour, we invite the world to come see us. There you go. That's great. So we just did that one. And I mean, we're supposed to start next year. We're coming over for this cruise. And then we're doing like a 20th anniversary tour in Europe starting March. Oh, wow. And May. So hopefully, hopefully, you know, everything is going to be.   No, we're doing like a club tour. Okay. In May. We're doing Spain in March and then the rest of Europe in May. And then like a few festivals, like flying and out thing, like one-off things for week. And we have like four or five schedule for that so far. And I mean, we're getting asked, I mean, to do a lot of things now, but we have to see what happens as well.     What's wrong with you? Oh, yeah. I don't care. Whatever. Singer smoking, singer's drink, you know, it's not. I bet Gus knows a lot of really good singers that smoke. And some people hide it and some people don't. For years, I never wanted anyone to see me smoking because I knew, you know, if you have a bad show, never mind that 25 miles that month, you know, like, oh, that's why he's gonna run his way. And then you sing killer. And you could say, yeah, I don't smoke anymore. I say, that's why you sounded so good. Everyone's an expert. I don't care. Everyone's an expert. All right, let's let's have a little fun here. All right. I told, I sent you an email, Gus, and I go, top five Aussie albums. All right. Right at the top of your head. We're just, we're not going to go with the typical Aussie questions. We're going to go with your favorite top five Aussie albums.  If you could think about them really quickly. Me and Todd will weigh in. Yeah, I thought about it for a couple of minutes, actually. Okay, good. I'm sure you get asked this all the time. I mean, it's not something new. No, what I do get asked about all the time is which one, which guitar player I prefer. But we won't go there because it's been done. Because that's also kind of silly, I think, because I grew up listening to all these guys, man. I love Jake. I love Zach. I love Randy. It's like, it's part of my vocabulary. Brad Gillis stepped in. Yeah, that's great. You know, yeah. So I, but you know, the kind of backwards, your fifth favorite Aussie album, and you can't include yours. Oh, you want it? You want it? Yes. I want yours. One, two, three, four, five, five to one. I mean, starting with the least favorite, starting with no five, I'm more only picking five. You have your favorite. Second, third, fourth, fifth, but we'll start with five for your least favorite, like to your point, not to make things complicated. Come on. You just did that. So you just made it complicated. Can it be like in no particular order? It can't be that way. Okay, no particular order. Okay, whatever. Okay, go ahead. You're the guest. Todd, you're the tiebreaker here. Would you prefer no particular order or an order? Countdown. I think to relieve the burden of for Gus to have to choose a favorite, I would say pick your top fives in any order. Doesn't matter. Okay. All right. So you guys all vote me on my show. Okay. It's all right. It's okay. Just go go any order. It's all good. It's all good. Don't worry about it. I'm kidding. All right. Pick one. Fine. Okay. And why, just quickly why? You know, we don't have to go into the whole, you know, the history of the album. Yeah. Okay, five bark at the moon. Okay, just just because of that title track. So good. It's like just it has to be like my top favorite like my favorite Aussie song, at least when I when we played live because we opened the shows with that and I just love that. Would that be your favorite Aussie album? No, you see what I'm doing there? You see what I'm doing? Yeah, I'm trying. Is that your favorite though? Where would you put in if you had the whole Aussie catalog? Where would it go? Just think about it. Like, I would say it's my third favorite Aussie album. I would say personally that would be my, how about about you, Todd? If you had the whole spectrum of Aussie albums, where would you put it? Like in the higher than I don't, I don't, I don't have the spectrum of Aussie album. So if I have to go off the top of my head, I don't have Aussie albums. Sorry. But you've heard bark at the moon of a song. Of course. Of course. Yeah. Blizzard of Oz. Yeah. I mean, dude, bark at the moon is is one of my shot. That's the song shot in the dark is one of my alt when it ever comes on. That's another album. That's ultimate sin. Okay. Well, what a save. Yeah. I should just park the moon. Why don't we read the tracks? Yeah. While you guys are doing that, I'll pick them out. You'll pick them out. You'll pick them out. Okay, guys. Go. Go. Bark at the moon. Number four. By the way, Todd and I, we do this ranking albums all the time. So Oh, you do? Okay. Yes. Yes. So it's, it's always gets stressed out when somebody tells me, give me your top five body in particular. It's okay. Stress is good. Stress makes good art. Go ahead. No, it gives you a gray hair. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Anyways, number four. Um, no more tears. Okay. And why is that? Because it's an amazing album. All right. Is it, is it, is it Zach Wildstone? Is it the, you know, just the song? I think it was just, I think it's just everything fell into place on that album. You know, I think Norris for the Wicked is a great album. The one prior, you know, the one before no more tears, but I don't know the stars aligned on that album. I mean, it was, it was just Ozzy's, Ozzy's biggest album after the Randy era, I guess, ever. And I mean, he got a Grammy for that, you know, the title track is just an amazing song. Tell me about the song no more, no more tears, the song itself, but the rhythm, the rhythm, sort of like the intro. Is it true that Zach Wilde did like so many sort of rhythm tracks? He multi-layered the rhythm tracks on that? Oh, I didn't know about that. I never heard about that. What's, what's, what's the, what's the story about that?  He quadrupled and five-vippled and you just multi-layered the rhythm, right? I think, I think a lot of people did that. And maybe it sounds like it's quadrupled. Like there was a lot. Like, I mean, there was a lot, there was a lot. Yeah. And I've done that on certain albums as well. I think we did that on Scream as well. All right. So, so we have Bark at the Moon. We have no more tears. Todd, which was, what was your favorite? Okay, you like Ultimate Sin. Yeah. This is, this is a mess here. This is just getting messy. I think number three for me. Yes. Ultimate Sin. Okay, Ultimate Sin. That's the shot in the dark, Todd. That's what the Ultimate Sin shot in the dark. Yeah, it's okay. Don't worry. I'm, I'm, I'm okay. It's all good. I love that song. And I also love, there's a lot of hidden gems on that album. Thank God for the bomb. Lightning Strikes Again, Killer of Giants. Yeah. I remember learning that my guitar teacher showed me that when I was a kid. And that was like learning a lot of chords stuff. And I remember telling Ozzy about this record. And he was telling me that how much he hated that album. And I said, why man? I said, that album has so many great songs.  And the mixing is not, doesn't sound good. And I said, well, you can always remix that and reissue it. And he's like, ah, yeah, good idea. He hasn't done that yet. But hopefully something. But if it happens, we know that you were the catalyst there. Okay. No, no, I don't think so. I wouldn't, I would never take credit for that. But I remember telling him that like 10 years ago, I was like, dude, that album is just, why don't you just like sleep at his home, like hang out, like just in his guest room, hang out and sleep there. No, I didn't. But I recorded the album in his home studio. So I used to go in his house like every day for like six weeks and we were tracking guitars with Kevin Churko and did they have like butlers and stuff? Like, I don't know. Like, what's it like in Ozzy's house? I've been outside of Ozzy's house, by the way, in Beverly Hills. I filmed myself out there. But they, they, they've changed several houses of things since then. Yeah. The Osborns. That's the one I saw. Yeah. Yeah, they, I think they sold that house and they sold the house that I was there at that time. I think they live somewhere else now, but I don't know where they live.  Hey, Jimmy. Yes. I'm going to real quick. I don't think Gus will mind me saying this, but we used to, I would pick his brain.  Tell me some cool stories.  Like, I remember, like we played in Dublin once and I'm like, I woke up in a parking lot on a tour of us. An hour later, a little minivan picked me and Scott up. We drove 10 minutes through the city and some alleys and I showed up at the back door. I walked in. We were there all day and night. We played the gig. It was nighttime. We drove back to the parking lot, got on the bus and left.  I don't know anything about it. When we would talk to Gus, it was interesting.  We fly commercial. But you know, it would literally be thank you. Good night. Band bow towel around the neck or a robe or whatever go goes to the dressing room. Maybe a quick change. Yeah, straight in the van.  And they would have a hub of say a home in this part of the country or a place here in Europe. And so that would be home base. But literally, yeah, if you wanted to hang out with Gus after an Aussie show, he was already 30,000 feet in the air by the time you could even get past security. And I found that interesting that there wasn't a lot of there was no hanging out no with you never know because I mean, the biggest of the big are going to show up to Aussie gigs, right? And maybe Gus hasn't met these people and Gus gets to meet people. And soon as the show's done, he's literally in a in a private car going to the to the plane. I never got to meet anybody actually because for example, I remember like the guys from Steel Panther were opening up for a couple of shows in Germany. And I met them like I toured with them like a few years later. And we're just talking about it. I'm like, I wish I would have met you guys back then. I never got to see you. I never got to see you play and like until later in the day, you know, years. That's interesting, Jimmy. I think a lot of people might think. Yeah, it is very actually. And that's a very pampered kind of perspective, right? Right, Gus? You get pampered, you get that, you know? I think it had to do with Aussie just wanted to get in as quickly and get out as quickly as possible and just wanted to do the gig. And you know, he was when I was in the bank was 61 62 or I don't know, however old he was. And he just didn't you know, he wanted to go back into his hotel room, been there and done that shower and just relax, man. He just didn't want to hang out and but it's lonely, you know, like, yeah, it can be very lonely. Like everyone's like, oh, you're on top of the world. Yeah, but you're, you're not isolated at the same time.  But yeah, it's different. But at the same time, Todd, you're saying, I'm on frigging Aussie's tour, man. There's the other side, too, like, you know, the arenas and you have a lot of time to, you know, a lot of quiet time in between the gigs, you know, in a hotel room by yourself to think about a lot of things and and yeah, and really great hotel rooms, right? You're getting private jets. I'm sure you really feel like now you've become a star, right? Like you've really made it. No, I didn't feel like that.  That's a difference. You brought up well, but yeah, let me see. I hear that a lot. Oh, Malacas, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hear that a lot, those two things. But the thing is, you have to understand that all these, all these things have nothing to do with you. Like you have to, I don't know who thinks that this is when they reach that level, unless you are the boss, it's like your band and it's like, you know, your business that makes this money, you know, sells that many tickets, blah, blah, blah. Unless it's you, they come to see. Right. And then it's a different thing. But if you're working for these people, like, you know, I always said, like, I'm not a rock star. I work for a rock star. You know, I play for a rock star. So I knew, you know, I knew where I came from, and I knew how I was going to be getting out of that. The thing is, the big question is, what do you do with this opportunity that you've been given afterwards? That's what you got to think.  I mean, that's all I can tell you. So that's, that's, that's a fraction of a percent of artists that can actually travel that way. But you know, I got to say both of you guys, you know, as, and I know Todd Moore, right?  And I could say the same thing for you guys, that when you've reached that level, you're more grounded. And you're not, you know, you appreciate things a lot more. Would you say that's a fair assessment? Yes. Well, I guess it depends what kind of person you are.  But when you like, I don't know anybody, I don't know anybody who has had that overnight success. I mean, look like in Todd's opinion, in Todd's case, sorry. I mean, he was already in the scene for so many years. He had done so many things, you know.  I mean, I started playing in clubs when I was 14. And I was climbing it out. Did Crimson Glory, though, as well? I did that for a few years. But it's not the level of Queensrack. It's not the level. I mean, it never, never would have opened the Queensrack. Obviously, afforded me opportunities that Crimson Glory just wouldn't have. It was more cult followed. It was more of an underground thing with a devout following, etc. But I mean, I know local guys and bands that think they're relevant. They think they're known.  I just despise the word. But they think that. And I'm like, dude, I've probably forgotten bigger things than you probably ever do. And that's not an arrogant position. But it's like, I know where I came from. I didn't get this recognition or any kind of notoriety till I was in my mid to late 30s. Makes a difference. I'm almost 48. And you know what? If it ended today, I am so thankful.  And that's where it starts and stops. If I was doing it, the band retired, and I had my own thing, and somebody wanted to hear Queen of the Reich. Okay, I might throw that in for a nostalgic, fun purpose. But but it's like what Gus said, he's been able to very, in a very smart way, capitalize on the opportunity. Now, not saying he couldn't have gotten there without the Aussie gig. But let's just be very honest. That was a springboard that that guaranteed him to be a worldwide known name as a guitar player. And he was able to get all these endorsement deals. And when he was out of Aussie, he didn't just let those go like, Oh, it's over. He's like, No, I have a name for myself. I have I'm going to keep playing music till the day I die, no matter who knows me or likes me or doesn't or whatever. But he's nurtured those relationships. It's contact. You're right. It's contacting those people when you don't need them to just say hello. And then when something does come up, they're going to say, we want Gus on the cover of this magazine, or we're going to do a nice layout in this magazine, we're going to have you on on all these different, you know, he still has he's been able because I promise you when he was doing any press for Aussie and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. They scheduled it. He was he they gave him a list and they contacted and it was done. They weren't Gus's contacts. Okay. Gus has had to make his own contacts through Firewind through Gus G a separate from Oz. But it's but it's allowed him to have a career, a better career. Yeah. With more with more viewership otherwise, and he'd be a fool to not know that and he does know that and he takes care of it. And that's why he's very well, very well said, Todd. But it's true. It's very, very well said. No, it's no different than me. If I if the band ended today, dude, I can forever say I have sang for I've sung for Queens right for almost a decade, and we're putting out the fourth record if it ended today, I have contacts I have and I can forge my own path.  But I think there is a humble, there's a humbleness that comes with that when you're less impressed, you're more focused more on the music than the image. There's a lot of people that just want to look and have this perception. And the music is secondary, right? Because it's a business at the end of the day. But when you can blend those two and have a nice balance of being the artist that you are first, and also being able to earn a living from it, to me, that's the greatest success anyone in music can ever have whether they've been in a famous band or not. You know, people say, oh, you've made it. I don't even know what that means anymore.  Yeah, exactly what how Todd described it. I mean, I probably couldn't have used the English English language as good to put these things together because it's exactly what he says what he describes.    If you choose to, because it's also what it's also a personal choice. You might choose to do something else. I mean, look at like in Ozzie's case, guitar players like Joe Holm, see, you know, after Ozzie, he didn't, you know, he just didn't follow his music career. He maybe did other things or Jake Lee retired for a number of years. And there's also Jimmy, there's also a humility that I think we're getting really deep here. We're getting really deep in the psyche here. I think that I think that I think there's a humility that has to exist or should exist. For example, Gus is playing when he was playing with Ozzie. The people are there primarily to hear those hits that everybody knows and loves and are dear to their heart. Now they're going to sprinkle in some new stuff. Don't get me wrong. But you know, he understands that he is not the songwriter that is part of that original legacy that the people are there for. He understands that. Same with you, right? I mean, when I look when I'm singing Queen of the Reich and I say this goes, this goes back to the roots of Queen's right by make no mistake, I am never ever claiming that I was at all involved or at any part of a process that has to do with the great glory, you know, that legacy that Queen's right has. I'm not the guy that's saying those songs. And the minute I know that, you understand. Yeah, no, no, I got what you're saying. I got to also say because Gus is from Greece, there is that other humility angle, breaking out of Greece and making it into like the global sort of world is no small feat. I mean, there's just a handful, what Nana Muscari, that's it, like who's really broken, like on a global scale, on a global scale, but you have big bands like Rod and Christ, there's other big, well, they're not, they're not, they're not a Queen's right. I mean, to the level that Gus did.  Exactly, exactly. That is a special, and I realize that. And of course, you know, coming from Greece is even more special because that's right. Greece is not them. It's not exactly the metal.  I was like, what? I was like kind of like taken back in a sense, what, he picked the Greek guitars, what, from the US? At first, I didn't get it. And oh, he's from Greece. I'm like, what? It's like, it's it just, you know what I mean? It just didn't click. It was such a special moment, probably for Greece, right? That somebody's actually working with Ozzy, the originator of heavy metal, right?  That's right. He's he's the guy for for the country. Think about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, and I think we're completely getting off track here. Okay, I don't know, Gus, if you have to go, tell me, tell me, tell me if you have to go, tell me if you have to go at any time. I'm good. I'm good. I'm a little hungry, but I'm good. Oh, look at him. He's just eating olives. Yes, lunch. Oh my God, dude, crazy. Look how big these things are. Yeah, yeah, big olives, man. They're massive. And hold on, genetically enhanced. Jimmy, hold on, like every Greek, I bet you got Gus might even not. I don't know if Gus has this. Check this out. What do you have there? What's he's got? He's going to bring out a big suvlaiki stick, right?  I'm pretty sure. This is how we get our olive oil.  Oh, look at that. Oh, and 10. Dude, hold on. I have this whole thing with it. Is that olive oil? No, yeah, it's from, it's from our family. We with a pump. Yeah. I don't even know how big this thing is. It's written in Greek, but this thing's massive. And we just keep filling the bottle when it gets empty. Dude, you should start a distribution business in the States. So you're going to make a lot of money. My mother, my mother, my mother, when she comes back from Greece, you know, she brings like fruit and stuff in the luggage. I go, Mom, you're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to do that. Then be it as you then be it as you or like that. And pairs and I go, you're not supposed to do that. Three of these things full of feta homemade homemade from her family homemade feta. Why don't you start a distribution business? I know. I got to call it the real deal. They're called Queens rights feta or maybe solitary. Okay. Gus and what did we what did we not cover on the record that you want everybody that you want people to know? I think we pretty much covered everything. We didn't we didn't get the last two albums. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on. We're not finished here. Oh, the last two Ozzy albums. We're still doing that. Todd Todd Todd's like, because you guys screwed up on the ultimate sin. That's why he's like, I don't want to talk about it. Count me out. All right. Let me fill two more two more. Two more. Two more. Which one you know which one we did. Bark we did ultimate sin. We did. No rest for the wicked. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Mark at the moon, no more tears. ultimate sin. And look, yeah, two and one are going to be the two Randy Rhodes albums. And I cannot really pick which order because I yeah, if I if I'm going to be, I mean, the biggest hit is on the first album, right? Crazy Train. But the second album is the one that I was exposed to first off, like, from an emotional side. That was the album that I first heard of, obviously, you know. So, but, you know, there's Crazy Train is on the first album, on the debut. And I don't know. And, yeah, I mean, it's really hard to choose. So, yeah, they both have my top spot. So was it the neoclassical aspect of Randy Rhodes that made him so special? I think it was a combination of things. It was not just the neoclassical. I think it was the, in my opinion, the way he blended the European, he had this European flavor in his playing, but he still had this American, you know, he was American. So he had that classic rock thing. You know, he was also into 70s glam rock and things like this, you know, and he kind of made heavy metal. He was able to play this metal riffs and themes and leads and put them in, like, in almost like a pop song format. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, no, it's a great explanation. I like that. Yeah. So it's like, it was, I don't know how to, yeah. He mixed neoclassical European flavor with American flavor. And he sort of And it all translated and he could put it into a three minute song. You know what I mean? And have it on the radio. And he was like the, like, Zach Wilde said, he was like the prototype for the modern metal guitar player. And I really agree with what Zach has said. And that's like an old statement that he said. I think he probably sticks by it today. And I agree with that.  So like, there's just so many things about what made Randy special, you know, and he didn't like black Sabbath, by the way. And he didn't like Sabbath, you know, which was even weirder. Yeah. Yeah, that's really weird. Yeah. I remember Ozzie telling me that I'm like, what, really? Yeah. Do you ever hear the story about Randy Rhodes when he almost got shot? No. What's that? Well, it's you guys never heard of Randy Rhodes, never like Kelly. Well, it's you know, it's a very, very long story. And I try to summarize this as quickly as possible. I never heard this. His and I've interviewed all these people.  And I guess he just fired some shots in the air because they were having an argument. You didn't fire at him. He just fired shots. And there was this big fight afterwards. And that's what I'm all gonna say. That's all I'm gonna say. But there was a night when Randy Rhodes sort of people, a lot of people were claiming, you know, that there was guns involved. But it's still so sad that, you know, the guy was just not meant to stay with us for a long time. And there's certain people that I'd look at them as like comets, you know, they just pass by really quickly and they share their profound statement in a short time. Yeah, like even Jim Hendricks, you know, yeah, yeah, I think of people like Hendricks, like, like, like Morrison, you know, like, like, Randy Rhodes later on. So they're, you know, they're just not meant to somehow, I don't know why, but they give so much like in a short period of time that lasts like forever. Amazing. And influence, it's crazy, right? And influences generations and generations of people. I mean, look at the Beatles. They weren't around for that long. Yeah, 10 years or whatever. Yeah, Janice Joplin.  Again, when you have to go, guys, just tell us, I'm trying to think if there's anything I like hanging out with you guys, it's like a nice reunion. So I don't, it's Saturday night, I'm not going anywhere.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, I really dig them's a lot from your fearless and there's money for nothing. There's a thin Lizzie cover called sweat, which is great. You guys do a great job. I mean, for those people who just don't want only the instrumental portion, but they get this these live performances. I don't know if you heard them, Todd, that I send them to you, I believe, right? Did you hear the live versions or anything? Do you get a chance? I haven't heard a live version. Now, if I can tell you the story real quickly about how that came about, like three years ago, we did a tour for my previous album, solo album. And we recorded a bunch of shows in Europe, and we recorded a show in Budapest.  So we mix a whole show, master it and send it to the label.  It's not that important. You're probably not going to sell any records of that. So we're like, okay, let's put it out as an EP, like a digital EP. And we call it live in Budapest, part one. So that came out. But then we kind of forgot about it. It was never a part. It was just a part one. So we were like asking, why is part two coming? I'm like, I don't know. Like, forgot about it. Like, we still have a full show mixed master, you know, the label paid for it. It's just sitting there. And so I thought, I said, look, we're putting this new record out. Why not do like a value for money kind of thing and put it together, package it as a double CD, and use some of those live tracks. That's cool. So that's the story. Then we have like seven live tracks from that show in Budapest. And a couple of them are covers, you know, like a thin Lizzie cover that we used to play as sound checks. And eventually we added to the set list because it's cool. It's just a great song.  So that's that's a, you know, in short, that's the story of the live album. I think we we got everything we got. Are there any questions for Gus from people? Oh, yeah, you know, forgot about that. Let's let's go to let's go to the phones. Let's go to the phones. The phones. Look at the phones here. Yeah. Put the live album. Okay, John, put the live album out. I will definitely buy it. The live album is oh, I'm not sure it's on this CD. Is it a bonus or does it come with it? It's it's a bonus. It's a second disc. Okay. All right. So there you go. You get the live album with it. It's amazing. Okay, Marcy, Marcy, I'm home tonight, chilling, resting from a shoulder injury. Okay, I have been dealing with all summer in PT. They think I've dislocated my clavicle bone. Somebody feel well. Somebody said their friends with Alex Panagakis from Athens loved your new stuff.  Yeah, it's I think so too. Hola amigos. I probably said the name wrong, but I tried. It's good. Tino. Hola amigos from Caracas, Venezuela, a rock monster. Gus is a very talented guitar player and taught a true brutal singer and max always cool guy back for the attack, my doc and favorite album anniversary. Okay. And then okay. So can I say something? I see it. Yeah, go ahead. Keep Ben. Ben Laird says here any insights into the new Queensrack album, Todd. Oh, okay. So Gus, what's up with the new Queensrack album? No, but I was gonna ask if maybe Todd can say something. Go ahead, Todd. Because I've seen some posts that the guys have been working on some stuff.  No, we're just friends. Interviewee has become the okay. Go ahead. I mean, we have all the songs that we're going to be recording. We're going to press record at the very beginning of January. And it's, it doesn't sound like the verdict. It's its own new kind of thing. Really just kind of focused more on melodic hooks. I don't think we went in thinking like, oh, we need to be like, sound old school or new or this.  Like every other time, each guy would kind of submit their own song ideas. And then we would kind of work on that. But what we did on this record was other than Eddie, Eddie has a couple songs that are really cool that he wrote and then showed us kind of when they were pretty much done. And then Michael kind of wrote some interesting chords still staying within the the the keys and everything. But we all got in a room with our producer here. And we literally started from scratch.  Like bands used to do albums back in the day, right? Yeah, it's how everybody did it. So this record was was totally like that. And we like the whole thing pretty much minus one or two songs and even that changed a little bit. But yeah, I mean, I just burned a CD of all the demos to play in my car when I'm out driving around. And it's cool. I think people, I hope people will like it. And you seem excited about it.  And coming out this next year, right? It should be for 2022. Yeah, the plan of Gus, Gus, I love what you're doing here. He's really, but you know what, he's, but he's right. We're, you know, we haven't, we haven't talked in a while. So yeah, so I want to see what's going on. Yeah, these are things we would talk on the phone anyway about the sneak should move out and Gus G should join Judas Priest. I can say that I'm allowed to say that. I'm allowed to say that. That's my opinion. Right. I'm not like, you don't have to state anything, but it's fine. Which other band should I maybe try to join? Well, let's say somebody in Iron Maiden, let's say somebody in Iron Maiden is ill. Yeah, right. I think you could join that band. The Scorpions, if they need a second guitarist, right? I love the Scorpions, right? You could jump in, feel free. Is there any other band there? Or if they need a third guitarist, you know, or a third guitarist, Megadeth, if you know, they're going through guitarists, like, you know, who knows? I mean, my buddy Kiko is in, he's in Megadeth. He's, and he's, he does great there. Yeah, no, but I'm just saying maybe he wants to, you know, not retire and, you know, there's a slot open, you could join. Oh, yeah.  Putting it out there. Yeah. Again, this is where, look, this is where it comes down to Gus has qualified to play in any of those bands. Absolutely. By far, but this is where it comes down to, again, business. You know, what, what is it going to cost me to walk away from my home life? Nice. And now you're, you're under somebody's thumb.  He's already played with Ozzy. Like everything else is just like, if he would want to, and maybe, you know, I don't know, there's something to be said for having the freedom that he has right now. That's true. And it's not going to gain him any more notoriety than what he already has achieved. You know, show me the Euro. Show me the Euro. The drachmas. The drachmas. I have drachmas with holes in them. Oh, really? Old school with holes. Yeah. Yeah. With holes.  I have like back in my grab while I gave you, like with little holes, that's what they had. Money with holes. Only Greeks would come out with doughnut money. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Some last questions here. Hold on. Let me just take a look here.  Yeah, maybe I shouldn't be. No. You know what? It's okay. It's all right.  No, I said it. I said it. I said everything. It was my, I just asked the question and it's public knowledge and it's all over the internet. It's on Blabbermouth, by the way. It's already on Blabbermouth. Oh, it is. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's public. It's on, it's on Ticketmaster's site for God's sakes. It's all. What are you going to do, Todd? Bada boom, bada bing. What are you going to do? All right. I'm looking for questions here. So I'm looking for interesting questions. Oh, modern-day Gus, modern-day guitarist. Who do you like as a modern-day guitarist? You know, not somebody in the past, a Hendrix or Rhodes, but somebody today. What do you find that's very good? Yeah. There's a lot of great, a lot of great dudes out there, man, that are amazing, like, you know, you were just mentioning Judas Priest, Richie, Richie Faulkner. He's great. He's great. Yeah, he is. You know, like a modern-day, but old-school kind of guy, you know, so. What impress, what impress, I'm very hard to impress. Like, I feel like we've all just been so inundated with so much music and I used to get that joy of going to the music store. It's like, yes, I can't wait. I'm going to get the new loudness record or the new whatever, whatever it was. It was like, oh, I'm so excited. Everything is so, oh, like everybody can hear the, your, anybody's record on, for free on YouTube and it takes that, there's that mystique. There's every, everybody's so excited. Oh, yeah, that's gone. That's gone. So, so let me ask you, what is it that, and it might be a hard question to answer, what is something that impresses you as a guitar player when you hear other bands? Is it, do you go right for the guitar? Do you go right for the, to the songwriting? Like, if you hear a guitar player, they're like, man, you got to check this band out. I think you would be who. Who is the question? Who? Yeah, yeah. Who? No, no, no, not who, not who. Why not? Because I don't care who it is. I'm asking him, I'm asking him, what, what is it that will make his ear go, ah, it could be space, it could be reservation in playing. I don't know, I'm asking.  Guitar, yeah, guitar, yeah.  You got to check him out. What is something that would spark in your mind to go, hmm, I like that. Like, what would be a characteristic or something that might impress you of a guitar player, a newer guy that's fresh on?  It's something as in different, you know, really different and pushing forward the guitar, you know? Is there anybody that you're listening to now? Who would you listen to now that would make people go, wow, he listens to that? What would name an artist or a band that you would listen to within the last six months that would surprise people? Oh, I don't really listen to a whole lot of new stuff. When I put on Spotify, I go back to my old favorite things.  Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Alex Lifeson, Rush. Me? I was never a big fan of Alex. I'm not a big fan of Rush. I know it's an unpopular opinion. I know Canadians will hate me for saying this, but you know, I just never got into it. Sorry. That's all right. All right. David Gilmore, Pink Floyd, and I'm looking at the comments that people are asking. So everybody out there, David Gilmore for Metal Mike saying, what do you think of David Gilmore, Pink Floyd? I love David Gilmore. I mean, it was one of the first, one of my first things exposure in rock was when my dad played me Pink Floyd, Shine on Your Crazy Diamond.  So I love David Gilmore style. I love his tone. So yeah, I love everything David Gilmore. When I was younger, I could not stand Pink Floyd. I was always, everybody that I knew listened to Pink Floyd, they were all a bunch of burnouts, and they were getting high, and they were on acid, or we used to have this laser light show, and you could go to this thing, and it would be this laser light show, and everyone's like, you know, and they're hot.  And I was listening to, you know, Racer X and Paul Gilbert, Ningvein, and here I'm going, this is boring. I hadn't matured enough to understand. And then now I'll go back and I'll be like, I want to learn another brick in the wall solo. Yeah, man. And you realize there's vibrato in every note, even when he goes, nobody was doing that.  Yeah, the beauty of David Gilmore is the melody of David Gilmore. Now, it's the melody, right? It's the iconic solos. Think of comfortably numb. Everybody could sort of hum it in their head. All right, Akira Takasaki from Loudness. Oh, he's killer. He's killer. Yeah. He's the best. He's fun. I like his. He's awesome. Yeah, he rocks. And he's the first guy to play these weird chips that I'm playing. He's the guy that made him popular. By the way, David saying I'm Canadian.  Thank you. By the way, when I was in Greece pack in 1980 something, I was just surprised. My cousins had all these rush albums. I go, I'm in Greece and they like rush. It was bizarre. It was just very bizarre. Oh, yeah. They love rush everywhere, man. It's just not, it was just never my thing. So that's all. All right. Do you own a bazookie? I don't. It's hard to play. I have a beautiful bazookie. And here's something. Have I told you about that before? Not a bazooka, a bazookie. I have a bazooka, not a bazookie. Did you serve in the army, Gus? Gus, did you serve in the army? I don't know. Oh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't go there. Yeah, that could, that could, you don't want, that could be, yeah. Okay, let's not talk about that. We're not going to go there. All right. Okay. What are we talking about? Bazookie, bazookie, bazookie. I don't, you know, those guys that play so technically and it's amazing, but I just also never liked, I never got into the sound of it. But when I heard that and then when I heard, when I was a kid and I heard that and because my dad was playing all those Greek records at home and when he played it's probably why. But when he played, yeah, but maybe when he, but when he played rock records, he had a couple like distortion on guitar. That's what, you know, blew my mind. That was like, I'm like, this is the sound I like, not that. And because, and because it's very, to my ears, it's very linear playing. Yeah. I don't know that I've ever, because the one I have is four pairs of two. Okay. So they're pairs of two. There's three strings and four strings. Mine has four with two strings each, each pair. I don't know that I've heard vibrato. No, they don't do that. But on some of the, which bugs me because I love vibrato, but pitches love vibrato. Yeah, okay. But, you know, the saws instrument family is, I always like, you hear it in Turkish, you know, you hear it in a lot of the regions there, but the frets are like a wire that'll wrap around the neck. It's not like a slot with a fret on some of the other ones. And they'll go vibrato like George Lynch does. Yeah. Gus, can you dance Greek? Very well. That's my, that's my forte. You should see me up on the tables. No, I can't. All right. There was another one there. It's a legit question. People want to get to know the real Gus G. Wolf Hoffman, except as a guitarist. Legends. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. He's another neoclassical. He's got, he's always playing around with the riffs, you know, so iconic and so influential, like the riffs, you know, just, I love, except riffs, man. Chicken or pork suvlaki? Chicken. Okay. All right. How about you, Todd? I stopped eating pork. Okay. All right. I'm not going vegan yet, but I'll start eating pork. So let, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's my understanding in, well, actually Yiro, right? Like gyro, gyroscope, round. I think that comes from the cylindrical thing where they shave the meat. It goes around. It goes around. Okay. That's where that word comes from. Never ends. It just keeps going round and round. Right. But in, in the U.S., everybody goes, oh, a Yiro with lamb or a suvlaki with lamb. And from what I understand, lamb is not. Okay, guys, guys, guys, I'm going to tell you this. I'm going to expose, I'm going to expose the Greek community right now. I don't think it's, it's lamb at all. I'm going to expose. Lamb is three times the price of any other animal that we eat. So a lot of times they kind of sort of elude that it's lamb, but it's not really lamb. It's really lamb. But I don't even think that's a, I don't. Yeah, no, they have lamb suvlaki, but a lot of times. But that's not the normal thing with lamb, right? They have lamb suvlaki. Yeah. But no, no, they're not going to put in a year. It's too expensive. Hold on. There's also a difference what you're calling suvlaki. Suvlaki and Thessaloniki and suvlaki and Athens are two different things. Let, let Gus answer this, this, this, this question. Thank you. He knows I'm right too. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of strange to have this conversation with you. Why? Why? We want to get to know the real Gus G. No, like. Costa is his real name. Costa and Dino. Hold on. Let him say it. Todd is talking about differences between Athens and Thessaloniki because they, there are some things that we say differently. And yeah, but it's kind of like an ongoing joke. Suvlaki is different in Athens. It is. Well, burgers are different in different parts of US. No, when you say suvlaki in Athens, it means like they're all suvlaki, like even the heroes sandwich, they also call it suvlaki. It's like a general meaning in Thessaloniki where I'm from. When you say suvlaki, you mean the actual suvlaki, the skewer, you know, but Yeah, the skewer with the chunks of meat. Yes, that's what we mean.  It's a brochette. So it's a brochette. That's what they call it because they have to find this sort of French translation here. So right, right. Bruchette de poulet, that'd be a chicken suvlaki. Yeah, we got a lot of great restaurants here, but go ahead. So you're saying there's different meanings of what a suvlaki plate is. So where my parents are from, suvlaki is just suvlaki with the skewer and that's that. Yeah. But I mean, I've been to Athens.  If you go to Athens and you say, give me a suvlaki, they will be like, okay, with gyros or what? So you have to specify what it is. And when you, and if you want the actual suvlaki, you will have to say calamaki. And calamaki means, and calamaki is straw. Yeah. So there's always this kind of. And you know what they have in Greece? Greece restaurants, they put the French fries in the gyro. That's every, yeah, that's not here though. They don't do that here. They do that here. They don't do that here. I took, one time we went to Subway. No, they don't. Subway. Yeah. One time we went to Subway and my wife goes, do they have French fries? I go, they don't have French fries at Subway. She's like, what do you mean? I said, they don't have it. They don't put, she goes, you can't put fries. They don't even have fries to put in the sandwich. I said, no, that's the Greek thing. They don't do that here. And she was flat, even at the Greek restaurants here, if you get a gyro. They don't have fries. They don't put fries. Just a salad, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you'll have the tzatziki, the meat, onion, tomato, but you're not going to get French fries. You're not going to get fries in the, in the pita or anything like that. And so, yeah, people are, they don't know that. And when, when they realize they put French fries in all their sandwiches, you know? Well, no, they don't do it here. They don't do it here. They, they do it in Greece, but they don't do it here. And I guess it's catching on because it's becoming popular there, or it is popular there, right? John saying, I've had you stole for this interview. Saga pao costa ket tod. That's what John is saying. Love you back, dude. Thanks, John. And let's see. Lamb of God is an American band. So I guess we're talking about lamb, we're talking about Suvlakian lamb. So there's a lot of lamb going on. Plus I'm saying, John saying the best Suvlakian Yudo are in Greece. I would agree with that. We have, do you have Suvlak bar there in Greece? It's, it's like a, it's like a franchise called Suvlak bar. We're here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no. They have fromic, fromic, fromic. Fromic. Because dirty. Apelitos. That's what my mother used to call me. Apelitos because I had long hair. That's what, what, that's a different thing, Jimmy. Well, Todd says it's a slang for dirty. It's dirty. That's a fast, that's a chain like, Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. Well, guys, did they say this when I, like back in my day, when I was young, I had long hair now, of course not, but they, you know, they used to call you apelitos, which means like, apelitos is like unwashed.  You'd be like, now I don't know, in Greece, Greece, if it's there or something, it moved to North America. You know, I don't know. That's probably, they used to say that long time ago, they don't. Long time ago, because when that was a new thing, it was like unheard of having long hair. That's right. That's right.  Yeah, like, yeah, like a homeless bum or whatever. But you know, they still look at you weird if you have long hair. It's not very, but you know, but it's like, it's more normal, but still, but it's still weird. All right. Anybody else want to know about Greece? We got, we got the tour, the tourist, Gus G, the tourist guru right here. Anything about Greece? The metalheads in Greece. Tell you what the metalheads, I mean, they're, they're like hardcore metalheads. I want to hear what Todd thinks of metalheads here in Greece. I have my opinion, of course, I can tell you about it. I'm going to tell you they're amazing, but I want to hear what Todd thinks. As an outsider. Yeah. Xenos, Xenos.  So Gus would know where they do, they do all the singing, the chanting. They are, they will sing every guitar line louder than the band. They're extremely passionate and they're very animated.  But as far as being the most like, if you go, hey, hey, one time, the whole place will do that. Like if you, if you play, Gus plays a song with his melody, they will, oh, they'll sing all the melodies and they're very, they participate in the whole thing.  But otherwise, otherwise, you know, they enjoy the show, man. They live that, they live it. There's always that guy, isn't there? There's always that guy.  Oh God, that's funny. You know, the angry guy. But I'm, wait a second. Are you saying the South American audiences are similar to the Greek audience? Is that what you're saying? Trying to compare. I mean, from what I've seen and heard, they're, they sing all the parts. Like the Greeks will sing all the melodies, even, you know, I would compare, I would kind of like, not compare, but I would put them like in a similar category of, like Todd says, they're very animated. They are, they love to sing. They love to participate. Like they're very expressing. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, in South America, yeah, it's like that. And I think in some of the Terranian countries, like, yeah, Greece or Spain, you'll get that kind of vibe. And when I spend my summers in Greece with my family, right, I used to walk into record stores back in the early, early 80s. Yeah. And I go, wow, there's metal everywhere. I go, oh my God, I'm in a town of 20,000 people. And there's like metal everywhere. I go, how is this possible? This is before internet here. We're talking about like 19, early 1982, 83. And the lady comes up to me. She goes, what are you looking for? I go out this, this and that.  Like in other words, they would record the albums on tapes and you'd buy it for half the price. Yeah. So people didn't have, not everybody had money to buy records. So back then you could go to a record shop and you could tell them, hey, make me a mix tape. Like a mix tape. Yeah. So you would give them like, I don't know, just a few drachmas and they would make you a mix tape what they liked or, you know, copy me that album and you would still pay for it, but like a one-fifth of the price or whatever. So yeah. I mean, I got to listen to a lot of records like that because I couldn't afford to buy records every week or anything. So I would get them from friends and we would trade and stuff like that. Yeah. Like here in the 80s and 90s, you would have some places, some clubs that were like, we had a place called the Rocket Club and that was like a really cool place where you would hear that kind of music and then there was another place in Tampa where maybe you might hear more death, but it was more like a venue that had a bar versus in Greece. There are just tons of bars and cafes that just play that music over the stereo system in the place and maybe they don't, you know, some of these places are little tiny places. There's no, it's not a live venue. It's just a bar. You can go ahead. It's just a bar. Yeah, it's a bar. Like what is the place there, eight ball? Eight ball is a venue though. It's a bar. That's a venue. That's a venue. Okay. Revenge. Okay. Revenge, that's nothing. Revenge of Rock. Yeah, that's a bar. That's like a bar. I'm not sure if they had any shows ever there. I don't think so. But they have like tons of different, if you listen to like Gothic stuff, you can go to a club that's just past stuff if you listen to. So when you talk about Greece with the heavy metal thing, I mean, I know, you know, Crimson Glory was highly revered in Greece, sabotage, you know, probably iced earth. Our metal is embraced in Greece. Oh yeah, big time. Big time. Big time. Like U.S. power metal bands they love here. Yeah. Do they still do Rockwave? Is that still a thing? I don't know if that's cool. Yeah, they still do it.  So that was my experience. And probably because my wife's Greek and like I have some friends there of all of the places in the U.S. that I've ever played, no place ever made me feel more like I was at home than my hometown show or in Greece. And that's true. I feel like I'm part of, even though I'm not a Greek, I feel like I kind of belong. I don't know why. I don't know why. The first time I ever went there before. It's because you love those olives so much.  Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I just, I don't know. You know what it is, Todd.  And when they come to their countries, it's bigger than it really is in their minds, right? And they embrace it so much more and love it so much more. It's like, it's like you're honoring them by coming to their country, right? You know, and I think that's what it is. And because, you know, in the 90s there were not, there was not many metal shows here. So every time somebody came through town. Right, it was a big deal. It was a big deal, man. Like, it doesn't matter if you are the most hardcore fan of such and such band that rolled through town, you were going to go to that show no matter what because you never know when the next show is going to be. So, yeah, yeah. So it was that kind of thing. And I think that's, maybe that's why there's certain love for specific bands that kind of maybe open the doors and came out here first or one of the first bands or in more difficult times when, you know, because Greece, geographically, it's not so easy to come over with a tour bus. Like it takes, like if you're in central Europe, it takes two days to drive down here to do a couple of shows and then two days to go. So it's logistics as well. So not all bands can do that. Yeah, it's good if you can start a tour there and work north. And, you know, if you have Greece in the middle of a tour, it can be, it could just the pure logistics alone could just make Greece not happen. Like Ozzie, if you went to Greece, he's going to play two cities. There isn't like five, six, seven, eight shows like, you know, like in a row, right? Ozzie doesn't count because he can just fly there and it doesn't matter. No, but I'm just saying like a big name act is going to go to the two biggest cities and that's it from a logistics perspective. The only one who has done that is Deep Purple and Scorpions. They have toured in the smaller cities. Yeah, yeah. They've done like five or six shows. I mean, when I go out on tour in Greece, I can play like, I've done a tour with 13 shows here. I've played in small villages, you know, 400 people and it was insane. And I don't care, I'll play in bars. You know, set up on the floor and just, and it's just insane. These are like incredible shows.  You know, they don't, they don't have venues like that in the rest of the cities, not always. Sometimes they will have them and they'll close down and then, but you can always count that you can go into the Capitol and come here to the Saloniki as well. All right, guys, you know what? I think we've been going on for about, I don't know, two hours now. Wow. All right. Sorry. Hey, one last thing. One last thing. Yes, sir. The guy says here, John says, we accept you, Todd, as a Greek. There you go. Yeah. There you go. Afghanistan.  That's it. That's it. So you're part of the tribe now. You are. Please pick up your paperwork after the show. He has eaten enough olives in his lifetime to qualify for a Greek.  Listen. Yeah. When I, when I go to this market, if my in-laws don't send feta. Legally. In a suitcase. Yeah. It's a suitcase. You don't get it.  We, uh, we go to this place and it's called Pasadena produce or whatever. And the guy, Spiros, he owns the place. But I always deal with this other guy who's from Bulgaria. His name's Phil. He's a super cool guy. In fact, he does string. He does a rain. He worked with like Olivia Newton, John doing orchestra. And like he works with pro tools and we talk about music. He's a really cool guy. Anyway, when I go in there, I just go, he'll go one, I go one. And he'll get me one whole block. It's about, it's about two, two and a half kilos. Like one big thing. And so when I go around, I hear other people like, oh, um, and I'll try the French feta. And I'm like, there's no such thing as French feta.  He's like, yeah, I go, there's one feta. Not Bulgarian feta, Bulgarian feta. They don't know anything about that. He goes, you want to try the Bulgarian feta? I go, it doesn't exist. It's white cheese. Stop calling it feta. There's one type of feta. It's from Greece. End of story. Done. And it's a Greek word, word, you know, it's like feta means slice. Yeah, yeah. Everything comes from Greece. Except for baklava. They're, they're, they're just arguing about that all the time. Is it Lebanese? Is it Greek? No, no, it's not Greek. Baklava is not Greek. Oh, it's a Turkish thing, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's not Turkish. It's, isn't it Lebanese? Oh, or maybe. Yeah, I don't know, but it's definitely not Greek.  It's not Greek. Exactly, it's not Greek. It doesn't, I don't care. All right, guys. It was really good to see you, my friend. You too, man. You too. I miss you. Yeah, likewise. I'll, I'll be in touch with you soon. I promise I'll call you. We'll, we'll, we'll chat. Maybe we'll do something. Maybe we'll do something on the side of. Yeah. We should at some point. Yeah. All right. I see that. Latori Gus. Latori G. Latori G. Yeah, Latori G. That would say Latori G. It would have to start with his name. Oh, G Latori. We're not going to argue about those things. Well, I'm trying to figure out the name here. I mean. Yeah, okay. Well, thanks for having me on. When he told me, hey, do you want to get on? I was like, maybe I'll just be in for like 10 minutes. For a few minutes. For a few minutes. Sorry. It doesn't go like that, man. And why should you be only for 10 minutes? I'm glad that, you know, you were, you joined us tonight here and we had such a great time and we caught up and we. And congratulations. Congratulations on the, on the new album. Everyone go out and buy it. Don't listen to it on YouTube and stream it for free. Support exactly what he's doing and spend a little bit of money and buy it. Yeah. Thank you. Don't be a cheapskate and buy the album. That's it.  Thanks so much. All right, guys. Gus, I'll see you buddy. Thanks. Have a good one there. Thank you, Jimmy. Bye.


The Brainerd Lakes Chamber held their premiere annual event last night at Craigins Resort. Headlining the event was the presentation of the Business Legacy Award to a couple that has made the huge impact on the surrounding area. Reporter Rachel Johnson has more. It was a throwback to a classic Hollywood premiere last night during the Chamber's annual celebration of excellence. It's the biggest event that we have the entire year. We're honoring excellent businesses, small, medium and large, and the ones that are helping to come up to it. It's just a great, innovative celebration. The night kicked off with guests walking the red carpet before the program began. The night centered around four awards, the Business Excellence Award, the Small Business Award of the Year, the Business Legacy Award, and the announcement of the Destination Downtown 2.0 Business Challenge winner. It's a big event, and we have all of our staff and literally dozens of volunteers that come together to make, to really bring the Academy Awards feel to the brand like Syria. Paul and Lynn Hunt were chosen for this year's headlining honor, the 2018 Business Legacy Award. The Business Legacy Award is a lifetime achievement award for business. It honors a business that has achieved a great financial success, but also invested back in its employees and back in the community in a way that really leads a legacy for future generations. The Hunts were awarded for their passion for innovation and continuously looking to do and make things better for the community. Just overwhelmed and under and just like, wow, us? I didn't feel that old yet. The Hunts established Hunt Technologies Incorporated. They have used their success to give back to the region in a huge way. The community has done so much for us, and they've supported us and our family history is in the Brainerd area and Pequot included, you know, and it's just like, this is where our, where our roots are. And so you want to nourish those roots to really help it grow. For the chamber, it is important to recognize businesses that make an impact to inspire future community leaders. We recognize great businesses treating their employees well, growing, succeeding and giving back to the community. We see more of that. We expect more of that right here in our community. The Hunts and the other honorees of the night are great examples of what I've made the Brainerd Lakes area what it is today. Reporting from Brainerd, Rachel Johnson, Lakeland News. Jack Fine Brewery took home the Lakes Proud Small Business Award of the year and Cuyuna Regional Medical Center was honored with the 2018 Business Excellence Award. If you enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax deductible contribution to Lakeland PBS.