Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jamie Gutfreund and Roddy Colmer: Toronto Mike'd #524
Episode Date: October 7, 2019Mike chats with CP24 news reporter Jamie Gutfreund and his career in media and his new band Century Surfers with Roddy Colmer....
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Welcome to episode 524 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything.
Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Alma Pasta, StickerU.com,
Brian Master from KW Realty, Capadia LLP CPAs, and Pumpkins
After Dark.
I'm Mike from
torontomike.com and joining me this
week
is CP24 anchor
and aspiring rock star
Jamie
Goodfriend.
That was pretty good.
Yeah?
I can't tell you how many times I practiced that.
That's okay.
Is it Roddy?
Is it close?
I still haven't got it right.
Yeah.
That sounded really good to me.
And his Century Surfers bandmate, Roddy Comer.
Welcome, Jamie and Roddy.
What's going on, mate?
Nice to meet you, James.
So Roddy, we'll get to that,
but Roddy and I have met several times at this point.
But Jamie, first time I ever met you.
Welcome, my friend.
Thanks for having me.
And I joked with Roddy about this, but I mean it.
You two are very good-looking guys.
Like, I...
Oh, keep going.
It's almost like I'm going to be accused after this episode of
flirting with my guests again but i'm an equal opportunity i saw your tweet i saw your tweet
which one about the question oh yeah i got some like blowback like what does it matter did you
see that like yeah i was i was i was waiting for just a tidal wave of hate. I took a photo from the CP24, the bio for Jamie.
Like I took that photo.
Would you tell me he's 10 years old?
It's probably a good eight years old, I would say.
They should probably update it.
But you look the same.
So I took that photo and I tweeted it.
And all I did was tweet the question,
is this guy handsome?
Which I thought was funny.
To me, it was irreverent and funny.
And then I got a,
you know,
some people are like,
yeah,
he's traditionally handsome,
but not my type.
There was some of that.
That's social media for you.
Some are like,
yeah,
like he's handsome.
And then there was a couple like,
like people who kind of were like,
what's the relevancy here?
Like,
what does it matter?
As if I was like,
I don't know,
making some kind of a,
like,
I don't even know what kind of a like i don't
even know what that was about but i think you're a handsome guy did you did you post it with a
question mark because i could have come across as like is this guy handsome no there's a question
mark there's a question mark and i thought it was the reason and uh the reason i thought it was
funny is because i thought he's obviously handsome right roddy yeah you're with me he's not like
this is not a he's an obviously handsome guy i've been in a few bands and traditionally i've been one of the
cuter guys in my band but there's only two guys in our band and i'm the least attractive one so
roddy this is episode he's a gorgeous man it's episode 524 for 523 episodes i've been the most
handsome man in the room okay so how do you think I feel? It's come to an end, my friend.
Now, okay, so we're going to talk.
I want to talk a lot about Century Surfers.
And I'm going to play a jam from Century Surfers.
This is all going to happen. But let me just tell the listeners,
if they want to go back and hear more Roddy,
where they would go.
So 344, episode 344,
Mike chats with
Jay Brody
and Roddy Colmer
about their
Sirius XM show,
The Dumb Show,
and why they left
the Todd Shapiro show.
Roddy's work
with Rebel Emergency,
which is where
people might know you best,
and his recent
solo effort
and we,
well,
Jay,
we talked about his work
at Y108,
where you were this morning
right yeah it's fun good times really good morning show jay's really coming into his own as a uh
radio guy so yeah it was cool to see him in his new uh new element there do you guys still do
anything together yeah we just put out a comedy album called The Dumb Side of the Moon. Actually hit number one on the iTunes comedy charts.
And if I could interject and just give a public service announcement,
don't do what I did, Mike,
and listen to it on your headphones while doing groceries by yourself
because you will start laughing out loud violently
and you will look very weird by yourself laughing in a grocery store.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Don't do that.
Is it fair that Roddy could be so talented as a musician
and also be so funny?
Like, it seems like you should be one or the other.
What's that about?
Triple, quadruple threat.
What do they call it?
Yeah, at least quadruple.
Five-two-oh player, I think we say in baseball.
Five-two-oh player.
So, okay, so listeners of Toronto Mike, they're well aware roddy's a great musician uh but i don't think many listeners
know that jamie you're like people know you from being a news guy well if anyone who tunes into my
show knows how passionate i am about music when i'm talking about artists and i'm interviewing
bands on the show uh i always kind of interject at times that I'm involved in music
and a lot of people have come to see my band.
I play in a cover band called In Living Cover.
I've been doing that for the last eight years.
But I've been involved in bands for a very long time,
played hundreds of shows throughout Toronto.
But yeah, so I would say a large audience
is probably unfamiliar with that side of me,
but anyone who knows me and is familiar with me
knows how passionate I am about music and rock and roll.
Is he good, Roddy?
He's a good musician?
He's surprisingly good, actually.
There's always a thing where someone's like,
hey, I play guitar or I have a band,
and I personally always just expect it not to be good.
That's my default.
I'm just like, this is going to suck.
But he's surprisingly a really great guitar player
and a great songwriter too.
Okay, yeah, we're going to dive deep into that.
But Roddy, I was trying to think
when was the last time we saw each other,
but it wasn't that long ago
because I saw you after that party for Marty at the opera house.
That's right, yeah.
That was cool to run into you there.
Did you ever go inside?
Because I was leaving,
it was like,
I don't know,
one,
what time was that?
It was after one in the morning.
It was around one, yeah.
Yeah, and I was leaving
because I had recorded
for three hours
and I was exhausted
and I had to bike an hour
back home to here.
And I was on my way out
and I got outside
and then,
yeah, on the Danforth.
And then, Dan, where were we?
Queen?
Queen.
Opera House.
Where the hell was I?
The Opera House, right.
The funny thing is I was at the Rivoli with, not to name drop or anything.
No, I know what you're going to say, but say the name.
Yeah, I was with Jay Parsons from USS, who is a band that I love.
The Human Kebab.
Yeah.
And we left Rivoli at 1130, got stuck in, and it's not far rivoli to opera house it's about a eight minute drive right we got stuck in sean mendez traffic coming he had a concert at
the sky dome it took us an hour and a half to get to the opera house that's why i showed up at one
o'clock so you did eventually get inside we did yeah there wasn't many people left but um if you
had come earlier i would have put you on the mic i had i had the four mics set up uh in the lobby and we had like people like may potts and alan cross and david
marsden they were just jumping on and talking about streaks so well martin was super supportive
of uh my old band rebel emergency back in the day and um i always just loved talking to him about
music because he was so passionate and energetic about it and um i grew up listening to that guy yeah so that was just a whole super sad kind of ending there but um he was very
influential in toronto radio for sure i think it's i think when i try to nail down what it is and one
thing is he's like a soundtrack to an era like when we were all like young and carefree going
to these live to airs or listening to live to airs and it's his voice that brings us back to that and the second thing is and this i think this is lacking a little bit
when it comes to the voices we hear on radio now but his passion for music like i think we just
want more of that like passion for that's what i want for my news anchors passion for me that's
why i listen i watch jamie that's what i honestly, when I got the role of host or co-host
of CP24 Breakfast Weekend,
I kind of took it upon myself
to kind of be an ambassador for the local musicians
that I reached out to that say,
hey, I'm now a host of a show.
I have a platform that you can get
some incredible exposure
that you probably couldn't get anywhere else
without a manager and a publicist,
but drop me an email.
And there's a lot of people. And you can get them on the mighty CP24.
And that's what I did.
Because I'm doing that here,
but I'm just an independent guy,
but you've got a conglomerate behind you.
That's amazing.
There's a lot of bands that I continue to stay in touch with,
musicians that I follow,
like the band Crownlands or Joey Landreth
or Jordan John,
people in the industry that I look up to and bands that I love.
And I just wanted to try and get them out there
and get them to people who probably wouldn't be exposed to them.
No, awesome, awesome.
Now, Rod, you're buddies with Human Kebab, I take it.
Yeah, well, we used to tour.
I got to call him that because if you call him Jason,
he sounds like a regular guy.
I know, he's not a regular guy.
Like the Human Kebab, there's only one of those yeah um yeah we used to tour with uss that's right so i just remember the
first time i saw them we were playing in london and um there was maybe five people there but by
the end of the show jay was like break dancing doing cartwheels um scratching the the um record
with his feet like he's a DJ in the band.
And Ash was making a smoothie.
Can you call him a hype man?
Yeah, he's like a hype man.
He's the flavor of flavor
if he was also Terminator X.
That's the best job ever, by the way.
If you could apply for a job to be a hype man
and you just go have a good time,
not a whole lot of responsibility.
You just need energy.
You just need a hype.
You need to have hype.
For sure.
Bring it.
He's evolved a lot in that band,
more on the songwriting side,
but we've definitely kept
a close friendship
over the years, so.
Now, okay,
so I saw,
I met him there too,
and I was going to say
maybe we get him
on Toronto Mic'd
because I've had Ash
on Toronto Mic'd,
but I've never had
the human kebab.
Okay, well,
you're going to help me
hook it up.
Oh, I will, yeah.
He's a super intelligent dude, too.
Really interesting guy to talk to.
Because he's a radio guy now, too, right?
He's on the radio, right?
He does like a mixtape sort of thing for Edge 102 and a few other stations.
Now, okay, so I see you guys then.
I don't know what that was a month ago or something.
And then I remembered I had met you at the 10th anniversary of USS.
At the,
where the hell was that?
Ballroom.
Okay, yeah.
So that's like Queen and John?
Is that where that was?
Yeah, Richmond and John.
Okay, Richmond and John.
Okay, so that's the night
when I was biking home
from that
when I had the crash
that broke my pinky.
So it's like
I saw a human kebab
and I had this like
PTSD moment
or whatever.
Your pinky just starts hurting?
Which one?
How was my handshake? Because my right pinky, so for like...
That's a delicate finger. Yeah.
Thank you. It's a little crooked.
But okay, so for months after
this accident,
because they don't do anything for it.
They just take an x-ray and they go,
yeah, it's chipped. What are you going to do?
They don't put it in a cast or whatever.
But for months, the handshakes were
really hurting, so I would size up my guests.
I'd be like, oh no,
this is a big, big dude.
He's going to crush it. I'd get ready
for it. I was always happy if I had
a 90-pound woman
for example. Oh, she can't crush it.
I'm going to be okay, right?
Some of those skinny people or small people have the hardest handshakes because they uh they're
overcompensating yeah exactly i never understood this can you guys help me out like i know it's
probably like to show some kind of like dominance in the i don't know from from caveman era or
something but why is it that so many men feel the need to squeeze your hand so hard
like what is that it is exactly what you just said i think it's it's sort of just to make you
more of a man because you broke my pinky you know i don't know i don't think i think maybe
they're trying to test you know your machismo or what you're what you're working with on that side
you know you know i'm bringing this to the table what do you what do you got buddy right well especially if you're like at a bar and you see maybe a girl that you know and you go up
to say hello to her and then there's a guy with her there's always that extra little squeeze at
the end oh man who's this i don't play that but i will just give a shout out to this now i don't
know what this is now 11 years old or something but uh hollow point sniper hyperbole it still kicks ass 11 years later their songs are awesome i love that
band they have a new album coming out too is the century surfers as good as uss no not yet but we
hope to we aspire to all right we're gonna get it we'll play more when uh the human kebab comes on
toronto might so we'll save more uss for that but yeah, so it was good to see you there as well.
See, I bump into Roddy a lot.
And I mean, we'll go back.
I first met you when I came on the Todd Shapiro show.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, probably five years ago.
You were too good for that show, if I may say so.
Am I allowed to say that?
I appreciate that, sure.
That's all I'm saying.
Jamie, give me the sign.
Get me on.
Okay.
So, all right.
So if you don't mind,
Rod,
I'm going to just do a little bit of a deep dive with, uh,
Jamie,
and then we're going to come back to,
you know,
century surfers and talk way more music,
but maybe first,
like,
and I mean this,
Jamie,
if you want to,
uh,
take one of your beers and drink it now,
you can.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean,
it's yours.
You don't mind?
It's yours.
I'm giving it to you
like this is this is not a display uh case like that's that's jamie's and this is rod's this is
yeah enjoy it and by the way you're drinking my favorite beer on the planet right now which is
octopus wants to fight it's nice and i want the record to show i did offer to run up to the fridge
and get you a cold one you you do your thing it do your thing but it's still going to be tasty you're going to dig that so that's courtesy of great lakes brewery
uh it's a local fresh craft brewery not too far from here but you'll find them in lcbo's
and of course some grocery stores i think but uh they're fantastic fresh tasty and they're
family-run local fiercely independent business,
and I dig that vibe.
So they've hosted a bunch of Toronto Mic Listener experiences,
and they're going to host one next spring,
and I'm going to have some live music.
So I'll see if I can book the Century Surfers for that.
Awesome.
Who do I talk to, Rod or Jamie?
Who's the man?
Who's the booker?
I don't know yet.
Both of us.
We'll find out.
No, we both take care of everything.
Okay.
Well, we'll see what moved him in there,
which one I reach out to.
But that's happening in the spring or maybe summer.
I don't know.
Sometime in June 2020.
But the next Toronto Mike listener experience
is actually happening at Palma's Kitchen.
That's Palma Pasta.
They have a location near Mavis and Bernthorpe and it's 10 000 square feet
retail and hot tables it's fantastic authentic italian food they're going to host us on saturday
december 7th at noon and we're going to do a live recording and anybody who drops by is welcome to
jump on a mic and chat chat it up in that episode If I saw you guys there, I'd throw you on the microphone.
Catch up.
Both of you, not one to share.
You're each getting your own lasagna from Palma Pasta.
I'm serious.
Can you believe it?
Grazie.
Grazie, yes.
And your name's German, right?
Not Italian.
Yeah, it's a German name.
Meets good friend.
Yeah. Could you just say it German name. It means good friend. Yeah.
Could you just say it that way?
Jamie Goodfriend?
That's what I tell people to say
because it's just a lot easier
because for a long time,
people have just mispronounced it.
I don't blame them.
But it's Gutfreund if you want to get technical.
Oh, what did I say?
Do you remember?
It was close to that.
It was close.
It was Gutfreund.
I tried hard.
I worked for a German software company
for several years,
and I got my goods down good, but the Freund, I wasn't sure.
But I might just say good friend, because you're a good friend to all of us.
Thank you, Palma Pasta.
By the way, I didn't ask you earlier, but Jamie, vegetarian?
No.
Or meat lasagna?
I do both, but either or.
Do you have a preference?
Not a vegetarian, that's for sure.
But even meat eaters could eat a vegetarian lasagna.
Or they could be serving it up for, I don't know, a girlfriend.
I'm good either or with lasagna.
It really doesn't matter if it has it.
I think I got a good sauce.
The sauce is what makes Palma special.
You're in good shape here.
The sauce is what makes Palma special.
You're in good shape here.
I'm going to get you a meat lasagna out of the freezer before we leave today.
I also have more gifts.
I want to just get the gifts out of the way.
So hold on here,
because then we're going to dive deep here.
Oh, sweet.
I wasn't even prepared.
Stuff.
Such a busy man.
I understand.
But I have stickers for you guys.
See, Rod, we need stuff too.
We were talking about what kind of stuff.
Merch, swag.
Fanny packs.
Put these on my lunchbox.
Oh, and here's the temporary tattoo.
I want you to rock that on CP24.
Rod, I got no more room on my body.
He's got no more room.
I want to tune in and see Jamie with that Toronto Mike tattoo.
That's what I want to see.
Oh, say hi next time.
I really like Kayla.
I'm in the Kayla fan club.
So just say hi for me.
I will.
She's been on fairly recently.
On 2019, she was great.
The stickers are courtesy
of StickerU. Go to StickerU.com.
You guys in Century Surfers really do
need stickers and
buttons. Talked about that
this week.
What are we going to do for TMLX5?
I'm going to talk to them about doing buttons, actually.
You can also do, again, the decals
on this wall. They're fantastic.
You can upload the image, order
as many as you want, reasonably priced.
Heck, for you guys, I could probably
do something special if you hit me up, for you guys, I could probably do something special
if you hit me up.
But you guys should be doing something.
Toronto Mike stickers,
where are they going to end up?
Have you thought about it yet?
Like, where are you going to put it?
My first thought, like I said,
was Lunchbox,
but yeah, I don't know.
Maybe Guitar Case?
I might just put them up on my ceiling
so when I wake up.
Will you tweet me a picture
of where it ends up?
For sure.
All right.
That's all I want.
I want to see where it ends up.
Okay.
So thank you, StickerU.
They have a bricks and mortar location on Queen Street now,
not too far from Bathurst.
So, all right.
So you got your lasagna, you got your beer, you got your stickers.
Pumpkins after dark.
Well, I got a jam for that.
Hold on here.
A little Every Day is halloween by ministry so pumpkins after dark 5 000 handcraft hand carved pumpkins handcrafted pumpkins that's cool 5 000 hand carved pumpkins
that illuminate the skies of country Heritage Park in Milton, Ontario.
This runs through November 3rd.
Not only are these pumpkins, they're illuminating the skies, but there's also sculptures and sound.
It's just a fantastic night.
Tis the season.
I mean, we're at like, it's like October 7th now.
Halloween is happening.
This is a great fun.
I've got two free tickets for each of you. So I'm going to email you PDFs of your
complimentary Pumpkins After
Dirt tickets, Jamie and Rod.
Everyone else can save 10%
right now if you use
the promo code PumpkinMike
when you go to PumpkinsAfterDirt.com
Okay, so you guys made out very well. You guys could
take off right now and you would have scored. You don't even
have to stick around. Okay, so you guys made out very well. You guys could take off right now and you would have scored. You don't even have to stick around.
Okay, Jamie.
Yeah, man.
Like, okay, I mean, we'll get to the music stuff first,
but you're like a hard-hitting newsman.
You're like an anchor on CP24.
So what made you get into, you know, broadcast news?
To be honest, at a high school,
I graduated from a music production school
called Harris Institute in Toronto and worked in the music industry on the label side for
a couple of years.
And how old are you?
I've got you way misjudged this.
What do I do, Ron?
Do I say thirties?
I'm in, I'm in my thirties.
Okay.
Cause you, uh, quite, uh, uh, you know, you mentioned, you know, yeah, the picture was
almost a decade old and I was like, wow.
Okay.
Younger than I look. you mentioned the picture was almost a decade old and I was like, wow, okay.
Younger than I look.
But no, right out of school,
I was working in the music industry for a bit and I kind of saw a future
that I didn't want to be a part of
when it comes to working on the label side
and kind of where the industry was going
with this whole digital world
that the music industry wasn't paying attention to.
But I went back.
I was always interested in current events.
But honestly, man, 9-11 was kind of the U-turn for me
or the hard left turn.
The TSN turning point.
Yeah, it was the TSN turning point.
Basically kind of fell into just being a news junkie
and then went back to school for journalism.
Just because it was our generation's biggest news.
Yeah. Just like I, I, I'm affected by, by things, especially things I see on TV that
are affecting a lot of people and nine 11 at the age of, I was, um, I was affected by it and it
kind of opened my eyes to what was happening around in the world.
I kind of saw where things were going, and I'm like,
you know what, I think I might go back to school,
get a journalism degree, and see if I can merge this entertainment side of me, because I was also acting as well,
and doing music.
Did you do any acting where I might have seen you?
No.
No.
I did some voiceover.
I did voiceover work.
I was on a cartoon for a couple seasons.
Which cartoon?
On Teletoon.
It was called Delilah and Julius.
It was like these group of like special agent,
like saving the world.
Cool.
You mean Delilah?
I know.
I was the...
Hey there, Delilah.
I was like the Jughead.
I wasn't the sharpest of the bunch.
It's better than being moose
so basically yourself
pretty much
I don't think we call that acting Jamie
read the script
that's cool
I think that's cool
I did some music videos
and some corporate videos
a couple small feature films that didn't do anything
but you went back to school.
Where did you go, Ryerson?
Where did you go?
Seneca.
Seneca, York.
And I ended up becoming a professor there.
I taught there for, yeah.
Professor, professor?
Professor.
Or just those teachers who call themselves professors?
No, I taught for two years.
I took this year off.
Does that make you a professor?
Don't you have to be tenured or something?
Isn't there a rule?
Yeah, it's like Professor Light, kind of. Yeah, kind of. I took this year off. Does that make you a professor? Isn't that like a, don't you have to be tenured or something? Isn't there like a rule? Yeah.
It's like Professor Light kind of.
Yeah, kind of.
Well, you'd have to have been in the industry
for at least a decade.
Okay.
Because you know how you hire somebody to read weather?
And you call them weather specialists.
But you never call them meteorologists
because that's like a special accreditation.
Yeah, that's like four extra years of school.
So you're really a professor. I was for two i'm impressed yeah i'm not gonna lie i'm impressed
thanks man and what were you what were you teaching exactly journalism so i was teaching
a writing course i also taught uh kind of like a live reporting course basically how to be a live
reporter and uh and this is before no this was the last two years okay this is the most recent so i was
doing okay did you win an order here yeah i was doing the full-time uh cb24 uh for the last 10
or 11 and a half years wow and then the last two years on my day off i was going up to seneca and
teaching okay tell me how you end up uh working at cp24 right on uh I had, out of school, I interned at CBC
and worked there for about
just shy of two years.
I heard there was these huge changes
happening over at, at the time
it was CTV Globe Media and then
all these changes happened with the mergers, with
Bell taking over.
Got a foot in the door, started as an
editorial assistant, worked my way up to
traffic, weather, live eyes,
and the rest is history.
You never called yourself a meteorologist.
No, I wouldn't do that.
Because that's against the rules.
No, no, that's not cool.
Can't do that.
Amazing.
Now, I'm going to play an old, this is old school.
This is back when Chum City ran the show at CP24.
So we're going way back.
But here's a voice.
And I played this pretty,
maybe I played it,
I can't remember if I played it
because Ann Romer was on recently.
I'll ask you about her in a moment here.
But I did play this recently.
I can't remember exactly why.
Maybe for Lorne Honigman.
Actually, Lorne Honigman was here
and I played it for him.
But here it is again.
I love this clip from The Voice.
CP24, Greater Toronto's number one news channel
can now be your first big...
Mark Bailey.
That simple. Be in the know instantly. Whenever you push the on button,
easy access to the GTA's number one news channel,
CP24.
Still to this day,
probably the best voice in Canadian broadcasting
and a good musician.
Was passionate about music as well.
Now, in the timelines, okay,
so there's the city TV people and the CP24 people are all in the same family.
That's why you have Mark Daly doing a CP24 thing.
And then there was the, of course, the separation, which is before your time, right?
Because you joined.
No, I was there at that time.
So I was basically in the same newsroom.
I was there at the point where we had a row of desks of CP24.
And right behind me, like arms reach away, was City TV.
And there were times where, at that point,
I would be finding out about a fire and whispering to my friend,
hey, there's a four alarm at...
And this is at 299 Queen.
This is at 299.
This is before they left to go to Yonge and Dundas.
Right. Wow.
Yeah, so you got to know Mark Daly though,
because you were.
Well, I met him on a couple occasions,
brief chats,
passed by him in the hall all the time.
Super nice guy,
was always very cordial,
nothing but a gentleman
and an excellent reporter,
just can't say a bad thing about that guy.
He's just a, he's a legend.
If you say a bad thing about him, I have to kick off the show of course of course no violation anyone who has a
anything negative to say about he was an awesome guy no that's good to hear the voice voice is
missed so what and what else can you share from that that's a like to me it's fascinating that
like like to be quite literal so like cp24 breakfast for example which until recently you were host
like super recently it's like three weeks ago right and then we'll get to that but you
literally that was a a simulcast of the the competition like so we forget the weekend thing
but on weekdays cp24 breakfast before it existed cp24 would would simulcast uh breakfast television like it was
just the same it was on and then there's like literally a day where all of a sudden you tune
into cp24 breakfast and it's not like it's not the breakfast television crew it's the cp24 breakfast
crew if you will but some faces are there like i think uh well steve anthony is there ann romer is she there well steve was there he's he's
no longer well he's not there now he's uh prince edward county or whatever but um okay but what
was it like to be around when all that crazy is going on well it's kind of cool well when i started
at two four um i remember being in school uh and i volunteered for the Easter Seals telethon and I was Ann
Romer's handler.
I brought her to her dressing room and brought her to the stage and we kind of connected
and she was just like one of the first people I met in the industry.
So nice.
And at one point I'm in class and my phone goes off and the teacher looks at me with
this look of, you know, why is your phone going off?
I'm like, sir, it's Ann Romer.
He's like, go take the call.
And so she actually was the first person
that tried to get me in the door.
So I have a very good rapport with Ann.
Are you kidding me?
We go way back.
Rod, will you leave us alone?
We need to talk about Ann Romer for a little bit.
She's awesome.
We still connect on emails.
We still get emails once in a while.
Did you know as recently as,
I want to say three or
four weeks ago uh ann was here no i didn't in that same seat you're in right now i didn't know yeah
we did it for the 30th anniversary of breakfast television she came on and then we called up all
the original crew members like uh david onley and steve anthony and it, yeah, so I'm a big Anne fan.
She's a rock star.
She's, and she was like famous
for doing these crazy long stretches of live,
like just nonstop.
And she's, she was really good at it,
really good at it.
And yeah, we miss her.
Well, she found a way back in
by doing ads that appear on your station.
Yeah, she's still back.
You still see it. In a different light. Well, it's a way back in by doing ads that appear on your station. Yeah, she's still back. You still see it.
In a different light.
Well, what's funny is those ads, I guess they're now running for the same company.
They're running ads in the States that feature Ann Romer now
because she's like a GTA famous person.
But they're having her in these US ads.
And people, I guess, are Googling.
I guess her name's on there.
And they're like, who's this?
They don't know who Ann Romer is down there.
And they're Googling her.
Have you read her dad's book? Oh, the General? I have you read her dad's book or oh the general i've not read her dad's read generally
speaking it's quite interesting i will am i mentioned he's my hero by the way he's he's
like the most decorated canadian soldier oh wow in canada yeah yeah he can call himself a meteorologist
you do whatever he wants yeah the general no i always always ask about general romer for sure
for sure but anyway people are googling romer like in the states and they're ending up on i
wrote an extensive piece about her multiple retirements and it ranks very highly for her
and i'm getting comments now from like americans like oh i just caught up on ann romer i was
she was you get to when you're like the michael jordan of canadian you know local news you know
you can retire a couple of times.
Okay, did you buy her a keg gift card the first retirement?
There was a big party.
We had a huge party.
Yeah, cake, right?
It was a huge party.
Okay, tell us about the party.
This is the first day in Rome we're retiring.
It was good.
It was fun.
We all got called into the studio.
It was great.
And there's cake?
There was cake.
But did you buy her anything?
I can't remember.
It was a long time ago.
You did warn Jamie that he'd be on the hot seat.
This is the tough.
I did, yeah.
The hard-hitting stuff that comes out.
Okay, so there was a,
and then did you go to the second party
when she retired the second time?
I don't remember.
I don't remember.
I think we just probably said bye at work.
Schedules didn't really always and for the record though after
that second retirement she did come back on the air before these ads she was back to fill in i
guess there were a lot of vacations or something and she came and helped out so she might be back
again who knows you don't close the door on ann roemer okay so you're at cp24 um so and when do
you get on the air regularly like you mentioned you were doing a bunch of different things.
Yeah, so for a better part of, what, a decade,
I was doing the morning show during the weekday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
So I would do all the live eyes for the last eight years or so.
From there, I'd get moved on to a news story
or go anchor the news at the station or go on to weather.
So I was basically wearing multiple hats
and it was cool it was like the jack of all trades and when do you get that uh weekend co-hosting gig
i got that five years ago i had been doing the weather and stuff on the weekend but i
elevated to host about five years ago and had a great time from pujaja, Anika Elliott, Travis Danraj,
Kayla Williams, who you're a fan of.
Who isn't, really?
We got a good cast.
And Travis, of course, he's moved on.
He was prominent yesterday because I was trying to find out
if I needed to pack lunches.
And he's a Queen's Park guy now for Global, I guess.
So he's doing well for himself and good for him.
part guy now for uh global i guess so he's doing well for himself and uh good for him and okay so when and why are you no longer uh doing this the breakfast show on the weekend just you know i
wanted to kind of focus on just doing news and and anchoring i've been doing kind of a little bit of
well pretty much everything for the last uh you know 10 years and i kind of wanted to just narrow
the focus a bit and sleep a little bit more
as well but sink my teeth into just
doing
solid stories and
things that are important to people.
It is tough to do the...
What time did you have to wake up to do the morning thing?
It depends where I had to be but
it was generally around 5 and
you could be on scene with
outdoors in minus 40.
You could be barreling down a mountain.
You could be in Legoland, wherever, but you've got to turn it on.
What time does the morning show start on weekends?
7.
Okay, that's not so bad.
Maybe I'm thinking it's much earlier, I guess weekdays probably yeah okay cool when do you meet rod
we met well your guitar player for rebel was also working with a buddy of mine as a teacher
and i so i kind of knew jeff before i knew you but i had seen roddy's band rebel emergency a
couple times and then our bands would be in the same rehearsal spaces.
And once in a while, I'd pop my head into yours just to see what's going on.
In Living Cover?
No, this was another band I was in called Virtue and Vice.
And in Living Cover as well.
But yeah, I was a fan of Roddy's long before I was friends with him.
So the fact that we're making music together now
is pretty cool from my perspective
that I get to work with a guy of this caliber.
So Roddy, let me hear that sweet voice.
Sha-la-la.
Who approaches who here
that you guys would kind of unite in the fight?
What's the origin story of Century Surfers?
So I was working on a solo record, my most recent one,
which is called Afterglow.
And I knew Jamie played guitar.
We kind of always talked about we should get together and write songs.
We said that probably every time we saw each other for a year.
And then finally we did, and we wrote this song called broken puppets
and it kind of kind of came together really quickly and easily and it was just fun to write
um so i was like okay there's something interesting here but the song didn't really fit what i was
doing for my solo thing so i was like okay i want to i want to explore this but it's not for this
project so maybe this could be another project.
And at this point,
like at our age,
like I'm not going to waste my time on something.
I don't want to,
I'm not really into like just playing music for no reason. I want it to have a focus.
So I'm like,
okay,
let's see if we can write a couple more
and if they're good,
let's just throw this out there
and kind of go with the flow.
So we wrote another song
that was better than
the first one we wrote talk like break it down this writing process of jamie like how does it
happen like do you just you've got a melody or whatever going on well for so far for us writing
he has come up with uh music so he'll he'll throw some riffs at me or some song ideas and then i'll
i'll write the melody and the lyrics cool so it's worked so far
so um we're kind of just going with that but um it's been a cool collaboration and we we have the
similar um similar taste in music similar similar influences so um it just kind of feels natural
this the stuff that we're writing can you uh elaborate uh jamie and roddy on the similar influences
well we both kind of initially bonded over our love of 90s rock big fans of pearl jam
sound garden stone temple pilots alice in chains blind melon there you go um the list goes on
uh and i think roddy kind of said it best um we're not trying to sound like
these bands but we're trying to capture the spirit and the energy that these bands had and there was
just so much raw power and substance and you know even intelligence in this in this music and it just
there was an authenticity that really struck a chord, I think. When you're 11 and 12 years old
and you're listening to Stone Temple Pilots
core or something like
Pearl Jam 10, it affects you
and it literally, I think, for me,
I'm sure you as well, Rod,
it kind of put you on a trajectory
that like, you know,
your musical taste is going to head into
this direction and that was a,
I mean, this is the first record I ever purchased with my own,
with my own money.
I was 11 years old.
And,
uh,
I remember going to the,
now we know how old you are.
Oh,
it's all right.
There you go.
You look good for a 30,
38 years old.
You look good.
You look good.
I think there's,
there's also like a void in rock right now.
You know what I mean?
There's like the, uh, popular music has really shifted to more pop and hip hop and country
and sort of like combinations of those genres.
So rock, like there hasn't been something really cool or exciting in rock.
What's up with that?
Like, what's up with that?
I don't know.
I don't know I don't know
what the answer is
cause I'm like
like you two
90s rock
that's my stuff man
I love it
and you're right
it's
you gotta
it's not on the radio
what's the last
really big rock band
that has hit hard
like I don't
I can't even name
that's new
like hard rock
or I'm thinking
any rock in general
maybe Kings of Leon
I was thinking like Arcade Fire and kings of leon and i'm thinking like
arcade fire and now i'm going back by 15 years yeah exactly so yeah um i don't know we feel like
there's there's room for it and people i think people are really passionate people who like 90s
rock they're really passionate about it and it really affected them so if we can even capture
like 25 of of that,
I think we'll be able to hit some people.
Even like some of the comments that we're getting on our YouTube posts
and our Instagram posts from just complete strangers are,
there's something about the sound of this that I haven't heard in a while
that I really like.
I want to hear some more of it.
One radio guy said it was refreshing,
which is weird because it's kind of like
it's a throwback sound,
although the production
is very current sounding.
You're talking about
The Storm?
Yeah, The Storm,
our debut single.
I'm going to tease it hard
before they get to hear this.
By the way,
and again,
I said this before
I pressed record,
but I swear,
maybe it's because
I had listened to it
several times.
It's excellent.
The Storm is excellent.
I'm not just blowing smoke up your asses because you're good-looking guys.
I'm not that kind of guy.
And by the way, Rod, thank you for wearing a shirt because this guy, yeah.
I know.
I see these photos.
I know.
And I feel terrible because.
I've seen them.
Up close.
Yeah.
They're for real.
You can grate cheese on the six pack.
Is that what that is?
No, that's all just the angle.
Is that makeup?
I usually get angles on the pictures and stuff.
It's not airbrushed.
You're drawing in like six pack.
You know the shirts that they print for people on Halloween?
Yes.
That's where they cut the photo from.
But in all seriousness, there's no fat on your body.
Am I?
I'm a runner.
I just run.
I run every day.
How far do you run
approximately what's your crazy about it um maybe like 6k sometimes up to 10 just do that and do
sit-ups and you're good do some how many sit-ups you got to do to look like that like the eight
minute abs on youtube or ab ripper x the p90x one yeah you do that a few times a week you're
you're looking good.
Because I'm a cyclist, an avid cyclist.
Every day, at least 30K a day.
I actually eat like a pig.
That's part of my problem.
I think I'm fit.
I feel I'm fit.
But I see you topless in these,
wherever it is, Instagram or wherever. I don't look like that.
That's incredible.
It only takes eight minutes. Jamie, are you a cyclist too? or whatever, and I'm like, holy, I don't look like that. That's incredible. Eight minute abs, man. Eight minute abs.
So it takes eight minutes.
And Jamie, are you a cyclist too?
Did I hear that?
No, I cycle.
I do a little bit of everything, yeah.
No, I cycle, run.
You got to keep up in the gym.
I got to.
I just.
He's dropped 20 in the last couple months.
21.
21.
Good for you.
21, yeah.
Roddy can't lose 21.
I stopped eating the bagels.
It's all those bagels
after the breakfast show
I think I weighed 21
it's the carbs
that do me in
I like cereal
and pizza
I'm sending home
a lasagna
so I hope that doesn't
blow your 21
just you know
have one slice a day
it'll be back to 20
okay so back to 90s rock
just before we get to the
the storm okay so when you when we these
90s you mentioned all these bands i absolutely adore like stone temple pilots and pearl jam and
sam garden and we're listening to alice in chains now like i just you know i love nirvana whatever
i love these guys smashing pumpkins if you had to rank them like in terms of best uh rock vocalists
like who do you have at the time because i have thoughts on this because i spent a lot of time on this ready go ahead on three
one i don't know what you're gonna say no no we're gonna say right right okay one two three
chris cornell yeah yeah to me cornell is the greatest rock singer of all time and one of the
best singers in general in all time.
But my favorite is, I'm an Eddie Vedder guy.
He's my favorite.
Oh, yeah.
Okay, so Pearl Jam is my favorite of all the bands
that we're talking about here,
but Chris Cornell, I think, is the best lead vocalist.
I think we're all collective in a great way.
Yeah.
I think Pearl Jam has probably the best catalog from like start to finish in every
album you know binaural like maybe what was the kind of oddball for me i still love a couple of
the songs but i think when you look at the whole discography it says it's so rich right but chris but Chris he was in a league of his own in my opinion
yeah he's a monster
and even just his songwriter stuff
like his solo records
the way he wrote the melodies were so
beautiful and he used some really interesting
chords and he was such
an interesting talented musician
even Audioslave
kicked ass
don't get us started Mike because we'll be here forever.
I'd make time for this.
Do you guys remember Kim Hughes?
Yeah.
So Kim Hughes was the last guest on Toronto Mic,
and she was talking about what a sweetheart Chris Cornell was.
They had the storefront, but they had Bathurst and Bloor,
and then they moved it by the eating centre there.
But at 102.1
live in Toronto.
Someone else was talking about how
maybe DJ Craig G
and Pete Fowler told me a story about Streak
in Cornell.
Cornell sounds like he was a great guy.
What a loss, man.
I'll never forget hearing about that
because I was actually on my way to
doing a shoot for The Breakfast Show. I was doing one of the Princess Margaret about that because I was actually on my way to doing a shoot for the breakfast show.
I was doing one of the Princess Margaret Hospital shoots and I was driving and I heard a breaking news bulletin on the radio.
And it produced this like just, you know, this noise out of me.
It was almost kind of like getting kicked in the gut.
Like I couldn't explain it.
It was one of those reactions
that just hit me
like a ton of bricks.
That was a big loss.
No doubt. And when we look back at these
vocalists anyways that we're talking about,
put Vedder aside, and I hope Vedder lives
to be 110 years old. Fucking love that
guy so far. We were just talking about that
today. He's the only one left.
Yeah.
Of the big ones?
Yeah.
Well, I mean,
it depends if you stick
Smashing Pumpkins
in there or not.
It depends where you put them
or whatever.
But yeah.
Yeah, okay.
I saw them at their
farewell tour
and I was so disappointed
and then I saw them again
a couple years ago
and they kicked ass.
I heard it was good
the last show.
Yeah.
I respect the band a lot.
Bob Willett,
Bingo Bob.
I dig him.
But I think in terms of the list, I think...
Well, Corgan is an awesome songwriter, but as a vocalist,
you can't compare him to Cornell or Vedder or whatever.
No, I mean...
In my opinion, I don't know.
But I mean, Siamese Dream and...
Great songs.
Melancholy and Infinite Sinus have great songs.
I've got friends who are diehard Pumpkins fans
Those are their favorite records
I think he's like a genius in a way
Corgan
And his voice works for that stuff
But back to our core bands here
No pun intended for Scott
Like yeah so
Kurt of course takes his own life way back when
When he was 27 years old
And then you got of course Scott Weiland's now gone.
Chris Cornell is now gone.
Layne Staley,
like of all the sad demises.
Yeah, that was a sad one.
We were literally
having this conversation.
He was dead for days
before they discovered
his body.
I know, I know.
I hate that.
Heroin's a...
Jamie, look at me.
No heroin for this band, okay?
No century surfers
and heroin do not mix.
It's only Flintstones. At this point,
it's only Flintstones.
Now we're good. Stick to the odd
Great Lakes beer and that's it. I actually
think Cornell's was the saddest one.
You know what I mean? Well, tell me...
Well, there's so many sad ones
to choose from, but absolutely. I think that's
the saddest one because you think of him
being in his
50s, late 40s, 50s
with kids and a wife and he's
made it past, you would think
he's made it past the time in your life where you would
have the sort of depression that would
lead you to do something like that.
He's so universally loved. He has a great
career. It was such a
shock because there was no kind of warning sign
for at least the average fan and whereas
you could see kind of the demise of some
people. Yeah, Glamis Daly and Scott Weiland,
we both knew they were heroin addicts.
Yeah, you watched their demise. You could see it coming.
But this guy was,
he was doing work with film. He had
Audioslave. He had solo records. I mean,
he was getting pulled in so many different directions.
It seemed like he was just getting
better. And I mean, I saw the last few times
they came to Toronto.
They were outstanding.
Blew my mind.
The thing with him, though, is the funny, not funny thing,
but if you read his lyrics, he is the darkest. Fell on black days.
Yeah.
And a lot of his songs were about depression.
And even on his last one.
Pretty Noose was one of his fucking songs.
Yeah, exactly.
It's like when Kurt Cobain wrote,
I hate myself and want to die.
Remember this jam is on the piece?
Burden in my hand.
Right?
It's fun to sing,
but if you actually dig in and you're like,
and you take the lyrics literally,
like, oh, this is a sad,
dark person.
Spoon man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's...
Yeah.
Like suicide.
He has a song called Like Suicide.
It feels like suicide.
But anyways, yeah. it's yeah like suicide he has a song called like suicide it feels like suicide but anyways yeah but that is super sad and um i think every time i hear his voice for the rest of my life
it'll make me sad but i i just love it so much but you know what as fans we all kind of
benefited from all of these guys and their demons and their troubles because out came this music
that just just hit you like a bolt of lightning and and it all and the crazy thing is that it all
came out once you know from the span from like the late 80s to kind of like the mid to late when was
bad motor finger 1990 yeah yeah like if you think of that's kind of the i always think that's like
the start because that comes before 10
and Nevermind, right?
Because they come in like 91.
But you got Bad Motor Finger,
which has,
I know you're-
And Alice's first record
right after that, I think.
Which one?
Alice.
Right, Alice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, Dirt was the first one,
but Dirt was the big one.
I know that's 94.
I think Dirt was the second.
Yeah, it was.
Dirt was second.
Yeah, yeah.
Right, right, right.
That was the monster,
if you will.
Facelift or something was first?
Yeah.
I think it was self-titled. Oh, okay, yeah. That was the monster, if you will. Facelift or something was first? Yeah. I think it was self-titled.
Oh, okay, yeah.
And, well, that's fantastic.
When I was working in a cubicle world,
which has been a while now,
but I used to kind of put on the headphones
and go into like Alice in Chains.
That was the music that got me through that.
Fucking love them.
But if you, yeah,
so if you look at that span of like 1990 to 95, I don't know you where you say it ends in utero maybe i don't even know like if you go from
bad motor finger to in in utero i don't know if that's uh or beyond maybe i would say i would say
a good year after in utero yeah you know you know because we lost i think think, Lane by 97. But by then, you know, the boy band thing was really, really ramping up.
It was crazy, though.
90 or whatever, 90 to 95.
Yeah.
Even for hip hop, rap, and R&B.
Man, that was an amazing time for me.
That was like late 60s all over again.
Yeah.
With Motown and rock happening at the same time.
Still had MJ, Whitney, George Michael.
Boyz II Men.
Boyz II Men.
Janet Jackson.
All that stuff.
The list goes on.
And then like rap, 90s rap.
Tupac, Biggie.
Amazing.
Naughty by Nature.
You know, you're talking to the man who interviewed Chuck D recently.
Oh, I saw that.
That's cool, man.
I need to.
Yeah.
That must have been pretty cool.
I fucking love public.
I love this grungeunge Rock 90s rock stuff
I love
But I was just
He's into metal
Speaking of
Chuck D loves his metal
Speaking of
Audioslave
Okay
Dude from
Rage Against the Machine
Morello
Yeah
Is doing Prophets of Rage
With Chuck D now
And they're touring all over the place
Yeah
Chuck D is awesome
And Be Real
Yeah
Yeah
From Cypress Hill
Fucking
Fucking love those guys.
Oh, man.
Okay.
So we got to get into Century Surfers now.
But I just need you.
I know you're like,
I told you.
Get us started on 90s.
This is how me and Roddy initially bonded.
It just,
we kind of went off on a tangent on these guys.
That's what we do on Toronto Mic'd.
We go off on tangents.
Yeah.
I do need to give some love
to two more Toronto Mic'd partners.
Very important. We're collecting
questions from the listenership
for Rupesh Kapadia.
He's the rock star accountant who
sees beyond the numbers. Rupesh is going
to record his answers to these
questions. Do you guys in Century Surfers
have an accountant?
My father. He's not an accountant. He's just looking after theers have an accountant? My father.
He's not an accountant. He's just looking
after the money? He's good with numbers.
If you ever want to find
a free consultation
and find out where there's some loopholes,
some grants you could take advantage of, some
different things you can move around to benefit
yourselves financially and
take care of the business, talk to
Rupesh. I could arrange that.
And I urge everybody to send me either a DM or write me at mike at torontomike.com with any
question for the rock star accountant, Rupesh Kapadia. Again, he sees beyond the numbers and
he's going to address all those questions shortly. Brian Master. Brian Master. And I want to,
there's a very long name that I'm going to read because I can never remember exactly how to say it.
By the way, Brian Master is still on the radio.
He's at The Jewel, but he's a longtime Toronto radio veteran, if you will.
But Brian Master is a salesperson with Keller Williams Realty Solutions Brokerage.
And here's Brian.
Hi, it's Brian Master, sales representative with Keller Williams to Realty Solutions Brokerage.
I like working by referral.
I love working with people, finding out what they need and where they want to go.
So every month I put out an item of value called the Client Appreciation Program.
And this is really great material.
It's all about, well, for one thing, the way the real estate market is,
but other things like, well, this month is how to turn your home into a smart home.
We've also had things about how to throw a party on a budget, some travel tips.
It's really great stuff, and it comes out once a month called the Client Appreciation Program.
I'd love to get you on it.
It's easy to do.
Send me an email to letsgetyouhomeatkw.com.
And I'll send that out once a month via snail mail and follow it up with an email
that's something related to the item of value you can't miss it's great information it's something
you can share with your friends i'm brian master sales representative with keller williams realty
solutions brokerage thrilled to be on toronto mic'd and again the ask there is simply to go on
his value add educational newsletter list so none of this you know sign to
buy in and sell stuff this is to get on his list send an email to let's get you home at kw.com
thanks brian you guys want to hear the storm like why don't we listen to it and then we'll talk
about it and uh the album okay so this without further ado i only teased it for 52 minutes there's a lot of ado
yeah can you spell there's two ados can you spell them jamie's a smart guy yeah go ahead
oh spell yeah oh i thought you said smell i was like no
adieu i d a d i e u there you go right uh yeah Yeah. There's one that's A-D-O.
There's an A-D-U.
And then there's A-D-I-E-U.
Correct.
Okay.
We'll get the Google this and see.
Here's the storm. I believe that you had to leave, just turned around and you were gone.
What a bitch of a magic trick, your unexplained phenomenon.
Broken hearts and broken plans, baby, I'm not made to understand.
Love and water you apart, yeah, if you don't protect your heart I counted roses, but you counted thorns
I opened windows, but you closed the door
I cut the ocean, but you brought the storm.
I wiped the ocean, you sold me the storm.
You were the breeze moving through my leaves But then you turned into a storm
Led the way into the light
Then blacked me out like chloroform
And in my mind I can picture times
When you showed me how to feel the light
What a pitch of a magic trick
Got lost in your illusion
I count in roses
But you count in stars
I open windows
But you close the door
I count the ocean Open windows, but you close the door.
I've come to the ocean, but you burn the storm.
I've got the ocean, you sold me the storm. You'll never find your way out Can't believe that you had to leave
You just turned around and you were gone
You're an unexplained phenomenon
You're an unexplained phenomenon.
You're unexplained phenomenon.
I counted roses, but you counted thorns.
I opened windows, but you closed the door.
I calmed the ocean, but you brought the storm I fought the ocean, you sold me the storm
I was the ocean but you were the storm
I was the ocean but you were the storm.
I was the ocean, but you were the storm.
I was the ocean, but you were the storm.
Thank you.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you guys, I can totally hear the STP influence in there.
Yeah, very well done.
Thank you.
Seriously.
I still like that song.
I've heard it like 150 times.
I was thinking the same thing.
I was like, okay, well, these two guys, I like Roddy.
Of course, I'd have money as a bud there. And I'm like, yeah, you know, Jamie's guys, I like Roddy. Of course I'd have money as a bud there.
And I'm like,
ah,
yeah,
you know,
Jamie's on CP24.
I'd have him on anyway.
Like I'd have him without the band.
Right.
So it's like,
you know,
let me hear this thing.
I gotta,
I gotta be able to talk about it.
I have to pretend it's good or whatever.
And that's fucking good.
Well,
that's the thing.
I mean like the tough thing,
I think,
you know,
Roddy has a much,
you know,
more well-known name in the music industry.
And I'm,
you know, I think it's been some weird reactions when people hear that i'm the guitar player or that i'm co-writing these songs with him and really the guy with the hairspray and the makeup
in the morning with the yeah and you know it's i i'm i this is one of the i think the best
representation i think out of the gates that you know i'm so proud of because i listen to that song and i hear roddy just give her at the end i'm like man that guy's
got it going on the guitar is but it's well produced like why don't you like shout out
someone who else is on this thing dusty chesterfield our producer dusty chesterfield
when i love things man it is but um yeah it's one of jamie's old buddies yeah no he's a buddy of mine
it's not Dusty Springfield
it's close
so Dusty grew up best friends with my cousin
who plays in my cover band
but Dusty has been a guitar player
who I've always admired
he's played in other bands that I loved growing up
like A Thousand Cures
he's just a wild musician but he's also a really talented producer
with a great set of ears
and when I told Roddy when we were doing the song i'm like you know what man let me reach out to him
because he's been doing some really cool stuff let me see if he's interested yeah i call him up
he's like dude i've wanted to work with you forever he's like sure come over let's just do
whatever come over now and he was so jazzed and we went in there and i remember this one point when
we were kind of like 70 done this song and i kind of looked over at roddy and i could see the look in your eye that
you were like whoa this this is way probably better than you thought it was oh gonna be yeah
and uh that was the moment where we thought like oh this is the real deal and he played all the
drums and bass on there yeah i was gonna ask you who ask you, who's that? Yeah, that's Dusty. Dusty's the man.
Dusty Chesterfield,
what's his name again?
Yeah, Dusty Chesterfield. Dusty Chesterfield.
That is a cool name.
He plays bass
in a band called Saga.
They're pretty...
But Saga's famous.
Yeah.
So he's the bass player.
Termy Luce,
is that Saga?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Get Chesterfield.
You know what's
kind of fucked up, okay?
Is that we were just talking about Cornell.
Took his own life.
Terribly tragic.
And then I was thinking in my head,
I didn't verbalize it,
but I was thinking in my head,
it's kind of fucked up that at the funeral for him,
that Chester Bennington,
the guy from Bennington,
kind of sings there.
And then on Chris Cornell's birthday,
Chester takes his own life the next year.
And then this cat's name is Chester takes his own life the next year.
And then this cat's name is Chester.
Dusty Chesterfield.
Dusty, okay.
Right.
And my brain's hearing Dusty Chesterfield and I'm thinking,
this is weird, man.
I was just thinking of Chester.
All right.
But different people, obviously.
Okay.
So Saga's a big deal.
Yeah, no, he's a well sought after musician.
He plays bass for these guys.
Let me turn that off.
Rookie move.
Rookie move, Mike.
Rookie move.
Actually, it's one of the Garys.
Can I name drop through the call?
Do you guys know the Garys?
The Garys were big time concert promoters.
We were too young, to be honest.
But big deal in the 70s, for example.
Two Garys.
One Gary's been on the show.
This is Gary Topp, who's coming on the program.
But I ignored his call, Gary, because I'm talking to century servers here.
I apologize.
So where were we?
Oh, yeah.
So where were we?
Saga?
Yeah, Saga.
So Dusty, we've recorded two more tunes that we're just finishing up with him.
But it's been really cool
working with him.
Just kind of,
it was this random connection
that turned out
he turned out to be
the perfect guy for us
and for these songs.
And he's most likely
going to be playing
in the live lineup
with us as well.
So he's playing with,
and he's also going to be
producing their new record
as well.
He's a monster musician
this guy
this is a big deal
CanCon radio hit
big deal
I mean it was
hit in America too
I think
they just got back
from Germany
and UK
Copenhagen
they're going to
Punta Cana
in a couple of weeks
oh yeah
there you go
double bill
I'll come and record it
I'm just trying to get a free trip just a little saga in a couple of weeks. Oh, yeah? There you go. Double bill. I'll come and record it all.
I'm just trying to get a free trip.
Hold on, just a little saga
and then we're going to get back
to Century Surfers.
We share the love here.
Wow.
Takes me right back, man.
He's half the age of every member.
Okay, so Dusty is not a founding member of Saga.
No.
He's a young guy.
He's a young guy.
I don't know.
Anyone named Dusty Chesterfield in my head has to be in his 60s.
Yeah.
It always makes me think of Dusty Bottoms from Three Amigos, Chevy Chase. picture anyone named dusty uh chesterfield in my head has to be like in his 60s yeah it always
makes me think of dusty bottoms from uh three amigas chevy chase he's like of course three
years younger than you and me yeah yeah okay cool that's that's cool so okay so you have the song
the storm we are straight up real talk time i know why Y108's been playing it, right?
Because I see tweets about that.
Like, what's going on there?
Well, we're just slowly kind of rolling it out to radio.
There's a station, a really cool station in Ottawa
called Rebel, Rebel 101,
and they were the first to sort of officially add it.
Is that Daryl Spring?
That's right.
I had him on that show at the Opera House.
He told me about it. It sounds really cool. Yeah, Daryl's great. I've known him. I's right. I had him on that show at the Opera House. He told me about it.
It sounds really cool.
Yeah, Darryl's great.
I've known him.
I went to high school with him.
And yeah,
he's super excited
to be on there
because he kind of has
a lot of creative control there.
Yeah, sounds like
he plays what he wants.
Pretty much.
Which is super,
I think most stations
should do that.
You know what I mean?
None of them do that.
I know.
And I think that's
kind of killing radio.
You have to be a podcaster
to do that.
It's kind of funny that our first station that's playing it is a station called Rebel.
I know, yeah.
Which is, you know, for anyone who doesn't know, Roddy was in a band, Rebel Emergency,
which was awesome.
It all connects.
It's all one big circle.
Yeah, and we've got some play in Calgary on X92, which is a really awesome station, too.
And we're just slowly getting out to the music directors.
We entered the charts too
by the way. Yeah, we're top
200. Actually, we were number 41 on
iTunes on the alt charts. Good for you
man. Now I'm thinking of my
agent hat
here. I'm thinking, you know, Jamie here is
affiliated with Bell Media,
right? They own hits.
97.7 can play this jam, right?
Well, yeah, that's the station for sure that we're targeting.
So, yeah, just got to go through the channels.
It's so much kind of politics to get on a radio station.
I've wanted to try and keep this as separate from that.
I was going to ask, by the way.
Here's my question.
That's not true.
He tells all his coworkers to listen to the song all day long.
Everyone who walks in the building, everyone who stands beside Starbucks.
If you downloaded the song, why not?
Give me your phone.
I'm coming for you.
Give me your phone.
Is there any conflict there?
Can you be a serious newsman and rock and roll god?
I had to get permission to even be here, Mike.
Is that right?
They gave it to you?
Absolutely.
I was very forthcoming.
A month before we even put out the storm, I said, hey, guys, I'm putting out a song.
And chances are there's probably going to be some media requests.
And I just want to be forthcoming.
Oh, so you didn't specifically say here.
You just said you're going to be doing things.
No, I gave them the heads up. And then every single time we get booked i let them know i want them to you know
have the heads up i'm going on this podcast or i'm going on this radio show i i in my opinion i give
nothing but extreme love to cp24 so i don't even kayla could be like one of my reference checks
whenever she had a great time i could tell you when she, did she get lasagna?
I'm trying to remember now,
but,
uh,
yeah.
Uh,
I think everyone on the roster at CP24 should come on Toronto Mike.
That's what I think.
I'll tell them.
And who's your head of news over there?
Um,
right now?
Yeah.
Uh,
well,
it's not Stephanie.
Like,
is it,
uh,
she's runs the newsroom.
Okay.
She's been on Toronto Mike.
Yeah.
That's all you need to know. So they can't say no to you if we and we started uh roughly around the same time
we've been working together for oh she came from like 680 probably i'm trying to remember her but
she's done a lot of interesting things herself actually and she's still uh with the dude from
680 news right paul cook who brian master keeps telling me to get on this show because they they work together a long time that's great i will get mine so no conflict you can be uh dan rather and chris
don't i was gonna say chris cornell but don't be all a chris cornell just be the rock star
yeah you can do that okay so this is the one song we hear and you're going to try to get it
elsewhere like obviously uh i don't you're right politically i don't even know how it works like
like how do you get on for example 102.1's, how do you get on that radar?
Luckily, I've been around for a while and I've had some songs on the radio before and toured and stuff,
so I have some relationships with some music directors that I can just write on Facebook or email directly
and be like, hey, this is my new song, can you take it into the music meeting?
and be like, hey, this is my new song.
Can you take it into the music meeting?
Other than that, we have to hire a radio tracker to kind of push the song to bother the music directors.
Is that expensive?
Yeah, it can be.
Yeah, it definitely can be.
Might need your accountant's number again.
Depending on genre.
Rupesh will help you out.
Depending on genre, it goes from like two grand
to like nine or ten for like one song
just to push
to radio but um it's worth it if you're in the right situation and you can gain traction and
you have songs to follow it up it's uh okay on that note you got one song here i feel like we're
filming that thing you do right like we got this one we got this one killer track right we're gonna
whatever but what is it you want to hit wonders here?
What else is coming?
It feels like we're not.
Just because the next songs we're working on
I feel just as good.
And if they weren't,
we might not even have put this song out.
It's like, ah, it's just going to die
and then it's a waste.
So we definitely have
some strong ideas in the studio right now
that we're almost done recording.
There's two that are in the oven right now.
One's probably about 75%, 80% done.
Another one is on its way.
But we also have probably a good three or four other works in progress.
So we're on our way to putting together a solid album.
Never been more
excited about anything musically than than this so we're um i'm looking forward to what he's got
in store for a lot of these ideas that i've been cooking up so this uh the storm is the only
completed song in the century surfers playbook but there's more don't worry mike there's more
it's coming one more where does the name century
surfers come from um we were just thinking of a name and jamie threw that out one day and
we're throwing names back and forth and i was like right when he said that i'm like that's the name
100 i was like you were dead set on like right when i said that it just where did it come from
in your head like where does century surfers come i feel like it was um because we're influenced by 90s rock um it's sort of like we're
surfing centuries you know what i mean musically we're kind of going back to the 90s but we're
still staying modern so so clever i yeah and i used to surf on the crowd um in rebel emergency
i have a surf surfboard and stuff so i think jamie was kind of like i was looking i remember
thinking about that too so it uh yeah it just worked out i thought because ed vetter is a big surfer dude right he
loves i was just in la to see eddie vetter at this uh festival ohana fest which is um right on the
beach beside one of the this cool little surfing community so he had like kelly slater come out
and play a song with him and um it's a really beautiful setting. He does it every year.
Amazing.
Yeah, you got quite the life, Roddy.
You got quite the life. It's not bad.
Man, like, well, music business is not easy.
Like, I can't say my life's been easy,
but it's fun making music
and trying to be a musician as a career.
Nobody said it was easy.
It's probably the hardest profession to do actually but a lot of
people right now are saying yeah try driving this truck for a living you think that's hard yeah but
at least with that you have a paycheck coming in every two weeks that you know that's why i went
back to school yeah jamie's a smart one because he gets to do the rock and roll life but he still
gets to be have a real job you know i've never had a real job i
worked at home depot when i was 19 for a bit and that's the only time i've ever had a job in my
life that's amazing because i talked to so many like great canadian musicians of songs all over
much music that we all know and love or on uh you know on the radio especially back in the 90s and
they all have most of them not all of them a lot of them have real jobs now and they do that at
night like the fact that you can actually write.
So you're able to live off music?
Yeah.
Well, and I like,
I write some commercials for Pizza Pizza
and I have a custom song company
and I do the radio stuff with Jay,
the podcast.
So it's trying to grind,
like make money being creative.
That's what I'm trying to do, by the way.
Yeah.
Seriously, that's my new'm trying to do by the way yeah i'm not seriously that's that's my
new thing i'm like always thinking and uh different different things you can do and can i can i make a
living on like producing creative content yeah fucking right roddy's my hero here jamie what
are you gonna say buddy by the way your hair is great um got great hair thanks man yeah fantastic
i can't say the same roddy's got it hiding from me. Yeah, well, I don't have TV hair,
but I'm not like Jay Brody.
I mean, right in between.
Jay Brody and his entire Y108 morning show crew,
I guess there's three of them?
You met them today.
Yeah, Shauna and Chris.
Okay, they're all coming on Toronto Mic, I think.
I don't know when,
but it's happening either in October or November.
Yeah, they're great.
They're great, fantastic.
Okay, so you got this song,
you're shopping around.
Will you ever perform this song on CP24?
Would you be the boss about that?
No, they don't really do performances like that.
And I would honestly want that kind of a song
to be performed in its entirety with a full band.
So we're in the process we're
doing the record but we're definitely looking hopefully maybe spring to start uh getting this
project on on stage i think on um i think on november 24th i run a show every month at the
rivoli it's called unplug north and we're doing like a year-end show um i think julie black's
playing and a couple more artists.
But I think me and Jamie are going to go up and do a couple songs,
just acoustically.
So that's Sunday, November 24th at the Rivoli.
Okay, so there's a chance.
Would you promote that on CP25?
I'm trying to see if these worlds will collide a little bit here.
We'll see.
We'll see.
Okay, what was I just about to ask?
So you're playing live. you've got the one song.
Yeah, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube.
Century Surfers is all of our social media handles,
just Century Surfers.
But you can get the song on all the platforms.
I was going to say direct them here.
I'm trying to remember where I was going there.
I had a very important question that has completely left my mind.
Jamie, is there anything you want to share
while I try to dig this up here?
I just think it's an interesting time doing this
because I haven't been a part of an original project
for a good 12 plus years.
I've been doing the cover band thing for eight years
with a good group of friends of mine
and it's just a blast and just the whole industry this this didn't exist podcasts and and
and uh social media and it's such a different world i think it's an exciting time to kind of
be an artist kind of trying to well you know what exists now that never used to it used to be that
everything was oh i just remember where i'm gonna go but make sure mike don't forget to get back
there okay so nowadays everything's you know it's bell media or it's rogers or it's chorus
you know or what i was gonna ask you about which is the cbc like can you get this song on cbc music
we can try yeah we hope yeah it's not that easy well on thursday it's all canadian dave badini's in here on thursday and we'll show him our song
man except okay i will dave badini of course one of the great canadian rock bands of all time the
real statics and he's saying that cbc won't play his new album like he can't get the new real
statics album on cbc radio so what's up with that i've never had a song on that i've had a song on
all sorts of stations but cbc is one that I've never had for some reason.
But it's good to be on there because royalties are really good.
Well, it seems like there should be a mandate
to play good, new Canadian music.
Yeah, and they do play a lot of Canadian music,
but I don't know if it's just a lot of people trying to get on there,
so it's a little crowded.
But yeah, we're definitely going to try for that, to get on there, so it's a little crowded, but yeah,
we're definitely going to try for that, for sure.
Okay, but nowadays where it was going,
so now you've got, you know, that's how it was,
but now you have, at least you have outlets now
that aren't controlled by the conglomerates.
When we grew up doing our bands in the 90s and even early 2000s,
we didn't have YouTube, which is huge.
We didn't have Instagram or Twitter or any of these things where
you can just blast out a music video or blast out a show to however many followers you have.
You have this platform that just did not exist. So, you know, one thing I think you and I weren't
really active a lot on was social media. Now that we're kind of heavy into century surfers,
I mean, we're on social media every single day.
We're trying to do something.
Do you both post from the Century Surfers official account?
Yeah.
And what is the official?
Just Century Surfers.
Good for you.
The good thing about that name too is if you Google it,
there's no other results, which is hard to find in a name.
Remember, speaking of Linkin Park,
that's why they spell it that way
so they can't yeah main name park in like baltimore or something uh chicago is it yeah
chicago i thought it was baltimore too is it baltimore there's one in chicago it's probably
one there's probably a few it's like a it's like union station i just know that because i think you could be right that podcast um that one about the the dude who who
oh uh yes i know what uh yes chester and i ned a y n e s i it's uh what's that podcast called
serial serial right serial found the body in lincoln park right oh yeah okay yeah yeah yeah
so that's uh that's exactly what uh Jamie, good friend.
See, I'm just going to totally hammer that good friend.
I think we're good friends now.
Tell me, I want to be at this show you're doing at the Rivoli.
Well, I'm playing October 27th, the full set.
Like mostly my...
But Jamie won't be there.
No, he's out of town.
Well, fuck that.
I want to know when Jamie's going to be there.
Yeah, if you want to come see my some
of my solo songs i know i'll play a few rebel songs and whatever else i uh i want to tell your
audience to please go check out roddy's solo record afterglow it's beautiful but if you want
to get really dumb go check out his comedy album the dumb side of the moon the dumb side of the
moon and once again don't listen to it by yourself just don't listen to it in general in public your last visit rod um we played stuff from the afterglow oh yes and it was yeah
it's beautiful he's very talented handsome and talented and he's got great uh abs it's the
complete complete package thank you and that brings us to the end of our 524th show.
Wow.
You can follow me on Twitter.
I'm at Toronto Mike.
Jamie, what's your Twitter handle?
At my name, at Jamie Goodfreund.
And you'll have to figure out how to spell that.
Yeah, there you go.
Roddy, what's your Twitter handle?
Well, I'm Roddy C on Instagram and Roddy Colmer on Twitter.
And very quickly, Mike, before,
thank you for supporting emerging Canadian artists
and giving us a little bit of love.
We really appreciate it, man.
Thank you so much.
You do a great thing here.
The pleasure was all mine, my friend.
And if that song sucked, I might not have done it.
That's no joke.
I get like 20 requests a week from bands
who want to come on here.
And I just had this band from Vancouver
called Strange Breed.
It's because they were amazing.
These four young women from Vancouver, they were amazing.
But if I think it sounds like pedestrian, I got to have Bedini on.
I don't have time for all that.
Come on.
All right.
But I want to remind them again, everybody, Century Surfers are at Century Surfers.
Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.
Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.
Make sure I get it out of the freezer before you drive off.
Sticker U is at Sticker U.
Brian Master is, again, he's at Let's Get You Home at kw.com.
Capadia LLP is at Capadia LLP.
And Pumpkins After Dark are at pumpkinsafterdark.com.
The promo code is Pumpkin Mike.
Do it up.
And see you tomorrow with Davabnett Doyle.
Can I ask one last quick question?
You just said Palmer Pasta.
What did I say?
Palmer Pasta.
So I'm wondering which one you actually say.
I probably say Palmer Pasta.
And it's probably supposed to be Palmer Pasta.
You said Palmer Pasta.
Is that Palmer Pasta?
Roddy, are you new to this show?
I mispronounce every other word.
It's part of my charm.
It was a funny sentence.
It was a funny sentence.
Okay, cool.
I know that's true.
Yes, I do.
I know it's true, yeah.
I know it's true.
How about you?
All that picking up trash and then putting down rogues?
And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes.
And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can.