This is Bringing the Darkness to the Light with Katherine Nadal, professional psychic medium.
Today's guest is Tyson Leslie. He is a keyboardist, guitarist, bassist, and vocalist, known for many bands, especially Vixen.
It is a pleasure to have you on, Tyson.
Well, thank you for having me.
Oh, thank you. You and I met about a year ago. We were in M3.
And I was introduced to you by my friend, Jack Frost.
Oh, nice. Yeah.
Incredible. You really are like a machine. I was looking at your bio, and then I was like,
I was like, wow, I didn't realize all the things you're still involved in.
Wow. So I want to know more about you, though, because I looked at a lot of things online, and I'm really fascinated.
First of all, by your own work, second role, by your collaboration with these other amazing bands, but also your own talent.
I understand you have an interesting way you came here to America. You were a part of operation, baby left through Vietnam.
That is correct. Yeah.
So after the Vietnam War ended, around 74, which is when I was born, there was a whole bunch of orphaned babies,
and they got put on cargo planes and Pan Am planes and some of them weren't even strapped into seatbelts.
It was kind of a weird situation. And some of them were in these cardboard boxes.
And I was one of those babies, apparently, and brought over.
And they took them to different parts of the United States, the Midwest, and then the East Coast and West Coast.
And then the Midwest and Denver, Colorado area, and was adopted by a Caucasian family that was based out of Greeley, Colorado at the time.
And I lived there from then until about 1988. And that point moved to Kansas City, but my childhood was in Greeley and I adopted another girl from Korea.
So that was my sister Samantha. And yeah, I'm very thankful for that situation considering I don't know what my life would have been like had that not happened.
You know, kind of been very, very different.
Yeah, it's very interesting. I want to know when you realized how you were involved in music. Was that as a young child?
Or when did you feel like you got involved with listening to music or bands?
My mom always says that I started playing piano when I was three, and just kind of picking up melodies. Your Mary had a little lamb type of melodies and things like that.
My dad, he didn't really play anything, which is weird, but he always had weird little musical instruments, things that he would get me for Christmas and stuff like that, like a toy organ or drum set or fake guitar, whatever.
And I took lessons, classical music lessons from a lady that lived up the street for a while. Then at some point, you know, I went from playing piano and then I discovered Motley Crew and Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister and all the bands were on MTV at the time.
And Prince and Michael Jackson and that changed. All of a sudden, piano wasn't as cool and I wanted to play guitar. So I entered this talent contest and I won the contest and got $100 from it.
And took that and bought my first guitar at a pawn shop with my dad. And I taught myself how to play guitar. And then every other instrument that I play, like bass and drums and stuff like that, I taught myself because it's sort of out of necessity.
You know, I'd be in one band and the bass player got fired. Well, I guess I'll play bass for a while. And I get pretty decent at that. And then I was working in a piano bar in Kansas City called Howl at the Moon.
And you basically kind of jump around on multiple instruments there and they have a drum kit. And so I was playing drums five nights a week, you know. So you got better at playing that, playing every night and being really nerdy and listening to a lot of really choppy, amazing drummers like Neil Peart and Mike Portnoy.
But also a bunch of jazz guys like Dave Wekel and you know, things of that nature. Like I got in a lot of fusion music in college. So I listen to all kinds of different styles of music all the time. And I play all kinds of different styles.
And I'm known, obviously as a rock guy in Nashville, but I played country. I played R&B and hip hop music. I played people go with kind of music to play. I said, whatever, I get hired to play because it changes from gig to gig.
I love that. I actually am curious to know what do you prefer. So when you have your alone time, what is your really like your go to music?
Well, since I've been home from the monsters of rock crews because we just did that a couple weeks ago. I've basically been listening to two artists over and over again and nothing but.
And that is the darkness and like their entire catalog of material and a band called Marvin, which is a fusion jazz band that plays on all these cruises. They're kind of a break from all the rock music or the other genres of music.
And they're absolutely extraordinary. So I've been listening to both of those artists a lot. But you know what I listen to is different on a day to day basis. I may wake up one day and feel like listening and why you'll come the next day.
I feel like listening to Beastie Boys and the next day I feel like this is a slayer. I mean, it's just different all the time. You know, I listen to classical music a lot. My son writes classical music and I go see my 21 year old child play music and an orchestra playing music that he wrote, which is really fun.
So it's just it strikes me differently each day that keeps it entertaining and fun.
Well, it's very impressive. I've had a lot of musicians on the show. None of them quite like you. It's very impressive. You know, I was reading a lot about you. And everything I read was he plays six or seven nights a week. And he's the busiest guy in the business. And he plays with everyone.
And his talent in it. It's just one thing after another and all very positive. You know, it's just incredible. When do you feel like you you were invited to play with what you would call the biggest band or your first biggest band? You know, cause you go back to like 20, 2009 or something like that.
Yeah. I mean, that was my first major artist that I played for when I played with Corey Taylor from Slipknot. It was a very pretty short lived thing. We only did it for about a year and a half. I think Corey was needing an outlet for what is now called CMFT, which is the couple records that he's put out under that moniker, which is it's not as heavy as Slipknot or Stone Sour at all. In fact, it's more of a straightforward rock.
Kind of a band material, whatever. And we were getting put on all these metal festivals and we opened up with Let's Go Crazy by Prince and people just didn't know what to do with us. It was weird. And there was a lot of fun. And I love like Corey, there's an extraordinarily talented guy.
All the guys in the band were really cool. But we all kind of lost touch over the years, you know, and we, that band kind of dissipated.
I think his label and management and the people that were involved in his world at the time weren't quite ready for that yet. They were just like, okay, let's go back to Stone Sour and Slipknot and writing books and the things that are making us money, you know, and so I can't quote that as fact, but it just seemed like that's the way that the direction things went.
And so he kind of shelved that music for a long time and it finally came out shortly after COVID, if I remember correctly, and it's really good.
The songs are great. And, you know, I'm not going to lie, definitely miss being part of that and miss working with him and miss that world. But he's living in Vegas now and he's got a whole different group of people that are playing within these days.
And then several years went by and I didn't really do anything but working in piano bars and things of that nature. And then I moved to Nashville in 2015.
Two months later, after I moved here, I was playing country music for the first time in my life with Tracy Lawrence, which was terrifying. And I wasn't very good at it. And I got fired about a month afterwards.
And mutually, you know, we were both like, yeah, this isn't working. You know, like, this is definitely not my wheelhouse. And I ended up in the Vixen camp and that.
You know, it was a band that I went, I grew up on it, you know, and I loved it. And I, you know, back when an edge of a broken heart was a hit on TV and things like that.
But as far as to answer your question, the biggest day of my life in terms of working with heroes and people that used to hang on my wall as a child and posters was Eddie Trunks 40th anniversary show a couple years ago.
And I'm up on stage like playing music with people like Alice Cooper, which was my dream gig. My whole life was to play for that guy and Sammy Hagar and the singer from Kevin from Ario Speedwagon and Brad from, I mean, the list was Corey, actually was there.
Which I hadn't seen him in 12 years at that point. It was really good to see him. I don't want to sound like a name driver. But if you want to know who's on it, just look up Eddie Trunks 40th anniversary party and it was absolute insanity. I just, I could not believe I was there.
And it was in Las Vegas and talk about, you know, imposter syndrome. These people have been famous their whole lives. And here I am playing keyboards with all these people.
That was a really, really surreal day. And then obviously flash forward to about a week ago or two weeks ago. I don't know what it was now. And I was on stage in front of my, the largest audience I played for today, which is 320,000 plus people with Brett Michaels at the NFL draft in Pittsburgh. So that was pretty awesome too.
Wow, Brett Michaels, that's incredible. Every time I see him in my head, I'm like, poison. I could use so much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I've worked with Brett a few times and as far as a great camp to work with this band are super fun people. And yeah, I love those guys.
Wow. Brett's always super nice. It's very, very, very easy to work with. Oh, yeah. I can't wait to go back and look up that Eddie Trunk event.
Because that's amazing. The other thing that you had said, and I want to go back to, but I understand you kind of made history with Vixen. Because you were the first male member to play on stage with a female hard rock band.
I wasn't the first. I mean, they've always had a keyboard player, but back in the 80s, they had him off stage. And then when they reformed in 2012ish around that time, I don't know if there was a guy before Chris. I replaced a guy named Chris.
So he was on stage with them. And I'm not sure he was the first guy or if there was somebody before him. I feel like there was one person before him possibly as well.
But I'm not 100% sure about that. And it's interesting dynamic to be in that band because, you know, when I first joined the band, I was kind of told I was supposed to be the invisible person like I, you know, I mean, I was on stage, but in terms of pictures and videos and things like that, I was asked to not be in any of those things.
And because their whole brand is all female band, which I get that, you know, and then I was totally okay with that and I'm still okay with that. However, some of that has evolved and changed a little bit.
And now I get to do the bow at the end of the show and I'm sometimes in some of the pictures, but I hate photo shoots and things like that anyway. So I'm always delighted to be like, okay, bye girls. See you later.
I'm going to go play my PlayStation in the hotel room or I'm going to go hang out with my friends or go explore the city while you guys have to do work stuff and I can just go hang out.
Wow, I love that band. They were there in M3 last year. That's where I ran into you. And every time I hear those songs, I'm like, wow, I could picture myself what I was doing where I was doing.
And that's what I hear so often from the fans is that a lot of these bands that are still around and that are still playing those hits, the fans are transported back to where they were and what they were doing.
And that's part of the whole attraction with music. It's just like a release of memories for the fans.
Yeah, well, I mean, it is. It's nostalgic. You know, and I mean, I go through it too. We played the 80s crews a couple years ago, I think, and I was hanging out with the guys from LA guns and Corey Glover from Living Color.
And we were watching the band Divo and we were like a 12 year old at a Taylor Swift concert. We were so excited because I'd never seen them live before and I love that band. I've loved them since I was a kid.
I think it's important to remember, especially when you get to the level of those guys are at that we were still fans to like other other artists. And we still are.
You know, we go on the monsters of rock crews and you watch all these bands, but you might be watching, I don't know, Stripe or but then there's Roxy from Bixen and there's Paul Taylor from winger somebody else.
There's always other people watching. There's always other people that are, we're still fans too at the end of the day. We still love each other's material and whatever. So we try to support each other in that regard.
And it's always even more fun when you are in your hometown or you go to other cities, you show up to the concert that you're going to see. And there's somebody from our world that's there also and that's hanging out because they're, we're all just, you know, we might be into business, but we also
still love the artists and stuff like that.
That's great. I wanted to mention your own music. We're going to talk about some of your songs and I've had a chance to listen to them. The first one we're going to talk about is called the little green Honda.
Tell me about that song. I love it.
Oh, thanks. I was in a band in the early 2000s. We had a girl, singer in the band and she had this Honda Civic that was just a mess and her transmission was messed up. So she couldn't go in reverse. So we would, we'd finished the gig and like two of the guys would have to push her car out of the parking spot so she could leave.
And it was a crack in the windshield from when her boyfriend got mad and punched a crack in the windshield. And I was like, this is a really funny subject matter for a song.
Because the car is such a piece of crap. Like this is going to be funny. And she worked at a guitar store and she's really good looking, you know, like all the guys would go buy guitars just to look at her because she was beautiful, beautiful girl.
So I wrote a song about it because it was just, I just thought it was funny to be, you know, tongue in cheek. It's very, very influenced by a guy named Butch Walker and his band, the Marvelous Three, which is like my favorite songwriter of all time. And I wanted to write a really high energy power pop song, open up the record with.
And so that's the one that came out.
That's great. So we're going to play that now, Little Green Honda.
She's got a whole lot of magic in her half-minute dreams.
She sells loud rock and talk to the pretty boys that play in the bands.
She's got her world with lifestyle into any time on her hands.
And when she does herself crazy, she don't use a car.
Cause the world that she has, it doesn't get her very far, she's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a whole lot of attitude, practice, but she's got a little bit harder with the crack in windshield.
She's got a little bit harder.
So take a look at that girl, she moves along the stereo.
She made her grow and fall over and over, and there's no snow to the floor.
Everything on the street was the feeling, there's to be a man.
That she likes the attention, but she don't know if they really care.
And when she does herself crazy, she don't use a car.
Cause the world that she has, it doesn't get her very far, she's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a whole lot of attitude, practice, but she's got a little bit harder with the crack in windshield.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a little bit harder.
When she does herself crazy, she don't use a car.
Cause the world that she has, it doesn't get her very far.
She's got a little bit harder than cool, cool with reverse.
She's got a little bit harder with the crack in windshield.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
She's got a little bit harder.
So talking about that song that we just heard, how did you come about making that?
Was that your first album?
It was my first album as a solo artist.
So I made some other recordings with other bands up to that point.
But as a solo artist, I produced everything.
I wrote everything.
I played almost every instrument on the record, except for I brought in some friends.
So one of my best friends in the universe is his name is Gogo Ray.
He played drums on the whole thing.
And then I brought in some guest guitar players.
My friend Freddie Francis, Tori Stoffergen, formerly of Enough's Enough, Samantha Fish,
a handful of guitar players, a lot of singers, they're more of my friends.
They came in and did some backup vocals on there, which was really cool.
Everything else was done by me.
It was really cool to just try to do everything myself.
But as time has gone by and I've grown as a songwriter and producer and all those kinds of things,
I've come to enjoy the art of collaboration with other artists a lot more than trying to do everything myself.
And so now I prefer to be in a scenario where I'm in a room with a bunch of other musicians and I just go,
here's the idea of the song, here's a demo version, or here's me playing it.
You guys do whatever you do because you're going to do better than whatever I have in my head.
So another song that we talked about that I think you guys are going to feature is called Burning Time.
And that was a song that I collaborated with other artists and other musicians on.
It became the biggest song that I've put out so far.
And it was also featured a lot of legitimate 80s kind of era rock star kind of people.
After that, I decided everything I'm going to put out from now on is going to be collaborative.
And that's not to say that I won't do a song every once in a while.
It's just all me.
But as far as like a whole body of work, I've really enjoyed the art of working with other people.
And because other people are going to see a song in a different way than the way you see it.
And so they'll bring something to the table like, whoa, that drum part's a million times better than anything I would have thought of.
And so that guitar, so I couldn't play that in a million years.
That's so much better.
I get a lot of joy out of hearing what other people come up with on my material.
That's great.
Yes.
So when I was listening to Burning Time, I loved it.
I actually played it like three times in a row.
And it actually says mercenaries underneath it when you play it.
So was that the name of the album?
That's the name of the band or the concept of the band.
Because basically anytime that I'm going to put out stuff like that, I'm going to call it mercenaries, which is because to me,
mercenaries, you know, you're hiring like some sort of badass to come execute the job.
And in this case, the badasses were Billy Sheehan on bass.
Roxy from Vixen played drums on it.
Jimmy Bell, who was the guitar player for autograph for many years, was the guitar player on that record.
And then Todd Latore from Queens right, who is the current singer for Queens right.
And I co-wrote the song together.
He took the song and rearranged it and came up with the vocal ideas.
Again, he made a good idea of a song into a great song, just because he brought his ideas to the table that I didn't have.
And it turned out to be so much better than I could have imagined.
Wow.
Yes.
They're all heavy hitters in their own right.
I know all of them.
And I just cannot believe the power in that song.
I mean, I literally just played it like on replay three times.
And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll have to look for that one to feature it if it's available on social media because.
Yeah, all of that stuff's, you know, it's on YouTube.
It's on every, on Spotify and Apple music and all of those kinds of things.
Just to show you the testament to what the music business is like.
It's the most streamed song that I've had.
And the song that's gotten the most attention.
And then I got a check in the mail that December for a dollar 36.
From all of those streams.
That's what I made from that song after all the money and the time and the effort that went into something that I think came out really, really good.
And I got a dollar and 36 cents from it.
You know, it's just like it's such a weird business that we're in.
Yes. So the music world has changed with the streaming, you know, residuals and, you know, what you would say as profit has changed him remarkably.
But it's more than just getting your dollar check.
You're giving such an experience to so many fans.
And that's something that doesn't have a price value on, you know, that's incredible.
Yeah.
Yeah, I certainly, I mean, most of us.
Most of us, these in this day and age right now, we don't do.
Write original songs and do all that for money because there's no money there to be made.
We do it just because we have to or we're passionate about it or we need to get it out of our heads or out of a computer hard drive and out to the world.
And whether one person listens to it or a million people or a billion.
It doesn't matter.
It's really just because that's what we do and who we are as artists.
We need to get it out there.
Yes, so we're going to play Burning Time by the mercenaries now.
Time is an illusion, but the illusion is about to run out.
B
You'll hear the sound
Look up, down or down
They're coming around
And when you start to fade
You realize
You're a game
You know
And once the price to fade
You can hide from the pain
From the pain
And the search can't fall
The saving place
Do you believe in my dreams?
I don't like spare
Just to win the race
Run in the end with just the same
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
Nothing's what it seems
When you're in the mix
Telling down the walls
Just to get your fix
The bridge is burning
You can not risk now
What's up, must come down
How will you hit the ground
And stay and play the game
Oh, so close to the pain
But will you grab the reins
And who gets the fantasy
Who will stay and play
Will the angel take me
Will the night
Oh, will the demons lead the way
The inner child has gone into the light
One chance to reconcile the dawn
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
Count your blessings
When you're cut
Nothing's all there
Burning time again
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
Burning time again
You're burning time
You're burning time
Burning time again
Burning time
You know it's so interesting.
I wanted to circle back to something you had said earlier about doing the cruises.
I have not been on a cruise like Monsters or Rock or the Edie's Cruise.
I've heard so much about it.
I see all the pictures on social media and I'm like, oh I'm so jealous.
How is a different playing on a ship?
You know it's got to be way different than playing M3 or one of the other events.
Well, I mean the biggest difference is that so most bands play two shows each.
That way people get an opportunity if you miss one show because there's like there's
50 bands at least on the Monsters Cruise.
Not all of them are like that but the Monsters Cruise and some of the other ones I do there's
about 50 bands roughly and so you can't go see everybody in a day.
So you might miss Vixen's first show but oh I can go see them on Thursday or whatever
it is.
Everybody buys at least a couple of times to try to give everybody an opportunity to see
them.
There's nowhere to go.
So you're going to intermingle and mix in and meet your favorite band members.
You're going to meet people all the time because there's literally nowhere to go.
The only way that they're going to not be seen is if they hide out in their cabin the
entire time which some people do.
People that are either shy or they get bamboozled.
You know, Zach Wilde, you did not see him very much.
Sebastian Bach, you didn't see him very much out in the open unless he just had something
that he had to do or he felt like being social that day, whatever it is.
But most of the people you kind of see him, oh there's so and so from that band in the
cafeteria.
There's so and so from that band watching the other bands and stuff like that.
Or there's Justin from the darkness singing karaoke at three in the morning.
You know, whatever it is and it's a lot of fun.
There's nothing like it and for a musician like me there's no better weighted network
either.
Because again, there's nowhere to go.
So I'm probably, well, shoot, he's busy right now but I'll probably see him tomorrow.
Maybe I can grab him and have a conversation.
You know, the last night of the cruise I took this book with me.
It's a book about 80s metal bands and half of the people that were in the room at the
artist party which they do at the last night of every cruise or in that book.
So I was like, I went there with the Sharpie and I was like, all right, you're signing
this Ted from Danger Danger and you're signing this, you know, rev from winger or
whoever.
And it's funny to see the reactions of them looking at their 20 something year old selves
with humongous hair and makeup and all kinds of ridiculous clothing to be able to, you
know, sign this thing that kind of captured their younger days.
Yes, those were the days when you mentioned Ted Poli.
He was at M3 with us last year.
And yeah, he's got a lot of energy too.
You know, it's really amazing when you see them still at it.
Even M3 last year, I mean, it was such a treat to see David Lee Roth.
Like I had never seen him.
Oh, he was so good.
They're like, oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it.
I've seen videos recently where he wasn't as good, but man, I'm glad we saw him when
he was kind of came back out and felt like if he felt like he had something to prove
because there was so much trash talking about him when he was out with Van Halen.
I think he really felt like I better step it up and make this the show that everybody
wants to see.
And he did, man, we were standing there thinking, all right, well, we'll watch a little bit
of this until it starts to suck.
And then it didn't.
It was so good that we watched the whole thing and we were just, we left everybody with smiles,
you know, it was so good.
Yes.
And I was so excited to see him because in the 1980s, I did not see Van Halen live.
And it was something I didn't either.
I always regretted that.
My first band was actually Rat.
That was my first concert.
And it was Rat and Poison together.
And I've seen them ever since, but to see David Lee Roth and to see him on stage and
to have read so many books about Van Halen, Eddie, David himself, you know, to see him
in action was just really incredible.
He really is the showman.
I mean, when they describe him like that, yeah, that was a great experience.
Wow.
So I wanted to touch on another thing that you had said because I've had a few musicians
on this show that also went down to Nashville and ended up doing rock.
I'm trying for our audience.
Some audience members have knock on to Nashville.
I have family members that are in music in Nashville.
You know, there is a separation between the country and the rock.
So can you describe kind of how it is if they went to visit there or like you said, piano
forest, I've seen the dueling pianos in Florida.
Like that really draws a crowd.
Can you describe like the Broadway scene of Nashville?
Broadway scene is sensory overload at its finest.
So there are about four blocks, first street to fifths that on either side of the street
has a three, four, five, six story building that each has bands on it playing from 10 a.m.
until 3 a.m. 24 seven every day.
A lot of them are named after some country star or whatever.
So Jason Nadine has a bar and this guy has a bar in that room.
Miranda Lambert has one.
And you know, it's just all these people's names, Luke Bryan and goes on and on and on.
But the thing is that a lot of people think Nashville is just a country town and very
much is not.
It's almost split right down the middle.
In fact, there's a lot of bands that are strictly rock bands.
Like if you like 80s heavy metal and that type of stuff, then go to Bon Jovi's club
and watch a band called Hand Over Face.
That's all they do is play the kind of stuff that you would see it in three or on the
cruise or whatever.
I mean, they don't get super deep and they're not playing dangerous toys or whatever.
But like guys went and saw them the other day and they when I left, they were playing
Y Live, you know, so they do play stuff like that down there.
But then there's a gazillion country artists out there that are really, really good at
that too.
And then I play in a band like Kid Rocks on the rooftop Sunday through Wednesday and
we play pop music.
We're playing Katy Perry.
We're playing, you know, Lizzo and Bruno Mars and Michael Jackson and Prince and stuff
like that.
So it's all over the map.
And most bands are also, they're taking requests from the audience all day long.
So you know, you'll hear a lot of people, bands don't get paid very well or at all in
some cases.
And so they're very reliant on the tourist tips.
That's how we make our living down there.
So you will hear singers all the time go, well, it's $20 for a request and we're splitting
that four ways or five ways or six or however many people they have in their band.
So you want to hear one of dinner live by and by and Jovi, you know, throw 20 bucks in
the tip jug and we'll play it.
Whatever it is you want us to play.
You know, you want to hear Country Girl Shaker from me by Luke Bryan Cool.
You want to hear, maybe you got back by a certain mix of life.
It doesn't matter.
It's $20 like throw it in the jug and we'll play it.
And I mean, I've played everything from all of that to slayer.
Like it just was whatever, like whatever people ask for.
If the rest of the band knows it, we'll give it a try, you know.
And sometimes we don't know it.
Sometimes we'll hold our phone up to our ears and listen to part of the song.
Okay, I can get through this good enough.
Let's go.
And that's kind of how we get through it.
Wow.
That is super talent.
You know, I had a country star on this show from Nashville and that is Logan Layman.
And she literally, yeah, she literally said the same thing.
She's like, they have to look it up on the phone and then they'll be like, okay, we'll
be with you in one minute.
And then they'll look it at it.
Yeah.
Wow.
So appreciative.
You know, these stories are great because this is what I consider like the behind the
scenes stuff, you know, to hear really what musicians go through and to see really how
much preparation it really takes, especially someone like you.
You're hopping from one band to another, going from a cruise to a live performance to a football
stadium.
I don't know how you do it.
I just live by by calendar.
You know, I look at the calendar every day.
I like, okay, it's Tuesday.
So I know I'm going to be a, if I'm home and it's Tuesday, I'm going to be a kid rocks
from 6 p.m. until 2 a.m.
That's just by Tuesday nights, you know, Wednesdays, I know I'm going to be a Bon Jovi
from six to 10.
And then I got to take off over to Kid Rocks and play there from 10 to close.
And that's Thursday.
Well, I may have the day off.
It's usually I take Thursdays off, but some days I'll pick up a gig somewhere here and
there.
On Friday and Saturday, I'm off somewhere else in the country, either playing with Vixen
or, you know, I was doing some other things.
I was playing with Ricky from Poison for a little while and I also booked doing piano
shows all over the country.
So this weekend I'm driving to Little Rock, Arkansas and playing there all weekend from
Thursday through Saturday.
So you'll have to tell us what does the future look like for you?
What do you have coming up for the rest of the year?
Oh, the rest of the year, I was like, I have no idea.
Like there's a lot of things that are really up in the air.
You know, Vixen really slow this year in terms of dates.
We don't have very many.
So I'm hoping that that will change or that'll pick up.
I don't really have anything huge on the horizon.
You know, the draft thing was about the biggest thing I had on the calendar so far.
But I'm doing a lot of traveling, going to North Carolina, going to Oklahoma, going to
Georgia, playing Atlanta at the end of the month and going to Kansas City and
doing this jam that I do every year called Purple Jam, which is about 120 to 50 musicians
from Kansas City all playing Prince music for a night the day before Memorial Day weekend.
And we do that every year.
And this is the 10th anniversary of Prince's death.
So we were making a big deal, you know, kind of thing.
Other than that, there's not really anything big on the horizon, except for a handful
of Vixen shows and then wherever I end up.
I'm doing the Chris Jericho wrestling cruise in November.
That'll be a lot of fun.
And that's about it so far.
Wow.
Very exciting.
What we're going to do is we're going to end the show with your cradle to the grave.
Just tell us about that song.
I when I listened to it, I was like, Oh, this feels so country.
Interesting.
Well, I definitely didn't come across that way to me.
I mean, my whole influence on that was a band called T-Rex.
And I really wanted to get captured that like big vocals, big sound vibe.
And I I wrote that song and traffic lights.
I was driving somewhere and every time I'd stop at a traffic light, I would add another
lyric to the song and I got home and I just got this little recorder out and I just recorded
the idea for the song and to my recorder.
And then I went in the studio and made a real basic demo of it.
And this is what I mean by collaborative is so much better.
I I gave the drummer this very, very basic loop drumbeat and he took it and ran with it
and made it so much more interesting and more fun.
And then I played everything else on the record except for my friend Dan did all the
backup vocals and then my friend Phil Shauske plays with the band except he did the guitar solo on it.
Super fun song.
The lyrics are kind of nonsensical that they don't really mean anything.
They're just a bunch of ideas and I made a video like a lyric video for YouTube.
That's kind of goofy and shows my tongue and cheek type of humor about it.
But it's just a fun party song.
It's you know, the idea is just like, let's just go as hard as we possibly can.
And like it's the end of the world, like who cares, let's just have fun.
Yes, I saw the video.
Yeah, it's cool.
I mean, literally it's going according to like the title.
It's talking about like living your life.
Yes.
Yeah, very good.
Wow.
So just plug your social media.
Tell us where we can find you, find your music.
Well, all of my stuff's really easy to find.
My name is Tyson Leslie, T-Y-S-O-N-L-E-S-L-I-E.
And if you just look that up, you're going to find Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and
basically everything.
It's one of the kind of advantages of not having a name like James Smith or something like that.
I have a name that I was able to kind of buy all of the URLs and all of the...
I can use my name for just about everything.
And so if you just search Google, Tyson Leslie, you can find all of my social media there.
I do just about everything except for Twitter.
I'm not really a big fan of that.
So I got rid of that and I'm never on it anyway.
But Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and all of those, that's where you find me.
YouTube as well, SoundCloud, etc.
All of it, just Tyson Leslie.
So exciting.
Wow.
Well, thank you again for being on the show.
We're going to roll out.
Well, thank you.
Yeah, we're going to roll out to Cradle to the Grief by Tyson Leslie.
Thank you again, Tyson.
Yeah, thanks a lot.
Hey!
Hey!
The grand daily cramming the violent fair.
We could get a message from the clergy, man.
We didn't have men for the horses' bread.
We didn't sell cuz that's why you're banding down.
Who really cares?
We're all so free.
It doesn't make a difference to you and me.
We're up all night cuz we wanna get paid.
We're bursting your coffee as we crawl to the grave.
Hey!
Oh!
The tender, cool hymns do with the thing and it knows.
There's all the nerds' clocks, wherever she goes.
Always has a face buried in a baby grand night.
It starts to say, hey, ho, mother and the sand.
Who really cares?
We're all so free.
It doesn't make a difference to you and me.
We're up all night cuz we wanna get paid.
We come more again there.
We drink them all you want as we cradle to the grave.
I'll never ever have to get so high.
We're all gonna be your ride until we die
Our heels are dead and we never let
We're gonna go forever till the home of birds
The great little grand man, the violent bells
Made a new record with that two-fighter band
The chain of old land without the peace to the world
We all have sex with the boys and the girls
We really care, we're all getting free
It doesn't make a difference to you and only
We love the night cause we wanna get free
We'll start your cocaine while we fail to the great bird
We really care about your birds and your bees
It doesn't make a difference to you and me
We love the night cause the bucks we never gave
Made a sauce, do your girlfriends while we cradle to the grave
We'll slow your cocaine as we cradle to the grave
We'll drink it by your coffee as we cradle to the grave
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
The cramp and the cramp and the violent bells
We could get a message from the clergy man
They did enough men for the horses bred
They didn't sell cuz they're by abandoning them
We really care, we're all so free
It doesn't make a difference to you and me
We love the night cause we wanna get paid
We're brits in your coffee as we crawl to the grave
Hey!
The candy cool hits the with the thing in the nose
With all the nerds, the clock's wherever she goes
Always has a face buried in a baby grandmighty
Songs are safe, hey!
Oh! My foot and the sand
We really care, we're all so free
It doesn't make a difference to you and me
We love the night cause we wanna get paid
We'll drink it by your wine as we cradle to the grave
Oh!
The river, the river, the route's a-hatcha' get so high
We're all gonna be alright until we die
Our hues are dead and we never break
We're gonna go forever till the home of birds
The grandmighty grandmighty mowerland
The birds made a new record with that two-sided band
The chain of heart landed off the piece to the world
We're all out of sex with the boys and the girls
We really care, we're all so free
It doesn't make a difference to you and me
We love the night cause we wanna get paid
We'll slow your cocaine while we cradle to the grave
You really care about your words and your bees
It doesn't make a difference to you, you really need
We love our night cup of bucks, we never gave made a sauce
Do your girlfriends while we cradle to the grave
We'll slow your cocaine as we cradle to the grave
We'll drink it by your coffee as we cradle to the grave
We'll drink it by your coffee as we cradle to the grave
Hey!
Take it to the grave
Hey!
Take it to the grave
Hey!
Take it to the grave
You have been listening to bringing the darkness
to the light with Catherine Adele, professional psychic medium
Dream Central Station, LLC
My audio editor is Al Hemberger at the law for
Quoting Studios in Bronxville, New York
This is WNEW 102.7 FM radio