Craig Gass ... Or is it Gene Simmons?

Terry Evans  0:00  
When I first committed to doing a podcast, after 10 years of people trying to convince me, I thought, Well, who am I going to Who am I going to do a podcast with? And I thought, well, it would be a good start to do it with musicians, comics, sports figures, entrepreneurs, weirdos, wackos and nut bars. I'm not sure exactly where my guest today fits in with those. Craig gas has agreed to be my guest on today's podcast. Reluctantly. Today's podcast brought to you by the Clayton Bellamy foundation. Clayton Bellamy foundation.org, supporting education and community based programs in the province of Alberta by providing financial support to arts programs in need and by advocating the benefits and importance of arts education. Clayton, Bellamy foundation.org,

Reluctantly Chick  0:51  
reluctantly,

Craig Gass  0:52  
that's a good combination. I am a weirdo, a nut job, a sports fan, comedian and someone who sneaks into concerts all the time. So I think that fits everything you

Terry Evans  1:04  
know, the story that that you have, that just the ones that I've been involved in are ridiculous, never mind the ones that I have read about, seen on TV or just seen in post Super Bowl interview. I could be sitting there watching TV, and I go, What the fuck is going on? Craig gas is right there? Or the pre Super Bowl interviews, where you've gotten into the fray and started asking the players who are going to be featured in the big game, some questions, stuff,

Craig Gass  1:40  
yeah, there's, there's been a lot of moments that have happened that and stories about my life that don't sound real to people. And I've actually started recording interviews with people for a podcast called sounds crazy. But I swear this is true, and living at Eddie Van halen's house, living with Mitch Hedberg, being on the field of the Super Bowl, hanging out at NASA, being with Bill Murray when the Cubs won the World Series. All these things. There's so many crazy stories. And I'm getting, I'm not just telling the stories. I'm getting all the witnesses. And some of it's easy to find. I mean, you can see the video of me and Bill Murray at the World Series. You can see the video of me at Woodstock with Limp Bizkit when they're burning everything down. You can see me standing on stage when Fred Durst jumps down the audience at to I didn't think I was anyone was going to notice me there. I just know that Fred had jumped off the stage into the crowd, and the security in the pit went into the crowd to get Fred, so the security on stage went into the pit, so there was no security on stage, and I had this shitty little disposable camera, and I thought, no one will see me. And I didn't realize I was walking out into a live broadcast, standing in the middle of the stage. And it's just like, Get off my TV and, yeah, dude, I got to tell you, one of the first interviews I just did was for this crazy story that when I was 1516, years old, white Snape was the one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. They were coming to town to do a show at the local arena in Tucson, where I was living at the time. And a friend of mine, whose sister was a housekeeping person at a major resort in town, said, dude, white snakes in town today for their show, tomorrow, they're staying at my sister's hotel. And I had my mom drop me off at the hotel to go look for white snake. And I ran into this guy, Rudy sarzo, and he was, I mean, it makes me cringe when I think about it now, but he was nice enough to talk to me for hours and and that's not just in my mind that he was nice, because at the end of several hours, this guy said, Hey, I gotta go, but do you have a car? And I lied and said, Yeah, I got a car. Why? What do you need? And he said, Well, tomorrow, before my gig, a couple of the guys from White Snake, we wanted to go shopping because the tour is about to end, and I need to get some comforters in the sheets. And I heard about this really great place for bedding that's a few miles from here, I knew exactly where he was talking about. And my goal was, oh my god, if I could get this guy in a car and bring him to the mall where all my friends hang out, where we all smoke weed and walk around white snakes, that would be amazing. And long story short, we ended up bringing white snake to the mall and got to walk. Oh man, it was insane, total pandemonium. And then they gave us tickets and passes to the concert. We had this incredible night. 15 years later, I'm a stand up comedian now I'm on The Howard Stern Show. I was in Los Angeles for some big rock concert at the forum and they have this room called the forum club. It's like a VIP room that. It's where Jack Nicholson famously hangs out at during halftime of the Lakers games. And all these celebrities are in there. I get a tap on the shoulder. I turn around. It's Rudy sarzo and his wife, Rebecca, and he said, Craig, I'm sorry to bother you. My name is Rudy sarzo. I'm a musician. I play with whoever he was playing with at the time. He's played with a whole bunch of huge bands,

Terry Evans  5:23  
probably quiet, right, right, or Ozzy, or black Ozzy, White

Craig Gass  5:27  
Snake. Dio and Rudy goes, this is my wife, Rebecca. We're both huge fans of yours. We listen to you all the time. And I went, Rudy, you're not going to believe this, but do you remember a 15 year old kid in Tucson taking you shopping at the mall. And he went for comforters and sheets, comforters and sheets. And he went, Craig, I'm so proud of you. And I went, couldn't believe so, yeah, there's hundreds of stories like that. Hundreds and hundreds of stories like that. So the idea is not only to tell my stories that sound ridiculous and sound completely untrue, but also to tell the stories of friends of mine who also have incredible stories that I'm aware of.

Terry Evans  6:14  
So the Rudy sarzo story for shopping for comforters and sheets. I mean, that's a Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure right there. You know how they made the machine from Chrysler and all of his shenanigans going to how many years of school that he owned, except seven, nine, whatever it was. I mean, there's no reason why they couldn't make a movie out of just that. Yeah, I went to

Craig Gass  6:38  
school the next day because I didn't have a card for another 15 years, I wouldn't get a car until I was in my 30s. In my 30s. I was broke shit, and so I went to high school. The next thing I said, Who

wants to take white snake shopping? I need someone that has a car that will take white Saint

shopping. And my friend Brian, who was a fan of the cure and Depeche Mode, he goes, I don't even like white snake, but I'll take him shopping. I'll give a shit. He's like, I'll

Terry Evans  7:01  
take I don't care. Let's he goes, Yeah, you want

Craig Gass  7:03  
them put in my car. And he had this shitty little car, that guy, by the way, went on to be a pastor. He's like, huge in the church, and I had him in the interview with me, and Rudy to reconnect all the dots and then also connect those two, because Rudy's had a really strong faith in his life. So it was really cool to have them talk about their faith and how their faith has helped them in life. And I'm kind of unsure where I'm at with that and so, so it was kind of neat to have that dialog and and that's what you know, long form conversations like this are, are made for. But you're right, man, that could absolutely be a movie.

Terry Evans  7:41  
What are the what were the other two members of the band? It wasn't David Coverdale.

Craig Gass  7:46  
It was, you know what? I think it was just Adrian. And then the next day, when we picked him up, we said, hey, where's Adrian? And he goes, Oh, I told him about it, and he backed out. And in hindsight, I'm realizing that as a grown man, that if, if I'm touring with another comedian, and he's like, Yeah, I met a guy who has a car. Oh, who is he? Oh, he's a 15 year old that was at the hotel yesterday. He's like, Yeah, I'm

good. I'm good. I

don't really I can go shopping when I get home, you know? I mean, like, like, I'm sure Adrian had better sets be like, Yeah, it sounds kind of weird. And it's so funny, because over the years, you come to find out that everybody has this great everybody's got a Rudy story that he's such a kind person. But my God, that wasn't the only run in I had with him. I've had other run ins in remote parts of the world, where I was in Kennewick, Washington, and there's a mall that's like the one place that has a Starbucks in town. And I just got done doing local radio in Kennewick, and I was walking up to the Starbucks, and there was, I saw, there was one guy sitting in front of the Starbucks who was the mall hadn't opened yet. And the guy goes, Craig. And I looked over and I went,

Rudy, Rudy in the

middle of Kennewick. He was playing with Blue Oyster Colt at the fair that night. So, yeah, that was crazy, man, it's crazy. But yeah, those stories are They're insane. I found myself in a lot of weird and crazy situations and and I love a good story, man. I love telling a good story. I love hearing a good story, you know. So that's, that's what these platforms are for. I

Terry Evans  9:20  
think deep down, I was kind of reluctant to start, hence the name of the because, just because

Craig Gass  9:27  
you just didn't want to involve any more energy into putting something out there.

Terry Evans  9:31  
I wanted that there was, there was the extra work that I figured that was involved with it. But at the same time, I thought, you know, people are saying, oh, you should do a podcast. Well, I do want it every day. It's called a radio show, but Right? I know that you know now that they're, they're, they're vastly different, so, but you, you and I have had that relationship on the radio show. That's how it came to be, and that's how we came to know each other. So, yeah,

Craig Gass  9:55  
man, it's, it's one of the nice stories that I tell. Will happen in your studio. I don't know if you mind me telling the story. No, I was in your studio. We had just wrapped up for the morning, and we're all like usual. I don't shut up when a show is happening, then they go, All right, go see Craig gas this weekend. Blah, blah, blah. We turn the mics off and I still don't show Shut up. We just keep talking. We're sitting in there. We're laughing, we're talking, we're talking. Door opens, a guy walks in, one of the corporate guys says to one of your co hosts, hey, need you in my office for a second. And I went, sounds like someone's about to get fired. And we all laughed. And then he walked out. And then you and I kept talking and talking. He came back in and said, well, guess that's it. I'm out of here. And I went,

Are you fired? He goes, just got fired. He walked, oh, it's like, holy,

I was joking. And the and that's exactly what happened. Hey, boss, needs to talk to you for a second. I said it because radio is so brutal. It's so brutal, some of the, easily, the worst firing stories I've ever heard in my life were in radio because there's this thing about radio where you have an on air personality, you need to fire people before they get a chance to get to a microphone again. You don't want them. You don't want them to know that they're going to be fired when they have the power of a microphone. I'm sure you've heard that famous viral clip of a girl sounds like she's at a top 40 station, and she just shits on everybody at the building and says, Well, you know, I found out that that, you know, they're gonna try to get me out of here, but fuck you. Blah, blah, blah. And she goes off on a rant, I'm out of here. I quit this bitch. And so they don't want people to have access to that. So the way they, I mean, it's very similar to a story I heard Jerry Seinfeld say in some interview about how I didn't realize Jerry Seinfeld had a recurring character on the show Benson in the 70s, and he would fly from New York to LA every week to do his character on Benson. Is that right? I didn't know that. I didn't know that either. And he got, he got he got let go, but nobody told him, and he flew to LA and he's, he's on the sound stage, and he's, there's no script with his name on it, and he's walking around going, has anybody seen my script? I don't see my script

where there's my script. Have you lost the deal? Yeah. And everybody's going, I don't know people, nobody wants to say anything. And then somebody goes, Jerry,

what are you doing here? And he goes,

I'm looking for my script. And they said, Oh,

we let you go. You're not on the show anymore. Jerry goes, well, then I'm leaving.

I think I'm gonna go, then I don't want to stick along. I think, yeah, I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna go. He had a one man dialog with himself. Everyone's like, Yep, I grew up there. Yeah, you know what? Then I don't, I don't think I'm gonna stick around. Then I'm probably gonna get out. Like he was trying to control something. He didn't have any control over this. It's like he was trying to assert some kind of control and say, well, then I think I'm gonna go, like, yeah, see

Terry Evans  13:29  
with that. So that was Benson, that which was a spin off of soap, right? Was there a better was there a better show than soap? Back in the day, soap was

Craig Gass  13:39  
before, my time to well, in terms of getting into more, like, adult themed, like shows, I'm guessing. I mean, like around that time, I'm still at the age where Happy Days is really speaking to me and the fawns and, you know, so and so I never got into soap but, but the similarities of that story with people getting fired in radio. I mean, there's, I remember being in Buffalo, New York and hearing this incredible story about these I guess it was a heritage rock station had been around for decades. This, this local rock station in Buffalo, and there were signs all over the station saying this Friday at 6pm because the station, the office closes at five this Friday at 6pm mandatory meeting for everybody at the station at the Mexican restaurant down the street. So all the sales people, all the On Air people. Everyone had to meet at the radio station or at the Mexican restaurant at 6pm and so Friday, at 5pm everybody clocks out, they head down to the Mexican restaurant. And at 6pm the ownership group gets in front of everybody and says, Hey. So we know you've heard some rumors the. Have been going around, and it's true, starting on Monday, we're going Spanish. And everyone just started laughing, like,

you brought us to a Mexican restaurant to tell us that we're going Spanish. So people are making jokes. They're like, you know, people are pointing at the wait staff and saying, Is this our new morning show? So everybody's making jokes, and then, but, but these guys, they don't back down. They go, No, it's not a joke. This is true. And then finally, someone goes, Wait a minute. So, so we're all fired. If we're all fired, I actually have to go back to the station, because I have stuff from my home at my desk, so I need to go back to my to my work desk, and they said, Oh, we actually took care of that. People started walking in with boxes at 5pm when everybody clocked out, they went through the entire building and just threw everybody's shit in a box and like, like, here's Terry. Terry. I mean, here's all your shit from your desk. Here's Craig. Here's all your shit from this desk.

Terry Evans  16:05  
You know you're talking about. You just said shit in a box. That reminds me of a great firing story from radio. I heard this guy got fired from Radio. I'm not gonna get any more details. The guy got fired radio. It was back in the day when the copywriters, they didn't have computers or anything like that, people, copywriters or people writing commercials, and they had the electric typewriter with the ball in it. You know, the ball, you hit it, and the ball turns around and clacks the roller with the paper on it, yeah, for the desk. And took a shit. Oh.

Craig Gass  16:45  
So wow, I get from

Terry Evans  16:47  
attention when the person turned that

Craig Gass  16:51  
on. You know, now that, now that we're talking about this, there's other stories. I'm remembering the station that I started at in Seattle, there was a firing there where they had everybody. Everybody was brought in for this mandatory meeting. Oh, oh, because there was new ownership group. It was a new ownership the group that came in said, Hey, we wanted to get you guys here and talk to you about some got some new ideas we're really excited about. We're hoping you guys can get excited about it too as we move forward with with this new company. Oh, and real quick, got a piece of paper and said David. Bell is David, you're David, okay, Christy Langdon is Christy, you're Christy. Okay. And Steven. I don't know how to pronounce this last name, Steven. Are you here? You're Steven. Okay, yeah, we're going to be letting you guys go. And

then there's this crazy thing that happened

where they said to everybody else, they said, Hey, listen, there was people. They said, We don't want to fire you, but we're going to be paying less money, but we want to give you the first chance to reapply for your job for less money. I mean, yeah, but the most brutal, I'm sorry to go off on this tangent, but I gotta just say one more, the most brutal, the most brutal thing I've ever heard in radio was a show that a bunch of friends of mine were on, and the show was like six or seven camps. It was a smooth show, and the contract is coming up, and the main guy on the show, it's his name, it's his name, and the show has this massive supporting cast. He says, you know, hey, you know contracts coming up. Do you guys want to talk about? And it's, it's clear channel, which became my heart. And they go, yeah, we'll get back to you. We'll let you know. And then it's getting closer and closer. So he tells his agent, like, Hey, see if you can get a better offer. So he gets a better offer from the competing company in town with a pay increase for all six, seven people on the show. And he goes to Clear Channel and says, Hey, I got this offer. This is how much they want to pay me. What do you guys say? They said, we'll we'll crush some numbers, and we'll get back to and then his last show before Christmas. And anytime you say last show before Christmas, every radio guy knows exactly where the story is going. His last show before Christmas, they the program director said, Hey, I need to speak with you in my office. And hey, so we've been crunching some numbers, and we've decided we're not going to match the offer for you. And he went, Okay, so we're done, I guess that's and she said, but we did match the offer for the other six people on the show, and all six of his co hosts had to go. Associated behind his back. Easy,

absolutely crazy.

Yeah, it was insane. Totally insane.

Terry Evans  20:09  
We'll be right back this podcast brought to you by the Terry Evans show with Pete patipko from five till nine, Monday through Friday on edmonton's Classic Rock K 97 if you are in the Edmonton market, listen at 97.3 on your FM dial. Otherwise, Listen Live at K 90 seven.ca reluctantly, all right. Well, you're talking about radio stuff. Let's talk about your radio stuff. You have been on the prestigious Terry Evans show a number of times, and that, of course, probably led the way and set a path to you being on other radio shows all over North America and the world for that matter, and then, luckily, getting that big gig on the Howard Stern,

Craig Gass  20:55  
which I'm back on the show now for the first time in 20 years, which is So weird. Well,

Terry Evans  21:00  
there was you were when Jackie left. It was you were in the running to become like the Jackie the joke man, sort of thing, but already ended up in that position. Is that not right? Yeah,

Craig Gass  21:13  
I started contributing to the show. I started doing stuff on the show in 1995 I would call in. I sent them a tape of the stuff I was doing in Seattle. And then Gary called me up and said, hey, you

know these voices are really good, like, like, you're Sam Kennison. We actually thought it was Sam Kennison. That's how good it was, man. It was really good. And I said,

Well, man, I'd love to work for you guys someday. So I started calling in as Sam Kennison, calling in live from the gates of hell. It was really dark, like anytime an asshole died, like someone that we could all agree is like, Yeah, that guy was an asshole like Jeffrey Dahmer, I'd be on the air the next day. Gum.

Hey guys, it's Sam Kennison. I'm down here the gates of hell. And Jeffrey Dahmer just got down here. This guy's already looking at my ass like it's a team.

It was really dark and and then I started doing more voices on the show. I started doing different celebrity voices. And then march of 2001 there was this drama building with Jackie Martin as his contract was about to end, right going on for years. What was going on with him. And then I woke up one day to three messages on my voicemail, and the first message was like, Hey, man, you

gotta call Howard Stern. He said he's looking for brand new comedians, dude. I don't know if you listen to Howard right now. He said he's looking for fresh comedians to replace Jackie Ted Craig, it's Gary de la bought 10. Call me as soon as you got this. And I was

like, oh shit. And I called up Gary, and I go, Hey, Gary, it's Craig gas. And he said, Hey, how are you? And I was like, holy. He's never asked me how I was I was like, I'm doing good. I heard Jackie Martin put the show. And he goes, Yes he did. And I was like, Is that what this call is about? And he goes, Yes it is. And I was like, couldn't believe it. And I said, Well, what do you want to do? And he goes, he just wants you to come in for two days, just to just see if there's any chemistry. You know, came in for three days, and we just, like, first day, we just clicked right away. And then that two day audition turned it into two days a week, every week, for like, the next nine months, eight months. What was it started in March, and then it was like November, when they made the decision, wow. And and it changed my life. I i was able to pay my bills and my mom's bills for the rest of from then till now, and but this weird thing happened. Well, they narrowed it down. They started bringing in all these other comedians. They brought in Kimmel and Adam Carolla and Richard Jenny and Doug stainhope and Jeff Ross, Jim Florentine was a pretty regular guy in there. And then they ended up narrowing it down to me and Artie. I started coming in two days a week, Artie started coming in two days a week, and then Wednesday, they would rotate somebody different every Wednesday. And then they finally made the decision to go with Artie. And then I started getting offered acting roles, and it just, I've never had to have a real job since. And then, almost two years now, Howard had somebody reach out to me to say, Hey, would you ever be interested in working with Howard? Again, I thought, I didn't even think of that even as being a possibility. So every couple of months, he'll have me on the show to sit in for a few days as different voices. And it's great. He's been great to me. When that

Terry Evans  24:46  
started up in 95 he said that was he was still on terrestrial radio. Was that? So you've been what? When did he go to satellite? What? 2006

Craig Gass  24:58  
I want to say six up. Yeah, 2006 it was that Tate was like, burning my brain because I kept advertising 1910906 or something like that. But I think it was 2006 when he started at terrestrial, and, I'm sorry, at satellite, I mean and, and then he's, yeah, he's been there ever since. And now he's 7071, I don't know how long he he wants to keep going, yeah. I mean, he changed everything. I mean, changed radio. He changed my life. You know, I brought this up a couple months ago on the air with him. I used to call him every year on March 15, which is the anniversary of the day that he let me start sitting next to him. And I would say, hey, Howard, it's March 15. It's six years since you let me start sitting next to you. Just want to say thank you, because you changed my life, and I've been able to pay my bills and my mom's bills. I would call him a reunion, say that that's only time call once a year. I would call him, leave a message and say, Thank you, show him some gratitude. And one day I'm like, I'm in Cleveland or Minneapolis. I was somewhere in the Midwest, and I had my Sirius XM radio with me, and Howard's going, oh, what else? What else is going on? Oh, Craig gas, leave me the fuck alone. Why do you call me all the time? I don't know why I gave Craig gas my phone number. This guy calls me all the time, bothering me. And then Gary comes in. He

goes, You know, I told him to leave you alone. I don't know why he keeps bothering he goes, Yeah, we

gotta get him off my back and like. And then all my shows, people come and go, Dude, that was a great show, looking awesome, man and Dude, stop calling Helen stern man. Leave him alone. I'm

like, I call him once a year. It's once a year. So I brought that, I finally got to say that to his face a couple months ago, and he said, Well, let's be honest, Craig, once a year is a bitch. Yeah, so I listen, man. I understand. I understand. But from my point of view, as a guy who never finished high school, even though I went to high school for a long time, him giving me the opportunity to just be myself for a living. Is I'm just forever indebted to him, and it's because of him that I ended up on Sex in the City. Yeah, I mean they, they told me, they said we heard I was on the air talking about a relationship I just gotten out of, and they called me up and said, Hey, we heard you today on The Howard Stern Show. We think you would play a really good, insecure guy on Sex and the City. And I was like, alright, it's kind of a weird back slap, but alright, King of Queens, king of

Terry Evans  27:50  
you were Miranda's donut eating boyfriend or some, some thing, right?

Craig Gass  27:56  
Super insecure, which is what led to my eating disorder. I I overeat to compensate for my insecure something like, yeah, it was very thin. It was, honestly, it was easy for me to play the insecure part. But also there was this side thing where I love to perform on her, and every time I perform on her. She has such a huge reaction that she just keeps exploding all over my face. And I'm, I'm such a sensitive guy that I just want to hold her and kiss her afterwards, which freaks her out, because my face is always covered in Miranda and, yeah, I didn't even tell my mom about that. Like everything. I love showing my mom like, you know, not only being on TV, but she always had TV guides. She bought the TV Guide at supermarket every week. So my name being in TV Guide was a huge kick for her. You know, my mom's deaf. My whole family's deaf. So being on TV shows, I had to close captions. She loved being able to watch and follow my career, but I didn't tell her about sex in the city. It was like, a year went by, and she said, Why do my friend say that you're on HBO? And I was like, oh, so I pulled up the episode. We watched it together, and she watched the whole thing. And was we got to the credits, she just went my

baby. And I was sorry, Mom, I'm sorry,

yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was great

Terry Evans  29:24  
with your parents. Your sister was also as well, right? And so you you learned to speak by watching television.

Craig Gass  29:33  
I would watch TV and I'd copy all the voices I heard on TV. So I always had a knack for doing voices, because I was always doing different voices. I was always copying the voices I heard on TV. I couldn't learn how to talk for my family. I learned how to talk by watching TV. That's

Terry Evans  29:47  
crazy, but it makes total sense. I mean that everybody learns to talk from their parents, so yeah, if you don't have that opportunity because of a disability, then then you make. Do, right?

Craig Gass  30:00  
Yeah, and you start to notice very clearly how everybody emulates their I actually, if you can't get a voice down, listen to somebody's parents, listen to somebody's parents, or some of their kids, because everyone learns how to talk like their their kids are like they're, you know, the kids try to sound like their parents. And I would notice as a kid, call my best friend up, and someone would pick up the phone that I thought was my best friend. And they could be somebody at the opposite sex in the same family, they've all learned how to pick up the phone and go mellow, like those little, those little, those little nuances, you know, and because I didn't have anything to learn from I had this open canvas to learn how to paint in my voice and and then I would learn people's voice. I would learn parents voices, so that when we would all get together on the weekend and get shit faced, I'd go, let me just call, let me call Terry. Just,

Terry Evans  31:03  
hey, Terry, it's, it's Boyd. Yeah, I got the boys with me. We're just having a pizza party, and we're just watching sports this weekend. Yeah, yep, I'll

Craig Gass  31:12  
bring them over tomorrow. All right, all right. Let's

get some coke. Let's

do it. Yeah, that was crazy. I mean, I could,

I could do it. I could pull it off. I could, I could manage to sound at least like a passable adult, if not one of our parents and and, yeah, I definitely used that, that skill for bad,

Terry Evans  31:31  
bad calling to school to let the the office know that somebody wasn't coming in today.

Craig Gass  31:37  
Dude, when I was in elementary school, I was always letting the teacher's worst nightmare. I wasn't like, I just was a, I guess, Class Clown, but I would drive teachers their mind. I mean, they wanted to murder me. I just just wanted, I wanted to know where the line was, and I would try to get as close to the line as possible to see how close I get them to just lose it. It would always result in, like, all right, you know what brought to the principal's office? And the principal would say, we need your mother to come down here to discuss this. And I'd go, Okay, well, my mom's deaf, so you need an interpreter. And I know sign language, I would show up and sit in a room with all my teachers and my principal, and they'd go, okay, tell your mother that the reason why we're here is because you are Having some behavior issues. And I'd go, sad that although they think I'm a very good student, there's some small things we need to work on. And my mom would go, and they'd go, Okay, now tell her and fucking everything. Everything was an edit right in front of their faces. I was editing right in front of their faces and getting away with, can murder, absolute murder.

Terry Evans  33:04  
Did you ever get caught? Because, I mean, that's at some point they had to have brought someone in who could understand or or sign themselves, you

Craig Gass  33:12  
would think, but like, you know, nobody, yeah. I mean, with the internet now you could figure that part out, and, and obviously, you know, just with a quick internet search, you can find sign language interpreters. You'd have to pay for them, you know. So if you're willing to pay the fee, then you can actually catch me. And I've done shows where, when my mom and my sister come to see me, I'll hire, I'll hire a sign language interpreter. And my mom has been gone from was two years now, but I remember doing a show, and then I would turn my back to the audience, and I would keep talking, because the woman has to sign it, and I'd say, I'm sorry. I am so sorry, Mrs. Gas, but your son is so handsome, I think I'm in love with your son. And my back would be in the

audience, and my mom would just sit there,

going, this interpreter is looking right at her, going, I'm in love with your son. Oh, yeah. I mean, God. I mean, I feel bad thinking about that in hindsight, but there's, there's so much comedy there, although at the time in school, it's, I'm just trying to just not get in trouble. So I just thought if I softened it like, Hey, listen, we're here. Because, you know, I just try to make it sound like I don't even know what the big deal is. They're just saying that I'm a great student, but I just got some small things I don't know what the fuck. So

Terry Evans  34:35  
you talk, you talk about getting caught. What's the situation that happened with Gene Simmons, because your impression of Gene Simmons is bang on, and it has fooled me, because I remember you phoning the radio show. We picked up on it after you started trying to hawk some kiss COVID or condom, or, I don't know what the hell you were, kiss online, or whatever, but you must have. A story about you and Gene Simmons being on at the same time, or him being a guest, and you phoning in or something like that, right? Oh,

Craig Gass  35:09  
yeah. Well, he, he showed up to confront me live on the air in New York on The Howard Stern Show. I was, I've been doing the impression on the air for a while. It happened during the commercial break, I was telling Howard some funny stories about gene. And he was like, Man, you got to hear these stories that Craig was telling me about Craig's a fan of Kiss. And he was telling me some funny stories about how funny Paul Staley and Gene Simmons are. It's funny because I just wrapped up probably in the next month or so, I'm putting I'm putting out two comedy specials in the next couple months. The first one, believe it or not, is me just making fun of kiss for an hour. That's the whole show, the entire the entire comedy specials, me making fun of Kiss. But it all starts with this story about how I started doing this impression of gene on The Howard Stern Show. And then the only way to really use it is to wait for a music guest to come in, and then I would constantly interrupt the music guests as Gene Simmons, and I would try to sell them shitty kiss products and and it was really fun, because of the way some artists didn't know how to react to it, or if they were on the phone, they thought it was real. And people started believing that it was really gene. And it was amazing how many people actually believed that it was really gene. And then all of a sudden, Gary walked in one day

and said, Hey guys, we got a problem. Gene Simmons just walked in the building. He wants to beat the fuck out of Craig right now. And

I was like, what? He's here? Like, yeah, he's here. And I was like, well, we're not gonna let him upstairs, though,

right? We're not gonna let him come because, well, all the security guards are big kiss fans and very let him in the in the building. And I was like, Holy shit, he's

on his way, you know. And then gene came in and started selling. He he confronted me, then he seemed to really take it in stride and started selling shit. And that's when he first mentioned that there was a kiss casket. And I was just kind of in awe of what he was saying. And I just kept interrupting him and saying, Howard, can I just tell you one more thing about the casket, or $1 million

I will throw ace freely into the casket, and you can spend eternity spooning with Kiss. Shut up. No, you. Shut up. Fuck you. Everyone

at home is like, Who the fuck is talking? I don't even know who's talking, but and then this weird thing happens. The day after the confrontation, I get a call from Kiss's management company McGee entertainment, and they said, Hey, we represent kiss. Wanted to reach out to you to tell you that our singer Paul Stanley is your biggest fan. I said, fuck out. Really, Paul Stanley knows who I am. And they said, don't, don't tell anybody this. But

Paul Stanley loves when anybody makes fun of Gene Simmons, are you serious? I said, Yeah, as a matter

of fact, he's going to call you. He wants to offer you a gig. And the gig was, would you be interested in performing with Kiss on the kiss cruise. We're doing this really cool event. It's gonna be 3000 of the biggest kiss fans around the world, and we want you to perform. And I was like, Look, you want me to stand up, or you want me to introduce the band? Like, what do you want me to do? And he said, Well, let

Speaker 2  38:18  
me ask you a question, how many jokes do you have about gene?

Craig Gass  38:21  
And I said, literally hours. And he went, you

got the gig. And I was like, Really, that's it. Just make fun of gene. That's it. And then I went on the kiss cruise. And then, you know,

that's where I upset all the kiss fans there was on the kiss cruise. And, yeah, because, because I made a joke that everybody took seriously. I I took command with one of the employees who let me have access to this microphone. It's the announcement microphone that goes throughout the whole ship. And everybody on the ship woke up to this announcement.

Hey everybody. This is Paul Stanley, and this is Gene Simmons from Kiss. And we have a very important announcement. Do not panic, but we have a very important announcement about the kiss cruise.

At that moment, my friends on the ship said that all the fans had stopped in their tracks, and we're looking at the speakers and smiling until the next words that came out of my mouth,

we've just hit an iceberg, which keep in mind when I say we just hit an iceberg. We're in the middle of the fucking Bahamas. There's no reason for you as an intelligent person, to go this ship's going down Bahamas. But do not panic, because kiss is going to take care of everybody. We actually have three packages to get you off the ship. First we have the platinum package, $5,000 will put you in a life raft. You have your own private photo and medical care from kids. Then we have the diamond package, isn't that, right? Paul, that's right. The diamond package for. $10,000 where we throw you in the ocean with Tommy and Eric, and then kiss floats by on a rack. We do a private acoustic everything

I said was stupid, but apparently several kiss fans ran to the employees and said, So kiss is charging us to get off the boat. Is

that what's going on? But

kiss guys and kiss were great with it. They thought it was hilarious. Thank God. We'll be

Terry Evans  40:23  
right back this podcast. Reluctantly brought to you by just for feet, just for feet, just around the corner from the Sally Ann, no pants, no hats, no jackets, none of that stuff's for feet, just for feet. Don't come to us looking for gloves.

Unknown Speaker  40:43  
Reluctantly,

Terry Evans  40:44  
I can't remember if it's the last time we were together or if we saw each other since then, but it wasn't the no repeat weekend Metallica concert series. It was a previous Metallica show in Edmonton at Commonwealth Stadium. I'm sitting in the stands with my son, my son, Riley, who is a professional drummer. He says, Oh, look, there's Lars. I said, Oh, where, like, Lars could come and press his ass against the window. I wouldn't know who it was. Yeah, I just, I don't know what the guys from Metallica looked like, except for the lead singer guy, he kind of looks like my brother in law. So he Riley Points, points out large he goes, Oh, you said, you know, wearing the black shirt there. I said, Oh, okay. He goes, Yeah. When I was at Berkeley for the five week summer program, his son was in in the in the program with me too. I turned his son and I said,

Craig Gass  41:34  
Are you fucking kidding me? Wow. I said. I said,

Terry Evans  41:38  
you, you go to Berkeley for five weeks with Lars Ulrich son, and you didn't even think to mention it to your dad, who is the classic rock radio guy.

Craig Gass  41:47  
Wow, no shits Yeah. World. And then,

Terry Evans  41:52  
and then, about five minutes later, I got a text from you saying, Hey, do you want to come down and watch the Metallica show from the lights, lighting, tent, lighting, board, yeah, man, yeah. So that's what, that's where we want. I have pictures of the back of your head from me standing behind you, yeah. Well, I, I have one of the front of your head too, but yeah, from us watching the watching the Metallica show in that

Craig Gass  42:14  
light, resigning that to me and my buddy Rob, has been doing their lights for, I think, 15 years now I just saw him. I missed the entire Metallica tour, this two night stadium run, and finally got to catch it in Minneapolis, and hung out again at Rob's lighting thing. I brought some friends, and Rob was kind enough to go, Hey, so let me just show you what I'm looking at. These are the lights. This is how we as the show's running. And he's like, now, he goes, watch this on this song. He goes, This song has a fire effect, and it's supposed to look like a glowing fire. And goes, That's why you'll notice, like all we have lights in the stage on top of the lights coming from these posts, and the lights on the stage flicker to give a burning look. And he was just showing us how there's lights in the drum kit. It was amazing, like, like, the amount of thought that goes into and it's it's closely coordinated with Lars, who's very hands on about everything about the band. It's very name Droppy, but a friend of mine is in my last comedy special, who plays guitar for Pearl Jam. His name's Mike McCready, and I, I said to Mike once, I think that there is a there's always the same kind of relationships in every band. You'll always see the same personality types. And he goes, really, like, what? And I go, like, there's always the one guy, and it's usually only one guy in a band who will do anything for the band. Like, they'll stay up all night making flyers. They'll put, like, posters all around town. They'll call the local newspapers to try to get coverage. And he goes, Oh, that's Jeff. That's our bass player, for sure. And I go, then there's the alcoholic slash drug addict. And he goes, Oh, that's me. That's me. He goes,

I'm a drug addict.

I mean, he's sober, but, you know, but, but, yeah, so, but, yeah, that's Lars very hands on, on that, on the lighting thing, and it's a neat thing to watch. I've made so many friends in all my years of traveling and in the music business and in comedy that I've met so many people who couldn't quite get in with the thing they wanted to do. So they thought, Well, maybe if I could have a life being close to it. And I've met so many people, I have so many friends in the music industry who are run the gamut from working in rock clubs to being in a band that performs in stadiums and everything in between, to photographers, agents, technicians, who handle the instruments, to lighting guys, to just, just people who just love this thing so much they just want to be close to it. And all of them are incredibly happy because they're doing what they love. And I, I get a kick out of. Uh, anyone who's pursuing what they love and going after it, because it's, it's a it's a big risk, man, it's a big risk to to get I was just talking to a guy last week, um, who lives in Vegas. His name's DJ ashba. He was in guns and roses for like, 10 years. He's been in a couple other bands. He was in, what was it six cents or 6am six cents was the radio show that came to it. He sticks his band, and DJ Ashby has a story about he was like, the best guitar player in his town and in Indiana. And he is like, maybe I should go to LA and try to make a run for it. And he was like, and he got a U haul, and he packed all his stuff in the U haul, and he got on the U haul, and he started driving out of Indiana. He started driving through Chicago. Driving through Chicago, and then he pulled over on the side of the road and started crying. And he was like, I should go home. I should go home. And he had a 30 I think I remember it being like a 30 or 60 minute moment on the side of the road. What am I doing? I should just go home. I should just go home. But if I go home, I'll never know what was going to happen, and then he just put the car and drive and just went into the unknown and took one of the biggest risks of his life. And it paid off that one gig with Axel. He told me he had a monthly salary, and his monthly salary was in sane so he can now never worry about having to get a job at the supermarket. He can do it. He can do whatever he wants now for the rest of his life. So so

Terry Evans  46:32  
a lot of your connections to some of the bands that you end up hanging out with or going to see, or whatever it ends up being, through the guys who are the lighting guy or the gear guy, or, you know, the stage hands, or stuff like that. And then you end up through association, yeah, to know band members and stuff like, Don't you know the Pearl Jam guys? Yeah,

Craig Gass  46:52  
I've known the Pearl Jam guys for long, so I'm gonna see them in two weeks. We're hanging out in New Zealand and in Australia. It started when I love music so much, and I would go to concerts. I would go to every concert. I would go see Dio I would go see journey. I would see Metallica. I would go see Depeche Mode. I love concerts. I love going to shows. I love seeing live shows, and I love music. And I was so obsessed with it that I would, I would hang out at the top of the loading dock and just watch them break down, you know, load the trucks up and stuff and and it dawned on me, I shouldn't say this, but it dawned on me that if you wait long enough, it's usually about midnight, all those yellow shirt guys will clock out at midnight, and they'll leave behind a skeleton crew. You can just walk right back in the building, through the loading dock, and I would go back, and I wasn't trying to meet the band. I was actually going to see these people who are working for for the artists, and saying, Hey, what, what do you do? Like, what's your job? And how did you get this job? And most adults do not want to talk to a 1514, year old kid, but some of them would see that it was a sincere thing that I was wanting to talk about. So some of them would talk to me and explain to me what their job was, and started making friends over the years. And if you're really good at your job, if you're a really good sound guy, if you're a really good tour manager, you will work forever. You will go from a massive Metallica tour to a Beyonce tour to a green day tour to a Harry Styles tour. You will just work just in perpetuity. And so these guys that I made friends with and girls that I'd made friends with, whenever they would come through town, they would say, Hey, I'm in town, blah, blah, if you want to come out to the show. And they start meeting, introducing me to more of their friends. And then sometimes the artist and then it just became this thing where I just I got to know a lot of my favorite artists. Now what was interesting is, when I started doing stand up, I would bring VHS copies of my shows and give it to all my roadie buddies and say, hey, put these on your bus. And my stand up would end up spreading out on all these major concert tours around the world. And when I started getting on The Howard Stern Show and started making a name for myself, I would get phone calls from people going like, Dude, I got a crazy story for you. I work with Aerosmith. Now, the band was talking about you and catering today, and they're like, Have you heard that guy? And they said,

I go. That's my friend Craig. Yeah, dude.

He lives in New York. He's a friend of mine. Like, we'll ask him if he wants to come to the show when we get there. And it's like, so do you want to hang out with Aerosmith? I'm like, fuck yeah, I want to hang out. Aerosmith, let's do it, man. And it just kept snowballing to where I just, I made friends with, you know, everybody just, you just, you just do it takes a lot of time, you know? I mean, this is, like most of my life that I've been doing this, I eventually got to be friends with most of my favorite people that I look up to and admire. So that alone, to just the experiences alone, are just an embarrassment of riches. You know, you know that everywhere I go, I book shows, and I make sure that I wait for a time frame that there's a concert or a sporting event that's going on. And I want to make sure to have fun in every city that I go to when I was, you know, the couple of times I've been up there to Edmonton. It was to once to see a kiss show. Wants to see a Metallica show. I mean, it's a big reason why I'm not famous, but I'm having fun because I'm I'm going to shows all over the place and sporting events. So I love

Terry Evans  50:33  
how did you end up living at Eddie Van Halen studio or guest house, or whatever it was.

Craig Gass  50:41  
It was a guy that used to work for Dunlop. The only hobby I've ever had in my life was collecting guitar picks. Well, that and cocaine, but collecting guitar picks was a big hobby, and I have 1000s of guitar picks from everybody over the last 30 years, 40 years, a friend of mine who worked for Dunlop. Dunlop makes a lot of those personalized guitar picks that have the signatures on him. Yeah, he he was a big Howard Stern fan, and I'm a big pick collector. And I said, Dude, I collect guitar picks. And he's man. We exchanged phone numbers, and we would talk from time to time, and he hooked me up with guitar picks. And then I saw him backstage at a scorpions Dakin concert in Los Angeles. So that was mine. I was minor, by the way. I saw him, dude, I swear to God, this is a quote. Eddie trunk was standing right next to me when this happened. We're watching the scorpions, and Klaus Wayne goes, All right, how are you doing tonight,

Las Vegas? And he goes, okay, yeah, me, not so good. I just started laughing hysterically. And then Eddie, I didn't know this. Eddie goes, Oh, well,

he's had a lot of back surgeries. He actually had to cancel a couple tours. I

go. I didn't have a why the fuck is he bringing it up like nobody wants to hear about your fucking problems. My wife, she took the kids.

What the fuck came here to have a good time. I want to rock you like a hurricane class, but it was backstage at a at a scorpions Dakin concert. And I see my buddy from Dunlop, and he's introducing me to everybody backstage at the show, like, Hey, I'm going to do you a solid. I'm going to introduce you to all these people. And, you know, everyone he's introducing me to, like, he goes, Hey, this is blah, blah, blah. And I went, your name is on the blizzard of Oz credits and the and the album credits. Like, you know, I'm recognizing all these names and and I'm a total music nerd. And then at one point, he goes, shit, I'm going to introduce you to this guy over here. This guy lives with one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, but don't tell him. I told and he walks me over. He goes, Hey, Matty,

this is my buddy Craig. Guess. He

goes, I don't know if you are a fan of Howard Stern or or this show or that show. This Craig's a comedian. This guy turned around and said, Oh, dude, I am your biggest fan. I go, Oh, get the fuck out of here. And he goes now, man, he goes as matter of fact, he starts naming gigs that he came to to see me in Hollywood over the years. And so we hung out, and we hit it off, and we made we exchanged phone numbers, and we made plans to go bowling A week later, and he showed up at the bowling alley with Eddie Van Halen, and I was just like, and yeah, he showed up with Eddie Van Halen. And turns out, I started putting the pieces together that this guy is Eddie Van halen's assistant. He lives in a guest house on the same property. He runs the 5150 Studios, which is also on the same property. And this guy is such a fan of The Howard Stern Show that he gets up every morning at five, 530 in the morning, to go into the studio, turn on the radio and work. And he listens to all five hours of the show every day. So when I started getting on the show, he starts telling Eddie, dude, there's this guy. He does, like this crazy Paul Stanley impression. And then a week later, oh my god, that same guy does a crazy Gilbert Godfrey impression. And then a week later, oh my god, the same guy does a Lars Ulrich impression, and on and on and on. And so at the bowling alley, Eddie Van Halen smoking a cigarette, and he's fucking telling me my whole story. And it was weird. He's like, second hand, relating my life story back to me. And I mean, I've said this before, but it really is incredible, this moment that he had where he started telling me a story in. That I had told on the air to Howard. Howard was taking credit for my whole career as he should. And I interrupted him and said, Oh, Howard, it's I mean, dude, I've been broke my entire life before I got here. And by the way, all I've ever wanted in my life to own, because I realized I could never own anything. So I never set my sights on anything. So I knew I could never have anything. The one goal I've always had was just to have an illegal cable box. That's all I've ever wanted was one of those illegal cable boxes that will unscramble all the channels. And I finally was able to afford one. You send like, 300 bucks to this PO Box. It's very sketchy and like, it must have been four, six weeks later, I got a I got it, this box in the mail. I opened it up and it just, it just had instructions. It looked very shady. And then I connected it, follow the instructions. And I went right to the porn channel, and I was like, Oh my God. I got it. Like everything unscrambled, and I'm at the bowling alley with Eddie Van Hill. And he goes, dude, you

broke your whole life. Me too. I grew up in the fucking ghetto, and I heard that is this true, that you always

want an illegal cable box. And I go, that is true. And I actually got one. I have an illegal cable box now. And he goes, that's crazy, because they look both ways. And he went, they got legal cable box too. And I was like, really? And he goes, Yeah, the thing is fucking rich, but don't want to pay for cable. And I was like, get the fuck out of Are you serious? And then the night goes on, and we have all these weird little moments there, and including fifth or sixth frame. And he goes, I'm gonna go play foosball. And I go, Dude, we're in the fifth frame. You got a few more to go. And he goes, Okay, I want to play foosball. And I go, you can't walk away from the fifth frame, dude. You got like, four more throws. And then you're done. And he goes, I'm going to go play foosball. He just walked away. And I'm like, Dude, you don't fucking walk away in the middle of Fifth frame. And and then the night ends with like, he goes and plays flus. Well, for a while we started up another game. He comes back over and for the he goes, Hey, it was nice to meet you. I get out of here. He looks at his assistant. He goes, I love you. And he like, very European, kissed him around the lips. I love you. Hey, the guy from Dunlop, I love you right on the lips. And then my friend Dave Lee, who is a guitar tech, he's standing right in front of me, and Dave's back is to me, and I see Eddie like

and Dave goes, goes back and back, and then right at the end, I'm, I'm in this perfect spot to see him go like he puckered right at the very end. And when we left that night, I guess Dave must have been driving me the night, because we went out to his car and I went, dude, you fucking puckered. For Eddie Van Halen. And Dave goes, dude, it's Eddie Van Halen. Man, I'm gonna pucker for Eddie.

Yeah, over the course of the next year and a half, I'm giving you a very long winded response to this, but over the course of the next year and a half or so, I would go hang out with Mattie Ed's assistant up at the 5150 studios. And then Ed would show up, and then we'd all hang out and talk and laugh and and then I got this really toxic relationship that ended horribly. And this girl we were at a party. I left for a couple minutes to go pee. I came back, she's making out with a guy at the bar. And I just stood there, and I just, I just watched her make out with a guy, just waiting for her to acknowledge me. And then she finally looked at me, and she was like, Oh, this, um, this is my boyfriend, and I was and I just went now. And I just, I went the other room, and I called up Mattie, and I said, Dude, you're not gonna believe this. And he goes, hold on, hold on. He goes, Ed wants to talk to you, Ed on the phone. He goes, dude, I told you she was a fucking skate. And I go, yeah. And he goes, you're living the fuck are you living with it for man? And I said, she's the only person I know in this town besides you guys. And he goes, dude, pack up your shit, moving with me. And I said, Can I do that? And he said, Yeah, you can sleep in a recording studio, just don't tell anybody. But

the band's getting back together, so it's going to be noisy at night, you know. So

the only thing I have to worry about is the fact that Dan halen is going to be playing in the next room, and he goes, Well, you got a TV show because I was working, I was working on a new TV show at the time called Las Vegas, with Alec Baldwin and James Conn like that. That first few weeks at the house, at that recording studio where I was spending. All day long on a TV set, telling jokes to Alec Baldwin and James Conn and then every night I would come home and I could hear him in the next room, and I knock on the door and I I'd go, Hey, buddy, I just got home. Is it okay if I listen for a little bit before I go to bed? And every night he'd go, Dude, I'm fucking lonely. Come on in, and I'd walk in and I'd listen to him play. And it was very, very surreal. 22 years ago, that was and I was living at his house, and a very sad PS is, a year later, I found out that Ed's assistant had been fucking my girlfriend the entire time, and they ended up together. They were together for like, five, six years. They almost got married. And I was so thrown by that that I was like, Oh man, I can never I didn't call Mattie. I didn't call Ed. This weird thing happened years later where I thought I had heard that, that Ed got sober, and I'm sober, so I I was like, I'm gonna call him. And I I called him and and he took the phone. He said, Hello. And I go, Hey, man, what's going on? He goes, who's this? I go, it's Craig gas. And he goes, Hey, man,

how you doing? And I go, I'm doing good. How are you doing? He goes, I'm sitting on the toilet taking a shit. And I went, Oh, do you want me call you back later? And he goes, No, talk to me. What's going on. I go, um, I don't, I mean, I don't. I can call you later. I could just, you know. And he goes, Oh, man, that's me.

Come on, let's have a conversation. What's going on? I go, um, I Are you? How are you doing? You doing? All right. He goes, I'm doing good. How about you? And I go, I'll call you later, man. And I just like, I'm not gonna fucking and then, you know, then those last like, you know, you start hearing rumors that you know he's not doing well, that his health is going really bad. So I made attempts to reach out to him in that last year, but found out later from another mutual friend, who's also a comedian, who was friends with Eddie. He said, Don't take it personally, because in the last year that Eddie was alive, he was non verbal, he was not able to speak. So it was crazy that a guy who was a hermit. Was letting me into his life. I mean, dude, I remember he had a cancer guy that used to come over once a week to give him a drip. He was, he was fighting cancer and beating it with these alternative medicines. He was bank rolling a cancer place up in Long Island that he would visit from time to time, and he had a guy would come over. And the first time that guy came over, I was on the couch in the studio. The recording studio door opened, this guy walked in, and I was like, and I stood up, and I was like, Hey, I'm Craig, and I'm a comedian just staying here. I'm friends with Mattie. And then Ed walked in behind him and goes, Dude, what the fuck you're not my friend. And I go, Oh, why? Didn't want to assume, you know. And he goes, dude, you're living in my fucking house. And I go, Yeah, yeah, that's true. And he goes, I love you. And I go, I love you, too. Ed,

Terry Evans  1:03:15  
yeah, did you pucker?

Craig Gass  1:03:18  
Did you pucker? Right? You know what? I

don't think I ever kissed him on the lips.

I don't remember ever kissing him on the lips, but he was an incredibly kind and affectionate person. He came to the Comedy Store with me one like every night when, especially as like I got in there in January of 2004 and then around March of 2004 Alex started showing up because they were recording an album. It was, it was a best of Van Halen album that had two new tracks with Sammy, and then they were going to tour. And Alex started showing up be Alex seemed to be very much the business minded guy. I noticed that on the computer in the studio, when I would try to get online, there would be, like, websites with stage designs, we can do this, or we can do this, you know. And Alex was making those decisions. There was also samples of T shirts laying around the studio, like we could do shirts like this, or like, you know. And it was Alex that was like, you know, making decisions about that. And then when Alex would come over me, and it was just story time, it was like, we'd all hang out and just stand around and just tell stories. And Alex is one of the best storytellers. And then I go, All right, hey, man, I gotta go. I gotta go to the Comedy Store, and there's an open mic. I gotta take off. And Eddie would follow me out. Go,

hey, I'll come with you. We'll go hang out. I

go, I It's a, really, it's a weird move to show up at an open mic with Eddie Van Halen. That's just a fucking I go, but dude, please, when I do my show, like I always would do a big show in Hollywood on Valentine's Day, I moved it to Hawaii. Now I'm in Hawaii every year for Valentine's Day, but I used to do Valentine's. Day The Comedy Store in Hollywood, and I said, Wait till my Valentine's Day show. So he came to the Valentine's Day show, and he and then he hung out all the comedians, which, by the way, there's another I know I'm going on and on and rambling about this, but it was a very surreal time in my life to be able to have that moment. You know, as a as a Van Halen fan, I have this one surreal moment where came home from shooting that show Las Vegas, and he's in the studio and I and and we're just talking he was getting out of relationship with a girl that he had been dating, not Valerie, that that relationship was long over, yeah, but he had been dating this other girl, and they had broken up, so we're commiserating over this pain. And then in the middle of it, he just went, hang on a sec. Let me just finish this real quick. And he just pushed record. He played a solo, and then I watched him play, and I said, You know what, man, like seeing you live so many times, and the highlight of every show I ever saw was in the middle of your guitar solo when you would play that piece called cathedral. And he said, sit down. And I said, no, no. I wasn't trying to get you to play it. I just think it goes, no, okay, sit out. And he played me a 1015 minute version of cathedral. And I just sat just sat, just watched him play, and I was like, damn. Like, it's just, yeah, it was very surreal. And there's so many more stories, though. I mean, beyond Eddie, there's so many crazy, right place, right time, moments. So I'm covering them all. I'm starting to record, and I'm getting everybody that was there, and I'm getting everybody to share what they witnessed and and adding to these incredible stories, and there's so many so and then the two comedy specials, and then I'm launching another podcast my buddy Chris kale from Five Finger Death Punch, who just Got off the the tour with Metallica. And yeah, so

Terry Evans  1:07:03  
did Wolfie Van Halen. And Wolfie,

Craig Gass  1:07:05  
yeah, my buddy, I have a buddy who's with him in that band. And yeah, last time I saw Wolfie, like, last time I had a conversation with Wolfie, he was 12 years old. Went bowling. Yeah, that night. So lot of bowling

Terry Evans  1:07:17  
in the Van Halen family.

Craig Gass  1:07:21  
Man, it's fucking great. Go

Terry Evans  1:07:23  
to the website, get gas with two s's. Dot com for more with Craig gas and where you're gonna I see you're doing a lot of Vegas stuff at Kimmel's club coming up. Other things always get dotted in and plunked in here and there during the schedule. And of course, like you were saying the two comedy specials on the way, yeah, man, a

Craig Gass  1:07:44  
lot of great things are happening in 2025 I'm excited about

Terry Evans  1:07:47  
it. Awesome. That's great to hear. We'll catch up again, because I know you've got more stories. And, yeah,

Craig Gass  1:07:52  
man, dude, you've

always been really nice to me. I need to get back out there to do a show. I've always had fun up there and but you've always because we not only hang out like you always let me come in and do whatever in the studio, but you would spend time with me and and I really, really appreciated that. So thank you for that. I appreciate

Terry Evans  1:08:13  
it. Well. Hanging out with good people, it's always a pleasure, man. Thanks for doing this too. I appreciate it.

Craig Gass  1:08:18  
Thank you, buddy. Alright, next time pucker up, man, come on.

Terry Evans  1:08:27  
All right. Love You, Man, we'll talk soon.

Craig Gass  1:08:29  
Love you too. I'll

Terry Evans  1:08:30  
see you reluctantly. Today's podcast brought to you by the Clayton Bellamy Foundation for the Arts, supporting education and community based programs in the province of Alberta by providing financial support to arts programs in need, Clayton, Bellamy foundation.org,