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March 21, 2025 • 16 mins
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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, Hi there Detroit Wheels, Doug Doug, Is this you? Yes,
it is.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Henry.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Oh, Henry Paul from the Outlaws.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
How are you.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hey.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
It's great to talk to you, my friend. I'm a
big fan of you guys. I uh, I got started
in radio, believe it or not, around nineteen seventy five,
and you guys were coming on strong back then. We
used to play the but Jesus out of all of
your songs, So I am very familiar there.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Were you Were you in Detroit then?

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, I was in Detroit. I was.

Speaker 3 (00:37):
I was at W four as a matter of fact,
ABX and W four back then.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
So I don't know if you remember those I do.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
That's a big station.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah yeah they were.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
They were big stations and we played some big songs,
like twenty minute songs by the Outlaws.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
But mehow I'm excited to talk to you and thanks
for thinking of us and thanks for your time today.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
Oh yeah, no problem.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Well we got you coming into town here April of
fourth at the Diamondback Music Hall and this is sort
of a brand new venue, Henry, and I think you're
gonna love it.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
And it's out in Belleville.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
So there's no question that you will be the biggest
band ever play in Belleville in the history of the city.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
That's so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Oh, I'm telling you funny, it's true.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
But it's a great place and you are going to
love it. They've got great sound out there as well.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, excellent, excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
So I know you, I know you've been in the
band a lot of years.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I mean, but how long has this band really been
a functioning rock and roll band.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Well, we started in nineteen seventy two, and we released
our first album in nineteen seventy seven or nineteen seventy five,
I should say.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Sorry, yep.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So this is the hold on there. This is the
fiftieth anniversary of the release of our first album. So
that makes me seventy five and that makes me lucky
to be alive.

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, I'm creeping right up there with you, Henri, so
we're both still rocking though, we're still standing, so nothing
wrong with that, and it's great to have the band
coming in.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I saw you guys last summer.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
That was a big tour for you with zz Top
and Leonard Skinnard when you played Prime Kno.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
It was it was a great opportunity for the Outlaws.
Now hando, we only got you know, forty minutes up front,
it still made a enormous impact on the band.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah, no, there were a lot of people that got
there early actually to see you guys. You know, there's
a big Southern rock following here in Michigan still to
this day. We've played a lot of Southern rock over
the years in Detroit, and there are so many Southern
rock bands that were coming up back in the day.

(03:23):
But you don't see that too much anymore, if all today.
So you guys are still carrying that torch and there's
nothing wrong with that, no.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
You know. And it's an interesting footnote to that what
you just said, insomuch as if you were going to
revive the Outlaws of musical personality and put it out
there to legitimize it or to help make it relevant

(03:56):
in my opinion, and I would have required us to
and record new music, which we've done pretty successfully over
the last gosh fifteen years, twenty years on top of that,
And let me just say that, not because I wrote

(04:18):
and recorded the records, but they're really well written and
they're really really well crafted records. But most importantly, they
very are. They're very accurate extensions of the original Outlaws
musical personality, and that is very, very very important to

(04:39):
me and I When we put the band out there
at night, we're a no, you know, no bullshit kind
of get the music out there and play it with heart,
and play it with respect, and have some music that

(05:00):
interfaces with the band's earlier recordings and walk out of
the room through a standing ovation feeling like you really,
did you know something worthwhile?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yep, No, you've got the hits, There's no doubt about that.
I mean, your version of Ghost Riders in the Sky
still to this day gives me goose.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Bumps all over when you hear it.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
So seen it live is going to be, you know,
just a thrill for people, especially in a club like
you know, the the Diamondback Music Hall, which is going
to be kind of upfront and in your face. So
I think you're going to enjoy this. And you've got
a bit of a tour going on again this year?
Are you playing?

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Is it smaller halls?

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Was that sort of the directive this year to get
back into the clubs?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, you know, I mean we play venues that lineup
with the band's level of popularity. There are no arena
tours for the Outlaws. We simply are not that you know,
popular a band to put you know, fifteen thousand people

(06:17):
in a room. We have some other unique opportunities. We're
doing the Leonard's Skinnered tour in Canada. I think there's
fifteen dates up there, and we're doing a really cool
little American swing with Kansas and thirty eight Specialists. Ten
or twelve dates on the books of that. But my

(06:39):
favorite thing is to go in with the Outlaws and
play you know, five six, seven, eight hundred thousand seat
theater and play it to a really committed and passionate
audience of fans and you know, really have a lot

(07:05):
invested in the band from the standpoint of their younger days,
and I you know, it's a really really intricate musical
personality and it's played very exacting. There's no movement on
the needle from the standpoint of performance. It's really on
the money.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah, you're going to have a lot of fans, a
lot of Outlaw fans are going to be coming into
Belleville for this.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
There's no doubt about that in my mind now.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
You know, and the harmonies and the guitar solos. I
mean people have come to known this band for you know,
great music, straight ahead rock, and you guys always delivered. Now, Henry,
who do you got you know playing with you in
the band these days?

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Right now?

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right well, the band's been together for some time. Randy
three is a a guy I met and invited into
the group Blackhawk in nineteen ninety nine, and when the
Outlaws did their five reunion tour, I invited him into

(08:13):
the Outlaws. Then he plays bass and sings lead on
a song or two and a beautiful high harmony singer.
Jeff Alick, a younger, very accomplished guitar player and singer,
plays lead guitar and sings a couple of Hughey songs.

(08:34):
He sings Harry Sundown, and he sings You Are the Show,
and he just he also sings stick Around for rock
and Roll. But his version of You of the Show
is just incredible. And the counterpart to him as a
lead guitar player is a very gifted, really wonderful guy

(08:54):
and a pretty good harmony singer. I mean, everybody in
the band sings great. Jimmy Dormeyer and I have known
one another since the late eighties. Dave Robbins, my original
partner in Blackhawk, plays keyboards and we put we set
him up over behind the amp line next to the drummer.

(09:19):
The guy the drummer's lights out. His name is Mike Bailey,
and Mike played with me in the early two thousands.
He's very gifted. And this year I invited my son,
my oldest son, little Henry, to join the group we have,
so we have a seven piece band.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
And you know, they'll come a day here when I'm
not going to be able to do this, and I'm
expecting Henry to stand up there in the middle with
the rest of the guys and continue to play this
music at a high level.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Oh, I love that. That's awesome, man. So yeah, that's good.
A big sound out there for sure, with seven guys
up on stage all kicking it out. Now, you mentioned,
you know, how important, you know, still having some new
music for the Outlaws is, and I saw that you
put it out Mountain twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Henry.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Do you get a chance every once in a while
to shot some stuff down or you know, put a
couple of licks on tape or whatever it is to
you know, maybe put something out again here in the future.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Well, I'm in the middle of recording a solo record,
and I'm also at the tail end of an autobiography
that I wrote with a friend over the last year
and a half, and that seems to be my focal
point at the moment because we're closing in on completing that.

(10:55):
But there's always something years ago in the mix. So
I have an Outlaws record plan to record, I have
a new Blackhawk record plan to record, and you know,
there's the solo record that you know is sort of
waiting its turn. Okay, so part part of what I

(11:18):
like to do and playing live is fun, but but
having new music is so exciting, not just for the
fans but for the band.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Yeah, it keeps you, uh, it keeps you active, and
it keeps you relevant. There's no question about that. And
I like the idea of the book though, Henry, because
you guys have toureds over the decades with so many
great bands, You've got to have stories that are just unbelievable. So, uh,

(11:51):
I'm gonna I'm gonna look for that one in the
future for sure.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, I have a great memory in all the details.
It's not a finger pointer. It just tells the story
about how the band got discovered and how we you know,
realize the dream come true together as a local band
in Tampa. And it's, you know, kind of a fairy

(12:18):
tale on a lot of fans out there would love
to peek behind the curtain and yeh know how it
all happened. And I think the book goes a long way.
They're taking that. That's cool, you know, taking them on
that ride.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
So you've had some really big hits, I mean, ghost Writers.
We talked about another love song, but I wish if
you could, Henry Paul take me back to Hide Tides
in green Grass, because I mean, let's face it, we
don't see songs like that anymore. I think the last
time was maybe nineteen ninety there when Guns n' Roses

(12:55):
did November Rain. You know, some of it's never successful.
That one was yours certainly was Leonyard Skynyrd's Freebird was
That's about the only other song I can think of
that as that epic feel to it, like green Grass.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Can you take me to? You know, nineteen seventy.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Five or four right there when you were recording that,
and you know, I mean a twenty minute jam. You
never put a single out on that, so there's no edit, right,
I mean, this is when you want that song, you
get it all.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Can you just take me back to those days? And
was what was happening then?

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Well, the song started out as a started out as
a three and a half or four minute ballot, And
then we were on the road playing clubs in the southeast,
and we were playing a little venue in Knoxville called
Bradley's Station, And oftentimes during the day, since we didn't

(13:57):
have a rehearsal studio, we'd go down the club and
we would use that time in the afternoon to rehearse.
And I remember going down to Bradley Station in Knoxville,
this has been seventy early seventy four, late seventy three

(14:20):
and working up the guitar arrangement for the outro and
green grass and so the signature, the time signature change
from it starts out in double time and then it
goes to halftime for the verses and choruses, and then
at the end it comes back to double time for

(14:40):
that memorable guitar jam. And well, when we took the
song into the studio to record it, The actual studio
version of green Grass and High Tides is nine minutes
and thirties some odd seconds long, and our producer Paul Rothschild,

(15:06):
who was a very gifted producer, took this really prolonged
version of green Grass, probably fifteen eighteen minutes, and he
edited it down to what the record represented. It was
a brilliant edit. And when we released our first album,

(15:27):
green Grass was an instant album oriented rock YEP, and
it got played right next to Freebird and Layla and
Stairway to Heaven and you know those epic sort of
seven eight nine ten minute records, and we had really

(15:51):
a career in that song, and to this day, it's,
without question of the band's most poppy song. And going
back to Knoxville and late nineteen seventy three, you know,
you could never have imagined how popular it would have become.

(16:13):
While you were in the club in the afternoon, drinking
draft beer rehearsing the song. You wrot wow. So it's
pretty magic.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
That is a great story, That is awesome. Thank you
for sharing that with us, Henry, and we're all looking
forward to seeing the Outlaws and yourself here Friday, April
the fourth. It'll be a big night at the Diamondback
Music Hall in Belleville when w LLZ and the Outlaws
roll in the town. I'll be out there as your MC,
so i'll see you there, Henry. I'll be sure to

(16:45):
stop by and say hey.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
All right, well, thanks for your time. You go have
a great day and a great weekend

Speaker 1 (16:52):
All right you two now, and thanks for rocking with
the wheels today
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