Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I am so excited to have as my guest this morning,
def Leppard drummer Rick Allen and his wife Lauren Monroe.
And the reason they are joining me is because you
can join them this coming Friday at the cutting room.
Their Raven Drum Foundation is bringing together an extraordinary group
(00:34):
of musicians to honor and support first responders and veterans
and the Q one four point three listeners know that
this is a cause so so dear to my heart,
and I consider the military also to be first responder. So,
first of all, welcome, thank you for joining me. It's
(00:54):
so good to see you both again.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thank you so much. He's lovely to see you too.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And tell us who's going to be there, and then
we'll get into the good work that the Raven Drum
Foundation does well.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Myself and Lauren are going to be there, of course,
and then we're going to be honoring Peter Chris, who
so deserves it, and one of my favorites, Bernard Purdy,
He's going to be there.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
What an incredible drummer.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
He's just inspired so many people over the years. And
then we've got a bunch of a bunch of the
guys from Bloister Cale coming and yeah, I'm just really
excited that we've got and Billy of course, do you
know Billy Ammadola No famous drum wrangler, Corky.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Lang from Mountain Mickey Curry is going to be there.
Maria Malito is going to be hosting.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
That is our own Maria Milito, who will be hosting
the event this coming Friday at the Cutting Room.
Speaker 6 (02:02):
How do people get tickets?
Speaker 5 (02:05):
They go to the cutting Room website, the cutting Room
dot com, and they can go to Ravendrum Foundation dot
org as well and see our websites, see what we're
about and get tickets through there too.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Just get more details about about the organizations that we
partner with, and just you know our first respond is
and how incredible these people are.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
What why is Peter Chris being honored? What has he
done that? Because he's your big honoree for the night.
Speaker 7 (02:37):
Peters is such a charitable human being.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
Aside from his legendary career, he's really kis of course
yeah with kiss and he's an advocate of cancer research,
cancer healing, and he's very outspoken on the journey of
cancer and so we wanted to honor him.
Speaker 7 (02:59):
I think just had his idiot birthday.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
Yeah, yeah, So it's really important for us, especially for Rick,
to look at some of his contemporaries and the people
in the business, drummers especially who sometimes you know they
are in the background and they leave lives such amazing
lives outside of their music career to be acknowledged.
Speaker 7 (03:21):
And we wanted to do this for Peter.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Yeah, and Pete has he inspired so many so it's
the least we can do to just, you know, give
him that and just celebrate him.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
How long has the Raven Drum Foundation been around doing
your work?
Speaker 5 (03:38):
We put the foundation together in two thousand and one.
We started was that before? Was that before or after
nine to eleven? That was before? Yeah, that was before
and we started. We came together my backgrounds and the
healing arts in energy medicine, massage therapy, and I've worked
(04:00):
a lot with people moving through trauma, and I'm also
a percussionist and musician, and when I met Rick, his
own trauma and really outlined his journey through music, and
we realized that bringing these two ideas together and helping
people with rhythm and also teaching people how to regulate
their nervous system through meditation and mindfulness and breathing, it
(04:23):
was a combination of success because music reaches everyone.
Speaker 7 (04:28):
And we started working everywhere.
Speaker 5 (04:30):
Really, we worked in the school systems with special needs kids,
who worked in the juvenile detention centers, and we worked
with cancer survivors, teenage kids going through cancer and safe houses,
and then we moved into the prisons. Then we worked
with veterans, which we still do. And for the past
two years we've been focusing on first responders because the
(04:51):
need is so great to assist them and helping with
the trauma that they have to deal with every single
day of their career.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
So what example would you do to help first responders?
And by the way, I did a news story this morning.
Since the start of the year, we have lost six
police officers in New York State to suicide, and half
of them were in Nassau County, which is very close.
And these things seem to come in spurts, and I've
(05:24):
done a lot of work.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
The audience knows.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
On behalf of first responders with friends of firefighters. I'm
on their advisory board and they do wonderful work. They
provide free mental health therapy not only for current firefighters,
but retired firefighters New York City firefighters and their families,
and that's such a huge component because the families have
(05:52):
to deal with this every single day. But for example,
so how would the Raven Drum Foundation help first responders.
Speaker 7 (06:02):
Well, we have really significant partners and friends of fire.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
Fire so's to help them. They're increased and helping other people.
Have three hundred there, so there's a great need for counseling.
And as you mentioned, it's not just about active career
(06:26):
firefighters or first responders, it's retired first responders as well.
Because it's not a matter of if when you're in trauma,
it's a matter of when. So sometimes you can go
through your whole career dealing with trauma the way you
deal with it, and then you're retired and all of
a sudden, something happens and really ignite the trauma response
(06:47):
of things that you've come promptmentalized your whole career. So
treating the families and folks who have retired are such
a big, big piece of things. So we partner with
organizations that help first responders and bring our piece to it.
So First Friends of Firefighters is one partner organization. Also,
(07:09):
Resiliency First is our core partner out of California, and
together we present conferences to teach first responders about the
most basic thing is understanding their neuroanatomy, understanding how the
nervous system works, and giving them tools on how to
(07:29):
deal with their nervous system when in their various states
of trauma. And that's how to live a healthier, more
balanced life.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
I'm speaking with def Leppard drummer Rick Allen and his
wife Lauren Monroe. In two thousand and one, they founded
the raven Drome Foundation and they basically help deal with
post traumatic stress and no one more epitomizes the need
for that than you. Oh, Rick Allen, you lost your
(08:03):
arm in a catastrophic car accident.
Speaker 6 (08:07):
And what was it?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
A year and a half later you were back drumming
with a specialized kit. But a year and a half later, right, No, I.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
It's it's been a huge gift. And I have an
incredible support team around me. And as Lauren suggested, you know,
if you have a good support team around you, you
can succeed, and we feel as though that's exactly what
we're giving to our first responders and our veterans.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Giving them the chance.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
You just have to create the right environment, an inspiration,
and then you could you can pretty much do anything.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Oh and the reason that Rick Allen and Lauren Monroe
are joining me today is because coming up this coming
Friday at the Cutting Room, our own Maria Muldo will
be MCing and there is a very special event at
the Cutting Room to raise funds for the Raven Drum
Foundation with a slew of artists performing. But you will
(09:15):
get to see and meet Rick Allen, also Peter Chris
of Kiss, who's going to be honored.
Speaker 6 (09:22):
Rick, let me just ask you.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Two years ago you had another traumatic event when you
were in Fort Lauderdale and some guy rushed you, knocked
you to the ground and you hit your head and
thank goodness, the guy was arrested. But did you suffer
more PTSD as a result of that?
Speaker 6 (09:44):
How did how did you handle that?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I'm glad you asked me about that.
Speaker 4 (09:51):
I felt as though it was a setback and I'm
I'm sort of working my way back up, but but yes,
it was.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
It was extremely traumatic.
Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah, so I'm I'm dealing with that the best, the
best that I can. And again, I have a good
support team, so I'm able to navigate that, you know,
in the best way I possibly can.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
But thank you for mentioning that.
Speaker 6 (10:25):
Did did they arrest him right away or did they
have to find him?
Speaker 4 (10:30):
I can't really talk about it because it's actually still ongoing.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Really, Yeah, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. So what are
the tools that help you most? I have not had PTSD,
but I find that discovering transcendental meditation changed my life.
I still do not understand how it works, but I
(10:55):
do know it does work. The days that I practice
my meditation, and it is specifically transcendental meditation, I just
handle the day better, things roll off my back.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
I do not have the highest highs, but I do
not have the lowest lows. What tools help you most?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Rick?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
You took the words out of my mouth. I was
actually just.
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Talking about how meditation really helps and has helped me
specifically since the Florida incident. So so that is one
of my go tos. That and breathing and really and
really just feeling my feet on the floor and and
(11:41):
just just being aware that something's going on and knowing
that I've got tools that can help me.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
And I think that the why it works is something
that's really important for us because to to educate first
responders and veterans that are very reality being the human beings,
I think it's really insightful for them to understand the
science behind something like meditation and mind mastery.
Speaker 7 (12:10):
And so you have to understand the nervous system.
Speaker 5 (12:12):
So when you're meditating, what you're ultimately doing is you're
creating this coherence with your heart and with your brain,
and there's an actual physiological thing that is going on
with your body when you get to these states of
a brain activity, So you're changing the state of your
brain from beta brain, where you're busy, busy thinking, thinking, judging, analyzing,
(12:35):
comparing all day into a state of alpha, where you're
in a calm state. And when you're in alpha, you
really can negotiate life better. You can make clearer decisions,
you can get intuitive information, you can connect with people,
and you are overriding the trauma that runs through your
(12:55):
neuro pathways of your brain.
Speaker 7 (12:57):
When you're in that state a fight or flight.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
That's an important tool to learn that neuro anatomy, especially
as a career first responder, so that you can regulate
your own nervous system at home with the family too,
because that's what you know. You take trauma home. Whether
you compartmentalize it or not, you still have it. And
like you just said before, suicide with our first responders,
addiction seventy percent, higher divorce rate, fifteen to twenty percent,
(13:25):
higher death of organ cancer, and various illnesses. Our first responders,
you know, they hire very well and we need to
support them and educate the public around what they go
through because we're all calling nine one one, but we
don't think about them when they leave.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Exactly exactly, we only have about a minute and a
half left. What have we not told the audience about
the Raven Drum Foundation or the event of the Cutting
Room coming up this Friday night, Ria Melido hosting.
Speaker 6 (13:57):
What have we not said that we need to say here?
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Well, we want you.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
To come, come, buy a ticket, go to the Cutting
Room website and buy a ticket to come Visitus Raven
Drumfoundation dot org. But if you can't make it, come
to our website and donate a ticket so our first
responder can come and have a great time and meet
Rick and meet the rest of us. If you want
a specialty, this is VIP packages. You can meet all
(14:21):
the artists, including Rick and Peter Chris.
Speaker 6 (14:24):
Okay, that's fantastic. Best of luck to you.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
I always love checking in with both of you, and
thank you so much for the work you're doing for
first responders and our military really appreciate that.
Speaker 6 (14:37):
And coming up next.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Ohys for having us own downing.
Speaker 6 (14:41):
You are so so welcome.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
You've been listening to Sunstein sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three