AAM (Jim Obos): Hey guys, what’s up?
Modern Day Romeos (JW): Uummm, should we be drinking beer?
AAM: This is the official Modern Day Romeos/All Access Magazine.com interview. Welcome!
MDR: Thank you thank you.
Justin: All Access? Is this pay-per-view?
Steve (SG): This is pre-record contract, not post.
Justin: I think I need one more beer before I go “All Access.”
AAM: We just spent the last hour or so in your practice studio listening to some new stuff and some originals too; very cool. But it’s kind of dark in the studio. Why do you keep it this way?
Jim: It’s ambient mood, to get us ready for the shows.
AAM: So you are MDR, Modern Day Romeos. How did you come up with that name?
Jim: Steve, our guitar player, came up with it.
SG: I actually had it since high school and the reason I kept it is because I figured Romeos gets girls and Modern Day is always because we are current.
Jim: Even after 30 years we are still Modern Day Romeos – the fans might come to the show and we might be bald, but….
SG: We are never going out of style – it works out well.
AAM: And who is Modern Day Romeos?
Jim: Justin is the acoustic guitar player, lead cowbell, lead kazoo, and lead motorcycle sound effect guy.
Justin: Hey, hey how about vocals, huh?
Jim: Yes, Justin sings too, he sings back-up, but sings like a woman.
Justin: Backup vocals? Yeah, yeah, but I have a regular range too. I think we need that on record that I sing regular too.
Jim: I’m Jim, I sing like a man – ha ha ha!
SG: Yes, but dance like a woman!
Jim: That’s Mike Zaitz, he’s the drummer. Chris Perfect is his real name and he plays bass. There is also Steve Gill the lead guitar player, and tube player
SG: Why did you ask that? You know who we are.
AAM: Yes, but All Access Magazine readers don’t. The potential is that over 2 million people might read this interview.
Justin: Well, over 2.1 million with our fans now!
AAM: How long have you guys been together?
Justin: Well… we have been together since birth.
Jim: We are brothers.
Chris Perfect (CP): Well, since your birth, Justin.
Justin: Right, ’cause Jim is older.
SG: Six years.
Justin: Actually the night of my 21st birthday was our very first show.
AAM: How did you get together, find each other?
Jim: One was in a band, and two others in another band, kind of heavy metal: Limp Bizkit, Rage, Lit, Blink 182, stuff like that. These guys were in premier bands in the area and they all decided to leave for various reasons (family, school, and just disassembled), and at the time I was hosting karaoke. Then Steve came out with a buddy to see me doing Michael Jackson with six people around and we started talking. He said we might be ready to start something up, but it was just kind of talk. Then I moved to Florida for a while and we started talking again. Let’s do this, let’s totally mix like Tool, Rage and Neil Diamond, Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson.
SG: Yes, just mix it up.
Jim: So I came back and we started practicing in the basement of the Penny Road Pub. We played around for a few years, bouncing from basement to basement.
SG: We did like three shows.
Jim: Oh yeah, our original drummer.
SG: When Mikey came in the band as drummer it solidified our band to the five, and we started to get consistent, practicing and playing.
Jim: We became a band at that point….
AAM: I know I asked this earlier, but who is Modern Day Romeos, meaning who is MDR to the fans? What does it mean to be MDR?
Jim: I think it’s an experience, it’s not just a band up there and fans. We are like the host of a party and being engaged.
SG: We are part of the crowd and fans. It’s just that we happen to be playing while being that part.
Jim: Yeah, right, I see us being different because we engage the fans, probably more than 60% of the time. We involve the fans somehow, either letting them sing, or getting up on stage to dance. Or getting out in the crowd for the largest Chicken Dance, and letting the whole crowd be part of the song. I think that is different than to just go see a band. There are so many good bands in Chicago, ya know. So many talented musicians. Most are really tight, and all sound great. We may not be the premier musicians in the area but we engage, and have enough fun and get the fans to move with us, and be part of us with our songs and how we play them what we do on stage.
Justin: For us it’s not just getting up and doing a set list. We play off the crowd and make it different every time.
Jim: Our shows are never the same; they are different every time.
SG: We have been asked to describe the band and I think Justin came up with it the best: “We are the party band with the fun jams.”
AAM: You came up with that. Cool.
Justin: I guess I did.
Jim: We are like a band with a prize inside, like your favorite cereal. Open the box and – surprise! – here we are. You may not know what we taste like, but then you open the box and the toy inside is a sweet octopus you can throw on the wall!
Justin: Yeah, that sticks and slowly crawls down the wall.
AAM: I’ve worked with you a few times here and there and you have a unique presence up on stage.
Jim: Hey, that sounds like one of our quotes.
Mike: I like how you dropped that in there.
AAM: Back to your party-mode style: To get the crowd up and running, is that your idea?
Jim: My philosophy is that. As I mentioned, I hosted karaoke, and hosting karaoke is not an easy job. There are nights you get free beer, but it’s tough and gets kind of old quickly. So when the crowd wasn’t getting it, I used what worked back in school. Once one kid starts to dance, then more come out to dance, and that’s what I used. You know there are a few people for karaoke here – we are going to hear “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” some guy is going to think his version of Vanilla Ice will be the first time anyone has done it. But what I figured is that if I brought the mic out to them instead of them getting the courage to come up – me bringing the show to them where they didn’t have to really do anything other than have fun – then people started to just have fun.
Justin: My philosophy is: The more I move my hips the more jam we give them.
AAM: Before I forget, do you have a web or MySpace page?
Jim: www.moderndayromeos.com and MySpace at www.mysace.com/moderndayromeos
AAM: Your number one song on your selection list is…?
Jim: “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley.
Justin: No, it’s “You’re The Best Around” by Joe Esposito.
Jim: We wrote a couple of original songs, one titled “Unique” that’s up there, and we practiced one tonight called “Me and You.” We have done a few originals and hope to have an EP out soon.
AAM: How did you come up with “Unique”? It has been played over 26,000 times so far. Kind of cool to have that many fans?
Jim: We volunteered to audition for a TV show.
Justin: No wait, YOU volunteered us for the TV show!
CP: I was leaving for a wedding, and Mike was having a kid.
Mike: We had to come up with 4 songs in two weeks. When we came to practice the power went out, so we had to run to Jimmy’s house to write. We wrote 4 songs in about 4 hours!
Jim: We did it acoustically, while I was working for NBC. So whenever I had a second or two I would write down some lyrics, and Steve came up with some riffs, Justin, Chris…
Mike: It took us a week or so for the show.
Jim: We were to play them live, but then some political mumbo jumbo between the show and station running it kind of killed the show! So we decided to record them with a friend of ours in his studio. We put it out and it appears to be doing well. The fans say they really like it, and we love that – thank you. After we uploaded it to our website, we were at Blarney Island for a show. Our fans starting singing it back to us. That was wild, and pretty cool!
AAM: 26,000 in the family – big family?
SG: I think each one of us had an idea and then we all added our flavor to it and made it our song.
Mike: The four songs sound nothing alike; it’s cool.
AAM: Jim and Justin, you are brothers, and the closeness between all of you on stage is great. Do you carry that off stage? Do you all hang out together?
Justin: Whenever we hang out it is always entertaining. We are always having some sort of fun; we are constantly trying to amuse ourselves.
Jim: We all call each other out immediately no matter what. If it’s been said or done, we look at each other on stage and say – “What? You did that last time.” It’s like we are always making it new for us and for the fans – it’s more like a family off stage and on. Genuinely we all just like to hang out with each other…when we have the time.
Mike: Ya know, we see each other three days a week for band stuff, so with priorities, family, jobs, we spend as much time as we can, but most of it centers around the band.
CP: Family parties and important stuff. Yeah, we hang, we are buddies, ya know?
AAM: Are you into the indoor clubs? Outdoor fests? Where do you like to play?
MDR: They are all our favorite places. Where our fans are is where we want to be.
Jim: The different places we play are all “Unique” (plug – go to our MySpace page to hear the song), but the fans that show up make each place different, each show different, so we like playing them all.
Justin: Sometimes indoor is better to play because it is a guaranteed show: The weather won’t shut us out.
AAM: You just played the Crystal Lake Gala. How was that?
CP: It was great – a lot of people that have been with us all along.
Jim: Really great. Crystal Lake is like our home, and this is where we are from, this is our stomping ground. So our fans that have been with us as we were putzing around are still here supporting us. When we play fests like this one, everyone comes out – families, friends. It rocks!
Justin: It’s cool to see people at our shows that we meet and then continue to hang out. Some even meet romantically and maybe get married – it is pretty cool.
AAM: One of you guys just got engaged at a show, right?
SG: Yes, but off stage, and it was very cool.
AAM: When I have worked with you a few times I heard those little comments from you like “My knees! My back!” And then I walk in tonight to the talk about the Crystal Lake Gala and hear “That was a great show! We could do this ’til we are 65!” How long are you going to play for your fans?
CP: I have never said anything about that stuff… I’m fine.
Jim: (With band support 100%) we are going to play as long as our fans want us out on stage playing for them.
SG: We all have energy and we are pretty high vibe so yeah, as long as Jim is out in front doing all the rough stuff, we can all sit back and relax and play our stuff backing him up… It’s all good.
MZ: That’s why we are here practicing, to keep it fresh, to keep things new so our fans want us to keep coming back. Without the fans we are just up on stage practicing, so yeah as long as they are there with us we will be there with them.
AAM: You make it all look so easy, what you do.
Justin: Don’t just play one type of song, mix it all up.
SG: It’s easy because the fans and these guys make it fun and easy.
Jim: You want to go out and have fun. We want to help make it that way, with gas prices, food, movies… We don’t want people just sitting there watching, we want to have them join the fun and party and that makes it easy.
AAM: Mike, you said something a few sec ago…“Music is meant…”?
MZ: Music is meant to be seen not just heard, and that’s what our shows are all about, being a part of the fun for the fans and for us.
AAM: Very cool to think of it that way. What’s coming up next for Modern Day Romeos?
Jim: Check out our MySpace page at MySpace.com/moderndayromeos to find out. I can tell ya it’s a bunch of fun, you won’t want your money back.
MZ: www.moderndayromeos.com or the MySpace page. Check out the photos. We have this guy that comes out every so often and takes some killer fan photos and band shots. Leave us comments if ya do go to our sites.
AAM: Guys, AAM and I appreciate your time. Thank you so much!
Band: Hey we have to do this: We are Modern Day Romeos and you are on ALL ACCESS Magazine.com!
