Frank Martin Busch admits to Ugly Sweater collection and daughter, Etta, confirms on Max Ink Radio

I'll be lucky in Milwaukee. There's no one insane.

Maxing on Civic Media. We are local music. That's wheelhouse hockey and

Milwaukee. That's a fun song right there. Oh man. And rocker, we're going to learn

about an ugly sweater party here. I can't wait. We are Jimmy. Wheelhouse is a

nationally touring Americana and Bluegrass based band in Madison. After thousands

of shows touring and five albums, the band is on hand. It's most of the time except

for a few shows, including their annual ugly sweater party. And now it's in its

10th year. 10 years. 10 years. 10 years. That's as old as you honey. His

daughter is here. She's so sweet. And band leader Frank Martin Bush heads up his

own office the outfit these days, a Frank Martin Bush and the names and they have a big

show coming up New Year's Eve here in the studio to get us updated on the happenings

of both these bands is singer and songwriter Frank Martin Bush. Frank, welcome back to

Maxing Green. Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And he could even to add a two. Yes,

add a say hi, add a. Hi. Oh, thanks, add a. Oh, Frank, you know, how did you get your

star playing music and you grew up in a musical family, right? I did. Yeah. My dad had a big

band orchestra and his dad was in a big band orchestra. And his dad was in a big band. And

his dad for that long line of German. And they were in an oompa band. No, but yeah, when they

came over from German, they brought the instruments and they've been doing it forever. And when

I was a kid, they I was forced to play saxophone. I played saxophone. I was terrible at it.

I actually had to play in this big band a few times, but I would fake most of it because

I didn't know what I was doing. I would have paid to see that. But yeah, then in college,

my roommate had a guitar because I quit. I played saxophone for like a few years in grade

school. I was like, I'm done. I hate this. You didn't know how to play guitar back then?

No, not until college. Serious. Nope. Didn't touch it. My roommate in college had one. I'm

like, all right, teach me a chord. There's girls that keep walking by and they keep

looking at the guys playing guitar. Oh, yeah. He taught me a few chords. Now I taught myself

how to play. That is incredible. I love your style of playing guitar. And I know we've

asked you about this so many times. It's so unique. The claw. Yeah. The claw hammer. Yeah.

It's so cool, though. I wanted to play like bluegrassy type country stuff. By myself,

I was writing these songs. I had that that one five backbeat. So I would do the claw hammer type

banjo, but I'm on the guitar. It works. It's like claw hammer. claw hammer is, uh, you

you play the bass note with your thumb. And then you play like the other parts with your fingers

and you kind of rake and pluck and all right. It's like a slap style. But then you play. So I

would play. You know, but on the guitar. So I'm doing the front beat and the backbeat.

And you almost have a little drum. Yeah. Yeah. I hit it and I play the guitar like a drum.

She's entertaining just to watch. I was going to say that that's pretty common in like bluegrass.

Bluegrass. The thump and getting the percussion off the acoustic part or the acoustic is generally

just a down strum. It's like a snare where the upright bass is the bass drum. And then you got

the you know, the mandolin and and the banjo plays a little claw hammer. But a lot of the guys now

play that three stroke method, which is even harder. Um, but yeah. So what you're saying is you

couldn't play the claw hammer with a saxophone. Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. You just threw that

thing away. I did not play well on the woodwinds. So you're not going to be in a scott band anytime soon.

No, I don't think so. Don't call me. I don't know how to play that. It's nice. I remember mighty

short bus. Yeah. That was that a while. That was the early 2000. Um, it was your early band. It was

right when I got out of college. I started that band with some buddies. It was like a, hey, we're

graduating from college. We've been jamming in the basement forever. Let's, let's play one show.

So my roommate time worth a dry bean. And he got us a show on a Wednesday. I don't want to

Wednesday. And like 300 of our friends came out. Wow. And it was like, I was hooked. I was,

I played on the stage. And I got, you know, I just felt that adrenaline rush. I'm like, I want to

do this again. So I kept doing it and doing it. I was at the first time he played in, you know,

in front of a fairly large clock. Yeah. We had done some open mics before that just like as a joke

we'd like, you know, put a skit together and play some music. But that was the first time we

actually played a show and got paid for it. And it was a big deal. But yeah, I was, that was

since then I was bitten. Do you ever think about that night when you're on stage in front of like,

say, like an atwood fish with thousands of people or many apples with thousands of people?

I do because the rush of adrenaline is still the same. Yeah. Even, you know, 20 some years later,

I still get the same feeling. Even on like, just even like a mediocre show, I still get a rush

of adrenaline. I'm such a stage junkie. But it's nervous. I do. Yeah, I get that's good. Yeah,

I love it. It doesn't bother me. I mean, I'm used to getting nervous. It's not going to go away. I'll

always get nervous. There's been times where I've had like little panic attacks. Oh, no. Like when

when COVID kind of was releasing, we started playing shows again. I remember our first show back was

up at Green Lake at the Thrasher Opera House. And I had like a panic attack in the middle of show.

I just didn't know the next words that didn't come. And the words always just come. As soon as I

have the first word, because you wrote most of the words, the rest of them just roll off your tongue,

but they weren't. They were just like, I'm like, what's going on? Where are the words?

It's fascinating. I've had just freaked out a little bit. You know, that hasn't happened since.

Good. Good. And and nerves. I've heard like even Keith Urban talks about, oh, yeah,

I still get nervous before a show. Yeah. But he said, if I don't, then something's wrong.

Yeah, you got to feel that excitement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now we'll talk about your newest

band, the names in just a moment. So first, let's talk about Wheelhouse. Thousands of shows,

five albums. I remember we're in Terry Barton interviewed you for Maximum Inc Music magazine back in 2013.

I remember it was on my front porch there. You came to our house.

We sat outside in the sun and talked about music. That was right when the band was starting.

It was called mighty. It was. And there was a reason for that. And we still use that sometimes.

But like, okay, so mighty short bus was the thing. And we still had a summer's worth of shows booked.

And we got sponsorship from Shiner beer. And we had kind of started the side thing with Kenny.

And it was Nick and I from mighty short bus started the side thing with Mark and Kenny just during

the week to play to make some extra money and didn't really have a name. You know, it was just

something that we were doing. And that kind of became Wheelhouse. And we're like, we need to kind

of merge these two things together. But you guys join our band because we got the summers worth

of stuff booked. So we kept the mighty from mighty short bus. And then just kind of transitioned.

And we still use the mighty is like if our I think our Instagram is mighty Wheelhouse, you know,

and stuff like that. But we just go by Wheelhouse now. But yeah, it was like a transitionary period

between the two bands. They kind of melted together. That's so funny.

Well, the 10th annual ugly sweater party is coming to the high noon saloon tomorrow. Sunday,

December 22nd. And Lucas Cates is opening for Wheelhouse. Do you have a collection of ugly

sweaters? I have a few. I have a few. Yes. Where do you get them from?

No, same place to get all my clothes is usually from eBay or marketplace like that.

Okay. I kind of got like scrolls late at night trying to find, you know, musical instruments

and that's not the sweater. I'll go to Middleton and buy that. You know, I recycle my clothes.

I don't really buy new stuff too much like any good musician. But Edda, do you have a,

do you have an ugly sweater? Edda? Does she have an ugly sweater? Yeah. Yeah. What is it?

She raised my glasses from my ugly sweaters. That's true. Give me a high five on that one.

She steals her mom's clothes and my clothes. Okay. So tell us the details about this show.

So yeah, Lucas Cates band, obviously Kenny on fiddle with us is in Lucas Cates band. So

he found out that Jesse, the drummer was going to come back to Madison for Florida,

from Florida for the holidays. And they're like, can we just throw them on as an opener? We're all

like, heck yeah, that'd be awesome. So it'll be the original lineup, Mark, Kenny, Lucas, and

Jesse. Mark Noxon coming out of my retirement. Yeah. So hopefully we can get Mark to play with us

for a song or two as well. Great. Yeah. So they go on at three and they'll play for 45 minutes

and then we'll do four to six. Yeah. You know, it's nice, easy afternoon. So you still have

the night to recover and get to work the next day if you have to work. Yeah, we've all said we're

getting older. We like this. Yeah. You'll end up hung over and broke it. There is a song you wrote

about. If you're lucky. Is it an ugly sweater required to get free admission? No, no, there's no

free admission for. No, not these free. Yeah. But yeah, it's just, you know, it's just an excuse to

get together and do it. We've been doing it for 10 years. In the beginning, it was a big charity

thing. We did much stuff for second harvest. We didn't do it this year. I wish it probably should

have. But in the beginning, the obvious sweater thing was it was a charity event. And now it's just

an excuse for us to get together in the winter and play because otherwise we just play mostly in the

summer. Yeah. Thank you for the excuse. Yeah. Okay. So you've got your own thing that you're doing

now and you've kind of got like a rotating cast of musicians every now and then. Tell us about

Frank Martin Bush and the names. Um, so yeah, we realized a couple of years ago that the

wheelhouse was going to take a step back and I'd do as many because we were doing 250 shows a year

and we just couldn't keep up with that. And I wanted to keep doing it. So I took the base player.

I said, let's start our own little thing. So he's solid and then Pablo on drums. Uh, he's always

there. But it was rim ribble for a long time for, you know, she was there every show and then

some personal things happen. Still loving. She still comes plays with a sometime. But now I got

John free sack of that place with us sometimes. Chris wagon of the plays was sometimes. And once

while I'll bring even a steel steel guitar player from Iowa that plays with us quite a bit. Oh,

that's cool. But yeah, we'll be at the concourse on New Year's Eve down the hotel lobby.

There are in the bar. Big party at the concourse. That's a big party. That's a great time. That's

a fun show. You're going to have a fun time New Year's Eve. Yeah, it is fantastic. Uh,

yeah, it's a great great hotel. And they put on a great party. You know, the governor's club is

fun. Rocky fed up there. Oh, yeah. Happy hour refreshments up there. Oh, yeah, I love the

governor's club. It's so much fun. Yeah. I want to ask Frank just a little bit about because I'm

always so interested in your songs. Every song you write tells a story. Where do you get these from?

That's, you know, that's the gift is getting the, because anybody can write a song. You can

have a music and melody. That's always there. But finding the subject matter is always like

that's the gift that you get. And you don't question where it comes from. You just, you know,

sometimes you have an idea because you see something or you're driving someplace or you watch

the movie or you read a book. It didn't inspire you to write. Sometimes you're just strumming the guitar

and you're mumbling, you know, and you just like Tom Petty used to you just strumming your mumble

until until you start to say things and you start to understand what it is. And then you build off

that, you know, but the one thing about writing songs is something you constantly have to do. Yeah,

you can't just, oh, I haven't written a song for months. I'm going to write one today. That one's,

it's like the first pancake. It's going to suck. It's not going to be very good. So you got to

keep writing. And it's usually like the fourth or fifth one you write to like, okay, I'm going to

share this with people because this one's pretty good, I think. But as an artist, you're always like,

yeah, it all sucks. You know, I know. You know, it's so interesting. They'll go into any of your

shows. Everybody I swear knows every word of all of your songs. I think that, yeah, we have a

pretty loyal fan base that's that the, you know, in the beginning, we did a lot of covers.

But we've always been writing and even now there's a couple new songs that we've been trying to

get in the studio to record. So there is possibly some new stuff coming up from Weha's in the

next year, it's just a matter of getting together. But there's stuff that's been written and everybody's

like, oh, we should record this. I think you said once you had a backlog. Yeah. That was another

reason for doing the solo projects. I had a backlog of stuff that I thought was pretty good,

but people didn't feel it was right for that project or whatever. So like the first record was

all almost all backlog. And we've, I've got, the names has got a second record that's ready to go.

We've released I think four or five songs off of it. And then we're going to start to release

the rest of them here in the next year. But yeah, we're constantly recording with that band as well.

Just always right forward to it. Yeah. Thank you. Absolutely. And you guys, I have to say, when we

all got to really get to know Ada was during COVID because Frank did a regular live stream. And

very often she was on the show with him. And it was amazing. Yeah. Her and her sister would both come

up and yeah, I, you know, I've been, I'm really sad that I don't do the live streams anymore.

Those are so good. And I should just bite the bullet and go back up to the attic and turn the

you know, because it was, it was, it was an issue time. We all had to adapt. And I really enjoyed

like the talk show aspect. I've always wanted to be like a late night talk show. That's like my

dream job. So it was like, I get to do it. But now, I don't know, I teach music in my kids'

school. And so I could get down with the work. And I'm so tired. And I'm just like, I can't go

seriously. But I got you because I miss doing it. And I just missed the, the, the, the reach it had,

you know, it did. And you had a lot of people. We did. I would always be surprised. Like,

man, a thousand people just watch that show. Like, that's, that's crazy. See now you're going to

have to do it. And then you can have like guests on. Yeah. Like a real talk show. Like your daughter,

Edo, she could be playing drums. She could be my, yeah, she could be like my Paul Schaefer over

there. Max, Max Weinberg. Yeah. Up there doing the drums. And yeah. Okay, we're going to bug you

about this. Yeah, right. Okay. I will start to do it again. I promise. We'll air it on Max and

crazy. Please do. Please do. Great. Bart Bush is in the studio with us. The ugly sweater party,

the 10th annual ugly sweater party is at the high noon saloon. It's happening tomorrow, Sunday,

December 22nd. Luke is going to be there. Wheelhouse is going to be there. If you have an ugly

sweater, put it on. Go have some fun time and see Frank and the wheelhouse and Lucas Cade. Say,

hi, don't look us first. We'll do absolutely. We love it. Okay. Yeah, we played some of those

music earlier. Yeah, they're fantastic. People want to follow you. Keep up with you. Get all the

new stories and places, hot hits to get the ugly sweaters. How do we follow you? Instagram is

probably the most checked in Mighty Wheelhouse or F. Frank Martin Bush. You know, Facebook's

still too, but we don't do much with X or Twitter. We're really not there. Yeah, anymore. Go to Blue

Sky. Yeah, that was always. Yeah, I always look. Yeah, Instagram is always telling me I've got to

be on threads now. I'm like, what? Oh, I know. I'm getting that too. It's all tiring. I take the

bait. I'm like, Oh, I want to read this. I don't know if I don't have the time. Do you still have a

website too? Yeah, we still have. Okay. It's Mighty Wheelhouse dot com Frank Martin Bush dot com.

Perfect. Frank, thank you. Appreciate you all. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow.

I'll see you tomorrow. Great to see you too. It fells on you. Oh, wait, you see what I'm wearing.

Frank Martin Bush in the name. So I love this song. Turn it up. This kiss you on the cheek.

It's Maxine on Civic Media. We are local music.

Bailey, don't let me love you my way. Let me kiss you on the cheek.

Let me play with all you soft and sweet. Small play in my fiction.

Sound in a misdirection.

What I feel you want to do is spend some time with you. I want to lay you down. I love you all night long.

Or we can't do that right now. So let me show you how I can tell you where I'm feeling in a song.

Let me kiss you on the cheek. Let's have a day and a day and a week.

And if I catch you slightly winking, only you'll know just what I'm thinking.

Let me kiss you on the cheek.

Oh,