Talking with Jason Scheff, musician from the band Chicago (Hour 1)

You're listening to Civic Media.

You can tune in to any of our live shows on any radio station across the state with the Civic Media app.

Find us in your phone's app store and listen anytime, anywhere.

From Washington to Hollywood and right back to Wisconsin.

It's Nightlight with Poochewawa and Greg Bach.

Connecting the dots on the stories shaping our world with smart takes, sharp humor, and plenty of personality.

You know, I really expected more professional behavior from you.

It's news and culture without the noise.

Yeah, come on.

Here's Pete Schwabba.

Dude.

And Greg Bach.

Dude.

Oh, yeah.

Let's go, baby.

This is Nightlight, as you just heard with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

And we are here to serve you folks.

We are going to bring you a show tonight that is going to.

help you, um, I don't know, wind into the weekend.

I think would you say that's accurate, Greg?

We're going to have some fun tonight.

We are going to wind like the Dickens.

Watch

your language.

Uh, we have a big announcement to make too.

This is, this is our first Friday show together.

Yeah,

we were Schwabalus last week.

Schwabalus.

I know it's the highest ratings in the network history, which is a little disconcerting, but we have a big announcement to make tonight because this is our

first.

Good night, folks.

We are done.

It's our

last show.

Don't get too high or too low.

It's a very basic thing.

This is our first Casual Friday.

It's Casual Friday with Pete and Greg.

We we call that sounder.

Hey get someone from the office to do it really quick

Megan, I know you're on your lunch break, but you can just speak into my

iPhone.

Yeah She's awesome.

I love Megan.

That's great.

She she got me balloons on my second year anniversary for the

what

one point oh, she's fantastic I love Megan and her voice sounds great.

I've never got

balloons Well, you're down there in

Radio Park, Greg, you're down in Racine.

Megan is in mass.

And actually it was when I was doing the show for Madison.

She got me balloons.

Very sweet.

So

got you.

And she just introduced our first casual Friday.

So I don't know what this is going to look like.

It's not like on the office or office space where they had Hawaiian shirt day.

This is going to be a, uh, it's casual here to fun.

It's Friday.

Yeah.

Right.

We're having a good time.

Let's do this.

All right.

We got a great show tonight, folks.

Yes.

Dom Lee working the board.

How you doing tonight, Dom?

You feeling good?

I'm feeling great.

You know, I got some some energy in me.

It's it's Friday.

It's casual Friday.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Are you wearing like a pair of dockers tonight on casual Friday?

Or what are you?

What are you rocking there?

I got my I got my kind of polo suit on.

I got some pants on, I think.

And I got some some

nice.

Wait, go back.

Go back.

I have pants on, I think.

On casual Friday.

I mean, yeah, well, that was the question I had for you all is that, you know, if it's casual Friday, I mean, I'm always wearing jeans anyways.

So how do I get, do I show up in pajamas?

And do you say pajamas or pajamas?

I say pajamas

because when

you shorten it, you say jammies.

You don't say Jammies.

I say PJs.

So I say PJs are pajamas.

But yeah, I mean, I will I will certainly show up here next Friday in pajamas and I will bring some lamps.

So we'll have like a nice cooler mood on the live stream.

Let's make casual Friday a real thing.

And then we'll just get wasted on air.

I next Friday, I'm going to wear a jockstrap and clogs.

That's what I have planned.

And it's not going to fix it.

It's an audio medium.

So it's fine.

And I'm sitting.

So

Pete, we're on a live stream too.

They can see you.

If you want to

see

if you want to see that, you can always check us out in the live stream.

We are currently streaming on Facebook, YouTube and the platform that we still call Twitter.

Pete, what do we have going on tonight for the show?

Well, I'll tell you what, we have a lot going on and we're going to start things off at 5.35.

We're going

to

have a little casual Friday fun first, but then after the news, which is about 25, 20 minutes away, we have got, this is so exciting, Greg.

Oh, gosh, yes, gosh, yes.

Jason Sheff, lead singer of Chicago for over 30 years.

He took over the band or as the lead singing duties and playing bass when Peter Sataro left.

There might have been someone in there very briefly, but but Jason owned the position and Rocked the band for over 30 years.

He wrote I want to say their biggest hit ever Look away or will you still love me?

But anyway, he is great We've you know, we've already talked to him.

So we're gonna play that it's gonna be a lot of fun

And what's great about this is the first time we're doing this.

So we have spoken with him We have the we have two segments with him tonight and then

What we will also have is a full interview available on the Civic Media website.

So it's going to be a snippet of what we had with Jason when we did the, when we did the interview, but then it's like a 40, 40 to 45 minute interview.

You'll be able to check out on Civic Media's website, civicmedia.us and talk about the fact he's playing a show.

He's got a show coming up in, in, in Marionette.

We've got, uh, Marinette,

we've

got a, uh, that's okay.

We've got, uh, some new news on that too.

I've been asked to introduce Jason at the community rec center where he's going to play.

So I am very excited

to meet him in

person.

So Greg, I know you were talking about, you know, a potential road trip.

I don't know if that sweetens the pot for you, but I mean, your old pal, he's going to be introducing

him.

What day is that again?

It's happening.

It's March

14th.

March 14th, I might be able to make that work

do with me We go up there together and because we have already talked to him But I'm really excited to to meet him in person because he is such a cool guy folks.

I'm telling you don't miss this interview He's a really good dude.

We talked about one of the most iconic bands in the history of rock and roll Jazz whatever genre they took over at the time.

They're just this kind of this phenom in music So we'll talk about all of that with Jason at 535 and then this is fun, too

In the second hour, we've got Gene Crichton here.

What do you know about Gene Crichton, Greg?

I know, this is what I know.

I know she works for, I want to get the name of the place correct, the Manfred Olsen Planetarium.

And it's more space talk.

More space

talk.

I love space talk.

Me too.

And Gene Crichton seems like she should have, that's a great name for someone who directs a planetarium.

I don't

know.

What if she got married to someone named Barrel?

She'd be Gene Crichton Barrel.

Well, you know what we should ask her that I think if she's a she has a tender account.

We could try to match her

What are

you doing right now?

No,

I'm not listen.

I'm a happily married man, and I'm sure I'm sure Jean's all set She doesn't need our help regardless of whatever she's got going on But she is an expert and the director of the Manfred Olsen Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, which has some big news So we'll

talk about that.

Go Panthers.

Did you go there?

I went there.

I'm a graduate of UW Milwaukee, class of 2008.

Wow, dude.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

I went to college late in life.

Late-er in life, I should say.

What is your degree in?

Political science and law studies with an emphasis in American politics.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

And how are you, is this a struggle for you to get through Casual Friday?

Because you must be burning at the, or bursting at the seams, talking.

I mean, sometimes it's just about politics.

Sometimes it's nice not to talk about it.

You know, when you think about it, read about it, talk about it all the time.

You know, a few hours of not talking about it, it feels nice.

I hear you.

That's fair enough.

What is the weather like where you guys are, Dom?

Mind your

business.

Is that a personal question?

When did that become

a question?

It's cloudy.

It's cloudy.

It's about 45 degrees.

It's a casual kind of Friday, so it's, you know, it's pretty nice.

Casual

cloudy.

Yeah.

The radio park weather balloon clocks in at a 58 in cloudy, feels like 55, highs of 58, lows of 39.

The AI weather report says cool and cloudy afternoon, but expect some rain later tonight.

Are you sure you didn't major in radio, dude?

Actually, it's funny story.

I applied after high school to get into radio school.

And I got in at a school called the like Brown school of communications in Minnesota.

And then they sent me this perspective sheet where it showed how much you'd be making coming out of radio school.

I said, well, I will not be going to radio school anymore because $7 an hour does not feel good.

Even,

even in 2005, that's not right.

Oh man.

It was, it was, it was, no, that was 97.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I woke up this morning here and it looked like I looked out the window and it looked like sleepy hollow.

It was so foggy Yeah, I don't know about you guys.

I love kind of gloomy weather once in a while And and that kind of fog.

I don't know It just makes me want to write or have coffee or do something.

I don't know

it makes me want to just like bundle under a Big blanket and do nothing and with the weather she like what am I supposed to do?

It's it's terrible outside

Right.

I can't do anything right now.

I can't

possibly be expected to work on a daily basis.

I gotta pull a Ferris Bueller.

All right, so I think without further ado, we should get to our night light, casual Friday, question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay, question.

Question.

Question.

Bregun.

Bregun.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

What is the lamest excuse?

For being late to work.

Whether you've heard someone else say something or you've used one yourself, let us know.

What is the lamest excuse

for

being late to work?

855-752-4842-855-75.

Civic, you can also text us on the Civic Media app.

Very easy to use and you can take all your Civic Media shows and stations with you wherever you go.

And if you're watching the radio on YouTube, Facebook, or...

X Twitter, you can drop us a stream comment there, but let us know.

Be part of the show.

And as always, folks, you can chime in on anything we're talking about, or whatever's on your mind.

Be part of the show.

Now that you expanded the parameters to the ones you've heard, I've got ones.

Oh, yeah.

Like, open up your phone and saying something and telling you why they can't make it any like, you're supposed to be a functional adult.

That's weird.

That's a weird reason.

So we'll talk more about that though in the second hour, but please feel free to drop those in anytime you'd like.

Uh, yeah, it'll be fun.

And, uh, Dom, you'd be part of the fun too.

You don't even have to text in.

You just pop right in because you're on the microphone with us.

Membership has its privileges.

Absolutely.

Uh, what do you think we should talk about?

Maybe.

Couple topics here before we get

to our

first

guest.

Hey, you know what?

Let's talk about a couple topics.

Two to three big things.

There we go.

The first big story.

This Sunday, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

2 AM AM AM.

Spring, spring, spring, spring.

Forward, forward, forward, forward.

That's just my way of saying Daylight Savings Times this Sunday.

Don't complain about it.

I don't want to hear about your whining.

It's fine.

We've done it before.

We'll do it again.

Get over it.

What

what do you what do you think people are complaining about Greg that they lose an hour of sleep

like I don't know many

people who complain about extra daylight I certainly don't

I don't lose an hour of sleep.

It's the worst thing ever But I don't like not game and then and then okay, whatever go to bed an hour early I don't care like seriously like this is where I get real old man like like like back in my day, but like

I don't care if you lose an hour of sleep, go to bed earlier.

Also, people who have the reasons, like it messes with my clock system the entire week.

I'm like, no.

Internal clock or like?

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're like, I just don't sleep right for the first week.

I'm like, yeah, you're getting used to it.

But also, no, sorry.

I don't.

Those are all, those.

I

don't know.

I like.

I get depressed when it's dark.

I love daylight savings.

In fact, I like that we spring forward because

I

go, at least it's going to be later.

I don't care.

I'll

be

crabby because I lost a little sleep.

It's going to be, it's going to be nice out.

And I, I hate winter and I, my whole family is just, they don't like that extra hour of darkness or getting dark at 430.

So.

Yeah.

It's depressing.

It's like, if there was a happy medium where we picked a time where it could be like, all right, it will like, like right now where we're at.

I would be okay with that where the sun is going down like finally around between 6 30 and 7 total darkness I'm okay with that but 4 30 darkness

is

just it batters the soul it just feels bad it's like that

and that from that month is designed to make you feel miserable.

So when we get to this point, I'm like, bring it.

I want that.

I take the hour.

I couldn't care less about it.

Give me sunshine.

And what

about

the movement to keep daylight savings time?

I would be in favor of that.

Absolutely.

The Senate was in favor of that.

And then the House came through and was like, huh, watch us mess this up.

Tom, quickly, how do you feel about Dave?

I don't mind it.

I don't mind it.

Like Greg said, it's just not a huge deal for me.

I can deal with it.

Obviously, it's not the best, but I can deal with it.

It's

whatever.

Fair enough.

All right, ladies and gentlemen.

This is our first Casual Friday here at Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Don, I'm working the board.

We are coming back after a very short break and we're going to talk about two more humongous Casual Friday topics.

Come on back, folks.

It's the Civic Media Radio

Network.

You're listening to Civic Media.

Stay up to date on the latest news and information for your local community and Wisconsin by signing up for our free email newsletter.

Visit civicmedia.us slash email to get started.

That's awesome That's that's Chicago 3.0 What is that song?

I know I can't is it that's a terror not Will you still love me?

That's chef.

Oh, that's you still love that's Jason chef.

Yeah, yeah

Boy, he does kind of sound like Satira sometimes.

Yeah.

I mean,

playing all those songs, you're going to eventually like take on a little bit.

And we talk about that too in the interview.

I don't know if it'll be part of the interview you're going to hear tonight, but you can always go to civicmedia.us and hear the entire interview.

We actually talked about the fact of, you know, Jason being a studio session guy and knowing how to blend into a project to make things work.

So, but that's more coming up in a little bit.

Great stuff.

We've got a couple more things on Casual Friday here on Nightlight with Peach Wabba and Greg

Mock.

Let's get to our second big thing.

The second big story.

All right.

Well, Wendy's is...

I feel like fast food has really been in the news this week.

Yeah, we had the big arch burger the other day.

The big arch.

Yeah.

And this is a taster of... Oh, I had it right in front of me here.

Oh,

Wendy's tasting...

Hiring a chief tasting officer.

Okay, so Before you all get excited over this this I'm I'm sorry, but this is a lie They are not hiring see to me we talked about before we done there to me a chief tasting officer would be someone in charge of making sure the menu items were

properly made, properly seasoned, you know, like always going back saying, Oh, this burger is good, but we can be doing something.

That to me is what a chief tasting officer is.

But what it really is, it's a person who can basically do content creation for them.

That's the whole that is the gist of everything it says right here It says the role offers a hundred thousand dollar salary for a selected independent contractor So you don't work for Wendy's you're on your own to create promotional taste testing content and potentially star in advertising That is you are hiring someone to be on YouTube and on tiktok.

That's all this job is I would be a chief tasting officer in a heartbeat.

I don't want this.

This is this is chief

Whatever job, I don't like it.

It sounds so official too.

I'm a chief tasty office officer.

What do you do?

Oh, I record myself on Instagram taking a bite of or drinking a biggie

and

you know, it's and it's temporary It's they say it's a hundred grand, but that's prorated if they use you for three months It's 25 grand like it's a little misleading and you're right.

It's just a content creation thing It's like we're eating food and posting it and you're not gonna say you don't like it

It's like that guy at the McDonald's thing we talked about the other day.

Of course, those are great product.

Okay.

Of

course you say, but take somebody goes, this is trash.

Who did this?

Uh, I just think, yeah, I think this is, this is, this is ridiculous.

This is, this is a bait and switch if I've ever seen like, I mean, they put it right out there.

I guess it's not a bait and switch, but like when you say she, well, first of all, any

officer position is an off is a company position.

It comes with benefits, a package, those things.

This is, they're hiring you as an independent contractor.

You don't get your own office.

You're working for your basement.

This is Wendy's do better.

You're better than this.

You got better fries and almost everybody, but this, my friends, I will not stand.

And I said biggie, I think it's a fraud.

Oh, the biggie was the drink.

That was their large drink.

Yeah.

I

remember it because it was embarrassing to order.

I just want to address this text real quick.

Brian from Southern Wisconsin in 608 says, my beef with daylight savings is it puts the sun back in my eyes for three weeks on the drive to work.

Oh, man.

Sunglasses.

Sunglasses.

Sunglasses he take, yeah.

Sunglasses, the little flip fliers are there.

I'm not, hey, Brian, I understand.

I get it.

I totally understand that, but also.

I like sunlight.

You put the rest of

us like sunlight.

So you

put up a thing there from Tim on the live stream and says, I tried the big arch yesterday.

It was horrible.

Won't get it again.

Tim, would you do me a favor and go

a

little deeper into that?

What was it about that burger that you didn't like?

Go ahead and put that back on the live stream because the presentation just seems odd.

But like, let us know why you didn't like it.

Was it the cooked?

product, was it the size?

Was it like the fact that of course it looks huge in the advertising, but it's really a squished burger?

I'd love to know more from you, Tim.

Sauce kind of looks gross too.

Yeah.

All right, we are, I think we have a couple more minutes here for

our

final big thing.

Casual

Friday, big

thing number three.

Big story.

Yeah.

On Casual Friday.

Smoking all right.

I thought of this the other day just crack me up Greg you and I have both spent a lot of time in comedy clubs We remember the days where it was just you'd look out at the audience and it was just a haze of smoke Yeah, a friend of mine Tim Plager posted something on Facebook the other day that said he remembers going to the dentist and the dentist would smoke and then not glove up and go into the kids

mouth

And that's what that my first question that was like was your friend a dentist patient back in like 1894 because even 20 30 years ago that seems like it would be against the law

Well, this was probably early 70s and everybody smoked.

I mean it was like

Did you smoke Peter?

Are you are you a former smoker?

No, but here's the thing.

Okay.

I've taken like a couple drags I think they used to call it.

Yeah,

I have asthma though.

I don't mess around with that stuff.

So I Told my wife

Recently smoking is cool.

There's no way around it when I watch movies.

I love when people smoke except Ben Affleck because he looks like an idiot However, I love watching people smoke in movies.

And so I said, you know, I could start smoking now I'm in my 50s the health effects aren't gonna get me till I have other health effects This is the perfect time to start smoking folks.

Okay.

I felt okay.

I'm not gonna be down from like I'm not going to endorse smoking smoke.

I'm a former smoker and and

I will say this, I would pay money to it, to the American Lung Association to watch you try smoking, but, but you have to do it like every other 12 and 13 year old I grew up behind, behind like a convenience store.

No, no, no.

And I want to see you try because I want to, I just want to see you hold the cigarette like a new smoker and then take a bit like every movie and TV show I've ever watched.

I would totally do that.

I would do the military hold and I would

do

the cool, the cool French artist hold.

That's I want to smoke.

I really wish

I learned so many things from nightlight.

Wow.

All right, folks, it's casual Friday.

You are

here.

Perfect night.

We are sending you into the weekend.

Casually.

And after new sports and weather, we're going to be back with Jason Sheff, the former lead singer of Chicago.

Do not go anywhere.

You're not going to want to miss this.

It's Pete Schwabba and Greg Baca nightlight.

I'm a civic media network.

Welcome back to Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

Folks, it's great to have you here on this Friday night.

Our next guest is an incredibly talented and successful singer-songwriter, and he was the lead singer for the band Chicago for over 30 years.

He is playing in Northeast Wisconsin next week in my hood right here in Marinette, and he is here to discuss all of this with us tonight on Nightlight.

It is my pleasure to welcome Mr. Jason Sheff.

Jason, how are you?

Welcome.

I'm doing great.

How are you?

That's a

very nice introduction.

Thank you.

at least I could do.

You got up early, you're in LA, right?

So this is kind of early for you.

Yeah, it's,

I get up early these days, so I've been up for a while.

That's awesome.

Well, you got Peach Wabi here, Greg Bach, we are thrilled to have you on the show.

Why don't we start with this show you're doing in Marinette.

This is where I live now, and I've lived kind of all over, but I love it when we get big acts here in this little town of ours.

What's the show going to be like?

Is it going to be a mix of Chicago and your own tunes?

How are you going to approach this?

You know, I haven't started adding my own solo stuff, although there's a couple songs.

One song, which was the title track of Chicago 36 now, I have a version, a new version that's not released yet that I just, I've got all my old buddies that made all the hit records.

everybody's grown up with in the 70s and 80s.

But I haven't added them yet.

So what you're going to hear is you're going to basically hear the soundtrack of your lives through the 70s and the 80s.

I remember joining Chicago in 1985 and the world-class problem that we always had.

That's before the hits that I made with them.

what's the set list going to be like?

Because we can't play all the hits.

So it's really great to be able to cherry pick the stuff that across the board people want to hear.

So it's going to be what it's always been, just taking you down memory lane.

I've got an incredible band.

And so you're going to hear, if you saw the group from 1985, end of 1985,

through 2016, you'll be hearing the voice that you saw in the concert.

And so I get that a lot from people that come up to me and say, you know, I saw you in 91, I'll be 64 in April.

And I'm starting to see the next generations.

In fact, one of the bands that I have, along with what I'm doing is with Jay DeMarcus of Rascal Flats.

And

He is a great example of the next generation.

He's 10 years younger than me and sent me a message in 2002 saying, you got to know that Chicago is what made me want to make music and you'll hear your influence in our music.

And I've particularly followed your era of the career.

So it's going to be a blast and it's always great reconnecting with people that I've grown up with for the last 40 years.

When you're putting together a show like this, how do you reimagine these tunes?

Like you said, it's a walk down memory lane, but I also think you want to put your own signature on it.

How do you approach some of these songs that are so classic and say, let's do something a little bit different here.

Let's try this.

Or do you keep it, you know, the same thing?

But, you know, do you want to make it more exciting for yourself after playing these songs for so many decades?

Great question.

And I don't really have an issue with making it interesting for me.

People have always asked me, you know, what's

What song would you say that you would never want to play again?

I'm telling him the truth that this body of work is so sophisticated and rich that I've never felt that way.

You know, I've toured with some other bands that are big bands that I won't mention names, but I thought if I had to play that music every night, it would drive me crazy.

But to be able to get into something that's just really, you know, always a challenge

It's funny you'd ask that question because I've been thinking of maybe veering off a little bit here and there.

Gino Vanelli has really reimagined his music over the years and at first I was kind of put off by it because I'm such a huge fan.

I wanted to hear the song sound like what I remember them as.

But you know Sting did that with with you know his solo interpretations of his songs.

So I'm right on the verge of

you know, wanting to experiment a little bit.

But as of now, I really keep the stuff sounding like what people want to hear it as.

My twist is I have an incredible band.

And so, you know, being performed on that level, I think brings its own difference, you know.

Do you

pick

Do you have favorite Chicago songs to sing during these concerts, Jason?

I mean, I know you've got your own hits that you wrote when you joined the band, but like when you go back to Terry Kath and Peter Cetera, which of those songs that you didn't write are your favorites to perform?

I'd have to say Just You and Me, because that was the first album and the first singles that I was exposed to Chicago, again, being 64 years old.

When those songs came out, I think it was 1973, so I would have been 11 years old.

And I was just starting to get heavily into the radio.

So I was too young to experience the early stuff as it happened.

So just you and me, plus it's got a great solo section.

And the sax player that I bring out with me most of the time, Patrick Lamb, again, you know, Geno Vannelli's guy, is such a great soloist.

So he always, we really open it up.

there.

I love that.

Will You Still Love Me, which was the first hit that I sang for the band, and 25 or 64.

I mean, that's an up-tempo song, and it's got a ton of energy.

And I think people would say, man, that's got to be a challenge.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret here.

It's so easy.

You know, but the song plays and works itself because it's so great and it's got a great tempo.

So it's it's it actually sounds like it's a lot more difficult than it is.

But that's just between you and me.

Oh, this isn't going out publicly, is it?

We'll edit this whole portion out.

Put a little

black strip over here.

I like letting people or we'll put some music behind it.

Yeah, exactly.

I like letting people

know.

You know, you bring up a very good point, and I got it really quick as a personal aside here.

I was in a group for a very long time.

It was an eight-person group with horns, auxiliary percussion, and people would always say, oh, are you like ska or are you this?

I say, no, imagine Chicago.

That's who we want to be every time we play is we want to be Chicago, a rock band with horns.

And something that's to be said about that is when you have a horn section, you're right.

The music becomes more complicated.

There are more parts.

And something that has always impressed me about Chicago, regardless of the era, is that it never rested on the talent of all the players.

You always engaged your abilities instead of, you know, you had hit songs, you had ballads, but you still played music that was interesting to listen to and interesting to play for yourselves because it kept your chops up.

Absolutely.

And it's funny because there are certain people, I think, original fans that didn't really

go into the next phase, which the 80s,

the

Warner Brothers years, and have kind of bashed it a little bit as being not as sophisticated, but sit down and play hard habit to break, or even you're the inspiration with all the key changes.

Even hard, Will You Still Love Me is not for children.

It's funny because that is a very sophisticated and difficult song to play properly.

It has its own complexity and sophistication.

So what I've always enjoyed and being of that generation that came up enjoying Chicago in the 70s, but loving the 80s as well.

So I really, I used to think I was born too late to tell you the truth.

I always thought, man, I missed the good years of being young or being old enough to really participate in what was happening in the 70s.

Right now, I got to tell you, I think that I was born at the perfect time because, again, I'm young enough to have been, it's funny because as classic rock is really retiring and fading, I'm the link.

I am definitely a link, but when I look at this, and I'm not trying to inflate myself and be too self-important, but I realize that as this

world keeps changing that I am the guy who was with a group that Jimmy Hendricks took out on the road with them, the doors, Janice Joplin.

So I am getting secondhand all of those stories.

So, you know, and then all of a sudden having my own part of the legacy.

And so now when I meet people like Jay DeMarcus, who's 10 years younger than me or 20 years younger, they look at me as

You were there you were with these guys and so I really I'm in a very reflective Time right now.

I talk about this during my show, too So I don't talk too much during the show, but I love to tell stories and people tell me they love hearing them

Let's talk about that you grew up around music and you played with all these I'm fascinated by the idea that you were like in your early 20s

when you took over as the lead singer of this iconic band following two other popular singers, were you intimidated?

Walk us through that a little bit.

What was it like joining this band at your age, even though you were, you know, really talented and certainly worthy?

Well, what I love to tell up in commerce and it's a lost art is that get the reps in.

My mother tricked me for my 21st birthday and bought me a

a vocal lesson with the great Seth Riggs, the guy here in town.

The time he was teaching everybody from Barbara Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, everybody.

And the trick was that the lesson was expensive.

He was $50 for a half hour.

And back in 83, that was a fortune.

So I couldn't blow it off.

I had to go and take the lesson.

And I thought I was going to be walking in and this guy was going to be thinking,

great here's another stage mother throwing their kid at me and i'll just get this over and i literally walked in thinking all right you know i can't be um so irresponsible to blow it off it was expensive and this dude lit me up he saw what he saw something in me and he basically showed me in the first lesson what it felt like to properly connect your voice which is a whole

you know, that's basically what it's all about going from, you know, down in a chest voice all the way to a high voice and not breaking and cracking, right?

And so to feel that in the first lesson.

So the point is I had zero expectations of, I just wanted to get, I just wanted to keep getting gigs.

And as a bass player, being able to sing background vocals, and I was always really good at hearing parts and pretty quick.

But I never saw myself as being a frontman or an artist.

But getting the repetitions in when all of a sudden my tape got into the right hands and I got a phone call from Warner Brothers saying, we think you're the new lead singer of Chicago.

I thought, there's no way this is going to work.

So when you ask, what was that like stepping into?

I think a lot of what I was feeling was, I wasn't putting pressure on myself and expectations because I go, this is not going to work.

It's

not like sitting there going I've got to make this happen or like I see a lot of people a lot of kids putting the pressure on themselves So I think it relaxed me plus I knew they were really leaning into me.

They were saying we think you're the guy and I'm going well wait till they find out I'm not but I'll just keep going till I crash and burn and Something really weird happened on the way to the office.

It felt comfortable.

I had David Foster and Humberto Gautica

on the other side of the glass, and again, I'm sitting there thinking, I probably won't even be able to get a sound out, let alone sing anything, but when the red light went on, it was the most comfortable, and I settled into it and drilled it, and one day went over, and that's completely transformed, literally on that day.

I was thinking, this is gonna be over before it starts even, like with the vocal lesson.

So that's how it happened.

I didn't really have this pressure and expectation on myself because I thought it's not going to work.

And that's the thing that I love to share with up-and-comers and younger people to say, whatever you believe, destiny and fate and God's plan, whatever it is, it's really true because there's going to come a moment.

where you're going to be standing in the batter's box and it's either going to be right or it's not going to be right.

Jason Schaff is our guest here tonight, folks.

We are coming right back after this very short break with the former lead singer of Chicago.

This

is Night Light with Beach Wabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Network.

Welcome back.

This is Nightlight with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Mr. Bach, if you please.

I was reading up about you, and one of the things I said that you do, and I'm not sure if you still do this, but you, you know, you do songwriting workshops, you do music lessons, and I imagine in that, in those moments, you are giving, you're giving them advice on how to, I don't want to say break into the business or make it big, but you know,

As someone who has as much experience as you have, what are you passing along as well that maybe, you know, especially for younger artists who see the world as a social media landscape, I must get here.

I must get on these things from your point of view.

What do you say to them that maybe is a little different as far as like, as you said, get your reps and be prepared for that moment.

The thing that transcends all trends that works for an artist who wants to really make it in their craft.

You know, I don't I haven't really done a lot of.

educational stuff on how to get into the business.

Although when people ask me, they think that there's a magic bullet to say, oh, go talk to these people.

What I tell them, which is what happened with all of us, and it's still really the procedure, get yourself a YouTube channel and start uploading constantly.

There you're going to get your reps in.

And if you're great, you're not going to be hidden forever.

If you're not, then you just come to terms with it's not for you.

I think that's what people are kind of tentative and afraid about.

But I tell, that's, that's the most advice I ever give of how to get into the business is, you know, just get, get out there publicly.

Look what happened to Arnell Panetta with Journey by YouTube videos.

And funny enough, he's told me that I inspired him, you know, when he, they were like, Arnell, this is amazing.

What you've done.

And he pointed to me and he says, he showed me it's possible.

That was a, that was a great.

thing to hear, but that's, that's getting exposure.

What I, do you guys know who Victor Wooten is?

Yes.

Oh

my

goodness.

Yes.

Right.

Victor

has a way of making the most complex stuff simple.

You know, he's also a magician, you know, literally like magic tricks and he, and he, first of all, there's nothing

There's nothing remedial about what he's doing musically.

But he breaks stuff down so that it's accessible.

He literally has workshops where he'll pull somebody out of the audience who has never touched a bass in their lives.

And he's got him playing bass.

within like five minutes.

So he's got these devices.

That's what I do with songwriting.

I've got some things that I teach that are so simple that are very sophisticated.

And I've done it out at Vic's camp.

And he's stopped me and said, you guys, I want to just point out, do you hear the sophistication and the simplicity?

And that's very Victor Wooten.

And here's another thing that I find real interesting.

and I'm sure you guys can relate to this.

I love asking people who are successful in their fields is that when something comes fairly natural to you, I've taken it for granted that it's special, you know, because I've never run off with, hey, I'm special, you know, but just the information and how I do things.

I think everybody knows how to do this, but they don't.

So

it's called when you share it and that's when I started teaching and teaching online and people were like just it was revolutionary to them and I went this is fun to be able to show them something that gets them up and running and get them create momentum quickly.

So that's what I like to do is I like to like I've got some songwriting stuff that I've done that really breaks down and I'm using a very Victor Wootenish

tagline saying you want to want to sound like you're a lot better than you are you know but it's true you know it's it's it's really true so

so Jason tell us about a lot of lead singers that join iconic bands just kind of hold the place um after the previous singer left you have two or three of the band's biggest hits ever and you were the third lead singer how has Chicago

Did they get lucky?

Did you just step in and crush it?

Obviously you did, but what was that like for you?

That must have been kind of a relief in a sense, like, hey, I contributed these amazing top five hits.

Without question, starting with Will, you still love me.

You know what was awesome is that, and I've watched people.

I've watched people who have never been able to experience that.

Great singers.

but have never been able to experience that.

And I've seen the frustration in them.

And I think that is so fortunate that that itch was scratched basically on day one for me.

And really what it was, and this is where Bill Champlin and I really hit the ground running, is that I was starting to do a lot of recording.

Yeah, some lead vocals, but I was really starting to do a lot of background vocal recording.

Bobby Caldwell, David Lassley, who was one of James Taylor's main background singers during the heyday, Bill Champlin.

I always had an ear to blend in.

I was always, that's the team player in me.

And I watched Bill Champlin demonstrating this too, phenomenal lead singer, but as a background vocalist.

That really, and when I look back on my career, that's one of the things that makes me

the most proud is to go in and drill it.

It's just spectacular.

I mean, the reach of the band, the hits, the lead singers, the background players, it's a phenomenon really.

I don't know of any other band really that have been able to sustain being so relevant for so long with moving parts.

It's spectacular and it's exciting to talk to you today, Jason.

You wrote some of their biggest hits ever.

I hope you knock them dead in Marinette and blow the roof off the community rec center here.

It's going to be an absolute blast.

And we really, it's been great meeting you.

We really thank you for spending time with us.

Well, you too.

And if you guys are around and you come, please come say hi.

I'd love to meet you in person if you're able to come.

Well, listen, dude, I'm going to hit you up for comps like you would not believe.

Come on.

I know somebody.

So do I. I hope they let me in.

We'll see.

Absolutely.

Come and hang with me, you know.

Yeah, we'd love

it.

I'll take care of

you.

Thank you, sir,

for your

time and continued success.

Thanks, guys.

All right.

That's Jason Sheff from the band Chicago.

Also a successful and popular touring artist right now.

And Greg, that was fantastic what he said about being an artist.

and how it took him that long, but that's the journey of artists, right?

You just, it's remarkable.

So that was really fun.

This is Night Light with Pete Schwabba and Greg Bach.

We are coming right back after the news for more Night Light.

The national news cycle never stops, but it can be hard to find news about your local community.

Civic Media is dedicated to providing quality local and state news coverage across Wisconsin.

With the Civic Media app, you can get notifications about local stories that matter to you and your community.

Find the free Civic Media app in your phone's app store and choose notifications from the menu to tell us what kind of news you want to hear about.