​Cris: On the silly side, how did you get the nickname "Plushie"? 

Greg Hanna of The Dickies: There's definitely a story on that. 

When I first got in The Dickies, things like MySpace, actual band web pages with message forums, that was still a thing. I remember going on tour and Leonard and I would be looking for the nearest Kinkos just so we could check our emails. 

I was doing the first tour with them. We were at a Kinkos and Leonard's on The Dickies message board. Under "subject" it said "Your new bass player." He goes, "We have to read this." He clicked on it and it said, "I love your new bass player. I want to have sex with him while he wears a bear costume and I wear a puppy costume." That's all it said. Leonard goes, "Oh my God, Greg, who do you know that knows how to sew?" 

My sister's amazing... She has worked in museums and such. Her woman cave is a sight to behold. She's got like 17 sewing machines. 

So she made this polka dot, Wonder bread, bear suit for me.

(read the full interview)

"The singing was the hardest part. Because it is hard to make background vocals sound great. In those days, we had to sing all of them. Nowadays, you do it once on your computer and you copy it. And there was no Auto-Tune back then. We were Auto-Tune. You have to get every guy's singing on pitch and in rhythm at the same time on tape without laughing or something. It was a challenge." - Chris Hayes of Huey Lewis & The News

"I can't sing a song that doesn't touch me in some way. It wouldn't have the same resonance. It wouldn't have the soul behind it. It wouldn't have that earthiness to it." - Laura Tate

"I found a Hammond B-3 for sale in a tiny music store in Memphis, Tennessee 30 years ago for practically nothing. As I wheeled it out, the owner said, "Just so you know historically speaking, that organ used to belong to Isaac Hayes." I believe I was meant to have that organ!" - Brian Mitchell of The Weight Band 

In this interview with Greg Hanna, formerly of The Dickies, we discussed: 

• The story behind the polka-dot bear outfit he wore on stage
• The appeal of punk music
• His involvement in a documentary about The Ramones
• And more

​Proud to be in the "Acknowledgements" of Rich Redmond's new book. Get your copy of "CRASH Course For Success" at Amazon.

​Kim Wilson of the Fabulous Thunderbirds: The deal is, to me, imperfection is perfection. Digital recording and going over and over and over a track as a vocalist, it's just hard on the ear. I think a lot of people maybe have gotten used to it. I never have.

Kyle Travers of Travers Brothership: I think music, for me at least, is something you feel more than something you think about. When I was 7 years old and I first heard the Beatles or (specifically) “Sgt. Pepper's,” I didn't think, "This is ingenious and creative." I felt it was ingenious and creative… if that makes sense. To take that to an improvisational sense, if you're playing a three-minute solo, and you have the eyes of a thousand people watching you and it's just you making up ideas off the top off your head… at the point you get caught thinking, you are dead in the water.

The flow stops, because now you're thinking, "Where are we headed next? Are we headed in the wrong direction?" You're (second) guessing yourself. You have to stop all your thinking and just feel the music, play what you feel.