Station Fire Survivor and Musician Scotty Dunbar

By Jay Oakley

I'm going to start right off with you. You have a new band going now. You've decided to split off from D.M.K. and you've got Road Dawg now. Fill us in about Road Dawg and what you guys are about.

With Road Dawg, basically what happened with that, after D.M.K. stopped, I love Ted (Merrill) and Brian (Karl) that were in that band with me but we pretty much took that as far as it could go. We had a lot of fun and for a new band, as far as getting material out there, we released a good amount of songs, singles and E.P.'s which was really cool. We did some really good shows with Bret Michaels and Y&T, Jack Russell's Great White and tons of bands but it wasn't all that great at times too. We did shows where we're playing in East Bum, New York at one o'clock in the morning where the only person watching us was the sound guy and the drummer from one of the opening bands, I remember, and they were from Bulgaria. One unique story that we had with the D.M.K. stuff, some bands will say that they played for the bartenders and stuff but we didn't even play for the bartender because the bartender got in a fight with the owner of the club and was fired while we were playing. [Laughs] It was crazy, this place had cats that were outside, they were like wild cats and they had food for them and they would come into the bar but even these wild cats weren't there watching us. [Laughs]

So, it's just one of those things where the D.M.K. stuff, we had some great times where we got to play in California and do a lot of cool shows in the U.S. and that band started on friendship and that's how it became a band. That was important and when the business side gets in the way, like when you're getting promises from people in the business and it starts to effect the band and the relationships when that stuff isn't being delivered because you can only take something so far yourself. We really worked that band, went through different agents and stuff and it was best to end that band while we could still salvage the friendships. Ted and I had talked at length about just ending it after we did a show with Mike Tramp (White Lion) and it's, kind of, funny because the very first show we did with D.M.K. was with Mike Tramp at the Whisky A Go Go in California and then the very last show we did was with Mike Tramp in New York City.

So, it ended there and I was going to take a little breather for a bit and try to figure out what I was going to do and I got a call from one of my friends and they had a situation where their singer couldn't make it out to a festival show out in Oklahoma (Streets Gone Wild.) They had talked to me about it and I thought about it and I said, "Just send me over the songs." So, I learned the songs and I flew out to Oklahoma and did the show with them and it was pretty cool. It was the first day of the festival so we were with the first bands and it was Steelheart, Vixen, Faster Pussycat, Night Ranger and Great White (not Jack's version, the other one) but it was cool. After that, the next day, at breakfast, JC (Jason Cornwell, bass) and the drummer at the time, Izzy, were trying to figure out what the next step was going to be and I just agreed to join the band. We ended up doing a couple more shows to finish out the year and we did a Christmas single but just for fun. We went up to a studio, cut the track really quick and we sent it out to Steve Brown, from Trixter, who is a good friend of mine and he mastered it for us. But, we had fun with that song. We covered "Run, Run Rudolph" but it was just one of those things that was fun and we didn't make a big deal about it, it's not the best sounding song in the world but it was just for fun.

As far as what's going on with Road Dawg now, we finished our last show right before Christmas and we're going to start things up in the late Spring. We have a new drummer so we've had some lineup changes and stuff but we're getting ready for the Spring and we have a good amount of shows booked. JC, who is in Road Dawg, and I have been in bands together for the past five or six years. I love playing with the guy, he's very talented and he's in a million other bands. But, we have fun when we get together with this band. Ben (Cote,) the guitar player, the first time he and I jammed together, it was one of those things that was just natural and we hit it off really well, it's just chemistry, which was cool.

Was the band already called Road Dawg before you joined?

Yeah, yeah, it was and they'd been through various lineups. The original guitar player was Scott (LaFlamme) from Bang Tango and there were some member changes in the middle and then Ben, whose the guitar player now, was also in there for a little bit but when I joined I said, "I'm calling Ben because he's got to be in this band." That was my one thing for me to join. But, the shows that I've done with them since that Oklahoma festival, it's been really fun. The other thing, that I didn't expect to happen either was once the D.M.K. stuff was done, I didn't think I was going to be so busy that fast. Between Road Dawg and my solo band, I decided to put my solo band together again, it was one of those things where I just wanted to play, play, play, play. With my solo band, as soon as I put the band back together, we did two shows the next week and then a couple weeks later we did a couple shows with Eric Martin from Mr. Big, some stuff with Enuff Z'Nuff and then did some of our own things but it was one of those things where I just wanted to stay busy.

That's awesome, dude. I'm so glad that everything went pretty well with your transition from one band to another because it can definitely feel like a breakup with a chick and you either do one of two things, you either want nothing to do with music for a while just like you wouldn't want another girlfriend right away or you go right out and all you want to do is play the field. [Laughs]

Yes, exactly. And, that was a transition thing for me, having Ted by my side for all those years to being with a new band. But, the guitar player in Road Dawg, his name is Ben Cote, he's unbelievable and when I'm in a band I've got to connect with the guitar player, it's the most important thing for me. That's the breakdown on that.

So, from there, it was really important for me to start this off about what you're doing, what you've been doing and get everyone familiar with you because we're going to step into a much more serious topic that you and I had discussed for about a week. A little back story for the people who will be reading this, I did an interview with Jack Russell from Great White and Jack Russell's Great White not that long ago and I published it, I published it on M3 Rockers because we're all fans of this type of music and the 80's hard rock scene but I also sent it personally to you.

Correct.

You're the only person I sent it directly to and that's because from the years I've known you, I knew that you were at and are a survivor of The Station fire in Rhode Island that, unfortunately, took one hundred people from us and some close people to you.

Yes, that is correct.

So, what got us talking and I'm still so grateful and appreciative, but you liked my writing style and the way I conducted the interview especially around such a sensitive topic.

Yeah, dude. After you sent it to me, I read it and I was blown away. I'm not blowing smoke up your ass but I was blown away by how well written it was. The questions were really good and the way you edited it and I felt that if every interview could be like this it would be perfect because after The Station fire happened, obviously, the media wanted to talk to whomever the hell was there and all that stuff and I was getting bombarded at my house and this was when house phones and answering machines were still major and I ignored them all. Because, everyone has different ways of dealing with stuff and, for me, I did not want to talk about it. I was in my head and I was dealing with the loss of my friends and I was just trying to put the pieces back together. I could never go on TV or something, maybe it helps somebody but that's just not my way of thinking and when I've done interviews in the past and the topic of the fire has come up it's always been, for the most part, misquoted and I look at it and I'm just like, "Jesus!" It's such a personal subject and it touched so many people and that's why I've let the lyrics of some of my songs be about that situation.

One thing I've done, for fourteen years since then, I've written a song called "Memories Never Fade" and we've played it every single place and I had just mentioned to you about the club where we played for just the sound man and the Bulgarian drummer and the fired bartender but I still played that song. For fourteen years, I've had the blessing of playing to a couple thousand people opening for Bret Michaels or that club playing for the sound man and the unattended bar but I still say a little background story about it and I mention my friends Derek Gray and Eugene Avilez that were with me that night and both passed away and I'll never stop doing that. It's my thing and I'm alive right now and it's one of those things that I feel, in my heart, is the best way to keep their memory alive. Sometimes it gets, kind of, weird. We had done a show at Baltimore Soundstage and we opened for Charm City Devils and, obviously, their crowd draws a lot of younger people so when I told the story of the background of the song and dedicated the song like I always do, to Derek and Eugene and the ninety-eight victims, I'm looking at the crowd at Baltimore Soundstage and I see how young some of the people are and I think, "Holy shit! So much time has gone by." A lot of the people in attendance were in diapers when this thing happen, ya know? Even in my solo band, one of the guitar players, his name is Jason and he's extremely talented and he's played with a bunch of different bands and stuff like that but he's fifteen years old. So, he was legit in diapers when this happened.

You touched on this a moment ago and this month is the fourteen year anniversary. Scotty, when you look back now, how do you personally feel the fire was handled by the media? I don't mean like, "Breaking News! Fire at The Station nightclub!" media attention but I mean, for example, the internet like Metal Sludge and that stuff. How do you feel the writers, critics, journalists handled it?

Ok, well as far as Metal Sludge and Stevie, I have a lot of respect for Stevie Rachelle and I thought, at the time, he did a great job with covering it and keeping people updated because at that time, in 2003, Metal Sludge was huge! When you look at the difference now, it's crazy because as far as the other media, not Metal Sludge, we didn't have social media, there was Myspace. [Laughs] This is before anything, I think at the time, the thing that was trying to get popular was like a crappy version of Myspace called Friendster or something like that and to think back over fourteen years, you didn't have that. There was no Facebook, there was no Twitter, there was no Instagram so it's a lot different now. For news like that, it was either in the newspaper or it was on TV. Do I think that the way it was handled in the media was great? In some ways, yeah. Some where respectful but that's the same with everything else when there's some kind of tragedy or any kind of event happens. Then there's the finger pointing. Who's to blame? Who's to blame? But, as far as the media goes, that's why I stayed away from it, other then some local papers and stuff where I talked about me and my friends.

One thing that really pissed me off, months later I agreed to do this article with several other people that was published in Rolling Stone and my condition was only if it's to talk about my friends that had passed away and not me personally. Of course, the interview itself was all twisted and stuff and the only things I would answer were basically stuff about my friends that can't answer these questions because they're not alive. Nobody, at the time, needed The Scotty Dunbar Story, it wasn't about me, it was about the hundred people who could no longer speak because they were out for a night to have a good time and they're not here because they died in such a disgusting, tragic, horrific way. So, some of that stuff, going with the media stuff, I do think that some of the people reporting were using the event for their fifteen minutes of fame.

Yeah, some of them definitely had that media-bloodlust thing.

Yes and I can't stand stuff like that. If I want to do stuff then I'll work my ass off. A year ago, this past August, it was the first time that Jack Russell's Great White had been in the New England area since the fire and it wasn't anywhere near Rhode Island but because it's New England it caused a lot of controversy, like, on the news. I agreed to do the show when I was contacted by the promoter but, for me, doing the show was something I had to do for myself, a closure-type deal and a lot of people didn't get that. So, when it was on all these different websites that I was playing the show, there were some really harsh comments and stuff from people saying that I was riding on the coat-tails of the tragedy and there were some shots, dude. They were pretty bad. But, I stuck to my guns, we did the damn show and I saw that Jack Russell was watching our whole show by the side of the stage so right before we did "Memories Never Fade"  and I had done my introduction, the band was starting to play and I jumped off the stage and gave Jack a hug.

Jack Russell's Great White didn't even get to play their set at the show. It was on this big farm, Steelheart played right after us and they were playing their very last song and the power was cut. So, it was definitely an inside job to stop that show but Jack came out and he met all the fans that were in attendance and all that stuff. I can understand some people being upset with the New England ties. The promoter at the time was a real douchebag and he was promoting the show as "The First Time Back In 12 Years" well, there's a reason for that. That guy ended up getting fired before the show but he is a complete douchebag by messing with people's emotions like that. The show could have gone on just as is without bringing up the fire. And, I knew there was a problem because when the event got announced, the flyer came out and it said, "D.M.K." and right across my band it said, "Featuring Scotty Dunbar" and the reason for that being because it was almost like I was their scapegoat. They were using it as, "Well, this survivor is playing it so why do you have a problem with it?"

So, anyway, as much shit as we took and, dude, you have no idea!, I have stockpiles of the comments from different websites. When they ran the story they took a picture of me and Jack Russell from my Facebook page and, of course, that circulated everywhere. So, from the way that people portrayed that show, I get it, I get why those people felt that way. I talk to several of the survivors about the situation and I know several of them don't care for Jack, don't care for Great White, will never go to a show again, haven't been to one since and I get that. But, thankfully, they get me. Whether they agree with what I'm doing or not but the relationships I do have with some of those survivors and as long as I've got some of their blessings then I felt OK.

And, mad props to the guys in D.M.K. for backing me up with this show and going through with it. With all the bullshit that we took, they could have easily been like, "We're not doing this." But, they knew how important it was for me.

So, it comes across very clear to me that you don't hold any ill will towards Jack Russell for the events of that night. Is there anything you'd like to say to the people who may feel otherwise or do blame Jack for the tragedy?

There's been a lot of things written and newspapers have said that survivors have said that they question Jack's sincerity with the situation and that he's never "supposedly" said that he was sorry or anything. I think that if I was in Jack's place, it doesn't matter what he says. Whether he said he was sorry once or whether he said it a million times it wouldn't make a difference, it wouldn't make anyone feel better.

If you get the point I'm trying to make, it's like a drunk driver that kills someone and he's in court about to be sentenced and the dude's trying to say that he's so sorry. It's one of those things where nothing this person says is going to get through so as many times as he says he's sorry nothing is ever going to be good enough.

But, as far as Jack goes, we do stay in touch here and there via text or stuff like that. I always keep in touch with Jack and his wife Heather, they always reach out to me around holidays and birthdays and stuff like that.

When it comes to events of that night, what can you tell us about what you remember from the time the pyrotechnics went off? What can you describe?

The thing that I hate the most, that I've heard over the years, is "How come this person didn't get out?" and "How come this person didn't get out?" because it was so quick. If people watch that disturbing clip of when it goes up, that building was down to the ground in a couple of minutes. It was completely luck of the draw that I got out of there. My friends that didn't survive where right next to me and my friend Derek and I, we looked into each other's eyes right after it happened, right at the start of the fire and we didn't say anything to each other but inside I was saying, "Oh fuck!" The thing that kills me is when I saw that video, you can see him and Gino going the way where people couldn't get out and one of the things that I did, it was like I did a complete turnaround and I just thought about going out straight and I got knocked down to the ground because there were so many people and I got right back up. The heat in there and the smoke was crazy. It was the definition of the worst horror movie. The stuff I heard in there when I was trying to get out, it haunts me to this day, those people burning alive. It's one of those things, I can't even explain it.

After I got up, I could see a streetlight and that's how I was able to tell where the light was and I was able to get out by diving out of a window and when I got out, I got up and looking back at the building totally engulfed. I didn't even see the people who were stuck in the doorways until I saw it on the news. I stood by my friend Gino's car in the parking lot, it felt like an eternity but it probably wasn't even ten minutes but across the street was a restaurant and that's where everyone was going and the EMTs were pulling in too, it was called The Cowesett Inn. I headed over there because I had seen some people I knew but before I knew it the EMTs grabbed me and stuff because, I guess, I wasn't looking to good at the time and they cleaned me up a little bit. By the grace of God, I didn't get any lifetime scars or burns but I was cut up pretty bad, obviously, from going out the window and they bandaged me up and threw me in an ambulance but I just knew they didn't make it out.

The hospital did everything they needed to do and I was released the next day and I came home and I just remember falling asleep for a bit and waking up and hearing the TV on in the other room and hearing how the body count completely jumped in the number of fatalities that they had. It was just dark, very dark and I went with my parents back to Rhode Island to try and find out any information about Derek and Gino. We all met at this Crown Plaza and what they would do is once they had identified a new victim they would call the families into a different room and you could hear in the room the families breaking down, screaming and crying, it was just bad and I learned the fate of my friends a short time after that.

My friend's parents, obviously, had the same questions but I remember Gino's mother (Patricia) calling my house asking how did I get out but they didn't and that's a question I've been asking myself for fourteen years. I haven't had any contact with either Derek or Gino's parents in over a decade. After it happened, I would go over to their houses and meet up with them but it was always the same thing, they would want to know the story and I would tell them but the story would never change. I wish it did, ya know? But, there was no changes to it and one of the last times I was up at Derek's parents house, it was the Christmas season of 2004 or '05 and I had gone there and it started out normal but then the usual questions came again about that night and we went up to Derek's bedroom and this was a couple years later and his bedroom was still in tact just the way he left it with Warrant posters and Poison posters. I just remember sitting there with his mother (Rosanne) and she broke down so bad that Derek's father Al had to, pretty much, carry her down the stairs. I remember getting into my car and breaking down and just couldn't let that keep happening, for them and for me, it wasn't healthy. So, other then like one Facebook message I got from Derek's mother, there hasn't been any contact because at the end of the day it's not me that they want to see coming through their door, they want to see their sons and I totally get that and I would feel the same exact way.

Then, I dealt with that whole thing by turning to substance abuse. Some times people go through tragic stuff and they come out and they feel it's their second chance at life but, for me, I was fucking miserable, honestly, I just wanted to be dead. I did not feel right to be alive and people call that "survivor's guilt." With Derek, his fiancé (Barbara) was pregnant and they were getting married that summer so, at that time, I felt that he had been cheated. If it's me, I'm just a single dude, I don't have a kid on the way or anything and if I could go back to that night, I would. Whether it be me not being here or whatever but we can't do that but for a decade afterwards I turned to substance abuse. I became a complete loser, a drunk and got myself in a lot of trouble and I finally cleaned up and I will be sober for four years come this March.

After that ten years of substance abuse, do you remember any particular moment or event that put everything into perspective and got you out of your spiral?

Just getting clean. I got into trouble once again and I decided that if I didn't clean up my act with the substance stuff I was going to be dead. I had become a real shitty person but once I got clean I was able to put perspective on everything. There was one song when I was getting clean and it's going to sound crazy but it was a Bon Jovi song called "Army Of One" and it was on an album called What About Now but the lyrics to that song completely spoke to me and I based my days off of that song until I got myself stronger. But, when I did get clean, the music stuff started to do much better and rock and roll became my addiction which it always was but got lost because of another addiction. I look back and I scratch my head and say, "Dude, you wasted like ten years." But, then there's this part of me that says it wasn't all a waste. I learned a lot and that's why I don't take anything for granted. Like, playing music, people can think my voice sucks of whatever but I don't care. I don't claim to be a good singer or anything, I'm just a rock and roll dude. I just want to be onstage, I want to be doing shows, It's just rock and roll.

Do you visit Derek and Gino's gravesites, if you did at all?

OK, this is what happened. So, afterwards I had to go start seeing a psychiatrist, this was a whole process in itself because I never wanted to talk to somebody about my problems. I went to two or three of them before I had to settle on just one person. So, this person's office was not to far away from Derek's gravesite. Warrant was Derek's favorite band, he was actually buried with a Warrant t-shirt and the guys in Warrant were really, really cool afterwards. Actually, Jerry Dixon was the first person to reach out to me and give me a call and they were just very supportive because they knew how big of a fan Derek was. He had a daughter when she was born which, obviously, Derek never got to see but the name of his daughter is Jani Lane because he was his hero and Warrant meant the world to him and people knew him, not by his name, but by people around here his nickname was "Warrant Fan."

So, when Warrant came out with a new CD called Born Again, it was their first record in a while but it was their first with Jamie St. James, who was the singer at that time because Jani had left Warrant again. This was when Tower Records was still open and on the release day I got two copies, one was for me and then one I left at Derek's grave and I would go there, not every time I would go to the doctors but several times. Gino's grave I've never visited. I don't know, I just couldn't get myself to go. Going back to 2003, I think it was a Thursday night the show was, so here we are and we're going to see Great White and have the time of our lives and then the next week I'm going to Gino's wake one night and then the next day I'm going to Derek's wake and then Derek's funeral. After Gino's wake, I couldn't get myself to go to the graveyard for the funeral. There was a part of me that wanted to be there but I felt like a God-damned murderer at the wake. Even though it probably wasn't the case, but I felt like everybody was looking at me, like, "Oh, the survivor's here." The few months afterwards just all blur together like the most gloomiest stuff ever.

Then, the questions started, for me, in my head. A month later, I had tickets to go see Bon Jovi. Bon Jovi is my second favorite band of all time. I didn't feel right about going and I had bought the tickets from a ticket agency because it was sold out and I went back and explained the situation and they took the tickets back and they gave me my money back. I remembered my best friend, this dude Brandon Hugh, the longest friend I've had since we were little kids up until now still but he's a firefighter so after the fire happened he knows what it's like with crazy situations like that and he definitely proved his friendship even though he didn't have to and I remember the day of the Bon Jovi show and I said, "Fuck it! I'm going." and I called Brandon up and he said, "If you want to go, I'll take you." and I said, "Yeah." At that point, whatever I was dealing with in my head and was going to be dealing with for the rest of my life but thanks to that Bon Jovi show and the timing of it, I remember saying to myself, "This is what you have done your entire life as a fan of this music. Scott, what are you going to do with yourself? Are you going to sit at home for the rest of your life and pick up collecting coins or knit blankets or something? You've got to go out there and do what you love." What I love so much is music. Once you have the passion, there's nothing stronger then the passion in music or the friends that you meet. All my friends in my life and pretty much 99.9% of the people I associate myself with are the people I've met at shows or through music. So, I went to that Bon Jovi show and it was tough but it was also a blessing. So, people can crack on Bon Jovi all they want but they really saved my life. [Laughs] Or, at least, my sanity so I will always stick up for that band.

The first club show back was months later and it was me and my friend Cheri who I had met, who was a friend of Derek's, but I had only met her and seen her at shows but she stuck by me and would stay on the phone with me all hours of the night. If I needed someone to talk to at four o'clock in the morning she would be there all ears. So the first club show, we went to see Firehouse down in Connecticut. It was me, Cheri, this girl Leigh Ann, who I met officially at Derek's funeral but we would go on to become the best of friends, roommates and we ended up traveling the world together, going to England, everything. So, it's crazy how stuff like comes together through tragedy and Barbara was with us, Derek's fiancé and she was carrying their child, so we went to see Firehouse as our first club show back.

When did you see Great White for the first time?

As far as going to see Great White again, OK, there was this thing in Pennsylvania, the way I've always done stuff in my life, I've always had to do it differently. That's probably what's gotten me in trouble so much, whatever else, but I've always done my own thing. So, when I was in high school and Winger had become a joke because of Beavis and Butt-Head, I was the dude that was still showing up to sports practice in my Winger shirts and my Poison shirts, I never gave up on that music, I never will. So, the first time going to see Great White, a lot of the survivors were renting a bus and going to Pennsylvania. Now, no disrespect to them because I love many of them and I respect them all but that is not something I would do. So, I had decided that Cheri and I would fly out to Vegas to see Great White. Well, I had gotten in contact with their manager, who had become a friend before but afterwards we would talk a lot so, I had called their manger and told him we were coming and we went to go see them. I thought it was the perfect atmosphere for it, it was an acoustic show that just Jack and Mark (Kendall) were doing at the Palms Resort in Las Vegas. I sat down with the both of them and you know how it is with people, I needed to see for myself how sincere they were and I sat down and met with them and it was teary-eyed and all that stuff. After that, I continued to go see them whenever I could. So, I had to fly across he country instead of just going to Pennsylvania. [Laughs]

So, to bring everything full circle, I wanted to do things a little bit differently. Of course, this has been your interview and your ability to speak about the topics we have covered. I wanted to turn the floor over to you because when we were setting this up you used a phrase and I like the phrase more when it speaks to the honesty behind a topic. You used the phrase "Getting Some Things Off Your Chest" so what would you like to say about the fire or to anyone dealing with a tragedy?

Well, I'd like to speak to my friend's, Derek and Gino's, parents, whether they decide to read this or not. Like I said, there hasn't been any contact in a decade but I carry their son's names where ever I am. I've done hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gigs across the country and back with several bands but every band I've been in, the song "Memories Never Fade" has been brought into ever one of them, Including Road Dawg, where playing it because it's one of those things to keep their memory alive. I try my best to do just that even if it's just for a couple of minutes but it's not just me up there on that stage, they're on that stage with me also. The different politics and views on what happened that night and who's to blame and all that stuff, it doesn't matter in the long run. It's about the hundred innocent people that lost their lives that night and the survivors that were severely burned. It's about them, it's not about me. Ya know, with life, with any kind of tragedy or death or whatever, you eventually get on your feet and do the best with what you've got and that's life because you never know when it's going to be our time. It's precious and for me, it's one of those things, it's no bullshit, I do the music thing because it's what gets me through, it's my passion and rock and roll is my life but the most important thing, like I said, it's not about anyone's views, I can't stress that enough, about whether it was Great White's fault, whether it was Dan Biechele, the tour manager, that had the pyro and carried it over from when he was working with W.A.S.P. or the club owners, the fire inspector, fourteen years have gone by and all of those different politics and again, I can't stress this enough, it's about the one hundred people that aren't here to speak for themselves. It's their memories that should be honored but the living people, like myself, prove like what I do with my music or any aspect of life, work or whatever it is but if you want something bad enough then you have to do it yourself and you can't rely on any sympathy card or anything like that. Everyone goes through dark valleys in life and what you think might not be bad for one person, you've got that wrong. Everyone goes through stuff, there's not one person that hasn't or isn't going to go through some really dark periods. That's life, it's not Disney World here. It's a lot to take in.

Scotty, I seriously appreciate, not only the opportunity, but the honesty in getting to sit down with you for three hours and getting to look back and discuss a very big moment in your life, a very big moment in rock history and put it into perspective. Call it a retrospective, call it whatever it is that you want because regardless of what conclusions people make when they read this, all that matters here is how you feel about this and that you felt value and respected in trusting me to do this.

Dude, seriously, once I read your interview with Jack, I knew you would get it. Plus, every time I see you down at M3 or in Baltimore you're cool as shit, man. You have the passion for this and it shows in the way you write and the effort you put into it. That's what gravitates me to people is if they have the passion.

Absolutely, I definitely appreciate your time.

No, thank you, man.