BONUS - Al Pitrelli of Trans-Siberian Orchestra | Wake Up Classy 97

Hey, it's Josh from Wake Up Classy 97 and I am excited to say that we at Classy 97 are presenting Trans-Siberian Orchestra at the Mountain America Center in Idaho Falls on November 20th. It's their first time in East Idaho, which is going to be super cool to see, and we

are doing a ticket giveaway right now in the Classy 97 app. So if you don't have that, search for Classy 97 in your app store and then you'll see in the menu it says Trans-Siberian Orchestra. You tap on that, you can fill out the form. And we're giving away a whole bunch of tickets, meet and greet passes for the show November

20th. And tickets do go on sale this Friday. So just a couple of days from today at 10 a.m. to the general public at Ticketmaster.com. This is a bonus episode of Wake Up Classy 97, the podcast. It is a conversation that I got to have for about 15 minutes with Al Petrelli, one of the founding members of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

And so enjoy that conversation and we'll see you on November 20th at the show. Hey, good morning. It's Al Petra from TSO. Well, I should say good afternoon. How are you? I'm good brother. How are you doing today? Hey, really, really good. Yeah. How's everything where you're at?

Um, good. You know, I mean, the kids are back in school, the leaves are turning, football started. I'm on the phone with you. We got a big rock show we're bringing in town pretty So far it's been a great day, dude. I mean, all right.

So let's talk about week one of football then, because if you're talking football, who's your go-to? Who's your team right now?

Well, I grew up a Jets fan. I watched Joe Namath win the Super Bowl in 69. OK. And it's been not the best season since, if you will.

So I did become a Kansas City fan during COVID, because that was the first football season I got to watch since TSO started touring in the winter. I got you.

got shows all weekend. Sure. And obviously, you know, COVID kind of put the kibosh on that. So I remember sitting on the couch with my wife and my daughters and clicking through and I saw them homes in Kelsey and Pacheco and Andy Reed and all these people doing this. I'm like, this is fun. Yeah. So, you know,

civil jets and, you know, forever really like Kansas City a lot. Now, who do you like? So I'm kind of all over the place. I don't have like a solid. My wife, however, the cohost of the morning show with me, she is a diehard Minnesota fan and only over the past couple of years, she watched the quarterback show

on Netflix, became a huge fan of Kirk Cousins and his family and then became a big fan for like two seasons of the Minnesota Vikings. And he of course goes to Atlanta that whole shakeup. And so she's been torn between now being a fan of the Vikings because she really

fell in love with them first and she really likes Lamar Jackson and the Ravens. That's kind of where her heads at. Listen both great teams Vikings will be late last night eventually looked great Yeah, listen great job and listen Baltimore is like one of those things that like how do you know?

I'm grateful that you know the chiefs want a bunch of Super Bowls and bumped in out of the world right but Well, let's get a little more formal introduction here and then we'll kind of dive into some other stuff So I got a bunch of questions. I want to get to obviously we want to talk about TSO a little bit So let me kind of rewind a little bit and introduce you and then we'll kind of go through

some of the stuff. So Al Petrelli, who is a founding member of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and I want to get a little bit into kind of behind the curtain with you on TSO, but I want to get to know you a little bit. This is kind of like the first time you guys will be in Eastern Idaho in this part of the state. You've been in Salt Lake City, which is right

down the road. You've been in Boise, which is just a little bit further than Salt Lake, But this is your first time in East Idaho and I want to get to know you and TSO a little bit. So kind of give me a little bit like a like a two minute sort of background on you as a musician in your career. Oh my gosh. Okay. All right.

This is the short version of the story. Started in 1964 when I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I went through the public school systems in the 60s and 70s and all the large ensembles playing wind instruments. Got my first guitar when I was like three or four years old.

I just fell in love with it. I worked really hard to be a well-educated musician, very fluent in reading and a lot of different genres. And got my first real job being Alice Cooper's musical director

back in the late 80s, and got an education and theatrical presentation of rock and roll on an arena level. Unbeknownst to me how that was going to change my life

and prepare me for what was to become the Transiburan Alchysra. No kidding. Yeah, dude. thousands of gigs over starting in the 70s, right?

Through the middle 80s, through the end of the 80s. And I happened to meet a guy named Paul Neil in 1985. I was playing guitar for a guy named Michael Bolton at the time. Yeah, all right. I want to talk about that too.

Paul was part of the management company that managed him. And we got to meet and he goes, man, I can't believe like, you know, how you got this gig and I'm real proud of you. And you know, it's good to see another guy from all around.

He was from all around as well, do well for himself. and he goes, one day we're going to work together. That was fantastic. And I liked the next 10 years from 85 to 95

doing a lot of musical directing, a lot of recording for a lot of different artists. And which again was preparing me for something I didn't know that was on the horizon.

But when Paul called me up in winter of 95, he said, listen, I'm working on this project. I've heard a lot of guitar players. It's just missing something.

And coming in with tires on this and putting ears on it with me. And it's do what you come up with. And I remember them putting up the faders on what was to become Christmas Eve,

Sarajevo 12, 4. Yeah. He goes, I need an introduction.