All right, it's Jeff Zito. And thank you for checking out another episode of the Celebrity Jobber podcast, streaming on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, wherever you listen to podcasts. So please subscribe. Would love a five-star rating. And if you wouldn't mind, please leave a review. If you want to check out all our past guests and episodes, you can do so by going to CelebrityJobber.com. It's pretty simple. We talk to celebrities and and we find out a little bit about them before they were famous because everybody's got a story and everybody had life before fame. There were very few celebrities that were born into it. You know, I do remember guys like William Shatner. He said his very first job was when he was like four or five years old in acting. He was an actor. He's been an actor for 90 years. That was his very first job. Never worked at a pizza place, never babysat. And then there's a lot of famous people who had different lives, completely different lives before fame. And that's what we try to expose here on the Celebrity Jobber podcast. By the way, you can follow us on Instagram, celebrity underscore jobber underscore podcast, or our YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash the at sign celebrity jobber. You might have heard of the name John Karabi for the very first time in the early 90s when he replaced Vince Neil for one album in the band Motley Crue. It was kind of a big deal, okay? But you might also know John Karabi from bands like The Scream or Union, Brides of Destruction. He played in the band Rat for a few years, and of course the Dead Daisies have been a super group that John's been in for like the last 10 plus years. John has his first solo album dropping on April 24th. It's called New Day. The first single is When I Was Young, and definitely struck a chord with me when I first heard it. We'll talk a little bit about John Karabi, his family, how did he get into music, his big break, his first job. All about singer-guitarist John Karabi, my guest this week on Celebrity Jobber. The Celebrity Jobber podcast with Jeff Zito. If you like what you hear, please subscribe, give a five-star rating, and leave a review. Check out all our past episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you pod. What if these celebrities weren't famous? What would they have become? What was their first job? We're about to find out. Right on. There he is. Hey, John. Sorry, buddy. I was hitting the link to come on, and it was asking me for passwords and meeting IDs. Oh, no shit. So I just kept hitting it again, and then finally it went through. Anyway, I apologize for being late. Let me tell you something, John. I've been in this business for 30 years, and I have come to know something called rock and roll time. so you being three minutes late is actually being 15 minutes early in my book so well you know the only drag about that is i'm i'm looking at the amount of interviews i have and how they schedule them so three minutes late means that we've only got 27 minutes so i'm just trying to be respectful well listen man um it's great seeing you again it's been a long time and i'll remind you you You were in the studio with me probably about 10 years ago, Dead Daisies, Revolution album. And you were playing in town. I was in Fort Myers, Florida at the time, and we had a blast with you guys. That's when we were, I believe we were on tour with Whitesnake. Really? Okay. Yeah, well, 2015 Revolution. Yeah, we did a tour with Kiss, and then we toured with White Snake. I know we played some shows in Florida because we played in Melbourne. Yeah, anyway, it was with White Snake. But yeah, that's 11 years ago, pal. Long time. I know, it's crazy. So getting into the new song. By the way, new album, which is called New Day, drops on April 24th, and you can pre-order that right now at johnkarabi.com. this song when i was young i love this this is a great song and i mean i just i mean tell me a little bit about where you were in your mind this you write this song where were you in this place of reminiscing about about the old days it was funny marty and i kind of we have this odd process we sit around with acoustic guitars first and kind of try and map out the songs and um you know we we're scatting throwing melody ideas at each other and it was marty actually that came up with you know when i was young you know so i was like oh that's cool so wrote it down and honestly i came home and i can't explain it because there's sometimes i work on lyrics and it's like it's like pulling your hair out trying to get the right but it was weird i just sat there and i pictured when i was young like i just pictured a guy thinking back at all the things he's done right all the things he's done wrong and where he is right now right and then we took it a step further because the last verse we kind of changed as i was singing it and marty and i both have you know we have sons and daughters but our sons are very like my son plays drums he's played in my solo bands in the past and that's marty marty's son plays well marty's son played drums on my whole solo record but um he helps marty with the recording process he's uh and you know he's great with the pro tool stuff right and you know we're constantly giving them advice so if you listen to the last verse of it you know it's this guy reminiscing and then the last verse he says can you hear me son right on so it's like a guy reminiscing about his life in conversation with his again it was just us talking to our sons but it could be a mother and daughter could be father and daughter it doesn't matter but it's just someone reminiscing about their life in conversation with their offspring and kind of in some way, maybe giving them advice, all the things I've done right, all the things I've done wrong. Here's the advice, make it count. So John, tell me about this guy, this guy that this, this young John Karabi back in Philly to give me a little background. What did, are you from a musical family? What did your parents do for work my mom worked in a factory and my dad was uh you know my dad worked uh different like uh office jobs my dad wound up being my family ran a couple of the unions back in philadelphia uh so yeah put that one together so not like you were uh no i'm following in the family footsteps no nobody in my family that i can think of played any sort of instrument i just got a guitar for i was i don know seven eight years old i got a guitar for christmas have no idea why my parents bought one But they got me this guitar I took some lessons and then just jumped in with both feet started, you know, playing Beatles songs. And back then the stuff that was on the radio, Simon and Garfunkel. And, and, and just, you know, at one point in grade school, there was a school talent show put a little band together and we did uh house of the rising sun and i'm not your stepping stone by the monkeys cool wound up winning the contest my dad took us for pizza afterwards and i was off to the races at that point the celebrity Jobber podcast with Jeff Zito. The celebrity jobber podcast with Jeff Zito. So when when did you decide that you wanted to make a career out of music? Because obviously the talent show is cool and that's a lot of fun and you're young and you're eating pizza and celebrating. But at what you know when you got a little older and you know you knew you had to get out there and and make a living. Did you have an alternate plan? Was music always the plan or was it a hobby? Where were you like right around 18, 19 years old? Well, obviously I did the cover path being from Philadelphia, New Jersey, all those clubs back there. Now I'm going back to like mid to late 70s. it was all about covers and bands that were doing tribute acts you know like if you if you did you did you know four sets a night and you did three sets of covers and then your last set was like you know oh we're gonna do a set of zeppelin or aerosmith or whatever and uh so i started doing that when i was like 16 17 years old and you know making decent money at it I mean back then you know I don't think I ever had a job you know it was more about like going out and playing music and I was making you know at 16, 17, 18, 19 years old you know I was making back in the 70s 6, 700 bucks a week cash you know what I mean it was good money big money so but i was also a bit of a music nerd you know like i had the posters of robert plant and aerosmith and david bowie and and you're sitting looking at these record covers and you're seeing you know songs like black dog or rock and roll like written by jimmy page robert plant you know jimmy page robert plant john paul jones you're like I need to learn how to do that right and I just said all right you know I'm gonna start I like it so one point I just said I'm done I don't want to do the covers anymore I want to write my own music and it was very crude you know like the beginning of my the beginning of my original path was not smooth. But the more you do it, the better you get at it. The older you get, the more stuff you have to talk about lyrically. It took forever, but I eventually got into just writing my own music because I knew that if I wanted to be like Robert Plant and I wanted to be like Steven Tyler and Foghat and Grand Funk Railroad, I needed to write my own songs. So you said you never had a job? Like, first job, paper route, worked at a piece of place. Yeah, I mean, I've had things like that, but when I, you know, I mean, first I started doing covers, and then once I started doing the original thing the money wasn't coming in like it was so then i i was like all right i need something you know because supplement to supplement and like you know and to be honest with you i got married very young to a girl that already had a daughter so in 19 or 20 i was married with a kid wow so there was always that air of responsibility but you know when i when i say a job like music has been the longest job i've ever had you know i started getting paid to play music when i was you know maybe 17 right and i'll be 67 in april so i've been doing this for off and on for 50 years you know what i mean what about the first job do you remember your very first job was it music or was it something else? No, my very first job, I think it was, I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 years old. They used to call them hugsters back in the day. But these guys would drive down the street in these flatbed trucks with the wooden sides on them. Yeah. And they would sell tomatoes, tomatoes, corn, peaches, whatever. And this guy used to come down my street, and he would sell fruits and vegetables. And I just walked up to him. My mom asked me to go get like six years of corn and some tomatoes. I paid the guy, and I said, you know, I don't even know how I did it, but I was like, hey, man, you hiring? At 10 years old. yeah 10 11 i don't know what i was but um i did that i did that for a while you know because i you know i wanted i wanted things you know i wanted a new baseball glove or i wanted a bike or and my dad my parents were always you know well save your money go you know so i would mow lawns or whatever and well i wound up doing this hugstring thing so the guy would come and pick me up in the morning we would drive to different neighborhoods i would get a giant basket he would drive down a street and park and then i would go door to door knocking on people saying like hey we got some fruits vegetables there's the truck and they would come out and i would help bag their stuff carry it back to their house if need be and you know i think he paid me like a quarter an hour or whatever. It was like slave labor. Yeah, he took advantage of you. I did that until I fell off the back of his truck and I split my lip open literally underneath this beard on this side of my mouth. I've got a massive scar under here where I literally fell off the back of the truck and face planted into my own knees and I split my lip open. He's like, I can't have this. No, no, no. He didn't fire me. He felt horrible, but he was like, ah, insurance, man. I can't do it. Yeah. So you're on your own, kid. Oh, man. Celebrity Jobber. The Celebrity Jobber podcast with Jeff Zito. And 50 years in the music business. That was your first job. And you said you had a couple of, you know, you had to supplement your income when you made the transition from covers to originals. Completely understandable. But look at this career. You know, I mean from the scream Angora Union 24-7 rat Dead Daisies as I know and of course the one that Motley Crue During the early to mid 90s had to be a very interesting Time for you Can you what was do you consider that maybe you coming out your big break your introduction to the world? Would, would you consider that like your, your pivotal moment in your career? Yeah. I mean, in hindsight, that was the thing that put me on the map that, you know, um now would i have gotten there with the scream possibly you know hard to tell you know but the motley thing was the one that really projected me into a lot of different lights and you know maybe like who's this guy who's this kohlrabi guy that's replacing vince neal yeah um it was beautiful it was awesome it was a lot of fun it was eye-opening but to some degree not to be negative it was a bit of a curse as well because you know even still to this day that's what people want from me and and it's like yeah there's there's some you know even with this new material like I was I don't want to say worried about it but I'm And like, this is, you know, my wife actually said this. This is probably this new record that I just did, New Day, is probably the most honest and real, like, I guess, statement from John Karabi. All the other things that I've done, it was me catering. Like, I might have an idea, but I had to, I had three or four other people in the band that I had to compromise and change things for. And this is just me being me. But, you know, I've seen a few comments, not many, it's minimal. But there's been a few people like, yeah, I'm waiting for him to do something heavy again, like the Motley record. And it's just like, dude, I did that 35 years ago. You know, I did it already. right this is just me as a 67 year old man just going back and thinking about some of the music i grew up listening to and this is my offering to whatever you know so do you look at the experience now nowadays do you look at the experience differently than because i mean it had to be you know, a lot, you know, everybody hears the stories, but as of, you know, 67 year old guy, now do you look back at that experience and go, you know, that was, that was a cool experience. I mean, was it a good experience for you? I don't, you know, I don't regret anything. You know, I've had a lot of people or, you know, I don't want to say it drives me crazy, But even if you look at my bio, you know, rock journeyman, and then it's the list of things that I've done. And but that was just the way things played out for me. Yeah. You know, I wish I was still sitting here talking about the 19th or 20th Scream album. And I think we had the talent and the capabilities of possibly doing that. but who knew I was going to get a phone call from at the time, one of the biggest bands in the world. And they were going to ask me to join their band. Didn't know that there was no, no future. You know what I mean? No crystal balls. Right. I didn't know that it happened. I made that choice. Even my bandmates in the screen were like, dude, if you don't do this, you're an idiot. Yeah. So I did that. And then it was like, you know, for as negatively as those guys talked about Vince Neil, how was I supposed to know he was even, he was going to come back? Right. I didn't know. Right. Then I did Union. Yeah. And, you know, I felt positive about it. The reviews that we got on the Union music was great. Great band. Bruce Kulik, I remember seeing him. Yeah, we got great reviews. But again, you know, who knew that I was going to do that and we were going to be totally in the height of the grunge thing. Same with the Motley record. Right. You know. Absolutely. It was just the way it played out. Just the way it went in. We never broke up. We never broke up. The thing with Union was we were selling tickets to shows, but we weren't getting radio airplay. We weren't getting MTV airplay. We weren't getting any support from the industry. So we were selling tickets, word of mouth, mainly the KISS fans. So we were getting that, but we weren't making any money. And also some John Karabi fans, though. Yeah, yeah, there was. There were. I was one of them. It was mainly the Kiss fans. And then Bruce got the offer to join Grand Funk Railroad. Yeah. So it was like, hey, dude, we're going to pay you way more money than you're making now to play your guitar for this legendary band. And oddly enough, I shortly after that got offered the Rat gig. and then oddly enough Brent and Jamie wound up getting offered the gig to play with Vince Neil a crazy world so it was it was very incestuous whatever but it was it was more about we never disagreed we never there wasn't any infighting it was just about four guys need needing to pay their electric bill right and they just went to gigs that actually guaranteed them more money that that was it celebrity jobber the celebrity jobber podcast with jeff zito john you've got a you know you've done something i'm so uh i'm so envious of you for you know putting out a book an autobiography it seems to me like such a daunting task and it gives me anxiety thinking about i say this to everybody that's ever you know wrote a book or written a book sitting down going okay i'm gonna write right now here we go once upon a time or however you start the damn thing like that to me gives me such anxiety like okay i'm gonna make a book it's about an inch thick and you know i'm starting it right now it's called it's called horseshoes and hand grenades which i i think is such a funny title so as a fan of wrestling growing up it was something that gorilla monsoon used to say uh close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades so tell me why you why you decided on that title well it was i i have my dad to thank for that but it really sums up my entire career i have been always at the right place but the wrong time so later in life when i was doing my acoustic unplugged record i was kidding with my dad as a joke and he was like oh man i really like when you do the acoustic stuff i can hear your voice i can hear the lyrics and he goes what are you gonna call it and now i had taken a few of my older songs like hooligans father mother son and reworked them and uh so i was joking with my dad and i go yeah i'm thinking about calling it john carabi almost greatest hits and my dad it just like almost like a quip he just went or he called horseshoes and hand grenades He was right there with it And I go what do you mean And he goes, you know, you don't have to be right. You just got to be close. Right. And I was like, okay, so I wrote that down. And then Paul Miles, when he talked to me about doing the book, it was actually during COVID. So I had plenty of time to do that. Right. But my buddy Paul Miles called and we started working on this. And as we were doing the edits and we were going back and forth and we started getting close. Paul said, what do you want to call the book? And I said, well, after interviewing with you as much as I did and now going through this thing eight or ten times reading the edits. My dad said something to me years ago and it totally sums up my career. I've been close. I've been at the right place, but always at the wrong time. And he goes, what do you want to call it? I go, horseshoes and hand grenades. And he just started laughing. He goes, that's perfect. It's a great title. But let me just say this, an outsider looking in, there's all levels. This business is so crazy and there's all different levels. There's the Michael Jackson level and then there's a cover band level and then there's a lot of in between. And I think you have a lot to be proud of your career. Brides of Destruction. I mean, some really great stuff. And I just wanted everybody to know this new album. It's called New Day, April 24th. You can pre-order it on johnkarabi.com. When I was young, the first single just came out a couple of days ago. really got me, really resonated with me. And I, again, you know, for Dead Daisies, I was such a big fan of those guys too. You know, you've got an incredible, you know, body of work. And the Motley Crue thing to me was just, you know, that's what introduced John Karabi to me. And going, you know, I didn't stop there. I didn't stop at Hooligans Holiday. you know i i kept going uh so and i think there's a lot of us out there a lot of people out there so you know close you know you know uh horseshoes and hand grenades you know only counts you know close only counts i still think you know you've got uh you know you've got a lot to be proud of and a an incredible body of work and i appreciate i appreciate and you know what that's one of the things that I've learned in hindsight now looking back you know I get it I'm I've I am truly very blessed to be able to sit here and talk to you about my 19th record wow um you know and you know I've had a record deal with The Scream I had a record deal with Motley I had a record deal with Union. I had a record deal early on with Rat Pack Records when I did my first two solo records. Now I'm being offered another one. And I do realize that there's people out there that are a million times more talented than me that never got one record deal. So on that part, I'm very, truly truly feel very blessed but when i say close i'm just it's really close to some big shit yeah yeah i've i've just been like right there where i could almost reach the brass ring to becoming you know for a lack of a better term more of a household name right you know what i mean um but now it's like you know i i've just kind of resolved myself like hey you know just do the best you can just keep putting out music and hopefully you know this you can do do what you can but 50 or more of this business is being at the right place at the right time and luck no doubt so hopefully this record is the one that makes the statement for me johnkarabi.com new album called new day april 24th new single when i was young i urge everybody to check it out a pleasure as always john thank you so much thank you brother i appreciate it keep waving the flag we all need it you've got it my man thank you all right buddy thank you bye-bye bye-bye i'll tell you what pretty crazy that uh no musical family members uh you know John Karabi came from a very blue collar working man's family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And he said one Christmas or birthday, something like that, he just got a guitar. I mean, he didn't want it. He didn't ask for it. One day for Christmas present, he got a guitar. And that was, I guess, it. You know, it kind of grew on him. And then he just listened to rock and roll. And that was it. I thought that was kind of funny. It was like, yeah, you know what? One day I just I got a guitar for Christmas. So, you know, I went talking to John about all of the different bands that he was in. Obviously, there is that one band that introduced him to the world. And that would be Motley Crue when he replaced Vince Neil for that one crew album in the early 90s. And even though John says, you know, I don't regret anything. I asked him if it was a good experience and he's like, you know, I don't regret anything that I've done. I do see maybe a little bit of resentment from John as he says that that's what everybody wants out of him. Maybe to play that Motley Crue song, Hooligans Holiday. But I did sense a little bit of maybe resentment because the guy's got a tremendous body of work. and you know everybody wants to hear the motley crew thing which lasted like a second in his career his first job and i've never heard of a hugster before okay he was i guess selling fruit um you know i guess if you'll watch rocky you'll see these guys in philly on the side of the road with like a fruit truck and i guess the kid as a kid john said he was like 10 11 years old you know, kind of selling fruit from the back of a guy's truck. And he did it for years. And they called it a hugster, which I had no idea that even had a name. But his job ended when he fell off the back of the truck and split his lip. The guy's like, oh boy, you're an insurance nightmare. Gotta go. See you later, pal. But I thought it was a great story, man. New album called New Day. Comes out April 24th. You can pre-order on johnkarabi.com. Great new song, which is on that album and the song When I Was Young. Gotta check it out. johnkarabi.com. Great story. Good guy. Very talented. Not a journeyman, which is what he said people described him as. So thanks again for checking out another episode of the Celebrity Jobber podcast. streaming everywhere. So please subscribe. Would love a five-star rating. And if you could please leave a review, that would be awesome. Past guests and episodes online at celebrityjobber.com. Who knows what would have happened to these celebrities if, you know, fame never happened. You know, maybe John would be playing covers. Maybe John would be in a cover band somewhere. I'm definitely sure he wouldn't still be a hugster. definitely outgrew that job, that's for sure. But, you know, got that call from Motley Crue out of the blue back in the early 90s, and that introduced him to the world. Once again, thank you for checking out another episode of the Celebrity Jobber podcast. And until next time, I'll see you then. I'm Jeff Zito.
