All right, welcome to the latest episode of the Dan Time podcast. I'm your host, Dan McCardell. It's great to have you here. I hope you all enjoyed as much as I did last week's episode with DJ Sims. DJ was incredibly open about his story, his childhood, and we walked down some paths that I was expecting and others that I had no idea we were going to cover. But I know it was really important for DJ to get his story out to anyone that might positively impact.
And what a big impact he had and is having in Smith's station. I love this guy and can't wait to bring him back on the show. For this week, I reached way back to someone who's known me since I first got my driver's license. I may have carpooled him around. Sean Rockstar Henninger. Look him up on X at Rockstar B H M as in Birmingham. Sean has been writing and performing music for over 20 years. He's been on recent tours with the black jacket symphony.
He produced the hugely successful sports talk show, the round table on WJOX FM Birmingham, Alabama. Since 2021, he's also been the producer of the all digital program, the next round, featuring the same cast from the round table. Jim Dunaway, Ryan Brown and Lance Taylor. Sean is a funny, funny guy, and I don't know that he really unloaded on this episode, although you are going to hear a few times he'll sneak up on you. You won't even see it coming.
And, uh, it's a, it's a type of humor that you don't hear every day on the street. So, uh, I'm really excited to just introduce a little bit of the Sean that I know and have known for such a long time. I go to great lengths to protect this show from the sounds of small children playing, fighting, fussing, squealing, cats, meowing. I try to schedule calls around all these obstacles and most of the time it works pretty well, but folks I'm here to say it's not a bulletproof plan.
And as you'll hear in this call with Sean, we were both very excited for this call with Sean. We were both in a bit of a jam and I have to applaud him for making it work. I don't think he really had the time, but, but he made the time for it. Our schedules were tight and it ended up being nap time for his toddler, which forced him onto his front porch for the call and we were going to do a video call, which we did, but the audio was a little compromised in certain spots. You'll hear it.
It's an ideal, but not enough to really wreck the episode. So I'm not going to worry about it too much. I had my two boys, namely my two year old trying to beat down the door towards mostly towards the end. So you'll hear some stuff. Hopefully you get a laugh out of it. I didn't, I wasn't real crazy about it at the time, but you know, life happens and maybe you can relate to that as well. There's a video component to this episode and look forward to appear on the tube channel sometime this week.
I'm going to give you a heads up. It is raw and uncut and I don't plan to do a whole lot to dress it up, but I plan for it to be something to build on as I look to add this feature to Dan time for certain episodes. Okay. Be sure to check out the next round. You can actually pull it up on any podcast platform and they've got it broken down into hour one, two or three, or you can listen live each weekday from 9 a.m. To 1 p.m. On YouTube or Facebook. I'm probably missing a couple other locations.
You can find it, maybe tune in, maybe I heart radio, check it all out. It's good stuff. I listened back when it was the jocks round table and it was, I'm not just saying this, the best sports talk show at that time. I'm, we were really spoiled. So go check that out and let's cut right to it now and get to my conversation with Sean Rockstar Henninger. We've landed here on Sean Henninger and Sean and I go back. I think we go back to the early years of the Clinton administration, perhaps.
At least the mid nineties. Sean probably remembers my first, my first car. Do you remember the red rocket? I do. I remember the red rocket. Was it a two door? It was four door, but it was manual windows. Yes. Manual locks. Heavy, high pitched stereo system. Those heavy on the treble, very heavy treble. You remember that. Speakers. Yeah, I do. I do remember that. Your brother had a sweet nine to nine. Yes, he did. I missed the nine to nine. They don't make them like that anymore. They don't.
I remember he had the sun roof and the windows all down one day. We went to the mall and a torrential downpour happened and those cloth seats never smelled the same after that. Seems like just yesterday. Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question, Dan? Yeah, go ahead, Sean. How many, how many Dan's did you go through, Daniel's and maybe you had a few Donnie's? How many Dan's did you go through before you decided to go like, you know, maybe that having only Dan's is not going to work out?
Well, I'm still pursuing as many Dan's as possible. What happens, folks, and I think I mentioned this on the first episode with Jim Powell. Actually, I started with Jim. Hi, Jim. You, you get turned down a few times in an enterprise like this. You get people who either don't officially decline your invitation that you do get people who say thanks, but no thanks or hey, listen, I appreciate about busy right now. So I have not had as many Dan's as I'd like, but it's going to continue.
I have had, let's see, we had Dan Weinrib. Then we had Dan Lindeman. Then we had Danny Zimmern. I think we had about four in a row of Dan or Danny. And then we broke it up with a Chris and a Vic. And then we had, I think we've had another run of three or four. Well, why don't you just change the rules to be as long as the guest knows a Dan, because you can have Dan Cortez. Sure, he's not busy right now. Dan Levitar, Danny DeVito, Don Johnson, and just just pronounce his name as Dan.
What about Dan and Dave from the 92 Summer Olympics? Okay, we're showing our age now. Yeah, the huge campaign that Dan and Dave were in a rule of the world. I don't think Dan even got to compete. I didn't think he qualified. It was only Dave. That's correct. Huge Nike promotion. Dan didn't qualify. So I think Dan O'Brien was his name. Get Dan O'Brien on. Yeah, so really the evolution is taking shape here.
And my wife, Natalie, even suggested that ultimately the theme of the show needs to be the guest and what they do with their time. You know, how do they use their time? How do they not use it? I'm kind of in agreement with that too. But just to roll it out, to roll it out the gate, I really wanted to stick with something that nobody else was doing. At least I haven't heard of people doing a Bob talking to other Bobs. I'm trying to feel. Bad if your name was like Namesh or something.
Yeah. And one thing, Sean, I know you probably haven't been listening to the podcast. And that's quite all right. It's probably good that you haven't. Because I don't want you to hear it until it gets good. But it is getting good. It is. I mean, you have a concept and you're doing it. It doesn't matter about the quality of it just yet. It's just the fact that you're doing it. A lot of people say they're going to start something.
One day I'm going to start a podcast and it's going to be the picture. I give you kudos for even getting more than three episodes deep because most people are like, I did two. It didn't really stick. I wasn't getting as much listeners as I thought. I just didn't like doing it. I wasn't enjoying it. So I just quit. So kudos for that. Oh, thanks, Sean. I think that just to get serious here, sometimes on this show you have to let people know when you're being funny or serious.
But I think people this day and age, maybe people who are younger than us by 10 years or so, they might get discouraged too quickly when they don't see things like the number of followers escalating rapidly. It's not happening fast enough and their Twitter followers are stuck at six or 22 and they want that to be 500 and it ain't happening. You have to act like that's not even an issue and just roll out your product, roll out your idea.
Well, it's just being in radio and media for the past 20 years of my life, which is insane. You have a lot of people that say that I'm funny or people always tell me how interesting I am and I should have my own show or my own podcast because everybody thinks my stories are so funny and my life is so crazy is that, yeah, let's plan your first two episodes. What are you going to do on episode 17? What are you going to do on stuff? Your stories are going to run out if you don't have good quality.
So that's the thing with me is I was always concerned that I could do about three or four podcast episodes on my life and then I'm like, I'm running out of material. Yeah, for me, what I thought I could count on, because again, to go out and ask Dan, whoever, whether he's A list or B list or C list and to just send that blind email, hey, man, I got a podcast called Dan Time. I'd love for you to be on it.
You have to factor in that more likely eight out of 10 or nine out of 10 are going to either ignore you or say not so interested. And so you need to kind of count on maybe your existing network, which that's really what's carried the show along, which I haven't gone off track. I haven't gone off my schedule is because there's always people and it's not just anybody.
I make that a point that everybody our age doing the things that we've done, you know, you know, a lot of people, but I won't have just anybody on this show. You got to have a story to tell. Doesn't mean you have to have a you don't have to have this endless list of accolades. So I want to make that clear to people if they've been listening and want to be a guest on the show and they're like, I haven't really done anything or been recognized for anything. That's OK. You can still be a guest.
But yeah, Sean, I think it's just and you could speak to this just sticking with something. Relationships take a lot of work. Yeah. Changes changes in your household take a lot of work. I mean, I've we've had three children. I remember what it was. The stress was like when we had the first and then the second. Oh, yeah. That's and then now. And I remember when I first met my wife and things that seemed a little stressful then. It's like that was absolutely nothing.
But just I think I don't want to generalize that people give up too soon. But well, there's there's just stress of everyday life where you I mean, like it's all it's all relative to what your stress is. You're three kids to my one kid. I'm super stressed, but I can't imagine what your stress is with three kids. And then you say you go back to how stressed you were with your first kid. So I got one that's constantly on the move. We constantly have to keep entertained that will not sit still.
And then I know a woman that had a toddler with triplets. So having triplets in a toddler, I go, OK, I have no I have no room to complain about how stressed and overwhelming my day is because it's all relative. That's what you think about, like because with you with three, three, I cannot imagine having three because he I have I'm outside right now doing this because he just woke up from his nap. And he is a bad out of hell when he's out from his nap. He's running everywhere.
It's all relative and it's hard to get. You know, I love I'm a musician. I would love to record some stuff and some ideas I have and write some more things. But it's amazing how people adjust their lives to pursue what they love. And it hadn't been an easy transition for me. Inside the house is pretty much off limits when my son is around to do anything creative because we don't have the silence for it. So I admire you for trying to do a podcast with three kids at home. That's admirable.
That's determination. Well, I was I'm glad you brought that up because it was something I've been thinking about. If you're a creator of anything, whether whether that's art or you're a sculptor or you're a screenwriter or you write music or play music. And I don't know if my microphone can pick up my two year old crying on the other side of the door.
But Sean Sean, do you think it's a it's particularly challenging for someone where like yourself where the wheels are always spinning and you've got this great idea and then. Oh, my God, I got to go change a diaper. All right. I can't work on this right now. And I might lose that that moment that I had. I know it's very frustrating for me and I have to find ways to deal with it. Well, you're dealing with it right now. And I admire that.
Let's see. I feel that like my wife and I split at 50 50 or sometimes like if it's my turn to rock at night and it's her turn to rock, I use that 45 minutes to get whatever I can done. It's a piece of work or something else. I just I have to I can't do anything creative in the house right now. And hopefully when he gets older, he'll be I'll be able to have like a door closed whenever this door closed. Dad's working. But right now it's just there's there's no boundaries with him.
He goes in the bathroom with you. He cries. He'll throw himself on the floor if you take away a spoon. So we're just at that phase where I just got to everything creative. I do has to be outside outside of designated square of where I live. And you just have to adjust to that. And then, you know, I do some creative stuff on the show where I have to come up with comedy bits every Friday during football season.
And I end up just doing those after hours at work because that's the only time where I can kind of have a quiet moment where I don't I'm not worried that somebody has dropped a D in their bat and their diaper and to change them. So, you know, it's just constant stuff like that.
I got it's hard, but again, it's all relative because there's somebody else doing it's just amazing that you have these musicians that have what they also have like full time nannies that they're clearly, hey, I'm I have this wing of the of the chalet that I use for writing. So don't don't come in here and I'll see my kid on Tuesday. We don't have that. I wouldn't want that, but we don't have that ability to do. And I understand.
I wish I could do more, but then I don't have I think if I had it's sad because if you get that alone time, my inspiration was kind of got I got an hour alone. I think I'm going to lie down and or I'm going to catch up on some laundry like my wife and I say, like, we have not watched a TV show or a movie in probably a year. All we do is watch Cocoa Melon and Blaze and Paw Patrol. And it's just like we have we don't have we I don't know.
When somebody talks about succession, I was like, I miss the boat because we don't have time to watch it. So I used to go to movies all the time. I used to read book all that's out the window. I have to be on tour on a bus to download a program or read a book. And so it's just that stuff where you're loving what you got with a kid. But then like it's he's taking a lot of stuff away that you used to be, I guess, selfish about.
Sean, it's funny you mentioned that last night I've mentioned to Natalie. I said, hey, honey, do you want to maybe try to get a babysitter? Like we mentioned this babysitter that we use. I said, do you want to have her come over for two hours one night while we're here just so we could go back in the bedroom and watch a movie from beginning to end? And I thought she was going to say, no, that's ridiculous. And she said, no, that's yeah, we could try to do that.
Yeah, I'm a babysitter while you're. It's a great idea. But only the kids can't know that you're in the back room because if they know that they can get tattled on the other one, like they're going to they're going to supersede the babysitter, just run to your bedroom door, just start banging on.
So if you can kind of sneak in there and say, hey, I take to fool your children, like to get in the do the fake get in the car like, OK, we're going we're going to another city for another couple of hours and then just take it back door back into your bedroom and just try to be quiet. The the links you have to go to. But I totally I totally understand that. That's a good idea. Our house is so small. He would know we're here.
I got this teeny tiny ranch ranch house like you hear a toilet flush the whole house. So there's there's no way we can do that. But that's a great idea. Kudos to Natalie for thinking of that. Now you thought of it. Kudos to Natalie for accepting the offer. Well, we we haven't done it yet, but we you know, I think that we can probably line this up in the
next week or so. I mean, we used to watch shows on Netflix or gosh, even stuff on ABC, not like sitcoms like family sitcoms, but there was a timeless remember that that series timeless or she used to call it executive decision. It's actually designated survive three or four chances. So let's start with Keeper Sutherland and end it with another guy. Yeah, I saw that one too. Like I used to go to movies all the time, too, but I just I can't tell the last night,
even a kids movie. It sounds too young for it, but I can't say the last time we were at a theater to see a movie. I can't remember. Yeah, it's just one of those things. You know, Warren, my oldest is he's going to be six next month, and he's at an age where we've gone to the theater a couple of times, and he he really enjoys that. And so you got a few years to go. But when you can take your kid to the movie theater, it's a it's a fun experience and show
him show him the new song movie and like really get into that because Halloween, right? You got to show him a good whole lot. Right. Right. Yeah. What do you for Halloween when you have a baby? And how old is he now? He's 17. He's going to be 18 months, so a year and a half. A little small for a costume or do you do you have? I have an idea. I had an idea of what we could do.
He's obsessed with cars. The movie. That's one thing we have to watch. Oh, my gosh. And my wife, Nancy, got him a little pretty much one of those costumes with the Lightning McQueen where you just like put suspenders over it. It's just this car that you just like strap onto his clothes. And we went to a carnival with that. And then I had an idea where maybe Travis, a full member, I don't know if he will. But back in the day, in the 80s, I was a huge Pee Wee
Herman fan. I was obsessed. And I got the shout out to Danny right here. I've got a costume, Pee Wee Herman costume from Big B Drugs in Bestavia, the one that was the rubber, the plastic mask with the rubber band. And it was tight. I got the Pee Wee Herman suit. And I was that for three or four consecutive Halloween. Couldn't let it go. I grew out of it like pants were flat. No, the mask smelled abhorrent. All that child breath that's been in
it. And so I decided since Paul Rubin's passed away earlier this year, I thought it'd be great if my son and I dressed up as Pee Wee Herman or see if we can do it. I don't know if we can pull it off, but there's not many 17 month old options for a little gray suit that's not like 200 bucks. So we're going to try that. And he's going to be miserable. Last year, he was Charlie Brown because he was just at six months old when he was his first Halloween. And we were in the stroller
just walking around and he was he was over it. I think he was sick too. That's another thing is once the daycare started, we are sick every week with something some new strain of a flu or bug or cold or stomach virus. So that's been fun, that adjustment period, especially with your voices, your source of income. I literally can't believe everything that you're saying is is extremely and immediately relatable like Cars. Warren was obsessed with the movie Cars
for three years. I mean, he still likes it. He doesn't turn it on all the time. But and then the illnesses that the colds that the disgusting runny noses. It always runs nose and it's you will like it's dry. It's gross. As a parent, you will get sick. There's you cannot avoid it. You cannot wash your hands enough. You can't clean all the little surfaces and the little things they touch the doorknobs enough. Forget about it. You will get sick. I've been sick all
week. This is the best that I've felt. And I was a little worried about how it's going to sound. But this is like the back end of a bad cold. It's they're all I get them all the time. And it's crazy about cars is just that Warren like a cord is my son's name is cord and he loves one and three absolutely pays no attention to part two will not even give it a shot. We watched one and three and or over and over and over. We tried to like five or six times. He just
checks out. He will not. He will not focus on to it's weird. He loves Disney short part three is the is where McQueen is now the the mentor old man. Yeah, he's got a protege driver, the yellow car, I think. And then part two is where they're there in France. Maybe it's like a James Bond spy
film like it's like Michael Caine's in it. Well, I like to go to Hong Kong. I absolutely absolutely love Mater because I've been forced to watch this movie so much like, you know, when you when you're just a captive to a movie and over time, it's not like Stockholm syndrome where you fall in love with your captor, but you like, well, I guess I'll find a favorite character in this movie. This is so Mater is like, I actually legitimately love Mater. And that scene where he's, he's the
waiter. I think it's in part two. And he has no disguise or at all. I don't think. I still like play it off like it's not everything he does is hilarious that the part in part one where he says that it's the you're my best friend scene. I can't reenact it, but I love him. I knew I made a good choice in what? What? Well, see you later. Can you get me a ride in one of them helicopters? Queen and Sally said that I had a K I G F I N C. He says that what's the line we always get is,
you know, I used to pay attention to this girl named Doreen. She looked like a jaguar, but she was a truck. I used to bump into her just so I could spoke to her. What are you talking about? I don't know. Yeah, I've seen enough. Okay, Sean. All right. So I've gone long enough to the discussion without kind of, I may go back and do an intro. Would this be the video call? I may just run it just how it is, but usually I do an intro where I kind of go over where he came from and
why you're why you've been selected for Dan for Dan time. Well, selected and accepted the invitation. Yes. So for as long as I can remember, you've been a performer of some sort. Does it go back to like fifth grade, sixth grade, where you've had an interest in music or getting on stage and acting? I mean, did you do talent shows, things like that? So it started when I was a kid and we lived in a neighborhood that didn't have any. And so I've never in my life at a time where I want
to get on my bike and go to so and so's house. So my wife corrected me at the time because I always said that when I was younger, I didn't have a lot of friends like really young. I played with myself and she said, you need to correct that. You played by yourself. Okay. Full time. So I always said that I always played with myself. I would reenact a movie and I would be the bad guy and the good guy. And I had a little teeny tiny boombox. That was like a hand me down from my brother that was
a cat player. And I remember I had guns and roses, uh, use your illusion one and two on cassette. And I would just sit in my bedroom and play that side one to side two and just try to sound like Axel. And then my, my brother's high school girlfriend, her mother at the time gave me 10 fourth grade Christmas as like a stocking stuffer. And I, I immediately went to a shift.
I did not care about guns and roses anymore. I was solely focused on Pearl Jam. And then I would just sit in my bedroom track one to 11 and just sing every song and just like run in my room, picking up toys or something like that. And I never really thought about, well, I thought about performing, but not in reality until like middle school. When, uh, John Hunter, one of your brother's friends and my friends from middle school and elementary school, he said that his band was
going to be doing a talent show and we did a red hot chili pepper song. And so that's what really got me into performing. And it was just so interesting that I was never ever really, I remember I forbade my parents for, uh, coming to that performance because we did the, um, visits middle school assembly. I don't know how we got that gig, but my first gig was in front of like 600 students. I never got nervous. I was anxious about like, I'm ready to do this,
but it was never like, I gotta, I gotta turn around. I can't get back to playing by myself. I would always just do voices and just entertain myself with doing voices. And to this day, a few years ago, this is probably 10, 15 years ago, I was getting some kitchen work done in my kitchen in my, uh, town home at the time where I was living. And I had given the key, put the key under the mat because they were going to come in super early, start doing this demo stuff in my
kitchen, but replacing a countertop. And I had worked that morning. I totally forgot that they were there and I'm upstairs in the bedroom getting ready. I live alone. I don't have anybody with me and I'm going into this Scottish accent back for just being a Scottish guy, another guy. And I'm going back and forth with myself. I walked downstairs and there's two guys in my kitchen. And so the only thing I can think of is like, Oh, I'm sorry guys. If you heard all that,
we just got a bit of a leap in our argument. I didn't know what to do, but like that was me. If nobody was there, I do it in my car. I just talk to myself and do different impressions. And so that kind of paid out when I got into radio in 2000, yeah, 2003, two years of that before they started saying like, Hey, would you really be willing to do a bit for us? It blew up from there. I've always been a performer to myself. I never really, a performer to no audience.
That's what I was always used to. I love it, Sean. I didn't, I never really knew just how long you were a producer on WJOX 94.5 FM in Birmingham, a cumulus media station for the jocks round table. I mean, people outside of the Birmingham area do not realize how much of a staple this program was. I think it was a three hour show, a three hour morning.
Well, it was, we were, it started when Lance started it, it started as a one hour show because Whip Sanderson did not want to do a three hour hit a show with Sonny Smith and he did not want to do a three hour show. So they said, well, well two hours, but we got to kill one hour because we have one hour programming. And so Lance was like, I'll do a show by myself for one hour. And so I, I was, I came out about year two of the round table where they stretched it to two hours. Then it was to
four hours. We were replaced fine bomb when fine bomb left for ESP on our sec network. We did his slot and we were not successful from that four to seven slot or two to seven and then two to six. And then we went to 10 to two, then we went from six to 10. So I woke up very 4 30 in the morning for about 15 years and I was wearing every time slot. So it was interesting. And then how that, and then we started our own thing called the next round. We started that in 2021 and we've been
going strong. And this is our start our third year. It was crazy. It's just remarkable, Sean, and your involvement in a show like that to be in your early twenties for a number of years, unbroken to wake up at 4 30 or did you say to get there at 4 30? Get there around five, five 15, but before and go to work. It was just, well, also you got to consider this. If you're, when your show's over at 10, you can be home by 11 to get, take a nap
and being a musician and playing like it, at that age, I was playing bars a lot. So playing at bars like 1 AM knowing like I gotta get up in three hours. That wasn't fun. That wasn't because you always look forward to, all right, about 11 30, I'll be able to go home and take a nap. Just keep that in mind. 11 30, you can go home and take a nap and sleep till like two, two or three. So
it wasn't very healthy, wasn't a very healthy lifestyle, but it got to where I am now. So I, never in my mind, but I think if you ask my fourth grader, so you think you're gonna be in sports broadcasting? No, absolutely not. I got into sports broadcasting. It's just a happy accident. Sean, and the audio is cutting out a little bit. Are you, I know you're outside your house, but are you on the far end of your modem location? Or are you closer to it? I'll get closer to it. The sun
is beating my fair skin. There we go. We should be good now. Yeah, but I remember I've known you since I was 16 or you were 15 or around that time period and then into our early 20s and I would see you at parties at somebody's house and then it's midnight or something and you're like, hey guys, I gotta go. And at the time I just, I didn't see what all was going on and why you were putting in the effort, why, you know, why that was what you had to do. You know, I was kind of, I was over here
and you were over there. I didn't always see you, but one thing I did notice was you didn't get involved in the drinking, the drugging, the smoking, none of that stuff. And no, I've never, I've never had a drug of a cigarette in my entire life. I think I passed that test in seventh grade.
A bunch of people were spending the night at a friend's house. And I remember we knocked out of his bedroom on the, he got his bedroom in the second store would you could get onto the roof, like just go out of his window and we went on the roof and somebody had one cigarette from their brother. There's like six guys and they were like taking drugs. And I just remember that day so good because that was the day I was like, no, I got such pre-oppression to just do it. And I didn't
do it. Never had any illicit drug. I've never, I've drank probably three times in my life. I just never really got into it. I don't know. I just never gave it the peer pressure of it. So I'm glad I never smoked. It was such a shame being a singer. And I saw a lot of my high school friends addicted to cigarettes. And I guess now the cool thing is to do is to vape. So I never got into vaping either. Yeah. Well, kudos to you, Sean, for, you know, taking, staying strong. Yeah. I had a question
that I was going to ask a little bit later, but I kind of want to drop it now. When you look back, you look at where you are and where you were, where you used to be, your favorite version of your past self. And I've got three periods here, second grade, sixth grade, Sean, or 25 year old Sean. I know last place would be sixth grade. Sixth grade was absolutely miserable. Yeah, me too. I mean like that, but I was at the height of being bullied. I had an Afro. I had really bright red
lips because eighth graders would always make fun of me at PE for having that. I looked like I wore lipstick. I had fat cheeks and rosy red cheeks. I had buck tea. I was pale. I was, I didn't have the best body, did not get any attention from any girls. And I was afraid of girls. So every day, and I was, I was not doing well in school. It was God. Sixth grade was awful. Second grade or 25. That's a close tie, I guess. I would say 25. I'll go 25 and then second grade and then
sixth grade in a very, very distant last 25. I was probably still doing a bunch of bar shows like every weekend, but I was also, I was single pretty much doing my own thing, whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to, I would, I'm one of those guys, I don't care. I can go eat by myself at a restaurant. It doesn't bother me. I would go to a movie by myself. It doesn't bother me. I would do that constantly. It seems like a very lonely presence, but it was very, I mean, I would
go take vacations by myself. Like whenever we did SCC media days, that week, it was such a stressful week for me. I just let it get to me so much. I would take that next week off and I went to Pensacola beach. My parents had a little condo down there and I would go by myself and my feet would not touch the sand. I would stay on this little balcony they had and I would read. And I was, the only time I'd have any human interaction was when I'd go downstairs and get in my car and go
to a restaurant and talk to the waitress or waiter to get my order. Then I go right back to the condo, finish that book in bed, and go to sleep, rinse and repeat for three or four days. And it was awesome. But that was my idea of like just a perfect vacation. Just turn off everything, no cell phone, just sit there in silence. So the 25 year old me, second grade me was a very, I was a very emotional kid. So now let's do the 25. What about you? Out of those three periods, well second grade was
not a fun year. My parents moved us to Florence, Alabama and enrolled me and my older brother in Catholic school. And in the mid 80s, Catholic school, it may well have been like Catholic school in the mid 60s or mid 50s. I guess it hadn't changed a whole lot. It was such a cold, drab, uncaring, unwelcome environment. I had just come from a school system in Northern Virginia that was like on the cutting edge of trying out new teaching methods. And I mean,
I had a blast in kindergarten and first grade. You know, I don't remember a lot of stuff vividly, but I just, I remember my teachers, remember their names. I kind of remember their images. And then, so, you know, you just, you go from such a progressive atmosphere to a small K through 12 or K through eight Catholic school in second grade. And I just remember being in class sometimes crying for some reason, whether I didn't understand something or I needed help tying my shoe and nobody
would help me. And my teacher would act like I was, yeah, or I had to go to the bathroom and they said, no, you don't. You just went to the bathroom. I was like, no, I have to go again. And instead of being consoled, my teacher would treat me like the disruption that I was for her lesson plan. And you know, hate is a strong word, but I definitely forgive that teacher. But I have no warm feelings about that school year. Now we did have some, it was one year in Florence, Alabama. We had some
fun neighborhood friends, but sixth grade, I got to relate to you on that. I don't think that your fifth grade teacher really primes you. Maybe they do now. They don't, I mean, when they, you're about to go to like a, either a seventh or eighth grade school, which we have here, or a sixth, seventh and eighth middle school. They don't, no one really says, hey, listen, it's going to be pretty rough next year. All they tell you is that it's going to be exciting.
You're going to get to change classes. You get a locker. And so I remember the summer after fifth grade, going into sixth grade, I was fired up. I was like, wow, I'm going to be a big kid in middle school. And man, did my world come crashing down. I, I, Oh, just the, the appearance. Yeah. Me at that age was a sight to behold and a site to make fun of. I think a lot of us are like, I just remember my first impression of how excited I, that PE,
you got to wear a uniform and you got to wear shorts and a shirt, t-shirt. And I remember that it was like teeny tiny lockers and you put your little uniform in there. And which is crazy to me that your second period, I'm going to be running around playing football, smelling like ass. And then I go back into a room and spray speed stick on and go back to math class and go on to the rest of my day. But I just remember that they, the rule was every Friday, you got to take
your uniform home for the weekend and wash it. And I would say 0.3% of people would do that. So that this, to this day, smell is one of the biggest memories you have, century memories you have. And just, I can smell that locker room of just, yeah. Right. Right. Guard. And I'm the hardest, I was the change in front of people. I remember I made the mistake. Here's a, here's a first for you, Daniel. I knew I saw that some boys were wearing boxers.
And I was like, I was always more tidy whiteys. And I remember going to my mom one day, this is like sixth grade. I saw seventh and eighth grade boys wearing boxers when we were changing it. And I'm P E. So I was like, I want some boxers. So my mom went to Parisian, I believe it was at the time and got me some boxers and I didn't know how they worked. I never asked quite. So I just put on how they worked and put, I just put tidy whiteys on and put my boxers over my tidy whiteys.
And then I think somebody noticed when I was changing her P E that day, cause I was super impressed that I had my boxers. So I probably changed a little slower that day. And somebody saw my little fruit of the loom waistband coming out of my boxers and they're like, what are you doing? I was like, what are you talking about? And like, I got ridiculed for that. So sixth grade was absolute hell. It was tough. Yeah. I don't miss that. And I guess it's a rite of passage. I mean,
I hope to go through it. It helps you understand a lot of kids that are bullied and everything. Like, well, I suffered not even like a small amount of what I got compared to what a lot of these kids get. So it's just like, it makes you understand and have empathy for some kids that are what they're going through. So I'm glad I went through it, that I got through and everything that didn't make me, you know, one of these ones that I had been vindictive or I'd been dead against all these
people that were mean to me. You know, it's just, that's just part of it. It's part of life. But, you know, I'm sure a lot of bullies these days feel like I was such a mean kid in middle school. I can't believe, hopefully they realize their ways and like just the regret they have. It's like, man, I used to be really mean to that one kid just every day for no reason, just because he had glasses. Yeah. I'd get too emotional on you. No, no, Sean. I actually, probably in my early 20s,
I ran into a couple of guys that were not very nice to me in sixth or seventh grade. And at least one of them, one out of the two, it seemed like he was still carrying, he had that crossed a bear, I guess. And over time you realize that there's a reason why some kids aren't born bullies. They are lashing out either at, they have an abusive father or a verbally abusive mother, or they've got an older brother that's given them, you know, given them the treatment every day. And so they're
taking it out on somebody. So there's usually a source for it. At the time, you just, you don't understand why someone's being so mean to you. But I like what you said about what we went through. It all began and ended at that school in that, you really didn't think about like, oh, as the whole town knows about what happened, it's just kind of what in the halls of that school. It's now,
it's like, it's the whole online component to it. Oh, yeah. Oh, just knowing that, you know, you think you're friends with somebody and then you see on, I don't know, TikTok, Facebook, that six of your friends are having a Spend the Night party and you're not, you're obviously not invited or something like that. So I'm sure that's got to cut in a different way to see like, or just see these kids that like you're being left out of something when they're just bragging about it on social
media, or then they could bully you on social media for the whole world to see. And so I think it's really important for the world to see that you peed your pants one day or something like that. I just can't imagine that, like the level of embarrassment that happens to kids these days. Mine was strictly demeaning, probably like four other people in the room that saw it, and then that was it. But again, it all goes back to its relative, kids are going through far worse than
we ever went through. Yeah. And hopefully they have good parents or good adult role models. So much or other adult figures outside of like my own dad, that could kind of give me some moral support and say, Hey, you know, you'd be all right, kid. Like I didn't really have a lot of that going
on. Yeah. But when my kids, they'll go through some problems, you know, but what I would like to be able to tell them when they hit those middle school years is there's a big wide world out there and you're going to see in a few years once you graduate, my eyes open up, open up to so many experiences and growing my network of friends and professional contacts. Once I got out of high school and then once I went to community college, UAB, et cetera, and just went from there, just
kind of forgot all about, I didn't forget all about the stuff, but it just didn't matter. It became very, very small. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's a much bigger deal when it happens, but it's a much bigger deal to you when it happens. But then you do kind of forget about it or like laugh. Like I can't believe I waited on that so long. I just thought about that so long. I remember I cried in my room for a whole day, like in the grand scheme of things, that was nothing. But at
the time it was your whole world. Scott, we break up with your first middle school girlfriend. Like your world is over. And she's so funny thinking about it now. Like, God, I really had nothing to be stressed about at all. I didn't even wear deodorant. What? Well, Sean, that was a great subject. I didn't know we were going to hit on that one, but I think it's very important. And I'm glad that you and I were able to share some experiences there. Hopefully this brings this
is of some value to our listeners, because it's just more relevant than ever. But kids, you know, kids get through it if they have a good support network. And again, bullying and that type of behavior usually comes from I heard, I think it was Jerry Springer, of all people. He's, he talked about the guest that he used to have on his TV show. And it would say like, well, why did you always have this like what these white trash? Just like these types of people? Why did you focus on
them? And he said, well, when they when I got them on my show, and I asked him a question, that was probably the first time for a lot of these people that they that anybody asked them what they thought about something, and then allowed them to give a response. You know, just that. True. And that really needs to go on in households more often where the like a parent can ask a child, what do you think about this? Whether it's what do you think? What do you think about the subject
you're studying in school? Or if they have an awareness of some events in the world, you know, what do you think about what's going on? Yeah. So yeah, I thought that was a good point. All right, Sean, going back to you as a performer for many years now, you've played various venues for a number of years. Is that your real passion? Would you say is playing music? Yeah, well, it shifts, it shifts, but it shifts like I was always a musician first, and I got a job at the radio
station to kind of have two jobs to like, hey, this will be my day job. And I'll play music at night because eventually I'm going to be on MTV. That's what I'm going to be doing. And I'm still waiting on that hadn't panned out just yet. But I feel like this is just the perfect moment for MTV to make a return. But and I got into I had my sense of humor to fall back on again, from the bullying and stuff like that, where it was kind of a defense mechanism. But performance was always
number one musical performance is always number one for me. And I've got to do a bunch of stuff with Black Jacket Symphony. I got to do my first West Coast tour just this past March. We went I think it was 26 shows in 28 days. It was super intense with that amount of work and keep your voice up for consecutive days. Where it's one of those things where you you go to sleep in Wichita and you wake up in Lincoln, Nebraska for another show. You've never experienced something like that.
It was amazing. It was very tiring. But it's just really cool. A lot of repetitiveness of rinse and repeat where you your bedroom is this little bunk in the bus and you have two outlets that you charge your devices on and you have a pillow and a blanket and you've your suitcases under the bus and that's that's your home for a full month where and it's kind of relaxing to know like this this little spot everything I have is in this little spot my my toiletries and you got to rely on a venue's
bathroom and some don't have showers so you have to forego a shower for a couple of days but in the long run it was it was worth it because it's so cool like I've never even been to the state of California and we played in Bakersfield and Sacramento and somewhere else but just it's just so cool to be able to go to never been to Wisconsin. We are Wyoming. We played in Cheyenne. That was really cool. I'm so glad because that's something I've always wanted to do and I kind of
get to check that list check it out my bucket list. And Sean there's some just incredible photos I like people to watch the videos of Black Jacket Symphony as well but photos of you in action on stage making that leap yeah off one of the rigs or the amplifiers you guys are running
through the the entire Rumors album right? Yeah so I've done and when you think of that picture you think what rock concert is that that's Fleetwood Mac man that's why I'm so cool like I'm the I'm the guy that was shot out of a cannon like the guy that uh way it was too long before he was given an opportunity so every show I mean I just give it 110% and like I'm bouncing off the wall
like a monkey to these songs that are like kind of not like super exciting. I'll give credit to our photographer Rob Hereth who was on tour with us he would take pictures of every show and post them and the one day we were doing a sound check and Patrick Himes is one of the guitarists and I was on his riser and I said I'm gonna I think I'm gonna jump off the riser tonight and jump over a amp I just don't know when I'm gonna do it and he missed like the first three shows because he's
like I just never knew I just never had the timing and so I said well I'll do it for the rest of the tour I think we did it for like the last 10 shows and he got some great shots and it's just that kind of stuff is just real fun but I've done the Fleetwood Mac rumors I've done Pearl Jam 10 I've done Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers and Let It Bleed and I've done Leonard Skinner's second helping and then Queen, not the opera I do that when the second set I come out and do with Mark Martel so
I've done like 40 of those shows and it's been amazing I've done like probably god now probably 150 shows with Black Jacket and I've never played to that amount of people in my solo days playing at the local eatery down the street where I'm basically background music so it's just I'll let you know Mark Martel is he's the one that does the Queen stuff and he's sounds just like Freddie Mercury he was voiced on the Bohemian Rhapsody movie he was doing all the background Freddie
Mercury stuff like vocally that for uh Rami Malek and so we had a show we had two shows in Talladega this is probably 2018 Mark and I had a relationship we had a friendship we developed a friendship a little bit over these performing these past three four years and so we were doing sound check and he's like you drove all the way to Talladega for just this one song to do Under Pressure and I was like I did and he was like uh that's just crazy and I was like well I'll let you I'll tell you why
just stay tuned and uh so about two weeks later I was playing at a country club in Birmingham and at their bar or something like that and I took a picture there was actually there was one bartender and there was absolutely nobody in the entire room like not one person so I sent that picture to Mark and it's like this is why I uh because I get to perform with a professional lighting system a professional sound system and 1,100 people that are like super stoked to see
and he gives you perform with these great decisions and I was like this is why what one song does like to still have that hunger as a musician like I try to never forget that and he was like okay I get it I totally understand I was like so like I'm literally this is me playing to myself in a bartender right now for three hours and it's very common for what I do I do it a lot um so I just try to never forget that there's going to be gigs that are just like these these tours we did
sometimes you're just super tired like oh my god we got a show tonight and it's just like you try to think back to like okay what's your alternative the opportunity playing in front of nobody uh getting very little pay so this is what you've always wanted suck it up and so I always try to remember that and I bet you're and you're thinking about the exposure when you get those calls and someone asks you to go out on the road and do something like that of that size and Sean just
knowing you I'm willing to bet when you get on stage and you're like you said at Bakersfield California shy in Wyoming are you thinking I'm going to give these people something to remember if they picked me to fill this role I'm going to be that nobody's going to do this like I'm going to do this you say that yes and but also it's a kind of a sense of relief when it's not like local because if it's a local show people know you know your personality for this it's great
because you can you're you're you're doing another band's material but we're not a we're not a tribute band where I'm not trying to be Lindsey Buckingham I'm not trying to like him we're just trying to sound like it and then be our own personalities but what's cool with those shows nobody knows who I am so I can almost be his character super energetic and super into the music and focused and just kind of let loose to a point because you're not like it's not like my
parents in the audience and like when they see you afterwards like we've never seen that side of you and it's like you get to unleash that cyber never in my life would I if you told me at 15 saying Sean you're going to be playing in front of a lot of people but you're going to be playing Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond and songs like that I'd be like no absolutely no way but to be in front of and to have a crowd it's all dependent upon the crowd if they're loving it like it's just like
all right this song's super cheesy but this crowd this is 2 000 people going ballistic over Sweet Caroline and I'm I'm leading it so that that was always the motivation and stuff like that but 15 year old me would be like call me a sellout like you're a you're a loser and it's like well you know just tell that 15 year old version of me just wait to what you're going to have to go through and you'll see why but like no it's just that that kind of stuff is it's great to be
somebody else to have develop another personality there's a there's a performance version of me and there's a everyday version of me so I think that's fun to have both of us to scratch that itch.
I love it that you know Damon Johnson from Brother Kane I remember several years ago maybe it's been 10 years or more when he got he got the call to be the bass player for Alice Cooper and you're thinking wow he's got a pretty good thing going on either with his solo career or Brother Kane maybe not like a huge star but you get that call and whether you whether he even liked most most of the Alice Cooper catalog which maybe he did you just how do you turn that down or there's another
Leonard Skinner bass player. It's Damon Johnson. Damon Johnson okay. Damon Johnson he was he was on our show a while back ago and he's played with he's playing with Thin Lizzy and he's playing with Leonard Skinner and it's just like you can't you can't not take those calls and he was playing with Alice Cooper for the longest time and then he just they they've reached out to Skinner he's been with them so it's just you know that 16 year old version of you that's like oh my god I am when
I am now playing in one of the most legendary southern rock bands of all time. It's surreal and of course of course he wanted to be I want to be known as Brother Kane I want to have be in a original artist but sometimes the road takes you in another direction and Damon is a super nice guy I've always loved him he's always been friendly man to me. Big inspiration for that Brother Kane Seeds album I wore that out in seventh grade so it's just I love to see the success that
he's had. He's got a do you remember the seedy warehouse days when I was when I was behind the counter at the music store? Oh yeah. He put out a solo album back then around 1999 2000 that I've got on I've got on Apple Music now it's got some great great tracks on there there's I think a reworked version of Got No Shame. Oh yeah that's that that's what put him on the map is Got No Shame
that great Topper Price playing harmonica. All right let's just follow up on this end I kind of remember your early influences with Eddie and Pearl Jam and who have you loved for such your teenage years and who have you picked up on that's like who are some musicians or bands that
you're a big fan of? So it all started with me musically I've told this story the first cassette tape I ever had was Eddie Money in the single Walk On Water so that would be first grade for me I think it was 87 88 I had that and that's what really opened my horizons to singing and being obsessed with music but Pearl Jam was always number one for the longest time I loved the alternative scene I loved the chili peppers Metallica I don't give a lot of new musicians
a chance it seems like I really don't discover new musicians I don't have I don't listen to what's hot on the radio on Sirius or Satellite or like that so I'm still stuck because you've Spotify and all these things you can just make a playlist of stuff you grew up on you've always loved and it's just hard to be exposed to newer artists because it's my fault for not just giving it a shot so it's pretty much stayed the same I've been doing these Rolling Stone shows for the Black
Jacket Symphony I've opened my eyes to a bunch of Rolling Stone stuff I've never really even paid attention to like there's a song called I Got The Blues on Sticky Fingers that's easily probably one of my top 100 favorite songs of all time now I didn't ever it wasn't even on my radar same thing with Leonard Skinner I Need You from Leonard Skinner on Second Helping oh yeah that song was never on my radar the first time I when we covered I was like god this is a great song and so stuff like
that and that these songs are 60 50 40 years old and I haven't been exposed to them yet because I just never gave them the time of day but there's really nothing that stands out that's I'm trying to think of the most recent artist I like but it's it's been pretty much Pearl Jam I love Tool Radiohead Oasis I can do some Pantera I'm still I just can't do the uh the heavier heavy heavy is that right yeah I've never I can sometimes do I respect what is the slower stuff I like what is
the what is the slow stuff uh this love the first half of this love my point is Pantera is more of a melodic there's still a melody in there now when it comes to bands like Cannibal Corpse there's I can't I can't get melody out of that I there's super talented musicians and speed shredding guitars anything but it's just like it's just everything speed and with Pantera there's still melody and the guitar solo is not super super fast to the point where just like they're putting this
song on fast forward Cemetery Gates I could see you I would actually love to hear you sing not now but uh at some point so I'll also remember that you covered and maybe this hasn't been on the set for a long time but Metallica's Mama Said which a lot of fans are fans are well past that song or I've just barely heard of it it's this experimental track I guess you'd call it that that they dropped on the Load album and Load was so out there anyway I mean it
threw people either loved the Until It Sleeps, King Nothing stuff but they were like oh this is this is nothing compared to the old stuff but you had to get deep into the album really to hear Mama Said and you know I was kind of in tune with a lot of hardcore fans at that time and people hated Mama Said but I liked it I think I think over time even really longtime fans like that song now but you did a really good job of it thank you I did on Reload too for Metallica I'd always
go to the slower stuff because it's like this is so out of their element so I'm interested like and on Reload I absolutely loved Low Man's Lyric I would play that all the time because I could vocally do that I'm not you're not gonna see me doing uh Hit the Lights and stuff like that I gotta be able to play slower stuff and I absolutely loved their version of it Low Man's Lyric and then the where I stopped I listened to the newer album I listened to Death Magnetic and
all that stuff I could not get into St. Anger no matter what I can't I can't go back to it and get into it St. Anger is just too much it's just I don't it's like we're trying we're trying to prove a point where Kirk said I don't I don't need to play guitar solos anymore you know my ability and it's like um I'm sure they were they've got to admit now that God that was probably a mistake that wasn't the our greatest effort but but no I've always respected the band and I've always
metallic if we're doing it for 40 plus years is super intense and they're they're just touring they just work non-stop to be touring non-stop like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson just be on the road non-stop it's just you gotta admire that now uh one thing it was so we had I had Dan Harrison on the show a couple weeks ago he's a Nashville-based country music singer-songwriter I really like what he's out there what he's out there doing the door is knocking down my
two-year-old again but I think one thing he talked one thing he alluded to you always hear the road's tough the road is hard that sort of thing how much of it is just being so out of control of the food that you want to eat that you'd rather be eating instead of putting this into your body and like eating those Goodyear tire omelets at the Hampton Inn or whatever were you eating it's the continental breakfast stuff we were no we never stayed at a hotel everything was on the bus and
usually you get a catered up you get a catered dinner at the venue it's not like it's not like steak or anything but it's a nice meal we have lunch meats and deli meats on stuff and sandwiches and stuff on the bus if you want to save money or you can just pull up google and say hey what's within a quarter of mile walking distance from the venue and just like hi there's a there's a burger place or a pizza joint and you get like three or four guys from the band like hey after sound check
do y'all want to go eat lunch here and we do that and like that's just really cool and like we didn't have time to go see the city so it's like whatever is within 10 blocks of the venue let's go like we played in Dallas Fort Worth or we played in Dallas at the House of Blues and it was probably 10 blocks from Dealey Plaza so a bunch of us went there because I'd never been there so we went there and that's cool to see and then we went to San Antonio we were like half a mile from the Alamo
and I was like I've never seen that so let's walk over to the island that kind of stuff and then you just eat on the way so it was never any we just never had the hotel life where like you're thinking about bands the first start they're in a Sprinter van and like hey we have exactly $200 between five of us all day or for the next two days so we got to spend accordingly we're gonna sleep on the band we have sleep in the van or we got to get one hotel room for one person so I've never been through
that struggle fest so I can't imagine and you do have like Metallica yeah Metallica the dollar menu yeah the dollar menu yeah and just like go on to a buffet and just like we're just gonna stay here all day but I never had to go through that thank god not yet so but yeah the tour was great had a lot of quesadillas Albuquerque New Mexico Phoenix Arizona I remember if you had to ask me what I had the most in that tour I would say I probably have 28 days I probably had 20 quesadillas
I'm a creature of habit once you got started on them there hey this is good stuff I'm sticking with it yeah obviously like I'm just a creature of habit where it's like this tastes I got I'm familiar with this I'll just order the next restaurant I'm not gonna be the guy that's ordering sushi nope okay well Sean we have covered a lot of ground here today I mean I usually try to pep read so many funny questions I may only have a couple here you may have to get back to daddy
duty though you can do it again let's confirm a second episode band on my door too okay yeah I'll do another one no problem Sean I have thoroughly should tell you something go ahead I said I have thoroughly enjoyed this I hope you have too I know you're like pacing your front porch and I'm thinking how many people would he do this for so uh well I got three more after you three but no I love you love the damnal so good luck with everything I appreciate you doing this I
think it's awesome that you're sticking with it and still stick with it that's awesome you got you got the guys even got a sign behind him so that's how determined he is so it's about Dan time can I get uh one Daniel and the Sean boys just to run us out here you remember that that little Daniel yeah whenever I see Daniel who's what are you six seven how tall are you I'm six five no I'll trust you whenever I see a six five individual and I see that's Dan and it's a
crowded room I would no matter where the if we could be in a church sanctuary I would always say Daniel and they would always crack a smile and an embarrassing smile on his face all right Sean well uh we'll have to pick we'll have to leave this to be continued I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and folks remember if you got a 17 month old a two and a half month old a 14 year old and you're losing your freaking mind over this madness just remember
it only lasts so long and listen to those old folks listen to those empty nesters who live in those quiet houses and they get to keep the fox news on all day or the MSNBC on all day like that you will get back to that you will have that time again so enjoy it enjoy the madness and relish the disruptions and just lean into it okay Sean you gotta go I gotta go I love Sean Henniger be good man let that driver in my god okay all right buddy all right man that's it for Dan time
you guys have a great week love you too bye bye bye hey if you love that episode tell a friend about it I think every show probably asks you to leave a review leave a rating and I appreciate it if you do but if nothing else just talk to your friends about Dan time it really helps the visibility of the program send someone a text about it you can find Dan time on all the social media pages except maybe tick tock and you can
reach me at dantimepod at gmail.com thanks so much for listening I'll see you next week