The Brad Burns Signature Story Style…

I've said it before but I'm saying it again a few years going now, and put this page in September 5, 2022...But this has been my deal for 4 years or 10 years or so.

I say all of this on stage and put it in longer ads and interviews. This is from me Brad Burns about my writing in my songs and show.

The Brad Burns signature song style in writing is like Pub Rock like Flogging Molly, Dubliners and Pogues… The Brad Burns signature song style in SOUND is the Johnny Cash verse and Ramones chorus. The Cash voice and clean guitar and rhythm and Ramones voice and distorted guitar and guitar leads so hot you could cook a steak on em..

My writing has what I call the “cowboy part and sailor part,” starts in America goes overseas and back…Or starts overseas comes to America looks back across the Atlantic like those Pub Rock bands do in their songs

Because I open my show with a cover of The Pogues or Flogging Molly or Dubliners, in my Brad Burns Johnny Cash verse and Ramones chorus style, I call my show sometimes “Brad Burns, Pub Rock” and say its “stories between America and overseas and back..”

And something like this for longer ones “ Brad Burns Pub Rock, stories between America and overseas and back, stories about cowboys gangsters soldiers and sailors, jobs we’ve all had or will.. It’s about American muscle…So let's go on vacation, right here in the American west, where people have wanted to come for over 200 years...(next song or couple songs then I say..) Words in songs like the conflicted soaring melodies of exiled Irish poets or smoky late night Jazz nightclub poets” in my album “Easy Drive To Work War and the Beach”

Or this something like this on a poster...With me looking like a dictator staring into the future..And hopefully smiiling.

"Brad Burns Pub Rock, stories between America and overseas and back, stories about cowboys gangsters soldiers and sailors...Words in songs like the conflicted soaring melodies of exiled Irish poets or smoky late night Jazz nightclub poets” in my album “Easy Drive To Work War and the Beach”

Or this

Brad Burns tough guy rock, classic American cool, stories between America and overseas and back, stories about cowboys gangsters soldiers and sailors, jobs we’ve all had or will.. It’s about American muscle…So let's go on vacation, right here in the American west, where people have wanted to come for over 200 years...Here's my song Maui Stars”

I also like quoting comedies on stage like a vaudeville act, like quoting Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox story with John C Reilly, and other popular tv as well as different jokes before stories almost like stand up but more storytelling.

The Brad Burns signature song style is the cowboy part of the song and sailor part, the Cash part and sailor part like Ramones

Like this "I was working on horses hooves and built a fence and then took a ship overseas and decide to come back or stay and fight for independence"

A common intro on stage in my show I use is this and some of my lines are below that

“An American western outlaw fights for the last of his outnumbered people and island nation across the Atlantic in a joint US and Allied effort and plays some shows to tourists on the way..”

This started as a story called Pacific Expats like in my song "The Pacific" where a singer is sitting on Hawaii looking out into the Pacific through an empty glass…. when… For some reason ( I wasn’t sure why they would but i wrote this before the pandemic), all the bars close down and political turmoil and riots ruin his shows and island vacation so he leaves the American island to face the story head on as a combat journalist

That’s why I open every show with “I’d like you to imagine 50-100 people walking through that door like the tourist bar I’d play 4 nights a week of the resorts on Maui where the bands play in front of the hotels..”

Funny enough I had a show booked to play in Eugene, Oregon the day everything shut down

“ And when I played grandstands opening for big names at 18 and 20 it wasn’t like the bar shows I've played since, in the grandstands you go out like Russell Crowe in Gladiator and raise your hands up to the crowd...Its much further away from the audience.

When I do my soundcheck for years now, whether with my songs, or a rock or country cover, people come up to me and the audience, booking or owners, bartenders and new crew at a bar I count on to play tell me it's great, so I'm doing something right. It can go really right or really wrong with every step of the way, and I wish I played all my original songs earlier, but usually I'd play half and half, 10 originals 10 cover songs, and would play Pub Rock like Flogging Molly, Country, Rock like Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I always say that the best places I've played where like Always Sunny in Philadelphia. And how I bring bartenders up to sing with me like when I played for a year at a famous tourist bar and sang "Lets Duet" from Walk Hard with a bartender friend of mine.

I rely on bartenders, and owners, and all to play shows...When you wanna live in one place, I hit a 2 hour radius, so I can get back to work, or back to feeding horses the next day or walking a dog. Especially if you have to run a work or ranch schedule, they need it and you need it, so you gotta find places within 30 minutes or an hour and half or two at most and hit those spots..

There’s a sign i saw one time in Oregon that said “agriculture is hard, call if you need help..” they’re not kidding its hard to be doing the work of cowboys gangsters soldiers and sailors, and all the jobs around it..I work all day with horses for 8 years, build fence, build structures, haul orchard grass, fight for value of property and family ranch to not be bums against corrupt real estate agents and people that don't value remote towns and lives in them, look out for dogs and land, more than I even did growing up. not to mention if they wanna get rid of horses, then ship travel, now cars…From too much travel with airplanes where no one is considered local just traveling in America and acting like we need a passport to go to another city or state by car or too local fighting for national sovereignty and borders here and overseas , to too little…

When your town doesn't have a real estate office like ours did, that tells you something about how hard it is to move in and out there.

I mock the ideas of who is local native born and tourist in my album title that reads like a mock real estate ad for here or overseas in places we could have jobs where it's an ‘ Easy Drive To Work War and the Beach.”

In Oregon we mail our vote in.. Bartender friend brought dancer up. Well, see the end of my show all the way for the Pole Watcher joke and set up, and my high energy rock in Easy Drive I finish the show with...And start if off with Maui Stars, We All Came Here Green, Back In A Country, The Pacific, A Hard Day in London, Option 3, Pole Watcher, Easy Drive...Depending on how I felt that instant on how to switch my songs up...

Life's crazy, but storytelling is pretty much straightforward with these intros for my songs and show and what I say on stage. And I will be working in the other 30 songs from the last 2 years, 5, 10, 15 years I've worked on...

Here's my intro and lyrics to my song Pole Watcher on the live video. It's not my only one, and not the only point here, but you see it's funny, along with the cowboy to sailor stories...This song is more real than anything except maybe Dewey Cox jokes or Always Sunny into what I run into in playing shows as one guy with one guitar, getting 'em to dance.

It's different sneaking my songs in about 10 or 15 in with covers by Flogging Mollly, Country, Rock like Red Hot Chili Peppers than standing out in the wind..

Brad Burns--

"There's a joke that goes...'You're the kinda guy that thinks bartenders, strippers and waitresses like him huh'..Well sometimes they do. [In Dewey Cox, Walk Hard, the owner says 'Dewey Cox, my customers come here to dance erotically.." That's really the name of the game..Had a guy in a cowboy hat say that..Whether you're in a place like Dewey Cox played or anywhere that's how it is....(alternate joke line)] Here in Oregon and in more remote California Oregon border where I'm from we mail our vote in. I just mail it in don't think much about it..In other states I'd hear more about pole watchers...My bartender friend brought this girl up to the stage and said..'Hey Brad, this girl dances up the street. She came to see your show." She was a dancer, you know, danced at a bar up the street. And a lot of time girls come up front and dance to what I'm doing up here too... So this song is from that story too...So I thought to myself, "Yeah, I'm a Pole Watcher.." I'm doing my civic duty, and you can too..

Pole Watcher

It's often people tell me

To get more involved with the world

Help the rebels

Help the outlaws

Help the oppressed and exiled

While I'm busy doing that

We had an election

How and where I cast my vote

I should pay more attention

Well my bartender friend

Said this girl likes to dance

At a bar up the street

Without her shirt and pants

She came up to me

And asked for a country song

I was laughing to myself

As she began to sing along

I'm a Pole Watcher

From the stage I look down on her

Brought to the flames over the darkness and the water

Came to the city with nothing

And Bada Bing

I came I saw I conquered

I'm a Pole Watcher

It's hard to believe

In my country on my own

Ain't got no friends

From 1910

That got me on the roll

Most girls come in singing loud

By the third song

And even with just one guitar

They sing and swing along

Well maybe it's because

I always stand for what I sing

I believe it's worth fighting for

A couple miles up the street

And maybe that's why I try to keep

America an island of peace

Put a boot in your face

Like a song by Toby Keith

I'm a Pole Watcher

From the stage I look down on her

Drawn to the flames over the darkness and the water

Came to the city with nothing

And Bada Bing

I came I saw I conquered

I'm a Pole Watcher

With more djs and bands in stadiums

Local booking said I never stood a chance

Of being one guy and one guitar

And getting them to dance

But as young as I was

And as young as I still am

I still get one every now and then

Just like I had a band

At a local spot in Oregon

The owner shouted up to me

"See that singer dancing on the bar

Man that's who you should be"

I still think that's lame

I call my songs and show tough guy rock

Stand and strum to all of 'em

All you teasing women

Take a walk

I'm a Pole Watcher

From the stage I look down on her

Drawn to the flames over the darkness and the water

Came to the city with nothing

And Bada Bing

I came I saw I conquered

I'm a Pole Watcher

It's often people tell me

To get more involved with the world...

--Brad Burns