Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Good morning, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac city morning show. I am your host Elliot Pierre, and we're going to start to show off on the same note. We start all of our shows off with a moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time. And the fact that you're spending with us truly does mean the world to me. So thank you on that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 0 00:00:31 Okay. And we're back. As you can tell, I am not at the studio. I am at rib Fest. So big shout out to all the sponsors, all the volunteers and Dennis Niffin for throwing such a banger of an event. Thank you, Dennis. As you guys also know, I don't introduce my guests. I let them do that themselves. So on that note, sir, can you please tell everybody who you are and what you're about?
Speaker 2 00:00:53 Hi, uh, yeah. So my name is Ray Samson, uh, for back now or for McMurry for just about 20 years, 20 years. Okay. Uh, minus one in the middle, I call it the boomerang effect. I kind of went out and then come back. And, uh, so, uh, I've been really here full time the last 17 years. Okay. I love Fort McMurray. Uh, it's got so much, so many good things about it. Uh, the, my kids grew up here. They loved it. Uh, my daughter took advantage of the, uh, the great music programs here. Yeah. Uh, so she's now when you have a taking a flute as her, as her primary, it's very cool. So lots of good stuff here. So I'm here today. Uh we're uh, the name of the band is the remnants. I'm the drummer for that band. So, uh, hold we say it for musicians in a drummer. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:01:51 Yeah. There you go.
Speaker 2 00:01:52 Uh, but uh, no, so that's my, my hobby on the side. What I love to do and working at what I do, uh, allows me to do these things.
Speaker 0 00:02:03 Oh, that's cool. So what do you, what do you
Speaker 2 00:02:05 Do full time? Uh, I'm uh, I'm a power engineer by trade, a stationary engineer. I work at synchro and I'm, what's called a site shift engineer. So I work on shifts six on six off. Yeah. Kind of like, I guess the overseer on shift and a representative of the plant chief for the steam side and all that good stuff. So very cool. Yeah. It's cool job. I love it. I've told my kids, you know, if you, if you're lucky like me, I've been working like for 34, 35 years and I still love what I do. That's awesome. I'm not one of those guys that complains about going into work. I've never done that. So I'm very lucky. Very
Speaker 0 00:02:42 Important. You are fortunate. Not everybody can say
Speaker 2 00:02:44 That. Yeah. But I think what helps though too, is I worked for Syncrude. Yeah. And since I've been there for 17 years, I probably had about nine different jobs since I'm there. Right. So I don't get bored. That's right. I worked there. One of my things, how I ended up here is I used to work somewhere and I'd get bored and move on to something else. But when I got here, I could move on to something else within the company.
Speaker 0 00:03:08 Yeah. Syncrude's a great company. Yeah. My father worked there for like 37 plus years. Loved it there. I did one summer as a summer student,
Speaker 2 00:03:19 But it's not for everybody. It's not for everybody for me. I know it's not for my kids, with my kids. So, uh, I have a stepson who works there though, actually. So he's doing okay. So
Speaker 0 00:03:29 You convinced me, I wasn't taking school very serious. You can call it serious. So my dad, like when you grew up here, you could get like that summer job. If your parents worked out and I'm convinced and he won't own up to it, but I'm convinced he got all of his buddies to give me the worst jobs that summer in the world. Let's test this guy, man. I had to shovel Coke dust. I had to like paint women's labels on the Coker man. Watch at to H two S like a S like the tanks and the farm, like
Speaker 2 00:04:00 Stay in school, same school
Speaker 0 00:04:02 School. So at the end of the summer, that's what they asked. Like, so how was it? I was like, I'm going to study so hard. And so, yeah, that was my experience out there. But yeah, I know Syncrude is a phenomenal
Speaker 2 00:04:15 And the town is, is a, it's an awesome town too. There's so many giving people, like I'm a big believer in United way also. Uh, I try to volunteer with them and the food bank. Yeah. As much as I can while we're in shifts. Uh, so, and, uh, then, uh, maybe I'll get a little clock. I'm not quite sure about the whole thing, but, uh, there's a young fellow. That's had a couple of, uh, Hertz operations. Yeah. So I think where the big truck is over the hill there, I think they're taking donations there to help the family out. I think it's only like a month and a half old is five operations. So everybody is getting behind and help and helping again. And that's a good flood. Yeah. That's I thought I tried to give a good quote. I don't know, names and details. All I know is they, they mentioned that to me before he came in today, her kneeler, the bass player there with the, uh, Joel rebel. He's a great guy. Yeah. There's was lots of great.
Speaker 0 00:05:12 And we'll try to link it in. We'll try to link it into bio. We'll do some work and we'll try to Lincoln.
Speaker 2 00:05:16 That'd be great because I mean, I, you know, that's the one thing I was instilled in me by my mom, uh, was, you know, you gotta help out. If you, if you hear lucky elbows, there you
Speaker 0 00:05:26 Go. And you feel lucky. Yeah. There you go.
Speaker 2 00:05:29 You don't even need to be money. It could have traced time.
Speaker 0 00:05:31 Yeah. Time and effort are sharing the message like we're doing right now. Right? Exactly. Yeah. So
Speaker 2 00:05:35 That's from my side. So I got some more questions
Speaker 0 00:05:38 For you Where we're only like five minutes into the show. Now, as far as drumming is concerned. Yeah. How'd you get into that
Speaker 2 00:05:49 Funny story. Yeah. I'm a lefty. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:05:52 My son's a left-hander.
Speaker 2 00:05:53 Okay. Let's go. That. It's not easy to get left-handed drums on you're in the middle of nowhere. I left-handed guitar story. Right. So when my oldest was maybe around 14, I worked summer jobs saved up enough money to get an instrument. I had some buddies in bands and stuff. So I saw a drum kit, shiny blue, silver sparkle.
Speaker 2 00:06:17 And I loved it ever since. And so since about 14, 15, I've been playing one drum lesson, maybe. Totally. Self-taught. Yeah. Uh, I subscribe it to the wrinkle and star method of play. I'm not, I'm not a big finesse guy. I just like, I feel like I've got a good timing and field right. For me. And then the selling point for me was when I did finally get playing and playing out was to see people nodding their heads or five in their hands or having a dance. That was that's the payoff for me. It's not money it's it seems people having a good time. We're getting there.
Speaker 0 00:06:57 That's right. So now in regards to playing in a band, like how I'm, I'm fascinated. Cause like, people think, because I do this, like I'm a, in the creative world, but I'm really not. So I know nothing about musicians. How do you find bands to like, play with in like jam outlet?
Speaker 2 00:07:13 Awesome. Like, so when my kids came along, I kind of stopped playing drums in a band for about probably 10 years. Once you started getting older, then I had a buddy of mine at work, um, who, uh, he said, Hey, here's the play drums. I've just sold my house, but we're having a house selling party this weekend. Why don't you show up? I showed up. And then we're, you know, what I like about musicians is when you first meet them, it's like, okay, well, what do you know? What do you know? What, what do you know? And then he's like, do you know anything? But they straight. So, and I said, yeah, sure. Something's a swing. Yeah. And we played it. Note for note from the game, we had an awesome bass player there. And then after we were done, he had just moved out of town, but he was, everybody was commuting. He said like, we should start a band. Yeah. So then we did that. And then for me, that was new too. Cause, uh, it was the first band that I actually sang it
Speaker 0 00:08:13 To. Yes. Well,
Speaker 2 00:08:17 I haven't done in this band yet, but I'm trying to build back up to it. But, uh, we were a three piece. So we said like, my voice is going to be taxed on late. So you better make sure that you, uh, you, I want you to coming to the table with five or six songs. Yeah. So I did leave on Helen as my favorite drummer for the band was a singing drummer. Great. So I sang a couple of tunes for him and then we'll butter stuff and things. And that was another part of the brain that I hadn't developed my own.
Speaker 0 00:08:44 That is cool. So now, like you were saying, when you get together, you guys are talking about, what do you know? I know this, I know that
Speaker 2 00:08:51 Your influence, what's your favorite, what's your, and
Speaker 0 00:08:54 So in your, you can remember like a
Speaker 2 00:08:56 Song and be like, oh yeah, I know there's a saying that goes out to some kind of a meme and says, you know, I can remember the song from the first foot feet or first note of any song I hear on the radio, but I can't for the life of me, remember what I came into the kitchen for. Right. I, sir, I honestly, I do like, I, I can hear a chord. Yeah. And I know what that song is. That's amazing, man. I'm familiar with that music. Yeah. Yeah. I'll reveal I'm 57 years old. Okay. But I can still remember loss 15 and I think it's young man. Oh. A hundred percent saying. Uh, and I think it helps keep me on. Yeah. I was really dude. That's
Speaker 0 00:09:37 Awesome, man.
Speaker 2 00:09:38 That's incredible. And, and uh, I was so proud that my daughter decided to take up the music thing and yeah. And so she's doing really well with it that uh he just hit the Dean's list. So daddy's proud Papa. So here we go.
Speaker 0 00:09:53 Good for you for supporting her. A lot of parents when it comes to like the arts or creative things that are especially informing Marie, it's so easy to say, like get a trade, go to site. And that's like
Speaker 2 00:10:04 Phenomenal job. Well, the way I look at it is, so you have so many parents that are going to spend lots of time, lots of money on people that play hockey with the little teeny chance that somebody might hit the NHL. That's right. Why would I not support her? That's her dream. That's awesome. That's it's only your parents, your dad. I mean that's.
Speaker 0 00:10:27 What about your other, uh, two, two boys. Eight, uh,
Speaker 2 00:10:30 Two boys, uh, stepson. Who's older. He is working at site. Okay. Uh, this contractor he's hoping to get on here, so we'll know it's pretty tight. The last year's cross. Yeah. And then, uh, my, uh, youngest, uh, he is still trying to still kind of finding himself as a great kid. I've got no problems. Uh, so, and I'm proud of every one of them. I just kinda like, I like tell Emily's horn a little bit more just because it's been music, just so for other people say, Hey, that's a possibility know.
Speaker 0 00:11:05 So has you always played that instrument or has she played around with some other stuff prior to
Speaker 2 00:11:09 Uh, no. She, while she's playing, she's played piano. Yeah. I tried to get her to play guitar, but she had nothing. But back when a Campbell's was open here, I had heard about this thing maybe through Scott Miller. I'm not sure what they would do is, uh, you could go in and they would pair you with like a salesman musician. Right. And try to pick out any instruments. So it was her birthday and I said, look, we'll take you down to Campbell's. You'll give it a try. Yeah. Do whatever you want. Here we go. What are, would have been drums or whatever. Anyway. So she did I think maybe a Piccolo. No, not a Piccolo. Sorry. A, an oboe. Okay. And then I think she tried piano. Yeah. And then when she picked up the flute, she went, this is it. And she did some new linger, but she's got natural talent. Like I've seen her pick up, like, I hope you were familiar with arenas. Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. So I bought her one. Yeah. For a job. Yeah. She picked it up three minutes later. She was doing the theme and it's not intuitive. It's not like trap in a row. It's all different spots. Right. Amazing. That doesn't actual talent. That's awesome. And so then she picked up the flute and she was playing and the one who was there teaching her or showing her. Yeah. He took me two years to do that.
Speaker 2 00:12:30 So, and that was it since then. Right here we go.
Speaker 0 00:12:33 That's a great story, man. Well, listen, I would love to talk to you more, but I hear them doing a mic check. So we're about to get blown out. So I want to thank you for coming on the show. At the end of every episode, everybody gets a shameless shout out or plug. So the camera's on you, the Mike's on you
Speaker 2 00:12:46 Take it away. Okay. Well, so, um, again, my band or the remnants are playing here tonight. Um, we're a six to seven. Uh, I don't, I don't know when this is going to air, but in any case, if you hear of us in a later time, the remnants will, we, we hopefully you'll come out and support. There we go. Awesome. Thank you. I really appreciate listening to chat with you. Cause
Speaker 0 00:13:09 Thank you so much, man. I appreciate that. I'll have to come on the show again. Come to the studio. I'm dead serious. Take me up on that offer.
Speaker 2 00:13:17 And you're a supporter of valley to
Speaker 0 00:13:19 The support a lot. There we go. Alley and the boys,
Speaker 2 00:13:22 Here we go.
Speaker 0 00:13:22 Awesome, man. This was great, man
Speaker 2 00:13:24 Chat. Thank you
Speaker 0 00:13:26 For McMurry with Buffalo and the rest of the world. Thank you so much for tuning into the show. I truly do appreciate it. I hope you're having a great day and we'll see you tomorrow. Peace
Speaker 3 00:13:37 Dalio Wade. And another morning show later by us.
Speaker 4 00:13:45 You talk about quenching your ugly.
