Ron Bennington Interviews East Side Dave

Dave McDonald, known to fans as East Side Dave is debuting a brand new show– The East Side Dave Show– on the subscription based Anthony Cumia Network this week. Davey Mac has revealed the name of the show, the logo, and the date and time of the premiere but little else so legendary radio host Ron Bennington interviewed Dave exclusively for The Interrobang, about Dave’s vision for his new show, why his logo is a cobra, and why former podcast co-host Chris Stanley isn’t joining him on the new platform.

Prior to joining up with the Anthony Cumia Network, Dave did a weekly podcast known as the Davey Mac Sports Program, as well as hosting the Sam and Dave Show, The Watchers, and the East Side Dave and Son Wrestling Show. But before there was any of that, Dave got his start in radio with Ron Bennington as a producer on The Ron and Fez Show. Read the interview below, listen to the audio, and tune in on Tuesday January 12th at 7:00pm et for the world premiere of the East Side Dave Show.

When Ron called Dave, he interrupted him playing WWE with his son, Stanny Mac. Dave explained his kid was playing Stone Cold and The Game vs Tyler Breeze and Titus O’Neil. Dave said he was in trouble trying to help his kid play, cause he had no idea how the game worked.

East Side Dave: You have to memorize like 75 buttons!! The old school wrestling Nintendo games like Mickey Rourke plays in The Wrestler, those were so much easier. I honestly feel like Mickey Rourke in the wrestler. He goes to me for advice, and I’m like ‘I dunno just play a different match.’

Ron Bennington: I think it literally would be better if they just went back to those little rubber dolls that they would smash back and forth…

East Side Dave: Those guys were the absolute best. I had about 16 or 17 of those because you could literally drop them off the ropes and they would bounce around. The new ones with all the moving parts they break in three seconds as soon as your kid starts playing with them and he gives one guy a clothesline the guys head flies off…

Ron Bennington: So this is how you spend your afternoons now Dave?

East Side Dave: (laughing uncomfortably) This is it. My whole life. What a life.

Ron Bennington: So, you’ve got the new show starting on the Anthony Cumia network. Now, the last time I talked to you about it you said it wasn’t going to be a like a regular podcast where the guy just talks to his friends, you said it was going to be very Monty Python based. Do you still feel the same way?

East Side Dave: (more laughter) Well, I uh, lets just say this. Last night we did a test show and the single defining word would be ‘clusterfucky.’

Ron Bennington: Right, I watched it on periscope and it was a clusterfuck but that’s good.

East Side Dave: I have ambition for it to be something totally– well– and now for something completely different. No, look. There’s going to be elements of talk show but I also want to do elements…I want to do a halftime segment maybe, where we say how the show is going and talk for real, and that means we have to give shit to each other. Or say look, what the fuck were you doing at that particular moment, and then pull behind the curtain. We also have different segments that definitely are more sketches I would say than just people talking. And we’re not going to record them. Everyone is horrified cause I want to do it all live. And, I guess the other guys, Rat — that’s one of the engineers for Anthony’s thing, — and Garrett were like well you can always do it in pre-production. Noooo what’s the point!? It’s live, lets just do it live.

Ron Bennington: Hey do you find it kind of ironic that you’re working in the morning at Rat and then when you come to Anthony’s thing at night you’re with a guy name Rat?

East Side Dave: I get confused yes. I do get confused about which one is the radio station and which one is the guy I’m talking to. I wanted just to call him Ben, but then apparently people don’t like the name Ben…

Ron Bennington: Cause Ben was a rat?

East Side Dave: (Dave Laughs) Everyone’s got the same fucking name! There’s like 30 Danny’s 30 Bens, 30 Garretts and everyone’s causing trouble!

Ron Bennington: There’s not that many Garretts. There might be a lot of Dannys and Bens but you’re blowing the Garretts out of proportion. But I love the fact that you’re saying– you look at all the other podcasts, where lets face it they’re interchangeable– and you’re going to be doing something different. Sketch based, strange, weird.

East Side Dave: Yeah, strange and weird is definitely.. Look I have no doubt about it that the first few episodes, I think some people are going to be like seriously, what is this? They might even be put off at first. And it does seem to be that case in almost every single career choice that I’ve ever done. For whatever reason, the first impression is never the strongest. Even at the Rat– the Rat the radio station– I got a Facebook message from a guy who said ‘hey man I just wanted to say I really love what you’re doing on 95.9 the Rat. I’m sorry that six months ago I wrote a letter to your boss at Greater Media– this is like the head honcho– telling him how horrible you are and you should be fired.’ On your show too, on Ron and Fez for six months.

Ron Bennington: Yeah the first email they got about you was from me. And I’m like this guy— but you know what? I’m going to give you a huge amount of credit for, unlike everybody else who podcasts, you’re actually in terrestrial radio. And I’m over at the RAT website right now and I’m looking at the last ten songs that were done… let’s see, Metallica One, Van Halen Dance the Night Away…

East Side Dave: I’m loving it. (sings, Dance the Night Away) ‘Hey caller number nine…you’re going to get yourself a free pair of tickets. You want to see Black Sabbath’s last show at Madison Square Garden? Call us up right now, caller number 9.’

Ron Bennington: …Pearl Jam’s Alive…what is the newest song that you guys play?

East Side Dave: Actually there’s a band I’m really into that I’m sure you’ve heard called Royal Blood. They’re a two piece out of England and they’re very White Stripes-y. They don’t even have a guitarist, the guy plays a real distorted base. We play a song Figure It Out, that’s like their main single right now. That’s brand new and they’re young guys, and apparently both Page and Plant are real huge fans.

Ron Bennington: Well obviously Page and Plant are huge fans they see places they could fit in to this band. What you need is someone who can play with you. Hey, the new show is called what?

East Side Dave: The East Side Dave Show. And the logo- cause everyone calls me the Irish Cobra.

Ron Bennington: Yeah what is the cobra all about?

East Side Dave: (laughs) For no reason whatsoever…

Ron Bennington: Someone told me it’s because the head of your dick is flat…is that true?

East Side Dave: Well it is red. But flat? No. I’ll tell you it does stay pointed that’s for sure. Luis J. Gomez calls himself the Puerto Rican Rattlesnake, so I just wanted to take that pleasure away and it got a little carried away, and it became the official logo somehow.

Ron Bennington: Let me ask you this…are Anthony or Keith very involved in your show? Are they …or are they just saying come in and do your thing.

East Side Dave: I saw Anthony last night. He talked very briefly. I was like ‘yeah, we’re going to have some fun, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that’ and he was like, ‘I really don’t care what you do.’ (laughs) Keith, a little more to a certain extent but I have the feeling really its going to be me, that Ben/Rat, it’s going to be Roy and a special producer by the name of Jared the Fishboy Fishman, is going to be joining us.

Ron Bennington: Now there is a name that’s missing from your lineup and that is an alcoholic/addict that runs by the name of Chris Stanley, also known as Peppy Hamburger. You guys right now seem to be the John and Paul of the podcasting world. A fall out of some type has taken place.

East Side Dave: Yes, I am actually dating an Asian artist, and Pepper now has a mullet and is a vegetarian and that’s going really badly. I did ask, for the record. I do get asked this question quite a bit. I asked Peppy Hamburger multiple times over multiple months because Anthony had approached me in August. Not this past August but August 2014.

Ron Bennington: Wait, that was before he was even fired from Sirius…

East Side Dave: (laughs) I was his guest on the second week of his show and literally outside at the pool he gave me an offer. He said if you’re ever want a show or you want to work on my show, The Anthony Cumia Show, if you want to be on the mic with me, you let me know. And at the same time 95.9 the Rat was offering me a spot and it’s right next to my house, in a great station so I took that. But I’ve known about this opportunity for over a year and a half and in that time I asked Peppy Ham– and Ronnie B, I gotta tell ya, I think you gotta ask him. You called him a — a drunkards drug addict– you can’t get a lot out of him. I tried to put as much booze in him as possible but…he never gave a reason.

Ron Bennington: He plays it close to the vest he really does, I’ll tell ya. Do you know that when I flirted around with Anthony a little bit and we were just seeing if there was a fit, he told me he wouldn’t go there with me either? I still to this day don’t know why, but …he’s a loyal guy but the only person that’s loyal to SiriusXM. No one else I’ve ever met.

East Side Dave: I mean that’s fine and good for him for being loyal but he’s a little bit like Robert Duvall in Godfather 2. What what, everything I turn down I gotta tell you about? I mean, believe it or not I am a little bit like Michael Corleone. How about a six word reason? Let’s play password for you reason. Do you not like Anthony?

Ron Bennington: I think that’s it, I think he hates Anthony’s guts. Or maybe he hates all Italians.

East Side Dave: But then he’s on Legion of Skanks which is on the Anthony Cumia network.

Ron Bennington: Loves those guys!

East Side Dave: It makes no sense, he’s on the Legion of Skanks all the time you might as well be on #ESDS, Ronnie B. Damn that’s got a good sound to it.

Ron Bennington: Do you ever think you’ll have him on the program?

East Side Dave: I absolutely am extending…I’m going to be extending official invitations to everyone, yourself included. You first of all, not just the typical drop by anytime of course, which if you ever want to drop by obviously the door is open but…

Ron Bennington: Am I going to be playing in sketches with you?

East Side Dave: (laughs) If you’d like….

Ron Bennington: None of these sketches are written. I’m going to turn this show on, and its going to be like every other podcast.

East Side Dave: A week or two ago I was cleaning out my garage and I found 2005 notebook when I was first hired by you guys and I had Ron and Fez sketches. My god they are the worst fucking things you have ever seen in your entire life. At one point I had you playing a detective trying to ….Fez was like a serial murder and you were comedically trying to hunt him down and…

Ron Bennington: I will do the sketch with you on your show. Seth Meyers does these sketches that didn’t get on SNL and you can have yours but I’ll say this, I remember when I was in DC and you used to send me airchecks and ideas. And they were the worst things that I had ever read and I don’t know why I hired you. No, you know what, let me change my mind, I do know why I hired you. Cause you were extremely funny off air, I don’t know whether somebody can come up with a personality or a sense of humor but the second that you tried to focus it, it was terrible. But when you were being yourself you were very funny.

East Side Dave: I found these sketches, I wish I could get in to find my stupid folder, I could tell you some of these…I have a whole…fucking sketch about your agent. First of all who am I to be writing a sketch about your agent? And it’s rude and it’s like, what the fuck is my problem. None of it made any sense. But, in fact, I’m going to go so far as to say you’re going to be our first official sit in guest.

Ron Bennington: Yeah I want you to screw around for a while and I’m going to be watching these shows. Because I want to see that the Titanic goes back and forth across the Atlantic before I get on it. But I’ll just say this Dave, I wish you all the luck in the world my friend, I wish you all good things, alright?

East Side Dave: Look, we’re going to have fun. It’s going to be clusterfucky at first but I”m telling you it is going to work and I thank you. And you are obviously guest numero uno.

Ron Bennington: I honestly want you to keep pushing boundaries as far as you can, and then if Ant tries to fire you he really looks like an asshole, that will be the best. I love you kid.

You can hear Dave on the Anthony Cumia Network every Tuesday at 7:00pm starting January 12, 2016. In addition to hearing Dave in his new time slot on the ACN, you can hear him every morning on WRAT 95.9 FM in New Jersey, or on their website wrat.com. Listen to Ron Bennington weekdays on “Bennington” on SiriusXM RawDog99.

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