Thanks for Asking: Toddeee D. of Brother T. and the Boys

By Sara Busone.

RRX: What was your first show like? Was it your best show? If not, what was your best show like?
TD: Our VERY FIRST SHOW was the China White reunion show at the Fuze Box … 4 years ago this August … Brother T & The Boys had FIVE songs in our repertoire. Lucky was the feller who got us on board. From a lawn party at Kim Roberts’ house to Brother T. asking me at the Black Bear Inn Open Mic if I wanted to start a band, to bringing the Reverend James Krone on as the third angle of the trifecta, we debuted our FIRST and ONLY five songs just two months later, in August 2022. We rocked our five songs, and Brother T. said, “That’s All We Got!” By the following week, Jim Wertman, Underground Music Shutter Legend, had written an article about us!

RRX: What is your perspective on the genre you play, or the genres you hover around?
TD: Although we have punk nuances in our rock & roll library, Brother T & The Boys have coined the phrase “genre fluid.” We have SEVERAL different genres, from the punk feel of “Locomotive” to the Danzig feel of “Ring the Bell,” the Molly Hatchet/Iron Maiden/Judas Priest vibes of “Calm Before The Storm,” and we MUSTN’T forget our CULT CLASSIC, “My Rubber Chicken Talks To Me,” which was the product of a few beers and an accidental Amazon order on Brother T’s phone at 10 pm on a weeknight at the Ancient Order of Hibernian’s Lodge in Watervliet, NY.

RRX: Who do you admire in your community, and why?
TD: I am most impressed by Mike Trash … a longtime friend of Brother T. who goes all the way back to when T. was the crazy little redheaded brat kid that Henry McFarran took under his wing 40+ years ago at Adirondack Strings. Mike Trash gave us a chance when EVERYBODY thought we were one of Brother T’s “silly comedy” projects. Mike has dealt with me messing up his P.A. sound and getting him in trouble with his wife for posting pics of him at Spinners Pub, and he STILL tolerates me! Mike was the FIRST artist on the scene to give us a chance, and we ALWAYS get the crowd going for him and his Erotics to headline the show! Mike Trash and the Erotics are TRUE Believers in Brother T & The Boys, and we will ALWAYS stand by them as brothers in Capital Region rock & roll chaos!

RRX: Cover art is cool. It shows listeners what the artist thinks the album is all about. If you had to give the public a visual image that you
think they would see and just “get” your groove right away, what would it be?
TD: I need to give props to our graphic artist, Raina Schoen-Thomas. She’s an NYC freelance artist who creates 800.00 30-hour artwork for us for pennies on the dollar. She was our FIRST T-shirt artist, using a hand-cut stencil and fabric paint to create our merch. Raina created a photo of the three chicken cluckers, which depicts the three of us exactly. We’re KNOWN as The Chicken Band, and whenever Brother T and The Boys are mentioned at awards shows, Albany Rock Pit gigs, or even on RadioRadioX or WABY, a chicken is ALWAYS mentioned … Our GROOVE is Our Rubber Chicken … Because it talks to us !!!

On a side note, we mustn’t forget Kara Boulden from my home state, Vermont, who designed the latest Brother T. & The Boys logo and assisted us with the copyright process. She ROCKS!!!

RRX: Tell me about your most recent song, album, or video (you pick). Tell me a story about what went into making it. Not a process, but a cool story that took place within the process.
TD: I’ve mentioned this earlier in this interview. Brother T. was out at the Ancient Order of Hibernians Lodge in Watervliet, NY, one evening. He had a few beers and a couple of shots and inadvertently ordered TWO boxes of rubber chickens from Amazon Prime. He made his way home (up the street at the time), went to bed, and when he walked out the front door the next morning, he tripped over the TWO boxes on his doorstep. Unbeknownst to him, he brought the two boxes into the house to open TWO boxes of rubber chickens! He thought, WTF? I’ll ship these back later today, but he felt an unknown pull in his heart, as if the chickens had some connection to Henry McFarran and ALL the OTHER Capital Region music gods who have passed before us, so Brother T. sat at his kitchen table with his acoustic guitar and started writing!

T introduced it to us the following Saturday at practice, and The Reverend James Krone thought it was insane! I thought it was cool, being the hillbilly that I am. James, the composer of the three of us, said it needed a hook in the middle and suggested a polka beat, which became the infamous rubber chicken fight …

Over THREE years later, fans STILL anxiously await the arrival of the rubber chickens at EVERY gig! The rubber chickens even made it to the STAGE at the 2026 Listen Up Awards!

RRX: Do you feel better when you sing about the better times or the bad times? Is there a difference you can describe?
TD: Brother T. & The Boys preach the message of +Positive Rock & Roll+, and those words are how we strive to live in our daily lives. We don’t write depressing, downbeat, dark, growly songs. Instead, we create songs and music that talk about real-world events, such as pollution, whether it be noise, environmental, or social media pollution. We create songs that make fans think, “Are they talking about This or That or Both?” We create songs about weirdos, going fishing, thunderstorms, Bigfoot, and we mustn’t forget our rubber chickens.

So, we could say we sing songs that remind us of the good times and write songs that remind us of the better times. We get knocked down, and we get up again …

No one’s ever gonna keep us down …