CEOInterviews.AIWHY CHI PHI? Conversation with Scott Davis & Scott Benton

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Unknown0:00

Today is Monday, September 7th, 2020, and I'm sitting here with Scott Davis, who played the guitar licks in the Waikai 5 video. We are in Lake County, California, up on Cobb Mountain, and it's a little smoky and peaceful and beautiful up here. You might hear some traffic in the background, but we decided this would be a good place for this recording.

So one of the things that I wanted to try and capture, and this was by the way a request of Rich Robinson, he wanted to see if I could get a Scott Davis recording, and maybe Alex Basile and Steve Swanson recording. And I'm going to try and track those guys down as well. But I have with me Scott Davis, who played all of the guitar licks in the Waikai 5 video and laid down those tracks. And he also appears in the video; anytime you see someone on the video playing guitar, that's Scott Davis. And he and I both lived in the Kai Phi house at 720 West 28th Street when we made both the audio version and the video version. And we were basically fraternity, I guess, roommates. We didn't live in the same room. Scott Davis lived with Gary Stone pretty much most of the time he was in the house, and I lived with a couple of other roommates.

So Scott, give me a little bit of your memories about working on the Waikai 5 video. I remember when I started putting it together, you were somebody in the house that had a guitar and would often go into your room and take breaks and plug in. And you had a big amp, and you would just start playing. You had all these pedals and things that you would plug in and use. And I know that when we decided to do the Waikai 5 video, you were the first guy I thought about including in terms of putting in some actual guitar into the recording as opposed to synthesizer guitar sounds. What is it that you remember about me asking you to participate in the Waikai 5 video?

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Scott Davis2:01

Well, when you first told me, I was very enthusiastic about it. There were no negative thoughts about it. I was gung-ho and excited because we were actually going into a real studio in Westwood with real recording equipment.

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Unknown2:19

In Van Nuys at Jack's studio.

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Scott Davis2:23

Right, yep, you know, Jack Lee, exactly. And I had never really been in front of a major soundboard, a recording studio, and I was excited. And I remember plugging in, you know, well, that's just for the audio part. Remember we all go into the studio, getting around a microphone, we all sang the background.

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Unknown2:41

Right, the Waikai Phi, yeah, exactly right, the chorus. And I remember you were directing us. You were telling us, 'Stand over here, you go over here.' You know, saying, 'Now let's do it again, now come on guys.' I remember you saying that.

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Scott Davis2:52

That's funny, I don't remember that, but yeah, okay, it's like, 'Pull it together, you're too loud, Davis, you're making us... step back a little bit.' You know, and but when it came to the recording, I sat next to Jack, I plugged my old Stratocaster in, and I didn't know what I was going to play. I just knew it was just a few chords and a few lead solos, and I just did it at the board.

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Unknown3:19

Well, I remember we had programs, so Scott Seaman and I had programmed all the keyboard patches. We were using a technology called MIDI, Musical Instrument Digital Interface, which basically plugged into my little Macintosh, my 512, and we had a piece of software that we would synchronize all of the keyboards up with and the drum machines and so on. So we brought that into Jack Lee's studio, plugged it all in, basically pressed play, and he recorded all of that. But then you had to come in with your guitar, and Jack would play back what we had recorded from the synthesizers and drum machines, and you would have to... your part wasn't written. We didn't know what you were going to do with the guitar. We didn't know how that was going to fit in until you sat down with Jack Lee and we hit play on the playback, and you just sat there and kind of noodled around with the Stratocaster that you had plugged into the board and on its own separate track. And I remember it kind of took us a little while to figure out what we were going to do. Is that kind of how you remembered it?

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Scott Davis4:23

Yeah, it was. It took a little while. I mean, I was improvising, right? And I was looking for the right tone. I wanted to be an in-your-face, balls-out, you know, distortion tone for this thing, just boom, for the leads, because it fit the song, you know, at that part of the song what I was doing. And it didn't take too long. I finally got it, and it felt great. And then I put down the rhythm, the backing rhythm.

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Unknown4:48

Right, it was just basically we had the rhythm tracks, which is just on like the... it was if it was a 4/4, it was just on the one beat, I think.

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Scott Davis4:55

On the one beat, and it was just three chords, right? And I just did that for each verse. It was pretty basic, pretty easy. But Jack was great to work with. He changed my sounds around. I didn't bring any pedals or anything. I didn't bring an amp. I went right into the board, and he says, 'I've got this,' which I'm emerging saying, 'Don't worry, I've got these built-in overdrive, distortions, delay if you need it.'

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Unknown5:16

Right, he had those like rack-mounted brains or whatever that you were patched in through that he was kind of adjusting. By today's technology, it's ancient, right? If you look at that 1987, '88 technology, it's ancient racks, right? You find them for nothing on eBay, but they sounded great back then.

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Scott Davis5:34

Yeah, well, I mean, I remember even the keyboard, which was like a Roland JX-8P that I had, which at the time was a really cool keyboard. And I forget what it was, like a Yamaha drum machine or something, was this really amazing new piece of technology. And everything that we were using back then, you would almost never see it now. And everything's done in the computer as it is. So, and the sounds of the keyboards are so different from the JX... that Roland got certain sounds which were great.

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Unknown6:00

Yeah, they're fat analog synth sounds.

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Scott Davis6:02

Fat analog, yeah, and it had great patches. You just went here, and this one's a good one. And you know, you had the Juno-106, and then you had yours, which I believe was the next model, right? And it was so exciting to have that sound. And like I said, today you look at these keyboards, and it's like thousands of patches, right? And they have these sounds you cannot believe, you would never believe they existed back in the '80s.

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Unknown6:23

Well, and they're all digital patches, which to me, I don't know about you, but it just feels different. Those analog, mostly, I mean, they're digital too, but they analog more patches have that fat, warm sound to it that you can kind of hear in the Waikai 5 video behind. We put in some, I think, soundtrack strings or something, and then we had your guitar on top of it. Like you said, you put down the rhythm tracks. Now, we did get to the bridge section, and that was for you, as the guitarist, more the challenging section that you were going to play. And we were trying to figure that piece out, what that lead guitar, little bridge area, was going to sound like. And do you remember what your thought process was for finding that?

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Scott Davis7:02

No, I know Eddie Van Halen, of course, but who... oh, well, come on now, come on, yes you are. Yeah, but I was going for that Eddie kind of... none of that quick picking, no, no, no, no, no, you know, just balls out, mommy, just quick, you know. And I got it, you know, it worked, it really worked for the song.

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Unknown7:22

Yeah, tone, and it's actually kind of neat seeing the video and pictures because that's... I don't have a lot of pictures of me and my first guitar, my Stratocaster. I wish I had kept it.

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Scott Davis7:31

That's your first guitar? 15-pound 1979 red sunburst Stratocaster, right? At least on the video, I'll always be able to see that guitar.

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Unknown7:40

What happened to that guitar?

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Scott Davis7:42

I sold it. I modified the hell out of it, stupidly, and kept... I added all these extra things I shouldn't. I thought it was cool, it just devalued the guitar. I didn't know about originality, I just thought make it better sound. And I sold it. But I wish I had kept it, you know, but that's... you know, I've got a few since then.

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Unknown8:01

Right, the Waikai 5 guitar, you put it in a museum somewhere, maybe, or maybe not. Okay, so yeah, you have sort of like, I guess you were saying Eddie Van Halen, and you had kind of a heavy rock sound in the bridge section. And we got that whole track, that whole piece down, which came out well. We did all of that, like you'd mentioned, in Van Nuys at Jack Lee's studio, which was called Jax Tracks at the time. And he had later moved to Santa Barbara and built an even nicer studio there, which I went to a couple times and recorded some stuff on. Do you remember going into Westwood when we decided, maybe about a year later or six months later, I can't remember the time period, but we decided to take the musical track we had done at Jax Tracks and make a video out of it at this little studio in Westwood called Fun Tracks, where you could go make your own music videos. And we brought in our track, I think I might have even brought it in on a DAT format, I think they had a DAT machine if I remember correctly. Could have been a cassette tape, I'm not sure, but do you remember that whole story?

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Scott Davis9:08

I remember you getting all the guys together, right? And it wasn't easy for you rounding some of these guys, tough to get them out of the room, let alone to Westwood. Right now, to like, what are you... oh, come on, Ben, what are you doing? Yeah, you know, and it's like, and remember it wasn't so easy. I remember you're a little frustrated, but finally all the guys, you know, they got together. And I remember there was the group who wore the dresses, Russ Sasse, I remember. The member, they wanted to go, that's like, they went and they said, 'We want to wear dresses in this.' And we... it was like, I think Bosto was in it, and Sasse, and well, do you remember they had all the costumes and stuff?

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Unknown9:44

They had, yeah, we had a tiny little stage we were shooting on that we were all crammed into. But before then, there were all of these like set pieces that you could include or costumes and everything. And then you pick kind of a, I think like a Rush look or something.

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Scott Davis9:56

I saw the black wig from hell. Okay, I loved it. I saw it, it was hanging up in that room. It was long. I go, 'This is perfect for me.' Right, never had long hair, this is my chance. And I'm just going to go bananas. Now, you also had some kind of, I don't know what to call it, it was like a medieval sort of overcoat, like what was that?

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Unknown10:15

I don't know, hang in there. It was a Renaissance thing.

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Scott Davis10:17

Yeah, it was during my Renaissance phase, right? At Kai Phi, it lasted about a couple days, but you caught me at the right time. And I said, 'This jacket works.' I cannot have my Kai Phi letters on while I'm jumping up and down wearing the wig, right? I've got to have the whole Spinal Tap Renaissance, you know, crazy... it just fit the character.

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Unknown10:36

Well, and I remember we did a separate pass on just your guitar stuff during that bridge section, if I remember correctly.

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Scott Davis10:42

Yeah, and there were a couple other little punches that come in that you would hit as well, that we sort of, on the video portion anyway, they punched you in just those little sections that you kind of see you pop up, but mostly it's that bridge area where you're doing the leads.

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Unknown10:58

Yeah, yeah, just the leads. And I remember I took... I went in that room, I think, I guess we were in the main room still, and you clearly went out, right? Yeah, we just said, 'Okay, Davis, just jump up and down, just do, just go nuts.' Yeah, you know, and it didn't take long, right? You know, because I was in Renaissance form.

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Scott Davis11:15

Uh-huh, yeah, right. You were in Renaissance mode. Yeah, long black hair, right? But I really enjoyed it. It didn't take long, but I vividly remember that day with all the guys dancing around and, you know, doing the high five with Richie. I thought that was a big deal because Richie was cool, and we kind of were not. He was... no, we weren't. We were not. It was all Richie. And I go, 'Look, if I can get a high five, he's got to high five me because I put the hand out.' Right, right. And he saw it, he goes...

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Unknown11:42

Right, you're talking about like right at the end, right? Yeah, we did a high five down low. It's like, right, yeah.

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Scott Davis11:46

Yeah, I'm... I'm sorry, that's fine. Say whatever you want. Part of the Richie Cole thing. Maybe I'll get laid this year, which didn't happen. But that's okay, it's okay. And it was so much fun. I remember the guys, Alex and my little bro Steve Swanson, doing their solo work, and they nailed it. They got it pretty, you know, they got it down pretty good.

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Unknown12:07

Well, and we couldn't have done it without, like you said, we had to get everyone in that studio, and we got them all. They all showed up, they all delivered, they complied. And with the directions you gave them, remember you were talking to them, it's like, 'Okay, just dance around, be natural.' Right, right, right. And we were all like 50 pounds lighter back then. I had twiggy legs, I was a chicken heart, I was all a lot smaller in that video. Yeah, it's like, and I borrowed your Kai Phi sweatshirt.

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Scott Davis12:32

Well, that's an interesting story. So let me just tell that story real quick, and then let's get back to you. I had that hoodie that you're wearing, that has... it's a white hoodie, it said, it has the Kai Phi letters across the front of it. And on the back, which you... it's in the video, but you wouldn't really figure it out, it says... so it says something like Chiquette, California, Bent Film Productions. Didn't know that till this very moment. And that was a hoodie that Matt Comedy had given me because his production company name was Chiquette Films, and mine was like California Bent Films or something. So he, as not really a joke, but he went out and had those... let that lettering put on, so it says something like California Chiquette Bent Films or something on the back. And some of those letters had already peeled off because I had washed... I'd wore it all the time and I washed it so much. And when we went to do the video, you wanted some letters, and I gave you that Comedy hoodie that you're wearing.

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Unknown13:31

I wanted to represent, look, it should represent Kai Phi, it's about us, it's about the house, right? Right, show enough people remember. Vance Thompson, uh, Vance was in there.

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Scott Davis13:40

Yeah, Vance is in there. And you had your... I mean, we all, a lot of, most have us at the Kai Phi... that's right. Clement was in there.

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Unknown13:46

Yeah, he had it. We had Jakowski. I don't know what he was doing, but he was... he was dancing some foreign dance.

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Scott Davis13:51

I know, it's so funny. He's doing his own thing, and we're all like, we're going to... we're all a bunch of really, really not so good dancers. No, we're not. There's no group. I think only Russ Sasse had any moves. And then the rest of us just were trying to watch him and going, 'What the hell is he doing?' Well, and the stuff Russ is doing, by the way, he... that wasn't directed. I didn't, you know, I didn't ask him to do any of that. He just brought that to the video. Say what, was a great addition. He just dropped that. None of us were expecting Russ to pull that out. Yeah, yeah, and he pulled it out and he just like pulled that straight out of the video. That was perfect. Completely improvised. Say what, he's perfect, and he's right at the front of the stage. He knew he was going to do, or maybe he just ad-libbed, but he went right to the middle in the front. Yeah, and just did that thing. I didn't know that's where he was going with that. That just came out of the video, but it helped. Every little bit, including all the shots you put in there. Bosto later on on the slide.

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Unknown14:44

Right, right, right, right. Everclear, you shoot in the pool, right? You and your ancient computer, you're right, Apple, typing out Wi-Fi. Probably worth a lot of money now.

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Scott Davis14:52

I sold that thing, but like, you and your Stratocaster.

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Unknown14:55

Yeah, my Strat, who knew? But it's like, wow, what technology. And yeah, but uh, and Sandwich Man, Lurch, yeah, oh yeah, picture outside this room going, 'I love that shot, I love that shot.' That's... and that was actually Greg Sarandi, uh, Greg Sarandi's room as well, that corner, um, that corner room.

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Scott Davis15:14

So yeah, yeah, yeah, they had the water beds too.

U

Unknown15:15

It did, I think it did, it had, yeah, it had the double, and I had the single. Do you also remember they had a fish tank of piranhas?

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Scott Davis15:21

It was a big ass fish tank, yeah, in their last year, like their senior year. Yeah, and it was, yeah, it's like nobody wanted to go in there. It was very strange. They just had these like two or three piranha fish in this big fish... well, that was maybe that was their major, their major piranha-ology.

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Unknown15:37

Cool. So, I guess maybe my last question is, or if you have any other thoughts, you know, just drop them in. But I just... I'd real quick before that, I just had to thank you, Scott. You mean, you put it together with Seaman and the other Scott, and it was all Scots, and it was just a great experience. It was fun, and I vividly remember every part of it, even today. Yeah, you know, you know, it was a long time ago, but you know, the playing of the music, the recording, the studio, you sitting down with at the drum machine next to Jack, punching this stuff in. And I'm sure you were there other days working on it as well when we weren't there. But we're all, you know, we'll have this for the rest of our lives, and it's just a time stamp. We will, you know, we went back, I think once or twice to do the mixing, which everybody wasn't there. It was probably, I think it was just me and Scott that went back to kind of sit down and do the mixing, and Jack Lee did a lot of it kind of himself as well without us there. And yeah, no, I'm glad you were part of it. I'm glad you were there. We couldn't have done it without your guitar, and you added a lot of personality to the video, which was a lot of fun. And the guys remember you when you travel to different chapters, you go, 'Who's that guy?' I remember when you were in Vegas, was there, you went to some area and you go, 'That's Scott, I'm on the phone with him.' Remember? I'm trying to remember that.

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Scott Davis16:49

This was when we were in school, like a year ago, a year and a half, we were doing some traveling around and... oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, who's that? I'm talking to the guy who's playing the guitar. I think it was on a Zoom call actually, or something like that, and I was talking to the Humboldt guys. Yeah, it was the Humboldt guys. I'm like, 'Oh, that's who just called, the guy playing the guitar and the white guy.' They're like, 'Really? You're still friends with him?' I've been friends with them since '86, so yeah, I still am, yeah.

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Unknown17:12

Um, what were you... just curious about what your thoughts were when we finished the video, and you know, the audio recording then the video, and then what you think about it now, you know, several years later. We recorded the audio in 1987, we did the video in 1988. Here we are in 2020, you know, many years later. What were your thoughts then about it, and what are your thoughts now?

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Scott Davis17:36

I'm excited to be a part of it, to be asked, and to get in there. I want to do as much as possible. It was great during... in the studio, it was great. It was an amazing time in Westwood.

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Unknown17:48

Uh-huh, because... and none of us liked Westwood, right? Now we had the rivalry because USC didn't have Fun Tracks.

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Scott Davis17:55

No, maybe the CLA had it. It was, remember, it was on Gayley. I remember getting up there and... and then I think Bosto worked across the street at San Toma Pietro.

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Unknown18:03

Yeah, forever. He would always bring the garlic rolls right back home. Some free people ride his bike all the way across town, it's crazy, to get there from USC to UCLA, and then back with a giant bag of garlic rolls. And he had pizzas, he brought pizzas back for the house. He's like, 'Oh yeah, Bosto's back.' We'd be all chopper, all drinking rum. You know, Bosto's the guy, if you don't know the people in the video, who in the very beginning of the Waikai 5 video has Ted the dog around his neck, and he's in the front of the... on stage facing the camera. He's sliding down, he's sliding down the slide that was in his room in the fraternity house on the first floor. To get to where he actually slept, you would open up the closet and crawl up a ramp, and then in the morning when you woke up, you would slide down.

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Scott Davis18:52

Yeah, that was... that was fun. So back to the question, I just had a great time doing it. And then when you said it had gone semi-viral, I was like, 'Wow, what?' You know, it's up again. It was a long time. I had the audio, didn't have the video for years, but I had a recording of the audio. I think Fortner sent me a car, or someone sent me a copy. And it was just neat to hear it. I mean, there was good quality recording, and I just enjoyed being a part of the whole thing. Now in 2020, seeing how people from other Kai Phi chapters, they know of it, and they're like... they sure do, because we're the only one to really do that. I don't know of any fraternities ever, any fraternity has done that. They haven't. A few have threatened to redo the Waikai 5 video. A lot of them know the lyrics, but many of them had said that they were planning to go into a studio and just redo the whole thing, which I would love to see. Whether it's our chapter or some of the others across the country, it would be really interesting to see what they do. I have seen some videos put together using that music in their background for either the rush videos or, you know, other productions that they've put together.

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Unknown20:02

Today's technology, it could be a cinch. You could do it on an iPhone, you know, it would be done so easily. We went into Jack Lee's Jax Tracks studio, which was a 16-track Fostex recording studio, analog tape, reel-to-reel at the time. You don't need to do any of that stuff. You can just kind of do it in your own, you know, apartment or dorm or dorm room or fraternity house or whatever. You have a couple camcorders or iPhones set up on some stands at different corners and edit it together, and boom.

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Scott Davis20:32

Absolutely, you know, and like, that's my one regret about the Waikai 5 video. We did that music and we did that video just to kind of make fun of ourselves and have something like a fun project that we put together. And that was just kind of meant for us as a memento later on after we graduated and all went our separate ways. It spiraled out of... and it came back, and you know, we didn't... there was no such thing as YouTube at the time. I wish we had video recorded ourselves in the studio at Jax Tracks and then later on at Fun Tracks. I wish we had more footage of us just putting that whole project together. We have a few pictures, but we don't really have any video.

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Unknown21:12

Right, there is nothing, yeah. But at least we have some stills of us at the microphone around, yeah, you know, we got that, which is something. Yeah, somebody had the wherewithal to take a picture, yeah, you know, instead of nothing, right? You know, but I have vivid memories sitting at the board, plugging straight in with the guitar, you know, and Jack was so easy to work with. And yeah, well, and I remember like we cleared out the studio, everybody went out back or sort of into his garden area, and it was just like Jack and you and me and Scott Seaman. I know Scott Seaman was coaching you a lot on that as well, and Jack was, for my guitar.

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Scott Davis21:46

Yeah, for the guitar riffs, to lay all those tracks down. Yeah, Scott was helping me, he's like, 'Do this here, punch in now,' right? And I got the tone, and it just... I didn't know what I was going to do, and I just kind of just did it. And I did it, and not a lot of takes.

U

Unknown21:59

Yeah, no, it's... it didn't take too long at all. But and that's the thing about the studios, you sort of... you don't want to go in fully prepared. It's... I mean, we were as prepared as we could be, but then when it came to you, you know, you want to sort of make those discoveries along the way. And we made some... what is it, serendipity, happy discoveries with your guitar riffs. And the only thing I wish we had done is I wish I had a little bit of a higher mix on my background.

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Scott Davis22:24

More volume, more, yeah, higher on the mix. My guitar, just the rhythm, just those three, just attack.

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Unknown22:28

I have the same feelings about like the keyboard, like the strings are a little low in the background. Let's do a redo. It's like, that's my music, and it's like, well, I want to hear my music more, you know. So I definitely did. And you know, the guitar and the keyboards, they could have definitely been a little harder. We have the technology, I'm sure we could call Jack and actually get the 16-track, you know, original recording back. I would have to find a board and... yeah, you know, long time ago, but yeah.

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Scott Davis22:57

But yeah, it's like, yeah, I got the masters, do your thing.

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Unknown23:03

Right, right, right. Oh yeah, exactly, exactly. But it was an amazing experience overall, and it was such a memento for the house to have, you know, Richie with the long hair and his muscles, and Alex and... what it mean to you, Baboo, right? And Swanson.

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Scott Davis23:17

Yeah, who, you know, it was just... he did a fine job. And the rest, everybody did their part. Everyone delivered on the video, which was... it was a real nice moment in our history, in our chapter's history.

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Unknown23:30

Yeah, and we'll always have it. And I hope other chapters do some things.

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Scott Davis23:33

Me too, yeah. Or maybe we can get together and do a little reunion and... yeah, you know, before we're too old, right? You know, it's just, you know, just something, just like it's an unplugged of the Kai Phi rap. We'll do an acoustic version.

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Unknown23:47

Yeah, well, you know, that would be interesting. Well, and that's another question, I'm glad you reminded me of this. You did, and I wasn't there, but you were one of the only handful of people that did a live lip-sync performance of the video when it was over by the old Lambda Chi house. You... that's right, tell me about, because I wasn't there.

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Scott Davis24:07

So today, I remember, it was exciting. It was Rich, he said, 'Bro, we gotta get together.' You know, he got us together, to make four of us, basically me, Steve... it was like Greek Week. It was Greek Week, and then we're going to Lambda Chi. He's got a tape of the recording. And so Richie came around and got you guys, got us together. And he grabbed the Stratocaster, I grabbed my strap. That's all I needed. And my Ray-Bans. I had to have the Ray-Bans. And I had my, I think I had my Kai Phi sweatshirt on. And I was on my pulpit, Alex was over here, Steve was over there, and Richie had his front and center because he's Richie. And so, but I remember just we lip-synced it, and everybody was digging it. I mean, a lot of house people, because Greek Week party, there are a lot of people there watching. Different houses were there, and a lot of sorority girls were there just hanging out. It was jam-packed. And we have a few photos, but we have those showing the amount of people out there. Remember looking out, and I thought it was the... you know, we just did it one time, and we just nailed it, you know. And I remember I had this overcoat, this greenish overcoat, but I just... we all tried to be too cool for it, and it actually worked.

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Unknown25:22

Was that... do you remember what the context was? Was it a singing competition? Were other fraternity groups or sorority groups doing performances? It was like, why did Richie drive you guys out of the house? I could do... you know, I don't remember, you'd have to ask Richard. Okay, I don't recall if we had... we performed, where is our thing, and other houses had their thing, because I don't think other houses had anything. It was just, let's go, we got a tape, plugged it into the board, played it, and Richard goes, 'Hey, over there, bro.' Yeah, and you didn't rehearse this or anything.

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Scott Davis25:51

It was, you just like, got it, we got it. We didn't know, I mean, you may have known in the afternoon, 'Hey, we're going to go to Lambda Chi, we're going to do a lip-sync.' And you're just, you know, just the main guy, you know us. And I remember a lot of guys from our house were there, and people were screaming and yelling and clapping the whole time. It was pretty exciting, you know, it was loud and yeah, and it was fun. And I... you'd have to ask Richie about, I don't know if it was some kind of a competition. I don't think so. Yeah, I think it was just, let's play it, you know, it's fresh.

U

Unknown26:21

Yeah, I have no idea what the background of that story is. But was that terrifying at all to just with no practice? I mean, we had done all the recordings and we'd heard the song a million times, and it was your guitar work. I think I visited Richie's room beforehand, and I came out and I see another state of mind. I understand, it's like, I'm ready now. I will not incriminate myself, but you guys got up there and you did the performance, and people loved it. And they were screaming, like it was like... yeah, they were yelling and they... I remember when we were done, everybody was a huge roar and cheer. I wish I... you know, we got photographs, I don't know if anyone did a video. I know there's got to be somebody, someone who did a video. If anybody has a video of that, you know, yeah, please post it on YouTube, because it was just... it was just three, four minutes, we did it in one time.

S

Scott Davis27:08

Well, and people were at that time, because that was '88 or maybe '89, people didn't have cell phones back there, were no such thing as cell phones. So someone would have had to have had a video camcorder of some kind that they would have had to record that. But I'm not aware of any video. I just know I was about... I've only seen about five pictures.

U

Unknown27:28

Yeah, those are the ones that I've posted that I have, and I'm sure there are more out there. I'm sure like, if... and Gary Stone, if you took photographs of the live performance of Waikai 5, you know, please send those to us or post them. Because at least we got record of it, right? You know, we have... you have a big shot in the back, and you got a few close-ups.

S

Scott Davis27:48

Yeah, yeah, and it was the grainy film, and but it worked. At least we had something, but we didn't know we were in 1890, it was 1988.

U

Unknown27:57

It was near '88, okay. That was after Greek Week, it was spring. Yeah, and we just... I just want to go to Lambda Chi, it was just exciting that we were going to dial more, you know, more Waikai 5. Okay, this is just... this is going to go viral on this thing called YouTube in 20-something years with the internet. So yeah, cool, that was fun, awesome. Well, any final thoughts before we sort of end this conversation, or any other... just a big thank you to you, Scott Seaman, and Jack, wherever you are, I hope you're still with us. And everybody else who came that day and just, you know, we needed everybody.

S

Scott Davis28:32

Yeah, and we got everything. We couldn't have done it with half the crowd. We needed the guys in the dresses, we needed Bosto, we needed even Jakowski and the strange Seinfeld dance moves that he did, the Elaine, you know, that you watched your cousin, I know you can't stop looking at it. Mike's doing something in the front, he's twisting, he's turning, and I'm just drawing, I'm being all... with my glasses. Right, put my glasses on, you know, we all brought our personalities when we were 20, 21. We had a lot of energy, sure, and it showed, you know. Vance Thompson, he couldn't dance, none of us could really dance. We look at us now, we're going, 'Does anybody look good out there except for Russ?' We were having fun, at least we were having fun. I think that comes out in the video. We did.

U

Unknown29:13

We did. And I have a question for you. So there's a little shot of you during the bridge where you are wearing... you're being interviewed by Dave Clement, I think it's Dave Clement is interviewing you, and you have like a fireman hat.

S

Scott Davis29:29

I think I was next to Vasquezian.

U

Unknown29:30

Is that Vasquez? Yeah, I think Matt was next... I don't know if he's interviewing me.

S

Scott Davis29:32

Okay, I think Matt was in the scene. I don't really... right, you have to go check. And you have like the light is flashing on top of the hat.

U

Unknown29:53

And we're going to get a little clip of you, and I'm like, I had no idea. I don't know if that was Clement, I think Matt was there. Now we can see it, yeah. And but yeah, there was a few clips, yeah, you know, doing that of all of us, which is nice to see us in the house. I think Dave Clement was shaving in that scene, he's the guy shaving, yeah. And Dan Lent was trying to hide from the camera.

S

Scott Davis30:13

Right, yeah, I was like, 'What are you doing here?' Right, Lurch is like outside my room. You know, and but... but you look close and you can pause all those scenes while we're in the house and go, 'Oh my god, there he is, there's somebody in their room.' Yeah, we'll always have that memory of us in our rooms, what they look like. Yeah, we're not even in that house anymore. Lambda Chi actually owns that house, so what was there in the '80s literally no longer... and you showed in the rooms, like your room, you showed your computer, which is great. Right, you have video of a lot of us in our rooms, lots of that stuff. And you know, it wasn't just in the studio in Westwood, it was everything else. And Vasquezian and the rest of the guys in Channel 4 came to the house, right? And he's out there, and this is before Matt was... that was in the basement, actually. We had just had that basement renovated. And the news came over because I forget what game was being played or whatever, but it was Vicky Vargas who interviewed us all, and we were on the news. But they took that shot, I think it was a live shot in the basement while we were watching the game. Yeah, and Matt's making us in front of the camera.

U

Unknown31:21

Yeah, yeah, a couple years, a few years later, Matt's now well known throughout, right? Right, what's his... it's Matt Vasquez, and what does he do?

S

Scott Davis31:27

Matt, well, he was from MLB, Major League Baseball.com. He's in the studios, last I heard, right? He's calling the plays, right? Well, he does many games of all sports, but he does baseball incredibly well. Okay, and but he does commentary in the studios in New York. Okay, for MLB at the time, I'm guessing he's still doing that, I'm not sure. But and now looking back at our hair, I mean, we're so '80s. It was '87, so '88, right? Right, right, right, yeah.

U

Unknown31:56

It's cool, awesome. Well, thanks so much for having this conversation with me and reminiscing on the Waikai 5 video and the fun we had, at least putting it together. And it's strange that it sort of survived on this thing called YouTube that we would have had no idea would exist back then. But at least we get to see it, hate it or like it. I'm so glad we put it together and that we have that memento. And it really did serve its purpose to kind of connect us years and years and years later. Even though you and I kept in touch all these years, there are lots of other people that were captured on that video, and even to this day, it still bonds us together. So it really did do what we intended it to do.

S

Scott Davis32:35

It's my pleasure. And if anyone has photos or videos of anything related, please send them our way. If you have something, yes, please show something we haven't seen that's been sitting out there dormant. And Scott will put them up, I will post it. And if the colors have desaturated, you don't want to scan them, you can get in touch with me and I will scan them and I will restore the color and post them so that everybody can take a look.

U

Unknown33:01

All right, guess that about wraps it up.

S

Scott Davis33:03

That wraps it up. Thanks, Scott.

U

Unknown33:04

Thank you, Scott. All right, all right.

WHY CHI PHI? Conversation with Scott Davis & Scott Benton

About Scott Davis