Misery Lane

Up next is our world tour with Slipknot and Metallica. LOL. I wish. Next for us is just continuing to write and play music and hope that people like what we come up with. Hopefully one of our songs will find its way in front of the right person and who knows maybe that dream tour might come true. For now its just staying true to the original idea of the band and that is to have fun, entertain and make music we love.

What else is happening next in your world?

for the next one done and, in the box, so who knows what else the future might hold.

The album was released in March of this year, and we have been doing shows to support it. Currently we are booked through October and are trying to decide if we want to keep playing or pause and work on the next album. I am always writing, and I already have three songs died back in 2018 and Goodnight is about giving up. Plus, I’m happy to say that we don’t use a cookie cutter approach when it comes to music which is a trap, I think too many bands fall into. Every song is unique and different.

Will you be hitting the road this year?

Where Did You Go was written after my fiancé

Our songs come from lived experience. All you have to do is open your eyes to the experience and life is full of inspiration both good and bad. Our music doesn’t have any hidden message, what you hear is what you get. Songs like Liar, Won’t Change My Life, and Wake Up, are about exactly what the title suggests. The selftitled song Misery Lane is about just that. At one point or another we have all taken a walk down Misery Lane and the song explores that.

Where did you guys find the inspiration for the song and lyrics?

How was the recording and writing process?

The poem I wrote my wife, of the same title, was from the perspective of Pennywise trying to tell someone from afar that he was in love and instead of giving roses he gives One…. Red…. Balloon. I turned the poem into a song with the chorus being how he handles rejection with a wicked breakdown in the middle.

Our latest release is actually untitled. The cover artwork pertains to a song on the album “Red Balloon” but because of the artwork this album has been dubbed the “Red Balloon” album much like Metallica’s “Black Album”. The song “Red Balloon” comes from a poem I wrote for my wife. She’s a huge horror nerd and Stephen King fan and loves Pennywise the clown. I thought that since Pennywise can absorb the knowledge and emotions of his victims and has been around for millennia what if he fell in love.

What can you tell us about the title and meaning behind your most recent release?

We have been well. Taking names and kicking … Thanks for asking.

Hi guys, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?

I’m going to introduce myself, so this makes more sense. I’m Ken the vocalist, lead guitarist, and main songwriter. I write all the music for all the instruments initially and send it to the band to see if its something they can work with then the members send back their parts for me to include in the recording. I also wrote all the lyrics on this album. Since studio time can be expensive, we paid for the software to be able to record, mix and master our own stuff so we aren’t pressured to just get something out and we can edit as many times as we want. I also have a small studio in my house to help with recording. Now I am no sound engineer by any means, but I do alright, and it allows us to continually put out music without continually coming out of pocket and feeling rushed. As for the writing, that is what I call “mood of the day”. LOL. Most of the time I have a riff in my head, and I build on it. There have only been two songs that I had the lyrics before I had the music, and they are “Red Balloon” on the current album and “The Other Man” on the first album.

Iconic “Days of Our Lives” Actor Thaao Penghlis Shines a Light on Greek Poet Homer in Upcoming Podcast“Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures”

Thaao Penghlis

it became about, ‘How do we tell this story?’ In those days there were bards and they would be at cafes and they would play an instrument and tell the story of their heroes. It’s comparable to how we go to the movies and see stories about heroes, except at the end you leave feeling empty, there’s nothing to sustain. Those ancient is because it took me to Turkey and I sat at the edges of those nine cities that were built over one another in a place called Hisarlik, which is also called Troy. I sat there and imagined the war which took place there around the 12th or 13th Century between the early Greeks and the people of Troy in western Anatolia. Then

But I think for me the adventure of doing this podcast in our lives and how we take a journey just like Ulysses took his journey and how and what you make of it by the experience and the obstacles that you face along the way. Some people can’t go beyond the obstacles because they’re afraid and they stay in places where they feel safe. and shortly before Jacqueline Kennedy died, she had asked for his poem to be read at her funeral. When you look up the poem Ithaca and you see the translation and you hear the recording by Sean Connery it’s really haunting. It’s about all of us. It’s about how we start off it is an amazing tale full of human experience. It’s really about the longing for Home and Family. Even the poem Ithaca which is really about the journey of the heart, is a poem that was written by a man named Cavafy. He was a Greek from Egypt. He was quite an extraordinary poet son I was and am so interested in Homer’s The -Odys sey and because it’s endured for centuries is because you’re able to hear and see and smell. All of those senses brought you this far, right? And part of the -rea arc of your life has landed. And when you look back

Thaao Penghlis: You get to a certain age and you can look back. It’s like you’ve come to the point where the ny-Come Latelies whom we’re neglecting to mention.

What inspired this particular production? Your love of history is very front and center, I must say.

Vents: Starting from the tip-top Thaao, what can you tell our ever-inquisitive readers about your upcoming four-part podcast Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures?

Thaao Penghlis: Thank you for having me, I’m pleased to talk with you this afternoon.

Vents: We’re excited to be speaking today with Thaao Penghlis, a gentleman that many of you know for his historic four plus decade run on the soap opera Days of Our Lives; welcome to Vents Magazine, Thaao!

In the meantime, why not tide yourself over while you’re waiting by checking out our official Vents Interview with Thaao Penghlis!

Want to know more? Get set for the September 5th -pre miere of Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures which will be made available through all the major podcast platforms - Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and probably a dozen other -John

I quickly learn as we exchange pleasantries that for the man who perfected and all-but patented the angry slap to his rugged mug in many-a episode of Days of Our Lives, the story of Lost Treasures is a personal one: Thaao Penghlis is, at the end of the day, a child of Greek immigrants. For him the poems of Homer are very immediate indeed and not resigned to a stuffy classroom. History is very much a living, breathing thing for this gentleman and - brothers and sistersdoes he ever have a tiger by its tail with his deep-dive into the choppy and murky waters of the dim past.

A four-part tour de force excavation whose center stage is the mind and in turn the imagination, Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures will over the course of four episodes played out between September 5 and its concluding installment on October 17th clue listeners in to this de facto detective story which will - under the reassuring and guiding hand of host and writer -Pengh lis himself - explore the mystery-shrouded Greek poet, Homer, the author of two of the best and most epic poems ever committed to paper, the Iliad and the -Odys sey.

Penghlis is capable of when they tune in on Tuesday, September 5th for the crackling podcast Thaao -Pengh lis’ Lost Treasures.

But the one thing I was definitely not counting on during my hour-long conversation with Penghlis on a crystal clear Saturday afternoon was that he held yet another distinguished and oft-times overlooked -moni ker that’s every bit as important - if not more so - than that of an actor. You see, Thaao Penghlis also ranks as one of the best historians currently kicking in this vast and wild world. Don’t believe me? We think that a whole lot of folks will be in for a reassessment of just what agent said “This should be a podcast” and he then -pro ceeded to take this project on. It’s been over two years

I’m not sure what to expect as I sit down for my -inter view with acclaimed thespian, world traveler, author and celebrated host of some of Hollywood’s best dinner parties Thaao Penghlis. Most folks reading this will see Thaao’s name and automatically connect the dots which lead back to his most well-known role (dual roles actually), that of Count Tony DiMera and his look-alike impersonator Andre DiMera in the venerable soap opera Days of Our Lives. For over four-decades, this Australian virtuoso has dazzled and wowed audiences the world-over and has made the absolutely absurd and surreal seem absolutely believable and if that’s not acting then I’ll eat my old bruised and battered Irish fedora, Dear and Constant Reader.

Thaao Penghlis: As far as the sound effects go, my dio effects for Lost Treasures? time radio shows and the sound effects that they would achieve at all influential on your decision to add the au-

Vents: One of the things which stands out in those first three episodes are the audio effects which are sort of layered into the stories that you relate to listeners. Those effects really put you on the scene and call to mind the old radio shows from the 1930s and 1940s where using our imagination was key to the proceedings. Was the old that has been well-lived, so why not talk about it and share the story?’

So that’s how I developed the podcast: By walking these ancient roads and thinking one day, ‘Well, I have a life an imagination to just dismiss how extraordinary these tales were. and that type of a statement tells me that they really lack within ten years the story usually changes tremendously from the original story. Some people will affect the -at titude of, ‘Oh well, they’re just rocks.’ Well no, they’re not

Who knows? We tell stories about Hollywood gossip and ars just like Schliemann - a European scholar from Germany - went to other countries’ histories to unravel the myths. So they find out that Homer’s tales were not myths, that they were actually real… he showed me new discoveries which reveal to us today that the Ithaca of yesterday is not the real Ithaca. The only reason they call it Ithaca is because between the 4th and 6th Century there was an earthquake that was so enormous that it brought a mountain down and it brought two highlands together to form one. And the island of Ithaca was lost. So now these British -schol and after going through 60,000 pages of Heinrich Schliemann’s - who is the father of archeology - -docu ments and diaries we really hit a stride. My third -pod cast in the series deals with the Trojan treasure and -be fore that the second podcast deals with Schliemann’s excavations and discoveries…I went to Cephalonia to meet with a scholar and explorer by the name of John Crawshaw. I inquired and he kindly invited me to go there. I went for a trek up and down the mountain and

Once I got into the story of Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey and then went into the areas of what he wrote about, then I ended up with the genius of Athens… heroes however have remained for thousands of years because they contributed something.

Thaao Penghlis: Of having been there before, -per haps?

Times Past almost felt like a tangible thing, almost as if you could open your front door, step out and find yourself face-to-face with these long gone times?

Did you ever become so immersed in your studies that where it felt very immediate to you as a researcher?

Vents: While you were on the trail of this elusive -crea ture known as ‘history,’ did you ever reach a moment toms and thought they recognized me from a Wanted List.

People don’t understand their history. It’s like Egypt today. A lot of them are not really Egyptian. The real Egyptians if you look at history were black.

That is by having experienced many things in your life or just simply by being an actor who can act out a danger and be smart enough to know and recognize the enemy before they strike. I don’t get scared easily, but I’ve had, even when they threw my passport at my face in Syria and spat at me at the airport because I was an American. They looked at my passport and they wanted to know what an American would want to do in Syria. I replied to them, “Study your history.” He retorted, “What history?” I told him it was to study the early days of their country which dealt with the -Ro mans and the Greeks and the Christians. That history.

Thaao Penghlis: Yes. And how do you get out of it?

Vents: It all sounds right out of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian. Such intrigue!

The fourth podcast which you’ve not heard really deals with some of the dangers I’ve had to overcome in my life: When they tried to kidnap me at the -pyra mids at night or when Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon pulled me out of my car and threw me against the wall because they thought I was an Israeli spy. Or when I went to Israel and Mossad pulled me aside from -Cus

Thaao Penghlis: Yes. One of the beauties of doing a podcast is the writing. I never have to put on makeup (laughs). But yes, I’ve written a lot of short stories that I would like to record about the Turks and the -occupa tion of Greece and what it did to the Greek character, which I’ve called “The Whispered Past.” sion and your ear had to be the key to your imagination, sound was everything. The music and the sound effects allow the imagination to soar, much the same way as many podcasts are set up today. So we found someone out of New York who added the sound effects and once I heard them (it was a very slow process) I was more than impressed. It’s funny: You do a project like this and many people just assume it shows up fully formed. But all of the time that is spent in the writing, the traveling and the recording of it and basically just putting a -pack age together, it genuinely does take some time if done properly. But this effects man in New York who I’ve never met, in the third podcast when we talked about the great earthquake which took place between the 4th and 6th Century, when he put the sound effects in, I didn’t initially think they were big enough. I said, “You’ve got to imagine an entire mountain coming down and what that sound must have been like, as well as the sounds created by the tsunami which followed.” And I felt strongly too that we should have some music included, too, to give it its own theme. So that’s how it all came about. Yeah, it does make a difference. It makes you feel like you’re in -some thing rather than just listening to a storyteller.

Vents: Lost Treasures is a quarter of episodes. Has there been any discussion about possibly extending that run for a second season? Do you feel that you may have more in you as far as continuing this -adven ture?

Vents: Among your many talents, you’re also an -accom plished writer. Have you given any thought to releasing a companion book to go along with Lost Treasures?

In the days of radio before there was really any -televi now that I’ve been recording these. I mean I wrote them and then I slowly recorded them but I couldn’t write the third one until I actually went to Cephalonia to explore it.

Thaao Penghlis: What I did do, my writing partner -origi nally was the head writer for Days of Our Lives, Sheri Anderson Thomas. She and I went to Troy together on that first trip. I went by myself on the other trips and I went through the documents on my own and brought the information back for the first draft of the podcast also in those subsequent journeys. So all of that homework was done and I thought ‘Well, it should be a script.’ And so we did it and then we both put it aside because we were so busy. She was busy writing the show and I was busy acting in it, of course. Just recently I gave it to an -Aus tralian director/producer and she read the script and she said, ‘You know, I love it. It needs a modern touch to it because of the way people see and hear things now. You know you can’t give a lot of people something too deep. They like simplicity.’ So I put myself in as a character who walks the ancient road and then we suddenly flash into what happened many years ago. But I love the idea, because it is what we’re talking about today. How do you go into an ancient piece of history and walk in it, sit in it and live in it for a bit and imagine the way things may have been? To me the podcast is about something -posi tive. It’s about listening to our ancient past that gave us these amazing treasures and this amazing history and how men with their limited tools were able to -accom plish what they did. And we’re still uncovering those truths. That’s the great thing about archeology…

In 1873 Schliesmann followed his childhood dream and made a fortune in Russia and he became a merchant prince.But his beginnings when he was a pauper -basi cally in Amsterdam and he would try and make money by reciting Homer, because that’s what he studied. People would laugh at him and he wound up collapsing at the feet of the German ambassador’s residence. From there he was saved, but basically after that he thought that one day when he made enough money that he wanted to have a Greek woman - whom he found by the way: Her name was Sophia Engastromenos - as his Helen of Troy. So in his imagination and when he went discovering and what he did as far as following The Iliad as the map to find Troy and what he discovered was nine cities built over each other, but which one was the burn city?So he was wrong in eight years old and that was in 1830. kind of laughed at him because he was a dreamer.He was

Thaao Penghlis: He eventually became the father of archeology because in the 19th Century it was sort of an unspoken past. You had Giuseppe Fiorelli in Italy discovering Pompeii, but Schliemann came from a very poor and very large family in Germany where his father was a pastor. He was given a book and the book was about many things of history. One of the things that caught his attention at eight or nine years of age while reading this book was that he saw the Walls of Troy and then that it caught fire and was destroyed. He said to his father, “Oh father, there must be some treasure underneath all of that!” His father

Vents: One of the key figures in Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures is German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann whom we touched upon a few minutes back. For the uninitiated out there that don’t know much more about this gentleman than the bare -ba sics, can you introduce him properly to our readers?

Have a look at the way other people have lived, -be cause they’re going to tell you something about -your self that you never knew before; that’s what journeys are about.

That’s why I say to people that treasures are not just about gold and jewels and all of that. Treasures are about those amazing cognitions you have when you journey somewhere. You’re allowing yourself to find something about yourself that you didn’t know -be fore. That’s why I say to people, “Don’t waste your life sitting at home on your couch being a couch traveler.

I was very heavy into meditation at that time. And I walked in and looked at the room. It was full of sand. I sat in the sand and I don’t know why, but in the middle of the meditation, both my left and right hand started digging. And what I found was a piece of mummified cloth and with the other hand I had uncovered this magnificent necklace which was gold encrusted. I pulled both out at the same time and I thought to -my self, “Now how did I know that there was something there?” When I came out of the room I began to sob. I went aside and I couldn’t stop crying. I remember the lovely man who guided me then asked, “What’s the matter?” And I replied “I don’t know. I think I’ve been here before.”

When I was the first person to walk in there after four thousand years, right away I turned to my guide and I said, “There’s something in the other room.” There were a number of rooms within the pyramid. “Can I go in there and meditate?Something is calling to me…”

Thaao Penghlis: Yes, certainly in Egypt I have a number of times. One experience was where an elder statesman invited me to be the first person to enter a tomb which had been sealed for thousands of years.

Vents: Yes.

By Ryan Vandergriff

Thaao Penghlis’ Lost Treasures podcast premieres on September 5.

Next thing I know is this man sitting behind the counter gets up and screams and I’m thinking “What’s wrong with him?” He runs to me and hugs me and I’m -won dering if this may be a relative that I don’t remember (laughs). He looks at me and he says “Oh my god, I can’t believe it! You’re Thaao Penghli from Mission: Impossible! (laughs) We absolutely love you and you’re Greek and what can we do to help you today?” -Sudden ly it went from “Can I go here?” “No!” to “What can we do for you?” (laughs) Celebrity did have its advantages on that particular day.

cent with the gold masks and I was thinking how it was all really something.

mann’s Mycenae treasures reside. It’s really magnifi-

I did as far as knowledge, it really started by going to the National Archaeological Museum where -Schlies to the end of the trail which I was able to uncover what ney. And if I placed the people that allowed me to get

Thaao Penghlis: Well yeah. There’s a trail to this -jour cause the Germans had stolen and destroyed so much of Russia’s history. They came in as a Red Brigade and their job was to come in after World War II and just take whatever they could. They stole over five million pieces that the Germans had stolen from Europe. Now it’s sitting in the The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Russia. In its basement are all of these -trea sures. Putin surfaced two million of these pieces and gave them back to the world after they were exposed, but they still have millions of pieces to this day.

Vents: Did one lead usually lead to another during your research for Lost Treasures?

When I went to Germany a couple of years ago, I went to where he contributed the treasure. Only the Treasure of Troy that he gave to Germany was stolen by the Russians and we did not rediscover them until 1994 when the Russians had to surface it. I saw a lot of the replicas which obviously are not the same. They didn’t belong to Germany. He only gave it to Germany because the Greeks wouldn’t allow them to give him a wing so they could have that treasure…It’s sad, you know. The Russians purposely went into Germany -be what he thought at the time, because he thought Troy would be at the base of these ruins. His mistake was that he thought that what he found was what belonged to the people of Troy. He thought it was around the 12th or 13th Century. What it was was around the early Bronze Age which was 2500 B.C. The same thing -hap pened with him in Mycenae when he got permission to dig. When he went to Mycenae and started to dig there, what he uncovered was what he thought was the remains of Agamemnon who started the war with Troy. He misspoke and claimed that this was the treasure which belonged to these warrior kings when it was actually from 1500 B.C. So he made mistakes about what he found, but still he did discover the Bronze Age history of that era and put a map to Troy and put a map to Greece in Mycenae. He contributed a lot, even though he was ridiculed and he made presumptuous announcements. He was quite something.

Page talks with Vents about a life in the entertainment industry well spent.

The talented author behind the new book My Peacock Tale: Secrets Of An NBC