Toronto rocker DANKO JONES recently launched a column at Canada's Huffington Post. Following is an excerpt from his latest article:

"Much has been made of life on the road. Some people like to play up how hard the road can be, like in BON JOVI's 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' video, but it's hard to feel sorry for Jon and the boys when they're staying in five-star hotels and don't even tune their own guitars.

As much as I've seen the road unravel people and reduce them to shells of their former selves, I try not to romanticize the harshness it sometimes brings. Nobody back home will sympathize with your plight mainly because of what they've already seen in Bon Jovi videos. Plus, no matter how shit it can be, it's still the greatest job in the world.

After 17 years of being in a band, being surrounded by people who deem you the soundtrack to their night out every night of your life messes with your reality and screws with your head very fast. It leaves most wanting a breather. That's why a large amount of people in the music biz end up acquiring drug and alcohol habits to cope. The Rock 'n' Roll High School roll call of casualties and dropouts far outnumber its valedictorians.

One of the things that keeps the craziness at bay, at least for me, are the fleeting but memorable moments that happen every once in a while on tour; the kind of moments that stay with you for a lifetime. For some, it's seeing the sights -- the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower etc. For me, it's chance meetings with people that inspired me to do this rock 'n' roll band thingy in the first place. Even if 90 per cent of the time it's with sharpie and albums in hand for a quick autograph and perhaps a hi-five, I love mentally collecting these encounters. And while touring musician casual encounters happily end with an autograph or a smartphone pic, I've recently crossed the threshold into artful dodging fanaticism -- I have a podcast.

I've had a podcast now for two years. When I'm at home my friend Nick Flanagan, stand-up comedian and former singer of BRUTAL KNIGHTS and TEEN CRUD COMBO, joins me as co-host on episodes where we hold open-ended, freeform discussions with different guests. When I'm on the road, I procure podcasts on my own. The goal of the podcast is to kindle a hang out that wouldn't naturally happen in forced circumstances. Mainly, though, the grand scheme is to use it as an excuse to meet people I admire. I've had moderate to great success at this. Episodes with Henry Rollins, Duff McKagan, Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall), Damian Abraham, Gordon Korman, Mikael Akerfeldt, George Pettit, Jason Rouse and Marty Friedman can all attest to it. But the episode with Tad Doyle was something else.

If the name is unfamiliar, Doyle fronted his eponymously-named Seattle heavy rock band from '88 to '99. While the world had a torrid love affair with other Seattle bands like NIRVANA and SOUNDGARDEN, the rest of us were left scratching our head why TAD wasn't vaunted as high, if not higher. Tad remains one of the greatest bands in the history of rock and their album, 8-Way Santa is one of the greatest unsung albums of modern music. Of course, a pair of threatening lawsuits presiding over the album's release (unauthorized use of cover photo/using the word "Pepsi" in a song title referencing drunk driving) may have had something to do with 8-Way Santa stalling and the band never breaking even though they went on to put out three more albums. They were the classic example of a band too brazen and too smart to be wedged into the major label construct."

Click here for more. Check out Danko's podcast featuring Tad Doyle below: