A familiar voice if you’ve ever been to a Canes game.

You hear this gentleman before just about, not every Carolina Hurricanes game, but just about everyone and I'm hoping that we will get a chance to see and hear Adam Lee Decker sing the national anthem at PNC Arena coming up on Friday.

He joins us now on the Adam Gold Show. All right, Adam, are you prepared? Are you ready?

Are you in for Friday? First and foremost, I love your name. Adam's a solid name. I'm so glad you're on the show, man. I changed it actually this week knowing that you were coming on.

Just call you. That's great, man. Okay, going back to your question, am I prepared for Friday? Very much so. I mean, this whole series has been just super heartbreaking for the Kings. You know, they haven't played bad. You know, they just, Nebraska is a brick wall. I mean, have they lost by a goal each game? Yeah, they did. I mean, we've played four, you know, basically four full overtimes, five overtime periods, four full overtimes, could have won each of the games. Were you a hockey fan before you started singing the national anthem? So, great question.

Absolutely. I grew up near central New York, near Syracuse, and we, when I was, I don't know, like, you know, five, six, even before that, my family has had Cornell Big Red hockey season tickets ECAC since I can remember. One of the coolest things that I like with the crossover with the Kings for me, because I just said that they're Cornell Big Red, so when that band is like, they have a huge band. If you've never been to Lionel Rink, I promise you it's a must. It has a lot of Cameron indoor feel to it, and their pep band is, they're a banger. But, you know, like, they scream red when PNC screams red when I'm singing, and it's kind of this dream within a dream type situation of, like, I'm a child at Lionel Rink, but here I am at PNC.

It's really cool. Adam Lee Decker sings the national anthem before just about every hurricane's game, and I know you, do you do? We haven't, I don't, I'm trying to remember if you did any games involving teams from Canada. Do you do O Canada as well? Yeah, April 4th, we played Ottawa and they gave me a, they gave me an opportunity to do that. And actually I have footage from TSN.

They actually showed up that night. And yeah, I do. I'm like Mason Greer shout out to Mason.

He, he, he does a great job in French and I really liked the, the style of that. And I, you know, I'd sing every game if they let me, but I like the community approach they're doing. When I signed up in 2016, sorry, 2017, 18, you remember that season wasn't a great one.

We almost made the playoffs, but that year I was like, yeah, this is the year right before Roddy. I was like, guys, I I'll be here as many, as many times as you want me to be in the regular season and understanding that that's going to change every year. I want to be here for playoff hockey. This is why I'm going to sign this contract. This is why I'm going to be here. So excellent.

Excellent. By the way, the Adam Lee Decker trio, the Adam Lee Decker band ensemble, how often do you play around town? So going before I answer your question, they gave us an opportunity actually about Tuesday night. I forget what game it might have been against Jersey. We were able to actually play the intermissions, which that was a real fun time to be through BNC.

It was great. So yeah, we do a lot of corporate stuff, a lot of private stuff. We're out of state sometimes, but you know, a lot of local, local word of mouth stuff. I run individually.

I don't have an agency. Um, and uh, you know, I, yeah, I just, it's been, you know, community based and all that. And just, you know, really trying to keep saying, you know, there's a couple of, couple of bars that I play and things like that as well. But, um, yeah, like it's, you know, I've been running music professionally since, uh, 2007 and then, uh, here in regional 2012, 13.

So yeah. Adam Lee Decker is joining us here, sings national anthem. By the way, when, uh, when you found out it was Florida in this round of the playoffs, did you search out?

Cause I know Florida is a foreign country too. Did you search out the Florida national anthem? Um, I did not. Um, no, no, no. We, uh, no, probably it's a petty song.

That's fine. I love Tom petty. Um, I'm looking at your website, Adam Lee Decker music. You would, you do a cover of Billy Jean. Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually one of the things that I did on, um, uh, when I was on American idol season 11, 2012, or sorry, season.

I forget if it's season 12, 2011 or season 11, 2012, I think it was season 11, 2012. Um, I did, uh, um, Cover of that, but in the style of a Chris Cornell, I'll let you hear that one. Um, and it was one that I was, uh, guys saying for, uh, to get, to get as far as I was, um, on that. And, um, yeah, it's a, it's a pretty neat, it's a pretty neat, uh, um, cover. He's fan of it.

Um, yeah, the website, the website, I got to do a little bit of work on that website for sure. I'm not judging. I'm not judging.

I'd be the wrong person to judge. Anyway, Adam Lee Decker is joining us here. All right.

Your professional opinion as a singer of, uh, excellent national anthems, who has done the best national anthem for you? Cool. Um, probably Whitney. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. Um, Sheila good. I forget who sang the, like, it was a pretty good one that happened for the super bowl tour who that was and how that was. I mean, like, like, but just the, the, the first one that comes to mind is like Whitney, you know, I remember being younger and I didn't necessarily think I was going to be singing the, singing the anthem.

Um, you know, the way I am now, but I'm super happy to be here. The first one that I did for the canes was in 2012 off the, uh, American idol run. And, uh, that was starting to catch the attention of everybody. So it was exciting. Uh, yeah, Whitney just absolutely belted it out. And that was, that's my favorite, uh, one that was sung. My favorite national anthem of all time was in 1996, I believe Branford Marsalis and Bruce Hornsby at Oriole park at Camden yards for the two games that Cal Ripken jr. Tied and broke the consecutive games played record. They played the national anthem there. Uh, and it was just a very cool thing, much like, uh, like Hendrix playing the national anthem.

Also Marvin Gaye's national anthem is pretty damn good too. Uh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

There's a lot of bangers for sure. I totally agree about Whitney. She, I want yours. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah.

Yeah. Go ahead. Um, I was just going to say, I hope your second favorite anthem is going to be, um, after the canes when Wednesday night and you're going to remember the game five anthem that I sing for the run that nobody's expecting right now.

Absolutely. I was going to, I'm going to make sure that you're ready for Friday because we're going to do this on Friday. We're ready to go for sure. And, um, appreciate all the support. I have a lot of, uh, you know, a lot of fans that I've met out there, you know, like a lot of in-house, like people are going to get through the don't, um, you know, it's just, it's, it's a hell of a community to be a part of. It's just, it's, it's a lot of fun and, uh, I love every minute stuff. All right. Well, uh, we'll see you on Friday night at PNC arena at Adam Lee Decker.