WEBVTT - From the Archives: Billy Joel 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.040 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:10.680 Thing from iHeart Radio. Billy Joel's fans have gotten to 0:00:10.720 --> 0:00:13.840 know him quite well over the past four decades. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:15.920 Don't go change it. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:18.959 To dry please me. 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:23.880 You never let me down before. 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.560 From the open hearted declarations of old fashioned love and 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.320 She's Got Away and just the way you are to 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.040 the hard rocking social commentaries we didn't start the fire 0:00:35.360 --> 0:00:57.840 and Alentown we're living here sunny. If like me, you 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:01.040 grew up listening to Billy Joel's music, you can chart 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.680 phases of your life by each of his albums. Maybe 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.160 that's because Billy Joel's songs are so passionately connected to 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:12.120 who he was at the time he wrote them. No, No, 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:16.520 testing one two, testing one two three, And when you're 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:18.920 actually sitting in the same room as him with a 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:23.559 piano nearby, well you can't help yourself. I stilways. Remember 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:25.840 you said that to me years ago, how predictable it 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.000 was wherever you were that there was a piano. Bots like, 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:32.560 Billy could you eh, do you mind right? We just 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:35.040 a couple of songs, Yeah, that's your life. 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.640 Yes, but you know it's fun. You can't have act alongs. 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:40.560 You're an act you can't act along, but you can 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.080 have sing alongs. I can always sit down at a party, 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:44.680 play the piano and everybody starts singing. 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:46.360 I go to a pub in England, Hey, come on, 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.760 vinegarys and having his owns go there. You go, yes, 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:51.800 uptown girl up and they all sin around and sing 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.240 and everybody has a bliss. It's fun. It creates a 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:58.080 community instantly. Billy Joel is the third best selling solo 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:01.559 artist of all time in the United States. He sold 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:05.560 more records than The Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna, but 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.080 he admits there's still room for improvement. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.919 I know what good piano playing is, and I'm not good. 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:13.920 My left hand is lame. I have a two finger 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.840 left hand piano player, as opposed to post to somebody 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:18.840 who knows what they're doing with their left hand. I 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:22.000 never practiced enough to use all my fingers on my 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.120 left hand, so I just play octaves, bass notes. My 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.120 right hand tries to compensate for my left hand being 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:31.320 so GIMPI, so I overplay on my right hand. My 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.800 technique is horrible. I can't read music. I never really 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:37.600 don't read music. I used to, but I don't anymore. 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:40.480 I forgot how So if I took a piece of 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.239 music that you didn't know, if I got a score, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:45.000 I wouldn't. And I put in videos to play this, 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:46.760 I would not. It would be Chinese. It would be 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:48.639 Chinese too. Yeah, I don't know how did that happen. 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.000 It's like a language. If you stop speaking it often enough, 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:53.560 you can't forget. When did you stop? 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.160 In one Dances with Wolves, she forgot how to speak English. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.280 I started taking lessons when I was about four or five, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.880 and I went up till I was about sixteen, so 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.000 it was almost twelve years. 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:06.639 Of classical piano lessons. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.760 I loved it, but I just when you become a teenager, 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.720 everything changes. I didn't want to read other people's dots anymore. 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:16.160 And I also realized early on, I'm not going to 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.080 be a concert pianist. I don't have the rockmanning Off hands, 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.120 the Horowitz hands. I had strong hands, but the short fingers. 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.120 You were Johnny Frimley's hands. Who's Johnny Frimly from on 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:27.800 the waterfront? 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:28.320 Oh? 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:30.399 You were a union boss doing the shape up down 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:32.840 to the dock and hopboken. Yeah, yeah, you're not you're not. 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.520 It was my brother. You stoildn't taken better care of me, Charlie. 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.440 He should have looked out for me, Charli, just a 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.320 little bit, a little bit. So what did I get it? 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:41.640 One way? 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:45.800 Thick of I'm a bum, Charlie. Let's face it, that's 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:46.200 what I am. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:49.520 That's what I am. So you're a kid and you 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:52.920 was there an intimation in your household? There was a 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:55.320 classical music, right, my faical music. Yeah. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.960 He was a classically playing trained pianist. He grew up 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.280 in Nuremberg, Germany, and he also went to school in Switzerland. 0:04:02.360 --> 0:04:04.680 His father was quite well off. They had a mail 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.680 order textile business, Joel Mocht fabric. So he had learned 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:11.560 to play the piano. It was a very musical family. 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.000 He could play chopin, he could play all the great stuff. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.520 He should have become a musician. He became an engineer. 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.400 He worked for ge and then he was in promotion. 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:20.680 But he was never really happy because he didn't become 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.440 a musician. We had an old, upright piano in the house, 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:27.080 a leicster piano, real piece of junk, and I happened 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.000 to inherit that thing and ended up being a planter 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:30.880 in the garden. 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.200 My mom used it to grow a honeysuckle. She sang. 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.800 Her family were all singing Gilbert and Sullivan, English music 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.200 hall people. Her family was English, so I grew up 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:42.800 in a very musical home. I heard music all the time. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.840 My father was playing, my mother would sing. Radio was 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:47.160 always on, listening. 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:52.200 To Milton Cross on the Opera. On Sunday, Leonorda enters 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:53.719 wearing a white gum. 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:56.400 So I used to bang on the piano. 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:58.000 My mom got sick of hearing me bang, and she 0:04:58.080 --> 0:04:59.840 dragged me down the street and I started taking lessons, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:00.840 and I took to it. 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:02.960 You and the lester, and your mother and your father. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.599 Where is this the Bronx. This is in Hicksville. Everybody 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:07.920 was in Hicksville. We were in Hicksville when my family 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.080 moved with me out of the Bronx. When I was 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.080 a baby, I think maybe a year old. Basically grew 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:13.880 up on the island. 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:15.960 I grew up on the island in the Levittown section 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.560 of Hicksville. We had a Levett house, you know, the 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:23.159 cape cod on the quarter acre. Everybody's house looked the same, 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.800 started out looking the same. Now it doesn't look anything 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:27.960 like Levittown, right like my town. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.279 Yeah, sixteen years old, Hicksville, Long Island, Vietnam War going on, Yes, 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.040 very very tumultuous times, and all of a sudden, what 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:36.920 do you decide you want to do well? 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:40.320 I joined a band when I was fourteen. I was 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:42.320 asked to be in a band, the Echoes. This was 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.440 the Echoes garage band. All guitars because there really were 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.480 no keyboards that you could amplify. I played the piano. 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:53.440 I never played the organ. Finally figured out how to 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:57.359 amplify keyboards. I think the Dave Clark five was the 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.080 first band that had an organ. You could hear a 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:01.279 vox organ. 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.839 It was cool, pieces, bits and pieces, and I'm feeling 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:13.200 it's the most unglad sounding song. He was constant you, 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.680 so you amplify the keyboard. We got an organ and 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:16.839 I and I was. 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.119 They decided I had the best voice in the band, 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.600 which isn't really saying much because nobody could sing all 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.600 that well in the band. We couldn't even harmonize. We're 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.720 very bad singers. But they decided you would have got 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:28.479 the best voice. You'll sing the songs. 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:30.280 Okay, how did you feel about that. 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:32.360 I felt a little funny about it because I'm not 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:35.279 a front man where you stay with Michael mc jagger. 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.599 I didn't have the mic jagger moves. I had a keyboard. 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.159 You kind of locked in. You can't move around. You 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.520 can't carry a keyboard around unless you were accordion player. 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:45.600 And that looks like Lawrence welk Avan. Then the two 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:48.360 so I stood at the piano or I sat at 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.160 the piano. But then I realized, you know, that girl 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:53.760 I always had a crush on, is actually looking at me. 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.920 She never looked at me twice all those years in school. 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.840 And we're playing at the Holy Family Church, the church dance. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.480 I was about fifteen sixteen. Virginia is looking at me. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.039 You know, come out Virginia at that Virginia she's looking 0:07:08.320 --> 0:07:10.800 I said, my my god, she's looking at me. And 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.040 the band sounded great. I love what I was doing. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:15.680 The crowd went yay. 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:17.360 When we finished every song, and at the end of 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.280 the night, the priest gave us each fifteen dollars, which 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:22.840 in nineteen sixty five was fifteen hundred dollars. 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:23.640 That was it. 0:07:24.040 --> 0:07:26.840 The door locked behind me. This is what I'm going 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.440 to do. I don't want to go to Corneghill anyway, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:31.680 And I ended up going to Corneghill anyway. What music 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:34.840 were you performing covers of other people? Jukebox bands were 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:38.000 playing early Beatles, Stones, Sam de Sham and. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.080 The Finger in that time when you're seeing Tommy James 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.760 and the Chandell's and all that music. Who were you 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:46.680 saying to yourself, if at all, were you saying, that's 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:48.880 why I want to be That's why I really admire 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:50.320 or look up to, or I think I want to 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:51.040 have his career. 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:53.160 Well, I liked a lot of different kinds of music. 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.920 I already came out of a classical background, and I 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:58.800 really dug jazz when I was in my early teens. 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:03.200 Dave brew Beck, Scarpedison, Art Tatum, Jimmy Smith, Bill Evans. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.800 I loved jazz. But I realized I ain't gonna be 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.160 one of those guys either. Why because I wasn't a 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:12.000 good enough pianist. 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:17.320 I mean, these guys are as virtuostick, virtuistic what virtuostic virtuostick? 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.960 They're good good, They're just really good. I mean the 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:22.520 top of the line, guys at the top of the 0:08:22.520 --> 0:08:26.360 line in classical and jazz. They could have gone either way. 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:28.560 The top of line classical guys, how they decided to 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.280 be jazz guys could have been just as good as 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.360 the top jazz guys, and vice versa. 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:34.760 I wasn't good enough. I was good enough to play 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:36.800 rock and roll and pop. 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:38.880 But when I really fell in love with as a 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.360 teenager with girls and stuff was first. 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:42.480 I like soul music. 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:48.480 James Brown, Wilson, Pickett, Otis Redding, the Temptations, Marvin Gay, 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.800 Marvin Gay, Smokey Robinson, Gladys. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:54.120 I mean, I just loved Did you cover that music 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:55.440 as well? I try to? 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:00.000 You know, well, it was all you know they were. 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.560 They were all white people, yeah, exactly. And there wasn't 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.679 Long Island. There wasn't anybody but white people in my school. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.559 I think there were a couple of Jews, some Latinos. 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:12.720 That was sprinklings. But everybody's white. But everybody likes me 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:14.760 it twist and shout what everybody would do? 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.200 Come on now, shout, come on? Yeah, and Louis Louis. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.520 I think there was the Kingsman. What I say, Ray Charles, 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:23.680 So you the girl all dressed in green and you'd 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.000 make up really dirty words to that. We came up 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:26.880 with some really good stuff. 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.040 So I love that stuff. And then the Beatles came 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:35.120 around and there was boom. Four working class guys from Liverpool, 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.400 which is as close to Levittown in England, I think, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:41.079 and sounding anyway, then you can be okay if four 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.599 guys from Liverpool, yeah, Liverpool. 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.480 And it's possible. It's possible. They don't look like. 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.760 Frankie Avalon, they don't look like Bobby ry Dell. They 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.680 look like four working class guys from anywhere. They could 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:57.720 be from Ckxville, they could be from Livetown. So I said, 0:09:57.720 --> 0:09:59.760 that's that's possible. That's what I want to do. I 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:01.160 want to write my own songs. 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:02.960 I want to play in my own band, do our 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.400 own arrangements and make our own way. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.720 When did that start? This is before the Echoes, before 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.880 before I joined the band. The Beatles came out. 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:13.360 You were a kid. I was a kid. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.760 I was thirteen and you started writing music. Yes, started 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.280 writing Arizot's Beatles songs. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.280 Well, I climbed the highest mountaine trying to sound Liverpolon 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.240 live Apudlian, Pudlian, Yeah, you know, she don't love me 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:31.880 like before my own song she Don't Love Me Anymore, 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:36.559 But I believed all the lad she told me. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.040 Ah ah, you know that kind of thing, trying to 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.600 sound like the early Beatles. And it was fun. 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:45.880 It was a lot of fun. But I was asked 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:47.600 to join a band after the Beatles came out. Now 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:50.800 you got to remember November of sixty three, John F. 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.280 Kennedy is assassinated. The country goes into the dumps. Even 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.560 though we didn't know that much about politics or government, 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.040 he was our guy. He would the young, vigorous progressive. 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.960 He represented youth and vigor and he was booming. He 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.080 was shot taken away, and everybody just turned off, like 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.439 a switch turned off. We became very cynical to press. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.640 The whole nation had the blues. February of sixty four, 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.160 who comes out? The Beatles come to America. We took 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.480 them in. We just embraced oxygen that they walked into 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.560 that space, hopeful, funny, it was they were warm. 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.280 Yes, everything everything that was taken away from us, great, 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:34.360 let's go have a party. Let's party. So you start 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.200 writing songs and you're saying, airsat's Beatles songs. What's the 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:41.160 first song you write that you can remember? Was called 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.840 My Journey's End. I could play it. I fil me too. 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:57.600 Let's it We'll climb the highest mountain, swim with Dick. 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:02.960 If I knew you were there at my journeys and. 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:12.480 Waiting for me, I can tell them the letters. 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.800 That you you said, jes I go anywhere. 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:22.280 If I know you were waiting at my journey, He's in. 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.520 What's the first song you wrote that was on a 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:30.600 record that you sold? Can you remember? 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:30.960 Well? 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.880 It was probably in the Hassles. The Hassles sold records 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.599 a few on Long Island, probably maybe Jersey. 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:41.679 At the Woodrow Wilson rest stop. 0:12:41.840 --> 0:12:44.520 Yes, I think it was the Coffee chot Full of 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:48.440 Nuts in Paramus, because we opened it. We Hassles played 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:50.920 at the opening the first time. 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.360 I we sold anything. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.920 So I was signed originally with the Echoes to Mercury Records, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.520 and we changed the name to The Lost Souls. Were 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.080 the Lost For a while, we made a couple of records. 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.319 Nothing ever happened. Uh what was the other one? Though 0:13:05.840 --> 0:13:06.520 she don't. 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:08.360 Love me A lot of people she don't love me 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:09.000 any more. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.680 I believe all the last she told me. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:18.240 Don't you know it's true that she stole me away from. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:23.439 My true love and Nama lul Love doesn't love me anymore. 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.360 Almost like mister Mike. That's like the Beatles. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:29.600 And then we became the Lost Souls, and it turns 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:32.520 out there was an English band called the Lost Soul, 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.559 so we had to change our name. So the president 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:38.760 of Mercury Records, brilliant guy at the time, So, okay, 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:42.640 we're gonna give you a new name, the Commandos Vietnamers. 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:46.280 Sure at the time, you're gonna be the Commandosh we 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:50.439 hate that name. Nobody likes or yeah, no, we likes 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:51.040 that stuff. 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:52.959 I know you're gonna be the comand it's gonna be 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:55.360 great and we're gonna get your outfits. And so that 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:59.080 lasted about fifteen minutes and we got dumped off the label. 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.480 So it's Echo Lost Souls, Lost Souls and then command 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.280 Mandos for a weekend. For a weekend. It opened up 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:06.640 one quick chuck full of nuts. 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:08.959 And then I there was a band on Long Island 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:11.559 which was making a lot of local noise called the Hassles. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.760 They asked me to join the guys in my band 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.320 and the Echoes, Lost Souls Commandos Room. They were all 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.880 going on to either the military or college. None of 0:14:19.920 --> 0:14:21.960 them were really seriously going to be musicians except the 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.560 bass player. And I said, I'll join all right, I'll 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.160 join the Hassles. They wanted me to play organ I'll 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.040 join the if I can bring my bass player with 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:32.200 me because they didn't have a bass player. They said okay, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.640 So that became the Hassles. And then there was another guy. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.360 He got a lot of Mick Jagger moves, Little John. 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.560 His name was fun, great hair, good looking guy, couldn't 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:43.400 sing to save his. 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.800 Ass, didn't matter, you can wiggle it. 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.680 He was gorgeous and women just went nuts and I'm 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.520 in the back door were death well, but they had eyes, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:54.280 you know, they could they. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:59.280 Could see the music video killed the radio absolutely glad. 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:00.640 I came up in an air where it wasn't that 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.760 prep record. So then I was in the Hassles. Now, 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.320 the Hassles were a band, blue white soul band. There 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.000 were a bunch of them. The Vagrants was another one. 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:09.560 Uh. 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.240 They used to play at the Action House all the 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.440 time on Long Island. We made two albums with the 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:16.400 United Artists and they both bombed out. That that's the 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:20.400 first time we started selling anything. Every step I take. 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:24.760 Was the first song that I wrote that actually sold something. 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:39.520 Was the vamp Everything I Do I don't know. The 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.920 chorus went every step by say, every move I made. 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.560 You know, I'm trying to a knife with that, I 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:53.000 turned eye run, eye hid really no, deep inside, A 0:15:53.160 --> 0:16:09.240 part of me has died. He said, like, I didn't 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.120 know you wrote that. That's great. That's how my father 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:13.640 used to tell it. Sounded like Pompey. Yeah. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.360 So that was probably the first thing that solo was 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.440 on the first Hassle's album. I think we saw a 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.720 dozen copies and I actually heard it on the radio once. 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.560 But our big single was actually a cover of a 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:36.960 Sam and Dave record, You Got Me Humming. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:47.720 I don't know what you got but it's good too, man. 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.320 You got Me Humming, You got Me Huming. It's a 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:51.560 big song by Sam and Dave. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.600 Everybody was covering soul records and doing them psychedelic or 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.520 doing their own arrangements of them. That was the Hassles hit. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.440 First time was horrible, This second hal was really horrible. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:07.400 And then I, me and the drummers split off from 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.760 the Hassles to form a power duo like I. 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.240 Played Simon and Garfuncle. Yes, sure, we were. 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.440 Going to destroy the world with amplification. This was like 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:19.040 the heavy metal thing we heard Zeppelin. 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:32.920 It blew on mind Iron Butterfly, Gotta DaVita. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.080 Don't you know that I love you? Ye went on 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.520 and on and on. We tried to are we listening 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.360 to that? Because that's what there was? A Garden of Eden? 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:44.320 Isn't that what someone said? There was? 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:44.600 That was? 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:46.840 That was like a nonsense lyric. A friend of mine 0:17:46.840 --> 0:17:48.240 knows the guy that wrote that song. I think I 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:50.760 think he was trying to say, in the Garden of Eden, 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.720 you actually know the lyrics to it? Divita. Yeah, that's 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:56.560 all I know in a Gotta DaVita. I don't remember 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:57.879 the rest of it. I remember he explained that he 0:17:57.960 --> 0:17:59.560 was at a party in La years ago that they 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:06.320 were really in the game. He made a gibberish version, 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:10.400 so their bail out lyrics. Okay. So when you get 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.000 to this point where you say, a couple albums the 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.960 hassles and then when is it you Well, it's what happened. 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:21.880 The band's got small and smaller and smaller. The Attila 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:23.119 became a two man band. 0:18:23.880 --> 0:18:25.919 So when you and he went off, we went with 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:27.680 Attila was the two of you. Attila was just the 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.000 two of them. What did he play? He played drums, drums. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:34.360 I played Hammond organ wired directly through ham We're getting closer. 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.359 To Lawrence Welk. Now the more we go, it's getting closer. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:38.399 I almost got that, according but it was louder. It 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:39.320 was much louder. 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.600 And we got signed to Epic, and we were on 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.440 Epic for one album and it was in colossal failure. 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.520 We played one gig I think it was on Ungano's 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:52.120 on the West Side in Manhattan, and people went fleeing 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.480 from the place. We were so loud you could see 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.560 blood coming out of his ears, which is horrible. Thank 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.000 god it didn't happen, because I would have screamed myself 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:01.760 out of the right, out of the business. 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:03.880 So after you nearly kill a room full of people at. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:06.160 On Commomy and then what happens then that we broke 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.679 up and I decided I no longer want to be 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.119 a rock and roll star. I got that out of 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:12.760 my got that out of my system. I was about 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:16.160 nineteen or twenty. I want to write songs now. I'd 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.200 like to explore a little bit of folk new Where 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.600 did you start to write? I started to write the 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.480 songs that are run Now I'm called cold Spring Harbor. 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:24.240 So give me, give me an except one of the 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:33.800 earliest ones you remember writing, baby, all the lights are 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:38.960 turned on you. Now you're in the center of the stage. 0:19:39.480 --> 0:19:43.320 Everything revolves on what you do while you were in 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.439 your prime of comedy. Man, you can always have your 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:53.640 wears somehow, because everybody want you know, it was kind 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.159 of Dylanesque, you know. I wanted to I wanted to 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.360 go play in the village. Actually I didn't even want 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.840 to play anymore, just you, me with you and the piano. 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:03.960 Well, I got a band to play this stuff with me, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.080 but I'm picturing it on guitars general maybe on a 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:10.600 lands ten on you. 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:12.640 You're in a center of the stage. 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:15.680 Everything revelves on what you do. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:18.800 Hy you already primed coming. 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:23.000 Did you send him that song to record? I wanted 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.119 him to. But Bob writes his own stuff. He's not 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.400 gonna do covers. He doesn't buy songs from other people. 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.639 No, he does not, and he does very well with 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:33.359 his own right, of course. But I no longer wanted 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:34.800 to be the guy on stage. I wanted to be 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:36.639 the guy behind the scenes. It's kind of a Jimmy 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.399 Webb kind of thing. This just happened to coincide with 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:46.160 the era of the singer songwriter Harry Chape and Jim Crochey, 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.879 James Taylor was huge at the time, Jackson Brown, Jackson Brown, 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.720 all these singer songwriters. Even Carol King, who was a 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.160 great songwriter, became a singer songwriter. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:57.480