Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to
Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,
Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show
Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced
Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect all right.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the episode. Ben Mont Tench has been playing keyboard
Speaker 1: with Tom Petty since before The Heartbreakers, when they were
Speaker 1: playing around Gainesville, Florida, in the early seventies as Mudcrutch
Speaker 1: with Tom Petty on bass. By the time the band
Speaker 1: moved to la and changed their name to Tom Petty
Speaker 1: and the Heartbreakers, ben Mont's keyboard plane had become integral
Speaker 1: to the band's sound. His plane is big and resonant,
Speaker 1: just like the lyrics of so many Tom Petty songs.
Speaker 1: Ben Mont blends so well with the band that you
Speaker 1: might actually forget he's even there, like in the song
Speaker 1: You're hearing Now time to move on from Wild Flowers.
Speaker 1: Figuring out exactly the best way to compliment a song
Speaker 1: is what makes Rick Rubin love working with ben Mont
Speaker 1: so much. In addition to being a founding member of
Speaker 1: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, ben Mont has been an
Speaker 1: in demand session player since the eighties, he's played on
Speaker 1: records by You Two, Fiona Apple, Your Rhythmics, and Johnny Cash.
Speaker 1: Rick and Benmont got together over zoom to commemorate the
Speaker 1: release of the Wild Flowers box set, but their conversation
Speaker 1: veered other places too, like the Heartbreaker's time on the
Speaker 1: road with Bob Dylan, ben Mont's early days with the
Speaker 1: Heartbreakers in Florida, and how the album Full Moon Fever
Speaker 1: led Ben Mont tench to rehab. This is broken record
Speaker 1: liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's
Speaker 1: Rick Rubin's conversation with Heartbreakers keyboardist Ben Montage. Do you
Speaker 1: remember a time before rock and roll or was there
Speaker 1: rock and roll? From your first memories of music, I
Speaker 1: think the first song I ever remember hearing was Frosty
Speaker 1: the Snowman or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and those
Speaker 1: would have been pre rock and roll. But I was
Speaker 1: born in fifty three. Elvis showed up on the scene
Speaker 1: big time in fifty six. I remember probably sixty one
Speaker 1: or so, Elvis put out his latest Flame. If you
Speaker 1: don't know that song, that's an incredible song by Doc
Speaker 1: Poems and mort Schumann, and it just knocked me completely down.
Speaker 1: I'd been too little. I had been too little to
Speaker 1: hear much other than Hounddog and Heartbreak Hotel, which was
Speaker 1: so spooky it probably scared me. Elvis Presley singing his
Speaker 1: latest flame after he'd done the army thing and all
Speaker 1: of that stuff. When you supposedly denuded, it was magic
Speaker 1: and I was so moved by it as a eight
Speaker 1: or nine year old kid. And whenever was coming on
Speaker 1: the radio at the time was mostly pop music, but
Speaker 1: I still liked it. I liked the Fleetwoods, I liked
Speaker 1: sad songs. I like all of that. But something about
Speaker 1: the Beatles just blew it all out. And I think
Speaker 1: there were bands in Gainesville before the Beatles hit. But
Speaker 1: as soon as the Beatles hit. I was in Panama.
Speaker 1: My father was working for the State Department. Briefly. The
Speaker 1: Beatles hit when I hit America. When I was in Panama,
Speaker 1: I came back in late sixty four, everybody had a band.
Speaker 1: I had a band. We weren't any good, but my
Speaker 1: mom said, when we moved houses, she said, the little
Speaker 1: kid across the street, the twelve year old boy across
Speaker 1: the streets a pair of drums, and I know you
Speaker 1: like and you loved the piano. Since you're born, why
Speaker 1: don't you go introduce yourself? And I kind of dragged
Speaker 1: myself over to introduce myself to this kid, Sandy. We
Speaker 1: put a band together, and then Sandy, five years later,
Speaker 1: was helping carry gear for this band called Mudcrutch, and
Speaker 1: he told me all about them and dragged me out
Speaker 1: to go see them play. And that's the first I
Speaker 1: saw Tom play and Mike play. I'd seen Tom hanging
Speaker 1: around the music store when I'd go loiter, but I
Speaker 1: never met him. And so in that wild, small world amazing.
Speaker 1: What were your first impressions of Tom when you saw
Speaker 1: him at that first Mudcrutch show? First Mudcrutch showed they
Speaker 1: were so good, but something about Tom and Mike stood out,
Speaker 1: even from Randall marsh on the drums and Tom Leaden
Speaker 1: on the rhythm guitar or on actually second lead guitar,
Speaker 1: and Petty was playing bass when they came out to
Speaker 1: the booth where I was sitting illegally in this nightclub
Speaker 1: because I was probably seventeen, you were supposed to be
Speaker 1: eighteen or something. They came from whatever, they couldn't have
Speaker 1: been a backstage and the astro lounge in Lake City,
Speaker 1: but they came toward the booth where I was sitting
Speaker 1: with my friends Sandy and Tom and Mike. There was
Speaker 1: just something going on. Now. The whole band was great,
Speaker 1: and randall the drummers who I was taken with immediately.
Speaker 1: They were so good that four piecepan. But Tom and
Speaker 1: Might come down, it's like whoa. And they were totally nice.
Speaker 1: But there was something. There was always something warm but
Speaker 1: intimidating about Patty, you know, And so I was just
Speaker 1: a fan. I followed them around. Well, my friend Sandy
Speaker 1: would say, they're playing here, they're playing there, They're playing
Speaker 1: a fraternity party. And it's like, Okay, I guess I'll
Speaker 1: go pretend to be a member of the fraternity. I
Speaker 1: go to just sit on the floor and listen to
Speaker 1: these guys play every chance I got. And then I
Speaker 1: was sitting in with them pretty quickly, you know, And
Speaker 1: then eventually I quit college to join the band. Do
Speaker 1: you remember the very first time you got to play
Speaker 1: with them? I do. There was a nightclub called Dubs
Speaker 1: Dubs something lounge that had topless dancers, but they weren't
Speaker 1: there the night I was there and mud Crutch was
Speaker 1: playing like five sets a night or whatever, and my
Speaker 1: friend Sandy said, Hey, they wanted to know if you
Speaker 1: want to bring down your portable organ and sit in
Speaker 1: with them. And I thought they must really be bored
Speaker 1: down there if they want me. It was like three
Speaker 1: years younger than any of them, and that matters when
Speaker 1: you're seventeen or eighteen, and I thought, well, I want
Speaker 1: to go see them play anyway, and I had the moment.
Speaker 1: The portable organ I had was heavy, heavy, heavy, and
Speaker 1: the amp was heavy, and I drag them out and
Speaker 1: I'm driving my MoMA's station wagon and I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the tailgate and looking at this organ and going, so,
Speaker 1: I really want to pick this thing up and throw
Speaker 1: it in there, just because Mudcrutch is bored. And at
Speaker 1: the last second I went, yeah, I'll bring it, and
Speaker 1: I brought it and I got there and I went
Speaker 1: in and they were just playing songs that I could
Speaker 1: either follow or I knew from whatever records they were.
Speaker 1: They weren't super top. Forty JJ Cale's Crazy Mama was
Speaker 1: a popular song. They played a couple of Van Morrison songs,
Speaker 1: but it didn't feel like some cheesy cover band that
Speaker 1: does steps or learns all this parts precisely. It felt
Speaker 1: like a soulful band playing these cool tunes, and it
Speaker 1: was I fit playing with them immediately, and they were
Speaker 1: pretty clearly enjoyed the way I was playing, and they said,
Speaker 1: you know, we're playing the University of auditorium this weekend.
Speaker 1: You want to come and play a song or two.
Speaker 1: There's a piano there. So I did that, and then
Speaker 1: whenever I was home from college for a year and
Speaker 1: a half or so, i'd sit in with them, you know,
Speaker 1: come home for the summer playing the band. Also, from
Speaker 1: the first time I sat in with them, it was
Speaker 1: just it was just fun. It was just really natural.
Speaker 1: It was really great. Plus, like I said, I was
Speaker 1: a big fan, so it's like, oh, yeah, really these
Speaker 1: guys were my heroes. If they were my heroes, so cool, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so cool. Do you think at that point they imagine
Speaker 1: that this was a serious thing that they'd be doing
Speaker 1: or do you think it was just something they would
Speaker 1: do for Fine, At this point in time, they were
Speaker 1: they were dead serious about it, that's what they were doing.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to be a musician. And I was
Speaker 1: in college as an art student, and because John Lennon
Speaker 1: went to art college and that's where he met Stu
Speaker 1: Sutcliffe and the Beatles were born. So I was literally
Speaker 1: in art college waiting to find a band, and I
Speaker 1: didn't find it in New Orleans, where the college was,
Speaker 1: but I found it back home on break and Tom
Speaker 1: in particular, Mike too had the drive an ambition to go,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there's somewhere beyond Gainesville. Come on, let's
Speaker 1: do this. Bands get record deals and make records with
Speaker 1: real companies, not just pressed on their own label and
Speaker 1: financed by a guy who owns a pepper farm in bushvill, Florida.
Speaker 1: God bless him though. So yeah, it was a It
Speaker 1: was serious business because we were so music was everybody's life.
Speaker 1: All you do is go over to any of your
Speaker 1: friends houses and they put on a record, And I
Speaker 1: go to Tom's apartment. I put on the new todd
Speaker 1: Or Hungering record, which was incredibly psychedelic, a little too
Speaker 1: psychedelic in ways, and he'd put on a Grand Parsons
Speaker 1: and Namy Lou Harris record, greet as Angel and say
Speaker 1: have you heard this? Or they'd say they played the
Speaker 1: City Startus album and go no, no, no, this ain't
Speaker 1: the one. Hunky Dorry that's the Bowie record. And we
Speaker 1: just play things back and forth at each other and
Speaker 1: learn stuff and get excited. So music was always life.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just some passing fancy. How different was the
Speaker 1: world pre Beatles to post Beatles For you guys, I
Speaker 1: don't know about for them because I met them. You know,
Speaker 1: this is like when I sat in with them, was
Speaker 1: probably seven years into the Beatles, because it would have
Speaker 1: been seventy I think. So the Beatles broke up, but
Speaker 1: everything exploded and the songwriting was mysterious and gorgeous. It
Speaker 1: was really deep. People say the world went to technicolor,
Speaker 1: and I remember color. I remember that the world was
Speaker 1: beautiful and magical and strange before the Beatles came. But
Speaker 1: really it went three D or four D or something
Speaker 1: when the Beatles hit. It's amazing. And I was only ten,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're like thirteen or fourteen and then
Speaker 1: junior high school, going too high school, that really must
Speaker 1: have been something. For like Tom and Mike and everybody.
Speaker 1: It was the best thing. It was the best damn thing.
Speaker 1: Nineteen sixty four through nineteen sixty six or sixty eight.
Speaker 1: The quality of music that was showing up was another level.
Speaker 1: Can you remember, can you remember other artists or particular
Speaker 1: tracks or albums where it was just like the world
Speaker 1: stopped for you, like really the ones that changed your life.
Speaker 1: The first time I heard Aretha, whatever it was, whether
Speaker 1: it was Think or Chains or Natural Woman or Never
Speaker 1: Loved a Man, whatever it was that came on the radio,
Speaker 1: it was Aretha. That was a stop time thing. Those
Speaker 1: muscle shoals cats combined with Aretha, Franklin, some Tammy Wynette
Speaker 1: stuff would come on the radio. It was all in
Speaker 1: the same station. Got George Jones, you got Ray Charles,
Speaker 1: you got Frank Sinatra, you got Novelee, bands from England.
Speaker 1: You might have a stone cold country hit, so that
Speaker 1: since everybody wasn't on TV, and I'm a young kid
Speaker 1: that's more curious about the sound than the look. I
Speaker 1: honestly like, I didn't know if whoever the country singer
Speaker 1: I heard, Tammy Wynette or whatever was black. I just
Speaker 1: kind of like, wow, this is a fantastic or honest
Speaker 1: to God, if Aretha was black. Honest to God, I
Speaker 1: just was listening and hearing this and going, this is
Speaker 1: bloody amazing. And since you had one after the other,
Speaker 1: I mean, how can you have Frank Sinatra and Ray
Speaker 1: Charles and the brand new Beatles record, and Wilson Pickett
Speaker 1: and Aretha Franklin and Tammy Wynette and it's all in
Speaker 1: a row. Yeah, greatest music of all time. Well, the
Speaker 1: greatest radio of all time because it was so diverse.
Speaker 1: But also you drive along the FM radio in Gainesville,
Speaker 1: do you know Walk on Gilded Splinters by Doctor John No,
Speaker 1: it's long and it is spooky. And if it's one
Speaker 1: in the morning and you're just burning off steam, driving
Speaker 1: like the roads between towns in northern Florida and a
Speaker 1: song like that comes on, it's going to mess you up.
Speaker 1: It was just this wonderful amount of discovery. And Tom
Speaker 1: and Mike Bludcrutch in general loved country music, and I'd
Speaker 1: pretty much written off anything that was hard country. George
Speaker 1: Jones was country as hell, but he had songs like
Speaker 1: White Lightning and the Races on that you couldn't deny.
Speaker 1: But they knew the stuff that was played in the
Speaker 1: morning before the morning news at six in the morning,
Speaker 1: the guys with the Billman road type hats and the
Speaker 1: upright basis and the fills and everything that I would
Speaker 1: just go I want to watch a cartoon. He go
Speaker 1: past me, and they were diving into that. They're also
Speaker 1: so deeply into the Rolling Stones and Bob and Wilson Pickett,
Speaker 1: which is where we learned so much stuff. Everything was
Speaker 1: blended together. Everything. They were listening to bluegrass, country, rhythm
Speaker 1: and blues tom which c James Brown in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: Just a kid, He's gonna go see James Brown. He said.
Speaker 1: It was astonishing. They were open to everything. And they
Speaker 1: got playing electric piano through a Marshall stat and turning
Speaker 1: it up so much that it distorted like a guitar,
Speaker 1: and we played some school auditorium and cracked the ceiling.
Speaker 1: I was so proud. Will be back in a few
Speaker 1: with more of Rick's conversation with ben Mont. We're back
Speaker 1: with more from Ben montench. You sit in an unusual
Speaker 1: place for a musician because you've you are a founding
Speaker 1: member of one of the biggest and longest running rock
Speaker 1: bands in the world, and at the same time you're
Speaker 1: maybe the most sought after studio keyboard player in the world,
Speaker 1: which is very different. It's an entirely different world, so
Speaker 1: you get to experience two different lives, whereas if you
Speaker 1: only played in your band, your experience of music would
Speaker 1: be one thing, but you get to play with everybody,
Speaker 1: different producers, different musicians constantly, And I just want to
Speaker 1: talk about what that's like. What's it like to experience
Speaker 1: these different things versus just being the guy in the band. Well,
Speaker 1: you know the thing that I wanted to do from
Speaker 1: when I was pretty young and Herd Book or t
Speaker 1: in the MG's, and then when I was fifteen or so,
Speaker 1: got Similtis records and some Wilson Picket records that were
Speaker 1: cut as stacks and realized these guys are playing with everybody.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I want to be in the band,
Speaker 1: but I would love to be in a band like
Speaker 1: Book continuing the MG's that's playing with everybody, or I
Speaker 1: would love to be a session musician. And I never
Speaker 1: thought of there's a certain echelon of session musicians that
Speaker 1: I never thought of as the people who just kind
Speaker 1: of show up as a job and do it. Now,
Speaker 1: none of the session musicians I've met or people who
Speaker 1: just kind of show up as a job and do it.
Speaker 1: There are people that are so good they can turn
Speaker 1: sheet upside down and look at the mirror and read
Speaker 1: it and play it on first sight. So I played
Speaker 1: on a lot of records. I had a good run
Speaker 1: that I'd love to do again of playing with all
Speaker 1: sorts of diverse people, and maybe I can, and you
Speaker 1: learn so much. But also the band was very insular
Speaker 1: and didn't know anything except our world and a couple
Speaker 1: of our friends who were really cool musicians. And through
Speaker 1: Jimmy Iovin, I found myself really in the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: session world because he invited me along to a Dylan session.
Speaker 1: He did, and Bob said to me come back, and
Speaker 1: he had me work on Stevie Nicks's first solo record,
Speaker 1: and I met a whole other group of session musicians,
Speaker 1: and I guess they spread the word, said hey, you
Speaker 1: should check this Canta. But the best thing was always
Speaker 1: learning that, oh man, I'm not good enough to be
Speaker 1: in this room. I better really listen up and step up.
Speaker 1: But imagine yourself. You're in a room with one of
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan's greatest bands, David Mansfield and everybody Keltner and
Speaker 1: Drummond Holy Moley, and across the room is Bob Dylan
Speaker 1: singing a song and I'm just like I'm in the
Speaker 1: deep end. I better learned to swim and I met
Speaker 1: all these wonderful people, James Gadson, who's just the drummer
Speaker 1: for all time, him and Kelton and Ringo and Watts.
Speaker 1: I got to play with all these cats. And it's
Speaker 1: not a feather in the cap thing. It's simply a
Speaker 1: life experience. Like do you want to, you know, stand
Speaker 1: on the highest peak, not in order to tell people
Speaker 1: you did it, but in order to have your breath
Speaker 1: taken away. Yeah, And that's what that's like with the
Speaker 1: Dylan session. Your first non Heartbreaker friends would call me
Speaker 1: up to do something, but for the first few years
Speaker 1: of the bands, Tom would not let us play sessions.
Speaker 1: So maybe the first bunch of sessions I did that
Speaker 1: had any consequence were maybe Dylan and Stevie amazing. Talk
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the difference in playing with
Speaker 1: different people. What's inspiring about playing with someone different than
Speaker 1: who you normally play with. The inspiring part is usually
Speaker 1: if the groove is really cool. The best part is
Speaker 1: if you don't have to think, But it's also really
Speaker 1: good if you go into a room and you're challenged
Speaker 1: to play with somebody and you can't quite and it
Speaker 1: takes you a while to find your way in. Butause
Speaker 1: your job is to find your way in. So you
Speaker 1: might find a band with a bass player that you
Speaker 1: can't really see where he's coming from, but you have
Speaker 1: to be with him because you're part of the rhythm section,
Speaker 1: and you find your way in. You might find a
Speaker 1: drummer who has an entirely different field than you're used to,
Speaker 1: and you have to go, how do I slot with this?
Speaker 1: I learned one really cool thing from Danny Korchmar on
Speaker 1: the first not the first day, but when we were
Speaker 1: working on the Dylan record. He said, listen, if somebody
Speaker 1: tells you to play a part and you think it's
Speaker 1: really stupid, and you're sure, and the producers like, no,
Speaker 1: no plays a sparts what I want, don't play it
Speaker 1: because that's the stupid part on that record. Even if
Speaker 1: it's a hit or whatever, that's the stupid part on
Speaker 1: the record. And you're going to be the guy that
Speaker 1: played the stupid part. Nobody's going to know that the
Speaker 1: producer or held a gun to your head and made
Speaker 1: you play the stupid parts. It's like, if you don't
Speaker 1: think it's good, don't play it. Now. You can lose
Speaker 1: gigs that way. If You're sitting in a room behind
Speaker 1: the Hammond and the Vox Continental and Bob Dylan's Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan is the background singers are all to your right.
Speaker 1: The brilliant background singers are all to your right playing
Speaker 1: percussion and singing. And across the room you see Jim
Speaker 1: Keltner and Tim Drumm is next to him, and they
Speaker 1: are these great guitar players are like Danny Korchmar and
Speaker 1: Steve Ripley and Fred Tackett around the room, and Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan is teaching you a song and the song is
Speaker 1: every grain of sand or whatever it is. And the
Speaker 1: piano player was great too, Carl pickhart Man. It's like
Speaker 1: you're at a concert by your favorite musicians, but instead
Speaker 1: of being in an audience, you're standing in the midst
Speaker 1: of them. Wow. Yeah, and you're and you don't really
Speaker 1: know the song so well. You know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's an amazing moment of discovery being in that room
Speaker 1: and its sounding good, and it just like it's almost
Speaker 1: like it's playing through you. You know, it is playing
Speaker 1: through you. And the thing about the sessions with Keltner
Speaker 1: that time was that it was kind of like a
Speaker 1: sculptor will tell you that you chisel away at the
Speaker 1: marble and the figure will reveal itself. And when it's
Speaker 1: totally revealed itself, that's that's what happens. And I would watch,
Speaker 1: we would play the songs and they would slowly appear,
Speaker 1: they'd become themselves in any session, and that's true with
Speaker 1: Bonnie Rate, it was true with the replacements. It was
Speaker 1: really hard for me to figure out what Paul Westerberg wanted,
Speaker 1: but I think I got it. I liked what he
Speaker 1: played better than what I played. Henley would always challenge
Speaker 1: me to go farther and farther and farther and farther
Speaker 1: and farther farther. No, you can do this, but it's
Speaker 1: not there yet to a perfectionist level. That to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, don, your rough vocal was better than any
Speaker 1: of the ones that are perfect. But that's how I
Speaker 1: am to going to going to the other extreme where
Speaker 1: you can just you just go play and you don't analyze,
Speaker 1: and it's just straight up rock and roll, which is
Speaker 1: what Mudcrutch was and which is what some of the
Speaker 1: Heartbreakers stuff was. We'd fine tune, we'd zone in, but
Speaker 1: it was it was just this feeling of joy and
Speaker 1: depth and sorrow and hi in the physical sense, like
Speaker 1: you're lifted. Yeah, it felt like it pretty naturally happened
Speaker 1: in The Heartbreakers for the most part. And then any
Speaker 1: additional colors or embellishments just for a you know, if
Speaker 1: we wanted something special for a moment, we might have
Speaker 1: to figure out what that was, but that but that
Speaker 1: would only be icing on the cake. Really. Wildflowers was
Speaker 1: the exception, because I remember that Wildflowers, you were being
Speaker 1: very particular about what Steve would do and reordering the
Speaker 1: bridge is too good to be king and things like that.
Speaker 1: For the most part, we would flow into it. But
Speaker 1: Mike was saying, because we've been talking about it lately
Speaker 1: with people that with you, what would happen is we
Speaker 1: were used to playing the song and we would get it.
Speaker 1: It would be really really good. We go, this is it,
Speaker 1: this is the take, and this is kind of what
Speaker 1: happened with Mary James's last dance. But we do something
Speaker 1: and it's like, that's it. We're not going to top that,
Speaker 1: and you would go, yeah, but try it this way,
Speaker 1: and there is enough trust in you to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: what if we do in a very minor way. Change
Speaker 1: the pattern on each instrumental lick during Good to Be King,
Speaker 1: not the piano lick, but the cello lick. What if
Speaker 1: we do that a little bit differently here and leave
Speaker 1: it out there? It's like what But we did it
Speaker 1: and that was really rewarding. After a quick break, we'll
Speaker 1: be back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Ben Montage.
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of Rick's conversation with Ben Montench.
Speaker 1: They jump right into talking about the Heartbreakers tours with
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan. Talk about the shows with Bob. How did
Speaker 1: it happen? How did it come about? Well, apparently Elliott
Speaker 1: Roberts was managing us and he was managing Bob at
Speaker 1: the same time, and he had this brilliant idea, would
Speaker 1: you do a Tom Petty set and then Bob would
Speaker 1: come out? How did it work? We played with for
Speaker 1: two years for several tours, and it was different different times.
Speaker 1: There was one thing where we'd come out and play altogether,
Speaker 1: Bob would leave and we'd play a set of hours,
Speaker 1: three or four songs and then Bob will come back,
Speaker 1: or else we would leave and Bob will come out
Speaker 1: and do this really powerful acoustic set and go back
Speaker 1: and forth like that. We'd all played together. The last
Speaker 1: tour that we did with him, Roger mcgwinn opened solo acoustic,
Speaker 1: then we would come on and play a few songs
Speaker 1: with mcgwinn, and then mcgwinn would leave and we'd do
Speaker 1: a set of hours and then Bob would come home
Speaker 1: with us, and that was a really that was a
Speaker 1: really great tour to me. It started in the rehearsals
Speaker 1: were so disastrous though we'd played together for a couple
Speaker 1: of years that I was kind of like, let me
Speaker 1: out of here. Of course, the fact that I was
Speaker 1: doing massive amounts of cocaine couldn't have had any impact
Speaker 1: on that. I got slapped on that tour. The Bob
Speaker 1: gigs were great because Tom would say that Bob changed
Speaker 1: keys all the time. You do all that. He did
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. It wasn't like every day
Speaker 1: he's like throwing something at you, but he would say
Speaker 1: do you know this? As you're walking on stage, you like,
Speaker 1: we never hearsed it, I don't care. I know it
Speaker 1: and I know it by heart, and you say, okay,
Speaker 1: just hearn me and maybe Mike and he'd do that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Amazing was the first What was the
Speaker 1: first thing the Heartbreakers did post the Bob Tour? What
Speaker 1: was the next project between legs of the Bob Tour
Speaker 1: or after the Bob Tour? We I think during a
Speaker 1: break we recorded a record of just really hardcore rock
Speaker 1: and roll songs, just live on the floor and a
Speaker 1: couple of different studios, really like hard straight ahead rock
Speaker 1: and roll, like two guitars, bass, drums, piano, go. Then
Speaker 1: when it finished, Mike had a bunch of really cool demos,
Speaker 1: not demos, tracks where he played everything, programmed the drum
Speaker 1: machine and everything, and they put those together to an
Speaker 1: album called Let Me Up Have Had Enough, But they
Speaker 1: left half the live straight rock and roll things off
Speaker 1: of it, so it's kind of an unsuccessful record that
Speaker 1: it's a NIX and match and mismatch. And then it
Speaker 1: just got so crazy and frantic that I think after
Speaker 1: that is when like eighty eight or whatever, we took
Speaker 1: a break and Tom ran into Jeff Lynn again and
Speaker 1: there you go, Yeah, what was it? What was it
Speaker 1: like when Tom decided to do the solo record? What
Speaker 1: was the feeling? Well, for me, I was really hurt.
Speaker 1: I didn't know he was doing a solo record. I
Speaker 1: had heard we were going to record on such and
Speaker 1: such a day, and so a few days before that day,
Speaker 1: I called up Bugs, the guy who knows everything, and said, so,
Speaker 1: what time I was supposed to show up at the
Speaker 1: studio Wednesday? And he went on, nobody told you. Nobody
Speaker 1: told me what. Tom's making a solo record with Mike
Speaker 1: and Jeff Lynn. And I'm like what? And I was.
Speaker 1: I was really angry because I was blindsided, and because
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, where your band? What are you talking about?
Speaker 1: Is you're gonna make a record with Jeff. I actually
Speaker 1: said to you, like six months ago, why don't we
Speaker 1: try something with Jeff? Because I loved the Cloud nine record?
Speaker 1: So what do you mean the band is involved? But
Speaker 1: they were having so much fun. Back at it now,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I've been doing sessions all along. Why
Speaker 1: shouldn't Tom have the fun of playing with other people?
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't he do it? Why shouldn't he and Mike
Speaker 1: do it? I do it all the time. But also
Speaker 1: I was really in bad shape, drinking and drugs, and
Speaker 1: a good friend of mine said, yeah, Tom's making a
Speaker 1: solo record. You're not on it, you know, what that means,
Speaker 1: You have plenty of time to go to rehab. So
Speaker 1: I went to rehab. So I got sober because of that.
Speaker 1: And I never expected Heartbreakers the last anyway, So I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, this is the death knell, you know,
Speaker 1: But it wasn't. He never heard all anybody else. We
Speaker 1: played free Falling more than anybody in the world ever play,
Speaker 1: you know, and God bless me had me come in
Speaker 1: and play a little piano on one song on that record.
Speaker 1: One last thing to just to ask you about you
Speaker 1: come into a session, what are you focusing on when
Speaker 1: you're playing? I think the melody and and the groove.
Speaker 1: I don't go straight to the words. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: hear the space around the voice, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find how I can support the groove, and if that
Speaker 1: means by playing around it, I do that. But I
Speaker 1: look for the groove and what compliments the melody. Would
Speaker 1: you say that you're looking for parts or you just
Speaker 1: accompanying what's happening. Often they're the same thing, Like from
Speaker 1: the first time we played Refugee till we finally got it,
Speaker 1: from the first time we played here it comes with
Speaker 1: my Girl at the waiting. I had the part that
Speaker 1: snipped suited the song for the groove and the vocal immediately,
Speaker 1: and that was the right thing to continue to play.
Speaker 1: And it's kind of still is today. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like crawling back to you where it's just totally blind
Speaker 1: listening to this palm and listening to Steve float and
Speaker 1: try to float along, or sometimes some songs when I'm
Speaker 1: playing organ, I'm trying to pull something out of the sky.
Speaker 1: I know there's a shimmer that can go around the
Speaker 1: song that I can accomplish with the Hammond, but I
Speaker 1: kind of have to hold onto the drawbars and slowly
Speaker 1: pull them in and out and kind of hold on
Speaker 1: for dear life and almost pray for that right shimmer
Speaker 1: to come through me. Yet so much of it is
Speaker 1: out of our control. It's another thing that I think
Speaker 1: most people listening don't might not understand that it really
Speaker 1: is a magic process that happens. It's a magic process.
Speaker 1: The thing about the thing about it is you need
Speaker 1: to practice, or if you don't practice, you need to
Speaker 1: know that you can play and get across what is
Speaker 1: in your head and heart. And that's what the technique
Speaker 1: is for the technique is so that you can express
Speaker 1: the magic when it comes through, at least for me.
Speaker 1: Is it all again? I'm asking this as a non musician.
Speaker 1: Do you do you imagine what you want to play
Speaker 1: and play it or does it happen more automatically. It
Speaker 1: happens automatically, so there's no thought. There's no thought of
Speaker 1: what chord. You never think about what chord you need
Speaker 1: to play at any point in time. Your hands just
Speaker 1: go to the positions they want to go to. I
Speaker 1: think it's chicken and egg. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: which comes first. I know that if I'm playing a solo,
Speaker 1: if I sing along with it, it's going to be
Speaker 1: infinitely better. But it's kind of a form of prayer,
Speaker 1: it's kind of form of breathing, and sometimes it's just
Speaker 1: down to man. This reminds me of that Jerry Lee
Speaker 1: Lewis song I'm going to play with Jerry played. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's instinctive, but it doesn't mean it's not
Speaker 1: learned over the course of I've been playing since I
Speaker 1: was probably eight and I'm sixty seven, so the course
Speaker 1: of whatever that is fifty nine years or whatever. Every
Speaker 1: time I listen to a record, every time I play
Speaker 1: the piano. Every time I do anything, it's going to
Speaker 1: go into it. You know, it's not they it's a
Speaker 1: write off for research, that's write off records and films
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And it's actually not bullshit because
Speaker 1: it is going to seriously impact the way that you
Speaker 1: make the music, that you make films. You see, not
Speaker 1: just for the score, but for the visual texture that
Speaker 1: will come through the music records because the space you'll hear,
Speaker 1: the group you'll hear, the sound you will hear, or
Speaker 1: just the fact that you may not notice any of that,
Speaker 1: but but it will have an effect on you, just
Speaker 1: as how your day is going. Just as when you're
Speaker 1: worried about the people up in the hills where the
Speaker 1: fires are, you know that all goes in there. And
Speaker 1: if you're a really gifted, blessed, brilliant person, then what's
Speaker 1: going to come out is what comes out of a
Speaker 1: little Richard or Bob or Aresa you know, or Tom
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash. The experience that I have with you with
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash, it can't be conveyed. And you want proof
Speaker 1: that it's a prayer. The way the way you make
Speaker 1: records as a form of prayer. That but so is good, golly,
Speaker 1: miss Molly, and so is heartbreak Hotel. Absolutely so a
Speaker 1: form of prayer. Absolutely, But if you if your ears
Speaker 1: are open, if your eyes are open, and that's the
Speaker 1: whole thing, Jesus will let he who hears, who can hear,
Speaker 1: let him hear, you can see, let me see. You
Speaker 1: don't have to be Christian, you don't have to go
Speaker 1: to any kind of religion to understand what that's doing.
Speaker 1: It's all in front of you. The pain is suffering.
Speaker 1: If your fellow man, it's all right there for you
Speaker 1: if you let it in. And man, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of static at least I got a lot of stack
Speaker 1: that tries to keep it away. But when I play music,
Speaker 1: and when I play music with the people that I
Speaker 1: am somehouse hosts, playing music with the people that are
Speaker 1: especially bloods like the Heartbreakers or Mudcrutch, then I'm I'm
Speaker 1: halfway there. Thank you so much for doing this, and
Speaker 1: thank you for playing man, Thank you for the music. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, jeez. Rick, I love you. It's great seeing you,
Speaker 1: and I will I will see you soon and hopefully
Speaker 1: we'll be in a studio together soon making something fun.
Speaker 1: I love you too. Rick. I'm really glad to see
Speaker 1: your face and I would just love to let's just
Speaker 1: hang out, shoot the ship and make some music. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Ben mont Tench for catching up with Rick and
Speaker 1: rehashing some of the best moments of his incredible career.
Speaker 1: You can hear all of her favorite songs that feature
Speaker 1: Ben mont Tench on our playlist at broken Record podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
Speaker 1: at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcasts. There you
Speaker 1: can find extended cuts of our past episodes and also
Speaker 1: new ones. Broken Record is produced with helpful Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrel, Martine Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and its executive produced
Speaker 1: by mil Lobell. Our theme musics by Kenny Beats. Broken
Speaker 1: Record is a production of Pushkin Industries, and if you
Speaker 1: like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review
Speaker 1: our show on your podcast staff. I'm justin Richmond, Case