Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefts That's podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Don was Don,
Speaker 1: what did your parents say when you dropped out of college?
Speaker 2: You know something? They were remarkably cool. They were. They
Speaker 2: were incredibly supportive, both of them. And I didn't just
Speaker 2: drop out to uh, you know, to to go to
Speaker 2: the beach. I knew what I wanted to do, and
Speaker 2: they supported me both in spirit and uh uh from
Speaker 2: their wallet. And it took a while to get on
Speaker 2: my feet. And my dad was always there to loane
Speaker 2: me some bread if I needed it. They were great.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many kids in the family?
Speaker 2: Is my sister and myself and your sister older, younger
Speaker 2: younger sister. When she retired, she was a chief Statistician
Speaker 2: of the United States of America.
Speaker 1: And that sounds very impressive, but I have no idea
Speaker 1: what that is.
Speaker 2: It's extremely well, she ran the Census Bureau, Okay for
Speaker 2: a number of years. Well how did she get there?
Speaker 2: She understood management, She had a degree in management, and
Speaker 2: I think she had like fifty thousand people reporting to
Speaker 2: her at the Census.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess I'm more interested you and your sister
Speaker 1: are both very successful. What was in the water, what
Speaker 1: was going in your house that you're both successful?
Speaker 2: Well, it probably goes back to my parents just understanding
Speaker 2: that you can you can do just as well doing
Speaker 2: something you love something you don't love to do, and
Speaker 2: so they encourage us to, you know, follow our hearts
Speaker 2: and back to sup And Yeah, I went to my
Speaker 2: fifty second high school reunion bah way Way just because
Speaker 2: to cousin Covid, I.
Speaker 1: Got roped in to go to my college region. That
Speaker 1: was the first reunion I ever went to. How did
Speaker 1: you decide? How'd you been to previous reunion?
Speaker 2: The Okay, what motivates you to go? There's nothing like
Speaker 2: you know, touch and base with these people that you've
Speaker 2: known for sixty years, seventy years, You can't. You only
Speaker 2: get that opportunity once to build relationships that last that long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But in the old days when we grew up,
Speaker 1: if you left your hometown moved to the West coast,
Speaker 1: unless you made a big effort, you lost touch. Whereas
Speaker 1: today today's kids will never lose touch with anybody.
Speaker 2: It's all available.
Speaker 1: So when you go back, if you maintain relationships with
Speaker 1: these people or you just check it in on the reunion.
Speaker 2: It depends, you know, that a lot of people. There's
Speaker 2: three hundred people in my class, and some are still
Speaker 2: my closest friends. I see, I got a place in
Speaker 2: Detroit on Mairland.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I interrupted. You just came back from your
Speaker 1: fifty second What was that like?
Speaker 2: It was beautiful, man, you know, it's a wonderful experience,
Speaker 2: and I love going to them. But one thing I
Speaker 2: did notice was that, you know, everybody was seventy and
Speaker 2: some of them looked ninety, and some of them are
Speaker 2: pretty much the same as they were when they were
Speaker 2: in their forties and fifties. And the difference seemed to
Speaker 2: be that people who pursued a line of work that
Speaker 2: they loved looked much better, you know, and that people
Speaker 2: who found meaning in their work in and then it's
Speaker 2: got nothing to do with fame, right or really or revenue.
Speaker 2: It's got to do with you. You can pump gas
Speaker 2: and think, man, I'm keeping America moving. There's a point
Speaker 2: to this. People who found meaning and did something they
Speaker 2: loved looked a lot healthier and happier. You know.
Speaker 1: There's the famous story of Jani's Joblin going back to
Speaker 1: Port Arthur to her reunion. It's sort of a victory lap.
Speaker 1: The whole thing didn't work out well and she was
Speaker 1: derided in high school. Where was your role amongst the
Speaker 1: three hundred and when you went to one of these
Speaker 1: reunions after having success, how did people treat you?
Speaker 2: People have been really nice. They're supportive. I think when
Speaker 2: you come from a little village and you go out
Speaker 2: in the world and you do well, you do well
Speaker 2: on behalf of everybody else. I think they feel some
Speaker 2: ownership of the success of people from our high school class.
Speaker 1: So if there were three hundred in the class, were
Speaker 1: you the art guy known as the musician? We're a
Speaker 1: good student in class? Did you play sports? Were you unknown?
Speaker 1: Where were you in the landscape?
Speaker 2: David wasn't I We were hippie kids, you know, and
Speaker 2: we well, I'll be honest with you, man, It's why
Speaker 2: I relate to what you do so well, because we
Speaker 2: were provocateurs. Oh yeah, and game recognized game.
Speaker 1: That's something that's totally lost his day. You know, this
Speaker 1: is about you. I can tell you things we did
Speaker 1: in high school, pranks, et cetera, just try to get people.
Speaker 1: It wasn't purely for fun. You wanted to make them think, yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly, you're trying to stimulate a real discussion, and it's
Speaker 2: actually the provocateur. It's a Youngian art type, you know.
Speaker 2: And the people like us, we were valued. Kings would
Speaker 2: invite us to dinners and see us at a table
Speaker 2: with people who didn't know each other to get conversation going.
Speaker 2: Just say something that's provocative and you get a lively discussion.
Speaker 2: And when you have that, people have a good time.
Speaker 2: They walk away feeling refreshed.
Speaker 1: Well, since we're having a conversation as opposed to just
Speaker 1: making it about you. I find in today's group think
Speaker 1: world a lot of times if you don't say and
Speaker 1: follow the accepted norm or whatever, there's trouble.
Speaker 2: What kind of trouble?
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, I'm inter interacting with people. When I
Speaker 1: write something, people responding, which is you know, there's a
Speaker 1: direct communication, which is different. But let's say there's a
Speaker 1: political issue, okay, and I go to somewhere. Everybody's got
Speaker 1: an opinion. Most of the people are getting their opinion
Speaker 1: from television. Who are our demo? And you say, well, no,
Speaker 1: that's not true.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: They say, you know who the fuck is this guy?
Speaker 1: What the fuck does he know? So just to stay
Speaker 1: on the same topic. One thing I've noticed in the
Speaker 1: music business the very top person at all these enterprises,
Speaker 1: the labels ag live nation, they can hear something contrary.
Speaker 1: They're open, whereas the people below have drunk the kool aid.
Speaker 1: And it's very weird for me in the environment because
Speaker 1: I like to be stimulated, which is the flip side
Speaker 1: of being a profocateur. And we grew up when there
Speaker 1: was a huge middle class. No one ever wanted their
Speaker 1: kid to be a musician, but there were always the
Speaker 1: kids in school were artists, musicians. Who knows what would
Speaker 1: happen to them in life? Where today money trumps everything
Speaker 1: and that is the answer to everything. And it makes
Speaker 1: me be alone a lot of time, because when I
Speaker 1: interact with people, it's like, no, you know, that person
Speaker 1: makes money, they're good, just be with the program.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll look at it from a slightly different skew.
Speaker 3: I think every one of us has got Trump and them,
Speaker 3: and every one of us has got mother Teresa, you know,
Speaker 3: And that's the that's the great human conflict, is altruism
Speaker 3: versus greed.
Speaker 2: It's probably going to be the undoing species. But that
Speaker 2: conflict is it's just part of life. So when people
Speaker 2: are reacting emotionally to things that they see, whether whether
Speaker 2: it's AOC or Trump, you know, it's because they see
Speaker 2: part of themselves in that, and it's reprehensible. They don't
Speaker 2: want that to be whichever side you're on the argument,
Speaker 2: they don't want that to be part of it. I
Speaker 2: think we all it's in our DNA man, you know,
Speaker 2: like altruism and community action. DNA knows that that's better
Speaker 2: for survival. And you can find if you should go
Speaker 2: through all there like seventeen eighteen species that have been
Speaker 2: identified as being altruistic and they survive. They do well.
Speaker 2: But a certain amount of self interest is necessary for
Speaker 2: survival too. It's a constant battle. I think It's what
Speaker 2: I think that's what's really making people crazy, is that
Speaker 2: the conflict you see in the society is really an
Speaker 2: inner conflict all of us. That's why that's why these
Speaker 2: times which are really polarized, driving us nuts.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's compare them to fifty five years ago. So
Speaker 1: the late sixties, huge anti Vietnam movement. I went to
Speaker 1: unlike University of Michigan, I went to a small college.
Speaker 1: You could literally pick out the Republicans on campus.
Speaker 2: Same thing.
Speaker 1: The music was identified with left wing causes, etc.
Speaker 2: So how do you.
Speaker 1: Compare what was going on then to what's going on now?
Speaker 2: But i's see happening right now. Yesterday they basically passed
Speaker 2: a tax package that gave breaks to the very wealthy
Speaker 2: at the expense of the medical care of the average people.
Speaker 2: I see. I see altruism and empathy being cast in
Speaker 2: a negative light, and that that's that's the big difference.
Speaker 2: Altruism wasn't held in the negative. It was a virtue.
Speaker 2: And now I still think it is a virtue, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people think it's still We've yet to
Speaker 2: see what the reaction to everything that's going on in
Speaker 2: the last few months is going to be. But I
Speaker 2: think I think we all have it in us to
Speaker 2: be altruistic.
Speaker 1: Now, you have children, I don't have children, so we're
Speaker 1: both in our seventies. Do you detach and say there's
Speaker 1: just too much I'm gonna do what I'm doing or
Speaker 1: do you get involved?
Speaker 2: Well that's the million dollar question man there, And also
Speaker 2: how you what you consider to be involved. I believe
Speaker 2: making music that helps helps you deal with this conflict
Speaker 2: is vital and I see that as activism, And honestly,
Speaker 2: that was the thing that made me want to get
Speaker 2: into music. Seriously, it was to it was to make
Speaker 2: music that would help people deal with the chaos and
Speaker 2: confusion and uncertainty of being a human being. It's rough,
Speaker 2: It's really rough. Man. We don't know. We don't know
Speaker 2: if we're going to die in the next ten seconds,
Speaker 2: if our loved ones are going to drop in the
Speaker 2: next ten seconds. Everybody gets fired, everybody gets divorced. What
Speaker 2: do you hang your hat on? Man? You know, it's
Speaker 2: it's it's tough, and music can really help you deal
Speaker 2: with that and bring great comfort and open and openness to,
Speaker 2: you know, to the situation. So I see making music
Speaker 2: being a form of activism and it transcends individual issues,
Speaker 2: you know that that people argue about. You know, it's it,
Speaker 2: It goes beyond that. There is a there's a human politic.
Speaker 2: That's that's more ah, more soulful.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, when done right, what does it look like?
Speaker 2: Well, when done right, it looks a little bit like
Speaker 2: the Rolling Stones. If you want to know my feeling
Speaker 2: about it, I spent thirty years working with them, and
Speaker 2: in that band you have really different different mindsets, you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes one hundred eighty degree opposite mindset, which is where
Speaker 2: the beauty in that band comes from. Because when they
Speaker 2: find a place in the middle where all sides are represented,
Speaker 2: the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.
Speaker 2: And that's a just by going out and being that,
Speaker 2: having having their own personal conflicts public, and having the
Speaker 2: having people come to a stadium, one hundred thousand of
Speaker 2: them at night. Looking at these guys not only coexisting
Speaker 2: on stage, despite you know, any differences they may have artistically,
Speaker 2: but actually being great together. That's inspirational. But there's one point. Well,
Speaker 2: We're working on an album called A Bigger Bang around
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, and I was reading Phil Jackson's
Speaker 2: book Sacred Hoops, and I caught the parallels between a
Speaker 2: rock and roll band and a five man basketball team.
Speaker 2: And this was, you know, maybe a couple of years
Speaker 2: after seeing Kobe score eighty points and the Lakers lose
Speaker 2: the game, I started quoting from the book about passing
Speaker 2: and teamwork and being aware of where the other people
Speaker 2: are on the court at all times. I started reading
Speaker 2: passages during dinner to Mick and Keith, who like they
Speaker 2: fucking hated it, but they hated it because they knew it.
Speaker 2: They're aware of it already. They know that when they
Speaker 2: passed the ball musically to each other and when they
Speaker 2: work together as a unit, did the greatest band in
Speaker 2: the history of the world, and that it means something
Speaker 2: to everybody who listens to the music and sees them
Speaker 2: play together. They understand that, and they understand that they
Speaker 2: got a responsibility that comes with that, and to me,
Speaker 2: that's activism.
Speaker 1: Let's just go back one step before we go back
Speaker 1: to the stones. You talked about, Hey, a society, we
Speaker 1: don't know if we're going to die in ten seconds whatever.
Speaker 1: You don't know if you're going to get divorced. How
Speaker 1: many times you been married?
Speaker 2: They're married twice.
Speaker 1: How old were you when you were married the first time.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if i'd actually marriaged, but we moved
Speaker 2: in together when I was nineteen, lasted eleven years, probably
Speaker 2: should have lasted, you know, eleven minutes, but a lot
Speaker 2: of good things came from that. And my second wife
Speaker 2: been with her now forty some years.
Speaker 1: And your kids are with your second wife.
Speaker 2: My oldest kid is with my first wife? Is with
Speaker 2: the younger the first wife, Yeah, the the oldest one, Tony.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know about the second wife. I don't know
Speaker 1: about the first wife. You moved in together when you
Speaker 1: were nineteen. How did you know her?
Speaker 2: She's my neighbor. Yeah, I was going to University of Michigan.
Speaker 2: She lived downstairs from me.
Speaker 1: You know, at a state university. Of all these socioeconomic classes,
Speaker 1: what was her background relative to yours?
Speaker 2: There wasn't a whole lot in common except where we're
Speaker 2: horny kids. Oh okay, so, which is a pretty good
Speaker 2: common ground.
Speaker 1: We've all lived in it whatever, at least in our generation. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you drop out to play music. Does she stay
Speaker 1: in school or does she go with you? What does
Speaker 1: she do? She?
Speaker 2: Uh, she was a month she's older than me. She
Speaker 2: was like a month from graduating. Oh really yeah, but
Speaker 2: then she's in nursing school. Didn't want to be a nurse,
Speaker 2: so so we moved to Detroit from an arbor. But
Speaker 2: she did graduate. No, I she strapped out.
Speaker 1: Okay, where's she todaym Skeig in Michigan. Okay, if we
Speaker 1: go to the end the eleven years, how did you
Speaker 1: finally blow the whistle.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the details are kind of personal and
Speaker 2: I wouldn't go into them other than to just say,
Speaker 2: eventually you have enough, then there's enough. And when you
Speaker 2: have kids in the picture, you you gotta do what's
Speaker 2: maybe best for them, best for them meetings split up
Speaker 2: in this case. Yes, okay, So going back to the Stones,
Speaker 2: how'd you get to work with Stones in the first place. Well,
Speaker 2: I'm not exactly sure. You know, I started. I went
Speaker 2: from being a bum to having hits and we wait.
Speaker 1: You're a bomb. There was not was walk the Dinosaur.
Speaker 1: You have success, you expand it. Actually, I want to
Speaker 1: get into that a little bit. You have the big
Speaker 1: breakthrough with Bonnie Raid was the Stones thing. As a
Speaker 1: result of your success, they were looking around.
Speaker 2: I think actually the record company was looking around. My
Speaker 2: first meeting with them was I'll tell you a story, man.
Speaker 2: I went to meet them at essay hour because they
Speaker 2: were auditioning bass players to replace Bill Want So I
Speaker 2: got to sit there and watch a set of The
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones with a different bass player, like from two
Speaker 2: feet away. And it was mind blown because, as a
Speaker 2: lifelong fan Sam for the first time in nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: went to every show about every album. Now I'm in
Speaker 2: a room watching him play on my mind. Then Mick
Speaker 2: and Keith come and sit down on the sofa next
Speaker 2: to me, at their face and me. They're on either
Speaker 2: side of me, and they both start talking at the
Speaker 2: same time, and Keith was, from what I could get,
Speaker 2: very hard to follow. I was going back and forth,
Speaker 2: like you know, like watching a tennis stern. Keith was
Speaker 2: telling me all the reasons that they didn't need a producer,
Speaker 2: and Mick was suggesting reasons why they did need a producer.
Speaker 2: But they weren't yielding to the other guy. For about
Speaker 2: two minutes, which is an excruciatingly long time to be
Speaker 2: sitting there. In the middle of that, they both kept talking,
Speaker 2: trying to talk over the other guy, and then they paused,
Speaker 2: and then Keith said, you sure you won't be the
Speaker 2: meat sandwich. I walked out of there, thinking, well, I
Speaker 2: got a good story from my grandchildren, but I'm never
Speaker 2: going to hear from them again. And and then I've
Speaker 2: been trying to think of what actually happened, you know.
Speaker 2: Then then Keith called me up about a week later
Speaker 2: and he said, maybe I was a little rough on
Speaker 2: the idea of a producer. He said, I got an
Speaker 2: issue here. He said, I'd like to use Don Smith
Speaker 2: as the engineer. And I'd been working with Don Smith.
Speaker 1: But Don did the new Barbarians records.
Speaker 2: That the expensive Winos records, the Solo records, which I
Speaker 2: thought was a really good sonic template for a rolling
Speaker 2: Stone celt And I thought Don was just a wonderful engineer. Man.
Speaker 2: He's gone now, but he had a real gift, so
Speaker 2: he said, but he said, doesn't want me to use
Speaker 2: them because he doesn't he wants an impartial guy. And
Speaker 2: I said, wow, he's he's my guy too, you know.
Speaker 2: I said, I'll call Mick, and I said, and Mix said,
Speaker 2: all right, if you're saying he's your guy and that
Speaker 2: he'll be impartial, I'll go with it. So I call him.
Speaker 2: Keith Backer said, all right, we got Don Smith and
Speaker 2: he said, all right, your name's not was it's his
Speaker 2: or some Well.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the original meeting. During the audition,
Speaker 1: they have their conflicting stories. You had to sell yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit.
Speaker 2: What did you say? I don't remember, well, do you
Speaker 2: honestly do you remember selling yourself? My memory of it
Speaker 2: is seeing them play and like not being able to
Speaker 2: believes in a room with them and then having the
Speaker 2: two of them talking at me. Okay, same time.
Speaker 1: Most people don't realize that what most people say is
Speaker 1: complete horseshit. Things don't happen by accident.
Speaker 2: In that you have to have.
Speaker 1: The right personality. You have to put yourself in the
Speaker 1: right situations, and frequently you have to ask, Okay, what
Speaker 1: do I know you're in?
Speaker 2: Was not? Was?
Speaker 1: I go to the VMA sometimes in the nineties you're
Speaker 1: running the house band. I remember you played that song
Speaker 1: from Extreme Wholehearted, which crack me up. Okay, that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen by accident. Okay, you don't sit at home, especially
Speaker 1: someone like where you were at the time and the
Speaker 1: phone rings. You have to work it a little bit.
Speaker 2: So what's your style of working? Well, I'll probably stems
Speaker 2: from my dad, you know, who is a guidance counselor
Speaker 2: counselor and very cool headed guy, didn't get worked up,
Speaker 2: and he listened to people, and he was empathetic and
Speaker 2: a diplomat. I guess that's my style. I don't really,
Speaker 2: it's really hard for me to identify that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I can tell you this to get to the point
Speaker 2: where I was in a meeting with the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: That took some doing for a number of years, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't easy getting over. There was a point in
Speaker 2: the somewhere around in nineteen seventy nine, bad inflation, remember
Speaker 2: whipping plation. Now it was tough. I was playing five
Speaker 2: nights a week in a bar and Detroit. I loved
Speaker 2: the gig, but I was taking home one hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five bucks a week and I had a wife
Speaker 2: and a kid. Couldn't get by on that. My goal
Speaker 2: in life had been to be able to play music
Speaker 2: and never have a job that was just a job
Speaker 2: that I didn't care about. But it became pretty clear
Speaker 2: that I was going to have to do something. I
Speaker 2: was falling deeper in debt every month. I was making
Speaker 2: up fake resumes and still couldn't get a call back
Speaker 2: for anything. And I was unqualified for anything except really
Speaker 2: playing bass and bars, and I knew a little bit
Speaker 2: about making records. So I had to get a job,
Speaker 2: and finally I found one where there was a I
Speaker 2: can't think what the program is called now, but it
Speaker 2: was like a domestic peace corps where the government Vista
Speaker 2: the Vista Vistorship and the government would pay half your
Speaker 2: salary for six months if an employer would teach you
Speaker 2: a trade. So I was able to get a job
Speaker 2: preparing copy machines. But after about two days in the
Speaker 2: gig and by the way man, I thought my life
Speaker 2: was over. I was so depressed. I used to drive
Speaker 2: to work mad Maverick without a passenger door. A cassette
Speaker 2: like a realistic is a radiosop that I had to
Speaker 2: duct tape to the seat because I couldn't afford to
Speaker 2: put one in the dashboard right. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: slide on and I made a cassette that I'm front
Speaker 2: and back, just had the song satisfaction. I can't get
Speaker 2: no sense, and I drove to work Mad. I can't
Speaker 2: get no thing. My life was over. Two days in
Speaker 2: it got worse. The boss said, you know, when you're
Speaker 2: out there repairing copy machines, we want you to also
Speaker 2: sell some paper and toner to the clients. And we
Speaker 2: don't think you know anything about selling, so we've enrolled
Speaker 2: you in the Dale Carnegie sales course. And I was like,
Speaker 2: oh God, the thing I had to go to at night.
Speaker 2: I walked in. You've read Death of a Salesman. It's
Speaker 2: me and five Willie Lowman's right, like older guys trying
Speaker 2: to onto their gigs and refresh their sales technique. Oh man,
Speaker 2: I thought i'd hit rock bottom. The first assignment you
Speaker 2: had to write down where in your wildest dreams you
Speaker 2: wanted to be in one year, five years, and ten years.
Speaker 2: Then you had to get up and read it to
Speaker 2: the read your list to the room. And man, that's
Speaker 2: a hard thing to do, to admit what your wildest
Speaker 2: dreams are and then tell a bunch of strangers. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things you know Bob doing obfuscates all
Speaker 1: the time, but he also does a little bit of
Speaker 1: hypher his records. One time on sixty minutes sometime the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years ago, he goes, I won't tell
Speaker 1: my hopes in dreams because people just laugh at me
Speaker 1: and give me a hard time. You got to keep
Speaker 1: them interior.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's interesting. Well that's that's I think that's a
Speaker 2: very human response. It was really hard for me to
Speaker 2: do this. But if you've bottomed out right far ago, right,
Speaker 2: So I did it. I really thought about it, and
Speaker 2: I wrote this down a little piece of paper and
Speaker 2: I got up. I was the first guy, and in
Speaker 2: one year I said I want to be out of
Speaker 2: this fucking job. And I got the big laugh of
Speaker 2: the night for that, because everyone was there to try
Speaker 2: to keep their job. In five years, i'd like to
Speaker 2: produce a record that comes out, and ten years, i'd
Speaker 2: like to produce an artist who some big artist. And
Speaker 2: after I said it to everybody, I looked at the
Speaker 2: piece of paper, How hard can this be? Man, here's
Speaker 2: an orderly list. Man. So within a month I had
Speaker 2: a record deal for it was and I was We
Speaker 2: got our first deal, and I used by the way,
Speaker 2: I used the techniques that I learned in the Dale
Speaker 2: Carnegie course to get the deal, you know. And within
Speaker 2: a year and a half Carly I was producing Harley
Speaker 2: Simon and that was my poy.
Speaker 1: We went a little bit slower. What were the lessons
Speaker 1: they taught you?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's just like, uh, you know, don't just if
Speaker 2: you're if you're doing a sales pitch, you got to
Speaker 2: keep people saying yes. So if you're if you're the
Speaker 2: fuller brush man going door to door, if I could
Speaker 2: show you away that you wouldn't have to work so hard,
Speaker 2: scrub and your sink you'd want to know about it, right, Yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: and you just keep saying yes and then you go
Speaker 2: for the kill after about twenty yeses. So I'll say
Speaker 2: I used that technique, David wasn't. I. We knew we
Speaker 2: wanted to be on a label named Z called Z
Speaker 2: Record Ze, which was doing They were doing really cool
Speaker 2: dance music, subversive dance music at that at that point
Speaker 2: in time that people were still doing these remixes that
Speaker 2: had all the strings and it was a very studio
Speaker 2: fifty four the worst things you can imagine when you
Speaker 2: say the word disco, which does that doesn't bring up
Speaker 2: bad feelings for me. I love dance music and I
Speaker 2: love those records. Some of them were cheesy in formulated,
Speaker 2: so there was something in the in the zeitgeist at
Speaker 2: the time. The remixes like franzoisk of Orkian, they were
Speaker 2: adopting like dub techniques basically Lee Scratch Perry techniques and
Speaker 2: applying it to dance music and not just doing an
Speaker 2: instrumental verse and sticking and that in the middle and
Speaker 2: bringing the bass drama. So we started messing with that
Speaker 2: and we thought, how can we Trojan Horse a meaningful
Speaker 2: message on top of a dance beat that was that
Speaker 2: was kind of the goal and uh and it seemed
Speaker 2: like Sea Records was doing that. It was headed by
Speaker 2: a guy named Michael Zilka. Very bright guy, cool guy,
Speaker 2: and I'm grateful for life to this cat.
Speaker 1: Okay, way a little bit slower. While you're working in
Speaker 1: the copy or repair of business, is there a band
Speaker 1: or just you and David with a fantasy?
Speaker 2: Me and David with a fantasy and a couple of songs.
Speaker 2: And I knew a lot of musicians because I and
Speaker 2: I'd been i'd been working in studios. I would go
Speaker 2: to the studio. I'd play in the bar till two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning. Then from two to like eight,
Speaker 2: I'd go to the studio. And there's a there's a
Speaker 2: great studio in Detroit called Sound Sweet Studios. And they
Speaker 2: were just extremely kind to me and generous. They gave
Speaker 2: me the key and if no one was in there
Speaker 2: after midnight, I could go in and work till someone
Speaker 2: else came in. So we started cutting two songs, and
Speaker 2: you know, and I was playing all the time, So
Speaker 2: I knew great studio musicians. And we had Marcus bell
Speaker 2: Grave come in we had Mark S. Belgrave was a
Speaker 2: great jazz trumpeter, kind of the dean of Detroit jazz musicians,
Speaker 2: played with Charles Minger's toured for years with Ray Charles,
Speaker 2: but chose to stay in Detroit and play and teach WAYN.
Speaker 2: Kramer from the MC five, who I didn't know at
Speaker 2: that time. He became one of my dearest friends. But
Speaker 2: we just called him cold and asked him to come
Speaker 2: in and play. He ended up going on tour with
Speaker 2: us on our first version, and Sweet p Atkinson and
Speaker 2: Harry Bowenes, who I just knew from hanging around the studio,
Speaker 2: so I knew the players, and we started. We made
Speaker 2: these records on a shoe string, and then I had
Speaker 2: to sort of abandon it to take this job.
Speaker 1: Well a little bit slower, a little bit so, so
Speaker 1: you have X number of tracks and you personally go
Speaker 1: to the record company get the deal. There's no manager,
Speaker 1: no lawyer, no anybody.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a manager or lawyer. But here's what
Speaker 2: we did to David was it was the jazz critic
Speaker 2: for the now defunct La Herald Examiner. So we concocted
Speaker 2: the scheme where David called Michael Silka under the guys
Speaker 2: of doing an interview, but I don't even think he
Speaker 2: was rolling tape. He got forty five minutes into the
Speaker 2: interview and then he said, you know, as I'm thinking
Speaker 2: about it and talking to you, there's this band in
Speaker 2: Detroit that you got to hear. He said, Okay, if
Speaker 2: I have the guy call you after we do the interview, Michaels, Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm cute a fed Ex cassette but wheel
Speaker 2: me out and Hello Operator on our first two songs.
Speaker 2: Sent it to Michael and he happened to play it
Speaker 2: while August Darnell from Kid Krill and the coconutsu was
Speaker 2: a big artist. He was in the office and August
Speaker 2: just loved the record and reinforced the thing a Michael
Speaker 2: that it was great and they signed us.
Speaker 1: Okay, a little clean up work. If David is the
Speaker 1: jazz critic for the Herald Examiners, he living in l A. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's living living okay. And how long did you actually
Speaker 1: work in the copy repair of business?
Speaker 2: Six weeks? Okay.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine there was a ton of money in
Speaker 1: this record deal, was there?
Speaker 2: No? But I learned a lesson previously we'd cut a
Speaker 2: twelve inch on Sweetpea, a dance record of him covering
Speaker 2: Bob Seekers heavy music. Okay, it was good man, and
Speaker 2: Sweetpea was like the voice I always wished I had,
Speaker 2: you know, he was, he was my vocal hero. I
Speaker 2: was just thrilled to meet him and know him. Such
Speaker 2: a character, such a you know, an intimidating character at first,
Speaker 2: but huge heart of gold underneath. Tough guy. You know,
Speaker 2: no one, no one ever wants to mess with sweepy.
Speaker 2: But we got this record and we sent it off
Speaker 2: to Oh it was an offshoot label that Epic Records had,
Speaker 2: Lenny Pets Portrait Portrait Records. Yeah, Lenny Pezzi was the
Speaker 2: head and he and he loved it. So then we
Speaker 2: got an attorney, big guy in New York. Oh, simple,
Speaker 2: simple deal man, you know. So twelve inches the deal
Speaker 2: from nobody's man. Just we should have paid them to
Speaker 2: put it at. But this guy negotiated for six months,
Speaker 2: ran his bill up to where we couldn't afford it,
Speaker 2: and then they closed Portrait Records. We took so long
Speaker 2: to make the deal. Well, I'm never going to do
Speaker 2: that again, right right, right, So there's no lawyer I called,
Speaker 2: you know, I talked to Michael Silka. I said, just
Speaker 2: take it, take the record, put it out. I guarantee
Speaker 2: you if you put it out, you'll come back to
Speaker 2: us and we'll do an album deal. I guarantee you
Speaker 2: get I'm confident enough that you get a response. Just
Speaker 2: take it, you own it. We want nothing. Put whatever
Speaker 2: you want in the contract. So we did that and
Speaker 2: he put it right out and turned into an album deal.
Speaker 2: We actually had a plan. I got the list of
Speaker 2: stores that reported to the Billboard Dance Charts his presound
Speaker 2: scam right, So I knew the R and B DJs
Speaker 2: in Detroit, and I knew the promo guys, independent guys,
Speaker 2: and I knew to hire them and get us some airplay.
Speaker 2: And then I knew the stores that reported, and so
Speaker 2: if they ordered six records, I just went in and
Speaker 2: bought up to six. And all anybody saw was reorders.
Speaker 2: And that's what stood out. It's getting on the on
Speaker 2: radio somehow and people are reordering it. That probably wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been enough, but as it happened in England, people
Speaker 2: just dug it. It was. It was alternative dance music,
Speaker 2: alternative club music, which was a cool thing at that moment.
Speaker 2: In time and Z Records was highly respected. So based
Speaker 2: really on the reaction we got in England, Chris Blackwell
Speaker 2: was into it and Michael was distributing his records through Chris,
Speaker 2: so he signed us to our first album deal.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're nobody in Detroit, you get a little buzz,
Speaker 1: you end up on the island. When does it start
Speaker 1: to coalesce that you're on the landscape and you're outside
Speaker 1: of Detroit and you get to know people.
Speaker 2: It's hard to say. It seems like it seems like
Speaker 2: a there was a lot of struggle, is the way
Speaker 2: I feel. But really it's just a couple of years
Speaker 2: between between putting that first record out and working with Bonnie.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's like friends of mine managed one direction. They
Speaker 1: have no people have no idea how hard they worked.
Speaker 1: You know, they're working all day long. You're just seeing
Speaker 1: the end results now. You know, there were the day,
Speaker 1: the heyday, the pre internet days. Yeah, the label supported you,
Speaker 1: But when you were struggling, how much were you on
Speaker 1: the road. How much were you trying to make something
Speaker 1: great in the studio? What were you doing when you
Speaker 1: were struggling.
Speaker 2: It's trying to figure out how to make great records.
Speaker 2: I could hear what other people were doing. I'll listened
Speaker 2: to everything. I had the advantage of someone just before.
Speaker 2: You couldn't make records in your laptops, right, there were
Speaker 2: no laptops, right, There was no pro tools and none
Speaker 2: of that. So you had someone had to invest in
Speaker 2: at least half a million dollars you know worth of stuff,
Speaker 2: and more than that. Usually I had the advantage of
Speaker 2: someone letting us use the studio. The hard part about
Speaker 2: doing it and the provinces like that was that there
Speaker 2: were a couple of great engineers in Detroit, and they
Speaker 2: were very guarded with the knowledge. There wasn't this culture
Speaker 2: that there was with the musicians, like with guys like
Speaker 2: Marcus Belgrave who were there to pass the knowledge on.
Speaker 2: No one wanted to lose the work. We just had
Speaker 2: to figure out how to do it on our own,
Speaker 2: which I think is what makes our first record probably
Speaker 2: our best record, because we had no idea what the
Speaker 2: fuck we were doing, and we had no money really,
Speaker 2: so you know, you know, now, if I'm working on
Speaker 2: a record and we need something to build the bridge
Speaker 2: of the song up, yeah, called David Campbell. Have them
Speaker 2: write some strings. Have people come in. But we didn't
Speaker 2: have that kind of bread or know those kind of people.
Speaker 2: So we had to go out in the room and figure,
Speaker 2: all right, if we slowed the tape down a little
Speaker 2: bit so that this anvil is when you bang on it,
Speaker 2: it hits a note that rings that's in tune with
Speaker 2: the song. We'd bso it down so we were in
Speaker 2: tune with the anvil and then bam, hit it with
Speaker 2: a hammer and that note would be the sound. That
Speaker 2: was basically the orchestra and the bridge. Much cooler way
Speaker 2: to make records, so, uh, you know, necessity is the
Speaker 2: mother of invention. We made. We made some cool records
Speaker 2: because we because we couldn't afford to do it the
Speaker 2: standard way and we had no knowledge about how to
Speaker 2: do it the standard way.
Speaker 1: Let's go back, where exactly do you grow up in Michigan?
Speaker 2: I grew up in Oak Park, Michigan, which is just
Speaker 2: across eight mile from the Detroit city limits.
Speaker 1: Okay, Detroit was no own is its own scene very
Speaker 1: early there was New York, LA, eventually San Francisco. You're
Speaker 1: growing up, are you aware of Motown? Are you ware
Speaker 1: there's a house you drive by? Do you feel some ownership,
Speaker 1: or it could be in Timbuctoo.
Speaker 2: It's the samely we felt about the Detroit Tigers winning
Speaker 2: the World Series in nineteen sixty That's how we felt
Speaker 2: about Motown. That was victory for all of us. And
Speaker 2: there's a lot of local pride and even for yeah
Speaker 2: whatever in seventh eighth grade when those records started coming out,
Speaker 2: but I still felt tremendous pride it was coming from
Speaker 2: our town. And also there is a Detroit sound. There's
Speaker 2: a thing to the music that comes out of there.
Speaker 2: It has to do with a couple of factors. I
Speaker 2: think one is that, you know, post World War Two,
Speaker 2: people came from all over the world to work in
Speaker 2: the factory, and they all brought their cultures with them.
Speaker 2: So we grew up in the middle of this incredible
Speaker 2: cultural John Balaya, you know, it's just beautiful. And eventually
Speaker 2: the generation goes by and the lines start to blur
Speaker 2: and there's a regional sound that starts to starts to form.
Speaker 2: Another characteristic of Detroit music, which is probably best personified
Speaker 2: by John Lee Hooker, is incredible, honest rawness. I think
Speaker 2: that's because in a one industry town like that, everybody's
Speaker 2: in the same boat. You. You know, everyone's fate was
Speaker 2: tied to the success of the Big three automakers or
Speaker 2: success or failure, and if they were failing, they'd lay
Speaker 2: off workers, workers would move away. My parents are both
Speaker 2: in teachers, so if kids moved out of the district,
Speaker 2: they'd lay off teachers, they'd lay off barbers, waitresses, a
Speaker 2: get laid up. So everybody in town was in the
Speaker 2: same boat, and there really wasn't much point in putting
Speaker 2: on any errors because you weren't fooling everybody. I didn't
Speaker 2: know one person who liked least a Mercedes to impress
Speaker 2: their friends. They just call you on your bullshit immediately
Speaker 2: with backfire. So you get a really honest population there,
Speaker 2: and the music reflects that. It's raw and honest. John
Speaker 2: Lee Hooker, Mitch Ryder, Stooges, Empty Five, George Clinton, White Stripes,
Speaker 2: all the same thing. Really raw, edged, but very real
Speaker 2: and very and deeply emotional. So I forgot why we
Speaker 2: started talking about Believe. It's a great but I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask more questions. Do feel him?
Speaker 1: So when do you first play a musical instrument?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I think I started playing piano when I
Speaker 2: was eight seminary eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, your seven or eight when you're eleven twelve when
Speaker 1: the Beatles hit, was that the transitional moment in You're
Speaker 1: getting deeper or it was something before.
Speaker 2: I was into it, and then folk music was actually right,
Speaker 2: Like there was a summer when Peter Palm and Mary
Speaker 2: was alternative rock and roll and so and hoot Nanny.
Speaker 2: It was a big show.
Speaker 1: Well that's what I told you that you have no
Speaker 1: idea even had its own TV show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, there was.
Speaker 1: Everybody had a nylon string guitar. You when everybody was
Speaker 1: singing the songs.
Speaker 2: So I was in sixth grade and we had a
Speaker 2: band called the Saturns and we did basically Peter Palm,
Speaker 2: Mary's first album, and then Tom Dooley, some Kingston trio
Speaker 2: and the first gig, actually my first gig sixth grade,
Speaker 2: hoot Nanny. The headliner was a guy named moish Last
Speaker 2: who talked guitar at the Jewish Center. The second on
Speaker 2: the and somewhere I got I still have the mimeograph.
Speaker 2: Flyer is Chuck Mitchell and wife. That's hysterical.
Speaker 1: That's Joni Mitchell.
Speaker 2: And then my band, our band.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing the piano. Does a piano migrate to
Speaker 1: the bass?
Speaker 2: What is thing? No, what happened was my dad went
Speaker 2: to I don't know, he was someplace, but there was
Speaker 2: a rock and roll band and he came back with
Speaker 2: a guitar that he bought for five bucks, which I
Speaker 2: still have, the old Harmony acoustic guitar. So he tried
Speaker 2: to he took some lessons and it didn't click for him,
Speaker 2: so he gave me the guitar and gave me all
Speaker 2: the chord charts and I started just learning on my own.
Speaker 2: But there was a turning point in February in nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty four. That's that's a life changing moment and up
Speaker 2: for a lot of guys age born in nineteen fifty two.
Speaker 2: I know an inordinate number of musicians born that year
Speaker 2: because we were tuned into Ed Sullivan. We saw the Beatles,
Speaker 2: we saw the girls screaming, we saw them having fun,
Speaker 2: we saw them making great music. And at twelve years old,
Speaker 2: you're just dumb enough to think I'm going to do that. Right.
Speaker 2: If you're older, I'd like to do that. But maybe
Speaker 2: I should get that teaching certification just to have something
Speaker 2: to fall back on. I think it must be the phrase,
Speaker 2: and if you're eight, it didn't register. So seeing that,
Speaker 2: we went out the next day and the guys my man,
Speaker 2: we all put pickups on our acoustic guitars and about amplifiers,
Speaker 2: and we got a drummer and there's no turning back
Speaker 2: from that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about being on that bill with Mitchell
Speaker 1: and wife. Was that an anomaly or were you guys
Speaker 1: doing gigs?
Speaker 2: No, it's our It was our elementary school.
Speaker 1: It's a funas so once you once the beatles and
Speaker 1: you get motivated, and you know, we all live through that.
Speaker 1: Everybody's playing, everybody's forming bands, although we're certain people were
Speaker 1: more serious than others. At what point do you have
Speaker 1: a band and they play a gig?
Speaker 2: That band played gigs. We used to work in fact,
Speaker 2: where was that someplace? And I ran into like the
Speaker 2: grandson or the grand nephew of a guy who used
Speaker 2: to be a band. What used to happen was the
Speaker 2: adult bands that would play weddings and bar mitzvahs. They'd
Speaker 2: hire us to play in their breaks because we could
Speaker 2: play the kids stuff, especially at thirteen year olds. Want
Speaker 2: they didn't want to hear hovin ne Guila. So we
Speaker 2: play Beatles songs. So we were twelve thirteen and we'd
Speaker 2: have forty bucks in our pocket every week.
Speaker 1: You were rich, right, What were you playing guitar in
Speaker 1: those bands?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well the first band we didn't know about bass.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what bass was, and then we so
Speaker 2: we didn't have a bass player. One day we're looking
Speaker 2: at some pictures the Beatles studying it and we see
Speaker 2: McCartney's only got four strings. Fck that. I auditioned. I
Speaker 2: think I was in sixth grade, seventh grade. I auditioned
Speaker 2: for a band some guys who were older than us
Speaker 2: actually went out called the Shy Guys. They actually had
Speaker 2: a big hit, regional hit in Detroit, We Gotta Go.
Speaker 2: It was the number one record in Detroit, and they
Speaker 2: needed a bass player. So the leader of the group
Speaker 2: came over, came up to my bedroom and he said,
Speaker 2: all right, let's play something. So I grabbed my regular
Speaker 2: guitar and he said, let's do walk, don't run. So
Speaker 2: I play play the chords, but I'm very careful to
Speaker 2: only play on the lower four strings, thinking that's what
Speaker 2: bass guitar. He said, oh cool, He said, now play
Speaker 2: the bass part, and I said, well, I was Yeah,
Speaker 2: you see, I didn't play the be er these ron leftko.
Speaker 2: Guess he was kind enough to explain what bass was. Now, No,
Speaker 2: it's an octave blow, and so then I learned about
Speaker 2: it and they were There are four or five guitar
Speaker 2: players in my high school class who are better than me,
Speaker 2: and a couple of keyboard players who were better, and
Speaker 2: there were no bass players.
Speaker 1: Bingo, Okay, I don't understand the bass. I played guitar, guitar,
Speaker 1: Still have a guitar or whatever. The bass seems to
Speaker 1: be a calling. Okay, you know you have a guitar
Speaker 1: to play the rhythm, you can play the lead. There
Speaker 1: are people like McCarty plays very melodic notes, but historically
Speaker 1: most of the rock players do not. So is it
Speaker 1: something that you just it resonates go, oh, I know
Speaker 1: where this is in the record, I know how to
Speaker 1: do this? Or was it more of a chore?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's not a chore, man, I was wonderful. The
Speaker 2: beautiful thing about the bass is that if you wanted to,
Speaker 2: if you really wanted to play the bass, I could
Speaker 2: sit here with you for ten minutes and show you
Speaker 2: enough of the geometry of the neck to play any
Speaker 2: four chord rock and roll song you ever heard in
Speaker 2: your life. It's the easiest instrument to get by on,
Speaker 2: but if you want to really get deep and dig
Speaker 2: into it, it's beautiful. Look I'm seventy three and I'm
Speaker 2: just feeling like I'm getting the hang of it. And
Speaker 2: I had some lessons from Ron Carter in the last
Speaker 2: couple of years, and he showed me some things that
Speaker 2: blew my mind. Just Michelle and Daviocello, who's a artist
Speaker 2: sheet we talked about some stuff that Ron had showed me,
Speaker 2: and she showed me another approach to it. And it's
Speaker 2: the nuance. Something that seems tiny, the change of just
Speaker 2: the angle of a one millimeter with your fingers opens
Speaker 2: up a whole universe. I know that that sounds hyperbolic,
Speaker 2: but it's actually not. Well, here, I can actually tell
Speaker 2: you the story Ron Carter. I was playing with Bob
Speaker 2: Weir and we played a radio city musical. Ron Carter,
Speaker 2: who's my hero for life, the greatest bass player around ever. Right,
Speaker 2: he came and sat in with us and he played
Speaker 2: my bass, which I always wondered, what would this sound
Speaker 2: like if Ron Carter was playing this thing? So I
Speaker 2: got to find he played through my rig. The only
Speaker 2: difference was our fingers right, and Bobby records everything. So
Speaker 2: the next day I say, will get the tape, isolate
Speaker 2: the tracks for ron Carter playing a song, and then
Speaker 2: me playing the next song. Called ron Carter up, I said,
Speaker 2: all right, So, how come when I hear you play
Speaker 2: in the space it's the note It's just round and
Speaker 2: warm and perfectly symmetrical. And by comparison, my note sounds
Speaker 2: like it's made out of Swiss cheese with like holes
Speaker 2: in the note. And Ron Carter, who really doesn't suffer fools,
Speaker 2: you know, he said, well, you know, I can tell
Speaker 2: you what you're doing wrong if you want me to. Yeah,
Speaker 2: tell me. He said, you're not releasing the previous note
Speaker 2: before you play the next note. And he gave me
Speaker 2: some exercises to practice for releasing notes, and he was
Speaker 2: one hundred percent right. Something I just I'd have stayed
Speaker 2: in college I had learned it. That was probably a
Speaker 2: dumb move, that dropping out.
Speaker 1: Business you were studying music and going.
Speaker 2: I snuck in. Yeah, I couldn't get into the music college,
Speaker 2: but but no one wanted to be in the school
Speaker 2: in natural resources. Ecology was yet the word was yet
Speaker 2: to be coined. I think. So it's easy to get
Speaker 2: in there. And once I was in then I could
Speaker 2: start taking music classes and transfer.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to bass players. You know, even
Speaker 1: at this laid date, people Rivera Jocko Pastorio, Are you
Speaker 1: one of those people's.
Speaker 2: He's not my favorite bass player, but I'm in awe
Speaker 2: of what he does.
Speaker 1: He's Oh, okay, so your favorite would be Ron Carter
Speaker 1: my favorite? Yeah, anybody else in his league?
Speaker 2: Sure? I mean there are people today who who are
Speaker 2: blow my mind. You may not know their names, like
Speaker 2: Larry Grenadier is just an incredible bassis. Willie Dixon was
Speaker 2: a big hero of mine. I thought he I like
Speaker 2: the guys who don't play a million notes right, but
Speaker 2: hold the thing down and keep it swinging and choose
Speaker 2: interesting notes, but can groove like crazy and keep swinging
Speaker 2: and propel this thing forward. So Willie Dixon, James Jamison is,
Speaker 2: you know, for a myriad of reasons, just he's I
Speaker 2: think he's the greatest genius pick for the instrument up.
Speaker 2: He'd what Robert Johnson did on the guitar, he did
Speaker 2: on the bass. He it takes a whole band to
Speaker 2: cover all the turf that Jamison covered. He was melodic,
Speaker 2: he was playing counterpoint. It's like a percussionist, and he
Speaker 2: was holding down the low end all at once. People
Speaker 2: weren't really doing that. I like the ego free, supportive
Speaker 2: bass players who play minimal amount of notes, but they
Speaker 2: all mean something. The choice of notes. You don't have
Speaker 2: to play if you're in C. You don't have to
Speaker 2: play a C in the bass, play a G in
Speaker 2: the bass. A whole other emotional palette. It's opened up,
Speaker 2: So choosing the right notes to play is a big deal.
Speaker 2: Ron cardigtal tell I think that's the title of his biography.
Speaker 2: It's something to do with searching for the right notes.
Speaker 1: Okay, the obvious dumb question, you place the end up bass.
Speaker 1: There are bass electric bassed guitars with no frets. Is
Speaker 1: it feel or do you sort of memorize where the
Speaker 1: threts would be. What's the trick?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's feel. You can actually even if you don't
Speaker 2: hear it yourself, because especially you know when you have
Speaker 2: a really good bass that resonates as one piece of wood,
Speaker 2: even though it's a couple pieces of wood put together,
Speaker 2: you feel it on your body. It's very physical on
Speaker 2: the bass, and you can tell from the vibration whether
Speaker 2: you're in tune and you're just and you don't necessarily
Speaker 2: want to be perfectly in tune, you know. Brian Wilson
Speaker 2: once told me, he said, when when studio musicians when
Speaker 2: they started buying these personal tuners, when that came out
Speaker 2: and you didn't tune by ear right, he said, record's
Speaker 2: got all thin. He said, it doesn't sound good when
Speaker 2: everybody's perfectly in tune. And if you think about an orchestra,
Speaker 2: that's why an eighty piece orchestra is so huge sound
Speaker 2: because everybody's a little bit out, but among the eighty people,
Speaker 2: they fill in the gap and it turns into one note.
Speaker 2: But it's a warmer, fuller sound when you're not perfectly into.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's set the stage. It's sixty four. You hear
Speaker 1: the Beatles. In terms of what comes out of Detroit,
Speaker 1: we have Motown breaks around the same time where did
Speaker 1: Our Love go goes top forty goes big? Then in
Speaker 1: terms of what comes out of Detroit, it's big, is
Speaker 1: pretty much Mitch Ryder Okay, Stugents sixty nine seventy, same
Speaker 1: thing with the MC five. They don't make big commercial impacts.
Speaker 1: Bob Seekers on independent labels. You keep hearing about them.
Speaker 1: Was this something we live in Los Angeles, a giant
Speaker 1: suburban city. There's shit going on all the time that
Speaker 1: we have no access about we might hear about. Was
Speaker 1: it like that you're young or was there any pollination,
Speaker 1: any cross pollination intersection with that bigger scene.
Speaker 2: You mean a cross between like.
Speaker 1: You, Oh me, yeah, little DoD Well. You know it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: Bob Seeker his bass player lives down the street. I
Speaker 1: go to somebody's house, I listen. Oh yeah, I sat
Speaker 1: in on the studio or as they could have been
Speaker 1: in you know, Seattle for all you knew.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a there's a local consciousness that permeates that music,
Speaker 2: that makes it feel more personal, I think. But to me,
Speaker 2: there was effectively no difference in Detroit between Bob Seeger
Speaker 2: or the Beatles, or really John Sinclair, who was quite
Speaker 2: a heroic figure to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, John Sinclair, what do we know? You bought the
Speaker 1: original MC five record that wasn't uncentried. You open it up,
Speaker 1: you had a whole squeed. What we knew was John
Speaker 1: Sinclair was the manager with Air quotes and they arrested
Speaker 1: him for two joints. You know, this is not like
Speaker 1: today we could go deep into somebody. So what did
Speaker 1: John Sinclair represent for you?
Speaker 2: John Sinclair was the leader of the alternative culture in Detroit.
Speaker 2: He was a political activist. His role with the MC
Speaker 2: five was really in grasping the idea that you could
Speaker 2: have a guitar army, which is a phrase that he pined,
Speaker 2: and that you could change the hearts and minds of
Speaker 2: young people and open them up to bigger ideas through
Speaker 2: rock and roll. But he was a beat poet and
Speaker 2: an advocate for jazz, and he was just everywhere I knew,
Speaker 2: more as an anti war activist than as the manager
Speaker 2: of the MC five. And that was a minor part
Speaker 2: of his life, I would say, But he was He
Speaker 2: was local, but what he had to say was as
Speaker 2: influential as maybe John Lennon would have said, or what
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan would say. He was so that that was
Speaker 2: part of the beauty of having local cultures. It's something
Speaker 2: that's kind of gone now because everything's so global. You'd
Speaker 2: have regional hit records. You don't have regional hit you
Speaker 2: don't even have you know, you put a record up
Speaker 2: to stream. It's all over the world. Now you know
Speaker 2: that you can't I have a regional hit. It just
Speaker 2: doesn't work like that. But there you to answer your
Speaker 2: bigger question. I think when things were local, you could
Speaker 2: feel more a part of it. I felt a part
Speaker 2: of that culture in Detroit. I had friends who were
Speaker 2: more deeply enmeshed in it. There's a guy named Joel
Speaker 2: Landy who became quite an activist in Detroit. Body of mine.
Speaker 2: He ran the print shop for the alternative paper, the
Speaker 2: Fifth of State, which was next to Sinclair's Enterprises, right,
Speaker 2: And I remember he called me up and said, you
Speaker 2: got to come down here, man, And I got my car,
Speaker 2: drove downtown and the members of the MC five were
Speaker 2: jamming with members of Pharaoh Saunders band. Fuck man. I
Speaker 2: never heard anything like that in my life, and I
Speaker 2: actually I've never heard anything like it. Subsequent that became
Speaker 2: like a virtue, you know, that was something that could
Speaker 2: only happen in Detroit, and uh, it felt. It awakened
Speaker 2: a part of me, I felt, but I felt connected
Speaker 2: to it because because it just spoke to me as
Speaker 2: a as someone who lived in that familiar you know, Okay,
Speaker 2: you gained success. Eventually, John Sinclair comes out of jail.
Speaker 2: Did you have any personal contact with him later in life?
Speaker 2: We became really good friends. He's on a couple of
Speaker 2: us and I was records and I played on his albums,
Speaker 2: you know. And I played gigs with him too when
Speaker 2: I could.
Speaker 1: But did you know the times it changed he was
Speaker 1: in jail. I should know that he worked with you,
Speaker 1: but obviously I didn't. Was he the same guy with
Speaker 1: the same charisma?
Speaker 2: He never faltered man, you know, he passed man, but
Speaker 2: to this last breath. Man he was rebellious and a
Speaker 2: little crotchety about it, you know, but he did. He
Speaker 2: never surrendered when everybody else did, when everyone else said,
Speaker 2: he never gave up the fight. And it was it
Speaker 2: was an admirable quality. It represented real conviction. Most people
Speaker 2: he could have cashed out. It was several junctions.
Speaker 1: That's the story of our generation. You know, we protested
Speaker 1: in the sixties seventies, back to the Land movement. We're
Speaker 1: licking the wounds. Reagan legitimized greed. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: everybody's values flipped. Yeah, you know, they wanted to make money.
Speaker 1: It was really very strange. You get some success with
Speaker 1: was Not was so Bonnie Rate he loses her record deal. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the guy worked at Warners, working at Capital, they sign her.
Speaker 1: Where do you come in in that process?
Speaker 2: Before they signed her, what happened was there's a guy
Speaker 2: named Hal Wilner who was a very dear friend aside
Speaker 2: from COVID. From COVID early on, you know, the first
Speaker 2: couple of weeks of it. I think beautiful Cat just
Speaker 2: loved music. Earned a living by being the the music
Speaker 2: supervisor maybe of Saturday Night Live. I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: the title was, but any kind of music you heard
Speaker 2: in the things. He was responsible for that. But he
Speaker 2: invented the tribute record, and as opposed to getting all
Speaker 2: the superstars together, he put he would put together the
Speaker 2: most eclectic lens of people and and encourage you to
Speaker 2: stretch out, so he called us. Was Not was when
Speaker 2: we were still not No one knew who he were,
Speaker 2: and came to Detroit and had us cut something for
Speaker 2: a flneous a Monk tribute record. We had Sheila Jordan's
Speaker 2: singing with us, and we thought, great, freed from the
Speaker 2: constraints of making pop records, we can get out here
Speaker 2: and well, you know, it's like Carla Blaye was on
Speaker 2: the record. You can't out Carlo Blade right right right.
Speaker 2: So we just got lost in the shuffle because everyone
Speaker 2: was trying to stretch out. So I said, all right,
Speaker 2: next time, we're going to stand out by going inside
Speaker 2: and touching people's hearts. So the next album he had
Speaker 2: was a Disney tribute album. So we did an arrangement
Speaker 2: of baby Mine, which a very sad song in the
Speaker 2: movie Mother Elephant gets, you know, locked up in the
Speaker 2: cage and the baby comes and they touched trunks through
Speaker 2: the bars. If you don't cry in the scene, there's
Speaker 2: you need help. So we did like a real nice
Speaker 2: three four maybe six eight feel, but it was like
Speaker 2: an R and B kind of thing. And and from
Speaker 2: the arrangement, I just heard Bonnie singing because I've been
Speaker 2: a fan of hers since since she can't I bought,
Speaker 2: I got her first record, and so I played live
Speaker 2: at the ann Arbert Blues and Jazz Festival. So I
Speaker 2: always loved her, and Hell put us together. So we
Speaker 2: worked on that song and we clicked. We clicked musically
Speaker 2: and personally. She felt like a like a long lost
Speaker 2: sister to me. You know, I could just well, you
Speaker 2: can't help but love her, man, She's just one of
Speaker 2: the best people, biggest heart. H you did a wonderful
Speaker 2: moview with her, Oh thank you, and uh so we
Speaker 2: just clicked and it was like, well, let's do more stuff.
Speaker 2: Well I don't have a record deal, that's okay, just
Speaker 2: come on. I got a little I had a little
Speaker 2: eight track things set up in my house and we
Speaker 2: we started. We started doing demos for what would become
Speaker 2: Nicked Time. And it took some time to make that
Speaker 2: deal happen. She was managed by Danny Goldberg and Ron
Speaker 2: Stone at gold Ma and she'd been dropped by Warners
Speaker 2: and there was a stigma attached to that and took it.
Speaker 2: It took a minute to overcome that and find it
Speaker 2: is Joe Smith, who was part of letting her go
Speaker 2: at Warner Brothers and not happy about it, who gave
Speaker 2: her the shot that capitol. So you know, we made
Speaker 2: Nicked Time. We made it real fast, but we were prepared.
Speaker 2: We did something before we started the record. She came
Speaker 2: over to my place a number of times and we
Speaker 2: cut just demos with her either playing guitar alone or
Speaker 2: playing piano and singing, and we figured you know, if
Speaker 2: the song doesn't work with you playing it alone, whatever
Speaker 2: other layers stuff we put on, it's not going to
Speaker 2: make it work. So let's find you know, ten that
Speaker 2: and and so we're ready.
Speaker 1: Okay, So all the stuff you cut before the deal,
Speaker 1: none of those were masters. It was after the deal
Speaker 1: you recut everything.
Speaker 2: We recut everything, and we cut it pretty quickly. We
Speaker 2: didn't have a lot of bread. We had one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand dollars, which now actually seems like a
Speaker 2: big boat, right, but that was like that was minimal
Speaker 2: kind of budget in those days.
Speaker 1: Did you bring any of the songs or did she
Speaker 1: bring all the songs?
Speaker 2: I'm sure she brought all the songs. She's a great musicologist.
Speaker 2: People would send She always had boxes cassettes of demos.
Speaker 2: In fact, on the second album, Luck of the Draw,
Speaker 2: we'd cut most of the album. We were ready, but
Speaker 2: we didn't have the up tempost single that we thought
Speaker 2: it was gonna require. And she was going through every
Speaker 2: box and way at the bottom of like the last box,
Speaker 2: she found Shirty Elkhart's song something to Talk About Me.
Speaker 2: She said, I found it. But the thing about Bonnie
Speaker 2: is that she won't sing anything that she couldn't have
Speaker 2: written herself. That she didn't want to have to act.
Speaker 2: She wanted to draw from personal experience. So everything that
Speaker 2: we cut, if she wasn't a writer, it was something
Speaker 2: that she felt and was experiencing and was experiencing at
Speaker 2: that moment, which is the one reason her vocals are
Speaker 2: so great, because she means it.
Speaker 1: Okay, niked, time is done. You know, it has success
Speaker 1: that no one could foresee. But when it was done,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about it?
Speaker 2: I mean she'd been up and down.
Speaker 1: She cut, you know, records on FOD track at a
Speaker 1: summer camp she worked with Paul Roth, a Jerry raggvoy.
Speaker 1: Everything had been tried and nothing really worked. So you're there,
Speaker 1: I mean the record is done. You say, wait a second,
Speaker 1: there's something specially. He said, Well, you know, we gave
Speaker 1: it our all.
Speaker 2: We'll see what happens. We never considered that kind of success,
Speaker 2: the kind of success we enjoyed, never considered that to
Speaker 2: be in the cards. We just were trying to make
Speaker 2: something we'd be proud of in twenty five years. That
Speaker 2: was something that we have actually said, let's not compromise
Speaker 2: for the marketplace, don't imitate what's out now, because what
Speaker 2: was out then was like flock of seagulls, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was just the opposite, the antithesis of what she
Speaker 2: was about. Don't try to be eighteen. I mean that
Speaker 2: was another thing too. You know, it was such such
Speaker 2: a brave thing to write and record a song like
Speaker 2: nick of Time, because at that point, the conventional wisdom
Speaker 2: was that, even if you were closing it I'm forty,
Speaker 2: you had to pretend to be eighteen, right, And she
Speaker 2: just dropped that pretense, and she wrote to her age
Speaker 2: and not everyone thought that was a great idea, but
Speaker 2: no one considered that her audience was going through that
Speaker 2: exact same thing. Plus, I mean, plus it's time, it's
Speaker 2: nick of time? Is it that happened? That song is
Speaker 2: relevant to every generation somewhere in their forties, right, So
Speaker 2: it's a timeless song. But she was gutsy about it,
Speaker 2: and we hoped we'd get to the next record and
Speaker 2: make something that we'd be proud of. At one point
Speaker 2: someone came back to us and said, you know, we
Speaker 2: need a Motown cover, We need a single for this,
Speaker 2: And thankfully we were both on tour and couldn't get
Speaker 2: back together to do it me, because if we'd have
Speaker 2: done that, it would have ruined the album, I think,
Speaker 2: and everything that it stood for. So we just had
Speaker 2: to put it out the way it was. I remember
Speaker 2: Tim Divine was the anarch guy, and Tim came to
Speaker 2: the studio. We played it for him and he said
Speaker 2: to me, he said, you got a tux. No, I
Speaker 2: don't have a tux. He said, we'll get when you're
Speaker 2: going to the Grammys. My first instinct was to punch
Speaker 2: him right now, you know you like it, to just
Speaker 2: say you like that. You don't have to come in
Speaker 2: here and be all hyperbolic. But he was right, he
Speaker 2: heard it.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a very interesting thing with Bonnie. For a
Speaker 1: long time. My favorite record was the second record give
Speaker 1: it Up. Then she works with you. After a little
Speaker 1: bit of hiatus, having no label deal, you put on
Speaker 1: Nick of Time, very successful. Luck of the Draw is
Speaker 1: a peak that's actually for me and I told everybody
Speaker 1: involved except maybe you, that better than give it Up.
Speaker 1: So now you have the pressure of having had success.
Speaker 1: So what was the mental state of going in to
Speaker 1: record Luck of the Draw?
Speaker 2: Uh? I think we were remarkably cool about it, to
Speaker 2: be I think we were uh. I think it gave
Speaker 2: us confidence to follow our instincts. And by the way,
Speaker 2: when I talk about us, I can't talk about us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you are you going to break down? You're going
Speaker 1: to mention the engineer here, very sad story.
Speaker 2: Ah, I can't talk about us without mentioning Ed Shirney
Speaker 2: Ship Bobby.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I became close. I mean I knew
Speaker 1: Ed Brobab probably ten or fifteen years before. Body became
Speaker 1: close just before he died. And I didn't really think
Speaker 1: he was going to die.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I guess I spoke with him, you know, one time,
Speaker 1: just before you because he used to talk to Al
Speaker 1: Schmidt every day they used to wake up. And then
Speaker 1: they both died.
Speaker 2: But you know, I.
Speaker 1: Guess he died before his time. And it's not like
Speaker 1: he died in his twenties. It's and he was such
Speaker 1: a you know, upbeat, fun guy. Not that he didn't
Speaker 1: have his darkness whatever, It's just not the type of
Speaker 1: guy you expect not to be here. It's hard to
Speaker 1: explain if you didn't know him.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, He's a wonderful guy and just had this
Speaker 2: great spirit about him and he he changed the energy
Speaker 2: of the sessions. So much. He made it such a
Speaker 2: positive thing and relaxed people. And but in addition to
Speaker 2: all his human characteristics, he uh, he was a genius
Speaker 2: engineer and nick ad time and lucky to draw on.
Speaker 2: Those records are as much his design. Because we were torn.
Speaker 2: We didn't know how this record should sound. I wanted
Speaker 2: it to sound like Joshua Tree. I wanted dark and dry,
Speaker 2: and Bonnie wanted it natural like her other records have been.
Speaker 2: And Ed was coming from working with Quincy Jones on
Speaker 2: something and was putting long echoes on things. Long you know,
Speaker 2: long delays, long reverbs, and somehow we had to find
Speaker 2: a middle ground, and Ed came up with a way
Speaker 2: to use really short delays and really short reverbs that
Speaker 2: are imperceptible. You don't hear it as reverb. They sound
Speaker 2: very natural. They sound very dry, like you could have
Speaker 2: put one really great mic up in the room and
Speaker 2: balanced it in the room. Sounds very natural, but it's
Speaker 2: actually there's a lot of work that went into that sound.
Speaker 2: And people started imitating him. After that, everything got away
Speaker 2: from the long reverbs and people were going for some
Speaker 2: kind of intimacy again, and Ed was the architect of
Speaker 2: that thing. That's why I think of engineers and mixers.
Speaker 2: I think of them as architects because when you put
Speaker 2: on headphones, put your head right between the speakers, you
Speaker 2: can hear the you can picture a room. You can
Speaker 2: hear reflections off of walls, but those walls don't actually exist.
Speaker 2: It's not actually a photograph of the room it was
Speaker 2: recorded in. You create the illusion of a wall by
Speaker 2: putting a delay in there, and then a signal is
Speaker 2: bouncing off of this thing the same way you perceive
Speaker 2: like sonar, the same way sonar works, so you perceive walls.
Speaker 2: And the great mixers are beautiful architects. They build these
Speaker 2: imaginary rooms that compliment the music, don't overshadow the music.
Speaker 2: They compliment the thing and help the storytelling. And Ed
Speaker 2: built this beautiful space for Bonnie to sing these songs,
Speaker 2: and the intimacy of those records allowed her to communicate
Speaker 2: directly with people. Our goal is to make it feel
Speaker 2: like like you were driving your car and Bonnie was
Speaker 2: in the in the passenger seat next to you, leaning
Speaker 2: in and singing to you in your ear. That was
Speaker 2: when we when we talked about it at the beginning.
Speaker 2: That's what we're going for. And I think we achieved
Speaker 2: that and that's in you know, large part due to Dad.
Speaker 1: So how did you meet Ed and start working with him.
Speaker 2: Over that record? I didn't know him before that, and.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up with him?
Speaker 2: He had done Right Cooter's It is a bop to
Speaker 2: your draft. I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 1: Which I was earlier. Well, he did a Right Cooder record.
Speaker 2: He did a Right Cooter record right around the time.
Speaker 2: Bonnie liked the sound of it, so she said, let's
Speaker 2: let's get together with that. We went to move Sewing
Speaker 2: Franks and it was like it is like the three
Speaker 2: of us had known each other forever.
Speaker 1: Okay, Bonnie, after a number of records you no longer
Speaker 1: work with. This has happened with other acts. Why does
Speaker 1: it run out? And how do you feel about it?
Speaker 2: I don't know the answer.
Speaker 1: Well, you got to know the answer to how it
Speaker 1: feels when they don't call you.
Speaker 2: Well, we talked about making the next record, and she liked, ah,
Speaker 2: what's the the Lost Lobos record? How well the worst
Speaker 2: will survive? That one after that? The one that's very experimental,
Speaker 2: that that Mitchell Prum did, Mitchell Fruman, Chad Blake. She
Speaker 2: I just can't think of the name of the alright,
Speaker 2: but it's a great, incredible record. She wanted to go
Speaker 2: for more of those kind of sounds, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: really what Ed and I did, and there's no no
Speaker 2: value judgment on it. I said, well, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe you should go with Mitchell if you want, if
Speaker 2: you want that thing to do that. It was never
Speaker 2: We talked about it, and it wasn't. It was most
Speaker 2: amicable and and she made some great records too. So people,
Speaker 2: you can't keep you doing the same things, and you
Speaker 2: got to shake things up. I think that's just part
Speaker 2: of the nature of making records. We couldn't keep going
Speaker 2: with that sound. We did three records with that sound,
Speaker 2: and a live album that covered all the material and
Speaker 2: brought it together. And you want artists want to grow.
Speaker 2: I didn't take it personally. I hope. I don't think
Speaker 2: she took it personally. If we you know, we we're
Speaker 2: still wonderful friends to this day. That's just how it goes.
Speaker 1: Okay, you mentioned Pharaoh, Saunders and all these other people.
Speaker 1: Where does this jazz influence come from.
Speaker 2: Well, tell your story. I was I was fourteen years
Speaker 2: old in Detroit, my mom was making me drive around
Speaker 2: with her on Sunday running errands, right, and I just
Speaker 2: wanted to be at Northland Mall with my friends and
Speaker 2: to hang out with my mom. So it was a
Speaker 2: pretty crabby, obnoxious kid that afternoon. She was disgusted. She
Speaker 2: left me in the car, gave me the keys. He said,
Speaker 2: just play with the radio. I'll be right back. I
Speaker 2: remember were sitting outside of the Park Library. I'm messing
Speaker 2: with the tile, and I just randomly landed on a
Speaker 2: station that I didn't know it existed, because we didn't
Speaker 2: have FM radio in the house, right, And it was WHD,
Speaker 2: which was the jazz station. It was a very highly
Speaker 2: regarded DJ who's still on the air in Detroit in
Speaker 2: his nineties, by the way, a guy named ed Love
Speaker 2: who used to back announce records and was a jazz
Speaker 2: dis job. I came in on the station just as
Speaker 2: a song, which I later learned was Mode for Joe
Speaker 2: by Joe Henderson, which is a Blue Note record. And
Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about jazz. I'd probably heard it
Speaker 2: in the background and movies and stuff, but I didn't
Speaker 2: think about it ever. And right where I hit is
Speaker 2: where he starts as solo and you can check it.
Speaker 2: It happens about forty six seconds in the song. He's
Speaker 2: making these kind of anguish cries with the sacks. I'd
Speaker 2: never heard of saxophone and grabbed my attention because whatever
Speaker 2: Joe Henderson was going through that the sound he was
Speaker 2: making sounded like exactly how I felt being stuck driving
Speaker 2: around with my mom all day, so that it got
Speaker 2: my ears. And then I don't know ten fifteen seconds
Speaker 2: in the drummer, guy named Joe Chambers starts swinging on
Speaker 2: his ride symbol. And Joe Chambers stops howling and starts grooving,
Speaker 2: and I thought he was talking to me. I picked
Speaker 2: up a nonverbal message from there. I thought he was saying,
Speaker 2: don you got to groove in the face of adversity.
Speaker 2: And I thought about it, and he had just showed
Speaker 2: me how to do that. He started, no matter how
Speaker 2: how much angst he was experiencing, he couldn't resist the
Speaker 2: ride symbol and he started swinging. And I took the
Speaker 2: message to heart, and by the time my mom got
Speaker 2: back in the car, I was relaxed and a nice
Speaker 2: kid again, and I understood that there was something about
Speaker 2: this music that was highly communicative on another level than
Speaker 2: what I was experiencing with, you know, the Cherrell's or
Speaker 2: whatever at the same time. So I got an FM
Speaker 2: radio and started listening to this jazz station and just
Speaker 2: totally became enamored of this one company that was putting
Speaker 2: out all these great records. And then I saw the artwork.
Speaker 2: There was Blue Note Records, the little independent company out
Speaker 2: of New York. The covers were incredible, photography was amazing.
Speaker 2: It's black and white photography with these guys and cigarettes,
Speaker 2: smoke and saxophones and cool clothes and whatever. It was
Speaker 2: about that familiar I wanted to be part of it.
Speaker 2: I knew then wherever I can't figure out what room
Speaker 2: they're in the walls are black, I couldn't duck and
Speaker 2: dump it. This is the coolest stuff. Subsequently, I learned
Speaker 2: the roots of this music, which is that it comes
Speaker 2: from extreme oppression from the African the aspora, people who
Speaker 2: are here against their will and being forced to give
Speaker 2: up their culture or at least hide their culture. And
Speaker 2: they were able to hide it musically keep it alive.
Speaker 2: And that's where this music comes from. So it's popular
Speaker 2: all over the world because anyone who's oppressed, and there's
Speaker 2: oppression all over the world with all different kinds of people.
Speaker 2: This is the music that you should comfort and understanding
Speaker 2: of the situation. So I just became like a huge man.
Speaker 2: This music really spoke to me, and I collected the records.
Speaker 2: We used to get on a bus man we'd call
Speaker 2: around it. This goes back to the days before there
Speaker 2: were chain record stores. Every record store was a mom
Speaker 2: and pop store and reflected the taste of the owner
Speaker 2: a little bit too, So we'd have to call ten
Speaker 2: stores to find out, oh, you've got a copulary, young Unity.
Speaker 2: We'd get on the bus ride forty five minutes to
Speaker 2: the east side of Detroit just to hold the thing.
Speaker 2: It was four ninety eight or three ninety eight for
Speaker 2: the two ninety eight for the mono, right, three ninety
Speaker 2: eight for the stereo. Couldn't afford either one. But I
Speaker 2: could hold it and look at it, look at the pictures,
Speaker 2: and read the liner notes, and maybe you could con
Speaker 2: the store owner into breaking the seal and playing some
Speaker 2: of the record for you. I started collecting them. Never
Speaker 2: gone to me that fifty some years later, I didn't
Speaker 2: being president that label.
Speaker 1: Okay, A couple of questions, jazz had a peek conventional wisdom.
Speaker 1: Don't argue with me. I'm just putting it out. Pejorative
Speaker 1: jazz is dead, just like rock and roll is dead.
Speaker 1: Now now, there have been so many iterations of jazz,
Speaker 1: there's been smooth jazz, et cetera. How does someone who
Speaker 1: is not a jazz fan, where is the entry point?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's a that's a very good question to me.
Speaker 2: The essence of jazz or even improvisational music. I extend
Speaker 2: that to like The Grateful Dead and Goose and bands
Speaker 2: like that. They're conversations. They're there are people listening to
Speaker 2: each other and reacting. The best musicians are the ones
Speaker 2: who listen to what everyone else is playing and not
Speaker 2: only react, but suggests something new that advances the conversation further.
Speaker 2: Not every if you go to a party, not every
Speaker 2: conversation is for you. Right, you stand with some group
Speaker 2: of people and they're talking about some bullshit. You sort
Speaker 2: of back up quietly and find some other people to
Speaker 2: talk to. But you can always find something to sink
Speaker 2: your teeth into. And it's very much the same with jazz.
Speaker 2: I recommend going Easy kind of Blue by Miles Davis
Speaker 2: is a pretty safe entry point for people. Blue Trained
Speaker 2: by John Coltrane, which is the most popular catalog album
Speaker 2: that Blue Note's got. That's just it makes you feel good.
Speaker 2: You put those records on, you feel good. And the
Speaker 2: greatest misconception about jazz is that you have to study,
Speaker 2: you know, two years of music theory at the university
Speaker 2: level to qualify it to listen to it. And that's
Speaker 2: just not true. You shouldn't even be aware of the seams.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't know what these guys study to play like that.
Speaker 2: You should. It either speaks to you or it doesn't.
Speaker 2: And I don't love all jazz. You know that A
Speaker 2: lot of it doesn't speak to me. I don't like
Speaker 2: it when it gets too cerebral, when people are sometimes
Speaker 2: you can hear people. It reads almost like an application
Speaker 2: for a grant from a foundation. It's all in the head.
Speaker 2: I like it when it comes from the heart. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter jazz or blues or anything. You know, any
Speaker 2: kind of music you want some well, at least I
Speaker 2: favor the non acrobatic, soulful, oh types of expression.
Speaker 1: Okay, what do we say to the people who know
Speaker 1: nothing but say jazz is discordant?
Speaker 2: When you're playing something else. When I first started Blue Notte,
Speaker 2: we started, we did some some research. We have focus
Speaker 2: groups come in of people, just every type of person.
Speaker 2: And what do you think of jazz? I hate jazz man,
Speaker 2: it's all discord It's terrible, all right, I understand that.
Speaker 2: Then we put on a Sidewinder by Lee Morgan. I say, oh,
Speaker 2: I love that. What do you call that music? If
Speaker 2: someone says it's all discordant, I don't dig it. I said, well,
Speaker 2: you're not listening to the right stuff. You know, it's understandable.
Speaker 2: How do you find it's hard to find your way in?
Speaker 2: That's that's That's one of the biggest things we've tried
Speaker 2: to do that Blue Note is to provide a nice
Speaker 2: pathway in, you know, to put out a welcome matt
Speaker 2: and let people come in. And of course it changes too,
Speaker 2: you know, the times change. When I when I started,
Speaker 2: the first meeting I had with an artist was with
Speaker 2: Robert Glasper, who played a very early version, rough mixes
Speaker 2: of Black Radio. I could tell them already, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd heard other people. Roy Hargrove was experimenting with hip
Speaker 2: hop ten years before that, but no one had quite
Speaker 2: put it together the way Robert did, and I was transfixed.
Speaker 2: I never heard anything like it, but I knew it
Speaker 2: would speak to a whole other generation of people, because
Speaker 2: the best jazz musicians take everything that they've absorbed and
Speaker 2: and incorporate that into the flow of their music. So Robert,
Speaker 2: you know, certainly that he grew up, you know, when
Speaker 2: hip hop music was popular, so that that's part of
Speaker 2: his thing. But here, I've heard him quote McDonald's commercials.
Speaker 2: I've heard him quote Bonnie Rait records. I've heard him
Speaker 2: quote Bruce Hornsby. Uh, you know, he's we're all musicians.
Speaker 2: You're you're you are the sum total of what you
Speaker 2: absorb in life and what you've listened to, and if
Speaker 2: you don't keep updating what you do to reflect who
Speaker 2: you are in that moment, then you're just basically a museum.
Speaker 2: You don't want to be a museum. That was one
Speaker 2: of the things when I first started a Blue Note.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know, why is it music that was
Speaker 2: recorded fifty sixty years ago relevant today? You know, why
Speaker 2: does it sound fresh and vibrant today? And what I
Speaker 2: found was that in every period of the company's existence,
Speaker 2: they always signed artist who had absorbed the fundamentals of
Speaker 2: everything that came before him, but then use that knowledge
Speaker 2: to create something brand new, whether that was The Loneliest
Speaker 2: Monk in the forties, or Art Blakey and Horace silver
Speaker 2: Invent and Hard Bob in the fifties, or Wayne Shorter,
Speaker 2: Herbie Hancock or Ntte Coleman, Eric Dolphie in the sixties,
Speaker 2: or glassper in two thousand and eleven. You have to
Speaker 2: it's got to be self expression, not you just copying
Speaker 2: someone else's self expression.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's just stay on that topic for a minute, people,
Speaker 1: Let's just talk rock music for a minutes. Yesha, very rare,
Speaker 1: extremely rare for someone to create something unlest we're talking
Speaker 1: about Bonnie Raid of the quality of their initial period
Speaker 1: decades later, especially today with recording revenues for most of
Speaker 1: these acts small. They make the money on the road,
Speaker 1: and the people want to wear, they hear, they hits.
Speaker 1: There's an occasional being like the Doobie Brothers puts out
Speaker 1: a record every couple of years, but most acts have stopped. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you think you're a record producer, Do you think
Speaker 1: it's a state of mind that you got them in
Speaker 1: the studio and you get two hundred thousand dollars, you
Speaker 1: can make something as good as they made in their
Speaker 1: legendary era. Is something in that quality or is it
Speaker 1: spent whatever headspace they were in, whatever that ship sailed.
Speaker 2: I don't think that there's like a singular cutoff point
Speaker 2: at which point you're doomed to just repeat what you
Speaker 2: did in your glory years. The artists that I admire
Speaker 2: most have it's it's cicular, you know, cyclical that you
Speaker 2: ride these waves of you're inspired. You ride a wave
Speaker 2: of an inspired time, and then then the trough of
Speaker 2: the waves when you're not inspired, and if you stay
Speaker 2: in it for forty fifty years, you get a couple
Speaker 2: of crests.
Speaker 1: Well, well, let's put it out differently.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Certainly, if you were a rock fan and you're buying
Speaker 1: records in the sixties, the interest leaves would have pictures
Speaker 1: of every album that whatever you bought Atlantic records, there
Speaker 1: were a lot of jobs, less McCann whatever. What do
Speaker 1: we know? Those records were never million sellers. This was
Speaker 1: a business. We like your music, we're making a record.
Speaker 1: We're not going to lose money because then we're going
Speaker 1: to stop. So when you're making records at Blue Note today,
Speaker 1: is that pretty much the goal we're documenting. These people
Speaker 1: are artists. We are not even looking at you know,
Speaker 1: the Spotify top fifty whatever in that. This is the
Speaker 1: modern world.
Speaker 2: I see albums. I still make albums, still believe in
Speaker 2: the album is a statement, but I see it I
Speaker 2: seem as postcards. You know, hey, Bo'm in Minnesota today. Man,
Speaker 2: it's great here heading to you know, we'll be in
Speaker 2: Saint Louis tomorrow night. Just dropping the mailbox picture. You're
Speaker 2: standing by the Paul Bunyan statue, right right right. That's
Speaker 2: what the albums are. This is where I am at
Speaker 2: this moment in my life.
Speaker 1: Well, this is very different from the pre Internet era,
Speaker 1: where the goal was to sell tonnage on every record
Speaker 1: on a major label.
Speaker 2: Ony. Yeah, well, I believe the best business plan is
Speaker 2: to make great records. If you make great records, you'll
Speaker 2: the revenue will find you.
Speaker 1: Okay, Blue Note, how many records you put out a year?
Speaker 2: We do around twenty Frontline albums, and last year we
Speaker 2: did fifty high quality audio, file quality vinyl reissues of.
Speaker 1: The catalog Frontline product. What's the budget for one of
Speaker 1: those records.
Speaker 2: It depends, could be Norah Jones, or it could be
Speaker 2: if it's a new jazz artist, it might be fifteen
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. Okay, how'd you get this gig?
Speaker 1: Good question.
Speaker 2: I was in New York City. I was producing a
Speaker 2: John Mayer record. Born and Raised twenty eleven, were recording
Speaker 2: an Electric Lady, and we took a night off. So
Speaker 2: I looked in the village voice just thought, oh God,
Speaker 2: and here's some music clear my head. And I saw
Speaker 2: that an artist named Gregory Porter was appearing at a
Speaker 2: little club called Smoke Up near Harlem. And I'd heard
Speaker 2: Gregory on the local jazz station, and I was blown away.
Speaker 2: I didn't know anything about him, but I heard a
Speaker 2: song called Illusion that he put out on a little
Speaker 2: independent label called Motima. I thought, man, you wrote this song,
Speaker 2: and he just sings it so beautifully, which is great poetry.
Speaker 2: And listen to his voice. Man. So I was thrilled
Speaker 2: to see that he was there. I didn't know anything
Speaker 2: about him, so I went up to catch a show
Speaker 2: there for three sets. Wasn't there on business. I just
Speaker 2: drank coffee, ate ribs and enjoyed all three sets. The
Speaker 2: next morning, I had breakfast with an old buddy of mine,
Speaker 2: guy named Dan McCarroll. I knew Dan when he was
Speaker 2: a Sheryl Crow's drummer, played Lloyd Cole Emotions, and he
Speaker 2: was married to Jane Oppenheimer, who was my assistant in
Speaker 2: the nineties, and that's when Dan came into the picture.
Speaker 2: I met him then, but over the years, his savvy
Speaker 2: as a musician of taste had gotten him to the
Speaker 2: point where he'd become the president of Capitol Records. And
Speaker 2: we weren't even talking about the music business, records or anything.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the breakfast, I said to him,
Speaker 2: Blue Not it's still a part of Capitol, right, you
Speaker 2: really should sign this guy. I saw last night Greg Reporter.
Speaker 2: He's quiet for about ten seconds. He said, now you
Speaker 2: should sign him. And completely unbeknownst to me, I don't
Speaker 2: know anything about the inner workings of Blue Note at
Speaker 2: that point. But Bruce Lonval, who'd run the company for
Speaker 2: thirty years, one of the great recordmen of all time,
Speaker 2: maybe one of maybe the most beloved executive among musicians.
Speaker 2: Even Bruce was ill. He had Parkinson's and he wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be able to continue, and they were looking
Speaker 2: for someone who could, who had an understanding of the
Speaker 2: ethos of Blue Note Records, but would continue to move
Speaker 2: it forward, not just remake the old nineteen sixties records.
Speaker 2: So he offered me the gig. And and my goal
Speaker 2: in life had been to not have a job or
Speaker 2: something that I considered to be a job. I never
Speaker 2: thought a guitar player or being in a band or
Speaker 2: making records as work. You know, it was fun. This
Speaker 2: is going to be something. Plus, I also knew that
Speaker 2: I was going to have to learn to understand a
Speaker 2: profit and loss statement. I never used excel.
Speaker 1: I haven't used it to this day, okay.
Speaker 2: And so I also know that you have a finite
Speaker 2: number of synoptic pathways that you can keep open at
Speaker 2: any given time, and when you don't use them, you
Speaker 2: shut them down to make room for the things you're
Speaker 2: currently using. So I thought, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna.
Speaker 2: I may learn how to do this, but I may
Speaker 2: never write a song. I can live with that. It
Speaker 2: seemed like a high high adventure to try to learn,
Speaker 2: but I was woefully unprepared. I don't know anything.
Speaker 1: About okay, but you know, it's not like the old
Speaker 1: days where it labels. Every five years, it would be turnover,
Speaker 1: get a new president. They wipe everybody out. You've had
Speaker 1: this gig for a long time. I would assume you
Speaker 1: don't listen. Everyone likes to get paid. But I assume
Speaker 1: you don't need the money.
Speaker 2: I don't need the Braain.
Speaker 1: Do you actually have an office? Do you actually go in?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, all I know is you're always out on the
Speaker 1: road with somebody.
Speaker 2: Well I learned, Well, here's the deal. OK. It took
Speaker 2: about five years to figure out how to do the
Speaker 2: job as myself. I couldn't be Bruce Man. Bruce was
Speaker 2: so good. If you wrote him an email, if you
Speaker 2: send him an email, he'd answer you within like thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: You'd get a reply. He always returned calls. He could
Speaker 2: do all these things. Now we have a living refutation
Speaker 2: of astrology, Bruce and myself, because we have the same birthday,
Speaker 2: September thirteenth.
Speaker 1: He was a time out timeout you believe in astrology.
Speaker 2: No, we refuted astrology because we are so different. But
Speaker 2: we were really different. And they were huge footprints, you know,
Speaker 2: to walk in possible to fill the shoes. But I
Speaker 2: couldn't be him, he couldn't be me. So how can
Speaker 2: I be myself and do this? And that may not
Speaker 2: be going into an office and sitting there and you know,
Speaker 2: just sitting there on the phone punching in and out
Speaker 2: from eight in the morning to five or whatever. That
Speaker 2: that wasn't my style. I found a style, do it?
Speaker 2: So what is the style? Get out in the world, man,
Speaker 2: and and and keep making music because someone's got to understand.
Speaker 2: But the artists are really going through someone's got to
Speaker 2: understand it. It's a it's a different mentality. You start
Speaker 2: talking to an artist about a deadline. We need we need,
Speaker 2: we need the credits handed in by October twenty eighth
Speaker 2: and the photos done by the November two. That just
Speaker 2: goes in one ear and out the other. Especially if
Speaker 2: someone's trying to portray life in the recording studio at
Speaker 2: the same time that you got to be in a
Speaker 2: completely different headspace. Someone's got to understand that that headspace.
Speaker 2: Someone's got to understand the relationship with the audience. You know,
Speaker 2: you're if you're running a business of getting music to
Speaker 2: an audience, you got to understand what the relationship is
Speaker 2: between musicians and the audience. Going out and tour with
Speaker 2: Bob We're was the best thing I ever did for
Speaker 2: Blue Note Records, because that's that you go in there
Speaker 2: night after night, the grateful that audience is such a
Speaker 2: great audience. Man, they're so tuned in man, sometimes with
Speaker 2: a little help, sometimes just on their own. But there's
Speaker 2: a real psychic connection between everybody in the room and
Speaker 2: between the band and the audience. We never play anything
Speaker 2: the same way twice. That's the wond room or whatever
Speaker 2: you played last night, don't do it because it's not
Speaker 2: going to work tonight. Everyone else is going to be
Speaker 2: in a different place. So just start fresh every night.
Speaker 2: And there will be some failures. There'll be some real
Speaker 2: train wrecks in the band. A song may fall apart.
Speaker 2: Audience doesn't mind that as long as you were doing
Speaker 2: it in the service of trying to achieve something great.
Speaker 2: And a couple times a night we will connect with
Speaker 2: the audience and you get this energy. You can feel
Speaker 2: it flowing from the stage into the audience and you
Speaker 2: can feel and see them responding to it, and it
Speaker 2: comes back to you and it becomes cyclical. It elevates
Speaker 2: the game and you can blow the rough off the
Speaker 2: motherfucker like that, you know, And and I don't know
Speaker 2: anything that's more exhilarating than that feeling when it's happening.
Speaker 2: And record companies need to understand that and that and
Speaker 2: that that's the kind of relationship you're They're not just
Speaker 2: you know, it's not like you're selling horn flakes to somebody.
Speaker 2: You know, this is you're dealing with high levels of
Speaker 2: consciousness and and and you're impacting people on uh, some
Speaker 2: really deep levels. And you got to understand that.
Speaker 1: Okay, how much administrative work do you do.
Speaker 2: Enough?
Speaker 1: Okay, you're on the you're on the road with Bob Weird.
Speaker 1: You know you're only on stage a very small portion
Speaker 1: of the day. Are you working on Blue Note every day?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Man? You know I'm up at eight o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning on calls. And also you know, if you
Speaker 2: you know how people you put the names on the
Speaker 2: dressing rooms right mine's they's a Blue Note World headquarters.
Speaker 2: We're just a full time gig. Man. I go to
Speaker 2: bed thinking about it. I'm talking to the musicians. I
Speaker 2: can have better conversations with the musicians because I'm playing
Speaker 2: improvisational music.
Speaker 1: I'm not like, Okay, you're out with Bob Weir, but
Speaker 1: you're out all the fucking time. You're out with a band,
Speaker 1: you Last Waltz Tour, it seems like you're working all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: It just seems that way. You don't see every day
Speaker 2: I'm there.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I'm not justifying your work, and I'm more
Speaker 1: interested in what is driving you to go on the road.
Speaker 1: It's got to be more than you know. Gives me
Speaker 1: insight and not every and you know, the electricity talk
Speaker 1: about a moment with the dead is different from a
Speaker 1: regular concert that is not improvisational. Not that the audience
Speaker 1: can't connect to a certain degree. There must be somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, is this type of thing where okay a month, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll do it, or you really want to go on
Speaker 1: the road.
Speaker 2: I love I love play. But here I'll give you
Speaker 2: an example this because this isn't like a grateful dead
Speaker 2: improvisational thing. When you mentioned the Last Waltz Tour, which
Speaker 2: we do heavy so often with Warren Haynes and Jamie
Speaker 2: Johnson and John Medeski and a rotating cast to other
Speaker 2: characters too. One year I was positioned behind Warren Samp
Speaker 2: clocked it in at about one hundred and thirteen decibels.
Speaker 2: The sound coming out of it had the back cover off,
Speaker 2: and it was just hurt in my ears and I
Speaker 2: don't like to use in yours. I want to be
Speaker 2: in the thing. But it was really loud. We got
Speaker 2: to I should be Released, which was like kind of
Speaker 2: a climactic moment in the show, and I look at
Speaker 2: this audience. We're playing theaters twenty five hundred, three thousand
Speaker 2: people every night, and we light it up a little
Speaker 2: bit in it. You see everybody standing up, you see
Speaker 2: people crying, hugging each other. That song means so much
Speaker 2: to him. It's such a great song. I should be released.
Speaker 2: I mean something different to everybody. Everybody, but everybody's got
Speaker 2: something that they need to be released from. And I thought,
Speaker 2: all right, man, if I got to damage my hearing,
Speaker 2: I can't think of a better way to do it
Speaker 2: than bringing this kind of feeling to three thousand people tonight.
Speaker 2: If I'm I'm willing to lose my hearing this, how
Speaker 2: is your hearing? It's good?
Speaker 1: Get older? Yeah, okay, I'm gonna jump. What was going
Speaker 1: through your mind? And how did you make cap in
Speaker 1: the Brian Wilson movie.
Speaker 2: I was producing my old school buddy Doug Figer in
Speaker 2: his group The Knack right around the corner from here.
Speaker 2: In fact, and Doug and Burton Averar the guitar player,
Speaker 2: had laid the Smile bootlegs on me. I was unaware
Speaker 2: of I knew about it, but I didn't really know
Speaker 2: the story. Holy cow, man, I got so deep into
Speaker 2: listening to these things it just blew me away. And
Speaker 2: then the mystique about them being unfinished and fragmented like that,
Speaker 2: probably to the detriment of the Knack record. That's all
Speaker 2: I was listening to. And sometime we were still making
Speaker 2: the record, I got invited to remember it was Red
Speaker 2: Hot and Blue. Was that with this album? Are Gone
Speaker 2: Pediatric Aids or AIDS benefit? Yeah? Yeah, So Elizabeth Taylor
Speaker 2: was hosting a party. I thought, well to Jim, and
Speaker 2: I went and I get into theffet line. There is
Speaker 2: Brian Wilson and doctor Landy standing right next to me,
Speaker 2: so I couldn't contain myself. I was so steeped in
Speaker 2: all of his music at that point, and I was
Speaker 2: just rantic about how brilliant it was, and I think
Speaker 2: he appreciated it. The invite.
Speaker 1: Wait wait, wait, I've had my interactions with Brian from
Speaker 1: going back forty years to more recent stuff on the
Speaker 1: bus whatever. It's not a regular conversation.
Speaker 2: No, it's not.
Speaker 1: So you testify. When you testify to the average household
Speaker 1: name musician, yeah, most of them just say thank you.
Speaker 1: That's not the way to connect with people and say
Speaker 1: you know that's not you. But you can't hold back
Speaker 1: at certain points. But occasionally get someone and.
Speaker 2: Said oh yeah, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So normally Brian most of the time blank, other times
Speaker 1: sort of enthusiastic, over amped. I mean, what was his
Speaker 1: reaction to you testify?
Speaker 2: I think it meant something to him that someone had
Speaker 2: listened that closely and heard what he was trying to do.
Speaker 1: So you were talking about the smile, that's.
Speaker 2: How much smile stuff and being very specific in my references,
Speaker 2: more specific than I could be today. I was steeped
Speaker 2: in it, and I guess I heard what he was
Speaker 2: going for and it meant something to him, and just
Speaker 2: you know, finish your shrimp and you come come to
Speaker 2: the studios. So they invited me to the studio. I
Speaker 2: went over there and we became pretty friendly.
Speaker 1: Do you have any idea who you were when he
Speaker 1: met you?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, he knew I was a producer.
Speaker 2: I guess yeah. But we became friendly and then I
Speaker 2: played some gigs with him, would just be me and him.
Speaker 2: He played piano and sing. I played bass. It just
Speaker 2: one off charity things. One Sunday we played something. It
Speaker 2: was something for the Elizabeth Glazer Foundation. She was still alive.
Speaker 2: Then it was somehouse up in Benedic Canyon in place, big,
Speaker 2: big place for a huge backyard. Ronald Reagan was there,
Speaker 2: Paul Buls, a bunch of people there, and Brian and
Speaker 2: Jackson Brown were the entertainment. His families in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: So Jackson was brilliant. And then then we played and
Speaker 2: we just made a mess out of California girls. It
Speaker 2: was terrible, and Brian said to them like, oh man,
Speaker 2: we really fucked that one up. And then everyone came
Speaker 2: and got their kids, and then we did some damage
Speaker 2: to another song, and then we got to Love Mercy,
Speaker 2: and the sun was going down on the mountain in
Speaker 2: front of us, so it was just a beautiful scene.
Speaker 2: And he connected on such a profound level to that
Speaker 2: song that I think I stopped playing at one point. WHOA,
Speaker 2: I didn't know he still had that in him, and
Speaker 2: it was just sublime. Man. It was just a beautiful
Speaker 2: version of that beautiful song and a beautiful message. And
Speaker 2: I thought, oh man, people could only see this part
Speaker 2: of them. So al Teller was running a MCA at
Speaker 2: the time, and he offered me a label deal. I said,
Speaker 2: you know, man, I don't do these little pop records.
Speaker 2: He said, no, no, no, just be yourself. So I signed
Speaker 2: Chris Christofferson, Felix Cavaliery and then Brian Wilson, and I
Speaker 2: had first job here is to clean up at this point.
Speaker 2: Now by the time I'd made a deal with him,
Speaker 2: by the time we got around to that show, in fact,
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Glazier's thing Landy was gone. He was an obstacle
Speaker 2: to progress. And I signed him to signed him to
Speaker 2: our label, and I thought, the first thing is, let's
Speaker 2: get all the unsavory stuff, the National Inquirer kind of
Speaker 2: twenty four hour shrink stuff. Let's get that out of
Speaker 2: the way. Let's get the focus back on why this
Speaker 2: is probably the greatest record maker of all times. So
Speaker 2: I thought, well, let's make a documentary film. And I
Speaker 2: could see it in my head. I knew what it
Speaker 2: was supposed to be, and I started taking all these
Speaker 2: meetings and anyone who's going to kick in money had
Speaker 2: some opinion about what it should be, and just fucket, man,
Speaker 2: I'll pay for this myself and I'll direct it. I
Speaker 2: didn't know anything about directing doctor, but I knew what
Speaker 2: story to tell, and I was able to surround myself
Speaker 2: with the great people. I had a lot of help,
Speaker 2: great DP, great editor, great producer, and we made this
Speaker 2: little thing that was really supposed to be kind of
Speaker 2: an infomercial just to change people's minds and get the
Speaker 2: focus back on. Submitted it to Sundance. I got accepted
Speaker 2: at Sundance. So now Brian and I we're going to
Speaker 2: go to Sundance. We'll show the movie and play afterwards.
Speaker 2: And we got all these offers all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I was a documentary director and we were in profit
Speaker 2: before we started. All the money came back and we
Speaker 2: made TV deal, some home distribution deals, and it was
Speaker 2: a nice glimpse into who Brian was. It still holds
Speaker 2: up to this day. I think is a nice portrait
Speaker 2: of him. And people got to see him singing his
Speaker 2: songs with the degree of musicality that he was capable
Speaker 2: of bringing. To the songs, and it got his confidence
Speaker 2: up and he started going out on tour after that.
Speaker 2: I never thought he could get to We made it
Speaker 2: because I didn't think he could get through a show.
Speaker 2: But he certainly could, and he went on to do
Speaker 2: some incredible things that pet sounds to it and smile
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a huge Beach Boys fan. I mean gigantic.
Speaker 1: I tell people all the time. I've been tell him
Speaker 1: for fifty years to I live in California because of
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys. There are some very surprising moments, most
Speaker 1: of them in the seventies. Marcella carl and the Passions
Speaker 1: not mediocre record. That track is unbelievable. Of course, there's
Speaker 1: selon Sailor on holland good.
Speaker 2: Time in on La the Light album.
Speaker 1: But as he goes back on tour, because you and
Speaker 1: me both know he sang all the high parts on
Speaker 1: all those original records, it seemed to me a little
Speaker 1: bit of the Emperor's new clothes. I saw him many times.
Speaker 1: Was evolved on a very oblique level with the redoers.
Speaker 2: Smile, and.
Speaker 1: His voice was far from perfect. Let's not talk about
Speaker 1: his psychological state, which always wasn't the best and I
Speaker 1: had inside information. Did he still really have it those
Speaker 1: last thirty odd years?
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, And I remember when we were we were
Speaker 2: recording something and had a studio full of guys Waddie
Speaker 2: Ben montench Keltner. We were cutting some song for him
Speaker 2: and he was sitting at it. He walked in and
Speaker 2: sat down at the piano, put his head down, and
Speaker 2: I thought he was asleep, right, But we just kept
Speaker 2: cutting the song and we get to like the third verse.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden, we're here in piano and his
Speaker 2: head still down. I thought he was Gone's bilt man.
Speaker 2: And he played the most exquisite part, and he obviously
Speaker 2: was just waiting for that to roll around, and he
Speaker 2: was just listening and he had that absolutely had that spark.
Speaker 2: And I'd seen him. There's a group of folks who
Speaker 2: we used to get together with him some you know,
Speaker 2: not that long ago, maybe six months ago. We'd have
Speaker 2: outings at Moose on Frank's and he still has unfinished
Speaker 2: material that he wanted me to work on, and you know,
Speaker 2: talked a little bit about that. I think he Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think he was enigmatic. You never knew how present
Speaker 2: he was, but he'd always surprise.
Speaker 1: You Okay, forget you go to sundance. Yeah, that means
Speaker 1: you've got to spend a good amount of time with
Speaker 1: him not working.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Could you have a conversation like a regular personager?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean, well there's nothing regular about him. Okay,
Speaker 2: but could I have a conversation yes, And he lived
Speaker 2: a really interesting life and you know, remembered everything, even
Speaker 2: towards the end. He remembered everything from the past and
Speaker 2: could tell you great stories. And also, sometimes it's just
Speaker 2: not necessary to make aimless chatter small talk. You know,
Speaker 2: sometimes you can have an artistic relationship with someone that
Speaker 2: transcends that.
Speaker 1: Okay, then let's switch gears back to the Stones. They
Speaker 1: agreed to make a record. Stones they legendarily would make records.
Speaker 1: They'd bring in a piece that was recorded years before,
Speaker 1: they would write the songs in the studio. People did
Speaker 1: that after, but they were one of the first people.
Speaker 1: So what is your role. Now, Let's say you're finally
Speaker 1: working with the Stones. Certainly, as time went on, they
Speaker 1: made some records that were not as good as the
Speaker 1: early records. So your goal is to get beyond that.
Speaker 1: So what do you do?
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing is just start with songs, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, is something peculiar to the Rolling Stones.
Speaker 2: It's for everybody. If you don't have great songs, you're
Speaker 2: not going to make a great record. So it was
Speaker 2: to try to encourage them to write to the level
Speaker 2: of greatness that they.
Speaker 1: Ok, let's be clear, you make a deal. Do you
Speaker 1: have the studio time booked? Are they writing these songs
Speaker 1: before you go to the studio or are you waiting
Speaker 1: for them to write songs for you do go in
Speaker 1: the studio.
Speaker 2: They were working on songs before I got together with them,
Speaker 2: and then I went to Ireland. They're the rehearse in
Speaker 2: at Ronnie Woods Place, and both Mick and Keith were
Speaker 2: incredibly prolific. In that period of time. There were probably
Speaker 2: forty to fifty songs really parts of songs that could
Speaker 2: be developed. Yeah, they had a lot of stuff. Ah,
Speaker 2: and so it was narrowing it down and I tried
Speaker 2: to I remember muh trying to get them to agree
Speaker 2: to write the lyrics before we got to the studio,
Speaker 2: so that we could shape the tracks to the molder
Speaker 2: of the lyrics. And I thought I remembered Keith saying,
Speaker 2: all right, great, we'll do that. I came home from
Speaker 2: Dublin and I get a fact from him. A couple
Speaker 2: of days later. He said, all right, we're starting Tuesday.
Speaker 2: B Uh, you know, get back on a plane, be here.
Speaker 2: We're gonna cut it. Wind Mill Lane backed them back, said, wait,
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to write lyrics to the songs.
Speaker 2: He said, just remember when you get here, improvise adapt
Speaker 2: overcome and pe fuckings don't paint yourself into a quarner.
Speaker 2: I thought, shit, I lost them before we even stopped.
Speaker 2: But it was great advice. I ended up making shirts
Speaker 2: of it from his facts improvised adapt overcome on the
Speaker 2: back pe fucking s don't paint yourself into a corner.
Speaker 2: And it became kind of a mantra like just open
Speaker 2: up your mind and.
Speaker 1: Okay, you show up next Tuesday. Where are you working.
Speaker 2: We're working at Windmill Lane. Okay.
Speaker 1: Is there a thought that you're going to finish something
Speaker 1: or is it we're going to be here for month?
Speaker 1: Lord only knows.
Speaker 2: I think we had a finite timebook and you thought
Speaker 2: you were going to finish an album in that time.
Speaker 2: Now we're just going to get basic tracks cut. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so we did. I think food Launch is a
Speaker 2: really good record. Every album I did with them, there
Speaker 2: was a we did a version that was thirty six
Speaker 2: minutes long. I was aware that there's a legacy that
Speaker 2: you had to keep up with. But albums like Beggars
Speaker 2: Banquet and Let It Bleed, those those records are short,
Speaker 2: you know, and the songs because you because you have
Speaker 2: a finite amount of real estate on a vinyl disc,
Speaker 2: which was the main medium for it them right, so
Speaker 2: you really thought about do we need eight bars between
Speaker 2: the first chorus and the second verse. No, man, you'd
Speaker 2: probably do it with four, do it with two. Let's
Speaker 2: you know. You did a lot of self editing. And
Speaker 2: then in the CD era there was I think a
Speaker 2: myth that people would be willing to pay twenty bucks
Speaker 2: for this if you give them seventy two minutes of
Speaker 2: music instead of thirty six, which I think was one
Speaker 2: of the most damaging things that ever happened in the
Speaker 2: music business. That was a really bill informed strategy, because
Speaker 2: that means you just fill up the space.
Speaker 1: Well, it was worse than that because on a vinyl record,
Speaker 1: you knew the first track on both sides and the
Speaker 1: last track on both sides were the best tracks, so
Speaker 1: you would know where to start, whereas on a CD
Speaker 1: it ran all the way through where the fuck do
Speaker 1: you start?
Speaker 2: And that's a real thing. Also, each side would have
Speaker 2: a mood to it too, and it was it was
Speaker 2: very difficult to find seventy two minutes to listen to
Speaker 2: something as a whole, almost insane. Yeah, but Evan could
Speaker 2: find fifteen to twenty minutes to listen to a side.
Speaker 2: So we did versions that were tight edits and left
Speaker 2: out a bunch of songs, and it was really good,
Speaker 2: which stood the test of time against what's considered to
Speaker 2: be their classic period. I think there's some great stuff.
Speaker 2: I think there's great stuff on all the records we did.
Speaker 2: There's just maybe too much stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, these are very experienced people on every level, experience
Speaker 1: in the studio, experience stars. They know what their image is, whatever,
Speaker 1: what's the special sauce, because they proved a lot of
Speaker 1: records themselves, because the Glimmer Twins. So are you basically saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta be low key and know when
Speaker 1: to hold them, when to fold them. What did you
Speaker 1: actually do?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot, you know, it's hard to just
Speaker 2: overgeneralize the thing. But it was first of all, keeping
Speaker 2: the vibe in the room conducive to making music, making
Speaker 2: good music and stressing. I wasn't Keith's guy. I wasn't
Speaker 2: mixed guy, a Rolling Stones guy. I love the Rolling
Speaker 2: Stones and I believe that they're at their best when
Speaker 2: they cooperate, and when you get both, you get everybody's
Speaker 2: essence on there. And I don't, by the way, I
Speaker 2: don't underestimate the power Charlie Watts or Ronnie would in
Speaker 2: this equation as well. Charlie was as important as anybody
Speaker 2: in that pill.
Speaker 1: You know, the stuff sends him and you know, on
Speaker 1: record and live it's like we were talking about ron Carter.
Speaker 1: They're playing, but if you're a student, you could hear
Speaker 1: the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, they I got to play with them
Speaker 2: a lot, you know. If Daryl Jones couldn't make it
Speaker 2: to a rehearsal, something I play, and that really gave
Speaker 2: me a great understanding of what they were about, because
Speaker 2: it was and being on the interior of the conversation,
Speaker 2: I realized that all that, all the tension that everybody
Speaker 2: reports on and everything like that, which is based in reality,
Speaker 2: it vanishes the minute they start playing. The conversation is
Speaker 2: so jocular man, and they're they're tossing, they're lobbing beautiful
Speaker 2: soft balls right in the gloves. It reminds me what's
Speaker 2: it called in baseball before the inning starts, when they
Speaker 2: they're like four or five different balls being past.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about in a in
Speaker 1: a in.
Speaker 2: A baseball game before the inning starts, the infield or
Speaker 2: just toss balls around. Yeah, I think that's just the
Speaker 2: warm up. So that's what the Rolling Stones are like.
Speaker 2: They're playing musical. Charlie plays something on his high hat
Speaker 2: to Keith to pick up on and play off of it.
Speaker 2: That would affect how mcphrased. And it was jocular and
Speaker 2: they were having fun and it was super relaxed. It
Speaker 2: was beautiful. When Darryl Jones was a comeback, it broke
Speaker 2: my heart because I enjoyed being in that space with
Speaker 2: them so much.
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen the Stones a million times. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like The Grateful Dead. They'd say they don't
Speaker 1: play that long Grateful Dead do. I saw plenty of
Speaker 1: times they played for four hours. I only saw him
Speaker 1: be consistently good from beginning to end. Once other times
Speaker 1: play for four hours, one hour unlistenable, one hour great,
Speaker 1: two hours sort of. So until this last tour at
Speaker 1: so far was it two summers ago, maybe maybe last summer.
Speaker 1: I've never seen him be good from beginning ten stonesh
Speaker 1: you tell them, yeah, I mean I remember in seventy
Speaker 1: five day Pleader. That was when the petal opening whatever
Speaker 1: I played basically an hour and a half wasn't until
Speaker 1: like there was like a half hour they played Tumbling Dice.
Speaker 1: You know this is one of these Now we're gonna
Speaker 1: start telling rock and roll stories. There are certain Eggs
Speaker 1: All on main Street came out. Seventy two tour was
Speaker 1: the biggest tour ever up until this Taylor Swift tour.
Speaker 1: The amount of coverage of the seventy two tour is unreal.
Speaker 1: Eggs All on Mainstream is release, immediately goes to number one,
Speaker 1: tours over immediately falls off, rocks off, not a huge shit.
Speaker 1: Tumbling Dice. They're playing for a short period of time, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about radio, and all of a sudden I
Speaker 1: go on this tour. This is three years later. I've
Speaker 1: seen him in between. It's tell them the seventy two
Speaker 1: and they lock on Okay, I mean, you can just
Speaker 1: feel it. But I found remember seeing the funniest two
Speaker 1: funny things about the Stones. They don't go out with
Speaker 1: any hard drives. They don't go out with anybody off stage.
Speaker 1: What you see is what you get. So you get
Speaker 1: a bar band at the rose Ball. Everybody else too
Speaker 1: afraid to do that. And before they lock on, it's
Speaker 1: a little weird.
Speaker 2: Any band, it's kind of like that. Takes a minute
Speaker 2: to get going, I think, But that's just part of
Speaker 2: the thing. The audience needs to sink into it too,
Speaker 2: a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the game has changed. Okay, you know.
Speaker 2: You would.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you saw a million acts. Forget the acts
Speaker 1: that are headline acts like the Stones. You would go
Speaker 1: because you have the record, you love this band. You
Speaker 1: go to seem at someplace, a whole a few thousand
Speaker 1: people had an experience and came home and then tell
Speaker 1: your buddy's got to come the next time.
Speaker 2: Through it.
Speaker 1: Today a lot of arena shows that's like an MTV
Speaker 1: video Come Alive. Yeah, I agree, it's not really the
Speaker 1: same thing, which brings me to the question of where
Speaker 1: is it going.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question, man. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: think there are some underpinnings to music that can't be
Speaker 2: You can't get rid of these things. And that's has
Speaker 2: to do with making an emotional connection to the listeners.
Speaker 2: You gotta touch them, you gotta make them feel something.
Speaker 2: Hopefully it's not just a random feeling. Hopefully it's helpful.
Speaker 2: You know, it helps them make sense out of their
Speaker 2: life somehow. You know, life is crazy. Music helps him
Speaker 2: make sense of it. That's why it's so important.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's be very specific. Lou Christie recently died. Whatever
Speaker 1: is in Lightning Strikes and I'm not I say, there
Speaker 1: is something in that record that is just undeniable.
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 1: Narls Barkley Crazy.
Speaker 2: That's a more modern.
Speaker 1: Record where there's something, you know what. The New York
Speaker 1: I never do this, but they had, like they put
Speaker 1: out a weekly playlist of, you know, ten tracks, and
Speaker 1: this was the Women, all of them except one was terrible,
Speaker 1: the Sabrina Carpenter track, which and I've got no time
Speaker 1: for her. I said, I hear this as a hit,
Speaker 1: but it's nothing like Lightning Strikes whatever. So it's got
Speaker 1: these changes. Whatever, it does not communicate on that emotional
Speaker 1: level that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might, it might go deep.
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because this is ridiculous. I remember
Speaker 1: buying Disraeli gears and not many people talk about this track,
Speaker 1: but it's the opening on the second side is Tales
Speaker 1: of Brave Ulysses. We're telling my mother had no interest
Speaker 1: in rock and roll. I gotta play this for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this shit has sound wheel, it goes. There was a
Speaker 1: thought that lat Winter. It's like there was a feeling
Speaker 1: in that record.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something, man, if you can get seventy
Speaker 2: thousand people, fifty thousand people into us to come to
Speaker 2: a state him to sit in traffic, pay for parking,
Speaker 2: pay for babysitters, whatever you know, and to come there,
Speaker 2: it's speaking to you in a in some kind of way.
Speaker 2: You don't go. If it's not.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm just gonna fuck with you. Then what do
Speaker 1: you say about new kids.
Speaker 2: On the block. I think they spoke to somebody.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, so the question is I'm not arguing with
Speaker 1: people deciding to go pay their money now more than ever,
Speaker 1: there's a penumber, You shoot selfies, you post on social media.
Speaker 1: Things are hot. Yeah, okay, we both I mean the
Speaker 1: biggest thing you live in Los Angeles because you see
Speaker 1: these people. People who could leave the hotel room now
Speaker 1: you see them at Ralph's. It's hysterical. Nobody's making a
Speaker 1: big deal about them where they're where other people go,
Speaker 1: like Brian Wilson, it's just to be in this Prince.
Speaker 1: Holy fuck, that is the guy. It's in there somewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, I see it. Yeah, I'll tell you a story. Man.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety, not was got booked on the Club
Speaker 2: MTV tour. So we were out with a tone low
Speaker 2: Paula Abdul, Millie Vanilli Us and the Information Society. We're
Speaker 2: the only ones playing live and we were bombing every night.
Speaker 2: That required the extreme generosity and kind spirit of downtown
Speaker 2: Julie Brown to come out with her dancers and rescue
Speaker 2: our set every night because because the people wanted to
Speaker 2: hear the records, like the records, and we didn't sound
Speaker 2: like Well, one night we get to move. It's the
Speaker 2: Riverfront Festival. It's like fifteen thousand people and it's on
Speaker 2: a very steep incline, so you could see the whole audience.
Speaker 2: Milli Vanilli comes out and something was technically wrong Sinclavia.
Speaker 2: It wasn't connected to the direct box or something, so
Speaker 2: you could hear drums and they come out and they're
Speaker 2: dancing for about a minute and a half. There's no music.
Speaker 2: They storm off stage, go back in the bus, they
Speaker 2: fix whatever was wrong, to find what's unplugged downtown. Julie
Speaker 2: Brown goes out to convince him to come back in
Speaker 2: and to be honest with you, my band and I
Speaker 2: was standing on the side of the stage just gloating,
Speaker 2: you know, I think, finally some justice, right. So Millie
Speaker 2: Vanilli came back out after going through all that, after
Speaker 2: everyone saw that nothing was real, and they started over
Speaker 2: and nobody cared. So what does that tell us that
Speaker 2: What it told me was that we were the idiots
Speaker 2: we were. I think we were trying to enforce some
Speaker 2: musical aesthetic on an audience that wasn't there for that.
Speaker 2: They were there for something else, and they were paying
Speaker 2: money to see the videos come to life, and we
Speaker 2: didn't provide that. Milli Vanilli did, And I came to
Speaker 2: respect the fact that it's not just a meritocracy based
Speaker 2: on what we value. It's their ability to communicate with
Speaker 2: the audience. So there's a lot of music that's out
Speaker 2: now that young people are listening to that. That leaves
Speaker 2: me cold. But I see the reaction, you know, and
Speaker 2: I see people going night wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait. Fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is not like it was in the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventhes. Not for you and me.
Speaker 2: But it's not It would.
Speaker 1: Have been seventy in the sixties.
Speaker 2: We'd have we are seventy. Well.
Speaker 1: I always say, there's a renaissance. Okay, they painted and sculptured, Retaissance.
Speaker 1: They've painted and sculpted hundreds of years since. There's never
Speaker 1: been another renaissance. There've been great painters and great sculptors,
Speaker 1: but was in the you know, a lot of things
Speaker 1: had to come together, the radio without all this stuff
Speaker 1: like that. And also the other thing is today middle
Speaker 1: class people know the reality of society. You talk to someone,
Speaker 1: they don't want to be broke. I remember I graduated
Speaker 1: from college. I was a skee bump for a couple
Speaker 1: of years. People don't do that anymore. I got to
Speaker 1: have a career otherwise I'm going to be a loser.
Speaker 1: It's too expensive to live your life. So you got
Speaker 1: middle class people. I mean, the famous thing was when
Speaker 1: Bill Graham managed Jefferson airplane for a while, sod As
Speaker 1: soon as they made any money, I couldn't get them
Speaker 1: to work. Want to stay home and smoke dope. That's
Speaker 1: what it is. I mean, that's not what's going on today.
Speaker 1: Makes me crazy when people say, oh yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just too old and it's the same as it
Speaker 1: ever was. It's not the same, is it ever?
Speaker 2: With? It might be strong? Look at all the people
Speaker 2: the Taylor Swift drass to the shows. Man, you know
Speaker 2: you know she's speaking directly.
Speaker 1: Wait, I'm gonna let's get since you're a pro dangerous
Speaker 1: subject because she wrote a song about me. But the
Speaker 1: first two albums that she wrote, the songs with Liz Rose,
Speaker 1: it was like teenage Joni Mitchell, phenomenal. Okay, whatever she's
Speaker 1: selling now, it is not the same thing. This is
Speaker 1: a business proposition because the previous tour did not go clean. Okay,
Speaker 1: if I put all the tickets on sale, it wance,
Speaker 1: it'll be such mania. And then you there's fomo et cetera.
Speaker 1: It's it's you know, there are these subtle things. It's
Speaker 1: like you two, you two went out and did the
Speaker 1: Joshua Tree done for new music. It's like a nostalgia play.
Speaker 1: They're all these certain subtle things. People are not going
Speaker 1: to be singing. We will never ever get back together
Speaker 1: fifteen years from now like they were singing Beatles songs
Speaker 1: to this day.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's true. I don't think I
Speaker 2: agree with you. I was in a played in Tronto.
Speaker 2: We've played a two thousand seater the same night that
Speaker 2: Taylor Swift was doing one of several nights in the stadium,
Speaker 2: and I, you know, I went out for a walk
Speaker 2: in all these women with the sparkles and the bracelets
Speaker 2: and dressed a certain way. It means as much to
Speaker 2: them as give piece of Chance meant to you.
Speaker 1: And I'll leave it here because I don't agree with you,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna whip out a bad analogy. Okay, television
Speaker 1: today compared to what it was when we were growing up, Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we would have said Banana's a phenomenal show. Yeah my
Speaker 1: mother the Car maybe I watched it and not great.
Speaker 1: The sopranos, I mean, holy fuck, better than any movie
Speaker 1: in the theater.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: There are people, you know, you go somewhere. They can
Speaker 1: sing all the theme song, they can talk about mash whatever,
Speaker 1: mash was in the league of What's on TV today crap.
Speaker 1: I will agree that these people like it by all,
Speaker 1: just to go one step for this was everything for us.
Speaker 1: People don't understand, just like I was talking about. You
Speaker 1: can pick out the Republicans on campus. Okay. I remember
Speaker 1: being at the New York World's Fair the second year,
Speaker 1: getting off the mono rail close to midnight and the
Speaker 1: speaker system is playing Satisfaction.
Speaker 2: That's sixty five.
Speaker 1: There was not a soul alive on the planet who
Speaker 1: had not heard Satisfaction, not a single person. Doesn't mean
Speaker 1: they liked it, but they heard it the same way.
Speaker 1: I can sing every lick of Hello Dolly by Louis
Speaker 1: Armstrong because I had to sit through it to hear
Speaker 1: the beat song. Things do change, you know, there is
Speaker 1: and there are different eras. So the question would become,
Speaker 1: if we circle back forget the reissues. That's something different.
Speaker 1: You're making these records on blue note. You call them postcards,
Speaker 1: good analogy, but you're just basically sending.
Speaker 2: Him to the ether.
Speaker 1: There's not enough promotion, marketing dollars to reach even a
Speaker 1: fraction of people to make it work. You're just putting
Speaker 1: it out their audience knows it. You could get lucky,
Speaker 1: just like Mom Dommie. I don't want to talk about
Speaker 1: the politics whatever, blah blah blah. Big story in the
Speaker 1: paper today saying that on social media it was embraced
Speaker 1: by all these people who made their own videos. So
Speaker 1: you don't know nothing is going to be as big
Speaker 1: because we don't live in a monoculture anymore. But you
Speaker 1: don't know if the records are as good as you say.
Speaker 1: And I truly believe one could connect it. George Benson.
Speaker 1: George Benson was just a fucking jazz musician. Wait a minute, No,
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say is he did that album
Speaker 1: with on Broadway. He became a phenomenon. It's not like
Speaker 1: the label said, oh we got a big plan, this
Speaker 1: is going to happen.
Speaker 2: Song can take off. Yeah, it's I don't think it's
Speaker 2: all that complicated. Man. You know, you try to try
Speaker 2: to make records for soulful people, communicative people. They have
Speaker 2: more choice today. You can hear everything all the time.
Speaker 2: You have millions of songs we couldn't before. You know,
Speaker 2: I was just I just found my copy of I
Speaker 2: Get Around, which I had Brian sign and for me
Speaker 2: in the nineties, and I still got the jacket them
Speaker 2: walking up the steps. It was two sides, man. I
Speaker 2: played it to death because I paid a dollar for it.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a second dollar. Yeah, so I got
Speaker 2: into that. Well, it's different. People have a choice, But
Speaker 2: you can't deny if someone connects the way Taylor Swift connects.
Speaker 2: You just can't deny that there's artistry in place, and
Speaker 2: that there's art is about communication. Great artists communicate, and
Speaker 2: she's a great communicator. She's not communicating. It's not speaking
Speaker 2: to me, but it's not supposed to speak to me.
Speaker 2: It's the same way that satisfaction was not meant to
Speaker 2: speak to my grandfather. You know that it was a
Speaker 2: secret language. That's what made it Special's.
Speaker 1: Let's leave Taylor Swift in her career out in terms
Speaker 1: of identity for a second. But she made records with
Speaker 1: Max Martin unbelievably talented. Yeah, okay, Mutt Lang didn't make
Speaker 1: as many records, but he can make the records himself.
Speaker 2: In his day.
Speaker 1: But in today's mainstream record business, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: writing by committee remixing. What is your philosophy on those processes?
Speaker 2: If it touches people who cares how you came up
Speaker 2: with it, Man, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: You don't think you can squeeze out the essence.
Speaker 2: I can show you shitty records that were made in
Speaker 2: every era, any any golden period. You want a sight,
Speaker 2: probably probably the week that like a rolling Stone was
Speaker 2: number one, Probably like they're coming to take me away?
Speaker 2: That was probably right. There's always great stuff, there's always
Speaker 2: bad stuff. Just try to make stuff that you believe in.
Speaker 2: It's it's so uncomplicated. It's so simple, man. Just make
Speaker 2: real stuff, work with people who can who can tap
Speaker 2: into their heart and and and and that's what an
Speaker 2: artist does. An artist feels something, puts it into another
Speaker 2: and the hope that someone who's observing it, a listener
Speaker 2: or a viewer, will decode it and it'll convert back
Speaker 2: into language again and an emotion. And that's I just
Speaker 2: try to make records with people who can communicate.
Speaker 1: Okay, going on the road, running blue note. Are you
Speaker 1: still available to produce albums?
Speaker 2: I am? What does it take?
Speaker 1: You have a limited amount of time or an unlimited
Speaker 1: amount of time if it's the right stuff.
Speaker 2: I got a limited amount of time. I couldn't I
Speaker 2: couldn't do another Stones album if they wanted me to,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I don't have that kind of time.
Speaker 2: Try it. You know, my favorite album, man, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite albums I was Blue and Lonesome, which is
Speaker 2: the last finished record that was three days.
Speaker 1: I like those kind of records, but you know there's
Speaker 1: something you can capture in three days to boot.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're a musician. You talk about going on
Speaker 1: the road, going on to make these Stones records.
Speaker 2: How do you have a.
Speaker 1: Family and raise your kids and have them be reasonable?
Speaker 2: How do you balance that out? Well? You do it.
Speaker 2: You make the effort. When when my youngest kids, Solomon
Speaker 2: sal was produced Beyonce, really, all my kids are musicians
Speaker 2: and they're all I'll produce and I'll play. So when
Speaker 2: I dropped them at USC, which when all three of
Speaker 2: my kids went to USC and they all graduated, only
Speaker 2: Henry graduated. Uh, family tradition, right, rights. But dropping them
Speaker 2: off is maybe one of the worst days you're gonna
Speaker 2: have and you're your life. It's like you've lost your kid.
Speaker 2: It's dark for a parent. And I remember tearfully saying
Speaker 2: to him, I said, look, man, it was always my
Speaker 2: intention to be around more, and I'm sorry I wasn't
Speaker 2: and soals just such a sweet guy man, He said, Well,
Speaker 2: there's any consolation to you, He said, I remember about
Speaker 2: twenty things from when I was twelve and under and
Speaker 2: you were there for all of them. Wow, And so yeah,
Speaker 2: I missed stuff, but I guess I was there. Okay.
Speaker 1: Just a couple more questions. Hey, do you ever go
Speaker 1: on a traditional vacation?
Speaker 2: Ah? No, okay?
Speaker 1: Is music all consuming? Or do you have other passions?
Speaker 1: Or do you watch streaming TV? Read books? What your
Speaker 1: everyday life look like?
Speaker 2: I'm pretty much in it all the time. I got
Speaker 2: three or four things going on. Last night at midnight
Speaker 2: I was I do two radio shows. You know, you
Speaker 2: gotta like you prepared for this. There's research that goes on.
Speaker 2: It takes it takes time. I did a I do
Speaker 2: a two hour live radio show every Friday night on
Speaker 2: a station called wd E T, the NPR station in Detroit.
Speaker 2: And it's work. You know, it's okay.
Speaker 1: So if someone is not in Detroit, how can they
Speaker 1: hear it?
Speaker 2: A streams on wd et dot org.
Speaker 1: And is it available after you do it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, for a couple of weeks and then I do
Speaker 2: them every f so what is the show. It's pretty
Speaker 2: free for him. I play everything from Albert Eiler to
Speaker 2: you know her Hermits.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite Herman's Hermits song?
Speaker 2: I like, can't you Hear My Heartbeat? It's pretty great. Uh,
Speaker 2: I just I was just watching him the other night.
Speaker 2: He was at some so on some kind of cruise.
Speaker 2: He's a badass.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he knows what he's doing and he's got
Speaker 1: a sense that you were about himself. Somewhat it works.
Speaker 2: He's a good guy. Yeah, I really I thought he
Speaker 2: was quite good. He's hitting all the notes and yeah,
Speaker 2: can't you hear my heartbeat? Listen to people? Pretty great song.
Speaker 1: Phenomenal, Yeah, phenomenal. I was going to say, you know
Speaker 1: when first it was Missus Brown, but really it's listened
Speaker 1: to people. Just the sound of that record came out
Speaker 1: in the winter. Just to go back a step, the
Speaker 1: best Stones record is other than the ones you made.
Speaker 1: You're taking those off the board?
Speaker 2: Well late come around more to Between the Buttons. I
Speaker 2: think Between the button's pretty great. But I you know,
Speaker 2: you got a rank. I don't know that anyone's made
Speaker 2: a better record than Beggars Banquet. Or let it bleed.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: People talk about sticky fingers. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: anything negative about sticky fingers, but let it bleed unbelievable
Speaker 1: and at dis laid date. I don't want to sound
Speaker 1: like a hipster, but Eggs on Main Street is really
Speaker 1: really something.
Speaker 2: It's pretty cool. I'll go through different phases with it.
Speaker 2: And it's cool because I've been able to listen to
Speaker 2: it with them, you know, and I've played records. Keith
Speaker 2: once gave me a verbal tour through Exile and Okay
Speaker 2: Street just.
Speaker 1: To hang in there. Just want to see his face
Speaker 1: what he say about that.
Speaker 2: I don't remember.
Speaker 1: That is such an eerie record. I think one of
Speaker 1: the other problems is, you know, they sent me these
Speaker 1: really great genial X speakers.
Speaker 2: No one would have speakers like this for your computer.
Speaker 1: I think it's retail, like sixteen hundred dollars or something.
Speaker 1: So those are really good. And if you're listening in
Speaker 1: high res, you know whatever, that's great. But I fired
Speaker 1: up the big rig the other day, which is not
Speaker 1: far away. They sound different when you play these records.
Speaker 1: They take up the whole room. The experience is different
Speaker 1: from listening on headphones or earbuds.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and listening to vinyl too. It's a great
Speaker 2: In the last few years, we cracked the code on
Speaker 2: pressing good vinyl.
Speaker 1: Just just just with this deep Okay. If a record
Speaker 1: is cut digitally, yeah, does it make any sense to
Speaker 1: press it on vinyl. I'm talking about I don't an
Speaker 1: audio level forget.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah, uh it does. It's not gonna sound
Speaker 2: the same as it does coming from analog tape.
Speaker 1: Well, it's gonna you know, as you talk to the experts,
Speaker 1: you say, well, vinyl has a sound.
Speaker 2: Vinyl has a sound. By the way, it's the sound
Speaker 2: of it. You could call it distortion. I'm gonna yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just a distortion. Is great, right, Jimmy Hendrix, Right, great,
Speaker 2: you said MC five great use of distortion. So the
Speaker 2: distortion is not a bad thing, But as far as
Speaker 2: it being an accurate reflection of what the thing sounds like, no,
Speaker 2: But I love vinyl and there are ways to make
Speaker 2: great vinyl. You know, I grew up producing vinyl records.
Speaker 2: That's where I started, right, So when I first started
Speaker 2: a Blue Note it's our seventy fifth anniversary picked one
Speaker 2: hundred records to remaster and get out on vinyl, which
Speaker 2: I thought would be wildly appreciated. I was wildly criticized
Speaker 2: because they didn't sound great to audio files. I'm not
Speaker 2: really an audio file.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, just break it down a little bit. But
Speaker 1: forget the audio fields, which is a world done to itself.
Speaker 1: Did they prefer the original pressings?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just know we got a lot
Speaker 2: of criticism over it. And then what happened was we
Speaker 2: had been licensing the masters out to a company called
Speaker 2: Music Matters who were doing audio file vinyl, and so
Speaker 2: I started listening to those and I'm like, Wow, in
Speaker 2: the world do they make this happen? And I finally
Speaker 2: met the guy, a guy named Joe Hurley masters with
Speaker 2: Kevin Gray, and I was just in awe of him.
Speaker 2: I really couldn't figure out what he was doing. But
Speaker 2: I said, instead of licensing from why don't you come
Speaker 2: to work with us and and we'll do audio file ersion.
Speaker 2: So we started doing that. It's called the Tone Poet series.
Speaker 2: It's been immensely popular, and Joe knows how to press vinyl,
Speaker 2: and the audio file is happy. They're thrilled. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: haven't seen a.
Speaker 1: Bad word so do you have any idea with the
Speaker 1: secret sauces?
Speaker 2: It's no one thing. But I can tell you one
Speaker 2: thing he taught me I never considered I don't think
Speaker 2: anyone considered this before. He believes that individual presses have
Speaker 2: a sound, so it could be by the same manufacturer.
Speaker 2: And if you apply it to like musical instruments, every
Speaker 2: fender strat sounds different. It's an individual piece of wood. Man,
Speaker 2: two pieces of wood, They're all going to have a
Speaker 2: different characteristic, even if you put the same pickups. And
Speaker 2: by the way, if human beings winding the pickups, each
Speaker 2: pickup's going to sound a little different too. So why
Speaker 2: wouldn't a press. And he's found a press that he
Speaker 2: thinks is the most conducive in the world too. Is
Speaker 2: that something you can reveal RTI in Oh huh. And
Speaker 2: they do an incredible job of plating two plating You
Speaker 2: can change everything that Have you ever been to a
Speaker 2: pressing plan? You see the plating process. It's alchemy, man,
Speaker 2: it's mind blowing. You take this lacquer that's that you've
Speaker 2: carved on a lathe, you spray it perfectly with the silver,
Speaker 2: you dip it overnight in a bath of liquid nickel.
Speaker 2: That's got to be a two hundred eight degrees, not
Speaker 2: two hundred and nine, that two hundred and seven, and
Speaker 2: the nickel gravitates to the to the silver plated lacquer
Speaker 2: and forms a perfect mirror image, and that becomes you know,
Speaker 2: your mother of the stamper. It's alchemy, it's incredible and
Speaker 2: and there's so many variables in that. So every step
Speaker 2: of the way, you got to have someone who's willing
Speaker 2: to make sure that the nickel bath is two hundred
Speaker 2: and eight degrees exactly and it stays there. You have
Speaker 2: to have a plant that's willing to throw out a
Speaker 2: batch of records if they don't sound right and just
Speaker 2: eat the cost. That's that's one of the main differences
Speaker 2: between a great plant who's going to be a hack
Speaker 2: and just make you pay for any garbage, or who's
Speaker 2: going to have quality control. RTI is one of the
Speaker 2: best plants on the face of the earth.
Speaker 1: So on these records, catalog records, Yeah, how much vinyl
Speaker 1: do you press?
Speaker 2: We can do twenty thousand of them.
Speaker 1: And you know there's much more capacity than there used
Speaker 1: to be. Is your relationship and volumes such that you
Speaker 1: can get all the stuff pressed in time.
Speaker 2: The delay times are coming down, and you build relationships
Speaker 2: with plants where that they'll help you. Artier has been
Speaker 2: real good to us. A few other plants have been
Speaker 2: good to us. But we do all the all the
Speaker 2: all the all the tone poet stuff. It's mastered by
Speaker 2: Kevin Gray at his place and manufactured at Artier.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you have a great stereo at.
Speaker 2: Home, not like Joe Harley, who's got you know, like
Speaker 2: the Wilsons whatever table? Yeah, but okay, you don't have
Speaker 2: a boom box either. I go to your house. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're going to play me two records to say, the
Speaker 2: sound on these is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, other than Blue Note, what would you play?
Speaker 2: You remember everyone used to play The Night Fly by
Speaker 2: Donald Fagan that that's still a pretty great sound record. Uh. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't really show off the things. But for my
Speaker 2: own reference, uh, I play Born and Raised, the John
Speaker 2: Mayer record. I play something I know you know I'll play.
Speaker 2: I'm proud of that record. Born and Raised. John Mayer
Speaker 2: is a bad motherfucker.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to stay on John Mayer. You made one
Speaker 1: record with him, I made three records. Okay, what was
Speaker 1: was that the first born and.
Speaker 2: Raised, Born and raised the first one. Then we did
Speaker 2: Paradise Valley and we did Sad Rock during COVID.
Speaker 1: So who have you not produced that you have a
Speaker 1: hankrey for it? Mean you've been to the mountaintop with
Speaker 1: the Stones. But if I said, forget about Blue note
Speaker 1: your schedule, we're dreaming here, you know, who would you want?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: I think my point is clear, who would you want
Speaker 1: to work with?
Speaker 2: Well, I've pretty much been to my bucket list of
Speaker 2: living people. You know. I wish Muddy Waters to come back.
Speaker 2: I wish John Lennon would come back, but they're not
Speaker 2: coming back. I like people who are really expressive. I
Speaker 2: played live with Miley Cyrus. I thought she was awesome.
Speaker 2: I'd make a record with her in a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's something I think it's great.
Speaker 1: Let's just assume you make a record with Miley Cris.
Speaker 1: She brings her talent. Is your goal to get that talent?
Speaker 1: Or do you say I have a vision where I
Speaker 1: can take my Lee Cris.
Speaker 2: I don't do that to anybody. I wouldn't do that
Speaker 2: to a new artist that no one's ever heard of.
Speaker 2: That's not my style of producing. My style producing very specific.
Speaker 2: I try to sit with an artist and figure out
Speaker 2: what they're hearing in their head, and I try to
Speaker 2: help them get there.
Speaker 1: Just how would you uncover what they're hearing in their head?
Speaker 2: You talk, you play records, What do you think of
Speaker 2: this sound like? You like the way this record sounds?
Speaker 2: You just spend time and talk about things. I worked
Speaker 2: with Waylon Jennings, and I know what his records sound like.
Speaker 2: But what do you want to do? He said he
Speaker 2: wanted he liked Mercy Bob Dylan record Daniel Daniel, and
Speaker 2: it's it's Bob with some great songs, singing beautifully and
Speaker 2: uh and the atmospheric things that Daniel specializes in. All right,
Speaker 2: I get that, all right? So we make of Waylon
Speaker 2: Jennings record with with atmosphere and and we did that.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty cool record, and he was thrilled with it.
Speaker 2: And if I have to be the one to provide
Speaker 2: the vibe and the vision, I don't do the record.
Speaker 2: I'm not interested that. I like working with artists who
Speaker 2: have vision and an idea, and I like helping them
Speaker 2: realize that there's no right or wrong way to make
Speaker 2: a record. I don't judge any producers. Man, You know
Speaker 2: some people are a tour producers. You know. They they
Speaker 2: can play all the instruments, they lay down a guide vocals,
Speaker 2: and then you come in. They have you imitate that
Speaker 2: vocal and they have hits doing that. That's a that's
Speaker 2: a perfectly legitimate means of doing business. If that, If
Speaker 2: you can do that, it's just not it's not my
Speaker 2: strong suit. My strong suit is working with with great
Speaker 2: artists and helping them. They'll go k interesting they want.
Speaker 1: You know, back when the business was more comprehensible, there
Speaker 1: were legendary producers, and then there were engineers. Then a
Speaker 1: lot of the engineers became producers. Well, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of things the old traditional producers might do that
Speaker 1: an engineer doesn't.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: First it might be well we need a bridge here
Speaker 1: or something like that. To what degree might you rear
Speaker 1: change or change the song in what degree? Why you
Speaker 1: actually participate, say well, let me play this for you,
Speaker 1: not writing the whole song, but let me play you
Speaker 1: this part, or why don't we change this line instead
Speaker 1: of this?
Speaker 2: How about this? Will you do that? Sure? Yeah, I
Speaker 2: won't write it for them without invitation. I think that's
Speaker 2: a bit presumptuous, and it's become suspect. It looks like
Speaker 2: a publishing grab. And I told the Stones when we
Speaker 2: first started, I said, I'm going to suggest things that
Speaker 2: have to do with songwriting. And I don't want you
Speaker 2: to think that I'm it's a money grab. It's because
Speaker 2: I think it'll make a better record. So consider me
Speaker 2: an editor, not a co writer, even if I do
Speaker 2: things that might be considered co writing. And yeah, I
Speaker 2: think it was a co writer on Love Shack, really,
Speaker 2: you know, but I said the same thing to be
Speaker 2: fifty two said. They gave me like this really long,
Speaker 2: twelve minute thing. They said, see if you can it's
Speaker 2: nothing the hook, There was no chorus, but all the
Speaker 2: parts were in there, and I went through and cut
Speaker 2: it up and made it a three and a half
Speaker 2: minute song. And that was just part of producing. I
Speaker 2: didn't think it. You know, I'd have a better car today. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have interests in a lot of records that
Speaker 1: have sold records, so they're in the blacks something. Usually producers,
Speaker 1: they're paid from record one. What are you finding that
Speaker 1: you're accounted to accurately?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems about right. You know, I've worked. I've
Speaker 2: been part of the Universal Music Group for fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I've never ever encountered a situation where someone was deliberately
Speaker 2: trying to steal an artists money. It's mythology I've never
Speaker 2: once had. I've only had a positive experience of Blue Note.
Speaker 2: Lucian Grange has never said to me, don you need
Speaker 2: to do this or do that. He's always supported stuff.
Speaker 2: You're doing a great job with Blue Note. You keep
Speaker 2: doing it and call me if you need help. You
Speaker 2: know that all the stuff that I used to fear
Speaker 2: about record companies. I used to hate record company. I thought,
Speaker 2: but the record company was the enemy until I started
Speaker 2: working there, and then I thought, wait a minute, the enemy.
Speaker 2: This is mostly kids in their twenties who love music
Speaker 2: and are willing to stay here till eleven o'clock at night.
Speaker 2: Maybe they haven't even met the artists, but they love
Speaker 2: the music so much they're willing to, you know, to
Speaker 2: fall on the sword to get this music heard. That's
Speaker 2: what a record company actually is. It's just the young
Speaker 2: people who are working there. That's the majority of what
Speaker 2: you encounter. So I've really had to change my thinking
Speaker 2: about it. Up until that point, I thought they're the
Speaker 2: people who come to the session give you terrible notes
Speaker 2: that ruin the record, and if it doesn't ruin the
Speaker 2: record and you have a hit, they steal your money.
Speaker 2: That's that was what I thought a record company was,
Speaker 2: and I really had to re examine that.
Speaker 1: Would you sell your rights?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think so. Yeah. I don't have any sentimental
Speaker 2: attachment to it.
Speaker 1: I mean at this point, I must believe you've gotten offers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've had offers, So what would it take?
Speaker 2: Just the right number? Uh? Yeah, I mean I'm not
Speaker 2: opposed to it at all. A feel I feel a
Speaker 2: little bit weird. As a producer, your deals are sometimes
Speaker 2: with the artists directly, So like if I were to
Speaker 2: do a deal like that for what the Rolling Stones catalog,
Speaker 2: then they're going to have some people who are going
Speaker 2: to come in and audit all the time and not
Speaker 2: be as genial as I am about it. And I
Speaker 2: don't know that I love this guy, So I'm grateful
Speaker 2: to them or what they did. I'm not sure I
Speaker 2: would want to. Well, that's what happened with Hall and Oates.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: I get that and I understand how he felt. So
Speaker 2: that's really been my hesitation. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 2: bring some people going to come in and audit Bonnie.
Speaker 2: I never audited Bonnie right ever? Man, never is your
Speaker 2: deal with her? Yeah? Yeah? Okay.
Speaker 1: Final question, Gregory Porter?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: First time I heard him, saw it, you know, face
Speaker 1: to face. I didn't know anything about him other than
Speaker 1: his name.
Speaker 2: Mind blowing? Yeah. Is there any way I thought you
Speaker 2: had to think of capital right time? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: I thought this guy was on the verge of superstardom.
Speaker 1: Is there any way or what is holding back?
Speaker 2: Or where are the stars? Not a line? Why is
Speaker 2: this guy not a household name in the United States?
Speaker 2: Because he had huge success in He sold a million records.
Speaker 2: The first album that came out in Blue Note sold
Speaker 2: a million.
Speaker 1: Records, So how many domestic how many for him.
Speaker 2: Forty thousand domestic rest forms? So he concentrated on where
Speaker 2: that audience was, and he spends most of his time.
Speaker 2: He lives in Bakersfield. I know he spends most of
Speaker 2: his time overseas. And if he really decided to focus
Speaker 2: a grass roots campaign over a long period of time
Speaker 2: on this country, I think you would be better now.
Speaker 2: But he's got you know, like four or five Grammys,
Speaker 2: and he can sell out the well turned theater. I
Speaker 2: just went to see mc Carnegie Hall this year. Sold
Speaker 2: that out. He does a Valentine's Day show there every year.
Speaker 2: I think he's pretty successful.
Speaker 1: Okay, then I'll add one more question once again, records.
Speaker 1: You haven't worked with a couple of records that these
Speaker 1: should have been giant hits and they fell through the cracks.
Speaker 2: Some of I love Buddy Miller's records. Yeah, Buddy should
Speaker 2: have more recognition. Buddy and Julie his wife, great lyricists. Man.
Speaker 2: You know, they're great songwriters and they're both incredibly soulful
Speaker 2: singers and musicians. Play a lot with Buddy. I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of kicks them. I play with them every
Speaker 2: year at the Americana Awards. I've done it, Yeah, fifteen
Speaker 2: sixteen years, I've gone and been in the house band.
Speaker 2: Mainly is I want to play with Buddy, and that's
Speaker 2: that's one guy deserving a wider recognition.
Speaker 1: Okay, keep adding more questions your every day life. Are
Speaker 1: people looking to get we put the right connotation here,
Speaker 1: not so much to get something from you, but are
Speaker 1: they looking for something, whether it be free work or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: are you having to fend that often do you do
Speaker 1: that yourself? You don't have somebody else, you know.
Speaker 2: I remember, like it was yesterday, being in the position
Speaker 2: of needing someone to help me, right, I remember taking
Speaker 2: that before, Yeah, I remember taking that was and I
Speaker 2: was thing with the two songs to a public image
Speaker 2: show and Corner and John Lyden with it. Here's what
Speaker 2: we're doing. I think you'll dig it. It breaks my
Speaker 2: heart thinking of the desperation it takes to do that,
Speaker 2: to subject a guide to that, you know. So my
Speaker 2: heart breaks for people who've chosen a career like this.
Speaker 2: And I don't know why I've been so lucky, you know.
Speaker 2: And I know that in La, at any given moment
Speaker 2: in La, there's someone within one square mile of you
Speaker 2: who's great, who hasn't gotten the breaks for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: So I try to be as attentive as I can.
Speaker 2: I really sympathize with people in the position I have,
Speaker 2: and to present this thing. It's not a comfortable thing
Speaker 2: to do. And I hate saying no. That's that's the
Speaker 2: only I love the job. Man. Everybody has been great
Speaker 2: to me. I really enjoy doing it. I hate saying
Speaker 2: no to people. I've had to drop artists. A couple
Speaker 2: of times I haven't been able to do it with
Speaker 2: a crying and it's just.
Speaker 1: You drop them for purely economical reasons.
Speaker 2: Uh, well it it's not purely. It manifests itself in economically.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: What people also don't realize about this business is people
Speaker 1: don't want to work with assholes. So a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know because they don't actually interact with these people. Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't care how talent you are, I just.
Speaker 2: Don't want to work with you. Whether it's stubborn or whatever.
Speaker 2: They hard to work with. I'm also luly that too,
Speaker 2: because I've been warned off of so many people about
Speaker 2: producing them. It's going to be a nightmare for you.
Speaker 2: And it was never a nightmare.
Speaker 1: I just had to have people said, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I just mentioned one Ricky Lee Jones. Everybody said, oh
Speaker 1: yeah to her, she was the greatest. It was like,
Speaker 1: you know, we went to school together. So you try
Speaker 1: to tell yourself, but usually most of these people, it's
Speaker 1: not a one on one thing. Anyway, I was in
Speaker 1: the studio, I was the assistant engineer or something like that.
Speaker 2: It's if you treat people with respect, they usually return
Speaker 2: the favor. You know, you know, it's just simple basic stuff.
Speaker 2: Treat musicians the way you want to be treated in
Speaker 2: the like. One of the things is I was explaining
Speaker 2: to there was this kid who came with Ron Carter
Speaker 2: to the studio and I let him produce the overdub,
Speaker 2: sit there and talk to him on the talkback, just
Speaker 2: to get some experience doing it and understand what was involved.
Speaker 2: And I kept saying, keep your finger on the talkback button. Man,
Speaker 2: don't make the guy think he's here alone, that you're
Speaker 2: not listening to. Just be up. Just keep your finger
Speaker 2: on the button all the time and let him know
Speaker 2: what's going on all the time. That's just a common
Speaker 2: courtesy because I've been on the other side of it.
Speaker 2: I've been produced, I've been a session musician. You play
Speaker 2: something you think is great, and then there's silence for
Speaker 2: twenty seconds and you're just sitting there and limbo, like
Speaker 2: what And then they come back and say, let's try
Speaker 2: another one. Well those are all with that one. Give
Speaker 2: me some direction here. That felt pretty good to me.
Speaker 2: You sure you were paying attention, and you can you
Speaker 2: can lose people really easily. Uh, but yet you got
Speaker 2: to be empathetic and pay attention, and if you do that,
Speaker 2: they'll reward you.
Speaker 1: Well, you've certainly been empathetic and kept everybody's attention this afternoon.
Speaker 1: Don I want to thank you for taking this time
Speaker 1: with my audience.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure, man, It's really good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: I think you're a great interviewer. We've we've talked about
Speaker 2: this before. I've actually, you know, I do a lot
Speaker 2: of interview viewing of other people, and I've studied your technique.
Speaker 2: You're you're, you're, you're really good.
Speaker 1: Well, two things I remember vividly doing that gig grammy
Speaker 1: time sixteen months ago, and you came up to me
Speaker 1: and he goes, I see what you're doing. That meant
Speaker 1: so much, right, I told my psychiatrist said, I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you this story now. Oh absolutely. I mean, first
Speaker 1: and foremost, being a writer is I don't want to
Speaker 1: say it's a lonely jump. First of all, I don't
Speaker 1: want don't put me in the camp of people who
Speaker 1: are normally right. I'm hearing from people all day long,
Speaker 1: but it's not the same as interacting, and most people
Speaker 1: are giving the audience what they want.
Speaker 2: There's way if you.
Speaker 1: Go out, you find forget the point. You don't always
Speaker 1: do it great yourself. I mean, if I do something
Speaker 1: that's eleven, I know. Can I do something that's eleven
Speaker 1: every day? No fucking way. But you know when you
Speaker 1: reach it. So when someone you know, this is back point,
Speaker 1: I mean talking more. I remember I was in a
Speaker 1: really bad spot thirty years ago. That's an understatement, really
Speaker 1: bad spot. First, since you mentioned the psychiatrist says, well,
Speaker 1: what's a fallback position? They go, there is no fallback position.
Speaker 1: This is it is.
Speaker 2: Nothing. Okay.
Speaker 1: The other thing is, well, what are you doing you
Speaker 1: know to sell this that I said. Listen, Whenever I
Speaker 1: tried to advance my career never works because the people.
Speaker 2: Don't get it.
Speaker 1: It's like someone says, come speak at my conference for
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, you pay me, I'll go. Is it'll
Speaker 1: be good for you, good for me? If I stay
Speaker 1: home and write something phenomenal, that will be good for
Speaker 1: me and all the benefits have come from that. So
Speaker 1: you're a smart guy, very smart and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that to stroke you. So you got it because it's
Speaker 1: like I don't come with a list of questions. It's like,
Speaker 1: where are you going? To go and where are you
Speaker 1: gonna go?
Speaker 2: By? Save Doug?
Speaker 1: And I know shit, I want to cover. I got
Speaker 1: a circle in my brain. I'm coming back because you know,
Speaker 1: some of these people are friends of mine.
Speaker 2: But two things.
Speaker 1: We've had conversation only for one reason. I was talking
Speaker 1: to Peter Wolf. Peter Wolf, fascinating character, because gin me,
Speaker 1: your guys, what the fuck was going on with you
Speaker 1: that they done away wanted you?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Some people, you know, you just got to take one
Speaker 1: look at him. That's not Peter Wolf. Not that he's
Speaker 1: an unattractive guy, okay, and your talk. I couldn't figure
Speaker 1: it out for a really long time. Is he's actually
Speaker 1: empathetic and interested, which almost I was at a party
Speaker 1: last night. I got somebody's life story. You know how
Speaker 1: much they asked me about me? Zero didn't even occur
Speaker 1: to them. Okay, not that I have to tell my story,
Speaker 1: but okay, I got your story. It's not like I'm
Speaker 1: dying to talk to you again. So those moments are
Speaker 1: few and far between when somebody gets it, and that's
Speaker 1: what you live for. There aren't enough of those moments.
Speaker 1: I think maybe in conventional work, you get paid, you
Speaker 1: get a big payday. That's good, but in creative work,
Speaker 1: you're waiting.
Speaker 2: For that moment.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I loved that you said was
Speaker 1: talked about getting the job and the copy repair. Everybody
Speaker 1: who's made it big time, they were all on the verge.
Speaker 1: You're giving up at some point. It's just really desperate.
Speaker 1: So in any event, circled back to the Peter Wolf thing.
Speaker 1: At the end, he's opening up you.
Speaker 2: He wrote a.
Speaker 1: Book and got a lot of press. It's a fucking
Speaker 1: book business, so we antiquate it, and they didn't press
Speaker 1: enough copies, so for like six weeks there are no
Speaker 1: books in the story. He's doing press and I'm talking
Speaker 1: to him about it. I didn't think twice I was
Speaker 1: gonna cut it off. All the emails and oh when
Speaker 1: you were talking to him about that. So when we
Speaker 1: started off, I mean, even like on these you know,
Speaker 1: i'd also think these philosophical points, like you're talking about
Speaker 1: the altruism, et cetera. I mean, there's right and left,
Speaker 1: red and blue. But if you're not invested. Most people
Speaker 1: are invested to the point where they can't stand back
Speaker 1: and see what it's really going on here, And you know,
Speaker 1: to get into that those are the topics that are interesting,
Speaker 1: whereas most people are how much money you make in
Speaker 1: where we going to dinner? And that's a great thing
Speaker 1: about music because it transcends that. What I always say is,
Speaker 1: you know, you could put a five year old in
Speaker 1: front of the TV watch a program. Did you like
Speaker 1: it to dinner?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: It wasn't believable, the acting was bad. You put somebody
Speaker 1: listen to record about it? As most they can say
Speaker 1: is had a good beat and I could dance to it.
Speaker 1: I love it right, But it has that power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's the greatest, man, It's absolutely essential.
Speaker 1: Do you have a go to track like when you're
Speaker 1: in a bad mood or something?
Speaker 2: I do. It's actually a Blue Note album. I've been
Speaker 2: going to it since it came out in sixty six.
Speaker 2: I think I bought it like sixty eight sixty nine
Speaker 2: Speak No Evil by Way in Shorter, which I think
Speaker 2: is my favorite record in the catalog side too. When
Speaker 2: I was nineteen, man, I was, I was, I dropped
Speaker 2: out of school, movedan I wanted to be in a
Speaker 2: band like the Stooges or the MC five. Only gig
Speaker 2: I could get was playing at a bowling alley in Ipsilanti, Michigan,
Speaker 2: with the band that was doing Carpenter's covers and things.
Speaker 2: I just felt like all my plans had gotten derailed.
Speaker 2: I get pretty lost. When I was feeling lost, I
Speaker 2: go back and I put on this album side to
Speaker 2: Speak No Evil, and I could relate to the players
Speaker 2: as individuals. Elvin Jones playing drums, Detroit guy, right, so
Speaker 2: I appreciated his energy. He's just a little too exuberant,
Speaker 2: and I thought, yeah, all right, I get that. Herbie Hancock,
Speaker 2: even in his twenties, probably knew more about harmony than
Speaker 2: any anybody around, you know. And I listen to what
Speaker 2: he's playing and think, all right, be smart. I'm a
Speaker 2: smart guy. I can relate to Herbie. But it was
Speaker 2: really Wayne. I'd hear a saxophone and didn't sound like saxophone. Didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't hear reads or keys or technique or anything.
Speaker 2: I heard conversation. He was like he was speaking to me.
Speaker 2: And I imagine walking down Main Street in ann Arbor
Speaker 2: with Wayne Short and he's saying, like watch out for
Speaker 2: that guy, Like let's cross the street here and just
Speaker 2: keep walking. Don't look this cat and eye and like
Speaker 2: he was giving me directions. I had a duck and
Speaker 2: dive in life, and somehow all of that combined with
Speaker 2: this beautiful soul touch in music. By the time I
Speaker 2: get to the end of the side, I remembered who
Speaker 2: I was, who who I set out to be, and
Speaker 2: I knew how to get back on track, at least
Speaker 2: till the next time I got derailed right, and that
Speaker 2: was that was powerful, you know, And by the way,
Speaker 2: it still works. Man.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if I.
Speaker 2: Have a rough day, I'll put on that record. By
Speaker 2: the time I get from Hollywood to Santa Monica, I'm good.
Speaker 2: And thankfully, you know, we got to sign Wayne. We
Speaker 2: re signed him the Blue Note first year I was
Speaker 2: there and I made a couple of records, but him,
Speaker 2: I got to know him, beautiful guy. I got to
Speaker 2: tell him that.
Speaker 1: And really, well, it sounds like you got to tell
Speaker 1: the number of your heroes, got to tell Brian Wilson.
Speaker 1: Did you ever tell the Stones you were a fan? Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they knew. I think fans make the best producers.
Speaker 2: I would find that reassuring.
Speaker 1: Are you trying to create a bond that that sort
Speaker 1: of separates you?
Speaker 2: I think that if you try to make the record
Speaker 2: that you would buy. That's that's that's that's good producing.
Speaker 2: You just got to assume that other people share your taste.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you're a very soulful guy who is warm.
Speaker 1: Is it important to make the musicians of the room
Speaker 1: feel that they're connecting with you.
Speaker 2: It's important to make them feel comfortable. They don't. I
Speaker 2: don't care whether they feel that they're connected. They're not
Speaker 2: making a record for me, they but I want them
Speaker 2: to feel is safe enough that if they take a
Speaker 2: chance on something and it fails and they fall off
Speaker 2: the cliff musically, that it's okay, get no, mad man,
Speaker 2: We'll do another take, you know, like but to feel
Speaker 2: comfortable to take the chance, so you don't just get
Speaker 2: you know, the biggest enemy making a record is good
Speaker 2: making a good record. There's no point in making a
Speaker 2: good record. Make it fucking great or don't make it.
Speaker 2: You know. Sometimes people have to always, man, you got
Speaker 2: to go the extra mile, put that little bit of
Speaker 2: extra something in there. And sometimes it takes a while
Speaker 2: to draw that out. And people have to be comfortable
Speaker 2: and feel that they're not going to be judged or
Speaker 2: look foolish. Shift if they try something and it doesn't work,
Speaker 2: So that's what I care about.
Speaker 1: Well, do you have a technique to push them to
Speaker 1: get into grate?
Speaker 2: You know, it's really weird. I've been told that this happens,
Speaker 2: but it's nothing I do deliberately. I don't know what
Speaker 2: I do, but something puts people at ease. I'm aware
Speaker 2: of the phenomena, but I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 2: why it happens. There's nothing deliberate.
Speaker 1: It's like Mick.
Speaker 2: I remember telling him he's got something in his voice.
Speaker 2: He's audiogenic. I don't know what that word means. Well,
Speaker 2: you know what photogenic is Claudia Schiffer on an ad
Speaker 2: and she jumps out, catches your eye because she just
Speaker 2: got this quality. And that's why she's a popular model,
Speaker 2: because it draws your attention to the genes they're trying
Speaker 2: to sell. That's photogenic. Audiogenic means your voice leaps out
Speaker 2: of the speakers. And some people just have this thing.
Speaker 2: It's a gift. It's not something you can't eq it in.
Speaker 2: It's got something to do with the EQ curve of
Speaker 2: the voice, but it's got to do also with some
Speaker 2: invisible kind of magical charisma. Some people just have it.
Speaker 2: Mick Jagger. Listen, you mentioned Tumblin Dice earlier in the discussion.
Speaker 2: Listen how low his vocal is. No one in the
Speaker 2: right minds would ever put out a record with the
Speaker 2: vocal mix that low. But it doesn't matter because he
Speaker 2: leaps out of the speakers. Garth Brooks leaps out of
Speaker 2: the speakers. I was a stun man when I work with him.
Speaker 2: He left out of the speakers so far as like
Speaker 2: he was standing behind me man. And that's why I knew.
Speaker 2: I was understood why he was the most successful artists
Speaker 2: in the world at that time, because he had this
Speaker 2: incredible gift of audio charisma. Aretha Franklin and Bonnie's Got It.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those are two good examples. But you're working with
Speaker 1: Mick is if they are one hundred percent of the timer.
Speaker 1: You have to get him in the zone.
Speaker 2: He warms up into the character and you can see
Speaker 2: the physical transformation and it's just it's it's so awesome,
Speaker 2: especially if you're a fan. Right, so comes in, he's
Speaker 2: got a sweater and a dress shirt, you know, and
Speaker 2: he stands there and he's singing It's Mick Jagger, but
Speaker 2: he's he's not the guy and you gotta go four
Speaker 2: or five takes in and then sweater comes off, the
Speaker 2: dress shirt comes off. Now he's in a T shirt
Speaker 2: and the lips start, they transform. He becomes the character.
Speaker 2: And then he'll give you two or three passes of
Speaker 2: it where he's the thing, and then he knows he's
Speaker 2: done it. He knows when he's there and when he's not. Hey,
Speaker 2: he's just phenomenal, man, he's just so's you know, he's
Speaker 2: the greatest front man ever, right, greatest front man of
Speaker 2: the banned.
Speaker 1: Well, they just to stay on the stones for a minute,
Speaker 1: especially at glaston very recently with all the controversies with
Speaker 1: villains and the kneecap. The stones were dangerous back in
Speaker 1: their era. And then of course in the sixty nine
Speaker 1: to seventy two era, I mean there were no cell
Speaker 1: phone cameras. They were in the south of France. There's
Speaker 1: been some footage town. It was almost as fucked up
Speaker 1: as they said it was okay, whereas now it's fifty
Speaker 1: years later. I mean, Joe Walls had a great line
Speaker 1: about this because I'm too old to die young, and
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, it's not their fault at all,
Speaker 1: and it's got nothing to eat.
Speaker 2: Just weird.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really weird if something. This is why
Speaker 1: I got to give Keith Richards much credit. He's not
Speaker 1: trying to look young. It's like when these guys get
Speaker 1: plastic surgery and they look forty years younger than the
Speaker 1: audience it's coming to see them. But as they say,
Speaker 1: it's not the Stones, I guess it's the same thing
Speaker 1: in the show. There's always a moment where it locks
Speaker 1: on and you go, that is it.
Speaker 2: They're fucking great man. I've seen him. I've seen him
Speaker 2: as a I started the first time I went to
Speaker 2: see him as in sixty four, they played for two
Speaker 2: hundred people at Olympia Stadium, which is an arena in Detroit,
Speaker 2: two hundred people in an eighteen thousand seat places. Before
Speaker 2: they were on that Cellivant show, I saw him three
Speaker 2: or four times with Brian Jones, so I'm gonna gimme
Speaker 2: shelter tour. I've seen him, you know, throughout, and then
Speaker 2: once I started working with him, I saw him another
Speaker 2: fifty times, and I'm always blown away. I've never seen
Speaker 2: a shitty Stone show.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you go to the show with Fonda? Okay,
Speaker 1: they were great but it's the stones in a room
Speaker 1: with under two thousand people. Song ends all the rabble rousing.
Speaker 1: You know, you think it's the fucking stones. They don't
Speaker 1: do a lot of pattern between the numbers anyway. It
Speaker 1: was just it was disrespectful. But I just couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: It was a weird It was an industry audience, I
Speaker 2: think you could call it, and that's a that's a
Speaker 2: tough audience to play for. I thought they were great.
Speaker 2: I saw them at the Echoplex too, and I didn't
Speaker 2: see that show. That was just the most surreal thing.
Speaker 2: To be in a bar with the rolling stones.
Speaker 1: Well, the great thing about them is they are a
Speaker 1: bar band.
Speaker 2: Well they can be the roots.
Speaker 1: We go into the production era of let it bleed whatever,
Speaker 1: But at the core, it's guys who listened to a
Speaker 1: lot of blues records and want it to be and
Speaker 1: that's out is supposed to someone who, you know, other
Speaker 1: than satanic majesties, maybe supposed to someone who blew with
Speaker 1: the wind. It's pure to what it is and very
Speaker 1: few things are that long.
Speaker 2: That's why I love the Blue and Lonesome record, because
Speaker 2: I think that was utterly not only was it made
Speaker 2: utterly without self consciousness or thinking they've adjust themselves. And
Speaker 2: because it was all in one room and the drum
Speaker 2: sound was coming primarily from mixed vocal mic, there was
Speaker 2: no overdubbing, no punching, no fixing, nothing. That's just listen
Speaker 2: out what a great band they are.
Speaker 1: The problem is, you'll remember in the seventies, you know,
Speaker 1: bands put out live albums to get out of their contracts,
Speaker 1: and they change the contracts, doesn't count as an album.
Speaker 2: Et cetera. Live music was so weird.
Speaker 1: I remember it was in a bar in Aspen, Colorado
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy They taped the concert off the radio
Speaker 1: and they had it.
Speaker 2: You could listen to it.
Speaker 1: Then there was a King Biscuit flower arm. This ship
Speaker 1: was so rare. If the Stones had got nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the record. But if the Stones are put
Speaker 1: low down on whatever the hell the name of the
Speaker 1: track is that if they put it out in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, it would have been like everybody would have
Speaker 1: known it.
Speaker 2: Times changed, yeah, times changed. But what I love is
Speaker 2: that they you know, Keith Richard's man, he's just he's
Speaker 2: such a great soulful musician. You know, he's one hundred
Speaker 2: percent for real. And I've gone to see them live
Speaker 2: and I've seen him like walk past on the runway there.
Speaker 2: He's like transfixed. Man, he's in a trance, and I've
Speaker 2: had eye contact with him, and but he's he's somewhere else.
Speaker 2: He's so deep into what he's playing. And he said,
Speaker 2: night after night after night, he goes there every night.
Speaker 2: He doesn't he changes his position the guitar. So if
Speaker 2: it's a g chord, you'll play it down here one night,
Speaker 2: you'll play it up here another night. And that leads
Speaker 2: to a whole other thing. He's he's improvising in a
Speaker 2: very narrow framework. There's not a whole lot of room
Speaker 2: for it. But nothing's ever on autopilot with him. He's
Speaker 2: for real and he's so sold.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I don't know whether you went to
Speaker 1: the Metropolitan Museum of Art and then it was the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame whatever they called it,
Speaker 1: with everybody's guitars and you saw his less Paul with
Speaker 1: four strings. That's when it all came out. And then
Speaker 1: I remember being on stage talking to his guitar deck.
Speaker 1: I said, you know what the deal was, We let
Speaker 1: it do we go on the road, we have to
Speaker 1: have it. It's like the came But you know, it's
Speaker 1: the same thing with Eddie van Halen's Frankenstein guitar, because
Speaker 1: if it was my guitar, I wouldn't take it out
Speaker 1: of my bedroom. I'd be afraid that it fall apart.
Speaker 1: But we all grew.
Speaker 2: Up in there. The factor.
Speaker 1: You know you only gonna play on four strings.
Speaker 2: Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: What do you think of the Mick Taylor era?
Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: I can talk because I didn't work with him. Although
Speaker 1: Ronnie Wood, you know, bass player with Jeff Beck, the
Speaker 1: ship that he did with Rod Stewart unbelievable. Okay, the
Speaker 1: only problem I have with Ronnie Wood is his sound
Speaker 1: is somewhat similar to Keith's, whereas Mick Taylor was came
Speaker 1: from a completely different place.
Speaker 2: Well, Ronnie is one of these guys man. You could
Speaker 2: put anything in his hands. One time I ordered there's
Speaker 2: like an oil can dulcimer. There's like someone put a neck,
Speaker 2: a dulcimer neck on an oil can and strung it
Speaker 2: up and they brought it to the studio for me. Right,
Speaker 2: I sound like a jerk. Playing It just gonna take
Speaker 2: some time. And to Ronnie, he just made something spectacular
Speaker 2: happen almost instantly on this thing, and just found a
Speaker 2: way to be expressive. He's a super talented guy. And
Speaker 2: because he's got to share responsibilities with Keith, he's accepted
Speaker 2: somewhat of a shadow role in the Rolling Stones. But
Speaker 2: he's world class. I just remember another thing. There was this.
Speaker 1: Now there are tons of stadium shows. There weren't shows
Speaker 1: for a couple of decades. People don't know in the
Speaker 1: seventies all these stadium shows. I've already living in la
Speaker 1: and it was Fleetwood Mac with Stevie and Lindsay Loggins
Speaker 1: in the scene in the headline were the faces, okay.
Speaker 1: And that was just when rumors were seventy five, just
Speaker 1: when rumors were coming out that he was going to
Speaker 1: be the Stones guitarist. Well now it's fifty years later,
Speaker 1: he's been the Stones guitarist. You know, Brian Jone isn't
Speaker 1: even making a decade. He's like the new guy. It's
Speaker 1: a strange thing.
Speaker 2: Strangely, but when you live the phenomenon you're talking about,
Speaker 2: it's tougher for him. On songs that Mick Taylor originally played.
Speaker 2: He's better on the songs where he initiated the part,
Speaker 2: like Beast of Burden. Those are the guitar weaving that
Speaker 2: goes on. It's a different relationship Keith and Ronnie. You
Speaker 2: have a different relationship than Keith and Brian Head. I'm
Speaker 2: talking about musically, and they do this guitar weaving thing
Speaker 2: for which you do have to be like minded. You
Speaker 2: can't be one hundred and eighty right.
Speaker 1: It's like when Mick Taylor or whatever it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be the fifty at the anniversary too, I think
Speaker 1: it was the fifty first, and he would sit in
Speaker 1: for a couple of songs. Yeah, whatever he was playing
Speaker 1: was nothing like what they were playing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well and it was great. You know, yeah,
Speaker 2: they've been at it for a while. Well.
Speaker 1: The only other thing we know is for years we've
Speaker 1: been hearing it. I mean, you and me go under
Speaker 1: different circumstances here.
Speaker 2: You know, you gotta go. It could be the last time.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting to the point where, fuck, everybody's dying.
Speaker 1: You don't know, it could be the last time.
Speaker 2: I remember that we cut one song right over here
Speaker 2: in Hollywood. It's now called East West we're in studio too,
Speaker 2: and it was meant to be the last song on
Speaker 2: for Just a Babylon Well, how can I stop? It
Speaker 2: was one of Keith's songs and we were all set
Speaker 2: up in a circle and there were other people playing.
Speaker 2: Jim Keltner was there with Charlie and Wayne Shorter is
Speaker 2: playing on it. Blondie Chaplin was playing the grand piano.
Speaker 2: Keith was singing live, the backgrounds were live. I was
Speaker 2: playing a Wurlitzer piano and at the end of the song, Charlie,
Speaker 2: who had a car waiting in the alley, It's like
Speaker 2: five in the morning. He had a flight back to
Speaker 2: London that day. Charlie hits this flourish on the symbols.
Speaker 2: When the song was done, then it goes into the
Speaker 2: whole other thing. It's like Wayne's playing soprano sacks. It
Speaker 2: sounds like it's Coltrane, sounds like Love Supreme, kind of right,
Speaker 2: this whole other thing. And as we were doing it,
Speaker 2: I started crying because I thought, Oh my god, this
Speaker 2: is this is the last song the Stones are ever
Speaker 2: gonna cut. This is their coda. What a spectacular way
Speaker 2: to take it out. It's the last song. I'm Bridges
Speaker 2: to Babylon. Check it out and check out the end.
Speaker 2: Ding and Charlie. We finished, Charlie got in the car
Speaker 2: drove off. I thought, wow, I was there for the
Speaker 2: last session of the Stones.
Speaker 1: Well, since you're talking the Bridges to Babylon, my favorite
Speaker 1: song on that track is not unknown, not that it
Speaker 1: was a huge hit, sane of.
Speaker 2: Me, Oh, you never mixed saying to me, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just got to feel that it's just great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a cool track. Yeah, yeah, they're good moments.
Speaker 1: There are great.
Speaker 2: Moments on all all those records. I think that it's
Speaker 2: a it's a tough thing to live up to. Man.
Speaker 2: You know, when when when people have so much of
Speaker 2: their own personal memories intertwined with certain music, it takes
Speaker 2: twenty It's only now are people starting to tell me
Speaker 2: how good Voodoo Lounge is. It takes it takes decades
Speaker 2: to attach your own sensory triggers to these songs and
Speaker 2: then it becomes something special. But to have to compete
Speaker 2: with with, you know, like memories of you make it
Speaker 2: out in the car in high school.
Speaker 1: Man, you know how the interesting thing not at this level,
Speaker 1: but Todd Rungren, who's really incredibly successful. He goes on
Speaker 1: the road, no matter how much he till people, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do my electronic stuff.
Speaker 2: They come.
Speaker 1: They want to hear the hits. They want to hear
Speaker 1: more than Hello, it's me, and they can't believe it.
Speaker 1: I give them credit for doing it, but it's got
Speaker 1: to be tough.
Speaker 2: You just do it because that's what you do. Man.
Speaker 2: Musicians play, you just want to play. I think it's
Speaker 2: it's really most of the.
Speaker 1: People from our era, not the ones on the oldies tours,
Speaker 1: who can sell out areenas whatever they've sailed far beyond that,
Speaker 1: because a it is about the money, because they have
Speaker 1: lifestyles that they you know, they're not keeping every one
Speaker 1: of these dollars. And then the other thing is they
Speaker 1: need the adulation, and many will not take that risk.
Speaker 2: Well, the people I know, Bob Dylan stones, that's not
Speaker 2: what they don't need the bread, They don't really need
Speaker 2: the adulation. It's what you do, man, Dylan.
Speaker 1: Dylan wrote the fucking book. I mean you look at
Speaker 1: the Beatles. They didn't do any endorsements whatever, which influencer,
Speaker 1: but they didn't really know what they were doing. Bob
Speaker 1: Dylan was conscious of all this stuff that he was doing.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you remember Self Portrait came out
Speaker 1: first of his records to get negative reviews. That came
Speaker 1: out in June, comes out with New Morning in October,
Speaker 1: and it's phenomenal. Okay, and there's some recor. I mean,
Speaker 1: now you just never know. Listen. He gets number one
Speaker 1: credit in my book because he's doing it his way
Speaker 1: on stage. Yeah, okay, I have seen it. I will
Speaker 1: be honest with you. Not always eager to see it.
Speaker 1: Somebody says friend of mine's the agent, but whatever, but
Speaker 1: he's making it interesting for himself. Otherwise, how can you
Speaker 1: do it?
Speaker 2: You can't. He has an adventure every night if you
Speaker 2: listen closely, because I follow him on YouTube and Minched,
Speaker 2: I watch all the shows. Man, he's he digs in real,
Speaker 2: he doesn't throw away syllables. He's a great singer, and
Speaker 2: he's really he's not walking through it. He's really trying
Speaker 2: to interpret the songs and do it fresh every night.
Speaker 2: Bob Wear does the same thing.
Speaker 1: But Bob weare that's the roots. Yeah yeah, But with Dylan,
Speaker 1: as I say, I agree with everything you said here.
Speaker 2: Him with Barbi straisand I haven't heard yet it's fucking great,
Speaker 2: and he sounds awesome, and he cuts closer to the
Speaker 2: emotional core of that song than just about anybody, and
Speaker 2: he does it without historyonics, without showing off. He does
Speaker 2: it through understatement. It's a brilliant reading of that song.
Speaker 2: And he sounds wonderful too.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could talk about so many Dylan things,
Speaker 1: but you talk about the go to tracks. This is
Speaker 1: not number one, but it's in the top five. I
Speaker 1: and I from Infidels. You know, I literally can picture
Speaker 1: of place when the song wasn't even out yet. Is
Speaker 1: it just resonates. It's just so incredible.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: The other thing about DM, I remember he was he
Speaker 1: was hyping some album he works too, and he was
Speaker 1: in he said, you know, they talked about the earlier records,
Speaker 1: goes can't do that anymore. And then you get old
Speaker 1: enough you realize it's not that you lose something.
Speaker 2: You have to get to the next thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think he's been as consistently great over a sixty
Speaker 2: seventy sixty year period as anybody.
Speaker 1: So if you want to compare him with somebody, absolutely well,
Speaker 1: he's the only person who's making different records as time
Speaker 1: goes by everybody else if they're making them. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like the movie. I had a problem with the
Speaker 1: movie because A it was not always accurate and B
Speaker 1: it's hot giography. The guy is fucking from Hibbing, Minnesota
Speaker 1: comes to New York. People have no idea how hard
Speaker 1: it is to make it, no idea sticking to his
Speaker 1: vision and any of the other thing, you know, no
Speaker 1: matter what budgets were. Then he got these records fast,
Speaker 1: but he knew what he was doing and nobody else did.
Speaker 2: Yeah. True. Well, you know, one time I asked him
Speaker 2: how come you can write Gates of Eden and I can't, which,
Speaker 2: actually it's a line in the movie, right everyone wants
Speaker 2: but I was unaware. This is probably nineteen ninety or
Speaker 2: something like that, and he said, well, look, man, if
Speaker 2: it makes you feel any better, I didn't actually write it,
Speaker 2: he said, I remember moving the pencil of old Age,
Speaker 2: but it came from without. And at the time I
Speaker 2: thought I was very sweet of him. He's just trying
Speaker 2: to make me feel better about this. Then I started
Speaker 2: hearing the same You're in the same thing, Keith Richards.
Speaker 2: He's riches, by the way, in a session he didn't say, uh,
Speaker 2: hold a hold, I got an idea. He says, hold
Speaker 2: a whole incoming income or or Willie or Chris and
Speaker 2: any writer's work this on Brian Wilson, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: the same thing. I don't know where it came from
Speaker 2: him through me and Okay.
Speaker 1: I don't want to compare myself to those people. But
Speaker 1: when done right, you are channeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the worst thing is when you realize you're channeling.
Speaker 2: And then it goes left.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's like you're just so there's always
Speaker 1: an inspiration and motivation, but it comes out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I have my tricks. One I won't mention, the other
Speaker 1: one to take a shower. It's like you have no
Speaker 1: idea what will come to try to get you in
Speaker 1: the zone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's hard, man. You don't you don't control it.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like surfing. You can you can learn
Speaker 2: how to stay up on the board, but you don't
Speaker 2: control the fucking ocean. Man. You know, it's like the ocean.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get the waves you get and you can't
Speaker 2: make him bigger. You can't change him. Okay.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite stories, al Cooper is not doing
Speaker 1: great now, good friend of mine. He's getting inducted.
Speaker 2: To the Rock Walk.
Speaker 1: You know whatever the guitar said, I'm talking to him backstage.
Speaker 1: I guess he was telling the story of Sweet Home Alabama,
Speaker 1: how the first album Leonard Skinnard had just come out
Speaker 1: and he got a call from Ronnie van Zen, like
Speaker 1: very shortly thereafter, I got a new song got to
Speaker 1: come up. And that was on a Friday. They came
Speaker 1: in and they cut it on Monday. Sweet Home Alabama
Speaker 1: did not come out for a year.
Speaker 4: Okay, I said, al did you know he goes it
Speaker 4: was Sweet Home Alabama.
Speaker 1: You know it's like that thing. Yeah, you know when
Speaker 1: you know when people I mean yeah, things can be
Speaker 1: hits not hits. It's like we connected in your movie.
Speaker 1: You made a big bit about till I Die off
Speaker 1: surfs Up, which I never heard anybody talk about whatever's
Speaker 1: in that record, and whenever read, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: have to play it on the radio every twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And when you do something like that, you
Speaker 1: absolutely know. The only thing I'm interested in is people.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know all these people, but I haven't
Speaker 1: gotten this discussion. The Eagles, who work very slowly put
Speaker 1: put things together. But some of the lines of you know,
Speaker 1: wasted time. You know, you can go on with your
Speaker 1: life and I can go on with mine, and maybe
Speaker 1: someday we will find it wasn't just wasted time. If
Speaker 1: you work that slowly, how you can mean it? Because
Speaker 1: all you're talking about the flash of brilliance. One day
Speaker 1: I got you know, Gates even came out complete and
Speaker 1: I just don't know. I mean, he's steely. Dan's another
Speaker 1: one works slow. How do they maintain because people are hacks,
Speaker 1: they've never been there, so they don't get it.
Speaker 2: Well, how about I'll go step further. How about Bob
Speaker 2: still rewrites his lyrics. We were with Weird we do
Speaker 2: when I paint my masterpiece right, and Bob Dylan must
Speaker 2: have heard it, and he said, tell Bob we are
Speaker 2: he's singing the wrong lyrics. What do you mean? He said, no,
Speaker 2: I changed him and he and he and he typed
Speaker 2: him out for me to give to the Weird to
Speaker 2: sing And okay, this is, you know, on an amateur level,
Speaker 2: but starting I think it was a seventy four.
Speaker 1: He put out a big lyric book. Okay, yeah, the
Speaker 1: lyrics are not the same as they are on the record.
Speaker 1: If you on the website now, they're not necessarily the same.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you continue sin, but they're not
Speaker 1: the same as they are on the record.
Speaker 2: He's updating constantly, so yes, it might have come from
Speaker 2: a flash in the moment, but he's still refining it. Well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because Joni Mitchell has no time for him,
Speaker 1: and she's pretty crazy, but when she was at her peak,
Speaker 1: as good as any of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what Joni's issues, but he's he's
Speaker 2: a superhero as far as i'm Yeah, but you know,
Speaker 2: you don't want to be these people.
Speaker 1: Because you can't go anywhere. I mean, he could talk
Speaker 1: to you. There's a lot of So are you ever starstruck?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, I try. If I'm working with someone, I
Speaker 2: try to be professional. There's no place for that. That's
Speaker 2: not why you're there. But yeah, always, I'm always starting.
Speaker 2: It'll be, it'll be. It looks like you're talking about
Speaker 2: it's a flash. I'll be sitting in the control room
Speaker 2: and I go, oh my god, that's wait short, Oh
Speaker 2: my god. Last week iding with bron Carter. Bron Carter
Speaker 2: is a lifetime here. It comes from Detroit, grew up
Speaker 2: about a mile and a half from where I did.
Speaker 2: He's fifteen years older than me, but so when I
Speaker 2: was a teenager, he was making what I still considered
Speaker 2: to be the greatest records ever made. Which of those
Speaker 2: Miles Davis Quintet records from esp through Miles in the Sky,
Speaker 2: you know, than that era. And I couldn't believe I
Speaker 2: was watching him play bass, you know, you know, a
Speaker 2: couple of feet away in the studio this last week recording.
Speaker 1: I've had those moments, and I know exactly what you're
Speaker 1: talking about. I'm talking about a slightly different moment, somewhat
Speaker 1: similar to your initial Brian Wilson thing where you're so
Speaker 1: starstruck either you can't say anything or you can't shut
Speaker 1: up as you're saying.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, it happens. I mean the other thing.
Speaker 1: You know, people say most of these people are tortured, okay,
Speaker 1: ian most don't live up to who you want them
Speaker 1: to be. But then they're occasionally people to do like
Speaker 1: Steven Tyler. I say, no, he's that guy. He lives
Speaker 1: up to the rep So I guess, you know, going
Speaker 1: back to our earlier conversation, these people they were not entertainment.
Speaker 1: They were then they were not only successful, what they
Speaker 1: were saying was so important. Even some of the penumbra.
Speaker 1: Remember when you you you lived a slightly different world.
Speaker 1: The Beatles were on drugs. No Beatles aren't taking drugs.
Speaker 1: And then you know it's legitimized. Everybody's taking drugs. You
Speaker 1: know you got the messages. Okay, don enough of your time,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this until next time.
Speaker 4: This is Bob Left, says sh