Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bob Lefset's podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Henry Hall, who has a new book
Speaker 1: to last out. Henry, isn't today your birthday?
Speaker 2: Today is my birthday?
Speaker 1: So what are your special plans?
Speaker 2: Well, my son's coming over for dinner. He's a very
Speaker 2: entertaining character. So we're going to make some pae, drink
Speaker 2: some Spanish wine. My wife is cooking dinner for me,
Speaker 2: which is not unusual, but we both share the cooking duties,
Speaker 2: but she's commandeering the kitchen for my birthday tonight.
Speaker 1: So pae good pie is great. How did you learn
Speaker 1: how to make paea?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, growing up in Tampa with a Cuban community.
Speaker 2: It was the kind of part of the landscape.
Speaker 1: Any other dishes you specialize it?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you know, I mean going back to the
Speaker 2: Cuban thing, the Spanish thing, the chicken and yellow rice.
Speaker 2: I love to make hyea. I love French bistro cooking, coke, Wova,
Speaker 2: boothberg Ignon. Gosh, you know, I'm just going to tell
Speaker 2: you this my spaghetti sauce. Seriously, if you're a soulful
Speaker 2: character that knows the difference between good and great. My
Speaker 2: sauce would qualify.
Speaker 1: But make sure so magic. What's the essence of the recipe?
Speaker 2: Time homegrown tomatoes. I don't use ground beef. I use
Speaker 2: ground hot Italian sausage as my base for the sauce.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You know, it's so heavy that you
Speaker 2: can't eat it very often. We probably make that once
Speaker 2: every two or three months. But when we do, we
Speaker 2: gain five pounds. It's part of it.
Speaker 1: What do you do about food on the road?
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a good one. Kind of you just try
Speaker 2: and be discerning, try and pick and choose. But it
Speaker 2: can get pretty ugly. It can get pretty damn ugly. Now,
Speaker 2: if you're on the Lenards Skinnered tour and the catering
Speaker 2: is a notch or two above what you are used to,
Speaker 2: that's half the attraction anymore. Forget exposure to a large audience.
Speaker 2: It's all about the catering.
Speaker 1: So, okay, you've been doing this a long time. You're
Speaker 1: going to die on stage? No, So what would it
Speaker 1: take for you to all the day?
Speaker 2: I'm close. When I was younger, I thought I wanted
Speaker 2: to be you know, Willie Nelson when I grew up.
Speaker 2: But I've had enough. I mean, honestly, I have a
Speaker 2: four year old and a ten year old at home
Speaker 2: and a young wife, and a greenhouse and some acreage
Speaker 2: and a tractor, and you know, I would like to
Speaker 2: go out maybe with a couple of people to sing
Speaker 2: with and do acoustic and acoustic evening and tell some stories.
Speaker 2: But my son, who is a very talented young man,
Speaker 2: is more than capable of running the show out here,
Speaker 2: and he wants to, and I want him to, and
Speaker 2: so I thought maybe next year could be my last year.
Speaker 1: Can you say your son is people being running the show?
Speaker 1: What exactly do you mean?
Speaker 2: Well, he's a much better guitar player than I am.
Speaker 2: He's a really good singer, and he is a good leader.
Speaker 2: He's a natural born chip off the old block. That way,
Speaker 2: our family is brought with chiefs. There aren't a lot
Speaker 2: of Indians.
Speaker 3: Okay, but if you stop, that would mean the Outlaws
Speaker 3: would be on the road without any original members.
Speaker 2: Well, how many original tires do you have in your car? Bob?
Speaker 2: You know, he's been out there since he was ten.
Speaker 2: He's come in contact with the fan base extensively over
Speaker 2: the years. He's a really kind person and he's a
Speaker 2: very charismatic type of guy, and the fans know him,
Speaker 2: they love him. He's been very kind to the fans,
Speaker 2: and he's got the right name, and he's got a
Speaker 2: very very long and storied not unlike Johnny van Zant
Speaker 2: or Ricky Midlock, now, you know. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: mind saying that Lennard Skinner band is very good and
Speaker 2: those people want to hear those songs, they want to
Speaker 2: buy that T shirt, and that band puts on a
Speaker 2: great show and is very faithful to the band's musical personality.
Speaker 2: And I feel like the Outlaws and Blackhawk can go
Speaker 2: on indefinitely because of the nature of the material. And
Speaker 2: you know, little Henry has a unique talent for sounding
Speaker 2: like his dad. There's a part of him that sounds
Speaker 2: a little like me anyhow, and as you may know,
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of an unusual sounding voice. But
Speaker 2: he he can do that, and I want him to
Speaker 2: do that. I would That's something I can give him.
Speaker 2: And the guys on the bus love and respect him,
Speaker 2: and he can keep the band together and keep going.
Speaker 1: But even you know, our Laws had many men, Blackcaw
Speaker 1: only had a few. You still think it could be
Speaker 1: okay with him leading.
Speaker 2: The band absolutely well, you know, of course I would
Speaker 2: say yes. But I think Blackhawk was a trio. The
Speaker 2: Outlaws was a five piece rock band. The Blackhawk thing
Speaker 2: is far more kind and gentle, you know, and thoughtful
Speaker 2: and the Outlaws. You know, back when we were young people, man,
Speaker 2: we were like all just clawn at the walls to
Speaker 2: try and get ahead and be somebody. I think Dave
Speaker 2: Robbins and I, which are the two surviving original members
Speaker 2: of Blackhawk, I think Dave would be very helpful to Henry.
Speaker 2: I know he would be, and I think he would
Speaker 2: lend a significant amount of credibility to the brand. I
Speaker 2: you know, how many original members and cover bands, and
Speaker 2: you know, you hear that lot. But Lennard Skinner's out
Speaker 2: there doing great and I'm using them as an example.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's a lot of bands that represent
Speaker 2: something musically to a generation of people and they want that.
Speaker 2: And I think that it's fair to expect, you know,
Speaker 2: a great show in the spirit of what it was,
Speaker 2: what you know, what it was from a creative standpoint.
Speaker 2: But you know, other than that, I don't know when
Speaker 2: a band goes away, do they just go away? I mean,
Speaker 2: do they just like just go away or do they
Speaker 2: I don't know, keep going.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's an interesting thing, you know. I've been to
Speaker 1: see Journey with the replacement singer and you're in the
Speaker 1: audience and you realize the audience owns the songs more
Speaker 1: than the band, and that they're experienced, they want to
Speaker 1: hear the songs, and who's on stage isn't as important
Speaker 1: to them as it might have been in the heyday.
Speaker 2: Well, and I think that we're conditioned to love the
Speaker 2: original band. I think it's natural to feel that way.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe the Beatles are an exception. Whether can
Speaker 2: you see the Beatles without John or Paul or George.
Speaker 2: But I do believe that that people want to hear
Speaker 2: those songs. They want them played and sang and treated
Speaker 2: with respect and with you know, in a competent musical
Speaker 2: form and fashion. One thing that has really helped the
Speaker 2: Outlaws for the last fifteen or twenty years is that
Speaker 2: I was unyield towards the band's original sound. And when
Speaker 2: I wrote and recorded new studio records, I wrote and
Speaker 2: recorded music that was faithful to the band's musical personality.
Speaker 2: It was never spanned out ballet or any of that
Speaker 2: you know, it was always the Outlaws, and I loved,
Speaker 2: you know, just you know, continuing that musical personality and
Speaker 2: being true to it felt really natural and right to me.
Speaker 2: And so when the fan base got a new record,
Speaker 2: they drop the needle and they'd go, Wow, this sounds
Speaker 2: like the Outlaws. This is really good. The songs are
Speaker 2: really good, the harmony, vocals are great, the guitars are sizzling.
Speaker 2: It's a great sounding record in and I not because
Speaker 2: it's my songwriting that is in the you know, at
Speaker 2: the center of it. But there's some pretty damn good
Speaker 2: songs on those records, and the performance is really good.
Speaker 1: Okay. You hear a lot about older artists that if
Speaker 1: they play new material, people go to the bar. What's
Speaker 1: your experience?
Speaker 2: Well, again, you know, I want to hear Bob Dylan
Speaker 2: sing subterranean homesick clues. I'm not very interested in what
Speaker 2: he has to say here in the last ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen years. So if I put a new song in
Speaker 2: the set and I'm writing about let me just give
Speaker 2: you an example. If I'm if I'm coming from a
Speaker 2: song off the first or second album and I put
Speaker 2: a new song in a set, uh, and it speaks
Speaker 2: to them lyrically, and it's and it speaks to them stylistically.
Speaker 2: I can tell you from experience, you're going to get
Speaker 2: what you want in the way of a reaction, and
Speaker 2: uh uh, I think that. You know fans if they're
Speaker 2: having a good time and they're on their feet and
Speaker 2: the new material pushes their button, which it does, and
Speaker 2: it speaks to them lyrically in a way that they
Speaker 2: can relate. The walls of the Fillmore East still echo
Speaker 2: with the sound and Midnight Writer memories forever haunt this town.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like fire on the mountain, the voice
Speaker 2: that can't you see. The reason Sweet Home Alibi means
Speaker 2: so much to me is it's about pride. So you
Speaker 2: put that in the show, and I defy you to
Speaker 2: not want to love that and not want to react
Speaker 2: to that. And so it's how you frame the music
Speaker 2: lyrically and lyrically, that's how it kind of established itself
Speaker 2: to begin with. And if you're wise to that and
Speaker 2: you're consistent, then you can bring new life to the band.
Speaker 2: We've done it, I mean Dixie Highway and It's about pride.
Speaker 2: Those two albums have done incredibly well for us and
Speaker 2: really helped give the band legitimacy, which I think was important.
Speaker 1: You talk about potentially stopping in a year. What's been
Speaker 1: keeping you doing it for these last years?
Speaker 2: Well, most of all, I think I wanted to prove
Speaker 2: to myself because Blackhawk is a uniquely personal musical personality
Speaker 2: of my own sort of making. Along with Dave and band,
Speaker 2: the Outlaws had three singer songwriters from the very early
Speaker 2: stages of the group, and Huey emerged as the dominant
Speaker 2: musical personality in the band. And when I left the
Speaker 2: group upon my bandmates suggestion, it was hurtful and it
Speaker 2: started a fire in me that was hard to put out.
Speaker 2: Whether it was the Henry Paul Band, or coming back
Speaker 2: to the Outlaws and establishing it as a really good, solid,
Speaker 2: vocal and instrumental group, or whether it was when hue
Speaker 2: passed away and I took the reins and brought the
Speaker 2: band back. It was a personal thing for me to succeed,
Speaker 2: and it was important for me to feel that success
Speaker 2: because I had a large part in creating the Outlaws
Speaker 2: and I had a very significant investment in their well being,
Speaker 2: and it just gave me that late in life opportunity
Speaker 2: to show myself as committed and to put a very
Speaker 2: professional face on a band that had been through a
Speaker 2: lot of changes and a lot of inglorious moments.
Speaker 1: So have you achieved your dream?
Speaker 2: I have, and I you know, I had. My goal
Speaker 2: was to pull the fan base together and have everybody,
Speaker 2: you know, in one place. I found out I could
Speaker 2: not do that. I couldn't do that. I mean, it
Speaker 2: didn't matter what I did. That wasn't going to happen.
Speaker 2: But what I did do is I brought these people
Speaker 2: that grew up listening to that band, and I brought
Speaker 2: them back to the group, and the audience went through
Speaker 2: over time, went through a significant ship and the people
Speaker 2: that I was playing for became more familiar to me sociologically.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: They showed their enthusiasm for what we were doing in
Speaker 2: a way that I internalized on a personal level. And so,
Speaker 2: you know, it was important for me to feel like
Speaker 2: I had put the Outlaws out there in a way
Speaker 2: that was respectful and successful, especially from the standpoint of
Speaker 2: the audience's reaction to the evening.
Speaker 1: So who's coming Ole Laws shows now?
Speaker 2: Well, I would say eighty percent of the audience is
Speaker 2: the original people that discovered the band and supported it.
Speaker 2: The twenty percent of the audience is young people that
Speaker 2: love seventies southern raw musical personality or guitar driven musical personalities,
Speaker 2: and the female quotient in the audience is at a
Speaker 2: higher level.
Speaker 1: What do you think it counts for that?
Speaker 2: I think it's the respect that they are given from
Speaker 2: the stage and the inviting nature of the rapport. And
Speaker 2: I'm not talking about pandering. I'm just talking about appealing
Speaker 2: to these people on a on a human level. And
Speaker 2: instead of making it dark and sleeveless and male and
Speaker 2: aggressive and motorcycle persona driven, we made it a little
Speaker 2: bit lighter, a little bit more vocal, and a lot
Speaker 2: more accessible. From the standpoint of our rapport, there's some
Speaker 2: you know this, there's some nice looking guys in the band,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, it doesn't look ugly. It looks
Speaker 2: really like American, like, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 2: a little bit more you know, just accessible as people
Speaker 2: the people on stage, and they're really kind people. And
Speaker 2: I think through consistency of our rapport with the audience
Speaker 2: over a decade or more, twenty almost years, and people said,
Speaker 2: the Outlaws are playing in a really nice venue, they
Speaker 2: sound really good. Let's go see the Outlaws and we'll
Speaker 2: have some cocktails and we'll enjoy ourselves and it'll take
Speaker 2: us back to when we were kids. And Henry will
Speaker 2: come out and say hello, and they're very accessible and
Speaker 2: he's a really nice guy. And the band sounds really good,
Speaker 2: and you know, they look good. By looks good and
Speaker 2: they sound good. And I just think over time, the audience,
Speaker 2: I know, it went through a shift and it was
Speaker 2: kind of like started to mirror the personalities on stage
Speaker 2: rather than us trying to mimic our our audience.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've laid the base there. The band is now
Speaker 1: on stage, you're the front person for the band. What
Speaker 1: is the key to interacting personally with the audience.
Speaker 2: Well, I think if you're a gracious to begin with,
Speaker 2: and you have an empathetic and gracious sort of spirit,
Speaker 2: and you legitimately like people instead of being put off
Speaker 2: by him or instead of being you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: instead of being you know, intruded upon or feeling like,
Speaker 2: you know, you need to just be alone or private.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were very comfortable and cordial in interacting
Speaker 2: with the fans, and it wasn't a conscientious decision made
Speaker 2: on a marketing level. It was just who we were.
Speaker 2: It's who I am, and the band mirrors my persona
Speaker 2: when it comes to my appreciation for who these people are,
Speaker 2: and when I speak to them, I speak to them
Speaker 2: in a language that they recognize as being real. It's
Speaker 2: not some flag waving veterans supporting, you know, just pandering
Speaker 2: to some Southern rock persona or or perceived personality that
Speaker 2: we have to assume. It's a very natural and very
Speaker 2: accessible message, and I think it comes from being smart
Speaker 2: enough to know that who you're dealing with are pretty
Speaker 2: you know, receptive and intelligent and similar types of people
Speaker 2: than as you know, they get the difference between kindness
Speaker 2: or genuine you know, behavior and appreciation rather than the
Speaker 2: cliche thing. I've heard it my whole life, you know,
Speaker 2: I've heard it over and over and it just doesn't
Speaker 2: sound good to me. What sounds good to me is
Speaker 2: not talking down to them, but talking to them and
Speaker 2: with them. So I think that you know, people will go,
Speaker 2: you know, well, I love the stories Henry was telling tonight.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm very appreciative and genuinely affectionate towards my bandmates. Yes,
Speaker 2: we had some heart wrenching parts to the story, but
Speaker 2: I never lost sight of who they were or what
Speaker 2: they meant to me. We realized a dream together, we
Speaker 2: thought for it, we realized it together. It was a
Speaker 2: very life changing moment and a very important part of
Speaker 2: making our life matter. And so you can't just write
Speaker 2: those people off. And I treat those former bandmates with
Speaker 2: respect on the mic, and I acknowledged the obvious contribution
Speaker 2: they made, and I think that the sincerity and the
Speaker 2: genuine appeal of the band rests in that rapport.
Speaker 1: So when you tell a story, I mean, there's two
Speaker 1: ways to tell the story. Well, this is a song
Speaker 1: written by my bandmate, it's on this album. We're going
Speaker 1: to play it. There's another thing to say, Well, I
Speaker 1: was sitting on the couch smoking a doobie. What kind
Speaker 1: of stories do you tell live?
Speaker 2: Well, I go to the Two Nights in Nashville when
Speaker 2: we opened for Leonard skinnern in the spring of nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four, and Ronnie going back to the hotel and
Speaker 2: calling his manager and telling his manager that there was
Speaker 2: a band on the show from Tampa trying to kick
Speaker 2: their ass and they had themselves Freebird. That evening, unbeknownst
Speaker 2: to us, was a life changing evening because the Leonard
Speaker 2: Skinnyerd manager at that time had a lot of influence
Speaker 2: and a lot of credibility, and his his effort on
Speaker 2: our behalf was met with attention and ultimately a major
Speaker 2: label record deal between Charlie Bruscoe and Alan Walden. We
Speaker 2: were able to connect with people that had the power
Speaker 2: to sign a band to a major label, and we
Speaker 2: were really good. And those are the kind of stories that,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of give the fans a bit more
Speaker 2: of an understanding of how in the hell you got there,
Speaker 2: because otherwise, you know, it's just like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: we Clive came and saw us, you know, but Clive
Speaker 2: did come and see us, But he came and saw
Speaker 2: us because people told Clive we were good. You know,
Speaker 2: the music business, you're only as good as someone that
Speaker 2: has influence says you are. And if they say you're good,
Speaker 2: then everyone believes it. But they don't say you're good,
Speaker 2: then nobody cares. So here was this person saying they're
Speaker 2: really good. And then you know, Bob, you know, Fiden
Speaker 2: comes down and sees the band and goes back and says, yeah,
Speaker 2: they're really good, Clive, they really are good. And so
Speaker 2: Clive comes down and said, you know, Clive, you know,
Speaker 2: the superlatives were, you know, flowing. And I was in
Speaker 2: a room with a guy and all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: from just being a dreamer and a hard worker, I
Speaker 2: went to being a recording artist and a part of
Speaker 2: the popular music landscape, and it was a big deal.
Speaker 1: Let's stay with Clive for a second. You know, you're
Speaker 1: in with Clive in his second iteration, he's starting up Arista.
Speaker 1: As you talk in the book, it's really the first
Speaker 1: rock band on the label. Clive is notorious for messing
Speaker 1: with the music. You mentioned a couple of things, him
Speaker 1: wanting hits after the first album. What was your experience
Speaker 1: with working with Clive.
Speaker 2: It was good, not to sound, you know, politically correct,
Speaker 2: but it was good. He did not really lean on
Speaker 2: us very much. He brought to my knowledge one song
Speaker 2: and suggested we record it, and we did, and it
Speaker 2: was a little left or right of center for us.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember the name of the song. We
Speaker 2: never performed it, you know, because it didn't become a
Speaker 2: song that was noteworthy. The Santana story is a great
Speaker 2: story but that wasn't our story. We were more of.
Speaker 2: I mean, when you go back and listen to the
Speaker 2: Outlaws albums and you go back and listen to the
Speaker 2: Eels records, it becomes clear pretty quickly if you know
Speaker 2: anything about songwriting, why they're a household name and we're
Speaker 2: a cult bad. I'm not saying our songs weren't good,
Speaker 2: but I'm saying they were different. Tequila Sunrise, you know,
Speaker 2: is like if you like Pinacle, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just it's served up, you know, with an umbrella
Speaker 2: and a long straw. But Green Grass and High Tides
Speaker 2: is a majestic instrumental phenomena that would burn the Eagles
Speaker 2: completely to the ground in musical comparison, and so you know,
Speaker 2: they were beautiful singers. Henley emerged as a major league
Speaker 2: songwriter and a hugely, incredibly influential musical personality. I mean,
Speaker 2: don his solo records to me were like Goga and
Speaker 2: the Eagles to this day are a great band. I
Speaker 2: mean they should be. They've got Vince Gill and Joe Walsh.
Speaker 2: You know, shit, how do you go wrong there? I mean,
Speaker 2: Vince Gill is a work of art, and you know,
Speaker 2: and Joe Walsh's and Don Felder was a great part
Speaker 2: of that band. I have a great part of that band.
Speaker 2: Really help them. But you know, we were different that way,
Speaker 2: and and people love us for not being the Eagles,
Speaker 2: you know, they love us for being you know. Bob
Speaker 2: Dylan has a quote that says, never never confused popular
Speaker 2: with good. Just be yourself and write your quirky little
Speaker 2: songs that don't have you know, universal thoughts and hooks.
Speaker 2: But to you, you go out and you play that
Speaker 2: hard and you play it with conviction, and people will
Speaker 2: love it just on face value. It doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be you know, steely Dan. It can be a simple
Speaker 2: and maybe a little bit I mean, Leonard Skynard's a
Speaker 2: great example of a band that had a very simple
Speaker 2: musical personality. And yes they had Sweet Home Alabama, which
Speaker 2: is in a you know, a beautiful musical moment for them.
Speaker 2: But Marshall Tucker and even the Almand Brothers, even though
Speaker 2: they had a hit on Ramblin Man, those bands, we
Speaker 2: were sort of cast in the Almond Brothers, we were
Speaker 2: all cast i think in a certain extent in their image.
Speaker 2: We loved them and we were in awe of them.
Speaker 2: And we respected them and we wanted to be them,
Speaker 2: and we were, you know, in our own sol Way,
Speaker 2: just incredibly enamored by who they were and what they
Speaker 2: meant to us, especially you know from Live at the
Speaker 2: film Wore and Eat a Peach and holy crap, I mean,
Speaker 2: Brothers and Sisters was like even without Dwayne, I mean,
Speaker 2: the band hit this thing and we were just absolutely
Speaker 2: completely invested in what that was. We didn't mimic them,
Speaker 2: but we really loved what they did. And the Marshall
Speaker 2: Tucker band was a great band. Skinner was a great
Speaker 2: band of Charlie Daniels was a great band. And that
Speaker 2: was our peer group Leonard Skinner, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels,
Speaker 2: and god dare I say the Almend Brothers. That was
Speaker 2: Southern rock. And the Outlaws were the last band to
Speaker 2: enter that configuration. But the Outlaws earned their way in,
Speaker 2: and I can tell you from experience. Every night used
Speaker 2: to bring the whip down pretty good, and we would
Speaker 2: get over on Skinnered, or we would get over on Tucker,
Speaker 2: or we get over on Charlie. We held our own
Speaker 2: every night, and our relationship with those people was genuine
Speaker 2: and warm and very very memorable in a very nurturing
Speaker 2: and positive way.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about interacting with the audience today, and
Speaker 1: you talk about not being a cliche. You tour all
Speaker 1: over this country, You've seen the people, You're where the
Speaker 1: rubber meets the road. What can you tell us about
Speaker 1: people in America today?
Speaker 2: Well, it's for me, it was, and I'm just going
Speaker 2: to talk about my audience because I don't know everyone.
Speaker 2: But not just for the Outlaws, but for Black Pop
Speaker 2: or for the Henry Paul band, those people were very grounded,
Speaker 2: earthy and traditional in their taste and in their behavior
Speaker 2: and in their musical choices. Our audience for those and
Speaker 2: even today for those bands, are people that are middle
Speaker 2: class white American people of a normal, hard working background
Speaker 2: of success and you know the whole from family to
Speaker 2: growing up and getting a job and doing what you
Speaker 2: knew you needed to do for your family. Our audience
Speaker 2: is very Americana in a true sense of the word.
Speaker 2: Blackhawk's audience is very young. The Outlaws audience is older.
Speaker 2: But they both when you look at them, you know
Speaker 2: they got jobs and lives. These are not people that
Speaker 2: wander in, you know, like with nothing. They worked hard
Speaker 2: and they have a life. I mean the clothes that
Speaker 2: they wear, or the way that they interact with you,
Speaker 2: or the affection that they are capable of giving you.
Speaker 2: You get the impression that these are people that are
Speaker 2: like you. They're like me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you say after the show, you interact with the audience.
Speaker 1: I had, okay. So that's not a normal feature. You
Speaker 1: don't come out to the merge table every night.
Speaker 2: We did for a long time. We did for a
Speaker 2: long time.
Speaker 1: What changed.
Speaker 2: I'm seventy six. I just you know, I have done
Speaker 2: this for a long time. I just said to myself,
Speaker 2: when I'm done with the show, I'm good to come
Speaker 2: out and say hello. I always give everybody with it,
Speaker 2: but I'm not going to haul the band out and
Speaker 2: sit at a table. We did that for our decade,
Speaker 2: and it was really a good thing to do. It
Speaker 2: was good for us to do that. It was a
Speaker 2: very accessible part of who we were. But we're not
Speaker 2: that in every true sense of the word. We're not
Speaker 2: that altogether. These days, I get done with the show,
Speaker 2: I go to the bus, I take off those damn
Speaker 2: type pants and those cowboy groups. I put on my
Speaker 2: shorts and I sit there and I tally up the score.
Speaker 2: I think about how many people came. I think about
Speaker 2: how the band felt and performed. I consider the reaction.
Speaker 2: We got to the evening and we don't have to
Speaker 2: ring it up in all categories. But a good night.
Speaker 2: It's a good night. And I knew I did my job,
Speaker 2: and to coin a phrase from a few good men,
Speaker 2: I'd do it again. And we just got to the
Speaker 2: point where we were okay to go to the bus
Speaker 2: and just stop. And I always come off the bus
Speaker 2: and go out and say hello and sign stuff. But
Speaker 2: I don't haul the band out to the merch table.
Speaker 2: I don't do meet and reads. I'm good.
Speaker 1: The nature of rock and roll is it's an evening event.
Speaker 1: Let's just assume, for the sake of discussion, you get
Speaker 1: off the stage at eleven, you do your tally. How
Speaker 1: do you calm down and ultimately go to sleep.
Speaker 2: I just sit there. I sit there, and I call home.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those guys that can jump right
Speaker 2: into bed after the show. I'm pretty ant, so I
Speaker 2: sit there. I'm usually the last one of the last
Speaker 2: band members to go to bed and one of the
Speaker 2: first band members to get up, and in my own
Speaker 2: home I'm usually the last person to go to sleep
Speaker 2: in the first person, though I've always been like that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to miss anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you're tallying up every night and you've been
Speaker 1: doing this for a while. The Reformed Outlaws is the
Speaker 1: audience going up, going down in number? Do you care
Speaker 1: to whatever degree?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Hey, you know, we don't have control over all
Speaker 2: of that, but the Outlaws have built an incredible following
Speaker 2: in the last fifteen years, bringing the band back from
Speaker 2: where it was when I took over after Hughey's passing.
Speaker 2: To bring the band back has been a very successful endeavor.
Speaker 2: And we're not headlining arenas, we're in theaters, so it's
Speaker 2: all relative relative to the band's place. The band's place
Speaker 2: is a smaller sort of place than other bands. We
Speaker 2: just were never that well known, and rightfully so, we
Speaker 2: didn't have, you know, whatever it was that made Bruce
Speaker 2: Springsteen what he is. What we had, and we loved
Speaker 2: who we were and what we have, but it was
Speaker 2: different hours and I mean, I'm thankful that we have
Speaker 2: what we have. I don't look at it and go, gosh,
Speaker 2: I sure wish we were, you know, at Madison Square
Speaker 2: Garden tonight instead of you know, BB Kinks, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: I think smart enough to realize that whatever it is
Speaker 2: you have you're thankful for. You don't sit and dream
Speaker 2: of more. I'm very happy with what we have and
Speaker 2: we've built the band back up and they're doing good numbers.
Speaker 2: That's why the Outlaws are out there with thirty eight
Speaker 2: special in Kansas on a really cool tour in America
Speaker 2: this year. That's why the Outlaws get the phone call
Speaker 2: to come out and do the Leonard Skinner tour in Canada.
Speaker 2: The Outlaws are one of the great values in the
Speaker 2: music business. People at aeg Or Live Nation they come
Speaker 2: out and see the Outlaws and go, wow, that's absolutely incredible,
Speaker 2: and you can get them for a song. It's not
Speaker 2: like these gaudy numbers that these people are hanging out there.
Speaker 2: You can buy the band relative comparatively inexpensively, and they
Speaker 2: put a really respectable face on the start of a show.
Speaker 2: There's no original members in the band coming out with
Speaker 2: knee braces, no shorts. You know, it's a very respectable
Speaker 2: part of a two or three acts show. We get
Speaker 2: after it. We still show some nights. We just say
Speaker 2: that Kansas sounds incredible. How many original members that I
Speaker 2: don't give it. They say in Great thirty eight Special,
Speaker 2: different kind of band. It's more of a pop band.
Speaker 2: They sound great. Don Barnes has that band in really
Speaker 2: good shape. I've got the Outlaws in really good shape. Kansas.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who's running the show there, but they're
Speaker 2: in really good shape. That three act show is one
Speaker 2: of the greatest things out there because Kansas is not
Speaker 2: a Southern rock band. Really, thirty eight Special is somewhat
Speaker 2: of a hybrid, So you get a really great musical
Speaker 2: evening and all three of those bands are playing at
Speaker 2: the top of their game.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the book, they're ups and downs before the
Speaker 1: Outlaws make it, members are coming, members are leaving. The
Speaker 1: Outlaws have their Heyday than their Denu mall, and it
Speaker 1: seems like no one has any money. So how did
Speaker 1: that work out? Did you ever make any money of
Speaker 1: the Outlaws?
Speaker 2: No, not the kind of money that I've heard about
Speaker 2: people making. Let me say that there are five members
Speaker 2: of the Outlaws. Wikipedia is a manipulated storyline. It's not.
Speaker 2: It has nothing to do with who the Outlaws are.
Speaker 2: The Outlaws were Huey Thomason, Henry Paul, Billy Jones, Monte Yojo,
Speaker 2: and Frank o'keeth. Those five people were the Outlaws. There
Speaker 2: was a band called the Outlaws that those people were
Speaker 2: in and out of before it wasn't the Outlaws. The
Speaker 2: Outlaws really weren't the Outlaws until nineteen seventy two when
Speaker 2: we put the band together by seven. It was a
Speaker 2: five piece group. Had nothing to do with the bar
Speaker 2: band or the fraternity you know, high school band that
Speaker 2: had that name. It was those five people who wrote
Speaker 2: and recorded songs, original music that went out as the
Speaker 2: Outlaws and got the record deals. So anything other than that,
Speaker 2: people that came later the band was, in my opinion, abused,
Speaker 2: just treated very cavalier and very reckless. And that you
Speaker 2: have this long list of names that people that have
Speaker 2: been in the Outlaws. It's embarrassing to me to a
Speaker 2: certain extent because the five people that got the band
Speaker 2: their deal and went out and recorded those first three records,
Speaker 2: that was the musical personality of the band. All the
Speaker 2: other things were sort of made to pet your weight
Speaker 2: the band's career, and fair enough, it did what it
Speaker 2: was supposed to do. But I was a party to
Speaker 2: making some decisions that were looking back, not good decisions.
Speaker 2: We had some problems with Frank O'Keefe, the substance issues,
Speaker 2: and there were things that he did that were not
Speaker 2: in his best interest you put it that way. But
Speaker 2: we could have helped him. We could have said, Frank,
Speaker 2: you need help, you need to stop, you need to
Speaker 2: do this. We can't be a band without you. We
Speaker 2: need you. We didn't know that. We thought, well, if
Speaker 2: Frank was going to go off the rail, then we
Speaker 2: go get somebody else to take his place and we'd
Speaker 2: be fine. But it wasn't fine. It wasn't fine. The
Speaker 2: person that we got to take his place was good.
Speaker 2: It wasn't what we were and we didn't know that.
Speaker 2: We didn't know that. If I had known what I
Speaker 2: know now, I would have worked a lot harder with
Speaker 2: my friend Frank to make sure he stayed in the
Speaker 2: band of the band stayed hole. And I think if
Speaker 2: people saw the importance of the original members of the
Speaker 2: band for being inherent to the band's personality and success,
Speaker 2: that we would have all tried harder. We wouldn't have
Speaker 2: been so quick to cut and run. And I love
Speaker 2: the way it feels to be in a band with
Speaker 2: people for a long period of time. It's kind of
Speaker 2: like a marriage or a relationship of any substance, you know,
Speaker 2: like your your friends. I don't know who your friends are.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's people in your life that you know
Speaker 2: that you love for being your friend, and that feeling
Speaker 2: is very, very very important. And you know, the band,
Speaker 2: it would kind of approach a certain level and then
Speaker 2: it would kind of come apart self somewhat self destruct
Speaker 2: and once that happened, it was hard to get it back.
Speaker 2: I think the people that really did well in the
Speaker 2: music business, and I'm going to use like led Zeppelin
Speaker 2: for an example, they monetize their popularity and their personality.
Speaker 2: Little Feet probably not so much. Does that mean little
Speaker 2: Feet isn't important? No, they're very important. Does that mean
Speaker 2: they made a lot of money. I don't know, but
Speaker 2: probably not not. In the scheme. You know, Toto, Everyone
Speaker 2: loved Toto and respected them. They're incredible musicians. Did Toto
Speaker 2: go out and make enough money to retire on and
Speaker 2: walk away from you know? Probably not. So it's just
Speaker 2: kind of the luck of the draw and the wisdom
Speaker 2: to see the value and the loyalty.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been in a number of good iterations. You've
Speaker 1: been in the Outlaws, You've been in Black Hawk. Are
Speaker 1: there any royalties coming and then Henry Paul ban any
Speaker 1: royalties coming in from any of that, Or you've got
Speaker 1: to work for a living.
Speaker 2: Got to work for a living. There are royalties just
Speaker 2: going to the grocery store. You better have either a
Speaker 2: good job or some money coming in from somewhere. The
Speaker 2: Blackmawk thing was my first experience with commercial success. It
Speaker 2: was like commercial success on a grand scale. The Outlaws
Speaker 2: had gold records. We didn't have platinum Alvens. We had
Speaker 2: gold records. Blackhawk had multi platinum albums. Was success on
Speaker 2: a level like I had never seen or heard, and
Speaker 2: there was money in that. There was money. There still is.
Speaker 2: The advent of nineties country and the popularity of what
Speaker 2: that represents is very, very rewarding financially compared to what
Speaker 2: though Blake Shelton, what do you think he gets to night? Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe in three or four shows he makes
Speaker 2: what I make gross in a year. But I don't
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning on God, I wish I
Speaker 2: was Blake. I kind of try and make the most
Speaker 2: of what I have and find success in a form
Speaker 2: that is personal to me. I can't you know, Ronnie
Speaker 2: Dunn Brooks and Dunn, Alan Jackson, Alan Jackson, I remember
Speaker 2: when he made a pub deal, sold his publishing for
Speaker 2: like fourteen million dollars. Well, that ought to be enough
Speaker 2: in and of itself to get you to the other side.
Speaker 2: I have a beautiful family and my health. I have
Speaker 2: a really nice group of people to play with on
Speaker 2: the road. Lucky as a pig and poop to have
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty shows a year, and to go
Speaker 2: out and make a pretty good living. I feel lucky
Speaker 2: to have that. I don't. I don't look around and
Speaker 2: go crap. I wish I was making, you know, three
Speaker 2: or four hundred thousand dollars a night, you know, And
Speaker 2: I don't know what that means. I don't. Bob Billen's
Speaker 2: got a lot of money. He doesn't look like it's
Speaker 2: done him a whole lot of good, you know. And
Speaker 2: I love Bob Byllan, but you know, I mean he
Speaker 2: doesn't walk around in Pierre card En suits. I mean
Speaker 2: he's a scruffy guy. That so what does it take?
Speaker 2: It doesn't take much fun.
Speaker 1: Okay. Something that is said more directly in your book,
Speaker 1: which you reference earlier. You're basically fired squeezed out of
Speaker 1: the outlaws. In addition, once you we join him, uie
Speaker 1: does it again?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: How did you deal with all that?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a The second time didn't mean anything to me.
Speaker 2: I was good to go. I didn't you know there
Speaker 2: the band business let me trying to just put it
Speaker 2: into what I considered to be proper perspective. The band
Speaker 2: business is always leveraged by your perceived value to the group.
Speaker 2: And Jewey saw himself for who he was in that band.
Speaker 2: He's saying, there goes another love song. He's sang green
Speaker 2: Grass and high Tide, and he's sang Ghost Riders in
Speaker 2: the Sky. And I don't know what Hugh he was thinking,
Speaker 2: but I have every reason I believe he probably thought
Speaker 2: I'm pretty much the band and I don't need anyone else.
Speaker 2: But that wasn't true. But but when that mindset sort
Speaker 2: of takes over and you stop being a band with Henry,
Speaker 2: or a band with Billy, or a band like I
Speaker 2: said with Frank, you know, you start to show yourself
Speaker 2: to your audience to be less, not more. And if
Speaker 2: those decisions are financial, and they very well may have been,
Speaker 2: so you get more. What's one hundred percent of nothing?
Speaker 2: You know what's twenty percent of a lot? So I
Speaker 2: you know I in both cases, when I was showing
Speaker 2: the door the first time, it was a signific I
Speaker 2: can blow to the band because I had helped get
Speaker 2: us to where we were. Was not just a musical journey,
Speaker 2: but it was a journey based on knowing where you
Speaker 2: were going. I mean for me to have helped and
Speaker 2: had a hand in the Outlaws, Henry Paul band, the
Speaker 2: Outlaws again and Black I'll go out and get major
Speaker 2: label deals. Hmm, gee, Henry, what did you do in
Speaker 2: the band? I was a good salesman. I could sell it,
Speaker 2: and I looked like a duck, and I had web feet,
Speaker 2: and I quacked when I spoke, and people believed in me.
Speaker 2: They kept giving me opportunities because I was believable. And
Speaker 2: at one point, you know, the Outlaws manager said, Chewi,
Speaker 2: you need to call up Henry because this band's going
Speaker 2: to crack and it's just coming apart and things aren't
Speaker 2: working in You and Hank were great back in the day,
Speaker 2: and you just need to pick up the phone and
Speaker 2: get Henry back in the band and Okay, let's do that.
Speaker 2: And then by nineteen eighty eight we were having a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. We were playing to small audiences. We
Speaker 2: knew we weren't going to come back to some grand career,
Speaker 2: but I was having fun. I had the checkbook. Huey
Speaker 2: and I were making really good money. The band was
Speaker 2: being paid a very very respectable wage, and we were
Speaker 2: riding around the country, playing for fifteen hundred people and
Speaker 2: having a ball. But you know when Hue when Hughey said, well,
Speaker 2: I see what Henry's doing, I see how we're I
Speaker 2: want more, or maybe I think it's good. Take it,
Speaker 2: because I'm going to Nashville and I'm going to do
Speaker 2: something different and I'll see your ass later. And I'm
Speaker 2: good And with my sixty five sting ray cruising down
Speaker 2: the back alley in Nashville, Tennessee, coming up on Hughey
Speaker 2: standing out there one day, you know, in a letter
Speaker 2: skinnered recording session. It didn't hurt my feelings, you know,
Speaker 2: to feel good about myself and the effort that I
Speaker 2: was able to create and show for my hard work.
Speaker 2: And so I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you are fired a did you see it? Coming,
Speaker 1: which it sounds like you didn't be in retrospect, because
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've gone over this a million times in
Speaker 1: your life. Certainly at the time, was there anything that
Speaker 1: you could have played different or was it inevitable?
Speaker 2: I think, first of all, I didn't it coming, uh,
Speaker 2: But I wasn't surprised. I mean, I kind of knew
Speaker 2: who I was dealing with all along. It was never,
Speaker 2: you know, a family environment, and the band was always
Speaker 2: somewhat of a business. But I think that it was
Speaker 2: so painful to me and such a such an ego
Speaker 2: destroying moment, and in such a a bitter, hurtful place
Speaker 2: that I was not used to being in that my
Speaker 2: immediate reaction was put a new group together, go get
Speaker 2: another major label deal, find a really a good friend
Speaker 2: to help you with your career, and get back in
Speaker 2: the game. That's what I did, and I found help
Speaker 2: out there from people that were capable of helping me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you are in the Outlaws. I had seen the
Speaker 1: Outlaws in their heyday opening for the Stones. They had
Speaker 1: big success, certainly with high Tides and green Grass, but
Speaker 1: it was a relatively faceless band. There was not somebody
Speaker 1: who stuck out in front. You're now out of the band.
Speaker 1: You were in a successful band. How do you convince
Speaker 1: Atlantic to give you a deal?
Speaker 2: Well, I think my role as the frontman for the
Speaker 2: band first and foremost, and I think that my artistic recovery,
Speaker 2: writing songs like gray Ghost, writing songs like so Long,
Speaker 2: writing you know, Hallmark songs that when A and R
Speaker 2: directors listened to them, or executive vice presidents from the
Speaker 2: label listened to him, they said, we loved your in
Speaker 2: the band, We loved the outlaws, we loved you. I
Speaker 2: was somewhat of a more visible member of the group
Speaker 2: because I fronted the band and they wanted they were
Speaker 2: willing to support me. Michael Kleffner was the was the
Speaker 2: vice president of national promotion at Arista, and went out
Speaker 2: and promoted the band at rock oriented radio, album oriented
Speaker 2: rock radio and got green Grass on the air, and
Speaker 2: he and I became really close friends. It was clear
Speaker 2: to me that it wasn't just about the band. It
Speaker 2: was clear to me that it was about the promotion
Speaker 2: department at Arista and the band and the record we made,
Speaker 2: and those people that went out and killed for us.
Speaker 2: So Michael left Arista and got the executive vice presidential
Speaker 2: chair at Atlantic Records under Jerry Greenberg. And when I
Speaker 2: left the Outlaws, Michael said, if you need a budget
Speaker 2: to record demos, let me know. I would like to
Speaker 2: help you. It wasn't a lot of money. Five six
Speaker 2: seventy eight thousand dollars. We went in and cut ten sides,
Speaker 2: brought him to Michael, brought him to Ton Journam, brought
Speaker 2: him to John Kalodner sat down, Yes, we want to
Speaker 2: sign this band. We loved the Outlaws and we love you.
Speaker 2: Henry and Joe Sullivan, you know who managed Charlie Daniels
Speaker 2: said I would love to hand your career. I think
Speaker 2: the world of view. I mean, these people were close
Speaker 2: to me because I invested a lot of myself in
Speaker 2: these relationships. And they said, absolutely, you're on Atlantic Sound
Speaker 2: seventy manages your career, and Paragon is still going to
Speaker 2: represent you in the live music area and you're good
Speaker 2: to goud Us. Oh okay, Now we're out in the
Speaker 2: road with Charlie and skinnered and we're back. Not skinned
Speaker 2: they were gone, but we're out in a road and Tucker,
Speaker 2: we're back with familiar faces doing what we've always done
Speaker 2: and it kind of came. It was kind of coinciding
Speaker 2: with the decline of southern rock. There was a fad,
Speaker 2: a musical moment for that genre, and it hit a
Speaker 2: high water market started to evaporate. Molly Hatchett had come
Speaker 2: onto the scene late in the in the game and
Speaker 2: with a significant amount of commitment from Epic, did very well.
Speaker 2: But the Henry palmband for me was that was was
Speaker 2: a I'm looking for the word, but it was. It
Speaker 2: gave me my self respect back. It gave me, you know,
Speaker 2: my my my opinion of positive opinion of myself, because
Speaker 2: honestly it was it was a hard thing to come
Speaker 2: back from. And uh, you know, without the help and
Speaker 2: support of people that were my friends, and without my
Speaker 2: hard work and focus, I'd have done what Frank did,
Speaker 2: and that would start a painting company in clear Water
Speaker 2: and paint houses. I didn't do that. I fought back
Speaker 2: and got back in the game.
Speaker 1: Okay, what was the decision to call it the Henry
Speaker 1: Paul Band.
Speaker 2: Oh Jesus, we just couldn't. First of all, the Charlie
Speaker 2: Daniels band, the Henry Paul band. You know, Joe Sullivan
Speaker 2: was very much inclined to want to hang my name
Speaker 2: on the band. I looked for a name. We all
Speaker 2: looked for a name. We couldn't find a name. I
Speaker 2: was signed to the record deal. The members of the
Speaker 2: group were signed as well, but it was my band,
Speaker 2: and we just couldn't come up with anything better. So
Speaker 2: we just said, well, let's just call it the Henry
Speaker 2: Paul band.
Speaker 1: I doesn't sound like you were happy.
Speaker 2: Well I wasn't happy, but I accepted it. And along
Speaker 2: with that came a little bit more you know, weight pressure. Uh.
Speaker 2: I just kind of went along with it and decided,
Speaker 2: what the hell difference does it make if we're you know,
Speaker 2: the Great Ghost Album has stood a very very significant
Speaker 2: positive test of time. And while it wasn't a record
Speaker 2: that you know, set records at the retail level, it
Speaker 2: was a very respectable record and over the years has
Speaker 2: risen in the ranks of people's opinion. And I was
Speaker 2: ready to lock asses with everybody. I mean, I wanted
Speaker 2: to go on tour with the Outlaws and you know,
Speaker 2: and steal the show. I mean, I you know, I was.
Speaker 2: I was hurt and angry and very ambitious and I
Speaker 2: wanted to get that and you know, it was it
Speaker 2: was a very significant success for me to go to
Speaker 2: Atlantic and to go on the road again and to
Speaker 2: put myself back in a place where I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: It was a big deal.
Speaker 1: Okay, those are great achievements. Atlantic sticks with you for
Speaker 1: four albums. There's not a breakout hit. What was the
Speaker 1: experience of being in Atlantic. Were they always on your side?
Speaker 1: Were they saying, hey, you know, we'll make another record
Speaker 1: but this time.
Speaker 2: No, they were on my side. I mean I knew
Speaker 2: every regional promotional director. I knew everybody the label. I'd
Speaker 2: go up to the label when I was in New York.
Speaker 2: You know, Claudner and I were friends. I mean, John
Speaker 2: and I were friends when he was a journalist at
Speaker 2: the Inquirer. That's how we met. And those people were
Speaker 2: definitely pulling for me, and they knew that I hadn't
Speaker 2: found commercial success, but obviously they were unwilling to just
Speaker 2: toss me aside. And this was after Michael was gone.
Speaker 2: The first three records, they were all uniquely different records,
Speaker 2: but they all were very good in what they were.
Speaker 2: The third record, especially by the time I made the
Speaker 2: last record for Atlantic, it was pretty much over and
Speaker 2: I was playing, you know, some different game. MTV had
Speaker 2: come into its own and we were just trying to
Speaker 2: find a way to be in the on the landscape.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't meant to be and it and it
Speaker 2: didn't do anything to help me. And it was a
Speaker 2: very hard lesson to learn about try and be yourself
Speaker 2: and live and die by that and don't try and
Speaker 2: you know, be something that you're not. And that was
Speaker 2: a big Artistically, that was a big lesson for me
Speaker 2: to learn. But I don't know that record has things
Speaker 2: about it that are are good. But the first album,
Speaker 2: the third album, and to a certain extent, the second album,
Speaker 2: all those records were really well written and played. And
Speaker 2: I got to be who I wanted to be. I
Speaker 2: got to stay in a business I want to be.
Speaker 2: Our tour. It wasn't a whole lot of money, but
Speaker 2: there was money enough for us to make a living,
Speaker 2: and we toured heavily and I got to stay in
Speaker 2: the game.
Speaker 1: Claudner ultimately goes to Geffen. Claudner is a guy with opinions.
Speaker 1: Did you converse with him? Did he give you input?
Speaker 2: Yes? A lot, But you know, John was good. John
Speaker 2: was helped make some very good decisions for me and
Speaker 2: John tried really hard to help me. Uh but you know,
Speaker 2: when John went to Geffen and cozy it up with
Speaker 2: the people at Aerosmith, you know, and started wearing the
Speaker 2: white suit, it just was a different version of him.
Speaker 2: He and I were really good friends for a lo time.
Speaker 2: When I would go to La myself, John Klaudner, Mary Turner,
Speaker 2: Sam Bellamy and Paraquak Kelly, those people we were in separate.
Speaker 2: Pat Kelly, we were inseparable, though we would do everything together.
Speaker 2: We'd go out together, we'd go to bars and drink,
Speaker 2: we'd have That was my socials core in Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: And Jim Ladd lured me up to his house on
Speaker 2: the hill with a stupid railroad car and I did
Speaker 2: an interview that I deeply regret. We got to drinking
Speaker 2: in the afternoon. But in La John was a friend
Speaker 2: and we just were really close. And Pat Kelly and
Speaker 2: I we still remain friends. He's had serious health issues.
Speaker 2: I feel bad for Pat because you know, has been
Speaker 2: not well. I still talk to Sam every now and then.
Speaker 2: Mary's gone. She she married.
Speaker 1: Up, although now they're both gone. In any event, you've
Speaker 1: got a family, you've got kids, you're done with Atlantic.
Speaker 1: What goes through your head.
Speaker 2: Well, going back to the Outlaws, there was a feeling
Speaker 2: of success in going back, like being in Like do
Speaker 2: you want to come back in the band? Because I
Speaker 2: think it'd be better if you were in the group.
Speaker 2: That was helpful to me from the standpoint of my
Speaker 2: self esteem. For the first two or three years, from
Speaker 2: like eighty three eighty four, it was a little bit.
Speaker 2: It wasn't what dreams were made of. We were flying,
Speaker 2: we were renting cars. It wasn't fun for me. There
Speaker 2: was substance issues, which there normally are, and we hadn't
Speaker 2: gotten past that. On my part, you know, I was
Speaker 2: not wholesale invested in what that was. I always kept
Speaker 2: my distance to a certain extent from that. But at
Speaker 2: one point I fired our manager slash road manager. He
Speaker 2: was a great guy, and he was an agent at
Speaker 2: Paragon who got in our corner and really tried to
Speaker 2: help us. But he was but he was expensive and
Speaker 2: when I asked him, you know, the try looking for
Speaker 2: something else to do. I got control of the band
Speaker 2: financially and I turned it around. I turned it around
Speaker 2: for Hueye and myself and I had a lot of
Speaker 2: fun In nineteen eighty five, six eighty seven. We cut
Speaker 2: that record for Spencer Crawfer, and you know, it was
Speaker 2: an odd record. We kept trying to get into the
Speaker 2: record business, but the more we tried, the more it
Speaker 2: became clear that we weren't going to come back and
Speaker 2: have a new life. But I had a really lot
Speaker 2: of fun touring around the United States playing smaller venues,
Speaker 2: and we had a good band. I bought a conversion band,
Speaker 2: and Hughie and I the band, the five people in
Speaker 2: the band, and the road manager, this nice Jewish boy
Speaker 2: from Long Island who I had shown the Ropes to
Speaker 2: and he was a really sweet and very hard working guy,
Speaker 2: and I loved him. He was our road manager. And
Speaker 2: the six of us were traveling this in this conversion ban.
Speaker 2: It was great. We booked shows they were all within
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty two three hundred miles, and we'd
Speaker 2: stay overnight at the hotel. We'd get up in the morning.
Speaker 2: We put our suitcase in the conversion band. We're all
Speaker 2: six of us by land. We drive to the next
Speaker 2: town and there was a rider of fifteen foot rider
Speaker 2: cube truck with our gear in it, and there were
Speaker 2: two or three crew members and they would leave and
Speaker 2: they would go do their thing, and we would show
Speaker 2: up in time to check into the hotel for me
Speaker 2: to go put on my running shorts and go run
Speaker 2: thirty or forty minutes and come back and shower to
Speaker 2: a sound check, eat my stupid food that I was
Speaker 2: eating back then, and go put on a great show,
Speaker 2: go back to the hotel, go to bed, get up
Speaker 2: the next morning. It was just great. We had it,
Speaker 2: I had it figured out, and we were doing good.
Speaker 2: Hue and I were making a pretty good living. And
Speaker 2: that lasted from eighty six, eighty five, eighty six, eighty six,
Speaker 2: eighty seven, eighty eight. At the end of the New
Speaker 2: Year's Eve of nineteen eighty eight was my last show
Speaker 2: in the band, and I had talked to Hughie and
Speaker 2: he said, I, I would really like to go it alone.
Speaker 2: And I said, well, Buster, if that's what you want,
Speaker 2: I'm good with that. I get it, and I'm good
Speaker 2: to go. Because I knew I was going to go
Speaker 2: to Nashville. I had a friend of mine in my ear,
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, if you want the band by yourself,
Speaker 2: you can have it, and I'm happy to leave. And
Speaker 2: so I left. One of the other guys in the
Speaker 2: band left as well, and Hughey struck out on his own,
Speaker 2: and like from nineteen eighty nine through nineteen ninety four
Speaker 2: or five was a pretty difficult stretch for the Outlaws.
Speaker 2: From what I hear numbers, the whole thing got really
Speaker 2: a bit ugly. But I went back back to Tampa.
Speaker 2: I took the conversion vand I sold it. It was
Speaker 2: an immaculate condition. I bought a SUV. I bought a
Speaker 2: couple of properties in Tampa, and I renovated them and
Speaker 2: turned them over for a pretty good profit. Started to
Speaker 2: commute to Nashville and write songs. I drive to Nashville,
Speaker 2: seven hundred miles ten hours. I'd pull up to my
Speaker 2: manager's house in Nashville, a guy by the name of
Speaker 2: Rick Alter. And I get up Monday or Tuesday morning,
Speaker 2: and I'd booked four or five writing appointments for the week.
Speaker 2: And I come back Friday, and I get in my
Speaker 2: truck and I drive home, and I had a little
Speaker 2: home studio, and i'd go up and I had demo
Speaker 2: the three or four or five songs. Two weeks later,
Speaker 2: I'd ride back and I just kept doing that. I
Speaker 2: would make twenty trips a year and I compile this
Speaker 2: body of work and Rick played it for Dubois, who
Speaker 2: had just opened RAST in Nashville. He loved it. He said,
Speaker 2: I love Hank's voice. And so he took me around
Speaker 2: to the publishers and said, I'm going to sign Henry.
Speaker 2: He wants it needs a pub deal. So I signed
Speaker 2: with EMI and they gave me, you know, six figures
Speaker 2: over three years, enough for me to live on day.
Speaker 2: My bills continue to develop my career, and Blackhawk was formed.
Speaker 2: And I'll be damned if I wasn't back on aris
Speaker 2: To Records with a really really strong new album that
Speaker 2: sold a couple of millions copies.
Speaker 1: Okay for the last handful of years, everybody's going to Nashville.
Speaker 1: How did you know to go to Nashville? Thirty five years.
Speaker 2: Ago, I was at the Florida State Fair. It's in Tampa,
Speaker 2: and my then wife and I and the kids were there,
Speaker 2: were you know, kids were there. I saw these people
Speaker 2: standing in this really long line. They were waiting to
Speaker 2: get into the grandstand. The jugs were playing, and as
Speaker 2: I walked by this line of people, I kept looking
Speaker 2: at them and I thought to myself, they looked like fans.
Speaker 2: To me, those people look like people that would that
Speaker 2: came to the Outlaws show or came to Henry Paul
Speaker 2: Bancho Goos. And I always had loved country music and
Speaker 2: was more or less seen as the country music influence
Speaker 2: in the band. And I had a songwriting partner that
Speaker 2: told me, he said, HENK, if you just declare that
Speaker 2: you're a country music singer and go to Nashville, you
Speaker 2: can do this. So I kind of took his word
Speaker 2: for it. I took my own sort of instincts, my
Speaker 2: own work ethic, and my own salesmanship. I went to
Speaker 2: Nashville and started this would be nineteen ninety ninety one,
Speaker 2: started to work towards becoming a recording artist again. And
Speaker 2: in my drive back and forth from Tampa to Nashville,
Speaker 2: I'd passed these silver eagles going up and down the
Speaker 2: road and I just looked at those buses and I
Speaker 2: just dreamed getting back on and being bad. So Dan
Speaker 2: Stevenson and Dave Robbins and I formed the group. Tim
Speaker 2: was a songwriting partner of theirs, and they came to
Speaker 2: him one day and said, we want to start a
Speaker 2: band or something. What do you think And he said well,
Speaker 2: I'm working with Henry. I think if you guys want
Speaker 2: to work with Hank, he's got a great voice, and
Speaker 2: I think that there might be something good come from it.
Speaker 2: And we all saw that as a very real opportunity.
Speaker 2: We knew that if we could focus on doing what
Speaker 2: we were asked to do and do it right, we
Speaker 2: could have what we wanted. And we did. We got
Speaker 2: what we wanted and he I talked to Tim the
Speaker 2: other day and I said, you know, Tim, I always
Speaker 2: think about you, and I always thank you for the
Speaker 2: opportunity you gave me late in my life, as I
Speaker 2: was forty three years old and people that age didn't
Speaker 2: get record deals. And he said, well, Henry, I know
Speaker 2: what you're saying, but he said, I got to tell
Speaker 2: you you made good on it. You made good on
Speaker 2: the opportunity you would give it. And I thought about that,
Speaker 2: and I thought, well, you're right, we did. I mean,
Speaker 2: think about if you're a record executive and you've got
Speaker 2: Alan Jackson Brooks and Dunn Blackhawk, a Diamond Rio and
Speaker 2: Pam Tillis all selling platinum and multi platinum records, what
Speaker 2: do you think the bonus structure was probably through the
Speaker 2: roof so they were rolling. We had careers. You know,
Speaker 2: we were on the road making a living playing live shows.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's important to recognize a performer's
Speaker 2: place in the mix. You might make a lot of
Speaker 2: money if you've become a household name. I mean, you
Speaker 2: have to go out and really work hard for it
Speaker 2: and leave your home. But these guys in the record
Speaker 2: business were businessmen making money, a lot of money, a
Speaker 2: lot more money than we ever made. But we were
Speaker 2: like these, you know, artistically inclined dreamers that could not
Speaker 2: give up the idea of being a musical personality that
Speaker 2: people loved. And that was the that was the attraction,
Speaker 2: and that's what we did. But the Heiress, the thing
Speaker 2: in Nashville was huge to me, it was huge.
Speaker 1: So what was different about the Nashville country business as
Speaker 1: opposed to the New York LA rock business.
Speaker 2: Well, the New York l A rock business, you were
Speaker 2: so far away from it. I mean, I'm a earl again.
Speaker 2: Ovid Henri go in his office, put my record on
Speaker 2: the turntable and put the needle down. You know, that's
Speaker 2: a good soul Madri. I liked that song. Yeah, that
Speaker 2: was it. That was it. That was it. That was
Speaker 2: my rapport with Arma. You know that once a year,
Speaker 2: I go in the office and I play my record.
Speaker 2: You know, Jerry Greenberg and I were pretty friendly, you know,
Speaker 2: on a business level. He would invite me to go
Speaker 2: fishing in his birtroom and we would you know, we
Speaker 2: would do things like that. But with Ariston Nashville, it
Speaker 2: was like now Tim and I. He runs the label.
Speaker 2: He and I are the same age, were the same age.
Speaker 2: We have so many like minded life experiences. And he's
Speaker 2: running the label and I'm out promoting my career at radio.
Speaker 2: He's paying for it. And radio decides they want to
Speaker 2: play our record, and Arista they don't make them play
Speaker 2: in my record, but they're very they're very convincing, and
Speaker 2: they get our record played. And now Huey Thomason, who
Speaker 2: was the voice of the Outlaws, I'm the voice of Blackhawk.
Speaker 2: Now I'm in the you know, the catbird seat a
Speaker 2: little bit, and it doesn't feel bad. And I have
Speaker 2: to say that during those year or two of going
Speaker 2: back and forth and being in my home studio, to
Speaker 2: my credit, I learned a lot about how to sing
Speaker 2: as a singer. I learned a lot about myself it
Speaker 2: was so important. It was the difference between success and
Speaker 2: beg and so I learned a lot late in the
Speaker 2: game about things that mattered, and it came at the
Speaker 2: right time, and it was very important from the standpoint
Speaker 2: of my success. I also knew a lot about the
Speaker 2: politics of writing songs with other people. Jim Peterick and
Speaker 2: I wrote a lot together. John Townsend and I wrote
Speaker 2: a lot together. I went to National Van Stevenson and
Speaker 2: I wrote a lot together. You get in a room
Speaker 2: with somebody and you don't want to be an ogre.
Speaker 2: You're trying to collaborate, and I learned a lot about
Speaker 2: how to do that. It was an enormous learning experience.
Speaker 1: Okay, over these decades, do you ever think of going
Speaker 1: straight giving up?
Speaker 2: I thought you meant in a sexual sort of way.
Speaker 2: There was a moment when if my dad had asked me, Henry,
Speaker 2: I need your help on the farm. I want to
Speaker 2: retire and want I need help. If I think there
Speaker 2: was a moment where if you had asked me to
Speaker 2: do that, I might have done it because I was
Speaker 2: so emotionally invested in our family farm. But he never asked,
Speaker 2: and so I never had the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 2: That was the only thing that could have possibly taken
Speaker 2: me out of the chair and put me in a
Speaker 2: different walk of life. Other than that, I was. I
Speaker 2: don't know why, but I think it was just my
Speaker 2: artistic inclination to want to succeed at something like being
Speaker 2: a recording artist, because very early on, my dream was
Speaker 2: to be a recording artist. That's all I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: And when I got to be that, then came the
Speaker 2: commercial gauntlet that allows you to continue to do and
Speaker 2: be that. And I navigated that with a great deal
Speaker 2: of finesse and forethought.
Speaker 1: Let's stop there for a second. The finesse, the forethought.
Speaker 1: You talk about being a good salesman. Can you expand
Speaker 1: upon those things? How exactly do you do it?
Speaker 2: Well? I just thought my vision of a creative entity,
Speaker 2: my vision of what I saw well I went towards
Speaker 2: as an idea was valid, it was appealing, It looked
Speaker 2: and sounded good. The people I surrounded myself were there
Speaker 2: to help me get to where I wanted to go.
Speaker 2: We were musical partners, but they were asked to be
Speaker 2: my partner in these bands because I needed them, they
Speaker 2: needed me, And whether it was successful on one level,
Speaker 2: not so successful on another, or ultimately very successful. They
Speaker 2: all had very visible and tangible sort of destinations. They
Speaker 2: were a place that I knew I was going and
Speaker 2: what it was going to look and sound like.
Speaker 1: And okay, but on a one on one basis, I mean,
Speaker 1: some people get them in a room, they close you. Okay,
Speaker 1: was it? You obviously had to convey this vision and
Speaker 1: convince people to work with you. So how did you
Speaker 1: find that you did it? Was it about Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go off for a couple of beers, I got a
Speaker 1: story to tell you, or get me in the room
Speaker 1: with a guy can say yes, I'll put on my
Speaker 1: show and it'll go.
Speaker 2: I think it was all. It was connected like a railroad,
Speaker 2: like a train. My role in the Outlaws provided for
Speaker 2: me the opportunity for my role in the Henry Paul Band.
Speaker 2: My role in the Outlaws and my role in the
Speaker 2: Henry Paul Band provided for me an opportunity to go
Speaker 2: to Nashville and to be accepted. I'm writing with Henry
Speaker 2: Paul from the Outlaws. You remember the Outlaws?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I love the alas I'm writing with Henry today. Well,
Speaker 2: you can't just go in and write with this person.
Speaker 2: They got to see something in the way of promise.
Speaker 2: So I showed at every turn promise. Henry's really good,
Speaker 2: he's smart. Henry's smart. He's really smart. He's good. You're
Speaker 2: gonna like him. He's a really great guy. And man,
Speaker 2: what he's thinking is pretty cool. And you know, either
Speaker 2: you're onto some thing or your jacket, you know. And
Speaker 2: I felt like I always could see it. I always
Speaker 2: saw what it was going to become, and it became that.
Speaker 2: And that goes for the Outlaws, because before I was
Speaker 2: involved with that band, there was no anything to see.
Speaker 2: It became what I saw. People might not like the
Speaker 2: sound of what that says, but it's absolutely true because
Speaker 2: I knew where we were going, and Huey was a
Speaker 2: big part of it. Billy was a big part of it.
Speaker 2: I was a big part of it, and Frank and
Speaker 2: Monty were a big part of it. But I could
Speaker 2: take the band with my country rock personality at a
Speaker 2: time when that was really important and really happening. The
Speaker 2: Outlaws adapted, adopted that sound, and me with my stupid
Speaker 2: cowboy hat became a part of the band's image and
Speaker 2: everybody in the band started wearing a hat and God
Speaker 2: dang it, Bobby darned if we're not on tour with
Speaker 2: Marshall Tucker. It was just, you know, a social and
Speaker 2: artistic sort of vision that took you down that road
Speaker 2: with cowboy boots and songs, country rock songs, Stay with Me,
Speaker 2: song in the Breeze, Knoxville Girl, you know, green Grass
Speaker 2: and high Tides, there Goes Another love song. Those were
Speaker 2: songs that cast a musical personality and a large part
Speaker 2: of that came from me, and a large part of
Speaker 2: my relationship with Hue was at the heart of it,
Speaker 2: and his relationship as a guitar player with Billy. But
Speaker 2: when I sat down and played my country stuff, Hwey
Speaker 2: sat down went and it was like he knew what
Speaker 2: I was saying, and he and I could be in
Speaker 2: a room with two guitars and people will go, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's great. And that's where it was, and that's how
Speaker 2: we got where we were going because we were one
Speaker 2: plus one equals three. The band was just really good.
Speaker 2: We got lucky putting the people together. Hue and I
Speaker 2: sang good together. Billy came into the band, and suddenly
Speaker 2: we had this guy that could sing like Randy Meisner
Speaker 2: and there was the three part harmony. It was intact,
Speaker 2: and Frank was a good singer, but he didn't participate
Speaker 2: in the vocal part of the band that much. But
Speaker 2: it was all just luck, and it was all just
Speaker 2: being able to see it and make that.
Speaker 1: Okay. When the Outlaws start to become successful, you get
Speaker 1: married and start having children. Was there anything in your
Speaker 1: mind saying, man, this is a whole different road. Is
Speaker 1: this going to impact my career, I'm going to have responsibilities?
Speaker 1: What was going through your head?
Speaker 2: I never I never planned any of that. You know.
Speaker 2: I married a girl who was really supportive of me
Speaker 2: and good to me and who I was really good
Speaker 2: friends with. And our decision to have a family wasn't
Speaker 2: We didn't sit down and say you want to start
Speaker 2: a family. No, it kind of came like, hey, i'm pregnant.
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, great, let's have a kid. What you know, Uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm good. Hey i'm pregnant again. Well let's have another one.
Speaker 2: You know. But I don't think it had anything that
Speaker 2: I love kids. I'm seventy six, I have a four
Speaker 2: year old is right downstairs. When I get done with
Speaker 2: this interview, I'm gonna go down here. He's gonna wear
Speaker 2: me out. But that's just how I am. I I
Speaker 2: love that about my life. Some people don't have children.
Speaker 2: You know, my career has been very difficult to my family.
Speaker 2: And I was I quoted you a lyric from a song.
Speaker 2: I was going to quote you a lyric from another song.
Speaker 2: The fast life and the music it's just a grim
Speaker 2: disguise for the heartache and the fear of growing old
Speaker 2: without the ones that mean the most. It makes you
Speaker 2: realize that you are the one that's left out in
Speaker 2: the cold. You chase the dream are and you try
Speaker 2: and become somebody so hard that you wake up one
Speaker 2: day and your marriage is not happening, and your kids
Speaker 2: don't know. You know, I never let that happen. But
Speaker 2: I know that I missed a lot, and I know
Speaker 2: it was damaging to my children. It was damaging to
Speaker 2: my marriage. And being privileged in a certain sort of
Speaker 2: way makes it easy to make bad decisions.
Speaker 1: You had a challenged child you write about in the
Speaker 1: book How'd you cope with it?
Speaker 2: Well, she was not death but hearing impaired, and it's
Speaker 2: an invisible handicap and it doesn't show itself like a
Speaker 2: kid in a wheelchair or a kid with a cane
Speaker 2: that can't see. It's a very invisible hand cat, but
Speaker 2: it's a very painful one because when you're deaf, you
Speaker 2: don't get the subtleties of the English language, like oh
Speaker 2: you look great today, I do you know? You don't
Speaker 2: hear the inflection, you don't hear the insinuation. You take
Speaker 2: things more on face favor. This girl got hurt. It
Speaker 2: hurt me to see it happen, and I, along with
Speaker 2: her mom and her sister, you know, tried real hard
Speaker 2: to be there for her. And I wrote a song
Speaker 2: for her on my I'm trying to think of it.
Speaker 2: I don't know which record is on, but I wrote
Speaker 2: a song called Circle of Silence, and I remember going
Speaker 2: out into the studio to sing the lead vocal and
Speaker 2: breaking down in the vocal booth because it was such
Speaker 2: an emotional thing and I was able to spit it out.
Speaker 2: But I got to the end and I said, well,
Speaker 2: I'll pull it together, Let's try it again. And the
Speaker 2: guy that was produced in the records said, no, I
Speaker 2: think we want to keep that. I think we want
Speaker 2: to keep that. He heard what I was doing, he
Speaker 2: felt what I was feeling, and he decided to go
Speaker 2: with what I and I think it was a great
Speaker 2: decision at the moment. In the moment, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: let me have another No, I don't think we need
Speaker 2: to do that again. So there was that part of
Speaker 2: my role as a parent that was very demanding and
Speaker 2: took a lot of empathy and a lot of commitment
Speaker 2: to this person who she and I are tight. You know,
Speaker 2: we're we're close. I'm close with all my children. But
Speaker 2: I did miss a lot by trying to, you know,
Speaker 2: go on a road being an entertainer. Right. One of
Speaker 2: the reasons I think I want out now is that
Speaker 2: because I have a four year old and a ten
Speaker 2: year old, you don't want to just keep doing the
Speaker 2: same thing over and over and expect different results. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is an opportunity for me in the late stage
Speaker 2: of my life. How many years do I have left? Ten?
Speaker 2: I don't know how old you are, but we're not
Speaker 2: going to live forever.
Speaker 1: Oh most people our age. I'm a little younger than you,
Speaker 1: but I'm in my seventies too, And it's like people
Speaker 1: you know are not aware. Oh yeah, they think you'll
Speaker 1: live forever. Nobody's going to live forever, and I want
Speaker 1: to see it coming. It's like I want to prepare
Speaker 1: and do the right things a bit of being supported.
Speaker 2: And it's not just monetary, it's emotional. Like my four
Speaker 2: year old started school this year. He's in pre kindergarten.
Speaker 2: This morning, my wife and I drove the kids to
Speaker 2: school and we pull up and my ten year old
Speaker 2: jumps out and he's gone like the wind. Four year
Speaker 2: old it's out, starts walking down the sidewalk in his
Speaker 2: There's this lady that helps the kids that you get
Speaker 2: to the class and she comes out and she holds
Speaker 2: his hand and he's walking away with a backpack on,
Speaker 2: and he looks over his right looks over his right shoulder.
Speaker 2: It was hard and it was really good, and I
Speaker 2: want that had enough of this? I think I want that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you get divorced, you get remarried. After a long
Speaker 1: period of time, you talk about the first time we
Speaker 1: went over having kids. Now you're older, was this a
Speaker 1: conscious decision? How did you decide to have kids? Lead
Speaker 1: in life?
Speaker 2: Well, if you get involved with a younger person. It
Speaker 2: was always my opinion that if she wanted to have children,
Speaker 2: was not my right or role to say no, if
Speaker 2: you want to have kids, let's have kids. It's the
Speaker 2: same way the first time around. You I'm pregnant, right,
Speaker 2: So it was a decision to have a family. These
Speaker 2: boys that I have when I'm gone, they're going to
Speaker 2: be really good for their mom. They're going to be
Speaker 2: good to and they're going to take care of her.
Speaker 1: How about the fact that you're not going to be here?
Speaker 1: Is that weigh on your mind at all?
Speaker 2: It does? It? Does? You know? I mean, because I'm
Speaker 2: on the clock more so than I would have been
Speaker 2: if I was in my thirties. And you know, I
Speaker 2: had these three kids with my first wife, and I
Speaker 2: was deeply involved with them in their childhood, in their
Speaker 2: teenage years. You know, I my wife and I at
Speaker 2: that time went are separate ways. I said, I'm going
Speaker 2: to Nashville. I've got to go. Well, she wasn't quite
Speaker 2: so sure, you know, because there was no guarantee, and
Speaker 2: we just kind of went in two separate directions, and
Speaker 2: the kids got roughed up from it. It was not
Speaker 2: easy or good thing to be a party to there again.
Speaker 2: You know, God, dang it, I'm gonna go be this person.
Speaker 2: I gotta go be I gotta go road in Nashville,
Speaker 2: Go Go go. Meanwhile, everything at the house is changing
Speaker 2: without you.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a period of years between ending it with
Speaker 1: your first wife and meeting your second wife. Let's be clear,
Speaker 1: you're a rock and roll star today. Everybody has a camera.
Speaker 1: But when things were good for you, you go out on
Speaker 1: the road, You're drinking, you're drugging, having sex. To what
Speaker 1: degree did you participate in that lifestyle?
Speaker 2: Uh? Not to the degree that my co work did,
Speaker 2: especially on the drug end of the equation. I could
Speaker 2: see where the edge was, and I might rub up
Speaker 2: to it every now and then, But I was not
Speaker 2: interested in cocaine at all at.
Speaker 1: All, because you did and didn't like it, or you
Speaker 1: thought it was dangerous.
Speaker 2: I did it, and I didn't like it, and I
Speaker 2: knew it was dangerous and I saw what it did
Speaker 2: to other people. Now, marijuana, I was all up in
Speaker 2: the marijuana thing, especially right out of high school in
Speaker 2: the late sixties, back when it was really illegal and
Speaker 2: you want to smoke pot, you had to be a
Speaker 2: countercultural character and live outside the law, and you would
Speaker 2: get hurt legally by it if you got caught. And
Speaker 2: I had my run ends that LSD crazy. Yeah, let's
Speaker 2: that was great. Let's do that again. A little bit
Speaker 2: of that went a long way. But I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I didn't use LSD on a fairly regular basis for
Speaker 2: a while, but I mean, at one point it was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm good, but with a cocaine made me nervous, made
Speaker 2: me jump in. Just the whole thing didn't work for me,
Speaker 2: And so it was significantly harmful to my coworkers in
Speaker 2: ways that I'm not at liberty to discuss. But I
Speaker 2: saw what it was, and I knew I didn't want
Speaker 2: to mess with it, not go down that road, no way.
Speaker 2: But you know the advantages of being a celebrity and
Speaker 2: people wanting to, you know, be close to that because
Speaker 2: it makes them feel good, right, I mean, hey, I'm
Speaker 2: hanging around with the band. I mean, I'm friends with
Speaker 2: the band. You can go watch them on stage, but
Speaker 2: I'm back here hanging out. You know, we're like friends.
Speaker 2: M hm m hmmm. So there's that, and that was harmful.
Speaker 2: Where does the problem start in the fun stop? It's
Speaker 2: hard to really find the line, but it's in there. Oh, well,
Speaker 2: you're a single, now you're single. Now you can do whatever.
Speaker 2: You're well, you're married, what are you doing? You're married? Man,
Speaker 2: what do you do? Really? Yeah, wait a minute, are
Speaker 2: you serious? And then there's that compromise, and I internalize
Speaker 2: it as integrity, but there's a compromise and what seemed
Speaker 2: to pass is recreational fun and games at one point
Speaker 2: became or could become, or often did become problematic and
Speaker 2: structural in its nature, and it just didn't work. At
Speaker 2: one point didn't work, I mean, could be getting older,
Speaker 2: could be growing up and seeing things for what it was.
Speaker 2: It just kind of goes back to those days when
Speaker 2: you're trying so hard to be somebody and you're working
Speaker 2: so hard, you're spending so much time away from home,
Speaker 2: and you know, you're just playing your guitar and shaking
Speaker 2: your ass and trying to, you know, make people like
Speaker 2: you if you're a nice looking guy, you know, and
Speaker 2: you had, you know, things that were part of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think it's a secret that the
Speaker 2: music business is centered in a very sexual sort of
Speaker 2: property and it's it's all about that. And same with film.
Speaker 2: So you know how many Tom Waits's are there, you know,
Speaker 2: to where you're just completely disconnected from anything that looks
Speaker 2: I mean Lindsey Buckingham, for God's sakes, or Nick don Felder,
Speaker 2: I mean name it Elvis compressedly, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: it starts there, goes on and on and on indefinitely,
Speaker 2: and that's part of what it was or is, and
Speaker 2: you have to navigate that. You have to, you know,
Speaker 2: try and manage yourself in a thoughtful and in a
Speaker 2: wise way, because there's so many opportunities to wander off
Speaker 2: the path and become lost.
Speaker 1: Why do you believe you were so driven to be
Speaker 1: successful as a recording artist.
Speaker 2: Just ambitious by nature, my sister's me, our family, our
Speaker 2: family's business, just ambitious, German, hardworking. And then my mom
Speaker 2: and her English upbringing and parents and background, and the heart,
Speaker 2: the heart and the mind, the heart and the feeling
Speaker 2: and the mind just will not accept the feet of failure.
Speaker 2: It just won't take it. It can't. There's no way
Speaker 2: that can happen.
Speaker 1: You mentioned in the book. You know, you're growing up
Speaker 1: in northern New York, relatively speaking, New York's a big
Speaker 1: state and the mountains of New York. Father has a farm,
Speaker 1: parents split up to move to the Florida. What did
Speaker 1: your parents say about your career You weren't instantly successful.
Speaker 1: Were they supportive, were they dismissive? How did they feel
Speaker 1: as the years played out?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's typical the difference between your mother
Speaker 2: and father. My mother was supportive. She was supportive, like nurturing.
Speaker 2: I got arrested one time for the possession of marijuana.
Speaker 2: Wasn't mine. I just was with a guy who and
Speaker 2: everybody went to jail and I called my mom and
Speaker 2: I said, Mom, I'm in jail and I need you
Speaker 2: to help me get out of jail. It's the bond
Speaker 2: is going to be said at this And before she
Speaker 2: came down to the bail bondsman, she took whatever I
Speaker 2: had in the way in marijuana at the house of flux.
Speaker 2: So my mother, in her own way, you know, was
Speaker 2: looking out for me and being supportive and being, you know,
Speaker 2: part of my solution. Not now my dad, my dad said.
Speaker 2: My relationship was significantly different. You know. I love my dad,
Speaker 2: but my dad was like skeptical. And one of the
Speaker 2: famous quotes my father used to say to me was,
Speaker 2: what are you doing up there in a room with
Speaker 2: that guitar plunk a plunkin around up there, come down
Speaker 2: here and play me a song? Can you play me
Speaker 2: a song? And it wasn't that many years later. I
Speaker 2: was standing in front of one hundred thousand people on
Speaker 2: stage with the Outlaws at the unveiling of our first
Speaker 2: album in New York. And he drove down with his
Speaker 2: wife and my half sisters and brothers, and he watched
Speaker 2: his son get a standing ovation from one hundred thousand people,
Speaker 2: and he was like, that's my son, that one over there,
Speaker 2: that's my So dad went from being, you know, a
Speaker 2: doubter to being my biggest supporter. It's too I mean,
Speaker 2: it's the way it goes. And I mean, who can
Speaker 2: blame him? You know, because they never asked me to
Speaker 2: help him with a farm, So what the hell? I
Speaker 2: thought I'd start my own business.
Speaker 1: Now. You also make a big point in the book
Speaker 1: about growing sweet corn. I grew up in the Northeast,
Speaker 1: I know what sweet corn is. And then having a
Speaker 1: farm on your property now, so what can you tell
Speaker 1: us about sweet corn? And how extensive farm do you
Speaker 1: actually have?
Speaker 2: Nothing like the failt farm. Nothing. This is all fun, big,
Speaker 2: but it's fun. Our farm in New York, we would
Speaker 2: do five tractor trailers a day, a day and a day.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were sending a lot of corn up
Speaker 2: and down the Eastern Seaboard, a MP Grand Union, all
Speaker 2: the big chains were buying our corn. We had a salesman.
Speaker 2: It was a big business. My grandfather made a lot
Speaker 2: of his land was worth a lot of money. I
Speaker 2: was so proud to be My granddad was Henry Paul.
Speaker 2: My dad was Henry Paul. I was Henry Paul. This
Speaker 2: was our farm, this is our land. That business kind
Speaker 2: of was the was the image of that area. And
Speaker 2: you know, they'd have Hurley, New York and they'd have
Speaker 2: an Ork corn and we were the first family growing it.
Speaker 2: And there were two other families growing at it on
Speaker 2: the level that we did. One was the Davenports, one
Speaker 2: was the Gills. And the Gills and the Davenports and
Speaker 2: the Paul family own the Hurly Flats and grew corn
Speaker 2: on it. And that made me feel really good. Like
Speaker 2: ego wise, I was someone I didn't go running around,
Speaker 2: you know, making a deal of it. But I mean,
Speaker 2: in my heart, I felt like I was a part
Speaker 2: of something good. You can say the exact same thing
Speaker 2: for the Outlaws and for black Hawks and every repulpment
Speaker 2: exact same thing, only this was my business. You had
Speaker 2: your farm. I had my band. It has my name
Speaker 2: on it, just like your bag has our name on
Speaker 2: the bag of corn. But this was my way of
Speaker 2: creating my own because I didn't get invited to run
Speaker 2: the farm or take it over. I started my own
Speaker 2: business and it satisfied an artistic inclination of mine, and
Speaker 2: I got to do that, and then I found success
Speaker 2: at it, and I got to be my own person.
Speaker 2: Who wasn't, you know, coming in on the hills of
Speaker 2: someone else's work. I did it on my own.
Speaker 1: Whatever happened to.
Speaker 2: The farm, my dad, my granddad who started it, passed away.
Speaker 2: My dad was a faithful son, worked hard for his father.
Speaker 2: But by the time my granddad passed away, my dad
Speaker 2: was over it. He built a house in Florida. He
Speaker 2: and his wife would go in and stay. Eventually he
Speaker 2: sold it, you know, eventually it was sold. The Warren
Speaker 2: Buffett family came in and bought a lot of what
Speaker 2: we had, along with the farm next door, and they,
Speaker 2: to their credit, turned it into a new Ordanic model
Speaker 2: and the sweetcorn business from where we came from. It's gone.
Speaker 2: It's all gone. Nobody grows. One of the large segments
Speaker 2: of our farm. Someone bought their growing marijuana on it,
Speaker 2: like THC marijuana, medical marijuana. They're doing very well. The
Speaker 2: Buffett family bought the larger part of the farm and
Speaker 2: with a huge one next door, they're they're growing organic
Speaker 2: produce and doing probably well at it. But it just
Speaker 2: changed that way.
Speaker 1: But the land was very valuable. Did any of the
Speaker 1: revenue from that trickle down to the next generation in you.
Speaker 2: Did I have a huge inheritance? Well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, some people have no inheritance, but you're
Speaker 1: talking about your parents had a very successful business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, I think it's safe to say that
Speaker 2: there was, you know, there's something in it for all
Speaker 2: of us there. You know, there were three kids from
Speaker 2: my dad's first marriage and three kids from the dad
Speaker 2: second marriage. So it wasn't like somebody got everything, but
Speaker 2: you know, there was enough to go around, and there
Speaker 2: was there was, you know, a reward, so to speak.
Speaker 2: I took my wife and my kids this past March.
Speaker 2: We flew into New York. I was actually working. I
Speaker 2: took the train in New York. They flew to New York.
Speaker 2: We spent like three or four days in the city.
Speaker 2: This is going to get back to what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: But then I said, well, we were planned a ski
Speaker 2: trip in the Catskills where I learned to ski. We
Speaker 2: were going to go to bel Air Mountain and we're
Speaker 2: going to skip and so we drove. I rented a car,
Speaker 2: We drove up, and we had dinner with my sister,
Speaker 2: and the next morning we drove into Hurley and I
Speaker 2: showed him where the farm was. There's this old dutch
Speaker 2: stone home we lived in, built in seventeen twenty, and
Speaker 2: the barns across the street was open, huge open fields.
Speaker 2: There is absolutely no sign that we were ever there.
Speaker 2: And it was very, very difficult for me. My grandfather,
Speaker 2: who was the greatest rock star in my mind I've
Speaker 2: ever known, and my dad, who was a hard working, faithful,
Speaker 2: smart guy over there. At least I have a book,
Speaker 2: at least I have a record, at least I have
Speaker 2: this body of work. For whatever it means, that tells
Speaker 2: reminds people that I was here. He didn't become filthy
Speaker 2: rich or have medical insurance all the time. But I
Speaker 2: do have something to show for my life, and I'm
Speaker 2: proud of that. I guess I'm proud of that. I'm
Speaker 2: proud of the fact that I was able to do
Speaker 2: what I dreamt and set out to do. I actually
Speaker 2: got to do it.
Speaker 1: So why the book, why now?
Speaker 2: Well? I thought it was late enough in the story
Speaker 2: of the game, of the of the story to tell
Speaker 2: it to give people who just loved the band and
Speaker 2: came and bought a ticket and went to the Spectrum
Speaker 2: and drank whiskey and hoot and dollar, just so they
Speaker 2: know what happened. What it was like to share a
Speaker 2: bottle of Jack Daniels in the front lounge of my
Speaker 2: bus would run him in. What it was like to
Speaker 2: be invited on stage by Dicky Betts and to play Southbound.
Speaker 2: What it was like night after night with the Marshall
Speaker 2: Tucker Band of the Charlie Daniels Band. What it was
Speaker 2: like to cohabitate with these cohabitat habitat with these people
Speaker 2: and be a part of their lives to where we
Speaker 2: were knew one another on a first name basis. What
Speaker 2: it was like to be in that. Because most of
Speaker 2: the people that I grew up with in that are gone,
Speaker 2: and there are maybe a few people around that can
Speaker 2: still tell the story, I have a great memory, and I,
Speaker 2: you know, wrote this book with Gary Hirtz, who was
Speaker 2: a really smart guy, and I gave. We had a
Speaker 2: great collaboration of how it was, how it worked, what happened,
Speaker 2: how it felt. The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith
Speaker 2: Richards coming into our dressing room. I love your ben
Speaker 2: you know, it's like, Hey, they liked our band. That's great.
Speaker 2: Thanks Matt. We like yours too. You know it's not
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney and John Lennon or George Harrison or Ringo
Speaker 2: Starbus not bad.
Speaker 1: Okay, Henry. A couple of things. One I can just
Speaker 1: tell by talking to you that you are a smart guy. Two,
Speaker 1: you're obviously a student of the game and no music
Speaker 1: history just by your references. In any event, it's been
Speaker 1: a great pleasure talking to you. I want you to
Speaker 1: have that. Paie, have a good birthday. Thanks for talking
Speaker 1: to my audience. Thanks till next time. This is Bob
Speaker 1: leftsas
Speaker 2: Sh