Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left's Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is manager extraordinaire Ru Sale. We built the
Speaker 1: careers of everybody from Backman Turner, Overdrive, to Michael Bubley,
Speaker 1: to Brian Adams and many more. Bruce glad to have
Speaker 1: you here. Great to be here, Bob, Great to be here.
Speaker 1: It took me away from the elections. But that's okay,
Speaker 1: I want to get away from it. Okay. Why do
Speaker 1: you love Elvis so much? Well, I grew up in
Speaker 1: that air, of course. You know, probably the first artist
Speaker 1: I ever saw in in in Vancouver nine and um
Speaker 1: I went. My mother took me, I remember, and uh
Speaker 1: it was the only choice at that time. Bob. That
Speaker 1: was when music was really changing, and uh he just
Speaker 1: captured me. Uh the stuff he was doing, it just
Speaker 1: changed my whole thing. Because I was listening to my
Speaker 1: mother's songs on the radio, not knocking them. They were
Speaker 1: decent songs. But I mean, all of a sudden, this
Speaker 1: guy came out and I so, like John Lennon said,
Speaker 1: I said, for there was Elvis, there was nothing, And
Speaker 1: I said, so I've all but I stayed and Elvis fan,
Speaker 1: I've got I knew you might talk about this. I
Speaker 1: got eighty two books on Elvis in my house. Okay,
Speaker 1: if you have eighty two, how many books are there?
Speaker 1: That must be every book? I don't know, but I'll
Speaker 1: tell you I I there's so much always to find.
Speaker 1: And like my partner Tom Feldman was thinking about talking about,
Speaker 1: I said, but all of a sudden you wanted, I said, Sam,
Speaker 1: read these two books by Peter garrel Nick. Just read
Speaker 1: these two that'll do it for you. You'll be that's enough.
Speaker 1: And I said, and he did, and he and he said,
Speaker 1: this is unbelievable. And the stuff that people find out
Speaker 1: about him, he did, They didn't know this. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that. I did. I think that, Wow, you know,
Speaker 1: people are rediscovering Elvius all the time. I guess Bob
Speaker 1: Well tell us a couple of things most people don't know.
Speaker 1: Boy well, you know, I thought I did not know
Speaker 1: until three weeks ago, probably that he turned out. He
Speaker 1: didn't turn down Dolly Parton turned down him singing the
Speaker 1: Whitney Houston song. Okay, And I didn't know that ever happened.
Speaker 1: I just because Dolly Parton said it, and it was
Speaker 1: I kind of it was kind of nice tie in
Speaker 1: for me because I was sitting there Michael Booble, he
Speaker 1: was in the midst of talking to her. We're doing
Speaker 1: a duet with her on her new album. It's just
Speaker 1: out there now. So it was kind of neat that
Speaker 1: that fell in there. But the other thing that um,
Speaker 1: I thought was and then and then of course the
Speaker 1: other thing was interested about that song is I Will
Speaker 1: Always Love You? Is that when they were getting divorced,
Speaker 1: uh she he when they were walking out of the church,
Speaker 1: out of the courtroom. He sang that song to Priscilla
Speaker 1: as he held her head and walked out the door.
Speaker 1: You are you are a fault of all kinds of
Speaker 1: information that that that's amazing. You have eighty Elvis books
Speaker 1: if you read them all, yes, sir, okay. And are
Speaker 1: you a collector of anything else? Yes, sir, I have
Speaker 1: Uh Bob, I got some great stuff. I got Elvis
Speaker 1: is barber chair. That's something got for me out of
Speaker 1: Graceland when he they he aged them over. It was
Speaker 1: in a storage thing and that girl got it for
Speaker 1: me who worked there. Um, I've got I've got what
Speaker 1: I put the three things side by side. They're all
Speaker 1: framed one piece and I gotta send you the picture
Speaker 1: of it. It's a it's Elvis Presley's work schedule on
Speaker 1: one night ers in in the yes and seventy four,
Speaker 1: seventy four, and it the schedule is staggering. It's every day,
Speaker 1: two shows on the weekend. Blah blah blah, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And then then beside it was was was Colonel Parker's
Speaker 1: uh letter to him that saying, I'm working on Bakersfield.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be sold out. Don't you worry. I'll see
Speaker 1: you when you get there. So on and so forth,
Speaker 1: because the colonel always stayed ahead of him, never watched
Speaker 1: the show. He was ahead of him setting up the
Speaker 1: next one and the next one. I bought from Wayne Newton,
Speaker 1: who got it from a maid in Las Vegas who
Speaker 1: was cleaning up Elvis's room. And he wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to God saying that take me away from this, take
Speaker 1: me away from this. I I don't want to be
Speaker 1: in this life anymore. I've had you know this thing.
Speaker 1: And then he took it, and you wrote you rippled
Speaker 1: it or put in his fist, close his fist into
Speaker 1: the garbage. She took it out. He got it this
Speaker 1: way way Newton find it, got it, he sold it
Speaker 1: to me, and I put it in the frame. I
Speaker 1: put here's his work schedule, here's what his manager has
Speaker 1: to say, and here's what he feels like. Unbelievable. Of course. Uh.
Speaker 1: The Colonel Tom Parker's story is an amazing story. He
Speaker 1: came from Carnivals. Supposedly he was an illegal alien, which
Speaker 1: is why Elvis could never tour outside of the US,
Speaker 1: and additionally had a fifty fifty deal. So as a manager,
Speaker 1: what do you think of Colonel Tom Parker? I think
Speaker 1: Colonel Tom Parker. Now, I have arguments all the time
Speaker 1: with this. I had a good argument Jerry Shilling, not
Speaker 1: probably ten years ago. Now, okay, don't Jerry for a while.
Speaker 1: And I used to get onto Colonel Parker cause I
Speaker 1: thought he was probably the worst manager in the history
Speaker 1: of the music business. But Jerry Shilling and they stand
Speaker 1: up for him. And Jerry Silly was Elvis's best friend,
Speaker 1: one of them, and he said, what you're saying that
Speaker 1: because of what you know now, we didn't know anything.
Speaker 1: We were breaking the trail. We had no we had
Speaker 1: no idea what we were doing. We had no one
Speaker 1: to look up to. We were the pioneers. It's easy
Speaker 1: for you to say, why didn't you work four days
Speaker 1: a week, Why did you do this? Why did you
Speaker 1: put the stupid routing together? You know? And and uh
Speaker 1: and and so he stuck up for him. No other
Speaker 1: people stand up for because of some of the deals
Speaker 1: he made. The deals he made in the movie business
Speaker 1: were great, but he was stuck on that million dollars.
Speaker 1: We made a million dollars and a million dollars there
Speaker 1: is another million dollars and a million dollars. He made
Speaker 1: those ship films after he made about five good ones,
Speaker 1: just because the Colonel was getting a big cut of it.
Speaker 1: But it was not at that time. It was fifty percent.
Speaker 1: He got that deal later on when Elvis was at
Speaker 1: a drugged out stupor uh in in Memphis and he
Speaker 1: and he colonel went in there and got him to
Speaker 1: sign it. He probably didn't know even though he signed it.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't fifty for the get go. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what was it from the get go? I think it's
Speaker 1: a standard deal. I mean that from what I understand
Speaker 1: I've been told, and I think that's probably right. I
Speaker 1: have not seen his contract with him. Okay, let's go back.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in Vancouver. Yeah, And how many
Speaker 1: generations was your family in Canada? Uh? Third? Three? Oh? Really?
Speaker 1: So who came and what was their idea? My my
Speaker 1: grandparents came, or my mother's grand my mother's my father's
Speaker 1: grand my father's parents came, and a typical coming from England.
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to get out of England and
Speaker 1: take going to the New Land. And it was fine.
Speaker 1: I guess they did fine in Vancouver. I can't say
Speaker 1: I was poor. I can't say they didn't have a job.
Speaker 1: They did well, and uh not we were rich by
Speaker 1: a stretch of the imagination. But I like my grandmother
Speaker 1: because she she wanted to send the sons to learn
Speaker 1: something that set this gate. She gave them one away ticket.
Speaker 1: One kid went to San Diego, became an engineer and
Speaker 1: under a deep seat tanker engineer. The other one was
Speaker 1: sent to South Africa the one way ticket, and he'd
Speaker 1: be worked in the diamond business, naturally, in the mining business,
Speaker 1: and and and and uh. Then I was born and
Speaker 1: raised in Vancouver. After that, my mom came from the
Speaker 1: pig uh and I I never met her parents because
Speaker 1: she was more or less spirited out of the house
Speaker 1: by a woman who took pity on her by the
Speaker 1: way she was treated and asked if she could come.
Speaker 1: She would take her to her place in Winnipeg from
Speaker 1: a place up north in Manitoba, and she raised my mom. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what did your parents do for a living? My
Speaker 1: dad was a deep sea engineer and a tanker went
Speaker 1: around the world delivering oil for him. And how often
Speaker 1: was he home? He's one of those jobs four months on,
Speaker 1: four months off day for day when you're doing deep
Speaker 1: sea work like that. And how many kids in the
Speaker 1: family to me and my brother and I and your brother.
Speaker 1: My brother's retired. I don't know how much money he made,
Speaker 1: but I but he retired a lot earlier than me.
Speaker 1: He's a younger brother and he's driving around his motorcycle
Speaker 1: now and having a good time. I shake my head sometimes.
Speaker 1: And what kind of relationship do you have with him? Good, good,
Speaker 1: solid relationship. You know, he has to be Bruce Allen's brother.
Speaker 1: And in this town that's not you know, that's a
Speaker 1: little bit more difficult than me. Okay, Vancouver is a
Speaker 1: very hip, modern town today. What was it like when
Speaker 1: you were growing up? Well, it's funny for me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: kind of like that Bruce Springsteen story he ended up.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I've never moved more than five miles from
Speaker 1: my host where I was born. And uh, but where
Speaker 1: would you go here? In Vancouver? It's a great city. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when I grew up in school, I enjoyed high school.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed going to school. I had no problem with
Speaker 1: that because I my mom. My father died when I
Speaker 1: was twelve. I was raised by my mom and in
Speaker 1: those days, in those days, Bob, you were raised by
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. If you're in that situation. My mom had
Speaker 1: to go to work, I had to go to school.
Speaker 1: So I'd come home from school, I have to check
Speaker 1: in with the neighborhood. Give you a sandwich and maybe
Speaker 1: a glass of milk, and then you know, you played
Speaker 1: with their sons or whatever. You went out, but you
Speaker 1: had to check in with the with the neighborhood. So um,
Speaker 1: I went to school. I went to school into a
Speaker 1: school where very wealthy kids in that school, the high
Speaker 1: class area. But I had to walk. Guys not in
Speaker 1: that area had to walk to school. So it's about
Speaker 1: two mile walk, two mile walk to school, and and
Speaker 1: I watched what was going on when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: and these kids got driven to school and Mercedes, or
Speaker 1: when they got to be seventeen or they got their
Speaker 1: own Mercedes and stuff like that. And I'm sitting there,
Speaker 1: you know, walking to school, and I think, I think
Speaker 1: it's been the driver of my entire life, is trying
Speaker 1: to raise myself up from that. So I started working.
Speaker 1: I started working building trucks in Canadian Kenworth when I
Speaker 1: was eighteen. Well, well, well let's slow down before that.
Speaker 1: So what kind of kids were you? Were you like
Speaker 1: the leader the kids? Yeah? I was a leader, There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. Um. I was a half past
Speaker 1: athlete as a very good runner tract team. I played rugby,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't let me play rugby because of my
Speaker 1: track stuff except on the outside wing. So I was
Speaker 1: in the violent part of it. And uh you know,
Speaker 1: I ran pretty well, Bobby. I got a Canadian record
Speaker 1: for a while, and a half mile races had or
Speaker 1: eighty yards in those days. I think it's the eights now.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I enjoyed high school. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed high school. And I discovered music really when I
Speaker 1: was in high school. The real. I broughtened my base
Speaker 1: from Elvis, and I really got into James Brown, the Icon.
Speaker 1: Tina Turner review Fats Domino. I really really a big
Speaker 1: fan of black music. And I was there when they
Speaker 1: brought those Dick caravan of stars all the way up
Speaker 1: there and they came in with you. Everybody got up
Speaker 1: there and saying three songs they every Brothers Paul like,
Speaker 1: and they just loaded it up with people. And I
Speaker 1: used to go to every one of those and I
Speaker 1: was but I was really fascinated by the black music
Speaker 1: because of just what they put out. You go to
Speaker 1: a James Brown show when he was in his heyday,
Speaker 1: it was terrified. And I continue to turn and review.
Speaker 1: The first time I ever saw a strobe light, Um,
Speaker 1: I Turner was looking, where's the strobe bladey walked off
Speaker 1: the stage, walked up to the side of the thing
Speaker 1: where the platform was got on it sure turned on
Speaker 1: this so this stool blake walked back and it's just
Speaker 1: it was I love that black music. The s was fantastic,
Speaker 1: And because we were in Seattle, close to Seattle, they
Speaker 1: always came up there. Seattle came up to Vancouver, Seattle
Speaker 1: came up to Vancouver. That was the next stop and
Speaker 1: that was probably the only show they even did in
Speaker 1: Canada at that time. Went back to the seats. Okay,
Speaker 1: so your mother played music in the house. How did
Speaker 1: you actually become aware of Elvis um because he came
Speaker 1: on TV, had Sullivan. That's the first time everybody I
Speaker 1: heard him before that. I can remember my uh that
Speaker 1: was the first time I saw. I saw him was
Speaker 1: on Ed Sullivan, I think, and I remember my mother
Speaker 1: sitting there and holding onto herself saying, I can't look
Speaker 1: at his eyes. I can't look at his eyes. And
Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there looking at this guy saying, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is really something really different, and uh it I
Speaker 1: think it set me on the path. I I play
Speaker 1: Elvis every single day, okay, I have. I only have
Speaker 1: a few stations and serious on the on my radio
Speaker 1: and Elvis is one of them, the Elvis Channel, And
Speaker 1: uh I find you know it was I've had these thrills,
Speaker 1: like Michael Bob was the first guy to go in
Speaker 1: and do the duet with Elvis on the duets on
Speaker 1: the duet album they did for the with the London Symphony.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal. But Michael's a fan, So
Speaker 1: you're not like me, but I mean, he's a fan.
Speaker 1: And so for me to go in there to see that,
Speaker 1: that was great. Priscilla Presley put Michael Boobley on the
Speaker 1: Walk of Fame in Hollywood, all this stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm still kind of tied into that organization, and
Speaker 1: I'm proud to do that because I think that, let's
Speaker 1: face it, he laid the groundwork absolutely. Now, in a
Speaker 1: slightly later era with the Beatles, they were on TV
Speaker 1: and then everybody wanted to become a performer, they got
Speaker 1: a guitar whatever. Since you saw Elvis, did you ever
Speaker 1: want to become a performer? No, no, not a not
Speaker 1: a chance, because I think I knew my limitations. But
Speaker 1: I was very upset when the Beatles came because I
Speaker 1: was the Elvis guy. I was never a big Beatles fan,
Speaker 1: but I did see the Beatles in Vancouver, the same
Speaker 1: place as Elvis in Vancouver, and uh and uh it's
Speaker 1: uh it picked sides in those days. To me, the
Speaker 1: Beatles were a girls group because I'm listening to she
Speaker 1: Loves You, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know and and all
Speaker 1: this stuff, and I never bought into it. I went
Speaker 1: to the show, and I saw it and it was
Speaker 1: very It was very good actually, with a big bill
Speaker 1: like Jackie Deshat and and Exciters and all these other
Speaker 1: hecks on it. It was It was a good show
Speaker 1: and everything else. But I wasn't a Beatles fan, so
Speaker 1: I really can't speak about the Beatles with that much intelligence. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in high school when you become a big music fan,
Speaker 1: is it mostly the radio or do you have records
Speaker 1: to how do you feed your addiction? Definitely the radio
Speaker 1: and all the time. And I bought albums continually, and
Speaker 1: I still have all those albums downstairs I got. I
Speaker 1: got them in my in my office downstairs, in the
Speaker 1: basement of this building. And there's about I would say
Speaker 1: now because I get in some away, probably not not
Speaker 1: that men. Seven thousand albums down there, and you know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing right now to Bob, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: I got all these c ds. I got twenties seven CDs,
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting there and I'm going through them every day.
Speaker 1: I put them in a in a when I'm up
Speaker 1: around the house walking around, I put it in a stacker.
Speaker 1: I got a twenty c D stacker and it kicks
Speaker 1: these things out and I'm playing them in an order,
Speaker 1: just as all. It's all alphabetical in my in my
Speaker 1: the way I stack all my CDs in my host.
Speaker 1: But it's really funny because my girlfriend sits there and said,
Speaker 1: what are we on now? He said, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be a long chapter. This is miscellaneous, this is this
Speaker 1: is this is all the greatest hit stuff that come
Speaker 1: in the great of the deep soul stuff from Dave
Speaker 1: Girl and and those guys you know who did those
Speaker 1: great soul albums under the UK. I've playing all that
Speaker 1: stuff now, and I'll play one after the other right now,
Speaker 1: mane is I've only at the ms that I've been
Speaker 1: starting since the beginning of the year, and it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of neat to hear that old stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hang onto it. I certainly have hung
Speaker 1: on to all my stuff. I have all my vinyl
Speaker 1: from the beginning, a little scratched up. But does this
Speaker 1: music you said, you're going literally from me to Z
Speaker 1: how much of it holds up? And how much of
Speaker 1: you say? Well, that was a period thing and I
Speaker 1: liked it then, but it's really not that good now
Speaker 1: I have I have I have a chopping bag in there, Bob.
Speaker 1: And when I don't like the CD, and I'm never
Speaker 1: going to play it again because I know I'm not
Speaker 1: now into the bag it goes. Okay, I am cutting
Speaker 1: it back that much. But I looked at it today
Speaker 1: and uh before I came down here, and I got
Speaker 1: it probably about fifty in there. And I think we're
Speaker 1: going to convert him into uh, they'll be hanging up
Speaker 1: in a tree. I gotta decorate this tree outdoors for charity,
Speaker 1: and I think there's gonna be all these old CDs
Speaker 1: spinning around up there. Okay, So let's go back to
Speaker 1: you were mentioned you graduating from high school. Is there
Speaker 1: any thought how good a student are you in school?
Speaker 1: I passed, okay, So there was never a thought of
Speaker 1: going to college or any education beyond that. No. You see,
Speaker 1: I went right to work with the Canadian ken Worth
Speaker 1: too um uh to actually to be honest, to get money.
Speaker 1: And of course when you start that building trucks, and
Speaker 1: I was welding trucks and truck cabs and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I did it for a couple of years and I
Speaker 1: really liked the money. I'd handing money before this is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Got my money, I got I got a car. All
Speaker 1: the kids who went to school, they got no car.
Speaker 1: I got a car. I got time to go out
Speaker 1: there and do go to things I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, the guys on the
Speaker 1: line said to me, listen you and do more than this.
Speaker 1: You don't want to stay here. You're like twenty years old.
Speaker 1: I've been here for forty years. Believe me. I know
Speaker 1: you like the money, but get out of here. Get
Speaker 1: out of here, go to school. You're not stupid. Get
Speaker 1: to go to school. So I signed up to go
Speaker 1: to university and I went uh one year, I got
Speaker 1: the second year, and I started a third year. And
Speaker 1: that's when I A guy came up to a football
Speaker 1: player owned a club in Vancouver. He knew my love
Speaker 1: of music, and he said, listen, I got this new
Speaker 1: band from Hong Kong, White guys with uh Hong Kong
Speaker 1: Chinese drummer. And he said, I'll let you take a
Speaker 1: look at him, because I think that can really happen.
Speaker 1: But they don't know what to do, they don't know
Speaker 1: how to act in this and that. And I walked
Speaker 1: in there, Bob, and it was they were a Beatles band.
Speaker 1: So here I am the guys playing English music, Scott Walker,
Speaker 1: the Walker Brothers, Okay, the Hollies, all this stuff, and
Speaker 1: I said there, wow. I mean I'm not a fan
Speaker 1: of this stuff. But the guy says, can you help
Speaker 1: them out because if you go to all the show's
Speaker 1: boost turn these guys into some kind of an act
Speaker 1: on stage. And I said yeah, okay, And I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, they did other songs too, but basically they
Speaker 1: played a lot of English music. And I brought up
Speaker 1: in a town where it was the R and B bands,
Speaker 1: mostly white white bands with black front men, and uh,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there this this club when we
Speaker 1: started working on like that started to take off because
Speaker 1: they were playing the music that was really coming up
Speaker 1: and the other clubs weren't. And I took that band
Speaker 1: called the Five Man Cargo, and I remember I got
Speaker 1: a chance to go to Chicago with a band called
Speaker 1: the Mob, which was that comes some guys from the
Speaker 1: Bucking Hands, kind of a drag guys, and also Wayne
Speaker 1: Cocher and the CC Riders who you heard of, and
Speaker 1: ended up playing these bowling alleies in and they play
Speaker 1: in bowling alleys in Chicago, and I thought, I don't
Speaker 1: want to redo this, and we went back to Vancouver
Speaker 1: and I took that band and I started a booking
Speaker 1: agency and I booked it myself and managed them. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, as club owners do, they
Speaker 1: look around other people in town and say, that gets
Speaker 1: They're really doing good there. But the music we're playing,
Speaker 1: the kids really like that other music. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: up see if I can get that band. So they
Speaker 1: came to me and they asked, me, if you know,
Speaker 1: would you take these guys out of here and put
Speaker 1: them I'd like to bring them my club. What are
Speaker 1: you're making and say, okay, well we'll pay you more,
Speaker 1: you know the drill and uh. I said okay, but
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Because I kind of was an
Speaker 1: economics major in school, I was going to be one.
Speaker 1: I thought I would turn into Jimmy Hoffa, but I
Speaker 1: said listen. I said, I'll come to your club if
Speaker 1: I can get out of this one. And I said,
Speaker 1: but here's the deal. I gotta pull this band out
Speaker 1: of here and I'm gonna put another one in here.
Speaker 1: But when I come to your club with this band,
Speaker 1: I'd like to have the booking rights for that club
Speaker 1: for the rest of the year, and the guy made
Speaker 1: the deal. And I did that quite a bit, moving
Speaker 1: these couple of bands I had by that time around.
Speaker 1: And by the time that Bato came into town looking
Speaker 1: for work because Randy got you know, left the guests
Speaker 1: who and he couldn't they didn't, he couldn't get any work.
Speaker 1: He came to the West coast because I hadn't locked
Speaker 1: up at that time, I had seventeen clubs downtown, and
Speaker 1: I mean downtown in that time. At that time, in
Speaker 1: the early seventies, bands are making two thousand dollars a week. Okay.
Speaker 1: They don't make that anymore, okay, And so I had
Speaker 1: this booking agency and that's how Randy Backman and I met,
Speaker 1: and that's when I started to move away from the
Speaker 1: agency and into the management side. Okay, let's slow down
Speaker 1: and go back to the beginning. You knew the football
Speaker 1: player hooked you up with the band, he owned a club.
Speaker 1: What was your role in that first club. My only
Speaker 1: role was looking after that band and getting them to
Speaker 1: turn them into a real performing act. That was it. Okay,
Speaker 1: No no relationship to the club at all, just just
Speaker 1: to help with that music. So when you had seventeen clubs,
Speaker 1: you were essentially the agent. You weren't an owner in
Speaker 1: any of those clubs. No, I was not okay. When
Speaker 1: you had seventeen bands, were they all local bands or
Speaker 1: did you represent anybody outside of the Vancouver area. I
Speaker 1: had it locked up so that people who want to
Speaker 1: play in Vancouver, because it was a very valuable market,
Speaker 1: came to me and I booked him. But out of
Speaker 1: the seventeen bands will be working on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: at least a dozen of them were Vancouver. Okay, And
Speaker 1: it first it was obviously just yourself. As you got seventeen,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're working seventeen clubs, etcetera, did you
Speaker 1: hire anybody? I just hired an assistant. That's all at
Speaker 1: that time. And you can do it that way. You're
Speaker 1: just booking stuff, You're not you know, that's all you're doing.
Speaker 1: It's not it's it's phone work, to tell you more
Speaker 1: than anything else. I had a deal though. My deal
Speaker 1: with the clubs was I come up there. I can
Speaker 1: collect my money every Saturday night, but I just take
Speaker 1: my money, just put my money separate my ten So
Speaker 1: after chase these bands all over the place to get it.
Speaker 1: So I made straight about Saturday night. I'd hit all
Speaker 1: those places, get my money, and that'd be for the week. Okay.
Speaker 1: Back in that era, you know, the music business was
Speaker 1: a cash business all the way, even you know, up
Speaker 1: through the seventies. So did your you know, nightclubs have
Speaker 1: a checkered history, did you have any problem collecting your money? Um?
Speaker 1: I own I got. I only got stiffed probably once,
Speaker 1: and that's why I pulled my money off early. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the band never really got paid. I got mine
Speaker 1: first in the clubs they went along with, because the
Speaker 1: clubs don't pay bands until they're finished either. So no
Speaker 1: that they say I was making. If the guys making
Speaker 1: can say we only paid me, you're a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars short. You know, I gave it to the agent.
Speaker 1: So I didn't really have those battles. But we had.
Speaker 1: We had the market really sewn up here well, and
Speaker 1: it was people behaved. I hate. Vancouver is a good
Speaker 1: size city, but seventeen clubs, that's a lot for one
Speaker 1: town to support. Yeah, but I mean a Seattle was
Speaker 1: also very good. Uh. I can tell you know, I
Speaker 1: can go, I can walk down the street in Vancouver
Speaker 1: two blocks that I had eight seven of those clubs
Speaker 1: in two blocks, two and a half blocks. And what
Speaker 1: was driving attendance at those clubs? Music? Everybody was And
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, David Foster played on my circuit.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, uh he lubber Boy was pulled off
Speaker 1: that circuit. Uh back Matron over drive of course before
Speaker 1: their back Matron over drive by Belt. Uh. But some
Speaker 1: most of the big bands in Canada came through there
Speaker 1: and worked on their way up. And uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was a really really strong musical town and great
Speaker 1: great radio too because Red Robinson was here. What he's
Speaker 1: a rock and Roll Hall of Fame disc jockey and
Speaker 1: he had done a lot of work he brought to
Speaker 1: black music up here, and we you know, he knew
Speaker 1: he didn't follow. In those days, you made your own
Speaker 1: top forty Okay, now it sounds like you were working
Speaker 1: around the clock. Were you making good money? Is making
Speaker 1: really good money? I kept my tax returns and I
Speaker 1: looked at him about two years ago. I was doing
Speaker 1: pretty good, you know, in those days, and and and
Speaker 1: and and yeah, but you're young. You can work hard.
Speaker 1: It's not absolutely And get where am I hanging around
Speaker 1: lots of broads, lots of fun, and I'm in the
Speaker 1: clubs big It's not that bad. And then single to right,
Speaker 1: So what happened at school? How do you decide to
Speaker 1: part ways with school? Um? I could I look where
Speaker 1: I was going and what I was thinking of majoring in.
Speaker 1: I could see the end of the road. I can
Speaker 1: see you stay here, You'll be making fifty grandy here,
Speaker 1: that's about far. How far are you're doing? And you'll
Speaker 1: have a nice wife and two kids. You're living in
Speaker 1: the suburbs. And and I just said no, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do it. And I just quit that quick
Speaker 1: school and just went to music full time. Okay, so
Speaker 1: the guests who breaks up? So what exact year does
Speaker 1: Randy Backman track you down? And what does that look like?
Speaker 1: He phones me up and he says, introduced himself and
Speaker 1: the Brandy back And says, I know Randy, you know
Speaker 1: who you are. He said, listen, Um, I got a
Speaker 1: band together and I'm paying everybody. It's my brother and
Speaker 1: to my brother's a manager, and uh, he says, the
Speaker 1: bad guitar players is my brother and Fred Turner. I
Speaker 1: got this guy called Fred Turner can really singing my drummers,
Speaker 1: my other brother, and uh, I'm I'm looking after everybody,
Speaker 1: he says, But I can't work and I need some work.
Speaker 1: And I know you got that market side up, science
Speaker 1: sealed up. So what's the chance that can I work
Speaker 1: in the area? And I thought, Randy Backman on the guests,
Speaker 1: who was all the songs that they've done, Surely to god,
Speaker 1: he's gonna come here and I get him to Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'll probably come here and he'll play the guest
Speaker 1: whose songs? Why wouldn't he And he'll it's got to
Speaker 1: be good. Randy Backman's a name in our country. And
Speaker 1: so I said, I'd like to see and he says, well,
Speaker 1: we got a job at Fort McMurray. That's the oil
Speaker 1: fields up north of Edmonton. He says, a nice, I'll
Speaker 1: fly up there to see you. So I went up
Speaker 1: there and it was really good. It was really good.
Speaker 1: I mean, he sang all the right songs. He's you know,
Speaker 1: they covered Burton's ass with his brothers and they got
Speaker 1: it done. And I brought him into the clubs, and
Speaker 1: of course he didn't want to be in the clubs,
Speaker 1: but he just wanted to get up the boys off
Speaker 1: the payroll. So he wanted to get some steady money
Speaker 1: coming in. But he um he was working on another record.
Speaker 1: Brave Belt was the name of the band at that time.
Speaker 1: The band, the record came out, didn't do anything. He
Speaker 1: started on another record and uh it was. It was
Speaker 1: the first actually turned into the first Beach Yeo record.
Speaker 1: And he came to me and he said, what are
Speaker 1: you think? And I said, this is a good Randy.
Speaker 1: I says, what are you gonna who are you gonna
Speaker 1: get to manage you? And he said, well, listen, would
Speaker 1: you be interested in it? And he said, you know
Speaker 1: more about managing a band than I do. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do I know? I've been sitting in Vancouver but
Speaker 1: all the time doing this, right, You know how to
Speaker 1: manage a band, Randy, He says, yeah, but I don't
Speaker 1: know how to go in there all the time saying
Speaker 1: I want, I want, I want, I want. He says,
Speaker 1: So I think you can do it. I said okay.
Speaker 1: So I said, okay, let's give it a go. I
Speaker 1: had to get somebody to come in to work on
Speaker 1: my agency, and Sam Feldman, who's a friend of mine
Speaker 1: and worked at the different clubs, and he had a
Speaker 1: small book and agency of different bands, mora alternative that
Speaker 1: I wasn't really that interested in the club circuit. And
Speaker 1: he said, I said, Samwich, like, come in. I might
Speaker 1: have to leave it like to get you bring into
Speaker 1: the company. And I said, it's funny thing as I said.
Speaker 1: He said, well, okay, but what are you gonna pay me?
Speaker 1: I said, well, listen, I don't know what's going to
Speaker 1: happen here. You take care of this. I'll look after you.
Speaker 1: Blah blah. We'll split it up here, you know, we'll
Speaker 1: just split it, okay, because I thought I could hang
Speaker 1: on to his bands. I got my bands. I'll take
Speaker 1: this shot. But because I knew if Backman Overdrive failed,
Speaker 1: I'd come back and be gone anyway, so you know,
Speaker 1: because let's face it. So anyway, we went up to Randy.
Speaker 1: We took out the record and got turned down. But wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a little bit slower. Yeah, so you made that
Speaker 1: deal with Sam yea and did you give him fifty
Speaker 1: of Backman at that point of your interest the mind? No, No,
Speaker 1: so it was only okay. So they okay, so tell
Speaker 1: me go back to the record. So so we get
Speaker 1: the record finished, and we go to shop and off
Speaker 1: we go. We go to New York, we get turned down.
Speaker 1: We go to to uh Los Angeles, we got turned down.
Speaker 1: Randy will say in his book, I don't think he's
Speaker 1: that many, but he said, we got down turned down
Speaker 1: by twenty seven record companies, which is probably pretty close.
Speaker 1: And uh so, all of a sudden, we got a
Speaker 1: phone call and we didn't even go to this place,
Speaker 1: from a guy called Charlie Fash, working Mercury Records in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Of course we didn't go to Chicago. We didn't think
Speaker 1: of any labels in Chicago. But he came. He said, listen,
Speaker 1: I've heard this record. Could I come out and see
Speaker 1: you guys? So I said, we said okay. Out came
Speaker 1: Charlie Fash and he said, you know this record, this
Speaker 1: record is really close. He said, but if you can
Speaker 1: just get me, I think maybe you're a song or
Speaker 1: too short. And Randy went back. He said okay, and
Speaker 1: we started working on some stuff and sent it back
Speaker 1: to Charlie and Charlie said, I'm gonna sign you guys.
Speaker 1: So he signed us. Now, Randy, that's what he wants.
Speaker 1: He just he wanted to get he didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a Canadian guy stuck up in Canna, so we
Speaker 1: signed to them for whatever the deal was. Alan stein Or,
Speaker 1: a lawyer in New York who ready had used before,
Speaker 1: took care of the deal. So we were signed to
Speaker 1: Mercury Records. And Randy said, listen, if we gotta we're
Speaker 1: gonna break this record, we gotta go on the road.
Speaker 1: That's how you do it, and that's how you did it, okay.
Speaker 1: And I could see it was really funny because I
Speaker 1: was Randy. Randy Backman didn't want to travel in buses
Speaker 1: because he remembers one time he said, I was coming
Speaker 1: into a down a hill into revel Stoke, which is
Speaker 1: a scheme country in in Vancouver in the BC, and
Speaker 1: the brakes failed and he said we had to go
Speaker 1: down there. The roady guy kept the thing on the
Speaker 1: course as best as he could, try to slow it
Speaker 1: down by shift down, shifting everything else. We came to
Speaker 1: the spot and he said, jump out. I remember hanging
Speaker 1: out of my guitar and jumping into a snow bank.
Speaker 1: He said, So I never wanted to be on a
Speaker 1: bus again. So we drove. We drove everything. I drove
Speaker 1: across back and forth across the USA six times, and
Speaker 1: he it was me and him in the front and
Speaker 1: three guys in the back of a car and and
Speaker 1: with our stuff piled up, not our equipment, but our clothes,
Speaker 1: our suitcases. That and you know, it was the best
Speaker 1: thing I ever did, because I would never missed one show.
Speaker 1: You know, in those days, we had two trees on
Speaker 1: the side, some kind of and all the p a
Speaker 1: stacked on the stage. So I get bored, I'd call
Speaker 1: the lights. I do the lights, you know, become fill
Speaker 1: up the day, take my money and go to the
Speaker 1: next city. And we did that for years until we broke.
Speaker 1: And we when we broke, it really broke because the
Speaker 1: Mercury Records they focused and focused on that act we were.
Speaker 1: I was. I was one of the big big acts
Speaker 1: on a very small label. You can't beat it, sorry,
Speaker 1: on a major. No, it wasn't not a major, Bob,
Speaker 1: It's a mid major. And we they did a great
Speaker 1: job for us. And you know, it's really funny because
Speaker 1: I remember the guy, when the guy who came in there,
Speaker 1: he was a new genius. He was a guy who
Speaker 1: got great marks in college and had a college radio.
Speaker 1: He walked into that radio into that company, and that's
Speaker 1: where I met Cliff burnsday. Of course, of course, let's
Speaker 1: have a big act by that. Let's go back a
Speaker 1: little bit. Um, did you have paper with beat eo? No?
Speaker 1: Do you have paper with your acts today? No? Okay?
Speaker 1: And if you ever had a situation, I don't know
Speaker 1: in the acts ever leave you? Um No, not any
Speaker 1: big act that I've ever had. Um. I don't even
Speaker 1: think a small act did. But uh, the only act,
Speaker 1: the only act that that I I stopped and I
Speaker 1: she she didn't leave as I did, and I only
Speaker 1: did it. I had my reasons for doing it, but
Speaker 1: I love doing it. I missed doing it. I was
Speaker 1: in Martina McBride in the country music business, and we
Speaker 1: did a good job with her. She's got you know.
Speaker 1: She she was second to Reba McIntyre when I left
Speaker 1: it on top of thirty radio top thirty records in
Speaker 1: country business, in the country business, and I just felt
Speaker 1: that I was managing two people, managing her and has
Speaker 1: managed her husband and her husband's a lovely guy. But boy,
Speaker 1: it's difficult. And um, you know, I always used to
Speaker 1: say to my assistant, used say, she's how is it?
Speaker 1: I says, the meeting is great, but as I drove
Speaker 1: away from the house, I know there's always one more meeting,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and sometimes I'm not I'm not
Speaker 1: knocking women marrying guys and bands and they really don't
Speaker 1: bother me. But I mean, that was a difficult one.
Speaker 1: That was a woman in the first place, and a husband,
Speaker 1: and I I could see myself nearly in that same situation,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden, she's exploding and you're mare
Speaker 1: illegal what you want to be involved? You want to
Speaker 1: do this? And John was a smart, smart guy. You
Speaker 1: ran a good sound company. He was a smart guy.
Speaker 1: But just just too many phone calls, too many phone calls. Well,
Speaker 1: certainly those of us who have gotten midnight phone calls
Speaker 1: from John at length, you certainly no, let's go back. Okay,
Speaker 1: A lot of very big acts at this late date,
Speaker 1: when they become that big, they asked for reduction in
Speaker 1: management percentage. Has that been your experience? No, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you why I take it. I take of these bands.
Speaker 1: I take after the agents. Money is gone. I take
Speaker 1: after the sound of lights. Basic sound of lights is gone.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in commissioning stuff that they don't even
Speaker 1: see it's just flow through. Money's gone. Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: work with business managers. Okay, we look after all their money.
Speaker 1: We take care of all the money. We don't we
Speaker 1: take care of the mines to take care of all
Speaker 1: the money. To the point where here's the money, here's
Speaker 1: your money, here's my money. And I think it's their
Speaker 1: job to get a tax problem. I just have my
Speaker 1: job to get them a tax problem. They got to
Speaker 1: solve it. So I've never worked with business managers, which
Speaker 1: I find I'm not. I just find it they get
Speaker 1: involved where areas they shouldn't. Okay, So well, just to
Speaker 1: go this deep, will you give any investment advice to
Speaker 1: some of these bands? Okay, let's go back to bt O.
Speaker 1: It goes from Brave Belt goes to bt O. First
Speaker 1: album comes out. I know where the track is blue Collar.
Speaker 1: That's the one that the single. Yet that gets some
Speaker 1: regional play such it in the Midwest. It's successful, not
Speaker 1: really successful. We certainly the East goes the second album
Speaker 1: has taken care of business. Actually I had uh no,
Speaker 1: that's it's it's not the first big track. The big
Speaker 1: track that first was uh ain't seen nothing yet? No, no,
Speaker 1: uh that was right right, let it ride, of course,
Speaker 1: of course. Okay, So when you had let it ride
Speaker 1: and you had taken care of business, did you know
Speaker 1: you had gold? I knew, I knew we had. It
Speaker 1: was letter ride and then take care yea, yeah, I
Speaker 1: knew it was gonna happen, okay, And I made it
Speaker 1: another what I call smart move. I had everybody wanting
Speaker 1: to book them and do stuff. And I went to
Speaker 1: an independent who had only zz top and he came
Speaker 1: and he wanted to say, listen, I like it. I'd
Speaker 1: like to get involved with you. And we got involved.
Speaker 1: I did some dates and early early with at those times,
Speaker 1: concerts West and stuff like that. I did some shows
Speaker 1: at those people, and all of a sudden, I just
Speaker 1: I was having trouble because there's no consistency. I was
Speaker 1: moving back and forth between a bunch of promoters. And
Speaker 1: I remember talking to Don Fox, who ended up with
Speaker 1: and I was sitting in a we didn't have cell phones.
Speaker 1: I was sitting in a phone booth talking to people,
Speaker 1: and I got in this argument and he said, why
Speaker 1: do you put up with that ship? With what the why? Why? What?
Speaker 1: Why are you putting up with that? It was something
Speaker 1: you know some promoters somewhere, and I said, you know, Donn,
Speaker 1: You're right, And remember taking the phone book always reminds
Speaker 1: me of taking the phone book, and I grabbed the thing.
Speaker 1: We had all the area code ages and I went like,
Speaker 1: here's your territory, now take care of it. Give him
Speaker 1: the whole territory in the United States. Okay. So prior
Speaker 1: to don Fox, you didn't you were the agent for
Speaker 1: the band. No, I was signed with C I was
Speaker 1: signed with. This is great too, because I was signed
Speaker 1: with the guy I couldn't get. Agencies weren't really that
Speaker 1: interested as when we started. I sat a guy named
Speaker 1: Paul Smith, I forget the name of the agency, and
Speaker 1: he used to work for Colonel Parker. And that's how
Speaker 1: I got to meet Elvis Presley. So I didn't know
Speaker 1: you met Elvis? Oh yeah, who was that? Well what
Speaker 1: happened there with Backman Turner Overdrive? Because but tell me, okay,
Speaker 1: keep going. So Paul Smith was this agent for me
Speaker 1: in a small agency and I can't remember the name, Bob,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but um he told me these stories about
Speaker 1: working for Colonel Parker. And so when Backmin Turnover Drive
Speaker 1: came through Vegas, and I said, listen, we're going in Vegas.
Speaker 1: And Elvis was at the same time, and I've seen
Speaker 1: him many times in Vegas. He says, I said, do
Speaker 1: you get me backstage and meat Elvis? So yeah, I
Speaker 1: said really, He says yeah. He says, when do you
Speaker 1: want to go? And I said, okay. I liked some
Speaker 1: of the guys might come on and come, and so
Speaker 1: we three of the guys came. It was me, Me
Speaker 1: and Robbie Backman, the drummer, Blair Thornte, you know, the
Speaker 1: guitar player. I think that was that three of us
Speaker 1: went to it. Randy had to fly home, he was
Speaker 1: piste off and he had to fly home and h
Speaker 1: so he sat there and went to the show. That
Speaker 1: was probably nineteen seventy five. I think I'm pretty close
Speaker 1: to n So I went back there, met Elvis and
Speaker 1: everybody something. Sit there, you wait and somebody comes and
Speaker 1: get you like they do take you back. You sit
Speaker 1: down in this room and all of a sudden Elvis,
Speaker 1: Elvis came out of his dressing room and they said
Speaker 1: the guy brought him over and he said, this is
Speaker 1: Bruce down, this is Blackman. Guys from Backman turn over
Speaker 1: drive and he just this guy could have been and
Speaker 1: I've I've talked to a lot of people who know him,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have ever been around him. Could
Speaker 1: be one of the nicest guys you've ever wanted to meet.
Speaker 1: And he said, nice to meet you, guys. How are
Speaker 1: you doing? Blah blah blah. And the boy said, he
Speaker 1: pushed me for it, and you talked to him, talked
Speaker 1: to him. So I talked. I talked to him and
Speaker 1: and we we had given me maybe we know we
Speaker 1: were going, so we made up this uh this uh
Speaker 1: a gift of the back into over drive wheel. It
Speaker 1: was made of silver, and we gave him the wheel
Speaker 1: made himself and give it to him. He gave us
Speaker 1: what he gave us what TCB necklaces, okay, and he
Speaker 1: he called it taking care of the boss and uh
Speaker 1: and uh, I remember my head. I talked to him.
Speaker 1: My hand was shaken, he said, and he was so polite,
Speaker 1: like taking the slow down, take it easy to relax
Speaker 1: and uh. And then he said, uh, you know, thank
Speaker 1: you very much and I hope you can see again.
Speaker 1: And that was it. It was pretty cool. They're real cool,
Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely And I met him one more time after that,
Speaker 1: he in Memphis, he came to uh show there. I
Speaker 1: think it was I think with I think was probably
Speaker 1: still again back when term but I came back stage,
Speaker 1: I said a load him that just that. Then he
Speaker 1: just stayed for a little while, went upstairs and watched
Speaker 1: I guess somewhere out there. And that was it. But
Speaker 1: you know what, do you always like, yes, sir, No, sir,
Speaker 1: thank you, yes sir? You know what I mean. That's
Speaker 1: the way he was. This guy was a good guy
Speaker 1: and and that and that's why when you find when
Speaker 1: you talk to people who've been in there in his company,
Speaker 1: this is a good guy. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: that's why it's a tragedy. It's a tragedy rich an
Speaker 1: American tragedy dying that young. Did you, having met him
Speaker 1: late in his career, did you see that coming when
Speaker 1: I saw me look real good the last time I
Speaker 1: saw me look real good by the time I saw
Speaker 1: him on stage, and it had been a couple of
Speaker 1: years longer. You're in the seventy seven now you felt
Speaker 1: that's where Colonel Parker was an asshole? Why put him
Speaker 1: out like that? Why put him out there? Why I
Speaker 1: put them out there. I wanted the money, that's right,
Speaker 1: That's what that was about. Colonel. I know guys who
Speaker 1: worked with Colonel Parker saw Blues a million and a
Speaker 1: half dollars in forty five minutes on the on the
Speaker 1: Roulett Wheel. Now that's the stupidest bet in the casino.
Speaker 1: And that was his problem. And that's why I played
Speaker 1: in Vegas for nothing, okay, in comparison to other stars.
Speaker 1: When I ended up managing Anne Murray, I asked her,
Speaker 1: I said, did you let do you work when the
Speaker 1: Elvis was there? He says, Healy, I worked with Elvis
Speaker 1: there all the time. And she said and I said,
Speaker 1: She said, I was the one who got everything changed
Speaker 1: to one show instead of two. I said, how did
Speaker 1: you do that? And she said, I had a kid's
Speaker 1: two kids had one for the other two. And she said,
Speaker 1: they want me to come back to Bally's. And I said,
Speaker 1: I ain't coming. I can't do two shows. I can't
Speaker 1: sit there doing a show at eight seven o'clock, eight
Speaker 1: o'clock at night and another one at midnight. Okay, I
Speaker 1: got these kids. So they gave her a break and
Speaker 1: said do one, just do one, and then everybody followed,
Speaker 1: I would I would have thought Elvis would have done that.
Speaker 1: The colonel didn't give a dad. He was doing two shows,
Speaker 1: seven nights a week, lots of time. Just just that's
Speaker 1: a great story for Anne Murray. She broke the whole
Speaker 1: two too, so Vegas and not Dr Barber's Dreis and
Speaker 1: not Franks, not Elvis, Presley and Murray. So you know
Speaker 1: you've had these, you know, worldwide successful acts. Is there
Speaker 1: anybody at this point you haven't met that you want
Speaker 1: to meet? I'll tell you. And this is gonna So
Speaker 1: I turned on this thing to watch a talk last
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, a stream of Elvis Costello talking to
Speaker 1: Peter grell Nick okay, and I sat there and I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear what he had to say because Peter
Speaker 1: Groan thought, that's an Elvis guy. He's written great books
Speaker 1: on Sam Cook, He's written books on on on what's
Speaker 1: his Sam Phillips, He's written books on the on the
Speaker 1: black music business. I mean, he's a fabulous writer. And
Speaker 1: nearly from a sociological point of view too, you learned
Speaker 1: about what was going on in the world at that
Speaker 1: time and where those guys worked. And I'm sitting there
Speaker 1: with Elvis watching him, and I think Elvis might have
Speaker 1: talked more than more than Groulning. I mean, yeah, okay, Elvis,
Speaker 1: you're you know, launch too, But I mean I want
Speaker 1: to hear what Peter Grounnick says. And that's the one
Speaker 1: person I'd like to meet. And I will go down
Speaker 1: to one of the Elvis events to go down there
Speaker 1: just to meet him because I love to sit down
Speaker 1: in a room and talk with him. Because okay, he
Speaker 1: never met Elvis, which is pretty weird. That is weird. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to uh bt O you make the
Speaker 1: deal with Don Fox. Is the agent still involved or
Speaker 1: now is they're no longer an agent? The agent? The
Speaker 1: agent was still involved there, Okay. Now, just like with Elvis,
Speaker 1: Presley and Jerry Shilling and talking about the fifties, they
Speaker 1: were inventing it. In reality, the business music road business
Speaker 1: was being invented in the late sixties with rock and
Speaker 1: rollers and seventies. What were the lessons you learned back then?
Speaker 1: Because you were totally green, you were learning while you
Speaker 1: were going a learning while I was going yea, and
Speaker 1: Randy had some experience he did and he was a
Speaker 1: good he was a good guy. For me, it was
Speaker 1: the thing is, it's just the biggest thing was to
Speaker 1: him was he had a rule. Okay, we're all gotta
Speaker 1: get together. We're a band. We make a time at night,
Speaker 1: we say, okay, we're going to bed. We're leaving this
Speaker 1: hotel at at ten o'clock in the morning to drive
Speaker 1: twitter miles to the next place, right or two whatever
Speaker 1: it was, we leave at ten. If he wasn't there
Speaker 1: a ten, you left, and I remember, you know, we
Speaker 1: only stayed in those two story holiday inns, right right,
Speaker 1: So I remember, I remember Randy's he's coming, Robbie's coming,
Speaker 1: he's coming. It's ten o'clock. Let's go and left him. Guys,
Speaker 1: So we are you know, that's one thing. You guys
Speaker 1: had to be on time, guys, and we and you know,
Speaker 1: we looked after ourselves as best we could. Um, we're young,
Speaker 1: we could take a lot more the way. But remember
Speaker 1: Randy Backman's a Mormon, okay, And you got kicked out
Speaker 1: of the guests who because his warman beliefs clashed with
Speaker 1: their lifestyle. So it was a bit of a it
Speaker 1: was it. I wasn't out there with a C. D
Speaker 1: C or van Halen or pretty pretty having a ton
Speaker 1: of fun. Okay, because Randy was the big brother, Randy
Speaker 1: was paying the freight mostly, and uh so it was
Speaker 1: it was. I mean, there were great stories, but I
Speaker 1: had to keep with those stories away from Randy. So
Speaker 1: I roomed with Randy continually on the road because I
Speaker 1: was there to make sure he didn't start walking around
Speaker 1: and wonder what the band was doing. Okay, you know,
Speaker 1: I know you that car accident about fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: in Tennessee. The question becomes, if you're driving a station
Speaker 1: wagon back and forth six times, you must have some
Speaker 1: close calls or falling asleep at the wheel or something. No,
Speaker 1: but no, because you know you're driving short. The one
Speaker 1: thing about driving tour, driving like we did, you never
Speaker 1: drove far. Okay, you can only go as far as
Speaker 1: the equipment could get. We're Randy wanted to play five
Speaker 1: nights a week, so we're not we're not driving stupid distances. Um.
Speaker 1: The only time I fell asleep, but the wheel was
Speaker 1: going to it. Jerry Lee Lewis auction that I thought
Speaker 1: I could get his piano, one of his pianos that
Speaker 1: I was driving. I got off the plane in Nashville,
Speaker 1: had to drive to uh Um and to to Memphis.
Speaker 1: I was going to drive to Memphis, and I fell
Speaker 1: asleep at the wheel driving and I went down off
Speaker 1: the highway into between highway with dropped down to the
Speaker 1: grass and what we have as a grass going under
Speaker 1: the car like that, right, And a guy O trucker
Speaker 1: went by and pass me and blew the horn. WHOA,
Speaker 1: I woke up, Bob, I'm telling me something. If I
Speaker 1: just stepped on the brakes out of flip the car, okay,
Speaker 1: I had to flip the car and I just kept
Speaker 1: it going. But I never fell asleep on the on
Speaker 1: the road driving okay, But there were things that kept
Speaker 1: you go up to if you wanted to keep up,
Speaker 1: stay away. And I drove every nobody else drove, I drove. Okay.
Speaker 1: So you're working with Don Fox. You have this incredible success.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's a different era. As David Krebs always says,
Speaker 1: tickets were three, four or five dollars then that we're
Speaker 1: not a hundred dollars a piece. So, uh, how is business?
Speaker 1: Did you go clean in most market? Did you make
Speaker 1: a lot of money? Did he get screwed? What happened Randy?
Speaker 1: Don Fox? Says to me that he never had a
Speaker 1: fastest sellout in his career until he was doing a
Speaker 1: young actor in the Latin the last few years. Back
Speaker 1: to turn Over Drive suttle tickets faster than any act
Speaker 1: he ever ever did, and they were we argued over
Speaker 1: eight dollar tickets, and we really argued over ten dollar tickets. Okay,
Speaker 1: but be your right, five six bucks, seven bucks, that's
Speaker 1: what it was. Okay. Then they have all this big
Speaker 1: success there on Mercury, which you were the biggest act,
Speaker 1: but it was a mid tier label. They put out
Speaker 1: Four Wheel Drive and it sells out of the Boxer's
Speaker 1: not really what happens. How does bto fall apart? It
Speaker 1: becomes it falls apart because Randy, I believe, wanted to
Speaker 1: produce the record. I wanted to write most of the
Speaker 1: songs and own the publishing. And the boys it was
Speaker 1: it was they wanted to get a share of the publishing.
Speaker 1: They thought they should get a share of it, and
Speaker 1: he didn't give it up. And that's the trouble with bands, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why bands breakup. Part it's always over money. And
Speaker 1: because that was my first band, I didn't have the
Speaker 1: skill to stop it. I didn't. I didn't have the
Speaker 1: wherewith all to stoff, but I couldn't figure out how
Speaker 1: to stop it. Okay, and Randy, because Randy was Randy
Speaker 1: was confident he could do it on his own. Again,
Speaker 1: then he was going to leave, and this and that
Speaker 1: and the boys just weren't going to give up. So
Speaker 1: it all kind of blew up, Bob, and that was it?
Speaker 1: And where did that leave you? Why? I went back
Speaker 1: to the agency. Okay, So I go walking in the
Speaker 1: agency trying to take over the agency, and started to
Speaker 1: go back again that I've been away a long time.
Speaker 1: The agency wasn't running the same way as I want
Speaker 1: to understood. The boss again said that, okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: So that's where Sam and I clashed, and uh you know,
Speaker 1: he put in a lot of time, and I was difficult,
Speaker 1: I think coming back from that. And uh so with
Speaker 1: the agency split, we never split. We haven't split to
Speaker 1: this day, Okay, but we're in different locales and actually
Speaker 1: we're probably closer friends now than we ever were when
Speaker 1: we were together. And so all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: was just not watching. I watched the office walkout. People
Speaker 1: were going to good agency. If they go you haven't
Speaker 1: got anything going this. I was left with one girl
Speaker 1: and uh, get a call for from somebody in Calgary
Speaker 1: said he's got the span called lover boy. Would you
Speaker 1: be interested in taking a look at it? And that's
Speaker 1: how that that run started. And we like, before you
Speaker 1: go to the lover boy, were you depressed that you
Speaker 1: were now going to be Vancouver be booking bands again. Well,
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna be booking bands with against the agency
Speaker 1: went with them, you see. I was still gonna get paid,
Speaker 1: but I would we worked together, Okay, So I had
Speaker 1: nothing to do much. I had to do something. So
Speaker 1: that's what I just came. I went got try. I
Speaker 1: probably tried some bands in there that didn't work. Who
Speaker 1: a lover boy called that kind of worked. I went
Speaker 1: down to see them and they were good. Tell a
Speaker 1: story of lover boy. His owned But they were managed
Speaker 1: by a guy who ran a nightclub in a big
Speaker 1: nightclub in Calgary, lou Blair. And he's a Vancouver guy
Speaker 1: and he's doing clubs when I was in Vancouver booking them,
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, listen, I got this great band.
Speaker 1: You've got nothing to do. Would you take a look
Speaker 1: at And I said, okay, So I went up to
Speaker 1: see them in Calgary and they were really good, but
Speaker 1: they hadn't made a record yet, and he said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to get try and make a record. I signed
Speaker 1: it with Columbia for CBS Canada. He says, okay. So
Speaker 1: I was done in Los Angeles one day and he
Speaker 1: he was it was interesting. He knew where he was,
Speaker 1: so he came to the same hotel and he said, listen,
Speaker 1: where are you going? He said, I'm going to see
Speaker 1: a friend of mine in Palm Springs and he said,
Speaker 1: you know, want you listen to this? And he gave
Speaker 1: me that first lover Boy album rough right or not
Speaker 1: final mix? But turn me loose? Holy cow, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean these are great. They made great he made
Speaker 1: great records. That's Bruce Fairburn uh and Bob Rock And
Speaker 1: I um, I well got downe this to paulm Springs
Speaker 1: and I called him and he said what do you think?
Speaker 1: And I think? I said this is real good? Is unbelievable,
Speaker 1: how good this is? And he said, well good. I'm
Speaker 1: six blocks up the street, so I'll come over and
Speaker 1: see it. He followed me down. I don't know what
Speaker 1: kind of a rendit carry was said by MS follow
Speaker 1: me down there and uh it uh. We put a
Speaker 1: deal together and off we went with the lover Boy.
Speaker 1: And our big deal, of course was to move it
Speaker 1: out of out of Canada to Colombia down the States,
Speaker 1: and we did that. Although most bands that moved out
Speaker 1: of Canada and go down the States, the States looks
Speaker 1: very as scans at you because they know you're getting
Speaker 1: thirty PC airplay up there and really, what do you
Speaker 1: really mean? And uh, okay, usually though one of the
Speaker 1: you know, there's the issue of attention, but there's also
Speaker 1: once again the issue of money and that you know,
Speaker 1: getting signed to the US label is supposed to sign
Speaker 1: to the Canadian deal. The deals are different. Yes, So
Speaker 1: how did you get lover Boy to the American label? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we had had they had the rights
Speaker 1: the deal Lou deal Lou made with Colombia, they had
Speaker 1: the rights. Okay, we didn't good to shop it down there.
Speaker 1: Had I would go in Columbia or wherever label they
Speaker 1: were gonna put it on, and so we were just there.
Speaker 1: So okay, now we got to make make it happen.
Speaker 1: And you know what the biggest thing was was that
Speaker 1: um I knew how to do with back and turn
Speaker 1: over drive. I knew how to get out and give
Speaker 1: me a shot on the radio. Give me a shot
Speaker 1: and I'll make it happen because I knew I could
Speaker 1: go on the road and do it. I just knew it,
Speaker 1: and then they could. Then we hit MTV. Turned Me
Speaker 1: Loose is one of the first songs ever. Believe me,
Speaker 1: I know, I remember seeing it on the big screen
Speaker 1: in jim rist Village country clubs, that iconic song. Yep.
Speaker 1: So that's what happened, is that's how we got it going.
Speaker 1: MTV came out. We were getting They worked the record
Speaker 1: really hard. They believed in the act. I gave him
Speaker 1: dates and that's what I was doing that We were there.
Speaker 1: We were going to the radio stations. We were doing
Speaker 1: all the things that was before all these chain book
Speaker 1: radio stations they have now every place was individual and
Speaker 1: we did it like it was a real lot of work.
Speaker 1: And and we and the same thing. These guys worked
Speaker 1: their assa. We think we were two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: fifty shows a year, you know, pretty regularly, and boy boy,
Speaker 1: it would be made it and don Fox I phone.
Speaker 1: I've been using the same damn formula for so long,
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. Don Solomon said wow, and he phoned up
Speaker 1: Bill Ham and he said, Bill, I got an opening
Speaker 1: act for you. He said, who love her Boy? He said,
Speaker 1: who love her boy? Because Bill just into his body
Speaker 1: he does down there and the tour, Bill got mixed up,
Speaker 1: but got messed up with the album was not happening,
Speaker 1: and Fox convict convinced him said, listen, this band is
Speaker 1: ready to go. They want to go on the tour.
Speaker 1: I've sold the tickets. I don't want to rewrote this thing.
Speaker 1: Let's go out anyway. You don't need the record and
Speaker 1: and Bills. I'm not going out without the record. Don No, no,
Speaker 1: you gotta go without the record. This band and Build
Speaker 1: and ZZ Top will do some out business. And he foushed.
Speaker 1: Bill Ham rolled over and said okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and he went. He went. They went out without a tour.
Speaker 1: It was me opening and it was great and because
Speaker 1: they could do it. They were pretty hot then that
Speaker 1: that that was before the bull and everything on stage,
Speaker 1: but they were still really hot. And uh, we broke
Speaker 1: lover Boy because getting dragged around by zz talk. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so how does it segue to Brian Adams real quick,
Speaker 1: because Brian Adams came pretty fast after lover Boy, and
Speaker 1: he was just in. He was in the bar bands.
Speaker 1: And since we both thought since we had still had
Speaker 1: some of the ownership or the booking rights for them
Speaker 1: all those clubs, it was you know, I could go
Speaker 1: see all these bands. And I went to see Adams
Speaker 1: and he was all right. And he had a little
Speaker 1: bit of hit called let Me Take You Dancing. It
Speaker 1: was a it was more of a disco record and
Speaker 1: what he does now. And he came to my office
Speaker 1: and wanted to talk to me, and uh, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't talk to him. I just I remember he
Speaker 1: just sat out there and went home. And that happened
Speaker 1: a couple of times, and then finally my assistant just
Speaker 1: go talk to the guy. Good guys, okay, come on,
Speaker 1: and Brian sit down. So he had this conversation and
Speaker 1: he had started he had he had let Me Take
Speaker 1: You Dance, and he had a thing at A and M.
Speaker 1: He had signed at A and M as a writer
Speaker 1: and they were going to let him maybe do a record,
Speaker 1: and uh, he said, like you to manage me, he said,
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, really, what do you do? He said,
Speaker 1: well I got this record and uh and the record
Speaker 1: was good, that first album with Brian Adam for it. Okay,
Speaker 1: so he cut the first album without you boy, I
Speaker 1: wasn't there. So was there a manager then? No, well
Speaker 1: maybe that was I don't think so. And uh so
Speaker 1: he said, um, I can manage me. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a good record, Brian, real good. He says,
Speaker 1: I said, here's my deal, blah blah blah. And he'll
Speaker 1: argue that I wanted part of the publishing. But I
Speaker 1: never wanted part of the publishing. But something that became
Speaker 1: a breaking point in the in the discussion, and it
Speaker 1: pissed me off. And I remember kicking the garbage can
Speaker 1: at him beside my desk and he caught it and
Speaker 1: kept talking. I thought that was really impressive, so I said,
Speaker 1: he said, And I'm gonna tell you something, Bruce. He says,
Speaker 1: I work. I know how you work. He says, I
Speaker 1: can work just as hard as anybody. And he says,
Speaker 1: I'm I will break this record. I can do it.
Speaker 1: And he says I will be the biggest act you
Speaker 1: ever had. That was before I booked my first show
Speaker 1: with And you know, he's lived up to that. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you make a deal with him. The first album
Speaker 1: is out, so you get involved Lonely Nights, that's your
Speaker 1: first album. Yeah, yeah, I came out. I worked that album,
Speaker 1: of course, the first one, first one. Yeah, So how
Speaker 1: does Lonely Okay? At this point in time, is he
Speaker 1: still signed to A and M Canada or signed directly
Speaker 1: in Hollywood? We never signed. We never signed with an
Speaker 1: M Canada until probably the third record. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: worked the first album. Tell me about the second Adams album.
Speaker 1: I thought you you got it. It was one of
Speaker 1: the best albums he's ever done. Absolutely, I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: But we were still Canadian signed. Um, but we we
Speaker 1: we worked our way into uh, into Jerry and Herbs.
Speaker 1: You know they knew we were around er Jerry and
Speaker 1: the record I thought didn't do very well. Excuse me
Speaker 1: for how well how good it was? Okay, Brian was
Speaker 1: piste off, I was piste off. And then we did
Speaker 1: cuts like a knife. And when we did cuts like
Speaker 1: a knife, Jerry Moss said to me. I went to
Speaker 1: Jake Moss I said, Okay, this is a great record,
Speaker 1: and if I don't break, if we can't break, this
Speaker 1: record I want to release from you. And he said
Speaker 1: to me, he said, okay, I'll make that deal. He thought.
Speaker 1: He said, it's gotta be this's gotta be a platinum record.
Speaker 1: And he did it, and they did it, and we
Speaker 1: did it, and everybody worked together. I'm very pro record
Speaker 1: company even to this day, Bob, I'm not anti record company.
Speaker 1: I remember being an anti record company guy. I believe
Speaker 1: there is a team there. If you can get them
Speaker 1: to work with you, they are just an asset. Okay.
Speaker 1: And I and I and and A and M worked
Speaker 1: their house off for Briant. We did a good job
Speaker 1: and we had great arguments. I remember we're doing Tina
Speaker 1: Turner show turned Tina Turner song It's Only Love. Uh,
Speaker 1: It's only Love and that song It's Only Love member
Speaker 1: the Tina Turner doing. So we were just big in America.
Speaker 1: We were running around American men and they were doing
Speaker 1: pretty good. And you know, we did some journey tours
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And uh, and went in there
Speaker 1: and I said, Tina Turner came up to the Commodore
Speaker 1: played a Commodore ballroom here about eight hundred seats. We
Speaker 1: Bryan went down to Meeter. We went down to meet her.
Speaker 1: I've met her before, but we, uh, should you come
Speaker 1: over to the studio maybe and sing this song? We
Speaker 1: left the song for She came over the next day
Speaker 1: and sang that song, and so anyway was on the album.
Speaker 1: Everybody loved it. When I was on the album, then
Speaker 1: I said, Jerry, because Brian Brian was born, he wasn't
Speaker 1: born in Vancouver. He came to Vancouver, he lived and
Speaker 1: he lived in Israel, he lived in he lived in
Speaker 1: this in in in England, he lived in in uh,
Speaker 1: Spain and Portugal. He lived all over the world. So
Speaker 1: he wasn't just satisfied just doing North America. Okay. He
Speaker 1: knew there was another market out there, and I remember
Speaker 1: I had to go into I. I talked one of
Speaker 1: my agents, Carl Layton Pope was another small agent who
Speaker 1: had done a Lover Boy and down doing Adams for me.
Speaker 1: He thought he could get me on Tina Turner tour,
Speaker 1: and uh so I Jerry Moss and I said, listen,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna record. Was doing pretty well. He wanted
Speaker 1: us to be in the States, but we've been in
Speaker 1: the States. I don't need to do another runner, I said,
Speaker 1: we want to go to Europe and what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do in Europe? We're gonna got a Tina Turner
Speaker 1: to a Tina Turner. Bruce, He's a lounge ack, which
Speaker 1: was correct in Vegas, she was a loungeack. But this
Speaker 1: was her. This is the big record when Roger David
Speaker 1: got older, and this is probably the first record he
Speaker 1: made with her and she we went over there and
Speaker 1: and Tina Turner. We broke Europe and the UK on
Speaker 1: Tina Turner's back, okay, because every night we went out
Speaker 1: there did our show. It was okay, they do a
Speaker 1: couple of three songs. Then she came out. Then we
Speaker 1: went out there and sang that song with her, and
Speaker 1: that was she was just Tina Turner in the UK.
Speaker 1: That was the rubber stamp and Brian and his forehead
Speaker 1: You're great and away it went from that. It been fabulous. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you have that great success straight from the heart, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Then comes the big album Everything I Do, I Do
Speaker 1: it for you album No No, I mean when you
Speaker 1: do run away All of a sudden, Brian Adams is
Speaker 1: everywhere under you run to run to you, Well run
Speaker 1: do you? Was on the uh that was on that
Speaker 1: was Was that the name of the album? Pub I
Speaker 1: still it was four? It was the fourth album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking around here because they're all up here somewhere. Um, okay,
Speaker 1: the fourth album with a run to You on it.
Speaker 1: That was the thing where you made the divondboard dove
Speaker 1: into the empty swimming exactly exactly. And h yeah that
Speaker 1: that that really exploded that album. That was a great album.
Speaker 1: And uh we Tina Turner was on that album, as
Speaker 1: I remember, is that correct? R right? It's only love.
Speaker 1: I pretty sure it's on that album. But the but
Speaker 1: he was literally could have been the biggest star on
Speaker 1: MTV at that point. Yeah, he was everywhere and he worked.
Speaker 1: Like I said, we worked, We worked everywhere. But we
Speaker 1: played big cities, played the small cities. I always did that.
Speaker 1: I always tried to cover off the smaller markets too.
Speaker 1: And and and Maz there at her side, and and
Speaker 1: did a hell of a job for us. And they
Speaker 1: got no complaints over in America. Well, you know, we
Speaker 1: we've had some publishing arguments, but I don't think anything
Speaker 1: with the record company in general. Okay, So after Reckless,
Speaker 1: that's the album with Run to You. Uh, then he's
Speaker 1: sort of there's a backlash that he's not political enough.
Speaker 1: He does the album Into the Fire, which is not
Speaker 1: as successful as what came before. That was my fault
Speaker 1: because I took that amnesty to her, and so he
Speaker 1: was out there with all the you know, the intellectuals
Speaker 1: of rock were out there with the police. We're out
Speaker 1: there with you too, of course, and we're doing these
Speaker 1: shows and I think Adam Brian, right, I wanted to say,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to make a change, I want
Speaker 1: to do something differently, got something I want to say.
Speaker 1: What am I going to say? No, he's an artist.
Speaker 1: That's what that's what you do, and you get you
Speaker 1: earned the rate to do it. But it was a
Speaker 1: it did. It was not the record that we thought
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be. Although it's interesting now when he's on tour.
Speaker 1: He played some of those songs and we're doing a
Speaker 1: on each other at the Royal overt Hall. I know
Speaker 1: we're doing a night there, but that's that's what's gonna be.
Speaker 1: The whole night is that album. There are people do
Speaker 1: like that album, but it wasn't the album it was.
Speaker 1: It was a change from what we were doing. But
Speaker 1: he felt he had to make it well. The first
Speaker 1: three tracks on the album he did, The Night Into
Speaker 1: the Fire and Victim of Love. I play those all
Speaker 1: the time. I don't fight as I agree with you.
Speaker 1: The second album is the best. You want it, you
Speaker 1: got it, okay, but that album is not as successful
Speaker 1: as you wanted to be. Tell us the transition to
Speaker 1: Everything I Do and working with Mutt Lang. Um. Mutt
Speaker 1: Lang I had worked with month before booking his band,
Speaker 1: and he had at the time called City Boy, but
Speaker 1: he's more a friend of Clive Calder's and Mutt Lang's
Speaker 1: and and I booked him, uh, you know, across Canada
Speaker 1: and they did what they did. But Uh, Adams, I
Speaker 1: believe Bryan Adams and I had a conversation, came up
Speaker 1: with the with Mutt Lang idea, and we gave Mu
Speaker 1: a call. And that's a songwriter, and I think he
Speaker 1: loved adams songwriting and he loved his voice. He's always
Speaker 1: told me they just loved it. And Clive Calder and
Speaker 1: I you know, he liked me. We got everybody got
Speaker 1: along weird, you knew each other like you know, pretty
Speaker 1: good friends. So that deal started with mud Lang album
Speaker 1: on on that album and uh, and Everything I Do
Speaker 1: was not on that album. It was there in the
Speaker 1: mixing stage of that album and with two songs to go,
Speaker 1: Michael Caman sent me a track, the instrumental track of
Speaker 1: Everything I Do for this movie and I said, Michael,
Speaker 1: you know, what do you want to do? He says,
Speaker 1: I think Brian can re sing this song? Can you
Speaker 1: get it? And I says, okay, but I'm mixing this album.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I might get it to him.
Speaker 1: So I sent it over to Brian right away and
Speaker 1: I think can listen to the song Him and mut
Speaker 1: sitting there. They wrote this song in about thirty minutes
Speaker 1: and the way it went and it's still the long
Speaker 1: number one, longest number one record in England to this day.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, let's go back to that era because it's
Speaker 1: very significant in terms of the marketplace and that Brian
Speaker 1: was known as a rocker and let's just say that
Speaker 1: Everything I Do is a little bit of small cy
Speaker 1: and sappy. People criticized him for making that record, but
Speaker 1: simultaneous within making the record, a O R radio where
Speaker 1: he was living completely died. Correct and that and we
Speaker 1: we survived, We survived as a result of that song.
Speaker 1: And I we had a we had a lot more
Speaker 1: of those ballots to it. It saved us, okay, And
Speaker 1: we still kept up our arena business because of it, okay.
Speaker 1: And people people think that was you know that that
Speaker 1: was because Adams rocky. He sold out. He didn't sell out.
Speaker 1: He wrote the goddamn song. I mean, it's not like
Speaker 1: I'm out there hustling songs to try and make it rock.
Speaker 1: He was. He was writing those songs, he was writing
Speaker 1: the ballants, he was writing all that stuff. Bryan Adams
Speaker 1: wrote every song here he ever ever recorded on around albums.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were involved in the writing with this
Speaker 1: partner Jim Balance or Mutt Lang or whatever. And mud
Speaker 1: Mudd Lange could sell a battle too. He did. He did,
Speaker 1: heaven he did, you know we he was straddling two places.
Speaker 1: While trying to straddle two places. I remember Brian Adams
Speaker 1: had number one and number two on the charts back
Speaker 1: to back. He had the triple song with All for Love,
Speaker 1: and he had he had uh I think the next
Speaker 1: song probably who was all for Love and uh god,
Speaker 1: I have to think of the name. But they're back
Speaker 1: to back singles one and number one and number two.
Speaker 1: It's phenomenal. People liked him, you know, and he could
Speaker 1: still rock. He go out the Rocky shows, a rock
Speaker 1: show with some ballots, but you have to apologize for them.
Speaker 1: It's how the Ronthos battles. People love them. Okay. Uh.
Speaker 1: But if the simultaneous you have another business managing producers,
Speaker 1: you have Bob Rock and Bruce Fairburn, how does that
Speaker 1: come together? Well, Fairburn played for one of my big
Speaker 1: bar bands. Fairburn and I grew up together the same neighborhood.
Speaker 1: He's a couple of years younger and I. He was
Speaker 1: in a bar band called, um, what was it called.
Speaker 1: It's called that did Man because just a bar band.
Speaker 1: And I looked at him and doing these things. And
Speaker 1: he he was a graduate student in town planning, and
Speaker 1: he was he was a smart guy from university. And
Speaker 1: he didn't want to be in the bars plane plane trumpet,
Speaker 1: which he played a tough instrument in the bars. So
Speaker 1: so he wanted to become a producer and actually the
Speaker 1: person records he did first of course, we're the lover
Speaker 1: of some of the lover Boy records and uh, and
Speaker 1: then Bob Rock came in and Bob Rock used to
Speaker 1: deliver the tea bags around it at at the record
Speaker 1: at the in the studio. He used to run around
Speaker 1: and you know, look after things there. And he got
Speaker 1: into a band called the Payolas. I managed. I managed
Speaker 1: the Payolas, and the Payolas couldn't get out of Canada.
Speaker 1: They made a mistake. Is we made a mistake. We
Speaker 1: went down there and Charlie Miner was working the records
Speaker 1: for Am down there, and we gave him a record,
Speaker 1: We gave him the song they could. He could never
Speaker 1: work a band called the Payolas. Okay, Drove he couldn't
Speaker 1: do it. He said, I can't do it. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna do it, blah blah blahs. And Bob want to
Speaker 1: hang on to it. But anyway, that band could only
Speaker 1: goes so far. Okay, they were not a bad band,
Speaker 1: but they didn't have what I knew would break through.
Speaker 1: But I knew Bob Rock, and when he was coming
Speaker 1: out of his engineering thing that I said, I believe
Speaker 1: Bob Rock could be a producer, and I kind of
Speaker 1: made him quit the band and he went into what
Speaker 1: he did now. But he was brought up as an
Speaker 1: engineer with Bruce Fairburn and okay, but you know the
Speaker 1: Fairburn worked with Adam Then all of a Sudden he
Speaker 1: had mega success. He did Slippery when Wet, he did
Speaker 1: Errol Smith. How did that all come together? Well? That
Speaker 1: was that was John Kalander. John Kloner was a big
Speaker 1: fan of what of what Bruce had done with with
Speaker 1: with with some of the records that we've made with
Speaker 1: Loverboy records, especially, I mean John bon Job used to
Speaker 1: come to every Loverboy show when we were out in
Speaker 1: the East co He loved He thought lover Boy is
Speaker 1: fantastic and John Kladner liked it. And Fairburn made that record,
Speaker 1: the first lover Boy record, the second lover Boy record too.
Speaker 1: But he he uh he he got hired by Klauder
Speaker 1: to do Sweat all the bon Jovi records and and
Speaker 1: they were done all the bank, all those Vancouver had
Speaker 1: a great scene that I mean more I talked about it,
Speaker 1: all those acts that came out of there, the producers
Speaker 1: that came out of there, the studios that were there
Speaker 1: and still there today. The warehouse is one of the
Speaker 1: greatest studios in the world. Okay, it's still here. But Fairburn, Fairburn,
Speaker 1: Fairburn was amazing. He could sit there because I used
Speaker 1: to have figure out the budgets. He said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: start this record July fifteenth, and gonna mix it on
Speaker 1: September four, and we'll be finished by and uh first
Speaker 1: of the end of September. And he nailed those all
Speaker 1: the day because he's a planner, and he he and
Speaker 1: he tried. He was with family too, and he said,
Speaker 1: I only worked from you know, at ten o'clock till
Speaker 1: six o'clock and I to go home for dinner. And
Speaker 1: then I coached soccer and he and he and Roxell
Speaker 1: Rockbery had to do a lot of it too, right,
Speaker 1: So he learned it with Fairbor learned business of production
Speaker 1: and uh, okay, he's very successful also. So Fairburn tragically
Speaker 1: dies really very sad. How does Bob get the gig
Speaker 1: with Metallica? They the band called him, and the band
Speaker 1: called him because of some record they'd heard. Who was
Speaker 1: that ahead of Bob? Would Bobbly that ahead of I
Speaker 1: should have sat here? That got Bob. I don't sit
Speaker 1: here and go over my past. I should have had no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you're doing what I should have been sitting here with
Speaker 1: my fucking things. I could say, okay, well, but that
Speaker 1: they heard a record that they were really liked, and
Speaker 1: I think it was I think it was the one
Speaker 1: with John Sykes um like White White White Snake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but was that ahead of him and Metallica? Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: that was a record that they really liked. And how
Speaker 1: he got a call for for to do Metallica and
Speaker 1: he made that that great record. The first record that
Speaker 1: he made was great. And then of course he went
Speaker 1: through that little psychological thing for the other You know, Bob, Bob, Bob,
Speaker 1: Bob has done great records. He's a great producer to
Speaker 1: this day. Okay, you're talking about fairburning budgets when you're
Speaker 1: managing Bob at this point in fairburned back in the
Speaker 1: old day. You can't spell budget, fair rock, you can't stop.
Speaker 1: Those are big battles. Fairburn can spell. Fairburn could get records.
Speaker 1: He knocked him right out. He said, it's gonna cost
Speaker 1: this much, It's gonna cost that much. And so but
Speaker 1: as Bob's manager, how deeply you and do you get
Speaker 1: involved beyond just getting him the gig? Um we do
Speaker 1: we do properly everything for Bob. Um we don't. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, we take get out his money, we collect
Speaker 1: his money, we give him his money. I get my
Speaker 1: commissioned the same thing. It always has and uh, we
Speaker 1: do get him to get him the gigs, and but
Speaker 1: he's now I don't have to get him the gigs.
Speaker 1: I have to answer the phone, big Bob Rock. Bob
Speaker 1: Rock gets called a lot, okay, And it's tough business
Speaker 1: for him now because the budgets that we had in
Speaker 1: Metallica era and and after that and Slippy and um
Speaker 1: sorry not Slippy went and the Motley Crewe records. You know,
Speaker 1: those budgets gone. Now, Bob, it's tough to get a
Speaker 1: big budget. You've got to be able to get the
Speaker 1: records done quicker because they just don't throw that kind
Speaker 1: of money actually anymore. I mean, it's gonna be interesting
Speaker 1: when they do the Booblet records because we have their
Speaker 1: expensive records. There's lots of musicians in their live music,
Speaker 1: and it's it's gonna be interesting coming up for this
Speaker 1: next Booblet record. So tell us the story of Boo Blay.
Speaker 1: Bo Blay was played. I I owned some clubs for
Speaker 1: a while and last for a while, I had bought
Speaker 1: some clubs after I got out of the booking businesses
Speaker 1: more rocked in the menagerement. I had two or three
Speaker 1: clubs and he played in a month in a while,
Speaker 1: he played in a bar called the Georgia Street Bar
Speaker 1: and grill and need to play all the records, all
Speaker 1: the songs he plays today. He played there with a
Speaker 1: trio and stuff like that. Um, he goes to uh,
Speaker 1: he gets a lot. He goes to sing for the
Speaker 1: Prime Minister's daughter's wedding because Foster was at it and
Speaker 1: fostered and said, you'd get this guy. He can sing
Speaker 1: this stuff. And so he came out there and sang
Speaker 1: for the Prime Minister to two or three songs. I was.
Speaker 1: I wasn't there at the time and wasn't involved at
Speaker 1: that time, and the Prime Minister said, Foster, you've got
Speaker 1: to make this do a record for this guy. And
Speaker 1: Foster took it as a challenge and said he would.
Speaker 1: And I had managed David, like I told you before,
Speaker 1: when he's eighteen nineteen, and he he came back and
Speaker 1: started working on this record and unbeknownst to me, and
Speaker 1: he's down the stage making it and uh, probably in
Speaker 1: the record. He phoned me he said, uh, listen, um,
Speaker 1: I'm making this record. I wonder if you'd be interested
Speaker 1: in the artist. He says, he says, you ever heard
Speaker 1: of Michael Booby. I says, yeah, I used to work
Speaker 1: in a cocktail lounge type of thing that I had.
Speaker 1: He said yeah, he said, I'm making this record with
Speaker 1: him and so Reverie. What kind of record are you making?
Speaker 1: I'm making a romance record, a romance record. Why would
Speaker 1: you be making a romance record, Bruce, he says, I
Speaker 1: listen to everything is on radio, there's no romance. People
Speaker 1: always want romance. I'm making this romance record. I said,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. He says, okay. He says, you interested all.
Speaker 1: I says, well, you know, David, you're making the record.
Speaker 1: Of course I got to be interested. He said, well,
Speaker 1: how interested? He says I Abo? I said okay. He said,
Speaker 1: what's gonna take? What's gonna make you go to? I said, well,
Speaker 1: you better send it to me so I can hear it.
Speaker 1: He says, okay, I'll send it up to you. So
Speaker 1: about a week later, up came the record songs and
Speaker 1: listen to the record. Foster makes great records, and and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with it. And I
Speaker 1: but as much as I bet on Randy Backman for
Speaker 1: Backman turn Over Drive, I bet on David Foster because
Speaker 1: he was coming off Josh Groban. I bet on David Foster,
Speaker 1: it's Michael Bobble because he was on a roll a
Speaker 1: bit in that genre. But then I got the record
Speaker 1: and I thought, what do I do with it? How
Speaker 1: do how do we what is this a theater actor?
Speaker 1: I didn't, you know, trying to get a grip of this,
Speaker 1: and I sent it to my send it to Don Fox,
Speaker 1: probably I would bring into America because I know he
Speaker 1: killed for it because he's independent. And I gave it
Speaker 1: to my agent in Europe and they both thought he
Speaker 1: was making a joke. And I said, no, this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a record. I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: record and I Don, I said, Don listen, we're gonna
Speaker 1: put this record out and you're gonna help me with it.
Speaker 1: And I'd like you to help me with it. And
Speaker 1: he said, I don't know, But I just don't know
Speaker 1: what he says, but he says, get the kids singing.
Speaker 1: A kid happen to be in the office, and and
Speaker 1: I says, put him on the phone of me, says
Speaker 1: I want this is Don Fox. Michael, Yeah, Don Fox, Yes,
Speaker 1: I heard you, Don Okay singing returned to me for
Speaker 1: me because Don kind of likes that. Returned to me
Speaker 1: Fox that I think this is fantastic. Okay, So he said, okay, okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and he went to his office. He played the record.
Speaker 1: The office looked at him like he was from Mars
Speaker 1: and says, we're going to try and break this act.
Speaker 1: So I said, he said, let's say you put a
Speaker 1: bunch of shows together, Phoenix, Seattle, small small cities in
Speaker 1: the record results, small cities in uh California, so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, and uh put on put the tickets
Speaker 1: on sale. Remember he phoned me after the first again,
Speaker 1: okay ticket accounts. Here we go Phoenix, Okay, some surplace
Speaker 1: in California, eight Seattle. What does his family drive down?
Speaker 1: You know, like we sit there and I go, okay. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, and he worked at he believed in it.
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden we hit TV. Michael Bubby
Speaker 1: got put on TV. And have that happened? That just
Speaker 1: that the record company pushing We ended up two people
Speaker 1: people of the record company. We're behind us. One person
Speaker 1: who was behind us at that record company who did
Speaker 1: a hell of a job is Liz Rosenberg. And if
Speaker 1: I say, I bring up Lizzard Road. If I bring
Speaker 1: up Liz Rosenberg in front the name, in front of
Speaker 1: any pr person in the world, they know who the
Speaker 1: hell she is and they whoa whoa right, So she
Speaker 1: had some muscle and she muscled us on too, like
Speaker 1: to the day show. And it worked and people say wow,
Speaker 1: you know, and he started to sell records. Who was
Speaker 1: the other person who was behind you at the label? Oh,
Speaker 1: at that time, there's two guys. It was him and
Speaker 1: the the girl who there was a guy who's gone
Speaker 1: Jeremy something who used to work there too. But the guy,
Speaker 1: the product manager, was behind us. So it was Liz
Speaker 1: and him they were and he was but he was
Speaker 1: one of these product managers like to make toys, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll send your stuff. That's Michael right right, right right,
Speaker 1: you know the guys that used to and and and he.
Speaker 1: But then then and of course then another guy or
Speaker 1: who caught it in South Africa was a friend of
Speaker 1: mine now a friend of mine named Dion Singer, and
Speaker 1: he caught it in Toronto in South Africa and started
Speaker 1: to do some stuff over there. So we had these weird,
Speaker 1: weird markets South Africa. The States are starting to warm
Speaker 1: up Canada, Canada. That's your phone, not mine, Canada, Canada,
Speaker 1: because it was because of course he's in Canada. But
Speaker 1: you know it, it's just he did great press. He
Speaker 1: did every time he was on TV. And that's a
Speaker 1: record that was broken, Bob by us doing TV show
Speaker 1: really because then and then the music caught up to
Speaker 1: us and uh, Bob, it's it's unbelievable. And and he
Speaker 1: had you know, and and Foster, Foster did a great
Speaker 1: job us. All those albums that heat, all the albums
Speaker 1: that that David's done with Michael have been very very good.
Speaker 1: And then of course, of course it is a big
Speaker 1: home run with a Christmas album. And you know, as
Speaker 1: as I go into my ninth year now, that Christmas
Speaker 1: album out and your Bob, that's very neat to do
Speaker 1: in the Christmas albums only you only work on for
Speaker 1: about eight weeks max, you know, And that's the biggest
Speaker 1: selling album known in Christmas record history. Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: talk about today. Certainly the business has changed. For fifteen
Speaker 1: years we were arguing about the disruption of the music business.
Speaker 1: That's basically over what do we know? Streaming has paused
Speaker 1: revenues to go up, but generally speaking, the revenues go
Speaker 1: primarily to those at the very top of the Spotify
Speaker 1: top fifty. So as a manager today, what is your
Speaker 1: you know, what is your plan for an act? Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm looking into now. And I think the
Speaker 1: only thing that I'm feeling good about Spotify is that
Speaker 1: I hear and only reading stuff, reading and reading because
Speaker 1: I ever put out a record on Michael for a while.
Speaker 1: Is that the dead generation now fifty plus is going
Speaker 1: over to streaming because they have no option. Now you
Speaker 1: would know that better than me, but that's what I'm told, Okay,
Speaker 1: And I believe that how am you know? In terms
Speaker 1: of breaking the record is one thing, In terms of
Speaker 1: getting paid is another. But keeps Yeah, and so I've
Speaker 1: always I think, you know, it's gonna be interesting how
Speaker 1: how this record is, Well, see the next record, no
Speaker 1: matter what he does. But the one thing I've learned,
Speaker 1: Bob is I can't I don't think I know is
Speaker 1: I can't chase it. I can't sit there and look
Speaker 1: what's getting played on the radio and say, Michael, this
Speaker 1: is we gotta do some of this, we gotta do
Speaker 1: some of that. We have to. I think I believe,
Speaker 1: stay in our lane and do what we do, okay,
Speaker 1: because basically our our life is sensational. Okay, people want
Speaker 1: to see this guy, okay, and we I put on
Speaker 1: ticket sales in in in your in the UK ten
Speaker 1: days ago for this tour we're doing just le around
Speaker 1: with it with called the Stately Home Store. We are
Speaker 1: playing in front of these mansions outside the country in
Speaker 1: England and put our ticket sales on sale in the
Speaker 1: midst of this thing the pandemic and did eighteen thousand
Speaker 1: tickets in two days. Okay. Now he's done. When are they?
Speaker 1: When are these days supposed to play? Post to schedule
Speaker 1: in July August this year? Okay. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: guy who's done in one single run ten nights at
Speaker 1: the O two. Nobody does that then and ended up
Speaker 1: had to split a couple of days. We came back
Speaker 1: and do two more, so twelve nights. Is this guy
Speaker 1: sells tickets around the world, So why should be chasing
Speaker 1: radio because what's my chances there? Michael's forty two years old,
Speaker 1: He's a he's great, great joy, great guy, great singer,
Speaker 1: great performer. Okay, if I can just get good records,
Speaker 1: we'll do fine, our our audience will find us. Okay.
Speaker 1: Will they be buying records, probably not, will be the
Speaker 1: same Alexis play whatever, Probably yes. But I still don't
Speaker 1: want to give up making records because there are there
Speaker 1: is still I think that I believe there's a real
Speaker 1: big market out there for Michael Buble still this day. Okay,
Speaker 1: but let's just say, in general, an act that already
Speaker 1: has a career, how important is the record in terms
Speaker 1: of road business? Where you make the lions share of
Speaker 1: the money, if you're if you if you're if you're
Speaker 1: an act, if you're a heritage act. It's not because
Speaker 1: they're going there to see the songs they want. I
Speaker 1: was out there touring Brian Adams. A bill was Brian
Speaker 1: Adams and and uh and Uh Billy Idol. That audience
Speaker 1: stood up from beginning to end. Fantastic, Okay, they knew
Speaker 1: every song. They don't know what Billy's last albums or
Speaker 1: Brian's okay, but they love to hear those songs. Though
Speaker 1: that generation was brought up with music, music was a
Speaker 1: big part of Bob less tess life. It's a big
Speaker 1: part of mine, Okay. It was a big part of
Speaker 1: Brian's and it was a big part of of of
Speaker 1: of of journeys, or a big part of all all
Speaker 1: the different that all those guys, that was a big
Speaker 1: part of our life. Those acts and those songs, and
Speaker 1: those people still want to hear them. They want to
Speaker 1: hear them. I will guarantee you that they're not gonna
Speaker 1: go and want to go to see Little Punk or
Speaker 1: what these acts are. They're not gonna go see him
Speaker 1: when they're fifty. I don't believe that, Okay. I believe
Speaker 1: our guys will keep coming. And I believe young people
Speaker 1: like our music too. They do. You can see it
Speaker 1: in festivals. You get up there, you put a band
Speaker 1: Brian Adams playing any festival. I can sit him there
Speaker 1: and say, you can bang out ten hits in a row.
Speaker 1: And I don't care who you are, you go whoa boy.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the and that's why did the Eagles
Speaker 1: stay the Eagles. The Eagles can sell tickets anywhere for
Speaker 1: any price. Irving's proved her over and over again. You
Speaker 1: look at hundred bucks, are you insane? I mean I
Speaker 1: went through that ere They're going there and people go
Speaker 1: to see those songs, and those songs my kids have
Speaker 1: sat in my house listening to my music for such
Speaker 1: a long time has become their music, and my daughter
Speaker 1: was down. I had to go to Irving to get
Speaker 1: tickets for that show in Vegas, but you had when
Speaker 1: they had their orchestra there. He loves us and to
Speaker 1: come back homes. He's only but that gimes. She's like
Speaker 1: twenty eight or night. She came back and said, that's
Speaker 1: the best show I've ever seen, you know, and that
Speaker 1: and that's pretty cool. But how do you decide on
Speaker 1: ticket prices for Boo bleyan atoms? Well, Dawn Fox does
Speaker 1: never want anybody to not be able to come, be
Speaker 1: able to buy a ticket. He can't stand some of
Speaker 1: these prices he's seen, and so we have huge arguments
Speaker 1: over that. But we do have to scale the house.
Speaker 1: You know. There's reasons why you can get more money
Speaker 1: at the place. We were out there with nineteen trucks.
Speaker 1: We got out there with thirty six musicians. Okay, this
Speaker 1: isn't cheap. Okay, So I mean we gotta make money,
Speaker 1: we gotta make a living. So the hundred dollar ticket market,
Speaker 1: I thought that Irving was nuts and it's going to
Speaker 1: screw up the business. That's nothing now, so we can
Speaker 1: sell a ticket. Mike can sell a ticket for hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: and he can sell ticket for a hundred fifty bucks
Speaker 1: at a certain place. They can do that and people
Speaker 1: will come because and the one thing you gotta remember,
Speaker 1: you gotta stay in your lane. But guess what, he's
Speaker 1: so lucky. He's the only guy in the lane. Right. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: there's no better business than that, No, I know it.
Speaker 1: So you know if the people he's he's the guy,
Speaker 1: they'll go and see because he can do it. And
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's it's really a battle over over ticket.
Speaker 1: It is with down because he just doesn't believe in
Speaker 1: the high ticket prices. He doesn't like it, okay, but
Speaker 1: he knows he has to be competitive with me. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, could I get more somewhere else? Probably? Is
Speaker 1: that the right thing to do? Maybe, but maybe not
Speaker 1: too because at least bou Blaze Michael spaper stuff stuff
Speaker 1: on it too. Bob. He he didn't want me to
Speaker 1: walk in there and say our top prices two hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to get the phone calls. He doesn't
Speaker 1: want to get people talking to him about it. You know,
Speaker 1: he's doing fine, okay now big topics. I don't know
Speaker 1: how much they affect your market, but in the business
Speaker 1: in general, big topics are the secondary market and the fees.
Speaker 1: What are your takes on those fees for? How which fees? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, ticket fees. Oh well, I got a promoter
Speaker 1: who bashes away at that better than anybody. So I
Speaker 1: I think I've never been I've never had a problem
Speaker 1: because Michael Bobble. First of all, there's a big demand
Speaker 1: from the city, from the town, from the places in
Speaker 1: small markets too, to have Michael Bobble there. We gotta
Speaker 1: get Michael Booble into this building. Okay. You don't have
Speaker 1: to get the ever the everyday rock act in the building.
Speaker 1: We've got to get Michael Boobery here. It's important that
Speaker 1: Michael boober week and that's what we get. So don
Speaker 1: fox when he cuts those deals, I think he does
Speaker 1: a hell of a job. So I don't sit here
Speaker 1: complaining too much about the feast because they already haven't
Speaker 1: affected me. Okay, Because if somebody wants you because they
Speaker 1: need you, because they want to go to get to
Speaker 1: this type of they want to get that crowd in there,
Speaker 1: guess what Michael Booble will come in, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: mean you get read don't need we don't need to
Speaker 1: get raped in pillage by the building. Okay. And that's
Speaker 1: so far it hasn't. Or the ticket thing, I mean,
Speaker 1: Don goes through Ticketmaster. You know, we all sell our
Speaker 1: tickets the same way, but we price our stuff the
Speaker 1: way we want to. Bob, I don't, I don't we
Speaker 1: don't you want to get big fees? I mean, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you go in. You're going, sir, here's what don Don
Speaker 1: sees the Madison Square Garden bill and just about commits suicide. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can sell all the tickets. We want to walk
Speaker 1: out of their fifty grand I mean, it's just the
Speaker 1: way it is. Okay. But where we can go down
Speaker 1: the street, the Barklay Center. Now we can go back
Speaker 1: to Nassau Coliseum, it's done. How we can go to
Speaker 1: Prudential across the river. We do all of them, okay.
Speaker 1: And it's you don't have to go there, but yes,
Speaker 1: you have to go to the Madison Square Garden because
Speaker 1: that's the thing that that's that's the ones you want
Speaker 1: to play in Madison Square Garden. You want to play
Speaker 1: Wembley and you want to play the Buddha Coot. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's great. Now you're a national, worldwide act. But I said,
Speaker 1: I said, he gets mad at me. But I want
Speaker 1: to go to the I don't care what I have
Speaker 1: to pay pay to play the Garden. I want to
Speaker 1: play there because I think it's a must. I think
Speaker 1: it's a stamp. We made. We made a we made
Speaker 1: that deal. Michael Michael Booble meets Madison Square Garden. That
Speaker 1: was a Grammy winning video DVD. And think for and
Speaker 1: because it was. It's a big deal for a guy
Speaker 1: who was play the what's that thing? The Blue in
Speaker 1: New York, The Blue Bird of the Blue, the Little
Speaker 1: Blue Angel. I'm trying to remember what it is, remember
Speaker 1: a little jazz club and he plays that. That's what
Speaker 1: we were playing. That's where I started with him. He
Speaker 1: went to Madison Square Garden. I don't think he believed it.
Speaker 1: He did that and did and he died three four
Speaker 1: nights there. Great, So I don't have I don't have
Speaker 1: big bitches, Bob with prices and what about what's the
Speaker 1: plan with Adams these days? I gotta hear a new record.
Speaker 1: He's all excited about this record. His birthday to day
Speaker 1: so I wished him happy birthday and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: looking forward to hearing your record. But he's done and
Speaker 1: mustie and he says, yeah, the engineer becoming back. I'll
Speaker 1: after quarantine for fourteen days and I'll you know, he
Speaker 1: he'll kind of I'll wait to get it and I'll
Speaker 1: probably have it in a couple of weeks and it'll
Speaker 1: be interesting and the record will be good. But now
Speaker 1: I gotta sit there and say, okay, now, where what
Speaker 1: do we do with this record? How do we have
Speaker 1: how do we promote this? That's gonna be That's gonna
Speaker 1: be something I gotta sit down with and discuss, okay,
Speaker 1: because that it's not the way it used to be.
Speaker 1: And we and I got brought up in a different era,
Speaker 1: and we just it's hard for these artists to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do with this music. But if he
Speaker 1: tours all the time, which he will, and uh, and
Speaker 1: we don't like I mean, I'm glad Billboard. I'm glad
Speaker 1: Billboard took away the buy a ticket, get them c
Speaker 1: D stuff. You know, I'm just I hated that that's
Speaker 1: a fake chart. If you ever saw listen, the chart
Speaker 1: is still fake. It's you know, it's not meaning exactly
Speaker 1: is a magazine come out. Just's like Sports illustrat It's
Speaker 1: not five times a year. I mean what you know,
Speaker 1: I just I never get the magazine. I get the
Speaker 1: Billboard bulletin. But maybe that's the thing. The problem is,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't pay I get it as part
Speaker 1: of Apple News. Plus it's too consumer facing. At this point,
Speaker 1: there's just not enough insider information and it's bad writers
Speaker 1: writing about pop stuff. There's really no insight in it.
Speaker 1: And as far as the charts, the funny thing, of
Speaker 1: course is Pensky now owns them all variety Hollywood reporters,
Speaker 1: Sound Ski and Rolling Stone, and they have to competing
Speaker 1: you know, uh counts. But it's really the industry doesn't
Speaker 1: want an accurate account. They want to manipulate it so
Speaker 1: they can promote. It's like, you know this, I'm a
Speaker 1: Springsteen fan, but they put out a hype He's got
Speaker 1: a new album. He had a top five album in
Speaker 1: the last six decades. Okay, what does that mean? Almost
Speaker 1: no one bought it, almost no one heard it. They're
Speaker 1: like doing it so they can have the publicity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. Anyway, there's all these gimbicks to you know,
Speaker 1: look at that. I mean, I put out the records.
Speaker 1: I've done it with my own acts. Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: We gotta debut this at number one. We gotta put
Speaker 1: our tour at the same time. Every time you buy
Speaker 1: a ticket, you gotta buy the album. The album is included,
Speaker 1: or whatever you do. Bang it is number one, first week,
Speaker 1: number two, it's twenty two, okay, I mean second week.
Speaker 1: I mean that. That's not the way it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Bob's find a debut number one, but you want to
Speaker 1: hang around in the five, in the top five for
Speaker 1: the least a month. Absolutely, And it's not that way
Speaker 1: with certainly the Heritage X. But with Bryan Adams, is
Speaker 1: there a plan he wants to make a record, he
Speaker 1: makes the record. Is there a way to get his
Speaker 1: new music heard? The best way, the best way to
Speaker 1: get it, It's hardest way is via film. Okay. If
Speaker 1: you can get something in a film, it might work.
Speaker 1: If you get something a big TV show, it might work.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a long, long, long shot, okay. And
Speaker 1: you can't stand around waiting for it. He's gonna come
Speaker 1: with a record. He's gonna want that record out and
Speaker 1: he's want to go out. He wants to go out
Speaker 1: there and play it. Brian Adams. We had a deal
Speaker 1: if we put together a deal in Germany two months
Speaker 1: ago where the Merrick Lie we buried. The promoter there
Speaker 1: had made a deal with a city that we were
Speaker 1: going to do a show stadium show with three three
Speaker 1: Germans and Adams, Adams headlining for twelve thousand people in
Speaker 1: seventy five thousand seat soccer stadium. But he wanted to
Speaker 1: get music going again. Everybody got we all got going.
Speaker 1: And I was against it because I I think there's
Speaker 1: a vibe to music. I think there's old vibe to
Speaker 1: be sitting in a car. I think there's no vibe
Speaker 1: in those pens stock pens they made the people stand
Speaker 1: in London in and I don't think there's any vibe
Speaker 1: in sitting there in twelve thousand, five hundred people in
Speaker 1: the seventy five stee stadium. I think it's a terrible thing.
Speaker 1: But he wants to play. So what am I gonna do.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put together other tour. I'm doing it now.
Speaker 1: He'll go and play again. He'll play the new album
Speaker 1: and hopefully hopefully some people will like it and be
Speaker 1: driven to it. But can I really promise, can I
Speaker 1: promise a radio hit bop? I wouldn't say that. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. If I if I went to
Speaker 1: Brian am said I would make this. I'll take this
Speaker 1: top five pop radio. First of all, you think I
Speaker 1: was mad. But he still wants to create. He wants
Speaker 1: to create. This guy is a creator. So I'm there
Speaker 1: to help him do that. He can always tour. He knows,
Speaker 1: he knows that people love those songs, and and and
Speaker 1: and isn't he lucky he's got them? I remember said
Speaker 1: there with Elton John and some private we didn't ball
Speaker 1: rain or someplace like that, and Alton John sat there
Speaker 1: and he said, Brian used to listen as when when
Speaker 1: when When everything I do is hot? He says, Brian,
Speaker 1: you better like that record because you'll be sending it
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life. And you know what,
Speaker 1: He's right, He's right. We have to And I mean,
Speaker 1: and and what's wrong with that, Bob? What's wrong with it? Nothing?
Speaker 1: But it's great that Brian can still put out records
Speaker 1: and people to put them out, and we do. He
Speaker 1: does a good job. On him He's still a great writer.
Speaker 1: And it's just if I said to you and said
Speaker 1: I got a plan, I can know I can put
Speaker 1: this thing top ten, you'd say you're an asset. I mean,
Speaker 1: because we know what we're dealing with. Okay, you're not
Speaker 1: at all. You're a guy's guy. Why is everybody in
Speaker 1: your office, same with Irving? Why is everybody in your
Speaker 1: office a woman? Because they're smarter and they and they
Speaker 1: are better, better, and they work better and then you
Speaker 1: know what they are. They're dedicated to what they do. Okay,
Speaker 1: only they have to do with a woman is hopefully
Speaker 1: I believe this anyways, treat them politely and properly. And
Speaker 1: I go to my girls are tremendously tuned into you
Speaker 1: because the young ages from twenty five some of them.
Speaker 1: So one of my sisters twenty five years old. The
Speaker 1: stuff she knows that I don't know, you know, And
Speaker 1: and and I got my marketing girls probably one of
Speaker 1: the best in the country. I mean, my accountant is
Speaker 1: it's been doing that and looking after these guys money
Speaker 1: or getting our settlements for probably eighteen years. And I
Speaker 1: guess you know what other one other thing, Bob, they
Speaker 1: don't want my job swinging dicks want my job. You
Speaker 1: know that. That's an excellent point. Absolutely, So will you
Speaker 1: ever retire? Do this till you drop? Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm seventy five now, and I don't think so. I think, Bob,
Speaker 1: as long as I'm winning, I'll keep doing it. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got some we got some really cool stuff coming. Okay. Um,
Speaker 1: and not necessarily music all the time. But you know,
Speaker 1: Michael has done very very well with Pepsi and the
Speaker 1: Bubbly thing, you know that, and uh, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of demand for him for that stuff. And and Brian,
Speaker 1: you know, he had that, He had the thing on Broadway,
Speaker 1: Pretty Woman on Broadway and stuff like that. These guys,
Speaker 1: these guys love music. So we I know we can.
Speaker 1: I know we can keep them going. We have a history,
Speaker 1: we have a we have a legacy, okay. And I
Speaker 1: believe as long as you put on good shows and
Speaker 1: give the audience their money's worth, and we could play
Speaker 1: some of the new music to not a problem. That's
Speaker 1: why Michael, Michael is the best deal of all. He
Speaker 1: puts out music anyway exactly, you know. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I just believe you've got a career there, and you
Speaker 1: can keep going. I know Brian does, and you know,
Speaker 1: like Jann Arden, I just took over John Ardens. You know,
Speaker 1: I took over Joann Arden for for for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: basically the girls wandered in the office, you know, because
Speaker 1: she thought he thought would be good. And jan got
Speaker 1: a TV show and just got picked up down in
Speaker 1: US too. She's fifty seven years old, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: break this girl. We're gonna break this girl fifty seven
Speaker 1: years old. Are you kidding? You're gonna break her musically,
Speaker 1: musically and as I know as a celebrity too, as
Speaker 1: a person who's who's a viable artist. Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to break your music. Bruce read the cup. I just
Speaker 1: sent it down. He said he didn't even know this happen.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, Hulu picked up this series
Speaker 1: and the same people did Ships Creak and you know
Speaker 1: Ship's Creek. We're okay, and so this is gonna follow
Speaker 1: and she'll have a massive career. Her book came out.
Speaker 1: Today's the third time and she's had a book out
Speaker 1: the number one in the number one in Canada three
Speaker 1: times in a row. Now they're moving it down to
Speaker 1: the States. Do you watch what will happen fifty seven
Speaker 1: years old? Are you fucking kidding me? And it's it's
Speaker 1: a real I'm really proud of it. Okay. And I
Speaker 1: got the call from Bob Rock to help him out
Speaker 1: with the Offspring. We got involved with the Offspring, Okay,
Speaker 1: I did, Bob. Bob's making these records. Nobody's helping the
Speaker 1: records are going to dine in the ditch. Okay. So
Speaker 1: he says, Bruce, come on, he helped me help out
Speaker 1: the boys. I don't. I don't know the Offspring music
Speaker 1: that well, but people in the office knew it, okay.
Speaker 1: And I said, let's given a shot on you know,
Speaker 1: I met Dexter and and uh and I'm preay quite
Speaker 1: excited about it. I never thought i'd work in a
Speaker 1: band again. I did. I didn't want to work in
Speaker 1: a band again. I don't want to argue with a
Speaker 1: bunch of guys. But you know, Randy Bursticks carrying the
Speaker 1: ball on that and other people in my office. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm doing what I can do, but you know, these
Speaker 1: I'm winning. As long as I keep winning, I think
Speaker 1: I'll stay in it. What is that is? Is that unreasonable?
Speaker 1: Not whatsoever? I don't plan to retire as all. I've
Speaker 1: got my faculties, but I just know your personality. I
Speaker 1: was setting it up, and I don't see how you
Speaker 1: don't continue to win. As you say, you know, Boo
Speaker 1: Bleat and the Atoms, they can sell tickets till they
Speaker 1: don't want to work anymore. Oh yeah, But I mean,
Speaker 1: but also, you know, it forces guys like me, the
Speaker 1: situation we're in with radio, in the situation we're in
Speaker 1: in our business, it's it's it forces me and my
Speaker 1: people here to look elsewhere to do stuff. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff out there. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that can be done, and and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do some of them, and I kind of enjoy it,
Speaker 1: you know. But you also you also tell me a
Speaker 1: couple of times we've been together, and you go, I'm thinking, Bob,
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, and you're coming up with ideas. You're
Speaker 1: not someone I mean, you're essentially in the business all
Speaker 1: the time. You're not taking a vacation and check it out. No, no,
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean, I I love what I do,
Speaker 1: and Bob, but I know, I know, I understand why
Speaker 1: guys leave. Okay, I understand why guys get out of
Speaker 1: the business, and uh, it's management. You care about the
Speaker 1: bubbler like kids. I care about these guys. Okay, I said,
Speaker 1: I got out to see Martina McBride and because Joe
Speaker 1: Galante his wife died, had to go to the and
Speaker 1: been to back to Nashville. Since I left and I
Speaker 1: saw John and Martina. It broke me down like a
Speaker 1: twelve year old. Okay's crying because you know, I can't
Speaker 1: hate the person. It just didn't work. Okay. We told
Speaker 1: a lot of records. We want everything. It was to win.
Speaker 1: But I mean, you're involved with these people. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's important. That's why you say you've got a
Speaker 1: contract with Bubble. You know, you got a contract with
Speaker 1: the Offspring. No, you got a contract with Bob. No
Speaker 1: you got a contract? No, no, no, Okay, because but
Speaker 1: I've never got to the point where I said this
Speaker 1: is funny. I gotta get out of here. Okay, are
Speaker 1: they never have? We failed? I failed and had to
Speaker 1: go on. There's no sense. I know when sometimes when
Speaker 1: I can't can't keep doing it. So I'm not going
Speaker 1: to break this act or didn't work, The thing doesn't
Speaker 1: somehow doesn't work. I can leave and walk away and
Speaker 1: said the best I can. But isn't it a lot better,
Speaker 1: Bob than then? Okay, remember I got you guys signed
Speaker 1: for life. Now, every time that song gets played, I
Speaker 1: want to make sure I'm gonna check your Come on, man,
Speaker 1: fuck this, I did you know? I don't do that, Martin.
Speaker 1: I shook. I phoned her up and and when I quit,
Speaker 1: and I never I didn't ask for a sunset clause.
Speaker 1: Sunset fuck you know we did all right altogether, That's
Speaker 1: what I believe. Okay. Now, it used to be a
Speaker 1: very unitary business where there was one chart, everybody knew
Speaker 1: the same songs, and all the business has been completely flattened.
Speaker 1: So do you feel okay, I'm in the atoms business,
Speaker 1: I'm in the art and is I'm the offspring business.
Speaker 1: And what's happening in Billboard, what's happening and who's running
Speaker 1: the labels is an interesting thing, but it's not really
Speaker 1: me anymore. I'd love to go, I go. I love
Speaker 1: to go talk. I love talking to record company people, Bob,
Speaker 1: because in the in the end, a lot of them
Speaker 1: that I talked to, and if I talked to Tom
Speaker 1: corson Okay, and if I talked to UH, if I
Speaker 1: talked to the guys at Universal, or if I talked
Speaker 1: to Reznikov, or I talked to these guys, I have
Speaker 1: to work with their their music guys. Bob, there's music guys.
Speaker 1: I said. There was Paul Kremin over there at UH
Speaker 1: at the label, and he's a music guy. They know music,
Speaker 1: they talked. They still love it. Okay, they're they're forced
Speaker 1: to work where they gotta work, but they still like music.
Speaker 1: And I so I I don't have any problem. You know.
Speaker 1: When I talked to guys in Land, Tony Harlow over
Speaker 1: there who runs runs it over in the UK, and
Speaker 1: and Max Maxwell Soda and stuff like that, they're really
Speaker 1: notedgable music guys that they they don't think anybody likes
Speaker 1: particularly likes where the business is right now, except except
Speaker 1: the money that comes in and the money they make
Speaker 1: and the bonuses and the bullshit they do. They like
Speaker 1: it for that. But sure, every guy, every guy I
Speaker 1: have talked to in the business says the same. You
Speaker 1: know what, Bruce, It's a great business, but just isn't
Speaker 1: fun like it used to be. That's what they say.
Speaker 1: Every guy who's like sixty or fifty five. You know,
Speaker 1: that's what they say, and I think that's right. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm lucky that I got great artists and I get
Speaker 1: writing the creative thing. I said, So, I'm kind of lucky.
Speaker 1: I don't have to work. Should I don't want to work? Okay,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just different. Okay, Just a couple more
Speaker 1: things for those who aren't informed. You know, you're a
Speaker 1: guy living in Vancouver, but your acts are international acts
Speaker 1: from the you know, certainly going to Canada many a time.
Speaker 1: What stuns me in Canada is everybody knows everybody, okay,
Speaker 1: and it's like a high school and if you raise
Speaker 1: your head too high, they want to tear you down, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But where is Canada's place in the world market today?
Speaker 1: And what is the difference between Canada and it certainly
Speaker 1: United States? Well, the different the difference in Canada is
Speaker 1: I think his status probably the top five countries and
Speaker 1: people want to break I think that's one of the
Speaker 1: top five countries. Um as far as as far as musically,
Speaker 1: I think we're trying to find our way again, okay,
Speaker 1: but there has been some stuff out of here. You
Speaker 1: stand there and say, oh, Drake, um Bieber. Oh what's
Speaker 1: the kid's name? Sean Mendez? Oh boy Weekend? Who come on? Man?
Speaker 1: That Toronto seems really booming now. Used to be all
Speaker 1: out of the west. Okay, the Toronto guys stayed in Toronto.
Speaker 1: They can run around the Golden Triangle out there and
Speaker 1: to make money. They didn't have to go with me.
Speaker 1: I had my next stop after Vancouver was Calgary. Seattle
Speaker 1: was closer. So I mean, you know, I I try
Speaker 1: to I work north south. Those guys are used to
Speaker 1: working back there for the longest time, just in that triangle.
Speaker 1: But those guys, those people behind those acts, they've done
Speaker 1: a great job. And I think I think Canada has
Speaker 1: got a place in the map. I remember there's three
Speaker 1: songs on the top five in the were Canadian. Okay,
Speaker 1: you sing Celindy on you're throwing some of these people,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's it's it's a booming music country. Really,
Speaker 1: there's just not enough people here to sustain you know
Speaker 1: that there's not enough. You can't sell enough here. It's
Speaker 1: but it's it's a great I mean, I know you
Speaker 1: enjoy yourself when you come up here. You know, people
Speaker 1: talk about Canada and they talk about the health and
Speaker 1: I moved to Canada in a minute. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like it's a better life than living in the United States.
Speaker 1: The people just haven't been there. I mean, that's typical Americans.
Speaker 1: They haven't been outside of the United States, never mind
Speaker 1: just into Canada. But speaking of the United States, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people up north who were snowbirds.
Speaker 1: You you are a little bit different. You have a
Speaker 1: place in the South, but not in Florida and not
Speaker 1: in Arizona. Can you just tell us a little bit.
Speaker 1: I have a place in Las Vegas. And the reason
Speaker 1: I have a place in Las Vegas is I just
Speaker 1: need I thought I should. It's the right thing to do.
Speaker 1: A big fight fan. I go to the fights a
Speaker 1: lot down there. Uh my girlfriend, the photographers, she likes
Speaker 1: to go out there and and take pictures in that
Speaker 1: area and stuff like that. And but basically when I
Speaker 1: went to she sat there, we looked around, did the
Speaker 1: typical Vancouver thing. Let's go to home. Why we'll get
Speaker 1: a place in a way. Everybody's got a place in
Speaker 1: a way. Okay. We went over there ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. Okay, Okay, then she said,
Speaker 1: let's go okay, let's try Palm Springs. Palm Space for
Speaker 1: me is for old people, okay, and I'm old. Actually
Speaker 1: I shouldn't even say that. But there's nothing happening there either,
Speaker 1: and I don't go. Okay. So then we tried Phoenix.
Speaker 1: This is what Canadians do. So I went to Phoenix
Speaker 1: and I didn't like it. Then she said, why don't
Speaker 1: we try Las Vegas? And I know she had to
Speaker 1: grit her teeth and say, why don't we try Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: I went up to Las Vegas and Dr Paul Anko
Speaker 1: who guided me through where the livers or stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and uh, ended up in Las Vegas. And I love
Speaker 1: going to Las Vegas. Okay, great, great, great, great restaurants,
Speaker 1: lots to go on, and got a hockey team there. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean they're coming to me now. They got a
Speaker 1: hockey team there. Now, they got pro football there. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, why would you not live in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: I I look at people live in California, say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you're paying this kind of taxes. Why you
Speaker 1: drive across the border and live in Las Vegas? Everything
Speaker 1: is there. They got just as good restaurants as you've
Speaker 1: got in Los Angeles, California. How often you're there pre COVID.
Speaker 1: I'm not there now. I haven't been there since March.
Speaker 1: But I tried to hit. I tried to hit about
Speaker 1: sixty days a year. And here's the other thing about
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Palm Sphinx doesn't happen is Phoenix, Las Vegas
Speaker 1: and Southwest Airlines is direct. Las Vegas as a city
Speaker 1: is direct anywhere, NonStop to London, nonstopped to Germany. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: perfect for me. It's a business decision. So Bruce, we
Speaker 1: certainly know you're a man of opinions and you're not
Speaker 1: afraid to express them, and you certainly have done that
Speaker 1: on the radio in Vancouver for years and years. What
Speaker 1: is your take on the world situation? For those people
Speaker 1: who don't know, Certainly we have we have an election
Speaker 1: going on right now. As we do this, we don't
Speaker 1: know the exact results. Let's not talk about those right now. However,
Speaker 1: the US has moved towards the right, Canada has always
Speaker 1: started much further to the left front than the United States.
Speaker 1: What is your take on politics in the world today? Well,
Speaker 1: I said there's a lot, there's a lot of we
Speaker 1: see it above. A lot of populist politics going on
Speaker 1: in a lot of places, um, you know in America's
Speaker 1: of course one of them, with a lot with Trump
Speaker 1: in there. Um. But there's also I think what I
Speaker 1: find more most interesting is young people getting involved in
Speaker 1: politics now and actually making some changes. Okay, the youth
Speaker 1: are gonna have to be are going to be served again,
Speaker 1: you know. I got I watched the uh Chicago seven
Speaker 1: movie and that I think, Bob, is that right? Okay?
Speaker 1: And I watched that movie and I sat there and
Speaker 1: I said to my girl, said, that's the last time
Speaker 1: that I ever saw protests work in the United States.
Speaker 1: And I said, Plus, I said, the music that came
Speaker 1: out of there was unbelievable. Some girl gets shot in
Speaker 1: Kent State, and and and and this guy's got a
Speaker 1: song on the radio about it five days, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I mean, music was really involved in
Speaker 1: that stuff. And Uh, I think that I think the
Speaker 1: future lies with the young people. I really do. I
Speaker 1: think they're going to clean up the environment. You know,
Speaker 1: they're there. They're not gonna have the same arguments that
Speaker 1: we our generation has right now, and it's it's disappointing
Speaker 1: to me, So you're still as excited as you always were.
Speaker 1: Yeah about the business in life. I make business of
Speaker 1: life or the business of the business, business and life. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm stone, col healthy, touch wood, Okay I am,
Speaker 1: and uh I'm going to the gym now more and
Speaker 1: they ever do do because you know what, COVID drove
Speaker 1: me to the gym. Okay, I'm on the road all
Speaker 1: the time. Now I'm going to the gym three times
Speaker 1: a week for the trainer. I can't believe it how
Speaker 1: it's changed me. Okay, I'm eating better. Okay, So I
Speaker 1: this is the kind of COVID worked for me for
Speaker 1: that and uh, I think that UH as excited. I mean,
Speaker 1: I sit there. I know I said it five times
Speaker 1: to you today. The jan Arden project for me has
Speaker 1: been wonderful to watch that happen. Okay, And and I
Speaker 1: hope that there will be other things that that I'll
Speaker 1: be doing happen. I got some pretty cool things coming
Speaker 1: with bou bleg that they're different for me, just different.
Speaker 1: I'm learning and that's great if I can keep learning
Speaker 1: because I've done you know, people say to me, what
Speaker 1: what do you what do you have to prove You've
Speaker 1: done everything I want. Why are you go? Enjoy yourself?
Speaker 1: And I enjoyed myself sitting here. Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: And on that note, Bruce, thanks so much for doing this.
Speaker 1: You know we skimmed the top. We could go on
Speaker 1: for days. You're a fountain of information and knowledge, and
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this. Thank you, Bob, enjoy
Speaker 1: to enjoy the hell over it. Next time? Do I
Speaker 1: want to have all my albums in front of me
Speaker 1: so I get the goddamn peats right? Okay, until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left sense