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Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen. Uh, it's another beautiful week upon us.

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Speaker 2: My name is Quest Love and this is Music We Paradise,

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Speaker 2: otherwise known as Quest Love Supreme.

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Speaker 1: I'm joined here by Fon Tikolo. What's up? Man? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: What's going on?

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Speaker 1: Man?

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Speaker 4: I never thought we would get this interview and being real,

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Speaker 4: I know this is real.

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Speaker 1: This is a major league shit. I know this as well.

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Speaker 5: Just get giddy, when get giddy and Steve, get giddy, Steve.

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Speaker 1: We did it. We did it, Ladies and gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: Nothing excites me more than when I get to pick

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Speaker 2: the brains of.

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Speaker 1: A fellow Philadelphia.

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Speaker 2: Yehe like, what what can I say about our yesterday?

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Speaker 2: He's an absolutely he He's an unsung creative maniac.

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Speaker 1: That's what I'll say.

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Speaker 2: He's an unsung creative maniac, excelling and songwriting and production

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Speaker 2: and engineering and especially engineering with techniques and ideas that

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Speaker 2: were planet seated and plant over fifty years ago that

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Speaker 2: we're just starting to referral even to this day.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think it's it's a hyperbolic for

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Speaker 1: me to say that.

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Speaker 2: You know, Todd probably crawled so that artists like Radiohead

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Speaker 2: and Prints and thunder Cat and all stops in between

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Speaker 2: can fly. He pushes the artistic envelope that, to me

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Speaker 2: is a major understatement. His achievements are it's just beyond description.

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Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, stop laughing at me, Steve, I'm very

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Speaker 2: excited for this episode. Please welcome the endless flow of

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Speaker 2: creation and human form known to us mere mortals as

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Speaker 2: Todd run Grit, Shut up, Steve.

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Speaker 1: All right, yes, all right.

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Speaker 6: To say it.

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Speaker 3: Leave now, you know, Steve, It's it's all downhill from here.

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Speaker 1: You know, let me tell you something about sugar Steve.

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Speaker 2: He will remain silent on everything except for the proper

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Speaker 2: mispronunciation of your name.

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Speaker 1: He will Yeah, there there, there are.

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Speaker 2: Receipts from giving tickets to anyone that's ever butchered your name.

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Speaker 1: No, that's run grit like he's leg still not right,

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Speaker 1: not right, he got.

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Speaker 7: It, He got it right on time.

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Speaker 3: There, No, Steve corrected me.

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Speaker 1: Like ten years ago, I used to say run run grin,

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Speaker 1: like do run run grid.

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Speaker 8: No, it's run grin. And there was a period where

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Speaker 8: I say run grinnen, but it's run grin.

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Speaker 9: So there was a period. Yeah, let it, let us

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Speaker 9: have Steve all right? Yeah, Uh, how how are you?

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Speaker 9: And uh where where are you right now?

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Speaker 1: Sir?

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Speaker 3: I'm at home in Kawhi and I'm doing quite well.

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Speaker 3: We haven't had a case here in like six eight

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Speaker 3: weeks of the deadly grown virus, so we're just waiting

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Speaker 3: for the rest of the world to clean up. And

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Speaker 3: I'm back on the road again.

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Speaker 1: I see, so you're kind of enjoying your.

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Speaker 3: Well, I don't get on. I never get this kind

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Speaker 3: of time at home, and so I'm feeling a little

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Speaker 3: bit guilty about having all the time. But then again,

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Speaker 3: so much stuff has piled up in my life that

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Speaker 3: I don't get to properly address that. I'm actually enjoying

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Speaker 3: this freedom for the time being.

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Speaker 4: As most of your time spent is it in on

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Speaker 4: the road or like how much of your time is

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Speaker 4: spent between like traveling and studio recording.

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Speaker 3: Well, a while ago, I would say within the last

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Speaker 3: five years, I would be out as much as ten

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Speaker 3: months on the road because I'd be doing my thing.

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Speaker 3: I would be playing Ringo Star and then there's all

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Speaker 3: the other little odd things that get thrown there, and

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Speaker 3: you know, sometimes I'll go out on a tour to

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Speaker 3: tribute an artist, like I've been out on tours a

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Speaker 3: tribute David Bowie, and I'll be doing that again, I

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Speaker 3: think in November. If everything goes well with the various

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Speaker 3: things that I do, I would get maybe ten days

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Speaker 3: at home at a time and then be gone for

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Speaker 3: a month and a half another ten days at home then,

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Speaker 3: so yeah, I'm settling in.

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Speaker 2: Can I assume that, okay, that this is probably the

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Speaker 2: longest extended time that you've taken off from working, and

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Speaker 2: if so, are you sort of recharging your creative juices?

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Speaker 2: Because I'm often curious as to how, like serious creatives

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Speaker 2: that I know, how are they using this time off,

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Speaker 2: Like are they using this time to absolutely do nothing?

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Speaker 1: Are they? And there's time so.

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Speaker 2: That they can get more inspiration to create things, because

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Speaker 2: oftentimes it's like once you put out your first record,

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Speaker 2: then you're in a cyclone of you got to promote

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Speaker 2: the tour it and whatever free time you have, that's

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Speaker 2: where you document the new ideas, and then you make

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Speaker 2: your second record, repeat rents, repeat rents, repeat rents, and

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Speaker 2: then once you have eight albums under your belt, then

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Speaker 2: you're just in a constant touring swoop, so there's really

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Speaker 2: not time to just sit in silence and create. Like,

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Speaker 2: how are you getting your creative creative juices off?

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Speaker 3: Well, I have an unusual creative process in that I

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Speaker 3: don't do what looks externally like a whole lot of work.

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Speaker 3: Most of the work that I do is internally, just

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Speaker 3: you know, hashing through little musical ideas in the midst

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Speaker 3: of doing another collaboration record. As a matter of fact,

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Speaker 3: there's going to be a song with the Roots on it.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I actually premiered it already. I did a

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Speaker 3: radio show for somebody and I played Godiva Girl. But

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Speaker 3: I'm doing collaborations and I was you know, I was

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Speaker 3: supposed to sort of deliver earlier in the year, but

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Speaker 3: the problem is that everyone's kind of stuck at home,

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Speaker 3: so nobody can get in the studio to finish up

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Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that I've been working on

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Speaker 3: so lately, you know, from a creative standpoint, I've been

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Speaker 3: doing these collaborations, which allow me to work more with

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Speaker 3: other people's ideas than just always coming up with something myself.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't mean I won't go back to that, but

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Speaker 3: this kind of solitude and silence is like what I

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Speaker 3: need to be able to write because of the fact

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Speaker 3: that it's such an insular and mental process for me.

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Speaker 3: It's like I'll be thinking about what I'm going to do,

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Speaker 3: and then when I finally get down to finishing a song,

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Speaker 3: I'll come up with like the melody and lyrics in

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Speaker 3: twenty minutes, almost like automatic writing, Like my handle just

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Speaker 3: start writing out lyrics and I won't even have to

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Speaker 3: hardly think about it. So yeah, it's just kind of

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Speaker 3: I've let my subconscioence take over a lot of the work,

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Speaker 3: and then when it's time to actually create, it just

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Speaker 3: kind of spills out.

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Speaker 4: What would you say is your primary instrument? Because I

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Speaker 4: know you pretty much play everything, but what's your primary

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Speaker 4: instrument did you use to compose on when you get

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Speaker 4: those ideas?

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Speaker 3: Well? Keyboard is it is the principal I guess idea

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Speaker 3: musical idea creation tool because you've got like all the

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Speaker 3: notes laid out linearly in front of you. But that

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Speaker 3: doesn't mean that you know the limitations of like the

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Speaker 3: guitar aren't also something that's sort of inspirational. There are

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Speaker 3: sounds and sort of tonalities that the guitar creates that

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Speaker 3: you know, work with certain sort of vocal themes and

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Speaker 3: stuff like that. And of course, you know, Norwegian death

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Speaker 3: metal would be nothing if it had to play nothing

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Speaker 3: but piano on it. So, but from a compositional standpoint,

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Speaker 3: I actually sort of I have always considered the studio

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Speaker 3: itself sort of a composition tool, because I very early

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Speaker 3: on built one for myself in the belief that the

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Speaker 3: ideas could happen anytime, and you don't want to, you know,

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Speaker 3: have to wait to get into the studio. And conversely,

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Speaker 3: if you're in the studio and you're making good progress,

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Speaker 3: you don't want to have to get out and make

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Speaker 3: room for somebody else. So the studio itself sort of

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Speaker 3: became the creative tool because you lay down something, you

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Speaker 3: get to hear it back right away and decide whether

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Speaker 3: it works or not.

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Speaker 7: And what's the don't skip over the most important thing

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Speaker 7: that he basically just said, engineers make the best artists.

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Speaker 1: Studio. You know what I'm saying, Yes.

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Speaker 3: I know what is the That's why I kicked out

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Speaker 3: the engineer that I had when I first got into

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Speaker 3: the studio. Did my first production exactly never mind never mind,

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Speaker 3: I think it was well, it was The first time

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Speaker 3: I engineered was a band from Philadelphia called the American Dream.

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Speaker 3: It was a brand new record plant studio and they

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Speaker 3: had a custom board and nobody in the studio actually

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Speaker 3: knew how to use it. So I just got frustrated

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Speaker 3: watching one of the engineers fumble around on it. I said, well,

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Speaker 3: I don't want to just watch him learn how to

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Speaker 3: do it. I'll just learn how to do it myself.

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Speaker 3: And subsequently it changed the way the whole way that

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Speaker 3: I approached production because I could assume that the sound

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Speaker 3: was there because I knew enough about the engineering that

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Speaker 3: I you know, if you put the MIC's in the

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Speaker 3: right place and that sort of thing, you don't have

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Speaker 3: to do a whole lot of messing around, and then

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Speaker 3: you can assume the sound is there and then focus

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Speaker 3: on the musical part of it, on the performance and whatever,

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Speaker 3: you know, kind of details that you want to put

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Speaker 3: into the music. So it made the ex sperience, you know,

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Speaker 3: for the most part of working with a band a

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Speaker 3: lot different, because, you know, productions in the old days,

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Speaker 3: you get in the studio and you spend the first

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Speaker 3: entire day just getting drum sounds, you know, or something

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Speaker 3: like that. You know, and then the next day guitar sounds.

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Speaker 1: You know, what's the percentage of.

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Speaker 2: Or at least like from from from zero to one

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Speaker 2: hundred of the idea that's inside of your head being

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Speaker 2: perfectly executed once you put it on tape.

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Speaker 3: Very rarely, But that's because I don't often have that intention.

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Speaker 3: I don't have the intention necessarily to completely craft something

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Speaker 3: in my head and then try and imprint it onto

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Speaker 3: the tape. I'm really, as I say, I'm exploring in

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Speaker 3: a way, I'm fumbling around. I often when I'm starting

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Speaker 3: a new record, I'll go out and do a lot

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Speaker 3: of musical research, like I'll ask my kids, you know,

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Speaker 3: what are you listening to? Or what do you think

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Speaker 3: I should listen to? Then go on YouTube and start

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Speaker 3: poking around, and then there's the sidebar. You start out

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Speaker 3: one place and before you know it, you're in a

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Speaker 3: whole other place.

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Speaker 1: You rabbit hole yourself.

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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, but that's you know. I mean that. I

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Speaker 3: really enjoy that because you discover things that aren't in

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Speaker 3: the mainstream, which to me is the whole point of

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Speaker 3: the Internet, is that everyone gets a platform. Of course,

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Speaker 3: not everyone deserves it. Not everyone deserves it. You know,

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Speaker 3: and you know, some people are easier to find, but

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Speaker 3: it essentially took the music business and flattened it, you know.

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Speaker 3: In other words, there's no or very little price of

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Speaker 3: admission to participate anymore. All you got to do is

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Speaker 3: get yourself a laptop, you know, at a website.

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Speaker 1: In the world's your oyster? What part of Upper Derby

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Speaker 1: did you grow up in?

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Speaker 3: I grew up in the very western part of Upper

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Speaker 3: Derby and a brand new post war row housing development,

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Speaker 3: a familiar kind of housing in the Philadelphia area and

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Speaker 3: Delaware and stuff like that Row Houses, which is essentially

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Speaker 3: like an apartment building that fell down. Every house looked

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Speaker 3: exactly the same. It was like one of these Levittown situations.

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Speaker 3: But it was very lower middle class, so you know,

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Speaker 3: I had to share for my entire life that I

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Speaker 3: lived at home a bedroom with my brother and my

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Speaker 3: two sisters shared a bedroom.

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Speaker 1: Okay, how many? How many siblings?

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Speaker 3: Again, I have a brother and two sisters.

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Speaker 1: Did they have musical interest in what as well? Or

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Speaker 1: was it just you?

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Speaker 3: Not? Really?

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Speaker 6: No.

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Speaker 3: When I was in elementary school, we used to have

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Speaker 3: a program where you could rent an instrument, and every

228
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Speaker 3: week or so, somebody would come and give you a

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Speaker 3: lesson that wasn't like a band or anything. But I,

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Speaker 3: for some reason, thought I wanted to play the flute

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Speaker 3: when I was like wow, when I was like eight

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Speaker 3: or nine something like that. You know, I just liked

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Speaker 3: the sound of it. But when I actually got it,

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Speaker 3: I didn't realize what a nonlinear instrument it was. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's very difficult to learn, and plus when you're young,

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Speaker 3: it's difficult to get your mouth to the umbusure, to

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Speaker 3: get your mouth to do the right thing. So my

238
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Speaker 3: sister she got a clarinet, and I actually learned to

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Speaker 3: play that way better than I learned to play the flute,

240
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Speaker 3: and she never learned to play it at all. So,

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Speaker 3: you know, I learned how to play Too Strange on

242
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Speaker 3: the Shore by mister Ackerbilk, and that thrilled my dad,

243
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Speaker 3: you know, because he was into that kind of easy

244
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Speaker 3: listening stuff. But when I first heard I think it

245
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Speaker 3: was walk Don't Run by the Ventures. That's when I

246
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Speaker 3: knew guitar was what I wanted to play.

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Speaker 2: Was that the first album that you purchased or like,

248
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Speaker 2: do you remember the first album you ever had?

249
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Speaker 3: Yeah? The first album that well, the first album that

250
00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:58,560
Speaker 3: I ever purchased was like a cut out of a

251
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Speaker 3: cutout bin and it was I'll be like sixty nine

252
00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:05,960
Speaker 3: cents and it was called Boppin' and a bunch of

253
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Speaker 3: artists that you've never heard of. Actually, years later I

254
00:14:11,480 --> 00:14:14,240
Speaker 3: did find run across a few of the artists, Like

255
00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:18,160
Speaker 3: if you go on YouTube, you can actually find performances

256
00:14:18,200 --> 00:14:21,760
Speaker 3: by Dike Watson and the Brown Dots. It was just

257
00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:27,160
Speaker 3: an odd collection of weird fifties rock and roll, proto

258
00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:30,280
Speaker 3: rock and roll, a lot of it. And it was

259
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Speaker 3: still before the Beatles, so I didn't have a whole

260
00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:36,080
Speaker 3: lot of discrimination. I just knew that I was not

261
00:14:36,200 --> 00:14:39,080
Speaker 3: into Elvis Presley because he was a greaser and the

262
00:14:39,120 --> 00:14:42,000
Speaker 3: greasers like to beat me up. So I had no

263
00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:43,880
Speaker 3: interest in Elvis Presley whatever.

264
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Speaker 1: So you weren't the cool kids.

265
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Speaker 3: You like the loaner, Oh, the trouble loaner. Definitely, the

266
00:14:49,320 --> 00:14:52,080
Speaker 3: troubled loaner. Yeah, it was one of those things. I

267
00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,360
Speaker 3: had terrible add or whatever it is. They didn't know

268
00:14:55,400 --> 00:14:57,360
Speaker 3: what that was in those days. It was just an

269
00:14:57,400 --> 00:15:00,360
Speaker 3: unruly child. And you know, no matter what where I

270
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Speaker 3: started out in the classroom in the beginning of the year,

271
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Speaker 3: by you know, the end of the first semester, I'm

272
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Speaker 3: in the very back row because I'm creating distraction and

273
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Speaker 3: stuff like that, and I just was I was never

274
00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:18,320
Speaker 3: meant for that kind of that kind of discipline that

275
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Speaker 3: school required. So everything I ever learned, I learned after

276
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Speaker 3: I left school.

277
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Speaker 2: So what was the what was the moment where you

278
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Speaker 2: decided that this is this is my destiny, this is

279
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Speaker 2: my my my moment in.

280
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Speaker 3: Music, Well, I had a high school band, and as

281
00:15:38,400 --> 00:15:41,200
Speaker 3: previously cited, I did so terribly in high school that

282
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,360
Speaker 3: there was no possibility of me going to college. It

283
00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:46,520
Speaker 3: would only have been possible if I had landed some

284
00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:49,920
Speaker 3: kind of scholarship anyway, because my dad didn't make that

285
00:15:50,040 --> 00:15:56,120
Speaker 3: much money. And so after high school graduation, which was

286
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:59,320
Speaker 3: just around my eighteenth birthday. On my eighteenth birthday, I

287
00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:03,360
Speaker 3: packed all my worldly goods into a typewriter case. At

288
00:16:03,360 --> 00:16:06,520
Speaker 3: that point, I didn't even have a guitar anymore, and

289
00:16:06,600 --> 00:16:10,240
Speaker 3: I left home and went to meet a friend of

290
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:12,640
Speaker 3: mine who was a drummer and we were going to

291
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:15,280
Speaker 3: start a band, and he was supposedly in Ocean City,

292
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Speaker 3: So I got on a bus. It was my eighteenth birthday,

293
00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:19,440
Speaker 3: so the first thing I did is I went to

294
00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:22,680
Speaker 3: sixty ninth Street, right across from the sixty nine Street

295
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:28,880
Speaker 3: station and registered for the draft. Wow and yikes, yeah, yikes.

296
00:16:29,080 --> 00:16:31,320
Speaker 3: And then I got on a bus to Ocean City

297
00:16:31,720 --> 00:16:33,920
Speaker 3: and met up with this guy. Well, I didn't meet

298
00:16:33,960 --> 00:16:37,160
Speaker 3: up with him right away because apparently he and he

299
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:39,760
Speaker 3: was hanging out with some guys who were stealing park

300
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:43,120
Speaker 3: benches and hiding them in their garage in Ocean City,

301
00:16:43,160 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 3: And so I had to find a place to stay

302
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Speaker 3: overnight till he had his court date the next day.

303
00:16:50,880 --> 00:16:54,120
Speaker 1: And then wait, why would they steal park benches.

304
00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:56,800
Speaker 3: In Ocean City. This is in nineteen sixty six.

305
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Speaker 1: You just did anything, okay, yeah, yeah.

306
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:02,320
Speaker 3: And so you know, I went to his house with

307
00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,800
Speaker 3: him and his parents. A couple of days later, we

308
00:17:04,840 --> 00:17:09,000
Speaker 3: went to see The Birds and the Shadows of Night

309
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:12,639
Speaker 3: at a summerstock tent little concert thing. So it was

310
00:17:12,680 --> 00:17:15,520
Speaker 3: the Birds. They were big on radio, The Shadows of

311
00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:20,040
Speaker 3: Night they had a hit, and a local band called

312
00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:23,960
Speaker 3: Woody's Truck Stop. Okay, we were kind of excited to

313
00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:27,879
Speaker 3: see them because I knew about them through seeing a

314
00:17:27,920 --> 00:17:30,520
Speaker 3: picture one of the guitar player. One of the guitar

315
00:17:30,600 --> 00:17:34,399
Speaker 3: players in. It might have been Time magazine or something,

316
00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:38,440
Speaker 3: because he grew his hair long and beat the system

317
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:40,520
Speaker 3: because I was having trouble all the time. I was

318
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:42,640
Speaker 3: always growing my hair, and they're always sending me home

319
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:44,760
Speaker 3: and my dad would send me to the barber. And

320
00:17:44,800 --> 00:17:48,640
Speaker 3: this was just an endless cycle. And he essentially beat

321
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:50,960
Speaker 3: the system. He was a straight a student, and so

322
00:17:51,000 --> 00:17:55,080
Speaker 3: a judge said, you can't not educate him, so they

323
00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:59,920
Speaker 3: made him. They made the school provide him with private

324
00:18:00,040 --> 00:18:02,399
Speaker 3: telephone line. And there was a picture of him at

325
00:18:02,400 --> 00:18:05,320
Speaker 3: a desk with his long hair and a little speaker phone,

326
00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 3: and I thought, man, he beat the systems, you know.

327
00:18:08,440 --> 00:18:10,400
Speaker 3: And the way he beat it was he said, I'm

328
00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:12,960
Speaker 3: in a band, you know, I have to have my

329
00:18:13,040 --> 00:18:17,119
Speaker 3: hair long. I'm in a band, and so and so

330
00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,600
Speaker 3: I you know. I was excited to see them, although

331
00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:21,280
Speaker 3: I had never heard them. I had no idea what

332
00:18:21,400 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 3: kind of music they did, but they really like they

333
00:18:25,160 --> 00:18:27,440
Speaker 3: kind of like kicked everybody's ass. They had so much

334
00:18:27,560 --> 00:18:31,600
Speaker 3: energy and they were basically a blues band, blues and

335
00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:35,080
Speaker 3: R and B. They did like I think they did

336
00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:36,920
Speaker 3: a Sam and Dave song, and they did a couple

337
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:41,160
Speaker 3: of blue songs. And so god, that's that's great. Let's

338
00:18:41,160 --> 00:18:42,919
Speaker 3: go see them when they play at the Artist Hut

339
00:18:42,960 --> 00:18:46,560
Speaker 3: in Philadelphia, which is no longer there. It's a little

340
00:18:46,720 --> 00:18:52,480
Speaker 3: it was a little basement club on Walnut Street, just

341
00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:57,919
Speaker 3: a block past Rittenhouse Square and held maybe eighty people

342
00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:01,400
Speaker 3: something like that, maybe one hundred people if you cram

343
00:19:01,480 --> 00:19:03,520
Speaker 3: him in there. And we went to see the band. Then,

344
00:19:03,560 --> 00:19:06,439
Speaker 3: as it turned out, their drummer was just a stand in,

345
00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:08,800
Speaker 3: you know, they could not seem to find a drummer

346
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:10,760
Speaker 3: they could keep. As a matter of fact, the drummer

347
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:14,120
Speaker 3: on the gig was Tim if I could don't remember

348
00:19:14,160 --> 00:19:16,879
Speaker 3: her name. He was became a famous songwriter and he

349
00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:20,359
Speaker 3: wrote Seventh Avenue I think was a hit song for

350
00:19:21,800 --> 00:19:26,280
Speaker 3: art Guardfuncle. But anyway, he you know, they were looking

351
00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:28,960
Speaker 3: for a drummer, and Joe, the guy that I was with,

352
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:32,439
Speaker 3: he was just, you know, amazing trained drummer, you know.

353
00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:34,680
Speaker 3: So he just sat down on the drum started doing

354
00:19:34,720 --> 00:19:37,000
Speaker 3: all his Buddy Rich stuff, and they said, okay, join

355
00:19:37,040 --> 00:19:40,000
Speaker 3: our band, and he was loyal enough to me for

356
00:19:40,040 --> 00:19:42,360
Speaker 3: some dumb reason. Then he said, okay, but you got

357
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,680
Speaker 3: to hire my friend here, the guitar player as well,

358
00:19:46,440 --> 00:19:49,119
Speaker 3: and they decided, okay, well we can go for that

359
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:52,879
Speaker 3: because that allowed the so called rhythm guitar player. They

360
00:19:52,960 --> 00:19:55,840
Speaker 3: come up front and play harp, and then the band

361
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:59,600
Speaker 3: looked exactly like the Butterfield band. And so that was

362
00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:02,520
Speaker 3: my first real gig, first time I ever got paid

363
00:20:02,560 --> 00:20:07,520
Speaker 3: real money. And it lasted for he maybe six months,

364
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:09,080
Speaker 3: eight months something like that.

365
00:20:09,240 --> 00:20:09,560
Speaker 1: Wow.

366
00:20:09,960 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 3: And then I then I formed an ass you.

367
00:20:12,720 --> 00:20:16,320
Speaker 2: You mentioned Upper Darby, I have to ask you, uh,

368
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:21,359
Speaker 2: if you've spent any time in Val Shieveley's record store,

369
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:23,440
Speaker 2: which is still open and.

370
00:20:23,440 --> 00:20:24,520
Speaker 1: Up and running to this day.

371
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:26,600
Speaker 3: Now, where was that.

372
00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:31,080
Speaker 2: Just in relationship to where you catch the l I

373
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:32,920
Speaker 2: would say it's like two or three blocks away.

374
00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:36,160
Speaker 3: I mean technically that's around the sixth ninth Street area.

375
00:20:36,240 --> 00:20:37,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, around the sixty nine Street area.

376
00:20:37,840 --> 00:20:41,879
Speaker 2: I mean technically, I would say that he's the number

377
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:47,440
Speaker 2: one forty five distributor end well, at least the SCIgen

378
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 2: says in the East Coast.

379
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 1: I'm certain that now in.

380
00:20:49,520 --> 00:20:51,040
Speaker 3: The whole of the East Coast.

381
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go there and his whe would you say,

382
00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:02,280
Speaker 2: Steve that he has at least like six hundred thousand Yeah.

383
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 3: He's there, it's still there.

384
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:06,199
Speaker 2: I'm still open so once a year I'll take a

385
00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:10,160
Speaker 2: maybe a two day trek and get lost in and his.

386
00:21:10,240 --> 00:21:13,760
Speaker 3: Uh, where's that in relationship to the tower theater.

387
00:21:14,040 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 2: Across around the corner if you go to if you

388
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,879
Speaker 2: go to a tower theater, I would say it's just

389
00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:23,880
Speaker 2: slightly slightly around the corner.

390
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:24,960
Speaker 1: It's like walking distance.

391
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,159
Speaker 3: I remember there used to be a place downtown on

392
00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 3: Chestnut Street that was one of those you know, one

393
00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,240
Speaker 3: of those places that had like every single, every obscure

394
00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 3: single that you're looking for that.

395
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:41,159
Speaker 2: Care right now, he's managed to just stay open and

396
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 2: and you know pretty much people just take pilgrimages there

397
00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 2: and do like.

398
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,560
Speaker 3: Week week long great diggers.

399
00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:52,560
Speaker 6: Yes, exactly, he's okay post Rona.

400
00:21:53,160 --> 00:21:57,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, now he's by he lives aloner.

401
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:00,640
Speaker 1: You know nine hundred that records.

402
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:05,240
Speaker 3: He's like Harvey Peacar, Did you know who he is?

403
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: Harvey Peacard now Harvey Pea Carr.

404
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 3: He used to he would be on the David Lemerman

405
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 3: show every once in a while. He guy from Cleveland, Ohio,

406
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:18,719
Speaker 3: like very angry, but his life's work was essentially collecting vinyl.

407
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 3: And I went to his house once and for an

408
00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,560
Speaker 3: individual person, I don't know how he found the time,

409
00:22:26,800 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 3: you know, to collect the catalog so much stuff. But

410
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 3: I guess it's because he had you know, he worked

411
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:39,480
Speaker 3: at the post office. Okay, so yeah, yeah, you never know.

412
00:22:40,160 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 2: So with the net with the NAZ that was your

413
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 2: when did you guys? You guys got signed in what

414
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:46,240
Speaker 2: sixty eight?

415
00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 3: I think it was around and the band sort of

416
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,640
Speaker 3: formed the band in the summer of sixty seven, and

417
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 3: it wasn't too long before we got kind of discovered

418
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:02,280
Speaker 3: and whisked off to to New York not New York City,

419
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 3: actually Great Neck Long Island. The guy who took over

420
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 3: managing us, he he lived in a really nice neighborhood.

421
00:23:13,200 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 3: His name was John Curland and he actually lived next

422
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 3: door to Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary.

423
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:20,560
Speaker 1: And he was and he.

424
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:25,480
Speaker 3: Was a publicist. And one of the great things about

425
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 3: that was and when I would go to his office,

426
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:31,440
Speaker 3: he was still all of the latest releases, you know,

427
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 3: like who is this iron Butterfly? And what the hell

428
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 3: is a Buffalo Springfield? And you know that sort of thing.

429
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 3: You know, he get wed you know, we'd get the

430
00:23:41,520 --> 00:23:45,040
Speaker 3: records before they ever got into the stores because they

431
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:49,040
Speaker 3: were promos and in that sense, you know, we were

432
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 3: always like slightly ahead of whatever was was going on

433
00:23:53,160 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 3: in the public musically, but he really didn't know anything

434
00:23:56,520 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 3: about managing a band, you know, and he kind of

435
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 3: stuck us all together in a house in Great Neck

436
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 3: where and said, I don't want you guys to play

437
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 3: until you get a record deal because I want to

438
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 3: be able to set you know, like a high ticket

439
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 3: price or something like that. And ultimately, you know, that

440
00:24:13,359 --> 00:24:18,199
Speaker 3: philosophy killed the band because you know, the only thing worse,

441
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,480
Speaker 3: you know than being in a band and fighting on

442
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 3: the road, you know, is being in a band and

443
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,879
Speaker 3: stuck in a house somewhere and fighting all the time,

444
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:29,679
Speaker 3: you know, because you don't get to break it up

445
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 3: with any playing. So that to me was a big,

446
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 3: a big disappointment. And as a matter of fact that

447
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 3: my time in the NAS only lasted about eighteen months,

448
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 3: but we managed to get two records out.

449
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:46,119
Speaker 1: Was there any I was excious to know?

450
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 4: Was there any crossover overlap between NAZ and Utopia, another

451
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 4: band you produced. Were there any guys that were in

452
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 4: NAS that went onto that band.

453
00:24:55,800 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 3: Or No, there weren't, But ironically enough, Rick Nielsen and

454
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:05,639
Speaker 3: Robin Xander of Cheap Trick. Eventually they became members of

455
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:09,439
Speaker 3: n NAZ for a brief period of time until the

456
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 3: band changed its name to the Sick Men of Europe.

457
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 3: Then eventually they left that and and started Cheap Trick.

458
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 3: And then I did, years later produce a Cheap.

459
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: Trick record, Which one did you produce?

460
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 3: Next position? Please? Didn't have any big hit singles on it,

461
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:30,960
Speaker 3: but they didn't have any big hit singles after that

462
00:25:31,080 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 3: much anyway, So.

463
00:25:33,160 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, my band we h we actually sampled a

464
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 4: song you produced off Utopia, legally sampled. We sampled Eternal Love,

465
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 4: off the Good Morning Sunshine, off the.

466
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 3: Cool Sample Away. I've never that never bothered me, you know,

467
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 3: people sampling stuff. I always thought it was sort of flattering,

468
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 3: you know, when someone would excerpt your music.

469
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:03,120
Speaker 1: Keep that in mind.

470
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 2: Well it should be it should be noted that, you know,

471
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 2: many people think that Hello to Me made its debut

472
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 2: on something anything when the actuality it appeared on the

473
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:20,760
Speaker 2: NAS record. However, for a lot of black people, hell hell.

474
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 3: Yeah one of them, but Hello Hello, Hello, Yeah.

475
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,600
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm really showed my age autisty drew. My first

476
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 4: hearing of that version, it was groove theory liked, not

477
00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 4: like groove theory. They because they covered it in like

478
00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 4: ninety five. I want to say that.

479
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:46,240
Speaker 1: That was the first time.

480
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:49,680
Speaker 2: You're telling me that you never had a mom hunt

481
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 2: or grandma that cleaned the house on the weekend.

482
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: Not to that song. Now, I mean we have lived up.

483
00:26:57,720 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 6: Right, It's like top five.

484
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: That was my first time.

485
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,399
Speaker 4: My asley's was like because my mother was younger, so

486
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:06,199
Speaker 4: Ale was like between between the ces, you know, I

487
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 4: mean it was I'll give you that. Yeah, it was

488
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 4: all so yeah. When I heard, I was like, oh

489
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:16,920
Speaker 4: this is damn did this? Yeah, that was my first

490
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:17,440
Speaker 4: time heard it.

491
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 5: Was me feel better I do.

492
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:27,119
Speaker 2: A fellow Philadelphian, so it's even more full full circle.

493
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. Wow, that's amazing.

494
00:27:31,240 --> 00:27:34,600
Speaker 7: Some one who got introduced to the song by the

495
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 7: actual song. Well, like you pointed out, though not the original,

496
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 7: the original was was on a NAS record, right.

497
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 3: That's correct, And the original was like you likely wouldn't

498
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 3: recognize it because it was like a really dirgy tempo,

499
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 3: really slow and sappy.

500
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 1: And I prefer that version of the NAS then even.

501
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 3: And I didn't play guitar on I played vibes. Yeah, no, guitar,

502
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 3: the version.

503
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 2: I guess you're the first person that we interviewed that

504
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 2: even put their footprints into psych rock or what they

505
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:15,360
Speaker 2: call uh progressive, I mean progressive at least under that

506
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:19,879
Speaker 2: Under that umbrella was was the basic mind state to

507
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 2: rebel against whatever the status quo was. Like, what was

508
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 2: your thoughts on uh, I'm trying to think of like

509
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 2: commercial albums that push the envelope, like say, uh uh couple.

510
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:36,320
Speaker 3: Of Old Is Love or the first couple of Yes records,

511
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:42,120
Speaker 3: you know, with the first couple of Genesis records. We'll

512
00:28:42,120 --> 00:28:44,560
Speaker 3: see there was a whole there was a difference between

513
00:28:44,720 --> 00:28:48,280
Speaker 3: like a so called American prague and English prog rock,

514
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 3: because English prog rock was inspired by classical music and

515
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 3: you know, and more classical forms and old maybe something

516
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:02,960
Speaker 3: to some extent folk music, English type type folk music,

517
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 3: whereas American prog rock was more informed by jazz and

518
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 3: acts like Return to Forever and Weather Report, and so

519
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 3: what we were doing by that time, you know, was

520
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:18,719
Speaker 3: some weird combination of all of those influences, whether Report,

521
00:29:18,760 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 3: my Vision, New Orchestra. Yes, you know, jeneis gentle giant,

522
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 3: you know, all of those. The English prog rock, which

523
00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 3: was more you know, classically inspired and had classical themes,

524
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 3: and the American prog rock, which had more jazz it

525
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 3: was jazz inspired and jazzier themes. So somewhere in the

526
00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 3: middle it met because we had the way that we

527
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 3: would write with. We would all just sit around in

528
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 3: the studio and we would just throw ideas out and

529
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 3: we'd figure out how to glue them together. And everybody had,

530
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,479
Speaker 3: you know, different things that they were listening to at

531
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 3: the time. John Siegler bass player, he'd probably be listening

532
00:29:58,960 --> 00:30:02,560
Speaker 3: to a lot of return for and but we would

533
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 3: you know, work other stuff in, like American classics like

534
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 3: Aaron Copeland.

535
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah.

536
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 2: So around that time, like what were what were the

537
00:30:13,000 --> 00:30:17,200
Speaker 2: artists or the albums that were blowing your mind? Like,

538
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 2: were you anti Sergeant Pepper's.

539
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: Or anti Sergeant Pepper? Well? I was. I had an

540
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:28,480
Speaker 3: interesting reaction to Sergeant Pepper because I was a teetotaler

541
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 3: until I was twenty one. I had no drugs, that

542
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 3: never drank alcohol, had no idea what people were talking

543
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:39,920
Speaker 3: about when they were high. And when Sergeant Pepper came out,

544
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 3: I was kind of disappointed in it because the album before,

545
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 3: which was Revolver. I thought was an incredible record, just

546
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 3: from the standpoint of the songwriting and the and the

547
00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:57,280
Speaker 3: production innovations that went into it, and it seemed like,

548
00:30:57,360 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 3: you know, they were just reinventing music all the time,

549
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 3: and Sergeant Pepper was just very imitative of English music

550
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 3: hall kind of yeah, that sort of stuff. Well, you know,

551
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 3: it's where it was, you know, circus music, that sort

552
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,360
Speaker 3: of thing. Yeah, yeah, and uh. And people will say, like,

553
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 3: you know, it's a completely different album when you're on acid,

554
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 3: you know, And I said, well, I don't take acid,

555
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 3: you know. So it kind of like I thought I

556
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 3: must be missing something here. And so it never affected

557
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 3: me the way that it did everyone else. But years

558
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,800
Speaker 3: later I kind of, you know, I got a little

559
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 3: more into it, and mostly because of the quality of

560
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 3: the sound. There's a certain there's a space that they

561
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 3: created in there that I don't think existed on a

562
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 3: lot of records previous to that, an atmosphere or a

563
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 3: sonic space. And I grew to appreciate that, and I

564
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 3: grew to be less offended by things like within You

565
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 3: and Without You.

566
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: So what led to.

567
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 2: You leaving NAS and starting your own What was the

568
00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 2: process in starting your own solo work.

569
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 3: Part of it was, I guess, the inevitability of me absorbing,

570
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 3: absorbing broader influences than the ones that originally went into

571
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 3: the NAS. We characterized the NAS as a combination of

572
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 3: The Who and the Beach Boys. In other words, we

573
00:32:27,520 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 3: wanted to do that. We wanted to perform like The

574
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 3: Who at the dis Yeah and this or everything, but

575
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 3: be able to do harmonies like the Beach Boys. And

576
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 3: it's not that much of a stretch because the Beach

577
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: Boys was Keith Moon's favorite band, and that's why Who

578
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:48,200
Speaker 3: did a cover version of Barbaring. They would let him

579
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 3: sing that every night on stage. I got completely enthralled

580
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:57,479
Speaker 3: with Laura Nero and Eli in the Thirteenth Confession when

581
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 3: that album came out. That just been up the skies

582
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:05,479
Speaker 3: for me, and I had never heard anyone sort of

583
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:10,520
Speaker 3: like be so revelatory in their performance, really interesting and

584
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 3: intricate in the songwriting, and very sophisticated in the harmonics.

585
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,320
Speaker 3: And of course she sang great, and I was so

586
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 3: kind of like taken with her that I asked my manager,

587
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 3: John Curland at the time if he could somehow get

588
00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:30,040
Speaker 3: me an audience with her. And so he called up

589
00:33:30,120 --> 00:33:33,360
Speaker 3: David Geffen, who was an accountant at Columbia Records at

590
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 3: the time, Wow, but was kind of like the contact

591
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 3: guy to Laura Neiro and managed to She allowed me

592
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 3: to come up to her apartment in the Dakota and

593
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 3: she made tuna fish casserole, which is the only thing

594
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 3: she knew how to make, and that's why her publishing

595
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 3: company was called Tuna Fish Music. And she played the

596
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 3: piano and sang, you know, sang all these and played

597
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:02,880
Speaker 3: the piano and wanted me to sing along, but I

598
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 3: was just too petrified. But the thing I remember from

599
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 3: is she let her fingernails grow so long that they

600
00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 3: curled over, you know, Like her fingernails were like at

601
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 3: least three inches long, and so and so when she

602
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 3: was playing the piano, it would be this clattering noise,

603
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 3: you know. And I don't remember hearing that on the record,

604
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 3: you know. But she called me back like two weeks

605
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 3: later and went up to visit her again, and she

606
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:28,560
Speaker 3: asked if I would be her band leader, and I,

607
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:30,400
Speaker 3: you know, so I have to think about it, but

608
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 3: I knew that I couldn't because the NASA had just

609
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,279
Speaker 3: signed a record contract and her first album was about

610
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,320
Speaker 3: to come out, but between the first and second albums,

611
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:41,799
Speaker 3: I started writing like Laura Niro and none of that

612
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:48,120
Speaker 3: fit and it caused a big debacle. During the recording

613
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:51,760
Speaker 3: of the second album, which was originally a double album,

614
00:34:51,800 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 3: about half of it I was singing and it was

615
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 3: all Laura Nero songs, and so essentially they cut the

616
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 3: album in half. And when they did that, I quit

617
00:35:00,640 --> 00:35:03,880
Speaker 3: the band and lived on the street for a while

618
00:35:04,239 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 3: until the partner of the guy who was managing the

619
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,799
Speaker 3: NAZ looked me up. He had gone to work for

620
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,440
Speaker 3: Albert Grossman, and Albert said, you know, I want you

621
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 3: to go out and find some young talent, because everybody

622
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,319
Speaker 3: I got ye is old, you know. He you know,

623
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 3: he had Bob Dylan, and he had Peter Palm Mary

624
00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 3: and then then he was getting into some more contemporary

625
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,360
Speaker 3: X but the only one that he ever actually signed

626
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 3: was Jennis Joplin, and within a year she was gone.

627
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: You're supposed to producer, correct, I.

628
00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 3: Was supposed to producer, but you know, all these things

629
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 3: don't always work out, you know. Some in retrospect, I

630
00:35:45,840 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 3: deduced that the problem was that she didn't really like

631
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:53,080
Speaker 3: making records. She liked performing in front of an audience

632
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 3: and records, you know, there was no audience there, and

633
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,320
Speaker 3: so it was just like she was lost in the studio.

634
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,759
Speaker 3: It wasn't for her. She needed the response of an

635
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 3: audience and I'm you know, I'm in the studio. I'm

636
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,239
Speaker 3: just thinking about musical concerns and stuff like that. So

637
00:36:08,360 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 3: eventually she got Paul Rothschild to finish the record. And

638
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 3: Paul Rothschild is one of these producers who knows almost

639
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 3: nothing about music, you know, but knows how to knows

640
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 3: how to pump an artist up. You know, It's like

641
00:36:21,080 --> 00:36:23,359
Speaker 3: that was great, you know that was It doesn't matter

642
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 3: how terrible it was.

643
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: That was just great.

644
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 3: Can you do another one?

645
00:36:26,960 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: You know?

646
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 3: Like that? And they'll eventually accidentally you get the performance

647
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 3: that you keep. But the whole thing, you know, was

648
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 3: more psychology than you know, actual musicology. And at that

649
00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 3: time that was my extremely weak suit. I was only

650
00:36:42,680 --> 00:36:44,800
Speaker 3: in my very early twenties.

651
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:46,200
Speaker 6: And Hey tied you briefly.

652
00:36:46,800 --> 00:36:48,759
Speaker 5: You briefly went over to Struggle, but we do that

653
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,440
Speaker 5: kind of fast. Sometimes you said you were homeless.

654
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 3: I was, well, I wasn't literally homeless, because I was

655
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 3: still signed to screen Gems as writer through the contract,

656
00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 3: through the Nazath contract, they had apartments, you know, in

657
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 3: various major cities in LA and in New York where

658
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 3: they would just put songwriters up for you know, I

659
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 3: don't know, songwriting sessions or whatever. They just happened to

660
00:37:16,640 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 3: have these places. So I was staying in one, but

661
00:37:19,920 --> 00:37:22,879
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't have a lease or anything like that.

662
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 3: And at that point I was spending most of my

663
00:37:25,239 --> 00:37:30,279
Speaker 3: time with clothing designers in the West Village. I was

664
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 3: designing and installing lights in a dance club. I wasn't

665
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:38,959
Speaker 3: doing no music whatever, stuff like that. When this guy

666
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 3: discovered me and brought me into the Grossman organization and

667
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 3: started pairing me up with everybody that was on the

668
00:37:47,280 --> 00:37:51,240
Speaker 3: roster because a lot of the artists were not making

669
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,800
Speaker 3: the transition into the seventies. Some of them hadn't fully

670
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:59,080
Speaker 3: made the transition into the sixties. But I started doing

671
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 3: like Ian and Silvia and James Cotton and ultimately the

672
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 3: Butterfield Band. And the mandate most of the time was

673
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 3: make the record sound more modern, you know, make the

674
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 3: record sound contemporary somehow. So I strove to do that,

675
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 3: and they appreciated that, and then my big biggest break

676
00:38:18,520 --> 00:38:23,200
Speaker 3: probably came when I did well stage Fright with the band,

677
00:38:23,320 --> 00:38:25,920
Speaker 3: because the band was like the biggest band in the

678
00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 3: world at that moment, and so getting my name on

679
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 3: stage Fright kind of got a whole bunch of other

680
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 3: stuff right after that. Hall and Oates was among them,

681
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 3: Graham Funk, Railroad Finger, you know, and et cetera.

682
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 2: Only because of my affinity for collecting like weird rock

683
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 2: proc rock stuff for sampling purposes or whatever. So there's

684
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:59,480
Speaker 2: a there's a group called Paris that that's been stampled

685
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:01,800
Speaker 2: a lot and in the hip hop community with the

686
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 2: drummer uh named Hunt Sales.

687
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the comedian Super Sales.

688
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 2: Is it true he's on Runt And if he's that's

689
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,839
Speaker 2: the case, he's he was a.

690
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:17,759
Speaker 3: Kid, Yes, he was a kid. I first met.

691
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: Drumming on your album as what like fifteen something.

692
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:24,200
Speaker 3: Around that's fifteen sixteen something like that.

693
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 2: He was in his thirties when Bowie put uh tim machine.

694
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's yeah, it's so he.

695
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: Was that dope at the age of fourteen fifteen, he was.

696
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 3: He was getting drum lessons from well, people don't know

697
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 3: this probably if you know who Soupy Sales is because

698
00:39:41,800 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 3: people probably don't know who super.

699
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 2: Sales be on Motown, which people don't know that I have.

700
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 3: To you can do it in your house.

701
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, do you guys know he was a comedian, right,

702
00:39:57,800 --> 00:39:59,880
Speaker 4: he was like he.

703
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,879
Speaker 3: It was a Saturday morning. He was like Saturday morning,

704
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 3: Saturday afternoon kids show hosts. That's how he got famous

705
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 3: because his show went coast to coast when he became

706
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,279
Speaker 3: the Soupy Sales Show, right, But previous to that, he

707
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 3: was a local late night host in Cleveland, and he

708
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 3: would have you know, he was like Johnny Carson, and

709
00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 3: he would have all the great all the jazz greats

710
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: come in and play on his show and talk on

711
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 3: his talk show. And so he knew everybody. I remember

712
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,879
Speaker 3: going with him and hunting Tony to see like an

713
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 3: eighty five year old Gene Krupa play at the jazz

714
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 3: club that was in the in the Plaza Hotel, in

715
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 3: the basement of the Plaza Hotel, and it was so funny.

716
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 3: Jean group of grinning like he always did, but could

717
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 3: barely lift the sticks off the drum. But you know,

718
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 3: he knew everybody in jazz, and Hunt got lessons from

719
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:02,640
Speaker 3: Louis Belson, you know, one of the great technique drummers

720
00:41:02,680 --> 00:41:04,799
Speaker 3: you know of all time, right and one of the

721
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 3: and the first guy I think to do double bass drums.

722
00:41:07,640 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 3: I met them at a place called Steve Paul's. The scene.

723
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 3: There used to be UH in New York City, and

724
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 3: in a lot of cities there used to be a

725
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 3: lot of music clubs where they serve no liquor. For instance,

726
00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 3: the UH the Cafe a Go Go in New York City,

727
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 3: which was a basement club, very weird configuration. But I

728
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,160
Speaker 3: saw Cream's first gigs in the US. There saw a

729
00:41:30,200 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 3: Butterfield band probably four times. There saw John Mayol and

730
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:40,800
Speaker 3: you know, all of these and and Richie Havens before

731
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 3: would stuck, you know, you know, all of these greats

732
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 3: would play in this tiny little club. But the but

733
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 3: you know, I mean the admission was probably ten bucks

734
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 3: and the one drink minimum was like a flower vase

735
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,840
Speaker 3: full of ice cream, you know, like a giant milkshake,

736
00:41:58,280 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 3: because you know it, these places were all open to

737
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 3: underage kids. And Steve Paul's aceame was the same way

738
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 3: was you know, all ages if your mom would let you.

739
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 3: Because they served no liquor. And it was the same

740
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:13,839
Speaker 3: kind of place you saw the very first gigs of

741
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 3: seann Onna, for instance, the very the very with some

742
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 3: of the very first gigs of just some of the

743
00:42:20,719 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 3: strangest acts, like well the Nice, remember The Nice.

744
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: That was.

745
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 3: Keith Emerson's band before ELP. I saw David Clayton Thomas

746
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 3: in a Canadian band called Raven before he joined Blood,

747
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 3: Sweat and Tears.

748
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 1: You know.

749
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 3: The house band was the McCoy's hang on Sloopy.

750
00:42:45,040 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

751
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,880
Speaker 3: Rick Deringer and his little brother Randy, they were the

752
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:52,040
Speaker 3: house band. And since it was all ages and since

753
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 3: you never knew it was going to play there, especially

754
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,400
Speaker 3: the jam sessions which would happen after the build acts

755
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,840
Speaker 3: came on, they were amazing. You know. I was standing

756
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,640
Speaker 3: on stage on time with I'm trying to remember, but

757
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 3: it was like Dwayne Almon and you know, the drummer

758
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,359
Speaker 3: from Led Zeppelin and the bass player from another band.

759
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 3: You know, just the jam sessions were amazing. I never

760
00:43:15,320 --> 00:43:19,280
Speaker 3: got the jam with Jimmy Hendrix because I walked right

761
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 3: by him as he was coming into the club because

762
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 3: I thought he was taller than he was, you know,

763
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,400
Speaker 3: but his afron only came up to my nose, so

764
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 3: I thought, now they can't. Yeah, he's actually kind of

765
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 3: a short guy, so, uh so I walked right past him.

766
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,640
Speaker 3: I never even got to watch him jam So but anyway,

767
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:36,960
Speaker 3: that's me.

768
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:43,280
Speaker 2: You're you're actually confirming the rumor that Hendricks was supposed

769
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:44,719
Speaker 2: to be n E. L. P.

770
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 3: I didn't hear that, but that's an interesting it was.

771
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is a rumor that the name of the

772
00:43:51,520 --> 00:43:55,360
Speaker 2: group was supposed to be called Help Hendry DRIs.

773
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: Emerson Powell and it was Lake Palmer. It was Lake

774
00:43:59,080 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: Palmer Pow.

775
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:09,760
Speaker 8: I'm some thing of Cole and Powell right now, I'm sorry, Yeah, no, right.

776
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 3: He was the original drummer in Journey Trivia. Oh we

777
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 3: love our trivia.

778
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 2: So anyway, the place for it, you should be all right,

779
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 2: I'd say we grabbed Todd to be our seventh member,

780
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 2: of course of coust Love Supreme. So I'm skipping over

781
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 2: to something anything which, first of all, I know, I

782
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 2: know back then, at least for for a double album

783
00:44:39,120 --> 00:44:42,280
Speaker 2: to get released was a big deal.

784
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: I mean now it's nothing, but.

785
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 2: And normally I would think that double albums were a

786
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:54,319
Speaker 2: thing for uh, I mean proven acts that are you know,

787
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 2: multi platinum and all those things. But I mean seventy

788
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,880
Speaker 2: two was just the level the level plane field was

789
00:45:03,000 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 2: clear and things were being defined. But the risks that

790
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:09,719
Speaker 2: the artistic risks that you took on that record, Like

791
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: what was your mind stake during that period?

792
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 3: I was in kind of a great position, and it's

793
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 3: affected the way I'd think about making records ever since,

794
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:27,279
Speaker 3: because I was producing records for the Grossman organization, but

795
00:45:27,360 --> 00:45:30,560
Speaker 3: I was still writing songs and I have musical ideas,

796
00:45:30,600 --> 00:45:33,719
Speaker 3: but I had no inclination at all in becoming like

797
00:45:33,760 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 3: an actual, you know, bankable artists that had to go

798
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 3: out on the road and play and stuff like that.

799
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 3: I enjoyed being in the studio too much, so I

800
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,240
Speaker 3: wanted to get these ideas out of my system. And

801
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,799
Speaker 3: I asked Albert who or whoever I was dealing with.

802
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 3: I said, can you give me a budget to make

803
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 3: a record of my own? And they said, well, you've

804
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 3: been doing all this work for us, Sure we'll give

805
00:45:56,760 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 3: you a budget. And then I recorded Runt and they

806
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 3: were kind of surprised at the result, you know, they

807
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:04,320
Speaker 3: thought it was going to be a piece of crap,

808
00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:07,799
Speaker 3: and as it turned out, there was a minor hit

809
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 3: single on it, so that kind of sealed my fate.

810
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,879
Speaker 3: I had to continue making records because I had had

811
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 3: a single then the next and the first record was

812
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:21,439
Speaker 3: just a scatter brained effort because I had never made

813
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:23,879
Speaker 3: an album of my own and I just wanted to

814
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 3: capture all of these various musical ideas and to work

815
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:32,279
Speaker 3: with musicians that I really wanted to work with. Then

816
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 3: I got to my second album. Between the first and

817
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:39,040
Speaker 3: second album, I discovered marijuana.

818
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: And.

819
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 3: An ironic thing is it gave me a much more

820
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,399
Speaker 3: ordered approach to songwriting, you know, in other words, yeah,

821
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,000
Speaker 3: I was. It made me less scatterbrained when it came

822
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 3: to songwriting. So the next record that I made, which

823
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:56,839
Speaker 3: was called The Ballad, and that one really fell through

824
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 3: the cracks because Bearsville changed their distribution from Ampex, which

825
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:07,080
Speaker 3: was a tape company, to Warner Brothers right in the

826
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 3: middle of when that album got released.

827
00:47:08,640 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 4: So it just kind of so Bearsville was not your label.

828
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:14,959
Speaker 4: I always always thought that was your indie label.

829
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 1: Whatever.

830
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 3: No, that's Albert Grossman's, yeah, you know, since I was

831
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,759
Speaker 3: working for him, I was on it, and so that

832
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,799
Speaker 3: was surprising. And then the second record was just much

833
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:31,040
Speaker 3: more coherent and much more songwriterly record. And then when

834
00:47:31,040 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 3: I got to something anything, I moved to LA for

835
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 3: a year, got a house so that I would be,

836
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:40,200
Speaker 3: you know, have nothing to do but make music, and

837
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:44,200
Speaker 3: I would record in this little studio called ID Sound

838
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:46,840
Speaker 3: where we did the NASA records during the day. Then

839
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:50,120
Speaker 3: I go home at night and write and do some

840
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 3: other recording. I rented an eight track machine and recorded

841
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:56,880
Speaker 3: some of the more bizarre things from the record, like

842
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:01,480
Speaker 3: went to the mirror, it sounds sounds of the studio

843
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing.

844
00:48:03,080 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: Why and how did you create intro.

845
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 3: Intro meeting the sounds of the studio? Is that it?

846
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: Yes?

847
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 3: Or the one on the very last side, which is

848
00:48:15,239 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 3: found tapes for my high school band and stuff.

849
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:19,880
Speaker 2: Well, the one on the last side where you introduced

850
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 2: hissing reverb and.

851
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's that it sounds of the studio.

852
00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 3: Well it was course, you know the analog days, you know,

853
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 3: and analog had its own sort of issues and responsibilities

854
00:48:34,160 --> 00:48:38,920
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, you know, which nobody nowadays much recalls.

855
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 3: But before you could do a session, someone would have

856
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,280
Speaker 3: to come in. They would have to clean the heads

857
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 3: on the machine, they take a swab and swab down

858
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,880
Speaker 3: all of the heads and rollers and stuff on the machine.

859
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 3: They would lay tone down on the tape reference tone.

860
00:48:58,680 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 3: It's kind of like a and for tape ops, you know,

861
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 3: because which is a lost art. But in the analog days,

862
00:49:04,560 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 3: you had to do all of these little rituals like

863
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:10,799
Speaker 3: cleaning the heads and the pintrollers and laying tone down

864
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:14,520
Speaker 3: on the tape and being the guy who gets yelled

865
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,240
Speaker 3: at when you accidentally punch in in the wrong place,

866
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 3: or or the guy who gets yelled at because the

867
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 3: tape broke or something like that. So, you know, analog

868
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,719
Speaker 3: recording there was this whole other range of issues you

869
00:49:32,760 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 3: had to be conscious of that. Of course the music

870
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:41,359
Speaker 3: consumer never really considers. But since it was analog, you know,

871
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 3: in all the records I've make, at at least somewhere

872
00:49:45,040 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 3: there's an analog glitch in it, you know, something where

873
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,360
Speaker 3: accidentally the tape got pinched or creased, but it's in

874
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 3: the middle of a performance and you can't do anything

875
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,759
Speaker 3: about it, you know. And it's before digital where you

876
00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 3: could drop in something from another place, you know, and

877
00:50:02,320 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 3: so it just goes on to the record, you know,

878
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,200
Speaker 3: and most people. It goes by. Most people don't even

879
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 3: notice it.

880
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:15,320
Speaker 2: So, knowing what you know now, having dabbled in both,

881
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 2: you know the world of analog and digital, what is

882
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 2: your what is your preference? Do you prefer the beautiful

883
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 2: imperfection of the analog world or are you consistently still

884
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 2: working for looking for the best experience of sound that

885
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:35,720
Speaker 2: you can get in the digital world.

886
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 3: Well, I think a lot of people forget that, you know,

887
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 3: the analog world was an entire mailieu. It wasn't simply

888
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 3: the fact that records were on vinyl. It was a

889
00:50:47,120 --> 00:50:51,520
Speaker 3: fact that portable music systems had not been invented yet,

890
00:50:52,200 --> 00:50:55,040
Speaker 3: and so if you wanted a personal listening experience, you

891
00:50:55,120 --> 00:50:57,840
Speaker 3: had to go to your own home and sit in

892
00:50:57,880 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 3: the sweet spot in your own system and listen to

893
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 3: the record. Ideally, nothing goes wrong in that situation. The

894
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 3: record does not skip where nobody dances across the room

895
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 3: and makes the tone arm hop around, or you know,

896
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 3: or the base on the record does not interfere and

897
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:21,319
Speaker 3: start to cause a rumble, and other sorts of you

898
00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 3: know artifacts, or the fact that the plain fact that

899
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 3: the sound on a vinyl LP is worse in the

900
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:31,400
Speaker 3: center than it is at the outside of the record

901
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,760
Speaker 3: because you're trying to put the equal amount of sound

902
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 3: in smaller and smaller real estate, you know, as the

903
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:41,600
Speaker 3: record proceeds. So people tend to forget about all this.

904
00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:43,880
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I know that to most people that to

905
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:45,959
Speaker 5: most of you guys, that just sounded like one plus

906
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:46,879
Speaker 5: two equals three.

907
00:51:47,160 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 6: But to me it just went, well.

908
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: Okay, here's the deal, so die in the vinyl world.

909
00:51:54,680 --> 00:51:58,840
Speaker 2: In vinyl world, it's probably to your best interest to

910
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 2: keep your your time under sixteen minutes.

911
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 4: Yeah, because that way the maximize on you get the

912
00:52:07,440 --> 00:52:07,959
Speaker 4: best sound.

913
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,279
Speaker 2: So the reason why they make twelve in singles, the

914
00:52:11,280 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 2: reason why they make twelve singles is so that you

915
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 2: can have one song on that record.

916
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,480
Speaker 1: So it's it's louder when it's just when it's a.

917
00:52:22,200 --> 00:52:24,439
Speaker 3: Maximum maximum volume. Yeah.

918
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 2: Now, for instance, Side too of Michael Jackson's Off the

919
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 2: Wall record has six songs on it, So the records

920
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,919
Speaker 2: are the gruves are really smaller as opposed to Side one,

921
00:52:35,120 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 2: which is four songs and louder. So if I were

922
00:52:38,480 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: to play the title, if I would play Off the

923
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:45,240
Speaker 2: Wall in the club from that album.

924
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:45,839
Speaker 1: The volume would be very low.

925
00:52:46,280 --> 00:52:50,040
Speaker 2: So that I would have to do, yeah, as opposed

926
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 2: to so yeah back in the day. I mean the

927
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 2: reason why we use computer technology now to DJ is

928
00:52:56,480 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 2: so that now I can make it loud as shit. Wow,

929
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:02,560
Speaker 2: it used to be problematic, like if you turn the

930
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 2: volume up, you would hear.

931
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:09,680
Speaker 1: Like he lowen feedback and all those things. Yeah.

932
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 5: How many people y'all just sent back to listen to

933
00:53:11,560 --> 00:53:14,320
Speaker 5: like their old vinyl Like that's that's what okay?

934
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:17,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, the more the more it's it's problematic.

935
00:53:17,480 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 2: Like probably one of the worst records I know that

936
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 2: has this system times no god, the worst mastered albums ever.

937
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, uh uh the Deaf Jams initial

938
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 2: release of Public Enemy Spear of a Black Planet, where

939
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:39,320
Speaker 2: they actually try to cramp ten songs on one side,

940
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 2: like they didn't make it a double album. They're just like,

941
00:53:42,280 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 2: fuck it, ten songs on one side, ten songs on

942
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 2: the other side, and thus all this. Yeah, the more

943
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:54,720
Speaker 2: music you squeeze on a record, the softer it gets.

944
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 3: Well, it's funny. I didn't discover that record until I

945
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 3: got it on a on a CD.

946
00:54:01,560 --> 00:54:02,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it was me.

947
00:54:02,600 --> 00:54:05,799
Speaker 10: I mean's amazing technology.

948
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,880
Speaker 3: That's an amazing record. Though, that's the that's the Sergeant

949
00:54:08,920 --> 00:54:13,280
Speaker 3: Pepper of hip hop. That record. Wow, yeah, that record,

950
00:54:13,560 --> 00:54:15,840
Speaker 3: you know, influenced a white guy like me. You know,

951
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:22,160
Speaker 3: it's really you know, I thought that, can you do that?

952
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:23,839
Speaker 3: Can you actually do that?

953
00:54:23,880 --> 00:54:25,480
Speaker 1: Not legally?

954
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we're doing it. We're not doing it, so.

955
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: You just do it you get caught.

956
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just know. I just you know, I love

957
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:35,920
Speaker 3: that record. I go back to it with regularity.

958
00:54:36,280 --> 00:54:39,080
Speaker 1: All right, Wait now you see damn see I don't

959
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: even want to.

960
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:43,160
Speaker 5: Go to ask them what.

961
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 2: Well, no, I was gonna leap right to Hermit of Mink,

962
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 2: but I don't. I don't want to lose faithful and

963
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:50,920
Speaker 2: all the other stuff. But all right, I know I

964
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:52,720
Speaker 2: booked you the last time when I asked you about

965
00:54:54,880 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 2: But that's just not normal. It's not normal.

966
00:54:59,200 --> 00:54:59,840
Speaker 1: Not normal.

967
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 2: It's not normal to be making shit like that. Uh yeah,

968
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:07,719
Speaker 2: long did it take you to make that song? And

969
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 2: where did you did you just have a sound effects

970
00:55:10,160 --> 00:55:12,640
Speaker 2: record and be like, Okay, I'm going to figure out

971
00:55:13,360 --> 00:55:13,759
Speaker 2: the song.

972
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:17,320
Speaker 3: Some of them sound effects, some of it as sound effracts,

973
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 3: and then that's you know, a lot of it's just

974
00:55:18,920 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 3: me making noises with my mouth all.

975
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 2: Right, and itever even bothered me that you would actually

976
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 2: make the sounds by yourself. I thought, yeah, I thought

977
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 2: you were just like one by one, like cutting pasting.

978
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:33,920
Speaker 3: Well, obviously some of the sounds are not human derived,

979
00:55:34,040 --> 00:55:36,640
Speaker 3: so they would have to be sample from something, probably

980
00:55:36,640 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 3: from a sound effects record or even me like making

981
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:41,680
Speaker 3: some foldy for it.

982
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:44,839
Speaker 2: But well, yeah, what I'm trying to lead to is that,

983
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 2: I mean, between you and Miles Davis, Well, well, you

984
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 2: know what with TiO Marcia, uh Marcia's name see Mao,

985
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:58,440
Speaker 2: with how they craft a bit just brew. I mean,

986
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:04,440
Speaker 2: these albums that you're making are just they're they're redefining

987
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,759
Speaker 2: what you can do and can't do with technology. So

988
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:14,000
Speaker 2: was it the fact that you just felt like, I mean,

989
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 2: were you ever just unsatisfied with the studio? Like what

990
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:20,320
Speaker 2: studios were you looking for to give you maximum creation?

991
00:56:21,160 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 1: And did you everything of a.

992
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:27,480
Speaker 2: Day would come that something like pro tools would come along,

993
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 2: like that would make your life easier.

994
00:56:31,040 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 3: Well, I got into the idea of having a studio

995
00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:40,320
Speaker 3: of my own on Wizard or True Star because I thought,

996
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,560
Speaker 3: if you're going to go musical exploring, you know, if

997
00:56:43,600 --> 00:56:46,040
Speaker 3: you're going to go musical big game hunting or whatever. No,

998
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 3: that's that's Paul Simon. If you're going to go musically exploring,

999
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 3: you need to be able to do things sometimes that

1000
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 3: they won't allow you to do in a regular studio.

1001
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,160
Speaker 3: I say, if we own it's a regular studio, let's say,

1002
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:01,680
Speaker 3: but it don't turn that knob past there, you know.

1003
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:08,319
Speaker 3: But if I have my own studio, well that's it's

1004
00:57:08,440 --> 00:57:12,279
Speaker 3: because they have to, you know, turn the studio over

1005
00:57:12,320 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 3: to somebody else when you're equipment. Yeah, it's like, you know,

1006
00:57:16,520 --> 00:57:18,720
Speaker 3: it's not just yours to do anything you want with.

1007
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 3: But when you have your own studio, that's exactly what

1008
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 3: it is. So we would put the knobs wherever we

1009
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 3: want it, you know. In other words, we wouldn't even

1010
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 3: look at the meters. We would just listen, you know,

1011
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,800
Speaker 3: and turn a knob until it sounded right, you know.

1012
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 3: And sometimes you know, the meters are just pinned in

1013
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 3: the red. But that's how you get that sound. And

1014
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:39,440
Speaker 3: ever since.

1015
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:42,080
Speaker 4: National Feel off that album, it sounds like I love

1016
00:57:42,120 --> 00:57:42,760
Speaker 4: that song man.

1017
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. A lot of it is you know, just us,

1018
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 3: you know, not not being not being like you would

1019
00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:54,200
Speaker 3: be in a normal studio, like in a normal studio.

1020
00:57:55,320 --> 00:58:00,360
Speaker 3: You would have somebody make sure that the noise reduction

1021
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 3: was in the right the switches on the noise reduction

1022
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 3: we're in the right locations, depending on whether you were

1023
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:11,840
Speaker 3: recording or playing back, and we would find ourselves doing

1024
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:16,600
Speaker 3: things like putting noise reduction on something and then bouncing

1025
00:58:16,680 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 3: it to another track forgetting to put the noise reduction

1026
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:25,120
Speaker 3: into the decode board of it. So essentially it would

1027
00:58:25,200 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 3: be like the most squishy limitter that you ever heard,

1028
00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 3: and the highs would just be the highest highs because

1029
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:36,920
Speaker 3: we were using DBX discolinear compression and I won't explain

1030
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:41,720
Speaker 3: what that is now, but essentially accidents. You know, half

1031
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:45,160
Speaker 3: of what happened on that record was accidents. I was wiring.

1032
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 3: I was on my back underneath the console wiring it

1033
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 3: while the musicians are coming in for the first session,

1034
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:56,480
Speaker 3: you know, and we're just finding channels that work. You know,

1035
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:59,200
Speaker 3: mark that one. I'll fix that later. But we just

1036
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 3: we get enough channels to record everybody. Okay. It was

1037
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:07,200
Speaker 3: like that all the time. It was just gorilla recording

1038
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 3: because you know, we had no studio manager. Nobody ever

1039
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 3: paid anything to use the studio. It was just we

1040
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 3: would contribute to each other's projects and stuff. It was

1041
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:21,800
Speaker 3: a little musical collective. It was great.

1042
00:59:22,520 --> 00:59:26,160
Speaker 4: And your your label, your label like Bearsville, How were

1043
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,080
Speaker 4: they were they supported because, I mean, cause a lot

1044
00:59:29,080 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 4: of stuff you were doing, I mean it was really unorthodox.

1045
00:59:31,400 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 4: And you know, a song like I Saw the Light

1046
00:59:34,880 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 4: or you know, Cold Morning, like you know just, which

1047
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:39,880
Speaker 4: is some of my favorite songs by you, but like

1048
00:59:39,960 --> 00:59:41,840
Speaker 4: those are kind of just, you know, kind of easier

1049
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 4: to digest. But then on a Wizard of a True

1050
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 4: Star you went really kind of heavy.

1051
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:51,800
Speaker 2: But have you ever got John Lennon's reaction to rock

1052
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,480
Speaker 2: and roll pussy and.

1053
00:59:55,480 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 3: No, not that particular thing. Uh, And that was about

1054
01:00:00,880 --> 01:00:03,080
Speaker 3: It wasn't particularly about I don't think it was about

1055
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 3: John Lennon, although I can't remember exactly when that press

1056
01:00:06,440 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 3: manufactured feud was, but yeah, they uh uh, some people

1057
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:15,280
Speaker 3: at the label really freaked out. My friend Paul Fishkin,

1058
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 3: who later went on to found Modern Records, he was

1059
01:00:19,160 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 3: running the label at the time, and after something anything

1060
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:26,360
Speaker 3: that had like three hit singles on it, I give

1061
01:00:26,440 --> 01:00:29,520
Speaker 3: him always a True Star, which doesn't which doesn't even

1062
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 3: have spaces between the songs.

1063
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 4: You know, you know, when that record though I love

1064
01:00:35,360 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 4: this shit man, Oh no.

1065
01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 3: But then you know he is freaking out. You know,

1066
01:00:38,960 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 3: he's saying, how do I how do I sell this?

1067
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,840
Speaker 3: You know, this is the lost album. Now. Meanwhile, Albert

1068
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 3: Grossman is just tickled pink about the whole thing. You know,

1069
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:51,560
Speaker 3: he says, Oh, yet, let's drop the bomb on this one.

1070
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:54,800
Speaker 3: We're gonna we're gonna make this a double gatefold die

1071
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:58,640
Speaker 3: cut album cover. You know, we're gonna do records in

1072
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 3: colored vine Well, we did limited run a colored vinyl

1073
01:01:01,440 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 3: is something anything, but we're going to do some colored

1074
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 3: vinyl in there. We're going to get Patty Smith to

1075
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:10,360
Speaker 3: do a you know, a little poem on a piece

1076
01:01:10,360 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 3: of paper and shove it in there. And a postcard

1077
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:16,520
Speaker 3: so we can solicit addresses from people and put their

1078
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:20,880
Speaker 3: names in the next package. These were all his ideas.

1079
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:22,520
Speaker 3: You know, I never had the guts to say, give

1080
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:26,120
Speaker 3: me a double you know, give me a gatefold die

1081
01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:30,080
Speaker 3: cut record, you know, to hold only one record. You know,

1082
01:01:30,200 --> 01:01:33,880
Speaker 3: it wasn't a double album, but that record also was

1083
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:37,080
Speaker 3: the epitome of that problem with too much program on

1084
01:01:37,120 --> 01:01:40,640
Speaker 3: your vinyl. And I think it's either on that record

1085
01:01:40,720 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 3: or another record. I put something on it, and the

1086
01:01:43,920 --> 01:01:46,120
Speaker 3: company let it pass. But it was really sort of

1087
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 3: in violation of general policy. I said, this record, you know,

1088
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 3: there's a lot of music on here. I advised that

1089
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:55,600
Speaker 3: the very first time you play you record it to

1090
01:01:55,680 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 3: tape and then listen to it from tape after that,

1091
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:04,479
Speaker 3: because you'll be lucky if you get through once on

1092
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:06,320
Speaker 3: the on the turntable.

1093
01:02:07,040 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 2: So with your your album afterwards, just based on the

1094
01:02:12,720 --> 01:02:16,200
Speaker 2: lyrical content and whatnot. What was I mean by this

1095
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 2: point you were an established you know, and an established start. Like,

1096
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:24,600
Speaker 2: how how was it handling the success that you were gaining?

1097
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,240
Speaker 2: Because I guess, you know, you said at the top

1098
01:02:27,280 --> 01:02:30,320
Speaker 2: of the show that you really didn't have any expectations

1099
01:02:30,320 --> 01:02:34,600
Speaker 2: to become, like, you know, a big star or those things,

1100
01:02:34,720 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 2: and now you're dealing with it, Like what was it

1101
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,560
Speaker 2: like to deal with it and too do these songs

1102
01:02:40,600 --> 01:02:44,919
Speaker 2: in concert? And well, even with that, like you're such

1103
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 2: a studio wizard, how were you able to kind of

1104
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 2: execute these ideas on stage by this point?

1105
01:02:52,880 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 3: Well, I had to learn how to sing in front

1106
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:57,200
Speaker 3: of an audience. I didn't. I was never a singer.

1107
01:02:57,240 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 3: I always delegated the singing to somebody else. The first

1108
01:03:01,840 --> 01:03:04,080
Speaker 3: time that I went out on the road was probably

1109
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 3: after after Run, after we Got to Get You a Woman,

1110
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 3: and I put a band together mostly of musicians called

1111
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:15,400
Speaker 3: the Hello People, who were a group of rock and

1112
01:03:15,480 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 3: roll mimes. And I couldn't make it twenty minutes into

1113
01:03:21,440 --> 01:03:23,480
Speaker 3: a set, and in those days a set was like

1114
01:03:23,520 --> 01:03:27,160
Speaker 3: thirty minutes. You know, I couldn't make it. I couldn't

1115
01:03:27,360 --> 01:03:30,160
Speaker 3: sing for you know, more than fifteen twenty minutes at

1116
01:03:30,160 --> 01:03:34,440
Speaker 3: a time. And it took me literally years to develop

1117
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 3: my voice to the point that I could sing a

1118
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:40,320
Speaker 3: whole show. The irony being now that I can sing

1119
01:03:40,400 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 3: all night, it doesn't seem to affect me.

1120
01:03:43,640 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 5: Were there any of your peers that you look to

1121
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:47,480
Speaker 5: to kind of did you do it in.

1122
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:49,320
Speaker 6: A way like anybody else? Any other artists that you

1123
01:03:49,320 --> 01:03:50,800
Speaker 6: looked at and like, okay, what peers?

1124
01:03:50,840 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 3: I mean the ones that are still alive. No, at the.

1125
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:55,680
Speaker 6: Time when you how to do it his live thing?

1126
01:03:56,840 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 6: What fifteen minutes? That's what I meant, Like.

1127
01:03:59,160 --> 01:04:02,680
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, you know, it's not an uncommon thing.

1128
01:04:02,680 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 3: And what happens is most people see I always had,

1129
01:04:05,960 --> 01:04:09,040
Speaker 3: I guess I would write aspirationally, I would write to

1130
01:04:09,080 --> 01:04:12,520
Speaker 3: the very ends of my range when I was in

1131
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:14,360
Speaker 3: the studio, because all I have to do is like

1132
01:04:14,440 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 3: hit the note once and then we'll punch it to that,

1133
01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:20,160
Speaker 3: you know, just punch in every freaking note, you know.

1134
01:04:20,560 --> 01:04:21,919
Speaker 3: But then you have to go out on the road

1135
01:04:21,920 --> 01:04:24,640
Speaker 3: and sing all those notes in a row. And you know,

1136
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:28,640
Speaker 3: I was just wasn't prepared for that. But what a

1137
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:32,280
Speaker 3: lot of people will do, They'll just simply they'll compensate,

1138
01:04:32,440 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 3: you know, they'll say, Okay, I'll just lower the key,

1139
01:04:35,040 --> 01:04:39,000
Speaker 3: or I won't write into that range. You know, I'll

1140
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:44,520
Speaker 3: I won't, I won't strange. I won't strain myself that way. Yeah,

1141
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:47,920
Speaker 3: But I was still always aspirational. I just you know,

1142
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 3: there were singers that I admired that I wanted to

1143
01:04:50,040 --> 01:04:53,400
Speaker 3: sound like, and so I just kept trying to do that.

1144
01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:57,040
Speaker 3: You know, I was a giant Stevie Wonder fan. You know,

1145
01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 3: I was always trying to sing like Stevie Wonder, which

1146
01:05:00,360 --> 01:05:03,400
Speaker 3: is an impossible thing to try and attempt in the

1147
01:05:03,440 --> 01:05:07,000
Speaker 3: first place. But I got just so much inspiration from

1148
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:11,080
Speaker 3: his singing. And more importantly, you know, it was a

1149
01:05:11,120 --> 01:05:13,800
Speaker 3: weird artifact of the way they recorded at Motown and

1150
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:16,920
Speaker 3: particularly the way that he is. His voice got recorded,

1151
01:05:17,800 --> 01:05:20,600
Speaker 3: they put so much compression on his voice because probably

1152
01:05:20,600 --> 01:05:24,400
Speaker 3: because he's so loud, you know that you could hear

1153
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:26,960
Speaker 3: every breath he took. You could hear every breath he

1154
01:05:27,000 --> 01:05:30,960
Speaker 3: was taking in between the notes. And it taught me

1155
01:05:31,160 --> 01:05:34,680
Speaker 3: how to breathe when you sing. It's more about having

1156
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:37,520
Speaker 3: wind than it is about, you know, your throat and

1157
01:05:37,560 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 3: trying to stretch it hard enough to get to those

1158
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 3: high notes, you know. So I just I learned a

1159
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:47,480
Speaker 3: lot from listening to other people' sing. But that was,

1160
01:05:47,520 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 3: you know, a revelatory moment when I suddenly realized I

1161
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:55,280
Speaker 3: should just go and go in my car, drive around

1162
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:59,280
Speaker 3: for hours, screaming my head off, just drive around screaming

1163
01:05:59,320 --> 01:06:02,560
Speaker 3: your head off. And after enough of that, I started

1164
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:05,120
Speaker 3: to gain the stamina, you know, to be able to

1165
01:06:05,160 --> 01:06:06,240
Speaker 3: actually hit those notes.

1166
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: Is it possible for you to listen.

1167
01:06:10,280 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 2: To music by other artists and not get in sort

1168
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,960
Speaker 2: of the analytical mode of I wonder what mike they used,

1169
01:06:19,320 --> 01:06:23,480
Speaker 2: or what tubing or what the engineering was, and there's

1170
01:06:23,480 --> 01:06:26,800
Speaker 2: too much compression, and I would have changed this, And like,

1171
01:06:27,280 --> 01:06:30,120
Speaker 2: can you just are you able to listen to music

1172
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:34,560
Speaker 2: without dissecting it as you hear it as an engineer

1173
01:06:34,680 --> 01:06:35,480
Speaker 2: or as a producer.

1174
01:06:35,960 --> 01:06:40,240
Speaker 3: Well, like all things, you know, it really depends on

1175
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:43,280
Speaker 3: the strength of the performance and the music. And this

1176
01:06:43,520 --> 01:06:48,160
Speaker 3: is in line with my philosophy as a producer. The

1177
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:52,120
Speaker 3: audience at large doesn't give a damn about so called

1178
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:56,280
Speaker 3: sound quality. They think when they hear it the first time,

1179
01:06:56,360 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 3: they think that's how it's supposed to sound. They never think, oh,

1180
01:07:00,120 --> 01:07:02,520
Speaker 3: was too much reverb on this, or you know, that's

1181
01:07:02,560 --> 01:07:05,040
Speaker 3: you know, I can't hear this quite. They may have

1182
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:08,520
Speaker 3: some they may have some subjective opinion about it overall,

1183
01:07:08,520 --> 01:07:11,280
Speaker 3: but they don't know enough about the process to be

1184
01:07:11,360 --> 01:07:14,000
Speaker 3: able to pinpoint what it is. So for the most part,

1185
01:07:14,400 --> 01:07:18,000
Speaker 3: if it's a great song, and if it's you know,

1186
01:07:18,720 --> 01:07:22,560
Speaker 3: a vivacious performance, you know, if it's a great performance

1187
01:07:22,560 --> 01:07:25,560
Speaker 3: of that song, people don't care at all what it

1188
01:07:25,640 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 3: sounds like, you know, which is why I could just

1189
01:07:28,880 --> 01:07:31,440
Speaker 3: can never get into these high fidelity arguments, you know,

1190
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:34,520
Speaker 3: with Neil Young or whoever. You know that you need,

1191
01:07:34,640 --> 01:07:38,040
Speaker 3: you know, two hundred and fifty six thousand bits of second,

1192
01:07:38,160 --> 01:07:46,479
Speaker 3: you know, properly hear the sounds. Yeah, use it much,

1193
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:50,760
Speaker 3: you know, there weren't. I don't know. The most hysterical,

1194
01:07:50,880 --> 01:07:53,560
Speaker 3: most hysterical part about it is that it's coming from

1195
01:07:53,600 --> 01:07:57,439
Speaker 3: Neil Young, you know, who did an album of him

1196
01:07:57,520 --> 01:08:00,680
Speaker 3: standing in front of a stack of marshals making feedback.

1197
01:08:01,080 --> 01:08:01,280
Speaker 1: You know.

1198
01:08:03,200 --> 01:08:06,200
Speaker 3: So he's talking about, you know, the finer points, the

1199
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:11,880
Speaker 3: audio fidelity. But you know, I've always always maintained that

1200
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:15,880
Speaker 3: that is better to you know, if an act comes in,

1201
01:08:17,400 --> 01:08:19,400
Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons why I learned engineering,

1202
01:08:19,400 --> 01:08:20,960
Speaker 3: because you don't want to waste a lot of time

1203
01:08:21,439 --> 01:08:24,280
Speaker 3: on that. If an act is ready to make the music.

1204
01:08:25,080 --> 01:08:28,559
Speaker 3: That's my you know, my number one priority before I

1205
01:08:28,640 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 3: go into the studio with someone, I want to hear

1206
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:32,400
Speaker 3: the material. I want to know that we're not in

1207
01:08:32,439 --> 01:08:35,160
Speaker 3: there like pulling our PUDs, you know, over something, or

1208
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 3: that we suddenly got to call a halt to the

1209
01:08:37,880 --> 01:08:40,800
Speaker 3: session because we have to write a bridge, you know.

1210
01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:44,640
Speaker 3: So I always want to hear the material before we

1211
01:08:44,720 --> 01:08:47,920
Speaker 3: go into the studio to have the confidence that we're

1212
01:08:47,960 --> 01:08:50,519
Speaker 3: going to be making music in there and not talking

1213
01:08:50,560 --> 01:08:54,439
Speaker 3: about non musical issues. That's the most important thing. Second

1214
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:56,760
Speaker 3: most important thing is, you know, is to get the

1215
01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:00,360
Speaker 3: artist in a mood to deliver that song you know

1216
01:09:00,520 --> 01:09:03,320
Speaker 3: to actually, you know, which is another reason why I

1217
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 3: like them to have written and ideally have performed the

1218
01:09:07,479 --> 01:09:10,960
Speaker 3: material before you get into the studio to record it.

1219
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:14,600
Speaker 3: It makes such a difference because if somebody's reading the

1220
01:09:14,720 --> 01:09:17,599
Speaker 3: lyrics off of a piece of paper while they're doing it,

1221
01:09:18,200 --> 01:09:20,800
Speaker 3: they're not really thinking about what it means. They're just

1222
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 3: trying to get the words right, you know. And what

1223
01:09:24,120 --> 01:09:26,120
Speaker 3: you really want to do is convey the meaning of

1224
01:09:26,120 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 3: the words with your singing. So number one, yeah, getting

1225
01:09:31,320 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 3: good singing and good songs that really inspire the performers

1226
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 3: get the performers to be inspired. Nobody really cares that

1227
01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:41,160
Speaker 3: much about the sound of it unless you've made it

1228
01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 3: incredibly terrible.

1229
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:48,639
Speaker 4: I had a question about about can we Still be friends?

1230
01:09:48,680 --> 01:09:50,320
Speaker 1: A lyric? Your lyric?

1231
01:09:50,400 --> 01:09:51,439
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was a lyrical as an

1232
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:54,880
Speaker 4: ad lib. Can we still get together? Sometimes? That's like

1233
01:09:54,920 --> 01:09:58,920
Speaker 4: one of my favorite part in songing heard like can.

1234
01:09:58,720 --> 01:09:59,639
Speaker 1: We are we gounk?

1235
01:09:59,680 --> 01:10:00,840
Speaker 3: And this? Can we do it?

1236
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:04,920
Speaker 1: Can we do it? Is it just can we hook

1237
01:10:05,000 --> 01:10:09,120
Speaker 1: up and we get some coffee? Some shit? I how

1238
01:10:09,200 --> 01:10:09,840
Speaker 1: did you mean that?

1239
01:10:10,120 --> 01:10:14,719
Speaker 3: Well? You know, it's it's kind of an open question, Uh, Okay,

1240
01:10:14,960 --> 01:10:16,960
Speaker 3: you know, it's just you know, the whole whole tenor

1241
01:10:17,000 --> 01:10:18,240
Speaker 3: of the song is you know, a lot of people

1242
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 3: assume it's it's a romantic song. But I made a

1243
01:10:23,400 --> 01:10:27,000
Speaker 3: decision at a certain point that most people when they

1244
01:10:27,080 --> 01:10:29,479
Speaker 3: use the word love in a song context, they're more

1245
01:10:29,520 --> 01:10:34,439
Speaker 3: often talking about either sex or ownership. And I at

1246
01:10:34,479 --> 01:10:36,120
Speaker 3: a certain point decided I wasn't going to use the

1247
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:39,360
Speaker 3: word at all. So for many albums, the word love

1248
01:10:39,400 --> 01:10:40,160
Speaker 3: does not appear.

1249
01:10:41,080 --> 01:10:41,479
Speaker 1: Uh.

1250
01:10:41,640 --> 01:10:45,120
Speaker 3: Then I decided that it's okay to use the word love,

1251
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:47,280
Speaker 3: but try and do it in a way that isn't

1252
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:51,320
Speaker 3: doesn't make things so specific that people always think it's romantic,

1253
01:10:52,120 --> 01:10:54,280
Speaker 3: that everything is always about a boy and a girl.

1254
01:10:54,720 --> 01:10:56,639
Speaker 3: And that's the same way about like can we still

1255
01:10:56,680 --> 01:11:00,040
Speaker 3: be friends? It's assumed that it's a guy in a

1256
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:02,040
Speaker 3: girl breaking up, or a guy and a guy or

1257
01:11:02,120 --> 01:11:03,480
Speaker 3: girl girl whatever.

1258
01:11:03,360 --> 01:11:03,439
Speaker 1: But.

1259
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:08,360
Speaker 3: It isn't necessarily about that. It's like, let's say you

1260
01:11:08,760 --> 01:11:11,160
Speaker 3: and a friend of yours worked really hard, you know,

1261
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 3: to build a company up, and then you realize you

1262
01:11:14,160 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 3: got to leave the company. You know, I can't do

1263
01:11:16,439 --> 01:11:18,719
Speaker 3: this anymore. I got to move on to something else.

1264
01:11:20,360 --> 01:11:25,040
Speaker 3: That's you know, it could be that, you know, right right.

1265
01:11:26,120 --> 01:11:30,680
Speaker 2: No, Yeah, I always uh saw from the standpoint of

1266
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:36,720
Speaker 2: maybe you know, a plea for kind of like a

1267
01:11:36,760 --> 01:11:42,519
Speaker 2: post amicable divorce situation or you know, kind of after

1268
01:11:42,640 --> 01:11:45,200
Speaker 2: the fire has burnt out.

1269
01:11:46,200 --> 01:11:50,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is a very it is. Yeah, can

1270
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:53,080
Speaker 3: we be civil? It's more like that, you know, it's

1271
01:11:53,120 --> 01:11:57,280
Speaker 3: like more like the overriding messages, you know, can can

1272
01:11:57,320 --> 01:11:59,280
Speaker 3: we go on? Because there are because there are situations

1273
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:01,800
Speaker 3: that are exactly not the opposite, you know. It's like

1274
01:12:01,920 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 3: there are people that you know you never want to

1275
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:08,360
Speaker 3: encounter again ever, you know. So, and I have the

1276
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:11,080
Speaker 3: I don't know that I've written that song, but I

1277
01:12:11,200 --> 01:12:15,760
Speaker 3: do have, you know, a philosophical thing about it, you know,

1278
01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:20,000
Speaker 3: which is, you know, certain people. It's if you'll excuse

1279
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:23,360
Speaker 3: the expression, I call it the tar baby syndrome. If

1280
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:28,040
Speaker 3: you recall from the Song of the South. Yeah, Thorimus saying,

1281
01:12:28,120 --> 01:12:31,240
Speaker 3: you know, it's all about Breer Rabbit and brer Fox

1282
01:12:31,280 --> 01:12:33,840
Speaker 3: and beer Bear, and these are you know, antagonists. They're

1283
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:36,479
Speaker 3: always at each other, you know, messing with each other

1284
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 3: all the time. And so Bret Rabbit finds this big

1285
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 3: ball a tar and he says, I'm going to play

1286
01:12:41,360 --> 01:12:44,400
Speaker 3: a trick on bear Fox and bereer Bear, you know,

1287
01:12:44,439 --> 01:12:47,040
Speaker 3: because I know that they were going to they mess

1288
01:12:47,120 --> 01:12:50,200
Speaker 3: with strangers and stuff. So dresses it up and close

1289
01:12:50,280 --> 01:12:53,400
Speaker 3: and sticks it on a log, and sure enough brea

1290
01:12:53,479 --> 01:12:55,760
Speaker 3: Fox and bereer Bear come around start messing with it.

1291
01:12:56,400 --> 01:12:59,240
Speaker 3: And what happens is that, you know, all has to

1292
01:12:59,280 --> 01:13:01,679
Speaker 3: happen is you stick a finger in there and suddenly

1293
01:13:01,760 --> 01:13:03,719
Speaker 3: you got it on you and you can't get it off.

1294
01:13:04,280 --> 01:13:06,760
Speaker 3: And then it's suddenly and the next thing you know,

1295
01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:08,639
Speaker 3: they're trying to get it off and they're just getting

1296
01:13:08,800 --> 01:13:11,720
Speaker 3: more and more of it more on them. And to

1297
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 3: you know, the lesson to me was, you know, there

1298
01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:18,280
Speaker 3: are certain situations and certain people you should know beforehand.

1299
01:13:18,560 --> 01:13:22,000
Speaker 3: Don't even touch it, you know, don't put a finger

1300
01:13:22,080 --> 01:13:24,320
Speaker 3: on it, you know, because you will be paying for

1301
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:27,639
Speaker 3: it for a long time after that. And so there

1302
01:13:27,680 --> 01:13:30,479
Speaker 3: have been people in my life which you know, they

1303
01:13:30,640 --> 01:13:33,640
Speaker 3: fall under that category. I say, don't even you know,

1304
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:35,840
Speaker 3: you can imagine, oh, everything is gonna be fine, it

1305
01:13:35,840 --> 01:13:38,120
Speaker 3: won't be like it was before, and then the next

1306
01:13:38,120 --> 01:13:41,439
Speaker 3: thing you know, it's exactly like it was before because

1307
01:13:41,560 --> 01:13:42,880
Speaker 3: you changed what they didn't.

1308
01:13:43,040 --> 01:13:45,720
Speaker 6: They didn't Oh my goodness, Yes, that is universal.

1309
01:13:45,800 --> 01:13:48,400
Speaker 1: That's a word. That's a word, or at least today.

1310
01:13:48,840 --> 01:13:52,479
Speaker 2: When when the cover album is made, usually it's a

1311
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:55,080
Speaker 2: period where like maybe people will run out of ideas

1312
01:13:55,280 --> 01:13:59,960
Speaker 2: and you run all the way up until uh to Faithful.

1313
01:14:01,000 --> 01:14:03,400
Speaker 2: And not to say that you weren't still pushing the

1314
01:14:03,400 --> 01:14:07,080
Speaker 2: boundaries because we didn't even get started on the Acapella

1315
01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:07,760
Speaker 2: record yet.

1316
01:14:07,760 --> 01:14:11,680
Speaker 1: But with Faithful, what was the idea.

1317
01:14:12,760 --> 01:14:17,760
Speaker 2: Behind covering those to do those covers, because I mean

1318
01:14:17,800 --> 01:14:21,519
Speaker 2: the idea of doing a cover album or conceptual cover

1319
01:14:22,360 --> 01:14:26,479
Speaker 2: half album wasn't even practically a thing yet. I mean,

1320
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 2: I know that in the sixties to make records, people would,

1321
01:14:29,560 --> 01:14:32,400
Speaker 2: you know, cover whatever, like a Beatles song or that

1322
01:14:32,520 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 2: sort of thing. But what was your whole ideology behind

1323
01:14:37,040 --> 01:14:37,839
Speaker 2: making that record?

1324
01:14:38,360 --> 01:14:41,879
Speaker 3: It was actually to demonstrate how much radio had changed

1325
01:14:41,920 --> 01:14:46,160
Speaker 3: in ten years of Faithful came out in nineteen seventy six,

1326
01:14:46,880 --> 01:14:50,679
Speaker 3: and every song, pretty much every song that I did

1327
01:14:52,640 --> 01:14:56,519
Speaker 3: on the cover side of Faithful was on the radio

1328
01:14:56,720 --> 01:15:00,920
Speaker 3: in nineteen sixty six, okay, And what I wanted to

1329
01:15:00,960 --> 01:15:03,200
Speaker 3: try and do is recreate what it was like to

1330
01:15:03,240 --> 01:15:06,240
Speaker 3: listen to radio then where you would go from like

1331
01:15:06,320 --> 01:15:10,599
Speaker 3: the Beatles to Bob Dylan to you know, I didn't

1332
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:12,679
Speaker 3: even cover the range of what was happening. But growing

1333
01:15:12,720 --> 01:15:19,400
Speaker 3: up in Philadelphia, you know, the DJ's highlight, and there

1334
01:15:19,439 --> 01:15:21,960
Speaker 3: was another DJ. I can't remember who he was, but

1335
01:15:23,040 --> 01:15:25,960
Speaker 3: I mean, the sixties liberated them and they would play

1336
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:30,439
Speaker 3: you know, Judy Collins, and then they'd play the Beatles,

1337
01:15:30,479 --> 01:15:33,160
Speaker 3: and then they played Bill Evans or some other jazz.

1338
01:15:33,280 --> 01:15:38,000
Speaker 3: And the radio was just really interesting in those days

1339
01:15:38,040 --> 01:15:41,599
Speaker 3: and enabled you to discover a lot more music than

1340
01:15:41,800 --> 01:15:46,519
Speaker 3: the kind of formatted radio that eventually happened, Like by

1341
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:51,840
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy six, everything is syndicated radio. Everything's everybody's playing

1342
01:15:51,920 --> 01:15:55,680
Speaker 3: the same playlist. So I just wanted to demonstrate, you

1343
01:15:55,720 --> 01:15:59,719
Speaker 3: know what, how eclectic music could be on the radio.

1344
01:16:00,920 --> 01:16:06,320
Speaker 3: The other side was just a handful of songs. But

1345
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:10,000
Speaker 3: it's funny, a lot of those songs on the original

1346
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:12,320
Speaker 3: side turned out to be standards that I do all

1347
01:16:12,360 --> 01:16:15,920
Speaker 3: the time, even to this day.

1348
01:16:16,000 --> 01:16:24,000
Speaker 2: So my personal favorite album of your canon is The Hermit,

1349
01:16:24,200 --> 01:16:29,680
Speaker 2: A Big Hollow, of which I well, I know that

1350
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 2: you literally did everything by yourself with correct how nerve

1351
01:16:37,200 --> 01:16:41,560
Speaker 2: wracking is that process when you are your own engineer

1352
01:16:42,240 --> 01:16:46,400
Speaker 2: and your own like, did you have a remote device

1353
01:16:46,479 --> 01:16:48,640
Speaker 2: for the tape or did you like did you?

1354
01:16:50,520 --> 01:16:54,440
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, how did you I did not, unfortunately,

1355
01:16:54,520 --> 01:16:58,280
Speaker 3: did not have a remote device or the tape. And

1356
01:16:58,439 --> 01:17:02,840
Speaker 3: my studio. I was using my my personal studio, which

1357
01:17:03,040 --> 01:17:08,280
Speaker 3: was up in Lake Hill, a little bit past Bearsville.

1358
01:17:08,520 --> 01:17:10,320
Speaker 3: I had a house, and then I had there was

1359
01:17:10,360 --> 01:17:12,559
Speaker 3: a little barn on the property, and the barn had

1360
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:15,400
Speaker 3: a loft in it, and so I enclosed the loft

1361
01:17:15,920 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 3: and made that the control room. But that meant that,

1362
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:22,599
Speaker 3: you know, every all the instruments of any size, drums

1363
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:26,559
Speaker 3: and such, would have to be downstairs. And so the

1364
01:17:26,560 --> 01:17:29,719
Speaker 3: most nerve wracking part, of course is recording the drums,

1365
01:17:29,760 --> 01:17:33,360
Speaker 3: because I would get, you know, like into it a

1366
01:17:33,360 --> 01:17:35,240
Speaker 3: little ways and then screw up and I have to

1367
01:17:35,320 --> 01:17:41,560
Speaker 3: run up the stairs. I was always very stingy with tape.

1368
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:45,880
Speaker 3: You know, you were record over No, no, no, I would.

1369
01:17:46,120 --> 01:17:47,640
Speaker 3: I would just you know, if I would mess up

1370
01:17:47,680 --> 01:17:50,920
Speaker 3: a take, I would just go back. And a lot

1371
01:17:50,960 --> 01:17:53,960
Speaker 3: of people they would buy many reels of tape and

1372
01:17:54,000 --> 01:17:56,479
Speaker 3: they would go through make many takes of everything and

1373
01:17:56,520 --> 01:17:59,640
Speaker 3: then eventually maybe make a master reel or something. But

1374
01:17:59,760 --> 01:18:02,840
Speaker 3: I was always making a master reel. I was always

1375
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:04,960
Speaker 3: like going for the one take, then I would put

1376
01:18:04,960 --> 01:18:08,360
Speaker 3: a paper leader in and start recording the rest of

1377
01:18:08,400 --> 01:18:11,360
Speaker 3: the reel, you know. And so I was just very

1378
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:15,040
Speaker 3: stingy with tape and don't really never really made a

1379
01:18:15,040 --> 01:18:19,280
Speaker 3: lot of outtakes. I mean, well, I either got the

1380
01:18:19,320 --> 01:18:21,800
Speaker 3: drums right or I didn't. You know, It's like it

1381
01:18:21,840 --> 01:18:24,200
Speaker 3: wasn't the kind of thing eventually, you know, if I

1382
01:18:24,240 --> 01:18:26,760
Speaker 3: got three quarters of the way through a take, then

1383
01:18:26,920 --> 01:18:29,120
Speaker 3: I would might stop and pick it up from there

1384
01:18:29,160 --> 01:18:31,800
Speaker 3: and then do a splice and the tape. But I

1385
01:18:31,840 --> 01:18:33,720
Speaker 3: always felt that I had to get as lead ast

1386
01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:39,040
Speaker 3: halfway through it before I would consider a splice. Otherwise,

1387
01:18:39,120 --> 01:18:42,519
Speaker 3: you know, I would just stop rown stairs, rewind the tape,

1388
01:18:42,920 --> 01:18:46,640
Speaker 3: start put it in and record again, run downstairs and

1389
01:18:47,160 --> 01:18:48,719
Speaker 3: count it in, start playing again.

1390
01:18:49,160 --> 01:18:49,320
Speaker 1: You know.

1391
01:18:49,439 --> 01:18:52,559
Speaker 3: It's one of those things like I learned during something anything,

1392
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:55,559
Speaker 3: the first time I played the drums, the drums have

1393
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:58,080
Speaker 3: to be first, you know. I started out thinking I

1394
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:00,320
Speaker 3: could play the piano part and that would give me

1395
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,200
Speaker 3: some guidance about where I was in the song. But

1396
01:19:04,400 --> 01:19:07,240
Speaker 3: I could never lock into the piano because the piano

1397
01:19:07,360 --> 01:19:11,439
Speaker 3: wasn't actually you know, in any particular strict tempo. So

1398
01:19:12,479 --> 01:19:16,200
Speaker 3: I had to teach myself the song in my head

1399
01:19:16,520 --> 01:19:18,559
Speaker 3: and sing it in my head, the whole song while

1400
01:19:18,600 --> 01:19:24,280
Speaker 3: I'm playing the drums and click tracks. And because I

1401
01:19:24,280 --> 01:19:27,559
Speaker 3: couldn't play that, I couldn't play the click track either.

1402
01:19:27,680 --> 01:19:29,360
Speaker 3: You know, I couldn't lock to a click track. It

1403
01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:31,800
Speaker 3: would just you know, it would be so obvious when

1404
01:19:31,800 --> 01:19:33,519
Speaker 3: I was trying to catch up to it, you know.

1405
01:19:34,040 --> 01:19:36,800
Speaker 3: But it also gives it more of a sort of natural,

1406
01:19:37,240 --> 01:19:41,759
Speaker 3: natural feel. You know, it's amazing. You know, a drummer

1407
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:45,120
Speaker 3: can sound like he's totally locked in time, but then

1408
01:19:45,160 --> 01:19:47,679
Speaker 3: you put a click track, and then you find out

1409
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:50,280
Speaker 3: that it's kind of all over the place. You know,

1410
01:19:50,400 --> 01:19:53,280
Speaker 3: it's feel you don't notice so much, you know, the

1411
01:19:53,479 --> 01:19:57,080
Speaker 3: exact timing of of what the drums is doing. It's

1412
01:19:57,280 --> 01:19:59,559
Speaker 3: more about the field. It's a little push and pull

1413
01:19:59,600 --> 01:20:00,679
Speaker 3: happening all the time.

1414
01:20:01,520 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I you know, I use a click track, but

1415
01:20:06,400 --> 01:20:09,000
Speaker 2: oftentimes I have to force myself to figure out how

1416
01:20:09,040 --> 01:20:12,040
Speaker 2: to purposely sound like I'm not playing to a click trek.

1417
01:20:12,280 --> 01:20:12,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1418
01:20:13,000 --> 01:20:16,559
Speaker 2: So you know, even though I consistently hear that pulse

1419
01:20:16,560 --> 01:20:18,720
Speaker 2: in my head, I have to now program myself to

1420
01:20:19,439 --> 01:20:21,200
Speaker 2: go behind it, go a little bit ahead of it,

1421
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:23,320
Speaker 2: go behind it, go look, you know, just so that

1422
01:20:23,960 --> 01:20:27,599
Speaker 2: there's there's a human flow. Yeah, yeah, there's a flow

1423
01:20:27,680 --> 01:20:28,960
Speaker 2: to it. Yeah.

1424
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:31,040
Speaker 3: I discovered that when I try to make a temple

1425
01:20:31,120 --> 01:20:37,240
Speaker 3: map to go Diving girl. Really, yeah, I discover when

1426
01:20:37,280 --> 01:20:39,080
Speaker 3: I you know, when you actually try and you know,

1427
01:20:39,160 --> 01:20:45,599
Speaker 3: the tempo map essentially is you change the actual speed

1428
01:20:45,680 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 3: of the recording as it goes along to match up

1429
01:20:48,479 --> 01:20:51,640
Speaker 3: to some something that may not be an e you

1430
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:55,040
Speaker 3: know that might not be following a click track, even

1431
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:57,360
Speaker 3: though the song is mostly all the same tempo. It

1432
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:00,880
Speaker 3: it moves in and out and subtle little ways which

1433
01:21:00,920 --> 01:21:03,639
Speaker 3: you don't discover until you try and lock to.

1434
01:21:03,640 --> 01:21:14,519
Speaker 2: It, right right, So okay, not knowing the history of

1435
01:21:14,560 --> 01:21:17,599
Speaker 2: it because you know, well there's no excuse to say

1436
01:21:17,640 --> 01:21:20,759
Speaker 2: I was eleven when it came out, but I purchased

1437
01:21:20,800 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 2: this record, you know, in the last ten to fifteen years.

1438
01:21:25,920 --> 01:21:36,719
Speaker 2: But assuming that the popular tortured ever popular tortured artist effect,

1439
01:21:38,600 --> 01:21:43,559
Speaker 2: can I assume that your relationship with the label sort

1440
01:21:43,560 --> 01:21:46,120
Speaker 2: of went sour by that point because usually with the

1441
01:21:46,160 --> 01:21:52,639
Speaker 2: album titles like that, those things happened. But what also

1442
01:21:52,760 --> 01:22:00,559
Speaker 2: happens is. I would assume that that is your mind

1443
01:22:00,800 --> 01:22:04,640
Speaker 2: whatever project, and then you mess around and actually have

1444
01:22:05,479 --> 01:22:08,080
Speaker 2: because I know, being on the drum is uh being

1445
01:22:08,080 --> 01:22:09,960
Speaker 2: the drum all day is on that record.

1446
01:22:11,280 --> 01:22:13,960
Speaker 1: And so since that's your last record, am I am?

1447
01:22:14,000 --> 01:22:17,840
Speaker 2: I correct in saying that the relationship soured with Bearsville.

1448
01:22:17,880 --> 01:22:23,080
Speaker 3: By that point, things were not great with with Bearsville Records.

1449
01:22:23,680 --> 01:22:24,080
Speaker 1: It just.

1450
01:22:25,960 --> 01:22:36,439
Speaker 3: Albert Grossman was a peculiar personality and tended to go

1451
01:22:36,600 --> 01:22:39,800
Speaker 3: hot and cold in some things. And even though he

1452
01:22:39,920 --> 01:22:45,240
Speaker 3: had a label called Bearsville, he never really promoted anything

1453
01:22:45,280 --> 01:22:48,960
Speaker 3: on it. He expected Warner Brothers, a distributor, to do everything,

1454
01:22:49,120 --> 01:22:53,560
Speaker 3: so he would be constantly making deals for foreign distribution

1455
01:22:53,920 --> 01:22:56,320
Speaker 3: and then take all the money and instead of promoting

1456
01:22:56,360 --> 01:22:59,599
Speaker 3: the records or anything he would build. He would build

1457
01:22:59,640 --> 01:23:03,720
Speaker 3: a rest or something with it, you know. So he

1458
01:23:04,439 --> 01:23:07,600
Speaker 3: was very much into land ownership. So almost anything that

1459
01:23:07,800 --> 01:23:11,360
Speaker 3: you know that brought an income, he would buy something

1460
01:23:11,400 --> 01:23:13,680
Speaker 3: and build something on it. I felt that, you know,

1461
01:23:13,800 --> 01:23:16,760
Speaker 3: they first of all, weren't taking the whole idea of

1462
01:23:17,680 --> 01:23:22,920
Speaker 3: records seriously, but also certainly not my records. It's not

1463
01:23:23,040 --> 01:23:26,760
Speaker 3: as if I thought that, you know, there were a

1464
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:30,840
Speaker 3: whole bunch of great hits on my records. You know,

1465
01:23:30,880 --> 01:23:34,559
Speaker 3: I've never never striven to do that, so I don't

1466
01:23:34,600 --> 01:23:37,400
Speaker 3: force the label, you know, to say to give me

1467
01:23:37,520 --> 01:23:40,639
Speaker 3: hits or anything like that. But at the same time,

1468
01:23:41,400 --> 01:23:45,679
Speaker 3: I did expect that they would take the record seriously

1469
01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:50,240
Speaker 3: because I did have an audience. And in the end,

1470
01:23:50,439 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 3: you know, it was not as if I was doing

1471
01:23:52,479 --> 01:23:54,800
Speaker 3: a spoof of a record. It was just that I

1472
01:23:54,840 --> 01:23:57,840
Speaker 3: didn't bother to develop any concept behind it. You know,

1473
01:23:57,960 --> 01:23:59,600
Speaker 3: most of the records that I do have got to

1474
01:24:00,240 --> 01:24:03,679
Speaker 3: some overarching thing that helps me figure out what fits

1475
01:24:04,040 --> 01:24:05,559
Speaker 3: in the overall picture.

1476
01:24:06,200 --> 01:24:09,240
Speaker 2: But history will show that artists that you know, and

1477
01:24:09,280 --> 01:24:12,839
Speaker 2: this is the case with Shout by the Aisley Brothers,

1478
01:24:13,080 --> 01:24:17,599
Speaker 2: is the case with Tequila, is the case for even

1479
01:24:17,680 --> 01:24:21,599
Speaker 2: La Bamba, Like sometimes artists will Well, what I'm trying

1480
01:24:21,600 --> 01:24:23,479
Speaker 2: to lead to is that were you shacked at all?

1481
01:24:24,080 --> 01:24:27,600
Speaker 1: At how it became the sports world took to the

1482
01:24:27,600 --> 01:24:28,960
Speaker 1: Benga the trum all day.

1483
01:24:29,120 --> 01:24:34,880
Speaker 3: And it was a funny, weird kind of thing that

1484
01:24:35,080 --> 01:24:39,320
Speaker 3: happened with that. I think it started with the sports,

1485
01:24:39,320 --> 01:24:42,640
Speaker 3: but I'm not exactly sure, and I believe it was

1486
01:24:42,800 --> 01:24:47,040
Speaker 3: first like hockey games that they started playing it. Then

1487
01:24:47,080 --> 01:24:51,000
Speaker 3: two football teams, the Packers and what was then the

1488
01:24:51,000 --> 01:24:55,480
Speaker 3: Saint Louis Rams, started using it as their score celebration

1489
01:24:55,760 --> 01:24:59,120
Speaker 3: song because everybody seemed to know it for some reason.

1490
01:25:00,080 --> 01:25:02,080
Speaker 3: But it was never a hit single. In fact, it

1491
01:25:02,120 --> 01:25:05,040
Speaker 3: was never released as a single. It was a B

1492
01:25:05,240 --> 01:25:09,479
Speaker 3: side I Think of Something, and it was never in

1493
01:25:09,520 --> 01:25:14,400
Speaker 3: a technical sense written by me. It was a song

1494
01:25:14,439 --> 01:25:18,759
Speaker 3: that I dreamed. I was like asleep, I was totally asleep,

1495
01:25:18,920 --> 01:25:21,839
Speaker 3: and this song is, you know, playing in my sleep.

1496
01:25:23,160 --> 01:25:25,840
Speaker 3: I have no idea what it means or why I

1497
01:25:25,840 --> 01:25:28,200
Speaker 3: should care, but I just immediately went down to the

1498
01:25:28,240 --> 01:25:31,479
Speaker 3: studio and recorded everything that I remembered from it and

1499
01:25:31,479 --> 01:25:34,920
Speaker 3: added words. But you know, the bang, the drump thing

1500
01:25:35,000 --> 01:25:37,720
Speaker 3: was all there. It was all complete, you know. You know,

1501
01:25:38,040 --> 01:25:42,480
Speaker 3: all I had to do was write it down. Sometimes

1502
01:25:42,920 --> 01:25:44,960
Speaker 3: it's not the first time that's happened. I've had other

1503
01:25:45,040 --> 01:25:47,479
Speaker 3: songs that have just come to me when I'm asleep,

1504
01:25:48,080 --> 01:25:50,800
Speaker 3: completely formed, and then I have to go figure out

1505
01:25:50,840 --> 01:25:55,240
Speaker 3: how to remember and capture that. But it was like

1506
01:25:56,240 --> 01:26:03,280
Speaker 3: some mystical being wrote that for me and said, you're

1507
01:26:03,280 --> 01:26:08,120
Speaker 3: not going to understand now why you're doing this, but

1508
01:26:08,360 --> 01:26:11,240
Speaker 3: years and years from now, it's going to make a

1509
01:26:11,320 --> 01:26:15,720
Speaker 3: whole lot more sense, right, And then and then it

1510
01:26:15,840 --> 01:26:18,880
Speaker 3: actually happened. I mean, people started, aside from you know,

1511
01:26:18,960 --> 01:26:23,320
Speaker 3: the public usage of the song, they started people started thinking, oh,

1512
01:26:23,320 --> 01:26:26,439
Speaker 3: this is a great party theme to use for our

1513
01:26:26,520 --> 01:26:30,400
Speaker 3: movie trailer or party theme to use for our you know,

1514
01:26:30,880 --> 01:26:35,080
Speaker 3: advertising something. And they eventually peaked with carnival cruise lines.

1515
01:26:35,560 --> 01:26:40,400
Speaker 3: I'm getting six figures, big six figures a year just

1516
01:26:40,560 --> 01:26:43,840
Speaker 3: for them to use that song, right, and I would

1517
01:26:43,880 --> 01:26:46,479
Speaker 3: still be getting it except they started sinking all those

1518
01:26:46,520 --> 01:26:51,120
Speaker 3: boats decided to change their edge.

1519
01:26:52,120 --> 01:26:52,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1520
01:26:52,439 --> 01:26:55,040
Speaker 2: I was going to say that that song is the

1521
01:26:55,080 --> 01:27:00,519
Speaker 2: sound of a kid, a kid's brain and he gets

1522
01:27:00,560 --> 01:27:02,080
Speaker 2: extra chicken fingers on his.

1523
01:27:01,960 --> 01:27:07,919
Speaker 3: Plate, extra chicken fingers.

1524
01:27:08,160 --> 01:27:10,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the sound of a ten year old just

1525
01:27:10,880 --> 01:27:11,840
Speaker 2: in this happy place.

1526
01:27:12,680 --> 01:27:16,880
Speaker 4: You made a record called Arena and it has the

1527
01:27:16,960 --> 01:27:19,479
Speaker 4: song on it called Courage that I just really love.

1528
01:27:19,560 --> 01:27:22,920
Speaker 4: I just think it just beautiful changes, just a just

1529
01:27:22,920 --> 01:27:26,040
Speaker 4: a really great song. I was curious to know was

1530
01:27:26,200 --> 01:27:30,960
Speaker 4: Arena Was that you kind of mocking the arena rock

1531
01:27:31,640 --> 01:27:34,559
Speaker 4: kind of thing. Was it like a parody or was

1532
01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:37,600
Speaker 4: it a sincere tent? Because I just I mean, I

1533
01:27:37,600 --> 01:27:40,240
Speaker 4: love the record, but I know, just from listening to

1534
01:27:40,280 --> 01:27:41,840
Speaker 4: your music, kind of your sense of humor stuff.

1535
01:27:41,840 --> 01:27:43,559
Speaker 1: So I was like, is this him kind.

1536
01:27:43,439 --> 01:27:46,479
Speaker 3: Of No, it was, you know, I was pretty serious

1537
01:27:46,520 --> 01:27:53,640
Speaker 3: about it. It was the record was essentially me reacting

1538
01:27:53,640 --> 01:27:56,200
Speaker 3: to the fact that I had not played enough guitar

1539
01:27:57,320 --> 01:27:59,720
Speaker 3: the last time, you know, the first time I had

1540
01:27:59,760 --> 01:28:04,160
Speaker 3: that's to reaction was when I was sometime around something anything,

1541
01:28:04,840 --> 01:28:07,120
Speaker 3: and I'm starting to write all my songs on the piano,

1542
01:28:07,479 --> 01:28:09,960
Speaker 3: less and less on the guitar, and I'm playing less

1543
01:28:09,960 --> 01:28:13,479
Speaker 3: and less guitar, and so I said, well, how can

1544
01:28:13,520 --> 01:28:17,400
Speaker 3: I compensate for this? So I started Utopia specifically as

1545
01:28:17,439 --> 01:28:20,439
Speaker 3: a project for me to play guitar. So I don't

1546
01:28:20,439 --> 01:28:23,240
Speaker 3: play any keyboards and any Utopia records, I play only

1547
01:28:23,280 --> 01:28:28,599
Speaker 3: guitar on Utopia records. Essentially, around the period of Arena,

1548
01:28:29,040 --> 01:28:32,600
Speaker 3: I started to get the same feeling. You know, I

1549
01:28:32,640 --> 01:28:34,840
Speaker 3: spent a lot of my youth trying to learn how

1550
01:28:34,840 --> 01:28:37,240
Speaker 3: to play this thing, you know, and now I'm just

1551
01:28:37,479 --> 01:28:41,640
Speaker 3: kind of I hardly pick it up anymore. So I

1552
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:45,640
Speaker 3: decided to decided to do something that would basically be

1553
01:28:45,760 --> 01:28:48,840
Speaker 3: all guitar written, you know, everything would be written on

1554
01:28:48,920 --> 01:28:53,200
Speaker 3: guitars and it would be basically mostly guitars, occasional keyboards

1555
01:28:53,200 --> 01:28:56,760
Speaker 3: and other sounds, and to really explore, you know, what

1556
01:28:56,920 --> 01:29:03,000
Speaker 3: contemporary heavy guitar music could be like. And when we

1557
01:29:03,040 --> 01:29:06,479
Speaker 3: found a distributor for it, they said, okay, well you're

1558
01:29:06,520 --> 01:29:09,639
Speaker 3: so into playing the guitar, We just acquired the Robert

1559
01:29:09,720 --> 01:29:12,479
Speaker 3: Johnson's publishing catalog and we want you to do a

1560
01:29:12,600 --> 01:29:16,760
Speaker 3: cover record of Robert Johnson's song. So I got like

1561
01:29:16,840 --> 01:29:21,080
Speaker 3: a double dose of guitar there. I did a record

1562
01:29:21,080 --> 01:29:26,320
Speaker 3: called Todd Rungrens, Johnson and Uh and did nothing but

1563
01:29:26,439 --> 01:29:29,560
Speaker 3: Robert Johnson songs on it in the sort of sixties

1564
01:29:29,800 --> 01:29:34,800
Speaker 3: white English band style, you know, where you wouldn't recognize

1565
01:29:34,800 --> 01:29:37,720
Speaker 3: it as a Robert Johnson song, you know, because it's

1566
01:29:37,720 --> 01:29:39,559
Speaker 3: really just there to play guitar solos on.

1567
01:29:41,000 --> 01:29:43,360
Speaker 7: That's that's when he first came on the show, played

1568
01:29:43,360 --> 01:29:46,160
Speaker 7: with the roots for that to promote that record, Johnson

1569
01:29:46,760 --> 01:29:47,360
Speaker 7: the Johnson.

1570
01:29:47,479 --> 01:29:51,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, like literally I got to ask about a cappella

1571
01:29:51,640 --> 01:29:57,600
Speaker 2: because that's your thing, is your I mean, there's a

1572
01:29:57,600 --> 01:30:01,120
Speaker 2: bunch of creative zenas, but of of a career of

1573
01:30:01,200 --> 01:30:06,240
Speaker 2: creative zeneans, you leave the label, you make this album

1574
01:30:06,400 --> 01:30:11,280
Speaker 2: in eighty five, and you're basically using the tools that

1575
01:30:11,400 --> 01:30:12,240
Speaker 2: rappers will use.

1576
01:30:12,320 --> 01:30:14,439
Speaker 1: I mean, were you one of the first people to

1577
01:30:14,520 --> 01:30:16,400
Speaker 1: use an.

1578
01:30:16,280 --> 01:30:18,919
Speaker 3: EMU emulator Yeah.

1579
01:30:18,760 --> 01:30:21,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, later and an EMU uh synthesizer and all

1580
01:30:21,960 --> 01:30:22,439
Speaker 1: these things.

1581
01:30:23,080 --> 01:30:25,720
Speaker 2: First of all, going into the eighties, what was your

1582
01:30:25,720 --> 01:30:28,880
Speaker 2: thought process. Did you feel as though, like, Wow, the

1583
01:30:28,920 --> 01:30:33,719
Speaker 2: world's my oyster now or were you worried.

1584
01:30:33,200 --> 01:30:37,559
Speaker 3: Or things were still pretty good for me? Utopia was

1585
01:30:37,640 --> 01:30:42,520
Speaker 3: still by nineteen eighty we were still playing you know, arenas,

1586
01:30:42,760 --> 01:30:46,679
Speaker 3: and mostly on the strength of our shows and word

1587
01:30:46,720 --> 01:30:49,120
Speaker 3: of mouth, not on kind of like huge record sales.

1588
01:30:49,160 --> 01:30:53,840
Speaker 3: But we would do spectacular things, you know, flamethrowers and

1589
01:30:54,000 --> 01:30:58,320
Speaker 3: falling off the pyramids and that sort of thing. So

1590
01:30:58,320 --> 01:31:01,960
Speaker 3: so Utopia was still pretty successful and I was doing okay,

1591
01:31:02,040 --> 01:31:05,760
Speaker 3: and there were still productions to be done. So you know,

1592
01:31:05,800 --> 01:31:08,720
Speaker 3: it wasn't like what happened at the end of the

1593
01:31:08,840 --> 01:31:13,000
Speaker 3: nineties and what has happened ever since in that first

1594
01:31:13,000 --> 01:31:16,320
Speaker 3: of all the majors have you know, kind of fallen apart.

1595
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:20,559
Speaker 3: So the kind of funding structure for records changed a

1596
01:31:20,560 --> 01:31:24,760
Speaker 3: lot because I was making my living principally on advances

1597
01:31:24,800 --> 01:31:29,840
Speaker 3: for producing other people's records and so that as yeah,

1598
01:31:29,960 --> 01:31:33,479
Speaker 3: that all started to like fall apart throughout the nineties

1599
01:31:33,479 --> 01:31:37,400
Speaker 3: and then in the two thousands, you know, everything got different.

1600
01:31:37,439 --> 01:31:40,559
Speaker 3: You know, everything got bifurcated. You either produce your own

1601
01:31:40,600 --> 01:31:45,599
Speaker 3: records in your bedroom, or you have five producers on

1602
01:31:45,600 --> 01:31:49,200
Speaker 3: one song, like Katy Berry or something like that. You know,

1603
01:31:49,680 --> 01:31:53,519
Speaker 3: six songwriters and four producers, you know, because you want

1604
01:31:53,880 --> 01:31:58,120
Speaker 3: it to be perfect, I guess. But so you know,

1605
01:31:58,200 --> 01:32:01,080
Speaker 3: nowadays I do hardly any production at all. There's no

1606
01:32:02,080 --> 01:32:07,760
Speaker 3: demand for it. But yeah, the uh, the guitar, I

1607
01:32:07,840 --> 01:32:14,840
Speaker 3: miss it. So but anyway, back to back to acappella.

1608
01:32:15,160 --> 01:32:17,360
Speaker 3: I had these I had these concepts that I carry

1609
01:32:17,360 --> 01:32:20,080
Speaker 3: around sometimes, you know, every once in a while to

1610
01:32:20,160 --> 01:32:23,040
Speaker 3: get to one and follow up on it. And the

1611
01:32:23,080 --> 01:32:25,840
Speaker 3: idea of doing an a cappella record or a record

1612
01:32:25,840 --> 01:32:28,960
Speaker 3: where all the sound sources were from the voice or

1613
01:32:29,000 --> 01:32:32,240
Speaker 3: the body. What's a concept that I had had for

1614
01:32:32,280 --> 01:32:36,200
Speaker 3: a while. It has certainly has its challenges, but there was,

1615
01:32:36,760 --> 01:32:39,879
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, some new tools like samplers and things,

1616
01:32:40,240 --> 01:32:43,120
Speaker 3: so I could do that beatbox stuff that eventually became

1617
01:32:43,200 --> 01:32:46,760
Speaker 3: so popular, you know, in other words, overblowing a microphone,

1618
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:48,639
Speaker 3: you know, to make a snare, drum or a bass

1619
01:32:48,720 --> 01:32:52,320
Speaker 3: drum or something like that. I would do the noise

1620
01:32:52,400 --> 01:32:55,639
Speaker 3: into a sampler and then have there was no MIDI

1621
01:32:55,760 --> 01:32:58,320
Speaker 3: yet tying everything together, so I'd have to sort of

1622
01:32:58,360 --> 01:33:00,720
Speaker 3: like manually play the drum part, you know, on the

1623
01:33:00,800 --> 01:33:03,960
Speaker 3: keys all the way through the song. And that's why

1624
01:33:04,000 --> 01:33:06,280
Speaker 3: the time is kind of like a little funny in

1625
01:33:06,360 --> 01:33:09,000
Speaker 3: some places, because I'm really just playing the keyboard. There's

1626
01:33:09,040 --> 01:33:13,240
Speaker 3: no sequence or anything, right. And then you know that

1627
01:33:13,680 --> 01:33:17,519
Speaker 3: with that sampling capability, I could do, you know, things like,

1628
01:33:17,680 --> 01:33:19,800
Speaker 3: you know, make an instrument out of my voice and

1629
01:33:19,840 --> 01:33:23,479
Speaker 3: play chords with it, something that you couldn't do before.

1630
01:33:24,360 --> 01:33:28,320
Speaker 3: Uh So the technology was an enabler. The technology evolved

1631
01:33:28,360 --> 01:33:30,960
Speaker 3: to the point that I could do more than just

1632
01:33:31,040 --> 01:33:35,599
Speaker 3: simply singing with myself. I could create a broader palalette

1633
01:33:35,600 --> 01:33:37,759
Speaker 3: of sounds and make the whole thing more interesting.

1634
01:33:38,600 --> 01:33:39,720
Speaker 1: Man, we got to talk about that.

1635
01:33:39,840 --> 01:33:44,439
Speaker 4: Out of Hell meant I totally forgot about that, right,

1636
01:33:44,880 --> 01:33:48,000
Speaker 4: one of the biggest selling albums, Like, ever, how did

1637
01:33:48,040 --> 01:33:48,479
Speaker 4: you meet?

1638
01:33:48,520 --> 01:33:49,400
Speaker 1: How did y'all hook up?

1639
01:33:50,280 --> 01:33:54,000
Speaker 3: Well, there there are two people involved in meat Loaf,

1640
01:33:54,120 --> 01:33:57,400
Speaker 3: or there were two people involved in that was Jim Steinman,

1641
01:33:57,400 --> 01:34:00,840
Speaker 3: who essentially wrote all the material and meet Loaf, who

1642
01:34:00,920 --> 01:34:05,479
Speaker 3: was the performer. And when they approached me, they had

1643
01:34:05,479 --> 01:34:09,320
Speaker 3: auditioned for like every producer in the business, and every

1644
01:34:09,320 --> 01:34:11,880
Speaker 3: producer in the business. I told them I don't hear

1645
01:34:11,920 --> 01:34:16,080
Speaker 3: it or whatever, which is you know, not that strange

1646
01:34:16,120 --> 01:34:21,160
Speaker 3: because the songs were all really long. You know, they

1647
01:34:21,160 --> 01:34:25,400
Speaker 3: didn't have traditional forms. You know, Steime intended to write

1648
01:34:25,400 --> 01:34:29,840
Speaker 3: backwards sometimes from certain things, like he would leave big

1649
01:34:29,880 --> 01:34:34,559
Speaker 3: parts of the songs unfinished, but say to me, okay,

1650
01:34:35,000 --> 01:34:37,840
Speaker 3: I would like a giant choir to sing for the

1651
01:34:37,840 --> 01:34:40,880
Speaker 3: next thirty six bars, and then I'd have to come

1652
01:34:40,960 --> 01:34:44,280
Speaker 3: up with something for it. You know, he wouldn't write anything.

1653
01:34:44,520 --> 01:34:46,559
Speaker 3: I just have to come up with some thing that

1654
01:34:46,640 --> 01:34:49,280
Speaker 3: played off the themes that he had already done. So

1655
01:34:49,840 --> 01:34:52,840
Speaker 3: I go down to a rehearsal studio in New York

1656
01:34:52,880 --> 01:34:55,280
Speaker 3: City to see them. I knew who Meatloaf was, I

1657
01:34:55,320 --> 01:34:59,120
Speaker 3: didn't know who Steiman was. I'd seen Meatloaf Rocky horror

1658
01:34:59,160 --> 01:35:04,360
Speaker 3: Show on Broadway, so I was aware of the fact that, well,

1659
01:35:04,360 --> 01:35:06,479
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to be surprised about how fat he was.

1660
01:35:06,560 --> 01:35:12,160
Speaker 3: Put it that way, and they essentially performed for me

1661
01:35:12,160 --> 01:35:15,360
Speaker 3: meat Loaf, Stimon on the piano and two background singers,

1662
01:35:15,400 --> 01:35:19,439
Speaker 3: Rory Dodd and Ellen Foley, and they performed essentially all

1663
01:35:19,479 --> 01:35:21,840
Speaker 3: about Out of Hell with just the four of.

1664
01:35:21,760 --> 01:35:23,800
Speaker 1: Them the entire album in front of you.

1665
01:35:24,160 --> 01:35:26,320
Speaker 3: Well, not everything on the album, but you know, like

1666
01:35:26,439 --> 01:35:27,719
Speaker 3: good percentage of the album.

1667
01:35:27,760 --> 01:35:30,320
Speaker 1: You know. He's like a moment with Kanye West.

1668
01:35:30,120 --> 01:35:30,200
Speaker 10: And.

1669
01:35:34,360 --> 01:35:37,639
Speaker 3: I'm listening to this and saying, I want to do

1670
01:35:37,680 --> 01:35:39,280
Speaker 3: this record, and the reason why I want to do

1671
01:35:39,360 --> 01:35:42,880
Speaker 3: it is because it's a spoof of Bruce Springsteen. Bruce

1672
01:35:42,920 --> 01:35:44,880
Speaker 3: Springsteen was like the biggest thing. He was on the

1673
01:35:44,920 --> 01:35:47,960
Speaker 3: cover of Time magazine, the Savior of rock and roll,

1674
01:35:48,160 --> 01:35:51,160
Speaker 3: you know, And to me, it's just retro music. He's

1675
01:35:51,240 --> 01:35:53,479
Speaker 3: you know, it's music out of the fifties. He's singing

1676
01:35:53,479 --> 01:35:56,840
Speaker 3: about motorcycles and leather jackets and that's what it junk,

1677
01:35:57,240 --> 01:36:00,719
Speaker 3: you know, And that's exactly what Meatloaf is singing about,

1678
01:36:00,800 --> 01:36:03,519
Speaker 3: you know. So I thought, this is great. I'm going

1679
01:36:03,600 --> 01:36:06,200
Speaker 3: to do a spoof of Bruce Springsteen and this is

1680
01:36:06,240 --> 01:36:08,320
Speaker 3: going to be it. And I never told them that

1681
01:36:08,320 --> 01:36:12,080
Speaker 3: that's what I was thinking. So they took it. They

1682
01:36:12,120 --> 01:36:15,840
Speaker 3: took it totally seriously the whole time, you know, And

1683
01:36:15,840 --> 01:36:20,320
Speaker 3: and I was like, yes, yes, this is so Springsteen.

1684
01:36:23,560 --> 01:36:23,840
Speaker 1: Old.

1685
01:36:23,920 --> 01:36:26,920
Speaker 7: I got to stop right here. So there's actually members

1686
01:36:26,960 --> 01:36:28,839
Speaker 7: of the EA Street Band on that record.

1687
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:29,960
Speaker 1: So were they.

1688
01:36:30,120 --> 01:36:31,960
Speaker 3: Yes, there are you know were they were.

1689
01:36:31,760 --> 01:36:34,080
Speaker 1: They in on the joker? You just called them up.

1690
01:36:34,080 --> 01:36:36,160
Speaker 3: Like, no, they were not in on the joke. And

1691
01:36:36,200 --> 01:36:39,639
Speaker 3: Stein in the whole time would claim that Bruce Springsteen

1692
01:36:39,720 --> 01:36:42,479
Speaker 3: had no influence on him at all, even though he

1693
01:36:42,600 --> 01:36:47,680
Speaker 3: wanted he wanted Max and he wanted Roy from the

1694
01:36:47,680 --> 01:36:50,320
Speaker 3: East Street Band to play on the record, but otherwise,

1695
01:36:50,560 --> 01:36:54,080
Speaker 3: no influence whatever. And so you know that's why it

1696
01:36:54,160 --> 01:36:57,160
Speaker 3: has all of that. You know, it's got Springsteen's drummer in,

1697
01:36:57,240 --> 01:37:01,280
Speaker 3: Springsteen's piano player on it, so it sounds like Springsteen.

1698
01:37:01,920 --> 01:37:04,760
Speaker 3: And after the record was finished, well, the first thing

1699
01:37:04,800 --> 01:37:07,559
Speaker 3: that happened was when I agreed to do it, he

1700
01:37:07,600 --> 01:37:10,800
Speaker 3: had a label obviously, because I'm not gonna go into

1701
01:37:10,800 --> 01:37:14,120
Speaker 3: the studio with somebody who can't pay for the studio

1702
01:37:14,960 --> 01:37:17,639
Speaker 3: I we're about to go into. It's like the day

1703
01:37:17,680 --> 01:37:19,920
Speaker 3: before we're about to go in, we've been rehearsing up

1704
01:37:19,920 --> 01:37:22,400
Speaker 3: in Bearsville. So because we want to do the album live,

1705
01:37:23,160 --> 01:37:26,320
Speaker 3: and most everything on the album is live, not the vocals,

1706
01:37:26,360 --> 01:37:30,320
Speaker 3: but all of the playing and meet Love comes up

1707
01:37:30,360 --> 01:37:31,519
Speaker 3: to me and he says, I want to get off

1708
01:37:31,560 --> 01:37:34,439
Speaker 3: my label. I don't think they understand me and whatever.

1709
01:37:34,560 --> 01:37:36,439
Speaker 3: I said, Well, I'm not your manager. I can't tell

1710
01:37:36,439 --> 01:37:38,320
Speaker 3: you what to do. But you know that's going to

1711
01:37:38,400 --> 01:37:40,640
Speaker 3: that's kind of a sticky situation. We're going into the

1712
01:37:40,680 --> 01:37:45,120
Speaker 3: studio tomorrow. So essentially, I go to Bearsvielle and say, well,

1713
01:37:45,200 --> 01:37:48,080
Speaker 3: you know, if you will underwrite the cost of making

1714
01:37:48,120 --> 01:37:50,840
Speaker 3: this record and put it on my tab, you'll have

1715
01:37:51,080 --> 01:37:54,040
Speaker 3: write a first refusal when it's done. So we finished

1716
01:37:54,040 --> 01:37:56,720
Speaker 3: the record and Bearsville doesn't want it, and neither does

1717
01:37:56,760 --> 01:38:00,240
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers, who's distributing Bearsville, and they spend the next

1718
01:38:00,360 --> 01:38:04,040
Speaker 3: maybe four to six months looking for somebody to release

1719
01:38:04,080 --> 01:38:08,280
Speaker 3: the record. Nobody wants this freaking record, and they find

1720
01:38:08,600 --> 01:38:12,080
Speaker 3: a guy, a guy who runs like a label all

1721
01:38:12,120 --> 01:38:16,959
Speaker 3: by himself. It's called Cleveland International, subsidiary of like Epic Records.

1722
01:38:17,680 --> 01:38:20,200
Speaker 3: His name was Steve Popovich. He had one other artist

1723
01:38:20,600 --> 01:38:23,320
Speaker 3: for some reason he believed in the record, and so

1724
01:38:24,160 --> 01:38:26,759
Speaker 3: took the record on. They put out a single, Nothing Happened,

1725
01:38:27,160 --> 01:38:31,040
Speaker 3: put out another single, Nothing Happened, put out third single,

1726
01:38:31,080 --> 01:38:34,320
Speaker 3: and finally something started to happen, and that was because

1727
01:38:34,439 --> 01:38:38,680
Speaker 3: MTV came out the same time. Paradise by the Dashboard

1728
01:38:38,760 --> 01:38:42,320
Speaker 3: Light got played like once an hour because they didn't

1729
01:38:42,400 --> 01:38:45,920
Speaker 3: have enough music videos to fill up, you know, all

1730
01:38:45,960 --> 01:38:48,360
Speaker 3: the time on MTV, So they're playing Paradise by the

1731
01:38:48,439 --> 01:38:51,639
Speaker 3: Dashboard Light once an hour, just like a regular DJ

1732
01:38:51,680 --> 01:38:53,720
Speaker 3: would do, like put on Dark Side of the Moon

1733
01:38:53,760 --> 01:38:55,960
Speaker 3: and go up to the roof and get high. But

1734
01:38:57,439 --> 01:38:59,479
Speaker 3: you know, it's like seven and a half minutes long,

1735
01:39:01,960 --> 01:39:05,200
Speaker 3: and he's touring relentlessly. Meet Love was just touring his

1736
01:39:05,280 --> 01:39:10,000
Speaker 3: ass off, and the fact that Steve Popovich just believed

1737
01:39:10,360 --> 01:39:12,479
Speaker 3: so much in the record, you know, and wouldn't give

1738
01:39:12,560 --> 01:39:16,200
Speaker 3: up on it like a typical record executive, that it

1739
01:39:16,280 --> 01:39:19,599
Speaker 3: finally broke, and once it broke, it you know, went

1740
01:39:19,680 --> 01:39:23,880
Speaker 3: nuclear out of here, like a bad at of hand.

1741
01:39:25,640 --> 01:39:28,479
Speaker 1: What was it? What was it like to record Phil Rizzuto?

1742
01:39:30,479 --> 01:39:32,559
Speaker 3: I didn't you know, I didn't know much about Phil

1743
01:39:32,640 --> 01:39:35,200
Speaker 3: Rizzuto except for the Money Store, But you know, I

1744
01:39:35,280 --> 01:39:37,920
Speaker 3: was not a baseball fan at that point and had

1745
01:39:37,960 --> 01:39:40,200
Speaker 3: no idea of his career accomplishments.

1746
01:39:40,960 --> 01:39:43,280
Speaker 7: That he's the guy who's sitting on the unpires by

1747
01:39:43,320 --> 01:39:45,519
Speaker 7: the dashboard light, who's doing the baseball call?

1748
01:39:45,680 --> 01:39:49,320
Speaker 3: Well, he would essentially be the Yankees color commentator or

1749
01:39:49,360 --> 01:39:52,360
Speaker 3: something like that. You know, so people who were in

1750
01:39:52,400 --> 01:39:54,960
Speaker 3: the New York area and listen to, you know, Yankees

1751
01:39:55,040 --> 01:39:56,479
Speaker 3: games would be familiar with him.

1752
01:39:56,479 --> 01:39:57,080
Speaker 1: But I was not.

1753
01:39:58,080 --> 01:40:00,880
Speaker 3: But Steinman said, oh, hey, you know, we're going to

1754
01:40:00,920 --> 01:40:02,920
Speaker 3: get this guy to just read this thing, and we're

1755
01:40:02,920 --> 01:40:05,040
Speaker 3: gonna give him five thousand dollars. And I'm like, what

1756
01:40:06,000 --> 01:40:09,280
Speaker 3: can't anybody read it? Could when somebody else read it,

1757
01:40:09,360 --> 01:40:12,200
Speaker 3: you know, for like five hundred dollars whatever.

1758
01:40:13,400 --> 01:40:15,599
Speaker 7: So he was from New York, Like, how did Jim Stee.

1759
01:40:15,439 --> 01:40:17,080
Speaker 3: Was from New York? He had no idea what this

1760
01:40:17,240 --> 01:40:20,280
Speaker 3: was about. You know, he just read but he read it,

1761
01:40:20,360 --> 01:40:23,120
Speaker 3: read it into a microphone, and took his money and left.

1762
01:40:23,720 --> 01:40:26,320
Speaker 3: And I think years later he found out the context

1763
01:40:26,320 --> 01:40:28,360
Speaker 3: of it and was very upset from what I heard.

1764
01:40:28,479 --> 01:40:30,559
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, what happens when the cat

1765
01:40:30,640 --> 01:40:31,320
Speaker 2: was out the bag?

1766
01:40:32,840 --> 01:40:35,880
Speaker 1: And like, at what point did they realize, Oh, we've

1767
01:40:35,880 --> 01:40:39,040
Speaker 1: been had or what about I've gotten mad?

1768
01:40:39,080 --> 01:40:41,120
Speaker 2: Because it's also one of the it's the one of

1769
01:40:41,160 --> 01:40:43,599
Speaker 2: the it's the third biggest selling album of all time.

1770
01:40:43,800 --> 01:40:47,639
Speaker 3: So yeah, it's yeah, it's up to here, around forty

1771
01:40:47,680 --> 01:40:51,720
Speaker 3: million copies or something like that, and it's you know,

1772
01:40:52,600 --> 01:40:56,639
Speaker 3: what do they care? It worked right? If I hadn't

1773
01:40:56,640 --> 01:40:59,719
Speaker 3: thought that they would have no producer at all?

1774
01:41:00,880 --> 01:41:03,240
Speaker 1: How how long was it until they caught on that?

1775
01:41:04,080 --> 01:41:09,680
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, Well, I probably said it sometime, if

1776
01:41:09,760 --> 01:41:12,439
Speaker 3: you know, once somebody interviewed me about it, I probably

1777
01:41:12,479 --> 01:41:12,960
Speaker 3: mentioned it.

1778
01:41:13,000 --> 01:41:16,559
Speaker 1: You know, were you approached about producing that? Ada held too?

1779
01:41:17,400 --> 01:41:18,599
Speaker 3: I did produce bad out of hell?

1780
01:41:18,720 --> 01:41:20,280
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I didn't realize that.

1781
01:41:20,760 --> 01:41:22,920
Speaker 3: Yes we did. We made the whole recording, and then

1782
01:41:22,960 --> 01:41:26,400
Speaker 3: we went in to get his vocals down, and meet

1783
01:41:26,439 --> 01:41:30,240
Speaker 3: Love suddenly went and said, there's something wrong with my voice.

1784
01:41:31,080 --> 01:41:34,519
Speaker 3: I can't say. He'd been like singing too hard and

1785
01:41:34,560 --> 01:41:36,880
Speaker 3: taking too much cocaine or whatever or something like that

1786
01:41:36,960 --> 01:41:40,519
Speaker 3: and permanently screwed his voice up, which you know, lopped

1787
01:41:40,560 --> 01:41:42,720
Speaker 3: a couple of notes off the top of his registered

1788
01:41:42,800 --> 01:41:45,439
Speaker 3: and made them sound really weird. And the way that

1789
01:41:45,520 --> 01:41:47,920
Speaker 3: Steinman would write was, at least the way he wrote

1790
01:41:47,960 --> 01:41:50,680
Speaker 3: the first record was what's the highest note you can hit?

1791
01:41:50,760 --> 01:41:54,400
Speaker 3: Meat Love? Okay, all write everything from there down, you know,

1792
01:41:54,520 --> 01:41:56,960
Speaker 3: In other words, hit that note. You're going to hit

1793
01:41:57,000 --> 01:42:03,519
Speaker 3: it a long time. I bout it, you know, and

1794
01:42:03,560 --> 01:42:05,439
Speaker 3: so he wrote. When he got to the second album,

1795
01:42:05,479 --> 01:42:07,360
Speaker 3: he did the same thing. He assumed Meet Looaf could

1796
01:42:07,400 --> 01:42:09,280
Speaker 3: hit all those notes, and he wrote all those notes

1797
01:42:09,280 --> 01:42:11,280
Speaker 3: into it, and then we get in to get Meatloaf

1798
01:42:11,320 --> 01:42:13,960
Speaker 3: to sing it, and he can't hit those notes. And

1799
01:42:14,040 --> 01:42:16,760
Speaker 3: meet Loaf is like, so he's nearly suicidal at this

1800
01:42:16,880 --> 01:42:19,280
Speaker 3: point and said, I can't finish this record, you know,

1801
01:42:19,479 --> 01:42:21,280
Speaker 3: I don't care what you do with it. And so

1802
01:42:21,479 --> 01:42:25,719
Speaker 3: Steinman sang the record and it became Jim Steinman's album.

1803
01:42:25,760 --> 01:42:29,400
Speaker 3: It was called Bad for Good and it was it's

1804
01:42:29,400 --> 01:42:33,160
Speaker 3: got Jim Steinman with I don't know if you know

1805
01:42:33,200 --> 01:42:37,800
Speaker 3: who Corbin is, but he was a comic book illustrator,

1806
01:42:37,840 --> 01:42:40,759
Speaker 3: airbrush artist, you know. And he did the first cover,

1807
01:42:41,439 --> 01:42:44,120
Speaker 3: which was, you know, the demon flying out of Hell

1808
01:42:44,200 --> 01:42:47,679
Speaker 3: on a motorcycle. He also did the second cover, which

1809
01:42:47,960 --> 01:42:51,800
Speaker 3: was Jim Steinman's head on top of what looks like

1810
01:42:51,960 --> 01:42:57,400
Speaker 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger's body with the semi naked girl like hanging

1811
01:42:57,479 --> 01:42:58,360
Speaker 3: onto his legs.

1812
01:42:59,320 --> 01:43:00,400
Speaker 1: He's googling.

1813
01:43:01,840 --> 01:43:06,519
Speaker 3: The hell yeah yeah, And that album went exactly no place,

1814
01:43:07,000 --> 01:43:10,439
Speaker 3: even though it was even though it was all kind

1815
01:43:10,439 --> 01:43:12,200
Speaker 3: of like the same stuff, you know.

1816
01:43:12,960 --> 01:43:16,840
Speaker 4: Wow, But I was always curious to know how you

1817
01:43:17,080 --> 01:43:20,080
Speaker 4: and Dame Funk got together. Dang Funk is as buddy

1818
01:43:20,080 --> 01:43:23,280
Speaker 4: of mine, and uh he just always had nothing but

1819
01:43:23,320 --> 01:43:25,320
Speaker 4: great things to say about working with you.

1820
01:43:25,680 --> 01:43:26,720
Speaker 1: How did y'all hook up?

1821
01:43:27,560 --> 01:43:30,479
Speaker 3: I can't remember how I exactly found out that he

1822
01:43:30,600 --> 01:43:32,240
Speaker 3: was a fan. It was when I was doing my

1823
01:43:32,280 --> 01:43:34,920
Speaker 3: first collab, you know, and I thought, yeah, let's get

1824
01:43:34,920 --> 01:43:40,479
Speaker 3: some funkiness thing, and uh so I contacted him and

1825
01:43:40,800 --> 01:43:44,520
Speaker 3: we just kind of, you know, struck up a relationship.

1826
01:43:44,720 --> 01:43:47,439
Speaker 3: And uh whenever I'm in LA I try and get

1827
01:43:47,479 --> 01:43:49,880
Speaker 3: out to his DJ gigs and uh.

1828
01:43:50,439 --> 01:43:53,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, next one of my favorite joints. I love that.

1829
01:43:53,439 --> 01:43:55,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was you know, it was a fun song.

1830
01:43:55,120 --> 01:43:57,960
Speaker 3: He just you know, he sent me what essentially is

1831
01:43:58,000 --> 01:44:01,720
Speaker 3: the chord changes and stuff like that and built a

1832
01:44:01,800 --> 01:44:05,920
Speaker 3: song around it. It was easy. You know, a lot

1833
01:44:05,920 --> 01:44:08,479
Speaker 3: of these things can be really challenging, you know, to

1834
01:44:08,600 --> 01:44:12,000
Speaker 3: figure out, you know, what'll work for two artists who

1835
01:44:12,040 --> 01:44:16,960
Speaker 3: are just coming together cold. But it it was pretty easy.

1836
01:44:17,840 --> 01:44:20,400
Speaker 4: I was gonna say, was that with your collapsed? Was

1837
01:44:20,439 --> 01:44:22,639
Speaker 4: that kind of the same thing with you and Trent?

1838
01:44:23,040 --> 01:44:24,559
Speaker 1: Trent Resident. How did that?

1839
01:44:24,680 --> 01:44:28,080
Speaker 3: Well, I had actually done a remix for Trent a

1840
01:44:28,160 --> 01:44:30,559
Speaker 3: couple of years ago, so I had worked with Trent

1841
01:44:30,600 --> 01:44:35,160
Speaker 3: before that, and and so I thought, this is, you know,

1842
01:44:35,160 --> 01:44:37,280
Speaker 3: a big, great way to sort of balance things out,

1843
01:44:37,320 --> 01:44:41,160
Speaker 3: to get him to contribute to my record. And it's amazing.

1844
01:44:41,240 --> 01:44:44,080
Speaker 3: He you know, he and his partner Atticus Ross, they

1845
01:44:44,120 --> 01:44:47,080
Speaker 3: do a lot of film and TV work, and so

1846
01:44:47,280 --> 01:44:49,800
Speaker 3: he they'll just go into the studio and catalog a

1847
01:44:49,800 --> 01:44:52,680
Speaker 3: bunch of ideas. So he sent me like, you know,

1848
01:44:53,360 --> 01:44:57,519
Speaker 3: like twenty two like musical ideas, you know, to pick one,

1849
01:44:57,640 --> 01:44:59,559
Speaker 3: you know, and it was that was the biggest challenge,

1850
01:44:59,560 --> 01:45:03,280
Speaker 3: you know, which one could I focus on? You know?

1851
01:45:04,800 --> 01:45:07,000
Speaker 3: I actually was sort of for a while. I was

1852
01:45:07,040 --> 01:45:08,920
Speaker 3: working on two of them at once, and decided I

1853
01:45:08,920 --> 01:45:12,360
Speaker 3: should probably just focus on on the one that we finished.

1854
01:45:12,720 --> 01:45:17,800
Speaker 2: And not much as is said about your work also

1855
01:45:17,840 --> 01:45:20,680
Speaker 2: in like music video production, like what made you even

1856
01:45:20,680 --> 01:45:25,080
Speaker 2: want to get involved in like forms of media outside

1857
01:45:25,120 --> 01:45:26,080
Speaker 2: of recording music.

1858
01:45:26,840 --> 01:45:30,559
Speaker 3: Well, when I was living alone in New York City

1859
01:45:31,080 --> 01:45:34,680
Speaker 3: in the early seventies, one of my principal forms of

1860
01:45:34,680 --> 01:45:37,719
Speaker 3: one of my favorite shows that I watched TV because

1861
01:45:37,720 --> 01:45:40,400
Speaker 3: I didn't watch a lot of TV. I would, you know,

1862
01:45:40,479 --> 01:45:42,519
Speaker 3: make music or I would go out. But you know

1863
01:45:42,600 --> 01:45:44,800
Speaker 3: that's in the old days when there was still principally

1864
01:45:44,920 --> 01:45:48,680
Speaker 3: just three or four TV stations, and you know, a

1865
01:45:48,720 --> 01:45:51,160
Speaker 3: lot of it is just too vanilla, you know. So,

1866
01:45:52,080 --> 01:45:55,760
Speaker 3: But there was some couple of shows on public television.

1867
01:45:56,360 --> 01:46:00,320
Speaker 3: One of them was called Live from the and the

1868
01:46:00,479 --> 01:46:05,799
Speaker 3: Egg Factory, and another one was a VT Videotape Review,

1869
01:46:06,760 --> 01:46:10,240
Speaker 3: and there was a movement to use video in more

1870
01:46:10,320 --> 01:46:13,760
Speaker 3: artistic ways at the time. It was started by a

1871
01:46:13,800 --> 01:46:18,439
Speaker 3: guy named Nam June Pike, Korean guy, and he would

1872
01:46:18,479 --> 01:46:21,040
Speaker 3: do things like hold magnets up to the TV and

1873
01:46:21,120 --> 01:46:24,680
Speaker 3: warp the picture and things like that, and eventually they

1874
01:46:24,680 --> 01:46:28,439
Speaker 3: would develop devices that would do that for shows like

1875
01:46:28,560 --> 01:46:33,200
Speaker 3: Electric Company in Sesame Street. But there were a lot

1876
01:46:33,240 --> 01:46:37,120
Speaker 3: of experimentalists and video people doing experimental video, and I

1877
01:46:37,280 --> 01:46:39,240
Speaker 3: was very much into that. I wanted to do that,

1878
01:46:39,360 --> 01:46:43,360
Speaker 3: so I started buying video synthesizers and built myself a

1879
01:46:43,360 --> 01:46:47,040
Speaker 3: little video studio and started taking music that I liked

1880
01:46:47,080 --> 01:46:50,639
Speaker 3: and putting visualizations to it. And it wasn't pop songs.

1881
01:46:50,720 --> 01:46:55,559
Speaker 3: It was like to Meeta's songs from like to Meeta's

1882
01:46:55,600 --> 01:47:01,960
Speaker 3: snowflakes are dancing, you know, or you know, classical music,

1883
01:47:02,040 --> 01:47:05,160
Speaker 3: you know, reveil a song about a clown. I can't

1884
01:47:05,200 --> 01:47:08,479
Speaker 3: remember the Spanish title of it, but classical music and

1885
01:47:08,520 --> 01:47:12,120
Speaker 3: stuff like that, and just do weird visualizations to it.

1886
01:47:12,760 --> 01:47:15,040
Speaker 3: And I thought this could be you know, legitimate art

1887
01:47:15,080 --> 01:47:19,160
Speaker 3: form and maybe someday, you know, be a real format entertainment.

1888
01:47:19,600 --> 01:47:22,120
Speaker 3: And so through the years, I just kept accumulating video

1889
01:47:22,120 --> 01:47:26,280
Speaker 3: equipment until like I got my check first check from

1890
01:47:26,320 --> 01:47:30,519
Speaker 3: meat Loaf, after you know, like almost a year of

1891
01:47:30,560 --> 01:47:34,760
Speaker 3: them wrangling trying to get a label, finally getting a

1892
01:47:34,800 --> 01:47:38,400
Speaker 3: label and then negotiating you know, my participation and stuff.

1893
01:47:39,200 --> 01:47:42,640
Speaker 3: I remember being in the office and getting handed a

1894
01:47:42,760 --> 01:47:45,840
Speaker 3: check for seven hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Was the

1895
01:47:45,840 --> 01:47:49,080
Speaker 3: first check I got for meat Loaf for Royal Teeth.

1896
01:47:49,479 --> 01:47:51,600
Speaker 3: You know, this was a project that I thought was

1897
01:47:51,640 --> 01:47:54,080
Speaker 3: just going to be a laugh, you know, and you

1898
01:47:54,120 --> 01:47:58,800
Speaker 3: know maybe yeah, and when I you know, and I

1899
01:47:58,800 --> 01:48:01,320
Speaker 3: didn't get my advance when I had to get Bearsville

1900
01:48:01,320 --> 01:48:03,800
Speaker 3: to finance the record like I usually would have done,

1901
01:48:03,840 --> 01:48:07,520
Speaker 3: so I did the record almost for nothing, and suddenly,

1902
01:48:07,720 --> 01:48:10,880
Speaker 3: you know, it's the biggest paycheck I ever got. Probably

1903
01:48:10,920 --> 01:48:13,320
Speaker 3: the biggest paycheck I ever got since because it had

1904
01:48:13,360 --> 01:48:17,719
Speaker 3: accumulated so much royalties without being disbursed. So I took

1905
01:48:17,760 --> 01:48:20,439
Speaker 3: that check and I bought video equipment with it and

1906
01:48:20,479 --> 01:48:24,519
Speaker 3: built a real video studio, and we started doing what

1907
01:48:24,800 --> 01:48:29,280
Speaker 3: it would be more recognizable as music videos, you know,

1908
01:48:29,800 --> 01:48:31,559
Speaker 3: videos to pop songs and stuff.

1909
01:48:32,520 --> 01:48:36,080
Speaker 2: There's one thing I forgot to ask, and we're going

1910
01:48:36,120 --> 01:48:39,160
Speaker 2: to wrack this up, but could you please explain how

1911
01:48:39,200 --> 01:48:43,360
Speaker 2: you got involved in producing the New York Dolls debut album.

1912
01:48:44,360 --> 01:48:49,800
Speaker 3: It was an interesting time in New York. New York

1913
01:48:50,720 --> 01:48:52,759
Speaker 3: was never known to have a sound. New York City

1914
01:48:52,880 --> 01:48:55,320
Speaker 3: didn't have a sound. There was the Long Island sound,

1915
01:48:55,640 --> 01:48:59,320
Speaker 3: which was very R and B influenced, but New York

1916
01:48:59,360 --> 01:49:03,600
Speaker 3: City wasn't to have a sound. And suddenly all of

1917
01:49:03,640 --> 01:49:08,519
Speaker 3: these bands started forming, mostly of people who didn't know

1918
01:49:08,560 --> 01:49:10,800
Speaker 3: how to play that well. So it was kind of

1919
01:49:10,840 --> 01:49:16,599
Speaker 3: almost like a Warhol Andy Warhol inspired, you know, gorilla

1920
01:49:16,760 --> 01:49:20,479
Speaker 3: art movement, and a lot of it was some of

1921
01:49:20,520 --> 01:49:22,320
Speaker 3: it was good and tergening, a lot of it was

1922
01:49:22,360 --> 01:49:26,800
Speaker 3: just crap, you know. But I was about to leave

1923
01:49:26,880 --> 01:49:32,000
Speaker 3: New York City and move upstate permanently. I still kept

1924
01:49:32,000 --> 01:49:33,760
Speaker 3: a place in the city. But I knew that I

1925
01:49:33,840 --> 01:49:37,439
Speaker 3: was leaving, and I thought, before I leave, maybe I'll

1926
01:49:37,439 --> 01:49:40,600
Speaker 3: pick one of these bands from this new scene and

1927
01:49:40,880 --> 01:49:43,599
Speaker 3: produce a record for them, you know, produce the New

1928
01:49:43,680 --> 01:49:49,080
Speaker 3: York sound, and the band that seemed to have the

1929
01:49:49,120 --> 01:49:53,160
Speaker 3: biggest following and have it the most together, I guess,

1930
01:49:54,000 --> 01:49:58,240
Speaker 3: in a euphemistic way of speaking, was the New York Dolls.

1931
01:49:58,320 --> 01:50:01,960
Speaker 3: So it was pretty easy for me to just approach

1932
01:50:02,000 --> 01:50:04,519
Speaker 3: them and say, you want me to make a record

1933
01:50:04,560 --> 01:50:07,519
Speaker 3: with you. And they had by then gotten a record

1934
01:50:07,600 --> 01:50:12,080
Speaker 3: deal with Mercury, and I was probably as hot as

1935
01:50:12,120 --> 01:50:14,439
Speaker 3: I've ever been as a producer, so they figured, yeah,

1936
01:50:14,960 --> 01:50:18,760
Speaker 3: you guys better do this. It was like managing a carnival,

1937
01:50:19,160 --> 01:50:23,879
Speaker 3: you know. The band had so many, so many hanger ons,

1938
01:50:24,120 --> 01:50:28,200
Speaker 3: and you know, groupies and press guys. The press loved

1939
01:50:28,200 --> 01:50:31,080
Speaker 3: the band because they played a level of music that

1940
01:50:31,640 --> 01:50:36,920
Speaker 3: rock writers could imagine playing themselves, you know, because it required.

1941
01:50:37,560 --> 01:50:39,840
Speaker 1: Yeah that's a quote for you, ass man.

1942
01:50:40,280 --> 01:50:45,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it was so unchallenged. They could understand it

1943
01:50:45,160 --> 01:50:48,799
Speaker 3: really well. So you know that. Then rock critics started

1944
01:50:48,800 --> 01:50:53,679
Speaker 3: forming their own bands after that. But yeah, we somehow

1945
01:50:53,720 --> 01:50:57,759
Speaker 3: managed to get through the record without anybody dying because

1946
01:50:58,360 --> 01:51:02,120
Speaker 3: soon after we finished the record, they started dying. And yeah,

1947
01:51:02,120 --> 01:51:05,640
Speaker 3: it didn't really do anything when they released it. I

1948
01:51:05,640 --> 01:51:08,559
Speaker 3: don't think there was any precedent for, you know, how

1949
01:51:08,600 --> 01:51:12,759
Speaker 3: to sell this kind of sloppy and what was mostly

1950
01:51:12,960 --> 01:51:18,040
Speaker 3: Rolling Stones inspired early Rolling Stones inspired. Most people say, oh,

1951
01:51:18,280 --> 01:51:21,360
Speaker 3: they're a punk rock band, but they were really emulating

1952
01:51:21,680 --> 01:51:25,439
Speaker 3: The Stones during their drag period, you know, Mother's Little

1953
01:51:25,479 --> 01:51:27,760
Speaker 3: Helper and that sort of thing. That's why they all

1954
01:51:27,840 --> 01:51:31,040
Speaker 3: dressed up and kind of like semi drag. The lead singer,

1955
01:51:31,240 --> 01:51:34,760
Speaker 3: David thought he was Yeah, David Johansson kind of thought

1956
01:51:34,760 --> 01:51:37,519
Speaker 3: he was Mick Jagger, you know, even though he sounded

1957
01:51:37,560 --> 01:51:39,040
Speaker 3: like an angry Louis Prima.

1958
01:51:40,280 --> 01:51:43,280
Speaker 2: One of the weirdest moments in my career was we

1959
01:51:43,479 --> 01:51:48,479
Speaker 2: opened for Reunited New York Dolls at like a one

1960
01:51:48,520 --> 01:51:49,639
Speaker 2: of those music festivals.

1961
01:51:50,800 --> 01:51:51,600
Speaker 1: Wow.

1962
01:51:52,000 --> 01:51:57,920
Speaker 2: Here's the thing though, when I saw David backstage, I

1963
01:51:57,960 --> 01:52:02,160
Speaker 2: was like, oh shit, it's Buster Point Dexter exactly. I

1964
01:52:02,200 --> 01:52:07,040
Speaker 2: had no clue, had no clue that Buster Point Dexter

1965
01:52:07,479 --> 01:52:11,960
Speaker 2: was in the New York Dolls. And then they opened

1966
01:52:12,040 --> 01:52:15,479
Speaker 2: up the show with you know, like I'm one of

1967
01:52:15,520 --> 01:52:17,920
Speaker 2: the biggest kids in the hall, fans of All Time.

1968
01:52:18,600 --> 01:52:20,720
Speaker 2: So they opened up with that. So I was like, wait,

1969
01:52:20,880 --> 01:52:24,439
Speaker 2: like my whole mind was I had no clue.

1970
01:52:26,280 --> 01:52:28,479
Speaker 5: You just enlightened, dummy, that the New York Dolls sang

1971
01:52:28,520 --> 01:52:30,280
Speaker 5: the same song for Kids in the Hall that you

1972
01:52:30,360 --> 01:52:30,920
Speaker 5: just enlightened.

1973
01:52:31,240 --> 01:52:34,400
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, Yes, exactly. Wow, I just learned that myself.

1974
01:52:34,439 --> 01:52:34,880
Speaker 1: I didn't know.

1975
01:52:35,400 --> 01:52:37,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, the theme the Kids in the Hall is New

1976
01:52:37,080 --> 01:52:39,040
Speaker 2: York Dolls. But you know the thing is that I

1977
01:52:39,640 --> 01:52:43,080
Speaker 2: mostly knew of New York Dolls via all the critical

1978
01:52:43,120 --> 01:52:47,360
Speaker 2: claim they were getting. You know, Robert Christa, Gals, you know,

1979
01:52:47,479 --> 01:52:50,320
Speaker 2: year enlisted all that stuff and Rolling Stones five hundred

1980
01:52:50,400 --> 01:52:52,880
Speaker 2: of all Time, you know, And I know that people

1981
01:52:52,960 --> 01:52:57,000
Speaker 2: cite them for like at least uh them as a

1982
01:52:57,040 --> 01:53:01,160
Speaker 2: group and how groundbreaking they were. I just never heard

1983
01:53:01,200 --> 01:53:03,680
Speaker 2: them or anything or just knew the members or any

1984
01:53:03,680 --> 01:53:04,240
Speaker 2: of that stuff.

1985
01:53:04,280 --> 01:53:07,360
Speaker 3: And so well, essentially they were the they were the

1986
01:53:07,400 --> 01:53:11,400
Speaker 3: inspiration for the sex Pistols, and that's why people referred

1987
01:53:11,400 --> 01:53:13,880
Speaker 3: to them as a punk band, even though nobody used

1988
01:53:13,920 --> 01:53:16,760
Speaker 3: that term in the era. When you know, when we

1989
01:53:16,840 --> 01:53:19,640
Speaker 3: did the The New York Dolls record, it was, you know,

1990
01:53:19,680 --> 01:53:21,759
Speaker 3: if it was anything, it was the New York sound.

1991
01:53:22,479 --> 01:53:28,080
Speaker 3: But when John Lydon heard the record, the accessibility of it,

1992
01:53:28,120 --> 01:53:31,559
Speaker 3: I guess inspired him and the nasty attitude and everything

1993
01:53:31,600 --> 01:53:34,840
Speaker 3: about it, and it was you know, it was the

1994
01:53:34,880 --> 01:53:38,920
Speaker 3: inspiration for the Sex Pistols essentially, and that's how they

1995
01:53:38,960 --> 01:53:41,519
Speaker 3: got rolled into the whole punk rock thing kind of

1996
01:53:41,560 --> 01:53:44,719
Speaker 3: by backwards inclusion into those.

1997
01:53:44,560 --> 01:53:46,760
Speaker 1: Malcolm McLaurin ever reached out to you to ask you

1998
01:53:46,800 --> 01:53:47,680
Speaker 1: for tips.

1999
01:53:47,439 --> 01:53:51,920
Speaker 3: Or I don't know that. I I may have run

2000
01:53:51,960 --> 01:53:54,720
Speaker 3: into him in London at one point in like the

2001
01:53:55,520 --> 01:53:59,400
Speaker 3: in the earlier mid seventies, but I not really had

2002
01:53:59,479 --> 01:54:03,439
Speaker 3: much content tech with him. Uh, you know, his his

2003
01:54:03,560 --> 01:54:07,400
Speaker 3: attitude about this is kind of you know, it is

2004
01:54:07,439 --> 01:54:09,800
Speaker 3: that punk rock thing. You know, it's like, let's do

2005
01:54:09,920 --> 01:54:13,160
Speaker 3: some care'll that'll just get people all wound up, you

2006
01:54:13,200 --> 01:54:16,400
Speaker 3: know the thing. And you know, as a record producer,

2007
01:54:16,439 --> 01:54:18,160
Speaker 3: I had longer goals than that.

2008
01:54:19,040 --> 01:54:23,080
Speaker 7: Okay, I see, So of all of all your outside productions,

2009
01:54:23,360 --> 01:54:26,320
Speaker 7: not including your records or Utopia's records, but records that

2010
01:54:26,360 --> 01:54:30,440
Speaker 7: you produced, like some We've mentioned some We have an XTC, Badfinger,

2011
01:54:30,560 --> 01:54:36,000
Speaker 7: Holland Oates, Jule Shecher, Patti Smith, just to name a few.

2012
01:54:36,240 --> 01:54:39,800
Speaker 7: Which of which of the outside production projects do you

2013
01:54:39,840 --> 01:54:42,400
Speaker 7: think was the most rewarding in the sense that you

2014
01:54:42,520 --> 01:54:46,200
Speaker 7: learn the most on that project, whether it was technicals,

2015
01:54:46,200 --> 01:54:48,280
Speaker 7: something you learned technically, or something about how to be

2016
01:54:48,320 --> 01:54:50,160
Speaker 7: a great producer or an effective producer.

2017
01:54:51,040 --> 01:54:55,440
Speaker 3: Well, I, you know, I tend to cite skylarking as

2018
01:54:56,360 --> 01:54:59,040
Speaker 3: as something. You know, I'm not a person that feels

2019
01:54:59,480 --> 01:55:03,360
Speaker 3: like a lot of pride, because that's you know, there's

2020
01:55:03,400 --> 01:55:05,200
Speaker 3: not much to be gained out of it. You know,

2021
01:55:05,400 --> 01:55:10,080
Speaker 3: I try and be sanguine about the things in the

2022
01:55:10,120 --> 01:55:12,640
Speaker 3: past and concentrate on the future, and so I don't

2023
01:55:12,720 --> 01:55:16,800
Speaker 3: think of things with pride except for my kids. It

2024
01:55:16,960 --> 01:55:22,120
Speaker 3: was an incredible slog to finish the record because I

2025
01:55:22,160 --> 01:55:26,480
Speaker 3: was getting so much resistance from certain band members. But

2026
01:55:27,440 --> 01:55:31,600
Speaker 3: I also can say that, you know, they never appreciated

2027
01:55:31,680 --> 01:55:36,320
Speaker 3: what was going on because Andy went home and before

2028
01:55:36,360 --> 01:55:38,920
Speaker 3: I'd even delivered the record, he was telling people in

2029
01:55:38,960 --> 01:55:41,040
Speaker 3: the press, who was the worst record they ever made?

2030
01:55:41,760 --> 01:55:47,720
Speaker 3: Because he was imprinting his feelings about the experience, and

2031
01:55:47,760 --> 01:55:50,360
Speaker 3: the reason why the experience was not pleasant for him

2032
01:55:50,680 --> 01:55:55,240
Speaker 3: was because I took it over. You know, I was

2033
01:55:55,280 --> 01:55:57,120
Speaker 3: a fan of the band. I was a big fan,

2034
01:55:57,280 --> 01:55:59,240
Speaker 3: and so I knew about their records. I knew about

2035
01:55:59,240 --> 01:56:02,280
Speaker 3: the evolution their records, and I knew about what was

2036
01:56:02,320 --> 01:56:07,400
Speaker 3: happening in terms of the making of the records. And

2037
01:56:07,440 --> 01:56:10,120
Speaker 3: when the label approached me, you know that they had

2038
01:56:10,120 --> 01:56:12,200
Speaker 3: no the band was lost, and the label said, you

2039
01:56:12,240 --> 01:56:15,000
Speaker 3: have to have a real producer. Now, you know, we

2040
01:56:15,080 --> 01:56:18,240
Speaker 3: can't let Andy take over this project and turn it

2041
01:56:18,280 --> 01:56:21,960
Speaker 3: into an Andy Vanity project again because the records aren't

2042
01:56:22,000 --> 01:56:29,080
Speaker 3: selling like they used to. And so I guess the

2043
01:56:29,240 --> 01:56:31,240
Speaker 3: one of the A and our guys said, you know, no,

2044
01:56:31,400 --> 01:56:33,640
Speaker 3: go with to run and he's notorious for taking control

2045
01:56:33,680 --> 01:56:38,200
Speaker 3: of these things, you know, and so so they acquiesced,

2046
01:56:38,280 --> 01:56:41,720
Speaker 3: you know, to that, and they came to record up

2047
01:56:41,760 --> 01:56:45,160
Speaker 3: in Lake Hill where I was in my studio, as

2048
01:56:45,200 --> 01:56:48,040
Speaker 3: they had never recorded outside of a British studio before,

2049
01:56:48,880 --> 01:56:52,480
Speaker 3: and we did, you know, like the basics in UH

2050
01:56:52,720 --> 01:56:55,680
Speaker 3: up in Lake Hill, and then we went to San Francisco,

2051
01:56:55,960 --> 01:56:59,240
Speaker 3: UH laid on drums and other instruments and things like that,

2052
01:56:59,320 --> 01:57:03,040
Speaker 3: then finished up the vocals back in in lake Hill.

2053
01:57:03,840 --> 01:57:06,160
Speaker 3: During the course of the record, the bass player quit

2054
01:57:06,240 --> 01:57:10,800
Speaker 3: the band UH and Andy threatened to cleave my head

2055
01:57:10,920 --> 01:57:12,160
Speaker 3: into with an axe.

2056
01:57:12,880 --> 01:57:13,320
Speaker 1: UH.

2057
01:57:13,680 --> 01:57:19,360
Speaker 3: But so after after old experience, right, Yeah, that's experience.

2058
01:57:19,480 --> 01:57:22,640
Speaker 3: But the reason why I look at it, as you know,

2059
01:57:22,880 --> 01:57:26,880
Speaker 3: as being maybe more rewarding than other records is that

2060
01:57:26,920 --> 01:57:31,520
Speaker 3: record saved their career, that they got a hit record

2061
01:57:31,560 --> 01:57:34,560
Speaker 3: off of it, and they continue to record, you know,

2062
01:57:34,640 --> 01:57:37,480
Speaker 3: album after album with no hit records after that because.

2063
01:57:37,240 --> 01:57:38,160
Speaker 1: The acknowledged that.

2064
01:57:38,240 --> 01:57:41,160
Speaker 3: Now they ultimately acknowledged it.

2065
01:57:41,240 --> 01:57:46,320
Speaker 2: Yes, I want to let you in on something that

2066
01:57:46,480 --> 01:57:48,760
Speaker 2: that record also saved someone else's career.

2067
01:57:50,120 --> 01:57:51,240
Speaker 3: H Whose is that?

2068
01:57:52,120 --> 01:57:52,560
Speaker 1: All right?

2069
01:57:53,240 --> 01:57:56,080
Speaker 2: This is the this is the weirdest is the weirdest

2070
01:57:56,080 --> 01:58:04,240
Speaker 2: twist to this story right here? Skylarking, Sonic Sunspot and

2071
01:58:04,600 --> 01:58:05,760
Speaker 2: Oranges and Lemons.

2072
01:58:06,120 --> 01:58:07,080
Speaker 3: Oranges and Lemons.

2073
01:58:07,120 --> 01:58:09,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, the three albums.

2074
01:58:09,560 --> 01:58:13,480
Speaker 2: Now, you know, we at the Roots had a hustle

2075
01:58:13,520 --> 01:58:17,800
Speaker 2: because we were on Geffen Records as well, and we

2076
01:58:17,800 --> 01:58:23,240
Speaker 2: were absolutely starving between nineteen ninety three and nineteen ninety six,

2077
01:58:24,320 --> 01:58:30,240
Speaker 2: and an instant hustle would be to go visit Geffen

2078
01:58:30,360 --> 01:58:36,200
Speaker 2: Records on a Thursday. Somehow created diversion or you know,

2079
01:58:36,240 --> 01:58:38,800
Speaker 2: you would ask the receptionist to go, like, oh, can

2080
01:58:38,840 --> 01:58:43,320
Speaker 2: we get orange juice, apple juice or water? And in

2081
01:58:43,360 --> 01:58:46,000
Speaker 2: those twenty seconds that she walks away from her desk

2082
01:58:46,480 --> 01:58:47,120
Speaker 2: to go to.

2083
01:58:48,600 --> 01:58:52,440
Speaker 1: The kitchen. Three roots would then ran sat the.

2084
01:58:52,440 --> 01:58:55,800
Speaker 3: Entire record library.

2085
01:58:55,920 --> 01:58:56,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a.

2086
01:58:56,480 --> 01:58:59,880
Speaker 2: CD closet right behind her, of which we learned early

2087
01:59:00,280 --> 01:59:05,400
Speaker 2: that the only product that used record stores were interested

2088
01:59:05,480 --> 01:59:10,720
Speaker 2: in buying these records from from us was the Ecstasy records.

2089
01:59:11,240 --> 01:59:12,560
Speaker 2: You know, at first we were like, all right, all

2090
01:59:12,560 --> 01:59:15,280
Speaker 2: these guns and Roses records, all these Nirvana records or whatever,

2091
01:59:15,760 --> 01:59:19,320
Speaker 2: and we couldn't give them away. But somehow every cool

2092
01:59:19,600 --> 01:59:25,000
Speaker 2: used record store in the village only took the Ecstasy records.

2093
01:59:25,080 --> 01:59:28,480
Speaker 1: So it just it came weekly said like, to make.

2094
01:59:28,360 --> 01:59:33,280
Speaker 10: It, yeah, no, but to make a quick two hundred bucks,

2095
01:59:33,320 --> 01:59:38,040
Speaker 10: you take all the skylarkings, all the suns on spots,

2096
01:59:38,080 --> 01:59:41,440
Speaker 10: and all the oranges and lemons and just go to every.

2097
01:59:41,200 --> 01:59:44,480
Speaker 3: Records store in the stratosphere too, right.

2098
01:59:45,360 --> 01:59:48,480
Speaker 1: Yes, and then that's how I'd have money for the week.

2099
01:59:48,720 --> 01:59:51,800
Speaker 3: So thank you. Hi.

2100
01:59:51,920 --> 01:59:53,480
Speaker 5: Can I ask before because I know we're about to

2101
01:59:53,480 --> 01:59:55,720
Speaker 5: wrap up, but can you please tell us about what

2102
01:59:56,080 --> 01:59:57,440
Speaker 5: a virtual talk show is?

2103
01:59:57,600 --> 02:00:00,200
Speaker 6: And Todd's honest truth, like, what is a what are

2104
02:00:00,200 --> 02:00:01,520
Speaker 6: you doing over here in Hawaii?

2105
02:00:02,360 --> 02:00:04,480
Speaker 3: There's been a lot of talk you know, people doing

2106
02:00:04,560 --> 02:00:07,640
Speaker 3: you know, virtual things of virtual tours and stuff like that,

2107
02:00:07,760 --> 02:00:09,760
Speaker 3: and I would have I would be on a virtual

2108
02:00:09,800 --> 02:00:13,240
Speaker 3: tour now if if our promoters had led me, I

2109
02:00:13,360 --> 02:00:17,400
Speaker 3: was totally prepared to. You know, my tour was supposed

2110
02:00:17,400 --> 02:00:20,240
Speaker 3: to start May first and run to the middle of

2111
02:00:20,280 --> 02:00:23,920
Speaker 3: this month. Fact, it would be virtual store. Yeah. In

2112
02:00:23,960 --> 02:00:26,680
Speaker 3: other words, we would rehearse the band and do the

2113
02:00:26,720 --> 02:00:29,720
Speaker 3: show production and everything like we would normally do, but

2114
02:00:29,760 --> 02:00:34,080
Speaker 3: then find a venue in San Francisco where we'd be

2115
02:00:34,120 --> 02:00:38,640
Speaker 3: rehearsing and do a live broadcast to every city on

2116
02:00:38,680 --> 02:00:41,320
Speaker 3: the night that we would have been there. So, in

2117
02:00:41,360 --> 02:00:43,920
Speaker 3: other words, I would have done twenty eight shows, but

2118
02:00:44,080 --> 02:00:47,600
Speaker 3: all from the same venue, going to you know, narrow

2119
02:00:47,680 --> 02:00:49,920
Speaker 3: cast to all the people who had bought tickets to

2120
02:00:49,960 --> 02:00:50,280
Speaker 3: the show.

2121
02:00:50,440 --> 02:00:52,240
Speaker 6: Well, each show still be different too.

2122
02:00:52,960 --> 02:00:54,880
Speaker 3: Well, it would be different because it'd be a different show,

2123
02:00:54,920 --> 02:00:57,320
Speaker 3: you know, I mean the show is the same show

2124
02:00:57,800 --> 02:01:01,800
Speaker 3: in that well, they are different because on alternating nights

2125
02:01:01,800 --> 02:01:04,160
Speaker 3: we would do either Side Ay or Side be Able

2126
02:01:04,160 --> 02:01:06,560
Speaker 3: Wizard a True Star as well as the rest of

2127
02:01:06,720 --> 02:01:10,200
Speaker 3: the show. You know, I've been wondering what else I

2128
02:01:10,200 --> 02:01:14,000
Speaker 3: can do besides podcasts and things like that, and our

2129
02:01:14,080 --> 02:01:16,680
Speaker 3: merch company has since they can't go out on the

2130
02:01:16,720 --> 02:01:19,680
Speaker 3: road and sell merch. Anymore, set up this whole sort

2131
02:01:19,760 --> 02:01:24,600
Speaker 3: of video broadcasting paradigm thing, pay per view thing, so

2132
02:01:24,680 --> 02:01:31,520
Speaker 3: that fans can participate in live events, video events with

2133
02:01:31,760 --> 02:01:35,440
Speaker 3: various people. I think Melissa Etherrich has done one. Most

2134
02:01:35,440 --> 02:01:38,040
Speaker 3: of the other ones I don't recognize the names. There's

2135
02:01:38,080 --> 02:01:41,560
Speaker 3: a Fab four thing, not the Fab Foe, of course,

2136
02:01:42,200 --> 02:01:44,800
Speaker 3: but a Fab four Beatle tribute thing. And they said,

2137
02:01:44,840 --> 02:01:48,320
Speaker 3: those things sell like people are really, you know, tired

2138
02:01:48,320 --> 02:01:51,600
Speaker 3: of being at home, so they want some kind of entertainment.

2139
02:01:51,760 --> 02:01:54,840
Speaker 3: So I had an idea for something where I would

2140
02:01:54,880 --> 02:01:57,480
Speaker 3: just spiel, you know, I would just get in front

2141
02:01:57,480 --> 02:02:01,320
Speaker 3: of a camera and start talking about something really commonplace

2142
02:02:01,480 --> 02:02:08,560
Speaker 3: but easily misunderstood, like money or something like that. But

2143
02:02:09,280 --> 02:02:13,240
Speaker 3: money is liquefied labor. That's the that's the bottom line.

2144
02:02:13,960 --> 02:02:17,920
Speaker 3: But in any case, we pitched that idea and they said, okay, well,

2145
02:02:18,040 --> 02:02:20,120
Speaker 3: let's do something a little bit more than that. So

2146
02:02:20,520 --> 02:02:23,920
Speaker 3: the show is going to be me hosting live but

2147
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Speaker 3: most of the show will be things that I recorded

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02:02:25,880 --> 02:02:27,800
Speaker 3: already so that they can be so that I can

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Speaker 3: make sure that they're like high quality, because a lot

2150
02:02:31,080 --> 02:02:34,120
Speaker 3: of the live events, you know, they're you know, they

2151
02:02:34,200 --> 02:02:37,720
Speaker 3: lack scripting. They just they don't have energy to them,

2152
02:02:37,920 --> 02:02:41,600
Speaker 3: you know, because you're not getting immediate feedback from the

2153
02:02:41,640 --> 02:02:44,840
Speaker 3: audience like you usually do. So it's, you know, a

2154
02:02:44,880 --> 02:02:49,960
Speaker 3: fine line whether it's actually qualifies as entertainment. And so

2155
02:02:50,080 --> 02:02:52,120
Speaker 3: I want to you know, hedge my bets and do

2156
02:02:52,320 --> 02:02:54,840
Speaker 3: a lot of different sort of video productions that I

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02:02:54,880 --> 02:02:57,720
Speaker 3: will then host and do Q and as in between

2158
02:02:58,520 --> 02:03:02,360
Speaker 3: and not you know, him to play an hour's worth

2159
02:03:02,360 --> 02:03:06,320
Speaker 3: of acoustic material from my couch. You know it's too

2160
02:03:06,400 --> 02:03:06,880
Speaker 3: much of that.

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02:03:08,640 --> 02:03:14,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm taking notes. I am taking notes. Okay, Todd,

2162
02:03:14,160 --> 02:03:18,840
Speaker 2: We thank you nice. We did it today.

2163
02:03:21,960 --> 02:03:23,600
Speaker 1: We thank you so much for.

2164
02:03:24,040 --> 02:03:25,480
Speaker 3: It was a major motion picture.

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02:03:27,440 --> 02:03:29,320
Speaker 2: No, we thank you for seeing your story with us.

2166
02:03:29,320 --> 02:03:31,880
Speaker 2: And you know we're we're all massive fans and you know.

2167
02:03:32,280 --> 02:03:35,080
Speaker 3: We've been I kind of miss you, guys. I would

2168
02:03:35,080 --> 02:03:38,600
Speaker 3: have been in New York and well weeks ago for

2169
02:03:39,560 --> 02:03:41,840
Speaker 3: right for all for for about a week, so you

2170
02:03:41,880 --> 02:03:43,480
Speaker 3: know it could have stopped.

2171
02:03:43,120 --> 02:03:46,760
Speaker 1: By and well this will this mess will be over

2172
02:03:47,640 --> 02:03:55,440
Speaker 1: for you will, all right.

2173
02:03:55,960 --> 02:03:57,840
Speaker 2: We thank you for sharing your story with us and

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02:03:57,840 --> 02:04:01,640
Speaker 2: we appreciate it. On behalf of Layah and Sugar Steve

2175
02:04:01,760 --> 02:04:10,720
Speaker 2: and font Ticolo and the Great Todd run Grin, Relax, Relax,

2176
02:04:11,280 --> 02:04:14,480
Speaker 2: A lot of question anyway, YO, this Quest Love and

2177
02:04:14,520 --> 02:04:15,720
Speaker 2: we thank you guys, and we'll see you in the

2178
02:04:15,760 --> 02:04:17,720
Speaker 2: next go round of Quest Love Supreme.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, m.

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02:04:28,280 --> 02:04:28,320
Speaker 4: M.

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02:04:30,800 --> 02:04:33,640
Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.

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02:04:36,480 --> 02:04:39,760
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

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02:04:40,000 --> 02:04:43,040
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.