Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the bobst Podcast. My guest
Speaker 1: today is Dan Huff. We'll do somet of guitarists extraordinaire. Dan,
Speaker 1: a lot to have you on the podcast. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Bob, honored to be here. Okay, when we
Speaker 1: were setting up the time, you say you were tracking
Speaker 1: until six. What are you working on today? I'm working
Speaker 1: on a young new artist. You will not have heard
Speaker 1: of him. His name is cam Marlowe spelled with a
Speaker 1: K and uh new one of the new kind of
Speaker 1: breed of artists here in Nashville. He's staggering. He's an
Speaker 1: alpha male vocalist, and by that I mean literally every
Speaker 1: take he sings on the tracking session would be considered
Speaker 1: a comp a first rate vocal He's that it's like
Speaker 1: old school, old school type of recording. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, he's so good that I encourage him to
Speaker 1: get live vocals on the tracks, which is unheard of
Speaker 1: these days. How did you get involved? Like I do
Speaker 1: pretty much with everybody, every artist that usually the label
Speaker 1: calls me and we'll say we have somebody that we're
Speaker 1: really excited about and we think you'd be a good
Speaker 1: fit for for the artist and they usually set up
Speaker 1: a meeting and you know, usually goes over pretty well,
Speaker 1: and then it's just working out the I don't develop
Speaker 1: these artists. They they call me to make records that
Speaker 1: sound like singles and and you know, I mean it's
Speaker 1: such a cliche thing, but they want hit records, right,
Speaker 1: So right, that's that's it's I put my shoes on
Speaker 1: one at a time, right, and then you want to
Speaker 1: make hit records. But so so it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a shotgun marriage. You're you're you're trying to two
Speaker 1: digest the music, the the the vision of an artist,
Speaker 1: and you go in the studio and start. And so
Speaker 1: that's it, you know, And that's that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I've made a living doing the last years, all my
Speaker 1: years of playing a studio sessions. Is a good tar player.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, but it was only in preparation
Speaker 1: for what I do. Now, Okay, let's droll down a
Speaker 1: little bit. They say we want you to work on
Speaker 1: this record, want you to make a record, They give
Speaker 1: you the music. How long does it take to decide?
Speaker 1: And sometimes do you say no? I do say no,
Speaker 1: But that brings up a good point. I love to work,
Speaker 1: so I'll default to yes more than not because I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate that I have a track record. Labels are pretty
Speaker 1: selective who they're gonna bring me. It's gonna be pretty
Speaker 1: top shelf, and that sounds if it sounds up to it.
Speaker 1: I don't mean it to be that way at all.
Speaker 1: It's just it's I'm I'm I'm at a good point.
Speaker 1: I should say that they bring me a really good
Speaker 1: artists and uhan, once in a while it will be
Speaker 1: a note. But but for the most part, you know,
Speaker 1: if I can fit it into my schedule, it's it's
Speaker 1: a yes, you know, and I've been doing it long enough.
Speaker 1: Or I really enjoy the Rubik's cube of trying to
Speaker 1: figure out where people are at musically. At my heart,
Speaker 1: I'm a session musician, is what I am. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a UM Well, other people would argue and
Speaker 1: say I'm a producer or heart, I see the world
Speaker 1: through the prism of of a guitar and then it
Speaker 1: goes out exponentially. But there's always a way to figure
Speaker 1: out music, you know, And I've always enjoyed so many
Speaker 1: types of music, so uh, it's it's not always predicated
Speaker 1: on on on one thing or another. Obviously, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: one of the older guys uh in in my business
Speaker 1: right now. I'm I'm I'm way on the old side.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I remember being a young,
Speaker 1: little snot nose guitar player in Los Angeles when when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties and I would see people
Speaker 1: in their forties and think, what the hell are they
Speaker 1: doing in the studio those old men? Yeah, yeah, by
Speaker 1: by those by dog years. I'm I'm Methuselah right now.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, let's assume you get the music, you
Speaker 1: say go, then you want to meet the artists. What
Speaker 1: does that experience like? It like meeting anybody? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you know personalities. You many times you hear
Speaker 1: somebody sing, you hear what they do musically, and it
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with the person their personality when
Speaker 1: you meet him in a room. More than not, most
Speaker 1: people that I that I work with, they they they're big,
Speaker 1: big personalities, and then you meet them and they're they're
Speaker 1: they're shy, removed, you know. I mean, like I guess
Speaker 1: like a lot of entertainers are. They they have specifically
Speaker 1: that they do, and they have a language and and
Speaker 1: my job at that point is not too um, it
Speaker 1: is not to ingratiate them to me, It's I had
Speaker 1: to figure out their language. I had to figure out
Speaker 1: what they're trying to say. I mean, musicians don't always
Speaker 1: use the same adjectives. Right. When somebody talks about something
Speaker 1: being big and expansive, Well, I mean, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Big and expansive? Is that? Is that? Uh? Is that
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin? Right? Right? Is that Vivaldi? I mean it's
Speaker 1: you know, most of the time, my job seems to
Speaker 1: be se figuring out what they mean by their adjectives.
Speaker 1: I need somebody to sound more brown, I need to
Speaker 1: sound more fuzzy, more more uh intimate? Well again, these
Speaker 1: are these are these are adjectives that that that could
Speaker 1: be applied to a lot of things. So you have
Speaker 1: to figure that out first. You have to figure out
Speaker 1: what they mean by what they say. A lot of
Speaker 1: that can be done by listening to their demos, by
Speaker 1: their previous recordings, if they've done that and you start
Speaker 1: the conversation there. But it's I guess, I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm coming to, Bob is it's it's it's different every time.
Speaker 1: There's no one size fits all, and I guess that's
Speaker 1: the thing for me musically, that's the that keeps me
Speaker 1: engaged and interested in this whole thing, because, uh, if
Speaker 1: it was the same thing every time, I'd get really bored.
Speaker 1: And in saying that I live in Nashville, Tennessee, now
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'll just say it. I never in a
Speaker 1: million years would have ever thought I would be involved
Speaker 1: in country music. Right, let's go back the other thing
Speaker 1: and then get back to country music. So you meet
Speaker 1: the act, probably the act already wants to work with you.
Speaker 1: How long does it take to have this conversation before
Speaker 1: work on the album begins. It can be ours, it's
Speaker 1: it's there's no rhyme or reason to any of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if it wasn't a perfect world for me,
Speaker 1: we would meet several times. We would do rehearsals, we
Speaker 1: would do pre production, we would spend time really diving deep,
Speaker 1: getting to know one another, artist myself, doing demos, doing
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff way before we record records.
Speaker 1: That's not the nature of the business. The nature of
Speaker 1: the business is when these labels put you together with them,
Speaker 1: they want it, they want it now, and they want
Speaker 1: it they wanted successful immediately. Okay, so now it's a go.
Speaker 1: What's the next step in making a record? Do you
Speaker 1: have any rehearsals or you just go straight to the
Speaker 1: studio normally. I don't get that. Most of these artists
Speaker 1: are are are starting their touring already, so their time
Speaker 1: is limited. The first thing is, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to hear the songs you want to record. One thing
Speaker 1: that I'm I'm not interested in doing is being an
Speaker 1: A and our person. And traditionally in Nashville, the producers
Speaker 1: were A and our instruments and and and many of
Speaker 1: them were publishers, and so they would come in with
Speaker 1: the songs, here's what we're gonna record. I have zero
Speaker 1: interest in that. As a matter of fact, I think
Speaker 1: it's I think there's a lot of I think I
Speaker 1: got into this business because there was there was that
Speaker 1: component that would would would constitute almost almost a uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say it. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's best if you just help them make their music.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be somebody's publisher. I don't want
Speaker 1: to have uh incentive to from a financial standpoint. I
Speaker 1: just want to help people make music. That's that's what
Speaker 1: I like to do, right, And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of artists when I started doing this, we're interested in
Speaker 1: that because they didn't see a producer coming in with
Speaker 1: another interest in having his songs recorded to help his
Speaker 1: publishing company. As you said earlier, they hire you to
Speaker 1: have hit records. When you listen to the demos, do
Speaker 1: you only pull a project or do a project if
Speaker 1: you hear a hit? What if you're in the studio
Speaker 1: and there is no hit. I usually get interest interested
Speaker 1: because I hear some element of their music that that
Speaker 1: speaks to me. Most of the people that I work with,
Speaker 1: they've they've come through the songwriting halls here in Nashville
Speaker 1: and and they've usually graduated up to the upper tier.
Speaker 1: And uh so they usually come in with really good music.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you'll find out what you think
Speaker 1: as a hit compared to the end of a project,
Speaker 1: after you've realized the music it's not the hit, they're
Speaker 1: they're hidden gems there. So I think that what I
Speaker 1: what I'm saying is that you have to start the process,
Speaker 1: you have to start making music. I mean, it's really
Speaker 1: a sad thing if if we think we can cut
Speaker 1: this down to some kind of algorithm. And and that's
Speaker 1: what the business would would love for this to be right.
Speaker 1: We we know exactly what's gonna happen A B C. D. Here.
Speaker 1: You have this artist as things this good, you get
Speaker 1: this writer right with them, then you get somebody like
Speaker 1: me to come in and record the songs. That is
Speaker 1: a recipe for for success. It doesn't always happen that way,
Speaker 1: and usually there are sleepers when you record these records,
Speaker 1: songs that emerge in the studio something that nobody would
Speaker 1: have ever thought would would possibly be a contender. That's
Speaker 1: the that's the that's the mystery of all this stuff.
Speaker 1: So there is the agenda of a record label and
Speaker 1: and management, and it's all good. It's you know, how
Speaker 1: else can the business run? But there's the reality of
Speaker 1: the way this goes. And that's the part that I'm
Speaker 1: involved then, and it's it's just you get in there
Speaker 1: and you start making music, and it's you don't know
Speaker 1: how it's gonna go. That's the way. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: since you've been doing this, this business has gone through
Speaker 1: a wild transition with first file trading now ultimately streaming.
Speaker 1: This has affected a lot of people's recording process. So
Speaker 1: how has it affected you, if at all, in terms
Speaker 1: of how much money and how much time and where
Speaker 1: you record the records. Luckily, for me, I'm I've been
Speaker 1: in the business long enough to where I can set
Speaker 1: certain terms as far as budgets go, um, the process
Speaker 1: of recording, I pretty much do what I've always done.
Speaker 1: The business is being streamlined. You know this. Everybody now
Speaker 1: is a producer, right, everybody with a laptop. I'm a dinosaur,
Speaker 1: I think if you were before categorizing me as far
Speaker 1: as the way I make music, I'm not. I usually
Speaker 1: don't write with with artists. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I never write with artists. What am I saying? I
Speaker 1: quit writing when I quit my band. Everybody's a producer
Speaker 1: with a laptop. The demos that come in are are
Speaker 1: staggeringly good, right, So why does why would an artist
Speaker 1: need somebody like me? At this point? I asked that
Speaker 1: question all the time. You didn't ask this question. But
Speaker 1: I'll kind of circle back kind of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: There's something that that Bob and our age group we
Speaker 1: got to experience musically seventies, right, seventies, sixties, seventies, There
Speaker 1: that was a renaissance of music. It preceded machines and
Speaker 1: proceeded a culture and the record business. It was still
Speaker 1: the wild, wild West, you know. And and with that
Speaker 1: there was an innocence and there was a fearlessness in
Speaker 1: making music that existed, and I think it really fostered
Speaker 1: some of the great pop music of all time. And uh,
Speaker 1: at this point, I think artists, young kids are speaking personally.
Speaker 1: They they want to feel a piece of that. I'm
Speaker 1: abridged to that. I'm not a laptop producer. I still
Speaker 1: deal with live musicians. I think that's not the only
Speaker 1: way to make music. But that's there's there's certainly something
Speaker 1: in sitting in a room with other people. There's there's
Speaker 1: you can you can't replace that exchange of ideas with
Speaker 1: with with sitting in front of the laptop. It's it's
Speaker 1: I'll keep coming back to this this the two words.
Speaker 1: There's tension and there's mystery to it. You don't want
Speaker 1: to know what's going to happen next, because it's not
Speaker 1: just your mind, it's everybody else's mind. So it's a reaction.
Speaker 1: It's there's something about that that process that is magical
Speaker 1: in making music anyway, so we live in a business.
Speaker 1: Your original question was how how is this all affected
Speaker 1: now with the transition to stream me and whatnot. Basically,
Speaker 1: I thinks streaming is the greatest thing for music because again,
Speaker 1: it's it's pushing the boundaries, is saying that the funnel
Speaker 1: that we go through is not small, it's huge. And
Speaker 1: and as much as radio has been a phenomenal instrument
Speaker 1: in getting music to people, there are gatekeepers that that
Speaker 1: are involved in that process. And and there's too much power.
Speaker 1: The democratization of of music through technology, as I think
Speaker 1: it's been a wonderful thing. It's confusing. Um it allows
Speaker 1: in a lot of mediocrity, but it also allows a
Speaker 1: lot of people to have control over what they do. Um.
Speaker 1: Record companies are playing catch up to that, and and
Speaker 1: I think the first round of their decisions are to say,
Speaker 1: let's just get They call it content, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty spite forward and I hate that word. Just it sucks.
Speaker 1: It's not content, it's music, right, they want the there's
Speaker 1: an insatiable appetite for music now product content. That's a
Speaker 1: problem because there's a lot of mediocrity. You can't just
Speaker 1: make great music quickly. Sometimes it happens in a flash.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it happens over a long period of time. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of the moderator with the projects that I do
Speaker 1: on that process. Dinosaur. Yes, but but but we're gonna
Speaker 1: find a chord of that music that that the artist
Speaker 1: feels like that they're saying what they want to say.
Speaker 1: Record company is gonna take it and do what they
Speaker 1: gotta do with it. Sometimes it works for them, sometimes
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Sometimes this this new process of just spitting
Speaker 1: out these demos disposable music that works better for them.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't be the answer for all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. Hopefully that that answers a little bit off
Speaker 1: your question. I'm sitting down. That's a lot though. It's
Speaker 1: all good. But let's go back to the nuts and bolts.
Speaker 1: So you say, yes, you've met the act, you've listened
Speaker 1: to the demos. How much is the budget that you
Speaker 1: propose and how long does it take you to make
Speaker 1: one of these records the budgets that I get. Can
Speaker 1: I talk about some of this stuff to you? I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think. I don't think I'm supposed to talk
Speaker 1: about park because every deal is different. How long does
Speaker 1: it take him? Is your budget A hundred thousand, three
Speaker 1: hundred thousand, two hundred thousand. You know what that's That's
Speaker 1: a great question. And this is an honest answer, even
Speaker 1: though I preface it by saying I don't know if
Speaker 1: I should talk about the truth is I don't a
Speaker 1: hundred percent no, because I have a guy that does it,
Speaker 1: and he usually he just he's been with me for
Speaker 1: twenty five years. I know it's I know, roughly to
Speaker 1: track a song in Nashville with you know musicians, your
Speaker 1: union musicians that I use will be somewhere up from
Speaker 1: twenty dollars just for the expenses. And I think that's mixed.
Speaker 1: So what ten songs and you're talking about what two
Speaker 1: fifty dollars? Right? Generally speaking? Are you making albums? Sort of?
Speaker 1: Sometimes somebody come in and want one track or a
Speaker 1: few tracks. For the most part, gladly I can I
Speaker 1: can say that it's it's mostly album still to this point,
Speaker 1: or what do they call collections now? Right, it's more
Speaker 1: than it's more than eight songs, So it's a body
Speaker 1: of work. Okay, So you have your read songs, how
Speaker 1: much time do you need? Various? It just various. Cam
Speaker 1: Marlow i'm working I'm working with now he's seen he's
Speaker 1: seen live on the tracks, so if comp his vocals,
Speaker 1: if they need to be comped from these live tracks,
Speaker 1: that saves me weeks of doing vocal over depths. We've
Speaker 1: determined this record is gonna be really simple. There's not
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot of over depths after the fact,
Speaker 1: so that again, some records take the I'm trying to think.
Speaker 1: I just did a record with it with with an
Speaker 1: artist named Kane Brown, who's a wonderful new hybrid kind
Speaker 1: of artists. I don't know if you know that name.
Speaker 1: We've been working on this record place for a year,
Speaker 1: off and on. He tours all the time, so it's
Speaker 1: not straight work. This record that I'm working on right now,
Speaker 1: I probably have it done in six weeks. So they're
Speaker 1: there there. None of them are the same for me. Well,
Speaker 1: let me put it the other way. Look at it
Speaker 1: from your perspective. You have a schedule. How do you
Speaker 1: schedule all this stuff? That's the main dollar question. It
Speaker 1: used to keep me up twenty years ago. It kept
Speaker 1: me up at nights. I discovered ambient right that was
Speaker 1: that was the only answer for me at that time.
Speaker 1: It just does Bob. I don't. I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: And sometimes you have to say to people, you have
Speaker 1: to say, look, it's gonna take me a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: You have to wait. That's the beauty of being a
Speaker 1: senior in this business right now. I don't take advantage
Speaker 1: of it. I don't. I don't. I'm not heavy with
Speaker 1: that at all. Um and I have a wonderful relationship
Speaker 1: with most of the label heads here. They're all my age,
Speaker 1: and they know that I'm not gonna dick around with them,
Speaker 1: with with their money, with with their schedules. I will
Speaker 1: meet deadlines. I just want to know what the hard
Speaker 1: deadlines are. And I and I usually I mean to
Speaker 1: this day, I'm knock on some way around here. I've
Speaker 1: i've never uh not delivered on time. But as far
Speaker 1: as scheduling, I mean to this day. I don't have
Speaker 1: an assistant. I'm I'm one of the holdouts. It's too
Speaker 1: much work to have an assistant. So I do have
Speaker 1: a production assistant who keep pays the bills and does
Speaker 1: all that stuff. But that's it. It's just me. It's
Speaker 1: a mom and pop shop here and I and I
Speaker 1: actually do a lot of records so there's seven days
Speaker 1: in a week, twenty four hours in a day. How
Speaker 1: much you're working less than I did ten years ago.
Speaker 1: But I've been hit a lot of saturdays lately. I
Speaker 1: will say that normally I've been married forty years, so
Speaker 1: in music years, that would be right exact. At least.
Speaker 1: Sherry and my wife, my my girlfriend since that we
Speaker 1: were fourteen years old. She's not in music business, and
Speaker 1: that's probably why we're still married. But I decided a
Speaker 1: long time ago, well i'll tell you a great little
Speaker 1: a little story about you. Mind me a little anecdote
Speaker 1: about Los Angeles. And we just moved out. I think
Speaker 1: it was two two or three. We've been married a year.
Speaker 1: I got out there was lucky enough to get in
Speaker 1: the fast track right off the bat. I was living
Speaker 1: my dream. My The only thing I want to do
Speaker 1: is play guitar. About a year and a half, two
Speaker 1: years in Sherry, I'll never forget. I know where I
Speaker 1: was sitting on it, on which chair, which house we
Speaker 1: lived in. She said, Hey, Dan, I love you, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna move back to Nashville. She said, this is
Speaker 1: not really me. She said, we see still stay married.
Speaker 1: I love you, but I would see you as much
Speaker 1: as if you came home to Nashville and visited once
Speaker 1: every too much. And and that was a real warning,
Speaker 1: right And so my life has been one of balance.
Speaker 1: And I've raised three kids and um now I have grandkids.
Speaker 1: But I did, I did find out early that that,
Speaker 1: like I used to do twelve hour days, I'll put
Speaker 1: it that way, something suffers that at every point of life,
Speaker 1: if if, if you're, if you're, if you're doubling down
Speaker 1: on work, your family is gonna suffer and you've got
Speaker 1: to make that up. So it's it's just a constant balance.
Speaker 1: But right now, say I like to work, if I
Speaker 1: have my way, I like to work between the hours
Speaker 1: of eleven and six, kind of bankers hours for a musician. Now,
Speaker 1: the past is history, But in retrospect, did it require
Speaker 1: that much work twelve hours a day to achieve the
Speaker 1: status you presently have? And we're the sacrifice is worth it,
Speaker 1: no doubt, no doubt. I mean, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been fortunate enough to be around what
Speaker 1: I would consider greats at every facet of my recording career.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it does, it does exact some some flesh
Speaker 1: from you and there's no way to get good without
Speaker 1: your ten thousand hours. So was it worth it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was worth it. I think there's some other things
Speaker 1: that I might have been able to accomplish had I
Speaker 1: given a little bit more, but that would also wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been worth the cost to me personally. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's go back to the studio. You mentioned earlier that
Speaker 1: you have your regulars players in Nashville. Do you tend
Speaker 1: to use players on all the records you make or
Speaker 1: is it ever the guys in the band they're the
Speaker 1: ones on the record. It's it's really whatever an artist
Speaker 1: would like. And there's some artists that come in like
Speaker 1: they'll and they'll they'll have a particular musician in their
Speaker 1: band they know can cut it in the studio, and
Speaker 1: they'll say, would you mind using I love that. The
Speaker 1: problem is I've you know, I always maintained that I
Speaker 1: have only so many ideas, so you have to change
Speaker 1: the cast or else it's gonna sound like the same
Speaker 1: record all the time. So how do you find new players?
Speaker 1: Just steen around, just asking around. There's there was a
Speaker 1: new player that I was working with today, a guitar
Speaker 1: players in Nashville he's and he's homegrown. I I can't
Speaker 1: believe that. I've never hardly met anybody in Nashville who's homegrown.
Speaker 1: This guy. He's the age of my oldest daughter. And
Speaker 1: his name is Chris Donnegan. And he's just on a
Speaker 1: tip from an engineer who I've worked with for twenty
Speaker 1: five years. He said, try this guy out. He sounds
Speaker 1: exactly like what you're looking for. A bit irreverent, but
Speaker 1: he's knowledgeable and he and he plays just just on
Speaker 1: the fringes. And I said, okay, great, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's it. He's locked in for life. Now he doesn't
Speaker 1: know that, but he's locked in for life, whether he
Speaker 1: likes it or not. But but truely, I mean truly,
Speaker 1: do you you have to work. One of my heroes
Speaker 1: in life is Mutt Lang and he was the guy
Speaker 1: that talked me into being a producer. Wait wait, he
Speaker 1: taught you one on one or he taught you because
Speaker 1: you listened to the records, both both. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the greatest honor. When I got my first call to
Speaker 1: play guitar from Mut Lane, that was it. I mean,
Speaker 1: what else A little bit slower? What was that call?
Speaker 1: For the first call? That mutt. Actually, I had moved
Speaker 1: back to Nashville. I was playing in a band Giant
Speaker 1: right by the way. Thank you for those more than
Speaker 1: kind words, all hard felt, all true. Yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: I mean, that was that was sweet. You know, so
Speaker 1: and this you know You're gonna have to tie this
Speaker 1: narrative because I'm jumping all around. I'm like, I got
Speaker 1: it all in my head. Just keep going, Okay, great,
Speaker 1: we had moved back. I thought I was gonna be
Speaker 1: a rock star, moved back to Nashville to raise my kids,
Speaker 1: be closer to extended family. Let's just stop for one second.
Speaker 1: When your wife, Sherry said I'm gonna move back to Nashville.
Speaker 1: What happened then? Did she move back? No? No, she
Speaker 1: didn't she No, It's just I had to I had
Speaker 1: to remember that I was in a relationship and I
Speaker 1: you know, you have to cherish the things that you love.
Speaker 1: I was cherishing music right I was given and I
Speaker 1: just had to make sure that I balanced that and
Speaker 1: I did. And she she it makes her sound like
Speaker 1: she's a heavy she's not. She just she's just honest.
Speaker 1: So and and quite honestly the best music critic too
Speaker 1: that I've had because she's not a musician. She she
Speaker 1: doesn't give rats. Asked about how much hours I put
Speaker 1: into a guitar show. It's like does the song speak
Speaker 1: to her or not? So anyway, Um, we're back in Nashville,
Speaker 1: We're raising kids. I'm I'm gonna be a rock star.
Speaker 1: So I thought this is right before Giant tumbled, and um,
Speaker 1: Mutt Lange wanted to cut a record in Nashville. He's
Speaker 1: loved I found out he loves Nashville. He he was
Speaker 1: cutting a record on his ex wife. Her name is
Speaker 1: Stevie and um, so he hired a bunch of Nashville
Speaker 1: musicians and so it was not a rock record, which
Speaker 1: is bizarre because I was not a country musician. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we got to know each other in our our relationship
Speaker 1: extended far beyond that. And I watched him work in
Speaker 1: various capacities, and and that guy could bring water from
Speaker 1: a stone. He had no fear. He would lead you
Speaker 1: to the musical Promised Land, whether you well, no, you'd
Speaker 1: always like it. It was all on him. And yet
Speaker 1: he had such a profound respect and a desire to
Speaker 1: hear the ideas of all the people you worked with.
Speaker 1: And it really had an effect on me. And I've
Speaker 1: worked with some phenomenal producers. I mean, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no way you can call one the greatest. There's
Speaker 1: no greatest. But I would say he's one of the
Speaker 1: most profound musicians I've ever worked with. We could argue
Speaker 1: whether people are in his league, but he's at the top.
Speaker 1: I mean, it just I don't have an I don't
Speaker 1: have enough vocabulary to say what I think about mud
Speaker 1: life and as a person too. It's just he's the
Speaker 1: quintessential music maker. That's just it. So I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this guy and and and also just honored to be
Speaker 1: part of making music with him. And he was the
Speaker 1: one who said, you're a producer at hard Dan, you
Speaker 1: should you should drop the guitar playing and produce records.
Speaker 1: Well you didn't want to hear that. But what what
Speaker 1: did he pick up on? I'm assuming because I haven't
Speaker 1: really asked him. But but well, I'm an arranger at heart,
Speaker 1: an arranger, so so the it's it's like I've always
Speaker 1: liked making records to to to. If you're a musician,
Speaker 1: you're a subcontractor, right You're you're hired to frame the
Speaker 1: house you're a drywall guy, you're a plumber or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's a certain artistic bent to each one of those
Speaker 1: those disciplines, shall we say. And the record producer is
Speaker 1: just the general contractor. He's he may be a he
Speaker 1: may be a woodsmith himself, you know, I mean, or
Speaker 1: a plumber, but but he it's his job to pull
Speaker 1: the whole thing together and and it's his job to
Speaker 1: make sure the house is built. That's what a record
Speaker 1: producer does. And he just he he noticed some things
Speaker 1: about the way that I related to the way he produced,
Speaker 1: and he probably thought I'm I'm I'm guessing here, I'm projecting.
Speaker 1: They thought I would be a natural doing that, and
Speaker 1: he was the one. Um he didn't get me my
Speaker 1: first gig, but I was actually producing um a Mega
Speaker 1: Death record here in Nashville in the early nineties. It
Speaker 1: was my my manager of Giant, Bud Prager, who got
Speaker 1: me that that gig. He thought I'd be good to
Speaker 1: work with Dave Mustain at the same time. Mutt was
Speaker 1: producing Shania Twain at that time, and I was playing
Speaker 1: on those records, and um, they were hanging out with
Speaker 1: Faith Hill. It was a huge star at that time
Speaker 1: in faith. It was. It was just kind of like
Speaker 1: a drama. You know. Her producer was her fiance and
Speaker 1: they split up, so she just didn't want to continue that,
Speaker 1: you know, and I understand that. And and she was
Speaker 1: looking for a producer, and Mutton and I were with her,
Speaker 1: and they said, well, why don't you try Dan, and
Speaker 1: she she had never thought of that. I was playing
Speaker 1: on her records because I was living in Nashville this time,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I was supplementing my income, my
Speaker 1: rock income, with playing sessions again. And so that was
Speaker 1: the first thing. And you know, I mean, if if
Speaker 1: Mutt Lange suggests you, somebody's gonna listen at that point,
Speaker 1: and there you go. And that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: of kind of my production in Nashville on country music.
Speaker 1: And the irony is Mutt Lange, you know, his greatest
Speaker 1: rock producer, you know, one of the greatest whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call him. He was such a student of
Speaker 1: Nashville music, of country music. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when he when he we we were in England working
Speaker 1: on a record, and he he asked me what I
Speaker 1: knew about an artist named Shania Twin And I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know that much. I mean, I've heard some
Speaker 1: music or whatever. She's she's gorgeous or whatever. That's about
Speaker 1: the extent of what I knew about. I saw her
Speaker 1: on videos and he said, well, I fancy her, and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, that's great. So I was working on some
Speaker 1: record with him in England at this time and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, but you're not going to play on it.
Speaker 1: And I said what? And he said, you don't know
Speaker 1: anything about country music, which is so true. I didn't
Speaker 1: even though I was living it. Grew up here in Nashville,
Speaker 1: and I was living back in Nashville, I didn't know
Speaker 1: a damn thing about country music. Funny thing was, I
Speaker 1: got a call one day and it was, I think
Speaker 1: the second day that he was tracking Shanai and Nashville
Speaker 1: their first record. He he said, and I won't even
Speaker 1: attempt a South African accent. But then you fancy coming
Speaker 1: down and having a play. He's what he said, having
Speaker 1: a play. And I said, I said, I thought you
Speaker 1: said I didn't know how to play country music. He said, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I just want your wrist. Is that great? I just
Speaker 1: want your wrist? So yeah, okay, But you know, if
Speaker 1: we talk about the old guy because everything is different now.
Speaker 1: There were producers that were you know, in the sixties,
Speaker 1: they work for the label. Then everybody went independent. The
Speaker 1: producers were mainly people leaving Nashville, which is a subculture
Speaker 1: unto itself. But if we're talking about rock, the producers
Speaker 1: were sort of they and our guys, and they would
Speaker 1: also work with the music. Then we went to an
Speaker 1: engineer producer. When you're an engineer, you learn that your
Speaker 1: subsidiary and you don't make waves. And therefore when they
Speaker 1: make records, it's harder for them to speak up with
Speaker 1: their ideas. And what I'm leading to Ism is a
Speaker 1: unique guy because in South Africa he started doing satellite records.
Speaker 1: You know, before that they came to South Africa, they
Speaker 1: would record them, they'd have them for a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks and have the hit in South Africa. So this
Speaker 1: is a guy who can do everything. He can write,
Speaker 1: he can sing, he can okay, and there are not
Speaker 1: many people who can do that. So how did those
Speaker 1: elements come across in the studio? You know, he writes
Speaker 1: it's almost like, um, it's like he writes an acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like you know, he's like He's a hippie,
Speaker 1: is what he is. He's just he's a beautiful hippie.
Speaker 1: And um music has to work from an arrangement standpoint
Speaker 1: from melody. If he and he he usually has to
Speaker 1: translate on an acoustic guitar for him, whatever his influences were,
Speaker 1: and he has he usually has an idea when he
Speaker 1: comes in. I mean it's not always fleshed out, you know,
Speaker 1: a full demo, but he has an idea. You know,
Speaker 1: he's a he's an arranger. Again, I come back to
Speaker 1: I think that's really what what great records are made of.
Speaker 1: Because when you go back, and I'll just deviate for
Speaker 1: one second, you go back and listen to fourties and fifties.
Speaker 1: You just listening to those records. Quincy was making any
Speaker 1: big band record, right, I mean they were. They were
Speaker 1: doing these records with you know, two or three mics.
Speaker 1: That was it. And it's all the arrangement. It's all
Speaker 1: relations and ship oriented. That's the way Mutt makes records.
Speaker 1: It's arrangement. It's it's melodies, rhythms, the way sounds are
Speaker 1: all orchestrated and arranged, they fall together. It's not just
Speaker 1: a blob of music and then you you find a
Speaker 1: way to do and I'm using my hands here. Great
Speaker 1: for your for your listeners, so they can't see a thing.
Speaker 1: But but it's it's not about moving faders up and down.
Speaker 1: If a piece of music doesn't doesn't sit logically, like
Speaker 1: if you put all your faders flat on the board,
Speaker 1: if it doesn't sound great that way, chances are you
Speaker 1: don't have a great record. That that's what That's the
Speaker 1: crux of Mutt lying, as far as I'm concerned, everything
Speaker 1: when when we down to the point of okay, once
Speaker 1: he's got a drum track and a bass track, right,
Speaker 1: that's got a dynamically musically arrangement wise flow with a song.
Speaker 1: You're pointing something as simple as an eighth note part
Speaker 1: ching ching ching ching ching ching ching, Okay, a lot
Speaker 1: of producers, that's over in five seconds because it's such
Speaker 1: a obligatory part. Dan Dan Dan, dank dank. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, what is that with Mutt? That's everything. It's
Speaker 1: slow motion. Every note has to relate to that kick,
Speaker 1: snare and high hat in a certain way that makes
Speaker 1: every one of these notes sound large into the best
Speaker 1: that it can sound. It's not slop. It's arrangement within
Speaker 1: an eighth note part. And that doesn't mean that it's
Speaker 1: like if you were to put it on a computer
Speaker 1: screen and on a grid, that it would line up exactly.
Speaker 1: That's not what he's looking for. He's looking for the
Speaker 1: foe right behind each one of those, so that the
Speaker 1: duration of each note makes the drums sound bigger and
Speaker 1: more rich, richer than than they than they sound. So
Speaker 1: if you if you start there and then zoom out
Speaker 1: everything that he does, every note that everybody sings has
Speaker 1: to have that relationship to the next thing. And that's
Speaker 1: why his records sounded so damn good. Does that make
Speaker 1: sense at all? Is that absolutely? Absolutely? But trying to
Speaker 1: dig in a little deeper, you were saying, when you
Speaker 1: make records, you're not in a and our guy to
Speaker 1: what degree since mud has those skills, you may not
Speaker 1: have worked in the studio with him with this happened
Speaker 1: where he said, no, we're gonna rework the song, or
Speaker 1: we're gonna rewrite the song. No, no, no, Then then
Speaker 1: I I didn't make that clear. I've been around you know,
Speaker 1: popular hit music, so so everything is an a and
Speaker 1: our involvement. I don't like to go and and like
Speaker 1: for a lot of Nashville artists, if they don't write
Speaker 1: their own songs, you would go to publishers and and
Speaker 1: listen to songs I would rather an artist. I I
Speaker 1: am lucky because I get to work with artists that
Speaker 1: usually write throwing music these days. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: last I said, in the last fifteen years, almost almost
Speaker 1: every artist that I work with either writes it completely
Speaker 1: themselves or they co write. You know, and and so
Speaker 1: you tell me what you want to record, you let
Speaker 1: you have a conversation with the label about what songs
Speaker 1: they think are gonna be hits. Right then I'm going
Speaker 1: to accentuate that I'm not interested in that part of
Speaker 1: the process. Now, once it comes into my hands, then
Speaker 1: I'm then I'm on hands on for all of what
Speaker 1: you would call A and R. At that point, we're
Speaker 1: trying to make these songs the most impactful they can
Speaker 1: possibly beat. I sound like kids. I just hate that
Speaker 1: language about talking about hits. But you want something to
Speaker 1: be impactful, so that if if from that in our perspective,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm a involved on the record, and we
Speaker 1: we we rework sections, add sections. I mean, if we
Speaker 1: have to write it there on the spot. It's fine.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just not interested in in doing a
Speaker 1: label and our's job as far as starting from scratch
Speaker 1: from here's eighty tunes and let's cull this down to
Speaker 1: ten if that makes sense. Okay, you're in the studio
Speaker 1: and you say, okay, this song needs a bridge or
Speaker 1: we're gonna start with the chorus? Are the acts ever resentful?
Speaker 1: And frequently you have more success than the act. So
Speaker 1: what's the vibe in the studio. It's all in how
Speaker 1: you explain it. I mean, it's it's relationship, right, it's
Speaker 1: and and that's predicated on respect. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you you have to earn that, you don't demand it,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I quit. I took down all the in my studio
Speaker 1: at the house, I took down all the plaques. Number one.
Speaker 1: It started reminded me how old I was. Right, It's
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, that was yesterday, right, And so the
Speaker 1: more you think about that, Okay, it was yesterday. And
Speaker 1: I don't want some new artists or that matter, old
Speaker 1: artists to walk into my studio and see this is
Speaker 1: who I think I am, or or you know who
Speaker 1: who they relate to needs to be me at that moment,
Speaker 1: and I have to earn their trust and their respect.
Speaker 1: And so most of the time, at least my experience,
Speaker 1: these artists will give me. They'll be deferential enough. Some
Speaker 1: of them, I have to tell them to quit calling
Speaker 1: me sir, which drives me batshit crazy, But um, it's
Speaker 1: a trust thing. It's like, I'm not afraid, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I've been around the block enough. I'll tell people right
Speaker 1: off the bat. Look, you're gonna see you're gonna see
Speaker 1: some of the limits of my creativity here. You're gonna
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some things I say that are just
Speaker 1: absolutely off mark, and I'm gonna I'm gonna fall on
Speaker 1: my face. If you can grant me that, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: grant you the same thing. Because part of finding this
Speaker 1: this thing we're looking for, whatever exists out there that
Speaker 1: we're reaching for, doesn't come with It doesn't always just happen,
Speaker 1: and we can't let our egos dictate. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not about being cool, it's about being effective and finding
Speaker 1: that thing. And so you know anything you say, you're
Speaker 1: the boss number one, and you know this artist that
Speaker 1: I was working for today. What he's twenty four years old,
Speaker 1: He's he's ultimately the boss. It's it's his record, is
Speaker 1: his face. It's gonna go on this thing. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go on and do other records past this point. So
Speaker 1: I gotta listen very intently to what he's saying. And
Speaker 1: if I hear him him him say an idea that
Speaker 1: I don't think is gonna work, I have to discipline
Speaker 1: myself to not just say no, no, that won't work.
Speaker 1: I've seen that happen that here. Here's here's another good
Speaker 1: thing about being a studio player for for decades. I
Speaker 1: got to see great producers and I got to see
Speaker 1: really bad producers. It's like classroom. You know what doesn't work.
Speaker 1: The one thing that works is respect. You know, and
Speaker 1: and and and when you give it, you usually get it.
Speaker 1: Today I tried a couple of ideas that absolutely just suck.
Speaker 1: There's no other way to do it. It's okay. We
Speaker 1: ended up finding it by the end of the session.
Speaker 1: Right on. The track came out fantastically, But it became
Speaker 1: It became that way because the artist was willing to
Speaker 1: trust me to go down a few rabbit holes. I
Speaker 1: thought one thing is gonna work. What absolutely ended up
Speaker 1: working was something that none of us thought was gonna work.
Speaker 1: But it would never have happened had we not tried
Speaker 1: some of these stupid ideas that I had. So that's it.
Speaker 1: And and circling back to mutt uh Mut, I noticed
Speaker 1: never panicked when you hit a dead end in the studio,
Speaker 1: um and I and I and I experienced it a
Speaker 1: lot of times as a musician. You know that that
Speaker 1: horrible feeling like this, this is not happening, and people
Speaker 1: are starting to look around, and and you know, it's
Speaker 1: like what do you do now? It's it's not happening.
Speaker 1: And I've been in a couple of situations with more
Speaker 1: than a couple of situations with producers who you know,
Speaker 1: it's exposes them if they don't have an idea, you know,
Speaker 1: what do gonna do? Well, the next thing is to
Speaker 1: blame somebody, blame a player. This sucking thing, doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, come on, do something. Mutt Lang never went
Speaker 1: to that place. It was just we're gonna get there,
Speaker 1: hang hang with me. Let's just you know, talk about
Speaker 1: a bar. And so here I enter, I enter my
Speaker 1: production world with you know, the monkey of all monkeys
Speaker 1: on my shoulder. It's like I've worked with Mudd Lang
Speaker 1: and I know it great is I'm not anywhere close
Speaker 1: to that, But you see what I'm saying. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like, absolutely you get to that point, you go
Speaker 1: anything that I do, number one, I'll never reach that level.
Speaker 1: But but that's how that's that's the way to conduct
Speaker 1: yourself making music. And at least you have to have
Speaker 1: that kind of credibility once you see it, an experience
Speaker 1: that that you can never go back. So when you
Speaker 1: hit a dead end, what did Mutt do or what
Speaker 1: did you learn from what to do? Take time? Step away, Yes,
Speaker 1: like just beating a thing into the ground is pointless.
Speaker 1: Step back, get a different perspective, Go have a meal,
Speaker 1: Go have a cup of coffee or whatever. Step back,
Speaker 1: look at the painting from another angle, Turn it again,
Speaker 1: keep looking at it. All of a sudden. If I mean,
Speaker 1: this is not rocket science, right, I mean we're not
Speaker 1: We're not this is not Bach. We're doing pop music here.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a limited scope. And if if you
Speaker 1: can find that, if you just mean number one, if
Speaker 1: you're around people that are proficient, I hire a really
Speaker 1: good musicians, musicians. Most of my things are way better
Speaker 1: than myself. Just give that a minute. Something's gonna come
Speaker 1: up and present itself. And like I said a minute ago,
Speaker 1: it may not be the exact answer, it may not
Speaker 1: be the exact route, but it may be something that
Speaker 1: that that takes you into that that area that you'll
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see what the final answers and the solution is.
Speaker 1: Patience is the main thing. We were a couple of
Speaker 1: your bad ideas. Today I think back, I can't remember it.
Speaker 1: Luckily I can forget all that stuff. There was a
Speaker 1: after the first course. There was I was well on
Speaker 1: to this idea that I hate making just music that's
Speaker 1: predicated for the radio. I was on a rant about that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like what am I saying here? Radio
Speaker 1: has fed in my family all these years, but um,
Speaker 1: we need to double that up. We need to take
Speaker 1: time with this thing. And we we ran in and
Speaker 1: the artists basically the end of the song we didn't undertake.
Speaker 1: He said, I just think that sounds way too long,
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, you're you're, you're absolutely right, but well,
Speaker 1: you know, just that the really bad ideas have been
Speaker 1: reserved for modulations. I grew up like in Barry Manilow,
Speaker 1: so I was like all that that dramatic stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: if you could talk about the eighties when there was
Speaker 1: unlimited money, they would be in the big studio. They
Speaker 1: get a drums down, they build it, they cut the basics.
Speaker 1: How do you do it? Hire great engineers. I hate
Speaker 1: waiting and you know that great drum sound. Here, here's
Speaker 1: here's my take on it. Like there is no the best.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that, right, it's all relative to the
Speaker 1: setting that it's in, right you. I remember listening to
Speaker 1: a police record. Those sounds were great because they were
Speaker 1: predicated on the band itself. He listened to van Halen.
Speaker 1: Totally different thing. It's predicated on van Halen. Oh here, okay,
Speaker 1: great example here. I remember playing on a on a
Speaker 1: Pattie smythe record in the eighties, and the ron Nevison
Speaker 1: was the producer, talk about a history and a list
Speaker 1: of credits. The other guitar player was this little known
Speaker 1: guy named Eddie van Halen. Right yeah, And and when
Speaker 1: when he mentioned that Eddie van Hamlen was playing on
Speaker 1: some tracks, I almost I almost just soiled my nappies.
Speaker 1: Basically I got to the studio and the only thing
Speaker 1: I cared about was hearing what Eddie van Halen did,
Speaker 1: because I was such a massive fan. Right, and Ron
Speaker 1: pull up the tracks and he was playing me some stuff,
Speaker 1: and you could tell that it was Eddie. But it
Speaker 1: was interesting because he didn't turn the guitar up like
Speaker 1: anywhere close to the volume that he that that it
Speaker 1: would have been turned up in a in a power trio,
Speaker 1: right van Halen. It was. It was Eddie's guitar, drums
Speaker 1: and then bass, so the bottom end was even it
Speaker 1: was even subservient to his guitar sound. Well, in this
Speaker 1: it was big drums, big loud bass, and then Eddie's
Speaker 1: guitar in there. So it was Eddie because you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you worshiped him slash studied him like
Speaker 1: I did, you knew it was him. But it was
Speaker 1: not the same experience. It was the same sound when
Speaker 1: he is solated. It was there's Eddie van Halen contextually, right,
Speaker 1: it was. It was less in volume and in the
Speaker 1: elements that were around it. We're not the same, so
Speaker 1: it was a different Eddie van Halen. So that what
Speaker 1: we what everybody calls the brown sound related differently to
Speaker 1: that setting. Right That's that's the world of production right there.
Speaker 1: That's that's everything. It's everything is related. It's like what
Speaker 1: I was talking about a minute ago in arrangement. It's
Speaker 1: the way that it relates to the next thing. So
Speaker 1: if you set your bottom end, your drums, your base
Speaker 1: a certain way, then the guitar sounds to really poke
Speaker 1: through and be effective have to cut through from a
Speaker 1: different standpoint. Eddie van Halen's guitar sound was this massive beast.
Speaker 1: It was a it was a whale of a sound
Speaker 1: with all this bottom end and and this girth that
Speaker 1: didn't relate the same way in the setting that Ron
Speaker 1: had had had queued up for for this. Patty smythe
Speaker 1: record Mutt Lange, by the same token, would take little
Speaker 1: guitar sounds that, in the context of a record like
Speaker 1: that would sound massive, but if you sold them, they
Speaker 1: were these much more. They weren't miniature, but they didn't
Speaker 1: have the girth of Annettie van Halen sound. So when
Speaker 1: you say how do I do records, I get a
Speaker 1: great engineer. I try to be specific about the direction
Speaker 1: of the sound that we're going. And because I'm a
Speaker 1: guitar player, and I make a lot of guitar sounding records.
Speaker 1: I can dominate that conversation. I hire a lot of
Speaker 1: guitar players that it's you know they we we have
Speaker 1: a camarader and we can speak. We speak guitar talk fluently.
Speaker 1: Do you work with the same engineer or do you
Speaker 1: want to mix it up or what's your philosophy there?
Speaker 1: I like to mix it. I have to mix everything
Speaker 1: up because again, if I because of the amount of
Speaker 1: records that I do, it would it would be boring
Speaker 1: very very soon. I have a I would say that
Speaker 1: I have four or five engineers that I like to
Speaker 1: track records. I'm a little more limited on the on
Speaker 1: the mixing. I I've gone back to UH an engineer
Speaker 1: named Justin ee Bank. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: credits from Nashville, but if you look at them, Bob,
Speaker 1: it's it's staggering. He's a Chicagoan that came through the
Speaker 1: whole jingle thing and moved to Nashville. I met him
Speaker 1: when I did my first Keith Urban record and we
Speaker 1: haven't been a part since. I do have other mixing
Speaker 1: engineers who are great and not but Justin and I
Speaker 1: seem to really have a kind of just a language
Speaker 1: and and he's he's a musician, and uh, we just
Speaker 1: make records a different way. Same thing on on the
Speaker 1: guitar players. I have about five in each instrument. It
Speaker 1: seems to to me that that uh, I kind of
Speaker 1: gravitate towards Okay, so let's just assume the engineer gets
Speaker 1: the sound in the studio. How do you like to
Speaker 1: build the record? Do you start? You know, you ever
Speaker 1: make a record with a whole band in the room,
Speaker 1: or you always start with the drums out. I make
Speaker 1: records usually with the whole band in the room. That's
Speaker 1: that's what people tend to want me to do. They
Speaker 1: want a live situation. You know, even if we have
Speaker 1: a lot of like what I call preproduction or you know,
Speaker 1: tracks that we have to work with, they still want
Speaker 1: that feel of a band. That's usually what I do.
Speaker 1: So you going and you get basic sounds from each instrument,
Speaker 1: and the guys that I hire come in with an
Speaker 1: arsenal of of of equipment. That's that's top notch, right,
Speaker 1: So you know you're getting great sounds. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're hiring a band that don't have instruments and you're
Speaker 1: having to rent amps and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So and you know, you know, I like it that way.
Speaker 1: It's not that I won't use studio musicians. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, sometimes when you hire people who don't
Speaker 1: play in the studio or just live musicians, you get
Speaker 1: you get a different flavor. That's great. Do I have
Speaker 1: the same amount of patients that I had twenty years ago? No?
Speaker 1: Am I as interested in doing bands? No? I'm just not.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that window is closed. Not saying that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do a band, but sitting endless hours in
Speaker 1: the studio just trying to get a decent drum sound
Speaker 1: or decent guitarist sound. I'll leave that to some you know,
Speaker 1: some younger folks. Okay, do you read music? And do
Speaker 1: your studio musicians read music? I read poorly, always have.
Speaker 1: I'm a guitar player. Uh. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I almost didn't move to Los Angeles because I thought
Speaker 1: that you had to be a much better reader. And
Speaker 1: luckily I had a guy said, nah, that you can.
Speaker 1: You can fake it. They want you for your ideas.
Speaker 1: Um in Nashville, it's it's if you heard that number
Speaker 1: system that's used here, no explain it. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's instesting, it's music theories. What it is that people
Speaker 1: think it's this weird thing that it's just basically, if
Speaker 1: you have a scale right, say you're in the key
Speaker 1: of cf C D E F G A B C
Speaker 1: right one, two, five, six, seven, eight, the one chord
Speaker 1: would be a C cord, The four chord would be
Speaker 1: an F chord, the five chord would be a G chord.
Speaker 1: There you go. The sixth chord would be an a
Speaker 1: minor chord. If you're it's music theory, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean without going into it. So the way I understand it,
Speaker 1: I'm not real big on my music history in Nashville,
Speaker 1: but acts would come in and record there. It's a
Speaker 1: touring uh, basically publishing town. Acts would come in, they
Speaker 1: do their records on Mondays in Tuesdays, and they'd be
Speaker 1: out on the road the rest of the week. So
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of pre production. So you know,
Speaker 1: if you're doing a song, if you write a chart
Speaker 1: out saying the key of of a singer would price
Speaker 1: sing it in D flat right, Well, the singer comes in,
Speaker 1: they want to sing it in the natural. If you're
Speaker 1: looking at a chart and you're looking at a D
Speaker 1: flat and you're having to play in the natural. There
Speaker 1: are musicians who can do that wonderfully, but guitar players
Speaker 1: not so much. You know some who could, but but
Speaker 1: for the most part they so they developed this thing.
Speaker 1: That's it's it's a number system. Basically, wherever one is,
Speaker 1: that's your key, right, So you're not looking at courts,
Speaker 1: you're looking at numbers. So if we're in D flat,
Speaker 1: one is D flat, right, that's it? And and and
Speaker 1: then you five is a flat, Well you want to
Speaker 1: move it to the key of E. You still got
Speaker 1: your number chart one, there's E. Five is B. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that sounds more complicated or not. No, no,
Speaker 1: especially if you do it every day. I get it completely.
Speaker 1: It's an alternative system as opposed to reading notes on
Speaker 1: the staff. For me, I just memorize stuff. I mean again,
Speaker 1: it's it's how hard is this stuff? It's like you
Speaker 1: listen to it once or twice and you got it
Speaker 1: to each his own. I would say. There are some
Speaker 1: musicians that I work with that will come in and
Speaker 1: they will they will write out the actual chord symbols
Speaker 1: and and some musicians that I work with that that
Speaker 1: prefer not to read at all. You know, it's just
Speaker 1: whatever whatever it takes to get to that point. I'm
Speaker 1: not a real stickler on it before mixing. How do
Speaker 1: you know when a track is done? Instinct? You know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty subjective, right when you when you
Speaker 1: take the mantle of the producer. It's when I say
Speaker 1: it's done, you know. And then and then I turned
Speaker 1: to the artists, gope, you think it's done, it's we
Speaker 1: know nothing still. That's that's the beauty of it. It's
Speaker 1: a humbling job at any juncture. It's just anybody that
Speaker 1: says they know this ship is, they're full of ship.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you that you you you take your
Speaker 1: best guesses, right, people pay me for my best guesses.
Speaker 1: And somebody's got to say when you stop you talk
Speaker 1: about copying vocals, You pretty much do that on every record.
Speaker 1: I'm hands on. Yeah, that's the main instrument on the record.
Speaker 1: So yes, I I look at the voice like like
Speaker 1: it's an It's an instrument. Everything is an instrument to me.
Speaker 1: So I'm listening to the sound of the voice, the
Speaker 1: way that the way the vowels and consonants sound, the
Speaker 1: way the rhythm against the track, the tonality. There's so
Speaker 1: much into to a human voice, and so I comp
Speaker 1: based on that, based on the way it sounds. To me,
Speaker 1: most artists that I work with really like the way
Speaker 1: I comp vocals. I mean it's personally I would rather
Speaker 1: not have to to have to do that, but but
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's a recording. When people say,
Speaker 1: you know, people, he used to drive me crazy when
Speaker 1: I played guitar solos. The first thing they would say
Speaker 1: the g I t students? Right, how many takes to
Speaker 1: take to get get to that solo? Is that? What
Speaker 1: does it matter? It's a recording. It's like did you
Speaker 1: get what you wanted to say? It's like a painting.
Speaker 1: You don't ask a painter how long it took it
Speaker 1: into paint? Something is it? Is that what you meant
Speaker 1: to say? Vocals are that same thing. You can sing
Speaker 1: a song a hundred times and you're gonna saying it
Speaker 1: slightly different every time. Right. My job is to figure
Speaker 1: out what's the most effective, and I tend to hear
Speaker 1: vocals as instruments. Do you ever leave the mistakes in?
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes things could be copped to the degree
Speaker 1: they lose humanity. So so true. I guarantee I have
Speaker 1: aired it made more mistakes. And that the greatest thing
Speaker 1: that I ever had said to me early in my
Speaker 1: production career. Again, the monkey on my shoulder is the
Speaker 1: presence of Mutt Lang, who I you know, just holding
Speaker 1: such a high est team. I could never make records
Speaker 1: like that, but I'm trying, and it's he's right there.
Speaker 1: He would laugh at that, right, but he's right here
Speaker 1: on my shoulder. I was working with Keith Urban, who
Speaker 1: is a brother, and we we really came up through
Speaker 1: the ranks together and I owe him a lot. But
Speaker 1: there are is a story that we were we were
Speaker 1: doing a record and and uh, he got really angry
Speaker 1: at me, heard this confident and he and he goes,
Speaker 1: you made me sound too fucking good, and I was,
Speaker 1: I was so I was. It didn't compute. And this
Speaker 1: is how dense. I was right, I didn't compute. Well,
Speaker 1: excuse me for making you sound he said great. I
Speaker 1: don't think he said good. He said to fucking great.
Speaker 1: Whatever he said, it took a while to realize what
Speaker 1: he was saying. He wanted the tension, he didn't he
Speaker 1: didn't want it to be perfect. He wanted to feel
Speaker 1: like it was going off the rails. It was. It
Speaker 1: was probably this one of the most single, singular moments
Speaker 1: in my production career that meant more to me musically
Speaker 1: than than probably anything, and it's affected me. So to
Speaker 1: answer your question, where I've landed his tension. You want
Speaker 1: to feel music that makes you feel like you'rere and
Speaker 1: this is hard to do and I don't do it
Speaker 1: all the time, and said, this is my aspiration, right, So,
Speaker 1: because you hear some of my music I've made and go,
Speaker 1: you've missed the mark. It's the aspiration. You want to
Speaker 1: feel something that it's both known and unknown. You want
Speaker 1: to feel like you're on a track ready to possibly
Speaker 1: go off the side of the track. You don't want
Speaker 1: to be so safe that there's not a bit of
Speaker 1: mystery and and danger to your to your to your journey.
Speaker 1: Right So in comps, yes, that's true. I mean you
Speaker 1: can you can make vocals sound too perfect and they're boring, right,
Speaker 1: you also have to You're also answering to an artist
Speaker 1: too and what their threshold for how they want to sound.
Speaker 1: So in a perfect world, though I like the yin
Speaker 1: and yang of of it, of of the impact and
Speaker 1: of of something being great and yet there being a
Speaker 1: vulnerability at the same time to it. And again subjective.
Speaker 1: None of this stuff is is something that we can
Speaker 1: objectively say, Yes, this is the definitive answer here. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're in your home studio. Now, people can't see that,
Speaker 1: uh listening. But do you cut all in one room
Speaker 1: or you just got basics in one room and then
Speaker 1: you go to another room which is cheaper? How do
Speaker 1: you do? I record bands downtown in Nashville and proper
Speaker 1: studios because they're set up for that. You know, it's easier.
Speaker 1: You get a bunch of people. I'm in a residential
Speaker 1: neighborhood here, So in my studio I have a great
Speaker 1: vocal booth. Actually the control room is a vocal booth
Speaker 1: in a in and of itself too. It sounds great
Speaker 1: in here. So they can either stay be in a
Speaker 1: vocal booth or they can sit here in the control
Speaker 1: room with me. We put on some headphones I have
Speaker 1: around me, you know, guitar player, so I have all
Speaker 1: my guitars and amps here, have all that stuff, your keyboards,
Speaker 1: so so I I go go down like on a
Speaker 1: typical record and records. If we we say, let's just
Speaker 1: say ten tracks for for example, take me five days
Speaker 1: six days to get that the basics the structure of
Speaker 1: the record tracks. I then take a hard drive from
Speaker 1: that back to my house and then we do vocals here.
Speaker 1: I'll do my guitar overdubs here, incidental overdubs. A lot
Speaker 1: of times I have some some harmony background singers who
Speaker 1: this is beautiful introduction because of technology. I'll I'll call
Speaker 1: him up. And doing background vocals sometimes can be like
Speaker 1: watching paint dry. You know, if it's just harmonies, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's got a great singer. Hey, I need
Speaker 1: you to sing the third above, maybe a little bit
Speaker 1: below heart here, do this, here, do that. If you
Speaker 1: have some extra stuff you want to do, I'll send
Speaker 1: them over the internet. I'll send them you know, the
Speaker 1: tracks and and and bounce down and they'll send it
Speaker 1: back to me. Then I'll critique that and we'll we'll
Speaker 1: we'll be more specific and we'll get it. That way.
Speaker 1: It saves me a little bit of time. But yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd say i'd say sevent of making a record I
Speaker 1: do here in my house. And as far as the
Speaker 1: studios you cut basics in. Is it always the same
Speaker 1: one or you don't care? I don't care. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact. Again, it's just you know, it's decent equipment.
Speaker 1: I'd rather not be in the same place. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some great studios here in town. But you know,
Speaker 1: I've been in studios since I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: it's I've never studio has never made a hit record,
Speaker 1: you know. Okay, So you're mixing engineer. Does he have
Speaker 1: his own room? He does? Okay, How involved are you
Speaker 1: in the mix in the process? Where do you say,
Speaker 1: take a whack at it, then let me hear it.
Speaker 1: By the time I send him what I've what I've
Speaker 1: landed on, it's in a pseudo mixed state. Um and
Speaker 1: I work on pro tools, and so I wanted to
Speaker 1: sound it's to me, it's like taking a polaroid. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be that concise. I wanted to be almost
Speaker 1: the thing. So when I send it to my mixing engineer,
Speaker 1: he knows of my intent and he's and he and
Speaker 1: he gets It's not like like in the old days
Speaker 1: where you send a tape and and you have to
Speaker 1: pull up faders. Okay, Well, here's the kick drum. Here's
Speaker 1: the base. When he pulls up a session, he's hearing
Speaker 1: the last thing the way that I that the artists
Speaker 1: as signed off, the labels signed off when they hear
Speaker 1: the rough mixes. So it's in a what I would
Speaker 1: call a more than a rough mix. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's close to a mixed state.
Speaker 1: It's sub mixed. I should say that, and then then
Speaker 1: yes with with with the guy that I mentioned justin Kneebank,
Speaker 1: he always has he knows he has the freedom too mute,
Speaker 1: things to changed to do. You know, I want I
Speaker 1: want his take on it. I want his reaction to it.
Speaker 1: But but it's not like it's a blind reaction to it.
Speaker 1: He knows pretty much where I'm what I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: this point. Okay, so he fixes alan, he sent you
Speaker 1: his mix. How long does it take to get to
Speaker 1: a final Sometimes he gets it first take. It's staggering
Speaker 1: how good he is. There are other times where it's
Speaker 1: it's great. We just went through something. The artist signed
Speaker 1: off on it, the label signed off on it. But
Speaker 1: I still had quite a few things that I wanted
Speaker 1: to try. So we we then went to a proper
Speaker 1: studio downtown. Well, I guess we could have gone to
Speaker 1: his house, but we went somewhere in Nashville and we
Speaker 1: sat for three four days and we just we just
Speaker 1: made moves like like kind of the good old days,
Speaker 1: and we had a great time, great laugh just hanging
Speaker 1: out together. Um again, it's that collaboration. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: the things that you don't know that you're gonna do
Speaker 1: when you're sitting listening in a room with somebody else
Speaker 1: listening to the same thing. We do a lot of
Speaker 1: what he calls living room. He likes he he likes
Speaker 1: to turn on a mix after he's been working on
Speaker 1: it for a day. He turns in a very low
Speaker 1: he listens at a very low decibel level, and he'll
Speaker 1: sit in the back of a room, almost like there's
Speaker 1: music playing on at a party, and we'll just listen
Speaker 1: to it and eat lunch or just talk. And more
Speaker 1: things come out from that configuration than sitting in front
Speaker 1: of UH speakers and being just absolutely dedicated to listening
Speaker 1: to a mix and we just we we It's basically
Speaker 1: you just fudge around with something and too it's like, well,
Speaker 1: I got nothing more to say about it, and then
Speaker 1: we're done. You know what about mastering. I got a
Speaker 1: guy that I've worked with for years and I can
Speaker 1: truly say I've only been up to Gateway one time,
Speaker 1: up in up in uh Main, Yeah, and Bob was
Speaker 1: one of the great rock mastering guys with there. So
Speaker 1: I started using him. And there's a he's so busy
Speaker 1: that there's got named Adam that worked for him, Adam
Speaker 1: an that just started sending records and he was sending
Speaker 1: me back his first you know, his run throughs, and
Speaker 1: it's like, well, that's done. I'm not gonna go up there.
Speaker 1: It's the most perfect scenario. Again, there are other great
Speaker 1: mastering places. Stertling is staggering, you know, it's like but
Speaker 1: but by and large he's he's like he's like an
Speaker 1: automatic and we've done enough records together. It's like very settled. Me.
Speaker 1: Do I hear something go? It's once in a while
Speaker 1: I'll say, hey, back off the compression a little bit,
Speaker 1: or maybe it sounds like we we got cocaine highs.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like it's you know, it's a little
Speaker 1: bristling on the top end. But no, I'm looking for
Speaker 1: as many ways that I can. It's not reduce the workload,
Speaker 1: it's just to reduce to to pinpoint where I can
Speaker 1: be most effective. And just sitting in a mastering studio
Speaker 1: after I've worked on a project for my it's mixed it,
Speaker 1: It's like, I, No, I'm not gonna do that. Are
Speaker 1: you a gear head? I don't know if you saw
Speaker 1: the guitars and amps. I mean to some degree, I'm
Speaker 1: not a collector. And I used to put it this way.
Speaker 1: I used to shoot out Mike's every record. You know,
Speaker 1: you're bringing an artist in and you have ten mics
Speaker 1: out there in the studio from the rental company, and
Speaker 1: they're singing a verse in the course of each one,
Speaker 1: and then you sit there and I realized that at
Speaker 1: the time, I chose one Mike. And I heard a
Speaker 1: story about a friend of mine going down to a
Speaker 1: hip hop studio down in Atlanta. He wanted to go
Speaker 1: into the mic clocker, you know where you get choose
Speaker 1: all your mics, course, and the guy said, yeah, he
Speaker 1: said that we got a Mike locker, and he showed
Speaker 1: him to the mic locker and he opened the closet
Speaker 1: door and there was a mic and it was when
Speaker 1: Ding Ding ding ding ding ding ding. So I found
Speaker 1: the mic that I like to use. I I just
Speaker 1: I like a T six nine him in too six nine.
Speaker 1: I found just a premium just tweeked old vintage mike.
Speaker 1: And that's the mic. You know, Well, I use an
Speaker 1: SM seven or if I use whatever. If I go
Speaker 1: to other studios, yeah, I use whatever they got. I
Speaker 1: got this great mike. And course a lot of the
Speaker 1: artists that I go, you know that's the now it's
Speaker 1: the mic, right, which just it's the mic because the
Speaker 1: mic we have up in the studio, and it's the same,
Speaker 1: it goes the same way across the board is there'sre's
Speaker 1: a certain point you can sit there. I've set for
Speaker 1: so many hours. I've wasted I think years of my
Speaker 1: life waiting for engineers to try different compressors. Which it's
Speaker 1: so infintesimal. I gotta I gotta feel the difference. I
Speaker 1: it's if if if, if I have to strain to
Speaker 1: hear a difference. It's not different. Right when you're mixing,
Speaker 1: shove a fader up, don't don't don't type in point
Speaker 1: to decibel, right, I mean there's an argument to be made.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not No, I am dissing it. I'm
Speaker 1: dissing at all. It's just it's there's got to feel
Speaker 1: the impact. And if the sound doesn't really change drastically
Speaker 1: to where you can feel it here, it it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a moot point. So gear wise, I feel that
Speaker 1: That's the way I feel about all gear. I have
Speaker 1: great gear here at the house, but I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: sit there and have fifteen different preamps because I lose.
Speaker 1: Because by the time you've gone through it, you've lost
Speaker 1: the muse. Right. I used to watch singers just glaze
Speaker 1: over by the time I got through to the mic.
Speaker 1: There's the micro gonna use. They were they were put
Speaker 1: they didn't want to sing, Okay, I can see in
Speaker 1: the video gentile X. So are you a gentile X
Speaker 1: guy or you really don't care? They're they're here, They're great.
Speaker 1: I know it's a horrible thing to say, right, No,
Speaker 1: I mean you made the choice. Some people say genial
Speaker 1: X are great. Some people say this is my sound,
Speaker 1: this is what I want, and the old days over
Speaker 1: the n S ten ms. You know, I like these.
Speaker 1: I like these, you can I like. I mean, what
Speaker 1: I really like is these little things they don't make.
Speaker 1: These are called n HT pros, and I used to
Speaker 1: have them even closer. I had them stands that literally
Speaker 1: it was like they were like almost earphones, but not
Speaker 1: ear phones. I listened really quietly, just I don't want
Speaker 1: to lose my hearing. And plus you can't hear when
Speaker 1: you play loud, so I listened to the level it's
Speaker 1: uncomfortably low. But I like to have the speakers close
Speaker 1: to my ears so you hear the bottom end. And
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got those, but I just
Speaker 1: like them. And and the main thing is that you
Speaker 1: just know what you're hearing. You know, the speakers don't
Speaker 1: have to be great that you just have to know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're hearing and how that relates to other
Speaker 1: sound systems. What's your view on analog versus digital. I
Speaker 1: love analog. I just hate working on it. It's just
Speaker 1: it's it's pain. If if I have a PROD project
Speaker 1: to where we're going for a thing right and we're
Speaker 1: we're not we're not dealing with all that XS and
Speaker 1: oh's of programmed percussion, all that stuff. A grid analogs great, Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have a to me, it's like like you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, when we were kids, what do we
Speaker 1: had the crayon box that had what eight because they
Speaker 1: had it with like thirty two. I never had one
Speaker 1: with a little uh sharpener in the front, right. And
Speaker 1: sometimes there's a reason for having the thirty two, But
Speaker 1: sometimes it's great having an eight, right, and you limit
Speaker 1: the the options. I love that at first you could
Speaker 1: hear a big difference there. The technology has been around
Speaker 1: long enough and the engineers are are so good that
Speaker 1: it's hard to tell the difference now to where it
Speaker 1: matters from an emotional standpoint musically. So it's not an
Speaker 1: argum to me, it's not an argument what's better, it's
Speaker 1: what's what? What's what more facilitates your workflow at that point.
Speaker 1: So your referenced earlier country music today, so what's your
Speaker 1: This is where you work, but what's your take on
Speaker 1: the music? It's it kind of became the receptacle of
Speaker 1: what rock was from the eighties. Well, I mean I
Speaker 1: remember Tom Petty. I saw him once and he said
Speaker 1: he called it the country music of the seventies, of
Speaker 1: the rock music of the seventies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's where I can survive, right, it's no,
Speaker 1: it's it's a big tent. Having lived now the majority
Speaker 1: of my life here, I've I've I've I've come through
Speaker 1: the back door into an immense appreciation and respect for
Speaker 1: country music that I didn't have when I was a
Speaker 1: young buck growing up here, Like I wanted to have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with it. There's a real rock and
Speaker 1: roll component to old country music. That's great. I think
Speaker 1: there's some wonderful new country music that's being made that's
Speaker 1: just you know, it's just it's They allow a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of differentials now that didn't exist when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. It you know, and you'll and you'll,
Speaker 1: you'll go and and and you can listen to from
Speaker 1: a from a Chris Stapleton to Kane Brown record, you know,
Speaker 1: to a Keith Urban record to you know, just you
Speaker 1: can you can go down the list and it's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's the nice thing about I will say
Speaker 1: that I'm and I'm not. You know, it's like, there's
Speaker 1: no better place, but I happen to live here. And
Speaker 1: and so you you tend to be able to see
Speaker 1: the good points and the flaws, right, the good points
Speaker 1: about the strength of Nashville is that it's still wrapped
Speaker 1: around live musicians. And I think that's a real plus
Speaker 1: because that's being lost in a lot of other areas. Right.
Speaker 1: Certainly not the only way to make music. It's not
Speaker 1: the way you make great hip hop music. It can't
Speaker 1: be right. But so this is a place, this is
Speaker 1: a thing, it's a it's it's a piece of the conversation.
Speaker 1: And and I think that's the wonderful thing about country music. Um,
Speaker 1: if you like you know, for for me, I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up with bluegrass music. I didn't grow up with
Speaker 1: real whiny kind of uh you know what I would
Speaker 1: call whiney country music. Of course somebody that would be
Speaker 1: fighting words for somebody else, but that just wasn't my culture.
Speaker 1: Right nowadays, you can do this other kind of hybrid
Speaker 1: and and still be a part of the conversation. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's the wonderful thing about Nashville. And
Speaker 1: you know, there's always gonna be a corporate side because
Speaker 1: the business exists to make money. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: if you can't make money, you know, there's no business.
Speaker 1: So that's when you're you balance that art versus commerce thing.
Speaker 1: That's that's never gonna be a conversation that that anybody's
Speaker 1: gonna come up with a with an answer that that
Speaker 1: that satisfies everybody. But overall, it's it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: And I never thought in a million years that I
Speaker 1: that I would be that guy. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: that's what people say. Yeah, Dan's the country producer, and
Speaker 1: I thought I was a rock guitar player. You know, Okay,
Speaker 1: in the last twenty five years, with all this digital change,
Speaker 1: what do we know? We know the country audience went
Speaker 1: to streaming before the rock audience. We know the paradigm
Speaker 1: of radio being the be all and end all has
Speaker 1: is not the case anymore, even though it's very important.
Speaker 1: Can you feel less of a stranglehold from the traditional systems.
Speaker 1: Is there an evolution in the overall business that's allowing
Speaker 1: growth in what kind of sounds and pushing the envelope? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It's it's predicated on streaming, right, it's it's
Speaker 1: it was all. It was all through the funnel of
Speaker 1: radio and hits and and being able to control hits.
Speaker 1: Now we we we don't control what hits are anymore.
Speaker 1: You can control what radio hits are still to some degree,
Speaker 1: but that's not the music that's moving the masses. Right,
Speaker 1: you have a real time way of a barometer of
Speaker 1: finding out what people care about. And that's exciting and
Speaker 1: and and terrifying at the same time. Right, you can't
Speaker 1: control it. Moved on and country music, you know, is
Speaker 1: coming to that realization. Um, yeah, and I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean I I had my buddy Randy Goodman who
Speaker 1: runs Sony Records, great dear friend of mine. He told me,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, on this this artist Cam Marlow.
Speaker 1: He said, look, don't don't don't go cookie cutter on
Speaker 1: this thing. Just make music that can that makes Cam excited.
Speaker 1: We'll deal with the rest of it. Just something. If
Speaker 1: if we need something to be pulled in for radio
Speaker 1: or whatever, we can address that at that At that time,
Speaker 1: basically chains are taken off. Just make some music, do
Speaker 1: something that's compelling, whatever the hell that is. I like
Speaker 1: that directive. That's that's that's great. Once again, in your video,
Speaker 1: I can I can see like ten guitars. How often
Speaker 1: do you play guitar as much as I can when
Speaker 1: I produced. It's really hard for me because because I
Speaker 1: am a guitar player at heart, and I just it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, my my vision goes to the guitar. The
Speaker 1: world comes through through the guitar. I ceased to listen
Speaker 1: to a singer. I forget that I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: directing something. I do play on tracking sessions sometimes because
Speaker 1: if it's the best way that I can communicate. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't play today or the or last Friday. Two
Speaker 1: great guitar players, uh Tom Bukavac and Chris Donegan. They
Speaker 1: were staggeringly good, and it was better for me not
Speaker 1: to play. I will over dub after the fact, um,
Speaker 1: because there's certain things that we didn't get that I
Speaker 1: know that need need to be done. And and I'm
Speaker 1: a different personality. Um a record that I just played
Speaker 1: on every one. So I like to flex those old
Speaker 1: must those if there's there's a reason for it. And
Speaker 1: the eighties are kind of coming back around Bob these days.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's something I never thought would happen. But
Speaker 1: I have some of these younger artists saying, hey, can
Speaker 1: you play some of that stuff? Yeah, well, you know
Speaker 1: I have to. Why Wight slowed down? Tell me more
Speaker 1: about the eighties coming back all of a sudden, It's
Speaker 1: like everything comes back around, right, and some of the
Speaker 1: values of the eighties. It's like, for we've been in
Speaker 1: a in a how do you describe it, It's like
Speaker 1: a harmonic and guitar drought for the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Right when the eighties ended. I mean it it extended
Speaker 1: far beyond maybe what was necessary and uh, you know, tasteful.
Speaker 1: It was. It was gymnastics, right. I listened to some
Speaker 1: of the stuff I played in the eighties. It's like,
Speaker 1: it's just I'm embarrassed, you know, But that was that
Speaker 1: was it, That was the culture, right, So you know,
Speaker 1: the nineties came in and and definitely dealt with that
Speaker 1: in in in in not too friendly of a way,
Speaker 1: humbled us all right, right, and and and that's evolution,
Speaker 1: and that's the way it goes. And but there's there's
Speaker 1: some there's some things about the eighties that we you know,
Speaker 1: for all honest that that still resonate, right, And there's
Speaker 1: something about that guitar thing and not just playing simple
Speaker 1: melodies and drony type things. There's about having that facility
Speaker 1: to to like a violinist, you know, flares and and
Speaker 1: and maybe an eight barcelos opposed to these freaking four
Speaker 1: barcelos that have been going around for the last ten years,
Speaker 1: you know. And so an artist that I was working with,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I want you to play that stuff.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to and you know, so the
Speaker 1: funny thing is, you know, I don't play every day,
Speaker 1: so you know I used to play ten hours a day, right,
Speaker 1: that was that was my life. And and so you
Speaker 1: gotta work back up. It's like, yes, you know how
Speaker 1: to ride that bike, but it's not the same thing. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just finished some stuff. I played some cellos, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty pretty proud of that. Are they self serving? Hill, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're totally self serving, saying yeah, I can still do
Speaker 1: this stuff. They served the music. So everybody's happy, most
Speaker 1: of which would be me at this point, just no
Speaker 1: I can do but I love it. Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: playing guitar. So you grew up in Nashville. What kind
Speaker 1: of circumstances. My dad was a string orchestrator, string arranger,
Speaker 1: so music in the family. My mother was a pianist,
Speaker 1: but she chose not to do it professionally. She had
Speaker 1: the chops. She was really good classical pianist. And I
Speaker 1: grew up in Nashville. He was involved. He started in
Speaker 1: in in He started the onset of Christian contemporary music
Speaker 1: didn't exist before those years in the seventies, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't so much interested in that as I just want
Speaker 1: to go to sessions. And I got to go with
Speaker 1: my dad when he would do rhythm sessions in the
Speaker 1: seventies and see like the great so I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know the name Reggie Young people like that
Speaker 1: that played on I mean countless hit records, legends in
Speaker 1: that and these guys would just take me under the
Speaker 1: wing and let me sit next to them and watch
Speaker 1: him play in the studio. That's all I cared about doing.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a rock star. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to do anything else. I just wanted to be
Speaker 1: a studio guitar player. I think since I was thirteen
Speaker 1: years old, I didn't. But when I found out what
Speaker 1: but I met David Hungate. You know that, you know
Speaker 1: the name David Huntgate, right, yeah, just base extraordinary And
Speaker 1: he he had moved to Nashville, which is I was
Speaker 1: always wonder, why are you moving to Nashville. I want
Speaker 1: to just get out at that time, and uh, this
Speaker 1: he loved it. He's a Midwestern guy and he but
Speaker 1: he told me when I was nineteen. I was playing
Speaker 1: on a record with him when I was nineteen, and
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, if you really want to make it,
Speaker 1: you know, as you really want to say you've made it,
Speaker 1: you gotta make it in l A and and uh
Speaker 1: and you know, he played in the band with a
Speaker 1: guy that influenced me so freaking much. I mean, Steve
Speaker 1: Luca there, you know, I just it's like, what can
Speaker 1: you say about how great he is. He's he's a
Speaker 1: couple of years my senior. But it's like I listened
Speaker 1: to him and I heard him play on records in
Speaker 1: the late seventies and he was, you know, teenagers like
Speaker 1: that's what I want, you know, And I saw, I
Speaker 1: saw it. Steve wrote on a vall he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: Dan copied me. Hell yeah, I copied him. Absolutely, You're
Speaker 1: gonna copy the best, right, I mean, that's how you
Speaker 1: get work. There's no there's no shame in that. It's
Speaker 1: that's what you do. And I would never embarrassed to stay.
Speaker 1: I thought he was one of the greatest of all time.
Speaker 1: You know, is period. You you can't look at Steve
Speaker 1: and go that he has not affected so many guitar
Speaker 1: plays me being that I'm on the beneficiary. I'm just
Speaker 1: glad that he quit playing sessions when he did, because
Speaker 1: it gave it was this massive like like like cavern
Speaker 1: cavernists void that that that I got to be able
Speaker 1: to step into and be a part of. I wasn't
Speaker 1: the only guy. By the way, Okay, you're growing up.
Speaker 1: How many kids in the family? Three and where are
Speaker 1: you in the hierarchy? One of the oldest and the smallest,
Speaker 1: but I'm the oldest. My brother Dave, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: if you ever listen to Giant Records, he was, uh,
Speaker 1: the drummer, and he's just great and my youngest brother.
Speaker 1: By the time it came to his he said, screw this,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go into a different path. Too many musicians
Speaker 1: in the family, but he's very musical here for him.
Speaker 1: What was your experience going to school? Good student, bad student? Popular?
Speaker 1: I went to a sports school. I was an athlete
Speaker 1: and they had a horrible music program, and so it
Speaker 1: was always that tension. You know, great parents. I hit
Speaker 1: the Jack Pop hit lottery on that one, and they
Speaker 1: they just said, look, you know, life is about if
Speaker 1: you can't. I'll put it this way. My dad knew
Speaker 1: I was. I was a musician through and through. He
Speaker 1: he pushed me in all the other areas. He said, look,
Speaker 1: you gotta keep working on your athleticism and your academics
Speaker 1: because it's gonna fact everything at some point. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to make a choice. If it's music, it's music.
Speaker 1: But don't don't shut those doors yet. So high school
Speaker 1: was fine. All I cared about was we had a
Speaker 1: local college here called Belmont College, which is now Belmont University.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal. I had a studio. As
Speaker 1: long as I kept my grades up. Um, my my
Speaker 1: friends at college would come over and pick me up
Speaker 1: after baseball practice and I'd go and sit in the
Speaker 1: studio there and play, you know, from midnight until six
Speaker 1: in the morning, and be just obliterated the next day
Speaker 1: for school. But as long as I kept good grades,
Speaker 1: my my parents were willing to work with me on that.
Speaker 1: And that's why I learned to be a studio musician.
Speaker 1: And you graduate from high school and then what I
Speaker 1: went to work for a on the road for a
Speaker 1: guy named Bill Gaither Bill Gaither Trio. They were Christian music.
Speaker 1: They were a trio and they were playing arenas. They
Speaker 1: were some of the best people I've ever met, continue
Speaker 1: to be to this day, absolute integrity. Not the music
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, but I was able to go.
Speaker 1: I went to school, a little bit of college up
Speaker 1: in Indiana, and I tour on the weekends and made
Speaker 1: a living that lasted about a year. Year and a half.
Speaker 1: I came back to Nashville. I went to Belmont College.
Speaker 1: I had my tuition paid for because I played in
Speaker 1: a band that you know, went out and played gigs
Speaker 1: for the college, got married one and uh moved to
Speaker 1: l A. So you never finished college about a year
Speaker 1: and a half. And what'd your parents say about that? Nothing?
Speaker 1: They didn't they they those those the doors were closing.
Speaker 1: You know, there was there was there and doors were opening,
Speaker 1: and they knew that that was the inevitable. I'm sure
Speaker 1: they would have loved it I had I got into college,
Speaker 1: you know, as as I would love for my And
Speaker 1: the funny thing is, Baba, my my youngest kid, is
Speaker 1: a touring drummer, and I was great drummer. He did
Speaker 1: the same thing to me. He a year and a
Speaker 1: half in the college. He said, Dad, you're you're wasting
Speaker 1: your money. I gotta go on the road, and I
Speaker 1: had no other answers. Yeah, you're right, you gotta go
Speaker 1: do if you gotta do it, I would I rather
Speaker 1: you have a degree. Yes, but that's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to get married so young? If
Speaker 1: you saw this woman that I met when I was thirteen,
Speaker 1: you would have gotten married at seventeen. She's my soul mate.
Speaker 1: I mean that she's beautiful. She's she she is as
Speaker 1: beautiful as inside is out. I mean that sounds like
Speaker 1: a cheap shot. Now. I loved her. I just loved her,
Speaker 1: and that was it. That just it's one of those things.
Speaker 1: And you don't always get right. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean people say, how do you keep a marriage going?
Speaker 1: There's so much luck involved here. This is but it's
Speaker 1: kindred spirit. We lucked out. We met each other and
Speaker 1: we you know, we have the same kind of view
Speaker 1: about life. Yeah, I was a kid, and she was
Speaker 1: willing to move out to l a figure that. You know.
Speaker 1: We moved out there, no promises, nothing, m So what
Speaker 1: point does the band White Heart come about? That was
Speaker 1: between college marriage and me losing moving to the West Coast.
Speaker 1: That was a Christian man and uh, you know I
Speaker 1: was raised, you know, in a very evangelical setting. My
Speaker 1: parents weren't didn't weren't heavy on the dog, but they were.
Speaker 1: They're pretty free thinkers. There was also a lot of
Speaker 1: great Christian music happening in Nashville. I mean, this was
Speaker 1: that was the cutting edge music I think in Nashville.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, when I had a chance to move
Speaker 1: to l A, I just unceremoniously quit my quit the band.
Speaker 1: You know, so I'm gone, guys, And they all thought
Speaker 1: I was, you know, moving to Sodom and Gomorrah, I guess,
Speaker 1: And but Sherry was was up and so no, I
Speaker 1: I that was it. That was that was that was mecca.
Speaker 1: It was all I wanted to do was play on records.
Speaker 1: You know. So to what degree is religion part of
Speaker 1: your life? Now, well that's a that's a large question,
Speaker 1: right religion. I don't know about religion. I mean, religions
Speaker 1: extremely important. Uh, spirituality, I'd say probably would would dominate that. Um,
Speaker 1: I borrow from a lot of different religions. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: let's put a different way. Are you a churchgoer? No,
Speaker 1: there's a value to that. I mean, it's not that
Speaker 1: I don't like church. Right now, I'm getting more from
Speaker 1: from from different authors and in different thinkers. So no,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no criticism of all that. Just when
Speaker 1: you hear someone played in a Christian band, you always
Speaker 1: ask that. But let's go back to the beginning. Was
Speaker 1: guitar your first instrument? And how did you get into
Speaker 1: playing the guitar? Can I be rude for a second,
Speaker 1: not to you, not rude, but cause just you said
Speaker 1: something that that it's just about that that that interests
Speaker 1: me that I just want to remark on. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing about the thing about like like like I say,
Speaker 1: I don't relate to evangelical Christianity he especially these days
Speaker 1: from a from a political standpoint, it's it's it some
Speaker 1: of its repulsive to me. And yet the irony is
Speaker 1: that is it? Life is so complex, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: like you don't like people that irritate me. They also
Speaker 1: have the good side, right religion, any religion. But I
Speaker 1: was raised in the in the Christian faith, I mean
Speaker 1: here in the South, the Bible Belt. So no, no
Speaker 1: surprise to that. There's things I love about it and
Speaker 1: things I hate about It's kind of like family, you know,
Speaker 1: and you and you I luckily had parents that that
Speaker 1: really we're very encouraging to not throw the baby out
Speaker 1: with the bath water, I think. And you find things
Speaker 1: in it there there that are useful, that are beautiful,
Speaker 1: and the and the some of the ugly stuff you
Speaker 1: just go, you know, whatever, you call it for what
Speaker 1: it is. And but but religion or spirituality plays a
Speaker 1: great deal in my life, plays a great deal in
Speaker 1: music because there's a balance to it all. It's you
Speaker 1: can't separate your life out. It's I'm not just a musician.
Speaker 1: I'm not just a husband. I'm not just a dad. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not just a granddad. I'm I'm a guy who's
Speaker 1: closer to death than not. You know, right, I'm closer
Speaker 1: to diapers. We all go through it right now. This
Speaker 1: life matters, right, Do I have any certainty about another
Speaker 1: extension life? No, I don't. And but the religious components
Speaker 1: still plays something because because it talks about values and
Speaker 1: things that matter. So that's that that to me is
Speaker 1: kind of how I view all that stuff. So I
Speaker 1: it's it's not as simple of an answer of of
Speaker 1: whether I go to church or not go to church.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's it's in how I view
Speaker 1: all that stuff. It's it's it's evolving too. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I'm what I hate. I'm hitting sixty two this year,
Speaker 1: so I'm not the same that I was ten years ago,
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. Certainly not when I was twenty in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I was this green, freaking kid who was
Speaker 1: playing rock guitar on all these records. But I was
Speaker 1: just off the boat of Christian contemporary Christian music. So
Speaker 1: can you imagine how the utter lunacy of that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm walking into cocaine, you know, haven you know, it's like,
Speaker 1: it's just it was it's something a movie. It would
Speaker 1: be too boring a movie movie to watch, but it's
Speaker 1: it would be a great humort thirty minute humor show.
Speaker 1: So anyway, sorry, I hate to go off. Wanted to
Speaker 1: be clear. Yeah, it's just it's just all. It's all.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't have any great answers about it,
Speaker 1: but I do have a lot of patients with the
Speaker 1: process because of what I said about the inevitability my
Speaker 1: first you know, I don't I don't want to extend
Speaker 1: this too far. It's just and kind of contemporary Christian
Speaker 1: music is a big ten. Uh. It's just when someone
Speaker 1: is involved in it. You asked, what degree are they
Speaker 1: involved in the dog, which you were not. There's no
Speaker 1: prejudgment there, but when someone is probaby, because I certainly
Speaker 1: know people who were involved in it or very heavily
Speaker 1: into the dog. But but I think we've covered it.
Speaker 1: So did you start with the guitar? Yeah? That was it.
Speaker 1: I don't I have no idea why that came up,
Speaker 1: but you know what, probably because I went I was
Speaker 1: at It would have to be because of church and
Speaker 1: my dad was a at that time. Was he led
Speaker 1: the music at church, and there they'd have these folk bands, right,
Speaker 1: and the guitar. It was the guitar. So I saw
Speaker 1: these guys playing guitar, and that was it. I thought
Speaker 1: that was cool. So how I'd just start with an
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, you know, playing chords? You know, I took
Speaker 1: down in the local music store here in Nashville. It
Speaker 1: was when I was thirteen. My dad had a friend,
Speaker 1: his name was John Darnold's a studio guitar player in
Speaker 1: Nashville and he's still a dear friend. And he came
Speaker 1: over one night gave a couple of hours of his
Speaker 1: time to a third jenior old kid showed me some
Speaker 1: scales and I was hooked. That was it. That was
Speaker 1: that was like, that's where I'm going with this whole thing.
Speaker 1: To be that good, you have to practice a whole
Speaker 1: hell of a lot. So I did. That's that's all
Speaker 1: I did. I mean literally going back to you know,
Speaker 1: my wife, Sherry. So this is it sounds very southern.
Speaker 1: I love the sounding. As I always tell people, I
Speaker 1: married my sister just just to confuse but no, Sherry.
Speaker 1: I met Sherry when we were thirteen. Right at fifteen,
Speaker 1: I was so in love with this girl. I was
Speaker 1: in love with the guitar and love with this girl.
Speaker 1: But the girl was just and my parents, actually, since
Speaker 1: I was the first kid, made me break up with her.
Speaker 1: This is beautiful, you know they were. They were just
Speaker 1: worried I'd probably get pregged at sixteen, you know, there
Speaker 1: they would that would be it, right whatever, But but yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. I would I would play ten hours a day,
Speaker 1: That's all I would do, and to the point that
Speaker 1: I would irritate my coaches would have they'd call my
Speaker 1: folks in and say, you know, what's this guy doing,
Speaker 1: you know, that was my life. I was a good
Speaker 1: picture and but I cared more about guitar. So I'd
Speaker 1: sit in my room and just and crack up my
Speaker 1: amp and play. I turned on records, you know, I remember,
Speaker 1: you know I heard Larry Carlton's first solo record. I
Speaker 1: mean these things where I was like fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: Asia by Steely Dan. I heard all those guitar solos.
Speaker 1: Is like, what else in the world is there to
Speaker 1: do but learn this stuff? Okay? What are some more
Speaker 1: of your influences? And when did you start? You wanted
Speaker 1: to be a studio musician, but did you start playing
Speaker 1: in bands? In high school? I had a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: Gordon Kennedy, who was a son of of of of
Speaker 1: Country Royalty of Jerry Kennedy. He was great producer and
Speaker 1: a great guitar players, studio guitar player in the sixties.
Speaker 1: We did little bands. We played it kind of in
Speaker 1: our high school. But that was no, it wasn't it
Speaker 1: wasn't to be a band guy. It was we would.
Speaker 1: We had a great music teacher. We had a horrible
Speaker 1: music program at this sports school, and he said, look,
Speaker 1: if you would, if you'll keep your grades up during
Speaker 1: during uh what he called study hall. You guys can
Speaker 1: take your guitars and namps to go down the hall
Speaker 1: as long as you don't make too much noise and
Speaker 1: just practice, because he knew that we needed time to
Speaker 1: do that. That's really what we did. We just we
Speaker 1: just we needle draft on records. That's all. It was
Speaker 1: when we would try to learn the latest whatever was
Speaker 1: coming out then it was it was Boston. For me,
Speaker 1: it was al Dimola Elegant Gypsy, the first record of
Speaker 1: Note that he came out with. You know, never heard
Speaker 1: a guitar player play like that. Steely Dan too, Jeff Beck,
Speaker 1: I mean wired, you know, I mean blow, blow by blow.
Speaker 1: By the time wired here, I think we were sixteen,
Speaker 1: you know. So we're just, I mean, we're just it's
Speaker 1: so rich. We're just we're learning all this stuff. And
Speaker 1: then we would play these little shows at our school assemblies.
Speaker 1: They would call him and we'd play these songs. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine the you know, thirteen year old girls listening
Speaker 1: to us play Jeff back music. You know, but we
Speaker 1: were we were so into ourselves. But that was what
Speaker 1: we did for our whole high school career. Basically it was.
Speaker 1: It was phenomenal. So when you moved to l A
Speaker 1: to be a session musician, how many connections did you
Speaker 1: have or did you just go blind? And how did
Speaker 1: you get work? Specifically? I had played on a lou
Speaker 1: Rawls record here in Nashville a friend of mine named
Speaker 1: Ronnie Hafkin, who who was famous because if he produced
Speaker 1: a band called Doctor Hook at that time, remember that right,
Speaker 1: of course cover the rolling Store Sylvia's Mother, that's it.
Speaker 1: So Ronnie always wanted young talent. He got me to
Speaker 1: play when I was probably nineteen on a Lou Rawls
Speaker 1: record he was producing in town, right, and then he
Speaker 1: went to overdubb it out in Los Angeles and there
Speaker 1: was a keyboard player slash arranger named Robbie Buchanan who
Speaker 1: heard it and inquired who the guitar player on this
Speaker 1: record was, and that was a connection. Ronnie Afkin came
Speaker 1: back to Nashville several months later and told me that
Speaker 1: this guy, Robbie Buchanan wanted to, you know, could he
Speaker 1: have my name and number. Robbie was doing all the
Speaker 1: big records at that time. This was in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: and he said you should move to to Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and it shocked me. And I think that's when I said,
Speaker 1: I don't read music that well. He said that it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. So we just moved. We just moved. We
Speaker 1: got back to our What happened, Well, yeah, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's weird because for about a month nothing and then
Speaker 1: the phone started ringing off the hook and and one
Speaker 1: thing led to another. Well, I go back a little
Speaker 1: bit before I moved there. This was in the day
Speaker 1: and age when they had they still they had what
Speaker 1: did they call him? That people would do the hiring
Speaker 1: on sessions. I can't even remember the term, but they would.
Speaker 1: They would, They would put together rhythm sections. And I
Speaker 1: told this fellow that I that, uh, I said, just
Speaker 1: booked me in a session, like like I lived there,
Speaker 1: I'll take care of getting there, and he did. And
Speaker 1: one thing would lead to another. L A fed off
Speaker 1: young new talents. As I said, there was a void
Speaker 1: there and uh so I would. I would load all
Speaker 1: my gear onto a plane's back before they checked the
Speaker 1: luggage or any that. I I would bloat two amps, a
Speaker 1: pedal board and three guitars, pay a porter twenty bucks,
Speaker 1: ship it to l A get off the fight, rent
Speaker 1: a car, put it all in there and take it
Speaker 1: to a studio, do one session, come back to Nashville
Speaker 1: and do demo sessions. So I would probably lose a
Speaker 1: couple of thousand dollars each time. I didn't even know
Speaker 1: I could hire a cartage company and move my gear. Finally,
Speaker 1: we said this is enough of this. We moved to
Speaker 1: l A, got a session here to you know everyone
Speaker 1: you know, but but I'm I just moved to town.
Speaker 1: And then about a month or two later, the phone
Speaker 1: started ringing, and it just it was exponential. Were your networking?
Speaker 1: Were you working it? Are you just waiting for the
Speaker 1: phone to ring? And I didn't know how to network.
Speaker 1: It's it's a mystery, Bob. I mean, honest to god,
Speaker 1: I've had people ask me, and it it just it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Was there a tremendous amount of luck
Speaker 1: in my career? Yes? Did I deliver every time? Yes?
Speaker 1: A d percent? And it was just it was the
Speaker 1: absolute perfect time to move to Los Angeles, to be
Speaker 1: a guitar player who had practiced all that I had practiced,
Speaker 1: who knew kind of what to play. When Steve Lucather
Speaker 1: had abdicated this key position and the world was looking
Speaker 1: for I would say, Steve Lucatherur, that's so, how many
Speaker 1: years did you do that? What was that lifestyle? Like?
Speaker 1: It was the probably end of eight two, you know?
Speaker 1: Was that sick years? Just it was usually three sessions
Speaker 1: a day, three three hour sessions, sometimes more. And it
Speaker 1: it was fast and furious, and I was I was
Speaker 1: in the fast lane right in in gawking most of
Speaker 1: the time at the people I was around. But then
Speaker 1: you get confidence and you're you're doing what you do
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I was, I was good at
Speaker 1: it and um and it was about eighty eight I
Speaker 1: would say you start to go, well, maybe there's more,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's when I started fooling around with
Speaker 1: We had a rehearsal band, I think Alan Pasqual and
Speaker 1: I had a rehearsal band with some writers. Tom Kelly
Speaker 1: was a writer and a singer, a great background singer.
Speaker 1: Denny Belfield was a bass player that was playing in it.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think who was playing drums. I'll think
Speaker 1: of it in a minute. But it was the rehearsal
Speaker 1: it was. It was a rehearsal ban. It was on
Speaker 1: a lark. We were going to try to get a
Speaker 1: record deal right, and Mike, Oh, Mike Barrett was the drummer.
Speaker 1: That's who was Mike Barrett. And we would rehearse and
Speaker 1: rehearsal halls and we just drink some beer and and
Speaker 1: and and play and do songs and whatever. And the
Speaker 1: material was okay. But but Alan Pasqua and myself it
Speaker 1: was like, I guess, I don't remember, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: scratching an itch effectively. And we just started writing songs ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I had sung a little bit, so on some demos,
Speaker 1: I started singing and what emanated out of that was
Speaker 1: the beginning of our band Giant, and probably within a
Speaker 1: year we got signed. You know, it was bizarre, but
Speaker 1: the idea was, like all these records we were playing on,
Speaker 1: if these guys can do this, hell, we can do
Speaker 1: this too. We had no no one tell us we couldn't,
Speaker 1: so we just did. It was so it was a moonlighting.
Speaker 1: It was basically our way of having some fun before
Speaker 1: you go to the band. Any memorable session stories. Everybody
Speaker 1: always likes to know the crazy stuff. There wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot of crazy stuff because I wasn't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: be easy. Just an interesting story or any great records
Speaker 1: you played on, and maybe you didn't think they were
Speaker 1: gonna be that great or something like that. Okay, in
Speaker 1: order of your question, memorable, the first time I got
Speaker 1: asked to Michael Jackson session it was memorable only because
Speaker 1: I walked into the studios. It was at Westlake and
Speaker 1: he walked basically off the street into a into a
Speaker 1: lounge and there was this guy sitting there that looked
Speaker 1: like he looked horrible. He looked, I mean like he
Speaker 1: was a wreck. He'd been living on the streets. And
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until somebody was attending to this guy.
Speaker 1: And what I didn't realize until a few minutes later
Speaker 1: was they were taking off makeup. That's the only way
Speaker 1: he could walk around the streets, right, And so I
Speaker 1: was just asking him. I said, what it was, dumb question,
Speaker 1: Now I think about it, Why do you do this?
Speaker 1: He said, well, that's the only way I can. I
Speaker 1: can walk down the street and go shopping. So he
Speaker 1: had some Hollywood makeup artist, you know, duh. That was
Speaker 1: that was you know, that was just stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that was you know, I was a kid.
Speaker 1: It was twenty five. He was making the Bad record
Speaker 1: at that time. Any records you worked on your specifically
Speaker 1: proud of Yeah, there's one specifically um my, uh, you
Speaker 1: know it was kind of bucket list was to play
Speaker 1: for Boss Skags because I would think that those were
Speaker 1: some of the most impactful records for me from from
Speaker 1: a lot of musical standpoints. And and I got this
Speaker 1: call from Bill Schnay to play a Boss record that
Speaker 1: was like that was it, you know, And the rhythm
Speaker 1: section was Jeff ber Carroll and Marcus Miller and uh
Speaker 1: different keyboard players. I mean it was like, who's who
Speaker 1: playing on this record? And Boss asked me to write
Speaker 1: some songs for it. Right, So again I didn't have
Speaker 1: a publishing company. I didn't even you know why I
Speaker 1: wrote songs with him so I could write extended guitar solo.
Speaker 1: This is how green I was. I mean seriously, I
Speaker 1: I didn't know what publishing was probably just but I
Speaker 1: sure as hell knew how to write a section that
Speaker 1: I could blow on a solo. Right. It's just it's
Speaker 1: it's just silliness, but it's it's it's it's true. And
Speaker 1: um we did this record. Oh, Peter Wolfe was playing,
Speaker 1: you know, producer Austrian producer was playing keyboards on it.
Speaker 1: David Page would come in. There was a song that
Speaker 1: we that I had written with Bob. I wrote three
Speaker 1: songs with them, and he wanted to record us. Great,
Speaker 1: you know, he said, well, who do you want to
Speaker 1: come and play guitar on this long Steve Steve Luga there.
Speaker 1: It's like, so I get to play with my my
Speaker 1: like I'm a kid, I'm a kid in the candy store. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I just I just didn't even know what to do.
Speaker 1: I was, you know, hanging out with Jeff Breck Carroll
Speaker 1: and and just the whole thing it was. It was
Speaker 1: it was otherworldly, right, I keep checking on make sure
Speaker 1: I'm recording this. So yeah, and it was. It was
Speaker 1: in the middle of the eighties and music had changed then,
Speaker 1: and this was pretty artsy record of some cool stuff
Speaker 1: on it. And this was this was the time, like
Speaker 1: the hottest one of the hottest acts on the chart
Speaker 1: was Debbie Gibson. So that gives you kind of a perspective, right,
Speaker 1: And the label got this record and even Alan Holdsworth
Speaker 1: even played I mean, so this is this is I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's deep and wide, right, and
Speaker 1: this is my this is the greatest thing a young
Speaker 1: guitar player could be a part of. So and I
Speaker 1: also had three songs which I got to play some
Speaker 1: pretty badass guitar solos on it. And the label rejected
Speaker 1: the record, right, they dismant on and I remember even
Speaker 1: getting called from some other producers come and redo some
Speaker 1: of the songs, and it was so ah, Sacharin, you know,
Speaker 1: just just I you know again, my my, my lens
Speaker 1: was only that of a guitar players. I was looking
Speaker 1: at the music business. I just I just it was.
Speaker 1: It was an abomination, right. The funny thing was this
Speaker 1: is this record is called Other Roads. The funny thing
Speaker 1: was that the three most uncommercial songs with the songs
Speaker 1: I would have written with bos right, they made the record,
Speaker 1: so they exist there and and to this day that
Speaker 1: was probably I would say that was one of the
Speaker 1: highlights of my whole career. I mean, of all the
Speaker 1: records I've played on a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: big records, but that was the one that that that
Speaker 1: grabbed my heart strings. Other Roads. How did you get
Speaker 1: involved and meet Budd brag That's a little bit unclear
Speaker 1: to me. I can't remember exactly how I met him,
Speaker 1: but It was around when we submitted demos to to
Speaker 1: to to get to have a band that was signed.
Speaker 1: I think the label put me in touch with him.
Speaker 1: I think I can't remember. So you had your deal
Speaker 1: before you have the manager. I think Bud's not around it.
Speaker 1: Dispute that how do you get the deal? I think, dude,
Speaker 1: demos it's a little vague. I don't know. Well who shopped.
Speaker 1: Somebody had to go to the label say hey, this
Speaker 1: is what I have. Great. That may be the mystery.
Speaker 1: I may need to we may need to, you know,
Speaker 1: put an addendum to this. I don't remember. That's the honesty. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you get a deal with A and M, and
Speaker 1: then somehow you get put in touch with Bud Praeger.
Speaker 1: How did you decide to work with Bud? You know? Bud? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do. That's that's a that's a load. Basically, he
Speaker 1: scared the ship out of me. And it was like
Speaker 1: the greatest challenge because on one hand he could tell
Speaker 1: you that you have the raw ability to do this
Speaker 1: and using his you know, and also basically be honest
Speaker 1: and say that you are nowhere close to your potential.
Speaker 1: That's the that's putting it in a very genteel form, right,
Speaker 1: but that's what that's what he sold. And his track
Speaker 1: record was staggering. He he was honest, I really and
Speaker 1: I really appreciate. I learned more about the record industry
Speaker 1: from Bud Prager than anybody. And I had been in
Speaker 1: the record industry as a guitar player. I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. And um, yeah, he was a great friend.
Speaker 1: He was a great friend, a great mentor. Um and
Speaker 1: and and he was you know, he was just honest.
Speaker 1: You know. I mean there's certain things we were good
Speaker 1: as a band and there were things we were horrible,
Speaker 1: and he would he would identify both. You know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you make the record. Were you happy with the album?
Speaker 1: That first record? Yeah, I thought it was pretty good.
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty good. And you know, that
Speaker 1: was still in the in the in the A O
Speaker 1: R radio existed, and it was a it was a
Speaker 1: big thing in American. We had put out this first
Speaker 1: single and and and the first single that we put
Speaker 1: out had a minute guitar. So that started the record
Speaker 1: and they played it in its entirety. Who wouldn't love that?
Speaker 1: You know? You I drive around l A and hear
Speaker 1: that thing playing all the time, and it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, we are pretty good. You know, So
Speaker 1: what was your experience trying to play rock star? You
Speaker 1: know I could. I was a pretty good singer. Um.
Speaker 1: By the way, I absolutely what you wrote, by the
Speaker 1: way you were. You're very kind in some of the
Speaker 1: descriptions about my guitar playing a musicianship, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: But what I really loved about what you wrote was
Speaker 1: was in the was in the area of what you're
Speaker 1: wondering whether it was because maybe the playing was really proficient,
Speaker 1: sounded really good, and you were wondering whether it was
Speaker 1: live or prerecorded. And then you said, and then Dan
Speaker 1: started singing, I busted a gun. I thought that was
Speaker 1: great because I was a good singer. You know, I
Speaker 1: was not a great singer. I had a good range
Speaker 1: and I was convincing. But wait, wait, wait, wait, Just
Speaker 1: to be clear, this is a big thing, like with
Speaker 1: the super Bowl. Whatever about people? Are people lip sinking
Speaker 1: or not? And I will tell you, in my particular world,
Speaker 1: if I say something is live and the expert's way in,
Speaker 1: they'll crucify me. Oh yeah, yeah, if I'm wrong, okay,
Speaker 1: But no, you were. You were so correct. It is
Speaker 1: a live vocal. I don't care who you are. A
Speaker 1: live vocal is gonna sound live. Okay. Well but okay,
Speaker 1: so so that was the contract. I didn't mean it
Speaker 1: as a point. I didn't. I can't. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: you're I didn't mean it as a putdown whatsoever, not whatsoever.
Speaker 1: It's just the guitar part was so faithful, to the
Speaker 1: point I heard it the first time, I thought it
Speaker 1: was live, and then the next time I was gonna
Speaker 1: write about it, well, I really better listen to see
Speaker 1: if it is live, and I'm listening to guitar part whatever,
Speaker 1: and then you're saying, okay, that's a live vocal. I
Speaker 1: didn't think there's anything wrong with it. Okay, Well, okay,
Speaker 1: thank you, and I take that point. Let's just say
Speaker 1: I'm a better guitar player than singer. So but that
Speaker 1: was okay. But as I say, that was not my
Speaker 1: meeting at all. Well, okay, okay, I appreciate that. But
Speaker 1: I almost liked it better when I interpreted the other way.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, we we did it. We did a record,
Speaker 1: you know. We started it in Los Angeles and and
Speaker 1: we three songs into it, we decided to moved to
Speaker 1: England and get away from our culture in l A.
Speaker 1: And it was the best decision. We worked with a
Speaker 1: wonderful producer named Terry Thomas, British producer. That's what a
Speaker 1: Bud's go to go to people. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 1: in the Van Charlie. Yeah, and you know it was great.
Speaker 1: Answer to your question about rock star, I was. I
Speaker 1: was not a rock star. That was the thing. And
Speaker 1: I think that was very Bud was very painfully aware
Speaker 1: of that because how I mean, come on, you're you're
Speaker 1: talking to me. I'm not a rock star. It's just
Speaker 1: to be a rock star, you gotta be a rock star.
Speaker 1: I'm a musician, right, I could sing, we played really good, um,
Speaker 1: but to be a rock star that's a different thing.
Speaker 1: And I would find myself playing gigs and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about guitar parts, I'm thinking about books that
Speaker 1: I'm reading, and I thought, and I'd be thinking at
Speaker 1: the same time, I'm so not a rock star. I've
Speaker 1: been around rock stars. I know what a rock star
Speaker 1: does and I'm not that that ringleader that that. I'm
Speaker 1: not a big personality who who just dominates an arena
Speaker 1: or a you know a stadium that that wasn't me.
Speaker 1: So I knew it. I was self aware enough to
Speaker 1: know that. But our music was pretty good. So so
Speaker 1: we kind of floated on that for a while. Going
Speaker 1: to record number two, things were changing a bit, and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget we kind of pretty good record the
Speaker 1: second one. It wasn't as good as the first one,
Speaker 1: I don't think, but I'll never forget. We were mastering
Speaker 1: in in and uh, finalizing the record or mixing it
Speaker 1: in New York, and I'll never forget. We're up in
Speaker 1: the Sony building and uh, I saw a video of
Speaker 1: even Flow, right Eddie Vetter climbing on that whatever, that
Speaker 1: little theater, and I thought, that's the end right there, right,
Speaker 1: I never forget that because that is very captivating, that's compelling,
Speaker 1: and that ain't me. I'm just telling you right there,
Speaker 1: that dude is not me. I got a lot of
Speaker 1: good things about I mean, and I'm not. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm saying that. It's this is not about self deprecating.
Speaker 1: This is I would want to watch that way more
Speaker 1: than anything else. That's that's the difference, you know. So
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up wanting to be a rock star.
Speaker 1: I didn't study everything about the great rock stars. You know,
Speaker 1: Steven Tyler came to Nashville a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: We were doing a record in this room, you know,
Speaker 1: we were in that's a rock star. Oh yeah, He's
Speaker 1: one of the few who literally lives up to the legend.
Speaker 1: Most are disappointing, but not He's a rock star. Whether
Speaker 1: he's on stage or he's sitting there in room, that's
Speaker 1: a rock star. So so I was not that, And
Speaker 1: so you learned this stuff, you know. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that all the stuff that I was going through though,
Speaker 1: it's it leads you, life leads you, right, you know,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you end up. I did
Speaker 1: learn about living on the edge week to week. Why
Speaker 1: cheeking your record on the chart, you know, and the
Speaker 1: the just what that takes out of you emotionally, you
Speaker 1: know it. It's tough being an artist, right, an artist
Speaker 1: whatever you want to an entertainer, because it's based on
Speaker 1: do they like me? Right, musician. It's just if you're
Speaker 1: freaking good at what you do, you're gonna find a
Speaker 1: place to plug in. When you're an entertainer, artist, whatever
Speaker 1: you get there, there's a there's a lifespan to what
Speaker 1: you do, and those gray hairs start coming, those pounds
Speaker 1: start coming on. There's someone coming up quickly and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get your ask replaced. That's a tough place to be,
Speaker 1: you know. And people complain about how insulated performers are,
Speaker 1: you know, how how self center they are. That's the
Speaker 1: only way to survive that world. So I learned a
Speaker 1: hell of a lot about what I would be dealing
Speaker 1: with later in life. I had no idea that I
Speaker 1: was going to school. Basically during that time, Giant was
Speaker 1: best school. Of course, Bud God Rest his soul, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, because basically I'm saying he was the best
Speaker 1: headmaster I ever had. He would hate that. So how
Speaker 1: did it end? With a whimper? We were over touring
Speaker 1: and I think it was ninety one over in Europe
Speaker 1: and it was just you could just you could just
Speaker 1: feel the winds that change. Man, it was just it
Speaker 1: was that arrow was over. It was over. You could
Speaker 1: sense it in the room we were playing. We're playing
Speaker 1: good venues, you know, and people would come out, but
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't the thing, you know, the thing.
Speaker 1: We were all turning our our heads to were you know,
Speaker 1: it was all of a sudden. It was you know,
Speaker 1: these new bands that were coming coming out and and
Speaker 1: and that was the that was the winds of change.
Speaker 1: And you could say whatever you want if you're half perceptive,
Speaker 1: you knew that was what was going to happen. You know,
Speaker 1: So you come back from Europe, everybody goes through a
Speaker 1: separate way. That's it pretty much. Yeah, that was it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean there was a culture change, and
Speaker 1: I mean it happened over the course of what a
Speaker 1: year or so, right, but right, it was pretty quick though.
Speaker 1: I mean Kurt Cobain and and crew Man they were
Speaker 1: they talked about a wrecking crew. That was it. Talk
Speaker 1: about the eighties what with what records were They spent
Speaker 1: three quarters of a million dollars on a record to
Speaker 1: see if they got a hit. They were making records
Speaker 1: up in Seattle for eighty thou dollars and they were
Speaker 1: great records. You know, you could sense where everybody was
Speaker 1: going to record companies. You know, it's just in in
Speaker 1: in rock and roll. If if rock and roll is
Speaker 1: not offending somebody, you got problems. And by the end
Speaker 1: of the eighties, it was it was a corporate gesture, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the air bands, etcetera. Was there anybody involved but or
Speaker 1: the other members wanted to keep going? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean they're still making some records. By
Speaker 1: the way, Europe has got this insatiable appetite for eighties music.
Speaker 1: Right there, there's my brother and Mike Brgner Delo. Mike
Speaker 1: is great bass player, great friend. They're they're still making
Speaker 1: giant records. They have, they have you know, different guitar
Speaker 1: players and different singers, and they're still doing stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: They I don't know if they'll ever want a tour.
Speaker 1: I doubt they'll ever go tour. But no, I mean
Speaker 1: after our second record, no, it was it was like, nah,
Speaker 1: time to pack it up. Okay, So how depressed were
Speaker 1: you about that and how did you pick yourself up
Speaker 1: and make your next move. I don't remember being depressed
Speaker 1: at all. It was like, this is a reality. I
Speaker 1: got kids to raise, you know, and luckily for me,
Speaker 1: I hadn't severed, you know. I there was a bit
Speaker 1: of cache that I that I had with my recording career,
Speaker 1: and Nashville was ripe at that time to want to
Speaker 1: capitalize on that. They wanted something different. I was different
Speaker 1: because I wasn't from here in their eyes, so it
Speaker 1: really didn't change things. You know, I never I never
Speaker 1: stopped being a session I guess what it is, Bob.
Speaker 1: In some respect, I don't think I ever quit beat
Speaker 1: a session player. I think I kept my day game.
Speaker 1: So even when you were enjoying you would play gigs, yes,
Speaker 1: when I could, Yeah, And and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And you could look at that and say, well, you
Speaker 1: never were a percent And you know, I think I
Speaker 1: was a realist and I and I don't know, to
Speaker 1: some degree, I think that would be true. I don't
Speaker 1: think that I knew that, but I think if I
Speaker 1: don't think I knew that on on the surface level,
Speaker 1: I think intuitively, I think I had this gut feeling
Speaker 1: like this may not happen, so I didn't cut ties
Speaker 1: with everything. The two top producers in Nashville are you
Speaker 1: and Dave Cobb. Dave Cobb makes a completely different type
Speaker 1: of record. What do you think about Dave and his records?
Speaker 1: Jake and also mentioned Jay Joyce and Joey Moy. You
Speaker 1: gotta mention those guys are their beasts too? Um now,
Speaker 1: I mean, but Dave Cobb oh, lovely and great. Dave does.
Speaker 1: Dave does what I mean, it's just it's totally organic
Speaker 1: music right at a top level. I mean I do
Speaker 1: more of a mixed bag, I think. I think I
Speaker 1: would love to do that also, But what people call
Speaker 1: me for is is more of integration into pop music
Speaker 1: and and then also into rock music. A lot of
Speaker 1: people like to tap into that rock side. So it's, um,
Speaker 1: we always want what we're not, right. So I I
Speaker 1: listened to Dave's records, and I listened to I listened
Speaker 1: to Jay's records, and I said Joey's records, and it's
Speaker 1: always they always sound better than mine. I hate that.
Speaker 1: I freaking hate that. But I think we all do that.
Speaker 1: I think it's just, you know, it's what you're not.
Speaker 1: When somebody makes a cup of coffee, they it tastes
Speaker 1: better than the way I make coffee. I guess it
Speaker 1: just maybe it signifies you want to grow. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Dave's brought a a different sensibility into this town. The
Speaker 1: way he makes records, he's he just he's just his
Speaker 1: own thing. I wish his producers, I wish we could
Speaker 1: hang around each other a little bit more. We're all
Speaker 1: busy enough to where we can. But I would love
Speaker 1: like when I used to play sessions, I got to
Speaker 1: see all these great producers work. Right, when you're a producer,
Speaker 1: you don't get that luxury. You're isolated. So yeah, what
Speaker 1: i'd like to see and I you know, I mean
Speaker 1: steal some of their ideas. Heck, yeah, I would love
Speaker 1: to do that. Okay, if you look at the big
Speaker 1: rock producers, they had their era, and they were done,
Speaker 1: and they were done long before your age. So to
Speaker 1: what degree when you work are you conscious of, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta have a certain level of successor
Speaker 1: they're not gonna call me anymore. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: you live in abject terror, you know, if you're honest
Speaker 1: with yourself. Yeah, I'm I'm My expiration date was long
Speaker 1: time ago. This is a this is a really pertinent though.
Speaker 1: I think it was six years ago. I'll use the
Speaker 1: sports metaphors, but for me, it's easy baseball, right, you know,
Speaker 1: you're getting older and and and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: just seemed like they're coming in faster, and and it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily they are coming in faster. It's just that
Speaker 1: you know, gravity time, your reflexes slow down, things seem faster,
Speaker 1: and that's how music was starting to hit me, certainly
Speaker 1: six seven years ago, and uh, I had an artist.
Speaker 1: His name was Thomas Rhett. He was he was kind
Speaker 1: of shooting up like a meteor, really fresh ideas, a
Speaker 1: great guy, good songwriter, great songwriter, a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: prolific songwriter. He came over to my house and said,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to this is six years ago, seven
Speaker 1: years ago at the tops. That could be part of producing,
Speaker 1: but I'd like you to co produce with this producer,
Speaker 1: Jesse Fraser. Jesse's a DJ originally a songwriter, great production ideas,
Speaker 1: totally opposite for mine. He's he's all in the box,
Speaker 1: he he he draws music, you know. And I heard
Speaker 1: some of their demos. I said, well, why do you
Speaker 1: need me? And and and they they you And when
Speaker 1: I heard their demos, this is funny too. You love
Speaker 1: this background singer on a lot of the demos was
Speaker 1: Chris Stapleton. How you like that? Phenomenal? How the world
Speaker 1: goes so so? And truly I was being honest, I said,
Speaker 1: why don't need me? And it's just you know just
Speaker 1: that basically we just what you bring, who you are
Speaker 1: as a musician, just come and jump on the ship.
Speaker 1: I said, sure. I talked to my wife that night
Speaker 1: and I canna be honest with her, and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just this is I think I was
Speaker 1: mid fifties and and and I said, you know, because
Speaker 1: I'm feeling like, you know, maybe I should step out
Speaker 1: of this thing and just retire. You know, it's been
Speaker 1: good to me. I was trying to learn all the
Speaker 1: new technology, everything, just the way people did records, and
Speaker 1: it was it was overwhelming. And I found like I
Speaker 1: reached a saturation point and and you know, fear, you
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you become very vulnerable. And you
Speaker 1: know you're used to being in alpha, right, It's like
Speaker 1: you know everything, and all of a sudden you realizing
Speaker 1: your mortality here musically speaking. And and she and Sherry
Speaker 1: just said, she said, why don't she just be you? Dan,
Speaker 1: Why don't you quit trying to be what you're not?
Speaker 1: So simple? But it was like I I was so
Speaker 1: looking in every other direction, and I thought, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a good idea. So I started that.
Speaker 1: I started that started to try to enact that in
Speaker 1: the way that I made music that time and I
Speaker 1: and I tried to be open when I didn't know something.
Speaker 1: I also tried not to be the center. And and
Speaker 1: so this co production venture with with Jesse Frasier basically
Speaker 1: revived me musically and it was like, oh, I can
Speaker 1: make music again with another generation. This is a lot
Speaker 1: of times around the track it can be valid and
Speaker 1: not only can I contribute, but now I can also learn.
Speaker 1: But it requires a different uh ego status And I
Speaker 1: can't be the alpha at all times. I can be sometimes,
Speaker 1: I mean, but but not all the time. And and
Speaker 1: it was it's all. It was a whole new discipline
Speaker 1: for me, and and not not automatic. I will say
Speaker 1: that it was some bumps and and if I'm honest,
Speaker 1: there's still some bumps. It's it's it's it's tough. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're successful, you want to be that person, you know,
Speaker 1: and and uh, but I think it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: been the thing that's kept. It's like the extra lives
Speaker 1: and on a you know, pac Man video game, right,
Speaker 1: there's there's the old reference and and it's that humbling
Speaker 1: thing of of going for a full circle. You see
Speaker 1: music not only through your lens through the years you've
Speaker 1: been lucky to experience it, but you also realize that
Speaker 1: you don't own it. You that it's owned by all
Speaker 1: and and you realize that that there are eighteen year
Speaker 1: old are coming up that have as much skin in
Speaker 1: the game as you do. And either you allow yourself
Speaker 1: to listen to that fully open minded without this well
Speaker 1: look kid, oh here's how when it goes in my day,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the beginning of the end for you.
Speaker 1: So I I learned that, you know. So it's a
Speaker 1: balancing act every day. And sometimes I'll be honest, I
Speaker 1: I come home and I you know, I have I
Speaker 1: struggle with it, you know, because I struggle with being
Speaker 1: in control, and I struggle with also the fact that,
Speaker 1: if I'm honest, some of this stuff is just absolutely
Speaker 1: new to me, and I can't believe that I can't
Speaker 1: see it, you know, it's like God. So either I
Speaker 1: go I've learned something today that's that's fantastic, or I'm
Speaker 1: just a little bit more not just humbled, but but
Speaker 1: but frightened by the fact that I don't know all
Speaker 1: this stuff coming at me. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's an answer to what you're what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: that's a great answer. But can you tell me a
Speaker 1: couple of things you know that you didn't, weren't aware of,
Speaker 1: or that you learned in this change in the last
Speaker 1: six years. Well, I mean starting with one, that that
Speaker 1: that my insights are valid still to this day. That's
Speaker 1: a that was a big one. That In other words,
Speaker 1: the stuff we were talking about a while ago, about
Speaker 1: the seventies and in the eighties, that stuff. New musicians
Speaker 1: are hungry to have access to some of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and they want people who were there. It's not just uh,
Speaker 1: exercise and history. They wanted to talk to people and
Speaker 1: experience those insights. Okay, that's one thing. But the stuff
Speaker 1: that was that was that was frightening, frightening to me
Speaker 1: was the technology. How you know, we all hit our
Speaker 1: threshold of what we're able to do technologically, um just
Speaker 1: even just even down to something simple like samples, programming,
Speaker 1: all these things you watch You watch some of these
Speaker 1: young musicians on a laptop, and the speed with which
Speaker 1: they can process stuff is it is foreign to me.
Speaker 1: And when you try to learn that you're learning it
Speaker 1: it's like you're an old dude. That's all. That's what's
Speaker 1: just really what it is, right, So you have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, either I'm gonna spend all my time trying
Speaker 1: to learn something that somebody's gonna be much more intuitive
Speaker 1: than I am at, or you can just go, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna collaborate with you. You do that and I'll do this.
Speaker 1: Jesse Frasier was great on the I mean what he
Speaker 1: could do on a laptop and drawing stuff. He didn't
Speaker 1: even know what the chords were called. The music he's
Speaker 1: making is phenomenal. I can also play put a guitar
Speaker 1: and he and he doesn't know how to do that.
Speaker 1: It's collaboration, That's what it is. What are a couple
Speaker 1: of records from the last five ten years that you
Speaker 1: were not involved with that you think are great? Well?
Speaker 1: You mentioned Dave Cobb. I mean I love his Chris
Speaker 1: Chris stable Ts. I mean, let's just talk regional here.
Speaker 1: I mean Nashville. Is that is that? Okay? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean yeah, because it's just that's what I meant, because
Speaker 1: I would love to mention Silk Sonic. I love that
Speaker 1: new stuff. Okay, the Silk Sonic, let's go into that.
Speaker 1: I don't think the material is as good as the execution. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean first at first, blessed. I mean it's just
Speaker 1: you're just listening to to to to these guys pay
Speaker 1: homage to to the grades of soul, I mean, and
Speaker 1: they do it. I'm not even care Again, this is
Speaker 1: a musician. I don't give a shit about the material
Speaker 1: at that point. I just care about the sound. You know, well,
Speaker 1: definitely the sound is there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean like in like in Okay, in Nashville, since
Speaker 1: we're just local here right mentioned Dave's records. Jay Joyce,
Speaker 1: I mean some of some of those Brothers Osborne records,
Speaker 1: some of the Eric Church records. I mean, Jay comes
Speaker 1: from a different plan too. He's a real indie kind
Speaker 1: of music maker. I just I love everything he does.
Speaker 1: I just I turn it up. That's when I when
Speaker 1: I hear it, it's like it was on the radio
Speaker 1: or if I'm streaming it, I just listen because I
Speaker 1: like the way he processes music. There's a there's a
Speaker 1: simplicity and almost a kind of a cold hard indifference
Speaker 1: sometimes to his music that is so appealing to me.
Speaker 1: You know, like he's not needy, it's it's gotta fuck
Speaker 1: you attitude, and that's not something that I have. I'm
Speaker 1: a little more like you like it. You know, Jay
Speaker 1: makes records that that really appealed to me. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: those are records that I really like. Um and pretty
Speaker 1: much across the board, I will say that I don't
Speaker 1: even know Jay that well, but I just I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a fan. I just think he's great. Um. I
Speaker 1: mentioned I'm trying to think like Joey Joey Moyd. You know,
Speaker 1: you know Joey have you ever talked to him? Never
Speaker 1: talked to him? Canadian Music Acre, you know, he and
Speaker 1: he came through the Mutt, He came through the God.
Speaker 1: Now I'm this is this is the a A r
Speaker 1: P forgetting names of bands, right, I hate this ship? Um,
Speaker 1: Canadian nickelback. There you go. He came through that camp.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty tough camp. Right. They made some hardcore
Speaker 1: commercial rock records, you know, and Mutt actually made a
Speaker 1: record with them. Right. But Joey came through that camp
Speaker 1: and learned everything. He's a sponge and he makes some
Speaker 1: records in Nashville I think are stunning, whether you like
Speaker 1: him musically or not, for for the content, like I
Speaker 1: thought some of his Florida, Georgia line stuff was pretty
Speaker 1: impactful stuff. He's doing this music with this guy named
Speaker 1: Morgan Wallen right now, that's really resonating. So Joey's multi multifaceted,
Speaker 1: you know, and and he's he's just a smart music maker. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll turn his stuff up to you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: looking for any new ideas anything, you know. So what
Speaker 1: do you think of the Morgan wall And double album.
Speaker 1: I even listened to the whole thing. I like Morgan Walland.
Speaker 1: I think he's a really good songwriter. I like his
Speaker 1: you know, forgetting the whole controversy and all that other stuff.
Speaker 1: There's a few controversies. The album, the double up is
Speaker 1: really good, really good people, you know, outside of country.
Speaker 1: It's one of these things where you listen to the
Speaker 1: record you can tell why it's so successful. He speaks
Speaker 1: right to people. It's he's not fabricating hit songs. He's
Speaker 1: he's he's he's he's telling his life. I mean the
Speaker 1: funny I just recorded a song of his. He was
Speaker 1: one of the co writers on uh. Keith Urban and
Speaker 1: I are kind of re saddling and doing some music together,
Speaker 1: which has been a lot of fun lately because we've
Speaker 1: had a few years. We haven't made a lot of music.
Speaker 1: We made a couple of singles and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But we were doing a song on the other day
Speaker 1: and I asked him who the songwriters where He said,
Speaker 1: you know, Morgan was one of the songwriters. It's like
Speaker 1: and the alliteration, the it's like it's poetry, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's from a I'm not you can
Speaker 1: tell I'm not like a like a full on Southerner, right,
Speaker 1: I've lived most of my life in the South, but
Speaker 1: my parents are from the North, so consequently I'm a
Speaker 1: bit more of a Yankee, you know. But but there's
Speaker 1: a heart to what he does that you can't help
Speaker 1: but be attracted to. So yeah, and those records that
Speaker 1: Joey does with him or as good as what he
Speaker 1: did with Florida Georgia. Okay, but not only is their heart,
Speaker 1: they're good changes. Yeah, yeah, No, he's he's he's a
Speaker 1: lightning rod, you know. And and some of this stuff,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like this other stuff got for me,
Speaker 1: got blown out of a context. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: i mean, without going into all this stuff, it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's so pc oriented, you know, it's like, it's like,
Speaker 1: I love what what Trevor Noah said about YEA Kanye.
Speaker 1: I can't call him a But the other day he said,
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't need to be canceled, he needs
Speaker 1: he's counseling. You know. It's like exactly life. It's like,
Speaker 1: come on, come on, you know, yeah, Morgan Morrigan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he drink too much, probably yeah, but I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: he's young. He got drunk one night, made a racial
Speaker 1: slur that he definitely shouldn't have said, but he apologized profusely.
Speaker 1: We gotta forgive him, give him a second chance to
Speaker 1: take somebody like that and to judge because of one
Speaker 1: snippet one night on somebody's phone. It's like, that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: None of us would want that about ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think he's I think he's a I think
Speaker 1: he's a true voice. Do I agree with him and
Speaker 1: all of his and everything he says and acts? No,
Speaker 1: he'll no. But I mean, isn't that rock and roll too?
Speaker 1: But you mentioned ye Kanye? Do you understand that music?
Speaker 1: And I'm drawn to certain aspects of it, But but
Speaker 1: culturally I didn't grow up urban inner city right, right?
Speaker 1: I mean that's not that's that's not my language, it's
Speaker 1: not my culture. Um. I hear certain bits of hip
Speaker 1: hop music. Um. And this is where God help me
Speaker 1: out here, Bob right on the tip of my tongue.
Speaker 1: Super Bowl dr Nope, it wasn't Snoop dog Nope, keep going.
Speaker 1: I love them both. I love Snoop Dog. Um, keep going, Nope,
Speaker 1: keep going, Come on, j no, I love her to
Speaker 1: keep going. The last one on the on the talking
Speaker 1: about said nope, nope. Great, Okay, there's and there's Bowl.
Speaker 1: There was one, there was one more. And this is
Speaker 1: so embarrassing. He his his brand of hip hop music
Speaker 1: absolutely obliterates me. Not that I know the titles of
Speaker 1: his songs. And the embarrassing thing is I cannot remember
Speaker 1: his name right now. Kendrick Lamar, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: That's in my apologies. If Kendrick and Lamar would ever
Speaker 1: hear this. This is massive apologies, like for sixty one
Speaker 1: White Dude. Right. Like when I his his music really
Speaker 1: impacts me when I hear it presentation that cadence, the
Speaker 1: chord changes, there's a fusion with with with jazz music
Speaker 1: that it really excites me. Harmonically with his music. Um,
Speaker 1: not all rock music hits me, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: so so so not definitely. Not all hip hop music
Speaker 1: is gonna strike me, strike the same chord. Not all
Speaker 1: country music hits me either, you know. So so it's
Speaker 1: just you know, we all we all gravitate towards a
Speaker 1: thing that resonates. There's there's a there's a tuning fork
Speaker 1: in our soul, right, and certain music hits that tuning fork.
Speaker 1: You know, that's what makes it interesting. Well, I really
Speaker 1: believe the tuning fork. But ill, I'm checking myself all
Speaker 1: the time, and I say, well, if I heard the
Speaker 1: song twenty times, what I feel differently? You know the
Speaker 1: way we did in the old days. You're driving around
Speaker 1: with the radio, You're exposed. You're exposed again. I can
Speaker 1: name I'm teen songs I heard once and I knew it. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: And it's funny because when something resonates with my tuning fork.
Speaker 1: But moving on, anybody that you would like to work
Speaker 1: with you haven't worked with? Yeah, my well, I mean
Speaker 1: my dream you know, I mean is that you know
Speaker 1: I would love to work with with? You know YouTube?
Speaker 1: How's that? Okay? What would you do differently? What? What
Speaker 1: is what would you bring to the party. I can't
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't know off the top of the batot.
Speaker 1: I have to hear with it. What is There's something
Speaker 1: about what they did culturally at a time that I
Speaker 1: was coming through music, Their their intelligence, their life experience.
Speaker 1: It's it's rock. Music doesn't age gracefully most of the time.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a tough thing because it's it's a
Speaker 1: it's an adolescent urge right in necessary you know, so
Speaker 1: intellectually you have to have a different been, a different
Speaker 1: pursuit to to to keep connecting. I mean, it can't
Speaker 1: connect to the same level when you're young. It just
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't exist. That doesn't exist. But musically, um lyrically,
Speaker 1: even spiritually kind of where they come from. I'm interested
Speaker 1: that they interest me. That's the that that type of
Speaker 1: artists interests me. Now, I'm sure you asked me that night.
Speaker 1: Immediately that's my dream. That's shooting for the moon, right,
Speaker 1: will that happened? Oh yeah, you might as well go
Speaker 1: with the dream. And they've worked with the same people consistently,
Speaker 1: so for me, it would be interesting. Did you watch
Speaker 1: that movie? It might get loud with Jack. Why Jimmy
Speaker 1: Page and the Edge. No, it's just very interesting that
Speaker 1: so much of the Edge is sound are effects, no doubt,
Speaker 1: but he is. But the irony about that, right is
Speaker 1: that he has affected guitar players as much as anybody else. Period.
Speaker 1: Well I'm trying to say is, since you're starting, it's
Speaker 1: not like effects coming in and one take whale. Since
Speaker 1: you're starting someone who's laying effects, that's where you could
Speaker 1: help out. That's where you can do something. Maybe, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm saying it probably because I just like to be
Speaker 1: in the room. I mean, yeah, it just seems to
Speaker 1: me more like like like he deals with layers. He's
Speaker 1: an orchestrator, right, and it's it's a different type of
Speaker 1: using guitar for a different purpose, right, It's not guitar
Speaker 1: for guitar, say Jeff Beck, if we're if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: the one guitar player who I would most like to
Speaker 1: be in a room with would be Jeff Beck, period.
Speaker 1: Hands down. He's gonna die one day and the people
Speaker 1: who didn't see him are really gonna you know, I
Speaker 1: think he's the best. Jimmy Page brings other stuff. Hendrix
Speaker 1: means other stuff. But when you have to choose one.
Speaker 1: It's Jeff Beck for me and plays without a pick
Speaker 1: to boot. Yeah, I've seen him several times, like I
Speaker 1: just you know, all you all you do is sit
Speaker 1: there and just I got to see him at the
Speaker 1: the Um at the Rhyman Artistorium one time in Nashville.
Speaker 1: It's a great small theater, right, but acoustically it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And you know, every guitar player in Nashville was there.
Speaker 1: It was you know, you're you're there talking about they
Speaker 1: called the Mother Church. Well you're there, you're basically worshiping
Speaker 1: this guy. And he didn't disappoint you know. No, it's
Speaker 1: just it's it's it's it's we're soul in electric guitar,
Speaker 1: meat and the and there's nothing more to say, tone, note, choice, dynamics,
Speaker 1: just everything about what he does, you know. I mean
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's it's, it's it's it is there
Speaker 1: is something. I mean, this is where music is, this
Speaker 1: transcendent level. Right. It ain't about hit songs, that's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: There's there's certain things we remember, there are hit songs.
Speaker 1: This is a different thing and it's and it's it's
Speaker 1: integral to our lives as those hit songs are. When
Speaker 1: he plays notes, it says more than a hit song.
Speaker 1: To me, it certainly does so much longer are you
Speaker 1: going to do this? It's a great question, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm gonna stop making music. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how long I'm going to continue making
Speaker 1: what we would call commercial based music. I do have
Speaker 1: some other types of music. I mean you mentioned Dave Cobb.
Speaker 1: I love soundtrack music. I love music that's not commercial music.
Speaker 1: That's the irony that the stuff that I get called
Speaker 1: to do is is not necessarily what what I spend
Speaker 1: my time listening to. So I I I hope that
Speaker 1: I get to do some music. Um, there's just there's
Speaker 1: just writer in town that writes great poetry. His name
Speaker 1: is Mike Read. I don't know if you where you
Speaker 1: would know Mike Read's name is. His most famous song
Speaker 1: is a song that Bonnie Rate did called I Can't
Speaker 1: Make You Love Me? Sure right? And and it's like
Speaker 1: he writes. Mike's in his seventies. He he spends a
Speaker 1: lot of his time writing poetry now, and his poetry
Speaker 1: is devastating. He's he's like one of my dearest friends.
Speaker 1: We spend time talking about authors and everything is sept music.
Speaker 1: But but but we're musicians, right, And uh, the thing
Speaker 1: about the he writes songs that are not commercials like
Speaker 1: what we would call commercial songs now, because he's writing
Speaker 1: from a perspective of living life seventy plus years. By
Speaker 1: the way, he was also all pro defensive end for
Speaker 1: the Cincinnati Bengals, So he's he's in the song where
Speaker 1: he was all pro and he's also in the songwriting
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame right here. So but he writes these
Speaker 1: songs that are so cool. Um, they're not They're not
Speaker 1: like hit songs for kids to do, right, but they
Speaker 1: deal with with substance and and thoughts that that are
Speaker 1: becoming of of somebody who's lived seventy years on earth.
Speaker 1: I'd love to work with an artist would want to
Speaker 1: record that kind of music, to do that kind of
Speaker 1: music right, not on the grid of popular music. And
Speaker 1: I think I think I have something to add for that.
Speaker 1: So so and by the way, Alan Shamlin too was
Speaker 1: co wrote that song with him. I don't want to
Speaker 1: just give all the credit to might read on that
Speaker 1: it was one of the best pop songs of a
Speaker 1: of a couple of decades, right, Um, but that I
Speaker 1: find that compelling. I'd like to make some music down
Speaker 1: just I don't know, just something like that. Well, that's
Speaker 1: the real music. You know. Another great writer. I just
Speaker 1: have to mention, although he's self contained on those Bondie
Speaker 1: Rate records, Paul Brady, of those songs like luck of
Speaker 1: the Draw of the title song and you know it's
Speaker 1: just a lyrics, etcetera. He had a chance, like thirty
Speaker 1: years ago to break Biggie, worked with Steely Dan's producer,
Speaker 1: but didn't happen. Although he's an icon in in Ireland. Brady. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not familiar with Bob Brady. Well, I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: them up after we finished our conversation. Oh wait, he
Speaker 1: had one song, the Long Goodbye, was a hit. Okay,
Speaker 1: now tell me who recorded it, because this is what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show my ignorance Brooks and done. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I vaguely remember that. But since you're talking about lyrics,
Speaker 1: he had this song on this side called Paradise is
Speaker 1: Here Now, but just lyrics. I'm gonna play this lyrics.
Speaker 1: I said, you say you want to live some move
Speaker 1: out into the fast lane. You say, you need excitement
Speaker 1: to make you come alive, to place a million miles
Speaker 1: from the shadows that surround you, I look for attention.
Speaker 1: You're lost in the future where lovers ask no questions
Speaker 1: and shadows never fall. Some pilgrim round for paradise, no compromise,
Speaker 1: But paradise is here and then it goes off to me.
Speaker 1: And that comes with living, right. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: write that when you're in your twenties unless you're extremely
Speaker 1: prolific and you're kind of beyond your years. There's music
Speaker 1: to be made, I think. I think for all of
Speaker 1: us who have been through in the trenches of pop music,
Speaker 1: I think there's more music to be made outside, as
Speaker 1: long as we can lose the idea that it has
Speaker 1: to be hit music. You know they're gonna be people. Well,
Speaker 1: I think a hit. No, there's a definition of a
Speaker 1: hit on the radio chart, the X number of millions
Speaker 1: of streams on Spotify. But there are plenty of songs
Speaker 1: that are hits because they hate you a certain way,
Speaker 1: they have a certain effect, irrelevant of the commerciality. You know,
Speaker 1: I could whip out twenty you know that means so
Speaker 1: much to me that were never charted, but it's like
Speaker 1: unbelievable just to listen to those songs, which of course
Speaker 1: brings me to Jason Isbell. What do you think of
Speaker 1: Jason Isbell? Uh, I've seen him play live. I don't
Speaker 1: know a lot of his recorded music, but when I
Speaker 1: saw him play live it was I think a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago, it was it was stunning. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just he doesn't seem to be constrained by what
Speaker 1: this whole idium of pop music. He just this is
Speaker 1: kind of weird. I think things are are headed because
Speaker 1: of of of streaming. It's like people just they're gonna
Speaker 1: do what they're gonna do, and people are gonna find them.
Speaker 1: They're gonna find their audience or audience because they find them,
Speaker 1: and we we don't. We're not gonna have to bother
Speaker 1: as much with this idea of hit music anymore, at
Speaker 1: least I hope. So it has been fantastic, Dan. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for taking so much time with me.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm honored. And uh, as I said, you wrote
Speaker 1: a very kind piece about me, and and and uh
Speaker 1: it was it was nice because a lot of friends
Speaker 1: called me that I hadn't heard it from in a
Speaker 1: long time. So I'm honored to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: and and and and thank you for for what you
Speaker 1: do from a historian standpoint, and just your involvement. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, the rule has changed too, hasn't boy,
Speaker 1: hasn't changed. But the great thing about it is, you know,
Speaker 1: back in the old days, you knew every record on
Speaker 1: the chart, even if you never heard it. Now nobody
Speaker 1: can know everything. No, it's like it's just overwhelming. How
Speaker 1: long are you going to do this? Bob, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this till I die? But what motivates me? I
Speaker 1: would articulate it in a different fashion, but it's that resonance.
Speaker 1: It's that thing. And I ser them, you know, seven
Speaker 1: years older than you are, and so I was there
Speaker 1: when the Beatles broke, etcetera. There are a lot of records,
Speaker 1: not only in the sixties, but in the seventies they
Speaker 1: had so much meaning. The whole musical culture has changed.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of elements in streaming TV.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could start with the sopranos. I can
Speaker 1: mention shows were they male? Essence of life? Most of
Speaker 1: them are four in shows. That's what really resonates with me.
Speaker 1: And I find just like if you go down that
Speaker 1: rabbit hole, if you stop worrying about giving people what
Speaker 1: they want, that's what they're most interested in. They're most
Speaker 1: interested in the personal and seeing what's going on in life.
Speaker 1: And you know, and a rock stars completely changed from
Speaker 1: the seventies where it really became iconic. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: a rock star was as rich as anybody and would
Speaker 1: say no and can destroy hotel rooms. But today, in
Speaker 1: the era of billionaires, you can't make that much money
Speaker 1: in music. All you can do is speak truth to power,
Speaker 1: and people have forgotten that. I mean, the power of
Speaker 1: a good song. If you listen to rock music today,
Speaker 1: the on the active rock, you need a whole lexicon
Speaker 1: just to figure out how they got there. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not something that you hear once and just go wow.
Speaker 1: So I think, and it's you know. Another thing is
Speaker 1: this and you references in an oblique way, is the
Speaker 1: political situation. This is driving our culture. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: is when I talked to the titans of the live
Speaker 1: business for years, they just want to talk politics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we can talk about the tour or whatever, because there's
Speaker 1: so much at stake. Even in Nashville, where they redid
Speaker 1: you know, jerrymandered, etcetera. It's the future hangs in the balance.
Speaker 1: And now we have Ukraine. Everyone thought Russia would run
Speaker 1: over them in a minute. So the key is and
Speaker 1: it's you. That's why I love so much what you said.
Speaker 1: You can't keep repeating yourself. That's death. You know, as
Speaker 1: you say, you know what you bring to the party,
Speaker 1: and there's always a need for that, because only you
Speaker 1: can deliver yourself. But I know some of these trade papers,
Speaker 1: these guys in the seventies, the names and the faces changed,
Speaker 1: they're still doing it. It's like, holy fuck. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like, there's got to be more to life. Well
Speaker 1: there is there, there isn't and and and what you
Speaker 1: said also about some of this streaming via television now right,
Speaker 1: and people have you gotta give you gotta give people
Speaker 1: more credit. People have more of an attention span, they're
Speaker 1: smarter than we give people. But when we give them credit,
Speaker 1: right an audience, I couldn't I have said, well, I
Speaker 1: say it in a different way. People just have an
Speaker 1: incredible ship detector. They go no, no, no, and then
Speaker 1: they'll watch the streaming show for ten hours. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's and and those are the values I think. I
Speaker 1: think we're just starting to you can become confronted with
Speaker 1: again in music. It's like, no, it's not an algorithm.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. You've you've got there is a thing called
Speaker 1: soul and you've got to access that and you've got
Speaker 1: to listen for it. And it's it's precious and you
Speaker 1: can stomp the ever living life out of it if
Speaker 1: you are not, if you're not humble enough to sit
Speaker 1: and wait for it, you know, and and and for me,
Speaker 1: you know, it's my small world, but it's in a
Speaker 1: recording studio, but it does exist. And well when you
Speaker 1: I witnessed it today. I witnessed it in a beautiful way.
Speaker 1: It was awesome. This thing came to life out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: We had no preprogramming, there was nothing. There was not
Speaker 1: even a demo. There was a guitar work tape, and
Speaker 1: we just allowed this thing to blossom and and it
Speaker 1: was it was like it happened. You know. Well, you
Speaker 1: know how I became aware of your success in the
Speaker 1: country music world. I have a friend who's in country
Speaker 1: music agent and his his recommendations are phenomenal. And this
Speaker 1: goes back to I guess two thousand seven he sent
Speaker 1: me Keith Urban Stupid Boy. Woh yeah, and holy fuck.
Speaker 1: You know, people say, oh, country music said, listen to
Speaker 1: this track. This is better than any of the rock
Speaker 1: and roll I mean, forget that. It's an amazing guitar solo.
Speaker 1: It's soulful. Not to mention the song itself, it's so great.
Speaker 1: Sarah Buxton wrote that, by the way, I sat next
Speaker 1: to her at Joe Walsh's seventy fifth birthday party. I
Speaker 1: bet you her. I bet you Tom Bukavit, her husband then,
Speaker 1: was playing guitar for Joe wash. Well, he was there.
Speaker 1: Joe played for a little while. You know, some of
Speaker 1: the regulars that he's played with. I don't remember. We
Speaker 1: were sitting at the same table. I can't remember who played,
Speaker 1: but yes, she was. You know. It's funny because such
Speaker 1: a heavy, serious song and she's such a breezy woman.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny. Yeah, she's She's from a different era,
Speaker 1: but it's listen. The songwriters got fucked in streaming. There's
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. They got the smaller piece of
Speaker 1: pie than they deserve, and I hope they can get more. However,
Speaker 1: you cannot hold back the future. Yes, you used to
Speaker 1: have one track on a CD. It's old. Millions of
Speaker 1: cops you got paid. Those days are through. They're just through.
Speaker 1: And so until you recognize where we are, you're lost.
Speaker 1: We we can't we can bring elements of the past
Speaker 1: into the future. But you know, I hear from these
Speaker 1: people all day long. You know, streaming is not paying enough.
Speaker 1: Most of these people, they won't even be able to
Speaker 1: make records in the old days. No, and you know what,
Speaker 1: you know again, we have our perspective, We've been through
Speaker 1: it right, and we have our expectations. You tell that
Speaker 1: to an eighteen year old kid. Man, they don't care,
Speaker 1: is they? You know what they You know what I
Speaker 1: want to do. When I was eighteen, I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to make my rent so I could play
Speaker 1: music the next day. That was the value and that's
Speaker 1: still what it's all about. Man, if you can make
Speaker 1: your rent, if you can play a show that night.
Speaker 1: For me, it was playing a session, a demo session.
Speaker 1: That's it. The rest of it is, whatever your life,
Speaker 1: it's probably good. The thing got toppled for a while
Speaker 1: because it needs to reinvent itself, you know. And you
Speaker 1: can say well, it's easy for you to say because
Speaker 1: you lived through some fat times. Yeah I did. But
Speaker 1: but that's not why I got involved in it. That
Speaker 1: never was the reason. No, not at all, not at all.
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is, for the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: used to be every three to seven years we got
Speaker 1: a whole new sound. Yeah, and that hasn't happened now.
Speaker 1: A lot of other things, you know, you can mention,
Speaker 1: you can go to the coast and you can mention
Speaker 1: the number one country hit records, and then a lot
Speaker 1: of people have no idea who these acts are. Same thing,
Speaker 1: you know, some of these records that are number one
Speaker 1: on the pop charts the weekend. You can evade things now.
Speaker 1: Used to be you couldn't avoid hearing certain sounds, and
Speaker 1: there was a cohesiveness. So maybe it's more of an understand.
Speaker 1: You know, the major labels you said earlier are so
Speaker 1: focused on hit singles, they're conceding the rest of the
Speaker 1: universe to other people. Let's say, that's an interesting thing.
Speaker 1: Not to and not to be self serving this thing,
Speaker 1: but but I just finishes working with Kane Brown and
Speaker 1: and I do a lot of his production. I don't
Speaker 1: do all of it because He does a lot of
Speaker 1: collaborative collaborations with with different hip hop artists and I
Speaker 1: don't do that, you know, And and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: funny because he's you know, he's he's a new breed
Speaker 1: of artist. You know, he's he has his roots. He
Speaker 1: grew up in the South and his he was raised
Speaker 1: by his grandfather who turned him onto uh to uh
Speaker 1: Rainy Travis Records. When he's a kid, right, He's from
Speaker 1: a mixed race family. His grand his granddad was white.
Speaker 1: You know, here's this young kid, by racial kid, growing
Speaker 1: up in the South under some pretty tough conditions, just
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out. Thankfully channeled it through music.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, the first time I met him,
Speaker 1: he was here at my studio playing me songs, and
Speaker 1: he played me a song they just ripped my heart
Speaker 1: out called learning. He grew up with a consciousness towards
Speaker 1: country music, and he knows so much about country music.
Speaker 1: But then the hip hop role loves this guy because
Speaker 1: he's a he's he's got a really cool voice, and
Speaker 1: he's a country artist, but he's not constrained by being
Speaker 1: a country artist. This guy is playing to every kind
Speaker 1: of audience in the world, and it's it's I love
Speaker 1: that because it's you know, the the idea that you
Speaker 1: can you can label one individual by by a music
Speaker 1: genre is is to me as a joke. He just
Speaker 1: loves music. He sings what the hell he wants to sing,
Speaker 1: and they'll sing a song he just he We just
Speaker 1: did a song the other day called Pop's Last Name, right,
Speaker 1: he's singing about his deceased grandfather. He absolutely loves that.
Speaker 1: That raised him, right, and then what's his latest pop
Speaker 1: I can't remember the latest pop single that he had,
Speaker 1: humongous pop single, you know. It's like, and he's just
Speaker 1: going to help with it all. I'm just gonna put
Speaker 1: out songs. I'm gonna drop tracks, right, And of course
Speaker 1: everybody's running after him. You can't do that, well, yeah
Speaker 1: you can. You know. I think that's phenomenal, you know,
Speaker 1: and we just all trying to keep up with him
Speaker 1: because he's you know, he's doing what he does. That's
Speaker 1: the future right there. It's it's nobody owns nobody owns
Speaker 1: this stuff, you know, it's it's it's owned by the future. Well,
Speaker 1: on some little all the baby boomers have to die
Speaker 1: because the ethos of the younger people is just totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a crooked business. Younger people don't
Speaker 1: view it that way. They don't mind making money, but
Speaker 1: they say, okay, it's ones and zeros, this is what
Speaker 1: I mowed whatever. And you know, all this focus that
Speaker 1: we have is not is across the board. It's not
Speaker 1: only music, etcetera. At some point you have to see it.
Speaker 1: They're stealing the world's We don't really have to see
Speaker 1: it because there's a lot of good stuff come out.
Speaker 1: And you talk about Florida Georgia Line. You know, that's
Speaker 1: a band that recently broke up and has gotten a
Speaker 1: lot of ship. But they injected a lot of hip
Speaker 1: hop into country and and it was good for everybody,
Speaker 1: no joke. And it's and you know that's these kids
Speaker 1: growing up playing country music. Right, you go to these
Speaker 1: country bars and it's hip hop music between sets. Well,
Speaker 1: that's because that's what they're growing up on. And and
Speaker 1: they're not interested in just being one thing. And I
Speaker 1: think that's phenomenal. I mean, to me, that's music is
Speaker 1: not supposed to be one language. It's supposed to encompass
Speaker 1: all languages. Right, you have your dialect he's but I
Speaker 1: don't want to know how they speak in another country.
Speaker 1: That's the beauty of all this stuff. Nobody owns it.
Speaker 1: Let the thing out of the bag. And as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, we're not letting ship out of the bag.
Speaker 1: It's it's out of the bag, right, We're just hanging
Speaker 1: on for dear life. Well, that's one thing we've learned.
Speaker 1: Nobody is in control. I mean, this is going up.
Speaker 1: But covid Us, I thought that the world was the
Speaker 1: country was kind of run by a few people, and
Speaker 1: it was all kind of worries. Now whatsoever. The fact
Speaker 1: that the country works at all, any country, is mind
Speaker 1: blowing to me. It's a million people with a million
Speaker 1: different thoughts, never mind, you know, right or wrong. It's
Speaker 1: just astounding. I mean, this is a you know, you go.
Speaker 1: You talked about the attention span. The other thing that
Speaker 1: makes me crazy is people bitching about the phone. How
Speaker 1: great is the phone? You can be in contact with
Speaker 1: people twenty four seven. You can go down the rabbit
Speaker 1: hole of the stuff that you're interested in. I mean
Speaker 1: I could never be in contact with this many people.
Speaker 1: I couldn't. I mean I never even talked on the phone,
Speaker 1: so I'm not saying that whatever, but to have that
Speaker 1: in your hand, and it's a lot more interesting than
Speaker 1: a lot of ship that's going around a lot of time.
Speaker 1: That's why people on their phone. The only probably you
Speaker 1: and I have is we were We were in the
Speaker 1: same adult class, right and we can talk forever. So
Speaker 1: for me, this is wonderful because I melled what I
Speaker 1: already know with a deep dive into your role to country.
Speaker 1: I mean, I certainly know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: work in country, but your perspective the best parts where
Speaker 1: how you do it. You know, the collaboration. I have
Speaker 1: a friend who was ran publishing a candidate for one time.
Speaker 1: I mean, big believer in collaboration. And what do you
Speaker 1: think of the Beatles documentary? You watch it now? Just
Speaker 1: it's it's what you know intuitively in your heart. And
Speaker 1: to see your heroes doing that thing, that almost painful
Speaker 1: family thing was great. The fact that so much of
Speaker 1: it was spontaneous and not premeditated just blew my mind
Speaker 1: because the records are so iconic. The fact that they said,
Speaker 1: well we got a couple of weeks, we're doing something,
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. Collaboration, is it? That's really what it is.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't underestimate what that is worth. I
Speaker 1: mean for the good and the bad. But it's it's
Speaker 1: it's what I really seriously think. Everybody has about three
Speaker 1: good ideas. That's it. Now, there are some people who
Speaker 1: are extraordinarily gifted above the rest of us, and and
Speaker 1: take them out of the equation. But the restaurant, we've
Speaker 1: got three or four good ideas. But exponentially, you put
Speaker 1: that in the room with with with four people who
Speaker 1: who have gotten three or four ideas from somebody else,
Speaker 1: and then then the world. You have the world at
Speaker 1: that point. And that's that's what I would get. Get
Speaker 1: a chance to winns I and like I said it,
Speaker 1: I thought today so it was really nice. Well, you
Speaker 1: could expand that to many other elements of our universe,
Speaker 1: even though we're not. But in any event, until next time,
Speaker 1: this is Bob West says