WEBVTT - Jeff "Skunk" Baxter 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.480 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:19.360 My guest today is guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Skunk Baxter. Jeff, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.800 how you doing, I'm doing just find it. That's very 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.400 kind of you, the introduction. That was very kind. Thank you. Okay, 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.280 do most people in your intimate life refer to you 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.200 as Skunk or Jeff? They refer to me as Skunk. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.800 It's my sort of rocket roll nickname. And for my 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.760 day job, even when I was at the White House, 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:41.840 President Bush called me sculpture. So and it's my call signs. 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.720 So when I get on the phone and people are 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.040 looking at me like I'm from flatted X and said, listen, 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:51.040 I need to talk to Nato Balls and bam bam. 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:52.919 So get him on the phone and they'll go, what 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.200 the hell are you talking about? Everybody has a call sign. So, yeah, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:58.880 you have a new album, Speed of Heat. Sir? Why 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.800 record an album? Well, since I've been working on it 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:05.560 for about twelve years, there comes a time when everybody 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.600 must graduate from high school and you have to, you know, 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:11.000 stop what you're doing and put a period on it. 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.559 So I got to the point with my my music 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:20.520 production writer partner c J. Vanston, where after twelve years 0:01:20.520 --> 0:01:23.960 we figured we got everything that we need. We'll take 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.680 it from there. Okay, I know c J emails me. 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.959 How do you know CJ? I met c J in 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:35.399 Chicago many years ago, about thirty years ago, when I 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:39.320 was flying to Chicago to do jingles. Uh. They had asked, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.720 you know, for the different jingle houses. Um, sleeping on 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:49.400 the sofa at Universal Studios sounds in Chicago, because why 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.400 go to the hotel when you started seven am and 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.280 keep doing it until you drop. So I would spent 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.720 like a week in the studio, and many of the 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.400 sessions that I did there uh included c J as 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:05.840 the keyboard player, and we started to play together. We 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.200 had a really good time. And then one day, um 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.080 it was a Wednesday. I think it was the producer 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.400 of the jingle, who shall remain nameless, so I'll just 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:20.520 say his name was Bob Um came in and he 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:23.959 was really banked. Uh. It looked like being up for 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.080 about three or four days, which is fine. You know, 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.200 we're session sluts, you know, we do what we do. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.840 And so Bobby walks in and goes, okay, guys, all right, um, 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:37.400 are you guys ready and say, sure, man, what do 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.359 you got? He said, well, here, here it is. So 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.480 he starts to hand out the music and it says 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:48.800 highat it has a key signature, at a time signature, 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:53.600 and sixty four bars. That's it. So he says, well, 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:55.400 you guys ready, And I looked at c J. And 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.079 he looked at me and said, yeah, what the hell, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:00.880 who needs music? Give us a click? We know what 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.600 the key signature is. Let's go. And so we composed 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.519 on the fly the jingle, and afterwards we realized, hey, 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.760 if we could do this, maybe we ought to start 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.360 playing together. And I said to him, listen, if I 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.360 were do a solo project, I would love to do 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.520 it with you, because actually the proof is in the 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.440 eating of the pudding. As they say, there are two 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:27.920 cuts on the album, both instrumentals that we just wrote 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.440 as we played it. So there's this really wonderful magic 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:38.800 and and nonverbal communication sort of understanding in a higher 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.800 dimension when the two of us play together. So we 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:46.200 started recording together and we filled up twelve tracks and 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:52.080 again it's time. Okay. Needless to say, today's landscape is 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.840 very different from the seventies and eighties when you had 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:58.360 your most commercial success and it's hard to get notice 0:03:58.920 --> 0:04:01.440 you don't make as much money on recordings. What are 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:04.440 your expectations or what are your feelings about that? That's 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:07.520 an interesting question. I guess if I was nineteen or 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.880 twenty three. You know, it's just like Steely Dana when 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:12.800 we did the first record. Oh yeah, man, it's gonna 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:16.360 be great. You know, Uh, that car on Sunset strip. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:18.960 I'm gonna have one of those, you know, move out 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:24.599 of that crappy apartment in Hollywood. Now. The most important 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.680 thing to me it was actually making me what do 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.680 we call them records? Now? Well, you know there's still recordings. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.280 I call them records. A record, you're making a record? 0:04:34.839 --> 0:04:41.159 So are kk idea absolutely so? Uh to make to 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.440 do a recording of some of the stuff that I 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.160 would like to do because I've hat a session musician. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.400 I counted the years. It's a little nuts. It's sixty 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:53.839 years so far of working in the studios as a 0:04:53.920 --> 0:05:00.720 studio sausage. So it's time and I'm not planning. It 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.640 was more important to me actually to be a first 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.400 call studio guy that it was to be a rock star. 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.080 To me, you can either have a nice airplane or 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.840 you can be top gun. So I kind of move 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:19.520 towards the the ladder. But making a solo record, the 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:25.719 opportunity to actually play what I wanted, Um, that's was important. 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:28.800 That was really important, and doing it with c J 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.599 was even more fun. And you know Clint Black and uh, 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:40.279 Mike McDonald and um uh David Paige played the organ 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.520 solo on My Old School and Johnny Lange and I 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:45.560 mean it was gonna be an instrumental album. Then all 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.320 these guys said they wanted to work on the record. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:52.720 I said, sure, why not, and here we are. So 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:57.279 it's half vocals, half instrumentals. But most importantly it has 0:05:57.320 --> 0:05:59.919 a patchy on it, which was always my favorite instrument 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.840 it as a kid. Okay, it took twelve years. So 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.440 where did you record in a home studio? How did 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.920 you do it in? What were the gaps in between tracks? 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:14.839 The vast majority of it was at CJ's place. He 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:18.960 has a studio called the Treehouse. And it took twelve years. 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.600 Because I'm produced at albums, I'm doing tons of studio work. 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:24.680 I mean, I'm still going out in the road, you know, 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:29.120 with Julie and Lena are different folks, And uh CJ 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.919 is a busy guy too, so it really was it 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.040 was like getting together with your son to build a birdhouse. 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.479 Whenever you can find the time, you're go into the workshop, 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.120 and today we'll do this, and tomorrow we'll do this. 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:46.120 So it was, yeah, it was kind of like that 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.280 home craft. Okay, you mentioned a son and a treehouse. 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:53.000 Do you have any kids? I do. I have two 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.520 wonderful children, And how old are they today? My son 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:01.480 is forty five and my daughter is third e seven. Now, 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.520 my son Fender not my idea, a little a little 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.800 bit stower. What's the middle name Fender? Okay, so the 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:11.080 middle name is Fender. What's the first name Jeffrey? But 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.600 everybody calls him so if it wasn't your choice, it 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:20.680 was his mother's choice. Yes, And uh my my grandson 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.960 his middle name is Gibson. So I'm thinking if I 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.160 ever have a daughter, a granddaughter, I'll probably want to 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.080 name her Taylor Martin, which I think is a beautiful 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.160 name anyway, you know. And so I have that, and 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.480 I have my daughter. She has three children, and her 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.520 name is Faith. My son is a building contractor. He 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:48.600 was former Special Forces. Something's Ranger Battalion, Panama Haiti, etcetera, etcetera. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.240 My daughter I brought into the dark Side when she 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.440 was eighteen, brought her into d C, hooked her up 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.600 at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and she's been 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.960 moving downrange ever since. Okay, the life of the musician, 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.040 it tends to be itinerant. How was it having kids 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.320 being a musician? Did you have enough time or do 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.760 you wish you had more time? I certainly wished I 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.160 had more time. Um, and I didn't really get to 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:18.320 spend much time with him until later on. But they 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:22.880 bring me such joy. Uh, And it's probably I probably 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:27.440 appreciate it more now. Frankly, the older you get, the more, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.960 at least in my experience, the little things drop away. 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:37.400 You begin to experience a lot more as you get older, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:42.240 because you have enough experience to appreciate experience. So that 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.680 makes sense. I'm old too, so I completely understand it's 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:49.360 a wisdom. People who are not old don't understand. But 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.440 when you're in that park, it becomes obviously well. And 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.000 you tell it, tell your kids that they go, yeah, sure, 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.079 right right, and and now my daughter goes, oh yeah, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.520 Now I get it, Yeah, okay, how many times you've 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.240 been married? Never been married? Okay, so the mother of 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.160 those two children, how long were you with her? Two 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.240 different mothers? I see, And I really don't want to 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:11.599 get too much into it because I don't want to. 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:13.720 I don't want to bring it too much personal stuff 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.280 into it. I mean, I don't you know, I got 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.319 nothing to hide. But I also don't want to when 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.720 you when you bring you know, personal stuff into it 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:26.400 you I don't know. I just I'm always careful about that. 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.400 People can say anything they want to buy me. But 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.280 let me just ask this. Being a musician, is it 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.040 hard to sustain relationships? I think so, But I can 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:38.120 only speak for myself. I know musicians that have been 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.600 married or have been living with someone for a bazillion years. 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.800 And then I know musicians who have never been married 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:50.800 or musicians who married later in life. So I probably 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.679 am not the go to person for expert advice. I'm 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:01.920 not a SMEE, a subject matter expert on on that. Um, 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.760 I've seen it every I've seen it all. Okay, let's 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.040 go right as we speak, there's the conflict in Ukraine 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:12.240 between Ukraine and Russia. As a defense expert. What do 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.880 you see there? My caveat, and I have to be 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:17.120 very careful. My caveat is I do not speak for 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.079 the US government, and any opinion that I have or 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.360 any observation that I make is purely, purely personal, and 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.600 I have to say that as a disclaimer. Um, so 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.640 you're asked to give me what do I think about 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:34.840 this situation? In Let me just ask you before we 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.559 get there. Since you gave that disclaimer, are you still 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.800 working for the government in the defense capacity? Yes? Okay, 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.280 So when I'm talking about Ukraine in Russia, let me 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:50.280 set it up. Certainly communism fell, Putin came in, turns 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:56.439 into autocracy. You know, he took property back after the Olympics. 0:10:56.800 --> 0:10:59.720 We have never put a stop to it. Now he 0:10:59.880 --> 0:11:04.760 is invaded Ukraine. Suddenly the Western country seemed to be 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.600 sending munitions. As an expert in this field, how does 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.679 it play out? Because you know, just yesterday they said, okay, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.760 this is you know, all NATO attacking us and we 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.640 have the nuclear option. How do you see this conflict? Well, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.760 a little bit of context. After the fall of the 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.120 Soviet Union, which was the combination of French Fies, blue 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:34.120 jeans Elvis Presley and misssile defense. The Soviet Union became 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:38.480 Russia and had this sort of regroup. Putin, I believe, 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:43.080 has a vision where he would like to go down 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:49.840 in history as the great Russian unifier who brought Russia 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.200 back to its golden era where its borders were the 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:59.439 same as at the end of World War Two. Install Uh, 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.920 create it a buffer zone what the Russians referred to 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:10.480 as the near strategic around Russia to protect him. And 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.040 you know he's done that. He thinks that without that 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:22.280 military that sort of land uh land soldier land warfare concept. Uh, 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:27.560 what's gonna happen? It's gonna get even uglier, I think, 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:32.320 And that's just my opinion. Uh. Mr Putin is a 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:37.400 ruthless killer. He has and the Russian way of fighting. 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:44.040 If you're familiar with Afghanistan, the use of and I 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.880 personnel minds that are designed to blow off the hands 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:54.120 and feet of young children, crushing babies underneath tank treads. Uh. 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:59.920 If you can get your head around another non Western 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.600 and Judeo Christian way of looking at warfare, then you 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:08.720 can begin to understand his doctrine and his war fighting doctrine. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:15.520 You mentioned nuclear weapons. The Russians have stated their doctrine 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:22.360 of escalate to de escalate the possible use of nuclear 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:29.000 weapons and a conventional UH scenario mostly too, if they 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.600 feel that the near strategic, the area that's close to 0:13:32.679 --> 0:13:38.439 them is threatened. UH. This, this kind of warfare is ruthless. 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:43.640 You saw it in Syria, you saw it in Georgia, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:48.280 you saw it in Czech Death. There's nothing new here. 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:55.360 It's the same nastiness we have all that history, which 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:01.120 is ruthless. So let's talk about Ukraine specifically terms of Putin. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.480 Can he end up with East Ukraine to clear victory 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.400 and leave it at that? Would that satisfy him? The 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:14.400 strategic messaging, the perception management, perception engineering, moving in terms 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.760 of their media, which is very controlled, the fact that 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.720 their vast majority of their population has no access to 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:28.160 any other media but state media, preparing them to say, oh, yeah, 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.680 don't you don't you remember we said that this is 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:34.480 really what we wanted. You know how that works? So 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.160 you read so it's very or well, and the Ministry 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:42.240 of truth will then begin to remind people of what 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:47.480 the truth is supposed to be, that he would what 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:51.480 he really wants. First of all, he wants access. He 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.800 wants to cut off the south of Ukraine. Who wants 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.520 to make sure that he has access to the water. 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.000 Number two, he wants to make sure that Ukraine is 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:08.000 a crippled orphan struggling for life for the rest of 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:13.320 its foreseeable future. He's killing everything he's and he is 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:19.840 destroying the infrastructure of the country. It again looks very 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:26.480 much like nineteen forty four, end of ninety three, beginning 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:31.880 of nineteen in Europe when the Russians invaded or return 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:38.960 the favor to Germany during World War Two. Utter complete devastation. Okay, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.200 so if it's utter complete devastation, how should the West 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.760 handle putin? Well, that's an interesting question, and again I 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:51.640 have to be to be very careful. Let me step 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.200 back for a second. Um. In many of the war 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:59.960 games that I do of the time, I represent the 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:05.880 Red team, Red meaning the bad guys of all the 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:12.320 bad guys. The number one objective and the number one 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:21.520 uh the most important thing is regime preservation. Everything else 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:27.000 takes a second, takes second place, second fiddle. Preserving yourself 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.960 as the leader in an autocracy is the only goal. 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:36.840 Everything else is subsumed to that. Putin needs to stay 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.800 in power. The only way he can stay in power 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:46.280 is to constantly do a number of things amplify and 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:52.360 praise Russia's strength. You've noticed that the one word that 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:56.480 the Russian media uses in referring to Ukraine more than 0:16:56.520 --> 0:17:01.720 any anything else is nazis Nazism. So what he's doing 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:06.160 is he's recalling the memory of the Great Patriotic War, 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:09.800 is how the Russians refer to World War Two and 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:17.640 ginning up that emotion that we're fighting Nazis. If you're 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:21.000 fighting anybody else, it's kind of hard to hate the Ukrainians. 0:17:21.640 --> 0:17:26.120 Most of them speak Russian. So you have to create 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.639 an enemy, and then you have to conquer them, and 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.040 you have to show that you're conquering them, and you 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.479 have to show that you're ruthless. So Putin needs to 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.680 prove that he's a leader, proved that he's in control, 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:43.359 create whatever mythology that he needs to create, to say 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.960 to his people, I have accomplished what I've accomplished, See 0:17:48.000 --> 0:17:51.840 what a great leader I am. That's the goal, and 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.200 of course, to cripple Ukraine to the point where maybe 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:58.720 it doesn't even become a part of NATO. He was 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.320 very upset about that one. Okay, so at first everybody 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.120 was there were sanctions on Russia, but the Western countries 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.800 relatively hands off. Just recently the United States government said 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:17.840 they'll ship material within seven days. Germany now is coming 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.840 down opposite even though they need fuel opposite Russia. Israel 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:25.600 is condemning Russia. Is this just all words, or are 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.760 we going to send them enough infrastructure, tanks, you know, missiles, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.000 etcetera that they can defend themselves. Where is a foregoing 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.240 conclusion that Prutin will take what he wants. Well, again, 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.960 I'm not gonna I'm not gonna even speculate on US 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:48.479 or Western policy. But the fact that the Germans, in 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.440 some shape or form now they've backtracked a little bit, 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:56.040 but still in some shape or form, have said, in 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.919 spite of the fact that we rely on Russian uh 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:07.600 um fuel, mostly natural gas and some coal, we are 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.960 willing to take a stand against against Russian aggression. I 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.320 think Putin has made a big mistake because in his 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:24.160 own mind his the way the Russians conduct foreign policy 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.560 is much the same way the Chinese do. They they 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.760 live in a bilateral world. They don't like to live 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:34.480 in a multilateral world. To them, NATO is a multi 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:40.960 multilateral situation and problem each separate country. If you deal 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.320 with each separate country country in a bilateral way makes 0:19:44.359 --> 0:19:47.840 it a lot easier. And then you can UH, in 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:54.080 typical Russian fashion, UH pit one ally against the other 0:19:54.359 --> 0:20:00.800 and create discord and split the alliances. Hasn't really worked 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.840 that well. It worked many times before, but it hasn't 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.560 worked that well this time. So I believe he's made 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.520 a miscalculation on that level. The only problem is if 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:13.560 it gets to the point where it starts to look 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.080 bad for him, he's gonna have a couple of tough choices. 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:21.639 I don't think we'll see the nuclear option, but what 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:25.760 I I am very afraid of is the use of 0:20:25.800 --> 0:20:30.520 weapons of mass destruction other than nuclear weapons, or what 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:41.560 we are seeing is massive conventional destruction of everything, people, buildings, infrastructure, everything, 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:47.040 to just lay waste to it completely, which is what 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.320 the Russians did in Germany during World War Two. If 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.040 we talk about Syria, we talked about poison gas. You 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:55.160 think that's an option they might use. What I think 0:20:55.160 --> 0:21:00.879 about Syria, well, we talk about chemical warfare. I'm not 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.920 as worried about that as I am about the use 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.200 of things like barrel bombs in the Scriminate killing. They 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:15.200 found a number of flashettes embedded in buildings in certain 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.479 outside of certain cities in Ukraine. I don't know if 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:21.320 you're familiar with flashettes, no, no, can you explain what 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:24.960 those are? And also barrel bombs. A flashette is in 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:30.919 a sense kind of like a modern arrowhead. Uh. It 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.920 is made out of a very strong metal and when 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:39.439 it pierces something it's it leaves a very ugly wound. 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:45.840 It's like, um, if somebody loaded up a cannon with 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.080 a bunch of straightened fish hooks that were probably three 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:53.879 inches long and maybe half fininch wide by the thousands. 0:21:55.240 --> 0:22:02.080 It's basically a scythe that cuts through everything. It's an 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:07.200 it's a complete anti personnel weapon. It's designed to maim 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:13.320 and kill on Uh. It's probably the modern version of 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:18.560 what grape shot was back in the Barrel bombs are 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.560 basically fifty five gallon drums full of explosives and whatever 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:29.880 else you might want to put in it, pass uh, metal, glass, whatever, 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.919 and you just roll them out of helicopters and you 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.800 roll them down on people and it kills everything without 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:41.679 a sixties seventy ft radius. Do you anticipate, as a 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:47.960 result of sanctions and as result of inferior tanks and morale, 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.080 that the Russians may end up with the depleted force 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.560 or do you believe they have enough resources they can 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:57.240 continue to fight for a very long time. I'm I 0:22:57.359 --> 0:23:03.440 think they're gonna They're gonna have a problem recruiting their 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.879 Their military will never be all volunteer, and one of 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:11.040 the reasons find the low morale in the military. I mean, 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:14.240 I remember in UH back in the day, I think 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:19.000 it was Blenko flew a big into Japan out of 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.440 the camp Chat Peninsula, but it couldn't go above fifteen 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:24.720 thousand feet because the ground crew had drank all the 0:23:24.800 --> 0:23:28.439 d I all hydraulic fluid. So that gives you an 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:30.719 idea about what it's like to be in the Russian 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:38.639 army um as far as um inferior tanks, Yes, and 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:45.800 no that that I there will come a time where 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.840 there will be decisions made by Putin and his inner 0:23:48.880 --> 0:23:55.320 circle to change the the equipment, UH military hardware that 0:23:55.359 --> 0:24:02.240 they apply to the conflict. As far as um, what 0:24:02.240 --> 0:24:07.840 what will happen In. Right now, Russia is making more 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:14.399 money now from it from uh petroleum exports than they 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:19.160 were before the conflict. So right now he's not hurting 0:24:19.160 --> 0:24:25.119 at all. It's actually doing much better. So the question 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:34.560 is how do you define winning? Just how I understand 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.560 because you're closer than I am. So you're saying, despite 0:24:37.560 --> 0:24:40.679 all the sanctions and the fall of the ruble and 0:24:40.720 --> 0:24:44.359 the banking restrictions, when even it all out, he's actually 0:24:44.440 --> 0:24:48.359 doing better. Yeah, I just remember quickly. I was I 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:50.880 was giving the Wall Street Journal today and I saw 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:54.920 an article that spoke about his I think I was 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:57.479 in the Wall Street Journal that spoke about how he 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:02.840 was actually collecting more money than he was before, not 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:07.720 hurting sanctions notwithstanding the Russian people are not happy. But 0:25:08.040 --> 0:25:10.800 so what? And do you think there's been talk of 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:15.639 Sweden in Finland joining NATO. Is that a possibility or 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:18.720 that's just gonna trigger more mayhem. I think it's a 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:22.639 possibility for a couple of reasons. One the obvious reason 0:25:23.600 --> 0:25:30.720 is if they believe that Putin has miscalculated now, they 0:25:30.840 --> 0:25:34.240 probably don't believe that he has learned a whole lot 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:39.760 from the situation. And we go back to the motivation, 0:25:39.840 --> 0:25:45.560 regime preservation, etcetera, etcetera. That's not really gonna change. Uh. 0:25:45.600 --> 0:25:50.760 And also NATO has become in some sense a de 0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:56.480 facto trade organization. It's not just military, but there's a 0:25:56.480 --> 0:26:00.800 lot of economic interaction between members of NATO, and so 0:26:01.080 --> 0:26:07.879 for some it has become more than a military alliance. 0:26:08.000 --> 0:26:14.920 It has become economic, social, educational, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's 0:26:15.040 --> 0:26:18.439 it's grown a couple of facets to it. So it 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:20.960 makes good sense. So how does trying to fit into 0:26:21.000 --> 0:26:24.240 all this? That's a rather broad question. That's like saying, 0:26:24.280 --> 0:26:27.600 play me every solo you overplayed. Okay, let's attack it 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:35.119 from a different way. Certainly, under Clinton we moved towards globalization. Okay, 0:26:35.359 --> 0:26:39.480 now there is talk that we're deglobalizing. Needless to say, 0:26:39.480 --> 0:26:43.479 when Trump was president, he certainly pulled back. The world 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:46.439 was getting closer, and now people are talking about the 0:26:46.440 --> 0:26:51.320 world pulling apart into its various Fiefdom's got a bad connotation. 0:26:51.400 --> 0:26:54.879 But the EU, the United States, China, Russia, how do 0:26:54.960 --> 0:27:00.200 you see globalization today? Right? Going back to tribal um 0:27:00.240 --> 0:27:09.920 first of all, again to understand the Chinese government leadership philosophy, 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:14.000 first of all, Number one, they are the chosen people. 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:20.639 Number two, they have been humiliated in their own mind 0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:24.400 for the past hundred years and it's time to pay 0:27:24.440 --> 0:27:30.080 the piper. Number three, they feel that they should be 0:27:31.119 --> 0:27:35.760 now the leader of the world, and it's interesting to 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:38.960 see how they're going about doing that. One way, of course, 0:27:39.160 --> 0:27:43.240 is to replace the dollar as the world currency. And 0:27:43.359 --> 0:27:46.800 I will bet you whatever it is you'd like to 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:52.840 bet um, you know, uh, dinner at the cheesecake factory, 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:57.679 whatever it is that they will be asking the Russians 0:27:57.800 --> 0:28:02.159 to pay. The Russians will be asking the Russians they 0:28:02.160 --> 0:28:07.680 will pay the Russians for their um um raw materials 0:28:07.760 --> 0:28:11.600 in Chinese currency. And as soon as they do that, 0:28:11.640 --> 0:28:15.160 the Iranians will do the same. They're they're pushing very 0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:20.399 hard to replace that. So it's not just warfare or 0:28:20.560 --> 0:28:25.760 conflict on a narrow level, it's conflict all across the board. 0:28:26.160 --> 0:28:29.360 China is the only real winner in this game right now, 0:28:30.640 --> 0:28:35.160 because they're gonna buy everything that Russia can dig out 0:28:35.160 --> 0:28:38.520 of the ground. I remember a friend of mine on 0:28:38.600 --> 0:28:41.480 the Joint chiefs of Staff asked me, said, skunk, I 0:28:41.520 --> 0:28:44.160 want you to describe to me in very few words. 0:28:45.280 --> 0:28:49.800 The Russia said, yes, sir, Russia is a nuclear armed 0:28:49.800 --> 0:28:53.920 gas station run by the mafia with a little grocery 0:28:53.960 --> 0:28:58.080 store that sells a couple of things. If that's all 0:28:58.160 --> 0:29:02.400 you got, and you're being sanctioned by much of the world, 0:29:03.080 --> 0:29:06.719 and you don't have to worry like the Chinese. One 0:29:06.720 --> 0:29:08.640 of the reasons that the Chinese have been so active 0:29:08.680 --> 0:29:12.880 in the South China Sea is they remember the the 0:29:13.120 --> 0:29:17.680 Co East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere that Japan set up 0:29:17.680 --> 0:29:20.920 in World War Two to try to protect the sea 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:26.040 lanes of communication and supply. China has done that. But 0:29:26.240 --> 0:29:31.479 now you could build a railroad from Russia to China, 0:29:31.920 --> 0:29:35.000 never have to put anything on a ship and protect 0:29:35.520 --> 0:29:39.840 your ability to um access raw materials. And the Russians 0:29:39.840 --> 0:29:42.000 will sell them everything they've got, and the and the 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:49.320 Chinese will buy everything they have. So who wins right now? Okay, 0:29:49.320 --> 0:29:51.760 So let's talk about America. One thing, you know, it's 0:29:51.800 --> 0:29:54.920 hard to move forward in America if you read about China. 0:29:55.240 --> 0:29:58.920 Not only are they head in electric cars, they're buying 0:29:59.000 --> 0:30:03.360 up all the rang materials around the world. In addition, 0:30:03.440 --> 0:30:07.800 as we know, production goes where its cheapest. Presidentally production 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:12.840 is in China of chips, of computers, et cetera, mostly Taiwan, 0:30:13.040 --> 0:30:18.240 mostly Taiwan. That begs two questions. Since China certainly clamped 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:22.400 down on Hong Kong and supposedly the next move is Taiwan. 0:30:23.360 --> 0:30:26.000 Is that something that's imminent. If there's such a word 0:30:26.000 --> 0:30:32.640 as imminence, then I would say the definition of imminence 0:30:33.040 --> 0:30:36.440 in the Western world which is usually about a thirteen 0:30:36.560 --> 0:30:42.640 week um economic cycle in business, and China which is 0:30:42.800 --> 0:30:46.640 five or six hundred years, and in bits and pieces, 0:30:48.560 --> 0:30:51.920 I would say from a Chinese point of view, it's imminent. 0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:57.800 There's a couple of factors here. They the goal of 0:30:57.840 --> 0:31:02.360 the Chinese government in the last fifty years has been 0:31:03.800 --> 0:31:09.560 to reclaim three things Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They 0:31:09.600 --> 0:31:13.800 got two out of three. J And Ping also has 0:31:13.840 --> 0:31:16.960 to show something. The next party congress is coming up 0:31:17.040 --> 0:31:22.880 very soon, and he wants to be um h King 0:31:23.120 --> 0:31:27.600 or President or whatever acute label they want to put 0:31:27.600 --> 0:31:31.760 on it for life. So he has to prove that 0:31:31.880 --> 0:31:34.440 there's a reason for that and that people should agree 0:31:34.480 --> 0:31:41.120 to that. So is the invasion of Taiwan imminent? In 0:31:41.200 --> 0:31:45.640 a from a Chinese perspective, yes, whether from a Western perspective, 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:49.840 I don't think so. I don't think China is capable 0:31:51.000 --> 0:31:55.040 of securing Taiwan. I think it would be a very 0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:59.640 different battle. And this is just my opinion. I would 0:32:00.840 --> 0:32:04.840 posit that there will be no massive attack like you 0:32:04.880 --> 0:32:08.560 see in Ukraine. There will be a cyber attack. I 0:32:08.560 --> 0:32:12.120 would call it a cyber siege that will shut Taiwan 0:32:12.200 --> 0:32:17.560 down until people starve and then sue for piece. So 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:19.880 let's talk about warfare. You and me grew up in 0:32:19.880 --> 0:32:23.240 the Vietnam era. We were told that America was the 0:32:23.240 --> 0:32:25.360 greatest country in the world. We could win any war. 0:32:25.920 --> 0:32:29.400 But needless to say, with guerilla warfare, hearts and minds, 0:32:29.520 --> 0:32:33.360 we could not win. So for sixty odd years we've 0:32:33.360 --> 0:32:37.800 had the nuclear option. So if you're fighting war today, 0:32:38.400 --> 0:32:42.640 how important are missiles? We have this incredible defense budget. 0:32:42.680 --> 0:32:45.400 Where should it be put? Missiles and nuclear weapons are 0:32:45.440 --> 0:32:47.880 two different things. I think that's important to make the distinction. 0:32:47.960 --> 0:32:50.680 Let me reframe the question. If you were in charge 0:32:50.720 --> 0:32:56.480 of the defense budget, how would you allocate money today? Okay, 0:32:57.000 --> 0:32:59.880 probably go out on a limb here. I would be 0:33:00.400 --> 0:33:08.560 lots and lots of submarines, I watched Germany almost twice 0:33:09.360 --> 0:33:16.600 when simply because they have the underwater advantage um as 0:33:16.760 --> 0:33:20.320 far as and this is not meant to at all 0:33:21.320 --> 0:33:26.000 reflect negatively on any of the services, but the Chinese 0:33:26.040 --> 0:33:33.040 have built specific weapons to counter specific US weapons systems. 0:33:33.520 --> 0:33:39.520 Give you any example, the DF and the DF are 0:33:39.760 --> 0:33:43.080 anti ship missiles, but they're anti ship missiles that have 0:33:43.120 --> 0:33:48.000 a range of They have the ability to take out 0:33:48.000 --> 0:33:52.680 an aircraft carrier. Now, if you look at the range 0:33:53.080 --> 0:33:57.960 of the typical aircraft on an aircraft carrier, it's a 0:33:58.000 --> 0:34:02.880 lot less than that. So the idea Chinese strategy is 0:34:03.240 --> 0:34:08.280 we will keep American carrier battle groups away from US 0:34:08.320 --> 0:34:11.520 so they can no longer function. Now again I'm not 0:34:11.560 --> 0:34:14.800 gonna I'm right on the edge here, but just because 0:34:15.040 --> 0:34:18.720 carrier battle groups are big doesn't mean there are fat 0:34:18.760 --> 0:34:21.359 targets all the time. And I'll just leave it at that. 0:34:22.560 --> 0:34:32.080 In terms of the ability to prosecute the underwater domain, 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:38.520 the Chinese have built a lot of diesel submarines. Diesel 0:34:38.560 --> 0:34:45.600 meaning non nuclear, and actually an air independent probulsion design 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:49.880 in a non nuclear submarine is quieter even than some 0:34:50.000 --> 0:34:54.480 nuclear submarines. They don't have the range, but it doesn't 0:34:54.520 --> 0:34:57.400 make any difference if you're fighting in the littorals or 0:34:57.440 --> 0:35:02.000 if you're fighting in your near strategic In China, that 0:35:02.000 --> 0:35:04.080 would be in the first style and chain or the 0:35:04.120 --> 0:35:08.319 second island chain in the South China seat. So as 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:13.879 I watched the Chinese very specifically, very specifically designed their 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:18.120 weapons systems based on going to war with the United States, 0:35:18.360 --> 0:35:21.920 missiles are excellent. I would build a lot of missiles. 0:35:22.400 --> 0:35:24.439 I would build a lot of cruise missiles. I would 0:35:24.480 --> 0:35:27.560 build a lot of hypersonic missiles. I would build a 0:35:27.680 --> 0:35:32.080 lot of weapons that are autonomous, that are nonpiloted, that 0:35:32.160 --> 0:35:36.359 are fast, that cover a vast spectrum from going very 0:35:36.400 --> 0:35:39.759 slowly to going to mock ten. And I would I 0:35:39.760 --> 0:35:47.800 would highly complicate my adversaries ability to intercept and prosecute 0:35:48.160 --> 0:35:53.280 any kind of defensive capability against those kind of weapons. 0:35:55.160 --> 0:35:59.600 Nuclear weapons. We already talked about that. Under Trump, there 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:05.400 was pulling back and an America first philosophy. If you 0:36:05.440 --> 0:36:10.520 were running the country, what would your philosophy be Integrating 0:36:10.600 --> 0:36:12.359 with the rest of the world. There are a lot 0:36:12.400 --> 0:36:16.040 of things here, not only defense. There's economic issues, there's 0:36:16.080 --> 0:36:19.960 climate issues. To what degree should we be integrated in 0:36:20.000 --> 0:36:22.240 the rest of the world, or should we pull back. Well, 0:36:22.320 --> 0:36:24.600 let's look at a little bit of history. What happened 0:36:24.640 --> 0:36:30.360 after World War Two? Did the United States conquer anybody? No, 0:36:31.760 --> 0:36:36.080 what they did was put in place the US dollar 0:36:37.080 --> 0:36:42.520 as the world currency. Didn't have to shoot anybody, didn't 0:36:42.520 --> 0:36:44.960 have to blow anything up. I mean, this is after 0:36:45.040 --> 0:36:48.760 World War Two. The idea of becoming a world power 0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:54.240 without killing everything in sight, unlike some of the other 0:36:54.320 --> 0:36:57.560 adversaries that we could talk about back at World War two, 0:36:58.320 --> 0:37:04.319 was kind of an interesting idea. The British did it 0:37:05.440 --> 0:37:08.319 back in the sixteen seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but they 0:37:08.400 --> 0:37:13.120 followed it on with military strength as well, you're I 0:37:13.160 --> 0:37:17.880 mean England, the UK for many years was the world 0:37:17.920 --> 0:37:21.319 economic power, but they backed it up with military might. 0:37:22.320 --> 0:37:24.680 Same thing with the United States. After World War two. 0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:30.920 Two things happened. One American became the the the the 0:37:31.920 --> 0:37:35.440 what would you call it, the sort of centerpiece of 0:37:35.480 --> 0:37:39.239 the world economy. And number two, they became the guaranteur 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:47.799 of of freedom against authoritarian regimes, and they guaranteed it 0:37:48.239 --> 0:37:52.399 with nuclear weapons. The Russians had a seven to one 0:37:52.520 --> 0:37:57.520 conventional advantage in Europe. Everybody in every military commander in 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:03.880 Germany was sitting there waiting for hundred hundreds of armored 0:38:03.960 --> 0:38:10.200 Russian divisions pouring down the folded gap into Germany. The 0:38:10.239 --> 0:38:14.040 only way to stop that would be with technical nuclear weapons. 0:38:16.239 --> 0:38:21.560 Why did the Russians deploy the s S twenty because 0:38:21.600 --> 0:38:25.360 they needed a tactical nuclear option? Why did they not? 0:38:25.760 --> 0:38:29.880 Why did NATO deploy the Pershing too, to say to 0:38:29.960 --> 0:38:34.640 the Russians, ain't gonna work, buddy. We are now in 0:38:34.800 --> 0:38:39.400 your wheelhouse with tactical nuclear weapons, and you don't know 0:38:39.400 --> 0:38:42.799 if we're gonna use them or not. So for a 0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:47.400 long time, it was a bipolar world. China had really 0:38:47.440 --> 0:38:54.839 not risen to any uh super strength as it is now. 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:58.920 They certainly had a large army, but their economy was 0:38:59.120 --> 0:39:02.200 the size of O High for you know, a long time. 0:39:03.120 --> 0:39:07.120 So for a long time everything was kind of imbalance. 0:39:07.760 --> 0:39:12.280 You either on one side or the other. Everybody like dollars, 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:20.319 but you were either allied to Russia China wasn't really 0:39:20.400 --> 0:39:23.960 a player in the alliance game at the time, or 0:39:24.000 --> 0:39:26.760 you were aligned to the United States. Now it's interesting, 0:39:27.120 --> 0:39:33.040 there's the third player, very powerful both economically and militarily. 0:39:33.080 --> 0:39:38.239 I mean I I believe the Chinese thought about this. 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:42.880 It said, I think the formula is what the United 0:39:42.960 --> 0:39:49.040 States did after World War Two. Let's manufacture everything, Let's 0:39:49.120 --> 0:39:53.719 try to become the world currency. Let's become the dominant 0:39:53.760 --> 0:40:03.040 military power and reach out and through alliances, not conquering 0:40:03.560 --> 0:40:09.080 through the belt of road. Um uh concept bring people 0:40:09.160 --> 0:40:14.319 into our fold looks to me. I would say it 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:18.719 passes the duck test. Walks like a duck, quacks like 0:40:18.800 --> 0:40:23.600 a duck, probably a duck. It looks exactly like what 0:40:23.680 --> 0:40:26.600 the United States did. So what do the United States 0:40:26.640 --> 0:40:29.399 do going forward? Well, now you're asking me to talk 0:40:29.440 --> 0:40:34.120 about policy, and that's always an interesting arena. The United 0:40:34.120 --> 0:40:38.480 States has two main problems. One is China has infiltrated 0:40:39.560 --> 0:40:45.319 the United States on all levels government, commercial, academic, and 0:40:45.400 --> 0:40:51.279 it's very difficult once that adversary has gained this much 0:40:51.320 --> 0:40:54.880 control to be able to deal with it. You have 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:58.840 to know. Let me say that if one were to 0:40:59.040 --> 0:41:04.480 try to meliorate that, one would have to number one, 0:41:07.719 --> 0:41:13.000 um unite the population to understand what the dangers are, 0:41:15.400 --> 0:41:19.120 get their agreement that there is a problem, and get 0:41:19.120 --> 0:41:22.840 their agreement on what the solutions might be. Before you 0:41:22.880 --> 0:41:26.919 even discuss the solutions. You have to have support, can't 0:41:26.960 --> 0:41:30.960 do anything unless people will let you do it. And 0:41:31.080 --> 0:41:36.200 in a tripolar world, it's very different. Some would argue 0:41:36.200 --> 0:41:40.440 that a tripolar world is easier because you ever have 0:41:40.480 --> 0:41:46.239 you ever played risk? Uh? Yeah, So in a tripolar 0:41:46.360 --> 0:41:54.320 or a quad quadripolar world, Uh, it's alliances, My the 0:41:54.320 --> 0:41:59.640 the enemy, and my friend is my friend. It's a 0:41:59.760 --> 0:42:04.480 little different game. The question is how do you play 0:42:04.520 --> 0:42:08.719 that game with Russia and China, especially with Russia being 0:42:08.719 --> 0:42:12.000 crippled in terms of its ability to relate to the 0:42:12.040 --> 0:42:15.680 Western world and China reaching out and saying it's okay, 0:42:15.800 --> 0:42:17.640 Well by everything you can dig out on the ground. 0:42:19.200 --> 0:42:22.839 So how do you rally the American people? Well, I 0:42:22.840 --> 0:42:26.920 guess I'm a bit of a patriot. I love my country. 0:42:27.080 --> 0:42:29.799 I'm willing to put my life down for it. I 0:42:29.840 --> 0:42:35.080 took an oath to defend the Constitution. I don't believe 0:42:35.640 --> 0:42:40.640 that it is a zero sum game, which I believe 0:42:41.120 --> 0:42:46.760 Russia and China believe. I think everybody could get along 0:42:47.640 --> 0:42:52.759 just fine. The only problem is some people are just 0:42:53.040 --> 0:43:02.960 nasty bastards. Putin is not Elon musk g is not 0:43:03.160 --> 0:43:10.360 New gig Rich. There's a very different world here, you know, Uh, 0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:17.920 Putin is not Jack Kennedy. They look at things very differently, 0:43:17.960 --> 0:43:19.879 and they look at it as a zero sum game, 0:43:21.239 --> 0:43:24.840 as the Russians always are fond of saying their version 0:43:24.840 --> 0:43:27.359 of negotiation and what's mine is mine and what's yours 0:43:27.480 --> 0:43:32.120 is negotiable. That is really another definition of a zero 0:43:32.200 --> 0:43:39.080 sum game. So I'm answering your question with a question, 0:43:39.640 --> 0:43:43.759 how do you educate your population instill in them a 0:43:43.920 --> 0:43:51.040 need and a desire to protect the tenants of democracy, which, 0:43:51.120 --> 0:43:55.880 by the way, all the words used in Constitution, declaration 0:43:55.920 --> 0:44:00.480 of Independence, bill of rights refer to the individual, whereas 0:44:00.480 --> 0:44:03.799 in an autocracy it's the state. If you believe that 0:44:03.880 --> 0:44:10.840 the individual above all, whether it's a religious um mandate, 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:16.960 all freedom is flow from God or whatever you're theological 0:44:17.040 --> 0:44:22.680 or philosophical point of view may be, that the individual 0:44:25.000 --> 0:44:27.840 the importance and the existence of the individual, and the 0:44:27.920 --> 0:44:32.560 right of the individual to be free, uh, and to 0:44:32.719 --> 0:44:39.160 operate autonomous, autonomously in a system where people agree to 0:44:39.239 --> 0:44:42.279 certain rules. If you think that's important, then that's what 0:44:42.360 --> 0:44:45.960 America is. Now. We can get into woke arguments about 0:44:46.320 --> 0:44:52.280 who's doing what, etcetera. And yeah, nobody's perfect, My God, please, 0:44:53.480 --> 0:44:56.760 But why does everybody want to come to the United States? 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:04.160 Are there hundreds of thousands of people coming across the 0:45:04.200 --> 0:45:11.000 borders of Russia, North Korea, Iran? I don't think so. 0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:15.440 So there must be something about the United States the people. 0:45:15.800 --> 0:45:20.160 It's philosophy, it's ideas, it's dreams, the way it looks 0:45:20.160 --> 0:45:25.600 at things that appeals to people deep down. And I'll 0:45:25.600 --> 0:45:30.680 give you an example. Uh, when we were up on 0:45:30.719 --> 0:45:36.760 the Thai Burma border. This is about years ago. People 0:45:37.320 --> 0:45:40.719 we had brought with us copies of the Declaration of Independence, 0:45:40.719 --> 0:45:45.080 the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution that we're translated 0:45:45.120 --> 0:45:51.160 into different languages among Korenean Wah, the languages of the 0:45:51.200 --> 0:45:55.880 border people's up in Burma and up on western Thailand. 0:45:56.920 --> 0:45:59.680 People were coming through the jungle two miles to get 0:45:59.719 --> 0:46:05.000 their ends on those documents. What does that mean? Why 0:46:05.040 --> 0:46:09.400 would a piece of paper be that important? Well? What 0:46:09.480 --> 0:46:14.400 does that piece of paper resent represent? So the answer 0:46:14.480 --> 0:46:18.440 to that, I believe is a dream that most everyone has. 0:46:19.239 --> 0:46:21.319 I want to do what I need to do, I'd 0:46:21.360 --> 0:46:24.959 like to do it in relative peace and tranquility. Raise 0:46:25.040 --> 0:46:31.520 my children, pursue happiness. Let's see raising your children in 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:38.200 peace and tranquility and pursuing happiness. See much of that 0:46:38.200 --> 0:46:43.879 in Russia, Yeah, North Korea. The Yeah, well, and listen, 0:46:43.920 --> 0:46:46.520 I'm not trying to be a snot. I'm just saying 0:46:46.560 --> 0:46:50.440 that that I think when maybe to use the words 0:46:50.520 --> 0:46:55.840 that these truths we believe to be ourselves evident. Yeah, yeah, 0:46:56.360 --> 0:47:00.440 so too. And I'm sorry it's it can be a 0:47:00.440 --> 0:47:03.360 long time to get around to answering your question. But 0:47:03.480 --> 0:47:08.720 the way that you bring together a group of people 0:47:08.920 --> 0:47:14.399 is under a philosophy, and our philosophy, or our philosophy 0:47:14.440 --> 0:47:21.120 in America is the philosophy of the individual subsumed. Uh, 0:47:21.280 --> 0:47:24.600 where the state is subsumed to the individual, the individual 0:47:24.680 --> 0:47:28.040 is more important than the state. Not in Russia, not 0:47:28.200 --> 0:47:30.640 in China, not in North Korea, not the wrong, not 0:47:30.719 --> 0:47:33.680 in any place I can think of other than the 0:47:33.680 --> 0:47:37.520 Western world. Okay, just one question, uh, needle to say 0:47:37.560 --> 0:47:42.040 America is divided. One half of the population, maybe a 0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:46.560 little bit more than that, believes democracy is in danger 0:47:46.800 --> 0:47:51.000 and autocracy is possible in the near future. Do you 0:47:51.080 --> 0:47:54.400 believe that's a possibility. I believe it's a possibility, and 0:47:54.480 --> 0:48:01.600 not necessarily because of present circumstances. I think and I've 0:48:01.600 --> 0:48:08.160 gonna sound trite, but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. 0:48:10.600 --> 0:48:15.760 And I'm gonna roll off a couple of um um 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:23.160 sort of maybe tried phrases. Absolute power crops. Absolutely the 0:48:23.200 --> 0:48:30.400 whole idea of a democratic republic where the voice of 0:48:30.440 --> 0:48:35.200 the people creates the government, was designed to try to 0:48:36.000 --> 0:48:42.680 prevent that, again, the individual versus the state, because I 0:48:42.880 --> 0:48:48.280 see a greater reliance or a greater desire to rely 0:48:48.560 --> 0:48:52.800 on the government as opposed to the individual for things 0:48:52.880 --> 0:48:58.719 like food and clothing, the basic necessities of life. When 0:48:58.840 --> 0:49:06.279 that manifests itself, there is a danger that people we'll 0:49:06.320 --> 0:49:10.400 give up their freedom of giving an example. Uh, And 0:49:10.440 --> 0:49:13.680 I'm gonna take you back you're my age or around it. 0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:16.560 I'm gonna go back to high school or in college. 0:49:16.560 --> 0:49:19.720 When you read The Brothers karamats Off and you read 0:49:19.719 --> 0:49:25.719 the chapter called the Grand Inquisitor, when Alexei was basically 0:49:26.120 --> 0:49:31.760 telling an allegory about how Jesus Christ came to a 0:49:31.760 --> 0:49:36.319 a town back in the ninth century and immediately was 0:49:36.440 --> 0:49:40.400 arrested by the Grand Inquisitor and put in jail. And 0:49:40.560 --> 0:49:44.080 so there's seven or eight pages of a dialogue between 0:49:44.160 --> 0:49:49.440 Jesus Christ and the Grand Inquisitor Jesus Christ says, and 0:49:49.719 --> 0:49:52.440 this is I'm not this is not theological, this is 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:57.720 just characters. Jesus Christ says. People want to be free, 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:01.319 they want to be able to operate, think freely, they 0:50:01.360 --> 0:50:04.759 want to exercise free will and all the things that 0:50:04.800 --> 0:50:08.759 were familiar with The Grand Inquisitor says, No, they want 0:50:08.800 --> 0:50:13.000 three hots and a cot if they if I give 0:50:13.040 --> 0:50:17.279 them what they need, they'll give up their freedoms. And 0:50:17.320 --> 0:50:20.279 it was an interesting dialogue. And I would suggest that 0:50:20.440 --> 0:50:24.799 anyone who would like to pursue the discussion that you 0:50:24.840 --> 0:50:29.680 and I are having start with that. There are very 0:50:29.719 --> 0:50:35.280 well um presented arguments on both sides. There are people 0:50:35.360 --> 0:50:40.560 that will tell you that a democratic state that where 0:50:40.560 --> 0:50:46.600 the individual is of of prime importance, will ultimately fail. 0:50:47.600 --> 0:50:50.560 That's what the Chinese will tell you. The Chinese government 0:50:50.560 --> 0:50:56.279 will tell you that. I don't believe that, but I've 0:50:56.320 --> 0:51:02.200 heard people make excellent arguments to the contrary. That democracy 0:51:02.239 --> 0:51:07.280 is a flawed Some people refer to the democratic process 0:51:07.360 --> 0:51:12.600 as making sausage, which is never really a pretty process. 0:51:14.160 --> 0:51:20.560 But as Winston Churchill said, with his American mother, you 0:51:20.560 --> 0:51:23.560 can always rely on America to do the right thing 0:51:24.120 --> 0:51:28.719 after they've exhausted every other possibility. But he said it 0:51:28.760 --> 0:51:32.680 with love. He did not say it to be nasty 0:51:33.200 --> 0:51:37.480 or in any of a detrimental way. He believed that 0:51:37.600 --> 0:51:41.520 even though the system was a little rough, that you 0:51:41.640 --> 0:51:51.160 get ultimately you get what you need. Okay, let's do 0:51:51.200 --> 0:51:53.480 a one eight here and go back to music. I 0:51:53.480 --> 0:51:55.719 could go on for hours about this, but people also 0:51:55.760 --> 0:51:58.520 want to hear about your musical career. He referenced that 0:51:58.719 --> 0:52:04.080 session in che Tago where the Stone leader passed out 0:52:04.480 --> 0:52:08.200 staffs with nothing on them. Do you read music? I'm 0:52:08.239 --> 0:52:09.840 not great at it. How did you learn how to 0:52:09.880 --> 0:52:13.040 read music? I studied classical piano for eight years, and 0:52:13.080 --> 0:52:16.840 then as I began to pursue a career in the 0:52:16.920 --> 0:52:22.040 studio that's the studio musician, I began to study books 0:52:22.040 --> 0:52:27.560 on reading music. And as my dad I used to say, 0:52:27.719 --> 0:52:32.160 there's nothing like a hanging to focus your attention. Uh. 0:52:32.280 --> 0:52:34.120 If you're in the studio and they put a piece 0:52:34.160 --> 0:52:36.960 of music in front of you, you better be able 0:52:37.000 --> 0:52:40.000 to read it or you're gonna learn real quick. Now. 0:52:40.400 --> 0:52:45.040 Can I read music like Tommy Tedesco could? Or am 0:52:45.080 --> 0:52:48.239 I reading like Tim may No? I'm not really great 0:52:48.280 --> 0:52:54.280 at the fly ship, but I can certainly uh fulfill 0:52:54.400 --> 0:52:58.880 the session. As a matter of fact, I remember I 0:52:58.960 --> 0:53:01.480 remember a session with David Campbell, and I'm trying to 0:53:01.520 --> 0:53:04.719 remember who the artist was. This was like years ago 0:53:05.480 --> 0:53:11.359 where there were twenty five sheets of music. It would 0:53:11.400 --> 0:53:14.000 say they wanted to do was a movie soundtrack and 0:53:14.040 --> 0:53:16.920 they wanted to do all the guitar overdubs in one past. 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:23.839 So I said, okay, I'm in. And what they did 0:53:23.960 --> 0:53:26.360 is that they taped all the pieces of music to 0:53:26.400 --> 0:53:29.520 get all the sheets of music they used about I 0:53:29.560 --> 0:53:34.000 don't know sixteen seventeen eighteen music stands. Put me on 0:53:34.040 --> 0:53:38.680 a chair with wheels, and David slowly wheeled me down, 0:53:39.840 --> 0:53:43.200 pasted all the charts until I got to the end 0:53:43.280 --> 0:53:47.319 of it and was just reading it as we go. So, yes, 0:53:47.800 --> 0:53:49.920 I can read music. Okay, let's go to the beginning. 0:53:49.920 --> 0:53:52.319 Where did you grow up? Till I was nine years old? 0:53:52.400 --> 0:53:55.320 I grew up in Washington, d C. What'd your parents 0:53:55.360 --> 0:53:57.759 do for living there? Well, my mom was a housewife, 0:53:58.200 --> 0:54:01.000 a good one. And did you ever seen Madman? I 0:54:01.000 --> 0:54:03.520 haven't seen the whole series, but I've certainly seen it. Well, 0:54:03.520 --> 0:54:07.320 that was my dad. Don Draper with without without the issues. 0:54:07.880 --> 0:54:11.880 He was uh senior vice president of J Walter Thompson, 0:54:12.120 --> 0:54:14.959 the largest advertising agency in the world. How many kids 0:54:14.960 --> 0:54:16.880 in the family. Just okay, So where do you go 0:54:16.920 --> 0:54:19.520 when you're nine? We moved to Mexico City, where he 0:54:19.560 --> 0:54:23.799 took over all of the Latin American branch of Jay 0:54:23.840 --> 0:54:26.400 Walter Thompson. So what was that like for you suddenly 0:54:26.480 --> 0:54:30.880 being in Mexico? Awesome because here I am in a country. 0:54:31.000 --> 0:54:32.960 I've got a couple of bucks to put together, and 0:54:32.960 --> 0:54:34.759 not wealthy, but I have a couple of bucks to 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:38.440 put together. I'm living a country which really has no rules. 0:54:39.400 --> 0:54:43.120 I can play strip bars and clubs. When I'm eleven twelve, 0:54:43.560 --> 0:54:46.279 I could be in bands. I could do pretty much 0:54:46.320 --> 0:54:53.280 whatever I want and also be exposed to a tremendous, 0:54:53.920 --> 0:54:58.680 tremendously multifaceted and varied culture. It's a matter of fact, 0:54:59.160 --> 0:55:00.759 I went to the America School for a year in 0:55:00.800 --> 0:55:03.560 my dad's in no way, You're gonna go to the 0:55:03.560 --> 0:55:06.319 British Academy run by the British Embassy because I wanted 0:55:06.320 --> 0:55:09.440 you get an education. So one thing was interesting. You 0:55:09.480 --> 0:55:15.440 studied four languages, English, French, Spanish, and Latin, and people 0:55:17.120 --> 0:55:21.880 mostly concentrated on French. I would say English was pretty 0:55:21.880 --> 0:55:25.440 close behind, but French at the time was the diplomatic language. 0:55:25.560 --> 0:55:35.200 We're talking late fifties, early sixties. So the the multifaceted, multinational, 0:55:36.800 --> 0:55:41.719 multicultural um melting pot that I was in was fascinating. 0:55:42.640 --> 0:55:45.400 I really it was a It was a It was 0:55:45.440 --> 0:55:49.000 a course in sociology that you would never be able 0:55:49.040 --> 0:55:52.000 to take anywhere else unless you're living in a foreign country. 0:55:52.000 --> 0:55:53.799 How long were you there about five years? Now you 0:55:53.880 --> 0:55:56.160 end up going at Taft. How does that happen? Well, 0:55:56.239 --> 0:55:59.320 my dad, after sending me to the Gregates Academy, that 0:55:59.400 --> 0:56:03.040 British embassy school, he said, now you're going to get 0:56:03.040 --> 0:56:08.120 an even better education. Okay, you're gonna go to boarding 0:56:08.120 --> 0:56:12.919 school in Connecticut. So we went to Chot and Hodgkins 0:56:12.960 --> 0:56:16.560 and Taft and Loomis and Kent, Phillips, Exeter and or 0:56:16.640 --> 0:56:24.120 you know the usual suspects. And my gut feeling told 0:56:24.120 --> 0:56:27.160 me that Taft was the place to go for a 0:56:27.200 --> 0:56:29.160 couple of reasons. One there was a generalman there in 0:56:29.160 --> 0:56:37.320 the name Mr Cunningham who somehow or other talking to him. 0:56:37.360 --> 0:56:40.640 I felt that I could relate to what his vision 0:56:40.920 --> 0:56:44.120 of that place was, because after all, I mean, you're 0:56:44.120 --> 0:56:47.160 gonna go from Mexico City, where you could drive a 0:56:47.160 --> 0:56:49.360 car at twall by putting a hundred paste note in 0:56:49.360 --> 0:56:51.320 your wallet, handing into the traffic cop and and go, 0:56:51.480 --> 0:56:53.560 thank you very much. I have a great day to 0:56:53.680 --> 0:56:56.080 go into an all boys boarding school meeting locked up 0:56:56.120 --> 0:56:59.600 for three months, so you kind of have to figure out. 0:57:00.760 --> 0:57:02.439 You want to make sure if you're gonna be there, 0:57:02.920 --> 0:57:05.520 it's not gonna be too ugly. So the people that 0:57:05.560 --> 0:57:10.920 I met there, and the especially Mr Cunningham, made me 0:57:10.960 --> 0:57:13.400 feel like I would be at home there. And I 0:57:13.440 --> 0:57:20.840 am extremely grateful to everyone who was a teacher, headmaster, 0:57:21.480 --> 0:57:26.840 anybody at TAFT, anybody ever came in contact with UM, 0:57:26.840 --> 0:57:32.280 because the education I received there was incredible. When you 0:57:32.360 --> 0:57:35.600 graduate from one of those schools, you've it's like graduating 0:57:36.240 --> 0:57:40.520 after two years of college, and it's not teaching you 0:57:41.000 --> 0:57:45.200 what to learn, it's teaching you how to learn. I 0:57:45.240 --> 0:57:52.920 remember I remember my English teacher, Uh, great guy. He 0:57:53.000 --> 0:57:56.880 was also by track coach. But we had to run 0:57:56.960 --> 0:58:00.880 an essay on the Red Badge of Courage, so I 0:58:00.920 --> 0:58:03.800 read it. I read the first page that I read 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:07.560 the last page. You know, I'm a little snot right. 0:58:07.680 --> 0:58:09.400 So I read that, of course, and I wrote this 0:58:09.480 --> 0:58:13.440 paper about Okay, red Badge of Courage j C. The 0:58:13.520 --> 0:58:17.960 initials Jim Conkin really mean send for Jesus Christ. The 0:58:18.040 --> 0:58:20.640 sun hung in the sky like a red way. It's 0:58:20.680 --> 0:58:24.320 obviously the sacrament. I just went off on all of 0:58:24.360 --> 0:58:28.160 this bullshit, handed it in and he called me in 0:58:28.640 --> 0:58:31.000 as a as a professor will do, and he says, 0:58:31.840 --> 0:58:38.720 you wrote this. I said, yes, I did, and I said, okay, 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:41.920 it is the most incredible pile of ship I have 0:58:42.080 --> 0:58:47.520 ever read in my life. However, I'm gonna give you 0:58:47.600 --> 0:58:54.440 an a once because it's an incredibly convincing pile of ship. 0:58:56.120 --> 0:59:01.640 So I get. I used that to illustrate. It's not 0:59:01.800 --> 0:59:05.200 just yeah I remember the Battle of Hastings ten sixty six, Yeah, 0:59:05.200 --> 0:59:08.640 I remember. No, it's how do you learn? How do 0:59:08.680 --> 0:59:12.840 you learn to survive? How do you learn to advance? 0:59:13.120 --> 0:59:16.440 How do you learn to educate yourself? I am just 0:59:16.880 --> 0:59:20.720 so lucky that I had that opportunity, and I was 0:59:20.760 --> 0:59:23.880 still living in Mexico. I was commuting back and forth, 0:59:24.160 --> 0:59:26.840 so I was going to New York City working in clubs. 0:59:26.840 --> 0:59:29.880 They're working in music stores, you know, so it was 0:59:29.920 --> 0:59:34.200 pretty cool. Let's let's slow down a little bit here. Okay, 0:59:34.200 --> 0:59:37.440 when do you start taking classical piano? When I was five, 0:59:37.680 --> 0:59:40.080 my mother taught me to read. It was an incredible gift. 0:59:40.320 --> 0:59:42.760 And then my dad said, oh, so you could read, 0:59:43.280 --> 0:59:45.520 and went yeah, like a little snot yeah, I could read. 0:59:45.680 --> 0:59:48.200 I'm reading Huckleberry Fame with my mom. So he walks 0:59:48.200 --> 0:59:50.560 into the library, grabs a copy of The Gathering Storm 0:59:50.560 --> 0:59:53.240 by Wisdom Churchill, drops into my lapse and read that 0:59:53.760 --> 0:59:55.920 it took me three years to get through it. But 0:59:56.040 --> 1:00:00.080 that's why WinCE Churchill happens to be a someone that 1:00:00.160 --> 1:00:02.960 I respect. But yes, my mom taught me to read 1:00:02.960 --> 1:00:05.200 when I was five, and we always had a piano. 1:00:05.280 --> 1:00:08.160 She played piano and I would bang on the keys 1:00:08.200 --> 1:00:10.440 and I said, can I take pianolists? And she's sure? 1:00:10.840 --> 1:00:14.080 And how did you become proficient in other instruments? When 1:00:14.120 --> 1:00:19.160 we moved to Mexico, the guitar was kind of the 1:00:19.400 --> 1:00:24.080 national instrument. Plus, my dad, who was not a musician, 1:00:24.360 --> 1:00:29.320 had an incredibly deep record collection. A friend of his, 1:00:29.320 --> 1:00:31.320 who was a disc jockey in Washington d seen him. 1:00:31.320 --> 1:00:35.800 Al Ross would send him boxes full of records because 1:00:35.840 --> 1:00:38.280 it was a jazz station and they didn't play a 1:00:38.280 --> 1:00:41.640 lot of other records and even some jazz. That's when 1:00:41.680 --> 1:00:45.360 I got turned onto the guitar player Howard Roberts, along 1:00:45.400 --> 1:00:47.280 with West Montgomery and a bunch of other folks. But 1:00:48.120 --> 1:00:53.920 so listening to my dad's records and then all of 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:56.800 a sudden, we're living in the rock and roll era, 1:00:57.440 --> 1:00:59.960 where if you have a guitar and you know three chords, 1:01:00.880 --> 1:01:06.360 you're happening. You can form a band. So my parents 1:01:06.560 --> 1:01:10.320 gave me a guitar from my tenth birthday. I really 1:01:10.360 --> 1:01:15.840 wanted a bicycle had pissed me off, so hung on 1:01:15.920 --> 1:01:18.520 the wall for about six months. And then a friend 1:01:18.560 --> 1:01:21.520 of mine named Kurt Bundy, who lived in the apartment downstairs, 1:01:21.560 --> 1:01:26.280 started taking guitar lessons. Has said, I'll teach you some 1:01:26.360 --> 1:01:29.400 chords so that I have somebody to play with. And 1:01:29.480 --> 1:01:34.800 so I started playing, and I went, holy crap, this 1:01:34.920 --> 1:01:39.640 is awesome. I mean, I just somehow or other, I 1:01:39.640 --> 1:01:42.440 don't know, evoke in mind, meld, grocked it, whatever you know, 1:01:42.720 --> 1:01:45.240 the term you want to use. I just fell in 1:01:45.280 --> 1:01:48.240 love with it to the point where I had a 1:01:48.280 --> 1:01:51.200 sixty point one great average because all I didn't was 1:01:51.240 --> 1:01:54.880 play the guitar. But yeah, was that sixty capter in 1:01:54.960 --> 1:01:57.400 Mexico pretty much the same everywhere. That's all I want 1:01:57.440 --> 1:02:00.240 to do is play the guitar. Practiced eight hours a day. 1:02:00.240 --> 1:02:03.040 So you say you were playing gigs at a young 1:02:03.120 --> 1:02:06.200 age in Mexico, You're in the middle of Connecticut. You're 1:02:06.240 --> 1:02:09.000 going to taft Are you playing in bands when you're 1:02:09.000 --> 1:02:11.240 in high school? Oh? Yeah, I mean we made it 1:02:11.280 --> 1:02:14.000 a great reputation by playing a rock version of the 1:02:14.040 --> 1:02:16.680 school song and got any detention for three weeks, but 1:02:16.800 --> 1:02:20.000 that established us as a rock band. The band that 1:02:20.040 --> 1:02:27.720 we had a taft um And I remember after a 1:02:27.720 --> 1:02:31.160 a visitation with a young lady from one of the 1:02:31.200 --> 1:02:36.440 boarding schools, Mr Douglas, who was the other assistant head master, said, Baxtor, 1:02:37.600 --> 1:02:40.320 you're grounded and your band is not going to play 1:02:40.320 --> 1:02:44.520 anymore gigs. Well, nobody would go to the school dances, 1:02:44.560 --> 1:02:47.720 so he had to relent. So the power of music. 1:02:47.760 --> 1:02:51.880 And then my senior year, Mr Oscarson, who was the 1:02:51.960 --> 1:02:58.440 dean of students and a wonderful man, because there was 1:02:58.480 --> 1:03:01.280 a group of us that were the trouble Acres, and 1:03:01.400 --> 1:03:03.680 so he figured it bring us all together into groups 1:03:03.720 --> 1:03:06.680 who can keep an eye on us. And when we 1:03:06.800 --> 1:03:12.320 formed this band, uh, the other girls school started asking 1:03:12.360 --> 1:03:15.840 if we would play you know, Dobb's Ferry or St. 1:03:15.840 --> 1:03:21.400 Margaret's or Emma Willard or and so the dean said yeah, 1:03:21.480 --> 1:03:24.240 and he started booking the bands. And we came from 1:03:24.280 --> 1:03:29.960 ten and so one of our one of the people 1:03:29.960 --> 1:03:33.120 that we knew in town became our sort of road 1:03:33.160 --> 1:03:36.280 guy and would take us to the shows. Mr Oskinson 1:03:36.360 --> 1:03:38.880 would book the bands. And yeah, we were It was great. 1:03:39.240 --> 1:03:42.640 It was really cool. I can't beat that. You know. 1:03:42.800 --> 1:03:44.680 How did you end up working at Manny? That's a 1:03:45.760 --> 1:03:50.240 slight uh mimsing omer that I have to correct. I 1:03:50.360 --> 1:03:54.320 started working at Jimmy's. Uh. Mannis was a big part 1:03:54.400 --> 1:03:58.040 of my life because I worked on street at Jimmie's 1:03:58.120 --> 1:04:01.680 music shop and also ended up working at Dan Armstrong's 1:04:01.680 --> 1:04:04.960 guitar shop. And when I was living in Mexico, Henry 1:04:05.080 --> 1:04:08.840 Henry Goldrick, who was the guy that everybody knows when 1:04:08.840 --> 1:04:11.760 you walk into the door, say you got fifty signs 1:04:11.800 --> 1:04:13.200 you want to buy and get out of my store, 1:04:13.720 --> 1:04:17.200 but you get forty offf and you walk in the door. 1:04:17.320 --> 1:04:19.720 So Henry took a liking to me and kind of 1:04:19.800 --> 1:04:22.200 kept me under his wing. He was like my second dad, 1:04:22.480 --> 1:04:25.120 very special man. But I work the way. Wait, you're 1:04:25.160 --> 1:04:28.280 working at Jimmy's and Dan Armstrong, how do you ultimately 1:04:28.360 --> 1:04:31.439 meet him? Well, because I started working at Jimmy's because 1:04:31.480 --> 1:04:34.600 I was standing outside the music store and Frank Scuolachi 1:04:35.720 --> 1:04:40.080 Jimmy Sculaschi, the Squashi brothers owned it. Um was trying 1:04:40.120 --> 1:04:46.400 to uh interact with a customer who didn't speak English. 1:04:46.440 --> 1:04:50.240 And as you know, if someone doesn't speak English and 1:04:50.440 --> 1:04:53.880 the only language that you know, the first thing you 1:04:53.960 --> 1:04:58.040 do is to talk louder and slower. So there's Jimmy 1:04:58.080 --> 1:05:04.760 going String's love Bell La Strings La Bella, and the 1:05:04.800 --> 1:05:07.400 guys look at him like, okay, that's like when you 1:05:07.440 --> 1:05:11.360 talk to a dog and they hear nip nip. So 1:05:12.960 --> 1:05:16.200 I walked in and I translated for the gentleman, and 1:05:16.320 --> 1:05:19.640 Jimmy said, you want a job. I said, yes, sir, 1:05:19.800 --> 1:05:23.800 but I can only work on Christmas vacation, Easter vacation, 1:05:23.840 --> 1:05:26.160 and in the summer because I go to I'm going 1:05:26.160 --> 1:05:29.640 to school. He says, that's fine. So it was the 1:05:29.760 --> 1:05:34.800 perfect job. So so I thought I was very happy 1:05:35.280 --> 1:05:39.000 taking two Fender twin reaver rooms up six flights of 1:05:39.080 --> 1:05:41.120 stairs in the middle of August for bucking a quarter 1:05:41.160 --> 1:05:44.560 an hour. And I started because I had grown up 1:05:44.560 --> 1:05:47.360 in Mexico and there was nobody to repair my guitars 1:05:47.600 --> 1:05:51.320 or my amplifiers. I gained some fundamental knowledge in both 1:05:51.320 --> 1:05:58.280 those areas and began repairing guitars at Jimmy's. And that's 1:05:58.280 --> 1:06:00.720 when Dan Armstrong realized we're a noa trs coming out 1:06:00.720 --> 1:06:03.360 of Jimmy's. So he said, I'll pay you five bucks 1:06:03.400 --> 1:06:06.960 an hour, which was all fortune in nine four to 1:06:07.040 --> 1:06:09.600 come and work for me. But at six o'clock every 1:06:09.720 --> 1:06:15.120 night they would basically close off. Now there was Terminal Music, 1:06:15.320 --> 1:06:24.520 Ben's Music, UM, uh Manny's, uh Charles Ponty. There were 1:06:24.560 --> 1:06:27.200 a number of music stores, but the deal was that 1:06:28.160 --> 1:06:32.320 each music store could only have one franchise or other 1:06:32.440 --> 1:06:37.360 music stores cannot have uh dual franchisees. So at six 1:06:37.360 --> 1:06:40.440 o'clock at night, myself and all the stock boys from 1:06:40.440 --> 1:06:44.959 the different stores they would go okay. So Henry would 1:06:44.960 --> 1:06:48.240 come out and uh Billy would come down from Terminal 1:06:48.240 --> 1:06:51.240 and say, okay, I'll trade your two jazz masters at 1:06:51.240 --> 1:06:54.960 a deluxe reverb for one Rickebacker uh twelve string it. 1:06:55.120 --> 1:06:57.760 So anyway, that was all we were moving stuff all 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:00.520 over forty Street and then I met when I met 1:07:00.560 --> 1:07:03.440 Henry because of that, he's still a liking to me 1:07:04.840 --> 1:07:08.040 and we had become friends over the long term, and 1:07:08.080 --> 1:07:13.600 we stayed friends way after you know, I left Taft 1:07:13.680 --> 1:07:16.919 and way after until I became you know, even when 1:07:16.920 --> 1:07:24.320 I became a successful musician. And I remember one day, Uh, Henry, 1:07:25.040 --> 1:07:28.080 he said, I walked into the store and typically Henry, 1:07:28.200 --> 1:07:29.600 I made. I don't know if you knew Henry, but 1:07:30.640 --> 1:07:33.160 certainly been to me and he's an interacting with him, right, 1:07:33.240 --> 1:07:37.840 so you know, so I walk in and uh, I said, Henry, 1:07:37.840 --> 1:07:40.680 you got anything new? And he says, God, damnit, skunk 1:07:41.000 --> 1:07:44.280 you you could endorse anything you want. I here. So 1:07:44.360 --> 1:07:46.600 he handed me an ovation in classgow guitar which I 1:07:46.680 --> 1:07:48.960 used on the album, and said take this and get 1:07:49.000 --> 1:07:51.040 out of my store. But you know, Henry was gruff. 1:07:51.240 --> 1:07:53.520 I mean it was that was that was his personality. 1:07:53.920 --> 1:07:56.640 So the next day I came back and I said, 1:07:57.280 --> 1:07:59.880 can I talk to you? And he always had time 1:08:00.000 --> 1:08:02.160 for me. So we went upstairs and they said, what's 1:08:02.200 --> 1:08:07.560 on your mind. I said, I've been offered this incredible 1:08:07.640 --> 1:08:12.600 opportunity to serve my country, but I'm taking a lot 1:08:12.640 --> 1:08:16.360 of grief from a number of my colleagues in the 1:08:16.520 --> 1:08:23.519 music business. And he said, screw them. Do you believe 1:08:23.520 --> 1:08:26.760 in this? I said, yes, Sir, I really do. I 1:08:27.280 --> 1:08:31.639 was brought up on my father UH fifty five years 1:08:31.640 --> 1:08:35.840 active military, twenty years reserved. I was brought up to 1:08:35.960 --> 1:08:38.719 believe in some of the things that we talked about. 1:08:39.200 --> 1:08:41.559 He said, will you do it? You go do it, 1:08:42.280 --> 1:08:45.720 and if anybody gives you any ship, you tell him 1:08:45.800 --> 1:08:49.160 come talk to me. And I thought, my god, not 1:08:49.240 --> 1:08:52.519 only did I had I always loved this man, but 1:08:54.200 --> 1:08:56.360 now I know that I had done the right thing. 1:08:56.960 --> 1:08:58.960 And here's a guy that most people think of, some 1:08:59.000 --> 1:09:01.400 gruff guy's gotta hell at you, get you the hell 1:09:01.439 --> 1:09:03.320 out of his store with a couple of Tony herbs 1:09:03.840 --> 1:09:07.479 and UH an offender Strato Castle. So I was very 1:09:07.560 --> 1:09:11.280 lucky to have him, Dan Armstrong, and even to the 1:09:11.360 --> 1:09:14.000 point Frank and Jimmy who took me under their wing. 1:09:14.160 --> 1:09:18.600 Good people, good people. Dan Armstrong became famous for the 1:09:18.680 --> 1:09:21.160 loose sight guitar. What was Dan Armstrong doing in the 1:09:21.160 --> 1:09:26.120 middle sixties, Danny had the only guitar customizing shop that 1:09:26.200 --> 1:09:30.080 I knew of pretty much in the United States. You 1:09:30.160 --> 1:09:34.960 could bring your instrument into into Danny's place and have 1:09:35.160 --> 1:09:40.320 something done to it, like okay. Uh. We invented the 1:09:40.360 --> 1:09:43.080 coil fader for instant the ability to split the coils, 1:09:43.080 --> 1:09:47.360 and a humbucker. Um. We invented a number of different 1:09:48.360 --> 1:09:54.040 ways to wire and rewire electric guitars to produce different sounds, 1:09:54.560 --> 1:09:59.719 different tones. Um. We would take dan electro guitars, spend 1:09:59.720 --> 1:10:05.040 a b to time on them and release them as hybrids. Uh. 1:10:05.240 --> 1:10:08.519 Nobody else was doing that, And so every guitar player 1:10:08.640 --> 1:10:14.360 on the planet hung out at Danny's place. Bill Burkeo 1:10:14.479 --> 1:10:17.759 was building amps across the hall, Danny was repairing guitars, 1:10:18.400 --> 1:10:20.880 and it was great. I mean, you'd walk in and 1:10:22.080 --> 1:10:25.360 there would be five or six guys playing my job. 1:10:25.479 --> 1:10:29.599 As a little snot nose kid, Danny said, here's this guitar. 1:10:29.640 --> 1:10:33.400 It's got four regular strings and to bass strings. You 1:10:33.920 --> 1:10:36.880 are going to learn the cop chords and basslines at 1:10:36.880 --> 1:10:38.760 the same time, and I'm gonna teach you how to 1:10:38.800 --> 1:10:42.120 do it. Because me and Sam Brown and Eddie Deal 1:10:42.360 --> 1:10:46.720 and all the seriously frightening bebop guitar players who were 1:10:46.760 --> 1:10:49.519 hanging around at that place wanted somebody to accompany them 1:10:49.520 --> 1:10:52.480 all the time. So okay, that was my first education 1:10:52.800 --> 1:10:56.120 in a very different kind of guitar playing. Um, and 1:10:56.160 --> 1:10:58.160 I'll tell you another great story, if you got a 1:10:58.200 --> 1:11:04.920 minute under a Stegovia comes in his ramires Is. He's 1:11:04.960 --> 1:11:08.360 broken one of the tuning pigs on one side of them, 1:11:08.560 --> 1:11:10.800 and you have as you know, they're come in three. 1:11:10.880 --> 1:11:14.200 So they really couldn't repair an at concert that night, 1:11:14.520 --> 1:11:17.560 so he brought it in. So I ran across the 1:11:17.560 --> 1:11:21.639 streets to Charles Ponti, who was also a music store, 1:11:21.640 --> 1:11:24.480 but he was a violin and cello repair a guy, 1:11:24.640 --> 1:11:26.599 and so I was hoping against hope that he would 1:11:26.640 --> 1:11:31.360 have a set of classical guitar machines. And he did. Uh. 1:11:31.400 --> 1:11:34.720 So I bought him, brought him back over, installed him 1:11:34.760 --> 1:11:39.000 on this Ramires, strung it up, tuned it up, walked out, 1:11:39.720 --> 1:11:43.400 and Mr Segovi was sitting patiently on the sofa. Meanwhile, 1:11:43.520 --> 1:11:46.280 Mike Bluefield and Frank Zappa and a bunch of other 1:11:46.320 --> 1:11:49.320 guys were all standing around a couple of amplifiers hang 1:11:49.360 --> 1:11:53.120 out playing rock and just having a great time. And 1:11:54.200 --> 1:11:56.400 you know, I saw this on a footlook of serenity 1:11:56.400 --> 1:11:59.479 on on Andrews to go his face. I walked over 1:11:59.520 --> 1:12:04.120 and said, in Spanish, here's your instrument, sir uh, let 1:12:04.120 --> 1:12:06.679 me know if this is to your liking, and because 1:12:06.720 --> 1:12:09.280 I had a tremendous amount of respect for this guy, 1:12:09.360 --> 1:12:11.840 and tell me what you think. I said, guys, stand 1:12:11.880 --> 1:12:14.840 by for one second. Just as a gentleman can make 1:12:14.880 --> 1:12:17.880 sure his guitar is working, so he tunes it up. 1:12:18.640 --> 1:12:21.640 He plays the first sixty four bars of the concerto 1:12:21.800 --> 1:12:26.880 that on Quest by Rodrigo and I'm losing it. I 1:12:26.960 --> 1:12:31.600 just can't, I mean, and the way he plays the 1:12:31.960 --> 1:12:35.439 emotion anyway, it was. It was an incredible moment in 1:12:35.520 --> 1:12:39.880 my life. And even the other players were just transfixed. 1:12:40.720 --> 1:12:43.240 And then in Spanish you said, you tell those people 1:12:44.120 --> 1:12:46.000 that you don't hang it around your neck like a 1:12:46.040 --> 1:12:50.599 canoe paddle. You sit down, behold it against your body 1:12:50.920 --> 1:12:58.559 because it is a part of you. It feeded through 1:12:59.800 --> 1:13:04.639 Its connected to your spirit and your mind and your heart. Yep, 1:13:05.400 --> 1:13:08.760 that's what I do. That makes perfect sense to me. Now. 1:13:08.760 --> 1:13:11.320 There were times when I leaped around stage, but ultimately 1:13:11.360 --> 1:13:13.560 I ended up being a sit down guitar player and 1:13:13.680 --> 1:13:16.800 BB King. One time he said to me, Jesus kunk 1:13:17.120 --> 1:13:19.320 if I after hear one of his knees had a 1:13:19.400 --> 1:13:22.000 knee operation, that if I had only known, I used 1:13:22.080 --> 1:13:23.639 to see you sit down and play all the time. 1:13:23.760 --> 1:13:25.280 If I had known, I would have done this since 1:13:25.320 --> 1:13:28.920 the day I was born. So anyway, it was a 1:13:28.960 --> 1:13:33.040 wonderful experience working at Danny's, being on Street which is 1:13:33.080 --> 1:13:37.920 now all disappeared, it's all gone. It was a unique 1:13:37.920 --> 1:13:50.240 place in the world. Okay, you're there when the Beatles arrived, 1:13:50.680 --> 1:13:53.879 what was your experience and was that positive or negative? 1:13:54.400 --> 1:13:57.479 I would say it was all positive because along with 1:13:57.560 --> 1:14:03.760 the Beatles came some really amazing bands that I thought 1:14:03.800 --> 1:14:11.000 were amazing. The yard Birds, the Kicks. I thought Village Village, 1:14:11.040 --> 1:14:13.599 Green Preservation Society was one of the greatest records I've 1:14:13.600 --> 1:14:16.240 ever heard in my life. It's like pat sounds. The 1:14:16.320 --> 1:14:21.920 Yardbirds were playing music with incredible guitar players playing writing 1:14:21.960 --> 1:14:26.679 songs that had time changes, key changes, field groove changes. 1:14:27.640 --> 1:14:32.160 That was amazing. So I thought number one, it was 1:14:32.240 --> 1:14:38.920 a wonderful thing. Number two and I have no um 1:14:39.160 --> 1:14:43.320 I never want to speak ill of pop pop pop music, 1:14:43.640 --> 1:14:47.880 pop pop pop pop pop music, which Jerry Lee Lewis 1:14:47.960 --> 1:14:50.040 used to refer to as the Bobbies. To all these 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:53.000 Bobbies Bobby b Bobby Bobby right al Bobby Bobby Bobby 1:14:53.960 --> 1:15:02.400 um and used to make them crazy. Uh, the bridge said, hey, 1:15:02.520 --> 1:15:05.400 have you ever heard Lightning Hopkins? Have you ever heard 1:15:05.400 --> 1:15:08.880 Buddy Waters? And for many people, they've never heard of that. 1:15:09.640 --> 1:15:14.160 So I believe they they gave America an education into 1:15:14.160 --> 1:15:18.559 its roots music. So I thought it was fantastic, right, 1:15:19.720 --> 1:15:22.640 no problem at all. Okay, you're working at Dan Armstrong's. 1:15:22.640 --> 1:15:29.240 You reference Bloomfield, Zappa Yardbirds back in page Other than yourself, 1:15:29.600 --> 1:15:32.080 who do you admire? Who's at the top of that pile? 1:15:32.200 --> 1:15:34.040 I don't know. It's a it's a tough question. But 1:15:34.160 --> 1:15:39.080 do I what's my favorite airplane? Well, that's my favorite 1:15:39.120 --> 1:15:43.120 fire plane. Well it depends on the mission. Um, it 1:15:43.240 --> 1:15:50.360 was my favorite guitar player, I would say, Um. Probably 1:15:51.040 --> 1:15:56.200 overall for creativity would be Jeff Beck. You never know 1:15:56.280 --> 1:15:58.559 where he's going. There's you never know what that. There 1:15:58.600 --> 1:16:01.559 are other people who were in and lameless who are 1:16:01.680 --> 1:16:05.559 masters of the obvious. Jeff Beck is not one of those. 1:16:07.600 --> 1:16:12.639 Another guitar player I discovered playing in uh a little 1:16:12.680 --> 1:16:15.800 club in Austin and sort of brought him to l A. 1:16:16.160 --> 1:16:23.400 Was Eric Johnson. Wonderful guitar player, wonderful player, and again 1:16:24.520 --> 1:16:28.880 not a master of the obvious melodic. That's one of 1:16:28.920 --> 1:16:31.519 the reasons why I loved the Ventures so much, and 1:16:31.640 --> 1:16:33.360 I joined their fan club when I was eleven years 1:16:33.400 --> 1:16:35.400 old and then ended up finally playing with him and 1:16:35.479 --> 1:16:41.080 producing him and melody. Hey, guys, what a concept. There's 1:16:41.160 --> 1:16:46.400 a melody. Let's play the melody. So people who grow 1:16:46.560 --> 1:16:48.599 up and there is not a guitar player that I've 1:16:48.640 --> 1:16:51.639 ever met who doesn't have a tremendous amount of love 1:16:52.080 --> 1:16:56.960 or at least respect for the Ventures because of that. Um, 1:16:57.840 --> 1:17:01.320 guys like Eric Johnson are so lodic. So it's Jeff Beck. 1:17:02.120 --> 1:17:06.280 They're they're melody guys, and I that's hopefully what I 1:17:06.400 --> 1:17:13.280 aspire to is melodies, compositions within compositions. Now, Jeff Beck, please, 1:17:13.360 --> 1:17:16.240 without a pick, what's your take on that? If he 1:17:16.320 --> 1:17:22.200 wants to play with his nose? Um, there were outside 1:17:22.320 --> 1:17:25.720 of the National Cathedral in Mexico City when I was 1:17:25.800 --> 1:17:29.479 a kid, there was a guitar player with no arms 1:17:30.760 --> 1:17:34.200 who played with his feet and he played pretty well. 1:17:35.479 --> 1:17:41.920 So I guess I I see no efficacy and being 1:17:42.040 --> 1:17:46.160 judgmental in terms of how one approaches the instrument. Okay, 1:17:46.240 --> 1:17:49.479 so you're in TAFT, you graduate, you end up going 1:17:49.560 --> 1:17:51.080 to be you? How do you end up going to 1:17:51.160 --> 1:17:53.720 Boston University? I wanted to go to the School of 1:17:53.760 --> 1:17:58.880 Public Communications. Uh, kind of following my dad's footsteps on 1:17:59.040 --> 1:18:06.280 some level, um, and ended up at BU, at the 1:18:06.320 --> 1:18:09.000 School of Public In the case, now, did you graduate 1:18:09.080 --> 1:18:12.240 from BU? No? I joined a rock and roll band. Well, 1:18:12.400 --> 1:18:15.240 I joined the Ultimate Spinish. Although I was playing bass 1:18:15.320 --> 1:18:18.360 for Tim Buckley and playing gigs around town, doing a 1:18:18.439 --> 1:18:22.240 lot of work at a place called Natural Sound, which 1:18:22.320 --> 1:18:25.160 was all country music, and I was playing in the 1:18:25.240 --> 1:18:30.080 combat zone either at the at the Intermission Lounge, which 1:18:30.360 --> 1:18:33.000 if you ever saw the Blues Brothers, you know about 1:18:33.080 --> 1:18:35.240 chicken wire and all that kind of stuff. And then 1:18:35.280 --> 1:18:38.000 there was the Crazy Horse was just right next to it, 1:18:38.320 --> 1:18:40.640 and I was just learning to play pedal steel, and 1:18:40.720 --> 1:18:42.679 I was I love country music. Again. It was playing 1:18:42.680 --> 1:18:46.280 a lot of the country and so for that I 1:18:46.400 --> 1:18:49.479 started doing gigs and I realized I can make I 1:18:49.520 --> 1:18:51.840 can make a lot of money and do what I 1:18:51.880 --> 1:18:56.120 wanted to do, or wait four years and I just didn't. 1:18:56.360 --> 1:18:58.599 I didn't want didn't wait. I don't want to wait. 1:18:58.720 --> 1:19:00.240 So how long did you go to be you? And 1:19:00.360 --> 1:19:02.760 what'd your father say when you dropped out? I went 1:19:02.880 --> 1:19:08.519 for a year. My mother was apoplectic, and my father, 1:19:09.800 --> 1:19:13.400 who as any good father would do, had planned out 1:19:13.479 --> 1:19:16.439 my life for me if I wanted it, to graduate 1:19:16.479 --> 1:19:20.679 from Boston University, to become a junior vice president in Kodak. 1:19:20.880 --> 1:19:23.960 You moved to Rochester, You work your way through the corporation. 1:19:24.560 --> 1:19:26.840 You probably do thirty years and end up as a 1:19:26.880 --> 1:19:31.920 senior executive vice president. You retire um which if you 1:19:32.520 --> 1:19:35.880 in my mind, that was beautiful that my father would 1:19:35.920 --> 1:19:39.560 care enough about me to try to do something like that. 1:19:40.240 --> 1:19:43.240 It's just incredible. I didn't resent it, far from it, 1:19:44.120 --> 1:19:47.479 But like every other snot nose kids with a guitar, 1:19:48.520 --> 1:19:53.000 I ended up playing in bands, making no money, you know, 1:19:53.240 --> 1:19:58.080 basically you know the drill. And my father, although he 1:19:58.200 --> 1:20:03.479 was supportive, there are times when he was disappointed. And 1:20:03.560 --> 1:20:08.280 of course my mother, well, my god, if uh you know, 1:20:08.880 --> 1:20:10.880 how what could she tell them the ladies at the 1:20:10.920 --> 1:20:13.479 country club? You know what the son wasn't doing anything. 1:20:14.160 --> 1:20:16.920 He's playing in bands. My mother came down to the 1:20:17.000 --> 1:20:18.920 village to see us playing one of the clubs down there. 1:20:19.000 --> 1:20:21.640 She walked down the middle of the street. She was 1:20:21.840 --> 1:20:27.440 kind of afraid to be too close to the the clientele. 1:20:28.479 --> 1:20:31.240 So and I get it. You know, this is not 1:20:31.360 --> 1:20:33.920 putting my mother down. She was scared, she didn't. I mean, 1:20:34.120 --> 1:20:37.640 come on, let's face it, walking down Bleaker Street in 1:20:37.760 --> 1:20:43.040 nineteen are you kidding me? It's like the Star Wars 1:20:43.160 --> 1:20:48.760 bar so. So were they supported financially and did they 1:20:48.840 --> 1:20:51.760 ever get it? I never really had to rely on 1:20:51.880 --> 1:20:56.400 them financially, And even when I was working in in 1:20:56.800 --> 1:20:59.200 uh during the time I was going to TAFT, I 1:20:59.280 --> 1:21:03.519 gave everything I made to them. It just made sense 1:21:03.600 --> 1:21:06.840 to me, and they would give me an allowance. But 1:21:07.040 --> 1:21:11.519 I thought, okay, you know whatever, my however, my work 1:21:11.600 --> 1:21:15.760 ethic was, that's what made perfect sense to me. I 1:21:15.880 --> 1:21:20.680 live here, I should help support I'm making money. Hey, 1:21:20.720 --> 1:21:23.120 I'm making a buck on a quarter an hour for 1:21:23.280 --> 1:21:27.600 eight hours a day in nineteen sixty not that so 1:21:28.560 --> 1:21:32.559 Boston is a provincial town, not that there isn't a scene. 1:21:32.840 --> 1:21:34.840 How long you in Boston and when and how to 1:21:34.920 --> 1:21:39.800 decide to leave. I'm in Boston obviously from seven and 1:21:39.920 --> 1:21:49.200 sixty eight to go to Boston University UM, and then 1:21:49.280 --> 1:21:51.960 I stayed for about another two or three years. I 1:21:52.120 --> 1:21:55.280 was doing session work in Boston. I had a guitar 1:21:55.400 --> 1:22:00.240 shop with Dave Schuckter. We were building and repairing guitars. UM. 1:22:00.520 --> 1:22:02.840 I was commuting to New York to do sessions down 1:22:03.000 --> 1:22:05.920 in New York as well. Uh, there was a fair 1:22:05.920 --> 1:22:09.000 amount of working in Boston. Wasn't huge, but it was 1:22:09.040 --> 1:22:11.360 a fair amount. And I had already had friends in 1:22:11.400 --> 1:22:13.720 the session scene in New York, so that worked out 1:22:14.680 --> 1:22:26.200 UM pretty well. UM. And around nineteen seventy I was 1:22:26.479 --> 1:22:29.639 working in the intermediate sound and there was a band 1:22:29.800 --> 1:22:34.360 called The Beat Game and they were being produced by 1:22:34.400 --> 1:22:39.000 a gentleman named Gary Katz, and these guys were all friends. 1:22:40.080 --> 1:22:44.240 And there were different bands coming into intermedia, and there 1:22:44.400 --> 1:22:47.160 was never really anything like a house guitar player or 1:22:47.160 --> 1:22:50.400 a house piano player, but there were always bands that 1:22:50.520 --> 1:22:54.120 needed players. So there were many instances where bands would 1:22:54.120 --> 1:22:56.080 come in and say we need guitar player, or we 1:22:56.200 --> 1:23:00.280 need guitar on this or something. So UM, there was 1:23:00.400 --> 1:23:03.280 something that had to do with the beat game. I 1:23:03.400 --> 1:23:06.240 think it was playing acoustic guitar while the other guitar 1:23:06.320 --> 1:23:08.519 player was a great guitar player. Was they need an 1:23:08.520 --> 1:23:11.479 acoustic in the track. And that's why I met Gary 1:23:11.560 --> 1:23:17.040 Katz and Gary said, I have a production project in 1:23:17.120 --> 1:23:22.479 New York with a woman named Linda Hoover I think 1:23:22.520 --> 1:23:24.680 that was your stage named Linda Willingham, I think was 1:23:24.720 --> 1:23:28.280 a regular name. And there are these two songwriters who 1:23:28.320 --> 1:23:31.599 are writing all the material for the album called Walter 1:23:31.760 --> 1:23:35.000 Becker and Donald Fagan. Would you be willing to come 1:23:35.080 --> 1:23:40.519 down and play on this project? I said, yeah, sure, 1:23:41.280 --> 1:23:43.200 you know I'm a sense of artist. Where's the chuck? 1:23:43.720 --> 1:23:47.600 So yeah, I got on train, went down there and 1:23:48.200 --> 1:23:51.240 did the project, and I was really impressed with the music, 1:23:52.439 --> 1:23:56.160 and I said, you know, this songwriting is really spectacular, 1:23:56.320 --> 1:23:58.680 at least I think. And I said, well, we've never 1:23:58.880 --> 1:24:02.439 heard anybody play gus are like you do, especially on 1:24:02.520 --> 1:24:05.400 our music. So maybe what we ought to do is 1:24:05.479 --> 1:24:11.960 whoever whoever passes go first, call everybody else up and 1:24:12.040 --> 1:24:16.479 we'll form a band. And so Becker and Fagan came 1:24:16.479 --> 1:24:21.879 out to Los Angeles, got a publishing deal with ABC Records, 1:24:23.520 --> 1:24:28.320 and then said to everybody Okay, we've passed. Go does 1:24:28.360 --> 1:24:32.160 everybody go to l A? Okay? So we all went 1:24:32.200 --> 1:24:36.880 to Los Angeles. Um I found various jobs playing around 1:24:37.040 --> 1:24:40.280 Los Angeles. I was a guitar repairman, so I met 1:24:40.320 --> 1:24:43.040 every guitar player in the substance scene, everybody in l A. 1:24:43.960 --> 1:24:46.360 I ended up playing a lot of the Palomino Club, 1:24:46.520 --> 1:24:49.160 the Playtime, and a lot of the country bars around 1:24:49.240 --> 1:24:56.080 town playing pedal steel dough bro guitar. And one day 1:24:56.240 --> 1:25:01.000 we were rehearsing in the office of the president of 1:25:01.080 --> 1:25:07.479 ABC Records, um uh, Hard Stark and Jay Lasker, and 1:25:07.640 --> 1:25:10.680 usually we would break the gear down in time when 1:25:10.760 --> 1:25:13.560 they were before they show up in the morning. We 1:25:13.640 --> 1:25:17.760 stay up all night. One night we cut we didn't 1:25:17.800 --> 1:25:20.880 get out of there in time, and Jacobs say says, 1:25:20.960 --> 1:25:25.800 what the hell is this? And Gary Katz says, well, 1:25:27.120 --> 1:25:33.200 there's this band and they're playing in the material of 1:25:33.360 --> 1:25:38.360 the guys that you signed to a publishing deal. I said, well, 1:25:38.400 --> 1:25:42.160 all right, then I want to hear it. Jay was 1:25:42.240 --> 1:25:47.280 one of those record guy record record guys, and so 1:25:47.520 --> 1:25:50.280 we played for him and he went, I don't know 1:25:50.400 --> 1:25:54.080 what the hell you guys are doing. I mean, because 1:25:54.080 --> 1:25:58.560 we had slags like dr Udu's proto man. But I 1:25:58.720 --> 1:26:02.920 think I like it. Okay, I'll give you a record deal. 1:26:04.280 --> 1:26:06.320 And then Howard Start wrote me a check for a 1:26:06.400 --> 1:26:12.920 thousand dollars, said, skunk, go get an apartment, bring your 1:26:13.000 --> 1:26:15.320 girlfriend out, put somebody in the bank, and I went, 1:26:15.720 --> 1:26:20.599 holy crop, Yeah, thank you, this is great. I mean 1:26:20.680 --> 1:26:22.840 I made money with Ultimate Spinach and said, but this 1:26:23.040 --> 1:26:26.360 was like the real deal. And that's kind of how 1:26:26.400 --> 1:26:29.799 it all started. You know, let's go back a chapter. 1:26:30.080 --> 1:26:33.600 You talked to the advent of wanting to be the 1:26:33.960 --> 1:26:37.840 number one studio cat. So at this point in time, 1:26:37.960 --> 1:26:40.360 do you want it to be first call? There's a 1:26:40.400 --> 1:26:42.720 lot of guys, not a lot, but yes, I don't 1:26:42.720 --> 1:26:45.720 want to sound like a complete dipshit. No, okay, you 1:26:45.800 --> 1:26:47.720 wanted to be first call. So did you want to 1:26:47.760 --> 1:26:49.920 be a studio rat or did you want to be 1:26:50.000 --> 1:26:53.360 in a band? And when you were a studio rap 1:26:53.479 --> 1:26:55.920 before you in a band, how did you get all 1:26:56.000 --> 1:26:58.960 these gigs? Well, you got the gigs by other people, 1:26:59.760 --> 1:27:04.800 uh recommending it. That's always how the studio was. Yeah, 1:27:04.840 --> 1:27:07.439 but I know a lot of musicians, they're usually working 1:27:07.479 --> 1:27:09.519 it too well, of course, So were you good at 1:27:09.600 --> 1:27:12.960 working it. It must have been. I mean, of somebody, 1:27:13.000 --> 1:27:17.880 would I would I go the extra mile? Sure? Would I? 1:27:18.720 --> 1:27:22.559 Um work a little harder? Um? Would I say, hey, 1:27:22.640 --> 1:27:25.360 can you make me a cassette? And I'm going to 1:27:25.439 --> 1:27:27.360 go home and shed on this and I'll come back 1:27:27.400 --> 1:27:31.920 in the morning and I'll nail it. You know again. 1:27:32.000 --> 1:27:36.760 My dad always said, give a little more, it'll come back. Um. 1:27:37.000 --> 1:27:39.960 So that's kind of, I guess, kind of the way 1:27:40.000 --> 1:27:43.200 it was. I wanted to be a studio musician because 1:27:43.280 --> 1:27:46.439 I felt that it was the top gun of the 1:27:46.560 --> 1:27:52.560 music business. I like the idea of taking pride in 1:27:52.680 --> 1:27:56.960 being a craftsman because I built guitars too, and I 1:27:57.080 --> 1:27:59.680 worked with wood when I was a kid, especially in 1:27:59.760 --> 1:28:04.080 mex Ico. The idea of to me playing the guitar 1:28:05.040 --> 1:28:08.080 was a craft. I'm not bluewing it. I mean, it's 1:28:08.120 --> 1:28:10.360 an art, it's all of that, but it's also a craft. 1:28:10.600 --> 1:28:13.160 You're working with your hands. So I wanted to be 1:28:13.280 --> 1:28:17.800 the best craftsman I could possibly be. And watching the 1:28:17.920 --> 1:28:22.559 whole world around me, some of my friends actually die 1:28:22.880 --> 1:28:28.519 from stupidity, whether it's drugs or whatever. It was. There 1:28:28.640 --> 1:28:32.599 was something about the discipline and I think This came 1:28:32.640 --> 1:28:38.760 from my father about being a studio musician, where if 1:28:38.840 --> 1:28:43.920 you didn't show up on time, you're fired, and the 1:28:44.000 --> 1:28:47.559 story there's a thousand people waiting for that gig. If 1:28:47.600 --> 1:28:50.280 you don't play it right, if your mind is too 1:28:51.439 --> 1:28:56.280 messed up, you're fired. So to me, there was a 1:28:59.479 --> 1:29:03.800 to use, I guess a a military term. There was 1:29:03.880 --> 1:29:08.040 a doctrine that I followed that I thought this would 1:29:08.080 --> 1:29:11.240 be a good thing to do. It would be healthy. 1:29:12.040 --> 1:29:15.920 Now that doesn't mean that ours weren't crappy, but it was. 1:29:17.200 --> 1:29:21.080 It was a way to protect yourself against the the 1:29:22.320 --> 1:29:27.280 Sila and Charybdis of rock and roll craziness and insanity. 1:29:27.560 --> 1:29:30.840 So how did you decide to jump enjoying what became 1:29:30.920 --> 1:29:34.880 steely Dan? Well, that's when you know. Gary said, Okay, 1:29:34.960 --> 1:29:37.160 I think we got I think we passed. Go. So 1:29:37.320 --> 1:29:40.200 you're willing to stop being a studio musician and be 1:29:40.520 --> 1:29:42.720 in a band? No, I want to do both. And 1:29:42.800 --> 1:29:45.880 I was doing that as well in Boston and in 1:29:45.960 --> 1:29:49.760 New York. So I didn't see I didn't see a 1:29:49.880 --> 1:29:55.840 geo spatial uh separation problem. So moving to La was 1:29:56.680 --> 1:29:59.080 and my parents were gonna move to Los Angeles, so 1:29:59.080 --> 1:30:01.559 I thought, Okay, at least I got a place of sleep, 1:30:02.920 --> 1:30:05.519 and I will go and take a shot at this. Okay, 1:30:05.640 --> 1:30:10.080 ABC was a second rate label. Steely Dan makes an 1:30:10.120 --> 1:30:14.160 album there instantly a m hits. What was the experience 1:30:14.240 --> 1:30:16.320 on the other side of the fence. Well, I must 1:30:17.000 --> 1:30:19.519 I have to disagree with you a little bit. I'm 1:30:19.560 --> 1:30:22.080 not gonna be a worthy or umbrage because it makes 1:30:22.160 --> 1:30:26.760 me think of rain. But I don't think ABC was 1:30:26.840 --> 1:30:30.519 a second rate label. They did very well with people 1:30:30.600 --> 1:30:35.680 like Steve Barry in their A and R department, the grassroots, Hamilton, Joe, 1:30:35.760 --> 1:30:39.920 Franklin Reynolds, and they did very well. I thought, I 1:30:40.000 --> 1:30:43.479 thought they ran it. It was old school. I mean, 1:30:43.520 --> 1:30:46.200 the cigar smoke was thick when you walked into Jay 1:30:46.280 --> 1:30:51.759 Lasker's and Howard Stark's office. But they were old school 1:30:51.880 --> 1:30:53.760 and I think they did a really good job. As 1:30:53.760 --> 1:30:56.600 a matter of fact, when I joined, when I was 1:30:56.720 --> 1:31:00.360 offered the opportunity to actually join the Doobie Brothers, even 1:31:00.360 --> 1:31:03.040 though I was already playing with him, I went to 1:31:03.200 --> 1:31:06.640 Howard and Jay and said, you guys, I have this 1:31:06.760 --> 1:31:10.799 incredible opportunity to what's did I do? And Jay Lasker 1:31:10.920 --> 1:31:14.360 literally reached into his desk, Strawer pulled out my contract 1:31:15.160 --> 1:31:17.960 tort and half handed it to me and said, good luck. 1:31:18.040 --> 1:31:22.800 You never lied to me kids, good luck. And that 1:31:23.840 --> 1:31:26.320 is why I went to his bedside when he was 1:31:27.040 --> 1:31:32.560 in his last days. Old school, but old school in 1:31:32.640 --> 1:31:35.400 a way like Henry was old school. Those kind of 1:31:35.520 --> 1:31:39.960 people I understood and had a tremendous amount of love, 1:31:40.400 --> 1:31:48.360 affection and respect for so second rate label. I I 1:31:48.520 --> 1:31:51.800 understand what you're saying. They were not a major, they 1:31:51.880 --> 1:31:55.840 weren't our Cia, and they weren't Columbia, but they did 1:31:55.880 --> 1:31:59.320 good and they did well by their artists. That was 1:31:59.360 --> 1:32:03.439 Steely an instant hit. No. The first single that was 1:32:03.560 --> 1:32:08.040 released was a song called Dallas and if you go 1:32:08.280 --> 1:32:11.400 listen to it, it's a great song sung by the 1:32:11.479 --> 1:32:16.040 drummer Jimmy Hotter. It's almost a country tune. I'm playing 1:32:16.040 --> 1:32:19.479 a lot of pedal steel and Poco covered it, number 1:32:19.479 --> 1:32:22.719 of their own bands covered it, But for some reason, 1:32:22.880 --> 1:32:26.360 Becker and Fagan were frightened that between the name Steely 1:32:26.479 --> 1:32:29.599 Dan and having all this pedal steel and that kind 1:32:29.640 --> 1:32:33.960 of that they would be um button hooked or pigeonholed 1:32:34.640 --> 1:32:40.240 as a country band. So they pulled that back then 1:32:40.360 --> 1:32:44.760 released do It Again as the first single, and we 1:32:44.920 --> 1:32:47.760 were we were gigging. I mean, we were playing under 1:32:47.800 --> 1:32:52.240 the Ice House in Pasadena for five night. We were 1:32:53.160 --> 1:32:55.639 you know, Fanny was opening for us to talk about 1:32:55.640 --> 1:32:59.200 an incredible band, you know, talk about a band that 1:32:59.320 --> 1:33:04.519 deserves much more respect and admiration than they ever got. 1:33:05.520 --> 1:33:09.719 We were just we were gigging. We were playing local shows, 1:33:10.680 --> 1:33:13.320 so it wasn't really an instant hit. It took a 1:33:13.400 --> 1:33:16.960 little while, but I appreciate the compliment. Just to clarify, 1:33:17.000 --> 1:33:18.920 I'm talking about the perception on the other side of 1:33:18.960 --> 1:33:21.720 the fence. You know, there was no buzz on the 1:33:21.840 --> 1:33:25.080 album upon release. In terms of reviews, there was no 1:33:25.320 --> 1:33:27.559 FM play, and all of a sudden there were these 1:33:27.680 --> 1:33:31.280 magic AM tracks. But in any event, let me go back, 1:33:31.680 --> 1:33:33.479 what did you play on the album and what did 1:33:33.560 --> 1:33:36.120 Anny Diaz play? Well, you have to I guess song 1:33:36.240 --> 1:33:40.280 by song, but we split a lot of the guitar responsibilities. 1:33:41.479 --> 1:33:46.679 We both played on every track. Uh, sometimes he played 1:33:46.720 --> 1:33:53.560 a great solo undo It Again, Wow, and um my 1:33:53.760 --> 1:33:57.280 solos were kind of well known, things like Ricky, don't 1:33:57.320 --> 1:33:59.599 lose that number of my old school we all had 1:33:59.640 --> 1:34:02.840 a tune it is to play. But we all played 1:34:02.880 --> 1:34:05.320 together and I love playing with Danny. We were very 1:34:05.439 --> 1:34:10.559 different players, and it was one of those lucky things 1:34:10.720 --> 1:34:15.000 where are our playing just messed. It was a little 1:34:15.000 --> 1:34:18.599 bit like when I joined the Doobies and the way 1:34:18.800 --> 1:34:23.120 that Patrick Simmons and I played together. We came from 1:34:23.280 --> 1:34:28.680 very different approaches to the instrument, but we all The 1:34:28.760 --> 1:34:30.880 one thing about Danny and myself is that we grew 1:34:30.960 --> 1:34:34.400 up in New York, and New York guitar players have 1:34:34.520 --> 1:34:39.000 a certain etiquette. Um. As Joe Wallace used to say, 1:34:39.040 --> 1:34:41.120 I don't want to be in institute. Wasn't where everybody 1:34:41.200 --> 1:34:46.000 plays lead all the time, either do I. You make 1:34:46.160 --> 1:34:49.320 room for other musicians, and by doing that you begin 1:34:49.439 --> 1:34:53.879 to learn about your musical partners and your musical colleagues, 1:34:53.960 --> 1:34:59.800 and eventually you get to the point um where you 1:35:00.000 --> 1:35:03.680 become a better musician. I think without learning that etiquette, 1:35:04.080 --> 1:35:07.519 I may may have not had the tools that I 1:35:07.640 --> 1:35:11.000 needed to appreciate what was happening between myself and c 1:35:11.200 --> 1:35:15.479 J now Danny Diaz. He ultimately left the business right 1:35:15.760 --> 1:35:18.800 got into computers pretty much. Yeah, I believe that I 1:35:18.960 --> 1:35:21.800 talked to Danny a couple of times we we got 1:35:21.880 --> 1:35:23.800 a chance to talk about once in a while. I 1:35:23.920 --> 1:35:27.840 believe he's a computer programmer, writes code. Um, I just 1:35:28.040 --> 1:35:31.160 think that the experience and I'm not going to speak 1:35:31.200 --> 1:35:33.880 for him, and I don't never speak for anybody. I 1:35:34.040 --> 1:35:37.880 think for him the experience was different and maybe he 1:35:38.080 --> 1:35:41.880 just saw things like that was great. And I get it. 1:35:42.479 --> 1:35:44.120 I mean, I have my moments for I'm a rock 1:35:44.160 --> 1:35:47.720 guitar player. I had my moments when I'm designing strategies 1:35:47.800 --> 1:35:55.040 for space warfare. You know. Uh, I get that it's 1:35:55.120 --> 1:35:58.800 good to be a colectic. But I think maybe he just, 1:35:59.240 --> 1:36:01.559 you know, got to the point where I didn't want 1:36:01.600 --> 1:36:11.439 to do it anymore. Many people consider the second Steely 1:36:11.479 --> 1:36:15.040 Dan album, Countdown to Ecstasy, the best. I'm not in 1:36:15.120 --> 1:36:18.280 agreement with that, but that seither here and We're there. 1:36:18.760 --> 1:36:21.960 The album comes out, there don't appear to be any 1:36:22.080 --> 1:36:26.200 hit singles on the radio, and suddenly Becker and Fagan say, 1:36:26.439 --> 1:36:28.320 we don't want to go on the road anymore, So 1:36:28.439 --> 1:36:32.400 what's your experience. Well, that didn't really happen to my 1:36:32.560 --> 1:36:35.560 knowledge until after Pretzel Logic. Okay, then maybe I have 1:36:35.720 --> 1:36:37.920 it wrong. No, we were still and we were gigging 1:36:37.960 --> 1:36:40.719 a lot. Actually, Steely Dan played a lot of shows. 1:36:41.360 --> 1:36:45.559 Somehow or other, this this myth arose that Steely Dan 1:36:45.640 --> 1:36:48.519 didn't do any gigs. We worked hard. We opened for 1:36:48.600 --> 1:36:52.719 the Doobie Brothers, we opened for James Gang, we opened 1:36:52.800 --> 1:36:58.439 for um um Bert Cummings, we opened I mean we 1:36:59.360 --> 1:37:03.160 we did a lot lot of shows. Um But I 1:37:03.560 --> 1:37:08.160 think in the same way that I think Living All 1:37:08.200 --> 1:37:12.040 the fault Line, Ultimately it was probably the best Doobie 1:37:12.080 --> 1:37:16.960 Brothers album because and we can certainly have a discussion 1:37:17.000 --> 1:37:22.000 about the transition from rock and bar band two, you know, 1:37:22.760 --> 1:37:30.759 focusing um. The song raised Her Boy on Countdown Ectity. 1:37:30.840 --> 1:37:35.560 To me epitomizes Steely Dan because that record seemed to 1:37:36.520 --> 1:37:44.240 synthesize and and digest a lot of what Steely Dan 1:37:44.400 --> 1:37:46.639 was becoming. And we'd had time to play on the road, 1:37:47.400 --> 1:37:52.360 we'd had time to become a unit. So I wasn't 1:37:52.400 --> 1:37:55.080 really worried about the hits. I mean, I'm doing fine. 1:37:55.640 --> 1:37:58.479 You know, I'm doing four or five sessions to day. 1:37:58.520 --> 1:38:01.960 I'm working my ass off, so and I'm playing in 1:38:02.080 --> 1:38:05.760 Lenda Rostats band. I'm playing pedalist steel, so I'm you know, 1:38:06.120 --> 1:38:09.600 I'm I'm digging my butt off and I'm out with 1:38:09.680 --> 1:38:13.719 the Deobie Brothers playing, So I really wasn't. I guess 1:38:13.800 --> 1:38:16.599 maybe I wasn't affected by that, but I think as 1:38:16.640 --> 1:38:21.400 an albums, as a creative piece, the second Steely Dan 1:38:21.520 --> 1:38:26.080 album shows a maturity of a group of musicians. So 1:38:26.600 --> 1:38:29.040 how did it in with Steely Dan for you? I 1:38:29.160 --> 1:38:30.880 was actually on the phone. I was out with the 1:38:30.960 --> 1:38:35.919 Deobie Brothers playing um uh an outdoor festival in England, 1:38:37.560 --> 1:38:43.120 and I had gotten into a conversation with with Donald 1:38:43.240 --> 1:38:48.640 and Denny, and Danny had called and said, yeah, they 1:38:49.280 --> 1:38:51.320 Walter and Donald just don't want to go on the 1:38:51.400 --> 1:38:53.800 road anymore. They don't want to have a band, they 1:38:53.880 --> 1:38:56.599 just want to So I talked to Donald and said, yeah, 1:38:56.600 --> 1:39:01.080 we just um don't want to do it anymore. We 1:39:01.160 --> 1:39:04.360 can't get the sound, we don't do it. And probably 1:39:04.960 --> 1:39:07.600 they were doing very well with their publishing and so 1:39:07.880 --> 1:39:09.960 you know, if you didn't really going on the road 1:39:10.000 --> 1:39:17.599 could be challenging, um say the least. So I hung 1:39:17.720 --> 1:39:21.560 up the phone. I was in uh net Worth, that 1:39:21.760 --> 1:39:24.639 was it, the net Worth Music Festival, And I hid 1:39:24.760 --> 1:39:26.479 up the phone and I turned to Pat Simmons and 1:39:26.560 --> 1:39:29.080 I said well, I said for me and Steely Dan, 1:39:29.600 --> 1:39:35.160 and he said, well, now you're in the Dubie Brothers. Okay, Okay, great, 1:39:36.479 --> 1:39:39.000 there you go. Okay, let's go back to your conversation 1:39:39.080 --> 1:39:41.519 with Henry. It seemed like you were saying you were 1:39:41.560 --> 1:39:44.479 talking about going into the military. What happened there? Not 1:39:44.640 --> 1:39:47.439 into the military. I did not join the military. I 1:39:47.600 --> 1:39:49.880 was never in the military, and I don't want to again. 1:39:49.920 --> 1:39:53.840 I want to be very very careful. I what I 1:39:54.080 --> 1:39:58.160 do is I work for the Department of Defense and 1:39:58.280 --> 1:40:03.240 a number of US government agencies on many different levels, 1:40:04.320 --> 1:40:13.080 mostly having to do with unconventional warfare, space, UM perception management, 1:40:14.360 --> 1:40:19.599 UM war gaming. But I'm not actually I was never 1:40:21.240 --> 1:40:23.880 a member of the military. Okay. A couple of questions, 1:40:23.920 --> 1:40:25.800 How did you get out of the draft? I showed 1:40:25.880 --> 1:40:30.559 up at my draft board like everybody else? And did 1:40:30.600 --> 1:40:32.800 you ever did you ever go to a draft physical? No, 1:40:33.160 --> 1:40:35.800 because I filed as the CEO. But then I got 1:40:35.880 --> 1:40:39.920 a number like two nine and it didn't become an issue. Okay. 1:40:40.080 --> 1:40:42.920 So I show up at the well the experience, So 1:40:43.040 --> 1:40:45.920 you show up at the Boston Navy Yard. Truth is 1:40:46.000 --> 1:40:49.160 stranger than fiction. I've show up at the Boston Navy Yard. 1:40:49.720 --> 1:40:51.479 So yeah, I got all your clothes off. You got 1:40:51.479 --> 1:40:53.519 a little bag in your hand with all your little stuff, 1:40:54.040 --> 1:40:56.799 and you go from desk to desk and they're checking 1:40:56.880 --> 1:41:02.000 things off. Yep, this looks good. Yeah, this looks good. Yep. 1:41:02.200 --> 1:41:04.439 You look good here, you look good here. Yep. So 1:41:04.560 --> 1:41:06.719 you're going from desk to desk, and I'm thinking, okay, 1:41:07.920 --> 1:41:11.839 in about three weeks, maybe a second lieutenant in Vietnam, 1:41:12.520 --> 1:41:16.000 and that may be it for me. So it wasn't 1:41:16.080 --> 1:41:20.200 a very pleasant experience. So the last guy at the 1:41:20.360 --> 1:41:23.760 end of the hall, and I guess I'm being cinematic 1:41:23.800 --> 1:41:26.639 about this, but the last guy, so you walked through 1:41:26.680 --> 1:41:31.479 the door, big steel desk, sitting behind the desk, looks 1:41:31.520 --> 1:41:34.839 down at my papers and says says, here you're a musician. 1:41:35.280 --> 1:41:41.040 Said yes, sir, Well do you only think about stereo equipment? 1:41:42.240 --> 1:41:45.920 And I'm thinking, okay, I have just moved into an 1:41:46.000 --> 1:41:51.200 alternate universe. I'm gonna wake up in Way City. But 1:41:51.640 --> 1:41:55.000 right now, okay, he says, do you have a minute. 1:41:57.120 --> 1:42:01.519 So now this thing is really starting to now I 1:42:01.560 --> 1:42:05.240 even more than I'm in a multidimensional universe, you know, 1:42:05.479 --> 1:42:11.280 I'm I am living string theory. So I sit down 1:42:11.320 --> 1:42:13.439 on the edge of his desk naked with my little 1:42:13.479 --> 1:42:16.080 bag of stuff. He draws a picture of his living 1:42:16.160 --> 1:42:21.400 room with the measurements, and I said okay, And I 1:42:21.479 --> 1:42:25.200 asked the question. I said, is your wife want to 1:42:25.280 --> 1:42:29.920 not see this uh stuff? And she said absolutely not. 1:42:30.840 --> 1:42:33.880 He said, I want to see this crop. So I said, okay, 1:42:33.920 --> 1:42:38.080 Here's what I would suggest in these corners. I would 1:42:38.200 --> 1:42:45.439 build a m a curtain, put a set of curtains 1:42:45.520 --> 1:42:48.360 in that our catacorners are to try, you know, the 1:42:48.840 --> 1:42:51.760 other side of the triangle that the that the the 1:42:52.960 --> 1:42:55.920 the room forms. Put in a pair of clip shorns, 1:42:56.880 --> 1:42:59.680 because they'll create enough top end so they get through 1:42:59.680 --> 1:43:03.160 the curve. But it will create enough high fidelity for you. 1:43:04.000 --> 1:43:07.160 I would recommend that you buy a Macintosh to box 1:43:08.840 --> 1:43:15.280 um I and probably a Dina kit to preamp Thorne's 1:43:15.320 --> 1:43:19.600 turntable with a short cartridge. And I think you'll have 1:43:19.680 --> 1:43:24.599 a wonderful stereo system that you really like. Meanwhile, the line, 1:43:25.720 --> 1:43:31.639 it's like way back, I'm spending twenty minutes in there, 1:43:32.320 --> 1:43:35.679 and then the guy says, okay, thank you for your time. 1:43:35.760 --> 1:43:40.040 You know, if you came into the military, it would 1:43:40.040 --> 1:43:43.519 probably ruin your career as a musician, checked off four 1:43:43.600 --> 1:43:47.719 off and handing in my papers, and I thought, okay, 1:43:47.840 --> 1:43:52.360 I'm just when am I gonna wake up out of this? 1:43:53.080 --> 1:43:56.840 When when I pass back into you know, the the 1:43:57.200 --> 1:44:01.560 universe that I'm familiar with. Never happened? That was it? 1:44:01.840 --> 1:44:05.240 Well quite a story. So when did this conversation with 1:44:05.360 --> 1:44:08.320 Henry take place? It was, well, after all of that, 1:44:09.160 --> 1:44:13.120 well after all that, I mean, James Montgomery was my 1:44:13.240 --> 1:44:16.520 roommate at Boston University. So that way with James Montgomery, 1:44:16.640 --> 1:44:18.680 the Blues single, Oh yeah, we're we're being friends and 1:44:18.760 --> 1:44:22.600 playing together for years. He was your roommate accidentally it 1:44:22.720 --> 1:44:24.439 be you where you met each other and said, let's 1:44:24.520 --> 1:44:26.680 room together. It was my roommate accidentally it be you 1:44:27.160 --> 1:44:29.559 for a while, and we lived in the football arms. 1:44:29.600 --> 1:44:31.960 So we go down to the commons room and get 1:44:32.120 --> 1:44:36.280 musicians together and play. So um, there was a lot 1:44:36.360 --> 1:44:38.400 of music going on and you know, again meeting a 1:44:38.479 --> 1:44:40.559 lot of folks and and a lot of that stuff. 1:44:41.040 --> 1:44:47.840 But the conversation with Henry came after I was after 1:44:48.040 --> 1:44:52.320 I had written the first paper that I had written 1:44:52.439 --> 1:44:56.439 about missile defense. About that I'm not going to go 1:44:56.520 --> 1:44:58.800 into too much detail. I want to bore anybody about 1:44:58.960 --> 1:45:08.080 adapting a Navy carrier battle group antire defense system to 1:45:08.240 --> 1:45:11.240 do missile defense. And I wrote a paper. My dad said, 1:45:11.280 --> 1:45:14.280 you got an idea, You're right down. So I had 1:45:14.320 --> 1:45:16.320 an idea. I went to a friend of mine at 1:45:16.360 --> 1:45:19.240 a propulsion laboratories to do some math for me, make 1:45:19.280 --> 1:45:23.080 sure I had the radar stuff right. And so I 1:45:23.200 --> 1:45:26.599 handed the paper to a congressman in Los Angeles who 1:45:26.640 --> 1:45:28.040 I was doing a lot of work with because I 1:45:28.120 --> 1:45:30.200 was a reserve officer with L A p D. And 1:45:30.280 --> 1:45:32.799 I was helping him with some counter terrors and stuff. 1:45:33.320 --> 1:45:35.519 And so he gives it to the vice chairman of 1:45:35.560 --> 1:45:37.920 the Armed Services Committee. He said, well, there's a guy 1:45:38.000 --> 1:45:41.280 from Boeing or Raytheon No, he's a guitar player for 1:45:41.320 --> 1:45:45.040 the Doobie Brothers. And he goes, well, I want to 1:45:45.080 --> 1:45:48.080 meet this guy. So I get a call, would you 1:45:48.200 --> 1:45:52.160 be willing to accept the position on the House Arm 1:45:52.240 --> 1:45:56.080 Services Committee UH to head up the Civilian Advisory Board 1:45:56.080 --> 1:45:58.599 on Missile Defense. And we're going to classify the paper 1:45:58.680 --> 1:46:02.040 that you wrote, and we're gonna give you a security clearance. 1:46:02.120 --> 1:46:03.719 So of course, the next thing you know, you're taking 1:46:03.800 --> 1:46:06.240 polygraphs and you're doing all this kind of stuff. But 1:46:06.360 --> 1:46:09.600 this opportunity came up. And there's other opportunities that we 1:46:09.680 --> 1:46:13.559 can cover in a later date about the counter terrorism stuff, etcetera, etcetera. 1:46:13.960 --> 1:46:17.200 But when this happened, I was in New York and 1:46:17.320 --> 1:46:19.800 I went I had mentioned it to a couple of 1:46:19.880 --> 1:46:23.879 friends of mine, many of whom said, well, that's really stupid. 1:46:23.920 --> 1:46:25.320 What do you want to do something like that for? 1:46:25.439 --> 1:46:27.519 What are you a war guy? What do you you 1:46:27.600 --> 1:46:34.599 know that that kind of attitude? So I thought, who 1:46:34.600 --> 1:46:37.200 am I going to talk to about this? I know 1:46:37.320 --> 1:46:41.680 how my dad feels, uh, And he was very very supportive. 1:46:42.960 --> 1:46:44.960 But I thought, okay, who do I know? And that's 1:46:44.960 --> 1:46:49.760 got a foot in both worlds. Gotta be Henry. So 1:46:50.120 --> 1:46:53.320 I went to talk to Henry and he was not 1:46:54.200 --> 1:47:00.920 at all um hesitant at all. I mean, he looked 1:47:00.960 --> 1:47:03.479 me right in the eyes. He said, I've known you 1:47:04.000 --> 1:47:08.519 since you were a kid. I think I know you 1:47:08.640 --> 1:47:12.800 well enough. Do you really want my opinion? And I said, Henry, 1:47:12.840 --> 1:47:16.840 I need your opinion please, And he said, you again, 1:47:16.920 --> 1:47:18.880 what I told you before you go do it? Screw 1:47:19.000 --> 1:47:22.320 those people. If you believe in this, you go do 1:47:22.439 --> 1:47:27.160 it and tell him to call me. So. I don't 1:47:27.200 --> 1:47:29.880 think anybody ever did, but you know, Henry, I mean, 1:47:30.880 --> 1:47:34.480 so you switch to the Doobie Brothers when Tom Johnston 1:47:34.640 --> 1:47:36.519 is still the front person for the band along with 1:47:36.560 --> 1:47:41.679 Patrick Simmons, and tell me about the transition where Tom 1:47:41.840 --> 1:47:45.960 ultimately falls out of the band and you bring Michael 1:47:46.000 --> 1:47:49.479 McDonald in. Well, okay, So for a while we were 1:47:49.520 --> 1:47:53.479 a three master at Schooner, three guitar players. Um, all 1:47:53.560 --> 1:47:55.920 of us, by the way, we're big fans of Will 1:47:55.960 --> 1:47:58.320 Be Great. I think that was probably the greatest American 1:47:58.400 --> 1:48:04.200 rock and roll band ever, and they managed to synthesize 1:48:05.160 --> 1:48:09.840 the interaction between three guitar players in a magic way, 1:48:10.800 --> 1:48:14.640 no doubt about it. So the three guitar player thing 1:48:14.720 --> 1:48:17.559 was very comfortable, especially because you could always have an 1:48:17.560 --> 1:48:20.679 acoustic guitar as well. I mean, you could really fill 1:48:20.760 --> 1:48:23.680 it out the way it should be. UM. So we 1:48:23.800 --> 1:48:26.439 played a lot of shows and then we were playing 1:48:26.720 --> 1:48:31.040 l s U Louisiana State University and Tom had had 1:48:31.120 --> 1:48:35.400 some health problems before, but he couldn't go out on stage. 1:48:36.200 --> 1:48:41.599 He his he has some serious and again I don't 1:48:41.800 --> 1:48:44.719 tell tales out of school but he has some serious 1:48:45.200 --> 1:48:54.160 um um digestive problems, stomach problems, and he was in 1:48:54.320 --> 1:48:59.040 paint and he couldn't come out and perform. So um, 1:49:00.560 --> 1:49:02.320 and I'm not going to get into again. I don't 1:49:02.360 --> 1:49:06.719 tell tales out of school. There was certainly a number 1:49:06.800 --> 1:49:12.519 of interesting conversations back in the dressing room, and we 1:49:12.640 --> 1:49:15.120 all came to the conclusion, or some of us came 1:49:15.200 --> 1:49:17.760 to the conclusion that we still wanted to do this. 1:49:18.920 --> 1:49:22.080 So I went out on stage and said, they were 1:49:22.160 --> 1:49:25.040 like fifty thou people there. I said, we can either 1:49:25.160 --> 1:49:28.320 give you your money back or come back in ten 1:49:28.439 --> 1:49:32.920 days and we'll put on a show for you. Well, nobody, 1:49:34.640 --> 1:49:39.840 nobody wanted their money back. So right after that, I 1:49:39.920 --> 1:49:43.920 got on the phone and I called Michael McDonald because 1:49:43.960 --> 1:49:47.240 he and I had become friends through playing together and 1:49:47.320 --> 1:49:50.240 Steely Dan and doing some writing together and playing together. 1:49:51.120 --> 1:49:53.439 Said Michael, I'm sending you a one way ticket you 1:49:53.479 --> 1:49:56.879 want to join the Doobie Brothers. And he said, okay, 1:49:57.760 --> 1:50:00.479 I mean, you know, I later on we always we 1:50:00.520 --> 1:50:06.200 we we lived that conversation, but it was yeah, sure, 1:50:06.840 --> 1:50:11.000 why not? So he flew out. We rehearsed for ten days, 1:50:11.160 --> 1:50:15.160 eight hours a day put on a show, got five encores, 1:50:16.040 --> 1:50:20.439 And I guess sometimes you have to make a command 1:50:20.560 --> 1:50:25.560 decision and sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you 1:50:25.640 --> 1:50:28.960 get the shaft. And this time I think it worked 1:50:29.000 --> 1:50:32.720 out very well. Now, the Doobie Brothers have a new biography. 1:50:33.200 --> 1:50:35.439 To be point blank about it, they give you some 1:50:35.760 --> 1:50:40.240 ship about the end of your tenure with the Doobie Brothers. 1:50:40.640 --> 1:50:43.600 I don't know if you've seen that book, but what 1:50:43.880 --> 1:50:46.760 is your viewpoint of the end? They basically said, you 1:50:46.880 --> 1:50:50.519 were playing what you wanted to didn't necessarily fit in 1:50:50.640 --> 1:50:53.360 with the rest of the band, and to a degree, 1:50:53.439 --> 1:50:58.760 we're incorrigible. What was your experience? Boy? What a compliment? Wow? 1:50:59.680 --> 1:51:04.599 Thank you? Um incorrigible playing what I wanted to play? 1:51:05.960 --> 1:51:17.439 Um gee? Okay UM. When I before we started the 1:51:18.680 --> 1:51:25.360 Living on the fault Line album, I thought, okay because 1:51:25.439 --> 1:51:29.479 Ted Templeman was a great producer, and I thought because 1:51:29.600 --> 1:51:36.280 Michael's material was a little bit more, um, multifaceted than 1:51:36.720 --> 1:51:38.960 the material that the Doobie Brothers were well known for. 1:51:39.840 --> 1:51:42.280 I mean, Tom Johnson is a great songwriter. I am 1:51:42.400 --> 1:51:47.679 This is not in any way, um uh, putting any 1:51:47.760 --> 1:51:51.799 kind of bad spin on any of this. I thought, Okay, 1:51:53.400 --> 1:51:58.920 what would happen if I made if I got everybody 1:51:59.000 --> 1:52:00.760 in the band. What if what the Doobie but has 1:52:00.800 --> 1:52:05.639 worked as a rhythm section for other artists Leo Sayer, 1:52:06.040 --> 1:52:11.479 Carly Simon, Um hoit accident? What if they had to 1:52:11.520 --> 1:52:15.200 show up at nine am as a rhythm section? Play 1:52:15.240 --> 1:52:20.160 it right or you get fired well number one. I 1:52:20.280 --> 1:52:25.599 had always felt that the Doobie Brothers as individuals were 1:52:25.680 --> 1:52:30.760 extremely talented musicians each one and had not realized their 1:52:30.800 --> 1:52:34.479 own potential. Not that it was my job to do that, 1:52:35.160 --> 1:52:37.519 but I thought that they hadn't realized their own potential. 1:52:38.920 --> 1:52:42.320 So they started. I said, let's let's do this. What 1:52:42.439 --> 1:52:44.680 do you think? And there was a little bit of 1:52:44.680 --> 1:52:46.479 ad I don't really want to do that, you know, 1:52:46.479 --> 1:52:48.519 I don't want to get up, And I said okay, fine, 1:52:49.360 --> 1:52:55.680 and Ted Templeman, I believe UM encouraged that idea. So 1:52:56.240 --> 1:53:01.479 there you go, downbeat, nine am. Here we go. And 1:53:02.720 --> 1:53:08.680 what stuck struck me is after about seven or eight 1:53:08.800 --> 1:53:12.800 months of this, I remember Keith Canuteson, who was a 1:53:13.000 --> 1:53:20.720 fabulous drummer, just pocket groove drummer, um listening back to 1:53:20.840 --> 1:53:25.200 a track and saying I think I dropped the snare 1:53:25.280 --> 1:53:32.280 drum beat in bar fifte and I went, BINGO, this 1:53:32.720 --> 1:53:36.920 is great. This is the best of what Steely Dan 1:53:37.120 --> 1:53:41.519 was about with the spirit of the Doobie Brothers and 1:53:41.920 --> 1:53:45.519 pushed very hard a lot of the stuff on the 1:53:45.600 --> 1:53:48.880 Living on the fault Line album. It's very different than 1:53:48.960 --> 1:53:52.320 the Doobie Brothers, but I think it laid the foundation 1:53:53.120 --> 1:53:56.400 for a minute by minute to be that kind of record. 1:53:57.520 --> 1:54:06.200 UM play what I want, UM, Certainly I had ideas 1:54:06.600 --> 1:54:11.560 and things that I felt, UM I wanted to do. 1:54:13.360 --> 1:54:18.559 I unless I'm missing something, there was more agreement than 1:54:18.640 --> 1:54:21.559 there was disagreement. Just to clarify, in that book, they 1:54:21.600 --> 1:54:24.760 were talking at about the last last days of the 1:54:24.800 --> 1:54:28.280 Doobie Brothers, not Living on the fall Line, not minute 1:54:28.280 --> 1:54:30.080 by minute. Well it would be after a minute by 1:54:30.120 --> 1:54:34.440 minute or about the same time. Yeah, So again I 1:54:34.600 --> 1:54:38.200 take that as a huge compliment. UM. When I was 1:54:38.320 --> 1:54:41.120 on stage sometimes I was where I wore headphones all 1:54:41.120 --> 1:54:42.680 the time because I wanted to get a good mix. 1:54:43.240 --> 1:54:45.760 I mean, I'm a studio guy. I'm sitting down with 1:54:45.920 --> 1:54:52.760 headphones people three guys Hyatt Jingle Stadium. That's what I do. 1:54:54.080 --> 1:55:00.360 And Tim McCormick, my my guitar check. They started to 1:55:00.400 --> 1:55:02.680 play this game where they would write a piece of 1:55:03.080 --> 1:55:06.160 a song title on a piece of paper, and since 1:55:06.200 --> 1:55:07.920 I was sitting next to Michael, they put on the 1:55:07.960 --> 1:55:10.520 piano right next to me, and in thirty seconds I 1:55:10.640 --> 1:55:18.200 had to take that song and incorporated into a guitar song. So, uh, 1:55:19.320 --> 1:55:24.880 rocking down the Highway, we want you to play bobble 1:55:24.960 --> 1:55:28.760 spangles and peats and maybe the next night we want 1:55:28.800 --> 1:55:35.880 you to do the Hallelujah chorus. Okay, great, I loved it. 1:55:37.360 --> 1:55:42.000 To me, that's what it's all about, challenge, rising to 1:55:42.120 --> 1:55:45.720 the occasion and playing something different. Not that the solos 1:55:45.800 --> 1:55:48.520 that were originally in those songs weren't great. It's not 1:55:48.680 --> 1:55:51.680 about that, but I think they're You have to stretch 1:55:51.760 --> 1:55:53.560 out a little bit, and maybe that made some people 1:55:53.600 --> 1:55:55.960 feel uncomfortable. So how does it end with you? In 1:55:56.000 --> 1:56:00.800 the Doobie Brothers, we just parted ways. Um. I think 1:56:00.880 --> 1:56:05.680 that Patrick Simmons had another vision of what he wanted 1:56:05.720 --> 1:56:13.240 the band to be and it was kind of his baby. Um. 1:56:14.840 --> 1:56:18.480 I know that they had sort of broken up, but 1:56:18.640 --> 1:56:21.440 they came back together, and I think a lot of 1:56:21.480 --> 1:56:24.560 that has to do with everybody in the band wanting 1:56:24.640 --> 1:56:29.800 to continue, and Tommy was had gotten his health back, 1:56:31.520 --> 1:56:38.760 So I guess it was another metamorphosis. I mean, I 1:56:38.880 --> 1:56:40.880 said a long time ago when I did an interview 1:56:41.320 --> 1:56:46.840 on MSNBC about my other work. To me, life is 1:56:46.880 --> 1:56:51.200 a series of chapters, and I love them all, every 1:56:51.280 --> 1:56:54.320 chapter that I've been involved in. The One thing that's 1:56:54.360 --> 1:56:58.280 important to understand, I believe is that if you're a 1:56:58.440 --> 1:57:02.040 change agent, if you're someone who was willing to try 1:57:02.680 --> 1:57:05.879 to change, and let's face it, what end of whatever 1:57:06.040 --> 1:57:09.560 anybody wants to say. Bringing Michael McDonald and the Dubie 1:57:09.640 --> 1:57:15.560 Brothers was a change. Some would say radical someone, but 1:57:16.160 --> 1:57:20.840 it was a change to have initiated that. There are 1:57:20.960 --> 1:57:25.600 consequences change agents. If you're a change agent, you have 1:57:25.720 --> 1:57:30.000 to be comfortable with knowing when it's time the change 1:57:30.160 --> 1:57:35.440 is done. Everything's done, good, thank you. Plus I wanted 1:57:35.440 --> 1:57:39.400 to produce records. I wanted to try some other things. 1:57:39.520 --> 1:57:42.120 I'd already started producing records when I was still in 1:57:42.200 --> 1:57:50.080 the band, and to me, maybe you know, as time passes, 1:57:52.280 --> 1:57:55.720 I just remember the good stuff. I still I see 1:57:55.800 --> 1:58:00.320 Tommy Johnson probably two or three times a year because 1:58:00.400 --> 1:58:04.600 we do the St. Chud's Hospital um benefit that I 1:58:04.640 --> 1:58:10.760 see him play great. Actually, I thought Tom Johnson was 1:58:10.840 --> 1:58:13.720 and still is a fine human being because one time 1:58:13.760 --> 1:58:15.320 he came and stayed at my house and he made 1:58:15.360 --> 1:58:19.640 his bed and I know that sounds but no, No, 1:58:19.920 --> 1:58:22.520 those little things I noticed. Whether it's like when you're 1:58:22.520 --> 1:58:24.760 in the bathroom with a guy, does he wash his hands? 1:58:25.120 --> 1:58:27.800 If he doesn't wash his hands, It's something you can 1:58:27.880 --> 1:58:32.200 never forget. So ultimately you leave the Doobie Brothers. You 1:58:32.360 --> 1:58:36.800 produce records, and you do a cornucopy of things. You 1:58:36.920 --> 1:58:39.840 work in TV, you work in movies, you work in 1:58:40.240 --> 1:58:44.000 advertising commercials. You write the theme from nine O two 1:58:44.080 --> 1:58:48.880 one Oh So was there any plan? Was there? I 1:58:49.040 --> 1:58:51.440 know you play with multiple people, but you've been in 1:58:51.600 --> 1:58:53.640 bands for a while. Did you not want to be 1:58:53.760 --> 1:58:57.600 in bands again? No? I live Living in Los Angeles 1:58:58.160 --> 1:59:02.960 was like going to the Costco of music. Sometimes you 1:59:03.040 --> 1:59:07.160 didn't even know what you want to buy. Oh yeah, 1:59:07.440 --> 1:59:12.960 that those big truck tires. Maybe I'll buy a truck. Well, 1:59:13.080 --> 1:59:15.800 buy the tires and then I'll buy the truck. Or 1:59:16.440 --> 1:59:20.200 you know it. There's you have so much on There's 1:59:20.240 --> 1:59:26.000 so much available, a pot pourri, a veritable supermarket, a 1:59:26.160 --> 1:59:30.520 voritable bazaar of things to do. I wanted to try 1:59:30.600 --> 1:59:36.120 it all because I wanted to challenge myself. I I'm 1:59:36.200 --> 1:59:39.920 not a big fan of you know, I'm this guy, 1:59:40.120 --> 1:59:43.000 and look at what I've done to me. It's what 1:59:43.120 --> 1:59:46.760 did you do today? Um? Maybe again, that's the work 1:59:46.840 --> 1:59:51.320 ethic that I learned from my father. But I saw 1:59:51.520 --> 1:59:54.520 this opportunity and I wanted. I was curious, could I 1:59:54.640 --> 1:59:57.840 do this? I already know what I can do. I 1:59:57.960 --> 2:00:01.880 had a bucket list. I've tried off every box in 2:00:02.040 --> 2:00:07.480 that bucket list musically except for a solo problem. This 2:00:07.640 --> 2:00:10.800 is the last box. Okay, at this late date, how 2:00:10.920 --> 2:00:13.680 much of your time has spent on music? How much 2:00:13.720 --> 2:00:17.520 has spent on defence work? Right now up until this moment? 2:00:18.320 --> 2:00:22.880 Probably half and half. Because I'm a member of a 2:00:22.960 --> 2:00:27.280 couple of wonderful bands. One is called American vinyl Um. 2:00:28.600 --> 2:00:33.920 The other guitar players former guitar player from Boston. The 2:00:34.040 --> 2:00:37.400 drummer was James Brown's band, and I played with James 2:00:37.440 --> 2:00:40.000 Brown for a little while. He and I became friends. 2:00:40.480 --> 2:00:43.000 A keyboard player from the Whalers. I mean it's just 2:00:43.120 --> 2:00:46.640 awesome band. I mean it's kind of a corporate band. 2:00:46.680 --> 2:00:49.320 We do a lot of charities, especially for vets. You 2:00:49.400 --> 2:00:51.480 want to hear the hinds. Just tell us when you 2:00:51.560 --> 2:00:54.000 want to stop, when when you want us to stop. 2:00:54.760 --> 2:00:58.040 There's a band called the Coalition of the Willing in Washington, 2:00:58.160 --> 2:01:00.800 d C. We do a lot of embassy parties and 2:01:00.880 --> 2:01:07.320 stuff again, fundraisers for vets charities. Myself Tony Blinkin. There's 2:01:07.360 --> 2:01:16.160 a Secretary of State. Um uh uh. The drummer was 2:01:16.280 --> 2:01:23.400 former ambassador of Japan. Um the bass player was a 2:01:23.480 --> 2:01:27.200 former other secondary state from military affairs. I mean that 2:01:27.440 --> 2:01:29.880 kind of band where you get together and there you 2:01:29.920 --> 2:01:35.200 know it's it's it's more for fun and raise money. 2:01:36.560 --> 2:01:39.000 And I played with different bands, you know when the 2:01:39.200 --> 2:01:42.360 when the There's a band called uh six Wire that 2:01:42.480 --> 2:01:44.440 I do some shows with. There are a lot of 2:01:44.520 --> 2:01:49.400 fun band called Side Deal that down in Newport. Best 2:01:49.480 --> 2:01:53.040 singers I've ever heard. So they say, would come and 2:01:53.080 --> 2:01:55.880 play pedal steel? Of course I will, you know, so 2:01:57.520 --> 2:02:01.960 I'd say maybe fifty fifty. We'll see what happens after 2:02:02.120 --> 2:02:07.800 this first solo endeavor and see how that goes. So obviously, 2:02:08.240 --> 2:02:11.960 if you're working, you're playing an instrument, But do you 2:02:12.120 --> 2:02:14.800 play every day or only when you need to. I 2:02:14.920 --> 2:02:18.760 pretty much play every day for a couple of reasons. One, 2:02:18.800 --> 2:02:21.960 I like to play the guitar um. A lot of 2:02:22.040 --> 2:02:26.600 times I'm either um, you know, out with the sidering iron, 2:02:26.680 --> 2:02:30.760 out my workshop, trying something new. You gotta play it after, 2:02:30.880 --> 2:02:34.600 you you know, reroute some of the electronics or something. 2:02:35.480 --> 2:02:42.720 And there's a zen to it that brings me inner peace. 2:02:44.120 --> 2:02:46.800 And in my day job, there are times when it 2:02:46.920 --> 2:02:53.400 gets really really difficult. Um. As you know, we live 2:02:53.440 --> 2:02:58.880 in a world that's not what I think any of us, 2:02:59.120 --> 2:03:02.920 except for the most twisted individual would defined as optimum 2:03:04.280 --> 2:03:09.280 people's behavior. I mean, it can get a little tough, 2:03:10.560 --> 2:03:14.360 but playing the instrument does a couple of things. There's 2:03:14.480 --> 2:03:18.080 this zen. There also is the connection that very few 2:03:18.160 --> 2:03:23.800 people really understand. Um. A lot of people come up 2:03:23.840 --> 2:03:26.400 to me. Quite a few folks have said, hey, I'd 2:03:26.440 --> 2:03:29.800 really like to help you at what you do? You 2:03:29.880 --> 2:03:33.920 know in your day job? What can I do? And 2:03:34.320 --> 2:03:37.640 there are a few folks. Paul Reid Smith came with 2:03:37.720 --> 2:03:41.960 an idea for an underwater acoustic detection system. Called up 2:03:42.000 --> 2:03:44.280 my buddy over at the Nable Research Lab. Hey, nov 2:03:45.040 --> 2:03:47.440 Adam O Carr, you gotta check this out. Now. He's 2:03:47.480 --> 2:03:50.240 got a company called Digital Harmonic that's doing stuff for 2:03:50.280 --> 2:03:54.640 the Navy and other folks. There's some very smart people 2:03:54.720 --> 2:03:57.440 who do that, but most people want to help. And 2:03:57.560 --> 2:04:01.400 I said, listen, you gotta understand. One of the reasons 2:04:01.440 --> 2:04:03.920 why I got involved in Afghanistan is because the Taliban 2:04:04.040 --> 2:04:07.360 was cutting the hands off musicians. Why were they doing that. 2:04:09.080 --> 2:04:13.480 They were doing it because they're frightened that musicians have 2:04:13.680 --> 2:04:17.040 the ability and the key to open people's hearts. And 2:04:17.200 --> 2:04:20.760 you don't want that. If you are dogmatic and you 2:04:20.920 --> 2:04:26.600 are rigid in New York beliefs, anything else is a threat, 2:04:27.240 --> 2:04:29.960 so you try to eliminate it. So I tell every 2:04:30.040 --> 2:04:33.760 musician that I know, every note that you play, every 2:04:34.040 --> 2:04:38.800 word that you sing, you're fighting for freedom. You are 2:04:38.840 --> 2:04:41.960 as much of a freedom fighter as anybody on this planet. 2:04:43.080 --> 2:04:49.360 And so playing the guitar, I believe has a symmetry 2:04:49.480 --> 2:04:51.760 and a synergy to all that. Because again, like I 2:04:51.840 --> 2:04:55.880 said before, what brought down the Soviet Union, well, missile defense, 2:04:56.000 --> 2:04:58.760 no doubt about it. They felt they were sure that 2:04:58.880 --> 2:05:01.680 we could do it, and we we spent them out 2:05:01.760 --> 2:05:05.440 of existence. But also I did the first one of 2:05:05.480 --> 2:05:11.000 the first shows in Rush Soviet Union in kids knew 2:05:11.080 --> 2:05:13.760 every word to every song and all our music was illegal. 2:05:14.760 --> 2:05:17.640 What brought down the Soviet Union was French fires, blue 2:05:17.720 --> 2:05:22.200 chains and Elvis Presley. Soft Power Joseph and I from 2:05:22.320 --> 2:05:25.560 under Secretarity State who wrote a book called soft Power. 2:05:25.640 --> 2:05:28.720 I actually wrote the blurb for his book. We'll tell 2:05:28.760 --> 2:05:33.800 you that the power of culture is massive. Again. Why 2:05:33.840 --> 2:05:36.320 would the Taliban want to cut your hands off because 2:05:36.360 --> 2:05:40.280 they're scared to death of what you do? Okay, you 2:05:40.400 --> 2:05:43.880 talk about doing all these gigs for charity. You talked 2:05:43.920 --> 2:05:46.400 about Bicker and Fagan not having to go on the 2:05:46.520 --> 2:05:50.600 road because of publishing royalties. How are you doing financially? 2:05:50.920 --> 2:05:56.960 Life is good. I cannot complain. Um. I don't wear 2:05:56.960 --> 2:05:59.680 a lot of I don't have any jewelry. I don't buy. 2:06:00.200 --> 2:06:03.320 If I need a guitar, usually somebody will say, hey, 2:06:03.920 --> 2:06:07.440 why don't you It's like Henry take this, get out 2:06:07.480 --> 2:06:14.040 of my store. Um I life is good. I don't 2:06:14.080 --> 2:06:20.560 have a very lavish lifestyle and I'm very comfortable. So yeah, 2:06:21.760 --> 2:06:25.800 um I'm I hesitate to use the word blessed because 2:06:25.840 --> 2:06:29.960 it has theological connotations to it, and lucky is a 2:06:30.920 --> 2:06:36.080 a word that is overused and underdefined. I am fortunate. 2:06:37.400 --> 2:06:40.960 I would say that I've accomplished much of what I 2:06:41.040 --> 2:06:43.760 ever wanted to accomplish. Like I said, I've only got 2:06:43.800 --> 2:06:47.440 one box left to check on my bucket list, and 2:06:48.080 --> 2:06:59.960 it has brought me happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, adventure, um uh, conflict, 2:07:01.720 --> 2:07:04.720 all of the things that I think are important. Two 2:07:05.360 --> 2:07:09.640 eventually get to the point where it used to be. 2:07:09.760 --> 2:07:11.960 I used to hear people say that he who dies 2:07:12.080 --> 2:07:17.440 with the most toys winds. No, he who dies with 2:07:17.560 --> 2:07:23.920 the most stories wind because you can buy toys, you 2:07:24.080 --> 2:07:27.960 can't buy experience. Okay, just to go one little left 2:07:28.000 --> 2:07:31.200 field deed tour before we go. Most guitarists have a 2:07:31.280 --> 2:07:35.400 lot of equipment. They have preferences. How many guitars and 2:07:35.480 --> 2:07:38.720 he amps do you have and what are your preferences. 2:07:39.200 --> 2:07:40.880 I don't have a lot, and I used to have 2:07:41.000 --> 2:07:43.560 a bunch. I used to have like four guitars. And 2:07:46.000 --> 2:07:48.160 one time John at Whistle and I were out the 2:07:48.280 --> 2:07:53.120 Rainbow and John I was a wonderful friend. I really 2:07:53.240 --> 2:07:57.600 miss him, um but we were sitting around and talking 2:07:57.640 --> 2:07:59.880 about the guitars because he had he was trying to 2:08:00.000 --> 2:08:02.720 out of place to store some of them, And I said, John, 2:08:04.000 --> 2:08:09.000 what the hell are we doing? Why are we why 2:08:09.040 --> 2:08:11.960 are we doing this? When we were children, we would 2:08:12.000 --> 2:08:15.440 put our face up against the window at Manny's or 2:08:15.520 --> 2:08:18.400 in Mexico City, I would go to Casaver Camper, Casla 2:08:18.440 --> 2:08:21.920 Wagner and look at a Fender jazz Master that cost 2:08:22.000 --> 2:08:25.160 almost a thousand dollars. So I'd have to make do 2:08:25.320 --> 2:08:28.440 with something else. And so you want to own all 2:08:28.520 --> 2:08:33.640 of these things. You want to you know, Um, I 2:08:33.760 --> 2:08:37.040 guess it's it's residual. And I said, this is stupid. 2:08:37.840 --> 2:08:41.000 We have all these instruments that are beautiful instruments and 2:08:41.160 --> 2:08:45.000 nobody is playing them. Let's just get rid of them. 2:08:46.000 --> 2:08:48.840 And he said, you're absolutely right. The hell with this, 2:08:49.600 --> 2:08:53.680 Let's get rid of everything. So I probably have maybe 2:08:53.920 --> 2:08:58.760 forty guitars, which may sound like a lot, but if 2:08:58.840 --> 2:09:01.360 you do studio work, you really do need a good 2:09:01.440 --> 2:09:04.840 toolbox of a number of different instruments to be able 2:09:04.840 --> 2:09:08.560 to fulfill the needs of varied people who have varied 2:09:08.640 --> 2:09:13.840 musical tastes and very musical styles. Um. Mostly I'm a 2:09:13.960 --> 2:09:16.920 rolling guy. But with Roland for forty seven years now, 2:09:17.640 --> 2:09:21.720 helping design instruments for them was involved in the guitar 2:09:21.840 --> 2:09:26.720 synthesizing project from the beginning. Actually used the first prototype 2:09:26.720 --> 2:09:32.320 guitar synthesizer on Bad Girls, Uh Donna Summersong, which I 2:09:32.400 --> 2:09:35.120 had done just after I'd done Hot Stuff. Because I 2:09:35.160 --> 2:09:37.640 didn't have any guitars. Everything was on the road. I 2:09:37.760 --> 2:09:40.280 went down a guitar center, brought up Burns Bis Jr. 2:09:40.680 --> 2:09:43.880 For bucks, bought a six pack of beer in a 2:09:44.040 --> 2:09:46.480 deluxe river with me, went down and did Hot Stuff. 2:09:47.320 --> 2:09:51.120 What the hell you know? Why not? Um? Again, it's 2:09:51.200 --> 2:09:54.520 not the instrument. I think it's the player. Um. So 2:09:54.680 --> 2:09:58.240 I don't have a lot of instruments. Uh. And I 2:09:58.320 --> 2:10:01.040 think John and I came to the rough conclusion and 2:10:01.120 --> 2:10:03.960 hopefully all those guitars are out there being played by 2:10:04.000 --> 2:10:06.840 people who really appreciate it. So I don't have a 2:10:06.960 --> 2:10:09.960 lot of equipment. Okay, Scunk, this has been wonderful. I 2:10:10.000 --> 2:10:13.280 would love to go deeper into the defense story, but 2:10:13.360 --> 2:10:15.440 I think we've run out of time for today. I 2:10:15.600 --> 2:10:17.680 want to thank you so much for your time and 2:10:17.840 --> 2:10:20.960 wish you good luck on your final bucket list item. 2:10:21.720 --> 2:10:24.240 Thanks for doing this well, thank you very much for 2:10:24.440 --> 2:10:28.960 even asking. It's let's take it as a pup thank 2:10:29.000 --> 2:10:31.840 you very much. Until next time, this is Bob left 2:10:31.880 --> 2:10:32.200 sex