Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is guitarist extraordinaire Jeff Skunk Baxter. Jeff,
Speaker 1: how you doing, I'm doing just find it. That's very
Speaker 1: kind of you, the introduction. That was very kind. Thank you. Okay,
Speaker 1: do most people in your intimate life refer to you
Speaker 1: as Skunk or Jeff? They refer to me as Skunk.
Speaker 1: It's my sort of rocket roll nickname. And for my
Speaker 1: day job, even when I was at the White House,
Speaker 1: President Bush called me sculpture. So and it's my call signs.
Speaker 1: So when I get on the phone and people are
Speaker 1: looking at me like I'm from flatted X and said, listen,
Speaker 1: I need to talk to Nato Balls and bam bam.
Speaker 1: So get him on the phone and they'll go, what
Speaker 1: the hell are you talking about? Everybody has a call sign. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have a new album, Speed of Heat. Sir? Why
Speaker 1: record an album? Well, since I've been working on it
Speaker 1: for about twelve years, there comes a time when everybody
Speaker 1: must graduate from high school and you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: stop what you're doing and put a period on it.
Speaker 1: So I got to the point with my my music
Speaker 1: production writer partner c J. Vanston, where after twelve years
Speaker 1: we figured we got everything that we need. We'll take
Speaker 1: it from there. Okay, I know c J emails me.
Speaker 1: How do you know CJ? I met c J in
Speaker 1: Chicago many years ago, about thirty years ago, when I
Speaker 1: was flying to Chicago to do jingles. Uh. They had asked,
Speaker 1: you know, for the different jingle houses. Um, sleeping on
Speaker 1: the sofa at Universal Studios sounds in Chicago, because why
Speaker 1: go to the hotel when you started seven am and
Speaker 1: keep doing it until you drop. So I would spent
Speaker 1: like a week in the studio, and many of the
Speaker 1: sessions that I did there uh included c J as
Speaker 1: the keyboard player, and we started to play together. We
Speaker 1: had a really good time. And then one day, um
Speaker 1: it was a Wednesday. I think it was the producer
Speaker 1: of the jingle, who shall remain nameless, so I'll just
Speaker 1: say his name was Bob Um came in and he
Speaker 1: was really banked. Uh. It looked like being up for
Speaker 1: about three or four days, which is fine. You know,
Speaker 1: we're session sluts, you know, we do what we do.
Speaker 1: And so Bobby walks in and goes, okay, guys, all right, um,
Speaker 1: are you guys ready and say, sure, man, what do
Speaker 1: you got? He said, well, here, here it is. So
Speaker 1: he starts to hand out the music and it says
Speaker 1: highat it has a key signature, at a time signature,
Speaker 1: and sixty four bars. That's it. So he says, well,
Speaker 1: you guys ready, And I looked at c J. And
Speaker 1: he looked at me and said, yeah, what the hell,
Speaker 1: who needs music? Give us a click? We know what
Speaker 1: the key signature is. Let's go. And so we composed
Speaker 1: on the fly the jingle, and afterwards we realized, hey,
Speaker 1: if we could do this, maybe we ought to start
Speaker 1: playing together. And I said to him, listen, if I
Speaker 1: were do a solo project, I would love to do
Speaker 1: it with you, because actually the proof is in the
Speaker 1: eating of the pudding. As they say, there are two
Speaker 1: cuts on the album, both instrumentals that we just wrote
Speaker 1: as we played it. So there's this really wonderful magic
Speaker 1: and and nonverbal communication sort of understanding in a higher
Speaker 1: dimension when the two of us play together. So we
Speaker 1: started recording together and we filled up twelve tracks and
Speaker 1: again it's time. Okay. Needless to say, today's landscape is
Speaker 1: very different from the seventies and eighties when you had
Speaker 1: your most commercial success and it's hard to get notice
Speaker 1: you don't make as much money on recordings. What are
Speaker 1: your expectations or what are your feelings about that? That's
Speaker 1: an interesting question. I guess if I was nineteen or
Speaker 1: twenty three. You know, it's just like Steely Dana when
Speaker 1: we did the first record. Oh yeah, man, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be great. You know, Uh, that car on Sunset strip.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have one of those, you know, move out
Speaker 1: of that crappy apartment in Hollywood. Now. The most important
Speaker 1: thing to me it was actually making me what do
Speaker 1: we call them records? Now? Well, you know there's still recordings.
Speaker 1: I call them records. A record, you're making a record?
Speaker 1: So are kk idea absolutely so? Uh to make to
Speaker 1: do a recording of some of the stuff that I
Speaker 1: would like to do because I've hat a session musician.
Speaker 1: I counted the years. It's a little nuts. It's sixty
Speaker 1: years so far of working in the studios as a
Speaker 1: studio sausage. So it's time and I'm not planning. It
Speaker 1: was more important to me actually to be a first
Speaker 1: call studio guy that it was to be a rock star.
Speaker 1: To me, you can either have a nice airplane or
Speaker 1: you can be top gun. So I kind of move
Speaker 1: towards the the ladder. But making a solo record, the
Speaker 1: opportunity to actually play what I wanted, Um, that's was important.
Speaker 1: That was really important, and doing it with c J
Speaker 1: was even more fun. And you know Clint Black and uh,
Speaker 1: Mike McDonald and um uh David Paige played the organ
Speaker 1: solo on My Old School and Johnny Lange and I
Speaker 1: mean it was gonna be an instrumental album. Then all
Speaker 1: these guys said they wanted to work on the record.
Speaker 1: I said, sure, why not, and here we are. So
Speaker 1: it's half vocals, half instrumentals. But most importantly it has
Speaker 1: a patchy on it, which was always my favorite instrument
Speaker 1: it as a kid. Okay, it took twelve years. So
Speaker 1: where did you record in a home studio? How did
Speaker 1: you do it in? What were the gaps in between tracks?
Speaker 1: The vast majority of it was at CJ's place. He
Speaker 1: has a studio called the Treehouse. And it took twelve years.
Speaker 1: Because I'm produced at albums, I'm doing tons of studio work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm still going out in the road, you know,
Speaker 1: with Julie and Lena are different folks, And uh CJ
Speaker 1: is a busy guy too, so it really was it
Speaker 1: was like getting together with your son to build a birdhouse.
Speaker 1: Whenever you can find the time, you're go into the workshop,
Speaker 1: and today we'll do this, and tomorrow we'll do this.
Speaker 1: So it was, yeah, it was kind of like that
Speaker 1: home craft. Okay, you mentioned a son and a treehouse.
Speaker 1: Do you have any kids? I do. I have two
Speaker 1: wonderful children, And how old are they today? My son
Speaker 1: is forty five and my daughter is third e seven. Now,
Speaker 1: my son Fender not my idea, a little a little
Speaker 1: bit stower. What's the middle name Fender? Okay, so the
Speaker 1: middle name is Fender. What's the first name Jeffrey? But
Speaker 1: everybody calls him so if it wasn't your choice, it
Speaker 1: was his mother's choice. Yes, And uh my my grandson
Speaker 1: his middle name is Gibson. So I'm thinking if I
Speaker 1: ever have a daughter, a granddaughter, I'll probably want to
Speaker 1: name her Taylor Martin, which I think is a beautiful
Speaker 1: name anyway, you know. And so I have that, and
Speaker 1: I have my daughter. She has three children, and her
Speaker 1: name is Faith. My son is a building contractor. He
Speaker 1: was former Special Forces. Something's Ranger Battalion, Panama Haiti, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: My daughter I brought into the dark Side when she
Speaker 1: was eighteen, brought her into d C, hooked her up
Speaker 1: at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and she's been
Speaker 1: moving downrange ever since. Okay, the life of the musician,
Speaker 1: it tends to be itinerant. How was it having kids
Speaker 1: being a musician? Did you have enough time or do
Speaker 1: you wish you had more time? I certainly wished I
Speaker 1: had more time. Um, and I didn't really get to
Speaker 1: spend much time with him until later on. But they
Speaker 1: bring me such joy. Uh, And it's probably I probably
Speaker 1: appreciate it more now. Frankly, the older you get, the more,
Speaker 1: at least in my experience, the little things drop away.
Speaker 1: You begin to experience a lot more as you get older,
Speaker 1: because you have enough experience to appreciate experience. So that
Speaker 1: makes sense. I'm old too, so I completely understand it's
Speaker 1: a wisdom. People who are not old don't understand. But
Speaker 1: when you're in that park, it becomes obviously well. And
Speaker 1: you tell it, tell your kids that they go, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: right right, and and now my daughter goes, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Now I get it, Yeah, okay, how many times you've
Speaker 1: been married? Never been married? Okay, so the mother of
Speaker 1: those two children, how long were you with her? Two
Speaker 1: different mothers? I see, And I really don't want to
Speaker 1: get too much into it because I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to bring it too much personal stuff
Speaker 1: into it. I mean, I don't you know, I got
Speaker 1: nothing to hide. But I also don't want to when
Speaker 1: you when you bring you know, personal stuff into it
Speaker 1: you I don't know. I just I'm always careful about that.
Speaker 1: People can say anything they want to buy me. But
Speaker 1: let me just ask this. Being a musician, is it
Speaker 1: hard to sustain relationships? I think so, But I can
Speaker 1: only speak for myself. I know musicians that have been
Speaker 1: married or have been living with someone for a bazillion years.
Speaker 1: And then I know musicians who have never been married
Speaker 1: or musicians who married later in life. So I probably
Speaker 1: am not the go to person for expert advice. I'm
Speaker 1: not a SMEE, a subject matter expert on on that. Um,
Speaker 1: I've seen it every I've seen it all. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: go right as we speak, there's the conflict in Ukraine
Speaker 1: between Ukraine and Russia. As a defense expert. What do
Speaker 1: you see there? My caveat, and I have to be
Speaker 1: very careful. My caveat is I do not speak for
Speaker 1: the US government, and any opinion that I have or
Speaker 1: any observation that I make is purely, purely personal, and
Speaker 1: I have to say that as a disclaimer. Um, so
Speaker 1: you're asked to give me what do I think about
Speaker 1: this situation? In Let me just ask you before we
Speaker 1: get there. Since you gave that disclaimer, are you still
Speaker 1: working for the government in the defense capacity? Yes? Okay,
Speaker 1: So when I'm talking about Ukraine in Russia, let me
Speaker 1: set it up. Certainly communism fell, Putin came in, turns
Speaker 1: into autocracy. You know, he took property back after the Olympics.
Speaker 1: We have never put a stop to it. Now he
Speaker 1: is invaded Ukraine. Suddenly the Western country seemed to be
Speaker 1: sending munitions. As an expert in this field, how does
Speaker 1: it play out? Because you know, just yesterday they said, okay,
Speaker 1: this is you know, all NATO attacking us and we
Speaker 1: have the nuclear option. How do you see this conflict? Well,
Speaker 1: a little bit of context. After the fall of the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, which was the combination of French Fies, blue
Speaker 1: jeans Elvis Presley and misssile defense. The Soviet Union became
Speaker 1: Russia and had this sort of regroup. Putin, I believe,
Speaker 1: has a vision where he would like to go down
Speaker 1: in history as the great Russian unifier who brought Russia
Speaker 1: back to its golden era where its borders were the
Speaker 1: same as at the end of World War Two. Install Uh,
Speaker 1: create it a buffer zone what the Russians referred to
Speaker 1: as the near strategic around Russia to protect him. And
Speaker 1: you know he's done that. He thinks that without that
Speaker 1: military that sort of land uh land soldier land warfare concept. Uh,
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen? It's gonna get even uglier, I think,
Speaker 1: And that's just my opinion. Uh. Mr Putin is a
Speaker 1: ruthless killer. He has and the Russian way of fighting.
Speaker 1: If you're familiar with Afghanistan, the use of and I
Speaker 1: personnel minds that are designed to blow off the hands
Speaker 1: and feet of young children, crushing babies underneath tank treads. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you can get your head around another non Western
Speaker 1: and Judeo Christian way of looking at warfare, then you
Speaker 1: can begin to understand his doctrine and his war fighting doctrine.
Speaker 1: You mentioned nuclear weapons. The Russians have stated their doctrine
Speaker 1: of escalate to de escalate the possible use of nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons and a conventional UH scenario mostly too, if they
Speaker 1: feel that the near strategic, the area that's close to
Speaker 1: them is threatened. UH. This, this kind of warfare is ruthless.
Speaker 1: You saw it in Syria, you saw it in Georgia,
Speaker 1: you saw it in Czech Death. There's nothing new here.
Speaker 1: It's the same nastiness we have all that history, which
Speaker 1: is ruthless. So let's talk about Ukraine specifically terms of Putin.
Speaker 1: Can he end up with East Ukraine to clear victory
Speaker 1: and leave it at that? Would that satisfy him? The
Speaker 1: strategic messaging, the perception management, perception engineering, moving in terms
Speaker 1: of their media, which is very controlled, the fact that
Speaker 1: their vast majority of their population has no access to
Speaker 1: any other media but state media, preparing them to say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't you don't you remember we said that this is
Speaker 1: really what we wanted. You know how that works? So
Speaker 1: you read so it's very or well, and the Ministry
Speaker 1: of truth will then begin to remind people of what
Speaker 1: the truth is supposed to be, that he would what
Speaker 1: he really wants. First of all, he wants access. He
Speaker 1: wants to cut off the south of Ukraine. Who wants
Speaker 1: to make sure that he has access to the water.
Speaker 1: Number two, he wants to make sure that Ukraine is
Speaker 1: a crippled orphan struggling for life for the rest of
Speaker 1: its foreseeable future. He's killing everything he's and he is
Speaker 1: destroying the infrastructure of the country. It again looks very
Speaker 1: much like nineteen forty four, end of ninety three, beginning
Speaker 1: of nineteen in Europe when the Russians invaded or return
Speaker 1: the favor to Germany during World War Two. Utter complete devastation. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if it's utter complete devastation, how should the West
Speaker 1: handle putin? Well, that's an interesting question, and again I
Speaker 1: have to be to be very careful. Let me step
Speaker 1: back for a second. Um. In many of the war
Speaker 1: games that I do of the time, I represent the
Speaker 1: Red team, Red meaning the bad guys of all the
Speaker 1: bad guys. The number one objective and the number one
Speaker 1: uh the most important thing is regime preservation. Everything else
Speaker 1: takes a second, takes second place, second fiddle. Preserving yourself
Speaker 1: as the leader in an autocracy is the only goal.
Speaker 1: Everything else is subsumed to that. Putin needs to stay
Speaker 1: in power. The only way he can stay in power
Speaker 1: is to constantly do a number of things amplify and
Speaker 1: praise Russia's strength. You've noticed that the one word that
Speaker 1: the Russian media uses in referring to Ukraine more than
Speaker 1: any anything else is nazis Nazism. So what he's doing
Speaker 1: is he's recalling the memory of the Great Patriotic War,
Speaker 1: is how the Russians refer to World War Two and
Speaker 1: ginning up that emotion that we're fighting Nazis. If you're
Speaker 1: fighting anybody else, it's kind of hard to hate the Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: Most of them speak Russian. So you have to create
Speaker 1: an enemy, and then you have to conquer them, and
Speaker 1: you have to show that you're conquering them, and you
Speaker 1: have to show that you're ruthless. So Putin needs to
Speaker 1: prove that he's a leader, proved that he's in control,
Speaker 1: create whatever mythology that he needs to create, to say
Speaker 1: to his people, I have accomplished what I've accomplished, See
Speaker 1: what a great leader I am. That's the goal, and
Speaker 1: of course, to cripple Ukraine to the point where maybe
Speaker 1: it doesn't even become a part of NATO. He was
Speaker 1: very upset about that one. Okay, so at first everybody
Speaker 1: was there were sanctions on Russia, but the Western countries
Speaker 1: relatively hands off. Just recently the United States government said
Speaker 1: they'll ship material within seven days. Germany now is coming
Speaker 1: down opposite even though they need fuel opposite Russia. Israel
Speaker 1: is condemning Russia. Is this just all words, or are
Speaker 1: we going to send them enough infrastructure, tanks, you know, missiles,
Speaker 1: etcetera that they can defend themselves. Where is a foregoing
Speaker 1: conclusion that Prutin will take what he wants. Well, again,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna even speculate on US
Speaker 1: or Western policy. But the fact that the Germans, in
Speaker 1: some shape or form now they've backtracked a little bit,
Speaker 1: but still in some shape or form, have said, in
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that we rely on Russian uh
Speaker 1: um fuel, mostly natural gas and some coal, we are
Speaker 1: willing to take a stand against against Russian aggression. I
Speaker 1: think Putin has made a big mistake because in his
Speaker 1: own mind his the way the Russians conduct foreign policy
Speaker 1: is much the same way the Chinese do. They they
Speaker 1: live in a bilateral world. They don't like to live
Speaker 1: in a multilateral world. To them, NATO is a multi
Speaker 1: multilateral situation and problem each separate country. If you deal
Speaker 1: with each separate country country in a bilateral way makes
Speaker 1: it a lot easier. And then you can UH, in
Speaker 1: typical Russian fashion, UH pit one ally against the other
Speaker 1: and create discord and split the alliances. Hasn't really worked
Speaker 1: that well. It worked many times before, but it hasn't
Speaker 1: worked that well this time. So I believe he's made
Speaker 1: a miscalculation on that level. The only problem is if
Speaker 1: it gets to the point where it starts to look
Speaker 1: bad for him, he's gonna have a couple of tough choices.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'll see the nuclear option, but what
Speaker 1: I I am very afraid of is the use of
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction other than nuclear weapons, or what
Speaker 1: we are seeing is massive conventional destruction of everything, people, buildings, infrastructure, everything,
Speaker 1: to just lay waste to it completely, which is what
Speaker 1: the Russians did in Germany during World War Two. If
Speaker 1: we talk about Syria, we talked about poison gas. You
Speaker 1: think that's an option they might use. What I think
Speaker 1: about Syria, well, we talk about chemical warfare. I'm not
Speaker 1: as worried about that as I am about the use
Speaker 1: of things like barrel bombs in the Scriminate killing. They
Speaker 1: found a number of flashettes embedded in buildings in certain
Speaker 1: outside of certain cities in Ukraine. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with flashettes, no, no, can you explain what
Speaker 1: those are? And also barrel bombs. A flashette is in
Speaker 1: a sense kind of like a modern arrowhead. Uh. It
Speaker 1: is made out of a very strong metal and when
Speaker 1: it pierces something it's it leaves a very ugly wound.
Speaker 1: It's like, um, if somebody loaded up a cannon with
Speaker 1: a bunch of straightened fish hooks that were probably three
Speaker 1: inches long and maybe half fininch wide by the thousands.
Speaker 1: It's basically a scythe that cuts through everything. It's an
Speaker 1: it's a complete anti personnel weapon. It's designed to maim
Speaker 1: and kill on Uh. It's probably the modern version of
Speaker 1: what grape shot was back in the Barrel bombs are
Speaker 1: basically fifty five gallon drums full of explosives and whatever
Speaker 1: else you might want to put in it, pass uh, metal, glass, whatever,
Speaker 1: and you just roll them out of helicopters and you
Speaker 1: roll them down on people and it kills everything without
Speaker 1: a sixties seventy ft radius. Do you anticipate, as a
Speaker 1: result of sanctions and as result of inferior tanks and morale,
Speaker 1: that the Russians may end up with the depleted force
Speaker 1: or do you believe they have enough resources they can
Speaker 1: continue to fight for a very long time. I'm I
Speaker 1: think they're gonna They're gonna have a problem recruiting their
Speaker 1: Their military will never be all volunteer, and one of
Speaker 1: the reasons find the low morale in the military. I mean,
Speaker 1: I remember in UH back in the day, I think
Speaker 1: it was Blenko flew a big into Japan out of
Speaker 1: the camp Chat Peninsula, but it couldn't go above fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand feet because the ground crew had drank all the
Speaker 1: d I all hydraulic fluid. So that gives you an
Speaker 1: idea about what it's like to be in the Russian
Speaker 1: army um as far as um inferior tanks, Yes, and
Speaker 1: no that that I there will come a time where
Speaker 1: there will be decisions made by Putin and his inner
Speaker 1: circle to change the the equipment, UH military hardware that
Speaker 1: they apply to the conflict. As far as um, what
Speaker 1: what will happen In. Right now, Russia is making more
Speaker 1: money now from it from uh petroleum exports than they
Speaker 1: were before the conflict. So right now he's not hurting
Speaker 1: at all. It's actually doing much better. So the question
Speaker 1: is how do you define winning? Just how I understand
Speaker 1: because you're closer than I am. So you're saying, despite
Speaker 1: all the sanctions and the fall of the ruble and
Speaker 1: the banking restrictions, when even it all out, he's actually
Speaker 1: doing better. Yeah, I just remember quickly. I was I
Speaker 1: was giving the Wall Street Journal today and I saw
Speaker 1: an article that spoke about his I think I was
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal that spoke about how he
Speaker 1: was actually collecting more money than he was before, not
Speaker 1: hurting sanctions notwithstanding the Russian people are not happy. But
Speaker 1: so what? And do you think there's been talk of
Speaker 1: Sweden in Finland joining NATO. Is that a possibility or
Speaker 1: that's just gonna trigger more mayhem. I think it's a
Speaker 1: possibility for a couple of reasons. One the obvious reason
Speaker 1: is if they believe that Putin has miscalculated now, they
Speaker 1: probably don't believe that he has learned a whole lot
Speaker 1: from the situation. And we go back to the motivation,
Speaker 1: regime preservation, etcetera, etcetera. That's not really gonna change. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also NATO has become in some sense a de
Speaker 1: facto trade organization. It's not just military, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of economic interaction between members of NATO, and so
Speaker 1: for some it has become more than a military alliance.
Speaker 1: It has become economic, social, educational, etcetera, etcetera. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's grown a couple of facets to it. So it
Speaker 1: makes good sense. So how does trying to fit into
Speaker 1: all this? That's a rather broad question. That's like saying,
Speaker 1: play me every solo you overplayed. Okay, let's attack it
Speaker 1: from a different way. Certainly, under Clinton we moved towards globalization. Okay,
Speaker 1: now there is talk that we're deglobalizing. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: when Trump was president, he certainly pulled back. The world
Speaker 1: was getting closer, and now people are talking about the
Speaker 1: world pulling apart into its various Fiefdom's got a bad connotation.
Speaker 1: But the EU, the United States, China, Russia, how do
Speaker 1: you see globalization today? Right? Going back to tribal um
Speaker 1: first of all, again to understand the Chinese government leadership philosophy,
Speaker 1: first of all, Number one, they are the chosen people.
Speaker 1: Number two, they have been humiliated in their own mind
Speaker 1: for the past hundred years and it's time to pay
Speaker 1: the piper. Number three, they feel that they should be
Speaker 1: now the leader of the world, and it's interesting to
Speaker 1: see how they're going about doing that. One way, of course,
Speaker 1: is to replace the dollar as the world currency. And
Speaker 1: I will bet you whatever it is you'd like to
Speaker 1: bet um, you know, uh, dinner at the cheesecake factory,
Speaker 1: whatever it is that they will be asking the Russians
Speaker 1: to pay. The Russians will be asking the Russians they
Speaker 1: will pay the Russians for their um um raw materials
Speaker 1: in Chinese currency. And as soon as they do that,
Speaker 1: the Iranians will do the same. They're they're pushing very
Speaker 1: hard to replace that. So it's not just warfare or
Speaker 1: conflict on a narrow level, it's conflict all across the board.
Speaker 1: China is the only real winner in this game right now,
Speaker 1: because they're gonna buy everything that Russia can dig out
Speaker 1: of the ground. I remember a friend of mine on
Speaker 1: the Joint chiefs of Staff asked me, said, skunk, I
Speaker 1: want you to describe to me in very few words.
Speaker 1: The Russia said, yes, sir, Russia is a nuclear armed
Speaker 1: gas station run by the mafia with a little grocery
Speaker 1: store that sells a couple of things. If that's all
Speaker 1: you got, and you're being sanctioned by much of the world,
Speaker 1: and you don't have to worry like the Chinese. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that the Chinese have been so active
Speaker 1: in the South China Sea is they remember the the
Speaker 1: Co East Asian Co Prosperity Sphere that Japan set up
Speaker 1: in World War Two to try to protect the sea
Speaker 1: lanes of communication and supply. China has done that. But
Speaker 1: now you could build a railroad from Russia to China,
Speaker 1: never have to put anything on a ship and protect
Speaker 1: your ability to um access raw materials. And the Russians
Speaker 1: will sell them everything they've got, and the and the
Speaker 1: Chinese will buy everything they have. So who wins right now? Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about America. One thing, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to move forward in America if you read about China.
Speaker 1: Not only are they head in electric cars, they're buying
Speaker 1: up all the rang materials around the world. In addition,
Speaker 1: as we know, production goes where its cheapest. Presidentally production
Speaker 1: is in China of chips, of computers, et cetera, mostly Taiwan,
Speaker 1: mostly Taiwan. That begs two questions. Since China certainly clamped
Speaker 1: down on Hong Kong and supposedly the next move is Taiwan.
Speaker 1: Is that something that's imminent. If there's such a word
Speaker 1: as imminence, then I would say the definition of imminence
Speaker 1: in the Western world which is usually about a thirteen
Speaker 1: week um economic cycle in business, and China which is
Speaker 1: five or six hundred years, and in bits and pieces,
Speaker 1: I would say from a Chinese point of view, it's imminent.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of factors here. They the goal of
Speaker 1: the Chinese government in the last fifty years has been
Speaker 1: to reclaim three things Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. They
Speaker 1: got two out of three. J And Ping also has
Speaker 1: to show something. The next party congress is coming up
Speaker 1: very soon, and he wants to be um h King
Speaker 1: or President or whatever acute label they want to put
Speaker 1: on it for life. So he has to prove that
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that and that people should agree
Speaker 1: to that. So is the invasion of Taiwan imminent? In
Speaker 1: a from a Chinese perspective, yes, whether from a Western perspective,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I don't think China is capable
Speaker 1: of securing Taiwan. I think it would be a very
Speaker 1: different battle. And this is just my opinion. I would
Speaker 1: posit that there will be no massive attack like you
Speaker 1: see in Ukraine. There will be a cyber attack. I
Speaker 1: would call it a cyber siege that will shut Taiwan
Speaker 1: down until people starve and then sue for piece. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about warfare. You and me grew up in
Speaker 1: the Vietnam era. We were told that America was the
Speaker 1: greatest country in the world. We could win any war.
Speaker 1: But needless to say, with guerilla warfare, hearts and minds,
Speaker 1: we could not win. So for sixty odd years we've
Speaker 1: had the nuclear option. So if you're fighting war today,
Speaker 1: how important are missiles? We have this incredible defense budget.
Speaker 1: Where should it be put? Missiles and nuclear weapons are
Speaker 1: two different things. I think that's important to make the distinction.
Speaker 1: Let me reframe the question. If you were in charge
Speaker 1: of the defense budget, how would you allocate money today? Okay,
Speaker 1: probably go out on a limb here. I would be
Speaker 1: lots and lots of submarines, I watched Germany almost twice
Speaker 1: when simply because they have the underwater advantage um as
Speaker 1: far as and this is not meant to at all
Speaker 1: reflect negatively on any of the services, but the Chinese
Speaker 1: have built specific weapons to counter specific US weapons systems.
Speaker 1: Give you any example, the DF and the DF are
Speaker 1: anti ship missiles, but they're anti ship missiles that have
Speaker 1: a range of They have the ability to take out
Speaker 1: an aircraft carrier. Now, if you look at the range
Speaker 1: of the typical aircraft on an aircraft carrier, it's a
Speaker 1: lot less than that. So the idea Chinese strategy is
Speaker 1: we will keep American carrier battle groups away from US
Speaker 1: so they can no longer function. Now again I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna I'm right on the edge here, but just because
Speaker 1: carrier battle groups are big doesn't mean there are fat
Speaker 1: targets all the time. And I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1: In terms of the ability to prosecute the underwater domain,
Speaker 1: the Chinese have built a lot of diesel submarines. Diesel
Speaker 1: meaning non nuclear, and actually an air independent probulsion design
Speaker 1: in a non nuclear submarine is quieter even than some
Speaker 1: nuclear submarines. They don't have the range, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any difference if you're fighting in the littorals or
Speaker 1: if you're fighting in your near strategic In China, that
Speaker 1: would be in the first style and chain or the
Speaker 1: second island chain in the South China seat. So as
Speaker 1: I watched the Chinese very specifically, very specifically designed their
Speaker 1: weapons systems based on going to war with the United States,
Speaker 1: missiles are excellent. I would build a lot of missiles.
Speaker 1: I would build a lot of cruise missiles. I would
Speaker 1: build a lot of hypersonic missiles. I would build a
Speaker 1: lot of weapons that are autonomous, that are nonpiloted, that
Speaker 1: are fast, that cover a vast spectrum from going very
Speaker 1: slowly to going to mock ten. And I would I
Speaker 1: would highly complicate my adversaries ability to intercept and prosecute
Speaker 1: any kind of defensive capability against those kind of weapons.
Speaker 1: Nuclear weapons. We already talked about that. Under Trump, there
Speaker 1: was pulling back and an America first philosophy. If you
Speaker 1: were running the country, what would your philosophy be Integrating
Speaker 1: with the rest of the world. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of things here, not only defense. There's economic issues, there's
Speaker 1: climate issues. To what degree should we be integrated in
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, or should we pull back. Well,
Speaker 1: let's look at a little bit of history. What happened
Speaker 1: after World War Two? Did the United States conquer anybody? No,
Speaker 1: what they did was put in place the US dollar
Speaker 1: as the world currency. Didn't have to shoot anybody, didn't
Speaker 1: have to blow anything up. I mean, this is after
Speaker 1: World War Two. The idea of becoming a world power
Speaker 1: without killing everything in sight, unlike some of the other
Speaker 1: adversaries that we could talk about back at World War two,
Speaker 1: was kind of an interesting idea. The British did it
Speaker 1: back in the sixteen seventeen and eighteen hundreds, but they
Speaker 1: followed it on with military strength as well, you're I
Speaker 1: mean England, the UK for many years was the world
Speaker 1: economic power, but they backed it up with military might.
Speaker 1: Same thing with the United States. After World War two.
Speaker 1: Two things happened. One American became the the the the
Speaker 1: what would you call it, the sort of centerpiece of
Speaker 1: the world economy. And number two, they became the guaranteur
Speaker 1: of of freedom against authoritarian regimes, and they guaranteed it
Speaker 1: with nuclear weapons. The Russians had a seven to one
Speaker 1: conventional advantage in Europe. Everybody in every military commander in
Speaker 1: Germany was sitting there waiting for hundred hundreds of armored
Speaker 1: Russian divisions pouring down the folded gap into Germany. The
Speaker 1: only way to stop that would be with technical nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: Why did the Russians deploy the s S twenty because
Speaker 1: they needed a tactical nuclear option? Why did they not?
Speaker 1: Why did NATO deploy the Pershing too, to say to
Speaker 1: the Russians, ain't gonna work, buddy. We are now in
Speaker 1: your wheelhouse with tactical nuclear weapons, and you don't know
Speaker 1: if we're gonna use them or not. So for a
Speaker 1: long time, it was a bipolar world. China had really
Speaker 1: not risen to any uh super strength as it is now.
Speaker 1: They certainly had a large army, but their economy was
Speaker 1: the size of O High for you know, a long time.
Speaker 1: So for a long time everything was kind of imbalance.
Speaker 1: You either on one side or the other. Everybody like dollars,
Speaker 1: but you were either allied to Russia China wasn't really
Speaker 1: a player in the alliance game at the time, or
Speaker 1: you were aligned to the United States. Now it's interesting,
Speaker 1: there's the third player, very powerful both economically and militarily.
Speaker 1: I mean I I believe the Chinese thought about this.
Speaker 1: It said, I think the formula is what the United
Speaker 1: States did after World War Two. Let's manufacture everything, Let's
Speaker 1: try to become the world currency. Let's become the dominant
Speaker 1: military power and reach out and through alliances, not conquering
Speaker 1: through the belt of road. Um uh concept bring people
Speaker 1: into our fold looks to me. I would say it
Speaker 1: passes the duck test. Walks like a duck, quacks like
Speaker 1: a duck, probably a duck. It looks exactly like what
Speaker 1: the United States did. So what do the United States
Speaker 1: do going forward? Well, now you're asking me to talk
Speaker 1: about policy, and that's always an interesting arena. The United
Speaker 1: States has two main problems. One is China has infiltrated
Speaker 1: the United States on all levels government, commercial, academic, and
Speaker 1: it's very difficult once that adversary has gained this much
Speaker 1: control to be able to deal with it. You have
Speaker 1: to know. Let me say that if one were to
Speaker 1: try to meliorate that, one would have to number one,
Speaker 1: um unite the population to understand what the dangers are,
Speaker 1: get their agreement that there is a problem, and get
Speaker 1: their agreement on what the solutions might be. Before you
Speaker 1: even discuss the solutions. You have to have support, can't
Speaker 1: do anything unless people will let you do it. And
Speaker 1: in a tripolar world, it's very different. Some would argue
Speaker 1: that a tripolar world is easier because you ever have
Speaker 1: you ever played risk? Uh? Yeah, So in a tripolar
Speaker 1: or a quad quadripolar world, Uh, it's alliances, My the
Speaker 1: the enemy, and my friend is my friend. It's a
Speaker 1: little different game. The question is how do you play
Speaker 1: that game with Russia and China, especially with Russia being
Speaker 1: crippled in terms of its ability to relate to the
Speaker 1: Western world and China reaching out and saying it's okay,
Speaker 1: Well by everything you can dig out on the ground.
Speaker 1: So how do you rally the American people? Well, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm a bit of a patriot. I love my country.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to put my life down for it. I
Speaker 1: took an oath to defend the Constitution. I don't believe
Speaker 1: that it is a zero sum game, which I believe
Speaker 1: Russia and China believe. I think everybody could get along
Speaker 1: just fine. The only problem is some people are just
Speaker 1: nasty bastards. Putin is not Elon musk g is not
Speaker 1: New gig Rich. There's a very different world here, you know, Uh,
Speaker 1: Putin is not Jack Kennedy. They look at things very differently,
Speaker 1: and they look at it as a zero sum game,
Speaker 1: as the Russians always are fond of saying their version
Speaker 1: of negotiation and what's mine is mine and what's yours
Speaker 1: is negotiable. That is really another definition of a zero
Speaker 1: sum game. So I'm answering your question with a question,
Speaker 1: how do you educate your population instill in them a
Speaker 1: need and a desire to protect the tenants of democracy, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, all the words used in Constitution, declaration
Speaker 1: of Independence, bill of rights refer to the individual, whereas
Speaker 1: in an autocracy it's the state. If you believe that
Speaker 1: the individual above all, whether it's a religious um mandate,
Speaker 1: all freedom is flow from God or whatever you're theological
Speaker 1: or philosophical point of view may be, that the individual
Speaker 1: the importance and the existence of the individual, and the
Speaker 1: right of the individual to be free, uh, and to
Speaker 1: operate autonomous, autonomously in a system where people agree to
Speaker 1: certain rules. If you think that's important, then that's what
Speaker 1: America is. Now. We can get into woke arguments about
Speaker 1: who's doing what, etcetera. And yeah, nobody's perfect, My God, please,
Speaker 1: But why does everybody want to come to the United States?
Speaker 1: Are there hundreds of thousands of people coming across the
Speaker 1: borders of Russia, North Korea, Iran? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So there must be something about the United States the people.
Speaker 1: It's philosophy, it's ideas, it's dreams, the way it looks
Speaker 1: at things that appeals to people deep down. And I'll
Speaker 1: give you an example. Uh, when we were up on
Speaker 1: the Thai Burma border. This is about years ago. People
Speaker 1: we had brought with us copies of the Declaration of Independence,
Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution that we're translated
Speaker 1: into different languages among Korenean Wah, the languages of the
Speaker 1: border people's up in Burma and up on western Thailand.
Speaker 1: People were coming through the jungle two miles to get
Speaker 1: their ends on those documents. What does that mean? Why
Speaker 1: would a piece of paper be that important? Well? What
Speaker 1: does that piece of paper resent represent? So the answer
Speaker 1: to that, I believe is a dream that most everyone has.
Speaker 1: I want to do what I need to do, I'd
Speaker 1: like to do it in relative peace and tranquility. Raise
Speaker 1: my children, pursue happiness. Let's see raising your children in
Speaker 1: peace and tranquility and pursuing happiness. See much of that
Speaker 1: in Russia, Yeah, North Korea. The Yeah, well, and listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be a snot. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: that that I think when maybe to use the words
Speaker 1: that these truths we believe to be ourselves evident. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so too. And I'm sorry it's it can be a
Speaker 1: long time to get around to answering your question. But
Speaker 1: the way that you bring together a group of people
Speaker 1: is under a philosophy, and our philosophy, or our philosophy
Speaker 1: in America is the philosophy of the individual subsumed. Uh,
Speaker 1: where the state is subsumed to the individual, the individual
Speaker 1: is more important than the state. Not in Russia, not
Speaker 1: in China, not in North Korea, not the wrong, not
Speaker 1: in any place I can think of other than the
Speaker 1: Western world. Okay, just one question, uh, needle to say
Speaker 1: America is divided. One half of the population, maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit more than that, believes democracy is in danger
Speaker 1: and autocracy is possible in the near future. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that's a possibility. I believe it's a possibility, and
Speaker 1: not necessarily because of present circumstances. I think and I've
Speaker 1: gonna sound trite, but the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna roll off a couple of um um
Speaker 1: sort of maybe tried phrases. Absolute power crops. Absolutely the
Speaker 1: whole idea of a democratic republic where the voice of
Speaker 1: the people creates the government, was designed to try to
Speaker 1: prevent that, again, the individual versus the state, because I
Speaker 1: see a greater reliance or a greater desire to rely
Speaker 1: on the government as opposed to the individual for things
Speaker 1: like food and clothing, the basic necessities of life. When
Speaker 1: that manifests itself, there is a danger that people we'll
Speaker 1: give up their freedom of giving an example. Uh, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you back you're my age or around it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back to high school or in college.
Speaker 1: When you read The Brothers karamats Off and you read
Speaker 1: the chapter called the Grand Inquisitor, when Alexei was basically
Speaker 1: telling an allegory about how Jesus Christ came to a
Speaker 1: a town back in the ninth century and immediately was
Speaker 1: arrested by the Grand Inquisitor and put in jail. And
Speaker 1: so there's seven or eight pages of a dialogue between
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ and the Grand Inquisitor Jesus Christ says, and
Speaker 1: this is I'm not this is not theological, this is
Speaker 1: just characters. Jesus Christ says. People want to be free,
Speaker 1: they want to be able to operate, think freely, they
Speaker 1: want to exercise free will and all the things that
Speaker 1: were familiar with The Grand Inquisitor says, No, they want
Speaker 1: three hots and a cot if they if I give
Speaker 1: them what they need, they'll give up their freedoms. And
Speaker 1: it was an interesting dialogue. And I would suggest that
Speaker 1: anyone who would like to pursue the discussion that you
Speaker 1: and I are having start with that. There are very
Speaker 1: well um presented arguments on both sides. There are people
Speaker 1: that will tell you that a democratic state that where
Speaker 1: the individual is of of prime importance, will ultimately fail.
Speaker 1: That's what the Chinese will tell you. The Chinese government
Speaker 1: will tell you that. I don't believe that, but I've
Speaker 1: heard people make excellent arguments to the contrary. That democracy
Speaker 1: is a flawed Some people refer to the democratic process
Speaker 1: as making sausage, which is never really a pretty process.
Speaker 1: But as Winston Churchill said, with his American mother, you
Speaker 1: can always rely on America to do the right thing
Speaker 1: after they've exhausted every other possibility. But he said it
Speaker 1: with love. He did not say it to be nasty
Speaker 1: or in any of a detrimental way. He believed that
Speaker 1: even though the system was a little rough, that you
Speaker 1: get ultimately you get what you need. Okay, let's do
Speaker 1: a one eight here and go back to music. I
Speaker 1: could go on for hours about this, but people also
Speaker 1: want to hear about your musical career. He referenced that
Speaker 1: session in che Tago where the Stone leader passed out
Speaker 1: staffs with nothing on them. Do you read music? I'm
Speaker 1: not great at it. How did you learn how to
Speaker 1: read music? I studied classical piano for eight years, and
Speaker 1: then as I began to pursue a career in the
Speaker 1: studio that's the studio musician, I began to study books
Speaker 1: on reading music. And as my dad I used to say,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like a hanging to focus your attention. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you're in the studio and they put a piece
Speaker 1: of music in front of you, you better be able
Speaker 1: to read it or you're gonna learn real quick. Now.
Speaker 1: Can I read music like Tommy Tedesco could? Or am
Speaker 1: I reading like Tim may No? I'm not really great
Speaker 1: at the fly ship, but I can certainly uh fulfill
Speaker 1: the session. As a matter of fact, I remember I
Speaker 1: remember a session with David Campbell, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember who the artist was. This was like years ago
Speaker 1: where there were twenty five sheets of music. It would
Speaker 1: say they wanted to do was a movie soundtrack and
Speaker 1: they wanted to do all the guitar overdubs in one past.
Speaker 1: So I said, okay, I'm in. And what they did
Speaker 1: is that they taped all the pieces of music to
Speaker 1: get all the sheets of music they used about I
Speaker 1: don't know sixteen seventeen eighteen music stands. Put me on
Speaker 1: a chair with wheels, and David slowly wheeled me down,
Speaker 1: pasted all the charts until I got to the end
Speaker 1: of it and was just reading it as we go. So, yes,
Speaker 1: I can read music. Okay, let's go to the beginning.
Speaker 1: Where did you grow up? Till I was nine years old?
Speaker 1: I grew up in Washington, d C. What'd your parents
Speaker 1: do for living there? Well, my mom was a housewife,
Speaker 1: a good one. And did you ever seen Madman? I
Speaker 1: haven't seen the whole series, but I've certainly seen it. Well,
Speaker 1: that was my dad. Don Draper with without without the issues.
Speaker 1: He was uh senior vice president of J Walter Thompson,
Speaker 1: the largest advertising agency in the world. How many kids
Speaker 1: in the family. Just okay, So where do you go
Speaker 1: when you're nine? We moved to Mexico City, where he
Speaker 1: took over all of the Latin American branch of Jay
Speaker 1: Walter Thompson. So what was that like for you suddenly
Speaker 1: being in Mexico? Awesome because here I am in a country.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of bucks to put together, and
Speaker 1: not wealthy, but I have a couple of bucks to
Speaker 1: put together. I'm living a country which really has no rules.
Speaker 1: I can play strip bars and clubs. When I'm eleven twelve,
Speaker 1: I could be in bands. I could do pretty much
Speaker 1: whatever I want and also be exposed to a tremendous,
Speaker 1: tremendously multifaceted and varied culture. It's a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I went to the America School for a year in
Speaker 1: my dad's in no way, You're gonna go to the
Speaker 1: British Academy run by the British Embassy because I wanted
Speaker 1: you get an education. So one thing was interesting. You
Speaker 1: studied four languages, English, French, Spanish, and Latin, and people
Speaker 1: mostly concentrated on French. I would say English was pretty
Speaker 1: close behind, but French at the time was the diplomatic language.
Speaker 1: We're talking late fifties, early sixties. So the the multifaceted, multinational,
Speaker 1: multicultural um melting pot that I was in was fascinating.
Speaker 1: I really it was a It was a It was
Speaker 1: a course in sociology that you would never be able
Speaker 1: to take anywhere else unless you're living in a foreign country.
Speaker 1: How long were you there about five years? Now you
Speaker 1: end up going at Taft. How does that happen? Well,
Speaker 1: my dad, after sending me to the Gregates Academy, that
Speaker 1: British embassy school, he said, now you're going to get
Speaker 1: an even better education. Okay, you're gonna go to boarding
Speaker 1: school in Connecticut. So we went to Chot and Hodgkins
Speaker 1: and Taft and Loomis and Kent, Phillips, Exeter and or
Speaker 1: you know the usual suspects. And my gut feeling told
Speaker 1: me that Taft was the place to go for a
Speaker 1: couple of reasons. One there was a generalman there in
Speaker 1: the name Mr Cunningham who somehow or other talking to him.
Speaker 1: I felt that I could relate to what his vision
Speaker 1: of that place was, because after all, I mean, you're
Speaker 1: gonna go from Mexico City, where you could drive a
Speaker 1: car at twall by putting a hundred paste note in
Speaker 1: your wallet, handing into the traffic cop and and go,
Speaker 1: thank you very much. I have a great day to
Speaker 1: go into an all boys boarding school meeting locked up
Speaker 1: for three months, so you kind of have to figure out.
Speaker 1: You want to make sure if you're gonna be there,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna be too ugly. So the people that
Speaker 1: I met there, and the especially Mr Cunningham, made me
Speaker 1: feel like I would be at home there. And I
Speaker 1: am extremely grateful to everyone who was a teacher, headmaster,
Speaker 1: anybody at TAFT, anybody ever came in contact with UM,
Speaker 1: because the education I received there was incredible. When you
Speaker 1: graduate from one of those schools, you've it's like graduating
Speaker 1: after two years of college, and it's not teaching you
Speaker 1: what to learn, it's teaching you how to learn. I
Speaker 1: remember I remember my English teacher, Uh, great guy. He
Speaker 1: was also by track coach. But we had to run
Speaker 1: an essay on the Red Badge of Courage, so I
Speaker 1: read it. I read the first page that I read
Speaker 1: the last page. You know, I'm a little snot right.
Speaker 1: So I read that, of course, and I wrote this
Speaker 1: paper about Okay, red Badge of Courage j C. The
Speaker 1: initials Jim Conkin really mean send for Jesus Christ. The
Speaker 1: sun hung in the sky like a red way. It's
Speaker 1: obviously the sacrament. I just went off on all of
Speaker 1: this bullshit, handed it in and he called me in
Speaker 1: as a as a professor will do, and he says,
Speaker 1: you wrote this. I said, yes, I did, and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: it is the most incredible pile of ship I have
Speaker 1: ever read in my life. However, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: an a once because it's an incredibly convincing pile of ship.
Speaker 1: So I get. I used that to illustrate. It's not
Speaker 1: just yeah I remember the Battle of Hastings ten sixty six, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. No, it's how do you learn? How do
Speaker 1: you learn to survive? How do you learn to advance?
Speaker 1: How do you learn to educate yourself? I am just
Speaker 1: so lucky that I had that opportunity, and I was
Speaker 1: still living in Mexico. I was commuting back and forth,
Speaker 1: so I was going to New York City working in clubs.
Speaker 1: They're working in music stores, you know, so it was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Let's let's slow down a little bit here. Okay,
Speaker 1: when do you start taking classical piano? When I was five,
Speaker 1: my mother taught me to read. It was an incredible gift.
Speaker 1: And then my dad said, oh, so you could read,
Speaker 1: and went yeah, like a little snot yeah, I could read.
Speaker 1: I'm reading Huckleberry Fame with my mom. So he walks
Speaker 1: into the library, grabs a copy of The Gathering Storm
Speaker 1: by Wisdom Churchill, drops into my lapse and read that
Speaker 1: it took me three years to get through it. But
Speaker 1: that's why WinCE Churchill happens to be a someone that
Speaker 1: I respect. But yes, my mom taught me to read
Speaker 1: when I was five, and we always had a piano.
Speaker 1: She played piano and I would bang on the keys
Speaker 1: and I said, can I take pianolists? And she's sure?
Speaker 1: And how did you become proficient in other instruments? When
Speaker 1: we moved to Mexico, the guitar was kind of the
Speaker 1: national instrument. Plus, my dad, who was not a musician,
Speaker 1: had an incredibly deep record collection. A friend of his,
Speaker 1: who was a disc jockey in Washington d seen him.
Speaker 1: Al Ross would send him boxes full of records because
Speaker 1: it was a jazz station and they didn't play a
Speaker 1: lot of other records and even some jazz. That's when
Speaker 1: I got turned onto the guitar player Howard Roberts, along
Speaker 1: with West Montgomery and a bunch of other folks. But
Speaker 1: so listening to my dad's records and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, we're living in the rock and roll era,
Speaker 1: where if you have a guitar and you know three chords,
Speaker 1: you're happening. You can form a band. So my parents
Speaker 1: gave me a guitar from my tenth birthday. I really
Speaker 1: wanted a bicycle had pissed me off, so hung on
Speaker 1: the wall for about six months. And then a friend
Speaker 1: of mine named Kurt Bundy, who lived in the apartment downstairs,
Speaker 1: started taking guitar lessons. Has said, I'll teach you some
Speaker 1: chords so that I have somebody to play with. And
Speaker 1: so I started playing, and I went, holy crap, this
Speaker 1: is awesome. I mean, I just somehow or other, I
Speaker 1: don't know, evoke in mind, meld, grocked it, whatever you know,
Speaker 1: the term you want to use. I just fell in
Speaker 1: love with it to the point where I had a
Speaker 1: sixty point one great average because all I didn't was
Speaker 1: play the guitar. But yeah, was that sixty capter in
Speaker 1: Mexico pretty much the same everywhere. That's all I want
Speaker 1: to do is play the guitar. Practiced eight hours a day.
Speaker 1: So you say you were playing gigs at a young
Speaker 1: age in Mexico, You're in the middle of Connecticut. You're
Speaker 1: going to taft Are you playing in bands when you're
Speaker 1: in high school? Oh? Yeah, I mean we made it
Speaker 1: a great reputation by playing a rock version of the
Speaker 1: school song and got any detention for three weeks, but
Speaker 1: that established us as a rock band. The band that
Speaker 1: we had a taft um And I remember after a
Speaker 1: a visitation with a young lady from one of the
Speaker 1: boarding schools, Mr Douglas, who was the other assistant head master, said, Baxtor,
Speaker 1: you're grounded and your band is not going to play
Speaker 1: anymore gigs. Well, nobody would go to the school dances,
Speaker 1: so he had to relent. So the power of music.
Speaker 1: And then my senior year, Mr Oscarson, who was the
Speaker 1: dean of students and a wonderful man, because there was
Speaker 1: a group of us that were the trouble Acres, and
Speaker 1: so he figured it bring us all together into groups
Speaker 1: who can keep an eye on us. And when we
Speaker 1: formed this band, uh, the other girls school started asking
Speaker 1: if we would play you know, Dobb's Ferry or St.
Speaker 1: Margaret's or Emma Willard or and so the dean said yeah,
Speaker 1: and he started booking the bands. And we came from
Speaker 1: ten and so one of our one of the people
Speaker 1: that we knew in town became our sort of road
Speaker 1: guy and would take us to the shows. Mr Oskinson
Speaker 1: would book the bands. And yeah, we were It was great.
Speaker 1: It was really cool. I can't beat that. You know.
Speaker 1: How did you end up working at Manny? That's a
Speaker 1: slight uh mimsing omer that I have to correct. I
Speaker 1: started working at Jimmy's. Uh. Mannis was a big part
Speaker 1: of my life because I worked on street at Jimmie's
Speaker 1: music shop and also ended up working at Dan Armstrong's
Speaker 1: guitar shop. And when I was living in Mexico, Henry
Speaker 1: Henry Goldrick, who was the guy that everybody knows when
Speaker 1: you walk into the door, say you got fifty signs
Speaker 1: you want to buy and get out of my store,
Speaker 1: but you get forty offf and you walk in the door.
Speaker 1: So Henry took a liking to me and kind of
Speaker 1: kept me under his wing. He was like my second dad,
Speaker 1: very special man. But I work the way. Wait, you're
Speaker 1: working at Jimmy's and Dan Armstrong, how do you ultimately
Speaker 1: meet him? Well, because I started working at Jimmy's because
Speaker 1: I was standing outside the music store and Frank Scuolachi
Speaker 1: Jimmy Sculaschi, the Squashi brothers owned it. Um was trying
Speaker 1: to uh interact with a customer who didn't speak English.
Speaker 1: And as you know, if someone doesn't speak English and
Speaker 1: the only language that you know, the first thing you
Speaker 1: do is to talk louder and slower. So there's Jimmy
Speaker 1: going String's love Bell La Strings La Bella, and the
Speaker 1: guys look at him like, okay, that's like when you
Speaker 1: talk to a dog and they hear nip nip. So
Speaker 1: I walked in and I translated for the gentleman, and
Speaker 1: Jimmy said, you want a job. I said, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: but I can only work on Christmas vacation, Easter vacation,
Speaker 1: and in the summer because I go to I'm going
Speaker 1: to school. He says, that's fine. So it was the
Speaker 1: perfect job. So so I thought I was very happy
Speaker 1: taking two Fender twin reaver rooms up six flights of
Speaker 1: stairs in the middle of August for bucking a quarter
Speaker 1: an hour. And I started because I had grown up
Speaker 1: in Mexico and there was nobody to repair my guitars
Speaker 1: or my amplifiers. I gained some fundamental knowledge in both
Speaker 1: those areas and began repairing guitars at Jimmy's. And that's
Speaker 1: when Dan Armstrong realized we're a noa trs coming out
Speaker 1: of Jimmy's. So he said, I'll pay you five bucks
Speaker 1: an hour, which was all fortune in nine four to
Speaker 1: come and work for me. But at six o'clock every
Speaker 1: night they would basically close off. Now there was Terminal Music,
Speaker 1: Ben's Music, UM, uh Manny's, uh Charles Ponty. There were
Speaker 1: a number of music stores, but the deal was that
Speaker 1: each music store could only have one franchise or other
Speaker 1: music stores cannot have uh dual franchisees. So at six
Speaker 1: o'clock at night, myself and all the stock boys from
Speaker 1: the different stores they would go okay. So Henry would
Speaker 1: come out and uh Billy would come down from Terminal
Speaker 1: and say, okay, I'll trade your two jazz masters at
Speaker 1: a deluxe reverb for one Rickebacker uh twelve string it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that was all we were moving stuff all
Speaker 1: over forty Street and then I met when I met
Speaker 1: Henry because of that, he's still a liking to me
Speaker 1: and we had become friends over the long term, and
Speaker 1: we stayed friends way after you know, I left Taft
Speaker 1: and way after until I became you know, even when
Speaker 1: I became a successful musician. And I remember one day, Uh, Henry,
Speaker 1: he said, I walked into the store and typically Henry,
Speaker 1: I made. I don't know if you knew Henry, but
Speaker 1: certainly been to me and he's an interacting with him, right,
Speaker 1: so you know, so I walk in and uh, I said, Henry,
Speaker 1: you got anything new? And he says, God, damnit, skunk
Speaker 1: you you could endorse anything you want. I here. So
Speaker 1: he handed me an ovation in classgow guitar which I
Speaker 1: used on the album, and said take this and get
Speaker 1: out of my store. But you know, Henry was gruff.
Speaker 1: I mean it was that was that was his personality.
Speaker 1: So the next day I came back and I said,
Speaker 1: can I talk to you? And he always had time
Speaker 1: for me. So we went upstairs and they said, what's
Speaker 1: on your mind. I said, I've been offered this incredible
Speaker 1: opportunity to serve my country, but I'm taking a lot
Speaker 1: of grief from a number of my colleagues in the
Speaker 1: music business. And he said, screw them. Do you believe
Speaker 1: in this? I said, yes, Sir, I really do. I
Speaker 1: was brought up on my father UH fifty five years
Speaker 1: active military, twenty years reserved. I was brought up to
Speaker 1: believe in some of the things that we talked about.
Speaker 1: He said, will you do it? You go do it,
Speaker 1: and if anybody gives you any ship, you tell him
Speaker 1: come talk to me. And I thought, my god, not
Speaker 1: only did I had I always loved this man, but
Speaker 1: now I know that I had done the right thing.
Speaker 1: And here's a guy that most people think of, some
Speaker 1: gruff guy's gotta hell at you, get you the hell
Speaker 1: out of his store with a couple of Tony herbs
Speaker 1: and UH an offender Strato Castle. So I was very
Speaker 1: lucky to have him, Dan Armstrong, and even to the
Speaker 1: point Frank and Jimmy who took me under their wing.
Speaker 1: Good people, good people. Dan Armstrong became famous for the
Speaker 1: loose sight guitar. What was Dan Armstrong doing in the
Speaker 1: middle sixties, Danny had the only guitar customizing shop that
Speaker 1: I knew of pretty much in the United States. You
Speaker 1: could bring your instrument into into Danny's place and have
Speaker 1: something done to it, like okay. Uh. We invented the
Speaker 1: coil fader for instant the ability to split the coils,
Speaker 1: and a humbucker. Um. We invented a number of different
Speaker 1: ways to wire and rewire electric guitars to produce different sounds,
Speaker 1: different tones. Um. We would take dan electro guitars, spend
Speaker 1: a b to time on them and release them as hybrids. Uh.
Speaker 1: Nobody else was doing that, And so every guitar player
Speaker 1: on the planet hung out at Danny's place. Bill Burkeo
Speaker 1: was building amps across the hall, Danny was repairing guitars,
Speaker 1: and it was great. I mean, you'd walk in and
Speaker 1: there would be five or six guys playing my job.
Speaker 1: As a little snot nose kid, Danny said, here's this guitar.
Speaker 1: It's got four regular strings and to bass strings. You
Speaker 1: are going to learn the cop chords and basslines at
Speaker 1: the same time, and I'm gonna teach you how to
Speaker 1: do it. Because me and Sam Brown and Eddie Deal
Speaker 1: and all the seriously frightening bebop guitar players who were
Speaker 1: hanging around at that place wanted somebody to accompany them
Speaker 1: all the time. So okay, that was my first education
Speaker 1: in a very different kind of guitar playing. Um, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you another great story, if you got a
Speaker 1: minute under a Stegovia comes in his ramires Is. He's
Speaker 1: broken one of the tuning pigs on one side of them,
Speaker 1: and you have as you know, they're come in three.
Speaker 1: So they really couldn't repair an at concert that night,
Speaker 1: so he brought it in. So I ran across the
Speaker 1: streets to Charles Ponti, who was also a music store,
Speaker 1: but he was a violin and cello repair a guy,
Speaker 1: and so I was hoping against hope that he would
Speaker 1: have a set of classical guitar machines. And he did. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I bought him, brought him back over, installed him
Speaker 1: on this Ramires, strung it up, tuned it up, walked out,
Speaker 1: and Mr Segovi was sitting patiently on the sofa. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Mike Bluefield and Frank Zappa and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: guys were all standing around a couple of amplifiers hang
Speaker 1: out playing rock and just having a great time. And
Speaker 1: you know, I saw this on a footlook of serenity
Speaker 1: on on Andrews to go his face. I walked over
Speaker 1: and said, in Spanish, here's your instrument, sir uh, let
Speaker 1: me know if this is to your liking, and because
Speaker 1: I had a tremendous amount of respect for this guy,
Speaker 1: and tell me what you think. I said, guys, stand
Speaker 1: by for one second. Just as a gentleman can make
Speaker 1: sure his guitar is working, so he tunes it up.
Speaker 1: He plays the first sixty four bars of the concerto
Speaker 1: that on Quest by Rodrigo and I'm losing it. I
Speaker 1: just can't, I mean, and the way he plays the
Speaker 1: emotion anyway, it was. It was an incredible moment in
Speaker 1: my life. And even the other players were just transfixed.
Speaker 1: And then in Spanish you said, you tell those people
Speaker 1: that you don't hang it around your neck like a
Speaker 1: canoe paddle. You sit down, behold it against your body
Speaker 1: because it is a part of you. It feeded through
Speaker 1: Its connected to your spirit and your mind and your heart. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's what I do. That makes perfect sense to me. Now.
Speaker 1: There were times when I leaped around stage, but ultimately
Speaker 1: I ended up being a sit down guitar player and
Speaker 1: BB King. One time he said to me, Jesus kunk
Speaker 1: if I after hear one of his knees had a
Speaker 1: knee operation, that if I had only known, I used
Speaker 1: to see you sit down and play all the time.
Speaker 1: If I had known, I would have done this since
Speaker 1: the day I was born. So anyway, it was a
Speaker 1: wonderful experience working at Danny's, being on Street which is
Speaker 1: now all disappeared, it's all gone. It was a unique
Speaker 1: place in the world. Okay, you're there when the Beatles arrived,
Speaker 1: what was your experience and was that positive or negative?
Speaker 1: I would say it was all positive because along with
Speaker 1: the Beatles came some really amazing bands that I thought
Speaker 1: were amazing. The yard Birds, the Kicks. I thought Village Village,
Speaker 1: Green Preservation Society was one of the greatest records I've
Speaker 1: ever heard in my life. It's like pat sounds. The
Speaker 1: Yardbirds were playing music with incredible guitar players playing writing
Speaker 1: songs that had time changes, key changes, field groove changes.
Speaker 1: That was amazing. So I thought number one, it was
Speaker 1: a wonderful thing. Number two and I have no um
Speaker 1: I never want to speak ill of pop pop pop music,
Speaker 1: pop pop pop pop pop music, which Jerry Lee Lewis
Speaker 1: used to refer to as the Bobbies. To all these
Speaker 1: Bobbies Bobby b Bobby Bobby right al Bobby Bobby Bobby
Speaker 1: um and used to make them crazy. Uh, the bridge said, hey,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard Lightning Hopkins? Have you ever heard
Speaker 1: Buddy Waters? And for many people, they've never heard of that.
Speaker 1: So I believe they they gave America an education into
Speaker 1: its roots music. So I thought it was fantastic, right,
Speaker 1: no problem at all. Okay, you're working at Dan Armstrong's.
Speaker 1: You reference Bloomfield, Zappa Yardbirds back in page Other than yourself,
Speaker 1: who do you admire? Who's at the top of that pile?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's a it's a tough question. But
Speaker 1: do I what's my favorite airplane? Well, that's my favorite
Speaker 1: fire plane. Well it depends on the mission. Um, it
Speaker 1: was my favorite guitar player, I would say, Um. Probably
Speaker 1: overall for creativity would be Jeff Beck. You never know
Speaker 1: where he's going. There's you never know what that. There
Speaker 1: are other people who were in and lameless who are
Speaker 1: masters of the obvious. Jeff Beck is not one of those.
Speaker 1: Another guitar player I discovered playing in uh a little
Speaker 1: club in Austin and sort of brought him to l A.
Speaker 1: Was Eric Johnson. Wonderful guitar player, wonderful player, and again
Speaker 1: not a master of the obvious melodic. That's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I loved the Ventures so much, and
Speaker 1: I joined their fan club when I was eleven years
Speaker 1: old and then ended up finally playing with him and
Speaker 1: producing him and melody. Hey, guys, what a concept. There's
Speaker 1: a melody. Let's play the melody. So people who grow
Speaker 1: up and there is not a guitar player that I've
Speaker 1: ever met who doesn't have a tremendous amount of love
Speaker 1: or at least respect for the Ventures because of that. Um,
Speaker 1: guys like Eric Johnson are so lodic. So it's Jeff Beck.
Speaker 1: They're they're melody guys, and I that's hopefully what I
Speaker 1: aspire to is melodies, compositions within compositions. Now, Jeff Beck, please,
Speaker 1: without a pick, what's your take on that? If he
Speaker 1: wants to play with his nose? Um, there were outside
Speaker 1: of the National Cathedral in Mexico City when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, there was a guitar player with no arms
Speaker 1: who played with his feet and he played pretty well.
Speaker 1: So I guess I I see no efficacy and being
Speaker 1: judgmental in terms of how one approaches the instrument. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're in TAFT, you graduate, you end up going
Speaker 1: to be you? How do you end up going to
Speaker 1: Boston University? I wanted to go to the School of
Speaker 1: Public Communications. Uh, kind of following my dad's footsteps on
Speaker 1: some level, um, and ended up at BU, at the
Speaker 1: School of Public In the case, now, did you graduate
Speaker 1: from BU? No? I joined a rock and roll band. Well,
Speaker 1: I joined the Ultimate Spinish. Although I was playing bass
Speaker 1: for Tim Buckley and playing gigs around town, doing a
Speaker 1: lot of work at a place called Natural Sound, which
Speaker 1: was all country music, and I was playing in the
Speaker 1: combat zone either at the at the Intermission Lounge, which
Speaker 1: if you ever saw the Blues Brothers, you know about
Speaker 1: chicken wire and all that kind of stuff. And then
Speaker 1: there was the Crazy Horse was just right next to it,
Speaker 1: and I was just learning to play pedal steel, and
Speaker 1: I was I love country music. Again. It was playing
Speaker 1: a lot of the country and so for that I
Speaker 1: started doing gigs and I realized I can make I
Speaker 1: can make a lot of money and do what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, or wait four years and I just didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't want didn't wait. I don't want to wait.
Speaker 1: So how long did you go to be you? And
Speaker 1: what'd your father say when you dropped out? I went
Speaker 1: for a year. My mother was apoplectic, and my father,
Speaker 1: who as any good father would do, had planned out
Speaker 1: my life for me if I wanted it, to graduate
Speaker 1: from Boston University, to become a junior vice president in Kodak.
Speaker 1: You moved to Rochester, You work your way through the corporation.
Speaker 1: You probably do thirty years and end up as a
Speaker 1: senior executive vice president. You retire um which if you
Speaker 1: in my mind, that was beautiful that my father would
Speaker 1: care enough about me to try to do something like that.
Speaker 1: It's just incredible. I didn't resent it, far from it,
Speaker 1: But like every other snot nose kids with a guitar,
Speaker 1: I ended up playing in bands, making no money, you know,
Speaker 1: basically you know the drill. And my father, although he
Speaker 1: was supportive, there are times when he was disappointed. And
Speaker 1: of course my mother, well, my god, if uh you know,
Speaker 1: how what could she tell them the ladies at the
Speaker 1: country club? You know what the son wasn't doing anything.
Speaker 1: He's playing in bands. My mother came down to the
Speaker 1: village to see us playing one of the clubs down there.
Speaker 1: She walked down the middle of the street. She was
Speaker 1: kind of afraid to be too close to the the clientele.
Speaker 1: So and I get it. You know, this is not
Speaker 1: putting my mother down. She was scared, she didn't. I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, let's face it, walking down Bleaker Street in
Speaker 1: nineteen are you kidding me? It's like the Star Wars
Speaker 1: bar so. So were they supported financially and did they
Speaker 1: ever get it? I never really had to rely on
Speaker 1: them financially, And even when I was working in in
Speaker 1: uh during the time I was going to TAFT, I
Speaker 1: gave everything I made to them. It just made sense
Speaker 1: to me, and they would give me an allowance. But
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, you know whatever, my however, my work
Speaker 1: ethic was, that's what made perfect sense to me. I
Speaker 1: live here, I should help support I'm making money. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm making a buck on a quarter an hour for
Speaker 1: eight hours a day in nineteen sixty not that so
Speaker 1: Boston is a provincial town, not that there isn't a scene.
Speaker 1: How long you in Boston and when and how to
Speaker 1: decide to leave. I'm in Boston obviously from seven and
Speaker 1: sixty eight to go to Boston University UM, and then
Speaker 1: I stayed for about another two or three years. I
Speaker 1: was doing session work in Boston. I had a guitar
Speaker 1: shop with Dave Schuckter. We were building and repairing guitars. UM.
Speaker 1: I was commuting to New York to do sessions down
Speaker 1: in New York as well. Uh, there was a fair
Speaker 1: amount of working in Boston. Wasn't huge, but it was
Speaker 1: a fair amount. And I had already had friends in
Speaker 1: the session scene in New York, so that worked out
Speaker 1: UM pretty well. UM. And around nineteen seventy I was
Speaker 1: working in the intermediate sound and there was a band
Speaker 1: called The Beat Game and they were being produced by
Speaker 1: a gentleman named Gary Katz, and these guys were all friends.
Speaker 1: And there were different bands coming into intermedia, and there
Speaker 1: was never really anything like a house guitar player or
Speaker 1: a house piano player, but there were always bands that
Speaker 1: needed players. So there were many instances where bands would
Speaker 1: come in and say we need guitar player, or we
Speaker 1: need guitar on this or something. So UM, there was
Speaker 1: something that had to do with the beat game. I
Speaker 1: think it was playing acoustic guitar while the other guitar
Speaker 1: player was a great guitar player. Was they need an
Speaker 1: acoustic in the track. And that's why I met Gary
Speaker 1: Katz and Gary said, I have a production project in
Speaker 1: New York with a woman named Linda Hoover I think
Speaker 1: that was your stage named Linda Willingham, I think was
Speaker 1: a regular name. And there are these two songwriters who
Speaker 1: are writing all the material for the album called Walter
Speaker 1: Becker and Donald Fagan. Would you be willing to come
Speaker 1: down and play on this project? I said, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: you know I'm a sense of artist. Where's the chuck?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I got on train, went down there and
Speaker 1: did the project, and I was really impressed with the music,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, this songwriting is really spectacular,
Speaker 1: at least I think. And I said, well, we've never
Speaker 1: heard anybody play gus are like you do, especially on
Speaker 1: our music. So maybe what we ought to do is
Speaker 1: whoever whoever passes go first, call everybody else up and
Speaker 1: we'll form a band. And so Becker and Fagan came
Speaker 1: out to Los Angeles, got a publishing deal with ABC Records,
Speaker 1: and then said to everybody Okay, we've passed. Go does
Speaker 1: everybody go to l A? Okay? So we all went
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. Um I found various jobs playing around
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I was a guitar repairman, so I met
Speaker 1: every guitar player in the substance scene, everybody in l A.
Speaker 1: I ended up playing a lot of the Palomino Club,
Speaker 1: the Playtime, and a lot of the country bars around
Speaker 1: town playing pedal steel dough bro guitar. And one day
Speaker 1: we were rehearsing in the office of the president of
Speaker 1: ABC Records, um uh, Hard Stark and Jay Lasker, and
Speaker 1: usually we would break the gear down in time when
Speaker 1: they were before they show up in the morning. We
Speaker 1: stay up all night. One night we cut we didn't
Speaker 1: get out of there in time, and Jacobs say says,
Speaker 1: what the hell is this? And Gary Katz says, well,
Speaker 1: there's this band and they're playing in the material of
Speaker 1: the guys that you signed to a publishing deal. I said, well,
Speaker 1: all right, then I want to hear it. Jay was
Speaker 1: one of those record guy record record guys, and so
Speaker 1: we played for him and he went, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the hell you guys are doing. I mean, because
Speaker 1: we had slags like dr Udu's proto man. But I
Speaker 1: think I like it. Okay, I'll give you a record deal.
Speaker 1: And then Howard Start wrote me a check for a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, said, skunk, go get an apartment, bring your
Speaker 1: girlfriend out, put somebody in the bank, and I went,
Speaker 1: holy crop, Yeah, thank you, this is great. I mean
Speaker 1: I made money with Ultimate Spinach and said, but this
Speaker 1: was like the real deal. And that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it all started. You know, let's go back a chapter.
Speaker 1: You talked to the advent of wanting to be the
Speaker 1: number one studio cat. So at this point in time,
Speaker 1: do you want it to be first call? There's a
Speaker 1: lot of guys, not a lot, but yes, I don't
Speaker 1: want to sound like a complete dipshit. No, okay, you
Speaker 1: wanted to be first call. So did you want to
Speaker 1: be a studio rat or did you want to be
Speaker 1: in a band? And when you were a studio rap
Speaker 1: before you in a band, how did you get all
Speaker 1: these gigs? Well, you got the gigs by other people,
Speaker 1: uh recommending it. That's always how the studio was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I know a lot of musicians, they're usually working
Speaker 1: it too well, of course, So were you good at
Speaker 1: working it. It must have been. I mean, of somebody,
Speaker 1: would I would I go the extra mile? Sure? Would I?
Speaker 1: Um work a little harder? Um? Would I say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you make me a cassette? And I'm going to
Speaker 1: go home and shed on this and I'll come back
Speaker 1: in the morning and I'll nail it. You know again.
Speaker 1: My dad always said, give a little more, it'll come back. Um.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of, I guess, kind of the way
Speaker 1: it was. I wanted to be a studio musician because
Speaker 1: I felt that it was the top gun of the
Speaker 1: music business. I like the idea of taking pride in
Speaker 1: being a craftsman because I built guitars too, and I
Speaker 1: worked with wood when I was a kid, especially in
Speaker 1: mex Ico. The idea of to me playing the guitar
Speaker 1: was a craft. I'm not bluewing it. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: an art, it's all of that, but it's also a craft.
Speaker 1: You're working with your hands. So I wanted to be
Speaker 1: the best craftsman I could possibly be. And watching the
Speaker 1: whole world around me, some of my friends actually die
Speaker 1: from stupidity, whether it's drugs or whatever. It was. There
Speaker 1: was something about the discipline and I think This came
Speaker 1: from my father about being a studio musician, where if
Speaker 1: you didn't show up on time, you're fired, and the
Speaker 1: story there's a thousand people waiting for that gig. If
Speaker 1: you don't play it right, if your mind is too
Speaker 1: messed up, you're fired. So to me, there was a
Speaker 1: to use, I guess a a military term. There was
Speaker 1: a doctrine that I followed that I thought this would
Speaker 1: be a good thing to do. It would be healthy.
Speaker 1: Now that doesn't mean that ours weren't crappy, but it was.
Speaker 1: It was a way to protect yourself against the the
Speaker 1: Sila and Charybdis of rock and roll craziness and insanity.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to jump enjoying what became
Speaker 1: steely Dan? Well, that's when you know. Gary said, Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we got I think we passed. Go. So
Speaker 1: you're willing to stop being a studio musician and be
Speaker 1: in a band? No, I want to do both. And
Speaker 1: I was doing that as well in Boston and in
Speaker 1: New York. So I didn't see I didn't see a
Speaker 1: geo spatial uh separation problem. So moving to La was
Speaker 1: and my parents were gonna move to Los Angeles, so
Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, at least I got a place of sleep,
Speaker 1: and I will go and take a shot at this. Okay,
Speaker 1: ABC was a second rate label. Steely Dan makes an
Speaker 1: album there instantly a m hits. What was the experience
Speaker 1: on the other side of the fence. Well, I must
Speaker 1: I have to disagree with you a little bit. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna be a worthy or umbrage because it makes
Speaker 1: me think of rain. But I don't think ABC was
Speaker 1: a second rate label. They did very well with people
Speaker 1: like Steve Barry in their A and R department, the grassroots, Hamilton, Joe,
Speaker 1: Franklin Reynolds, and they did very well. I thought, I
Speaker 1: thought they ran it. It was old school. I mean,
Speaker 1: the cigar smoke was thick when you walked into Jay
Speaker 1: Lasker's and Howard Stark's office. But they were old school
Speaker 1: and I think they did a really good job. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, when I joined, when I was
Speaker 1: offered the opportunity to actually join the Doobie Brothers, even
Speaker 1: though I was already playing with him, I went to
Speaker 1: Howard and Jay and said, you guys, I have this
Speaker 1: incredible opportunity to what's did I do? And Jay Lasker
Speaker 1: literally reached into his desk, Strawer pulled out my contract
Speaker 1: tort and half handed it to me and said, good luck.
Speaker 1: You never lied to me kids, good luck. And that
Speaker 1: is why I went to his bedside when he was
Speaker 1: in his last days. Old school, but old school in
Speaker 1: a way like Henry was old school. Those kind of
Speaker 1: people I understood and had a tremendous amount of love,
Speaker 1: affection and respect for so second rate label. I I
Speaker 1: understand what you're saying. They were not a major, they
Speaker 1: weren't our Cia, and they weren't Columbia, but they did
Speaker 1: good and they did well by their artists. That was
Speaker 1: Steely an instant hit. No. The first single that was
Speaker 1: released was a song called Dallas and if you go
Speaker 1: listen to it, it's a great song sung by the
Speaker 1: drummer Jimmy Hotter. It's almost a country tune. I'm playing
Speaker 1: a lot of pedal steel and Poco covered it, number
Speaker 1: of their own bands covered it, But for some reason,
Speaker 1: Becker and Fagan were frightened that between the name Steely
Speaker 1: Dan and having all this pedal steel and that kind
Speaker 1: of that they would be um button hooked or pigeonholed
Speaker 1: as a country band. So they pulled that back then
Speaker 1: released do It Again as the first single, and we
Speaker 1: were we were gigging. I mean, we were playing under
Speaker 1: the Ice House in Pasadena for five night. We were
Speaker 1: you know, Fanny was opening for us to talk about
Speaker 1: an incredible band, you know, talk about a band that
Speaker 1: deserves much more respect and admiration than they ever got.
Speaker 1: We were just we were gigging. We were playing local shows,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't really an instant hit. It took a
Speaker 1: little while, but I appreciate the compliment. Just to clarify,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the perception on the other side of
Speaker 1: the fence. You know, there was no buzz on the
Speaker 1: album upon release. In terms of reviews, there was no
Speaker 1: FM play, and all of a sudden there were these
Speaker 1: magic AM tracks. But in any event, let me go back,
Speaker 1: what did you play on the album and what did
Speaker 1: Anny Diaz play? Well, you have to I guess song
Speaker 1: by song, but we split a lot of the guitar responsibilities.
Speaker 1: We both played on every track. Uh, sometimes he played
Speaker 1: a great solo undo It Again, Wow, and um my
Speaker 1: solos were kind of well known, things like Ricky, don't
Speaker 1: lose that number of my old school we all had
Speaker 1: a tune it is to play. But we all played
Speaker 1: together and I love playing with Danny. We were very
Speaker 1: different players, and it was one of those lucky things
Speaker 1: where are our playing just messed. It was a little
Speaker 1: bit like when I joined the Doobies and the way
Speaker 1: that Patrick Simmons and I played together. We came from
Speaker 1: very different approaches to the instrument, but we all The
Speaker 1: one thing about Danny and myself is that we grew
Speaker 1: up in New York, and New York guitar players have
Speaker 1: a certain etiquette. Um. As Joe Wallace used to say,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in institute. Wasn't where everybody
Speaker 1: plays lead all the time, either do I. You make
Speaker 1: room for other musicians, and by doing that you begin
Speaker 1: to learn about your musical partners and your musical colleagues,
Speaker 1: and eventually you get to the point um where you
Speaker 1: become a better musician. I think without learning that etiquette,
Speaker 1: I may may have not had the tools that I
Speaker 1: needed to appreciate what was happening between myself and c
Speaker 1: J now Danny Diaz. He ultimately left the business right
Speaker 1: got into computers pretty much. Yeah, I believe that I
Speaker 1: talked to Danny a couple of times we we got
Speaker 1: a chance to talk about once in a while. I
Speaker 1: believe he's a computer programmer, writes code. Um, I just
Speaker 1: think that the experience and I'm not going to speak
Speaker 1: for him, and I don't never speak for anybody. I
Speaker 1: think for him the experience was different and maybe he
Speaker 1: just saw things like that was great. And I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have my moments for I'm a rock
Speaker 1: guitar player. I had my moments when I'm designing strategies
Speaker 1: for space warfare. You know. Uh, I get that it's
Speaker 1: good to be a colectic. But I think maybe he just,
Speaker 1: you know, got to the point where I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do it anymore. Many people consider the second Steely
Speaker 1: Dan album, Countdown to Ecstasy, the best. I'm not in
Speaker 1: agreement with that, but that seither here and We're there.
Speaker 1: The album comes out, there don't appear to be any
Speaker 1: hit singles on the radio, and suddenly Becker and Fagan say,
Speaker 1: we don't want to go on the road anymore, So
Speaker 1: what's your experience. Well, that didn't really happen to my
Speaker 1: knowledge until after Pretzel Logic. Okay, then maybe I have
Speaker 1: it wrong. No, we were still and we were gigging
Speaker 1: a lot. Actually, Steely Dan played a lot of shows.
Speaker 1: Somehow or other, this this myth arose that Steely Dan
Speaker 1: didn't do any gigs. We worked hard. We opened for
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers, we opened for James Gang, we opened
Speaker 1: for um um Bert Cummings, we opened I mean we
Speaker 1: we did a lot lot of shows. Um But I
Speaker 1: think in the same way that I think Living All
Speaker 1: the fault Line, Ultimately it was probably the best Doobie
Speaker 1: Brothers album because and we can certainly have a discussion
Speaker 1: about the transition from rock and bar band two, you know,
Speaker 1: focusing um. The song raised Her Boy on Countdown Ectity.
Speaker 1: To me epitomizes Steely Dan because that record seemed to
Speaker 1: synthesize and and digest a lot of what Steely Dan
Speaker 1: was becoming. And we'd had time to play on the road,
Speaker 1: we'd had time to become a unit. So I wasn't
Speaker 1: really worried about the hits. I mean, I'm doing fine.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm doing four or five sessions to day.
Speaker 1: I'm working my ass off, so and I'm playing in
Speaker 1: Lenda Rostats band. I'm playing pedalist steel, so I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm digging my butt off and I'm out with
Speaker 1: the Deobie Brothers playing, So I really wasn't. I guess
Speaker 1: maybe I wasn't affected by that, but I think as
Speaker 1: an albums, as a creative piece, the second Steely Dan
Speaker 1: album shows a maturity of a group of musicians. So
Speaker 1: how did it in with Steely Dan for you? I
Speaker 1: was actually on the phone. I was out with the
Speaker 1: Deobie Brothers playing um uh an outdoor festival in England,
Speaker 1: and I had gotten into a conversation with with Donald
Speaker 1: and Denny, and Danny had called and said, yeah, they
Speaker 1: Walter and Donald just don't want to go on the
Speaker 1: road anymore. They don't want to have a band, they
Speaker 1: just want to So I talked to Donald and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we just um don't want to do it anymore. We
Speaker 1: can't get the sound, we don't do it. And probably
Speaker 1: they were doing very well with their publishing and so
Speaker 1: you know, if you didn't really going on the road
Speaker 1: could be challenging, um say the least. So I hung
Speaker 1: up the phone. I was in uh net Worth, that
Speaker 1: was it, the net Worth Music Festival, And I hid
Speaker 1: up the phone and I turned to Pat Simmons and
Speaker 1: I said well, I said for me and Steely Dan,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, now you're in the Dubie Brothers. Okay, Okay, great,
Speaker 1: there you go. Okay, let's go back to your conversation
Speaker 1: with Henry. It seemed like you were saying you were
Speaker 1: talking about going into the military. What happened there? Not
Speaker 1: into the military. I did not join the military. I
Speaker 1: was never in the military, and I don't want to again.
Speaker 1: I want to be very very careful. I what I
Speaker 1: do is I work for the Department of Defense and
Speaker 1: a number of US government agencies on many different levels,
Speaker 1: mostly having to do with unconventional warfare, space, UM perception management,
Speaker 1: UM war gaming. But I'm not actually I was never
Speaker 1: a member of the military. Okay. A couple of questions,
Speaker 1: How did you get out of the draft? I showed
Speaker 1: up at my draft board like everybody else? And did
Speaker 1: you ever did you ever go to a draft physical? No,
Speaker 1: because I filed as the CEO. But then I got
Speaker 1: a number like two nine and it didn't become an issue. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I show up at the well the experience, So
Speaker 1: you show up at the Boston Navy Yard. Truth is
Speaker 1: stranger than fiction. I've show up at the Boston Navy Yard.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I got all your clothes off. You got
Speaker 1: a little bag in your hand with all your little stuff,
Speaker 1: and you go from desk to desk and they're checking
Speaker 1: things off. Yep, this looks good. Yeah, this looks good. Yep.
Speaker 1: You look good here, you look good here. Yep. So
Speaker 1: you're going from desk to desk, and I'm thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: in about three weeks, maybe a second lieutenant in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and that may be it for me. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: a very pleasant experience. So the last guy at the
Speaker 1: end of the hall, and I guess I'm being cinematic
Speaker 1: about this, but the last guy, so you walked through
Speaker 1: the door, big steel desk, sitting behind the desk, looks
Speaker 1: down at my papers and says says, here you're a musician.
Speaker 1: Said yes, sir, Well do you only think about stereo equipment?
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, okay, I have just moved into an
Speaker 1: alternate universe. I'm gonna wake up in Way City. But
Speaker 1: right now, okay, he says, do you have a minute.
Speaker 1: So now this thing is really starting to now I
Speaker 1: even more than I'm in a multidimensional universe, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I am living string theory. So I sit down
Speaker 1: on the edge of his desk naked with my little
Speaker 1: bag of stuff. He draws a picture of his living
Speaker 1: room with the measurements, and I said okay, And I
Speaker 1: asked the question. I said, is your wife want to
Speaker 1: not see this uh stuff? And she said absolutely not.
Speaker 1: He said, I want to see this crop. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: Here's what I would suggest in these corners. I would
Speaker 1: build a m a curtain, put a set of curtains
Speaker 1: in that our catacorners are to try, you know, the
Speaker 1: other side of the triangle that the that the the
Speaker 1: the room forms. Put in a pair of clip shorns,
Speaker 1: because they'll create enough top end so they get through
Speaker 1: the curve. But it will create enough high fidelity for you.
Speaker 1: I would recommend that you buy a Macintosh to box
Speaker 1: um I and probably a Dina kit to preamp Thorne's
Speaker 1: turntable with a short cartridge. And I think you'll have
Speaker 1: a wonderful stereo system that you really like. Meanwhile, the line,
Speaker 1: it's like way back, I'm spending twenty minutes in there,
Speaker 1: and then the guy says, okay, thank you for your time.
Speaker 1: You know, if you came into the military, it would
Speaker 1: probably ruin your career as a musician, checked off four
Speaker 1: off and handing in my papers, and I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm just when am I gonna wake up out of this?
Speaker 1: When when I pass back into you know, the the
Speaker 1: universe that I'm familiar with. Never happened? That was it?
Speaker 1: Well quite a story. So when did this conversation with
Speaker 1: Henry take place? It was, well, after all of that,
Speaker 1: well after all that, I mean, James Montgomery was my
Speaker 1: roommate at Boston University. So that way with James Montgomery,
Speaker 1: the Blues single, Oh yeah, we're we're being friends and
Speaker 1: playing together for years. He was your roommate accidentally it
Speaker 1: be you where you met each other and said, let's
Speaker 1: room together. It was my roommate accidentally it be you
Speaker 1: for a while, and we lived in the football arms.
Speaker 1: So we go down to the commons room and get
Speaker 1: musicians together and play. So um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of music going on and you know, again meeting a
Speaker 1: lot of folks and and a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1: But the conversation with Henry came after I was after
Speaker 1: I had written the first paper that I had written
Speaker 1: about missile defense. About that I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: into too much detail. I want to bore anybody about
Speaker 1: adapting a Navy carrier battle group antire defense system to
Speaker 1: do missile defense. And I wrote a paper. My dad said,
Speaker 1: you got an idea, You're right down. So I had
Speaker 1: an idea. I went to a friend of mine at
Speaker 1: a propulsion laboratories to do some math for me, make
Speaker 1: sure I had the radar stuff right. And so I
Speaker 1: handed the paper to a congressman in Los Angeles who
Speaker 1: I was doing a lot of work with because I
Speaker 1: was a reserve officer with L A p D. And
Speaker 1: I was helping him with some counter terrors and stuff.
Speaker 1: And so he gives it to the vice chairman of
Speaker 1: the Armed Services Committee. He said, well, there's a guy
Speaker 1: from Boeing or Raytheon No, he's a guitar player for
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers. And he goes, well, I want to
Speaker 1: meet this guy. So I get a call, would you
Speaker 1: be willing to accept the position on the House Arm
Speaker 1: Services Committee UH to head up the Civilian Advisory Board
Speaker 1: on Missile Defense. And we're going to classify the paper
Speaker 1: that you wrote, and we're gonna give you a security clearance.
Speaker 1: So of course, the next thing you know, you're taking
Speaker 1: polygraphs and you're doing all this kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: this opportunity came up. And there's other opportunities that we
Speaker 1: can cover in a later date about the counter terrorism stuff, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But when this happened, I was in New York and
Speaker 1: I went I had mentioned it to a couple of
Speaker 1: friends of mine, many of whom said, well, that's really stupid.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do something like that for?
Speaker 1: What are you a war guy? What do you you
Speaker 1: know that that kind of attitude? So I thought, who
Speaker 1: am I going to talk to about this? I know
Speaker 1: how my dad feels, uh, And he was very very supportive.
Speaker 1: But I thought, okay, who do I know? And that's
Speaker 1: got a foot in both worlds. Gotta be Henry. So
Speaker 1: I went to talk to Henry and he was not
Speaker 1: at all um hesitant at all. I mean, he looked
Speaker 1: me right in the eyes. He said, I've known you
Speaker 1: since you were a kid. I think I know you
Speaker 1: well enough. Do you really want my opinion? And I said, Henry,
Speaker 1: I need your opinion please, And he said, you again,
Speaker 1: what I told you before you go do it? Screw
Speaker 1: those people. If you believe in this, you go do
Speaker 1: it and tell him to call me. So. I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody ever did, but you know, Henry, I mean,
Speaker 1: so you switch to the Doobie Brothers when Tom Johnston
Speaker 1: is still the front person for the band along with
Speaker 1: Patrick Simmons, and tell me about the transition where Tom
Speaker 1: ultimately falls out of the band and you bring Michael
Speaker 1: McDonald in. Well, okay, So for a while we were
Speaker 1: a three master at Schooner, three guitar players. Um, all
Speaker 1: of us, by the way, we're big fans of Will
Speaker 1: Be Great. I think that was probably the greatest American
Speaker 1: rock and roll band ever, and they managed to synthesize
Speaker 1: the interaction between three guitar players in a magic way,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. So the three guitar player thing
Speaker 1: was very comfortable, especially because you could always have an
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar as well. I mean, you could really fill
Speaker 1: it out the way it should be. UM. So we
Speaker 1: played a lot of shows and then we were playing
Speaker 1: l s U Louisiana State University and Tom had had
Speaker 1: some health problems before, but he couldn't go out on stage.
Speaker 1: He his he has some serious and again I don't
Speaker 1: tell tales out of school but he has some serious
Speaker 1: um um digestive problems, stomach problems, and he was in
Speaker 1: paint and he couldn't come out and perform. So um,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to get into again. I don't
Speaker 1: tell tales out of school. There was certainly a number
Speaker 1: of interesting conversations back in the dressing room, and we
Speaker 1: all came to the conclusion, or some of us came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that we still wanted to do this.
Speaker 1: So I went out on stage and said, they were
Speaker 1: like fifty thou people there. I said, we can either
Speaker 1: give you your money back or come back in ten
Speaker 1: days and we'll put on a show for you. Well, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody wanted their money back. So right after that, I
Speaker 1: got on the phone and I called Michael McDonald because
Speaker 1: he and I had become friends through playing together and
Speaker 1: Steely Dan and doing some writing together and playing together.
Speaker 1: Said Michael, I'm sending you a one way ticket you
Speaker 1: want to join the Doobie Brothers. And he said, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I later on we always we
Speaker 1: we we lived that conversation, but it was yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: why not? So he flew out. We rehearsed for ten days,
Speaker 1: eight hours a day put on a show, got five encores,
Speaker 1: And I guess sometimes you have to make a command
Speaker 1: decision and sometimes you get the elevator and sometimes you
Speaker 1: get the shaft. And this time I think it worked
Speaker 1: out very well. Now, the Doobie Brothers have a new biography.
Speaker 1: To be point blank about it, they give you some
Speaker 1: ship about the end of your tenure with the Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've seen that book, but what
Speaker 1: is your viewpoint of the end? They basically said, you
Speaker 1: were playing what you wanted to didn't necessarily fit in
Speaker 1: with the rest of the band, and to a degree,
Speaker 1: we're incorrigible. What was your experience? Boy? What a compliment? Wow?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Um incorrigible playing what I wanted to play?
Speaker 1: Um gee? Okay UM. When I before we started the
Speaker 1: Living on the fault Line album, I thought, okay because
Speaker 1: Ted Templeman was a great producer, and I thought because
Speaker 1: Michael's material was a little bit more, um, multifaceted than
Speaker 1: the material that the Doobie Brothers were well known for.
Speaker 1: I mean, Tom Johnson is a great songwriter. I am
Speaker 1: This is not in any way, um uh, putting any
Speaker 1: kind of bad spin on any of this. I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: what would happen if I made if I got everybody
Speaker 1: in the band. What if what the Doobie but has
Speaker 1: worked as a rhythm section for other artists Leo Sayer,
Speaker 1: Carly Simon, Um hoit accident? What if they had to
Speaker 1: show up at nine am as a rhythm section? Play
Speaker 1: it right or you get fired well number one. I
Speaker 1: had always felt that the Doobie Brothers as individuals were
Speaker 1: extremely talented musicians each one and had not realized their
Speaker 1: own potential. Not that it was my job to do that,
Speaker 1: but I thought that they hadn't realized their own potential.
Speaker 1: So they started. I said, let's let's do this. What
Speaker 1: do you think? And there was a little bit of
Speaker 1: ad I don't really want to do that, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get up, And I said okay, fine,
Speaker 1: and Ted Templeman, I believe UM encouraged that idea. So
Speaker 1: there you go, downbeat, nine am. Here we go. And
Speaker 1: what stuck struck me is after about seven or eight
Speaker 1: months of this, I remember Keith Canuteson, who was a
Speaker 1: fabulous drummer, just pocket groove drummer, um listening back to
Speaker 1: a track and saying I think I dropped the snare
Speaker 1: drum beat in bar fifte and I went, BINGO, this
Speaker 1: is great. This is the best of what Steely Dan
Speaker 1: was about with the spirit of the Doobie Brothers and
Speaker 1: pushed very hard a lot of the stuff on the
Speaker 1: Living on the fault Line album. It's very different than
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers, but I think it laid the foundation
Speaker 1: for a minute by minute to be that kind of record.
Speaker 1: UM play what I want, UM, Certainly I had ideas
Speaker 1: and things that I felt, UM I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: I unless I'm missing something, there was more agreement than
Speaker 1: there was disagreement. Just to clarify, in that book, they
Speaker 1: were talking at about the last last days of the
Speaker 1: Doobie Brothers, not Living on the fall Line, not minute
Speaker 1: by minute. Well it would be after a minute by
Speaker 1: minute or about the same time. Yeah, So again I
Speaker 1: take that as a huge compliment. UM. When I was
Speaker 1: on stage sometimes I was where I wore headphones all
Speaker 1: the time because I wanted to get a good mix.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a studio guy. I'm sitting down with
Speaker 1: headphones people three guys Hyatt Jingle Stadium. That's what I do.
Speaker 1: And Tim McCormick, my my guitar check. They started to
Speaker 1: play this game where they would write a piece of
Speaker 1: a song title on a piece of paper, and since
Speaker 1: I was sitting next to Michael, they put on the
Speaker 1: piano right next to me, and in thirty seconds I
Speaker 1: had to take that song and incorporated into a guitar song. So, uh,
Speaker 1: rocking down the Highway, we want you to play bobble
Speaker 1: spangles and peats and maybe the next night we want
Speaker 1: you to do the Hallelujah chorus. Okay, great, I loved it.
Speaker 1: To me, that's what it's all about, challenge, rising to
Speaker 1: the occasion and playing something different. Not that the solos
Speaker 1: that were originally in those songs weren't great. It's not
Speaker 1: about that, but I think they're You have to stretch
Speaker 1: out a little bit, and maybe that made some people
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. So how does it end with you? In
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers, we just parted ways. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that Patrick Simmons had another vision of what he wanted
Speaker 1: the band to be and it was kind of his baby. Um.
Speaker 1: I know that they had sort of broken up, but
Speaker 1: they came back together, and I think a lot of
Speaker 1: that has to do with everybody in the band wanting
Speaker 1: to continue, and Tommy was had gotten his health back,
Speaker 1: So I guess it was another metamorphosis. I mean, I
Speaker 1: said a long time ago when I did an interview
Speaker 1: on MSNBC about my other work. To me, life is
Speaker 1: a series of chapters, and I love them all, every
Speaker 1: chapter that I've been involved in. The One thing that's
Speaker 1: important to understand, I believe is that if you're a
Speaker 1: change agent, if you're someone who was willing to try
Speaker 1: to change, and let's face it, what end of whatever
Speaker 1: anybody wants to say. Bringing Michael McDonald and the Dubie
Speaker 1: Brothers was a change. Some would say radical someone, but
Speaker 1: it was a change to have initiated that. There are
Speaker 1: consequences change agents. If you're a change agent, you have
Speaker 1: to be comfortable with knowing when it's time the change
Speaker 1: is done. Everything's done, good, thank you. Plus I wanted
Speaker 1: to produce records. I wanted to try some other things.
Speaker 1: I'd already started producing records when I was still in
Speaker 1: the band, and to me, maybe you know, as time passes,
Speaker 1: I just remember the good stuff. I still I see
Speaker 1: Tommy Johnson probably two or three times a year because
Speaker 1: we do the St. Chud's Hospital um benefit that I
Speaker 1: see him play great. Actually, I thought Tom Johnson was
Speaker 1: and still is a fine human being because one time
Speaker 1: he came and stayed at my house and he made
Speaker 1: his bed and I know that sounds but no, No,
Speaker 1: those little things I noticed. Whether it's like when you're
Speaker 1: in the bathroom with a guy, does he wash his hands?
Speaker 1: If he doesn't wash his hands, It's something you can
Speaker 1: never forget. So ultimately you leave the Doobie Brothers. You
Speaker 1: produce records, and you do a cornucopy of things. You
Speaker 1: work in TV, you work in movies, you work in
Speaker 1: advertising commercials. You write the theme from nine O two
Speaker 1: one Oh So was there any plan? Was there? I
Speaker 1: know you play with multiple people, but you've been in
Speaker 1: bands for a while. Did you not want to be
Speaker 1: in bands again? No? I live Living in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: was like going to the Costco of music. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: didn't even know what you want to buy. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that those big truck tires. Maybe I'll buy a truck. Well,
Speaker 1: buy the tires and then I'll buy the truck. Or
Speaker 1: you know it. There's you have so much on There's
Speaker 1: so much available, a pot pourri, a veritable supermarket, a
Speaker 1: voritable bazaar of things to do. I wanted to try
Speaker 1: it all because I wanted to challenge myself. I I'm
Speaker 1: not a big fan of you know, I'm this guy,
Speaker 1: and look at what I've done to me. It's what
Speaker 1: did you do today? Um? Maybe again, that's the work
Speaker 1: ethic that I learned from my father. But I saw
Speaker 1: this opportunity and I wanted. I was curious, could I
Speaker 1: do this? I already know what I can do. I
Speaker 1: had a bucket list. I've tried off every box in
Speaker 1: that bucket list musically except for a solo problem. This
Speaker 1: is the last box. Okay, at this late date, how
Speaker 1: much of your time has spent on music? How much
Speaker 1: has spent on defence work? Right now up until this moment?
Speaker 1: Probably half and half. Because I'm a member of a
Speaker 1: couple of wonderful bands. One is called American vinyl Um.
Speaker 1: The other guitar players former guitar player from Boston. The
Speaker 1: drummer was James Brown's band, and I played with James
Speaker 1: Brown for a little while. He and I became friends.
Speaker 1: A keyboard player from the Whalers. I mean it's just
Speaker 1: awesome band. I mean it's kind of a corporate band.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of charities, especially for vets. You
Speaker 1: want to hear the hinds. Just tell us when you
Speaker 1: want to stop, when when you want us to stop.
Speaker 1: There's a band called the Coalition of the Willing in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. We do a lot of embassy parties and
Speaker 1: stuff again, fundraisers for vets charities. Myself Tony Blinkin. There's
Speaker 1: a Secretary of State. Um uh uh. The drummer was
Speaker 1: former ambassador of Japan. Um the bass player was a
Speaker 1: former other secondary state from military affairs. I mean that
Speaker 1: kind of band where you get together and there you
Speaker 1: know it's it's it's more for fun and raise money.
Speaker 1: And I played with different bands, you know when the
Speaker 1: when the There's a band called uh six Wire that
Speaker 1: I do some shows with. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: fun band called Side Deal that down in Newport. Best
Speaker 1: singers I've ever heard. So they say, would come and
Speaker 1: play pedal steel? Of course I will, you know, so
Speaker 1: I'd say maybe fifty fifty. We'll see what happens after
Speaker 1: this first solo endeavor and see how that goes. So obviously,
Speaker 1: if you're working, you're playing an instrument, But do you
Speaker 1: play every day or only when you need to. I
Speaker 1: pretty much play every day for a couple of reasons. One,
Speaker 1: I like to play the guitar um. A lot of
Speaker 1: times I'm either um, you know, out with the sidering iron,
Speaker 1: out my workshop, trying something new. You gotta play it after,
Speaker 1: you you know, reroute some of the electronics or something.
Speaker 1: And there's a zen to it that brings me inner peace.
Speaker 1: And in my day job, there are times when it
Speaker 1: gets really really difficult. Um. As you know, we live
Speaker 1: in a world that's not what I think any of us,
Speaker 1: except for the most twisted individual would defined as optimum
Speaker 1: people's behavior. I mean, it can get a little tough,
Speaker 1: but playing the instrument does a couple of things. There's
Speaker 1: this zen. There also is the connection that very few
Speaker 1: people really understand. Um. A lot of people come up
Speaker 1: to me. Quite a few folks have said, hey, I'd
Speaker 1: really like to help you at what you do? You
Speaker 1: know in your day job? What can I do? And
Speaker 1: there are a few folks. Paul Reid Smith came with
Speaker 1: an idea for an underwater acoustic detection system. Called up
Speaker 1: my buddy over at the Nable Research Lab. Hey, nov
Speaker 1: Adam O Carr, you gotta check this out. Now. He's
Speaker 1: got a company called Digital Harmonic that's doing stuff for
Speaker 1: the Navy and other folks. There's some very smart people
Speaker 1: who do that, but most people want to help. And
Speaker 1: I said, listen, you gotta understand. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I got involved in Afghanistan is because the Taliban
Speaker 1: was cutting the hands off musicians. Why were they doing that.
Speaker 1: They were doing it because they're frightened that musicians have
Speaker 1: the ability and the key to open people's hearts. And
Speaker 1: you don't want that. If you are dogmatic and you
Speaker 1: are rigid in New York beliefs, anything else is a threat,
Speaker 1: so you try to eliminate it. So I tell every
Speaker 1: musician that I know, every note that you play, every
Speaker 1: word that you sing, you're fighting for freedom. You are
Speaker 1: as much of a freedom fighter as anybody on this planet.
Speaker 1: And so playing the guitar, I believe has a symmetry
Speaker 1: and a synergy to all that. Because again, like I
Speaker 1: said before, what brought down the Soviet Union, well, missile defense,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. They felt they were sure that
Speaker 1: we could do it, and we we spent them out
Speaker 1: of existence. But also I did the first one of
Speaker 1: the first shows in Rush Soviet Union in kids knew
Speaker 1: every word to every song and all our music was illegal.
Speaker 1: What brought down the Soviet Union was French fires, blue
Speaker 1: chains and Elvis Presley. Soft Power Joseph and I from
Speaker 1: under Secretarity State who wrote a book called soft Power.
Speaker 1: I actually wrote the blurb for his book. We'll tell
Speaker 1: you that the power of culture is massive. Again. Why
Speaker 1: would the Taliban want to cut your hands off because
Speaker 1: they're scared to death of what you do? Okay, you
Speaker 1: talk about doing all these gigs for charity. You talked
Speaker 1: about Bicker and Fagan not having to go on the
Speaker 1: road because of publishing royalties. How are you doing financially?
Speaker 1: Life is good. I cannot complain. Um. I don't wear
Speaker 1: a lot of I don't have any jewelry. I don't buy.
Speaker 1: If I need a guitar, usually somebody will say, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you It's like Henry take this, get out
Speaker 1: of my store. Um I life is good. I don't
Speaker 1: have a very lavish lifestyle and I'm very comfortable. So yeah,
Speaker 1: um I'm I hesitate to use the word blessed because
Speaker 1: it has theological connotations to it, and lucky is a
Speaker 1: a word that is overused and underdefined. I am fortunate.
Speaker 1: I would say that I've accomplished much of what I
Speaker 1: ever wanted to accomplish. Like I said, I've only got
Speaker 1: one box left to check on my bucket list, and
Speaker 1: it has brought me happiness, fulfillment, satisfaction, adventure, um uh, conflict,
Speaker 1: all of the things that I think are important. Two
Speaker 1: eventually get to the point where it used to be.
Speaker 1: I used to hear people say that he who dies
Speaker 1: with the most toys winds. No, he who dies with
Speaker 1: the most stories wind because you can buy toys, you
Speaker 1: can't buy experience. Okay, just to go one little left
Speaker 1: field deed tour before we go. Most guitarists have a
Speaker 1: lot of equipment. They have preferences. How many guitars and
Speaker 1: he amps do you have and what are your preferences.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot, and I used to have
Speaker 1: a bunch. I used to have like four guitars. And
Speaker 1: one time John at Whistle and I were out the
Speaker 1: Rainbow and John I was a wonderful friend. I really
Speaker 1: miss him, um but we were sitting around and talking
Speaker 1: about the guitars because he had he was trying to
Speaker 1: out of place to store some of them, And I said, John,
Speaker 1: what the hell are we doing? Why are we why
Speaker 1: are we doing this? When we were children, we would
Speaker 1: put our face up against the window at Manny's or
Speaker 1: in Mexico City, I would go to Casaver Camper, Casla
Speaker 1: Wagner and look at a Fender jazz Master that cost
Speaker 1: almost a thousand dollars. So I'd have to make do
Speaker 1: with something else. And so you want to own all
Speaker 1: of these things. You want to you know, Um, I
Speaker 1: guess it's it's residual. And I said, this is stupid.
Speaker 1: We have all these instruments that are beautiful instruments and
Speaker 1: nobody is playing them. Let's just get rid of them.
Speaker 1: And he said, you're absolutely right. The hell with this,
Speaker 1: Let's get rid of everything. So I probably have maybe
Speaker 1: forty guitars, which may sound like a lot, but if
Speaker 1: you do studio work, you really do need a good
Speaker 1: toolbox of a number of different instruments to be able
Speaker 1: to fulfill the needs of varied people who have varied
Speaker 1: musical tastes and very musical styles. Um. Mostly I'm a
Speaker 1: rolling guy. But with Roland for forty seven years now,
Speaker 1: helping design instruments for them was involved in the guitar
Speaker 1: synthesizing project from the beginning. Actually used the first prototype
Speaker 1: guitar synthesizer on Bad Girls, Uh Donna Summersong, which I
Speaker 1: had done just after I'd done Hot Stuff. Because I
Speaker 1: didn't have any guitars. Everything was on the road. I
Speaker 1: went down a guitar center, brought up Burns Bis Jr.
Speaker 1: For bucks, bought a six pack of beer in a
Speaker 1: deluxe river with me, went down and did Hot Stuff.
Speaker 1: What the hell you know? Why not? Um? Again, it's
Speaker 1: not the instrument. I think it's the player. Um. So
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of instruments. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think John and I came to the rough conclusion and
Speaker 1: hopefully all those guitars are out there being played by
Speaker 1: people who really appreciate it. So I don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of equipment. Okay, Scunk, this has been wonderful. I
Speaker 1: would love to go deeper into the defense story, but
Speaker 1: I think we've run out of time for today. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for your time and
Speaker 1: wish you good luck on your final bucket list item.
Speaker 1: Thanks for doing this well, thank you very much for
Speaker 1: even asking. It's let's take it as a pup thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Until next time, this is Bob left
Speaker 1: sex