Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left That's podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Michael de Barr, who you know
Speaker 1: from television, movies, records and radio. Now he has a
Speaker 1: new documentary streamable on Amazon Prime. Who do you want
Speaker 1: me to be? Michael? Well, who do you want me
Speaker 1: to be? Boom? I want you to be your most
Speaker 1: entertaining self, which you normally are. I'm not that worried,
Speaker 1: but let's let's start. How did the documentary come into being?
Speaker 1: Because I'm fabulous and I'm doing a TV show, um,
Speaker 1: and guy called Josh Weinstein, brilliant comedian and filmmaker, and
Speaker 1: he comes up to me and he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been watching your stuff and I just read your
Speaker 1: X wife's book and I want to do a documentary
Speaker 1: on basically that's miss Pamela who wrote that I'm with
Speaker 1: the band. You know, it's a fabulous book. And he
Speaker 1: did that and for the next two or three years
Speaker 1: we shot amazing stuff. And the interesting thing about it
Speaker 1: was I didn't look at a frame of it until
Speaker 1: it was done, so he had that trust. Why I
Speaker 1: did that, I know, you know, you want to reduce
Speaker 1: through anxiety, but that begs my next question, which always
Speaker 1: going to ask are you happy with the finished product?
Speaker 1: I'm just absolutely so happy about it because I'm seeing
Speaker 1: people that I love, you know, saying these wonderful things,
Speaker 1: and certainly some sort of descriptive lee on cool things.
Speaker 1: But it's it's all part of the thing, you know,
Speaker 1: It's all part of this wonderful I don't want to
Speaker 1: be worshiped. I just want to be understood and seen.
Speaker 1: And you know, a guy who stayed there has been
Speaker 1: deliberate and delivered what was necessary, and I think that
Speaker 1: that's very good for people to see, you know, after
Speaker 1: fifty years of it. So what do you want people
Speaker 1: to see? What image do you want to present or
Speaker 1: what identity do you want to press present in life?
Speaker 1: Whether it comes across from the documentary or not, well,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, it has to be the truth. I
Speaker 1: mean as an actor, as a singer, or whatever, as
Speaker 1: a husband, as her father. Um, the truth is everything.
Speaker 1: If I'm not honest about it, if if I told
Speaker 1: stories like, for instance, my childhood was very traumatic, you know,
Speaker 1: and that I went to these absurd mastemetry, hypocritical aristocratic
Speaker 1: boarding schools and all the pedophilia in the world that
Speaker 1: you know about, which is a British institution. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I went through and I wanted to tell the truth.
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell people, you know, what happened to
Speaker 1: me and how I would travis these things and change
Speaker 1: these things and transition from that this marquis into a
Speaker 1: working class hero. Because when I left those schools and
Speaker 1: went to London and went to drama school, rock and roll.
Speaker 1: Rock and roll was the aristocracy, and that you MARKI
Speaker 1: meant nothing. Mick Jagger would get a better table in
Speaker 1: the restaurant that Bill Wyman and then Prince Charles. Shall
Speaker 1: we say, you know so as I had to reinvent
Speaker 1: myself every couple of years. Okay, let's start at the end,
Speaker 1: as we're all on the downward slope in terms of
Speaker 1: past our median age. Do you feel comfortable with what
Speaker 1: you've accomplished or did you want more? And is there
Speaker 1: something you do or do not want to do in
Speaker 1: the remaining time you left, whether it be thirty years
Speaker 1: or thirty minutes. Fantastic question. Um A, I have no regrets,
Speaker 1: be I have no dreams that I haven't dreamt, and
Speaker 1: see there are no nightmares anymore in my life. I've
Speaker 1: achieved something in myself that is important, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, it's not number ones, and it's not smash movies,
Speaker 1: and it's not a series that runs forever. It's not Emmys.
Speaker 1: All of these things mean nothing to me. The only
Speaker 1: thing that means anything to me at all is enjoying myself,
Speaker 1: expressing myself in any way that I can. I'm seventy two,
Speaker 1: I have a twenty nine each way fast. Well, you
Speaker 1: certainly are trim. I know that from interacting with you live.
Speaker 1: But the fact that you are let's you know, it's
Speaker 1: a bogus institution, but as a pinnacle. The fact that
Speaker 1: you're not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: does that bother you none? In the Scientist, I don't
Speaker 1: believe it unless the m C five gets into the
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame down and be piste off.
Speaker 1: How did you develop? Which comes through at the end
Speaker 1: of the documentary, this perspective that nothing really matters. Not
Speaker 1: really a nihilist, but saying, don't get hung up in legacy,
Speaker 1: don't get hung up and what it means, just move forward,
Speaker 1: Try to enjoy yourself, certainly within a moral framework. How
Speaker 1: did that come about? Well, I realized that ambition was toxic.
Speaker 1: So therefore trying to you know, reach scale heights that
Speaker 1: don't exist is a fucking stupid endeavor. That's why. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you're someone who certainly had peaks in your career,
Speaker 1: even starting uh with to serve with love when you
Speaker 1: were not even twenty years old. But how do you
Speaker 1: make a living and certainly an entertainment where it's hard
Speaker 1: you sustained over decades without having ambition? Well, it's not ambition.
Speaker 1: The word itself is useless. It's this sort of desire
Speaker 1: to go further. Well, it's not that corny to me.
Speaker 1: All I ever did was what was in front of me,
Speaker 1: and I did it well, and I did it again.
Speaker 1: If you go, if you complexify that concept of a
Speaker 1: trajectory of your career, then you are going to fool yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, I believe in the moment, great artists can
Speaker 1: only deliver the goods in the moment. You can't calculate
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do when the guy says action or
Speaker 1: the producer said sing. You know, I would just free
Speaker 1: myself of it and somehow a it's a it's a
Speaker 1: metaphysical thing. It's a feeling of confidence that's very different
Speaker 1: from ambition. Okay, but one thing we know about you,
Speaker 1: You've you've really hung in there. Most people had a
Speaker 1: window in their on and so I always analyze this
Speaker 1: with people, what do we know? They're very talented people
Speaker 1: who never made it. So at most fifty percent is talent.
Speaker 1: The other fifty percent is amalgamation of a number of things.
Speaker 1: Hooking yourself up with the right people, but being able
Speaker 1: to connect with people such they like you. You're a
Speaker 1: very endearing, likable guy. Whatever the image of the rockery
Speaker 1: is it someone to meet you personally? Is that something
Speaker 1: you're conscious of? Is that something you wanted to achieve?
Speaker 1: Do you understand that it's paid dividends? That is just
Speaker 1: such a great question. I've been asked so many dems questions. Listen, um,
Speaker 1: my currency is my charm? And was that inborn? Or
Speaker 1: how did you develop your charm? I didn't develop it.
Speaker 1: I was born with it. I never thought about it.
Speaker 1: I just realized that to make people feel at ease, right,
Speaker 1: and amused and maybe entertained and maybe if you know, desired.
Speaker 1: I realized that that was the key to go further,
Speaker 1: I mean I've I've I've spiritually hoard myself all these
Speaker 1: years in a sense, you know, it's been a calculated
Speaker 1: uh seduction and I am a seducer and uh and
Speaker 1: I made it okay. I didn't make it like it
Speaker 1: was sort of demonic, vampireing vibe. It was something that
Speaker 1: I wanted to make people feel at home because I
Speaker 1: never had one. My father was in jail and my
Speaker 1: mother was in the looney bin. So any you know, situation,
Speaker 1: I found myself and I had to create a calmness,
Speaker 1: a funness, a sexiness that would attract what I wanted
Speaker 1: a lot of time. That goes hand in hand with
Speaker 1: a chameleon personality. Now for someone like me on the outside,
Speaker 1: it looks like you have a singular personality, But did
Speaker 1: you also find yourself a just in your behavior for
Speaker 1: the situation. Well, well, when you understand what chameleon means,
Speaker 1: which is you change your skin in order to settle
Speaker 1: into the environment that you find yourself, David said. David
Speaker 1: Boy said to me, I am not a chameleon. I
Speaker 1: did exactly the opposite. I didn't change the color of
Speaker 1: my skin to fit into the forest. I did quite
Speaker 1: the opposite. I changed my skin when I was in
Speaker 1: the forest to cement, you know, and that I agree
Speaker 1: with the chameleon vibe is weakness. To me, fitting in
Speaker 1: was never my thing I wanted to get I didn't
Speaker 1: wanted to fit out. I wanted to create something new
Speaker 1: that there was nuanced and loving and sexy and and
Speaker 1: in the moment. You know, most people live have a script,
Speaker 1: and they live by the script. Then not even that character. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's start at the beginning, which you certainly do in
Speaker 1: the beginning of your documentary, where there's long history going
Speaker 1: back hundreds of years to the derivation of your blood
Speaker 1: lineage and title. Please describe that. Well, it was eight
Speaker 1: hundred years ago and home de bar was fighting the Germans,
Speaker 1: and the king of France at the time was you know,
Speaker 1: being pursued by three or four monsters in in silver
Speaker 1: armor and game. De Barn killed them. As a result,
Speaker 1: he was given a title the Marquis de Bar and
Speaker 1: hence you know here I am. You know, how does
Speaker 1: that sustain for eight hundred years? Well, you know Europe
Speaker 1: is very different from Glendale. Yeah, so that history, you know,
Speaker 1: in the fourteen fifteenth century, we were kicked out of France,
Speaker 1: the Huguenos. It was a religious thing. They went to
Speaker 1: Nova Scotia, they went to England, they went to Ireland.
Speaker 1: So it spread across the globe, Australia and a lot
Speaker 1: of my other marquees. I'm the twenty seventh. You know,
Speaker 1: work cartographers were you know, people that were searching. It's
Speaker 1: all about search, it seems in my life. Let's go
Speaker 1: back to the blood lineage. So they've only been twenty
Speaker 1: seven marquis and you are one of them. That's right.
Speaker 1: How does one get to be a marquis? Obviously his
Speaker 1: blood lineage. But is it the oldest son of the
Speaker 1: oldest son. How does it work? Yes, it's the son
Speaker 1: the oldest son. It's the you know, the classic sort
Speaker 1: of honorary vibe as the oldest son. But how it continued?
Speaker 1: It is, you know, when this guy was given this
Speaker 1: land in France and he built his castle and he
Speaker 1: lived in that, and then his son, and then his
Speaker 1: son and then his son. What's extraordinary to me is,
Speaker 1: you know we went from swords to Les Paul's. Okay,
Speaker 1: but theoretically your son is the Marquis de sad they
Speaker 1: pick I just love the fact that you slipped into
Speaker 1: side by the way I adored a side. I'm writing
Speaker 1: a musical about assud. Okay, but talking about day Bar,
Speaker 1: your son is, I'm the twenty six, he's the seven,
Speaker 1: to be honest, and other other than the title anything
Speaker 1: go along with absolutely nothing, absolutely although you know there
Speaker 1: was an enormous oount of money there, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: for some wonderful reason, and all of this was paid
Speaker 1: my education, which was considerably expensive. Well, let's slow down
Speaker 1: a little bit because we'll get to there. And you've
Speaker 1: never at a loss for words, So tell your father
Speaker 1: is the twenty five marquet? Yeah? How where? What are
Speaker 1: his circumstances? How does he meet your mother? He meant,
Speaker 1: you know, he'd already been married four times. He met
Speaker 1: her in a in a club. You know, she was
Speaker 1: a dancer, which you know the classic quote I'm doing
Speaker 1: a good time girl. And he met her and she
Speaker 1: was seventeen and he was fifty and they had me,
Speaker 1: and I was a bastard till I was thirty. Okay.
Speaker 1: Two questions, He had no sons before that? And did
Speaker 1: you have any other children? No? And what happened when
Speaker 1: you were thirty to legitimize you. Oh, I was legitimized
Speaker 1: by Sydney pot Bob you know. Um he. What happened
Speaker 1: was they got married because of a legal situation. She
Speaker 1: was born because she wanted to get out of the institution.
Speaker 1: She was severely ill and dying, so he married her.
Speaker 1: Thirty years later, they actually got married. I got a letter.
Speaker 1: Take this, You'll love this. I got a letter from
Speaker 1: the lawyers saying, well, Michael, you're not a bestart anymore. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I said, no, you're wrong. You get um And I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: and I this letter was so symbolic to me. I
Speaker 1: kept it one of the very few things I've kept
Speaker 1: because I don't like having drawls full of like old ship.
Speaker 1: You know, that's has such a power over one. I
Speaker 1: like to do it now, you know. But that particular
Speaker 1: in a document I found amusing. Okay, you are born
Speaker 1: or your parents together at that point? Oh no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: He disappeared pretty soon. You know, she had the baby.
Speaker 1: She didn't want the baby. Uh, she went mad. She
Speaker 1: was a stripper, you know, and she went to an
Speaker 1: institution of schizophrenia. I was raised by her friends. This
Speaker 1: is what happened show biz, right, So the girls that
Speaker 1: surrounded that world took care of me until I was eight.
Speaker 1: I was put down to these boarding schools when I
Speaker 1: was one years old, and they looked after me until
Speaker 1: I was eight. Now looked after me one has to
Speaker 1: think about, because you know they were obsessed with Oscar Wilde,
Speaker 1: Aubrey Beardsley and that whole romantic early nineteen How do
Speaker 1: you say, don't ask me why my father is in
Speaker 1: an opium den smoking, you know, opium with Chinese sailors
Speaker 1: in London by the Thames. So you can imagine all
Speaker 1: these influences and confluences were so extraordinary, and then to
Speaker 1: be taken and put into this absolutely military, autocratic, crazy
Speaker 1: institution was a a surprise. Okay, let's talk about from
Speaker 1: zero to eight. So how many of those years is
Speaker 1: your mother in the picture? Around in and out, in
Speaker 1: and out. You know, she'd be in the six months,
Speaker 1: out for a few weeks, have a you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, she'd freak out, she'd go back and come out,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean I I forget him many times.
Speaker 1: I had no memory really of of relating to her
Speaker 1: at all. Okay, so you say you stayed with her friends,
Speaker 1: would you go from house to house, from to city.
Speaker 1: I go to the city to city because they were
Speaker 1: working for girls. So what about school? Fox school? I read?
Speaker 1: I read everything I was reading, you know, Aristotle when
Speaker 1: I was very baby. I mean I read a lot.
Speaker 1: And that's what when I went schools, everything, kicker, guard,
Speaker 1: you name it, I would read it because I had
Speaker 1: to stay there in the vacation. The vacation everybody you
Speaker 1: know went home. Okay, so your father he did have
Speaker 1: money before he went yeah, yeah, And so you're saying
Speaker 1: it's a tradition in the movie that when you're born
Speaker 1: they put away money for boarding school. Could you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about what's exactly what happened
Speaker 1: the trustees of the de Barer State for every child,
Speaker 1: you know, the the oldest child, the only child, they
Speaker 1: had to I went to the schools he went to, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Clamant Preparatory School and Repton in Derbyshire. Derbyshire was Wuthering Heights,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean it was literally that foggy, smuggy, damp, depressing,
Speaker 1: melodramatic gray clouds, which was completely the opposite to the
Speaker 1: sequence of the beautiful girls that I've been raised by.
Speaker 1: So it was you know, it's like some glam rock Maldlie,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean it was Disney. So let's play
Speaker 1: out your father's story. So it was in the opium.
Speaker 1: Then how does he go to jail? And how does
Speaker 1: he lose all his money? Embezzlement? He went into into
Speaker 1: there because he a brilliant guy, and he embezzled an
Speaker 1: awful lot of money and they busted him and where
Speaker 1: he went for ten twelve years. So you're in boarding
Speaker 1: school with the aristocracy. What's your experience? Hypocrites, privileged? Very
Speaker 1: very interesting that we are now exploring these concepts in
Speaker 1: the United States. But then the white aristocratic upper class
Speaker 1: because of the landowners and the and the slaves essentially.
Speaker 1: And I despised it because I was thirteen fourteen and
Speaker 1: I heard Sonny with Williams said and that whole oppression
Speaker 1: of the blues, and it fitted perfectly into where my
Speaker 1: head was at. It was. It was a horrible experience,
Speaker 1: but I detached myself, Bob, I detached myself. It was
Speaker 1: almost like somebody else was living and it was just information.
Speaker 1: I didn't get emotional about it. Okay, a couple of things, though,
Speaker 1: I grew up in the melting pot suburbs, and I
Speaker 1: went to college where forty of the people were from
Speaker 1: prep school and irrelevant of their identity, what had taught
Speaker 1: me was how to interact with those people exactly. So
Speaker 1: I believe there must have been lessons you were taught,
Speaker 1: however difficult it was to learn them that put you
Speaker 1: ahead of a lot of the average people. Absolutely. I
Speaker 1: mean I was my own teacher in a way, you know.
Speaker 1: I would observe, you know, Christian medicine thing is, you know, observed,
Speaker 1: don't judge. So I could see these dreadful things going on.
Speaker 1: But I could also see a great discipline and a
Speaker 1: great wit from the British, you know, and a charm.
Speaker 1: All of those things I cupped and I included in
Speaker 1: my own personality. So I learned a tremendous amount on
Speaker 1: the from the hipocritical stance of these British aristocrats, because honestly,
Speaker 1: they were titans of industry. There were royal you know,
Speaker 1: royals in the presidents of other countries. Children. It was
Speaker 1: a really it's a living in bel air, I would imagine.
Speaker 1: So any of these people ever track you down after
Speaker 1: the fact. Yeah, as soon as I hit the you know,
Speaker 1: the screen. It was like, oh hello, I God, remember me.
Speaker 1: I'm Gilbert. Remember Gilbert. I was the goalkeeper and he
Speaker 1: was marvelous and fuck off. Okay, so there was money
Speaker 1: for boarding school. Was there also money for university? Assuming
Speaker 1: you went? No, no, just for boarding school? Sixteen? I quit,
Speaker 1: I got out, I ran away. That was it. I
Speaker 1: didn't go back. I went to London and I what
Speaker 1: happened was I went to London to stay with a
Speaker 1: friend of mine who I had met um god knows how,
Speaker 1: but she was an actress and she said you should
Speaker 1: go to drama school. UM, and I did. I went.
Speaker 1: I got five hundred bucks. I did a commercial. Pounds
Speaker 1: I got. I did a commercial. Somehow an agent, Hazel Malone,
Speaker 1: got me this commercial. I had five hundred pounds. I
Speaker 1: gave the school a hundred pounds for the you know,
Speaker 1: and I did a monologue, a Hamlet monologue, and they
Speaker 1: let me in and I got a scholarship and it
Speaker 1: all fell into place. I started to play punks on
Speaker 1: BBC television. Um, and then you know too, so with
Speaker 1: love came. I was only seventeen. Okay, so how exactly
Speaker 1: did you get that part? Well, Columbia pictures. You know,
Speaker 1: some executives came to our drama school and we all
Speaker 1: were there, and we all got up there and did
Speaker 1: our speech on monologue, you know, and they picked about
Speaker 1: eight kids out of the drama school class that I
Speaker 1: was in, and away we went to Pinewood Studios and
Speaker 1: three months with Sydney Porte, you know, with Sean Connery
Speaker 1: doing ductor No in the next sence, it's crazy. Okay,
Speaker 1: that movie becomes a big success, both the movie and
Speaker 1: the titles song. Does that go to your head? It
Speaker 1: went below my waist? That goes to another topic. Okay,
Speaker 1: even if this late, you're quite the dashing gentleman, and
Speaker 1: certainly when one looks at your pictures from that era,
Speaker 1: you are a very attractive man. Hey were you aware
Speaker 1: of that be? Did it pay dividends? See? Did you
Speaker 1: use it to your advantage? Yes? To the latter. The
Speaker 1: currency was beauty. Cheekbones are terribly important in anti biography. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, look, it's all about seduction, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You think Julie Christie didn't seduce directors, you know when
Speaker 1: I was Julie Christie or Terry Stam maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew the physical beauty at that time,
Speaker 1: because England was becoming that, you know, the d Andrew
Speaker 1: and the velvet and this polka dot on the sidewalks
Speaker 1: and Chelsea and King's Road and kind of be straight
Speaker 1: in the Beatles and the Stones cetera. That was my
Speaker 1: life and I wanted to be as gorgeous as narav
Speaker 1: and as you know and saying like Mody waters. Okay,
Speaker 1: now the Beatles broken sixty four in America really the
Speaker 1: end of sixty two and sixty three in the UK.
Speaker 1: To what degree were the Beatles big? And were you
Speaker 1: influenced by them? What were you influenced by in that
Speaker 1: ror their hair, but the air was the here and
Speaker 1: the colonless jackets cannot be underestimated. No, I'm not underestimating them.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you symbolically. That's what changed my life, was there? Okay?
Speaker 1: Just so when there were you a big music fan
Speaker 1: before the Beatles, huge the blues at school, this guy,
Speaker 1: Steve Thompson, I remember his name. He said, listen to this.
Speaker 1: I said, who is it is? John Lee Hooker. I said,
Speaker 1: I know a lot about hookers, but you know, so
Speaker 1: he plays is to me and boom boom, boom boom,
Speaker 1: you know one Chorter so that this is the greatest
Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard. It really got me, you know,
Speaker 1: absolutely excited, and I took that with me to London.
Speaker 1: Now at the same time, so is Ronnie Wood and
Speaker 1: Keith and everybody else and Keith Ralph from the other
Speaker 1: so on and off with you know, all about that
Speaker 1: um and it caught me. Man. It was like an absolute,
Speaker 1: you know, fever of music once to say with love
Speaker 1: thing happened. I went to every club every night, Terry read, Georgie, Fame,
Speaker 1: Chris follow you name it every night and met them,
Speaker 1: you know. And I went to school with Mitch Mitchell.
Speaker 1: So Mitch Mitchell says, what's sort of a line of
Speaker 1: Ken Scott's House waiting for the bathroom with Mitch Mitchell,
Speaker 1: So funny. Yeah, I mean, but this guy, he was
Speaker 1: the sweetest guy. And we're in dramas, you know, really
Speaker 1: sweet guy. And he says to me and Michael, I've
Speaker 1: got this Skodish black guy and he's like really good.
Speaker 1: He's like left handed and he's playing the market tonight.
Speaker 1: You want to come down there. And I went down there.
Speaker 1: My life changed like everybody else, and the first two Roses,
Speaker 1: Pete Townsend and back. You know that story. I'm sure
Speaker 1: Platon your listeners to clap, and everybody was there, every
Speaker 1: single guitar player was in that front row. And the
Speaker 1: next day they all got perms. Okay, at what point
Speaker 1: do you you're an actor, at what point do you
Speaker 1: decide my avenue is music? Well, the rhythm and the
Speaker 1: lifestyle of being in rock and roll was so much
Speaker 1: more attractive than going into repertory theater and doing much
Speaker 1: to do about nothing. I wanted to do much, do
Speaker 1: about a lot. I wanted to go to America. I
Speaker 1: wanted to sleep with you know, the you know, the
Speaker 1: Liberty woman. You know. I was just obsessed on an
Speaker 1: Elvis level, because Elvis was the guy for me, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just couldn't leave this guy with I makeup
Speaker 1: and you know, in the fifty whatever it was, and
Speaker 1: singer jail last right, Oh my god, I gotta get it.
Speaker 1: And then with the androgen a of Brian and Anita
Speaker 1: and all that whole thing was just too seductive to me.
Speaker 1: And I had this girl, Wendy, my first wife, who
Speaker 1: we looked very the same, the same hair, saying cloes,
Speaker 1: and we would cause such a thing at parties. You know,
Speaker 1: we'd make out, we'd make love. I mean it was
Speaker 1: very in front of me, you know, the audience. And
Speaker 1: I've done that ever since. Okay, so you're infatuated with
Speaker 1: the scene in the music. When do you pick up
Speaker 1: a guitar and say, I have to learn this, I
Speaker 1: have to learn how to play. I did a nude
Speaker 1: musical in London called The Dirties Show in Town, and
Speaker 1: I played an androgynous rock star called Rose. And Andrew
Speaker 1: Lloyd Webber came to it. He was doing Jesus Christ
Speaker 1: Superstar with Tim you know, and I sang at demos
Speaker 1: and he said that's good. He said, you've got any songs?
Speaker 1: And I said, oh sounds sorry for a hundred socks.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any songs. I was always playing guitar.
Speaker 1: And he said, come to my apartment and perhaps you
Speaker 1: can entertain us rock roll music. Because he was an
Speaker 1: aristocratic guy, so I could easily fit into that, you know,
Speaker 1: genre vibe that Jay and I went home and I wrote, uncle,
Speaker 1: will you finance my rock and roll band? And he did, okay,
Speaker 1: Andrew Lloyd Webber himself financed your band. Well, he got
Speaker 1: me with Deep Purple Records. He got me a record deal, okay,
Speaker 1: just a little bit slower. Prior to that evening at
Speaker 1: Andrew Lloyd Webber's how long had you been playing the guitar?
Speaker 1: Three weeks? Okay? And you go and you play, there's
Speaker 1: no band, no, and what is Deep Purple Records? Deep
Speaker 1: Purple Regors? Was was was Purples Records. The band Deep
Speaker 1: Purple Purple have their own label, and they had their
Speaker 1: own you know that, Yeah, they had their own label. Um.
Speaker 1: And Ian Gillen had sung for Andrew on the on
Speaker 1: the Jesus Christ Superstar exactly, so I'd sung with demos
Speaker 1: so and you sang the demos for Jesus Great Superstar. Yeah.
Speaker 1: After him seeing me in this this new musical, Andrew
Speaker 1: and Tim Tim took my band. But that's another story.
Speaker 1: So I get this vibe by saying for him, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. I thought a p A was a
Speaker 1: personal assistant. I had no clue about how this whole
Speaker 1: band thing worked. But he put me with Purple Records
Speaker 1: and they were great to me. Johan Collector, and Tony
Speaker 1: Edwards and Ian Gillen, you know, and Deep Purple thought
Speaker 1: I was cool and we put a band together to
Speaker 1: put a note in them in the Melody Maker. Looking
Speaker 1: for erotic musicians is how I worried it. And they
Speaker 1: showed out, and I took the first four skinny guys
Speaker 1: in the way we went silver Head. Okay, you kind
Speaker 1: of pooh pooh Silverhead in the movie, but there are
Speaker 1: some significant Silverhead fans. Oh yeah, I I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really pooh pooh the band. I really feel
Speaker 1: that the band could have gone a lot further if
Speaker 1: I hadn't been so messed up on cocaine. That's really
Speaker 1: was the negative. The band was fantastic. I mean we
Speaker 1: had nights that were we were the best band in
Speaker 1: the world. And I think that's true of any musicians
Speaker 1: that are listening to There's Any band is capable of
Speaker 1: being the best band in the world on any given night.
Speaker 1: I believe that to be true, and we were sometimes,
Speaker 1: but I was distracted. Okay, how did your love affair
Speaker 1: with cocaine begin? I consider the beginning of my coke
Speaker 1: Habit was as important to me as the airring that
Speaker 1: Keith Richard's wore. Very significant. Yeah, it was to you.
Speaker 1: It is because you you understand the symbols rather well.
Speaker 1: But it was de rigur to be the thinnest and
Speaker 1: the most stoned person in the room. And that's what
Speaker 1: I did, and that's what I was. Unfortunately, it doesn't,
Speaker 1: you know, go so well with people that are living
Speaker 1: with you and working with you and composing with you
Speaker 1: and producing with you. Because I was late for everything.
Speaker 1: I didn't show up all of that bullsh it, all
Speaker 1: of that sort of just obvious rock and roll stuff,
Speaker 1: which is I despise, you know, because you're wasting people's
Speaker 1: time and lives. But I beginning it was like anything.
Speaker 1: It was fantastic, and me, my Wendy, my girlfriend, my wife. Subsequently,
Speaker 1: UM were you know, monkeys on coke and it was
Speaker 1: it was got out of hand. Anything that owned me
Speaker 1: was I thought was dreadful. In the last two years,
Speaker 1: I was only getting high for seven years. The last
Speaker 1: two years were hopelessly uncool, you know, with Led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: and that whole dark period of zeven which I was
Speaker 1: part of. UM and then I in one I go
Speaker 1: stop it. I looked in the mirror. I think vanity
Speaker 1: got me sober. Okay, but let's go back to the
Speaker 1: initial days. Cocaine is not cheap, and you're living this
Speaker 1: peripatetic career lifestyle. Is money just never an issue. There's
Speaker 1: always enough money coming in. I could get anything for free,
Speaker 1: literally the nature of being prominent. These people give you
Speaker 1: things for free. But did you also ask for things
Speaker 1: at four am on the third day? You know? I mean,
Speaker 1: but I never, I never really had to do that.
Speaker 1: It clothes where we lived always provided by very wealthy
Speaker 1: people that wanted to be around rock and roll, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean we were toys, we were prop stars. Has
Speaker 1: that okay? And now you get off drugs in due
Speaker 1: how did you get off it? I stopped? Um, Danny Goldbergy,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know who is my dearest friend. I've
Speaker 1: got further to his children. And I met it through
Speaker 1: Zeppelin and he realized I was getting just out of
Speaker 1: control because he was with me through the Zeppelin years.
Speaker 1: And um, he said, my my dear friend, Paul Fishkin.
Speaker 1: Do you know Paul fit Chikin. I've met Paul. He's
Speaker 1: a beautiful man to this day, on every day of
Speaker 1: my birthday, as it were, you know, bright egg, I
Speaker 1: speak to Paul, beautiful man again. And he was with
Speaker 1: Stevie Nicks and he wasn't using coke and he wore shades,
Speaker 1: and I thought, this is for me, and he took
Speaker 1: me through a meeting and I just stopped. There was
Speaker 1: no rehabit that time. I mean I was a pariah
Speaker 1: on a rock and roll level pop you know, I
Speaker 1: was a leper. Okay, so you stop overnight, but you
Speaker 1: you do go to meetings? Oh god, I went to
Speaker 1: two meetings for the first ten years a day. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would you still go to meetings today? I do not.
Speaker 1: I can stop about twenty years ago. I consider my
Speaker 1: radio programs meetings. Okay. Do you ever feel the desire
Speaker 1: for substances? No? Never, absolutely not. The only substance I
Speaker 1: want is you know, love and honestly and romance. But
Speaker 1: any buddy who has been had a love affair with
Speaker 1: drugs or alcohol, even if you can physically stop, mentally,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult. For no other reason. You don't have
Speaker 1: this in your life. And what are you gonna do
Speaker 1: with all this time? Substitute something? Your substitute? Do you
Speaker 1: that guitar, that song, that role? You know I would
Speaker 1: have worked constantly in my whole life. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at my AMDB it you know it's massive. It's a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years of American television and forty movies
Speaker 1: and twenty albums. You know, So I worked that. Then
Speaker 1: the drug became how can I be every second involved
Speaker 1: in something spectacular? And it worked? I mean I happened.
Speaker 1: So how did silver Head end badly? I? You know,
Speaker 1: we were in London. We've done you know, massive to us.
Speaker 1: I think we toured constantly to the Native shows a
Speaker 1: year for two or three years. I was just exhausted
Speaker 1: and skinny and strong out. And you know, I've met
Speaker 1: miss Pamela, and I was already married to somebody else.
Speaker 1: To Wendy's I've alluded to earlier and America. So I
Speaker 1: wanted to leave the band and go to America. And
Speaker 1: so you literally pulled the pull the ripcord yourself. I did.
Speaker 1: The band were hired by the record company in the management,
Speaker 1: and you know, they were on salary, and you know,
Speaker 1: I was the guy, and I just said, I just
Speaker 1: can't do this anymore because I wasn't used to. You know,
Speaker 1: there's two albums made and we could have done a third,
Speaker 1: and that could have been huge, but I didn't know
Speaker 1: anything about that. I was an extremist. I dealt with
Speaker 1: it right then and said, I don't want to do this.
Speaker 1: I want to go to America. Prior to going to America,
Speaker 1: you marry Wendy, your long term girlfriend. How do you
Speaker 1: decide to uh tie the knot? I think out of
Speaker 1: a question on uh of giving her the name. We
Speaker 1: were together seven years and she said in the documentary
Speaker 1: she's passed away since then, God bless her. I think
Speaker 1: it was giving her that, you know, that marquise. You know,
Speaker 1: she became a marquis. She was always obsessed with being
Speaker 1: a marquis, which is a feminine part of a marquis.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, subconsciously, I was doing it
Speaker 1: in order to give her that name. Okay, how do
Speaker 1: you break it to her very shortly after you're married
Speaker 1: that your in love with someone else and you want
Speaker 1: to get divorced? And to what degree did that affect
Speaker 1: her life? Thereafter? She became a professor emeritis of science
Speaker 1: and wrote five books, so she did pretty good. Immediately
Speaker 1: of me leaving, she had an affair with you know
Speaker 1: who I do. It is amazing, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: even then and so she was cool, I mean, she
Speaker 1: was very cool. It was all cool, It's okay, you know,
Speaker 1: all right, So he met Miss Pamela, the queen of
Speaker 1: the group. Is great, go do that, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to do this. And did she ever get married and
Speaker 1: have children? Yes? Okay, so she lived a full life. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So tell us how you meet Miss Pamela or the
Speaker 1: g T. Well, I'm in New York and there's a movie.
Speaker 1: You know, I was with the Warho Vibe and and
Speaker 1: there was a movie being made and Keith Moon was
Speaker 1: going to play this role in this movie, which Ms
Speaker 1: Pamela was in. So they, you know, Keith went missing,
Speaker 1: what a shark, And they were looking for a rock
Speaker 1: and roll guy. So it was in town and I
Speaker 1: think it was Wayne Forte, you know Wayne for I
Speaker 1: heard from him today. Wow, Well I love this guy.
Speaker 1: He's a pretty good friend. Fucking love him. But so
Speaker 1: he's an agent. Yeah at that time, really represent Bowie,
Speaker 1: a million other everybody. He was. He put me in
Speaker 1: the power station. Um. But so he says, okay, get
Speaker 1: this one, the mean mean empty big and they did it,
Speaker 1: and I went and made this movie. And I remember
Speaker 1: I've been up for two or three days this year,
Speaker 1: as you and I walked on that set and Betty
Speaker 1: Grabel was standing with her back to me. She was
Speaker 1: in a sort of forties swimsuit, and I just felt it,
Speaker 1: you know. She turned around and I fell in love
Speaker 1: and I was with it for the next twelve years. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, just talking about her for a second, what
Speaker 1: do we know? She would be a self described groupie
Speaker 1: who Frank Zappa usher to a recording career with the
Speaker 1: other women girls together outrageously. But when you met her,
Speaker 1: what was the what was going on in her life?
Speaker 1: Because she sounded like you know, it's a great question.
Speaker 1: She symbolized America to me, but she was America to me. Say,
Speaker 1: I was schooled on the movies and the music. So
Speaker 1: she was this absolute beaming human, you know, with with
Speaker 1: a smile. You've seen That's why you've seen the photoguess,
Speaker 1: the g t O s. I mean, they were amazing.
Speaker 1: Zappa had got hold of them and made a record
Speaker 1: that Rod was on and Lowell, George and you name it.
Speaker 1: So she had and I adored the resume. You know,
Speaker 1: to me, pet they can Okay, you know a lot
Speaker 1: of times people get involved with musicians for not only
Speaker 1: the status, but the money and to be taking care
Speaker 1: of Did she have a pot to pisson at that time?
Speaker 1: Oh no, shoot, shoot, lived by making Jimmy Page cowboy shirts,
Speaker 1: you know, which really meant, you know, thousand dollars for
Speaker 1: their shirts. You know. Graham. She was a big, big
Speaker 1: friend of Graham's and they just existed, these girls, and
Speaker 1: they did a couple of gigs and Frank put them
Speaker 1: on salary, you know. Um. And and she hung around
Speaker 1: with Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger and you know she
Speaker 1: was oult him on with mecha, I mean, and all
Speaker 1: of these things made sense to me in the great
Speaker 1: puzzle that I was trying to piece together, that she
Speaker 1: was very much a part of that, you know, just
Speaker 1: just mythologically, as well as the sexiest woman I ever met. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in the Betty Gravel sweet suit. Okay, this beg This
Speaker 1: begs the question you were just recently married, which she
Speaker 1: involved with someone when you met Huh, Bob, that's a
Speaker 1: therapist question. Um no, no, no, no, that wasn't the
Speaker 1: scenario at all. We we left, you know, we we
Speaker 1: we agreed that to part. It was very very pure.
Speaker 1: We love it to this day. My wife now, Brenda A. Doors.
Speaker 1: They did door each other, and it was it was
Speaker 1: pretty soulful, the whole thing because I was sober, you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you do this little movie, then you go back
Speaker 1: to the UK, right right, I go back on the road,
Speaker 1: you know. And she goes to l A and she
Speaker 1: was going out with Whale and Jenny's at the time.
Speaker 1: I said, going out whatever the phrase would be, um,
Speaker 1: and I you know, I was doing a week at
Speaker 1: the Whiskey Go Go in a month. So when I
Speaker 1: got to l A. I called her up. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, can we get together? She said, no, we can't.
Speaker 1: So I knew her best friend. I told her his friend,
Speaker 1: I'm going to stand on top of the Hightt House,
Speaker 1: the Riot House, and I'm going to jump off the
Speaker 1: fucking roof unless she comes over. And so the girlfriend
Speaker 1: tells Miss Matter that she said, I'm coming over, and
Speaker 1: she said, but I'll go see him tomorrow. She came
Speaker 1: over that morning and we were together ever since. I okay,
Speaker 1: you were obviously smitten from when we were making the movie.
Speaker 1: When she walked in the door at the Highatt House.
Speaker 1: What does it take to close her? That's so genius, Um,
Speaker 1: we think the same. We have the same feelings both
Speaker 1: above and below waste, we love the king, and we
Speaker 1: just great man. There was this rock and roll kind
Speaker 1: of blood in our veins, and they eventually her blood
Speaker 1: was in my veins and my blood was in her veins,
Speaker 1: and we wore leverskin. Okay, now it's after that that
Speaker 1: you've decided you're done and you're gonna move to l A. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I arrived in LA with two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and a head dry, and your plan, other than being
Speaker 1: with miss Pamela, was conquer the world, but but a
Speaker 1: little bit more granular. But I knew that, you know,
Speaker 1: I would be taken care of. See the thing is, Bob,
Speaker 1: this life of mine, I have expected to be looked
Speaker 1: after um and cared for. I've expected it, I've had it.
Speaker 1: I knew there was something about it that was seductive
Speaker 1: and fun, and I was always good and cool, and I,
Speaker 1: you know, I to see her parents. I was in
Speaker 1: a fur coat of silver jump suit. I had but
Speaker 1: a sudden cup but here, but a suddain cup but there,
Speaker 1: and I walked in and they Her father was a
Speaker 1: stage Republican working at bud Wise, and her mother was
Speaker 1: just from Kentucky and nice woman, and I just loved
Speaker 1: them both so much. Yeah, their parents, and I fell
Speaker 1: in love with the whole family, and I just sleep,
Speaker 1: did they fall in love with you? Right? He loved
Speaker 1: me right away? He loved me, and he was a
Speaker 1: Republican racist, and you know, you just nod your head
Speaker 1: at appropriate moments, you know, and uh and and and
Speaker 1: seduced the family. What comes first when you're in l
Speaker 1: a acting or music music, Because what happened was this
Speaker 1: massive coat dealer I met, and mr Family immediately got
Speaker 1: a soap opera in New York. She went up to
Speaker 1: New York's. I couldn't drive. I didn't have any money,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know how to pay bills, you know,
Speaker 1: and this coat sort of took me under his wing,
Speaker 1: as there were and I lived with him in Benedict Canyon.
Speaker 1: I couldn't drive in all of that, so I was
Speaker 1: kind of stuck. But he introduced me to Michael Monarch.
Speaker 1: Michael Monarch was the guitar player and Steppenwolf when he
Speaker 1: was seventeen, and he was great, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: let's put a pan together, you know. So we did,
Speaker 1: and already quickly the coke dealer paid for rehearsals, paid us,
Speaker 1: you know, a monthly salary, and we just created some
Speaker 1: songs and we played a couple of gigs and Jimmy
Speaker 1: came to town. Um you know, the Seven came to
Speaker 1: down there, all in Malibu, all in houses next to
Speaker 1: each other, not talking, and I was the conduit between
Speaker 1: them and UH and they came down to s I
Speaker 1: R To watch us play and Jimmy said, you know
Speaker 1: you want to be on the label. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: how did you know Lad's up one? Well, Silver Had
Speaker 1: is you know, a tough band that a lot of
Speaker 1: people in music musos as they say, you don't really like.
Speaker 1: So we're in a club in Birmingham one night and
Speaker 1: we're playing. It was a great show. There's eleven people
Speaker 1: in the club. Four of them will led Zeppelin because
Speaker 1: were they there. Bonzo had a farm ten minutes from
Speaker 1: the club and they all have to be rehearsing. That's how.
Speaker 1: And BP Fallon, the legendary BP Fallon, who you may
Speaker 1: or may not have heard of, is a brilliant sort
Speaker 1: of Yoda rock figure at the side of Bonno and
Speaker 1: plants and a lot of it. Mark Bonn and they
Speaker 1: took us back to the farm after the gig, and
Speaker 1: we stayed there for three days and nights, and you
Speaker 1: can imagine um that we sort of got it together.
Speaker 1: Plus Jimmy had already been with Ms Pamelas, so there
Speaker 1: were connections all over the place. Okay, how do you
Speaker 1: decide on the name detective? I originally wanted to call
Speaker 1: it defective, but I was turned It had a sort
Speaker 1: of searching forties Humphrey Bogot feel to it that I've
Speaker 1: always thought was very rocking around. I thought bo got
Speaker 1: was you know, the ship, you know, and he had
Speaker 1: that that lighting, that black and white lighting always appealed
Speaker 1: to me, and I always thought it was just so
Speaker 1: powerful to be a private eye, to be a detective,
Speaker 1: to search, to find, to conquer, to suss it out,
Speaker 1: to to you know, put the dupths together. In all
Speaker 1: of that, it just sent to me powerful and sexy. Okay,
Speaker 1: So led Zeppeland has this amazing success. They formed swan song.
Speaker 1: Danny Goldberg, their pr person, runs it in the US
Speaker 1: first album out Monster Bad Company. Yeah, but nothing really
Speaker 1: after that. Maggie Bell I think they did a pretty
Speaker 1: things record, but you know, it was U Led Zeppelin's label.
Speaker 1: Why did it ultimately not work for you? Vanity labels
Speaker 1: do not work because Atlantic works. Swan song doesn't work.
Speaker 1: When Bonzo owns the fourth of you, you've got a problem, right,
Speaker 1: So there was nobody to turn to that, you know.
Speaker 1: What had happened was clearly on it, you know, signed
Speaker 1: the Zeppelin and gave them a label. And look at
Speaker 1: the Stones and label? Did anybody ever become famous on
Speaker 1: the Stones label? The Peter Clash record I think was
Speaker 1: successful and was the only one, right, but Chris follow
Speaker 1: and all the cats you know not didn't happen. Well,
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with us. I couldn't get hold
Speaker 1: of Jimmy, you know. Jimmy was you know, should we
Speaker 1: say um, you know, under the weather. And it was
Speaker 1: very difficult to get hold of him. So he was good.
Speaker 1: The deal was Jimmy will produce the record. We waited
Speaker 1: a year for Jimmy Page. And you give a guy
Speaker 1: at twenty four years old a million dollars, what do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen? You know? And I
Speaker 1: spent it as it all of those boys, and we
Speaker 1: were so strong out and and and confused and just
Speaker 1: you know, and I wanted to be married. It's a
Speaker 1: come in and do it because I love to be
Speaker 1: married and humble Pine. I'm sure you do too. I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the grades, and that raw rock
Speaker 1: and roll thing. I didn't really want to do the
Speaker 1: sort of the butch bonzo Zeppeler thing. I wanted it
Speaker 1: to groove a little more. But the band was the band,
Speaker 1: and I think we lost because of that year. We
Speaker 1: lost the really the heart of it. And were you
Speaker 1: were you happy with the two records that came out
Speaker 1: Antoine Song? Yes, you know I was. I thought they
Speaker 1: were great, as though they were. They sound great, you know,
Speaker 1: but they should. They cost a million bucks. I mean
Speaker 1: we spent three hunder thousand dollars getting a drum sound Bob.
Speaker 1: It was ludicrous, you know, the money and the decadence
Speaker 1: of that time. I mean we spent most of that
Speaker 1: recording time in the jacuzzi. Yeah, okay, but while you're
Speaker 1: doing Detective? How many live dates to Detective? Ultimately? Do
Speaker 1: everybody returned with kiss? Imagine her we kiss and playing
Speaker 1: to kids dressed as Jane and Paul? You know, I
Speaker 1: mean every we played with everyone? You're right? He you
Speaker 1: name it, you know, and all of these bands. He's
Speaker 1: arena bands and then at night we go play the
Speaker 1: clubs and have you know, it would be different, but
Speaker 1: it was always secondary. It was never primary, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's no good for me. And again to how
Speaker 1: did it end? But you know, very badly um and
Speaker 1: stupid and lame and you know, shouting, and you know,
Speaker 1: we had Tom Dowd come in and there was a
Speaker 1: guy called John Cougar at the time and John mellon
Speaker 1: camp and he had a song and he had a
Speaker 1: love of World job crazy actually had a hit with
Speaker 1: and yeah, and I turned it down like a schmuck.
Speaker 1: And uh so we broke up, you know, like any band.
Speaker 1: These two records that you know, it's sold, but it
Speaker 1: didn't sell enough to you know, didn't make a real
Speaker 1: dent in the in the luxury car of rock and roll.
Speaker 1: And I just quit. I just said that's enough. And
Speaker 1: then I plus I saw the Pistols, you know, I
Speaker 1: saw the Sucking Pistols in Sarrancisco. I was there and
Speaker 1: Steve Jones, you know, I saw the show. I'm in
Speaker 1: the hotel there, in the same hotel Steve Jones coming
Speaker 1: down the hallway. He goes here, Michael I stole silver album,
Speaker 1: So this is a pretty good introduction, right, So then
Speaker 1: I thought, okay, now, let's strip this down. Let's forget
Speaker 1: the glamour of the seventies and the butch cocaine shop
Speaker 1: edges of the you know, the late seventies, and you know,
Speaker 1: let's get into this. And I got into that, and
Speaker 1: I met Mike Chapman and he signed me as a
Speaker 1: solo art and what happened to who produced? What would
Speaker 1: happened on Dreamland? Right? Chairman produced my record, you know.
Speaker 1: And I was writing with Holly Night. We wrote Obsession
Speaker 1: and you know the rest history on that level. You know,
Speaker 1: that was number one all over the world. Okay, a
Speaker 1: couple of questions. Mike was the hottest. He starts his
Speaker 1: own label, not one single thing, hits eight different acts.
Speaker 1: Eight acts. I bet I could name them nothing but
Speaker 1: Cinema good boy. That's fucking genius, you know. And Device, right,
Speaker 1: I don't remember that device was Holly Night. I remember
Speaker 1: Holly Knight, but I don't remember the name of the band.
Speaker 1: That was the name of the event. But Holly went
Speaker 1: under right love as a battle of course, of course,
Speaker 1: so he put me with I wrote it. I wrote
Speaker 1: the words of a session because I was just getting soap, okay,
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. How does obsession? What's the motivation
Speaker 1: to write a song? To begin with? This song came
Speaker 1: out of the fact that when I was going to
Speaker 1: meetings and every other word was obsession. But I made it.
Speaker 1: Remember that movie The Collector with Terry Stamp. I did
Speaker 1: not see such a beautiful movie. It's about a guy
Speaker 1: who wins the lottery and kidnaps the girl of his
Speaker 1: dreams and brings it back to the country and state.
Speaker 1: So I took that story and put it together with
Speaker 1: the word obsession. So now obsession is love, sex, whatever.
Speaker 1: But then it was really written about narcotics, and I
Speaker 1: just Holly was sober. It is so very played the thing,
Speaker 1: and I say, who do you want me to be
Speaker 1: here to make you sleep with me? You aren't upset?
Speaker 1: Boom there it was ten minutes. Okay. Was it written
Speaker 1: for the movie it was in? Or it just placed
Speaker 1: in that movie. Danny placed it in it. Danny Gober
Speaker 1: was the whatever they call it, you know, the guy
Speaker 1: the right So he puts it in this Christopher Atkins
Speaker 1: playing a chip and Dale stance, so it Leslie Warren,
Speaker 1: who I dare to this day movie not a great
Speaker 1: movie song, huge and our guy. I want that for
Speaker 1: my band and Emotion and Emotion cuts the song as
Speaker 1: massive one. Okay, how come me out of Motion had
Speaker 1: the hit and your version, which is superior, was not. Well,
Speaker 1: you're very kind to say, no, I thought that back then.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I don't know why. I think
Speaker 1: because it was a very new wavy vibe, you know,
Speaker 1: it was unthreatening. Our version was dark, you know. But
Speaker 1: that's why I liked it. Of course, that's why you
Speaker 1: bob libs, so, you know, because you understand darkness, but
Speaker 1: in fact you shine a light in the darkness. But
Speaker 1: I I just love the fact that working with Holly,
Speaker 1: because when you were with somebody that precise and that
Speaker 1: clever and that melodic and that's sort of smart and spiritual,
Speaker 1: you come up with good stuff, you know, and we
Speaker 1: did and it was divine. I'd love it. Listen twenty
Speaker 1: seven countries it was number one. That's okay. That begs
Speaker 1: the question. Since you had a deal with Dreamland, who
Speaker 1: owned the publishing Mike, so he spent all this money
Speaker 1: on records, did you ever get paid on obsession. Obsession
Speaker 1: has bought houses for two lives. Okay. So if there's
Speaker 1: a hundred percent of the song, fifty of it is
Speaker 1: Holly's of your hundred percent, which is fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the song, how much do you have? Three million dollars?
Speaker 1: Not a different question? What percent of the song do
Speaker 1: you own? Well? You get okay, Mike gets fifty. We
Speaker 1: got fifty. We cut it up. It's still made me millions. Wow.
Speaker 1: So i'd been okay since then, I'd been okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well yeah, so does it still rain any coin? Oh
Speaker 1: my god? Yes. You get the Spanish version, you get
Speaker 1: the reggae version, you get the Flamenco you name it.
Speaker 1: Man who just cut it? Um karen O, just cut it? Okay.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of people, uh in our demo
Speaker 1: who sell the rights. Would you ever sell? Stupid? Don't
Speaker 1: do that. I agree with you totally. But that's why
Speaker 1: I'm asked keep it. I kept everything, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I make it. You know I do good. Okay.
Speaker 1: Just to go one step further, if you remember, was
Speaker 1: your publishing interest cross collateral lives on your record deal? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was not because you know my Nikki chin right,
Speaker 1: chen is Chairman's Yeah, Chitty Chap didn't write a word,
Speaker 1: was on all the song. Yeah. So Nikki Cher was
Speaker 1: a good friend of Peter Graham. Why British gangsterism, They
Speaker 1: were both gangsters. Peter Grant drove you know, Don Arden
Speaker 1: around don't hard and was the Crate Twins guy Don
Speaker 1: Harden held Stevie married out the fucking window for the publishing,
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about publishing. So I was
Speaker 1: hip to all of that. I knew Nikki. In fact,
Speaker 1: Peter wins Evan spent up. Peter said fun Kim fuck them,
Speaker 1: you know. And Nikki Chi was the only guy that
Speaker 1: could tell Peter say, look I want to I want
Speaker 1: to have my and and and he gave me, you know,
Speaker 1: he gave me. Can you imagine that gave me to
Speaker 1: Nikky chin Man. That's the head of a story, you know.
Speaker 1: And Mike was great. It was just a brilliant producer.
Speaker 1: I did a solo record with him, you know, and
Speaker 1: it was fantastic. It didn't sell that, As you said,
Speaker 1: a dream then was a nightmare. Okay, since you know
Speaker 1: some of these characters, to what degree was Peter Grant
Speaker 1: responsible for Lad's upland success. I think he was responsible
Speaker 1: for guiding an incredible band. I mean, if you listen
Speaker 1: to that first record, that first record is the key
Speaker 1: record in terms of hard rock and roll, and it's
Speaker 1: dynamic and it's absolutely so. You're in office, you know,
Speaker 1: you know full well the impact that Jimmy Page's production
Speaker 1: was on the fucl lived Stairway Heaven from that of
Speaker 1: the band and all of these silly excuses, and it
Speaker 1: was about the first album. Yeah, absolutely, the first album
Speaker 1: is what I'm talking about. The first album changed things. Now,
Speaker 1: Peter took this said right, Okay, no middleman, no promoters,
Speaker 1: fuck off merchandising. You better fucking put that t shirt
Speaker 1: down your bustard. You've seen it in the movies. It
Speaker 1: was that's who he was. He was this gypsy pirate
Speaker 1: captain who loved and I'm not exaggerated the word loved
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page. There was his son. I mean, he would
Speaker 1: have and I've seen him, you know, I love I
Speaker 1: was part of that tribe for a little bit, man,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was exciting beyond belief because it
Speaker 1: was so violent and it was so dramatic. Okay, now
Speaker 1: you have continued to create Jimmy Page, once past his
Speaker 1: peak in a couple of four days in the eighties,
Speaker 1: has not. Why do you think that is? When you
Speaker 1: reach the stratosphere, you want to stay there. So therefore,
Speaker 1: every time you go out and try and do something,
Speaker 1: you're active that your modus overanda is to be as
Speaker 1: good as you were. It's impossible, so you find that out,
Speaker 1: but you still do it. Now that creates a storm
Speaker 1: and drang in your psyche, and I think that's what happened.
Speaker 1: But what Jimmy did was not do that for these
Speaker 1: last ten years. What he did was he turned to
Speaker 1: the library and recreated these records and that's I think
Speaker 1: were exactly what he should have done. The beautiful photograph books.
Speaker 1: You know, I have the deepest respect for Jimmy Page.
Speaker 1: You know, both as an artist and as a man.
Speaker 1: He became sober. Okay, and it ends with dream Land.
Speaker 1: Then you have checkered past. How does that come together? Well,
Speaker 1: it came together quite quickly in that um. You know,
Speaker 1: I was working with Chairman. That didn't work, but I'm
Speaker 1: still with Nigel Harrison. So I thought, well, Nigel, let's
Speaker 1: put some band together. I'm only human and the album
Speaker 1: that I made with Mike was a hit in England.
Speaker 1: We went to England, we played a few shows. I
Speaker 1: was really really stoned. Um this is came back to
Speaker 1: New York and I was living in New York and
Speaker 1: Nigel lived there. So we got Frank Infancie from the
Speaker 1: original Blunde, Nigel and Jonesy. Jonesy was in New York,
Speaker 1: strung out, broke, post pistols. Malcolm took all the money,
Speaker 1: fucked up claim the greatest drummer in the world, you know,
Speaker 1: for me was available. We did one gig at the
Speaker 1: Peppermint Lounge. We and all the punks that they're packed
Speaker 1: because of Jonesy and the vibe you know, Blondie and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, so we opened with Vacation by
Speaker 1: the go goes okay, you know, I know Jaffe Valentine
Speaker 1: that that's her in emotion obsession. So how did you
Speaker 1: decide to open with the gage because they pissed him
Speaker 1: off because it was bulls and it was like the
Speaker 1: perfect lace my idea. Yeah, oh, we have but one
Speaker 1: say vacation to get away and the punks going and
Speaker 1: and but by the middle of the song and Steve
Speaker 1: is like kicking as and claims going wild. It was perfect.
Speaker 1: It was like some subad or Dully three good rock
Speaker 1: and roll pistols meets Belinda carlyle Man. It was. It
Speaker 1: was just so arty, you know that they kids just
Speaker 1: went nuts and the band went. Okay. So we go
Speaker 1: to l A and we got another guitar with Tony
Speaker 1: sales from Tim Machine, Soupy's son, in fact, junior rehearsals.
Speaker 1: When we got stuck, we get Tony to get Soupy
Speaker 1: on the line and make us laugh so we could
Speaker 1: carry almost from and again that's what happened. And you know,
Speaker 1: Tony was genius, so beautiful looking, and it was a
Speaker 1: great rock band, great live album sucked. Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: you've had four record deals. Oh yeah. In the in
Speaker 1: the movie you say that Danny Goldbrook says your time
Speaker 1: is up. What are you thinking? I disagreed any and
Speaker 1: I'm going to prove it to you. But but but
Speaker 1: what happened was my acting career, you know, and the other,
Speaker 1: of course, the other thing that happened was a little
Speaker 1: band called power Station. You know, because what happened was
Speaker 1: in eighty four something. Obsession was over everywhere. I'm in
Speaker 1: Texas with Don Johnson and he's making a movie. And
Speaker 1: you know, we're all become such big buds with Don
Speaker 1: Johnson because I met him in seventy two snorting coke
Speaker 1: in Hempstead. That's how in London, and I known him
Speaker 1: for years, way before Sunarly Crockett. So we I go
Speaker 1: to this you like this. I go to Marshall, Texas.
Speaker 1: He was shooting The Long Hot Summer, which is the
Speaker 1: pot Neman movie. And we're in marshal to Ava Gardner.
Speaker 1: Ava Gardner walked in one day with the with the
Speaker 1: white towel and a buttle of vodka. Fa tastic. So
Speaker 1: I get a call from Wayne. Wayne says, what are
Speaker 1: you doing this summer? I said, I man joined the
Speaker 1: luxury being number one all over the world. What you're doing?
Speaker 1: And he's this, this is a band that needs a singer.
Speaker 1: I said, what bad? He said, I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, I'm mysterious. Okay, will you come to
Speaker 1: New York and meet this band? And I said, if
Speaker 1: you send a limo for me in and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm at the car Alyisle. Yes, he does all
Speaker 1: those things. I arrived JFK get in the car, go
Speaker 1: straight to the office up to seventy for Wayne Forte
Speaker 1: and John Taylor and Tony Thompson are sitting there looking
Speaker 1: extraordinarily enoughous. They have a six month to a book.
Speaker 1: There's hundreds of millions at dollars Bob and I go,
Speaker 1: oh ship Man, okay, so this band is number one,
Speaker 1: something like a hard Indeed, they take me to the studio.
Speaker 1: They take off Palmer's vocals. I get on the concorde.
Speaker 1: I fly to London right away, no sleep, to meet
Speaker 1: Andy Taylor, who really ran that band. So Andy comes
Speaker 1: in eight hours late, billowing marijuana smoke, two bodyguards. I'm
Speaker 1: in the control room. You know your dirty street and
Speaker 1: Yeoma girl, get it home bag. You go okay, press
Speaker 1: the button, but let's go shopping. We go shopping. I
Speaker 1: go to Vivian Westwood. I get twenty dollars worth of clothes.
Speaker 1: I get back on the concorde. I got to New York.
Speaker 1: I get to New York at the Carlist Dons in town.
Speaker 1: We decided to go to she was to have dinner.
Speaker 1: The phone rings. I pick up the phone. You're out,
Speaker 1: You're out, I said, can I keep it close? And
Speaker 1: they said no. So they're only boxes and the thing,
Speaker 1: so that I thought this is very simple, Like I
Speaker 1: kind of casually looked over, you know, like oh yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so we go to dinner. You love this
Speaker 1: where in a restaurant she was Mamber, she was in
Speaker 1: New York was and we're having this, you know what,
Speaker 1: wonderful meal and I'm sobbing. And who who looks in
Speaker 1: the restaurant John Taylor. John Taylor walks at the restaurant,
Speaker 1: six tables away. Don Johnson goes over to the table
Speaker 1: and says, John garo were we even Can you come
Speaker 1: outsand the sidewalk and you can talk to you? And
Speaker 1: John says, well, yeah, all right? And how they go.
Speaker 1: He comes back to the table ten minutes later. I
Speaker 1: don't ask him what went down at all. I don't
Speaker 1: even talk about it is too depressed. Go back to
Speaker 1: the hotel. Seven am. The phone ranks, You're back in
Speaker 1: What how come? Because Danny Goldberg had gone to Palmer's
Speaker 1: people said give me more of the merch, give him
Speaker 1: more the fucking merch and MTB and boom phone call
Speaker 1: we need you at noon. Simple as that, well a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. Why did they not want you? No?
Speaker 1: They didn't want me because Palma dropped in again. He
Speaker 1: Palmer dropped him again. It was a device. Ah, it
Speaker 1: was all scared. I think. So I'll leave it to
Speaker 1: your listeners right to figure it out. But I mean, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm there, I'm sucking in New York, ready
Speaker 1: to rock. I'm skinny, I'm Leana, I can sing my
Speaker 1: ass off, and why would you know? So that's why,
Speaker 1: you know. And they knew also they only had ten songs,
Speaker 1: and they knew that I came with a bunch of songs,
Speaker 1: you know. And so the live thing was all about
Speaker 1: the life. There was so much money involved and live aid.
Speaker 1: So Palmer said very cleverly, and I respected and I
Speaker 1: love him and I loved him ten years before we
Speaker 1: got hide together. I loved his Ben Vinegar Joe, you
Speaker 1: remember that band, He'll keeper Brooks, loved his word Marvin Gay, gorgeous, brilliant,
Speaker 1: and and I dropped in and noon there I was.
Speaker 1: And as I go to a story of studios in
Speaker 1: New York, they say, well, you know, there is big
Speaker 1: gig in four days. It's kind of a big concert.
Speaker 1: I said, what's that? I said, live age. I said,
Speaker 1: that's a big concept. Okay, you know, and I remember
Speaker 1: that moment, you know, because a lot of people say, well, Michael,
Speaker 1: when you terrified about that? And they asked, It's absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I was made for moments like that. And I sang
Speaker 1: and I rehearsed, and I learned everything, every note, every
Speaker 1: syllable of Robert Palmer. I sort of did effect simile
Speaker 1: of it, but not really, you know, because I sing
Speaker 1: in a Steve Mary arrange and he's sort of down here,
Speaker 1: had that good jug and I'm way above that. So
Speaker 1: we did. We rehearsed, and we did live age. Okay,
Speaker 1: and you go on tour, you have this great success.
Speaker 1: Why does the power station not sustained? Oh, because it's
Speaker 1: so coked out that the kids, you know, I was
Speaker 1: thirty something and John and Andy were twenty two years old,
Speaker 1: and they were top of the the Beatles. I've never
Speaker 1: a scene anything like that. I've played with a lot
Speaker 1: about yeah, and a lot of audiences, but I have
Speaker 1: never seen that tsunami of sweat and topless teenagers, twenty
Speaker 1: thousand girls screaming their asses off. In fact, the first
Speaker 1: gig that I did, I walked out in the middle
Speaker 1: and I felt like child and motherfucking Heston as Moses
Speaker 1: when the Red Sea parts, because they all went over
Speaker 1: to John's side, they all went over to Andy's left
Speaker 1: with this big trough, you know. But that was I
Speaker 1: didn't worry about that stuff. The one time I got
Speaker 1: upset was one guy, and I was very wicked about this.
Speaker 1: But one guy comes up with the Robert Palmer album
Speaker 1: in the front. Always one guy, and that's the guy,
Speaker 1: you know, obsessed about it, you know, but not me,
Speaker 1: not me. I kicked him in the face with my capizios,
Speaker 1: which probably didn't hurt very much because only way like
Speaker 1: ninety two pounds at the time. But he yeah, he
Speaker 1: got what he deserved. And and then once I didn't
Speaker 1: really hit him, you know, but what happened was the
Speaker 1: girls around him jumped him and started to scratch his
Speaker 1: face and it was so fulliny, you know. And that
Speaker 1: was one of the very first gigs. And John and
Speaker 1: Andy were over looking and looking at me, what has happened?
Speaker 1: Amazing episodes, but that was one of them. But the
Speaker 1: live and experience by Bill Graham, who was a monster
Speaker 1: on anybody's determination, would you agree, well, he was fantastical.
Speaker 1: The finances worked for him. Shall we say he introduced
Speaker 1: acts and music to you know, hundreds of thousands of people.
Speaker 1: The problem was he was a monster while he was
Speaker 1: doing it. You know. What happened to us was we
Speaker 1: came on to do the thing and Andy's amper blown
Speaker 1: up and Bill Graham was reaching, I mean really screaming
Speaker 1: at us. I smiled my way through. You can look
Speaker 1: at the thing on YouTube, but I'm just grinning from faith,
Speaker 1: you know, because nothing was going to get in my way.
Speaker 1: And then we get the right amp and Bill Graham,
Speaker 1: you know, you'll never eat lunch in this town again,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, you know, God bless you, but
Speaker 1: get out of my way. And I just sang ten
Speaker 1: minutes and it was beautiful and enjoyed every fucking minute
Speaker 1: on me. Okay, when power station comes to a close,
Speaker 1: where does that leave you? Emotionally leaves me in a
Speaker 1: white Rose RoCE driving to Paramount Studios to audition for mcgever.
Speaker 1: That's how did that? How did that? Opportunity wright? My agent?
Speaker 1: My agent called me said they want an assassin for
Speaker 1: one episode. You want to go up to Vancouver and
Speaker 1: make Tim Grant? I said yeah, and I go, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: well how did you get an acting agent? Um, well,
Speaker 1: everybody wanted me at that time because I spent there
Speaker 1: was five months, six months making relationships. I got tickets
Speaker 1: for people in different cities. When I played New York,
Speaker 1: I got people at the Ritz, you know, a surprise gig,
Speaker 1: and I made relationships with agents and publicists. I knew
Speaker 1: I had to think of something to do after this.
Speaker 1: When I came to l A, I had a lot
Speaker 1: of people come and see me free. I got the tickets,
Speaker 1: got them at Lamin at the leamits simply said get
Speaker 1: it off. Yeah, because I would hand them out to girls.
Speaker 1: But that's another story. So they all come in. So
Speaker 1: I've made relationships book, I'm not an idiot, and they
Speaker 1: you know, an agent, said Articia, And uh. The first
Speaker 1: gig that they you know that the auditioned for was
Speaker 1: to play Murdoch on mc ivor, which went down very well,
Speaker 1: and I did it for the next five years and
Speaker 1: other As you referenced, Drulier IMDb credits are very long.
Speaker 1: How did all these other opportunities come as a result
Speaker 1: of agent relationship or your work on a diver? Both
Speaker 1: the agents? Would you know? Because I became the dere
Speaker 1: Goo rock star. So I did that everywhere, Rockford Files,
Speaker 1: just shoot me, you know all of it. I played,
Speaker 1: you know, rock and rollsters forever. But then I started
Speaker 1: to get this high cheekbone Jeremy Iron's bad guy English cheek.
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean that that you didn't
Speaker 1: mind being type cast? I love the cast. Who cares?
Speaker 1: Who gets what the type is? Baby? You know, I
Speaker 1: just want to be cast. Okay, So how does it
Speaker 1: end with Miss Pamela? Well, you know, horrible Nick was
Speaker 1: twelve just breaks my heart even to this day. You know,
Speaker 1: we we were good friends, and she's good friends with
Speaker 1: Britt and my wife, and but it was very, very painful.
Speaker 1: But I had to do it. I had to become
Speaker 1: a singular human being for a while and not depend
Speaker 1: on everybody. That's what the real trip is. You know,
Speaker 1: permitted everything for me. You know, I never never, as
Speaker 1: I said before, and I say it with any sense
Speaker 1: of pride or you know, any of that stuff. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't work the system, and I had to learn
Speaker 1: I couldn't drive a car. My son had a few
Speaker 1: psychological issues, and we put him in a beautiful place
Speaker 1: to work stuff out, and it was way way way
Speaker 1: from me, and I learned to drive in order to
Speaker 1: see him and be with him, and I started to
Speaker 1: grow up. And that's what happened, and that's what I
Speaker 1: learned from my time with Miss Pamela. And she knew that,
Speaker 1: she knew that I had to break away to become,
Speaker 1: you know, a man. Then how did she take it? Badly? Weeping?
Speaker 1: You know? So long did it take her to get
Speaker 1: over it? If she ever got over it? Nobody ever
Speaker 1: gets over leaving me, Bob. I don't think anybody gets
Speaker 1: over no matter even if they're not you. You have
Speaker 1: to make it more difficult. Now, I've always stayed in
Speaker 1: touch with people. I don't just drop the thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I always try, you know, with everyone to ease it.
Speaker 1: I've never been wicked about it, you know, I just
Speaker 1: have a short attention spa. Okay, So how do you
Speaker 1: end up poking up with little Stephen and getting your
Speaker 1: radio show check it past? Supported Stephen with those five
Speaker 1: out you know, those five incredible holms you made, and
Speaker 1: I think it was the second one, and were supporting
Speaker 1: him and I got to know him and I just
Speaker 1: fell in love with his commitment, as everybody does. Because
Speaker 1: this guy is the most important guy to me in
Speaker 1: my life, and I dore him, you know. And what
Speaker 1: happened was I had an internet interview show and I
Speaker 1: was interviewing Marianna Williamson and Maureen van z and his
Speaker 1: beautiful wife saw it. Andrew Lou Goldham, who was the
Speaker 1: DJ at Little Stephen's undergand Garage, as you might recall,
Speaker 1: brilliant man, love him. Um, you know, I had to
Speaker 1: leave for various personal reasons, and Stevie was stuck with
Speaker 1: Who's going to be the morning Daja in New York
Speaker 1: and Maureen I had seen this thing and said, you know,
Speaker 1: whispered in Steven's he get him, you know, And he did.
Speaker 1: And I've been there almost seven years. Wow. And it
Speaker 1: continues that long because because I'm really good at it.
Speaker 1: What makes you so good? Because I give context? That's
Speaker 1: a good answering. I have no response to that. Okay,
Speaker 1: how much acting or how much interest in acting do
Speaker 1: you have? At this point? They pay me a fortune
Speaker 1: to do the reboot of mc ivor a couple of
Speaker 1: times this season, but right now that's moot. You know.
Speaker 1: I've been working on the two things. One a book
Speaker 1: of poetry, two, The Sadest, which is a musical about Desode. Okay,
Speaker 1: so in this long career, what did you learn? Be kind,
Speaker 1: be cool, be courageous? And now that you've lived through
Speaker 1: you know, there's a There was the Elvis period and
Speaker 1: then of course the Beatles started the British invasion and
Speaker 1: blew up the business. All this sixty years of music history,
Speaker 1: maybe seventy years. What's your perspective on it now? Is
Speaker 1: supposed to living through it? Oh wow, but come on, man,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. My perspective on music now is very much
Speaker 1: buried in the in the in the past and bringing
Speaker 1: that into the present. These songs that I play on
Speaker 1: this radio station, Stephen did the playlist for our mantras,
Speaker 1: and I treat them as such. I believe that, you know,
Speaker 1: you keep me hanging on from Vanilla Fudge uh Reinterpreting
Speaker 1: the superin is a fantastic thing. I love the temptationous,
Speaker 1: I love about his writing. I left generally hook up,
Speaker 1: but I also love Turned Resident and you know, and
Speaker 1: Jack White and you know, we play that and we
Speaker 1: play new baths. We have interduced used a thousand new
Speaker 1: bands on Little Steven's underground gross since its inception, and
Speaker 1: you know, do play this music and giving this music,
Speaker 1: you know, two people as a gift rather than taking
Speaker 1: you know, the crown and the gold records and stuff.
Speaker 1: Do I listen to contemporary music, Yes, of course I do.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm a huge Billy Ilish man obviously,
Speaker 1: and lyrically. I think that, you know, black songs matter,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I mean the rap world
Speaker 1: is absolutely incredible dialogue from them, so I'm very fascinated
Speaker 1: by that. But you must remember that I'm doing a
Speaker 1: three hour a day radio program. Yeah, you know, you
Speaker 1: work your ass off. I don't even know how you
Speaker 1: do it. I don't know how you watch Netflix so much.
Speaker 1: You do so much work as I do. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm always working and that's the way I live my life.
Speaker 1: But I don't really spend much time on current music.
Speaker 1: I really just as ocup otis redding, you know, and
Speaker 1: and give it back to the people. Okay, I'm Little
Speaker 1: Steven's underground garage. He picks the songs that you play. Yes,
Speaker 1: his playlist is static. Every now and then new songs
Speaker 1: will come in. He has a label called Wicked Cool Records,
Speaker 1: so he has new bands on that and and certainly
Speaker 1: some bands that have you know, other bands and they
Speaker 1: create you know, clamors in a thousand bands, you know
Speaker 1: clamb and he puts out this extraordinary rock and soul music. Um,
Speaker 1: he's got signed a new artist called Jesse Wagner. So
Speaker 1: we play new music. You know. I just did a ballad,
Speaker 1: made a ballad Adamantic in the UK, which which Stephen produced,
Speaker 1: which we used an orchestra with that song because of
Speaker 1: what's going on, um to quote Marvin Kay. So there
Speaker 1: is a contemporized action. But the playlist is very biblical
Speaker 1: and very clear. Okay, Now you made these records for
Speaker 1: Wicked Cool Records. Uh, that's a fun experience and there's
Speaker 1: a certain amount of exposure through your friends and the
Speaker 1: radio station. Is there any personal plan to try to
Speaker 1: make that bigger? Well? I the monetization of the songs
Speaker 1: that I've written a incredible because it sounds exchange, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're aware of it and you listen as
Speaker 1: you know, that is a thing that gives you the
Speaker 1: money from satellite you know, another internet play. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I make a lot because I've done a lot of
Speaker 1: songs for Stephen, you know, and yet another reason to
Speaker 1: love him right now. In the movie, you also say
Speaker 1: I always ask to some creative people because uh, like
Speaker 1: the A C. D C song A long way to
Speaker 1: the top. Most of them been ripped off and underpaid.
Speaker 1: But you say, you have enough money to get to
Speaker 1: the end, get stopped today. No, I have that a
Speaker 1: long time. You know, I've got my ass out over
Speaker 1: the is. And you know, I wonder if he has
Speaker 1: an American television that means somewhere you're gonna see me
Speaker 1: as a major? Do you as a rock and roor
Speaker 1: as an assassin in Sweden? You know, if I get
Speaker 1: three dollars, but those three dollars mount up and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, residuous royalties, all of these things. My incredible
Speaker 1: radio experience. You know, I have five million listeners every
Speaker 1: day and they buy things from me. And for you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an imposition, having for quite some time to not work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then what would you do with yourself? Exactly? And
Speaker 1: you finally married your girlfriend? What was the motivation there?
Speaker 1: She wanted to be married and I wanted to marry her.
Speaker 1: It was at the winter solstice I proposed to the
Speaker 1: hunted in Hartford. It was spectacular, but because she wanted
Speaker 1: to get married on the winter solstice, the only place
Speaker 1: and that day that was open was a facility in Compton.
Speaker 1: So we go to Compton. It's brilliant black a woman
Speaker 1: married us and the witness was a young back girl
Speaker 1: and it was one of the most unbelievable. Nobody there
Speaker 1: nobody that, no celebrities, no nothing. Don Johnson wasn't my
Speaker 1: best man. Gabriel Burn did not give a bouquet to
Speaker 1: my wife, none of that. And I could have done
Speaker 1: all of that bollocks, but I thought, let's do this,
Speaker 1: Let's just do this together. Then we went to an
Speaker 1: English tea restaurant owned by Edmund, who wore a green
Speaker 1: velvet jacket with slightly ripped on the show. But you know,
Speaker 1: it gave us the worst sandwiches ever, you know, with
Speaker 1: a crust cutter. But it was a beautiful day. And
Speaker 1: I'm so proud to be married to my wife. And
Speaker 1: we're a great team, especially now where we've got to
Speaker 1: be on a good team. Oh absolutely, in isolation. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for telling your story to my audience. I
Speaker 1: know you have a lot of fuel left in the tank.
Speaker 1: This has been great to have you, Michael. Thanks so much, Bob.
Speaker 1: I've been looking forward to it tremendously. I love everything
Speaker 1: you do, I read everything's and for the most practically Okay,
Speaker 1: on that note, till next time. This is Bob leftsas