Speaker 1: Pushkin. A few bands have experienced such extreme highs and
Speaker 1: lows as The Beaches Throughout their decades long career, the
Speaker 1: Band of Brothers managed to be both grossly underrated and
Speaker 1: also one of the best selling live acts of all time.
Speaker 1: M Barry Gibb and his younger twin brothers Maurice and
Speaker 1: Robin started out in the late fifties as a teenaged
Speaker 1: pop group in Australia. Their impeccable three part harmony caught
Speaker 1: the ear of the prominent UK manager Robert Stigwood, but
Speaker 1: a heavy hand and molding the Beegis into a world
Speaker 1: renowned grew By nineteen sixty nine, though the band and
Speaker 1: imploded due to power struggles and battles with addiction. A
Speaker 1: year and a half later, the Bags were back together,
Speaker 1: and after a few fits and starts, in nineteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: Barry Gibb discovered his famed false set up. Their classic
Speaker 1: run of disco hits followed, including the Saturday Night Fever soundtracks,
Speaker 1: which was the highest selling soundtrack of all time until
Speaker 1: The Bodyguard in nineteen ninety two. On today's episode, Rick
Speaker 1: Ruban talks to Barry Gibb about his new Dave Cobb
Speaker 1: produced Appum, which features country music inspired renditions of the
Speaker 1: Gibbs Brothers Brilliant Songbook with guest features on every track.
Speaker 1: They also talked through them making as some of Rick's
Speaker 1: favorite big songs, and Barry recalls what it was like
Speaker 1: producing Barbra streisand who wouldn't sing a single note before
Speaker 1: two am? This is broken record liner notes for the
Speaker 1: digital age. I'm justin Richmondson. Here's Rick Ruman with Barry gibb.
Speaker 1: I have a question about songwriting. Yeah, Historically, do you
Speaker 1: write songs with a purpose in mind? Or do songs
Speaker 1: just come all the time? Well, they come more often
Speaker 1: than not in the middle of the night, you know.
Speaker 1: So if there's an idea or a chorus, you know
Speaker 1: what the chorus is, you know what the message of
Speaker 1: the song. I think that's the key is knowing what
Speaker 1: the song is about and then working backwards, you know.
Speaker 1: So you've got the chorus. And what I've always done is, okay,
Speaker 1: make sure you've got the chorus recorded, because I have
Speaker 1: a little thing next to my bed, and I if
Speaker 1: I love it, I'll record it and tomorrow it may
Speaker 1: be nonsense, but I got to record it. Anyway. Is
Speaker 1: it both melody and lyrics or is it just melody? No, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's all of the above. You've got to
Speaker 1: know where you're going, You've got to know, you've got
Speaker 1: to work. I like to work in levels because Roy
Speaker 1: Orbison is my freak. I just love him and all
Speaker 1: of his songs build all the time. And that was
Speaker 1: the greatest lesson for me. Songwriting is to keep keep rising,
Speaker 1: keep rising, reach some kind of climax, And to me,
Speaker 1: that's a great song, you know. And that's why I
Speaker 1: love Nashville because people are still writing great songs and
Speaker 1: I really don't get too much of that anywhere else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you remember the first time you heard Roy Orbison? Yes,
Speaker 1: the first record I ever bought was Crying Wow. Just
Speaker 1: destroyed me. And it wasn't just the song in itself,
Speaker 1: it was the way he just kept slowing it down,
Speaker 1: taking the tempo, not the tempo, but the mood down,
Speaker 1: and then bringing it up again. And so for me,
Speaker 1: that's the greatest songwriter, pop songwriter I've ever known, you know.
Speaker 1: In Dreams Blew by You, Jesus unbelievable. And the voice,
Speaker 1: the voice is just it was otherworldly and very spiritual.
Speaker 1: And my father always said, yeah, but he's not in tune.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling what. That doesn't matter, dad, You know, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be bing Crosby, you know, it just
Speaker 1: has to move you. And and Roy Orbison moved me
Speaker 1: beyond anything I've ever known. Was was your dad a
Speaker 1: musician as well? I mean he was a drummer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I got a Yeah, so I got a lot
Speaker 1: of my rhythmic senses from my father, you know. So
Speaker 1: I was always, you know, I was always doing something rhythmic.
Speaker 1: I even had paint cans in the garden upside down
Speaker 1: so I could play them, and I didn't I don't
Speaker 1: know what the neighbors ever concerned about it, but it
Speaker 1: was noisy. But that's you know, that was my father's
Speaker 1: influence on me. There's an interesting history of great singers
Speaker 1: who come from a more rhythmic background, you know, drumming,
Speaker 1: like Steven Tyler, for example, was a drummer. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's often the case. It's it definitely adds something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's it's something that's deep inside you and at some
Speaker 1: point somebody says something about that and you rise to it,
Speaker 1: you know. So the discovery of the falsetto and and
Speaker 1: the nonsense that came from all of that was so
Speaker 1: much rhythm involved, you know, and we had to kick
Speaker 1: it up. We were told to kick it up or
Speaker 1: we were gone, you know. So you know, I love
Speaker 1: them all. I love I love record companies that tell
Speaker 1: you they're gonna drop you. Wow, thank you. It's it's
Speaker 1: amazing that you've had the most roller coaster ride maybe
Speaker 1: of any artists I could think of, in terms of
Speaker 1: how high the highs were. It's it's really unusual. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it earlier. And the Bags are
Speaker 1: one of the most successful groups in the history of
Speaker 1: recorded music. Yeah, it's not arguable. It's you know, top three,
Speaker 1: top you know, right right up there. It might have
Speaker 1: been arguable in the past. But I think people, some
Speaker 1: of our people who've always followed us come back around
Speaker 1: and some of those songs really mean something now. And
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. But that's okay. But what's interesting
Speaker 1: about it is to be as successful as that and
Speaker 1: still be underrated. There is no explanation for it. You know.
Speaker 1: I think you can have maybe that you can have
Speaker 1: too much success. Maybe that's got something to do with it,
Speaker 1: and you can be overexposed and not know it. And
Speaker 1: I think that's happened to other artists apart from us,
Speaker 1: and we didn't really embrace that. You know. We were
Speaker 1: raising children and life changed, and yeah, we were a
Speaker 1: little pissed off, that's the right term. But you know,
Speaker 1: it didn't change us. It didn't change us from who
Speaker 1: we were. And really it wasn't me, it was the
Speaker 1: It was the three of us, and the three of
Speaker 1: us were determined and that's how it worked. And it's
Speaker 1: more than a pulp group. It's a family, you know.
Speaker 1: So pulp groups break up, families don't really break up,
Speaker 1: you know. Yes, that's another part of it that's interesting
Speaker 1: is that, yes, we've seen other artists reach tremendous highs
Speaker 1: and then have a backlash, but then they very rarely survive,
Speaker 1: and they very rarely come back to reach even the
Speaker 1: higher peaks. Almost none. That's it's really an unbelievable trajectory.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so happy that you did it. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know what happened, you know. I think
Speaker 1: the connection with Dave Cobb and my love of Nashville
Speaker 1: music and bluegrass music, My god, I still love the
Speaker 1: Dixie Cheeks. I don't know what happens that I love
Speaker 1: them and I love the record you made with them,
Speaker 1: And I don't understand any of that crap, because that's
Speaker 1: freedom of speech, you know. Tell me about Besides roy
Speaker 1: were their other the earliest musical influences you can remember.
Speaker 1: The first thing that hit me hard was teenage queen
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash and his own legacy really affected me in
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. He was like the voice
Speaker 1: of America, you know, and at that point and the
Speaker 1: real story, the real story about all of that is
Speaker 1: it's all stems from people like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby,
Speaker 1: and there was no rock and roll, there was no
Speaker 1: pop music. It was something that they led us all
Speaker 1: into in their time, you know. But once mister Robison,
Speaker 1: the big Oh, once he arrived, that was it changed
Speaker 1: me forever. It's interesting how how much of a royal
Speaker 1: country music played in your life when it didn't make
Speaker 1: some I mean, there were songs along the way that
Speaker 1: gave a clue, but it was never a feature in
Speaker 1: the beg oh. I know, I know, because someone else
Speaker 1: was always telling us what we should be recording. There
Speaker 1: was always somebody telling us what direction we should be
Speaker 1: going in, And I don't think we ever became independent
Speaker 1: in that in that respect. In life now you can be,
Speaker 1: but in those days you really couldn't. There was a
Speaker 1: stage where the guy from the record company would be
Speaker 1: sitting in the sound proof room making notes on what
Speaker 1: we were recording. And that was a pure aggravation. You know,
Speaker 1: you you just can't make it records like that. And
Speaker 1: I heard that, I've heard other people say that, you know,
Speaker 1: how can you be how can you be creatively independent
Speaker 1: if someone's telling you what's wrong and what's right about
Speaker 1: what you're doing. So that's part of it. With the
Speaker 1: Everly Brothers, ever in influence, Oh, come on, the Everly
Speaker 1: Brothers most powerful influence in our lives them and Royal Orbison.
Speaker 1: But I met Phil Eveley a few years back at
Speaker 1: BMI and I nearly fainted, you know. And the thing
Speaker 1: was he was standing with Dwayne Eddie and I went
Speaker 1: and grabbed Stephen and I said, Dwayne Eddie and Phil
Speaker 1: Eveley are in the other room standing to go. Come on, listen,
Speaker 1: let's go take a picture as fast as we can.
Speaker 1: So I have this picture of Phil Evily you're Duane
Speaker 1: Eddie in my study and an unforgettable moment. How great
Speaker 1: is it to be a music fan? Isn't it great?
Speaker 1: It's wonderful And you don't always have to be about yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you can love a lot of other things,
Speaker 1: a lot of other artists, and it's okay. What would
Speaker 1: have been the first place that you guys heard three
Speaker 1: part harmony as opposed to Everley's two part harmony? Well,
Speaker 1: that the two part thing came from Robin really not
Speaker 1: wanting to sing socially. He would never sit in the
Speaker 1: lounge and sing with Morrison. It was just something that
Speaker 1: he just wasn't comfortable doing. But Morris and I, under
Speaker 1: those circumstances, became the elderly brothers and we would sing
Speaker 1: all of those songs, and my favorite is still let
Speaker 1: It Be Me and devoted to you, And you could
Speaker 1: not help it. If you couldn't be exactly like them,
Speaker 1: you could try. Do you remember the first influence of
Speaker 1: hearing three part harmony? Mills Brothers, Mills Mills brother Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it was our father, who is a real Mills
Speaker 1: Brothers fan, and he would bring these records home and
Speaker 1: we got to know songs like till then and up
Speaker 1: a lazy River and these amazing harmonies, and then they
Speaker 1: would impersonate instruments and do things like that, and the
Speaker 1: father was always on guitar at the back, and it
Speaker 1: was a family beautiful. The vocals were remarkable for that time.
Speaker 1: So I was in love. And eventually I met Donald
Speaker 1: Mill who was the who was the very soft vocalist,
Speaker 1: and Harry's brother was the rock and roller. You know.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Robert Stigwood. I never got to meet him.
Speaker 1: Well you better, Rath. Robert was a little bit um.
Speaker 1: He was a little bit of a dictator, you know.
Speaker 1: He was very very much believed in what he was saying.
Speaker 1: He's very aristocratic. I've seen Robert throw absolute tantrums just
Speaker 1: to get his own way. So oh yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was an angry man, but he was creatively on fire.
Speaker 1: And so I think that maybe was that one of
Speaker 1: the last great managers that we've ever seen anyway, and
Speaker 1: it did it did seem like he was really on
Speaker 1: your side and really for it for you. Well, I
Speaker 1: think Robert was on the side of great business, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's the deal. That's how it is, and you're
Speaker 1: better off just looking the other way and getting on
Speaker 1: with what you do. But he was a businessman down
Speaker 1: to the core, and we were lucky and fortunate to
Speaker 1: be signed to EMS because that was the Beatles Company,
Speaker 1: and so it all rubbed off on us in some way.
Speaker 1: But I remember the days when you could dress anyway.
Speaker 1: You felt like dressing flower power dictated everything. And my
Speaker 1: favorite memory is being in the elevator at nem's going
Speaker 1: up to Brian Epstein's offices with Eric Clapton, who was
Speaker 1: dressed as a cowboy and I was dressed as a priest.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's like I both looked at each
Speaker 1: other and maybe we both send something crazy about all
Speaker 1: of this, you know, fantastic. Was there something about growing
Speaker 1: up in Australia that you think had an effect profoundly?
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're aware of all these people,
Speaker 1: but Johnny O'Keeffe, Cold Joy and eventually Billy Thorpe dominated
Speaker 1: Australian radio and dominated Australian pop, and it was Cold
Speaker 1: Joy and his brother Kevin Jacobson that got us our
Speaker 1: first record contract. So the link is powerful, you know,
Speaker 1: and the influences were powerful, and I could I could
Speaker 1: name a dozen artists that influence does in Australia, but
Speaker 1: you can't. You're better up being influenced and not really
Speaker 1: dealing with all of it. But I love Carl and
Speaker 1: I love all I love his family. We actually stayed
Speaker 1: with his family and this was the biggest pop star
Speaker 1: in Australia. You know, it's their own world. It's their
Speaker 1: own world, and they don't take much notice of anything else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you wouldn't mind when we finish, if you could
Speaker 1: make a list of the songs from then, Yeah, because
Speaker 1: we could share a playlist of Australian music that most
Speaker 1: of the people listening have never heard anywhere. I love
Speaker 1: I love it when we get to hear new music,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, it will be a pleasure to do that.
Speaker 1: And I can already think of half a dozen songs
Speaker 1: that you might hear and go, oh wow, that's actually
Speaker 1: really good, but no one ever heard of it outside
Speaker 1: of Australia. Great. What were your first impressions when you
Speaker 1: went to London. We were just delighted to be able
Speaker 1: to get into the race. You know, we wanted to
Speaker 1: be We just wanted to be famous. You know, it
Speaker 1: sounds really silly, but that's what we wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: and whatever we needed to do creatively to become famous.
Speaker 1: We were ready, and that's not true. We were very naive,
Speaker 1: but at the same time we were ready to learn.
Speaker 1: We were ready to learn and grow, and so we
Speaker 1: arrived in London a thrill of our lifetime. Personally, I
Speaker 1: would have been just as happy to stay in Australia.
Speaker 1: I really were the most incredible country, and we were
Speaker 1: growing up there and I was still growing up there
Speaker 1: when we left, so I missed that. When you went
Speaker 1: back to Australia with the BGS, how was the welcome, Well,
Speaker 1: it was always great. I mean, you know, sometimes you
Speaker 1: sold out and sometimes you didn't. But that was early days,
Speaker 1: about ninety seventy one, seventy two, and eventually over time
Speaker 1: after Fever, we did the new Olympic Stadium and that
Speaker 1: was the thrill of a lifetime because this was where
Speaker 1: we came from in a way amazing beautiful. Yeah, great days.
Speaker 1: So there's a beautiful song about to love somebody that
Speaker 1: you wrote it for Otis Redding, Yes, sir, after he
Speaker 1: passed and you had the song, was there any question
Speaker 1: whether or not you should record it for yourself? Well,
Speaker 1: only because we lost Odish Redding, you know, and we
Speaker 1: wouldn't have touched it because it wasn't written for us,
Speaker 1: were written for Otis Redding. And the only reason we
Speaker 1: actually came around, oh let's just record it ourselves, you know.
Speaker 1: And I missed the fact that he would have blown
Speaker 1: it away, you know, and we all loved Odish Redding.
Speaker 1: So that's another that's another incredible influence. It's it's such
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because the song is such a quintessential
Speaker 1: Beiji song. The idea that you might not have sung
Speaker 1: it is a radical idea, right, But you can hear
Speaker 1: me trying to sound like Otish Redding. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: you can sort of hear that influence, you know, only
Speaker 1: after hearing the story. Though I've never heard it until
Speaker 1: hearing the story. Okay, I always heard that. And we
Speaker 1: love Dotis reading, and Robin particularly love Dotish Reading. And
Speaker 1: he had that kind of voice where he could deliver
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, you know, Robin was unique. The
Speaker 1: problem for rob was he didn't believe in it enough.
Speaker 1: He didn't believe in his own voice enough, and so
Speaker 1: over the years he tried to sound differently than he
Speaker 1: really should have sounded because if he'd been honest to him,
Speaker 1: if he'd been him, I think he would have seen
Speaker 1: a lot of mileage, a lot of mileage. But he didn't.
Speaker 1: He didn't believe in it enough. Wow, he's got one
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful voices in the history of recorded music.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. No argument from me. Would you mind if
Speaker 1: we listen to a song? I don't mind it at all.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play you. I want to play one of
Speaker 1: my favorite of your songs. It's not a well known song,
Speaker 1: but it's one of my favorites. It's wanted to see
Speaker 1: what it brings up, and then you can tell me
Speaker 1: about it after. Could you please listen to lamp Light?
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Yeah, II they am she to bye,
Speaker 1: I close my hide and I die, said she, And
Speaker 1: she said she lies. Keevy Wild is my lies? Keevy
Speaker 1: like yoursis. I sat thelone with my ble li and
Speaker 1: saw your face in the crime Rise keep on bur wild,
Speaker 1: mind Rise keeper to. That's brilliant. It's incredible. I haven't
Speaker 1: heard that since nineteen sixty nine. Wow, isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: It's epic majesty, It's monstrous, and it should have been
Speaker 1: a single. There's no question about it. It's just brilliant,
Speaker 1: and he was brilliant. And I think Robert was always
Speaker 1: choosing singles. We didn't choose singles. Roberts chose choosing singles,
Speaker 1: and that that was where it really became rivalry between us,
Speaker 1: because he wanted that to be a single, and you
Speaker 1: know what, he was dead right and Robert was dead wrong.
Speaker 1: And it's just the way it was. You couldn't you
Speaker 1: couldn't really make Robert put out something he didn't believe in.
Speaker 1: But that was just madness. It's interesting, I'll say from
Speaker 1: as a listener. Yeah, I don't always know who sings what,
Speaker 1: and I never questioned who does what. It's just like
Speaker 1: this is coming from the group and it's brilliant and
Speaker 1: I didn't know, but it's I wanted to ask about,
Speaker 1: just like the writing first of all, hearing the day
Speaker 1: for this conversation, I would have never made the connection
Speaker 1: to Roy Orbison, right. I do not claim any any
Speaker 1: credit for the song. Robin came in with it, and
Speaker 1: when Robert didn't choose it as a single, he was
Speaker 1: really angry. And I think that we just didn't have
Speaker 1: control over those things and so I think the single
Speaker 1: became first of May, and now that I hear it again,
Speaker 1: my god, there's no question that that should have been
Speaker 1: an aside. I really want to know, how does this
Speaker 1: song exist? Because it's just so beautiful. Well, it had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with them, the fact that the
Speaker 1: group had become really popular in Germany, and Robin loved
Speaker 1: that whole aspect of music, and that, you know, the
Speaker 1: the virile in type of song, the wartime types of songs.
Speaker 1: He loved all that. So as long as Robin was
Speaker 1: happy singing something, he blew it away. It was when
Speaker 1: he tried to adapt to other kinds of music that
Speaker 1: wasn't rub It wasn't wrong, but this was wrong. We'll
Speaker 1: be back with more from Barry Gibb and Rick Rubin.
Speaker 1: After a break, We're back with more from Barry Gibb
Speaker 1: and Rick Rubin. Should we listen to I can't see nobody?
Speaker 1: Would that be a good one to listen to? Oh? Sure,
Speaker 1: I'll walk below this streets. I'll watch the people I
Speaker 1: used to smile, follow the far off dust a popping
Speaker 1: up but still it bok. I'll just comple myself. I
Speaker 1: guessing all just time to pay I can't see by
Speaker 1: it now. I can't see now body. My eyes can't out.
Speaker 1: Only love got you you. I used to have the play.
Speaker 1: I used to thin opennything. I watch the ball, Holy boad,
Speaker 1: I listen to sleep PU see, don't ask me why
Speaker 1: I love you time I told I can see every
Speaker 1: breath that I'm doing. You are my months on my hand.
Speaker 1: I dan't see now body now, I can't see no
Speaker 1: body my eyes you you now. I can tell you
Speaker 1: now how that came about? Yes, that that was written
Speaker 1: in an Australian returned soldiers clubs in a room with strippers.
Speaker 1: That should tell you something. It's amazing and they were
Speaker 1: all changing and we're both just sitting there and that's
Speaker 1: a song I can't see nobody became an obvious title.
Speaker 1: It's amazing that it's it's got this tremendous R and
Speaker 1: B melody. It's got almost like a breakbeat drum pattern
Speaker 1: and strings. It doesn't really sound like anything else. It
Speaker 1: sounds like the Beg's But yeah, one, what I'm hearing
Speaker 1: now and that's a long time stuff heard that. What
Speaker 1: I'm hearing now is too much orchestra. But I would
Speaker 1: have loved no orchestra until at least the first chorus. So,
Speaker 1: like Roy Orbison, it needed to take its time and
Speaker 1: build and build, and so that that would be my
Speaker 1: only thing. But boy, what a voice, what a song,
Speaker 1: Just a beautiful song. And did you guys get involved
Speaker 1: in the orchestration. And I always did the strings with
Speaker 1: Bill Shepherd, who first worked with us in Australia, and
Speaker 1: when we came back, I did. I did things like
Speaker 1: Massachusetts with Bill. Wow. I did a lot of different
Speaker 1: orchestrations because Robin loved it, but he really didn't want
Speaker 1: to be bothered with that. I understood, So that's I
Speaker 1: did some of that stuff. But Bill, you know, he
Speaker 1: was You couldn't control what Bill was going to do
Speaker 1: until the day of the orchestra, day of the session.
Speaker 1: So what I hear now is we would have been
Speaker 1: real wise to have left the strings out until maybe
Speaker 1: the second version. Well I love it. I love it
Speaker 1: just the way it is. I tell you, it takes
Speaker 1: me away. I love it. You know I do too,
Speaker 1: It's just that I haven't heard it in what forty years? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: there's oldish reading for you right there, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: His influences were strong beautiful. Do you remember any of
Speaker 1: the other R and B singers that might have influenced
Speaker 1: some of the singing Marvin Gay, No question, a lot
Speaker 1: of the other people that were making records in those days.
Speaker 1: Because once, once I met Armad Urchikin in New York,
Speaker 1: he took me along with Robert to the Apollo and
Speaker 1: I saw, for the first time in my life a
Speaker 1: full black show, and Tammy Terrell and Marvin Gay and
Speaker 1: Otis Redding blew my shocks off, you know so, and
Speaker 1: I was sitting right in the middle of the theater,
Speaker 1: so it couldn't have been more powerful to me than
Speaker 1: it was. And I know that Robin Robin would have
Speaker 1: loved it. Do you think Ahmed brought you with the
Speaker 1: idea of potent soul for writing in that style, or
Speaker 1: do you just bring you because he thought you'd enjoyed
Speaker 1: the show. He did come to Miami when we were
Speaker 1: recording Nights on Broadway and we our title was Lights
Speaker 1: on Broadway, and he said, no, you can't call it
Speaker 1: Lights on Broadway, but you can call it Nights on
Speaker 1: Broadway because it's more sensual. It just has more meaning
Speaker 1: to it. So he was good. He was good at
Speaker 1: saying things like that to us. And he was a
Speaker 1: great man, so he would come into town even if
Speaker 1: he didn't need to. He was he was very dedicated
Speaker 1: to his artists. And but he's the guy who said
Speaker 1: it through Robert, if they don't kick it up and
Speaker 1: we're going to drop them. Wow. So that's that's the
Speaker 1: record industry, and it's it can be really angry at
Speaker 1: it can be really ruthless if you're not doing what
Speaker 1: they want you to do. Do you remember the first
Speaker 1: time you met Ahmed my visits New York to meet
Speaker 1: the Emperor people to meet Nat Weiss and Armored and
Speaker 1: a Sue his brother. Yeah, I do. And we went
Speaker 1: to his apartment and Robert insisted on playing bags first,
Speaker 1: and I think it was all about making making Armored
Speaker 1: happy to sign us up and represent us at Atlantic Records.
Speaker 1: And that's how it worked. That's that's what happened. But
Speaker 1: we were never in the light, we never we never
Speaker 1: saw these things happening, and they just happened. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: me about a Reef Arif was wonderful. He was like
Speaker 1: our uncle, you know, but he always played that role.
Speaker 1: He was a genius and he started out with us
Speaker 1: on an album called Mister Natural and it didn't pan out,
Speaker 1: it wasn't successful, but bless his heart, he said, well,
Speaker 1: let's do another, you know, let's do one more. And
Speaker 1: of course he was the in house producer for Atlantic Records,
Speaker 1: and main Course was the album and jive talking and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. That was the album that we first
Speaker 1: really worked with Armored. Well, we worked with him before,
Speaker 1: but this was different, and I think he was taking
Speaker 1: his instructions from Armored and at the end of main Course,
Speaker 1: if I could be wrong, I don't think I am.
Speaker 1: But I think that Saturday Night Fever featured jive talking,
Speaker 1: but not the record, the live version, and I think
Speaker 1: that that was maybe underhanded, and I think that Armored
Speaker 1: was really upset about it, and so was a Reef.
Speaker 1: So that caused a lot of friction between Robert and
Speaker 1: Atlantic and Armored. We never saw it, but we knew it,
Speaker 1: you know. And suddenly Armored canceled a Reef being our producer. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want to get back at at
Speaker 1: a manager hit the artist, you know, And that was
Speaker 1: the way that the business worked then, that was the way.
Speaker 1: But we never saw it. We never We didn't know
Speaker 1: what anybody was unhappy about until until we figured out
Speaker 1: what had happened. That Robert was trying to avoid paying
Speaker 1: Atlantic royalties on the record, I understood, and they used
Speaker 1: the live version, which made everybody really angry. Yeah. Also
Speaker 1: interesting that it led to some of your most successful work, Yeah,
Speaker 1: even without our reef and that. And that's interesting too,
Speaker 1: because you know, you can't tell, like what seems like
Speaker 1: a bad thing in the moment leads to something different
Speaker 1: and it turns out great. It's like, we don't know,
Speaker 1: we can't predict, don't know. You don't know what's going
Speaker 1: to happen with any records you make, and we didn't know.
Speaker 1: We just we were asked to write a certain amount
Speaker 1: of songs for this film. We never saw the script
Speaker 1: and we just we had to reinvent ourselves because of
Speaker 1: what Armord said. And the Falsetto was discovered basically on
Speaker 1: Nights or Broadway, so didn't even know it existed. That's
Speaker 1: very strange, but that's how it was. What was your
Speaker 1: first introduction to disco music as disco music, Well, we
Speaker 1: didn't know what disco music it was. I'm just telling
Speaker 1: you exactly how we felt about it all. We didn't
Speaker 1: know how the word disco never entered our heads until afterwards.
Speaker 1: I actually agree with you that you should be dancing
Speaker 1: and night fever word disco records, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: But there were party records to us, There were records
Speaker 1: that were made in fun, you know. And and we
Speaker 1: had to run away a little bit from the big
Speaker 1: Pathos ballads because the record company didn't want us to
Speaker 1: do that anymore. And that must have affected Rob, affected
Speaker 1: all of us. But the discovery of this other voice
Speaker 1: was in a way an incredible thing, because that's all
Speaker 1: everybody wanted after that, including Rob, because Rob Rob's obsession
Speaker 1: was hit records, hit records, he should Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: have to sing them, but I want to hit. I
Speaker 1: want another hit, And so he would always say, along
Speaker 1: with other people, go and do that voice again, go
Speaker 1: to that voice again. So I think we were all
Speaker 1: victims with the same thing. And we loved it. We
Speaker 1: loved the adventure of it. We loved coming up with
Speaker 1: things that people hadn't heard before. We loved the embellishment,
Speaker 1: the multitracks. The new game was slaves and masters, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can have a tape full of
Speaker 1: glee guitar and you bound what you like onto the
Speaker 1: master that would be that had become the new norm
Speaker 1: at that point. So I think we got trapped, accorded
Speaker 1: into the adventure, you know, and we never knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen. And at some point we were
Speaker 1: selling a million records a week, but it was a
Speaker 1: double album, and it was a compilation album, so you
Speaker 1: could never really say, oh, that's ours, you know, never
Speaker 1: really affected us that way. We couldn't believe what was
Speaker 1: happening because we were trying to make this movie called
Speaker 1: Side from Pepper with Peter Brampton, and suddenly the dancers
Speaker 1: in the film were dancing to Saturday Night Fever and
Speaker 1: in the lunch breaks, what are they doing? You know,
Speaker 1: and we all had you've probably heard it before. We
Speaker 1: all had one win a bagel, and Peter Frampton had
Speaker 1: his own win a bagel, and after about two weeks
Speaker 1: we each had a winner bagel. So there was the
Speaker 1: only reflection of success that we understood at that point.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you've some ways the bags have come
Speaker 1: to define disco when it was never really what you
Speaker 1: It's never really what you did and you and it's
Speaker 1: it's also interesting that that people who were making disco
Speaker 1: records while they were dance records tended not to be
Speaker 1: song based records. I agree, I agree, And we didn't
Speaker 1: know what we were doing or where we were going,
Speaker 1: but we were loving the adventure of it. We were
Speaker 1: loving doing something different, and I think the whole concept
Speaker 1: of reinventing yourself came to us. Every Beatles album had
Speaker 1: a different call it cover. They looked different every time
Speaker 1: they didn't. They didn't think of music as something you heard.
Speaker 1: They thought of music is something you saw. And that
Speaker 1: was my lesson, that that a song has to be visual,
Speaker 1: you know, and you have to know, you have to
Speaker 1: be there to love a song. And that's where Royalbison
Speaker 1: touched me. That's where the Beatles touched me. Eleanor Rigby
Speaker 1: is probably one of my favorite records of all time,
Speaker 1: not just because it's a great record, but because there
Speaker 1: was a vision, There was a there was a storyline,
Speaker 1: there was people in the story. And I loved all
Speaker 1: of that and we may have even tried to imitate that,
Speaker 1: but they were they were the only people who could
Speaker 1: do that. Tell me about criteria, the studio criteria, Well,
Speaker 1: we spent about five or six years between Main Course
Speaker 1: and Fever and then Children of the World before Fever
Speaker 1: and You Should Be Dancing and songs like that ended
Speaker 1: up in the movie, So it wasn't like Fever was
Speaker 1: directly written for the movie. There were songs taken from
Speaker 1: like you Should Be Dancing was taken from Children of
Speaker 1: the World. So I think, yes, we were very influenced
Speaker 1: by whatever disco was, but we didn't understand that. We
Speaker 1: didn't know about the word. It was only when disco
Speaker 1: became bad a bad word. Yeah, about a year later,
Speaker 1: maybe two years later, it became a bad a bad word,
Speaker 1: and we just had to swallow hard and keep going
Speaker 1: and keep trying. And it was always for us, it
Speaker 1: was always well back to the studio, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: were the Eagles recording at the same time as you
Speaker 1: were recording that they did one of these nights a
Speaker 1: criteria and that really triggered a lot of things for
Speaker 1: us because they were using falsetto as well, so it
Speaker 1: didn't feel like a sin. It didn't feel like we
Speaker 1: shouldn't something we shouldn't do, and they didn't do it
Speaker 1: much after that, so it was just one of these
Speaker 1: nights and Hotel California was totally different type of record.
Speaker 1: Do you think they were influenced by you guys in
Speaker 1: the making of that song. No, I think it was
Speaker 1: the other way around. Feel it. Yeah, we thought, well,
Speaker 1: if they can do that, we were already doing that,
Speaker 1: so we shouldn't be We shouldn't be concerned about it.
Speaker 1: We should just make music. So while the breakups of
Speaker 1: the group are famous, right, the reality is you're only
Speaker 1: apart very little time wise, really over the years for
Speaker 1: ninety five percent, ninety eight percent of the time that
Speaker 1: you were a band with the look a look at
Speaker 1: how life was in those days, and there were all
Speaker 1: kinds of substances, There were all kinds of ways of
Speaker 1: getting high. We never could get hold of anything the
Speaker 1: Beatles were taking, but that's become a truth. So, you know,
Speaker 1: but we certainly had our fun. You know, we had
Speaker 1: emphetamines and we had I think Morris was he loved
Speaker 1: to drink. Robin and I both loved emphetamines, and I
Speaker 1: particularly love grass. So these things come and go, and
Speaker 1: you know, you grow. But I certainly remember that that
Speaker 1: was a source of inspiration. But interesting that the breakup
Speaker 1: that the time that you were a part was ended
Speaker 1: up being short in the big picture, Yeah, about fifteen months,
Speaker 1: fifteen to sixteen months. And I would say that's what
Speaker 1: it was down to. That's what it was down to.
Speaker 1: Those substances and an inability to understand each other, and
Speaker 1: that there isn't one of us that's responsible for that.
Speaker 1: It was all of us. And then you had management,
Speaker 1: which was pretty crazy anyway, you know, And that's that's
Speaker 1: just what happened. You can't, as you said, you don't know.
Speaker 1: You just don't know what's going to happen in splitting
Speaker 1: up lead vocal parts. Yeah, would it always be obvious
Speaker 1: who would sing what? Or was the person who wrote
Speaker 1: a part the person who sang it. Yes, always the
Speaker 1: person who came in with the idea would be the
Speaker 1: person who sang the song. And that's because that person
Speaker 1: has already made a commitment to singing that song emotionally.
Speaker 1: So you didn't take a song from away from each other. No,
Speaker 1: if Robin came in with a song like Holiday or
Speaker 1: like Saved by the Bell, which he eventually did as
Speaker 1: a solo artist, but he did he did do it
Speaker 1: with Mo, so it wasn't really it was twins, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's how you had to deal with it. Well,
Speaker 1: I was going to ask it often was the case
Speaker 1: that you guys sang together as well? Oh, run to me?
Speaker 1: We would have been apart. We've been apart for about
Speaker 1: sixteen months, fifteen or sixteen months. And suddenly Robin. We
Speaker 1: were living in Kensington, and Robin turned up at my
Speaker 1: front door and we just got on immediately, and he
Speaker 1: sat down in the kitchen with me and I said
Speaker 1: to him, how I'm working on this song at the moment,
Speaker 1: you want to do it with me? And he went, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, and that was how can your mend a
Speaker 1: broken heart? And wow? And I said to him at
Speaker 1: that point, why don't you sing the verse verse? Because
Speaker 1: I was trying to reach out. I was trying to say,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't want to sing this whole song.
Speaker 1: We're writing it together, let's sing it together. That's how
Speaker 1: that one came about. So Robin sang the verse verse.
Speaker 1: I sang the second verse, and it proved to be
Speaker 1: something that was just interesting because it was varied, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the same person all the time, but the message
Speaker 1: was strong and really it was a personal message about
Speaker 1: the three of us. Yeah, It's one of the secrets
Speaker 1: of the Beatles as well, the fact that there were
Speaker 1: multiple voices. Yeah allowed it. If you hear one person
Speaker 1: sing twelve songs in a row, it has one effect.
Speaker 1: Whereas if people take turns, even if you don't always
Speaker 1: know who's singing, there's something in you that feels like
Speaker 1: something new is happening all the time and it's exciting, right,
Speaker 1: And that same thing applies to when you're not singing,
Speaker 1: that something has to take over, something, some instrumental form
Speaker 1: or some little riff or something or other that that
Speaker 1: replaces the vocal for just ten seconds or five seconds.
Speaker 1: And that worked really well for us, and we just
Speaker 1: learned and learned and grew from that. But that's how
Speaker 1: we came back together. We'll be right back with Barry Gibb.
Speaker 1: After this quick break. We're back with the rest of
Speaker 1: Rick Rubens conversation with Barry Gibb. They jump back in
Speaker 1: by talking about Guilty, the album Barry co produced for
Speaker 1: Barbara streisand in nineteen eighty tell me about working with Barbara.
Speaker 1: Oh incredible, Well, you know you can you can imagine
Speaker 1: what Barbara's likes. Very strong willed and very intentional about
Speaker 1: what she's doing. But the issue was always for me
Speaker 1: is when she wanted to sing. And of course, if
Speaker 1: you're dealing with Barbara and you can't just say, okay,
Speaker 1: it's time to sing Barbara, you know, it just never
Speaker 1: worked that way. So the last record remade, you would say, well,
Speaker 1: I don't like singing at two o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: I said, I want to go to the last two nights.
Speaker 1: If you do that, you know, Oh well I like
Speaker 1: doing it that way. Okay, Well we still didn't and
Speaker 1: and so what was a two week session became a
Speaker 1: three week session because she didn't really feel like singing
Speaker 1: until she felt like singing. But that's Barbara. She's unique
Speaker 1: and special and there's a reason why everybody loves her,
Speaker 1: and I'm one of them. I went to an event
Speaker 1: that was a friend's passing right, and some of the
Speaker 1: greatest artists of all times sang at this event, and
Speaker 1: Barbara was the final person to sing. And this was
Speaker 1: after all of the people who we consider the greatest
Speaker 1: singers of all time. And I had not known much
Speaker 1: about Barbara at that time. I mean, my mom loved Barbara,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know much about her. And from the
Speaker 1: moment she opened her voice before there from the first phrase,
Speaker 1: she was the only person who existed. It was like
Speaker 1: from another planet. It's it's magical. But when she decided
Speaker 1: to commit to it, it was amazing. When we first
Speaker 1: did guilty, she sang it once and I said, well,
Speaker 1: can you give us like five takes so that we can,
Speaker 1: you know, choose and pick and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: she said, well, I just sang it. I know you did, Barbara.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful, but we need five takes because I don't know.
Speaker 1: We want to amplify what you're doing. We want to
Speaker 1: make it more, more passionate. And so she went out
Speaker 1: and sang it five more times. But she didn't understand
Speaker 1: that until I said, can you do it more than once? Well,
Speaker 1: I just did it. I'm amazed. I'm amazed that you
Speaker 1: got her to do it. Yeah. Well, we had well
Speaker 1: to getting a cough sitting in the soundproof room and
Speaker 1: Charles Copperman, so I think that you know, her clothe,
Speaker 1: the closest people to her understood what we were doing.
Speaker 1: And the only time she ever said anything about guilty
Speaker 1: was when she didn't like the word battle. A battle
Speaker 1: in that particular sentence. So we had to go find
Speaker 1: another battle, and we did. Can we listen to a
Speaker 1: woman in love? Would you mind? Not at all? Let's
Speaker 1: hear that space when the dream is gone. It's a
Speaker 1: lonely place. I kissed the morning good bye down inside.
Speaker 1: You know, we never know why the road is narrow
Speaker 1: and lone when eyes melins and the feeling strong. I
Speaker 1: turned away from the wall. I stumbled at far, but
Speaker 1: I gave you in O. I am no woman in
Speaker 1: love and you waity to get you into my mind
Speaker 1: and hold you with these Wow. Incredible, Yeah, what a
Speaker 1: monster's vocal? My god, just incredible. Tell me about the
Speaker 1: writing of the song. We were in a few houses
Speaker 1: down the road, the three of us, and we were
Speaker 1: in a spare bedroom, and we just found out that
Speaker 1: Barbara wanted to do that album, and I was to
Speaker 1: come up with five songs and I was to go
Speaker 1: to La and play them to her. And that was
Speaker 1: basically how it came about. That was the first thing
Speaker 1: we wrote, actually, was guilty and then woman in Love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then we took him to La and she sat
Speaker 1: on a big pillow and everyone sat around and listened
Speaker 1: to the first five songs and at the end she
Speaker 1: said okay, said okay, let's do it. She said, can
Speaker 1: you give me another five? I couldn't do that, and
Speaker 1: she just said, well just give me another five. You know.
Speaker 1: But that's Barbara and you went ahead and did it.
Speaker 1: So so it was written specifically for her to sing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if if if you weren't tasked with writing something for Barbara,
Speaker 1: that song might not have ever come it. Well, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for the falsetto.
Speaker 1: Because what was what was what worked great for me
Speaker 1: was that I could always do something in a woman's key.
Speaker 1: And so if you're writing for a woman and you
Speaker 1: happened to sing it in her key, it's much more
Speaker 1: attractive to the person who you want to sing the song,
Speaker 1: you know. So I was lucky in that respect. So,
Speaker 1: but you don't want to hear me sing woman in Love?
Speaker 1: You know? I think I'd rather hear Barbara do it.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to another song that is um that we
Speaker 1: might argue, is you singing a woman's part? Let's hear love?
Speaker 1: So right? No, I did. It's beautiful. Oh I love
Speaker 1: it too. She can't unlike the night and she held
Speaker 1: on time and the world was right. When she made
Speaker 1: love to me, we were and like a prayer starting
Speaker 1: love and me and a thought of from my heaven
Speaker 1: in her. But the morning when I I was here
Speaker 1: and she was gone. Now hanging on so oh my God.
Speaker 1: And so this is really what is it memory laying
Speaker 1: for me Jesus. That's just that's the steal phonics and
Speaker 1: the stylistics and all the people at that moment in
Speaker 1: time that we're really influencing us. And so well, thank
Speaker 1: you man, thank you. But you know, I heard that
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder likes that song the best, so that's a
Speaker 1: huge compliment. Absolutely. That's also a different version of the
Speaker 1: falsetto because usually I think of your falsetto as as
Speaker 1: sort of a allowed it's essentially a rock falsetto. But
Speaker 1: this was very tender ballad. Yeah. I mean I was
Speaker 1: experimenting all over the place, so so you could we
Speaker 1: could go from you should be dancing to love so right,
Speaker 1: And they're all different, they're all different. Love so right
Speaker 1: was our R and B passion. Did you ever get
Speaker 1: to meet the people from t K Disco, because I
Speaker 1: know you're in Florida in Miami and it's like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I got to know Casey and the Sunshine Band and
Speaker 1: we've been bumped into each other over the years, and
Speaker 1: a really nice guy. And I love those records. And
Speaker 1: they were party records, you know, they were made for
Speaker 1: fun and great news astounding. The same with Nile Rogers,
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was same era, you know,
Speaker 1: and they just wanted to have They wanted to make
Speaker 1: people downs, They wanted to make people. They wanted accuracy,
Speaker 1: and so our mission became, how do we make the
Speaker 1: drums exact? How do we get that accuracy and get
Speaker 1: a groove? And that's how we came up with the
Speaker 1: two track tape that was just a downbeat and a backbeat,
Speaker 1: and it just repeated itself over and over again, and
Speaker 1: we were able to vary the speed. So Woman in
Speaker 1: Love more than a Woman Staying Alive is the same
Speaker 1: based drum and back and what we would do is
Speaker 1: we would just change the tempo and put the fills
Speaker 1: in after the fact because that gave us accuracy. And
Speaker 1: then the Roger Lyn drum machine came along. We never
Speaker 1: thought that was as good, Yeah, but I know we've
Speaker 1: used it a couple of times, But I'm overall that
Speaker 1: I really love people playing. I love to hear people playing.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not interested in programming at all. Interesting though,
Speaker 1: that that was really before there was such a thing
Speaker 1: as sampling. You guys were doing it well before. It's experimenting.
Speaker 1: And once we realized that making a record that was
Speaker 1: fun or fun to dance too, or just fun in itself,
Speaker 1: we needed to create a way to have accurate drums
Speaker 1: or a drum groove. And Dennis always did a fantastic
Speaker 1: job of doing the turns on top of that. But
Speaker 1: that's that was our basis of it. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you saw Saturdayight Fever with all the
Speaker 1: music in it? Yeah, at the Chinese Theater standing at
Speaker 1: the back of the audience with John Travolta and and
Speaker 1: if I remember it well, I remember the two of
Speaker 1: us not really enjoying the fact that you could hear people.
Speaker 1: You could hear the people's feet dancing louder than the music. Wow.
Speaker 1: And so we went up to Stiggy and said, you know,
Speaker 1: the music should be the loudest thing you hear. You
Speaker 1: never hear people dancing in the club. The music's always
Speaker 1: the dominant factor. You know, turn up the music and
Speaker 1: turn down the feet. So that's what they did great,
Speaker 1: and I think that was something that John and I
Speaker 1: both felt really strongly about. You can't you can't dance
Speaker 1: to something you can hardly hear. What was the audience
Speaker 1: reaction to that first screening? As far as I could tell,
Speaker 1: you know, they all loved it. John and I loved it,
Speaker 1: and that was our only critique, if you like. And
Speaker 1: that led to things like Greece and you know, so
Speaker 1: between between seventy five and maybe eighty one, starting with
Speaker 1: maybe main Course and ending with Grease or Emotion and
Speaker 1: things like that. So it was just one record after another,
Speaker 1: and we became a little tainted because everything we were
Speaker 1: doing was going to number one and we just couldn't focus.
Speaker 1: And these records as well, you know, we were dealing
Speaker 1: with that as well at the same time. So they
Speaker 1: were incredible records as well. Incredible, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: we were also pretty dazed. And so about six years
Speaker 1: in we were having this incredible success, but we were
Speaker 1: getting dazed. We were getting dazed and confused and I'll
Speaker 1: be wanted to I want to want to salute I'll
Speaker 1: I'll be a Carl because they were fantastic co producers.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, we was a team, but that wore
Speaker 1: itself out too. So Carl wanted to didn't want to
Speaker 1: have to travel the studio every day and wanted to
Speaker 1: have a happy life with Candy, and i'll be wanted
Speaker 1: to go to California because he loved windsurfing, and they
Speaker 1: had their own personal things in life that were becoming
Speaker 1: more interesting for them. And that's just how it worked out.
Speaker 1: You know. It was a six year span of incredible
Speaker 1: records in my opinion, but everything has an ending to it.
Speaker 1: By the way, congratulates it's on the documentary, which is spectacular. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah, you know, I've never heard a negative
Speaker 1: word about it, except from one person, and I won't
Speaker 1: even mention his name. Yeah, it's I think it's magnificent.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to see that that period is following a
Speaker 1: real fall. Oh absolutely, the rise and fall and rise
Speaker 1: are shocking. Absolutely, And it also what it negated for you,
Speaker 1: It was it negated the idea of having an ego,
Speaker 1: because every time you had success, your head would blow
Speaker 1: up and then something bad would happen and you just
Speaker 1: came down to earth again. You know, so everything I do,
Speaker 1: I often say to my son Steepe, I'm just waiting
Speaker 1: to get dropped on my head again, you know, because
Speaker 1: because that's the nature of what we do know and
Speaker 1: something really works or something really doesn't. And that time
Speaker 1: period what everyone calls the backlash. I don't like the word,
Speaker 1: but there you go. You know, once again, I really
Speaker 1: believe more than anything else that we were over posed.
Speaker 1: And I've seen it with other artists. Yes, I've seen
Speaker 1: it with Michael, and I got to know Michael pretty well,
Speaker 1: but he began to become dazed. He became dazed by
Speaker 1: all of it. And you can have too much success,
Speaker 1: you know, it affects your head. Yeah, well, it's like
Speaker 1: a lack of reality because, yeah, it's so unnatural. Yeah well,
Speaker 1: you know, you're throwing the dice every time you go
Speaker 1: in the studio and you don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think about Elvis, and I think
Speaker 1: about the Beatles, and I think about that period, that
Speaker 1: end period where things just fragmented, you know, for any
Speaker 1: kind of reason, and the choosing a material also became
Speaker 1: an element where the artist wasn't choosing, wasn't doing the
Speaker 1: right songs anymore. They were just trying to do something
Speaker 1: that wasn't quite working the same way. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's what happened to Michael, and I think that's
Speaker 1: what happened to Elvis, and I think that's probably what
Speaker 1: happened does and we had to come back around and
Speaker 1: kick ourselves in the backside and get back in the
Speaker 1: studio and do something, do something exciting again. You know,
Speaker 1: have you ever been surprised in either direction with either
Speaker 1: a song that you thought, this is the best song
Speaker 1: we've ever wrote it and it doesn't work, or a
Speaker 1: song that you don't think much about that really takes off. Oh,
Speaker 1: my favorite song is Immortality that Selene did So I
Speaker 1: can't I can't critique that because the fact that she
Speaker 1: recorded it was an enormous compliment. You know. So, but
Speaker 1: that's my favorite song because it reflects how we feel
Speaker 1: about our lives no matter what. So this is who
Speaker 1: I am, This is all I know. You know, that's
Speaker 1: my favorite. A lyric, Wow, the whole song is my favorite.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's coming to a conclusion about yourself. Beautiful.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the new album. How did it
Speaker 1: come about. Well, it's a it's a fantasy that that's
Speaker 1: gone on for a couple of years for me, not
Speaker 1: knowing about a pandemic. You know that it was which
Speaker 1: I found us. And then one day my eldest son,
Speaker 1: Stephen came to me and played me a Chris Stapleton
Speaker 1: song and I went, oh, Jesus Christ, you know that's
Speaker 1: that's people actually playing and people someone actually singing, you know,
Speaker 1: So that became our dream. He made a point of
Speaker 1: going to Nashville meeting with different people. Jay Landers came
Speaker 1: on board and helped us put there, put the artists together,
Speaker 1: and everyone nobody said no, a couple of people, Chris
Speaker 1: being one of them. He was the inspiration. So he's
Speaker 1: like involved in spirit, Yes he is, and there's no
Speaker 1: question about that. But you know, from Brandy Carlyle, Tolivan Newton,
Speaker 1: John to Jason Isabel j. Buchanan, beautiful, all of these
Speaker 1: amazing artists and Gillian Welch and Dave Rowling has come
Speaker 1: on and they didn't want to do a well known song,
Speaker 1: so they chose Butterfly, which was something we wrote in
Speaker 1: ninety sixties. So this album was recorded all live in
Speaker 1: the studio, yeah, probably most like the very first recordings
Speaker 1: you ever made. Yep. Yeah, it was totally live and
Speaker 1: there was no multi tracking. But it really this whole
Speaker 1: album made me fall back in love. Not that I
Speaker 1: was ever out of love, but I fell back into
Speaker 1: the idea that people just play you know beautiful. I'm
Speaker 1: so glad you get to have this experience now was
Speaker 1: it Was there ever a choice to write new songs
Speaker 1: for it, as opposed to using classic songs. There was
Speaker 1: only the idea of doing words of a Fool adjacent.
Speaker 1: I played that to Dave and he listened to maybe
Speaker 1: six bars and he said, let's cut that great. Okay,
Speaker 1: don't you want to hear the song? You know? He
Speaker 1: said no, no, he said, I love I love where
Speaker 1: it is, I love what you're doing. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: And those two songs that that one on Butterfly were
Speaker 1: the only songs that I didn't think anyone had ever heard.
Speaker 1: And that was the that was the target for me,
Speaker 1: is to feature a couple of songs that were really
Speaker 1: abstract and very well known. And if we ever do
Speaker 1: another one, you know, maybe maybe it'll be time. And
Speaker 1: I would love to write with Jason, and I would
Speaker 1: love to write with Jay because their voices are just amazing,
Speaker 1: and singing with Gillian and Dave is sort of like
Speaker 1: singing with my brothers. I would love to hear that album.
Speaker 1: I would love the next album to be all original
Speaker 1: material written by you and the collaborators. That would be
Speaker 1: That would be a beautiful thing to put in the world.
Speaker 1: I think that's the only way to go. I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I don't think we should try to do
Speaker 1: the same thing again in any way. Yeah, great idea,
Speaker 1: I'll do that. We want to hear it. We want
Speaker 1: to hear it's by popular demand. That's why you know
Speaker 1: who you are. You know that's a great idea, and
Speaker 1: that's what we should do. Well, it's a pleasure seeing
Speaker 1: you again, Yes, sir, you want You wanted Robin and
Speaker 1: I to make an album, but I knew that Robin
Speaker 1: wasn't well. But I couldn't say that to you. I understood,
Speaker 1: you know, but I knew. I felt like I just
Speaker 1: felt like there was potential for something that there was
Speaker 1: I don't know. Again, I wanted to hear it. I wanted, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I did too, but he was just too
Speaker 1: sick and he would never admit to that you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know, we never really knew there was
Speaker 1: anything wrong. We were up until about six months before
Speaker 1: you passed. So that's just the way it was. Some
Speaker 1: people don't want to be ill, they don't want to
Speaker 1: they don't want to tell anybody the earl. Yes, so
Speaker 1: you get to it. You get those two things. But
Speaker 1: that's what happened, beautiful. Well, it's great seeing you and
Speaker 1: I hope to see you in person and can give
Speaker 1: you a hug as soon as we're allowed to do that.
Speaker 1: You too. I love you, my friend. I see you soon.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Barry Gibbs for sharing so much of his
Speaker 1: incredible story with Rick. To hear a playlist of Barry
Speaker 1: gibbs favorite Australian songs from growing up head to Broken
Speaker 1: Record podcast dot com. We also find a playlist we
Speaker 1: put together of our favorite BG's cuts. Be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of
Speaker 1: new and old episodes. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker 1: at broken Record. Broken Record is producers help from Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrell, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and Jennifer Sanchez with
Speaker 1: engineering help from Nick Chaffee. Our executive producer is Maylam.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries and if
Speaker 1: you like the show, please remember to share, rate, and
Speaker 1: review us on your podcast app Our theme music's by
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond face