Speaker 1: Pushkin. John Oates is, of course, one half of one
Speaker 1: of the best selling pop duos in history, Hollan Oates.
Speaker 1: But before forming Hallan Notes and defining the late seventies
Speaker 1: and eighties with their signature sound, John was steeped in
Speaker 1: folk and delta blues, a sound he returns to on
Speaker 1: his new self titled solo album. On today's episode, I
Speaker 1: talked with John about the making of that new album,
Speaker 1: including the songwriting skills he's honed over years of playing
Speaker 1: with top Nashville musicians. He also shares a story of
Speaker 1: how he wound up playing Mississippi John Hurt's acoustic guitar
Speaker 1: on the first two Hall and Oates records, and the
Speaker 1: moment backstage at the Apollo Theater in Harlem when he realized,
Speaker 1: after performing with the Temptations that Hall of Oates had
Speaker 1: truly come full circle. This is broken record, real musicians,
Speaker 1: real conversation. Here's my conversation with John Oates. You can
Speaker 1: see the full video of this interview at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record Podcast. John Oates, thanks.
Speaker 2: For being here, man, well, thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Real pleasure to have you here. Yeah, and you're you're
Speaker 1: you have a bit of a cold. I do you
Speaker 1: want a new guitar? But that's no excuse. No, you're
Speaker 1: a professional.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it.
Speaker 1: So you're are you going to do?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well I'm really uh. I'm really thrilled that you
Speaker 2: actually know, first of all, know that song, and second
Speaker 2: of all that you requested it. Yeah, it's one of
Speaker 2: my favorites. Can I tell you a little story about
Speaker 2: it really quick?
Speaker 1: Please? Please.
Speaker 2: It was during the pandemic and I was out in
Speaker 2: Colorado spending some time out there, and I ran into
Speaker 2: a neighbor of mine that I'm known for over twenty
Speaker 2: years out in Woody Creek and we started talking, you know,
Speaker 2: because nothing was going on, you know, and nobody was recording.
Speaker 2: And he's a great lyricist. He's written songs for John
Speaker 2: and he even wrote a lyric for Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 1: What.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's his name is Joe Henry and fantastic guy.
Speaker 2: And he said, man, he goes, We've known each other
Speaker 2: for twenty years, never wrote a song together. And I said,
Speaker 2: I said, man, I got time on my hands, let's
Speaker 2: do it. And so he came up to our little
Speaker 2: cabin and we sat down, and you know, songwriters always,
Speaker 2: you know, it's kind of hard to get started sometimes
Speaker 2: you don't know where you're going to start, right, And
Speaker 2: we start talking about the Blues because I was a fan,
Speaker 2: and everything started talking about Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee,
Speaker 2: the great, the legendary blues duo. And he said, you know,
Speaker 2: he said, you know, the story about what happened to
Speaker 2: them as they got, you know, on in their career.
Speaker 2: They really started to dislike each other. They had bad issues. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so but as time went on, one of them
Speaker 2: lost his sight eyesight, and the other one lost this
Speaker 2: ability to walk, and they literally needed each other to
Speaker 2: get on stage, and it kind of brought them together
Speaker 2: in a way.
Speaker 1: And I thought, wow, what a story.
Speaker 2: I said, you know, not only is that an amazing story,
Speaker 2: but it's almost like a metaphor for or kindness and
Speaker 2: lending a helping hand, you know what I mean. And uh,
Speaker 2: I just thought, wow, what a great idea. And so
Speaker 2: we started out to do it. The song kind of
Speaker 2: about them, but it morphed into something greater than that,
Speaker 2: you know, and they became the vehicle for it.
Speaker 1: I have so many questions based on what you just said.
Speaker 1: But if you played the song first time, I would
Speaker 1: like to talk some more.
Speaker 2: Sure you know, I get to try. Like I said,
Speaker 2: I haven't played this in a little while, but I'll
Speaker 2: give it a try, right, I'll you'd be there for me.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll just pass it through.
Speaker 2: Trying to be the best that can be.
Speaker 4: I said, it has that's the funny that he's never
Speaker 4: strong and just that nothing gets the sided by drawing
Speaker 4: lines in the side. Talk about kid and you talk
Speaker 4: about sticks and stones, the philosopher's and fools. It was
Speaker 4: little dish with loaded barmable rubber to Roger to the gaping.
Speaker 4: But when they're d it's selling its in different kitties.
Speaker 4: He'll keep on drinking them.
Speaker 5: About what a dicky Walter.
Speaker 6: If you'll see it for me, sit selling it telling
Speaker 6: key kind of suffect.
Speaker 4: It's amazing leg stop saying that.
Speaker 1: Can't had done not.
Speaker 4: So I say him, yes it can. When you're stopping
Speaker 4: moving through the darkness, we chat home. Poon up the
Speaker 4: house that will bring us world begin and that's worth
Speaker 4: striving for us. Wine this believing until the truth is gone.
Speaker 6: He ain't learn loud again over his author carrying on
Speaker 6: the long dark night, but we'll wake up to the
Speaker 6: bright up dark.
Speaker 4: Just keep on, he's saying.
Speaker 7: Blue.
Speaker 4: Keys, and keep on dreaming bad.
Speaker 8: That could be.
Speaker 9: Waf you'll see for me, said Sunny, brothers are getting.
Speaker 4: I'll talk about to Reaven, talk about.
Speaker 2: Sticks and stocks, philosopher's influence.
Speaker 3: It was in Guys were loaded on Did a minute
Speaker 3: Brother to brother get to the third birthday?
Speaker 10: This singing the book was in the key said Sunny try.
Speaker 2: Amazing, thank you mans. I haven't played that in a
Speaker 2: little while, so.
Speaker 1: It was What I love about that is it's it's
Speaker 1: the pandemics about when I discovered that song, because you
Speaker 1: know it was it was around that time when everyone
Speaker 1: was just clicking onto different live streams and had some
Speaker 1: time on your hands, had some time and I don't
Speaker 1: know what last stream was, but I remember watching you
Speaker 1: play that. At some point I say, that's a really
Speaker 1: cool video live in the studio, so so cool. And
Speaker 1: it's when I realized you were like a I never
Speaker 1: you know, with Holland Oates, with you and Daryl Hall.
Speaker 1: You think of course soul music R and B. So
Speaker 1: I know it's there, but never really pegged you as
Speaker 1: either of you as like blues guys or or folk guys.
Speaker 1: But you know, and that's a that's like a it's
Speaker 1: a rootsy song but harmonically interesting, which not to say,
Speaker 1: you know, the blues isn't really always I know, it's
Speaker 1: so it's like that's a really cool blend of what
Speaker 1: people know you for in your career and and then
Speaker 1: this interesting part of you that I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of people know about. You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, as a kid, that was my
Speaker 2: sweet spot. Folk music, rural blues, Delta blues, roots, American
Speaker 2: roots music. And that's kind of when I met Daryl Hall.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what I brought to the table. I
Speaker 2: was more of an acoustic guitar player. And then you know, Darryl,
Speaker 2: you know, had a different set of influences and we
Speaker 2: kind of combined things together. He learned from me, and
Speaker 2: I learned from him, and you know, that became the collaboration,
Speaker 2: became our sound and eventually, you know, was.
Speaker 1: He was he into? Like were you both into what
Speaker 1: each other had? Like in terms of was he into
Speaker 1: listening to blues? And were you no?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, he was into street corner doo wop singing,
Speaker 2: and also he was classically trained. Yeah, he sang in
Speaker 2: the church and that kind of thing. And he was
Speaker 2: a piano player, and so I was, you know, I
Speaker 2: was a prettyly acoustic guitar and I had all the
Speaker 2: rootsy stuff happening, and so he picked up a mandolin
Speaker 2: because he wanted to learn some of that stuff. So
Speaker 2: we started playing bluegrass and things like that, and then
Speaker 2: I learned some very more sophisticated chord voicings and stuff
Speaker 2: from him because of his great piano playing.
Speaker 1: Wow. I went on a journey after like discovering that song,
Speaker 1: and I went back and I found an old recording
Speaker 1: you guys did of Deep River Blues, which is Doc
Speaker 1: Watson stuff.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Oh, man, is it true you learned that from Doc Watson?
Speaker 2: Well, I learned it from his record initially, but I
Speaker 2: actually met him and his son, Merle, and you know,
Speaker 2: through I had a teacher, a guitar teacher in Philadelphia
Speaker 2: who became started as a teacher, who became a mentor
Speaker 2: friend and actually played on the first two Hole of
Speaker 2: Notes albums as well. And he he worked at a
Speaker 2: coffee house during the sixties when the Folk Revival was happening.
Speaker 2: So when a lot of these are these original artists,
Speaker 2: everyone from people like Doc and people like Mississippi John
Speaker 2: Hurt and Sunny Terry and Brownie McGee, all these folks
Speaker 2: were being rediscovered and brought up to the northern cities,
Speaker 2: you know, during the folk Revival. He got to meet them,
Speaker 2: and eventually, you know, they would stay at his house
Speaker 2: because of course a lot of especially the blues guys,
Speaker 2: come coming up from the Mississippi Delta. They had no money,
Speaker 2: they didn't know even had to live in a city
Speaker 2: or go to a hotel much less. Right, So I
Speaker 2: would go over to take lessons and you know, Mississippi
Speaker 2: John Hurt would be there sitting on his couch. And
Speaker 2: so I learned from the originators of all this stuff,
Speaker 2: and that's why I can do all this stuff. Of
Speaker 2: people didn't realize that you met Mississippi John Hurt. Oh yeah, what, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I have his guitar. What I have the guitar that
Speaker 2: he played at Newport in nineteen sixty three when he
Speaker 2: was discovered Get out of Yeah, how did you get that?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Through a circuitous way, my guitar teacher Jerry Rix. After well,
Speaker 2: when he took John Hurt around, he took him to
Speaker 2: Newport Folk Festival, Philly Folk Festival, and he helped him out.
Speaker 2: So when John Hurt died, the guitar that he was
Speaker 2: given because when John Hurt was invited to Newport for
Speaker 2: the first time, he did not even have a guitar.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So they took him to New York and took him
Speaker 2: to the Greenwich Village to a guitar shop and they
Speaker 2: said pick something, and he picked this Guild guitar, Guild
Speaker 2: F thirty and that was the guitar he played initially
Speaker 2: at Newport. And then of course the Guild company gave
Speaker 2: him a different guitar later on. So, but when John
Speaker 2: Hurt died, that guitar was given to my teacher, Jerry Rix.
Speaker 2: And Jerry went to Denver and he was working out
Speaker 2: there before he kind of atriated to Europe and never
Speaker 2: came back. And at the time he sold it to
Speaker 2: a collector out there who kept it in his basement
Speaker 2: for thirty five forty years and the guy died and
Speaker 2: his daughter had read where I well, actually, I know
Speaker 2: I'm going back a little bit backwards, back in seventy
Speaker 2: two when Darryl and I were first signed to Atlantic Records,
Speaker 2: going up to New York to make the first album,
Speaker 2: and I wanted Jerry to play with me because we
Speaker 2: played together so well, and he said, you want me
Speaker 2: to bring to John Hurt guitar so you can play it.
Speaker 2: So on the first two Hollow Notes albums, I'm playing
Speaker 2: Misissippi John Hurt's acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do you know what songs?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Had I known you better than on the Abandon Luncheonette,
Speaker 2: all the songs on the whole Oats album, anything that
Speaker 2: I'm playing acoustic guitar on, I'm playing that guitar. And
Speaker 2: so then so it was in a collection and the
Speaker 2: guy's daughter, I guess, just wanted to sell whatever he
Speaker 2: had had read about the fact that I used that guitar,
Speaker 2: reached out and then I bought it.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. It's amazing that it landed to like it
Speaker 1: was in your home stage. Yes, what's crazy, so convenient,
Speaker 1: that's insane. I mean, you guys are like both of you,
Speaker 1: you guys, you know by the way, I'm sure you do.
Speaker 1: You hate at this point that you know, I keep
Speaker 1: saying you but you know, you guys are tied by career.
Speaker 2: Even we're tied by a lot of things.
Speaker 1: The terms aren't so friendly these days.
Speaker 2: But you know, hey, listen, people grow up, they grow up,
Speaker 2: they grow apart. You know, Darryl and I we made
Speaker 2: something very special. We made something that that you know,
Speaker 2: I'm very proud of the music we made, the experiences
Speaker 2: we had. It's a miracle that we stayed together for
Speaker 2: fifty years. I mean, come on, most people, that's unheard of. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, I have great, great memory, and I'm
Speaker 2: really really proud and honored to have been part of
Speaker 2: this incredible collaboration, made some music. I think we'll stand
Speaker 2: the test of time. But by the same tone, can
Speaker 2: you know I can't stay. It's like going to a
Speaker 2: great museum. You know, you're all excited about going to
Speaker 2: the museum. You're walking there also on your feet, start
Speaker 2: getting tired and said, damn, how many how many of these?
Speaker 2: How many these masterpieces gonna look at? I gotta get
Speaker 2: out of here.
Speaker 1: It's an incredible annalogy. It's weird, but there might be
Speaker 1: a song in that one. Yeah, but you know, you guys,
Speaker 1: and I'll just say, you know you guys are.
Speaker 7: Like, you know, your career, you guys are like a millions,
Speaker 7: you know, like there's this connection you have to these
Speaker 7: blues grates, which I never did not know that that's
Speaker 7: that's it's real.
Speaker 1: And then you know, if you think about there was
Speaker 1: like this very specific New York City scene that you
Speaker 1: guys got to experience in this very specific LA scene
Speaker 1: that you guys got to experience much less, you know,
Speaker 1: going back to Philly. And so you guys just have
Speaker 1: had these really unique like almost like uh you know,
Speaker 1: like musical uh what do you call that? Like not Senghali's,
Speaker 1: but you know, like that's at that far. You know,
Speaker 1: you just happened to turn up at all these kind
Speaker 1: of interesting we unctures.
Speaker 2: We had a lot of, you know, our our individual
Speaker 2: musical influences are when we were kids. Daryl lived about
Speaker 2: twenty miles from where I grew up in Pennsylvania outside
Speaker 2: of Philadelphia, in small towns, but we listened to the
Speaker 2: same radio stations and so when we met, even though
Speaker 2: we didn't know each other, we had this common musical
Speaker 2: lexicon that we could draw from. We knew these same songs,
Speaker 2: the same artists, the same we could draw from those
Speaker 2: things as a common ground, common musical ground, even though
Speaker 2: he was very different than me and I was very
Speaker 2: different from him. And that's what we used to become
Speaker 2: what we became. And then during that period of time,
Speaker 2: you know, when you're part of a partnership, you you
Speaker 2: subjugate a certain part of your not only your personality,
Speaker 2: but your musical personality for the good of the whole,
Speaker 2: you know, for the good of the the team, so
Speaker 2: to speak. And so I set the folky rootsie stuff aside,
Speaker 2: really and it was always there, you know, I'd sit
Speaker 2: in the dressing room and I'd be playing this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff all the time. But you know, it was
Speaker 2: never featured in the in the music.
Speaker 1: That we made. But you to your point, on those
Speaker 1: first two albums, you can get it to a decrease.
Speaker 2: We were trying to find ourselves. We didn't know who
Speaker 2: we were we could be. And it really wasn't until
Speaker 2: the Silver Album, which we recorded here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: that a sound kind of began a coalesce. And then
Speaker 2: of course it developed during the seventies and then in
Speaker 2: the eighties it hit its stride.
Speaker 1: Right right after this break. We'll be back with John Oates.
Speaker 1: I always wondered, and you know it's mast Is first.
Speaker 1: There so many things to ask With the Silver album,
Speaker 1: you guys were, like, to your point, in search of
Speaker 1: a sound not successful but not quite yet, kind of
Speaker 1: over the edge. If Sarah Smile hadn't randomly become a single,
Speaker 1: I mean, and it wasn't to say randomly randomly, It
Speaker 1: wasn't even released as a single. Just radio picked it up.
Speaker 1: That's right. People kept calling radio plays it some more.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, we better put it out at the record.
Speaker 2: Company finally said, hey, we've better release because we had
Speaker 2: released two or three singles prior to that.
Speaker 1: They did okay, good songs, but they didn't hit yeah,
Speaker 1: or didn't hit quite, didn't hit like that. So would
Speaker 1: you guys have kept searching at that point, I mean
Speaker 1: not that you guys. Would you have continued to try
Speaker 1: to find a sound that resonated with audiences.
Speaker 2: I think we would have. I think we would have. Well,
Speaker 2: let's put it this way. We we had made what
Speaker 2: at that point when Sarah Smile hit. That was the
Speaker 2: fourth album so three on Atlantic Records, three and a half.
Speaker 2: Because they put out a kind of the greatest non
Speaker 2: hits record called No Goodbyes. But the fact that Atlantic
Speaker 2: stuck with us with no real success commercial success was real.
Speaker 2: But what that was a that was a hallmark of
Speaker 2: the time. You know, if a record company signed you
Speaker 2: in those days, they they signed you because they thought
Speaker 2: you could have a career, they thought you could do
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't just predicated on instant commercial success
Speaker 2: like it is today. So very fortunate to have grown
Speaker 2: up in that era, right. And then when Sarah Smile
Speaker 2: hit that, we had already switched to RCAA Records, and
Speaker 2: so then we began to really now, okay, now we
Speaker 2: got something going here. And then of course we had
Speaker 2: Rich Girl, and then they re released it She's Gone
Speaker 2: for the third time, and that finally became a hit too.
Speaker 1: So we had that run in the mid seventies, right,
Speaker 1: and to that point of fostering talent over the long term,
Speaker 1: She's Gone finally becomes a hit, and it's also seems
Speaker 1: to be one of the most enduring of the entire
Speaker 1: catalog some way, What what why? What preceded that switch
Speaker 1: from Atlantic to RCA Because it always to the guys
Speaker 1: were perfect for us, business, just purely business.
Speaker 2: We had so we made you got to look at
Speaker 2: it this way. We made the album called hol Looas,
Speaker 2: which is very folky, very singer songwriter. It was it
Speaker 2: was really just that some songs Daryl had, some songs
Speaker 2: that I had, and we were just like, Okay, we've
Speaker 2: got a record country, We've got to do something. We'll
Speaker 2: play these because that's what we got. It really wasn't
Speaker 2: until the abandoned Luncheon Net that we made an album
Speaker 2: that really was coherent, you know, in terms of the vibe.
Speaker 2: And so then we did those two albums, neither of
Speaker 2: which were commercially successful. So we went and just did
Speaker 2: a left turn and did a progressive rock album with
Speaker 2: Todd Runggerns.
Speaker 1: Both war babies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, we had no mandate to keep
Speaker 2: doing the same things. Well, if people don't like what
Speaker 2: we're doing, was just do something else. And then you know,
Speaker 2: then at that point, I think Atlantic had signed the
Speaker 2: average White band and they kind of had that thing
Speaker 2: that they wanted from us. And I love the I
Speaker 2: love those guys, but it just seemed like we had
Speaker 2: broken the mold there and I love Atlantic Records, and
Speaker 2: I was really proud to be part of that and
Speaker 2: be with a Reef Mardin, the great producer. But then
Speaker 2: we you know, we got a better deal at RCA,
Speaker 2: so we jumped ship and there you go.
Speaker 1: Did you you hear from anyone at Atlantic when the
Speaker 1: Silver album ended up doing what it did.
Speaker 2: No, they just immediately released She's Gone Again.
Speaker 1: So you know that there was a bit of them
Speaker 1: that was, hey, you know what, I'm glad they did. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I read at that time too, when you guys were
Speaker 1: looking you leaving Atlantic, You're going to go somewhere else.
Speaker 1: You guys met with Clive Davis.
Speaker 2: That wasn't until later.
Speaker 1: It wasn't untill later. Okay, you did meet with Clive
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: Timeline's a little off, Sorry, Okay, we met. We met
Speaker 2: with him later on. Actually in the early early eighties,
Speaker 2: when we started to have success on our commercial level,
Speaker 2: it was it was really you know, that's I don't
Speaker 2: even like to talk about it because it was a
Speaker 2: total business thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was our manager. It was our manager looking for
Speaker 2: more money.
Speaker 1: Basically, Okay, all right, let's get these.
Speaker 2: Guys pre signed to another label, even before they can
Speaker 2: leave the label they're own.
Speaker 1: Got it, got it. I was just thinking about it
Speaker 1: because you know an addition, I mean, obviously Atlantic feels
Speaker 1: like it would have been a really good fit for
Speaker 1: your sound, not that our say wasn't. Obviously you guys
Speaker 1: did very well, But then I was also thinking like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Clive would be would have been an interesting
Speaker 1: place for you guys to land in away, because I'm sure.
Speaker 2: It didn't work very well with Clive. Clive wanted to
Speaker 2: micromanage the song selection and things like that, but that
Speaker 2: that's what he does and he's very good at it,
Speaker 2: and his track record speaks for itself, of course, but
Speaker 2: with us, it wasn't. It wasn't a good fit.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get that from RCA, that feel of
Speaker 1: they want.
Speaker 2: To We always were able to keep the record labels
Speaker 2: at arm's length. On the creative side. We made the
Speaker 2: albums we wanted to make in the way we wanted
Speaker 2: to make them. We made our album covers, and then
Speaker 2: we just said here, here's here it is, sell it,
Speaker 2: go sell it, figure it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so you can't do that anymore? Well, no,
Speaker 1: not quite.
Speaker 2: Record labels have their their a little their grubby little
Speaker 2: paws and everything.
Speaker 1: Not not quite. So I want to go back to
Speaker 1: Sunny Terry and BROWNI McGee though, just talk about their
Speaker 1: cue it is I want to go that song. What
Speaker 1: was it like writing that song with Joe Henry, because
Speaker 1: that's a it's not quite how you got You didn't
Speaker 1: really co write you and Darryl so much, right, it
Speaker 1: was more you did.
Speaker 2: Certain certain songs we did and certain songs we didn't.
Speaker 2: It was interesting with Joe Henry. We didn't really know
Speaker 2: each other. He brought up this incredible idea, which immediately
Speaker 2: I realized was not the idea. I realized that the
Speaker 2: idea was a bigger idea then. I think his vision
Speaker 2: was to write a song about them, and I My
Speaker 2: vision was to write a song with them as the
Speaker 2: vehicle for something else. And I don't think Joe actually
Speaker 2: knew what we were writing about, because I knew exactly
Speaker 2: what I wanted to write, and he was there. He's
Speaker 2: a great lyricist, and he kept, you know, kept honing
Speaker 2: and refining, and we'd come up with lines, and you know,
Speaker 2: he was a really really detailed, great detailed guy because
Speaker 2: he's not necessarily a musician. He didn't play an instrument.
Speaker 2: But I knew the whole time that there was a
Speaker 2: bigger idea behind them, and that Sunny Terry and Brownie
Speaker 2: McGee were just the vehicle to get there.
Speaker 1: You're sitting there with the guitar, and so he doesn't play,
Speaker 1: so he's.
Speaker 2: Just he's writing lyrics on a yellow legal pad.
Speaker 1: And you're going through some changes and coming up with changes.
Speaker 2: We're talking about stuff, and then we went away from
Speaker 2: from each other for a while and I started to
Speaker 2: really hone in on the story. And then I come
Speaker 2: back and I play some stuff, and I say what
Speaker 2: about this? You know, and and the lines like you know,
Speaker 2: the stuff like uh, you know, talk about getting even
Speaker 2: talk about sticks and stones.
Speaker 4: Philosophers are full.
Speaker 2: Of rolling dash with loaded bones rather too brother, too
Speaker 2: gay when they're there.
Speaker 1: Gee, I wonder what that's about?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: It's pretty obvious?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I was blending my experience using this great
Speaker 2: idea that Joe came up with to get somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Did Joe not realize it's like, who I'm talking to
Speaker 1: a guy who he realized that after the fact, Okay,
Speaker 1: famous dua. Well he's smart, yeah, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: But it was just a thing that I It was
Speaker 2: I realized there was this way of saying something without
Speaker 2: being overt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and and to your point also, it's again
Speaker 1: this time day and time where there's a feeling widely
Speaker 1: of scarcity and everyone wanting to just you know, fight
Speaker 1: for themselves and not it's like this this idea that no,
Speaker 1: we're actually interdependent, you know, as as people. And so
Speaker 1: there's also this larger, kind of beautiful message as well
Speaker 1: as this kind of more personal thing. That's so it
Speaker 1: just makes it this really and the changes and very
Speaker 1: cool song so.
Speaker 2: Folks, with some sophisticated, cored changes thrown in there.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, there was a period of time, I mean,
Speaker 1: your first solo album. You have a new one coming
Speaker 1: out oats in just a couple of days, you know,
Speaker 1: as we're taping this, it'll be out by the time
Speaker 1: this this we we this airs and I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that. But you know, your soul, you didn't
Speaker 1: really make a solo album until two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Started in two thousand, came out in one.
Speaker 1: Was what happened in an intervening time between well, you know.
Speaker 2: At the end of the eighties with Daryl and I
Speaker 2: were burned out after we finished the Apollo Theater show
Speaker 2: with Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin from Temptations got about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a high point. I think it was a
Speaker 2: full circle moment for both Darryl and myself. We bonded
Speaker 2: early on as teenagers over our love of The Temptations.
Speaker 2: Darryl actually was in a group called the temp Tones
Speaker 2: that was kind of sponsored by, not really sponsored by,
Speaker 2: but he was friends with those guys the original group.
Speaker 1: And wait, really the Temptones was loosely connected junior varsity
Speaker 1: version of yeah, Yeah, yeah what and Sure.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the first things Darryl and I
Speaker 2: did together we went to the Apollo Theater in New York,
Speaker 2: went backstage, hung out with The Temptations in the dressing room,
Speaker 2: and then sat in the front row watched their show,
Speaker 2: which I've of course seen seen them before in the
Speaker 2: original group. Then flash forward to the eighty five eighty six,
Speaker 2: we're opening reopening the Apollo after the renovation, and we
Speaker 2: did a special show for the NAACP and we wanted
Speaker 2: to do something special, so we found Eddie. Eddie was
Speaker 2: singing holiday inns down in Alabama. David was in Detroit somewhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know what he was doing. Nothing and we
Speaker 2: asked them to come and reprise the Temptations metally, and
Speaker 2: we did that on the on the Apollo Show. After
Speaker 2: we did that, I remember after that show, Darryl and I,
Speaker 2: you know, it was a big hubbub backstays, a lot
Speaker 2: of press and a lot of friends, and I remember
Speaker 2: us sitting quietly in a corner and it was almost
Speaker 2: like we realized that it was done, that we had
Speaker 2: we had completed the circle, you know, and there wasn't
Speaker 2: much to be said, but I know we both knew it,
Speaker 2: and I was you know, you have to remember, we
Speaker 2: made our first album in seventy two, so now go
Speaker 2: to eighty six. We made an album every year from
Speaker 2: seventy two to eighty six, and sometimes more than one
Speaker 2: because the greatest hits albums and live albums and things
Speaker 2: like that. And we toured in between every album and
Speaker 2: never ever stopped. So you're talking about, you know what,
Speaker 2: fifteen years straight of touring without ever stopping, not once,
Speaker 2: And it was like, I knew there was something missing
Speaker 2: in my life person, and then I'm just talking to
Speaker 2: my own point of view, and I just wanted to stop.
Speaker 2: And so that's what we did in the end, of
Speaker 2: the eighties, which was commercially, from a career point of view,
Speaker 2: probably the worst thing you could possibly have done. When
Speaker 2: we were riding on top of the world, guys are.
Speaker 1: Like killing it.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were on top of the pop world, right,
Speaker 2: but we basically just stopped. And it was then I
Speaker 2: began to rethink certain things like personal life and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So we ended up making another record, made
Speaker 2: a record called Ooh Yeah in like eighty eight. I
Speaker 2: want to say, it wasn't much. It had like a
Speaker 2: semi hit single, my heart wasn't in it. And then
Speaker 2: we made an album called Change of Season. And that
Speaker 2: album just the title alone can tell you about the
Speaker 2: kind of where, at least from my point of view,
Speaker 2: where I was coming from. And I was ready to
Speaker 2: for something else. I didn't have a life, you know.
Speaker 2: I had a professional a great professional life, but I
Speaker 2: had burned a lot of bridges, you know, you know
Speaker 2: in the process, and I got divorced. Our manager left.
Speaker 2: Tommy Mottola, who was our manager, went to Sony Music
Speaker 2: or to CBS at the time, became the president of CBS.
Speaker 2: He took off on other other other paths with Mariah
Speaker 2: et cetera, and there was. It was like a rudderless ship,
Speaker 2: and so I just checked out. I sold everything I
Speaker 2: had left New York City, moved into my little condo
Speaker 2: and askeding Colorado, and I met my future wife, build
Speaker 2: a house, had a kid, and so for the entire
Speaker 2: decade of the nineties, I went skiing, and I went
Speaker 2: bike riding and hiking and backcountry skiing, and I lived
Speaker 2: a different life. And I realized that music could be
Speaker 2: part of my life, not just the only thing in
Speaker 2: my life. So it was probably the most important thing
Speaker 2: I ever did. And Colorado saved me because I don't
Speaker 2: know what would have happened if I would have stayed
Speaker 2: in New York. I think bad things would happen. Really,
Speaker 2: I would have gone down some dark paths. Was there
Speaker 2: a part of you when you're in Colorado five years
Speaker 2: into this self imposed sabbatical exile from the industry, that
Speaker 2: feels like no, done it? No, No, that's wonderful. The
Speaker 2: best thing ever happened to me. I didn't even make
Speaker 2: any music. We made one album in ninety six. Our
Speaker 2: son had just been born. I wasn't into it. I
Speaker 2: threw in a couple songs, and yeah, we did a
Speaker 2: short tour. It was nothing, and then nothing happened until
Speaker 2: the two thousands, and that's what I made my first
Speaker 2: solo album. It's also when Daryl and I made made
Speaker 2: an album, another album that did fairly well. But at
Speaker 2: that point now I had realized that something needed to change,
Speaker 2: and so.
Speaker 1: The first solo album Functual Funk Shuay.
Speaker 2: Hey, listen, listen. Let me tell you about that real quick.
Speaker 2: I got to I remember getting a review on that album.
Speaker 2: The review was like, it's pretty good record with an
Speaker 2: unfortunate title, you know how the and the title was
Speaker 2: so stupid. Okay. I had a good friend of mine,
Speaker 2: Jed Lieber, who's actually who I borrowed this guitar from.
Speaker 2: He runs the studio at the Sunset Marquee and he's
Speaker 2: he's a fantastic musician. And he and I were doing
Speaker 2: that album together and we were on a plane going
Speaker 2: to New York to finish it, mix it, and we
Speaker 2: had no title for it. And Jed was sitting he
Speaker 2: happened to be sitting next to this Asian gal and
Speaker 2: I was sitting, you know, a few a few rows away,
Speaker 2: and I guess he was talking to her and she said, well,
Speaker 2: what do you what do you you know, what are
Speaker 2: you doing? He goes, oh, I made a record, and
Speaker 2: he goes and she said, what kind of record? He goes, well,
Speaker 2: it's kind of got some funk in it, and she went, oh,
Speaker 2: like funk shway, and I swear to God and he
Speaker 2: comes running up the aisle and he taps you show.
Speaker 2: He goes, I got the title. I went, really, And
Speaker 2: I was stupid enough to believe him, you know, to
Speaker 2: do it. But I thought it was funny.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of cooler way of it is it is.
Speaker 1: It's not is that a super self serious you know?
Speaker 2: It's good anyway. So that album was and here again,
Speaker 2: that album is just a way of getting started because
Speaker 2: it was just a collection of stuff I had. It
Speaker 2: wasn't coherent. It really wasn't until I made the next album,
Speaker 2: One Thousand Miles of Life in Nashville, that I began
Speaker 2: to really hone in on what I was going to
Speaker 2: be as a solo artist.
Speaker 1: Had you moved to Nashville at that point, No, I.
Speaker 2: Was spending a lot of time there. I started going
Speaker 2: to Nashville in the late nineties.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I had I produced an album for a guy
Speaker 2: named Jerry Lynn Williams, an amazing artist who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: but he had his business and his publishing and based
Speaker 2: in Nashville. Through working with him, I met some Nashville
Speaker 2: folks and somebody, you know, said, Hey, you gotta come,
Speaker 2: you gotta come to music City. You gotta. I think
Speaker 2: you're gonna like it.
Speaker 11: You like it.
Speaker 2: And when I went there for the first time in
Speaker 2: the late nineties, I did a couple demo sessions and
Speaker 2: the players were just so good, and it was a
Speaker 2: whole different thing because you know, up to that time,
Speaker 2: early seventies, I had never played in any other band.
Speaker 2: I was in the Whole Notes band, so all I
Speaker 2: did was that and it was great, but and with
Speaker 2: great musicians, of course, But all of a sudden I
Speaker 2: was walked into a completely new environment, and all of
Speaker 2: a sudden I realized that the players I was playing
Speaker 2: with had a lot of the same roots and influences
Speaker 2: as my early folk stuff. So it kind of it
Speaker 2: took that side of me that I had set aside
Speaker 2: for all those years, and I started bringing it out.
Speaker 2: And because then I would sit down, you know, with
Speaker 2: some of these guys and I played like a dog
Speaker 2: watch and they go, I know you could do that.
Speaker 1: I said, well, yeah, I can.
Speaker 2: I kind of forgot about it, but I want to remember.
Speaker 1: So it was the shock to everyone else too in
Speaker 1: some ways.
Speaker 2: And so but one of the first things I realized
Speaker 2: in Nashville was my name and reputation might get me
Speaker 2: in the door, but in order to stay at the party,
Speaker 2: I better be able to bring it. Because you're talking
Speaker 2: about a level of musicianship on a whole other level.
Speaker 2: And I was complacent. I could play the whole Notes
Speaker 2: show in my sleep, wasn't doing anything but that. And
Speaker 2: I needed a challenge, and I was all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I was thrust into rooms with superlative players Jerry Douglas,
Speaker 2: Sam Bush By La Fleck, you know, people you know,
Speaker 2: and the great studio musicians. You know, got three trapped
Speaker 2: people who could really play. And so I started wood shedding.
Speaker 2: I started practicing again, and I started bringing back that
Speaker 2: folk stuff, the early influences, and I realized, wait a minute,
Speaker 2: the key that was the key that unlocked who I
Speaker 2: could be as a solo artist, because I didn't know
Speaker 2: it could be because my entire musical personality was wrapped
Speaker 2: up in my collaboration with Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, did did that then affect the way that
Speaker 1: you approached going back and playing on Hollan Oates tours? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do it, Okay, I did it
Speaker 2: because you know, the money was great and there was
Speaker 2: a demand.
Speaker 1: For it, people and people. Of course, I took my
Speaker 1: daughter to see you guys, hey listen first her first
Speaker 1: show and Aspen Jazz Fest like in seventeen.
Speaker 2: I remember we played that. Yeah, yeah, well, you know what.
Speaker 2: It was great, But I've really felt like I was
Speaker 2: treading water. I mean, we had we had the most
Speaker 2: unbelievable problem. We had too many hits.
Speaker 1: Wow is that a problem?
Speaker 2: Because that's all people wanted to hear. They didn't want
Speaker 2: to hear anything else. So even though we had a
Speaker 2: tremendously deep catalog, and I'll speak for Darryl on this too,
Speaker 2: he had unbelievable songs that he was dying to play,
Speaker 2: we couldn't play him every show. We'd chewhorn one song
Speaker 2: in one song, you know, some obscure Oats song, and
Speaker 2: then we do one of his obscure you know, solo
Speaker 2: songs or whatever. And I'm sure it was just as
Speaker 2: frustrating for him as it was for me. But as
Speaker 2: time went on and I began to be excited about
Speaker 2: what I could do in Nashville with the players, and
Speaker 2: you know, the opportunity that might started presenting themselves, I
Speaker 2: just couldn't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: After this last break, we'll be back with John Oates.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a world if the audience, the
Speaker 1: Hollan Oats audience had been more accepting of what you
Speaker 1: guys wanted to present, do you think it would have
Speaker 1: interesting question?
Speaker 2: You know, the hardcore holl of Oats fans would have
Speaker 2: been but we weren't playing only to hardcore. We were
Speaker 2: playing to the general public, and a lot of them.
Speaker 2: When you're playing an arena, a big Giants show, fifteen
Speaker 2: eighteen thousand people, they're not all hardcore fans. There's a
Speaker 2: hardcore group, and they would have been open to anything.
Speaker 2: I always found the the true hall Odes fans were
Speaker 2: very open minded. But we we were more than that.
Speaker 2: We yeah, you know, bigger than both of us. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's the title of an album. There's a great, great
Speaker 2: ale and it and it says a lot.
Speaker 1: What's opening track on that? That's a great song too,
Speaker 1: and that was that.
Speaker 2: Was bigger than both of us. Was a single, was it?
Speaker 1: The first track was uh yeah, back together of course,
Speaker 1: back together again, back together.
Speaker 2: You want to hear a story about that?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 2: Everybody thinks back together again, back together again? Probably talking
Speaker 2: about me and Daryl or something like that, huhuh, not
Speaker 2: even clothes. I was on a flight. I was sitting
Speaker 2: in first class coming back from New Orleans from a festival,
Speaker 2: I think, and I was sitting next to Frankie Valley, amazing,
Speaker 2: and he and I talked a whole way on the flight,
Speaker 2: and he told me the whole story, you know, the
Speaker 2: Jersey Boards story about you know, the problem with his
Speaker 2: you know, his daughter and the band and this and
Speaker 2: that and how he you know, he wanted to step
Speaker 2: away in anyone. And that's what it's about. It's about
Speaker 2: back together again, singing the same old story, back together again.
Speaker 2: The old songs never end, but it will give me
Speaker 2: something to believe in. And I wrote the whole song
Speaker 2: about him, about what he told me on that flight.
Speaker 1: That's wild, yeah, I mean, is that a song you
Speaker 1: guys would play live?
Speaker 2: We we actually used to open the show with it,
Speaker 2: especially in the mid seventies. Yeah, yeah, and we played
Speaker 2: it even as early as maybe three four years ago
Speaker 2: or latest three four years ago.
Speaker 1: Is there a world naively? No, No, not even doing
Speaker 1: that deep No.
Speaker 2: As Darre Hall so aptly said on an interview, that
Speaker 2: ship has sailed. In fact, he said, and I quote,
Speaker 2: not only has that ship has sailed, it's sunk to
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean looking up. I didn't say it,
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: Does that? What end do you feel? Is that you
Speaker 1: hear that? You think? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Same, I'm free yea, yeah, I'm very very I'm very optimistic. Look,
Speaker 2: anyone's creative life has a timestamp. That's the way I
Speaker 2: look at it. I see I see our contemporaries, my
Speaker 2: contemporaries falling by the wayside, whether it's through passing away
Speaker 2: or just not being able to do it anymore for
Speaker 2: any number of reasons, sickness, bad luck, misfortune.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 2: I can still play, I can still sing, I can travel,
Speaker 2: I'm still healthy. I don't want to lose this opportunity
Speaker 2: to do as much as I can because they're but
Speaker 2: for fortune.
Speaker 1: Go you or I? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it could change, could change right now. I
Speaker 2: could walk out this door and fall down the elevator,
Speaker 2: shift and see you later by So I don't have
Speaker 2: much time left. I want to make the most of it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing in a way. It's like you're back in Colorado,
Speaker 1: but you're able to do it with your own music.
Speaker 1: So you're doing music on your own terms, and that's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Can you play something from your from your new album Oates?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Whatever your favorite. I'm curious what your favorite might be.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, yeah, I do have a favorite. I've got
Speaker 2: a lot of favorites. Because I'm really proud of this record.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna play a song that I co wrote with
Speaker 2: a really a great talented guy named Jed Hughes. Jed
Speaker 2: is one of the go to top Nashville session guitarists.
Speaker 2: He plays on tons of people's records if he's from Australia,
Speaker 2: but he plays predominantly on country music. But he's also
Speaker 2: a great songwriter in his own He and I. I
Speaker 2: was really impressed with him and I, you know, we
Speaker 2: talked about getting together and his schedule and my schedule
Speaker 2: were so busy we couldn't find a time to get together.
Speaker 2: And we kept we kept picking a date and he'd say, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't do that one. And I hear he picked
Speaker 2: and I said, well, no, I'm out of town, and
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. So eventually we just said, look, we're
Speaker 2: never gonna be able to get together unless we picked
Speaker 2: some date that's a ways away from you know, And
Speaker 2: I went aways away and I said to him on
Speaker 2: the phone, I said, that's a freaking great title. And
Speaker 2: he went, yeah, that's that's cool. I said, So when
Speaker 2: we finally do get together, that's a song we're gonna write.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: That's the song. So you earmarked it and you came
Speaker 1: back there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, all right, just goes a little. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna try. It's a tough song to sing, but I'm
Speaker 2: gonna do my best.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 4: You say it's hard to stay, it's enough to me
Speaker 4: to talk. Don't talking about Anything's used to be those
Speaker 4: heavy moment and it's just skip common we call sleep
Speaker 4: and finished. We just kN hear the words.
Speaker 2: I can't even think.
Speaker 5: You'll see if you aren't any why did we could
Speaker 5: get one playing?
Speaker 4: Because it's not black or blood. It's just a good shade.
Speaker 4: It's a great and raise.
Speaker 12: A ways awaken just the way, it's just the way
Speaker 12: it is, just the way it is. You're a raise
Speaker 12: a home, he's always.
Speaker 7: Just the way.
Speaker 13: Let's bring it back into the room. Let's break it
Speaker 13: down and put us back here to.
Speaker 4: The sweet man. Everything is keeping.
Speaker 8: Well, boss a finnishly whether they just keep you better?
Speaker 8: Were the time the time wins.
Speaker 5: Can't imagine that I could be able to keep anything
Speaker 5: because it's not the black or lad.
Speaker 4: It's just a d in shades break ways already.
Speaker 12: Raise a wedding just the ways of just the ways
Speaker 12: or just the way.
Speaker 4: Is a bread were raising.
Speaker 12: Ways a wedding is the rais uh just the way.
Speaker 4: You wisl never thought it keeping man got any say
Speaker 4: just the way he's just the way his h just
Speaker 4: the way he is. Way sweet man, really is keep
Speaker 4: coming sweet escape come yeah you wasel.
Speaker 1: I love the way you play man. Oh thanks, I
Speaker 1: really do think you those kinds of chords, Yeah, people
Speaker 1: don't really, I don't not wht of people play like
Speaker 1: that anymore. Where do you get those what do you
Speaker 1: get those kinds of quality?
Speaker 11: You know what?
Speaker 2: I gotta give Daryl Hall some some props here because
Speaker 2: when I, you know, here, I was a folky player.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm doing all these cowboy chords, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know, he was a great piano player.
Speaker 2: He is a great piano player, and he played some
Speaker 2: unusual inversions. He would always do substitutions and stuff. And
Speaker 2: I had to figure that out on the guitar and
Speaker 2: adapt to my guitar playing style. In fact, when I
Speaker 2: first got to Nashville, a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: people said, oh, well, you kind of play like a
Speaker 2: piano player. And I was like, well, yeah, it's kind
Speaker 2: of reason for that. So yeah, full props there. But
Speaker 2: and over the time, I've adapted and you know, changed
Speaker 2: my style. Uh and I just I do a lot
Speaker 2: of more sophisticated voicings and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Even back. So would you say your your style has
Speaker 1: changed from even.
Speaker 2: Well, it's gotten it's definitely gotten more sophisticated now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also, as I said, I began to woodshed when I
Speaker 2: got to Nashville, playing practice like a madman, just to
Speaker 2: keep up with those cats.
Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah, so what does woodshedding look like for you?
Speaker 7: You?
Speaker 2: Uh, practicing playing every day pretty much.
Speaker 11: What you just listened listening to records and playing or no,
Speaker 11: just you know, just exercises for the fingers, you know,
Speaker 11: you know, all kinds of weird exercises, you know, stuff
Speaker 11: like that, just stuff that keeps you know, as I said,
Speaker 11: you know, I'm getting older.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to make sure my fingers still work.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I do that.
Speaker 2: And really, my my practicing really is more songwriting, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I start writing stuff, you know, Like there's
Speaker 2: a song that I collaborated on the record with Lawrence
Speaker 2: the band. I don't know if you know Lawrence. They're
Speaker 2: so great. And I challenged myself to write a song
Speaker 2: that sounded like them because I was inspired by their music.
Speaker 2: I was listening to their albums and really digging the
Speaker 2: fact that they had so much energy and joy and
Speaker 2: and I really and I said, so I was sitting around,
Speaker 2: I'm going to see if I can write a song
Speaker 2: of sounds. And then when I wrote the song, it
Speaker 2: sounded so much like them. I actually took some of
Speaker 2: their lyrics from one of their songs, put it in
Speaker 2: my song and send it to them. And and I said, hey,
Speaker 2: I just want to let you know I'm not trying
Speaker 2: to rip you off. I want I want to collaborate
Speaker 2: with you, and they liked the idea and we did
Speaker 2: it together.
Speaker 1: So it's great. So that's so cool. That's great feedback,
Speaker 1: fro it could be kind of dice. Yeah, well I
Speaker 1: took a chance, you know, I took a shot. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I figured they send me an email and say, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, it's a pretty good song. But we
Speaker 2: don't really feel like doing a song with someone as
Speaker 2: old as our grandfather.
Speaker 1: So listen, man, what's your John Oates?
Speaker 2: Come on, Clyde and Gracie Lawrence are they are fantastic.
Speaker 2: They're fantastic people and amazing artists.
Speaker 1: That's so cool, man. I want to get back to Nashville,
Speaker 1: But I kind of preview it earlier. I mean, you guys,
Speaker 1: have you Let's say, you got to experience some really
Speaker 1: unique scenes throughout over the years, one of them being
Speaker 1: a really changing New York scene. You guys made war
Speaker 1: Babies in New York when CBGB was with Todd Runger
Speaker 1: with Todd Runggren, Like when like, you know, television's playing
Speaker 1: every night, and I used to go to all those
Speaker 1: places and you would see that, you'd see all those groups, right, sure,
Speaker 1: what I mean, did you have a favorite was were
Speaker 1: you turned off by the music? What was I was?
Speaker 2: I was excited by a new wave and that kind
Speaker 2: of proto punk movement, only because it was new, not
Speaker 2: because I related to it on a musical level. I
Speaker 2: thought it was, you know, fairly simplistic and kind of
Speaker 2: like although I always like television, I like the guitar parts.
Speaker 2: They were really interesting. But you know, Patti Smith and
Speaker 2: and all that stuff that was going on. It was
Speaker 2: it was you know, it was like non melodic but
Speaker 2: exciting because it was it was new and fresh, so
Speaker 2: that was the cool part. I mean, I tried to
Speaker 2: I try to use the here again the inspiration for
Speaker 2: the energy of what they were doing, but not try
Speaker 2: to ape what they were actually doing, because I didn't
Speaker 2: want to, like try to be something I wasn't, you know.
Speaker 2: I wrote a song like I was a big fan
Speaker 2: of the Psychedelic First and I still am good friends
Speaker 2: with Richard Butler and uh and uh. I love them,
Speaker 2: and I try to write a song it sounded like
Speaker 2: I remember a song called Friday let Me Down Tonight,
Speaker 2: which well, it's it's to me. It sounds like Psychedelic First.
Speaker 2: Richard Butler probably doesn't think so, but you know, that
Speaker 2: was just one of those things where I, you know,
Speaker 2: try to try to capture that kind of spirit. But
Speaker 2: uh no, I think you got to stay true to
Speaker 2: the school, to your school, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's one thing to try things, but
Speaker 2: at the same time, you got to know where where
Speaker 2: your sweet spots are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so energetically you but energetically that's energetically a fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a fan. You go like right from there to your
Speaker 1: to your point earlier where you come to La to
Speaker 1: record the silver album. You go like to almost like
Speaker 1: the diametrically opposing vibe in the sense, and and it's
Speaker 1: like but then you're hanging out with weird people, like
Speaker 1: not weird people, but like people you might not expect
Speaker 1: what's like like Frank Zapp, but you know, you're like, like,
Speaker 1: what the world?
Speaker 2: You know, it's really funny Frank Zappa. We were sitting
Speaker 2: at the Roxy with Frank Zappa and John Mayle, right
Speaker 2: or something that John Mayle and all those people. You know,
Speaker 2: it's the seventies, you know. I remember we sat at
Speaker 2: a booth. Me and Daryl were sitting at a booth
Speaker 2: with Frank Zappa, after a show, and Frank Zappa said,
Speaker 2: I remember never forgetting he said, he said, you know,
Speaker 2: you guys, you guys should should stop making records and
Speaker 2: have a television show. That's what he said. Interestingly enough,
Speaker 2: Daryl listened to him. Daryl got his life.
Speaker 1: From decades later. That actually would have been a great idea.
Speaker 1: By the way, well, I think he's probably right, you guys.
Speaker 2: That had it like a but we didn't do too
Speaker 2: bad on the recording sign.
Speaker 1: No you didn't.
Speaker 2: No, Frank, you know, Frank Zappa was a real futurist.
Speaker 2: I mean he really, I mean I see some of
Speaker 2: these interviews and stuff that he did back in the
Speaker 2: day talking about I mean he really was like.
Speaker 1: What was going on the internet and artists, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: really brilliant. Yeah, his music was like that must have
Speaker 1: been a that didn't didn't mean anything to didn't resonate. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: very very very uh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, although I did like Captain b part what really.
Speaker 1: That's even more to be honest, like LA in the seventies, unbelievable?
Speaker 1: What yeah? What was that so good? What was that?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 2: I can't tell you, I can't tell you I get arrested.
Speaker 1: Do you miss it?
Speaker 2: I thought, I thought was I thought LA in the
Speaker 2: seventies was like going to like going to Nirvana. The
Speaker 2: roads were empty, you could drive, You could drive to
Speaker 2: freaking Mexico in an hour and forty five minutes.
Speaker 4: You could.
Speaker 2: He could just do whatever you wanted to and everybody
Speaker 2: was loose and cool and it was it was just yeah,
Speaker 2: it was fun. I mean, we did three albums out
Speaker 2: here and we didn't live here, but we spent months,
Speaker 2: you know, renting houses and things like that while we
Speaker 2: were recording.
Speaker 1: And at the time.
Speaker 2: There was a guy named Christopher Bond who was in
Speaker 2: our band in the early seventies. He had moved to
Speaker 2: LA to make his way as a producer, very talented guy,
Speaker 2: and after the word Babies thing with Todd Runggren, when
Speaker 2: that didn't connect, you know, he said, you guys need
Speaker 2: to come out here. He goes, I've got the studios,
Speaker 2: I've got the great players, I've got it all wired.
Speaker 2: Come out here will make a great record. And we
Speaker 2: listened to him, and we did. And we had the
Speaker 2: cream of the crop of the LA session players on
Speaker 2: the Silver album, and the bigger than both of us.
Speaker 2: And it was amazing to be in the studio with
Speaker 2: these great you know, Jeff Bercuero, Lea Scalar, we had
Speaker 2: them all, I mean, every Jim Gordon, you know, all
Speaker 2: these amazing musicians and Sarah Smile and Rich Girl and
Speaker 2: that they came from those sessions, and so it was great.
Speaker 2: It was really great to do that. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, I think what it was pointing at was
Speaker 2: that we needed to really take control of our own
Speaker 2: music and get out of that paradigm where the artist's
Speaker 2: over here and the record company appoints a producer and
Speaker 2: the producers responsible for the artists. It was an old,
Speaker 2: an old fashioned, you know, paradigm. And so by time,
Speaker 2: you know, we were working with David Foster in the
Speaker 2: late seventies, right, And I remember one session we were
Speaker 2: doing in the late seventies, David said, I don't know
Speaker 2: what I'm doing here. You guys are making this record yourself.
Speaker 2: And we're like, yeah, I guess we are. That's what
Speaker 2: we're going to do. So and that led to the eighties,
Speaker 2: and of course you know the commercial success.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there a similarity between what was going on with
Speaker 1: that sort of those studio guys here in LA in
Speaker 1: the seventies, with the Nashville scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well just in terms of quality, in terms of
Speaker 2: the musicianship in quality, Yeah, they were at pros.
Speaker 1: The number of they were just super.
Speaker 2: They just came in and played, you know, and you know,
Speaker 2: and it's not and it's not just the playing. It's
Speaker 2: not just the gil of the technique or they're playing.
Speaker 2: It's the way they listen. It's their equipment when you
Speaker 2: do a session in Nashville. You know, Vince Gill told
Speaker 2: me when I first moved there, he said, if you're
Speaker 2: going to be producing songs, you know, in Nashville, he says,
Speaker 2: he says, You've got to think of yourself as like
Speaker 2: a director of a movie. It's not who you choose.
Speaker 2: It's not the best guitar player to choose, or the
Speaker 2: best bass player or drummer, because they're all good. It's
Speaker 2: who's the exact right player for that moment, for that song,
Speaker 2: to serve that song. And it takes time to learn
Speaker 2: who they are and experience them and kind of pull
Speaker 2: together your rolodex, so to speak, you know, and yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's what you do. You just you know, and
Speaker 2: now I can handpick the you know, if I need
Speaker 2: a pedal steel player there's two guys that I'm always
Speaker 2: going to go to and depends on which which ones
Speaker 2: available and which one's right and keyboards and drums and
Speaker 2: it's all.
Speaker 1: This, you know, And it's almost a crazy way to
Speaker 1: work there.
Speaker 2: You could craft and craft the music you want to
Speaker 2: make and know that they're going to deliver it for you. Wow,
Speaker 2: you know, and they have all the guitars and the
Speaker 2: pedal boards and the sounds and you know, and and
Speaker 2: they're there there. It's a real pleasure to walk into
Speaker 2: a room and just have the support knowing that these
Speaker 2: guys are going to deliver. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's a toy you on. Now
Speaker 1: you do do a tour where it's you and three Yeah,
Speaker 1: acoustic tour an acoustic quartet, which I've been doing for
Speaker 1: the last two and a half years. Is that what
Speaker 1: you're doing tomorrow at the now it's a full electric band.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're kicking ass tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Can't wait?
Speaker 3: What what?
Speaker 1: What tunes do you do with the acoustic quartet?
Speaker 2: Well through Sanitary and Brownie McGee to also all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff I do, you know, I do some folky stuff.
Speaker 2: I do a John Prime song, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: just like it's it's a much more loose and it's
Speaker 2: much more it's much more a storyteller show where I
Speaker 2: tell these really long involved stories about I do some
Speaker 2: Mississippi John Hurd, I do some doc wats. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a much more laid back. I'm sitting down. I
Speaker 2: got an acoustic guitar, I got a cello, pedal, steel percussion,
Speaker 2: and then it was time to put the acoustic away,
Speaker 2: grab my strat, plug it into an amp and crank
Speaker 2: it up a little bit. So yeah, this new band
Speaker 2: is much more of a kind of R and B
Speaker 2: soul band.
Speaker 1: Any of the same guys are totally.
Speaker 2: Only the drummer.
Speaker 1: That's awesome.
Speaker 7: Man.
Speaker 2: We've only done about five shows, six shows.
Speaker 1: That's that's I mean the experience, the experience you have
Speaker 1: like over the years. Play like I imagine when you
Speaker 1: go to play like a troubador now, it's like it's
Speaker 1: got to be so much fun.
Speaker 2: To I love playing small venues. I love playing small venues.
Speaker 2: It's it's musical, it's it's the people are right there,
Speaker 2: the energy's there, you know. Uh yeah, I mean I've
Speaker 2: really especially on the acoustic tour, it's playing small theaters
Speaker 2: was the sweet spot because it's a you know, people
Speaker 2: are sitting, they're coming, they're sitting to listen to stories
Speaker 2: and they want to be comfortable. And the sound is
Speaker 2: great because it's a theater, it's made for music. I
Speaker 2: really don't like playing a reiness and things like that.
Speaker 2: It just feels disjointed and feel removed from the crowd
Speaker 2: and it feels more like a spectacle where it's not
Speaker 2: as musical.
Speaker 1: Man, well, are you open to ending with another tune?
Speaker 1: I could do a push in a rock Yeah, great
Speaker 1: the new version.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but damn, I wish I could sing better. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm really kind of this coldest bother me.
Speaker 4: But keep push. Can't have a brother. Kenyon laying today
Speaker 4: feels out of murding. Ken You understink it because he
Speaker 4: keep his mouth pride when I had out of here
Speaker 4: lie everything alive.
Speaker 12: Something I get going through back with the good made
Speaker 12: some mistakes, I mean, the understand.
Speaker 2: N't down trying to turn her and bids to get
Speaker 2: back onside.
Speaker 4: And rykeep borrowing hard. Shugar ship should do like bole
Speaker 4: Kid when.
Speaker 5: It rolls back down this google with it, Try Google
Speaker 5: with a puson us didn't nobody when he looks back down,
Speaker 5: google with it and keep your head held high.
Speaker 1: I keep trying and trying.
Speaker 4: Keep your eyes on the price on the rocks.
Speaker 5: On got holy pet bet you keep on something drip
Speaker 5: of water covering the rook.
Speaker 4: Gainst rather.
Speaker 1: Light that you hard, but she keeps that in time.
Speaker 4: Then hit him. Try to help the brother jat to it.
Speaker 14: Shut put it rock with the goblet there, do you have.
Speaker 4: A you got gooble that the problem the couple there,
Speaker 4: something that's coming up, sons couple who don't happen. If
Speaker 4: I keep on pushing it, I can't turn this whole
Speaker 4: thing stepinite, two steps to hide. If I just face
Speaker 4: every day.
Speaker 2: I get back on my feet in time.
Speaker 15: Id su supers pas you on the rock, but you
Speaker 15: have a figure that lead.
Speaker 1: Keep on.
Speaker 7: A rock.
Speaker 1: Don't you ever give up? Maybe just.
Speaker 3: The baby.
Speaker 1: Said, baby baby is that's sweet man. When you hit that,
Speaker 1: keep on pushing in that falsetto. I remember that's my
Speaker 1: Curtis Mayfield. I was gonna say, I remember you and
Speaker 1: you do a version of Gypsy Woman. To do it
Speaker 1: live my one of my favorite songs.
Speaker 3: So cool, Yeah, loan there through the Cabravan down the
Speaker 3: cab fire, love liking one man in Mo shut.
Speaker 4: Stops a knight, right.
Speaker 12: That girl?
Speaker 8: Can it?
Speaker 1: Did you ever get to meet Curtis or impressions or anything?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: I was a huge fan though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did you ever see him or anything? Yeah
Speaker 1: you did.
Speaker 2: I saw him live at the Uptown Theater in Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: solo gigs.
Speaker 1: With the impressions. The impressions. Oh man, that's amazing, so good,
Speaker 1: one of the best. And man, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so great that.
Speaker 2: It was a great interview. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: No, thank you.
Speaker 2: Just to really go some places.
Speaker 1: Thank you really looking forward to this.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me right and I'm sorry I wasn't
Speaker 2: at my best because I'm honestly, I just feel like
Speaker 2: I can't sing very well.
Speaker 1: But no, we're two guys not at our best right now.
Speaker 4: Okay, we did it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: The secret. Don't tell anybody. See if we fooled him again?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 1: We think we did. I think we did. That was
Speaker 1: a real real pleasure. Man. Don't miss the episode description,
Speaker 1: where you'll find a playlist of our favorite John Oaks
Speaker 1: songs plus his new and remember subscribe to YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com slash Broken Record podcast for all of our video interviews,
Speaker 1: and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the
Speaker 1: Broken Record Pop. You can follow us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose,
Speaker 1: with marketing and help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
Speaker 1: Our engineer is Ben Tomaday. Broken Record is a production
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
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Speaker 1: podcast app. Our theme music's by Kenny Beeats. I'm justin Richmond.