WEBVTT - Stewart Copeland 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.520 Welcome, welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:17.920 My guest today is drummer and composer Stuart Copeland, who 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:23.280 has a new book, Police Diaries. Why a book? Why now, Stuart? 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.680 Well, these diaries have been sitting in my drawer right here. 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.120 And I did a book before of all my adventures 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:36.040 after the police, and I discovered something very surprising, shocking 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.080 in fact, that nobody could care less about my life 0:00:39.159 --> 0:00:43.320 after the police, no matter how amazing the adventures that 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:47.120 I had with royalty, with fine arts, with world travel, 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:52.720 you know, arrested a night in jail and Zaire who cares. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:54.720 Way wait wait wait wait, wait wait wait, stop for 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:57.600 a second, tell us about being arrested and spending a 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.400 night in jail and Zayir Well, I was. 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.039 Making a movie, a documentary and kind of on a 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.160 shoe string budget, crossing Africa looking for the origins of 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.880 American music. And by the way, I was looking in 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:15.000 the wrong place. The origins of American music are New Orleans, Louisiana. 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:20.240 That's a whole nother rant about the origins of America's 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:26.760 most important and significant artistic and cultural feature. Another rant. Anyhow, 0:01:26.760 --> 0:01:31.920 I'm there crossing Africa, and I pull into Kinshasa and 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.680 on my way across the Congo River into Brazaville and 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.520 I get out of Kinshasa just fine hit Brazaville and 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.240 the guy says, you haven't got a Zaire and entry 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.840 or exit visa, and that's a problem. And I was 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.600 with my director J. P. Douta, who is like the 0:01:50.680 --> 0:01:55.120 genuine article Indiana Jones, man of the Jungle, and he 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:58.560 would not reach into his pocket give the guy ten bucks, 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.720 you know. Anyhow, they put us on a boat back 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:07.560 over to Zaire, back across the crocodile and fested, fast 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:11.640 flowing Congo River that separates these two halves of Congo. 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.639 And we got back to Kinshasa and a guy's there 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.000 and he's surrounded by people and everybody's you know, there's 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:21.480 not like a line or stand behind. Everybody's there throwing 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.760 their passports in his face, trying to get his attention. 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.520 And he plucks one, looks at it, Ah, that's a problem, 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.520 hands it back and he sees, you know, us two there, 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.720 the American and the Belgian, and he looks at them 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:35.440 and my, my, my, Indiana. Joe's started to get a 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:40.959 little heated and disrespectful even and so suddenly many have 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.640 like that. Suddenly weird dancing cheek to cheek with the 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.760 men with guns and they're frog marching us out of 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.160 the building and handcuffing us to a bench and where 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:53.920 we go, oh, well this is a fine how do 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:57.839 you do? Uh? And the waves of humanity and we're 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.560 watching boats come down the Congo River and pulling up 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.880 the port where they pull the convicts off. I'm digressing 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.280 a little bit here, stop me when you're bored anyhow. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:11.440 Well you get in jail, how long you're in jail? 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:12.840 And how do you get out? 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.919 Okay? Overnight? Uh? You know, we're chained to the bench 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.960 and this is all going on eventually, you know, the 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:23.040 sun goes down and it's getting evening and changing the 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.840 guard and have we been forgotten or what? And I 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:29.680 can hear this music coming out of the guardhouse and 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:33.680 I sort of put my note hello, uh beau soir 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:40.480 uh new song e? See hello? And the guy pokes 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.000 his head obviously a different guy. What are you? What 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.240 are you doing here? Kind of thing? Is it? Well, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.720 it's all a big mistaken Oh never mind. They took 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:51.880 us and they took us into a building, kind of 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:55.440 a building shed. I couldn't even give it the dignity 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.800 of being a proper prison, you know, but they locked 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.520 us up for the night man a few hours later, 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.080 and we saw one white guy go by. You know, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.360 when you're in Africa, you one thing that strikes you 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:11.880 about Africa. There are no black people. There are old people, 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:16.360 young people, tall people, fat people, skinny people, colorful, rich, poor, whatever. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:20.040 The blackness just you don't see that anymore until you're 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.159 in that situation. One white guy goes by, you see 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.760 one white person, and that person saw us and notified 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:33.120 the Belgian ambassador and who showed up with beer for 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.800 the guards and cool things out. We had to spend 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.159 the night because Ahab is going to be back in 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.880 the morning and we don't want to mess with you know. Hey, yeah, 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.720 it was sort of bribery. Took care of it next morning. 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:45.760 Oh sorry about a little misunderstanding. We were back of 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.600 the boat up to over the bridge, to over the 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.920 river to Brazzaville and spend the next couple of weeks 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.400 in the northern jungles of the Congo up there on 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:57.720 the Olesso River with the. 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:02.480 Pygmies, Okay, so this book, did you This isn't in. 0:05:02.440 --> 0:05:06.600 The book I wrote? Then nobody could care less about 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.599 this book. The book that we're talking about is groveling 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.839 in London as starving musicians going nowhere. And this is 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:20.680 the hungry years when we started to achieve success. You know, 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.440 one arena, one state. They all look alike after a while. 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:25.840 But that hungry part, when we were in London with 0:05:25.920 --> 0:05:29.480 no hits, no credibility, that's the interesting part of the story. 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.520 Let's go back to the beginning. Your father was in 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:34.279 the CIA? Did you know that? 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.960 I assumed it everyone in Beyroot Lebanon if their dad 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.040 wasn't in the CIA or a spy of some kind. 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:47.800 The kids were bragging on that they were, you know, 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.120 and so it was sort of what bay Root is 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:55.160 all about. It was kind of a nexus of espionage 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:57.400 and intrigue in the Middle East. It was a power 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:03.160 place and everybody's dad was a spot. Isn't yours? And 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.760 one day my brother Miles comes home from schools is dad, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.320 are you a spine? To which our father replied, who 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:09.960 wants to know? 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:13.919 What was his cover? 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:19.919 Cultural at And it was noticed by some that the 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:23.440 cultural attache had it as basically what I could see 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.960 of what it looks like is cocktail parties, socializing. And 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.760 at these soires thrown by my parents, my very sophisticated 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:38.120 mother and my fast talking father, there were playwrights and 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:43.160 poets and such an interesting number of men in uniform 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:48.240 for some reason. Amongst the poets and playwrights and tenor singers, 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:54.560 and the deal was is there there were cultivating and 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.799 grooming colonels who might one day be useful. 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.920 Okay, it was billed Beyroot as the Paris of the 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:07.160 mid East. It ultimately got bobbed out, never recover. What 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:08.800 was it like when you lived there. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.640 Well, we felt under privileged. We didn't have TV. In fact, 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:16.200 TV did arrive while we were there. I was in 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:18.800 they rooted for ten years, and before that entire I 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:22.280 left America when I was two months old and didn't 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:27.440 get back till I was eighteen. So in Beirut, when 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.520 TV arrived in black and white, suddenly there were you know, 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:34.280 Bayot Skyline had TV antennas everywhere, but the shows were 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:39.720 in Arabic and French, or in American shows the Virginian 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.320 Bonanza and such dubbed into Arabic and or French with 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.080 subtitles not in English. And so I grew up on 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:53.119 all these American classic shows in Arabic. And the first 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:57.080 time I heard Bonanza in English, oh man, those voices 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:00.800 are all wrong. You know. Has has a high, squeak voice, 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:04.400 whereas in Arabic he had this low southern Lebanese Palestinian 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.280 kind of voice. It was much more, you know, guttural, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.000 and much you know, went with that big physical statue 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:11.520 that he had. 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.960 Okay, so TV comes along, are you therefore addicted because 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.680 it's a new thing. Just watch an occasional program. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.920 Well, they only had the occasional program. It wasn't like 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.520 you can watch TV all day now. And by the way, 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.840 the first television in our household was from our maid, 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.720 our nurse maid, you know, in what was then called 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:38.000 the Third World, because they weren't with the Ruskies and 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:39.840 they went with us during the Cold War, there were 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:45.320 the people who were unaligned in that part of the world. 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:49.680 A diplomat's salary could go a very very long way. 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:54.840 So we lived like naybobs. We had a chauffeur, gardeners, cooks, nannies, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.200 maids and so on. But the main name Soriat, who 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:06.160 was alsoinion. She what she got a television and would 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:08.600 let us watch it if we were good boys and girls. 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.600 So the only discipline that was imposed on the Copeland 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.680 brats was by Soriah using her television, and we would 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:18.680 be good boys and girls for the duration of the 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:23.120 Virginian We didn't realize the value of it until later, 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.400 looking back at the time, we felt underprivileged over in America. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:28.680 You know, we were in an American community school, the 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.640 American Community School, and people we knew vaguely that over 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.240 on the other side of lands and oceans is this 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.200 shining light on a hill where everything is new, modern 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:42.840 and clean. But so we aspired to America and we 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.240 dreamed of it being tried to be as American as 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.240 we could be, even though we were all a long 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:49.079 way from home. 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.199 Okay, would you go back and visit or you were 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:53.680 just there for the duration? 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.319 I would I have been back to visit the. 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.640 Reverse when you were living in Cairo, When you're living 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:02.680 in Lebanon, did you come back to the US or 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:04.959 did you stay in Europe in the Middle East. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.520 There was one trip that we made back to Woodside. 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:10.640 You know, basically I was born in a suburb of 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:17.800 the Cia Woodside, Alexandria, Virginia, and but just young enough 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:19.960 that I could barely remember it. But no, the rest 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.400 of the time I was there. After Beirut, I went 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:29.679 to boarding school in England AND's Darkest Somerset until until 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:32.960 I hit eighteen, actually nineteen, when I got my draft number, 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:36.120 which was two hundred and eighty six or something, which 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:39.480 meant that I was safe. I was on the next 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:43.119 plane over to pick up my college education in California. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.120 Okay, So how old were you when you left Lebanon? 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.439 Left Lebanon at fourteen? 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.160 Okay, So what's the status of the Beatles in music 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:57.240 when you're in Lebanon? 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:03.439 Huge? They landed at Bayroot Airport and I have footage. 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:05.840 I don't know where this footage came from, but somebody 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:07.760 got it and sent it to me of my brother 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.160 in a Beatles wig at the Bayroot airport along with 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.679 his girlfriend, her sister and all their friends, squealing at 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:19.120 the Beatles who arrived on the tarmac, came out of 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:23.520 the thing kind of waved from the from the airplane 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:27.440 doorway the top of the stairs, and they had one 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:30.360 wrong beetle amongst them. I'll have to check the history books, 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.280 but apparently they did a tour of the Far East 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:37.720 or somewhere with either John or Paul missing and some 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.840 kind of replacement which is weird, which I've never read 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.400 about anywhere else. But there's one wrong beatle amongst them, 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.600 and they were on their way and just stopped off. 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:49.640 You know, the plane stopped. They didn't get off the plane, 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.000 but it flew through. That was a big event. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.600 Okay, So when did you start being exposed to music? 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.520 Well, my father was a jazz player and he played 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.920 trumpet until the World War broke out and he joined 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:09.559 the military and became an intelligence and so on. But 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.199 my I am the youngest of four. My father filled 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.800 the house with musical instruments. There was a big grand piano, 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.360 there was guitars, there was you know, he got me 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:22.800 started on a trombone, and then I discovered hitting a drum. 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.719 Now this was dramatic because I was a late developer, 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:29.520 and uh. 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:30.440 What do you mean you were a laid developer. 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.560 I was the run of the litter. Everyone else, my agent, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:37.600 at the age of twelve, was beginning to shave, and uh, 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:43.280 you know, their voices were dropping and you know, they're 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.840 suddenly becoming men. And I was still a squeaky little kid. 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:48.600 So how was that emotionally? 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.920 Well, I was squeaky. I was the youngest of the siblings, 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:55.520 which meant that I was kind of behind anyway. But 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:58.600 even in my age group at school, somehow I was 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:04.520 a little bit small or less grown up. Then I 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:10.920 got on a drum set and suddenly, within a heartbeat, 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.160 I am an eight hundred pounds silver back motherfucker swinging 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:19.000 through the trees. Kiss my ass, And that, just like 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.040 the power of the drums just suddenly gave me what 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.600 I had been lacking. Fuck shaving. I got this drum 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.200 that I can scare people with. 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:30.960 And do you ever take any drum lessons? 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.160 Yes, my father as soon as he spotted that. You know, 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.679 any parent can look at their children and you know, 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.720 give them music lessons a song. And the clue is 0:13:41.720 --> 0:13:44.480 that if you have to say, uh, Susan, I think 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.560 it's time for your piano practice, forget, you're wasting your time. 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:54.600 If it's Susan, will you just shut up for a minute. Okay, there, 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:56.760 you got a musician in the family, and I was 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:58.839 that kid. As soon as I got a snare drum 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:04.480 and I'm banging on morning, day through the night and 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:09.720 will not shut up. Then my dad, to make matters worse, 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.880 got me the rest of the drum set, and I 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.040 would not shut up on that. And my brother Ian, 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:20.680 who was my agent when I was twelve, still was 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:26.840 my agent fifty years later and got me into a band, 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:30.120 the Black Knights, And we played the High We played 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.600 the American Community School, we played Manor House, the British School, 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.800 we played the British Embassy, Beach Club and other illustrious 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:41.120 venues across Bay Route. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:42.600 And what did you play? 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:49.240 We played kink songs, We got to get animals, We 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.440 got to get out of this place. House of the 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:54.440 Rising Sun James Brown. In fact, I still have the 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:58.640 cold shakes that one song, feel Good Dead, like I 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.400 knew that I would. Okay, I'm getting nervous. That's coming 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.760 up there. Jet dun dun dun dun dun dun dun 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:10.040 dun dun dun dundun. How many duns are there? And 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.440 I lie awake at night even now trying to count 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:15.600 them out. But when I was twelve, that was the 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:17.600 moment of terror in the in the set. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.720 What was the brand of your first set. 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:26.200 Uh? It was le Fema uh And I had I 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:27.920 know that because I had the snare je on my 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:30.160 cap for a long time. The rest of the drums 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:35.000 were rented, so but the le Fema was mine. My 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.840 father had already invested in lots of musical instruments, which 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.000 didn't take with my older siblings, so he just rented 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.080 me a drum set until he was sure that, okay, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:48.400 this ain't going away, Stuart, would you please stop for 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:52.760 a second. And that was when I got to London, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.880 and that drum set was a premiere baby blue pearl 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:56.800 drum set. 0:15:57.040 --> 0:15:58.360 What brand do you play now? 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:03.400 I played Tama drums at a certain point. My first 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.800 my first professional record company bought drum set, which was 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:13.080 a big double Ludwig Perspect's Vistaite monstrosity. Was so cool. 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.520 It didn't sound that great, But I was making ends 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:23.360 meet in those days by reviewing equipment for music magazines, 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.080 and one of the things that I reviewed was these 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:31.760 Japanese drums. Now we're talking nineteen seventy six and nineteen 0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:37.840 seventy six, Japanese meant cheap. Now it means extremely high tech, 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.840 high quality, you know, advanced engineering. But that was the 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:48.160 day of the Japanese knockoff. But these Japanese drums, Tama drums, 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.560 were not knockoffs. They were not like Ludwig Drums or 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:55.280 Rogers or Premiere or any of these American or English brands. 0:16:55.560 --> 0:17:02.000 They were bigger, stronger, higher tech, better material bills, better sounding, 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:06.280 just superior in every imaginable way. And so I'm reviewing 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.640 these drums for Sounds magazine and I thought, I want 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.520 to get me some of these. And I at that time, 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:14.760 I was playing in Curved Air, which is a prog 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.560 rock band that had been successful years before I joined. 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.479 I was one of the last rats to jump aboard 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:27.160 the sinking ship, and I used this credibility to contact 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:28.960 the importer and say, hey, look, I'm with this big 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:32.400 band and I might be inclined to use your Tama 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.119 drums that you're importing there. And here's the review, and 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.280 here's all these reviews of the band of how big 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:42.120 they were before I joined, and hornswoggled the drum set 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.439 out of them, and I got this drum set and 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.159 it showed up and at my first sound check with 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.040 Curved Air with these drums, I pulled them out in 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:51.800 the stage and the sound engineer comes running down saying, 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.320 oh man, you got to keep these junk get rid 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.880 of those love pigs. Oh man, this you can't imagine 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:00.440 how much better these sounds. Please please throw away those 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:04.200 ludwigs and play these Japanese drums. And so I've now 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:09.480 been playing them for I think it's almost fifty years. 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:12.800 And have you tried any other brands at this point? 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.400 Yeah, kind of, Well, I got buddies who play other drums. 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:18.840 But you know, last time, I think at the forty 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.040 year mark, they persuaded Tom have persuaded me to go 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.359 down there and give a speech at the Non Music 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.800 Equipment convention, And okay, so I went down There was 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.240 a very short speech actually, but I thought kind of 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:37.560 hit the point, ladies and gentlemen, forty years thank you. 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:39.200 Any questions? 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.960 How many drums do you own today? 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.600 Shall we spend a moment counting them? No? 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.480 Well this is audio only, Steward, So you got to describe. 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.280 Okay, just standing here from the microphone here visible right now, 0:18:54.280 --> 0:19:03.080 I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:06.159 I think that's a drum. You'd probably call that a drum. 0:19:06.200 --> 0:19:09.800 Sixteen seventeen timpany. I got two timpany that we'll call 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:13.880 those drums, even though Timpany players would never call themselves percussionists. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:17.480 They're timputtists. But I will count those two timpanies to jo. Okay, 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:22.719 where was I twenty seventeen? Many? That's how many drums 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:24.680 I have. Many. 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.960 Let's go back to boarding school, everybody. I know what 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.480 the English boarding school has a bad tale to tell? 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:41.240 Was it culture shock? What was it like leaving Lebanon 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:42.760 going to boarding school in England? 0:19:43.600 --> 0:19:46.000 I enjoyed it. It was a great school actually, and 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.240 I know that's weird. You're not supposed to enjoy school, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:54.280 but I did. And I was the American kid, But 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:58.640 that's okay, uh. I enjoyed it. It was way out 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:02.000 in Somerset, and I had a group of friends and 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:08.080 kind of enjoyed boarding school. It's co ed and it 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:10.879 had an amazing sports program that had horses. I was 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.840 able to. I learned how to ride horses. Never saw 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.719 that coming, and I became quite devoted to horses, and 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.080 I still am, although I don't I traded all my 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:24.120 horses and for children, but I played polo there, which 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:25.960 came in handy when I was a rock star in 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:26.680 the countryside. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.800 Okay, And were you playing in bands in boarding school? 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:36.280 Kind of sort of like we'd get together and give 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.280 her think up a cool name for the band and 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:44.479 learn how to play Proud Mary. And the school wasn't hiring, 0:20:44.960 --> 0:20:47.879 so we didn't play any gigs and we'd have to 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.920 hornswoggle somewhere to congregate to play when we'd get complaints 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:56.239 about the noise. I didn't last. I didn't start. I 0:20:56.240 --> 0:20:58.240 played in bands in Bay Route when I was twelve. 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.240 But you know, in a way, when I came back 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.480 to this, you know, the first world, if you like, 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:07.399 I regressed my life. I went back to being a 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.240 twelve thirteen, fourteen fifteen, however old I was, whereas in 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.160 buried I was master of the universe. My brother, who 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.719 was a couple of years older, was stealing motorcycles and 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.359 we were you know, it was great coming back to 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:21.440 the world where you're not allowed to cross the street 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.359 without a until a machine tells you it's okay, and 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.520 if you're busting for a leak, you can't just like 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:31.160 pull behind a bush and unzip all kinds of constraints 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:38.040 on free life, you know, sidewalks or an imposition. And 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.680 so I felt kind of constrained by the civilized, developed world, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.000 but somehow managed to acclimate. 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:50.040 And you obviously speak English, and it's interesting without an accent, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.600 never having grown up in the US. But do you 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:53.600 also speak. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.199 When I first got to England, I didn't realize that 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.240 half the words in my vocabulary were not English, because 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:03.359 everybody in cities like that, well we spoke Araba, franglaise, 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.080 which is Arabic, French and English. And I didn't know 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.879 that half the words were Arabic. And I got teased 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.119 about that a little bit. And well, by being the 0:22:16.200 --> 0:22:20.320 American kid, that made me strangely very patriotic. As a 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.760 matter of fact. God, now, yes I am American, kiss 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:23.879 my ass. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.680 And you're in boarding school with the boys. What about 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:27.560 the girls? 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:29.280 Oh there were girls. 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:29.879 It was co ed. 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:34.520 Oh really, Oh yeah, yeah. It was a very advanced 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:38.399 modern boarding school. It was it was a kind of 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:40.359 a new concept at the time. It was like the 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:42.639 New Age. It was a new version of boarding school. 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:48.160 It wasn't Eton and Harrow and Stowe and Rugby. It 0:22:48.240 --> 0:22:52.679 was the new face of education and It had a 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:56.480 very It had a robin hood policy where Elizabeth Taylor's 0:22:56.560 --> 0:23:00.439 kids were there, and the potentates of Africa, the Saudi 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:04.800 princes were there, and they paid the bills while interesting kids, 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:10.520 which was I guess me, had a reduced rate, so 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:13.679 they had, you know, it was a very interesting student body. 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.760 And they poached sports stars from other schools, so we 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:23.159 had the top under twenty one tennis players and so on. 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:26.040 It was pretty cool concept of a school, but it 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:28.440 was not like the old fashioned boarding schools. It was 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:33.919 very modern education system and co ed right there. But 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.320 you know, the rules were if you know, a private 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:40.840 assignation would be you could get expelled for a private assignation, 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:42.480 which is just if you're alone in a room with 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:43.879 a member of the opposite sex. 0:23:45.000 --> 0:23:50.280 Well, that didn't need stop you did it. No, So 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:52.359 how did you end up going to college in the US? 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:56.520 Well, at first I went to American College in England 0:23:56.560 --> 0:24:01.400 because of the Vietnam War, and I was Draft board 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:06.000 one hundred, which means that Colorado and Arizona they have 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:09.000 a quota of how many eighteen year olds they had 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:11.520 to send to the army for the Vietnam War. The 0:24:11.600 --> 0:24:14.119 draft no escape, whether you were a senator's son or 0:24:14.160 --> 0:24:19.880 whatever you're going. And they had a lottery system where 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:22.440