Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bop Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Vince Guilt, was putting out monthly
Speaker 1: EPs to celebrate his fifty years in the music business. Vince,
Speaker 1: how good a golfer are you?
Speaker 2: Well? I might have tried to play tour golf if
Speaker 2: I hadn't been a decent guitar player. But I was
Speaker 2: a little bit better guitar player than I was a putter,
Speaker 2: so I made the right decision.
Speaker 1: Well, how much do you play now? I play all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 2: I've played my whole life since I was a little kid,
Speaker 2: and played all through school and on the school teams
Speaker 2: and stuff. And I just had so much more interest,
Speaker 2: I think, in music than I ever did in sports
Speaker 2: or any of that stuff. So I chose a path
Speaker 2: of being a hillbilly singer.
Speaker 1: Okay, but how did you get into golf to begin with?
Speaker 2: I guess I watched my old man take off on
Speaker 2: the weekends, you know, and go play play weekend golf
Speaker 2: with his buddies, and he couldn't break a hundred with
Speaker 2: a gun to his head. And he took me out
Speaker 2: when I was probably first, second, third grade, and we
Speaker 2: played nine holes in a little golf course in some
Speaker 2: for an area of Oklahoma where the greens weren't even
Speaker 2: made out of green of grass, they were made out
Speaker 2: of cottonseed holes. And it was it was pasture pool
Speaker 2: at its finest. And it stuck. And I've played my
Speaker 2: whole life, okay, but so literally, how much do you
Speaker 2: play now? I'll play a couple of times a week,
Speaker 2: you know, usually last year was a lean year.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: You belonged to a club, so you can get out
Speaker 2: several that's by old guitars and club and country club memberships.
Speaker 2: That's my advice.
Speaker 1: How do you decide which course to play, which one
Speaker 1: I like, which one is not going to be the
Speaker 1: most crowded, you know, generally is where you turn up?
Speaker 1: And have you done any golf tourism like going to
Speaker 1: Scotland to play.
Speaker 2: I've never played any golf over there, and I'm dying too.
Speaker 2: Every time I went over to Europe, it was always
Speaker 2: for music and it kind of took it, took center stage,
Speaker 2: and all my spare time would be doing interviews or
Speaker 2: getting wherever you were going, and I didn't have time
Speaker 2: to play. But I'm gonna go over there someday on
Speaker 2: a just a golf trip with somebody's.
Speaker 1: And you lived through the revolution from blades to perimeter,
Speaker 1: waiting on the all of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can go in my garage and track back
Speaker 2: the last sixty five years of golf technology, and it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's amazing what they can do now. The
Speaker 2: old guys, you say, you have to dig it out
Speaker 2: of the dirt, you just have to figure it out
Speaker 2: by beating balls and stuff. But now, with the technology,
Speaker 2: then they can help you a whole lot more than
Speaker 2: they ever could when we were young.
Speaker 1: Now, when he passed, it came out that you were
Speaker 1: friends with Arnold Palmer. How do you become friends with
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer?
Speaker 2: I don't know, It's just my good fortune. You know,
Speaker 2: I played with him times. One of my favorite stories
Speaker 2: is I was playing golf with Arnold in a pro
Speaker 2: am and we played several times together before. And you know,
Speaker 2: when you're playing with somebody like that, it's it's pretty
Speaker 2: it's pretty nerve wracking. But anyway, we had played all
Speaker 2: day long, and neither one of us had said one
Speaker 2: word about what we were shooting. You know, we just
Speaker 2: played and but I knew that he was four under par,
Speaker 2: and I think he knew that I was four under
Speaker 2: par playing the last hole, and we're playing this last hole.
Speaker 1: It's part for it.
Speaker 2: I hit my ball up there about fifteen twenty feet
Speaker 2: from the hole, and he hit his up there about
Speaker 2: twelve fifteen feet and I hit my putt and missed.
Speaker 2: He looked at me and marked his ball, knocked his
Speaker 2: end and went, I got you. I said, okay, my
Speaker 2: favorite beating I ever took.
Speaker 1: Okay. What most people don't know is the pros play
Speaker 1: a totally different game. The way they worked the ball,
Speaker 1: et cetera. What can you tell us about that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, they a lot of those A lot
Speaker 2: of those guys told me that they thought I had
Speaker 2: enough talent to play professionally if I'd have applied to
Speaker 2: golf what I applied to music.
Speaker 1: But I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't apply to golf what I did to music.
Speaker 2: And so that was always a pretty neat thing to
Speaker 2: have happen, is to play with one of your heroes
Speaker 2: and play well. I got to play with Jack Nicholas
Speaker 2: one time, and it was the same kind of thing.
Speaker 2: We got to the last hole and he beat me
Speaker 2: by a couple of shots. But just to get to
Speaker 2: hang with him and occasionally get one of them. Is
Speaker 2: the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: So who else in the music world is a scratch
Speaker 1: golfer a good golfer.
Speaker 2: God, there's plenty of guys that play well.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Glenn Campbell was a great golfer, you know, back in
Speaker 2: the day. And Alice Cooper played a lot of golf.
Speaker 2: And you know this, when when I found out his
Speaker 2: real name was Vince and that he played golf, I
Speaker 2: was a huge Alice Cooper fan, you know, And and
Speaker 2: funny thing, you know, all these years later, not too
Speaker 2: long ago, I got to play guitar on an Alice
Speaker 2: Cooper record. That was thrill of a lifetime because I
Speaker 2: played a lot of his songs in my garage bands
Speaker 2: as a kid. And we have a nice friendship. And
Speaker 2: it's amazing how many friends I have that are musical,
Speaker 2: people that are musical, but because we both share the
Speaker 2: love of golf, that's where I found myself. Meeting them
Speaker 2: was more centered around a golf event or a tournament
Speaker 2: or what have you.
Speaker 1: Well, at this point in time, are most of your
Speaker 1: friends in the music world or do you have friends
Speaker 1: you grew up with their friends from country club.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of got a little bit of both.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a little bit of a chameleon in that.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a gaggle of friends that play golf.
Speaker 2: I had a gaggle of friends for a long time
Speaker 2: that played basketball. I had a gaggle of friends at
Speaker 2: all played guitar. I got guitar nerd buddies and we
Speaker 2: go shopping try to find old guitars. And you know,
Speaker 2: I never met a stranger, and pretty easy to know
Speaker 2: and pretty easy to like, I think hopefully. And so
Speaker 2: I've kind of gone through life just being open and
Speaker 2: willing to just about anything or anybody.
Speaker 1: Well, are you like Jerry McGuire, where if you're sitting
Speaker 1: home alone looking at the four walls, you got to
Speaker 1: make contact, You got to get together with somebody. Or
Speaker 1: are you more introspective if you're you're good when people
Speaker 1: are around. But do you need to be around people?
Speaker 2: Not necessarily? You know, Amy, my wife, Amy and I
Speaker 2: are both generally okay with being alone. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: comfortable in my own skin, and so is she. And
Speaker 2: we have to divide and conquer a lot of times,
Speaker 2: and she'll go to her and I'll go to her
Speaker 2: and we'll both travel and be gone. And it works great,
Speaker 2: you know, because she's totally okay with with being the
Speaker 2: only one in the room, and so am I.
Speaker 1: So what do you do when you're the only person
Speaker 1: in the room.
Speaker 2: I'm a surfer, A channel surf, a channel surf. I'll
Speaker 2: play the guitar. Now with these damn telephones, you know,
Speaker 2: you'll sit there and scroll, and I'm finding a lot
Speaker 2: of really neat music, you know, just by scrolling different things.
Speaker 2: I found a kid not too long ago. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're familiar with this name, Lamont Landers.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of him? No? I haven't.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because I found him and he he's
Speaker 2: a kind of a soul singer, you know, throw back
Speaker 2: to an old soul singer. And he's just really redheaded,
Speaker 2: white kid from Alabama and he sounds just like Al
Speaker 2: Green when he sings. And I'm just kind of it
Speaker 2: doesn't make sense, you know. You look at this dude
Speaker 2: and then this voice comes out of him and he
Speaker 2: can't believe that it's real, but it is. And I
Speaker 2: tracked him down. I was such a fan. I asked
Speaker 2: him to come and sing on one of my songs
Speaker 2: on the next record that's coming out in May next
Speaker 2: EP and he brought his mom with him and he said, well,
Speaker 2: when I was little, my mom brought me to one
Speaker 2: of your concerts, and you were one of the first
Speaker 2: concerts I ever saw. So I made a new friend.
Speaker 2: And I love that, you know. I love discovering young
Speaker 2: people that are talented. And you know, when I was
Speaker 2: the young kid, you know, I had so many examples
Speaker 2: of my heroes and the people I looked up to
Speaker 2: reaching out to me and being kind to me and
Speaker 2: being uh supportive of me and inclusive of me, and
Speaker 2: all those things made an impact, you know, And I
Speaker 2: try to do it to the kids that are coming along.
Speaker 2: If I see somebody I think's great, and I'm I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be a big champion for him, route him on
Speaker 2: and no, it feels like the only way to be.
Speaker 1: Do you remember exactly how you found about just.
Speaker 2: Traveling, I mean not traveling, but just traveling on the
Speaker 2: on the phone, and and he'd like, he'd say, he'd
Speaker 2: do something like you see him posts to go. Okay,
Speaker 2: imagine if Sweet Home, Alabama was old soul and he
Speaker 2: turned it and oh yeah, I've seen this yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and they they did. He played uh he played the
Speaker 2: Apollo Theater not long ago and just killed the crowd.
Speaker 2: They went nuts for this kid, you know, And and
Speaker 2: he comes out with his red hair and everybody's going
Speaker 2: what and the hell is going on? And then he
Speaker 2: started singing and everybody was all about it and standing
Speaker 2: up and cheering him on. And I just think he's,
Speaker 2: you know, really talented.
Speaker 1: So when you're on the phone, you know, there's many
Speaker 1: different platforms. Do you go on Instagram, Wheels and TikTok?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not a TikTok guy, but I'll get on
Speaker 2: Instagram and Facebook. And it's hard now there's so many
Speaker 2: things on there that are's such fabrication, you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's me and I'm you know, I have stage four cancer,
Speaker 2: I do this, blah blah, and you see all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just so so.
Speaker 2: Silly and and all that. But you kind of got
Speaker 2: to wade through that, and you never know what you're
Speaker 2: gonna find. What's going to be the next little thing
Speaker 2: that pops up. And I know that when you stop
Speaker 2: on something, then it starts giving you more and more
Speaker 2: and more of that that same thing that you stopped
Speaker 2: and and looked at. But it to me, it's kind
Speaker 2: of it's a modern day television.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: You get on there and you look around and you
Speaker 2: find guitar players that you think are great, or you
Speaker 2: find a singer you think is great, or songwriter you
Speaker 2: think is great. And I've discovered quite a few people.
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of fun to kind of be
Speaker 2: in the loop on some of these young people that
Speaker 2: people are crazy about.
Speaker 1: What do you think about people I'm your contemporary. What
Speaker 1: do you think about people our age who are so
Speaker 1: social media averse, who hate these platforms.
Speaker 2: Well, here's the funny thing. I've never sent a text,
Speaker 2: So I am not really you know, gen z or
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it, an hip on all
Speaker 2: the on all this technology. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: run it. I don't know how to get on it.
Speaker 2: My buddy Matt here takes care of the studio. He
Speaker 2: has to come solve all my problems when the phone
Speaker 2: doesn't work and I can't fix any of it.
Speaker 1: But I don't care.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not a I'm not the kind of
Speaker 2: guy that projects what I think other people should should do.
Speaker 2: You know, if you want to sit on your phone
Speaker 2: all day and text and stay stay connected. And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to post what I had for lunch. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna you know what I mean. And and so
Speaker 2: I remember years ago I met a young girl at
Speaker 2: at a restaurant and she said, you're Vince Gill, aren't you.
Speaker 2: And I said yeah. She goes, you mind if we
Speaker 2: get a picture? And I said, no problem. And we
Speaker 2: took the picture and she said we have a mutual friend.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh, who's that. She told me, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know who you're talking about. She goes, you can
Speaker 2: text him that picture if you want. I said, I
Speaker 2: don't text. And she said, well, I can show you how.
Speaker 2: I said, well, it's not a matter of knowing how,
Speaker 2: it's a matter of desire. I don't want to, you know.
Speaker 2: So I people, all my friends know that if they
Speaker 2: text me, I'm going to call them back, you know.
Speaker 2: I like the I like that personal connection of a voice,
Speaker 2: maybe more so than I do the written word. And
Speaker 2: hard to kind of convey certain things in in a
Speaker 2: text or written word. That if you're talking to somebody
Speaker 2: and you hear the sense of humor, you hear whatever,
Speaker 2: it's easier to to text whatever the hell they are saying.
Speaker 1: And so I'm.
Speaker 2: I'm not not all about it, but I don't you know,
Speaker 2: I don't give a rip if somebody wants to live
Speaker 2: their life on that phone.
Speaker 1: But you have kids, A lot of kids not only
Speaker 1: won't talk on the phone, they won't let you leave
Speaker 1: a voicemail, exactly right.
Speaker 2: And I remember I caught our kids one night texting
Speaker 2: each other at the dinner table.
Speaker 1: I said, this is pretty weird.
Speaker 2: And they all know that if they want to talk
Speaker 2: to me, they have to call me. No, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to respond to a text instead a text.
Speaker 1: And what about the reverse? If you want to get
Speaker 1: a hold of them, I call them and they'll pick up.
Speaker 1: They either have to pick up or they don't have
Speaker 1: to talk to me. It works works great either way. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're surfing on your phone and you find something
Speaker 1: good used to be there was a threshold someone had
Speaker 1: a deal with the record labeled someone should not. Now
Speaker 1: they're all these acts, you know. Sometimes I'm listening, like
Speaker 1: to these stations on serious There's one called XMU. It's
Speaker 1: a college rock station, and I say, this is great,
Speaker 1: and then I say, am I the only person who
Speaker 1: ever heard this, it could be so you get exposed
Speaker 1: to all these things. What is it that twriggers you
Speaker 1: to reach out and try to help?
Speaker 2: Well, I think just if it connects to me. You know,
Speaker 2: I've always been a responder of music. You know, I
Speaker 2: love what music makes me feel. I really have always
Speaker 2: been drawn to the melancholy side of music. I like
Speaker 2: sad songs. I like great singers, I like great musicians.
Speaker 2: You know, when I was young, I didn't really set
Speaker 2: out to be an artist, you know, I set out
Speaker 2: to be a guitar player, and I set out to
Speaker 2: be one of those guys that got called to play
Speaker 2: on people's records and be a session guy. And that's
Speaker 2: what I did in those early years when I was
Speaker 2: trying to figure it out and get to the next place,
Speaker 2: whatever was in store for me. And so over my
Speaker 2: life of these past fifty plus years, I've worked on
Speaker 2: over a thousand artists records, as a background singer, as
Speaker 2: a guitar player, as a producer, as a songwriter, in
Speaker 2: whatever shape or form, you know. And I just was
Speaker 2: always drawn to wanting to be in the band, just
Speaker 2: wanting to be a part of it. I didn't have
Speaker 2: to be the focal point. And with that, you know,
Speaker 2: I just tried to become a good server of songs
Speaker 2: of sorts, you know. In that what I wanted to
Speaker 2: do when I came into a situation was to make
Speaker 2: the record that you'd made. If I was going to
Speaker 2: sing on it or play on it, I wanted to
Speaker 2: make it better, you know. And I've always been kind
Speaker 2: of pushed to be to make something great, not perfect.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people sometimes if you're all
Speaker 2: up in the weeds with minutia and all this stuff,
Speaker 2: they think you're a perfectionist. And I'm not a perfectionist.
Speaker 2: I'm a realist and I just want it to be great.
Speaker 2: That's all I'm trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me more about liking melancholy songs. I don't know.
Speaker 1: They stir more emotion up in me. You know.
Speaker 2: My father used to sing a song to me when
Speaker 2: I was a little boy, and it always made me cry.
Speaker 2: Every time he sang it didn't make me cry. It's
Speaker 2: called Old Shep if you've never heard, it's an old
Speaker 2: folk song. It's about a boy and his dog and
Speaker 2: they grow up together. They're best friends. The dog saves
Speaker 2: him from drowning dog saves him from all kinds of peril.
Speaker 2: And at the end of the dog, at the end
Speaker 2: of the song, the dog grows old and the guy
Speaker 2: has to shoot his beloved animal. And it's the most
Speaker 2: soul crushing song you've ever heard in your life. And
Speaker 2: my dad would sing this to me when I was
Speaker 2: a little boy, and I think probably more for meanness
Speaker 2: than anything else. But we'd be having you know, we'd
Speaker 2: be sitting down and playing and having jam sessions, and
Speaker 2: I'm loving life. I'm playing with my dad and he's
Speaker 2: you know, responsive to me and helping me learn a
Speaker 2: little bit. And he's finally he'd say it's time for
Speaker 2: you to go to bed. I said, man, can't we
Speaker 2: play one more song? He said no, I told you,
Speaker 2: Now do what I say. And I go to bed
Speaker 2: and I said, come on, Toddy's just one more song,
Speaker 2: and he starts singing. When I was a lad and
Speaker 2: old ship pup, I'd run to my room as fast
Speaker 2: as I could, you know, because I knew I was
Speaker 2: gonna cry. And I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 2: I think the emotion of music is what I respond
Speaker 2: to most. And I'm not I'm not impressed. As much
Speaker 2: as I am moved by music. That's what I'm going
Speaker 2: to the music for is to be moved and have
Speaker 2: it take me someplace.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I remember so many of the first records I ever got.
Speaker 2: Last year, I think it was years year and a
Speaker 2: half ago. I think it was when they had a
Speaker 2: memorial for Jimmy Buffett out in LA and the Eagles
Speaker 2: were going to back up Paul McCartney, you know, and
Speaker 2: I was in the band, and so I was singing
Speaker 2: the song for us to learn it at soundcheck and
Speaker 2: it was let it Be. And it dawned on me
Speaker 2: as I'm singing it, I said, this is the song
Speaker 2: that was playing the first time I ever had a
Speaker 2: slow dance with a girl.
Speaker 1: Wow, And it was so cool.
Speaker 2: And then we're getting ready to do the show and
Speaker 2: we're doing soundcheck and Paul's not there yet.
Speaker 1: So I tell the crew.
Speaker 2: They said, go ahead and sing it, and I go, okay,
Speaker 2: But if Paul comes, I don't want to be singing
Speaker 2: his song if he shows up, and so lo and behold.
Speaker 2: I told the crew, I said, tell me if he
Speaker 2: shows up, and I look over and I'm in the
Speaker 2: middle of singing let it be. And there he is
Speaker 2: sitting there with his arms folded, you know, and I'm going, oh, no,
Speaker 2: you know. And he comes over and he gives me
Speaker 2: this big hug and he said, man, I believe you
Speaker 2: sing that song better than I do. And I said, oh, no,
Speaker 2: that's not true. We know that's not true, but thank you.
Speaker 2: And I told him, I said, here's why this song
Speaker 2: is so special. I said, that's the song that played
Speaker 2: when I had my first slow dance with a girl.
Speaker 2: And he winked and he goes, well, I hope it
Speaker 2: worked out for you, and I said, no, I was
Speaker 2: in seventh grade, but it was still a pretty great
Speaker 2: moment in my life. And to look over there and
Speaker 2: see him playing the piano and singing that song is like,
Speaker 2: you couldn't you couldn't dream that up in a million
Speaker 2: years when you're that kid trying to learn songs, trying
Speaker 2: to figure out how to play a sea chord and
Speaker 2: the G chord and all that stuff. And so I
Speaker 2: am beyond blessed and beyond lucky and all those things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I look at it with.
Speaker 2: A complete kind of unbelievable response to it all, not
Speaker 2: like I expected any of it. I don't know if
Speaker 2: i'd have done it, if I'd have known how it
Speaker 2: turned out, you know. I like just discovering what happened.
Speaker 2: I like finding out who was on the other end
Speaker 2: of a phone call. Remember years ago, I got a
Speaker 2: phone call and this was at a period of time
Speaker 2: where they were kind of they were kind of stopping
Speaker 2: playing my records on current country radio, and I knew
Speaker 2: I wasn't going to have hits anymore.
Speaker 1: So I'm kind of in this period.
Speaker 2: What I didn't know what was next in the phone
Speaker 2: rang and it was another Englishman that was Eric Clapton.
Speaker 2: He said, Vince, he said, I'm having it. He said,
Speaker 2: this is Eric Clapton. I'm going, yeah, sure it is.
Speaker 2: Who's yanking my chain? Who's branking me?
Speaker 1: You know? And he's laughed.
Speaker 2: He goes, no, it really is me. And he said
Speaker 2: I'm calling because I'm doing a guitar festival in Dallas.
Speaker 2: This has been twenty two years ago now something like that,
Speaker 2: And he said I want you to come. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm only inviting guitar players I like, And just hearing
Speaker 2: those words from him was like this validation and affirmation
Speaker 2: of a lifetime of trying to do it, you know,
Speaker 2: And what was beautiful was he saw me That's what
Speaker 2: I'd always intended to be, was just a musician. He
Speaker 2: saw me as a serious musician and invited me and
Speaker 2: I got to go to most all those crossroads guitar
Speaker 2: festivals and see and play with all my heroes.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Let's stay with the melanchol you mentioned Clapton
Speaker 1: the second Queen album, Disraeli Gears second side opens with
Speaker 1: tales of brave Ulysses. There's a certain darkness. It's like
Speaker 1: I watch a lot of streaming television. You watch the
Speaker 1: British shows. They just have a dark, melancholic feel. And
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's a cinematographer, but let me
Speaker 1: try to slice and dices a little bit. Hey, A
Speaker 1: lot of that when we were growing up was based
Speaker 1: in alienation. To what degreed do you find yourself as
Speaker 1: an alienated person?
Speaker 2: Probably not much, you know, I think you wind up
Speaker 2: having your tribe. You know, you have your people that
Speaker 2: tend to like the same things you do, like the
Speaker 2: same music you do. And even going back to I mean,
Speaker 2: I've five or six years ago I lost my oldest
Speaker 2: and best friend, a guy named Benny Garcia, who we
Speaker 2: met in the summer of sixth grade, and he was
Speaker 2: the first musician friend I ever made. We played in
Speaker 2: our first garage bands together and played our first school
Speaker 2: dances together, and he went on this journey with me
Speaker 2: throughout all my successful years and as a guitar tech.
Speaker 2: He was a great musician, but he chose the path
Speaker 2: of being a guitar tech for me. So I got
Speaker 2: to go do all of this stuff with my oldest
Speaker 2: friend by my side. It was the greatest gift I
Speaker 2: could have ever gotten, you know, And I think we
Speaker 2: were We were such great friends because we were both
Speaker 2: drawn to so much of the same stuff. And so
Speaker 2: I I feel like, you know, conversation, music, songs, all
Speaker 2: those things. You find your folks that are drawn to
Speaker 2: it too, and that's where you land.
Speaker 1: This is you know, the guy passed, And that's much
Speaker 1: more important than the question I'm gonna asked, but I
Speaker 1: got to ask it. Anyway, you hire your friend, how
Speaker 1: do you decide what to pay them?
Speaker 2: Well, what everybody else got, you know, I was I
Speaker 2: have a long history because I was a side man,
Speaker 2: because I was in a band, because of all of
Speaker 2: those things, I took care of my people. You know,
Speaker 2: in my heyday this is unheard of. But in my
Speaker 2: heyday of doing really well and playing arenas and selling
Speaker 2: out places, I had to deal with all my guys.
Speaker 2: I said, I'll have a bonus structure, a bonus system
Speaker 2: in place that if I do better, you will too.
Speaker 2: And it created loyalty, it created longevity. It just it
Speaker 2: did a great thing for everybody. Everybody felt like, hey,
Speaker 2: we're all in this together. If it goes better, I'm
Speaker 2: going to do better. I was never and that's the
Speaker 2: way I was treated. When I played with Rodney Rodney Crowell,
Speaker 2: I played guitar for him and played guitar for Roseanne Cash,
Speaker 2: and they took great care of the musicians. They were
Speaker 2: respectful of them.
Speaker 1: And I think.
Speaker 2: Nashville has probably always had a hard time doing that
Speaker 2: and that there wasn't that much money in it to
Speaker 2: begin with, so everybody had to go maybe as bare
Speaker 2: bones as they could. And oftentimes I would tell a musician,
Speaker 2: I said, this is what I'm making, this is all
Speaker 2: I have, but you're entitled to a fair portion of it.
Speaker 2: And so it just it was the way I experienced
Speaker 2: my career and my life as as working for somebody else.
Speaker 2: And it's the way that I lived my life as
Speaker 2: a session player. As a session singer, there was a
Speaker 2: union amount of money that was paid to you if
Speaker 2: you were a union hand, and so it just made sense,
Speaker 2: you know, to treat people better than you.
Speaker 1: Maybe you should, Okay, going back a couple of minutes,
Speaker 1: you talked about the period when the hits evaporated. How
Speaker 1: did you metabolize that? How did you handle it emotionally? Well,
Speaker 1: it was easy in that I knew it was coming.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I tell every kid that comes to town and starts
Speaker 2: hitting the lick and starts kind of getting fired up,
Speaker 2: I always tell them, I said, now listen to me,
Speaker 2: and listen good. I said, they quit playing Elvis Presley,
Speaker 2: and they'll quit playing you just be ready for it.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of been the truth. You know, nobody
Speaker 2: survived it their whole career. There's been a period of
Speaker 2: time where somebody caught fire and stayed on fire.
Speaker 1: For a pretty good while. And then it's the way
Speaker 1: it should be. You know.
Speaker 2: It has to evolve and the next generation has to
Speaker 2: take the mantle and go and do what they want
Speaker 2: to do and be who they want to be and
Speaker 2: write the songs they want to sing, and play like
Speaker 2: they want to play, and it's the way it should be.
Speaker 2: So it was never it was never much of an issue.
Speaker 2: And the other thing that was good was I had
Speaker 2: plenty of years of struggling trying to be an artist.
Speaker 2: You know, in the early eighties, I got a record
Speaker 2: deal and then tell people, so I couldn't really prove
Speaker 2: it because nobody had those records. But I stayed with
Speaker 2: it and hung in there, and then finally I started
Speaker 2: having some hits. So I had just about as many
Speaker 2: years of I wouldn't say failing, but struggling. That prepared
Speaker 2: me for the years of success. I would watch people
Speaker 2: react to their success and oftentimes go, I don't ever
Speaker 2: want to be like that. I don't ever want to
Speaker 2: respond like that. I don't ever want to say something
Speaker 2: like that. And so with that, I just kind of
Speaker 2: took the good with the bad and and let my
Speaker 2: ears lead me more than anything else. And I always
Speaker 2: felt like my ears have never lied to me. And
Speaker 2: if I go back and listen to those early records,
Speaker 2: I can go, yeah, I can see why they weren't successful.
Speaker 2: They weren't that great, and be honest enough with myself,
Speaker 2: be honest enough to know I'm probably writing better songs
Speaker 2: today than I did in my heyday when I was
Speaker 2: having a lot of success, you know. And it's just
Speaker 2: all in there. It all kind of you know, forms
Speaker 2: my opinion and forms my thought process into how I
Speaker 2: want to react.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's not easy to to react to struggling. It's
Speaker 2: easy to react to success.
Speaker 1: That's not hard.
Speaker 2: But I learned a whole lot more about struggling than
Speaker 2: I did by succeeding.
Speaker 1: Are you as even tempered as you come across or
Speaker 1: do you get angry and we just don't see it.
Speaker 2: I'm a hot head on the golf course, you know,
Speaker 2: And that was it was interesting. That's the reputation I've
Speaker 2: I've earned and deserve, you know, as a club breaker
Speaker 2: and a club thrower and really oh yeah, yeller and
Speaker 2: screamer and all that stuff. And it's my whole life
Speaker 2: was kind of that way. And I think it's all
Speaker 2: kind of comes from an insecurity kind of a place
Speaker 2: in that you want to show people you're better than
Speaker 2: what you just did, so insecurely you reach out and
Speaker 2: strike out and cost yourself beat the club into the
Speaker 2: ground whatever you do. And I was the same musically.
Speaker 2: If I wasn't doing it to a level that I wanted,
Speaker 2: I would get frustrated. So I do have a great temper.
Speaker 2: It's legendary. And I was playing golf with this guy
Speaker 2: one time who's a sports psychologist for a lot of
Speaker 2: tour players, and we're playing and we played a few holes,
Speaker 2: and so finally I looked at him and said, okay, Doc,
Speaker 2: I said, shoot me straight. What do you think? He
Speaker 2: started laughing. He goes, oh, yeah, you got a good reputation.
Speaker 1: He goes.
Speaker 2: All your buddies, all your tour player buddies, they all
Speaker 2: give you down the road about about getting mad and stuff.
Speaker 2: He said, But let me tell you. I'm going to
Speaker 2: tell you some stuff that you've probably never heard in
Speaker 2: your life before.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: First of all, all those guys are way worse than
Speaker 2: you've ever been with getting mad and losing it and
Speaker 2: all that said, they have learned to control it because
Speaker 2: that's their job, that's their workplace, and it's detrimental to
Speaker 2: them if they don't, you know, act accordingly, he said,
Speaker 2: But you, he said, you're different. He said, first of all,
Speaker 2: the reason you're successfulcessful because you have that burn in
Speaker 2: you to be your best and do your best and
Speaker 2: have a expectation that it's at a very high level,
Speaker 2: he said.
Speaker 1: He said, then, think about what you do for a living.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: You stand up in front of people, you play, you sing,
Speaker 2: and all you ever receive is adelation. He said, that's
Speaker 2: so abnormal. There's nothing more abnormal than that.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to tell you, and probably only you,
Speaker 2: that I think is really healthy for you to beat
Speaker 2: yourself up. He said, if you need to go off
Speaker 2: in the woods, break a club and call yourself dirty names,
Speaker 2: go ahead and do it. So it's going to keep
Speaker 2: you level and amy. When we first met, she kind
Speaker 2: of had the same comment to me, which was kind
Speaker 2: of life changing. I don't get I don't get too
Speaker 2: uptight anymore. I'm sixty nine and I don't, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of lost the ability to care that much about
Speaker 2: what I shoot.
Speaker 1: And uh.
Speaker 2: We were playing one day and we weren't married yet,
Speaker 2: and I hit a shot and I was unhappy and
Speaker 2: I broke my three wood when I stuck it in
Speaker 2: the bag. She turned around and was shocked, and I said, man,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I get a little lamped up at this game.
Speaker 2: She goes, Oh, that doesn't surprise me. I said, what
Speaker 2: do you mean? She goes, well, she said, you know
Speaker 2: I'm crazy about you? And I go, yeah, vice versa,
Speaker 2: And she said, who laughs harder at chokes than you do?
Speaker 2: That's when stuff's funny. Who laughs harder at you? I said, nobody?
Speaker 2: I said, who loses it in front of the whole world?
Speaker 2: You're the town crier. I see you fall apart all
Speaker 2: the time, giving a speech or singing a song. She said,
Speaker 2: And now you've hit a golf shot and you're mad.
Speaker 2: She said, you can't control any of your emotions. How
Speaker 2: would you ever expect to be able to just control one?
Speaker 2: I went, nobody's ever said that to me. It was
Speaker 2: so beautiful and so profound, and it's kind of helped
Speaker 2: me let go of a lot of that. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty easy going, you know. And then you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't have a temper, you're not probably ever
Speaker 2: going to accomplish much if you don't get a little
Speaker 2: worked up.
Speaker 1: Well, Amy has your number. But does that temper ever
Speaker 1: come out in everyday life? Not too much.
Speaker 2: We have the we have the sweetest relationship and it
Speaker 2: never never gets never gets weird. You know, it never
Speaker 2: gets you know, when we first got together, you know,
Speaker 2: we got getting ready to get into it about something,
Speaker 2: and I just said, hey, I said, before you say something,
Speaker 2: I said, just let's just take a minute and be still.
Speaker 2: She goes, what do you mean. I said, well, I
Speaker 2: know you're mad at me and I deserve it. Blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. You're going to say something that's going to
Speaker 2: trigger me, and then I'm going to say something. And
Speaker 2: I said, and you're not going to like what I'm
Speaker 2: going to say back. And and I said, why don't
Speaker 2: we just let a moment pass and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: this in a little bit. I've done all the about
Speaker 2: all the yelling and screaming I want to do in
Speaker 2: a relationship. And so it's kind of a pattern we
Speaker 2: got going, and we we don't square off much. We
Speaker 2: got a pretty pretty peaceful stretch. Have you ever been
Speaker 2: to therapy? No, even the therapist. We have a family
Speaker 2: therapist and all of our kids go to and and uh,
Speaker 2: she pulled me aside and she goes, I said, what
Speaker 2: about me? And she goes, You're fine, You're kind of
Speaker 2: a She says, you're kind of a you're the solid
Speaker 2: foundation for this whole bunch. She said, I see that
Speaker 2: in you, and she said.
Speaker 1: You're you're good.
Speaker 2: And I told her, I said, look, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't have any angst about the past. I don't want
Speaker 2: to try to fix my relationship with my father. I
Speaker 2: don't want to try to fix this. And that, I said.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm kind of okay with being exactly who
Speaker 2: I am and uh, prey straight ahead. And so she
Speaker 2: told me I was good.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the anger. You said, you
Speaker 1: said two things. Want to focus on this. You said,
Speaker 1: I want to prove myself. What do we know? First,
Speaker 1: the average person has no idea how hard it is
Speaker 1: to make it. Talent is in most fifty percent, it's
Speaker 1: unbelievably hard. So when you get your chance, you want
Speaker 1: to deliver. Or you also might say, by luck, I'm
Speaker 1: here and I want to prove myself. How much of
Speaker 1: that is involved?
Speaker 2: Well, I think every time I sing a song, every
Speaker 2: time I play a song, I've never phoned it in.
Speaker 2: I've never nonchalantly just gone through the motions. I want
Speaker 2: to play and sing. Every time I play and sing.
Speaker 2: The best I've ever done it, you know, And that's
Speaker 2: I think because of the gift I've been given, that's
Speaker 2: what it deserves. And so you know, I'll sit here
Speaker 2: in the studio and play something good. I said, what
Speaker 2: could be better? I think it could be better. If
Speaker 2: I played two less notes, it might speak more. It
Speaker 2: might say more. And so away I go, you know,
Speaker 2: and I I I'm sure that there's a part of
Speaker 2: this that's an unrealistic expectation. But it has to get
Speaker 2: it has to get my full attention.
Speaker 1: I have to.
Speaker 2: I have to speak up on every single thing, because
Speaker 2: I find music a great place for democracy. In the
Speaker 2: studio with five, six, seven guys, you're all in there
Speaker 2: with the common goal of making a song great. You
Speaker 2: don't care who gets all the attention. You don't get here,
Speaker 2: who gets the to be the loudest, who gets to
Speaker 2: be noticed the most? And if you'll just serve the song,
Speaker 2: you'll serve each other and listen to each other and
Speaker 2: let everybody shine. That to me is what democracy was
Speaker 2: intended to mean. And I get to live that most
Speaker 2: of my life in this environment, and it's powerful, you know,
Speaker 2: because everybody's in it for the same reason. Serve that song,
Speaker 2: make the song the best it can be, Let the
Speaker 2: song shine, not yourself. And it's really it's a great
Speaker 2: experience together with people that.
Speaker 1: Are like minded and.
Speaker 2: Listen to each other and play well together. And it's
Speaker 2: so much fun to watch something turn up, to see
Speaker 2: something be born, you know, and then have a life
Speaker 2: that gets to live forever.
Speaker 1: Okay, you were talking about your goal was not perfection. Okay,
Speaker 1: you know music is not digital zeros in ones. It's
Speaker 1: organic or at least the kind of music we're talking about. Ay,
Speaker 1: do you know when it's magic? And is that what
Speaker 1: you're searching for? Let me just go a little bit deeper.
Speaker 1: You're playing with professionals in Nashville. They can nail it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can say this is your song, But are you
Speaker 1: searching for that moment when the hair starts to go
Speaker 1: up on your arms? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the great thing is is everybody can feel it,
Speaker 2: and everybody knows it, and everybody knows when it's finally
Speaker 2: got the the groove, the pocket, the field, everything.
Speaker 1: That that stirs up in emotion.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of things that are just flat
Speaker 2: lined perfect are not emotional, you know, And so that's
Speaker 2: I think what everybody's trying to go trying to do
Speaker 2: is I want to play something. It inspires the piano
Speaker 2: play to play the next thing, And what the piano
Speaker 2: player plays inspires the other guitar player to play the
Speaker 2: next thing. And that's what you're kind of always going for.
Speaker 2: You know, don't ever take me out of the dance.
Speaker 2: Don't ever take my attention away from a great singer
Speaker 2: singing a great song.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: That's the point of it all is to serve that
Speaker 2: that that that process. And when somebody I heard somebody say,
Speaker 2: don't whatever you do, let the main thing be the
Speaker 2: main thing, stay out of the way.
Speaker 1: Okay. So let's assume you're recording in the studio and
Speaker 1: you have to your guitar player. You have to do
Speaker 1: with solo? Do you always make it up on the
Speaker 1: spot or do you think about it in advance.
Speaker 2: It's I would say, it's a combination of a lot
Speaker 2: of things. When I'm playing, what in my head is
Speaker 2: going on is how would I sing this? So I'm
Speaker 2: letting one thing that I can do inform another thing
Speaker 2: that I can do. So when I'm trying to play
Speaker 2: a solo, I go, okay, how would I phrase this?
Speaker 2: How would I sing this? And then when I'm singing,
Speaker 2: I asked myself, Okay, how would I play this? And
Speaker 2: each one informs the other. And once again, you're trying
Speaker 2: to say the most with the least. So if I
Speaker 2: play something and I like it, and I go, well,
Speaker 2: there's three too many notes in there. What if I
Speaker 2: pull those out and make those make that space, then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden leave room for something else. There's
Speaker 2: something someone else did. That's what I'm always doing guitar
Speaker 2: solos at the end of the process. So everybody's played
Speaker 2: all their parts and played fills and played pocket things
Speaker 2: and whatnot, and I dance around it, you know, and
Speaker 2: I'm trying to listen and let all those other things
Speaker 2: still do what they were intended to do. And we
Speaker 2: said it before, but if you'll, you know, stay out
Speaker 2: of the way and let everybody shine, then then it's
Speaker 2: a home run.
Speaker 1: Okay. You talked about the process, the democracy, etc. You know,
Speaker 1: Back in the old Mono days, everybody played it once. Certainly,
Speaker 1: by time we're hitting the seventy sixteen to twenty four tracks,
Speaker 1: you're building it track by track. A how do you
Speaker 1: do it? And B? When you build track by track,
Speaker 1: how do you maintain the organic effect?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the technology is obviously evolved. You know,
Speaker 2: they've been making country records now for one hundred years
Speaker 2: and they don't make them today like they used to.
Speaker 2: They don't do anything like they used to do. And
Speaker 2: I think technology is a fantastic thing if you use
Speaker 2: it for the right reason. You know, it's all a
Speaker 2: matter of that. And so once again, technology and whether
Speaker 2: it's in tune or you know, everybody complains about auto tuning,
Speaker 2: and I said, you're not making the singer any more interesting.
Speaker 2: You're just making the singer more in tune. And that's
Speaker 2: all you're doing. The singer's voice is either interesting or
Speaker 2: it isn't. To me, when I hear music, they may
Speaker 2: be able to sing the phone book, but if they
Speaker 2: don't have a great song to sing, I'm not interested
Speaker 2: in hearing the phone book be sung. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: interested in hearing a story. I'm interested in hearing a
Speaker 2: song and see where it goes, where it starts, where
Speaker 2: it ends, and all those things are a big part
Speaker 2: of it. But you know, nowadays, when we're in here
Speaker 2: work and you can't make a mistake, which is kind
Speaker 2: of kind of nice. You know, you go back and
Speaker 2: in the old days you punch it in on the track,
Speaker 2: and you punch it at the wrong time. You could
Speaker 2: ruin a take, you could ruin a whole record. And
Speaker 2: now you just undo and you try again, and you
Speaker 2: try again, and and like I said, you're just trying
Speaker 2: to They say about that music that it's like art
Speaker 2: at some point, it's never it's never finished, it's only abandoned.
Speaker 1: And I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that thought, you know, I like I like
Speaker 2: hearing something and go that may be about as good
Speaker 2: as I can do, and that speaks to me, maybe
Speaker 2: I could do it a little bit better, do this,
Speaker 2: do that. But you know, part of the part of
Speaker 2: the joy is the minutia. And I may be the
Speaker 2: only one that notices that I took one note out,
Speaker 2: or that I took one word out, or that I
Speaker 2: sing this note longer than maybe I would have or whatever.
Speaker 2: If I'm the only one that notices, I still have
Speaker 2: to do it, because then it's a disservice to myself.
Speaker 2: And so I just do the things that way that
Speaker 2: I do them, and and sometimes I drive people nuts.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not that I'm not a control freak,
Speaker 2: you know. I'm always up for a better idea, better part,
Speaker 2: better better everything, you know, and let let everybody have
Speaker 2: the opportunity to bring their gifts. When I I first
Speaker 2: worked with Don Henley, my boss, uh, he asked me
Speaker 2: to come sing on Cass County and I said, okay.
Speaker 2: So I knew the minutia details that I was in
Speaker 2: for as I knew all the stories and I heard
Speaker 2: them all and I was fine with that because I
Speaker 2: don't mind it one bit and it was a great
Speaker 2: lesson to learn for us to be friends. Was I
Speaker 2: went in there and he played me the song and
Speaker 2: I'm listening to it. He played a couple more times
Speaker 2: and I said, okay, I think I think I got it.
Speaker 2: He goes, well, this is where I want the harmonies,
Speaker 2: and these are the notes I want. And I said
Speaker 2: to him, I said, okay, I don't. I don't hear
Speaker 2: it that way, but I'll do it for you. So
Speaker 2: I did it for him the way he wanted to
Speaker 2: do it, and he was so so so pleased. You know,
Speaker 2: we got done in he goes man as advertised, that's
Speaker 2: as good a harmony singing as I've ever heard and
Speaker 2: you know, job well done. And I said, well, you
Speaker 2: want to move on and he said, no, you said
Speaker 2: something to me before we started. It caught my attention.
Speaker 2: I said, well, what's that and he goes, well, he said,
Speaker 2: you didn't hear it that way? He said, would you
Speaker 2: mind singing it for me? How you would have done it?
Speaker 2: He said, okay. So I went back in there and
Speaker 2: and I sang it. I started singing the first bit
Speaker 2: and he gets the talk back. He goes, dude, way better,
Speaker 2: let's start over. I said, okay, And so he let
Speaker 2: me have that freedom. So it was a great lesson
Speaker 2: to learn that. You know, he gets often painted as
Speaker 2: a control freak, but he wasn't, you know. And I
Speaker 2: found that out to be true, that he's if there's
Speaker 2: a good idea, he's up for it, you know. And
Speaker 2: it was great for our friendship and I earned his
Speaker 2: trust and I think I still have it all these
Speaker 2: years later.
Speaker 1: Okay, would you rather work in the studio or go
Speaker 1: on the road? Leaving the traveling out?
Speaker 2: You know, they're both the same. I love playing live
Speaker 2: because it's live, because it's in the moment and there
Speaker 2: is no fixing it, there is no going back and
Speaker 2: trying it again. It's just the moment, and that's the
Speaker 2: way I live my life. I love living in the moment.
Speaker 2: I'm really comfortable living in the moment. I don't look ahead,
Speaker 2: I don't look back with regret, and I just am
Speaker 2: grateful for the moment I have. Tomorrow's not promised, and
Speaker 2: so I just accept this moment for what it is
Speaker 2: and grateful for it. And then playing in the studio,
Speaker 2: you get to mess with it. You get to, you know,
Speaker 2: try different things. Hey, let's try this instead of that,
Speaker 2: and all options are on the table and everybody kind
Speaker 2: of like in that democratic way I mentioned earlier, everybody
Speaker 2: gets to you know, the ability to voice an opinion.
Speaker 2: There's no I'm the boss, You'll do what I want
Speaker 2: you to play in. None of that ever, And I
Speaker 2: love I love the spirit of that. I love the
Speaker 2: spirit that is in here when we do this. So
Speaker 2: I would say neither one is preferable, but they're both
Speaker 2: completely satisfying. Okay, Yes, So live gig is one and done.
Speaker 2: Every audience is different. You can be really hot one
Speaker 2: night and they're not registering it. You could make more mistakes.
Speaker 2: So to what degree are you in tune with the
Speaker 2: audience and try to win the audience over if they're
Speaker 2: not with you. Well, I think what I've learned over
Speaker 2: fifty two years of playing out live and all that
Speaker 2: is the audience is the whole key to a great show.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm going to play and sing about the
Speaker 2: way I play and sing. If the audience catches fire
Speaker 2: and turns on and lifts you up and carries you
Speaker 2: to the finish line, it's the greatest feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Nowadays what's interesting about playing live. Everybody's got a phone,
Speaker 2: So every time you play, you have to deliver because
Speaker 2: they're going to go share it, they're gonna go post it,
Speaker 2: they're going to go put it out there. And so
Speaker 2: there's now a different kind of constant pressure about playing
Speaker 2: live that there never used to be. You know, you
Speaker 2: weren't going to see it again. It was just that
Speaker 2: night and you were Maybe maybe it inhibits you a
Speaker 2: little bit to not try for something that you maybe
Speaker 2: know you it might be you might not make it,
Speaker 2: you know, so maybe it makes you play a little safer, sing,
Speaker 2: a little safer whatever, because you know, at some point
Speaker 2: somebody's going to capture something and put it out there
Speaker 2: and go, oh, man, dude, it's really lost it. He
Speaker 2: can't do it anymore. But uh, I don't I don't
Speaker 2: enjoy that. I don't enjoy being under the constant microscope
Speaker 2: all the time. I don't mind in the studio, and
Speaker 2: I don't mind a live performance where everybody's there and responds,
Speaker 2: goes home and goes, oh yeah, man, one song was
Speaker 2: a little funky, but all in all that was a
Speaker 2: cool show. And now they've all got bits, pieces and
Speaker 2: parts of all the songs and they go home and
Speaker 2: relive it. I don't understand why you would want.
Speaker 1: To make the.
Speaker 2: Effort to film what you're saying live, because then you're
Speaker 2: missing the experience of the liveness of what it is
Speaker 2: that you're there to see. And I don't think I've
Speaker 2: ever filmed anything in my life of something live, musical.
Speaker 2: I just want to be in the experience of it
Speaker 2: and in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, in the technological age, certainly when we
Speaker 1: were growing up, the acts were gods. There used to
Speaker 1: even be seats in all these places. Now they make
Speaker 1: you stand in many of them, and it was all
Speaker 1: focused on the act. Today, talking generally that I'll get
Speaker 1: specific frequently. The audience is a star. They're going to
Speaker 1: shoot selfies with each other. Oh yeah, they want to
Speaker 1: have the artifact that here's a video. I was there?
Speaker 1: Is that palpable from the stage?
Speaker 2: Oh it's you know, when we've been doing this sphere
Speaker 2: now for a little over a year and a half,
Speaker 2: I think, and we've done fifty eight shows in there,
Speaker 2: and people ask me all the time, you know, they said,
Speaker 2: what's it like playing the Sphere? And I jokingly, and
Speaker 2: I mean jokingly, I don't really mean this seriously, but
Speaker 2: I said, it's the most people I've ever been ignored by.
Speaker 2: And it's true, but it's kind of the way it
Speaker 2: should be.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The whole spectacle of that visual is it's unlike anybody's
Speaker 2: ever seen. You try to explain it to your friends
Speaker 2: that are going to come out and see a show.
Speaker 1: What's it like?
Speaker 2: Oh man, you're not going to believe it. It's so
Speaker 2: much bigger than you could ever imagine.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We went to see The Wizard of Oz not too
Speaker 2: long ago, Amy and I when I was out there
Speaker 2: for a couple of Eagle shows, and it was so
Speaker 2: impact full to see the magnitude of that movie in
Speaker 2: the sphere. But then what was beautiful about it was
Speaker 2: seeing something so innocent in this day and age of
Speaker 2: they're not being very much out there, that's very innocent.
Speaker 2: We both got weepy here and Judy Garland sing Somewhere
Speaker 2: over the Rainbow with one hundred and sixty seven thousand speakers.
Speaker 2: It was. It was unbelievable. So I love playing there.
Speaker 2: I get it. I get why people enjoy it. And
Speaker 2: what's cool about it with playing there with the Eagles
Speaker 2: is everybody knows every note to those songs. They know
Speaker 2: every harmony part, they know every word, they know every
Speaker 2: guitar solo, they know the ooze, the harmonies, everything about it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's such a great lesson to learn how
Speaker 2: important songs are because the song catalog that they have
Speaker 2: is why they're them. You know, it's an amazing catalog
Speaker 2: of songs that's pretty untouchable, and.
Speaker 1: It's just.
Speaker 2: Pretty amazing to get to experience at night after night
Speaker 2: and hear Desperado then here take it to the Limit,
Speaker 2: and here Lion Eyes and here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just it's astounding.
Speaker 2: And I love it, And I don't know if We're
Speaker 2: going to do some more shows at the Sphere, but
Speaker 2: we'll see.
Speaker 1: And it's been a blast, okay. Joe Walsh was ill
Speaker 1: and you saying life's been good. A before you played
Speaker 1: with the Eagles. Did you know the song? Of course
Speaker 1: when you heard it every night? Yeah, you're there, you're
Speaker 1: playing when you actually sang it. Did you have a teleprompter?
Speaker 1: Of course?
Speaker 2: I always have. I told Donna said, I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to have a teleprompter. You guys have sung Lion Eyes
Speaker 2: for fifty years.
Speaker 1: I haven't.
Speaker 2: There's nine verses, so I'm going to need a telephone.
Speaker 2: I used one, but that night, you know, I remember
Speaker 2: when Joe got sick on the Friday night the night before.
Speaker 2: He was kind of coming on and off stage and
Speaker 2: taking oxygen and struggling, and so we got done. And
Speaker 2: the next morning Joe had to go to the hospital
Speaker 2: and we knew he wasn't gonna play. And Don called
Speaker 2: and said, men, you think we can work up three
Speaker 2: or four year songs? And I go, man, we don't
Speaker 2: have any content for them on the on all the
Speaker 2: all the stuff. I don't think it would work. I said,
Speaker 2: I can sing Joe's songs. He said can you, and
Speaker 2: I go, oh, yeah, no problem. I've been singing in
Speaker 2: my whole life, and so the humor of it was
Speaker 2: hearing me sing life's been good, my maserati and I
Speaker 2: you know, none of that stuff has ever been a
Speaker 2: part of my life. So it was pretty laughable to
Speaker 2: hear me singing those songs. But one of the crew
Speaker 2: guys after after we got done, he walked by and goes, man,
Speaker 2: that was cool, as you did a great job. He goes,
Speaker 2: I never understood the words because Joe was you know,
Speaker 2: does does Joe? And and uh so, yeah, it was
Speaker 2: you know, Don said, hey, we can eat, you know,
Speaker 2: we can point eighteen five hundred people or just man
Speaker 2: up and go play, you know. So we did that
Speaker 2: and there's a few detractors. I had a guy over
Speaker 2: to the right of me, and that was so pissed
Speaker 2: that I was that Joe wasn't there and I was
Speaker 2: singing his songs and they you know, but but yeah,
Speaker 2: it was I think the best option, you know that
Speaker 2: that could have happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's the sphere, as you say, being ignored, but
Speaker 1: the stage is low, it's almost like a high school saha,
Speaker 1: And there was a guy on the floor that really
Speaker 1: was catching your rye and affecting your emotions.
Speaker 2: I could hear him, yeah, I mean he was mad.
Speaker 2: I mean we when we played, we play about three
Speaker 2: songs and then Don comes out to talk and welcome everybody,
Speaker 2: and and it was obvious that Joe wasn't there. We
Speaker 2: started with Hotel California, and Deacon covered and did a
Speaker 2: great job. And uh so Don's walking out, and this
Speaker 2: guy over to my.
Speaker 1: Right goes, where's Joe. You know, he's not.
Speaker 2: Happy, And Don looked over and at him and through
Speaker 2: the microphones says, shut up, and I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: He didn't take anything off of anybody. And I love it.
Speaker 2: But uh and then he was you know, I could
Speaker 2: hear him over there. And finally somebody, the security, you know,
Speaker 2: finally says, you know, you you kind of have to
Speaker 2: shut up or.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to go.
Speaker 2: And and a friend of a friend of mine that
Speaker 2: I had breakfast with was sitting right behind it. That morning,
Speaker 2: I'd had breakfast with my friend and he was sitting
Speaker 2: right behind this guy. And he finally grabbed a guy
Speaker 2: and said, if you say another word, I'm taking you
Speaker 2: out of here. Myself and all of that, and it finally,
Speaker 2: it finally simmered down. But you know, it wasn't it
Speaker 2: wasn't a whole lot different than the first night I
Speaker 2: played with them, you know. And and Glint had passed,
Speaker 2: and so I'm going to sing the first song I sang,
Speaker 2: and I'm scared to death, you know. And and what
Speaker 2: was really amazing was I could feel the apprehension of
Speaker 2: that crowd at Dodger Stadium. I knew they just were
Speaker 2: not having it, you know. And I got done with
Speaker 2: the verse and chorus. I've taken the limit, I think,
Speaker 2: and I felt everybody just go, it's.
Speaker 1: Going to be okay. It's going to be okay.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've had detractors the whole time and
Speaker 2: will and I expect it and.
Speaker 1: Well, wait, wait a second, s it's the Eagles, I know. No, no,
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is, was it like the
Speaker 1: dude in that movie The Eagles have the biggest selling
Speaker 1: album of all time. It's like it's like Windows versus
Speaker 1: you know, mac Ows. The people who are negative, you know,
Speaker 1: they have passions about it. Yeah, I get it, you know.
Speaker 2: And I told people when I first started talking about
Speaker 2: I go look, I don't want to hear me sing
Speaker 2: new kid in Town either, you know, But that's that's
Speaker 2: the option. That's what we're left with. And the way
Speaker 2: I've always kind of reacted to getting to do that.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm beyungrateful that I was the guy they
Speaker 2: called to come and do that, but the only reason
Speaker 2: I got to do it was because of a tragedy.
Speaker 2: And that's always at the forefront of my mind. So
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not high five and people go, hey, man,
Speaker 2: I'm in the Eagles, you know, I'm just going I'm
Speaker 2: here because something really sad that happened. I wish it
Speaker 2: didn't happen either. I wish I didn't get to do it.
Speaker 2: I wish Glenn was still.
Speaker 1: Alive, but he's not.
Speaker 2: And and so hopefully this is this is an acceptable option,
Speaker 2: you know, And with most people it's been okay, Well I.
Speaker 1: Was there, and I understand what you're saying, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like dead End Company. Dead End Company.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of heretics, but they were tighter than
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead and that night, you know, the band
Speaker 1: maybe because they knew they had something to prove. It
Speaker 1: was actually a step up from what it had been,
Speaker 1: you know, prior to your tenure. But how did you
Speaker 1: find out they were interested in you filling the rule?
Speaker 1: Was it one and done? Did they call and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you want to do it or not? Or did they
Speaker 1: make you go through some hoops? And were you always
Speaker 1: in or were you somewhat anxious that maybe this wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a good thing for you? Now.
Speaker 2: I remember when I did Kennedy Center honors for the Eagles,
Speaker 2: when they were honored, and I think I sang peaceful,
Speaker 2: easy feeling and some of life in the fast lane
Speaker 2: and maybe something else, And that might have been the
Speaker 2: moment where Don might have been sitting there going, hey,
Speaker 2: this guy might work. Don told me, he said, you're
Speaker 2: one of the only people I even consider doing this with,
Speaker 2: you know, Deacon obviously, because he was Glenn's son. And
Speaker 2: Don's a big believer in the son of the Father
Speaker 2: and the trade and a big believer in that, and
Speaker 2: so that made sense, you know, And it helped also
Speaker 2: from an emotional place for a lot of people to
Speaker 2: see Glenn's son up there. But I think that was
Speaker 2: maybe when they thought maybe I might be the right guy,
Speaker 2: and I'd had a relationship with everybody in the band.
Speaker 2: Prior to that, you know, Timothy and Joe and Don.
Speaker 2: I'd written some songs with Joe and we played at
Speaker 2: Eric's Crossroad Guitar festivals together, and Timothy came and sang
Speaker 2: on my version of I Can't tell you Why. When
Speaker 2: we did a tribute to the Eagles record Beat Eagles
Speaker 2: Records in the mid nineties. And then Glenn and I
Speaker 2: were golf buddies, and Glenn and I shared Larry Fitzgerald
Speaker 2: as our manager in the years that the Eagles were
Speaker 2: not together between eighty and ninety four, so I was
Speaker 2: friendly with all those guys. And when Irving called Larry
Speaker 2: and said, hey, we're talking about maybe trying this just
Speaker 2: in an experiment, see if it works. Do you think
Speaker 2: Vince would have any interest? And Larry called me said
Speaker 2: what do you think? I said, when do we leave?
Speaker 1: You know it?
Speaker 2: It was a no brainer. You know my favorite and
Speaker 2: you know easily, and I got tapes of me as
Speaker 2: fifteen year old kids singing their songs, and I tell people,
Speaker 2: I said, I was in pure Prairie League, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to be in the Eagles. So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: It was a very easy, yes, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and and.
Speaker 2: And the premise was early on, let's just do a
Speaker 2: few shows and see how everybody takes it, you know,
Speaker 2: And everybody was kind of okay with it, I think
Speaker 2: audience wise, their fan fan base wise and them and
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm kind of of a village idiot.
Speaker 2: I'm cutting up all the time and cracking jokes, and
Speaker 2: I keep it pretty light. So I'm a good bit
Speaker 2: different than maybe what they've experienced in the past with
Speaker 2: the drama.
Speaker 1: Irrelevant of what you play in the set, what are
Speaker 1: your two favorite Eagles songs?
Speaker 2: I would probably say Desperado's my favorite.
Speaker 1: In that.
Speaker 2: When I first started playing with them, I asked, I said, okay,
Speaker 2: shoot me straight. I said, what's the first song you
Speaker 2: and Glenn ever wrote? And he smiled and said Desperado.
Speaker 2: I said, no way. I said, you got to be
Speaker 2: bs and me. You had to write some average songs
Speaker 2: before you wrote Esperando. And he started laughing, No, that's
Speaker 2: the first song we ever wrote. And so I said, moy,
Speaker 2: you talk about meant to be so that one is
Speaker 2: always emotional for me when I hear it. Realizing that
Speaker 2: was the beginning of their partnership, in the beginning of
Speaker 2: that band and what the song was that lifted them off?
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't know, maybe another one might be,
Speaker 2: might be Rocky Mountain Way. In that I was a
Speaker 2: probably a thirteen fourteen year old kid in my room
Speaker 2: learning how to play it, you know, And I was
Speaker 2: a Joe freak. I love James Gang and I loved
Speaker 2: it solo records, and I played that song in every
Speaker 2: garage band I've ever been in, and that's always it's
Speaker 2: always a head scratcher. Look over and go, are you serious?
Speaker 2: You're playing Rocky Mountain Way right now, you know, And
Speaker 2: it's it's not lost on me. How how amazing this
Speaker 2: experience is, you know, I.
Speaker 1: Walk away being grateful. I walk away.
Speaker 2: Learning how important songs are again, you know, and why
Speaker 2: they're them is because their songs are so good, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just.
Speaker 2: Hope that they walk away being feeling the same way
Speaker 2: that they were. They feel good about asking me to
Speaker 2: come do it with them.
Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about glenn and Don writing that National's
Speaker 1: famous for its writing sessions. There's Lennon and McCartney. Although
Speaker 1: it came out one person would write more than the others,
Speaker 1: it went on what's your feeling about writing in terms
Speaker 1: of collaboration.
Speaker 2: I enjoy it, you know, I enjoy seeing you know,
Speaker 2: I think oftentimes I've written plenty of songs that have
Speaker 2: been successful by myself. I've written plenty of songs with
Speaker 2: other people that have been successful, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I remember there's a great joke about Roger Miller. They
Speaker 2: asked him one time, they said, did you ever? Do
Speaker 2: you ever co write? Did Picasso ever co paint? And
Speaker 2: so there's been a lot of people that weren't for it,
Speaker 2: that didn't do it, and I always enjoyed it. I
Speaker 2: enjoyed the process. I enjoy making a new friend. I
Speaker 2: enjoy keeping an old friend.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I got people I've written songs with for forty five
Speaker 2: years that I still write songs with, you know, and
Speaker 2: always will. And brand new people kids that come along
Speaker 2: that have an act for it and have a gift
Speaker 2: for it, and you know, two three heads or sometimes
Speaker 2: maybe better than one.
Speaker 1: Okay, But if you're writing alone, ay, do you take
Speaker 1: it as work like I got an album and I
Speaker 1: got to have songs or are you waiting for inspiration?
Speaker 1: And do you find qualitatively the stuff that's written on
Speaker 1: inspiration different or better than the stuff that you're grinding
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: I think I'm a way different songwriter at sixty nine
Speaker 2: than I was at twenty nine in that I'm willing
Speaker 2: to wait for it. In those early days, I might
Speaker 2: not have been willing to wait for it. When I
Speaker 2: first started playing with Pure Prairie League, I was god.
Speaker 2: I think I was twenty two twenty three years old.
Speaker 2: I was very young. I'd only written seven songs in
Speaker 2: my life and I joined that band. They didn't have
Speaker 2: any songs, and we're going to make a record, and
Speaker 2: they said, do you have any songs? And I said,
Speaker 2: I get some. They cut five of them, and none
Speaker 2: of them were I didn't think any of them were
Speaker 2: that good, but the only options they had, so we
Speaker 2: I wound up getting five of my songs cut on
Speaker 2: this first record. I went, Okay, now I'm a songwriter.
Speaker 2: So that was the start and then where I am today.
Speaker 2: I just love the patience that I have to be
Speaker 2: willing to edit myself. When you're young, you think you
Speaker 2: know everything, so maybe you don't think you need to edit.
Speaker 1: You don't need to. Well that's good. I think that's great.
Speaker 1: But you could.
Speaker 2: You could try and try and try again. I'm in
Speaker 2: here all the time, like singing a vocal on a
Speaker 2: song I wrote, and I'll go, I don't like that
Speaker 2: line that doesn't sing well, so I'll rewrite it and
Speaker 2: find words that sing better, you know, And and all
Speaker 2: those things are a part of the process, and just
Speaker 2: always being willing to edit yourself. You know, I think
Speaker 2: writing a song is no different than writing a book
Speaker 2: or a story in a newspaper or a review or
Speaker 2: what have you. You know, you got to be willing
Speaker 2: to once again edit yourself and go to what do
Speaker 2: I really need to tell this story? I remember there's
Speaker 2: a great songwriter I wrote a song with on one
Speaker 2: of these records, and sadly his name won't come to
Speaker 2: me right now. He's the guy that wrote the house
Speaker 2: that built me for Miranda Lambert, and his name won't
Speaker 2: come to me. And I'm embarrassed. But you know, we
Speaker 2: wrote this song and had one verse in one chorus,
Speaker 2: and we're writing and saying it, and I go, I
Speaker 2: think we're done, Because what do you mean we're done?
Speaker 2: I said, Well, look at the lyric. What else would
Speaker 2: you say?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: The story is told because gosh, you're right, I said,
Speaker 2: Merul Haggard did pretty good with only writing one verse
Speaker 2: to a whole lot of songs. And you know, guys
Speaker 2: like Rodney Crowd, Guy Clark, those are the guys that
Speaker 2: helped teach me to not overdo it, to be willing
Speaker 2: to only say what's necessary. There's a word in there
Speaker 2: that doesn't have the story it has to go, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I think, more than anything, you know, the
Speaker 2: process of writing has evolved over the years. And I
Speaker 2: just thought of Tom Douglas as the guy I was
Speaker 2: trying to think of his name that wrote that song
Speaker 2: with me, and he's a brilliant songwriter. And I'm embarrassed.
Speaker 2: But the old mind ain't what it used to be.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're growing up in Oklahoma in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: Are you a rock guy or a country guy? Both?
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was a chameleon in that I was the youngest
Speaker 2: in my family. So when I was growing up, before
Speaker 2: I could buy my own records, I had my mom
Speaker 2: and dad's records, which were primarily country. My dad liked
Speaker 2: big you know, singers like uh he like Eddie Arnold,
Speaker 2: somebody like that, like crooner's stuff like that. My big
Speaker 2: brother loved the blues, my sister loved pop music, rock
Speaker 2: and roll, and I was drawn to bluegrass and country
Speaker 2: music later. But I never got to buy my own records,
Speaker 2: so I had to listen to everything that in the
Speaker 2: folks in my family chose to pick and play, and
Speaker 2: so that gave me a pretty diverse palette for music
Speaker 2: early on. And I liked everything I was. I was
Speaker 2: responding to everything. When I first had enough money to
Speaker 2: go buy a forty five, probably in grade school, I
Speaker 2: went and bought a Beatles record. I bought Twist and Shout,
Speaker 2: and that's the first record I ever bought with my
Speaker 2: own money. It was either that or They're coming to
Speaker 2: take me away to the Funny Farm. I can't remember
Speaker 2: which one was first, but I'm betting it was the Beatles.
Speaker 2: But you know, I then I got and I liked
Speaker 2: the country music of buck Owens.
Speaker 1: I liked the.
Speaker 2: Merle Haggard and Twang Years stuff more than the smooth stuff.
Speaker 2: You know. I liked it, but that had that edge
Speaker 2: to it, that drive to it that some of it didn't,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think country music in its history
Speaker 2: has always done this pattern of evolving in that sometimes
Speaker 2: it felt like it was embarrassed to be what it was,
Speaker 2: so it tried to go emulate pop music. It tried
Speaker 2: to go emulate Frank Sinatra. Took Ray Charles to make
Speaker 2: a really great record nineteen six called The Modern Sounds
Speaker 2: in Country and Western Music that showed everybody how soulful
Speaker 2: our music was. You know, this beautiful singer Ray Charles
Speaker 2: would take a Hanks Williams song or a Don Gibson
Speaker 2: song or whoever and make it into this soulful, amazing
Speaker 2: piece of work. And it was I think invaluable in
Speaker 2: expanding people's viewpoint of what country music was. I think
Speaker 2: they were always embarrassed about the hey bales and the
Speaker 2: overalls and that kind of stuff. You know that it
Speaker 2: was hicck issuan, It was mountainee and all those things.
Speaker 2: But those are the things I loved about it and
Speaker 2: was drawn to being a teenage bluegrass picker, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden I was immersed in the Stanley Brothers,
Speaker 2: Bill Monroe and learned about murder ballads and all this
Speaker 2: great stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, so I'm growing up in the Northeast. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of political division in the country now,
Speaker 1: but there's more homogenization than ever before. A you're growing
Speaker 1: up in Oklahoma, I'm growing up in Connecticut and the
Speaker 1: New York radio market. There is no country music. Of course,
Speaker 1: of course there's Charlie Rich who crosses over the most
Speaker 1: beautiful girl in the world every once in a while.
Speaker 1: So you're growing up, you know, is your country like
Speaker 1: on the radio you're dialing in, you're listening to that
Speaker 1: as well as Top forty maybe underground FM.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we sure did. And you know, the Grand Old Opry.
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't realize the intention of the
Speaker 2: Grand Old Opry when it started one hundred now one hundred.
Speaker 2: It's in his one hundred and first year of being
Speaker 2: on the air. In nineteen twenty five. It started, and
Speaker 2: it was an insurance company whose moniker was WSM, which
Speaker 2: stood for We Shield Millions. It's an insurance company, and
Speaker 2: their premise was when they started broadcasting music on the radio,
Speaker 2: was to find a way to appeal to rural people
Speaker 2: to sell them insurance. It's not that they had this
Speaker 2: great affinity for country music, can string band music and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. They were trying to sell insurance.
Speaker 2: So it was all about trying to make a buck.
Speaker 2: And so they said, well, what are the rural people like.
Speaker 2: They said, well, they like that fiddle and banjo stuff.
Speaker 2: They really like that, that twangy stuff. And so a
Speaker 2: fiddler named Jimmy Thompson, they brought him into a radio
Speaker 2: or into a hotel room downtown Nashville in nineteen twenty five.
Speaker 2: He played fiddle tunes for thirty minutes to try to
Speaker 2: appeal to the rural people to sell insurance. And that's
Speaker 2: kind of how it got started. So, I mean, we
Speaker 2: listened some to WSM. You know, it was a big,
Speaker 2: big station that carried all across the country because of
Speaker 2: how many, you know, fifty thousand watts station and would
Speaker 2: carry all over And man, I listened to everything I
Speaker 2: always did, and I was you never got to see
Speaker 2: much on television, a little bit, not a ton of music.
Speaker 2: And then Andy Griffiths show had had the Darlings, which
Speaker 2: were the Dillers, and it had Clarence white and Roland
Speaker 2: Whitey were called the Kentucky Colonels and Flatt and scrub
Speaker 2: Us on the Beverly Hillbillies. And little by little you
Speaker 2: discover some of this stuff that I really liked, you know,
Speaker 2: I love the sound. My dad played the banjo, but
Speaker 2: not like Earl Scruggs. He played more of a PC
Speaker 2: or folk style of banjo, and that's what I heard
Speaker 2: as a little boy. And then when I heard Earl
Speaker 2: take off on a banjo, I.
Speaker 1: Go, I'm all about that. That's pretty cool sounded. So
Speaker 1: when did you start to play, and did you start
Speaker 1: on the piano or on a guitar.
Speaker 2: I started. I don't remember not playing, so I can't
Speaker 2: lay claim to say. And I started playing guitar when
Speaker 2: I was seven. My mom has a picture of me
Speaker 2: and sleeping on the couch, face down. I'm about a
Speaker 2: year and a half, maybe two years old, and I'm
Speaker 2: asleep on the couch and I have my arm around
Speaker 2: a little, tiny parlor guitar. So I knew I was
Speaker 2: beaten on one as soon as I could walk. And
Speaker 2: I took piano lessons from a little old lady down
Speaker 2: the street and that didn't take I took violin lessons
Speaker 2: in grade school, and I just wanted to play the guitar,
Speaker 2: and those things fell by the wayside, and I kind
Speaker 2: of regret not learning to read, not learning to maybe
Speaker 2: play the piano. I think it would have served me
Speaker 2: well being able to play the piano, being a songwriter
Speaker 2: and the wealth of what's available to you at a
Speaker 2: piano keyboard is amazing. But the funny thing about I
Speaker 2: always tell the story the picture of me from my
Speaker 2: arm around that little guitar when I was year and
Speaker 2: a half two years old, was I was wearing a
Speaker 2: dress in the picture. But that's another show. But all
Speaker 2: I know is I was meant to play, and it's
Speaker 2: all I ever did.
Speaker 1: So you didn't go to college, but your father was
Speaker 1: a judge. What do you say about that?
Speaker 2: Well, because he was a musician. I think I fulfilled
Speaker 2: some of his dreams by going off and playing music.
Speaker 2: And I remember my mom got interviewed some years back
Speaker 2: and they asked her the same question. They said, did
Speaker 2: it bother you that your son didn't take a more traditional,
Speaker 2: you know route and go get a good education and get.
Speaker 1: A good job. And she say, no, I didn't bother me.
Speaker 2: She said, I didn't care anything about having a rich kid,
Speaker 2: but I sure cared about having a happy kid. That
Speaker 2: music always made him happy. She would tell stories about
Speaker 2: me coming home being mad about losing a baseball game
Speaker 2: or this and that and kicking my way upstairs and
Speaker 2: muttering and being mad. She said, about ten minutes of
Speaker 2: playing that guitar and you were fine. So it was
Speaker 2: like the best friend I ever had, that guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, are you self taught completely? Pretty much?
Speaker 2: I took some lessons from a guy in Oklahoma City
Speaker 2: when I was probably in junior high school maybe, and
Speaker 2: he didn't teach me a lot, you know, he just
Speaker 2: would show me songs, but most of the time he
Speaker 2: would smoke a cigar and talk on the phone during
Speaker 2: my lesson. Yeah that sounds good, Keep keep playing that,
Speaker 2: you know, and he just you know, interrupted his phone
Speaker 2: calling play that again, you know.
Speaker 1: And I learned.
Speaker 2: I learned a few songs from going to take lessons
Speaker 2: from him. But my ears were really the gift of
Speaker 2: gifts and that they heard what it was that I
Speaker 2: needed to do, and they informed me, they taught me,
Speaker 2: and just repetition. I mean, we didn't have the Internet
Speaker 2: to look at and the YouTube to look at and
Speaker 2: see how so and so played that lick.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We had to dig it out of the out of
Speaker 2: our brains. And I remember years ago I was playing
Speaker 2: a show with James Burton, great guitar player, played with Elvis,
Speaker 2: Ricky Nelson and Emmy lou and one of my telecaster heroes.
Speaker 2: And we were playing a song that I'd heard him
Speaker 2: play a thousand times and I looked over and he's
Speaker 2: playing it. I go, oh, he's playing it on the
Speaker 2: third and fourth string, not the second and third strings.
Speaker 2: And I heard it and I'd played it on the
Speaker 2: second and third strings. I moved it up and started, Oh,
Speaker 2: that's why it sounds like it sounds. It was always missing,
Speaker 2: just this little detail, you know. And it was one
Speaker 2: more open string ringing from playing on the third and
Speaker 2: four strings than the second and third strings. It was
Speaker 2: pretty informative. And so yeah, we didn't have all that.
Speaker 2: And you know, people say, what do you like better?
Speaker 2: What do you think is your best gift? You're playing
Speaker 2: or you singing? I go, it's my hearing, you know.
Speaker 2: My hearing has informed all of it. Being able to
Speaker 2: differentiate what it is that someone's doing that I could
Speaker 2: learn it.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a little older than you. I remember the
Speaker 1: early sixties folk boom. Everybody got a nylon string guitar,
Speaker 1: sing Peter Paul and Mary the Beatles, hit. Everybody got
Speaker 1: an electric guitar, formed band? You're playing guitar? What's the
Speaker 1: next step? Are you playing at school assemblies? Do you
Speaker 1: form a band? How does it go well?
Speaker 2: I think the first place I went and played was
Speaker 2: it in grade school. They let me come over and
Speaker 2: I played the House of the Rising Sun. And so
Speaker 2: I'm in grade school. I'm singing, singing songs about catouses
Speaker 2: or whatever, and I knew the die was cast and
Speaker 2: I was meant to be a hillbilly singer. And and
Speaker 2: then I got into uh seventh grade, and my friend
Speaker 2: Benny and I we had a little trio and we
Speaker 2: were learning Sunshine of Your Love, anything that was going
Speaker 2: on in the day, and and and playing, and so
Speaker 2: I was. I had my first electric guitar when I
Speaker 2: was ten, So that was that was a pretty great gift.
Speaker 2: I still have it to this day. It's a Gibson
Speaker 2: E S three thirty five.
Speaker 1: Okay, nice guitar.
Speaker 2: So I had a great instrument to learn on, you know.
Speaker 2: And and what was your ramp? I had a Fender
Speaker 2: Super Reverb. I had high tools, you know, And I
Speaker 2: had no idea at the time, but anyway, we started
Speaker 2: playing those garage bands. And then when I was about
Speaker 2: uh fifteen or sixteen, I went out. I had broken
Speaker 2: a string on my father's banjo, and I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to fix it, and I knew I was going
Speaker 2: to catch Hell when he came home. So my mom said,
Speaker 2: there's a guy two blocks a way that fixed this
Speaker 2: banchos and plays and he'd probably be able to fix
Speaker 2: it for you. All that was was changing a string,
Speaker 2: and I didn't know how to change a banjo string.
Speaker 2: So I went over and he fixed it, and he goes,
Speaker 2: he ever played any bluegrass? And I said, Noah. His
Speaker 2: name was Charlie Clark, and he said, my son, Bobby's
Speaker 2: a real good musician as a bluegrass band. They just
Speaker 2: lost their lead singer and played in and I said,
Speaker 2: I've never played any bluegrass, and he shoved an acoustic
Speaker 2: guitar in my hand, and I started trying to learn
Speaker 2: to play bluegrass, started playing in Bobby's band, and that
Speaker 2: band was called The Bluegrass Review, And I started playing
Speaker 2: bluegrass festivals and loved it.
Speaker 1: Just loved flat.
Speaker 2: Picking and hearing guys like Clarence White, Tony Rice, all
Speaker 2: these great musicians. Sam Bush had new Grass Revival going.
Speaker 2: Then I was in another band in high school called
Speaker 2: Mountain Smoke, and that's the first record I ever made.
Speaker 2: I was seventeen and they decided to make a record,
Speaker 2: and we made a record. And I'm driving through Oklahoma
Speaker 2: City one day and lo and behold, one of the
Speaker 2: radio stations played a song that I played banjo on
Speaker 2: and sang. I was the lead singer on that particular song.
Speaker 2: And I got on my Cbee radio and I'm yelling,
Speaker 2: hey man, they're playing our song on the radio. Never
Speaker 2: got to hear myself on the radio. And these truckers
Speaker 2: are coming back. You sound good, kid, Hang in there,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: And so it was.
Speaker 2: It was amazing that the first record I ever made
Speaker 2: got played by somebody, and it gave me this really
Speaker 2: beautiful sense of hope. If you try, maybe you never know,
Speaker 2: you know. And so that hope has never really dwindled
Speaker 2: and never faded. And I still, you know, every time
Speaker 2: I write a song or make a record, I hope
Speaker 2: somebody responds. Doesn't have to be a lot. Okay, so
Speaker 2: you're playing you have this experience. Do you know from
Speaker 2: a young age, I'm going to be a professional musician
Speaker 2: or does the light bulb go off, because you're gonna
Speaker 2: graduate from high school. Oh, I knew when I was
Speaker 2: fifteen what I was gonna do. You know, I'm lucky.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of kids go to school not
Speaker 2: having any idea what they want to do. But at
Speaker 2: fifteen somebody. First gig I ever got was this little
Speaker 2: club had a little three piece man that we went
Speaker 2: down there and played, and this lady said she'd pay
Speaker 2: us one hundred bucks. And so we played and went
Speaker 2: down there and we got done with the night and
Speaker 2: we went to get paid. She goes, I'm not paying you.
Speaker 2: I said, well, ma'am, you said you'd pay us one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks. She goes, well, I don't care what I said.
Speaker 2: I'm not paying you. I said, okay, my dad's a lawyer.
Speaker 2: I said, you're going to hear from me. And I
Speaker 2: had the guts to go take this woman to court.
Speaker 2: So we get in small claims court. My dad's course,
Speaker 2: didn't go with me, and I'm before the judge and
Speaker 2: he said, son, I see here here today for services
Speaker 2: rendered of one hundred dollars of playing a gig at
Speaker 2: her club. And I said, yes, sir, And he said,
Speaker 2: are you aware that she's countersuing you for libel and
Speaker 2: slander and defamation that carries this whole laundry list of stuff.
Speaker 2: And I go, no, I was not aware of that.
Speaker 2: And he goes son, he said, you want some advice.
Speaker 2: I said, yes, sir, and he goes, chuck this one
Speaker 2: up to experience and get out of my court. So
Speaker 2: even though I got stiffed on the first paying gig
Speaker 2: I was ever going to get, I still did it,
Speaker 2: you know. And what's funniest is it never mattered what
Speaker 2: I made, you know, I just love getting to do it.
Speaker 2: If I could keep the rent paid. I left home
Speaker 2: at eighteen, got out of high school and joined a
Speaker 2: band up in Louisville, Kentucky and called the Bluegrass Alliance
Speaker 2: and pretty well known bluegrass group in the day. And
Speaker 2: I rented a room in this guy's house named Harry
Speaker 2: Bikele and my rent was only fifteen dollars a month,
Speaker 2: and we made a couple hundred bucks a week and
Speaker 2: we played the club and so I was set. I go, man,
Speaker 2: I don't need to make much. It's fine, and I'm
Speaker 2: doing what I love and I'm paying the rent, eating
Speaker 2: and I'm it felt successful even at eighteen just being
Speaker 2: able to pay the rent. And it's kind of been
Speaker 2: my mantra the whole time. If I pay the rent,
Speaker 2: I'm good.
Speaker 1: Okay, you grew up in Oklahoma, so they say the
Speaker 1: internet works everywhere, cable TV, whatever, But that's not the
Speaker 1: era you and me grew up in. You've been around
Speaker 1: the United States. What's the difference between Oklahoma and other places.
Speaker 2: Well, golly, you know, Oklahoma's not southern. It's not the South,
Speaker 2: it's not the it's not the West, it's not the Northeast.
Speaker 2: It's it's an area that I think people understood how
Speaker 2: hard work was the only way to make it work,
Speaker 2: you know. And they dug a living out of the dirt.
Speaker 2: They were very practical. They were common sensical. Everything I
Speaker 2: did when I was a kid with my mom and dad,
Speaker 2: if it better make common sense, or you were going
Speaker 2: to catch hell, you know. So I lived in an
Speaker 2: environment of whatever you did better make sense, you know.
Speaker 2: And so that's how I grew up. And everybody's kind
Speaker 2: of matter of fact and honest. And I like the
Speaker 2: people from Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I left the long time ago. I was only there
Speaker 2: for eighteen years. But when I go back and I
Speaker 2: get my feet in that red dirt across the borderline
Speaker 2: and get into where I'm from.
Speaker 1: It just there's a.
Speaker 2: Feeling like I can't explain, just you know, Ani M
Speaker 2: said it there's no place like home, or Dorothy said
Speaker 2: it wasn't any m.
Speaker 1: Well, how did your family end up in Oklahoma?
Speaker 2: I think my dad my mom was born in Kansas,
Speaker 2: just farm country and grew up on a farm and
Speaker 2: watched them go through hard times, depression and dust bowl
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. They knew hard times. And my dad,
Speaker 2: I think was born in that was actually born in Kansas,
Speaker 2: and my mom's mother, my dad's mother actually knew each
Speaker 2: other in Kansas and wound up in Oklahoma after they
Speaker 2: got married. And I don't know all the details, but
Speaker 2: my mom was married once prior to me being born
Speaker 2: to my dad and had my brother Bob in her
Speaker 2: first marriage and he's twelve years older than me. And
Speaker 2: my mom and dad got married and had myself and
Speaker 2: my sister. Yeah, it just, you know, it felt normal.
Speaker 2: That's what I liked about Oklahoma. It felt real normal.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now you're living in Nashville, you're playing in
Speaker 1: the Bluegrass Alliance. Let's be clear, it's country, but it's
Speaker 1: still sex, drugs and rock and roll A. To what
Speaker 1: degree was that appealing? B to what degreed did you experience?
Speaker 1: And see what was your viewpoint on all of that?
Speaker 2: Well, I like two out of three. I never You
Speaker 2: know what's funny, I never did any drugs. I've never
Speaker 2: smoked pot. And most people hear me say that and
Speaker 2: don't believe it. My own my own son Matt, when
Speaker 2: Amy and I got married, he said to me one time,
Speaker 2: he goes, you smoke a lot of dope, don't you.
Speaker 2: I started laughing. I go, dude, I've never smoked any dope.
Speaker 2: He goes, I think you're high right now, I said,
Speaker 2: I swear I have never smoked any pot. I'm really
Speaker 2: easy going, real chill, and I can see why you
Speaker 2: would think that, but I never I never was too
Speaker 2: interested in it. One of the reasons was I saw
Speaker 2: the effects of drinking and driving with what happened to
Speaker 2: my brother. He had a really severe car wreck at
Speaker 2: twenty one, and I was just a kid, and he
Speaker 2: was in a coma and had brain injury for three
Speaker 2: months and then struggled the rest of his life and
Speaker 2: kind of hoboed around and lived in the mission, and
Speaker 2: he disappeared for long periods of time and then come
Speaker 2: back home and disappear again. And he finally came home
Speaker 2: a couple of years before he passed and said he
Speaker 2: was done traveling and didn't want to mess around with that.
Speaker 2: My mom would always you find him a place and
Speaker 2: cheer him on, help him out, get him a car
Speaker 2: or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it was.
Speaker 2: I saw what that could do. So I think that
Speaker 2: subliminally it might have kind of led me down a
Speaker 2: path that I didn't want to. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: take that chance. I didn't want to cause that kind
Speaker 2: of hurt and my folks and disappointment and whatever. And
Speaker 2: so I jumped in with both feet and I, you know,
Speaker 2: I experienced a good life, you know, and I don't
Speaker 2: regret any of it, even the mistakes I made. I'm
Speaker 2: willing to accept them because I learned something.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're going to school. There are some people who
Speaker 1: go to school. They're the life of the party, they're
Speaker 1: the quarterback on the football team, they have sex, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And there are other people on the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum. You go on the road to what degree
Speaker 1: are you sexually experienced and to what degree do you
Speaker 1: handle you know, the nature of you're on stage. There
Speaker 1: are people who are attracted to that. That's just you
Speaker 1: don't have to do much of anything.
Speaker 2: So what was your experience, Well, it was it was
Speaker 2: intense in that it was a it was a free
Speaker 2: stretch of life and anything went, and I went with
Speaker 2: anything went, you know, and and all of that, and
Speaker 2: I don't know just kind of the way it was,
Speaker 2: you know, and you just just accepted whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of anybody was willing to want to do.
Speaker 1: I guess, you know. I I part I partook plenty
Speaker 1: and had.
Speaker 2: A had a crazy life at times, but it was
Speaker 2: never never the center of everything. You know, It's oftentimes
Speaker 2: where you'd like things to wind up, but it was
Speaker 2: still focused on playing, focused on going to hear some
Speaker 2: great music at a club, focused on listening to a
Speaker 2: new record somebody made. I love the years that I
Speaker 2: lived in California. I moved out there and when I
Speaker 2: was nineteen, end of nineteen seventy six and just loved
Speaker 2: being near the ocean and being around the musicianship that
Speaker 2: was out there. And you could go to a club
Speaker 2: and hear Robin Ford do you go to a club
Speaker 2: and hear Larry Carlton. You could go to a club
Speaker 2: and here's some of the best musicians you'd ever heard
Speaker 2: in your life. And what I liked about it it
Speaker 2: was how much wider my experience became musically when I
Speaker 2: got out there. It wasn't it wasn't only just the
Speaker 2: bluegrass world. And I loved my bluegrass, but I don't
Speaker 2: think it was ever quite enough to hold me.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I liked trying to play soulful guitar and ben strings
Speaker 2: and those things. I like country picking guitar, chicken picking guitar,
Speaker 2: I liked flat picking guitar, I liked I liked all
Speaker 2: of it. Liked R and B, I liked soulful stuff,
Speaker 2: and so man, I just all I ever wanted it
Speaker 2: to be was authentic with whatever I was doing. If
Speaker 2: I was singing a soul song, I wanted soulful people
Speaker 2: to think, Hey, that guy's a soulful singer.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you've been should struggle earlier. Some people
Speaker 1: live somewhat of a charm life, but most musicians it's
Speaker 1: not a root straight to the top. So once you
Speaker 1: start playing as a professional and you moved to California.
Speaker 1: Are things falling in place? Or are you frustrated now?
Speaker 2: It was generally I always felt good about what I
Speaker 2: was doing, you know, and even if I was in
Speaker 2: a supporting cast role and not the focal point, that
Speaker 2: didn't bother me. I like just being part of the process.
Speaker 2: And I think that when I first started making my
Speaker 2: own records as a solo artist, I struggled, but I
Speaker 2: didn't mind struggling because I didn't have to be successful
Speaker 2: to survive. Because I was a decent enough musician, a
Speaker 2: decent enough session player, just enough decent enough session singer
Speaker 2: that I could work on people's records and make a living.
Speaker 2: So my end all to end all didn't have to
Speaker 2: be and hit records.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It eventually happened, and I was grateful when it finally did,
Speaker 2: but it didn't. It was not the reason. You know,
Speaker 2: And I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but
Speaker 2: when I was young, I was the one that studied
Speaker 2: the back of records, who played on this I would buy.
Speaker 2: I would buy albums from people I didn't even know
Speaker 2: who they were because I saw a guitar player I
Speaker 2: admired that maybe played on that record, so well, maybe
Speaker 2: I'll check out what he did and learn something. And
Speaker 2: and so that led me down a path of once
Speaker 2: again not needing to be the focal point. Was was
Speaker 2: pretty helpful. I knew I was good enough that if
Speaker 2: I didn't have hits, I could go play in somebody's band.
Speaker 2: I got offered a job in dire Straits in the
Speaker 2: late eighties by Mark Knunflirt.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, wait, you're talking about when they go on
Speaker 1: the last tour. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And and he came to see me play in New
Speaker 2: York City and he called me and he goes, hey,
Speaker 2: would you have any interest in coming and being in
Speaker 2: dire Straits. We're going on this world tour. And and
Speaker 2: you know, I'm struggling to pay for the house. It
Speaker 2: would have solved every financial problem I had. And at
Speaker 2: the same time, I was changing from RCAA Records to
Speaker 2: MCAA Records. I was going to go to work with
Speaker 2: my old friend Tony Brown, and I was being given
Speaker 2: a new shot. And I called him. I said, man,
Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm saying this, but I'm going
Speaker 2: to say no. He said why, I said, Well, he said,
Speaker 2: I'm getting ready to get a new shot at a
Speaker 2: new record company, and my ears tell me I'm good
Speaker 2: enough to be a part of this country music world.
Speaker 2: And if I don't bet on me, then I can't
Speaker 2: expect anybody else to. And if I take this job,
Speaker 2: it'll kind of be an admittance of failure for the
Speaker 2: last seven years, and I'm not sure I can do
Speaker 2: that to myself. So I'm gonna take a chance and
Speaker 2: make a new record and see if I can flip
Speaker 2: this thing. And lo and behold, I got lucky, and
Speaker 2: I did, but it wasn't really, it didn't happen right away.
Speaker 2: I'd released two singles from my first MCA record. One
Speaker 2: was a duet with Reeba and the other was a
Speaker 2: song I'd written with Roseanne Cash, which she also got,
Speaker 2: called Never Alone. And both of those singles did okay,
Speaker 2: but kind of a lot like the rest of my
Speaker 2: singles had done, you know, didn't find their way into
Speaker 2: the top ten or become a big smash, any of
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And then the third single was
Speaker 2: when I Call Your Name, and that's when everything flipped,
Speaker 2: everything changed, and that's the song that caught fire.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a step. How'd you end up in
Speaker 1: Pure Prairie League, and what were your thoughts. It is
Speaker 1: a band that had one Well, there's basically the same songs,
Speaker 1: two songs falling in out of Loving Amy that were
Speaker 1: never really singles, and the guy who wrote it was
Speaker 1: no longer in the band exactly. So how did this
Speaker 1: come to be and what were your thoughts about it? Well?
Speaker 2: I first met those guys when I was in high
Speaker 2: school and our band that I was in, Mountain Small,
Speaker 2: opened a show for them, and when they played in
Speaker 2: Oklahoma City in probably nineteen seventy four, and Amy had
Speaker 2: all of a sudden caught fire. You know, the original
Speaker 2: story of Amy. It was recorded in the early seventies,
Speaker 2: and then the band was dropped from the label and
Speaker 2: Craig had gone on to moved to Canada and left
Speaker 2: the band Craig Fuller who wrote and sang Amy. And
Speaker 2: then in the like seventy four or five, I can't
Speaker 2: remember what it was, this song catches fire with college
Speaker 2: radio stations all across the country, starts blowing up and
Speaker 2: becoming this big song, and so they go back and
Speaker 2: re sign the band to the record deal. They don't
Speaker 2: have Craig and his voice and his songs to follow
Speaker 2: up Amy with I think they would have probably had
Speaker 2: a bigger career had they had Craig. And so I'm
Speaker 2: living out in California. It's nineteen seventy eight, I think,
Speaker 2: and I was playing with Byron Berline, great fiddle player.
Speaker 2: Hired me to come out there, and a friend of
Speaker 2: mine called me up and said, hey, I'm going up
Speaker 2: to sir to audition for Pure Prairie League. You want
Speaker 2: to go? I go, sure, man, I'll go along with you.
Speaker 2: I said, I opened a show for those guys when
Speaker 2: I was in high school, and I'll just I'll go
Speaker 2: with you. It'd be fun to see him again. And
Speaker 2: so I went up there and he did his audition
Speaker 2: and they introduced myself and they said, aren't you that
Speaker 2: kid from Oklahoma that plays all the instruments? And I said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's me. And they said will you be interested in
Speaker 2: this gig? And my friend's looking at me like thanks
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, and I said, no, I'm probably
Speaker 2: not playing with a guy firing here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 2: and I really like it. And they said, well, come
Speaker 2: up and jam with us tomorrow. Bring your stuff and
Speaker 2: come up and jam with us. So I went up
Speaker 2: there and I got to play play my guitar really
Speaker 2: loud and have some fun, and I said, well, maybe
Speaker 2: I will do this, you know. So I quit Byron
Speaker 2: and started playing with them, and we did three three records,
Speaker 2: I think three albums, and had one pretty good hit,
Speaker 2: let Me Love You Tonight nineteen eighty somewhat of a
Speaker 2: pop hit, and so that that was fun. He got
Speaker 2: me on an American Bandstand and solid Gold and a
Speaker 2: bunch of TV shows like Mike Douglas and Merv Griffin
Speaker 2: and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert and great learning experience for
Speaker 2: me to learn about the record industry a little bit
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. And I wouldn't trade
Speaker 2: it for nothing. Good guys.
Speaker 1: Okay, Traditionally country has not been a catalog business. It's
Speaker 1: all been new frontline stuff. But in the Internet era,
Speaker 1: everything's completely different because everything you ever made is available
Speaker 1: at this late date. To what degree are your royalties
Speaker 1: significant from both publishing and now granted you did not
Speaker 1: only write songs for your own records, but in terms
Speaker 1: of record royalties and publishing royalties, how are those streams?
Speaker 2: I would think they're probably a good bit less than
Speaker 2: they used to be, but I would, you know, it'd
Speaker 2: be hard to compare because I haven't had a big
Speaker 2: number one record in twenty five years, twenty six years,
Speaker 2: something like that, so what I would know is minimal.
Speaker 2: I do know that it's the royalty rate. The digital
Speaker 2: royalty rate is somewhat unfair, you know, in comparison to
Speaker 2: what it used to be for terrestrial radio. And if
Speaker 2: some of those things could find their way to get fixed,
Speaker 2: it might might really benefit the songwriting community for there
Speaker 2: to be a little more shackles for evite has spread around.
Speaker 1: Do you still own all your rights? Pretty much?
Speaker 2: I partnered up with a guy named Jody Williams not
Speaker 2: too long ago, and like I said, the hit records
Speaker 2: had kind of faded away, and he called me one
Speaker 2: and I'd never had a publisher. I published myself because
Speaker 2: I had a place for all my songs and didn't
Speaker 2: see the need to split the money. And I wasn't
Speaker 2: keen on really pushing my songs to other people, and
Speaker 2: so I just kept them for myself and recorded him
Speaker 2: and had a great run and did well. But he
Speaker 2: called me four or five years ago and he said,
Speaker 2: you've never had anybody manage your songwriting. He said, I
Speaker 2: think you still have a lot to offer as a songwriter.
Speaker 2: Would you consider letting me manage your songwriting.
Speaker 1: For a while?
Speaker 2: I said, sure, it sounds like fun. And I'd known
Speaker 2: him for forty plus years and was a great friend.
Speaker 2: And so that turned into man a treasure trove of
Speaker 2: me being creative and writing a bunch of new songs.
Speaker 1: I wrote.
Speaker 2: I've probably written one hundred and fifty hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five songs in the last four or five years, and
Speaker 2: I've got to telling myself, well, you should. You should
Speaker 2: get busy and put some of this stuff out, you know.
Speaker 2: So everybody likes a lot of content these days. And
Speaker 2: so I went in and I recorded over seventy songs
Speaker 2: and found a way to put them all out with
Speaker 2: these EPs. I'm doing an EP a month for a year,
Speaker 2: and it's the most creative stretch I've ever gone through.
Speaker 2: And I love it because I really like the songs
Speaker 2: and I think I'm doing quality work.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the EPs are coming out once a month,
Speaker 1: but all the stuff on the EPs was recorded in
Speaker 1: that seventy song burst, yes, sir, So nothing beyond that.
Speaker 1: It's just a matter of putting it out this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I try to stay ahead of the next EP,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I've got six of them out. I
Speaker 2: just finished last week mixing number seven. It's coming out
Speaker 2: May eighth, and so I just keep myself ahead of
Speaker 2: the next one coming out. And I'm loving the process.
Speaker 2: I'm working harder than I've ever worked, probably in my life.
Speaker 2: But at this point I realized I don't have as
Speaker 2: much time to be creative left as I've had to
Speaker 2: this point. So it matters so much more to me
Speaker 2: now than maybe it ever did. So I really want
Speaker 2: to take advantage of still having my faculty, still being
Speaker 2: able to sing as well as I ever did and
Speaker 2: play as well as I ever did. Songs are cool,
Speaker 2: So I'm having a ball.
Speaker 1: To what degree do you view these because you set
Speaker 1: it up, you're working with the gentlemen publishing. To what
Speaker 1: degree do you see them as publishing demos or as
Speaker 1: songs themselves?
Speaker 2: I see them as masters. They're being released by MCA Records,
Speaker 2: and I signed a lifetime deal with them not too
Speaker 2: long ago.
Speaker 1: They win What the hell is a lifetime deal?
Speaker 2: They just said, we want you for the rest of
Speaker 2: your life. If you have something you record you want
Speaker 2: to put out, we want to be the ones to
Speaker 2: put it out. And it's to me, it's a testament
Speaker 2: to the loyalty we've had for each other for thirty
Speaker 2: seven years.
Speaker 1: Now. You know, okay, you know in California there's a
Speaker 1: question of legality. You signed a piece of paper, say I,
Speaker 1: then skill and betrothed to MCA Records till if pass
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 2: But they but they also have in there that if
Speaker 2: if they don't want to put it out, you can
Speaker 2: do whatever you want to with it. So it's more
Speaker 2: than fair and more than reasonable. And I don't know
Speaker 2: all the detail. I played the guitar. My dad was
Speaker 2: a lawyer, but I wasn't.
Speaker 1: Let's go back. We were talking about the royalties and
Speaker 1: you said you weren't sure. Are you just being evasive
Speaker 1: or are you no? You don't really know where your
Speaker 1: money is and.
Speaker 2: What's going on to a point, but I know what
Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, and I know I don't
Speaker 2: know a lot about the financial world. And I'm not
Speaker 2: an investor. I don't play the stocks, I don't do
Speaker 2: anything risky. I'm just grateful for the money I've made
Speaker 2: playing music. Well, who's managing your money. Then I've had
Speaker 2: the same same business manager for forty two years now.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, the money can't sit in the bank.
Speaker 1: You're losing money on the money. You must have investments.
Speaker 1: At some times.
Speaker 2: We're doing a few things, but it's not once again,
Speaker 2: it's like in bonds and municipal bonds and things like
Speaker 2: that that are not risky and not safe. And we
Speaker 2: don't go out and take a flyer and take a
Speaker 2: bunch of money and throw at somebody that says they
Speaker 2: can make a bunch of money.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm not much of it. I'm not a.
Speaker 2: I hate it just sounds stupid to say, but I'm
Speaker 2: not that interested in money, you know. I like cheering
Speaker 2: my friends on, helping my friends out when they need help.
Speaker 2: And and I know I'm in good shape. Every now
Speaker 2: and then I would get a little I'd go a
Speaker 2: little crazy buying old guitars, you know. And I spent
Speaker 2: a fortune buying old guitarist And my buddy Chuck, who
Speaker 2: was he passed away a couple of years ago, that
Speaker 2: was the head of the management business management company. He
Speaker 2: would call me and he would put me in time out.
Speaker 2: He said, you're you're going a little bit crazy and
Speaker 2: you're spending too much money on guitars. And I said, okay,
Speaker 2: so I'd be on being time out for a while.
Speaker 2: Then he calls say, you're okay if you want to
Speaker 2: go get something. And then when I ten years ago,
Speaker 2: I started playing with with with the boys, and he'd
Speaker 2: called me one time and he goes, I see you
Speaker 2: just bought a guitar, and I go yeah, and he goes,
Speaker 2: you can buy whatever you want. You're playing with those guys. Now,
Speaker 2: you're fine.
Speaker 1: How many guitars do you own? Oh, probably two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty. And where are they?
Speaker 2: They're right around the corner. They're all in my studio
Speaker 2: here at the house.
Speaker 1: Okay. Collecting guitar is totally different. In the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: English musicians come to America, go to pawn shops wherever
Speaker 1: they were. Now everything nothing's rare anymore. Everything's available online. Ay,
Speaker 1: how do you decide what to buy?
Speaker 2: Well, there are certain examples that you know are collectible,
Speaker 2: you know are desirable, that you know are rare, and
Speaker 2: all those things kind of factor into it, and they
Speaker 2: also affect the price. You know, there's plenty of instruments
Speaker 2: out there that are in the high six figures that
Speaker 2: you'll pay for them if you want to buy one,
Speaker 2: and that you know it's because they're scarce. It's because
Speaker 2: they're completely desirable, and they sound better than just about
Speaker 2: anything you can ever play. So I've i've, i've, I've
Speaker 2: bitten the bullet a time or two on things that
Speaker 2: I never would have expected I would have spent that
Speaker 2: much money on.
Speaker 1: Getting the money. Yeah, did the instrument live up to
Speaker 1: the rep.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But I know what I'm looking for too. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't buy for quantity. I've never bought a guitar
Speaker 2: that didn't speak to me, that didn't play well and
Speaker 2: sound well and inspire me. What's cool about all of
Speaker 2: these instruments is they have songs in them, they have
Speaker 2: melodies in them, they have music in them. And so
Speaker 2: I'm a collector of sorts, but I'm also a player.
Speaker 2: So I'm taking these things that oftentimes would wind up
Speaker 2: in a glass case and never be heard again, and
Speaker 2: I'm letting them continue to livet letting them continue to
Speaker 2: do what they were intended to do, was to make music.
Speaker 2: And so I can't think of anything I could have
Speaker 2: done wiser or smarter with my money. I get to
Speaker 2: write them off my taxes and they appreciate value. And
Speaker 2: there's no risk, you know, unless the guitar market tank someday,
Speaker 2: which it never really has, and I don't know that
Speaker 2: it ever will.
Speaker 1: So what are you on the lookout for now? I
Speaker 1: have no clue. Just it just shows up.
Speaker 2: And there's a bunch of these cats around the country
Speaker 2: that that know me and know what I like to
Speaker 2: buy and this, and that they find me so I
Speaker 2: don't have to look real hard. They come knocking on
Speaker 2: my email very very frequently.
Speaker 1: And are you like a Gibson or a Fender guy
Speaker 1: or your.
Speaker 2: Dem all of the above, Gibbs, Gibson, Fender, Martin, you
Speaker 2: name it. There's so many great makers, Gretch, you know,
Speaker 2: tons of great stuff, you know, and some of this
Speaker 2: stuff is over one hundred years old that I've collected,
Speaker 2: and you know, they're just they're beautiful. There's just something
Speaker 2: magical about an instrument that you can buy something that
Speaker 2: you can make a joyful noise on. You know, they're special.
Speaker 1: So everyone is different. But what are your three to
Speaker 1: five go tos?
Speaker 2: I have a white Fender telecaster that I bought in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy eight. It's the first Fender guitar I think
Speaker 2: I ever bought, and I didn't pay very much money
Speaker 2: for it. I got it for four hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Did you buy it newer? Use? Now? I bought it used?
Speaker 1: So what year I mean because CBS bought in the
Speaker 1: middle of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the late sixties they bought the Fender company.
Speaker 2: This was nineteen fifty three when they first started making instruments.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty I think, is when they started making guitars.
Speaker 2: And you know, I just I got a love for him.
Speaker 2: And if what's interesting about is an instrument is it
Speaker 2: will inspire you to play it the way it wants
Speaker 2: to be played. You can't just force yourself on an instrument.
Speaker 2: You have to let it do what it wants to do.
Speaker 1: Too. There's a there's a neat balance in that. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's the way telecaster? What else?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Martin D twenty eight that was made in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty two. When I moved away from home, I
Speaker 2: had a newer Martin that was okay, it wasn't great.
Speaker 2: And when I moved away from home, moved to Louisville.
Speaker 2: I wanted an old, pre war Martin guitar because that's
Speaker 2: what all self respecting bluegrass players wanted to play. And
Speaker 2: I found this guitar at a bluegrass festival. And I'm
Speaker 2: eighteen and I found this guitar, and in nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: it was twenty five hundred dollars. I had a big
Speaker 2: sign on the side of the case and that was
Speaker 2: top of the mark in that it would have been
Speaker 2: by a mile. And I asked the guy, I said, man,
Speaker 2: can I see that guitar, because can you afford it?
Speaker 2: I said, probably not, that's sure, like to see it.
Speaker 2: Opened the case up. It was beautiful condition, and it
Speaker 2: was made nineteen forty twos. It was thirty thirty three
Speaker 2: years old at that point. And I said, was you
Speaker 2: consider a trade, because not an even trade, but if
Speaker 2: you'll give me your guitar and give me sixteen hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty bucks, I'll trade you. I said, okay. So
Speaker 2: I wrote him a check for sixteen hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 2: And that was all the money I'd saved from all
Speaker 2: my gigs, my college fund, everything i'd save for my future.
Speaker 2: I spent on that guitar. And I told you earlier.
Speaker 2: My I rent was fifteen dollars a month, so I
Speaker 2: wrote him a check. I was dead broke, had no money,
Speaker 2: but I only had to pay fifteen bucks a month,
Speaker 2: and I could make a couple hundred bucks when I
Speaker 2: got when the band worked, and so I said, I'll
Speaker 2: be all right. So I started out dead broke, and
Speaker 2: I had a great pre war instrument that I still
Speaker 2: have to this day. And that's a precious My first one.
Speaker 2: I told you about my Gibson three thirty five and
Speaker 2: I got when I was ten, is precious, sentimental everge.
Speaker 2: When I was, you know, nineteen twenty twenty one, i'd
Speaker 2: occasionally call my old man say I'm thinking about trading
Speaker 2: my red guitar in on something. He goes, son, don't
Speaker 2: ever get rid of your first guitar. You can never
Speaker 2: replace your first guitar. So he always talked me into
Speaker 2: keeping it. I'm gratefully, did it means everything to me?
Speaker 1: Okay, couple more, A couple more.
Speaker 2: I got a a less Paul, a sunburst less Paul
Speaker 2: from nineteen fifty nine. Wow, that was my ex brother
Speaker 2: in laws. I was married the first time my wife
Speaker 2: had a sister that was married to this guy, Leonard Arnold,
Speaker 2: Texas guitar player, and he'd had this guitar since nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight and I'd never bought one of the Sunburst
Speaker 2: less balls. Those were the highest mark of the marks
Speaker 2: for guitars that you could buy, and they were a
Speaker 2: lot of money, and I'd never bought one. I didn't
Speaker 2: play a last ball much. And then he called me
Speaker 2: some years ago and he said, man, I just got
Speaker 2: bad news. I got cancer and I'm not going to
Speaker 2: make it. Will you buy my Burst? And I said,
Speaker 2: of course I will. I said, if you'll take it
Speaker 2: down to George or somebody George grew and as a
Speaker 2: vintaged guitar shop down, have him praise it. I'll pay
Speaker 2: you whatever he praises it for. So he praised it,
Speaker 2: and I gave him the money. And because I bought
Speaker 2: that guitar from him, he was able to save his
Speaker 2: house for my first wife's sister and they were okay,
Speaker 2: you know, and he since passed. But what was cool
Speaker 2: about that guitar was when he was in California, he
Speaker 2: was in a band called Blue Steel, and one of
Speaker 2: the guys in Blue Steel was a guy named Richard
Speaker 2: Bowden who was Don Henley's best friend growing up, first
Speaker 2: music friend, I think Don had. They played together in
Speaker 2: that band called Shiloh, and so they were going to
Speaker 2: open some shows for the Eagles when they did the
Speaker 2: Long Run Tour in nineteen eighty and Leonard played that
Speaker 2: guitar with the Eagles back then, and so I bought
Speaker 2: it and I got to play it with the Eagles again,
Speaker 2: you know, a million years later, same guitar, and so
Speaker 2: that's kind of pretty neat history and sentimental kind of
Speaker 2: attachment to it. And my gosh, I bought up an
Speaker 2: old strata Fender stratocaster from nineteen fifty nine that was
Speaker 2: Duayne Eddies brand new Wow. And he bought it brand
Speaker 2: new and never played it. He never found his way
Speaker 2: around to playing a Fender stratocaster, and so he gave
Speaker 2: it to his son, and his son played it for
Speaker 2: his whole life and sold it to me about fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty years ago. And it's my favorite strat I have
Speaker 2: plenty of stratocasters, this is the one that speaks the most,
Speaker 2: and I play the most on records and when I
Speaker 2: play live.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you go back to the old era fifty
Speaker 1: sixty seventies, even into the eighties, it could have the
Speaker 1: same model name on it and each instrument sounded different.
Speaker 1: Sure is that still the same with the modern instruments.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 2: I think every instrument is its own, you know, and
Speaker 2: you can same guy can make the same instrum, but
Speaker 2: it's always going to be a different piece of wood,
Speaker 2: you know. It's it's never going to be the same.
Speaker 2: So they all go together different, they all play different,
Speaker 2: they all sound different. It's the same make and model
Speaker 2: and all the same parts. And you think an electric
Speaker 2: guitar just would sound like an electric guitar, but they don't,
Speaker 2: you know, they really sound different. Acoustically. I always can
Speaker 2: tell a lot about an electric guitar hearing it acoustically,
Speaker 2: whether it has any life in it or not. Well,
Speaker 2: it will always transfer. If it has life in it acoustically,
Speaker 2: it will electrically too. And so, you know, looking for
Speaker 2: all those kinds of things, neck profiles, neck size, playability,
Speaker 2: all those kinds of things are paramount and finding old instruments,
Speaker 2: they're not all great. That's the beauty of it. Just
Speaker 2: because something old is some something is old doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's great, And there were plenty of times that tar
Speaker 2: makers missed, you know, maybe the piece of wood was dead,
Speaker 2: or maybe the guy was high when he made it,
Speaker 2: or who knows what, you know, and it's all it's
Speaker 2: all part of it, you know. But like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: I never I never picked up something that I didn't
Speaker 2: like the way it played and sang, just because it
Speaker 2: might have been a good deal or a good price for.
Speaker 1: Something or what have you. And what about amps? Same thing?
Speaker 2: You know, they're all they all look alike, they all
Speaker 2: got tubes in them, They all, you know, do the
Speaker 2: same thing, but they all sound different, you know, and
Speaker 2: you're you're It's what's fun is there's a constant search
Speaker 2: to sound better, and it never stops. I still buy
Speaker 2: old amps to this day. I still try different settings.
Speaker 2: I try different amps, I try different guitars. I love
Speaker 2: to experiment. When you find a great combination of a
Speaker 2: great amp and a great guitar, many they work in. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got. I don't have as many apps as I
Speaker 2: do guitars, but I don't think I need quite as
Speaker 2: many apps as I do guitars.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about the Eagles for a second they
Speaker 1: put out The Long Road Out of Eat in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, Don put out Cast County I Be
Speaker 1: Lievest twenty fourteen. There hasn't been any new Eagles material.
Speaker 1: Joe's done some stuff. I'm making a general point. It's
Speaker 1: really not about the Eagles. A lot of those bands
Speaker 1: have ceased putting out new material, many because they know
Speaker 1: the marketplace has changed, and even if they put out
Speaker 1: something as good as their class era, it's almost impossible
Speaker 1: to have those same level of success in recognition as
Speaker 1: someone who's there contemporary? Is it hard to get motivated?
Speaker 1: Like you're putting out these EPs? Turn them motivated to
Speaker 1: do new material because inherently, you know, the odds of
Speaker 1: being as successful is even your stiff material are really.
Speaker 2: Long and Neil, Yeah, of course I do. But you know,
Speaker 2: I just keep telling myself that's that's not the reason
Speaker 2: I ever did it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The reason I did it is because of what it
Speaker 2: spoke to me inside of me, and I will I
Speaker 2: will never quit trying to make music unless I start
Speaker 2: weising like a like an old woman or something. Someday
Speaker 2: I might, but until that day, I'm gonna I guess
Speaker 2: I'm doing it for me, you know, and if anybody
Speaker 2: wants to come along, I'm grateful, you know. I tell
Speaker 2: people now when I go play live on my own shows,
Speaker 2: I go, look, I'm going to play for a long
Speaker 2: time because I love it. And I think that if
Speaker 2: you're paying as much as you are for a ticket,
Speaker 2: you ought to get as much as you can stand.
Speaker 2: And I want to play for a long time. If
Speaker 2: you want to leave, You're not going to hurt my feelings.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm going to play for a good while regardless,
Speaker 2: and I just.
Speaker 1: Think that I keep that in the forefront of my mind.
Speaker 1: I don't you know.
Speaker 2: I heard Kenny Rogers say something one time that really
Speaker 2: just took me down. Thought it was so cool and
Speaker 2: so so important, and he hadn't made a new record
Speaker 2: in years and years and years and years, and somebody
Speaker 2: asked him, I said, you've made a new record, and
Speaker 2: Kenny said, yeah, yeah, I got that. I wanted to
Speaker 2: make a new record. And he goes the interviewer said,
Speaker 2: are you hoping it's successful? And Kenny smiled and he goes, no, no.
Speaker 1: Not really.
Speaker 2: He said, I've had records that have been successful. He said,
Speaker 2: what I want this record to be is significant, and
Speaker 2: I just went, wow, there's my marching orders.
Speaker 1: Those are my marching orders. So that's just me. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have the marching order on your way up. You
Speaker 1: know you have a hunger. You want to prove yourself.
Speaker 1: We talked about, you know, playing golf, etc. Can you
Speaker 1: get yourself in that same headspace recording today?
Speaker 2: I think so, you know, and once again you know
Speaker 2: the the real truth is. And I don't It sounds
Speaker 2: arrogant almost to say, but I'm doing it for me.
Speaker 2: So I'm doing it to move me first, and I
Speaker 2: feel like if I can't move me, then I can't
Speaker 2: move you. I can't move anybody else. So that's where
Speaker 2: it has to That's where it kind of all begins
Speaker 2: and ends for me, is I'm doing this for my
Speaker 2: love of it, and whoever comes along come home if
Speaker 2: you want too, fine, but you're not. It's not going
Speaker 2: to deter me from wanting to do it, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you've put out six of these EPs. I
Speaker 1: think at this point in time, what's the experience been.
Speaker 2: You know, I've I mean, would I love to see
Speaker 2: it blow up and so many as the records? Of
Speaker 2: course I would, But I know that's not realistic. And
Speaker 2: you want any time you do this, whether it's making
Speaker 2: a record or playing a gig, you just want somebody
Speaker 2: to respond. And that's all that they're that's all that
Speaker 2: you're hoping for. Somebody hears it, and somebody is taking
Speaker 2: a story that you've written and go, Man, that pertains
Speaker 2: to my life. You've you've helped me get through a
Speaker 2: hard time. You've helped me get through a struggle, you know,
Speaker 2: And that's that's a powerful feeling. If you can have
Speaker 2: an impact on somebody's life in a way that's profound.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can have a fun song, everybody likes it,
Speaker 2: sings along, but if you really you know, the one
Speaker 2: song I think that I probably will be most known
Speaker 2: for in my life is go Rest high on that mountain.
Speaker 2: It's been sung at so many services and funerals and
Speaker 2: memorials and whatnot. And what I know that it's done,
Speaker 2: what I'm grateful for is that it's helped somebody get
Speaker 2: through a hard time. If you get to do that,
Speaker 2: that's there's no better feeling, I don't think than that.
Speaker 1: Okay, in the old days, I say there was a
Speaker 1: huge separation between the people on stage and the people
Speaker 1: in the crowd today. I mean, I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: I saw Van Morrison on TikTok, never mind Todd Rungrin
Speaker 1: and other people. Okay, so yes, in the old days,
Speaker 1: there would be points where people in the community radio,
Speaker 1: maybe play a gig, would talk about it would respond
Speaker 1: to what degree is a result of modern communications methods?
Speaker 1: Do you get the response directly from the audience? Oh?
Speaker 2: Just think in the moment you get the response from
Speaker 2: an audience. You can't from them finding you on Instagram
Speaker 2: or TikToker, Facebook or wherever they find YouTube or whatever.
Speaker 2: All the formats are. I tell people all the time,
Speaker 2: I said, trust me, little Jimmy Dickens would have been
Speaker 2: on American Idol had it been there in nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 2: You know, everybody's just still trying to find the way
Speaker 2: to communicate, the way to connect. You know, it's what
Speaker 2: we were meant to do as people, as a race
Speaker 2: is you know, that's the best feeling in the world
Speaker 2: is connection. And however the format is that you find
Speaker 2: a way to connect that to me is not is irrelevant,
Speaker 2: you know, And so I'm not up there posting stuff
Speaker 2: about me all the time, but the office is so
Speaker 2: I'm still a part of it, you know, even though
Speaker 2: I'm not the one doing it, and I'm sure Van
Speaker 2: is not the one recording the video whatever he is.
Speaker 1: Well, well, you know, I don't know. He's probably not
Speaker 1: posting it, but it's him talking into the screen fair enough.
Speaker 1: But he's probably getting some help, I know, I right, Well,
Speaker 1: even Trump probably gets some help. So to what degree
Speaker 1: do you feel? I mean, because authenticity and credibility rule.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to take you have someone take care
Speaker 1: of the process, but there are companies that basically the
Speaker 1: acts are pretty much removed. They're saying, you know, these
Speaker 1: are the tour dates, this is this is what they did.
Speaker 1: So to what degree if someone follows you, are they
Speaker 1: going to really know you?
Speaker 2: Well, they have to know that I've never posted a
Speaker 2: word on any social media platform on earth and never will.
Speaker 2: I'm not responding to them if they send me a PM.
Speaker 1: Is that what you call it? Private message? Or so?
Speaker 2: I don't even know what all those things are. But
Speaker 2: I've sadly had people get scammed saying to someone that
Speaker 2: it was me posing as me saying they want to
Speaker 2: have a relationship with me, and blah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: and built them out of money. And I've seen them
Speaker 2: do that, you know. And once again, technology for the
Speaker 2: wrong reason is the wrong reason, and it's it's not
Speaker 2: it's a pretty good stain on on how we treat
Speaker 2: each other sometimes, But.
Speaker 1: Once I just.
Speaker 2: It's the it's the way of today, and you kind
Speaker 2: of have to conform or or check out, you know,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 1: Have a checking out. You have this great skill and
Speaker 1: you're a songwriter. Let's just assume you were to perform
Speaker 1: the song live or a snippet a song live. What
Speaker 1: would be wrong with posting it on these sites? Well? Nothing.
Speaker 2: You know. What's interesting though, is we talked earlier about
Speaker 2: how to how to get paid for stuff. Everybody's allowed
Speaker 2: to record me playing and singing and post it and
Speaker 2: find a way to earn income from it from getting
Speaker 2: likes and advertising and whatnot. However that works, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying I know. But wait, wait wait, wait, wait wait,
Speaker 2: you're taking what I'm doing. Wait wait wait, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna make money for Wait.
Speaker 1: If whatever you're doing is so hot that people want
Speaker 1: to repost it, et cetera, and they may make money,
Speaker 1: that means you're gonna make money because your song is
Speaker 1: going to be more famous. Let's give an example of
Speaker 1: the person who posted the Fleetwood Mac song to the
Speaker 1: guy skateboarding Okay, Fleetwood Mac made a lot of money
Speaker 1: even though the person who even though they didn't post it,
Speaker 1: and now everybody knows the song. Same thing with the
Speaker 1: Goo Goo dolls. Iris. So you're putting out seventy songs,
Speaker 1: why don't you help yourself? Well, I'm doing all I
Speaker 1: know how to do well. This is yeah, this is
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. This is not a heavy lift. You
Speaker 1: have children, and you have people on the payroll for
Speaker 1: you to play one of these new songs or half
Speaker 1: of the song and say something about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could do this shit on your four k iPhone okay,
Speaker 1: and then you know. But the thing about okay, let
Speaker 1: me let me put it differently. If we're going on okay,
Speaker 1: there's this mozart pianist not my area of expertise, Meetsuko
Speaker 1: Ucheetah and she was writing and they did an article
Speaker 1: on her newsweek, the old news week before the Internet,
Speaker 1: and she said, I tell my students to practice really
Speaker 1: hard and trying to be great because there's very few
Speaker 1: great things out there, and if you're great, people will
Speaker 1: find you. Now we know in today's cacoph inist world
Speaker 1: that's harder. But people are surfing all yourself included, all
Speaker 1: day long, looking for something great that they can tell
Speaker 1: people about. If you're not in the pool, they can't tell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your songs are on Spotify, okay, but the odds of
Speaker 1: someone finding it. They say, Oh, I'm a Vince Gill fan.
Speaker 1: Let me see what Vince is doing, as opposed to
Speaker 1: someone saying I'm at stage coach in my cowboy boots.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a million acts here. You know, Vince Gill.
Speaker 1: I don't care how good he is. He might as
Speaker 1: well be living in Oklahoma. You know, all I know
Speaker 1: is what I know, and you don't have to do it.
Speaker 1: All I'm trying to say is, since you were promoting
Speaker 1: new music, what's that You're like the king of jokes?
Speaker 1: You know, you know the one that the punchline is,
Speaker 1: do me a favor, buy a ticket, that legendary joke.
Speaker 1: If you can't buy the ticket, whatever, I'm putting a
Speaker 1: seat in your mind. Do whatever you want, But let
Speaker 1: me ask you this question.
Speaker 2: Then if you think, do you think that by someone
Speaker 2: recording my concert, taking it home and probably less inclined
Speaker 2: to go buy a record because they have it on
Speaker 2: their little phone.
Speaker 1: That's not even the way it works anymore. A. They
Speaker 1: don't buy a they don't buy the record. There, you're right. B.
Speaker 1: The person who's shooting the video paid to see you
Speaker 1: and is a fan. Those people are going to check
Speaker 1: out the material on Spotify, your entire catalog. What do
Speaker 1: we know? Older demos tend to be more passive when
Speaker 1: it comes to streaming. I'm I could go down that
Speaker 1: rabbit hole, but you're telling me that, really the music
Speaker 1: hasn't change and you've gotten better. So what are the
Speaker 1: odds someone who's never heard of Vince Gil is going
Speaker 1: to catch on? Not the Internet era but the doors
Speaker 1: we've the led Zeppelin rebible. Do people under the age
Speaker 1: of twenty five know who forget? How good or bad
Speaker 1: you are? Do they know Vin Skill's new music? Do
Speaker 1: they know any vins Skill music? Probably not?
Speaker 2: But what they what I think they're all looking for
Speaker 2: is the authenticity that you spoke of earlier, and I
Speaker 2: think they can recognize it. They can recognize the things
Speaker 2: that that are real, you know, like take Chris Stapleton,
Speaker 2: for example, when he opens his mouth, you go game over.
Speaker 2: That's as good as singing as you're ever going to
Speaker 2: hear in your life. And hopefully the same thing rings
Speaker 2: true for me. When I open my mouth and I
Speaker 2: start singing. They they understand that that's authentic, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think, well, I guess what everybody is.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more, but all I will say is
Speaker 1: the paradigm is completely shifted. It's just like you were
Speaker 1: stiff for that hundred bucks. You're a musician. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you there's a lot of money you rode that you
Speaker 1: never got paid. Okay, and look at the status you
Speaker 1: have now. So you can't enter this saying well, someone's
Speaker 1: gonna make money off of me. Let's talk Don for
Speaker 1: a second. Okay, you'll know this song the Beatles, Yes
Speaker 1: it is, Okay, you know the song. I never liked
Speaker 1: that song. Okay. Don Henley did a live version. It's spectacular, okay,
Speaker 1: and it was on Spotify because it's part of the
Speaker 1: Bridge concert thing. I wrote about it. Don said, Don
Speaker 1: had it take him down. Okay. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get really, but I'm telling you that version was better
Speaker 1: than the Beatles, he slowed it down. It wasn't quite
Speaker 1: a cappella whatever. Now he's got a lot of other
Speaker 1: avenues he's in, and he hasn't released any new music recently.
Speaker 1: So all I'm trying to say is you believe in
Speaker 1: these songs. There are ways today to give those songs
Speaker 1: a chance, because most of the stuff sucks. You know, listen,
Speaker 1: we don't know. There's no gatekeepers anymore. Right. But the
Speaker 1: other thing is, I'm sure you could tell me incredible
Speaker 1: tales of practicing your guitar as a teenager. So I
Speaker 1: was in my room for three hours. I was dropping
Speaker 1: the needle. I was slowing it to you know, to
Speaker 1: slower speed the forty five to thirty three. Figure out
Speaker 1: those licks just alone. Okay, today's kids, most of them
Speaker 1: don't do that. They're busy promoting themselves, and therefore there
Speaker 1: are exceptions. Of course, most of them don't have the
Speaker 1: skills you have. In addition, you come from an era
Speaker 1: we had to be able to sing. I get an
Speaker 1: email all the time people say, you know, listen to me.
Speaker 1: It's like, well, maybe you could be the guitar player,
Speaker 1: but you know you're then the say Bob Dylan. I said, well,
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan's the best lyricist of all time. If you
Speaker 1: were that good, we would recognize it. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave in it there as I say, because I think
Speaker 1: I mean. The funny thing in this particular case, unlike
Speaker 1: most people, is you are surfing on your phone, so
Speaker 1: you know the magic I do.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm I'm always looking for something, and you
Speaker 2: know the when young people call me and say, hey,
Speaker 2: what would you do if A B and C happens?
Speaker 2: And I says, look, my way is gone.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know that I that my my words of
Speaker 2: wisdom would be relevant today because of the way that
Speaker 2: it works. And that's what I That's what I know
Speaker 2: is how it worked for me and how I had
Speaker 2: to do it to get to where I got. And
Speaker 2: now it's foreign. You know, all of this is pretty
Speaker 2: foreign to me. So I think it's as much about
Speaker 2: probably me being insecure of how to find my way
Speaker 2: out there. I'm just doing the best I can and
Speaker 2: trying to take a take a page from the folks
Speaker 2: that are are about it. So I'm in the middle
Speaker 2: of it and I'm just trying to do what I
Speaker 2: know how to do, which is write a song, play
Speaker 2: a song, and sing a song, and however it finds
Speaker 2: its way. And even if I don't get paid, you know,
Speaker 2: that's out of my out of my hands.
Speaker 1: It's okay.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm still going to do it because that's
Speaker 2: not the reason I'm doing it in the first place.
Speaker 2: And I just I will never not want to be creative,
Speaker 2: never not want to be reaching out and trying to
Speaker 2: inspire somebody to like something.
Speaker 1: So someone comes to see you live. In your coming dates,
Speaker 1: will you play any Eagles songs?
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, No, I don't think it's my place, you know.
Speaker 2: I I tell people, I said, I had not one
Speaker 2: note to do with the music of that band, an
Speaker 2: recordings any of the songs, So I can't with a
Speaker 2: straight face lay any claim to that. I said, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I got to play with him for ten years and
Speaker 2: sing some of those songs, but I don't think it.
Speaker 2: I don't think it looks good, you know. And I
Speaker 2: mean when I first started, I'll tell you this story.
Speaker 2: You may have heard it, but we were doing that
Speaker 2: first show at Dodger Stadium, which you went to, and
Speaker 2: I was singing a song of mine called Whenever You
Speaker 2: come around at soundcheck and Don came over to me.
Speaker 2: He said, what is that song? I said, it was
Speaker 2: a song of mine that I put out, you know,
Speaker 2: twenty something years ago, twenty five years ago. It was
Speaker 2: a big hit for me, and he goes, can we
Speaker 2: work it up and do it? I said, Don, with
Speaker 2: all due respect, I said I'd rather not, And he
Speaker 2: said why. I said, Look, what I'm getting ready to
Speaker 2: do isn't going to be easy, and I don't want
Speaker 2: to give these people one more reason to not like me.
Speaker 2: I don't want anybody out there saying I didn't come
Speaker 2: here to hear Vince Gill songs. I came here to
Speaker 2: hear Ego songs. So that was kind of how this
Speaker 2: all started. And all these years later, I don't feel
Speaker 2: like I I should lay claim to sing any of
Speaker 2: those songs. And if I tell people the real reason,
Speaker 2: I said, look, I just don't think it's my place.
Speaker 2: I think they're okay with it, you know, But my
Speaker 2: ego is such that I don't I don't need to
Speaker 2: flaunt the fact that I got to do this for
Speaker 2: the past ten years. I'm grateful and lucky and all that.
Speaker 2: But Don told me, he said, oh, I really respect
Speaker 2: you for that, you know, so you.
Speaker 1: Know, you know, this is just like with what's his name,
Speaker 1: Park Knoppler, you know who you are? I kind of do.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty comfy in my own skin. And who's the
Speaker 1: best rock guitarist all of them? No such thing. Let's
Speaker 1: leave clappting out and Joe Walsh out because of personal relationships.
Speaker 1: Where does that leave us? Jeff Beck's pretty bad ass? Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I say, Jeff Beck is the best.
Speaker 2: But it's like what you like and what I don't
Speaker 2: like don't have to mesh, you know. And for when
Speaker 2: they say who's the best singer? You go, who do
Speaker 2: you like? That's all that matters. Why is it who's
Speaker 2: the best NBA player of all time? They go with that,
Speaker 2: It is it Lebron? Is it Michael Jordan? I go,
Speaker 2: they're both just great? Why can't it be that?
Speaker 1: You know, that's an interesting one since they're playing in
Speaker 1: the Lebron's in the play because the style of play
Speaker 1: is so different. Lebron's a great player, but you're watching
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan. I guess you know. The reason I even
Speaker 1: make a choice here is because people tend to default
Speaker 1: to the usual suspects Clapton and Hendrix. Sure, and not
Speaker 1: that they're not great, but you know Beck was even
Speaker 1: you know, playing with his fingers, et cetera. Okay, we've
Speaker 1: I've beaten you up enough. I don't why you're throwing
Speaker 1: your clubs at me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for letting me do this. I think you're going
Speaker 2: to talk to my wife Amy here in a week
Speaker 2: or so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's uh coming up. It'll be
Speaker 1: interesting because her manager reached out with you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of new technology stuff. You're living under the same house. Oh,
Speaker 1: I'll be interesting the same route, interesting to hear what
Speaker 1: she has to say. Let me ask you, since we
Speaker 1: know your your wife has famously made religious music, is
Speaker 1: that something that is inside the house or is that
Speaker 1: her identity and you have your identity.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I think that people assume I'm like
Speaker 2: her because we're married. But I didn't grow up in
Speaker 2: a church going community or family or any of that,
Speaker 2: and so we're probably a good bit different that way.
Speaker 2: But what we are is kind, you know, to each other,
Speaker 2: and respectful of you.
Speaker 1: She's taken.
Speaker 2: She went and made pop records, you know, after she'd
Speaker 2: had a great, great run in the Christian music world
Speaker 2: and got lambasted for a lot and got lambastard for
Speaker 2: marrying me. She's She's taken all of that criticism better
Speaker 2: than anybody I've ever seen in my life. It's magic,
Speaker 2: magical to watch her respond to so much of that.
Speaker 2: And you're gonna you're gonna enjoy getting to talk to her.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to build one more, because you know you
Speaker 1: brought up so many loose threads that I'm interested in Stapleton.
Speaker 1: Stapleton wins all the awards. Everybody in Nashville thinks he's
Speaker 1: the greatest. How come the rest of country music is
Speaker 1: not like kid?
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that I believe that. You
Speaker 2: think you don't think country music likes Chris Stapleton.
Speaker 1: No, I said the opposite. They they think he's the greatest.
Speaker 1: Whenever they have awards, he always just like it, a
Speaker 1: Entertainer of the Year whatever, blah blah blah. But the
Speaker 1: rest of what's you know and hit country music doesn't
Speaker 1: sound anything else like that.
Speaker 2: No, you're right, but it it kind of never has,
Speaker 2: you know. And the thing with the I learned in
Speaker 2: all my years of award shows, oftentimes people will really
Speaker 2: vote with who they think might be the best singer
Speaker 2: and not who's the most popular. You know, the Grammys
Speaker 2: have been that way. I won a lot of Grammys,
Speaker 2: but there were a lot of artists that sold way
Speaker 2: more records than me, way more popular than me, and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. But you get there and
Speaker 2: you go, hey, there's five guys. I like that guy
Speaker 2: singing the best. You can't there's nothing you can do
Speaker 2: about that. You know, he's pretty tough to beat. And
Speaker 2: I you know, i'd win a male vocalist up against
Speaker 2: some of the guys that would sell out arenas, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't come close to doing what they did, but
Speaker 2: people thought I was better, So I just part of it.
Speaker 1: You can't.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you can figure any of that
Speaker 2: stuff out. But he's pretty special, right, He's.
Speaker 1: A shining light in a ever changing world. You know.
Speaker 1: Tom Petty not the last tour, but before that, he
Speaker 1: played for a week at the Fonda. I went a
Speaker 1: couple of nights and one night said I'm gonna play
Speaker 1: a country song. He says, no, no, no, no, not
Speaker 1: today's country song. And he played something I can't remember
Speaker 1: who it was, and he goes today's country music is
Speaker 1: the rock of the seventies. And right, that's right, that's fair.
Speaker 1: But the other thing is, you know, I think people
Speaker 1: are catching on. It is so big and the artists
Speaker 1: are so much bigger than the people in the Spotify
Speaker 1: Top fifty. And you know, it's interesting because the media
Speaker 1: is still living in a past world. It's like Morgan Wallen,
Speaker 1: whether you feel good about him or not, Morgan Wallan
Speaker 1: screams much better than Taylor Swift and they all hate him.
Speaker 1: But you know, in country music or just you know,
Speaker 1: Morgan Wallen is by far the bigest artists on Spotify
Speaker 1: in streaming. According to Luminit, which is what they call
Speaker 1: sound scan now, Morgan Wallen far exceeds Taylor Swift in America.
Speaker 1: But that would be shocking. Well that's true. I could
Speaker 1: bring up the report because reports available there everybody, but
Speaker 1: I know it's a case. So you have half the country.
Speaker 1: He says Morgan Wallen was drunk and use the end word.
Speaker 1: We're never going to forgive them. And then everybody's saying
Speaker 1: how great Taylor Swift is. Whatever it is, Morganwallen is bigger.
Speaker 1: But I'll leave it there. I got love for both
Speaker 1: of them. Well, tell you my one golf story and
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna go. Okay, I played as a kid.
Speaker 1: My mother was really into it. Let me be very clear.
Speaker 1: I was never good, never good, and I'm not. You know,
Speaker 1: there are things I'm good at. This is not one
Speaker 1: of them. And then in the eighties when there became
Speaker 1: a new golf boom in the last half of the eighties,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people in business wanted to play
Speaker 1: to you know, to get into it. And you know
Speaker 1: better than any of these people. You could take it
Speaker 1: as seriously as you want. You're never gonna play like
Speaker 1: the people in the PGA. Now you could go into
Speaker 1: the trap. You can practice whatever it's.
Speaker 2: In the one or two percentile of people that play
Speaker 2: the game that ever get that good of all the players.
Speaker 1: I'm playing at a public course and the athol it's
Speaker 1: a public course, you know it is. So you got
Speaker 1: the people on the green who are not letting us on.
Speaker 1: On the part three it's an elevated t You got
Speaker 1: r foursome, you got the other foursome backed up, and
Speaker 1: you get the foursome coming off the seventh hole. Okay,
Speaker 1: I happened to hit a beautiful golf shot. Not that
Speaker 1: you have to achieve this to do this, but Wall
Speaker 1: landed like twelve feet from the pin, goes right in.
Speaker 1: Now there's like all these people there freaking out. Also,
Speaker 1: the green was at an angle and you know, so
Speaker 1: you can see it go right in. And my friend said, oh,
Speaker 1: we got to check. We gotta make sure it gets
Speaker 1: in there. And it's like it's inherently a lucky shot.
Speaker 1: I've only played golf once since then. It's like, you
Speaker 1: want to take it that seriously. I'm out. I did
Speaker 1: the impossible right, Okay, Vince, thanks for taking this time
Speaker 1: with my audience. You gotta buddy till next time. This
Speaker 1: is Bob leftstas