Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsnets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is manager Charlie Brusco. Charlie, tell me what
Speaker 1: acts you presently manage.
Speaker 2: I managed Styx, I managed Collective Soul. I managed the
Speaker 2: Outlaws in Blackhawk. I managed the Marshall Tucker Band. I
Speaker 2: managed Don Felder, I managed Tim Montana. I managed Edwin McCain.
Speaker 2: I now manage Dave Mason. I managed Nancy Wilson from
Speaker 2: Heart and and her and her Heart situation, her heart
Speaker 2: band and I manage UH Poison and and UH and
Speaker 2: Brett Michaels I managed, I managed Heart or not Heart
Speaker 2: but but Nancy and UH and Poison. I managed with
Speaker 2: Bruce Floor from our red Light LA office.
Speaker 1: Okay, how does one person manage all those people?
Speaker 2: I have a great staff I have. I have people
Speaker 2: that have been with me from anywhere from probably six
Speaker 2: to ten years or twelve years or longer. And Cindy
Speaker 2: that you've met my wife, she's uh, she's involved in
Speaker 2: I have all the because I'm at red Light, I
Speaker 2: have all the the red light support stuff too. Even
Speaker 2: though we have multiple offices all over the place, we
Speaker 2: red light red light moves pretty well together. We we
Speaker 2: we we share some different things that whenever we need them.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's there's a lot of stuff there. How did
Speaker 1: you end up managing Dave Mason?
Speaker 2: Just started managing Dave? I got a call from Dave's
Speaker 2: agent at Uta and and Dave had worked a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago with maybe a year ago with Marshall
Speaker 2: Tucker Band, and the shows were great, and you know,
Speaker 2: Dave's a I'm listen, I'm also a fanboy a bit.
Speaker 2: So I'm a huge Traffic fan and I'm a huge
Speaker 2: Dave Mason fan. So when I get the chance of
Speaker 2: the opportunity to work with somebody that I also like,
Speaker 2: you know, go back in their to their history. And
Speaker 2: interesting enough, with the first meeting that I had with
Speaker 2: Dave and his wife, I mean Dave predates, which is
Speaker 2: hard to do, predates me in the early days, and
Speaker 2: it was fascinating for me to just sit and talk
Speaker 2: to him about how because I'd heard all of this
Speaker 2: over the years and everything like that. But but how
Speaker 2: when I was a kid sixteen years old listening to
Speaker 2: to Traffic and you know, alone together and all of
Speaker 2: that era, Dave was in England and from my time
Speaker 2: with with with Bad Company and Paul Rodgers and Simon
Speaker 2: Kirk and all those guys. I had always heard about
Speaker 2: this thing of how they all listened to blues records
Speaker 2: and that's how like where they developed from. And at
Speaker 2: the time that he was starting to have hits and
Speaker 2: things going on, I was a young kid in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and I was listening to stacks and you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't listening to blues stuff, but I was listening to
Speaker 2: my first, my first musical kind of stuff, except for
Speaker 2: my listening to my sister's Elvis records, which I wasn't
Speaker 2: really that that that into. But the Temptations and the
Speaker 2: four Tops and the you know, and and Sam Moore
Speaker 2: and Sam and Dave and I mean all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: That that's the stuff that I heard because there was
Speaker 2: a radio station in Pittsburgh called Whammo and that all
Speaker 2: they played was R and B stuff, and it was
Speaker 2: it was a little bit before AM radio turned to
Speaker 2: FM radio and we started getting all the FM radio
Speaker 2: music stuff and everything like that. I was listening to
Speaker 2: stuff when I was, you know, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and
Speaker 2: I had a band, and you know, I grew up
Speaker 2: on that kind of stuff. Well, A funny thing was
Speaker 2: is the other night when when when Dave was in
Speaker 2: town in Atlanta. The keyboard player for Dave is Mark
Speaker 2: Stein from the Vanilla Fudge And really I went and
Speaker 2: as one of the encores, they do you Keep Me
Speaker 2: Hanging On? And I went up to mark Stein afterwards
Speaker 2: and I said, I had a band when I was
Speaker 2: in high school and the toughest thing that we had
Speaker 2: to do was learn you Keep Me Hanging On because
Speaker 2: we had a ham and Bee three organ But but
Speaker 2: you know, nobody could play like you and nobody could
Speaker 2: sing like you. But we had to do it because
Speaker 2: it was one of the biggest hits, you know, of
Speaker 2: all time. It was. It's interesting, I mean, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: So Dave makes contact with you, how do you make
Speaker 1: it agreement to manage Dave? And what can you do
Speaker 1: for Dave that hasn't been done previously.
Speaker 2: I I don't know what exactly I can do, but
Speaker 2: I can. I can try and get him better quality
Speaker 2: of shows. I can try and get him on tours.
Speaker 2: I can. He's got a book coming out. We're gonna
Speaker 2: interface with him on on getting the book release he's got.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not a manager that that throws out all
Speaker 2: kinds of promises of things that I know are are
Speaker 2: kind of out of reach. I mean heritage artists having
Speaker 2: having great music, which a lot of them still make
Speaker 2: great music, but getting that music out it doesn't have
Speaker 2: the path that it had when we were growing up,
Speaker 2: where it was on the radio. There isn't for sticks
Speaker 2: and for for you know, uh, for Dave Mason, for
Speaker 2: a lot of artists like that, there's they get tremendous
Speaker 2: amount of radio play, but they but the radio that
Speaker 2: plays them won't play their new music. They they'll they'll
Speaker 2: play all their hits. But that you know, it's a
Speaker 2: problem that we've all had. But the opposite of that
Speaker 2: problem is is that if they're great live, the live business,
Speaker 2: as you know, and you've said in all of your stuff,
Speaker 2: I mean, the live business is probably as healthy as
Speaker 2: it's ever been. You know, uh that that you know
Speaker 2: that that any of us remember.
Speaker 1: Just because you recently signed him, did Dave have a
Speaker 1: manager before you or is he self managed?
Speaker 2: He's had a couple of like he's had a couple
Speaker 2: of managers before me, and it's it's and he did
Speaker 2: some of the stuff himself. But I mean just about
Speaker 2: everybody that I deal with has had a number of
Speaker 2: managers before, and I try, I try not to get
Speaker 2: into who managed them or what they do or anything
Speaker 2: like that, you know. I mean Styx has had three managers.
Speaker 2: They had Derek Sutton, who was the first manager they had,
Speaker 2: They had Irving for a short time, pe'er Irving and
Speaker 2: Howard for a short time period, and then they had me.
Speaker 2: So that's probably the artist that I have that's had
Speaker 2: the least amount of managers, if you want to know
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's say when someone comes to you to
Speaker 1: potentially manage them, is it usually a competition between you
Speaker 1: and other managers or do they know they want you?
Speaker 2: Most of the time. Looking down my list of artists
Speaker 2: that I manage, most of them approached me. It's some
Speaker 2: in some way, shape or form. Okay.
Speaker 1: So with these heritage acts, is the focus primarily on
Speaker 1: getting better live gigs or what else can you do
Speaker 1: with these acts? As you say, the odds of new
Speaker 1: music being played on the radio is very low.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm you know. Sticks A few years ago
Speaker 2: Tommy came to me and was like, you know we're
Speaker 2: gonna I got some with the hand made a record
Speaker 2: in fourteen years. And he came to me and he said,
Speaker 2: I've got these ideas and songs in my head and
Speaker 2: everything like that. And I said, that's great, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's very limited what we can do with anything out there.
Speaker 2: But the one the only thing that I would say
Speaker 2: is is that if you're going to make new music
Speaker 2: the I'm not an A and R person, but i'm
Speaker 2: your manager. If you want some guidance, try and make
Speaker 2: it sound like Sticks. Don't try and be cool, because
Speaker 2: nobody gives a shit if you're cool. They they want that.
Speaker 2: They they want to hear more Sticks. And and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, make sure that it's great. You're you're a
Speaker 2: great live band. Make sure it's songs that you'll be
Speaker 2: able to play live. I mean that that you know,
Speaker 2: And we're not going out on the road and when
Speaker 2: we're going out and we're playing the amphitheaters or the
Speaker 2: arenas or wherever we're playing, we're not going out and
Speaker 2: playing six new songs in a set, because that's not
Speaker 2: what the people and you you know this, and I
Speaker 2: know this, that's not what the people that are coming
Speaker 2: to see the shows are paying for, and when you
Speaker 2: don't give them what they're paying for, they'll stop coming.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how did you get sticks? And what was
Speaker 1: the status of sticks when you got them?
Speaker 2: Uh? Uh? I I was managing Tommy Shaw.
Speaker 1: Wait wait wait wait, how were you managing Tommy Shaw?
Speaker 2: Tommy Shaw had just come out of Damn Yankees, and
Speaker 2: I was actually at the time, I was. I was.
Speaker 2: I was involved with with Irving and and uh and
Speaker 2: Pace and all that in my promotion company. I was
Speaker 2: doing shows. I was involved in developing Lakewood in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and I was the I was the buyer for Lakewood
Speaker 2: at the time, and Damn Yankees had played Lakewood on
Speaker 2: a Damn Yankees Bad Company package the Amphitheater. There twelve
Speaker 2: thousand people. And I wasn't I wasn't a great Damn
Speaker 2: Yankees fan, but I was obviously a huge Bad Company fan.
Speaker 2: And I happened to be out catching the end of
Speaker 2: the Bad Company set and they all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they played Renegade and I was like, wow, man, and
Speaker 2: the reaction was off the charts. So a couple of
Speaker 2: years later, Damn Yankees is in a perious position with
Speaker 2: with Warner Brothers that have made a record Warners doesn't
Speaker 2: really give a shit about the record that they're They're
Speaker 2: arguing back and forth, and Tommy and Jack Blades decided
Speaker 2: that they wanted to try and do some other stuff,
Speaker 2: and Tommy threw some people that we knew and everything
Speaker 2: like that got introduced to me and I started managing Tommy,
Speaker 2: and then in turn we started doing something that was
Speaker 2: called Shaw Blades, which was Tommy, Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades.
Speaker 2: So when we were doing the beginning of the of
Speaker 2: the Tommy stuff and we weren't talking, there was never
Speaker 2: any mention of anything with me and Tommy in the
Speaker 2: in the opening stuff about Styx.
Speaker 1: I.
Speaker 2: Actually was not really a Sticks fan. I uh, you know.
Speaker 2: I came up with the Outlaws and Leonard skinnerd and
Speaker 2: the Allman Brothers band and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And Sti's was that big band from Chicago that had
Speaker 2: all those kind of songs, but they weren't and they
Speaker 2: weren't what I would say in my wheelhouse at the time,
Speaker 2: So we uh, Tommy was Universal Records had all of
Speaker 2: the Stick all of this catalog except for Lady. They
Speaker 2: didn't own Lady because Lady was recorded on Wooden Nickel
Speaker 2: Records in the in the beginning. All right, So they
Speaker 2: were putting out a second Greatest Hits record, which they
Speaker 2: could do with or without the band's okay, all right,
Speaker 2: But they came to the band, and they came and
Speaker 2: they wanted to have Lady on the on the thing,
Speaker 2: but they didn't want to license this song from from
Speaker 2: Wooden Nickel. Hence the the the thing that most bands
Speaker 2: fans know this, and I'm sure you know this to Bob.
Speaker 2: Bands do re records after their re record contracts or
Speaker 2: they're clear of re record problems with the record company.
Speaker 2: Everybody you know has their own versions that they do
Speaker 2: of the songs later. So they're gonna do Lady. So
Speaker 2: Tommy comes to me and he says, hey, I got
Speaker 2: a call from Jay and he wants me to he
Speaker 2: wants me to come to uh to Chicago, and we're
Speaker 2: gonna they're gonna re record Lady. And I said, okay,
Speaker 2: the Universal is going to put this thing out. I said, Okay,
Speaker 2: that all makes sense. I said, but but you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't think you guys got along. And he goes, oh,
Speaker 2: he goes, you know it was really weird. He goes.
Speaker 2: He called me and he goes, you know, we hadn't
Speaker 2: talked in ten years or fifteen, twelve, whatever amount of
Speaker 2: years it was. We hadn't talked in all this time.
Speaker 2: And he said, but he goes, it was like, none
Speaker 2: of this shit that went on in the past was there.
Speaker 2: He goes, it was just like two old friends talking.
Speaker 2: And I was like, well, there's there's going to be
Speaker 2: three more friends when you go up there, because there
Speaker 2: was there was five guys in the band, right, And
Speaker 2: he goes yeah. I go, well, hopefully that'll all work out.
Speaker 2: And I go, so okay, and he said yeah, and
Speaker 2: they said, you know, I can bring Genie, which is
Speaker 2: now Tommy's wife, which was Tommy's girlfriend at the time,
Speaker 2: because we're going to all go to dinner afterwards. And
Speaker 2: I was like, well, okay, Son's great. And he went
Speaker 2: off to Chicago and the next morning he called me
Speaker 2: on the phone and he said, he said, listen. He goes,
Speaker 2: you have no idea. He goes, I know that you
Speaker 2: have this this thing because of different stuff that I've
Speaker 2: said about you know, who gets I don't care about sticks,
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, he goes, but he goes, when
Speaker 2: we started playing that, we started playing Lady, he said,
Speaker 2: it just all sounded so great. And he goes, and
Speaker 2: everybody was in a great mood. He goes, we all
Speaker 2: got along, and the wives got along, and the girlfriend whatever,
Speaker 2: everybody got along. And he said. We went to dinner,
Speaker 2: and he said, and at dinner, somebody said, wouldn't it
Speaker 2: be great if we if we did a tour? And
Speaker 2: I said okay, and he said, well, perbade him. Would
Speaker 2: anybody give a shit if Sticks came back out and toured?
Speaker 2: And my wife was in the room, and I said,
Speaker 2: Stick's doing a tour and Cindy said, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I got I'm gonna have to do some check and
Speaker 2: I really, you don't know what it would mean. And
Speaker 2: my wife said everybody in my high school would go
Speaker 2: to that show. And I was like, really, okay. So
Speaker 2: I called some promoter friends of mine, and at the time,
Speaker 2: Jack Boyle was alive, and I think I called I
Speaker 2: think I called Don Law. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 2: similar to when I made all the calls originally about
Speaker 2: Leonard Skinner. When putting Skinner together in eighty seven, I
Speaker 2: reached out the people that I trusted there were ill
Speaker 2: probably called Arnie and Jerry in Chicago, and everybody was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that sounds really good. So I also thought, okay, there
Speaker 2: has to be a great package that goes with this.
Speaker 2: So we started talking about the one the tour, and
Speaker 2: one of the things that Tommy said that he went
Speaker 2: back to the guys and said, all right, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be in. But if I'm in, my manager, Charlie
Speaker 2: Bresco manages us and he runs the show. And uh
Speaker 2: so he said, Tommy said, I talked to them about it.
Speaker 2: They agreed, they want to have a meeting in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Can you come to Chicago next week? So I flew
Speaker 2: to Chicago. And you know, I mean, honest to God's
Speaker 2: truth in my in my promoter days in when I
Speaker 2: was managing Skinnered in the early nineties, Jay Why had
Speaker 2: called me to go see his solo band, and I
Speaker 2: think I told him I was going to show up
Speaker 2: at the show. And I never showed up, but but
Speaker 2: we we sat in a room. We we we we
Speaker 2: went to dinner at the at the at a at
Speaker 2: an Italian restaurant in downtown Chicago. We went across the
Speaker 2: street to the to the uh. To the Whitehall Hotel
Speaker 2: where I was staying. We had I had a sweet upstairs.
Speaker 2: We went upstairs. We all sat down and we started talking,
Speaker 2: and they said, what can we do? And I said,
Speaker 2: from what I've been able to ascertain, you know, we'll
Speaker 2: We'll get we'll get an agent. Well, we'll uh and
Speaker 2: we'll you know, we we'll do We'll do amphitheaters, we'll
Speaker 2: do you know, I think we can do forty or
Speaker 2: fifty shows next year if everybody will commit to it.
Speaker 2: And everybody kind of like said, yeah, okay. And the
Speaker 2: first tour was done with absolutely no interference from from
Speaker 2: anybody at all. And the first tour, everywhere we went
Speaker 2: basically sold out. I mean, we did twenty three thousand
Speaker 2: people in Saint Louis and you know, twenty thousand people.
Speaker 2: You know. We did two nights in Chicago at the
Speaker 2: at the endoor, at the Arena, I mean, and it
Speaker 2: was great, it was it was wonderful. And then, of course,
Speaker 2: you know, as as things go, the next tour, some
Speaker 2: ghosts came out and things started to go back to
Speaker 2: the to the you know, a little bit out of
Speaker 2: the way, and and at one point Tommy and j why.
Speaker 2: Came to me and said, we got a new album
Speaker 2: coming out, Dennis does, Dennis can't tour. We want to
Speaker 2: go out there without them. And I said, all right,
Speaker 2: if we do this, you know, it could work. It
Speaker 2: might not work, but you know, if you guys, if
Speaker 2: you guys, I'm not going to go backwards. We're not
Speaker 2: going to go do this for six months and then
Speaker 2: and then turn around and go back because Dennis will
Speaker 2: just be you know, Dennis will have more power than
Speaker 2: he wants. And and uh, and we you know, the
Speaker 2: three of us decided we were going to do it,
Speaker 2: and off we went. And it's uh, twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 2: You know, we've been touring. We've done probably twenty five
Speaker 2: hundred shows, and and we love we love what we do.
Speaker 2: We have a great we have a great time. Okay,
Speaker 2: how did you tell Dennis he was out? Oh? I
Speaker 2: called him on the phone and told him and and
Speaker 2: the reaction was not good. And he said to me,
Speaker 2: you know that no one will come to see them
Speaker 2: without me, and I go, we'll see, we'll find out.
Speaker 2: And then there was a loss suit and then the
Speaker 2: lawsuit got settled, and you know, and and and it's
Speaker 2: from I'm pretty sure of this. I don't think me,
Speaker 2: Tommy or Jay, why have ever spoken to Dennis since
Speaker 2: I since I let him go. I don't think the
Speaker 2: three of us have ever had a word with Dennis
Speaker 2: and a good word or a bad word. Nothing, Okay.
Speaker 1: Conventional wisdom was that Dennis was acting out and the
Speaker 1: other members didn't like it.
Speaker 2: Is that true, Dennis, Dennis just had a You know, Dennis,
Speaker 2: Dennis likes to be in control of everything, and he
Speaker 2: I guess during the years of the early days, he
Speaker 2: he got more and more power. He wrote, he wrote
Speaker 2: big songs. I mean, he was you know, there's there's there,
Speaker 2: there's there's those kind of struggles and ship like that
Speaker 2: that goes on with bands and just about every band.
Speaker 2: I mean, let me tell you something. You know, Keith
Speaker 2: and Mick ain't kissing and hugging on on every night
Speaker 2: about everything, and and they've stayed together all those years.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know it's it. You gotta you gotta know,
Speaker 2: you gotta know, you know where you're, how you can
Speaker 2: how you can do this together, because uh, you know
Speaker 2: it otherwise you go. You know, it's like the Fleetwood song,
Speaker 2: you go your own way. I mean, that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's it, that's it, and you know sometimes people
Speaker 2: try and it doesn't work. We found an incredible talent
Speaker 2: and we we actually knew it. We auditioned uh for
Speaker 2: Dennis's position. We auditioned a number of a number of people,
Speaker 2: and the least like Dennis, the least sounding like Dennis,
Speaker 2: the least Dennis because we we actually had people come
Speaker 2: in that people suggested to us. And we did the
Speaker 2: the auditions up at Tommy's house when he lived up
Speaker 2: in the top of the Hollywood Hills. And when when
Speaker 2: we did those, there were guys that were like they
Speaker 2: were in cover bands. They were they were doing Dennis
Speaker 2: and cover bands and they were pretty convincing how they
Speaker 2: did their stuff. But when after Lawrence Gowan did his thing,
Speaker 2: we went we went into Tommy's house and the three
Speaker 2: of us looked at each other and they said, what
Speaker 2: do you think? And I said, if you want to
Speaker 2: if all the guys that we had here before, if
Speaker 2: you want somebody to be Dennis, we get one of
Speaker 2: those guys. If you want to chart a new course
Speaker 2: and you want to you want to have a guy
Speaker 2: that that's that's alltra talented and has had his own
Speaker 2: career in Canada and all that stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: and is not Dennis. That that's my vote, you know,
Speaker 2: I got, I got one vote out of three. You
Speaker 2: two Stoll, you know, call the shots and and you know,
Speaker 2: but that's that's my opinion. And it's been my opinion
Speaker 2: from day one. And let me tell you something the
Speaker 2: first tour that we did with Dennis in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 2: that those shows were those shows were great. I mean
Speaker 2: they were they were really great. It was a it
Speaker 2: really what brought what took it apart was the same
Speaker 2: thing that took it apart the first time. It was
Speaker 2: personality conflicts. And they they just didn't they didn't want
Speaker 2: to be on the same bus together, they didn't want
Speaker 2: to be in the same cars together. They didn't want
Speaker 2: to be and you can't you can't fix that. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can't fix personalities.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you had a new member, you go on
Speaker 1: the first tour. Is it all smooth or do some
Speaker 1: people react to, hey, Dennis isn't in the band?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, well there was, there was, there was. That
Speaker 2: was the one thing that we were least worried about
Speaker 2: was we knew there was a crowd out there that
Speaker 2: would be that would want to listen to the to
Speaker 2: the Stick stuff, and if we did it, great, it
Speaker 2: would it would be great. But all the chirpin and
Speaker 2: all the fan stuff that you know there, Yeah, there
Speaker 2: were battle lines, there were two sides, there were all that,
Speaker 2: but we we knew all together that that we had
Speaker 2: we the fans, the people that were coming would react.
Speaker 2: And then my sense of everything was was we got
Speaker 2: to get out and we can't play fairs and festivals
Speaker 2: that we're playing and we can't play you know, smaller
Speaker 2: theaters and everything like that. We got to get out
Speaker 2: on a show that'll that'll put a lot of people
Speaker 2: out there, so that so that we can get in
Speaker 2: front of a lot of people, so so the bunch
Speaker 2: of fans can come and even if we only convince
Speaker 2: half of them, instead of convincing you know, a thousand
Speaker 2: out of two thousand people, we're convincing five out of
Speaker 2: ten thousand people. And there had there had always been
Speaker 2: a U challenge that had never really on a tour
Speaker 2: situation had never happened like Rio and Sticks were always
Speaker 2: kind of in competition. And I went after Rio to
Speaker 2: do a tour at Sticks, and I got House of
Speaker 2: Blues to put up the money for a whole tour
Speaker 2: and an amphitheater tour and everything like that. And I
Speaker 2: approached Tomkin Solo that manages Rio and and we both
Speaker 2: felt that it was going to be great. And we've
Speaker 2: probably done four hundred, four hundred and fifty shows together
Speaker 2: or something like that. And and we the two the
Speaker 2: two bands. Everybody, everybody gets along. That's the other thing
Speaker 2: about Stix, I mean Sticks, Probably of all the bands
Speaker 2: that I've ever been involved with, they probably the bus
Speaker 2: is probably the most fun bus to be on because
Speaker 2: they're they're they're all they all get along. They get
Speaker 2: along great.
Speaker 1: So when you did the first tour with Styx with
Speaker 1: House to Blues Concerts, which was an independent operation.
Speaker 2: At that point, Amarciano, Alex Odges, Larry Vallen, it was
Speaker 2: a great time. Right, So how do you decide on
Speaker 2: paying billing with Gonsolo. It's been across the board fifty
Speaker 2: to fifty. We're partners and we then and let me
Speaker 2: tell you something else that's interesting that we do. Okay,
Speaker 2: when we toured together, you know how you got somebody
Speaker 2: that's got a referee shirt on the production manager that
Speaker 2: works for the tour doesn't work for either of us.
Speaker 2: He works for the tour because because if it was
Speaker 2: our production manager, he would be jockeying for everything for us.
Speaker 2: If it was our production manager, he would be jockeying,
Speaker 2: jockeying for everything for them. That's it's it's neutral. We
Speaker 2: had to have a neutral person in the middle. So
Speaker 2: how do you decide who closes? Tom and I work
Speaker 2: that out, and then we go back to the band
Speaker 2: and they go, what the hell are they too me?
Speaker 2: You know, and then we go like, just well, listen,
Speaker 2: we're going to do this again two years or three
Speaker 2: or four years from now, and you can close that
Speaker 2: city that time. Chicago we always close. Saint Louis they
Speaker 2: always close, Atlanta we always. I mean, there's some that
Speaker 2: that that are basically you know that that we we
Speaker 2: naturally do it. And then we just go like and actually,
Speaker 2: you know, in the in the first few years, the
Speaker 2: first couple of times that we did it and there
Speaker 2: wasn't that was a little bit tougher. Now it's like,
Speaker 2: I don't we don't care, you know, play you know,
Speaker 2: who who closes is the most inconsequential thing. Man my opinion,
Speaker 2: and my band knows this, and some of my band
Speaker 2: members have come to the same conclusion. If it's a
Speaker 2: three act show, which our shows always are in the
Speaker 2: summer in the amphitheaters, the middle slot's the best slot
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 1: Because it's an aged audience.
Speaker 2: Closing is an egos situation and is the middle of
Speaker 2: the best because people are still awake and aren't leaving. Bob,
Speaker 2: everybody's there. Nobody's leaving. Everybody the people. Everybody's not there
Speaker 2: when the first act goes on, and no matter who closes,
Speaker 2: there are people leaving.
Speaker 1: So are there any young Sticks fans or is it
Speaker 1: all people from the original era?
Speaker 2: Oh? No, no, no, there's there's there's a that we
Speaker 2: We wouldn't be where we are and we wouldn't be
Speaker 2: doing the stuff that we're doing if it wasn't for
Speaker 2: parents bringing their kids to shows, and then kids coming
Speaker 2: to the shows without their parents as they growled. We've
Speaker 2: got we've got fans that have been coming now for
Speaker 2: the last twenty years that came to the shows when
Speaker 2: they were twelve or fifteen with their parents and now
Speaker 2: they're thirty five and they're they're like, they're you know,
Speaker 2: they're bringing their kids.
Speaker 1: So it appears that Sticks goes out every summer, is
Speaker 1: that true?
Speaker 2: We we work, We work regularly, but we don't do
Speaker 2: the amphitheaters every year. We do the amphitheaters every few years.
Speaker 2: We have way more places to play and things that
Speaker 2: we like to do. Like I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2: There's a there's a twenty six hundred seat theater in
Speaker 2: Phoenix that most bands hate playing because it's circular, it's
Speaker 2: in the room, it's not the celebrity. Celebrity. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so so most people, you know, most people do everything
Speaker 2: that they can to not play the celebrity. Stix loves
Speaker 2: playing the celebrity We you know, we've done as many
Speaker 2: as three nights there because the fan reaction and the
Speaker 2: fan kind of like that. You know, you know a
Speaker 2: lot of our fans we see them at multiple shows
Speaker 2: all the time, so you know, it's it's a you know,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a it's a you know, all bands
Speaker 2: have that. But you know, we we like certain things
Speaker 2: that we do and we like it's pretty obvious from
Speaker 2: from what our touring history is. There's there's there's a
Speaker 2: lot of artists that we like to tour with. We're
Speaker 2: out with Foreigner this summer. We love them. We brought
Speaker 2: John Waite back, who has done stuff with us before. Rio,
Speaker 2: we work with a lot. We worked with Joan Jet.
Speaker 2: Joan was great. Tesla has always been a favorite of ours,
Speaker 2: and it's really kind of like a chemistry of how
Speaker 2: it works with the crowd and then how it works
Speaker 2: backstage also how everybody kind of gets along, because if
Speaker 2: you can't get along with sticks, there's a problem.
Speaker 1: So there's no issue of overexposure.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it yet, Okay, So Stix is on
Speaker 2: the road. They have this fan base. There was a
Speaker 2: new record. Is there anything you can do beyond the
Speaker 2: live shows to grow the image or impact or ticket sales?
Speaker 2: As Sticks, we keep an active social media stuff out there.
Speaker 2: The record, I mean, listen the first record when we
Speaker 2: did it, and I think it was twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 2: they they hadn't done anything. I mean, I know, it
Speaker 2: sounds pale in comparison to three triple platinum records in
Speaker 2: a row and everything like that, But in today's market,
Speaker 2: that record sounds sound scanned like one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: thousand records or something like that that you know, and
Speaker 2: our last record that we did sound scanned like sixty
Speaker 2: or seventy thousand records. So it's it's it's and we
Speaker 2: play some of the songs. We play a few of
Speaker 2: the songs live, and if we do an evening with
Speaker 2: Stick show where we do two sets, then we'll play
Speaker 2: a little bit more of the of the new stuff.
Speaker 2: And the fans love it because, quite frankly, the album sound,
Speaker 2: the material sounds like vintage sticks. They use a lot
Speaker 2: of the same kind of recording techniques and all that
Speaker 2: stuff that they used in the early days to keep
Speaker 2: that authentic kind of sound. What about sponsorship, Uh, if
Speaker 2: it's out, you know, it's not something that we seek
Speaker 2: and and and they you know, we we have our
Speaker 2: own beer. We have we have a we have a
Speaker 2: beer called Omama that's brewed by by a company in Pittsburgh,
Speaker 2: and it's a little bit of a playoff of the
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the biggest sports tie ins that
Speaker 2: there is is Styx's song Renegade and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, if you go to if you
Speaker 2: go to a Pittsburgh Steelers game, that's a that's at
Speaker 2: their home field. Sometime during that game when they need
Speaker 2: a defensive stop, they're there. You're you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 2: hear Renegade and the crowd is going to just be
Speaker 2: having tiles waven and all that stuff. And we've got
Speaker 2: a really special relationship with them. So we do have
Speaker 2: a beer that that that's done significantly well as a
Speaker 2: as a as a craft beer and everything like that.
Speaker 2: But but we don't we don't really we don't look
Speaker 2: for sponsors and you know, we don't we we we
Speaker 2: if if the right one came in, would we would
Speaker 2: we look at it. Yeah, but it's it's not something
Speaker 2: that we're you know, we're we're we're we we know
Speaker 2: what we know what we we know how our mercher,
Speaker 2: we know how to do our merch. We know how
Speaker 2: to do our our live our live shows, and we
Speaker 2: know how to we know how to do it in
Speaker 2: the in the fashion that we like to do it.
Speaker 2: That that's probably why we keep doing it. What about privates,
Speaker 2: Oh we yeah, we that we that was an early
Speaker 2: that first time we did that, it was shell shock.
Speaker 2: Now you know we we we do privates when when uh,
Speaker 2: when they make sense and usually it has to do
Speaker 2: with it it routes well or something like that, and
Speaker 2: some of them are some of them are surprising, and
Speaker 2: some of them are privates. Okay, how'd you put Leonard
Speaker 2: skinnerd back together? Uh? Nineteen eighty seven April, well, probably
Speaker 2: January of nineteen eighty seven. I got a call from
Speaker 2: Amat Urdigan and Ahmat said, Charlie, uh, aren't you aren't
Speaker 2: you friends with Gary Rossington? And I said, yeah, I've
Speaker 2: been friends with Gary Rossington since, you know, since nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four. And he said, he said, him and his
Speaker 2: wife Dale have this have this album, and atlantic's putting
Speaker 2: it out and he he needs some he needs somebody,
Speaker 2: and he goes I was talking to him about it
Speaker 2: the other day and he said, he said, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I brought your name up. And he said, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you Charlie and I are friends. I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, and he said so, so
Speaker 2: he gave me Gary's number, which Gary with at the time,
Speaker 2: was living in and h up in Jackson, how Wyoming.
Speaker 2: And I called Gary up and I said, hey, Gary,
Speaker 2: what's going on? And he said, uh, you know, you know,
Speaker 2: I got to get a manager. I got this record
Speaker 2: coming out and Dale and I are really excited about it.
Speaker 2: Send me the record. I listened to the record. I
Speaker 2: was I was promoting at the time, I UH with
Speaker 2: Alex Cooley and Peter Conlin in Atlanta, and we were
Speaker 2: we were doing shows together, and I wasn't really doing
Speaker 2: any real management stuff. But just like I mean, the
Speaker 2: history with me and Gary goes back to you know,
Speaker 2: the before Sweet Home Alabama was out. So uh, I said, uh,
Speaker 2: all right, Uh. I listened to the record. Dale sounded great.
Speaker 2: It sounded like a cross between Rossington Collins and and
Speaker 2: Uh and skinnern and Uh. And so Gary, Gary came,
Speaker 2: Gary and Dale came to Atlanta and we met and
Speaker 2: I said, Okay, we're gonna We're gonna do this. And
Speaker 2: I got them. I had Alex and Peter and I
Speaker 2: had had a show at the Fox in Atlanta with Kansas.
Speaker 2: And the Kansas show was a about two thirds made.
Speaker 2: It was already on sale, it was about two thirds
Speaker 2: sold out. So I said the I said to I
Speaker 2: said to Alex and Peter, I said, you know, just
Speaker 2: the name Rossington on the because that's what the name
Speaker 2: of Gary's band, just the name of that on on
Speaker 2: ninety six Rock will sell out the rest of the
Speaker 2: Kansas State. Let's put his band on as the opening act. Okay, great,
Speaker 2: So so we put them on the show. So it's
Speaker 2: you know, the show. So as soon as we announced Rossington,
Speaker 2: like in the next couple of days, the show at
Speaker 2: the Fox ended up completely selling out, sold out in advance.
Speaker 2: So we went to uh, uh, we're at the Fox
Speaker 2: and more upstairs in one of the dressing rooms up
Speaker 2: and the upstairs, and somebody comes in and I'm in
Speaker 2: with Gary and Dale and they're nerves they're they're actually
Speaker 2: nervous because they're back to play in the Fox where
Speaker 2: the three nights were recorded for the for the Skinnered
Speaker 2: record and Rossington Collins had sold the building out and
Speaker 2: everything like that. And here they are coming back and
Speaker 2: they're and they're they're playing special guests to Kansas and
Speaker 2: I and and somebody comes up and said, uh, there's
Speaker 2: there's there's two guys at the back door and they
Speaker 2: say that they they're good friends at Gary's and and
Speaker 2: uh and they they heard that you're back here. They
Speaker 2: said for you again because they want to say hi
Speaker 2: to Gary. I got okay, so I got downstairs I
Speaker 2: go to the back door of the Fox and I
Speaker 2: open the door and it's Billy Powell and Leon Wilkerson
Speaker 2: from all Right standing there. Hey man, we want to
Speaker 2: see Gary. And I was like, Uh, okay, they're upstairs.
Speaker 2: They're nervous as hell. Let us go up. Let us
Speaker 2: go up and say him. So they go up and
Speaker 2: they all go into a room and they start talking
Speaker 2: and everything like that. And and Gary had said to
Speaker 2: me early on, you know, I don't want to revisit
Speaker 2: all the skinner and stuff, and you know, I want
Speaker 2: the focus to be on on on the Rossington band
Speaker 2: and everything like that. So I go up to the
Speaker 2: dressing room and they're getting ready to go to the
Speaker 2: stage and everything like that. And Gary pulls me aside
Speaker 2: and he goes, we're gonna we're gonna go when we
Speaker 2: do the end, we're going to go back up and
Speaker 2: I'm going to bring Billy and Leon up for Sweet
Speaker 2: Home Alabama. And I was like, you haven't rehearsed, right,
Speaker 2: He goes, we all know it. He goes, he goes,
Speaker 2: it'll go, it'll go over, It'll be great. And they
Speaker 2: did that, and the place basically went to a different level.
Speaker 2: It totally exploded. So we all we were all on this,
Speaker 2: you know, high and from the show and all that,
Speaker 2: and we went to a club, the bar, kind of
Speaker 2: place that we used to hang out at when the
Speaker 2: Skinner days and all that stuff. And we went back
Speaker 2: there and it's one thirty in the morning and I'm
Speaker 2: going to go home and Billy Powell comes over to
Speaker 2: me and he goes, hey, Charlie, you know what the
Speaker 2: October twentieth is this year. I go, yeah, Billy, it's
Speaker 2: plane crash. No, no, no, no, tenth year. We need
Speaker 2: to do something on October twentieth. And I was like,
Speaker 2: if you talk to Gary about this, goes, Gary won't
Speaker 2: talk to us about this. You need to talk to
Speaker 2: him and Dale, and you need to get them to
Speaker 2: do something. We just need to do one show. So
Speaker 2: I was like, okay. So I went back to Gary
Speaker 2: and Dale and I brought it up and Dale we
Speaker 2: when we walked out of the room, she goes, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't bring that up to him again. He doesn't want
Speaker 2: anything to do with it. So I go okay. So
Speaker 2: different things started to percolate and everything like that, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden Gary called me and he said
Speaker 2: if we did if we did one show, could could
Speaker 2: we could we make some money? And could we also
Speaker 2: put Rossington on the show and I'll play both sets?
Speaker 2: And I said yeah, and he goes, where does it
Speaker 2: make sense to do it? I go, there's only one
Speaker 2: place to do it. He goes where I go to
Speaker 2: the Omni in Atlanta. I go, we'll announce it. It'll
Speaker 2: do fifteen sixteen thousand people. It'll be you know all that,
Speaker 2: but we'll have to rehearse, you know, we'll we'll have
Speaker 2: to get all together and you have to figure out
Speaker 2: who's going to play it and everything at that. So
Speaker 2: we we we we. The next day, I went to
Speaker 2: Alex and Peter and I was like, Hey, we want
Speaker 2: to do a Skinnered reunion thing one day. You know,
Speaker 2: Omni in Atlanta. What do you think? Alex says, couldn't
Speaker 2: we do it October twenty first? And I go, doesn't
Speaker 2: really make a lot of sense. Why He goes, the
Speaker 2: cars are playing, They're they're confirmed. And I was like,
Speaker 2: we can't like move that around or no, there couldsendent
Speaker 2: or tour. They're not going to give up that date.
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, all right, then let's go
Speaker 2: to Birmingham. We'll go to you know, we'll go to
Speaker 2: We'll go to the arena in Birmingham. I don't like
Speaker 2: it as much as I like Atlanta, but well, we'll
Speaker 2: go to Birmingham for one show. Went back and we
Speaker 2: started talking about what we were going to that we
Speaker 2: were going to put it together, and we had that.
Speaker 2: And back then in those days, there were the tip sheets,
Speaker 2: and there was a there was a tip sheet that
Speaker 2: came out of Philadelphia that was Bill Hard. And I
Speaker 2: used to talk to Bill Hard or one of his guys.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you just about when was the last
Speaker 1: time you spoke with Bill Hard?
Speaker 2: Oh? Probably probably probably back around this time. I haven't
Speaker 2: talked to Bill Hard, I think in this century. But
Speaker 2: keep right, good, right, right, all right? So so so
Speaker 2: so that that we were talking about something and they
Speaker 2: they said to me, you know, oh, I was pitching
Speaker 2: him on the Rossington record to get you know, and
Speaker 2: and Ahmitt was going to do ads in the tip
Speaker 2: sheet and all that stuff. And he said, so I
Speaker 2: heard that the ohm it's excited. And he said something
Speaker 2: about you're going to try and do some kind of
Speaker 2: a skinner thing. And I said, yeah, we're gonna We're
Speaker 2: gonna do one show on on the twentieth of uh of,
Speaker 2: you know, And I said, told I'm calling, I'm calling
Speaker 2: around to some promoters and I'm trying. So I started
Speaker 2: calling around the promoters and all the promoters were like, hey,
Speaker 2: don't just do Birmingham do this, DIY do this. So
Speaker 2: I went back to Gary and I said, you know, hey, listen,
Speaker 2: we probably can do ten or twelve or whatever. Why
Speaker 2: don't Why don't we make it make more sense? And he's,
Speaker 2: you know, he said, uh, well, you know you need
Speaker 2: to you need to find certain people. I go, what's that?
Speaker 2: He goes the first one. He goes, I'm not doing
Speaker 2: this unless Ed King is involved. And I go, do
Speaker 2: you have any idea where Ed King is? I I
Speaker 2: heard he's in New Jersey. All right, Ed King had
Speaker 2: Ed King wasn't even playing. I mean Ed King was
Speaker 2: in the software business or early tech, you know, tech
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. So I rounded up Ed, I rounded
Speaker 2: up Billy Pile, Leon Artemis. We we got we started
Speaker 2: getting that all together, and then that was all in motion.
Speaker 2: And that was when Bill Hard called me, and I
Speaker 2: had promoters that were gonna, we're all interested in doing it.
Speaker 2: And I had a conversation before I talked to Bill Hard.
Speaker 2: I had a conversation with Bill Graham, and I called
Speaker 2: Bill Graham up on the phone. And Bill Bill was
Speaker 2: always like like, you know, he was always telling me,
Speaker 2: you don't know what. He took me under his wing
Speaker 2: and helped me in all kinds of ways. R at that,
Speaker 2: but he was always you know, giving me the giving
Speaker 2: me a hard time. So I called him up, and
Speaker 2: I said, and he was a massive, massive Leonard Skinnerard
Speaker 2: guy in the day. Ronnie, Ronnie and him were great
Speaker 2: friends Gary everybody they were the Bill Bill was was one,
Speaker 2: you know, was one of their favorite promoters, if not
Speaker 2: their favorite promoter. So I called Bill was one of
Speaker 2: the first guys I called. And Bill said to me,
Speaker 2: are you out of your goddamn mind, don't you know
Speaker 2: there was a plane crash. He said, you can't bring
Speaker 2: back he goes. You can't bring back Leonard Skinnard without
Speaker 2: without Ronnie van Zandt. And I said, Johnny's gonna sing
Speaker 2: he goes. Nobody will care. And I said, so Bill,
Speaker 2: if I I said, Larry Maggot's gonna do. All these
Speaker 2: people were doing cities, you don't want to do San Francisco. No,
Speaker 2: I won't do it. And I said, okay, well, then
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what we won't do San Francisco. If
Speaker 2: we're not going to come in there and have Don
Speaker 2: Fox or somebody else come in and do San Francisco,
Speaker 2: the band respects you too much. And if you feel
Speaker 2: that way, okay. So Bill Graham was kind of written
Speaker 2: out of the tour at that moment. Bill Hard calls
Speaker 2: me up on the phone and we're talking about this thing,
Speaker 2: and this is like, this is after we had the
Speaker 2: lineup that set and he's and I tell Bill Hard, yeah, well,
Speaker 2: actually we're gonna do We're gonna do a bunch of dates.
Speaker 2: We're gonna probably do fifteen twenty. I don't know. We're
Speaker 2: still putting it together. We still talking about the Rossington record.
Speaker 2: Bill Hard on Thursday or Friday of whatever that week was,
Speaker 2: whenever he wrote his Hard report in the notes. Thing
Speaker 2: that he wrote, interesting thing going on in Atlanta. Sounds
Speaker 2: like Charlie Brusco has Gary Rossington all these together, and
Speaker 2: it sounds like around the October we'll see the first
Speaker 2: time we'll see some dates honoring Leonard Skinner all right
Speaker 2: the tip sheet comes out. The tip sheets out. The
Speaker 2: next day or two days after the tip sheet comes out,
Speaker 2: I get a call from Bill Graham and Bill says,
Speaker 2: this skinner thing you're you're really going to do it?
Speaker 2: I go yeah, And he goes, is it routed yet?
Speaker 2: I go, barbar Skuydell and Frank Barcelona Premiere routing it.
Speaker 2: But we're not. We didn't put San Francisco in Bill,
Speaker 2: and he said, we're going to change that. And I go,
Speaker 2: where do you think we should play in San Francisco?
Speaker 2: And he says, he goes, I want to do Shoreline.
Speaker 2: I want to do Concord. I want to do Sacramento.
Speaker 2: I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa. Bill, you went
Speaker 2: from this is the stupidest idea that you've ever heard.
Speaker 2: To now you want to do five cities and you
Speaker 2: want to open the tour in San Francisco. What is
Speaker 2: going on? And he said, well, he goes that Bill
Speaker 2: Hard report. He goes, somebody at the radio station here
Speaker 2: in San Francisco started talking about it on the radio
Speaker 2: yesterday morning, and our phone lines have been jammed, people
Speaker 2: calling to wanting to know when they're going to play
Speaker 2: San Francisco. He goes, we'll sell every one of these
Speaker 2: shows out. I said, Shoreline's twenty thousand seats. He said,
Speaker 2: you'll sell every show out. I'll stake my name on it.
Speaker 2: And so we started in San Francisco. We did, we did,
Speaker 2: We did twenty one thousand people at Shoreline sold out,
Speaker 2: sold that, Concord sold out Sacramento. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: and Bill, you know, Bill was was a was a
Speaker 2: great part of that, putting the band together and getting
Speaker 2: everything and the initial start, and then we did eighty seven,
Speaker 2: and then we did eighty eight, and then the band
Speaker 2: kind of like all the ghosts came out and I
Speaker 2: got I got crazy with it, and they got crazy
Speaker 2: with it, and you know, they they called me up
Speaker 2: one day Gary, I think it was Gary, maybe it
Speaker 2: was Now Probably Gary wasn't called. He had somebody called
Speaker 2: me and he was like, we're we're we're we're we're
Speaker 2: not gonna We're not going to go forward next year
Speaker 2: with you. And I was like, okay. And then the
Speaker 2: next thing I knew they were going to Bill Graham Management.
Speaker 2: So they went to Bill grand Management for two years,
Speaker 2: did one tour and then right right when when when
Speaker 2: when Bill had the when Bill was was killed in
Speaker 2: the helicopter accident, they came, they they came back to
Speaker 2: me and and I had him for the next I
Speaker 2: had him until ninety nine. And put them on the
Speaker 2: put together them and ZZ together, and then we got
Speaker 2: sideways again. And Gary called me up and was like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're gonna We're gonna move on. I I
Speaker 2: was like, Gary, we're great friends. Do me one favor.
Speaker 2: I got everything in I put this tour together. I
Speaker 2: want paid on this tour. He said, You'll get paid
Speaker 2: on this tour and we'll remain friends. And Gary, Dale, Cindy, myself,
Speaker 2: the you know, the rest of the Skinner guys. I
Speaker 2: mean I was. I was at Gary's funeral, and get
Speaker 2: that Dale and Gary lived. They moved ten minutes from
Speaker 2: my house, and we saw each other all the time,
Speaker 2: and you know, there was there wasn't really hard feelings.
Speaker 2: And quite frankly, ros Shilling and Ken Levitan and them
Speaker 2: have done a great job for for Skinner. They the
Speaker 2: and and I know some people don't think this, but
Speaker 2: but I know Gary sat with me and and when
Speaker 2: he had all the health issues before he passed, he
Speaker 2: said to me he said, the one thing that I
Speaker 2: don't want to happen. And I know he said this
Speaker 2: to Dale too. I don't want this band and this
Speaker 2: music and everything that we've been doing to stop because
Speaker 2: I'm not here, and he said, he said, he told
Speaker 2: that to a number of people. And that's why I
Speaker 2: feel like the skinnered music, it doesn't doesn't matter who's playing.
Speaker 2: Johnny's there, Ricky's there. I mean, they're they're doing they're
Speaker 2: doing the the they're doing the legacy well. And they
Speaker 2: they you know, the fans that the fans turn out,
Speaker 2: nobody's making people go to the shows and advertising it
Speaker 2: that it's some you know that that it's you know,
Speaker 2: everybody knows what they're getting and and you know it's
Speaker 2: up to them and the fans to keep on keeping
Speaker 2: the music alive. And that's what Ronnie would have won it,
Speaker 2: That's what you know. That's what Steve Gaines would have wanted.
Speaker 2: That's what you know. That's what they all would have
Speaker 2: won it. And then you know, I knew every one
Speaker 2: of them extremely well, for for as long as every
Speaker 2: one of them lived, because I'm still here and and
Speaker 2: Artemis is still here out of out of everybody, and
Speaker 2: Artemis really wasn't in the band when I first met
Speaker 2: the band. Bob Burns was a drummer when I first
Speaker 2: met the band, and the music that music will live
Speaker 2: on way past me. How did Johnny end up being
Speaker 2: the lead singer? I wanted Donnie Gary wanted Johnny, simple
Speaker 2: as that, and and Garrett Gary Gary was right, I mean,
Speaker 2: Johnny was the exact right choice for what we were doing,
Speaker 2: and and Donnie Vans and it's still one of my
Speaker 2: good friends and one of my favorite guys. But but
Speaker 2: Donnie was Donnie wasn't the right He wasn't the right
Speaker 2: thing for for for the band. Johnny was. Johnny wasn't established,
Speaker 2: and we wouldn't be taking Johnny out of thirty eight
Speaker 2: Special to be and Leonard skinnerd and it probably would
Speaker 2: have worked for one tour, but we never would have
Speaker 2: kept the everything going the way it's been going. Okay,
Speaker 2: you put.
Speaker 1: Leonard Skinnyard back together and they move on to Bill Brahm,
Speaker 1: they move on ultimately the vector again. After what's it
Speaker 1: like being a manager? When you get that call?
Speaker 2: It's uh, it's heartbreaking, you know you and and really
Speaker 2: after you get the call, you kind of you the
Speaker 2: reality sets in of all right, yeah, and I mean
Speaker 2: my wife said to me, you know, this could be
Speaker 2: the best and when when it happened in ninety nine,
Speaker 2: she said, this could be the best thing that ever
Speaker 2: happened you because because they're they're you were gonna you
Speaker 2: were gonna die. You know, you were just you were
Speaker 2: too in it, you were too involved. You were just
Speaker 2: too It was too much. It was too it was
Speaker 2: taking up your your entire everything. And you know, when
Speaker 2: things would get sideways, it would get worse, and when
Speaker 2: things were good, it would get better.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was it was too much. And at first I
Speaker 2: didn't I didn't get it, but but afterwards, and you know,
Speaker 2: time heals all wounds. I mean that that's the that's
Speaker 2: the truth. I mean, I listened the Outlaws. I started
Speaker 2: with the Outlaws. Uh, the Outlaws. I swear I've been
Speaker 2: fired and rehired by the Outlaws like maybe four or
Speaker 2: five times. And and I'm and Henry Paul and I
Speaker 2: have been There was a short time period when I
Speaker 2: had to tell Henry that he wasn't in the band anymore.
Speaker 2: And Henry went on to do Blackhawk and to do
Speaker 2: his Henry Paul band stuff and everything like that. During
Speaker 2: that time, I was still managing Skinner art stuff. I
Speaker 2: was still managing the Outlaws, and and Henry and I
Speaker 2: couldn't really be friends. But I mean, Henry's writing a book.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm kind of and on win also, but Henry's
Speaker 2: writing a book. And he said, he said to me,
Speaker 2: you'll be happy with what I say about you. And
Speaker 2: I said, just tell the truth, and he I'll be happy. Okay.
Speaker 1: But you know, I was hanging with the manager the
Speaker 1: other day and he was saying, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: a matter of when you get fired. Oh yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's I think we all kind of think that way.
Speaker 2: And uh uh could I could I get fired from Sticks?
Speaker 2: I didn't think. I didn't think I would get fired
Speaker 2: from skinnerd I didn't think I would get fired from
Speaker 2: the Outlaws when I when I did, I the you know,
Speaker 2: there there's some will with with Doug Gray, let me go.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I just think that we're all
Speaker 2: kind of you know, we're we're a little bit past that.
Speaker 2: And then and and I also know what my relationships
Speaker 2: are with with you know, with my artist. I don't
Speaker 2: you know, uh uh, I'm not. I'm not, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: I'm not on tenuous ground with anybody that that that
Speaker 2: I would care about losing. And I'll just leave it
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 1: Now, is your experience been that when they do fire you,
Speaker 1: they have somebody else call in the band sort of
Speaker 1: separates themselves from you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. Most of the time. Most of them
Speaker 2: aren't big boys and call themselves. I mean, I will
Speaker 2: say this. The once or twice that Henry and I
Speaker 2: got he went, he went and did some different stuff
Speaker 2: for different reasons, something like that. Henry actually Henry actually
Speaker 2: called you know, when I think back on it, Gary
Speaker 2: didn't call me. The business manager called me. You know,
Speaker 2: there's you know, there's there's you know that's not it's
Speaker 2: not really an artist thing to unless you unless they're
Speaker 2: pissed off at you. Then I'm sure that you know
Speaker 2: that some of we'll call and go like, you know,
Speaker 2: I've been waiting to do this. I mean, it's you know,
Speaker 2: but most of them, most of them don't. Most of
Speaker 2: them have somebody and usually there's somebody else that's been
Speaker 2: squacking in their ears and telling them that they can
Speaker 2: they can do this for them and that for them,
Speaker 2: and you know, I don't play that game. And and
Speaker 2: really you know, uh, I mean, you know, cork corn
Speaker 2: corn doesn't red light gets enough calls from people saying
Speaker 2: where'd you be interested in? Then we get calls where
Speaker 2: where where we're getting you know, listen, we've got a
Speaker 2: we've got a big roster where you know, we're a
Speaker 2: great management company. But you know it still is a
Speaker 2: you know, personal manager kind of things, and you know,
Speaker 2: personalities again, can you know, can can outweigh business? What's
Speaker 2: what's going on business wise? I mean I've you know,
Speaker 2: I've had I've not when Bill ham got married or
Speaker 2: got when Bill hamm got fired by zz Top after
Speaker 2: managing those guys for thirty years, and I had a
Speaker 2: meeting with what's easy about managing them? When Bill ham
Speaker 2: got got got fired. That was the most shocking thing
Speaker 2: to me in the world because he went in the
Speaker 2: studio with him he you know, and and Bill basically
Speaker 2: he was he was a z easy guy. That's what
Speaker 2: that's what his that's that that's what his whole focus was.
Speaker 2: But you know, sometimes you're too close to it, and
Speaker 2: you know, you're too close to the flame and you
Speaker 2: get burned.
Speaker 1: So you were an independent for a long time. How
Speaker 1: did you decide to make a deal with Red Light?
Speaker 2: Uh? I I had. I when Irving started rolling up
Speaker 2: the management companies Irving and I I consider Irving a friend.
Speaker 2: Irving Irving one of the greatest managers ever, you know.
Speaker 2: I I had a meeting with Irving, and I probably
Speaker 2: could have when when Barrick and Consolo and all those
Speaker 2: people started going to Irving, I probably could have made
Speaker 2: a deal with Irving. But in my estimation, if I
Speaker 2: made a deal with Irving, I was going to need
Speaker 2: to move to Los Angeles to be in the middle
Speaker 2: of what was going on with him, so that when
Speaker 2: he was talking with somebody about you know, management, uh,
Speaker 2: and he was going to have somebody handle somebody, I
Speaker 2: would be right there because I you know, that's how
Speaker 2: that's how goes. So I had, I had a meeting.
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't go into the whole Irving roll up.
Speaker 2: And I was doing fine. I had Alliance Artist. I
Speaker 2: was out of the promoting business. I had done my
Speaker 2: my national tours promoting wise, and I'd done my my
Speaker 2: local and I was out of that whole thing. And
Speaker 2: I was a manager and I had had uh uh
Speaker 2: Skinner I had had left. I had I had sticks
Speaker 2: and we were rolling, and I had other artists I
Speaker 2: bat I had bad company for a little while. I
Speaker 2: had different artists that I was doing doing stuff with.
Speaker 2: And I got a call from from somebody and they
Speaker 2: said that, uh, that zz top was was looking for
Speaker 2: for management, and that I was on the list of
Speaker 2: people that they wanted to meet with. So as it happened,
Speaker 2: zz Top's attorney was John bon Jovi's attorney. John bon
Speaker 2: Jovi is one of my closest friends and my my
Speaker 2: relationship with him was as a promoter, and he's he's
Speaker 2: you know, we we confide in each other on all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff and and actually my my wife is
Speaker 2: extremely friendly with John. Also, when John wants real advice,
Speaker 2: he'll call Cindy instead of calling me. So so I
Speaker 2: called John and I said, listen, I'm gonna meet It's easy,
Speaker 2: and your guys is one of the attorneys on this thing.
Speaker 2: Can you just put a good word in for me?
Speaker 2: And John said, there, there's there's never been anything that
Speaker 2: I thought made more sense than you and z Z
Speaker 2: after SKINNERD and all that stuff. OK, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So John h John reached out, Uh, this meeting was
Speaker 2: set up. I flew into l A, went into a
Speaker 2: meeting with Billy Gibbons and and and another person was
Speaker 2: in the in the meeting, not not anybody in the band.
Speaker 2: And we had we had them. We had the meeting.
Speaker 2: And the next like after the meeting, a couple of
Speaker 2: hours later, I got a call from the attorney and
Speaker 2: he was like, Bill, Billy was blown away. You're you're gonna, You're,
Speaker 2: You're gonna, you're gonna get it. You're gonna get You're
Speaker 2: you're gonna get this. And then whatever happened over the
Speaker 2: next forty eight hours, Billy had a meeting with Carl
Speaker 2: Stubner and the next thing, you know, Carl Stubner became
Speaker 2: the manager of Eazy and has been the manager of
Speaker 2: z Z ever since. So I guess they made, you know,
Speaker 2: a good decision, because it's worked. But I got I
Speaker 2: got like, uh and and and one of the things
Speaker 2: that came back to me was, well, you know, you're
Speaker 2: just you know, Bill Hamm was just a manager that
Speaker 2: was in Houston and just had that office, and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, you were you just have the office in
Speaker 2: Atlanta and and Stubner has a you know, bigger kind
Speaker 2: of uh footprint out there and everything like that, and
Speaker 2: I was, I was really kind of bothered by it.
Speaker 2: And Rod Essek, that's a really good friend of mine,
Speaker 2: that's one of the guys at c AA. He and
Speaker 2: I were at a show and we were we were talking,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you know, man, you know, I
Speaker 2: know this independent thing is is great, and you know,
Speaker 2: and I know it's you know, but nobody's there's not
Speaker 2: that many independents left anymore. And when I have a
Speaker 2: meeting now, I'm like the little guy, and and everybody
Speaker 2: else has all these bells and whistles and all this
Speaker 2: other kind of shit because they're associated with somebody. And
Speaker 2: Rod said to me, well, you had that chance to
Speaker 2: do that thing with Irving, right, And I said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I really thought that to make it work
Speaker 2: with Irving, I needed to move to l A. And
Speaker 2: I'm not I don't want to live in l A.
Speaker 2: I love Atlanta. I'm not moving. You know, I'll get
Speaker 2: out of the business before i'll move. And he said, well,
Speaker 2: what about corn Capshaw? And I said, I said, do
Speaker 2: you know two people that are more different than each
Speaker 2: other than me and Corn and Rod. Rod was like, well,
Speaker 2: I think McGraw. Corn was handling McGraw at the time,
Speaker 2: and him and Rod were talking all the time. And
Speaker 2: he said, he goes, you don't you don't get it.
Speaker 2: He goes, he goes, Corn Corn is a great guy,
Speaker 2: and he goes, but you know, people, people, people are
Speaker 2: afraid of him, or people don't you know people or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, they don't you know that Corn. Corn
Speaker 2: is very private about everything. And he goes, But I
Speaker 2: think you and Corn would get along. So I was like, Rod,
Speaker 2: let me tell you something, just to make it clear
Speaker 2: to you. If Corn Capshaw called me on the phone,
Speaker 2: I of course would talk to him. I would pick
Speaker 2: up the phone. I go, but I'm not you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not looking. I'm an independent guy. All right. This
Speaker 2: is on a Friday in Nashville. All right, Monday, I'm
Speaker 2: back in the office. I'm sitting in the office and
Speaker 2: somebody says in the office, they go, there's a Corn
Speaker 2: Capshaw on the phone for you. And I was like, no,
Speaker 2: that's Rod. I was, that's Rod screwing with me. So
Speaker 2: I picked up the phone and I go, yeah, and
Speaker 2: Corn said, Charlie, it's Corn Capshaw. Do you have a moment?
Speaker 2: And I was like, it is, hey, Corn, how you doing?
Speaker 2: And we started talking and he said I was talking
Speaker 2: with Rod Essek and Rod Rod thinks that that that
Speaker 2: you and I should get together and sit down and
Speaker 2: have a meeting. And he said, he said, would you
Speaker 2: would you be interested? He goes, He goes, I really
Speaker 2: would like to have an office in Atlanta, and I'd
Speaker 2: like to have a presence, and he goes and he goes,
Speaker 2: I think we should sit down and talk. And because
Speaker 2: way back in the way back years, I managed a
Speaker 2: Freddie Jones band and the Freddie Jones band was on
Speaker 2: an entire tour with with with the Dave Matthews band,
Speaker 2: and we were the band was was fairly infamous besides
Speaker 2: their music, with their party and and everybody knew each
Speaker 2: other and that that was really kind of and so
Speaker 2: I said that, I said, yeah, okay. So for the
Speaker 2: next like four or six weeks, Corn and I kept
Speaker 2: on trying to figure out someplace that we could get
Speaker 2: together to have a meeting where it wasn't changing his
Speaker 2: top schedule in my schedule, and so finally we had him.
Speaker 2: We had a meeting at the Red Light office, the
Speaker 2: last red light office, not the new not the building
Speaker 2: that we that that Corns has in Nashville, but the
Speaker 2: one that Paradigm and a couple of other agencies were
Speaker 2: in that office or in that in that building. We
Speaker 2: had a meeting. There was nobody else, everybody we we
Speaker 2: had the meeting after the office was closed so that
Speaker 2: nobody would bother us or anything like that. And we
Speaker 2: sat in a room for forty five minutes or something
Speaker 2: like that, and he said, you do I think we
Speaker 2: should make a deal. And I was like, okay, I go,
Speaker 2: you know, just you know, one of the things that
Speaker 2: i want to make sure of is is that I'm
Speaker 2: staying in Atlanta. I don't I'm not gonna And he said,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to work. I'm not going to deal
Speaker 2: with any of that stuff with you. He said, you're
Speaker 2: I know that you're friends with Bruce Eskowitz, that that
Speaker 2: that's now that's now running our l A stuff and
Speaker 2: aver that that. I go, yeah, I go, yeah, Bruce
Speaker 2: and I know each other from when Bruce started with
Speaker 2: Pace with with with Louie. And he said, he said,
Speaker 2: get on the phone with with Bruce Eskowitz. Make yourself
Speaker 2: the best deal that you want, and we'll and and
Speaker 2: we'll get in business together. And that was in like
Speaker 2: maybe August of twenty let me see, I got a note,
Speaker 2: let me see twenty twenty eleven and January one, twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: The building that I had that was Alliance Artist, which
Speaker 2: I owned the building. We went outside and we took
Speaker 2: the Alliance Artist thing down and we put up a
Speaker 2: thing that said red Light and I've been I signed.
Speaker 2: I signed it. Corn and I made a deal for
Speaker 2: three years and I planned to retire at red Light
Speaker 2: if I retire.
Speaker 1: So when you're independent, you get all the money. If
Speaker 1: you're working with red Light, red Light's got to get
Speaker 1: some of the money. So how does it work out.
Speaker 2: It's a fair and equitable deal that we worked out,
Speaker 2: and it's worked out great for both of us because
Speaker 2: there are artists that have come to us because of
Speaker 2: because of the because I'm in red Light. I mean,
Speaker 2: just you know, just like I didn't get zz Top,
Speaker 2: I got Poison. You know, Poison was was was a
Speaker 2: collaboration between meeting with the band, with me meeting with
Speaker 2: him and Corn meeting with him, and you know, and
Speaker 2: and you know that you know that the red light.
Speaker 2: The red light brings attention and and and uh and
Speaker 2: you know I I I don't. I don't particularly take
Speaker 2: meetings with and and go with every band that that's
Speaker 2: out there, that that you know, somebody from Red Lighter.
Speaker 2: Corn will say to me, Hey, so and so is available,
Speaker 2: and I'll go like, that's not, that's not that's not
Speaker 2: for me, that's not, that's not. I I'm listen, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm seventy two years old now. I I have the
Speaker 2: power to say no. I have the power to be choosy.
Speaker 2: I don't give a I don't care really a whole
Speaker 2: lot about the money, you know it. You know, it's
Speaker 2: not about It's like Bill Graham, it's not about the money.
Speaker 2: It's about the money. But I mean, that's not what
Speaker 2: drives me. And that's just it's just not what drives me.
Speaker 2: And you know, I I do this stuff because I'm
Speaker 2: because I'm passionate about it. And and one of the
Speaker 2: more passionate other managers that I know is Corn. I
Speaker 2: mean Corn is you know, I actually don't. I don't
Speaker 2: know how somebody's brain operates the way Corn's brain operates
Speaker 2: with everything that he does. I mean, he's he and
Speaker 2: he knows what's going on on, everything that's that's going on.
Speaker 2: That's that's way too much for me. That's like when
Speaker 2: when we were at that that that dinner the other
Speaker 2: night and you and I and Corn were standing there talking.
Speaker 2: I mean, the most fascinating thing to me about our
Speaker 2: little exchange during everything at that is you guys started
Speaker 2: talking about books that you're reading, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: if I read a book, I'm reading a biography about
Speaker 2: somebody that's been in the business or an artist or
Speaker 2: something like that. And you guys were talking about stuff
Speaker 2: that was completely and and and I was like and
Speaker 2: and I was thinking to myself, you the two of
Speaker 2: you have time to read books about ship that doesn't
Speaker 2: have anything to do with what's going on with us
Speaker 2: all the time. And and you weren't. You were you
Speaker 2: guys were talking, so you didn't get it like I did.
Speaker 2: But I was watching how passionate you guys got about
Speaker 2: what books you were reading. And I was thinking, I
Speaker 2: was thinking, to myself, that's that's you know, you get
Speaker 2: a surprise every now and then. But that's really surprising
Speaker 2: to me that that's that's something because I would think
Speaker 2: that most of what you're interested in or he's interested in,
Speaker 2: revolves around that. You know, this world and and and
Speaker 2: and I don't have time for anything out of this
Speaker 2: world unless it's you know, going back and you know
Speaker 2: the Keith Richards book or the Bill Graham book or
Speaker 2: the Peter Grant book or you know any of you know,
Speaker 2: that stuff in the new Dave Mason book. I mean
Speaker 2: just was eye opening to me because it's a it's
Speaker 2: a snapshot in time of what was going on for
Speaker 2: you know, when this business was, you know, in its infancy.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know when I started going to shows,
Speaker 2: I mean bands, bands barely had what was called production.
Speaker 2: You used whatever the promoter provided for you. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, there wasn't you know, you know, Frank Barcelona
Speaker 2: was controlling everything that was going on, you know, at
Speaker 2: the beginning of and A. David Krab, David Krebs, you know,
Speaker 2: Libra Crebs. I mean, there was there were those power people.
Speaker 2: I just got lucky when I was in college that
Speaker 2: that I went to all these shows with the Balkans
Speaker 2: were promoting in Cleveland, and I saw kind of from
Speaker 2: from Mike Belkan kind of being nice to me. I
Speaker 2: kind of saw this world where and it's kind of
Speaker 2: been my path where a manager could be a promoter
Speaker 2: and a promoter could be a manager, because that's what
Speaker 2: they did. Mike managed the you know, the James Gang
Speaker 2: and and and Wild Cherry and and and bands and
Speaker 2: they but they still had the biggest promoter company in
Speaker 2: in the world for a while. In the business it
Speaker 2: got very defined. You you weren't on both sides of
Speaker 2: the fence. But I I jump, I jumped back and forth.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to the beginning. So you're from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: I'm from Pittsburgh, Yes, like the actual city or a suburb,
Speaker 2: a suburb, a sub suburb of Pittsburgh. And what did
Speaker 2: your parents do for a living? My father, my father
Speaker 2: owned a a small hang out restaurant that the client
Speaker 2: tele was mainly mobsters or music people like Frank Sinatra
Speaker 2: and people like that. And the bar club only held
Speaker 2: probably sixty people, but it was always open after hours
Speaker 2: because all the cops in the neighborhood were on the
Speaker 2: take and when everybody else had to close at two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the morning, my dad, my dad was able
Speaker 2: to you know, have the door and people would knock
Speaker 2: on the door and they'd let him in at two
Speaker 2: thirty in the morning and the place would close at
Speaker 2: five in the morning, and h and and he he
Speaker 2: he did that while I was a kid, and and
Speaker 2: my mother was my mother was just a housewife until
Speaker 2: my dad decided that he wanted to get out of
Speaker 2: the business. So therefore there was gonna have to be
Speaker 2: more money come in. And my mother became a very
Speaker 2: very big time real estate agent both in uh In
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh, and then when they retired, she's she kept
Speaker 2: working and doing real estate in uh In, Florida because
Speaker 2: she enjoyed doing it. And it's you know, it was
Speaker 2: uh so. So I I grew up kind of with
Speaker 2: a lot of street smarts. And and when I when
Speaker 2: I when I had this thing. I had a band
Speaker 2: when I was in in high school and the band
Speaker 2: came to me. We had we were kind of like
Speaker 2: three dog Night. We had three singers, and they had
Speaker 2: a meeting that I wasn't in, and they came to
Speaker 2: me and they said, listen, there's bad news here. You
Speaker 2: can't sing. But the good news is is you get
Speaker 2: all of our bookings for us. So we want you
Speaker 2: to like book us and manage us. So so I
Speaker 2: I did that with with with the band until I
Speaker 2: it became time to graduate from high school and I
Speaker 2: was working for a summer for my dad and he
Speaker 2: had this big, huge broiler for cooking steaks, and in
Speaker 2: front of the broiler was where you cleaned the dishes,
Speaker 2: and I would clean the dishes in front of this
Speaker 2: like broiler that was like give giving me a son
Speaker 2: tan on my back. And one night I came home
Speaker 2: and I was bitching about working in the restaurant and
Speaker 2: everything like that, and my mother said to me, you
Speaker 2: need to go to college. And I said, mother, who
Speaker 2: are you kidding? I have like a one point nine
Speaker 2: grade point average. I'm not getting in any college. He said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to get you into college, and you're going
Speaker 2: to go to college because if you don't go to college,
Speaker 2: you're going to be working in that restaurant for your
Speaker 2: father for for long, you know. And she goes, I
Speaker 2: don't want to put up with it. So there was
Speaker 2: this remedial kind of work your way into college situation
Speaker 2: at this small college in Ashland, Ohio that my mother
Speaker 2: somehow the I guess somebody at the at our high
Speaker 2: school told her about it, and she searched somebody out
Speaker 2: there and they got us a meeting and we went
Speaker 2: on and there was the first time that they were
Speaker 2: trying this, and they were letting like misfits that didn't
Speaker 2: have the grades to get into the school. They were
Speaker 2: letting us come for summer school. And if we were
Speaker 2: able to operate in summer school, then that we could
Speaker 2: we could come back in the in the fall. So
Speaker 2: we all went to there's probably forty or fifty of
Speaker 2: us or something like that, and there was a crowd
Speaker 2: of maybe fifteen or twenty of us that all became
Speaker 2: buddies from the school, and we all faked our way
Speaker 2: through four years of college, you know, just you know,
Speaker 2: when it came time to take tests, I you know,
Speaker 2: I'd get white crosses and read everything for three days
Speaker 2: in a row and take the test and pass the test.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't show up for classes. I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: I got on the student Senate and I started booking
Speaker 2: shows entertainment wise, and they had been having you know,
Speaker 2: like The Fifth Dimension and shit like that, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I'm bringing and I started doing
Speaker 2: it with Belkan College concerts. I started bringing the James
Speaker 2: Gang and like lou Reid and Poco and all these
Speaker 2: bands that I was into. I started getting them because
Speaker 2: I had the school's money. So you know, it was
Speaker 2: the student fund to put on, you know, concerts, So
Speaker 2: it didn't matter if we made money or not. We
Speaker 2: just had the We just had the you know, we
Speaker 2: just had the you know, bring talent in. So you know,
Speaker 2: I did that and ran back and forth to Cleveland,
Speaker 2: saw every act that, you know, all the packages, all
Speaker 2: the stuff that was going on from nineteen sixty nine
Speaker 2: until nineteen seventy three and I graduated and I left college,
Speaker 2: went home. They had a graduation party for me and
Speaker 2: a friend of my father's that had some business that
Speaker 2: that had a lot of cash, and a friend of
Speaker 2: mine that I went to college as father put up
Speaker 2: I think they each each one put up like one
Speaker 2: hundred or one hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. And
Speaker 2: we moved to Florida to start promoting concerts in Florida,
Speaker 2: which we had no idea how we were going to
Speaker 2: get any concerts or anything like that. And because when
Speaker 2: I was in college there was the college booking division
Speaker 2: of Belkan. I went to the University of South Florida.
Speaker 2: There was a guy named Rick Alter that was the
Speaker 2: head of the student stuff. He wasn't a student, but
Speaker 2: he was the one that made decisions about music and
Speaker 2: every like that. And we were talking to him about
Speaker 2: we wanted to buy the talent for them, and we
Speaker 2: were finishing up the meeting and he said, if you're
Speaker 2: not doing anything tomorrow night, you should come up to
Speaker 2: the We have a grassy hill here and we have
Speaker 2: groups play outside. And he goes, there's a band that's
Speaker 2: local here. They've been in Colorado for a little while,
Speaker 2: but they're coming back and this is the first time
Speaker 2: they're back in Tampa in like a few months or
Speaker 2: something like that, and they're called the Outlaws, and you
Speaker 2: should come see this band. So I went sat on
Speaker 2: the hill watched watched this band just blaze with the
Speaker 2: guitars and everything like that. When they were done, I
Speaker 2: knew how to just walk and get backstage. I walked around,
Speaker 2: walked up, saw Henry Paul. Walked up to Henry Paul
Speaker 2: and said, hey, you guys are pretty good. Do you
Speaker 2: have a manager? And he was like no, And I
Speaker 2: said I'd like to manage you. And he goes, really,
Speaker 2: what do you doing. We had cards made up for
Speaker 2: this production company we had and gave him a caartner.
Speaker 2: We had that, and I said, let's why don't you
Speaker 2: guys come by. We're Ken Ken, this guy Ken Kraus
Speaker 2: was my partner. Why don't you come by and and
Speaker 2: uh tomorrow and we'll sit down and we'll talk. Band
Speaker 2: came by and we just started talking and started managing them,
Speaker 2: and next thing you know, I was in a con
Speaker 2: Aline van going all around the country and and we
Speaker 2: you know, we we we played a bunch of dates
Speaker 2: with Skinnard, who was we became fast friends with and uh,
Speaker 2: Peter Rudge was was was just getting this the skinnered
Speaker 2: thing he was. He was becoming Skynyrd's manager. Alan Walden
Speaker 2: that was the former manager of Skinnerd was my partner
Speaker 2: at that point on on on management Outlaws management, and
Speaker 2: we uh uh the band opened up a couple of shows.
Speaker 2: Skinnered guys started talking about how good the Outlaws guys were.
Speaker 2: Somebody said something to an A and R guy that
Speaker 2: was at a new label that that was being started
Speaker 2: up by a guy named Clive Davis and was called
Speaker 2: Arista Records, And I got a call from this A
Speaker 2: and R guy, and he was like, I'd like to
Speaker 2: come see the band. I want to come on Clive
Speaker 2: Davis's behalf to see the band in Orlando. I see
Speaker 2: you're playing with Leonard Skinner. He came and saw. We
Speaker 2: went to a payphone and called Clive and fight and
Speaker 2: told Clive how great the band was. Clive, we heard
Speaker 2: all the stuff. Clive came to flew into Atlanta, changed planes,
Speaker 2: which he didn't really like that whole idea, but we
Speaker 2: I met him at the airport. We flew together to
Speaker 2: uh Columbus, Georgia, where where the Outlaws were opening for
Speaker 2: Leonard Skinner and Clive saw Skinner. I saw the Outlaws.
Speaker 2: We were walking to go to the hotel to sit
Speaker 2: down to talk about it. He was blown away. And
Speaker 2: as we were walking, Ronnie van Zandt and Leonard Skinner
Speaker 2: were headed to the stage and we got stopped and
Speaker 2: Ronnie came over to Clive Davis and said, you're hey,
Speaker 2: I'm Ronnie van Zant. You're Clive Davis, right, And he
Speaker 2: goes yeah, and he goes he goes, uh, I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what I hear you you're here to sign the Outlaws.
Speaker 2: If you don't sign that band. You're you're the dumbest
Speaker 2: person that I know. And and Clive said, we were
Speaker 2: on our way to discuss that before you stopped us.
Speaker 2: And we went and we worked out a record deal
Speaker 2: for the Outlaws, and you know, we put we we
Speaker 2: went to l A recorded the first record, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden we were on the radio all over
Speaker 2: the place in FM radio. We had a couple of
Speaker 2: songs on the radio. There Goes another love song, green
Speaker 2: Grass was on all the FM stations. And then I
Speaker 2: got a call from a guy named Dan Winer, and
Speaker 2: Dan said, or at Michael Kleffner that was at Arista,
Speaker 2: had me called Dan Winer. And Dan Winer said, I've
Speaker 2: got this tour this summer that that uh that you
Speaker 2: guys could be Outlaws could be the opening act. It's
Speaker 2: it's all arenas and it's the Doobie Brothers. And we did.
Speaker 2: We did all the arenas with the Doobie Brothers, and
Speaker 2: when we got off on the other side, we were
Speaker 2: selling thousands that you know, whatever amount of tickets everywhere
Speaker 2: and you know, let's see, that's that's seventy five, seventy
Speaker 2: that's seventy five and seventy nine, we headlined Madison Square Garden. Okay, wait, well,
Speaker 2: let's go back a few chapters. Do you have any siblings? Sister?
Speaker 2: She my sister Phyllis. My introduction to her was when
Speaker 2: I was christened. I was upstairs in a basinet and
Speaker 2: everybody was bringing me presents downstairs, and she was like
Speaker 2: six years old, and she came up and slapped me
Speaker 2: in the face because she was pissed off because because
Speaker 2: I was getting all the presents and she wasn't getting
Speaker 2: the attention that she had had for six years. And
Speaker 2: she worked for me for I don't know, she worked
Speaker 2: for me for probably twenty twenty five years or something
Speaker 2: like that. She went through good times, bad times, all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and then maybe maybe four or
Speaker 2: four years ago or something like that, she retired. She's
Speaker 2: she's she's six years old to the max. She's she's
Speaker 2: seventy eight. She'll beat She'll be seventy nine this year.
Speaker 1: Why did you move to Florida to start a promotion company?
Speaker 1: They're fifty states, you're from the Midwest.
Speaker 2: The weather, the weather it was. I'd love to say
Speaker 2: that there was some kind of a real, kind of
Speaker 2: thoughtful process in it. We like, you know, me and
Speaker 2: the guy that that I started with, we we liked Florida,
Speaker 2: and we were like, hey, hey, where do we want
Speaker 2: to go in Florida. Well, we don't want to be
Speaker 2: in South Florida, so let's go to Tampa. So we
Speaker 2: went to Tampa and and quite frankly, if we don't
Speaker 2: make that decision, probably nothing happens because I don't end
Speaker 2: up on that hill at the University of South Florida
Speaker 2: that night. Okay, since you mentioned how'd you meet your wife?
Speaker 2: How did I meet my wife? Where? Oh? Oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right. How did I miss that? Okay? A friend
Speaker 2: of mine, George Capellini, was the the head of some
Speaker 2: some division of national promotion for Geffen Records, and he
Speaker 2: was having a listening party at at at the Rich
Speaker 2: Carlton for Robbie Robertson, and I was in between wives
Speaker 2: at the time. I was I was I was newly
Speaker 2: newly divorced again. Wait wait, wait, how many times you've
Speaker 2: been married? I've been I've been married four times to
Speaker 2: three women. Okay, which one of the one? There's one,
Speaker 2: there's two, and then there's three and four and three
Speaker 2: and four Cindya is both okay, continue the story, all right.
Speaker 2: So so, so I I was. I was dating Uh,
Speaker 2: a newscaster that was on CNN and was a kind
Speaker 2: of like a local celebrity. But things weren't that great
Speaker 2: between us, and she was she was always like if
Speaker 2: we were going, if we were meeting somewhere, she was
Speaker 2: always late or anything whatever. And she's going to meet
Speaker 2: me and a friend of mine. They're going to meet
Speaker 2: us at this listening party. So so we're She's late
Speaker 2: as always, and we're waiting. We're standing there and I
Speaker 2: look across the room and I see this beautiful redhead
Speaker 2: standing over by where the wine stuff isn't She's dressed
Speaker 2: all in black, and she's not dressed like the rock
Speaker 2: people that are there from radio stations and all that.
Speaker 2: For so, I thought she worked for the rich carl
Speaker 2: So I went over and I said, hey, can I
Speaker 2: thought she was poor and wine for people or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, can I have a glass wine?
Speaker 2: She said, yeah, we have anything you want, but you know,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't work here. And I was like,
Speaker 2: oh oh. And so I started talking to her, and
Speaker 2: I'm keeping an eye on the door to see if
Speaker 2: the newscast are showing up and there's nowhere to be
Speaker 2: sid So I said to her, I said, listen, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you the truth. I have I have, I have
Speaker 2: somebody coming here to meet me. But i'd i'd like
Speaker 2: to I'd like to call you. Can Can I get
Speaker 2: your telephone number? And she said yeah, okay, So she
Speaker 2: gave me her phone number. So I went, I went,
Speaker 2: dropped the the newscaster off, and it's like now, like
Speaker 2: one o'clock in the morning or something like that, and
Speaker 2: and I'm headed to my house and you had those phones,
Speaker 2: big huge phones that were so I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got her phone number, I'll call her. So I
Speaker 2: called and I said, hey, you know, I just met
Speaker 2: and the person on the other end of the phone said,
Speaker 2: do you know that it's one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: And I don't know? And it was it was her
Speaker 2: mother because she was she was she was in between
Speaker 2: relationships also, and she was living at home for a
Speaker 2: little while. So the next morning, at seven o'clock in
Speaker 2: the morning, she call me and was like, do you
Speaker 2: know that you woke my mother. I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: my god. And and so I said, I said, let
Speaker 2: me let me, let me make this, let me make
Speaker 2: this right for Let's let's go out and have dinner.
Speaker 2: And she said, she said, well, we could do that,
Speaker 2: but I can't do it on this kind of short
Speaker 2: notice because I have I have a son and he's
Speaker 2: he's young. And I said, well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: I have a friend that's that's staying at my house
Speaker 2: and he has a young son. Also, how about if
Speaker 2: the kids stay with him and we'll just go to dinner.
Speaker 2: That's it. We'll just go to dinner. And that started.
Speaker 2: That started, U you know, a thirty some year relationship.
Speaker 2: We've been married twice. Wait, tell me about the divorce.
Speaker 2: In the remarriage, we.
Speaker 1: Just we got.
Speaker 2: We got we're both kind of and we were younger,
Speaker 2: and we were both kind of like overreacting to a
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff that was going on, and we decided
Speaker 2: we we we really got ugly, and we got all
Speaker 2: the way to the point where we had a divorce
Speaker 2: agreement to sign, and we decided to go to have
Speaker 2: dinner to sign the divorce agreement. So we went to
Speaker 2: dinner and we decided at the dinner we didn't want
Speaker 2: we wanted to give it another shot. I called my
Speaker 2: attorney and I said, listen, we're going to rip up
Speaker 2: the agreement. And she said I had a female attorney
Speaker 2: and she said, no, you're not. She said, because you
Speaker 2: have an agreement there. And she said you both should
Speaker 2: sign the agreement because then you'll be divorced and you'll
Speaker 2: start new. And she said, and you can always get remarried.
Speaker 2: She goes, but you've spent all this money for these
Speaker 2: divorce papers. If this doesn't work out in six months,
Speaker 2: you can't use that same divorce agreement. You'll have gotten
Speaker 2: back together and everything will have to be changed again.
Speaker 2: And I was like, I went back to Cindy, and
Speaker 2: Cindy was like, whatever, whatever, we'll we'll, you know, let
Speaker 2: let's let's let's let's get back together. And then we
Speaker 2: had the because it was pretty ugly all the stuff
Speaker 2: that was going on between us, we had to we
Speaker 2: had to go break it to everybody that we were
Speaker 2: that we were getting back together, which which took a
Speaker 2: little while, but you know it it was a it
Speaker 2: was a four month period of time that that we
Speaker 2: would we just you know, it did help. I mean
Speaker 2: it we did cut. We did cut that and put
Speaker 2: that behind and we went forward, and I'll tell you
Speaker 2: a really interesting thing. The first we got married. The
Speaker 2: first time, we got married at the Rich Carlton in
Speaker 2: the same room that we met in Okay. And then
Speaker 2: we had a small amount of people at the actual
Speaker 2: wedding itself, maybe twenty or twenty five family members, and
Speaker 2: Gary Rossington was in the in the wedding and or
Speaker 2: in the ceremony and all that stuff. And and then
Speaker 2: we had the reception at the Fox Theater for three
Speaker 2: hundred people. That was the first wedding. The second wedding
Speaker 2: was after Stix. We did these big nine to eleven
Speaker 2: uh nine to eleven benefits in in uh Uh, Atlanta
Speaker 2: and Dallas with Sticks and Bad Company in Kansas and
Speaker 2: Leonard Skinner and all that, and we raised a bunch
Speaker 2: of money for the Port Authority Police Department. We did.
Speaker 2: We did two nights back to back, and we were
Speaker 2: going on vacation. Right after that, we went to Nevas
Speaker 2: and we were we were because of everything that was
Speaker 2: going on and everything like that. When we got to
Speaker 2: Nevas uh Uh, she said to me, you said, whenever
Speaker 2: we felt like we could get we we we we.
Speaker 2: All I had to say was I was ready to
Speaker 2: get remarried and you'd be good with it. And I
Speaker 2: said yeah, and she said, let's get married. And I
Speaker 2: said when she said Saturday? And I said, I said
Speaker 2: really and she said yeah. And I said, well, you know,
Speaker 2: let's find out what we got to do. Well, you
Speaker 2: gotta you gotta have of you know, the blessing or
Speaker 2: the You got to go to the magistrate. That's the
Speaker 2: that's basically the mayor of Nevs or the governor of
Speaker 2: Neivas or whatever it is. You got to meet with
Speaker 2: them and they get So we went in and we
Speaker 2: gave them our passports. Well, she hadn't changed her passport
Speaker 2: from Cindy Bruscoe because during that time period there was
Speaker 2: no reason to change your passport. We were only split
Speaker 2: up for you know, for four months or whatever it was.
Speaker 2: So the woman looks at the passports and she looks
Speaker 2: at Charlie Bruscowe and she goes, she looks at Cindy
Speaker 2: Bruscoe and she looks back at us, and she goes,
Speaker 2: what's your two relationship? Because if you're related, we can't
Speaker 2: marry you done. And I was like what and she
Speaker 2: was like, you both have the same last name. And
Speaker 2: I goes, oh, no, no, no, we've we've been the divorced,
Speaker 2: and she said, okay, I need to see your divorce papers.
Speaker 2: So we had to hit the attorneys and and this
Speaker 2: is all happening in one week. We had to get
Speaker 2: all are we had to get whatever the amount of
Speaker 2: pages that this divorce agreep was. We had to get
Speaker 2: that faxed down to the Rich Car No, the Four
Speaker 2: Seasons Hotel in Navas. We had to get it faxed there.
Speaker 2: Then we had to go back downtown show her the paperwork.
Speaker 2: And the second wedding was held on the between the
Speaker 2: eighteenth hole of the golf course at Navas and the
Speaker 2: and the ocean and the and the and the beach
Speaker 2: and the two of us and three people that we
Speaker 2: didn't know that. We had to have the person that
Speaker 2: did the ceremony, and then we had to have someone
Speaker 2: that was a witness, and then there was somebody else there.
Speaker 2: So we went from having a wedding with you know,
Speaker 2: an afterthing of three hundred people to just the two
Speaker 2: of us and that and that's the one that worked.
Speaker 2: How many kids do you have and what are they too?
Speaker 2: We both have a child. Mine is my daughter. Her
Speaker 2: name is Rhiannon. She's she has a we have a
Speaker 2: granddaughter with her, Lucia, who's just turned eleven. And grandchildren
Speaker 2: are the best thing that happens to you. Children are
Speaker 2: much more of a problem than grandchildren because because children
Speaker 2: stay with you, grand your grandchildren go home. And then
Speaker 2: Cindy's son, which is not my son, but he calls
Speaker 2: me dad, and he's been with me for thirty thirty
Speaker 2: some years or whatever and works for me and has
Speaker 2: worked in my office for thirteen fourteen years. He has
Speaker 2: a nine year old son, Landon. That just is there
Speaker 2: those two kids or you know, that's that's that's the
Speaker 2: the except for that, they're the most enjoyable part of
Speaker 2: everything that we do. You know, I have Cindy was,
Speaker 2: Cindy was, I think you're in Colorado. But Cindy was
Speaker 2: in Colorado for her birthday with her girlfriend last week.
Speaker 2: She does that every year. Last last year I went
Speaker 2: because I had stick, explained at the Valars Center on
Speaker 2: her birthday. But uh, she was in Colorado and she
Speaker 2: was coming back on Saturday. But Friday night, Justin and
Speaker 2: his and his and his uh his girlfriend that they
Speaker 2: wanted to go out somewhere, so they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: would you would you watch Landing? And can he stay
Speaker 2: overnight at the house. So everybody was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: we're leaving Landing with with Pap. Pap. This is never
Speaker 2: gonna work. You know, the house is you know, the
Speaker 2: house is going to burn down or whatever. And and
Speaker 2: Landing came over and you know, we you know, he
Speaker 2: and I, he and I get along. Just unbelievable. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was funny. He was he's gotten really into like
Speaker 2: the the He wasn't a football fan, but he's now
Speaker 2: become a football fan and he's a he's a Mahones
Speaker 2: fan and all that. And he we were we were
Speaker 2: getting ready to go to bed, and uh and we
Speaker 2: were in bed and he had his iPad out and
Speaker 2: I had my phone out and I was looking at
Speaker 2: some stuff and he was googling stuff. And I said,
Speaker 2: he Landing, what's Patrick Mahones? What's how big is his contract?
Speaker 2: So he googles and he's telling me with Patrick Mahones
Speaker 2: And I said, so he must be the highest paid
Speaker 2: quarterback in the NFL. And he said, without googling anything,
Speaker 2: he said, no, no, no, that's Joe Burrow. And I go,
Speaker 2: how do you know that. He goes, well, I know
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff, and I go, yeah, well, let's
Speaker 2: see how much you know. And so I googled myself
Speaker 2: and the stuff that pulls up on me pulled up
Speaker 2: on me and he and I said, I said, land
Speaker 2: and look there there there there, I can google myself
Speaker 2: and look. And he looked at it and he was like,
Speaker 2: you're in thee You're in the Hall of Fame. And
Speaker 2: I go, yeah, I'm in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Speaker 2: You didn't know that, And he goes, no, he goes,
Speaker 2: but there's pictures of you at the you know, being
Speaker 2: inducted into the in and look at Mimi's that he
Speaker 2: calls Cindy Memi. Mimi's there too, is me me in
Speaker 2: the Hall of Fame? And I go, yeah, that she's
Speaker 2: in the Hall of Fame too, I go, I go,
Speaker 2: I go. And he was just he was fascinated by that,
Speaker 2: because everything that he does, he does you know, he's
Speaker 2: like I would this is this is how it looks
Speaker 2: to me. When I was growing up and I started
Speaker 2: getting albums, I used to like, look at all the
Speaker 2: liner notes and I used to take everything out and
Speaker 2: read everything and who was the who is the producer,
Speaker 2: who was the manager, who was the band? Who was
Speaker 2: I got everything from all of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: He does all of that stuff, you know online. I
Speaker 2: mean he googles everything. And my my granddaughter is the
Speaker 2: same way. It's you know, it's it's it we're not,
Speaker 2: you know, we're not what. How we grew up is
Speaker 2: so different from how they're growing up now. But it's
Speaker 2: wonderful to watch them. I mean, it's they're they're you know,
Speaker 2: the the and and I I don't want to downplay
Speaker 2: the kids. We got great kids. They've both had their
Speaker 2: there they're different issues here and there and all that,
Speaker 2: but they're great. My daughter was a was went to
Speaker 2: law school. She was an attorney at Greenberg Trialing. Then
Speaker 2: she became a judge in Cobb County. And then she
Speaker 2: got diagnosed with MS, so she had to go on
Speaker 2: disability and and but she's a stay at home mom
Speaker 2: and she's she's extremely happy to be a stay at
Speaker 2: home mom. And then Justin has Justin does I mean,
Speaker 2: he not only works for me, he's got his own,
Speaker 2: he's got other stuff that he does on his own.
Speaker 2: He's got his own like he's got a DJ company
Speaker 2: that him and a bunch of guys dj different kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. And they own all their you know, their
Speaker 2: own equipment and all that stuff. I mean, it's you
Speaker 2: know it, you know, it's it's great. It's it's great.
Speaker 2: Having We've always been a fairly tight family. I mean,
Speaker 2: all the way around, it's been it's been like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to the guys who gave you
Speaker 1: the money in Pittsburgh. Whatever happened to that money, lost
Speaker 1: it Alice Cooper at Tampa Stadium. The show got canceled,
Speaker 1: lost lost one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three or four money, so you can imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, I was paying Alice and the show didn't sell,
Speaker 1: and then then a cold front came into Tampa, so
Speaker 1: we had to cancel the show, and they kept the money,
Speaker 1: and I had to pay all the bills and pay
Speaker 1: all that stuff, and was basically tapped out. And and
Speaker 1: the only the only chance that I had, you know,
Speaker 1: doing anything, was.
Speaker 2: The fact that I managed the Outlaws, and that was
Speaker 2: I picked it up from there and and just you know,
Speaker 2: ran with it, got got lucky. A bunch what did
Speaker 2: the people say about you losing their money? It was
Speaker 2: it was both both of them, you know, it was
Speaker 2: it was somewhat not play money, but you know it
Speaker 2: was you know that they they the the one guy,
Speaker 2: his father had had some businesses that spit off a
Speaker 2: ton of cash, so they were looking for things to
Speaker 2: do with cash. And and the other my my partner's
Speaker 2: father was you know, it was it was a millionaire
Speaker 2: back then when it was a big deal to be
Speaker 2: a millionaire.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got the thing with the Outlaws, but you
Speaker 1: continue to ultimately promote concerts.
Speaker 2: How does that happen? Actually? When when the Outlaw? When
Speaker 2: the Outlaws and I parted ways in nineteen eighty two
Speaker 2: or eighty three. Around that time period, I had money,
Speaker 2: and I had relationships with a lot of agents, and
Speaker 2: I made some offers on first first dates that I
Speaker 2: got was kiss and I started promoting shows, and you know,
Speaker 2: I did what I did for a while, changed partnership
Speaker 2: kind of things a couple of different times. And then
Speaker 2: and Alex Cooley and I were kind of always like
Speaker 2: we were making offers on shows, and you know, he'd
Speaker 2: offer twenty five thousand out offer thirty five thousand hit
Speaker 2: offer forty five thousand out off for fifty the band
Speaker 2: was still only worth twenty five if they were worth that.
Speaker 2: So were we were running it up on each other.
Speaker 2: And one day we ran into each other and there
Speaker 2: was this this thing. Alex and I knew each other
Speaker 2: from the Outlaws days and he promoted shows for me
Speaker 2: and all that, and and we ran into each other
Speaker 2: and we kind of just I was like, and it
Speaker 2: was over like a Motley Crew date and he had
Speaker 2: made an offer on Motley that was ridiculous for like
Speaker 2: a Monday night. And I was like, you know you're
Speaker 2: paying Motley. You know they're getting the bands are making
Speaker 2: all the money, you know. And Alex said, well, why
Speaker 2: don't you you know, why don't you come with us?
Speaker 2: Why don't you come joined Concerts Southern and and we'll
Speaker 2: join forces together. So I did that in UH in
Speaker 2: eighty seven eighty six, and that's when this the during
Speaker 2: that time period, that's when the skinnered thing came up,
Speaker 2: and that's when I started getting the management thing.
Speaker 1: So I I I.
Speaker 2: Got a call from UH from or Ving, and Irving
Speaker 2: told me that that he wanted me to go look
Speaker 2: at something. But he wanted me to look at it
Speaker 2: on my own because because there was going to be
Speaker 2: He said, you know what STARplex is in in uh Dallas,
Speaker 2: There's going to be a STARplex in Atlanta, and it's
Speaker 2: going to be He was Irving was at m c
Speaker 2: A at the time, so he was the head of
Speaker 2: m c A, which also had the concert division with Jay,
Speaker 2: and he said, he said, uh, m c A and
Speaker 2: Pace are going to build this place, and we want
Speaker 2: you to come with us. And and so I I
Speaker 2: flew out to to to Jackson Hole to meet with
Speaker 2: Gary and to let Gary know that I was that
Speaker 2: that it looked like I was going to do this,
Speaker 2: and that that that you know, Uh that that that's
Speaker 2: how how I was going to leave. Uh Cooley and
Speaker 2: Conlin and Wallace Barr was a guy that worked in
Speaker 2: the office with me, and he did all the closed
Speaker 2: circuit boxing stuff with Bob Aram, so he had kind
Speaker 2: of like a little bit of a business also. So
Speaker 2: we made it. We just made a deal with m
Speaker 2: c A and and Pace to back us and a
Speaker 2: company that we called Brusco Bar Presents, and we we
Speaker 2: left Cooley Conlin not on great terms, and we had
Speaker 2: this Amphitheater and and I had relationships with Doc McGhee
Speaker 2: and bon Jovi and Motley and all you know and
Speaker 2: different different other agents and all that stuff. And we
Speaker 2: just started doing shows and from until ninety one, we
Speaker 2: were we were killing it. And then the all the
Speaker 2: business started shifting for how much you could lose on
Speaker 2: a show, Like you know, you used to be if
Speaker 2: you lost twenty grand on a show, you know, you
Speaker 2: were like completely miserable. People were losing, you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars on a show. Guarantees were out of
Speaker 2: control and all that stuff. And I was getting skinnered,
Speaker 2: was back in ninety one, and I was getting offers
Speaker 2: for skinnered and everything like that, and I was like,
Speaker 2: why do I want to be, you know, making these
Speaker 2: stupid offers and dealing with all this stuff, and you know,
Speaker 2: going back and forth and trading money on winners and
Speaker 2: losers and all that. And I just was like, I'm
Speaker 2: going I'm staying in the I'm getting out of the
Speaker 2: promoting business. I did a deal with with with with
Speaker 2: Pace and MCA Concerts for a couple of years. I
Speaker 2: consulted on Lakewood after it had already been built, and
Speaker 2: we that was up and run and everything like that.
Speaker 2: And I stayed out of the promotion business until we
Speaker 2: were doing the Skinner and Sticks tours that were set
Speaker 2: for ninety six and Jack Boyle was going to promote
Speaker 2: both of those tours and he was going to put
Speaker 2: them through the amphitheaters and all this other stuff. And
Speaker 2: there was a guy in his office that I was
Speaker 2: dealing with on the tours that we were getting we
Speaker 2: were setting up, and his name was Bruce Cap And
Speaker 2: Jack Boyle called me on the phone and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to tell you this. I'm getting ready
Speaker 2: to go down the hall and he goes, I can't
Speaker 2: put up with Bruce. Bruce and I don't get along.
Speaker 2: I'm letting Bruce go. And he's going to call you
Speaker 2: and he said, if you want to us to do
Speaker 2: the skinnerd and the the uh the Sticks tours, then
Speaker 2: we'll we'll do them. But if you don't, you know,
Speaker 2: and you want to do something with Bruce, you guys
Speaker 2: can you guys can take that over. We'll we'll we'll
Speaker 2: sign it all over to you. So we we we
Speaker 2: had Bruce called me. We had a mutual friend that
Speaker 2: Dennis D. Young had that did theater stuff that had
Speaker 2: bugged Dennis about about doing U Stick States and I
Speaker 2: His name was wash Lee Marshall. He was he was
Speaker 2: really in the play business. And we called Lee Marshall
Speaker 2: and a guy named Joe marsh and like the following Monday,
Speaker 2: we had a meeting with them and they said, we'll
Speaker 2: back both of those tours. We'll put all the money up,
Speaker 2: We'll back both of those tours. And we started doing
Speaker 2: not individual cities, but we started doing national tours and
Speaker 2: we did this this the Skinner Tour and the Sticks
Speaker 2: Tour and then and then then when it came then
Speaker 2: Irving did they had they did the Big Eagles Tour.
Speaker 2: Hell Freeze is over and Joe or Lee called me
Speaker 2: on the phone one day with Louis and they were like, hey,
Speaker 2: we want to make an offer to Fleetwood Mac. And
Speaker 2: it's a lot of money. Back then, it was four
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars a show. And they said, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to make an offer on the whole tour.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna are you are you are you in? Yeah? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're doing it. We got the we we got the
Speaker 2: Fleetwood Mac tour. We did we did the Flate Fleetwood
Speaker 2: Mac First Reunion Tour. We sold some shows to some promoters,
Speaker 2: but we promoted most of the shows all the way
Speaker 2: across across the board. Then Bruce started talking with s
Speaker 2: f X and he got an offer from SFX and
Speaker 2: didn't tell us anything about it. Left like in the
Speaker 2: middle of the night, went to SFX, started SFX touring
Speaker 2: with with with Division with with with Sullivan Sullivan and
Speaker 2: and basically started telling everybody that that we weren't doing
Speaker 2: tours anymore. And somebody called me up, a friend of mine,
Speaker 2: uh called me up on the phone and said, Hey,
Speaker 2: you guys are doing tours. I got a tour that's
Speaker 2: going out. I don't know if you'd be interested in it,
Speaker 2: but it's Janet Jackson. And it was the Janet Jackson
Speaker 2: Velvet Rope Tour. And Bruce had just left, and we
Speaker 2: made a deal to do the Janet Jackson Velvet Rope
Speaker 2: Tour fifty six states across the United States, and you know,
Speaker 2: you know, two days at the Garden with HBO special
Speaker 2: and did it with Roger Davies and and then after that,
Speaker 2: I basically I didn't want to keep on promoting against
Speaker 2: and and that I felt like that was the big time.
Speaker 2: And and s FX came courting Magic to buy Magic productions,
Speaker 2: and I was like, get me paid and and and
Speaker 2: let's move on. And I'm going, I'm gonna, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: just doing I was doing Skinnered and sticks at the
Speaker 2: same time, and I was like, I'm I'm I'm not
Speaker 2: promoting anymore, and I haven't. I haven't promoted since then.
Speaker 2: I had. The last real big thing that that I
Speaker 2: did as a promoter was the Janet Jackson Velvet Rope
Speaker 2: Tour and it was phenomenal, and you know, and that
Speaker 2: was that was a good way for me to end
Speaker 2: at that end of my career. But you got to
Speaker 2: check from sf X, the Magic got a check and
Speaker 2: I got paid from them, right, Okay, so today the
Speaker 2: landscape is different. You've been on both sides of the fence.
Speaker 2: What are the keys to negotiating a deal and what
Speaker 2: are the keys to make sure that you get all
Speaker 2: the money? I'm I'm I'm not an all the money
Speaker 2: kind of promote A manager. I like, I like for
Speaker 2: everybody to try and unless the artist, just the artist
Speaker 2: wants all the money. But if the artist is is
Speaker 2: fair in the negotiations and stuff like that. I I
Speaker 2: don't squeeze everything out of out of everybody. I get
Speaker 2: the best deals that that the artists should get. And
Speaker 2: and I don't beat everybody up.
Speaker 1: I you know, I I.
Speaker 2: That's that's and I actually I don't know that that's
Speaker 2: corn style either. I mean, there are artists that you
Speaker 2: represent that they you know, they want you to get
Speaker 2: everything out of everybody. I mean that that's it's it's
Speaker 2: artists driven. I mean, you know it. That's that's kind
Speaker 2: that's kind of what sets the tone for for for
Speaker 2: how you're going to handle it. And quite frankly, the
Speaker 2: promoters or the buyers or anything like that, they all
Speaker 2: know what the deal is. They know who they got
Speaker 2: to overpay and who they who they can make fair
Speaker 2: deals with and and listen, a fair deal maybe that
Speaker 2: you know, the promoters, you know, the promoters still making
Speaker 2: very little profit. But but if they're if they're good
Speaker 2: with it, then it's then it's good. You know, Okay,
Speaker 2: but if you squeeze every penny out, what's the downside
Speaker 2: of them? The downside of it is is that that
Speaker 2: you do that enough times and nobody makes any money.
Speaker 2: You know, you have, you have very little options left
Speaker 2: of who you work for.
Speaker 1: So speaking of who you work for, you know Live
Speaker 1: Nation is the behemoth, then there's a g there are
Speaker 1: still some independence. Who do you like to work with?
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any difference.
Speaker 2: I work with I work with all of them. I've
Speaker 2: got to I've got tours out this summer that we're
Speaker 2: involved with that are Live Nation, Hearts a an aeg
Speaker 2: toor I do individual dates all the time with Out
Speaker 2: and Pepper and Mammoth, we I we, I work with.
Speaker 2: I work with just about everybody. It's really a situation
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Well, let's ask, you know, before the
Speaker 2: roll up ninety six and now, what's the difference in
Speaker 2: making deals for shows there? There's there's more money. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's there's definitely more money. And it's I think, I
Speaker 2: think in our eyes from our side, it's more transparent,
Speaker 2: whether it's been transparent to us or we found out
Speaker 2: how it's I mean, listen, I was I was a
Speaker 2: I I was a consultant on an amphitheater that opened
Speaker 2: in Atlanta. You know, I've been on the promoter side,
Speaker 2: so I know I know where the money's at. You know,
Speaker 2: you know and you know, so it's you know, you
Speaker 2: make that you make the deals based on what you know,
Speaker 2: you know and and and what the risk is. I
Speaker 2: mean that's you know that that that's.
Speaker 1: What it is. Okay, So the money's bigger. Now any
Speaker 1: other differences.
Speaker 2: I think that I I think that the larger promoters,
Speaker 2: the the Live Nations and the aeg s have have
Speaker 2: more the their their marketing reach is bigger because they're
Speaker 2: doing more shows and they're more involved in you know,
Speaker 2: major market kind of stuff. That's where they live. So
Speaker 2: so I think that you know, they they there, they
Speaker 2: can roll things out on a national level way bigger
Speaker 2: that I think that the independent guys are probably better
Speaker 2: at rolling up their sleeves and doing the theater stuff
Speaker 2: or the arena stuff and secondaries and all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, because that's that's where a lot of their
Speaker 2: business is because they're they're not getting major shows in
Speaker 2: Atlanta because either AEG or Live Nations getting it from
Speaker 2: a tour or from just from you know, the offers
Speaker 2: that they make. So do you have a take on
Speaker 2: ticket fees? Do I have a take on it? I
Speaker 2: I think just like everybody else does. I think that
Speaker 2: ticket fees are they're they're not that last article that
Speaker 2: you had. Ticket fees are not really set by the promoter.
Speaker 2: I mean the ticket fees are are a part of
Speaker 2: I would I would not have any problem whatsoever if
Speaker 2: it was one price ticket and everybody everybody saw one
Speaker 2: price ticket, because quite frankly, when I buy, when I buy,
Speaker 2: if I buy a ticket and I buy tickets, I
Speaker 2: would rather see the tickets be. You know, you're paying
Speaker 2: seventy five dollars and you know that when you're pushing
Speaker 2: the button it doesn't go okay. Now here's your checkout stuff,
Speaker 2: and you got to pay for all this other shit
Speaker 2: on top of it. So you would have your acts
Speaker 2: good all in pricing, I would I I would, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it would be, it would be, it would be easier,
Speaker 2: it would be, it would be it would be transparent
Speaker 2: to everybody what the what they're paying for. I don't
Speaker 2: think that for what it is, I don't think that
Speaker 2: the ticket master and all those kind of things are exorbitant.
Speaker 2: Nobody gives Nobody gives them credit for the business that
Speaker 2: and what it costs them to be in business, you know,
Speaker 2: separate from Live Nation. So what's the best show you
Speaker 2: ever saw. What's the best show I ever saw? Wow?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I've I've seen this. The Stones
Speaker 2: are probably my favorite band the I saw, but I
Speaker 2: see I saw everybody and kind of like the Heyday.
Speaker 2: So I saw Zeppelin a bunch. I probably saw Zeppelin
Speaker 2: fifteen times. I saw The Who at least ten fifteen times.
Speaker 2: I mean I saw bands when they were really, really
Speaker 2: in their prime. I mean the original Skinnered lineup. There
Speaker 2: were nights that I saw them and the Outlaws play
Speaker 2: together that that I would go like, these guys are
Speaker 2: all on another planet. I mean it, you know, like Skinnered,
Speaker 2: Skinnered in the Outlaws at the at Winterland was was
Speaker 2: just like, you know, total magic, the whole show. So
Speaker 2: I don't know that I have, you know, one one
Speaker 2: show that I look at and go like wow, you know,
Speaker 2: and and you know, my you know, the one thing
Speaker 2: about the lineup that I've got that's my artist. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're they're they they are all pretty great at their craft.
Speaker 2: I mean they're you know, they're they're they all do
Speaker 2: really really good shows. That's part of what attracts me
Speaker 2: to an artist, because that's what I've always went by.
Speaker 2: How good somebody is on stage, Would I pay to
Speaker 2: see that show? Okay?
Speaker 1: One or two personal highlights in your business career? What
Speaker 1: are you most proud of?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm I'm proud of the I'm proud of
Speaker 2: everything that I did with the Outlaws. I'm proud of
Speaker 2: the putting skinner back together. I'm proud of putting sticks
Speaker 2: back together and continuing on as long as that we've
Speaker 2: continued on, and those those benefits that I told you
Speaker 2: about that we did for nine to eleven, the two
Speaker 2: nights we put those shows together in like the shows
Speaker 2: were nine to eleven to October like eighteen, nineteen twenty.
Speaker 2: Somewhere in that time period, we came up with the
Speaker 2: Tommy Shaw and Kevin Cronin came up with the idea.
Speaker 2: We came up with the idea. We got all these
Speaker 2: bands to come in and play. Nobody made any money.
Speaker 2: We gave all the money to the Port Authority Police
Speaker 2: who basically we were the ones that were guarding the
Speaker 2: World Trade Center. But when the money started getting coming
Speaker 2: in and money was going everywhere, it was going to
Speaker 2: the New York Police Department or the New York Fire
Speaker 2: Department all that and the Port Authority police was only
Speaker 2: like a total of like eight hundred people that worked
Speaker 2: for you know, there were forty thousand firemen, and yeah
Speaker 2: they lost you know, thou whatever the number was, these guys.
Speaker 2: Out of eight hundred people, they lost thirty nine people.
Speaker 2: They knew everybody that died in that building.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It wasn't like, oh that guy's from another precinct or
Speaker 2: any of that ship. These guys all knew each other.
Speaker 2: And there was a certain bond that went on with
Speaker 2: us doing those shows. And they sent a couple of
Speaker 2: guys down from the Poort Authority that came to both shows,
Speaker 2: and that those shows were we were were just unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I did a Alex and Peter
Speaker 2: and I did an Amnesty International show with Bill Graham
Speaker 2: the one year on my birthday at the Omni in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and the show was like staying you two all these
Speaker 2: people and and it ended up being the police instead
Speaker 2: of instead of instead of stinging, and it was that
Speaker 2: that that was that was magic. And I mean, I've
Speaker 2: got so many magic moments in my career that that
Speaker 2: I that I you know, I don't that whether I
Speaker 2: deserved it or didn't deserve it. I I've gotten way
Speaker 2: way more than my share. I've gotten way more than
Speaker 2: my share. Explain it lamp to in Georgia. To me,
Speaker 2: Atlanta's just a it's a it's a it's a great
Speaker 2: place to live. Uh uh. I'm not going to get
Speaker 2: into the politics and everything like that, but I'm where
Speaker 2: I live, in the neighborhood that I live in. I'm
Speaker 2: not putting any signs up for for who I favor
Speaker 2: in any election, but I live in a great I
Speaker 2: live in a great place. I'm I'm ten minutes from
Speaker 2: my office. I I can pretty much call and I
Speaker 2: mostly insist on buying tickets to shows, even if I
Speaker 2: have relationships with people and stuff like that, because I
Speaker 2: don't like comps. I don't. I don't like them from
Speaker 2: my end, and I don't like to be a guy
Speaker 2: that's calling and going CA, can you give me tickets
Speaker 2: to the show? And sometimes people go like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: not you know, I'm not You're not getting I'm not
Speaker 2: selling you a ticket. I'm giving you a ticket. But
Speaker 2: I can go to any show that I want to
Speaker 2: go to, and I've had I've had options over my
Speaker 2: career early options to like go to New York for
Speaker 2: something and go to l a couple of times. I've
Speaker 2: never It's never been in my head that I'm going
Speaker 2: to get out of Atlanta. You know. I'm I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 2: and I'm in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. I'm
Speaker 2: in the Georgia Music Hall of Fame. But my band
Speaker 2: has the biggest song for the team that I supported
Speaker 2: since I was a young kid, which is Renegade in
Speaker 2: the Pittsburgh Steelers. I mean, you can't make this ship up.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's you know, it's it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's a it's it's not bad. And a lot of
Speaker 2: people would probably change, you know, trade places with me.
Speaker 2: And I like where I am and and pretty much
Speaker 2: I like who I am? And where's your money? Where's
Speaker 2: my money? It's in What do you do with it?
Speaker 2: You obviously made a good check of change. Is it
Speaker 2: in stocks? Is in real estate? Do you invest them?
Speaker 2: It's it's it's in all of you. It's in all
Speaker 2: of the above. Yeah. Yeah, I got a good I
Speaker 2: have a good stock guy that's done very well for me.
Speaker 2: I we own real estate, and I got money in
Speaker 2: the bank, and.
Speaker 1: Do you pay attention to that or you more leave
Speaker 1: it to the advisors and you're being a management guy
Speaker 1: all day.
Speaker 2: That's the last thing I think about. And and quite frankly,
Speaker 2: quite frankly, red Lights made it that that you know everything.
Speaker 2: Everything for me as far as business is concerned, flows
Speaker 2: with you know, with with with with with how we
Speaker 2: do it. And Corn and Corn and I since we
Speaker 2: since since I signed on, we've never had a discussion
Speaker 2: about what I make or how I make, or what
Speaker 2: he makes with me or anything like that. Well, we
Speaker 2: we have a we have a financial guy, and I
Speaker 2: talked to him maybe four times a year. That's not that,
Speaker 2: that's not that's not what drives me. It's really not
Speaker 2: what drives me.
Speaker 1: Okay, you make a living dealing with artists. Give us
Speaker 1: some insight into the mentality of artists.
Speaker 2: Artists are or exactly that they're artists, and they are
Speaker 2: concerned usually about themselves and their careers. And you know,
Speaker 2: to to the the more that they're focused on reality,
Speaker 2: the better that it is. But some of them, especially
Speaker 2: artists that that that have been around for as long
Speaker 2: as I know, some of my artists or other artists
Speaker 2: that red Light has I mean, you know, they've seen
Speaker 2: it all, they've done it all. They've had good times,
Speaker 2: they've had bad times, they've had they've had all of it.
Speaker 2: And I like to let the artists. I don't like
Speaker 2: to to get too much into what they're doing when
Speaker 2: they're creative. I like to help them in anything that
Speaker 2: they need help with. But I don't. I don't A
Speaker 2: and R stuff. I don't, you know, I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't do all of that. I give suggestions, but I
Speaker 2: usually don't give suggestions on anything that has to do
Speaker 2: with music or if they're going to do a video,
Speaker 2: if they're going to do you know, what the set
Speaker 2: design is, and stuff like that. I'll go like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, we're spending too much money. But but that's
Speaker 2: That's about the only thing that I'll say. And that's
Speaker 2: not my money that I'm worried about, it's their money.
Speaker 2: I'm much more protective of my artist money than I
Speaker 2: am of mine. And do you have paper with your artists? Never?
Speaker 2: And do you charge every artist the same percentage? Never?
Speaker 1: What would vary the percentage you would.
Speaker 2: Charge my deal with the artist? I mean, but why
Speaker 2: would the deal be?
Speaker 1: You don't have to mention any names. Why would the
Speaker 1: deal be different with one artist and another artist.
Speaker 2: Because the circumstances are always are always different. I mean, listen,
Speaker 2: I don't go below a certain threshold. But but I
Speaker 2: don't think in anything everybody's created, everybody's treated equally. I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't think there's there's any business that everybody's treated,
Speaker 2: you know, treated equally. You know, it's it's all individual stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, And I I don't think. I don't think myself,
Speaker 2: nor do I know of red light where where commission
Speaker 2: structure is a driving kind of thing. That is the
Speaker 2: difference between whether you've got a relationship with an artists
Speaker 2: or not. I mean, you know, it'll all it will
Speaker 2: be reflected in what their bottom line is. If they're
Speaker 2: not making money, then you know, you know most of
Speaker 2: them won't be happy. There are some artists that are
Speaker 2: that that you know that that also you know, are
Speaker 2: not driven by money.
Speaker 1: And since you've been negotiating your whole life, what's the
Speaker 1: key to negotiation?
Speaker 2: My key is that it's fair to both sides. That's
Speaker 2: not always everybody else's everybody else's notion. But I like
Speaker 2: I like for deals in anything, I like for deals.
Speaker 2: I like for deals, you know, in my in my
Speaker 2: in my in my private life. I like for deals
Speaker 2: to be fair, you know between everybody. You know, my wife,
Speaker 2: my wife is you know, we we have to we
Speaker 2: have to be on equal ground or you know, where
Speaker 2: there's there's there's problems.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been married twice. To what degree did this
Speaker 1: business contribute to the death of those marriages? And how
Speaker 1: hard is it to have a relationship and be in
Speaker 1: this business.
Speaker 2: Probably I had a period of time was like a
Speaker 2: lot of people with drugs and alcohol and all that
Speaker 2: stuff which were driven by the business. So my first
Speaker 2: marriage probably was due to that. My second marriage wasn't.
Speaker 2: My third marriage was probably Our first marriage to Cindy
Speaker 2: was probably partially the drug and alcohol thing and partially
Speaker 2: my ego. And the fourth marriage is my last.
Speaker 1: So if you had your drugs and alcohol period, how
Speaker 1: did you get past that.
Speaker 2: I didn't go to rehab. I just I just stopped.
Speaker 2: I knew I realized that it was I realized that
Speaker 2: it was was ruining things for me. And even though
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, I didn't know that I could
Speaker 2: stop doing cocaine, when I did, I just stopped. I
Speaker 2: just That's what I did. I went like, I'm not
Speaker 2: doing this anymore, and I haven't and drinking. I stopped
Speaker 2: drinking and then I slowly started drinking again. But I've
Speaker 2: never drank like I did, you know. I mean, there
Speaker 2: was a rider that the Outlaws had, that that had
Speaker 2: you know, there was only six guys in the band
Speaker 2: and me and the tour manager. You know, besides the crew.
Speaker 2: Forget the crew, they weren't they weren't touching her alcohol.
Speaker 2: There were like four bottles of vodka, two bottles of
Speaker 2: are three bottles of Jack Daniels. I mean, it was
Speaker 2: like how to is how did these guys can? And
Speaker 2: there was one o'clock in the morning. Somebody was always
Speaker 2: looking for a drink.
Speaker 1: Rock and roll lifestyle. Anyway, Charlie, you lived it, You survived.
Speaker 1: You've been very open and honest. You told us some
Speaker 1: of the inside stories. I want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking this time with my audience. Oh it's
Speaker 1: a it's a pleasure.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm a you know I'm a fan, and
Speaker 2: you know that you know that that you and I,
Speaker 2: you and I trade uh emails back and forth about
Speaker 2: things when when when things are going on so I was.
Speaker 2: I was actually very very honored to be asked to
Speaker 2: do the to do the podcast. And now now you
Speaker 2: gotta get corn. Absolutely, I'll tell them that it's painless.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: You know I got it into it with an email
Speaker 1: the other day. We were emailing about something else and
Speaker 1: he kind of pushed it down the road. But if
Speaker 1: you could, but if you could play rod Y, give
Speaker 1: this story, that'll be good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well I listen. I would listen to a podcast
Speaker 2: with you and him for however long it last. To
Speaker 2: trust me, I think I think I was. I was
Speaker 2: just I was. I was so blown away just by
Speaker 2: that that little back and forth and at the at
Speaker 2: the at the bon Jovie thing the other night, I thought,
Speaker 2: I thought that was just fascinating the two of you.
Speaker 1: Well, I could literally talk to you for hours. I
Speaker 1: love the stories, I love the thing. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: end it here. You got it, Charlie. At any event,
Speaker 1: till next time. This is Bob left six