WEBVTT - The Sunshine 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:06.280 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. If I ever 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:09.160 ran into my father, would either of us recognize each other? 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:12.080 If I saw someone who I was positive was him, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.360 would I approach him or would I let it go 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.160 in order to save myself the humiliation of not being 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.480 recognized or a brief, hurried encounter. There was always the 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.800 chance that I'd catch him at the perfect time when 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.759 he was available and interested, even if only for a 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:27.440 few minutes. 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:37.120 That's Nobile Airs, music industry entrepreneur, podcast host, musician and 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:40.920 author of the recent memoir My Life in the Sunshine. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.680 Nobiles is a story full of grace and grit and 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.560 talent and the many ways longing can shape us over 0:00:50.560 --> 0:01:07.000 the course of a lifetime. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.119 is family Secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.319 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:21.360 keep from ourselves. So I usually begin by asking my 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.520 guest to describe the landscape of her childhood, but in 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:28.800 your case, I'm actually going to start by asking about 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.760 the landscape of your mother's life in the couple of 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:33.200 years before you were born. 0:01:34.080 --> 0:01:36.200 Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it. I've 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.280 learned so much about it in recent years. She would 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.480 say that she had a fairly unhappy childhood. She was 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.600 a you know, on paper two parents, a father was 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.520 a lawyer in New York City that lived in Long Island, 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:50.960 had a younger brother, you know, very sort of picture perfect. 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.440 But I think she just had a hard time as 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.400 a teenage ballet answer who had her teacher who you know, 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.960 as I think, physically abusive. I think would hit her 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.000 with the yardstick that stuff that she wanted to do, 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.520 but that didn't turn out the way she wanted. And 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.200 when soon as she was eighteen, moved to New York City, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.079 and this is nineteen sixty nine, kind of an incredible 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:10.799 time to be able to do that, you know, by 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.480 yourself as a teenager, and had an apartment in Greentted Village. 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.360 She's very close with her younger brother. My uncle Alan 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:19.640 was two years younger, so he would come visit her. 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:21.720 So I think the way she describes those years is 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.440 that she was kind of lost, just had sort of 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.280 you know, normal jobs. They worked in movie theaters. So 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:29.560 she had a great apartment in a great neighborhood and 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:31.920 was just trying to figure out what to do and 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.120 didn't really feel any direction. Was done with dancing, kind 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.080 of retired already, and the way she divisited, really wanted 0:02:39.280 --> 0:02:42.000 to give someone a better childhood than she had and 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:44.799 wanted a best friend. In this park Ampton Square and 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.720 still there in Grantwich Village, and she would walk by 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.600 and see kids and see parents playing with those kids, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:53.440 and she said to herself, Wow, I really want to 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:55.680 be a young single mother, and I want to give 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:57.480 somebody a really great life, and I want to have 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:00.760 a best friend. So that was the sort of seed 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:03.079 that she planted, and that kind of became what her 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.960 life was about. But she wasn't looking. She wasn't actively 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.320 looking for a father or me or a husband. I 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.680 think she wasn't even concerned with a relationship at the time. 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.920 And she was nineteen twenty. And when she was twenty one, 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:17.840 she was at a jazz club, the Village Gate, very 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.480 famous jazz club with my uncle who was a jazz musician, 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.440 and they ran into Roy Ayers, who at the time 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:27.480 was already pretty well known jazz musician, and Alan met 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.359 him a few times. I think they've even played together. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.880 So they were talking and my mother's words are that 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.720 the second she saw him, she just thought, that's him. 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:37.520 This is the person I'm going to have my child with, 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.320 and very clearly not this is the person I want 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:42.600 to marry, or this is the person that I want 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.840 to be with. But really like she saw the father 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:46.880 of her child and that is where things kind of 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:48.000 changed for her. 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:51.440 It's such an extraordinary thing, and I think it really 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.960 bears talking about how incredibly unusual that would have been 0:03:56.200 --> 0:04:01.640 for a young, middle class Jewish young woman in nineteen 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.720 sixty nine to sort of have that vision for her life. 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.920 Right right, Yeah, I mean, what's funny, It didn't seem 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:12.040 that strange to me. I always knew that story until 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.840 I finally really sat down and started getting more details 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.080 and learning more about her her mindset at the time. 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:21.640 So only recently did I even consider, wow, that's wild. 0:04:22.160 --> 0:04:24.400 You know, well, I think we almost never think that 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:28.720 about our own lives or our own childhoods, maybe until 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.360 we get old enough to have some perspective on them 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.800 in sort of the wider world. But you know, my 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.200 senses that she was she had such certainty about what 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.840 she was doing. So she and Roy have you know, 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:45.960 something of a relationship. I mean, they see each other 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:47.400 on and off right. 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:49.640 Yeah, I think barely. I think I think three times 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:51.599 over the course of a year or so, like really 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.240 not dating, and she would say that she was, she 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:56.599 was in love with them at the time, but she 0:04:56.680 --> 0:05:00.520 was also very very aware that that's not where he was. 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.560 I think he was very upfront about it. You know, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.160 he's a bit older at the time. If she was 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.839 twenty one, I think he was about thirty. His star 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.360 was really rising, he was touring, he was doing all 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:11.240 these things, and I think he was very clear that 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:15.000 he wasn't looking for a relationship. I wondered if maybe 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:16.760 she would have been more into it had he been 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:19.000 into it, But it didn't change the fact that there 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.680 was one thing that she wanted from him, and it 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.080 was a child. The story is that she and my 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:25.800 uncle left an event one night and she realized, oh, 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:28.240 I'm really close to Roe's apartment. I wonder if he's home, 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:29.479 I'm going to get pregnant tonight. 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.320 Noabille's mom's plan worked. She indeed got pregnant that very night, 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.799 and Nabil was born in New York City in nineteen 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:45.479 seventy two. 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:47.440 He lived on Downing Street in Greenwich Village. I know 0:05:47.480 --> 0:05:49.440 the exact building. We walk by it all the time now, 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:53.279 which is great. And then when I was one, I 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.679 think we moved to Boston or Cambridge, Massachusetts. My uncle 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:58.960 Alan was going to Berkeley School of Music. He was 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:01.320 in college at this point, so we moved there to 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:03.120 be with him and so he could kind of help 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.440 with me. There's lots of pictures some then, but I 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:08.800 don't remember that. But what I do think, I remember 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.160 I was always into music. I mean, at a very 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.599 young age, there were always records on. We were always 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.480 hanging out with musicians. I saw live music certainly before 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:19.480 I can remember. We know I was at concerts as 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:22.039 a baby. So I was playing drums a lot, on 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:24.719 pots and pants and on like a big African drum 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:27.760 that the friend gave us. And so my uncle Alan 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:29.320 bought me a drum set when I was two and 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.800 a half years old. But this is like a real 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:33.839 drum set, not like a kid's drum set. It was 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:37.400 a full sized adult drum set that was really beat 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:39.160 up and had some sharp edges and it was kind 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.279 of rough. But I remember him. We had a basement 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:44.479 apartment and I remember him walking the drums down the 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.760 stairs one at a time, putting them on the ground 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.200 and be hitting them. And I have a memory of 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.400 what one of the symbols sounded like because I was 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:53.840 so surprised when I hit it, and it was so 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.920 loud and it really scared me and it created this 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:59.280 kind of ringing in my ear. And that was, I mean, 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:01.719 even at two and a half, a turning point in 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.280 my life, and that, you know, established who I was. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:07.640 And if anything, he didn't do it to make me 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.080 a drummer. He knew that it was already happening. I 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:12.520 think he did it to sort of facilitate what existed. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.160 I love that and it makes me laugh because in 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.200 many other families, the idea of you know, an uncle 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.640 bringing a drum set to a two and a half 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:24.559 year old child. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:26.760 Thanks thanks uncle, Thanks so. 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:31.400 Much, uncle, Alan. But your mother was it, doesn't It 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:33.120 sounds like she was completely on board. 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:37.120 She was completely loved it. It would always encourage me 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.280 to play. It didn't again. Another one of those things 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.880 that in my mind doesn't seem strange at all until 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:44.920 I really look back and think about it. Decades later. 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.280 When no Bille is a child in Cambridge, his mom 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:56.840 attends community college. She's dedicated to giving her son the 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:01.360 best life possible. She's determined to secure a more stable 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.560 financial future for them, so they moved to Amherst, where 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.360 she finishes her undergraduate degree at UMass and then gets 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:14.680 her MBA. Nabiel calls these the golden years. His beloved 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:18.280 uncle Allan has relocated to New York, but Nabil and 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.400 his mom still get to see him regularly. They travel 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.800 back and forest into New York City as much as possible, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.640 And keep in mind, this is the seventies and New 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:32.120 York City is a particularly cool place to be, but 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.640 Amherst is a great place to be too. Nabil goes 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.120 to an incredibly diverse and wonderful public school, and though 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:42.040 he and his mom are on welfare eating off food stamps, 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:45.760 to Nobiel, it never feels like they're poor. To Nabiel, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.040 it feels rich, golden. 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.320 We lived in this development called North Village Departments, which 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.640 was UMass sort of university funded student housing. So it 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:04.880 was maybe one hundred and fifty or two hundred of 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:07.080 these like almost like barracks. I think, you know, we 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.080 would call them projects now, but it didn't feel like 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:13.040 projects because they weren't tall, brick buildings. They were single story, 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:14.960 kind of connected at the sides. It almost looked like 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.240 condos really not quite as nice with big shared backyards. 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.520 And the only people who could live there were either 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:22.959 students at UMAs or professors at UMAs or someone who 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.120 had something to do with the university, and you had 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:28.000 to have children. So it was sort of this wild 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.240 free for all again seventies, no bike helmets, no you know, 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:33.760 no police, no concerns about anything. No one got hurt, 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:37.079 nothing bad was happening, So it was amazing. There was 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.920 children of all races, of all religions. It was so 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:44.440 truly diverse in every way, and so many kids who 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.560 had single parents who were going back to school. So 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:48.920 it was weird for me as a kid. For you know, 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.360 I'd be seven years old and amrist with a single 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.880 white mother who was still in her twenties and on 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.760 welfare and a black father who wasn't in the picture. 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:00.840 And I was a totally normal kid. I knew kids. 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:02.959 So with the worst situation, there were kids who's you know, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:04.880 whose dads were in prison and that's why the mom 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:07.840 was there. Like it was really it was so unique 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:10.000 and that our situations were all different but we were 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.000 all similar in that we all had weird situations and 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.920 so everyone it wasn't weird at all. I was totally 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:18.480 a normal kid and loved it. So it never even 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.960 occurred to me that, yeah, everyone else has a father, 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:23.800 and look at you know, look at Joey out there 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:25.840 playing baseball with his dad like that. I mean, of 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.320 course I still thought about my father occasionally, but he 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.240 was never We had a few of his records. This 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:33.440 biggest record came out in nineteen seventy six, and now 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.520 I think we moved to Amherst in seventy seven, so 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.280 even he played there once and that's the first time 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:41.079 I remember meeting him. My mother took me. He played 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:43.600 at the huge football stadium that's still there at UMass. 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.600 It was Grateful Dead, Patti Smith and Roy Yers. That 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:48.880 was the concert was the spring concert in May of 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.679 nineteen seventy nine. And what's funny is I remember the concert, 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:54.360 but I don't remember the other parts of it, which 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.120 my mother later told me. But we went early and 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.560 tried to go backstage. You know, this is Roy's son, 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:01.240 and we want to talk to him. My mother is 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:03.880 very good at being pushy and getting what she wants 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:06.720 New Yorker and they let us in, and I don't 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.439 remember that. And so she said that we talked to 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:11.040 him for a while, that he was really nice and 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.800 really friendly, and over the years, and there'd been a 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:15.920 couple other times we ran into him on the street 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:17.320 in New York and we had talked to him for 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:20.240 you know, thirty seconds or one minute. But I think 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:23.360 I even then might have realized what she was doing 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:27.080 was showing him that she did it and that we 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.400 were in good shape, and that not that he didn't 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:31.160 need to worry, because I don't think she thought he 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.000 was worried, but more that that thing, you know, that 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:35.679 she said to him, I want to have a child. 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.440 I want you to be the father. You don't need 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.719 to be involved. I think as much as he was 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.960 keeping his end of the deal, which was pretty easy, 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.160 I think she wanted to show that she was keeping 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.160 her end and she was doing a really good job 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.040 and that maybe it wasn't as easy. 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.760 Yeah, there's there's something that's really moving about that that 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.280 throughout it, it feels like both you and your mother 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.760 when it comes to Roy, there's this sense of look 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.199 how it turned out, Look how it turned out? 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:07.199 And you could be proud. We're proud, all right. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:12.720 No Bil is seven years old when he and his 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.720 mom go to that concert, and even though he didn't 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.360 retain much memory about the encounter, there is a memento 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.440 of that concert that he or perhaps his mom kept 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.280 for years, tucked away in a photo album, a backstage 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:29.800 pass on which no Bil evaluated the performers. In his 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:33.920 Little Boy script, next to Patti Smith and The Grateful Dead, 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.520 he wrote boo, and next to Roy Ayer's name, na 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.120 Bil wrote, yay. 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:43.560 That's such a funny detail to look at years later. 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.680 I mean, obviously, when I sort of tried to convince 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:50.959 myself that actually I had a great childhood and it 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:52.800 didn't feel like he was missing, and all these things 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.679 that said for so long, that is this weird little 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.000 bit of you know, three letter proof. That's at least 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:01.720 how I felt, whether it's true. The fact that I 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.480 wrote yeah next to his name meant he's on my 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.319 team or I'm on his team, and those other two 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:09.120 teams are the opposing teams and a child brain. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.320 The following year, Nobul is eight when he sees his 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.199 father again. Alan knows Roy a bit, and he brings 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.760 Nobile to Electric Lady Recording studio where Roy's recording. This time, 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:24.559 the visit leaves more of an impression. 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:28.400 I can see it so well, I can smell it, 0:13:28.440 --> 0:13:31.000 I can really remember it. Between seven and eight was 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.080 when my brain developed in such a way that memories 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:36.720 are different or emotions are different. The UMass thing was 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:38.920 no big deal. It was fun to see. I don't 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:41.640 even remember talking to him, which I apparently did. But 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.120 one year later, I was with Alan in New York Allan, 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.640 I guess ran into Roy on the street and happened 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.520 to mention that I was in town, and Roy said, oh, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:52.160 I'm recording an Electric Lady. Bring him by. So one 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:54.400 night we just showed up. I was so excited because 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:56.680 I was so into music. I was eight years old, 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:58.760 so I was a huge Kiss fan. This is you know, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.079 if you were a boy in the music in the seventies. 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:03.319 That was my band and all of their albums. So 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:05.640 maybe not all of them, but definitely those early seventies 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:08.000 albums were recorded electric ly. They said so on the 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.400 album covers. So I was going in. I was not thinking, oh, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:13.840 this is such a big deal. I'm going to meet 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.520 my father. It was nothing like that because my mother 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:18.440 Alan never made it a big deal because I think 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:20.640 they didn't want it to be. So I remember being 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.240 so nervous that I might meet Kiss, Like, surely they're here. 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:26.600 They just work here, right, all their albums say so, 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.360 and I didn't. But we walked into this room, into 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.960 one of the studios, and there's kind of a lounge outside, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.160 and it's like a classic and I guess the recording studio. 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:36.680 I mean, it's one of the most famous in the world, 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:38.560 but something you would see in a movie where you 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:40.520 go into this lounge and you can see the mixing 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.080 board and then there's this huge wall of kind of 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.320 soundproof glass. So there's music happening there but I can't 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.560 hear it. But I see Roy in there with headphones on, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.600 singing into a microphone. I'm so excited again, more about 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:55.880 the music in the fact of that where we are 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.840 and what's happening. That's the thing at that point. But 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:01.920 when he comes out, it's no big deal. There's lots 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.160 of people there, people from his band. They're all super 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.480 cool and I'm sure talented. It feels very like sort 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.360 of special charismatic room, and he kind of just like 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:14.120 points to everyone. They're obviously ordering dinner, and he points 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.280 at me and he says, do you want some tempora? 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:19.200 And I remember him pointing at me, and I just 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.480 remember thinking, like you know that feeling, and like you 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:24.920 end up in a conversation with someone and you feel like, wait, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:27.360 did I forget that we've already been introduced and all 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.360 these things have already happened. How is this person so 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:33.000 far ahead in the conversation? And that's what I remember feeling, like, 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.960 just thinking like, well, do do you even know who 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:38.720 I am? Or should I know who you are? You're 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.120 just asking me if I want tempora? And I said no, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:43.440 and then he kind of just bounced around. He's, you know, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.640 very charismatic center of attention, especially at his recording session, 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.280 and I remember not speaking to him anymore, and eventually 0:15:51.320 --> 0:15:54.440 with Alan just leaving, and much like my mother the 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:57.920 times we met him, it wasn't a big deal to Alan. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.120 He never there was no like so sorry, I wish 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.880 your father was more interested in your life. There's never 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:06.200 anything like that. It was really just like cool, that 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:07.520 was fun. What do you want to eat? Or where 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:09.720 do you want to go? I think everyone was sort 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:14.880 of careful to not let me be disappointed, but still 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.040 let me kind of have whatever limited window I could 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.840 into my father's life. But I do remember that feeling 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.840 disappointing or at least very confusing, like knowing, well, he 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.080 invited me here, but he didn't seem at all interested 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:30.920 in talking to me. That's very strange, and that felt 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:32.680 like a lot to process for an eight year old. 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.200 Yeah, huge, and you know he doesn't even say. 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:42.280 Hello, right exactly. It's a big word to miss. 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.960 Do you think that Alan and your mother that either 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:50.080 of them or both of them felt, you know, privately 0:16:50.120 --> 0:16:54.000 felt like, oh, that's fucked up, but wouldn't want you 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:57.560 to experience them feeling that way, or do you think 0:16:57.560 --> 0:16:58.680 that they didn't feel that way. 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:01.880 I think I thought it was fucked up. I think 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.880 my mother maybe felt a little more in disbelief that 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:12.360 he wouldn't be more interested because I'm so fascinating, I'm 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:17.200 telling you her, but I think that's what she felt. 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.480 Necessarily mad or not that it was crazy, but just 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:22.280 just like really, yeah, disbelief is the word, Like, don't 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.439 you get this, this thing that you helped to make 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:27.479 is sitting here like you should be more engaged and 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.159 I think Alan, he's not like this, But I mean 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:34.240 he is lifelong used to musicians, and a lot of 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.200 them are narcissists, and a lot of them are only 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:41.120 doing the thing that progresses their thing, And so to him, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.000 I think that's just who he was, and he wasn't 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.400 surprised by that, and even knew that before it existed. 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.120 It seems like it contributed to some really healthy bedrock 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:54.200 of for you. 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.520 Yeah, I never ever heard a bad word about my father. 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.800 There was never like, oh, he doesn't send money, and 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.359 if your father weren't around, we could have a better house. 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:05.720 Like There's just nothing like that. All the things that 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.800 I think people think I was feeling or hearing this 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.199 didn't exist. And the rare instances that he did come 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.000 up in conversation, my mother or uncle would say things like, oh, yeah, 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:19.000 he's the talented, wonderful, charismatic guy who helped bring you 0:18:19.040 --> 0:18:19.560 into the world. 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.000 When Nabile is nine, he and his mom moved back 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:28.600 to New York City with her newly minted MBA. She 0:18:28.640 --> 0:18:32.480 gets a job at American Express, and when Nobile is ten, 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.000 his mom takes him to hear Roy play at the Village. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:40.160 Gate was really close to where we lived, so we 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.040 just went there early, thinking of course he'll be there early. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.080 And we were inside the club. There's nobody there. The 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:49.639 club was empty, maybe they were just practicing or sound checking. 0:18:49.680 --> 0:18:52.600 And ran right into Roy and a woman who I 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.880 think we assume was his wife. He was married soon 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:57.440 after I was born, and they're still together, but I 0:18:57.480 --> 0:18:59.600 don't know for sure who that was, but it seemed 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.920 like it, and it was this really quick moment just 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:05.679 said hi, didn't introduce us to the woman. It very 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:07.720 now I'm remembering then too. At the times I talked 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:10.080 to him, it felt very much like I'm really busy, 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.919 I'm doing a lot, I gotta go. Always felt like that, like, 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.560 even if he was charming and felt sort of present, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:17.520 it always felt like he had one foot out the 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:19.560 door while you were talking to him, you know. And 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.119 that was probably a few hours before he actually played. 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.679 And I don't remember this part of it, but this 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.000 is what my mother told me that, you know. Later on, 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.280 I was like, let's just go home, and she said, wait, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.399 don't you want to stay and see him play? And 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.719 I said something like, well, he didn't have time for us, 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:37.560 so why would I have time for him, which is 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:42.040 definitely obviously another look into me being another year or 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:46.040 two older and starting to feel the idea that, you know, 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.359 this guy's never been missing. But the more I'm exposed 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.120 to him, the more I realized that something feels off 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:52.600 about it. 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.679 And then another New York run in, not just with 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:03.879 Roy this time, but also with his children. Now Bale's 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:04.800 have siblings. 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.800