Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is guitarist and songwriter extraordinary Eric Bazillium. He'll
Speaker 1: know him from the Hooters, also as a songwriter of
Speaker 1: Joan Osborne's one of us bon Jovi songs, Billy Myers
Speaker 1: Kissed the Rain. We'll go on and I'm Eric. How
Speaker 1: you doing, I'm great, Bob. Thanks. So let's start from
Speaker 1: the beginning. You live in Sweden. I do live. I
Speaker 1: live in Stockholm now. I've been living there, uh since,
Speaker 1: since the summer. I've spent every summer there since I
Speaker 1: met my wife in nine and then every other Christmas.
Speaker 1: Done a couple of full years, but we decided to
Speaker 1: do it again. Now did she meet you based on
Speaker 1: your fame? Absolutely not. She sat next to me on
Speaker 1: a flight from from JFK to Stockholm. We were on
Speaker 1: our way to do a festival by that basically by
Speaker 1: the North Pole. She had been. She had lived in
Speaker 1: l A for a bunch of years, moved back to Sweden,
Speaker 1: went back to l A to keep her green card
Speaker 1: active and see if the the ex boyfriend was a thing.
Speaker 1: So we sat next to each other, um exchanged phone numbers, um,
Speaker 1: stayed in touch, found myself back there a few few
Speaker 1: weeks later, and you know, it happened and the rest
Speaker 1: is history. So you've been bands, most specifically the Hooters
Speaker 1: were still together. Is who the members married to? Does
Speaker 1: that affect the harmony of the band? It really can? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was married what I call my training
Speaker 1: marriage um before this, and she uh, she was also
Speaker 1: our bands stylist and visual director. Um. So she's responsible
Speaker 1: for those colors that we wore and that got weird,
Speaker 1: it got really it complicated things a lot. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you're from Philadelphia. I am from Philadelphia. Okay, when how
Speaker 1: did you first get into music? Um? I saw the
Speaker 1: Beatles on edge before that. Were you into music? It
Speaker 1: get all before the people. My mom My mom was
Speaker 1: like a child prodigy concert pianist. She like, yeah, she
Speaker 1: went to Curtis when she was nine, Curtis the famous
Speaker 1: Curtis Institute, and um uh she was studying at the
Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania. She met my father when she was eighteen,
Speaker 1: got married, had me And Okay, wait, did you finish
Speaker 1: college or she drop off? When she finished college in Wow,
Speaker 1: did you finish a pen? She did? She she graduated
Speaker 1: Penn after I did, so what motive hit her to
Speaker 1: go back? She and my dad got divorced when I
Speaker 1: was twenty one, and so she wanted to, you know,
Speaker 1: find herself. And she apparently I don't remember this, but
Speaker 1: apparently she asked me, you know, what do you think
Speaker 1: I should study? And I said, well, because my mother,
Speaker 1: being even though she was a musician, had a serious
Speaker 1: scientific bent about her. So I said, well, how about science?
Speaker 1: So anthropology. So she ended up majoring in physical anthropology.
Speaker 1: That's unbelievable. So your parents get divorced when you're twenty one.
Speaker 1: I have a very good friend whose parents got divorced
Speaker 1: right after we graduate from college. It really messed him up.
Speaker 1: Didn't mess you up? I didn't think it did at
Speaker 1: the time. In retrospect, yeah it did. I mean, it's it,
Speaker 1: you know, it shakes the foundation. But you know, I
Speaker 1: was I wasn't living at home. Um, but you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think on some level it definitely did. So since
Speaker 1: she's a concert pianist, did she introduce you? She make
Speaker 1: you take piano lessons as a little kid. She didn't
Speaker 1: make me. I I asked her for them, and I did.
Speaker 1: She used to play the piano in the house all
Speaker 1: the time, and I would sit next to her while
Speaker 1: she was rocking chopin really and I would you know,
Speaker 1: that was the first that was really my first rock experience.
Speaker 1: Even though she was playing chopin. I would just see
Speaker 1: the way, you know, her eyes would roll up into
Speaker 1: her head and she would you know, I want that?
Speaker 1: Did She also play records in the house, not that much.
Speaker 1: But then my uncle, my my father's brother, played guitar.
Speaker 1: He was a folk musician. Yeah, of any noted, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: but he taught me my first guitar chords and my
Speaker 1: first song on guitar. But the first song that I
Speaker 1: ever learned to play and sing was El press Nueva
Speaker 1: by Joan Bayaz and I learned it in Spanish. And
Speaker 1: how old were you? I was nine or ten? I
Speaker 1: think I was ten at that point, Okay. So you
Speaker 1: start playing piano at what age six? Probably okay? And
Speaker 1: when you when you pick up the guitar at what not?
Speaker 1: Eight or nine? Not? Probably nine? And so you were
Speaker 1: taught how to read music? To this day, can you
Speaker 1: read music? I was taught to try to read music.
Speaker 1: It's like I learned the alphabet, but I could never
Speaker 1: like make music out of it. I've had a recent
Speaker 1: experience with with reading because I am Someone showed me
Speaker 1: a video of Chris Theely doing a Bach solo violand
Speaker 1: sonata on mandolin. Now, mandolin, here's a mandolin. My my
Speaker 1: career basically in the United well in the in the
Speaker 1: United States, began with these cards. So I owe a
Speaker 1: lot to the mandolin, but I never really addressed it
Speaker 1: as a serious instrument. It was a spice in the Hooters,
Speaker 1: the Hooters Arsenal of sounds. Um. Someone showed me this
Speaker 1: video of Christinely playing this Bach piece and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna learn that. And this was right when
Speaker 1: we had moved to Stockholm, and I walked into the
Speaker 1: famous Hellstones music store and he had just gotten in
Speaker 1: this ninety five Gibson mandolin. The price was right. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a mandolin in Sweden. Bought the mandolin, went home,
Speaker 1: downloaded the sheet music, printed it out. And that was
Speaker 1: early September. And I am still struggling to play this piece,
Speaker 1: but I can kind of read a little bit. Now. Wow,
Speaker 1: so okay, you're playing guitar and piano a little bit
Speaker 1: and then are you listening to the transistor? Philly has
Speaker 1: a legendary radio stage. Yeah, oh, I listened to. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny that the Beatles weren't the first thing that
Speaker 1: that shook my rock to my question? So what was ironically?
Speaker 1: The first record I ever bought was do Move? Uh
Speaker 1: nak We can't play the too because we get into publishing, right,
Speaker 1: But that was certainly good. But continue, So the first
Speaker 1: song I learned was Sukiyaki, right, which is really called
Speaker 1: Aruko by Ki Sakamoto. And I would stay home from
Speaker 1: school feign illness to listen to the radio to hear
Speaker 1: that song, which they were playing every playing every hour.
Speaker 1: Your father was a psychiatrist. He didn't realize you were
Speaker 1: feigning illness. No, he didn't notice. How many siblings do
Speaker 1: you have? None? None? You're the old there's a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on you. Okay, So the Beatles. It's February
Speaker 1: sixty four, February nine, The Beatles come on, Sullivan. How
Speaker 1: does that change? My parents had gone to Baltimore to
Speaker 1: look at it a Steinway for my mom, and I
Speaker 1: opted to stay home because I wanted to watch the Beatles.
Speaker 1: So I went over to our friend Bernie's house. You know,
Speaker 1: they walked out, they did um all my loving and
Speaker 1: you know, wow, And I remember when they remember because
Speaker 1: underneath it they put the status of all the people.
Speaker 1: And then he's married. I think it was. It was
Speaker 1: during It was either at that point or I want
Speaker 1: to hold your hand where I realized I want to
Speaker 1: be him. First I looked at Paul, because no one
Speaker 1: Paul was cute and he and and dark haired and
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be him. And then I looked
Speaker 1: at George, who was playing the solo for till there
Speaker 1: was you, and I said, no, I want to be him.
Speaker 1: Then I saw John, who was like the coolest guy alive.
Speaker 1: I said no, I want to be him. And then
Speaker 1: I saw Ringo, and no one had more fun than Ringo.
Speaker 1: I realized I wanted to be all four of them. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then what happened next? So what happened that next
Speaker 1: was the next day Bernie and I started our first band.
Speaker 1: Bernie was gonna play drums, and once again, Bernie's your
Speaker 1: best friend, best friend. Okay, Bernie had any musical experience,
Speaker 1: none whatsoever. Okay, and did you start said band? We did?
Speaker 1: We did, We did it with our friend Paul. So
Speaker 1: it was a trio. We and I called us the
Speaker 1: Limes stuff like the quarry Men. And so before this
Speaker 1: had happened and I had learned to play this Joan
Speaker 1: Bayz song, my uncle I knew a guy named Gene
Speaker 1: London who had a local kids show in Philadelphia, and
Speaker 1: I performed on that show. So performed playing the guitar
Speaker 1: and playing the guitar, singing the song. Well, that's pretty dramatic.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately they the tapes are long gone, but he brought
Speaker 1: us back. So the Limestones performed on the Gene London show.
Speaker 1: We did A Hard Day's Night and House of the
Speaker 1: Rising Sun. I mean, I'm speechless. So in high school
Speaker 1: you must have been the biggest thing going. This is
Speaker 1: so I was getting the crap kicked out of me
Speaker 1: because I had long hair. Wow, you went to public
Speaker 1: school or private? I went to public school through sixth
Speaker 1: grade and then I went to private school. But you
Speaker 1: didn't get yours k I actually did. In private school.
Speaker 1: I went to a Quaker school, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm gonna be certain. No, it all
Speaker 1: changed in like ninth grade. Uh, And like the guy
Speaker 1: who was kicking my ass and eighth grade suddenly is like,
Speaker 1: you know, my biggest defender of So you see the Beatles,
Speaker 1: you need an electric guitar, API I got. Well, I
Speaker 1: wanted to play bass because I wanted to be like
Speaker 1: Paul first, So I got. I got you know, Dan
Speaker 1: electro bass for eighty dollars. Okay, eighty dollars your parents
Speaker 1: give you. Um, I had saved it, um, and I
Speaker 1: got the bass. And we thought that Paul, who knew
Speaker 1: a couple of chords, was going to play guitar. Well,
Speaker 1: Paul couldn't play guitar, so Paul played bass. I played guitar.
Speaker 1: And where'd you get a guitar? Paul had a guitar,
Speaker 1: he had a Superro, he had like a thirty and
Speaker 1: you had the amps too. I think we had one
Speaker 1: amp between us, which is what the Beatles had for
Speaker 1: a while. And we did, Um, yeah, we did. We
Speaker 1: did the TV show and then um, that's sort of
Speaker 1: never really caught fire. It wasn't until I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: um that my first real band jailed. It was still Bernie,
Speaker 1: Bernie and I and then um, there was a kid
Speaker 1: that I went to Hebrew school with and Paul Vernick,
Speaker 1: who kept trying to get me to play with him,
Speaker 1: but he was such a nevish he was just like,
Speaker 1: come on, man, come on man, I can sing, I
Speaker 1: can play. Okay, fine, And then Bernie. It turns out
Speaker 1: he went to high school with Bernie, and uh, Bernie said,
Speaker 1: you know, this kid is really good. So we got
Speaker 1: the three of us got together. By this point, Bernie's
Speaker 1: playing bass, We get a drummer. This kid opens Paul
Speaker 1: opens his mouth, and I'm like, oh god, this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney. This was like the
Speaker 1: voice and he played great rhythm guitar and he wrote songs.
Speaker 1: So we had our first real band at fifteen sixteen.
Speaker 1: It was called Evil Seed, and I just got in
Speaker 1: touch with What are The guy who managed us back
Speaker 1: then got in touch with me. He had recordings which
Speaker 1: I thought were all gone, Wow, Where are Paul and
Speaker 1: Bernie today? Paul is no longer with us. He had
Speaker 1: substance issues, which ultimately kim okay. Bernie is in northern
Speaker 1: California doing, you know, living a real life, having a
Speaker 1: real job, still playing bass. We get together sometimes and
Speaker 1: it's like where one brain with four hands Okay, so
Speaker 1: you have Evil Seed, you're fifteen years old. What happens next? Musically?
Speaker 1: You know, we start getting really good. Uh, and then
Speaker 1: they come over to the house and fire me because
Speaker 1: I have another year of high school left. I was
Speaker 1: a year younger and um, and I was also taking pictures.
Speaker 1: I was really into photography at that point as well.
Speaker 1: I don't know whose idea it was, but they fired me.
Speaker 1: And then three months later they came back cap in
Speaker 1: hand and said, sorry, man, would you come back? And
Speaker 1: did you go back? I did? I did because it
Speaker 1: really was a great band. I mean, listen, how much
Speaker 1: were you working in terms of you know, playing like
Speaker 1: forts parties and stuff like that. We we actually someone
Speaker 1: actually did hire us for about misfah and they shut
Speaker 1: us down after the first song. They did not want
Speaker 1: to hear Cream and Hendricks covers. So this was a
Speaker 1: band you played in the living in the basement or
Speaker 1: in the party room, but you didn't play out. We did.
Speaker 1: We did. We played you know, coffee houses. There was
Speaker 1: one legendary coffee house called the heck It Circle, like
Speaker 1: he could he They got us um where a lot
Speaker 1: of weird, a lot of weird ship went down but
Speaker 1: I managed to stay away from all that. So so
Speaker 1: this band, Evil Seed takes you all the way through
Speaker 1: high school, all the way through high school yep, and
Speaker 1: then you yourself go to PEN and I myself go
Speaker 1: to Pen. Band kind of breaks up. At this point,
Speaker 1: Paul has already had his his substance issues have already
Speaker 1: gotten the better of him, and it turns out that
Speaker 1: there are other mental mental health things involved. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I go off to Pen and my first week there,
Speaker 1: I go to an electronic music class that they have.
Speaker 1: They have him Moog synthesizers, serial number zero zero three,
Speaker 1: and I see this guy in there with really long
Speaker 1: blonde hair down to his waist and I recognize him.
Speaker 1: He's in another Philly band called Wax that I've seen
Speaker 1: open for the Birds, and um, we start talking and
Speaker 1: hanging out and it turns out that his band, Wax
Speaker 1: guitar player had left. At that point, their configuration was
Speaker 1: two electric pianos, two drummers, a bass player, and a singer.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, put me in. So I joined that band,
Speaker 1: and that was challenging because he was at that even
Speaker 1: at that point, Rob Himan was like that was Robbin. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: challenging because of his personality or because you weren't up
Speaker 1: to snuff musically. I was up to snuff, but I
Speaker 1: really had I mean I really did have to up
Speaker 1: my game the musically. It was really some sophisticated music.
Speaker 1: It was even then even instead we're talking about like
Speaker 1: September seventy one. Okay, so you joined that band. How
Speaker 1: much time goes to that band as opposed to school?
Speaker 1: A lot? In fact, I basically almost flunked out second
Speaker 1: semester freshman year. But you graduated a physics major. Right
Speaker 1: by everybody's standards. Physics is not easy. You know, I'm wired.
Speaker 1: I'm wired. Funny, I guess I was getting seasoned history
Speaker 1: courses and a's in physics. Yeah, he just just comes naturally.
Speaker 1: It didn't I had to work hard. But if I
Speaker 1: worked hard, I'd get it and and the feeling of
Speaker 1: satisfaction was similar to learning a piece of music. You
Speaker 1: know that understanding Newton, understanding einst I there was there
Speaker 1: was a moment, you know, there was magic eye paintings.
Speaker 1: For me. It was like that I would stare at
Speaker 1: a problem, and stare at a problem, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden I would see it clearly, and then if
Speaker 1: I looked away, it would disappear. Okay, the obvious question
Speaker 1: people would ask today is you have anything to do
Speaker 1: with physics today? Not externally, but I think internally my process,
Speaker 1: the way my subconscious mechanism works. I think it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. I was going to ask that question second.
Speaker 1: So you certainly answered it. But when people don't get
Speaker 1: today today, when it's funny, because it's our generation and
Speaker 1: even younger generations, they send their kids to school as
Speaker 1: a glorified trade school to get a job. Where we went.
Speaker 1: Our parents said, if you go and you graduate, we
Speaker 1: don't care what right. That's what That's what mine said exactly.
Speaker 1: So you are now playing with Rob in this band Wax,
Speaker 1: to what degree? Do you have a dream of further success?
Speaker 1: That's all I really want to do. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: I took all the premed requirements and you know, got
Speaker 1: my degree. Rob graduated three years before I did. H
Speaker 1: So he and the singer David went off and just
Speaker 1: kept writing songs. Meanwhile, Rick Schurdoff, who was the drummer
Speaker 1: in that band, goes and gets a job for Clive
Speaker 1: Davis as an A and R slash producer. His first
Speaker 1: act of a and our heroism is he finds Mandy
Speaker 1: for Barry Manilow. By Clive's terms, that's a huge victory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well by anybody's terms. I mean, Clive is always about
Speaker 1: when you would go for a meeting with Clive, when
Speaker 1: you want to hire somebody, he would say, bringing five
Speaker 1: songs that are out there that you believe will be
Speaker 1: covered and be hits. That's exactly what he what. I
Speaker 1: think that was one of them. I think peaceful Easy
Speaker 1: Feeling was one. I think Mandy came later. I don't
Speaker 1: think that was an audition song. So so so Rick
Speaker 1: goes off there and you're left at pen doing what
Speaker 1: studying physics? And I had a band, you know, my
Speaker 1: my roommate who had known from high school years. He
Speaker 1: had a Hammond organ, and then we found some other guys.
Speaker 1: We had a band called Cyclic Blowfield and his funky calypsos.
Speaker 1: Definitely the seventies. And to what degree were you known
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia? Not at all? We played fat part ease um,
Speaker 1: you know, w and what to what degree was there
Speaker 1: a scene in Philly at that point? There wasn't. That's
Speaker 1: the thing there really wasn't much of a scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the famous Tower Theater where David Bowie cut his live album,
Speaker 1: So there was a live music scene, but none of
Speaker 1: the local people were populating. The Tower didn't really start
Speaker 1: going until the mid seventies, right seventy four, even seventy
Speaker 1: There was a spectrum and where the roof blew off?
Speaker 1: Where the roof? Yeah, yea for those I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's a famous arena in Philadelphia. So the roof blows
Speaker 1: off the spectrum. But were you an avid concert going yourself? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was a photographer too. Did you have a dream
Speaker 1: of being a successful to be the Annie Leeb of it? No,
Speaker 1: I had a dream of being John Paul George and Ringo.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, I enjoyed taking pictures of these
Speaker 1: people and I love being in the dark room. I
Speaker 1: loved printing them. So it was purely a hobby. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: except that at that point, bands would play two nights
Speaker 1: at the Electric Factory. They play Friday and Saturday. I've
Speaker 1: got on Friday. First in line, get right up front,
Speaker 1: which is literally pushed up against the stage, which is
Speaker 1: about a yard high. Shoot Shoot Shoot, Shoot, Go Home.
Speaker 1: Developed the negatives, let him dry overnight, spend all day printing,
Speaker 1: go back down, get first in line, and sell prints
Speaker 1: to kids online. So you were obviously dedicated. You would
Speaker 1: sell them to the sell them to the people in
Speaker 1: the line. How much would you selve them for? Buck?
Speaker 1: Buck and a half? Maybe? How big were the prints?
Speaker 1: Five by seven? Eight by ten? Really? Yeah? And what
Speaker 1: was somebody's supposed to do with the print during the show? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, nobody ever seen. But then I would I
Speaker 1: started handing them to the bands on stage. People would
Speaker 1: come out, someone would come out and say, with the
Speaker 1: individual who handed those photographs to Rod Stewart please come backstage?
Speaker 1: And did you meet Rod Stewart? I did? I did?
Speaker 1: And Ronnie Wood. It was the first Faces tour and
Speaker 1: like like an idiot, I sold the Negatives while Rod
Speaker 1: Stewart was so cool back then he was So those
Speaker 1: were the first rock stars you met? Or did you
Speaker 1: met other people? Um? I actually had um? Well, but
Speaker 1: yeah that was them, Jeff back ten years after. I
Speaker 1: really went after ten years after because I wanted to
Speaker 1: be Alvin Lee and I actually got to be friends
Speaker 1: with them because I was fifteen sixteen, but I looked
Speaker 1: twelve my voice didn't change a lot of sixteen. So
Speaker 1: this begs the question greatest guitarists in rock history. Ah,
Speaker 1: that's that's a pantheon. I mean I have my favorites
Speaker 1: for different things. George Harrison obviously, because he was the
Speaker 1: first guitarist that had parts, he really played orchestra Ley.
Speaker 1: Then came the Holy Trinity, Clapton, Beck, and Hendricks. Okay,
Speaker 1: of those, how do you rank those three or the unrankable?
Speaker 1: They're kind of unrancable, I say, technically Beck right, hands
Speaker 1: down if you like panatonic blues, Clapton revolutionizing the guitar
Speaker 1: as a world Hendricks. Okay, so let's go back. So
Speaker 1: Rick Shart off to New York working for Clive, and
Speaker 1: Rob is playing in his own band because he graduated
Speaker 1: three years before. He and David the singer are writing.
Speaker 1: They're just writing songs so that Rick can signed them
Speaker 1: to Arista. Right when I'm about to graduate, they get signed, right,
Speaker 1: that's Baby Grant. That's Baby Grant. So again it's a
Speaker 1: keyboard player and a and a singer. They need a
Speaker 1: guitar player. Okay, So were you in touch with them
Speaker 1: when they called you? Yeah? I touch all through. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you called, so you must have thought you made it.
Speaker 1: I thought, this is it. You know, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make a lot of money right away, and you
Speaker 1: know we're going to go on the road and all
Speaker 1: that great stuff that goes along with it. And then
Speaker 1: what happens, Well, well, we're still working on the songs
Speaker 1: and and you know, Rob's playing me these songs. And
Speaker 1: you know, the thing about meeting Rob was I met
Speaker 1: my equal, you know. I mean, Paul, who was in
Speaker 1: The Evil Seed was an amazing songwriter singer, but Rob,
Speaker 1: you know, his musicality just was on another level. I
Speaker 1: mean really it was. To me, it was like Steely
Speaker 1: Dan on steroids, the way his his sense for chord
Speaker 1: changes and melodies, and and David who wrote all the lyrics. Then, um,
Speaker 1: so it really really challenged me and it made me
Speaker 1: up my game, especially when it was time to arrange
Speaker 1: these songs and come up with signature guitar parts, and
Speaker 1: I would come up with like instrumental sections. I'd go
Speaker 1: off and would it and come back with this you know,
Speaker 1: three minute exploration and they loved it because you could
Speaker 1: do that. Then yeah, well listen, nothing better than having
Speaker 1: your work be loved. So you make the record who
Speaker 1: produced that record? Rick Rick and Rob Okay and the
Speaker 1: record comes out. I have to own that record where
Speaker 1: you're not on the cover and you got the person
Speaker 1: made out of vegetables. And that's the second album. Well
Speaker 1: that's the second album. I don't know if I own
Speaker 1: the first. First one has has a Botero painting. I
Speaker 1: have to go back to my collection. I certainly remember
Speaker 1: the second. So you get to make two records. But
Speaker 1: by my standards, nothing really happens with either of those rounds. Now.
Speaker 1: I mean, we had a couple of shows where it
Speaker 1: really felt like it was happening, and afterwards we're going,
Speaker 1: We're the next Beatles, But uh no, it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I think we were. We were ten years ahead of
Speaker 1: our time or ten years behind. But you know, our
Speaker 1: first album came out when Talking Heads was happening, and
Speaker 1: it was everything was going minimal and you know, and
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you could play really well,
Speaker 1: you kind of had to hide it. Whereas I'm playing
Speaker 1: like I'm getting paid by the note. But Clive is amnimal.
Speaker 1: He's behind it, he's behind it, but you can tell
Speaker 1: he's like Rick was his pet A and R guy,
Speaker 1: so we'll let Rick have his fun with these guys.
Speaker 1: But after we did the second album and we started
Speaker 1: writing songs for the third and by this point that
Speaker 1: Robin David had brought me in as a full member
Speaker 1: of the band, and you know, brought me into the
Speaker 1: songwriting process, uh, And we started writing songs and sending
Speaker 1: them to Clive, and Clive kind of sat us down
Speaker 1: and said, guys, you know what a hit song sounds like,
Speaker 1: and he played us actually something that he thought was
Speaker 1: going to be a hit song, which was really lame.
Speaker 1: And it was not a hit. No, but you know what,
Speaker 1: nobody nobody bats a thousand. Even Clive doesn't take away
Speaker 1: from anything. So we sit down and and we we
Speaker 1: just realized this is not the place for us. And
Speaker 1: then at some point Rob and I realized that it
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna happen the style of music we were doing. Um,
Speaker 1: the singer wasn't a rock star. And he even told us,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, I wasn't born to rock. So
Speaker 1: Rob and I decided to give it one more shot.
Speaker 1: This is seventy nine. We're gonna have We're gonna have
Speaker 1: one more band. What are we gonna do? How are
Speaker 1: we going to make it into something that everyone else
Speaker 1: isn't doing because we're not gonna do punk, because we're
Speaker 1: just way beyond that. Um. At this point, the SKA
Speaker 1: Invasion was happening, of course, so you know, we saw madness,
Speaker 1: we saw the Selector, we saw the Specials, the police
Speaker 1: were happening. And Robert Rob actually grew up going to
Speaker 1: Jamaica as a kid and he was way into reggae,
Speaker 1: so he said, you know what, no American bands were
Speaker 1: doing this sca thing. Let's try that. And we had
Speaker 1: already found a drummer. When originally we were going to
Speaker 1: do it as a three piece, I mean, Robin I
Speaker 1: looked at each other and I said, can you sing?
Speaker 1: I don't know? Can you I don't know? Well let's
Speaker 1: try it. Well at least if we sing together, at
Speaker 1: least we can cover each other's asses. And we originally
Speaker 1: we're going to do it as a as a three piece.
Speaker 1: Rob was going to play left hand bass like Raymond's Eric,
Speaker 1: but then um, the drummer was was in a band
Speaker 1: which was which was breaking up because the lead singer
Speaker 1: and lead guitarists were leaving. So I went with them
Speaker 1: with that band, they had a two week commitment at
Speaker 1: this club, and I realized, here's a great drummer, a
Speaker 1: great bass player, a great guitars will bring them in.
Speaker 1: And that became the Hooters, the original, the original Hooters.
Speaker 1: So this is this is at this point, it is
Speaker 1: eighty this is living in New York. Were living in Philly, Okay,
Speaker 1: And what's the next step with the Hooters. Next step
Speaker 1: with the Hooters is to write some songs, get a
Speaker 1: band name, and get some gigs. Now the band is
Speaker 1: named after the melodica. Yeah, Well, what happened was we
Speaker 1: went into do our first first demos and uh my,
Speaker 1: my friend Glenn, who was actually sitting out there and
Speaker 1: in the control room, had had a melodica. Uh. Rob
Speaker 1: and I being into reggae, we're listening to a lot
Speaker 1: of Augustus Pablo, you know. He would just play melodica
Speaker 1: over over these these tracks. Um, and Rob said, how
Speaker 1: we should try a melodica, said, well, my buddy Glenn's
Speaker 1: got one of them. And the meantime a friend of
Speaker 1: ours had a mandolin and he also happened to have
Speaker 1: some recording gear, so he recorded our first demos so
Speaker 1: we're set up setting it for the first demos. I'm
Speaker 1: playing a mandolin better than that, but um, And then
Speaker 1: the engineer says, give me a level on that hooter. Ah,
Speaker 1: And we looked at each other and went, okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is a hooter. This is a hooter. The band
Speaker 1: name thing took a few days because we were looking.
Speaker 1: We wanted to be a plural noun so that each one,
Speaker 1: each guy in the band could say I am a beatle,
Speaker 1: rolling stone, not a shoe, not a chair, and it
Speaker 1: couldn't be a household name. And then dawned on one
Speaker 1: of us that it could be a hooter. So you
Speaker 1: become the Hooters. And what's the next step towards success?
Speaker 1: Rob's girlfriend at the time had a successful record store
Speaker 1: that like alternative punk, new wave record store, and she
Speaker 1: took it upon herself to to manage us with with
Speaker 1: with Rob and we had a we had a very
Speaker 1: successful marketing campaign. We printed up, we got she made
Speaker 1: a logo for us, and printed up a bunch of
Speaker 1: yellow eight and a half by eleven sheets of paper
Speaker 1: that said h oo question mark, and we papered them
Speaker 1: all over the city. Right, that's a good campaign. I
Speaker 1: gotta give her credit. And then a week later Hooters,
Speaker 1: and then the the date of our first show, which
Speaker 1: was I think June of at a bar in Levittown,
Speaker 1: and was it successful to people show up? People showed
Speaker 1: up well because the band that I had played in
Speaker 1: with David, our drummer, had a following, so they knew
Speaker 1: David and they knew me, And yeah, they came, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred maybe the first night, two hundred the second night,
Speaker 1: and we ended up playing at the bar called Vernon's
Speaker 1: five nights a week, four sets a night, so that
Speaker 1: was like that was our Hamburg exactly. I was just thinking, so,
Speaker 1: how do you end up getting a deal with Columbia?
Speaker 1: That was a long road really Yeah, yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: did Vernon's places like that. Then we started doing a
Speaker 1: residency at a place called Grendel's Lair in the City
Speaker 1: on South Street in Philly every Monday night. Again. The
Speaker 1: first time maybe we had seventy five people, second time
Speaker 1: and fifty and within a few months the line was
Speaker 1: around the block. Then a very lucky thing happened. Uh
Speaker 1: this this jockey named Michael Tearson. I hear from Michael
Speaker 1: tears all the time of course you do, Of course
Speaker 1: you do. He decides he's going to put the studio
Speaker 1: on lockdown and only play the music he wants to play.
Speaker 1: Guerilla Radio. That was the that was the original Guerilla Radio.
Speaker 1: So Betsy the manager calls him and says, hey, we
Speaker 1: got some demos. Should we come down and said yeah.
Speaker 1: So he plays our our first demo. It was a
Speaker 1: sky instrumental called Man in the Street. Um, he plays it,
Speaker 1: and I guess the phones went wild because they started
Speaker 1: playing it like in regular rotation. This is w MMR.
Speaker 1: This isn't like you know, you know, cheesy little. That's
Speaker 1: one of the original so called underground FM rock stations. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: it was the second one. You know, things just and
Speaker 1: then we put out our first single. We did a
Speaker 1: live broadcast. We opened for for the Beat, for the
Speaker 1: English Beat, who are our heroes right mirror in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: Oh my god? And um we opened for them, and
Speaker 1: we did a live version of All Your Zombies, which
Speaker 1: they started playing and started really playing it. So we
Speaker 1: put that out as our second single. So things are
Speaker 1: really heating up. We're really getting gigs and it's spreading
Speaker 1: out into the you know, into Jersey into Delaware. But
Speaker 1: what happens in Philly stays in Philly. You know, you
Speaker 1: go to New York to try to get somebody interested,
Speaker 1: we'll come play in New York. So you go, I
Speaker 1: think the place was called Privates and ten people show up,
Speaker 1: you know, the A and our genius has come out
Speaker 1: and say, well, it wasn't electric, right, but you try
Speaker 1: being electric in front of ten people. Hey, it's Bob
Speaker 1: left Sets. I thank you for your time. Welcome to
Speaker 1: my new podcast, the Bob left Sets Podcast. Remember to
Speaker 1: subscribe on tune in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: So the Cindy law Per record was before the Hooters deal. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: Rick calls you Ricks, the producer of that. What does
Speaker 1: he say? He says, because she she's already come from
Speaker 1: failure in bankruptcy, right, he says, And he was basically
Speaker 1: assigned her. Um and he says, I got this artist
Speaker 1: and uh, he took her to see a number of
Speaker 1: musicians and apparently she didn't like me at first. She
Speaker 1: liked Rob, but she wasn't nuts about me. So it
Speaker 1: was originally going to be another guitar player. But then
Speaker 1: I don't know if Rick talked her into it, or
Speaker 1: she saw us again and decided I was up to snuff.
Speaker 1: But we started hunkering down in our We had this
Speaker 1: rehearsal studio that we called the ranch like but it
Speaker 1: was like not a ranch. It was like here in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: It was really like Deliverance world around there. Um and
Speaker 1: Rick had is his suitcase full of songs. He had
Speaker 1: girls just want to have Fun. Well, that's a Robert
Speaker 1: Hazard song from Philadelphia. Did you know Robert Yeah? Oh sure.
Speaker 1: He was our competition. He was our arrival. He had
Speaker 1: that one thing, you know, We had that song on
Speaker 1: the Elevator of Life. Which Escalator of Life? He talked
Speaker 1: about his taking his mas to to the supermarket. He's
Speaker 1: dead himself at this so okay he had that. And
Speaker 1: then where do time after time and all that stuff
Speaker 1: come from? Time after time? It was a later rival
Speaker 1: girls this one am I allowed to play any of girls?
Speaker 1: Just one to happen, but keep it short. Okay, this
Speaker 1: was how it was originally written. But come home in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, my father. I haven't heard
Speaker 1: the original version, so Cindy and it was boys just
Speaker 1: want to have fun? No, it was girls just when Western.
Speaker 1: Yes it was, but Cindy said, I will never sing
Speaker 1: that song as song as I don't like the music
Speaker 1: and it's demeaning to women. So we tried doing it
Speaker 1: as a reggae. We tried doing it as a sky
Speaker 1: we tried doing it as like a cat Stevens. She
Speaker 1: was not having any of it. But Rick, who was
Speaker 1: really an a and our genius, he knew that that
Speaker 1: voice singing that song was gold. So finally one day
Speaker 1: we came in and Rick's like, can't we figure out
Speaker 1: a way to do this? Now? This was when Come
Speaker 1: On Eileen was all over the world, and who didn't
Speaker 1: love Come On Eileen? So Cindy says, can't you make
Speaker 1: it sound like come On Eileen? And I remember that
Speaker 1: I have such a clear visual memory of that moment.
Speaker 1: I had an eight to eight drum machine, that's what
Speaker 1: we did all of the demos, of course, and I
Speaker 1: turned it that big tempo knob down. I changed the
Speaker 1: kick drum pattern. I picked up my guitar and I went, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what's it like when you hear that riff
Speaker 1: that you just come off that easy. When it became
Speaker 1: ubiquitous all over TV, and radio did that kind of
Speaker 1: just like blow your mind. It was pretty wacky. I
Speaker 1: mean it was yeah, yeah, I probably felt like Raphael
Speaker 1: Ravenscroft felt when every year right Acre Street, because I
Speaker 1: got paid about as much as he did for that.
Speaker 1: But um uh, And you know, of course a week later,
Speaker 1: she's saying, you know, I always wanted to sing that song.
Speaker 1: That song is so empowering to women. Oh listen, leave,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it in today's environment. I won't make any
Speaker 1: comment about that. So you're making that record? How long
Speaker 1: does it take to make that album? We spent about
Speaker 1: six months demoing the songs that that that Rick had
Speaker 1: brought in a couple of them Cindy had co written.
Speaker 1: It was a Jewels sheer song. There was all through
Speaker 1: the night, and then we went into um, we went
Speaker 1: into the record plant and okay, you make the record.
Speaker 1: You have any idea it's going to be this gigantic smash,
Speaker 1: which it turns out to be. I was really sort
Speaker 1: of running on fumes creatively at that point. Cindy is brilliant.
Speaker 1: I love her. She's like that wacky cousin that you
Speaker 1: like have Thanksgiving with and and and you're tired afterwards.
Speaker 1: But but she's great. I mean, I think she's one
Speaker 1: of the greatest singers ever and fine, fine person, but
Speaker 1: it was it was draining. And then towards the very end,
Speaker 1: Rick was saying, you know, we could really use a
Speaker 1: couple more songs, and Cindy was reading TV guide looking
Speaker 1: for titles, so she found two titles Vertigo and time
Speaker 1: after time I got Vertigo. We tried to write a
Speaker 1: song called Vertigo. It wasn't good. She and Rob meanwhile,
Speaker 1: come to me a couple of days later, say hey,
Speaker 1: we got an idea for a song. They play me
Speaker 1: the chorus like a verse idea and the chorus, and
Speaker 1: I just said, you've you've just written yesterday. We're gonna
Speaker 1: We're gonna hear the song for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: Who created the arrangement? That was really me and Rob
Speaker 1: and Rick and Bill Whitman, who was the engineer and
Speaker 1: is now Cindy's musical director for fifteen years. So, but
Speaker 1: the album comes out and goes nuclear. Did you foresee
Speaker 1: that at all? No? I remember when I got got
Speaker 1: my first pressing of it. I just listened to that.
Speaker 1: I get aside from time after time, time after time
Speaker 1: was a slam dunk. But like I heard, girls just
Speaker 1: want to have fun coming out of my speakers, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know, I just don't notice. H
Speaker 1: But obviously I was wrong. Okay, so that's a big success.
Speaker 1: How do the Hooters get signed? A lot of it
Speaker 1: was on the strength of that. I mean I think
Speaker 1: that gave Rick the ammunition he needed to be able
Speaker 1: to sign us. So you basically owe your career to
Speaker 1: wreck absolutely and even more so as in the next chapter,
Speaker 1: Will Will Will reveal. But um, you know, we we
Speaker 1: got we got a deal. We made the record, and
Speaker 1: you know, All Use Zombies was the first the first
Speaker 1: they were now in the MTV era. Okay, so when
Speaker 1: you started the Hooters, it was before that because August
Speaker 1: of eighty one is MTV. So how does that affect
Speaker 1: the creative process and what you end up doing. It
Speaker 1: didn't affect their songwriting or record making at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: we just figured somebody would come in and make a video.
Speaker 1: So okay, so you do All Use Zombies, which becomes
Speaker 1: a huge yet became it's funny. It's funny. I think
Speaker 1: it peaked at number fifty seven. Yeah, but the numbers
Speaker 1: are irrelevant. They played They played it all the time
Speaker 1: on the on the video channel, and then the next
Speaker 1: track comes and we danced, which was really was what
Speaker 1: made us go platinum. And now you're touring and you're
Speaker 1: living the life, living the life, and do you believe
Speaker 1: that you've you've achieved your dream? I was too busy
Speaker 1: to believe anything. It really you miss it the first time.
Speaker 1: You know, we weren't we weren't that young. I mean
Speaker 1: I was already in my early thirties when this was happening.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's such a whirlwind. I mean, we
Speaker 1: played live AID, live aid. You know, people ask me
Speaker 1: what was it like? I don't know. You know, we
Speaker 1: walked on stage, we did two songs, we were off.
Speaker 1: Do you hang out the rest of the day? I
Speaker 1: actually there were there were personal issues. I actually ended
Speaker 1: up going home for for a few hours, and I
Speaker 1: went back for the for the finale. But um, I
Speaker 1: was there for a fair amount of it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: the first album comes out, goes platinum, and then where
Speaker 1: does that leave you? Um? When we toured a bunch,
Speaker 1: we opened for Lover Boy, Turn Me Loose, YEP, and
Speaker 1: we opened for for Squeeze. UM, Don Henley for two weeks,
Speaker 1: Squeeze for a couple of months, and Lover Boy Um
Speaker 1: and then we have to make another album. And then
Speaker 1: Day by Day was the third single, which was actually
Speaker 1: the highest charting single. But you have three hits, which
Speaker 1: by today's standards is gargantrain, actually four Where did the
Speaker 1: Children Go? The single didn't really do well, but the
Speaker 1: video was number It was our highest charting video, number two,
Speaker 1: a live video. So then we have to make another record,
Speaker 1: and there's that, you know, sophomore. We've used you know,
Speaker 1: we've used all of our But while we were on
Speaker 1: the road, we stayed busy, you know, we we're we're
Speaker 1: on a bus. I had a mandlin and um on
Speaker 1: one day, on a drive from New Orleans to San Antonio,
Speaker 1: I picked up a mandolin and start going, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: It's just that easy, just comes to you. Yeah, m
Speaker 1: the brain and the fingers become one, okay, and you
Speaker 1: realize you've written something that's gonna go. I realized I've
Speaker 1: written something that's gonna make me go. For a while.
Speaker 1: The whole band was in the back lounge when we
Speaker 1: when we did that, and you know, Rob was playing
Speaker 1: in the melodica the hooter Um, and it actually took
Speaker 1: us six months to write the song because you know,
Speaker 1: a riff like that is just a riff you got right.
Speaker 1: At some point you have to sing something, and I
Speaker 1: never thought the song actually came up to the level
Speaker 1: of that. I wish that we would have found a
Speaker 1: way to sing that melody, but the words never came. Okay,
Speaker 1: But that's the second album. Now, that's the second album,
Speaker 1: so that we do the second time, we take a
Speaker 1: big chance a chordion's mandolin's uh, really going going out,
Speaker 1: going for our ethnic weirdness thing. We've left the reggae
Speaker 1: thing behind at this point. You know, we're staying with
Speaker 1: our God theme, you know, all you zombies as a
Speaker 1: Bible story. And we write Satellite, which is about like
Speaker 1: Jimmy Folwell and and that el evangelist thing. Everybody thinks
Speaker 1: we're like a Christian band or you know know, we're
Speaker 1: a couple of lass Hebrews right and stuff. So the
Speaker 1: album comes out and it's Ships Gold, which they took
Speaker 1: back from us because after the returns um Our first
Speaker 1: single from that album was Johnny b which the video
Speaker 1: was directed by David Fincher. Did you know he was
Speaker 1: going to turn into David Fincher. Nobody knew who he
Speaker 1: had to turn to David Fincher. But um, and we
Speaker 1: toured with Bryan Adams on that album, but it never
Speaker 1: really caught hold in the US. Meanwhile, Germany happens. Johnny
Speaker 1: b is a smash ubiquitous in Germany. We go there
Speaker 1: and wow, I can do this, Okay, Germany and Scandinavia.
Speaker 1: But what does the label say? Label says, that's great,
Speaker 1: But um, you know, we gotta do another album. So
Speaker 1: we go back and we've come off the road and
Speaker 1: we're a kick ass band. I mean we still are.
Speaker 1: We're more now than ever. Really, it's a rock and
Speaker 1: roll show and the mandolins and the accordions make it
Speaker 1: rock even harder. We play at we play at hard
Speaker 1: rock festivals in Europe. Now. We played between like Black
Speaker 1: Label Society and Azzi really Yeah and Pete. When we
Speaker 1: pull out the mandolins and the according to they go nuts,
Speaker 1: they lose their minds. So it's the energy that appeals
Speaker 1: to that. It's the energy. It's the energy and the
Speaker 1: songs because we write real songs. Okay, So you're making
Speaker 1: the third record, making the third record, I want to Rock.
Speaker 1: I Want to Rock. We end up doing five miles,
Speaker 1: a cover of five hundred miles, and we have Peter
Speaker 1: Poe and Mary sing on it with us, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a lugubrious reggae vibe. The whole album ends
Speaker 1: up being our folkiest album yet, and I can't blame
Speaker 1: it when anyone I signed off on every decision that
Speaker 1: was the album that wanted to be made. It's like saying,
Speaker 1: I'm going to conceive and give birth to a nuclear
Speaker 1: physicist and he turns out being a basketball player. You can't,
Speaker 1: You just can't. You know, every song, every recording has
Speaker 1: a life of its own, its decide. The one chooses
Speaker 1: the wizard, chooses the Wizard. That's a good one. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that one before. It's from Harry Potter, whose
Speaker 1: I haven't read it. There you go. It's in the
Speaker 1: films too. But so we do our focus album yet
Speaker 1: and at this point Columbia basically drops us. I mean
Speaker 1: they don't drop us, but you know, they pulled the
Speaker 1: plug on everything. We're touring places where we were selling
Speaker 1: out theaters, were playing at at clubs and strip malls,
Speaker 1: nobody's coming, nobody's playing the record on the radio. We're
Speaker 1: fighting on the bus. Then we get a call we're
Speaker 1: going to Sweden. We're going to Stockholm. So March ninety
Speaker 1: we played the concert house coat who said in Stockholm,
Speaker 1: which is one of the most beautiful venues in the world,
Speaker 1: it's sold out. Everyone knows every word to every song.
Speaker 1: Five Miles is a number one record there, And it's like,
Speaker 1: at this point, okay, we're a European band. We knew
Speaker 1: even then. Okay, let's segue. Now do you becoming a songwriter?
Speaker 1: Because was the year of Joan Osborne. Joan came a
Speaker 1: bit later along what year was John Osborne? Joan Osborne
Speaker 1: was um came out in God, I guess it's in
Speaker 1: the past and it's all blending together. So at what
Speaker 1: point do you side you're gonna write songs for other people?
Speaker 1: Rob and I did a bit a bit of that.
Speaker 1: We we did an album with Patty Smythe We wrote
Speaker 1: some of the songs on that. We did Uh. We
Speaker 1: did Cindy's third album with her and we wrote we
Speaker 1: wrote a lot of that. But Rick and I've actually
Speaker 1: simultaneously found Joan in ninety three, she was playing at
Speaker 1: one of our manager's clubs in Philadelphia, and Um, we
Speaker 1: decided to have her over and see what happened, and
Speaker 1: we we clicked. Okay, I love that album. She's never
Speaker 1: been able to follow it up with Ladder and all
Speaker 1: those other songs. Get But how do you write one
Speaker 1: of us? Okay, Well, here's how you write a one
Speaker 1: of us. It was like a laboratory. We would go
Speaker 1: in every day to to our our place. Anybody had
Speaker 1: an idea, we would develop it, try to make a
Speaker 1: real song. And the meanwhile, I've been on tour with
Speaker 1: the Hooters. I sit down on a plane, a flight
Speaker 1: from from JFK to Stockholm, and this beautiful, obviously Swedish
Speaker 1: girl sits next to me. I asked her her name
Speaker 1: in Swedish because I was already I had a feeling.
Speaker 1: I had a feeling was gonna come in early Andy,
Speaker 1: and um, she says, I'm a Swedish girl with the
Speaker 1: Jewish name. Oh, Sarah, Well, I'm a Jewish boy with
Speaker 1: a Swedish name. Um. And one thing leads to another.
Speaker 1: That January, she she moves in with me. We're making
Speaker 1: We're gonna make the Jonas on record. She has my car,
Speaker 1: picks me up at one of our sessions. I have
Speaker 1: a guitar riff. You saw, you saw the thing with
Speaker 1: the fingers. I picked up a guitar at Rob's one
Speaker 1: morning and I did this. It just came out that
Speaker 1: that's what it's the riff doujor. That was the riff doujur.
Speaker 1: So that was in my head. I was playing that
Speaker 1: playing on the piano. In fact, when Sarah came to
Speaker 1: pick me up from the session, I was sitting at
Speaker 1: the piano playing it and Joan was like riffing, doing
Speaker 1: her Joan bluesy riffing thing over it. Maybe we'll make
Speaker 1: something out of that. So we go home, we have dinner.
Speaker 1: We watched the Making of Sergeant Pepper. You've seen that
Speaker 1: documentary George Martin at the flat four channel. So it
Speaker 1: ends and Sarah says, well, four track recording. What's what's
Speaker 1: that all about? I said, well that, well, that crap
Speaker 1: on my dining room table. That's a four track recorder.
Speaker 1: Oh record something for me, she says, So, okay, I've
Speaker 1: got this guitar riff. I have a little keyboard with
Speaker 1: you know, drum sounds. And bass sounds. So I make
Speaker 1: a little arrangement, a little track arrangement. Okay, I'll for
Speaker 1: the verse, I'll just apeggiated of chord changes. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I'll go somewhere for the B section. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And I put together a little arrangement and recorded it,
Speaker 1: and I thought she'd be really impressed. And she's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Now sing it? Like sing it? What do
Speaker 1: you mean? You need a chorus, you need a title,
Speaker 1: you need a concept, and you have to write verses.
Speaker 1: And then you realize that the verses don't fit the chorus,
Speaker 1: so you change the course. And then two weeks later
Speaker 1: you realize you ruined the whole thing, and you start over,
Speaker 1: and eventually you know it takes takes some time here. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: she falls asleep on the sofa and I hear the
Speaker 1: voice of Brad Roberts from the Crash Test Dummies in
Speaker 1: my head, singing, if God had a name? Right? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've told you this before, so but tell everybody else, telling,
Speaker 1: telling everybody else. I hit record and I sang the song.
Speaker 1: I sang the whole song except the last line of
Speaker 1: the chorus. I was stuck just the stranger on the
Speaker 1: bus and Sarah wakes up and goes trying to get home.
Speaker 1: Stranger on the bus trying to get trying to trying
Speaker 1: to make his way. Thank you, go back to sleeve. Okay,
Speaker 1: you finished the song. Finished the song. One in the morning,
Speaker 1: my my five year old daughters asleep upstairs. Go into
Speaker 1: our our writing session the next day, have the little
Speaker 1: dad tape with me. Forget about the song. I forget
Speaker 1: that I've done it. Take a break in the afternoon. Um,
Speaker 1: there might have been some herbal component to the to
Speaker 1: the break. Uh. And then I remember, oh, guys, I
Speaker 1: wrote this crazy thing, popping it. Rob pops in and
Speaker 1: it was we were at Rob's at this point. Song ends.
Speaker 1: I look up at first I see Rob and he's
Speaker 1: sitting there with his arms crossed with that Oh god,
Speaker 1: here's another one of another one of Eric's weird songs.
Speaker 1: I look at Joan and she's like, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: when can we get back to work? And Rick is
Speaker 1: just looking down in that deep Rick space that he
Speaker 1: gets into. Looks up says Joan, you think you could
Speaker 1: sing that? He didn't say do you want to sing that?
Speaker 1: Because she probably would have said, right, do you think
Speaker 1: you could sing that the story I tell us she said,
Speaker 1: I can sing the phone Book right out the lyrics.
Speaker 1: I don't think she actually said that. She did say
Speaker 1: something about a phone book, but it wasn't in that context.
Speaker 1: But I wrote out the lyrics. I plugged the guitar
Speaker 1: in and we just did a live to tape version
Speaker 1: with guitar and vocal, and we all just looked at
Speaker 1: each other and went, okay. I got remembered. That session ended.
Speaker 1: I got in the car, poptica set in, listened and
Speaker 1: started writing the grammy speech I should have gotten to give.
Speaker 1: So you knew right away. I knew. I knew that voice,
Speaker 1: that that was the voice that was born to sing
Speaker 1: that song, and that was the song that that voice
Speaker 1: was born to say. Okay. Now that song became ubiquitous,
Speaker 1: to the point there was even a backlash. Did you
Speaker 1: experience that as the writer? No? Yeah, they protested Joan
Speaker 1: Osborne the Catholic League, which turns out has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the Catholic Church. Yeah. Really, And I saw
Speaker 1: the guy interviewed on TV and he says, I remember
Speaker 1: him saying, yes, you know her album, there's lots of
Speaker 1: spirituality and sexuality and it raises questions. That's what a
Speaker 1: song does. We'll have none of that here, but okay,
Speaker 1: you write a song of that magnitude, two opportunities come
Speaker 1: to you. Bone starts ringing off the Desmond Child. This
Speaker 1: is where Desmond comes in. My buddy Glenn was sitting
Speaker 1: out there, met Desmond at a dinner in Miami, calls
Speaker 1: me and says, can I give Desmond Child your number?
Speaker 1: I'm like, are you kidding? Right? Right right? So Desmond
Speaker 1: calls me and he says, I've got this artist in
Speaker 1: uh in London that I'm gonna sign. I've got a
Speaker 1: song title Kiss the Rain, and I want to write
Speaker 1: that song with you, and I want you to play
Speaker 1: your guitar like you played it on one of us,
Speaker 1: and I want your lyrical quirkiness for this, okay. And
Speaker 1: I said, well cool, but I'm going to France next
Speaker 1: week for this songwriting thing at my Miles Copeland's castle. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll come. So he followed me there and that's okay,
Speaker 1: and that's where we started the song. And then he
Speaker 1: lured me to London where we finished it with Billy
Speaker 1: and at the Houseyon Hotel. Okay, how hard is it
Speaker 1: to write when you're giving those prescriptions as supposed to
Speaker 1: waiting for inspiration. I'll tell you how it happened. We
Speaker 1: were standing by a wall in the courtyard and in
Speaker 1: the castle and I picked up the guitar and go
Speaker 1: and Desmond says, that's the chorus. That's that you've We've
Speaker 1: just started kiss the Rain, okay, and it's cool. And
Speaker 1: so we went to London. I played that and Desmond,
Speaker 1: you know, kissed all right? That was you know, you
Speaker 1: know I I do too, in fact of what you hear,
Speaker 1: and that we recorded on My My, um My then
Speaker 1: State of the Art Roland vs. Eight eight in that
Speaker 1: hotel room in London. So what are your some of
Speaker 1: your other favorite sort of sort of songs for hire
Speaker 1: that you've written. I still like old before I die.
Speaker 1: Robbie Williams first single, Okay, you know we live in
Speaker 1: America where Robbie Williams never made it. How big was
Speaker 1: that song in the UK? Huge? Huge all over Europe
Speaker 1: over here? Okay? So you write these songs. We hear
Speaker 1: all these stories about the music business. Do you believe
Speaker 1: you were a the deals were fair and you got
Speaker 1: the money you were entitled to. I still not have
Speaker 1: not seen a scent from from our our Sony records,
Speaker 1: our Columbia Records were still in the red. Wow, that
Speaker 1: was a songwriter. Um, I've always kept my publishing, so
Speaker 1: that's yeah. That was good. That continues to be good.
Speaker 1: You know that the balance is changing now because streaming
Speaker 1: favors the the rights owners. So right, the songwriters are
Speaker 1: screwed in terms of percentage wise with streaming. Draconian. Okay,
Speaker 1: so do you now view yourself You've had these successes,
Speaker 1: We're going back twenty years to you know yourself yourself
Speaker 1: as a songwriter as opposed to performer. I'm a musician,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm a guitar player. I'm a singer when
Speaker 1: I need to be. I'm an entertainer. I love performing.
Speaker 1: I write songs because I need something to play. And
Speaker 1: at this point in time, do you write the song
Speaker 1: and then find the artist or to use or is
Speaker 1: it like with Desmond Child, Hey, here's the title, here's
Speaker 1: the situation. Right for this, it's usually with the artist.
Speaker 1: You know. I had a great relationship with Amanda Marshall.
Speaker 1: I wrote almost all of her second album. She was
Speaker 1: whatever happened to her, you know, I stay in touch
Speaker 1: with her, and she she had a nightmare thing with
Speaker 1: her management and with with her her record company, and
Speaker 1: she literally couldn't make music for five years, six years.
Speaker 1: And by then, but I even saw at the Troupe door,
Speaker 1: I was a huge fan. I wrote eleven of the
Speaker 1: thirteen songs on that second album and produced the singles.
Speaker 1: I loved her. I love her as a person, her voice,
Speaker 1: she did things that were I wept after she did
Speaker 1: the vocal for if I Didn't Have You, which is
Speaker 1: I think one of the best songs I've ever written.
Speaker 1: She did a song on the Tin Cup soundtrack. We
Speaker 1: involved in that. That was earlier. Okay, So okay, you
Speaker 1: said you work with her and any other situations recently, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've been writing with the Scorpions for two
Speaker 1: thousand three. About Scorpions went on their retirement tour. I
Speaker 1: think I know the age, and I think the retirement
Speaker 1: tour was three and a half years ago. And then
Speaker 1: there's been two new albums since those five years ago.
Speaker 1: And I actually wrote the single from that album, the Bet,
Speaker 1: which was called the Best is Yet to come? Right
Speaker 1: have been a clue? So you know, some people would
Speaker 1: say that's a huge journey from Joan Osborne. But I
Speaker 1: guess if you're a guitar player, it all works. It's
Speaker 1: all music. It's all music. You know. I've done a
Speaker 1: lot of folky stuff I've done, I've done r and
Speaker 1: you know, it's music. It's finding a melody in some words,
Speaker 1: and finding a way to play it. So how do
Speaker 1: you decide to get the Hooters back together? You get
Speaker 1: the band back together as well. We sort of we
Speaker 1: never broke up. The phone started ringing off the hook
Speaker 1: for me. You know. Rick signed us again to his
Speaker 1: his label, PolyGram, but the well had sort of run
Speaker 1: dry for Hooters songs, uh and Rob and Rick had
Speaker 1: this concept for an album called Largo, which was based
Speaker 1: on the Vorjak's epic journey across America. I wasn't feeling it.
Speaker 1: I didn't really get what the concept was. Um, but
Speaker 1: the music was beautiful. Um. It was just it was
Speaker 1: ironic that on on the heels of my biggest ever hit,
Speaker 1: which was totally lyric driven, I didn't write a word
Speaker 1: of lyric on on the Largo album and it ultimately stiffed.
Speaker 1: It did, which is a shame because it did. It
Speaker 1: really did deserve to be heard, but there wasn't a
Speaker 1: real artist. You know, I didn't. I did not want
Speaker 1: it to be called the Hooters. It to me it
Speaker 1: was not a Hooters record. The Hooters are a rock band.
Speaker 1: That was not supposed to be Hooter's album. Um it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful record. In fact, we performed it at Joe's
Speaker 1: Pub last year because Rick and Rick is on a
Speaker 1: mission to make a musical out of it. But there's
Speaker 1: no book. It's like it's that kind of asked backwards.
Speaker 1: But God us and his tenacity is is noteworthy. But uh,
Speaker 1: you know Rob wanted you know, we had kids were
Speaker 1: do you know we're raising our families. Rob wants to
Speaker 1: build a studio. I'm getting all these opportunities, and you
Speaker 1: know I did just I wanted to do a solo record,
Speaker 1: which I did. I finally released that in two thousand
Speaker 1: to no acclaim. But it's but I enjoyed it. Thank
Speaker 1: you you did, and you wrote a really nice thing
Speaker 1: about it. Time just went by all of a sudden.
Speaker 1: We hadn't you know, played in six years. And then
Speaker 1: we get a phone call from Pierre Robert at w MMR.
Speaker 1: He's celebrating twenty years with the Hooters get together and
Speaker 1: play at his anniversary concerts. So we get on stage.
Speaker 1: We played forty minutes before Fuel. So we get on stage.
Speaker 1: You know, we re hearsed a couple of days and
Speaker 1: we remember playing looking around. We even think this is
Speaker 1: the best band I'll ever be in. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I've played with the greatest musicians in the world, but
Speaker 1: this is the best band I will ever be in.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we all had we had commitments
Speaker 1: through that summer. So but finally two thousand three we
Speaker 1: went back on. We went back to Germany. We toured
Speaker 1: all summer. And how much you work now basically it's
Speaker 1: a it's a summer job, okay. And how many of
Speaker 1: the people are original people? Well, our bass players only
Speaker 1: been with us since seven and everybody else, everybody else
Speaker 1: is originally Yeah, and we had we added a six
Speaker 1: member in two thousand ten because I broke my shoulder.
Speaker 1: Didn't know if I'd be able to play skiing don't
Speaker 1: do not a bad fall, but it was a snow
Speaker 1: uh snow ice snake under this powder snake. I landed
Speaker 1: on my on my elbow. Snap. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I'd be able to play, So we added friend who
Speaker 1: I always said, if I hurt myself, you're the call.
Speaker 1: So can everybody make a living from their music? From
Speaker 1: the Hooters? We we we Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you achieve the dream looking at it from above,
Speaker 1: of course, I've written a song that everyone in the
Speaker 1: world knows and loves. I play in a band that
Speaker 1: plays as much as we want to, when we want
Speaker 1: to where we want to. I still feel there's a
Speaker 1: bit of a restless thing. I feel like there's something
Speaker 1: I still haven't done that I'm gonna do right, And
Speaker 1: how hard are you working at it? I am working.
Speaker 1: It's so hard. I'm working it so hard. I'm know
Speaker 1: now that I'm living in Stockholm, I'm in the center
Speaker 1: of the songwriting producing universe. So one day I'm writing
Speaker 1: a pop song. Uh, the next day I'm writing with
Speaker 1: a hard rock band. So you okay, So how does
Speaker 1: that answer your work? There's a network or you have
Speaker 1: to create the network for yourself. They come to me
Speaker 1: that we have to. You have come to listen to
Speaker 1: the Bob Left Sets podcast with Eric Basilian. We heard
Speaker 1: amazing stories about his band Cyndi Lawper other successes. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, for doing this. Thank you, Bob. Always a pleasure. Hi,
Speaker 1: this is Bob left Sets. I don't want to thank
Speaker 1: you for being a fan of my podcast. You can
Speaker 1: email me at Bob at left sets dot com and
Speaker 1: let us know what you think. We're open to all ideas.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe to tune in, iTunes or your
Speaker 1: podcast player of choice. Can think of