Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest this week is Jason Flam. Talent, signer, developer, maker, extraordinary,
Speaker 1: legendary philanthropists. Good to have you here, Jason throughout to
Speaker 1: be here, Bob. You know, it's nice to see the
Speaker 1: letter that I've read for these decades, or EON's whatever
Speaker 1: it's been, you know, come to life. So your father
Speaker 1: was a legendary New York lawyer. Did you know that
Speaker 1: growing up? Well, he wasn't when I was little, right,
Speaker 1: he became and it wasn't. I mean, I just know
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, there's a huge section on
Speaker 1: Jason's father in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers that tells a
Speaker 1: lot of his story. Now, he ultimately got into a
Speaker 1: mergers and acquisitions and other things. So when you're growing up,
Speaker 1: what was the status of his career? Right? So this,
Speaker 1: the chapter about my dad and Outliers is called the
Speaker 1: Three Lessons of Joe Flam, and I can talk about him.
Speaker 1: We spend the whole pocast talking about him because he
Speaker 1: was my hero and my role model and everything and
Speaker 1: my mentor, etcetera. So are my most important mentor. But
Speaker 1: The amazing thing about my dad is that he was
Speaker 1: the son of immigrants who spoke no English. They spoke Yiddish.
Speaker 1: He grew up so poor that in Brooklyn in those days,
Speaker 1: you could your first month's rent was free if you
Speaker 1: would move into an apartment. So they would move every
Speaker 1: month for a period of years. Apparently they moved every month,
Speaker 1: just my dad and his sister, Flow and their parents.
Speaker 1: And yeah, my sister's name was Flow Flam, which is
Speaker 1: kind of funny, but it's true. So anyway, um so, yeah,
Speaker 1: he went to City College at night. Well what did
Speaker 1: the father do for a living? He was a labor organizer,
Speaker 1: but he's unemployed most of the time. And I think
Speaker 1: his mother was like an unemployed seamstress or something. Um so,
Speaker 1: uh so, may I went to City College at night,
Speaker 1: but you can graduate. Because World War two broke out,
Speaker 1: so he went to the army. And when he got
Speaker 1: out of the army, he would letter to Harvard Law
Speaker 1: School and he said, I don't have any money and
Speaker 1: I don't have a college degree, but I'm the best
Speaker 1: thing since sliced bread, and if you let me, and
Speaker 1: you won't regret it. And they gave him a full scholarship,
Speaker 1: and then he went on to become of course, you know,
Speaker 1: some people say the greatest lawyer of the twenties century,
Speaker 1: certainly the greatest corporate lawyer of the twentieth century by
Speaker 1: anybody's estimation. So you're growing up, what's the status of
Speaker 1: his career. So the first time I realized that he was,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of a big mucketing muck was when
Speaker 1: the New York Times we used to get New York
Speaker 1: Times delivered. I still do. I like the actual paper.
Speaker 1: I read the paper too. It's study when you read
Speaker 1: it online, you missed certain stuff. So my dad showed
Speaker 1: up on the front page of the New York Times
Speaker 1: and I saw his picture on. So he didn't tell
Speaker 1: you it was gonna be just the I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if he knew, because it wasn't a picture of him.
Speaker 1: It was a picture of him, you know, with doing something.
Speaker 1: But um, I remember saying to that day I got dad,
Speaker 1: I don't know why this occurred to me. I was
Speaker 1: like that are we rich? And he was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you mean whatever, because you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, we lived nicely, but it wasn't like Limos,
Speaker 1: and you know, we flew coach and it wasn't like
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I'm not listen. I know I'm privileged.
Speaker 1: I know I was born. The spoon wasn't silvery, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it turned silver while was growing up. And I
Speaker 1: was a child of private schools and etcetera. But um,
Speaker 1: the you know, I had less allowance than my friends
Speaker 1: and things like that. I think my parents were pretty
Speaker 1: careful to keep And my dad told my brother and
Speaker 1: I that he was gonna give all his money to charity.
Speaker 1: So he's like, whatever I make because going away. So
Speaker 1: you guys better go make your own. And are you
Speaker 1: the older brother, younger brother? I'm a younger brother, And
Speaker 1: where's your older brother today? My older Brother's a great
Speaker 1: story because my older brother was born almost two and
Speaker 1: a half months early and almost didn't survive. They didn't
Speaker 1: know how to deal with that so well back then,
Speaker 1: and he, uh famously, the doctor came out and said
Speaker 1: to my mother, your son's gonna live, but he's never
Speaker 1: going to go to college or anything like that. And
Speaker 1: so he had severe learning disabilities and physical problems and
Speaker 1: coordination problems, and uh so when it came time to
Speaker 1: go to school, there were no schools for kids like
Speaker 1: him because he wasn't technically in any of the categories.
Speaker 1: He wasn't so messed up that he could go to
Speaker 1: the school for what they used to call retarded kids
Speaker 1: back then, right, but we don't call them that, but uh,
Speaker 1: And he couldn't go to regular school. So my mom,
Speaker 1: who had no background an education, started school, um called
Speaker 1: the Gateway School, and my brother was the first student.
Speaker 1: And now he's got his PhD and psychometrics and so
Speaker 1: the school is still the best school of its kind.
Speaker 1: What is psychometrics, it's the psychology of statistics. So basically
Speaker 1: he's fine, He's fine. Yeah, he's fine. I mean, he
Speaker 1: had very difficult childhood because it was different than other kids,
Speaker 1: and it was something that's really still bothers me to
Speaker 1: this day, the fact that he was picked on and
Speaker 1: was bullied, um and um. And there was nothing I
Speaker 1: could do about it. But there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people who grew up in that situation and it affects
Speaker 1: the family because it affects them because all the attention
Speaker 1: is paid to the child with difficulty. Did you feel
Speaker 1: that growing up? No, not at all. I didn't feel
Speaker 1: that way. Um. You know, there was you know, my
Speaker 1: family was odd. I mean, my dad was at the
Speaker 1: office almost all the time, you know, because he was
Speaker 1: building his you know, his legacy and um. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was normal. And my mom was a lovely woman,
Speaker 1: but she didn't know how to show love. She had
Speaker 1: no idea like there was And I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: is it until she was gone. And my sister, who
Speaker 1: not around anymore, but my sister and my half sister,
Speaker 1: told me that my mom had never you know, hugged
Speaker 1: us or played with us, or read us a story
Speaker 1: or even touched us, or never said I love you
Speaker 1: like she couldn't do it. Even if I would say
Speaker 1: it to her, she couldn't say it back. Well, we
Speaker 1: didn't say that. My mother didn't say it. You know,
Speaker 1: on some level, it's children of that era. Although my mother,
Speaker 1: I think probably shouldn't have had children, would have been
Speaker 1: a career woman in a different era. And as the result,
Speaker 1: it messes you up as an adult because you don't
Speaker 1: know how to say those things. But I didn't know
Speaker 1: what I was missing. You knew what you were missing. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know it either. I no idea. I thought
Speaker 1: it was just normal. I did it didn't occur to
Speaker 1: me until until well until my sister told me, which
Speaker 1: was probably ten years ago. And then I've learned in
Speaker 1: various forms of therapy what that meant. And so just
Speaker 1: to get the story straight, so I understand your half
Speaker 1: sister is your mother was married before she was married
Speaker 1: to your father. My mother was married to one of
Speaker 1: the guys who cracked the Japanese code in World War two, um,
Speaker 1: and then they were divorced, which was not a common thing,
Speaker 1: very uncommon. And then she became a decorator, and my dad,
Speaker 1: who was penniless, was in had gotten a job as
Speaker 1: an associate and a law firm that had no clients,
Speaker 1: UM called Scadding Arps Slate mart eventually became Scadin Art
Speaker 1: Slate Martin flamm I was known as Scadding Um and
Speaker 1: so they had four partners in one associated and no clients.
Speaker 1: Actually his first client was a guy named Coutzy beg Desh,
Speaker 1: but that's a different story. But he was in a
Speaker 1: horrendous car accident. He was in He was a passenger
Speaker 1: in a tax He had a stop later and an
Speaker 1: off duty cop plowed into it. It was drunk or
Speaker 1: fell asleep plot into the taxi. The driver was killed.
Speaker 1: My dad ended up in the hospital for quite some time,
Speaker 1: and when he got his insurance check, he decided to
Speaker 1: decorate his apartment and he hired my mother. And that's
Speaker 1: why I'm here. Wow. Okay, So you grow up in
Speaker 1: that family even though your father is not around that.
Speaker 1: But because he's working, is there a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: to do well in school. So my dad said to me,
Speaker 1: do whatever you want to do, try to be the
Speaker 1: best data, but just make the world a better place.
Speaker 1: He says, that's the meaning of success. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a success in his eyes. And so that
Speaker 1: stuck with me to this day. And I say it
Speaker 1: when I give my speeches, I I quote him on
Speaker 1: that because I think it's a really powerful quote. I've
Speaker 1: told my kids out of course. He told my brother
Speaker 1: as well, and I've tried to live up to that.
Speaker 1: Um So the pressure really was um No, there wasn't
Speaker 1: that much pressure in terms of that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: was the best student in school until eighth grade. You know.
Speaker 1: Bear in mind my dad was a legitimate genius and
Speaker 1: my mom graduated Cornell when she was eighteen. So she said,
Speaker 1: that's a crazy story. She graduated Cornell. She got buried
Speaker 1: in divorce. It's like she was thirty years ahead of herself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was. She was an interesting moment with my mom.
Speaker 1: So obviously very very you know, very smart and so
Speaker 1: um the jeans were great. But so what happened in
Speaker 1: eighth grade? In eighth grade, a friend of mine said
Speaker 1: to me, um, hey, um uh, you know, I want
Speaker 1: to come by the house, tod, I said, craty goes
Speaker 1: want me to bring some reefer. I was like, I
Speaker 1: had no idea what that was, but I didn't want
Speaker 1: to admit that I didn't know what it was. I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, So he brought it over. He brought
Speaker 1: some reefer which we used to call it, and we
Speaker 1: smoked whatever, some joints or something. And I remember we
Speaker 1: were listening to The Who and the record was warped, right,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like, I still it's weird that I
Speaker 1: remember that all these years later. But so I found
Speaker 1: you know, it was around this time. It took a
Speaker 1: little while longer than that, but it was around nine
Speaker 1: or tenth grade that I found out I wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was almost good enough to make the sports teams, right.
Speaker 1: I was like the last I went to Fieldston. So
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I have very quick hands
Speaker 1: and slow feet, but slow feet are no good in
Speaker 1: team sports, right, You can't. You can't make the soccer team.
Speaker 1: You can't make the football team. You can't make the
Speaker 1: basketball team because if you're slow, usually can't jump. So
Speaker 1: I was like, well this sucks. I'm a monster ping
Speaker 1: punk player, you know, like I can I could people
Speaker 1: up at sports where you don't need to run. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very good snowboarder, as you know, but anyway, so um,
Speaker 1: but you can't run. So I couldn't make the sports teams.
Speaker 1: So I decided I would play guitar and smoke weed.
Speaker 1: And so then my grades took up, and then I
Speaker 1: found gambling, and then things okay, well let's break this
Speaker 1: down a little bit. You find these things, your grades
Speaker 1: to go downhill. You're going to fields, and does anybody
Speaker 1: raise their hand and say, hey, we've seen a dramatic change,
Speaker 1: and Jay sin or do your parents freak out? I
Speaker 1: think it was eighth or ninth grade. I was in
Speaker 1: the they divided the math class. I think they still
Speaker 1: do this. So they divided the kids up in the
Speaker 1: math classes from the smartest to the least smart. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be publicly correct, right. So there were six math
Speaker 1: classes because it's about twenty kids in the grade, and
Speaker 1: I was in the top class, and I was the
Speaker 1: only one. The first day of class. The teacher's name
Speaker 1: was Mr Spooner, and Mr Spooner gave us a test.
Speaker 1: He didn't even say hello. He was not a very
Speaker 1: nice man. Um. You know, he was one of these guys.
Speaker 1: I don't care if the door was locked, You're still late,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean that he was that guy. So
Speaker 1: he gave us a test the first day school. I
Speaker 1: was the only one that got forty out of forty right,
Speaker 1: except for Tracy Bernstein on the makeup test, and I'm
Speaker 1: still pissed at her about that. But anyway, so if
Speaker 1: I was the only one, and there were kids in
Speaker 1: that class to end up getting full scholarships to Harvard
Speaker 1: Medical School, one kid, Paul Quintas, actually went to work
Speaker 1: for NASA and he didn't get forty right. So I
Speaker 1: was I was the smartest kid in the smartest class
Speaker 1: in a very good school. And by the end of
Speaker 1: the school year, I was getting five out of forty
Speaker 1: right or seven? I mean, I was the worst kid
Speaker 1: in the class, and nobody fucking noticed it. And I
Speaker 1: smelled like weed all the time, I mean noticed it.
Speaker 1: I thought, that's why you send your kids to private school.
Speaker 1: Back then it was a little different though you could
Speaker 1: no one could get it. And it's funny, you know.
Speaker 1: James Deaner went to the school that that I went to,
Speaker 1: about about ten years younger than me, and he said
Speaker 1: they were still talking my my, miss my misdeeds because
Speaker 1: I was such a druggy. I was a mess. So
Speaker 1: how did you get into playing the guitar? My mom
Speaker 1: bought me a guitar. I guess I asked her too.
Speaker 1: When I was about that age, like thirteen, I remember
Speaker 1: going to Why to take lessons. Then I had to
Speaker 1: play first like Feeling Groovy and the ultimately conky tunk women.
Speaker 1: And then the next thing was I think from my
Speaker 1: fifteenth birthday she bought me an s g standard and
Speaker 1: then I started a band and I played in the band.
Speaker 1: I wrote songs and you know, and it it went
Speaker 1: very well with the weed and the whole lifestyle. Okay,
Speaker 1: was this a dream like you were gonna make it
Speaker 1: and we're just hanging out? Oh no, no, I was
Speaker 1: gonna make it. I was to make it. I had
Speaker 1: this side, my eyes on the prize, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that and that leads into the story. You know
Speaker 1: what happened after the end of high school. Right, let's
Speaker 1: talk on the for a second. You're playing in the band.
Speaker 1: How much are you working? How much you rehearsing? We
Speaker 1: rehearsing a lot and gigging very little, you know, it's
Speaker 1: usually the paradigm. Yeah, And were you more into it
Speaker 1: than everybody else? Yeah? Probably, I mean they we we
Speaker 1: rehearsed a lot. The other guitar player was a guy
Speaker 1: named Jeff Burston. He was the adopted son of Ellen Burston.
Speaker 1: And we used to rehearse at her home in Rockland County,
Speaker 1: which was a trip. How did you get there? There's
Speaker 1: gonna take a somebody at a car and I mean
Speaker 1: that's so, you know, we it was, but they had
Speaker 1: a whole set up there. We rehearsed there. We were
Speaker 1: even rehearsed like sometimes when my parents would go away. Um,
Speaker 1: we had we had a we had a housekeeper. Her
Speaker 1: name was Carmen. We used to call her the Black Tornado.
Speaker 1: She was ultimately I think she was ultimately shot by
Speaker 1: her lover or her husband who found her with her
Speaker 1: lover or something like that. But anyway, she would but
Speaker 1: my parents would go away. She'd move all the furniture.
Speaker 1: We'd move all the furniture out. We would, that's right,
Speaker 1: we'd move all the furnture out of the living room,
Speaker 1: and the whole band would come. Our partment was on
Speaker 1: seven nights to Madison, and we would have the band
Speaker 1: and all our friends staying over for the whole weekend.
Speaker 1: And it was just like a crazy fucking scene and
Speaker 1: we would rehearse people. Then we were on the sixth
Speaker 1: floor and people in the street would be looking up,
Speaker 1: you know, because we were playing so loud. But I
Speaker 1: don't know what the hell how we got away with this.
Speaker 1: But and then when we would leave the housekeeper, we'd
Speaker 1: go out to dinner on Sunday or lunch, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: and they would come back and everything was back the
Speaker 1: way it was. By herself, she would move all this stuff.
Speaker 1: It was madness, incredible. Yea graduate from high school, you know,
Speaker 1: you went to college, didn't go to n y U.
Speaker 1: So I graduated from high school and I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to college. Now you can imagine that was
Speaker 1: not a popular choice in my Just to be clear,
Speaker 1: you were going to go to college, you to do
Speaker 1: what you're gonna become a rock star. Become a rock star.
Speaker 1: And so my dad came to my room one day
Speaker 1: and he says, I got a deal for you know.
Speaker 1: First of all, I wasn't even sure he knew where
Speaker 1: my room was, right, but he did. He's probably clear.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just interested. Okay, he's working twelve hours
Speaker 1: a day during the weeks. He working the weekends too.
Speaker 1: He's working more than twelve hours a day. Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gadden. Even now, people work way more than especially
Speaker 1: when you're on your way up, they work a hundred
Speaker 1: hours a week. But a um, you know, but he
Speaker 1: was working a lot, and he would come home for
Speaker 1: dinner under threat of extreme violence from my mother and
Speaker 1: then go back to the office. But um, but we
Speaker 1: had great times together. And I don't I don't fault
Speaker 1: to it all for that. Maybe it's I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but it's just it's fine. So, um, he has a
Speaker 1: deal for you. It comes to my room, he says,
Speaker 1: I got a deal for you. I go. What he says, Um,
Speaker 1: you have a year to become a rock star. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you got to go to school. I'm like, great, Dad,
Speaker 1: you gotta deal me, thinking that, you know, because what
Speaker 1: I lacked in talent I made up for in hutzpah. Right,
Speaker 1: So I was like, I don't even need a whole
Speaker 1: fucking anymore. Right I had my My song was being
Speaker 1: played on the They had a show called Prisoners of
Speaker 1: Rock on w n W, which is a big rock station,
Speaker 1: work and I got played a couple of times on there.
Speaker 1: I figured I'm almost the home. I'm almost there, right,
Speaker 1: So um So, anyway, um this is what year seventy nine.
Speaker 1: So he goes back to tell my mom about this
Speaker 1: deal he made, and my mom, who had never cursed
Speaker 1: in her life until this point, apparently said bullshit. If
Speaker 1: he lives in by the house, he's got to work
Speaker 1: or go to school. So now my dad, arguably the
Speaker 1: greatest negotiator of the twentieth century, had to come back
Speaker 1: to my room and undo the deally he had just
Speaker 1: made with his fucked up son, which me so. So
Speaker 1: he went and made a few phone calls. He called
Speaker 1: Arthur Lyman and said, Arthur, what should I do? Arthur
Speaker 1: was a famous litigator. He was a guy who actually
Speaker 1: litigated the case in the Attica Uprising and everything else,
Speaker 1: great civil rights icon as well. And Arthur said, let
Speaker 1: me call some He called Steve Ross, apparently right because
Speaker 1: he was Steve's lawyer, and then he, uh somehow or other,
Speaker 1: I ended up having a meeting for those people don't know.
Speaker 1: He ran Warner Communications. Steve Ross at the time, right,
Speaker 1: he was a legendary figure and he uh so, So
Speaker 1: Steve arranged for me to go have an interview with
Speaker 1: a guy named David Horowitz who was the head of
Speaker 1: the Warner Music Division in those days. Right, this is
Speaker 1: all unbeknownst to you, or he's telling you what he do.
Speaker 1: I knew nothing. So one day I was told to
Speaker 1: go report to David Horrowitz his office at seventy five
Speaker 1: Rocket Feller Plaza. I didn't know who he was, and
Speaker 1: and I smoked two joints and I walked in, slumped
Speaker 1: down in the chair, and he goes, you're going to
Speaker 1: work at Atlantic Records. And I was like, huh, all right, now,
Speaker 1: it's interesting because they sent me to Atlantic Wreckers. It
Speaker 1: was July thirty first, nineteen seventy nine. They handed me
Speaker 1: some double sided tape, a staple gun, a bunch of posters,
Speaker 1: Zeppelin posters and other posters, and they sent me out
Speaker 1: to go to the record stores and put up posters
Speaker 1: in these we were I was I think my title
Speaker 1: was assistant trainee field merchant. Now what's odd is that
Speaker 1: until this time, it had never even occurred to me
Speaker 1: that that well, that they could be. The record companies
Speaker 1: were a thing like. I didn't know where I thought
Speaker 1: records came from. And Atlantic was my favorite label because
Speaker 1: going back in time, here's a crazy story for you.
Speaker 1: When I was fifteen, my dad came home one day
Speaker 1: with a box of records. I was an avid record collector,
Speaker 1: but I probably had a hundred and five records at
Speaker 1: this point, and he came up with a box of
Speaker 1: records from Atlantic. And I found out later that the
Speaker 1: story was that am It had called Im at urn
Speaker 1: Agin right, the legendary founder of Atlantic Records, at least
Speaker 1: for a time, I'm the greatest record man in his time,
Speaker 1: of all time, and m It had called my dad
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to me, and said, Joe, I have a problem
Speaker 1: and my lawyers can't figure out what to do. I
Speaker 1: hear you're the best can you help me? And my
Speaker 1: dad said, I don't take individual cases. I worked from corporations,
Speaker 1: but what's your problem? And apparently I'm had told him
Speaker 1: what the problem was. That my dad told him what
Speaker 1: to tell his lawyers to go do, and he did
Speaker 1: and it worked. So he called my dad and said, Joe,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something for you. Says at to send
Speaker 1: my kids some records. He would have known. They came
Speaker 1: in boxes right right, and that box Bob had goats
Speaker 1: Head Soup, James Gang Bang, ROBERTA Flak killing Me, softly,
Speaker 1: bad company. I think it was straight shooter. I mean
Speaker 1: it was fucking incredible. Quality control in those days was ridiculous.
Speaker 1: It was a few that I didn't want. I think
Speaker 1: it was gonna read the Franklin Record and the ire
Speaker 1: was like, get the funk out of here, this Atlantic record,
Speaker 1: So that A became debt like etched into my brain
Speaker 1: because I spent so much time watching them goats Head
Speaker 1: Soup how many times? And I lost to that record,
Speaker 1: So that was the only different I used to. I
Speaker 1: had a You remember the sterias that came into They
Speaker 1: were like a little suitcase right how the record player
Speaker 1: and the speakers folded it on top, so I had
Speaker 1: a orange for Mica table and I would stick my
Speaker 1: face and straight down on the table and put one
Speaker 1: speaker on each side of my head and play Heartbreaker
Speaker 1: over and over again just to hear the intro, right,
Speaker 1: because it was the most New York City Yeah right,
Speaker 1: But what was really it was really about the musical
Speaker 1: intro that had a great stone. Sorry, can't you hear
Speaker 1: the music? And Winter? I don't know. So in any event,
Speaker 1: you get this gig, you're not going to school or
Speaker 1: my head of the story. No, So I'm one. I
Speaker 1: have a year to become a rock star, right, But
Speaker 1: now I get this gig at Atlantic, and I forgot
Speaker 1: all about being a rock star. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: the Verset van Halen record came out, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget because we had taken some sort of llucinogenic. We
Speaker 1: were at my my friend's house and and um, and
Speaker 1: I was not a big guy. I didn't do a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, so it was really you know, And
Speaker 1: I happened to walk into his room fully out of
Speaker 1: my mind, and he had just dropped the needle on
Speaker 1: the first Van Halen record, heard eruption, and I said,
Speaker 1: fuck it, this is ridiculous. There's no point I might.
Speaker 1: I might as well try to dunk a basketball. It's
Speaker 1: not one my three inch vertical jewish leap. It's not
Speaker 1: going to happen. So I said, okay, so it's around.
Speaker 1: All this was sort of happening concurrently, but nonetheless I
Speaker 1: was still trying. In the beginning, I had to. They
Speaker 1: gave me a tiny little office because they just had
Speaker 1: an extra one, and I had a little couch and
Speaker 1: I had Around this time, I discovered a CDC. Discovered them.
Speaker 1: I discovered that they existed, right. I found Dirty Deeds
Speaker 1: Do Under Cheap in the hallways, someone's throwing it out,
Speaker 1: and I took it home because it looked cool, and
Speaker 1: I started listening to it. And then I found out
Speaker 1: that a C d C had like four albums, and
Speaker 1: I was like, holy sh it, this is the greatest thing.
Speaker 1: It was almost as if someone had said it's almost
Speaker 1: as if I, like Errol Smith, had been in a
Speaker 1: time capsule, and all of a sudden, I had like
Speaker 1: everything from Dream onto Rocks right, And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god. It was a revelation. So I spent
Speaker 1: all my time and I had an s g standard,
Speaker 1: just like Congus. And one day I had it in
Speaker 1: the office with me, right because sometimes I have my
Speaker 1: guitar in the office, and I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: sewn this story in public. But so the head of publicity,
Speaker 1: who knew how much I of d c DC comes
Speaker 1: to me one day and she says her name was
Speaker 1: Simo Do and Semo says, Jason a C d C
Speaker 1: is gonna be in the building for them. They had
Speaker 1: just started happening at Highway to Hell was their first hit,
Speaker 1: and it had just gone gold apparently, and she says,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be here. They're getting the gold album. So
Speaker 1: I was like, holy ship, where they gonna be. She goes,
Speaker 1: I think they're going to the thirtieth floor. Now, we
Speaker 1: were on the second floor um Atlantic Records headquarters. So
Speaker 1: I said, fucking I'm going up to the thirties floor,
Speaker 1: which was corporate, right. So I up to the thirty
Speaker 1: five hair like I had tons of hair back then, right,
Speaker 1: like tons, And of course they're not letting me in.
Speaker 1: So then I decided I'd wait on the second floor
Speaker 1: to see if they showed up. And I'm standing there
Speaker 1: in the reception area and they come toodling out of
Speaker 1: the elevator, you know, all of them about five too, right,
Speaker 1: and I am having an out of body experience, right,
Speaker 1: I haven't met rock stars before. So they come walking
Speaker 1: on there. Forgot Phil Rudd, the drummer, had taken They
Speaker 1: apparently give him a cake and it was in a box.
Speaker 1: It was in a long, flat box. I don't know
Speaker 1: why he took it. Maybe it's said a C D
Speaker 1: C on who the hell knows. So he comes in
Speaker 1: and he walks and he puts it on their SETFACEA
Speaker 1: he goes our our a pizza delivery, Go, we're gonna
Speaker 1: pay for these? I got I'm doing this sounds like
Speaker 1: a Southern ax. I'm trying to do Australian. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so I was like, oh my god, it's the coolest
Speaker 1: things ever happened. And so I see Bond walking and
Speaker 1: Bond fucking Scott right, So I follow him and I
Speaker 1: found with the homewa like, go, Bond, I got to
Speaker 1: talk to you man, like it's so cool. Like I
Speaker 1: just always wondered, you know, what the what you would
Speaker 1: sound like because the way you sing and the way
Speaker 1: you talk, like how do you talk? And he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: well thanks, I'm saying a lot this. You know, He's
Speaker 1: holding his nose and he goes, yeah, come to think
Speaker 1: about my He says, I got cocaine. Nos, no cocaine.
Speaker 1: You got any I was like, I was like, no,
Speaker 1: but I got some weed in my office. You know,
Speaker 1: you want to come to my office. He was like, yeah, mate,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So it comes to my office. I've
Speaker 1: got my guitar, I've got my fucking demo tape in
Speaker 1: the office, which I hand to him, of course, and
Speaker 1: I still used to I was still like, it's still
Speaker 1: a little distant dream there. That was my original thought.
Speaker 1: When I got to work at Atlantic. I was like,
Speaker 1: holy shit, if I get a job doing you or
Speaker 1: I could sign myself. I actually had that thought. So,
Speaker 1: you know, Bond leaves and they go into the conference room,
Speaker 1: and I figured I've had my moment. And an hour later,
Speaker 1: I'm walking down the hallway and I see Angus Bond
Speaker 1: and Malcolm knock on this door of this guy named
Speaker 1: Raphael Santana, who was our dancing music guy. Did none
Speaker 1: of it made any sense to me, but I started
Speaker 1: was just staying out of the way at this point,
Speaker 1: and I walked by it here and going there's Jason,
Speaker 1: and there's Jason in there, and I'm like, are you
Speaker 1: looking for me? And then Marco that this is a
Speaker 1: gool right here I tell you about gets on his
Speaker 1: office double tape and I was like, then, then, fucking
Speaker 1: next thing I know, Angus and Malcolm come tootling down
Speaker 1: to my fucking tiny little office when Angus plops himself
Speaker 1: down the couch, picks up the guitar and starts playing.
Speaker 1: Now I've got a fucking poster of Angus on the wall,
Speaker 1: the power Rage poster, and he's sitting in front of
Speaker 1: it playing a fucking s G standard, and you can
Speaker 1: imagine my brain is exploding, right, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: I said to him. I go, ang It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was asked a couple of questions and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, you're so fucking cool, You're
Speaker 1: so great at guitar, and you're so young, Like when
Speaker 1: did you take it up plane? When you take up
Speaker 1: plane seriously? And he goes, I never took it up seriously.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, ship right, right, right right, And that's
Speaker 1: in keeping because there's that great quote from Angus. Where's
Speaker 1: but he said what he said, Um, I'm sick and
Speaker 1: tired of hearing people telling us that we made eleven
Speaker 1: records and they all sound the same. We've actually made twelve.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so I said, I figured I might as
Speaker 1: well push my luck, because that's me, as you know.
Speaker 1: And so I asked him if he'd give me a
Speaker 1: guitar lesson, and he dad. He told me to play
Speaker 1: Kicked in the Teeth. He told me to play you
Speaker 1: know that riff and kicks and alright, he did that
Speaker 1: riff raff and it was it was crazy, and then
Speaker 1: that became you know, then I was Now I was
Speaker 1: completely obsessed, and I ended up getting my first gold
Speaker 1: record UM for for Highway to Hell, because I designed.
Speaker 1: I wandered into the head of advertising office one day.
Speaker 1: It was who was like a deity to me. It
Speaker 1: was a vice president for advertising. Name was George Salavich.
Speaker 1: I go, George, I got an idea, goes, what kid,
Speaker 1: what do you want to go? We should do an
Speaker 1: ad for Highway to Hell. The Highway to Hell is
Speaker 1: paved with gold, and we could have like a gold
Speaker 1: highway in Hell at the end and congratulate a CDC
Speaker 1: because Erroosmith had done these ads. You remember that famous
Speaker 1: Toys Built a Last ad. Actually I don't, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was the coolest thing when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: It so Errol Smith had done an ad. They took
Speaker 1: an elephant and he's two and his two fronts are
Speaker 1: they called feet elephants? Yeah, they're not paused, his two
Speaker 1: front feet whatever they pads. What we're on. We're balanced
Speaker 1: on Tonka trucks. And it just said toys built to last,
Speaker 1: Arrowsmith Double Platinum toys in the attic, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that's the And they did a number of these. They
Speaker 1: were incredible. They that rocks. One was amazing. It was
Speaker 1: a glassful of diamonds and vodka being poured on it.
Speaker 1: There was one fordraw the line where it was a
Speaker 1: woman was gorgeous. Of course, woman in like a leo.
Speaker 1: It's hard with the tights and she was standing on
Speaker 1: a tight rope that she was painting and and bending
Speaker 1: over and holding an arrow Smith umbrella and it just
Speaker 1: said Arrowsmith draws the line or whatever like no, I
Speaker 1: said no, I said platinum in the line of duty
Speaker 1: a right. So anyway, so so I said, George, we
Speaker 1: gotta do this add so he says, no, we don't
Speaker 1: have money for these type of things, you know. So
Speaker 1: I said ship. But then when it went platinum, he
Speaker 1: calls me in his office and I look and he
Speaker 1: has the mock up from the art department. The highway
Speaker 1: hell is paved with platinum. I have the original mock
Speaker 1: up in my house, signed by all the A C.
Speaker 1: D C guys, and I end up getting a gold
Speaker 1: record for that. So the point being at the end
Speaker 1: of my year, because I was on the year trainee
Speaker 1: program and at the end of the year, I had
Speaker 1: to go to school, but they asked me to stay
Speaker 1: and so I ended up going to n y U. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, technically full time although I was rarely seen
Speaker 1: on campus and working full time in Atlantic Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I was making four dollars an hour, but I didn't care.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a great at job in the world. Okay,
Speaker 1: couple of things. Was your father this aggressive? Uh? In
Speaker 1: terms of what, well, you see an opportunity and you
Speaker 1: seize it. You gave Bob Scott your demo tape. I
Speaker 1: would be too uptight to do that, I said, Oh,
Speaker 1: people must have been given a demo tape. All the time,
Speaker 1: I gotta be cool. You know, I don't have to
Speaker 1: push it. Where did you learn to push it? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, look, my dad's the guy who
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to Harvard Law School, right. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: you know there's that great saying. I think it's Wayne
Speaker 1: Gretzky that said you missed a hundred percent of the
Speaker 1: shots you don't take, right, And I've always felt that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, uh, I've I've developed this thing
Speaker 1: over the years, you know, the times when I haven't
Speaker 1: done that, and then you sit around kicking yourself for
Speaker 1: somewhere between days and weeks, right, And then I decided,
Speaker 1: any time I do that, I'm give myself a non
Speaker 1: moving violation, right. I kind of invented this phrase, I think.
Speaker 1: So I don't want those. I don't want nine moving violations.
Speaker 1: I'd rather deal with rejection than regret. So, you know,
Speaker 1: so to me, whether or not it's meeting a girl
Speaker 1: out and about or you know, just and you know
Speaker 1: obviously you can't be too aggressive there, but you know,
Speaker 1: you you know you could still go up and ask
Speaker 1: someone to talk to you. Okay, So when someone rejects
Speaker 1: you or things don't work out. How do you metabolize that?
Speaker 1: Just keep it moving like just okay. So if you failed,
Speaker 1: come right back up to bad. Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do if you fail? You fail? I mean you
Speaker 1: can't take it personally. And and the and this thing
Speaker 1: that people do, this thing is much shorter, though it
Speaker 1: doesn't last as long as if you know, you ever
Speaker 1: see those ads or whatever that only the girl. There
Speaker 1: was a girl on the subway on Tuesday. And I mean,
Speaker 1: like you see that. There used to be a thing
Speaker 1: like in the Village Voice. That's ridiculous, by the way.
Speaker 1: You know how I first became aware of you, not
Speaker 1: to flip the script or anything, but the first time
Speaker 1: I heard about you the left sets letter. So this
Speaker 1: is in probably or so, and the left sets letter
Speaker 1: was like mimiograph or whatever you used to do xerox,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the funk he used to do
Speaker 1: and stapled and sent out and I would see it
Speaker 1: on people's desk and I didn't know. I think I
Speaker 1: saw it on Twin Jerram's desk, and he was on
Speaker 1: the Twin Jerram was a legendary um um in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, but he had been the various times
Speaker 1: that had a promotion ahead of A and R had
Speaker 1: a publicity Atlantic Records. Um, just that we could do
Speaker 1: a whole podcast about him and his stories. It's sucking incredible.
Speaker 1: And uh, I saw it on his desk and I
Speaker 1: picked it up and I started reading it. And you
Speaker 1: had done a whole thing about Tory Amos's lips, right. So,
Speaker 1: and this is when I had signed Tory Amos and um,
Speaker 1: the first record had stiffed right was why can't Tory right?
Speaker 1: And the second one was of course little Earthquakes and
Speaker 1: it was just starting to happen, and she had made
Speaker 1: that phenomenal video that that groundbreaking video for Silent all
Speaker 1: these years, and Bob had written and talking about you
Speaker 1: in the third person. Bob had uh pretty much a
Speaker 1: diet tribe about the way her lips moved and the thing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this guy's nuts. But I like,
Speaker 1: and I think I might have reached out to you
Speaker 1: back then. So that's the first time I became aware.
Speaker 1: But let's go back. So now you're going to n
Speaker 1: y U full time and you're working full time. How
Speaker 1: does that play out? So technically I was still a
Speaker 1: part time employee, but I was working like thirty five
Speaker 1: hours a week at four dalls. Now I think I
Speaker 1: might have gotten raised a four fifty by now. And
Speaker 1: there was a whole controversy about that. I mean it
Speaker 1: was like I had to get to tell the story
Speaker 1: how you're putting up posters and they think you're a spy.
Speaker 1: Oh well no, that was when I first came in there,
Speaker 1: so they have signed me. There was a guy named
Speaker 1: Philip van Pool who was the field merchandiser and I
Speaker 1: was assigned as a trainee to him. Now, all he
Speaker 1: knew and he was a kid from the streets whatever
Speaker 1: and and from Baltimore I think, And all he knew
Speaker 1: was that corporate had said you're to take this kid
Speaker 1: around and whatever you're doing stopped doing it right, Like,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, don't do it around this kid. I
Speaker 1: don't know why that. No, no, that corporate had sent
Speaker 1: me to him. His immediate bosses were the two heads
Speaker 1: of sales, sal You Toronto and Nick Maria, who were
Speaker 1: Carrot of the eighth order. Right, the names are perfect,
Speaker 1: like if you had to cast these guys as themselves,
Speaker 1: you'd name them that. So anyway, so um so, yeah,
Speaker 1: they had told him clean up your fucking act whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing. So he took me the first day to
Speaker 1: fourteen record stars. I remember it was July thirty one,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. We are trapesing all over Manhattan, carrying
Speaker 1: these rolls of posters and staple ones and double side
Speaker 1: of tape and all this ship and climbing around on ladders,
Speaker 1: and I remember at one point, I know, I said, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to stop? And Smoking's like, no, man,
Speaker 1: I can't do that. You know, We're we got too
Speaker 1: much work. And I was like, can we stopping at lunch?
Speaker 1: He was like, we got ten minutes, man, let's get
Speaker 1: some pizza. I was like, pizza, it's a hundred degrees like.
Speaker 1: But that was my first day and I went home
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, this is unbelievable, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know how I'm gonna make this work. And then
Speaker 1: the next day I came in with a case of
Speaker 1: like that, you know, a few joints whatever, and I
Speaker 1: was like, come on, let's go smoke. And I don't
Speaker 1: think we ever did more than three displays in the
Speaker 1: day after that. It was it was ridiculous. We became friends. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you're going to school and you're working in Atlantic,
Speaker 1: what's the next move? So then I decided, you know,
Speaker 1: I found out that of these guys, at various times,
Speaker 1: I was delivering the mail or doing other things, and
Speaker 1: I started to see these A and R guys right
Speaker 1: to deliver the mail to the office, and none of
Speaker 1: them looked particularly adept to me. Um, and they weren't
Speaker 1: actually you know, Atlantic, I think Ahmed had signed all
Speaker 1: the hits or whatever it was, or Phil Carson or somebody,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, so I was like, fuck, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that I'm if I could be
Speaker 1: half good at this, I'd be three quarters better than
Speaker 1: the rest of these guys. You know, that was actually
Speaker 1: my calculus. So I decided I need to get a
Speaker 1: job doing an R. Well, that was tricky. So what
Speaker 1: happened was sort of a miracle of the zebras did
Speaker 1: everythode of the Zebra story. So Zebra was So here's
Speaker 1: how I found my way into the A and R department.
Speaker 1: And I think, for for people who may be listening
Speaker 1: that want to make it in the music business, we're
Speaker 1: starting to make the music because this story is probably
Speaker 1: gonna be helpful. So I decided that I would study
Speaker 1: because rock was my ship, right, And there was a
Speaker 1: magazine back then, which you'll remember called Album Network. Of course,
Speaker 1: an album Network was the bible of rock radio. And
Speaker 1: on the cover they would print that here's the four
Speaker 1: biggest gainers, here's the four top new releases years to four,
Speaker 1: whatever the funk it was. There were sixteen albums on
Speaker 1: the cover, and then inside there would be comments from
Speaker 1: all different programmers and different things that were going on
Speaker 1: and whatever the well was. And in the back of
Speaker 1: the magazine they printed the playlist of all hundred and
Speaker 1: ninety rock stations in the country at the time. That's
Speaker 1: how many of there were. And they were very small,
Speaker 1: but my eyes were and it was really small, and
Speaker 1: plus I was smoking, we know, would just sit there
Speaker 1: and stare at these things. And I said, you know
Speaker 1: what if one if I can find and they would
Speaker 1: have the name of the radio station, the phone number,
Speaker 1: the name of the program director of music. Right, I said,
Speaker 1: if I can find one of these stations is playing
Speaker 1: an act it's not already signed, maybe that could be
Speaker 1: a break for me. You know. So that's interesting. You
Speaker 1: came up with that by yourself, Yeah, because that was
Speaker 1: Doug Morris this big thing to do research, etcetera. Ultimately, yeah,
Speaker 1: but he didn't even know me at that time. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just funny. There's a parallel there. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're looking for an unsigned act in the back
Speaker 1: of album network, right, And then I would call the
Speaker 1: radio station and pretend that I was somebody who's called
Speaker 1: they should take even though I was from Atlantic Racers.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to tell him mom the fucking I
Speaker 1: didn't even have an office anymore. I had like a
Speaker 1: desk in whatever. And you know, half the time they
Speaker 1: wouldn't take my call. On another half of the time
Speaker 1: they would say, oh that Sacks already signed r C A.
Speaker 1: Would you know who are? You would waste my time?
Speaker 1: And I would be that So, as fate would have it,
Speaker 1: W B A B In Long Island was playing an
Speaker 1: act called The Lines. So I called up and I
Speaker 1: got the program director, Bob Buckman, who's still in the business,
Speaker 1: on the phone, and I said, Bob, what's with the Lines?
Speaker 1: He says, that's nothing. I put it on as a
Speaker 1: favorite to somebody. It's really nothing you need to be
Speaker 1: concerned with. So you hadn't even heard it. No, there
Speaker 1: was no way to hear it back then. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: and again, in an act of exactly what you were
Speaker 1: talking about a few minutes ago, I said to him, well,
Speaker 1: if you were me, who would you sign? Now, this
Speaker 1: was a ridiculous thing to say. I sign my fucking
Speaker 1: name half the time, right because I was too blitzed.
Speaker 1: So he says, he says, let me tell you about Zebra.
Speaker 1: I go, what Zebra? He goes, it's the most requested
Speaker 1: band at the radio station. I said, oh, you mean
Speaker 1: the most requested local band. He goes, genius. Hold on
Speaker 1: a second. I thought that was funny because my dad
Speaker 1: used to call me janius ironically since he actually was one.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so um, So he goes and gets the
Speaker 1: log because I used to actually track the request because
Speaker 1: kids would all the radio stations back there didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of other ways of hearing their favorite song,
Speaker 1: especially if it wasn't out, but they would call on
Speaker 1: request everything. And so he comes back and he says,
Speaker 1: in the last quarter of the year, six percent of
Speaker 1: all the requests we came in were for zero. Number
Speaker 1: two was number two, Three and four I remember were
Speaker 1: some combination of AZZI, A C, D c and led Zeppelin,
Speaker 1: I don't know in which order. And I said, holy
Speaker 1: sh it, how do I get ahold of this? And
Speaker 1: he goes, hold on, I'll call the guys on the
Speaker 1: other phone. So there's no conference calling back then either,
Speaker 1: So he calls them. They lived in New Orleans and
Speaker 1: the singer's name was Randy Jackson, not the Randy Jackson
Speaker 1: that you know from TV or Journey or whatever. So
Speaker 1: he calls Randy. Now, these guys have been playing clubs
Speaker 1: for nine years, and they had given up on getting
Speaker 1: a record deal. But now they would play in New
Speaker 1: York in the summer because it was too hot in
Speaker 1: New Orleans, and then they would go back to New
Speaker 1: Orleans in the winter and they and they were one
Speaker 1: of the big band in both markets. They sounded a
Speaker 1: lot like led Zeppelin. And so the next day I
Speaker 1: get to my desk and there's a FedEx package on
Speaker 1: my desk. Now FedEx was relatively do but so I
Speaker 1: was very excited. It was glowing and I think it
Speaker 1: had an album in it. But I nowhere to play
Speaker 1: an album. So I went to one of the A
Speaker 1: R guys office as a guy name was a Zis
Speaker 1: cox Sell. He was on. It's nephew, and he's one
Speaker 1: of the guys whose job I wanted. So anyway, I
Speaker 1: said to him, you were about to hear the next
Speaker 1: big thing, and he says, really, did you listen to it?
Speaker 1: How's this? I said, no, no no, I'm just telling you right,
Speaker 1: And so he puts the record on. I can't even
Speaker 1: hear because I'm too excited, And at the end of it,
Speaker 1: he says, this is no good. It's no It's gave
Speaker 1: me five reasons why it was no good. So I
Speaker 1: go back to my desk and I'm calling Randy to
Speaker 1: tell him it's no good. And I'm halfway through dialing
Speaker 1: and I said to the assistant secretary whatever. He was
Speaker 1: sitting in front of me, Mary was her name. Eric
Speaker 1: Conroy said, Mary, how does this make any sense? I'm
Speaker 1: calling this guy to tell him his ship is no good. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: he's the number one guy on the radio stage, number
Speaker 1: one band a race, and it's selling out all these
Speaker 1: what he goes doesn't make his sense to me either,
Speaker 1: So I call him. Obviously, Randy, listen, this guy said
Speaker 1: no good for all these different reasons. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give it to Doug Morris and see what he says.
Speaker 1: So Doug was the President Atlantic at the time. So
Speaker 1: I made a cassette of it. I wrapped it up
Speaker 1: in a piece of paper and put a rubber band,
Speaker 1: and I went to Doug's assistance, you know, desk, and
Speaker 1: I put it on top of this other wall, all
Speaker 1: of cassettes that he was never gonna listen to that
Speaker 1: other people were hoping he would listen to. And as again, destiny, fate, serendipity,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, kis met synchronicity. He
Speaker 1: happens to pull a few of these things off her
Speaker 1: desk to take on his drive home to Long Island,
Speaker 1: where he lived, and he's listening to Zebra in the car.
Speaker 1: Who's behind the Door was a song. He decides he
Speaker 1: doesn't like it, and he pops it out of the
Speaker 1: take deck and it's playing on the fucking radio. Because
Speaker 1: he lived in Long Island and everybody lived a long
Speaker 1: and listen to W B A B. So the thing
Speaker 1: He's like, what the so? So the DJ at the
Speaker 1: end of the song says, that's the most requested song
Speaker 1: in the history of W B a B. Zebra Who's
Speaker 1: behind the Door? Now the perfect guy to hear that
Speaker 1: was Doug Morris. Because Doug is the guy who taught
Speaker 1: every one of the music business how to do research.
Speaker 1: So he built a huge one of the most important
Speaker 1: careers in the history music on research, largely, I mean
Speaker 1: so and other things. So he comes in the next day.
Speaker 1: They were allowing me by now to sit in the
Speaker 1: A and R meetings. And because I would do research,
Speaker 1: somebody would say, I like this spanned from Iowa called
Speaker 1: Mackinaw and I'd say, they said, Jason called some of
Speaker 1: the stores, there are the clubs, and find anybody likes
Speaker 1: this group. So we're sitting in this meeting and somebody's
Speaker 1: talking about something and Doug goes, wait a minute, what's zebra?
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there, you know, having like I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm stunned. And he goes, this is genius and
Speaker 1: I was like huh. And he goes, fly these kids
Speaker 1: up here on a meeting. So that's how it all started,
Speaker 1: and it was a crazy process from there too. But
Speaker 1: the great thing was that the man had built up
Speaker 1: so much that when the record came out, it was
Speaker 1: like it was literally midnight. Man. His kids all cut school,
Speaker 1: they came records came out on Mondays in those days,
Speaker 1: and the kids all cut school and we went to
Speaker 1: the store and they were pulling them out of the
Speaker 1: boxes before the guy could even stamp the price on them.
Speaker 1: And they were buying two or three copies at once,
Speaker 1: and it became a big out of the box smash
Speaker 1: in these two markets. And and and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they were like, Hey, this kid must know what he's doing.
Speaker 1: Let's give them a job doing and R and I
Speaker 1: was like, thank you. And that's how it started. Okay,
Speaker 1: how long after you started Atlantic did that transition take place.
Speaker 1: It's only a couple of years. I was in college. Okay,
Speaker 1: so how long did you go to college? For? Two years?
Speaker 1: In change? And how did college end? My dad said
Speaker 1: to me, you're better I had two records on the charts,
Speaker 1: and he said, you're better off doing one thing right
Speaker 1: than two things wrong. And I was like, thanks dad,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. And by the way, here's a
Speaker 1: platinum twisted sister record. I actually gave him the platinum
Speaker 1: that was that was the first platinum than a C
Speaker 1: D C, which I you know, it was a totally
Speaker 1: different thing because it was for an ad I designed,
Speaker 1: but um, I gave him the first platinum Twisted Sister,
Speaker 1: which would stay Hungry, on the condition that he hanged
Speaker 1: in his office and hung in his office for his
Speaker 1: entire life. Really, and what was the other record that
Speaker 1: was successful? Zebra was the first one, but you said
Speaker 1: there were two projects? Was one of them Zebra? How
Speaker 1: far did Zebra go? That went gold? And then my friend?
Speaker 1: Then the second record? Unfortunately Jack Douglas was the producer,
Speaker 1: and Jack was a mess, and he he was really
Speaker 1: losing it. John Lennon had been his best friend and
Speaker 1: John had been killed and he was going through a
Speaker 1: terrible period and he really it was. And by the way,
Speaker 1: making the Zebra record was an insane, insane experience too,
Speaker 1: because Jack was all ready in this you know state,
Speaker 1: and now I had gone. You know what happened was
Speaker 1: you hired Jack because he did all the legendary Aerosmith records.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what happened was Doug had gotten cold feet
Speaker 1: at a certain point and I would come home at
Speaker 1: night and say, Dad, I don't understand what do I do?
Speaker 1: How do I go back to this? And to give
Speaker 1: me advice how to approach him every day and say
Speaker 1: something different but finally I decided, I gotta get this
Speaker 1: off the dime. So I went and I gotta called
Speaker 1: Jack Douglas. He just won the Grammy for Double Fantasie.
Speaker 1: I figured, if I can get the biggest producer in
Speaker 1: the world to agree to do this, then maybe I
Speaker 1: can get this group to finally get signed. And I
Speaker 1: got him. I convinced his manager to get him to
Speaker 1: come to a show with me. I remember, I rented
Speaker 1: like a tiny little car. Was the only thing I
Speaker 1: could get, like a hand done. I drove him to
Speaker 1: Long Island and he agreed to produce the record. I
Speaker 1: wanted him because you're right, because he had done the
Speaker 1: greatest Aero sprint albums and the band loved the John
Speaker 1: Lennon album, so it was perfect. Well, we didn't realize
Speaker 1: is that Jack was now like three sheets to the wind.
Speaker 1: He was he was just so devastated and twisted up
Speaker 1: by by the horrible, untimely death of his best friend
Speaker 1: and hero, John Lennon. And you know, he would book
Speaker 1: a session for Tuesday and show up on Thursday and
Speaker 1: not call anyone, and the band would sleep in the
Speaker 1: studio and meanwhile it was record planned and we were
Speaker 1: just getting built and building build, and the prices are
Speaker 1: going up and up and up, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: One day, Doug comes to my office. Now, the budget
Speaker 1: for the albums a hundred and thirty thousand, which back
Speaker 1: then was a lot, right because Jack was getting fifty
Speaker 1: five thousand, so it sounds like nothing. These people get
Speaker 1: fifty track right right back then it was a lot.
Speaker 1: So Doug comes to my office one day, slams the
Speaker 1: door shut and starts banging his fists on the table.
Speaker 1: And Doug's an intimidating guy. You know they've given me
Speaker 1: an office by now, um I remember my first whatever,
Speaker 1: tiny office. And he's like, what the fund is going
Speaker 1: on with this thing? The records over budget already, there's
Speaker 1: not even any tracks. What he's screaming, and he know
Speaker 1: his neck with the bald ducks, muscles are budging out
Speaker 1: of his neck and stuff. And I'm sitting He goes,
Speaker 1: you call this Jack Douglas, motherfucker, and you tell him
Speaker 1: get his ship together right fucking now. And he leaves
Speaker 1: my office and I'm sitting there, going, Okay, let's process this.
Speaker 1: I just got out of high school. I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: it Jack Douglas and go listen, Jack, you know what
Speaker 1: you're dealing with your like, he says, And I remember
Speaker 1: that the unbelievable story. So finally the records that were
Speaker 1: almost two hundred and thirty thousand dollars spent and they're mixing,
Speaker 1: and I was at the record plan on the tenth
Speaker 1: floor and we're in the studio and Jack was hearing
Speaker 1: noises that didn't exist right. So he had three track
Speaker 1: boards strunk strunk together. There were there were shrimp talking
Speaker 1: and and and whales barking and things in the tracks
Speaker 1: that you know, no one could hear except him. But
Speaker 1: we had all these things funking. And in those days
Speaker 1: there was no automation. So everyone's got their hands on
Speaker 1: the boards and I don't know what I'm doing, but
Speaker 1: everyone's doing something. And the manager of the record Plank
Speaker 1: I me. Mitch comes in the studio and says Jack.
Speaker 1: It was ten to four on a Tuesday, and he goes, Jack,
Speaker 1: you're done. I've had it with your bullshit. You're out
Speaker 1: of here. The fucking Record Atlantic pulled the plug, the
Speaker 1: records canceled, get the funk out of my studio. Because
Speaker 1: he'd had it right and so, and I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: watching this hero of mine being screamed at by the
Speaker 1: genleman of the record plan. And I'm also watching my
Speaker 1: career go up and smoke right because Atlantics pulling the
Speaker 1: plug on the only record I'm ever going to sign.
Speaker 1: And so Jack goes, give me ten more minutes to
Speaker 1: finish the album. I need ten fucking minutes. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you imagine, like in a fig POC match, right, My
Speaker 1: head's going back, and what am I supposed to do?
Speaker 1: So the guy says, You've got ten minutes to finish
Speaker 1: this album. Obviously ridiculous, And so they barricaded the door,
Speaker 1: like Jack literally barricaded the door. There were two doors
Speaker 1: to the studio, but there was a step that you
Speaker 1: would walk in and you'd go up a step, and
Speaker 1: people who were in the studio back then, I'll remember,
Speaker 1: and this is a legendary studio too. This is where
Speaker 1: Stephen wrote the lyrics to some of the aerospace songs
Speaker 1: on the walls. So we barricaded the studio with an
Speaker 1: eight track machine or wherever it was a multi track
Speaker 1: machine that door, and then there were was a ROADI
Speaker 1: or two roadies holding the other door. Shut, and that's
Speaker 1: how we finished the record. I mean it went on
Speaker 1: like that all day, with banging on the door, and
Speaker 1: but the record came out and nothing really happened. No,
Speaker 1: it exploded because all the kids have been waiting for
Speaker 1: the record to be released, so it exploded out of
Speaker 1: the gate. It was number one selling record and in
Speaker 1: like record town and all these different stores, and then
Speaker 1: everyone's running around the hallways thinking I know what the
Speaker 1: funk I'm doing. It was awesome. Hi, everyone ob left
Speaker 1: sex here. I just wanted to take a moment and
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to my podcast. I'm humbled by
Speaker 1: the initial response of the podcast, and I've been able
Speaker 1: to line up some excellent guests in future episodes. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to share those and hear the podcast evolved.
Speaker 1: I think you're in for a treat, so be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe, leave reviews. Tell your Friend's gonna be a
Speaker 1: big year. Now more with Jason Flong. So tell the
Speaker 1: Twisted Sister Story. So Twisted Sisters story, which has been, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a subject of some um you know debate
Speaker 1: in your and your letter. Phil Carson has a different view.
Speaker 1: I've heard of your viewpoint, but I thought you. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just tell the story through your eyes. The only
Speaker 1: thing we're arguing about his semantics. What happened is not
Speaker 1: in dispute right. What happened was Randy from Zebra says
Speaker 1: to be one day Flom Twisted Sister is the greatest
Speaker 1: live band in the world. He goes, we can't touch him,
Speaker 1: and neither can anyone else. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: gotta go see this now. I had bought one of
Speaker 1: their records when I was in high school, a disco
Speaker 1: bad I bought. I think it was shoot him down
Speaker 1: or I'll never go up now. And so I knew
Speaker 1: about the band, but it didn't occur to me as
Speaker 1: something that, you know, whatever. So Wednesday night nid Hudson
Speaker 1: Civic Center in Poughkeepsie, two hours north of New York City,
Speaker 1: Twist the Sister's headlining and opening a Zebra and d
Speaker 1: C Star. I thought it was odds, but has a
Speaker 1: record deal with Sister, doesn't three thousand kids on a
Speaker 1: Wednesday night at six bucks Ahead, I go up there.
Speaker 1: That allowed me to stand on the stage. D comes out,
Speaker 1: the band come did plighted applause for d C Star
Speaker 1: and Zebra, and then they come out, and the places
Speaker 1: on fire, right, and and the kids are roaring, and
Speaker 1: d comes out and he goes, all right, New York
Speaker 1: fucking city or Pokeepsie ever he says. He goes, we
Speaker 1: just got back from fucking England. We're sick and fucking tired.
Speaker 1: Here in those line me, motherfucker's telling us how bloody
Speaker 1: good we are. He goes, what do you New York
Speaker 1: motherfuckers have to say? And three thousand kids I swear
Speaker 1: about throw their fists in the air and go twisted,
Speaker 1: fucking sister. And I was like, I'm done right, right,
Speaker 1: I don't care who cares what they do after that
Speaker 1: doesn't matter, because Doug had now taught me right. Doug
Speaker 1: had taught me that your opinion is secondary to the
Speaker 1: public opinion, right, which he taught half of the music business.
Speaker 1: And Monty of course became Monte Davery became the greatest.
Speaker 1: They took his advice and turned it into the number
Speaker 1: one label in the world. So they they performed. It
Speaker 1: was phenomenal because they had done thousands of shows by
Speaker 1: now they were great. And I got back to the city.
Speaker 1: Every rode back with JJ. I got back to the city.
Speaker 1: I think I got two hours of sleep, and I
Speaker 1: walked into the Doug's office in the morning on two
Speaker 1: hours of sleep and three kinds of God knows what,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, I found religion last night.
Speaker 1: And he goes, what the are you talking about? You
Speaker 1: know how there's that dichotomy when somebody's wide away your
Speaker 1: half asleep. I go, Twisted Sister, He just get the
Speaker 1: funk out of my office and by the way go home.
Speaker 1: He looked like shit, and I was like, Huh, that
Speaker 1: didn't go the way I planned, you know. So I
Speaker 1: kept coming back to him, uh, every day with another story.
Speaker 1: But I didn't realize that Twisted Sister was considered a
Speaker 1: joke by the entire music industry at this point, which
Speaker 1: would made no sense to me. The next night, I
Speaker 1: went to South Jersey to see him, which is to
Speaker 1: give people who don't know the area an idea. Two
Speaker 1: hundred and something miles away and there were thirty seven
Speaker 1: hundred kids at the Fountain Casino and I was like,
Speaker 1: this comes with instructions, right, So I said, but I
Speaker 1: would go back to him every day, and every day
Speaker 1: he'd thrown me out of his office, and it finally,
Speaker 1: um it finally hit a low point um when and
Speaker 1: this and the record was selling like crazy. They did
Speaker 1: independent record on secret records, and at one point w
Speaker 1: p LJ in New York City started playing it. And
Speaker 1: I remember going to Dave Glue, who was the general
Speaker 1: manager of I would go everybody for advice. I couldn't
Speaker 1: figure it out why everybody hated them so much. And
Speaker 1: then Christmas one particular year, we have a meeting of
Speaker 1: the in our department. Now, this was the worst year
Speaker 1: Atlantic had had in a long time, which had followed
Speaker 1: the best year right the previous year they had five
Speaker 1: the top ten records. They had Genesis and Stevie Nicks
Speaker 1: and Foreigner and the Rolling Stones and Yes, and this
Speaker 1: year none of the big axe made records and we
Speaker 1: didn't break anything, and it was a disaster. So Doug
Speaker 1: gave us a raw Ross. Speci was greated to ship
Speaker 1: and he says, everybody together though in our department, we're
Speaker 1: going to sink or swim or a team or this
Speaker 1: without whatever. He says. But Jason, if I ever hear
Speaker 1: the name Twisted Sister again, you will never work another
Speaker 1: day at this record company. And I was like, hmm,
Speaker 1: that was pretty straightforward. Um, So I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do next. But shortly thereafter I saw a guy
Speaker 1: named Phil Carson in the hallway. Now he didn't know me,
Speaker 1: but I knew he was because he was a legend already.
Speaker 1: He was a generation ahead of me. He had signed
Speaker 1: from what I understood, a C D C. I think,
Speaker 1: maybe yes, Um, I mean like crazy shit, you know,
Speaker 1: like some off the way, And I knew he was
Speaker 1: ahead of the English company. So I went up to
Speaker 1: Mr Carson, I handed him to Cassette. I handed him
Speaker 1: a whole sheets and sheets of information about the sales
Speaker 1: and the tickets and the things and the whatever and
Speaker 1: the sucking. And then, um, I don't know how long ago,
Speaker 1: maybe a month later, he calls me up one morning
Speaker 1: from England and he says, I saw a twisted sister
Speaker 1: last night. They're the best thing I've seen since a
Speaker 1: C D. And I'm gonna sign him. And I said,
Speaker 1: what are you gonna do about America? And he says,
Speaker 1: don't worry, I'll get some to put it out now.
Speaker 1: I find out later that he apparently took the whole
Speaker 1: thing that I had painstakingly put together and given to
Speaker 1: him and through in the garbage because he didn't know
Speaker 1: who I was. But then it was a coincidence, another
Speaker 1: great coincidence, because my life is synchronicity and coincidence and serendipity.
Speaker 1: And they happened to be opening the show that he
Speaker 1: was at. May have been foreign or I don't know who,
Speaker 1: and he saw them as a result of that, and
Speaker 1: he saw the vision. And then two Doug's everlasting credit.
Speaker 1: You know, the first record came out. It's called you
Speaker 1: Can't Stop Rock and Roll and it sold a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand copies in America. Now you can imagine it came out.
Speaker 1: Could you make a lower priority than the right? He
Speaker 1: had to put it out as a favor to fill,
Speaker 1: but I still wasn't allowed to mention it. But I
Speaker 1: was calling all the local reps and everybody else, and
Speaker 1: which I also wasn't allowed to do. I'll get in
Speaker 1: trouble at least once a week for that and uh.
Speaker 1: And the record sold a hundred thousand on fumes. And
Speaker 1: then when day Doug calls me his off and he says,
Speaker 1: you were right, and we're going to make a big
Speaker 1: thing out of this band. And then Doug had the
Speaker 1: vision to hire Tom Wormon to get Marty calling there
Speaker 1: to direct those what became some of the most dilegendary
Speaker 1: videos of all time. Yeah, the first ones I think
Speaker 1: that had um, you know, had talking, you know, I
Speaker 1: had like movies Janor Meyer and all that thing, and
Speaker 1: you know, what do you want to do with your life?
Speaker 1: So dog really masterminded. And that album sold six million copies,
Speaker 1: so you know, so anyway it's been you know, it
Speaker 1: was an amazing thing to be a part of. UM.
Speaker 1: And uh, unfortunately they crashed and burned on the next record.
Speaker 1: They didn't want to use Tom Worman again, which I
Speaker 1: never understood. As little as I did understand back then,
Speaker 1: it didn't make sense to me that you wouldn't dance
Speaker 1: with who brought you to the dance. Um, But it
Speaker 1: went horribly wrong, and um, the next album didn't sell anything,
Speaker 1: and ultimately they broke up. So, okay, what were some
Speaker 1: of your successes and failures after that? Well, so then
Speaker 1: came a girl named Fiona. She just not called talk
Speaker 1: to me. There was a half a hit, so all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I was basically three for three. But
Speaker 1: then I started getting messed up. You know, Um, this
Speaker 1: was a time of great excess in the music industry
Speaker 1: and it caught up to me and I ended up
Speaker 1: going to rehab. Doug. Doug pretty much forced me to
Speaker 1: go to rehab, which again I mean, I owe my
Speaker 1: life as a result because I don't think i'd be here,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, I went not knowing what the
Speaker 1: fact we have wasn't a big thing back. I remember
Speaker 1: telling my mom was going to rehab, and she was
Speaker 1: wondering if I was gonna come out like with wearing
Speaker 1: a smock and a banging and tambourine at the port authority,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Like she was like with
Speaker 1: sandals on a one piece of hair eaging off the
Speaker 1: back of my head, you know. So it was not
Speaker 1: part of the vernacular, you know, or the culture. But
Speaker 1: I went and I came out and I was a
Speaker 1: little woozy. But all of a sudden, like White Line
Speaker 1: had made an album while I was in the studio
Speaker 1: and it came out doing nothing, and then one radio
Speaker 1: station broke that album, a station called k j j
Speaker 1: O in Minneapolis started playing it and exploded off that
Speaker 1: station that I signed skid Row an escape club around
Speaker 1: that time, and Tori Amos of course, which was you know,
Speaker 1: looking back, one of my proudest signings and also one
Speaker 1: that's had a lot of meaning in my life in
Speaker 1: a lot of very odd and interesting ways. And then
Speaker 1: eventually they made me the head of the n ART
Speaker 1: Department and around Okay, did you have any failures? Of course,
Speaker 1: I don't remember all of them, a lot of them.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody does. Nobody got nobody bouts four hundred.
Speaker 1: Um so it's like baseball if you about in the
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame and nobody remembers the misses as long
Speaker 1: as you have big hits. So um so they made
Speaker 1: me the head of the n R Department, and then
Speaker 1: we went on this crazy role. Um. A guy named
Speaker 1: Tom Caroline who was in the Ark I brought me
Speaker 1: Stone Tumble Pilots and I jumped on a plane right away. Um.
Speaker 1: This is when Danny Goldberg could first come in, and
Speaker 1: we roped him in because he had the old cred.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, I'm not sure you know how he
Speaker 1: really felt about the music, but he went and sold
Speaker 1: it real good. And um so we signed Stone Tumble
Speaker 1: of Pilots. And around that time was Hoodie and the Blowfish,
Speaker 1: and I remember going to see Jewel when she was
Speaker 1: had like five people in a coffee shop in San
Speaker 1: Diego and with a cappuccino machine. And I went back
Speaker 1: two months later and there were three hundred people there
Speaker 1: and silent, you know, just staring at her like she
Speaker 1: was a you know, a combination of a ghost and
Speaker 1: a god. I mean it was it was beautiful. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we had this this amazing string of successes. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving some out. But and and it's worth noting
Speaker 1: that I'd signed Sabotage actually before I went to rehab,
Speaker 1: because we know how that ended up. But they end
Speaker 1: up with tuxedos playing Christmas music and calling himself Trans
Speaker 1: Siberian Orchestra. But that's a different story. But okay, so
Speaker 1: he tell us how it evolves into Lava. So what
Speaker 1: happened was I believe that they Um, the perception was
Speaker 1: that music was changing. And this you'll remember this, this Caroline,
Speaker 1: the sound was like all the rage all aside. Everybody
Speaker 1: wanted to sign Super Chunk and all these type of bands,
Speaker 1: right and uh, and so they hired a guy named
Speaker 1: Jay Farris, who was in from that scene. You had
Speaker 1: a company called Mammoth Records. I didn't I didn't know
Speaker 1: why would they would do that, but they did. And
Speaker 1: then they decided to move me aside and let him
Speaker 1: run the an our apartment. So they gave me the
Speaker 1: opportunity to restart at CO Records. And I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that. It sounded I said to Doug, it
Speaker 1: sounds old to me. You know, can I can I
Speaker 1: name the thing myself? You said sure. So I came
Speaker 1: up with the name lava because it's hot. Also I
Speaker 1: was thinking about, you know, great forces of nature, like
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, and of course lava is hot and it
Speaker 1: flows and it destroys everything that's path and it sounds
Speaker 1: like love. And you wanted a short name back then
Speaker 1: because c ds were coming in and you know, you
Speaker 1: couldn't see a long name. So so I started Lava.
Speaker 1: And I think they said, okay, but they gave you
Speaker 1: a good deal or that, you know, they gave me
Speaker 1: a terrible deal. And they gave me They sent me
Speaker 1: up to fail. I mean they I didn't know it
Speaker 1: at the time, but they gave me three ability to
Speaker 1: hire three people, very small budget, no acts and um
Speaker 1: and I had no idea what the funk I was doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to start a business. So I
Speaker 1: think that's nineties five or six. And uh, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: asked for advice from anybody I could think of, um
Speaker 1: who had had this experience. UM and uh. You know
Speaker 1: there's that great saying fake until you make it right.
Speaker 1: And so I hired a women and Valerie DeLong. She
Speaker 1: was like my right hand and we um we started
Speaker 1: off and we started off good. I mean one of
Speaker 1: the first acts I signed was that when McCain it
Speaker 1: was brought to me by Kim Stevens UM who was
Speaker 1: a promotion guy at at Atlantic who had an air
Speaker 1: for talent. He had brought me Collective Soul earlier. He
Speaker 1: had also brought in seven Mary three, which I didn't
Speaker 1: sign because I couldn't stand them. But they had to
Speaker 1: hit anyway, um ironically on Mammoth and uh. And then
Speaker 1: Jill Sabiel had a half a hit, and Sieve had
Speaker 1: a half a hit, and Biff Naked had a half
Speaker 1: a hit, and then things got hot. Then Sugar Ray
Speaker 1: came along right and had fly and that exploded. And
Speaker 1: then then I then the same guy, Kim Stevens brought
Speaker 1: me Matchbox twenty which was called tap at the Secret
Speaker 1: back then, and I remember, because this is the lesson
Speaker 1: in this too. He sent me four songs. I listened
Speaker 1: to my call and I was like, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: He goes listen at three am again. I listened at
Speaker 1: three am again. It was the only one on that
Speaker 1: four song and became a hit. Said let's go see
Speaker 1: these guys. I went out. I think we went to
Speaker 1: Tallahassee or somewhere, and it was not what you see today,
Speaker 1: trust me. I mean they were not. I don't even
Speaker 1: think they were in tune. They had two different guitar players.
Speaker 1: Back then, nobody was paying attention to them. There wasn't
Speaker 1: in a stage. But I was like, there's something special
Speaker 1: about this guy was Rob Thomas guy. So we signed them,
Speaker 1: and of course we know what happened next. And it's funny.
Speaker 1: I remember even on the first record, because I always
Speaker 1: have like the last minute. I'm always wondering if we
Speaker 1: picked the right first single. I remember sitting in my
Speaker 1: office with Rob going back and forth where it was
Speaker 1: Real World or Long Day for the first single. But
Speaker 1: then you know in this magic and all this these lessons.
Speaker 1: Right after Long Day was a big hit at rock radio,
Speaker 1: sold whatever, maybe a hundred thousand records, and then a
Speaker 1: radio station down south who liked them a lot in
Speaker 1: Birmingham actually started playing Push. So I called the record
Speaker 1: stores and it was blowing the doors off, and the
Speaker 1: guy from the station told us that was the only
Speaker 1: thing that he was getting a request for any one
Speaker 1: cared about real world or any of the songs. So
Speaker 1: I went to the band manager, I said, this is
Speaker 1: the next single. They're like, oh no, and I was
Speaker 1: like no, that Doug Morris thing was in my head right,
Speaker 1: So obviously that became their career song. And then he's
Speaker 1: had so many other amazing songs since then. And then
Speaker 1: a guy named Andy carp Young and our guy who
Speaker 1: work for me brought me kid Rock and uh and
Speaker 1: that was in some ways the most fun kid Rock
Speaker 1: had made records. And was you know, he'd been around
Speaker 1: the mill already. So kid rock Um had had three albums,
Speaker 1: all stiffs. The first he had signed he was signed
Speaker 1: to Jive when he was seventeen. His first single was
Speaker 1: a song about eating pussy called Yodeling in the Valley,
Speaker 1: and do you remember that it's really funny yodeling in
Speaker 1: the valley, Yeah, Yeah, Yodling in the Valley, A Delicious
Speaker 1: Break from Potatoes and anyway, so um that had made
Speaker 1: a tiny ripple, and then he had two albums on
Speaker 1: a on a company I think it was called Continuum,
Speaker 1: and they went bankrupt. One was the poly Fuse Method
Speaker 1: or whatever, so he was damaged goods. But Andy comes
Speaker 1: to see me. Kid Rocks manager had given him a CD.
Speaker 1: I think it's out by Southwest, he says, I think
Speaker 1: that's something here. I go, all right, so go see him.
Speaker 1: So he goes to Cleveland to go see him. He
Speaker 1: comes back. I said, how's the show? He goes, I
Speaker 1: don't know. He goes, you know, there's only forty people there,
Speaker 1: but he comes out of a coffin to start the
Speaker 1: show and there's a little person on stage cursing and rapping,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I think I better go see
Speaker 1: this for myself. So I went to I went to
Speaker 1: Detroit and saw him at the State Theater and it
Speaker 1: was it was awesome. But then we had a meeting.
Speaker 1: He told me to meet him in the basement of
Speaker 1: some disco club whatever to thirty in the morning. So
Speaker 1: I did, and it was quite a strange scene. And
Speaker 1: I said to him, what do you want to do.
Speaker 1: Are you a rap or you a rock? What do you?
Speaker 1: What's your thing? And he was like, don't worry, I'll
Speaker 1: make some songs and i'll show you what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And I said, do you want me to pay form?
Speaker 1: He said no, which is a very kid rock thing
Speaker 1: to say. So he sent me two songs. Somebody's got
Speaker 1: to feel this, and I got one for you, and
Speaker 1: then I got one for you. He name checked me.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember that, but there's a verse, Hey Flam,
Speaker 1: you want to hit money for you? So I didn't
Speaker 1: know that they were sentually demo. I was on Hollywood
Speaker 1: Boulevard when I put those two things on and I
Speaker 1: called him up and I said, I'll give you whatever
Speaker 1: you want and he said I want. I think it
Speaker 1: was three hundred thousand and whatever number of points and
Speaker 1: I said deal. We shook hands over the phone, and
Speaker 1: then his manager at the time, I think, went and
Speaker 1: shopped my deal and he started getting calls to Who's
Speaker 1: ever Lasting Credit Rock started getting calls from other labels,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I don't need you now. I
Speaker 1: needed you then, and he didn't hold me up when
Speaker 1: they offered it more money. The same was true with Matchbox.
Speaker 1: By the way, Hollywood Records offered to triple our offer
Speaker 1: and Bob said, no, I'm signing with with Lava. And
Speaker 1: that was a very good decision, and for kid Rock
Speaker 1: was an even better decision because that was the hardest
Speaker 1: project to break, and that's why it was the most fun.
Speaker 1: And also because he was such an outrageous character and
Speaker 1: you know, just such a such an unbelievably brilliant performer.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, so how did you break kid Rock?
Speaker 1: So he went and made this album, Devil without a Cause.
Speaker 1: I thought it was one of the greatest albums of
Speaker 1: all time. It is, and everyone else hated it. With
Speaker 1: the exception of Lee Drink, Angelica Cobb and Andy Carpy
Speaker 1: and our guy, everybody fucking hated it. His peers thought
Speaker 1: very little of him. Radio hate couldn't be less interested.
Speaker 1: Press thought he was a joke, this white rapper with
Speaker 1: a fade or whatever, and uh, you know, um, um
Speaker 1: MTV couldn't be less interested. And Atlantic, the company that
Speaker 1: I was, you know, partnered with, um they hated it.
Speaker 1: Um they hated We did a showcase in New York, Bob,
Speaker 1: the first Kid Rocks showcase in New York was the
Speaker 1: greatest thing ever. We and we rent out at s
Speaker 1: I R. We sent out the invitation. It just was
Speaker 1: a sheet of paper and it was very the lettering,
Speaker 1: everything was perfect, but it just said hydraulic bonds, cursing midgets,
Speaker 1: pim pimp suits, coffins and then it just said kid
Speaker 1: Rock s I R. Seven PM. That's all that said.
Speaker 1: And that was the wrong order, but those were the
Speaker 1: right things. And we rented a pony from a children's
Speaker 1: party place for two because Joe Cie, who was then,
Speaker 1: I could say because that's what they referred to him,
Speaker 1: but he was alive. That's side. I don't know what
Speaker 1: to do their political correctness time. So we rented this pony.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to get on it. He thought it
Speaker 1: was a horse, but it was a pony. And we
Speaker 1: paid two hundrellars for the pony, and then we had
Speaker 1: to pay two hundreds to s I R. To read
Speaker 1: the bribe. I got to let him in the usually
Speaker 1: that farm animals in there. So Josie rode on stage
Speaker 1: on a pony and did the rap for Cowboy Um
Speaker 1: while waving a six shooter and wearing a cowboy hat.
Speaker 1: And we had Christmas lights drung around and we called
Speaker 1: it electric pimp suit whatever. And it was a full
Speaker 1: kid rock arena show like you would see today in
Speaker 1: S I R. And all of Atlantic was there and
Speaker 1: I was just as proud as I could be. And
Speaker 1: the next day they I find out they all thought
Speaker 1: it sucked. I was like, sucked, are you guys? I
Speaker 1: just like watching guns and Roses in the studio, you
Speaker 1: out of your mind as the greatest thing ever. So ayay,
Speaker 1: we were really up against it. And how it broke
Speaker 1: was that as it was going nowhere, and Lee Drink
Speaker 1: had written even written a letter to Howard Stern and said,
Speaker 1: you know about this? He said, no, Lee wrote a letter.
Speaker 1: He was a product manager, he was a young guy
Speaker 1: and who ultimately became kid Rocks manager. And he wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to Howard Stern because we thought if we
Speaker 1: can get him on Howard, and you know kid Rock
Speaker 1: was always with strippers and things. It was very Howard
Speaker 1: type of guy. So if we could get him on
Speaker 1: on Howard, we thought, you know, maybe that'll be a
Speaker 1: you know, a tipping point whatever. So so Drink wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to Howard and said, dear Howard, you don't
Speaker 1: know me. But I'm Kid Rocks product manager, and I
Speaker 1: have the following offer for you. If you'll play this
Speaker 1: record on the radio just once and then tell me
Speaker 1: honestly that you don't like it, I'll set myself on fire.
Speaker 1: He says, I'll take all the necessary safety precautions and
Speaker 1: you can film it if you want. But that's my
Speaker 1: offer to you. And they didn't respond, so whatever. But
Speaker 1: you know, and and and Rock and Drake had been
Speaker 1: an Israeli paratrooper, so you know he was pretty serious.
Speaker 1: But anyway, but we were trying everything. It's my point.
Speaker 1: So one day I took Louis Largent from MTV golfing
Speaker 1: and Louis was one of the senior programming guys there
Speaker 1: and we had a great day. How long after the
Speaker 1: record come out, it was months and months it was dead.
Speaker 1: So I took Louis golfing. This goes back to something
Speaker 1: my father told me. It was that one of the
Speaker 1: keys to success in businesses being friendly. So I took
Speaker 1: I took Louis golfing at Hudson National Golf Club, great
Speaker 1: golf course. We had a great day. He was a
Speaker 1: good golfer. We're getting my tahoe to drive home La
Speaker 1: Tahoe with the stocks stereo, which was very good, and
Speaker 1: in my car I controlled the volume, right, So I
Speaker 1: turned this fucking thing up to eleven and I played
Speaker 1: five songs and he had already heard the record and
Speaker 1: rejected it. And after the fifth song he turns to
Speaker 1: me and he is, this guy's going to save the world,
Speaker 1: and I said, I know, but it's much more important
Speaker 1: for you to know, and he goes Flom, You're going
Speaker 1: to touch them all on this one. And then he
Speaker 1: went back to MTV. I introduced him to rock. They
Speaker 1: ended up staying all night cleaning out a hotel any bar,
Speaker 1: but he went back and said we're going. He made
Speaker 1: a stand and he said we're gonna break this guy,
Speaker 1: and they did like a fashionably Loud was a big
Speaker 1: thing MTV Beach House. We got him on all these shows.
Speaker 1: They started playing I'm the bull Got in light rotation
Speaker 1: and um, you know the next thing, you know, along
Speaker 1: comes Bob with the Bob and the rest is history. Okay,
Speaker 1: so none of those videos were made at that point. No,
Speaker 1: I'm the bull Got had been made because I was
Speaker 1: putting real money into it, because I believe him. We
Speaker 1: spent a hundred thousand, I think on it. It was
Speaker 1: a real video. It was a great video. So when
Speaker 1: it started to turn, what did everybody say over Atlantic?
Speaker 1: How much? And of course we took out an ad
Speaker 1: when it went platinum, which was just the middle his
Speaker 1: middle finger from zero zero zero Commas zero zero zero, right,
Speaker 1: And it ran directly opposite the Christian radio charts and Billboard.
Speaker 1: People don't remember that. And then when it hit ten million,
Speaker 1: we just moved it over and at a zero and
Speaker 1: it was just like, hey, you know what like this is?
Speaker 1: And we did it right and it was fun and
Speaker 1: it was awesome, and uh, you know, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: actually a touching moment, which was that because he don't
Speaker 1: happen often enough in the business. But he became a
Speaker 1: superstar the day of the MTV Awards. You remember that, right,
Speaker 1: So the MTV Awards was a big show back then.
Speaker 1: It's a bigger show on cable TV. And I was
Speaker 1: determined to get him on. And so MTV had said
Speaker 1: he was breaking, but he wasn't broken, and they had
Speaker 1: already booked Limp Biscuit and they were like, we don't
Speaker 1: need another rap rock thing, right, And I said all right,
Speaker 1: So me and Rock huddled and we decided we would
Speaker 1: reach out. He would reach out to run DMC and
Speaker 1: I would reach out to Steven Tyler. And because anyway,
Speaker 1: he's the you know, do you think about it, he's
Speaker 1: sort of the offspring of those two you know, movements
Speaker 1: or whatever sounds. So we put together this idea that
Speaker 1: he would perform with Run d n C and Run
Speaker 1: DMC and Aerosmith. And then I called them TV and
Speaker 1: I said, you can have your limp biscuit if you want,
Speaker 1: or you can have run the m Cero Smith and
Speaker 1: Kid Rock and they said, yeah, we'll take We'll take
Speaker 1: the door number two. And so it's funny because that's
Speaker 1: the day he became a superstar. And it's interesting when
Speaker 1: you watch it back and you see them if I
Speaker 1: remember right, yeah, I think Fred has a very unhappy
Speaker 1: face on as Zero Smith comes walking marching down the aisle,
Speaker 1: Stephen and Joe come marching down the aisle. Um you know,
Speaker 1: because they kicked in the doors, right It started with
Speaker 1: it started with Bob with the Bob and then it
Speaker 1: went in to run DMC and then and then Steven
Speaker 1: and Joel kicked in the doors playing walk This Way
Speaker 1: and they performed Walked This Way with Kid Rock, and
Speaker 1: that's the night he became a superstar. So the touching
Speaker 1: part of the story is we had a party for
Speaker 1: him that night and some basement of some place downtown
Speaker 1: and a lot of the bands came. I think Corn
Speaker 1: came and different people came, and it was pretty It
Speaker 1: was a good party. It was a good record company party.
Speaker 1: And about going close to two o'clock in the morning
Speaker 1: and watch them like, what the funk am I doing here?
Speaker 1: I don't drink, I don't do drugs. Unmarried, there's no
Speaker 1: upside in me staying here any longer. Right, So I
Speaker 1: go up to Kid Rock and I said, uh, listen,
Speaker 1: you know, congratulations, Um, you know, just austome him job tonight,
Speaker 1: you know, the usual thing, right, And I walk away.
Speaker 1: We hug and I walk away and he goes, hey
Speaker 1: flom When I turnaround and he goes, uh, listen, I
Speaker 1: know it's been a long night, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to bring this up at a time
Speaker 1: it tasty goes, but um, thank you, And I was like,
Speaker 1: I think I'll remember that for a long time, and
Speaker 1: I did, and I do because it doesn't last. You know,
Speaker 1: like my next question, with all this talent tends to
Speaker 1: come to an end. So what do we learn about talent? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know there's that great book that John
Speaker 1: Seabrook wrote right about the what's it called this song?
Speaker 1: The Song Machine. Yeah, I was talking about some more
Speaker 1: about songwriters. But it's always fascinated me that artists have
Speaker 1: a shelf life. Um. Actors, don't. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of actors can act until they're and even stay popular
Speaker 1: until they're in there you know late late, you know,
Speaker 1: later years, um. But they have a peak period of
Speaker 1: creativity and it burns so hot that maybe it just
Speaker 1: burns out, and you know, they can still perform live
Speaker 1: like that. You know theory about that in order to
Speaker 1: be successful artists, you have to be fucked up, and
Speaker 1: you have a fantasy that if you're successful it will
Speaker 1: solve your issues. And then when you become successful and
Speaker 1: you partake of all the goodies and you realize you're
Speaker 1: still the same fund up guy, you lose the motivation.
Speaker 1: You can't do it anymore. But not all of them
Speaker 1: are fucked up. All of them are fucked up. Come on,
Speaker 1: they need they have a hole inside them that has
Speaker 1: to be filled by external validation, and they can never
Speaker 1: really be filled. But there's a few, and you can
Speaker 1: name a few that never went off the rails seemingly right,
Speaker 1: never never went crazy. No, no, But I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to say they necessarily do drugs or you know, or
Speaker 1: on the verge of death. They just lose that incredible drive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's listen, that that's legit. But they but but but
Speaker 1: that loss only manifests itself in one way, which is
Speaker 1: their seeming inability to be able to make great records
Speaker 1: and exactly they can still perform. But I was more
Speaker 1: int listed in is being the business guy. Whether you're
Speaker 1: the manager, the A and R guy, or the label.
Speaker 1: There comes a point where you're God and then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the talent turns against you and your ship.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I know you've had that happen a number
Speaker 1: of times in your career. Oh yeah, what what what's
Speaker 1: what's your insight on that? Forget there? Forget there artistic abilities?
Speaker 1: But you have a personal relationship, You live and die
Speaker 1: in the trenches and then your persona on gratta. So
Speaker 1: the people I most admired in the music business Amdertic
Speaker 1: and David Geffen Doug those are the three that come
Speaker 1: to mind. They all told me the same thing. They said,
Speaker 1: they're all going to turn on you, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: believe that. I can't believe that. And this was at
Speaker 1: the time too. I remember when Kid Rock would sometimes
Speaker 1: introduce me as, hey, this is my dad. I mean
Speaker 1: he was half joking, but we had that type of relationship.
Speaker 1: We talked all the time. We did everything together. We
Speaker 1: plotted and schemed and did you know we created this
Speaker 1: thing from a whole cloth, right. It was his music,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. And it's always about the talent,
Speaker 1: because there's nothing any of us can do without the talent.
Speaker 1: But we did a lot together, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: we're really close personally, and uh, you know, but they
Speaker 1: all gave me these amazing stories. I mean, the armed
Speaker 1: Bobby Darren's story comes to mind, you know, or any
Speaker 1: of them where it's just so it's so weird. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know the story. So Ammed told me that
Speaker 1: he uh, I think he discovered Bobby Darren and the
Speaker 1: lobby like they had a little like a little office
Speaker 1: above Patsy's restaurant back then, and Bobby used to just
Speaker 1: show up and sit and wait around, hoping to get
Speaker 1: an audience with herb Abrams and I think it was
Speaker 1: and Armed found him when they'd say a kid, can
Speaker 1: you play the piano? And he played the piano and
Speaker 1: arm and end up writing some of those records. I
Speaker 1: think he maybe even written, Um. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he wrote Split Splash, but he wrote some of the
Speaker 1: great Bobby Darren records. And he mentored him, and Bobby
Speaker 1: gave a speech at the Grammys and called him and said,
Speaker 1: you know he said on stage. Apparently I haven't seen
Speaker 1: the speech, but I'm told me that said the most
Speaker 1: moving things about him and everything else. And he goes
Speaker 1: on it becomes a big star and Mary's both don't
Speaker 1: even are a fabian or something right, and um the
Speaker 1: movie star at the time, and m it says one
Speaker 1: day he gets called to l A and goes to
Speaker 1: see him, and Bobby's got these two managers who I'm
Speaker 1: described as having these like nice manicures, these fancy suits,
Speaker 1: and they're driving around l A and this nice car
Speaker 1: and they were driving past the Capital Tower. He said,
Speaker 1: and managers said to Bobby in front of them, it
Speaker 1: can you imagine if you were with a real record
Speaker 1: company like that, how big you would be. I mean,
Speaker 1: you would be the biggest star in the world in stera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And Bobby bit and left him turned on him, and
Speaker 1: you know, I forgot all about everything you had done
Speaker 1: and this is his career, you know, tanked and whatever.
Speaker 1: But it didn't have to tank what it did. But
Speaker 1: it's a shame. I mean, I've learned not to take
Speaker 1: it personally anyway, because I now realized that for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's true. And it may have something to
Speaker 1: do with the other theory of yours. I don't know, um,
Speaker 1: but I don't you know, I don't lose sleepover it anymore,
Speaker 1: like for what you know, Like I'm I'm happy for
Speaker 1: their success. Um, I hope they're happy for mine. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm very fucking lucky to be able
Speaker 1: to play a part in this amazing thing called the
Speaker 1: music business and to be able to make a living
Speaker 1: doing what I love. So what the fuck? Okay jumping about?
Speaker 1: You know you're at Lava, they cash you out, Uh,
Speaker 1: you have a lot of money, then you become a
Speaker 1: head of Uh Virgin tell the Story is of Katy
Speaker 1: Perry and thirty Seconds to Mars. So yeah. After a
Speaker 1: few number of other hits at Lava, Simple Plan, Transparian Orchestra,
Speaker 1: Bras became a big thing. The Uncle Cracker, Um, et cetera.
Speaker 1: There was others, Um the Cores right, Hugh jack Um,
Speaker 1: and we sold almost a hundred million records in eight
Speaker 1: years from my standing start. It was really fun. And anyway,
Speaker 1: they bought me out and they made me the chairman
Speaker 1: of Atlantic, which was an amazing experience. It was short
Speaker 1: lived because of course, you know, everyone knows the or
Speaker 1: and I didn't get along, and it is what it is.
Speaker 1: I got fired over a poem I wrote, I don't
Speaker 1: remember that, but that's true. And then um, roses are reddish,
Speaker 1: violets are bluish our stocks in the toilet. But at
Speaker 1: least we're both Jewish. So um, yeah, that wasn't It
Speaker 1: didn't work out so well, but anyway, um, but it
Speaker 1: was funny. So I got hired to run Virgin and
Speaker 1: it was so fun, so much fun because Virgin had
Speaker 1: been so cold for so long. The culture was fucked,
Speaker 1: everything was fucked, and uh, you know. It was great
Speaker 1: because the day that the I'd signed my contract but
Speaker 1: nobody knew it yet, and sitting in my den, uh,
Speaker 1: and I had this idea. At the time, the hottest
Speaker 1: movie in the country was a four year old Virgin,
Speaker 1: So I decided I would take a picture as him
Speaker 1: and use that as my announcement. So I ran the
Speaker 1: ad Jason flamm is the forty four year old version.
Speaker 1: And it was lucky I was forty four because forty
Speaker 1: four is a funny number. Forty five not funny, forty
Speaker 1: three not funny, forty two definitely not funny, forty four funny.
Speaker 1: So that really set the tone for the new company
Speaker 1: that I wanted to build. I hired great people. I
Speaker 1: heard Jeff kempl Um, who was my CEO I hardly
Speaker 1: drank to be president. I hired Angelica cob back from
Speaker 1: the old days, who was now at Columbia. Angelica. Um.
Speaker 1: It was funny because actually the first this is a
Speaker 1: story that's not well known, but uh, the day after
Speaker 1: I got my job, there's a Tuesday. I called a
Speaker 1: guy named Steve Tramposh and I said he was a
Speaker 1: guy who used to follow me around at clubs with
Speaker 1: a stack of research. He was a research just so
Speaker 1: laser focused. But I've never had anything for him to do.
Speaker 1: So I called him up. I thought maybe he wants
Speaker 1: to be a research guy. So he comes in and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, what you've been up to? He says, I've
Speaker 1: been managing a band. I go, no kidding? What band?
Speaker 1: He says, A band called Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. I said, oh,
Speaker 1: let me here. So he puts it on and he's
Speaker 1: playing that song, phase down and halfway through, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm signing that. He says, you can't. I said why not?
Speaker 1: He because you can't. He says, because we're signing a
Speaker 1: record deal with Capital tomorrow. I go tomorrow. What do
Speaker 1: you mean to more? He goes tomorrow. I said tomorrow.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? He says, no, we have
Speaker 1: execution copies. I said, get the band on the phone.
Speaker 1: Got the band on the phone. I said, I'm flying
Speaker 1: these guys up to New York tomorrow. I got I
Speaker 1: think it was Kevin from the Warp Tour. Didn't somebody
Speaker 1: somebody at the Warp too. I think it might have
Speaker 1: been Kevin, But anyway, I don't want to misspeak. But
Speaker 1: I got him to call up and say, listen, if
Speaker 1: feel uh, I feel signed with farm and really increase
Speaker 1: your chances of getting on the tour. And the warp
Speaker 1: tour was the thing to be on those days, right,
Speaker 1: and I really I lined it up and they flew
Speaker 1: up the next day. I took him to dinner and
Speaker 1: we literally, because it was a sister company of ours,
Speaker 1: we got the document that's from internally, we got it sent.
Speaker 1: We scratched out the name Capital Road in virgin and
Speaker 1: they signed the deal. And it was funny because I
Speaker 1: got a call the next day from my boss was
Speaker 1: Alan Leavy was the head of the whole thing, my
Speaker 1: immediate boss, with David Muttons who was for all on
Speaker 1: and Alan called, He goes, what the fun did you do?
Speaker 1: I go, what did I do? I signed a ban?
Speaker 1: He goes no, and he's and he's going crazy that
Speaker 1: and he was ahead of cap Capital. He goes, he's
Speaker 1: going crazy. He said, what do you you stole the band?
Speaker 1: I said, Look, I'm sorry, I said, I I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I thought you wanted me to come in. I thought
Speaker 1: you wanted me to win, like I thought you me
Speaker 1: to turn this dump around. I said, if you want
Speaker 1: me to come in second on stuff. You better tell
Speaker 1: me now, I said, I didn't mean to steal the
Speaker 1: band from but he had it and I wanted it,
Speaker 1: and if my grandmother would have had it, I would
Speaker 1: have stolen it from her. You know what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? So anyway, and they had a platinum record
Speaker 1: out of the box. It blew up. So that was
Speaker 1: a great way to start. And then, um, you know,
Speaker 1: then Angelica calls me one day or says to me,
Speaker 1: you know, you should meet this girl Katie Perrys. Who's
Speaker 1: Katie Perry? She said she's signed to Columbia. I think
Speaker 1: they're gonna drop her. I think she's the star. I
Speaker 1: met Katie at the Polo Lounge when she walked in
Speaker 1: and sat down, and I went, this girl's a star,
Speaker 1: like this is no question about it. And as soon
Speaker 1: as I started talking to her, like the story matches everything,
Speaker 1: Like she's got the background, the thing, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: wait to hear the music. I heard the music, I
Speaker 1: loved it and ultimately signed her. Um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of serendipitously, you know, she showed up that I
Speaker 1: invited her to our Grammy party because this was we
Speaker 1: just signed her at the beginning of the year and
Speaker 1: I invite her the the Grammy Party and she walked
Speaker 1: in with Dr Luke, So I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you guys areach other. Oh yeah, we're friends. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna work together. And I had known Luke because
Speaker 1: I gave him his first break in the business when
Speaker 1: he was a guitar player side and I've actually signed
Speaker 1: him to a record deal UM, and I thought, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be great. And I really forced that UM
Speaker 1: collaboration to happen because it was some resistance from people UM,
Speaker 1: but it was and of course Luke's always driven a
Speaker 1: hard bargain, but we made it happen. And of course
Speaker 1: that became really a lynch pin and her well, the
Speaker 1: lynch pin her success, and so with that combination was
Speaker 1: just magical. I couldn't have known that. And then of
Speaker 1: course I Kissed a girl came out and just became
Speaker 1: this monster. And it's funny because I've had two hits
Speaker 1: what songs called I Kiss because Jill Sobiel, who I
Speaker 1: signed it was the first artist I signed at Lava
Speaker 1: the first time UM, and it was with Atlantic, had
Speaker 1: a song called I kissed the girl with Fabby in
Speaker 1: the video and it wasn't it wasn't a hit like this,
Speaker 1: but it was a hit. So and then uh, thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to Mars. So here's the funny thing. So when
Speaker 1: you take over a new record company, UM, I hadn't
Speaker 1: had this experience before, but because when I came into Atlantic,
Speaker 1: I was already Atlantic. But so I I get the
Speaker 1: job at Virgin and I a box of CDs arrived
Speaker 1: at my house and I'm like, what am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do with this? Like, how are you supposed to
Speaker 1: digest that much music and make any sort of informed
Speaker 1: decision about what to do with these different arts? So
Speaker 1: you talk to people, you ask, you listen, you schmooze whatever,
Speaker 1: and everyone's like this thirty seconds of warch you gotta
Speaker 1: get rid of it. It's a vanity project for an actor.
Speaker 1: It's just another dog Star or whatever the hell it is.
Speaker 1: And they had an album that flopped and the new
Speaker 1: album isn't doing anything, and I was like, I guess
Speaker 1: I should probably drop it. But they happened to be
Speaker 1: on tour with Audio Slave and they were playing at
Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden, so I said I should go. So
Speaker 1: I went and the show was incredible, and I went
Speaker 1: to dinner with them afterwards, and I was sitting with
Speaker 1: Jared and he told me that he had just turned
Speaker 1: down a starring or co starring role in new Cline
Speaker 1: Eastwood movie. And I was like, what, I go, We'll
Speaker 1: come again, and he goes, yeah. I said, why did
Speaker 1: you do that? He goes, because I I had too,
Speaker 1: he says, I. I got a call from Clinton and
Speaker 1: he says, you know, kid, what are you doing? And
Speaker 1: I said, I can't do it. I'm on tour with
Speaker 1: my band. And they were playing clubs back then. I mean,
Speaker 1: they got the autos lator, but mostly they're playing a
Speaker 1: little clubs and you know he uh, it wasn't well
Speaker 1: received by Mr Eastwood. Um, and I said, that's the
Speaker 1: most rock and roll thing I've heard in a long time.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna make you a star. I gonna break
Speaker 1: your band. And so I gave them money to make
Speaker 1: a video, and uh, I called them TV. They made
Speaker 1: the video. I call I call them TV. As they
Speaker 1: were making the video and I said, I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a video with thirty seconds to Mars, and you guys
Speaker 1: are gonna play it in a rotation that I deem appropriate,
Speaker 1: or I'm going to stage a hunger strike in your lobby.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to bring an espresso machine because
Speaker 1: I can't live without caffeine. But I'm gonna sit there
Speaker 1: a cross legged until you play it the way you're
Speaker 1: supposed to. And the good news was he made that
Speaker 1: remarkable video for The Kill where he sort of you know,
Speaker 1: took to the plot line from the Shining and you know,
Speaker 1: everything he does is remarkable. It just doesn't even make
Speaker 1: any sense. He's one of those people like Jamie Fox,
Speaker 1: who like everything they do is fucking perfect and it's
Speaker 1: almost unbelievable. And so uh so, yeah, we ended up
Speaker 1: breaking the band and um, having really a great run
Speaker 1: with them. Okay, so Virgin, your job bands is a
Speaker 1: long business thing having nothing to do with you. And
Speaker 1: you start over with Universal and you sign lord. Can
Speaker 1: you fill us in on that? Yeah? So I left
Speaker 1: there they preached my contract, um, and I left, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I partnered up with Monty and Avery because
Speaker 1: I had had a friendly Yeah, I had a friendly
Speaker 1: arriving with him over these Monty I used to speak
Speaker 1: four times a year and we would compare notes every
Speaker 1: time I was breaking something, seemed like he was breaking something,
Speaker 1: and vice versa. I remember Monty was a promotion guy
Speaker 1: for Daniel Glass at s p K, So I thought
Speaker 1: it wasn't I'm always breaking something and they're always breaking
Speaker 1: Something's get together and break something. So we did, and
Speaker 1: we always had a mutual respect and so, um, you know,
Speaker 1: not too long after I got there, Well, jesse Ja
Speaker 1: came first, of course, But um, and it hasn't all
Speaker 1: been you know, line and roses. We're obviously talking about
Speaker 1: the good parts of my career, but there have been
Speaker 1: a lot of frustrating and things and setbacks and etcetera.
Speaker 1: But um, a woman named Natalia roma Chefski who was
Speaker 1: a she worked at at a jingle place. She was
Speaker 1: like a music supervisor or something like that, and she
Speaker 1: and I had been friends and she would send me
Speaker 1: music time to time, and she sent me an email
Speaker 1: which I now have framed and autocraft and dedicated by Lord.
Speaker 1: And the email the subject line was hot shit and
Speaker 1: then it just said unsigned New Zealand female listen and
Speaker 1: that soundclad link and on the bottom she wrote, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if this is your type of thing, but
Speaker 1: I thought you should check it out. So I put
Speaker 1: this fucking thing on Bob and it was Royals and
Speaker 1: you know, I think love Club and and I called
Speaker 1: her up and I go, what the fund did I
Speaker 1: just listened to? And she goes, I don't know. She said,
Speaker 1: somebody just sent it to me. I thought I'd send
Speaker 1: it to you. I said, how do we find her?
Speaker 1: So found her address on Facebook. I emailed Lord and
Speaker 1: she wrote me back and next thing I know him
Speaker 1: on the phone with her parents, and I think she
Speaker 1: may have been on the call and her manager, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I think your daughter's gonna win Grammys,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, we did the deal and I
Speaker 1: got there just in time. You know, she had two
Speaker 1: hundred soundclown plays when I did you fly to New
Speaker 1: Zealand though a little while after that. Yeah, I went
Speaker 1: to her first gig. I think it was her first
Speaker 1: gig she had ever done with the original material. And
Speaker 1: it was awesome. By the way, there was seventy people there,
Speaker 1: but she was Lord. So the deal was made before
Speaker 1: you flew to New Zealand. Yeah, the deal was made.
Speaker 1: And it was funny too, because when I was in
Speaker 1: New Zealand, I got an email from Sean Parker I
Speaker 1: have a long history with and Seawan emailed Lucian Grange
Speaker 1: and copied me and he said, hey, you know, I
Speaker 1: just came across this girl lord. I think you guys
Speaker 1: should check it out. And I wrote him back and said,
Speaker 1: she's sitting right next to me at a cafe in
Speaker 1: Auckland right now. It is a great moment, you know,
Speaker 1: so um so yeah, but she was she was like
Speaker 1: I think she sprang from the womb, like fully formed,
Speaker 1: because she was on stage, confident, um, you know, just
Speaker 1: doing her thing and the was those songs like you know,
Speaker 1: they say there's three things that children can become geniuses at,
Speaker 1: which is music, math and chess, and you know, she
Speaker 1: created a work of absolute genius when she was fourteen
Speaker 1: years old. I mean, it's just it always amazed me
Speaker 1: about her because it's like, if she's a young teenager
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, there's at least an argument that says
Speaker 1: she really couldn't have experienced hardly anything, but it seemed
Speaker 1: like she knew everything exactly. The explanation is that she
Speaker 1: read a thousand books by the time she was twelve,
Speaker 1: but still, it's it's just a remarkable piece of work.
Speaker 1: And then weren't her parents reluctant they wanted her to
Speaker 1: stay in school? Yeah, one of them was, and uh,
Speaker 1: I was was in favor of her becoming a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what, I come from a
Speaker 1: family of lawyers, and I promise you there's enough lawyers
Speaker 1: and your daughter has a real chance to win Grammy's.
Speaker 1: And of course, um, you know, Joel Little did that beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful album, and um and I remember when she called
Speaker 1: me up and told me the title of it was
Speaker 1: going to be Pure Heroine and I almost I almost
Speaker 1: fell down. I mean, it is, it is so that
Speaker 1: title is batshit fucking crazy. I mean it's so good, right,
Speaker 1: and the black cover and the white right, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: It's like some ziggy stardust type of perfection. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to compare to David Bowie because whatever, but
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, and he's not even here anywhere,
Speaker 1: But that was one of my favorite albums of all
Speaker 1: time because it was perfect. But it's out. That album
Speaker 1: is perfect and even the title is pure Heroin with
Speaker 1: an e onion and Lord has an onion? Get the
Speaker 1: funk out of here. Where did that what depths of
Speaker 1: your soul did that spring from? Because it's amazing. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you sent me a video where you actually spoke
Speaker 1: in Canada at a large convention center six thousand people.
Speaker 1: And in the speech you gave, you talked about being depressed.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went through a you know, I was. First of all,
Speaker 1: it was such a thrill to open for Tony Robbins
Speaker 1: in Canada's the speech that I sent you, And um,
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to do more with We're work with him
Speaker 1: because he's a force of nature. But that's beside the point. Um.
Speaker 1: So I spoke about the fact that about seven or
Speaker 1: eight years ago, I hit a low point when a
Speaker 1: lot of things sort of happened at once and um,
Speaker 1: and it spiraled me into a state of depression. And
Speaker 1: and those things, I mean, both of my parents died
Speaker 1: relatively close to each other. I had recently been separated.
Speaker 1: You know, I was missing my kids and my dogs
Speaker 1: and my life. And I had a terrible professional experience,
Speaker 1: the worst one I've ever had. I had fallen in
Speaker 1: love and then had my heartbroken. You remember that nonsense
Speaker 1: and um and so uh, you know, and then I
Speaker 1: was angry at myself for being depressed, because you know,
Speaker 1: I work at the Innocence Project, right and I deal
Speaker 1: with people every day who had, you know, spent decades
Speaker 1: in prison for the crimes they didn't commit. And then
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there going, how what right do I have
Speaker 1: to feel this way? And so I was just really
Speaker 1: in a very low place, you know, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure I was ever going to get out of it,
Speaker 1: and so how did you get out of it? You know?
Speaker 1: I had this feeling at the time, Bob that I
Speaker 1: said this on stage that everything good that had ever
Speaker 1: happened to me was everything good that was ever gonna
Speaker 1: happen to me. There were gonna be no more hit records,
Speaker 1: There's gonna be no more women that were going to
Speaker 1: be attracted to me, there was gonna be no more
Speaker 1: love in my life. Everything. So I was in l
Speaker 1: A and uh, two things happened. When was a friend
Speaker 1: of mine named Hannah Schmider. She says to me, boy,
Speaker 1: you're a fucking mess. And I said, yeah, I'm a
Speaker 1: fucking mess. I's here for the Brampton. She said, you
Speaker 1: gotta go see Jessica. I go, who's Jessica. She said
Speaker 1: she's an intuitive. I said, I don't know what that is,
Speaker 1: but I'm going and uh, I went to see this uh,
Speaker 1: this woman named Jessica Rannick. Uh and she are any kay?
Speaker 1: And she turned my whole shit around. I mean, like
Speaker 1: in one session she told me why I was feeling
Speaker 1: it the way I was. What did you learn that session? Well,
Speaker 1: she told me why I was feeling the way I
Speaker 1: was feeling, what had happened, and what to do about it?
Speaker 1: And just very quickly what what did she say to do?
Speaker 1: Why were you feeling that way? Well? She was the
Speaker 1: first one that explained to me. And I had wasted
Speaker 1: a lot of time going to shrinks, you know, ever
Speaker 1: since my it she had fallen apart, or even before that,
Speaker 1: every since I knew it was falling apart, and UM
Speaker 1: had really hadn't made any progress. And she was the
Speaker 1: first one that explained to me that the reason I
Speaker 1: was feeling I was feeling I had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that I got no love from
Speaker 1: my mother, you know, which is again when I met
Speaker 1: what was me whatever? People have real problems, right, but
Speaker 1: still I was the first time anyone had made that
Speaker 1: connection it really, it just clicked something off in my brain.
Speaker 1: She also said to me, just just to be clear,
Speaker 1: did your mother acknowledge your success? Yeah? In letters? She
Speaker 1: could write letters, and she was she was a great
Speaker 1: letter writer, but she couldn't say it. So, um it was.
Speaker 1: It was a weird thing. Okay. So the second thing
Speaker 1: she said, so I'll never forget, she says to me, Um,
Speaker 1: I was, I was, you know, moaning about this lost
Speaker 1: love which I thought it was, which was actually a
Speaker 1: dysfunctional mess. And I said, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: I'm not charming enough, I'm not attractive enough. I don't
Speaker 1: think any more. And she goes, how about if I
Speaker 1: make a list of five million beautiful women that would
Speaker 1: drop what they're doing right now to marry your sorry
Speaker 1: fucking ass. And I was like, because she curses like that,
Speaker 1: And I was like really, She's like yeah. I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. But it actually sort of like I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, she believes it. Maybe I should believe
Speaker 1: it too. No shrink is ever going to talk to
Speaker 1: you like that. So it was a combination of things
Speaker 1: she said and and and things she did and just
Speaker 1: the way she spoke to me and the way she
Speaker 1: cut through the bullshit, you know, and she did and
Speaker 1: then um, and it's it's funny because you're in the
Speaker 1: studio with us today. But anyway, it's a coincidence. It's
Speaker 1: not like we follow each other around all day. But
Speaker 1: but I we've we've been close over the years, and
Speaker 1: I've sent so many people. I'm sure some man of
Speaker 1: the people listening to this podcast have been to see
Speaker 1: her because I've sent so many people to see her
Speaker 1: over the years with remarkable results. Um. And another thing
Speaker 1: happened at the same time, too, which is that I
Speaker 1: think it was Don Passman told me to call Rabbi Mark.
Speaker 1: So I went to see Rabbi Mark. Who is Rabbi Mark.
Speaker 1: He's a life coach and is he actually a rabbi? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's had a crazy life story. He was in
Speaker 1: jail and he's had hits taken out on him by
Speaker 1: loan sharks and all sorts of crazy things. We did
Speaker 1: a walk and talk for an hour and he's counseled
Speaker 1: some legendary people in music industry and he Uh, we
Speaker 1: did a walk and talk for an hour and he
Speaker 1: says to me, here's what you're gonna do, go home,
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and say the following words out loud.
Speaker 1: I'm important and I matter, and then start acting like it,
Speaker 1: he says, because you're not. He goes, you're letting everybody
Speaker 1: and everything push you around, and that's not who you are.
Speaker 1: And start, you know, start behaving in a way like
Speaker 1: you matter. And and I did, and it helped, you know,
Speaker 1: it all helped. And I, like I said to you earlier,
Speaker 1: we're talking on when I went to see Jessica, I
Speaker 1: walked in feeling like a zero. And I didn't come
Speaker 1: out feeling like a hero, but I felt I came
Speaker 1: out feeling like a seven. And then the my energy
Speaker 1: really changed and things started really Okay, You've had this peripatetic,
Speaker 1: incredibly successful career in the music business and the thirty
Speaker 1: or forty years you have left personally, what would you
Speaker 1: like to achieve? Um? Well, you know, as you know,
Speaker 1: my overriding passion, obsession whatever for the last twenty five
Speaker 1: years has been reforming the criminal justice system, a limiting
Speaker 1: mandatory sentencing, decriminalizing weed, and most importantly, getting people out
Speaker 1: of prison that don't belong there. I mean, that's really
Speaker 1: and and that has you know been. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: been at the Innocence Project on the founding board member
Speaker 1: of the Inncence Project that I've been working on that
Speaker 1: just for people who maybe out of the loop, explain
Speaker 1: what the Innocence Project is. So, the Innocence Project is
Speaker 1: an organization that utilizes DNA to prove innocence in cases
Speaker 1: in which people have been convicted of heinous violent crimes. Um.
Speaker 1: It doesn't always prove innocence, by the way, supin as
Speaker 1: it proves guilt, but we're able to re examine cases. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we know now that the incidents of wrongful convictions
Speaker 1: in this country are astoundingly high. There have been so
Speaker 1: many executions of people who are innocent and um and
Speaker 1: it it just it touches me in a way. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've always been a very empathetic person. I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to help the helpless, um, whether that's a person and
Speaker 1: animal or whatever. And I could never think of anything
Speaker 1: worse than being locked up in our gulag system and
Speaker 1: these violent, dark, terrible places of these prisons that we
Speaker 1: have here for something you didn't do. And so um,
Speaker 1: so it's been my mission to help get these people
Speaker 1: out that are actually innocent and then to help them
Speaker 1: once they do get out, because it's the second punishment
Speaker 1: when you get out and you have you know, you've
Speaker 1: missed twenty years, Right, what do you do? How's your
Speaker 1: resume looking? How do you use a phone? How do
Speaker 1: you don't even know what an ATM card is? How
Speaker 1: do you get a license? Like? It's a it's a
Speaker 1: you know, it's a Really it's an unbelievable thing for
Speaker 1: people to go through, and it happens, like I said,
Speaker 1: way too often. So so that's been my h that's
Speaker 1: been my thing, and that's what I want to and
Speaker 1: that's what I'm That's not what I want to do.
Speaker 1: Is what I'm going to keep doing until my last breath. Okay,
Speaker 1: So that is very soul fulfilling, not incredibly lucrative at
Speaker 1: this point in time, business making money, business status? How
Speaker 1: important to you? Yeah, it's it's not lucrative at all.
Speaker 1: It's actually the opposite. But it's fine. I mean, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Um no, I'm really it's funny. Uh. You
Speaker 1: know Ron Burkele who's the legendary um supermarket supermarket king
Speaker 1: but entrepreneur in hundred a hundred companies. He go into something.
Speaker 1: It's it's at breakfast one this morning. But Ron uh
Speaker 1: Ron said something interesting to me. I reminded him of
Speaker 1: this today. He said to me, you know, guys like you,
Speaker 1: successful guys typically after they get divorced take about three
Speaker 1: years to make back all the money they gave away
Speaker 1: in the divorce. And now it's funny because I see
Speaker 1: what he was talking about. I mean, I am in
Speaker 1: I'm in such heavy work mode, and I'm feeling more
Speaker 1: creative and inspired than I have in memory. And I'm
Speaker 1: much more interested in that than doing you know, well,
Speaker 1: I want to build businesses. I want to continue to
Speaker 1: work in the music industry. Of course, I'm having this
Speaker 1: wonderful success with Greti van Fleet right now, which is
Speaker 1: just the most fun and um, and you know, I
Speaker 1: want to create new things and I want to make
Speaker 1: a lot of fucking money so I can give it away. Okay,
Speaker 1: So at this point in time, how much of your
Speaker 1: day is filled with philanthropy and how much time with business.
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time on philanthropy. I have
Speaker 1: no idea what the percentages, but it's a lot and um.
Speaker 1: But it actually, you know, it's good too. I mean
Speaker 1: artists are attracted to me sometimes because of the fact
Speaker 1: that they know about me from that work, you know,
Speaker 1: so it really works together, UM. And you know, of
Speaker 1: course I launched my podcast I don't know whatever it
Speaker 1: was four seasons ago, a year, a year and a
Speaker 1: half ago, and that's been, you know, a real joy
Speaker 1: for me. And what are you telling the audience exactly
Speaker 1: what the podcast is? So I have a podcast called
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction UM, and on the podcast, I interview each
Speaker 1: week a man or woman who was wrongly convicted and
Speaker 1: sentenced to decades or life in prison, or even sentenced
Speaker 1: to death and ultimately exonerated and proven actually innocent. And
Speaker 1: you know, some of them served thirty or more years
Speaker 1: in prison for something they did not do and again
Speaker 1: and some of them were sentenced to death. And sometimes
Speaker 1: I go inside prisons as well, inside maximum security prisons
Speaker 1: to interview people who I have evidence are innocent, but
Speaker 1: for whom the justice system is not working, and so
Speaker 1: to help bring attention to their cases. We recently had
Speaker 1: one of our people that was on the show exonerated
Speaker 1: UM in Kansas City after twenty three years, which was
Speaker 1: such a wonderful feeling. And called me from the courthouse steps.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's an incredibly rewarding process. The things
Speaker 1: you pick up from the people themselves who are so
Speaker 1: graceful and so kind and so optimistic and they lack bitterness,
Speaker 1: and I don't understand it. I asked every one of them,
Speaker 1: and I've heard them all explained it in different ways.
Speaker 1: But you know, it's amazing because it puts so much
Speaker 1: gratitude in my attitude. I mean, the idea that I'm
Speaker 1: able to help them. And it's funny, Bob, because now
Speaker 1: it's like when you walked in today. I was on
Speaker 1: the phone with a guy who's in a maximum security
Speaker 1: prison in Virginia whose case I've been working on for
Speaker 1: a year and it's gonna be featured. You know, my
Speaker 1: phone rings a lot with calls like that, and I've
Speaker 1: was recently, um know, very very lucky to get um
Speaker 1: clemency for three people actually last week who were serving
Speaker 1: life in prison through just hard work and connecting the dots.
Speaker 1: And that's outside of the Innocence Project, because I take
Speaker 1: on cases on my own sometimes too. Obviously there's only
Speaker 1: so much a person, one person can do. But I
Speaker 1: heard about a case in this particular situation, not a
Speaker 1: guy who was innocent, but it got named Travian Blount,
Speaker 1: who had been sentenced to six life terms plus a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighteen years in prison. He was fifteen years
Speaker 1: old and he participated in a robbery. No one was shot.
Speaker 1: One person got hit, but they weren't seriously hurt, and
Speaker 1: not by him. And it was the robbery of a party.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't have been there, he shouldn't have participated. He
Speaker 1: did carry a gun, he didn't have any prior arrest though,
Speaker 1: it was fifteen fucking years old. And this has gotten
Speaker 1: national news because it's so outrageous that it's just unbelievable
Speaker 1: and so um he was one of the people who
Speaker 1: I was able to help. Um convinced the powers that
Speaker 1: be should be freed, and he was granted clemency last week. So,
Speaker 1: if we could do two things in America or the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system to move things in the direction that
Speaker 1: you're mentioning, we're in a innocent people are not incarcerated,
Speaker 1: what would those be. That's a great question. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are so many problems I think we need. One
Speaker 1: of the first changes we need is mandatory videotaping of
Speaker 1: interrogations um, because there's so many false confessions, and it's
Speaker 1: important for people who are listening to know that when
Speaker 1: you go on a jury, you need to have a
Speaker 1: more informed and educated and skeptical view. I'm not a
Speaker 1: person who doesn't believe of injustice system. I'm I always
Speaker 1: say I'm not soft on crime, I'm tough on injustice. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not an anarchist by any means, but you need
Speaker 1: to know that just because somebody confess, or just because
Speaker 1: the police officers saying this, or just because of prosecutorcy this,
Speaker 1: or just because a quote unquote expert is saying X,
Speaker 1: Y or Z doesn't mean it's true. And you have
Speaker 1: an obligation to be there for your fellow human being
Speaker 1: and really dive into it and make an informed decision
Speaker 1: whether it's guilty or innocent. You better try your best
Speaker 1: to get it right. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people like I used to have a view that if
Speaker 1: the authority figures up there saying something, it must be true,
Speaker 1: and if somebody confess, it must be that they're guilty.
Speaker 1: But how the funk do we not videotape interrogations? How
Speaker 1: do you because what happens is Bob and they're only
Speaker 1: there are twenty five states now that have managed with
Speaker 1: video tape interrogation, twenty five that don't, and only one
Speaker 1: that's just for just for by edification. Does it breakdown
Speaker 1: on red and blue? Uh? I don't know. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so, because New York only recently passed it.
Speaker 1: Um it didn't have it for all these years. I
Speaker 1: mean so, And you know what happens is they they'll go,
Speaker 1: you go in that little room, and I had to
Speaker 1: detective them. I'm retired. Any TV detective on my show
Speaker 1: and YPD detective on my show recently who said, if
Speaker 1: I got you in that room, you weren't leaving until
Speaker 1: you confessed, And I was like, and then, you know
Speaker 1: they can lie. First of all, anyone's listening. If you
Speaker 1: get arrested, you know what you should say nothing. You
Speaker 1: should say I want a lawyer, and stop talking, because
Speaker 1: once they get you in that room, they can lie
Speaker 1: all they want. They go, Bob, listen, man, we got
Speaker 1: your fingerprints on the murder weapon. We have a videotape
Speaker 1: of you at the place we got your co conspirit
Speaker 1: or in the other rooms saying you did it. You
Speaker 1: better come clean. Man. Because it's the best way out
Speaker 1: for you. You know you're gonna get we're gonna be
Speaker 1: nice to you if you confess, and they there's so
Speaker 1: many cases people have been on my show who've been
Speaker 1: beaten in those rooms and then they bring you out
Speaker 1: of the room. They had a whole protocol called the
Speaker 1: Red method that is designed. It's a it's a psychological
Speaker 1: technique that's designed to elicit confessions, whether the person is
Speaker 1: guilty or innocent, and it works. And sometimes violence, actual
Speaker 1: violence is employed. Sometimes it's psychological violence. But either way,
Speaker 1: you get so trapped in that room that you see
Speaker 1: no way out other than to tell them what they
Speaker 1: want to hear. And many of these people like Johnny
Speaker 1: and Cape who was on my show, who was convicted
Speaker 1: of that notorious murder in New York State where the
Speaker 1: tourists were there going to the US Open and a
Speaker 1: gang of kids got on the subway to rob them
Speaker 1: and the mother was being pushed around and the son
Speaker 1: came to her aid and was stabbed to death. Johnny
Speaker 1: was convicted of that murder even though they knew he
Speaker 1: wasn't there, and he was tortured in the police station.
Speaker 1: Um he was he was beaten, he had hair pull
Speaker 1: out of his head, and at one point a cop
Speaker 1: who was a notorious cop who was also involved in
Speaker 1: the Central Part five case said to him, Um, we're
Speaker 1: gonna kill you and dump your body in the alley,
Speaker 1: and no one's gonna know about it unless you signed
Speaker 1: this piece of paper. So he says, you know, people
Speaker 1: say to me, why would I confess? I say, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't I confess? I've seen what they're capable of? Right,
Speaker 1: And he was a guy's eighteen years old that's never
Speaker 1: been in trouble with dancer. D you imagine yourself that situation.
Speaker 1: So nancwer tap of interrogation, and I think that we
Speaker 1: must have prosecutorial accountability. There's a story about an exonarian
Speaker 1: named Robert Jones has been on my podcast, who served
Speaker 1: twenty three years in prison, and he not only did
Speaker 1: they know he was innocent, but in his case, it
Speaker 1: was a crime spree that continued after he was arrested
Speaker 1: with exactly the same m O, which led to a
Speaker 1: very violent crime spree, which led to the homicide detective
Speaker 1: who had originally arrested him going to the prosecutor. As
Speaker 1: he was being held in jail, and saying, listen, man,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for thirty years and I never
Speaker 1: said this before, but I arrested the wrong guy. It's
Speaker 1: not him, and the prosecutors said, I don't care, And
Speaker 1: so this guy was uh. It took four years for
Speaker 1: him to get to trial. He was held in jail
Speaker 1: for four years, and they framed him so egregiously. And
Speaker 1: now he has filed suit today against the New Orleans
Speaker 1: Prosecutor's office for uh. He's shown he able to show
Speaker 1: forty five individual cases, including his own, of prosecutorial misconduct,
Speaker 1: of withholding exculpatory evidence, of lying, of cheating, of gaming
Speaker 1: the system of doing such egregious things that led to
Speaker 1: innocent people, many of whom were sentenced to death. You know,
Speaker 1: Like so yeah, I mean, and I could we could
Speaker 1: go on with this all day, but I mean, we gotta.
Speaker 1: We have to abolish the death penalty. I mean, here
Speaker 1: in California they just passed a horrendous death penalty speed
Speaker 1: up referendum, Like, what's beat up? What the funk are
Speaker 1: you talking about? Speed it up? Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: just remember, you know, I come from a background where
Speaker 1: you know, what is the real truth? I remember your
Speaker 1: Jewel at the nineties Atlanta Olympics. I was convinced that
Speaker 1: guy was guilty. He wasn't. So there are plenty of
Speaker 1: people who are really not guilty and conventional wisdom, but
Speaker 1: our society has turned it large. I mean, I'm a
Speaker 1: child of the sixties, love, peace and happiness, where now
Speaker 1: it's I've got mine, screw you. So ultimately going. But
Speaker 1: moving from this very important work back to the business sphere.
Speaker 1: In your thirty five odd your career, what are the
Speaker 1: changes that you've seen in entertainment i e. Music that
Speaker 1: I don't mean like a delineation of what literally happened.
Speaker 1: We all know about MTV and Napster, but in terms
Speaker 1: of what music means, the society, where the acts come from,
Speaker 1: where it all leads. How do you assess today as
Speaker 1: opposed to earlier in your career. Well, I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: music will, um, you know, take a turn towards the
Speaker 1: activism side, um, which is obviously such a big part
Speaker 1: of my life, and that people will artists will start
Speaker 1: creating um, you know, the modern day equivalent of Ohio
Speaker 1: or Masters of War or some of the great protest songs.
Speaker 1: And there have been some mostly from now. It's coming
Speaker 1: from the hip hop side, but I think rock is
Speaker 1: going to make a comeback and I'm excited. So told
Speaker 1: me why. You have Greta Van Fleet, which is the
Speaker 1: most successful rock band of the last twelve months. But
Speaker 1: they made it to number one Active Rock, but it
Speaker 1: hasn't permeated the culture at large. What do you think
Speaker 1: is going on there? Oh, yeah, it's it's I think
Speaker 1: I think you have to disagree with you there. I
Speaker 1: think it's definitely permeating the culture at large. I have
Speaker 1: every day, including on the way over here at somebody
Speaker 1: tell me that they're they're fifteen sixty year old kids
Speaker 1: who don't listen to anything like this are jamming out
Speaker 1: to Greta Van Fleet. It's it's you know, it's gone
Speaker 1: viral and we're just scratching the surface now. But it's
Speaker 1: been at the top of the iTunes charts forever. The
Speaker 1: streaming numbers are catching up, the ticket sales are insane.
Speaker 1: So what does it take to make it as big
Speaker 1: as a hip hop track? Oh? I think that they're
Speaker 1: gonna you know, they're gonna, of right, They've already written
Speaker 1: at least one song that I think is going to
Speaker 1: really catch the you know, a very different segment of
Speaker 1: the audience and propel them to much greater heights. I
Speaker 1: think it's all happening the way it's supposed to, you know,
Speaker 1: like it shouldn't. They shouldn't be overnight successes, but they
Speaker 1: are actually if you think about it. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great slow build that's going to
Speaker 1: get to a place where they're going to be headlining
Speaker 1: arenas in twelve to eighteen months, and and the record
Speaker 1: sales will catch up accordingly. So you believe we're poised
Speaker 1: for a rock comeback. Were pois for a rock comeback?
Speaker 1: You know. I've recently established the movement called the Church
Speaker 1: of Rock and Roll, which I'm very excited about. And
Speaker 1: it's a lifestyle brand wrapped up in a movement which
Speaker 1: stands for all the things I believe in. You know,
Speaker 1: our first commandment is be kind to yourself, to other people,
Speaker 1: to animals in the earth. Um. And that's UM and
Speaker 1: it flows out her from there. It's all about personal
Speaker 1: freedom and expression and UM and being you know, being
Speaker 1: the best version of you and and helping other people. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: It's the opposite of objectivism, so to speak and um
Speaker 1: and I uh and it feels like this is going
Speaker 1: to be I mean, this is this is to me
Speaker 1: my next and my really my biggest act because I
Speaker 1: believe this is going to become transformative and um, and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited. I'm I'm talking to some of the
Speaker 1: most amazing people in the world, some of the top
Speaker 1: business people with expertise that I couldn't begin to approach,
Speaker 1: who are all excited about building, building this into a
Speaker 1: you know, I want I wanted to be the counterculture Margaritaville.
Speaker 1: You know that's my idea. And I'm not gonna get
Speaker 1: into all the details now, but you're gonna see it
Speaker 1: emerging and it's really exciting and fun. Jason, You've been wonderful.
Speaker 1: We've only scratched the surface. Thanks so much for appearing.
Speaker 1: Thank you, and please don't forget to follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram at it's Jason Flam because that's where I post
Speaker 1: my best stuff. And also, how do they find your podcast?
Speaker 1: The podcast is Wrongful Conviction. It's available everywhere iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, um,
Speaker 1: It's available on every everywhere. Also tune in. Thanks so much, Jason.
Speaker 1: Until next time, It's Bob Left Set. We've got a
Speaker 1: wonderful time here with Jason Flower Bob here. I want
Speaker 1: to thank everyone for listening to this episode. If you
Speaker 1: heard something in this episode or a previous episode that
Speaker 1: piqued your interests, go ahead and email your comments to
Speaker 1: be at Bob at left sets dot com. I'd love
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts on the stories we covered, and
Speaker 1: there's sure to be more exciting ones to come. Tune
Speaker 1: in next week for more edification and information. Until next time,
Speaker 1: it's Bob Left Set