Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left That's podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Emilio Castillo, the only man who's been
Speaker 1: in every iteration of Tower of Power. Emilia, good to
Speaker 1: have you here, thank you, good to be here. Okay,
Speaker 1: why was it named Tower of Power? Oh? Kind of
Speaker 1: a boring story. You know. We were called the Motowns.
Speaker 1: We're a little soul band in the East Bay, in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area, and uh we wanted to get into
Speaker 1: film or West and so we thought we'll never get
Speaker 1: in there, you know, with these suits and razor cuts
Speaker 1: and a name like the motown So we thought we
Speaker 1: got to find one of those weird names, like all
Speaker 1: those bands Quicksilver, Messenger Service and loth In hand People.
Speaker 1: And you're like one of the few people remembers Lothor
Speaker 1: of the hand People out of Denver. Well, his drummer
Speaker 1: used to record from. Okay, there you have it. But
Speaker 1: we we were on a break out a little studio
Speaker 1: and Hayward and Uh, I was sitting at the desk
Speaker 1: of the owner and there was like a three page
Speaker 1: list of all weird band names. Really, and I'm looking
Speaker 1: at the names, I'm going there, there's no way we
Speaker 1: can't be this, we can't. But then I saw the
Speaker 1: name Tower of Power and they go, hey, guys, what
Speaker 1: about Tower of Power? They go, yeah, yeah, that's us,
Speaker 1: you know, and that was it. Well that's really funny
Speaker 1: because I thought it was, you know, such a large
Speaker 1: band with all the different horns, etcetera. And therefore it
Speaker 1: was called Tower of Power. I think that's what they
Speaker 1: thought about the name, you know. Okay, so when it
Speaker 1: was the Motown's was the goal too? Was it like
Speaker 1: a band that played it, you know in bars? Because
Speaker 1: obviously named like the Motime, you're playing motimes, you're playing
Speaker 1: R and B music, or it was the goal always
Speaker 1: to become a big success, get a recording deal. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd be lying if I told you I even thought
Speaker 1: that deep. You know, we just loved playing music, particularly
Speaker 1: sold music. We played nightclubs, bars, after hours joints, a
Speaker 1: lot of after hours joints where you had to not
Speaker 1: only play, but entertained because there was no dancing in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area between two and six am. It was
Speaker 1: a blue law. Okay. Just so uh from different days,
Speaker 1: When was the last time you get a drink? You
Speaker 1: got you stopped drinking? Are two from two to six am.
Speaker 1: They went into the parking lot and drank and then
Speaker 1: came in and drank cokes while you were playing. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you could play, but they couldn't dance, and they
Speaker 1: couldn't drink a couldn't dance, Yeah, okay, I mean New
Speaker 1: York is a really late night town. L A is
Speaker 1: a really early town. If that era in the early
Speaker 1: seventies was the Bay Area that late at night of
Speaker 1: a town. Yeah, this is actually uh you know, late sixties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, there was two cities in the Bay
Speaker 1: Area where you could dance at those times. One was Fremont, California,
Speaker 1: where we lived, and the other one was all Benny, California,
Speaker 1: on the other side of the East Bay. And you
Speaker 1: could actually dance there. And so they were always looking
Speaker 1: for really good dance bands bands and you could dance
Speaker 1: good too. And it would go through the whole Bay Area.
Speaker 1: You know, people in San Francisco, Palo Altos and say,
Speaker 1: they say, oh, there's a good band to dance too,
Speaker 1: you know, and at Little Richard's in Fremont, and we
Speaker 1: would we would play be four hours in San Jose,
Speaker 1: pack everything up, drive there at two thirty in the morning.
Speaker 1: We'd be set up and ready to go. We'd hit
Speaker 1: it and people would come in and they would just
Speaker 1: be dancing. There was a wrought iron railing around this
Speaker 1: little dance for it. They'd be bent over it like
Speaker 1: this man just dancing, you know. And then they go
Speaker 1: out on the brakes and drink and come back and
Speaker 1: dance some more. Okay, how big was that club? You
Speaker 1: a small club? I mean, how many people would be
Speaker 1: dancing on the floor. I don't think you could fit
Speaker 1: fifty people, Okay, That's why I was asking the size
Speaker 1: of that. Okay, But the club was packed besides the
Speaker 1: dance flo okay, just so I know, and that in
Speaker 1: those two clubs we could dance becauld. They also serve
Speaker 1: alcohol between just up until two, up till two and
Speaker 1: then up. And what happens at six am they opened up.
Speaker 1: They took this plywood off the bar and they opened
Speaker 1: up the bar, and we continue playing for two more hours,
Speaker 1: and inevitably we'd finish around seven, you know, and the
Speaker 1: borrower would come up and you put a twenty dollar
Speaker 1: bill on my B three and he'd say, play another set,
Speaker 1: and we would take it. Wow. Okay, at the time,
Speaker 1: you were the boat towns. How many nights a week
Speaker 1: we are playing? Well, you know, we used to play
Speaker 1: weekends when we were kids, and then you graduated high
Speaker 1: school and then we played whenever we could. Obviously we
Speaker 1: were doing before hours gigs to you know, and but
Speaker 1: you know we weren't like really popular with like the
Speaker 1: high schools and stuff because we got into nightclubs early.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're playing around the bar of black
Speaker 1: nightclubs regularly, just those kind of after hours joints. There
Speaker 1: was Soul City and Hayward. There was a Lucky thirteen
Speaker 1: in Albany, there was Frenchies were sly Stone, so they
Speaker 1: got his name. You know, all these clubs and we
Speaker 1: played a lot, okay, and then you change your name
Speaker 1: to Tower of Power. Did you get into the film
Speaker 1: or west? Well, what happened is, you know, I met
Speaker 1: this guy Doc, that's my songwriting partner, Stephen Coopka, and
Speaker 1: uh he was the first. Why he wasn't yet he
Speaker 1: was Steve just a jump ahead. Why did he turn
Speaker 1: into Doc? Because his father was kind of a famous
Speaker 1: doctor that got caught in this scandal in Berkeley. And
Speaker 1: our singer Rick Stevens, Uh, he's the guy that went
Speaker 1: to jail for thirty seven years. He found out about
Speaker 1: Doc's dad and said, oh man, we gotta call you
Speaker 1: the doctor. And then the guy taking the photos of
Speaker 1: our first record, So yeah, we'll call him the funky Doctor.
Speaker 1: And then over the years he just became Doc. Everybody
Speaker 1: calls him. Okay, So how did the father get in trouble? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a you know, sortad story. I think
Speaker 1: he had a mistress and that kind of embarrassment to
Speaker 1: the family. Okay, And then talk about the thirty seven
Speaker 1: years up up the river while we're there. Well, that
Speaker 1: was my lead singer, Rick Stevens. He was our second
Speaker 1: lead singer, and I fired him for heroin addiction, and
Speaker 1: about four years later he went on a drug run
Speaker 1: and killed three people and went to prison for three
Speaker 1: or seven years. They pinned it all on us, although
Speaker 1: he'd been out of the band four years, you know, right.
Speaker 1: And so just because this an interesting fact, how many
Speaker 1: lead singers this Tower of Power had, you know, I
Speaker 1: lost count? Okay, let's go back to fillmore West. So
Speaker 1: what happened? So Doc is the first hippie I ever met,
Speaker 1: and he played the baritone sacks. You know, and we
Speaker 1: were trying to add a horn, uh horn with somebody
Speaker 1: to the section. We thought we wanted a trombone player,
Speaker 1: but you know, they weren't working out. They were really square.
Speaker 1: They couldn't do the steps, you know. And so we're
Speaker 1: doing this gig and I met Doc and he says,
Speaker 1: you know, you got a good band, but your horn
Speaker 1: section needs some bottom. And by the way I played
Speaker 1: the berry Sack, I invited him to come, and you know,
Speaker 1: all the guys like when he gets there, hippie guy,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're all like, you know, what's this,
Speaker 1: you know, and I go, uh, guy's a quirky guy,
Speaker 1: plays the barry, you know. So he comes in and
Speaker 1: immediately as soon as we heard the sound, we loved it,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he's in the band for a while,
Speaker 1: and he really likes what I do with all the
Speaker 1: songs because I used to change all these soul tunes
Speaker 1: around to make them sort of unique, our own. And
Speaker 1: he says to me, you know, why don't we write
Speaker 1: our own songs? That we started writing first song we
Speaker 1: ever wrote, You're still a young Man. And then, you know,
Speaker 1: we knew it was a dead end playing the stuff
Speaker 1: we were doing so, you know, all those clubs, so
Speaker 1: everybody was going to the Film or West and Bill
Speaker 1: Graham had started that the two record labels. There was
Speaker 1: Film More Records in San Francisco Records, and everybody was
Speaker 1: trying to get on there. So we submitted a tape
Speaker 1: and to our surprise, he wanted to scid us. I
Speaker 1: think David Rubinson had a lot to do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. Okay, when you change your name
Speaker 1: to Tower of Power, have you already submitted the tape? Uh?
Speaker 1: It was the writer around the same time actually, which
Speaker 1: changed your name the Tower of Power, and then you
Speaker 1: know we're recording this. We we we started writing songs
Speaker 1: and we recorded a few of them, but we recorded
Speaker 1: a lot of covers, but there covers our own sort
Speaker 1: of version, like Joe Cocker. Would we arrange the song? Right? Okay,
Speaker 1: how did you hook up with David Rubinson? Well, he
Speaker 1: was the guy that Bill Graham brought out to the
Speaker 1: Bay Area. He was the you know, the big producer.
Speaker 1: He had produced Moby Grape and some others, and and
Speaker 1: they went into business and started these two record companies. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you submitted the tape that you had made independently.
Speaker 1: David was not involved producing. It was not the thing
Speaker 1: is We got uh a slot on the Tuesday Night auditions.
Speaker 1: It was in November. Okay, this is like early in
Speaker 1: the year. This is nine, and we had we had
Speaker 1: gotten busted for being underage for drinking because we're in
Speaker 1: one of those after hours joints and the bar opened
Speaker 1: and my trumpet player got a drink. The ABC busted us.
Speaker 1: So all of a sudden, we had no gigs and
Speaker 1: we're aiming for this gig in November at the film
Speaker 1: wore and that's like our only hope. Okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know the film or reachs. I grew up in
Speaker 1: the East Coast. Tuesday Night was kind of like the
Speaker 1: Troubadoor in l A or What Night. How did it worked? Yeah,
Speaker 1: audition They would have like five bands and then they
Speaker 1: all wanted to get signed to Bill Grahams. But it
Speaker 1: was open to the audience. Oh yeah, I was packed. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're how did you get that gig? You like
Speaker 1: submitted your request, you know. We went there and we said,
Speaker 1: you know, we want an audition, and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: we got a slot novem whatever. Okay, Well, did you
Speaker 1: have a manager? At this point? You were effectively the manager.
Speaker 1: We just didn't have a manager. I was the leader.
Speaker 1: That's why who you know, they always had someone who
Speaker 1: was making the connection. Usually it's the drummer. So I'm surprised. Well,
Speaker 1: my brother was a drumm and he was older, and
Speaker 1: so he was the leader first. But my dad made
Speaker 1: me be the leader. Your dad made you be the leader.
Speaker 1: He said, you know, you need to be. When I
Speaker 1: was younger, you know, he said you need to be
Speaker 1: the leader, and I go, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: the leader. Jack's older, you know, he's the leader. And
Speaker 1: he goes, no, no, you're the one. You're the one
Speaker 1: you need to be. He forced me. Okay, two things.
Speaker 1: How much older as your brother? Mons? Okay, so he's
Speaker 1: really not that much older. Well you don't think like
Speaker 1: that when you're a kid, I know, but people talk
Speaker 1: about older brothers sometimes ten years. The next thing, what
Speaker 1: did your father see in you that he knew you
Speaker 1: had to be the leader? He saw musical talent, he
Speaker 1: saw a creativeness, and he saw just a passion for it.
Speaker 1: I mean when I started the band, you know, life
Speaker 1: change for me completely, and my focus was that band
Speaker 1: and it's been that way for fifty years. Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: get back to that, but now you have this Thursday
Speaker 1: night audition, continue from Tuesday. Excuse me, Tuesday night audition
Speaker 1: continue from there. So you know we have been busted.
Speaker 1: So we're just like that audition is all we got. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: we had made the tape and we got a friend
Speaker 1: of ours. He edited it and we submitted it to
Speaker 1: the film More. OK a little bit slower. Where did
Speaker 1: you make that tape? Who produced that tape? What happened
Speaker 1: at the after hours joint? Really? Yeah? You know, you
Speaker 1: just taped our sets and then a friend of ours
Speaker 1: who was a drummer for quite a famous band called
Speaker 1: the Loading Zone. They were they were already playing the
Speaker 1: film or West, and he edited them. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: let me take care of these edit. We were like,
Speaker 1: what's edit? We didn't even know what that was. Do
Speaker 1: you remember how many songs were on that original tape?
Speaker 1: For how long it was? So when we gave it
Speaker 1: to them, there was probably Yeah, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of missions. Okay, original though, right right? I realized, but
Speaker 1: you know today demo tapes like you know, three songs,
Speaker 1: but there was like ten Originals. Okay, so you get
Speaker 1: the Tuesday night slot. What happens, Well, you know, we're
Speaker 1: the we're the closer for some reason. And uh, there's
Speaker 1: like five bands, and any of those bands we ever
Speaker 1: heard of since I remember Neil Sean was in one
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, yeah, and I remember real clearly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And but they were all the same, you know. They
Speaker 1: were like playing in A and E and you know,
Speaker 1: had guitars and you know, and they were like rock bands,
Speaker 1: you know. And then we come out and we got
Speaker 1: all these horns, and we got this short, little black singer,
Speaker 1: you know, and they took one look at us, they
Speaker 1: turned around, they started walking out, and we hit with
Speaker 1: the a song called Opened the Door by James Brown,
Speaker 1: but a little bit and it was like somebody said
Speaker 1: about face. Man, they all just turn around, start walking back,
Speaker 1: and I see this head stick out of this place
Speaker 1: in the back, and that was Bill Graham. He always
Speaker 1: liked rhythm, he always like horns, and he was like
Speaker 1: he checked it out, you know. But we were at
Speaker 1: the end of our rope and I was going back
Speaker 1: to Detroit my parents and moved back there, and I
Speaker 1: told the guys, I'm going back for the holidays. If
Speaker 1: nothing happens, I'm not coming back. We were starving because
Speaker 1: we couldn't work because we busted, you know, and so, uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't think nothing was going to happen. I didn't honestly,
Speaker 1: you know. I flew home. Doc calls me about three
Speaker 1: days later. He says, you gotta come back, you gotta
Speaker 1: come back. He dug it. He dug it, and I go,
Speaker 1: who dug it? And he goes Bill Graham. He wants
Speaker 1: to sign us. Well, you know, we didn't know. I said,
Speaker 1: hock the organ and send me a ticket. I had
Speaker 1: this little box organ, you know, I didn't like using it.
Speaker 1: He hocked it, sent me an airplane ticket. And then
Speaker 1: we went to the loading zones manager who really liked us,
Speaker 1: but never thought in a million years we would get
Speaker 1: you know, his his singer Linda Tillery was trying to
Speaker 1: get signed to her bands. We linded Divine and uh.
Speaker 1: We went to Ron Barnett. We said, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't know what to do. Man. He gave us his country.
Speaker 1: We had the contract, and he says, you know, he's
Speaker 1: kind of stunned. And so he comes out to visit
Speaker 1: with the band and he says, how many people are
Speaker 1: in the band at that point there was nine? Okay,
Speaker 1: so okay, go back to Barnett. So he comes out.
Speaker 1: He says, you know, if I manage you, something needs
Speaker 1: to be understood. Whatever I tell you to do, you
Speaker 1: have to do it. And we all go, You're gonna
Speaker 1: manage us, like we couldn't believe it, you know. And
Speaker 1: uh and he says, first of all, this record deal,
Speaker 1: he goes, it's it's not a very good record deal,
Speaker 1: but you have no bargaining power whatsoever, and you're lucky
Speaker 1: to have it. I can't even believe that he's offered
Speaker 1: it to you. He said, there are a few changes
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot for, and he got about three of them.
Speaker 1: You know. Was there a lawyer involved? I don't think
Speaker 1: there was. Actually think he went to Bill because he
Speaker 1: knew Bill because he dealt with the loadings, right, and
Speaker 1: he just said, look, you know, these guys are just kids,
Speaker 1: but this right here, you know, and uh and he
Speaker 1: got that this this stuff changed and then uh what
Speaker 1: happened is, you know, David Rubinson then started dealing with
Speaker 1: us because he was the producer, right, Okay, I hear
Speaker 1: from Rubenson all the time, and he's in France, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he's always a big health expert because he had
Speaker 1: a heart attack whatever. But I'll let him tell his
Speaker 1: own story. But he was known for being difficult and autocratic.
Speaker 1: Was that your experience, Yes, it was, but you know,
Speaker 1: I'll say this. You know he uh, he had the
Speaker 1: foresight to want to sign a young unknown band. He
Speaker 1: saw the raw talent and he's the one. He he
Speaker 1: didn't like my brother the way he played drums, and
Speaker 1: he said, we're gonna bring in a studio drummer. We
Speaker 1: were like, you know what, you know, we're a band.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You know, it almost broke
Speaker 1: up the band, actually, you know, yeah, I know that's
Speaker 1: a big thing. You got a member of a band.
Speaker 1: He frequently breaks up the band. Yeah. Yeah. So but
Speaker 1: you know, my brother at the last minute decided he
Speaker 1: was going to go back to Detroit and view with
Speaker 1: my parents and he said, I want you to stay
Speaker 1: at and what I don't I don't think the band
Speaker 1: should lose the contract because I was gonna take my
Speaker 1: brother and just start over. And uh, and so I
Speaker 1: stayed and then um, I had seen David Garibaldi, our
Speaker 1: drummer today. He was filling in for the opening for
Speaker 1: the Befour Hours band and uh I said this, this
Speaker 1: is the drummer for us, and was he good enough
Speaker 1: for Rubenson and Rubens and still used the studio. Soon
Speaker 1: as soon as David Garibaldi came into Man Plus, I
Speaker 1: brought this guy, Willie Fulton, the stinging guitar player that
Speaker 1: played like Steve Cropper even more so it's just great
Speaker 1: and so there was never no more discussion about changing nobody. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you make that record, how long does it take? Okay,
Speaker 1: you play in October? When is the deal signed? When
Speaker 1: do you go in the studio? Are we signed? You know,
Speaker 1: within a probably within a month after that, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh and then they called us. It was actually interesting.
Speaker 1: It was the day that the Stones played Altamont. We
Speaker 1: lived near Altimont, you know, and so we were all
Speaker 1: we were just about to walk out the door to
Speaker 1: go to Altamont and we get this phone call from uh.
Speaker 1: We used to call h Mutton, Jeff. They were like Rubens,
Speaker 1: and they go, we want you in the studio at
Speaker 1: one o'clock, you know, going over to Pacific Recording at
Speaker 1: San Mateo and We're like, what's happening. We want to
Speaker 1: see how you record? And it took us in and
Speaker 1: uh and we did. You know, we recorded a few songs.
Speaker 1: My brother was still in the band. It was that's
Speaker 1: what made him decide. Yeah, you know, he didn't want
Speaker 1: my brother in the band or the guitar player, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh, but then you know, once we got David
Speaker 1: Garibaldi and plus we're way you're in the studio, then
Speaker 1: you sure what happened at Altamont? What goes through your head? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got home that day and we're like, man, you know,
Speaker 1: the the guy got murdered and I was like riot
Speaker 1: and the Hells Angels went crazy. And you know, years
Speaker 1: later we knew the girl that was with the guy
Speaker 1: that got murdered. Oh yeah, yeah, Judy Nelson, never forget it. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's quite a connection. So you'd go in the studio
Speaker 1: that day, David's unhappy with a couple of players. What
Speaker 1: happens next, Well, we get David Garibaldi and Willie Fulton
Speaker 1: and we're getting hot in the Bay Area. I mean,
Speaker 1: so now you can work again. Well, yeah, what what
Speaker 1: happened is that Bill Graham had this agency also, so
Speaker 1: he not only signed us to the record deal, he
Speaker 1: signed us to songwriting deal, publishing deal, booking agent, and management.
Speaker 1: And he had an agency, the Millard Agent, and Terry
Speaker 1: Persons and Joe Bailey were there, and so they call up.
Speaker 1: You know, first of all, we informed them that we
Speaker 1: can no longer play these clubs, so you know, they
Speaker 1: can't book us, and none of the high school's watered
Speaker 1: us because they had no idea who we were. We
Speaker 1: hadn't played so long. And so he calls up and
Speaker 1: he says, uh, what do you think about going to
Speaker 1: Mexico City for fourteen days? And then we go are
Speaker 1: you kidding? You know? And you'll play ten days and
Speaker 1: you'll be off four We go great, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: they were trying to bring Santana down there, and they
Speaker 1: had banned concerts for the last two years because of
Speaker 1: a riot that happened when The Dead played there. But
Speaker 1: they wanted to bring Santana down there, and so they
Speaker 1: were like testing the waters with some fillmore groups. So
Speaker 1: they sent us in this band named Kimberly, and we
Speaker 1: went down there. We played four days and there was
Speaker 1: like federalities surrounding the joint, like every night, so nobody
Speaker 1: came in. We're playing like three people, you know, and
Speaker 1: after four days the thing shut down. There was this
Speaker 1: guy Mario was the promoter, and he was poling up
Speaker 1: with uh, Jim Morrison. He was down there pardon with
Speaker 1: this guy Maso. And so after four days he says,
Speaker 1: that's it, it's not gonna work. So we had like
Speaker 1: ten days off. Jim Morrison's down there and think they're
Speaker 1: taking us to like press parties that we're jamming with
Speaker 1: this band called the Love Army, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was a very memorable time. I remember I got up
Speaker 1: one morning, I walked out of the hotel sweets and paradoor.
Speaker 1: I look up and Jim Morrison is hanging over the
Speaker 1: balcony and he's throwing up. And we would see him
Speaker 1: and like, you know, nine thirty in the morning at breakfast,
Speaker 1: and he'd be so nice and so together, you know,
Speaker 1: but he'd already be hitting the screw divers, you know.
Speaker 1: And then at night we go sit in with the
Speaker 1: Love Army and he said, you know, let's play some
Speaker 1: good old American rock and roll, you know, and he
Speaker 1: swing his microphone and you know, I remember he caught
Speaker 1: the symbol stand and pulled it over and acted over.
Speaker 1: It was really a scene, you know, but very memorable time.
Speaker 1: That was our first tour ever. Okay, then you get back,
Speaker 1: what's up with working and recording? Well, we make the
Speaker 1: record and it's a it's a regional hit. Okay, you
Speaker 1: make you make the record. How long does they take
Speaker 1: you to make the record? Two weeks? Okay? Why is
Speaker 1: the first album on Atlantic and the subsequent albums on
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers. Because after we made the record, we got
Speaker 1: pretty hot in the Bay Area. So then they send
Speaker 1: this out on tour and we get out there and
Speaker 1: like all bands, you know, we're all disappointed because we
Speaker 1: go and there's no records nowhere, and Bill grahams we
Speaker 1: know this now. We didn't know it then, but Bill
Speaker 1: Graham's calling on me and heard again and say, you know,
Speaker 1: what's going on? There's no records in the stores, and
Speaker 1: you know, but we come back all discouraged. And this
Speaker 1: is when we had we had fired the first singer
Speaker 1: and we had brought in Rick Stevens and he's, you know,
Speaker 1: now he's in the band officially. A lot of drugs
Speaker 1: are going on, and he's saying, you know, I know
Speaker 1: a guy up there, and you know he fought Bill
Speaker 1: Graham and Da Dada and he managed Slide and he
Speaker 1: managed Buddy Miles and blah blah blah, and like fools
Speaker 1: we went and we could front of Bill and a
Speaker 1: really really stupid way. Okay, just with that guy or
Speaker 1: just by yourself that who was that guy, Louis Gordon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he went to jail. Shortly after that, they confronted Bill.
Speaker 1: Out of that place. Bill. Bill wanted to actually fight
Speaker 1: Rick Stevens in the gutter. He goes right now in
Speaker 1: the gutter. Kieva Christo was Bill's lawyer. He had his
Speaker 1: arms round No Bill, no, you know, we walked out.
Speaker 1: I remember we got around the corner was right across
Speaker 1: from the film or West. We're around the corner from
Speaker 1: the film or West. I said, I looked at those
Speaker 1: guys that go, we made a huge mistake today, huge
Speaker 1: And let's go up to Louise House around a lot
Speaker 1: of coke and drinking and chicks. And but then um
Speaker 1: me and Doc we started to go see Bill on
Speaker 1: Mondays when we were in town. Well, we just to
Speaker 1: be clear, how did it at the meeting end? Not good?
Speaker 1: A lot of cursing and yelling. You know that's your problem,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of stuff. Okay, but he didn't
Speaker 1: say I'm done. He no, he didn't have to say
Speaker 1: I'm done. He had our contract, he owned us. We
Speaker 1: didn't know this at the time, you know, but eventually
Speaker 1: Doc and I would go see him on Mondays and
Speaker 1: we'd go in and we say, you know, Bill, you know,
Speaker 1: we're so sorry with the way we handle this thing,
Speaker 1: and we just we really do to make another record
Speaker 1: and the band's bigger than ever, we're doing better than ever.
Speaker 1: We gotta make a record, and you got the record
Speaker 1: contract and he's and he'd start talking real soft. He say,
Speaker 1: you know, guys, is I know you made a mistake.
Speaker 1: I understand you know you're young. Blah blah blah. He goes,
Speaker 1: and you know I have this contract on you. He goes,
Speaker 1: you know what I managed Santana. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: contract on him. And he standing up, goes and he
Speaker 1: screwed me, you know, And he started yelling at us
Speaker 1: and pointing us finger and we'd be in the chair
Speaker 1: and he had an office that had glass all around it,
Speaker 1: and so there's like thirteen secretaries out there watching us,
Speaker 1: you know, and we did this like you know, four
Speaker 1: or five six times. You go in and the girls
Speaker 1: will see us walking in and they got good luck
Speaker 1: that you know. So okay, Santana screwed him. So what
Speaker 1: did he say? He was gonna do nothing. Nothing, Nothing
Speaker 1: got resolved. And so finally what happened is that guy,
Speaker 1: that cocaine dealer manager went to jail, and we got
Speaker 1: Ron Burnett back. We went to Ron, told him what happened.
Speaker 1: He went to Bill and he goes, all right, Bill,
Speaker 1: what do you want? You know? And Bill just screamed
Speaker 1: for about forty minutes and then he goes, I want
Speaker 1: forty dollars and two points, you know. And Ron went
Speaker 1: to Warners. Everybody was going to Warners and they wanted
Speaker 1: us bad. And Warners paid that part to Bill. Okay,
Speaker 1: how long did he pay for? How many albums did
Speaker 1: you get two points on in the deal? The record deal?
Speaker 1: So for the whole deal he got two points? Okay.
Speaker 1: So who was the person at Warner Brothers who was interested?
Speaker 1: Who did you deal with? Well, you know, Joe Smith,
Speaker 1: Mo Austin. Uh, there wasn't a specific person. I mean
Speaker 1: Joe who unfortunately recently passed. He tells a story about
Speaker 1: going up and meeting the Grateful Dead. Was there anybody
Speaker 1: who came up to see you? Well? Uh, we got
Speaker 1: to know all of them shortly after that. Once they
Speaker 1: signed this, we did bumps that he was. They had
Speaker 1: a press party out at Mickey Heart's Ranch. Uh, and
Speaker 1: we were out there, and you know, Joe Smith was there,
Speaker 1: and most was there. Carl Um. Oh, god, I can
Speaker 1: see him. What's his last name? But it will come
Speaker 1: to me, Yeah, big guy. And plus we all went
Speaker 1: on tour with those guys. They took this tour out
Speaker 1: to Europe called the Warner Brothers Music Show with six bands,
Speaker 1: and we were one of the bands. Little Feet, Graham,
Speaker 1: Central Station, the Doobie Brothers, Montrose, and a group called Bonnaroo.
Speaker 1: That would be quite a tour, Okay, So what was
Speaker 1: it like beyond that tour? Oh, it was a decadent tour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. We got really close
Speaker 1: with Little Feet because we had already done one of
Speaker 1: their records. We did this song called Spanish Moon, and
Speaker 1: so we used to sit in with them and do
Speaker 1: the horn parts and we got real close with that. Okay.
Speaker 1: That begs a question, what's your take on Lowell? George
Speaker 1: phenomenal can say? Really, I mean, you know, I just
Speaker 1: he knew how not to overplay. There's a better way
Speaker 1: to say that. But you know, there's certain records. We
Speaker 1: just put a little taste guitar and he had the
Speaker 1: sweetest voiced Yeah, unbelievable. Okay, So Bump City. I heard
Speaker 1: bump City because that was in the era when uh
Speaker 1: they put out the two first for two dollars, and
Speaker 1: it was on one of them. That's how I discovered
Speaker 1: bump City, Bump Bump bump. Okay, So let's go back
Speaker 1: a chapter. They're nine guys in the band. Well by
Speaker 1: then it was eleven. Okay, you can't make any money? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well that's why I tell the kids today. They say,
Speaker 1: you know, any advice, I go, yeah, I start a trio.
Speaker 1: I mean, how are you staying alive with eleven people
Speaker 1: in the band. Well, it's a mood point because whatever
Speaker 1: money we were making, we're wasting it. You know, we're nuts,
Speaker 1: completely crazy. For the first twenty years, we made every
Speaker 1: mistake known to men. Okay, other than the lead singers,
Speaker 1: how many other musicians went in and out? Or was
Speaker 1: it generally steady. I can't even cut the singers. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to cut all those musicians. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is in your hey in that Warner Brothers heyday, Okay,
Speaker 1: was the band relatively stable? Well, I mean we were staying.
Speaker 1: You know, it was always like, you know, Doc and
Speaker 1: me and Rocco the bass player. Rocco has been with
Speaker 1: me since I was fourteen, and he was all the
Speaker 1: way up until last year. You know what fired him?
Speaker 1: I fired him for eight years in the early eighties
Speaker 1: for her own addiction, but brought him back. I mean
Speaker 1: that begs a question on the contract. Whose names were
Speaker 1: on the contract? Everybody or just the three of you
Speaker 1: or everybody? Everybody? Yes, okay, so somebody leaves, you have
Speaker 1: to have a whole legal thing with getting him out
Speaker 1: of the band. Yeah, it wasn't a big deal, you know,
Speaker 1: they just we just informed the record company and things
Speaker 1: went on. You know. Okay, did you ever get any royalties? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I still get Okay, Okay, how do you split up
Speaker 1: the royalties? Oh? I don't split them up. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: over the years we went and we said you got
Speaker 1: to send it to him direct, you know. Okay, but
Speaker 1: if they play it on the record, everybody who everybody
Speaker 1: was in the band at that time still gets a piece,
Speaker 1: assuming there is a piece. Yeah, I mean there's only
Speaker 1: there's only a piece on the Warners records. You know,
Speaker 1: we went to CBS. They give us a ton of
Speaker 1: money over there. We never recouped there, you know, so
Speaker 1: there's not a bunch of royalties coming in to be
Speaker 1: split up. You know. Well, it's just kind of funny.
Speaker 1: It's you know, very easy going as opposed to you know,
Speaker 1: so many cutthroats stories. I mean, we've got our cutthroat stories.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't think of one off the top
Speaker 1: of my head. But okay, so Bump City hits and
Speaker 1: I certainly remember. I guess it was seventy five. You know,
Speaker 1: there's only so much oil in the ground. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: that's one of my favorites. Okay, tell me the story
Speaker 1: of how that came together. Well to Doc. Doc is
Speaker 1: the quirky one, you know, and so we were by
Speaker 1: then we had written a lot of songs, and he
Speaker 1: comes to me. It was during the time in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area was one of the first oil spills, and
Speaker 1: so they had this emergency thing all over the news
Speaker 1: people are. You know, they're showing all these films with
Speaker 1: people washing seagulls because they're covered with oil, you know,
Speaker 1: they're dying and uh, and we were watching it and
Speaker 1: Doc says to me, you know, we should write a
Speaker 1: song called only so Much Oil in the Ground. And
Speaker 1: I go, what's that? What do you mean? You know?
Speaker 1: And he was, you know, like, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do when we run out oil? So what happened? And
Speaker 1: then he tells me the story that when he was
Speaker 1: a kid. I guess he was acting out and they
Speaker 1: sent him to the principal's office and he goes in
Speaker 1: there and the guy says, Stephen, is there anything troubling you?
Speaker 1: And Doc waits a minute and then he goes, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's that, Stephen? And he says, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: do when we run out of oil? I went to
Speaker 1: high school. Principal said, go back to class. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: But so we wrote that song. But I remember Raven
Speaker 1: to my manager Brown Barnette at the time. I said, man,
Speaker 1: this is the best song we ever did. It's hippist lyric,
Speaker 1: the hippist rhythm section, it's the classiest horn section, the
Speaker 1: baddest organ soul, the baddest tenor sol the vocals off
Speaker 1: the chart. I just I thought it was the best
Speaker 1: record we ever made, you know, and did nothing. Well
Speaker 1: it's interesting because yes it did nothing on the charts,
Speaker 1: but I could never get over it. I can tell
Speaker 1: you where I was playing it and you know, being
Speaker 1: into it because it was funny. I didn't think you
Speaker 1: said it was true, but it was also kind of
Speaker 1: funny the way the lyric was, Well, what's the story
Speaker 1: with bump City? How did that come together? Well? Uh,
Speaker 1: there used to be a song called the Bump and
Speaker 1: uh and you know, as I say, when we played,
Speaker 1: the dance floor was always full, so people will be
Speaker 1: out there bumping, you know. And so we had this phrase.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like he did you go to the club?
Speaker 1: That's that man? It was bump city. You know. It
Speaker 1: was just a phrase that we used. And then we thought, well,
Speaker 1: I mean that that's pretty much all we did. We
Speaker 1: hung out at the nightclub, you know, not only playing,
Speaker 1: but even on off nights. You know, we'd sleep in
Speaker 1: really late because we've been partying all night, and then
Speaker 1: we get up and go eat, and then we go
Speaker 1: down to the nightclub and hang out with all our friends,
Speaker 1: and so we thought we should write a song and
Speaker 1: call it down to the nightclub and then you know,
Speaker 1: well this nightclub will be called Bump City, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's a phrase like bump de bump de bump.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. Okay. So, how many albums on
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers six six and how does that ten year
Speaker 1: go from your viewpoint? I'm not sure what you mean
Speaker 1: by that. I mean, was it all a good experience
Speaker 1: with Warner Brothers? Yes, excellent experience. They were great, they
Speaker 1: loved us. We wanted to resign, and they gave us
Speaker 1: a good offer. But this is when if you read
Speaker 1: that book Hitman, remember like they talked about how yet
Speaker 1: Nikoff would just he would just sign X just to
Speaker 1: piss off Joe Smith. Yeah, it was James Taylor went
Speaker 1: to you know. So they gave us so much money
Speaker 1: we couldn't say no, you know, and so we we
Speaker 1: take the money and we get signed. And then they
Speaker 1: got no clue because they never wanted us to the
Speaker 1: first place, and they had no clue what to do us.
Speaker 1: They looked at us as a problem. You're you're already
Speaker 1: lost if you look at something that way, you know,
Speaker 1: and so there we gave us all this money, but
Speaker 1: you know it was not a good relationship, and pretty
Speaker 1: sure it just deteriorated. Okay, how demoral is it was?
Speaker 1: It was difficult, you know, I know that drugs had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with it for us. You know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it's all their fault, man, you know,
Speaker 1: we we we dug our own grave, you know, but
Speaker 1: we were still making great music and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they just weren't the company for us. What can I say? Okay,
Speaker 1: how many records were the CBS we did? Uh three?
Speaker 1: It was a sixth album deal, but we only did three.
Speaker 1: We did uh another stopping us now and we came
Speaker 1: to play and back to Opland. Okay, but then then
Speaker 1: the dal Ns that kind of leaves you kind of know.
Speaker 1: We asked them to let us out. That's what happened.
Speaker 1: And and I had been talking to Ted Templement over
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers, and Ted was you know, we knew him
Speaker 1: and he loved Garibaldi. We had gotten Garibaldi back in
Speaker 1: the band. Garibaldi left the band four times always because
Speaker 1: we were just two nuts. Couldn't take watching us kill ourselves,
Speaker 1: you know, So but he had come back because he
Speaker 1: couldn't stand being away either, so he had come back.
Speaker 1: And we're playing better than ever, you know. So I
Speaker 1: go to see Ted Templement, you know, and I say, man,
Speaker 1: you know, the band is like better than ever and
Speaker 1: we're stuck over there and you know, and he says,
Speaker 1: you get out of that deal and I will sign you.
Speaker 1: And at the time, Jeff Wald was my manager. Jeff
Speaker 1: Well Helen Ready's, uh, very intense guy. I like Jeff Wald.
Speaker 1: We got along well. And uh, he had a big meeting.
Speaker 1: In a matter of fact, the meeting was the day
Speaker 1: that they signed Chicago. We signed them, and the meeting
Speaker 1: was are they going to keep us? So let us
Speaker 1: go what are they gonna do? You know? And we
Speaker 1: went in there and remember Jeff Wald, he said, uh,
Speaker 1: when you go in this meeting, is yet Nikos is
Speaker 1: gonna be there, Lunvall is gonna be there. He goes,
Speaker 1: but don't pay no attention to him. He was the
Speaker 1: only thing that matters is this guy named Jack Craig. Oh,
Speaker 1: and he says he's got a n a hole about
Speaker 1: this big and he goes, uh, he goes, if he
Speaker 1: if he wants you you're gonna stay, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: you're not. He goes, and and I remember it was
Speaker 1: Bruce Lnvall that I really appealed to because he he
Speaker 1: was a solid guy. And we're at the table and
Speaker 1: they had already made the decision to resign Chicago. I
Speaker 1: remember Robert Lamb came out and offered me a bunch
Speaker 1: of blow and it's like party, you know. Then I
Speaker 1: go in and I'm sitting there with all these executives
Speaker 1: and my manager at Jeff Walden and Uh. I looked
Speaker 1: down at Bruce lonvill and I go, if you guys
Speaker 1: are gonna let us record, have the decency to let
Speaker 1: us go. And I remember he looked at me. He
Speaker 1: was merely, I need to tell you something. He goes,
Speaker 1: No matter what decision we make today, it has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with your music. You got a great band,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about this and get back to you.
Speaker 1: And they released us, and so we went right to Warners,
Speaker 1: and Warners gave us a bunch of money and ten
Speaker 1: Temple and said he would sign us. But then he
Speaker 1: started having problems. You know, he was messing around with
Speaker 1: Nicolette Larson and he had just done minute by minute
Speaker 1: and all those big Dooms records, and he went on
Speaker 1: the road with the Doobies. He's playing because Nicolette was
Speaker 1: singing background and she was opening the show. And he's
Speaker 1: out there and he's doing a lot of drugs and
Speaker 1: stuff and he won't return my calls, and so we're
Speaker 1: just like, you know, we're stuck. We got signed, got
Speaker 1: all this money, but we're not making a record. So
Speaker 1: I went to the opening, So but you did get resigned,
Speaker 1: got resigned? Yeah, great deal. And I go to the
Speaker 1: okan Hounitorium and he's on stage with the Dobie Brothers
Speaker 1: and when he comes down, I'm waiting at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the stairs and I tell him, I go, ted,
Speaker 1: we have to record. He was, oh, oh, hey man,
Speaker 1: good to see you. Listen, he goes, I'm not doing
Speaker 1: so good. You know, I got problems with my liver.
Speaker 1: I got a hold of my nose. You know, I
Speaker 1: got stuff going on in us. But because I think
Speaker 1: you should produce the record, and I go, that's fine.
Speaker 1: I go, but we gotta make the record, you know.
Speaker 1: And he goes, I'm gonna talk to them Monday and
Speaker 1: I'll get back to you. He goes to Warners to
Speaker 1: the Heads Up you know, Mo and car Joe and
Speaker 1: all them, and he says, uh, you know, Tower Parker
Speaker 1: needs to make their record and but I can't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go to treatment. I got liverything.
Speaker 1: And they all told him we only signed them because
Speaker 1: you wanted them, and they released us. Yeah, so in
Speaker 1: the eyes of the industry, oh yeah, we look like
Speaker 1: horror show, you know. And that's sort of the final
Speaker 1: straw that made the eighties come into existence, funny way
Speaker 1: of putting it. So, how did you make it through
Speaker 1: the eighties? Well, eventually, uh, you know, CBS was trying
Speaker 1: to get us to conform him to the disco thing happen,
Speaker 1: you know that. And you know, we tried to do
Speaker 1: what they wanted because they're giving us all this money,
Speaker 1: you know, But we always sounded like Tower Power no
Speaker 1: matter what we did. They're going like, if you could
Speaker 1: sound like these other bands, you know, And we used
Speaker 1: to think of ourselves like this is like we're cursed.
Speaker 1: Why can't we sound like these bands that are on
Speaker 1: the radio? You know? After we got lost the deal
Speaker 1: with Warners and everything and nothing was happening. I told
Speaker 1: the guys, let's just make the music like we always
Speaker 1: did because we could always play live. We always had
Speaker 1: a following, you know, and so we just went back
Speaker 1: to making our original songs and doing them the way
Speaker 1: we do them, and things gradually started to get better.
Speaker 1: And then Paul Shaffer really dug us. We started doing
Speaker 1: guest shots with the horn section, and even you know,
Speaker 1: I went on, I sang a song and this is
Speaker 1: a Letterman when he's on Ave on NBC, and we were.
Speaker 1: We were on Letterman like sixteen times in the eighties,
Speaker 1: you know. And then right about that time, we met
Speaker 1: Huey Lewis in the News and Huey Lewis was a
Speaker 1: fan we had. We had played for Bill Graham at
Speaker 1: the Old Waldorf and we had played all this new
Speaker 1: material that we had and he came backstage and he
Speaker 1: was gushing all over us, you know, and wow, where'd
Speaker 1: you get those songs? And uh, and he goes, my
Speaker 1: name is Huey Man. I'm a huge fan. And I
Speaker 1: had heard of Huey Lewis and the News and I
Speaker 1: thought out all these weird bands, Devo and the Knack
Speaker 1: and the Motels and the Cars. I thought, that's a
Speaker 1: cool name. And when he says my name is Huey Lewis,
Speaker 1: I go, oh, you got that band the News. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we love you guys, you know. And so then like
Speaker 1: a week later, we're doing a session at CBS, which
Speaker 1: was right by Rubinson's office and uh, he comes over.
Speaker 1: He says, we're across the hall. We have these two
Speaker 1: songs we think would be perfect for your horns, and
Speaker 1: we did, uh, I hope you'll love me like you
Speaker 1: say you do and working for a living, and when
Speaker 1: I had not heard them up to that point, but
Speaker 1: I go and hope you love me like you say
Speaker 1: you do. I don't know if you ever heard that song.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a salmon dave to right. It's
Speaker 1: so full, you know, And I was like, whoa, look
Speaker 1: at these guys. You know. So we immediately hit it off,
Speaker 1: and then they started to blow up a bit and
Speaker 1: we would go sitting with them. They come to l A,
Speaker 1: we go sit in different places, we'd sit in. They
Speaker 1: loved it, you know. But when they put out the
Speaker 1: Sports A sports yeah huge, you know, And he comes
Speaker 1: to me and he says, uh, you know, would you
Speaker 1: go on tour with us the Horns. I said, I
Speaker 1: got the band, you know, I can't just leave them.
Speaker 1: And he said, he said, well, you know, it just
Speaker 1: really will make it really worth your money, and blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. And I said, I'll tell you what if
Speaker 1: you let me bring the band out to do midnight
Speaker 1: shows after your concert and you announced it at the
Speaker 1: concert and say that your band is coming to sit
Speaker 1: in with us and and you know, and mention us
Speaker 1: in all the interviews, I'll do it. And he has
Speaker 1: no problem. Yeah, and he did. He was a man
Speaker 1: of his word. Okay, so you play the gig and
Speaker 1: you would ever city. This was when they were at
Speaker 1: the height of their success. And so you get a
Speaker 1: local club where, yeah, we'll be playing Jones Beach and
Speaker 1: we do a midnight show at the bottom line. And
Speaker 1: he had announced it, you know, at the concert to
Speaker 1: eighteen thousand people and say we're going to go sitting
Speaker 1: with our party to night the place to be seen
Speaker 1: right right right right. We played Connecticut, you know, we
Speaker 1: do the Agora, you know, and all these people would
Speaker 1: be there, you know pretty soon. It's like things are
Speaker 1: getting better, you know. And then okay, so continue the story. Well,
Speaker 1: then we couldn't get a record deal though, you know,
Speaker 1: because they still looked at us like, you know, like
Speaker 1: their music will never be popular again, and these these
Speaker 1: guys are over, and that's what the media was saying,
Speaker 1: you know. And uh, finally there was this guy. His
Speaker 1: name's Michael Kaplan, really cool guy. Yeah, he's from Connecticut.
Speaker 1: He's had a lot of other people now yeah, and
Speaker 1: he was at uh well, he used to come to
Speaker 1: my gigs. He used to go, I'm your biggest fan,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be in the record business, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've known this guy for years to show
Speaker 1: up and uh pretty soon, man, you know, he's like
Speaker 1: I'm in the mail room at you know. And then
Speaker 1: he got a gig and he was like a VP
Speaker 1: of A and R Epic and we were at our
Speaker 1: wits end. I went time manager at Michelle's Aaron I said,
Speaker 1: I want you to call this guy and tell him,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't do something, his favorite band
Speaker 1: is gonna be gone. And she called him up and
Speaker 1: he had just gotten sober. He had about two and
Speaker 1: a half years, I think, and I had just gotten
Speaker 1: sober and Doc had just gotten sober. And he found
Speaker 1: that out and He called me up and he goes, uh, hey,
Speaker 1: so here we're in the same club, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: And he goes, uh, you guys got any songs? I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: we always have songs. He goes, yeah, can you give
Speaker 1: me something? I'm going on vacation. I go yeah, And
Speaker 1: I sent him a cassette and he went down on
Speaker 1: the Virgin Islands. He came because you know what, I
Speaker 1: like this. He goes, But I can't sign you, dude.
Speaker 1: I can sign you anytime I want, but I can't
Speaker 1: do it unless I know I got the whole company
Speaker 1: behind it. He goes, so, I want you to take
Speaker 1: a gig for seven nights in Manhattan. So we did
Speaker 1: the bottom line seven nights, two shows a night. And
Speaker 1: he sent out a memo throughout the record company. Ten
Speaker 1: reasons why he should never sign a band like Tower
Speaker 1: of Power. You know, there are a bunch of dinosaurs,
Speaker 1: there are a bunch of drug addicts, They're too old,
Speaker 1: their style of music will never be popular again. Ten
Speaker 1: reasons right. He sends this out and the next day
Speaker 1: sends out another one, and he rebuts all those reasons,
Speaker 1: and then he starts bringing east. He starts bringing people
Speaker 1: down in fours and fives every night, four or five
Speaker 1: people from the company. He's just like rallying the company.
Speaker 1: And then he calls me on Sunday and he says,
Speaker 1: get the guys together for lunch. We're going out for
Speaker 1: a big celebration. You what's that? He goes, I'm signing
Speaker 1: you guys the seven album deal. And he signed this,
Speaker 1: God bless him. And then what happened. What we did
Speaker 1: a first record. You know, we hadn't done a record
Speaker 1: in years. We did Monster on the Leash for him
Speaker 1: and sold well, and you know, things are started to
Speaker 1: go good and continue to go better and better. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let's go back to the beginning. You originally from Detroit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: until I was eleven. Okay, you're in Detroit. We're in
Speaker 1: Detroit because Detroit has the rich suburbs, the poor suburbs,
Speaker 1: the inner city. Yeah, I was not in the rich suburbs.
Speaker 1: Where were you My dad? You know, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: a bartender and I was on Evergreen Road between Joy
Speaker 1: Road and West Chicago in the city, you know, not
Speaker 1: in When I was a little kid, we lived in
Speaker 1: the ghetto, in the projects, and uh moved to fourteen
Speaker 1: Street right down from what was the twenty Grand Club
Speaker 1: and uh, and then we were out there on Evergreen,
Speaker 1: but it was just a lower middle class. Your father,
Speaker 1: where did he come from? He's born in Laredo, Texas,
Speaker 1: but he had moved to Detroit. You know a lot
Speaker 1: of Mexican people moved to Detroit during the war. What
Speaker 1: was the motivation jobs? Yeah, and so you know, culinary
Speaker 1: industry was big Mexican guys coming up there being bus boys, waiters, bartenders.
Speaker 1: He became a bartender. It's a lot of nightlife in
Speaker 1: my family. Yeah, I can hear that. What about your mother?
Speaker 1: My mother was Greek. He met her in Detroit, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, she was a very flamboyant personality. They both
Speaker 1: had a great sensitive humor. They both loved music. There
Speaker 1: weren't musicians, but I loved music. My mother could play
Speaker 1: a little piano and sing. But you know that. Did
Speaker 1: they stay together? No, they they stayed together a long time.
Speaker 1: They divorced in the early nineties. Okay, how old were there?
Speaker 1: How were you when they divorced? I was forty three.
Speaker 1: What do you think about them getting divorced at that age? Well,
Speaker 1: I was getting a divorce at the same time. So
Speaker 1: it was kind of like we could sympathize with each other.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always funny when people are together that long.
Speaker 1: Did they every each of them find somebody new? They
Speaker 1: both did. Yeah, my dad found a couple of new
Speaker 1: my my mother found a wonderful Yugoslavian man, and uh, Evan,
Speaker 1: we loved him. We loved him. And then uh, she
Speaker 1: died in the mid two thousand's and he died about
Speaker 1: seven years later. Okay, so you're growing up in Detroit.
Speaker 1: What year were you were born? Again? Okay, so are
Speaker 1: you know Detroit? Obviously the home of Motown was there?
Speaker 1: That was like, okay, were listening to the radio up
Speaker 1: to the age of level Yeah, yeah, no, my my parents,
Speaker 1: you know, the high Fi came out whenever the kid.
Speaker 1: My parents played music all the time, The Platters, Bill
Speaker 1: Dog At, Elvis Presley, the Ink Spots, Mills Brothers. You know,
Speaker 1: they loved music. They're always playing records, Mario Lanza and
Speaker 1: k Starred. You know, we had lots of albums and
Speaker 1: they were always playing. Okay, and then, uh, at what
Speaker 1: point do you pick up an instrument? Well, what happens
Speaker 1: is we moved to the Bay Area. Okay, a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little why my dad lost his job, and he
Speaker 1: figured he could be broke over there just as well
Speaker 1: as in Detroit. You know, anybody in the baynew one guy,
Speaker 1: the guy that mentored him as a bar tender. We
Speaker 1: called him Uncle Jack McCarthy. And Jack was always telling
Speaker 1: my dad, who was also Jack, you know, Jack, you
Speaker 1: need to come out to the Bay Area, man, this
Speaker 1: is where it's happening. So he took us all out
Speaker 1: to the Bay Area, and Uh, I missed my friends.
Speaker 1: I'm a little kid. I missed my friends. So my
Speaker 1: friend was the radio. I'm listening to k w B
Speaker 1: and k f R C and k A A and
Speaker 1: Rest of the Moose, Syracuse and Tom downa Hue and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And uh, I loved listening to songs,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's when you know stuff by you know,
Speaker 1: all the all those Goffin and King songs. You know
Speaker 1: the Orleans and you know the Drifters, and you know
Speaker 1: all that. I loved it and write about. Then I
Speaker 1: started playing motown music and I'm missing my friends, you know,
Speaker 1: And then uh, you know, we become teenagers. I'm fourteen,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're going to the pool at summertime Fremont, California.
Speaker 1: We lived in San Francisco for three months and then
Speaker 1: my parents bought a house in the suburbs by this house.
Speaker 1: Did your mother work outside the home? Yeah, she would,
Speaker 1: you know, waitress, she would be a medical assistant, dental assistant.
Speaker 1: You know. My mom was always like, there was never
Speaker 1: enough money for mom. You know, it was, uh, no matter.
Speaker 1: We had everything we could ever want it, but she
Speaker 1: was always unhappy about that. And well what she was
Speaker 1: bad at your father didn't make a better living. I guess,
Speaker 1: you know what I guess. The point I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make is that they always ran away from their finances.
Speaker 1: So that's what they did. When they left Detroit, they
Speaker 1: had bills. You know, back then you could leave right
Speaker 1: right was the computerized. So they just moved over there
Speaker 1: and all those bills went away. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we established a life in the Bay Area and they
Speaker 1: got really badly in debt and they moved back to Detroit.
Speaker 1: You know that was like d m oh. You know
Speaker 1: I didn't know this as a kid, an at How
Speaker 1: how long did they stay in the Bay Area before
Speaker 1: they went And we got there in sixty two and
Speaker 1: they left in uh late and one day, you know,
Speaker 1: and by now I got the band right, And one
Speaker 1: day my mother says, you know, we're moving to Detroit.
Speaker 1: What we're moving to Detroit? You know, she's upset because
Speaker 1: the bills and everything, you know, And I go, what
Speaker 1: do you mean we're moving to I had the band,
Speaker 1: and my dad knew how important the band was to me,
Speaker 1: and he says, he comes to me and he says, uh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you and your brother stay out here,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna give you one year because if you
Speaker 1: don't make it within one year, you have to come
Speaker 1: back to try and be with me and your mother.
Speaker 1: And that was the deal. We were. You still in
Speaker 1: high school. I just graduated. Okay, So back to you're
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area, you're in Fremont. At what point
Speaker 1: do you start playing an instrument? Like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: fourteen years old and we're gonna go to the swimming
Speaker 1: bool at the local high school and we have this
Speaker 1: great idea. You know, these uh all the boys IrH
Speaker 1: are wearing these um tight muscleman T shirts. They call
Speaker 1: them muscleman T shirts. So they were like pastel colors,
Speaker 1: you know, Apricot and turquoise high neck collars fit tight
Speaker 1: on you. And we had this really great idea. We'll
Speaker 1: go into Mervyn's and we'll put on three of those
Speaker 1: T shirts and put our shirt over it and walk out.
Speaker 1: And we walked out and the manager's waiting and my
Speaker 1: dad takes me to uh he comes against me, and
Speaker 1: then he he gives me a notebook. He says, feel,
Speaker 1: this is why you're never going to steal again. He
Speaker 1: took me to apologize to the story manager and then
Speaker 1: he says, and think of something that's going to keep
Speaker 1: you out of trouble, or you're never coming out of
Speaker 1: that room again. All summer and uh, the Beatles had
Speaker 1: just come out, and we said we want to play
Speaker 1: music Dad, because my friend had just got a guitar
Speaker 1: when he was on vacation in Mexico, Jody Jody Lopez,
Speaker 1: my first guitar player. And uh, he took us where
Speaker 1: he used to get in the car. He goes. He
Speaker 1: took us to Allegro Music and Fremont. He points at
Speaker 1: the wall because all the instruments were hanging out in
Speaker 1: the wall. Is anything you want? And uh, my dad
Speaker 1: used to work in these show bars like uh, he
Speaker 1: worked at this hotel in palab Alto called The Companion,
Speaker 1: which was like a small Caesar's palace owned by Terry Melcher,
Speaker 1: days boy and producer. Yeah, so they have these show
Speaker 1: bands are like the Big Beats and the swingdon Lads
Speaker 1: and and these bands had horns and they were cool
Speaker 1: and just really cool. And we would go there to
Speaker 1: pick up my dad and I'd seen these bands rehearsing
Speaker 1: there and checking them out. And to me, the sax
Speaker 1: player was always the coolest guy, so I pointed the saxophone.
Speaker 1: My brother always said the drummer was the coolest guy,
Speaker 1: so he points at the drums. I remember we came
Speaker 1: home that day and the guitar player, Jody, he knew
Speaker 1: the beginning to Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison, and he
Speaker 1: starts going dune dun dune, dune dune, and my brothers going,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's gonna done done done, no, no,
Speaker 1: no none, and that's all he knew. And I'm squeaking
Speaker 1: on the saxophone and my mom walks in and she
Speaker 1: says they're gonna be huge stars. And then uh she
Speaker 1: became our manager her and eventually we got Rocko on
Speaker 1: the band. Although his name was Frank Houghton back then. Okay,
Speaker 1: but how did you learn how to play? My dad
Speaker 1: got us all these teachers. You know. Uh, I wanted
Speaker 1: to play a sax. He got me a sax teacher.
Speaker 1: So I started to learning how to play sacks. But
Speaker 1: I got bored with that. The cool guys and all
Speaker 1: those dish bands played the organs. He said, I want
Speaker 1: to organ. He got me a far Fista organ. But
Speaker 1: then it was the really cool organ was the box.
Speaker 1: He got me the box. You know. Then I wanted
Speaker 1: to play guitar, and it got me one of those
Speaker 1: box cheerdrop guitars. And you know, I'm learning. I would
Speaker 1: go tell these teachers what I want to learn. I
Speaker 1: want to learn how to play the chords on the guitar.
Speaker 1: I don't want to learn how to solo, and you know,
Speaker 1: and and I want to learn how to play chords
Speaker 1: and and figure out songs. I wanted to figure out
Speaker 1: the chords to my favorite records. Of course, that's what
Speaker 1: we did. So my dad went to one of these
Speaker 1: musicians at his job and he said, you know, my
Speaker 1: son is obsessed with music, and you know, I've gotten
Speaker 1: him a sack teacher. And guitar teacher, an organ teacher,
Speaker 1: and he goes, what else can I do for him?
Speaker 1: And the guy goes, get him a theory teacher, and
Speaker 1: he says, you know what's that he is? Just just
Speaker 1: do it. He goes, I know a guy, and he
Speaker 1: sends me to Norman Bates, who was the bass player
Speaker 1: for Dave Brubeck and then he owned a hotel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was at ABC Music and Berlin Game. And I
Speaker 1: would go there once a week and give me ear
Speaker 1: training and interval training, and he taught me about chords
Speaker 1: and about numbers. And I used to go there and
Speaker 1: used to think, what is this doing for me? I
Speaker 1: did not get it, you know. But every day I'd
Speaker 1: go back to the garage and I'd be trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the chords and the parts to all my
Speaker 1: favorite records, you know, so I could teach the band.
Speaker 1: And Uh, one day it just all fell into place.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, it's all math, it's all numbers. And
Speaker 1: I was always good math, you know. And the other
Speaker 1: thing my dad did was he got a guy named
Speaker 1: Terry Saunders, a phenomenal guitar player. He just died last year.
Speaker 1: He got him to come in and teach the band
Speaker 1: once a week as a band. Right, that's amazing. I
Speaker 1: don't know anybody else snore. He come in and he say,
Speaker 1: you know what song you want to learn? You know,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and he's satisfaction, you know, and he
Speaker 1: and he made us each player instruments. I remember one
Speaker 1: really cool thing he did. You know. We had high
Speaker 1: Frank Houghton, who later became Rocko Pressti Bayer, probably the
Speaker 1: most famous guy ever in our being it, you know,
Speaker 1: and uh, he looked at each of us, he goes,
Speaker 1: play your instrument. You on guitar. Jody plays the guitar,
Speaker 1: and he points out my brother to play your drums,
Speaker 1: and each guy plays it. When he goes to Frank,
Speaker 1: he says, play your guitar, and Rocco goes like this,
Speaker 1: he couldn't play at all, you know, and he looks
Speaker 1: at him. He says, you need to play the bass.
Speaker 1: And we all go what's a bass and he says,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, you need one, And within two
Speaker 1: weeks Frank was playing bass better than you know, seven
Speaker 1: years on the guitar, you know, and became one of
Speaker 1: the most famous bass players ever. But that teacher. I
Speaker 1: used to watch him and he'd be teaching us all
Speaker 1: these little parts, you know, and everybody we learned to
Speaker 1: play these songs. Pretty soon we got to be a
Speaker 1: good little band, you know, playing around the town. And okay,
Speaker 1: a little bit slower. Obviously, since you jumped from instrum
Speaker 1: into instrument, you had some sort of facility with this.
Speaker 1: And yeah it's current jack of all trades, master of none, no, no,
Speaker 1: But what I mean is, you know, back in the
Speaker 1: air of the Beatles. I certainly took piano lessons before that,
Speaker 1: but it became clear as we tried to form bands,
Speaker 1: some people, it was there were naturals and other people
Speaker 1: were not. Okay, so obviously you must have had some
Speaker 1: natural effaci and my dad made me be the leader.
Speaker 1: He saw that, okay, and he didn't see it in
Speaker 1: my brother j Okay, from the moment you got the saxophone,
Speaker 1: did you ever say, because you know, especially today, people
Speaker 1: buy their kids guitars. They played for a month, that's it. Okay,
Speaker 1: did you ever look back? Did you ever look you
Speaker 1: get the saxes and not really sure maybe I'd get
Speaker 1: the right instrument or whatever, or from the moment you
Speaker 1: got it. You were into it. So here's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's not the sacks, it's not the guitar, it's not
Speaker 1: the organ, it's the band. That's my instrument. That's what
Speaker 1: I do. And I realized this now. At the time,
Speaker 1: I didn't, but that was always my passion. I got
Speaker 1: tired of the sacks, and I got tired of the organ,
Speaker 1: and I got tired of the guitar, but I would
Speaker 1: go back and I go whatever the band needed. That's
Speaker 1: what I did, and my my deal became. I was
Speaker 1: the facilitator of the musicians in the band. I'd say,
Speaker 1: I tell my brother. My brother wasn't a really great drummer,
Speaker 1: but he practiced incessantly right, And I would tell him,
Speaker 1: I want to make this beat like a percolator beat.
Speaker 1: Remember the coffee commercial. Of course, I said, we're gonna
Speaker 1: make a beat like that. Do you know nobody was
Speaker 1: doing that? You know, that's why I wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: You know. I teach him that beat. No, no, you're
Speaker 1: based on doogle doogle bab boom, you know. And he
Speaker 1: learned this beat and then we do nine nine and
Speaker 1: a half. I Wilson Pigott, and I tell Frank, you know,
Speaker 1: go like this, Boogo, Google Goo Google. And I showed
Speaker 1: Jody on the guitar and show him much because I
Speaker 1: could play these things, you know. And that's what Doc
Speaker 1: noticed about what I did. He says, you know, what
Speaker 1: you're doing with these songs amazing, But why aren't we
Speaker 1: writing our own? That's how probably never would have come
Speaker 1: to my mind. Okay, just going back, but when a
Speaker 1: little kid, you're not that little, you're fourteen, gets ah soxophone.
Speaker 1: Saxophone is not that easy to play, okay. So, but
Speaker 1: you were determined and you never looked back. I wanted
Speaker 1: to play it in the band, okay. So you have
Speaker 1: the front and playing the guitar, yeah, okay, and you
Speaker 1: got the sacks. Your brother got the drums. So first
Speaker 1: the band was the three of you. You know. The
Speaker 1: point is it was a band first, and then we
Speaker 1: learned to so okay. But when it was a band,
Speaker 1: when the guy was coming teaching the parts, how many
Speaker 1: people were in the band. There was five? Okay. How
Speaker 1: long after you started in the garage did you play
Speaker 1: outside the garage? Oh? That's you know. Soon, I mean
Speaker 1: we we we started playing far sooner than we should
Speaker 1: have people do. Yeah. I mean we just got out
Speaker 1: there and started playing. You know what kind of gigs
Speaker 1: in the park, you know, at the school. Whatever. My
Speaker 1: mother could, uh you could dig up her. My mother
Speaker 1: and Frank's mother became the managers. Okay. And how many
Speaker 1: of these gigs need you get paid for? We were
Speaker 1: It wasn't about money. But were you getting paid or
Speaker 1: was it always for free? It wasn't always for free? Okay,
Speaker 1: So Needles just say, this is the era of the Beatles.
Speaker 1: What do we know about the Beatles? They were internationally famous,
Speaker 1: they got all the girls, and they were rich. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're starting the band other than loving the music, do
Speaker 1: you say, hey, I want to be famous, I want
Speaker 1: to be rich. I want to use this as a
Speaker 1: way to integrate myself. And I would say the most
Speaker 1: important out of those three would be the girls. Fourteen
Speaker 1: years old? That's why do you want to be in
Speaker 1: the band? Because you're cool? You know, That's that's that's
Speaker 1: the driving force. Okay. I got asked, did it work
Speaker 1: for you? Yeah? It worked. I mean it worked better
Speaker 1: than if I didn't have the band, you know, right? Okay,
Speaker 1: how many times you've been married? Three times? Okay? Are
Speaker 1: you married down? I just got married yet June. So, uh,
Speaker 1: the band first year you're in the high school. So
Speaker 1: the band starts when you're fourteen? Yeah, but not Tower
Speaker 1: of Power guy, I realized, Okay, when does it become
Speaker 1: the Motowns and Tower of Power? The Motowns when I
Speaker 1: was almost actually when I was sixteen, and then uh,
Speaker 1: I hired Doc when I was seventeen, and we changed
Speaker 1: our name a few months after. He was in the band,
Speaker 1: just before I was. And when when when you changed
Speaker 1: the name of the band. How many people were in
Speaker 1: the band? Uh? Nine or ten? You know. We had
Speaker 1: a singer, Rufus Miller and he came in the band,
Speaker 1: but then he left for like four months because the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers were after him for a cocaine did he
Speaker 1: just vanished? But then he came back. So he was
Speaker 1: with us when we auditioned. Okay, so it was always
Speaker 1: a big band. Was there a specific model? Did you
Speaker 1: say I want to be like them? Yes? Who was
Speaker 1: up the Spiders? You gotta tell me who that is? Nobody,
Speaker 1: you don't know who they It was a local soul band.
Speaker 1: They were a white soul band. They had a six
Speaker 1: ft three inch black chick named Truny Johnson, who was
Speaker 1: very good. But to be real honest, it was about
Speaker 1: the band. And they had a white singer named Dennis Delacua.
Speaker 1: He played organ and he had an alto sitting on
Speaker 1: the organ, and in the middle of the song when
Speaker 1: there was a horned soulely, he would stand up and
Speaker 1: play alto with the trumpet and tentor. I had never
Speaker 1: seen a band play soul music that tight and that soulful.
Speaker 1: It moved me and from that moment the night I
Speaker 1: saw them. How old were you then? I was sixteen?
Speaker 1: And after that all other forms of music were out
Speaker 1: there window only soul music. That was it. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until I started writing songs with Doc and sort of
Speaker 1: reopened my mind to other forms of music and listening
Speaker 1: to writers and all that, but I got like blinders
Speaker 1: on about soul music. I became a soul music fanatic,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be like the Spiders. Okay, did
Speaker 1: you play like rock and roll before you saw the Spiders? Okay?
Speaker 1: So this is my direction, you know somewhere in the city,
Speaker 1: right right right, Okay, So now you have the band,
Speaker 1: your parents announced they're escaping their bills, they're going back
Speaker 1: to Detroit. Yes, you graduate from high school. How often
Speaker 1: is what are you doing for money? How often is
Speaker 1: a band working? And not very much? Not very much
Speaker 1: at all. And uh, you know, I look back at
Speaker 1: that time in my life and I wonder how we
Speaker 1: even survived. My brother had this girlfriend named Kathy and
Speaker 1: they're still married today, and uh, she would be with
Speaker 1: us and she would bring us to Lasagnas a week,
Speaker 1: big ones, and we tried to parse that out. And
Speaker 1: you know, we had friends and uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: could drink for free. We go down to the nightclub,
Speaker 1: you know. And it wasn't that we couldn't I couldn't
Speaker 1: go to the nightclub, but we couldn't play at the
Speaker 1: nightclubs that we used to play because they had sent
Speaker 1: out this memorandum to all the clubs and the be areas.
Speaker 1: And you hire these kids again, you're losing your liquor license.
Speaker 1: So you know, we're just starving. That's why I say,
Speaker 1: by the time we did the film or audition, we're
Speaker 1: on our woods end, you know. And I told the
Speaker 1: guy there, look, nothing happens, I'm not coming back from Detroit.
Speaker 1: Doc was devastated. Everybody was what was your living situation?
Speaker 1: We we were renting a house and were the first
Speaker 1: house we got when my parents left. We had this
Speaker 1: old man and every time he came to click, then
Speaker 1: we said, oh we have it, but you also okay boys,
Speaker 1: And we were there for about four months and uh,
Speaker 1: he never collected her rent. It was God send, you know.
Speaker 1: And then then he kicked you out. No, no, the
Speaker 1: septic thing broke and uh and we we got out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night and went and took
Speaker 1: the money. We had the money to pay the rent.
Speaker 1: We just hadn't paid him, and we took that. You
Speaker 1: were never intending to pay him, probably not, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to live, you know. Tother auser meanted it and
Speaker 1: got two roommates. Okay. Did you ever have a day job?
Speaker 1: All right, you know, not very much. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember I worked when I was a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: a drug store. Not very long, you know. And plus
Speaker 1: when times we're really tough in the early eighties, I
Speaker 1: remember I answered the phone for a plumber in Santa Monica. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I sat there and wrote songs and got high,
Speaker 1: and uh answered the phone. He was a good guy.
Speaker 1: Was that the only low point for you and Tower
Speaker 1: of Power the early eighties or is there another time
Speaker 1: where you were at wits end um that was the
Speaker 1: lowest point, Yes, definitely, you know. And then but even then,
Speaker 1: you know, I went for another what eight years drinking
Speaker 1: and using it, you know, and then I really bottomed
Speaker 1: out and got clean. As soon as I got clean,
Speaker 1: everything started getting back. What was the motivation to get clean?
Speaker 1: It I'll stop working, you know, I had good by
Speaker 1: now I'm working with Hughey Lewis. I'm I'm making money, right,
Speaker 1: I got money, and but I'm spending it all on
Speaker 1: drugs and alcohol and I'm not getting loaded. I'm driving
Speaker 1: on and I feel like I got withdrawals. But I
Speaker 1: have drugs and me and stopped working. And yet even
Speaker 1: though it stopped working, I wouldn't quit giving my money
Speaker 1: to the guy, you know. And uh, and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to quit, but I didn't think I could. And
Speaker 1: I went into a hospital, not not for the treatment,
Speaker 1: not for a a or nothing. I didn't go there
Speaker 1: for that. I just thought I'm going to rest and uh,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, they'll kick me out. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: it was going to die. By the time I was
Speaker 1: forty I was thirty seven, and I went in there
Speaker 1: and uh, they did a lecture on the twelve steps,
Speaker 1: and I realized there was a way to stop drinking
Speaker 1: and using it and not be miserable a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: What do you know, hospitals, they don't just let you
Speaker 1: in for anything. There's a regular hospital rehab St. John's
Speaker 1: in Santa Monica. Okay, so you went into it's a rehab.
Speaker 1: It's a rehab. There's okay, there is, But I don't
Speaker 1: know what rehab is. I have no idea what it is.
Speaker 1: I saw. I say, I'd been hospitalized for pancreatitis like
Speaker 1: thirteen times. I couldn't drink alcohol, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I used a lot of drugs to keep away from it,
Speaker 1: but I always went back to the alcohol. And so
Speaker 1: just this vicious cycle in and out of hospitals, you know.
Speaker 1: And so finally, you know, I get there and they say,
Speaker 1: in order for us to let you into this facility,
Speaker 1: you have to be in a wheelchair. I was like,
Speaker 1: bring the wheelchair and I'm done, you know. And but
Speaker 1: I had no hope. I just thought I was going
Speaker 1: to rest for thirty days. And I went into this lecture.
Speaker 1: You know, there were these girls, they were talking, they
Speaker 1: were near me, they were going to you know, so
Speaker 1: so it's not working a program. And if you don't
Speaker 1: work a program there and they kick him out and
Speaker 1: this guy he works a good program. And I remember
Speaker 1: asking what's the program and they go, oh, you don't
Speaker 1: get to find out because you're in detox. That made
Speaker 1: me curious, you know. And the next morning I saw
Speaker 1: like thirty of those people going into this room and
Speaker 1: this guy, Joe Takamini, the doctor in Santa Monica, and
Speaker 1: he gave a lecture on those steps and I realized, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something you actually do so that you can stop
Speaker 1: drinking and using and not be miserable and wanted it
Speaker 1: and never drink again. Wow, never relapsed. And then today,
Speaker 1: thirty two years today, literally today, I woke up this
Speaker 1: morning thanking God. Okay, so you know, as part of
Speaker 1: I'm not a twelve stepper, but I'm familiar with it
Speaker 1: that you have to make amends and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Did you do that? And do you still go to meetings?
Speaker 1: I was there this morning seven am. Really absolutely how
Speaker 1: often do you go to a meeting? Wherever I can?
Speaker 1: I like going? That's why I was gonna ask that
Speaker 1: question next it and you love it because it Uh.
Speaker 1: For one, I like the feeling I get when I
Speaker 1: helped somebody, and when I share my recovery, you know,
Speaker 1: I help people and people come to me. I sponsor guys.
Speaker 1: It's just gets me out of myself. One of the
Speaker 1: things I learned in recovery is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole thing is getting out of self, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you I'm not very self centered,
Speaker 1: but that's a lie that I am, you know, And
Speaker 1: so you know, I've learned how to deal with that
Speaker 1: stuff in uh, in that recovery program. Okay, how did
Speaker 1: you end up in Santa Monica? Because you know, you
Speaker 1: all these stories happen in l A. And you've been
Speaker 1: in northern but when do you move down south? I
Speaker 1: was in the Bay Area, and you know, all that
Speaker 1: stuff had happened with the warners and CBS and my
Speaker 1: my career is falling apart and everything, and uh, I
Speaker 1: was at the Record Plan in Saucelito, where I worked
Speaker 1: for years making records, and I was friends with the owner,
Speaker 1: Chris Stone. And Chris Stone, you know, then, how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing? He says, hey, how's my favorite guy?
Speaker 1: You know? And I'm on, you know, crying the blues,
Speaker 1: and how a sudden he yells at me, and he says,
Speaker 1: get out of those because you're one of the most
Speaker 1: talented people I know. Get out of those Berkeley Hills
Speaker 1: clouds and get in the business. Get out the businesses
Speaker 1: in l A. I was stunned, man, stunned. You know,
Speaker 1: you never yelled at me. And I went home and
Speaker 1: you know, we're all strung out, and my wife's in
Speaker 1: the bed, and I got in and go, we're moving
Speaker 1: to l A. And she goes, what We're moving to
Speaker 1: l A. And she goes, why would we do that?
Speaker 1: I go because Chris Stones said so, and she okay.
Speaker 1: You know, Chris told me, he said, when you come down,
Speaker 1: you have free reign at the Record Plan twenty four
Speaker 1: hours a day. And that's what I did. I came
Speaker 1: down and I hung out at the Record Plan and
Speaker 1: I tried to get sessions and I got a lot
Speaker 1: of recording sessions. And but you don't live in l
Speaker 1: A now, no, no, no. I left when the earthquake happened.
Speaker 1: My wife. My wife was six months pregnant with their
Speaker 1: first child, and next thing I knew, I was in Scottsdale.
Speaker 1: I still haven't recovered from the earthquake. But uh, okay,
Speaker 1: so your brother Jack, where's he today? He stopped being
Speaker 1: a drummer, I presumed. Now he plays drums again. Now
Speaker 1: he did for a lot long time he stopped. And
Speaker 1: what did he end up doing for a living? He's
Speaker 1: like a uh remember when when the millennium happened, you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand, you know, and everything was everyone was
Speaker 1: afraid about what happened. Yeah, he was like head of
Speaker 1: uh computer security worldwide for Cisco. Then you know, like
Speaker 1: that's like a pretty good job. Oh yeah, he does good. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: you've been married three times? How many kids? Five? Five?
Speaker 1: How what are the ages? Uh? Forty four and twenty?
Speaker 1: And they all how many are still on the payroll?
Speaker 1: I mean that you have to support them. Oh they're
Speaker 1: all adults now, they all are, so they altered out.
Speaker 1: You have good relationship with all of them? My three
Speaker 1: young ones, I do not, although I love them with
Speaker 1: all my heart. They stopped talking to me when their
Speaker 1: mother decided she'd want to be married anymore. How long
Speaker 1: ago was that? It's over three years? Now it's one
Speaker 1: of the sorest parts of my life. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know I have confidence that that's gonna come around. How
Speaker 1: long were we with her? Twenty four years and she
Speaker 1: decided to end it? So why are they mad at you?
Speaker 1: You know, I can't really answer that because they don't
Speaker 1: talk to me. Well, since we're having an honest conversation,
Speaker 1: did you did she fire you because you behave badly? Um?
Speaker 1: That's another sort of one that's unanswered Bush. You know,
Speaker 1: she if you if you look at the paperwork and
Speaker 1: says your reconcilable differences. Right. I actually took it to
Speaker 1: the church. We became members of the church in two
Speaker 1: thousand four, and you know, we were having problems and
Speaker 1: we went there and did all this writ but she
Speaker 1: just kept going further and further south. And then uh,
Speaker 1: finally she and I thought, you know, we're Christians, she's
Speaker 1: not going to divorce. We we got to work through this,
Speaker 1: you know. But she wasn't able. She has she has
Speaker 1: a lot of baggage to alcoholic baggage, baggage from an
Speaker 1: alcoholic father and a lot of abuse there and uh,
Speaker 1: she needed you know, what happened with us is that
Speaker 1: she got overly upset with her kids, and one of
Speaker 1: the best mothers you'll ever meet in your life. But
Speaker 1: and this is my fault, is that I allowed that
Speaker 1: to happen. I should have you know, she met all
Speaker 1: my needs. She was a great wife, and uh, I
Speaker 1: should have nurtured the marriage and and insisted, you know,
Speaker 1: she tell me, you know, we're growing apart. You know,
Speaker 1: I need to be wooed. And then I go, let's
Speaker 1: go out, let's do something. Let's go and she well,
Speaker 1: you know, I got this kid thing with the kids,
Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, you know, we could take
Speaker 1: the kids, and it was always the kids, the kids
Speaker 1: and kids, you know, and I love my kids and
Speaker 1: I love being with them, so I'm not confrontational, you know.
Speaker 1: So I would just go okay, you know, and then
Speaker 1: you know, we did grow apart, and pretty soon it
Speaker 1: was too far apart to get back. Did she find
Speaker 1: somebody new? No, I doubt you will. I wish you would. Okay,
Speaker 1: So she's in Arizona and you're in Arizona, and I
Speaker 1: just got married in June. Yes, I say, how did
Speaker 1: you meet your present life? She's a member of my
Speaker 1: home group. What my recovery group oh okay, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I havn't own her for years. Okay, just to be clear,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, isn't there some kind of you know,
Speaker 1: you can't meet somebody in recovery do They never would
Speaker 1: date anyone and recovery ever ever, ever, they say, you're
Speaker 1: fishing and polluted waters if you do that. So how
Speaker 1: did you meet? Isn't she in the recovery group? You know?
Speaker 1: No matter what I did, God kept putting her in
Speaker 1: my life. And finally I just uh it was my
Speaker 1: sponsor actually told me. He said, you know, did you
Speaker 1: ever stop to think that maybe God wants you to
Speaker 1: be with that lady? You know? And I was like,
Speaker 1: I guess so, And now what is her What is
Speaker 1: her rage relative to you? Just four years younger? She's sixty,
Speaker 1: she have children, she has to and she has h
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to her young daughter and her family
Speaker 1: go speak to her either. So we both have that
Speaker 1: in our lives that in the program people, you're going, okay,
Speaker 1: how did you get into Christianity? My wife at the time,
Speaker 1: I was already really into spirituality, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: and I had already started reading the Bible. I used
Speaker 1: to read two pages a day for ten years, but
Speaker 1: I really didn't want to hear about Jesus Christ. Did
Speaker 1: not then I want to hang with people that talked
Speaker 1: about Jesus Christ. Because there was a time in my
Speaker 1: band when David Garibaldi was a Christian and he brought
Speaker 1: in two other Christians in. We called him the God Squad.
Speaker 1: And they're always pointing the finger. You need to quit
Speaker 1: use those drugs, and you need to read the Bible.
Speaker 1: And you know, alcoholics, they don't want to be pointed
Speaker 1: at and talked down to. But I could always see
Speaker 1: that it was working in his life. And so flash forward,
Speaker 1: you know, eventually, in my studies of all different kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, um, self help writers and spiritual I
Speaker 1: read the Koran, I read the Course of Miracles, I
Speaker 1: read the Bible, and then pretty soon I just settled
Speaker 1: on the Bible. I felt like that was the truth,
Speaker 1: and I would read the two pages a day. But
Speaker 1: I'm not wanting to hear about Jesus. And guess what,
Speaker 1: I didn't see him in there at all. You know, well,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to you're about Jesus because because of
Speaker 1: that situation with the Yeah, yeah, okay, so I thought
Speaker 1: of Christians, as you know, do good heer finger pointers
Speaker 1: because that was your experience. So do you believe in God? Now?
Speaker 1: I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very very friendly. So and even though it's my ex
Speaker 1: wife who you know, I got started right, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I haven't wavered in my faith at all. Okay, So
Speaker 1: how did the money thing work? You know, there were
Speaker 1: so many people in the band, so you know we're hippies.
Speaker 1: Everything is equal. Okay, But did was there enough to
Speaker 1: carry you through the whole time? God has always provided
Speaker 1: for me. I don't know how, but yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: at age sixty nine, hypothetically you can't play music. Do
Speaker 1: you have enough money to get you through? Or do
Speaker 1: you have to work to pay the bills? I have
Speaker 1: to work. I mean I probably have enough to get
Speaker 1: me through. But you know, people tell me when you're
Speaker 1: gonna retaried. No retirement of the Bible, that's a handmade thing.
Speaker 1: There's no retirement of the music business. My role models
Speaker 1: BB King, I'm gonna bob till a drop. Okay. So
Speaker 1: what's the status of the band today. Well, we uh
Speaker 1: healthier than ever, playing better than ever. We put out
Speaker 1: a fifty year celebration record UH in June of eighteen,
Speaker 1: Soul Side of Town. And when we made that record,
Speaker 1: we actually recorded two albums with the material. So today
Speaker 1: we have our new record coming out March twenty. It's
Speaker 1: called Step Up on mac Avenue Records. And then UH
Speaker 1: we recorded Are. We did a concert in Oakland at
Speaker 1: the Fox Theater and we had all these old members
Speaker 1: of the band Colm, we had extra background vocalists and
Speaker 1: ten strings and just phenomenal gig. We filmed two nights
Speaker 1: and UH filmed it an HD. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I'm in town. I'm mixing UH that live recording. And
Speaker 1: what's the plan for it? Fifty year DVD documentary on
Speaker 1: Tower of Power? Okay, and you'll sell it to Netflix,
Speaker 1: Showtime somebody. That's the plan. Okay. How often does the
Speaker 1: band work? Two hundred days a year? We're out, But
Speaker 1: that's not all gigs. That's travel days and off days
Speaker 1: as well, so many gigs. I don't know, and Doc
Speaker 1: knows all that stuff, but I would say anywhere from
Speaker 1: But who books it? Now? We're with Paradigm. I had
Speaker 1: an agent for years that I actually put him in
Speaker 1: the business, Guy Richard he was with a p A
Speaker 1: funny was just talking about the kids. The name came
Speaker 1: up last night, guys, funny. Yeah, I was out with
Speaker 1: some agents. Guy who works at a PA. He was tired.
Speaker 1: He had a health scare, right, he's saying, because that's
Speaker 1: how it came up, because he's we tired and said,
Speaker 1: you know, I want you to take over these acts. Okay,
Speaker 1: guys are great, great guy, How how did you put
Speaker 1: him in the business because we were having a hard time.
Speaker 1: We had a guy named Peter Shils. Do you remember
Speaker 1: Peter Shields and William Morris. We were with William Morris,
Speaker 1: guy named Peter Shil's biggest agent there and he handled us.
Speaker 1: But when things started to go south, you know, we
Speaker 1: needed gigs and he wasn't getting them and he's going, well,
Speaker 1: you know, uh what was he was just waiting answering
Speaker 1: the phone because he had George Benson and Bill Cosby
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of cocaine going on at William Morrison.
Speaker 1: Then there was a big bust. But before the bus happened,
Speaker 1: we went to Peter. We said, look, man, you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta do something. And Doc had started a little
Speaker 1: sideband and guy had booked him in San Diego at
Speaker 1: San Diego State and he was like in the entertainment
Speaker 1: banking part there and he wound up working and William
Speaker 1: Morrison the Fair Department. And Doc said, I know this
Speaker 1: Mexican guy, Guy Richard, and he's at William Morris and
Speaker 1: he loves the band and he's a go getter. And
Speaker 1: so we went to Peter Shields and we said, you
Speaker 1: got a guy here named Guy Richard and he will
Speaker 1: get us gigs. And he goes, who go Guy Richard.
Speaker 1: He picks up the phone, he goes, he goes, where's
Speaker 1: he got to go to the Fair Department. You got
Speaker 1: a guy down there named Guy Richard? He go send
Speaker 1: him up. He's working for me. And so he comes
Speaker 1: up and he's Peter's assistant. And within two weeks Peter
Speaker 1: calls me and he says, uh, man, I gotta thank
Speaker 1: you man for what He goes, This guy is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: He goes, He's changed my whole office. Man, he's phenomenal.
Speaker 1: I love him, you know, a great make sure we
Speaker 1: get some gigs, you know, and pretty soon we're getting
Speaker 1: more geese because guys making it happen, you know. And
Speaker 1: then the Big bust happened over there for all the
Speaker 1: cocaine and Peter Shields went down and Guy got his gig. Okay,
Speaker 1: so since Guy retired, who's your guy now? Now? We
Speaker 1: went over to Paradigm Gary Buck in Chicago and ron
Speaker 1: Kaplan here and we just signed with them. Okay. So
Speaker 1: are these all hard ticket or soft ticket dates? I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, and I don't think about that stuff. Okay,
Speaker 1: but are your hard tickets? Are you playing fairs or
Speaker 1: is there some are people paying just to see you?
Speaker 1: We're not doing that many fairs anyway. We were, we've
Speaker 1: been doing them, and Paradigm is changing all that, you know,
Speaker 1: we're doing like we we just started. We got four
Speaker 1: dates with a string cheese incident. I actually had to
Speaker 1: know them and Madison House the managers. That's something I know.
Speaker 1: I hear that they play some of our songs and
Speaker 1: they're saying they're fans of the band Game. I've seen them,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's one of these Gamans. They play
Speaker 1: something different every night, so maybe they do. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know them, but you know, we're
Speaker 1: doing red Rocks with them, and really so yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're cooking an up a step, you know. Okay, So
Speaker 1: what kind of venues do you play when you headline
Speaker 1: performance arts theaters? We play festivals, you know. We do
Speaker 1: the North c Jazz Festival, Monto Jazz Festival. We go
Speaker 1: over to Tokyo do Fuji Jazz, we do the Blue Notes,
Speaker 1: We do everything. Okay, And you still like going on
Speaker 1: the road. Yeah, and you know, depending on which day
Speaker 1: you asked me, Yeah, you know, hig just got remarried.
Speaker 1: So what's keeping you occupied other than the two pages
Speaker 1: of the Bible when you're on the road. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean more than that, but uh, I know how to
Speaker 1: enjoy myself. That's not a problem. What do you know
Speaker 1: how to do the road? Okay? What do you how
Speaker 1: do you enjoy? I always get up. I study first
Speaker 1: thing I do in the morning. I renew my mind.
Speaker 1: Once I've done that, I know I can do the day.
Speaker 1: Then I work out, go out and get a nice
Speaker 1: meal and stand for sound check, go hang with my guys.
Speaker 1: These are the funniest guys in the world. We laugh
Speaker 1: a lot. And uh, and then I got friends all
Speaker 1: over the place. I'm sure you do after all those
Speaker 1: fifty years on the road. So this point in time.
Speaker 1: The people in the band, how many people in the
Speaker 1: band today? How long have those people been in the band? Well,
Speaker 1: Doc's been in the band almost fifty two years. I'm
Speaker 1: almost fifty two years. Garibaldi's he was out four times,
Speaker 1: he came back. Doc was in and out once too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I fired him for a day here, Rocko, I fired
Speaker 1: for eight years. But he's not with us no more.
Speaker 1: I had to let him go, not let him. I
Speaker 1: had to take him off the road. His health was
Speaker 1: not good. But Garibaldi was out eighteen years. The last
Speaker 1: time he was out, he came back. We think he's staying.
Speaker 1: And uh, the other guys, you know, seventeen to twenty years.
Speaker 1: We always laugh about it because you know these bands nowadays,
Speaker 1: they last a year and a half, two years. You know,
Speaker 1: our new guys are like seventeen eighty. But our singers, Uh,
Speaker 1: he's in three years now. How did you find him?
Speaker 1: Do you know Tony Coleman they call him TC. He
Speaker 1: was a drummer for BB King for years. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: called me up. I was looking for some singer and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, checking out all those finalists on American Idol
Speaker 1: and the Voice and calling all the runner ups and
Speaker 1: calling the people I trust. And Tony called me up
Speaker 1: and he says, hey, man, it's TC Goes. I heard
Speaker 1: this singer in Memphis. He's like a little any whims.
Speaker 1: You gotta check him out. Me me, you gotta check
Speaker 1: him up. And I go, all right, man, send me
Speaker 1: some links, send me his info. I'll get in touch.
Speaker 1: And uh, he sent me some YouTube links of him.
Speaker 1: Soulful had that he was imitating Bobby Womack not immediately
Speaker 1: got my attention, and uh, it seemed like a nice guy.
Speaker 1: Called him up and we decided to give him an audition.
Speaker 1: We narrowed it down to three people and we told
Speaker 1: him you got a fly to Vegas. We figured that's
Speaker 1: the cheapest, easiest flight for people, and they showed up
Speaker 1: and out of those three, we thought we'd take a
Speaker 1: chance on him. Although I was concerned about his range
Speaker 1: because we typically need a high singer just because the
Speaker 1: band so powerful. You need somebody to soar over that,
Speaker 1: you know. And he had a decent range, but not phenomenal.
Speaker 1: But once he got in the band, his range like
Speaker 1: expanded unbelievably. He's thirty five, okay, and was he professional
Speaker 1: before he had a day job. No, no, he was well,
Speaker 1: he was a barber, you know, just defeat his wife
Speaker 1: and kids. But he was a singer. You know when
Speaker 1: when Tony Coleman went to uh like BB King had
Speaker 1: passed and Tony was in charge of going to the
Speaker 1: different BB Kings and you know when they're opening the
Speaker 1: new Baby Kings. He put together the best musicians in
Speaker 1: town and you know, did a gig and so he
Speaker 1: went there and he said, you know, who's the baddest
Speaker 1: soul singer in town? And you know said Marcus. God,
Speaker 1: That's how I met him. Okay, you know the world
Speaker 1: has changed the relevant of the band. Let's just say,
Speaker 1: you know, the Internet change things. And unlike in the seventies,
Speaker 1: you had a major label deal, they would do marketing,
Speaker 1: everybody would know who you were. The record may happen
Speaker 1: or not. Now anybody puts out a record, it's especially
Speaker 1: a band that has had previous success. It's hard to
Speaker 1: reach the audience and uh, it's hard to get the
Speaker 1: word out. Does that depress you No, because because my
Speaker 1: my trust is not in the business or in my
Speaker 1: music or you know, I know that God's going to
Speaker 1: take care of me no matter what. I'm blessed with
Speaker 1: a great life. I play great music that I love,
Speaker 1: I play with great people that I love. They do
Speaker 1: you know, I'm already overpaid, so you know, they can
Speaker 1: take half of it away, and I'm you know, they
Speaker 1: can take it all away. I know I'm gonna be Okay,
Speaker 1: that's who I am, that's who I become. So I
Speaker 1: don't think about that. I'm not depressed over the state
Speaker 1: of the industry or what the industry thinks about me.
Speaker 1: I'd love to be a big hit you know, I
Speaker 1: to be. Sometimes I think maybe it's a blessing you're not,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe they want you to be a reality
Speaker 1: show or something. I don't want to do that kind
Speaker 1: of crap, you know. I want to make great music
Speaker 1: and and have a be a class act in the industry,
Speaker 1: and so far I'm doing that. Okay. Any specific goals left, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to push the envelope globally, you know. Uh.
Speaker 1: I want to record with other artists. I'd love to
Speaker 1: take Tower or Power and you know, do only so
Speaker 1: much oil in the ground version with sting Right. He
Speaker 1: told me one time that was one of his favorite songs.
Speaker 1: I'd like to do that you know, there's things I'd
Speaker 1: like to do. But as I say, overpaid already. Okay,
Speaker 1: we've heard a lot about you. But talking a little
Speaker 1: bit more about the business. With all this experience, what
Speaker 1: lessons have you learned? Business was, well, I don't chase trends.
Speaker 1: I stay true to myself, you know, on a musical level,
Speaker 1: on a personal level, you know, uh honest. And I
Speaker 1: tell the guys that I work with you and I said,
Speaker 1: you know, live right, feel right. That's the short version.
Speaker 1: If you're living right, you'll be feeling man. If you ain't,
Speaker 1: you ain't gonna be feeling right. So I just try
Speaker 1: to live a principal life. And you know, I let
Speaker 1: the cars fall where they may. Do you have a manager,
Speaker 1: now I do? He was living a management team. Now
Speaker 1: we decided we we hired a manager. We hired Jonathan Wilson.
Speaker 1: You know, I know him pretty well, good guy. You know,
Speaker 1: fired him after two weeks because he booked a tour
Speaker 1: that we just couldn't do. You know, we're like sixty
Speaker 1: to seventy four years old, and uh he booked three weeks,
Speaker 1: uh and didn't taking the consideration, you know, the parameters
Speaker 1: that we need in order to continue doing what we're doing,
Speaker 1: and we want to do it for a long time,
Speaker 1: so we're not just gonna beat ourselves up, you know.
Speaker 1: And when my business manager, Diane Ricchi, tried to explain
Speaker 1: that to him, it took almost an hour, and then
Speaker 1: he finally yelled at her and said, you're sh and
Speaker 1: all over my Picasso. And uh. When she told me that, said,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do about this? Yes, I
Speaker 1: want to fire him, and I go, then you have
Speaker 1: my permission to do so. Okay, So Jonathan Wilson the
Speaker 1: last two weeks, then what happens? Well, then, Uh, my
Speaker 1: tour manager who has been in the business for years,
Speaker 1: Walter Verson. He used to be bodyguard for Freddie Mercury
Speaker 1: back in the day, and I met him through Heart
Speaker 1: when I used to work with Heart, and he's been
Speaker 1: tour manager for Rio Speedwagon for years. He did a
Speaker 1: lot of work in the management team for Phil Collins.
Speaker 1: He's been around for years. He's been doing doing tour
Speaker 1: managing for us for like the last couple of years now,
Speaker 1: and then and loves us and wants to be our manager. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to my manager, you know, I love him.
Speaker 1: I think he's a smart guy, but I don't want
Speaker 1: him to be my manager. But my my business manager, Diane,
Speaker 1: who I trust, himplicitly says, uh, what do you want
Speaker 1: to do now Jonathan's out? What are we gonna do?
Speaker 1: You know? She says, we can make it for a
Speaker 1: few months, no problem. We're doing pretty good. But Ron
Speaker 1: Mesh our tour manager, and you know, the agent and
Speaker 1: me and we're all checking in. We gotta go. But
Speaker 1: it's a lot of work. And I go, I don't know,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? I have an idea,
Speaker 1: but I don't think you're gonna like it. Okay, what's that?
Speaker 1: She goes Walter Verson. I go, I don't want him
Speaker 1: to be my manager. She was, no, how about we
Speaker 1: put him on the team. And it's a team. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can try that. So that's what it is. So
Speaker 1: it's all homming along. This has really been great talking
Speaker 1: to you, Amelia. It's like we could go on forever.
Speaker 1: I could see why you're successful, You're warm, you're endearing,
Speaker 1: and you tell a good story. Well, thanks for doing this.
Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob Left sets