Speaker 1: Pushkin. Captain Kirk Douglas is the longtime guitarist for The
Speaker 1: Roots and someone I've always considered to be their secret weapon.
Speaker 1: Kirk started playing with The Roots in two thousand and three,
Speaker 1: just as their guitar driven hit song The Seed was
Speaker 1: taken off. Over twenty one years, he's seen the group
Speaker 1: evolve from a touring act to anchor it around the
Speaker 1: Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, to having their own successful
Speaker 1: festival in Philly, all the while continuing for the most part,
Speaker 1: at least, to record albums for themselves and for others.
Speaker 1: Between the band's many commitments, and there are many, Kirk
Speaker 1: has also found time to record a solo project under
Speaker 1: the name hundred Wattheart. His most recent offering, New Unknown,
Speaker 1: was recorded in the basement of his childhood home on
Speaker 1: Long Island, where he first fell in love with the
Speaker 1: music of Van Halen, Hendrix, Sling, the Family Stone and
Speaker 1: so many others discussed in this episode on Today's Broken Record,
Speaker 1: I talked with Captain Kirk from the Roots Green Room
Speaker 1: in thirty Rock about the seductive pole he felt as
Speaker 1: a little kid seeing electric guitars on the cover of
Speaker 1: an old Kiss album. He also reminisces about his early
Speaker 1: days gigging around New York City in the nineties while
Speaker 1: working as a preschool teacher, and he recalls the elation
Speaker 1: he felt when Prince played one of his guitars on
Speaker 1: This Night Show, only to smash it on stage at
Speaker 1: the end of his performance. This is broken record liner
Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's my
Speaker 1: conversation with Captain Kirk Douglas of the Roots. This is
Speaker 1: the third place we were set to do this. This
Speaker 1: is amazing. I'm glad it worked.
Speaker 2: Out as am I.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to you for engineering this as well.
Speaker 2: I'm impressed with myself.
Speaker 3: I have to say, just because you know, there was
Speaker 3: a time when I was learning ableton and it took
Speaker 3: a while for me to like learn how to how
Speaker 3: to do it. And I was sort of forced to
Speaker 3: learn how to develop my skills with self recording because
Speaker 3: of the pandemic, because when doing things for the Tonight Show,
Speaker 3: we all had to do it from home. I was
Speaker 3: dabbling with it self recording at the time, and then
Speaker 3: once it once we went to lockdown, is like, okay,
Speaker 3: we're on, you're on. You have to figure this out,
Speaker 3: and you know, not just recording, but just how to
Speaker 3: send files, how to sync files up, you.
Speaker 2: Know, how to match video with audio.
Speaker 3: And it wound up enabling me to you know, develop
Speaker 3: a little new skill set just and then be able
Speaker 3: to record myself, send things in for the tonight show.
Speaker 3: And then when I had some extra time to record
Speaker 3: my own music too. So it and then when I'm
Speaker 3: not recording, then I go into life and I kind
Speaker 3: of forget that I'm able to do this. So moments
Speaker 3: like these where you're like, I don't have an engineer
Speaker 3: like three years ago, I'd be like, I guess we're
Speaker 3: just not doing this anymore.
Speaker 1: We're talking to each other micro Yeah, my iPhone's good, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's always cool to learn a new thing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so, even in your musical life, you weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: recording at home to pro tools or able to in
Speaker 1: or doing home recordings in that way previously.
Speaker 2: No, because well, let's set the stage, you know.
Speaker 3: So we are at thirty Rockbell Center, and we are
Speaker 3: in the rehearsal room slash recording room slash dressing room
Speaker 3: for the roots. This room serves many purposes, but pre
Speaker 3: recorded music that you hear on The Tonight Show is
Speaker 3: birthed here in this room. A lot of recordings that
Speaker 3: wind up on Roots albums from how We Got.
Speaker 2: Over forward We're recorded. A lot of that stuff's recorded
Speaker 2: in this room. Why is Up? Ghost?
Speaker 3: With Elvis Costello? A lot of that stuff was recorded
Speaker 3: in this room. A lot of the collaborations that take
Speaker 3: place with the Roots and fellow artists, the rehearsals for
Speaker 3: such collaborations take place in this room. So check Korea,
Speaker 3: has you know been in this seat? You know, Herbie
Speaker 3: Hancock has been in the seat that you're sitting in.
Speaker 3: Steven Tyler, Oh my goodness, George Benson, Steve Lucather, Oh man,
Speaker 3: what's so fun about moments like that? This room is
Speaker 3: so small and a lot of legends have been in
Speaker 3: this room. Yeah, that's always fun.
Speaker 1: When you guys got the Tonight Show gig right and
Speaker 1: you got sort of working with Fallon, Was this your
Speaker 1: room or did you did you have this initially?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this has been our room since we did Late
Speaker 3: Night with Jimmy fallonk and so for fifteen years essentially.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got in and we're like, damn, this room
Speaker 3: is small and They're like, oh well, Conan's band's room
Speaker 3: was even smaller. So they're like, okay, good enough for me.
Speaker 3: Max Weinberg the mix Warnberg seven getting.
Speaker 2: Up for us?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, go up for Max and Jimmy Lavina.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. Shout out to them.
Speaker 1: They're amazing. Did you guys do the John Legend album
Speaker 1: here too? The Wake Up? Some of that done?
Speaker 2: You know, we used a studio that was on forty
Speaker 2: eighth Street.
Speaker 3: Againness, the name escapes me, but back when forty eighth
Speaker 3: Street was kind of like a more music row street.
Speaker 3: But eventually, you know, after being you know, using a
Speaker 3: studio around the corner, I guess we realized, you know that, hey,
Speaker 3: we can make quality recordings here. You know, quest Love's
Speaker 3: drunk Ruth is right next to you over there. And
Speaker 3: from sitting in this spot and recording so much, and uh,
Speaker 3: seeing what Steve, our engineer, was doing, you know, I
Speaker 3: got to have a front road seat to you know,
Speaker 3: how to do recordings. And I asked him a lot
Speaker 3: of questions, much to his chagrin. Yeah, but he was
Speaker 3: often gracious enough to answer, and that also gave me
Speaker 3: the curiosity to say, oh, I wonder how you can
Speaker 3: record at home. And then I also you know, hearing
Speaker 3: a lot of things about records that you love and
Speaker 3: discovering that not all of them were done in.
Speaker 2: Big budget recording studios.
Speaker 3: And you know, the longer I live, the longer I
Speaker 3: listened to podcasts and read articles more I discover that,
Speaker 3: you know, some of my favorite records were done in
Speaker 3: a home environment. And you know, if you have a
Speaker 3: place that has a great vibe, you can you know,
Speaker 3: capture a lot of moments with that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So hundred watt Heart is project what would you
Speaker 1: call it? A project? A group of yours?
Speaker 2: Is it project? Slash group?
Speaker 3: It's music that I write and I perform it with
Speaker 3: a drummer, Rick Sheridan, who is in a band called
Speaker 3: Earl Greyhound previously, and he's just like a you know,
Speaker 3: good friend for law time since like the nineties cool
Speaker 3: and through his friendship, I learned a lot of music
Speaker 3: and you know, we would just sit around and listen
Speaker 3: to music, and he exposed me to music I'd never
Speaker 3: heard before. And it was around this time of meeting
Speaker 3: him that I was also discovering the roots. And I
Speaker 3: also during that time I held the roots in the
Speaker 3: same regard that I held so many groups that you know,
Speaker 3: are part of the fabric of music that we know
Speaker 3: and love, you know, earth Wind and Fires, the Funkadelics,
Speaker 3: just the classic soul groups, the Jackson Five, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean Stevie Wonder, Like I had literal mixtapes, you
Speaker 3: know that would have you know, the Roots on it,
Speaker 3: that would have Stevie on it, that would have Marvin
Speaker 3: Gay on it.
Speaker 2: Like, I don't know, I just saw them in the
Speaker 2: same echelon.
Speaker 1: Had you seen them live at that point?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I guess it was around ninety eight, no
Speaker 3: even earlier, maybe ninety seven when I first saw them
Speaker 3: live at the time. The guitar player Vernon Reid from
Speaker 3: Living Color. He was a huge influence on me, and
Speaker 3: I remember I got to meet him when I moved
Speaker 3: to Manhattan. I remember the day I was I was
Speaker 3: going to play with a drag queen named Head of Lettuce.
Speaker 3: That was my first gig getting paid in New York
Speaker 3: playing with the drag queen.
Speaker 1: It's a great name of Head of Lettuce, Head of
Speaker 1: let Us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I remember I was on my way to
Speaker 3: that gig at Don Hill's and I saw Vernon in
Speaker 3: the street and I'm like, yo, Vernon, I gotta play
Speaker 3: this gig. But later on tonight, I'm going to go
Speaker 3: see the Roots, and Verne's like, oh, I actually I'm
Speaker 3: playing with them tonight. So I saw him play with
Speaker 3: the Roots, and I remember watching them and just being like, wow,
Speaker 3: I would love to be in a band like this.
Speaker 3: And at the time, when I was playing with Head
Speaker 3: of Lettuce, that was the only gig I had.
Speaker 2: I was playing with a host.
Speaker 3: I played with like ten or eleven different bands back
Speaker 3: in the late nineties.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I saw them.
Speaker 3: They played five nights at the Knitting Factory, five nights straight,
Speaker 3: and I saw it like, I think three out of
Speaker 3: those nights because the tickets were fairly cheap at the time.
Speaker 3: I was a preschool teacher, but I could afford to
Speaker 3: see the Roots. It was cool to like see that
Speaker 3: up close, and I remember thinking like that would be
Speaker 3: I would love to be in a band like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's It's interesting that Vernon was playing
Speaker 1: with them at that time, and he must have just
Speaker 1: been sitting because they didn't really have a guitarist.
Speaker 2: Yeah he was.
Speaker 3: He was just sitting in with them. He wasn't it
Speaker 3: was not he was not a permanent member at all.
Speaker 1: How did Vernon sound with them?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: He did his thing.
Speaker 3: You know, It's like he was very much himself, very
Speaker 3: much Vernon Red, and it wasn't up for the whole time.
Speaker 3: I think they brought her up at like the end
Speaker 3: of the show. And at the time, you know, they
Speaker 3: had Rozelle Godfather Noise. He was there doing what he does,
Speaker 3: his his beat box box and so much more. They
Speaker 3: had started doing I guess, you know, their jam sessions
Speaker 3: at Black Lily, and I guess they were also doing Wetlands,
Speaker 3: but I somehow didn't see them at Wetlands, So there
Speaker 3: was always an element of you know, they weren't a
Speaker 3: jam band, but they were a band that jammed with people,
Speaker 3: So I guess essentially they were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of the best jams I've seen, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I've seen some great groups. You had jam, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, but on some of the best jams I've
Speaker 1: seen is you with the Roots.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, when the Roots just started doing Late Night with
Speaker 3: Jimmy Fallon, you know, there was a lot of talk
Speaker 3: I guess about you know, really they're going to be
Speaker 3: on are they getting saw or they're selling out, and
Speaker 3: I guess our response to that was by having a
Speaker 3: weekly jam session at the High Line, which I believe
Speaker 3: is no longer there, and you know, people from Tom
Speaker 3: Morello would come and jam with us. Vernon definitely came
Speaker 3: and jammed with us and sat in Reverend Vince. You
Speaker 3: go on stage, you had no idea what was going
Speaker 3: to happen, like literally having no idea, just start playing
Speaker 3: and our manager, God Rest his soul. Rich Nichols would
Speaker 3: just be on the side of the stage making hand
Speaker 3: gestures to us, uh for what he wanted to hear
Speaker 3: coming out out of us musically, what really?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he do that, just.
Speaker 3: Like I don't know what this meant, but this is
Speaker 3: what he wanted to like, you know, I'm just I'm
Speaker 3: gesturing my hands up in the air, but.
Speaker 1: Almost like you're gestured almost like like bigger more Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's and that's what we aim to give him.
Speaker 3: You know, Rich has always loomed heavily as you know,
Speaker 3: a father figure to Amir and Tarik and then further
Speaker 3: down the line to the rest of us in the band,
Speaker 3: you know, and he's sort of you know, everybody that
Speaker 3: you see on that stage was sort of curated by
Speaker 3: Rich Nichols.
Speaker 2: You know, he's sort of the.
Speaker 3: Mastermind that brought a Mer and Tarique quest Love and
Speaker 3: Black Thought, brought them together and said, you guys have something,
Speaker 3: and cultivated that, nurtured that alongside with them. He was
Speaker 3: sort of like the uh, the unseen sort of producer
Speaker 3: behind so many of the Roots, all of the Roots albums.
Speaker 3: Really partially why I think it's you know, been taken
Speaker 3: such a long time to come up with the next
Speaker 3: Roots album because it would be the first one without
Speaker 3: Rich Nichols, and whatever the Roots puts out is, you know,
Speaker 3: we want it to be something that would be worthy
Speaker 3: of his legacy.
Speaker 2: Of his legacy. Yeah wow.
Speaker 3: So he's almost like the like a Yoda figure, like
Speaker 3: a paternal figure, a north Star of the Roots, like
Speaker 3: a George Martin if you will, you know, a fifth
Speaker 3: beadle too, you know, that one that's off stage, but
Speaker 3: one that whose presence, you know, he casts a bright
Speaker 3: shadow over the band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, any group that is together as long as the
Speaker 1: Roots have been, including the Roots with you as a
Speaker 1: part of the Roots, I guess you to survive, you
Speaker 1: have to learn the wather changes. But it is wild.
Speaker 1: As you're talking, I start to think about all the
Speaker 1: various iterations and and just the things that have kind
Speaker 1: of transpired, you know, from I guess you're joining the group,
Speaker 1: know Rozelle at some point to party not being a
Speaker 1: part of it, Rich passing the Tonight show like a
Speaker 1: Hubbard leaving, like just things that are like, at one
Speaker 1: point seemed foundational to the group, right, and you guys
Speaker 1: are able to navigate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I just think of doing a podcast right
Speaker 3: now in this building, you know, just it's like a university,
Speaker 3: you know, thirty Rock University, and the Roots is like,
Speaker 3: you know, we're all sort of students of that, and
Speaker 3: being a member of the Roots is like the Roots
Speaker 3: is a university in and of itself, you know, and
Speaker 3: just like listening to Questlove Supreme, just watching how other
Speaker 3: members of the band, you know, are able to pivot
Speaker 3: outside of the band and still you know, keep the
Speaker 3: band itself as something that you always come back to.
Speaker 3: You know, it doesn't have to be oh, well, you
Speaker 3: want to do a bunch of other things. You know,
Speaker 3: It's either that or be a member of the Roots.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, and you see that from you know, the
Speaker 3: core members that you know, just from reading you know,
Speaker 3: Black Thoughts latest book.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always so beautiful man. Yeah, it really
Speaker 1: blew me away when I read that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fantastic and just I mean it only makes sense
Speaker 3: because he's a wordsmith, you know, in the booth and
Speaker 3: on record, so he lends that to you know, the
Speaker 3: page you know that we all can read. Yeah, just
Speaker 3: watching all that, it's like you have all of this
Speaker 3: information that if it's if you look at it like
Speaker 3: as a class, you know, you see this potential syllabus
Speaker 3: before you that you are able to ignore.
Speaker 2: But it's you're making best use of your.
Speaker 3: Time if you participate in it and if you use
Speaker 3: it all as inspiration.
Speaker 1: What did join in the Roots? How did that impact
Speaker 1: your guitar play?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: At its most basic level, I think my timing just
Speaker 3: in terms of keeping time growing up, I always paid
Speaker 3: more attention I guess to leads and solos and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and playing in the Roots just really reinforced
Speaker 3: the concept of pocket. And there's you know, no better
Speaker 3: drummer to develop that with on a stage in front
Speaker 3: of like a large group of people and in a
Speaker 3: recording situation than Questlove. Because he spent so much of
Speaker 3: his formative years with a metronn with classic records with breakbeats,
Speaker 3: hours and hours like the proverbial you know, ten thousand hours,
Speaker 3: like he logged them and then some And also when
Speaker 3: that was not happening, he spoke about it, you know,
Speaker 3: so you know, he'd call me out like yo, pull back,
Speaker 3: you know, like and then you know, you listen, you
Speaker 3: listen to the other players and you see how they're playing,
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, I want to meld with everybody
Speaker 3: and to bring awareness to if you're not doing that.
Speaker 1: Is there anyone you could look to to sort of
Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, maybe if I just do something like
Speaker 1: this or if I approach it like the way this
Speaker 1: person did.
Speaker 3: Was there any well, the guitar players in James Brown group,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Catfish Fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Boots himself, you.
Speaker 3: Know, because he played a lot of guitar on all
Speaker 3: the Funkadelic records, but like a lot of the p
Speaker 3: funk I hear that.
Speaker 1: He did a lot more like well even just him
Speaker 1: playing drums on Flash Flag Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's crazy stuff like that. But yeah, and
Speaker 3: then and then you know the concepts of everything being
Speaker 3: on the one with with p funk and.
Speaker 1: Just uh that unity of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, coming down on the one absolutely.
Speaker 2: The Michael Jackson records.
Speaker 3: You know, the players like Steve Lucather, you know, like
Speaker 3: what he does on like human nature stuff that like
Speaker 3: really makes the song. Yeah, you know Andy Summers, you know,
Speaker 3: on every breath you take. These are guitar players that
Speaker 3: like play these like iconic parts that you're they just
Speaker 3: weave themselves in the song and become somewhat of a
Speaker 3: glue in music.
Speaker 1: And U's a really interesting point. Like you know, obviously
Speaker 1: like in Van Halen Eddie's driving thing, Yeah, but in
Speaker 1: Andy Summers has equally iconic guitar parts. And my view
Speaker 1: and ever thought about it, but it's really like serving
Speaker 1: the song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's at the end of the day, it's all
Speaker 3: about serving the song, serving the music.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: That's everybody you know should have that mindset. When everybody
Speaker 3: has that mindset, the music elevates.
Speaker 1: Guitar players notoriously sometimes don't have.
Speaker 2: That mind Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and there's a time and place, I
Speaker 3: guess for everything. There's times to step out, of course,
Speaker 3: you know, and to shine of course. But you know,
Speaker 3: with the roots, it's like everybody like trying to create
Speaker 3: something that's greater than the sum of its parts.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the roots sort of like reinforced that concept,
Speaker 3: like watching p Funk like we'd be on the tour bus,
Speaker 3: like watching James Brown videos, watching Marvin and montro like
Speaker 3: and just like checking out what the band is doing
Speaker 3: and gaining inspiration from that.
Speaker 1: Wow. After a quick break, we'll be back with more
Speaker 1: of a conversation with Captain Kirk. We're back with more
Speaker 1: from Captain Kirk Douglas. When did you pick up the
Speaker 1: guitar and who were you starting to listen to and
Speaker 1: how did it all evolve?
Speaker 3: Oh? Well, I mean all right, I have Jamaican parents, okay,
Speaker 3: so I'll start with that, and they were their music
Speaker 3: was very prevalent in our household, and my dad was
Speaker 3: a record collector and avid record collector. He was an audiophile,
Speaker 3: so grew up with you know, Big Moran's Power Amp
Speaker 3: Moran's preamp Tenois speakers. I mean, I remember these Tenois
Speaker 3: speakers as you know, to my three year old body.
Speaker 3: These were monoliths that helped me learn how to stand.
Speaker 3: But not just learn how to stand, but sound came
Speaker 3: out of them.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And my first memories of music was like the song
Speaker 3: Daniel from Elton John and then in the same night
Speaker 3: hearing Easy by Commodores along with various you know, reggae songs.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad would have his friends come over
Speaker 3: and play music.
Speaker 1: With the reggae records. Where those have been records he
Speaker 1: knew from from Jamaica, Jamaica or did he would he
Speaker 1: pick them like he.
Speaker 3: Brought them over from Jamaica. I'm the only one in
Speaker 3: my family that was born in America. So they lived
Speaker 3: in Jamaica for a while and then they came to Brooklyn,
Speaker 3: and I was born in Brooklyn in seventy two and
Speaker 3: then but so yeah, when anytime he'd go to Jamaica,
Speaker 3: he'd come back with records.
Speaker 1: Do you have those records still?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yeah, Yeah, they're all out in Long Island.
Speaker 1: That's so cool.
Speaker 3: My mom is in the house that I grew up in.
Speaker 3: My dad's no longer around. He passed nine, but he
Speaker 3: left behind that same stereo system, those same speakers, those
Speaker 3: same records, And so that's what would happen during the week.
Speaker 3: But on Sundays, you know, Sunday was church day and
Speaker 3: it would all be all about classical music.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: My brother, his name is Handel, named after the composer Handel,
Speaker 3: but Beethoven Bach, you know, church hymns. That's what would
Speaker 3: be playing all day Sunday or most of the day's Sunday.
Speaker 3: When I was five, they moved out to Long Island,
Speaker 3: and you know, once I started to go to school,
Speaker 3: that's when I started getting exposed to rock music. And
Speaker 3: when I was seven, I had a friend in my class,
Speaker 3: Chris Garcia.
Speaker 2: I went to his.
Speaker 3: House and he had these Kiss records and I remember
Speaker 3: seeing them and being like, what is that? You know,
Speaker 3: they looked like they looked like superheroes. They looked like
Speaker 3: and then they're holding these scepter like color full, shapely.
Speaker 2: Things.
Speaker 3: These objects that I discovered were guitars, and and they
Speaker 3: looked cool. They sort of embodied like, you know, part skateboard,
Speaker 3: part sports car, part scepter. They but they the sound
Speaker 3: that was coming from the speakers was created by these things,
Speaker 3: and I was transfixed and I wanted to be a
Speaker 3: part of that. His brother had a guitar, that's thing,
Speaker 3: So seeing one up close, I was just I was
Speaker 3: so attracted to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had a fake Les Paul copy.
Speaker 3: It was Sunburst, but it sort of looked like, you know,
Speaker 3: you look at a Sunburst guitars, like it looks like
Speaker 3: there's fire within this that's being that's being contained inside
Speaker 3: this instrument, and yeah, I want some of that, you know.
Speaker 3: So and he played and just so hearing, you know,
Speaker 3: him just being able to sort of have sway over
Speaker 3: this sound and just seeing you know, that it was
Speaker 3: someone accessible. Like I begged my parents for a guitar,
Speaker 3: you know, and there was a shopping mall and there
Speaker 3: was a store called Family Melody, and they sold electric guitars,
Speaker 3: and you just seeing them all lined up in their
Speaker 3: various colors and shapes, and I remember buying Guitar Player
Speaker 3: magazine before I could play, just looking at it, like
Speaker 3: like looking at Professor Boy looks at Victoria's Secrets, you know,
Speaker 3: like just being so excited by yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah guitars in the looks.
Speaker 2: Yeah I was. I was. I was all in.
Speaker 3: And then finally my parents relented and they got me
Speaker 3: like a really cheap guitar that it's broken, but I
Speaker 3: still have the remnants of it at my mom's house.
Speaker 3: And then I think I started getting to Van Halen.
Speaker 2: I heard, I saw.
Speaker 3: Now we're at the time when MTV is birthed, and uh,
Speaker 3: I would go over my babysitter Iris.
Speaker 2: I would go over to her house. We didn't have cable,
Speaker 2: but they had cable, they had MTV, and.
Speaker 3: Then I was seeing the videos by you know, by
Speaker 3: Styx and by Van Halen and Huey Lewis, and.
Speaker 1: It's around like eighty four eighty five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking, yeah, like exactly like eighty two eighty
Speaker 3: and then there would also be the Friday Night videos
Speaker 3: and then you know, that's when you start around that time,
Speaker 3: you start seeing Sha Ka Khan videos and uh around
Speaker 3: then eighty four, and then you start seeing Prince, you know,
Speaker 3: and then then there's like, okay, you know black people
Speaker 3: can do this too, you know, because my other exposure
Speaker 3: to music for my brother was really Slide the Family
Speaker 3: Stone and uh Jackson five and Beg's like ABC and
Speaker 3: the Stand Record you know those and the Kiss records
Speaker 3: like so that was sort of like set the fat
Speaker 3: my musical foundation at the time.
Speaker 1: Man. And you know, honestly too, like those Jackson five
Speaker 1: records and those sly Stone records. Great guitar records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I wasn't, but I didn't really.
Speaker 3: As a kid, I was so attracted to the distortion
Speaker 3: and heavy guitars, you know, like when I heard Easy
Speaker 3: by the Commodores and hearing the guitar soul and I
Speaker 3: was like, that's a guitar solo.
Speaker 1: You know, it is a tasty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 3: And then as I got a little bit older, you know,
Speaker 3: living on Long Island, like you know, hair metal started
Speaker 3: to be a big thing.
Speaker 1: There's a movie called Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: have you seen that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: That was that going on in Long Island.
Speaker 2: That was so going on in Long Island.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: You know, I went to high school with like twelve
Speaker 3: hundred kids, like a graduating class of twelve hundred, that's
Speaker 3: just a graduating class.
Speaker 2: And there was like maybe ten black kids in all
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: And I was into the music I was into, and
Speaker 3: so I you know, I kind of didn't feel very
Speaker 3: much accepted by a lot of the black kids. And
Speaker 3: I also didn't feel accepted by the white kids. When
Speaker 3: I say not accepted, like it wasn't like anybody like
Speaker 3: turned me away, but I just felt like a on
Speaker 3: the peripheria sense of otherness. But it was nothing that
Speaker 3: ever bothered me. But I definitely found my crew with
Speaker 3: the musicians and just you know, like I remember bonding
Speaker 3: over you know, bands like you know Motley Crue at
Speaker 3: the time or Queens Reich and stuff like that. So
Speaker 3: you're hanging with the heavy metal parking lot. I was
Speaker 3: hanging with the heavy and we had a band Overdrive.
Speaker 3: And actually the dude from this band, his name was
Speaker 3: John Hamson. He looked like he should on he should
Speaker 3: be on the headbanger's balls. Him, Keith Salomido, Paul Doxy,
Speaker 3: Marci Otis, Chris the Otis, shout out to all these cats.
Speaker 3: And I joined their band everything, and like like if
Speaker 3: you looked at a picture of us, I'd probably be like, wow,
Speaker 3: one of these things does not look like the other,
Speaker 3: you know. So I remember we did a Battle of
Speaker 3: the Bands when I was fourteen, and I remember we lost,
Speaker 3: and I remember going home afterwards and looking in the
Speaker 3: mirror at myself and I had like spandex on, and
Speaker 3: I had like rip jeans, and I had like the
Speaker 3: mess shirt on, and I had my glasses and my
Speaker 3: short little laugh ro. I remember looking at myself in
Speaker 3: the mirror and be like, I just don't know if
Speaker 3: this is the right look or if this is the
Speaker 3: right thing for me. You know, as much as I
Speaker 3: dig this music and everything, I just remember looking at
Speaker 3: myself and be like, come on, you.
Speaker 1: Know, little crisis of identity?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, which is I guess the right age,
Speaker 3: you know. But I remember turning fifteen, and that's when
Speaker 3: I got heavily into motown, like just getting into and
Speaker 3: that's when I started really noticing guitar and its presence
Speaker 3: in old soul music and in like you know, the
Speaker 3: intro to My Girl and stuff like that, be like,
Speaker 3: that's a guitar and this I can play these things, yeah,
Speaker 3: and I don't need a loud, overdriven app to do so.
Speaker 3: And these are amazing songs and this is a great
Speaker 3: vibe and I don't need a particular look to participate
Speaker 3: with it. And also it was around this time that
Speaker 3: I started getting into Hendricks. I remember Guitar World came
Speaker 3: out with an all Hendricks issue, and I remember my
Speaker 3: first Hendricks record was Live at Winterland that just it
Speaker 3: was just released on CD. So it was like, you know,
Speaker 3: hearing Hendricks on stage and my dad was allowing me
Speaker 3: to play CDs on his huge stereo.
Speaker 2: Okay, so upgraded, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: So it was that live at Winterland Hendricks, and I
Speaker 3: was able to see how black music fit into rock
Speaker 3: and roll and sort of you know, do the backtracking
Speaker 3: and seeing like how I could be part of this
Speaker 3: music that I was into and how you know, oh
Speaker 3: my goodness, Hendricks was a forefather in fact, and just
Speaker 3: seeing like my place in it more so.
Speaker 1: Like you're not an intruder or moving yourself.
Speaker 3: And then it was around this time shortly thereafter when
Speaker 3: Living Color came on the scene, and there was like,
Speaker 3: oh shit, that was such a moment of validation and
Speaker 3: just like a world just got very technicolored really fast. Wow,
Speaker 3: And I was super fanished. I remember they played in
Speaker 3: SNL and I remember getting Vivid on CD and I
Speaker 3: just remember like just dancing in my basement to this music.
Speaker 2: And then I must have gotten my heart broken.
Speaker 3: And then I discovered the Smiths and the Cure and
Speaker 3: Fishbone you know, goth if you will, you know, and
Speaker 3: then I started getting into seeing how the guitar could
Speaker 3: create a different sort of tapestry with this music that
Speaker 3: the Cure was doing what the Smiths was doing, and
Speaker 3: Cocktail Twins bands like that.
Speaker 1: You have the guitar driven stuff like rock and roll Boy,
Speaker 1: it's then you have like soul where guitars and accompaniment
Speaker 1: kind of thing, but in that music it's more like
Speaker 1: it's almost like used like a sound effect almost.
Speaker 3: Or like oh yeah yeah yeah, very son tapestries and
Speaker 3: just textual stuff that you're not like like in your
Speaker 3: mind's eye, you're not seeing this swashbuckling guitar hero, but
Speaker 3: there's the subliminal thing that guitar does, so that's triggering
Speaker 3: something within you emotionally sonically, and it's also the textual
Speaker 3: aspect of like what a keyboard does. So there's that
Speaker 3: sort of cold wave, that sort of cold British sort
Speaker 3: of element, you know with coarus pedals and a lot
Speaker 3: of delays, and then some of what you two is doing,
Speaker 3: there's like some.
Speaker 2: Aspects of that.
Speaker 3: So those teen years it was just like such a
Speaker 3: time of discovery as what the guitar could do in
Speaker 3: music and the way it could be percussive, the way
Speaker 3: it could be melodic, the way it could be textual,
Speaker 3: the way it could be noise and attitude just seeing
Speaker 3: like it does not have to be one thing, and
Speaker 3: you don't have to be one thing, and you through
Speaker 3: use of touch and am settings and effects and note
Speaker 3: selection and rhythmic choices, you can be all of these things.
Speaker 3: And just so as I was growing as a teen,
Speaker 3: it was just pulling me into this forest of sound
Speaker 3: and falling in love and just feeling very romantic and
Speaker 3: being into music that spoke to that side of life
Speaker 3: of being a misin thrown and also you know, noticing
Speaker 3: my blackness and also becoming more aware of not fitting in,
Speaker 3: which does not have to be something that's recognized, you know, racially.
Speaker 3: You know that's universal sort of existential, you know moment
Speaker 3: that people go through. And I felt it in my
Speaker 3: own way, and I was blessed to be able to
Speaker 3: be playing music at the time, and I started going
Speaker 3: out and I'd start going to like Soul Kitchen back
Speaker 3: in the day, there's this club, Soul Kitchen, where they
Speaker 3: would start playing they would play Mandril, they'd play p funk,
Speaker 3: they play silvers like.
Speaker 2: It was just yeah, the first time I heard you heard.
Speaker 3: That, that blew my mind, blew my mind. And just
Speaker 3: hearing how funk and how rock was fusing, and I'm
Speaker 3: discovering seventies electric band Miles, and I'm getting I'm meeting
Speaker 3: people that are into that, and you're jamming and you're
Speaker 3: playing in front of people. It's just like New York
Speaker 3: at the time in the mid nineties, late mid to
Speaker 3: late nineties, it was a beautiful time.
Speaker 1: But nobody does seem like a special time. I mean,
Speaker 1: all these errors were sort of seemed to be colliding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and some of that stuff's gone now, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean I can't quite tell because you know, like
Speaker 3: I the other night, I went out to see a
Speaker 3: band and at my age now like I have kids,
Speaker 3: you know, like I and you know, with age comes wisdom,
Speaker 3: and I'm not able to be out mad late as
Speaker 3: I was every night in my twenties, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's just like and when I went out, I was
Speaker 3: just like, you know, I was in the Lower East
Speaker 3: Side and it was like, you know, there's mad people
Speaker 3: out and just like there were bands playing, and it's
Speaker 3: just like you just got to know where to go.
Speaker 2: You know. I wasn't there for the sixties.
Speaker 3: Those that were there for that time, they're probably like
Speaker 3: y'all missed out, you know, So maybe it's so much
Speaker 3: of it has to do with the hormones coursing through
Speaker 3: your body at a particular agent, being at that place
Speaker 3: at that time. And if you're hearing music you love,
Speaker 3: if you're getting laid, it's a beautiful time in New
Speaker 3: York City. You know, if you could afford to eat,
Speaker 3: if you got if you could afford to be here,
Speaker 3: you're chilling.
Speaker 4: You know that it may be that it could be
Speaker 4: that simple.
Speaker 2: So anyhow, I was working as a preschool teacher during
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 1: How did you get that get and where were you teaching?
Speaker 2: And you say that likes can we find them? Funny?
Speaker 3: Funny?
Speaker 2: You should ask them you can find them.
Speaker 3: But right before I left Long Island, I was I
Speaker 3: used to work with the developmentally disabled. They used to
Speaker 3: work with autistic children and I was a direct care counselor.
Speaker 2: How did you get involved?
Speaker 1: That's beautiful, Well I was.
Speaker 3: I remember working at the mall while I was going
Speaker 3: to Suffolk Community College, and I remember somebody came in
Speaker 3: with a group of people from They were developmentally disabled
Speaker 3: and there was autism.
Speaker 2: I saw. I saw kids with Down syndrome and they
Speaker 2: came into my job.
Speaker 3: I remember selling soap to people and you know, questioning
Speaker 3: about what I'm doing for a living, you know, what
Speaker 3: do I want to what I really want to do
Speaker 3: with my life. And I remember them coming in, and
Speaker 3: I remember feeling a little uncomfortable when they came in,
Speaker 3: and I remember asking the person that was that was
Speaker 3: there with them, who was sort of like leading them
Speaker 3: around everything, like where they were from, and so I'm
Speaker 3: from this place, mary Haven, and you know, we're on
Speaker 3: what's called community exposure and then you know, trying to
Speaker 3: make sure that nobody touches anything. And then they could
Speaker 3: only stay for so long and then they left. But
Speaker 3: I remember that feeling stuck with me, like why did
Speaker 3: I feel uncomfortable about that?
Speaker 2: And then I'm thinking, and I'm like, well what am
Speaker 2: I doing?
Speaker 3: Like I'm you know, I'm selling soap, you know, in retail,
Speaker 3: like and I just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just had this sense that.
Speaker 3: Like, I want to make money, but I want to
Speaker 3: like it if there is there a way I can
Speaker 3: make money and help people.
Speaker 2: And I just switched jobs.
Speaker 3: And I wanted to do something that was like more
Speaker 3: felt more serving humanity. So I just did that for
Speaker 3: like a couple of years, and it was great, you know,
Speaker 3: and playing guitar for that population was so gratifying. But
Speaker 3: so when I moved to Manhattan, I was trying to
Speaker 3: get a job doing something similar and I needed a
Speaker 3: degree to do that, and so it was like, I
Speaker 3: need to like do some more school. And I was
Speaker 3: also at the time discovering playing music at night. So
Speaker 3: I was, you know, trying to like figure it out,
Speaker 3: like am I going to go back to school?
Speaker 2: I'm going to do that.
Speaker 3: And and then I had a friend that worked as
Speaker 3: an insistent teacher at a preschool and their preschool was
Speaker 3: looking for assistant teachers, and so I worked there for
Speaker 3: a year or two, and then I I was taught
Speaker 3: at Greenwich House Preschool for maybe six years.
Speaker 2: I taught at Greenwich House Preschool.
Speaker 3: And many of not many, but I can say there's
Speaker 3: like three or four students of my for former students
Speaker 3: I've seen within the past five years, like randomly, like
Speaker 3: I was, I was trying to get my Apple computer
Speaker 3: fixed and.
Speaker 2: He's like, are you Kirk.
Speaker 3: I was like yeah, He's like you changed my diaper,
Speaker 3: you know what, hopefully twenty years ago, but yeah, he
Speaker 3: was like, you know yeah, And I had him come
Speaker 3: down to the tonight show. He brought his mom. You
Speaker 3: had like a little reunion. He's having a kid. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely have been able to see the circle of
Speaker 3: life happen before my eyes.
Speaker 1: Incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's crazy gig and I mean so
Speaker 3: I would gig at night playing. There's a band called
Speaker 3: the Velt that I They were known as the Velt,
Speaker 3: then known as a Pola Heights at some point, but
Speaker 3: now they're back to being the Belt, the Veldt. They're
Speaker 3: still playing out. That was one of the bands I
Speaker 3: played with. I played with Greg Taates, Burnt Sugar, played
Speaker 3: with Amani Yuzuri, played with Tomorrow Colli god Alice Smith.
Speaker 3: I remember playing with her, you know, sometimes interpretive Dance.
Speaker 3: You'd be playing for that too, and many of the
Speaker 3: things would be like you know, coming up with things,
Speaker 3: you know, all improvisation based. So that was part of
Speaker 3: like my my musical like diet in education. There's a
Speaker 3: band called the Bell Band. We used to play at
Speaker 3: this place, the Bell Cafe. They called this the Bell Band.
Speaker 3: We were just every Sunday just just set up instruments
Speaker 3: and just play whatever came to our minds. And that
Speaker 3: was very influenced by what Miles was doing, like seventies period. Miles, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: like Mahavishnu type of stuff, just you know, Mandril type
Speaker 3: of stuff, just like meters and just you know, and
Speaker 3: I'd bring like everything that we've talked about for the
Speaker 3: past hour, like to the table sonically in terms of
Speaker 3: what would fit. And you know, through effects, you know,
Speaker 3: you learn how to like take up textual space and
Speaker 3: create things that are ethereal and then you know, sample
Speaker 3: yourself and then come in with something that's just more
Speaker 3: riff oriented or something that's you know, just more supportive
Speaker 3: to what are the keyboards are doing and just and
Speaker 3: it was all like see your pants and then occasionally
Speaker 3: get to like rip asolo too, like all that stuff was.
Speaker 2: It is like no holds barred type of creation. It was.
Speaker 2: It was such a.
Speaker 3: Freeing playground and that I think was a big part
Speaker 3: of my transition to getting to play with the roots
Speaker 3: because around that time, from playing with one of these
Speaker 3: poets amani User, I think Rich Nichols, who I had
Speaker 3: spoke about spoken about before, came to one of those
Speaker 3: gigs and gave me his card. Within I think the
Speaker 3: next year, I got a call because the guitar player
Speaker 3: for The Roots at the time, Ben Kenny, left the
Speaker 3: Roots to join Incubus. They had just put out Phrenology
Speaker 3: and they were about to go embark on a tour
Speaker 3: of Japan, and Vernon was playing with them while they
Speaker 3: were doing a brief European tour. But Vernon couldn't stay
Speaker 3: because he had to go and continue with Living Color.
Speaker 3: But they needed somebody more permanent and.
Speaker 1: That's a very guitar driven record for Phrenology.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, And.
Speaker 3: I auditioned with some other people and I got the
Speaker 3: gig and I had to give my two weeks notice
Speaker 3: to the preschool.
Speaker 2: Wow, you're still with the joined the Roots?
Speaker 1: Yeah, after this last break, we were back with the
Speaker 1: rest of my conversation with Captain Kirk Douglas, we're back
Speaker 1: with Captain Kirk. So when you joined for that is
Speaker 1: are you joining under the guise of just for that tour?
Speaker 1: Is that the understanding?
Speaker 2: Kind of put this way.
Speaker 3: I did the first show with The Roots and I
Speaker 3: had my ticket stubs from the Nitty Factory. I had
Speaker 3: them to sign it because I didn't know if it
Speaker 3: was just going to be on that tour or what.
Speaker 3: And then after the Japanese tour, then I got itinery
Speaker 3: with more dates on it, and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I guess I might be sticking around, but I as.
Speaker 1: You toured by that point, like internationally.
Speaker 3: One of the many gigs that I played before playing
Speaker 3: with the Roots was with a guy named TM Stevens,
Speaker 3: who is a bass player who played with John McLaughlin.
Speaker 3: He was a bass player that played with Steve Vai
Speaker 3: during some time. He played with Miles. For a brief period,
Speaker 3: he played with the Pretenders. Remember like, there's that Pretender's
Speaker 3: album Get Close. There's a black dude that's playing on
Speaker 3: bass for that. I didn't TM Stevens. He was in
Speaker 3: that band with Bernie Warrel. Interestingly enough, the Pretenders.
Speaker 2: I don't know, the Pretenders had a record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, So I played with him and that with
Speaker 4: TM Stevens, that was sort of like a black rock,
Speaker 4: living color type of situation, very funk influence but also
Speaker 4: pretty metallic.
Speaker 3: I played internationally with Team. We went to Germany once
Speaker 3: and we went to Japan once. Yeah, but going to
Speaker 3: Japan with the Roots was definitely different. It was definitely
Speaker 3: on a grander scale.
Speaker 1: The Roots must have been I mean they must have
Speaker 1: been pretty big in Japan at that time, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, well this is just when the seed came
Speaker 3: out and they had on their hands, like, you know,
Speaker 3: a hit. So I got to see them, witness that
Speaker 3: alongside with them, on stage with them, you know, it's like, well,
Speaker 3: we have a hit now, you know. It's like before
Speaker 3: I joined the band, they open for the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 3: That was like a big tour that they had done.
Speaker 3: I shortly after I joined, they did some opening dates
Speaker 3: with Dave Matthews band, Got It, And that was like
Speaker 3: when I saw like a really big audience for the
Speaker 3: first time, I remember, And it was the first time
Speaker 3: I ever saw top shelf catering. Like any opportunity to
Speaker 3: do anything with the Dave Matthews Band, I mean, even
Speaker 3: I'll rody it, you know, just if I have access
Speaker 3: to that catering. And then I remember seeing Dave Matthews
Speaker 3: in the parking lot. It was like, Hey, would you
Speaker 3: want to come up and play all on the watch
Speaker 3: Tower with us tonight? And I'm like with you, you know,
Speaker 3: and He's like, yeah, just come up. At the end,
Speaker 3: he invited me to do that, and it was insane.
Speaker 3: It was just like playing with them was just like
Speaker 3: being in the eye of the storm and just like
Speaker 3: you're looking at the crowd and just like it was
Speaker 3: a great crowd, you know that was there for us
Speaker 3: when we were opening. Yeah, but it definitely looked different
Speaker 3: like when you're on stage with the Dave Matthews band.
Speaker 2: And looking at his fans crowd.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like like completely on whatever you're doing, and it
Speaker 3: was it was such an experience, man, at that point.
Speaker 3: Then it started to feel like, Wow, I think I'm
Speaker 3: part of the Roots now. You know. It's weird when
Speaker 3: I think about it, because it's kind of like in
Speaker 3: the grand scheme of things, like it's like this short
Speaker 3: period of.
Speaker 2: Time that felt kind of long.
Speaker 3: I joined the band in three and then we started
Speaker 3: you doing work with Jimmy Fallon for Late Night with
Speaker 3: Jimmy Fallon that started in nine, I know.
Speaker 1: I mean the Roots pre Fallin were like on the
Speaker 1: road all the time a lot.
Speaker 2: It's like two hundred and fifty days a year.
Speaker 1: How was it transitioning from you gigging here at night,
Speaker 1: you're doing preschool during the day, to you're on the
Speaker 1: road two hundred fifty days a year.
Speaker 3: That was a big adjustment because I joined the band
Speaker 3: just after I got married. Wow, you know, I got
Speaker 3: married with the thought that, well, you know what, I've
Speaker 3: been playing music a while now.
Speaker 2: Of course, I just turned thirty.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's safe to say that I'm not
Speaker 3: going to start traveling the world or anything. And I
Speaker 3: feel like I've had just, you know, all the experiences
Speaker 3: I've need to have in my life, and I feel
Speaker 3: like now's a good time to like, you know, settle
Speaker 3: down and get married.
Speaker 2: This is perfect.
Speaker 3: And then I joined the Roots, and now now you're
Speaker 3: about to start touring the world, you know. So I'm
Speaker 3: looking back, I'm so happy that it played out that
Speaker 3: way because I feel like, you know, I had a
Speaker 3: sort of a grounding that would make me being out
Speaker 3: on the road like that at that age just kind
Speaker 3: of messy, you know. And I feel like just the
Speaker 3: groundedness from being together with someone and it just allowed
Speaker 3: me to just focus more on the situation in hand,
Speaker 3: you know, playing the music and doing the work, and
Speaker 3: you know, it was fun, it was exciting, and but
Speaker 3: it was like a lot of time away. But it
Speaker 3: also was a situation where I felt like every time
Speaker 3: we'd get back together, there'd be like a rejuvenation.
Speaker 2: Of our romance, you know.
Speaker 3: And then once we started having when we started having children,
Speaker 3: that was definitely challenging. You know, our son was born
Speaker 3: in five and so like for the first four years
Speaker 3: of his life, you know, I was on the road heavy,
Speaker 3: and that was definitely challenging, definitely challenging for my wife,
Speaker 3: and definitely challenging for me to be away while that
Speaker 3: was happening. But when it came into play that we
Speaker 3: were going to start working with Jimmy for Late Night,
Speaker 3: that was such a game changer in terms of just
Speaker 3: coming home every night for dinner, sleeping in the same
Speaker 3: bed every night, and like, you know, you really notice
Speaker 3: it when you know, you got this gig and different
Speaker 3: bands come through all the time to play on the
Speaker 3: Tonight Show, and the first questions that they would ask
Speaker 3: us was questions about what's it like to just be
Speaker 3: in one place and not have to travel so much.
Speaker 3: And then we really got the sense of, oh, wow,
Speaker 3: we're really lucky to be in this situation right now.
Speaker 3: But then shortly, you know, within a couple of years
Speaker 3: what wound up happening is any moment that we weren't
Speaker 3: doing the show we'd be out on the road, so
Speaker 3: then you'd find yourself with like kind of two jobs.
Speaker 3: It's really been a blessing and just and you know,
Speaker 3: so many bands also that I've discovered from this job.
Speaker 3: You know, bands I've never heard of that, you know,
Speaker 3: because you know, as you get older and as you
Speaker 3: are a parent, you if you're not actively trying to
Speaker 3: stay in the loop, you slowly life slowly ushes you
Speaker 3: out of the loop.
Speaker 1: And who was of the bands you've discovered, dude?
Speaker 3: Oh, I mean bands like Tame and Pala, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's like doing this show. It's like the
Speaker 3: first time you know there's gonna be somebody on the
Speaker 3: shows names edg Ed Sheeran. Okay, you don't don't know
Speaker 3: who this is, and you're seeing them on stage for
Speaker 3: the first time, and it's in this room, but it's
Speaker 3: also like happening on the world stage.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Also Unknown Mortal Orchestra.
Speaker 3: I love that man, And that's the first time I
Speaker 3: ever saw them first time, you know, Gary Clark Jr.
Speaker 2: Sat in with us, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 2: I never heard of it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't playing with them.
Speaker 2: It was insane.
Speaker 3: It was insane, just like watching it like close up
Speaker 3: and just and again like seeing you know people that
Speaker 3: are like legends in their first TV involvement, you know,
Speaker 3: so seeing him, you know, he was like kind of
Speaker 3: nervous but ripping, you know. And the fun part is
Speaker 3: just seeing it all up close, you know, seeing it
Speaker 3: like not on YouTube, not on your phone, but right
Speaker 3: in front of you, Like is It's been amazing?
Speaker 1: How was the Prince stuff? Make Prince? That was a
Speaker 1: funny story about Prince your guitar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what a day that was.
Speaker 3: I remember I saw I think I saw a known
Speaker 3: Moratal orchestra the night before he came, because I remember
Speaker 3: like being backstage meeting Reuben Wilson and saying I wouldn't
Speaker 3: mind hearing Prince do a cover of So Good at
Speaker 3: Being in Trouble. I remember saying that because I actually
Speaker 3: Prince is going to come to the Joe tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Little did I know.
Speaker 3: So I'm home, I get a call that says Prince
Speaker 3: came to play it at fallon. He's playing with his
Speaker 3: group a Third Eye Girl. I think that's what they're called.
Speaker 3: Yeh all go man. Prince made it to the rehearsal,
Speaker 3: but his guitar did not, and he needed a guitar
Speaker 3: to borrow, and so you know, they asked if it
Speaker 3: was cool if he borrowed one of mine. So I
Speaker 3: have my guitars here and probably in this very spot
Speaker 3: is this is a kind of a near replica of
Speaker 3: the guitar, but it had a purple strap on it
Speaker 3: when he came in, and I guess he came in,
Speaker 3: saw that guitar, saw the purple strap and be like,
Speaker 3: I want to play that one. He played it for
Speaker 3: rehearsal and I got pictures sent to my phone of
Speaker 3: Prince playing my guitar, which I was over.
Speaker 2: The moon about.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous.
Speaker 3: So he does rehearsal, his guitar shows up, It does
Speaker 3: the rehearsal, rest of rehearsal with his guitar. It comes
Speaker 3: to show time, and right before we start the whole show,
Speaker 3: the music booker at the time comes to me and says,
Speaker 3: Prince wants to buy your guitar and use it for
Speaker 3: the show. And I'm like, oh wow, Prince can use
Speaker 3: my guitar for the show, but he can't buy it.
Speaker 1: Did you feel weird? Saying no, a little bit?
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I mean I said he could play
Speaker 3: the guitar, but feel weird saying no, no, because it's
Speaker 3: my guitar. I want that guitar. It's not for sale,
Speaker 3: so it would be weird, you know. No, I didn't
Speaker 3: feel weird about it.
Speaker 1: No, no, not.
Speaker 3: So anyhow, so he so my guitar leaves my post
Speaker 3: where I'm standing on stage, and then it comes back
Speaker 3: to me and so I'm I guess he didn't want
Speaker 3: to use it. No harm, no foul. He does two songs.
Speaker 3: He does the first song with his guitar. He had
Speaker 3: this vox electric guitar. He does the first song, and
Speaker 3: then right after this song, he comes up to me.
Speaker 3: He's like, yo, let me see that of the guitar.
Speaker 3: And I'm like sure, so I give him the guitar.
Speaker 3: He does Bambi Prints song, Bambie shreds, yeah, yeah, And
Speaker 3: at the end, I'm thinking he's about to play behind
Speaker 3: his head, but he lifts it up, but he doesn't
Speaker 3: put it behind his head.
Speaker 2: He lifts it up and he tosses it.
Speaker 3: And came crashing into the ground and it was like
Speaker 3: feedbacking and he just like does his strut off stage,
Speaker 3: you know, and Jimmy's like, you know, reducing him off.
Speaker 2: You know. That was Prince.
Speaker 3: And then we played the outro to the show and
Speaker 3: there's footage of our bass player Mark Kelly.
Speaker 2: He's just laughing hysterically and you see I'm laughing too,
Speaker 2: but it's not a normal laugh.
Speaker 3: It's just like it's a laugh that like I know
Speaker 3: I'm on camera like this sort of like maniacal look
Speaker 3: on my face, like what the fuck just happened. So
Speaker 3: then after the show, Keith comes up to us and
Speaker 3: he comes up to me. It's like Prince wants to
Speaker 3: talk to you. And I'm like, really okay, like I
Speaker 3: want to talk to Prince, you know. And then I
Speaker 3: go and he's back listening to the mix of the
Speaker 3: music and I can't hear what he's saying because the
Speaker 3: music's so loud, but I could make out the words
Speaker 3: like I'm sorry, I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2: Definitely said I'll take care of it.
Speaker 3: But he was talking about what happened with his other guitars,
Speaker 3: like it was going out of tune.
Speaker 2: Or just some excuse. And then the mixing is over.
Speaker 3: Walking out of the room, I'm holding the guitar and
Speaker 3: the two pieces is and it broke on the on
Speaker 3: the headstock is where really broke And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 3: well you broke it.
Speaker 2: You think you can at least sign it, you know,
Speaker 2: And he's like, oh, I haven't signed anything since the seventies.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't sign it.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't sign it. Yeah, And I was just in shock.
Speaker 2: I was like, damn, that's cold.
Speaker 3: But to his credit, his people called me and they
Speaker 3: wired a great sum of money to my account. If
Speaker 3: I had a choice between the signature and the money
Speaker 3: they wired into my account, I would definitely taken the money.
Speaker 2: For sure. My car didn't need servicing.
Speaker 3: But what's ironic with the whole thing is that guitar
Speaker 3: that he chose to play is normally not in the building.
Speaker 3: It's normally like at home. I always keep that at home.
Speaker 3: It was only in the building because we had rehearsal
Speaker 3: that night and I wanted to use the guitar for
Speaker 3: the show that the rehearsal was for. And the show
Speaker 3: that the rehearsal was for was at Carnegie Hall and
Speaker 3: it was a Prince tribute.
Speaker 1: Yes, well you knew how to pick the guitar for
Speaker 1: thee Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: What was cool about it is the guy that sold
Speaker 3: me the guitar, great luthier that builds his own guitars,
Speaker 3: Matt from Thirtieth Street Guitars, Matt Brewster, and he fixed
Speaker 3: the guitar in time for me to use it that night.
Speaker 2: Wow, you know.
Speaker 3: And Chris Rock was also there and he did like
Speaker 3: a Prince spoken words song. I forgot which one he did,
Speaker 3: but I told Chris Rock the story. He was like, well,
Speaker 3: now you have your own Prince asshole story, you know.
Speaker 3: And now it's at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall
Speaker 3: of Fame and I'm trying to get that guitar back
Speaker 3: now because I think it's been there long enough. It's
Speaker 3: gathered enough mojo, I think, and I'm ready.
Speaker 2: To have it back.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: You want to play it again? I want to play
Speaker 2: it again. It's instruments are made to be played.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yeah, was that the only time you
Speaker 1: met Prince was the.
Speaker 2: I met him once at a Grammy.
Speaker 3: He had a Grammy party and that was right after
Speaker 3: he did his famous Super Bowl performance.
Speaker 2: Wow. So I met him shortly after that, a few
Speaker 2: days after that. I think it was.
Speaker 1: Talk about mojo, yeah, right.
Speaker 3: And I met him right before one of his shows
Speaker 3: at the Garden along with Questlove. He like reintroduced me
Speaker 3: both times Questlove introduced me. You know, I was like
Speaker 3: right there when he was hanging with him. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I had three and I was really looking forward to
Speaker 3: like seeing him again.
Speaker 2: After that happened, you know, never got to.
Speaker 1: Have That's so sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, yeah, strategy man.
Speaker 1: There's a song on the New Unknown which is the
Speaker 1: hundred Heart under What Heart record Breadth of Fire, I
Speaker 1: mean Breath the Fire Jesus christ Man.
Speaker 2: Thank you man.
Speaker 1: That's another moment where I'm like, how did you I mean,
Speaker 1: he's just that good again, I mean, how do you
Speaker 1: make that sound live and improvised? On the Well, It's
Speaker 1: like that's.
Speaker 3: A song that it like has like a lot of
Speaker 3: the melodies and themes are like kind of curated on
Speaker 3: that song. Like it's you know, it's a guitar solo,
Speaker 3: but it's like a it's a it's kind of like
Speaker 3: a piece, you know, and like throughout time, you know,
Speaker 3: like there's like the basic melody of the song, and
Speaker 3: then when it goes off on this tangent, like like
Speaker 3: many days of thinking of that rhythm and like things
Speaker 3: have come to me and like and like sometimes I'll
Speaker 3: sing some of these ideas into a recorder and like
Speaker 3: trying to remember to play that next time, you know,
Speaker 3: and then some then there's some of it that's like
Speaker 3: totally off the cuff, you know.
Speaker 1: Would you mind playing a couple of just the motifs
Speaker 1: from there?
Speaker 2: No, if you just wait a second, Okay, So yeah,
Speaker 2: the main groove of is like.
Speaker 3: It's just started out of like this basic that basic progression,
Speaker 3: that basic riff, and then you have like all the
Speaker 3: percussion that happens, and it's like a guitar solo, but
Speaker 3: it's like kind of like wanted something like because if
Speaker 3: the guitar is like singing, yeah, so it's just like
Speaker 3: it's something like you can almost attach your own lyric
Speaker 3: to whatever the guitar is doing on that thing. And
Speaker 3: then as the song goes on, you start getting into
Speaker 3: things that you know probably can't be sung guitar wise,
Speaker 3: the guitars, I guess expressing like the lyrics that can
Speaker 3: only be like felt and not sung. Maybe every other
Speaker 3: song had vocals on it. I thought it'd be cool
Speaker 3: to like give people a break from my vocal. I
Speaker 3: wanted to give myself a break from my own vocal.
Speaker 3: Not that I don't like the sound of my own voice,
Speaker 3: but I thought it'd be cool to have it instrumental track,
Speaker 3: something that's you know, there's no words to take you
Speaker 3: any sort of direction, to just give you the listener
Speaker 3: their own interpretation of what's going down.
Speaker 1: There's another cool song on their land of Look Beyond You.
Speaker 1: Mind playing through a little of that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, come hits far too long since sweet fun.
Speaker 3: Like I was thinking kind of like some kind of
Speaker 3: Pink Floyd dark side of the moonish, you know.
Speaker 2: But that song was recorded I recorded.
Speaker 3: I record the whole album at my mom's house and
Speaker 3: it was recording the basement and uh with the drummer
Speaker 3: Rick Sheridan.
Speaker 2: A lot of it was recorded over COVID, and for
Speaker 2: that particular.
Speaker 3: Song, about a week before, I played the drummer Rick
Speaker 3: that song on my guitar and I don't know how
Speaker 3: he remembered it, but he was like, Yo, we should
Speaker 3: play that song again.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I was, as I told you, I was dabbling with
Speaker 3: home recording, so I just had three mics on his drums.
Speaker 3: I had Mike on his kick drum, Mike on his snare,
Speaker 3: and overhead mike. And what I did was I played
Speaker 3: my guitar directly into my interface, so you there's no
Speaker 3: bleed onto the drum tracks. And we played that song
Speaker 3: for the first time since he heard it, so we
Speaker 3: really never played.
Speaker 2: The song before.
Speaker 3: So when he sat down to play it, it felt
Speaker 3: so natural to him and could have been, you know,
Speaker 3: cannabis induced, but he was definitely in the zone.
Speaker 2: I was in the zone. We were both in the zone.
Speaker 3: And we played that whole song, that whole take down
Speaker 3: from top to mobom for the first time ever. So
Speaker 3: it's what you hear on the recording is the first
Speaker 3: time we ever played it. I edited it down because
Speaker 3: it's probably twice as long as what's on there, and
Speaker 3: then it was just built on top of from there.
Speaker 3: So that's what you're hearing on Land of Look Beyond
Speaker 3: beautiful song. I appreciate that you listen to it. The
Speaker 3: album's been out, you know, since the end of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, but I just got the vinyl done now.
Speaker 3: So now this is the challenge of playing with the
Speaker 3: roots and trying to have a side project.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, you're just.
Speaker 3: Juggling all the blessings, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 3: you know, some things take time. And you know what's
Speaker 3: great about music and what's great about recording is it's
Speaker 3: manifestation in actions. Like you imagine something, there's a seed
Speaker 3: of an idea that comes into your mind and you
Speaker 3: record it and you throw it and you know, there's
Speaker 3: a time when Landa Looked Beyond was just like a
Speaker 3: little chord progression.
Speaker 2: I was playing for myself.
Speaker 3: And then it became this thing, you know, and uh,
Speaker 3: that's one of the most gratifying things about recording, like
Speaker 3: hearing an idea that started in your mind and then
Speaker 3: for me to get that idea out and have it
Speaker 3: come out of speakers, especially the speakers.
Speaker 2: That I grew up listening to music. That's what a
Speaker 2: musician does.
Speaker 3: That's all they want, pull you, the listener into our
Speaker 3: world and saying this is this what I'm about. This
Speaker 3: is here's a little musical museum of the things that
Speaker 3: I dig and maybe.
Speaker 2: Some of the residents.
Speaker 1: It's all in that record. It's the musical equivalent of
Speaker 1: what we just talked to me. It's like all these
Speaker 1: you hear, all of the the influences and more and
Speaker 1: just the years of work that you put into your craft.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it's beautiful, man.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you reaching out to have this conversation.
Speaker 1: Appreciate all the years of you juggling your blessings for
Speaker 1: our benefit. Man's it's yeah, yeah, You've given us more
Speaker 1: enjoyment than we could repay. So thank you. Well.
Speaker 2: I try to give out what I've been getting.
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Captain Kirk Douglas for talking through his
Speaker 1: origin story and for playing songs from his project Hunter
Speaker 1: Watt Heart for us. You can hear it along with
Speaker 1: our favorite songs from his work with the Roots, on
Speaker 1: a playlist at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast,
Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing help
Speaker 1: from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Tollinday.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
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Speaker 1: And if you like this show, please remember to share, rate,
Speaker 1: and review us on your podcast app. Are theme musics
Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.