WEBVTT - This Isn’t Old Man Music: Kenny G 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:02.960 I am all in. 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:08.680 Let's you. 0:00:16.079 --> 0:00:19.920 This isn't old man music with Scott Patterson everything You've 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.320 ever wanted to know about the music of Gilmore Girls. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.119 Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I am al and Podcast one 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:31.000 to eleven productions. Iheartradiomedia, iHeart Podcast. This is an old 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.640 man music with the one and only. You know him, 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.640 you love him. Kenny G. Let me tell you something 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:40.040 a little bit about Kenny G. Kenny G is a 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:45.320 jazz saxophonist, composer, and record producer. Nineteen eighty six album 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:49.199 duo Tones bottom commercial success. Kenny G is one of 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.840 the best selling artists Ready for This of all time, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:58.240 with global sales totally more than seventy five million records, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:04.640 making him also the best selling instrumentalist in history. So 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.800 season three, episode nineteen, Gilmore Girls teg Max Paris shows 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.640 up at the boosters club meeting, tells all the moms 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:17.120 how moronic it is to host grad night on a yacht. 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:25.080 This is when we first hear your music in the show. 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:30.000 Also season seven, episode five, The Great Stink We Hear Songbird, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:36.679 Great Lorelized car. You began at a very young age 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.280 and you played in Barry White's Orchestra, Barry White's Orchestra. 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:46.400 At seventeen, you're a prodigy. Yeah, how did you first 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:51.600 find it in saxophone? And when did you personally decide 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:53.320 you sounded good? 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.000 Oh? Well, you know, I just like every you know, 0:01:58.080 --> 0:02:02.840 other student in US the school system. At fourth grade, 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.320 it's like that's your year to get an instrument. And 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:07.800 at least it was in the seventies when I went 0:02:07.800 --> 0:02:10.600 to school. I'm not sure if it's exactly that way today. 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.960 I think it is. And I was always attracted to 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:17.239 the sacks. I don't know why exactly. I just saw 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:20.840 someone on TV playing it on the Ed Sullivan Show. 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.280 You know that. I didn't even have any idea what 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.040 was going on. I just saw this guy stand up 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:27.600 to you a sax solo, and I thought, well, that's cool. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.440 I'd like to I play that instrument. So after one 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:33.000 I picked and I started and I just loved it. 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.080 I loved it in the fourth grade. And you know 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.000 how many fifties, sixty years later or whatever how many 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.480 years that is, I still love it. I practiced this 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.160 morning like they do every morning. I put my three 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.720 hours in. I'm excited to wake up tomorrow and do 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:52.959 the same thing. I've been feeling the same way since 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:55.640 I was a kid. So when did I thought I 0:02:55.720 --> 0:03:00.720 sounded good? God man, I'm seriously you know today, Like 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.720 I'll tell you, out of the seventy shows that I 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.800 play a year, I might say two or three I 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.320 thought I sounded really good, and the rest I'm just 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.840 struggling to try to get better. You know. 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:11.760 Oh my gosh. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:12.799 It's the same way. 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:18.600 So your album Duotones marked a major breakthrough with the 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:20.880 track Songbird featuring Seed seven. 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:22.040 Yeah. 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.520 How did your music career and your personal life change 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:26.680 after that? 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:27.480 Yeah? 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.080 After the success of that big time, Yeah. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:36.280 Everything changed. Everything changed. Well, the successive Songbird happened in 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.840 a great way for me personally because I went against 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.720 all of the wishes of my record company, who was 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:48.360 headed by Clive Davis, who was adamant that there was 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.240 going to be this other song that was going to 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:53.560 be the song that was going to be promoted. When 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.440 I got the chance to do the Tonight Show, which 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:59.560 was basically my manager at the time strong arming the 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.560 people of Tonight's Show to make them have a sax 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.160 player on the show because they had no interest in 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:07.520 having me on the show. But he just he leveraged 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.560 George Benson to get me to be on the on 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:11.440 the Tonight Show. 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:13.880 Is this Johnny Carson is Johnny Carson? 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.480 So hey, you want George Benson? You got to let 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:20.160 the sax kid have a shot. We don't. We could 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:22.360 care less about it, I know, but so he made 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.440 it happen. Now going on the show, Clyde Davis, everybody 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.040 at Arista Records, oh my man, hey, well you're going 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.599 to play the single. The single was a vocal song 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.160 because in nineteen whatever year it was eighty five, there 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:39.239 were no stations that would play the kind of music 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.600 that you know that I play. There was no stations 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.560 that would play that. So what they would play would 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.520 be a vocal which we had an R and B 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.200 sound song with the black singer and I'm playing the 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.080 sax solo. And the philosophy was that's going to be 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.560 a hit. They will find out that you're the sax 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:58.920 player and not the singer. And I kept trying to think, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.760 how are they going to find that? When you say 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.640 here's a song from Kenny g and there's a singer, 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.080 think that's me. But when you go on the Tonight 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:07.640 Show and you got to play the single, and the 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.640 Tonight show people said, we're only booking you to play 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.279 the single. And when the curtain went up in nineteen 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:19.359 eighty five, it's a live show, so this is before 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.320 we tape things and edited, and I just looked at 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:25.479 the guys in my group. I said, hit play and 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:26.400 play songbird. 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.400 Wow, right that last time, that's like risking it all 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:30.880 right there. 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:32.720 It was all, yeah, oh. 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:33.800 Myke, you're pissing off. 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.640 Five days everybody was oh. The guys at the show, 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:41.640 or they screamed at me when I was done. Johnny Carson, 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:43.880 of course, he was over in this corner. He gave me, 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.000 you know, one of these hey, good job. He didn't 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.080 know anything that was going on. But I got back 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:49.719 in the dress room and the guy that booked me 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.359 just came and he yelled at me like I'm some 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:57.440 kid that just like broke his favorite dish or something, 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.159 and he's just yelling like I've ruined his life and 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:05.320 he's super mad. But the thing that everybody forgot was 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.880 that actually the whole country saw this. Forget about why 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:11.440 I was on the show or what you thought I 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:15.400 should do. The country saw it, and everybody loved it. 0:06:15.960 --> 0:06:18.440 They loved this song, and that's why I became a hit. 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:23.080 So when that happened, I went from playing from for 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.080 three four or five hundred people to like five thousand 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:29.480 and six thousand. Well, and the success of it was 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.000 because I did what I wanted to do, which was 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.640 super great. So that really was a great moment. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:37.840 There's nothing like a talk show to launch you man, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:39.720 I tell you and. 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:42.240 Johnny Carson, and by the way, the guy that told 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:45.160 me I'll never work in this town again, they'll never 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.320 have me on Johnny Carson again six months later called 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:54.000 me requesting that I played Songbird and I got to 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:55.880 sit on the couch next to Johnny Carson. 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.800 Man, when you know you know right? Yeah. 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.720 But the thing is, I wasn't scared about it because 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:10.080 all the gigs that I was playing at that time, 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.480 I would be playing my songs at the little clubs 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.800 that I was playing. But when I played Songbird, my 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.720 little songbird that I did wrote and played all the instruments. 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.400 When I played that, everybody just seemed to really love it. 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:24.680 So I wasn't afraid that people wouldn't like it. But 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:29.000 it was risky to go against everybody's wishes. Knowing. By 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:30.680 the way, that was the first time I was ever 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.679 on television. I've never even been on a TV show before, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.800 so I took I just went, you know, whatever happens happens. 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:40.760 Oh that's such a great story. Yeah, well you got 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.280 to have a pair if you want to make it, and. 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.360 Got to you. 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.560 I mean really, I mean it's like be bold and 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.040 mighty forces will come to your age, you know. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:51.760 And the same thing happened when I put my first 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.520 Christmas record out. You know, you talked about all these 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.040 record sales that I've had. One of the big ones 0:07:57.120 --> 0:08:01.840 was my Christmas record. That is literally the most most 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.520 successful Christmas record of any Christmas record that's been released ever, 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.640 more than maybe Elvis. They say Elvis would have sold 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.559 more than me, but it wasn't accounted for like sound 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:13.640 scam does today. 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.120 So it's non official. Sorry, Elvis is not official. Not official. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.400 And Clive Davis and I thought over that record. I said, 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.760 it has to be all instrumental. He goes, Nope, it 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.560 has to have vocals. You are ruining your career if 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.840 you don't listen to me. Your career is in jeopardy. 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.160 But you decide, he says, I said, Okay, Clive, I'm 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.680 good at decide all instrumental. He goes, you're making a 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.920 big mistake. And then he goes on to be the 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.000 best selling record Christmas record. Yeah, so there you go. 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.880 Isn't it amazing a guy like Clive Davis who has 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.760 such a great year, right yeah? And he you know, 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.840 his particular talent was was matching songs with artists, right, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.760 like great songs. Like he'd have this library of songs 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.760 that he'd have in his office or whatever, and he'd 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.120 think of artists to match them with. I guess he 0:09:03.280 --> 0:09:07.240 was just he just liked singers. He just wanted to 0:09:07.240 --> 0:09:10.520 hear singing, right. He was great though he was no 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.160 genius guy, right yeah. 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.640 Now, No, to his credit, like even when I tell 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.760 him that I was right and he was drown he says, no, no, 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:25.560 it would have more me. It did good, but it don't. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.679 And to his credit, also on some of my records, 0:09:29.679 --> 0:09:33.160 he would he would get like a Tony Braxton and 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.080 he would have a song from Diane Warren and they 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.200 would put that on my record and it would it 0:09:39.280 --> 0:09:42.400 really boosted my record sales. So I have to say 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:45.120 to him a lot of a lot of accolades, but 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.800 he didn't always know what the right thing to do 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.080 with me was. And he was the first to admit 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:53.760 that sombird. He didn't see it at first, but then 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:57.000 he got right on board and really put that whole 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.240 Arister Records machine behind me, and we did think that 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:02.280 nobody's ever done before as an instrumentalist. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.040 Beautiful. You knew you wanted to carve out your own lane, 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:09.200 and you did it. 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:17.880 Good for you, Lucky. 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:25.200 When you sit down to compose, what usually, because I'm 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.640 a songwriter as well, I've been writing songs my whole life, 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:32.520 but what usually comes first A melody, a feeling, a story. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:34.720 How do you do it? You just sit down and 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:35.400 start playing. 0:10:36.160 --> 0:10:38.880 Yeah, I don start playing. I play my sacks, and 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:41.920 you know, because I'll practice every day. So during my 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.480 little three hour session, as I'm playing, I might play 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.240 something that go I go, hey, I like the way 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:50.880 those notes. Maybe that's the start of a melody. And 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:53.640 then I might fool around with something and that could 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.120 lead to something. Every now and then I'm sitting at 0:10:57.160 --> 0:10:59.000 a piano or not that I'm a good piano player, 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:01.319 and it might noodle on something and then I go, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:03.920 that's going to be the basis of something really cool. 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.280 I'll just remember that, and that's kind of how it works. 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.000 I don't it's hard for me to go I'm going 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.960 to write a song today. But you know, sometimes I try, 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.520 and I get together with a keyboard player or something 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.280 and I go, you know, let's try to write something, 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.319 and sometimes it works and sometimes not. 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:22.160 Yeah, it's hard. 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.480 It's really hard to write really good songs. I could, 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.440 by the way, I could write an album of instrumental 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.480 music's in the next twenty five minutes, but it would 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.920 just be okay, right, okay, you know, you go way 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:36.959 that those are nice. But I don't want to do 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:38.679 something that sounds nice. I want to do something that 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.200 means something to me that I feel like I could 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:44.679 go to bat for and go against the whole world 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.079 and say, hey, this is what This is good whether 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:49.720 somebody believes it or not. You know, so I have 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:51.000 to take my time. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.600 So right, there's different levels. There's there's okay, there's good, 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:57.920 there's really good, and then there's like, this is a hit. 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.040 Right do you have to be when you have when 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:05.480 you present something like that to the record company, do 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:07.680 you know what's going to be a hit. Have you 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.680 been surprised shocked that, Oh, this one I thought was 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.800 really gonna be big, but the record company didn't think 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:15.520 it was so great. We're not going to record it, 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:18.480 or it's going to be, like, you know, not a 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.479 major song. Have you been surprised? 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:29.880 No, I'm always I'm always right. I'm not surprised when 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:32.280 it comes to when it comes to my saxophone, I 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:33.520 don't know what's it. 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.760 Don't mess with me and my saxophone. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.800 Man, this sing though, I go, no, it's going to 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:40.680 be the song. No, we don't think so it's going 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.040 to be the song and I'm not gonna that's it. 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:47.320 And discussion is it because you know it because when 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:51.680 you play it, you feel it more than other songs, 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.679 and you just know that this melody, this tune. I 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.120 seen what it does to an audience. And this is 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.560 why I'm sticking to my guns. It's just a got right. 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:02.880 Well, it's not always that because a lot of times 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.160 some of the songs I record I've never played for 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:10.480 an audience, So I don't okay, it's really almost once 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:14.160 I record it, when I hit play, that's when I 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:16.040 know it's right, right. I have to hear it and 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.199 I listened to it. Honestly, I think I'm pretty objective, 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.439 Like I pretend I didn't even play it, Like, well, well, 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.520 how good is this thing? Well this is really good, 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.800 or someone's missing and then I just have to figure 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:29.480 well with what that is? 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:30.120 Right right? 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.040 A ten minutes. It could take a month to figure 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:34.240 out what's missing in a song. 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:41.720 You any did songbird come immediately? Did it download to media? Okay? 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.120 Just it was just like suddenly you were fishing in 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:46.679 the lake and you caught the big one. 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:50.600 Yeah, I just noodled around on the keyboard. Okay, what happened? 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:53.920 This is nineteen eighty five, eighty six, So the world 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:58.679 had just invented the first synthesizer. Okay, no sympathizer. So 0:13:59.160 --> 0:14:03.240 now a hack piano player can sit down and I 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:07.000 can play a little melody hit replay and it just 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.480 keeps playing it and I can fix the notes. So 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.080 all of a sudden you have this perfect, sequential, beautiful 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.840 little music bed that I think is beautiful. But you 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.360 can never have had that before because no person could 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.960 ever play it like that. Yeah, so this machine was 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.400 playing this whoa, let me see if I put my 0:14:25.440 --> 0:14:28.120 saxophone on top of that, what would that sound like? 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.160 And then I just played this melody. I'm like, wow, 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.440 I really love it. I love the way this sounds. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:34.440 And in an hour I was done with Songbird. I 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:37.400 just played all the instruments of myself, a little drum machine, 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.920 a little bass part on the keyboard, string parts on 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.040 the synthesizer. It's like, whoa this is? And I recorded 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.760 it on my eight track recording machine. And that was 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:48.920 and that was the state in. 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:52.800 The art, right, yeah, right. And then once you have 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:57.720 something recorded, you send it off to the record company. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.160 You send it off to your A and R guy, and. 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:05.040 And they could not care less. They couldn't care less 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:08.200 about this instrumentals. They go, yeah, no, we need a 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.040 vocal song that the kids in the ghetto can groove to. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:15.360 They told me, they told me, and so I said, okay, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.400 I'm in and I said, hey, I want to talk 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:20.240 to you. So I got on a plane and flew 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.360 to New York and talked to the A and R guy, 0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:25.880 and I said, you told me yesterday that what you 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.560 think for me is songs that the fifteen year old 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.320 kids in the ghetto can grove to. From a Jewish 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.480 sex player that's what you think I can do. I 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:40.200 can't do that. I said, you know what, let's do. 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:43.000 Let's let's just end our relationship now, it'll be better. 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.280 Just unsign me, let me take my instrumentals, and I'll 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:49.440 just have a I'll just do whatever I'm going to 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.320 do with it. And they said no, no, let's let's 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:54.680 try to figure it out. And so we worked it out. 0:15:54.720 --> 0:15:59.040 But I literally went there and and like, I'm not 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.720 an actor like you, but I acted like I'm done. 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.080 I quit, right. 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:05.600 What's the sense of banging your head against the wall 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.680 of these people if they don't get it right? It's like, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:14.600 I know, it gets absurd. How do you know when 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:15.680 a song is finished? 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:21.840 Oh? Good question, really good question. Yeah, And that's tough. 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:25.920 That's tough for me because I okay, nowadays we don't 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.720 have eight tracks with tape. We've got pro tools with 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.720 endless disk space, and I can if I don't like 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.600 the vibrato at the end of one note, I can 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:41.200 fix that and it will sound. So when does it fixed? 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.760 I mean when is it finished? It's like I go 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.360 through it with a meticulous comb and it's finished when 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.000 I listened to it, and I don't I don't hate 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.000 myself at the end of the song. Then it's finished, 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.400 it's like, okay, you know what, I didn't really cringe 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:01.280 that time. We can move on and that's what happens, right. Yeah, 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:04.720 So not easy for me to let something go because 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.159 I already know I could play that note more in tune, 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.320 or I could play that vibrato better, or I could 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.320 make that maybe I should make that note come from 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.480 above rather than below. So I try a million of 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.440 them and then it's like I can't, I can't do 0:17:19.480 --> 0:17:21.560 it anymore. I gotta let it go. So it's kind 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:23.200 of like that. It's kind of like I gotta let 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:23.399 it go. 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:28.320 But that's your that's your pattern. Every morning you wake up, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.080 you play your sacks three hours. And this has been 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.120 going on every day for year after year after year, 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:43.080 decades and decades decades, and yeah, it's it's yeah, that's 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.280 what you do. That's what you have to do if 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:45.919 you want, you know. 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.400 I I heard Steve Martin. I don't know Steve Martin. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.719 I've met Steve Martin because he's ANANGOI player. It's got 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:54.560 a lot better. I remember when he first picked up 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.439 that bangel I thought bro, come on, just you know, 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.360 you're so funny and you're so good. Why am I 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:04.159 trying to be? You? Am I trying to be a 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:08.119 comedic actor? Can you just? That's what I thought. But 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:12.120 he's gotten very, very good. He's an excellent, excellent band. Yes, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.399 not that I know, but I've seen some things that 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.840 he's But he said something that I just think is 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:19.800 one of the things that I don't know a lot 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.280 of people don't say this, like, how do you how 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.800 do you make it? How do you make it? He said, 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.280 you know, this is what nobody really wants to hear. 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.360 Gets so good that no one can say no. 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:33.240 To you, right, they can't deny you. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:35.600 So if you practice something three hours a day for 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:39.359 fifty year, sixty years, you know you're going to be 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.040 pretty great, and you're going to be you might be 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.639 so great that people can't go you know, he's not 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:49.480 good enough. No, the door's open. So just get great. Yeah, yeah, 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:51.400 but he thinks, but it takes a long time, takes 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:52.520 a lifetime. 0:18:52.400 --> 0:19:03.880 It does, it does? All right, let's talk about your 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:10.000 global reach, your your global dominance. In a song going Home, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:15.840 and that became an unofficial closing song in China for malls, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.440 train stations, et cetera. Were you aware of that phenomenon 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.080 at the time, And when was that? 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.040 By the way, Okay, that was God. That was in 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.480 the early eighties. Okay you no, let's say wait ant no, 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.440 I went. I went to China for the first time 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.720 in the early eighties, but that song came out I 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.520 think in like eighty nine, so I just bec I didn't. 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.000 I didn't know and until I went to China back 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.840 in the nineties. Then and then I just heard it everywhere. 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:47.720 I heard it in the stores, I heard it in 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.040 the loudspeakers, in the middle of tenement square. I heard 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:53.800 my song. I was in a bathroom in the middle 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:58.200 of some little town in middle of China, in the going, 0:19:58.280 --> 0:19:59.879 playing around the golf, and I just went into the 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:02.880 ends room, like in the between the first front nine 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.879 and the bat then I heard my song like this, 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.160 but that song, yeah, seriously, Now, I make a joke 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:13.080 that the first time I played in China, I played 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:14.480 that song in the middle of my set and I 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:16.760 looked up and the audience was gone. But that's just 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.560 a joke. It's not true. We saved that for the 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.840 end because literally people just their their natural instinct when 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:25.879 they hear that song is like they need to whatever 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:28.439 they're doing, they pack up and they go home. So 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.080 I gotta I gotta time that song properly. It's amazing. 0:20:32.119 --> 0:20:35.520 It's like five hundred million people hear that song every 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:36.160 single day. 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:39.639 I unbelievable. 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:42.800 No royalties on that song, unfortunately. 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.320 For what I know, And you gotta get a lawyer 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:45.600 on that. 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.160 I have tried. I've told anybody and everybody, look, get 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.560 the royalties, will split it. We'll split it. You know 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.720 how much royalties you can get for like like I've 0:20:57.000 --> 0:21:01.720 literally sold one hundred fifty million records in China, So 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:03.520 I said, you know, I get some royalties on that 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:05.720 and let's split it. Broke them on it's just fa. 0:21:05.800 --> 0:21:09.840 Wait wait wait, how is it possible that? I mean, 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:14.520 you were selling physical copies right in China when they 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:18.160 had real records. So I don't understand how they could 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:25.879 be available on a wholesale basis and then sold retail. How. 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:28.560