Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Ladies and Gentlemen,
Speaker 1: What is Up? This is Quest Love Supreme Classic.
Speaker 2: I gotta say this is probably.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite favorite episodes of this entire podcast,
Speaker 1: and I have a lot, But what can you say
Speaker 1: about the genius of Michael McDonald.
Speaker 3: We were not ready?
Speaker 2: Actually I think actually Fante steals.
Speaker 1: The steals the show in this episode with his total
Speaker 1: rendition of the Al Dunbar. What's happening Doobie Brothers episode?
Speaker 1: No more spoiler alerts. Let's just get into it. From
Speaker 1: October twenty fifth, twenty seventeen. This is the classic Michael
Speaker 1: McDonald episode Quest Love.
Speaker 2: So all right?
Speaker 4: That was mine Michael McDonald imitation than Supremo.
Speaker 5: Suprema role called premo something suprema role called Suprema Supremo.
Speaker 1: Role, the grand I can listen one table Suprema roll
Speaker 1: this Quest Love Yeah, a k A best love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm so chill love.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because.
Speaker 5: Supreme Supremo role call agreement Suprema role.
Speaker 6: Called My name is Fante?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: You don't have to run fall because this show is
Speaker 6: getting bootleg by Alba, Suprema, Supremo.
Speaker 3: Role Michael McDonald, We're here to meet him. Yeah, mine
Speaker 3: name is Sugar John Sweet Free.
Speaker 7: Supremo, rorem Supremo, roll Clear, Black Knight, Yeah Clear, White Moon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Boss Bill was on the streets. Oh wait, that
Speaker 2: was Warren Ge.
Speaker 6: Sorry, Supremo Roll Supreme.
Speaker 8: Supremo rolls like and I'm quite smitten. Yeah, Michael McDonald, Yeah,
Speaker 8: I keep forgetting.
Speaker 3: This this mcdee. Yeah, it's it's me.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Does anybody have the time, Yeah, that's all I gotta say.
Speaker 2: Supremo, roll, So.
Speaker 5: Supremo, Roll Supremo, Supremo roa.
Speaker 1: Sorryte, I knew you're going, Oh, what's happening?
Speaker 2: Reference?
Speaker 3: What that was?
Speaker 1: I wasn ball dune ball, Okay, I'm gonna.
Speaker 9: Episode.
Speaker 1: I have to admit that I spent three hours in
Speaker 1: bed trying to think of the perfect.
Speaker 2: Reference, like for.
Speaker 1: Real, from like three in the morning, maybe, Like I
Speaker 1: dozed off at six. I had nothing, man, man, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, Fante is gonna have ye.
Speaker 10: I was gonna I was gonna put a tape recorder
Speaker 10: in my down to fall out.
Speaker 2: Had elaborate scheme.
Speaker 3: Where I was gonna you know, I didn't even remember
Speaker 3: that one.
Speaker 2: Ruled our lives.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today is probably
Speaker 1: the most beloved figure in the recording industry. I'll probably
Speaker 1: go as far as to say that he's probably in
Speaker 1: everyone's top three greatest blue eyed soul singers of all time.
Speaker 1: I personally believe that he possesses possibly the most influential,
Speaker 1: most imitated vibrato tenor. And you know, from his years
Speaker 1: as an honorary Steely Danian and a member of the
Speaker 1: Doobie Brothers, not to mention his solo work, Michael McDonald
Speaker 1: is a pop culture god amongst mortal men, you know,
Speaker 1: and his brand stretches way beyond just singing and songwriting.
Speaker 2: I mean, he's he's damn near a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, police, welcome to questlov Supreme, the god
Speaker 1: himself Michael McDonald.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh my god, So thanks for having.
Speaker 2: Me, guys, Thank you? Uh are you? Are you thrown
Speaker 2: off by the fan worship thrown at you today?
Speaker 1: Like? Because I feel like anytime, especially when I see you,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's like you feel like it's
Speaker 1: a genuine appreciation for your work or is it like,
Speaker 1: is this the variety ironic embracing of you know, my work?
Speaker 1: Like are you genuine or is it just coming from
Speaker 1: an ironic comedy level? Like how do you how do
Speaker 1: you feel when people, especially millennials are coming to you and.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's it's all flattering, really. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I always told my son, when you know,
Speaker 3: when your music is no more, no longer relevant, your
Speaker 3: pathetic comic value might be. So you know, you to
Speaker 3: go with it, you know, just you got to take
Speaker 3: what you can get when you can get it. But uh,
Speaker 3: I I'm enjoying myself these days. You know. It's we've
Speaker 3: been out there long enough doing this that no one's
Speaker 3: more amazed than me that we're still doing it at
Speaker 3: our age, you know. And but it's still fun, you know,
Speaker 3: And I still love playing live, and I love playing
Speaker 3: with you guys, you know, looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: We enjoyed it too, because I didn't know. I know that.
Speaker 1: One of the times that you visited the show. I
Speaker 1: know that you know, you came with Donald Figan. You know,
Speaker 1: he was sort of like, are they clowning us? Or
Speaker 1: are they actually respecting us? And you know I was
Speaker 1: we were so thrown off because it's like, yo, he
Speaker 1: doesn't know that we like, this is what we worship,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And it's not because I know about you know, yacht
Speaker 2: rock culture and all.
Speaker 1: Those comedy bits on online, and it could seem like
Speaker 1: it's from a joky angle. But I always wondered, like,
Speaker 1: what was your personal perspective and as far as like
Speaker 1: do you think it's just novelty or or any of
Speaker 1: those things?
Speaker 3: So you know, I I I always enjoyed it and
Speaker 3: and I had fun that that night, but I did
Speaker 3: I don't think the other guys enjoyed it as.
Speaker 2: Much as I said, So, well, thank you. So you
Speaker 2: started out in Saint Louis, right you.
Speaker 3: I grew up in Ferguson.
Speaker 8: Yeah, wow, raising yes, can you talk about that? Because
Speaker 8: literally my mother is born and raised in Saint Louis
Speaker 8: And I called her this morning because I was like, Mommy,
Speaker 8: did you know Michael McDonald's and Saint Louis And she
Speaker 8: was like no. I said, well, this is interesting because
Speaker 8: y'all around the same age growing up in Saint Louis
Speaker 8: very polarized. Ferguson maybe not be the Ferguson that we
Speaker 8: know today.
Speaker 3: No, that's right, you know, I mean, uh, that's you know,
Speaker 3: the in where the conversation is at this point today
Speaker 3: is is exactly where it needs to be, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, uh, I think in the sixties, we all
Speaker 3: really believed that we were going to be the generation
Speaker 3: that didn't leave the burden on our next generation of
Speaker 3: racism in America, you know, and unfortunately that hasn't proven
Speaker 3: to be true. You know, as much as we'd all
Speaker 3: like to think, I think we made great strides because
Speaker 3: I remember Ferguson in the late fifties, right, talk.
Speaker 8: About it because people it's probably totally different.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you know, I mean, you know it was
Speaker 3: apartheid is really what it was, you know, I mean
Speaker 3: nothing less. You know, when you if you were black
Speaker 3: in America in a small town like Ferguson, and if
Speaker 3: you know, it was you were not allowed to live
Speaker 3: in the mainstream. You were ostracized from mainstream society, plain
Speaker 3: and simple. You couldn't walk into the dairy queen without
Speaker 3: causing a stir, you know what I mean. It was.
Speaker 3: And I remember as a kid, you know, that wasn't
Speaker 3: lost on me. I remember, you know, like laying awake
Speaker 3: at night. My two great fears were they were going
Speaker 3: to drop the bomb, and I remember thinking, you know,
Speaker 3: I could have been born black. It's like fifty to fifty,
Speaker 3: you know, and I just didn't understand why the things
Speaker 3: were the way they were, you know. But you know,
Speaker 3: even you know the fact that the reason I mentioned
Speaker 3: is like that it wouldn't even be lost on a
Speaker 3: four year old kid or a five year old kid.
Speaker 3: You know, at the earliest ages, we look at our
Speaker 3: society around us in surprising ways and we go, what
Speaker 3: does this all mean? Why? Why is this this way?
Speaker 3: Why is it that way? And why don't adults do
Speaker 3: something about it? Why don't adults make this right? You know?
Speaker 3: And so we start right there understanding that adults don't
Speaker 3: make things right, you know, that adults don't do the
Speaker 3: right thing, you know, And and so that we spend
Speaker 3: the rest of our lives just kind of, you know,
Speaker 3: compromising with that, you know, and you know, understanding it's
Speaker 3: not a perfect world. But you know, it's funny because
Speaker 3: you know, for all the press that Ferguson gotten, it's
Speaker 3: a great town. It's it's a better town than it
Speaker 3: was when I was a kid. I mean, in so
Speaker 3: many ways. I mean, I go back there a bit,
Speaker 3: quite a bit. You know, I don't live there anymore,
Speaker 3: but when I lived there, it was post war, and
Speaker 3: you know, the downturn in the American economy was something
Speaker 3: people don't remember. But after the war, it was like
Speaker 3: a lot of small towns like that kind of went
Speaker 3: into depression. You know, a lot of the mom and
Speaker 3: pop stores closed up, and Ferguson, you know, had had
Speaker 3: suffered that, like a lot of places until the suburbs
Speaker 3: took over, you know, and shopping malls and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and that pretty much killed, you know, communities like Ferguson.
Speaker 3: So I grew up in that period where you know,
Speaker 3: you walk down main Street Ferguson, it wasn't much going on.
Speaker 3: You know. Today it's it's a it's you know a
Speaker 3: lot more of an economic upturn, you know. And so
Speaker 3: you know, I think what we got to really do
Speaker 3: as a society is learned to have the conversation. You know,
Speaker 3: it's like that what's going on right now with the NFL,
Speaker 3: and you know, we got to we you know, unfortunately,
Speaker 3: we have a guy at the Helm who wants to
Speaker 3: stir it up and be divisive. You know, that's a shame,
Speaker 3: because this is the perfect opportunity for the conversation we
Speaker 3: all need to be having. You know, those guys are
Speaker 3: embracing peaceful protests. It may not be the venue you'd
Speaker 3: like to see it in if you're a football fan
Speaker 3: or whatever, you know, whatever your problem with it is.
Speaker 3: And the whole idea that it's all about the flag
Speaker 3: and the flag is all about the military is not true.
Speaker 3: The flag is about freedom, and that's what the conversation
Speaker 3: is about. And these guys aren't risking they're not destroying
Speaker 3: my property, they're not hurting anyone. The only thing they're
Speaker 3: putting at risk is their own livelihood. And so I
Speaker 3: applaud their courage, you know, and I think it's a
Speaker 3: conversation that we got to have, you know, And it's
Speaker 3: going to be painful, because growth is painful, you know,
Speaker 3: but it you know, that's that's the great America that
Speaker 3: I think most of us are talking about. You know,
Speaker 3: America is getting great, you know, and it can continue
Speaker 3: to get great. But this isn't the time to fall
Speaker 3: asleep at the wheel or to turn back the hands
Speaker 3: of time to something that was not great.
Speaker 8: But it's fascinating, says you grew up in such a
Speaker 8: divisive situation that you had that you like, how did
Speaker 8: you get introduced to soul in that way? Is it
Speaker 8: just that natural to you, because, like you said, ferguson
Speaker 8: black people, black people kind of separate.
Speaker 3: In that way, like, well, you know, it was it
Speaker 3: was the it was society in the fifties, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, so many of my friends are
Speaker 3: younger than me, and they don't really remember, you know,
Speaker 3: they don't really know and black or white or you know,
Speaker 3: African American or Caucasian or whatever they you know, it
Speaker 3: might be very few of them remember America the way
Speaker 3: it was, you know, and it wasn't great for a
Speaker 3: lot of people.
Speaker 1: You know, So it wasn't a footloose narrative where rock
Speaker 1: and roll came in and saved the town and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it's funny. The British invasion probably did
Speaker 3: more to bring awareness to mainstream radio listeners white radio
Speaker 3: listens an awareness of real American music than American radio
Speaker 3: did at the time. A lot of the artists, for instance,
Speaker 3: the Womack Brothers, they had a top ten hit on
Speaker 3: what would have been considered black radio at the time,
Speaker 3: which most white people didn't listen to, didn't know about,
Speaker 3: you know, And it was a song called It's All
Speaker 3: Over Now. When the Rolling Stones did it, it was
Speaker 3: a huge hit, you know, and Bobby Womack made the comment,
Speaker 3: we were heartbroken until the checks started coming in. But
Speaker 3: still that speaks like you know, even motown, as popular
Speaker 3: as it was in mainstream radio, the British acts, the
Speaker 3: Beatles probably had some of the biggest hits of Smokey
Speaker 3: Robinson songs, you know, because they reached the whole other
Speaker 3: audience and that that was segregated in the United States
Speaker 3: at that time, you know.
Speaker 2: So you know, so even the jazz scene wasn't thriving
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: Or it was it was, but that that was I
Speaker 3: think a very you know, that was a kind of
Speaker 3: a I don't want to say, elite sector of intellectual
Speaker 3: music listeners society. It wasn't mainstream, you know, jazz was
Speaker 3: not mainstream. It kind of was in the fifties. It
Speaker 3: was probably rock and roll kind of took over where
Speaker 3: jazz left off in the fifties because jazz was that
Speaker 3: kind of bold and a lot of people growing up
Speaker 3: in the fifties were drawn to that, you know, to
Speaker 3: the artistic boldness of jazz and you know and everything
Speaker 3: that was. But then in rock and roll kind of
Speaker 3: took over the mainstream, you know. But you know, as
Speaker 3: a kid, I remember the first time I heard records
Speaker 3: like Edwin Starr's Stopper on Site. That was a record
Speaker 3: that sticks out in my mind. It was my sister
Speaker 3: and her friends were playing it and they were blasting
Speaker 3: it over a car speaker, and I up to that
Speaker 3: point was pretty much aware of what I knew at
Speaker 3: my age group, which was all these English bands coming out,
Speaker 3: you know, right, And but when I heard that record,
Speaker 3: it was it was like, all of a sudden, there
Speaker 3: was this sophistication to the rhythm track that this you know,
Speaker 3: the guitar was kind of tucked in and syncopated and
Speaker 3: you know, more interesting in a lot of ways. It
Speaker 3: wasn't as a judge so it spoke to broad strokes, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was. It had a certain kind of sophistication that
Speaker 3: I really appeeled to me. And it was from that
Speaker 3: point on that I really started listening to artists that
Speaker 3: I had prior to that not really been that aware of.
Speaker 2: You know, do you remember the first record that you
Speaker 2: ever purchased.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the Everly Brothers Wake Up Little Susie.
Speaker 3: Me and a friend of mine pulled our money and
Speaker 3: went and bought the forty five.
Speaker 2: And how much were forty five's back when you were
Speaker 2: growing up, same.
Speaker 3: As they are now? A buck? We're the one industry
Speaker 3: where the price has not gone up.
Speaker 10: It was on the sorry quest what was on the
Speaker 10: B side of that?
Speaker 3: On the B side, I don't remember. It was that
Speaker 3: record in the Chipmunks Christmas Song. That was my two
Speaker 3: big first records.
Speaker 2: Sorry, no, no, Well I like B sides. Sorry, I
Speaker 2: know I was waiting for you jazz question.
Speaker 10: No, I mean that's I never thought of it that way,
Speaker 10: that that rock and roll took over where jazz left
Speaker 10: off in that sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think in a cultural sense, jazz was that
Speaker 3: daring music taboo, a little bit genre that that, you know,
Speaker 3: if you were really cool, you listen to jazz, you know.
Speaker 1: So was there a hip factor in Saint Louis A yeah,
Speaker 1: counterculture if you will.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely took place around Gaslight Square in Saint Louis, downtown,
Speaker 3: Saint Louis area South, you know, kind of somewhere between South.
Speaker 3: I'm not really sure where Gaslight Square was, to be
Speaker 3: honest with you, but I remember that's where my parents
Speaker 3: went to hear music, you know, and it was like
Speaker 3: there were jazz clubs and uh, and then the tornado
Speaker 3: hit it. One of the big tornadoes came through and
Speaker 3: leveled the place and it never kind of recovered from that.
Speaker 3: You know. It would be like where the village and
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: Uh, concert, Like were you attending concerts at all? Or like,
Speaker 1: what was the first show you remember seeing?
Speaker 3: Let me think about that. I remember going to see, uh,
Speaker 3: this thing called the ALSAC Show. It was the big
Speaker 3: am radio station in Saint Louis, cakes Okay, and they
Speaker 3: brought this show to town. It was like a charity
Speaker 3: event and Wilson Pickett was on was one of the headliners.
Speaker 3: So up there was the Memphis Rhythm Section, Memphis horns,
Speaker 3: you know, the whole the whole gang. And it was
Speaker 3: like just this powerful experience to hear those guys and
Speaker 3: Keel Auditorium, you know, and that was one of the
Speaker 3: There was another great show I saw there was the Beg's.
Speaker 3: Once I was driving around and I saw their name
Speaker 3: on the Marquee and a friend of mine and I
Speaker 3: went in.
Speaker 2: The Australian version.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Beg's, Yeah, the Beatles, and this was long
Speaker 3: before their big resurgence, you know, this was like you know, sixties,
Speaker 3: you know. And we went in there and it was
Speaker 3: like the first two rows had people and nothing else.
Speaker 3: It was like there no one knew that they and
Speaker 3: these guys came out and did this show as if
Speaker 3: the place was filled to the brim. You know, they
Speaker 3: just didn't undaunted. They just put on this great show.
Speaker 3: And I remember thinking, man, that's that's pretty cool. You know,
Speaker 3: I should somehow I remembered that, you know, and.
Speaker 1: Wait, you casually walked by saw the Beg's on the
Speaker 1: Marquie was like listen. Was yeah, how much were shows
Speaker 1: back then that you could just not much?
Speaker 3: It's probably about five bucks apiece. We went in and
Speaker 3: saw these guys play, you know, it's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 9: And at that point, had you start singing yet to yourself?
Speaker 9: And the shot? Did you start singing yet?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was in I was in a band. In fact,
Speaker 3: me and this this friend of mine were in a
Speaker 3: band together and we we were just driving around Saint Louis,
Speaker 3: you know, doing very much nothing as usual, you know.
Speaker 3: And I saw them on the Marquee and hadn't heard
Speaker 3: a thing about it. So we just you know, walked
Speaker 3: up and tickets were place was not even close to
Speaker 3: being sold out, but they did a great show.
Speaker 6: How did you start playing? Were you self taught or
Speaker 6: did you take lessons?
Speaker 3: I'm just just self taught, you know. I my I
Speaker 3: started off playing tenor banjo for my dad, who was saying, uh,
Speaker 3: he was a singer and sang in a lot of bars,
Speaker 3: not so much professionally, but he sang, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: and people kind of knew him as a singer, you know,
Speaker 3: so when he walked in a saloon, everybody wanted him
Speaker 3: to sing. And so I followed him around a lot
Speaker 3: as a kid, and uh, I would play tenor banjo
Speaker 3: for him, and uh he would do you know, uh
Speaker 3: old like ragtime songs and Irish songs and you know,
Speaker 3: Danny Boy was his big number. And so I got
Speaker 3: the chance. The significance of that was I got to
Speaker 3: hear a lot of great piano players, got the guys
Speaker 3: that he would go to visit who played piano in
Speaker 3: these bars, and ah, and it was amazing how talented
Speaker 3: they were looking back, especially, I realized that these these
Speaker 3: these were great musicians, you know, but here they were
Speaker 3: in the corner bar and Saint Louis playing Bill Bailey,
Speaker 3: Won't You Please Come Home? For all these drunks, and
Speaker 3: they hated every minute of it.
Speaker 2: You know, anyone else in your family?
Speaker 8: Uh?
Speaker 2: Singers?
Speaker 3: Yeah? My sisters both sing, you know, and they both
Speaker 3: got nice.
Speaker 6: Words singing background on the keep forgetting.
Speaker 3: That Maureen, that's Mareen. She still sings with me. My
Speaker 3: sister Kathy still sings with me. And you know, once
Speaker 3: in a while, we'll do these shows around town, just
Speaker 3: like charity events and stuff, and the family will come
Speaker 3: out and sing for me.
Speaker 9: What's your dad say when he realized you had the voice?
Speaker 9: Because he knew the band jo.
Speaker 3: He said, get your high school equivalent? S. He wasn't
Speaker 3: a big fan of the music video. I mean, it
Speaker 3: wasn't that he wasn't, But I don't think he saw
Speaker 3: it as a viable living, you know, and.
Speaker 6: I don't think any parent until it becomes yeah, right,
Speaker 6: that's right.
Speaker 3: No one was prouder that I was able to make
Speaker 3: a living at it, you.
Speaker 1: Know, But in hindsight, did you always have the voice
Speaker 1: that we know is Michael McDonald.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 1: There's so much technique in it, like who's teaching your
Speaker 1: who you emulating? And you know where'd you learn control
Speaker 1: and your verbrato and your tone?
Speaker 3: You know. A lot of my singing voice came from
Speaker 3: singing in bars, you know, because I had to preserve I.
Speaker 2: Say, smoke or beer.
Speaker 3: And then tobacco had something to do. I thought it
Speaker 3: was a good thing for a while until it was
Speaker 3: a great thing for us. But no, I early on
Speaker 3: I realized that if I wanted to sing like James
Speaker 3: Brown and uh uh some of the you know, the showers,
Speaker 3: you know, the great blue singers, I wouldn't have a
Speaker 3: voice very long if I did, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: like Mitch Ryder and all those singers that were famous
Speaker 3: for their screams, you know. But so I I developed
Speaker 3: a style that where I could kind of sound like
Speaker 3: I was putting more into it than I really had to.
Speaker 3: So I could sing five sets a night, you know, and.
Speaker 2: Five sets a night.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did. We did. Like I did a lot
Speaker 3: of that in LA We'd play like three four five
Speaker 3: sets a night and sometimes go after hours, you know,
Speaker 3: and some go across town and play after hours clubs.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So what brought you to LA as far as.
Speaker 3: A record deal? Originally I came out to do a
Speaker 3: record for RCA Records, your own, not with Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was my own. I'm only hesitant to mention it for
Speaker 3: fear that someone might actually find it and listen to it.
Speaker 6: Oh God.
Speaker 9: He got discovered in St.
Speaker 2: Louis.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was actually in Champagne, Illinois, playing in a bar,
Speaker 3: and a producer, a guy who I'm not to this day,
Speaker 3: who was from, believe it or not, Champagne, Illinois. He
Speaker 3: grew up on a farm there, went to l A
Speaker 3: and with the New Christy Minstrels. Remember the New Christy Minstrels.
Speaker 3: It was like a folk singing group, you know, and
Speaker 3: he if you watch that movie Mighty Wind, that's pretty
Speaker 3: much so. Anyway, he was in one of those groups,
Speaker 3: and he met his wife. But anyway, he wound up
Speaker 3: producing records for RCA Records. He produced the first Jefferson
Speaker 3: air playing album. Harry Nilson jose Fliciano you know, had
Speaker 3: quite a run, you know, producing some great records, and
Speaker 3: he heard me in a bar, signed me up and
Speaker 3: I came out to California. And the good part of
Speaker 3: that story is he he kept me alive by using
Speaker 3: me on sessions that I had no business being on.
Speaker 3: You know, I was playing with these guys who were
Speaker 3: really a list guys, and they had to put up
Speaker 3: with me because this guy wanted me to get paid.
Speaker 6: You know, he sings, I was playing piano.
Speaker 3: I had even less business being on these session on
Speaker 3: which on which sessions? Oh uh, you know, things like
Speaker 3: everything from David Cassidy to Jack Jones to uh John
Speaker 3: Harton John Hartford. Uh, you know, just things that he
Speaker 3: was producing at the time, some Jose Feliciano tracks maybe, uh,
Speaker 3: but it gave me experience I would have never gotten otherwise,
Speaker 3: you know. And uh, really where I learned, you know,
Speaker 3: how to play with other musicians on a whole other level,
Speaker 3: you know, are much more professional capacity.
Speaker 6: And you're still just self taught at this point. You
Speaker 6: just kind of figured it out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was came from bar bands in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis. It was like the first one of the
Speaker 3: bridge gets the solo. You know, it was like we
Speaker 3: were just rushing ahead, you know.
Speaker 1: Wow, well, uh, you know, as we are very curious
Speaker 1: on quest Love Supreme. We would like to play a
Speaker 1: bit of God News by young Mike McDonald.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, this is gonna be painful.
Speaker 2: Change and you should go away. Oh baby, Paul I
Speaker 2: have Junior said, well do you know that fifteen?
Speaker 3: I'm sad?
Speaker 2: You know you ste know about God.
Speaker 6: No, it's like Tom Jones Watch your Family. I think
Speaker 6: it's like, how old are you on that recording?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 6: Eighteen and you sounded like forty?
Speaker 2: J Thomas. I feel it. I feel it. That was
Speaker 2: nothing embarrassing about that manh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great, Thank you? So uh woll within
Speaker 1: the in l a Uh are you interacting at all?
Speaker 1: Or how are you running into what will eventually be
Speaker 1: your peers at the mid seventies to mid eighties, like
Speaker 1: the Bacados, the Pages, the I.
Speaker 3: Got, Yeah, you know that was I probably met those
Speaker 3: guys more on the club level doing casuals. One of
Speaker 3: the first gigs I ever remember meeting Jeff Pacarl I'm
Speaker 3: not even sure I met him. That night we were
Speaker 3: playing at a club in the Valley cent Fernando Valley
Speaker 3: and his band came in and played, and they were
Speaker 3: all underage. They were all like junior high school age
Speaker 3: and I'm trying to remember the name of the band.
Speaker 3: They were named after their street they lived on, and
Speaker 3: it was all Grant High School kids freshman year, and
Speaker 3: Jeff was this phenomenal drummer and they were kind of
Speaker 3: a fusion band, you know. So it was interesting because
Speaker 3: every ending Jeff kind of did a symbol solo for it.
Speaker 3: It ended each song with this you know kind of
Speaker 3: you know, and but he was obviously really great and
Speaker 3: the next time I heard about him doing sessions after that,
Speaker 3: and uh, the next time I met him, we played
Speaker 3: a casual for a TV show that was a rap
Speaker 3: party for Universal Studios. And make a long story short,
Speaker 3: my girlfriend was the contractor on this show. She was
Speaker 3: a bass player at the time, Brandy.
Speaker 2: And I love to say, Carol, kay, wait a minute, yeah, no, no,
Speaker 2: no no, But she.
Speaker 3: She left to go do a gig in Vegas and
Speaker 3: she said, make sure you do this gig and we
Speaker 3: could get the band together, and will you do this
Speaker 3: gig for me? I said sure. She goes, You're not
Speaker 3: going to leave it to the last minute and you know,
Speaker 3: and and have it be a complete, uh you know,
Speaker 3: disaster disaster. I said, no, I promise, I won't. Of
Speaker 3: course I did, and you did. So at the last minute,
Speaker 3: I call the sax player friend of mine and he goes,
Speaker 3: I know these cats, they do sessions, she goes, but
Speaker 3: they love to play and they'll probably do it for free.
Speaker 3: I said, even better, you know, but I just I
Speaker 3: need somebody. So we all showed up. None of us
Speaker 3: knew each other, We didn't rehearse. We just played every
Speaker 3: top forty song we could think of, and then for
Speaker 3: the next three sets we played the same ones over again,
Speaker 3: but they were all pretty drunk by then. Nobody cared,
Speaker 3: you know, and we uh it was Jeff Pacarl, David Page,
Speaker 3: Mike Piccarl on bass Monsters. Yeah, and uh. The next
Speaker 3: time I talked to Jeff was like a year later.
Speaker 3: He called me through the same girl, Brandy, and he said,
Speaker 3: I'm looking for Mike. We're auditioning for Steely Dan, and
Speaker 3: I thought maybe he could play some keyboard and and sing,
Speaker 3: you know, do some of the backgrounds, because they're looking
Speaker 3: to kind of keep the band small, you know. And
Speaker 3: so as soon as I heard, I threw my piano
Speaker 3: in my Pinto and I drove down to Modern Music
Speaker 3: and auditioned. And you know, miraculously got the job, you know,
Speaker 3: and wound up toured the world those guys before.
Speaker 2: They broke up. You know, were you playing a Wolitzer
Speaker 2: or a little black worltzer? Yeah? Okay for those that
Speaker 2: don't know, And I've always just heard the legend of
Speaker 2: Steely Dan just being a studio group, Like what was
Speaker 2: the initial meat and potatoes of the band? You came
Speaker 2: in during what Katie lied or right?
Speaker 3: They hadn't started Katie yet. They partzel Logic was the
Speaker 3: record they were touring on. They just had just finished
Speaker 3: Partzel Logic.
Speaker 1: So was there ever besides Fagan and Becker, were there
Speaker 1: core members that were Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well the band at that time existed as Steely Dan,
Speaker 3: Donald Walter, Jimmy Hotter on drums, and Jeff McCarroll on drums.
Speaker 3: Uh and Walter played bass, Danny Diaz played guitar, and
Speaker 3: Jeff Baxter played guitar, and uh myself playing some keyboards
Speaker 3: and singing backgrounds of Royce Jones played percussion and sang backgrounds.
Speaker 3: Royce was another LA guy that played clubs and you know,
Speaker 3: uh uh great singer and a great percussionist. But uh
Speaker 3: so we were that was pretty much the core group,
Speaker 3: the whole group right there.
Speaker 6: And how is it moving into their their band because
Speaker 6: as a self taught player, I mean the stuff they're
Speaker 6: playing is pretty adventure Yeah. Yeah, like how did you
Speaker 6: figure all that stuff out?
Speaker 3: Well? Donald showed me, you know, what he wanted me
Speaker 3: to play pretty much, you know, and and uh, which
Speaker 3: was basically backing him up on piano and uh uh
Speaker 3: with with electric piano and uh and it was It
Speaker 3: was great. It was a real education for me, especially
Speaker 3: in songwriting, because all of a sudden I saw how
Speaker 3: he voiced these chords that uh and there was a
Speaker 3: simplicity to it that was ingenious, you know that I
Speaker 3: I kind of learned that a lot of times, uh,
Speaker 3: the the harmonic vastness of their songs really came from
Speaker 3: the fact that the chords were very simple kind of triads,
Speaker 3: you know, with not in unusual forms, you know, like
Speaker 3: one two inverted. Yeah. Yeah, and a lot of times
Speaker 3: that's how the chords moved, you know, in that kind
Speaker 3: of symmetric pattern. But it really it just opened my
Speaker 3: whole head up to composition, you know, pop songwriting, you
Speaker 3: know for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but how.
Speaker 1: Can you explain the phenomenon of Steely Damn because it's
Speaker 1: for me, maybe because I grew up ten years later.
Speaker 1: You know, I see probably the figure that I see
Speaker 1: that came close to experimenting as far as he could.
Speaker 2: And staying pop was printed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what were the what were Fagan and Becker's
Speaker 1: work habits as far as like was their intention to
Speaker 1: make digestible pop music multi layered with this intricate jazz approach?
Speaker 2: I mean, and I know.
Speaker 1: At least watching the documentary for like as how how
Speaker 1: animal retentive they were, Like how as tasks?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like how what were their work habits like in
Speaker 2: the studio.
Speaker 3: It was you know, nothing stood in the way between
Speaker 3: them and the end game, you know, what they really
Speaker 3: were trying to go for. And what I find most
Speaker 3: interesting about Stue Dan. I remember we toured with them
Speaker 3: not that long ago, maybe but four or five years ago,
Speaker 3: and of course I would stick around every night and
Speaker 3: listen to their set and they every night I would
Speaker 3: it would hit me. You know, these guys were the
Speaker 3: darlings of Top forty radio for like ten to fifteen years,
Speaker 3: and their music is so weird, you know, it's so
Speaker 3: strange and it's so eclectic. How do they manage that?
Speaker 3: You know? But you know, I know in there as
Speaker 3: far as their work habits, like you mentioned, they were
Speaker 3: very insulated down on Walter, they seemed to be to me.
Speaker 3: They would kind of go off somewhere unknown to anyone
Speaker 3: else and write these songs. And I know that just
Speaker 3: from my own experience of being around them in rehearsal
Speaker 3: and stuff, that some of the influences they had were
Speaker 3: surprising to me. Like Duke Ellington, it was a huge
Speaker 3: influence on those guys, you know, on the makeup of
Speaker 3: their band, and you know, the chord progressions they wrote,
Speaker 3: the way they you know, the harmonic sense that they
Speaker 3: had with their songs. Was they really that sophistication that
Speaker 3: Steely Dan has kind of Probably the most direct influence
Speaker 3: I can think of would be Duke Ellington and our
Speaker 3: just like that, you know that we're that they somehow
Speaker 3: kind of twisted into this pop uh format genre, you know.
Speaker 2: All right, So I'm just going to jump to it.
Speaker 2: Peg how this background, how.
Speaker 1: I feel like PEG is probably on the records, one
Speaker 1: of the most intricate crafted background.
Speaker 9: You listening to Mike McDonald, He's like, no, no, no, no, that's.
Speaker 2: Not right, that's this is me, this is my my
Speaker 2: bad like has a dedication to you, Like, yeah, how.
Speaker 3: I think that sounds better than the last time we
Speaker 3: sang it.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I was going to ask one. How
Speaker 2: do you how do you how do you guys recreate
Speaker 2: this stuff on stage?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a group of us, you know, singers and.
Speaker 2: Are they anal retentive one stage as well?
Speaker 3: Donald kind of gives us the parts, you know, and
Speaker 3: like when I sang it in the studio, my biggest
Speaker 3: problem was I couldn't sing the harmonies listening to the
Speaker 3: last harmony I did because it was too close.
Speaker 2: And so you do it separate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, if if I, if I were a
Speaker 3: little more schooled as a singer, I might have been
Speaker 3: able to pull that off. But so I would just
Speaker 3: have them turn off the last part I sang and
Speaker 3: then give me the new part. I'd sing it, and
Speaker 3: then the first time I heard it altogether was after
Speaker 3: I finished it, you know. But uh, but on live
Speaker 3: on stage, we would sing the parts, uh, and we
Speaker 3: would you know, you'd get your part in your head
Speaker 3: and then you only have to be you know, responsible
Speaker 3: for that one part and with Donald. I always wanted
Speaker 3: to make sure I sang it in tune and on time,
Speaker 3: so I sang most of those parts while staring at
Speaker 3: him across the stage.
Speaker 2: See are there five other people also matching the notes?
Speaker 3: The girls? And uh yeah, it was me and the
Speaker 3: girls pretty much, you know, and and Donald.
Speaker 2: You know, was the Tory unit. Not it wasn't the
Speaker 2: same as the studio unit.
Speaker 3: Correct, No, No, it was the stulely Dan as it
Speaker 3: has been in recent past, with Catherine Russell and Carolyn
Speaker 3: Linehart singing, two great great singers. You know.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, kudos to that is. I still don't think
Speaker 1: you get enough credit for or respect for that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it just sounds so effortless that you take it for granted.
Speaker 3: Well, those guys, that was all there was always there,
Speaker 3: you know. I came in late on these recordings.
Speaker 1: The typically the tracks were done, and how physically, how
Speaker 1: long did it take for you to do.
Speaker 3: You know? Typically, I don't think I ever did more
Speaker 3: than two tracks in a given session. Usually, you know, more,
Speaker 3: probably more often one you know that they were concentrating
Speaker 3: on for that day, you know, So.
Speaker 2: You're saying you just literally breezed through peg and under
Speaker 2: half hour.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say I breezed through anything with those guys,
Speaker 3: you know, it was you know, and there were some
Speaker 3: tracks I actually didn't I wasn't able to do, you know,
Speaker 3: Like I remember Doctor Wu. They had sent me that
Speaker 3: track in advance and said, you know, we would like
Speaker 3: to hear your voice on this, and I loved the
Speaker 3: song and I wanted more than anything in the world
Speaker 3: to be able to do that track because I just
Speaker 3: particularly love that tune, you know, and I couldn't. I
Speaker 3: couldn't do it. You had to sing it all in
Speaker 3: one breath, and I smoked way too much at.
Speaker 6: That point in my life to pull that off.
Speaker 3: So I was really disappointed. And of course they never
Speaker 3: let me live it down. But you know, it was
Speaker 3: all in good fun. But you know, there were times
Speaker 3: when I really was not the guy.
Speaker 1: So how did they Yeah, I know they're they're infamous
Speaker 1: for replacing, Like, Okay, you're not going to nail it,
Speaker 1: get someone else.
Speaker 2: How how do they break that news to you hurting
Speaker 2: your feelings?
Speaker 3: Usually, No, it was you have to take those guys.
Speaker 3: They always had a great sense of humor, those guys,
Speaker 3: and you know, they would be the first two that
Speaker 3: got fired. You know, they they would fire themselves before
Speaker 3: they fired everyone else, right, So, I mean a lot
Speaker 3: of the tracking, Donald would have Michael Marty and play
Speaker 3: piano or uh and or Victor Feldman and Walter would
Speaker 3: have different bass players.
Speaker 2: You know, uh so one stand by in the break
Speaker 2: room like Chuck Brainey.
Speaker 3: You know, they just would they would just go ahead
Speaker 3: and hire other guys to do the parts that they
Speaker 3: you know, would do live later, you know, just just
Speaker 3: to get the track to feel the way they wanted
Speaker 3: it to feel.
Speaker 1: You know, were you guys aware at the time that
Speaker 1: you were laying the blueprint for And there's always debate
Speaker 1: on you know, I I see, I mean I'm seeing
Speaker 1: yacht rock now. Probably you hate the term yacht rock
Speaker 1: the same way that I kind of scuffle with the
Speaker 1: word Neil's soul. But I mean, in hindsight, it's a
Speaker 1: very quick way to describe this on her music feel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's like a California sound or whatever.
Speaker 1: And it's so weird because I know that critics, at
Speaker 1: least back then, like the guys that I interact with now,
Speaker 1: who are music critics that are like kind of in
Speaker 1: their sixties now in seventies, I can tell, like they
Speaker 1: seem so not apologetic. But you know, if we talk
Speaker 1: about Second Half of Chicago or Toto's music or whatever,
Speaker 1: like any you know, they're always like and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: like I love that shit, Like like I don't listen
Speaker 1: to NWA one of the time, I listened to everything else.
Speaker 2: But critic were you guys sort of aware of.
Speaker 1: Critics sort of well, I mean they didn't dismiss Steely
Speaker 1: Dan as much, but I'm just saying, like critics hold
Speaker 1: scoffed notion of what La Soft Rock was, you.
Speaker 3: Know, yes, and no, I mean, I uh, I think
Speaker 3: we got a lot of you know, bad press a
Speaker 3: lot of the time, you know, for initially, and then
Speaker 3: you know, if the record got popular, then it was
Speaker 3: you know, we always loved it. Yeah, you know, but
Speaker 3: but I think that's just that's just kind of comes
Speaker 3: and that's kind of part of the deal. You know.
Speaker 3: I don't know that we're any different than anyone else.
Speaker 3: You know. It's funny. I was watching the Eagles documentary,
Speaker 3: and you know, I thought every album they had was
Speaker 3: like this gigantic success, you know, but according to the documentary,
Speaker 3: there were periods and records they did where the record
Speaker 3: company was thinking of dropping them or you know, or
Speaker 3: you know, they went through their own trial and era
Speaker 3: of h and they wanted to be more of a
Speaker 3: rock band, and it was like, oh, come on, this
Speaker 3: country band wants to be a rock band now. And
Speaker 3: they had to face all that same kind of run,
Speaker 3: that same kind of gauntlet with critics and record people,
Speaker 3: and so I think every band goes through that. You know,
Speaker 3: it's it's just what's going on in the inside compared
Speaker 3: to what people think is going on from the outside.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of him, since you brought it up, were
Speaker 1: you aware of any kind of light ribbing rivalry between
Speaker 1: the two camps, the Eagles and Steely Dan, I know
Speaker 1: the lyric wise they were throwing.
Speaker 3: No, I didn't. I didn't really think that was true.
Speaker 3: I think that was a manufactured kind of a press
Speaker 3: thing because I don't know that it really ever was
Speaker 3: anything between. I think it was just a lyric in
Speaker 3: the song, if you know what I mean, and kind
Speaker 3: of like when Chuck Berry saying I couldn't unfaster or
Speaker 3: safety belt. It was just a kind of a tip
Speaker 3: of the hat to the times we lived in right,
Speaker 3: and you know which, by the way, I thought, I
Speaker 3: remember when I was a kid, we backed him up,
Speaker 3: and I thought, how clever is this this guy? Because
Speaker 3: safety Bills had just come out that year. He is
Speaker 3: putting in the song already, you know. But I think
Speaker 3: the same thing with the Eagles. You know, the reference
Speaker 3: in that song was just, uh, you know, it's kind
Speaker 3: of life in today's world. You know what reference are
Speaker 3: we are we turned down the Eagles of Neighbors are listening,
Speaker 3: you know. I don't think it really really meant to
Speaker 3: be a slam at the Eagles, and I think they
Speaker 3: just kind of play roy humor, the Royal Scaeah.
Speaker 1: There's light lyrical references, which if it were hip hop,
Speaker 1: you know, shot could have been.
Speaker 2: So obviously. Uh, Jeff Scott pulls you can I assume that.
Speaker 1: He pulls you into the Doobies and the Doobies as
Speaker 1: you guys were working together on the Steely.
Speaker 2: Dan was he in he during your period?
Speaker 3: Or yes he was and we toured together and uh
Speaker 3: then the Donald Walter disbanded the band, you know, in
Speaker 3: that period of time, and I felt kind of like
Speaker 3: Timothy Schmidt said, you know, uh, I just got the
Speaker 3: best gig of my life and these assholes break up? Why?
Speaker 2: Yeahauch was after it was.
Speaker 3: It was excuse me, Katie k right after Katie Light,
Speaker 3: right before cad Light.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, why did they break up?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I wouldn't speculate myself, because it wasn't
Speaker 3: really a part of their world that I was privy to,
Speaker 3: if you know what I mean. I was just kind
Speaker 3: of for higher guy.
Speaker 2: Well, you mean the period between Asia you joined the
Speaker 2: Dubies in seventy seven.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, uh no, seventy five. That's when I taken
Speaker 3: to the streets.
Speaker 1: I think we did, okay, seventy five. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: was like three four years between Gaucho Wascha was eighty yeah,
Speaker 1: scam and it was along. So you're saying that period
Speaker 1: wasn't just a writer as Black Hiatus. It was like
Speaker 1: we break up and then.
Speaker 3: Well let's see, I mean they were they were starting
Speaker 3: Katie Lied by the time we got done touring, you know,
Speaker 3: And so it wasn't too long after that, maybe six
Speaker 3: months later, that I went in the studio with them
Speaker 3: for Katie Lied and sang those backgrounds on bad Sneakers
Speaker 3: and some other things, and then Royal Scam was the
Speaker 3: next record, and then Gaucho I believe Asian then Gaucho.
Speaker 3: So you know, they were they stayed fairly busy, you know,
Speaker 3: through that period, but they just no longer were seely
Speaker 3: Dan as we all knew them originally, you know, as
Speaker 3: a band, but more as Walter and Donald.
Speaker 2: You know, okay, did you? I mean, why was I'm
Speaker 2: trying to figure out why. My question is, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: why wasn't it?
Speaker 3: I think the biggest you know, And again it's probably
Speaker 3: not my place to even say this, but they one
Speaker 3: of the things I I thought at the time was
Speaker 3: they no longer wanted to tour, and the only real
Speaker 3: livelihood the other guys had, since they weren't the writers,
Speaker 3: was the touring they did, right, So they wanted to
Speaker 3: stay on the road, and I don't think Donald Walter
Speaker 3: wanted to be on the road anymore. They didn't really
Speaker 3: care for it, and and so, uh, it just it
Speaker 3: created a whole world that they didn't really care to
Speaker 3: be a part of. They wanted to be in the
Speaker 3: studio and they wanted to be writing songs, you know,
Speaker 3: and so they they that was kind of a necessity
Speaker 3: for them to be able to pursue that more freely,
Speaker 3: to not have the band to consider, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: because there.
Speaker 1: Ain't going on but the written. So how how easy
Speaker 1: was the transition to the Doobies?
Speaker 3: Surprisingly easy? Uh? Not nothing I counted on. I mean
Speaker 3: I got the call from Jeff and uh, I flew
Speaker 3: down to New Orleans, and really it was only obsensibly.
Speaker 3: I was just going to fill in for Tommy while
Speaker 3: he was took up medical leave pretty much from in
Speaker 3: the middle.
Speaker 2: Of this tour.
Speaker 3: And then as things progressed and that tour came to
Speaker 3: a close, there was the back then. It was like
Speaker 3: the Dubies was one of those bands that they took
Speaker 3: very seriously an album a year, you know, and the
Speaker 3: label was really after them to get another record, and
Speaker 3: the way things worked out, it was kind of just okay.
Speaker 3: They we were all kind of caught unprepared. I really
Speaker 3: didn't see myself as part of that part of the band.
Speaker 3: But I had made a demo with Tyrne in his house.
Speaker 3: He had put together his home studio, and he said,
Speaker 3: you want to try a recording something. I said, sure.
Speaker 3: You know, I was just over his house for dinner
Speaker 3: and so we threw the song down of just something
Speaker 3: I had been in my head and you know, and
Speaker 3: I uh, we recorded it and I put the vocal
Speaker 3: down and we thought it sounded pretty good and uh
Speaker 3: uh he played it for Ted Templeman, and Ted said,
Speaker 3: you guys should cut this. This is kind of weird
Speaker 3: and different, you know, for the band. And it was
Speaker 3: a song called the Losing End, which is like the
Speaker 3: last song on Earth. I thought the Doobie Brothers would
Speaker 3: ever do, you know, and that would wound up being
Speaker 3: like the first track we cut for the Taken to
Speaker 3: the Streets record. And then so I hurried up and
Speaker 3: finished a couple of songs that have just been living
Speaker 3: in my head, you know. One was Taken It to
Speaker 3: the Streets and Keeps You Running and uh. And so
Speaker 3: that the album kind of started to take shape. Pat
Speaker 3: had some songs, and and Tommy was not really ready
Speaker 3: to come back to the to the group in that
Speaker 3: touring schedule, and and uh and work.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: He was still pretty much on hiatus at the time,
Speaker 3: and and and his departure was such a gaping hole.
Speaker 3: And as you can imagine, you know, in the band,
Speaker 3: it was he was such a driving force in the band.
Speaker 3: The whole time and and to this and remained. That's
Speaker 3: even during the time I was with him, a big
Speaker 3: part of our show was the songs he had written
Speaker 3: for the band, you know.
Speaker 1: So, I mean you were kind of thrown into a
Speaker 1: position similar to Dennis Edwards the New Temptation or even
Speaker 1: James J. T.
Speaker 2: Taylor for cooling the game in the game.
Speaker 1: But as far as the songs that h that he
Speaker 1: sang lead on, like when you were first doing your
Speaker 1: touring with them, like were you were you having to
Speaker 1: do uh.
Speaker 2: Listen to the music? Yeah, like oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: In fact, when I the first gig I did with him,
Speaker 3: I I flew to New Orleans. I got picked up
Speaker 3: by these two guys that I didn't know whether they
Speaker 3: were to take me to rehearsal or kill me. You know.
Speaker 3: Uh uh. We rehearsed in in this place called the
Speaker 3: Warehouse in New Orleans. And at the time, at that
Speaker 3: time in my life, you know, uh, there was a
Speaker 3: lot of things going on with me. I was playing
Speaker 3: clubs for a lot of years. I probably was ah
Speaker 3: easy to say, down on my luck so to speak,
Speaker 3: you know, financially, and I was, you know, living in
Speaker 3: a garage in Burbank. Uh and uh. I thought, well,
Speaker 3: you know, when I got to meet all these guys, ah,
Speaker 3: I thought, well, this is the gig I've been waiting for.
Speaker 3: Everybody drinks as much as I do, and you know,
Speaker 3: and they kind of uh it was a pretty rowdy
Speaker 3: bunch of guys, you know, and uh, but they they
Speaker 3: seemed to have fun and it was a good band.
Speaker 3: But the thing that struck me the first time we
Speaker 3: played was I was just playing these songs in a
Speaker 3: bar too, you know, too nice before I came down
Speaker 3: here in Burbank or Pasadena, you know, because they were
Speaker 3: like the big It was like Mustang Sally listening to
Speaker 3: the music, long train running. You had to know those
Speaker 3: songs if you're going to play in any of the
Speaker 3: dance bars in La Area. So here I am on
Speaker 3: stage with these guys playing these songs. I thought that
Speaker 3: was kind of ironic, you know. But and for that
Speaker 3: whole period of time, during the time I was with
Speaker 3: Steely Dan and the Dobies, I lived in two realities.
Speaker 3: You know. I'd come home and go back to work
Speaker 3: at the Trojan Club in Pasadena, oh wow, and then
Speaker 3: be ready to hit the road with Steely Dan. And
Speaker 3: or the Doobie Brothers. You know.
Speaker 2: So wait, you were in two full fledged bands. Well, no,
Speaker 2: I am doing your regular club.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, the Doobies and Steely Dan. That was separate things.
Speaker 3: But during that period when I was with Steely Dan
Speaker 3: and when I was you know, one minute, I was
Speaker 3: touring Europe with Steely Dan, next minute I was back
Speaker 3: in Pasadena playing at the Trojan Club. And then I
Speaker 3: got an audition to go to New Orleans to play
Speaker 3: with these guys, and I stayed with them. But during
Speaker 3: my time off, I went back to playing clubs again,
Speaker 3: just you know, just to stay in, you know, in
Speaker 3: the circle of guys that I played around LA with.
Speaker 6: You know, how much were you making around it?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I say, could you make a Bible living?
Speaker 3: Like? Were you like, oh, okay, not really no. I
Speaker 3: mean back then, for a lot of reasons. One was
Speaker 3: we we weren't that serious about our top forty chops
Speaker 3: and our gigs. You know, we didn't really We weren't
Speaker 3: one of those bands that really made a living at it.
Speaker 3: We were guys that did it for the weekend to
Speaker 3: make a couple of hundred bucks a piece, you know,
Speaker 3: and have some spending money. And we you typically didn't rehearse.
Speaker 3: We just kind of got together and you know a
Speaker 3: lot of the songs you can play the drunk, yeah,
Speaker 3: And so you know, it was that kind of existence
Speaker 3: in LA, and then I looked to play with and
Speaker 3: sing on whatever. I did a lot of background singing,
Speaker 3: So that was a probably more of a of a
Speaker 3: living for me at the time.
Speaker 2: You know, you know what White Luther.
Speaker 1: The same story because even you know Luther's tenure with
Speaker 1: chicn Can do It were you did you cut your
Speaker 1: teeth on it, like the jingle circuit at all?
Speaker 3: Like, uh, not so much the jingles. I did a
Speaker 3: lot of sessions though with Luther Vanders, James Ingram, Philip Ingram,
Speaker 3: you know, we we were the switch. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 3: uh we did a lot of background singing for a
Speaker 3: lot of people, you know during that period of time.
Speaker 2: You know, well, I know back then, uh, singing for
Speaker 2: publishing houses was a good living.
Speaker 3: So I think that was more Nashville and New York
Speaker 3: because LA was really typically more the and it wasn't
Speaker 3: even a real viable demo scene. Typically people did their
Speaker 3: demos for free, you know, and and it wasn't like
Speaker 3: Nashville where you can make a living just playing on
Speaker 3: demos for publishing companies, you know, because there's a lot
Speaker 3: of publishing companies there. But La, the publishing companies weren't.
Speaker 3: They weren't in the fray like they were in New
Speaker 3: York and in you know, La, I mean in Nashville.
Speaker 3: That wasn't that. It wasn't that sector of the music
Speaker 3: business out there, you know, so you couldn't.
Speaker 1: My assumption is that, you know, by seventy five seventy six,
Speaker 1: when you're like deep into Dooby them.
Speaker 2: This wasn't like, Okay, I got a good job.
Speaker 3: I can well, it was after a while I quit
Speaker 3: doing the other things, you know, I mean and went
Speaker 3: off to just be a Doobie brother, you know.
Speaker 2: But okay, but I just meant as a do you
Speaker 2: still feel like this could in any moment? And I
Speaker 2: got it?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I think we all do in a way.
Speaker 2: I mean, even now, do you feel like, well, let's
Speaker 2: put it this way.
Speaker 3: I'm surprised I'm still doing this for a living as
Speaker 3: much as anyone else.
Speaker 2: And I know that, you know, because I mean your
Speaker 2: first is always like I'm still here exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll wake up and go, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 3: but I mean, you know, and on the road, there'll
Speaker 3: be any number of times I'm sitting there going you know,
Speaker 3: you're sixty five years old. You know, what the hell
Speaker 3: are you doing out here? You know? And I can
Speaker 3: only gauge the sanity of it by am I still
Speaker 3: having fun? You know? I mean, because to me, it's
Speaker 3: still fun to play live more than almost anything else.
Speaker 3: I think I enjoy playing live more than I enjoyed recording. Wow.
Speaker 1: So okay, now, I know you said this didn't mean
Speaker 1: anything to you, and you forgot about this end quote.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 2: But what's happening?
Speaker 6: Oh god, yeah, what's happened?
Speaker 2: How many people?
Speaker 1: You can't You can't make me believe that no black
Speaker 1: person and therefore, well we do that, But no black
Speaker 1: person in their forties fifties doesn't mention that to you
Speaker 1: every daytime.
Speaker 3: And I didn't mean to downplay the important That's a
Speaker 3: very vivid memory in my you know, for us, it
Speaker 3: was did.
Speaker 2: You guys feel like it was an important move like exposure?
Speaker 3: I don't think we had the sense to realize how
Speaker 3: important it was, you know, I mean, we just did
Speaker 3: it as a lark, you know, and uh uh you know,
Speaker 3: we thought it would be fun, and our publishers kind
Speaker 3: of brought the idea to us and we thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, let's do that.
Speaker 2: You know, we were just and it was a two
Speaker 2: part episode. Yeah, yeah, that was my first to be continued.
Speaker 1: Why don't you It was just the part that I
Speaker 1: didn't why why don't you break it down for the
Speaker 1: people that haven't seen that?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, so okay.
Speaker 1: There was a comedy show based on the movie COOLi
Speaker 1: High called What's Happening in the seventies? Uh that featured
Speaker 1: uh Ernest, Ernest, Thomas, j Heywo Nelson and Berry who
Speaker 1: was a prominent member of the Lockers Okay, Mabel Mabel.
Speaker 1: So it was a very popular popular I would dare
Speaker 1: say it was probably the Martin of the seventies.
Speaker 9: Well Martin started and What's Happening Now? But that's fun,
Speaker 9: that's right.
Speaker 2: He did ship Martin.
Speaker 1: Yes, I forgot that anyway, So yeah, there was there
Speaker 1: was an episode you Gotta Explain Al Dunbar played by
Speaker 1: the late great Theodore Wilson.
Speaker 2: I thought his name was Sweet Lou or something like that, Like,
Speaker 2: didn't he have a sweet title. He was he was sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh he was good, same guy.
Speaker 6: He was one of those blacks like you saw in
Speaker 6: every black thing.
Speaker 2: Like he was he was sweet daddy, sweet daddy, sweetaddy.
Speaker 9: Thank you sw yes.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 6: So basically there's this so where the Doobie Brothers are
Speaker 6: coming to perform at Roger's uh high school, and you know,
Speaker 6: Rogie writes for the paper, so he's covering the show
Speaker 6: and so this uh, this this guy from the Underworld,
Speaker 6: the skive guy, approaches re Run and Rob's play by
Speaker 6: the name of Al Dunbar and he's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 6: how would you like tickets for this concert? And he's like, uh,
Speaker 6: what's the catch?
Speaker 2: Ain't no catch?
Speaker 3: I what?
Speaker 2: You just record this show?
Speaker 6: Fun man and so and so he asked him to
Speaker 6: record this show on like this huge fucking tape recording.
Speaker 2: It's like, whoever thought that this was gonna work?
Speaker 6: But anyway, so he basically asked Rerun to be like
Speaker 6: the first Napster and shit and bootleg the Dewie brother Show.
Speaker 6: So he go up to the joint and so they
Speaker 6: agreed to do it. You know, he put the he
Speaker 6: put the stiff farm on him and he had his
Speaker 6: goon with him. His goon was was Bruno. I think
Speaker 6: his name was Bruno, and he at the end of
Speaker 6: the and then the episode ends, he's like, oh man,
Speaker 6: they because they try not to do it, and so
Speaker 6: rerun it's like, nah, I want to do it.
Speaker 2: We can get in trouble.
Speaker 6: All right, all right, all right, well you're just gonna
Speaker 6: have to tell mister Bruno hit it. He's not gonna
Speaker 6: get paid. Mister Bruno, will you please pull up a
Speaker 6: chair and talk to us, certainly? And mister Bruno goes
Speaker 6: and pulls up a store and the joint is and
Speaker 6: it's like to be continued. So then the joint opens
Speaker 6: up and so like they actually talked with the Doobies
Speaker 6: in episode two. They're talking before the show and so
Speaker 6: like they're like, so, what do you think is the
Speaker 6: biggest problem?
Speaker 2: I actually have. Biggest problem is probably botleg So they
Speaker 2: talking to stuff.
Speaker 6: So anyway, the show goes on. It's great, Michael does
Speaker 6: he does take it to the street.
Speaker 1: Wait time out At actual Doobie Brothers concerts, did you
Speaker 1: guys do that fire thing? Every every everybody has their
Speaker 1: the night I almost set my house on fire moment, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Might have gotten a Q tip. Why started playing with matches? Yes,
Speaker 2: you were right.
Speaker 1: If I watched TV, it was influential. It's very good
Speaker 1: for you guys, and not let me watch that much television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when I saw the Gong thing, I went in my
Speaker 1: basement on the drummer and tried.
Speaker 2: To and it was not good. Was that to actually
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 3: And so press, I can't tell you. Uh well, I
Speaker 3: don't remember really what we did on the show.
Speaker 2: Uh he he lit the guy on fire.
Speaker 6: It was on fire, and it was cutting into like
Speaker 6: d and rerun. They were all like looking and stuff.
Speaker 1: And so then I think y'all doing take playing up
Speaker 1: like a high school and content though like the.
Speaker 2: High school the Doodie Brothers doing a rock show. Right,
Speaker 2: everybody's excited.
Speaker 6: Yeah, everyone loved it due and so because because the
Speaker 6: album was Living on the fault Line. That was the
Speaker 6: album at the time, and he they were talking about it.
Speaker 6: So anyway, so the crowd is going crazy and and uh,
Speaker 6: Michael McDonald's killing taking to the streets, singing, just going in.
Speaker 3: You don't know.
Speaker 2: It was so strong, he was.
Speaker 6: Saying through his beard was amazing. So so goddamn was
Speaker 6: singing that ship and God damn, we wanna get up
Speaker 6: and start jumping up and down, and the taper out.
Speaker 2: And everybody did the smooth lemonal. That's the first time
Speaker 2: I saw the Smooth, not by Michael Jackson. And it's like, oh.
Speaker 6: So then at the end of the joint, they're sitting
Speaker 6: at the I guess everybody left. They went back home
Speaker 6: to come to and so then they're sitting there like
Speaker 6: the Dowdie Brothers. It's like, yo, man, it's fucked up.
Speaker 2: I thought she was at home.
Speaker 6: He was like, no, but you are our friends. But
Speaker 6: this guy told us he would hurt us. It wouldn't
Speaker 6: be a guy by the name of Al Dumbball, would it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it was Ol Dumbar. So then they go back to
Speaker 6: Rob's place and they catch Ol Dunbar and they play
Speaker 6: the tape and it's just rerun eating chips.
Speaker 2: I can to hear you listening to this episode right now,
Speaker 2: being mad here to worship the storytelling stocks. Thank you
Speaker 2: vant A.
Speaker 8: Wait, that's not real life at that time, in that
Speaker 8: time of year, it was never a Doobie.
Speaker 9: Brother show with a full with a full black crowd, like.
Speaker 2: We're black people embracing you. Got because after that episode,
Speaker 2: after that, yeah, yeah, then I was like, oh.
Speaker 3: Doobie Brothers, you know, yeah, I mean it was it
Speaker 3: was funny I found in my solo career, my you know,
Speaker 3: my first couple of records. That's how we got on
Speaker 3: the radio was back then it was more independently owned
Speaker 3: radio stations, and it was really R and B radio
Speaker 3: that picked up our singles like keep Forgetting In Sweet
Speaker 3: Freedom first, and we kind of crossed over to like
Speaker 3: Top forty or what are they what was it called
Speaker 3: in contemporary hit radio, you know, but we really got
Speaker 3: our start on the R and B radio in which
Speaker 3: back then you could walk into a small station that
Speaker 3: was owned by a guy who was the program director
Speaker 3: and who would sit and play your whole record with you,
Speaker 3: and you know, you sit and play your whole album,
Speaker 3: you know, to an audience and talk about it. And
Speaker 3: you know, that's unheard of today because of all the
Speaker 3: syndicated kind of radio things that people just can't do
Speaker 3: that anymore, at least not much my heart having it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so let's jump to nineteen seventy eight. Can
Speaker 1: you please explain to us what was you on when
Speaker 1: you wrote What a fool belief. It's one of the
Speaker 1: most notable, memorable, confusing word structures I've ever heard. I
Speaker 1: still don't know what the song means.
Speaker 6: It's cool Keith, he sees the wise man has the power,
Speaker 6: I know the hook.
Speaker 2: I'm just talking about the narrative.
Speaker 3: Sure, well, you know, I think the idea was a
Speaker 3: guy living in his own head believing that he left
Speaker 3: this great love affair that he needs to retrieve and
Speaker 3: that it must have been the same for her, and
Speaker 3: in fact it meant absolutely nothing to her.
Speaker 1: And so you couldn't just write youre on my mind
Speaker 1: all the time, right right right about it all the time.
Speaker 2: I don't think you'd be talking about the song now
Speaker 2: if you have.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you know, the funny thing about that song
Speaker 3: was I had that riff in the verse riff for
Speaker 3: easily a year or two, and I take sometimes a
Speaker 3: year to write a song, you know, But every time
Speaker 3: I play it for Ted Temple, he's you know, what,
Speaker 3: do you guys got any new stuff? You know? So
Speaker 3: I played that little piano riff and I had just
Speaker 3: a couple of lyrics in the verse, and he go, God,
Speaker 3: You've got to finish that. He goes I'm telling you
Speaker 3: that's a hit. I just feel it, and I go, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm going to finish it, you know. Of course never did.
Speaker 3: And I was get together with Kenny Logins for the
Speaker 3: first time, and he came down to my house and
Speaker 3: my sister was cleaning the house because she wanted to
Speaker 3: meet Kenny Logins mostly, but and I was at the
Speaker 3: piano kind of thinking of things I might play for him.
Speaker 3: So I was playing stuff for her, you know, going
Speaker 3: what do you think of this? You know, I was
Speaker 3: thinking of playing this for Kenny, And she goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's great. You know. She's you know, picking up like,
Speaker 3: you know, my dirty clothes on the floor and all that,
Speaker 3: you know, and not really paying much attention to me,
Speaker 3: and the doorbell rings, and sure enough it was Kenny.
Speaker 3: And the first thing he says to me goes, what
Speaker 3: were you just playing? I was playing her that riff
Speaker 3: and I said, oh, it's just something I was thinking
Speaker 3: about playing for you. He goes, that's what I want
Speaker 3: to work on first. Wow, that was the first song
Speaker 3: we wrote together.
Speaker 6: So what was the kind of division of labor for
Speaker 6: that record in terms of he did you did music?
Speaker 3: He did lyrics, no, we both we both wrote I
Speaker 3: think both you know. From that point on we came
Speaker 3: up with the bridge or b section and then the
Speaker 3: chorus together, you know, and the rest of the words,
Speaker 3: you know, because I literally only had the little verse feeling.
Speaker 3: You know, they're just kind of the temple of the
Speaker 3: song and the chords and the verse.
Speaker 1: You know again, are you it's so intelligent, like were you?
Speaker 1: I know, no one starts thinking like, Okay, this is
Speaker 1: our bulls eye moment, this is going to happen. Like
Speaker 1: at any point did you guys think like, maybe we
Speaker 1: should dumb this down just slightly because I mean the bridge,
Speaker 1: the post bridge, Yeah, I mean it's very steely dand.
Speaker 3: Well I was going to say at that time that
Speaker 3: was really the music was, you know, I mean everybody
Speaker 3: was trying to uh harmonize in a new and a
Speaker 3: different way and bring something, you know. It was it
Speaker 3: was after that that it got to be where well
Speaker 3: we got to pull this back and make it more
Speaker 3: primitive and you know, rock and roll and you know
Speaker 3: all that, you know, eighties. It was like, you know,
Speaker 3: all these core changes. Yeah, that's you know, not not
Speaker 3: hip or cool. But at the time that we did it,
Speaker 3: it was steely Dan, James Taylor, artists like that who
Speaker 3: had very you know, James Taylor, as much as he
Speaker 3: was kind of uh kind of came from that singer
Speaker 3: songwriter tradition almost folk. His influences as a is from
Speaker 3: a jazz perspective or very evident, you know, and uh
Speaker 3: a lot of his songs and uh so he you know,
Speaker 3: he brought a lot of And that was the era
Speaker 3: too where albums artists tried to do a lot of
Speaker 3: different styles of music on one record, Like if you
Speaker 3: listen to like the old oh, you know records, you
Speaker 3: know that. Well, I think Ray Charles started that where
Speaker 3: you kind of step outside your own genre and do
Speaker 3: music isn't necessarily relate you know people. Yeah, and uh
Speaker 3: where James Taylor was great at that. He would do
Speaker 3: an R and B song, He would do a song
Speaker 3: with Marimbas, you know, and he would do the next
Speaker 3: song would be a very kind of guitar vocal folkish
Speaker 3: kind of thing and beautiful lyrics. And so he never
Speaker 3: shied away from any style of music that he thought
Speaker 3: he could be sincere and a lot of artists were
Speaker 3: like that during that time, and that seemed to be
Speaker 3: what had come out of the sixties was artists exploring
Speaker 3: other genres of music other than maybe the genre they
Speaker 3: started out in, And so we were just kind of
Speaker 3: doing what was kind of being done at the time.
Speaker 3: You know, we didn't really think of ourselves as anything
Speaker 3: too different.
Speaker 1: You know, so when you're sitting in the audience at
Speaker 1: the Shrine Auditorium and nineteen seventy nine was like that
Speaker 1: was highly notable for it so many so much heavy
Speaker 1: heading going on as far as the nominations were concerned.
Speaker 1: At the Grammys, Uh, you're going up. I think you
Speaker 1: don't be bringing me flowers? Uh the Gambler, I will survive,
Speaker 1: and uh after the Love is going what was your
Speaker 1: What was the feeling in your like when they called
Speaker 1: your name for a Record of the Year and Song
Speaker 1: of the Year. You guys went off five major wards except.
Speaker 2: For album I believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was amazing, Like did you expect it?
Speaker 3: Or no? I don't think you could expect you know,
Speaker 3: you was underdogs, Yeah you just yeah, you feel I
Speaker 3: felt like, what are the chances of you know, the
Speaker 3: first record of this nature that I had anything to
Speaker 3: do with actually winning a Grammy? But uh, uh we were.
Speaker 3: We were fairly taken back by the whole idea that
Speaker 3: we were going to win not just a Grammy, but
Speaker 3: a couple you know. Uh, it was amazing. And I remember,
Speaker 3: I mean not to be corny, but my grandmother was
Speaker 3: in the audience that night. She had come to the ground. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was so grateful she was still with us and
Speaker 3: that she was able to be here for this, you know,
Speaker 3: but you know, it was just kind of amazing. It
Speaker 3: was kind of surreal, really, you know it was. It
Speaker 3: wasn't until I drove home that night. I remember they
Speaker 3: had sent a car for me, and I just kind
Speaker 3: of had the guy drive up and down the Pacific
Speaker 3: Coast Highway a couple of times so I could kind
Speaker 3: of come down from the whole experience before I had
Speaker 3: to go home and go into my house all alone
Speaker 3: and me by myself with this.
Speaker 2: You know, that's funny.
Speaker 1: Pacific goes Eyeway, Okay, that is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know I'm not the only human being
Speaker 1: that doesn't ride Pacific go Sideway just to ride it
Speaker 1: to relax.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, okay, sure good.
Speaker 2: There's other people.
Speaker 1: So when one steps that comes out, why did it
Speaker 1: implude and was there pressure to like lots?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I felt my personal pressure really that you know, well, God,
Speaker 3: now this record, you know that whole thing of it,
Speaker 3: this next record is really important. You know, I've learned
Speaker 3: that that was never true. But at the time, you know,
Speaker 3: you buy into it and you think it's like the
Speaker 3: most important thing in the world, and it's just really
Speaker 3: not all that important. But h and whatever it is,
Speaker 3: you'll survive it. But you don't know that at the time.
Speaker 3: And I remember feeling a lot of pressure, and I
Speaker 3: think the band felt a lot of pressure to kind
Speaker 3: of come up with something else again and something new
Speaker 3: and maybe something even different from the records we had
Speaker 3: done up to that moment, you know. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think at that point in time it was maybe
Speaker 3: it kind of marked the beginning of the end of
Speaker 3: my tenure with the Dubies. Although I still play with
Speaker 3: the guys and I still look forward to playing with
Speaker 3: them every chance I get, I you know, great friends
Speaker 3: with them to this and I really think, as Adobie brother,
Speaker 3: all of us who have ever had any affiliation with
Speaker 3: the band, uh, it's kind of like once a Doobie brother,
Speaker 3: you're always Adobie brother somewhere in your heart and mind,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: So was the breakup amicable or yeah?
Speaker 3: It was? It was It was amicable. And we were
Speaker 3: like any other band. You know, we had our moments.
Speaker 3: You know, we threw furniture at each other.
Speaker 1: And that's where I want you to tell, Like, as
Speaker 1: the new guy, how can you you're the new guy,
Speaker 1: but you're now the definitive voice of the group.
Speaker 2: Almost and bringing in hit more. Yeah, more definitive than
Speaker 2: what came before.
Speaker 1: So it's like, how much power were you still the
Speaker 1: rookie that had to carry all the back the team's
Speaker 1: jockstraps or was it like.
Speaker 2: Might Donald we love you?
Speaker 1: And then like, you know, well what about me? I've
Speaker 1: been here since nineteen seventy one, Like what was that dynamic?
Speaker 3: Like? No, it was never you know, because I think
Speaker 3: internally within the band, you know, uh, I think all
Speaker 3: of us still looked at you know, at that point
Speaker 3: in time, Pat was kind of the senior member, you know,
Speaker 3: and and kind of the guy everyone looked to to
Speaker 3: kind of keep the band together, you know. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 3: it was when he left the band that we showed
Speaker 3: up for a rehearsal and I don't think we all
Speaker 3: kind of looked across the stage each other, like what
Speaker 3: are we doing here? Because without Pat it's really just
Speaker 3: not the Doobie Brothers anymore. It was after the live album,
Speaker 3: we did the Farewell tour, Yeah, and uh, it just
Speaker 3: didn't seem like there was any reason for us to
Speaker 3: go out and try to be the Doobie Brothers anymore,
Speaker 3: you know. And uh, I think it was unanimous, you know, really,
Speaker 3: you know, uh.
Speaker 1: So even when you did what it takes a minute,
Speaker 1: your your first solo record, was uh, if that's what
Speaker 1: it takes, if that's what.
Speaker 6: It takes him sorry, before we have got before we
Speaker 6: go to Is it true that Michael Jackson is singing
Speaker 6: backgrounds a minute by a minute?
Speaker 2: No, he said it, and I didn't know if that
Speaker 2: was real enough.
Speaker 3: No, you know, it actually was a joke that the
Speaker 3: whole tape, I've heard the whole conversation. People kind of
Speaker 3: edited it down to him just telling I think it
Speaker 3: was Elizabeth Taylor. I think he was talking to her,
Speaker 3: but he was just pulling her chain. And then later
Speaker 3: on he tells her that he was kidding, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Oh, okay, but actually, you know what speaking of
Speaker 1: which you guys have the same publicists as the Jackson's.
Speaker 3: That's right, David guest.
Speaker 2: So there's a photo of I don't know what party
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a Doobie's Grammy party
Speaker 1: or something, but it's some sort of like after party
Speaker 1: thing and the caption says that you guys did a
Speaker 1: long train running, shake your body down to the ground,
Speaker 1: like massive, massive, because I see I believe once it's
Speaker 1: Michael and Randy on in stage with you guys like Tito.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was the Jackson's and it was at the
Speaker 3: Friars Club in LA. It was a benefit show and uh,
Speaker 3: I forget what the charity was. It was a Jackson
Speaker 3: family charity and we was there, think yeah, and we
Speaker 3: we just kind of came as guests and uh and
Speaker 3: we did we did uh long train running?
Speaker 2: And the right has this? Ever?
Speaker 1: Does anyone have a bootleg of this or recording?
Speaker 3: You know what?
Speaker 2: I think?
Speaker 3: I think there is somewhere out there in the world
Speaker 3: where I wouldn't tell you love this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how do you were you guys big
Speaker 1: into archiving any great I'm asking you.
Speaker 2: Were you into collecting yourselves?
Speaker 3: Like? No, but you know, people over the years would
Speaker 3: send us stuff like that, and I had once I
Speaker 3: had a big photo album of all those different photos
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 1: No one has a Super eight in the studio as
Speaker 1: you're doing, like open your eyes and none of that stuff.
Speaker 3: No, damn no, we just we we hadn't you know,
Speaker 3: we didn't have that consciousness yet, you know. But I
Speaker 3: think the Doobies actually have a lot of Super eight
Speaker 3: movies from early Doobies years, you know, on the plane
Speaker 3: and touring and stuff like that. You know.
Speaker 2: So with your solo career, how scary was that too?
Speaker 3: Probably the most scary thing I've ever done. You know.
Speaker 3: It was for some reason, and I'm not sure why.
Speaker 3: I just because there was a part of my life
Speaker 3: when I thought I'm gonna go out to California, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be a recording artist, and I had that
Speaker 3: idea in my head. But somehow coming full circle as
Speaker 3: a member of bands, uh uh, and then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, being kind of well, I felt like I
Speaker 3: was walking the plank, you know, this is to be
Speaker 3: a solo artist. But uh And it took me a
Speaker 3: few shows to kind of find my comfort zone. That
Speaker 3: first tour was pretty scary. And I had a great
Speaker 3: band and you know, Edgar Winner, Robin Ford playing guitar.
Speaker 3: You know, it was an amazing Willie Weeks played bass
Speaker 3: with me and I couldn't have done better for as
Speaker 3: far as the band's concern. Brian Mann played keyboards. But
Speaker 3: I just had no concept of how to act up there.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't so you used to being the side.
Speaker 3: Then yeah, you know, I could sing a couple of
Speaker 3: songs and then someone else does the word, but light
Speaker 3: would shift over there.
Speaker 8: So it was sweet freedom like your first music video
Speaker 8: because in your face. When I watched that video sometimes
Speaker 8: I was like, oh, he really might not be comfortable
Speaker 8: in that situation.
Speaker 9: You know, did I jump? Sorry? I just was asking.
Speaker 9: I didn't.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was the first.
Speaker 3: The first one was I keep forgetting that we did
Speaker 3: a music video and it was it was yeah, awkward,
Speaker 3: you know, it was.
Speaker 2: Look any further.
Speaker 3: That was that was not my forte. It was further. Yeah,
Speaker 3: yeah on you.
Speaker 1: You came on Soul Training to promote it, and probably
Speaker 1: the best thing about it was the heavyweight you had
Speaker 1: with you. I mean, you have Louis Johnson and that's
Speaker 1: Lewis Lewis.
Speaker 3: Johnson plased record too, yeah, and and Jeff Pericarl.
Speaker 1: And break filling games like you had the cats with you.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean we're worshiping like you have the
Speaker 1: guys with you.
Speaker 3: But back then it was just like who do we
Speaker 3: get let's get a well, you know, I was lucky
Speaker 3: to be able to beat those guys for sure, and
Speaker 3: it was my two sisters singing backgrounds. Yeah, but uh yeah,
Speaker 3: I would. I would say that on a good day
Speaker 3: you could get those guys to come and play on
Speaker 3: TV with you. But you know that it just so
Speaker 3: happened that everybody was available. And so.
Speaker 6: That's only in particular. It was I was reading it
Speaker 6: started off as a liber and Stoller it was.
Speaker 1: Wait, you're kind of jumping the gun because we were
Speaker 1: about to play around. Of So, Mike McDonald, I need
Speaker 1: you to tell me what are your thoughts of hearing
Speaker 1: the song?
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 2: What are your thoughts.
Speaker 3: Chuck Jackson.
Speaker 11: Forgetting that you don't know, you forgetting that you don't
Speaker 11: want me no more, you forgetting men tell me about
Speaker 11: you want me?
Speaker 1: Ron So I found this forty five in Japan like
Speaker 1: ten years ago, but it came out in nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 6: What how.
Speaker 3: Well, it's an interesting story.
Speaker 2: And who was that? That's okay, that was long John Baldry, okay,
Speaker 2: Chuck Jackson.
Speaker 3: Chuck Jackson did the original. Yeah, there was a Liverstoller song,
Speaker 3: and believe it or not, unbeknownst to me at the
Speaker 3: time was my It was one of those things where
Speaker 3: we were kind of playing. My writing partner said, you know,
Speaker 3: there's this because he hit somehow, you know, mentioned the
Speaker 3: song or something, and I was kind of just playing
Speaker 3: the piano if any He goes, what's that. I go, well,
Speaker 3: that's what you were just saying. And he goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: he goes, that's totally different. And so we wrote this song.
Speaker 3: You know, I was immediately reminded by other people that
Speaker 3: you know, that's closer than you think, you know. So, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we got in contact with Mike Steller and
Speaker 3: Jerry Leber and we realized that we had infringed on
Speaker 3: their copyright, you know, and they were gracious enough to
Speaker 3: give us some credit for the this version of the song.
Speaker 1: Kind of weird that you technically wrote a song with
Speaker 1: the guys that like you. That's a real building.
Speaker 3: Last Oh, I was not, you know, I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't mean to say this, like, because you know, I
Speaker 3: knew better I shouldn't. The minute I heard this guy say,
Speaker 3: oh no, that's not I realized, you know, I better
Speaker 3: listen to that song before I make any you know,
Speaker 3: But I didn't, you know, And I just you know,
Speaker 3: we we recorded it, our version of it anyway, and
Speaker 3: uh and right away one of the guys that Warner
Speaker 3: Brothers are one of the producers, one said, you know,
Speaker 3: he gave me his tape because listen to this, you know.
Speaker 3: And I said, oh, well, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for you at least.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I realized that we needed to you know,
Speaker 3: get their permission, and you know, and and they, like
Speaker 3: I said, they were nice enough to give us their
Speaker 3: permission to release it and put it out. But you know,
Speaker 3: and and credit where credits due. You know that that
Speaker 3: that song ours would not have existed but for their
Speaker 3: original song. You know.
Speaker 10: So let's jump wait, who's credited who's credited officially for
Speaker 10: the writing of that song? Sorry, who's officially credited for
Speaker 10: the writing that.
Speaker 3: It's Mike Stoller, Jerry Lieber, myself and Ed Sandford for
Speaker 3: for our version of it. Yeah, the original version was
Speaker 3: a liber Stoller song.
Speaker 2: So twelve years later the song comes back to haunt you.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah and the most.
Speaker 2: The most gangster rap narrative of all time.
Speaker 1: But using this as a backdrop with with Warren G's
Speaker 1: g funk Uh, what were your initial feelings or you
Speaker 1: know where the text not where the text nice? But
Speaker 1: you know, did you have were you hesitant to clear it?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 3: You know, but back then, what I what I remember
Speaker 3: was typically somebody would give you, you know, ten grand
Speaker 3: and it was theirs, you know, I mean, it wasn't
Speaker 3: like the deals that are made today where we're publishing,
Speaker 3: you know, like now it's it's it was a one off. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was just like you know, well, you know, we
Speaker 3: want to sample this cost.
Speaker 9: But that wasn't a one off. That wasn't a one
Speaker 9: off though, right, not that song.
Speaker 2: One off? Yeah, but I was going to.
Speaker 3: Was the version of my kids like you know, but yeah.
Speaker 1: But then the expressed I'm sure there was renewed interest
Speaker 1: in hearing it live all of a sudden.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's funny you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It had a certain impact on on the you know,
Speaker 3: the art record. So many people think that's the version
Speaker 3: of the song that you know as you know my uh,
Speaker 3: I'm not even sure my own kids didn't think that,
Speaker 3: you know, because they hadn't really heard my version. They
Speaker 3: were weren't even born yet, you know.
Speaker 1: So have you have you ever performed it with warn
Speaker 1: g Once someone comes, that has to happen, Michael, especially
Speaker 1: for going to make it.
Speaker 2: Damn he did you hear that?
Speaker 8: Michael?
Speaker 2: You heard that?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 3: Nate? I thought just saw those guys on some TV
Speaker 3: or a documentary of some kind of like, wow, man.
Speaker 9: It was Is that the first time a hip hop
Speaker 9: artist asked you for the rights?
Speaker 3: I believe it was. And we've had quite a few
Speaker 3: things sampled since then. Minute by minute was sampled.
Speaker 2: Thanks, that was all right. It's not straightforward. Wait, oh god,
Speaker 2: the intron it throws me off every time. Yeah, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I know, but like every time I hear it, I'm
Speaker 2: still like, wait a minute, wait, the one that hits
Speaker 2: you I did so Yeah, there's no regrets of it
Speaker 2: at all.
Speaker 3: Oh no, you know, like all things it, uh, what's
Speaker 3: kind of like the rolling stones with used to lover.
Speaker 3: It's all over now, you know, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: at first they were going, oh, you know, we got
Speaker 3: we just have our first top ten record, and these
Speaker 3: guys scoop us, you know, and and then he said,
Speaker 3: but then when the checks started rolling in, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: didn't feel so bad about it. We're mad anymore?
Speaker 6: How did you get into working with Carli Simon?
Speaker 2: But like you Belong to Me?
Speaker 3: Carl I played on some we played the Dobies, actually
Speaker 3: played some tracks on on her the album before that.
Speaker 3: We we uh. She used us to play on oh
Speaker 3: gosh m hm, the song that she had recorded and
Speaker 3: I can't remember what it was now, but we played.
Speaker 3: We were the rhythm section. And it was upon meeting
Speaker 3: her during those sessions, Ted said, you know, you guys
Speaker 3: should write together. And so the first chance I got,
Speaker 3: I had a little thing on cassette, you know, which
Speaker 3: was you belong to Me in the chord progression, and
Speaker 3: I sent her the cassette. She wrote the lyric and
Speaker 3: sent the lyric back written out on paper, whish I
Speaker 3: wish I still had, you know, and uh and uh
Speaker 3: I had given her enough melody, just kind of mumbling,
Speaker 3: you know on the tape that she kind of wrote
Speaker 3: to that and that Cadence and uh. Uh. We never
Speaker 3: spoke the entire time we wrote the song together. It
Speaker 3: wasn't until like five years later she had a number
Speaker 3: one hit with it, or you know, at top five
Speaker 3: record with it.
Speaker 2: And I wasn't version first though.
Speaker 3: On the first it was never a single for us,
Speaker 3: but it was kind of a popular album cut. But
Speaker 3: uh so, about five years later she had a hit
Speaker 3: with it, and uh, I thought, well, you know, Jesus,
Speaker 3: I should call her and say congratulations or something, you know,
Speaker 3: And I saw I called her on the phone. We
Speaker 3: kind of laughed about the fact that we hadn't spoken
Speaker 3: about this for the last so many years.
Speaker 6: And you cut your backgrounds on it away from her.
Speaker 3: I didn't sing on that record. Yeah, No, just the
Speaker 3: Doobies record, the one I sang and did the background song,
Speaker 3: and so I forget she she did that record in
Speaker 3: New York.
Speaker 6: That's you singing backgrounds on uh right, like the Wind
Speaker 6: as Christopher Cross. How did that come about? I love
Speaker 6: that record.
Speaker 3: Actually, it was like we were like a day like today,
Speaker 3: we'd be sitting in the studio and Doobies, you know,
Speaker 3: in studio at Migo and h Christopher Cross was his
Speaker 3: first album was being cut in the studio next door,
Speaker 3: and the producer was Michaelmartin, and he came and said, Hey,
Speaker 3: would you if you get a minute after after you
Speaker 3: guys are done, would you come over and sing a
Speaker 3: background part for me? And I said sure, you know,
Speaker 3: and just kind of went over and.
Speaker 2: How did you feel about the s c TV sketch which.
Speaker 1: We we recreated that sketch on the tonight show where
Speaker 1: we literally had him run into the studio making it
Speaker 1: to the keyboard just.
Speaker 2: In time to say, just.
Speaker 1: Like the s c TV sketch TV Yeah, Second City,
Speaker 1: yeah kind of the snl of was it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like And the bit was based on
Speaker 1: the fact that, uh, every time his part comes up
Speaker 1: such a way that he would literally like do playing
Speaker 1: chains in the automobile like order plane on the chains
Speaker 1: running that just means sound.
Speaker 2: Just to literally get to the microphone in time for
Speaker 2: and then run away and then you know, do it
Speaker 2: every time.
Speaker 1: But we when we had Christopher Cross on the show,
Speaker 1: we didn't announce the audience that Michael McDonald was there.
Speaker 1: We just had an empty keyboard. As soon as Christopher
Speaker 1: was playing, wasn't he huh? Wasn't Keith playing it? At first, Oh,
Speaker 1: you're right, you're right. Keep McFee shout out to keep
Speaker 1: mc fee. Yeah, And so right when the bridge came in,
Speaker 1: Michael McDonald just ran in, bumped Keith Off and.
Speaker 9: I'm stuffy, y'all have Michael McDonald Christopher Cross.
Speaker 3: Like I got eat. You know. The funny thing about
Speaker 3: that that SCTV bit for me was, uh, I had
Speaker 3: just left a friend of mine's room and one of
Speaker 3: the other band members and we were on the road
Speaker 3: and we had just smoked this joint and I was
Speaker 3: really you know, stoned, you know, more than usual kind
Speaker 3: of thing. And I remember sitting there thinking I got
Speaker 3: to go lay down, you know, and I was just
Speaker 3: kind of felt like whatever this stuff was, it was
Speaker 3: you know, ungodly and got anywhere right now but not
Speaker 3: for years, but this was back in the day. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I left and I kind of got my key in
Speaker 3: my door and I'm thinking, man, I'm not really with it.
Speaker 3: And as I walked in, I always used to leave
Speaker 3: my TV on, and that skit was in progress on
Speaker 3: the TV, and I'm like, walked in, I'm going, oh,
Speaker 3: I know that guy. And it took me a second.
Speaker 3: I thought, I think I'm really having a psychotic breakdown.
Speaker 1: Wait, how nerdy are we to not even mention weed
Speaker 1: it all to a Doobie brother into a Doobie brother
Speaker 1: in this ninety minute interview.
Speaker 9: I didn't want to, and I think Steve was scared
Speaker 9: because it was just obvious.
Speaker 6: I was going because you talk about it, well, I
Speaker 6: read the number one growing industry in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was reading.
Speaker 6: About your new record, which I really like. I was
Speaker 6: taking it on the way over here, and I was,
Speaker 6: I mean, I listened to it one time and I
Speaker 6: was like, Okay, I mean it sounds like michaem Dons.
Speaker 6: And I read an interview talking about how a lot
Speaker 6: of songs are kind of about your sobriety. Yeah, and
Speaker 6: that just made me hear it in a different way.
Speaker 6: How long have you been sober?
Speaker 3: It's been thirty one years. Wow. It was a good
Speaker 3: idea for me of older people I know, and that's
Speaker 3: sober from from all.
Speaker 6: Yeah everything, yeah, drinking or smoking or nothing. Wow, a
Speaker 6: sober Doobie brother.
Speaker 3: I needed to do that. But yeah, it's you know,
Speaker 3: the best thing I ever decision ever made, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously it's I don't think I would be here.
Speaker 3: To be quite honest, that became increasingly more obvious to
Speaker 3: me as time went on and I realized that I
Speaker 3: didn't have that much further to go down that road,
Speaker 3: you know, And so there were low points, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: a good swath of low point you know. But you know,
Speaker 3: I'm one of the lucky ones, you know. That's that's
Speaker 3: the moral of that story. Yeah, and there's not you know,
Speaker 3: the odds, you know, sobriety apparently aren't that good. But
Speaker 3: it's it's you know, there is a solution out there
Speaker 3: for people who need it, and and God willing, you know,
Speaker 3: you find that, you know, because for me, the alternative
Speaker 3: would have been the bad alternative.
Speaker 6: You know, what was your solution? How were you able
Speaker 6: to stay sover so long?
Speaker 3: Just one day at a time, you know, I just
Speaker 3: really surrendering to the truth of it, you know. I
Speaker 3: think the big, the great obsession for for most people
Speaker 3: who are addicted is that I got this, I can
Speaker 3: handle it. I can I can fix this, you know,
Speaker 3: I can, you know, And it's unfortunately for most of
Speaker 3: us who suffer from addiction, there's not enough willpower in
Speaker 3: the universe that we could muster to fix it once
Speaker 3: we're there, you know. And so there are there are
Speaker 3: solutions that come in the form of community of people
Speaker 3: who are who you know, are suffering from the same
Speaker 3: disease and that and that's you know. I can't really,
Speaker 3: you know, speak beyond that, because I'm not an authority
Speaker 3: on it, you know, but I can say that that
Speaker 3: That's what I would suggest anyone is to find find
Speaker 3: people in sobriety that can share their experienced strength and
Speaker 3: hope with you.
Speaker 6: You know, have you found that being sober? Has it
Speaker 6: helped you preserve your voice?
Speaker 3: Because you sound oh absolutely, yeah, No, I that's that's
Speaker 3: you know, that would have probably died first, but I
Speaker 3: would have been shortly thereafter, you know. Uh no, it's
Speaker 3: you know, most everything worthwhile in my life today is
Speaker 3: a direct result of sobriety. For me, probably none of
Speaker 3: it is anything I would have put on that list
Speaker 3: if you had given it to me, saying, well, if
Speaker 3: you were able to, you know, stop using, what would
Speaker 3: what would you be hoping for? You know? I most
Speaker 3: of what is most important to me today are things
Speaker 3: I would have never even thought of, you know, just
Speaker 3: the simple things, the simple uh aspects of my life.
Speaker 3: That just wouldn't have existed, you know, I would have
Speaker 3: never got to that, you know.
Speaker 2: Part Okay, we're going to wind up the show. But
Speaker 2: there's still like version, there's there's well you worked with
Speaker 2: the great Rot Temperaton. Oh yes, what was that like?
Speaker 2: He's one of the one of my music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the best R and B writers that
Speaker 3: I know. You know, heat Wave was one of the
Speaker 3: best groups you know that I can think of with
Speaker 3: a book of songs that I You know, sometimes when
Speaker 3: you play with the band and then you realize just
Speaker 3: how many songs they actually had. That's happened to me
Speaker 3: many times. You know, we played with AWB, we played
Speaker 3: with the heat Wave a couple of gigs, and it's
Speaker 3: like song after song and you go, oh my god,
Speaker 3: I forgot. And Steely Dan also, you know when I
Speaker 3: or the Doobies, I almost forget how many how deep
Speaker 3: their their songbook is, you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And heat Wave was like that. That was one of
Speaker 3: those groups where there were so many songs. They were
Speaker 3: a British group, you know, with these classic R and
Speaker 3: B songs you know that I thought were just American records.
Speaker 3: I had no idea they were records made in London.
Speaker 2: You know, British can do Americans better than you know.
Speaker 3: And Rod was a great writer, a great producer.
Speaker 1: You know speak speaking of you not being in the
Speaker 1: room at the same time. I heard you also say
Speaker 1: that when you did.
Speaker 2: On my own, had to be in the same room
Speaker 2: that you guys were. No, you didn't even meet.
Speaker 3: I hadn't even met yet, I sang to her voice. No,
Speaker 3: I hadn't hadn't met her yet, you know, I met
Speaker 3: her show. We performed that song for the first time
Speaker 3: the day after we met on the Tonight Show.
Speaker 9: And what about times?
Speaker 3: Every change times Retha was not there when I sang
Speaker 3: to her voice. It was Bert and Carol the.
Speaker 2: Original I did.
Speaker 3: I did perform it with her though at the Grammys.
Speaker 2: I love that song. Are any motherfucker is going to
Speaker 2: talk about be there to ask him what it was?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I got to actually do the video with her.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, and talk about the of the videos, the
Speaker 9: Patty and the he.
Speaker 2: Wasn't in the room with her there the video I did.
Speaker 3: I did the shoot the video with the Retha in Detroit,
Speaker 3: but not with pat Patty. She was doing a play
Speaker 3: in New York.
Speaker 2: Shirt the box with God put the video together. The
Speaker 2: song is called on my Own all right, So yeah,
Speaker 2: y'all will be there the Battle of the the battle that.
Speaker 1: Wait, I'm actually more I'm more impressive you name drop
Speaker 1: James's brother Philip than anything, because he's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite singers switch switch Yeah, but with the process had
Speaker 1: the big Yeah, he's the feather.
Speaker 2: Yeah he was in there. But like, did Rod also
Speaker 2: do that as well?
Speaker 3: Or yeah, Rod Robert was one of the writers on
Speaker 3: that Yo there.
Speaker 1: That made that song made a big impression on my
Speaker 1: Christian household.
Speaker 3: That was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it made a very big impression, especially you know
Speaker 1: the division of secular and you know, the local radio
Speaker 1: station in Philly, w z z D used to play
Speaker 1: that a lot.
Speaker 2: Yes, they would. Was it your intention to make a
Speaker 2: gospel song or pretty much?
Speaker 3: I mean yeah in.
Speaker 5: We Uh.
Speaker 3: It's funny because that was probably the third song we
Speaker 3: wrote that Quincy kept, you know, going and I go
Speaker 3: back to the rejection. You guys need to go back
Speaker 3: write something better, you know, And so we we kept trying,
Speaker 3: you know, and James and I spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time in my studio just kind of righting at there.
Speaker 2: Did you fully flesh out the other two songs that
Speaker 2: didn't make it?
Speaker 3: We made demos on on them.
Speaker 2: Did they wind up being anything?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, I still say. Was it Party Animal?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No, it was.
Speaker 3: It was one song I can't remember. It was like
Speaker 3: better Man and h actually was kind of we liked it.
Speaker 3: We thought it was We thought this is gonna use
Speaker 3: She's gonna love this, and it was like, eh, but damn.
Speaker 3: But Yamo was the song that he eventually caught his ear,
Speaker 3: you know, and we were just you know, uh, like
Speaker 3: I said, he spent countless hours just sitting there. We
Speaker 3: had a good time, you know, right, and because he
Speaker 3: and I it was always a good hang, you know
Speaker 3: with James.
Speaker 10: You know, for those of us not familiar with what
Speaker 10: the hell of yamo be there means? No, no, I'm asking,
Speaker 10: but it.
Speaker 8: Was your question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's kind of in reference to God will
Speaker 3: be there. You know. It's like, uh that that's the answer,
Speaker 3: you know, uh uh and yeahweh yeah yeah, but why
Speaker 3: go yeah yeahweh.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was one of those Michael McDonald
Speaker 1: words because it's easy to you. Okay, do you get
Speaker 1: tired of people imitating you? In front of your face.
Speaker 2: I think that was the funny you know, have you
Speaker 2: ever met Anita Baker like.
Speaker 3: Hes she yeah, sure sure and Patty Austin to expressed
Speaker 3: there for you but yeah no, you know it's uh,
Speaker 3: I feel like I'd Sullivan, you know, really big shoe.
Speaker 1: But do they do it in inconvenient moments like when
Speaker 1: you're like trying to sleep in the on the airplane.
Speaker 3: And things like that, or some some guy will stagger
Speaker 3: out of a bar and grab me on.
Speaker 1: The street start singing, bro we did that was the
Speaker 1: baby face and I was highly you had to go down.
Speaker 2: No, seriously, I have a no for real, I have
Speaker 2: a band.
Speaker 6: I have a band called the Foreign Exchange, and we're
Speaker 6: seriously considered doing the night where we perform our songs
Speaker 6: in your voice and call ourselves the for McDonald's and
Speaker 6: like all of us come out with beards, like even
Speaker 6: the girls like.
Speaker 3: Scary.
Speaker 8: But was there a moment when you realize because I
Speaker 8: know we always talk about like blue eyed soul and whatnot,
Speaker 8: but was there a moment when you realize, like I'm
Speaker 8: in an elite type club of I can go here, there,
Speaker 8: do the air and everywhere when it comes to, you know,
Speaker 8: soul music and pop music and whatever else you chose
Speaker 8: to do, but at least you like, you know, it's
Speaker 8: it's very few singers that have like the black community
Speaker 8: in their pocket, like we want to steal you.
Speaker 9: Away, We'll take you in the trade.
Speaker 2: Barbecue, you know.
Speaker 3: It's you know, for me, to me, it's it's that
Speaker 3: that America, that truly American UH music, you know, And
Speaker 3: I don't know that there really is any other besides jazz,
Speaker 3: you know, any other really truly American music. You know.
Speaker 3: It's funny how so much of our culture is UH
Speaker 3: for the problems that this country seems to suffer from
Speaker 3: in terms of racial tensions. And it always reminds me
Speaker 3: the conversations my wife and I have when she says,
Speaker 3: you know, we haven't talked in months, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm worried about us, you know, and I say something
Speaker 3: brilliant like, well, you know, you know, I have to
Speaker 3: go cut the grass right now, cut the grass. You know,
Speaker 3: I think I feel like cutting grass, you know. And
Speaker 3: it's like that's how we talk to each other in
Speaker 3: this society, you know, rather than because we don't. It's uncomfortable,
Speaker 3: and we don't want to talk about it, you know,
Speaker 3: when really that would solve everything, you know, uh, if
Speaker 3: we really truly just talked about it.
Speaker 8: You know, Uh, there are a few that can lead
Speaker 8: a conversation like you can, because like I said, you
Speaker 8: are loved by everybody.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I thank you. That's very sweet of
Speaker 3: you to say. I you know you have to talk
Speaker 3: to my wife on that one. Well, but you know
Speaker 3: it's for me. I I've often thought that, you know,
Speaker 3: how much of our culture, from in food and fashion,
Speaker 3: certainly music and any real form of art in this
Speaker 3: country is largely African American influenced. You know, that is uh,
Speaker 3: one of the biggest influences on American culture there is,
Speaker 3: you know, more than anything. You know, if you think
Speaker 3: of French food, you categorize it automatically as French food
Speaker 3: or Italian food. You know, when you think of which
Speaker 3: is largely African American influenced food, it's American, it's barbecue,
Speaker 3: it's it's uh.
Speaker 9: You know, they just forget the root right exactly, you know, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, it's we accept it as totally as American. You know,
Speaker 3: hopefully in our lifetime we will see a country where
Speaker 3: we understand who we are and we go forward.
Speaker 2: Version then we got to stop the episode.
Speaker 6: No, just how was that because they were like making
Speaker 6: fun of you in the movie. But it was I
Speaker 6: mean it was funny, but that kind of you were
Speaker 6: that brought back?
Speaker 2: No, No, it was it was good.
Speaker 3: My friend actually worked on that film as he was
Speaker 3: the music guy on that film, and he would send me,
Speaker 3: uh like dai or whatever scripts you know, and rewrites
Speaker 3: and he goes this, Okay, some of the stuff they
Speaker 3: didn't put in it. It was hilarious but brutal, but hilarious,
Speaker 3: you know. And uh and so in the end it
Speaker 3: was really like the the nicer version of all of it.
Speaker 3: But it was I thought it was hilarious, you know.
Speaker 3: And of course, you know again my kids always enjoyed that.
Speaker 3: You know, they enjoyed rubbing my nose and anything like that,
Speaker 3: you know, the family guy whatever.
Speaker 6: You know, Okay, this this is my last guy, I know. Okay,
Speaker 6: what were your thoughts on Michael Bolton because I thought
Speaker 6: he was kind of trying to I thought he was
Speaker 6: kind of trying.
Speaker 2: To sting a swag a little bit.
Speaker 6: No, I love Michael bolt whatever. It's only one mic
Speaker 6: yeahs from us we recognized.
Speaker 2: So what were your thought because Botwan does want to
Speaker 2: do this show? I think he should.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I think he's great.
Speaker 2: I mean brothers. Okay.
Speaker 3: The first time I did a gig with Michael Bolton
Speaker 3: was a local thing in Santa Barbara and Kenny Kenny's
Speaker 3: charity that we would all do. And uh, Kenny Logan
Speaker 3: said to me, because this cat is serious, you know,
Speaker 3: he is he is. He sings like we wish we
Speaker 3: could sing.
Speaker 2: Wow and from the school of Ray. But who who
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I mean, he's he's he's trying to channel Ray. Who
Speaker 1: is there anyone that you're trying to channel? The closest
Speaker 1: I can think of is maybe Sarah Bone Like who? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, because you do have an original voice that
Speaker 1: I can't trace the genesis.
Speaker 3: Right, you know. For me, really it's just I try
Speaker 3: to do the best with what I got, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean, That's that's really what it comes down to.
Speaker 3: I I Ah, I've always I've never really had the
Speaker 3: confidence as a singer per se as far as chops
Speaker 3: and you know technique. You know you say that.
Speaker 2: Let's get.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I mean seriously, I I uh and
Speaker 3: as I get older, especially, I think, you know, you
Speaker 3: got to kind of follow your voice with the years,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of you know, what, what's the what's
Speaker 3: my strength at this point, you know, and and you
Speaker 3: kind of kind of go with that. I but all
Speaker 3: those singers that you mentioned are all part of my psyche,
Speaker 3: you know, growing up. And and you know, I think
Speaker 3: when the Motown record was presented to me, my first
Speaker 3: thought was, why are they asking.
Speaker 2: Me to do this?
Speaker 3: You know, they came to you to do the cover, yeah,
Speaker 3: the other way, But I remember the next thought was
Speaker 3: you better say yes, You'll be sorry. And and secondly,
Speaker 3: I thought, you know, I have sung these songs in
Speaker 3: bars for so many years, doing my best to emulate
Speaker 3: Marvin Gay or David Ruffin or whoever, trying to kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, grab the spirit of their vocal, you know,
Speaker 3: because that was the whole thing about being a bar band,
Speaker 3: if you could sound like the record, you know, so
Speaker 3: growing up doing that, I thought I should be able
Speaker 3: to kind of bring something to this project that just
Speaker 3: reliving my own experiences of first learning those songs and
Speaker 3: learning to sing them when I was you know, much younger,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 6: Oh before we before Grizzly Bear, Grizzly Bear. Why you
Speaker 6: for the others, Well, you've done Yeah, you've done a
Speaker 6: lot with I love that record.
Speaker 3: I want to hear those guys play here in Manhattan.
Speaker 3: And it was amazing, you know. They were a really
Speaker 3: interesting band, you know, had an incredible following, you know.
Speaker 3: Uh uh and uh it wasn't I had already done
Speaker 3: the record with them, and I really wasn't.
Speaker 6: That aware of their overall sobriety.
Speaker 3: But the shame them live. I was really impressed.
Speaker 2: What made you do the record? Man?
Speaker 6: That you weren't that familiar with them? Like, what makes
Speaker 6: Michael McDonald say yes, you know.
Speaker 3: The song had They had approached me through management, and
Speaker 3: when they played the song for me, I just thought
Speaker 3: it just appealed to me that they had a you know,
Speaker 3: a musicality about it that I wanted to be a
Speaker 3: part of, you know, and I wanted to kind of
Speaker 3: lend myself to if possible. And the fact that it
Speaker 3: was singing backgrounds where I might have shied away from
Speaker 3: it as a piano player or something, you know, figuring
Speaker 3: out I wouldn't know what to play or whatever. But
Speaker 3: as a vocalist, they had probably. They had pretty much
Speaker 3: spelled out what they wanted me to do, and so
Speaker 3: I was as kind of curious as they were about
Speaker 3: how I would sound on it, you know.
Speaker 1: And so were you thrown up with Thundercat's call? No,
Speaker 1: that was one hearing that nobody's all coming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, that was Kenny. I have to give Kenny
Speaker 3: credit on that because both he and my kids are
Speaker 3: huge fans of Steve's, you know, and they love Thundercat.
Speaker 3: And when he did that interview and he mentioned Kenny
Speaker 3: and I, Kenny's son called him and said, you know, dad,
Speaker 3: you know Thundercat mentioned you in an interview is an influence.
Speaker 3: And Kenny got right on that.
Speaker 1: And you know, contacted as long as an artist has
Speaker 1: an animal name and sounds cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, you don't know nothing, you know. The next thing, man,
Speaker 2: my daughter.
Speaker 3: Is my great source of what's going on today. She
Speaker 3: plays me, you know, we take car trips, and she
Speaker 3: went to Coachella with me when I played with Thundercat there,
Speaker 3: and it was a whole weekend of listening to music
Speaker 3: with her, which I love. I really enjoyed.
Speaker 9: You know, you made her life.
Speaker 3: I'm sure she kept me up late to that we
Speaker 3: were there till the wee hours. And you know in bands.
Speaker 9: I'm sorry, but you and Kenny's kids in bands.
Speaker 3: Uh well, his son was a singer. My son's in
Speaker 3: a in a band, and that my daughter doesn't do it.
Speaker 3: She's but she's got a beautiful voice, but she doesn't
Speaker 3: want to sing professionally, you know, but but she loves music.
Speaker 3: She's a big music fan.
Speaker 1: And he told me that because I thought that we
Speaker 1: were just going to have to explain who we were, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: so we're a band from.
Speaker 2: Philly and you're like, yeah, I know you guys.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: We were throwing off.
Speaker 3: But through her, I've I've actually become more increasingly aware
Speaker 3: of what's going on around me.
Speaker 2: But that's awesome.
Speaker 10: Uh I.
Speaker 2: Man, I get it, I got I got the part.
Speaker 2: This is be there part, What's who is mo.
Speaker 1: Austin Brothers. That's the perfect ending of the show. Michael McDonald,
Speaker 1: We thank you.
Speaker 3: For coming question for sure, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6: This is dream come true.
Speaker 2: Thank you man for real.
Speaker 1: Shout out to my sister Dawn for put me on
Speaker 1: to Michael McDonald. She would kill me if I didn't
Speaker 1: mention that fact to the world.
Speaker 2: That's how I'll.
Speaker 1: Discovered you anyway on behalf of Boss Bill, Paid, Bill
Speaker 1: Fontigoelo Sugar Steve and It's like you and the Great
Speaker 1: Michael McDonald's This is Questlove signing off Mexico.
Speaker 2: Thank You West.
Speaker 1: Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
Speaker 1: was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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