Speaker 1: My Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Levy. This time out, I got to catch up
Speaker 1: with Robert de Leo and Eric Kretz, the bassist and
Speaker 1: drummer from Stone Temple Pilots. We talked about their latest album, Prodita,
Speaker 1: a mostly acoustic collection that's both a continuation of their
Speaker 1: music and something of a departure. And we also talked
Speaker 1: about the painful loss of two of their lead singers,
Speaker 1: Scott Wiland and Chester Bennington, and how the band found
Speaker 1: a way forward. We got into the connection between the
Speaker 1: Stone Temple Pilots and the Carpenters, which I guess wasn't
Speaker 1: a complete surprise for me, but went way way deeper
Speaker 1: than I would have imagined. I spoke with Robert and
Speaker 1: Eric on a rain Tuesday in early March. It was
Speaker 1: rainy in New York, not in l A, where they were,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely a day I remember clearly, because for
Speaker 1: one thing, it's the last time I was on the
Speaker 1: subway in New York. By the next day, like a
Speaker 1: lot of you, I had started working from home where
Speaker 1: I'm recording this introduction, And these are strange times, and
Speaker 1: it's just about every other email you get tends to
Speaker 1: put it. I hope this finds you well. It's a
Speaker 1: time when everything seems to be up in the air,
Speaker 1: and that goes double if you're touring musician. When I
Speaker 1: spoke with Robert and Eric, they were just about to
Speaker 1: start a tour of Australia alongside some other nineties rock
Speaker 1: radio heroes Bush and Live, but things were just beginning
Speaker 1: to shut down at that point, and so those tour
Speaker 1: dates had to be rescheduled for next year. While Stone
Speaker 1: Temple pilots hope that they're plans to tour the US
Speaker 1: this summer are going to hold, it's hard to say
Speaker 1: what the future will bring. Most musicians make their living
Speaker 1: on the road, so most musicians are in a really
Speaker 1: difficult spot right now. I'm sure a lot of you
Speaker 1: guys are too, And this is a time when we
Speaker 1: really need to take care of each other, which means
Speaker 1: being careful, staying healthy, washing your hands like your soap
Speaker 1: has the winning ticket of a scratch off lottery hidden
Speaker 1: inside it. But it also means that if you're a
Speaker 1: music fan and you can swing it, maybe think about
Speaker 1: supporting the music you love. However, you can me personally
Speaker 1: my band T shirt supply has been growing very steadily. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's my public service announcement. Let's get back to
Speaker 1: Stone Temple Pilots and when they first emerged in and
Speaker 1: songs like Plush and Creep began to dominate the radio,
Speaker 1: the band was dismissed as grunge pppycats by the sort
Speaker 1: of rock purists who also initially dismissed Pearl Jam is
Speaker 1: a major label Nirvana clone. I mean in I knew
Speaker 1: a guy who was absolutely obsessed with proving that Pearl
Speaker 1: Jam had been assembled boy band style by its label,
Speaker 1: and he was going to get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: the whole thing, which of course was not true. But
Speaker 1: here's the funny part. I was never really on the
Speaker 1: pro Nirvana anti Pearl Jam bandwagon. But you know who
Speaker 1: was Robert de Leo from Stone Temple Pilots, who once
Speaker 1: told Rolling Stone that until he saw Pearl Jam play
Speaker 1: on Lollapalooza in two, he thought of them as fakes. Look,
Speaker 1: if you didn't live through the Grunge War, it must
Speaker 1: seem really confusing now, but the basic point is that
Speaker 1: nothing was real enough, and Pearl Jam wasn't real enough
Speaker 1: because they hadn't started on an indie label. Nirvana, even
Speaker 1: Nirvana wasn't real enough because they hadn't stayed on an
Speaker 1: indie label. And it didn't matter that some of these
Speaker 1: bands loved the same sort of music or had started
Speaker 1: from the same sort of place. I mean, Robert de
Speaker 1: Leo and Scott Wiland met in Los Angeles after a
Speaker 1: gig by punk rock pioneers Black Flag, but back in
Speaker 1: the grunge wars, nothing past the authenticity test. Side note here.
Speaker 1: When Robert wrote Plush in nineteen nine and he first
Speaker 1: played it for Wiland, Wiland dismissed it as sounding too
Speaker 1: much like Boston. A side note to the side note
Speaker 1: is that Kurt Kobaine used to say that Smells like
Speaker 1: Teen Spirit was him trying to sound like Boston. So
Speaker 1: you see what I mean about some of the stuff
Speaker 1: starting from the same place. One place that the arguments
Speaker 1: about authenticity never held any sway was on the radio.
Speaker 1: Radio was super hungry for heavy guitar and singers who
Speaker 1: knew how to howl right after Smells like Teen Spirit broken,
Speaker 1: and radio didn't care if the music was coming from
Speaker 1: Seattle or the UK. In the case of Bush or
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, where Stone Temple Pilots came together in the
Speaker 1: late eighties when Robert's older brother Dean came up from
Speaker 1: San Diego to play some guitar with Wild Robert and Eric.
Speaker 1: After STP broke through on the radio, some doubters did
Speaker 1: have their minds changed the same way Robert did about
Speaker 1: Pearl Jam, which would be seeing the band live, where
Speaker 1: Wyland proved himself as one of the most kinetic performers
Speaker 1: out there. The band's debut, Corps, went eight times platinum,
Speaker 1: their second album, Purple, went six times platinum, and Stone
Speaker 1: Temple Pilots became one of the biggest bands of the nineties.
Speaker 1: But Whyland also became one of the most troubled stars
Speaker 1: of the nineties. It was in and out of rehab
Speaker 1: over and over again as he battled the addiction that
Speaker 1: would eventually take his life in and sadly, that turned
Speaker 1: out to be the first of two tragic losses for
Speaker 1: the band. After Whyland and STP had recorded six albums
Speaker 1: together and finally parted ways in Stone Temple Pilots started
Speaker 1: playing some shows and recording with Chester Bennington from Lincoln Park,
Speaker 1: and they continued to tour together until when Chester left
Speaker 1: to focus more on Lincoln Park and then sadly a
Speaker 1: couple of years later in Chester took his own life. Perdida,
Speaker 1: the title of the latest Stone Temple Pilots album, translates
Speaker 1: from Spanish as the word loss. Its sound is quiet
Speaker 1: and it's introspective, and songs are really about romantic struggle
Speaker 1: and loneliness. But Robert told me that the album does
Speaker 1: also reflect the losses of Wyland and Chester. Well, you're
Speaker 1: definitely in there those two. You know, We're very fortunate
Speaker 1: to have shared moments, personal and musical moments with both
Speaker 1: of them, you know, with Scott and Chester. M Perdita
Speaker 1: is Stone Temple Pilots second album with Jeff Gutt, who
Speaker 1: became the band's singer after STP launched online auditions for
Speaker 1: a new vocalist when Chester Bennington had left the band.
Speaker 1: Robert told me they probably went through fifteen thousands of missions.
Speaker 1: But the weird thing is that Jeff Gutt wasn't one
Speaker 1: of them. He had been a competitor on the X
Speaker 1: Factor in he comes from Michigan, and when Robert was
Speaker 1: playing a gig in Michigan one time with the l
Speaker 1: A band the Hollywood Vampires. After the show, someone backstage
Speaker 1: told him he really needs to check this guy out.
Speaker 1: So he did, and that's how the Stone Temple Pilots
Speaker 1: ended up with a singer who grown up on their
Speaker 1: music when he was a teenager. Robert and Eric told
Speaker 1: me about how Jeff impressed them right off the bat.
Speaker 1: We talked about them recording in Eric's studio and out
Speaker 1: the ups and downs of life on the road. Here's
Speaker 1: what else they had to say. Robert, Joe, how are you? Man?
Speaker 1: And Eric? Welcome to inside the studio. So Perdida is
Speaker 1: a little bit of a change of pace, or at
Speaker 1: least a change of volume. It's acoustic, and certainly that's
Speaker 1: always been part of your sound. I think a Pretty
Speaker 1: Penny from Purple, maybe sour Girl from number four, but
Speaker 1: but this time it's the whole album. So how did
Speaker 1: it happen? And why did it happen? So before we started,
Speaker 1: just have to say that I would really like to
Speaker 1: sleep on a pillow of your voice. I got a
Speaker 1: great voice, man, It's very soothing. Well, I'm I'm happy
Speaker 1: to help in any way I can, fellas, although I
Speaker 1: also worry that you may have just told listeners that
Speaker 1: my voice will put them to sleep. Now you need
Speaker 1: to do some uh some therapy audio books that would
Speaker 1: it would work your voice. I am open to all
Speaker 1: are um. Sorry, what was the question now? So now
Speaker 1: we were talking about the new record pretty day and
Speaker 1: it's it's an all acoustic album, and of course acoustic
Speaker 1: has always been part of the flavor for you. But
Speaker 1: how did it become a whole album and why? Well,
Speaker 1: I think when you UM write a song, it for me,
Speaker 1: it starts out acoustically. Most of the time. It's it's
Speaker 1: grabbing acoustic, and when you have a great one, it
Speaker 1: becomes your couch guitar and you sit there and it
Speaker 1: kind of is your therapist and girlfriend and whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, and it you have a choice at that
Speaker 1: time to musically bring the song into another area. Um.
Speaker 1: With these songs, it just seemed like it was natural
Speaker 1: to kind of keep them in that that acoustic format,
Speaker 1: in that acoustic acoustic place. And I think when we
Speaker 1: started accumulating more of these songs, it just felt naturally
Speaker 1: to sonically keep them keep them there, you know. So
Speaker 1: that's that's really what it was. It wasn't a conscious effort, really,
Speaker 1: it was just kind of this is how these songs
Speaker 1: were feeling. And um, like I said, when we when
Speaker 1: we got more and more of them together. Um, plus
Speaker 1: the sentiment of the songs, I think it was just
Speaker 1: we felt that it was that's where they should they
Speaker 1: should lay, they should be there in that place. And
Speaker 1: this is an introspective album, maybe a little darker when
Speaker 1: you're talking about the sentiments of the songs. Perdida literally
Speaker 1: translates from Spanish to loss. I believe yes, um. And
Speaker 1: and so how did those particular songs which came first
Speaker 1: the sound of the songs or the ideas of the songs, Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of these songs for me came um when
Speaker 1: we were on tour in the wintertime in Canada and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, winter in Canada can be uh tough, and um,
Speaker 1: we were playing a lot of really cold window lists
Speaker 1: concrete uh, ice hockey arenas, and when you're sitting in
Speaker 1: an ice hockey arena and that kind of environment, um,
Speaker 1: you know you better have something to do because it
Speaker 1: can get a little damaging when you're sitting there thinking
Speaker 1: about things and and the the what you have to
Speaker 1: do is a band really changes from the point when
Speaker 1: you're in your twenties too when you're older in your fifties, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, or what it's healthy to do. Let's put
Speaker 1: it that way. Yes, Um so I think the best
Speaker 1: thing at that moment being a musician is picking up
Speaker 1: an instrument and kind of getting out what you need
Speaker 1: to get out. Um. There were a lot of songs
Speaker 1: that came to me during that time. Um of sitting
Speaker 1: there and having everyone around, you know, I'd have an
Speaker 1: idea and kind of send it to everyone and get
Speaker 1: Jeff Goot the singer involved, and UM sit down with
Speaker 1: him and start going through some music and melodies that
Speaker 1: I had, and um just piecing it together. It was
Speaker 1: actually really great watching, especially unlike the title track for Data,
Speaker 1: when Robert was pulling out that one putting it together.
Speaker 1: He'd be whistling some of the lines saying, you know,
Speaker 1: this would be sound great as a violin, and then
Speaker 1: having the cords around it and all the counter melodies.
Speaker 1: It's really, uh, really natural and exciting. And since we
Speaker 1: were doing it every day in the dressing room, you
Speaker 1: could kind of really start to hear how great the
Speaker 1: vibe was going to be for this album. I know
Speaker 1: the changes you see, I'm lost suckles most strong and
Speaker 1: good stun me and the small cover. So you're thinking
Speaker 1: about the arrangements even as you're just sitting around. You're
Speaker 1: you're in the back of these hockey rinks in Canada.
Speaker 1: It's Winnipeg. It's cold. No, it was really cold. I
Speaker 1: know I've been there. Yeah, it was it was you know,
Speaker 1: I always think about arrangements. I think arrangement is something
Speaker 1: that's kind of lost these days. You know. I hearkened
Speaker 1: back to the days of you know, um Mancini and
Speaker 1: um Bert back Rack and the people that really knew
Speaker 1: how to arrange music. Um and and I'm sure you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they had um ideas in mind when they
Speaker 1: started writing their music, you know. And and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: arrangement is is still important. It's uh, it's still something
Speaker 1: that I value in music. You know, of all the
Speaker 1: references I was prepared for you to pull out, I
Speaker 1: don't think Henry Mancini or Bert back Crack were the
Speaker 1: ones that that you were going to come with. UM.
Speaker 1: But that's really interesting because this is a different kind
Speaker 1: of record. It It froze back, maybe to a seventies moment,
Speaker 1: but those those guys aren't seventies rockers. Yeah, but part
Speaker 1: of luckily we grew up in such a great period
Speaker 1: in music in the seventies, so we're just like sponges
Speaker 1: picking up and see any backrock. I mean, the list
Speaker 1: goes on and on of what you heard from AM
Speaker 1: Radio two, what great album tracks and stuff that was
Speaker 1: on TV, stuff that was available. It was. It really
Speaker 1: kind of steeped into our d n A. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think anyone that gets into music, uh through the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies, there's a moment there where you're going to
Speaker 1: relate to something that you hear. I think one of
Speaker 1: my first relations was listening, you know, being curious enough
Speaker 1: at like five or six to listen to the records
Speaker 1: that were around. I had older parents which were both
Speaker 1: gone now there were Ella Fitzgerald, you know, forty eights
Speaker 1: hanging around, and there were you know, I mentioned Mancini.
Speaker 1: I think one of the most comforting things for me
Speaker 1: still is to hear Andy Williams sing uh Moon River.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a beautiful song, um and it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those songs that it comforts me and
Speaker 1: reminds me of my childhood and putting on those records
Speaker 1: for the first time. The first time I heard Brian
Speaker 1: Wilson's falsetto, I mean it. I was hooked. I was
Speaker 1: hooked from those forty five My first concert was the Carpenters,
Speaker 1: and many people contributed to the Carpenters music back Iraq
Speaker 1: included Paul Williams. You know, great great writers of the time,
Speaker 1: um and their music. For me, it holds true still,
Speaker 1: you know. Let's linger on this for just a second.
Speaker 1: Your first concert was the seventies. You grew up in
Speaker 1: New Jersey, I did. It was at the Garden State
Speaker 1: Arts Center in nineteen seventy one. I was five years old,
Speaker 1: so obviously you're five. Your parents are taking you to
Speaker 1: the show. I assume were you there because they wanted
Speaker 1: to go, or were you asking to go see the
Speaker 1: Carpenters at five or no. I I went along and
Speaker 1: uh in that going along, I completely digested and got
Speaker 1: what was going on. It was the Carpenters with an orchestra,
Speaker 1: and you know it was it was a moment where,
Speaker 1: like I said, I just it clicked, you know, it
Speaker 1: clicked in Let's move forward a little bit. When did
Speaker 1: you start making your own musical decisions? When did you
Speaker 1: pick up a guitar? Well, uh, Dean is five years
Speaker 1: older than me, so he was the one that kind
Speaker 1: of got his first guitar. Remember the guitar. It was
Speaker 1: a very cheap, maybe twenty dollar United guitar. It was
Speaker 1: the brand. And I think he learned he was learning
Speaker 1: um when he was about I would say about ten eleven,
Speaker 1: he was learning. I think the first song he learned
Speaker 1: was Roger Miller. It was King of the Road. Um.
Speaker 1: So I got kind of fascinated with what he was doing. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know, as a younger brother, you look at your
Speaker 1: older brother and goes, looks cool. I want to try that.
Speaker 1: But the only thing was he wasn't too cool with
Speaker 1: me trying as a guitar. So I had to sneak
Speaker 1: my my my guitar passion. And when he was gone,
Speaker 1: I would, you know, kind of hear him coming in
Speaker 1: the door and have to put the guitar under the
Speaker 1: bed again. But that's so funny because my brother, my
Speaker 1: brother was three years older, and I would have to
Speaker 1: listen to his records the same way mm hm, because otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, hell to pay. Don't listen to my records
Speaker 1: punk right, right? Hands off Dark Side of the Moon,
Speaker 1: but hands off dar I kind of heightened my passion
Speaker 1: that I wasn't allowed to do that. It almost has
Speaker 1: that forbidden feeling. You have to sneak in the in
Speaker 1: that sense that nobody's telling you it's the Devil's music,
Speaker 1: but it's still a little bit forbidden, right, Yes, So
Speaker 1: there was a lot of um just kind of being
Speaker 1: a good center back then, listening to as many things
Speaker 1: as I could get my hands on, and through the generations.
Speaker 1: I'm the youngest in the family. Mind. Dean's mom had
Speaker 1: married four times, so I had a lot of half
Speaker 1: and step brothers, and I would kind of go around this.
Speaker 1: We had an English, old English tutor house, and I
Speaker 1: would go into, you know, Dean's room and he'd be
Speaker 1: listening to the Houses of the Holy, and I'd go
Speaker 1: up into my one sister's room and she was listening
Speaker 1: to t for the Tillerman, you know, Cat Stevens. And
Speaker 1: then i'd go into my other half brother's room and
Speaker 1: he'd be listened to Crosby Skills, Nash and Young. And
Speaker 1: I'd go down to my mom's room and she'd be
Speaker 1: listening to John Denver or you know, it was all
Speaker 1: these all these things that were kind of melding together
Speaker 1: for me sonically. But we have come to reference points
Speaker 1: that actually do bring us back to this record when
Speaker 1: you mentioned Houses of the Holy Tief of the Tillerman, Like,
Speaker 1: now we're in the realm of seventies music that comes
Speaker 1: together to form some of the glen of acoustic and
Speaker 1: psychedelic that I think you guys have gotten on his help.
Speaker 1: But I think that's always been there. I think it
Speaker 1: was just more concentrated this time. I think once we
Speaker 1: started kind of getting the songs together, it was kind
Speaker 1: of a focus of keeping them in that, like I said,
Speaker 1: in that intimate space, and uh, it fits the you know,
Speaker 1: the feeling of the song and the feeling of the lyric.
Speaker 1: So it's really about, you know, what makes the singer.
Speaker 1: You know, it's always been that for me. It is
Speaker 1: writing a song that the singer can really relate to
Speaker 1: and really you're really trying to make the lyric and
Speaker 1: the vocal the most prominent beautiful thing it can be.
Speaker 1: I think Jeff did it, you know, really achieved that
Speaker 1: on this record. Yeah, I think what he achieved was wonderful.
Speaker 1: And going back to that, what was nice is as
Speaker 1: we started hearing more songs being written by Robert and
Speaker 1: Jane for this record, it was nice knowing that the
Speaker 1: whole record was going to be in that acoustic, slide
Speaker 1: electric kind of vibe. Whereas when you were mentioned before
Speaker 1: songs like Sour Girl and Pretty Penny, you know there
Speaker 1: used to be one song on an album. We just
Speaker 1: kind of jump into this this type of vibe. So
Speaker 1: it really was comforting going into doing a whole record
Speaker 1: with with all those avenges being open. It's interesting you
Speaker 1: call it comforting because I was wondering when the music
Speaker 1: is quieter, does it feel like more of a risk?
Speaker 1: Is their sense of being more exposed either emotionally your
Speaker 1: musically you can't hide behind the volume. No, I think
Speaker 1: it's mostly the sentiment of the vocal that really is
Speaker 1: pulling your pants down, so to speak. I think on
Speaker 1: one point, it's songs about a lot of relationships, relationships
Speaker 1: that have failed, relationships that are missed. And it's an
Speaker 1: age old anecdote or story, isn't it. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a it keeps on getting told differently, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think there's songs that people can relate
Speaker 1: to in that because it's such a common bond with
Speaker 1: us as humans. So and we said the title track
Speaker 1: is is Spanish for loss. You mentioned the age old story.
Speaker 1: One way of telling that story might be boy meets girl,
Speaker 1: boy loses girl. A lot of these songs seem to
Speaker 1: revolve around that. But at the same time, choosing that
Speaker 1: as the album title, the dark mood of the songs,
Speaker 1: you must have known people would associate it with the
Speaker 1: losses you've endured as a band. You know, Scott Wiland's death,
Speaker 1: Chester Bennington's suicide. Yeah, well, um, you know, I think
Speaker 1: they're in there. They're in there, but it was more
Speaker 1: of an uh an immediate uh personal not that it
Speaker 1: hasn't been personal. It's been very personal with the loss
Speaker 1: of two singers. Um, but it's set that a day
Speaker 1: to day thing in life, of failing and losing. And
Speaker 1: but yeah, they're definitely in there, those two. You know,
Speaker 1: we're very fortunate to have shared moments, personal and musical
Speaker 1: moments with both of them, you know, with Scott Anchester obviously,
Speaker 1: and yet also a sense of loss with both of
Speaker 1: those performers. Quite staggering. How difficult was it? Was there
Speaker 1: ever a moment when you stopped and said, do we
Speaker 1: go on? Of course, you know, especially when when you
Speaker 1: first hear the heartbreaking news, grief is always gonna have
Speaker 1: just such a number of emotions attached to it, and
Speaker 1: you know, we've been through a lot of them, especially
Speaker 1: over the last thirty years we've been together. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're closer with each other than we are kind of
Speaker 1: with our own families. You know, from growing up. I
Speaker 1: spent more time together, that's for sure. And uh, like
Speaker 1: Robert sub we've had some really we've been lucky enough
Speaker 1: to have some really great moments with Chester and Scott
Speaker 1: that were musically friends you know, and comrades and everything involved.
Speaker 1: It was really, uh, it's really been a great journey. Yes,
Speaker 1: Scott had a great understanding of where we come from musically,
Speaker 1: he grew up with different things. He was a little younger,
Speaker 1: but you know, when he really wanted to sing, like
Speaker 1: really sing, he he was in chorus when he was younger.
Speaker 1: He would really have this great kind of male Karen
Speaker 1: Carpenter thing about him. Yeah, he loved the Carpenters loved it.
Speaker 1: He would do that really well. It's kind of amazing
Speaker 1: how even speaking of Karen Carpenter how Scott could mimic
Speaker 1: that soulful tone in her voice. I mean, and that's
Speaker 1: one thing a lot of singers have a hard time
Speaker 1: trying to emulate naturally, is they might probably hit the notes,
Speaker 1: are the inflections, but he really could get in there
Speaker 1: and get the feel of what some of those great
Speaker 1: hits that she had together. So the decision to keep going, UM,
Speaker 1: just tell me a little about that and and about
Speaker 1: connecting with Jeff, Well, we went through quite a process
Speaker 1: to um get to this point. And I think what
Speaker 1: Eric was saying before, We've gone through a lot of
Speaker 1: processes to get two points, not all positive constructive points,
Speaker 1: but UM, we kind of looked at this is a
Speaker 1: chance to uh continue writing what we doing. What we
Speaker 1: do do the best is writing UM and finding someone
Speaker 1: who we could share that with and they could you know,
Speaker 1: beer sonic mouthpiece, your creative mouthpiece. And Jeff he gets it,
Speaker 1: he gets where we're coming from. I think this. I
Speaker 1: think presenting him with these songs on this record, for me,
Speaker 1: it was it was it was a true test to
Speaker 1: see where he would be at with with these kind
Speaker 1: of songs thrown out of him. You know, you either
Speaker 1: get it or you don't you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of jazz influence in there, and not everyone has that
Speaker 1: ear for that. But yeah, he handled it well. He
Speaker 1: had to look gread just everything that gets thrown at him,
Speaker 1: speaking about Jeff, every everything gets thrown at him, he
Speaker 1: has something for it. He doesn't sit there and say,
Speaker 1: oh'll come back tomorrow and let me digest these chords.
Speaker 1: He doesn't shy away from that. He'll just jump right
Speaker 1: in and usually in the nine tile of what his
Speaker 1: main ideas are, end up going forward with the rest
Speaker 1: the song. It's really great. I asked you a little
Speaker 1: bit about first connecting with him. You took a somewhat
Speaker 1: unusual route to that because you held open auditions at
Speaker 1: one point before you guys had connected with him, right,
Speaker 1: we we did. We have the three of us, Dean
Speaker 1: and Eric and I went through, uh, probably fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: submissions and we kind of gave everyone worldwide a chance
Speaker 1: to um, you know, have their have their place in
Speaker 1: the sun for for a minute. And of course in
Speaker 1: jeff situation, he didn't send a recording. It was just
Speaker 1: that strikes me as the funniest thing about this because
Speaker 1: it was it was more of the natural connection the
Speaker 1: way that guys connect in bands. Right, Yeah, we just
Speaker 1: gave it a try, and you know, it's uh, it's um.
Speaker 1: It was interesting to see what people had to offer.
Speaker 1: There's a good reel there of out takes, all right,
Speaker 1: not naming names, but what was the kind of craziest
Speaker 1: thing you heard in those many submissions. It wasn't anything crazy.
Speaker 1: It was just very amateur. It was amateur, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people realize what it takes, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I think that whole well, my mom said
Speaker 1: him great. I mean, you see a lot of this
Speaker 1: just in YouTube in general, where people aren't that funny
Speaker 1: and they're trying to be funny or they're not that talented,
Speaker 1: but they are told, all right, get off my YouTube channel, guys.
Speaker 1: But you know, hey, everyone everyone tried, and i'd say
Speaker 1: of them believed it. So there was nothing completely out
Speaker 1: of left field, like I'm a grandma, but I love
Speaker 1: your music and uh, here's my shot. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite was one guy sent in a version of plush
Speaker 1: but he just played on piano. I thought it was
Speaker 1: great because he obviously wasn't trying to be a singer,
Speaker 1: but he just threw it in there, and it was
Speaker 1: really a nice break to hear amongst the thousands of
Speaker 1: singers in a row to go through. I think the
Speaker 1: thing was is on video people were very confident, but
Speaker 1: the ones we chose to come and actually perform with
Speaker 1: us when they got there, they were a wreck. When
Speaker 1: they really got physically on stage with the band, I
Speaker 1: think it would turn into a different thing. And that's
Speaker 1: my point is like kind of put your big boy
Speaker 1: pants on, you know. Whereas Jeff, having been on X Factor,
Speaker 1: had already been through that process, so maybe he can
Speaker 1: walk into that moment having faced those fears already. Not
Speaker 1: only that, he grew up in Detroit and Detroit is
Speaker 1: not a very forgiving town, so he was playing around
Speaker 1: there and really knowing what what failure was about, and
Speaker 1: what's uh, you know, not being able to uh move
Speaker 1: on with music and doubting and all these things that
Speaker 1: go along with deciding to be a musician. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: you're saying he'd already ducked his share of beer cans
Speaker 1: in Hamtram the Detroit reference, he just got nerves of
Speaker 1: steel man, I actually thinking about I've never seen him
Speaker 1: get nervous. He just kind of looks at you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, you ready to go? You know it. Someone
Speaker 1: said something to me one time when they criticized him
Speaker 1: after seeing us, and he said, you know, that guy's
Speaker 1: got big balls, And I said, you know, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what you have to have. You have to have
Speaker 1: big balls to go out there and do that to
Speaker 1: be a rock singer. Yes, that's that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: job qualification number two or three, maybe two and three. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he proved that, and I think, um, you know
Speaker 1: with this record that he proved another thing to us
Speaker 1: that he can um share and express the sentiments of
Speaker 1: these songs. You know. So you produced this album yourselves,
Speaker 1: working in Eric's studio Bomb Shelter Studios, and you've recorded
Speaker 1: there before. Tell me about this spot, how did how
Speaker 1: did it get that name? Originally I had a spot
Speaker 1: in downtown Los Angeles, was that wonderful six thousand square
Speaker 1: foot facility, and then just over the years I just
Speaker 1: wanted to bring it, bring it home because it was
Speaker 1: starting to get to be a pain to go through
Speaker 1: traffic to get there. So having all the equipment in
Speaker 1: the home studio really helped. Because it's a lot of
Speaker 1: vintage gear that I've collected since the nineties, and Robert
Speaker 1: has a really fantastic studio as well, the same type
Speaker 1: of vintage gear. So between the two of us we
Speaker 1: have everything you need for a world class studio. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier recording and making our own schedule
Speaker 1: and in our own houses. Then it is necessarily driving
Speaker 1: collectively somewhere else and being on the clock. So to say.
Speaker 1: We've done our last four records actually at my place
Speaker 1: and Eric's, so it's it's been very very convenient, very nice.
Speaker 1: It's nice when everyone has to go to you. You
Speaker 1: can stay home and everyone has to come to you.
Speaker 1: That's a nice feeling. And you did your first five
Speaker 1: albums with Brendan O'Brien. So what's the difference between working
Speaker 1: with a great set of outside years and and working
Speaker 1: producing your yourselves. Well, I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: is is being a good listener and and watching what Brendan.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel I feel very, very fortunate to
Speaker 1: have made records with Brendan O'Brien. Brendan was a great teacher.
Speaker 1: He was one of simplicity. I think the whole thing
Speaker 1: there was, you know, it takes an idiot to complicate,
Speaker 1: a genius to simplify, and I think Brendan was genius
Speaker 1: is simplifying. Can you give me an example of that.
Speaker 1: How how did that work? Well, you know, you'd go
Speaker 1: out there and you go, what what Mike should be used,
Speaker 1: and he goes, just use the closest one, and just yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great where it's at. And there was bleed and
Speaker 1: there was talk, and there was things in the recording
Speaker 1: when you go back and listen to them, and it
Speaker 1: was recorded kind of like it used to be recorded
Speaker 1: back in the sixties that you know, there's bleed and
Speaker 1: and you know Phil Specters stuff and all that, all
Speaker 1: that kind of charm that goes along with the music.
Speaker 1: So the spontaneous over the perfect. Yes, spontaneity was a
Speaker 1: big part of Lessons from Brenda. It was playing live.
Speaker 1: It was in some cases with Purple and a couple
Speaker 1: of other records where there was literally a a p
Speaker 1: A set up in the tracking room, so you're you're
Speaker 1: hearing bleed from the p A and you know that
Speaker 1: was once a part of a charm of a recording,
Speaker 1: you know, back back in the day. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we've always been been big fans of a vintage stuff
Speaker 1: and and old recordings, and I think Brendan was there too.
Speaker 1: He shared that sentiment with us. And after we made
Speaker 1: these records with Brennan, we we've we've been making these
Speaker 1: records with um a gentleman by the name of Ryan Williams.
Speaker 1: And Ryan actually uh started working with us as Brendan's
Speaker 1: assistant engineer on our third record, Tiny Music. So we've
Speaker 1: worked with Ryan Williams since he learned from Brendan. So
Speaker 1: it's like we get the best of both worlds. We
Speaker 1: get the what we what we learned from Brendan and
Speaker 1: what he learned, and we put that together. And I
Speaker 1: think some times, being your own producers, it's challenging. You
Speaker 1: have to leave ego out when you're criticizing yours and
Speaker 1: other people's art. And Uh, you know, I think we've
Speaker 1: got a good way of doing that and moved on
Speaker 1: like that. Thank you for the Maori's Cabby the time,
Speaker 1: I said, and move never want to do things. I know,
Speaker 1: but that mom was wrong. Stay with me to the
Speaker 1: mone and please be Eric. You you said Bomb Shelter
Speaker 1: started as a six thousand square foot space. Were you
Speaker 1: recording other bands there? Was it originally like, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: opening a studio. Yeah, it was right around uh two
Speaker 1: thousand that I found just you know, found some commercial
Speaker 1: property in downtown Los Angeles. And then uh we had
Speaker 1: back then a lot of bands coming through every every
Speaker 1: couple of weeks. And then luckily the Henry Rawlins Show
Speaker 1: came in and wanted to do the music portion through
Speaker 1: the studio. So that was a lot of fun having
Speaker 1: two bands a day coming through. And one of my
Speaker 1: favorite memories of that was I had Slayer coming in
Speaker 1: the morning. They came in around noon, played four songs,
Speaker 1: and then Amy Mann came in later that day with
Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar. Was the contrast. It was really wonderful.
Speaker 1: It is the very definition of Yin and yang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it was. It was nice. It's just kind of
Speaker 1: what the space was built for, just a multi purpose
Speaker 1: everything everything goes kind of place, and uh and I
Speaker 1: just worked out to be a really great creative space
Speaker 1: for a lot of years. And did you guys get
Speaker 1: to record there before you as it were brought it
Speaker 1: all back home. Yeah, we did our self titled record there,
Speaker 1: first self titled record. Yes, you've used that title twice.
Speaker 1: We ran out of titles. Well, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: second self titled record, which is also your first record
Speaker 1: with Jeff. What was that like? You said he could
Speaker 1: handle anything you were throwing at him. So how did
Speaker 1: that album come together and what did it feel like.
Speaker 1: We started writing some songs, um, getting into ideas with
Speaker 1: Chester before he left the band. Um, and uh, you
Speaker 1: know we had that spark of kind of wanting to
Speaker 1: make a record. UM. So when when Jeff came in,
Speaker 1: we actually did we we did that at my place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had probably four songs already recorded, maybe more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we Uh, we had Jeff come in for the
Speaker 1: first day. The first day he came in, he he
Speaker 1: just started singing, just started singing over stuff and it
Speaker 1: was it was appealing, it was working. Um. So that's
Speaker 1: where that kind of started from. And we just we're like,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's make a record, keep going, keep
Speaker 1: writing more and more. So then we after he didn't
Speaker 1: the initial one or two auditions, then he started singing
Speaker 1: on some of the studio stuff we had recorded. Then uh,
Speaker 1: we started just writing with them and that just continued
Speaker 1: to go on very smoothly. And so these these four
Speaker 1: songs that you had in the can already. They became
Speaker 1: the first songs you recorded for that record. Yeah. Luckily
Speaker 1: for us for that situation, even even with Scott back
Speaker 1: in the day, we we'd be able to record a
Speaker 1: whole song without any vocals. I mean we're talking a
Speaker 1: Silver Gun Superman's one off the Purple album. There was
Speaker 1: no vocals on that, and even had the guitar solo,
Speaker 1: it had nine out of ten of the overdubs and
Speaker 1: then Scott would just come in, Okay, I got a melody,
Speaker 1: and then go back and write the lyrics and just
Speaker 1: throw them down. So so we're not shy to be
Speaker 1: able to put a song together and record it knowing
Speaker 1: how to arrange it in everything, when a vocalist can
Speaker 1: grab ahold of it, here's all the parts for you.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what Jeff got presented with and
Speaker 1: he just nailed it. And I'm not sure everybody understands this,
Speaker 1: but you know, when you're writing that song, you don't
Speaker 1: always have the melody in mind. This is one of
Speaker 1: the things a great vocalist does is understand where that
Speaker 1: song is going enough in his own head to put
Speaker 1: that melody on top that that's often the part that
Speaker 1: as a listener, we identify with first, Yeah, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: How that works. I mean a lot of times it
Speaker 1: can just look a lot of the songs from this
Speaker 1: new album per Data, Robert would have melodies already, just
Speaker 1: be whistling them and playing on a crucial guitar, so
Speaker 1: you kind of knew where the song was going. Whereas
Speaker 1: taking songs like Silver and Superman, like I said in
Speaker 1: the past, we just presented as a band and kind
Speaker 1: of going it in and go okay. I hope he
Speaker 1: comes up with something great for it. Sure enough, he
Speaker 1: would be outstanding, you know the final product. Just before
Speaker 1: Perdida was released in February, you had a theater tour scheduled.
Speaker 1: You had to cancel. Jeff had a herniated disk. What happened?
Speaker 1: How's he feeling now? He's feeling good. His back is
Speaker 1: feeling great. It's just a scarred tissue and a few
Speaker 1: things that they had to move to uh to get
Speaker 1: to the surgery. But he said he's been doing every day.
Speaker 1: He's getting better and better, so he'll be he'll be
Speaker 1: at a hundred percent in no time. Would we classify
Speaker 1: this as a work related injury? Is it the rigors?
Speaker 1: Of being a front man that that that through that
Speaker 1: disc out of whack or was it something else. I
Speaker 1: think he's had that for quite a while. Things had
Speaker 1: back problems for a while. I think most people that
Speaker 1: have back problems are something that's genetic or yeah that
Speaker 1: this is worn down to it might be a genetic thing. Um.
Speaker 1: So many people after that came out we had to
Speaker 1: cancel the tour. I mean so many people came out
Speaker 1: to me and said, I've had the same thing, and
Speaker 1: well that's really uh, back back is not it's not.
Speaker 1: It's not pleasant now very mysterious too. They don't always
Speaker 1: you don't always know what's going on. But man, I
Speaker 1: still look forward to, uh revisiting that and rescheduling the
Speaker 1: tour because the rehearsals were sounding so incredible. So you
Speaker 1: were going to go out and do the acoustic thing
Speaker 1: in these intimate theater gigs, right, yes, Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a few extra players as well, so, um,
Speaker 1: just to hit all the different guitar over dubs and
Speaker 1: extra vocals and keyboards and strings and everything else. Um,
Speaker 1: for not only the songs off this record, but quite
Speaker 1: a few other catalog songs that we've never really been
Speaker 1: able to to play live and the idea is to
Speaker 1: reschedule those dates, uh for sometime in the future. Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so you you do have a tour coming up, I think,
Speaker 1: so let's linker here for a second. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a concern right now for anybody anywhere. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the coronavirus, but for a rock band on
Speaker 1: tour a different kind of concern. Well, I think, um,
Speaker 1: it's always tough doing so much traveling. I've gotten really
Speaker 1: ill on the past two tours we've done. We've done
Speaker 1: in one of South America. I think we're on ten
Speaker 1: planes in twelve days. Yeah, everybody got a little little
Speaker 1: aile in South America, but that's probably food related, right.
Speaker 1: And then the heat wave of last summer in Europe,
Speaker 1: they were definitely weren't prepared for that and having having
Speaker 1: the flu through that, and uh, yeah, it's a concern,
Speaker 1: I think, um as as we get older, it's it's
Speaker 1: definitely a concern. It's a concern to keep ourselves as
Speaker 1: healthy as possible. But when you're in public places and
Speaker 1: you're traveling and you're doing all that, this this Australian
Speaker 1: thing coming up is going to be, you know, flying
Speaker 1: on days of shows and ideally like to have a
Speaker 1: day off on the day you're traveling, but it's unfortunately
Speaker 1: isn't working out that way, So you just do the
Speaker 1: best you can to stay healthy. I don't really know
Speaker 1: is the is the coronavirus hype? Is it? Is it real?
Speaker 1: Is it as bad as they say it is? Is
Speaker 1: it spreading? I mean, I mean places are shutting down,
Speaker 1: so we don't really have any control over what may happen.
Speaker 1: So I just gotta kind of hang in there and
Speaker 1: see what's gonna happen. You gotta be careful and we
Speaker 1: we now have to make hand sanitizer or drug of choice. Yes,
Speaker 1: and high five with your feet yes, Okay, I thought
Speaker 1: of that all right. So, UM, I do want to
Speaker 1: go back to something I was saying earlier when when
Speaker 1: I got the album in January, I was taking a
Speaker 1: few notes as I was listening, and I really did
Speaker 1: right down Jethro fucking Tall and I bet you know
Speaker 1: which song I'm talking about? Which one? Now? I didn't
Speaker 1: know the time Dean wrote that, And um, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was by accident or it's hard to
Speaker 1: hear flute in the context of a rock album and
Speaker 1: not think tall that's I think that's all. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: he did it well. I think the flute was just um,
Speaker 1: you know decision I had for someone to come in
Speaker 1: and uh play on some songs and and you know,
Speaker 1: it sounded so good it's like, well, let's try it
Speaker 1: on this song too. I mean that's how you know
Speaker 1: a good player of a of a different instrument is
Speaker 1: uh is pretty infectious. I wrote a song called Years,
Speaker 1: and I really enjoy Paul Desmond as a sax player,
Speaker 1: and I really wrote that outro of Years for someone
Speaker 1: to his name is Chris Speed. Chris Uh did a
Speaker 1: beautiful solo on the end of that saxophone you mentioned.
Speaker 1: There is that jazzy feel to some of this, and
Speaker 1: it does have a stretched out, relaxed quality to it. It.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of of that seventies jazz rock fusion
Speaker 1: thing that kind of went away for a minute. It did,
Speaker 1: but we we all are. It all comes back because
Speaker 1: it was great. We all we all appreciate it and uh,
Speaker 1: you know it's part of what we grew up on
Speaker 1: back in the seventies. That's when you know your real friends,
Speaker 1: because when you put on a general giant record. Half
Speaker 1: the room will leave and the half that stays there,
Speaker 1: those are your true friends. It was funny because I
Speaker 1: just I have a friend who is in his thirties,
Speaker 1: and uh, like, have you ever heard this record? He's like, no,
Speaker 1: have you heard of this record? No? So we we
Speaker 1: drove around in my car, went old school, drove around
Speaker 1: in my car, and I just cranked up some seventies
Speaker 1: fusion for him and he was like, man, I never knew.
Speaker 1: So it was just passing on. That's trying to keep
Speaker 1: it alive. Fell was. We talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: the decision to keep going. What do you want to do?
Speaker 1: What's next? You've done this acoustic album, when you're thinking
Speaker 1: about what you want to accomplish next, more records, more touring,
Speaker 1: since were just this record that was a different flavor
Speaker 1: from some of the stuff previously. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: it's I'm curious to see how the next record is
Speaker 1: gonna sound. If it's gonna be the loudest thing we've
Speaker 1: ever done, or if it's going to be a mixture
Speaker 1: of the last couple of records, if it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a whole new direction. I don't really know yet. And Robert,
Speaker 1: if you had to guess, you know, UM, be happy, huh,
Speaker 1: be happy and enjoy life, and um, I think music
Speaker 1: will fall hello after that. I think life is the greatest, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a thing to write about. And um, who
Speaker 1: knows what life is going to be uh in months
Speaker 1: or years or you just never know. I think that's
Speaker 1: what's going to really dictate what's going to be next musically. Well, Robert, Eric,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: pleasure Man, thank you. Inside the Studio is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: check out the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.