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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bomb Left Sets podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is Attorney Extraordinary Peter Paterno. Hi. So,

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Speaker 1: Peter the Doctor's gonna win the World Series? I hope. So.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. It's very dicey with some good teams

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Speaker 1: in the So what are the weaknesses? It seems like,

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Speaker 1: you know, the relief pictures, they keep blowing it. They've

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Speaker 1: gotten better. I mean, if the pitching is gonna be

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Speaker 1: the key I think to the World Series. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the Astros are very, very good and the Yankees are

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Speaker 1: good too, so it's just gonna be an issue to

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Speaker 1: see who who makes it. In Well, what we learned

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Speaker 1: from last year were learned from last year. Don't pull

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Speaker 1: your picture when he's pitching a one hitter in the

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Speaker 1: seventh inning. I know the guys too into the statistics.

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Speaker 1: So in any event, in addition to being a music lawyer,

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Speaker 1: you're a huge music fan. How did you get into

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Speaker 1: music like when you were a kid? I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think I got into music the way that a lot

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Speaker 1: of us gotten the music, the Beatles. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: I blame my career on John Lennon. Okay, so I

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Speaker 1: believe that the path, the path for better or for

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Speaker 1: worse that I've taken is basically due to those those guys. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so were you a fan? Were you listening to the

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Speaker 1: Top forty or anything before the Beatles run ed? Sullivan,

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Speaker 1: I was a kid. I listened to music. I didn't

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Speaker 1: think any of it was, Honestly, it's kind of weird.

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Speaker 1: I remember the year before the Beatles broke, sitting there

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Speaker 1: as a kid thinking music isn't very good, is it?

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Speaker 1: I really, you know, it was, you know, all these

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Speaker 1: like girl groups and whatever else was happening then, and

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Speaker 1: it just wasn't good. I mean, I think the week

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Speaker 1: before the Beatles broke, I think number one was Dumb

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Speaker 1: and eque by the Singing Nuns. So it was close

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Speaker 1: yeah around there. Yeah so, and that was one of

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Speaker 1: the better songs on the Top forty. She never did

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Speaker 1: have a follow up though, No, they apparently she had to.

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Speaker 1: She haded tragic circumstances that pursued her, but I don't

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Speaker 1: remember what they were. Actually, I don't remember that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: But did you have a transistor radio as a kid?

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Speaker 1: Of course? Okay, but for you listened to the baseball games,

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Speaker 1: I assume I listened to the baseball games when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, and the Dodgers moved from Brooklyn and

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Speaker 1: New York to Los Angeles, and I was living in

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Speaker 1: New York at the time, and I put my transistor

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Speaker 1: radio on and the game started then at eight They

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Speaker 1: started now at seven or earlier in the game started eight,

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Speaker 1: which is eleven o'clock New York time, and I put

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Speaker 1: the transistor under my pillow. I listened to the ball

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Speaker 1: games because the broadcast the Giant Dodger games back to

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Speaker 1: New York. I listened to Vince Gully on the radio

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Speaker 1: and fall asleep with a radio under my pillow. And

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Speaker 1: I remember you. They used to have the nine vote

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Speaker 1: batteries and I would test them by putting them on

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Speaker 1: my tongue to see if they still had any zip

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Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, I don't think I had nine vote

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Speaker 1: battery transistor radio. I think mine was regular whatever the

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Speaker 1: double as or whatever they are. Okay, So what age

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Speaker 1: did you move from New York to Los Angeles. I

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Speaker 1: was twelve, with twelve is kind old enough to know

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Speaker 1: what was going on. So when you move, where did

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Speaker 1: you live in New York? Again? I lived on Long

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Speaker 1: Island Okay, what town, Baldwin? Okay, alright, by my backyard

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Speaker 1: was in the center, but main house was involved within. Okay,

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Speaker 1: And before you moved to the West coast, did you

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Speaker 1: go to any concerts because he had the Nasau Coliseum? Okay,

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Speaker 1: maybe the Nashville Coliseum wasn't even built by that point.

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Speaker 1: I think it was because it's ended. It was like

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Speaker 1: a dump thing. The team's moved out of there, but

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Speaker 1: now they have a new arena. In any event, you

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Speaker 1: moved to l A, where do you move to in

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles? I actually moved to Orange County. I grew

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Speaker 1: up in Orange County and Tustin. Tustin is like landlocked.

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Speaker 1: It's not like by the beach, and it's pretty flat. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: At the time, though, it was kind of the end

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Speaker 1: of the world. I mean all the freeways ended there.

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Speaker 1: It was still very heavily populated by orange groves instead

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Speaker 1: of people. Yeah, I mean the house next to me

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Speaker 1: had horses. And you know, we lived in Tustin proper.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't like we lived in like some weird place.

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Speaker 1: It was just it was a small community. And and

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Speaker 1: we used to go to the beach pretty regularly because

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Speaker 1: Newport Beach. You just got on the freeway and drove

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Speaker 1: down down the fifty five to its coast of Masa

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Speaker 1: and then you went to Newport Beach. So, yeah, we

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Speaker 1: spent our summers at the beach. How far was that

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Speaker 1: from tust him, you know, I think it's seven miles

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Speaker 1: actually something like that. I didn't realize it was that close. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And what did your father or mother do for a

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Speaker 1: living when you lived in Tustin. My mother was a teacher.

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Speaker 1: She taught um for a while, biology, then she taught

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Speaker 1: languages at the local high school where I went to

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Speaker 1: high school. And my dad was a contracts administrator for

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Speaker 1: various facets of the defense industry. So he'd get laid

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Speaker 1: off every two or three years when the budget name

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Speaker 1: would go down and go up, and go down and

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Speaker 1: go up. So his training was in finance or engineering.

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Speaker 1: I think he got I know when I was a kid.

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Speaker 1: He went to n y U and got an NBA

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Speaker 1: at night at night in night school, so he you know,

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Speaker 1: he had he had. My parents both went to Brooklyn College,

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Speaker 1: but my dad left early to go to the world.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about the Brookley in Brooklyn, California. Brooklyn College.

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Speaker 1: They went to Brooklyn College. They my parents grew up

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Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, which is why I'm a huge Dodger fan.

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Speaker 1: And my dad left early. They allowed the people that

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Speaker 1: you know, the guy shipping out, They let him graduate early.

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Speaker 1: So he went out to the war and then came back.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I don't know what he did, but

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Speaker 1: when I was a little kid, he went to get

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Speaker 1: his graduate degree at n y U and business and

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Speaker 1: ended up doing whatever he did, okay, did he used

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Speaker 1: to tell stories about the war. Not much. It's actually

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Speaker 1: it was fairly traumatic for him. And I think he

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Speaker 1: had a little bit of a you know, uh p

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Speaker 1: ptsd P. Yeah, I mean, I guess what I heard.

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Speaker 1: I mean again, I was I wasn't born yet, but

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Speaker 1: I heard that he had he had some issues following

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Speaker 1: the war. And do you know what he did during

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Speaker 1: the war. He was he was in the South Pacific

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Speaker 1: and he um, I think he was a communications officer.

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Speaker 1: He you know, did walkie talkies and stuff like that.

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Speaker 1: And I think I don't know that much about it, okay,

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Speaker 1: But for those of us living on the East Coast,

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Speaker 1: to grow up in California in the sixties was a dream. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So what was it, like, I so didn't want to go,

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Speaker 1: I mean because I had all my friends in Baldwin

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Speaker 1: and I you know, I was getting ready to I

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Speaker 1: just graduate, and uh, you could graduated great school. So

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Speaker 1: I guess I was going into junior high and I

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Speaker 1: didn't want to go, and I was really upset. And

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Speaker 1: uh then we moved out here and it was great.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was just really great. I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: um we lived in Orange County, were close to Disneyland,

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Speaker 1: which was exciting for me as a kid, and then

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Speaker 1: I could go to Dodger games and and there was

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Speaker 1: the beach and it was it was real. It was great.

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Speaker 1: How often would you go to Disneyland A lot? Really? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: I did? I went a lot. Okay. And were you

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Speaker 1: a popular kid in school? I don't know if I

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Speaker 1: was necessarily popular. I was the first couple of years

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Speaker 1: I had a New York accent and that wasn't cool

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Speaker 1: in California. But I kind of get along with everybody.

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Speaker 1: I was, you know, in high school. I think I

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Speaker 1: was voted most comical or something like that. Really, so

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Speaker 1: you were a good student. I was a very good student. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and you did because parental pressure. You were just good,

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Speaker 1: or you were grind or all of those things. Wasn't

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Speaker 1: a grind? I just I was good at school, okay?

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Speaker 1: And you're you have the one sister, correct, two sisters,

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Speaker 1: two sisters, okay, and their daughters are super successful. Right,

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Speaker 1: but it's starting at this level. You're in the middle,

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Speaker 1: or where are you? I'm the oldest, you're the oldest. Now.

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Speaker 1: The next one is Vicky, who's an m d. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she's a doctor. And the one after that Susan, she's

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Speaker 1: a journalism professor. She's um currently on sabbatical because she

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Speaker 1: was in the middle of writing a book about college admissions.

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Speaker 1: So she became the poster child for all the New

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Speaker 1: York Times and l A Times. They all interviewed her

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Speaker 1: because she was writing about this, and she's now taking

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Speaker 1: sabbatical to finish her book that she was in the

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Speaker 1: middle of when the scandal hit. Well, in terms, you

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Speaker 1: were talking about the generation after being super successful by

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Speaker 1: baby boomer standards, everybody in the family really rang the bell.

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Speaker 1: What was the drive was that, you know, the parental ethos?

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Speaker 1: Why do you think everybody was so successful? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I think basically, I think my mother was probably pretty

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Speaker 1: much uh, a driver. My dad wasn't so much, but

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Speaker 1: he expected us to get good grades. And I remember,

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Speaker 1: I remember when one semester I came in with my grades.

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Speaker 1: I had all a's and I had four unsatisfactories and

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Speaker 1: conducts six. I used to just tell jokes in class

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Speaker 1: and and so my dad just started yelling at me, going,

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Speaker 1: anybody can get as it's the conduct that matters, and

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Speaker 1: you're failing. And so anyway, that was did you, uh

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Speaker 1: those conduct grades go back up? Yeah? I mean again,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't particular. I was sort of more of a

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Speaker 1: comedic foil than I was a troublemaker, you know. And

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Speaker 1: so you went to the same high school your mother

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Speaker 1: taught at I did. Yeah, what was that like? It

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Speaker 1: was a little weird. I had her for about three

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Speaker 1: weeks when I first started as a freshman, I was

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Speaker 1: in her class. And then then they started these um

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Speaker 1: I was I don't want to sound equal to etotistical,

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Speaker 1: but I was. I was doing super well. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: very engaged. So they put me in all these advanced

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Speaker 1: placement classes and so I had to transferred over class

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Speaker 1: and do the other classes. Okay and okay, so the

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Speaker 1: Beatles hit. Were you a record buyer or just a

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Speaker 1: radio listener? Um? When at that age, you know, I

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Speaker 1: you know, basically buying records was kind of an event. Um.

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Speaker 1: I remember I in my sixth grade class, I won

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Speaker 1: some award and the teacher gave us some forty five um,

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Speaker 1: And so I just went home and listened to him

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Speaker 1: incessantly because they were all that I had, you know,

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Speaker 1: and for what those records were, I will follow him

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Speaker 1: by Little Peggy Mark. I think that was one of them.

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Speaker 1: I can't remember the rest of them. I just heard

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Speaker 1: that the way. That's a great song. Yeah. I mean

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Speaker 1: I never would have listened to it if they hadn't

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Speaker 1: given it to me, But yeah, that's what I had

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Speaker 1: to listen to. Okay. So the Beatles break, you're first

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Speaker 1: aware of the Beatles by seeing them on Ed Sullivan.

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Speaker 1: Yeah okay. And then how does that change your life? Well,

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Speaker 1: I you know, it doesn't change my life. I was

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Speaker 1: in seventh or eighth grade, so it was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean I just became a big fan, and I

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Speaker 1: by the you know, the little trucks would come by

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Speaker 1: with the ice cream and they'd have tops baseball cards,

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Speaker 1: except they were Beatles and I bought them, and you know,

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Speaker 1: I just it's a fan. I'm not like an intense

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Speaker 1: super fan. I'm just a you know, I just really

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Speaker 1: think that, you know, I'm really into the music, but

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Speaker 1: I'm not crazy. I have other things that I do.

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Speaker 1: You know, you're about music in general or the beat

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Speaker 1: music in general. Okay, I'm a really pretty big Beatles fan,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not I'm not going to get confused with

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Speaker 1: one of these people that just basically knows everything in

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Speaker 1: the world about them. Okay, But in terms of music,

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Speaker 1: you're saying that you have other musical actury and or

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Speaker 1: other interests other than law, baseball and music. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, I do you know, I fall sports. You know,

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Speaker 1: I'm yeah, I mean, I have other interests, but I'm

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Speaker 1: you know, I like music a lot. So when did

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Speaker 1: you start going to concerts? I remember the first sort

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Speaker 1: of unofficial concert I went to because I didn't it

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Speaker 1: wouldn't have been anything I would have chosen to go to.

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Speaker 1: Was I worked at a flower shop in Orange County

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Speaker 1: and the guy, the owner's son in law, was about

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Speaker 1: seven years older than I was, and he got tickets

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Speaker 1: to Melody Land, which was this theater in the Round

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Speaker 1: in Anaheim, right right next to Disneyland. It was hell

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Speaker 1: about three thousand people. It was a you know, it's

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Speaker 1: theater in the round that used to have The King

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Speaker 1: and I, which I saw there with my mom. And

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Speaker 1: they had a concert that day with Little Richard, four

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Speaker 1: Tops and Bo Diddley. So again, not wouldn't have been

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Speaker 1: my choice of of things that I would go to,

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Speaker 1: but it was great, and I went to that, and

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Speaker 1: then I didn't really go to anything on my own

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Speaker 1: until until I was like a junior in high school

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Speaker 1: and I um and the Doors played the Hollywood Bowl

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Speaker 1: and we went and it was funny. We went and

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Speaker 1: bought tickets at whatever the equivalent of ticket Master was then,

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Speaker 1: which was just this weird box office where you'd buy

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Speaker 1: tickets and there you had a choice, and I, you know,

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Speaker 1: I've never been to the Hollywood Bowl and and I

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Speaker 1: have a funny story about that, but I've never been

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Speaker 1: to the Hollywood bowls. So they had tickets available for

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Speaker 1: five dollars in the first row behind the Garden Terrorist

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Speaker 1: or whatever it's called. There were five bucks and the

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Speaker 1: ones in front we're six dollars. So we made a

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Speaker 1: conscious decision. We got the five dollar tickets because they

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Speaker 1: just one roll back and and uh we went and

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Speaker 1: saw the Doors, Um Stepping Wolf and the Chambers Brothers.

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Speaker 1: That was one bill. That was one bill. It's the

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Speaker 1: famous show what they have on the movie about the doors.

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Speaker 1: And and again I think that my theory is, you

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Speaker 1: know when people hold up lighters for encores, I think

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Speaker 1: it was invented at this show because the show was

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Speaker 1: on I believe the fifth of July, and everybody had

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Speaker 1: sparkers left over for from fourth of July, and so

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Speaker 1: after the show the set ended, they put up the

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Speaker 1: sparklers for light my fire. And I think that was

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Speaker 1: probably if you go before that, I probably don't think

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Speaker 1: you're gonna find anybody putting up lighters. And everybody was

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Speaker 1: holding them up for light my fire. Now, I never

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Speaker 1: I've seen the Chambers brothers. I got squeezed on Boss

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Speaker 1: and Garden. That's why never there's a crowd. I'm weary now.

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Speaker 1: But how were the Doors? I never saw him? They were, Well,

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Speaker 1: it's funny. I later got to be pretty friendly with

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Speaker 1: Robbie Krieger and uh, and it was really weird. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, the show was I mean for me, you know,

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Speaker 1: I was a kid that was great, but there was

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Speaker 1: generally some kind of issue. And Jim walked off stage

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Speaker 1: and disappeared for a while, and they brought him back

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Speaker 1: out and he was rambling and stuff. But again, you know,

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Speaker 1: that's what they do. I mean, you know, Lee, listen

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Speaker 1: to some of those uh songs, like the end and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that, there's a lot of rambling. And Robbie said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Jim dropped acid right before the show, and by the

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Speaker 1: end of the show he was just tripping beyond belief.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm sitting in the audience. And the funny thing, too,

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Speaker 1: is in the in the movie version of it. In

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Speaker 1: the Doors movie, they have all these women, you know,

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Speaker 1: these naked women dancing on the side. I believe I

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Speaker 1: was fifteen years old. If there had been naked women there,

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Speaker 1: I would exactly not that way. So how did you

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Speaker 1: get from Orange County to the Hollywood? Well, my friend, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I had a friend who had a microbust and right,

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Speaker 1: and uh it relates to Anto the other story I

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Speaker 1: was referring to. So we wanted as microbus to the

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Speaker 1: Hollywood ball. Then that summer we went to we decided

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Speaker 1: to drive up and see if we could find the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: We went up to Capitol Records and as microbus right,

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Speaker 1: and we show up at the Capitol Tower and we

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Speaker 1: don't know anything or kids, right, so we start wanting

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Speaker 1: around the tower looking for the Beatles, who weren't there obviously,

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Speaker 1: and then we thought maybe the doors with the studio

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Speaker 1: and Studio A at Capitol It's like it's on the

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Speaker 1: same floor as you enter, and so we sort of

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Speaker 1: wandered there in the guard said, well, you can't go here,

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Speaker 1: and we're looking for the doors, you know they're not here.

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Speaker 1: So then we got in the elevator and we went

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Speaker 1: up to the it's still the thirteen floor, but they

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Speaker 1: don't call it that um and we started wandering around

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Speaker 1: all the executive office, like me and two of my friends,

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Speaker 1: and my one friend kept going, you know how many

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Speaker 1: groups are on a record, There's just one long group

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Speaker 1: and it's harassing all these executives. And nobody threw us out,

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Speaker 1: nobody did anything, and we then we left and never

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Speaker 1: found the Beatles. Well that's something that could not happen

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Speaker 1: in today's security world. I couldn't even get into this building.

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Speaker 1: We can't get anywhere. We have silly security everywhere. So

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Speaker 1: you saw the door. Any other memorable concerts in your

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Speaker 1: high school era, Well that was about it for my

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Speaker 1: high school era. I was, you know, I went in

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Speaker 1: Orange County. I was pretty sheltered. I wasn't like l

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Speaker 1: A kids, you know, so I didn't really start going

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Speaker 1: to shows until I went to college. Okay, so you

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Speaker 1: went to college. You went to Harvey Mud, Right, how

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Speaker 1: long had Harvey Mud been in existence when you went

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Speaker 1: started in fifty seven? I started there in sixty eight.

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Speaker 1: I guess, well that must have been I mean, granted

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Speaker 1: you're living in the area, but in the East Coast

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Speaker 1: where the school has been open for hundreds of years,

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Speaker 1: it seems Why did you end up going to Harvey Mud? Um,

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Speaker 1: no clear plan. I actually went and visited some schools.

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Speaker 1: We went up to Mount Baldi to you know, slide

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Speaker 1: in the snow and sledge on the way back. My

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Speaker 1: mom said, why don't we visit these colleges? And it

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Speaker 1: was kind of pretty. And then the other one I

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Speaker 1: went to was Occidental, And you know, I applied to

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Speaker 1: all the u c s and so I decided I

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Speaker 1: was either you go to Occidental and Major and political

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Speaker 1: science to go to Harvey Mudd and major and maths.

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Speaker 1: So you can tell how focused I was on my

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Speaker 1: career and at the end I ended up going to

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Speaker 1: Harvey Mudd. My sister went to Occidental with Barack Obama,

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Speaker 1: but really she knew him, Yeah, she knew. What did

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Speaker 1: she say about him? She said, I didn't know him well,

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Speaker 1: and people go, how do you know you know him?

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Speaker 1: She goes, there are eight black people in Occidental. You

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Speaker 1: know Harry Mudd? There were there was one, so you

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Speaker 1: know at the time, okay he was bury Obama. I think,

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Speaker 1: yeah he was, but he was very Obama. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: there were there five Clearmont colleges. How many people went

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Speaker 1: to Harvey Mud the time I went there four And

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Speaker 1: that's men and women are just men. It was men,

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Speaker 1: and I don't want to say anything in correct politically incorrect,

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Speaker 1: but yes, there was men and women. There were There

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Speaker 1: were only about i'd say eight women at Harvey Mud.

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Speaker 1: It's gotten almost fifty fifty now, but at the time,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's a science and engineering school, and girls

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Speaker 1: from the fifties didn't really do science and engineering. That's changed,

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Speaker 1: but at the time there just weren't very many women there,

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Speaker 1: but you know, again, there were women at Scripts across

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Speaker 1: the street, and there were women at Pitzer across the

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Speaker 1: other street. And there was you know, co ed down

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Speaker 1: to Pomona, and there was a men's college at Claremont.

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Speaker 1: So that was fine. It was It was an incredibly

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Speaker 1: great atmosphere. Just Claremont McKenna was men only. Then it

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Speaker 1: was called Claremont Men's College. Really yeah, they they changed

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Speaker 1: the name to Claremont McKenna when they started admitting women. God,

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Speaker 1: because I always wondered, what was Claremont McKenna. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: what is your experience going to college? They wanted to

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Speaker 1: keep the M so it was still CMC and McKenna

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Speaker 1: was a big donator, A donor a donator. Excuse me,

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Speaker 1: So what was your college experience like? Were you basically

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Speaker 1: studying where you're partying? What were you doing? You don't

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Speaker 1: you don't party at Harvy Mode if you want to

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Speaker 1: stay there. You know, incredibly smart people there, and it's

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Speaker 1: like ridiculous, Um, you know, I mean basically, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean again it's college, you don't study all the time.

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Speaker 1: But if you know, it was I remember my saw

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Speaker 1: my junior year. I'll tell you what my classes where

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Speaker 1: if I can remember right, had topology, which is not

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Speaker 1: what you think of topology. It's like this advanced math.

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Speaker 1: I was doing quantum physics French lit uh um partial

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Speaker 1: differential equations, and then some physics class and quantum mechanics

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Speaker 1: are quantum something. So those are my five classes. It

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Speaker 1: was pretty intense. And how if there were four people

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Speaker 1: there was one hundred unior class. There were seventy five

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Speaker 1: in my classic class. Where were you in that class?

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Speaker 1: Not that it really matters, well, they were like I

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Speaker 1: was a math major, so there were like fifteen math

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Speaker 1: majors and I was kind of in the middle. Um.

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Speaker 1: But this is what convinced me that I was never

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Speaker 1: going to be a mathematician. Is that the year that

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Speaker 1: my senior year UM, which was what year seventy two,

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Speaker 1: I was a year ahead. I was skipped a grades.

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Speaker 1: So I kindergarten. I just went right. I went right

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Speaker 1: in the first grade when I was five or some so. UM.

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Speaker 1: So in my senior year they take you take the

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Speaker 1: NSF I mean, uh whatever you call them, the the

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00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:11,480
Speaker 1: g r E s and there's a testing end too.

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Speaker 1: They then they evaluate the g r S and some

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Speaker 1: other factors. I don't know what they do, but they

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Speaker 1: hand out, um, they hand out thirty NSF fellowships for

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Speaker 1: grad school and six National Science Science Foundation and sixty

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Speaker 1: At the time, there was sixty or so runners up.

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Speaker 1: So this was in the math and the math part.

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Speaker 1: So out of the thirty people got the Math NSF fellowships,

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Speaker 1: two of them were in my class. And out of

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Speaker 1: the sixty runners up, four of them in my class.

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Speaker 1: So the six of the fifteen math majors were like,

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Speaker 1: they were ridiculous. So I said, you know, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: You know, again, I was fine, I was I wasn't great.

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Speaker 1: I was fine. But math people, when they there's just

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Speaker 1: guys that are just some different level, they just you know,

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Speaker 1: and uh, we had a couple of those, I mean

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Speaker 1: they when I went on to prove a very important

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Speaker 1: theory and he didn't prove it. He did the set

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Speaker 1: up to the guy that proved it was the I

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Speaker 1: think it was four days last theory. I'm the four

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Speaker 1: color theory. One one of those one of those sort

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Speaker 1: of stating I won't borrow anybody with this, but it

417
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Speaker 1: was a four hundred year old problem. That he actually

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Speaker 1: helps solve. So anyway, I was out of my league

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Speaker 1: there and uh so, anyway, but you went to graduate school.

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Speaker 1: There's a reason for that. So I go to Harvey

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Speaker 1: Mud and I'm gonna graduating class of seventy people or

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Speaker 1: seventy seven or whatever it was. And um, I decided,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm you know, these guys are too smart for me.

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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go to law school. So I go

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Speaker 1: down to Pomona to take the L s a T.

426
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:49,920
Speaker 1: I show up at Pomona. I have not read the materials.

427
00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:52,240
Speaker 1: I haven't done anything. And I show up and they go,

428
00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:54,119
Speaker 1: where's your idea? And I go, it's back at the

429
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:55,760
Speaker 1: dorm and they go, well, you need your idea? I go,

430
00:20:55,840 --> 00:20:58,159
Speaker 1: why you know people cheat on this test? I go,

431
00:20:58,359 --> 00:21:01,159
Speaker 1: what nobody's taking this asked in my class except for me?

432
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:03,639
Speaker 1: And they go, no, you can need your I d so,

433
00:21:03,640 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: but we'll wait for you. So I'd go bicycle back

434
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:07,800
Speaker 1: up to my dorm room, come back and they're about

435
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 1: three quarters of the way through the instructions, which I

436
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,520
Speaker 1: have never read. And you know, people are taking L

437
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,680
Speaker 1: s a T prep courses and they're all getting ready

438
00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:17,280
Speaker 1: for you know, the day and I basically opened the

439
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:19,040
Speaker 1: thing and see it for the first time as I'm

440
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,879
Speaker 1: sitting there. So I took the test. I didn't actually okay,

441
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,919
Speaker 1: not great, but okay, six forty or something okay, And

442
00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:31,520
Speaker 1: so I got into some schools, but not really anything

443
00:21:31,520 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: that I wanted to do. And so I all my friends,

444
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 1: meanwhile are getting these massive for the time fellowships to

445
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:41,560
Speaker 1: do grad school because they're geniuses. So I go, well, okay,

446
00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 1: everybody's getting all this money to go to grad school,

447
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:46,200
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do that. So, like here we are, basically

448
00:21:46,240 --> 00:21:50,400
Speaker 1: the spring of seventy two, after everybody's done all their applications,

449
00:21:51,240 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 1: I applied to a bunch of grad schools um and

450
00:21:54,600 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 1: my only criteria for the grad schools is that there's

451
00:21:56,920 --> 00:21:59,480
Speaker 1: no application fee. So I just applied to the which

452
00:21:59,520 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: they had at the time. So I paid no application fee,

453
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 1: and I applied to seven grad schools and got into

454
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, and they gave me. The biggest

455
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 1: fellowship I got was Hawaii. I just basically I basically

456
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: based my city. I based my decision on who they

457
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,159
Speaker 1: paid me the most. So I went to Hawaii. HA

458
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:19,479
Speaker 1: never been to Hawaii, and so I did that and

459
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:22,199
Speaker 1: then yeah, so that's what I did. So okay, and

460
00:22:22,240 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: so you did that was one year? Well, I was

461
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:26,720
Speaker 1: supposed to be two years. But remember I went to

462
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 1: a college full of geniuses. I tested out. I had

463
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:32,440
Speaker 1: nine graduate units. I tested out of everything. I mean,

464
00:22:32,440 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 1: the people in Hawaii, God loved them. They have every

465
00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:37,440
Speaker 1: The professors were really smart because a lot of old,

466
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:41,719
Speaker 1: really smart mathematicians retired there essentially. Um. But so I

467
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 1: tested out of everything. I got my masters in a year. Um,

468
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:47,919
Speaker 1: and I took the l s C T again and

469
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,359
Speaker 1: I did really well and got into pretty much everywhere

470
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:53,520
Speaker 1: I wanted to go. So so you so you had

471
00:22:53,600 --> 00:22:55,679
Speaker 1: never had an intention when you're going to White to

472
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 1: actually practice in the math area. They were too smart.

473
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:02,080
Speaker 1: So you just said, I'll do this and I'll apply

474
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: to law school. I got paid money. It was great.

475
00:23:04,040 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 1: I got to earn some money, and I got to

476
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: spend a year in Hawaii. It was kind of good. Okay,

477
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 1: So you take the L s A T again and

478
00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:12,280
Speaker 1: you ultimately decided to go to U C. L A.

479
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:16,359
Speaker 1: Y Um. Well, I wanted to go to Berkeley because

480
00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:18,560
Speaker 1: my friend was in My best friend was in the

481
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 1: physics department there. Uh, he was a year behind me.

482
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: He had gotten while I was going to grad school.

483
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:26,680
Speaker 1: He when he got in the physics department at Berkeley.

484
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 1: But I got wait listed, and so I actually had

485
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,159
Speaker 1: a I had a bunch of fun correspondence with the

486
00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 1: Berkeley admissions office. They waitlisted me, and I wrote them

487
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,280
Speaker 1: back and said, thank you very much for wait listening. Uh,

488
00:23:40,359 --> 00:23:41,960
Speaker 1: could you let me know what's going on? And they didn't,

489
00:23:42,040 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: and so then they finally rejected me, and I wrote

490
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,200
Speaker 1: back and said, well, I reject your rejection, and could

491
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:49,119
Speaker 1: you give me information on the dorms. I'll be showing

492
00:23:49,200 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 1: up on such and such a day. And they wrote

493
00:23:51,080 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 1: back and said, we can't give your innovation on the doors.

494
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: You're not accepted dorms. And I go and then I

495
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 1: write back something like I need a place to live

496
00:23:57,680 --> 00:23:59,200
Speaker 1: while I'm going to school there, and they right back,

497
00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 1: You're not going to school here. And the funny thing

498
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: was is a dean of admissions at Bolt Berkeley Law

499
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 1: School was named Sarah Tomato. So so in my final letter,

500
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:12,199
Speaker 1: I took a Heinz catchup bottle, cut the little tomato

501
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: out and said dear ms, and put the Tomato in

502
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:16,720
Speaker 1: there and wrote a one final letter. And you know,

503
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:21,360
Speaker 1: obviously I didn't go there, but I did get into

504
00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 1: U c l A and a bunch of other people places.

505
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: So I went to u c l A. And that

506
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 1: good experience. Going to law school bad experience. It's law school.

507
00:24:28,280 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 1: You went to law school. Yeah, I mean, I had

508
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:34,680
Speaker 1: a similar experience at law school that, uh my college

509
00:24:34,720 --> 00:24:37,639
Speaker 1: was so rigorous that law school. The other thing is,

510
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: you know two things Richard Nixon said nothing. I want

511
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: to quote Richard Nixon. The only thing you need to

512
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: get through law school is a lead butt. And I'm convinced,

513
00:24:46,960 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: if you're a smart person, you apply yourself, you could

514
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:51,399
Speaker 1: take the bar review course and never go to law

515
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: school and pass the bar. Yeah. I don't know. I mean,

516
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: I think the experiences probably helps, because I I didn't.

517
00:24:57,640 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 1: I walked into law school in the first day, I

518
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 1: looked around and saw the Polly sign majors from cal State.

519
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,200
Speaker 1: I went, finally, I'm smarter than somebody was in college.

520
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:09,040
Speaker 1: I wasn't, and I didn't really. The other thing that

521
00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: I did in law school was I hadn't I hadn't

522
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:14,040
Speaker 1: taken really a test in two or three years because

523
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:16,359
Speaker 1: in math, what they do is they just give you

524
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: a theorem and they said, go home and prove this.

525
00:25:18,760 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: You know, I didn't sit there and study for a final.

526
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: Either were able to do the you able to apply

527
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 1: what you learned to uh proving the theorem, or you weren't.

528
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 1: So I hadn't taken a test in at least two

529
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: years and probably more like three years, and I just

530
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 1: went finals. This was it was painful. So like my

531
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,960
Speaker 1: first year of law school, I didn't really I did

532
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,480
Speaker 1: okay and do great, and then about the first quarter

533
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:42,320
Speaker 1: my second year, I figured it out. I figured law

534
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: school out, and then I just cruised the rest of

535
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 1: the time. We got all a's from then on out. Okay,

536
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:48,879
Speaker 1: So you graduate from law school and your intention is

537
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: to do what well again, uh, keeping it with my personality,

538
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: my intention was not to work for the man. I

539
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: mean not not No, that's not right, that's incorrect. I

540
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: didn't to work for a big corp. I didn't want

541
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: to work for a big corporate law firm. I had

542
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: most people interned or summer clerk at you know, the

543
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: big firms. My first year I clerk at the Department

544
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,760
Speaker 1: of Housing and Urban Development. My second year, UM, I

545
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 1: did the State Energy Commission, which is where I started

546
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: realizing how sort of bad the government is. I mean

547
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: just bureaucratic, and it was regulatory stuff. I started getting

548
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: my economic views from working at the State Energy Department. UM.

549
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:33,480
Speaker 1: So my third year I didn't really know what I

550
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: wanted to do. I because everybody was interviewing with firms

551
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:40,359
Speaker 1: for jobs. I I decided I do some interviews. And

552
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: I interviewed with a big firm. It might have been

553
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,159
Speaker 1: Greenberg Gluscre, which is four flow floors below was it

554
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 1: might not have been, And so I did my one interview.

555
00:26:49,600 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: I did a few, but I did this one and

556
00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: the guy says to me, Um, you know, he's going, well,

557
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:56,879
Speaker 1: what have you done that you know that extra curlercular

558
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: activities that would help qualify you for career as a lawyer?

559
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,600
Speaker 1: And I go, well, I ran the speakers program at

560
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 1: U c l A. I was on the pub board

561
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: at the Daily Brune. I was the president of the

562
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: Student Bar Association. I did you know, I did the

563
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 1: fair amount of stuff and I was on the communications

564
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:18,399
Speaker 1: bought board, And they go, yeah, but more sort of

565
00:27:18,400 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: intellectual scholarly stuff. Well, I did you know, I don't remember.

566
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: I was telling him some more stuff. I knew exactly

567
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: what was getting at, and he says, why aren't thinking

568
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,919
Speaker 1: more of something like law review? And I go, Honestly,

569
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: those guys were the biggest dicks in the school and

570
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: and I had really no interest in doing that. He guess, well,

571
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: I was the editor of the U c l A

572
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,479
Speaker 1: nine six. I got, well, that's your problem then, isn't it.

573
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 1: And then I you know, they didn't have email, but

574
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 1: I they messengered the rejection to my house. So so

575
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 1: I my career trying to be a big firm lawyer

576
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,959
Speaker 1: was not met with an initial round of success. So

577
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:54,680
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't

578
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: really have a great idea. So I took the bar

579
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,040
Speaker 1: and sat around, and I said, no, there was a

580
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:01,719
Speaker 1: book that out set us how to start your own

581
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: law firm. So I read the book, and I'll start

582
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,600
Speaker 1: my own law firm. So me and a classmate from

583
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 1: u c l A started a little law firm and

584
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,120
Speaker 1: we started doing whatever walked in the door. I had

585
00:28:12,160 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 1: p I did personal injury, I did h wills and trust,

586
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: I did everything I did litigation, I did whatever came

587
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: in and um, I did that, and I started realizing

588
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: all the things that I didn't want to do, which

589
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:28,199
Speaker 1: is pretty much everything I was doing. And this is

590
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: gonna sound really yeah, I don't care. I'm I'm old

591
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: now anyway, But poor people tend to have not very

592
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: interesting problems. I mean, you know, you know, it's like

593
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: a dog bite case or you know something, and so

594
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 1: the case, you know, I was taking whatever walked in

595
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:52,719
Speaker 1: the door, and it was somewhat not that interesting, you know. Um,

596
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:54,760
Speaker 1: but I am. I did a good job for everybody,

597
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: so that wasn't that. I mean, I was a young lawyer,

598
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,719
Speaker 1: so I was learning stuff, but I didn't really love it.

599
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: And then, uh, Howard King, my partner, um had gone

600
00:29:04,760 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 1: to law school with me, that he was a year

601
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: behind me, and he calls up one day and says,

602
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: if you know somebody who wants a job being a

603
00:29:12,280 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: music lawyer is going to be an opening on Friday.

604
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: I hate this bitch that I'm working for. The bitch

605
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: actually happened to be a friend of mine. She's I

606
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,680
Speaker 1: had gone to law school with her also, so I go, well, yeah,

607
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 1: music law, that sounds a lot more fun than what

608
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 1: I'm doing so I applied. It was at Manatt Phelps.

609
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: He was at Manatt Phelps. I was on my own

610
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 1: and I applied to Manatt Phelps and uh, you know,

611
00:29:33,960 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: after a couple of months, they interviewed me and they

612
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: may be an offer to go work in the music department.

613
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: So that's how I ended up doing that. Okay, what

614
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: was your experiencing that? It was good? I enjoyed it.

615
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: I was there for about ten years, and uh, you know,

616
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: I started out working for Lee Phillips and servicing a

617
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 1: lot of his clients, and he had great clients. It

618
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 1: was all the people I wanted to work with. I mean,

619
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:01,959
Speaker 1: it was really exciting to me that I was going

620
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: to go to a firm that represented Linda Ronstad and

621
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: Neil Young and you know, and um Jackson Brown and

622
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: the Eagles were not really so much the Eagles, but

623
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 1: the label that they represented electro Psylum Records, so they

624
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 1: had you know, the interface with you know what. Actually

625
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: that wasn't the label that you know, I paid attention

626
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: to labels. I loved a lot of their artists, and

627
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: it was a super political firm to which I thought

628
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: I was interested in a certain soon disabused of that notion,

629
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: but because at the time was Manatt felt Rothenberg and

630
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,719
Speaker 1: Tuney and John Tunney had been his dad had been

631
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 1: a big boxer and he had been a senator from

632
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: the state of California. So it was very and Chuck

633
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: man At had been the head of the Democratic Party

634
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: that a few years before I got there, so it

635
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: seemed very exciting to me, and it wasn't. It was great.

636
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 1: I mean I had a good time. You know, they

637
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: didn't pay me, but it was fun. So the next

638
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: step was Hollywood Records. Yeah, well before you get there, though,

639
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: you were you're like an incredible rainmaker. Okay, you have

640
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: a relationship with all the clients. Did you learn that

641
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:05,080
Speaker 1: at Manatt Phelps? Well, no, I probably, I don't know

642
00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: if I learned it. Ever. I think it's just sort

643
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,320
Speaker 1: of an eight. But I mean I got clients and

644
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:10,120
Speaker 1: my little stupid law firm when I was just me

645
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 1: and a friend. You know, it just they just were

646
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: not you know they used to at Manat used ago

647
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 1: this goofy guy. Why should we pay him? I mean,

648
00:31:18,400 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 1: he's the only reason he gets clients because in the

649
00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: music business. And I want to know, if I were

650
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: a corporate lawyer, I'd have clients because that's what I do.

651
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:26,840
Speaker 1: I mean, I figure out how to solve problems and

652
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: succeed at what I do. But so I don't know,

653
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: you know, you just I'm gonna service business. I can

654
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: service people. I mean, okay, when you opened up your

655
00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: you know, hung out your shingle, as they say, how

656
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 1: did you get clients? Then you know, I just you know, invite.

657
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: We had a party. You invited a bunch of people,

658
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: and I let it know, you knowing that we were open,

659
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: and you know, people would start referring their brothers and

660
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: their fathers and stuff, and you know, I do whatever

661
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 1: came in the door, and I was willing to learn

662
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: whatever it was. It was actually fairly good training for

663
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 1: being a music lawyer, because music musicians have all these

664
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: problems and they think of you as their lawyer. So

665
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: if they have a family law problem, they want, you know,

666
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 1: they call you. They don't call a family they don't

667
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: know anybody. Or they have a tax problem, they call you.

668
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 1: And so it was very useful to me to have

669
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: done all these different disciplines because I actually can sort

670
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,320
Speaker 1: of fake my way through pretty much anything. Right now,

671
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: at least long enough to get up to somebody who

672
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: really knows what they're talking about. Okay, So, now, in

673
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 1: your ten years at Manette, where do you feel you

674
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:28,280
Speaker 1: are in the hierarchy of music lawyers. Well, it was

675
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: really really kind of funny. Actually, um I remember was

676
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: it then? And I think it was sort of the

677
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: end of my tenure at Manette. Remember this big article

678
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: on all the new hot young lawyers that they've done

679
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: in one of the periodicals, And I'm looking at, you know,

680
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: the new hot young lawyers. I'm going And the reason

681
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: I wasn't in that because I wasn't a new hot

682
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: young lawyer. I was an established lawyer. By that, they're

683
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: all older than I am. They're all older and I

684
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: won't mention any names, but going, well, she's older than

685
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,239
Speaker 1: I am, and he's older than I am. Why am

686
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: I not hot? In New York? You're not a hot

687
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: new lawyer because you're an established lawyer. So okay, And

688
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:06,760
Speaker 1: at the time, you were basically doing contracts. What kind

689
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,000
Speaker 1: of work were you doing about I mean basically yeah,

690
00:33:09,040 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what you do as a music lawyer.

691
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: Back in the day, the practice was I mean largely

692
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 1: not entirely, but doing record contracts, doing publishing contracts. You know,

693
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: I actually, um, one of my heroes was David Geffen,

694
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: and he was a client of the firm, and so

695
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: when I'd been there maybe a year and a half,

696
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: he started Geffen Records, and I went to Lee Phillips

697
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: and said, I'd like to work on this. You know,

698
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: I was second year lawyer, and I go, I want

699
00:33:35,280 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: to work on this. And so one of the things

700
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: I did from my first two or three years was

701
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: just the paperwork for Gethin Records. I the agreement that

702
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 1: formed record Gethin Records was written by me ages entirely

703
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: by me. Um. You know, by the end of it,

704
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 1: nobody was reading it. You know, I was more scrivener

705
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:56,280
Speaker 1: than a dealmaker. But they'd make the deal and I'd

706
00:33:56,320 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: sort of translated and tell them, well, wait, you can't

707
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: do this. You can't do this. He can do this,

708
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: and so you know, so you know, it was that

709
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: I did the you know, and and uh and then

710
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: just a lot of record contracts, you know, touring contracts,

711
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: whatever you do when you represent talent. Okay, and who

712
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: were the main competitive lawyers or law firms at that

713
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,120
Speaker 1: time at the time. Well, it was always John Branca,

714
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: Don Passman, Krugman Um. You know, I missed out on

715
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: Bruce Springsteen as a client because he lived in the

716
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,800
Speaker 1: East Coast. I did the first management agreement for John Landau.

717
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: Well at least that's what John told me. Maybe he's

718
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: been we have management agree with him in Springsteen. Yeah,

719
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: I wrote the management agreement and John tells me that

720
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: to this day it's it's a one page agreement or

721
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:41,760
Speaker 1: two page agreement. And I think to this day Bruce

722
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 1: signs it every three years. Well, how did you know,

723
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 1: how did that come together? How do you know John

724
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: who lived on the East Coast. I think remember the

725
00:34:49,960 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 1: bitch that I told you about, Debbie Reinberg, who was

726
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: not She's really a nice person. She was number one

727
00:34:54,480 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: in my class. She knew John for some reason because

728
00:34:57,520 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: I think she was a big Bruce Springsteen fan and

729
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:02,360
Speaker 1: she you know, we we did the work for Electra

730
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: Sylum Records, and we did the work for RSL Records,

731
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: so we we represented a bunch of record executives, so

732
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,320
Speaker 1: there was some I don't remember how she knew John,

733
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 1: but she ended up I ended up meeting John. I

734
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:16,359
Speaker 1: think through her Okay, she had gone in house at

735
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 1: a lecture by then. I think, so was she today.

736
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: I think she might be retired. I haven't talked to

737
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: her in a while, but I think she might be retiring.

738
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:29,839
Speaker 1: So um, in any event, tell the story of how

739
00:35:29,840 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: you end up getting the job at Hollywood Records. Okay,

740
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: so um, somebody else show may name less and I

741
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: will may name us because we're not friendly. Um, i'll

742
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,719
Speaker 1: tell you off the record. Um. But anyway, they were

743
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 1: looking for somebody to start their record company and this

744
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:53,720
Speaker 1: guy was working in house there and he told Michael

745
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,400
Speaker 1: Eisner about me. So, um, this is the person you

746
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: don't have a positive opinion of. Yeah, I mean you know,

747
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: there were other people that told him to I think

748
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,400
Speaker 1: you'd heard. I think it was him and other people.

749
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:10,400
Speaker 1: So what happened was I was in New York, um

750
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,840
Speaker 1: with Chris black Blow because I represent a Delicious Vinyl

751
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: and we were doing a deal with Island Records with

752
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: Chris Blackwell, and I get a call from my you know,

753
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: I called into my office. See anybody call in and

754
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: she goes. Assistant goes, um, yeah, you got a call

755
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,520
Speaker 1: from Michael Eisener. I go, yeah, sure, I go, yeah, right,

756
00:36:28,560 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 1: Michael eis was calling me. She goes, no, really, I

757
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 1: go really because I didn't know Michael Eisener. So I

758
00:36:34,400 --> 00:36:37,520
Speaker 1: called Michael Eiser back and he goes, uh, I've been

759
00:36:37,560 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: hearing things about you. We're starting a record label. We'd

760
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: like to talk to you about it. And I go, oh,

761
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: to be the lawyer. He goes, yeah, or maybe to

762
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: you know, run it. He said. So he said you

763
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: want to meet and I go yeah, sure, and I

764
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:50,319
Speaker 1: go he goes, how about tomorrow. I go, I'm in

765
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 1: New York. And when you're back tomorrow, it says how

766
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: about the next day? And I go okay, fine, And

767
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:59,840
Speaker 1: so I met with him and UM, now you earlier

768
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,879
Speaker 1: say you're not good with the man, So how did

769
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 1: that meeting go? Well, I told you I corrected that.

770
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 1: It wasn't that I wasn't good with the man. I'm

771
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: I'm bad with authority. And the meeting went fine. I mean,

772
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: michaeliss is a great guy. I mean he's very personable,

773
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,920
Speaker 1: he's super smart. Um, so the meeting went fine. And

774
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:16,719
Speaker 1: the really funny thing was we were walking out and

775
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: I said, it was nice to meet you. As you know,

776
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,879
Speaker 1: you're obviously a legend and it was great meeting. I'm

777
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 1: parked on the street. I don't like Valet, and he goes,

778
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: neither do I. I'm parked on the street too. That's

779
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:30,319
Speaker 1: hysterical because I've had my car. You know, I had

780
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,239
Speaker 1: an accident in Valet parking. I do my best thought

781
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: because you can't collect. I mean I did collect it.

782
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,399
Speaker 1: I was tenacious, but it's almost impossible. I just I'd

783
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: rather not have to wait for my car. It's really

784
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: as simple as that. So anyway, I met with him.

785
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:45,840
Speaker 1: Then he liked me, I guess. And he brought me

786
00:37:45,880 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: in to meet Frank Wells, who was the president of

787
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: the Disney Corporation, and uh, I guess Frank liked me.

788
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: So they aren't being to meet Jeffrey and Jeffrey Jeffrey

789
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:59,279
Speaker 1: Katzenberg and um. Again, this is from my perspective. I

790
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 1: don't know jeff him. I have a different perspective. But

791
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 1: in between one of those meetings, I had a call

792
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,359
Speaker 1: from David Geffen. You know, I've been doing his legal work.

793
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:08,480
Speaker 1: He said, come over here. I know what's going on.

794
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: You come over here right now. He wanted me to

795
00:38:10,920 --> 00:38:12,359
Speaker 1: come meet with him. So I go to that point

796
00:38:12,520 --> 00:38:15,800
Speaker 1: his office on Sunset Boulevard in the building. Yes, yes, yes,

797
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:18,240
Speaker 1: So I drive over and we meet for two hours,

798
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: and he tries to convince me. I had asked him

799
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,320
Speaker 1: about six months earlier, because he had been there have

800
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 1: been talking of him reviving asylum records, and I had

801
00:38:25,239 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: asked him if it would be, you know, if he'd

802
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 1: considered me to run, And you go, no, you need

803
00:38:28,680 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 1: to get some experience like business affairs, like I don't.

804
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. So he calls me

805
00:38:33,239 --> 00:38:36,239
Speaker 1: over and spends two hours trying to convince me not

806
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: to take this job. And he basically says, you know

807
00:38:38,760 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: why you shouldn't take this job. And you know why

808
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: I'm successful because I do things where my chances with

809
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: success are high and my chances of failure are low.

810
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 1: Your chances are failure are high, and you shouldn't do this.

811
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,440
Speaker 1: So he tried to convince me to do it, and

812
00:38:50,560 --> 00:38:53,879
Speaker 1: I didn't listen to him. It turns out he was right.

813
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: Um so anyway, so then I met with Katzenberg, and

814
00:38:57,880 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: but also you know, he just focusing. He did say,

815
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 1: because tell you telling me the story before that you

816
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 1: needed more seasoning in addition to the odds. Yeah, that's

817
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,919
Speaker 1: what he did. Okay, so he So do you think

818
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:12,640
Speaker 1: at this point you did need more seasoning or you

819
00:39:12,719 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: just were in a bad situation. No, I don't think.

820
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: I mean, look, as it turns out, I needed more seasoning,

821
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:20,239
Speaker 1: but I don't think running business affairs at a record

822
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:22,000
Speaker 1: label was the season and I need it, you know.

823
00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:26,319
Speaker 1: And and Eisener later told me again it's all you know,

824
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,240
Speaker 1: he considered the source. But he said the reason Geffen

825
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: was so uh so intent and not discouraginging. He didn't

826
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: want you to leave as his lawyer, which I don't

827
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: know how much. I believe he had grew him and

828
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: he had other people, so um so. Anyway, so I

829
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: disobeyed him. And uh again, some of this comes from Eisener,

830
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: some of it comes from what I could see. But

831
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: between him and Jeffrey, they spent four years trying to

832
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,360
Speaker 1: get me fired. Um No, I don't know. It's unfair.

833
00:39:55,880 --> 00:39:59,919
Speaker 1: I didn't they uh As Eiser once said that bas

834
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: I fired myself. I don't agree with him, but um

835
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,799
Speaker 1: you know, there's corporate politics at Disney, and and I

836
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,600
Speaker 1: didn't play that well with the strategic planning people and

837
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: the finance people, and they didn't much like me because

838
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: first time sort of anti authoritarian and I'm sort of

839
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: not sober serious about this stuff. And and the thing

840
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:25,799
Speaker 1: that really really hated as I understand math, So you know,

841
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: they would have most of the creative execs didn't understand

842
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,160
Speaker 1: what they did well. I understood really well. I'm good

843
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: at math, so I would get in discussions with them

844
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 1: and they wouldn't like how they went so and I

845
00:40:34,960 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: was was it was an experience. Okay. So from the

846
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: first meeting with Eisner, you talked about taking the top job. Yeah,

847
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: and again nothing happened, and then he called me about

848
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: a month or two later and said, look, we're still considering,

849
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: you know, like, oh, that's fine. I got a day job.

850
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: I know, I mean, you know, because I was conflicted

851
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,040
Speaker 1: about doing it, and especially given I didn't want to

852
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:56,799
Speaker 1: have geff and mad. I mean, Geffin had been a

853
00:40:56,800 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: good friend for a year, so I didn't want him

854
00:40:58,640 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: mad at me. So it was easier if nothing happened. Okay,

855
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: So then how did you Ultimately, ultimately they decided they

856
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: were going to move forward, and they asked me if

857
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:09,359
Speaker 1: I wanted to take the job, and then I said, yeah, okay,

858
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: what did Minatte say about your leaving? I mean, you know, man,

859
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,919
Speaker 1: that it was great. I left left behind my client base,

860
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 1: which they took over, and I became a client of

861
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: the firm. I used them for my internal legal work,

862
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,960
Speaker 1: so you know it was great for them. Okay. So

863
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 1: the first thing you do when you open it was

864
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:29,200
Speaker 1: it already decided was going to be called Hollywood Records. No.

865
00:41:29,320 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 1: I think they decided they had Hollywood films at the time,

866
00:41:32,480 --> 00:41:34,759
Speaker 1: and they decided I don't remember. I think Michael or

867
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:37,399
Speaker 1: Frank or somebody picked the name. They thought it would

868
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: be good to affiliate it with the film company, the

869
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:44,719
Speaker 1: studio they had. Um then we, of course there was

870
00:41:44,719 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: already a Hollywood Records that have been in the fifties.

871
00:41:47,000 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: We got in a big fight, paid the guy off.

872
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: It was anyway, I didn't pay him much, but whatever

873
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:54,759
Speaker 1: it was. It's a guy named mole Lettle who was

874
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 1: It turns out if you go look through your case books,

875
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: he's a fair lititious guy. He would he you know,

876
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:01,719
Speaker 1: he bought up all those old fifties labels and would

877
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: sue people. You know, it would that, you know, like

878
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:10,360
Speaker 1: a patentrol today yeah, or or like, um, I'm not

879
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: gonna say, like all the copyright infringement lawyers that bring

880
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: these stupid suits that they shouldn't win and they get

881
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:20,960
Speaker 1: lucky and win sometimes. Okay, so you got Hollywood's the

882
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: first thing you did at Hollywood record This was funny.

883
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: I remember walking in and I had I was in.

884
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,200
Speaker 1: There was nobody there. I just wanted I walked in

885
00:42:29,239 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: and go. I guess I had to start a record company.

886
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:33,680
Speaker 1: I mean really, like I walked in. I was the

887
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 1: only employee. So I was money and issue do they have?

888
00:42:37,719 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: Budget was large? Money wasn't an issue, um you know,

889
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: I mean whatever we lost was a pimple in the

890
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 1: Disney You got enough money to hire or in Yeah, oh,

891
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,319
Speaker 1: no question about it. So, um, I realized, probably the

892
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: first thing I have to do is have to find

893
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,360
Speaker 1: somebody to run the radio department, since back in the

894
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:59,680
Speaker 1: day the world really dependent on radio. Unless you know,

895
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 1: well that's funny unless you signed sort of street hip hop,

896
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:06,440
Speaker 1: which I wanted to sign and did sign actually, which

897
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: did not go over well with Disney people. When I

898
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: got hired. They I did an interview where I said

899
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:15,399
Speaker 1: I wanted this higher signed hip hop and hard rock

900
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: and so like. Somebuddy organized the campaign to basically send

901
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: letters to Disney saying you've made a horrible mistake. He's

902
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,360
Speaker 1: going to ruin the company. And and I think they

903
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: got three or five thousand letters and they were all

904
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: the same. And you know, so who'd you hire? I

905
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 1: hired Brendan Romano, Okay, who's still working today at Intersco

906
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,040
Speaker 1: at Interscope. She's great. And what had she done before that?

907
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 1: She was at PolyGram? I think, I try to hire

908
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,320
Speaker 1: I try to hire Polly Anthony and I couldn't convince

909
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,000
Speaker 1: her to come, but she recommended Brenda Tomin to me.

910
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: She was a number two person and wherever she was PolyGram,

911
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: I think, And she's, you know, unbelievable, she's fabulous, she's okay.

912
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 1: Who else did you? Oh? I mean that was my

913
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: good hire. I hired a guy named Unfair Transition. I

914
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: was thinking of my marketing guy that I hired that

915
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 1: it was a mistake. I hired west Hine would run

916
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:10,680
Speaker 1: Enigma Records, so he'd actually run a label. It was

917
00:44:10,719 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: an independent label. I hired him to sort of be

918
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: my number two guy, and then hired and our people

919
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: that probably could have done a better job at since

920
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,600
Speaker 1: basically they didn't sign anything that was any good. But yeah, okay,

921
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 1: the marketing person I'm familiar with what was without mentioning

922
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:29,560
Speaker 1: his name, what was the problem there? Uh well, I

923
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:31,319
Speaker 1: mean it's the guy that we hired to replace him.

924
00:44:31,360 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 1: When we hired somebody to replace him. He wasn't particularly creative,

925
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: but the trains ran on time, so it was actually

926
00:44:37,640 --> 00:44:39,600
Speaker 1: better having him than the creative guy that I hired

927
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 1: first that basically just randomly spend money on, you know,

928
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: crazy marketing ideas that we're very creative but not particularly

929
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: economical or successful. Speaking of success, so the two things

930
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,200
Speaker 1: you're noted for in Hollywood Records. You made a deal

931
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: for the Queen catalog and you signed you distributed Dave

932
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:01,919
Speaker 1: Clark five album which had been off the market. Let's

933
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: start with the Queen albums. Actually it's kind of reverse.

934
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: I didn't sign the Queen count What happened was I

935
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: was that I was a lawyer I told you for

936
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: the outside lawyer for Electure Records, and they were signed

937
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 1: to Electra Records, and um they were I don't want

938
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 1: to say dead dead would be an upgrade from where

939
00:45:23,080 --> 00:45:25,760
Speaker 1: they were in America. They were in a really, really

940
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:31,919
Speaker 1: bad place in America. They were beyond washed up. And um,

941
00:45:31,960 --> 00:45:33,960
Speaker 1: I was Bob Krass Now I ran an Electoral Records

942
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 1: and said I got a thing. He had two albums

943
00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: left it that he was committed to do it a

944
00:45:37,360 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: million dollars an album because I can't put these records out,

945
00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 1: I'll lose my ass. Get get rid of them. So

946
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,080
Speaker 1: basically I was My job as a lawyer was to

947
00:45:45,160 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: negotiate with Jim Beach a release of Queen, And essentially

948
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: he was Jim Beach. Jim Beach is the manager of Queen.

949
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: She He was a lawyer at the time he became

950
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,080
Speaker 1: the manager. If he watched the movie, they referred him

951
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: as Miami Miami Beach. So I, um, and I you know,

952
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: I'd done all the Queen negotiations in the past, So

953
00:46:04,320 --> 00:46:07,840
Speaker 1: I negotiated with him to basically give them. It was

954
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: a licensed deal. They they were signed at E M

955
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 1: I and the rest of the world, and they were

956
00:46:11,520 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: licensed to North America to Electra Records. I think Geffin

957
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: had tried to sign him. I don't know the history,

958
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: but I think he had tried to sign them, and

959
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,120
Speaker 1: somehow they ended up on a Electura. Maybe it was

960
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 1: when he was running a Sylum, I don't remember. Um,

961
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: so I negotiated an exit with him where basically we

962
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: got out of paying the money and he got his

963
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: catalog back. So then a few years a little bit

964
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:34,839
Speaker 1: slower you talking about they Okay, they had a million

965
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,399
Speaker 1: dollar deal with Electra and then what was the next

966
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: step in terms of them getting their catalog back. Well,

967
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 1: it was a license, so I don't remember how much

968
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: they had left on the catalog anyway, on the licensed deal,

969
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: I just you know, it was thirty years ago. I

970
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,439
Speaker 1: don't remember, but there was something basically the idea was, here,

971
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 1: we don't have to pay you two million dollars to

972
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: give us too stiff records, and you can have back

973
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: whatever we have of yours. So I got it. Yeah,

974
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: so um that happened. And then um, fast forward a

975
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,359
Speaker 1: few years and I'm running Hollywood Records and I show

976
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:08,880
Speaker 1: up in the door and look around. There's nobody around,

977
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 1: and I send an email that Jim no one of

978
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:14,239
Speaker 1: my email facts to Jim Beach, and I said the

979
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:18,400
Speaker 1: beach um is Queen's still free for North America. And

980
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,239
Speaker 1: he writes back, yes, and I go, I'd like to

981
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,160
Speaker 1: sign him because I'm listening to the Queen records. They're

982
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 1: making it the time when they're dead in America. They're great.

983
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,880
Speaker 1: The records are great, and those were hits in the

984
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: rest of them were huge in the rest of the world,

985
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: and they should have been. They were great. So so

986
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: I go, there's something wrong here and this band is

987
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:37,240
Speaker 1: great and you know so I He says, yeah, they're available,

988
00:47:37,239 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: and I go, great, I'd love to sign him. He goes,

989
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: would you be interested in the catalog? I go yes.

990
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,720
Speaker 1: So basically I made a deal for It's really funny too.

991
00:47:48,160 --> 00:47:51,800
Speaker 1: I made a deal for the Catalog and Queen and

992
00:47:52,680 --> 00:47:54,359
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about this. This is could

993
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:56,120
Speaker 1: put me in a bad light. But in any event,

994
00:47:56,400 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: there were a lot of impediments like basically, uh, um,

995
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: the night before, the night before I was going to

996
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,600
Speaker 1: sign them, Michael iSER called and said, I'm not going

997
00:48:07,640 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 1: to tell this story. Um. In any event, we were

998
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 1: so there was a spanner in the works just before

999
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: you're going to sign Yes, But I convinced Michael first.

1000
00:48:17,080 --> 00:48:20,200
Speaker 1: The first thing was the catalog was it's not a

1001
00:48:20,200 --> 00:48:22,439
Speaker 1: secret now it was a ten million dollar purchase, which

1002
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: for then was a lot of money, and it was

1003
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,279
Speaker 1: an outright purchase. No, it was a license. But I

1004
00:48:28,320 --> 00:48:30,360
Speaker 1: had an I built in. I was a good lawyer.

1005
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:36,160
Speaker 1: I built in an option to buy it. Okay, exercise that. Yeah, No,

1006
00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:37,719
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was gone by the time this

1007
00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 1: came up. And I think there was renegotiations along the way,

1008
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:43,279
Speaker 1: but the ultimate result is that Hollywood ended up with

1009
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 1: Catalog and certainly it was there for my lifetime. So

1010
00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:51,560
Speaker 1: um so yeah, So Frank said, we can't pay that

1011
00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:53,480
Speaker 1: kind of money for this thing. He said, I'm going

1012
00:48:53,520 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: to tell you can't do it, but you're free to

1013
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:56,800
Speaker 1: go talk to Michael about it. And I went to

1014
00:48:56,840 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: talk to Michael, and Michael just basic said all right,

1015
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: if something really want, it's on you, you gotta go

1016
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: sign it. Then the day before there was, as you said,

1017
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 1: a spanner in the works. Then he finally let me

1018
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 1: go ahead and do the deal. And uh, I remember

1019
00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: we were going to the we A convention that that week,

1020
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:16,359
Speaker 1: and you know you present at the convention because present distributor. Yeah,

1021
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: we present. Uh it's funny Steve Burman, you know Steve Burman.

1022
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,479
Speaker 1: Steve Burman was my weird Repp. He was twenty years old.

1023
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 1: So I've known Steve forever. Um, So you know, I'm

1024
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: still not sure whether they're gonna sign. Queen's gonna sign

1025
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:32,040
Speaker 1: or not. There's been so many bumps in the road.

1026
00:49:32,480 --> 00:49:35,839
Speaker 1: And we have two presentations that we have presentation with

1027
00:49:35,920 --> 00:49:39,719
Speaker 1: Queen and presentation without. We have two separate presentations. Ten

1028
00:49:39,760 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: minutes before we're supposed to go on, I get a

1029
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:44,799
Speaker 1: fact from Beats with the signatures of Queen on the deal,

1030
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: and then we went out and we started and started

1031
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 1: out with one vision or something like that, and I

1032
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: just played almost was gonna cry and mean, it was

1033
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 1: so happy. I was so because I love Queen and

1034
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:58,560
Speaker 1: I just you know. So that's how we ended up

1035
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:03,560
Speaker 1: with Queen in during your tenure was Wayne's World. Yeah,

1036
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: that the story about that, which there has been told

1037
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,160
Speaker 1: a number of times completely wrong, and I think in

1038
00:50:08,200 --> 00:50:13,360
Speaker 1: the movie is pretty much wrong too. But what happened was, Um,

1039
00:50:13,480 --> 00:50:15,960
Speaker 1: remember I told you I wanted to sign hip hop bands, right,

1040
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 1: So I signed this kid named high Sea, And the

1041
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:21,439
Speaker 1: day before the record was going to come out, somebody

1042
00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 1: was playing in one of the office is one of

1043
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:25,279
Speaker 1: the Disney Whites came by and heard you know, the

1044
00:50:25,719 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 1: lyrics were lyrics, I still remember. Uh. So anyway, so

1045
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:35,879
Speaker 1: they went to iSER and they said, we can't put

1046
00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: this out. So I made a deal with Mo Auston

1047
00:50:38,440 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 1: where he it went on on his label as a

1048
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: distribution deal, and he helped He helped me out. He

1049
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,239
Speaker 1: was Moawson is one of the greats. And uh I

1050
00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 1: remember sitting there with high c at one point talking

1051
00:50:48,440 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: to him and he had the lyrics, one of his

1052
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:56,840
Speaker 1: lyrics like I like to fourteen year old girls and okay,

1053
00:50:57,160 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: and you told him what I said, Hey, Crawford, look

1054
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: here's in the line that uh here's the line. Look

1055
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: at this line. I know you say your own you're

1056
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:10,120
Speaker 1: only thirteen years old, Honey, I don't need no idea

1057
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: from a Rolling Stone song straycout blues. That's a really

1058
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: clever way to say exactly what you just said. He goes, yeah,

1059
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: but it ain't street. I like to say, I fun

1060
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 1: thirteen year old girls. So so that one went over well, So, um,

1061
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:28,239
Speaker 1: what happened was that on The Wayne's World? But wait, wait,

1062
00:51:28,320 --> 00:51:30,680
Speaker 1: so Mode put out the record? Did he put off

1063
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: the record of that lyric? Yeah? Mo didn't care Mo

1064
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:36,240
Speaker 1: was about creative. He respected the creativity of his artist.

1065
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:42,279
Speaker 1: He didn't censor anybody. Um, so Wayne's world. Um, so

1066
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:44,840
Speaker 1: they send me the script, right, and I read the

1067
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: script and it's honestly terrible. And and I go to, uh,

1068
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:53,880
Speaker 1: it was in the script. That scene was in the script,

1069
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 1: but it was script sucked. And so they and the

1070
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:00,920
Speaker 1: same people were attached to it. Yeah, it was. It

1071
00:52:00,960 --> 00:52:02,560
Speaker 1: was all the same. This is not This was just

1072
00:52:02,600 --> 00:52:07,200
Speaker 1: months before it came out. And so they they said, um,

1073
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,440
Speaker 1: we'd like to, um, you know, we'd like to put

1074
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: in the movie. I go, I'm fine, and let me

1075
00:52:12,080 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 1: talk to Beach. I don't you know. I told Beach sucks.

1076
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:15,759
Speaker 1: But it's a movie. And you know, they'll give us

1077
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,880
Speaker 1: a thing fee. And he goes, okay, fine, our master fee.

1078
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:20,600
Speaker 1: And and so I said, okay, fine, they guy and

1079
00:52:20,600 --> 00:52:22,080
Speaker 1: we want to put it on the soundtrack album. I go,

1080
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: there's no way. I just I just paid ten million

1081
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:26,959
Speaker 1: dollars two months ago for this thing. I'm not putting

1082
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:29,839
Speaker 1: on your soundtrack album. That's not gonna happen. And they go, well,

1083
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:32,320
Speaker 1: we're gonna take it out of the movie. Then I go, okay,

1084
00:52:32,960 --> 00:52:34,919
Speaker 1: you know what do you mean okay, okay, and my

1085
00:52:35,000 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: company's going this is a good marketing opportunity to go A.

1086
00:52:38,239 --> 00:52:40,759
Speaker 1: The movie sucks. B. I've worked in a studio long

1087
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: enough to know that it's in the script. It's not

1088
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:46,480
Speaker 1: coming out. It's the thing people don't get is when

1089
00:52:46,520 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: you have leverage. I knew it wasn't coming out. So

1090
00:52:50,760 --> 00:52:53,359
Speaker 1: they just kept badgering me and kept threatening and taking

1091
00:52:53,360 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: and I just kept going, take it out. I don't care,

1092
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,840
Speaker 1: and movies terrible and you know, and uh, you're not

1093
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:01,120
Speaker 1: taking it out anyway. So what happened was more called

1094
00:53:01,160 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 1: up and most said, you know, really it would be

1095
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 1: really important. It's a favor to me if you would

1096
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 1: let me put this on my soundtrack album. And I went, welm,

1097
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 1: it's you and you're a great man, and sure you

1098
00:53:14,239 --> 00:53:16,799
Speaker 1: can do it, but you can't come out. Before you know,

1099
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 1: I'm doing a rerelease, a reissue of Classic Queen Too.

1100
00:53:22,080 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: No we didn't. We did Classic Queen two, and they

1101
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:28,600
Speaker 1: should have been on Classic Queen Run Bohemian Rhapsody, but

1102
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,239
Speaker 1: since we knew it was coming, I stripped it on

1103
00:53:30,280 --> 00:53:35,480
Speaker 1: the Classic Queen Too. And um, anyway, So so about

1104
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:37,439
Speaker 1: three weeks before the movie opens. I go to see

1105
00:53:37,440 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: a screening of it, and I come back and I

1106
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: get on the phone and me like, I called my

1107
00:53:41,080 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: video guy and go, Stu, we gotta did a video

1108
00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:45,399
Speaker 1: done immediately this thing. He goes, what do you mean?

1109
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:47,799
Speaker 1: It goes Swain's world. Un blately, he said, I thought

1110
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:49,920
Speaker 1: you said it sucked. I went, the script suck. The

1111
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 1: movie is amazing. I go, I've learned something comedy is

1112
00:53:54,000 --> 00:53:58,080
Speaker 1: not in the script necessarily. So we did the We

1113
00:53:58,120 --> 00:54:00,320
Speaker 1: did the video. We got Penelfes fear Us, who directed

1114
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:02,719
Speaker 1: the movie, to do the video. Obviously it did. It

1115
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:07,680
Speaker 1: did fabulous. And Freddie had died not tour much earlier.

1116
00:54:07,760 --> 00:54:09,880
Speaker 1: He died the fall before the movie came out, and

1117
00:54:09,880 --> 00:54:11,719
Speaker 1: I think it was in February of that ninety and

1118
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:14,120
Speaker 1: you knew he was going to die. I did not know.

1119
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:16,840
Speaker 1: That was the story about Michael Eisner. I mean, I

1120
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: won't say who, but Michael Eiser had had a little

1121
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 1: bird telling him Freddie was going to die. He had

1122
00:54:21,239 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: aids and he was going to die, and that's why

1123
00:54:23,239 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: he didn't want me to sign him. And I said, well, Michael,

1124
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: there's two possibilities. I know he's ill. I mean, Freddie

1125
00:54:28,200 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: didn't hide that he was ill. I said, but I

1126
00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: don't know why. You know what I said. So either

1127
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: he'll get better, in which case is the greatest front

1128
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:36,640
Speaker 1: man that ever lived, then we'll go put him on

1129
00:54:36,719 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: tour it'll be great, or I'll die. And honestly, death

1130
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:45,120
Speaker 1: sells records. So anyway, so we didn't know. And then

1131
00:54:45,560 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 1: they announced it like two days before they announced that

1132
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 1: he had AIDS and then he died two days later.

1133
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:54,319
Speaker 1: And what I did is, I said, I'm gonna put um.

1134
00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: We put out a single, these are the days of

1135
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,640
Speaker 1: my lives, These days that there are our lives, which

1136
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: was on the record that I saw find them for

1137
00:55:00,520 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: It was it's a great record, and we did a

1138
00:55:03,239 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: really nice video. They did a video, and then Disney

1139
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: Animation did a video and we're gonna donate all the

1140
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 1: money from the single to the Magic Johnson Eates Foundation.

1141
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 1: So what happens was we see that we're in Waynes

1142
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:17,480
Speaker 1: World thing and I said, well, we've got this record coming,

1143
00:55:17,560 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 1: Let's put Bohemian Rapsody on the B side. Wayne's World

1144
00:55:20,719 --> 00:55:23,800
Speaker 1: blows up. In five seconds, Bohemian rapidly flip flip the

1145
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: record over my single gets lost in the mix. We're

1146
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 1: selling just tons of bohemian rapsody singles, and I'm going

1147
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: eating all the money to charity while I'm losing my

1148
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,839
Speaker 1: ass and the record business. So we at some point

1149
00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:37,400
Speaker 1: cut off the single and just put it on the

1150
00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:39,680
Speaker 1: album and put it all out. But we we raised

1151
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:41,800
Speaker 1: about four hundred thousand dollars for the Magic Jobs and

1152
00:55:42,080 --> 00:55:44,160
Speaker 1: Aids Foundation, because a lot of times they say it's

1153
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:46,320
Speaker 1: charity and there ends up being no money to give you.

1154
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: It was like three nine dollars or something like that. Okay,

1155
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 1: so while you were there, did the Queen deal pianout,

1156
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:55,680
Speaker 1: pencil out as they would say? Yeah, I mean when

1157
00:55:55,680 --> 00:55:57,600
Speaker 1: I signed them, I mean, you know, we've done some

1158
00:55:57,640 --> 00:56:00,239
Speaker 1: projections and you know, look, let's be real. If there's

1159
00:56:00,239 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 1: been other labels willing to pend ten million dollars, I

1160
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:05,160
Speaker 1: suspect they would have signed somewhere else. But as far

1161
00:56:05,160 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 1: as I could tell, when we first started putting it out,

1162
00:56:07,239 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 1: it looked like in about seven years we'd get our

1163
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: money back. Then Freddie died, which sells records, so it

1164
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 1: looked like in three years we get our money back.

1165
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:16,479
Speaker 1: Then Wayne's World came out and we got our money

1166
00:56:16,480 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 1: back that week. Well what about okay, since we'll put

1167
00:56:21,040 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: it in the song on a soundtrack album? Did they

1168
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:26,399
Speaker 1: buy the original? They buy booth? About both? I think

1169
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:28,719
Speaker 1: his records sold two million copies, of Mind sold four

1170
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:33,440
Speaker 1: million copies. Wow. What about Dave Clark. Dave was a

1171
00:56:33,480 --> 00:56:36,359
Speaker 1: friend of Freddie's and so that's how he got to me. Yeah,

1172
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:40,680
Speaker 1: he was a friend of Freddie's and um he had

1173
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:45,960
Speaker 1: done that play on in UM the West End with

1174
00:56:46,200 --> 00:56:49,959
Speaker 1: um famous English actor and Freddie had written some music

1175
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: for it. Whatever. He was friendly with with Freddie and

1176
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 1: so that's how I met him. And you know, he

1177
00:56:57,280 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 1: was incredibly precious about his out a lot. He probably

1178
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:03,200
Speaker 1: waited way too long to let it come out. It

1179
00:57:03,280 --> 00:57:06,800
Speaker 1: took took two years to convince him to to um

1180
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,839
Speaker 1: make a deal. And you know, there's there's a demographic

1181
00:57:10,880 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 1: sweet spot for that, and he might he might have

1182
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: missed it. Um. And by the time we made the deal,

1183
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 1: by the time it came out, I was gone and

1184
00:57:18,360 --> 00:57:21,640
Speaker 1: I was as big champion, you know. So he always

1185
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:23,560
Speaker 1: told me that it was you know that it was

1186
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: basically basically if I had been there, it would have

1187
00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: felt a lot better about how things but at this

1188
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 1: point the records are commercially unavailable. I don't know, yeah

1189
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,600
Speaker 1: they are, and at this point Disney still loans Queen

1190
00:57:35,640 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: Galog definitely on the Queen coun okay. And during that interim,

1191
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:45,600
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, there were really no successes. Um, well,

1192
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:47,240
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, high Sea sold you know, I

1193
00:57:47,280 --> 00:57:50,560
Speaker 1: mean we had moderate successes, Like high Sea sold three

1194
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,840
Speaker 1: or four hundred thousand copies. The Party sold probably eight

1195
00:57:53,920 --> 00:57:59,280
Speaker 1: hundred thousand records total, so it was it wasn't completely barren.

1196
00:57:59,320 --> 00:58:02,840
Speaker 1: And then we had a huge hit with Sister Act

1197
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:07,720
Speaker 1: soundtrack out, Yeah, you know, and there was Remember I

1198
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: made an allusion to the fact that I maybe didn't

1199
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 1: hire the best day in our people. Well, I didn't

1200
00:58:11,080 --> 00:58:12,800
Speaker 1: hire the best day in our people. The only stuff

1201
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:14,760
Speaker 1: that sold on that label with stuff that I signed,

1202
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: which is scary when you're forty years old and you're

1203
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: running the n R Department, which I wasn't running. I

1204
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,560
Speaker 1: just you know, I mean, the stuff that ultimately worked

1205
00:58:23,960 --> 00:58:26,920
Speaker 1: was this stuff, you know, the Queen stuff, which was

1206
00:58:27,000 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: me we signed, Um, we signed the Briant Such Orchestra,

1207
00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:34,959
Speaker 1: which didn't work at Disney, but blew up big time

1208
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 1: on because I was gone when they started putting it out.

1209
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 1: We signed Bush. You know, that didn't work until I

1210
00:58:40,400 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: was gone. Um, you know, so there was stuff there.

1211
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:47,640
Speaker 1: It's just you know, Okay, at what point after you

1212
00:58:47,720 --> 00:58:49,919
Speaker 1: walk into the building do you realize this isn't gonna

1213
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: work out? Oh? I never thought it wasn't gonna work out.

1214
00:58:54,600 --> 00:58:59,520
Speaker 1: I thought no. I mean I actually I kind of

1215
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:01,440
Speaker 1: sucked the first two years because I didn't really know

1216
00:59:01,480 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: what I was doing. But I learned a lot, and

1217
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 1: by the last couple of years, I think I was

1218
00:59:04,760 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 1: actually pretty good at the job. But I wasn't really

1219
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:10,280
Speaker 1: particularly good at the Disney politics. I could have been.

1220
00:59:10,560 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 1: You know, It's not like I'm stupid, and you know,

1221
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,200
Speaker 1: but I thought because Michael liked me and Frank like me,

1222
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: I didn't think I had a play ball with Larry

1223
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 1: Murphy or whoever. The head of Stress died shortly thereafter that.

1224
00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: He died after I left, right after I left. And then, um,

1225
00:59:24,960 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: was there any advantage of being with Disney? What do

1226
00:59:27,680 --> 00:59:30,640
Speaker 1: you mean? It's a Disney's corporation? Now, you said they

1227
00:59:30,680 --> 00:59:33,240
Speaker 1: made a couple of videos for you. When you're working

1228
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:35,960
Speaker 1: for that, could you leverage anything they had. Yeah, I

1229
00:59:35,960 --> 00:59:37,880
Speaker 1: could leverage they were so hot at the time. I

1230
00:59:37,880 --> 00:59:39,720
Speaker 1: could leverage their name, and you know, it was what

1231
00:59:39,800 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: I was selling because we didn't have a label that

1232
00:59:41,480 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 1: was doing much of anything. Um, they weren't particularly synergistic.

1233
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: I mean The Party, which was a band that I

1234
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: put together out of the Mickey Mouse Club, which actually

1235
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:54,760
Speaker 1: had Britney Spears in it for about five seconds, and J. C. Chase,

1236
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:57,600
Speaker 1: who ended up in one of those other bands in

1237
00:59:57,680 --> 01:00:03,440
Speaker 1: Center or something like that. I don't which one. Um,

1238
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't really get the fact that I

1239
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:09,560
Speaker 1: needed them to drive sales of this, you know band

1240
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 1: that was basically manufactured of the Mickey Mouse Club. Um,

1241
01:00:13,600 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 1: it actually did fairly you know, like I said, I

1242
01:00:17,760 --> 01:00:21,040
Speaker 1: did fairly well. But um, they didn't really help a

1243
01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: whole lot. And it wasn't until about five years later

1244
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 1: when Clive Caldler used a Disney channel to break in

1245
01:00:26,280 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 1: Sync and Backstreet Boys in a huge way obviously that

1246
01:00:29,520 --> 01:00:31,800
Speaker 1: the Disney people went, oh, wow, you know, we can

1247
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:34,600
Speaker 1: help break these backs because at the time I needed

1248
01:00:34,640 --> 01:00:37,040
Speaker 1: something like that because radio, I don't know, probably don't

1249
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: remember radio from their early nineties, but Hit Radio thought

1250
01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:42,920
Speaker 1: their audience was thirty five year old housewives, and so

1251
01:00:42,960 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: they there was I remember one time we had the

1252
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: party on. It was number one phones for three straight

1253
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: weeks at the station in Hawaii, and they called up

1254
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:51,240
Speaker 1: Brenda Romano said, we're dropping this record. Just what do

1255
01:00:51,280 --> 01:00:53,640
Speaker 1: you mean you're dropping the record? These kids are clogging

1256
01:00:53,720 --> 01:00:55,919
Speaker 1: up our phone lines. I can't sell enough pimple cream

1257
01:00:56,000 --> 01:00:58,880
Speaker 1: to make it worth my while, so you know, and

1258
01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:00,840
Speaker 1: so we needed something like that to drive it, and

1259
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 1: it really wasn't particularly helpful. And you know, the film

1260
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: company was not particularly helpful, you know, it was. It's

1261
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:10,760
Speaker 1: a big corporation. Every division is Therefore, you know, they

1262
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:13,240
Speaker 1: get paid their bonus based on how their division it does.

1263
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:15,680
Speaker 1: And if they're out trying to promote my records, they're

1264
01:01:15,720 --> 01:01:18,120
Speaker 1: not out promoting their TV show or their film. So

1265
01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:19,920
Speaker 1: you know, I get it. I'm not bitter about it

1266
01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:28,120
Speaker 1: or anything like that. What about the famous memo. There

1267
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: was a letter that you wrote I've leaved to Michael Eisner,

1268
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 1: and within a very short period of time it was

1269
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:35,920
Speaker 1: leaked and everybody in the music business credit right. It

1270
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:39,320
Speaker 1: was basically a seven page get off my back because

1271
01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:41,320
Speaker 1: I was tired of the strategic planning people, in the

1272
01:01:41,360 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 1: financial planning people where they come and say, we need

1273
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:46,680
Speaker 1: to do a P and L on on this new artist,

1274
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:48,880
Speaker 1: like I've done two artists. I don't need to do

1275
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: a piano if you want to know, a P and

1276
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: L L, because most artists fail. And I said, you know,

1277
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 1: so it was sort of that. And and I'm almost

1278
01:01:58,120 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 1: positive I know who leaked the memo because they're all

1279
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:04,840
Speaker 1: I might have. Well, there were. I delivered the memo

1280
01:02:04,880 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: to Michael Izer, Frank Wells and this third person who

1281
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 1: was the CFO and UM, and then I was walking

1282
01:02:12,280 --> 01:02:14,120
Speaker 1: back to my office and I was reading it and

1283
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 1: there was a typo in the memo and I went

1284
01:02:16,720 --> 01:02:18,720
Speaker 1: back and fixed the typo. And the memo they got

1285
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 1: leaked had a typo in it, so it had to

1286
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:23,840
Speaker 1: be one of those three copies that got leaked. And

1287
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:26,760
Speaker 1: Frank had his copy with his notes on it, and

1288
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 1: Michael had his copy, So you figure it out. What

1289
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:33,760
Speaker 1: was the backlash when it was leaked? UM, as somebody

1290
01:02:33,840 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: referred to it, it was a seven page suicide note,

1291
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:40,040
Speaker 1: and you know, it blew over eventually. I mean, they

1292
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 1: were there were you know, look, I never got any

1293
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:43,440
Speaker 1: good press while I was there. I mean it just

1294
01:02:43,480 --> 01:02:46,120
Speaker 1: got you know, I was bringing Satan to Disney, and

1295
01:02:46,200 --> 01:02:48,360
Speaker 1: you know it was they loved to pick on. I

1296
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:51,240
Speaker 1: mean the queen signing go back and look it right,

1297
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:54,120
Speaker 1: How stupid that was, and what an idiot he was

1298
01:02:54,120 --> 01:02:57,240
Speaker 1: signing this washed up gay guy, you know. And so

1299
01:02:57,480 --> 01:03:00,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't like it was funny Christmas. About a couple

1300
01:03:00,280 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 1: of years and there was an article in the New

1301
01:03:01,960 --> 01:03:04,400
Speaker 1: York Times and basically talking about what a complete disaster

1302
01:03:04,440 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: it was and what a complete city. And I was.

1303
01:03:06,400 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: My sister calls me up and says, did you read

1304
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 1: this New York Times article? And yeah, I read it,

1305
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:12,280
Speaker 1: and she goes, it's horrible. I can't believe they're doing

1306
01:03:12,280 --> 01:03:14,520
Speaker 1: this too. You and I go, really should rate it again.

1307
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:16,360
Speaker 1: It was like water off a duck's back at that point.

1308
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 1: So how did it finally end? Um? It finally ended

1309
01:03:21,280 --> 01:03:23,320
Speaker 1: that Um, you know, they decided they were going to

1310
01:03:23,360 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 1: go in a different directions, So I mean, literally, okay

1311
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:27,480
Speaker 1: to keep going yet Well, he just called me in

1312
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:31,040
Speaker 1: his office and you know, basically said we decided we're

1313
01:03:31,040 --> 01:03:32,640
Speaker 1: gonna make a change. And I go, is there anything

1314
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:33,960
Speaker 1: I can do to talk about it? He said, no,

1315
01:03:34,080 --> 01:03:37,320
Speaker 1: and I went, okay. And at that point, okay, when

1316
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:38,840
Speaker 1: you walked in the office, do you knew that was

1317
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:41,760
Speaker 1: gonna happen? No? And do you have any time left

1318
01:03:41,760 --> 01:03:45,440
Speaker 1: on your contract? No? So it was literally kind of

1319
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:47,280
Speaker 1: like the end of the contractor we were like, you know,

1320
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,479
Speaker 1: I technically didn't get fired. I technically they just didn't

1321
01:03:50,520 --> 01:03:55,240
Speaker 1: pick up my option. Okay, so you walk out the door.

1322
01:03:55,400 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: You're done that day. Well, I mean, you know, he

1323
01:03:57,840 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 1: said I could keep an office there, and he, you know,

1324
01:03:59,720 --> 01:04:01,880
Speaker 1: he's from the film business, so he said, maybe we

1325
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 1: could put up a production company on the lot. I go,

1326
01:04:03,800 --> 01:04:06,600
Speaker 1: that's not what we do in the music business. And so,

1327
01:04:06,840 --> 01:04:10,240
Speaker 1: you know, but you know, this is actually a story

1328
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:13,240
Speaker 1: that I actually use a lot. So it was on

1329
01:04:13,280 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: a Wednesday or Thursday or something like that, and I said,

1330
01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:17,360
Speaker 1: could we just keep a lid on this thing until

1331
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:20,440
Speaker 1: the weekend? And he said, sure, I won't tell anybody,

1332
01:04:20,480 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: And you know, I said great. And so the next morning,

1333
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 1: my general manager is wandering the halls because you'd get

1334
01:04:27,480 --> 01:04:29,120
Speaker 1: it at six in the morning or seven in the mornings,

1335
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 1: like ridiculous Jeffrey Katzenberg hours, and and he runs into

1336
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:37,840
Speaker 1: some strap planning kid. You know some kid it was

1337
01:04:37,960 --> 01:04:40,680
Speaker 1: like in this six years old in the strat Planning division.

1338
01:04:41,480 --> 01:04:45,160
Speaker 1: And he says, you know, patern has been fired. And

1339
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 1: and so I get there on Brad says to me,

1340
01:04:47,360 --> 01:04:48,959
Speaker 1: you know they told me you're fired. To go what's

1341
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:50,360
Speaker 1: that about? I go, I don't know it's I go

1342
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:53,160
Speaker 1: to see Eisner. I go, I thought we're gonna sort

1343
01:04:53,200 --> 01:04:54,680
Speaker 1: of give me a couple of days on this thing.

1344
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:56,880
Speaker 1: He goes, he said, I had nothing to do with it.

1345
01:04:56,880 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: He goes, uh, let me, let me find out what's

1346
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:00,680
Speaker 1: kid's name? I got. I don't all. I call Brad.

1347
01:05:00,720 --> 01:05:03,240
Speaker 1: He goes, you know, so Is Star calls up this

1348
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: kid and he said, so I heard you tell Brad

1349
01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: Hunt that you know that we're firing paternal And he goes, oh,

1350
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:13,520
Speaker 1: no, no no, I didn't do that, and he goes, okay.

1351
01:05:13,880 --> 01:05:16,040
Speaker 1: He calls Brad Hunt and talks to Brad Hunting and

1352
01:05:16,120 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 1: he gets off the phone and he says, to me,

1353
01:05:18,480 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 1: that kids lying. He calls the kid back and said,

1354
01:05:21,040 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know who you are, what

1355
01:05:23,240 --> 01:05:25,439
Speaker 1: you do, or what where you come from. But he said,

1356
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:27,960
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. I don't think it's really

1357
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 1: wise to the wide to the CEO of your company,

1358
01:05:30,680 --> 01:05:34,800
Speaker 1: and he hung up on him. Okay, and you didn't

1359
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:36,680
Speaker 1: want people to know for the weekend. Why you wanted

1360
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:39,080
Speaker 1: to tell your staff yourself. Yeah, I just wanted to,

1361
01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, keep it under wraps for a while. Okay,

1362
01:05:41,920 --> 01:05:45,600
Speaker 1: So then your knned After that weekend, You're done. What's

1363
01:05:45,600 --> 01:05:49,200
Speaker 1: your emotional state? Not good? It's not fun getting fired,

1364
01:05:49,560 --> 01:05:51,480
Speaker 1: iSER said to me. We all get fired at some point.

1365
01:05:51,520 --> 01:05:54,959
Speaker 1: It's it's a it's a building block towards a successful career.

1366
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:57,360
Speaker 1: Because I've been fired, that's great. I don't like it.

1367
01:05:59,240 --> 01:06:01,600
Speaker 1: So how long to take you to pick your feet

1368
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:06,440
Speaker 1: up from pick yourself up? Um? Well, I mean it

1369
01:06:06,520 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 1: wasn't immediate. Um I tried to find a job for

1370
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:11,480
Speaker 1: a while. You know, I sit there and go, okay,

1371
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:15,120
Speaker 1: it's in. It's in the nineties. There's a convergence between film,

1372
01:06:15,200 --> 01:06:19,000
Speaker 1: TV and music. I've obviously got music nailed film and

1373
01:06:19,080 --> 01:06:22,560
Speaker 1: I mean film technology and music, and I go, I've

1374
01:06:22,560 --> 01:06:24,360
Speaker 1: worked at a studio for four years. I kind of

1375
01:06:24,360 --> 01:06:26,439
Speaker 1: know my way around the studio, which I did learn.

1376
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:29,560
Speaker 1: And technology well, my background I used to write software,

1377
01:06:29,600 --> 01:06:32,000
Speaker 1: so I got that down. So I should be very hirable.

1378
01:06:32,040 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 1: So I went to some of the placement firms whatever

1379
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:37,120
Speaker 1: they call like corn Furry and stuff like that. These

1380
01:06:37,160 --> 01:06:39,439
Speaker 1: things you learn when you're unemployed, Like, first of all,

1381
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: they don't really want to place you. They want to

1382
01:06:41,800 --> 01:06:45,480
Speaker 1: get paid for finding you. So they were pretty useless

1383
01:06:45,600 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 1: because again, I look like a good candidate, you know,

1384
01:06:48,360 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 1: I mean again, it didn't seem to me that it

1385
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:55,240
Speaker 1: would be impossible to find a job. The other thing

1386
01:06:55,280 --> 01:06:57,440
Speaker 1: I learned is there's probably ten people in hand out

1387
01:06:57,440 --> 01:06:59,040
Speaker 1: the job that I wanted, and if you don't have

1388
01:06:59,080 --> 01:07:00,920
Speaker 1: a good relationship with not to say you have a

1389
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:04,640
Speaker 1: bad relationship, but you know, it's it's somewhat a meritocracy,

1390
01:07:04,640 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: but it's not a complete meritocracy. It's a meritocracy based

1391
01:07:07,840 --> 01:07:10,960
Speaker 1: on relationships. So if you don't have the relationships, you know,

1392
01:07:11,160 --> 01:07:13,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't gonna happen. And the guys that I knew

1393
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 1: that handed out these jobs were Geffen who was mad

1394
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:18,640
Speaker 1: at me, Eisner who just fired me, and you know

1395
01:07:18,760 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 1: whatever else. So that didn't work. So I kind of

1396
01:07:22,480 --> 01:07:26,480
Speaker 1: sat around and and try to figure out what I

1397
01:07:26,480 --> 01:07:28,000
Speaker 1: was gonna do next. And then sot of my old

1398
01:07:28,040 --> 01:07:30,040
Speaker 1: clients started calling me and saying, could you help out

1399
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 1: as a lawyer. The last thing I wanted to do

1400
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 1: is be a lawyer again, but it was I had

1401
01:07:34,840 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: to just kind of crawl back to being a lawyer

1402
01:07:36,720 --> 01:07:39,800
Speaker 1: because it's really all that I was in demand for.

1403
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:42,640
Speaker 1: So how long after you got cam by Eisener were

1404
01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: you really back in the swing of being a lawyer?

1405
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 1: Probably about six months in Metallica asked me to help

1406
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:55,000
Speaker 1: them get out of there their deal with Electra, so

1407
01:07:55,080 --> 01:07:57,240
Speaker 1: that I started working on that, and then I started

1408
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 1: working on some other stuff, and and after about a

1409
01:08:00,360 --> 01:08:02,720
Speaker 1: year my current partner said, why are you working out

1410
01:08:02,720 --> 01:08:04,000
Speaker 1: of your house? Why don't you come in here and

1411
01:08:04,000 --> 01:08:05,280
Speaker 1: we'll give you an office. We don't have to have

1412
01:08:05,320 --> 01:08:08,000
Speaker 1: any commitments. And so I came in here and got

1413
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:12,840
Speaker 1: an office and just started People started calling, Okay, what

1414
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:15,080
Speaker 1: was the name of the lawyer who ended up running

1415
01:08:15,120 --> 01:08:19,720
Speaker 1: Polydor Polygraham? David Broun, David Broun. Okay, everybody whoever was

1416
01:08:19,800 --> 01:08:22,880
Speaker 1: a lawyer who went inside, when they came out and

1417
01:08:22,920 --> 01:08:27,280
Speaker 1: tried to practice law dead in the water, failed miserably. Hey,

1418
01:08:27,320 --> 01:08:29,559
Speaker 1: were you aware of that? Be? Why why did you

1419
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:32,920
Speaker 1: break that mold? I was very aware of it and

1420
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:35,160
Speaker 1: be I mean, I don't know why I broke them all.

1421
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:37,320
Speaker 1: The reason I went back to the lawyers, I couldn't

1422
01:08:37,360 --> 01:08:40,240
Speaker 1: get a job, and you know, like I'm not independently wealthy,

1423
01:08:40,280 --> 01:08:42,080
Speaker 1: so I needed to get a job. And it was

1424
01:08:42,120 --> 01:08:43,840
Speaker 1: the job that people seem to be willing to hire

1425
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:46,760
Speaker 1: me for. And you know, it's funny. I went back

1426
01:08:46,800 --> 01:08:51,560
Speaker 1: to Minat and said, I remember, I go, maybe I

1427
01:08:51,600 --> 01:08:53,680
Speaker 1: could come back here and at least you can give

1428
01:08:53,720 --> 01:08:56,280
Speaker 1: me work, and they go, well, what are you looking for?

1429
01:08:56,320 --> 01:08:58,439
Speaker 1: And I said, well, look all my old clients that

1430
01:08:58,520 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 1: I left behind, I won't you know, I won't make

1431
01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:03,720
Speaker 1: any claim on any of them, except for Metallica because

1432
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:06,439
Speaker 1: I'm already doing work for them. So like, say ten

1433
01:09:06,520 --> 01:09:09,360
Speaker 1: percent of what Metallica is generating or five percent some

1434
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:11,920
Speaker 1: low number. And then I said, like, I'd like a

1435
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,479
Speaker 1: third of any new business that I bring in, and

1436
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:16,400
Speaker 1: you can pay me on my hours. And they go, well,

1437
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 1: third in new business. If you have two million dollars

1438
01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:20,960
Speaker 1: of business, we don't have to pay seven under thousand

1439
01:09:20,960 --> 01:09:22,280
Speaker 1: of dollars. That's not how it works here. And I go,

1440
01:09:22,320 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 1: it's two million dollars of business. You don't have I'm

1441
01:09:24,040 --> 01:09:27,840
Speaker 1: not asking for the old stuff, and they go, well, um,

1442
01:09:27,960 --> 01:09:29,760
Speaker 1: that's not what we do here, but we'd like you back,

1443
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:32,040
Speaker 1: but we'd like to pay you. Like it was ridiculous,

1444
01:09:32,080 --> 01:09:35,840
Speaker 1: whatever it was. So I just didn't do that, and

1445
01:09:35,920 --> 01:09:39,920
Speaker 1: I went like, I talked to some other firms, but again,

1446
01:09:41,240 --> 01:09:43,360
Speaker 1: the law firm business, it's like, we'll pay you for

1447
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:45,640
Speaker 1: what you kill. And if I'm gonna get paid for

1448
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:47,320
Speaker 1: what I kill, I might as well keep it myself.

1449
01:09:48,040 --> 01:09:51,760
Speaker 1: So I started I started back here at this with

1450
01:09:51,800 --> 01:09:53,680
Speaker 1: my friends, and people just started calling. I mean, I

1451
01:09:53,680 --> 01:09:57,800
Speaker 1: didn't approach anybody really, And the old clients that you

1452
01:09:57,920 --> 01:10:00,599
Speaker 1: left behind him at what percentage of them aimed to you? Now?

1453
01:10:00,800 --> 01:10:03,439
Speaker 1: A large percentage, a really large percentage. And why do

1454
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:05,439
Speaker 1: you think that was? I think they were happy with

1455
01:10:05,479 --> 01:10:07,439
Speaker 1: the work I've done for them, and you know that,

1456
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 1: I don't think they felt like they it's gonna fit

1457
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:13,600
Speaker 1: at the time. Okay, So at what point did you

1458
01:10:14,200 --> 01:10:18,040
Speaker 1: and Howard and Holmes ultimately decide, well, you're gonna throw

1459
01:10:18,080 --> 01:10:21,439
Speaker 1: in together. Well, I just started generating a lot of

1460
01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:25,120
Speaker 1: work and so I needed, you know, it seemed like

1461
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,920
Speaker 1: a much better idea to have people that help, you know,

1462
01:10:28,000 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 1: so that's kind of just evolved. I think they wanted

1463
01:10:30,960 --> 01:10:32,160
Speaker 1: me to do it, and they just were trying to

1464
01:10:32,200 --> 01:10:33,640
Speaker 1: be nice to me to give me the space to

1465
01:10:33,640 --> 01:10:35,680
Speaker 1: figure out that I wasn't I wasn't going to get

1466
01:10:35,680 --> 01:10:37,920
Speaker 1: a job. And once when you were back into it,

1467
01:10:38,160 --> 01:10:40,200
Speaker 1: did you make peace with being a lawyer as opposed

1468
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,599
Speaker 1: to a business executive? Yeah? Yeah, I mean, you know,

1469
01:10:43,720 --> 01:10:45,680
Speaker 1: I'm It's something I'm good at, so I'm gonna as

1470
01:10:45,720 --> 01:10:48,960
Speaker 1: well deal with it. Well, at this late age, you

1471
01:10:49,000 --> 01:10:51,479
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, any regrets you didn't do something else.

1472
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:55,519
Speaker 1: I think we all have regrets, but you know I

1473
01:10:55,560 --> 01:10:59,679
Speaker 1: did okay, So okay, so now you come back in Okay,

1474
01:10:59,760 --> 01:11:02,280
Speaker 1: let let's jump forward and then jump back. What is

1475
01:11:02,320 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 1: the difference practicing law now as opposed to before when

1476
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:09,479
Speaker 1: you were before you went to Hollywood Records? You mean

1477
01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:12,720
Speaker 1: now or when I just got back in now? Now

1478
01:11:12,760 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 1: it's super different. I mean when I got back into

1479
01:11:15,240 --> 01:11:18,479
Speaker 1: the nineties, it was pretty similar. I mean the business

1480
01:11:18,600 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 1: is just I mean, look a lot of what I

1481
01:11:20,160 --> 01:11:21,880
Speaker 1: don't do much in the I don't do a lot

1482
01:11:21,880 --> 01:11:23,800
Speaker 1: of record deals anymore, which is the basis of the

1483
01:11:23,800 --> 01:11:29,200
Speaker 1: practice before. The whole marketing aspect of the music. The

1484
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:32,679
Speaker 1: record business has change, has changed. I mean basically when

1485
01:11:32,680 --> 01:11:34,800
Speaker 1: I was involved, you know, even when I was at

1486
01:11:34,800 --> 01:11:37,639
Speaker 1: a record company, they talk about marketing and they talk

1487
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:39,880
Speaker 1: about all this bunch crap. I mean, basically, everything you

1488
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:42,400
Speaker 1: did was to drive something either to radio or MTV.

1489
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:45,400
Speaker 1: And that was what marketing was, is to get MTVS

1490
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:49,920
Speaker 1: attention or radio's attention. Um, and so the path was

1491
01:11:49,960 --> 01:11:53,200
Speaker 1: pretty clear. There were a bunch of gatekeepers, and you

1492
01:11:53,200 --> 01:11:54,880
Speaker 1: wanted to figure out how to get it to the

1493
01:11:54,920 --> 01:11:57,840
Speaker 1: gatekeepers and get it through the gate Now, I don't

1494
01:11:57,840 --> 01:11:59,759
Speaker 1: know what the hell you do. Everything breaks that viral

1495
01:11:59,840 --> 01:12:02,080
Speaker 1: a I don't know the good news. I guess you

1496
01:12:02,080 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 1: can bribe pray lists, except Spotify won't let you bribe them.

1497
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:09,559
Speaker 1: And it's it seems a whole lot more difficult to

1498
01:12:09,600 --> 01:12:11,559
Speaker 1: break an artist now, and it's just or not even

1499
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: so much to break it is to sustain a career. Okay,

1500
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:19,040
Speaker 1: but uh so since before now we talked in another

1501
01:12:19,120 --> 01:12:23,439
Speaker 1: time about what's your viewpoint on the music today? The

1502
01:12:23,520 --> 01:12:26,080
Speaker 1: music will see in the Spotify Top fifty. The stuff

1503
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:29,200
Speaker 1: that labels are signing, I mean labels are signing, what

1504
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:31,920
Speaker 1: drives revenue? What drives revenue is the stuff that gets

1505
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:33,639
Speaker 1: played over and over and over again. And what gets

1506
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:35,800
Speaker 1: played over and over again what thirteen and fourteen year

1507
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:38,679
Speaker 1: olds like because they'll play something a hundred times a day.

1508
01:12:38,720 --> 01:12:41,439
Speaker 1: Whereas if you or I buy a record, we might

1509
01:12:41,479 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: listen to it, you know, but we have jobs and

1510
01:12:43,240 --> 01:12:45,840
Speaker 1: we have other things to do. Kids listen to consume music,

1511
01:12:46,760 --> 01:12:49,160
Speaker 1: so whatever the you know, whatever they and their friends

1512
01:12:49,160 --> 01:12:52,400
Speaker 1: are consuming is what gets you know, in the way

1513
01:12:52,439 --> 01:12:55,840
Speaker 1: Spotify works is they you get paid based on the

1514
01:12:55,920 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 1: number of places that you get for your particular track

1515
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:01,639
Speaker 1: compared to the overall number of plays. So essentially thirteen

1516
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:03,479
Speaker 1: or fourteen year olds or fifteen year olds or whatever

1517
01:13:03,520 --> 01:13:06,920
Speaker 1: it is, are are sort of driving what gets picked

1518
01:13:06,960 --> 01:13:09,400
Speaker 1: up by major labels because that's what but by the

1519
01:13:09,439 --> 01:13:12,160
Speaker 1: same token, in terms of the overall music business, the

1520
01:13:12,320 --> 01:13:15,160
Speaker 1: streams and the labels are a smaller percentage than ever

1521
01:13:15,160 --> 01:13:18,719
Speaker 1: in our history, I'm sorry, as well as a percentage

1522
01:13:18,720 --> 01:13:23,760
Speaker 1: of the overall revenue is uh streams and major signings.

1523
01:13:23,800 --> 01:13:25,799
Speaker 1: Like a lot of your acts, you put out the records.

1524
01:13:25,800 --> 01:13:28,519
Speaker 1: Metallica puts off the records centraally themselves. They own the record,

1525
01:13:28,960 --> 01:13:32,640
Speaker 1: They find a deal so, but they're generating a shipload

1526
01:13:32,680 --> 01:13:36,280
Speaker 1: of money there, you know. Yes, Yeah, and a lot

1527
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,439
Speaker 1: of the other clients are like that too, Yeah, No,

1528
01:13:39,560 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: a lot of That's a lot of what I do.

1529
01:13:41,479 --> 01:13:43,599
Speaker 1: I'll do a lot of deals with Live Nation, whereas

1530
01:13:43,600 --> 01:13:44,600
Speaker 1: I used to do a lot of deals with the

1531
01:13:44,600 --> 01:13:46,200
Speaker 1: record companies. I do a lot of deals with around

1532
01:13:46,360 --> 01:13:49,760
Speaker 1: Live Nation, a real lot or a g And are

1533
01:13:49,800 --> 01:13:53,720
Speaker 1: those deals tend to be overall deals? Yeah, I mean

1534
01:13:53,760 --> 01:13:55,800
Speaker 1: there's a number. I mean I do a lot of

1535
01:13:56,120 --> 01:13:58,920
Speaker 1: you know, like Live Nation buys a lot of management companies,

1536
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:01,280
Speaker 1: so I represent managers that are selling the Live Nation

1537
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,000
Speaker 1: and you know, there's like a Coachella deal for Dr

1538
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 1: Dre for instance, I'll do that deal, or a national

1539
01:14:08,360 --> 01:14:10,320
Speaker 1: tour deal for one of my clients. We get very

1540
01:14:10,360 --> 01:14:12,439
Speaker 1: involved in that, whereas that was just the province of

1541
01:14:12,439 --> 01:14:18,320
Speaker 1: agents before. And how did you get Drey as a client? Um? Uh,

1542
01:14:18,439 --> 01:14:23,559
Speaker 1: the general manager of Interscope Records, David Cohen Um was

1543
01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:27,240
Speaker 1: dealing with whoever his lawyer was at the time, and uh,

1544
01:14:27,280 --> 01:14:31,040
Speaker 1: it was being very difficult and they couldn't get anything done.

1545
01:14:31,040 --> 01:14:34,320
Speaker 1: And and Jimmy obviously has a great relationship with Dr

1546
01:14:34,360 --> 01:14:37,040
Speaker 1: Dre and Cohen went to Jimmy and said, look, there's

1547
01:14:37,080 --> 01:14:40,519
Speaker 1: my friend that just started back into practice again. And

1548
01:14:40,800 --> 01:14:43,120
Speaker 1: m you know, I think he's he's more of a

1549
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:45,760
Speaker 1: problem solving a problem creator. Maybe we should see if

1550
01:14:45,800 --> 01:14:48,479
Speaker 1: Drey wants to meet with him. So they set up

1551
01:14:48,479 --> 01:14:50,040
Speaker 1: a meeting for me with Dre, and I met with

1552
01:14:50,120 --> 01:14:52,960
Speaker 1: Dre and and he hired me. At the time, I mean,

1553
01:14:53,040 --> 01:14:56,360
Speaker 1: Drey wasn't Dre. It was it was his Queen period,

1554
01:14:56,439 --> 01:14:59,760
Speaker 1: it was his fellow period. Um, you know, but I

1555
01:14:59,760 --> 01:15:01,120
Speaker 1: thought I think I had a I mean I was

1556
01:15:01,120 --> 01:15:03,439
Speaker 1: always a fan, so that was you know, I just

1557
01:15:03,479 --> 01:15:07,759
Speaker 1: thought he was enormously, enormously talented and we'd figure something

1558
01:15:07,800 --> 01:15:10,320
Speaker 1: out for three or four years. It was just it

1559
01:15:10,439 --> 01:15:15,439
Speaker 1: was it was tough. Okay. So in terms of payment

1560
01:15:15,840 --> 01:15:18,200
Speaker 1: or all your clients on a percentage deal, No, most

1561
01:15:18,200 --> 01:15:22,760
Speaker 1: of my clients are hourly, and uh, if it is

1562
01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:27,680
Speaker 1: a percentage deal, was a traditional five lawyer house. Okay,

1563
01:15:27,720 --> 01:15:29,800
Speaker 1: So what would how do you decide if a client

1564
01:15:29,880 --> 01:15:31,920
Speaker 1: is a percentage deal or an hourly deal. I let

1565
01:15:31,960 --> 01:15:35,080
Speaker 1: them decide. I don't decide into some book up a

1566
01:15:35,080 --> 01:15:36,559
Speaker 1: lot of hours then say hey, I'll be in a

1567
01:15:36,560 --> 01:15:40,640
Speaker 1: percentage We don't like doing that. I mean, that's the

1568
01:15:40,680 --> 01:15:42,280
Speaker 1: one thing that I'd have a problem with this year,

1569
01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:44,240
Speaker 1: the percentage or an hourly client. I don't want to

1570
01:15:44,240 --> 01:15:45,760
Speaker 1: sit there and have you on a percentage where you're

1571
01:15:45,800 --> 01:15:47,639
Speaker 1: making no money and then when you start making money

1572
01:15:47,640 --> 01:15:50,160
Speaker 1: you want to go to hourly. That's not right. And

1573
01:15:50,240 --> 01:15:53,000
Speaker 1: so if I'm on a percentage deal, will you take

1574
01:15:53,040 --> 01:15:56,040
Speaker 1: care of all my legal business or just my my

1575
01:15:56,200 --> 01:15:59,240
Speaker 1: music business, like wills and trust, you know, and things

1576
01:15:59,280 --> 01:16:01,840
Speaker 1: like that. We don't do wills here, so we've heard

1577
01:16:01,880 --> 01:16:04,800
Speaker 1: that out. We do anything that's kind of I mean,

1578
01:16:04,840 --> 01:16:07,759
Speaker 1: if it's litigation, we charge on top for that, um

1579
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:10,880
Speaker 1: because we're one of the few entertainment firms that have litigators.

1580
01:16:11,520 --> 01:16:14,320
Speaker 1: But we'll do any kind of contractual stuff, any kind

1581
01:16:14,320 --> 01:16:16,280
Speaker 1: of corporate stuff. So if it's a live Nation deal,

1582
01:16:16,320 --> 01:16:18,559
Speaker 1: we'll do that. It's a publishing deal with that record deal,

1583
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:21,519
Speaker 1: will do that. It's a corporate formation or a joint venture,

1584
01:16:21,560 --> 01:16:25,120
Speaker 1: will do that. And that's all part of the five percent. Okay,

1585
01:16:25,479 --> 01:16:30,840
Speaker 1: So tell me. Because your firm was involved in the uh,

1586
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:34,439
Speaker 1: the famous hit case that went through a whole thing,

1587
01:16:34,439 --> 01:16:38,519
Speaker 1: and now we have the stairway case. Uh the borderlines right,

1588
01:16:38,920 --> 01:16:42,639
Speaker 1: So what's your viewput on all that? Don't get me started.

1589
01:16:42,720 --> 01:16:46,200
Speaker 1: The court system is just not set up to understand music.

1590
01:16:46,240 --> 01:16:49,280
Speaker 1: They suck at it. I I about six months ago

1591
01:16:49,360 --> 01:16:52,360
Speaker 1: was a reception with Justice Kagan from the Supreme Court,

1592
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:54,360
Speaker 1: and I said, well, well a little bit. So how

1593
01:16:54,360 --> 01:16:56,680
Speaker 1: did that come together? Um, I do a lot of

1594
01:16:56,720 --> 01:16:58,559
Speaker 1: work at u C Law School, and she was there

1595
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:01,160
Speaker 1: for a reception and the so they invited me. I

1596
01:17:01,200 --> 01:17:04,640
Speaker 1: work with Kenny's Different at the Different Center, and us

1597
01:17:04,720 --> 01:17:07,320
Speaker 1: and me and about ten other people are twelve other people,

1598
01:17:08,160 --> 01:17:09,880
Speaker 1: and so I just said, could you please leave the

1599
01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:12,280
Speaker 1: music cases alone? You get you get them wrong every

1600
01:17:12,280 --> 01:17:14,479
Speaker 1: single time. I mean not every time, but at least

1601
01:17:14,520 --> 01:17:18,040
Speaker 1: half the time. Because the judges can read books, they

1602
01:17:18,040 --> 01:17:20,320
Speaker 1: get the bookcases right. They get the script cases, all

1603
01:17:20,360 --> 01:17:22,519
Speaker 1: the script copyright cases, they get those right. They throw

1604
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:24,519
Speaker 1: them out because they generally deserve to be thrown out.

1605
01:17:25,120 --> 01:17:27,800
Speaker 1: They can't read music. They don't understand it. The blurredlines case,

1606
01:17:28,240 --> 01:17:30,080
Speaker 1: there are no notes the same between that and the

1607
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:32,200
Speaker 1: Marvin Gay tune. There are no chords the same, there

1608
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:34,679
Speaker 1: are no lyrics the same. There's nothing in the same

1609
01:17:34,720 --> 01:17:38,320
Speaker 1: except they sound the same. And that's not a copyright infringement.

1610
01:17:38,400 --> 01:17:42,280
Speaker 1: You know, I tell you that the Stairway to Heaven case,

1611
01:17:42,479 --> 01:17:45,040
Speaker 1: it's probably more has more in common with the Spirit

1612
01:17:45,120 --> 01:17:47,760
Speaker 1: song then Marvin Gay and Blurred Lines, and I think

1613
01:17:47,760 --> 01:17:51,400
Speaker 1: that the Stairway to Heaven case, it looks like they're

1614
01:17:51,400 --> 01:17:54,479
Speaker 1: gonna just you know, get rid of that. So it's

1615
01:17:54,680 --> 01:17:58,439
Speaker 1: in this Katie Perry case, another disaster. It's like they say, well,

1616
01:17:58,479 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 1: there's an eight Austinado that's the same between the two songs.

1617
01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:03,559
Speaker 1: Once you say it's an ostinato, you're talking about a

1618
01:18:03,560 --> 01:18:06,639
Speaker 1: common figure in music. You can infringe in ostinato. It's

1619
01:18:06,680 --> 01:18:10,000
Speaker 1: a repeating a bunch of notes. It's ridiculous. And they

1620
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:11,880
Speaker 1: let these go to a jury and they don't stop

1621
01:18:11,960 --> 01:18:15,240
Speaker 1: them on a summary judgment. It's it's pathetic. Okay, So

1622
01:18:15,280 --> 01:18:17,559
Speaker 1: what's did at this point in time on the Blurred

1623
01:18:17,560 --> 01:18:20,400
Speaker 1: Lines case? Did they pay the judgment or is there

1624
01:18:20,439 --> 01:18:23,200
Speaker 1: anything left? It's we're done, we're you know, we we

1625
01:18:23,479 --> 01:18:25,840
Speaker 1: asked for a non bunkering they granted and they led

1626
01:18:25,880 --> 01:18:27,880
Speaker 1: Zeppelin case. They didn't grant it to us. We're done,

1627
01:18:27,920 --> 01:18:29,719
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court is not going to take the case.

1628
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:32,840
Speaker 1: If they'd screw it up anyway. So so they paid

1629
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:35,080
Speaker 1: the money or you're negotiating with no, no, we've we

1630
01:18:35,320 --> 01:18:39,599
Speaker 1: you mean the defendants we paid, Okay, And so what

1631
01:18:39,640 --> 01:18:42,200
Speaker 1: do you think should be the law in terms of

1632
01:18:42,240 --> 01:18:45,080
Speaker 1: copyright infringement. The law is fine, they just don't know

1633
01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:46,920
Speaker 1: how to implement it. I mean, the law is fine.

1634
01:18:48,040 --> 01:18:49,880
Speaker 1: You look at the law, these cases you know they

1635
01:18:49,920 --> 01:18:54,920
Speaker 1: shouldn't not. There's I don't want to get too deep

1636
01:18:54,960 --> 01:18:57,360
Speaker 1: into this, but there's something called the extrinsic tests and

1637
01:18:57,400 --> 01:19:00,439
Speaker 1: the intrinsic tests, and the extrinsic tests where they have

1638
01:19:00,520 --> 01:19:03,880
Speaker 1: music colleges do gang wars and try to, you know,

1639
01:19:04,080 --> 01:19:07,479
Speaker 1: say whether it's an infringement or not extrinsically. And and

1640
01:19:07,520 --> 01:19:11,760
Speaker 1: if if they decide that, um, if they decide that

1641
01:19:11,800 --> 01:19:15,040
Speaker 1: there's a substantial similarity in strinsically, they sent it to

1642
01:19:15,040 --> 01:19:19,519
Speaker 1: a jury to decide whether intrinsically there's substantial similarity. I'm

1643
01:19:19,560 --> 01:19:21,680
Speaker 1: just I don't know to tell you other than you

1644
01:19:21,720 --> 01:19:23,320
Speaker 1: could sit there and look at the music and these

1645
01:19:23,320 --> 01:19:26,760
Speaker 1: cases should mostly be thrown out. Okay. So your prediction

1646
01:19:27,000 --> 01:19:30,720
Speaker 1: is uh that the spirit estate will not win the

1647
01:19:30,760 --> 01:19:33,160
Speaker 1: Steerway to Heaven case. But you're I'm not holding you,

1648
01:19:33,160 --> 01:19:36,120
Speaker 1: but it does look like it, okay. So let me

1649
01:19:36,160 --> 01:19:40,200
Speaker 1: just say in the in the Blurred Lions case when

1650
01:19:40,240 --> 01:19:42,800
Speaker 1: it went up on appeal, there was a descent in

1651
01:19:42,840 --> 01:19:45,600
Speaker 1: the Blurred Lince case that was completely a h percent right.

1652
01:19:45,640 --> 01:19:46,960
Speaker 1: You want to know if the law should be or

1653
01:19:47,040 --> 01:19:49,679
Speaker 1: the law is? Is what the descent said. How many

1654
01:19:49,760 --> 01:19:53,360
Speaker 1: judges were in that there's one dissenting to in the majority.

1655
01:19:53,680 --> 01:19:57,360
Speaker 1: The two in the majority uh upheld the trial court

1656
01:19:58,040 --> 01:20:00,960
Speaker 1: on procedural grounds that they didn't they didn't opine as

1657
01:20:01,000 --> 01:20:03,080
Speaker 1: to the merits of the case. She opined. The judge

1658
01:20:03,080 --> 01:20:06,000
Speaker 1: win applied pine is to the merits of the case

1659
01:20:06,040 --> 01:20:08,160
Speaker 1: and got it completely right. So if you want to

1660
01:20:08,160 --> 01:20:10,800
Speaker 1: know what that's what the law is. And I think

1661
01:20:11,680 --> 01:20:13,760
Speaker 1: I think she was the presiding judge in the m

1662
01:20:13,800 --> 01:20:16,879
Speaker 1: Bank appeal and that led Zeppelin case. So my prediction

1663
01:20:17,000 --> 01:20:19,040
Speaker 1: is that what she wrote in the Blurred Line case

1664
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:21,000
Speaker 1: is going to become law of the circuit, which is

1665
01:20:21,080 --> 01:20:23,880
Speaker 1: what it should be, okay? And where will that leave

1666
01:20:24,439 --> 01:20:28,280
Speaker 1: copyright infringement? Because the Blurred Lines made everybody anxious. Do

1667
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:32,120
Speaker 1: you think this will move it towards more liberalism or

1668
01:20:33,040 --> 01:20:35,240
Speaker 1: to be a crackdown. What do you think. I think

1669
01:20:35,439 --> 01:20:37,600
Speaker 1: it's gonna be. People will be free to create and

1670
01:20:37,640 --> 01:20:41,600
Speaker 1: have to worry about everything they write and generating infringement

1671
01:20:41,640 --> 01:20:44,720
Speaker 1: suit an infringement suit. I mean, it's just really, I mean,

1672
01:20:44,760 --> 01:20:47,920
Speaker 1: every time somebody and I represent has a hit, some

1673
01:20:48,080 --> 01:20:50,200
Speaker 1: idiot sends an email saying, I have a song on

1674
01:20:50,200 --> 01:20:53,080
Speaker 1: the internet. You must have heard because we have people

1675
01:20:53,080 --> 01:20:55,800
Speaker 1: that saw it on YouTube, and therefore you stole my song.

1676
01:20:55,920 --> 01:20:58,280
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's every single So certainly the

1677
01:20:58,360 --> 01:21:02,639
Speaker 1: Cathy Perry Katie because you have to prove access. This

1678
01:21:02,680 --> 01:21:05,280
Speaker 1: guy had some you know, Christians who would have heard it.

1679
01:21:05,960 --> 01:21:08,080
Speaker 1: While she was Christian at one point, so she might

1680
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 1: have heard. I mean, it's just it's just ridiculous. And

1681
01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:13,519
Speaker 1: the jury in the Blurredlines case nobody could read music. None,

1682
01:21:13,520 --> 01:21:18,400
Speaker 1: not one of the jurors can read music. It's just stupid. Okay,

1683
01:21:18,600 --> 01:21:23,280
Speaker 1: So if we look forward, what do we see in

1684
01:21:23,320 --> 01:21:27,679
Speaker 1: the music business, what do you mean in terms of Okay,

1685
01:21:27,800 --> 01:21:30,720
Speaker 1: let me go with differently you when it comes to

1686
01:21:30,760 --> 01:21:34,240
Speaker 1: anti trust law. I'll let you answer. Your viewpoint is

1687
01:21:35,080 --> 01:21:38,439
Speaker 1: there is virtually no anti trust anywhere. Okay. The only

1688
01:21:38,439 --> 01:21:40,680
Speaker 1: anti trust that this is gonna get me a lot

1689
01:21:40,720 --> 01:21:43,040
Speaker 1: of trouble. But the only anti trust that exists is

1690
01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:45,880
Speaker 1: when it's government supported and I trust like a T

1691
01:21:46,040 --> 01:21:48,960
Speaker 1: and T in the past or something like that. So

1692
01:21:49,080 --> 01:21:52,479
Speaker 1: in terms of company mergers, you're that you're totally cool

1693
01:21:52,520 --> 01:21:56,000
Speaker 1: with that, completely okay. So to talk about recently T

1694
01:21:56,200 --> 01:21:59,960
Speaker 1: Mobile and and T Mobile Sprint, totally fine. Yeah, okay,

1695
01:22:00,160 --> 01:22:03,200
Speaker 1: if there were further consolidation three labels to two, would

1696
01:22:03,200 --> 01:22:06,479
Speaker 1: that be fine? Yeah? Okay, So because you feel eventually

1697
01:22:06,520 --> 01:22:08,640
Speaker 1: there's a third party that will come. What do you

1698
01:22:08,680 --> 01:22:12,519
Speaker 1: think about Facebook and Snapchat and all that anybody have

1699
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:14,559
Speaker 1: a problem with them? I mean seriously, you know they

1700
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:18,880
Speaker 1: recently Snapchat has been logging the ways that face forget

1701
01:22:18,920 --> 01:22:22,240
Speaker 1: the government, Snapchat has been logging the way that Facebook

1702
01:22:22,479 --> 01:22:25,840
Speaker 1: has been anti competitive in their eyes, allowing may not

1703
01:22:25,880 --> 01:22:28,479
Speaker 1: allowing them to have any content on Instagram that is

1704
01:22:28,560 --> 01:22:33,040
Speaker 1: Snapchat oriented, uh, having a special program such that they

1705
01:22:33,080 --> 01:22:35,640
Speaker 1: could see what was going on in Snapchat. I mean

1706
01:22:35,640 --> 01:22:38,920
Speaker 1: there's some legal issues there also, you know, as opposed

1707
01:22:38,920 --> 01:22:41,840
Speaker 1: to just raw anti trust, but some of them in

1708
01:22:41,920 --> 01:22:45,320
Speaker 1: the privacy stuff and that you know, data, you know,

1709
01:22:45,400 --> 01:22:48,920
Speaker 1: snatching stuff, that's a different story. I mean that's that's

1710
01:22:48,920 --> 01:22:51,519
Speaker 1: its own it's its own problem, you know. I mean again,

1711
01:22:51,560 --> 01:22:55,080
Speaker 1: I don't have an opinion about that. Okay, let's go

1712
01:22:55,160 --> 01:22:59,160
Speaker 1: back to Metallica. Walk us through Metallica Napster. What you

1713
01:22:59,240 --> 01:23:02,120
Speaker 1: thought and what you think now and whatever. I don't

1714
01:23:02,320 --> 01:23:04,679
Speaker 1: think any differently than I thought then. I thought Napster

1715
01:23:04,840 --> 01:23:09,040
Speaker 1: was a massive bootlegging uh scheme, and and you know,

1716
01:23:09,040 --> 01:23:12,639
Speaker 1: everybody goes, well, you should have settled with Napster. Really,

1717
01:23:12,680 --> 01:23:15,360
Speaker 1: how are we supposed to settle They're charging nothing, They've

1718
01:23:15,400 --> 01:23:17,800
Speaker 1: got twenty five million followers. In order to get any

1719
01:23:17,840 --> 01:23:20,000
Speaker 1: decent income, we'd have to charge ten dollars a month,

1720
01:23:20,600 --> 01:23:23,120
Speaker 1: and we charged ten dollars a month, and you're still

1721
01:23:23,200 --> 01:23:25,479
Speaker 1: half the size of the business you work two years before,

1722
01:23:26,240 --> 01:23:28,719
Speaker 1: and somebody starts Crapster the next day, and it's another

1723
01:23:28,720 --> 01:23:31,800
Speaker 1: free service out there, another free file sharing service. So

1724
01:23:32,680 --> 01:23:35,160
Speaker 1: it was I never had a problem with it. I

1725
01:23:35,200 --> 01:23:37,240
Speaker 1: only felt bad for Laws and James because they took

1726
01:23:37,280 --> 01:23:40,680
Speaker 1: so much abuse. But in terms of like, do I

1727
01:23:40,760 --> 01:23:43,720
Speaker 1: think that that it was wrong to sue Napster? No,

1728
01:23:43,880 --> 01:23:46,479
Speaker 1: I'll never believe that. And everybody who thinks differently just

1729
01:23:46,600 --> 01:23:51,280
Speaker 1: wasn't there. Well, I certainly believe that Napster was copyright

1730
01:23:51,360 --> 01:23:54,200
Speaker 1: infringement on a massive scale, and I thought that the

1731
01:23:55,240 --> 01:23:58,599
Speaker 1: lawsuits and the parties proved that, although I was under

1732
01:23:58,640 --> 01:24:00,920
Speaker 1: the illusion there would be some kind of step forward,

1733
01:24:00,960 --> 01:24:06,200
Speaker 1: some kind of licensing deal after that decision was made. Yeah, well,

1734
01:24:06,240 --> 01:24:08,760
Speaker 1: I mean again, I don't know. I don't know how

1735
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:10,559
Speaker 1: you make a deal because it's so easy to just

1736
01:24:10,600 --> 01:24:14,360
Speaker 1: replicate what they're doing someplace else. So until you have

1737
01:24:14,439 --> 01:24:17,120
Speaker 1: the framework that it's clearly massive coyper and infringement and

1738
01:24:17,160 --> 01:24:19,000
Speaker 1: it's easy to shut down, there's no incentive to make

1739
01:24:19,040 --> 01:24:22,400
Speaker 1: a deal. Okay, but there were you know, the revenue

1740
01:24:22,479 --> 01:24:25,120
Speaker 1: from recorded music was going ultimately went down by a

1741
01:24:25,200 --> 01:24:28,879
Speaker 1: little bit more than half. What could the record companies?

1742
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:31,320
Speaker 1: What could the industry have done? Because they proved their

1743
01:24:31,320 --> 01:24:36,760
Speaker 1: point legally, but substantially substitutively, it was a loss for

1744
01:24:36,840 --> 01:24:40,200
Speaker 1: there for at least a decade. Yeah, but what was

1745
01:24:40,240 --> 01:24:42,960
Speaker 1: the alternative? I mean, they you know, remember they tried

1746
01:24:43,000 --> 01:24:46,760
Speaker 1: to start downloading services fair player, press player or whatever

1747
01:24:46,800 --> 01:24:48,960
Speaker 1: they were called press player. I think they're not good

1748
01:24:48,960 --> 01:24:51,280
Speaker 1: at that. They needed Apple to come in and solve

1749
01:24:51,320 --> 01:24:54,760
Speaker 1: their problems. I mean, they needed somebody to devise a

1750
01:24:54,800 --> 01:24:58,240
Speaker 1: system that people could use economically and and easily. And

1751
01:24:58,920 --> 01:25:00,400
Speaker 1: there was no deal. I mean may because there was

1752
01:25:00,439 --> 01:25:02,880
Speaker 1: no system in place that could could replace what these

1753
01:25:02,880 --> 01:25:05,599
Speaker 1: people were doing. But in addition to dragging their feet,

1754
01:25:06,040 --> 01:25:10,120
Speaker 1: they were actively whole putting, putting their heels in the

1755
01:25:10,160 --> 01:25:13,200
Speaker 1: past and not jumping into the future. That but naps

1756
01:25:13,280 --> 01:25:15,360
Speaker 1: there was never the future. I mean whatever I'm talking

1757
01:25:15,360 --> 01:25:18,479
Speaker 1: about it forgetting Napster nas Napster's done. And then there

1758
01:25:18,479 --> 01:25:21,040
Speaker 1: were other companies as hard to get a license because

1759
01:25:21,040 --> 01:25:23,240
Speaker 1: then it became okay, we don't know what your business is.

1760
01:25:23,640 --> 01:25:25,479
Speaker 1: And I mean this gets very complicated. I don't want

1761
01:25:25,479 --> 01:25:27,960
Speaker 1: to go that far into it. But they were reluctant

1762
01:25:28,360 --> 01:25:31,040
Speaker 1: to make deals that might have been beneficial to them,

1763
01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:35,480
Speaker 1: or they were reluctant to give away there there assets

1764
01:25:35,840 --> 01:25:38,080
Speaker 1: for some startup company that's gonna make a lot of

1765
01:25:38,120 --> 01:25:40,200
Speaker 1: money on the back of the music. As I say,

1766
01:25:40,240 --> 01:25:43,000
Speaker 1: I think that the truth. I think they I think

1767
01:25:43,040 --> 01:25:46,280
Speaker 1: that's true conceptually and the other there. You know, it's

1768
01:25:46,080 --> 01:25:48,240
Speaker 1: just like people every you know, certainly once a week

1769
01:25:48,280 --> 01:25:50,680
Speaker 1: somebody emails me. At this late date, I have a

1770
01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:52,439
Speaker 1: way to save the music business, you know, I don't.

1771
01:25:52,640 --> 01:25:55,640
Speaker 1: I don't respond anyway. But it's like, even if you

1772
01:25:55,720 --> 01:25:58,400
Speaker 1: had this idea that was like eighteen years ago, no

1773
01:25:58,439 --> 01:26:00,680
Speaker 1: one even cares now, and we all learned unless you

1774
01:26:00,680 --> 01:26:02,840
Speaker 1: weren't connected to talk about, you know, if you unless

1775
01:26:02,840 --> 01:26:08,479
Speaker 1: you have relationships, nothing's gonna happen anyway. So uh, let's

1776
01:26:08,479 --> 01:26:11,080
Speaker 1: say you no listen. It's worked out at this point.

1777
01:26:11,120 --> 01:26:13,880
Speaker 1: But as I say, the business has changed completely. In

1778
01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:18,000
Speaker 1: my viewpoint, the major labels, by having such a narrow focus,

1779
01:26:18,280 --> 01:26:21,200
Speaker 1: are seating the territory and all this other music, and

1780
01:26:21,920 --> 01:26:24,760
Speaker 1: I think to their detriment. I don't disagree with you,

1781
01:26:24,800 --> 01:26:27,240
Speaker 1: but we'll see if we're right. I mean, the point

1782
01:26:27,240 --> 01:26:31,680
Speaker 1: of it is that that, um, you know, all this

1783
01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:33,760
Speaker 1: other music is not broken through on the level, at

1784
01:26:33,840 --> 01:26:35,840
Speaker 1: least on a streaming level. That that the stuff that

1785
01:26:35,880 --> 01:26:38,760
Speaker 1: the major labels chase does. And so if you're right,

1786
01:26:38,840 --> 01:26:42,559
Speaker 1: in two or three years, some random not hip hop,

1787
01:26:42,920 --> 01:26:46,599
Speaker 1: Atlanta trap band or artist is going to break through

1788
01:26:46,720 --> 01:26:52,640
Speaker 1: like Billie Eilish. Um, you know, um, but I'm not

1789
01:26:52,680 --> 01:26:55,240
Speaker 1: disagreeing with you, but it hasn't happened yet except for

1790
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:59,400
Speaker 1: Billie Eilish. Okay, you represent Frank Ocean, right, Yes, well,

1791
01:26:59,400 --> 01:27:03,360
Speaker 1: I don't mean are firms afirmed those He famously delivered

1792
01:27:03,360 --> 01:27:06,479
Speaker 1: an album on his contract and then put out another

1793
01:27:06,560 --> 01:27:10,800
Speaker 1: album independently shortly thereafter. Yes, what was your viewpoint on

1794
01:27:10,840 --> 01:27:13,719
Speaker 1: that in terms of what I mean? Well, some people

1795
01:27:13,760 --> 01:27:19,560
Speaker 1: say that the label was blindsided, certainly legal under the circumstances.

1796
01:27:19,600 --> 01:27:22,600
Speaker 1: Is that your viewpoint? Or is there an obligation to

1797
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:25,960
Speaker 1: the previous contract holder? I don't think there's an obligation

1798
01:27:26,000 --> 01:27:28,599
Speaker 1: in the previous contract holder. What record contract is ever

1799
01:27:28,760 --> 01:27:30,639
Speaker 1: fair in favor of the artist? The fact that they've

1800
01:27:30,840 --> 01:27:33,920
Speaker 1: made a mistake here, it's so rare. I mean, that's

1801
01:27:33,960 --> 01:27:35,720
Speaker 1: kind of what I live to take advantage of. And

1802
01:27:36,120 --> 01:27:40,240
Speaker 1: again it wasn't my particular case, but but I mean,

1803
01:27:40,320 --> 01:27:43,000
Speaker 1: these record contracts are heinous. They're eighty pages along and

1804
01:27:43,120 --> 01:27:47,320
Speaker 1: type this the size of a pen prick, and all

1805
01:27:47,360 --> 01:27:50,479
Speaker 1: they are is basically ways for that they can grab, right,

1806
01:27:50,520 --> 01:27:53,840
Speaker 1: So they label basically owns the artist. They want pieces

1807
01:27:53,840 --> 01:27:55,639
Speaker 1: of your tory, and they want to have These label

1808
01:27:55,640 --> 01:27:58,600
Speaker 1: waivers are just annoying beyond belief where you have to

1809
01:27:58,600 --> 01:28:00,439
Speaker 1: get a label waiver for your the US to do

1810
01:28:00,479 --> 01:28:04,080
Speaker 1: anything because they're basically owned by the label. Okay, you know,

1811
01:28:04,320 --> 01:28:08,920
Speaker 1: the interesting thing is is, you know, the major labels

1812
01:28:08,960 --> 01:28:11,920
Speaker 1: steal from the acts. Even if they go into royalties,

1813
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:13,679
Speaker 1: they have a lot of ways they don't pay, etcetera.

1814
01:28:13,960 --> 01:28:16,600
Speaker 1: Why do the labels think they can get paid accurately

1815
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:19,840
Speaker 1: on the touring and these other things. Well they if

1816
01:28:19,880 --> 01:28:24,040
Speaker 1: they think that, they're kidding themselves. I mean, as always said,

1817
01:28:24,080 --> 01:28:27,840
Speaker 1: there's nobody smarter at stealing money than a promoter. And

1818
01:28:27,920 --> 01:28:29,720
Speaker 1: they don't know that. And at least we know a

1819
01:28:29,720 --> 01:28:31,439
Speaker 1: little bit about what the promoters do. They just they

1820
01:28:31,560 --> 01:28:34,800
Speaker 1: started hiring ex promoters and to to to police this thing.

1821
01:28:35,200 --> 01:28:41,639
Speaker 1: The labels are not as they're not as what's untransparent. Uh,

1822
01:28:41,720 --> 01:28:44,200
Speaker 1: they're they're more transparent than they've been in the past.

1823
01:28:44,280 --> 01:28:47,439
Speaker 1: I don't really. I think there's you know, like the

1824
01:28:47,479 --> 01:28:49,080
Speaker 1: back of the day where they sell records out of

1825
01:28:49,080 --> 01:28:50,960
Speaker 1: the back of a truck and not report them or

1826
01:28:51,000 --> 01:28:55,360
Speaker 1: you know, want of Uh well it's thirty years past.

1827
01:28:55,400 --> 01:28:58,720
Speaker 1: It's actual limitation. But Electric Records had a CFO who

1828
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:01,320
Speaker 1: had an account in Hawaii called Jackson Hawaiian. They code

1829
01:29:01,320 --> 01:29:03,719
Speaker 1: it with the free goods anything that went to Jackson, Hawaii,

1830
01:29:04,200 --> 01:29:06,360
Speaker 1: which was their They didn't have a distributor in Hawaii.

1831
01:29:06,479 --> 01:29:08,400
Speaker 1: So they sent all these records of Jackson. Why they

1832
01:29:08,400 --> 01:29:10,559
Speaker 1: would be coded as free goods and the artists wouldn't

1833
01:29:10,560 --> 01:29:12,519
Speaker 1: get paid on any records for like five years sold

1834
01:29:12,520 --> 01:29:17,120
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. There's not that anymore. They're owned by major corporations,

1835
01:29:17,120 --> 01:29:21,519
Speaker 1: they're public. They don't really steal overtly. They steal with

1836
01:29:21,600 --> 01:29:24,559
Speaker 1: the pen, you know. They basically, like I said, eighty

1837
01:29:24,600 --> 01:29:28,640
Speaker 1: pages of oppressive contract. They that's where they do it.

1838
01:29:28,640 --> 01:29:31,800
Speaker 1: It's not really the old school, you know. Well, what

1839
01:29:31,920 --> 01:29:34,120
Speaker 1: I find is, you know, they have these royalty clauses

1840
01:29:34,439 --> 01:29:37,400
Speaker 1: and they give them to completely unskilled people to calculate

1841
01:29:37,439 --> 01:29:40,040
Speaker 1: the royalty. Is just crazy. Yeah, you know, you get

1842
01:29:40,080 --> 01:29:43,479
Speaker 1: screwed that way. So what are the challenges you find

1843
01:29:43,600 --> 01:29:47,960
Speaker 1: artists have or clients have in today's business. I think

1844
01:29:48,000 --> 01:29:51,960
Speaker 1: I said it before, sustaining a recording career, not sustaining

1845
01:29:52,040 --> 01:29:55,960
Speaker 1: hey touring career, because most of the artists can, you know,

1846
01:29:56,000 --> 01:29:58,040
Speaker 1: build a touring base and sustain it by going out

1847
01:29:58,080 --> 01:30:01,000
Speaker 1: on the road and working. But it's really hard. The

1848
01:30:01,040 --> 01:30:03,360
Speaker 1: turnover is kind of incredible. I mean, you know, when

1849
01:30:03,360 --> 01:30:05,559
Speaker 1: you take an artists as big and as great as

1850
01:30:05,560 --> 01:30:07,920
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, and you sit there and look, and every

1851
01:30:07,920 --> 01:30:09,759
Speaker 1: time she puts out a record, it's like, is anybody

1852
01:30:09,840 --> 01:30:12,880
Speaker 1: gonna care? I mean, she's really talented. People should care.

1853
01:30:12,920 --> 01:30:15,839
Speaker 1: But it's not like, you know, at least you'd get

1854
01:30:15,880 --> 01:30:18,000
Speaker 1: a slightly longer career. Back in the old days, you

1855
01:30:18,040 --> 01:30:20,759
Speaker 1: could extend your career. Now it's just really, every every

1856
01:30:20,760 --> 01:30:23,559
Speaker 1: record is an adventure. There's no you know, there's no

1857
01:30:23,680 --> 01:30:26,120
Speaker 1: guarantee that you're gonna you know, it's just because they've

1858
01:30:26,120 --> 01:30:28,680
Speaker 1: had past success, they're gonna future success. Not that there

1859
01:30:28,720 --> 01:30:30,599
Speaker 1: ever was, but there's even less than I think than

1860
01:30:30,600 --> 01:30:34,360
Speaker 1: there used to be. Right, So, if someone who's anticipating

1861
01:30:34,360 --> 01:30:36,040
Speaker 1: a deal with a major label comes to you, will

1862
01:30:36,080 --> 01:30:40,559
Speaker 1: you negotiate that? Yeah? Oh yeah, you know. I mean, look,

1863
01:30:41,360 --> 01:30:44,559
Speaker 1: there's interesting there's an interesting sub phenomenon with all these

1864
01:30:44,720 --> 01:30:48,519
Speaker 1: hip hop acts. Um, the ones that are blowing up virally.

1865
01:30:49,120 --> 01:30:51,200
Speaker 1: You know, they get to ten or twenty million streams

1866
01:30:51,200 --> 01:30:53,960
Speaker 1: on their own, the labels start bidding like crazy for them,

1867
01:30:54,000 --> 01:30:57,240
Speaker 1: so you can actually leverage the bidding war to get

1868
01:30:57,240 --> 01:30:59,479
Speaker 1: fair terms. Although most of the hip hop acts just

1869
01:30:59,560 --> 01:31:03,120
Speaker 1: care about the money. But I mean, to me, you know,

1870
01:31:03,240 --> 01:31:05,040
Speaker 1: maybe that's not wrong. I mean again, if you don't

1871
01:31:05,040 --> 01:31:06,519
Speaker 1: think you're gonna have a career, get as much money

1872
01:31:06,560 --> 01:31:08,439
Speaker 1: as you can today. If you think hip hop acts

1873
01:31:08,439 --> 01:31:10,240
Speaker 1: do or do not care about I care about money.

1874
01:31:10,360 --> 01:31:12,360
Speaker 1: So you know you'll get two or three million dollars

1875
01:31:12,880 --> 01:31:14,600
Speaker 1: as an advance for a hip hop act. And the

1876
01:31:14,680 --> 01:31:16,760
Speaker 1: label's bet is that I can take these twenty million

1877
01:31:16,760 --> 01:31:19,599
Speaker 1: streams and tournam into half a billion streams, which case

1878
01:31:19,640 --> 01:31:23,080
Speaker 1: I've covered my bat and then everything's gravy after that,

1879
01:31:23,200 --> 01:31:28,240
Speaker 1: you know, so it's a little bit risky. And you know, again,

1880
01:31:28,280 --> 01:31:29,920
Speaker 1: what I've always done in my career is trying to

1881
01:31:29,920 --> 01:31:33,960
Speaker 1: get the artists much of an option as I possibly can.

1882
01:31:34,160 --> 01:31:36,519
Speaker 1: So the number of albums they owe the record company,

1883
01:31:36,560 --> 01:31:39,160
Speaker 1: or number tracks the old the record company to a minimum,

1884
01:31:39,200 --> 01:31:41,559
Speaker 1: I try to give them as much opportunity to get

1885
01:31:41,600 --> 01:31:44,160
Speaker 1: free as possible, so that you know, when a new

1886
01:31:44,200 --> 01:31:46,519
Speaker 1: trend comes around, they do not beholding to a label.

1887
01:31:46,680 --> 01:31:48,519
Speaker 1: But you know, if you don't think your artist is

1888
01:31:48,600 --> 01:31:49,880
Speaker 1: gonna have a career and then get as much money

1889
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:52,160
Speaker 1: as you possibly can, how about the opposite. You have

1890
01:31:52,160 --> 01:31:56,160
Speaker 1: an artist that's got some live traction, but nothing's going

1891
01:31:56,200 --> 01:32:01,920
Speaker 1: on in recordings. You know, I mean, let me give it.

1892
01:32:01,920 --> 01:32:03,879
Speaker 1: It's not a great example, but it's a good example.

1893
01:32:03,960 --> 01:32:08,639
Speaker 1: Anderson Park guys phenomenally talented. He does great live business.

1894
01:32:09,000 --> 01:32:11,559
Speaker 1: He's one track away from from having a massive career.

1895
01:32:11,680 --> 01:32:14,680
Speaker 1: So you just keep trying. I mean, you don't. I

1896
01:32:14,680 --> 01:32:16,400
Speaker 1: mean that's really kind of what you do. You just

1897
01:32:16,479 --> 01:32:19,439
Speaker 1: keep trying and uh and if worst comes to worst,

1898
01:32:19,439 --> 01:32:23,639
Speaker 1: hopefully you keep your touring base and heritage. Jack's should

1899
01:32:23,640 --> 01:32:25,840
Speaker 1: they even put out new music? What do you say not?

1900
01:32:26,000 --> 01:32:28,559
Speaker 1: I think they should. I think you know. I mean, look,

1901
01:32:29,680 --> 01:32:33,040
Speaker 1: I'm a big Beach Boys fan. Brian Wilson puts out records.

1902
01:32:33,040 --> 01:32:36,439
Speaker 1: Everybody talks about how terrible they are. They're not. They're

1903
01:32:36,439 --> 01:32:38,880
Speaker 1: not terrible. They're actually pretty good. And Paul McCartney, you'll

1904
01:32:38,920 --> 01:32:41,000
Speaker 1: have a couple of good songs on every record I'll have.

1905
01:32:41,320 --> 01:32:44,400
Speaker 1: They're not they're not day in life, but they're decent songs.

1906
01:32:44,439 --> 01:32:46,760
Speaker 1: And so you know, go do it. I mean, why

1907
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:48,640
Speaker 1: wouldn't you do it? It It gives you know, unless you

1908
01:32:48,720 --> 01:32:51,680
Speaker 1: just don't want to. And then if someone listening to

1909
01:32:51,760 --> 01:32:55,040
Speaker 1: this who's thinking about a career as a music attorney,

1910
01:32:55,040 --> 01:32:58,640
Speaker 1: what would you tell them, Well, it's really interesting. For

1911
01:32:58,680 --> 01:33:00,960
Speaker 1: a period of time there was anybody thinking about doing

1912
01:33:00,960 --> 01:33:03,519
Speaker 1: a career as a music attorney. The business sucked and

1913
01:33:03,600 --> 01:33:08,240
Speaker 1: technology was where the action was. You know, um, you know,

1914
01:33:08,320 --> 01:33:10,160
Speaker 1: I mean again, if it's if you love music and

1915
01:33:10,200 --> 01:33:12,960
Speaker 1: you want to do something and hopefully things are looking up,

1916
01:33:13,200 --> 01:33:15,559
Speaker 1: you know, why not do it? Things that things do

1917
01:33:15,680 --> 01:33:18,080
Speaker 1: look a lot rosier than they did five years ago.

1918
01:33:18,520 --> 01:33:21,160
Speaker 1: And what's the easiest or best way for someone who

1919
01:33:21,479 --> 01:33:24,160
Speaker 1: does have a legal degree to get into music. It's

1920
01:33:24,200 --> 01:33:26,479
Speaker 1: not easy, and you just gotta find somebody like me

1921
01:33:26,600 --> 01:33:29,479
Speaker 1: or you know, done passes firm they were willing to

1922
01:33:29,560 --> 01:33:31,280
Speaker 1: take a chance on you, or go work at a label.

1923
01:33:31,320 --> 01:33:32,679
Speaker 1: If you can get a job at a label, it's

1924
01:33:32,920 --> 01:33:34,559
Speaker 1: it's like anything else, you know, you got to figure

1925
01:33:34,600 --> 01:33:37,120
Speaker 1: out how to get your way in. And so how

1926
01:33:37,120 --> 01:33:41,840
Speaker 1: many attorneys work in the firm now? Um, about about

1927
01:33:41,840 --> 01:33:44,599
Speaker 1: half of which are music lawyers and the other half

1928
01:33:44,640 --> 01:33:48,639
Speaker 1: are some litigators corporate guys. And how many support staff?

1929
01:33:49,280 --> 01:33:52,280
Speaker 1: But we have about ten paralegals and I don't know

1930
01:33:52,320 --> 01:33:55,360
Speaker 1: how many assistants are here. And in terms of management

1931
01:33:55,360 --> 01:33:57,160
Speaker 1: of the firm, are you involved in that at all?

1932
01:33:59,400 --> 01:34:01,519
Speaker 1: I like how to do most of that stuff? I

1933
01:34:01,840 --> 01:34:04,559
Speaker 1: worked too much? I really do Okay, So yeah, I

1934
01:34:04,560 --> 01:34:06,599
Speaker 1: know you're working around the clock. You get an email

1935
01:34:06,640 --> 01:34:10,320
Speaker 1: from you at twelve, When do you not work to

1936
01:34:10,400 --> 01:34:14,439
Speaker 1: service business? You're on all the time, and the thought

1937
01:34:14,479 --> 01:34:19,720
Speaker 1: of the thought of potentially retiring, Uh not yet. I mean,

1938
01:34:19,800 --> 01:34:24,040
Speaker 1: you know, I was I was witness and an expert witness.

1939
01:34:24,040 --> 01:34:26,160
Speaker 1: And Milt Milt Alan was a music lawyer that was

1940
01:34:26,320 --> 01:34:29,680
Speaker 1: tragically he was tragically killed by a cop texting on

1941
01:34:29,760 --> 01:34:32,519
Speaker 1: Mulholland when he was riding his bike, and it was

1942
01:34:32,560 --> 01:34:36,240
Speaker 1: a wrongful death case. And the insurance company was trying

1943
01:34:36,240 --> 01:34:38,479
Speaker 1: to show that he was sixty six year ols old

1944
01:34:38,520 --> 01:34:40,479
Speaker 1: when he died and he wasn't gonna have much of

1945
01:34:40,479 --> 01:34:43,240
Speaker 1: a career, was going to retire soon. So they interviewed

1946
01:34:43,280 --> 01:34:44,760
Speaker 1: me and said, well, what do you think I go?

1947
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:50,040
Speaker 1: Like Jake Cooper was still pricingalized Lee Phillips in his eighties, said,

1948
01:34:50,120 --> 01:34:52,519
Speaker 1: music lawyers and basically all lawyers get taken out on

1949
01:34:52,560 --> 01:34:55,160
Speaker 1: the slab. They didn't retire, they just get taken out

1950
01:34:55,160 --> 01:34:57,520
Speaker 1: on the slab. And I we knew, Bill, why didn't

1951
01:34:57,520 --> 01:35:00,479
Speaker 1: give it up? No? Exactly, Peter, this has been wonderful.

1952
01:35:00,520 --> 01:35:02,920
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your wisdom and your stories. Okay,

1953
01:35:02,960 --> 01:35:03,479
Speaker 1: thanks Bob,