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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sense Podcast.

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Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Steve Luke,

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Speaker 1: guitarist extraordinaire, songwriter, singer, member of Toto. Luke, you stop

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Speaker 1: dying your hair? What's that about?

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Speaker 2: You know? I turned sixty five in October and I

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Speaker 2: me at my son's house at his studio. And when

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Speaker 2: I told him a long time ago, when he was

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Speaker 2: young and I was still younger, I said, hey, man,

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Speaker 2: if I start looking like the old guy with the

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Speaker 2: jet black hair, you gotta tell me. And he said yeah,

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Speaker 2: and that was a long time ago. And on my

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Speaker 2: sixty fifth birthday was letting the beard go a little

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Speaker 2: bit and he goes, pop, it's time, and he goes,

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Speaker 2: Jimmy pay it's Brian May your friends. You know. It's like,

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Speaker 2: you know, I said, you know what, I had no

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Speaker 2: idea what color it was going to be, because I've

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Speaker 2: been dying it since I was thirty two years old,

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Speaker 2: thirty one years old, so I didn't know what color

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Speaker 2: was underneath. I'm kind of glad it's white because it

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Speaker 2: gives a little bit more of a thing. And you

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Speaker 2: know there and also people were giving me shit and

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Speaker 2: say hey, you weren't a wig or something like that,

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Speaker 2: and going, no, dude, why would I wear a wig

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Speaker 2: that looks like this? And when it all went, I

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Speaker 2: still got the hair. So I said, well, I'm just

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Speaker 2: going to be an old embrace my old age. You know,

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Speaker 2: I'm going to be sixty six in October, so I'm

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Speaker 2: not trying to fool anybody. It was just the knee

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Speaker 2: jerk thing I've been doing for thirty years, and that

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Speaker 2: kept doing it and then it just became a pain

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Speaker 2: in the ass. So fuck that.

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Speaker 1: It looks very dignified. This is audio only, but you

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Speaker 1: go online there are pictures of in many places, you know,

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Speaker 1: speaking of your son, there's a picture I think the

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Speaker 1: first time I saw you without dyed. Here was the

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Speaker 1: picture at your son's wedding.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was letting it go. I gradually I started

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Speaker 2: washing it out because it well, you know, and eventually

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Speaker 2: it just all came out and this is what was

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Speaker 2: underneath it.

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Speaker 1: So you're at your son, Trevor's house studio. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: he's the tech wizard. You're not that good with tech?

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Speaker 2: All right. I'm lucky to get my underwear off and

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Speaker 2: before I go into shower, that's how low tech I am.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Luke, you have a new solo album, Bridges. How

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Speaker 1: did this come about?

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Speaker 2: Well, pandemic coming out of the pandemic. I did a

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Speaker 2: record before the pandemic, like a month before the lockdown.

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Speaker 2: That was two years ago or whatever it was, and

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Speaker 2: I was all live in the studio, very self indulgent,

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Speaker 2: if you will. I wanted to do something where I

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Speaker 2: didn't overdub anything but the voice, and that's what we did.

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Speaker 2: Didn't fix anything. So I did that now edited to

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Speaker 2: two years later the sun was going to come back on,

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Speaker 2: because for a while we didn't know if it was

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Speaker 2: ever going to come back right. It was a very

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Speaker 2: terrible time for me. I mean I went into a

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Speaker 2: manic depression hole that may doctor was scared about. I

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Speaker 2: was taking medication sport, and that got all squirrel.

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Speaker 1: A little bit slower because you're a very upbeat guy.

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Speaker 1: Although you know we talked about your down moods medication before.

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Speaker 1: But tell me about this descent and how bad you were.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you live through it yourself. I mean

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Speaker 2: we hit a brick wall, go in a thousand miles

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Speaker 2: an hour. I had touring plants, I had all kinds

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Speaker 2: of a year planned out in advance, because these things

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Speaker 2: take a while to get together, as you well know,

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Speaker 2: and all of a sudden boom done, no idea when

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Speaker 2: or if it's ever going to come back. Are we're

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Speaker 2: all going to die from this thing? You know, everybody's

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Speaker 2: sitting in their house with a mask on, scared to

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Speaker 2: death to touch anybody or anything. And I went into

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Speaker 2: a black hole. After first couple of months, it's like, ah,

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Speaker 2: they great have being homes in the Nine Stabs some

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Speaker 2: time off, and then it started to suck day by day.

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Speaker 2: There was nothing to look forward to, no reason to

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Speaker 2: get out of bed. I descended into my own private

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Speaker 2: hell and it just lost its way and I had

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Speaker 2: a massive breakdown. I did. I ended up in hospital

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Speaker 2: and ended up in a crazy house. It was very

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Speaker 2: scary time for me. I didn't know what to do

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Speaker 2: with myself, Bob, I really didn't. I'm sorry. I've been

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Speaker 2: NonStop since I was a kid. You know. I did

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Speaker 2: my first union sessions in nineteen seventy six when I

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Speaker 2: was eighteen years old at United Western three where they

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Speaker 2: cut pet sounds, and that's when I was going, Wow,

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Speaker 2: this is really starting to happen, you know. And I

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Speaker 2: never stopped. I've been busy ever since, unless I wanted

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Speaker 2: to take a few weeks off the vacation, which was

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Speaker 2: not often. So when it all just stopped, I'm like,

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Speaker 2: what do I do with myself? I don't know what

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Speaker 2: to do, you know. And it was a very scary

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Speaker 2: time for me. And once I pulled out of that

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Speaker 2: dive and got myself together and got with a great

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Speaker 2: doc and cleaned all that grubbish out that I was

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Speaker 2: taking for this depression, which was not good for me

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Speaker 2: at all. And of course, you know if one makes

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Speaker 2: you feel better, what happens if you take five? You

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Speaker 2: know what I mean? And they got to that, you

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Speaker 2: know what I mean. I was ashamed to say it,

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Speaker 2: but I lost control of my life and it was

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Speaker 2: a terrible time for me. And when I came out

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Speaker 2: of it and woke up, I wanted to make some music.

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Speaker 2: I knew we were going to get back on the road.

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Speaker 2: I was once I started back in and we could

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Speaker 2: do something again. Plan okay, we can tour again. Got

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Speaker 2: all that together and we had two months off and

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Speaker 2: I go, I want to do something. So I called

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Speaker 2: up my old pile David Page, then Joseph Williams, my

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Speaker 2: total partners and childhood friends. I said, let's make a

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Speaker 2: record like old school. Let's make a shamelessly eighties who

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Speaker 2: gives a fuck record like I'm not trying to Oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to change the world. I'm not going

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Speaker 2: to sell eight million copies like we used to. But

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Speaker 2: I want to scratch the you know. I want to

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Speaker 2: make a fun record with all of us guys and

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Speaker 2: invite back Simon Phillips, who hadn't played with us in

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Speaker 2: a long time, was our drummer, legendary drummer. And Shannon Forrest,

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Speaker 2: who played with us last time the last incarnation I

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Speaker 2: Just a Lease Clark came in. Jurgen Carlson from Government Mule.

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Speaker 2: My Son produced and co wrote a track I Just did.

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Speaker 2: We did it in three weeks, from soup to nuts,

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Speaker 2: and then I sat on it for a year because

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Speaker 2: we went on the road, and then we mixed it

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Speaker 2: and it's coming out in June sixteenth.

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Speaker 1: Okay, one other name you didn't mention, which I found interesting.

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Speaker 1: Randy Goodroom is involved. How did that come together? Oh?

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Speaker 2: Randy is one of my favorite songwriting partners. We started

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Speaker 2: writing songs in the mid eighties, and we had our

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Speaker 2: first hit with a song called I'll Be Over You,

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Speaker 2: which is lasted some time. A matter of fact that

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Speaker 2: it just went gold after all these years.

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Speaker 1: So well, at this point that's my favorite Toto song.

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Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, really, Oh that's interesting.

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Speaker 1: You know, Toto four is vastly underrated. That was first

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Speaker 1: album with Joseph Williams.

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Speaker 2: Honest, no, no, no, no, it wasn't. Total four was

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Speaker 2: the album that we was the last album we did

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Speaker 2: with Bobby Kimball singer.

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Speaker 1: Well that's not what way. It was called Fahrenheit.

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Speaker 2: Fahrenheit was the record that Joseph joined up. But Joseph

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Speaker 2: and I have been for instance, we were teenagers.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, Joseph is the son of the composer John Williams. Yes,

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Speaker 1: how'd you meet Joseph?

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Speaker 2: Therest brother Mark who's a drummer, and myself and famous

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Speaker 2: guitar player Michael Landau and I've been friends since we

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Speaker 2: were twelve and bass players playing with Toto. Now John Pierce,

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Speaker 2: we had a high school one of our many high

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Speaker 2: school bands together, and that's how I met Joe, his

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Speaker 2: little brother, and Joe could sing really great. He was

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Speaker 2: really funny, and we sort of lost touch for a minute.

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Speaker 2: And then when we were looking for another singer, he

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Speaker 2: came in an audition and he had great songs to

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Speaker 2: go along with it. Plus I knew him as its

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Speaker 2: like this guy's great, perfect and we all fought and

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Speaker 2: everybody else fell in love with him, and then we

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Speaker 2: started making the records together.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so you got this record. How'd you write the

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Speaker 1: songs you.

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Speaker 2: Mean on my new record? Yeah? Well, met called up

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Speaker 2: page said meet you at Jose at noon. Let's see

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Speaker 2: what we got. Every day we come in with nothing,

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Speaker 2: and every day we would leave with a fairly well

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Speaker 2: constructed track with an idea for what lyrics and melodies

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Speaker 2: that we had wed. And then we'd say, hmm, well,

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Speaker 2: I want to get this done quick. Who are we

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Speaker 2: going to call? So I called either Stan Lynch, who's

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Speaker 2: a dear friend who used to be the drummer in

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Speaker 2: the Heartbreakers, but he's also a great lyricist, producer, did

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Speaker 2: the Eagles, Handley and all that stuff, and he writes

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Speaker 2: incredible words and he knows he has my demented sense

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Speaker 2: of humor as well. And then Randy Goodram was the

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Speaker 2: other guy who was my go to when it comes

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Speaker 2: to writing ballads and stuff like that. We had we

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Speaker 2: have something. I write these piano songs, and I have

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Speaker 2: it all together except the words I can. Then we

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Speaker 2: talk about how I'm feeling, what I want to write about,

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Speaker 2: and he comes back with this poetic stuff that I

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Speaker 2: would have never been able to come up with on

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Speaker 2: my own. Because you know, I can write words. I'm

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Speaker 2: also better at editing what somebody else gives me. I

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Speaker 2: need a help getting started with it. Then I'm a closer.

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Speaker 2: I like to finish stuff, but I'm not afraid to

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Speaker 2: ask for help from guys that really are good at

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Speaker 2: their gig, you know, and Randy's one of the best.

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Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You show up, you got nothing,

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Speaker 1: A little bit slower. How do you end up with something?

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Speaker 2: Somebody starts playing some either I have a little bit

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Speaker 2: of it. I start dicking around with the riff, and

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Speaker 2: Page jumps in on the keyboards. We set up a

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Speaker 2: little drum groove, you know, on a machine, with the

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Speaker 2: intent of having real musicians play on it. But you know,

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Speaker 2: the other thing is like, we don't do demos. Everything's

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Speaker 2: a master no such thing as demos because a lot

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Speaker 2: of times your original I vibe and the creativity comes

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Speaker 2: without thought, you know what I mean, It just comes.

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Speaker 2: Start thinking about it too much, Oh I'm gonna have

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Speaker 2: to redo that, and then it's never as good. Maybe

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Speaker 2: sonically might be better, but we're as we're recording on

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Speaker 2: pro tools are logic. When we were working in logic,

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Speaker 2: it just sounds great, so there's no reason to redo it.

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Speaker 2: So we sort of like made this as opposed to

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Speaker 2: the last time, where everybody was in the room at

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Speaker 2: the same time, everything live. This time, we just the

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Speaker 2: three of us, Joseph, myself and David were working and

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Speaker 2: we'd start overdubbing and start coming up with stuff in

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Speaker 2: the forum would take place. We'd have a song done

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Speaker 2: in less than an hour every day, with the exception

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Speaker 2: of the lyrics. But we start overdubbing, and you know,

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Speaker 2: I said, let's just shamelessly overproduce this like we used to.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the drum machine is only in your headphones

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Speaker 1: and you replace it with real drums later.

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Speaker 2: Yah, No, we weren't wearing headphones. We were playing through

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Speaker 2: the speakers and stuff like that, and uh.

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Speaker 1: Well, how do you replace the drum machine? Then?

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Speaker 2: In the final product, well you take it, get a

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Speaker 2: real higher, real drummer, and most of the song is

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Speaker 2: completely done except for the bass and the real bass

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Speaker 2: and drums. I like put that on last, and so

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Speaker 2: he knew exactly what he was playing, so you have

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Speaker 2: a click track with it. He can so he doesn't

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Speaker 2: listen to the drum track. You know. We play the

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Speaker 2: rough form once and we have a chart written out

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Speaker 2: so everybody knows who we are, so we get stuff

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Speaker 2: done real fast. Simon Phillips can read, you know, first

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Speaker 2: take stuff, you know, and he knows what to play.

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Speaker 2: I'd have to tell him. He here, he goes, I

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Speaker 2: know what to play. So the nothing no more than

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Speaker 2: one or two takes on anything. The other stuff I

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Speaker 2: set to Shannon Forest via the Internet and he was

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Speaker 2: living in his studio in Nashville, and he's he's an

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Speaker 2: unbelievably great studio. He's a great engineer, great player, and

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Speaker 2: he'd send me back the stuff. Now I go, that's great.

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Speaker 2: Or sometimes I was in the room with Simon Trevor

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Speaker 2: and I went out. My son Trevor, who worked on

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Speaker 2: the record, co produced his track. He produced his track.

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Speaker 2: He didn't cop we just like I want to let

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Speaker 2: my son go with it. But that's what we can

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Speaker 2: talk about that later. But I just I try and

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Speaker 2: know who to call. It's like you know who to call,

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Speaker 2: who's going to do the job. And I wanted to

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Speaker 2: work with my old friends too. You know, people think

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Speaker 2: O Simon's on the band anymore, so I almost hate him,

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Speaker 2: and that's not true. He thinks everybody moves on. It

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Speaker 2: was his choice to move on. We're all still friends,

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Speaker 2: you know.

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Speaker 1: Okay, just technically because I'm interested. If you're in the

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Speaker 1: room and everything through speakers, you hear the drum machine,

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Speaker 1: but everything is recorded separately in logic, so you can

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Speaker 1: pull the drums drum machine. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I had my amps in another room out, you know,

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Speaker 2: so that you couldn't hear them while we're in the room.

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Speaker 2: So it was coming through the speakers like you would

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Speaker 2: have listening to any recording. Uh. And David was going direct,

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Speaker 2: as was Joe, so there was no leakids or anything

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Speaker 2: like that. So we were able to use everything.

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Speaker 1: Okay, And how do you decide what to use on

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Speaker 1: the final record?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Throughout the process, I mean, as we're adding vocals,

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Speaker 2: it's I mean, Joseph Williams produced the record because hey,

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Speaker 2: he's a great produce or especially with the vocals getting

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Speaker 2: that out of me, and in the studio was in

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Speaker 2: his house. We did everything at his house except for

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Speaker 2: the drums, which we farmed out, and then I had

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Speaker 2: my engineer, Ken Freeman, mixed the whole thing. We just

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Speaker 2: gave it to him and said here, make this is

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Speaker 2: it's all here, fresh airs. Make this sound great. And

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Speaker 2: then we come in and I go, yes, no, no,

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Speaker 2: do this, do this. I mean I know how to

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Speaker 2: tech talk. I just don't sit behind and press the

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Speaker 2: buttons myself. You know what I mean. I know how

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Speaker 2: to speak engineer.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So you make a record today, the nature of

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Speaker 1: the marketplace is no matter how great, that record is

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Speaker 1: going to have a fraction of the audience of what

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Speaker 1: it had in the seventies and eighties. Does that impact

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Speaker 1: your desire? How does that affect your attitude towards a project.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't affect it at all. I try as hard

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Speaker 2: as I ever did, so I'm trying to make it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, we listen, nothing's going to sell eight million

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Speaker 2: records anymore, Army, particularly older guys. Now, I just did

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Speaker 2: this because I need to scratch the creative itch. I

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Speaker 2: have to do something new, and it's a niche audience

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Speaker 2: we play. We have a big enough audience that will

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Speaker 2: buy this to facilitate me doing more. If I ever

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Speaker 2: decided to do another record, I don't know. I'm just

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Speaker 2: kind of dealing with this one at this point. And

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Speaker 2: I love the tour. I loved and that's where we

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Speaker 2: make all of our money. But that you know, I'm

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Speaker 2: away from home, you know that's what that is. I

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Speaker 2: just finished three months without coming home, just like last week.

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Speaker 2: But making music is something I need to do. It's

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Speaker 2: not something I do for the cash per se. We

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Speaker 2: know that there's no real money in the recording business

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Speaker 2: new music anymore. This money in the old music. Our

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Speaker 2: Spotify numbers are scary good and uh, you know, billions

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Speaker 2: of streams. And I made a great deal when I

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Speaker 2: took over management of the band eight years ago. I

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Speaker 2: made a great deal with Sony because they didn't know

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Speaker 2: what they had and Spotify was brand new, so I

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Speaker 2: got it the best percentage that you could get. I'm

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Speaker 2: not going to say what it is, but it's thirty

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Speaker 2: percent more than we were getting on a regular record.

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Speaker 2: Plus so I love Spotify. Everybody hates Spotify. I love Spotify,

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Speaker 2: the gift that keeps on giving baby.

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Speaker 1: Okay, now, for a long time you and Sony were

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Speaker 1: not on the same page.

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Speaker 2: Well, no, they hated us. Donnie Einer refused to release

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Speaker 2: our records and Matola didn't do anything about it, you know,

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Speaker 2: and yet are they wouldn't let us out of the

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Speaker 2: deal because we sold too many records around the world.

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Speaker 2: So everything else did really well around the world. But

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Speaker 2: you know, the US, they'd released three hundred records in

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Speaker 2: Pocatella and say that they released the records to fill

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Speaker 2: the contract with a big middle finger towards us, which

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Speaker 2: is really stupid.

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Speaker 1: But you also said you prior to this we negotiation,

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Speaker 1: you didn't think you were proper really accounted to on royalties.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well you turns out I was right. You know

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Speaker 2: the end, you know what and not it is, we

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Speaker 2: do it. We do it, We do it every two years,

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Speaker 2: and they always there's always found money. And in any

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Speaker 2: other corporation, if you default more than two times, you're

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Speaker 2: out of your record. You're out of your deal. Not

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Speaker 2: in the record business. In perpetuity, that's a word, that's

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Speaker 2: a word in perpetuity for life, and then when I die,

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Speaker 2: my kids will chase after it.

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Speaker 1: And you know, some acts a little bit before the

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Speaker 1: vintage of Toto had rights of reversions on the album.

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Speaker 1: You didn't have that with Toto.

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Speaker 2: We fought for it, and that's how I got the

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Speaker 2: Spotify deal. They would they were never going to give

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Speaker 2: any artists their rights to their record back as catalog

334
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Speaker 2: is what keeps the building lights on. You know, they

335
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Speaker 2: don't develop new talent for long careers anymore. And all

336
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Speaker 2: all those old guys that everybody makes fun of, all

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Speaker 2: those old guys, we're still selling records, We're still selling tickets.

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Speaker 2: So we may not be relevant to today's hipster youngsters,

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Speaker 2: but it turns out there are young people that got

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Speaker 2: into our music due to this crazy Africa shit. You know,

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Speaker 2: It's like that was the funniest thing that ever happened

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Speaker 2: to me, but it was also the best. I'll take it.

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Speaker 2: It's a gift, thank you, lord.

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Speaker 1: You know, but tell us the story of how you

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Speaker 1: found out Weizard was constantly being a cover of Africa.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, you got this backwards. They were the

347
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Speaker 2: last ones on board. They were they they batted clean

348
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Speaker 2: up Basically this whole thing started from the show Stranger Things, right.

349
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Speaker 2: They used the song in there and this, and it

350
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Speaker 2: just all of a sudden came out and it became

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Speaker 2: this worldwide thing, man, and we're like forty years after.

352
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Speaker 2: It was the number one record in the United States.

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Speaker 2: By the way, I never thought this song was ever

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Speaker 2: going to see like any radio play. When we put

355
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Speaker 2: it on the album was the last thing we cut

356
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Speaker 2: on Total four, and Page had this great groove and

357
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Speaker 2: all of this stuff. Thought wow, that's really interesting. And

358
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Speaker 2: the lyrics were never done. It was just the melodies.

359
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Speaker 2: And then we read the whole record and then Dave

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Speaker 2: and Jeff, you know, Page was going to Africa. I'm

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Speaker 2: feeling this vibe. We're going, okay, well, what are the

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Speaker 2: words gonna be? The melody was killer, the groove Jeff

363
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Speaker 2: Pacaro was the muse behind all of that, you know,

364
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Speaker 2: he put put together. We started doing all these loops

365
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Speaker 2: without the late great Al Schmidt, God bless them, our

366
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Speaker 2: engineer at the time, and we did it old school loops,

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Speaker 2: real loops, like tape loops. We're holding it with the

368
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Speaker 2: cant soul and stuff, you know, and we just wanted

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Speaker 2: experiment you know, we were young guys, you know, didn't

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Speaker 2: you know, lived in the studio, loved it, you know

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Speaker 2: what I mean. And we spent like six months making

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Speaker 2: that record, if not more, because it was like, if

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Speaker 2: you don't have a hit record, you're gonna get dropped

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Speaker 2: from the label. So it was our fourth record. We said, well,

375
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Speaker 2: we've better bring it. So at that point we were like, okay,

376
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Speaker 2: So Dave had this cool vibe and at the end

377
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Speaker 2: they brought the lyrics and I was laughing at the lyrics.

378
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Speaker 2: I'm going, Dave, we're from North Hollywood. You know what

379
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Speaker 2: is this? You know, what are you talking about? It

380
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Speaker 2: was just a fantasy song that Dave used to He's

381
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Speaker 2: you know, him and Jeff and they were into this,

382
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Speaker 2: you know, history, and they would all stuff like that,

383
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Speaker 2: and they just started grabbing went for it, you know,

384
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Speaker 2: all these ridiculous were serengetty and of course it doesn't

385
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Speaker 2: make any sense. I mean everything, well those don't really

386
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Speaker 2: you can't see to kill the majority. You know, Let's

387
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Speaker 2: say everyon's trying to like look at it like as

388
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Speaker 2: a science project. Man, it's a goofy little song that

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Speaker 2: we never really thought was gonna hit the nerve. The

390
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Speaker 2: song we thought we had was Rosanna. We thought, okay,

391
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Speaker 2: you know that's that's really us. That says it all.

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Speaker 2: And we were proud of that, and that was the

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Speaker 2: first thing we cut. The record company said we love it.

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Speaker 2: We were off the hook. Okay, great, and then we

395
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Speaker 2: just had fun making this record and we had it

396
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Speaker 2: was our fourth record. We started to get a vibe

397
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Speaker 2: as a band. We started feeling like we'd made three

398
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Speaker 2: records and toured and it really felt good. Everybody who's

399
00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:59,920
Speaker 2: writing song, David was going come on, bring some song,

400
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Speaker 2: and we did. And it was really a band effort,

401
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Speaker 2: really truly was, and we had a blast doing it.

402
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Speaker 2: But Africa, who knew. I actually said at one point

403
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Speaker 2: I've been quoted as stupid quote. I was very young.

404
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:14,199
Speaker 2: I said, I'll run naked down Hollywood Boulevard if this

405
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Speaker 2: song's ever hit, Well, nobody would want to see that now.

406
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Speaker 2: Plus I probably leave a trail like sparks, you know,

407
00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:25,080
Speaker 2: my nutsack hitting the pavement running full speed. But it

408
00:20:25,119 --> 00:20:28,200
Speaker 2: turned into this massive thing, and then once the TeV

409
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Speaker 2: show then peopled parodies of it, then it was like

410
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Speaker 2: some club in the UK just be torture for me.

411
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Speaker 2: They only played that song for like twenty four hours

412
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Speaker 2: in the club. Now I would have hung myself behind

413
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Speaker 2: the bar after the third play, but that's me. But

414
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Speaker 2: it became this thing, and then it became an internet thing,

415
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Speaker 2: and then it was everywhere. And then this girl who

416
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Speaker 2: was a Weezer fan saw it on Stranger Things and

417
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:03,240
Speaker 2: a parent those guys were doing covers, you know, and

418
00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 2: they she beg begged them to do it. Took a while.

419
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Speaker 2: I don't know. I was not involved in that part,

420
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Speaker 2: and they they're not fan, they don't like our band

421
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Speaker 2: or anything like that. They were just like the middle

422
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 2: finger to us. And it backfired on them because now

423
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Speaker 2: they have to play it every night for the rest

424
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Speaker 2: of their life. But they weren't doing particularly well and

425
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Speaker 2: this brought them up and gave him a hit record.

426
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Speaker 2: So we both won from that. And I tried to

427
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 2: reach out to the guy Rivers and say, hey, man,

428
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Speaker 2: you know, he totally middle fingered me, man, you know,

429
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Speaker 2: and I'm like, really, dude, the guy is struggling to

430
00:21:34,640 --> 00:21:38,120
Speaker 2: play bar chords is middle fingering me. Okay, I'm glad

431
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:39,520
Speaker 2: it worked out for him, you know. I mean, I

432
00:21:39,520 --> 00:21:41,040
Speaker 2: don't have a hold of grudge or nothing like that.

433
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,840
Speaker 2: It helped us help them, But we did one of

434
00:21:43,840 --> 00:21:47,840
Speaker 2: their songs right as a reply, you know, and then

435
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 2: Universal bought it and shelved it and so wouldn't end

436
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:55,000
Speaker 2: up on the radio anywhere. They played it once on KROQ,

437
00:21:55,280 --> 00:21:58,359
Speaker 2: and then they never played it and they buried it.

438
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:01,720
Speaker 2: It was kind of wow, man, Okay, it didn't even

439
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:04,240
Speaker 2: give us an even shot. But you know we did

440
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,119
Speaker 2: it as a joke too. It's a wink wink, you know.

441
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:15,440
Speaker 2: And then we carried on, let's do some.

442
00:22:15,480 --> 00:22:18,800
Speaker 1: Cleanup work the new album. Are people going to be

443
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:22,320
Speaker 1: able to hear that live? You know?

444
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,800
Speaker 2: I don't know right now where I'm you know, I

445
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,560
Speaker 2: did the album just as an art project, scratch the

446
00:22:28,600 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 2: creative itch makes something new, something from here for the

447
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 2: old fans, because you know, we're not going to make

448
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:39,200
Speaker 2: total records anymore. It's just too complicated in terms of Ugh,

449
00:22:40,680 --> 00:22:42,280
Speaker 2: I don't want to get I never want to see

450
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 2: a lawyer again where I'm writing a check to a

451
00:22:44,600 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 2: lawyer ever, unless it's to finish my living trust, which

452
00:22:49,760 --> 00:22:53,359
Speaker 2: I've just done again updated. But I you know, I've

453
00:22:53,400 --> 00:22:56,439
Speaker 2: just spent too much time and money and broken hearted

454
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 2: moments over litigation. It's not worth the hassle or the

455
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 2: cost to do that when I just want to make

456
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 2: some music with my friends. So we all make solo

457
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 2: records and we all work on them. So I still

458
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 2: get to work with my friends without paying the ass

459
00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 2: of hearing from somebody's lawyer. You can't use this or

460
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 2: where's my percentage or all that we pay everybody every

461
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:22,560
Speaker 2: night we play live from the gross. You know, people

462
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:27,920
Speaker 2: that wish me dead, I pay them. And the rest

463
00:23:27,960 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 2: of it is, I just shut my mouth and play

464
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,760
Speaker 2: the guitar. And I got no fight with anybody anymore,

465
00:23:31,800 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 2: Peace and love, no grudges, no anger. I'd let on,

466
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 2: let go. I have a very good psychiatrist, and I'm

467
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:39,280
Speaker 2: not on any medication right now.

468
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 1: Okay, so you talk about you love Spotify. They're multiple

469
00:23:45,440 --> 00:23:48,840
Speaker 1: members of the band. After the income comes in and

470
00:23:48,880 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: it's split all those ways, there's still enough significantly for you.

471
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 2: I should be getting a gold plated thank you note. Yeah,

472
00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, people that aren't in the band

473
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 2: get paid. I mean the people that get paid the most,

474
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 2: of the guys that played on the earliest, biggest hit records.

475
00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:13,360
Speaker 2: I mean it's obviously a math problem in terms of

476
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 2: how the splits are. But it's all you know, everybody

477
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 2: gets free money. If those of us that are still

478
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 2: Joseph and I that are still working it alive, I mean,

479
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 2: you know, we get the advantage of that. But the

480
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: people that aren't in the band, like are you know.

481
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 2: I don't want to get into all this because it's.

482
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:36,520
Speaker 1: Because I know, when you play live you have to

483
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:40,520
Speaker 1: pay people who are in Toto. Where there are states

484
00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: who are not performing with.

485
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 2: You, well are not able to because they're not on

486
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 2: the planet Earth anymore. But I'm trying to say, yeah,

487
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,720
Speaker 2: just that's the fact true. I mean, I I hesitate

488
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 2: to say anything because like, the last thing I need

489
00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 2: right now is somebody's lawyer to call me. But I

490
00:24:56,200 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 2: heard what you said on the left that show. It's

491
00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:02,119
Speaker 2: it's like, okay, let's kill me now, just exact on

492
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:04,800
Speaker 2: knife across the neck, kill me.

493
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: Let's go back. First Toto album, Hold the Line, huge success.

494
00:25:12,080 --> 00:25:16,760
Speaker 1: Second album, you know, Hydra has ninety nine a few

495
00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: other things. Third album doesn't have as much radio success.

496
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:25,320
Speaker 1: Fourth album is a monster. How does that affect you personally?

497
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: I mean, you played on hit records you'd played on Thriller,

498
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: et cetera, but now it's your after that.

499
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,920
Speaker 2: That was after Thriller was the we won Album of

500
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 2: the year, and then the next year Thriller one Album

501
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 2: of the year.

502
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 1: Okay, I get I'm not remembering correctly, but in any event,

503
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:45,360
Speaker 1: doesn't change my question, what's it like to be that successful?

504
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: How does it affect you emotionally?

505
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 2: For us, it was redemption. We saved ourselves, We saved

506
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 2: our careers as a recording band. Yeah, we could have

507
00:25:56,560 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 2: just stayed at the studio guys and stuff like that,

508
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,360
Speaker 2: and some of the best years of my life. I'm

509
00:26:01,480 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 2: very proud to say that I was a you know,

510
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 2: first call session guitar player. You know, it started out

511
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager. It was a dream to

512
00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 2: have both to be the first call guy or one

513
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 2: of the first called guitar players, playing all the hit

514
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 2: records with all these amazing artists and have a hit

515
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: band that was like beyond the dream. We felt. It

516
00:26:21,880 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 2: was overwhelming, really, I mean we were like, oh, wow,

517
00:26:24,320 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 2: thank god we got a record on the on the

518
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,640
Speaker 2: radio again. Rosanna was a hit, and oh we're gonna begin.

519
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 2: But then I think Snowball and we had We weren't

520
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:35,800
Speaker 2: even members of Nerost to vote for ourselves. You know,

521
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,679
Speaker 2: people got pissed off that we want It's like we

522
00:26:38,720 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 2: were also on like, you know, god knows how many

523
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 2: records that were nominated that year, you know what I mean.

524
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:47,520
Speaker 2: We were on everybody's records at least one of us.

525
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:50,159
Speaker 2: And I won for Best R and B Song for

526
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 2: a song I wrote for George Benson with Jay Grayden

527
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:57,960
Speaker 2: and Randy and Bill Champlain. We did that in ten minute.

528
00:26:57,960 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 2: That was a ten minute writing session, you know, that

529
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 2: was and it became a Grammy Award winning song. You know.

530
00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:04,879
Speaker 2: So it was like it was overwhelming to sit there

531
00:27:04,920 --> 00:27:07,480
Speaker 2: and look around and going like, are we really here?

532
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: Is this really? Did we really pull this off? I

533
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 2: mean it was it was astounding. It was a great feeling.

534
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 2: And then we want everybody turned on us. Oh there's

535
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 2: a fix, those guys know everybody blah blah blah. We didn't,

536
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 2: like we're talking about, we didn't vote for ourselves, you know,

537
00:27:22,280 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: we didn't know. It was a weird, freaky thing, like

538
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 2: every time we get success, everybody would punch us in

539
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 2: the face, you know.

540
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: Okay, just talking about all the songs you wrote and

541
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,280
Speaker 1: all your royalty streams. A lot of people of our

542
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: vintage are selling those. Would you ever sell your rights

543
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:39,680
Speaker 1: in your songs?

544
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 2: That's the dumbest thing you could possibly do in your life.

545
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 2: If you have something that's worth anything, you know, take

546
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 2: for example, Africa, why would you sell that. That's like

547
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 2: you just sold a standard that's going to play for

548
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,840
Speaker 2: a hundred years from now. Somebody will be playing it

549
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 2: on some bizarre key board of the future and everybody'll

550
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 2: laugh and go, remember this song from one hundred years ago.

551
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 2: And you know, assuming that AI doesn't wipe out every

552
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 2: income stream that there is. I mean, for me, I'm

553
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 2: going I would rather give my great grandchildren a thousand

554
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 2: dollars check from old great granddad they never met, you know,

555
00:28:19,080 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 2: over my neighboring rights. Because I played on thousands of records.

556
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 2: That's a big check every year. And that's only in Europe.

557
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 2: You know, the US decided to middle finger US and

558
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:31,520
Speaker 2: not give us anything for that either. But you know,

559
00:28:31,680 --> 00:28:35,879
Speaker 2: all these records in this these it's it's sort of

560
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 2: self perpetuating. You know, there are people that will be

561
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 2: listening to this stuff. Maybe not as many people, but

562
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 2: people I just don't want to give it up. Everybody

563
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 2: I know that's given it up has regretted it, going,

564
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 2: oh my god, what have I done? Because you don't

565
00:28:50,160 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 2: get anything anymore. It's done over, not another penny. So

566
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 2: even if they give you some gazillion dollar check, government

567
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 2: gets half, then the people take their percentages. Then everybody's

568
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 2: who gets a piece or whatever, and the next thing

569
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 2: you know, it's watered down and all of a sudden,

570
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 2: this income stream that you've had consistently is that you know,

571
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 2: our songs believe it or not, get played all the time. Man,

572
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 2: the numbers don't lie, they're there, And why would I

573
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 2: want to sell that? I mean, did I look into it?

574
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: Yeah?

575
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 2: I said, well, how much do you think I'm worth? Ben?

576
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 2: And I said that's not nearly enough? And it was

577
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 2: a lot. I said, no, man, if you're going to

578
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 2: give me that now, I'm still convinced somebody knows something

579
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 2: and they ain't telling anybody. But the next what then?

580
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 2: Why would somebody pay half a billion dollars for somebody's

581
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 2: catalog and not expect how do you make back that

582
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 2: kind of cash? There must be something coming that we

583
00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 2: don't know about, you know, remember when records went to CDs,

584
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 2: they went from seven bucks to twenty bucks. Well, they

585
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 2: never adjusted it. They never adjusted it for the artist.

586
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 2: But that's when all the executives started flying private and

587
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 2: make more money than the artists, like a lot more money.

588
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: And they never figure. Oh, they were retooling. That's why,

589
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 2: because it wasn't been forty years of retooling. Have you

590
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:14,360
Speaker 2: tooled it yet?

591
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 1: Guys, I agree with everything you say. I don't believe

592
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: in selling the catalog and I wouldn't sell one of

593
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 1: my kids. You know, when the executives started to make

594
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: more than the acts of go this is really fucked up.

595
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 2: But it's worse now unless you unless you've got some action.

596
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 2: I so you can make fun of me being an

597
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 2: old what's the word do you like to use? Ludite? Yeah?

598
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,480
Speaker 2: I mean I may be that, but you know what,

599
00:30:46,680 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 2: I'm working. I've never been busier. Band's making more money

600
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 2: on the road than we ever have. Everything's good. You know.

601
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 2: I'm the only guy that believed that someday we're going

602
00:30:55,880 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 2: to turn this around. Man, and I'm here to I'm thrilled.

603
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 2: I'm not mad at anybody. I think everything's great in

604
00:31:03,760 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 2: a world where everything's gone to shit. I feel pretty

605
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 2: good about it. As long as I don't read the news,

606
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 2: I'm great.

607
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:14,160
Speaker 1: Okay. Something we haven't gotten into depth in previous conversations

608
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: is equipment. So how many guitars do you own?

609
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 2: Oh? You know, man, people are gonna hate me for

610
00:31:23,120 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 2: I really don't know a lot. I have vintage ones.

611
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: I know exactly where they are at. But I did

612
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 2: sell some of those at one point stupidly. It's like

613
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 2: sort of like sellers regret or what do they call it,

614
00:31:38,680 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 2: some of my old but I kept my my ap

615
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 2: I have my fifty nine less Bald that's an infamous one,

616
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 2: and uh, I sort of gave it to my son,

617
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 2: but I said, you can't sell it. If you do,

618
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:51,840
Speaker 2: you have to give it, share it with your other

619
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: three brothers and sisters. But that's after I'm dead. In

620
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 2: the meantime, I still have it. I was threatening to

621
00:31:58,200 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: to use it and bring out some of the old

622
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 2: stuff that I used to use. But you know, I

623
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 2: love my music man guitars, and I've been planning for

624
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 2: thirty years and that's it. And they give me everything

625
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:09,360
Speaker 2: I need and they keep getting better and better. But

626
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 2: the fitchure stuff I keep. I got hundreds of them.

627
00:32:12,080 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 2: They're in my storage space, you know.

628
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: So you have a storage space somewhere in LA where

629
00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: all this stuff is.

630
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: Yes, I can't tell you. I'll have to kill you.

631
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: Right exactly.

632
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 2: No. Yeah, I got all kinds of gear that I

633
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 2: you know, I really need to make up a set

634
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:28,360
Speaker 2: get rid of some of it. But some of it

635
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 2: just has a lot of memories from a particular era.

636
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 2: You know, when I'm dead, my kids can figure out

637
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 2: what to do with it. You know.

638
00:32:36,000 --> 00:32:40,920
Speaker 1: So what's so special about a fifty nine less Paul? Well,

639
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: you know.

640
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 2: It was. I don't know they made They had a

641
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 2: couple of really great years there in the fifties. Man,

642
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 2: when the wood was right. It was a hands on craftmanship.

643
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 2: It wasn't like machinery making things, you know what I mean.

644
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: There's still a few company music Man still makes it

645
00:32:57,600 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 2: by hand, but a lot of these companies, so you know,

646
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 2: the they do it in Korea, they do it in China,

647
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: they do it and all you know, in these plants

648
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,200
Speaker 2: and they just wrick them out. I don't know that

649
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 2: was the one to get because all my heroes had those,

650
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 2: like you know, Jimmy Page and you know Eric Clapton

651
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 2: and played these you know all my Jeff Beck, you

652
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: know all my heroes and the later friends. Uh. You

653
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 2: just I wanted that sound when you picked it up

654
00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 2: and played it, I got it. I remember when I

655
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 2: bought my fifty nine first. It was on our first

656
00:33:27,120 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 2: tour and we were in Phoenix somewhere and I went

657
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 2: out and got you know, somebody said there was one

658
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: there and I went down and bought it. It was like

659
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars. I remember my account and going four

660
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. You you know you can get these things

661
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 2: for free. Now, what do you need a fourth? I said, no,

662
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 2: you don't under you don't understand this is like and

663
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 2: they only made a handful of these after that, there's

664
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 2: no more. There's a lot of fakes now and stuff.

665
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 2: You gotta be careful with that. Uh. But uh, I

666
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: bought this thing, and now, I mean I had it

667
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 2: a praise for like, you know this one because it's

668
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 2: been on a lot of hit records. George Harrison played

669
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 2: it when he played with us at the Amphitheater after

670
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Percaro passed, and so I voted, I mean it

671
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 2: has all this history in it, you know, of all

672
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:13,280
Speaker 2: these and uh, it's worth like six hundred and fifty

673
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,879
Speaker 2: thousand dollars. Now, I was appraised, and when I die,

674
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 2: it might be worth more than that.

675
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 1: You know what other vintage stuff you got.

676
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 2: I got a fifty one Esquire, which is a really

677
00:34:24,360 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 2: uh it's like the guitar Springsteen uses. It's it's a

678
00:34:28,760 --> 00:34:32,239
Speaker 2: Keith Richards, you know. I bought that one for a

679
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 2: couple of grand and that's worth like a boatload of

680
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 2: dough now, you know, and I break that thing out.

681
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 2: I've used it on some ringo stuff we were working on.

682
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 2: But I sold a couple of like a fifty eight

683
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 2: gold top and a nineteen sixty less ball SG which

684
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 2: was actually a less ball. But you know, now I

685
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 2: wouldn't be It's it's really not cost effective to start

686
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 2: collecting vintage gear at that price. Now it's collectors and

687
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:02,760
Speaker 2: people that got to have it, really rich people.

688
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you start your association with music Man.

689
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:13,200
Speaker 2: I was involved with a company called Valley Arts, which

690
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,880
Speaker 2: was like they were making like Frankenstratz, which are like

691
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 2: stratocaster type with different pickups and electronics and stuff. And

692
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:22,959
Speaker 2: they went on went out of business and they sold

693
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 2: to the Koreans. At the time, I had just met

694
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,959
Speaker 2: somebody who was one of my dearest friends, Sterling Ball,

695
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 2: and who his father was, Ernie Ball, his Ernie Ball

696
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 2: strings if you just got to make super slinking strings

697
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: and all that. His son, Sterling took over the company

698
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 2: and was working with Eddie van Halen on making him

699
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 2: a what do you call it a signature guitar because

700
00:35:48,520 --> 00:35:51,840
Speaker 2: he you know, and they they did. And I was

701
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 2: hanging out at ads and stuff like that, and you know,

702
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:56,759
Speaker 2: they're as, what do you think of this guitar? What

703
00:35:56,760 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 2: do you think of these pickups? I gave him a

704
00:35:58,040 --> 00:36:01,800
Speaker 2: little input on the back pickup, and they made Eddie's guitar,

705
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 2: which I really dug and I said, and they said.

706
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 2: And Sterling, also known as Biff to his friends, Biff goes,

707
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:10,160
Speaker 2: let me, because you're not a feeling, let me make

708
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,279
Speaker 2: your guitar. And I feel like, give us the give

709
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 2: us your favorite guitar, and let us put on a computer.

710
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 2: And well, every little divid every little thing we're gonna make,

711
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 2: we're gonna make that happen. And it turns out one

712
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 2: of the luthiers at Valley Arts was hired by Sterling

713
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 2: to work for his company, had already worked on my stuff.

714
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 2: I love what they were doing with d and I

715
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,800
Speaker 2: got involved in this company and then we became best friends.

716
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,359
Speaker 2: And I've been there for thirty years this year, and

717
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 2: I love the guitars I've been There's four different versions

718
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 2: of my l four is coming out and I've done

719
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,239
Speaker 2: very very well by this. A lot of people have

720
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:48,359
Speaker 2: bought them and used them over the years, and I'm

721
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:49,960
Speaker 2: really proud and honored to be a part of that.

722
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: You know, So what makes your guitar different from like

723
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: your conventional strat or something else.

724
00:36:58,200 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 2: You know, it's a different tool in the tool. You

725
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 2: don't use one tool for everything. You know, it's a

726
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 2: It's really a combination of a strat and a less

727
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 2: Paul put into one guitar. Now, the guitars don't make

728
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 2: noise until somebody picks it up and plays it. So

729
00:37:12,239 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I've played my famous friend's guitars and I

730
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:18,160
Speaker 2: just sound like me playing the guitar, and they played

731
00:37:18,160 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 2: my guitars and they sound like them playing through it.

732
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,280
Speaker 2: So there's no magic guitar or amp. There's only magic people.

733
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 2: A great instrument is a great tool, but in the

734
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 2: hands of an amateur, it sounds. You can give my

735
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,719
Speaker 2: super expensive less ball to somebody that can't play, and

736
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:35,399
Speaker 2: it's not gonna make them play any better.

737
00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: Okay, But in terms of strings, pickups, action, what do

738
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: you desire.

739
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 2: I'm a pretty simple guy. If it gives me what

740
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:50,200
Speaker 2: I want, I mean, it's up to me to make

741
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: noise come out of it and make some music come

742
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 2: out of it. I've been using Ernie Ball string since

743
00:37:56,160 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 2: I was a kid, you know, so that was the

744
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 2: no brainer. And that's the most amazing company. I mean,

745
00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 2: anything I need, it could be shipped anywhere. They'll be

746
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: there the next day. It's an unbelievably incredible company. Unbelievably Sorry,

747
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 2: I'm not speaking properly, and now I'm old. Yeah, I

748
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 2: love it. I mean it's not I'm not a tech guy.

749
00:38:20,239 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 2: I don't take my guitars apart put them back together again,

750
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 2: because if I did, either be parts left out. My

751
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 2: dad used to get mad at me when i'd make

752
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 2: models when I was a kid because I put it

753
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,320
Speaker 2: together and then I'd leave parts out. Oh I forgot.

754
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,240
Speaker 2: I didn't mean to put that I'm not an idiot,

755
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:38,120
Speaker 2: I'm just lazy.

756
00:38:38,880 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 1: Okay, what about amps.

757
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 2: I use Bogner amps, and I have been using which

758
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 2: is a Marshall style amp, but it's a little bit

759
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:48,080
Speaker 2: more high tech than that. I've been using that for

760
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 2: John fifteen twelve fifteen years now. I've had them all old.

761
00:38:52,800 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 2: I used to use old Fender amps. I used to

762
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,759
Speaker 2: use Marshals. I had some weird customized amps that I

763
00:38:58,840 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 2: have in my collection. But in terms of a workhost,

764
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 2: that gives me everything I need is the Bogner amps.

765
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 2: Like my whole new record is just the Bogner amp

766
00:39:08,320 --> 00:39:12,799
Speaker 2: and music man guitar, same guitar, same amp on every song,

767
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 2: so you can, if you bother to listen to it,

768
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 2: you can hear the versatility of different tones that I

769
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,280
Speaker 2: can get out of this effortlessly. I'm not into dragging.

770
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 2: I used to be famous for always all the big

771
00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 2: racks of digital gears, and it was a great time.

772
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 2: It was a great era, you know what I mean.

773
00:39:29,480 --> 00:39:31,160
Speaker 2: But you know, at the same time, I wanted to

774
00:39:31,200 --> 00:39:33,120
Speaker 2: simplify myself, you know, So I just use a couple

775
00:39:33,120 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 2: of stop boxes on the ground, which are little fects

776
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:38,200
Speaker 2: pedals that could be taken out and thrown away and

777
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:43,240
Speaker 2: changed over. And I do everything manually, stepping on it myself,

778
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 2: you know, if I want it, and I just have

779
00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:47,960
Speaker 2: a little pedal board playing through the guitar into the amp.

780
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:52,400
Speaker 1: Nice talk with you, Okay, let's go back to the

781
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:56,359
Speaker 1: very beginning. I'm sure talking about father. So where did

782
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: you exactly grow up?

783
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:03,120
Speaker 2: More parking to hung out in North Hollywood on a

784
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 2: street called Elmer, across the street from what is now

785
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 2: a park used to be a dirt lot When I

786
00:40:08,320 --> 00:40:09,439
Speaker 2: was a kid. It was a lot of fun.

787
00:40:11,360 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 1: So you know, LA used to have orange groves, all

788
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: this stuff. What was it like in the fifties and

789
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 1: sixties where you grew up?

790
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:19,839
Speaker 2: Well, I grew I was born in nineteen fifty seven,

791
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: so I don't really the fifties is sort of a wash.

792
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 2: But I was a child of the sixties, man, you know,

793
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 2: and it was the greatest time ever for I mean,

794
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 2: when the Beatles hit, my life went from black and

795
00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 2: white to color. I said, I have to do that,

796
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,360
Speaker 2: whatever that is. I wanted to be George Harrison. I

797
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:41,280
Speaker 2: wanted to make that sound. You know. My first first

798
00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 2: soul that drove me mad was the guitar solo, and

799
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 2: I saw her standing there and I must have lifted up.

800
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 2: My my parents bought me all looking and now cute

801
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 2: that as he loves the Beatles, that little fad that

802
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 2: was going to just be there for five minutes, you know.

803
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: So I got a really shitty acoustic guitar which is

804
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 2: now a lamp in my house. My parents. My parents

805
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 2: made it into a lamp and gave it to me

806
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:03,520
Speaker 2: on my twenty first birthday. It was like a five

807
00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 2: dollars k guitar that was like screwed on neck. The

808
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,760
Speaker 2: action was like ten feet off the neck, a punishment guitar.

809
00:41:10,239 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 2: But they gave me that in a copy and Meet

810
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 2: the Beatles when I was like seven or eight years old,

811
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: I maybe just turning eight, and I didn't I became obsessed,

812
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,600
Speaker 2: you know, and I would lift up the needle and

813
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:25,760
Speaker 2: just on the on the record player at the house

814
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:27,800
Speaker 2: and just play the solo O and Oregon. So my

815
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:30,880
Speaker 2: dad screamed to me to stop doing that. You know,

816
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: if I hear this one more time, you know, I'll

817
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 2: be whacked around the house or something. But I you know,

818
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 2: I never grew out of it, man, I just had

819
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:43,320
Speaker 2: to grow into it. I was determined to make noise

820
00:41:43,360 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 2: of this thing. You know.

821
00:41:44,880 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: So what came after the cheap fifteen dollars guitar a.

822
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 2: Twenty dollars ago, it didn't get much better. I got

823
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: an electric guitar that was not much better. It was

824
00:41:56,160 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 2: an astratone guitar that I got. Was I really wish

825
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 2: I still had it, Man, that would probably be worth

826
00:42:02,160 --> 00:42:04,600
Speaker 2: a lot of money now, ironically, because a lot of

827
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 2: people liked to buy those old crappy guitars and they

828
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 2: swear by them. You know, I'm gonna I don't get that,

829
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 2: but okay, But I taught myself how to play on it,

830
00:42:15,360 --> 00:42:18,920
Speaker 2: and a very strange thing happened to me. I mean,

831
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 2: one day I could was struggling, and one day, all

832
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:24,800
Speaker 2: of a sudden, my hands fell into the first position chords.

833
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: And it was freakish and weird. I could get into

834
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,280
Speaker 2: this whole story about my grandmother with the psychics.

835
00:42:30,320 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: Oh oh, tell it, tell it no.

836
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 2: When I was my mother was pregnant at nineteen years old, right,

837
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 2: and this would have been nineteen fifty seven, or the

838
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 2: end of fifty six into fifty seven. I was born

839
00:42:39,680 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: in October, so ten months back from that whenever. Anyway,

840
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:46,360
Speaker 2: my grandmother was a hipster before her time, as she

841
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 2: was into like new agey stuff before there was a term.

842
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,440
Speaker 2: She had friends that were different psychics, so which she

843
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 2: wouldn't say that out loud then, because you might as

844
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 2: well say you were Satan's sister or something like that.

845
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,839
Speaker 2: So one of my grandma's friends came over my mom's mother,

846
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:04,279
Speaker 2: who was very hip, God bless her, she was fantastic,

847
00:43:04,920 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 2: and she put her hand on my mom's pregnant tummy.

848
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 2: I said, no, it's a boy. I hear music all

849
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 2: around him, music, and something's gonna happen to him when

850
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:19,759
Speaker 2: he's seven or eight, and later down the line, people

851
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 2: are gonna know who this kid is. Music all around him.

852
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:24,680
Speaker 2: And my mother said, oh great, I'm gonna have a

853
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:27,360
Speaker 2: musician son. Would she imagined like a guy with a

854
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:29,759
Speaker 2: little beat nick beerd needle hanging out of his arm,

855
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 2: junkie guy, you know, jazz musician or something you know.

856
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 2: And I saw the Beatles on the installment show, got

857
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 2: a guitar, and all of a sudden, one day I

858
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 2: could play it. It was the weirdest thing I could

859
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:44,400
Speaker 2: never explain to nobody. I'm sure, everybody's going yeah bullshit

860
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 2: right bah w man man, I swear of got it

861
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 2: happened to me. And then from there I was able

862
00:43:50,360 --> 00:43:52,240
Speaker 2: to hear things and pick it out on the guitar.

863
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 2: Then I meet all the older guys I started, and

864
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 2: I had my first band when I was nine, but

865
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 2: everybody else was twelve.

866
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 1: So I mean, wait, wait, wait, wait, you're nine, you

867
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:05,600
Speaker 1: have this skill, you got a guitar, you gotta how

868
00:44:05,640 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 1: do you find the band or how do they find you?

869
00:44:08,520 --> 00:44:11,279
Speaker 2: Well, at the time after the Beatles hit, everybody wanted

870
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 2: to be in a band. Now some of the older

871
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 2: kids could actually play guitar, and then they plugged in

872
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 2: an electric guitar. And I understand, music back then was

873
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 2: much easier to play. There wasn't didn't require a lot

874
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 2: of technical ability unless you were a classical musician or

875
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 2: a jazz musician or in bluegrass or something like that,

876
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 2: you know where technical ability really counter. But if you

877
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 2: were just listening to bop music, rock me, the Beatles,

878
00:44:33,560 --> 00:44:36,360
Speaker 2: the Stones, that was our whole life. The British invasion

879
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 2: was our whole life. And I could play uh, you know,

880
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,839
Speaker 2: uh the songs of the era. You know, I could

881
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 2: play like Gloria by them, you know, I could, and

882
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 2: we've been a house of the Rising Sun and then

883
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,240
Speaker 2: Beatles stuff. You know, I saw her standing there, Please

884
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,040
Speaker 2: please me. We just sing and play man, you know,

885
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 2: we could you buy? Then I bought, you know, the

886
00:44:57,440 --> 00:44:59,600
Speaker 2: Songbook of the Beatles, and it showed you the positions

887
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,440
Speaker 2: of core that I didn't know. So I sponged up

888
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 2: all that. And then I found older guys that could

889
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:07,520
Speaker 2: play good, and I stole all their stuff, and I

890
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,000
Speaker 2: just was a sponge. I could play whatever. And then

891
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,040
Speaker 2: my ears started working for me and I could play

892
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 2: stuff off the radio. So the older guys wanted to

893
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 2: play with me because I could teach everybody how to

894
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 2: play their parts. And it was just for me. It

895
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 2: was my life. For them, perhaps maybe not until some

896
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: of the guys in my neighborhood started picking it up.

897
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,360
Speaker 2: And then I met my dear friend Michael Landau, who's

898
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 2: a legendary guitar player. When we were twelve years old,

899
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 2: we were the two hotshot guitar players in la you know,

900
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 2: we were the same, you know, and we've been best

901
00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 2: friends ever since. And it worked out well for us.

902
00:45:39,480 --> 00:45:42,320
Speaker 2: But we found like minded people in junior high school.

903
00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 2: The bass player in our band, now John Pierce was

904
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 2: He started out with us, he was in our high

905
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,279
Speaker 2: school band. And when I met the Piccar brothers in

906
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 2: high school, everything changed and then it was real serious

907
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 2: and we found out about studium musicians.

908
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 1: Oh whoa, whoa whoa. Okay, so you're in your neighborhood.

909
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:00,240
Speaker 1: You meet Lean daw Where do you go to high school?

910
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:03,399
Speaker 2: Grant High School in the Battle okay, And that's when

911
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:09,320
Speaker 2: we went from amateurs to taking the professional route very seriously.

912
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 2: And a guy something that really helped me out. There

913
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 2: was a guy that moved in next door to my parents'

914
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:20,080
Speaker 2: house who was the touring drummer for Helen Ready. His

915
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 2: name was Mike Berkerwitz. His sweetheart of a guy, and

916
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 2: my father said, Wow, this guy's not famous, but he

917
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 2: owns a house. Like, what's the deal. My father was

918
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 2: like talking to him, so what is this? You know? Well,

919
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 2: you know she learned how to read music and all

920
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 2: that stuff, you know, because I was playing by ear

921
00:46:38,760 --> 00:46:41,640
Speaker 2: from the time I was seven to fourteen. And that's

922
00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:43,839
Speaker 2: when Mike moved in next door and we started hearing

923
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 2: about studio musicians and stuff. Who are these names on

924
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:49,000
Speaker 2: the back of these albums that I love, same names.

925
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,920
Speaker 2: Who are these guys? And uh, that's the short version

926
00:46:53,000 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 2: of it. And then my dad said, Okay, man, you

927
00:46:57,840 --> 00:46:59,520
Speaker 2: gotta have to study music. If you're gonna do this,

928
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 2: I want you to. He talked to his friend Carl Furtina,

929
00:47:02,600 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 2: who was the main musical contractor at Paramount, because my

930
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 2: dad was working on at the time. I think it

931
00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 2: was right before Happy Days or something like that. My

932
00:47:11,239 --> 00:47:14,879
Speaker 2: dad was an assistant director production manager for television and film,

933
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 2: as was my grandfather. I have no interest in that.

934
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 2: That was heinous to me. Boring, boring, boring. Music was

935
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:23,959
Speaker 2: my whole thing and I had I had a gift

936
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 2: for it, I guess, and to take it to that

937
00:47:26,280 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 2: next level. My dad wanted me to study. As it

938
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,239
Speaker 2: turns out, when he wanted me to studies, when I

939
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:34,160
Speaker 2: met the Picar brothers and all this stuff, and me

940
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 2: and all my friends start studying music hard, like we

941
00:47:36,640 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 2: had to catch up learning how to read. We could

942
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,840
Speaker 2: play good, but we didn't have the basics, you know,

943
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 2: so it was really hard to learn how to read

944
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 2: music after you played for a while, because it was

945
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 2: you have to go back to maryhad a little lamb

946
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 2: in terms of ability to site read the notes on

947
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 2: the paper, and that was harder to do, but you know,

948
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:56,800
Speaker 2: you had to get it together.

949
00:47:58,440 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: How long did you study for I.

950
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 2: Would say I put ten years of study into three years.

951
00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:07,200
Speaker 2: All we did was music, music, music, all day long.

952
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 2: I studied guitar privately, I was studying orchestration. I was

953
00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 2: studying at the first year of the Dick Grove Music

954
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 2: School for jazz improvisation, site reading, harmony and theory and school.

955
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:22,040
Speaker 2: I was taking piano sit singing harmony theory. And then

956
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 2: we had our band, and then there was other bands,

957
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: and then there was people were just starting to make demos.

958
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 2: So we started play on sessions like demo sessions for

959
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 2: singer songwriters. Started like joining the minor leagues for studio

960
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: playing before, because nobody had home studios or recording devices

961
00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 2: that they got anytime at all. They were hired guys

962
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:44,719
Speaker 2: to get paid twenty bucks or two and or something

963
00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 2: like that. So started to get a feel of what

964
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:50,560
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, headphone, studio time, sound, getting

965
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 2: it all together, coming up with parts really fast on

966
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: the spot without any rehearsal or demos or anything like that.

967
00:48:57,800 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 2: We were the demos, so we had to come up

968
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:01,959
Speaker 2: with our stuff. Turns out that was a useful skill

969
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:04,880
Speaker 2: to learn, because I spent ninety eight percent of the

970
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 2: time as a professional studio musician coming up with my

971
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 2: own parts on everything we ever did.

972
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: Okay, so how'd you meet to Piccaro Brothers.

973
00:49:20,160 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 2: High school? Tenth grade? There was all bands, you know,

974
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 2: we already had. I had already had bands and stuff,

975
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,520
Speaker 2: you know, really good ones. Actually just stop here for

976
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: a second. Were the bns playing gigs for money? Yeah?

977
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 2: They actually paid us money to play, you know, I

978
00:49:35,520 --> 00:49:37,880
Speaker 2: mean not a lot. But by the time we had

979
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 2: Still Life together, which is our high school band with

980
00:49:40,280 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 2: you know, Steve Pacaro's band. I met Steve Pacaro through

981
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 2: our music teacher, mister Neil. He said, I got as

982
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,919
Speaker 2: a guy you should meet. And Steve had the hotshot band,

983
00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 2: still Life in the first version of it, and we

984
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 2: had heard Jeff Pacarr was already a legend at that

985
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 2: point before he was even famous. Yet he was like,

986
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 2: I have you heard this guy? The best drummer that

987
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,840
Speaker 2: there is, and you know, and when I met Steve,

988
00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 2: we hit it off and he had a band and

989
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:12,880
Speaker 2: he wanted to use I'm looking for another guitar player,

990
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 2: and so me and I I grabbed Mike Land and

991
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:18,960
Speaker 2: I said, come on, we'll do this together. We were

992
00:50:19,000 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 2: convinced we could both get the gig because it was

993
00:50:21,040 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 2: at the time when Steely Dan was really happening. A

994
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 2: lot of two guitar playing player bands that they were

995
00:50:28,239 --> 00:50:30,759
Speaker 2: looking for that sort of a thing. So rather than

996
00:50:30,840 --> 00:50:32,960
Speaker 2: choose between us, he said, I want both of you

997
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 2: guys to be in it. And that's how I met

998
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:39,120
Speaker 2: David Page and how I started the reality meeting all

999
00:50:39,239 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: these people that were the names on the back of

1000
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:45,880
Speaker 2: records after high school and I got out. I it

1001
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:48,800
Speaker 2: was just it just happened really fast. All of a sudden,

1002
00:50:48,840 --> 00:50:51,000
Speaker 2: everything started to happen really quickly, and I got the

1003
00:50:51,080 --> 00:50:55,080
Speaker 2: gig with Boss Skaggs for the Silk Degrees Tour that

1004
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,440
Speaker 2: changed my life. And that was thanks to Jeff and

1005
00:50:58,520 --> 00:51:01,280
Speaker 2: Steve Pacaro and Jay Wendy, who was a famous keyboard

1006
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 2: player at the time and one of my he was

1007
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,480
Speaker 2: a close brother of mine. I met Willie Ornellis drummer

1008
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,960
Speaker 2: who introduced me to Larry Carlton, who Jeff knew and everybody,

1009
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 2: and I started meeting all the guys that I met,

1010
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:16,560
Speaker 2: David Foster, the young David Foster, and he was a big,

1011
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:19,600
Speaker 2: huge help to me, and we became fast friends and

1012
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:21,439
Speaker 2: I did all his stuff, and then I started playing

1013
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 2: on hit records. Boss Boss was looking for a band,

1014
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 2: you know, and he's looking for a guitar player, and

1015
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:29,759
Speaker 2: Jeff and those guys said, yeah, get look at her.

1016
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:33,360
Speaker 2: And I got there. And the day, first day of

1017
00:51:33,400 --> 00:51:35,040
Speaker 2: rehears I was so excited to get this gig. I

1018
00:51:35,080 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 2: wanted the gig so bad because Boss had, you know,

1019
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 2: one of the biggest records of seventy six seventy seven,

1020
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:43,800
Speaker 2: and so I got to do the tour in seventy seven.

1021
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 2: And the first day, Less Dudak, who was a famous

1022
00:51:49,000 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 2: blues player, you know, he was working with Bo. More

1023
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:53,320
Speaker 2: of a in the style of the Almond Brothers, you know,

1024
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,839
Speaker 2: that southern rock guitar player. And this stuff was Page's Riding,

1025
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:00,879
Speaker 2: had more you know, adults in it, and a little

1026
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,359
Speaker 2: bit more of a different groove. And the first day

1027
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 2: of rehearsal, Lesson Boss got in a fight and Less

1028
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:11,600
Speaker 2: quit and Boss turned to the band. We're all rehearsing

1029
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,960
Speaker 2: at Sir down in Hollywood, you know, and Boss goes,

1030
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 2: I think we needed to get another guitar player, and

1031
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:20,120
Speaker 2: Jeff stood up and said, no, you don't, pointed at me.

1032
00:52:20,239 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 2: He goes, calls him out, let him play, and he

1033
00:52:23,920 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 2: called out the song jump Street, which was a slide

1034
00:52:26,880 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 2: guitar song actually, but I didn't have a slide so

1035
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:31,800
Speaker 2: I just did it my own way. And I apparently

1036
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,080
Speaker 2: did really well because everybody kind of applauded for me afterwards,

1037
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 2: and Boss goes, well, I don't need another guitar player.

1038
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:39,680
Speaker 2: I was nineteen years old, which was weird at the time.

1039
00:52:39,760 --> 00:52:42,359
Speaker 2: I was very young, not by today's standards, but very

1040
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 2: young at the time to be on that kind of

1041
00:52:43,880 --> 00:52:46,080
Speaker 2: a tour. I mean I couldn't even go to the

1042
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:47,800
Speaker 2: bar and have a drink after the gig, you know.

1043
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 2: And you know I got this gig. It changed my life.

1044
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 2: Boss changed my life. I owe so much to him.

1045
00:52:55,880 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 2: He made a big deal about me, invited me to

1046
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:01,320
Speaker 2: play on the follow up record, which I gave me

1047
00:53:01,400 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 2: some solos on that, which really opened up my career.

1048
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 2: People going wow, this is an important record. Who's this guy?

1049
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 2: This is good with? Get me that guy. And then

1050
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:12,880
Speaker 2: Jake Graden, who was like one of my oldest friends,

1051
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 2: famous record producer, guitar player, he was the a guy

1052
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:18,399
Speaker 2: at the time. He turned me on all you get

1053
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:20,719
Speaker 2: lugat there man, you know. Yeah, and then he got

1054
00:53:20,760 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 2: out and went to be a producer and he gave

1055
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 2: me all of his work. And it's how it snowballs.

1056
00:53:25,600 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: You know, you play on a hit record, then everybody

1057
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:30,520
Speaker 2: finds out about you and they've hired you, and you deliver,

1058
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 2: and you have to deliver. It's luck to get in

1059
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 2: the door, but not luck to get called back twice.

1060
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:38,919
Speaker 2: And so I lived that life and then the band

1061
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 2: was starting to happen. It was all at one time.

1062
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 2: It was like overwhelming. I don't even know how I

1063
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:47,360
Speaker 2: how we made the time for it all. But I

1064
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 2: woke up with a smile and went to bed with

1065
00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:51,640
Speaker 2: a smile every day in my life for like twenty years,

1066
00:53:51,719 --> 00:53:54,000
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it was all working for us.

1067
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 2: You know. It was really an incredible time in my life.

1068
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:02,080
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to high school, I mean, as you mentioned,

1069
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,320
Speaker 1: were all these bands that grew up with the Beatles,

1070
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 1: but certainly in the late seventies mid seventies bands were

1071
00:54:09,360 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 1: a really big deal in LA I mean, you had

1072
00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: Van Allen at the star Wood whatever, you know, did

1073
00:54:15,719 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: you think you were going to make it? How is

1074
00:54:17,719 --> 00:54:19,840
Speaker 1: still Life relative to these other bands?

1075
00:54:20,080 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 2: Well, prior to Still Life, we had another band that

1076
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 2: auditioned for Gazaris when Van Halen was headlining, right, and

1077
00:54:28,120 --> 00:54:30,240
Speaker 2: we got the gig until they found out we were sixteen,

1078
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 2: and then they said you can't work here. So and

1079
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 2: the Van Halen thing, we'd always heard about Van Hallen,

1080
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:40,480
Speaker 2: but we never heard him. Like, we'd all hang out

1081
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:42,719
Speaker 2: at me and Landau and a bunch of our friends

1082
00:54:42,760 --> 00:54:44,680
Speaker 2: would go down to the Guitar Center Hollywood and play

1083
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 2: all the guitars we couldn't afford and play all the apps,

1084
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:49,040
Speaker 2: so they used to let us do it because we

1085
00:54:49,120 --> 00:54:50,520
Speaker 2: were good. We were like, look at these guys, they

1086
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 2: can play it. And one of the guys who worked

1087
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:54,759
Speaker 2: there is this is this guy from Pasadena, Eddie. You

1088
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 2: should meet him someday. We're like, oh, yeah, all right,

1089
00:54:57,600 --> 00:54:59,719
Speaker 2: and we didn't. I didn't know Eddie until after the

1090
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 2: first album came out. I heard about it, but I

1091
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 2: didn't know he was the wonder, you know, he was

1092
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 2: this amazing guitar player. And I mean because there wasn't really,

1093
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:12,680
Speaker 2: the communication wasn't like it is now. You'd hear rumblings,

1094
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 2: oh there's this ban Oh yeah, I wonder for better

1095
00:55:15,040 --> 00:55:17,600
Speaker 2: than they are or whatever, you know, cocky little bastards

1096
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 2: that we were, and you know, and then it all

1097
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 2: came together. We all became friends in the end, and

1098
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 2: you know, we were doing our first album. I was

1099
00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 2: doing a solo and pagewalks in with the first Van

1100
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 2: Aalen record. He goes, I got something for you to

1101
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 2: I want to play something, and I go, van Ellen, yeah,

1102
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:36,120
Speaker 2: I heard of them, and he plays eruption. He drops

1103
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,600
Speaker 2: the kneel on eruption on my fucking jaw hits the floor.

1104
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the fuck is that? Who is the

1105
00:55:42,760 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 2: how is he doing that? And I got to play.

1106
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:46,799
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, oh, I'm pretty good man for a nineteen

1107
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:48,440
Speaker 2: year old kid. And then fucking Eddie comes in and

1108
00:55:48,480 --> 00:55:52,239
Speaker 2: blows the socks off everybody, and then I was on

1109
00:55:52,320 --> 00:55:54,160
Speaker 2: a quest to meet him. I'm like, I gotta find

1110
00:55:54,200 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 2: out who this guy is. I want to meet Eddie

1111
00:55:55,760 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 2: van Aalen. And obviously that album just you know, changed

1112
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:03,239
Speaker 2: rock and roll forever, and then added to like we

1113
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:07,919
Speaker 2: meet at the California World Music Festival in seventy eight.

1114
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 2: We're both on the bill, and we met and said

1115
00:56:11,719 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 2: we got to hang out. And then some time went

1116
00:56:14,239 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 2: by and he called me on the once to come

1117
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,239
Speaker 2: over the house. I said, oh great. So I went

1118
00:56:19,280 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 2: over to his house and stayed a year one night

1119
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 2: and we became very fast friends immediately, and he would

1120
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 2: play me stuff like you know, they were already on

1121
00:56:28,520 --> 00:56:31,040
Speaker 2: there it was he was doing. He had a demo

1122
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 2: for Jump he played for me. I said, dude, keyboards too.

1123
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 2: I said, this is incredible. This is the number one record.

1124
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 2: He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, but Roth doesn't like it.

1125
00:56:41,680 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 2: I go, what are you talking about? He goes out

1126
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 2: of the keyboards like, oh, come on, I go this

1127
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,080
Speaker 2: this is a smash record. And that was the demo

1128
00:56:49,239 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 2: of it. And you know, it turns out I was right.

1129
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:54,480
Speaker 2: But you know, he didn't need me to tell him

1130
00:56:54,480 --> 00:56:56,640
Speaker 2: it was. It was a you know already in stone

1131
00:56:56,640 --> 00:56:57,880
Speaker 2: that that was going to be a hit record. It

1132
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 2: was just a brilliant piece of music, you know. And

1133
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 2: I've always loved the guys, you know, I mean broke

1134
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:07,799
Speaker 2: my heart to lose my friend. You know, we were close, man.

1135
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,440
Speaker 2: I Drahm and Alex and I are friends. You know,

1136
00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 2: I still talk to him all the time, and I'm

1137
00:57:15,480 --> 00:57:18,240
Speaker 2: like Switzerland. I love all the guys. The only guy

1138
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 2: I don't know is David Lee Roth. I met him

1139
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 2: a couple of times, but I don't know him. But

1140
00:57:22,000 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 2: you know, I was other than that. I mean Mike

1141
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:26,520
Speaker 2: and Sammy and all those guys and everybody else who

1142
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 2: had come through. I mean, we're all buddies. You know,

1143
00:57:30,320 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 2: those friendships I made and most of my still have,

1144
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:38,080
Speaker 2: assuming people are still here, you know they were at

1145
00:57:38,120 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 2: the stage now that what sucks about getting all is

1146
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 2: losing all your friends.

1147
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 1: So hanging with Eddie did you learn stuff hanging with him?

1148
00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:52,280
Speaker 2: No, because it wasn't what our hangs were about. Man.

1149
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 2: We'd play music for each other. We'd always play each

1150
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 2: other what we were working on. Here's I'm working on

1151
00:57:57,920 --> 00:57:59,600
Speaker 2: this record. What do you think? Can he play me stuff?

1152
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 2: I play him stuff. Other than that, we just hung

1153
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 2: out as buddies. Man. It was never like, oh sure,

1154
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:07,680
Speaker 2: I you know. The first night we hung out, you know,

1155
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 2: we played some guitars a little bit. You know, let

1156
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 2: me check out your guitar, let me check out your

1157
00:58:11,480 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 2: you know, there's that magic amp that was on the

1158
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 2: first album. There's no magic, camp man, I sound just

1159
00:58:16,000 --> 00:58:18,720
Speaker 2: like me coming to this stuff. You know. It's the

1160
00:58:18,840 --> 00:58:22,000
Speaker 2: magic is in the person who's playing the guitar. You know,

1161
00:58:22,960 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 2: you can get the same gear. It doesn't mean anything,

1162
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 2: you know. I mean I believed me. I played a

1163
00:58:28,760 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 2: lot of famous guitarsn't It didn't help by playing at all,

1164
00:58:32,520 --> 00:58:34,280
Speaker 2: But it was neat to play and see how they

1165
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 2: set it up because everybody's guitars are set up a

1166
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 2: little differently. It's a personal thing, you know.

1167
00:58:39,640 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: Is it you who's just Switzerland or does everybody get along.

1168
00:58:44,480 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 2: I've made a point to try to be Switzerland in

1169
00:58:46,840 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 2: my life, you know what I mean, I really have.

1170
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 2: I know what it's like to be in turmoil in

1171
00:58:52,800 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 2: your own band. I mean, it really sucks. But friendships

1172
00:58:58,480 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 2: that I've made I've kept, you know, and they mean

1173
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:04,480
Speaker 2: a lot to me. I've only lost a few buddies

1174
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:09,000
Speaker 2: along the way in terms of friendships. But that's usually

1175
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:14,520
Speaker 2: some way business oriented, you know, and not really my fault.

1176
00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 2: It's just a different point of view or that opens

1177
00:59:18,040 --> 00:59:19,640
Speaker 2: up a can of worms I'd rather not get into.

1178
00:59:19,800 --> 00:59:22,520
Speaker 2: But that's you know. I make friends for life unless

1179
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:23,520
Speaker 2: something weird happens.

1180
00:59:24,160 --> 00:59:28,040
Speaker 1: Okay, but if I talk to the league guitarists of

1181
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:31,480
Speaker 1: another famous band, would you say he's friends with all

1182
00:59:31,520 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: the guitarists or would he feel competitive?

1183
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 2: Oh there's I don't feel competitive with anybody anymore. Man,

1184
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,120
Speaker 2: when that's a young man's game. When you're you know,

1185
00:59:39,160 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 2: when you're young, you want to be the fastest gun

1186
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 2: in the West or whatever, you know, And I don't

1187
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:48,320
Speaker 2: necessarily mean the fastest and technical ability, although that may

1188
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:51,040
Speaker 2: play into it back in the day when that mattered.

1189
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 2: But I'm so glad not to be like that now

1190
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 2: that I purposely played very simple on my new record.

1191
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't hotdog it at all. I play,

1192
01:00:01,000 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 2: I down shifted, play melody, play, play something more memorable.

1193
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:06,720
Speaker 2: Because there's a seven year old kid in Japan that

1194
01:00:07,080 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 2: can play faster than you can blink, you know, and

1195
01:00:09,920 --> 01:00:13,520
Speaker 2: it almost becomes a parlor trick that's meaningless. I mean,

1196
01:00:13,560 --> 01:00:15,840
Speaker 2: there's some really young talent they't get me wrong. There's

1197
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 2: some incredible younger players that are just great blues players,

1198
01:00:19,680 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 2: great people doing different things with the instrument. There's some

1199
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 2: new bands. I'm just whoa, what the hell is that

1200
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 2: some young guitar players that are and female guitar players

1201
01:00:31,880 --> 01:00:34,880
Speaker 2: that are really incredible. You know, you're never going to

1202
01:00:34,920 --> 01:00:37,080
Speaker 2: hear the word, oh, she's good for a chick, which

1203
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 2: is completely insulting. I understand that. But the girls are like,

1204
01:00:40,960 --> 01:00:43,680
Speaker 2: you know, the girl's bad ass. Many better look out,

1205
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:47,080
Speaker 2: you better look out. Man. It's just it's just I

1206
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 2: look at the women and guitar players. It's just great

1207
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 2: guitar player. If I started naming them all off right now,

1208
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 2: and there's a bunch that I could, i'd forget somebody

1209
01:00:54,680 --> 01:00:55,920
Speaker 2: and feel bad. So I don't want to do that.

1210
01:00:56,520 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 2: But the watch out for the girls. They're coming and

1211
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 2: they're just this is good, if not better than most

1212
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 2: of the guys.

1213
01:01:03,480 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: Okay, And who are your guitar heroes?

1214
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, you know my guitar heroes are? We just

1215
01:01:08,120 --> 01:01:10,840
Speaker 2: lost one of them. Jeff Beck was probably one of

1216
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:13,480
Speaker 2: one of my favorites, and.

1217
01:01:14,200 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 1: I thought he was the absolute best. I can't believe

1218
01:01:16,440 --> 01:01:17,080
Speaker 1: he's going either.

1219
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 2: Well, we were friends, man, you know. I made a

1220
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:22,160
Speaker 2: record with him that never came out. Produced it in

1221
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, but we never got to finish it

1222
01:01:24,520 --> 01:01:26,680
Speaker 2: because he got into techno and left it all behind.

1223
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:30,680
Speaker 2: I mean, Jeff's probably got fifteen albums unfinished in the

1224
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 2: vault somewhere, but he was like, I don't want anybody

1225
01:01:33,560 --> 01:01:37,520
Speaker 2: to hear this stuff. So I just saw him last summer.

1226
01:01:37,720 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 2: We did a festival together in Europe and France, the

1227
01:01:40,800 --> 01:01:42,920
Speaker 2: one off thing, whereas you know, twenty bands on the

1228
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,320
Speaker 2: same festival. And it was just great to see him

1229
01:01:45,320 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 2: gig because I han't seen him for a while. He's

1230
01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:50,560
Speaker 2: with Johnny deppho was a really lovely guy and really

1231
01:01:50,680 --> 01:01:54,360
Speaker 2: nice guy, and they were just having fun together, man,

1232
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 2: you know, and the band was kid. He played so

1233
01:01:56,240 --> 01:01:58,680
Speaker 2: great and it was like he was like I saw him,

1234
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:01,240
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, don't expect too much. I've been playing.

1235
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 2: I'm going to shut up. You're gonna devastate And he

1236
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:07,200
Speaker 2: did just ripped it a new asshole. You know. It's like,

1237
01:02:07,320 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 2: you know, well, there's Jeff Beck and then there's everybody else.

1238
01:02:11,520 --> 01:02:13,320
Speaker 2: And that's not to take anything away from all the

1239
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:16,360
Speaker 2: other amazing musicians I know, but I think Jeff was

1240
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 2: like every guitar player's favorite guitar player.

1241
01:02:20,120 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: What about him switching from using a pick to using

1242
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 1: his fingers.

1243
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 2: He told me a story once that the reason why

1244
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:30,840
Speaker 2: he started not using a pick is because he was

1245
01:02:30,880 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 2: on the Ed Sullivan Show and dropped his pick and

1246
01:02:34,640 --> 01:02:36,760
Speaker 2: he flipped out, I'm not going to have this thing

1247
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:41,000
Speaker 2: getting make or break me now. He told me that story.

1248
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 2: But you know, he told a lot of stories. You know,

1249
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:45,360
Speaker 2: sometimes I think, are you just bullshitting me or what?

1250
01:02:46,160 --> 01:02:48,320
Speaker 2: Because when he picked up a pick and started playing,

1251
01:02:49,320 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 2: it sounded funny. It's you know he did in the

1252
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:54,240
Speaker 2: early days. Of course, you know he used to pick.

1253
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:58,320
Speaker 2: Didn't think he's hybrid version of both. But Jeff Beck

1254
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:01,240
Speaker 2: sounded like Jeff Beck when it was just all skin

1255
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:05,920
Speaker 2: on strings. That's how the magic is in him. I

1256
01:03:06,000 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 2: played his guitar, I don't sound like Jeff Beck playing

1257
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:11,200
Speaker 2: his guitar. He'd pick up an attitude guitar and when

1258
01:03:11,240 --> 01:03:13,920
Speaker 2: he played it was in tune. I'm convinced he had

1259
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 2: perfect pitch. We didn't even know what that was. I mean,

1260
01:03:16,960 --> 01:03:20,440
Speaker 2: he was very unschooled. Everything was by ear and by feel.

1261
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 2: And he made a point that he told me once

1262
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 2: he goes if it's normal, if it sounds normal, I'm

1263
01:03:25,640 --> 01:03:31,400
Speaker 2: not interested. So he would just come at whatever. It

1264
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:34,880
Speaker 2: was a simple melody notes or notes. You know, it

1265
01:03:34,960 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 2: was an ease and E and F sharp's and F shark. However,

1266
01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:42,080
Speaker 2: how you attack it and how you make that feel

1267
01:03:42,320 --> 01:03:47,240
Speaker 2: with the touch is what changes everything. It's like your vibrados,

1268
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 2: a thumbprint, a thumbprint. Nobody has no two alike. You know,

1269
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,280
Speaker 2: That's that's the whole thing touches everything when it comes

1270
01:03:54,320 --> 01:03:55,120
Speaker 2: to playing the guitar.

1271
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: How about people who were not stars, who were studio players.

1272
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 1: Anybody come to mind? You think especially great?

1273
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:05,680
Speaker 2: Oh, they're all great. I mean all the guys that

1274
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:09,520
Speaker 2: I came up with, my heroes, Larry Carlton, Lee Rittenauer,

1275
01:04:09,640 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 2: Jay Graydon Ray Parker, Junior Dean Parks. Uh, those are

1276
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:17,200
Speaker 2: the guys, the A guys when I first hit the scene,

1277
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:20,720
Speaker 2: and then my buddy Michael Landau and Dan Huff. Then

1278
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:24,440
Speaker 2: there was, Oh, I'm gonna start forgetting guys. There's Tim Pearce,

1279
01:04:24,560 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 2: who's a brilliant guitar player. Michael Thompson brilliant. There's some

1280
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 2: new guys that I don't know, but I hear there's

1281
01:04:30,800 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 2: some new blood in there now. There are other guy

1282
01:04:34,000 --> 01:04:40,160
Speaker 2: Paul Jackson, Junior, David William, the late Great David Williams. Yeah,

1283
01:04:40,320 --> 01:04:42,720
Speaker 2: those are the guys that you know, we were all

1284
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 2: working together and we were all brothers. Man, I mean

1285
01:04:45,320 --> 01:04:48,040
Speaker 2: it was I learned everything. Those guys are my heroes.

1286
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:49,800
Speaker 2: The inspiration still are.

1287
01:04:51,400 --> 01:04:53,120
Speaker 1: Is there any session work at all?

1288
01:04:53,240 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 2: Now? Yeah, the guy's doing it now, do it like

1289
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,440
Speaker 2: I me at my son's home studio right now talking

1290
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:02,760
Speaker 2: to you. Everybody does it like this. So I'm looking

1291
01:05:02,800 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 2: at you on the screen going, okay, you want me

1292
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:06,040
Speaker 2: to do another take? Do you want me to do this?

1293
01:05:06,160 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 2: And everybody's their own engineer's studio and player. There's like

1294
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:13,840
Speaker 2: live recording sessions where everybody shows up and plays together

1295
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:17,760
Speaker 2: is rare. It's financially not feasible for most people now

1296
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:21,240
Speaker 2: because they took all the money. Once the record companies

1297
01:05:21,280 --> 01:05:23,720
Speaker 2: figured out there was home studios and you can make

1298
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 2: records for you know, ten, you know, one hundred times

1299
01:05:27,680 --> 01:05:30,360
Speaker 2: less than what we were making them for. Then they

1300
01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 2: took the budgets away. They say, oh, here's X amount

1301
01:05:34,520 --> 01:05:38,080
Speaker 2: of dog you can keep whatever you don't use. So

1302
01:05:38,160 --> 01:05:40,360
Speaker 2: everybody's like, well, I'm going to keep this money for myself.

1303
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:42,400
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd like to hire so and so, but

1304
01:05:43,000 --> 01:05:47,120
Speaker 2: you know, maybe he'll do it for cheap, now, dude,

1305
01:05:47,120 --> 01:05:50,960
Speaker 2: that's where the Union failed us miserably. Do you how

1306
01:05:51,040 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 2: much not I played on thousands of records, and that's

1307
01:05:53,560 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 2: not a facetious count, all right over my years, all

1308
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:02,000
Speaker 2: the forty six, forty seven years or whatever it is now,

1309
01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:07,240
Speaker 2: And how much do you think my union pension is

1310
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:08,080
Speaker 2: per month?

1311
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: I have no idea.

1312
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:13,880
Speaker 2: Now, understand something. Television and film are the guys that

1313
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:16,360
Speaker 2: you have to site read anything that's put in front

1314
01:06:16,360 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 2: of you. And it can be classical, scary stuff, or

1315
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,080
Speaker 2: it could be dumb stuff easy. You don't know what

1316
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:25,880
Speaker 2: you're gonna get. So those guys they read the notes

1317
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 2: and they do it incredibly well. That's a talent and

1318
01:06:28,760 --> 01:06:30,880
Speaker 2: a gift. Wow. I mean I can read music, but

1319
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:33,520
Speaker 2: not like that. You know, my chops are way to

1320
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:34,880
Speaker 2: I haven't done it in a long time. It's like

1321
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:38,240
Speaker 2: speaking French, and when you're living in France, you forget

1322
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:40,760
Speaker 2: it if you're not living in France for a while. Anyway,

1323
01:06:40,800 --> 01:06:42,720
Speaker 2: getting back to it, and that's one thing. And those

1324
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:47,240
Speaker 2: guys got good pensions for some reason. But the recording guys,

1325
01:06:47,560 --> 01:06:50,160
Speaker 2: guys like me who ninety eight percent of the time

1326
01:06:50,360 --> 01:06:52,680
Speaker 2: made up my own parts on the spot with no rearsal,

1327
01:06:52,760 --> 01:06:56,920
Speaker 2: no demos, play something great. Here's here's a chord sheet

1328
01:06:57,000 --> 01:06:59,280
Speaker 2: with you know, letters written on it. Count it off?

1329
01:06:59,640 --> 01:07:02,880
Speaker 2: You know, we get we got shit? How much you

1330
01:07:02,960 --> 01:07:04,920
Speaker 2: think all the records I played for all of the

1331
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:06,800
Speaker 2: years I've been in what's you've never been a.

1332
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:09,160
Speaker 1: Memory of union? I have no idea. If I'm gonna guess,

1333
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fuck it up. Just tell us no.

1334
01:07:10,960 --> 01:07:12,440
Speaker 2: But that's why I want you to guess, because you

1335
01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 2: don't know.

1336
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:16,200
Speaker 1: Okay, when did you start receiving your pension?

1337
01:07:17,840 --> 01:07:19,840
Speaker 2: Well? I took it a couple of years ago because

1338
01:07:19,880 --> 01:07:23,520
Speaker 2: I figured, well I better get it before there's nothing. Okay,

1339
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:26,640
Speaker 2: But here's the deal. Nobody joins the union anymore, so

1340
01:07:26,800 --> 01:07:30,640
Speaker 2: you can't replenish the fun for the old guys. So

1341
01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:35,560
Speaker 2: when the no new guys join, where's the money coming

1342
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:39,160
Speaker 2: in to pay the pensions? For life? The worst medical

1343
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:41,840
Speaker 2: So I thank god I got after sag is I

1344
01:07:41,960 --> 01:07:44,000
Speaker 2: sing and stuff. But even that's going They're gonna throw

1345
01:07:44,080 --> 01:07:46,960
Speaker 2: me off of that in October, even though I've been

1346
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:49,080
Speaker 2: on it for life. But that's the whole other story.

1347
01:07:49,120 --> 01:07:51,760
Speaker 2: But the musicians, I mean, you think they would have

1348
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:55,720
Speaker 2: gone to bat for us, right, No, they didn't. So

1349
01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:58,960
Speaker 2: I get one thousand dollars a month taxable at fifty

1350
01:07:59,000 --> 01:08:02,240
Speaker 2: three percent in California. I wouldn't even be able to

1351
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:03,760
Speaker 2: afford to live into the freeway for that.

1352
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 1: Okay, let me just ask you. Somebody calls you up

1353
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:15,280
Speaker 1: to play on a track, do you charge them? And

1354
01:08:15,400 --> 01:08:15,880
Speaker 1: how much?

1355
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:21,800
Speaker 2: These days two things happen. First of all, I don't

1356
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:24,880
Speaker 2: do it much anymore. I played on a lot of

1357
01:08:24,880 --> 01:08:28,200
Speaker 2: people's stuff for free, just saying yeah, man, I love that.

1358
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,479
Speaker 2: That's great. You know, there's a great guitar player named

1359
01:08:31,479 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 2: Mark Letterry. He's part of the whole Snarky Puppy group

1360
01:08:35,520 --> 01:08:39,920
Speaker 2: of musicis young musicians that are absolutely phenomenal musicians, incredible.

1361
01:08:40,280 --> 01:08:43,880
Speaker 2: He's a badass guitar player, a sweet guy. And he

1362
01:08:44,080 --> 01:08:45,880
Speaker 2: just found me and said, hey, man, would you play

1363
01:08:45,920 --> 01:08:48,439
Speaker 2: on my record? How much did it cost to play

1364
01:08:48,479 --> 01:08:51,160
Speaker 2: on my record? I said, Mark, I go, what do

1365
01:08:51,200 --> 01:08:52,320
Speaker 2: you need me for? Number?

1366
01:08:52,360 --> 01:08:52,519
Speaker 1: One?

1367
01:08:53,120 --> 01:08:56,000
Speaker 2: Two? If you really want me to do this, I'll

1368
01:08:56,040 --> 01:08:58,640
Speaker 2: do it for nothing. I said. I'll come up to

1369
01:08:58,680 --> 01:09:02,639
Speaker 2: my son's place where I'm sitting right and I'll throw

1370
01:09:02,680 --> 01:09:04,599
Speaker 2: I'll throw something on there. If you like it, keep

1371
01:09:04,600 --> 01:09:07,400
Speaker 2: it if you don't fuck it. Now that was the choice.

1372
01:09:07,960 --> 01:09:10,439
Speaker 2: Now somebody that comes and says, I want to pay

1373
01:09:10,439 --> 01:09:14,120
Speaker 2: you a million dollars to play on my session being facetious,

1374
01:09:14,160 --> 01:09:15,760
Speaker 2: but you know what I mean, like a lot of money.

1375
01:09:16,479 --> 01:09:19,400
Speaker 2: You got my attention, maybe, but if I don't tag

1376
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:20,760
Speaker 2: the music, I don't want to do it, you know.

1377
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:23,679
Speaker 2: I mean, I I don't want to take somebody's money

1378
01:09:23,800 --> 01:09:25,400
Speaker 2: just to be a whore, you know, and take make

1379
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 2: them feel bad because I got it done in twenty

1380
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:31,160
Speaker 2: minutes and they spend all this money, you know, like, Okay,

1381
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:34,200
Speaker 2: I'd rather be enthusiastic about it and do it as

1382
01:09:34,200 --> 01:09:37,519
Speaker 2: a favor. And we do this a lot amongst ourselves

1383
01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:41,360
Speaker 2: with the barter system, Like I paid all the guys

1384
01:09:41,720 --> 01:09:45,439
Speaker 2: money throw double scale at least legitimate money to play

1385
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:47,680
Speaker 2: on my record. Other people I go like, I'll do

1386
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:51,160
Speaker 2: yours if you do my. And we do a lot

1387
01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:53,200
Speaker 2: of stuff like that, you know what I mean, because

1388
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:55,200
Speaker 2: there's not a lot of doing it anymore, you know.

1389
01:09:56,240 --> 01:09:57,840
Speaker 2: I mean, we can make a little bit, but you

1390
01:09:57,920 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 2: know I have a big nut. I mean, I have

1391
01:10:00,479 --> 01:10:03,720
Speaker 2: a lot of families, divorces and four children, well two

1392
01:10:03,760 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 2: of them are married, they don't need me anymore. But

1393
01:10:05,520 --> 01:10:07,720
Speaker 2: I got two kids that I still got to put

1394
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:10,840
Speaker 2: through school and college, and you know, buy cars and

1395
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:14,240
Speaker 2: nurture them until they're adults and they can take care

1396
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:17,439
Speaker 2: of themselves. So I mean, I gotta let you know.

1397
01:10:19,400 --> 01:10:21,519
Speaker 2: Being a session player was like the greatest times of

1398
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:23,400
Speaker 2: my life. But it's time to move out of the way.

1399
01:10:23,920 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 2: I stopped doing it. When I start feeling like I

1400
01:10:26,479 --> 01:10:29,160
Speaker 2: better get out before I don't they stop calling me.

1401
01:10:29,560 --> 01:10:31,640
Speaker 2: I'd rather go out on top and just I had

1402
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:34,160
Speaker 2: the good fortune of being able to start a solo

1403
01:10:34,280 --> 01:10:36,200
Speaker 2: career on the side and do some other weird side

1404
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:38,719
Speaker 2: projects and still have the band to make a living.

1405
01:10:39,800 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 2: I was told by Carlton Graydon Ritt and all the guys,

1406
01:10:43,439 --> 01:10:45,760
Speaker 2: you got ten twelve years, then you got to get

1407
01:10:45,760 --> 01:10:49,200
Speaker 2: out make room for somebody else. When you're a recording musician,

1408
01:10:49,479 --> 01:10:51,639
Speaker 2: when you're a TV film guy, once you get that gig,

1409
01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:53,720
Speaker 2: you never leave town. You stay there until you die,

1410
01:10:54,040 --> 01:10:56,120
Speaker 2: and you get the great pet and six bigger pensions

1411
01:10:56,160 --> 01:10:58,360
Speaker 2: and all that stuff if you're a recording guy. For

1412
01:10:58,439 --> 01:11:00,240
Speaker 2: some reason, we got fucked on the deal. I don't

1413
01:11:00,240 --> 01:11:03,080
Speaker 2: know who made that deal, but it's a drag for

1414
01:11:03,200 --> 01:11:05,840
Speaker 2: all the musicians like myself who maybe don't have a

1415
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:07,519
Speaker 2: band to carry on the rest of their life and

1416
01:11:07,600 --> 01:11:11,639
Speaker 2: make a living. And you know, I feel like you're

1417
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,000
Speaker 2: a valuable member of the musical society.

1418
01:11:21,400 --> 01:11:26,000
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're in high school, you go out on

1419
01:11:26,080 --> 01:11:27,840
Speaker 1: the what's it like going out on the road. You

1420
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:29,519
Speaker 1: can't go to a bar, but that doesn't mean you

1421
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:32,840
Speaker 1: can't drink, you can't smoke, you can't get laid. What's

1422
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:35,160
Speaker 1: it like being nineteen going on the road.

1423
01:11:36,200 --> 01:11:39,280
Speaker 2: It was a lot of fun because i it sneak

1424
01:11:39,360 --> 01:11:41,000
Speaker 2: bears out to us and stuff, you know. I mean,

1425
01:11:41,040 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 2: you know, we were, but we weren't drunks at that point.

1426
01:11:43,120 --> 01:11:47,439
Speaker 2: We were just kids having a good time. When it

1427
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:50,519
Speaker 2: all went crazy, and it did like the late you know,

1428
01:11:50,640 --> 01:11:53,920
Speaker 2: anybody that lived through this, you know, nineteen seventy five

1429
01:11:54,000 --> 01:11:56,760
Speaker 2: to nineteen ninety five, knows what I'm talking about. I

1430
01:11:56,840 --> 01:11:58,320
Speaker 2: mean everybody. You know, everybody went out of there and

1431
01:11:58,400 --> 01:11:59,840
Speaker 2: got a little bit out of their minds. You know,

1432
01:12:00,080 --> 01:12:03,440
Speaker 2: all the drugs, the booth and the hanging and the craziness.

1433
01:12:04,280 --> 01:12:06,280
Speaker 2: You know, you read about all this stuff when you're

1434
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:07,920
Speaker 2: a kid. Oh, when I'm a rock star, I get

1435
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:09,800
Speaker 2: to do this and throw TVs out the window and

1436
01:12:09,920 --> 01:12:13,880
Speaker 2: be an asshole. It's not really how you want to

1437
01:12:13,880 --> 01:12:16,000
Speaker 2: live your life, you know what I mean? And as

1438
01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:19,040
Speaker 2: an older guy, I mean, yeah, we had fun, but

1439
01:12:19,120 --> 01:12:22,639
Speaker 2: we took the gigs very serious after hours, whatever and whatever.

1440
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:25,559
Speaker 2: But like you know, there was all these rumors about

1441
01:12:25,560 --> 01:12:27,880
Speaker 2: all the drugs, everything that we were supposed to be doing. Man,

1442
01:12:27,960 --> 01:12:30,240
Speaker 2: come on, man, to have your own band do that

1443
01:12:30,439 --> 01:12:32,960
Speaker 2: and then play on everybody else's records doing twenty some

1444
01:12:33,120 --> 01:12:36,160
Speaker 2: odd sessions a week. You can't be that fucked up man.

1445
01:12:36,520 --> 01:12:39,160
Speaker 2: If you are, then you don't get called back, so

1446
01:12:39,200 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 2: you have a very short career, or you get big

1447
01:12:42,000 --> 01:12:44,920
Speaker 2: time and outprice yourself. Oh I need X amount of

1448
01:12:44,960 --> 01:12:46,639
Speaker 2: dollars to do the session. People, you might be able

1449
01:12:46,640 --> 01:12:48,439
Speaker 2: to get away with that for a minute, but it's

1450
01:12:48,479 --> 01:12:50,439
Speaker 2: like anybody else when they fall down the ladder, there's

1451
01:12:50,439 --> 01:12:51,920
Speaker 2: nobody there to catch you. They just move out of

1452
01:12:51,960 --> 01:12:54,760
Speaker 2: the way and watch it splat. You know. So I

1453
01:12:55,320 --> 01:12:57,519
Speaker 2: was given a lot of great tips and rules to

1454
01:12:57,640 --> 01:13:01,439
Speaker 2: live by by my older peers. Do this, don't do that,

1455
01:13:01,720 --> 01:13:06,240
Speaker 2: you know, shut up, don't be like that. And I listened,

1456
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:11,080
Speaker 2: you know, but now I you know, we do the shows.

1457
01:13:11,120 --> 01:13:13,200
Speaker 2: I you know, I haven't had a drink in almost

1458
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:17,200
Speaker 2: fourteen years. I don't do drugs. I don't do you know.

1459
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:19,960
Speaker 2: I'm That's not how I live. And you know, I mean,

1460
01:13:19,960 --> 01:13:23,160
Speaker 2: I the booze got to me. That was my poison.

1461
01:13:23,560 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 2: I would say. In the two thousands was when I

1462
01:13:26,240 --> 01:13:30,000
Speaker 2: got out of control and I almost ruined everything. I did,

1463
01:13:30,120 --> 01:13:32,600
Speaker 2: ruin a lot of things. Mostly I hurt myself and

1464
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:36,519
Speaker 2: my reputation because I became a drunk and it was

1465
01:13:36,600 --> 01:13:39,240
Speaker 2: pitiful and I'm really ashamed of that and I'm really

1466
01:13:39,280 --> 01:13:44,040
Speaker 2: sorry about it. But I hit the wall and that

1467
01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:47,160
Speaker 2: was it, and I just I threw away the cigarettes

1468
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:49,800
Speaker 2: and the booze and didn't look back. You know.

1469
01:13:50,320 --> 01:13:52,960
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you decide to stop? And how did

1470
01:13:53,000 --> 01:13:54,240
Speaker 1: you literally stop?

1471
01:13:55,640 --> 01:13:58,880
Speaker 2: A man? I knew I was swirling the bowl. Man,

1472
01:13:59,000 --> 01:14:01,560
Speaker 2: I knew I felt like all the time, and I

1473
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:05,280
Speaker 2: was just trying to chase that away by doing more.

1474
01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:08,880
Speaker 2: And one day I was right at the end of

1475
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:13,760
Speaker 2: my last marriage. I was so beat down from it.

1476
01:14:14,880 --> 01:14:17,200
Speaker 2: I was out all night drinking and being an idiot,

1477
01:14:17,840 --> 01:14:21,240
Speaker 2: and I was like ten in the morning, I was like, oh,

1478
01:14:21,360 --> 01:14:24,400
Speaker 2: I feel so bad. I started drinking in the morning

1479
01:14:24,600 --> 01:14:27,640
Speaker 2: to make the pain go, and I couldn't look at

1480
01:14:27,720 --> 01:14:31,439
Speaker 2: myself in the mirror when I was shaving. I'd be like,

1481
01:14:31,520 --> 01:14:34,240
Speaker 2: I'd look away. Go. I know I looked bad. I

1482
01:14:34,400 --> 01:14:37,200
Speaker 2: felt bad. I wasn't playing well. I hated myself. My

1483
01:14:37,880 --> 01:14:41,720
Speaker 2: life was falling apart, and I had a little girl

1484
01:14:41,840 --> 01:14:43,920
Speaker 2: that had just come into the world who's now going

1485
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:47,200
Speaker 2: to be sixteen. But at that time, I started going,

1486
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:49,040
Speaker 2: this is not good, man, I can't do this, and

1487
01:14:49,120 --> 01:14:52,439
Speaker 2: people were worried about me, and I was blowing it.

1488
01:14:52,760 --> 01:14:55,080
Speaker 2: To be quite honest with you, I've been given this

1489
01:14:55,240 --> 01:14:59,840
Speaker 2: incredible gift of a career. And you know, alcoholism runs

1490
01:15:00,080 --> 01:15:02,920
Speaker 2: my family, man. My mother died from it. You know

1491
01:15:03,280 --> 01:15:06,080
Speaker 2: other members of my family have been crippled by it

1492
01:15:06,680 --> 01:15:09,160
Speaker 2: and they've either died or come out of it. And

1493
01:15:09,240 --> 01:15:12,000
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be a casualty. I figured I'd

1494
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:15,720
Speaker 2: better do this and I felt so bad and I was.

1495
01:15:15,880 --> 01:15:17,760
Speaker 2: It's one of those days. It was like worst day ever.

1496
01:15:18,000 --> 01:15:19,479
Speaker 2: You know, you wake up in the morning, you feel

1497
01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:21,559
Speaker 2: like an elephant shit in your mouth and sucked your

1498
01:15:22,280 --> 01:15:24,559
Speaker 2: It sucked all your soul out, and you I walked

1499
01:15:24,560 --> 01:15:27,560
Speaker 2: out to the outside garage and I opened up the

1500
01:15:27,600 --> 01:15:30,160
Speaker 2: freezer and there was a bottle of vodka in the freezer,

1501
01:15:30,280 --> 01:15:32,519
Speaker 2: you know, And I just grabbed it and I started

1502
01:15:32,640 --> 01:15:35,200
Speaker 2: chugging it like it was water. And it was ten

1503
01:15:35,280 --> 01:15:37,559
Speaker 2: in the morning, and my then next my then wife

1504
01:15:37,640 --> 01:15:41,360
Speaker 2: walked out saw me. She and I turned around. She's

1505
01:15:41,439 --> 01:15:44,639
Speaker 2: caught me, she goes, So it's come to this now, huh.

1506
01:15:46,320 --> 01:15:48,719
Speaker 2: And I suck I and I hated her for telling

1507
01:15:48,800 --> 01:15:53,320
Speaker 2: me the truth. And I said, that's it, man, I'm

1508
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:57,519
Speaker 2: fucking done. I am done. I'm the cigarettes. The booze

1509
01:15:57,680 --> 01:16:00,439
Speaker 2: does she yeah, yeah, you quit before for a month,

1510
01:16:00,520 --> 01:16:04,000
Speaker 2: you'll be back, I go, not this time. And I

1511
01:16:04,120 --> 01:16:07,840
Speaker 2: never did, never went back, never touched a booze again.

1512
01:16:08,280 --> 01:16:11,040
Speaker 2: I did pitifully pick up cigarettes again for a minute

1513
01:16:11,120 --> 01:16:13,640
Speaker 2: during the pandemic and I was feeling all sorry for

1514
01:16:13,760 --> 01:16:17,840
Speaker 2: myself and fucked up on antidepressants, and I started and

1515
01:16:18,000 --> 01:16:20,639
Speaker 2: I quit. I'm not I haven't smoked. I'm not smoking anymore.

1516
01:16:20,720 --> 01:16:24,599
Speaker 2: But for a minute there, that's a dangerous one. Smoking

1517
01:16:24,640 --> 01:16:29,720
Speaker 2: cigarettes is awful. It's the most awful thing. And I

1518
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:31,559
Speaker 2: didn't drink, you know, I mean, that's the one thing

1519
01:16:31,600 --> 01:16:34,040
Speaker 2: I didn't crack there and I didn't, you know. But

1520
01:16:35,400 --> 01:16:38,080
Speaker 2: you know, I've done some very shameful things in my life. Man,

1521
01:16:38,120 --> 01:16:40,320
Speaker 2: I'm not a perfect guy. I'm not trying to put

1522
01:16:40,400 --> 01:16:42,880
Speaker 2: myself out there as be this saint when I'm not.

1523
01:16:43,960 --> 01:16:45,680
Speaker 2: But I tried to learn from my mistakes.

1524
01:16:47,840 --> 01:16:50,160
Speaker 1: So did you go to rehab? Do you go to AA?

1525
01:16:50,360 --> 01:16:52,320
Speaker 1: Or you just did it all yourselves top one day?

1526
01:16:52,400 --> 01:16:54,559
Speaker 2: That was it? Well, no, I didn't go at that point.

1527
01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:56,960
Speaker 2: I had never gone to an AA meeting. I just stopped.

1528
01:16:57,760 --> 01:17:01,960
Speaker 2: But apparently, you know, there was anger still left inside

1529
01:17:02,000 --> 01:17:04,720
Speaker 2: of me, which I didn't believe when people told, oh, man,

1530
01:17:04,760 --> 01:17:07,400
Speaker 2: you know you don't drink anymore. Man, but you're, uh,

1531
01:17:07,720 --> 01:17:10,200
Speaker 2: you're still mad at everybody, mad at the world, you know.

1532
01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:12,519
Speaker 2: And I had a chip on my shoulder from carrying

1533
01:17:12,520 --> 01:17:15,720
Speaker 2: around all the negative vibe that was coming on. I

1534
01:17:15,800 --> 01:17:19,519
Speaker 2: took it as a personal somebody dogged the band or

1535
01:17:19,560 --> 01:17:22,519
Speaker 2: somebody that I took it personally, which I shouldn't know. Now,

1536
01:17:22,600 --> 01:17:24,960
Speaker 2: I laugh, I go, okay, well change the channel, you know.

1537
01:17:25,600 --> 01:17:27,200
Speaker 2: But you know, for a while there I was trying

1538
01:17:27,240 --> 01:17:29,240
Speaker 2: to drink all that pain and all this other weird

1539
01:17:29,280 --> 01:17:31,280
Speaker 2: shit that happened from my childhood, which I don't want

1540
01:17:31,320 --> 01:17:31,760
Speaker 2: to get into.

1541
01:17:32,600 --> 01:17:35,280
Speaker 1: Waitweit do? Wait wait, give us a hint. What do

1542
01:17:35,360 --> 01:17:40,120
Speaker 1: you tell you portrayed a relatively pleasant childhood? What mom

1543
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:41,400
Speaker 1: my child was actually wrong?

1544
01:17:41,720 --> 01:17:44,160
Speaker 2: Oh? I've been bullied school. When I was in grammar school,

1545
01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:46,760
Speaker 2: it was really rough taking the bus every day when

1546
01:17:46,760 --> 01:17:49,479
Speaker 2: I was still single digits before I found my I mean,

1547
01:17:49,520 --> 01:17:52,760
Speaker 2: the guitar actually saved my life in school, because I

1548
01:17:52,920 --> 01:17:55,920
Speaker 2: was when I played at the fifth grade graduation in

1549
01:17:56,040 --> 01:17:58,200
Speaker 2: the auditorium and we could play. I was in a band.

1550
01:17:58,280 --> 01:18:00,040
Speaker 2: We could play and the girls screamed for us and

1551
01:18:00,040 --> 01:18:02,439
Speaker 2: all that stuff. And prior to that, every day was

1552
01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:07,519
Speaker 2: somebody was torturing me, you know. And because I was

1553
01:18:07,560 --> 01:18:09,920
Speaker 2: little and I was terrible in sports. I weighed about,

1554
01:18:10,200 --> 01:18:13,920
Speaker 2: you know, ten pounds wet, I was painfully shy, if

1555
01:18:13,960 --> 01:18:18,360
Speaker 2: you can imagine. But okay, no, but I was man,

1556
01:18:18,439 --> 01:18:21,080
Speaker 2: I mean, I was afraid of everybody, and everybody saw

1557
01:18:21,240 --> 01:18:23,960
Speaker 2: my weakness and picked at it. In an era when

1558
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:25,200
Speaker 2: I was like I don't want to get on the

1559
01:18:25,200 --> 01:18:28,439
Speaker 2: school bus, seemed like, you know, and my parents, sare

1560
01:18:28,479 --> 01:18:30,360
Speaker 2: you getting on the school bus? You know? You got

1561
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:33,479
Speaker 2: My father's like tough it out. Man, like when you

1562
01:18:33,640 --> 01:18:35,120
Speaker 2: used to get the old I'll see you at the

1563
01:18:35,200 --> 01:18:37,400
Speaker 2: flagpole at three o'clock. I'm going to kick your ass.

1564
01:18:38,280 --> 01:18:41,160
Speaker 2: You had to show up. And I was an easy

1565
01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:44,759
Speaker 2: beat down, like when I remember playing dodgeball in school

1566
01:18:44,800 --> 01:18:47,400
Speaker 2: with the big red rubber ball. You're not supposed to

1567
01:18:47,439 --> 01:18:50,000
Speaker 2: throw it at the guy's head. He was always hit

1568
01:18:50,160 --> 01:18:53,920
Speaker 2: my face smack on full blast, you know, and I

1569
01:18:54,560 --> 01:18:56,160
Speaker 2: you know it. I know it sounds like, oh, poor

1570
01:18:56,200 --> 01:19:00,120
Speaker 2: beautiful Luca there blah blah blah, but humiliating, you know.

1571
01:19:00,240 --> 01:19:01,920
Speaker 2: And then when I was you know, it's just kids

1572
01:19:02,000 --> 01:19:04,360
Speaker 2: that can be so cruel, and i'd see, I tell

1573
01:19:04,400 --> 01:19:06,160
Speaker 2: my old man, it's like, I mean, we got to

1574
01:19:06,200 --> 01:19:07,920
Speaker 2: go show up with the flag boys, like you got

1575
01:19:08,040 --> 01:19:10,160
Speaker 2: to show up. My dad was a marine. You don't

1576
01:19:10,280 --> 01:19:13,560
Speaker 2: puss out, you know. And you know, yeah, it made me.

1577
01:19:14,400 --> 01:19:18,800
Speaker 2: It gave me an edge, which I maybe he's still

1578
01:19:19,400 --> 01:19:21,519
Speaker 2: in there somewhere. It comes out every now and then

1579
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:24,120
Speaker 2: something I'm not very proud of. You know. It was

1580
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:28,439
Speaker 2: more like fight or flight whatever. I don't know what that.

1581
01:19:28,479 --> 01:19:30,880
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm trying to say here, but

1582
01:19:31,040 --> 01:19:33,080
Speaker 2: I mean, emotionally speaking, I had it, and there was

1583
01:19:33,160 --> 01:19:34,760
Speaker 2: weird shit in my family and stuff, you know, I

1584
01:19:34,920 --> 01:19:39,920
Speaker 2: want to dig up everybody's dirty laundry. But yeah, it was.

1585
01:19:40,320 --> 01:19:42,280
Speaker 2: There were as much great as there was, there was

1586
01:19:42,400 --> 01:19:46,240
Speaker 2: equally some weird stuff. You know. Every family has it, man,

1587
01:19:47,479 --> 01:19:52,720
Speaker 2: you know, and I you know, I feel comfortable in

1588
01:19:52,800 --> 01:19:55,000
Speaker 2: my own skin for the first time in my life

1589
01:19:55,120 --> 01:19:58,880
Speaker 2: these last two years coming out of the pandemic, and

1590
01:19:59,520 --> 01:20:03,640
Speaker 2: I really learned to really appreciate what I had and

1591
01:20:03,800 --> 01:20:07,320
Speaker 2: who I had, and the people around me, and most

1592
01:20:07,400 --> 01:20:09,680
Speaker 2: of all my kids, you know, and the people that

1593
01:20:09,800 --> 01:20:13,000
Speaker 2: I loved to hang out with. Because the last incarnation

1594
01:20:13,200 --> 01:20:17,320
Speaker 2: of the band ended on my ironically my birthday, October

1595
01:20:17,360 --> 01:20:21,639
Speaker 2: twenty first, twenty nineteen. I walked away from that going,

1596
01:20:21,680 --> 01:20:23,479
Speaker 2: there's some people here that I'm never going to speak

1597
01:20:23,520 --> 01:20:28,200
Speaker 2: to again ever in my life. And I said maybe, well,

1598
01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:30,280
Speaker 2: I said, I got to get away from this, and

1599
01:20:30,400 --> 01:20:32,280
Speaker 2: then the pen and said, I got I want to

1600
01:20:32,320 --> 01:20:34,599
Speaker 2: put together another version. I talked to the page. She said,

1601
01:20:35,040 --> 01:20:36,600
Speaker 2: I still want to keep doing this, but there's some

1602
01:20:36,640 --> 01:20:38,080
Speaker 2: guys that just don't want to be here and hate

1603
01:20:38,120 --> 01:20:41,840
Speaker 2: my guts and they're going to do this anymore. So

1604
01:20:42,240 --> 01:20:43,560
Speaker 2: we were going to do all this and then the

1605
01:20:43,640 --> 01:20:47,960
Speaker 2: pandemic hit and then I was like all dressed up

1606
01:20:47,960 --> 01:20:51,840
Speaker 2: and nowhere to go. And that started me the depression

1607
01:20:52,720 --> 01:20:54,880
Speaker 2: and all the other weird stuff. I was really happy

1608
01:20:54,960 --> 01:20:55,360
Speaker 2: for a while.

1609
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:57,080
Speaker 1: Tell me about going to the hospital.

1610
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:03,200
Speaker 2: I had a nervous breakdown on this and it was

1611
01:21:03,320 --> 01:21:07,240
Speaker 2: really scary. I don't know how deep I want to

1612
01:21:07,280 --> 01:21:10,360
Speaker 2: get into this, because it's they're they're there. There's humiliating

1613
01:21:10,479 --> 01:21:13,360
Speaker 2: really that I let myself go. But I had a

1614
01:21:13,400 --> 01:21:17,160
Speaker 2: nervous breakdown thanks to the fucking to overdoing it with

1615
01:21:17,200 --> 01:21:19,760
Speaker 2: the anti depressed it stuff. I was in there with

1616
01:21:19,880 --> 01:21:23,120
Speaker 2: like psycho murders and home was crying me. I'm like,

1617
01:21:23,439 --> 01:21:25,600
Speaker 2: I was so not in the right place at the

1618
01:21:25,640 --> 01:21:28,000
Speaker 2: right time. But I look at it this as God

1619
01:21:28,200 --> 01:21:32,640
Speaker 2: smacked my ass down. I said, Okay, bud, asshole, one

1620
01:21:32,680 --> 01:21:35,960
Speaker 2: more try. I had actually semi near death experience, you know,

1621
01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:38,280
Speaker 2: like I saw the light the tunnel and the light

1622
01:21:38,360 --> 01:21:40,880
Speaker 2: of God and all these things, and I thought I

1623
01:21:41,040 --> 01:21:44,280
Speaker 2: was dead. I really, I mean I went out. I

1624
01:21:44,320 --> 01:21:47,600
Speaker 2: don't know how out I was, but when I came to,

1625
01:21:48,040 --> 01:21:51,360
Speaker 2: I was in a hospital with a guy sitting at

1626
01:21:51,360 --> 01:21:54,840
Speaker 2: the end of my bed with a gun. Oh yeah,

1627
01:21:55,840 --> 01:21:58,320
Speaker 2: I'm like, where am I said, I'm in Hell. I

1628
01:21:58,439 --> 01:22:01,520
Speaker 2: wake up and I looked behind me. I'm in bed thirteen,

1629
01:22:02,120 --> 01:22:04,600
Speaker 2: and I go, I'm this it. I'm in Hell. I

1630
01:22:04,760 --> 01:22:07,040
Speaker 2: died and went to Hell. I am an asshole. I'm

1631
01:22:07,080 --> 01:22:10,320
Speaker 2: not worthy of anybody's love or anything. I'm a piece

1632
01:22:10,360 --> 01:22:13,600
Speaker 2: of shit. And I kept going, I gotta take a

1633
01:22:13,680 --> 01:22:17,280
Speaker 2: piss can, I gotta take a I go, I'm in Hell,

1634
01:22:17,320 --> 01:22:18,880
Speaker 2: aren't I? He goes, you know, in Hell? I go,

1635
01:22:19,240 --> 01:22:21,719
Speaker 2: this is hell? Look around me, this is There's nobody

1636
01:22:21,760 --> 01:22:23,840
Speaker 2: here but you and me in this we're green room

1637
01:22:23,880 --> 01:22:26,559
Speaker 2: and I'm thirteen. I'm like coming, How did I get here?

1638
01:22:26,640 --> 01:22:29,200
Speaker 2: What happened to me? And it all started to come

1639
01:22:29,240 --> 01:22:31,560
Speaker 2: back together, and you know, and so they threw me

1640
01:22:31,680 --> 01:22:35,040
Speaker 2: in this joint with these insane people. There was a

1641
01:22:35,120 --> 01:22:36,760
Speaker 2: couple of people in there that were nice to me,

1642
01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:40,160
Speaker 2: but the guy, the main guy, this Sigmund Freud, wanna

1643
01:22:40,200 --> 01:22:43,519
Speaker 2: be dude. And he'd be asking me things like looking

1644
01:22:43,600 --> 01:22:45,280
Speaker 2: at me, like trying to get me to confess the

1645
01:22:45,360 --> 01:22:48,360
Speaker 2: sins I didn't have, you know, you know, and it

1646
01:22:48,520 --> 01:22:50,519
Speaker 2: was and it was just I realized I gotta play

1647
01:22:50,600 --> 01:22:52,600
Speaker 2: this guy to get out. And he didn't want to.

1648
01:22:52,760 --> 01:22:55,400
Speaker 2: He thought it got weird when he started asking me

1649
01:22:55,439 --> 01:23:00,840
Speaker 2: how much money I made? The Yeah, I realized, why

1650
01:23:00,960 --> 01:23:03,240
Speaker 2: is he asking how much money you made? Because he's

1651
01:23:03,280 --> 01:23:05,240
Speaker 2: looking at me like, going, you don't he knew I

1652
01:23:05,320 --> 01:23:08,280
Speaker 2: didn't belong in this joint. He's trying to figure me

1653
01:23:08,360 --> 01:23:11,880
Speaker 2: out and googled me or whatever. He said, Okay, let's

1654
01:23:11,880 --> 01:23:14,439
Speaker 2: see what the cats all about. When I he threw

1655
01:23:14,479 --> 01:23:16,160
Speaker 2: out a number at me, and I laughed at him.

1656
01:23:16,160 --> 01:23:18,080
Speaker 2: I said, I went like this, No, it's more than that.

1657
01:23:18,439 --> 01:23:22,040
Speaker 2: That's a finger pointing up for the non visual. Yeah, right,

1658
01:23:22,080 --> 01:23:23,679
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I didn't want to say.

1659
01:23:23,800 --> 01:23:25,680
Speaker 2: I mean, if I say, you know, he threw out

1660
01:23:25,840 --> 01:23:28,720
Speaker 2: a small figure. I said, I said, I do a

1661
01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:30,599
Speaker 2: little better than that, and I pointed up. I didn't

1662
01:23:30,600 --> 01:23:32,599
Speaker 2: want to say because I knew what he was trying

1663
01:23:32,600 --> 01:23:33,960
Speaker 2: to get out him. He said how much more money

1664
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:37,320
Speaker 2: than I make than he did? And then he turned

1665
01:23:37,439 --> 01:23:39,040
Speaker 2: sour on me and he wasn't going to let me

1666
01:23:39,160 --> 01:23:43,240
Speaker 2: out like I was supposed to be three days out. Okay,

1667
01:23:43,320 --> 01:23:44,760
Speaker 2: that scared the fuck out of me, and I was

1668
01:23:44,800 --> 01:23:50,200
Speaker 2: really upset. But anyway, the only way for me to

1669
01:23:50,240 --> 01:23:52,960
Speaker 2: get out was to go to a rehab. So I said, well,

1670
01:23:53,040 --> 01:23:56,880
Speaker 2: I'm not addicted to anything, but I'll go just to

1671
01:23:56,920 --> 01:23:58,560
Speaker 2: get out of here. So I said, give me a

1672
01:23:58,800 --> 01:24:00,400
Speaker 2: I told my son. I was like he had he's

1673
01:24:00,400 --> 01:24:03,479
Speaker 2: a pay phone. It was like scariest hell in there, man.

1674
01:24:03,560 --> 01:24:06,280
Speaker 2: I mean, there was guys just being in prison. Man,

1675
01:24:07,320 --> 01:24:11,679
Speaker 2: I'm going to belonging here? What the fuck? And scared

1676
01:24:11,720 --> 01:24:14,160
Speaker 2: the holy living shit out of me. I mean, more

1677
01:24:14,240 --> 01:24:16,000
Speaker 2: than anything in my whole life. And I've seen some

1678
01:24:16,040 --> 01:24:19,000
Speaker 2: pretty frightening stuff in my life. That was the one.

1679
01:24:19,479 --> 01:24:23,040
Speaker 2: And so I checked myself. I mean, I said, okay,

1680
01:24:23,080 --> 01:24:25,240
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to this place in Malibu. Make

1681
01:24:25,280 --> 01:24:28,439
Speaker 2: sure it's a nice place. Cost me a fortune, but

1682
01:24:28,479 --> 01:24:30,479
Speaker 2: I didn't give a shit. I just wanted to get out,

1683
01:24:30,520 --> 01:24:31,599
Speaker 2: and I figure, you know what, this would be good

1684
01:24:31,640 --> 01:24:34,599
Speaker 2: for me. I didn't do it when I stopped drinking,

1685
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:37,640
Speaker 2: and I didn't drink, but I figured, okay, in order

1686
01:24:37,640 --> 01:24:39,080
Speaker 2: for me to get out, I'll take a month and

1687
01:24:39,160 --> 01:24:41,040
Speaker 2: I'll go and I'll do everything they tell me to do,

1688
01:24:41,160 --> 01:24:42,840
Speaker 2: and I'll still be by the ocean. I could take

1689
01:24:42,840 --> 01:24:45,280
Speaker 2: a walk by the ocean and you know, just kind

1690
01:24:45,320 --> 01:24:48,320
Speaker 2: of clear my head. And I met some really nice people.

1691
01:24:48,360 --> 01:24:49,960
Speaker 2: In there, and there's some other people. I'm going like,

1692
01:24:50,040 --> 01:24:51,479
Speaker 2: what am I doing in here? Man, like you know,

1693
01:24:52,600 --> 01:24:55,800
Speaker 2: and they're all like, I'm not allowed to say anything.

1694
01:24:55,960 --> 01:24:59,080
Speaker 2: There are some kids, you know, young people, and that

1695
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:02,720
Speaker 2: I really felt or there was struggling really hard. And

1696
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:04,479
Speaker 2: I met a couple of nice people that you know,

1697
01:25:04,600 --> 01:25:07,280
Speaker 2: and I went to all the classes and went to

1698
01:25:07,360 --> 01:25:09,760
Speaker 2: the meetings on the beach and I did it for

1699
01:25:09,840 --> 01:25:11,519
Speaker 2: a while. And you know, first thing I did was

1700
01:25:11,600 --> 01:25:13,400
Speaker 2: called ringo when I got out and gone, dude, I

1701
01:25:13,520 --> 01:25:17,639
Speaker 2: really fucked up. And you know, his friendship is everything

1702
01:25:17,680 --> 01:25:20,400
Speaker 2: to me. You know, he's a very close brother to me.

1703
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:24,479
Speaker 2: And and he talked me down and said, hey, you know,

1704
01:25:24,560 --> 01:25:27,080
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. I confessed my sins and all that stuff.

1705
01:25:27,120 --> 01:25:29,800
Speaker 2: I mean, but I didn't fall off the wagon like

1706
01:25:29,880 --> 01:25:32,880
Speaker 2: other people do with something that was terribly addicting. Or

1707
01:25:33,240 --> 01:25:35,960
Speaker 2: I didn't start drinking or starting blow or do anything stupid.

1708
01:25:36,840 --> 01:25:39,800
Speaker 2: But I did do stupid shit with the antidepressants that

1709
01:25:39,880 --> 01:25:43,479
Speaker 2: I was taking, you know, and which were okay by

1710
01:25:43,560 --> 01:25:45,400
Speaker 2: my now former doctor.

1711
01:25:46,160 --> 01:25:48,439
Speaker 1: What were the stupid things you were doing? Just taking

1712
01:25:48,479 --> 01:25:54,000
Speaker 1: too much ketamine? So you were going to a psychiatrist

1713
01:25:54,040 --> 01:25:56,040
Speaker 1: who was prescribing ketamine.

1714
01:25:56,760 --> 01:25:59,240
Speaker 2: Well my doctor said it was okay, yeah, and you

1715
01:25:59,360 --> 01:25:59,920
Speaker 2: get the ship.

1716
01:26:00,160 --> 01:26:02,879
Speaker 1: Well, was kend of forget when you had this bad experience?

1717
01:26:03,000 --> 01:26:05,719
Speaker 1: Was keny that was that was working for you before?

1718
01:26:07,080 --> 01:26:10,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it would take you to another place,

1719
01:26:10,680 --> 01:26:12,479
Speaker 2: but you're only supposed to take a little bit of it.

1720
01:26:13,800 --> 01:26:15,439
Speaker 2: But I was going, well, what happens if you take

1721
01:26:15,439 --> 01:26:17,840
Speaker 2: a little bit more? And then it got darker and

1722
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:20,000
Speaker 2: I was hiding it and it was really a shameful

1723
01:26:20,040 --> 01:26:25,280
Speaker 2: period of time for me. And then it just I

1724
01:26:25,720 --> 01:26:28,560
Speaker 2: did too much and went out. And that's when I

1725
01:26:28,680 --> 01:26:31,920
Speaker 2: have no recollection of what really would happened, other than

1726
01:26:32,120 --> 01:26:34,280
Speaker 2: I woke up in a hospital going what the fuck

1727
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:37,200
Speaker 2: happened to me? And where is everybody? I want to

1728
01:26:37,280 --> 01:26:41,120
Speaker 2: leave here, but they wouldn't let me leave. It was scary.

1729
01:26:41,200 --> 01:26:42,880
Speaker 2: It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me, Bob.

1730
01:26:42,920 --> 01:26:45,439
Speaker 2: I'm not kidding you, man. It really put everything into

1731
01:26:45,479 --> 01:26:49,439
Speaker 2: perspective in my whole life. And I wanted to escape

1732
01:26:49,479 --> 01:26:51,240
Speaker 2: so bad. I didn't want to feel anything. I didn't

1733
01:26:51,240 --> 01:26:54,360
Speaker 2: want to deal with anything. And this, you know, a

1734
01:26:54,439 --> 01:26:58,080
Speaker 2: little bit, okay, last for a half hour and then whatever.

1735
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:00,880
Speaker 2: But I just once I I realized it made me

1736
01:27:01,000 --> 01:27:05,439
Speaker 2: feel better. I just kept taking it. It's not illegal,

1737
01:27:05,640 --> 01:27:09,439
Speaker 2: it's not addicting, but it'll fuck you up if you

1738
01:27:09,520 --> 01:27:11,120
Speaker 2: do too much of it, like anything else.

1739
01:27:12,760 --> 01:27:16,960
Speaker 1: So did you would you learn in rehab, if anything.

1740
01:27:18,320 --> 01:27:20,639
Speaker 2: How lucky I really am, and how much my family

1741
01:27:20,720 --> 01:27:22,519
Speaker 2: meant to me, and how much my career meant to me,

1742
01:27:22,600 --> 01:27:26,559
Speaker 2: and how I almost lost it all because of feeling

1743
01:27:26,640 --> 01:27:29,720
Speaker 2: sorry for myself, like everybody else in the world wasn't

1744
01:27:29,720 --> 01:27:31,360
Speaker 2: fucked over, and like I was the only one. I mean,

1745
01:27:31,400 --> 01:27:34,960
Speaker 2: that was an incredibly selfish move on my part. I

1746
01:27:35,120 --> 01:27:39,559
Speaker 2: realized that I almost ruined everything, and I started from

1747
01:27:39,640 --> 01:27:42,800
Speaker 2: ground zero again. I was broken down to the nub,

1748
01:27:43,400 --> 01:27:45,360
Speaker 2: and I was very active and all the you know,

1749
01:27:45,400 --> 01:27:46,680
Speaker 2: I got a lot out of it, you know, I

1750
01:27:46,800 --> 01:27:48,519
Speaker 2: put You know, you get as much as you put

1751
01:27:48,560 --> 01:27:50,880
Speaker 2: into it, you know what I mean. But it was

1752
01:27:50,920 --> 01:27:52,760
Speaker 2: the scariest thing that ever happened to me. And I'm

1753
01:27:52,760 --> 01:27:54,160
Speaker 2: not proud of it. I mean, I don't really talk

1754
01:27:54,200 --> 01:27:56,000
Speaker 2: about it. I mean, you know, now everybody's gonna know

1755
01:27:56,000 --> 01:27:58,960
Speaker 2: about it and all that shit, but whatever, I don't care.

1756
01:27:59,000 --> 01:28:01,320
Speaker 2: I mean, I had some mistakes in my life, but

1757
01:28:01,479 --> 01:28:04,000
Speaker 2: I'm not the only one. It was really surprising that

1758
01:28:04,080 --> 01:28:06,360
Speaker 2: at my age I would have let myself do that again.

1759
01:28:06,520 --> 01:28:10,519
Speaker 2: But I had. I kept going, are we coming back?

1760
01:28:10,680 --> 01:28:12,439
Speaker 2: Is it coming back? No, man, I don't know when

1761
01:28:12,479 --> 01:28:15,680
Speaker 2: it's coming back. And my depression led me down the

1762
01:28:15,760 --> 01:28:17,920
Speaker 2: road and I told my doctor, this is what's up.

1763
01:28:18,680 --> 01:28:21,599
Speaker 2: He goes, well, that's interesting, he goes, that might work

1764
01:28:21,680 --> 01:28:24,080
Speaker 2: for you. Well, once you get a green light from

1765
01:28:24,120 --> 01:28:29,600
Speaker 2: a doctor to a guy like me, forget about it.

1766
01:28:30,240 --> 01:28:33,400
Speaker 2: So the first thing I did was abuse it like

1767
01:28:33,520 --> 01:28:37,200
Speaker 2: a drunk an addict, would you know? So I just

1768
01:28:37,439 --> 01:28:42,519
Speaker 2: changed poison. So I fucked myself up. But I still,

1769
01:28:43,400 --> 01:28:46,920
Speaker 2: you know, think about AA. I mean, I would go

1770
01:28:46,960 --> 01:28:48,800
Speaker 2: every day if I needed it, but you know, and

1771
01:28:49,040 --> 01:28:51,040
Speaker 2: and I went for a while. But I have a

1772
01:28:51,479 --> 01:28:52,880
Speaker 2: The guy that I met in there, who is now

1773
01:28:52,920 --> 01:28:56,400
Speaker 2: my psychiatrist, is an addiction expert, is now my sponsor

1774
01:28:56,479 --> 01:28:58,760
Speaker 2: as well, in the sense of I talked to him

1775
01:28:58,760 --> 01:29:02,200
Speaker 2: three times a week and sometimes more, sometimes a little less.

1776
01:29:02,240 --> 01:29:03,880
Speaker 2: But I mean he's helped me through this and he

1777
01:29:03,960 --> 01:29:06,439
Speaker 2: knows everything that I'm doing everything, and I can get

1778
01:29:06,560 --> 01:29:08,360
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff off my shoulder that I didn't

1779
01:29:08,760 --> 01:29:10,400
Speaker 2: want to say in front of a group of people

1780
01:29:10,479 --> 01:29:15,759
Speaker 2: that know me. There's nothing anonymous about alcoholics anonymous, especially

1781
01:29:15,760 --> 01:29:17,479
Speaker 2: if you live in Hollywood, you know, I mean, the

1782
01:29:17,520 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 2: would be guys at an arm wrestle me on that. Hey,

1783
01:29:19,439 --> 01:29:21,679
Speaker 2: it stays in the brotherhood and all that. But once

1784
01:29:21,720 --> 01:29:25,200
Speaker 2: you say something that you wish nobody ever knew in

1785
01:29:25,240 --> 01:29:27,280
Speaker 2: your whole life, and everybody knows about it, even if

1786
01:29:27,280 --> 01:29:30,240
Speaker 2: they swear not to tell, they still know when they

1787
01:29:30,280 --> 01:29:32,600
Speaker 2: look at you. And there's some things that I just

1788
01:29:32,640 --> 01:29:35,320
Speaker 2: didn't want anybody to know about, not you, not anybody.

1789
01:29:38,160 --> 01:29:41,519
Speaker 1: So the thirty days are up. What happens after they

1790
01:29:41,640 --> 01:29:42,240
Speaker 1: let you out?

1791
01:29:42,920 --> 01:29:44,880
Speaker 2: I went home and started my life over again.

1792
01:29:45,320 --> 01:29:47,720
Speaker 1: Well that's got to be hard after being you know,

1793
01:29:48,400 --> 01:29:51,400
Speaker 1: in a controlled environment for thirty days, suddenly be alone.

1794
01:29:51,840 --> 01:29:53,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a little weird. But my older kids

1795
01:29:54,000 --> 01:29:57,040
Speaker 2: came to my rescue and they fixed up the house

1796
01:29:57,120 --> 01:30:00,919
Speaker 2: for me and kind of you know, they were really supportive.

1797
01:30:01,840 --> 01:30:04,479
Speaker 2: You know, all my kids were. You know, my youngest

1798
01:30:04,520 --> 01:30:06,920
Speaker 2: son's autistic, so he didn't understand why. He's just figured

1799
01:30:06,920 --> 01:30:09,920
Speaker 2: I went on the road, and you know, but the

1800
01:30:10,000 --> 01:30:12,560
Speaker 2: rest of my kids were very supportive of me, particularly

1801
01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:14,960
Speaker 2: my older children. They really came to my rescue and

1802
01:30:15,479 --> 01:30:18,280
Speaker 2: cleaned out all the people that were around that shouldn't

1803
01:30:18,320 --> 01:30:22,679
Speaker 2: be around anymore. And and it was like an incredibly

1804
01:30:22,760 --> 01:30:26,599
Speaker 2: painful thing for me to realize how badly I fucked

1805
01:30:26,640 --> 01:30:29,360
Speaker 2: up and I almost died, and I let everybody down.

1806
01:30:29,439 --> 01:30:33,880
Speaker 2: I've humiliated myself. Now where do I go? So I

1807
01:30:33,960 --> 01:30:35,639
Speaker 2: own it? You know, I mean, I mean that's part

1808
01:30:35,680 --> 01:30:38,439
Speaker 2: of the program. I mean, just to own your sins.

1809
01:30:39,280 --> 01:30:42,840
Speaker 2: So it's it's it's humiliating to talk about, but you

1810
01:30:42,920 --> 01:30:47,160
Speaker 2: know what, man, maybe it'll help somebody go, wow, you

1811
01:30:47,240 --> 01:30:48,840
Speaker 2: know how long go?

1812
01:30:48,960 --> 01:30:49,840
Speaker 1: Did this all happen?

1813
01:30:50,160 --> 01:30:53,719
Speaker 2: A few years ago? A couple of years ago? Actually,

1814
01:30:54,120 --> 01:30:55,880
Speaker 2: if you want to get exact about it, because all

1815
01:30:55,920 --> 01:30:58,599
Speaker 2: the AA guys like to get exact. August twenty fifth,

1816
01:30:58,680 --> 01:31:01,360
Speaker 2: two years ago. So when it comes up this August,

1817
01:31:01,680 --> 01:31:03,479
Speaker 2: it'll be two years since the disaster.

1818
01:31:05,200 --> 01:31:08,200
Speaker 1: So how long did it take you to normalize, to

1819
01:31:08,360 --> 01:31:10,400
Speaker 1: feel back on your feet, to feel like you were?

1820
01:31:11,200 --> 01:31:13,200
Speaker 2: I felt normal. I mean there were Like I said,

1821
01:31:13,600 --> 01:31:16,640
Speaker 2: there's no come down. I wasn't. There's not an addictive

1822
01:31:16,720 --> 01:31:20,200
Speaker 2: drugs there was. I didn't have any physical.

1823
01:31:20,320 --> 01:31:23,599
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about coming down from drugs. I've had

1824
01:31:23,640 --> 01:31:27,200
Speaker 1: my own experience here and you're in the environment, then

1825
01:31:27,240 --> 01:31:29,719
Speaker 1: you go home and look at the four walls.

1826
01:31:30,240 --> 01:31:32,200
Speaker 2: I was really happy to be there with my dog

1827
01:31:32,360 --> 01:31:35,760
Speaker 2: and like you know, everybody ever, I mean, I you know,

1828
01:31:36,200 --> 01:31:39,360
Speaker 2: my kids forgave me. They understood that I went left field.

1829
01:31:39,760 --> 01:31:42,479
Speaker 2: You know, it hurt them to watch their old man

1830
01:31:42,600 --> 01:31:44,800
Speaker 2: like that. I scared my youngest daughter. I was just

1831
01:31:45,320 --> 01:31:47,160
Speaker 2: she was like, what the fuck is wrong with dad?

1832
01:31:47,280 --> 01:31:49,960
Speaker 2: You know, because I was just spaced out and I

1833
01:31:50,000 --> 01:31:52,600
Speaker 2: didn't realize what it looked like to look at me.

1834
01:31:54,120 --> 01:31:55,719
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, when you're inside of yourself,

1835
01:31:55,760 --> 01:31:58,519
Speaker 2: you think I'm cool, every nobody's everything's all right. But

1836
01:31:58,640 --> 01:32:03,559
Speaker 2: I wasn't. I was fucking dying inside. And this little

1837
01:32:04,240 --> 01:32:06,599
Speaker 2: band aid that I would put on with this fucking

1838
01:32:06,840 --> 01:32:12,840
Speaker 2: shit blinded me to the reality of my situation. And

1839
01:32:14,000 --> 01:32:17,559
Speaker 2: it's my fault. I can't point the finger at anybody.

1840
01:32:17,600 --> 01:32:21,519
Speaker 2: I mean, it's my fault. And that's the end of it,

1841
01:32:21,640 --> 01:32:24,000
Speaker 2: you know. And I made a mistake and I fixed it,

1842
01:32:25,120 --> 01:32:27,679
Speaker 2: and I still believe. I believe in the AA program.

1843
01:32:27,760 --> 01:32:31,200
Speaker 2: I think it's a fantastic thing. Everybody needs a different

1844
01:32:31,320 --> 01:32:33,479
Speaker 2: version of it, you know what I mean. There's a

1845
01:32:34,000 --> 01:32:36,600
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred different kinds of AA meetings in

1846
01:32:36,680 --> 01:32:39,320
Speaker 2: Los Angeles and different people in their own little clicks

1847
01:32:39,360 --> 01:32:43,000
Speaker 2: and stuff. I just preferred to get my treatment privately,

1848
01:32:43,120 --> 01:32:44,920
Speaker 2: and it's worked for me very very well, and I've

1849
01:32:44,920 --> 01:32:46,560
Speaker 2: got a lot of stuff out that's made me a

1850
01:32:46,640 --> 01:32:51,160
Speaker 2: much better person. The hardest part is forgiving myself. Some

1851
01:32:51,320 --> 01:32:53,720
Speaker 2: people are gonna hear this a guy. I knew that

1852
01:32:53,880 --> 01:32:57,040
Speaker 2: motherfucker man, look at that loser. I knew. You know,

1853
01:32:57,080 --> 01:32:58,840
Speaker 2: they're going to get off on hearing this, you know,

1854
01:32:59,479 --> 01:33:01,840
Speaker 2: and because they don't like me for whatever reason, or

1855
01:33:01,880 --> 01:33:07,080
Speaker 2: they just get off on other people's pain, having any

1856
01:33:07,160 --> 01:33:10,080
Speaker 2: fame whatsoever, even at a low level like myself. You know,

1857
01:33:10,280 --> 01:33:12,120
Speaker 2: people you know, like they like to take you down.

1858
01:33:13,439 --> 01:33:16,760
Speaker 2: That's why I got off all social media. I don't

1859
01:33:16,960 --> 01:33:19,080
Speaker 2: I don't look read the comments anymore. I don't do

1860
01:33:19,200 --> 01:33:22,559
Speaker 2: that because it was like cutting myself. There's always somebody

1861
01:33:22,560 --> 01:33:24,400
Speaker 2: who's gonna you know, I don't need to read I'm great.

1862
01:33:24,439 --> 01:33:27,760
Speaker 2: I don't need to read I suck. I don't need that.

1863
01:33:28,400 --> 01:33:30,600
Speaker 2: I try to do what I be the best me

1864
01:33:30,720 --> 01:33:33,120
Speaker 2: I can be, Try to forgive myself, be a better father,

1865
01:33:33,280 --> 01:33:36,479
Speaker 2: be a better friend. Maybe someday I'll meet a girl

1866
01:33:36,560 --> 01:33:38,639
Speaker 2: that makes sense for me, but you know, at this point,

1867
01:33:38,680 --> 01:33:40,559
Speaker 2: I'm better off alone. You know, I'm working a lot,

1868
01:33:41,439 --> 01:33:43,400
Speaker 2: work in my and my family is all I care

1869
01:33:43,439 --> 01:33:44,479
Speaker 2: about at this point. You know.

1870
01:33:52,080 --> 01:33:54,400
Speaker 1: So you talk about when you were married to your

1871
01:33:54,439 --> 01:33:58,479
Speaker 1: second wife, stopping drinking and having this anger is the

1872
01:33:58,560 --> 01:33:59,920
Speaker 1: anger now taking care of.

1873
01:34:01,880 --> 01:34:04,640
Speaker 2: As much as it can be. I come from a

1874
01:34:04,760 --> 01:34:08,760
Speaker 2: long line of angry men, my grandfather, my father, and

1875
01:34:08,880 --> 01:34:13,000
Speaker 2: it lessens every generation. My son travels, he's not he's

1876
01:34:13,040 --> 01:34:15,320
Speaker 2: not angry, he's you know, he can get angry. And

1877
01:34:15,400 --> 01:34:18,519
Speaker 2: sometimes I go, oh, I see that guy. I know

1878
01:34:18,560 --> 01:34:22,040
Speaker 2: where that comes from. But they all much. My oldest'll

1879
01:34:22,240 --> 01:34:24,920
Speaker 2: make do impressions of me, Matt, which kind of makes

1880
01:34:25,000 --> 01:34:26,800
Speaker 2: me laugh. I go, come on, I don't really look

1881
01:34:26,880 --> 01:34:30,640
Speaker 2: like that. Oh yes, you do nothing. You know. My

1882
01:34:30,760 --> 01:34:33,280
Speaker 2: kids are you know, gonna be thirty six and thirty

1883
01:34:33,320 --> 01:34:35,599
Speaker 2: eight next month. They're both May babies or this month,

1884
01:34:36,400 --> 01:34:38,439
Speaker 2: so I mean, you know, they've seen the whole ride,

1885
01:34:39,240 --> 01:34:41,400
Speaker 2: and I'm very tight with them. You know, my old

1886
01:34:41,520 --> 01:34:45,599
Speaker 2: my oldest daughter went through her own alcohol issue, which

1887
01:34:45,640 --> 01:34:48,880
Speaker 2: she's been clean for a long time now, but you know,

1888
01:34:49,360 --> 01:34:53,040
Speaker 2: it's you don't go into this trying to be an asshole,

1889
01:34:53,120 --> 01:34:55,559
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's always starts out as

1890
01:34:55,640 --> 01:35:00,400
Speaker 2: fun and some people can stay in that zone. Normal

1891
01:35:00,479 --> 01:35:03,160
Speaker 2: people have a couple of drinks, spoke a joint, whatever,

1892
01:35:03,240 --> 01:35:05,840
Speaker 2: you know. I I mean count weed. I mean, that's

1893
01:35:05,840 --> 01:35:08,080
Speaker 2: a whole other thing. But you know, when you start

1894
01:35:08,120 --> 01:35:11,400
Speaker 2: playing around with drugs that alter your mind or booze

1895
01:35:11,479 --> 01:35:15,560
Speaker 2: that alters your everything, it never ends well if you

1896
01:35:15,640 --> 01:35:16,360
Speaker 2: overdo it. You know.

1897
01:35:18,320 --> 01:35:22,519
Speaker 1: So you have four kids, Two are still in the home,

1898
01:35:23,320 --> 01:35:25,760
Speaker 1: two are out. Are the two are out? Do you

1899
01:35:25,840 --> 01:35:27,919
Speaker 1: support them at all? Are they off the payroll?

1900
01:35:28,479 --> 01:35:31,840
Speaker 2: Well, they're off the payroll. I support them wholeheartedly as

1901
01:35:31,880 --> 01:35:35,680
Speaker 2: a father, But I don't. I'm not writing any chext anybody. Then,

1902
01:35:35,760 --> 01:35:39,760
Speaker 2: both of my children married really well wonderful people that

1903
01:35:40,400 --> 01:35:44,200
Speaker 2: My oldest daughter's husband is a Saint Tony. He's a

1904
01:35:44,280 --> 01:35:46,120
Speaker 2: beautiful guy. They're trying to have a baby right now,

1905
01:35:46,120 --> 01:35:48,559
Speaker 2: which is great because I want grandpa something I want

1906
01:35:48,640 --> 01:35:52,160
Speaker 2: on the list. You know, most of my friends have grandkids.

1907
01:35:52,240 --> 01:35:56,759
Speaker 2: I'm like, I want one of those. And my oldest

1908
01:35:56,760 --> 01:36:01,160
Speaker 2: son just got married. He married Jonathan Cane's daughter from Journey,

1909
01:36:01,880 --> 01:36:03,000
Speaker 2: who is a wonderful cat.

1910
01:36:03,080 --> 01:36:03,200
Speaker 1: You know.

1911
01:36:03,280 --> 01:36:06,000
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't get into anybody's drama. That's their own.

1912
01:36:06,479 --> 01:36:08,360
Speaker 2: I've lived through my own. I might when we did

1913
01:36:08,439 --> 01:36:10,800
Speaker 2: the tour with these guys, it's like, I love you both,

1914
01:36:11,200 --> 01:36:14,720
Speaker 2: I please don't don I want to be involved. I

1915
01:36:15,360 --> 01:36:17,320
Speaker 2: I've been through this. I don't know. I don't want

1916
01:36:17,320 --> 01:36:19,400
Speaker 2: to be in it anymore. So we had a great time.

1917
01:36:19,439 --> 01:36:23,120
Speaker 2: It was great. But she's a wonderful daughter in law.

1918
01:36:23,200 --> 01:36:26,600
Speaker 2: She's fantastic, beautiful, smart, funny, and they live in a

1919
01:36:26,720 --> 01:36:29,719
Speaker 2: beautiful pad. You know, they're my kids do producing records

1920
01:36:29,760 --> 01:36:32,559
Speaker 2: and writing songs for people. And he's done very well

1921
01:36:32,840 --> 01:36:34,960
Speaker 2: in a time when it's almost impossible to do well

1922
01:36:35,000 --> 01:36:37,439
Speaker 2: in the music business as a young artist coming up.

1923
01:36:37,560 --> 01:36:37,680
Speaker 2: You know.

1924
01:36:39,479 --> 01:36:40,559
Speaker 1: So how'd you meet Ringo?

1925
01:36:42,160 --> 01:36:45,960
Speaker 2: Oh god, do I love that guy. He's been such

1926
01:36:45,960 --> 01:36:47,559
Speaker 2: a great friend to me and we went an honor

1927
01:36:47,800 --> 01:36:50,759
Speaker 2: to even say that out loud. I met him because

1928
01:36:50,800 --> 01:36:53,360
Speaker 2: I knew he had the all stars right, and there

1929
01:36:53,479 --> 01:36:54,960
Speaker 2: was I go, I want I want to be in

1930
01:36:55,040 --> 01:36:56,680
Speaker 2: that band more. I think I'm the right guy for

1931
01:36:56,760 --> 01:36:59,519
Speaker 2: this band. I think I could do. And my dear

1932
01:36:59,600 --> 01:37:03,680
Speaker 2: friend Greg Bissinette, who plays double dramas with Ringo. He

1933
01:37:03,880 --> 01:37:08,240
Speaker 2: recommended me, and he brought Dave Hart, who's the agent

1934
01:37:08,400 --> 01:37:11,559
Speaker 2: and producer of the shows. He finds the guys. Ringo

1935
01:37:11,680 --> 01:37:13,840
Speaker 2: used to change out the band every year and a half,

1936
01:37:14,080 --> 01:37:16,880
Speaker 2: you know, so it was coming time to change the band.

1937
01:37:16,920 --> 01:37:19,639
Speaker 2: They were looking for new players, and I and Greg

1938
01:37:19,720 --> 01:37:22,120
Speaker 2: brought him to a show we were doing Tota was

1939
01:37:22,160 --> 01:37:24,880
Speaker 2: doing in Paris, and so he saw the show and

1940
01:37:24,920 --> 01:37:27,080
Speaker 2: saw me, and it was sold out arena and we

1941
01:37:27,200 --> 01:37:30,519
Speaker 2: did great, and he's like, yeah, that guy's okay, So

1942
01:37:30,720 --> 01:37:33,600
Speaker 2: he ran in. Ringo's the bottom line, it's always up

1943
01:37:33,640 --> 01:37:35,960
Speaker 2: to him, you know, who he wants in the band

1944
01:37:36,040 --> 01:37:40,040
Speaker 2: and what music he wants to play or whatever. And

1945
01:37:40,280 --> 01:37:42,000
Speaker 2: the only thing I did was call up my buddy

1946
01:37:42,080 --> 01:37:44,040
Speaker 2: Jim Keltner and go Celtner put in a good word

1947
01:37:44,120 --> 01:37:45,519
Speaker 2: for me. Man, I really want to do this gig

1948
01:37:45,560 --> 01:37:48,360
Speaker 2: because him and Ringo are tight. And obviously there are

1949
01:37:48,479 --> 01:37:50,120
Speaker 2: a lot of people that have been in the band,

1950
01:37:50,160 --> 01:37:52,479
Speaker 2: were friends of mine or are still friends of mine.

1951
01:37:53,040 --> 01:37:56,479
Speaker 2: Why'd you want to do it so badly because it's Ringo? Man?

1952
01:37:56,640 --> 01:37:58,800
Speaker 2: I thought it'd be a great asset to the band.

1953
01:37:58,840 --> 01:38:01,000
Speaker 2: I mean, I had got a chance to work with

1954
01:38:01,200 --> 01:38:04,559
Speaker 2: Paul McCartney on the first time during the Thriller record

1955
01:38:04,640 --> 01:38:07,120
Speaker 2: with Michael Jackson, and then we did the film and

1956
01:38:07,240 --> 01:38:08,920
Speaker 2: he hired me and Jeff Bacar to go do the

1957
01:38:09,000 --> 01:38:11,519
Speaker 2: film in London, so we got to hang out with him,

1958
01:38:11,560 --> 01:38:14,360
Speaker 2: George Martin and Jeff Emerck for two weeks, which was awesome,

1959
01:38:14,479 --> 01:38:17,720
Speaker 2: beyond austome. And I met Dave Gilmour when I was

1960
01:38:17,760 --> 01:38:19,599
Speaker 2: there because he wanted Jeff to play, So, I mean,

1961
01:38:19,800 --> 01:38:23,000
Speaker 2: getting to meet all my heroes is pretty cool. And

1962
01:38:23,240 --> 01:38:26,160
Speaker 2: then I didn't see Paul for a while, and then

1963
01:38:26,200 --> 01:38:30,320
Speaker 2: I met George in a club George Harrison at the

1964
01:38:30,840 --> 01:38:33,560
Speaker 2: right three days before after you know, it was the

1965
01:38:33,640 --> 01:38:36,560
Speaker 2: year Jeff passed away in nineteen ninety two, and we

1966
01:38:36,640 --> 01:38:40,240
Speaker 2: were doing a benefit tribute concert room at the Amphitheater

1967
01:38:41,200 --> 01:38:44,040
Speaker 2: and everybody came out to this. Eddie van Halen joined up,

1968
01:38:44,160 --> 01:38:47,439
Speaker 2: Donald Fagan came out this before Steely got back together again,

1969
01:38:48,400 --> 01:38:54,280
Speaker 2: and Boz came out. Michael McDonald was there, James Newton

1970
01:38:54,360 --> 01:38:56,680
Speaker 2: Howard was there, all the guys that have played in

1971
01:38:57,000 --> 01:39:01,240
Speaker 2: the band, you know, Lenny Castro, all of our brothers

1972
01:39:01,320 --> 01:39:03,040
Speaker 2: came out and played. And then I had met George

1973
01:39:03,080 --> 01:39:05,519
Speaker 2: a couple of days before. Just wanted to say, Hi,

1974
01:39:06,200 --> 01:39:08,840
Speaker 2: you're the reason why I play. I was, I was humble,

1975
01:39:09,080 --> 01:39:12,560
Speaker 2: and I'll and he said, no, sit down, stay for

1976
01:39:12,600 --> 01:39:12,920
Speaker 2: a while.

1977
01:39:13,760 --> 01:39:14,599
Speaker 1: You know who you were?

1978
01:39:15,200 --> 01:39:19,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, surprisingly enough, you know, because I I at that point.

1979
01:39:19,600 --> 01:39:21,680
Speaker 2: You know, it was nineteen ninety two. You know, he

1980
01:39:22,200 --> 01:39:25,960
Speaker 2: had heard my name through musual friends, but we never met.

1981
01:39:26,160 --> 01:39:28,840
Speaker 2: And I said, hey, I'd worked with Paul. He says,

1982
01:39:28,840 --> 01:39:31,000
Speaker 2: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he goes and I just started

1983
01:39:31,000 --> 01:39:32,840
Speaker 2: making him laugh because a lot of people will say

1984
01:39:33,080 --> 01:39:35,559
Speaker 2: I love the solo you played on Taxman. It wasn't him,

1985
01:39:35,920 --> 01:39:38,479
Speaker 2: it was Paul. You know, I knew in the right

1986
01:39:38,560 --> 01:39:40,080
Speaker 2: songs and I knew. I said, hey, man, you're the

1987
01:39:40,160 --> 01:39:42,000
Speaker 2: reason why I played the guitar. I just wanted to

1988
01:39:42,040 --> 01:39:44,360
Speaker 2: say I love you and thank you very much. I'm

1989
01:39:44,360 --> 01:39:45,160
Speaker 2: going to leave you alone.

1990
01:39:45,479 --> 01:39:45,600
Speaker 1: You know.

1991
01:39:46,200 --> 01:39:47,840
Speaker 2: He said, no, sit down for a minute. So we start.

1992
01:39:47,920 --> 01:39:51,360
Speaker 2: I was drinking still then, so I was my happy,

1993
01:39:51,520 --> 01:39:54,400
Speaker 2: jovial self at that point. I think I amused him

1994
01:39:54,439 --> 01:39:56,120
Speaker 2: to a certain degree. And we had a little few

1995
01:39:56,200 --> 01:39:59,559
Speaker 2: laughs and and I was I was leaving. I said,

1996
01:39:59,800 --> 01:40:03,160
Speaker 2: you know, we're doing this benefit from our I told

1997
01:40:03,240 --> 01:40:06,840
Speaker 2: him about losing Jeff and stuff, and obviously he knew

1998
01:40:06,880 --> 01:40:11,759
Speaker 2: something about loss at that point. Uh, losing a band member, brother,

1999
01:40:11,920 --> 01:40:14,160
Speaker 2: you know, I mean to relate to that. He doesn't

2000
01:40:14,200 --> 01:40:15,880
Speaker 2: have to be famous to relate to that. There's a

2001
01:40:15,920 --> 01:40:18,200
Speaker 2: brotherhood that once you joined a band, you just you

2002
01:40:18,280 --> 01:40:21,439
Speaker 2: either understand or you don't. Anyway, I said, we're playing

2003
01:40:21,560 --> 01:40:23,960
Speaker 2: like wy don't you combine? You know, combined and hang,

2004
01:40:24,040 --> 01:40:26,040
Speaker 2: I got the last song we're doing is Little Help

2005
01:40:26,080 --> 01:40:28,720
Speaker 2: of my Friends, and he laughed. He goes said, well,

2006
01:40:28,760 --> 01:40:30,880
Speaker 2: maybe I maybe I'll show up, and I said, I'll

2007
01:40:30,920 --> 01:40:32,639
Speaker 2: leave a couple of tickets for you just in case,

2008
01:40:32,720 --> 01:40:35,559
Speaker 2: but I know you're not gonna come. So we end

2009
01:40:35,680 --> 01:40:39,680
Speaker 2: up there and we're rehearsing. David Crosby was there. I mean,

2010
01:40:39,920 --> 01:40:44,960
Speaker 2: like I said, I'm forgetting people that I And we're

2011
01:40:45,000 --> 01:40:47,360
Speaker 2: rehearsing the end bit and all of a sudden, somebody goes, hey,

2012
01:40:47,880 --> 01:40:50,160
Speaker 2: somebody's here to see I said, not now, man, I'm like,

2013
01:40:50,240 --> 01:40:52,040
Speaker 2: you know, I'm trying to figure. I'm sitting at the piano.

2014
01:40:52,080 --> 01:40:54,680
Speaker 2: We're all sitting around, throwing the parts around. He goes, no,

2015
01:40:55,120 --> 01:40:57,680
Speaker 2: this guy's from Liverpool. I go, you're shitting me. I

2016
01:40:57,800 --> 01:41:01,680
Speaker 2: turned around. There's George at the MP Theater, the old Amphitheater,

2017
01:41:01,840 --> 01:41:04,639
Speaker 2: and sitting there smiling at me. He goes, he goes,

2018
01:41:04,880 --> 01:41:06,680
Speaker 2: he didn't think I was going to show up, did you?

2019
01:41:07,640 --> 01:41:07,680
Speaker 1: No?

2020
01:41:07,960 --> 01:41:10,160
Speaker 2: I didn't, And I go, do you want to play

2021
01:41:10,200 --> 01:41:13,080
Speaker 2: on this? And he goes and he goes in. He

2022
01:41:13,200 --> 01:41:15,040
Speaker 2: was what I said, little help of my friends, and

2023
01:41:15,040 --> 01:41:16,519
Speaker 2: all of a sudden I realized we're doing the Joe

2024
01:41:16,600 --> 01:41:20,800
Speaker 2: Cocker version, you know. So we start playing around and

2025
01:41:20,800 --> 01:41:23,240
Speaker 2: he's got my old less ball in this in his hands,

2026
01:41:23,280 --> 01:41:26,160
Speaker 2: playing it, and he goes, well, that's not the way

2027
01:41:26,240 --> 01:41:28,400
Speaker 2: me and the last I said. I know, I said,

2028
01:41:28,439 --> 01:41:31,320
Speaker 2: I know, I know, this is terrible, and but he

2029
01:41:31,479 --> 01:41:33,280
Speaker 2: was great and he came out and played. You know

2030
01:41:33,439 --> 01:41:35,479
Speaker 2: that there's photos of me, him and Eddie Van Hale

2031
01:41:35,520 --> 01:41:37,720
Speaker 2: and I mean George. He took it a little bit

2032
01:41:37,720 --> 01:41:39,360
Speaker 2: of a shine to me. And we started hanging out.

2033
01:41:39,400 --> 01:41:43,040
Speaker 2: Every time he'd come into LA he would, we'd come on,

2034
01:41:43,200 --> 01:41:45,880
Speaker 2: have dinner and stuff, you know, and he I'd see

2035
01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:49,320
Speaker 2: him all the time. I've got lots of George stories,

2036
01:41:49,439 --> 01:41:52,840
Speaker 2: but that would take a whole other hour. But long

2037
01:41:52,880 --> 01:41:56,240
Speaker 2: story short, I stayed in touch with him and then

2038
01:41:57,320 --> 01:42:03,280
Speaker 2: when that idiot stabbed him at his house. He little

2039
01:42:03,320 --> 01:42:06,599
Speaker 2: lost touch with everybody. I'd hear like Kelder would say,

2040
01:42:06,760 --> 01:42:09,519
Speaker 2: George said to say, Hi, he's he's just hiding out

2041
01:42:09,520 --> 01:42:11,280
Speaker 2: at the house, man, you know, like, and I'm like, hey,

2042
01:42:11,439 --> 01:42:17,160
Speaker 2: I understand, you know, okay, edit we lose George. I

2043
01:42:17,240 --> 01:42:20,160
Speaker 2: mean try. I mean I was crushed, you know. And

2044
01:42:21,320 --> 01:42:26,559
Speaker 2: the whole Ringo thing started coming up, and that started

2045
01:42:26,600 --> 01:42:28,680
Speaker 2: became like, I really want to do this gig, you know,

2046
01:42:28,720 --> 01:42:30,479
Speaker 2: I really want to meet Ringo and I want him

2047
01:42:30,520 --> 01:42:32,040
Speaker 2: to like me, and I want to do this gig,

2048
01:42:32,080 --> 01:42:33,960
Speaker 2: and I want to do. My friend Richard Page and

2049
01:42:34,439 --> 01:42:36,200
Speaker 2: all these great artists that were playing with him at

2050
01:42:36,240 --> 01:42:38,400
Speaker 2: the time put a good word in for me, and

2051
01:42:38,400 --> 01:42:40,720
Speaker 2: then Kelder put a good When I finally talked to me,

2052
01:42:40,760 --> 01:42:43,719
Speaker 2: he goes, because you had everybody in the world calling

2053
01:42:43,800 --> 01:42:46,519
Speaker 2: me telling you to hire you know, I'm doing a

2054
01:42:46,600 --> 01:42:50,639
Speaker 2: terrible impression. And the first and I got the gig,

2055
01:42:50,840 --> 01:42:52,720
Speaker 2: but I wasn't allowed to talk about it for like

2056
01:42:53,000 --> 01:42:55,880
Speaker 2: three or four months. I couldn't tell anybody because the

2057
01:42:55,920 --> 01:42:57,720
Speaker 2: other band was ending. He didn't want it to get

2058
01:42:57,760 --> 01:43:00,280
Speaker 2: out that, you know, there was going to be changes, man,

2059
01:43:01,240 --> 01:43:03,200
Speaker 2: So I had to sit on that, and when I

2060
01:43:03,240 --> 01:43:04,760
Speaker 2: found out it was all going, I mean, I was

2061
01:43:04,800 --> 01:43:06,760
Speaker 2: so excited, thrilled to be in the band, you know,

2062
01:43:06,920 --> 01:43:09,400
Speaker 2: and I figured, wow, this is I told the guys been, look,

2063
01:43:09,439 --> 01:43:10,840
Speaker 2: I really want to do this band. Give me a

2064
01:43:10,880 --> 01:43:13,880
Speaker 2: couple of months off so I can do this. And

2065
01:43:14,040 --> 01:43:16,160
Speaker 2: at the time, Todd Rundren was in the band, you know,

2066
01:43:17,040 --> 01:43:21,040
Speaker 2: and Greg Rawley from Santana Journey in which we did

2067
01:43:21,040 --> 01:43:23,680
Speaker 2: all the Santana's. Anyway, I thought, you know what I

2068
01:43:24,040 --> 01:43:26,759
Speaker 2: could as a studio player. I could play everybody else's

2069
01:43:26,800 --> 01:43:29,600
Speaker 2: stuff just the way they wanted to be played. So

2070
01:43:29,680 --> 01:43:31,360
Speaker 2: I figured I'd be a good asset to the band.

2071
01:43:32,200 --> 01:43:34,600
Speaker 2: And you know, I remember getting off the elevator in

2072
01:43:34,760 --> 01:43:37,000
Speaker 2: Canada for the rehearsals, you know, and he was standing

2073
01:43:37,080 --> 01:43:40,400
Speaker 2: that I just looked at him. It's like he's such

2074
01:43:40,439 --> 01:43:42,840
Speaker 2: a warm human being. Give me a hug, and he says,

2075
01:43:42,840 --> 01:43:46,400
Speaker 2: all right, see you in the morning. And I've been

2076
01:43:46,479 --> 01:43:49,600
Speaker 2: there for eleven years and we become great friends, and

2077
01:43:49,720 --> 01:43:53,320
Speaker 2: that's a great honor. He's changed my life for the

2078
01:43:53,400 --> 01:43:57,400
Speaker 2: better and a He's been like the big brother had,

2079
01:43:57,560 --> 01:44:03,960
Speaker 2: you know, just always wise and positive and hilarious. And

2080
01:44:04,000 --> 01:44:07,160
Speaker 2: it's a joy to be around and make music with him.

2081
01:44:07,200 --> 01:44:11,800
Speaker 2: And see this guy who's gonna be eighty four in July.

2082
01:44:13,040 --> 01:44:16,280
Speaker 2: Every time I call him, he's on the treadmill. It's

2083
01:44:16,320 --> 01:44:18,519
Speaker 2: like your FaceTime on the treadmill a lot. You always

2084
01:44:18,560 --> 01:44:22,040
Speaker 2: bothering me on the faith time. He's never he never stops.

2085
01:44:22,080 --> 01:44:25,920
Speaker 2: He's working on three EPs at the same time, getting

2086
01:44:25,920 --> 01:44:27,360
Speaker 2: ready to go on the road. Now we're you know,

2087
01:44:27,479 --> 01:44:30,800
Speaker 2: we leave in three weeks. We start rehearsals and it's

2088
01:44:30,840 --> 01:44:32,800
Speaker 2: a thrill. And I told him he's gonna have to

2089
01:44:32,880 --> 01:44:34,759
Speaker 2: kill me to get rid of me. Man. He laughs

2090
01:44:34,800 --> 01:44:38,080
Speaker 2: about it. And I have no idea why I've lasted

2091
01:44:38,120 --> 01:44:41,960
Speaker 2: this long. I mean, we just have a great relationship.

2092
01:44:42,080 --> 01:44:42,200
Speaker 1: Man.

2093
01:44:42,280 --> 01:44:45,600
Speaker 2: You know, it's one of the most important things that

2094
01:44:45,680 --> 01:44:48,000
Speaker 2: ever happened to me in my life. I love the man.

2095
01:44:48,040 --> 01:44:51,760
Speaker 2: I would do any His family, unbelievably great people, His

2096
01:44:51,920 --> 01:44:55,160
Speaker 2: wife Barbara's fantastic, All the people are the kids, and

2097
01:44:55,200 --> 01:44:58,320
Speaker 2: all the people I met through him, world class human beings.

2098
01:44:58,360 --> 01:44:58,439
Speaker 1: Man.

2099
01:44:58,479 --> 01:45:01,840
Speaker 2: It's made me a better person hundred percent. And that's

2100
01:45:01,880 --> 01:45:04,040
Speaker 2: why I felt shitty when I blew it. I had

2101
01:45:04,040 --> 01:45:06,200
Speaker 2: to calm and say, look, man, I really fucked up

2102
01:45:06,800 --> 01:45:09,519
Speaker 2: because he didn't see it. I mean, I wouldn't show

2103
01:45:09,600 --> 01:45:12,439
Speaker 2: that side. It was like a secret dark spot that

2104
01:45:12,520 --> 01:45:15,840
Speaker 2: I would go to that very few people saw. And

2105
01:45:15,920 --> 01:45:18,160
Speaker 2: I fucked up my relationship with I fucked up everything

2106
01:45:18,200 --> 01:45:21,400
Speaker 2: with it. I mean, I really lost my mind literally,

2107
01:45:22,640 --> 01:45:25,919
Speaker 2: And now that I've got it back and everybody's all's forgiven.

2108
01:45:26,640 --> 01:45:28,439
Speaker 2: I made amends with the people that I needed to

2109
01:45:28,520 --> 01:45:31,880
Speaker 2: do that with, and the people that I have lost

2110
01:45:31,960 --> 01:45:33,920
Speaker 2: touch with for one reason or another. There's a reason

2111
01:45:33,960 --> 01:45:36,960
Speaker 2: for that. But for the most part, I mean, I'm

2112
01:45:37,240 --> 01:45:43,240
Speaker 2: more calm and happy and content and appreciative and more spiritual,

2113
01:45:43,520 --> 01:45:47,320
Speaker 2: closer to God, closer to everything. Realizing that I'm closer

2114
01:45:47,360 --> 01:45:49,600
Speaker 2: to the dirt napp than I am the beginning, you know,

2115
01:45:50,360 --> 01:45:53,200
Speaker 2: so I better savor these moments and make the most

2116
01:45:53,280 --> 01:45:56,040
Speaker 2: out of be healthy and be present, be there for

2117
01:45:56,200 --> 01:45:58,240
Speaker 2: my kids. You know, I had to make all the effets,

2118
01:45:58,320 --> 01:46:02,240
Speaker 2: especially to my to my youngest daughter. I scared her

2119
01:46:02,920 --> 01:46:05,680
Speaker 2: and for that, I'm you know, it's taking a long time.

2120
01:46:07,120 --> 01:46:09,519
Speaker 2: Everything's cool now, we're closer than ever. But you know,

2121
01:46:11,160 --> 01:46:13,680
Speaker 2: it was a bad time, man, and I'm back and

2122
01:46:13,800 --> 01:46:15,960
Speaker 2: I feel great, And I wanted to make new music.

2123
01:46:16,040 --> 01:46:17,840
Speaker 2: I want to go on the road. That was a

2124
01:46:17,960 --> 01:46:21,240
Speaker 2: huge success for us last two years in the United States,

2125
01:46:21,280 --> 01:46:23,960
Speaker 2: because that's always been an Achilles deal. We do great

2126
01:46:24,000 --> 01:46:27,840
Speaker 2: around the world, but getting the US back, you know,

2127
01:46:28,040 --> 01:46:30,599
Speaker 2: that was important to me before I die, And that's

2128
01:46:30,680 --> 01:46:33,080
Speaker 2: happening right now in terms of touring, what our value

2129
01:46:33,240 --> 01:46:37,120
Speaker 2: is and finally getting a little respect as they say,

2130
01:46:37,200 --> 01:46:39,320
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I mean. I remember Henley

2131
01:46:39,360 --> 01:46:41,200
Speaker 2: telling me in nineteen eighty when we were working on

2132
01:46:41,280 --> 01:46:45,560
Speaker 2: his first record, there's a shameless name drop. I go,

2133
01:46:46,040 --> 01:46:47,479
Speaker 2: why of these guys hate us so much?

2134
01:46:47,560 --> 01:46:47,680
Speaker 1: Man?

2135
01:46:47,760 --> 01:46:49,320
Speaker 2: And I was sitting around the table. We were still

2136
01:46:49,360 --> 01:46:53,080
Speaker 2: like a post session hang and Don goes, He goes, look, man,

2137
01:46:53,160 --> 01:46:56,080
Speaker 2: he goes. They didn't like us either when we start out,

2138
01:46:56,120 --> 01:46:59,040
Speaker 2: He goes, But you hang in there and you work hard,

2139
01:46:59,120 --> 01:47:01,880
Speaker 2: you don't go away, don't. They don't win, and they'll

2140
01:47:01,920 --> 01:47:05,320
Speaker 2: eventually come around, which is a great piece of advice

2141
01:47:05,400 --> 01:47:08,000
Speaker 2: that I kind of like at the time. Was like, okay, right, yeah, okay,

2142
01:47:08,080 --> 01:47:11,400
Speaker 2: I'll wait around for another thirty years. Waited forty years

2143
01:47:11,439 --> 01:47:15,080
Speaker 2: for it. And Ton's a great cat. I love the

2144
01:47:15,120 --> 01:47:16,960
Speaker 2: death and one of my favorite singers of all time,

2145
01:47:17,000 --> 01:47:19,759
Speaker 2: but you know, there's a through the years, I've worked

2146
01:47:19,760 --> 01:47:22,160
Speaker 2: with people that you know, I've stayed friendly with over

2147
01:47:22,200 --> 01:47:23,760
Speaker 2: the years. You know, we don't hang out all the

2148
01:47:23,800 --> 01:47:25,280
Speaker 2: time or nothing, but I get an email now and

2149
01:47:25,320 --> 01:47:28,200
Speaker 2: then what's up and how you doing? And I see,

2150
01:47:28,240 --> 01:47:30,120
Speaker 2: you know, in Ringo's brother in law is Joe Walsh,

2151
01:47:30,160 --> 01:47:32,519
Speaker 2: one of my all time heroes, and I see him

2152
01:47:32,560 --> 01:47:34,519
Speaker 2: every once in a while, and we work together and

2153
01:47:34,840 --> 01:47:38,880
Speaker 2: over the years played together. Uh. You know, so I've

2154
01:47:38,920 --> 01:47:42,040
Speaker 2: got a chance to work with a lot of my heroes,

2155
01:47:42,280 --> 01:47:45,519
Speaker 2: which and that's how I pinched myself moments, you know,

2156
01:47:46,439 --> 01:47:49,760
Speaker 2: and then you I'm losing a lot of my friends too,

2157
01:47:49,880 --> 01:47:53,720
Speaker 2: which is like also very humbling, realizing I better take

2158
01:47:53,760 --> 01:47:55,599
Speaker 2: care of myself. You know, I'm not I'm the guy.

2159
01:47:55,800 --> 01:47:57,799
Speaker 2: If I stub my toe, I go to the doctor.

2160
01:47:58,520 --> 01:48:00,640
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. I'm not. I got a

2161
01:48:01,040 --> 01:48:03,760
Speaker 2: cyst in my eye. It's you know, it's just a

2162
01:48:03,840 --> 01:48:06,760
Speaker 2: tear duc thing. But you know, at one point I

2163
01:48:07,520 --> 01:48:10,639
Speaker 2: during this last tour, I felt my right breast, I'm

2164
01:48:10,680 --> 01:48:13,920
Speaker 2: going with something in here. Man, Oh, this is gonna

2165
01:48:13,920 --> 01:48:15,559
Speaker 2: be it for me, right, So I go to the doctor.

2166
01:48:15,600 --> 01:48:18,000
Speaker 2: I find out it's nothing, you know, but I'm already

2167
01:48:18,080 --> 01:48:21,479
Speaker 2: you know, throwing dirt on myself and in the hole,

2168
01:48:21,680 --> 01:48:24,519
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. I'm very paranoid about that.

2169
01:48:24,680 --> 01:48:24,840
Speaker 1: You know.

2170
01:48:24,920 --> 01:48:27,040
Speaker 2: I used up my nine lives a long time ago,

2171
01:48:27,120 --> 01:48:27,639
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.

2172
01:48:29,760 --> 01:48:32,280
Speaker 1: And you once told me that Ringo said you were

2173
01:48:32,360 --> 01:48:33,679
Speaker 1: his last best friend.

2174
01:48:34,240 --> 01:48:36,519
Speaker 2: He wrote that down once, and he wrote it on

2175
01:48:36,640 --> 01:48:38,920
Speaker 2: something for me, which I was very touched by. You know.

2176
01:48:39,920 --> 01:48:41,320
Speaker 2: You know, he says a lot of things like that.

2177
01:48:41,520 --> 01:48:43,519
Speaker 2: I'd like to see. You know, I'm going to tell

2178
01:48:43,520 --> 01:48:46,400
Speaker 2: you that we are close buddies. Man. I adore them, man,

2179
01:48:46,439 --> 01:48:51,400
Speaker 2: but I you know, they ask him. He certainly seems

2180
01:48:51,439 --> 01:48:55,000
Speaker 2: to treat me, really treats me like like a real friend.

2181
01:48:55,120 --> 01:48:55,240
Speaker 1: Man.

2182
01:48:55,320 --> 01:48:57,639
Speaker 2: I cherished one of the most important friendships I've ever had.

2183
01:48:58,200 --> 01:49:00,160
Speaker 2: I love the man to death. I would do anything

2184
01:49:00,240 --> 01:49:03,400
Speaker 2: for him. You know. So you're the longest standing member

2185
01:49:03,479 --> 01:49:06,720
Speaker 2: of the band, right, great Busionet's a little longer than me.

2186
01:49:06,800 --> 01:49:08,920
Speaker 2: But as far as being a front line guy, yeah,

2187
01:49:09,360 --> 01:49:11,960
Speaker 2: I think so. I don't know. I never really looked

2188
01:49:11,960 --> 01:49:13,080
Speaker 2: at it, but that's the rumor.

2189
01:49:14,880 --> 01:49:17,000
Speaker 1: So you'll do it forever.

2190
01:49:18,240 --> 01:49:20,920
Speaker 2: Well. It keeps me on the road a lot, you know,

2191
01:49:21,000 --> 01:49:23,880
Speaker 2: Like I just finished three months with Toto without coming

2192
01:49:23,920 --> 01:49:27,000
Speaker 2: home and then we go out. But see, working with

2193
01:49:27,120 --> 01:49:31,680
Speaker 2: him is not work. It's it's a vacation for me

2194
01:49:32,040 --> 01:49:34,880
Speaker 2: because it's it's a fun environment where I don't have

2195
01:49:35,000 --> 01:49:37,800
Speaker 2: I can just be the guitar player, Like I don't

2196
01:49:37,880 --> 01:49:40,280
Speaker 2: have to run the band and take care of everything

2197
01:49:40,439 --> 01:49:43,160
Speaker 2: or nobody yells at me if something screws up or

2198
01:49:43,160 --> 01:49:44,680
Speaker 2: something like that. You know what I mean, I can

2199
01:49:44,880 --> 01:49:48,519
Speaker 2: just it's it's it's a wonderful group of guys. You know,

2200
01:49:49,160 --> 01:49:53,000
Speaker 2: I love everybody in the band, and so I make

2201
01:49:53,080 --> 01:49:56,680
Speaker 2: it work. You know. It's where where I'm able to

2202
01:49:56,720 --> 01:49:59,559
Speaker 2: book around them, they book around me. It just means

2203
01:49:59,600 --> 01:50:01,599
Speaker 2: I'm away a lot. But I mean, I'm not going

2204
01:50:01,640 --> 01:50:04,640
Speaker 2: to ever say no to Ringo unless he wants to

2205
01:50:04,640 --> 01:50:06,120
Speaker 2: get rid of me. I mean that then that would

2206
01:50:06,120 --> 01:50:09,479
Speaker 2: be up to him, but we'd still stay friends. But

2207
01:50:09,600 --> 01:50:11,360
Speaker 2: I think he's at the age now and I'm I

2208
01:50:11,400 --> 01:50:14,120
Speaker 2: shouldn't speak for him, but I mean he likes to

2209
01:50:14,160 --> 01:50:17,240
Speaker 2: be around certain people that he's comfortable with, like meeting

2210
01:50:17,600 --> 01:50:19,680
Speaker 2: like a new bunch of guys. I don't think he

2211
01:50:19,760 --> 01:50:21,320
Speaker 2: really feels like doing that at this point.

2212
01:50:23,360 --> 01:50:26,559
Speaker 1: And you like being you know, patritired from the road.

2213
01:50:26,600 --> 01:50:29,040
Speaker 1: Do you like being on the road or it's something

2214
01:50:29,080 --> 01:50:31,240
Speaker 1: you have to do for the money, or you know,

2215
01:50:31,320 --> 01:50:33,600
Speaker 1: I play, I don't experience.

2216
01:50:33,800 --> 01:50:36,600
Speaker 2: I don't have to do any of that. I was

2217
01:50:36,720 --> 01:50:39,680
Speaker 2: born for this life, man, you know, I really you know,

2218
01:50:39,840 --> 01:50:44,040
Speaker 2: some people hate the road, and I can understand that,

2219
01:50:45,479 --> 01:50:49,720
Speaker 2: but I need to do this. I mean, once you

2220
01:50:49,840 --> 01:50:51,760
Speaker 2: joined the circus, you can never leave, and all that

2221
01:50:52,200 --> 01:50:55,800
Speaker 2: this cliches and all that. For me, it's like that,

2222
01:50:56,240 --> 01:50:58,080
Speaker 2: I still man when the house lights go and the

2223
01:50:58,120 --> 01:51:00,960
Speaker 2: crowd goes. I mean, I forget about everything in my

2224
01:51:01,400 --> 01:51:05,160
Speaker 2: world for those two hours or whatever it is. And

2225
01:51:05,320 --> 01:51:08,519
Speaker 2: that's more than money. That's why I started playing in

2226
01:51:08,560 --> 01:51:13,120
Speaker 2: the first place, before there was money or anything but

2227
01:51:13,360 --> 01:51:16,160
Speaker 2: the music to care about. When I was just a kid,

2228
01:51:16,280 --> 01:51:19,479
Speaker 2: I never lost that feeling. Sure, you get tired, I

2229
01:51:19,560 --> 01:51:21,439
Speaker 2: mean there is the you know, harsh reality of the

2230
01:51:21,479 --> 01:51:25,160
Speaker 2: physicality of it. But man, now, man, I'm if we're

2231
01:51:25,200 --> 01:51:28,760
Speaker 2: doing it by bus, I'm as sleep. I do the gig,

2232
01:51:28,960 --> 01:51:31,479
Speaker 2: eat some food, crawling my bunk with my kindle, and

2233
01:51:31,560 --> 01:51:35,639
Speaker 2: I read. I read spiritual stuff. I read UFO stuff,

2234
01:51:35,720 --> 01:51:39,600
Speaker 2: for science fiction stuff, you know, anything not music, you know,

2235
01:51:40,920 --> 01:51:43,960
Speaker 2: And I go to sleep early, and I wake up early,

2236
01:51:44,880 --> 01:51:46,760
Speaker 2: and I feel good. I eat right. I try to

2237
01:51:46,920 --> 01:51:50,160
Speaker 2: keep it together, you know, make up for the times

2238
01:51:50,160 --> 01:51:50,559
Speaker 2: that I did.

2239
01:51:52,760 --> 01:51:55,600
Speaker 1: And you're going on the road because you have to.

2240
01:51:55,720 --> 01:51:58,559
Speaker 1: But if you sat at home, wa wait wait wait

2241
01:51:58,560 --> 01:52:00,640
Speaker 1: wait wait when I say I have to, No, I'm

2242
01:52:00,680 --> 01:52:03,240
Speaker 1: talking about emotionally. I'm not talking about financially for your

2243
01:52:03,320 --> 01:52:04,240
Speaker 1: identity money.

2244
01:52:06,120 --> 01:52:07,800
Speaker 2: But I'm a musician. What am I expected? What am

2245
01:52:07,800 --> 01:52:09,760
Speaker 2: I going to retire and do go back to being

2246
01:52:09,800 --> 01:52:11,240
Speaker 2: in pandemic mode?

2247
01:52:11,360 --> 01:52:11,400
Speaker 1: No?

2248
01:52:11,479 --> 01:52:12,679
Speaker 2: I don't think that's a good idea.

2249
01:52:13,240 --> 01:52:15,400
Speaker 1: No, But I was going to ask this one question,

2250
01:52:16,120 --> 01:52:19,240
Speaker 1: assuming you did stay home, do you have enough income

2251
01:52:19,320 --> 01:52:22,200
Speaker 1: streams from all you know, the songs you wrote, the

2252
01:52:22,320 --> 01:52:25,080
Speaker 1: record royalties, so that you can make it without going

2253
01:52:25,160 --> 01:52:25,639
Speaker 1: on the road.

2254
01:52:26,280 --> 01:52:29,320
Speaker 2: I could. I mean, I got really smart about all

2255
01:52:29,360 --> 01:52:31,120
Speaker 2: that stuff. You know. I got ripped off and I

2256
01:52:31,280 --> 01:52:34,080
Speaker 2: pissed away money. I've been divorced twice. I know what

2257
01:52:34,120 --> 01:52:35,640
Speaker 2: it's like to have money, lose it, and have to

2258
01:52:35,680 --> 01:52:38,280
Speaker 2: go over again. Now I'm not going to do that again. Now,

2259
01:52:38,360 --> 01:52:41,559
Speaker 2: I save money. I save for my kids. When I die,

2260
01:52:41,600 --> 01:52:44,800
Speaker 2: They're going to do real happy A couple of days

2261
01:52:44,840 --> 01:52:50,439
Speaker 2: after they realized Dad's dead. They go, oh wow, but no,

2262
01:52:50,680 --> 01:52:53,960
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean I saved money. Man. I live

2263
01:52:54,000 --> 01:52:56,439
Speaker 2: in a nice little house in the hills. I got

2264
01:52:56,479 --> 01:52:59,800
Speaker 2: one nice car. I don't have diamond rings or spent

2265
01:53:00,040 --> 01:53:02,800
Speaker 2: you know, I don't worry about money. I spend it

2266
01:53:02,840 --> 01:53:06,120
Speaker 2: if I want to. But I'm not stupid with it either,

2267
01:53:06,160 --> 01:53:08,280
Speaker 2: because I've had it, lost it and had to make

2268
01:53:08,360 --> 01:53:10,080
Speaker 2: it back again. And when you get to be a

2269
01:53:10,120 --> 01:53:11,360
Speaker 2: certain age, you don't want to have to make it

2270
01:53:11,439 --> 01:53:11,880
Speaker 2: back again.

2271
01:53:13,880 --> 01:53:18,040
Speaker 1: And then is there anybody who's on a list of

2272
01:53:18,240 --> 01:53:22,280
Speaker 1: people you haven't met or haven't played with? There's still

2273
01:53:22,320 --> 01:53:22,720
Speaker 1: out there.

2274
01:53:24,960 --> 01:53:30,640
Speaker 2: Well, I Peter Gabriel, but I met him, but he

2275
01:53:30,720 --> 01:53:34,000
Speaker 2: doesn't need me. He's got David, this guitar player. David's awesome.

2276
01:53:34,160 --> 01:53:37,240
Speaker 2: David Rhoades, great guitar player. But I mean there are

2277
01:53:37,240 --> 01:53:40,160
Speaker 2: people that Phil Collins. I was a big Genesis band

2278
01:53:40,200 --> 01:53:42,360
Speaker 2: when I was young, you know, the original band. I

2279
01:53:42,439 --> 01:53:46,000
Speaker 2: loved all their incarnations. But you know, great musicians, great songs.

2280
01:53:48,320 --> 01:53:51,640
Speaker 2: I you know, I had a thing about being in

2281
01:53:51,720 --> 01:53:57,160
Speaker 2: steely Dan and for five minutes after the Boss tour

2282
01:53:57,240 --> 01:54:01,120
Speaker 2: in seventy seven, Irving asked me if I would do that.

2283
01:54:02,200 --> 01:54:04,800
Speaker 2: I was like, what are you kidding me? Jeff was

2284
01:54:04,880 --> 01:54:06,760
Speaker 2: going to do it, and we were going to put

2285
01:54:06,880 --> 01:54:09,360
Speaker 2: starting Toto off. We'd already had done demos for Toto

2286
01:54:09,439 --> 01:54:11,600
Speaker 2: to get a record deal, and Sony came to us

2287
01:54:11,640 --> 01:54:14,719
Speaker 2: and offered us the deal Columbia at the time without

2288
01:54:14,800 --> 01:54:17,200
Speaker 2: even seeing the band live. We weren't even a live

2289
01:54:17,280 --> 01:54:20,160
Speaker 2: band yet. We were just it was Dave and Jeff

2290
01:54:20,200 --> 01:54:23,960
Speaker 2: coming off Silk Degrees and all that. And obviously Jeff

2291
01:54:24,040 --> 01:54:25,719
Speaker 2: was and Steely Dan when we were in high school,

2292
01:54:26,120 --> 01:54:28,479
Speaker 2: Like we heard the Katie Light album before it was out,

2293
01:54:28,560 --> 01:54:30,920
Speaker 2: We're the rhythm tracks. Jeff would come by and play

2294
01:54:31,000 --> 01:54:33,120
Speaker 2: us cassette of what they were doing, and we were

2295
01:54:33,240 --> 01:54:36,000
Speaker 2: just doing all Steely Dan stuff anyway, me and Landau.

2296
01:54:36,400 --> 01:54:39,720
Speaker 2: Landau was Danny Diaz. I was Jeff Baxter. That was

2297
01:54:39,800 --> 01:54:42,040
Speaker 2: the running wink joke that we had in high school.

2298
01:54:43,040 --> 01:54:46,600
Speaker 2: And after the Boss thing happened and I met Irving,

2299
01:54:46,640 --> 01:54:49,360
Speaker 2: who was incredibly nice to me as a kid, it

2300
01:54:49,480 --> 01:54:52,600
Speaker 2: was what a management team was. Irving was the manager,

2301
01:54:53,000 --> 01:54:55,400
Speaker 2: Craig frun was the tour manager, and Howard Coffin was

2302
01:54:55,440 --> 01:54:57,960
Speaker 2: the count. And I was nineteen years old and these

2303
01:54:57,960 --> 01:55:01,000
Speaker 2: guys all took a little shine to me and irving

2304
01:55:01,080 --> 01:55:03,120
Speaker 2: you know i'd heard, you know, he came said, you

2305
01:55:03,160 --> 01:55:06,120
Speaker 2: want to go out with Steely Dan, Like does Flipper

2306
01:55:06,160 --> 01:55:11,040
Speaker 2: have a blowhole? Yes, you know, but I didn't realize

2307
01:55:11,080 --> 01:55:12,960
Speaker 2: that Donald and Walter had come down to rehearsal and

2308
01:55:13,040 --> 01:55:14,520
Speaker 2: kind of checked me out in the dark, you know.

2309
01:55:15,400 --> 01:55:18,720
Speaker 2: And then I got to rehearse with Danny Diaz, the

2310
01:55:18,800 --> 01:55:21,320
Speaker 2: original guitar player that I played the solo on you know,

2311
01:55:21,640 --> 01:55:24,560
Speaker 2: Do It Again and Your Gold Teeth and Asia and all.

2312
01:55:24,600 --> 01:55:27,920
Speaker 2: You know. Danny's beautiful cat, great player, really unique and

2313
01:55:28,400 --> 01:55:31,640
Speaker 2: lovely guy and and his wife are great. Anyway, long

2314
01:55:31,680 --> 01:55:36,600
Speaker 2: story short, Without even meeting Donald or Walter at that time,

2315
01:55:36,800 --> 01:55:40,760
Speaker 2: I started getting together with Denny Diaz and going over

2316
01:55:40,800 --> 01:55:43,560
Speaker 2: who's gonna play what part? And then it all fell

2317
01:55:43,640 --> 01:55:47,760
Speaker 2: apart for whatever reason that I wasn't privy to. And

2318
01:55:48,920 --> 01:55:50,760
Speaker 2: so I could say I was in Steely Dan for

2319
01:55:50,880 --> 01:55:52,920
Speaker 2: five seconds, but I never got to record with him.

2320
01:55:54,040 --> 01:55:56,920
Speaker 2: I did get to play with Donald at the Jeff Tribute,

2321
01:55:57,320 --> 01:56:00,560
Speaker 2: so that kind of fulfilled the fantasy, I think, and

2322
01:56:00,880 --> 01:56:03,600
Speaker 2: I worked with Walter at a at a guitar thing.

2323
01:56:03,680 --> 01:56:06,520
Speaker 2: Once we played together on stage, he was very nice.

2324
01:56:06,600 --> 01:56:10,160
Speaker 2: They were both really really nice to me. But you

2325
01:56:10,240 --> 01:56:13,960
Speaker 2: know that music is really important to me. That Steely

2326
01:56:14,040 --> 01:56:16,760
Speaker 2: Dan is an incredibly important band to me. You know, musically,

2327
01:56:16,840 --> 01:56:20,000
Speaker 2: I mean Donald Faga's Nightfly album is a Desert Island

2328
01:56:20,160 --> 01:56:22,000
Speaker 2: album for me. You know, one of the greatest albums

2329
01:56:22,000 --> 01:56:24,800
Speaker 2: ever made. Should have beat us in the Grammys. It

2330
01:56:24,840 --> 01:56:28,520
Speaker 2: was a better record, but we were all fans of it,

2331
01:56:28,640 --> 01:56:30,920
Speaker 2: you know, and stanzas Test the time. You know, their

2332
01:56:31,000 --> 01:56:34,440
Speaker 2: music is just it's like it's like there's the Beatles

2333
01:56:34,480 --> 01:56:37,160
Speaker 2: in Steely those and Hendricks and stuff, and you know,

2334
01:56:37,760 --> 01:56:40,320
Speaker 2: that music stuck with me my whole life. You know,

2335
01:56:40,840 --> 01:56:43,720
Speaker 2: I go, well, what about Zeppelin? What about Becco? What

2336
01:56:43,840 --> 01:56:47,160
Speaker 2: about you know Cream and all that. Yeah, of course

2337
01:56:47,200 --> 01:56:52,760
Speaker 2: that's all there. But in terms of songwriting production, Steely Dan, man,

2338
01:56:52,800 --> 01:56:56,000
Speaker 2: the Beatles, Steely Dan. Really that's in my DNA heart.

2339
01:56:57,520 --> 01:57:01,680
Speaker 1: So since you knew and still no three members of

2340
01:57:01,680 --> 01:57:05,160
Speaker 1: the Beatles, what you learned about the magic of the Beatles?

2341
01:57:06,080 --> 01:57:10,080
Speaker 1: Why did it become so big? Why were they so great?

2342
01:57:12,080 --> 01:57:20,720
Speaker 2: Wow? Man, sh it's just great songs. They're the real thing.

2343
01:57:22,120 --> 01:57:24,840
Speaker 2: What they brought the there It was the combination of

2344
01:57:24,920 --> 01:57:30,160
Speaker 2: the four of them. I mean, it's magic. It's an

2345
01:57:30,160 --> 01:57:34,160
Speaker 2: elixir that comes along once in a lifetime, you know

2346
01:57:34,200 --> 01:57:35,560
Speaker 2: what I mean. I don't know if there's ever good

2347
01:57:35,600 --> 01:57:37,400
Speaker 2: there's I don't think there's gonna be another Beatles again.

2348
01:57:37,680 --> 01:57:39,360
Speaker 1: Oh we've been waiting and there hasn't been one for

2349
01:57:39,440 --> 01:57:40,800
Speaker 1: sixty years, so I don't think so.

2350
01:57:41,160 --> 01:57:43,720
Speaker 2: You know, I think everything they put out still goes

2351
01:57:43,840 --> 01:57:46,240
Speaker 2: number one, right, you know what I mean. I mean,

2352
01:57:46,320 --> 01:57:48,040
Speaker 2: it's I mean, I look, I say, the Beatles are

2353
01:57:48,240 --> 01:57:51,000
Speaker 2: classical music, you know, and the fact that I have

2354
01:57:51,160 --> 01:57:56,200
Speaker 2: a little teeny piece of sand history with them, you know,

2355
01:57:56,480 --> 01:57:59,000
Speaker 2: working having the honor of great honor of working with

2356
01:57:59,360 --> 01:58:03,080
Speaker 2: all three of them at one point or another. It

2357
01:58:03,200 --> 01:58:06,080
Speaker 2: was beyond my wildest dreams. The one of w really

2358
01:58:06,200 --> 01:58:08,360
Speaker 2: hit me was when I was invited to do the

2359
01:58:08,440 --> 01:58:12,200
Speaker 2: Beatles fiftieth anniversary of the Ed Sullivan Show, right, and

2360
01:58:12,400 --> 01:58:13,880
Speaker 2: we were and you know, it was an all star

2361
01:58:14,040 --> 01:58:17,240
Speaker 2: backing band, Me and Peter Franton on guitar, and you know,

2362
01:58:17,320 --> 01:58:19,520
Speaker 2: I could go on. Don Wills was the musical director,

2363
01:58:19,600 --> 01:58:22,720
Speaker 2: and there was all these great players that all the

2364
01:58:22,800 --> 01:58:25,400
Speaker 2: A list guys, and we got to back all these

2365
01:58:25,440 --> 01:58:29,800
Speaker 2: people that apparently CBS television shows to be artists, sing

2366
01:58:29,960 --> 01:58:33,720
Speaker 2: Beatles song and to make a long story short, I

2367
01:58:33,840 --> 01:58:36,040
Speaker 2: was honored to be there, to say the least. And

2368
01:58:36,160 --> 01:58:38,520
Speaker 2: then right before we were going it was busy week.

2369
01:58:38,640 --> 01:58:41,040
Speaker 2: We were rehearsals, and then we had the Grammys with

2370
01:58:41,240 --> 01:58:43,800
Speaker 2: Ringo to be on that show, and then this whole thing,

2371
01:58:43,880 --> 01:58:46,440
Speaker 2: and Paul was there. It was a nice reunion to

2372
01:58:46,480 --> 01:58:50,880
Speaker 2: see him again. And we were playing right before we

2373
01:58:51,000 --> 01:58:55,120
Speaker 2: went on. I see Paul and Ringo in the flesh

2374
01:58:55,280 --> 01:58:57,080
Speaker 2: right here, and then I see the guys, and then

2375
01:58:57,120 --> 01:58:59,600
Speaker 2: I look up at the screen and they're playing Hard

2376
01:58:59,720 --> 01:59:05,000
Speaker 2: Days Night black and white, in which my grandmother took

2377
01:59:05,080 --> 01:59:07,960
Speaker 2: me to see ten times, if not twenty when I

2378
01:59:08,040 --> 01:59:10,240
Speaker 2: was a kid, bought me Beatle Boots the whole thing.

2379
01:59:10,760 --> 01:59:13,080
Speaker 2: It hit me that, like that little shitty you know,

2380
01:59:13,320 --> 01:59:16,240
Speaker 2: that little kid with a shit eating grin, is now

2381
01:59:16,320 --> 01:59:18,960
Speaker 2: standing here fifty years later celebrating this thing with the

2382
01:59:19,080 --> 01:59:21,440
Speaker 2: real guys, and I would It was at that moment

2383
01:59:21,520 --> 01:59:23,640
Speaker 2: in my life I said, I really fucking pulled off

2384
01:59:23,720 --> 01:59:26,760
Speaker 2: the dream. I really pulled this off. I'm dems here.

2385
01:59:26,920 --> 01:59:29,960
Speaker 2: I mean, what am I doing standing here? This is incredible?

2386
01:59:29,960 --> 01:59:32,160
Speaker 2: I can I pinched myself, but I like, I got

2387
01:59:32,200 --> 01:59:33,480
Speaker 2: a little of a clempse. Man, I was a little

2388
01:59:33,520 --> 01:59:36,000
Speaker 2: tear in my eye. You know, I'm like, like, this

2389
01:59:36,080 --> 01:59:38,080
Speaker 2: isn't ma, And I kept it was a personal moment

2390
01:59:38,160 --> 01:59:40,440
Speaker 2: that I not really share it. You know, I'm telling

2391
01:59:40,480 --> 01:59:42,840
Speaker 2: you this story. A couple people in my family know

2392
01:59:42,960 --> 01:59:45,720
Speaker 2: how I felt about it. But Ringo did that for me. Man,

2393
01:59:46,480 --> 01:59:48,960
Speaker 2: Ringo is such a friend. I mean he would dragged

2394
01:59:49,000 --> 01:59:50,880
Speaker 2: me along to be a part of this thing. You know,

2395
01:59:51,040 --> 01:59:52,920
Speaker 2: I didn't even ask him. I just said, Man, I'd

2396
01:59:52,960 --> 01:59:56,280
Speaker 2: love to be a part of that and to have

2397
01:59:56,400 --> 01:59:58,680
Speaker 2: been there, to be a part see the fifty years

2398
01:59:58,720 --> 02:00:01,600
Speaker 2: of my life flash before in my lies. It was

2399
02:00:01,680 --> 02:00:04,320
Speaker 2: a it was a moment I'll never and it missed.

2400
02:00:04,360 --> 02:00:07,440
Speaker 2: Made me really really appreciate all of it not much more.

2401
02:00:10,000 --> 02:00:15,960
Speaker 1: And finally, are you ever Steve or we always Luke? Well?

2402
02:00:16,040 --> 02:00:18,120
Speaker 2: I started out as Steven, which is what my mother

2403
02:00:18,240 --> 02:00:20,840
Speaker 2: called me with a V. She was the only person

2404
02:00:20,920 --> 02:00:23,520
Speaker 2: they called my grandmother. My mom and my grandmother called

2405
02:00:23,560 --> 02:00:29,280
Speaker 2: me Steven, but uh I was Steve. Uh Luke happened

2406
02:00:30,360 --> 02:00:32,040
Speaker 2: because I started hanging around with a lot of guys

2407
02:00:32,120 --> 02:00:35,800
Speaker 2: named Steve. I think it really got solidified in high

2408
02:00:35,800 --> 02:00:38,960
Speaker 2: school when Steve Pacar was the leader of Still Life,

2409
02:00:39,000 --> 02:00:40,560
Speaker 2: which was the band that we were, which is the

2410
02:00:40,600 --> 02:00:43,440
Speaker 2: second generation of the band that Jeff Pacar and David

2411
02:00:43,520 --> 02:00:45,839
Speaker 2: paichad in high school and they went off to be pros.

2412
02:00:46,480 --> 02:00:49,360
Speaker 2: Steve took over the band called it still Life. And

2413
02:00:50,960 --> 02:00:53,000
Speaker 2: with Steve it's every time somebody said Steve, both of

2414
02:00:53,080 --> 02:00:58,960
Speaker 2: us would answer, it's like, no, you're Luke. You're Luke okay, okay,

2415
02:00:59,280 --> 02:01:01,320
Speaker 2: and that I've been that ever since high school.

2416
02:01:02,960 --> 02:01:07,160
Speaker 1: And do your ex wives girlfriends call you Luke or

2417
02:01:07,240 --> 02:01:08,240
Speaker 1: do they call you Steve.

2418
02:01:08,840 --> 02:01:11,320
Speaker 2: Nope, not one of them. I said, no, it doesn't

2419
02:01:11,360 --> 02:01:14,880
Speaker 2: sound right coming out of you. Anywise, they don't call

2420
02:01:14,960 --> 02:01:18,160
Speaker 2: me Steve. They might refer to me in third person.

2421
02:01:18,360 --> 02:01:19,760
Speaker 2: Is like, I have a Luke. You know, he's not

2422
02:01:19,840 --> 02:01:23,240
Speaker 2: here right now. Just knowing that that's maybe how somebody

2423
02:01:23,360 --> 02:01:26,920
Speaker 2: knows me. But you know, it's almost like I don't

2424
02:01:26,920 --> 02:01:29,760
Speaker 2: even hardly answer to Steve anyway. You know what I mean,

2425
02:01:30,360 --> 02:01:34,720
Speaker 2: I'm either Dad or Luke, and you know, Steve is

2426
02:01:34,800 --> 02:01:37,000
Speaker 2: just something that's all right, I have to fill out

2427
02:01:37,080 --> 02:01:39,160
Speaker 2: this passport, work permit or something.

2428
02:01:41,480 --> 02:01:45,840
Speaker 1: Okay, Luke. This has been amazing. I can't thank you

2429
02:01:46,040 --> 02:01:48,320
Speaker 1: enough for being so open and honest in a world

2430
02:01:48,400 --> 02:01:52,320
Speaker 1: that's so guarded. And you are definitely that genuine person

2431
02:01:52,400 --> 02:01:55,720
Speaker 1: I know over twenty years of knowing you, and you're

2432
02:01:55,840 --> 02:01:59,440
Speaker 1: someone who stays connected, and it sounds like you're in

2433
02:01:59,440 --> 02:02:00,600
Speaker 1: a really good place now.

2434
02:02:01,560 --> 02:02:03,560
Speaker 2: I am man. You know, I went to the darkness. Man.

2435
02:02:03,600 --> 02:02:06,320
Speaker 2: Everybody's life has darkness, and some people don't want to

2436
02:02:06,360 --> 02:02:08,840
Speaker 2: talk about it, you know. I mean, I'm lucky I

2437
02:02:08,920 --> 02:02:11,120
Speaker 2: pulled myself out of the mud man. Thanks for having me.

2438
02:02:11,640 --> 02:02:14,120
Speaker 2: I feel great life is. I'm really positive right now,

2439
02:02:14,240 --> 02:02:15,480
Speaker 2: really super positive place.

2440
02:02:17,400 --> 02:02:20,000
Speaker 1: I have nothing I can say they can top that.

2441
02:02:20,200 --> 02:02:22,600
Speaker 1: That's what life is really about. That, as you say,

2442
02:02:22,680 --> 02:02:26,800
Speaker 1: feeling good about yourself and family. So thanks for doing this, Luke.

2443
02:02:27,600 --> 02:02:30,240
Speaker 1: Till next time. This is Bob left Sex