Speaker 1: The Quest Left Show is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: So I'm just slowly realizing that I've not done my
Speaker 2: elaborate intros. I'm so busy in preparing the interviews. But
Speaker 2: this is the Quest Left Show QLs. And in case
Speaker 2: you're later riving to us, what can I say, ladies
Speaker 2: and gentlemen, this is the Ernie and Bert of funk,
Speaker 2: the Shields and yard Nw of soul.
Speaker 1: Features in herb of the Get Down.
Speaker 2: You know, the Sherlock, Holmes and Watson of BOUCHI A wow, wow.
Speaker 2: This is the Lennon McCartney of Jam and Lewis. I
Speaker 2: can't believe this moment is happening, but it is happening.
Speaker 2: Forty top ten hits, sixteen of them, number one producer
Speaker 2: of the year, accolades, anything that we can award them.
Speaker 1: They've accomplished. Members of one of.
Speaker 2: The last best funk bands that matter pre hip hop.
Speaker 1: I have to make that distinction.
Speaker 2: And it's telling that you're the last album that you
Speaker 2: two participated and literally is the blueprint of hip hop.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's ghostwriting, there's digital programming and technology, there's
Speaker 2: extended jams, there's edit mistakes, there's dirty mixing, There's Pimpson
Speaker 2: Jigglo and Ho Talk.
Speaker 1: There's Hyja daughter Hodja, datis there here? Designer fashion disc tracks,
Speaker 1: comedy skits, thoughts on the police, songs about new dances,
Speaker 1: affirmational songs about wanting.
Speaker 2: To live the good life like it's literally what time
Speaker 2: is it to me? Is the blueprint of hip hop?
Speaker 2: And here we are in twenty twenty six. I can't
Speaker 2: believe I said that twenty twenty six six. Taping this
Speaker 2: in the month that will mark the fortieth anniversary of
Speaker 2: their landmark production of an album called Control thought would
Speaker 2: be rather apropos as they're celebrating the beginning or promoting
Speaker 2: their Nothing but Hits residency in Las Vegas with Ruben
Speaker 2: Stutter and Shanice Wilson, and I cannot believe this is happening.
Speaker 2: Jimmy jam here Lewis, thank you for doing the Quest
Speaker 2: Left show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. At that long intro that
Speaker 1: I just have to bring.
Speaker 3: Up the top of mind, believe it.
Speaker 1: That was a great That's a great intro. I like that.
Speaker 1: Real what do we do? Ernie and Burda, the Ernie
Speaker 1: and Burda funk?
Speaker 3: Wow?
Speaker 1: I like that it's a new Moniker bird.
Speaker 3: That would have been good man, that would have been good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, So when did the conversation start of wanting
Speaker 2: to do a residency.
Speaker 1: Well, I'll tell you for me.
Speaker 4: The conversation started a long time ago when we when
Speaker 4: The Time performed on the Grammys with rihannat I was
Speaker 4: the fiftieth anniversary of the Grammy. So what eighteen years ago?
Speaker 4: I guess yes. And I was a chairman of the
Speaker 4: Recording Academy at that point, and I remember after we
Speaker 4: performed with Rihanna, everybody backstage said what are you guys
Speaker 4: going to do next? And we were like next, No,
Speaker 4: this is just we just a one off. We just
Speaker 4: got together. But there was a guy in Vegas that
Speaker 4: saw us, and Tony Braxton was doing shows at the
Speaker 4: Flamingo and she was having some health problem, so they
Speaker 4: wanted to get somebody in there to you know, take
Speaker 4: some of the dates, and so we ended up as
Speaker 4: the Time going in and doing three weeks of residency
Speaker 4: there and we loved it.
Speaker 1: We loved it. We totally got why.
Speaker 4: You know, Celine Dion was parked there and you know,
Speaker 4: don I think Donnie and Marie were coming in after us,
Speaker 4: you know, so we totally we and Donnie would come
Speaker 4: to our shows like he loved the time. So anyway,
Speaker 4: I will say the seed got planted there just then
Speaker 4: that we liked the idea of doing it, got it.
Speaker 2: I'm laughing also because you brought that up. And first
Speaker 2: time a rental car mine never got towed. I parked
Speaker 2: in Donnie spot at that residence.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So no, I love that.
Speaker 4: So to fast forward when we went in the Songwriters
Speaker 4: Hall of Fame that we were asked what do we
Speaker 4: want to do? What do you want to do that
Speaker 4: you haven't done yet? And Babyface happened to be on
Speaker 4: the red carpet right next to us, and we said, well,
Speaker 4: we'd like to do a record with Babyface. So we
Speaker 4: did that, which I went off the list. Yes, we
Speaker 4: said we would like to finish the album that we started,
Speaker 4: you know, thirty years ago or whenever. It was the
Speaker 4: Jam and Lewis Volume one album, which we did, so
Speaker 4: we checked that off. The third thing we said was
Speaker 4: we'd like to go and perform our catalog, which we've
Speaker 4: never done, and we would like to do that. And
Speaker 4: so you know, I don't know some I don't know,
Speaker 4: seven or eight years after that, we now have the
Speaker 4: opportunity to do it and for us to return to
Speaker 4: the roots unintended of where we started as musicians. Before
Speaker 4: we were songwriters and before we were producers, we were
Speaker 4: simply guys in a local band playing everybody else's hits.
Speaker 4: So now we get to be guys in a local
Speaker 4: band playing our own hits. Got it, And that's the
Speaker 4: fun of it. I know it's one step out of time.
Speaker 2: But you guys also have a catalog that is jukebox
Speaker 2: brought wayworthy. Have you planned talking segments on like, well
Speaker 2: we did this song in nineteen eighty five, and.
Speaker 5: Well we certainly do that, you know, okay, Jimmy jam
Speaker 5: is one of the greatest orators in YouTube.
Speaker 1: Terry Lewis, by the way, in history. You know, I
Speaker 1: talk hell, you talk great.
Speaker 2: Actually, No, My favorite part of doing press for the
Speaker 2: Slime Stone, which I had to thank you both for doing.
Speaker 2: My favorite part of doing the press junket for SLY
Speaker 2: is when people realize that you two were three thousand
Speaker 2: miles apart, and literally there were points where we could
Speaker 2: sync up your answers and it was like you're the
Speaker 2: run DMC of documentary interviews. Also Okay, now, but you're
Speaker 2: always Jimmy David Terry Lewis.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Well, you know, the experiences are the experiences.
Speaker 5: I mean there's a three size to every story, his
Speaker 5: side by side of the truth, right like in Somewhere,
Speaker 5: we park it in the middle, somewhere, gotcha and we
Speaker 5: figure it out.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: I think the thing with Terry is that Terry I
Speaker 4: always say that what it takes me a paragraph to say,
Speaker 4: Terry can say in a sentence. And that's what makes
Speaker 4: him such a great lyricist, his efficiency of words, because
Speaker 4: I tend to be long winded. But the other part
Speaker 4: about that is if something's important to Terry, he will talk.
Speaker 4: When we went in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
Speaker 4: Terry talked. I was the most I heard him talk.
Speaker 4: But his mom was out there, his family was out there,
Speaker 4: and that was a really meaningful moment. And the fact
Speaker 4: that he's here with you now, questlove doing this show.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it, believe it.
Speaker 4: It's things that are important to Terry. He has a
Speaker 4: great filter for that, and this is and doing your
Speaker 4: show today is very important.
Speaker 5: So that's why part of my filter is I have
Speaker 5: no filter, you know, I just I see it, tell
Speaker 5: you how I see it.
Speaker 1: I accept that, and I'm good with that.
Speaker 5: You know, and I'm okay with being challenged. But I'm
Speaker 5: also going to challenge whatever.
Speaker 1: To be prepared for it. Yeah, yeah, right, you.
Speaker 5: Know, because my mother always told me, she said, you
Speaker 5: got one mouth, two of everything else. Make sure you
Speaker 5: use your mouth accordingly, you know, So everything else.
Speaker 3: Is double time.
Speaker 5: I'm watching, I'm listening, you know, I'm contemplating, I'm doing
Speaker 5: all those things. You know, I'm breathing good everything, but
Speaker 5: my mouth is gonna stay shut because everything else has
Speaker 5: to work double time.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you guys decide on a song list? Well,
Speaker 1: deciding is kind of what's happening. It's still happening right now.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's still happening right now. I think there's the
Speaker 4: obvious songs that we want to do that we not
Speaker 4: only were successful chart wise and in people's minds, you know,
Speaker 4: are culturally significant to people, but also our fun to play.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: God, there's some songs that are probably big hits that
Speaker 4: probably aren't that fun to play honestly, and we don't
Speaker 4: maybe feel we do them that great but I think
Speaker 4: that's kind of the way we'll start. I mean, we'll
Speaker 4: start with the there's some of the obvious ones, particularly
Speaker 4: when it comes to the storytelling of it, right, you know,
Speaker 4: just be good to me, tell me if you still care.
Speaker 4: Back in that in that era, Encore, which was our
Speaker 4: first official Billboard number one song on the R and
Speaker 4: B charts, you know, Tender Love, which was our first
Speaker 4: top ten pop record. And then obviously we have to
Speaker 4: cover you know, the Janet Jacksons and new additions, the
Speaker 4: voice to men Sarelle and Alexander O'Neill, you know, and
Speaker 4: all of those things. So those are the things that
Speaker 4: will go in there. We'll throw a couple surprises in there.
Speaker 4: And it hasn't been mastered yet.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 4: We did a kind of a test run. Terry called
Speaker 4: it the Folo test run, which was a fear of
Speaker 4: looking old. Terry said, I don't want to be on
Speaker 4: stage looking old. So we ended up doing over the
Speaker 4: past couple of years. I think we've done sixteen shows
Speaker 4: in Japan. We did a festival all.
Speaker 1: Right, to work out the key. Yeah, we gotta we
Speaker 1: got it.
Speaker 4: We had to see whether we could do it, and
Speaker 4: we were doing two shows a night, two nine minute
Speaker 4: shows a night in Japan at the Blue Note at
Speaker 4: the Blue at the at Billboard Live with the glass
Speaker 4: behind you.
Speaker 2: Yes and okay, yeah yeah that used to be Blue Note,
Speaker 2: now it's Billboard.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're right, Okay.
Speaker 4: So anyway, we you know, that kind of gave us
Speaker 4: the proof in the pudding, so to speak. Uh, and
Speaker 4: then the kind of curation process happened in Atlanta. We
Speaker 4: did a show and we had everybody from you know,
Speaker 4: Yolana Adams to Deborah Cox to Chante Moore to Jordan
Speaker 4: Knight from New Kids on the Block. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: it was it was an amazing show and show. Yeah,
Speaker 4: And what happened was things like, for instance, we started
Speaker 4: performing one of Usher's songs, but Usher was sitting in
Speaker 4: the front row. So Ruben Stuttard, who's one of our singers,
Speaker 4: he walked over to you know, over the ushers, right,
Speaker 4: So Usher comes up and hits bad Girl and hits
Speaker 4: you Remind Me and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 4: So we've kind of all taking all of those things
Speaker 4: together is kind of what we want to try to
Speaker 4: pull off in Vegas because it'll be us. But then
Speaker 4: you know, we always say you never know who's gonna show.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is what I have to ask about curation.
Speaker 2: Am I the only person that works backwards? What do
Speaker 2: you mean if it's an album or now movie or
Speaker 2: whatever or setless? The first thing I want to know
Speaker 2: is what is the song I'm gonna send them home
Speaker 2: with and how I want them to.
Speaker 1: Feel as they're walking to the car.
Speaker 2: So it's almost like, in my mind, I feel like
Speaker 2: the first fifteen minutes people remember, you know, you describe it,
Speaker 2: and then Michael Jackson floated in from the Free Exposing
Speaker 2: or earth Wind and Fire whatever. And in the case
Speaker 2: of Root shows, I mean we've had disaster ass all right,
Speaker 2: too much patron for that person.
Speaker 1: No, but I find that the last.
Speaker 2: Ten minutes of the show, it's almost like the Men
Speaker 2: in Black flashy thing that will make you forget you
Speaker 2: saw a kick ass show. So that's right, But right
Speaker 2: now you're just trying to figure out the perfect ninety
Speaker 2: minutes and yeah, okay.
Speaker 4: We we know what we like to end with or
Speaker 4: kind of the feeling, and we do want to leave
Speaker 4: the audience with a kind of an elevated feeling. So
Speaker 4: obviously optimistic is going to close the show. Maybe maybe well,
Speaker 4: we have other songs that kind of do that same thing.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, okay, and.
Speaker 4: We've actually used some of those different songs and you'll
Speaker 4: be surprised how effective they actually are.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, unlike the Gamble and Huff or the
Speaker 2: Motown Catalog whatever, I'll say that, you guys are probably
Speaker 2: the first super catalog that we also have sort of
Speaker 2: visual and very specific sound patch memories with. So I
Speaker 2: don't think I can ever listen to if it isn't
Speaker 2: love and in my head start doing the dances that
Speaker 2: they do, which obviously that's not there, But like, is
Speaker 2: it intimidating for the artists that you guys are having
Speaker 2: to handle the duties to also think about the fact like, okay,
Speaker 2: am I gonna have to put my hat on my
Speaker 2: foot at the end of this performance?
Speaker 4: Or no, I don't think so. I think some things
Speaker 4: lend themselves to the live performance. God, and some things
Speaker 4: because of like you say, the choreography or the visual
Speaker 4: memory that you have of certain things, we have to
Speaker 4: figure out clever ways to do that. But you know,
Speaker 4: we have you know, a huge screen, oh yeah, visual
Speaker 4: and we have you know, so we're able to.
Speaker 1: Use the visual stuff that we have.
Speaker 4: And by the way, a song like if it is
Speaker 4: in love, for instance, the audience will do the choreography.
Speaker 4: We don't have to do the choreography. Okay, they know
Speaker 4: how to do that, but yeah, each song. We treat it,
Speaker 4: each song differently and try to present it in the
Speaker 4: best way. And one of the things for me and
Speaker 4: I guess people will call this like, well, it's not
Speaker 4: even a humble brag, but it's the thing I like
Speaker 4: about our show and what we've been able to do
Speaker 4: thus far, is it's the most true reproductions of the songs.
Speaker 4: You know, obviously, you know, whether you're going to a
Speaker 4: Janet show or a New Edition show or Mary J. Blige,
Speaker 4: you're gonna hear our songs, got it. But something about
Speaker 4: the way we perform them and the way we create
Speaker 4: them on stage, I think is a little different because
Speaker 4: we know it's like the chef's kitchen. We know how
Speaker 4: those sounds were derived, and we know the mix that's
Speaker 4: supposed to be there right on those So as you're
Speaker 4: watching a live show, part of the thrill hopefully is
Speaker 4: hearing these songs the way they were really intended to
Speaker 4: be you know, you hear the production, and you hear
Speaker 4: the things we can put into it, the spices and
Speaker 4: little things we can put into it to make it
Speaker 4: really come to life.
Speaker 2: In the pre pro toolslization and pre ninety five, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's always happened, but in that era, in the beginning era,
Speaker 2: let's say between eighty five and ninety five. Okay, So
Speaker 2: there was a particular monster successful funk band whom I
Speaker 2: found a clip of their concert in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: and they're performing it as a band, but none of
Speaker 2: the patches that are familiar there, so it's not giving
Speaker 2: me that omph. Now, one of the things that I
Speaker 2: was worried about when I first saw the Rhythm Nation
Speaker 2: show in nineteen ninety, I was like, man, they're not
Speaker 2: going to get the patches right, Like there's too many
Speaker 2: trademarks and all the little or the snapping next noises
Speaker 2: you guys have for snaps or whatever. And I was
Speaker 2: shocked that, you know, I didn't know about I don't
Speaker 2: know how the technology was executed backman, as opposed to
Speaker 2: now where this is on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, on.
Speaker 2: Stage, but when you guys send your acts out into
Speaker 2: the world, and I'm talking about Alexander and Charrell and
Speaker 2: SOS band in addition to Janet, were you guys also
Speaker 2: on hand for their bands and the musicians they chose,
Speaker 2: and here's the patches you'll need to pull these off
Speaker 2: or you.
Speaker 5: Just in the early days we kind of were especially
Speaker 5: for like Sharille and alex Okay, we would.
Speaker 1: They would rehearse at our.
Speaker 5: Place, yeah, and we would help them choose the band
Speaker 5: and give them patches.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So when Prince broke up the Revolution eighty six, his
Speaker 2: first move was she would take me to the Bay
Speaker 2: Area and let's get the baddest musicians ever. And then
Speaker 2: I'll say, in the early arts, Philly had that reputation,
Speaker 2: you know, like between Bill Jolly or Washington or Adam Blackstone,
Speaker 2: Omar Edwards shout out to man Man. They were pretty
Speaker 2: much like I know at least seventy Philly musicians that
Speaker 2: are actively working until there were no more. And then
Speaker 2: I'll say, like glassper put On for Houston, they were
Speaker 2: next twenty thirty musicians from Houston and now kind of running.
Speaker 2: But who were in eighty five when you were like, yo,
Speaker 2: these guys will kick ass, Like where's the hot bed
Speaker 2: of the best musician's hands down that you guys would pick,
Speaker 2: or were you loyal to Minnesota?
Speaker 1: Was there expectation for you guys to look out for
Speaker 1: all the bands from the north side Minneapolis and stuff?
Speaker 5: But that's all you knew, Like that was our world,
Speaker 5: Like we never knew how we compared to everybody outside
Speaker 5: of Minneapolis. We only knew how we all compared to
Speaker 5: each other.
Speaker 1: But then we all laugh at LA musicians. At one
Speaker 1: point we never went to.
Speaker 5: LA because we were in Minneapolis, and that's what we
Speaker 5: couldn't afford to get to Alis. Okay, we were just young, broke,
Speaker 5: and you know, we were playing in local bands, competing
Speaker 5: against each other for the same the same opportunities got him,
Speaker 5: and so that was the pot, you know. So was
Speaker 5: the crabs in the barrel, and one crab got out.
Speaker 5: Prince was that crab.
Speaker 3: And then he.
Speaker 5: Reached back down and he brought a few guys out
Speaker 5: with him and then gave us all hope, and then yeah,
Speaker 5: so on and so forth. Cynthia Johnson, who was in
Speaker 5: Flight Times, got out and she sang Funky Town. You know,
Speaker 5: it was the number one song in the world. It's like, well,
Speaker 5: maybe we are kind of valid here. Maybe we do
Speaker 5: have something special here. But there was always jazz musicians
Speaker 5: and other people in Minneapolis that would play and they
Speaker 5: were super dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Craig Peterson, Peterson family, I mean not even not
Speaker 5: even talking about that Peterson family, about the black Craig
Speaker 5: Peterson's black Peters.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's a black Peters. Okay, just like there's
Speaker 3: a black O'Neill.
Speaker 1: That's right. What is the Irish?
Speaker 5: Yeah, But you know, we were just comparing ourselves to
Speaker 5: each other because we didn't know, and we weren't white,
Speaker 5: so we never got into the white gloves right, And
Speaker 5: they would get in the clubs and play black music,
Speaker 5: but they were never as funky as us, but they
Speaker 5: got the gig. So I guess we thought we weren't
Speaker 5: good enough.
Speaker 1: I have to say that.
Speaker 2: Maybe once or twice a year I have to go
Speaker 2: to Minnesota and kiss a specific ring to get clearance
Speaker 2: in person. Most times I make a weekend of it,
Speaker 2: and on Sundays I go to where Margie I used
Speaker 2: to sing bunkers, Yes, bunkers, And I don't mean it's
Speaker 2: an insulting way, like I love the fact that it's still.
Speaker 1: Like ninety one in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's as it was, yeah, which I kind of
Speaker 2: dug and but even as funky as it was, Like,
Speaker 2: was that just the normal?
Speaker 3: But no, that wasn't it?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, that was so not everybody was Sonny Thompson.
Speaker 4: No, no, oh god damn certainly not Sonny Thompson. Hell no, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I love no Sonny times in the debot of Funk
Speaker 4: like he puts then, because.
Speaker 1: He's the nicest guy to be in DMS and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, I'm.
Speaker 5: Like, overly ridiculous. As a musician. Yeah, wow, he's a
Speaker 5: savant as a musician. He was playing the based upside down,
Speaker 5: played the guitar upside down. People don't know he's a
Speaker 5: great singer. I spoke to him a few weeks ago.
Speaker 5: It's like, man, people don't even know, like all your talent. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Prince made you a bass player, but that's not what he.
Speaker 3: Taught Prince how to play.
Speaker 1: Get just what I was gonna say it.
Speaker 5: Okay, So that was different because they were the different guys.
Speaker 5: Sonny was one of those guys, Prince was one of
Speaker 5: those guys, and everybody else was kind of regular. You know,
Speaker 5: you had Andre Simone, who was a great musician, you know,
Speaker 5: just all the charisma in the world, could play his
Speaker 5: ass off, you know, look good, you know, but on
Speaker 5: the stage with Prince, who was super dope in every way.
Speaker 5: He's gonna give Prince some competition, you know, because the
Speaker 5: girls are gonna be hollering for Prince, but they're gonna
Speaker 5: be hollering just as a loud for Andre Simone.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I can attest you. O.
Speaker 2: Why was Shanese and Ruben perfect fits for this particular review?
Speaker 2: And how many music are there in total for this project?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: In the band? Okay, so yeah, the band is real.
Speaker 4: We're leaning. Mean we got literally drummer, keyboards and guitar.
Speaker 4: Terry handle's the bass. I handled the keyboards, and then
Speaker 4: rub one keyboard player, one keyboard player, and then myself.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah so that's too.
Speaker 3: I count myself as a one keyboard player. That's super dope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, super dope and dope. He's mushysical director. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: I mean what else you know, like somebody got pressed.
Speaker 4: Exactly. So here's the thing. Because of the range and
Speaker 4: repertoire that you have to do if you're looking for
Speaker 4: someone that can sing and make and convincingly sing by
Speaker 4: the way. It's not like copying the way it was
Speaker 4: sung necessarily, but who can sing it make it their own,
Speaker 4: But you know, give it that respect of you know,
Speaker 4: hitting those notes correctly and hitting those things the way
Speaker 4: that people want to sing along with the song, because
Speaker 4: that's the thing you you want to give people the
Speaker 4: memory of what it is. So you need somebody.
Speaker 1: He was versatile and Ruben stuttered.
Speaker 4: Besides obviously being an American Idol winner, the first one,
Speaker 4: which is pretty cool, he can handle when we say
Speaker 4: we're gonna do an Alexandra O'Neil song, We're gonna do
Speaker 4: an Usher song, we're gonna do a New Edition song,
Speaker 4: We're gonna do Johnny gillsong, so on and so forth,
Speaker 4: and he can handle it all. And he can handle
Speaker 4: up tempos as well as ballads. And he's a great entertainer.
Speaker 4: I don't know you've ever seen his Luther show that
Speaker 4: he does, but he's a great entertainer. He's great with
Speaker 4: the audience. They fall in love with him, and so
Speaker 4: he was perfect for the male side of it. For
Speaker 4: the female side, the toughest person to sing is Janet.
Speaker 4: Janet is very specific in the way she breathes, in
Speaker 4: the way she finishes her notes, and all that kind
Speaker 4: of stuff. Shawnee besides being a Star Search winner, which
Speaker 4: is interesting because Star Search is now back, but she
Speaker 4: once starts when she was, you know, ten years older whatever,
Speaker 4: She was really young. But she also then signed to
Speaker 4: A and M Records. John McClain signed her to an
Speaker 4: M Records, the elusive John MacLean, the elusive John McLain.
Speaker 4: And so so she was like a Janet disciple, like
Speaker 4: she knew every Janet note, every run, every choreography step.
Speaker 4: She knew everything. And so once again, when we're trying
Speaker 4: to do those songs and we need somebody that can
Speaker 4: really dig into those and know the detail of the
Speaker 4: way the phrasing happens and all that, Johnice was the
Speaker 4: perfect person. But also you can throw her, you know,
Speaker 4: Yolanda Adams, right, you can you know, you can throw
Speaker 4: her Mary J. Blige, or you can throw all these
Speaker 4: different singers, and she's got ranged she can do it.
Speaker 4: So they're the perfect foundation for what we do. And
Speaker 4: they have no fear, like literally we'll switch a song
Speaker 4: or an arrangement up on the day that we're going
Speaker 4: to do it and they're just into it. They're just like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: we got it, you know, so they're perfect.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I found that Shiness was the singer, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is per actually weird enough. I think I found
Speaker 2: out about the residency the day that Brian Lauren passed
Speaker 2: away yes and shout out to So I went back
Speaker 2: to listen to first record and realized like, oh man,
Speaker 2: this is like the.
Speaker 1: Perfect choice for this review.
Speaker 2: All right, So I have questions to ask about a
Speaker 2: few and yes, I'm not going to do the twelve
Speaker 2: hour jamming lewis what I really want to do, but
Speaker 2: I do have a few questions about some of your clients.
Speaker 1: I want to start with that. So best band.
Speaker 2: One thing I always wanted to know was, like, you know,
Speaker 2: eighty two eighty three for me was like a transitional year,
Speaker 2: especially for.
Speaker 1: The Black band.
Speaker 2: And this is a band that had three albums previous
Speaker 2: before you guys came to them, and they were a
Speaker 2: band in the studio. If you listen to those first
Speaker 2: three records, I think right now we're dealing with to
Speaker 2: AI or not AI.
Speaker 1: The nineties was like to copy pas or not copy paste?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: You did the course once and we'll just you know,
Speaker 2: right in the eighties was to sample, not to sample,
Speaker 2: But do you have to explain to a band like
Speaker 2: we have drum machines now and technology that you're not
Speaker 2: needed not not needed for it, but for you to
Speaker 2: work your sauce? Like do you have to convince them
Speaker 2: that you don't have to play this as a band
Speaker 2: it will sound better the way that we're presenting it
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 5: I don't think we ever had to do that. I
Speaker 5: think we just had ideas, concepts. So we were fans
Speaker 5: of SOS. I mean, take your Time to do it
Speaker 5: right was a huge hit, yeah right, you know, but
Speaker 5: past that, I mean I don't even remember another song.
Speaker 5: And so we had our ideas as fans of take
Speaker 5: your Time doing writ in the SOS band and Mary
Speaker 5: Davis in that voice kind of what we could do,
Speaker 5: and at that time we it wasn't even an eight
Speaker 5: h eight I think we had I think it was
Speaker 5: a three or three. It was a little tiny, little
Speaker 5: tiny drum machine that make basically the same sounds stay.
Speaker 3: Eight oh eight.
Speaker 5: But when we went to try to record it, we
Speaker 5: could only do it out in stereo.
Speaker 1: Out we could are not individuals.
Speaker 5: We couldn't stem it out and there was no midy
Speaker 5: for it, and so they brought an eight o eight
Speaker 5: and that's how we got into doing eight o eight.
Speaker 2: When the eight eight first arrived to you guys, is
Speaker 2: it like well, I mean, you came from Prince World,
Speaker 2: so obviously you know what a Len drum machine was.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, But were you.
Speaker 2: Guys totally one with us or was it as controversial
Speaker 2: as AI is.
Speaker 1: Now like musician.
Speaker 5: No, it only really factored into a drummer's world because
Speaker 5: some of the drummers were you're gonna use that drum
Speaker 5: machine and hating on it just because they were threatened
Speaker 5: in terms of the usability of it, because that that
Speaker 5: meant that you didn't need a drummer, got it. But
Speaker 5: as a bass player, I never liked drum machines because.
Speaker 3: It doesn't move. It doesn't let me be slippery.
Speaker 1: You have to be married to the drumm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's gotta I gotta stay right with the beat
Speaker 5: that that I can't got it.
Speaker 3: I can't move it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I have to ask a question about and
Speaker 2: I joke with you in this upside down with a side.
Speaker 2: When Mary Davis got just be good to me? Was
Speaker 2: she fine with it? Only because I think one day
Speaker 2: it hit me that, like she's basically like I forgot
Speaker 2: who I said to So Mary's cool like her man
Speaker 2: having side chicks or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's like, as long as he comes home to her,
Speaker 1: that's all she said. Wow, she co signed that.
Speaker 2: And the weird thing was someone listed like at least
Speaker 2: five other songs like that, one of them being upside
Speaker 2: Down by Dinah Ross. But at the time was a
Speaker 2: song just so irresistible that there wasn't a protest for
Speaker 2: Mary's in Like, wait a minute, I.
Speaker 5: Don't think Mary ever protests did anything that we, okay
Speaker 5: would suggest. But I think the sign of the times,
Speaker 5: bro like just the women that I grew up, right,
Speaker 5: is like I was raised by women, got it?
Speaker 3: All the women were side.
Speaker 2: Chicks, Oh dude, A product of.
Speaker 1: Both of my parents, right, So.
Speaker 3: Like I don't I don't know any different.
Speaker 5: It's like that was accepted, you know, bring the check
Speaker 5: home and I'll see you monday.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I was like this, they come home on Friday, drop
Speaker 5: off the check, and I'm where you're going. I would
Speaker 5: be out in the streets and then that's that's what
Speaker 5: it was. But you know that's also where that that
Speaker 5: song Who's making Love to the Old Lady? While you
Speaker 5: was out making.
Speaker 1: Love every joy?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, all the jos out there, Yes, right
Speaker 2: when you guys were taking on full albums entire projects.
Speaker 2: Was there ever like double lapping in other words, like
Speaker 2: when you're doing your fair album, are you also subsequently
Speaker 2: working on heartbreak? Or was it always a role of
Speaker 2: just one project at a time with our client and
Speaker 2: when we're done, we'll book another.
Speaker 5: It started out that way. It started out that way,
Speaker 5: is you know, there wasn't that much work. I mean,
Speaker 5: we were just doing the work that came, the opportunities
Speaker 5: that came.
Speaker 3: We try to meet the consideration at that point.
Speaker 5: But it became a time where it was coming so
Speaker 5: fast where we had to pull in friends and give
Speaker 5: other opportunities out and we had to split.
Speaker 3: Up sometimes, you know.
Speaker 5: And sometimes I have this thing about being the sixth toe,
Speaker 5: because I think you have though it's a bad thing
Speaker 5: if you stay in that shoe too long, because it
Speaker 5: doesn't allow like an artist like Janet to grow and
Speaker 5: become the writer that she's become. So for me, writing
Speaker 5: everything for Janet is not good because I want to
Speaker 5: I want to hear Janet's voice, even if we have
Speaker 5: to do things to alter to change it or correct
Speaker 5: it or make it work, I still want to hear
Speaker 5: her voice.
Speaker 3: I want her ideas to be interjected, so you.
Speaker 5: Know, her ownership of a project, or Usher's ownership of
Speaker 5: a project.
Speaker 3: It is just more involved. You get people like Maria.
Speaker 5: Who just naturally is a great writer, or she learned
Speaker 5: over the years I'm sure from somebody, but when we
Speaker 5: start working with her, she was already accomplished, and that
Speaker 5: was a whole different thing. So you don't need to
Speaker 5: feed into it. But when I'm the sixth toe, I
Speaker 5: try to move out and do something else.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So there have been situations where you just work on
Speaker 2: the music and be like you take it first and
Speaker 2: then see what you get or.
Speaker 5: Let them take it, yeah, and then see if I
Speaker 5: can get something better.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Actually, Janet and Usher are great examples of kind of
Speaker 4: the way that some of that would work. Now, we
Speaker 4: would pretty much clear the calendars for Janet just because
Speaker 4: we were always doing the whole albums. A lot of
Speaker 4: times with the artists, we weren't doing the whole albums
Speaker 4: with Janet, we were, and of course doing it under
Speaker 4: a lot of scrutiny and a lot of you know,
Speaker 4: and a lot to follow up, you know, because once
Speaker 4: you have that first one, the follow up is always
Speaker 4: the toughest.
Speaker 2: Is there ever a deadline as far as I mean,
Speaker 2: obviously I was assuming Janet, it's over when it's over, Well,
Speaker 2: well no, but we.
Speaker 4: Always tried to adhere to the deadlines. Now, back in
Speaker 4: those days, you had to be done with the album
Speaker 4: like three months before it actually came out for the press.
Speaker 1: I remember.
Speaker 4: The thing that was the most frustrating part of that
Speaker 4: was not the recording, but the credits. There was such
Speaker 4: a premium on making sure that the credits were correct,
Speaker 4: and that was the thing. It's like, we don't need
Speaker 4: you to turn in the actual music yet, but we
Speaker 4: do need the credits, and it's like, and what if you.
Speaker 2: Switch up last minute. I've been in that situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that was just because the artwork had to be done.
Speaker 1: Artwork, yeah, all those all those things.
Speaker 3: That's funny.
Speaker 5: Once you pressed up a bunch of artwork wrong and
Speaker 5: you have to change it, there's just a lost leader.
Speaker 1: Like got it gone?
Speaker 4: But I think with Janet I think Terry in some ways,
Speaker 4: and I hate to even use the now, but I
Speaker 4: think in some ways he looked at Janet and I
Speaker 4: and we had such a close kind of relationship, in
Speaker 4: a close kind of bond that Terry would always kind
Speaker 4: of be like, I'm here when you need me. You know,
Speaker 4: I think I told you the story about living in
Speaker 4: the world. They didn't make. So Jane and I were
Speaker 4: in the studio working and then we saw some stuff
Speaker 4: on CNN about a school shooting, right, and we're trying
Speaker 4: to figure out, Oh, we got to write a song.
Speaker 4: We got to figure that out. We got to figure
Speaker 4: that out. Terry walks into the studio. He was building
Speaker 4: our new studio at that point in time. He walks
Speaker 4: in with a carpet sample in one hand and a
Speaker 4: wallpaper in the other hand, and he goes, Hey, which
Speaker 4: one of these do you think is the one. We're like, no, no, Terry,
Speaker 4: we got this song, man, we got this idea. You know,
Speaker 4: it's the kids, man, The kids are mess you know,
Speaker 4: they're getting messed up and it's not their fault. And
Speaker 4: we give this whole, big long dissertation of what the
Speaker 4: song is, and Terry just goes living in the world.
Speaker 1: They didn't make.
Speaker 4: Who said yeah, and he goes in the conference room
Speaker 4: about five ten minutes later, hands us the lyrics and goes, okay,
Speaker 4: now which wallpaper and.
Speaker 6: So.
Speaker 4: But that was a case where you know, we said, oh,
Speaker 4: we need Terry for this, like we're not going to
Speaker 4: be able to figure this out. Vice versa with Usher.
Speaker 4: So I worked with Usher first on the Kazam soundtrack
Speaker 4: on Shack's movie. We did a song called swear I'm
Speaker 4: in love Usher.
Speaker 1: I've been on an airplanes so you know, there you go.
Speaker 4: So Usher came up literally for the day and we
Speaker 4: just did the song real quick, and Terry wasn't there,
Speaker 4: and we did the song real quick, and so fast
Speaker 4: forward maybe a year later or something like that, or
Speaker 4: maybe a little later, and Terry literally came into my
Speaker 4: office and said, Jim, I think I'm ready to retire.
Speaker 4: M I was like, I said, yes, yeah, I'll let
Speaker 4: Terry tell the story and then I'll wrap up the analogy.
Speaker 2: Because music wasn't using English by this point. Well, no,
Speaker 2: you come with your complete sentences in your poetry.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm simply complex. It's like just check it out.
Speaker 5: Like I just started feeling like people were just phoning
Speaker 5: it in. Nobody wanted to really work, nobody wanted to explore,
Speaker 5: nobody wanted to do things outside.
Speaker 3: Of the box. They just everybody was just phoned it in.
Speaker 3: I didn't feel it anymore.
Speaker 5: And you know, I'm one of those kind of people
Speaker 5: where I feel like, if I make the perfect record,
Speaker 5: that's the day I retire. And if I don't feel
Speaker 5: like I can better what I used to do, then
Speaker 5: I'm going to do something else because there's a lot
Speaker 5: of things to do. So I just felt like I
Speaker 5: wasn't progressing and nobody wanted to kind of inspire me
Speaker 5: to do anything different. So I was like, yo, man,
Speaker 5: I can I can do something different. Jam was like, well,
Speaker 5: not me. I'm loving this whatever. But I told him that,
Speaker 5: you know, just being candid, Man, I can't remember it.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 4: I'm going to put the well the album, I'll tell
Speaker 4: you the album that derived from it was the eighty
Speaker 4: seven on one album.
Speaker 1: I said, it's yeah two thousand and one in the title. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there you go.
Speaker 4: So I said to Terry because he said nobody was
Speaker 4: inspiring him and we and that's one of the things.
Speaker 4: I mean, really the songs that we write come from
Speaker 4: the inspiration of working with the artists, and I mentioned
Speaker 4: Usher to Terry. I said, man, you got to get
Speaker 4: with Usher. I said, this dude, you'd love him, You'd
Speaker 4: love him. And I remember we had Usher come to
Speaker 4: town actually initially to finish a song that he had
Speaker 4: already started, and then that turned out so well that
Speaker 4: I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: When Usher and Terry met it.
Speaker 4: Was like literally, you know, like love at first sight
Speaker 4: got it because Usher had all these ideas and Terry could,
Speaker 4: you know, even though he he has no filter, but
Speaker 4: he can filter other people and he can go no, no, no,
Speaker 4: Let's focus on this lyric and this melody and this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff, right. And then there was a song
Speaker 4: we had written for actually a girl that we ended
Speaker 4: up not working with that. Terry said, Jim, remember that
Speaker 4: song we had with that melody that went to dun
Speaker 4: and whatever it was. I said, oh, yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 4: He said I'm gonna do something with that. I'm gonna
Speaker 4: do something with that.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: By the time that evening ended, which was kind of
Speaker 4: the three of us. The next day, when Usher came
Speaker 4: back to the studio, I took my ass to the
Speaker 4: other room because I did not need to be there.
Speaker 4: They needed to have their time together. So in that case,
Speaker 4: I was a six toe. And it was interesting because
Speaker 4: Usher spoke on our There's a jam In Lewis documentary
Speaker 4: that's being done, and one of the things I heard
Speaker 4: Usher say that I never really knew until I heard
Speaker 4: him say in the documentary was he thought I didn't
Speaker 4: like him because I was never around.
Speaker 1: And he would go to Terry. He go, Terry, where's
Speaker 1: jam An He'd go, oh, He's over there. He's over there.
Speaker 4: He's like, why did he never come around? He never
Speaker 4: comes around? And then one day he wanted to do
Speaker 4: a song that was like he wanted to do kind
Speaker 4: of a tender love type of song, and he said
Speaker 4: to Terry, man, I want to do one of those
Speaker 4: tender love type, you know, ballads with the piano and stuff.
Speaker 4: And then Terry goes, oh, you got to talk to
Speaker 4: jam I'm about that, and so then he sends, you know,
Speaker 4: Usher over to me and we ended up doing a
Speaker 4: song can you Help Me God, which was yeah. So
Speaker 4: at that point was when Usher realized that it was
Speaker 4: just one of those things where I'm around if I'm needed,
Speaker 4: but you guys don't really need me. You know, you
Speaker 4: guys got it. You you have that that that magic.
Speaker 2: When you take on a client. Do you have songs
Speaker 2: already and like hear these songs? What do you think?
Speaker 2: Or is it like do you do it on the
Speaker 2: spot with him? Like do they want the horse and
Speaker 2: pony show or that it's the mirrors of it all.
Speaker 3: Definitely a combination.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we we always prided ourselves on the
Speaker 4: best comblem we could ever get from an artist. When
Speaker 4: would be when an artist would say, oh, I love this, this,
Speaker 4: this is the way I should sound. And I remember
Speaker 4: the best one though was Berry White. I remember on
Speaker 4: Barry White. We were working at that point. We still
Speaker 4: had Prospective Records, but we had taken over the whole
Speaker 4: Black department of A and M Records because they were
Speaker 4: shutting at that point, they were shutting down all the
Speaker 4: black departments. This is like mid nineties, and so they said,
Speaker 4: we'll keep the Black department if you guys want to
Speaker 4: run it, and we didn't want to run it.
Speaker 1: But wait, they.
Speaker 4: At the time was there, Yeah, but it was happening.
Speaker 4: It was it was a industry wide thing that was happening.
Speaker 4: They were getting rid of the black divisions at all
Speaker 4: the labels and so oh yeah, because.
Speaker 2: We were the getting pigs for Hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: start a black division. So I just thought like there
Speaker 2: was a fever out there. I didn't realize that there
Speaker 2: was a drought.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, there was definitely a drought.
Speaker 5: And so well, black music had become pop music at
Speaker 5: that point too, got it. So the pop department was
Speaker 5: taking all that revenue and shoving it back into their department,
Speaker 5: and they were getting rid of the urban department because
Speaker 5: all of us pop anyway got it.
Speaker 4: So we ended up on Barry White. We said, well,
Speaker 4: produce a couple of songs on Barry. And we did
Speaker 4: these two songs, and I remember, you know, I would
Speaker 4: always do the demos of the songs, right, So I'm
Speaker 4: on there like yeah, baby that I'm doing my very
Speaker 4: white voice the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So he comes to town, we play him the song
Speaker 4: and when the song goes off, he just doesn't say anything.
Speaker 4: And we always called him mister White. He was never buried.
Speaker 4: It was mister White. He said, mister White, what do
Speaker 4: you think. We sat there for a second, then he
Speaker 4: reared back with this big laugh. And he said, oh, sounds.
Speaker 1: Like me, and we said, sounds like me.
Speaker 4: That's what you want all artists to feel if we
Speaker 4: wrote a song for them, we would want them to
Speaker 4: feel like that's their song. And he felt like that's
Speaker 4: my song. When he said that, you knew that was
Speaker 4: the green light.
Speaker 1: Yes see, I would have been scared because I wanted
Speaker 1: to say it feels like me. Yeah, so okay, he says,
Speaker 1: sounds like me.
Speaker 2: I'm about to say you nailed it, actually, and how
Speaker 2: you guys captured it was you took it from a
Speaker 2: very specific sounding Barry White song that wouldn't be captain obviously.
Speaker 2: I think anyone else would try to instantly try to
Speaker 2: bow chick awhow out their way and said I'm going
Speaker 2: to love you little yes, yeah, like if it were
Speaker 2: Dan Hartman. Oh God, you know that I got you.
Speaker 1: I got you.
Speaker 2: You feel your gravity record with Jess Brown exactly. I
Speaker 2: actually thought it was very tasteful for how you you
Speaker 2: guys handled that we had.
Speaker 4: I'll tell you one more quick one that we felt
Speaker 4: the same way about was we love the Isley Brothers
Speaker 4: and Chris Jasper for me, keyboard wise, moviie, that's my
Speaker 4: my guru as far as writing an inspiration for the
Speaker 4: way that I did chords and all that stuff. And
Speaker 4: I remember when the Isley Brothers were going to come
Speaker 4: to town and we had this song called.
Speaker 1: You're All I Need.
Speaker 4: And I remember I hadn't even sung the demo to
Speaker 4: it yet, so when we started playing it, I started singing,
Speaker 4: and so it was Ernie and Ron in the room
Speaker 4: and I start singing and I go, dad.
Speaker 1: Like that, and then Ron goes like he knew where
Speaker 1: it was going. I got it.
Speaker 4: And then Ernie goes, you got an acoustic guitar. It
Speaker 4: was like yeah, and he starts playing, and that's when
Speaker 4: you knew you nailed it. And that's one of the
Speaker 4: things I think is probably our superpower as writers and
Speaker 4: producers is being able to analyze what somebody has done before,
Speaker 4: what worked, what didn't work, and then making that song
Speaker 4: it feels like them Linel Ritchie was a funny one
Speaker 4: because you didn't realize we did the players right.
Speaker 1: There's two versions of the chat. Yeah. Now I feel
Speaker 1: bad that he's not in the chat.
Speaker 2: I have a chat group of every producer known, but
Speaker 2: I made a specific one just for him to come
Speaker 2: in and whatever but when we listened to I Want
Speaker 2: to Take You Down, I was actually mad as shit,
Speaker 2: Like that's the first time I got mad at you guys.
Speaker 2: And why would they give him such a banger like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just like, but.
Speaker 4: See the first song we did with Lionel, because we
Speaker 4: said with Lionel, we want to take you back to
Speaker 4: the Commodore's days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we did a.
Speaker 4: Song called Don't Want to Lose You the Soul Train video, Yes, exactly, and.
Speaker 1: He when he heard that song, he once again he
Speaker 1: just was kind of like he just kind of listening.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, oh, oh girl, and I'm doing basically
Speaker 4: Lonel Richie and he goes man, he said, y'all literally
Speaker 4: just wrote like my song, Like I know that's my song,
Speaker 4: but I couldn't write it because I've already written that song.
Speaker 1: But you guys wrote a new my song. You know,
Speaker 1: got it.
Speaker 4: And that was always the best compliment to me that
Speaker 4: you would get from people with any any artists.
Speaker 2: Okay, so when you take on a client, and I
Speaker 2: know sometimes a client will come in with a team,
Speaker 2: a best friend, a sibling, a manager micromanaging an r
Speaker 2: or whatever. I'm certain now you're your Jedi mind trick
Speaker 2: games are like superb Yeah, I was going to say,
Speaker 2: without naming a name, how do you communicate with each
Speaker 2: other when you want to have a conversation, but you
Speaker 2: have to communicate without letting off that you're going to
Speaker 2: Jedi mind trick them, or you know, just do one
Speaker 2: more take or.
Speaker 3: Just let it flow.
Speaker 5: Man, you know you don't Jedi mind trick that that
Speaker 5: is the Jedi mind trick. Oh yeah, okay, you just
Speaker 5: let it flow. Like I'm not looking for anything perfect.
Speaker 5: Everything to me is perfectly imperfect anyway, So that's just
Speaker 5: part of what it is. And we just let it flow.
Speaker 5: And what's best wins. So I love when artists think
Speaker 5: they know, are you either give somebody some rope to the.
Speaker 3: Man, I'll let you go out there, I'll let you
Speaker 3: go and I'll listen.
Speaker 5: And I said, okay, one more time, one more time,
Speaker 5: ten more time. Pretre is it how you like it yet?
Speaker 3: M Oh you got it? Okay, why don't we try
Speaker 3: it my way?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: So let's get it. That's how I am.
Speaker 2: I'm that way with usher, by the way, but that's
Speaker 2: just on the But who is a stubborn artist that
Speaker 2: you don't mind saying is stubborn as far as like
Speaker 2: wanting to do chase perfection or this isn't right.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, hey, Shaka was the other way. I
Speaker 5: did enough, that's enough, but it's not right.
Speaker 1: Baby.
Speaker 2: Oh I forgot those Oh you forgot. There's there's the
Speaker 2: one or two takes and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. You know you got it.
Speaker 5: But yeah, but your timing is bad and your pitch
Speaker 5: is bad. And certainly I can tune it, but you
Speaker 5: can sing it faster than I can tune it.
Speaker 2: Can you say that what you pulled on punches? No,
Speaker 2: you're the good back cop of being back cop.
Speaker 3: No, I'm just honest. You know, you know, fact doesn't
Speaker 3: care how you feel.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna say what I got to say, and you
Speaker 5: could take it out you want to take it now.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be your record forever.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm gonna be done with it in a couple
Speaker 5: of hours here, if this is what you're gonna give me.
Speaker 1: Have you said these words of people? Yes, yes, I'm not.
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to argue with people about stuff this
Speaker 5: arm Well, we all try to win the record game,
Speaker 5: like we all try to make the best record we
Speaker 5: possibly can.
Speaker 1: I asked Sting.
Speaker 5: We work with Sting on some products, okay, And I
Speaker 5: asked thing. I said, well, how many times do you
Speaker 5: like to sing something? He said not very many? And
Speaker 5: I said, all right, bro right, So that's that's what
Speaker 5: that's whatever it is, that's what it's gonna be.
Speaker 3: So this is the best we gonna get.
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, okay, I've not heard this song. Oh
Speaker 1: it's called my Funny Friend in Me, Oh from the kitchen,
Speaker 1: you know what? I think I went to the premiums
Speaker 1: Premier No, No, what's the Disney theater on? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: El Capitan, right, I think.
Speaker 2: I went there once because I didn't know this existed,
Speaker 2: and I had to go to Disney.
Speaker 1: For some reason. I didn't know the whole thing, like
Speaker 1: they do a magic show, none of that, like ladies
Speaker 1: and gentlemen. Sting and he came and performed this song.
Speaker 1: We performed with him.
Speaker 3: Did I see you?
Speaker 1: Guys? You saw us?
Speaker 4: And that was the thing. When the movie ended, the
Speaker 4: screen came up right and we started playing. I didn't
Speaker 4: know you were there? Yes, yeah, because my son was there.
Speaker 4: Tyler had just been born. He was maybe four years old.
Speaker 1: Five years old. I had to pull for some reason.
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was. Yeah, but okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: how about that? Wow, I didn't realize it.
Speaker 2: Sting is one of my favorite incorrect harmony person if
Speaker 2: you're a fan of the Police, his harmony choices are
Speaker 2: so they're correct, but they're incorrect because he doesn't do
Speaker 2: the full chord.
Speaker 1: He might do like the yes, the.
Speaker 2: First and the fifth and the seventh chord. That's flash yes,
Speaker 2: but I love it.
Speaker 1: In that case, if someone has a trademark or something
Speaker 1: like that, like again, do you just let him roll
Speaker 1: with it or absolutely?
Speaker 5: That's the style matters more than anything to me. I
Speaker 5: mean correct, not correct. You know that's arbitrary. But you know,
Speaker 5: if you got a style, man, if people can recognize
Speaker 5: your work right away, they hear a few notes and
Speaker 5: they say all that, and then you got something. Now
Speaker 5: we got something to work with. Now let's figure out
Speaker 5: how to make that style into something cool.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I think when we were working I remember when we
Speaker 4: were working with Mary J. Blige, and I remember we
Speaker 4: played her a bunch of songs because we had done
Speaker 4: a bunch of whole all kinds of different kind of
Speaker 4: sounding songs for her because we were trying to expand
Speaker 4: you know, what she was doing, and she didn't like
Speaker 4: any of them, and she was just like and we.
Speaker 1: Were like, well, Mary, what are you looking for it?
Speaker 1: How do you take rejection? I'm cool with it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never took you don't have someone has someone
Speaker 2: turned down a song that like you later gave to
Speaker 2: someone else's like it worked?
Speaker 1: Probably it?
Speaker 4: Probably so, although we didn't do a lot of that
Speaker 4: because we were so specific in making our songs for
Speaker 4: a specific artists. The one I mentioned earlier that ended
Speaker 4: up with with Usher, which ended up being a song
Speaker 4: called Towirk It Out, which was a pretty big record
Speaker 4: for him just as an album cut, But that was
Speaker 4: for another artist. But it was just a melody and
Speaker 4: we had never really got with that artist other than
Speaker 4: we did get it was her artist. We got with
Speaker 4: her one time and just were like, it just was
Speaker 4: it wasn't compatible.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 4: It was one where somebody thought it would be a
Speaker 4: great idea if we got together and it just wasn't.
Speaker 1: How long in the process do you know if it's
Speaker 1: not going to work?
Speaker 4: I think you know pretty much immediately. But we would
Speaker 4: do our homework before we would even work with an artist,
Speaker 4: we'd always have long conversation or we'd try to meet
Speaker 4: with them and we would try to see I mean,
Speaker 4: and having conversations with them. Everybody has their own dialect,
Speaker 4: their own way that they talk, their own phrases and
Speaker 4: those kinds of things, and we would always kind of
Speaker 4: sit and talk, and as the talking was happening, there'd
Speaker 4: be certain phrases or certain ways they say, or certain
Speaker 4: subjects they'd want to talk about, and then we would
Speaker 4: then you know, Terry would be writing stuff down. I
Speaker 4: might be sitting at a piano and just playing some chords,
Speaker 4: and if if all of a sudden in the conversation,
Speaker 4: they'll go.
Speaker 1: Wait, what's that? What's that?
Speaker 4: What's that you just played? Be like, oh, that was
Speaker 4: just this, and then Terry will go do you hear
Speaker 4: something for that? And they might hit a little bit
Speaker 4: of a melody and something, and then Terry would go, well,
Speaker 4: that sounds like, you know, I love something blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: And so when those kinds of organic things happen, I
Speaker 4: think that's when we would know that, yeah, this is
Speaker 4: the right artist. But we would also have to feel
Speaker 4: like we were the best people for doing that.
Speaker 1: Artist got it.
Speaker 4: There were so many artists that we kind of turned away.
Speaker 4: A big one because he's on the Rock and Roll
Speaker 4: Hall of Fame ballot this year is Pink.
Speaker 1: So Pink you know.
Speaker 4: Roger Davies, the manager, he wanted her to come to
Speaker 4: Minneapolis because she was making this rock record and they
Speaker 4: were scared. They were like, you know, we got to
Speaker 4: put some R and B songs on.
Speaker 1: Here, so we cool. So Pink comes up.
Speaker 4: We instantly wrote a song something about girlfriend, but I
Speaker 4: just can't remember what it was. But we instantly wrote
Speaker 4: a song and it was it was cool. And then
Speaker 4: we said what are you looking for? And she said, oh,
Speaker 4: the record company just feels like, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: lose my audience and whatever. We said, oh wow. We
Speaker 4: said can we hear what you've got so far? And
Speaker 4: she said, okay. So she plays us the record and
Speaker 4: it's all the Linda Perry stuff. There's some Dallas Austin stuff.
Speaker 4: I think it's brilliant, and so we're like, you don't
Speaker 4: need us, you got your record and she said, yeah,
Speaker 4: well La read kind of feels like whatever.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 4: We said, Oh okay, I said, we'll call La. So
Speaker 4: I called La and I said, hey, man, let me
Speaker 4: have a comment. Oh, he goes house, Pink coming, Hou's
Speaker 4: Pink coming. I said, La, it's coming.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 4: But I said, you don't really need us on this project.
Speaker 4: He said what do you mean? And I said, let
Speaker 4: me give you two examples. I said, there was a
Speaker 4: girl in Canada. She was okay, she was selling records.
Speaker 4: She was, you know, nice pop star, nice thing. Said
Speaker 4: she came to America. She made a record called Jagged
Speaker 4: Little Pill. He said, Atlantis Morris that. I said, yeah.
Speaker 4: I said, Then there's this guy.
Speaker 1: I said. He had a you know, like a double
Speaker 1: platinum album, like a top ten single. You know he's
Speaker 1: kicking butt. You know it's going to be great.
Speaker 4: And I said, the next album comes out with some
Speaker 4: leg warmers and a trench coat and bikinis.
Speaker 1: And he goes Prince and I said yeah.
Speaker 4: And I said okay, now, because I told him, take
Speaker 4: your record company hat off. And I said that and
Speaker 4: then I said now, I said take your record company
Speaker 4: hat off.
Speaker 1: So he says, are you telling me you think Pink
Speaker 1: is Prince.
Speaker 4: And Alanis morriseaid a star, yep, and I said yes,
Speaker 4: And I said now put your record company hat back on.
Speaker 4: You have your first single, and he said, what's that.
Speaker 4: I said, get the party started. And he said why.
Speaker 4: I said, because get the party started.
Speaker 1: See it at the.
Speaker 4: Time, Well, at least that wasn't what he was telling them,
Speaker 4: you know, And he said, I said, because, I said,
Speaker 4: it keeps her old audience. I mean, they won't be
Speaker 4: offended by that record, but it will bring in her
Speaker 4: a new audience for her in the direction that she
Speaker 4: wants to go. And I remember then, you know, three
Speaker 4: months later, four months later, the album comes out and
Speaker 4: everybody called us because this is pre internet and all
Speaker 4: that stuff, So we were getting phone calls what y'all
Speaker 4: do on pink sut So we didn't do anything on
Speaker 4: her album. They said, well in the credit she thanks you.
Speaker 4: She says thank you Jimmy jam and Terry Lewis, and
Speaker 4: I said, oh, we made a phone call. So we
Speaker 4: had a lot of situations like that where we turned
Speaker 4: something down, or we said ABC, the English Group after
Speaker 4: we did the Human League ABC, they were trying to make.
Speaker 4: They said we're trying to make a Jam and Lewis record.
Speaker 4: We said, okay, cool, and we said play us what
Speaker 4: you got they said, we want you guys to produce
Speaker 4: this song.
Speaker 1: We said, okay, cool. We go there.
Speaker 4: I think we're at A and M and they play
Speaker 4: this song and we're like listening to it and Terry
Speaker 4: said when the song went off, Terry said, I got
Speaker 4: four words for you, and they say, what's that?
Speaker 1: He said, put that shit out? Oh, and they said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean put that shit out? They said, we said,
Speaker 1: put that shit out. You don't need us on this record.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, well, we don't know.
Speaker 4: It was How to Be a Millionaire ended up being
Speaker 4: a huge record for them, but it was one of
Speaker 4: those things where you know we're not I'll give you
Speaker 4: one last ample of it. Well, I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 4: Clive Davis calls us to New York. He says, I'm
Speaker 4: working on a Wreatha Franklin record and we think, you know,
Speaker 4: we'd like you for you guys to do and Clive's
Speaker 4: thing was do but we just need if you do
Speaker 4: demos of whatever, And we'd always go Clive, we don't
Speaker 4: do demos. And we said who else is on the
Speaker 4: record and he named a couple people, right, and then
Speaker 4: he goes and then there's this young fella Oh, he's
Speaker 4: kind of new uh narrati Michael Walden and we.
Speaker 1: Said, oh, he's the one, he's the one. Michael. Well,
Speaker 1: he's kind of untested and he's kind of what I said, untested.
Speaker 1: I said no, no, no, no, I said no, he's
Speaker 1: a serious musician. He's the one. Fast forward three months later,
Speaker 1: Free Way of Love. You could have been on a
Speaker 1: whom zoom and who.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you know about the intimidating factor of wreatha Franklin.
Speaker 1: Back then, No, we had a whole concept of what
Speaker 1: we wanted to do with the wreath.
Speaker 4: Well, he's eighty five pre control like and you were
Speaker 4: fine with just being like em were.
Speaker 1: Good because not everything was meant for us. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I say the words no. I'm learning now. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's also like my thirty fourth year in show business. Well,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't for us.
Speaker 4: It never was no. And by the way, the no
Speaker 4: for us it was always a no with a butt no.
Speaker 4: But you know who would be really great for this
Speaker 4: would be this person or you should go see this person.
Speaker 4: We did a lot of that, and even with Lionel
Speaker 4: Ritchie when he first called us on the Dancing on
Speaker 4: the scene Land album is when he first called us
Speaker 4: and we said he wanted one record. He said, I
Speaker 4: just need one record, and we're like, nah, come back
Speaker 4: when you need three records.
Speaker 1: He just didn't want a one off. No, we didn't
Speaker 1: want to do a one off.
Speaker 4: We wanted to do We wanted to explore him, and
Speaker 4: we were a fan enough where we felt we could
Speaker 4: tell a story in the three songs we did got
Speaker 4: you know whatever. Those three songs were four songs, So
Speaker 4: that was the way we looked at it. And we
Speaker 4: just never felt like we had to be the perfect
Speaker 4: person for it, and if we saw somebody else that
Speaker 4: was the perfect person, then that's what we try to
Speaker 4: you know, moving in that direction.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And the other side of it too is that we've
Speaker 5: never been afraid of being rejected, Like that's how we
Speaker 5: got to do Janet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I'm sorry. Laugh The sharing story Sharon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, boy, we got rejected.
Speaker 1: Have you I'm not mad?
Speaker 2: Guys ever came across there after that, yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 2: And did she sort of say like damn.
Speaker 4: She didn't say this directly to me, but what I
Speaker 4: heard from someone who is a relative of hers was
Speaker 4: that she was intimidated by us. She didn't feel she
Speaker 4: was worthy of us, and at.
Speaker 3: That time, there was not much to be worthy of.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean we had a couple of hits, but yeah,
Speaker 4: it was Yeah, it was nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, yeah, nothing to be afraid of. And I
Speaker 4: think people were maybe, I mean I think she was
Speaker 4: a little intimidated.
Speaker 1: Yes, when people getting their own way. Man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you know, like I said, we're boys from Minneapolis, man,
Speaker 5: like we're used to rejection.
Speaker 3: That that was just part of the day.
Speaker 2: When Mary is saying like I don't like this, I
Speaker 2: don't like that if you're creating on the spot, I
Speaker 2: guess as a drummer, I feel like everything for me
Speaker 2: has to be the feeling the pace and the pulse
Speaker 2: and the drummer. So you know, when I'm creating stuff,
Speaker 2: I'm on drums. But like, how do you make the
Speaker 2: person see the vision if it's just like you gotta
Speaker 2: procure them something real quick and you know the exact
Speaker 2: drum patches you want to use.
Speaker 4: Well, so with Mary in that particular case, So in Mary,
Speaker 4: like I say, we had put together a bunch of
Speaker 4: tracks just to have some ideas, just to play her,
Speaker 4: just to get a feel of what it was she
Speaker 4: was trying to do. When she didn't like the three
Speaker 4: or four things that we played her, we said, what
Speaker 4: is it that you're looking for? And she said, I
Speaker 4: want something that's sounds like me. And we were like, okay,
Speaker 4: something that sounds like you. Okay, cool. Well we got
Speaker 4: this other track here, and we played the track with
Speaker 4: the child no no, Love is All we Need would
Speaker 4: end up becoming love is All We Need. And when
Speaker 4: that record came on, boom boom butter the boom to boom,
Speaker 4: the doom to doom, and she got up and started
Speaker 4: doing the Mary J. Blige dance her and her sister. Yeah,
Speaker 4: she started hitting that dance and she said, oh, hell yeah,
Speaker 4: this one I'm talking about, this one I'm talking about
Speaker 4: And we said, yeah, but isn't Puffy giving you songs
Speaker 4: like this?
Speaker 1: She said, I ain't working with Puffy. Got it?
Speaker 4: And then we said, oh okay. Well then we got
Speaker 4: this other one, which was everything, and she heard that
Speaker 4: and she was like, oh my god, this is it,
Speaker 4: this is it. So those are the kind of things
Speaker 4: that that kind of happened. So when we gave her
Speaker 4: exactly what it was, she wanted. We thought she was
Speaker 4: already getting that from someone else, so we were like, Okay,
Speaker 4: well we'll try to take her in another you know,
Speaker 4: Puffy's got that handled.
Speaker 1: We'll go in this direction with her.
Speaker 2: Your post heartbreak phase, were you two at all concerned?
Speaker 2: And I look, I know the correct answer is yes,
Speaker 2: we have to go linear and change with the times
Speaker 2: and not be sentimental and move forward, move Ford, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: But there are.
Speaker 2: Especially after nineteen ninety five, in which I'm getting you know,
Speaker 2: it's one thing where you have an album and you
Speaker 2: read credits and all that stuff. But during the CD era,
Speaker 2: occasionally I read the books or whatever. But I honestly
Speaker 2: didn't know that y'all did Bad Girl, or like half
Speaker 2: the stuff y'all did. I didn't even realize it was
Speaker 2: you guys until like years later, Like.
Speaker 1: That doesn't even sound like them.
Speaker 2: Was there ever a conversation that you two had like
Speaker 2: we have to modernize and be present with where music's
Speaker 2: going today.
Speaker 5: I don't think we ever think like that. Okay, what
Speaker 5: feels best? You know, I never think about modern or
Speaker 5: any that. I mean, if you keep up with technology,
Speaker 5: I guess you'll be modern I guess to a certain degree,
Speaker 5: but you know, I have a way of thinking about things,
Speaker 5: you know. I know most people don't know what they like.
Speaker 5: They like what they know. So if you can get
Speaker 5: something that they can recognize as part of their DNA,
Speaker 5: then you got something or the start of something.
Speaker 2: So I thought Love he was very smart because that
Speaker 2: wasn't a captain obvious sample, right unless you have the
Speaker 2: Globe record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, that's right, you know.
Speaker 2: So even to me, like I was like, okay, well
Speaker 2: they're going there, but they're going to another.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But that's how Jam samples.
Speaker 5: He he samples different, but other people, I mean, his
Speaker 5: loops are just different, by.
Speaker 4: The way, I will say on that record when you're
Speaker 4: talking about somebody that isn't quite bringing the performance. So
Speaker 4: the interesting thing was when Nas came up to do
Speaker 4: is rap, and I remember it was the first time.
Speaker 4: I mean, we terry and I don't drink so, but
Speaker 4: I remember there was all of a sudden, a bunch
Speaker 4: of guinness at the studio, okay, and I remember Nas
Speaker 4: went in to do his rap, and you know, we
Speaker 4: didn't fancy ourselves as rap producers. But he goes in
Speaker 4: and does his rap and he does, you know, three
Speaker 4: or four takes and stuff, and Mary's like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: this is great, this is great.
Speaker 1: And we're kind of going. We're like, dude, are you
Speaker 1: sure you want to do another one? He's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is it.
Speaker 3: I got it.
Speaker 1: I got it. Cool. Okay cool.
Speaker 4: So we mixed the record, we send the record and
Speaker 4: he goes, oh no, hell no, I got to come
Speaker 4: back and do redo that rap. It's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 4: and so he did, and of course he killed it
Speaker 4: when he came back. But that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 4: I mean, because I'm not going to say to nas.
Speaker 4: I mean, we weren't experts in rap, so it's like,
Speaker 4: if you think this is good, I mean, you know
Speaker 4: your standards. If you think this is up to your standards,
Speaker 4: then we're not going to argue with you.
Speaker 2: Hasn't a rap group ever approached you guys, a rap
Speaker 2: artist ever approached you guys about producing them?
Speaker 4: You know, Snoop did, and we had some great ashes
Speaker 4: for him. Oh my god, when he wanted the eight
Speaker 4: oh eight and he won. I don't even know what
Speaker 4: he wanted. I just remember we had like I thought
Speaker 4: it was like a magic session, like it blew his mind, like,
Speaker 4: because we were just coming up with song after song,
Speaker 4: track after track, and he was like, oh man, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 4: I gotta really think on this. I gotta really think
Speaker 4: on this. So maybe he didn't really like it. I
Speaker 4: don't know, but we never ended up doing a thing
Speaker 4: on him. Let's see, we were in the old studio,
Speaker 4: so two thousand and eight, maybe seven, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: around that period of time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to say, yeah.
Speaker 4: And we did, and we had I don't know, we
Speaker 4: probably did ten tracks on him something like that, and.
Speaker 1: They're still in existence. They're on a hard drive somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somewhere, yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are they timeless enough to still come out now?
Speaker 4: Or I'd have to listen to him. I don't remember him.
Speaker 4: I just remember the vibe was great because we wanted,
Speaker 4: you know, we kind of felt like we always wanted
Speaker 4: to blow the artist's minds when they came in. We
Speaker 4: wanted to surprise him, and you know, whatever their expectation was,
Speaker 4: we wanted to try to blow them away. And snoop,
Speaker 4: we were such big fans of his and we knew
Speaker 4: we always treated it like we're fans of the person
Speaker 4: that's coming in. So what would we want to hear
Speaker 4: if we had gone to the record store and picked
Speaker 4: that record up or that CD up? What would we
Speaker 4: want to hear on that CD? And now was the
Speaker 4: songs we would try to create?
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 4: And we did that with Snoop. But we had some
Speaker 4: great stuff. But we you know, we actually forged a
Speaker 4: great relationship because of that.
Speaker 1: I have a question about Charelle's product. Would you say
Speaker 1: that she's kind of the testing ground for jam and Lewis,
Speaker 1: because you know, I listened to her entire discography that
Speaker 1: you guys did in the last two weeks and noticed
Speaker 1: that you guys used way different drum machines, different ideas.
Speaker 1: Where that saxophone come from? I never heard this before? Whatever?
Speaker 2: So was she always a testing ground for you to
Speaker 2: see how far you can push.
Speaker 1: Ideas? Or was that a mental telect No.
Speaker 4: No, it's a it's a great question, great observation.
Speaker 2: The other thing is, because I know that you're also
Speaker 2: responsible for the secreence thing, I forgot to ask you
Speaker 2: this on a fair by then I was in Columbia House,
Speaker 2: so I got affair. The first week it came out,
Speaker 2: Discreet had a different intro on it. I have a
Speaker 2: version of a fair where Discreet has her and a
Speaker 2: party talking to her girlfriend whatever at the intro and
Speaker 2: then now on streaming, Discreet starts with her saying backwards,
Speaker 2: what's the next song?
Speaker 1: Jimmy jam? But yes, it's backwards. Why were there two
Speaker 1: versions of that? Was that?
Speaker 4: I have no idea. I'd have to hear the one
Speaker 4: the other version that you have. You know there's two
Speaker 4: off the walls, right okay?
Speaker 1: I mean I know there's with.
Speaker 2: You without the collapse, and there's Get on the Floor
Speaker 2: without a guitar part, and then like there's two uh,
Speaker 2: there's two talking books?
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Wait, isn't there with You at the Sunshine of My Life?
Speaker 4: Because there's the ones with the horns and that has
Speaker 4: the horns dun d d and there's the one the
Speaker 4: original album didn't have those horns sections.
Speaker 1: I gotta check that. Okay, I didn't know that, but no,
Speaker 1: I was just wanted to know was their method of
Speaker 1: did you hear mid thing? Like, ah, that's the wrong
Speaker 1: version they put keys up version and did you switch?
Speaker 4: I don't remember, So now I'm gonna have to jog
Speaker 4: my memory and find out about that.
Speaker 2: And because you guys also handled the sequencing of the record.
Speaker 2: Why is Everything I Missed at Home like whenever song
Speaker 2: is like the fourth song on side too? And this
Speaker 2: is also from a guy whose biggest single was the
Speaker 2: third to last song on.
Speaker 1: Like an hour into it. Why did y'all put that
Speaker 1: so late?
Speaker 2: When I figured Everything I Missed at Home would least
Speaker 2: be on side one and hit him.
Speaker 1: With it, But because it was kind of its own thought.
Speaker 4: And when we sequenced albums, I mean, we use different
Speaker 4: philosophy for different artists, but I know on a lot
Speaker 4: of times we would put the up tempos up front
Speaker 4: and we would try to in some way segue them together,
Speaker 4: which I think I know on the Affair album we
Speaker 4: did that. We segued the first three songs together, And
Speaker 4: so I think I don't think. I think Everything I
Speaker 4: Missed at Home was the first song on the B side,
Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken, though I think it did lead
Speaker 4: the B side.
Speaker 3: You asked something about like Sharill.
Speaker 1: Was she.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, And I have to say to a certain
Speaker 5: degree yes, because she had was fine with this.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, she actually revered it. Yes, she was a
Speaker 1: guinea pig for a lot of stuff and was happy. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we learned how to work a studio recording her album.
Speaker 5: We actually tried to work hard to find her songs
Speaker 5: because she's such a quirky person her personality, and she
Speaker 5: has a quirky voice, so you have to find the
Speaker 5: songs that fit her personality.
Speaker 1: Got it, you know.
Speaker 4: So we had an engineer walk out on us when
Speaker 4: we were doing the album that was just Saturday Love
Speaker 4: on it, and the engineer just walked out on us,
Speaker 4: and so we had to figure out how to record ourselves.
Speaker 4: And we just said, we're never going to be dependent
Speaker 4: on somebody because of late hours or it's just no,
Speaker 4: it was a business. It was a business thing we
Speaker 4: were gonna They wanted to be partners with us on
Speaker 4: a studio and so we were like, okay, great, let's
Speaker 4: do it.
Speaker 1: And so we ended up its Steve.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was different Steve.
Speaker 4: Well, different Steve. No, it's a difference, not Steve No,
Speaker 4: no worries. No, it was a different Steve and his
Speaker 4: partner and they had actually creation audio down their basement
Speaker 4: of their house, and that's what we did. Didn't mean
Speaker 4: to turn you on. We did the Change album, Change
Speaker 4: a Heart down. A lot of it down there anyway,
Speaker 4: our member, our accountant.
Speaker 3: No, it was I did the numbers.
Speaker 5: I showed them the Clarence and good motherfucker, you can't
Speaker 5: have an old studio, Puncy, don't don't have a studio, Clarence.
Speaker 5: These are the numbers. And if we're bringing the work,
Speaker 5: we need a studio, we're gonna pay somebody for a studio.
Speaker 5: Look at the numbers. He looked at him, said, you
Speaker 5: know what, you're right. Fuck ship. So you know he's
Speaker 5: pissed about it. So you know, we went back to
Speaker 5: the guys and told him like, okay, so your expertise,
Speaker 5: we're still willing to work with you. You know, you
Speaker 5: could be studio manager, you could be engineer, whatever, but
Speaker 5: we're not gonna co own this thing.
Speaker 4: And they weren't, but they know they weren't. But see
Speaker 4: they weren't bringing anything into it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Our thing was we're buying the building.
Speaker 1: We're buying the building, we're buying the equipment that's going
Speaker 1: in the building.
Speaker 3: You can manage it for us.
Speaker 4: So and because that was the thing. So what I
Speaker 4: was gonna say was the accountant we had at the
Speaker 4: time was actually Byron Frank, who is you know, the
Speaker 4: girl runs First Avenue. Yes, her dad okay, it was
Speaker 4: her dad. He was our first accountant and he and
Speaker 4: I know, he said, well, wait a minute, if it's
Speaker 4: a partnership, you guys are buying the building, are they
Speaker 4: bringing their equipment? And we're like no, no, we're gonna
Speaker 4: buy equipment. And then he said, so what are they bringing.
Speaker 4: They're not bringing anything, and so that was the thing.
Speaker 4: So anyway, so Steve Wese is his name, So he
Speaker 4: was cool with it. He was like, well, you know what,
Speaker 4: I'll just engineer. That's fine. But his partner, I think
Speaker 4: maybe felt left out in the called and so with
Speaker 4: solidarity to his partner, he just walked away. And we
Speaker 4: were in the middle of working on the Charrell album,
Speaker 4: so Charill became literally the guinea pig.
Speaker 1: Like she'd put.
Speaker 4: Headphones on and we go take your headphones off, all
Speaker 4: we plug in these this is Did you.
Speaker 1: Have enough knowledge on how to run it? That's a
Speaker 1: funny thing about it, that.
Speaker 3: Basic knowledge from live performance.
Speaker 5: Yes, okay, so you know you know how to patch
Speaker 5: this here and get this here and we blew up
Speaker 5: some speakers and some headphone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we definitely did.
Speaker 5: But you know, plugging in the wrong stuff and we
Speaker 5: recorded everything too hot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But but the thing about a patch bay is like
Speaker 4: you have to almost learn it hands on, to watch
Speaker 4: an engineer do it and know where to plug that
Speaker 4: in and then plug that in and all that looks
Speaker 4: like spaghetti junction, right, And that was the thing. Once
Speaker 4: we figured out how to do it ourselves, we were
Speaker 4: then self sufficient, and all the other writers and producers
Speaker 4: that we would bring in, we teach them how to
Speaker 4: do it and we go, You guys can run your
Speaker 4: own sessions because we never wanted to be dependent on
Speaker 4: anybody else.
Speaker 1: Pretty much in a lot of.
Speaker 4: Ways because because it's one thing to tell somebody what
Speaker 4: you want to get. Like, particularly when we do vocals,
Speaker 4: Terry always runs his own vocals. He never has an engineer,
Speaker 4: because you could have an engineer and you go grab
Speaker 4: that again or get that one part or whatever, and
Speaker 4: it's like, no, just do it yourself. You know what
Speaker 4: it is you're trying to get.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: We learned in the destructive years, like you were recording
Speaker 5: to tape, yeah, and so if you punched in on
Speaker 5: something it was officially gone sound heavy, yes, But when
Speaker 5: pro tools came, you know, you could make a mistake,
Speaker 5: punch in anywhere and be you know, fix it later.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll pull it out later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: All right, So alexandro Neil I already know the Sambo's
Speaker 2: pancake story best story of all time. However, you know,
Speaker 2: listen to Innocent. I always wondered, like, okay, so what
Speaker 2: in an alternate universe if Alex was the leader of
Speaker 2: the time, do you think that Alex would have actually
Speaker 2: air quote played ball at least enough to get through
Speaker 2: the first two albums? In other words, knowing Prince's task
Speaker 2: master reputation and already what you've said about Alex and
Speaker 2: the whole deal at the pancake spot and him walking
Speaker 2: out or whatever. Listen to Jam's nine hour interview based
Speaker 2: on Alex talking himself out at the time. Do you
Speaker 2: think you would have wound up with the same results
Speaker 2: if Alex Because if you listen to Innocent, which is
Speaker 2: an o my age or not to get it.
Speaker 1: Up, Yes, I was like, yeah, this I could see
Speaker 1: it working.
Speaker 2: Mars is also a character and whatnot, and there's humor
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, But is Alex easily mouldible and
Speaker 2: the way that Prince groomed Mars into the character that
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 1: Would Alex had been that mouldible.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, but Alex would be flexible. You understand,
Speaker 5: Alex is probably one of the most versatile vocalists that
Speaker 5: I know. Like, if there was one male vocalist I
Speaker 5: could choose to be, Alex would be the guy. Got
Speaker 5: it because he can rock up tempo the same way
Speaker 5: he can rock a ballot, and he could go across genres.
Speaker 5: He could do country, he can do pop, he could
Speaker 5: do new wave at that point in time, and the
Speaker 5: time was supposed to be a.
Speaker 3: New wave band.
Speaker 2: Okay, I know there was a period in eighty one,
Speaker 2: especially when you watch the bus boys and trading places
Speaker 2: and everyone was doing the Carlton.
Speaker 1: And all that stuff. I almost feel like the black
Speaker 1: version of a New Way.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've watched Ozone, Alligator Woman by a
Speaker 2: cameo and whatnot, and look, Okay, after high School was
Speaker 2: like one of my favorite time songs, like it's associated
Speaker 2: with the good memory of my life. But like, did
Speaker 2: you guys really think that, like, okay, this new wave
Speaker 2: thing is really going to stick in this is were
Speaker 2: you really prepared to the new waves?
Speaker 1: Seemed like a Noah's Arc that was going to that
Speaker 1: you were going to hang on to. I don't think
Speaker 1: we think.
Speaker 3: Of genres like that though. I really don't.
Speaker 5: I think where we were, all that stuff was budding
Speaker 5: and spinning in our orbit all the time. I mean,
Speaker 5: the least amount of things that we would get would
Speaker 5: probably be R and B. There was always pop, pop, rock, rock,
Speaker 5: you know, new wave, grunge. All that stuff was coming
Speaker 5: out of Seventh Avenue was seventh at.
Speaker 3: First Avenue.
Speaker 2: But was there a passion for it like for some people, yes,
Speaker 2: did you see it as like people saw hip hop,
Speaker 2: I gotta do some new Jack swing?
Speaker 5: For for us, I'd never seen saw any of it
Speaker 5: as like the holy grail of anything.
Speaker 3: It was just music, you know, So you like this
Speaker 3: if you don't like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we liked playing that song. I remember that we
Speaker 4: played it on the first tour and we loved playing it.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't. I kind of agree with Terry there.
Speaker 4: I don't really think and we weren't thinking. We certainly
Speaker 4: weren't thinking in terms of, oh, this is going to
Speaker 4: revolutionize where music is that kind of thing. We just
Speaker 4: thought it was a great album, and our whole thing
Speaker 4: was like, let's learn these songs, but let's do them
Speaker 4: better than the album, you know, and better subjective obviously,
Speaker 4: but that was our whole.
Speaker 2: So part two that question is because I can't imagine
Speaker 2: just Alex, you know, the way that the first Time
Speaker 2: album was made with just Mars and Prince in the
Speaker 2: room together. I can't imagine Alex and Prince just being
Speaker 2: like in that sort of intimate setting. So I would
Speaker 2: almost think that he would want the band there at
Speaker 2: least bounce off of to awkward with that lead singer.
Speaker 2: Do you think that maybe perhaps you guys would have
Speaker 2: had a different presentation of the music. Yeah, it had
Speaker 2: Alex been it would be different, better, not as good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know, would have been different.
Speaker 5: It would have been different, and not in a bad way,
Speaker 5: just different.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: Mores Mores even developed into that personality that made those
Speaker 5: songs work, and so by the time the album was
Speaker 5: yelling into an album, Moors was the personality that was
Speaker 5: being structured within those songs. Had those songs been done
Speaker 5: for Alex, Alex already.
Speaker 3: Had a personality, got it okay?
Speaker 5: And so Alex was a bad He had some songs
Speaker 5: that he had done with other people that were very
Speaker 5: very new wave songs.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he sure did.
Speaker 5: Yeah that that were good and we performed some of
Speaker 5: them sometimes. So yeah, that that was just part of
Speaker 5: the DNA of the day. It's like, that kind of
Speaker 5: stuff is happening. And if we can play that stuff
Speaker 5: and get in and play Seventh Street entry Ship.
Speaker 3: We can get in there and get a gig. We're
Speaker 3: gonna play that, like just like we play some poker.
Speaker 6: I was going to say, you had to do whatever
Speaker 6: you had to do to get the gig if you're
Speaker 6: in Alabama or if you're in Houston, are they like okay?
Speaker 2: Only because I know Princess rockabilly Elvis thing. I've seen
Speaker 2: many a time show where you guys, do everybody dance
Speaker 2: to the beat? Which is the most untime sounding was
Speaker 2: that ever recorded on?
Speaker 3: I think a live version?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: But like do they if you know, Minneapolis is open
Speaker 2: to it, maybe New York and LA are open to it.
Speaker 1: When you go to Black Towns or whatever.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what was funny was would the reaction
Speaker 4: be different if you do something outside of the funk genre.
Speaker 4: I just remember the reaction that we did. We did
Speaker 4: a you know, we call it the Chitlin Circuit tour,
Speaker 4: and it basically was two station wagons and we were
Speaker 4: down south. We were North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia. You know,
Speaker 4: we were doing all those dates down in that area.
Speaker 4: And I remember the well, the first date we did,
Speaker 4: the club had a big pillar in the middle of
Speaker 4: it that was kind of on the stage, and we
Speaker 4: had our manager road manager was named Jamie Shoop.
Speaker 1: I know Jamis Jamie.
Speaker 4: Jamie came in there and she was trying to get
Speaker 4: them to take the pole away and they said, no,
Speaker 4: that's a load bearing call. That's holding the roof up, like,
Speaker 4: we can't get rid of that. And those are the
Speaker 4: kind of gigs we were doing. They'd be like literally
Speaker 4: like if you were More's day, I'd be sitting here
Speaker 4: at the table, Terry'd be sitting here at the table,
Speaker 4: and the girl would be in the front up right
Speaker 4: where you are, and the girl would be sitting there
Speaker 4: look watching you sing and you hit like the fiat baby.
Speaker 1: Nigga.
Speaker 3: Don't you do that that?
Speaker 1: Oh man? It was. It was the craziest thing.
Speaker 4: But I remember when we got about three gigs in,
Speaker 4: we got to one club was so messed up. They
Speaker 4: wouldn't even let us play. They didn't they didn't even
Speaker 4: let us get out the car, you know, and we
Speaker 4: still we still snuck to the club to see what
Speaker 4: it was like because we were just headed. But in
Speaker 4: none g Greensboro, North Carolina, Cosmos.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's my home, my dad's home down.
Speaker 4: Okay, what happened? We turned that place. They loved us.
Speaker 4: They loved our guitar solo, they loved our makeup, they
Speaker 4: loved our permed hair, they loved everything about us. And
Speaker 4: it was the first time that it felt like, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: this could work, this could work, this could work other
Speaker 4: than Detroit. Well, Detroit and Detroit came after that because
Speaker 4: we did we did the Chilin I think we did
Speaker 4: the Chilin Circuit tour first, right, and.
Speaker 1: Then I think we did Detroit or do we do Detroit?
Speaker 1: You're right, because we only had the single out. We
Speaker 1: get it up.
Speaker 5: Detroit first and that was wonderful. Detroit was and then
Speaker 5: we went everywhere else and it wasn't so wide, it
Speaker 5: wasn't so wonderful. So that's that's why I always tell you.
Speaker 3: Don't get you can't get good.
Speaker 5: You gotta get booed to get good because you've got
Speaker 5: to let you know what you don't have.
Speaker 1: So you've had some audiences with indifference.
Speaker 4: Inference Atlanta, it was like it might have. And we
Speaker 4: were so excited to get to Atlanta, particularly after Charlotte
Speaker 4: was so good, Greensboro was so good, and then Atlanta
Speaker 4: was like the next gig, and we were like, oh,
Speaker 4: we're gonna kill Atlanta.
Speaker 1: We're thinking, oh, we're gonna kill Progressive.
Speaker 4: I swear to god. Atlanta was like cardboard cutouts. Like
Speaker 4: we look out in the audience and it was like
Speaker 4: everybody was just like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because Atlanta has its own thing.
Speaker 1: But what was hitting in eighty one in Atlanta?
Speaker 7: Not only people, not us. You might be some zapp
Speaker 7: you stand on your head with the jocks. Oh yeah,
Speaker 7: I'll tell you rogers killed. They would kill us in
Speaker 7: the South. That show would kill us Texas.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, Okay, So I saw a recent
Speaker 2: performance of heat Wave. There's an entire heat Wave concert
Speaker 2: on YouTube about an hour long. They did everything but
Speaker 2: like the cheerleading stuff from Yeah. I mean at one
Speaker 2: point they did a human pyramid thing where they're like
Speaker 2: standing on each other's soul.
Speaker 1: That's right. Was there ever talks like yo, we have
Speaker 1: to do acrobatics and and no, no, not at all.
Speaker 1: But y'all look so cool.
Speaker 2: One, you look conservative, and I know Black people are
Speaker 2: very conservative.
Speaker 1: You're wearing church gear. You look coolish. That didn't fly
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 3: No, I think we look good.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was Martins. They good with hecklers. We didn't have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't have hecklers.
Speaker 3: We did. We just did our ship man.
Speaker 1: They were just cold.
Speaker 4: We didn't have heckler's. It was more just that they
Speaker 4: they just didn't look there. We don't know, they just yeah,
Speaker 4: they didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that.
Speaker 4: Why is the guitar player wearing all pink with a
Speaker 4: pink guitar eyeliner with eyeliner on doing a crazy ass solo?
Speaker 1: Like what is that? Black people don't do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we need some fault.
Speaker 4: Well, it's just like the way that just the way
Speaker 4: you you talked about how SLY was so different from
Speaker 4: the other acts that were out. That was the way
Speaker 4: the time was to people, particularly like in the South,
Speaker 4: like Detroit loved us.
Speaker 2: They tot I literally thought you the purpose of you
Speaker 2: guys was to spread the gospel of old boy in
Speaker 2: the most conservative, safe way. No, I didn't mentioned in
Speaker 2: that doc that Prince was last. I know that the
Speaker 2: Time got my attention first. Yeah, and then okay, well
Speaker 2: let me round it off and listen to Prince, see
Speaker 2: what he's up to you.
Speaker 1: And then it was like, oh shit.
Speaker 5: But you know why Prince wanted to do the Time anyway,
Speaker 5: It just became his alter ego product. It's like he
Speaker 5: had an outlet. He wanted to do R and B
Speaker 5: and new wave and all those different things, but he
Speaker 5: was going in the rock direction, pop direction. He didn't
Speaker 5: want to be down in this slumming with us, but
Speaker 5: he still had the need to do that because he
Speaker 5: loved it, and so we became that alter ego band.
Speaker 2: I'm just shocked that even then. I'm not saying that
Speaker 2: all that you guys were safe. You guys were in
Speaker 2: w A at least of my parents. You were in
Speaker 2: w and but at the full army, you guys would
Speaker 2: probably be safest gateway drug.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we were first.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was gonna we were first, But we were
Speaker 4: also very down to earth because Prince, if you think
Speaker 4: about the controversy tour, even by that point, in time.
Speaker 4: Prince was about. He was about being a rock star,
Speaker 4: got it. We were just about going out and kicking
Speaker 4: some mass. We're just gonna play. I remember with very
Speaker 4: first gig we ever did, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I remember
Speaker 4: we got in like the day before and we're just
Speaker 4: walking around downtown. You know, we got our coats on,
Speaker 4: got our hats on, were walking around downtown.
Speaker 1: People are going, ain't you all the time? All six
Speaker 1: of y'all, all six of us, ain't you all the time? Okay?
Speaker 4: And we go, yeah, the only got no bodyguards or nothing.
Speaker 4: We said no, and y'all walking down just Pittsburgh, just
Speaker 4: downtown Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1: We're like, yeah, They're like, oh, these motherfuckers are crazy,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: So we already had that reputation, like, oh man, these
Speaker 4: dudes are crazy.
Speaker 1: They walk in.
Speaker 4: I saw them walking down at the mall. Man, they
Speaker 4: didn't have no curity, they didn't have nothing. But we
Speaker 4: didn't think of ourselves like that. We were just like
Speaker 4: out exploring. But people had that, you know, that thought
Speaker 4: about us. I'm a project kid, so I'm not. I'm
Speaker 4: never afraid of black folks, got it.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying, so I can go anywhere
Speaker 5: around black folks and I'm okay, got it. Okay, So
Speaker 5: I don't care if I'm in Pittsburgh or Chicago or
Speaker 5: wherever I feel comfortable in my own skin, because I'm
Speaker 5: going to be aware. I know what's up. But you
Speaker 5: know people are not used to artists being like that.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, because they weren't asking for autographs. No, they
Speaker 4: were just like, y're.
Speaker 3: Just out here around, y'all, just out here. I remember
Speaker 3: we used to have to go to wash our clothes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because you know, at that point, we were making
Speaker 5: like less than one hundred and fifty bucks, and so
Speaker 5: we would have to we were on tour with dirty
Speaker 5: clothes we had to wash.
Speaker 3: We know, we had to go.
Speaker 5: Man it got draws too many, but we had to
Speaker 5: go to the laundry mat sitting a love. We didn't
Speaker 5: have people to wash our clothes and stuff. We had
Speaker 5: to go do that stuff ourselves.
Speaker 1: That still happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was in Philly once literally happened to be at
Speaker 1: a red light, looked at my left one off I said,
Speaker 1: was that Amy literally Amy Winehouse doing her laundry in
Speaker 1: downtown Philadelphia, And I was like, the hell are you
Speaker 1: doing here? She said the same thing, like I don't
Speaker 1: have a staff yet I still do my clothes and
Speaker 1: so that that's still that still happens.
Speaker 3: That's what's real.
Speaker 1: Like it is, are you singing harmony on seven seven seven?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Agony? I'm going through whatever. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, that's one voice I don't know at all,
Speaker 2: and that for the longest that didn't know who that was?
Speaker 3: All right, that Prince told me to go in and
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm gonna name seven songs funny, how time flies.
Speaker 2: There is a question I forgot to ask some days
Speaker 2: to night the body that loves you rope burn, love scene,
Speaker 2: especially love scene, would you mind?
Speaker 1: And warmth? Do you know what these songs have in common?
Speaker 1: Which one of you?
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the thing, Like my friendship with jan has
Speaker 2: developed deeper, probably in the last six or seven years,
Speaker 2: where it's not fan worship. Like now we're like casual
Speaker 2: and you know, we crack jokes and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: But clearly there's a duplicitous two sides the Janet thing.
Speaker 2: And for someone who's notoriously publicly or I'll do the
Speaker 2: other peep performatively shy how do you track vocals when
Speaker 2: she's insinuating orgasms or it? And the thing is we're
Speaker 2: watching the evolution of her sexuality for each I remember
Speaker 2: interviews where she was like, I didn't play funny out times,
Speaker 2: and that's the safest of this what I mentioned. But
Speaker 2: each each album, you you push it further and further
Speaker 2: and further. So do you do a lights have to
Speaker 2: be completely off, Like when I'm doing vocals and I'm
Speaker 2: just doing like, uh whatever, everyone's.
Speaker 1: Out this montherfucker. They can go out the building, lights off, whatever.
Speaker 1: Even the engineer is like, out of there. I got
Speaker 1: to be alone. How do you.
Speaker 2: Build that trust one when she's tracking vocals, especially on
Speaker 2: the slow songs. Does she just program herself to execute it?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: I think there's probably a little of both, but she
Speaker 4: definitely programs herself to execute it. The lights are all
Speaker 4: off and by the way, completely off, and there's no
Speaker 4: engineer in the room.
Speaker 1: There's nobody in the room. It's you know, yeah, only me.
Speaker 4: So you have to track the vocals, yes, unfortunately or
Speaker 4: not unfortunate, but yes, I have to do it.
Speaker 1: I have to do the heavy lifting here, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: But you also have to mix the song and rewind
Speaker 1: and mix it and mix it and mix it.
Speaker 4: And that more than yeah, what do you call it?
Speaker 4: I have to comp the vocal right.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one time I asked I don't know
Speaker 2: if I think I asked Lawrence once like, you know, well,
Speaker 2: Prince play you guys everything. And I gave an example,
Speaker 2: like you know, when he made let's pretend and married,
Speaker 2: like he's like, yay, guys, check this out, or.
Speaker 1: Even do me baby, Do me baby? Is probably his
Speaker 1: greatest vocal per formance ever. I know there's a vulnerability
Speaker 1: and a drive to act like Prince, but then when
Speaker 1: the lights are out, you go back to normal or whatever.
Speaker 1: But like, does it not get awkward or with Janet? No,
Speaker 1: I know it wasn't ever awkward at all. It was
Speaker 1: actually funny. I mean a lot of those tracks. I
Speaker 1: mean I think you have a lot of those stems.
Speaker 4: She'll laugh at the end or she'll you know, it's
Speaker 4: just kind of almost like playing a part.
Speaker 2: You know, people like that. Scary people like that scare
Speaker 2: me where it's like I know one person like that
Speaker 2: literally by.
Speaker 1: Day, Hey how you doing to me? No?
Speaker 3: No, no, no no.
Speaker 1: And Richard Pride does this the next thing.
Speaker 3: Motherfuck it?
Speaker 2: Like literally, yes, And I just I just wondered about
Speaker 2: the psychology or at least the relationship or the trust
Speaker 2: that does it ever get awkward at all?
Speaker 1: No? Not really?
Speaker 4: And yeah, and I think trust is the word there.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just if you think about the life
Speaker 4: and the evolution of it that she was going through,
Speaker 4: you know, forty years ago, control she was making that transition.
Speaker 4: But part of her transition I think we've talked about
Speaker 4: this is when she was going out talking about going
Speaker 4: out on her own. That trip to Minneapolis was her
Speaker 4: going out on her own. Where she had to drive
Speaker 4: herself around, was her and her girlfriend Melanie. She had
Speaker 4: to drive herself around. We gave her a Thomas Guide
Speaker 4: because there was no GPS point in time. She had
Speaker 4: to get from the hotel to the studio. She had
Speaker 4: to drive herself. We gave her a map to Blockbuster Video,
Speaker 4: We gave her a map.
Speaker 1: To the sushi place as she liked. And that was it.
Speaker 4: So all of this kind of going out on my
Speaker 4: own and being my own person and all that, that
Speaker 4: was all happening in Minneapolis in real time as we
Speaker 4: were writing the album. You know, Nasty about you know,
Speaker 4: guys that were bothering her and stuff, and people said,
Speaker 4: I think those guys are bothering Janet, you should whatever, whatever,
Speaker 4: and we're like, we're watching it.
Speaker 1: We're cool. And then she came over afterwards and she said,
Speaker 1: you see those guys were bothering me.
Speaker 4: Did you see those guys? We said, yeah, why didn't
Speaker 4: you come over and help me? And we said, well,
Speaker 4: you're over here now, so everything must have been okay.
Speaker 4: And she was like, oh, yeah, I guess. So, you know,
Speaker 4: it's like learn to take care of yourself. And so
Speaker 4: that was very much what it was. But because of that,
Speaker 4: that's how the trust developed over that, and then we
Speaker 4: gave her more responsibility on Rhythm Nation, we gave her
Speaker 4: even more responsibility. She got into the fact of knowing
Speaker 4: that she's going to be writing, like she's going to
Speaker 4: be a writer now, and came in with ideas and
Speaker 4: things she wanted to do, and the trust just grows
Speaker 4: and the next you know, the evolution of that was
Speaker 4: some days tonight, you know, where you know, I'd always
Speaker 4: say it'd be worth a weight well, you know, or
Speaker 4: sub day is tonight, you know, But yeah, it was
Speaker 4: just kind of the evolution of somebody kind of growing up.
Speaker 1: But there's no trepidation on her part, like, guys, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I should be doing this or no,
Speaker 1: she no, or she the agitator.
Speaker 4: No, she wasn't really the agitator, but it was I
Speaker 4: guess it was mutual agitation. Like it just was kind
Speaker 4: of I always liked the idea of that on the
Speaker 4: song and kind of laying yourself bare and being honest
Speaker 4: on the record. And you know, listen, sex was part
Speaker 4: of the record, so got yeah, I just but but no,
Speaker 4: it never was really awkward and we were, like I said,
Speaker 4: the lights were always out. We weren't looking at each
Speaker 4: other one that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I ever shared the story.
Speaker 2: But right after nine to eleven, maybe a month later,
Speaker 2: the two thousand and one All for You, All for You, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it came to the WACOVI Center in Philly, and this
Speaker 2: is the first time I'm testing the waters to see
Speaker 2: am my niche artist or and my quest love like
Speaker 2: meet my peers or whatever. And you know, I had
Speaker 2: a friend that worked at Virgin because because of years
Speaker 2: with DiAngelo.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was like, hey can I can I get it?
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, my first free tickets and
Speaker 2: stuff and backstage injury.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh cool.
Speaker 2: And so I'm in the third row and I know
Speaker 2: what's coming. I've seen about four or five shows throughout
Speaker 2: the years, and I know, okay, there's there's gonna be
Speaker 2: the lap dance song or whatever the song is.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I just happened to be.
Speaker 2: Right in the sweet spot in the front row and
Speaker 2: she finishes the last three words of I Get Lonely
Speaker 2: and she entered the song, Oh h what is suspension.
Speaker 1: You? And I looking at me and I'm like about
Speaker 1: to get I was with James Poorser and we were
Speaker 1: literally freaking out like it was almost like a recreation
Speaker 1: of of What's Happening Gang at the Doobie brother Show.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, and I'm looking like uh and I head
Speaker 1: to the stage and the security guys like no him,
Speaker 1: and it's a guy behind me.
Speaker 2: But this is all on the jumbo trunk for all
Speaker 2: of Philadelphia to see the pie in my face moment.
Speaker 1: And yeah, to this.
Speaker 3: Day, you were imagining you on the stage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like tying up and there.
Speaker 2: I love it all right, It never you know, it's weird.
Speaker 2: You remember ABC in concert. Yes, so I know this
Speaker 2: show was recorded because they showed four or five songs.
Speaker 1: You can not that particular song was shown somewhere in history.
Speaker 1: It's it's there somewhere. Then we're gonna find that.
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna do rapid random all right. What
Speaker 2: other talents do you guys have that we don't know about?
Speaker 2: What's your mean talent? Are you good cooks? Are you
Speaker 2: good at fishing?
Speaker 3: I can cook cause I like to eat.
Speaker 1: When's the last time you cooked for yourself?
Speaker 3: Probably the other day?
Speaker 1: What did you make?
Speaker 3: I made some Sloppy Joe's. Man, my wife was talking. Oh,
Speaker 3: my wife was talking about me like a dog.
Speaker 1: Can I tell you something?
Speaker 2: Because I have an office job and you know, currently
Speaker 2: dating someone that's like forcing me to really be a
Speaker 2: health nutting. Look, I can't afford to do my old ways,
Speaker 2: but I get a cheat day. And actually last week
Speaker 2: I had a craven. I've not had a Sloppy Joe
Speaker 2: like I think at all in the two thousands, Like
Speaker 2: there is some foods that escape the decades, And I
Speaker 2: was like, I remember Sloppy Joe's And I googled on
Speaker 2: uber eat who makes a lot, And sure, enough.
Speaker 1: I had my first sloppy joe like last week.
Speaker 3: Was it good?
Speaker 1: Yes? I miss sloppy It's great.
Speaker 5: That's what I'm talking about because my daughter and my
Speaker 5: wife talk about me like adult because I like sloppy Joe's.
Speaker 5: Make my ground turkey sloppy Joe's.
Speaker 3: It's very simple. It takes me about ten minutes and
Speaker 3: I have a pot of sloppy Joe's. I could eat
Speaker 3: it for the whole week.
Speaker 4: Well are you cook it all? Well no, not really.
Speaker 4: But the one thing I'll say about the sloppy Joe.
Speaker 4: So for my birthday every year, that's what my mom
Speaker 4: would always make sloppy Joe's.
Speaker 1: That was like my favorite thing.
Speaker 4: Yes, and I haven't probably had sloppy Joe's anywhere in
Speaker 4: the two thousands. But Terry Lewis, the next time you
Speaker 4: make sloppy Joe's, would you please bring them to please
Speaker 4: bring some to the studio.
Speaker 1: No, I love sloppy joe.
Speaker 3: I'll make a turkey burger or some chili by the way.
Speaker 1: By the way, turkey burger. So the funny thing was
Speaker 1: back in the day, so Terry was.
Speaker 4: I called him a chickatarian right because he wasn't a vegetarian,
Speaker 4: but he wouldn't eat red meat. And I was a
Speaker 4: burger fiend, Like I love burger, burger, burger right. And
Speaker 4: I remember I go to his house for a barbecue
Speaker 4: and he's on the grill and he hands me a
Speaker 4: burger and.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, cool, cool. I bite into it. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Terry, this is the greatest burger man.
Speaker 1: This is amazing. He said it's turkey. I said, there's
Speaker 1: no way, there's no way this is turkey. Because now
Speaker 1: because he had the consistency, I'm telling you, I've never
Speaker 1: had a turkey. That's the best turkey burger I've ever
Speaker 1: had in my life. Because he had it, the consistency
Speaker 1: of it. There was no false anything to it. Got it.
Speaker 4: And the same thing like his turkey chili. The one
Speaker 4: thing that Janet every time she comes to town, the
Speaker 4: turkey chili. She goes, Terry, will you make some turkey chili?
Speaker 1: Like she wants to the studio. He's serious at home
Speaker 1: and bring it. Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2: The studio that you guys held the longest residency, and
Speaker 2: what was always the typical go to an electric lady
Speaker 2: all we ate was Chinese to the point where I
Speaker 2: had to stop eating it only because it's like so
Speaker 2: routine and every day. But like, what is the I mean,
Speaker 2: I've assume that your longest residency was flight Time Studios
Speaker 2: and Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh that's interesting, man.
Speaker 3: We never really had a food habit.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I mean we in Minneapolis, our restaurant was Rudolph's.
Speaker 5: Yes, we will go to Rude because we leave and
Speaker 5: Rudoh stayed up in like til two or three in the.
Speaker 1: Mor Yes, exactly, Okay, yeah, that was probably spot or.
Speaker 5: If we needed something quick, Perkins was right around the
Speaker 5: Perkins was.
Speaker 1: Right around the corner of the other. But we used
Speaker 1: to right but we also used to hit Red Lobster.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 4: And the funny thing is the waitress that used to
Speaker 4: get us at Red Lobster is now Byron Allen's wife. Wait, yeah,
Speaker 4: that one, Yes, she had yeah and she used okay, yeah,
Speaker 4: she came up, She came up.
Speaker 1: She was our waitress.
Speaker 4: She was our waitress at Red Lobster when we used
Speaker 4: to go over there because there was a Red Lobster
Speaker 4: just right up the street from the flight Time, our
Speaker 4: big flight time, the second flight we had yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: so yeah, but I gotta go rd Labster, I know. Sorry,
Speaker 4: we want to Nickel Art Songs Art Songs Wings, that's right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: a place called art Songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that will wing place.
Speaker 2: When's the last time you two been the Oh god,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about Minnesota? I totally forgot that
Speaker 2: you guys are from the hot bed of all political activity.
Speaker 1: Now, when's the last time you guys have been to Minnesota?
Speaker 1: Like talk to family members?
Speaker 4: Yeah, well my dad is up there still and corn bread,
Speaker 4: having bread, still doing this thing. I haven't been up
Speaker 4: there since kind of all that stuff went down, got it.
Speaker 4: My dad's getting inducted in the Minnesota Hall of Fame,
Speaker 4: I think for music or something.
Speaker 1: I am going to go up for that.
Speaker 4: I am going to go up for his ninety ninth
Speaker 4: birthday in April, and so I will spend some time
Speaker 4: up there. But I haven't been up there since all that.
Speaker 4: But obviously it's heartbreaking because it's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 4: people coming over they weren't invited, you know, Yes, and
Speaker 4: Terry had I mean, I like he can say it
Speaker 4: better than me, but he had a great analogy. It's like,
Speaker 4: you know, when somebody comes over to your house uninvited,
Speaker 4: and you go, okay, you're not invited, and then they
Speaker 4: walk in, but they got mud on their shoes and
Speaker 4: now they're tracking through your house and it's like, okay,
Speaker 4: you know what, you weren't invited, but at least if
Speaker 4: you're going to come in, at least take your shoes,
Speaker 4: you at least be respectful. And I think that's the
Speaker 4: thing it's heartbreaking about. It has this inspired some sort
Speaker 4: of firing you guys to you know. I know sometimes
Speaker 4: people will be like, ah, there's a moment for an
Speaker 4: anthem and it never works. But I agree when watching it,
Speaker 4: was there something where you felt the need to.
Speaker 3: It doesn't inspire song for me, got it? It inspires anger.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I still have a majority of my family there.
Speaker 5: I have sisters, son, nephews, nieces, grandson and just watching
Speaker 5: how the just disrespecting our community and where I used
Speaker 5: to live.
Speaker 3: They tried that ship, but they didn't they didn't last.
Speaker 5: It didn't work because you know, so everybody got guns,
Speaker 5: so nobody cares about that ship. Like okay, you pull it,
Speaker 5: We're gonna pull it, and you know they know where
Speaker 5: to go. It's like they don't they don't go. They
Speaker 5: don't come to LA and go South Central. They know
Speaker 5: East LA. They ain't going there.
Speaker 3: They y'all can y'all can play if you want to.
Speaker 3: Y'all could be Yeah, yeah, you could be tough over there,
Speaker 3: but over here.
Speaker 4: By the way, I will say about an anthem, which
Speaker 4: I thought was very cool because I was talking to
Speaker 4: John Landau about something that Bruce was doing for the Grammys,
Speaker 4: and literally the same day that he was doing the
Speaker 4: thing for the Grammys, which was a voiceover thing. The
Speaker 4: same day he was doing that, he actually recorded. That
Speaker 4: same weekend he actually recorded the Minneapolis song. And then
Speaker 4: I know in talking to Tom Morello that he was
Speaker 4: going to come up and actually do a show up there.
Speaker 4: And to me, musically, that was the statement that needed
Speaker 4: to be made. It didn't need to come from us.
Speaker 4: I mean we made a statement, I mean just a
Speaker 4: you know, a talking statement. But no, we didn't feel
Speaker 4: like necessarily inspired by a song. I mean, if we do,
Speaker 4: we'll definitely do one. But I don't think that was
Speaker 4: our thought.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the thought is to try to help
Speaker 5: the people who need help on the ground, like they
Speaker 5: need financial help, they need sustenance, they need food, they
Speaker 5: need you know, day care, they need whatever. I mean,
Speaker 5: these people are invading the privacy of these people and
Speaker 5: people just losing out on life.
Speaker 3: And that's not right.
Speaker 2: Who's the sloppy one as far as what, who's organized
Speaker 2: and who's sloppy between you two? Just in terms of
Speaker 2: Tarik will clean higher tour bus with his two brush,
Speaker 2: organize everything perfectly. I'm the sloppiest disorganized human being on
Speaker 2: it can find.
Speaker 1: I have organized messes. I have a pile of stuff,
Speaker 1: but I know, I know it's in that pile somewhere. Okay.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think he's more organized in his computer than
Speaker 5: I would be. Okay, but I have more stuff in
Speaker 5: my computer than he would, gotcha. But as far as cleaning,
Speaker 5: I mean, I grew up in Barnetta's house and then
Speaker 5: Barnetta's house man ship, and man I woke up every weekend.
Speaker 5: Man I was cleaning until like one or two o'clock.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm washing the woodwork, the walls, the cleaning
Speaker 5: the kitchen, you know, shoveling, raking, whatever.
Speaker 1: Who's the punctual one of you two?
Speaker 4: Terry definitely are you five minutes early before the meeting
Speaker 4: or an hour early before.
Speaker 3: It just depends on what the meeting. To be honest with, you.
Speaker 4: Choose your spots. Okay, I'm always five minutes later with
Speaker 4: ten minutes later. Just I don't know why, I just stam.
Speaker 4: Since eighty three, have you too, ever had a real argument.
Speaker 4: We haven't had a real argument since seventy three when
Speaker 4: we met. We've never had an argument.
Speaker 2: No, never, You guys never came close to fisticups. Me too,
Speaker 2: recat one fistfight. Okay, you've never had one.
Speaker 3: Who won?
Speaker 5: So that's the point, Like who won? Like nobody wins
Speaker 5: in that that's degrees are losing, right, got it? So
Speaker 5: that is not even an option. That's not even the
Speaker 5: mature way of thinking to me.
Speaker 4: We always think about it as the difference between an
Speaker 4: argument and a disagreement. So an argument is something you're
Speaker 4: trying to win. A disagreement is something you're trying to solve.
Speaker 4: So we look at yes we disagree on things, but
Speaker 4: we try to find whether it's my way or his way,
Speaker 4: but what's the best way? And once we figure out
Speaker 4: the best way, then there may be a discussion on
Speaker 4: the best way to get there to the best way.
Speaker 4: But an argument if I win an argument against Terry,
Speaker 4: why would I ever want to see my partner lose
Speaker 4: at something, and particularly something that I'm responsible for. Just
Speaker 4: doesn't make sense. So the arguing thing, we've never had
Speaker 4: an argument, okay.
Speaker 1: So what if there is a little bit too much
Speaker 1: words in the bridge or whatever, like, okay, it takes
Speaker 1: something out? Yeah, I mean what if you don't agree
Speaker 1: like no, I want no, no, no.
Speaker 5: If he feels that adamant about it, it's okay, put
Speaker 5: that shit back in, right, I don't care like that
Speaker 5: is I know my value.
Speaker 3: I value his opinion. I value it. It's okay, it's
Speaker 3: okay not to be right. It's okay not to be wrong.
Speaker 5: Let's just do what's best, what's going to work. Let's
Speaker 5: achieve a result that is desirable by all.
Speaker 4: I mean, we always go off of feeling, and the
Speaker 4: feeling is is right. And when we even when we're
Speaker 4: mixing or we're doing something and there might be a
Speaker 4: vocal and sometimes what will happen is because Terry tends
Speaker 4: to do I always call him vocal master, he ends
Speaker 4: up doing a lot of the vocals. By the way,
Speaker 4: I'll mention because we talked about usher a little earlier
Speaker 4: when we did You Remind Me with Usher. That was
Speaker 4: one where Usher had already done a vocal and la
Speaker 4: Reid said that vocal ain't good enough and he said,
Speaker 4: but the only I told him he has to go
Speaker 4: back and redo the vocal, and he said, the only
Speaker 4: person I'm going to do a vocal with is Terry Lewis.
Speaker 4: And so him and Terry redid the vocal and La
Speaker 4: Reid said, it's either going to be the first single
Speaker 4: or off the album. And of course it was the
Speaker 4: first single. And when number one, thank goodness for Terry Lewis.
Speaker 4: But Terry Lewis's vocal master. And it was funny because
Speaker 4: Mary J. Blige when we did what was the one
Speaker 4: on our album that we did Spinning? We did Spinning,
Speaker 4: and I remember Mary said when we sent her to
Speaker 4: the mix of the song, she said, I love this
Speaker 4: vocal on this song.
Speaker 1: This might be my best vocal. Terry Lewis killed me
Speaker 1: on this vocal. He killed me on this vocal.
Speaker 4: Said yeah, but that's what Terry's point like, I don't
Speaker 4: want people to be lazy. I want them to really,
Speaker 4: you know, give their best, you know example of what
Speaker 4: they do. Got it so all of those things are
Speaker 4: like really important. But at the end of the day, yeah,
Speaker 4: if we feel passionate about a thing. So sometimes Terry
Speaker 4: will do a vocal. There'll be two or three vocals
Speaker 4: that are really good, and at a certain point he'll go, jam,
Speaker 4: I'm listening to this and whatever, and he'll listen and
Speaker 4: sometimes I'll go, I love this line right here, but
Speaker 4: it's clashing with this other line. Well, of course, now
Speaker 4: we have Terry can go, oh, you know what, I'll
Speaker 4: just move this line up a beat or up a
Speaker 4: measure or you know that kind of thing, and somehow
Speaker 4: we just come to a conclusion where it all works,
Speaker 4: where it makes us both feel, you know, really good
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, last question, can you give me a really good
Speaker 1: jelly Bean Johnson's story? Well, what is this show?
Speaker 3: What is a good one? Oh god, how do we classify?
Speaker 2: First of all of all the time members, he actually
Speaker 2: has the funniest interviews because he just.
Speaker 1: Zero fuck's given. Yeah, and I feel like people respect
Speaker 1: him for that. If he's like that in real life. No,
Speaker 1: that's him, that's him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, He's he's jumpy, grumpy. He's the grumpy jumpy uncle.
Speaker 5: That's who jelly Bean is really yeah, you know, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, and then things like he we'ld always be
Speaker 4: cracking up. But like things like we'd go to a
Speaker 4: restaurant and order food, and uh, there'd always be a
Speaker 4: discrepancy on the solid. He never wanted a salad. They'd
Speaker 4: always go, what do you want a salad? What kind
Speaker 4: of dressing you want on your salads?
Speaker 1: I don't want no, mother want to salad rabbit. No.
Speaker 3: Jelly Bean was one of a time.
Speaker 1: Man. Okay, you can edit this out, but I am
Speaker 1: going to tell you this one story because.
Speaker 4: We were on the road back. It was a chilling
Speaker 4: circuit days. It might have been the controversy to our days.
Speaker 4: And he was seeing new girl, and so we used
Speaker 4: to listen to everybody's door to see whether they were
Speaker 4: there or not, because you know, never could really tell.
Speaker 4: And we heard jelly Bean, you know yeah, and he said,
Speaker 4: and you guys know, you guys can't use this.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't do that.
Speaker 1: You got you got you gotta Yeah, I can't do it.
Speaker 1: Let him, let him because he'll come back. Jimmy jam.
Speaker 3: I heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I ain't gonna say it, but anyway, but but Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bean was great.
Speaker 4: And you know, like I say, he's one that was
Speaker 4: responsible for me being a keyboard player because when I
Speaker 4: met Terry and we were going to put a band
Speaker 4: together and I was playing drums for my dad, you know,
Speaker 4: I was his drummer and Terry said, let's put a
Speaker 4: band together.
Speaker 1: I said, cool, I'll get my drum set. He said.
Speaker 4: Terry said, I oh need a drummer, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: it was jelly Bean Johnson. He had it as a
Speaker 4: drummer and he said, you should be a keyboard player.
Speaker 4: Your dad plays keyboards, you should be a keyboard player.
Speaker 4: I said, Okay, that's good logic, right, that's right. So
Speaker 4: that's why I'm a keyboard player to this day because
Speaker 4: of jelly Bean Johnson.
Speaker 2: Well, I think I've said everything I need to say
Speaker 2: about you guys, your absolute heroes, and I appreciate you
Speaker 2: guys taking the time out to talk with us.
Speaker 4: And I cannot wait. How long is the residency going
Speaker 4: for It's just a limited residency. It's six nights we're
Speaker 4: going to do between April seventeenth and April twenty sixth,
Speaker 4: so we'll have a couple of days off in between.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's just going to be six days and
Speaker 4: it's an intimate space. It's a small space, beautiful space.
Speaker 1: It's it's gorgeous.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's elegant, totally totally yeah.
Speaker 1: Ok, yeah, you got to drink with the I wear
Speaker 1: my good crocks.
Speaker 4: There you go, you gotts. But but no, it's it's
Speaker 4: going to be a lot of fun and quest love.
Speaker 4: Can I just say yes? First of all, I'll just
Speaker 4: start by saying.
Speaker 3: How proud we are of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 4: Just you know, when you talk about people that really
Speaker 4: elevate music and elevate culture, you're one of the people
Speaker 4: that does it in such a cool way. But I
Speaker 4: think I tried to articulate this to you before, and
Speaker 4: I'm probably not going to quite say it right, But
Speaker 4: because of your curiosity and your willingness to ask questions,
Speaker 4: people assume you know everything.
Speaker 1: And you know a lot. But the reason you know
Speaker 1: a lot is because you ask the questions you have.
Speaker 4: I'm a student, want to know, Yank, But for someone
Speaker 4: to be as elevated as you are as far as
Speaker 4: your knowledge, I hear you have conversations with people and
Speaker 4: you never make people feel like they're less smart than you,
Speaker 4: and there's a there's a tell that to the roots.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, but I mean, I just I just
Speaker 4: think that there's something so special about that. The people
Speaker 4: feel very comfortable. Thank you, and as watching you learn
Speaker 4: and going, oh, wait, he didn't know that, you know
Speaker 4: that kind of kind of what happened earlier. There was
Speaker 4: something we talked about and yes you didn't know that,
Speaker 4: but it's not like it feels right. It feels like, yeah,
Speaker 4: but now that makes you curious, and now I'm gonna
Speaker 4: find out about that. And that's the way we all are.
Speaker 4: So thank you for that, and thank you for having
Speaker 4: me back on again. I know, And we got him,
Speaker 4: and we got we got Terry Lewis, and thank you
Speaker 4: and I and thank you for allowing people to see
Speaker 4: the brilliance that I get to see every day with
Speaker 4: Terry Lewis. I mean, Terry Lewis is the most amazing
Speaker 4: human being I know. And I can't articulated enough. But
Speaker 4: when you see us together and you hear his thoughts
Speaker 4: and his way of going about doing things, you realize
Speaker 4: why I'm the lucky one here to have him in
Speaker 4: my life.
Speaker 3: We both lucky.
Speaker 5: Jimmy jam Yes, but but but I did come up
Speaker 5: with a jelly Bean story. Oh okay, well you're gonna
Speaker 5: really like this because it mimics you.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 3: He lived and breathed music. He loved music more than
Speaker 3: he loved himself.
Speaker 5: And I mean there wasn't a true musician, just savant
Speaker 5: actually annoying artists, annoying music. Jelly Bean loved music, man.
Speaker 5: That's one thing I could say about Jellybean. Do youve
Speaker 5: or take some of the rest of the ship.
Speaker 3: But man, my brother, he was. He was true to
Speaker 3: the game, man for sure.
Speaker 1: That's all we need.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he got me into the game because music
Speaker 5: wasn't my thing. I wanted to be a doctor, medical doctor,
Speaker 5: and I didn't know it. Yeah, but I was an athlete,
Speaker 5: you know. Was all city football, state track champion, played basketball, anything.
Speaker 3: With the Ball brothers.
Speaker 5: All right, Okay, they say Prince could play I wood
Speaker 5: Prince as any sport whatever, But that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: What matters was that.
Speaker 5: These guys were all my friends, man, and we hooped,
Speaker 5: we played music together.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: They taught me how to love music, and I really
Speaker 3: thank him for that.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. Well, Terry Lewis Jimmy jim reversing it this
Speaker 1: one time only.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We definitely got our money's worth
Speaker 2: and Quest Love Showers. You got it and we will
Speaker 2: see you on the next go round. Quest Love Show,
Speaker 2: Thank You. Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Mirror
Speaker 2: Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian
Speaker 2: Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Payne.
Speaker 2: Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Conny.
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Speaker 2: by Nick Lowe. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks
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Speaker 1: That's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of
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