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Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholds on Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: So I had an absolute blast on this week's podcast. Um,

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Speaker 1: Steve Miller, he literally is a rock and roll star.

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Speaker 1: When I was in high school, his albums were ubiquitous. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Fly like an Eagle, Book of Dreams. Those were always

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Speaker 1: on the radio. I've been a fan of his for

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Speaker 1: a while. Uh, I wish we had more time. We

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Speaker 1: were talking for ninety minutes. I got to like a

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Speaker 1: third of my questions. Every single question led to a

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Speaker 1: another story of his. And when a guy like Steve

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Speaker 1: Miller is telling you stories, you sit there, you shut up,

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Speaker 1: you listen and enjoy the ride. It. It was really

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Speaker 1: a blast. Uh. One other funny, little, funny little story.

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Speaker 1: So the show finishes, they have to go somewhere, and

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Speaker 1: I promised I would get them out of on time.

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Speaker 1: We're still a half hour late. Where we finish up,

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Speaker 1: he signs a couple of albums for me, which was

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Speaker 1: really nice. He didn't have to do that. He did

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Speaker 1: a little picture of of the Joker on one of

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Speaker 1: the albums. I thought that was super cool. Um, I'll

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Speaker 1: take a picture and post it on Twitter. But then

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Speaker 1: we're outside and I take we're taking photos in order

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Speaker 1: to you know, I take a photo of every guest,

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Speaker 1: and it's he and I taking a photo. And as

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Speaker 1: as as we're taking the picture, who walks by in

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Speaker 1: front of us, but none other than Mr Mike Bloomberg.

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Speaker 1: And generally the protocol at the Bloomberg building when anybody

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Speaker 1: famous is around, you know, it's a quiet nod. It's

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Speaker 1: very low key. Every time I'm there, there's some famous

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Speaker 1: hedge fun manager, musician, actor. I'm in and out of

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Speaker 1: the I'm in and out of the green room for

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Speaker 1: Charlie Rose. Because where Bloomberg Radio is is adjacent to that,

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Speaker 1: I always see all sorts of amazing guests there. But anyway,

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Speaker 1: we're standing there having our photos taken, and it was

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Speaker 1: cute to see Steve Miller sort of gush over a

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Speaker 1: celebrity to him, Hey, there's the mayor, Mr mayor, Hi,

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Speaker 1: nice to see you. It was. It was really very

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Speaker 1: amusing and very charming, and and the mayor just kind

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Speaker 1: of nodded and walked by. I can't imagine that he

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Speaker 1: had any idea who this was, um, but this was

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Speaker 1: just a charming and delightful interview. If you are at

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Speaker 1: all interested in the music industry, recording rock and roll,

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Speaker 1: anything along those lines. This was really a crazy educational experience.

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Speaker 1: All your worst expectations of of the record industry are

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Speaker 1: met with no further ado my conversation with Steve Miller.

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Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Berry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: My special guest today has gone by a number of names.

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Speaker 1: You might know him as the Space Cowboy, the Gangster

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Speaker 1: of Love, or just Maurice. He's best known as Steve Miller,

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Speaker 1: an American singer, songwriter, guitarist. He first formed his band

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty six in San Francisco. His greatest hits

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Speaker 1: album V sold thirteen million copies. He has twelve albums

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Speaker 1: in the top forty in the United States, and all told,

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Speaker 1: he has sold over sixty million copies. Steve Miller, Welcome

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Speaker 1: to Bloomberg. Hi Berry, how are you great? I'm thrilled

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Speaker 1: to have you. I have a million questions for you. Um.

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Speaker 1: I've been a fan of yours for a long time.

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Speaker 1: I've seen you live several times, both with the Steve

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Speaker 1: Miller bands and when you were supporting Lawrence Jubert at

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Speaker 1: the cutting room. That was a wonderful evening. Um, let's

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Speaker 1: let's go way back. You grew up early in your

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Speaker 1: childhood in Wisconsin, and the rumor is you were taught

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Speaker 1: your first three chords by none other than Less Paul.

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Speaker 1: How on earth did that come about? This? It was

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Speaker 1: really interesting. My um my family lived in Milwaukee, so

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Speaker 1: I was born in Milwaukee, and it was ninety three

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Speaker 1: when I was born, so World War two was still

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Speaker 1: on in nineteen fifty, nineteen fifty somewhere in there. It

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Speaker 1: was about five, so I guess it was forty eight.

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Speaker 1: Less Paul came to town and he and Mary Ford

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Speaker 1: were not married yet, and they were playing at a

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Speaker 1: nightclub around the corner from this funky downhouse we lived

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Speaker 1: in downtown Milwaukee. My dad had a Magna Order, which

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Speaker 1: was one of the first professional tape recorders in the

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Speaker 1: United States. It was like German technology stolen during World

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Speaker 1: War Two and now America had tape instead of wire recorders.

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Speaker 1: And the old man was really you know, he had

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Speaker 1: a Magna Order, and he went around the corner and

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Speaker 1: introduced himself to Less Paul and said, I got a

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Speaker 1: Magna order, and I'd like to come in and record you.

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Speaker 1: Unless said that'd be great, come on down. So my

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Speaker 1: father started taking me to a place called Jimmy Fazzio's

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Speaker 1: Supper Club was where this west and started taking me

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Speaker 1: into the nightclub. And I was watching Less Paul and

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Speaker 1: Mary Ford and what they were doing was they were rehearsing.

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Speaker 1: They were playing in front of an audience at a

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Speaker 1: nightclub in Milwaukee off the beaten Path, right, putting their

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Speaker 1: show together for their television show where they were going

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Speaker 1: to come to New York into this tele vision show.

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Speaker 1: So we'll Wolfie Way off Broadway. Yeah, and you know

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Speaker 1: a little side tracking close to where less Less was

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Speaker 1: born and where his mother lived and stuff like it.

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Speaker 1: So we're watching Less Paul and Mary Ford perform, and

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Speaker 1: my father's recording it, and so less Paul is coming

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Speaker 1: over to the house and listening to it. And pretty

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Speaker 1: soon Less and Mary and Sonny and Bert, my mom

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Speaker 1: and dad were really good friends. A lot of drinking, smoking, carousing,

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Speaker 1: listening to music. And pretty soon, you know, Charles Mingus

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Speaker 1: and you know, tal Farlowe and Red Norvau and all

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Speaker 1: these people were hanging out at the house. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, boy, this this looks like fun. You know,

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Speaker 1: this this playing music is really great. I already had

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Speaker 1: a guitar. My uncle was a musician, and another uncle

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Speaker 1: who played in the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. He's a hot

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Speaker 1: jazz violinist. So you have a lot of musical influences

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Speaker 1: in your family. And my mother is a great singer. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so uh. During the depression, all my relatives went

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Speaker 1: to medical school and became doctors. So my dad was

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Speaker 1: a doctor. He was a pathologist, So this was all

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Speaker 1: hobby stuff for them. I got my uncle's guitar, les

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Speaker 1: Paul shows up at the house, shows me my first

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Speaker 1: three chords. I'm in love with Mary Ford. She's the

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Speaker 1: most beautiful woman in the world. And knowingly I understand

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Speaker 1: that he's like speeding this tape recorder that we have

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Speaker 1: up and down. He's making his guitar solo sound faster,

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Speaker 1: and you know, he's records it slow, so you played back, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he records faster, and it's got a baseline when he

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Speaker 1: plays it back at normal speed. And that Mary singing

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Speaker 1: multiple parts, well, you know, thirty five years later or

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Speaker 1: whatever it was. That's that's how I started making my living,

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Speaker 1: was playing multiple parts. Guitarists and doing multiple vocal tracks.

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Speaker 1: So that raises an interesting question. At what point did

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Speaker 1: you say to yourself, Hey, I can make a living

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Speaker 1: with this this music. Then well, I didn't really think

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Speaker 1: I could make a living in this music until about

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, after I had gone to the University

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin for four years and the University Copenhagen for a year.

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Speaker 1: I never really thought i'd be a professional musician because

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Speaker 1: I came from this very middle class like, hey, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna have to get a job, and uh, as much

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Speaker 1: as everybody loved musicians, there weren't any good gigs. Being

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Speaker 1: a musician wasn't a good gig. Yeah, working in a nightclub,

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Speaker 1: you know, basically with drug dealers and hookers and cops

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Speaker 1: and mafia people. So not a lot of money and

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Speaker 1: not great surround it. So after the after school, I

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Speaker 1: went down to Chicago and Paul Butterfield was playing Paul

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Speaker 1: Butterfield Blues blues band at a place called Big John's

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Speaker 1: and he had a record contract, and I went record contract,

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Speaker 1: Hey I could do this, Maybe I could make a

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Speaker 1: litting doing this, and said I moved to Chicago immediately

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Speaker 1: put a band together with a guy named Barry Goldberg,

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Speaker 1: a great keyboard player and writer. We immediately got our

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Speaker 1: record contract, had the worst manager in the world, and

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Speaker 1: I learned all the things not to do very quickly

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Speaker 1: got out of that and then ended up in San

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Speaker 1: Francisco and had a reset and was able to get

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Speaker 1: my own contract and do my own and you very

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Speaker 1: famously had a tremendous contract that was different from a

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Speaker 1: lot of standards. You know, it's it's funny, you know,

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Speaker 1: like it's what all I did was just common sense.

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Speaker 1: And um, I did a couple of things. I knew

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Speaker 1: a couple of things, and one was I needed to

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Speaker 1: own my publishing and I and I had had this

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Speaker 1: little taste of recording in Chicago with Barry for Epic

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Speaker 1: Records I think or Mercury, I can't remember what it was,

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Speaker 1: and we had a little run. We were on Hullabaloo

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Speaker 1: with the Supremes and the Four Tops, and then it

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Speaker 1: was all over. And I learned that, like, I didn't

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Speaker 1: want anybody coming in and telling me what to play

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Speaker 1: or record, like, hey kid, you need to move more,

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Speaker 1: and you know, you have to change those trousers. You know.

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Speaker 1: There was a lot of that, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I didn't want anyone to own any of my songwriting.

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Speaker 1: So when I got to San Francisco, I was in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a feeding frenzy. I had fourteen record

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Speaker 1: companies trying to sign me. Only three of them were important.

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Speaker 1: The rest of them were all like you know, fly

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Speaker 1: by night, independent, small, big promises, no delivery kind of guys.

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Speaker 1: And I had a friend who was a prosecuting attorney

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Speaker 1: and I went to him and I said, these guys

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Speaker 1: are thieves that this built in theft. Uh, they're they're

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Speaker 1: gonna want to do this, this, this, And what I

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Speaker 1: need is complete artistic control. I need to own my publishing,

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Speaker 1: in my songwriting, and I need enough money to make

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Speaker 1: five albums. It's gonna take that long. And as long

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Speaker 1: as they're here, I don't I'm not signing a deal

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Speaker 1: until I get those things. And everybody went, well, that's

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Speaker 1: unheard of. And you know, basically it was just common sense.

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Speaker 1: There wasn't anything. You know, sometimes big ideas like that

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Speaker 1: just seem so simple, like Les Paul was a genius,

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Speaker 1: but all the stuff he invented was really simple and straightforward.

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Speaker 1: And do you think about it later, forty years later,

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Speaker 1: of what he achieved. And you know, this multiple track

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Speaker 1: tape recorder your engineers fooling with, you know, is a

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Speaker 1: direct result of Less Paul's ideas in the forties. So

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Speaker 1: what's the what's the old expression? Uh? Common sense is

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Speaker 1: surprisingly uncommon. Yeah, I'm Barry Ridhults. You're listening to Masters

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Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is

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Speaker 1: Steve Miller, best known for the Steve Miller Band. He

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Speaker 1: is a singer, songwriter and guitarist and pretty much beloved

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Speaker 1: by musicians all over. We were talking earlier about the

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Speaker 1: feeding frenzy in San Francisco when you first went out there. Um,

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Speaker 1: you told an interesting story some time ago about how

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Speaker 1: Capital try to put you into their midnight recording slot.

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Speaker 1: If I'm remembering that correctly, and you would have nothing

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Speaker 1: of it, you ended up going to the UK. Well,

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Speaker 1: it was what happened was we were a San Francisco group.

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Speaker 1: There's a big dichotomy between l A and San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: and l A was like this horrible commercial group of sharks,

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Speaker 1: and San Francisco was this hippie peace, love and happiness

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Speaker 1: kind of community where all the bands shared information and everything.

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Speaker 1: So Alan Livingston the president of Capitol Records was the

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Speaker 1: guy who negotiated it with me for nine months and

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Speaker 1: finally said, okay, you can. We'll give you the contract

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Speaker 1: you want. We really want to sign you. So we

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Speaker 1: load up all our gear and we go down to

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Speaker 1: l A to do our first recording session. And I'm thinking,

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Speaker 1: I just signed with Capitol Records, less Paul's label, my

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Speaker 1: godfather's label. I can't believe this. This is so cool,

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Speaker 1: and now I've got all these great resources and it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be you know, I'm gonna make this great album.

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Speaker 1: They said, well, we don't have any studio time open

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Speaker 1: until midnight at midnight. And they said, yeah, we're just

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Speaker 1: booked and said, but we've got you booked at midnight.

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Speaker 1: So I come in at midnight and we spend a

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Speaker 1: couple hours unloading all our gear we just drove down

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Speaker 1: from set versus setting it up, and we start to

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Speaker 1: do a session. It's like four in the morning, and

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Speaker 1: I just said, I can't do anymore. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: can't sing. I'm I'm exhausted. I gotta go to bed.

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Speaker 1: So I said, all right, we'll come back tomorrow at midnight.

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Speaker 1: I come back the next night at midnight and they said,

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Speaker 1: you gotta move all your equipment out of Studio B

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Speaker 1: and put it in stood d O A. And he said, well,

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Speaker 1: we just set it up. What's going on here? And

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Speaker 1: they said, I got somebody else coming into the studio.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna have to move it. So we moved it

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Speaker 1: to Studio A, got ready to record, and the engineering

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Speaker 1: staff walked out. So they didn't like us. They thought

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Speaker 1: we were hippies. They they thought we were anti war

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Speaker 1: demonstrating bad people. They really did not. And these were

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Speaker 1: a bunch of like crew cutted, ex Vietnam veteran kind

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Speaker 1: of union studio guys. And and this was a situation

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Speaker 1: where as a musician, I was not allowed to touch

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Speaker 1: a microphone or the console, and there was a guy

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Speaker 1: from the Musicians Union who sat in the control booth

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Speaker 1: to make sure nobody did it. It was the craziest

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Speaker 1: goofy ist, overly featherbedded, just everything that's wrong with unions

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Speaker 1: was on display right there in l A. So second night,

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Speaker 1: I've had it, so I call up my my executive

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Speaker 1: producer at Capitol Records, John Palladino, an ex marine by

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Speaker 1: the way, It was a great guy. And I loved him,

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Speaker 1: and they said, John, you can have the money back,

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Speaker 1: you can have your contract back. Nuts to you, guys,

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Speaker 1: I'm done, you know. And oh no, no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: God no no, Steve, no no no, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: no no no, I'm gonna you know, listen, this just

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Speaker 1: isn't And so because I had all of this control,

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Speaker 1: I then started looking around for different studios and I

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Speaker 1: realized that like these guys in l A didn't like me,

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Speaker 1: and they weren't gonna help me. They're gonna sabotage me.

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Speaker 1: And that this new deal I just made with Capitol Records,

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Speaker 1: where I thought I was going to get all his help,

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Speaker 1: I was one of like two hundred bands fighting for

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Speaker 1: limited resources with razor Blade men, you know, and management

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Speaker 1: and stuff. I mean, I just jumped into a world

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Speaker 1: that was like I was so naive about the politics

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Speaker 1: of the record company, of the corporate world. Those are

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Speaker 1: all the worst stories you've ever heard about the record

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Speaker 1: industry in Los Angeles and what it's like to a

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Speaker 1: major You lived it, Yeah, So, so what did you

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Speaker 1: do in response to no studio available? So I started

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Speaker 1: looking around in London and we found out about Olympic Studios,

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Speaker 1: talked to George Martin, who's the producer of the Beatles.

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Speaker 1: He was willing to do it, but he wanted to

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Speaker 1: have five percent or something and I wouldn't give it

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Speaker 1: to him. Well he's George Martin, Yeah, and I was

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Speaker 1: going no, no, no, no, no, it's way too much.

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Speaker 1: So I worked with Glenn John's and Glenn was an engineer.

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Speaker 1: So we pack up everything board the U s s

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Speaker 1: United States in January making Atlantic Crossing. That was I

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Speaker 1: was seasick for five days. When it's just oh my god,

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Speaker 1: whatever you do. Get to London, go over to Olympic Studios,

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Speaker 1: set up and procol Harem's there, Peter Frampton's there, the

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Speaker 1: Rolling Stones are there, the who just left you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean just Jimmy Hendrix has been to town. Everything's

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Speaker 1: going on, you know, and we're right in the middle

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Speaker 1: of it, Walkington and you have yet to record your

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Speaker 1: first album, right, this is the first one. Yeah. We

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Speaker 1: land there and as soon as we started playing, it

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Speaker 1: was like we had brought manna from heaven. We were

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Speaker 1: the most juicy, live, ist, greatest sounding band in London

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Speaker 1: at that particular time. Everybody else sounded real stiff and

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Speaker 1: you know, working real hard to make pop records and stuff,

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Speaker 1: and they just loved us. So we had this great,

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Speaker 1: great period of sessions and we ended up making I

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Speaker 1: think the first four albums were actually you know, Wally

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Speaker 1: Hiders in San Francisco and then back to Olympic to

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Speaker 1: mix and back and forth. Nicky Hopkins was playing with us,

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Speaker 1: and we were just in the middle of this world

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Speaker 1: international scene. It was much better than being in l A.

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Speaker 1: And engineering was much hipper. And there was a guy

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Speaker 1: there named Dick Swettenham who invented a lot of the

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Speaker 1: digital equipment we all used today. He was one of

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Speaker 1: the inventors of it. I mean, he was talking about

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Speaker 1: the digital, the coming digital world, and we were going,

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Speaker 1: what it's gonna be on crystals? There's not gonna be

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Speaker 1: any tape what you know. We didn't know this nineteen seven,

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Speaker 1: and so that's how it all started and it was

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Speaker 1: really exciting. I read something I think it was with

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Speaker 1: Um Gibson guitar had a a series of interviews with you.

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Speaker 1: If I'm remembering correctly, and that may be wrong, but

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Speaker 1: you talked about the process that the Beatles had for recording,

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Speaker 1: where you would spend days on a song and they

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Speaker 1: would bang stuff out. Well. You know, later in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty nine, I got to meet the Beatles and um,

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Speaker 1: they were working in their last album and Glenn was

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Speaker 1: the engineer and I recorded with Paul and I was

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Speaker 1: hanging out with these guys for a few days, and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was so hard as a writer to

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Speaker 1: get to our player to have rubber soul come out,

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Speaker 1: you know, and you're getting what you know, it's so great,

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Speaker 1: you know. They just were so in the moment and

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Speaker 1: so incredibly talented. If we had the book of the

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Speaker 1: four hundred songs at the Beatles recorded and we went

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Speaker 1: through it, you and I would both be going, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, I forgot about those I forgot about Oh

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Speaker 1: my god. Look look, look, look it's an astonishing It

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Speaker 1: is an astonishing catalog, all done under incredible pressure, horrible

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Speaker 1: situations of just you know, being followed by the press

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Speaker 1: of If we were the Beatles in nineteen nine and

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Speaker 1: we were doing this interview, there'd be fifty people right

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Speaker 1: outside that window, going, Steve just or Paul just scratched

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Speaker 1: his head, or they he just stood up, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they'd be reporting on everything. These guys did.

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Speaker 1: And how they were creative I don't know. But what

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Speaker 1: I found out was they had a language. Paul and

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Speaker 1: John communicated at a level that was so funny and

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Speaker 1: so witty and so clever. I mean, Paul walked into

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Speaker 1: the studio and said, good morning everybody, and you kind

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Speaker 1: of went, wasn't that great? Did you get that on tape?

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Speaker 1: Did did you hear that? It was just that good?

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Speaker 1: You know? And their conversation back and forth and stuff,

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Speaker 1: and I just went, ah, I really am in the

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Speaker 1: presence of you know, Rogers and Hammersteiners, something believable writers

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Speaker 1: and this I I have limitations these guys don't and

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Speaker 1: I don't have I can't be as great as they are.

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Speaker 1: And then I found out that they just made they

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Speaker 1: It was like work. They got to the studio ten

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Speaker 1: thirty morning, they were done at three thirty in the afternoon.

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Speaker 1: They had their tea break, and they went home and

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Speaker 1: they recorded four songs and if they needed something else,

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Speaker 1: he wrote, Hey Jude that night and had come in

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Speaker 1: the next day and do it. It was like that.

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Speaker 1: And what I found out even that was even more

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Speaker 1: interesting was when I was there, I saw them record,

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Speaker 1: get back and uh, um, come Together, I think was

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Speaker 1: the other one. And uh, they had forty songs in

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Speaker 1: the can already waiting to come out. Yeah, and they yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was an unbelievable lesson forty songs. They

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Speaker 1: were ahead of the game forty songs. Everybody else was like, well,

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Speaker 1: the boys are working on the album, and uh, they've

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Speaker 1: got a tour right now and it'll probably be you know,

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Speaker 1: two years until they come out with another record. What

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Speaker 1: what was the name of the band? You know, And

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Speaker 1: these guys were so far ahead of the game, um

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Speaker 1: that they did a couple of things and they just

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Speaker 1: pulled like eight other songs and they threw an album out.

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Speaker 1: I went to Paris to go play a gig, and

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Speaker 1: when I came back three days later, that song and

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Speaker 1: record was number one in Europe, was already recorded, released

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Speaker 1: an out. I mean it was recorded the week before,

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Speaker 1: it was out in the next three days. And I

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Speaker 1: mean it was like totally different than America, where they

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Speaker 1: go all right, to finish the album, now next January,

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Speaker 1: we're going to release it was fooling around, hot off

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Speaker 1: the press, number one, and and Paul liked those first takes.

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Speaker 1: He said that each subsequent take wasn't as good. I

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Speaker 1: recall you saying something that's right. It was always the

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Speaker 1: first take is the one that has the magic. So

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Speaker 1: if you're not really paying attention, you kind of going, oh,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, I want to do that again. It's

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Speaker 1: not gonna be as good, and then I can make

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Speaker 1: that better than it just goes down. The level of

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Speaker 1: inspiration or presents gets duller and duller and duller. But

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Speaker 1: when you walk in and lay it down, you're done.

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Speaker 1: I'm Barry rid Halts. You're listening to Masters in Business

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this week is a

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Speaker 1: rock and roll star. It's Steve Miller or the Steve

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Speaker 1: Miller band, singer, songwriter, guitarist. Um has band dissold over

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Speaker 1: sixty million copies, and he was recently inducted into the

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Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which led to some

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Speaker 1: interesting controversy. So so let's talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Is this a

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Speaker 1: cultural institution or is this really just a tourist trap

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Speaker 1: in Cleveland. We know it's not a tourist trap in Cleveland.

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Speaker 1: It's a beautiful museum in Cleveland and a beautiful site,

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Speaker 1: and uh, it is a cultural institution and a lot

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Speaker 1: of great work has been laid down and put in place,

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Speaker 1: and the current leadership is exhausted, doesn't have a vision

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Speaker 1: and basically as just running it too to gather funds

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Speaker 1: for the future. And what they're doing right now is

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Speaker 1: very flimsy. You know, They've set up a lot of stuff,

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Speaker 1: but they're out following through very well. So the Rock

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Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame, you know, when Ahmad Ergan

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Speaker 1: put it together and Jan Winner was his little henchman,

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Speaker 1: and Alan Grubman was their lawyer. He basically had a

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Speaker 1: combination of three egos and the communicator was Ahmad Air

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Speaker 1: again and Jan Winner on snarky little tabloid magazines and

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Speaker 1: that's the way he plays artists. So you have a

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Speaker 1: situation where you have just horrible legal requirements for people

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Speaker 1: who are inducted, absolutely the worst. It's not just a

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Speaker 1: straight up, hey, you're inducted, show up at the States.

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Speaker 1: We had a ninety day argument. It never has been

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Speaker 1: totally resolved, completely unreasonable. Uh, we had all of these problems,

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Speaker 1: and so what what you have when when the leadership

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Speaker 1: is snarky and legally incorrect. You have a situation where

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Speaker 1: most artists that I saw were kind of going, I

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Speaker 1: don't care, I'll sign anything. I'm in the Hall of fame. Man.

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Speaker 1: It's just like when you're the kid who's written the songs,

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Speaker 1: and I bring you to my office, take you out

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Speaker 1: for dinner, then I take you over to the recording studio.

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Speaker 1: Then I bring you back to my office with the

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Speaker 1: Platinum Records in the wall. I hand you a thirty

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Speaker 1: page contract and you sign it, and I give you

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Speaker 1: a check for ten thousand dollars, and now I own

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Speaker 1: everything you've ever you'll ever do for the rest of

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Speaker 1: your life. That's exactly the way they operated. And I

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Speaker 1: just looked at it and said, you're nuts. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: not doing that. You know, I'm not signing this. I'm

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Speaker 1: not giving you, you know, lifetime rights to that. I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to provide this until you provide, you know, clear.

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Speaker 1: Their contract work was so goofy, it was just silly.

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Speaker 1: So the pushback, well, I should say the controversy that

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Speaker 1: developed was, um, you basically criticize them, you in in

426
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: salt your language, then we're using here you had you

427
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: had less lovely things to say and it really carried

428
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: quite a distance. And I want to read a quote

429
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 1: to you. Bob left Sets, who's the music industry insider

430
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:18,879
Speaker 1: and has been writing about the industry for a long time, said,

431
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,640
Speaker 1: what's what's so astonishing about this Steve Miller thing? The

432
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: reach it's gotten. That's the power of truth, that's the

433
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,880
Speaker 1: power of the bully pulpit. So what's been the reaction

434
00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: to to your criticize and criticism of the Rock and

435
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 1: Roll Hall of Fame? Or have have other musicians been

436
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: mostly positive or negative? What's the feedback last um? Everybody

437
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: I've talked to, from people who have been on the

438
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: nominating board to musicians who have been inducted, have said

439
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 1: the same thing. They just say, it's just awful. And

440
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: people on the nominating board have said, you know, we'd

441
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: go have these meetings, we talked about groups and then

442
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:00,360
Speaker 1: Jan Winner and a few people going to the room

443
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:02,199
Speaker 1: and they'd come out and tell us what had happened.

444
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:05,160
Speaker 1: And I you know, one guy talked to quit after

445
00:27:05,200 --> 00:27:07,120
Speaker 1: two years. He just said this was a waste of time.

446
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: So what's happened is the Rock and Roll Hall of

447
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: Fame is a whole lot bigger than John it's much

448
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: bigger than his vision, and it has a much more

449
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: important mission. We're talking about it now. People really care

450
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:24,680
Speaker 1: about it all over the world, and they're really missing

451
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:30,719
Speaker 1: an opportunity to spread music education and to um you know,

452
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 1: basically make it a better, better organization. And right now,

453
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: the board all the people that operate and run the

454
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:41,239
Speaker 1: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. When you have as

455
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: you have New York, which is disruptive, snarky and out

456
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:48,880
Speaker 1: of touch and living in a bubble in Long Island

457
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 1: and thinking they know everything there is to know about

458
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: the world, and you have the under underpaid people running

459
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 1: the museum in in uh you know leveland who are

460
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: scared to death, who're afraid they're gonna lose their jobs,

461
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:09,119
Speaker 1: who have these tiny little budgets, who have a beautiful building,

462
00:28:09,160 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 1: and they don't really have any leadership or any direction.

463
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: So it's just sitting there, just spinning its wheels. So

464
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 1: what do you think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

465
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:21,080
Speaker 1: What do you think it was? Like me? I've never

466
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 1: been yeah, I mean, but when you watched the Rock

467
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: and Roll Hall of Fame, I mean you see it

468
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: on television, what do you think? So I used to

469
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: watch the shows when they were on HBO, and they

470
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: were a little you know, all all Awards shows are

471
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: full of hot air and a lot of pontification. And

472
00:28:38,080 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 1: you know, I have some of the criticism I've read.

473
00:28:40,720 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: Aren't a whole lot of people of color, aren't a

474
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: whole lot of women. It's pretty much a narrow group

475
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: and they need a little more diversity in the committee

476
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: that's deciding who has entree. And I think that's reasonable criticism. So,

477
00:28:55,440 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: you know, all of that's all obvious, obviously true. But

478
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean, just when I saw it, it it always looked

479
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:04,479
Speaker 1: like a party. It always looked at me like Paul mccarton,

480
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 1: who was having a great time with Elton John, who

481
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: was having a great time with you know, whoever whoever

482
00:29:10,160 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: was there, you know, with Chuck Berry, with whoever is

483
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: ever on the stage. They're all there. It's all this

484
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: great evening. You know what it was for my class

485
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: this year of was a legal argument where they started

486
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 1: off going, no, you can't. You can only have two tickets.

487
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 1: We want your band to come and play. You have

488
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: to come and play, but we're not giving your band tickets.

489
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: Starting the seats are are really expensive, well, there're ten

490
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a piece, you know, and so so, I

491
00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:44,160
Speaker 1: mean it was just absurd. And then the contracts commitments

492
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: were just absurd. Nobody would sign. Anybody with any kind

493
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: of care about themselves wouldn't sign anything like this. And

494
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: you'd say, well, what about these elements you want, We'd

495
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 1: like to have some input. No, there's no input. Well

496
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: who's going to induct us will tell you who's going

497
00:30:03,000 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: to induct you. You're not allowed to do. They just were.

498
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: They didn't want to have to spend any time listening

499
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: to what I wanted to do. It was like, we

500
00:30:13,320 --> 00:30:15,360
Speaker 1: don't want to hear any of your ideas, any of

501
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: your opinions. We don't have time to fool. If you

502
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: were making a television show, your sound check is next

503
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: Wednesday at three o'clock in the afternoon period. So, if

504
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: I was running the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,

505
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: there would be a dinner for inductees and inductors and

506
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: the board of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

507
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: the night before, and I would present to the inductees

508
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: the programs that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

509
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: is actually working on. And I would say, you know

510
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: now that you're going to be inducted tomorrow night. We'd

511
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: really like to have your help. You can join us, Steve,

512
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: we know you know about you know, publishing rights and stuff.

513
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:56,320
Speaker 1: Can you help us develop this? Could you teach a

514
00:30:56,400 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: music class? Would you be willing to go to Cleveland?

515
00:30:59,200 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: And you know all of that, none of that, there

516
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: was nothing. You know, you didn't see each other. The

517
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: inductees were really even introduced to each other. That's shocking

518
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: to to. You know, we put on a conference every

519
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: year and the night before there's a big dinner and

520
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 1: everybody gets to meet each other and you find out,

521
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: like all sorts of fascinating thing. This was the cheapest

522
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: crewdst ugliest, nastiest group of people I've ever worked with.

523
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: And the great thing about it, the odd thing about

524
00:31:29,680 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: it was somehow they make the television show look like

525
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: everybody's having the best time. The guys who made that

526
00:31:34,400 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: television show from HBO, they get my vote. I want

527
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,880
Speaker 1: them to shoot my next concert because they could make

528
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: anything look good. You know. Saturate It Live just had

529
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: their fort anniversary and Jimmy Fallon was telling the story

530
00:31:50,640 --> 00:31:55,480
Speaker 1: of what the band was like. It was a NonStop

531
00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 1: rotating group of people showing up on stage and like

532
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 1: an insane a list of all time stars, and they

533
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 1: would see someone in the audience and pull them up

534
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: and they start and that's to answer your question. And

535
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 1: he described it as just amazing. And that's what I

536
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: visualize the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame event to

537
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: be like. But that's what that's nothing. I thought this

538
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,239
Speaker 1: is gonna be great. So what I found out was

539
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: everybody was leaned on and pressured and treated poorly. We

540
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: were never introduced. I never even met the Black Keys

541
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: when I walked in and went through security to get

542
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 1: in the building. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

543
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: was a sound check. I had a hired handler. High.

544
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,239
Speaker 1: My name's you know, Cindy, and I'm from you know,

545
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: Celebrity Services, and I'm going to be your handler. Come

546
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 1: on over here and sit down in this little cement

547
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: room with these two metal chairs, you and your wife.

548
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,200
Speaker 1: We need you to stay here for about an hour

549
00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: and then we'll call you for your sound check. Go

550
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:02,120
Speaker 1: do the sound check, then back to the little room.

551
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: Then there was like a cocktail party for thirty minutes

552
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: that we went to and then left, and then it

553
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: was like there's your table over there, and we were

554
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: taken to a table, sat down at a table with

555
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: people we didn't even know. So this does not sound

556
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: like a Then we're inducted. And then went up in

557
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: the stage and did my little acceptance speech, then went

558
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: over and played three songs, then back down to watch

559
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: the rest of the show, then back up for the

560
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:36,200
Speaker 1: completely phony jam session at the end that was just noise.

561
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: And then uh into the back where I was like, hey,

562
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: they didn't induct you for twenty three years, how does

563
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:45,200
Speaker 1: that make you feel? You know, some punk kid, you know.

564
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: So this went well, you know, here's how I feel.

565
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: And it was told them, well, you know, somebody came in,

566
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: some women came in and said all right, that's enough.

567
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 1: We're gonna shut this down right now. And that's when

568
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: I said, you need to sit down and learn something,

569
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,320
Speaker 1: you know, because they're just kids and they don't know

570
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: what they're doing. You know. The people running it are tired,

571
00:34:03,760 --> 00:34:07,040
Speaker 1: their weak, their worn out. They need They did a

572
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,520
Speaker 1: good job, they got a museum built, they they inducted

573
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: the people they cared about. Now the gene pool needs

574
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:19,759
Speaker 1: to really be enlarged, you know. And and there's a

575
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: lot that that that museum can do. And it's a

576
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:26,760
Speaker 1: And my tour this year started in Cleveland. I booked

577
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,360
Speaker 1: it in Cleveland. I went right to the museum and

578
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: went over and went through the whole museum and looked

579
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: at it all and looked at what they were doing.

580
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: And you know, they need a lot of help at

581
00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: that museum. They have an incredible building and they're trying.

582
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:43,799
Speaker 1: You know, they've got some new kids in who are

583
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: trying to run it right now, but they don't have

584
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: any money. Their displays are terribly you know, executed. The

585
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: light leaks in the black tunnels. It's cheap, it's dumb.

586
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: You you go in there, and they have all this

587
00:34:56,680 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: great stuff, but you know you can't see it. You can't.

588
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: You know, it's a it's a museum design problem, you know.

589
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: And they, I mean, they're they're in conflict with what

590
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 1: the building is. The building is all light, it's all glass,

591
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: and they've liked built these dark tunnels. Look so look,

592
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: I mean it starts right at the bottom, and it

593
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:19,840
Speaker 1: starts at the top, and it filters down and and

594
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: and right now, like these guys need to retire. They

595
00:35:23,040 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: need to be given a little badge and a little

596
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:26,920
Speaker 1: party and a pad in the back, and let's give

597
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: him a big round of applause. And they need to

598
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 1: be put out to pasture. And this needs to be

599
00:35:31,920 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 1: taken away from Jon Winner who uses it as a tabloid.

600
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:39,040
Speaker 1: You know, he uses it to drive tabloid sales. That's

601
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,359
Speaker 1: what he does. That's his trick. Hey, the black Keys

602
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: don't like you, Let's print their article in your response.

603
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: What do you say, Steve? You know, and you just

604
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:51,319
Speaker 1: go Yon, I'm not helping you sell anything, you know,

605
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: So that aside, you know, he needs to be removed Grubman.

606
00:35:56,760 --> 00:36:00,520
Speaker 1: Those contracts, the stuff they give the inductees, that needs

607
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: to be completely thrown out and made simple and clear

608
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: and honest and transparent. Their business is cloudy, deliberately murky.

609
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:10,719
Speaker 1: They don't want any input, they don't want to have

610
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: to waste any time with you sticky artists. They're worse

611
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:18,120
Speaker 1: than any record company I ever ever worked with. Really,

612
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:23,160
Speaker 1: absolutely that that's amazing. I'm Barry rich Halts. You're listening

613
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest

614
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: today is Steve Miller of the Steve Miller Band. And

615
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: let's jump right into our conversation about the future of music.

616
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: We know recording isn't the money maker it once was,

617
00:36:40,640 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: so so how do musicians make a living these days? Well,

618
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: the first thing is, you gotta write yourself out of

619
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: this ghetto. You know. We just had this, uh discussion

620
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: about legal problems that people have and uh, the Grubbin's

621
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:02,080
Speaker 1: of the world, in the corporations of the world that

622
00:37:02,239 --> 00:37:06,000
Speaker 1: use the Grubman's of the world to develop these these contracts,

623
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: and so we're in a situation now where very few

624
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 1: people can actually make a living writing music or performing it.

625
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: And we're you know, we're kind of in a Sia circle,

626
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: you know. I mean right now, if you're not an

627
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: actor and a dancer and a video star and all

628
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: of these things and groomed by maybe Disney from the

629
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: time you're four years old, you know, you're kinda gonna

630
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,839
Speaker 1: have a hard time. It's always been kind of like that.

631
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: There's always been those kind of entertainers. But the real

632
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:44,200
Speaker 1: the only way to get out is uh. I mean,

633
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: the tech companies are so far ahead of the government

634
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: and regulation and law, and they've stolen so much just

635
00:37:52,560 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: because it's so easy, and I can't audit anything. I

636
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:58,920
Speaker 1: have a half a billion streams a year and I

637
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,360
Speaker 1: get paid something like, you know, thirty seven thousand dollars

638
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,239
Speaker 1: for it, and I'm always in the wrong program. It's

639
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:06,799
Speaker 1: like the old as cap game, Like, oh g, you're

640
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 1: in the wrong songwriter's program. If you'd been in this one,

641
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: you would have we would have paid you the same

642
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: as Frank Sinatra. But you're not. You know, it's always

643
00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,360
Speaker 1: a shell game for musicians, and it's always the artists

644
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: are always the last to wake up and understand what's

645
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:25,400
Speaker 1: going on. So, you know, the guys who were running

646
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: all of these streaming companies, they're screwing people like me.

647
00:38:29,640 --> 00:38:32,440
Speaker 1: You know, they're stealing from me. They're using my work

648
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:37,920
Speaker 1: and making billions of dollars and developing their future because

649
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,680
Speaker 1: they can, because nobody can catch up to them. They're

650
00:38:40,719 --> 00:38:43,839
Speaker 1: so far ahead. So if you're an artist and you

651
00:38:43,920 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: can't do what I did was like make a record

652
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:48,640
Speaker 1: and take it to a radio station and go give

653
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: me a shot. Come on, man, play this, see if

654
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: anybody likes it. My artist's name is Elvis. Put this on,

655
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:58,720
Speaker 1: you know, do the Sam Phillips things. You know, that's

656
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,279
Speaker 1: all gone and and you know, to to promote a

657
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,400
Speaker 1: new album costs about five or six million dollars to

658
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 1: do the justin Timberlake, where you spend forty million dollars

659
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: and you sell nine hundred thousand records, but then you

660
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:18,280
Speaker 1: make six million dollars a night touring. That's a really

661
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: that's that one tenth of one percent, and then everybody

662
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 1: else is down here. I mean, Justin is a great artist.

663
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:28,680
Speaker 1: I really I like his work and I like his writing,

664
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: I love his dancing, I love his bands, I love

665
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,080
Speaker 1: his arranging and all that stuff. But he's in the

666
00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:37,080
Speaker 1: world like like in five days. He can make what

667
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: I make doing seventy cities with twenty five people in

668
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:46,920
Speaker 1: a year. So that's that's the dichotomy. And I'm considered

669
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 1: like a real successful band because I go out now

670
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 1: and six thousand people come to see me play or

671
00:39:52,600 --> 00:39:55,880
Speaker 1: ten thousand people you know where it used to be

672
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,440
Speaker 1: the football stadiums and stuff like that. But that's what

673
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:01,879
Speaker 1: I do. I go out and I love performing. So

674
00:40:02,000 --> 00:40:04,800
Speaker 1: I'm doing seventy shows a year. I have to travel

675
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 1: the seventy cities and buses and trucks and planes and

676
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,839
Speaker 1: with people in all that gear. You know, and that's

677
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:15,759
Speaker 1: a lean and mean machine. So let's talk about the technology.

678
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about this previously. But you have the

679
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: streaming companies like Spotify and Pandora on the one hand.

680
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 1: Then you have the all you can eat deals from

681
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:31,880
Speaker 1: Amazon and Apple, and then you have the iTunes you

682
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 1: can buy an album in its digital form. Are any

683
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: of these lucrative for artists anymore? None? Not, even if

684
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: someone is. So if I go to buy an album

685
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,680
Speaker 1: off of iTunes or or Amazon and it's ten bucks,

686
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,920
Speaker 1: it's like the old days, ninety cents goes to the

687
00:40:49,000 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 1: artist or something like that. Yeah. If and when you

688
00:40:52,680 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 1: go to Apple and say, okay, everybody put their hands up,

689
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna do an audit, there's no audit. There's no audit,

690
00:40:58,520 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: there's no there's no a, there's no regulation, there's no

691
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: group there, there's nothing you can do. You know, if

692
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 1: you call up Apple and say hey, I don't like

693
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:10,399
Speaker 1: what you're doing, they go, we don't like what you're doing,

694
00:41:10,440 --> 00:41:12,759
Speaker 1: and you know what, we're gonna sue you for interfering

695
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 1: with our right to do business. And what our business

696
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: is cutting up your work and selling it anyway. We

697
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: want to so shut up or get sued. That's what

698
00:41:21,880 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 1: Apple said to me. And I called him up and said, hey,

699
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,919
Speaker 1: I don't want you to download Fly Like an Eagle

700
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:30,640
Speaker 1: as an album because I just downloaded it and paid

701
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: for it and it came out in the wrong order.

702
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: This is a book. It's a chapter. You know, you

703
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,959
Speaker 1: don't you don't print a book starting with chapter seven

704
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,440
Speaker 1: and then go to chapter one and then chapter nine.

705
00:41:41,760 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 1: And that's what you guys are doing. You're just cutting

706
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,800
Speaker 1: up my music. Oh you can't handle segways. You don't

707
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: know how to do something that folds over something else.

708
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:52,640
Speaker 1: You're just gonna cut it in the middle wherever you think.

709
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: Then don't even touch my music, okay. And they said,

710
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: we're going to sue you for interfering with our right business.

711
00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: That's what it's like. Wow, that's that's crazy. So let's know.

712
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:08,800
Speaker 1: And so if I took your income and I knocked

713
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:12,839
Speaker 1: it down by and said, hey, what are you complaining about.

714
00:42:12,920 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 1: You can do seven radio shows a week. You're only

715
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:18,279
Speaker 1: doing one a week. You're lazy. Get back in here

716
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,720
Speaker 1: and go to work. You know, you guys, it's really great.

717
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 1: You would look at that and just kind of go

718
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 1: are you kidding me to say the least. So, so

719
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 1: let's shift gears a little bit and talk about music,

720
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: because really that's let's let's take this one step far.

721
00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: So in the nineties, when I was touring and doing

722
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: seventy cities a year, I was selling a million and

723
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: a half records a year without any advertising from Capitol Records,

724
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,640
Speaker 1: to my fans, to the people who came to see

725
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 1: me play. I had maybe of the songs, and those

726
00:42:54,320 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: records were mine that I wrote, I owned the publishing,

727
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:03,560
Speaker 1: and all of that in come augmented what I did,

728
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: what I could pay my band, the size of production

729
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: I could do, and the kind of money I could

730
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: spend on producing new records. All of that income is

731
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 1: gone gone. It's just went from like three or four

732
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: million dollars a year to me at the just ninety

733
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: cents of record out of the fifteen dollars they're selling

734
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:30,359
Speaker 1: it for, you know, the dollar plus the performance, right, Yeah,

735
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: you know, all of that is gone. That that money

736
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 1: is just gone. That money is now what's made Spotify

737
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: people billionaires and Doora. Go down the list that you

738
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: just go down the list, man and there's there's four

739
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:51,080
Speaker 1: or five guys that are sitting here going, oh, I

740
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,479
Speaker 1: can't believe we got away with this. No, no, no,

741
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, I mean that's what they did. And every

742
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,439
Speaker 1: artist you've ever talked to has said the same thing.

743
00:43:58,840 --> 00:44:01,320
Speaker 1: And so you're tell music like, yeah, but now you

744
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: can go out and tour. Well, who's gonna like be

745
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:07,839
Speaker 1: able to build a career now that you can't even

746
00:44:08,640 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: it's impossible to get a career unless you've got five

747
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: six million dollars to start it. You could go out

748
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,919
Speaker 1: and tour, but an up and coming band doesn't happen.

749
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:22,720
Speaker 1: Been touring for fifty years. So I have a built

750
00:44:22,760 --> 00:44:26,000
Speaker 1: in audience, and I have this deal with my audience.

751
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 1: You come to my show, we're gonna really give it

752
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: up for real. You're gonna have a joyously good, great time.

753
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,840
Speaker 1: And this is real music. We're not singing to sample

754
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:40,240
Speaker 1: tapes and a fake drum machine and music, live band,

755
00:44:40,280 --> 00:44:43,600
Speaker 1: live music, live sound, live, p a, live everything. I've

756
00:44:43,640 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: seen you several times. I saw you at Westberry Music

757
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,680
Speaker 1: Fair in the rounds. So the best part about that

758
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:52,440
Speaker 1: place is I get to watch like thirty seven guitars.

759
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:54,799
Speaker 1: It's been right, like you have a different guitar for

760
00:44:54,840 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 1: every song, let's talk about guitarist and less about so

761
00:44:58,239 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about you. Very famously said at a

762
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: Christie's auction where Richard gears guitar collection went up, and

763
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: you know you said that quote. I felt bad because

764
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:12,959
Speaker 1: it sounded like I wasn't impressed with his collection, which

765
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:15,600
Speaker 1: was a great collection, and there were some really wonderful

766
00:45:15,680 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: instruments and that collection. And I have friends with Martin

767
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 1: Guitar who were the guys on the phone buying their

768
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: guitars back. He had some great Martins in there. So

769
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: someone said to you, you're not bidding and what was

770
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: your response? Well, I just didn't see anything that you know,

771
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 1: I needed in the in that that group. And I

772
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: have an amazing collection guitars. I have about four hundred

773
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 1: and fifty instruments, and I invest in guitars like you invest,

774
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 1: you know about you know, I went, I called up

775
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: a friend of mine and said, if I buy these guitarists,

776
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: do you think what do you think this stuff will

777
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: be worth later? And they said, oh, you can probably

778
00:45:55,200 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: make fifteen on your money, Steve, and I kind of went, oh,

779
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: and I get to play with them, and you mean

780
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: it's I have to go buy guitars nuts. People want

781
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 1: to find your music you're writing, they go to where

782
00:46:10,160 --> 00:46:14,080
Speaker 1: the where's the best place for well, you know the website,

783
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: you know, Steve Miller band dot com. I mean that's

784
00:46:16,760 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: all the music and all the news and are complete

785
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 1: catalog is listed there, the type everything else. Yeah, And

786
00:46:24,680 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 1: whenever we work on new projects and stuff, we talk

787
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: about those, and um, you know there's lots of stuff

788
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:35,319
Speaker 1: going on that that Now it's just kind of just

789
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:38,520
Speaker 1: stuff for fun, you know. You know. So I started

790
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: and then I started building guitars. I started collecting guitars,

791
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:45,879
Speaker 1: and I started going around. Here's what it's like. Two

792
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I was in Paso Rovos, California, and a

793
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: friend of mine said, Steve, my father in law as

794
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: a musician all his life. He's eighty years old, and

795
00:46:58,239 --> 00:46:59,719
Speaker 1: he has a couple of guitars. Would you take a

796
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:04,319
Speaker 1: look these? Sure, there's a nineteen fifty five strat in

797
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five gifts in uh E S three fifty t.

798
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,080
Speaker 1: These are all worth a lot of money, aren't they

799
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: Just unbelievable? You know. So there are guitars out there

800
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: all the time, and these are are really great, great instruments,

801
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:27,000
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna help them sell them for for for that,

802
00:47:27,239 --> 00:47:30,359
Speaker 1: for their father in law needs the dough. Now, I've

803
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:33,279
Speaker 1: seen some old less Poles the nineteen fifties. Let's pull

804
00:47:33,320 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: that tore so yeah, and so that's what you know,

805
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: I think, Richard. I can't remember what what was exactly

806
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: at that show, but there was a Less poll or

807
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: two and some stuff, and they weren't particularly the greatest ones.

808
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 1: And I had all these people egging me on, saying,

809
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:55,239
Speaker 1: why don't let's make a film about you searching for

810
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 1: this number one guitar? And I got there, said it's

811
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: not the one I'd like to make the move of me,

812
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:04,240
Speaker 1: but you know not now. And um, what I do

813
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 1: is I take like the latest and greatest guitarist that

814
00:48:09,480 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: Gibson makes the just you know, I think in my

815
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: estimation to Billy Gibbons Pearly Gates reissue fifty nine, and

816
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: I got that guitar. I bought eight of them, and

817
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:23,239
Speaker 1: I went all over the world found him and bought

818
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:25,759
Speaker 1: eight of him and brought him back. And then I

819
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: had another friend who had been spent his lifetime collecting

820
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: real nineteen fifty nine p a f pickups and instead

821
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 1: of paying three hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a

822
00:48:35,400 --> 00:48:37,919
Speaker 1: guitar like that, I took the fifty nine pickups, put

823
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: in the Billy Gibbons guitar. Went Okay, let's call us

824
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,919
Speaker 1: at number one. That's on the road with me now.

825
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: So I love guitars. It's it's it's an unending uh game.

826
00:48:51,040 --> 00:48:55,239
Speaker 1: And I just put sixty of my guitars. I'm seventy three,

827
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 1: I'll be seventy three and a couple of weeks and

828
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: so now it's time to like share this collection. It's

829
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 1: time to move it, call it down to just the

830
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, I mean I've spent years and years and

831
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:10,759
Speaker 1: years collecting it. And they're all out, they're all they're

832
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 1: in three different locations and they all hang on the

833
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 1: walls and you can walk into room and yell at

834
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: them and all the strings vibrate. You know, it's like

835
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: it's really so they're not in cases in the dark room,

836
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: SCE and it's just time to sell them. And we

837
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: put sixty of them up for sale and sold like

838
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 1: I think thirty thirty two or three of them in

839
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:32,319
Speaker 1: the first forty eight hours. So there's a serious group

840
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 1: of collectors who pursue these There's people all over the world, musicians, collectors,

841
00:49:37,239 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: both collectors. We've been speaking with Steve Miller, rock and

842
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: roll songwriter, singer, guitarist. If you enjoy this conversation, be

843
00:49:46,719 --> 00:49:49,600
Speaker 1: sure and sticking around for the podcast after his will

844
00:49:49,640 --> 00:49:52,960
Speaker 1: we keep the digital tape rolling developed by LS Paul

845
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 1: and continue talking about all things rock and roll. If

846
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,800
Speaker 1: you would like to check out my daily column, you

847
00:49:59,800 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: can go to Bloomberg View dot com or follow me

848
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 1: on Twitter at rid Halts. I'm Barry Rid Halts. You've

849
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:11,760
Speaker 1: been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome

850
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: to the podcast, Steve. Thank you so much for for

851
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: doing this. Barry, it's a pleasure talking to you. I've

852
00:50:18,280 --> 00:50:21,440
Speaker 1: been I've been a fan of yours for a long time,

853
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 1: and I first met you going to Lawrence Juber Show,

854
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:27,640
Speaker 1: someone else who I've been a fan of for a

855
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: long time. Not only did you sing happy birthday to

856
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 1: his wife, but you were absolutely gracious afterwards. You remember

857
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,440
Speaker 1: the show I'm referring to, You're absolutely gracious afterwards when

858
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 1: I interrupted you to to say to l J, who

859
00:50:43,200 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 1: was actually pretty hilarious. L j come talk to me

860
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: on the radio about being music, about what's the name

861
00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: of the show masters in business? He goes, what am

862
00:50:52,239 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 1: I gonna tell you what stocks to pick? No, you're

863
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: gonna talk about all the stuff that you've talked about today.

864
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 1: So it's been really, really interesting, fascinating stuff. There's so

865
00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: much I didn't get to that I want to jump into.

866
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 1: Um wet So we'll talk about books. I have to

867
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:15,240
Speaker 1: talk to you. Hold on, Hold on books for a second.

868
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 1: There are two things I must ask you about. One

869
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: is the Metropoleum Museum and the other is The Joker

870
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,680
Speaker 1: following the car accident, and I suspect these are both

871
00:51:26,719 --> 00:51:31,600
Speaker 1: interesting stories. So I'm a big fan of of blues

872
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 1: as well as jazz and rock and roll. You mentioned Chicago.

873
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 1: I've been to Kingston Mines. I've been to all these

874
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: places there. And you really began as a blues guitarist.

875
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:45,680
Speaker 1: That seems to be your biggest influence. You have a

876
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:48,520
Speaker 1: car accident, you break your neck, it takes a long

877
00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:51,839
Speaker 1: time to recuperate, and then you come out of that

878
00:51:52,560 --> 00:51:56,720
Speaker 1: and there's this radical change in the songwriting and playing,

879
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: and the first album, The Joker just blows up So

880
00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:05,480
Speaker 1: what took place during that convalescence that had you shift

881
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 1: so much? I think you're kind of like, um, this

882
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 1: is all after the fact. Yeah, I mean, you know, basically,

883
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:15,640
Speaker 1: like I had I started out, the game was to

884
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:20,400
Speaker 1: make hit records. Les. Paul made twenty five hit records.

885
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: You know, the Beatles had hit singles. Hit singles was

886
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:30,399
Speaker 1: was the important game when you made records coming out

887
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, the groovy you know, long play, all

888
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 1: that stuff. Children in the Future, all those things were

889
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: still trying to make hit singles, and we're learning, you know,

890
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:43,439
Speaker 1: and we were untouched by a M radio. We were

891
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:49,720
Speaker 1: like unclean to them. We were underground progressive rock, psychedelic

892
00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 1: dungeon hippies, you know. You know, we got stigmatized immediately,

893
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 1: and we couldn't get any airplay. And Capitol Records to

894
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: kind of went like, we can't get in the airplay.

895
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 1: We don't understand what the underground FM radio. It's nobody

896
00:53:05,280 --> 00:53:08,799
Speaker 1: cares about that anyway, you guys are finished. So we

897
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:11,120
Speaker 1: were selling a lot of albums, but we were not

898
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: selling singles. And so I was, you know, selling two

899
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,440
Speaker 1: hundred thousand copies of Children in the Future and three

900
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,720
Speaker 1: hundred thousand copies of Brave New World and three thousand

901
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: copies of whatever. The next one was in two or

902
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: three hundred thousand copies number five and and and we

903
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:33,799
Speaker 1: were working like two hundred and fifty nights a year,

904
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: and we were broke. Were like two guys to a

905
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:40,840
Speaker 1: holiday in eating Handburgs and riding around in a step

906
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 1: van with one roadie, you know, doing gig after gig

907
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,640
Speaker 1: after gig after gig, and then going to Europe and

908
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:50,279
Speaker 1: making the records and then coming back and going to

909
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:53,040
Speaker 1: Europe and tour and not being paid at all for that,

910
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: and you know, we were really struggling and um. On

911
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,520
Speaker 1: the way to hear Up, I was in a car

912
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 1: wreck in New York. We were going to the airport,

913
00:54:04,520 --> 00:54:08,839
Speaker 1: and I had a new guy who was driving, and

914
00:54:08,880 --> 00:54:11,160
Speaker 1: we were in tandem. You know, there were three of

915
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: us in a convoy. And I said, listen, Convoy driving

916
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,919
Speaker 1: is different. You can't go through a yellow light. You're

917
00:54:18,080 --> 00:54:21,440
Speaker 1: leading the convoy or the guy in the back. You know,

918
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:25,040
Speaker 1: you you everything. You gotta slow down and you gotta

919
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: get everybody through. We can't lose the third car, got it? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

920
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 1: just right into it. You know, and screwing up and

921
00:54:34,120 --> 00:54:37,520
Speaker 1: he's going through the singing, and I was really concern

922
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 1: and I would turn like this, and we got rear

923
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:44,440
Speaker 1: ended it about thirty five and I got a hairline

924
00:54:44,520 --> 00:54:47,640
Speaker 1: fracture in my neck. You felt it when it happened.

925
00:54:47,920 --> 00:54:52,560
Speaker 1: Oh man, you know, you know how everybody used to

926
00:54:52,600 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 1: laugh at people that had suffered with flash. I felt

927
00:54:55,160 --> 00:54:58,000
Speaker 1: like every joint in my body had crushed glass in

928
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,080
Speaker 1: it for six months. I'm mean, if I didn't keep

929
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:03,520
Speaker 1: moving all the time, if I went to sleep, I'd

930
00:55:03,520 --> 00:55:05,080
Speaker 1: wake up and got to go like, I don't want

931
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: to move my wrist. It really was. So it didn't

932
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: work for a year or so. And during that, you know,

933
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:20,799
Speaker 1: I started thinking, Wow, you know, I'm kind of like

934
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: it me at the end of my deal. Here, I'm like,

935
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:27,040
Speaker 1: this is the seventh album is coming up, and nobody's

936
00:55:27,080 --> 00:55:30,920
Speaker 1: calling me from Capitol Records. Hey, you know we you know,

937
00:55:31,160 --> 00:55:32,680
Speaker 1: you and your lawyer need to come in here. We

938
00:55:32,719 --> 00:55:37,160
Speaker 1: need to talk about where going forward. Nothing And I

939
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,319
Speaker 1: had so a lot of albums, but they just were

940
00:55:39,400 --> 00:55:41,880
Speaker 1: I was just off their radar. I was fighting with

941
00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 1: them all the time. And this kid came to my

942
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:48,359
Speaker 1: house and he delivered some wood and Mr Miller, would

943
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,680
Speaker 1: you listen to my cassette? And yeah, sure, I put

944
00:55:50,680 --> 00:55:53,200
Speaker 1: it on. I went, God, I'm sitting here arguing with

945
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: fifty year old men who don't like me, don't understand me,

946
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: and this kid writes better songs, and I do it.

947
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:03,360
Speaker 1: Least I've got a contract. He's delivering wood to my house.

948
00:56:04,600 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go down and make a record. So

949
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: I went to make The Joker. I got the band

950
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 1: in for two days. I cut a bunch of R

951
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:14,920
Speaker 1: and B tunes. Quickly, I thought I was at the

952
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:18,759
Speaker 1: end of my career. I wasn't some oh boy, this

953
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,440
Speaker 1: is the Joker's a hit single, that's a pop too old,

954
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 1: that something, you know, And I figured, man, I'm done,

955
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:31,680
Speaker 1: you know, twenty three to thirty something, and and I um,

956
00:56:31,800 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: I go in and it's I got rid of all

957
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:38,040
Speaker 1: my producers. Is the first record that I produced myself,

958
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:42,880
Speaker 1: was the Last Chance, my last record. And I finished

959
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:46,880
Speaker 1: the album in seventeen days. I had a very brief

960
00:56:46,920 --> 00:56:51,000
Speaker 1: meeting with you know, some people of Capitol Records finished it.

961
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: And then that afternoon, you know, we we snuck into

962
00:56:54,000 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: like the executive room and like found out their speakers

963
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:00,439
Speaker 1: were out of phase and fixed all that a back

964
00:57:00,640 --> 00:57:03,440
Speaker 1: stuff so that when we actually played it for them,

965
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: they could hear it properly. I mean, it was amazing

966
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:10,360
Speaker 1: how incompetent that they were there and played it. And

967
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: this one kid goes, I think the Joker sounds like

968
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,400
Speaker 1: a hit single to me. Kid in the room, and

969
00:57:15,520 --> 00:57:17,720
Speaker 1: I hand him a piece of paper and I said, look,

970
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: here's a list of sixty cities I'm going to play in.

971
00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 1: And these are sixty cities. You need to have the

972
00:57:23,360 --> 00:57:26,040
Speaker 1: albums and records stories when I get there. You guys

973
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 1: am not paying any attention to where I play. And

974
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,479
Speaker 1: you need when I go to you know, Gross Point

975
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 1: in Michigan to play at ann Arbor, you know, for

976
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: the University of Michigan, you need to have five thousand

977
00:57:39,560 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: records in town because I'm gonna go play to thousands

978
00:57:42,560 --> 00:57:45,080
Speaker 1: of people there, and you know, and they were just

979
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:51,040
Speaker 1: that's the argument left town and the Joker came out

980
00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:54,600
Speaker 1: and it went viral. What we call going viral right now,

981
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: Capital records and spending money, and they didn't promote it.

982
00:57:57,600 --> 00:57:59,960
Speaker 1: They just you know, printed some copies and sent him out.

983
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:03,840
Speaker 1: Off it went and when I got back three months

984
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:06,480
Speaker 1: later after doing the sixty Cities, I was I was

985
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: driving to the theater, the Fox Theater in Oakland to

986
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: go play another small little gig and The Joker was

987
00:58:13,800 --> 00:58:16,480
Speaker 1: on four radio stations at the same time, and I

988
00:58:16,560 --> 00:58:19,400
Speaker 1: was angry because it was not all five major radio

989
00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:22,240
Speaker 1: stations since Everrances. They were only five then, and I

990
00:58:22,320 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it's here, who it's there? It was there.

991
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:27,040
Speaker 1: They were playing it twice an hour, twenty four hours

992
00:58:27,040 --> 00:58:29,680
Speaker 1: a day for a year on every AM radio station

993
00:58:30,040 --> 00:58:33,120
Speaker 1: in the United States. And so I went from this

994
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 1: underground guy who couldn't even talk to a DJ. I

995
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 1: couldn't get arrested before that, but no television, no nothing,

996
00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: and and um, you know, to king of AM radio.

997
00:58:44,760 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 1: So it's time for new contract then. So when you

998
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:52,000
Speaker 1: were writing The Joker, did you have any sense that, oh,

999
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 1: this is the one. I mean, the guitar lick is

1000
00:58:54,640 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 1: kind of unique and kind of really different. So I

1001
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 1: was really slow. It's really it's got a great groove, right,

1002
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,919
Speaker 1: it's laid back, but it's so different than anything you did.

1003
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: Did you you had no sense and you know, this

1004
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:13,479
Speaker 1: something really something happening. Yeah, I'd stop thinking about singles. Really, Yeah,

1005
00:59:14,120 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 1: so you do the new contracts and then the next

1006
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:22,160
Speaker 1: two albums are just monstrosity. Yeah. So I come back

1007
00:59:22,160 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: from that tour and is so good right back in

1008
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:27,680
Speaker 1: the studio, come on, make another one. I'm call it

1009
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:32,080
Speaker 1: my agent, Milt Leave. I said, Milt, I'm taking a

1010
00:59:32,160 --> 00:59:36,440
Speaker 1: year off work. Last night anyway, what you know, And

1011
00:59:36,480 --> 00:59:39,040
Speaker 1: I said, I'm taking a year off man, I'm exhausted.

1012
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:41,080
Speaker 1: I'm so burned out, you know. It took the band

1013
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: into the studio. We're there for two days, and I

1014
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: just went, let's get figured they were just wasting money.

1015
00:59:46,960 --> 00:59:53,240
Speaker 1: And uh then I went back to California and and

1016
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: there was a check for three five thousand dollars in

1017
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: my mailbox with the junk mail for for what for

1018
01:00:01,840 --> 01:00:08,919
Speaker 1: the joker? Oh that was all the radio. Really, Hey,

1019
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:13,320
Speaker 1: I think I'll maybe a house. Maybe we'll go back

1020
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: into the Let's get an eight track tape recorder and

1021
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:18,040
Speaker 1: put it in the house. And so I put it in.

1022
01:00:18,320 --> 01:00:21,479
Speaker 1: I bought a house. I bought a new house. Where

1023
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: was that in Nevato, California, Just the past Mill Valley,

1024
01:00:26,920 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: a little bit north of the city. And and I,

1025
01:00:31,120 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: uh put an eight track tape recorder in there, Dick

1026
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:37,960
Speaker 1: sweating him the guy had met in UH nine seven

1027
01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: at the Olympic Studios built me my own little board,

1028
01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 1: the first one that where you could have stereo panning

1029
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:48,479
Speaker 1: and eight separate tracks for a headphone set, and did

1030
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 1: some technology things like that, and I started work on

1031
01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 1: Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams, and I

1032
01:00:55,280 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: did them both at the same time, just like with

1033
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 1: the Beatles when they were ahead went I'm gonna get

1034
01:01:01,080 --> 01:01:03,640
Speaker 1: ahead of this. I'm gonna have thirty songs. So you

1035
01:01:03,680 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 1: were you were paying attention and learning from from your experience.

1036
01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:09,040
Speaker 1: When I turned in Fly Like an Eagle, Book at

1037
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:11,360
Speaker 1: James was done and that did you let them know

1038
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 1: that or you held that back? No, I didn't tell

1039
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: him anything. So before we get to the books, because

1040
01:01:17,280 --> 01:01:19,960
Speaker 1: there is stuff that I want to talk about. Um,

1041
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:25,680
Speaker 1: there's some really interesting electronic effects in both of those

1042
01:01:26,400 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 1: and what otherwise could have been an intro to a

1043
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 1: song is separated as a separate cut, and I read

1044
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:37,120
Speaker 1: somewhere that that was done on purpose. Well, I was

1045
01:01:37,360 --> 01:01:42,160
Speaker 1: very interested in electronic music way before this all started.

1046
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:46,240
Speaker 1: I was into stock housing in the early sixties and

1047
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:53,320
Speaker 1: that was all electronic music. And I met Stockhausing. I

1048
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:55,640
Speaker 1: went to Germany and met him and watched him do

1049
01:01:55,840 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: recording sessions and stuff, and and those seg ways were

1050
01:02:00,880 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 1: pieces of music. Now Capitol Records just want to go, oh,

1051
01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:08,440
Speaker 1: that's just nothing to but the segways and Fly like

1052
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:11,919
Speaker 1: an Eagle. That album was designed so you couldn't take

1053
01:02:12,000 --> 01:02:16,240
Speaker 1: it off the turntable. And and those in those interstitials

1054
01:02:16,480 --> 01:02:21,480
Speaker 1: are so musically interesting and transition from song to songs.

1055
01:02:21,600 --> 01:02:24,439
Speaker 1: So when they were longer than a certain amount of time,

1056
01:02:24,480 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 1: I I copy wrote them. I mean I had them

1057
01:02:27,720 --> 01:02:32,080
Speaker 1: copy written as compositions song as they are. And you know,

1058
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:36,120
Speaker 1: I remember taking a scuba diving course one time in

1059
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:42,240
Speaker 1: Hawaii and kind of went in for the class and hey, hey,

1060
01:02:42,880 --> 01:02:45,040
Speaker 1: and they had stolen my music and used it in

1061
01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:48,960
Speaker 1: their diving films. People used that stuff all over the world. Man,

1062
01:02:49,040 --> 01:02:53,280
Speaker 1: that that was like hot sauce to people. Jet Jetliner

1063
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: and all all those you know, the segue into Fly

1064
01:02:58,960 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 1: like an Eagle, all that off is used and it's

1065
01:03:02,280 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: licensed and they are compositions. Well that turns out to

1066
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 1: be very um pressing and fortuitous to go to my thesaurus,

1067
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:17,600
Speaker 1: because those two albums sold exceedingly well, and pretty much

1068
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:22,560
Speaker 1: the greatest hits is the bulk of those um as

1069
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: well as a couple of other um other covers. Uh

1070
01:03:28,000 --> 01:03:32,880
Speaker 1: you sent me if I'm remembering that, that was a

1071
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:35,479
Speaker 1: beautiful version of that song. Like you don't, you don't

1072
01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:37,000
Speaker 1: do a lot of covers. You don't do a lot

1073
01:03:37,040 --> 01:03:42,840
Speaker 1: of other people's No, you know, I, um, actually I have.

1074
01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:46,680
Speaker 1: You know, it's just the stuff I've written over shadows

1075
01:03:46,680 --> 01:03:48,760
Speaker 1: that I've done lots of covers. That's not true. I've

1076
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:51,920
Speaker 1: done lots of Jimmy Read tunes and lots of blue stuff,

1077
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: done lots of you know, let your Hair Down and

1078
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:58,760
Speaker 1: Bingo were all covers, and so I've done. If you

1079
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:01,600
Speaker 1: guess you take the the full body of work and

1080
01:04:01,680 --> 01:04:05,480
Speaker 1: you say how many covers, you know, maybe it's like

1081
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:10,360
Speaker 1: sevent original twenty five percent other people's material. I was.

1082
01:04:11,560 --> 01:04:13,680
Speaker 1: I was listening to Bengo this morning. I like it

1083
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: a lot. I'm surprised. Um, well, back to the roots,

1084
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:19,720
Speaker 1: back to the blues. It's really Yeah, those were great

1085
01:04:19,760 --> 01:04:22,680
Speaker 1: tunes that and that sounded like you're having fun doing it,

1086
01:04:23,240 --> 01:04:25,760
Speaker 1: which leads me to a question we skipped before, So

1087
01:04:26,240 --> 01:04:29,160
Speaker 1: what sort of stuff. Do you really enjoy playing? And

1088
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:32,960
Speaker 1: then we'll jump right into the books. Well, I you know,

1089
01:04:33,040 --> 01:04:37,080
Speaker 1: this is sounds pretty stocked, But I really loved playing

1090
01:04:37,280 --> 01:04:42,040
Speaker 1: my music with my band. I mean, I'm tomorrow, I'm

1091
01:04:42,080 --> 01:04:45,520
Speaker 1: flying to Chicago and I'm playing tomorrow night and I

1092
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 1: can't wait. Really, yeah, you said you're coming up on

1093
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 1: fifty years. You still love to hit the stage? Is

1094
01:04:51,440 --> 01:04:55,959
Speaker 1: still love performing? I love the interaction between a live

1095
01:04:56,000 --> 01:04:59,480
Speaker 1: audience and a live band. And all my songs are

1096
01:04:59,520 --> 01:05:02,680
Speaker 1: sort of just signed where there's some spontaneity. I learned

1097
01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:07,160
Speaker 1: from jazz and blues. That's what I really the people

1098
01:05:07,200 --> 01:05:09,440
Speaker 1: I learned from. And you know, when I was watching

1099
01:05:09,520 --> 01:05:11,920
Speaker 1: les Pa, i was five years old. He was soloing

1100
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:15,280
Speaker 1: like a bandit and it was all spontaneous and it

1101
01:05:15,320 --> 01:05:18,600
Speaker 1: wasn't the same note note every night. It was always different.

1102
01:05:18,880 --> 01:05:24,360
Speaker 1: And I learned that. So it's like you don't know

1103
01:05:24,480 --> 01:05:29,840
Speaker 1: exactly what's gonna happen. I compared to like playing basketball

1104
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:34,440
Speaker 1: in the playoff level. It's the playoffs. Okay, you've just

1105
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:38,320
Speaker 1: done you know, played you know, ninety games or whatever

1106
01:05:38,360 --> 01:05:40,680
Speaker 1: it is, and now it's in the new six week

1107
01:05:40,760 --> 01:05:43,600
Speaker 1: season to get to the final, and you gotta take

1108
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:46,880
Speaker 1: it up a notch. You gotta be really good every night.

1109
01:05:47,160 --> 01:05:49,440
Speaker 1: You don't want to be so good you're flat the

1110
01:05:49,520 --> 01:05:51,919
Speaker 1: next night. You don't want to ever be flat ever

1111
01:05:52,560 --> 01:05:56,320
Speaker 1: you wanted. At this high professional level, everybody's dialed in,

1112
01:05:56,440 --> 01:06:00,720
Speaker 1: everybody's paying attention. Everything set up and it's like basketball.

1113
01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: The ball bounces on the floor and then the game

1114
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:08,520
Speaker 1: starts and it's a different way around the court for

1115
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:11,600
Speaker 1: each song. And so that's what I really I love that,

1116
01:06:11,760 --> 01:06:13,920
Speaker 1: And I mean I love playing blues. I like playing

1117
01:06:14,240 --> 01:06:18,080
Speaker 1: eclectic blues tunes like Louisiana Blues, forty four blues that

1118
01:06:18,080 --> 01:06:21,320
Speaker 1: I have these odd rhythm signatures and they're kind of

1119
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: Delta Appalachian, kind of early American things, you know that

1120
01:06:27,320 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 1: got pulled out of Memphis and up to Chicago. That

1121
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:33,240
Speaker 1: stuff is fascinating to me. So so we've talked about

1122
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,640
Speaker 1: your music, We've talked about your guitar collection. How did

1123
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 1: you get involved with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and

1124
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:42,600
Speaker 1: a couple of shows that you've you've done with them.

1125
01:06:42,800 --> 01:06:47,000
Speaker 1: What I've decided to move to New York four years ago.

1126
01:06:47,280 --> 01:06:50,360
Speaker 1: I always wanted to live here just because of the culture,

1127
01:06:51,520 --> 01:06:56,200
Speaker 1: and um Rudy Penza who has a music store of Rudy's.

1128
01:06:56,880 --> 01:06:59,400
Speaker 1: I've been working for the longest time to get the

1129
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:03,280
Speaker 1: Metropolito Aton to do uh a guitar show. And it

1130
01:07:03,400 --> 01:07:07,959
Speaker 1: was called Guitar Heroes, Legendary Craftsman from Italy to New York.

1131
01:07:08,560 --> 01:07:12,520
Speaker 1: It was about arch top jazz guitars like Bucky Plays.

1132
01:07:12,880 --> 01:07:16,520
Speaker 1: You know John's dad and John you know those are

1133
01:07:16,640 --> 01:07:21,560
Speaker 1: arch top guitars. Well, that guitar comes straight from Strata

1134
01:07:21,600 --> 01:07:26,400
Speaker 1: By It's just started in fourteen ninety nine or whatever

1135
01:07:26,400 --> 01:07:29,440
Speaker 1: it was. And they've been making those instruments, right, And

1136
01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:32,640
Speaker 1: there were some Italian guys in New York, di Equisto

1137
01:07:33,080 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 1: being you know, one of them in Diangelico being one

1138
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 1: in monteleone, right, So they decided they were going to

1139
01:07:40,560 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 1: do a show at the met on these guitars. Oh,

1140
01:07:46,160 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 1: Steve Miller, you have seven di aquesto guitars. Jimmy was

1141
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:53,160
Speaker 1: a really good friend of mine. He made my instruments.

1142
01:07:53,200 --> 01:07:55,520
Speaker 1: They were the best instruments in the world. Those are

1143
01:07:55,560 --> 01:07:59,280
Speaker 1: the ones I wanted to play. And um, can we

1144
01:07:59,400 --> 01:08:02,120
Speaker 1: use three of your instruments at the Metropolitan Museum. And

1145
01:08:02,120 --> 01:08:04,320
Speaker 1: I was gonna go well, you know, hey, you know,

1146
01:08:04,520 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. And I'm talking to him from Sun Valley, Idaho,

1147
01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 1: where I live and at my studio. Right they said,

1148
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:15,040
Speaker 1: it an air condition humidified air ride druck from New

1149
01:08:15,120 --> 01:08:17,719
Speaker 1: York to Sun Valley to pick up the three guitars

1150
01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:20,800
Speaker 1: and take them back to the met Very impressive. So

1151
01:08:20,840 --> 01:08:23,080
Speaker 1: I said, all right, all right. So they said, well, look,

1152
01:08:23,120 --> 01:08:24,519
Speaker 1: we know you're going to be in New York. Why

1153
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:26,920
Speaker 1: don't you come by and say hi and we'll do

1154
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:28,840
Speaker 1: a little video interview. I said, I'd love to. So

1155
01:08:28,880 --> 01:08:31,080
Speaker 1: I go in and I meet all the people in

1156
01:08:31,160 --> 01:08:34,640
Speaker 1: music instrument department, and I meet Jason Dabney and I

1157
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:37,280
Speaker 1: meet Sally Brown, and there's like I'm in a room

1158
01:08:37,320 --> 01:08:41,400
Speaker 1: and there's like forty t Angelico guitars or something good.

1159
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:43,120
Speaker 1: You want to play this one? You want to try

1160
01:08:43,160 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: that one? And and I'm looking at him and I said,

1161
01:08:45,479 --> 01:08:47,960
Speaker 1: you guys are going to have a concert, right, you

1162
01:08:48,040 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 1: got a theater here, And they said a concert? How

1163
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:55,600
Speaker 1: would we do that? And I said, well, let me

1164
01:08:55,640 --> 01:08:58,080
Speaker 1: put a concert together for you. I mean, you should

1165
01:08:58,080 --> 01:09:01,000
Speaker 1: do that. So I really liked them, They really liked me.

1166
01:09:01,280 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 1: I helped him put a concert together. They said, we

1167
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 1: want you to join the board of the musical instrument

1168
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:08,800
Speaker 1: department at the met So I said, I'll do it.

1169
01:09:09,400 --> 01:09:12,879
Speaker 1: So now that after that, then we did the Martin

1170
01:09:13,240 --> 01:09:18,280
Speaker 1: Show and we're now we're redesigning the gallery. So I

1171
01:09:18,320 --> 01:09:22,800
Speaker 1: just slid into town and took over the Metropolitan Museum. No,

1172
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:25,479
Speaker 1: I mean I was invited, you know, I'm just by luck.

1173
01:09:25,840 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: And and you know, the same thing happened at Jazz

1174
01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:31,439
Speaker 1: at Lincoln Center. I went to see went and play,

1175
01:09:31,560 --> 01:09:34,040
Speaker 1: and he said, I want you to help me put

1176
01:09:34,080 --> 01:09:37,480
Speaker 1: the blues pedagogy together for Jazz at Lincoln Center. We

1177
01:09:37,479 --> 01:09:40,040
Speaker 1: we don't know what the hell we're doing, and we

1178
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,480
Speaker 1: need to teach this and we need to design these programs.

1179
01:09:43,479 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 1: And the next thing I know, I ended up on

1180
01:09:45,880 --> 01:09:50,720
Speaker 1: that board. And and so you've become real cultural as

1181
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:54,439
Speaker 1: part of new really have jumped right into the heart

1182
01:09:54,520 --> 01:10:00,000
Speaker 1: of it, and have found that so many people receptive

1183
01:10:00,040 --> 01:10:02,920
Speaker 1: of my ideas. And maybe I'm giving Alan Grubman a

1184
01:10:02,920 --> 01:10:07,280
Speaker 1: hard time. He deserves a hard time. You know. Uh,

1185
01:10:07,320 --> 01:10:10,360
Speaker 1: there's a lot of great culture here and there's so

1186
01:10:10,520 --> 01:10:13,719
Speaker 1: many great people working. I mean, I've met so many

1187
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,600
Speaker 1: interesting people in the projects I'm working on now a

1188
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:20,519
Speaker 1: ton of energy in the are really wonderful projects in

1189
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:23,480
Speaker 1: the circles of support around all of it is amazing,

1190
01:10:23,560 --> 01:10:26,439
Speaker 1: and the educational reach of it is all great. That's

1191
01:10:26,439 --> 01:10:28,120
Speaker 1: why I can look at the Rock and Roll Hall

1192
01:10:28,120 --> 01:10:30,439
Speaker 1: of Fame and just smack those guys around and say

1193
01:10:30,479 --> 01:10:33,080
Speaker 1: you need to wake up. They're telling me we have

1194
01:10:33,200 --> 01:10:35,760
Speaker 1: to wrap you have places to go. Okay, I got

1195
01:10:35,800 --> 01:10:38,680
Speaker 1: lots of other questions. We have to we have to

1196
01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:40,639
Speaker 1: bring you back. And I want to get your readers

1197
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:44,000
Speaker 1: some books. Yeah, okay, can we do a quick book

1198
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 1: run really quick? Okay, so you know your readers, your listeners, listeners.

1199
01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:53,599
Speaker 1: Here's a list of great books for you to read. Okay.

1200
01:10:53,800 --> 01:10:57,320
Speaker 1: In other Words by Anthony da Curtis, really interesting articles

1201
01:10:57,360 --> 01:11:01,000
Speaker 1: about musicians. These are all music books. Alta Blues by

1202
01:11:01,200 --> 01:11:06,400
Speaker 1: Ted Joya last trained to Memphis, Peter very Famous, Sam Phillips,

1203
01:11:06,400 --> 01:11:09,120
Speaker 1: A Man who vented rock and Roll by Peter Girl

1204
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:12,760
Speaker 1: nick Um, How Music Got Free by Stephen With That

1205
01:11:12,880 --> 01:11:15,960
Speaker 1: is literally sitting on my night table, the red red

1206
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:19,519
Speaker 1: cover right. The Loudest Voice in the Room by Gabriel Sherman,

1207
01:11:19,600 --> 01:11:22,400
Speaker 1: which is, yeah, that's do you have to read that

1208
01:11:23,000 --> 01:11:28,160
Speaker 1: his New York Magazine stories have propelled of course. And

1209
01:11:28,160 --> 01:11:32,280
Speaker 1: and I'm Your Man by Sylvie Simmons Simmons, which is

1210
01:11:32,280 --> 01:11:35,120
Speaker 1: a book about Leonard Cohen that's fascinating. So you want

1211
01:11:35,160 --> 01:11:37,679
Speaker 1: to read some musical biographies. And then the last one,

1212
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:40,679
Speaker 1: I recommend to everyone if you really want to laugh,

1213
01:11:41,840 --> 01:11:47,280
Speaker 1: get the Eddie Fisher bio. It's it's unbelievably, it's hilarious. Um.

1214
01:11:47,320 --> 01:11:52,799
Speaker 1: I saw k D. Lange do a version of Leonard

1215
01:11:52,880 --> 01:11:58,400
Speaker 1: Cohen's Hallelujah that makes the hair on my name unbelieve.

1216
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:03,360
Speaker 1: She did a version of the joke her no kidding, Yeah,

1217
01:12:03,400 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 1: and she did, she did. She was the only person

1218
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:08,599
Speaker 1: that's covered the joker and nailed it. We're gonna have

1219
01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:10,759
Speaker 1: to have you back. I have so many more questions

1220
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:12,759
Speaker 1: for you. Next time. I want you to bring the guitar.

1221
01:12:12,880 --> 01:12:15,360
Speaker 1: We'll we'll play a couple of songs. You know I

1222
01:12:15,439 --> 01:12:20,040
Speaker 1: can do that next time you're in town. Um, we've

1223
01:12:20,040 --> 01:12:25,160
Speaker 1: been speaking to the one and only Steve Miller. Um

1224
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 1: um le defense. That's right, Uh A rack contour in

1225
01:12:29,400 --> 01:12:34,080
Speaker 1: a difference in addition to being a UH singer, songwriter, guitarist.

1226
01:12:34,400 --> 01:12:38,560
Speaker 1: That that's that's exactly right. UM. If you enjoy this conversation,

1227
01:12:38,640 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 1: be sure and look up an Inch or down an

1228
01:12:40,200 --> 01:12:43,960
Speaker 1: Inch on iTunes, where the other hundred and nine of

1229
01:12:44,000 --> 01:12:47,000
Speaker 1: these are available for free download. That's how much I

1230
01:12:47,040 --> 01:12:50,320
Speaker 1: make from iTunes. Is exactly this, UM. I would be

1231
01:12:50,360 --> 01:12:54,240
Speaker 1: remiss if I did not think Charlie Volmer, my recording engineer,

1232
01:12:54,360 --> 01:12:58,200
Speaker 1: Taylor Riggs, my booker. UM, you've been listening to Masters

1233
01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:00,439
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio two