WEBVTT - Steve Poltz 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.880 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftstts Podcast. My 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:17.119 guest today is the one and only Steve Holtz. Steve, 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:18.640 where are you right now? 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.439 I'm in Sydney, Australia and it is Thursday morning? 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.000 And how do you end up in Sydney? 0:00:26.440 --> 0:00:30.040 Well, it's my twenty second time over here and I'm 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:31.880 on a tour. I'm on my way up to play 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.839 Byron Bay Blues Fest. And so that is how I 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:38.239 ended up in Sydney. I played a show last night 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.159 that win till about midnight at a really cool club 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.960 and it was packed. And the night before I was 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.640 in Newcastle and so I'm here on the road my 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:49.599 twenty second time. Can't believe it. 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.360 Okay, let's go back to the beginning. How do you 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:55.320 go to Australia the first time? 0:00:55.960 --> 0:01:00.520 The first time I went to Australia, I was invited 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:03.800 to come over with Jewel and we had put together 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:09.040 a band with myself and Tony Hall playing bass, Brady 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:12.840 Blade on drums, Doug Pettybone on electric guitar, and Steve 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.559 George on keys. And Steve George was in a band 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.839 called Mister Mister and he had written a song called 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:22.800 Currie Eleys song and take these Broken Wings, and we 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:26.080 put together this band and Jewel had had this hit 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.000 record out and so I went over and I got 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:31.680 to open the shows and be in her band. And 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:34.600 that's what first brought me to Australia back in nineteen 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:35.440 ninety nine. 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:42.960 Okay, twenty two times. Almost no music lact is going 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:45.840 to Australia twenty two times, So explain how you keep 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:46.520 going back. 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:50.840 I have boundless energy, and so Australia has become kind 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:53.840 of just like another tour stop to me. I live 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.120 in Nashville, and it's like, oh, do you want to 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:58.480 go to Louisville and play a show? It's that easy 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:00.720 for me now. I just think, oh yeah, I'll fly 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.080 down to Melbourne, Australia, and then hit Sydney and go 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.079 to Tasmania. I love it, and so I've always kept 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.800 coming back, and I rent cars and I drive on 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:14.080 the left side of the road, use my iPhone for 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.639 the maps, and I just always end up at the 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.799 gigs and I've never quit coming back. So it's become 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.079 a regular tour stop. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.040 Okay, you want to play Australia, do you have an 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:27.520 agent that books the dates. How do you line up 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:29.440 the dates? Yes? 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:32.639 So I at the time, the first time I came 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:34.720 over here, I was on CIA and I had this 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.520 agent named Rick Roskin, so he booked the tour and 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.600 then Frontier, a big agency down here, brought Jewel over 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.680 and then they saw me play when I opened and 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.880 they said, how would you like to come back? We'll 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.359 bring you back. So that was how it started here. 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:54.000 But now I have my own agent. He's a smaller agency, 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.640 and he saw me play somewhere and said he wanted 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.680 to work with me, and that's what me back and 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.040 keeps me coming back. And there's so many festivals I 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:03.520 can play. 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:07.040 Okay, so if you go to Australia, how many gigs 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:07.800 can you play? 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.760 Oh my gosh. Now, when most people come here, they'll 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:15.639 do like maybe four gigs. I'll do like twenty to thirty. 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.960 It's crazy because I go to all these little country 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.040 towns now and they sell out. And like I was 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.240 just in a little place called Archie's Creek and you'll 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.960 get three hundred people in there. They make you a 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.079 great meal and you're hanging out with all these crazy 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.680 Australians and every night it's just like a new thing, 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:35.840 and I show up and they go all out for 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:37.640 the shows, and they're just so welcoming. 0:03:38.720 --> 0:03:39.560 How do they know you? 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:44.360 And Archie's creak just over the twenty two years, like 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:47.560 everything in my career has been built with my hands, 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.360 just playing live shows, and then people talk about the 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:54.200 live shows, and every show I just go out and 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.840 I give all the effort I can and then they 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.640 tell their people and everything just keeps happening and it 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.600 slowly grows. So it's the most organic thing ever. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:08.680 Is it lucrative for you to go to Australia? 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.280 It really is, believe it or not. Like I go 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:14.800 over here and I make money. I actually have an 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:19.599 Australian tax accountant who is in co He works with 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.160 my accountant in the United States, and he just can't 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:27.080 believe because I bring over so much merch and I'm 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:33.440 slinging T shirts, tope bags, hats, Vinyl records, CDs and 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.520 it just goes on and on and I sell all 0:04:36.560 --> 0:04:40.440 this merch and my wife is my tour manager, and 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.680 we're just like a dog and pony show and we 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.800 go in and we just sell merch. We play shows 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.920 and every night it's just a blast. And then the 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:50.839 next day I'm headed to another city. 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.680 Now you have hardcore fans, but for those who have 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:58.080 never seen a Steve Poltz show, do your best to 0:04:58.120 --> 0:04:58.840 describe it. 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.839 Well, it's kind of madness because I've never used a 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:06.960 set list in my life, and I never know what's 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.680 going to happen. So I have fans, like last night 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.279 fans that came three shows in a row from different cities. 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.520 They drive. It's like the Grateful Dead fans or something, 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:19.120 and they're never going to get the same show twice. 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.599 So what it is is I just go out and 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:25.040 I just sort of feel the room and I can 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:28.320 feel the energy of everybody, and I slowly take them 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.719 on a two hour journey. And I've tried to really 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:38.200 learn to play fewer songs, like because for a while 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.599 I was doing four hour shows and I realized, you know, 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:44.480 there's got to be a beginning, a middle, and an end. 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:46.160 So I've learned to pair it down. 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:51.039 Okay, if every show is different, you know, back in 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:54.239 the old days of classic rock, you'd go to see 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.240 acts in different cities who would have the exact same pattern. Okay, 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.279 your stories are different. I mean, how much is prepared 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:06.680 how much have you told the stories before? How much 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:08.159 are you making up that night. 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:13.760 Well, I'll have stories that'll be a rough outline, and 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.120 they're always changing. It's like if you took a pack 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:18.919 of tortillas and they were in saran wrap and you 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:21.520 nailed them to a wall and they slowly got mold 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.840 and the mold grew on them. That's the stories. They 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.080 change and they blend in for whatever city I'm in, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.240 and then I'll talk about what happened that day. So 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.600 the thing I've learned is if I go on stage 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.440 and just talk about what I did that day, something 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:40.760 funny is going to come out of it. And I'm 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.279 going to take the piss out of the audience, make 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.320 fun of their accent and what I did that day, 0:06:46.400 --> 0:06:50.040 and hopefully have them all smiling and feeling good. I 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:52.400 always want like a sense of redemption by the end 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:55.440 of the show, where everybody's just up there on their 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.560 feet and they're just feeling really good. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.440 Okay, so what happened yesterday that was worth talking about? 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.279 Okay, So for instance, last night, I got on stage 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:11.640 and I had written a little story about I told 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:13.920 people that they need to start creating, because if you 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:19.240 have friends over for dinner. What I said is you 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:23.640 should have them prepare a poem that they wrote, because 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.600 if you write something, it will feel good for you, 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:30.200 and then to perform it will make you feel nervous. 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.960 And the body makes its own drugs, and who here 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.960 doesn't love drugs. That's what I told the audience. And 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:41.000 so I want you guys to feel good, and so 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.400 I would give them an example of a poem. And 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.360 it doesn't have to rhyme, but you just go up 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.680 and you get to do this poem and it makes 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:53.360 it so much fun. So, for instance, last night I 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:57.400 was on stage and I just I remember I was 0:07:57.440 --> 0:08:04.480 sitting there and I said, dear Diary, this was my poem. 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.360 I took a shower and used doctor Bronner's peppermint hemp 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:13.000 hippie soap. It smells so good. I washed my armpits 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.280 and my bum and my private parts. And then I 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.320 thought to myself, I need to wash my feet too. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.280 The water in the shower isn't going to just clean them. 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.080 I should scrub them with his hand towel and soap. 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.240 Now I'm sixty four years old, So I lifted up 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.920 my foot and scrubbed it real good with the soap 0:08:33.480 --> 0:08:36.400 every little toe. It felt so good and clean, like 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.680 I was doing God's work. Then I washed my other 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.240 foot and that felt good too. I was so happy 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.240 and proud that my feet were clean. Then I thought 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.600 I should scrub my butthole because I have this hand 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.240 towel and lots of soap. But then I was worried 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.720 that the foot germs might get into my butt like 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.480 athlete's foot, so I scrubbed my buttole anyways, and then 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:00.120 I had to pee in I thought to my so 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:02.400 I should wait till I get out of the shower 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:04.880 and pee in the toilet. But then I looked around 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.240 and Sharon wasn't in the bathroom, and I obviously wasn't 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.800 live streaming. So I peed real good like, and I 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.320 watched it all go down the drain, and it felt 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.959 like I was doing something bad and that felt good 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.160 to me. So I got out of the shower and 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.120 dried off. Now I can't sleep because as I was 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.800 drying off, I looked in the mirror and my balls 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.280 looked terry. So I thought I'd try shaving them, even 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.840 though I'd never shaved them before. It just seemed like 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:37.480 an impulsive decision. So I tried it, but I accidentally 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.280 got a cut on my scrotum and red blood dripped 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.400 into the white sink. It looked really cool, like art, 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:48.040 and I like art. Then I signed my name in 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.679 the sink with a swirly S and a swirly P. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.760 But then Sharon walked into the bathroom as I was 0:09:53.800 --> 0:09:56.640 stretching my ball sack and looking at the blood, and 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:59.560 she goes, what the fuck is wrong with you? And 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:01.560 then some the air scaped out of my butt and 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:04.120 made a party sound. So I decided I should go 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.000 to sleep and not shave my balls anymore, and Sharon 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.400 put a band aid on them. The shaving was a 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.640 bad idea. Thank you God for listening to me, your 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.640 friend Steve. So I did that piece last night because 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.040 I knew it would make me sweat to do that 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.600 on stage, and I just wanted to take them on 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.920 a journey, and see, I like to take a risk. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.280 And then my body makes a drug and that drug 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:32.000 is this adrenaline, and then all limits are off and 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.679 I can sing any song I want because I've taken 0:10:34.720 --> 0:10:37.240 them to a place where I want them to go, 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:40.080 and I want to encourage them to write. 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.040 You mentioned this drug adrenaline. To what degree do you 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:48.520 use or have used recreational drugs or alcohol? 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.840 Oh? Man. It all started when I was young and 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.680 I was an altar boy in the Catholic Church, and 0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.400 I was in Palm Springs, California, at Saint Teresa's and 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:03.080 they had this altar wine and I would drink it. 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:07.200 I called it backstage, and the priest would leave the 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.400 altar wine back there, and I'd go out as the 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.600 altar boy at Saint Teresa's and I would pretend I 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.200 was a French waiter, so I'd bring the wine up 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:20.480 to the priest and when they ring the bells, that 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:24.360 changes the wine into Jesus's blood. This is what they 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:26.640 tell you. So I would go up and pour the 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:29.680 wine into the gold chalice that the priest is holding, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.280 and I would say, this is in nineteen sixty seven, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.880 Goblin Savignon. He would be good with it, Phil Mignon, Goodrea, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:39.320 and then the priest would just look at me and go, 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:43.000 this guy is crazy. And that kind of basically stopped 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:46.240 my altar boy career. And so then I kept drinking, 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.560 and I would have fun drinking, and that led to 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:55.040 marijuana queludes in the seventies led to cocaine, opium, everything, 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:57.880 and then, like any good musician, I ended up in 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.560 rehab nineteen years ago and I haven't had a drink since, 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.560 and my career got better due to not drinking and drugging. 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:12.160 Okay, reab only works if you want to get clean. 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.360 What was the motivation to go to rehab? And why 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:18.680 did it works? People have gone like ten times and 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:19.720 it still hasn't worked. 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.600 The reason it worked for me is because I never 0:12:22.679 --> 0:12:24.880 wanted to do it till I was ready, and I 0:12:25.000 --> 0:12:27.560 knew one day it was going to happen. I just 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.360 could feel I was heading into that direction. And I 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.520 had this best friend of mine named Steve both spelled 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:38.560 fot and we had written a Rugburns song my old band, 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.760 the Rugburns, and the song was called Hitchhiker Joe. It's 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.160 about a cannibalistic hitchhiker that would hitchhike and then he 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.160 would eat you, and so we made a video for 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:53.760 it and everything, and then Steve got into drugs and 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.760 he got stabbed to death in a crack deal that 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:01.760 went awry with some prostitutes, and so I had to 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.120 id him at the Morgue and I had a nervous breakdown. 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.760 And I remember I flew back to San Diego from 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:11.960 being on the road. I've been doing blow all night 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:15.719 and I kind of collapsed at the airport night. There 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:19.040 was this one attorney. I knew this guy, Michael Wilson, 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.120 and I called him and he heard it in my voice. 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.440 He answered the phone. I don't even know how he 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.080 answered the phone because he had secretaries, but he heard 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:29.800 my voice and I said Michael, and he goes Stephen 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:32.720 and he goes, what's up. And I said, I'm in 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.640 big trouble. I've gone insane. And he said, you need 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:38.920 to go right away to this rehab place. And for 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:44.720 some reason, after twenty eight days in rehab, they graduated 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.760 everybody except for me, and they said you need to 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:51.080 do another twenty eight days. So I did another twenty 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:54.200 eight days and then they let me go, and I 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:55.840 remember I got out and I had a show at 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.199 the Belly Up in San Diego Salona Beach, and they 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.679 sent guards with me to make sure I wouldn't drink. 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.559 And then it was weird Bob. I just I didn't 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:08.600 want to drink anymore. I realized I could do more 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.280 damage not drinking and drugging, and it was getting in 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.439 my way of my muse and my creativity. And I 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.560 love not drinking like I love it. It's a drug 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.320 to not be on drugs and to just create and 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.280 take chances and risks. 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.520 Well, I had a similar thing giving up drinking, and 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:31.440 it is liberating in a way that people don't understand. 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:35.520 But let's go back. You're playing these festivals in Australia. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.320 If you play a festival, not everybody knows who you are, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.720 and it's like being an opening act at an arena 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:47.360 for a superstar. It's very frustrating. How do you win 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.680 over a larger audience who is unaware of you and 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:53.000 may not be paying attention. 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.400 It's the greatest thing in the world. So before I 0:14:57.480 --> 0:14:59.840 go out, I say a little prayer to my id 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.800 of whatever the powers that be are in the sky. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.880 Because when I went to rehab, they said you needed 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.720 a higher power, and that higher power was God. And 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:10.840 I had a hard time with the God thing. So 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.040 I made my higher power Neil Young because he was 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.280 a power greater than myself, I figured, and they accepted that. 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.720 So Neil Young became a higher power. And then as 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:22.800 it went on, I had no problem with the God thing, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.800 the idea of that there might be something up there, stronger, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.400 and who knows what it is if it's just a spirit. 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:32.760 So I just say a prayer of thanks. I don't 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:35.800 pray to be good, but I do this visualization thing. 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.240 It only takes me a minute where I picture everybody 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:42.680 on their feet smiling, and I've converted the room and 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.480 it's just going to be I've done some work that 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:48.480 was good. I made people feel good. Maybe I'm down 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:50.800 in the middle of the crowd, maybe I'm on the stage, 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.360 but I love it. I just like coming out with 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.080 whatever I'm feeling. So it's just honest because people can tell. 0:15:58.440 --> 0:16:01.080 And an audience is like a horse, and a horse 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.120 knows when you get on it, if you're scared of it, 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.480 if you come out and let the audience know you're 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.760 in control, they're gonna come along for the ride. And 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:11.400 that's where you really build a fan base because you 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.440 got five thousand people out there. You know, I'll be 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:17.600 playing Newport Folk Festival this summer, or in Australia, I'm 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.840 going to Byron Bay Bluesfest. Probably played a seven thousand 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.840 people and a lot of whom have never seen me, 0:16:24.240 --> 0:16:26.880 and so what you need to do? Do you know? 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:28.280 Do you remember Huey Lewis? 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:30.600 Of course I remember. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:33.560 Yeah, Okay, So there was an article once in Rolling 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:37.920 Stone and Huey Lewis did a quote that I've never forgotten. 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.240 He talked about how he was in a blues band 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.240 in northern California and they were doing cover songs and 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.120 he said, every once in a while they would sneak 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.480 in an original song. And I loved how he said that, 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.040 and he said he called it infiltrate then double cross, 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.560 so he'd suck them in and then double cross them, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:58.360 and then on the break people would come up and go, 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.760 what was that song you did? I loved and he'd say, oh, 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.840 that was an original, and they said that is so good. 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.560 So at a festival you need to infiltrate then double crossing, 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.399 not meaning you're doing covers, but go out. You can't 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:13.280 just go out and talk about shaving your balls in 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.640 the shower. You've got to lure them into your world. 0:17:16.880 --> 0:17:21.200 And then slowly, once they commit to loving you, they're 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.560 with you. They're a part of your tribe. It's amazing. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:28.720 And then you slowly collect people. My buddy Oliver Wood 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.120 from the Wood Brothers has a quote that he told 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.560 me about my career. It's a slow rise to the middle, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:36.879 and that's the best kind of career to have. 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.960 Okay, let's just use that. You're playing to seven thousand people. 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:47.720 Usually an act that's not well known throughout the world 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.960 has to play during the day when the sun is out. 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.000 Do you feel that you have to get all seven 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.199 thousand people interested or you just need three hundred in 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.200 front of the state, What do you say. I'm gonna 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.239 get this three hundred and grow it and grow it. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:07.639 I know that it's going to be successful. It sounds weird, 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:11.240 but I love walking out on stage and there's five 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.680 or seven thousand people and it's just a little cadence 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:20.200 and the voice are the way I may tell a story, slowly, 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:23.000 suck them into my world. And you see people kind 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.760 of touching each other, like what's going on here? And 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.560 then the diehard fans are up front and the energy 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.480 passes from fan to fan. It's crazy. And by the 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:36.879 end of that everybody's over there at the merch area. 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.840 You're selling stuff and I shake everybody's hand. I believe 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:43.680 in the Willie Nelson School of music, you'd always wait 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.679 by his tour bus afterwards and shake everyone's hand and 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.359 sign everything. I love it. I love the interaction taking 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:54.600 pictures with people and then playing the show, and slowly 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:57.800 they convert over. And then you play a club in 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.440 a town and they show up and say, oh, oh, man, 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.159 I saw you at High Sierra Music Festival, or I 0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:05.879 saw you at tell your Ride Bluegrass Fest. And the 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:10.119 cool thing is I'm just solo on stage, so I 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.879 don't have to deal with a lot of logistics of 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:17.520 band members and everything. I can surgically strike and play 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.760 Stan Rogers folk Fest way out in Canso, Nova Scotia, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.359 and then zip across the country and play Rocky Mountain 0:19:24.400 --> 0:19:29.000 Folksfest in Lions, Colorado. And I can do it and 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:30.119 get there pretty fast. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:40.199 Okay, let's go back to the Oliver Wood quote. I 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.919 think the Woods started off independent to begin with. Okay, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.440 when you started in the pre internet era, the key 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:51.240 was to have a label deal and to have a hit, 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.200 whether it be a top forty hit at MTV, hit 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.119 a hit on a FM rock The point is to 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:03.359 have a notable trick. So today to use a word 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.120 that has too many connotations, but I'll use it anyway. 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.720 You are a cult item. It's amazing. I printed an 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.360 email that you had written all these people who know 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.440 who you are. Okay, you can't see that and say, oh, 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:20.679 it's Steve Poltz and you know, number ten in the 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.760 Spotify Top fifty, but they know who you are. So 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.480 the game has changed. Yet you have continued in the game. 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:35.720 To what degreed does it frustrate you that you have 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.600 this middle level of success and to what degreed do 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:43.560 you have hunger to be known and exposed to more people. 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.119 This is a great question, and I would like to 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.960 first say I love you. I want to get that 0:20:53.760 --> 0:21:00.160 from here, but okay, okay, I do. And the way 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:02.879 that it works for me is I picture everybody, you know, 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:06.040 those rock climbing walls, Bob, where you got sure a 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:08.720 place and climb up. You know, there's always somebody going 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.679 to be above you and somebody below you. That's the 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:14.760 business we're in. There's always going to be somebody who 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:18.560 has something you want. Even Springsteen, where he's at on 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.320 the wall now isn't in the stadium thing he was 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.800 at at one time. So we always want to be 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.840 somewhere else. So number one, the first rule is be 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.320 kind to everybody you meet on the way up, because 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.240 sooner or later you will meet him on the way 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:34.600 back down, and you're always going to want more, but 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:38.800 you've got to just remain grateful and thankful for what 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.159 you have, your little slice of the pie. And for me, 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:44.920 I'm happy with the slice I have because I get 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.960 to do the weirdest shit on stage. Bob, I'm not 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:51.000 beholden to a hit song. I go out and I'm 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.080 doing spoken word and it's a drug to me. I'm 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.439 an addict, and so I'm addicted to the performance and 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.960 I'm looking for that high, that sort of danger on 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:04.280 stage and also the sense of community. And so I 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:07.800 have like the ultimate career because I go from city 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.439 to city. People show up in Australia and it's like whatever, 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:15.000 a fifty dollars ticket and they're showing up. The shows 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.000 are selling out and they're in small areas. Of course, 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:20.000 you think, God, it would be cool to go up 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.840 to bigger theaters, but it's just one day at a time, 0:22:24.080 --> 0:22:26.560 and I get such a high from the shows that 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.120 I'm happy where I'm at and if it grows I'm 0:22:30.119 --> 0:22:32.040 playing on the house's money because I don't have to 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.680 do this anymore. I could retire right now. My wife 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.040 always reminds me of that, that you don't have to 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.679 do this anymore. I was one of those musicians that 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:45.080 put money away back in the day when some jewel 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:47.240 money came in and other money, and I'd just go 0:22:47.280 --> 0:22:50.119 out and work and I just put it in a 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.000 Charles Schwab account and never touch it. I've never touched it. 0:22:53.440 --> 0:22:56.080 I'm sixty four years old, and I don't need a 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.560 lot because I live kind of a simple life. 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:07.040 Okay. I mean, certainly your stage act is unique and 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.080 no one is going to see you and not remember it. 0:23:11.280 --> 0:23:14.480 So is there a part of you that says, well, 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:19.040 if only more people could see me, they would have 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:20.119 the same feeling. 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:26.600 Yeah, I do think that sometimes, and every once in 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:29.359 a while you do get a little bit of jealousy 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.760 and you want the career, maybe you want the crowds 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.040 that somebody else is getting. But I've learned to just 0:23:36.400 --> 0:23:40.040 get that out of my system and I just sort 0:23:40.040 --> 0:23:42.119 of say a prayer of gratitude for what I have, 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:46.240 and I truly believe in that. Of course, you me Nactually, 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.879 I only speak for myself. Like when Jewels started getting 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:52.399 big and we were dating and I was in the 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.200 Rugburns and I was helping her find a place to play, 0:23:56.520 --> 0:24:00.600 and then she blew up really big. I was just like, Wow, 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:03.560 why is she blowing up big? And I'm not or 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:06.119 Jason Moraz another friend of mine from San Diego, Like 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:08.960 there's a whole San Diego scene, why did these people 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:12.280 blow up so big? But then when I really analyzed 0:24:12.320 --> 0:24:15.960 it and did a deep dive in it, I'm not 0:24:16.119 --> 0:24:20.680 really made for the masses. I'm not. Jason Ras has 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:24.040 a great boys, Jewela has a great voice. I'm sort 0:24:24.080 --> 0:24:27.480 of a wild card, and I get the freedom of 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:30.000 doing the show I want, and I have gratitude for 0:24:30.080 --> 0:24:32.800 what I'm doing. And Jason's a friend of mine, Jewele's 0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:35.080 a friend of mine. And I saw Blink one eight 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:38.520 two blow up big, but the Rugburns didn't, And why 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:42.600 didn't that happen? I just felt like we weren't made 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:46.240 for the masses. Probably, and that's okay. You got to 0:24:46.280 --> 0:24:48.640 make peace with that way. 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:52.800 Let's go back to the beginning. You're born in Halifax, Canada. 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:55.240 Are you just born there? And you move on or 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:56.800 do you live any of your life there. 0:24:58.080 --> 0:25:01.440 We moved when I was really young to southern California. 0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.880 So all the relatives are in Nova Scotia and Cape 0:25:04.920 --> 0:25:10.360 Breton and some in Ontario. But I'm a total Southern Californian. 0:25:10.480 --> 0:25:13.520 I may live in Nashville, but I'm a Southern Californian. 0:25:13.520 --> 0:25:17.800 As it gets, okay, And what did your parents do 0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:18.439 for a living? 0:25:19.200 --> 0:25:22.639 So my dad was in the Royal Canadian Air Force 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:25.320 and one morning he woke up and we were snowed 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:27.760 in and he said, I want to go somewhere warm. 0:25:27.960 --> 0:25:31.000 And it was the early sixties, and we came out 0:25:31.080 --> 0:25:36.679 to Pasadena, California. We lived right in Pasadena, and my 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:40.719 dad had a job in air conditioning and he just 0:25:40.760 --> 0:25:43.159 found this job. He drove us across the country with 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:47.560 no money, got a job in an air conditioning warehouse 0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:51.840 and became a manager of it. And I went to 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:55.679 a private Catholic school called Saint Rita's Elementary School. We 0:25:55.760 --> 0:26:00.239 lived in Hastings Ranch for a little while, and then 0:26:00.280 --> 0:26:03.200 we moved out to Palm Springs, California, because he got 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:06.520 a great air conditioning job out there, and that was 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:10.960 how I ended up meeting like Frank Sinatra and Elvis 0:26:10.960 --> 0:26:16.040 Presley and Liberacchi and Bob Hope and all these people 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.439 that lived there, and it was pretty interesting being a 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:21.600 part of that. So it was great. 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:23.720 Tell me more about being a part of that. This 0:26:24.000 --> 0:26:24.800 Palm Springs. 0:26:25.280 --> 0:26:28.800 So in Palm Springs, when we would go trigger treating 0:26:28.880 --> 0:26:33.000 and stuff, we would go to Liberacchi's house and everybody 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:35.800 knew where he lived, and he had these piano keys 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:39.320 for his front steps and they would wind almost in 0:26:39.359 --> 0:26:43.120 an Alison Carroll kind of weird psychedelic way, and you'd 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:46.560 ring the doorbell and you'd be dressed up like Casper 0:26:46.600 --> 0:26:49.600 the Friendly Ghost, and the doorbell when it rang would go. 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:54.200 Dun dunt dunt dun dun't dunt dun dun Livereracchi would 0:26:54.240 --> 0:26:56.800 come out and he'd have a big boa around his neck, 0:26:56.840 --> 0:26:59.840 and then chauffeur guy, his boyfriend, the blonde guy, he'd 0:26:59.840 --> 0:27:00.840 have arm next. 0:27:00.640 --> 0:27:03.240 To him like this and he'd say hello kids, hop 0:27:03.280 --> 0:27:06.439 a Snicker's bar and he'd give these huge Snickers bars 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:08.320 out and then I'd go change in the Batman and 0:27:08.359 --> 0:27:11.360 come back again. And we would keep changing our outfits 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:13.919 because he had the biggest candy bars, and it was 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:17.000 so cool and I always loved being a part of that. 0:27:17.160 --> 0:27:20.399 And my uncle was gay, my mom's brother, and so 0:27:20.440 --> 0:27:23.320 I was raised with this sense of gayness in our house, 0:27:23.720 --> 0:27:26.760 which was like a different time. Nowadays, everybody's flying a 0:27:26.840 --> 0:27:29.800 rainbow flag and stuff, but back in those days, it 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:32.840 was like some more broke back Mountain type stuff, especially 0:27:32.880 --> 0:27:35.439 for my uncle who had come from Cape Bretton and 0:27:35.480 --> 0:27:36.360 he was a musician. 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:39.920 So okay, And what did your mother do all day? 0:27:41.080 --> 0:27:44.520 So my mom was a teacher, an English teacher, and 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:48.879 she demanded she wouldn't even accept an A minus. I 0:27:48.920 --> 0:27:51.760 had to get straight a's. And I would always get 0:27:51.760 --> 0:27:56.040 bad citizenship grades because I was always making smart at 0:27:57.040 --> 0:27:59.760 I just couldn't help it, and I was pushing things 0:27:59.800 --> 0:28:05.200 to the limit. But I got a's and I loved school, 0:28:05.400 --> 0:28:08.200 like I loved going there, and I liked studying guitar, 0:28:08.840 --> 0:28:11.480 and I started playing guitar when I was six years old, 0:28:11.960 --> 0:28:15.480 And so my mom really made sure I practiced. She 0:28:15.640 --> 0:28:17.800 was very strict about it. She said, if I pay 0:28:17.880 --> 0:28:23.240 for lessons, you're practicing forty five minutes every day, no excuses, 0:28:23.600 --> 0:28:27.320 Not thirty minutes, not forty two minutes forty five minutes, 0:28:27.960 --> 0:28:30.680 and I realized how hard it was to learn guitar, 0:28:31.520 --> 0:28:34.600 and I hated it. But after twenty one days it 0:28:34.680 --> 0:28:38.240 became a habit, just like anything, and then I just 0:28:38.280 --> 0:28:40.600 would get so into it. My guitar was my best 0:28:40.600 --> 0:28:43.720 friend because I stuttered as a little kid, and I 0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:49.120 had asthma and exema, and so I would just be 0:28:49.200 --> 0:28:51.680 alone in my room playing guitar, and I loved it. 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:55.560 So how many kids in the family just. 0:28:55.560 --> 0:29:00.239 Too my sister. I have an older sister, and you 0:29:00.280 --> 0:29:02.840 know how, I think you've written about this too in 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:05.560 your letter. A lot of times somebody has an older 0:29:05.640 --> 0:29:09.120 sibling and that older sibling is the one who turns 0:29:09.160 --> 0:29:13.880 the other one onto music. And my sister had exquisite 0:29:13.960 --> 0:29:17.360 taste in music, and she would make me put my 0:29:17.440 --> 0:29:20.800 head between the speakers and she would put on Joni 0:29:20.920 --> 0:29:25.440 Mitchell Courton Spark and say, listen to it, really listen 0:29:25.520 --> 0:29:27.880 to it with your head between the speakers, and you 0:29:27.880 --> 0:29:30.520 would hear Joni. All of a sudden, love came to 0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:34.560 my door with a sleeping role and a madman's soul. 0:29:34.800 --> 0:29:38.360 I thought for sure I'd seen him dancing up a 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:42.120 river in the dark looking through a woman to the 0:29:42.360 --> 0:29:46.840 core and spa and I would listen to that, my 0:29:47.000 --> 0:29:50.600 mind would be blown. We had a Moranz receiver, these 0:29:50.640 --> 0:29:53.760 big speakers, and my sister would have me. Then she 0:29:53.760 --> 0:29:56.960 would put on another record and we would listen to music, 0:29:57.040 --> 0:30:00.600 and really listen to music. I'm talking like where you 0:30:00.600 --> 0:30:04.760 would drink it in. And I remember I went to school, Bob, 0:30:05.200 --> 0:30:09.000 and there was a Jewish girl named Hallie Rothstein, and 0:30:09.040 --> 0:30:12.400 she was so beautiful and they had been living on 0:30:12.440 --> 0:30:16.760 a kabbutz in Israel, and her dad, Jean Rothstein, was 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:21.040 the chemistry teacher, and he was so cool, and he 0:30:21.080 --> 0:30:24.400 also did the hiking club and he went out of 0:30:24.440 --> 0:30:28.400 town on business and Hallie Rothstein asked me to come over. 0:30:28.880 --> 0:30:32.640 And I was fifteen years old and she had me 0:30:32.720 --> 0:30:35.120 come over. I know, I couldn't believe it, and I thought, 0:30:35.280 --> 0:30:38.200 this is when I'm going to lose my virginity. And 0:30:38.240 --> 0:30:42.240 I always loved the I just my mom was like, 0:30:42.320 --> 0:30:45.080 you're Catholic. You got the only dated Catholic girl. And 0:30:45.160 --> 0:30:48.239 so when I heard Hallie Rothstein was Jewish, it was 0:30:48.280 --> 0:30:51.200 like that forbidden fruit. It even made me like her more. 0:30:51.960 --> 0:30:55.200 And they would talk about you know, how they would 0:30:55.200 --> 0:30:59.320 celebrate Hanukkah, and I found it all so interesting. And 0:30:59.440 --> 0:31:02.160 my gay uncle Louie would dress me up and I 0:31:02.200 --> 0:31:04.360 would sing Fiddler on the Roof songs to all his 0:31:04.480 --> 0:31:07.680 gay boyfriends. And so I always had this love of 0:31:07.720 --> 0:31:10.560 the Jewish faith because it was so different to me. 0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:12.640 So my uncle Louie would dress me up and I'd 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:18.840 sing if Iridi go dumb, and he'd have his arms 0:31:18.840 --> 0:31:21.239 around a couple guys, and I thought that's how all 0:31:21.360 --> 0:31:24.640 kids grew up. But I went over to Halle Rothstein's house, 0:31:25.320 --> 0:31:28.000 and I remember she wanted me to bring some boons 0:31:28.080 --> 0:31:31.840 farm wine over, and I was only fifteen years old. 0:31:31.880 --> 0:31:34.800 So I went to the liquor store, and everybody knew 0:31:34.840 --> 0:31:37.520 there was this old perverted guy that would sit outside 0:31:37.520 --> 0:31:39.719 the liquor store and if you let him touch your 0:31:39.760 --> 0:31:42.080 leg a little bit, he would go in and buy 0:31:42.120 --> 0:31:45.160 you the wine or the beer you want. So I 0:31:45.200 --> 0:31:47.800 remember having this whole existential crisis. Do I let the 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:50.160 old man touch me so I can go to Halle 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:53.360 Rothstein's house and lose my virginity. And I rode my 0:31:53.440 --> 0:31:57.480 bike over to her house and the old man was there. 0:31:58.200 --> 0:32:01.000 He got to grab my leg and he comes out 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:03.080 with a bottle of Boons Farm wine and I had 0:32:03.120 --> 0:32:06.160 it in a brown paper bag, and I was so disgusted. 0:32:06.200 --> 0:32:08.680 After the old man grab my leg. I was riding 0:32:08.680 --> 0:32:10.680 my bike to Ali Rothstein's and I had screwed the 0:32:10.720 --> 0:32:13.400 cap and I was drinking the wine and chugging it. 0:32:13.440 --> 0:32:15.440 And I went over to her house and I crawled 0:32:15.480 --> 0:32:18.680 in the window of her room and then we started 0:32:18.720 --> 0:32:21.880 making out. And you know, back in the early seventies, 0:32:22.080 --> 0:32:23.920 you would make out with the girl and she'd have 0:32:24.000 --> 0:32:27.760 Levi's five oh one button flies on and she would 0:32:27.840 --> 0:32:30.200 let me on dudes like two buttons, and I'd get 0:32:30.240 --> 0:32:33.600 my hand ride down her pants almost to the promised Land, 0:32:33.880 --> 0:32:35.560 and then she'd pull it up put it back on 0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:38.600 her boop. We both had braces, and the braces were 0:32:38.640 --> 0:32:42.280 clicking as we were making out, and the dried saliva smell, 0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:45.200 you could smell it wafting up your nostrils and we're 0:32:45.320 --> 0:32:48.200 making out. But then back in those days, you couldn't 0:32:48.280 --> 0:32:52.120 just put your iPhone on Spotify shuffle and have it 0:32:52.200 --> 0:32:55.880 keep playing music. No, the record would die out. So 0:32:56.000 --> 0:33:00.400 you hear this, and she asked to get up change 0:33:00.440 --> 0:33:03.480 the record, so she gets up to change the record 0:33:03.760 --> 0:33:06.520 and she puts on this other record. Come back. I 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:09.640 think I'm gonna lose my virginity to this beautiful Jewish girl. 0:33:09.960 --> 0:33:13.560 We're making out. One thing leads to another, and I 0:33:13.600 --> 0:33:20.200 hear this voice, this beautiful voicego moving in silent desperation, 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:26.920 keeping the nih on the Holy lad a hypathetical destination. 0:33:27.800 --> 0:33:31.760 Say who is this Walking Man? And I just stopped 0:33:31.840 --> 0:33:35.400 kissing her and I said who's that? She said, it's 0:33:35.560 --> 0:33:39.480 James Taylor. And I just looked at the album covered 0:33:39.680 --> 0:33:42.960 Walking Man. He was in this cool pose. And back 0:33:43.000 --> 0:33:44.920 in those days, you couldn't look up if they were 0:33:44.960 --> 0:33:47.200 shopping at Kroger and what they looked like, and when 0:33:47.200 --> 0:33:50.360 they were getting their groceries. All you had was the 0:33:50.400 --> 0:33:53.680 mystery of what was on that album. And you held 0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:55.440 that big album up and you look at the back 0:33:55.440 --> 0:34:00.320 of You're like Danny Kortzmark Russell, kunkle Leland Sklark. Who 0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:03.360 are these people? These are gods. I need to know 0:34:03.400 --> 0:34:06.400 about all these players and who they are. And I 0:34:06.440 --> 0:34:08.960 looked at Hallie. I said, I'm sorry, I have to go. 0:34:09.320 --> 0:34:13.239 Can I borrow this record? She said, I guess so, 0:34:13.239 --> 0:34:16.080 so I didn't lose my virginity because I wanted to 0:34:16.120 --> 0:34:19.720 go home and listen to James Taylor and hear Danny 0:34:19.800 --> 0:34:23.480 Korchmark Cooch. They called him Cooch. That's all I knew. 0:34:23.880 --> 0:34:27.000 Cooch was his name. I needed to do my research 0:34:27.040 --> 0:34:29.439 and I needed to listen to this James Taylor guy. 0:34:29.920 --> 0:34:36.040 Then years later, Danny Goldberg signs me to Mercury Universal Records, 0:34:36.280 --> 0:34:40.640 and Timothy White, the now deceased editor of Billboard Magazine, 0:34:41.080 --> 0:34:43.960 calls me up because he hears my record One Left Shoe, 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:47.759 and he says, Steve, I'm wondering if you were influenced 0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:51.600 at all by James Taylor because of your fingerpick. I 0:34:51.680 --> 0:34:54.920 really like this record, And I said, was I influenced 0:34:54.920 --> 0:34:57.600 by James Taylor? And I proceeded to tell him about 0:34:57.640 --> 0:35:02.560 the old man grabbing my leg embraces, clicking the drive Sliva, 0:35:02.960 --> 0:35:05.680 the buttons on the Levi's five oh one, my hand, 0:35:05.760 --> 0:35:09.239 going down to the promised land of Nirvana. And I said, 0:35:09.280 --> 0:35:12.880 because of James, I didn't lose my virginity, and Timothy 0:35:12.880 --> 0:35:16.720 White goes, oh my god, I love this story. Listen. 0:35:16.760 --> 0:35:20.560 I'm friends with James Taylor. He's in Martha's Vineyard. Right now, 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:23.480 I'm gonna call him up, and would you tell him 0:35:23.520 --> 0:35:28.920 that story? Well, Bob, I'm freaking out because James Taylor 0:35:29.040 --> 0:35:32.439 was like one of my heroes. Right. So he gets 0:35:32.520 --> 0:35:35.680 James on the phone in Martha's Vineyard. Timothy White's in 0:35:35.760 --> 0:35:39.560 New York Billboard Magazine office, and I'm in San Diego, 0:35:39.560 --> 0:35:42.640 and it's like a split screen, triple screen Doris da 0:35:42.800 --> 0:35:45.680 Pillow talk. We're all on our phones. Can't see him, 0:35:45.719 --> 0:35:48.320 but I can imagine it. And then all of a sudden, 0:35:48.880 --> 0:35:51.799 right before James gets on the phone, Timothy White says, 0:35:51.920 --> 0:35:54.279 tell James's story, but don't tell him the part about 0:35:54.280 --> 0:35:57.400 the old man grabbing you, because that's kind of he 0:35:57.440 --> 0:35:59.000 doesn't need to hear that. But tell him the story 0:35:59.000 --> 0:36:01.319 about everything else. And I said, okay, okay. And so 0:36:01.360 --> 0:36:04.359 that James gets on the line and I hear that 0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:10.040 sweet tenor voice go hello, Steve, and I go James, 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:12.560 He goes yeah, Timothy goes tell them the story, and 0:36:12.560 --> 0:36:14.040 then I go, I let an old. 0:36:13.880 --> 0:36:17.480 Man grab my balls. 0:36:16.440 --> 0:36:22.080 I couldn't help myself. And then I proceeded to tell 0:36:22.160 --> 0:36:24.880 him the whole story. And after I told James Taylor 0:36:25.000 --> 0:36:28.319 the whole story. There was this awkward pause on the line, 0:36:28.480 --> 0:36:31.040 and then I heard James go, well, I hope you've 0:36:31.080 --> 0:36:32.440 gotten laid since. 0:36:36.320 --> 0:36:40.000 Okay, a little cleanup. Where's Hallie today? 0:36:41.400 --> 0:36:44.799 Oh my gosh, I would like to know. I need 0:36:44.840 --> 0:36:47.799 to track her down on Facebook, but I have some 0:36:47.840 --> 0:36:50.319 friends that told me I think she might still be 0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:53.399 in Palm Springs. I would love to know how she's doing. 0:36:53.520 --> 0:36:56.120 I would love her to hear that story because it 0:36:56.160 --> 0:36:57.439 really was a memory mark. 0:36:58.600 --> 0:37:01.600 Okay, you would have this one my old sensibility. This 0:37:01.680 --> 0:37:04.680 doesn't come out of nowhere. What was going on in 0:37:04.719 --> 0:37:10.719 your home that you had this way of looking at things, insights, 0:37:10.760 --> 0:37:13.520 telling these funny stories. Was this your mother? Was this 0:37:13.600 --> 0:37:16.120 your father? Your gay uncle? Where did this come from? 0:37:16.560 --> 0:37:19.400 It was a combo meal deal. My dad would write 0:37:19.440 --> 0:37:22.760 poems and he would run around the house and tap 0:37:22.880 --> 0:37:26.880 dance and sing. He would always sing the Canadian national 0:37:26.880 --> 0:37:28.920 anthem to me in the morning, so I would know 0:37:29.040 --> 0:37:33.080 my Canadian roots. And my mom played piano and guitar 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:38.320 and would sing like an angel. And my uncle Louis 0:37:38.960 --> 0:37:42.200 was a genius piano player, and so I was a 0:37:42.239 --> 0:37:46.400 combination of all of them. And my uncle would always 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:49.560 have me play at recitals, and I would do the 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:53.760 part of Joel Gray and Cabaret. At a very young age. 0:37:53.800 --> 0:37:55.520 I could do everything I could get up there, and 0:37:55.520 --> 0:37:58.000 he would paint a little mustache on me and I'd 0:37:58.040 --> 0:38:03.600 go become Bear, come and I would do the whole 0:38:03.600 --> 0:38:08.120 thing and gabba lay, oh, gaballet do gabal lele, and 0:38:08.160 --> 0:38:10.719 he would dress me up as Oliver, and I didn't 0:38:10.760 --> 0:38:12.840 know how weird it was, because he'd have like eight 0:38:12.920 --> 0:38:15.439 gay men over to the house and he would dress 0:38:15.480 --> 0:38:18.160 me up like Oliver and make me go, please, suh, 0:38:18.440 --> 0:38:21.279 may I have some more? And then they'd go, he 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:24.480 wants more. And then I'd have to think, oh, well, 0:38:24.600 --> 0:38:28.040 buye this wonderful morning, and I'd put on a whole 0:38:28.040 --> 0:38:30.640 show for them and I'd see how it worked. And 0:38:30.680 --> 0:38:33.560 that was where I really started learning stuff because of 0:38:33.600 --> 0:38:35.680 all of them. And he took me to see Julian 0:38:35.840 --> 0:38:39.520 Bream at the Hollywood Bowl at the age of six 0:38:39.680 --> 0:38:46.080 years old, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McCrae, Sarah Vaughan, Jesus Christ, Superstar, 0:38:46.280 --> 0:38:49.719 god Spell, Hair. He took me to every Planet of 0:38:49.760 --> 0:38:52.480 the Apes movie. My uncle Louis was just he was 0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:53.239 so good for me. 0:38:54.880 --> 0:38:58.840 Okay, that's your musical background. How about your twisted sense 0:38:58.880 --> 0:39:01.400 of humor and your observational character. 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:07.359 So I started the rugburns in a garage and Sandy. 0:39:07.000 --> 0:39:09.040 No, no, no, no, no, no, way before. 0:39:08.760 --> 0:39:11.400 That, way before that was okay? 0:39:11.640 --> 0:39:13.280 Was it the type of thing you were all having 0:39:13.280 --> 0:39:16.520 dinner together and people were telling long stories where you 0:39:16.560 --> 0:39:20.600 were cracking jokes at the table. This sensibility has to 0:39:20.600 --> 0:39:21.520 come from somewhere. 0:39:22.040 --> 0:39:26.560 I think it was because my mom was really strict, 0:39:27.200 --> 0:39:29.440 so I liked finding a way to get my sister 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:33.279 to laugh. Because my sister had a bit of depression 0:39:34.080 --> 0:39:37.480 and my mom suffered from depression. So my mom had 0:39:37.520 --> 0:39:41.360 to get shock therapy and the house was always really dark, 0:39:42.120 --> 0:39:45.160 and I remember she came out of shock therapy and 0:39:45.239 --> 0:39:48.640 she didn't know who we were, and it scared me, 0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:51.239 and she would I would come home and she would 0:39:51.239 --> 0:39:54.600 always be crying and the house would be dark. So 0:39:54.640 --> 0:39:56.759 I would play classical guitar songs to her and I 0:39:56.800 --> 0:39:59.759 would try to make her laugh. I really wanted to 0:39:59.760 --> 0:40:02.879 make my mom happy because it hurt me to see 0:40:02.920 --> 0:40:06.759 her so sad, and my sister was really sad. So 0:40:07.680 --> 0:40:11.560 I would figure out what made them laugh. So if 0:40:11.600 --> 0:40:14.400 I was able to do the Lord's Prayer with a 0:40:14.480 --> 0:40:18.600 French accent without my mom hearing it at church to 0:40:18.640 --> 0:40:20.040 get my sister to laugh, I would. 0:40:20.200 --> 0:40:20.560 I would. 0:40:21.120 --> 0:40:25.439 That's where things started. I would if false it would 0:40:25.480 --> 0:40:28.920 be that name, SOI Kingdom come and Kathy would be 0:40:29.040 --> 0:40:31.560 laughing so hard and my mom would get mad, and 0:40:31.600 --> 0:40:33.360 then I'd find out a way to get my mom 0:40:33.400 --> 0:40:38.040 to laugh. But honestly, I really believe I'm I think 0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:40.960 you know, my mom died a few years ago and 0:40:41.000 --> 0:40:43.719 the first thing I said was do you think she 0:40:43.880 --> 0:40:50.759 loved me? And I think she did. But I used 0:40:50.800 --> 0:40:54.560 to feel like the audience is kind of like my mom, 0:40:55.520 --> 0:40:58.360 and maybe I'm on this search to win over the 0:40:58.400 --> 0:41:02.319 audience to get her a rooval, And so I think 0:41:02.480 --> 0:41:05.160 that's where it all started. Was I wanted to make 0:41:05.200 --> 0:41:08.160 sure that I could try to make her happy because 0:41:08.160 --> 0:41:12.040 I wanted to make sure she loved me. And I 0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:15.920 haven't done deep therapy at all on it, but I 0:41:16.600 --> 0:41:18.960 sort of have a sense that the audience is like 0:41:19.040 --> 0:41:19.479 my mother. 0:41:27.520 --> 0:41:31.240 Okay, before you get to the Rugbirds, you're going to school, 0:41:31.719 --> 0:41:36.279 You're a smart kid, You're sort of sassy, which is 0:41:36.320 --> 0:41:38.960 frustrating because you're doing well, but the teachers don't like 0:41:39.040 --> 0:41:42.160 the disturbance. Did you have a lot of friends, Did 0:41:42.239 --> 0:41:45.399 you play sports? Were you in student government or were 0:41:45.400 --> 0:41:47.320 you off to the left somewhere. 0:41:48.000 --> 0:41:54.160 So I was into student government and I loved sports. 0:41:54.200 --> 0:41:57.400 I ran across country. I was on the wrestling team, 0:41:58.760 --> 0:42:03.200 and I was in drama, so I did all the drama. 0:42:03.360 --> 0:42:07.359 I did everything. Wrestling practices would go late. The only 0:42:07.400 --> 0:42:09.080 reason I was on the wrestling nam is because I 0:42:09.120 --> 0:42:12.879 didn't make the basketball team and the wrestling coach saw 0:42:12.960 --> 0:42:15.880 me crying when I saw my name wasn't on the list, 0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:18.319 and he said he needed a ninety eight pounder and 0:42:18.360 --> 0:42:22.480 I weighed about ninety two pounds in ninth grade. So 0:42:22.640 --> 0:42:25.520 I got on the wrestling team. And I wrestled for 0:42:25.640 --> 0:42:29.120 four years ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade. And I 0:42:29.160 --> 0:42:31.799 got really good at it and it really helped me 0:42:31.920 --> 0:42:34.640 because I didn't quit. But I was the only guy 0:42:34.640 --> 0:42:37.239 on the wrestling team that was also in drama. And 0:42:37.280 --> 0:42:39.560 I was in the Madrigals, which was the top singing 0:42:39.600 --> 0:42:42.239 group where we would go to other schools and compete 0:42:42.719 --> 0:42:47.400 sing songs in Latin and French and German, and so 0:42:47.560 --> 0:42:51.480 I was constantly busy in school, constantly, and I think 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:53.440 part of that too was I didn't want to go home. 0:42:53.520 --> 0:42:57.920 Because I went home, I felt a sense of darkness 0:42:58.000 --> 0:43:00.200 and I didn't want to see my mom sad. 0:43:01.360 --> 0:43:03.000 Okay graduate from high school? 0:43:03.080 --> 0:43:07.400 Then what So I graduated from high school and I 0:43:07.480 --> 0:43:11.200 went away. My sister had gone away to up with people. 0:43:11.239 --> 0:43:12.400 Do you remember Up with People? 0:43:13.520 --> 0:43:16.800 Absolutely used to be the halftime show with the NFL. 0:43:16.880 --> 0:43:20.200 Oh yeah, So my sister she went away to up 0:43:20.239 --> 0:43:21.760 with people and I was playing. 0:43:21.600 --> 0:43:24.480 Oh, well, well that just doesn't happen by accident. How 0:43:24.480 --> 0:43:25.920 did she get up with people? 0:43:25.960 --> 0:43:26.040 So? 0:43:26.200 --> 0:43:29.080 Up with People came to Palm Springs High School, which 0:43:29.120 --> 0:43:33.319 is where I graduated from, and she applied and got in. 0:43:33.920 --> 0:43:37.360 So she left me her Dodge Demon three on a 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:39.880 tree and on the back was a bumper sticker that 0:43:39.960 --> 0:43:44.320 said give Jesus a chance. She got me stoned before 0:43:44.400 --> 0:43:48.560 she left, taught me out to smoke beeed, and so 0:43:48.640 --> 0:43:53.200 she she leans to go to up with people, and 0:43:53.239 --> 0:43:56.280 then Up with People came back to our high school 0:43:56.520 --> 0:43:58.680 and I went, man, I got to get out of here. 0:43:58.719 --> 0:44:00.520 If I could go away with up with people, that 0:44:00.520 --> 0:44:03.120 would be the greatest thing in the world. So they 0:44:03.160 --> 0:44:06.239 came into our high school and played I've Never Forgotten 0:44:06.280 --> 0:44:10.120 the shows in a big assembly hall a theater in 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:12.800 our Palm Springs High and I went up and I said, 0:44:13.120 --> 0:44:15.440 can I apply for Up With People? And all my 0:44:15.480 --> 0:44:19.480 friends were like, the stupid man, don't do that, like 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:23.279 all their wrestling friends. They're so lame. So I auditioned 0:44:23.320 --> 0:44:25.279 for them, and I've Never Forgotten. I played a song 0:44:25.320 --> 0:44:30.520 called Romanza, this Andre Segovia piece that's really sad. It's 0:44:30.520 --> 0:44:34.839 a beautiful piece, Romanza, and I played it and they went, man, 0:44:34.880 --> 0:44:37.439 you're a really gig guitar player. And then they ended 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:40.279 up giving me a scholarship Up with People. So I 0:44:40.280 --> 0:44:43.839 got accepted and I went and I lived in Tucson. 0:44:44.120 --> 0:44:47.400 And this is back in nineteen seventy eight. Like most 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:49.920 people have like that started band, like the Rugburns have 0:44:50.000 --> 0:44:53.480 like punk credibility. You know, they're listening to television and 0:44:53.600 --> 0:44:57.760 CBGB's what's happening. Not me. I was in Eliza Minelly 0:44:58.000 --> 0:45:01.680 Barber streisand and Up with p People, Joel Gray and 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:06.279 classical guitar and so Up with People. I go over 0:45:06.320 --> 0:45:09.239 there and I auditioned, and I live in Tucson and 0:45:09.280 --> 0:45:11.760 I get in casts I think I was in cast 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:15.200 A and we were in the Latin American group. So 0:45:15.239 --> 0:45:17.960 we went and lived in Mexico and we would sing 0:45:18.000 --> 0:45:20.360 instead of up with people, because the song up with 0:45:20.400 --> 0:45:23.960 people goes up up with people you meet and wherever 0:45:24.000 --> 0:45:28.200 you go. But ours was biev lahente, and so we 0:45:28.239 --> 0:45:31.560 would live with Mexican families and that's where I learned Spanish. 0:45:32.040 --> 0:45:34.799 And then we went to Argentina and imagine I was 0:45:34.920 --> 0:45:37.920 eighteen years old and I was in the band of 0:45:38.040 --> 0:45:40.040 up with people playing guitar and we had like a 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:44.719 full orchestra, French horns, timpany, drums, everything, and that was 0:45:44.760 --> 0:45:49.240 where I learned about soundcheck, loading and staying with people 0:45:49.280 --> 0:45:51.160 in their houses. We'd have to write them a thank 0:45:51.200 --> 0:45:54.440 you note afterwards. And we'd stay with all these different people, 0:45:54.480 --> 0:45:57.040 and we traveled around the world and I got out 0:45:57.040 --> 0:45:59.279 of up with people, and then I went away to 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:04.440 college University of San Diego, Catholic University, which made my 0:46:04.480 --> 0:46:08.279 mom happy because it was Catholic, and I graduated from 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:10.600 there and that was where I started well a little 0:46:10.600 --> 0:46:12.280 bit slower, okay. 0:46:12.080 --> 0:46:15.200 So everybody Up with People has a tom No one 0:46:15.280 --> 0:46:16.479 continues to stay in. 0:46:16.400 --> 0:46:18.400 The act that no one what. 0:46:20.239 --> 0:46:23.200 Okay, let's say I join up with People. Do I 0:46:23.360 --> 0:46:25.640 know going in that I have a two year tenure 0:46:25.680 --> 0:46:27.640 and then I'm done? Oh can you be in for 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:28.320 ten years? 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:31.799 Oh, it's a one year tenure. So you go in 0:46:32.040 --> 0:46:34.920 and it's like going through boot camp. You learn all 0:46:34.960 --> 0:46:37.719 these songs. My fingers that blisters on them. They got 0:46:37.760 --> 0:46:41.600 me an ovation guitar around back guitar Glenn Campbell Artists 0:46:41.680 --> 0:46:45.680 signed by Glenn Campbell, and I had that Ovation acoustic guitar. 0:46:46.800 --> 0:46:51.560 So I go in for a whole year, and Bob, 0:46:52.120 --> 0:46:55.479 it's so goofy to say, I think I'm the only 0:46:55.520 --> 0:46:57.600 person in the world who has co written a song 0:46:57.640 --> 0:47:01.799 with Billy String's Jewel Mojo Nixon and wasn't up with 0:47:01.880 --> 0:47:05.520 People and played CBGB's and got to open for the Ramones, 0:47:05.680 --> 0:47:07.680 Like it just doesn't make sense. 0:47:08.520 --> 0:47:11.400 Okay, okay, but just staying with up with People for 0:47:11.440 --> 0:47:15.440 one second. Up with People didn't have a religious element. 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:15.360 Did it. 0:47:15.760 --> 0:47:15.960 No? 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:19.839 It was about kind of building bridges. It was non denomination, 0:47:20.080 --> 0:47:20.759 right right, right. 0:47:21.000 --> 0:47:24.160 But the things that are clean and cut have a 0:47:24.239 --> 0:47:29.240 reputation under the surface of being the wildest, the most sex, 0:47:29.360 --> 0:47:32.040 the most drugs, the mold booze. What was it like 0:47:32.280 --> 0:47:33.680 being in up with people? 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:38.520 Oh my god. So there were all kinds of cast relationships, 0:47:38.520 --> 0:47:41.799 like you're told you can't date somebody in it. That's 0:47:41.880 --> 0:47:43.959 kind of the reason I wrote the song hand Job 0:47:44.000 --> 0:47:46.000 on a Church Bus, Like I have a song called 0:47:46.000 --> 0:47:48.520 hand Job on a Church bus. Like there was stuff 0:47:48.560 --> 0:47:52.240 going on. There was gay stuff going on and cast 0:47:52.320 --> 0:47:56.440 relationships happening. I remember I had a cast girlfriend and 0:47:56.440 --> 0:47:59.400 a girl named Kathy McCarty, and we would have to 0:47:59.520 --> 0:48:02.520 find places to meet up, to sneak out of our 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:06.440 host families or go in because you always stayed with families. 0:48:06.760 --> 0:48:08.840 So I would find out where she lived, and we 0:48:08.880 --> 0:48:12.120 didn't have Google maps. It was nineteen seventy eight. I'd 0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:15.600 have a street map in Mexico, and I'd at midnight 0:48:15.719 --> 0:48:17.960 climb out of the window of my place, find out 0:48:18.000 --> 0:48:22.000 what Kathy McCarty was, sneak into the room where she 0:48:22.200 --> 0:48:24.480 had a cast mate with her in another bed who 0:48:24.560 --> 0:48:28.239 was asleep, and have the most silent sex that was 0:48:28.400 --> 0:48:32.480 so forbidden, and the forbidden sex is the best, and 0:48:32.520 --> 0:48:36.160 then climb back in the window of somebody's house in Mexico, 0:48:36.520 --> 0:48:38.480 wake up in the morning and act like I've been 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:41.920 in sleep, and then surreptitiously walk by her on the 0:48:42.000 --> 0:48:43.919 bus the next day and kind of wink and we'd 0:48:43.960 --> 0:48:46.680 be laughing at what we pulled off. Yeah, it was crazy. 0:48:47.400 --> 0:48:48.960 There was a lot of sex happening. 0:48:50.640 --> 0:48:53.520 What about the University of San Diego? What was your 0:48:53.520 --> 0:48:54.479 experience there? 0:48:55.160 --> 0:48:59.120 Now that was really cool because what I did was 0:48:59.160 --> 0:49:02.239 I went to gross I'mont College first and I took 0:49:02.360 --> 0:49:04.480 classical guitar because they had a classical guitar. 0:49:04.480 --> 0:49:07.400 Oh wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, not everybody knows that. 0:49:07.560 --> 0:49:09.000 Tell us a little bit more about that. 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:12.400 Okay. So in San Diego there's a bunch of different 0:49:12.440 --> 0:49:15.799 colleges and they have junior colleges, that's what they're called. 0:49:15.920 --> 0:49:20.520 So a junior college I went to because Grossmont College 0:49:20.560 --> 0:49:23.560 was in La Mesa, and they had a classical guitar 0:49:23.680 --> 0:49:28.880 department run by a guy named Miles Moignier. So Miles 0:49:29.000 --> 0:49:31.759 was a great classical guitar teacher, and I was in 0:49:31.800 --> 0:49:34.800 love with the classical guitar. I was learning box forat 0:49:35.120 --> 0:49:39.480 I was doing duet pieces with Miles, so he was playing. 0:49:39.520 --> 0:49:42.600 It was nineteen seventy nine at a place in La 0:49:42.600 --> 0:49:48.040 Mesa called Porfivore, a Mexican restaurant, and then another restaurant 0:49:48.080 --> 0:49:52.000 in Eltahonne, California, and that was called Ela Migo Ballroom. 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:56.280 So Miles went, hey, you're pretty good. I can't always 0:49:56.320 --> 0:49:58.480 play well. You sub for me at the gigs. So 0:49:58.560 --> 0:50:02.400 here I am nineteen years old playing at elam Ego 0:50:02.440 --> 0:50:07.560 Ballroom and at poor Footbore, playing like four nights a week, 0:50:07.800 --> 0:50:10.920 classical guitar, four hours a night, five hours a night. 0:50:10.960 --> 0:50:13.279 I'd get a break in the middle. They'd feed me 0:50:13.320 --> 0:50:15.880 when I got in and feed me again when I left. 0:50:16.000 --> 0:50:18.720 I was a growing kid. I'd did two Mexican meals. 0:50:19.120 --> 0:50:22.399 I had it made Bob. I was getting twenty five 0:50:22.440 --> 0:50:26.640 bucks a night sitting in the corner playing classical guitar pieces. 0:50:26.880 --> 0:50:30.319 And then one night I sang a song, and I 0:50:30.400 --> 0:50:33.280 sang the song Time in a Bottle by Jim Crochy, 0:50:33.600 --> 0:50:36.239 and we were only supposed to play, but I sang 0:50:36.280 --> 0:50:39.080 Time in a Bottle and one of the waitresses was 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:42.839 named Brenda. I'll never forget. She was like forty five 0:50:42.920 --> 0:50:45.400 years old. She came up to me and she goes, hey, 0:50:45.440 --> 0:50:48.080 you can sing. I didn't know you could sing. You 0:50:48.160 --> 0:50:51.000 sounded really good. Come outside, you want to smoke a 0:50:51.080 --> 0:50:53.560 joint with me? And it was like Steve Martin and 0:50:53.600 --> 0:50:55.440 the Jerk. And I went all right. And she was 0:50:55.480 --> 0:50:58.200 this tough biker chick. So I smoked a joint with her. 0:50:58.239 --> 0:51:01.279 And then she said, my old out of town at 0:51:01.280 --> 0:51:05.640 a biker rally in Sturgis. He's got choppers out there. 0:51:05.680 --> 0:51:07.480 He's shown him with all his biker friends. Why don't 0:51:07.520 --> 0:51:09.320 you come over the house with smoke some more weed 0:51:09.400 --> 0:51:11.839 and drink some beer. So I went over to her 0:51:11.880 --> 0:51:14.880 house and it was in this area of Elkoholm that 0:51:15.000 --> 0:51:17.840 was kind of scary. And she brings me into her house. 0:51:18.280 --> 0:51:21.239 One thing leads to another. We end up in their waterbed. 0:51:21.640 --> 0:51:25.719 We're having sex. I'm nineteen years old. Also, I hear 0:51:25.800 --> 0:51:28.920 this Harley pull up in the driveway. She goes, you 0:51:28.960 --> 0:51:30.600 gotta get out of here. You gotta get out of 0:51:30.640 --> 0:51:33.239 the window right now. That's my old man. He'll kill you. 0:51:33.280 --> 0:51:35.360 And I said, I thought you said he was in Sturges. 0:51:35.680 --> 0:51:38.399 She said, he doesn't trust me. I think he came back. 0:51:38.560 --> 0:51:42.160 He will kill you. And I remember leaving out of 0:51:42.200 --> 0:51:44.640 that window, and one of my shoes was left there. 0:51:45.080 --> 0:51:48.640 It was my left shoe, and I ran out and 0:51:48.680 --> 0:51:51.680 I never showed up again at that place. I just 0:51:51.800 --> 0:51:54.960 quit playing classical guitar in that one restaurant because that 0:51:54.960 --> 0:51:56.879 guy was going to be looking for me. And to 0:51:56.920 --> 0:51:59.360 this day, So I was in nineteen seventy nine and 0:51:59.480 --> 0:52:01.640 she was four five years old. I was nineteen. I 0:52:01.640 --> 0:52:05.040 don't know how old she'd be today, but I'm still scared. 0:52:05.080 --> 0:52:07.560 When I see a biker come up, I imagine him 0:52:07.560 --> 0:52:09.880 coming up with like a voicebox thing in his throat. 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:12.240 I'm going to kill you. I'm ninety. 0:52:16.440 --> 0:52:22.000 Okay, how do you segue from community college to University 0:52:22.000 --> 0:52:22.760 of San Diego? 0:52:23.480 --> 0:52:27.160 So I went to UH Crossmont College. Then I went 0:52:27.200 --> 0:52:30.840 to San Diego State for a year, and I'll never forget. 0:52:30.840 --> 0:52:33.960 I was there the day John Lennon died. And at 0:52:34.000 --> 0:52:37.920 San Diego State they had these music rooms, and in 0:52:38.000 --> 0:52:41.280 those music rooms, you would show them your student card 0:52:41.640 --> 0:52:43.759 and they would have Vinyl records and you could go 0:52:43.880 --> 0:52:46.399 all alone in a music room and they'd have headphones 0:52:47.000 --> 0:52:50.200 and it was amazing. Bob and I'd pull a record 0:52:50.200 --> 0:52:55.640 out and I go ros Daman vibrations, re reggae music 0:52:55.800 --> 0:52:59.040 that sounds interesting, and I put it on and all said, 0:52:59.080 --> 0:53:01.239 I to hear Bob Mark like I'd never heard that. 0:53:01.280 --> 0:53:04.480 It was like this whole foreign feat and I got 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:07.400 to listen to as many records as I want. So 0:53:07.840 --> 0:53:10.239 I finished that year out there, and then I was 0:53:10.320 --> 0:53:14.160 driving around San Diego and I saw University of San Diego, 0:53:14.320 --> 0:53:16.920 Catholic University, and it all goes back to my mom. 0:53:16.960 --> 0:53:19.040 I wanted to please her. I thought my mom would 0:53:19.120 --> 0:53:21.720 like it if I went to USD. It's a Catholic school. 0:53:22.280 --> 0:53:25.200 So I applied, got in, and I remember what got 0:53:25.239 --> 0:53:27.120 me in was that when you were in up with people, 0:53:27.360 --> 0:53:28.960 you're the kind of guy we want. 0:53:31.480 --> 0:53:32.400 So I. 0:53:33.920 --> 0:53:37.120 Know, I know, I know, it's just so wrong. And 0:53:37.200 --> 0:53:40.040 so I got into the University of San Diego and 0:53:40.080 --> 0:53:43.080 I played in the folk mass in church, and that's 0:53:43.120 --> 0:53:46.440 where the rugburns started because I knew all the folk 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:49.520 songs because I was in a church choir my whole 0:53:49.560 --> 0:53:52.479 life in the Catholic Church. I would sing all those 0:53:52.520 --> 0:53:56.880 songs and so I knew them all. Like the Lamb 0:53:56.880 --> 0:54:00.759 of God, Lamb of God, you take away the sins 0:54:00.960 --> 0:54:04.240 of the world have mercy on us. Lamb of God, 0:54:04.360 --> 0:54:08.440 you take away the sins of the world, grand us piece. 0:54:08.520 --> 0:54:11.480 But I rewrote that as a punk rock song and 0:54:11.520 --> 0:54:13.960 I had to go, Lamb of God, you take away 0:54:14.080 --> 0:54:17.320 the sins of the world every day, give them back. 0:54:17.760 --> 0:54:20.120 We want them back. Well, you think it's so cool, 0:54:20.160 --> 0:54:22.560 you can take them away any time you want. We 0:54:22.600 --> 0:54:24.680 got nothing to say, so we rewrote that. And that's 0:54:24.719 --> 0:54:28.439 where the rugburn started. Was at USD and the guy 0:54:28.480 --> 0:54:31.319 I started with was a guy named Rob Driscoll, and 0:54:31.360 --> 0:54:35.440 we did classical guitar duets together, and now the Rugburns 0:54:35.440 --> 0:54:39.319 started as classical guitar duets like box Beret and we 0:54:39.320 --> 0:54:42.799 would play outside at Balboa Park for passing change. And 0:54:42.840 --> 0:54:45.359 then our first gig was at Oh Hungary's where they 0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:47.880 had yard long piers and I got really drunk and 0:54:47.960 --> 0:54:50.719 broke a yard long pier and rather than pay us, 0:54:50.760 --> 0:54:53.280 we had to pay them fifty bucks for the broken 0:54:53.320 --> 0:54:56.720 glass that we did. And that was how we got started. 0:54:58.600 --> 0:55:02.480 Okay, that's what while you're still going to school, or 0:55:02.520 --> 0:55:05.440 really does your career start after you finish school? 0:55:05.840 --> 0:55:10.360 So it started in school. Now I studied political science 0:55:10.440 --> 0:55:13.799 with a minor in Spanish, so sometimes I like to 0:55:13.800 --> 0:55:15.719 say I knew I wouldn't have a job, but at 0:55:15.800 --> 0:55:20.200 least i'd know why. And so there I was. And 0:55:20.280 --> 0:55:24.120 I would bring home professors to Palm Springs, all the 0:55:24.160 --> 0:55:28.000 way from San Diego for Thanksgiving dinner. I would invite them, 0:55:28.000 --> 0:55:30.960 and one of them was a Nixon apologist right wing 0:55:31.080 --> 0:55:35.279 professor named doctor Starter, real right wing, and the other 0:55:35.760 --> 0:55:39.680 was a San Denista loving socialist named doctor gil Otto. 0:55:40.280 --> 0:55:44.719 And doctor Stoddard and doctor Otter Auto would come to 0:55:44.840 --> 0:55:48.520 Palm Springs. I would drive them, my professors from University Bob. 0:55:48.560 --> 0:55:50.799 I drive them two and a half hours. My mom 0:55:50.840 --> 0:55:53.720 would have them over and the professors would get drunk 0:55:53.800 --> 0:55:56.000 and try to hit on my sister, just like Elvis 0:55:56.040 --> 0:55:58.360 Presley tried to hit on my sister when he Elvis 0:55:58.360 --> 0:56:02.360 had me on his shoulders my sister, but these professors 0:56:02.360 --> 0:56:04.719 were hitting on my sister. And I would ask them 0:56:04.760 --> 0:56:07.680 political questions to try to get them into an argument. 0:56:07.719 --> 0:56:09.960 It was like I was. It was almost like I 0:56:10.080 --> 0:56:12.760 was Chris Matthews or somebody. I would ask me questions, 0:56:13.040 --> 0:56:15.680 what do you think about this? And I'd get them 0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:17.879 going at each other. They'd be screaming at each other. 0:56:17.880 --> 0:56:20.799 It was really fun. We'd have the best political discussions. 0:56:21.120 --> 0:56:24.759 He had a book written on Nixon Ping pong diplomacy, 0:56:24.800 --> 0:56:27.560 and gil Otto would talk all about the Sandinistas and 0:56:27.600 --> 0:56:30.600 what was going on in Central America. And I found 0:56:30.640 --> 0:56:34.600 both sides really riveting and fascinating. And I've always been 0:56:34.600 --> 0:56:36.400 a political animal because of that. 0:56:38.880 --> 0:56:41.759 Okay, you graduate from college, do you ever think about 0:56:41.800 --> 0:56:43.000 getting a street job. 0:56:43.560 --> 0:56:46.479 Yes, So I got out of college, and the day 0:56:46.560 --> 0:56:48.600 I got out of college, they had, you know how, 0:56:48.640 --> 0:56:51.000 they would have job boards where they put all the jobs. 0:56:51.840 --> 0:56:55.000 USD had that, and I was on the Speakers committee 0:56:55.000 --> 0:56:59.040 at USD, so we would bring in speakers. You remember 0:56:59.160 --> 0:57:02.799 John Anderson ran for president. He was the guy that 0:57:02.920 --> 0:57:05.719 was kind of into no taxes. We got to bring 0:57:05.840 --> 0:57:09.759 John Anderson in to talk. And then one day a 0:57:09.800 --> 0:57:12.200 senator came in, and I was on the speakers committee. 0:57:12.239 --> 0:57:13.759 I got to have dinner with him. And it was 0:57:13.800 --> 0:57:19.200 a senator named Joe Biden. And so Joe Biden came in, 0:57:19.320 --> 0:57:21.720 I have dinner with him, and it was at that 0:57:21.880 --> 0:57:25.240 moment I went, oh, my god, this guy is going 0:57:25.320 --> 0:57:27.880 to be president. Of course, this is back in nineteen 0:57:27.960 --> 0:57:31.960 eighty three or eighty four. And I remember he looked 0:57:32.000 --> 0:57:35.960 like Charles Groden, and I always loved Charles Groden and 0:57:36.000 --> 0:57:39.960 the stuff he did with Goldie Hahn and Joe Biden 0:57:40.080 --> 0:57:42.880 was just so charming and so fun to have dinner with. 0:57:43.360 --> 0:57:46.040 And I went, I would quit everything and go work 0:57:46.040 --> 0:57:48.640 on this guy's career. Little did I know he would 0:57:48.680 --> 0:57:51.720 be president so many years later when he was old. 0:57:52.280 --> 0:57:55.400 But back in the day, that guy was sharp and 0:57:55.520 --> 0:57:57.880 he was so charming, and it was really neat to 0:57:57.920 --> 0:58:00.560 say that I had dinner with Joe Biden. Got out 0:58:01.120 --> 0:58:04.840 of USD. I graduated, had really good grades, and I 0:58:04.920 --> 0:58:08.880 applied for a job at a plastics factory because my 0:58:08.920 --> 0:58:14.480 parents used to always go to me plastics, plastics, just 0:58:14.560 --> 0:58:19.480 like in the graduate and so I thought my mom 0:58:19.520 --> 0:58:21.760 would be happy if I got this job. Honestly, Bob, 0:58:21.960 --> 0:58:25.200 the theme I'm finding out you're like a great shrink. 0:58:25.960 --> 0:58:28.640 You asked really good questions, and I'm going to reiterate 0:58:28.680 --> 0:58:31.080 this long time. I love you like I always have. 0:58:31.280 --> 0:58:34.080 I love your letter. I love what you write, and 0:58:34.120 --> 0:58:37.560 you've taught me a lot of just being yourself. That's 0:58:37.600 --> 0:58:41.560 all you can be. I'm apologetically you. And so the 0:58:41.560 --> 0:58:43.760 theme of this is I wanted to please my mom 0:58:43.800 --> 0:58:45.640 and get a real job, even though I wanted to 0:58:45.680 --> 0:58:50.160 just play music. So the night before the interview for 0:58:50.280 --> 0:58:52.920 my job, there was this girl that lived at the 0:58:52.920 --> 0:58:57.160 beach right by me named Kiara Talini, beautiful Italian girl, 0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:00.240 and she was in her room and I was walking 0:59:00.320 --> 0:59:03.000 down by the beach and she was with Elizabeth, her roommate, 0:59:03.840 --> 0:59:06.680 and she said, hey, Steve, I've you ever eating magic mushrooms? 0:59:06.880 --> 0:59:09.800 And I said no, but I want to. So she said, 0:59:09.800 --> 0:59:11.400 we just got some and I said, well, I got 0:59:11.400 --> 0:59:15.680 an interview at eight am. I had a plastics factory. 0:59:15.960 --> 0:59:18.880 And she said, oh, they'll be worn off by them. 0:59:19.160 --> 0:59:21.920 So it was midnight and I ate these magic mushrooms. 0:59:23.560 --> 0:59:26.120 It didn't kick in. It had been an hour. It 0:59:26.120 --> 0:59:27.800 was one in the morning, so I said, give me more. 0:59:28.240 --> 0:59:30.800 They gave me more, and it kicked in at about 0:59:30.840 --> 0:59:35.120 two am. And when it kicked in, I was out 0:59:35.200 --> 0:59:38.400 with my fucking mind. I took a can of spray 0:59:38.440 --> 0:59:40.840 paint out and started spray painting the wall of my house. 0:59:40.960 --> 0:59:43.240 I had Elizabeth and Kiara with me. I said, let's 0:59:43.240 --> 0:59:45.640 all three of us get in the bathtub and get 0:59:45.680 --> 0:59:48.440 a dozen eggs, and we took off our clothes, were 0:59:48.480 --> 0:59:53.120 in our underwear, and then they broke eggs over my head. 0:59:53.680 --> 0:59:57.439 And I remember this feeling so free and so good. 0:59:57.480 --> 0:59:59.919 And next thing I knew, my roommate came in and said, dude, 1:00:00.160 --> 1:00:01.920 I got to take you to your job interview. It 1:00:01.960 --> 1:00:04.680 was seven. I had egg in my hair and I 1:00:04.720 --> 1:00:07.760 bought an old suit at a thrift store. I duct 1:00:07.800 --> 1:00:09.600 taped up the pants and I went in for a 1:00:09.720 --> 1:00:14.000 job interview. I was tripping balls on shrooms and this guy, 1:00:14.160 --> 1:00:17.000 Tom Plane sits behind this desk and he was a 1:00:17.040 --> 1:00:20.960 Wharton graduate from University of Pennsylvania, and he said, tell 1:00:21.000 --> 1:00:23.480 me why I should hire you, dude, this is why 1:00:23.560 --> 1:00:25.920 mushrooms were so cool back then. It was like I 1:00:26.000 --> 1:00:29.160 became Tony Robbins or Stephen Covey the Seven Habits of 1:00:29.240 --> 1:00:32.919 highly effective people. I sat down and told him why 1:00:32.960 --> 1:00:35.400 he needed to hire me at his plastics factory because 1:00:35.440 --> 1:00:37.960 he had a product called slip Fix that could repair 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:41.240 PBC pipe. And I said, let me tell you why 1:00:41.280 --> 1:00:43.040 you need to hire me. I'm going to get a 1:00:43.080 --> 1:00:45.720 truck and a barbecue, and I'm going to go out 1:00:45.760 --> 1:00:47.919 where the contractors go and I'm going to make them 1:00:47.960 --> 1:00:50.479 hot dogs, and he goes hot dogs and I said, yeah, 1:00:50.680 --> 1:00:53.360 I'm gonna call it slip fis and dogs, and I 1:00:53.440 --> 1:00:56.960 will sell more than you've ever expected in your life. Dude. 1:00:57.000 --> 1:00:59.880 This guy's mind was blown. And then he took out 1:00:59.880 --> 1:01:02.800 a piece of paper and he wrote seventeen point five 1:01:03.240 --> 1:01:05.640 and that was his offer for a salary for me, 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:08.200 and he slid it across the table and I didn't 1:01:08.200 --> 1:01:10.240 know what it meant. So I crossed that ou out 1:01:10.280 --> 1:01:15.200 and I wrote fourteen point two. He goes, what do 1:01:15.240 --> 1:01:18.000 you mean that's less than I'm offering you? And I 1:01:18.080 --> 1:01:21.000 didn't even break a beat and I said, why would 1:01:21.080 --> 1:01:24.440 I want more when I could have less? And he 1:01:24.480 --> 1:01:26.520 said what do you mean? I said, I want back 1:01:26.560 --> 1:01:30.160 in deals, Tom, And I said, I know I'm going 1:01:30.200 --> 1:01:32.400 to sell a lot. I need a company car. I 1:01:32.440 --> 1:01:34.520 need a percentage of sales. And he said, I like 1:01:34.600 --> 1:01:37.680 your style. He hired me right there. He said, you 1:01:37.680 --> 1:01:39.800 can take the company on a car home. In my mind, 1:01:39.840 --> 1:01:42.280 I'm like, I'm tripping balls on trims. Let me pick 1:01:42.320 --> 1:01:45.600 it up on Monday. So I got the job. He 1:01:45.720 --> 1:01:48.840 gives me the job. I worked there for three years, 1:01:49.080 --> 1:01:53.000 went to sales conferences, everything I would tell people I 1:01:53.040 --> 1:01:54.800 wasn't up with people to try to get them to 1:01:54.840 --> 1:01:58.680 trust me. And after three years, I read a book 1:01:58.720 --> 1:02:03.440 called The Edge by William Somerset Mom and Mom is 1:02:03.480 --> 1:02:08.360 spelled im a Uga Champ, great author. That book changed 1:02:08.400 --> 1:02:11.400 my life because the protagonist in the story was a 1:02:11.400 --> 1:02:14.240 guy named Larry Daryl, and he wants to just go 1:02:14.360 --> 1:02:17.440 bum around Europe, and that's what I wanted to do. 1:02:17.600 --> 1:02:19.880 I wanted to play my guitar on the streets. So 1:02:19.920 --> 1:02:22.080 I went into my boss's office. I said I need 1:02:22.080 --> 1:02:25.000 some time on He said how much time do you need? 1:02:25.600 --> 1:02:27.960 A week? Two weeks? I want to go to Europe 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:31.040 and he says I said to him, I need nine 1:02:31.120 --> 1:02:33.680 months and he looked at me like I was crazy. 1:02:33.720 --> 1:02:35.240 He said why, I said, because I want to play 1:02:35.240 --> 1:02:37.720 my guitar on the streets. And he goes for passing change. 1:02:37.960 --> 1:02:39.640 I said yeah, and he said like a bum and 1:02:39.680 --> 1:02:42.040 I go yeah, like a bum And he said, you 1:02:42.040 --> 1:02:44.320 know what, I'm going to give you nine months off, 1:02:44.360 --> 1:02:46.040 but you have to shake my hand and promised me 1:02:46.080 --> 1:02:48.080 you'll come back and work for me after nine months. 1:02:48.160 --> 1:02:49.800 And I said, I'm a man of my word. I 1:02:49.840 --> 1:02:53.120 will do that. He gave me. Nine months off, I 1:02:53.160 --> 1:02:55.720 went to Europe. I played guitar on the streets. I'd 1:02:55.720 --> 1:02:58.520 already been in the Rugburns, started the Rugburns, but I 1:02:58.520 --> 1:03:01.480 wanted to be a street musician. Nine months I went 1:03:01.600 --> 1:03:05.080 all around Ireland. I hitchhiked, rode a bicycle, played in 1:03:05.080 --> 1:03:08.240 front of the Loop in Paris. I played in Amsterdam. 1:03:08.320 --> 1:03:09.640 Then I want to see what it'd be like to 1:03:09.760 --> 1:03:13.480 busk in Morocco, so I went to Africa. Busked in Morocco, 1:03:13.600 --> 1:03:19.000 went to Lisbon, Portugal, Bartholona, Spain, everywhere, ended up in England, 1:03:19.320 --> 1:03:23.800 and then went up to Sweden Norway. Met beautiful people 1:03:24.000 --> 1:03:26.680 and I would play guitar on the streets. Lived in Amsterdam. 1:03:27.120 --> 1:03:29.560 And after nine months I came back and my hair 1:03:29.760 --> 1:03:32.240 was long. He made me cut it, and he hired 1:03:32.320 --> 1:03:35.680 me back, and I did it for three more years. Well. 1:03:35.720 --> 1:03:38.080 I played at nights and then I said I've got 1:03:38.120 --> 1:03:40.919 to quit now. And I'm still friends with that guy 1:03:41.040 --> 1:03:45.240 Tom Play. I just stayed at his beachfront palace in 1:03:45.360 --> 1:03:47.800 San Diego. He has like a ten million dollar house 1:03:47.880 --> 1:03:50.360 right on the beach, and he's still a dear friend 1:03:50.400 --> 1:03:52.400 of mine. And he laughed so hard because he comes 1:03:52.440 --> 1:03:54.640 to my shows and sees the crazy shit I say 1:03:54.680 --> 1:03:57.200 on stage, and I always make him stand up and 1:03:57.240 --> 1:03:59.960 take a bow. Changed my life. 1:04:00.760 --> 1:04:04.840 Oh okay, Yeah, that whole tripping sales pitch. Did you 1:04:04.880 --> 1:04:05.640 live up to it? 1:04:06.320 --> 1:04:11.000 Oh? I was really good. It was bizarre. I don't 1:04:11.000 --> 1:04:12.880 even I could go in there and I could sell 1:04:12.920 --> 1:04:16.120 anything to anyone because I would just become their friend 1:04:16.360 --> 1:04:18.640 and then take them out to dinner and they'd start 1:04:18.640 --> 1:04:21.440 getting orders coming in. So yeah, I made him a 1:04:21.480 --> 1:04:23.360 lot of money, and that's why he kept me on. 1:04:23.800 --> 1:04:26.480 But I knew my life wasn't as a nipple salesman. 1:04:26.520 --> 1:04:29.080 I sold nipples, is what it was. PVC nipple is 1:04:29.120 --> 1:04:32.600 a piece of pipe that's threaded. And I said, when 1:04:32.640 --> 1:04:36.040 I'm eighty years old and I'm on my deathbed, do 1:04:36.160 --> 1:04:38.320 I want to look back on my life and go, hey, 1:04:38.360 --> 1:04:41.600 you were a great nipple salesman. Or do I want 1:04:41.640 --> 1:04:44.680 to say you didn't whist out and you followed your 1:04:44.720 --> 1:04:49.080 heart and you lived your dream, which was to play music, 1:04:49.400 --> 1:04:52.720 make cassettes. The rug Burns we had cassette release parties. 1:04:53.240 --> 1:04:55.760 You know, would we would have this whole scene we 1:04:55.840 --> 1:04:59.280 created because I always believed rather than play in a 1:04:59.320 --> 1:05:01.800 bar without our has a scene like the Chasmon in 1:05:01.920 --> 1:05:05.120 San Diego or something. Find a bar that's your own. 1:05:04.880 --> 1:05:08.160 And that's what I told Jewel as well. Find a bar, 1:05:09.480 --> 1:05:13.000 create your own scene, and people will come to you, 1:05:13.120 --> 1:05:15.960 kind of like you. You started your lefts Its letter, 1:05:16.480 --> 1:05:18.240 you were mimiographing that shit. 1:05:18.960 --> 1:05:19.080 You. 1:05:19.640 --> 1:05:21.440 I mean, I knew of you back when I was 1:05:21.480 --> 1:05:26.560 signed by Danny Goldberg back in those days, and you 1:05:26.600 --> 1:05:28.440 would have the lefts Its Letter and then you just 1:05:28.480 --> 1:05:32.360 went digital. You've always gone with the thing, and you 1:05:32.600 --> 1:05:36.520 created your own thing. And there's nothing better than home cooking. 1:05:37.080 --> 1:05:39.560 That's why when I read a biography of Steve Jobs 1:05:39.680 --> 1:05:43.919 or Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, I relate, or Phil 1:05:44.000 --> 1:05:47.120 Knight even I relate to all those guys because they 1:05:47.160 --> 1:05:51.200 were singular, purpose driven. It's not about how rich you are, 1:05:51.400 --> 1:05:53.960 what you have, or if somebody has more people than 1:05:54.000 --> 1:05:57.640 you and they're playing to a stadium. No, what it's 1:05:57.680 --> 1:06:00.720 about is were you in the flow? How did you 1:06:00.760 --> 1:06:02.720 live your life? Were you in the flow? Did you 1:06:02.840 --> 1:06:06.600 find something that you had to do because I have 1:06:06.720 --> 1:06:09.600 to do this, like I have to play shows. I 1:06:09.640 --> 1:06:14.160 will play shows till I die. 1:06:18.560 --> 1:06:22.040 Okay, go back for three years after being in Europe, 1:06:22.840 --> 1:06:25.800 you quit. Tell me about quitting. Do you say, well, 1:06:25.800 --> 1:06:28.240 I have enough money in the bank. What was the 1:06:28.320 --> 1:06:30.960 plan when you quit? And what actually happened? 1:06:32.520 --> 1:06:38.240 So he gave me a forty thousand dollars payout, and 1:06:38.280 --> 1:06:42.320 I remember I called my friend Jerry and Boseman Montanae. 1:06:42.320 --> 1:06:45.840 I said, I just got forty thousand dollars and it 1:06:46.000 --> 1:06:49.960 was nineteen ninety two, and he said to me, You're 1:06:50.040 --> 1:06:52.880 never going to get that much money again. Put it 1:06:52.920 --> 1:06:57.160 in the bank, don't touch it. You'll never get that again. 1:06:57.840 --> 1:07:02.120 So I put it in the bank. Everybody in San 1:07:02.120 --> 1:07:05.240 Diego was getting record deals, right. It was at the 1:07:05.280 --> 1:07:08.480 time when things were just starting to happen Rocket from 1:07:08.520 --> 1:07:16.120 the Crypt, Rust, Blink Inch a Miniature. There was this 1:07:16.160 --> 1:07:21.160 whole punk scene happening, and so the Rugburns. I became 1:07:21.200 --> 1:07:24.400 really good friends with Mojo Nixon and the Beat Farmers. 1:07:24.520 --> 1:07:27.439 Those guys were kind of my teachers. So I said 1:07:27.480 --> 1:07:31.280 to myself, I gotta go out and keep playing music. 1:07:31.480 --> 1:07:33.320 So this guy who was in the Beat Farmers, his 1:07:33.400 --> 1:07:36.640 name was Buddy Blue. He's now deceased, but he was 1:07:36.680 --> 1:07:38.960 also a writer for the San Diego Reader and for 1:07:39.040 --> 1:07:41.760 the Union Tribune, and he was in the Beat Farmers. 1:07:41.880 --> 1:07:47.280 Buddy Blue got me signed to Bizarre Planet Records and Bizarre. 1:07:47.000 --> 1:07:49.840 Oh okay, okay, wait wait I yeah, wait, Wait a second. 1:07:50.480 --> 1:07:54.600 I knew Herb and his brother, but there were stories 1:07:54.600 --> 1:07:58.240 onto themselves. How do you get hooked up with Herb cold? 1:07:58.600 --> 1:07:58.840 I know? 1:07:59.000 --> 1:08:02.040 Is this crazy? So what happened is Buddy Blue was 1:08:02.080 --> 1:08:06.880 signed to Bizarre and so he brought them in to 1:08:06.960 --> 1:08:09.640 see me, Herb Cohen and said, you got to see 1:08:09.640 --> 1:08:12.960 this guy. He's in this duo. We were a duo Rugburts, 1:08:12.960 --> 1:08:15.520 Me and Rob Driscoll, and he came to see us, 1:08:15.800 --> 1:08:19.439 immediately signed us and said you need to come up 1:08:19.439 --> 1:08:24.439 to La meet Mutt Cohen, and I want you to 1:08:24.439 --> 1:08:27.160 do an ePK. They used to do epk's back then, 1:08:27.240 --> 1:08:29.479 electronic press kits where they would send them out on 1:08:29.479 --> 1:08:34.200 a video cassette. And my ePK was me with Wildman 1:08:34.360 --> 1:08:37.720 Fisher because Wildman Fisher was on Bizarre and wild Mount 1:08:37.800 --> 1:08:40.040 Fisher would walk around and for those of you listen 1:08:40.120 --> 1:08:42.599 out there, wild Mount Fisher was signed by Zappa and 1:08:42.680 --> 1:08:43.760 he was this guy you would go. 1:08:43.880 --> 1:08:45.240 My name is Larry. 1:08:45.680 --> 1:08:48.160 I have a sister, and we have this whole thing 1:08:48.200 --> 1:08:50.360 where he would go up to people who's a better songwriter, 1:08:50.560 --> 1:08:54.040 Steve Poltzer, Wildman Fisher and wild Mattfisher would have crumbs 1:08:54.040 --> 1:08:58.240 in his beard and just crazy stuff. So we make 1:08:58.320 --> 1:09:01.840 this electronic press kit the rugber Get signed. Next thing 1:09:01.880 --> 1:09:04.439 I know, we're playing at like the True Badoura in 1:09:04.600 --> 1:09:08.920 La and Club Lingerie and all these different places, and 1:09:09.000 --> 1:09:11.240 so weird Al would always come out to see us, 1:09:11.960 --> 1:09:15.400 and so weird Al loved a song by the Rugburns 1:09:15.479 --> 1:09:19.479 called Dix Automotive. Because of Dick's automotive, weird Aal wrote 1:09:19.520 --> 1:09:22.840 the song Albuquerque, which is one of his songs he wrote, 1:09:22.880 --> 1:09:25.479 but it's a direct takeoff of the Rugburns, but he 1:09:25.479 --> 1:09:27.720 didn't credit us. I kind of wish he would have, 1:09:27.760 --> 1:09:31.599 but it's okay. He wrote Albuquerque. If you ab di'x 1:09:31.600 --> 1:09:34.760 automotive and Albuquerque he's doing. He would always he was 1:09:34.800 --> 1:09:36.800 obsessed with that song, would come in and listen to. 1:09:37.080 --> 1:09:39.360 John was living in Ocean Beach, California with his girlfriend 1:09:39.439 --> 1:09:43.559 Juliet's where I'm talking really rapid, and so we get 1:09:43.640 --> 1:09:48.679 signed herb Cohen for whatever reason, loves me. He flew 1:09:48.800 --> 1:09:51.080 He would fly me to Paris with him to meet 1:09:51.120 --> 1:09:55.120 this guy named Ben Waugh who worked at Monterey Jazz 1:09:55.200 --> 1:09:58.960 Fest and stuff. And Herb Cohen was this insane guy 1:09:59.320 --> 1:10:02.760 who used to to run guns with Fidel Castro. He 1:10:02.800 --> 1:10:06.760 signed Lenny Bruce, Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits. I 1:10:06.800 --> 1:10:10.120 mean his history is crazy. They on the publishing on 1:10:10.200 --> 1:10:13.400 Everybody's talking at me. Fred Neil saw on that Harry 1:10:13.439 --> 1:10:16.600 Niels would say, so, Herb Cohen would fly me to 1:10:16.680 --> 1:10:18.880 Paris out of the blue and go, I know a 1:10:19.000 --> 1:10:22.840 great place where we can get couscous on Saturdays. Are 1:10:22.840 --> 1:10:25.519 you in? And he would buy me and him tickets 1:10:25.520 --> 1:10:29.080 first class, probably charge it to me, and then he'd 1:10:29.120 --> 1:10:31.639 pay like three hundred dollars cab. Right, we'd end up 1:10:31.720 --> 1:10:36.240 in some nondescript Moroccan neighborhood in Paris eating couscous with 1:10:36.280 --> 1:10:40.400 Ben Law. I mean, being signed by Herb Cohen was 1:10:40.520 --> 1:10:44.000 like a blessing. Even though he took half the publishing. 1:10:44.320 --> 1:10:46.680 I didn't even care. And he would show up at 1:10:46.680 --> 1:10:49.479 my gigs and Herb would go because Herb if put 1:10:49.640 --> 1:10:51.720 anybody out there listening. He was on the cover of 1:10:51.800 --> 1:10:54.240 Nighthawks at the diner with Tom Waits, he's the guy 1:10:54.320 --> 1:10:58.040 sitting in that picture, and Herb Cohen would go, you 1:10:58.200 --> 1:11:01.400 need to get midgets on the stage with you, and 1:11:01.560 --> 1:11:05.639 don't drink whiskey. Put iced t in the whiskey bottle. 1:11:06.520 --> 1:11:10.880 So we get signed to that label and this guy 1:11:10.960 --> 1:11:13.479 Mike Haller and ninety one X starts playing a song 1:11:13.520 --> 1:11:16.920 called Hitchhiker Joe and the song starts kind of getting 1:11:17.040 --> 1:11:20.280 college radio favorite type stuff. So we end up going 1:11:20.280 --> 1:11:23.720 on tour with the band X and I'd split my 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:26.320 head open. I had fifty six stitches in my skull 1:11:26.880 --> 1:11:30.200 and we would play with X and John Doe and 1:11:30.240 --> 1:11:32.880 then we got to play with the Ramones and Cleveland, 1:11:33.479 --> 1:11:36.120 and it was just nuts because Joey Ramone was really 1:11:36.240 --> 1:11:39.559 nice to me. They didn't let bands stay backstage when 1:11:40.000 --> 1:11:42.439 they would be on, but Joey went, you guys are cool, 1:11:42.640 --> 1:11:45.679 you could watch us play. But everything changed when Mojo 1:11:45.800 --> 1:11:51.000 Nixon took me out, because Mojo was insane, and we 1:11:51.040 --> 1:11:54.960 would play stashes in Columbus, Ohio, and a biker would 1:11:55.040 --> 1:11:57.839 show up and you'd go come down to the basement. 1:11:58.280 --> 1:12:01.080 I just made some crystal meth in the desert in 1:12:01.200 --> 1:12:04.519 Baker's Field, and Mojo was like Saddam Hussein, and he 1:12:04.560 --> 1:12:06.479 would have me try his drugs to make sure they 1:12:06.520 --> 1:12:09.120 weren't poisonous first before he did them. So you go 1:12:09.280 --> 1:12:12.200 have Bolts try that drug. And so I would snort 1:12:12.240 --> 1:12:14.960 the meth and then we would be out of our 1:12:15.000 --> 1:12:17.160 minds and the Rugburanns would go on stage and just 1:12:17.320 --> 1:12:20.400 destroy shit, get the power turned off on us. And 1:12:20.439 --> 1:12:24.240 Mojo came up with this quote, no mom meth, but Bolts, y'all. 1:12:24.320 --> 1:12:27.400 Motherfucker is gonna make me work too hard. And so 1:12:28.120 --> 1:12:31.599 we became super close with him. And so the only 1:12:31.640 --> 1:12:34.120 couple times I'd done meth where with Shane McGowan of 1:12:34.200 --> 1:12:37.320 the Pogues and with Mojo Nixon and think I'm the 1:12:37.320 --> 1:12:41.120 only guy that sat on Elvis Presley's shoulders and snorted 1:12:41.240 --> 1:12:44.519 meth out of Shane McGowan's dirty thumbnail, and then with 1:12:44.840 --> 1:12:48.960 Mojo Nixon's drug taster. And so our shows just became 1:12:49.120 --> 1:12:53.440 nuts where we would just anything would go on stage, 1:12:54.000 --> 1:12:55.760 and the Rugburnds toured hard. 1:12:56.080 --> 1:13:00.800 It was crazy, okay, continue So. 1:13:00.920 --> 1:13:03.960 As we were going on the road, we had this 1:13:04.080 --> 1:13:06.479 drummer in the band. We became a full band, and 1:13:06.640 --> 1:13:09.360 we went from being a duo. Herb Cohen thought we 1:13:09.400 --> 1:13:12.840 should get a drummer and a bass player, and so 1:13:12.920 --> 1:13:14.679 I would go up to La a Lot to Herb 1:13:14.720 --> 1:13:18.120 and Mutt's office and they also have a son, Evan 1:13:18.240 --> 1:13:21.479 Con and I would hang out with Herb and Mutt 1:13:21.479 --> 1:13:24.280 in their office all the time, and Herb would go, 1:13:24.680 --> 1:13:28.040 I know a great place that makes a great oxtail soup. 1:13:28.640 --> 1:13:30.200 We're going to go over there. And we would go 1:13:30.240 --> 1:13:33.080 to Musso and Franks and just hang out, Me and 1:13:33.200 --> 1:13:35.800 Herb Cohen. It was crazy. So they would give us 1:13:35.880 --> 1:13:39.560 money to go out on the road. We toured NonStop. 1:13:39.640 --> 1:13:41.759 We would go for like nine months at a time. 1:13:42.360 --> 1:13:45.880 And we had this old van and most band members 1:13:45.880 --> 1:13:49.000 when they're in a van, they put band stickers on it, 1:13:49.080 --> 1:13:51.120 you know it's a band. But I came up with 1:13:51.160 --> 1:13:54.320 this idea because fans are always getting broken into tint 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:56.920 out the windows black and on the side, just put 1:13:57.000 --> 1:14:01.640 Saint Joseph's Catholics had that on the back and on 1:14:01.800 --> 1:14:02.400 the sides. 1:14:03.040 --> 1:14:08.200 Nobody ever broke into our van, never, So we. 1:14:08.120 --> 1:14:11.160 Would just drive down the road in this van and 1:14:11.240 --> 1:14:13.920 it says Saint Justine's Catholic school. I remember one time 1:14:13.960 --> 1:14:16.800 we were in West Virginia and we got pulled over. 1:14:17.120 --> 1:14:19.479 But if you really inspected the van, on the roof, 1:14:19.520 --> 1:14:21.800 we had all these naked lady playing cards, you know 1:14:21.840 --> 1:14:23.840 where they used to sell those at truck stops where 1:14:23.880 --> 1:14:26.479 the girls would have big boobs and they'd be a 1:14:26.520 --> 1:14:29.000 deck of fifty two cards. We had them glued to 1:14:29.080 --> 1:14:31.240 the ceiling of the van, and my hair was like 1:14:31.360 --> 1:14:35.479 long and striped, weird. And we had this record out 1:14:35.479 --> 1:14:38.160 called Morning Wood. It was on bizarre and then we 1:14:38.240 --> 1:14:41.280 had Mommy, I'm sorry, this other one where I'd be 1:14:41.320 --> 1:14:45.040 in a pink dress. And so this state trooper pulled 1:14:45.120 --> 1:14:47.760 us over when we were in the rugbords and he 1:14:47.800 --> 1:14:50.040 starts looking at us and looking at our hair, and 1:14:50.040 --> 1:14:52.320 he goes, what is Saint Justsephe's Catholic school? I said, 1:14:52.280 --> 1:14:54.719 And I remember I said to him, I'm just singing 1:14:54.760 --> 1:14:57.240 for the Lord, sir. And then he saw make a 1:14:57.360 --> 1:14:59.840 lady playing cards and he didn't know what was going on. 1:15:00.200 --> 1:15:03.280 Just get out of the van. He looked at the 1:15:03.400 --> 1:15:06.720 van and he didn't know what to do. And this 1:15:06.840 --> 1:15:09.160 is the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. He goes, 1:15:09.200 --> 1:15:11.759 you can go and he goes here, maybe you need these, 1:15:11.800 --> 1:15:15.320 and he gave me some handcuffs with a key, like 1:15:15.560 --> 1:15:19.599 real cop handcuffs. He gave me them, Bob, and I 1:15:19.640 --> 1:15:22.120 remember I would pull them out on stage and a 1:15:22.200 --> 1:15:24.400 big part of my show would be I'd handcuff myself 1:15:24.439 --> 1:15:28.839 to the drum kit and I put the key somewhere 1:15:28.840 --> 1:15:30.800 and I'd fake like I lost it, like I was 1:15:30.800 --> 1:15:32.559 going to be chained to the floor of the whole show. 1:15:33.439 --> 1:15:36.160 So then we played in a Chicago at a club 1:15:36.200 --> 1:15:39.559 called shubas Southport and Belmont. There was a girl that 1:15:39.720 --> 1:15:44.120 was beautiful named Anastasia who was the booking agent. Now 1:15:44.200 --> 1:15:46.840 she's a big part of my life because she went 1:15:46.880 --> 1:15:51.120 to UCLA and I took her to a place called 1:15:51.200 --> 1:15:54.759 mccabs in Santa Monica to see a guy named Loud 1:15:54.800 --> 1:15:58.080 and Wayne right the third And I remember when I 1:15:58.120 --> 1:16:01.519 was with her at that show, I watched Luden Wayne Wright, 1:16:01.760 --> 1:16:05.040 and that's when I saw my future. So what I 1:16:05.120 --> 1:16:08.360 mean is I'm watching Laden Wayne Write play on stage 1:16:08.400 --> 1:16:11.599 at mccabs and I was in the rugburns and I 1:16:11.640 --> 1:16:14.840 have my arm around Anastasia and I looked at her. 1:16:14.840 --> 1:16:17.720 I've never forgotten this and I said I can do that, 1:16:18.200 --> 1:16:19.880 and she goes, what do you mean? I said, what 1:16:20.000 --> 1:16:22.760 he's doing, I can do that. I'm in the Rugburns 1:16:22.840 --> 1:16:26.040 right now wearing a dress on stage. But that's my future. 1:16:26.240 --> 1:16:28.519 I don't mean I can be him. I mean I 1:16:28.560 --> 1:16:32.639 can do what he's doing and I can make a living. 1:16:32.920 --> 1:16:37.120 Everything came before I saw everything my future. And then 1:16:37.160 --> 1:16:39.920 Anastasia got a job as the booking agent moved out 1:16:39.920 --> 1:16:43.200 to Chicago. I remember I showed up sorrow. I had 1:16:43.240 --> 1:16:45.880 just gotten the handcuffs, and I said, why don't you 1:16:45.920 --> 1:16:48.479 meet me anywhere in Europe this summer. Let's take two 1:16:48.560 --> 1:16:51.720 weeks and go make love on the beaches somewhere. And 1:16:51.760 --> 1:16:54.120 we opened up the Let's Go Europe book. This is 1:16:54.160 --> 1:16:57.479 pre internet, and I said, wherever my finger touches on 1:16:57.520 --> 1:16:59.480 the page, you're going to meet me there. In October. 1:17:00.040 --> 1:17:03.640 It was a place called Making Use and Greece. She 1:17:03.920 --> 1:17:08.080 showed up and I brought the handcuffs, and I was 1:17:08.120 --> 1:17:10.880 with my friend Kevin McGrath, who I wrote I want 1:17:10.920 --> 1:17:13.200 all my friends to be happy about. He died of 1:17:13.280 --> 1:17:17.280 cancer and he came out to run the Athens Marathon. 1:17:18.280 --> 1:17:21.680 I brought the handcuffs Bob and Tom Petty had just 1:17:21.720 --> 1:17:24.599 come out with free Fall, and so we were walking 1:17:24.640 --> 1:17:27.519 on the down the streets and Greece and making us 1:17:27.760 --> 1:17:32.320 singing She's a good girl, loves her mama, drinking shots 1:17:32.320 --> 1:17:34.600 of Luzo, but me and Anastasia are fake drinking the 1:17:34.600 --> 1:17:36.280 shots because we had no money, so we were all 1:17:36.280 --> 1:17:39.480 sharing a room. I wanted to have sex with Anastasia, 1:17:39.880 --> 1:17:41.439 but Kevin was going to be in the room, so 1:17:41.479 --> 1:17:43.519 I needed to get him drunk enough where he was 1:17:43.640 --> 1:17:46.840 passed out because I wanted to use the handcuffs on Anastasia. 1:17:47.439 --> 1:17:50.519 So we're walking on the streets going She's bat and 1:17:50.640 --> 1:17:54.479 I'm a bad boy living in Mezieda, and then he's 1:17:54.520 --> 1:17:55.560 getting the chorus. 1:17:55.400 --> 1:17:59.400 I'm free free falling. So we go back to the room, 1:17:59.520 --> 1:18:04.000 Kevin asses out, Anastasia goes. I brought over some sexy 1:18:04.280 --> 1:18:06.360 lainger aim and to go in the bathroom and change 1:18:06.400 --> 1:18:10.240 into it. So I got totally naked and I handcuffed 1:18:10.280 --> 1:18:13.439 myself to the ceiling fan, and then the ceiling fan 1:18:13.560 --> 1:18:15.360 was kind of going slow, so I was like a 1:18:15.439 --> 1:18:18.679 rotisserie chicken. But I almost looked like an egon ChIL 1:18:18.880 --> 1:18:22.200 painting because I was real skinny, my fingers are real long, 1:18:22.560 --> 1:18:26.559 and I'm hanging from the ceiling fan twirling around real slow, 1:18:26.960 --> 1:18:31.000 and Kevin's asleep and I'm nude. Anastasia walks out in 1:18:31.120 --> 1:18:33.800 some sexy lingerie and she sees me, and she goes, 1:18:34.000 --> 1:18:36.360 you're a bad boy. And then all of a sudden, 1:18:36.439 --> 1:18:38.240 Kevin sits up like a mummy. 1:18:37.880 --> 1:18:41.560 And goes living in Resida, and he was awake the 1:18:41.600 --> 1:18:45.639 whole time. I'd seen everything. So this is the kind 1:18:45.680 --> 1:18:48.080 of shit. This is why I do this line of work. 1:18:48.400 --> 1:18:52.759 For the handcuffs, for the love, and for the music 1:18:53.520 --> 1:18:55.720 and all of that stuff. To have been able to 1:18:55.720 --> 1:18:58.439 have been signed to Bizarre Planet Records after being on 1:18:58.600 --> 1:19:02.240 up with people, I mean, come on, it's a great life. 1:19:02.280 --> 1:19:03.479 We get to live here, Bob. 1:19:05.320 --> 1:19:06.519 So how did it end with Herb? 1:19:07.560 --> 1:19:12.479 What happened was Herb I would go up and see 1:19:12.479 --> 1:19:15.120 in La and then I met this girl named Jewel, 1:19:15.600 --> 1:19:18.559 and Jewel was working at a place called Java Joe's, 1:19:19.120 --> 1:19:22.280 and that was in Poway, California. So I would come 1:19:22.280 --> 1:19:24.280 off of the road with the rugburns and I'd gotten 1:19:24.320 --> 1:19:26.519 in a fistfight with our drummer and I had a 1:19:26.520 --> 1:19:29.839 big old black eye and I had taught Joe's strummer 1:19:29.880 --> 1:19:33.200 from the class how to play black jacket. Vegas got 1:19:33.200 --> 1:19:35.880 to see him play at the joint. He was with 1:19:35.960 --> 1:19:39.000 Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros and I walk in I 1:19:39.040 --> 1:19:41.800 got a black eye, and I show up at this place, 1:19:41.880 --> 1:19:44.720 Java Joe's, and there's this blonde girl and she's beautiful 1:19:45.360 --> 1:19:48.519 and she says, oh, I like the Rugburns. How can 1:19:48.560 --> 1:19:51.200 I get a following like the Rugburns? And she was 1:19:51.280 --> 1:19:53.519 making me some tea. It was midnight. They would run 1:19:53.560 --> 1:19:56.200 an illegal poker game in the back of Java Joe's. 1:19:56.760 --> 1:19:59.240 And I said, well, you should find your own place 1:19:59.439 --> 1:20:01.720 and that that doesn't have a music scene and make 1:20:01.760 --> 1:20:04.040 it your own. I'm a big believer and create your 1:20:04.040 --> 1:20:07.240 own scene. And so Jewel says, you want to hear 1:20:07.280 --> 1:20:09.200 some of my songs and I said sure. So she 1:20:09.280 --> 1:20:11.599 takes me out to her Volkswagen van. She was living 1:20:11.640 --> 1:20:14.040 in it in the back of Java Jo's and Powie 1:20:14.360 --> 1:20:17.639 and we made stained glass art and then we fell 1:20:17.680 --> 1:20:21.640 in love and we would go surfing together and we 1:20:21.760 --> 1:20:26.160 found a place for her to play. And so at 1:20:26.160 --> 1:20:28.720 the time I was still signed with the Rugburns. And 1:20:28.760 --> 1:20:33.479 then Jewel and myself. We ended up in Mexico surfing 1:20:33.720 --> 1:20:36.360 and we ended up on a drug bust with all 1:20:36.400 --> 1:20:39.280 these cops and the pictures are online where there was 1:20:39.320 --> 1:20:44.200 tons of weed and we end up on this drug bust. 1:20:44.560 --> 1:20:46.760 We take pictures with her arms around these cops. And 1:20:46.760 --> 1:20:48.599 that's when I went back and we wrote this song 1:20:48.640 --> 1:20:50.559 called you Were Meant for Me in the room, which 1:20:50.600 --> 1:20:52.600 meant nothing to me at the time. Little did I 1:20:52.640 --> 1:20:56.400 know it was like writing a winning lottery ticket. So 1:20:56.439 --> 1:20:58.840 we write this song you Were Meant for Me. Come 1:20:58.880 --> 1:21:02.840 back to the United States from Mexico. We go out 1:21:02.880 --> 1:21:04.240 for six year old tacos. 1:21:04.320 --> 1:21:05.559 Wh whoa whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. 1:21:05.640 --> 1:21:06.880 What happened with the drug bust? 1:21:07.080 --> 1:21:10.719 Oh? So we're out. We break into a hotel room 1:21:10.760 --> 1:21:13.559 in a place called Bahia. They San Luis Gonzaga, and 1:21:13.600 --> 1:21:17.200 I'm with Jewel and she wants to go well watching. 1:21:17.600 --> 1:21:19.960 So nobody's in the hotel, so we kick open one 1:21:20.000 --> 1:21:22.080 of the doors. We fall asleep in a king sized 1:21:22.120 --> 1:21:26.320 bed with Mexican blankets. We wake up and the sun's 1:21:26.360 --> 1:21:29.280 coming up and I look out the window and Jewel goes, 1:21:29.360 --> 1:21:31.680 oh my god, this is beautiful. So we go out 1:21:31.680 --> 1:21:33.200 on the beach and she says, we got to get 1:21:33.200 --> 1:21:36.200 a boat, and none of us had any money. So 1:21:36.240 --> 1:21:39.080 we're sitting on the beach and Jewels in a yellow bikini. 1:21:39.200 --> 1:21:43.000 She looks beautiful, and these four Mexican federales come down 1:21:43.120 --> 1:21:45.920 the beach with guns in their belts and they walk 1:21:46.040 --> 1:21:47.800 up to us. It's like something out of a Clint 1:21:47.840 --> 1:21:51.040 Eastwood film and you can see the heat rising off 1:21:51.080 --> 1:21:54.040 the sand and they say, would you guys like to 1:21:54.080 --> 1:21:58.559 go watching? So I said no because I was scared 1:21:58.560 --> 1:21:59.960 to go out on a boat with them, but Jewel 1:22:00.080 --> 1:22:02.320 said yes, so I had to go. So we go 1:22:02.400 --> 1:22:05.599 out on the middle of the water the Bahia. They 1:22:05.600 --> 1:22:08.960 sent the weeds Gonzaga and these guys have automatic weapons. 1:22:09.880 --> 1:22:13.360 They're just looking at Jewel in this yellow bikini. I 1:22:13.400 --> 1:22:16.080 think they're gonna kill me, throw me overboard. It's like 1:22:16.120 --> 1:22:20.360 a Cone Brothers Blood Simple or something. And so instead 1:22:20.520 --> 1:22:22.559 they get a call on their radio and they say, hey, 1:22:22.560 --> 1:22:25.559 we have to go catch these drug smugglers and we 1:22:25.600 --> 1:22:27.120 don't have time to take you back to shore and 1:22:27.200 --> 1:22:30.479 put on these bulletproof vests. So we put on the vests. 1:22:30.520 --> 1:22:33.800 My heart's found it, so fast. The boat goes to 1:22:33.920 --> 1:22:36.920 this little island. It's like Miami Vice. You see these 1:22:37.000 --> 1:22:40.799 drug smugglers running. They caught the slowest one. He tells 1:22:40.840 --> 1:22:43.840 them where all the weed is. So the cops make 1:22:43.920 --> 1:22:45.840 me go to this boat and carry all the weed 1:22:45.880 --> 1:22:48.280 back to the boat and they give those guys those 1:22:48.280 --> 1:22:52.120 plastic ties around their wrists. They have like six drug smugglers. 1:22:52.600 --> 1:22:54.599 And we get on the boat with the drug smugglers 1:22:54.600 --> 1:22:57.080 who look at me like I'm stealing their weed, and 1:22:57.120 --> 1:23:00.160 they're like they want to kill me and the cops there. 1:23:00.640 --> 1:23:03.040 So we go back to the shore and we get 1:23:03.040 --> 1:23:04.599 out and I said, well, we're going to get going. 1:23:04.680 --> 1:23:06.360 I I just wanted to get the hell out of there. 1:23:06.640 --> 1:23:08.000 And I said, what are you guys going to do? 1:23:08.040 --> 1:23:11.120 And they said, this is the largest drug bust we've 1:23:11.120 --> 1:23:13.320 had in years in this area. We're going to have 1:23:13.360 --> 1:23:17.000 a party. And so we go to walk away and 1:23:17.040 --> 1:23:20.040 the cock goes stay by Bena key, which means Steve 1:23:20.240 --> 1:23:22.760 come here. And I said what he said, I want 1:23:22.800 --> 1:23:25.080 you to take some And this is back in like 1:23:25.200 --> 1:23:29.000 nineteen ninety two, right, maybe ninety four, I think, And 1:23:29.080 --> 1:23:32.160 he opens up a switchblade and he stabs one of 1:23:32.240 --> 1:23:35.160 the kilos of this Mexican dirt, and you can smell 1:23:35.240 --> 1:23:38.599 the skunk smell coming up through my nostrils, and he says, 1:23:38.640 --> 1:23:40.760 take some. So I'm trying to figure out what less 1:23:40.760 --> 1:23:43.760 than announces, and I stick my long, bony fingers in 1:23:43.800 --> 1:23:46.599 to grab the weed out, and as I do, he says, 1:23:46.680 --> 1:23:50.280 take the whole kilo jewel, digs her fingernails into my 1:23:50.360 --> 1:23:52.840 arm and goes, Steve, don't do it. You're gonna end 1:23:52.920 --> 1:23:54.920 up in jail. It's going to be like Midnight Express. 1:23:54.960 --> 1:23:57.040 I'll be talking to you from me on a glass wall. 1:23:57.840 --> 1:24:00.719 And then I just said, a man with the badge 1:24:00.720 --> 1:24:04.120 in Mexico is telling me to take the jewel, and 1:24:04.160 --> 1:24:07.320 they pulled their guns out, and I took the whole kilo, 1:24:07.360 --> 1:24:09.680 and they said, let's take a picture. So if you 1:24:09.760 --> 1:24:13.000 look and type in Jewel drug Bust photos, you'll see 1:24:13.080 --> 1:24:16.200 us and all this weed shoved into a black suburban. 1:24:16.240 --> 1:24:18.760 Behind us. We're holding Corona beers or some kind of beer, 1:24:18.800 --> 1:24:21.200 and we have guns in our hands, and the cops 1:24:21.200 --> 1:24:24.960 are next to us in Mexico. And these pictures I 1:24:24.960 --> 1:24:28.160 think made High Times magazine, and my parents were so proud. 1:24:28.560 --> 1:24:32.040 So we went back to the room after the drug bust, 1:24:32.200 --> 1:24:35.760 and I gave the kilo to this old woman who 1:24:35.840 --> 1:24:39.040 was making some spaghetti sauce for a Mormon youth group, 1:24:39.080 --> 1:24:41.920 and she poured the whole kilo into the spaghetti sauce 1:24:42.400 --> 1:24:45.120 fed the youth group. And I woke up at midnight 1:24:45.160 --> 1:24:48.439 and all these Mormon missionary kids were like playing frisbee 1:24:48.479 --> 1:24:51.120 and stuff. And I came back, got in bed with Jewel, 1:24:51.240 --> 1:24:53.200 woke up in the morning and I grabbed the guitar, 1:24:53.320 --> 1:24:55.400 and Jewel goes, do the thing where you make up 1:24:55.400 --> 1:24:57.920 a song, So I start doing the riff you were 1:24:57.960 --> 1:25:01.120 meant for me. Little do I know this song's gonna 1:25:01.120 --> 1:25:04.160 sell millions and millions of records, like ten million. Who 1:25:04.160 --> 1:25:06.400 knows set a record on the Billboard Top one on 1:25:06.520 --> 1:25:10.120 your chart. I have no idea I'm writing something that's 1:25:10.160 --> 1:25:13.400 gonna pay me the rest of my life. And so 1:25:13.439 --> 1:25:16.080 we write the song, but then we write a second 1:25:16.120 --> 1:25:18.680 song called food Stamp Love, and I go, this is 1:25:18.720 --> 1:25:21.759 the hit you were meant for me sucks. Food Stamp 1:25:21.800 --> 1:25:24.200 Love's cool, and the whole chorus was I'm sick of 1:25:24.240 --> 1:25:27.120 your Foodstamp Love about a lever who doles out food 1:25:27.120 --> 1:25:30.760 do you like, it's a government assistance program, and Jewel goes, 1:25:30.840 --> 1:25:32.720 I'll never forget jewels. She was like, I think you 1:25:32.760 --> 1:25:35.040 were meant for me as the hit, not Foodstamp Love. 1:25:35.400 --> 1:25:38.599 And we're driving back to get to San Diego, and 1:25:39.120 --> 1:25:41.599 you were meant for me flies out of the window. 1:25:41.840 --> 1:25:45.040 We didn't have iPhones back then. It was on like napkins. 1:25:45.080 --> 1:25:47.320 It was written and it flew out, and I go, 1:25:47.439 --> 1:25:51.040 it's okay, we got food Stamp Love and Jewel goes. 1:25:51.080 --> 1:25:53.080 You gotta go back and get you were meant for me. 1:25:53.400 --> 1:25:57.200 Those words were cool, please Si. We got in an argument. 1:25:57.320 --> 1:26:00.519 I made a U turn. I drove back. You were 1:26:00.560 --> 1:26:03.200 meant for me the winning lottery ticket that was on 1:26:03.240 --> 1:26:06.360 the freaking ground. And then we drove across the border 1:26:06.640 --> 1:26:09.240 and we go to a Mexican place called La Posta 1:26:09.600 --> 1:26:13.479 on University Avenue where drug dealers and prostitutes would hang 1:26:13.520 --> 1:26:15.720 out and it's the only place that was opened late 1:26:15.760 --> 1:26:17.639 at night, and you would get a bean and cheese 1:26:17.680 --> 1:26:21.400 burrito and six year old tacos with guacamole. Stick the 1:26:21.479 --> 1:26:25.559 Crispy World taco with the shredded beef inside, stick it 1:26:25.600 --> 1:26:29.080 in the bean burrito and then bite that for the crunchiness. Boh, 1:26:29.320 --> 1:26:32.559 it's sublime with the guacamole a on top of the 1:26:32.600 --> 1:26:35.439 six year old tacos for like a dollar ninety nine. 1:26:35.760 --> 1:26:38.160 So we're sitting out there, me and Jewel and there's 1:26:38.160 --> 1:26:41.240 four prostitutes and they say, what do you guys hippies? 1:26:41.439 --> 1:26:44.000 And we go yeah, and they said you sing songs 1:26:44.040 --> 1:26:46.040 and I go yeah. They go, sing us a song. 1:26:46.080 --> 1:26:48.080 I go, we just wrote a song called you Were 1:26:48.160 --> 1:26:49.920 Meant for Me. You want to hear it now if 1:26:49.960 --> 1:26:53.200 you look at Timespace Continuum. Nobody'd ever heard that song 1:26:53.240 --> 1:26:56.320 but me and Jewel and now four hookers. So we 1:26:56.439 --> 1:26:58.400 sing it for the four hookers. I go, tell us 1:26:58.400 --> 1:27:01.280 who should sing the song? So I sang it first, 1:27:01.960 --> 1:27:05.479 and then Jewel sang it, and then they clapped for 1:27:05.520 --> 1:27:06.880 both of us, and they said we're going to go 1:27:06.920 --> 1:27:09.439 over here and deliberate and we'll let you know. We'll 1:27:09.439 --> 1:27:11.320 come back tell you should sing it. And it was 1:27:11.360 --> 1:27:14.880 a quick verdict, which is never good. Off they came 1:27:14.960 --> 1:27:18.240 back and the lead prostitute, I said, have you reached 1:27:18.240 --> 1:27:20.120 a decision and she said yes, we have your honor, 1:27:20.120 --> 1:27:22.120 and I said, please let us know, and they looked 1:27:22.120 --> 1:27:25.160 at Jewel and they said, honey, you sing that that 1:27:25.200 --> 1:27:29.400 white boy can't sing. You do the song. And that's 1:27:29.720 --> 1:27:32.360 that was our an R department. And then Jewel ended 1:27:32.439 --> 1:27:35.439 up getting signed to Atlantic Records by the same guy 1:27:35.479 --> 1:27:38.080 you signed me, Danny Goldberg, because he was the Atlantic 1:27:38.120 --> 1:27:40.840 back then he was the president of the ACLU. He 1:27:40.880 --> 1:27:44.439 would switch things. He was married to Rosemary Carol, you know, 1:27:44.479 --> 1:27:47.160 who had been married to Jim Carroll, and Rosemary was 1:27:47.240 --> 1:27:53.240 Nirvana's lawyer. And so Jewel gets signed and everybody's going, 1:27:53.280 --> 1:27:55.840 you were met from me, this is the hit, and 1:27:55.880 --> 1:27:58.000 I was like, what about food stamp love? 1:27:58.240 --> 1:27:59.439 No like fuck you? 1:28:00.120 --> 1:28:03.400 That song means nothing, and I remember being really hurt. 1:28:03.760 --> 1:28:06.240 And then Neil Young came to see Jewel play at 1:28:06.240 --> 1:28:09.640 the Interchange, which was the scene she created because we 1:28:09.760 --> 1:28:12.519 found it and it would get so packed. Neil Young 1:28:12.560 --> 1:28:15.200 came all the way down at San Diego would record 1:28:15.240 --> 1:28:17.559 her outside of it, and then asked if we would 1:28:17.640 --> 1:28:20.040 come live at his ranch to make his record. So 1:28:20.120 --> 1:28:24.000 me and Jewel move up to Elliott Roberts Place that 1:28:24.160 --> 1:28:26.760 was on Neil Young's property because Elliott was going through 1:28:26.760 --> 1:28:29.800 a divorce and wasn't there, so we lived on Neil 1:28:29.840 --> 1:28:32.880 Young's Ranch and the Stray Gators were the band, and 1:28:32.920 --> 1:28:36.200 I got to beat the guitarist. The drummer was Kenneth Butchery, 1:28:36.280 --> 1:28:38.559 who was the drummer on Rainy Dame Women number twelve 1:28:38.600 --> 1:28:40.800 and thirty eight. I think that's the numbers from the 1:28:40.840 --> 1:28:41.599 Bob Dylan song. 1:28:41.680 --> 1:28:43.840 I never thirty five, but that's okay. 1:28:43.640 --> 1:28:47.839 Thirty five right, yeah, thank you? And so I remember 1:28:47.880 --> 1:28:50.479 I walked in, I saw Kenneth Buncher. I go, Kenneth Butchery, 1:28:50.520 --> 1:28:52.920 you're the guy that did that beat. Will you do it? Bob? 1:28:53.080 --> 1:28:55.360 This is one of my favorite moments in life. He 1:28:55.400 --> 1:28:57.439 looked at me and goes, young Man, Yes I will, 1:28:57.479 --> 1:29:05.759 and he went and I was in heaven. The bass 1:29:05.760 --> 1:29:09.000 player was Tim Drummond. He was so good. It was 1:29:09.040 --> 1:29:12.719 produced by the guy that was in Neil Young's band, 1:29:12.800 --> 1:29:15.960 Ben Keith, who also played pedal steel guitar on Patsy 1:29:16.040 --> 1:29:19.760 Klein's Crazy. We had the coolest band and I got 1:29:19.800 --> 1:29:22.320 to play guitar, so we did. You were meant for me. 1:29:22.439 --> 1:29:25.400 We lived at Neil Young's ranch and Ben Keith and 1:29:25.479 --> 1:29:27.880 Neil Young couldn't believe how much food I could eat 1:29:27.920 --> 1:29:30.960 because I'm so skinny, but I was always hungry from 1:29:31.000 --> 1:29:34.000 the Rugburns days. So Neil Young had his own personal 1:29:34.120 --> 1:29:37.200 chef who he called Cookie, and they would weigh me 1:29:37.360 --> 1:29:40.519 before breakfast and after breakfast because they said they'd never 1:29:40.520 --> 1:29:42.880 seen anybody eat so much. I was like a snake 1:29:42.960 --> 1:29:47.880 with apossum and his stomach, and so he would Neil 1:29:47.920 --> 1:29:48.519 Young would. 1:29:48.360 --> 1:29:50.400 Go, that was a four and a half pounder. 1:29:51.200 --> 1:29:54.280 So then we'd go into the studio and we recorded 1:29:54.320 --> 1:29:58.679 You Were Meant for Me, and Atlantic stuck with that record, 1:29:58.840 --> 1:30:02.160 and the version of You Were Me for Me didn't 1:30:02.400 --> 1:30:05.800 do a lot early, and they got it redone by 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:10.759 some other guy who was a famous producer, Peter Collins 1:30:10.840 --> 1:30:14.040 or something. He redid it and they got Flee to 1:30:14.080 --> 1:30:18.600 play bass on it, and so they they did you 1:30:18.680 --> 1:30:20.880 Were Meant for Me again, and at first they had 1:30:20.880 --> 1:30:24.200 Sean Penn direct the video, and Sean Penn had stolen 1:30:24.320 --> 1:30:28.160 jewel from me and so he directed the video. So 1:30:28.200 --> 1:30:30.880 I was glad when the video failed because then they 1:30:30.960 --> 1:30:33.160 redid it and I was the guy in the video 1:30:33.200 --> 1:30:35.960 with jewel and I'm not wearing a shirt, and that 1:30:36.200 --> 1:30:39.720 version went really big and Flee played bass on it, 1:30:39.800 --> 1:30:41.920 and so it was pretty cool. Because I got to 1:30:41.920 --> 1:30:45.479 see Flee when we played Woodstock ninety nine and Fleega 1:30:45.680 --> 1:30:47.960 was about to go on stage naked, and I remember 1:30:48.200 --> 1:30:50.439 he didn't even have a sock over as Dick. And 1:30:50.479 --> 1:30:52.680 I remember talking to Flee and I had smoked some 1:30:52.800 --> 1:30:56.160 fog hat weed because Jewel bought fog hats sold tour bus, 1:30:56.400 --> 1:30:58.840 and I was so stoned, and I remember just looking 1:30:58.880 --> 1:31:02.040 at Flee's Dick and you should not be named Flee 1:31:02.560 --> 1:31:05.760 because that thing's big and he's a little guy, and 1:31:05.760 --> 1:31:08.400 he's jumping around on stage at Woodstock ninety nine is 1:31:08.439 --> 1:31:11.160 Dick's flopping around. And I remember before he went on, 1:31:11.240 --> 1:31:13.120 he was like, did you like the bass part? I 1:31:13.280 --> 1:31:15.920 laid on you were meant for Me? And when we 1:31:16.000 --> 1:31:18.880 played the riots calmed down. There was like all these 1:31:18.960 --> 1:31:22.920 limp biscuit dudes out there. Nobody was rioting because we 1:31:22.920 --> 1:31:25.360 were singing you were Meant for Me, and everybody was 1:31:25.400 --> 1:31:27.400 at peace at that moment, and Juel End had to 1:31:27.400 --> 1:31:29.960 set on who Will Save Your Soul? And Elvis Costello 1:31:30.000 --> 1:31:31.680 went on before us. He had warned us it was 1:31:31.720 --> 1:31:34.519 getting crazy, and then we got off stage, and then 1:31:34.560 --> 1:31:36.639 the Chili Peppers were the final band, and you could 1:31:36.640 --> 1:31:37.200 hear what. 1:31:38.080 --> 1:31:39.040 Give it to your mom? 1:31:39.160 --> 1:31:41.920 On fleas Dick's flapping around and people are setting porta 1:31:41.960 --> 1:31:45.320 potties on fire and everything. But when we played, I 1:31:45.320 --> 1:31:47.800 got to tell you, Bob, there was peace at Woodstock 1:31:47.920 --> 1:31:48.559 ninety nine. 1:31:49.920 --> 1:31:54.320 Okay, Slower, did she already have to deal with Atlantic 1:31:54.360 --> 1:31:57.240 when you went to Neil Young's ranch? Or was it 1:31:57.640 --> 1:32:00.400 the work you did there that got you the deal? 1:32:00.960 --> 1:32:04.480 She already had the deal. She got the deal already. 1:32:04.840 --> 1:32:10.040 She got signed out of the interchange, and Tommy Mottola 1:32:10.200 --> 1:32:13.519 was coming down. He bought her a guitar from Sony Records. 1:32:13.520 --> 1:32:15.840 There was all these There was a bidding war, and 1:32:15.920 --> 1:32:20.479 I remember we met am at Erdigend. Then he had 1:32:20.479 --> 1:32:25.080 this cane and it was amazing to meet him. And 1:32:26.760 --> 1:32:32.360 then Danny won the bidding war. Jewel got signed and 1:32:32.439 --> 1:32:35.000 Neil Young had already heard of her, So Neil Young said, 1:32:35.000 --> 1:32:38.320 why don't you come open for me at Madison Square Garden. 1:32:38.360 --> 1:32:40.360 I think it was like a couple of nights sold out. 1:32:41.439 --> 1:32:44.639 So he flies Jewel in to open for Neil Young 1:32:44.680 --> 1:32:49.840 at Madison Square Garden before her record's out. Nobody really 1:32:49.880 --> 1:32:53.240 knows who she is. And he comes backstage and he goes, 1:32:53.720 --> 1:32:57.880 how you doing, Jewel, She's not too good and Neil 1:32:57.880 --> 1:33:00.679 Young why not? And she goes come about to open 1:33:00.720 --> 1:33:03.559 for Neil Young at Madison Square Garden and it's sold out, 1:33:04.280 --> 1:33:08.120 and Neil Young goes, ah, it's just another hash house 1:33:08.160 --> 1:33:13.280 on the road to success. Show them no respect, which 1:33:13.320 --> 1:33:16.519 I think to this day is the best advice. And 1:33:16.600 --> 1:33:19.080 uh so, then the record Jewel goes out and she 1:33:19.120 --> 1:33:20.800 would open. I was with her. She would open for 1:33:20.840 --> 1:33:23.360 Peter Murphy and there'd be all these goth fans there 1:33:23.840 --> 1:33:26.920 and Jewel would come out barefoot and go, Hi, I 1:33:26.960 --> 1:33:29.160 just want you guys to know I believe in angels. 1:33:29.560 --> 1:33:32.200 And I would think I'd be standing side stage going, 1:33:32.320 --> 1:33:36.639 don't say that these are goth people. But to Jewel's credit, 1:33:36.880 --> 1:33:40.400 she was true to herself and it worked and she 1:33:40.439 --> 1:33:43.519 would win over these goth crowds. Then next thing, you know, 1:33:44.120 --> 1:33:47.560 the songs gets legs and it starts breaking all these records, 1:33:47.840 --> 1:33:50.160 and I am now checks were coming in and I 1:33:50.280 --> 1:33:52.679 was using my mom and dad's address and checks would 1:33:52.680 --> 1:33:55.439 be like one hundred and thirty thousand dollars and my 1:33:55.600 --> 1:33:57.479 dad would call me up and go, this must be 1:33:57.520 --> 1:34:00.720 a mistake. I'll put it in my account how much 1:34:00.760 --> 1:34:01.720 faith he in me? 1:34:09.600 --> 1:34:14.120 Just so I got it straight. Sean Penn stole Jewel, 1:34:14.320 --> 1:34:15.840 but then she came back to you. 1:34:16.800 --> 1:34:22.960 Well we did. We did that show in La I 1:34:22.960 --> 1:34:26.479 think it was the Leno Show, Jay Leno Show, and 1:34:28.000 --> 1:34:32.759 Jewel was opening for Liz Fair at the will Turn 1:34:33.560 --> 1:34:36.160 and so she would have me come out and we 1:34:36.200 --> 1:34:39.799 would play some songs and by the I still love Jewels. 1:34:39.800 --> 1:34:41.519 She's like one of my best friends. Like, that's the 1:34:41.560 --> 1:34:46.040 coolest thing. Is our relationship so fun? So we did 1:34:46.760 --> 1:34:50.080 the Jay Leno Show and that was I think Michael 1:34:50.200 --> 1:34:54.320 Caine was on it, and I remember I was backstage 1:34:54.720 --> 1:34:57.240 and I asked Michael Caine to make an outgoing message 1:34:57.240 --> 1:34:59.320 on my answering machine. We were getting our makeup and 1:34:59.439 --> 1:35:03.120 on the same time, and I had a flip phone, 1:35:03.160 --> 1:35:05.519 you know before we had iPhones, and I said, will 1:35:05.560 --> 1:35:08.240 you make my outgoing message of Michael King goes sure, 1:35:08.360 --> 1:35:11.400 and when it beats, he goes, hello, this is Michael Caine. 1:35:11.560 --> 1:35:15.320 Steve's nodding. They'll call you when he's recovered. It was 1:35:15.360 --> 1:35:17.280 so cool. Off the top of his said, So we 1:35:17.360 --> 1:35:21.839 do the show and then Sean Penn came to the 1:35:22.240 --> 1:35:25.400 Liz Fair Show and Liz Ferrer was playing I'm a 1:35:25.439 --> 1:35:27.800 huge fan of Liz Fair, Exile and Guieville and all 1:35:27.800 --> 1:35:30.920 that stuff. And then he invited us over to his 1:35:31.080 --> 1:35:34.200 trailer in Malibu because his house burnt down where he 1:35:34.280 --> 1:35:38.080 lived with Madonna, and so that house burnt down, and 1:35:38.120 --> 1:35:42.519 then I think he and Robin Wright had broken up 1:35:42.640 --> 1:35:45.559 or something. So he invited us to his trailer. And 1:35:45.600 --> 1:35:48.519 so we go to Sean Penn's trailer and Malibu overlooking 1:35:48.600 --> 1:35:50.880 the water, and I remember he had a broken nose 1:35:51.600 --> 1:35:55.599 and we were smoking weed. Jewel didn't smoke, she didn't drink. 1:35:55.720 --> 1:35:57.880 Me and Sean were smoking weed and he was playing 1:35:57.920 --> 1:36:02.439 me tapes that do you remember Dave Baerwald, David and David, 1:36:03.000 --> 1:36:03.479 that band. 1:36:03.600 --> 1:36:04.760 I know Dave Bearwald. 1:36:05.120 --> 1:36:09.280 Well, yeah, so Dave Barwald had given Sean these tapes 1:36:09.280 --> 1:36:12.320 he got from the CIA of bombings going on. Sean. 1:36:12.400 --> 1:36:15.400 I remember I was talking about everything. Sean knows a 1:36:15.400 --> 1:36:18.400 lot of stuff, like I love Sean Penn. But I 1:36:18.439 --> 1:36:20.639 remember I was so stoned and I went and took 1:36:20.640 --> 1:36:24.600 a piss and Sean was pissing next to me, and 1:36:24.680 --> 1:36:27.639 I remember I looked at his Dick for some reason 1:36:27.640 --> 1:36:30.360 because we were pissing side by side. I remember thinking, 1:36:30.640 --> 1:36:34.839 holy shit, he's gonna steal Jewel. I saw the future. 1:36:34.840 --> 1:36:37.680 I'm really good at seeing things. And I remember then 1:36:38.160 --> 1:36:41.639 she was in New York and I called her room 1:36:41.680 --> 1:36:43.719 and Sean Penn was in the room and answered the phone. 1:36:43.800 --> 1:36:47.240 I remember I go Sean and he goes Steve, and 1:36:47.520 --> 1:36:49.479 that was it. I was sad for a while. And 1:36:49.479 --> 1:36:53.200 then she flew to con Film Festival with Jack Nicholson 1:36:53.240 --> 1:36:57.679 and Sean Penn, but then they didn't last and then 1:36:58.040 --> 1:37:01.920 Jewel redid you were met from. Peter Collins was the producer, 1:37:02.439 --> 1:37:04.599 and redid it because they thought I could be a hit. 1:37:04.880 --> 1:37:07.639 And then Flee played bass on it and they kept 1:37:07.680 --> 1:37:10.400 my guitar part, and then Jewel asked me to be 1:37:10.479 --> 1:37:12.880 in the video, so I was like that. That was 1:37:12.920 --> 1:37:15.439 when MTV was huge. So I was the shirtless guy 1:37:15.479 --> 1:37:18.920 in the video and we were like the remote host 1:37:18.960 --> 1:37:21.519 of the MTV Music Awards. And me and Jewel lived 1:37:21.520 --> 1:37:24.160 in wind and Sea Beach and La Joya, and they 1:37:24.160 --> 1:37:26.120 had all these MTV crew there and they go, let's 1:37:26.120 --> 1:37:29.200 cut the Jewel Saint with Steve Poltz and La Joya 1:37:29.560 --> 1:37:32.400 and we would talk about the Music Awards, and that 1:37:32.520 --> 1:37:34.760 video was everywhere, and I was for a while known 1:37:34.800 --> 1:37:38.080 as the dude in the Jewel video and people would 1:37:38.120 --> 1:37:40.240 see me, go, that's the dude from the Jewel video. 1:37:40.400 --> 1:37:42.280 Like bikers and shit would come up and want me 1:37:42.320 --> 1:37:44.800 to sign their old ladies breasts and stuff. I was 1:37:44.840 --> 1:37:46.439 always scared it was gonna be the biker that was 1:37:46.479 --> 1:37:49.799 gonna kill me. I had slept with this old lady 1:37:49.960 --> 1:37:53.040 when he was at Sturgis. But uh, yeah, it was 1:37:53.080 --> 1:37:54.519 crazy all that stuff that happened. 1:37:54.520 --> 1:37:59.720 Okay, once, once Sean stole Jewel, it was never a romance. 1:38:00.080 --> 1:38:01.280 We knew and Jewel again. 1:38:01.560 --> 1:38:06.240 No, then we were just buddies. Actually got closer. We 1:38:06.439 --> 1:38:08.479 just got super close, you know, like at first you 1:38:08.520 --> 1:38:12.679 go through a heartbreak and I was really sad, and 1:38:12.720 --> 1:38:16.639 then I just thought, you know what, you get over it. 1:38:16.720 --> 1:38:19.280 And I love her so much and she's such a 1:38:19.280 --> 1:38:22.280 good friend of mine and she's so creative. To this day, 1:38:22.320 --> 1:38:25.639 we're just super close. So but Sean did steal her 1:38:25.640 --> 1:38:25.960 from me. 1:38:27.000 --> 1:38:30.360 I s okay, let's go back to you were meant 1:38:30.400 --> 1:38:35.080 for me. It sounds like you wrote it, but it's 1:38:35.120 --> 1:38:36.479 credited to you and Jewel. 1:38:36.560 --> 1:38:38.519 Oh no, we co wrote it. 1:38:39.280 --> 1:38:42.559 Okay, so you co wrote it? Do you own fifty 1:38:42.600 --> 1:38:43.479 percent of the song? 1:38:43.800 --> 1:38:46.720 Yeah. I could have never written it without her, like 1:38:46.800 --> 1:38:48.320 I could have never written with it. I would have 1:38:48.360 --> 1:38:49.600 never said you were met from her. 1:38:50.200 --> 1:38:53.800 Okay, just just aligning the stories. Yeah, okay, So there's 1:38:53.840 --> 1:38:58.000 one hundred cents in the U in a dollar. Was 1:38:58.040 --> 1:39:01.120 your deal with publishing? Deal with her Cohen already over? 1:39:01.240 --> 1:39:03.160 How come he didn't get half the publishing? 1:39:03.479 --> 1:39:06.880 Oh yeah, he got money too. Yeah, herb got a 1:39:06.880 --> 1:39:10.360 lot of money, and Bob Duffy and Evan Cohen and 1:39:10.479 --> 1:39:12.720 Mutt Cohen. I don't even know how it works. I've 1:39:12.720 --> 1:39:17.479 never you know, I've never cared enough because I always 1:39:17.479 --> 1:39:19.920 had I was always making money. All I cared about 1:39:20.040 --> 1:39:23.439 was playing shows. So I was never the kind of 1:39:23.439 --> 1:39:27.200 guy who was nikelaing diming stuff. I mean, I probably 1:39:27.280 --> 1:39:29.080 had a bad deal because I signed it on the 1:39:29.120 --> 1:39:33.120 hood of a Cadillac outside Molly Malone's in la and 1:39:33.560 --> 1:39:35.960 I was like, you'll give me two thousand bucks cash 1:39:36.040 --> 1:39:38.960 right now if I signed half my publishing away, Because 1:39:38.960 --> 1:39:41.799 that was how those guys worked back in those days. 1:39:41.840 --> 1:39:46.160 So yeah, they probably owned part of it. I've never 1:39:46.280 --> 1:39:47.040 analyzed it. 1:39:47.800 --> 1:39:51.760 So at this point in time, is there still reasonable 1:39:51.760 --> 1:39:53.160 income from you where men for me? 1:39:53.760 --> 1:39:58.120 Yeah? You know what's weird? I still get checks. It's bizarre, 1:39:58.720 --> 1:40:00.920 like it's not huge, but it it makes me money. 1:40:01.600 --> 1:40:05.760 And it's pretty cool because it still comes in and 1:40:05.800 --> 1:40:08.120 I'm waiting for it to be used in some movie 1:40:08.160 --> 1:40:11.080 one day, like where Well Ferrell's naked singing it at 1:40:11.160 --> 1:40:12.360 karaoke or something. 1:40:13.680 --> 1:40:15.360 Well, I don't want to be your lawyer here, but 1:40:15.439 --> 1:40:18.280 there's rites of reversion, et cetera. You might be able 1:40:18.280 --> 1:40:21.240 to get the other half of the publishing back. Really, 1:40:21.280 --> 1:40:23.040 not that I'm giving Yeah, not that I'm giving you 1:40:23.120 --> 1:40:26.680 any legal advice. Check with your attorney. I'll leave it 1:40:26.720 --> 1:40:32.280 at that. Okay, So you're married to Sharon today. How 1:40:32.280 --> 1:40:33.559 many times you've been married? 1:40:34.560 --> 1:40:34.880 Once? 1:40:36.880 --> 1:40:38.479 So how did you meet Sharon? 1:40:38.520 --> 1:40:38.680 Then? 1:40:38.720 --> 1:40:39.920 When did you meet Sharon? 1:40:41.000 --> 1:40:45.519 So? I met Sharon she had a hair salon in 1:40:45.680 --> 1:40:50.160 San Diego, and I went in to get my haircut, 1:40:50.600 --> 1:40:53.160 and we were both friends with a friend of mine 1:40:53.160 --> 1:40:58.519 who got murdered, Steve Boge, and so I had come 1:40:58.560 --> 1:41:03.439 out of rehab and we would do victims of violent 1:41:03.560 --> 1:41:06.880 crime benefit shows at the Caspo in San Diego and 1:41:06.920 --> 1:41:09.760 we would sing. My friend Steve was in a band 1:41:09.800 --> 1:41:14.439 called CLA that stood for Carnivorous Lunar Activity, and so 1:41:15.360 --> 1:41:20.920 we would sing all the Carnivorous Lunar Activities songs and 1:41:20.960 --> 1:41:24.040 I would learn all the parts that Steve wrote, and 1:41:24.120 --> 1:41:27.439 we had written a song called Hitchhiker Joe together, and 1:41:27.560 --> 1:41:31.040 so that was where I met Sharon because she played 1:41:31.040 --> 1:41:36.000 bass in the band, and so we started dating. And 1:41:36.040 --> 1:41:38.760 she has been really good for me because you know 1:41:38.800 --> 1:41:43.120 how that whole same behind every man, that whole thing, 1:41:43.640 --> 1:41:48.400 and she is organized. So see, I used to make 1:41:48.479 --> 1:41:50.680 money on the road and I would come off the 1:41:50.760 --> 1:41:53.200 road with Jewel, and I was making great money because 1:41:53.200 --> 1:41:55.600 I was opening every show as Rusted Route would go 1:41:55.680 --> 1:41:57.960 on first, I'd go on in the middle, and then Jewel. 1:41:58.040 --> 1:42:01.640 We'd play Red Rocks or The Gorge, and I was 1:42:01.720 --> 1:42:04.840 selling like if we played Royal Albert Hall in London 1:42:04.880 --> 1:42:06.680 a couple nights in a row, I would sell like 1:42:07.000 --> 1:42:11.080 three fifty four hundred CDs a night. Back in nineteen 1:42:11.200 --> 1:42:15.360 ninety seven of One Left Shoe this Mercury release, and 1:42:15.400 --> 1:42:17.639 Bob I had so much money. I would come home. 1:42:17.680 --> 1:42:19.760 I would shove it into suitcases. And I lived at 1:42:19.800 --> 1:42:22.360 the beach, would just leave my doors open. I wouldn't 1:42:22.360 --> 1:42:24.240 even put the money in the bank. I don't know why. 1:42:24.760 --> 1:42:27.559 So I would have like four hundred grand in my 1:42:27.680 --> 1:42:30.639 closet and old suitcases. I just shove it in there, 1:42:30.680 --> 1:42:32.680 come off the road. I lived in a shitty apartment 1:42:32.880 --> 1:42:36.240 and drove an old Ford truck. I never cared about money. 1:42:36.280 --> 1:42:38.600 I didn't need it. I just knew. I bought my 1:42:38.640 --> 1:42:41.719 clothes at thrift stores. I had my one guitar I needed, 1:42:41.800 --> 1:42:44.040 and I had an audience. That's what I cared about. 1:42:44.680 --> 1:42:48.479 So I didn't pay my taxes for like ten or 1:42:48.680 --> 1:42:52.600 eleven years. And the irs showed up at my apartment 1:42:53.320 --> 1:42:57.000 and they were outside the door, and I came walking up, 1:42:57.040 --> 1:42:59.200 and they go, does Steve Poltz live here? It was 1:42:59.240 --> 1:43:01.479 at wind and Sea Beach and La Joya, right across 1:43:01.479 --> 1:43:03.719 from the pump house that Tom Wolfe the pump House 1:43:03.760 --> 1:43:06.760 came about. And so I said, I don't know who 1:43:06.800 --> 1:43:09.840 you're talking about. I remember I ran as fast as 1:43:09.920 --> 1:43:13.880 I could down the beach and I got away. And 1:43:13.920 --> 1:43:16.240 then I called this guy who was the CFO of 1:43:16.320 --> 1:43:20.040 the San Diego Padres and he met me. He said, 1:43:20.120 --> 1:43:22.719 meet me at the tilted Kilt. And the tilt kilt 1:43:22.800 --> 1:43:26.439 is like a Hooters, but for girls that dress and 1:43:26.520 --> 1:43:30.080 plaid skirts and their boobs are pushed together. And so 1:43:30.240 --> 1:43:32.320 that was where the accountant wanted me to meet him, 1:43:32.320 --> 1:43:35.320 at the tilted kilt. I've never forgotten this, So Sharon 1:43:35.400 --> 1:43:38.840 put all my IRRs notices in a brown wrinkled paperbag. 1:43:38.880 --> 1:43:41.280 I'd never opened them, and I show up at the 1:43:41.320 --> 1:43:45.800 tilted Kilt with Bob Crozdill, the accountant who's still my accountant. 1:43:46.320 --> 1:43:49.880 And he opened up each one as he would eat 1:43:49.920 --> 1:43:52.559 some of his nachos with his other hand, and he 1:43:52.720 --> 1:43:55.800 opened him up and he looked and his face was 1:43:55.880 --> 1:43:58.040 kind of growing a little more pale with each one. 1:43:58.520 --> 1:44:00.400 And I remember finally when he was and I go, 1:44:00.760 --> 1:44:04.240 is it bad? Is it bad? Is it bad? And 1:44:04.280 --> 1:44:06.600 he looks at me and he put his hand on 1:44:06.680 --> 1:44:09.599 top of mine across the table, and he goes, I've 1:44:09.640 --> 1:44:13.439 seen worse. We're going to get through this together. And 1:44:13.520 --> 1:44:17.160 it made me feel so good. And then everybody said, 1:44:17.160 --> 1:44:19.360 you can make a deal with the irs. They'll make 1:44:19.400 --> 1:44:21.920 a deal. And the irs said, not only were it 1:44:22.040 --> 1:44:24.439 not going to make a deal with mister Poltz. He's 1:44:24.520 --> 1:44:27.200 lucky he's not going to jail for willful negligence to 1:44:27.240 --> 1:44:29.800 pay taxes. The next morning, I woke up and the 1:44:29.880 --> 1:44:32.599 night before I'd had four hundred and fifty thousand dollars 1:44:32.600 --> 1:44:34.960 in my checking account like an idiot, like not even 1:44:35.000 --> 1:44:39.400 really earning interest, and it was gone, and I remember thinking, 1:44:39.920 --> 1:44:42.400 they're going to probably take my money, and I thought, 1:44:42.520 --> 1:44:44.439 if they take it, I want to kill myself. I 1:44:44.479 --> 1:44:45.840 want to take it out first and give it to 1:44:45.880 --> 1:44:48.559 my niece and nephew. But then once they took the 1:44:48.600 --> 1:44:51.840 money away, I remember going I felt a sense of 1:44:51.960 --> 1:44:55.400 peace because I paid off my debt to the irs, 1:44:55.760 --> 1:44:57.760 and it was almost as if somebody said, if you 1:44:57.880 --> 1:45:01.000 give us four hundred and fifty thousand dollar, you will 1:45:01.040 --> 1:45:03.639 have peace of mind. I'd say take it. I'd give 1:45:03.680 --> 1:45:06.240 you anything to have peace of mind. So then I 1:45:06.360 --> 1:45:08.599 just built it all up again, and I still had 1:45:08.600 --> 1:45:11.000 that money in my closet, and I slowly would put 1:45:11.000 --> 1:45:13.960 it into my account, nine nine hundred dollars at a 1:45:14.000 --> 1:45:17.320 time and get everything going again. I don't know why 1:45:17.360 --> 1:45:19.360 I wasn't putting it in the bank, because it wasn't 1:45:19.439 --> 1:45:23.360 like it was I was a drug dealer, so yeah, 1:45:23.400 --> 1:45:24.400 it's pretty crazy. 1:45:25.000 --> 1:45:28.840 Well you brought this up, you said, Sharon. Agent organization 1:45:29.120 --> 1:45:29.839 sit you straight. 1:45:30.360 --> 1:45:32.840 So Sharon was like, you need to put your money 1:45:32.840 --> 1:45:34.280 in the bank, you need to put it in a 1:45:34.320 --> 1:45:38.920 Schwap account, you need to buy some property. And she's 1:45:39.160 --> 1:45:42.800 really really organized. She got my whole life in order. 1:45:43.520 --> 1:45:45.719 And I remember at the time, by then I'd gotten 1:45:45.720 --> 1:45:49.360 out of rehab. I got dropped from Mercury Universal Records, 1:45:49.960 --> 1:45:53.240 I got dropped from CIA. I didn't have an agent. 1:45:53.479 --> 1:45:57.360 I was booking myself. I was playing gigs. I went 1:45:57.400 --> 1:46:00.960 from flying private jets with Jewel to being in a 1:46:01.040 --> 1:46:04.400 Volkswagen van staying in trailer parks. And I remember thinking, 1:46:04.920 --> 1:46:06.920 I did this whole tour where I called it the 1:46:06.960 --> 1:46:10.519 where did it all Go Wrong? Tour. I would play 1:46:10.680 --> 1:46:13.400 like twenty three people in Iowa, and I would say 1:46:13.400 --> 1:46:16.680 to the audience, last night I found myself negotiating in 1:46:16.720 --> 1:46:19.439 a trailer park to get my costs down in my 1:46:19.560 --> 1:46:22.960 Volkswagen van from forty dollars a night to twenty eight 1:46:23.000 --> 1:46:25.080 dollars a night. And as I popped the top of 1:46:25.120 --> 1:46:27.639 my west Bali at Camper before I went to sleep, 1:46:27.680 --> 1:46:30.080 I said, where did it all go wrong? And that's 1:46:30.160 --> 1:46:32.479 what I named the tour, and I thought it was 1:46:32.520 --> 1:46:35.960 the funniest thing. So I got signed by this guy 1:46:36.040 --> 1:46:38.599 named Charles Dreby to be my manager. At the time, 1:46:38.960 --> 1:46:42.320 he was managing Blind Boys of Alabama, and it was 1:46:42.680 --> 1:46:44.439 He's still a friend of mine, he's an attorney. But 1:46:44.479 --> 1:46:47.840 it was the wrong mix because my first posters I 1:46:47.840 --> 1:46:50.960 sent out was me catching a rock in the air, 1:46:51.000 --> 1:46:53.599 opposing like I'm catching a rock, but it was blurred 1:46:53.600 --> 1:46:55.840 and I called it the Catch a Falling Turd Tour, 1:46:56.320 --> 1:46:58.760 and Charles Dreby got so mad. He was like, we 1:46:58.840 --> 1:47:01.360 poked the Blind Boys, but this is not how we 1:47:01.400 --> 1:47:03.720 want to be represented. And that was a three year 1:47:03.880 --> 1:47:06.280 management deal. I was so glad when it was over, 1:47:07.000 --> 1:47:11.320 and then I ended up getting finally got a booking 1:47:11.320 --> 1:47:14.599 agent again, and man, I'm still with him to this day. 1:47:14.880 --> 1:47:18.120 And I have the best manager, a nice Jewish boy 1:47:18.200 --> 1:47:22.280 named philine Son with seven S Management out of Denver. 1:47:22.439 --> 1:47:25.599 I love my manager, phil line Son, and I love 1:47:25.680 --> 1:47:29.320 my booking agent, Adam Bauer. He's with Madison House. He 1:47:29.520 --> 1:47:31.559 was with Fleming Artists and took me with him when 1:47:31.560 --> 1:47:33.960 he went to Madison house, and I say this to 1:47:34.040 --> 1:47:37.599 this day. I would not take any other agent. Anybody 1:47:37.960 --> 1:47:40.200 could come with me with any offer about anything, or 1:47:40.240 --> 1:47:42.760 another manager told me promised me in the world. I 1:47:42.760 --> 1:47:46.320 would not leave either of these guys because they took 1:47:46.320 --> 1:47:49.759 me in like a rescue dog. Adam Bauer saw something 1:47:49.800 --> 1:47:52.240 in me and has slowly built me up. I'll be 1:47:52.240 --> 1:47:54.840 playing Newport Folk Fest this year. I play all these 1:47:54.840 --> 1:47:58.760 great festivals. I tour everywhere, and I'm so loyal to 1:47:58.800 --> 1:48:01.880 that guy. I want him to make money and I 1:48:01.920 --> 1:48:04.800 want my manager, Phill to make money, like I would 1:48:04.880 --> 1:48:07.360 do anything for these guys. And we're the smallest team. 1:48:07.680 --> 1:48:13.400 Sharon books all the travel and we're Marriotts. We always 1:48:13.400 --> 1:48:17.000 stay Marriotts. Sharon has a sewed down We're special, like 1:48:17.040 --> 1:48:21.000 they have Titanium Platinum where this special top level called 1:48:21.120 --> 1:48:24.400 Ambassador Elite. And it's so funny because they have a 1:48:24.439 --> 1:48:26.840 special carpet you stand on when you stay at really 1:48:26.920 --> 1:48:29.599 nice places like we are here in Sydney, Australia at 1:48:29.640 --> 1:48:32.879 the Hyde Park And whenever I stand there, there's businessmen 1:48:32.960 --> 1:48:35.240 behind me and they always go, excuse me, sir, you're 1:48:35.240 --> 1:48:36.880 supposed to be over there, yes, And they go to 1:48:36.920 --> 1:48:38.680 the business time behind. I go, no, this is a 1:48:38.680 --> 1:48:41.439 line for me because the way I look, and they go, 1:48:41.840 --> 1:48:45.000 this is ambassador Elite. I go, yeah, I'm Ambassador Elite 1:48:45.120 --> 1:48:47.400 and they go, oh, I'm sorry, and they just look 1:48:47.560 --> 1:48:51.839 really weird, and I'm Ambassador Elite. I get upgrades to suites. 1:48:52.439 --> 1:48:56.800 And my manager always gets me the best deals of 1:48:56.880 --> 1:49:00.240 playing gigs, like gets my offers up and my booking 1:49:00.280 --> 1:49:03.000 agent does too. They work in tandem and we're just small, 1:49:03.560 --> 1:49:06.200 bare bones operation and we make a great living. 1:49:07.720 --> 1:49:09.640 Okay to sharing. Always go on the road with you. 1:49:10.560 --> 1:49:14.800 She's with me almost always, and she doesn't always come 1:49:14.840 --> 1:49:17.760 to the shows. She'll stand and we'll get somebody else 1:49:17.840 --> 1:49:21.120 to sell merch. But she gets up in the morning. 1:49:21.200 --> 1:49:24.920 She packs us. She's highly organized. Make sure we get 1:49:24.960 --> 1:49:27.800 to the airport on time. Make sure we're getting all 1:49:27.800 --> 1:49:34.040 our points for national executive car rental the best and 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:38.719 getting good places to stay. If I do the Chaamo cruise, 1:49:39.920 --> 1:49:43.200 she gets us packed for that. Make sure my passports 1:49:43.240 --> 1:49:47.479 don't expire ab a Canadian passport in a United States passport. Everything, 1:49:47.560 --> 1:49:51.280 So she's the organized side of that. And Phil Einson 1:49:51.800 --> 1:49:55.040 with seven s, my manager. He looks at the bigger 1:49:55.120 --> 1:49:58.519 picture of things, and Adam is the booking agent, because 1:49:58.520 --> 1:50:00.600 you really need a good agent and you need a 1:50:00.640 --> 1:50:01.600 good manager. As you know. 1:50:02.840 --> 1:50:04.439 Okay, you don't have any children, right. 1:50:05.240 --> 1:50:11.599 We have a son, Neil, who is twenty nine years old, 1:50:11.640 --> 1:50:15.400 but he's from her prior husband. 1:50:17.439 --> 1:50:19.280 How do you end up moving to Nashville? 1:50:20.080 --> 1:50:29.080 So I left San Diego eight years ago. Sharon wanted 1:50:29.080 --> 1:50:33.040 to move. She sold her hair salon, and she thought 1:50:33.160 --> 1:50:36.559 we should go to Nashville because she saw everybody living 1:50:36.600 --> 1:50:40.479 there and every time we play festivals, people would be there. 1:50:40.800 --> 1:50:44.120 So we moved to Nashville and bought a house. I 1:50:44.200 --> 1:50:46.840 never wanted to own a house, and Sharon said, you 1:50:46.880 --> 1:50:49.040 really need to own a house, and she's always owned 1:50:49.120 --> 1:50:52.200 real estate. So we bought a house together eight years ago, 1:50:52.240 --> 1:50:54.720 which was the best move ever. Like, Sharon has been 1:50:54.800 --> 1:50:58.280 so good for me. Now I'm a homeowner. My money 1:50:58.320 --> 1:51:01.840 is in a Charles Schwab account and I could retire, 1:51:02.640 --> 1:51:05.599 and so she said, you need to be in Nashville. 1:51:05.640 --> 1:51:07.280 So that's how I ended up writing songs with like 1:51:07.320 --> 1:51:14.320 Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle and Oliver Wood. Everywhere I 1:51:14.360 --> 1:51:17.120 go at Sierra Hall, there's all these friends of mine 1:51:17.120 --> 1:51:20.439 that are songwriters, and just being in that area, crumbs 1:51:20.479 --> 1:51:24.080 will fall on your plate just from being there. It's 1:51:24.160 --> 1:51:26.960 just it's such a great vibrant city to live in. 1:51:27.760 --> 1:51:30.479 I'd always been in San Diego and said to come 1:51:30.560 --> 1:51:33.519 to Nashville's I think the only place I would live 1:51:34.040 --> 1:51:37.000 other than Nashville would be Los Angeles, and that might 1:51:37.040 --> 1:51:40.040 be our next move because I miss California so much. 1:51:41.280 --> 1:51:42.679 Tell us about your heart attack. 1:51:43.840 --> 1:51:47.439 Well, I had a stroke, is what it was. Right 1:51:49.200 --> 1:51:53.000 about nine years ago. I was on stage at World 1:51:53.040 --> 1:51:58.040 Cafe Live in Wilmington, Delaware, and I went blind in 1:51:58.120 --> 1:52:00.880 the middle of my show, and I thought they had 1:52:00.920 --> 1:52:05.479 turned the lights out, but it was I couldn't see, 1:52:05.600 --> 1:52:07.640 and I didn't tell the audience because I didn't want 1:52:07.680 --> 1:52:10.639 to upset them. But I was singing the same verse 1:52:10.840 --> 1:52:14.400 over and over to an old Rugburn song called single Life. 1:52:14.920 --> 1:52:19.719 So I played single Life over and over and over, 1:52:19.760 --> 1:52:22.759 and then people were looking at me like this guy's 1:52:23.200 --> 1:52:24.600 I don't know what's happened to him. They thought I 1:52:24.640 --> 1:52:26.040 was taking the piss out of him, and the way 1:52:26.080 --> 1:52:29.040 Andy Kaufman might like, just to see how long I 1:52:29.040 --> 1:52:31.920 could keep a bit going. But it wasn't that, And 1:52:32.040 --> 1:52:35.519 so I got rushed to the hospital and if you 1:52:35.520 --> 1:52:37.120 ever want to get to the front of the line, 1:52:37.320 --> 1:52:39.479 tell them you've gone blind. And it's like a curtain 1:52:39.560 --> 1:52:42.240 coming down. They fast track you ahead of the guy 1:52:42.240 --> 1:52:43.920 with the ice pick in the side of his head 1:52:43.960 --> 1:52:47.160 and everybody else. And so they did these tests, and 1:52:47.400 --> 1:52:51.160 I've never forgot the lady. She was from India, doctor Mody, 1:52:51.240 --> 1:52:53.679 I think was her name, and she said, mister Poltz, 1:52:53.720 --> 1:52:56.000 you've had a stroke. You're going into the stroke woard. 1:52:56.040 --> 1:52:58.439 And I couldn't see and then my vision came back, 1:52:58.760 --> 1:53:00.760 and when it came back, I couldn't read, like the 1:53:00.840 --> 1:53:04.360 letters didn't make sense to me. And it took a 1:53:04.400 --> 1:53:07.120 couple of weeks and then everything started getting back in order. 1:53:07.120 --> 1:53:09.240 But I didn't want to drive for a few months. 1:53:09.240 --> 1:53:11.599 And I remember Sharon was like, you're going to drive again, 1:53:11.720 --> 1:53:13.519 and she pulled the car over and made me drive, 1:53:14.120 --> 1:53:18.639 kickstarted me. And I recuperated from that stroke and went 1:53:18.680 --> 1:53:21.439 back out on the road. And they don't know why 1:53:21.520 --> 1:53:25.600 it happened, because I'm pretty healthy, but things happened. 1:53:26.800 --> 1:53:29.720 And no after effects whatsoever. 1:53:30.439 --> 1:53:34.720 No, I've been really lucky, really lucky. I hope. You 1:53:34.760 --> 1:53:37.200 know that. Doctor told me he didn't know why it happened, 1:53:37.200 --> 1:53:39.040 but he said, the next time it does, it'll probably 1:53:39.120 --> 1:53:41.280 kill you. I remember because the other night I was 1:53:41.320 --> 1:53:43.439 on tour and I was in the United States, and 1:53:43.479 --> 1:53:45.639 I did fifteen shows with a good friend of mine 1:53:45.680 --> 1:53:47.360 named Paul Thorne. Do you know Paul. 1:53:48.240 --> 1:53:50.000 Yes, I don't know him personally, but I've seen him. 1:53:50.040 --> 1:53:50.680 I know who he is. 1:53:50.960 --> 1:53:53.720 Yeah, So he's a He was a boxer and he 1:53:53.760 --> 1:53:57.479 lives in tup Blow, Mississippi, and he fought roberted around. 1:53:57.479 --> 1:54:00.080 We did a tour. It's really fun today because if 1:54:00.080 --> 1:54:02.400 you're a solo artist, you can do tours with people 1:54:02.439 --> 1:54:05.880 where you're on stage and trade songs. We discovered each 1:54:05.920 --> 1:54:09.120 other on Komo Cruise. We played in the theater and 1:54:09.160 --> 1:54:11.280 we realized we had a good vibe together because I'm 1:54:11.360 --> 1:54:15.080 kind of so cal and he's really Southern Mississippi kind 1:54:15.120 --> 1:54:19.000 of guy. And so we were on stage together and 1:54:19.080 --> 1:54:23.080 playing all these shows. And I just finished that tour 1:54:23.479 --> 1:54:26.800 and then came to Australia and I thought I was 1:54:26.840 --> 1:54:29.320 having a heart attack on that last tour and I 1:54:29.439 --> 1:54:31.680 missed a show because I had chest pains and it 1:54:31.720 --> 1:54:35.120 freaked me out, and I never I'm not a hypochondriac, 1:54:35.240 --> 1:54:37.600 Like I never go to the doctor. I should. I 1:54:37.640 --> 1:54:39.400 read your letter and you're always telling us we need 1:54:39.400 --> 1:54:40.880 to go to the doctor. I do get my teeth 1:54:40.880 --> 1:54:44.400 cleaned every three months. I and your letter is making 1:54:44.400 --> 1:54:46.360 me go I need to And I love it when 1:54:46.360 --> 1:54:49.360 you say that in your letter. It's really important. And 1:54:49.440 --> 1:54:52.560 so I was on stage and I got chess pains 1:54:53.280 --> 1:54:55.680 and I didn't know what it was and I didn't 1:54:55.680 --> 1:54:57.640 tell Paul, and I went to the room that night 1:54:57.680 --> 1:55:01.120 and it got worse than at two am, googling chest 1:55:01.120 --> 1:55:05.360 pains and a nausea, and it said, immediately call an ambulance. 1:55:05.440 --> 1:55:07.800 But I had a showing at the Vogel and Red Bank, 1:55:07.840 --> 1:55:10.320 New Jersey the next day. My buddy Mojo Nixon had 1:55:10.400 --> 1:55:12.840 just died of a heart attack. So I thought, I 1:55:12.880 --> 1:55:15.160 wonder if I'm having a heart attack Mojo just died, 1:55:15.760 --> 1:55:21.120 And instead I called an Uber like an idiot, and 1:55:21.160 --> 1:55:24.800 I'd got this uber and that uber driver was from Iraq. 1:55:24.880 --> 1:55:27.040 He was from Baghdad, and as we were driving there, 1:55:27.040 --> 1:55:28.640 I thought, I'm gonna die in the uber because it 1:55:28.720 --> 1:55:31.640 got worse than chest pains. This was just two weeks ago. 1:55:32.240 --> 1:55:34.720 And my last thing I said to the uber driver 1:55:34.880 --> 1:55:39.280 was I'm sorry we bombed you guys. I was apologizing, 1:55:39.600 --> 1:55:42.600 and then we pull up to the emergency room. He goes, 1:55:42.640 --> 1:55:44.440 are you sick? And I didn't want to upset them, 1:55:44.440 --> 1:55:47.560 so I said no, I'm just visiting someone here, and 1:55:47.600 --> 1:55:49.760 so I got out and they fast tracked me because 1:55:49.760 --> 1:55:53.440 I told him I was having chest pains, and they said, 1:55:53.440 --> 1:55:55.080 do you have heart disease in your family? And I 1:55:55.120 --> 1:55:58.760 said no, and then he goes, you don't have any 1:55:58.760 --> 1:56:00.200 and I said no, And I said, well, my mom 1:56:00.280 --> 1:56:03.360 had a heart attack, and he said, well that's heart disease. 1:56:03.720 --> 1:56:05.200 And he goes how old was she when she had 1:56:05.240 --> 1:56:06.800 I go sixty four. He goes how old are you? 1:56:06.880 --> 1:56:09.320 I go sixty four, and then he goes, is your 1:56:09.320 --> 1:56:11.160 mom still allowed to go No, she died of heart 1:56:11.200 --> 1:56:14.160 failure at the age of eighty eight. He goes, anybody 1:56:14.160 --> 1:56:14.840 else in your family? 1:56:14.840 --> 1:56:15.200 I go no. 1:56:15.320 --> 1:56:15.680 I go oh. 1:56:15.720 --> 1:56:15.920 Wait. 1:56:15.920 --> 1:56:18.440 Her younger brother died of a massive heart attack at 1:56:18.480 --> 1:56:21.080 forty four, and then Uncle Louis died as well of 1:56:21.080 --> 1:56:23.720 heart failure, and so didn't at her sister, aunt Sylvia, 1:56:23.760 --> 1:56:26.120 and the guy's like what part of heart disease in 1:56:26.160 --> 1:56:29.560 your family? Don't you understand? So they did the treadmill 1:56:29.600 --> 1:56:33.200 stress test on me, and he goes, I can't get 1:56:33.240 --> 1:56:35.560 your heart beat up. Even if you're in great shape. 1:56:35.600 --> 1:56:37.640 Your recovery time's great. They did the photos. He goes, 1:56:37.680 --> 1:56:40.200 you have a really healthy heart. What do you do? 1:56:40.280 --> 1:56:42.600 And I said, I dance around on stage every night 1:56:42.680 --> 1:56:47.240 because I don't sit. I'm running around stage. And he said, well, 1:56:47.640 --> 1:56:49.880 your heart looks good. What did you eat for dinner? 1:56:50.280 --> 1:56:51.960 And I said, I don't like to read the menu 1:56:52.080 --> 1:56:54.360 because I have add and I just like, I don't 1:56:54.360 --> 1:56:56.600 like to think about it. I'm in a hurry, so 1:56:56.680 --> 1:56:58.880 I just let the waitress decide for me, and she 1:56:59.040 --> 1:57:02.480 suggested it She's burger with deep bread pickles and hot sauce. 1:57:02.960 --> 1:57:04.840 He said, have you ever had heartburn before? And I 1:57:04.840 --> 1:57:07.120 said no. Back once I ate four bites of that 1:57:07.360 --> 1:57:10.360 deep bread pickles, it really affected me, and he said 1:57:10.360 --> 1:57:14.160 it mimics a heart attack. And I had chest pains 1:57:14.160 --> 1:57:16.560 for like four days after that, but now I feel great. 1:57:16.800 --> 1:57:18.760 So I'm back up and hat. 1:57:18.920 --> 1:57:21.920 Well, you know, here's my warning if you have heart 1:57:22.000 --> 1:57:25.800 disease in your family. There's a million other tests they 1:57:25.880 --> 1:57:29.680 need to do besides treadmill tests itself is not that accurate, 1:57:29.680 --> 1:57:33.520 but usually it's false positives. Do not think that you 1:57:34.120 --> 1:57:38.040 get a path. You have to get the carotid artery scan. 1:57:38.640 --> 1:57:42.600 You gotta get all the stuff because listen, I have 1:57:42.680 --> 1:57:44.760 one of my close friends, his father died of a 1:57:44.760 --> 1:57:47.440 heart attack at sixty seven, said, oh yeah, I went 1:57:47.480 --> 1:57:50.120 to the regular doctor. He fell over with a heart 1:57:50.120 --> 1:57:53.040 attack at sixty seven. Oh yeah, I was totally healthy. 1:57:53.440 --> 1:57:55.760 And then that's it. I mean, I see this special 1:57:55.800 --> 1:58:00.880 heart doctor, which I would recommend to you because with 1:58:00.920 --> 1:58:03.920 that amount of heart disease in your family. You know, 1:58:03.960 --> 1:58:05.840 the guy in the er, you know, it's good that 1:58:05.920 --> 1:58:08.520 he you know, don't take that as a complete pass, 1:58:08.600 --> 1:58:11.640 even though your symptoms may have been because of the 1:58:11.640 --> 1:58:15.960 deep right pickle. It's like you have no idea what's 1:58:16.000 --> 1:58:19.560 going on. Everybody thinks they're cool, and it just like 1:58:19.680 --> 1:58:26.120 Russ never sleeps, Calcium never sleeps. But changing subjects completely. 1:58:26.760 --> 1:58:32.160 Speaking of the dearly departed Mojo Nixon, you know, he 1:58:32.360 --> 1:58:35.320 had somewhat of a record career and then he had 1:58:35.360 --> 1:58:39.800 a giant career as a personality. He was on outlaw country, 1:58:39.840 --> 1:58:44.520 on serious XM. You have a lot of personality, You 1:58:44.640 --> 1:58:49.440 tell a great story. Have people ever offered you similar opportunities? 1:58:50.360 --> 1:58:54.200 People keep telling me to start a podcast, write a book, 1:58:54.880 --> 1:58:59.120 and I'll see what happens. You know, you never know. 1:59:00.520 --> 1:59:03.760 Well, I'm actually talking about something different. I'm talking about 1:59:03.800 --> 1:59:07.280 you're sitting there and reading a book. Whatever, Jered you 1:59:07.320 --> 1:59:09.080 have to get an email out of the blue. Hey, 1:59:09.120 --> 1:59:11.920 I'm aware of you. You'd be good for me on 1:59:12.440 --> 1:59:15.680 X on the radio, on TV. God knows what. That 1:59:15.800 --> 1:59:20.760 never happened to you. No, well, I'm surprised. I mean, 1:59:20.800 --> 1:59:23.400 I don't want to put too much faith in the 1:59:23.840 --> 1:59:26.960 uh you know, and the people who might make decisions. 1:59:27.480 --> 1:59:32.280 But you're certainly a man of a lot of personality, 1:59:32.920 --> 1:59:38.040 riveting stories, and a unique outlook. And Steve, I want 1:59:38.040 --> 1:59:40.280 to thank you so much for taking this time to 1:59:40.280 --> 1:59:41.680 speak with me and my audience. 1:59:42.400 --> 1:59:44.720 Thank you. Bob. I'm a huge fan of yours, so 1:59:44.960 --> 1:59:47.040 it's a pleasure to be on your show. 1:59:47.920 --> 1:59:49.840 And it's always great to see you in mine in 1:59:49.880 --> 2:00:08.480 the box. Till next time. This is Bob left sets 2:00:00.440 --> 2:00:15.720 sh