WEBVTT - Steve Salas 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.039 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast. 0:00:12.160 --> 0:00:16.200 My guest today is guitarist Stevie Salas, who's worked with 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:22.000 Rob Stewart, Mick Jagger, and so many more. Stevie, when 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:24.320 did you realize you were Native American? 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.240 Well? I knew I was a Native American from birth, 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:30.880 but it was just, you know, nothing new. Wasn't like 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:32.680 we walked around go hey, I'm a Native American. We're 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:34.680 just like I knew who I was and we never 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:35.519 really thought about it. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:42.279 Okay, but did you experience any discrimination growing up? 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.840 Not? See that? I'm lucky because I was. My father 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.320 joined the Marine Corps when he was seventeen and left 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:54.880 the countryside of Cheyenne outside China, Wyoming. My parents, excuse me, 0:00:54.960 --> 0:01:00.320 my mother, my mother's family had migrated to Vista, California. 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:05.200 My father was in Camp Pendleton and my mother's family 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.760 was from New Mexico. And so I was born on 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.160 the beach in Oceanside, California. And there was no racism 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.039 where I grew up because there was the Marine Corps base, 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:15.800 and I had kids of every color and we all 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.720 served and skateboarded and listened to music, and it was 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.319 so I really didn't experience any of those things. A 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:23.640 lot of my friends from the reservations have dealt with 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:24.640 all their lives. 0:01:25.880 --> 0:01:29.720 Well, you ultimately made a movie about Native Americans in 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:35.040 rock called Rumble. So did you always embrace your Native 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:38.240 American culture or was it more that when you left 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:41.759 home and you saw what was going on that you said, hey, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:43.959 I have to make a statement. 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.960 It's a little bit of a double answer, because if 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:49.920 you ever really looked back, like say, when I was 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.840 a kid, you know, my first band was Rod Stewart. 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:53.760 I went from a high school band, and I met 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:56.360 George Clinton and when I was homeless in LA and 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:58.320 then you know, I went from George and you know 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:00.840 and Bootsy. Around that whole time, I was Dolby Seen 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:02.840 and blah blah blah, right up to three years later 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:06.880 on Rod Stewart's lead guitar player. And I was always 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.000 I'm a Native American. I was never. I was always 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:10.679 I'm a guitar player. I want to be a rock star. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:12.600 I happened to be a Native American. I was never 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.200 I'm a Native American rock star. So if you ever 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.480 look back at the old photos and things, you'll always 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.000 see a little maybe I'd have on a little earring 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:22.600 or a little bit of my necklace or something that 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.200 was indigenous in my whole thing. But that was for me. 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.080 That wasn't part of my like stage wardrobe, you know. 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.760 But later on, around two thousand, around ninety nine, I 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:34.919 was really sick of the music business. I kind of 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.760 felt like I'd done everything I could possibly do, and 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.480 you know, working from everybody from justin timer Lake and 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.400 in Public Enemy to mc jagger, and you know, I 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:47.720 worked with a lot of Sasash Jordan, and all these 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:51.160 different people were all divers diversified, kind of different artists, 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.000 and I just felt burned out after you know, a 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.640 bunch of solo albums too, and a bunch of world tours. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.440 So around two thousand, maybe it was two ian and 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.320 two or three, I went to open up for the 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:07.600 Rolling Stones in Canada and I met this guy called 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:09.840 Brian Right McLeod who was a Native American writer, and 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:13.280 he was writing a book, an encyclopedia that covered every 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.360 bit of Indigenous recorded music going all the way back 0:03:16.400 --> 0:03:19.440 to nineteen oh eight and wax cylinders, and you know, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.080 there was there was there wasn't too many Native guys 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:25.080 with my my resume at all. He wanted me in 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:28.760 his book. So we sat down at his house and 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:31.040 he started talking to me about Jesse Ed Davis and 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.800 started talking to me about Link Ray and I knew, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:36.520 you know, I knew Link Ray was, of course, and 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.040 Jesse had Davis. I mean, in sixth grade, I would 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:42.080 read Rod Stewart's album you know, Atlantic Crossing, years before 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:43.560 I was ever going to be his lead guitar player, 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:45.720 and they would say Jesse ed Davis all over these 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:48.520 amazing records that I used to read Lner notes. I 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.119 had no idea he was a Native American. I had 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.240 no idea that Link Ray was a Native American. I 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.320 had no idea that Robbie Robertson was a Native American. 0:03:57.560 --> 0:04:00.400 In fact, in nineteen eighty eight, when I first we 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:03.520 played a three night run at Madison Square Gardens, I 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.320 walked on the stage at sound check and I got 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.080 on my hands, knees and I kissed the stage at 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.600 Madison Square Gardens saying I'm the first Native American ever 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.440 played Madison Square Gardens. I mean no idea that I 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.080 was not even close to the first American. So in 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:17.960 two thousand and one I learned this about these guys. 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.200 I realized that if I don't know this, and I'm 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.240 in the business, I go, there's Native American people all 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.799 over out there that don't know they have these role models. 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.560 And that's when I felt the urge that I should 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.760 give something back, and I felt like I needed to 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:35.480 help bring these people to the forefront so Native people 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.839 would know they had role models that were from now, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.680 that had accomplished things that would seem impossible, and not 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:44.400 have to go only back to one hundred and fifty 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:46.719 years ago, to Geronimo or somebody you know, or sitting 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.839 bul That's why I did it. I had no idea though, Bob, 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:51.119 it was going to change written history. 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:57.560 So let's go sideways for a second. You talked about 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.279 being burned out in the year two thousand. Tell me 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:00.640 about that. 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.840 Well, you know you were around. It was like I 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.159 came up. I moved to LA I left my parents' 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.520 house in San Diego in nineteen eighty five and quit 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.280 my high school band. By eight months later, I was 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:13.960 living in l I was living in a walking closet. 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.200 Then I was homeless, and there was a studio called 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:20.200 Baby O Recording Studios. In LA and I was friends 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:21.520 with a guy called David Oh. He was in a 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:23.600 band called the plim Souls that I really loved when 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.360 I was in high school, right, and David Oh really 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.400 liked the way I played guitar, so him and a 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.040 guy called Rick Parata who ran Baby O Studios that 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.920 ended up inventing matchless amplifiers, he thought I was cool. 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:35.719 He so he said, why don't you help us clean 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.240 up and you can help run the rehearsal studio and 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:41.680 at night just sleep on the couch. And I had 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.680 all my clothes in plack, black plastic bags. And it 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.640 was a horrible, horrible summer for me, summer of eighty five. 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.080 But I'd go up to musicians and I'd go up 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:53.680 to like Gene Simmons and anybody that was recording at BABYO, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:55.000 and I said, hey, my name is Steve Saliz. I 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:56.520 played guitar. If you ever did they tell me to 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.000 go f myself, you know, get out of here or 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:00.920 whatever it was like, and I care. I had no prede. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:03.000 One night I went up to David S. Bradley and 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.279 George Clinton who had did Atomic Dog, and I said 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.600 I played guitar and George Clinton just kind of said okay, cool, 0:06:10.640 --> 0:06:12.359 like he was cool, like no big deal. But at 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.240 two o'clock in the morning, David S. Bradley came and 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:16.080 woke me up and asked me if I wanted to 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.160 try some guitar on some track. And I went down 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.159 there and he had a guy called Jack Sherman playing guitar, 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:26.600 who was then the guitarist for the Red Hot Chili 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.520 Peppers in nineteen eighty five. And I thought, God, Jack's 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:32.720 playing some amazing stuff. He was playing like this amazing stuff. 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.880 But George what he was I figured out later what 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.440 he was doing was he he was playing exactly what 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:44.760 he learned and worshiped about Parliament Funkadelic. So I thought 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.000 George was kind of like he'd already done that. So 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:53.640 I went bananas on this guitar funk Wang Bar Steve 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:58.479 Stevens madness, and George went crazy. And so that's what 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.359 set me on this path. Then the next fifteen years, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:04.880 I got signed in nineteen eighty eight, put my first album, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.680 Mountain in UH ninety, and then I just did world tour, 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.200 world tour, you know, then music direct, Turnstrant Derby and 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.360 Duran Durant or go back out in another world tour 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:14.800 and then go back out and write and produce in 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.000 sas Jordan Rat's album, and then to a tour with 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:19.880 her and Arrowsmith. You know, it just never stopped. And 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:23.280 the more the business kept going into the nineties, it 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.320 stopped being about development, it stopped being about music, and 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.240 it started being about how many times I could get 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.280 played on K rock or you know all these and 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.400 then all these rock and roll metal guys that I 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:36.840 thought had no credibility were shaving their heads and pretending 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:38.600 to be punk rockers and they'd get a record deal. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.000 I just thought the whole thing was becoming bullshit, and 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.840 I just I had money, and I just thought, I'm 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.520 sick of this and I'm sick of the business, and 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:49.000 I want to go surf. And I bought a bunch 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:50.320 of land in Costa Rica and I was just going 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:53.600 to go retire and surf, and and that's what I mean. 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.840 I was just burned out on all the the insincerity 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.600 that was going on by the end of the end 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:01.800 of the nineties, with all the fake, fake everything, fake 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.559 punk rock, fake this, fake rid and it's just nothing 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:05.960 that credibility to me. Anymore. 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:12.080 So you know, you reconnected with your Native American roots 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:17.200 and other Native American players in music. But what happened 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:18.800 with you and music after that. 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:23.440 Time, Well, actually what happened It was a bummer. Around 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:28.640 two thousand, excuse me, about two thousand my girlfriend passed away, 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:34.080 and wow, and I went into a deep, deep hole. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.600 And at the same time, you know, my nest egg 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.400 I went. I lost a million dollars in the stock market, 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.880 pretty much on a two thousand crash. And now you know, 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:45.400 you know, you know what it was like back then. 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.600 It was hard to say a million dollars playing guitar, right, 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:52.720 you know. And all of a sudden I realized I 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.760 had to go back to work. But I was so down, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:57.760 and it was like I've always felt like I had 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.760 like a horseshoe up my ass. I feel like I've 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.480 always been so lucky. Out of the blue, I show 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.400 up at Virgin. I had a deal then with Virgin 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:07.520 by the time with Tony Berg where I could develop 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:09.200 and sign my own acts. If he liked the acts, 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:10.960 they'd sign him and I could take him in development, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.560 because I mean, you came from the days of development 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:15.680 when they'd rather give you ten grand and lose it, 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.000 then sign a band and lose two million bucks or whatever. 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:19.760 So I was one of those guys they'd let go 0:09:19.880 --> 0:09:24.079 develop acts, and I was developing Peter Cornell, who is 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.360 Chris Cornell's brother, who's this amazing singer. But I was 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.920 also in this deep depression. And I walked by Jima 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.840 Corfield's office because I knew gem would because I produce 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:35.640 was and I was in nineteen eighty seven with Down, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.840 so you know, I knew her really well. And she goes, hey, 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:42.079 I got a I saw a list today that you know, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.760 it was from Nancy Berry's desk, that Mick Jagger's going 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:47.240 to call you to be a guitar you know, he's 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.800 a guitar player. I'm like, what so? And I'd known 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:52.720 Mick because I used to hang out with Keith a Latin, 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.960 Bernard Fowler and all the guys. So I got this 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.360 call and it was like a gift from God. It 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:00.920 was like, who else could get me out of that 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.120 hell hole I was in then the biggest rock star 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:04.720 in the world. It was like the gods were telling 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:06.520 me to get my ass together and get my shit together. 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.200 And so I got a call and there was five 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.120 people that got that audition. That was me, Dave Navarro, 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:21.400 Rusty Anderson, Doyle Bramhall, and I'm blanked on the fourth guy. 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:24.280 But the Corey I forget his name, but he used 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.120 to play with More's Day in the Time and Michelle 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.920 and Decachello is really really cool guitar player. And I 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:32.400 got the gig and then then Mick made me as 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:36.280 music director and it's the only thing that could have 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:38.280 got me back out. And I got back out and 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:43.240 I got and Jagger. Jagger was like Jagger was like 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:46.120 every detail mattered. And remember what I told you before 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:47.240 in the nineties, when I felt like there was no 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:50.360 more credibility, he instantly like made me believe in him 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:52.240 because he would call and talk about this ship that 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:53.840 I was hearing. That really made a difference to me, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.480 and I could tell he could hear it, and it 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.760 was just the most It's the only thing that could 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:01.000 have got me out of the hell I was in. 0:11:01.160 --> 0:11:04.360 And Jagger was just like young still even though he 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.880 was old, and it was funny and it just it 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:10.200 brought me back to life. And that's when I started 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:12.680 kept playing. So then I started doing more European tours again. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.320 I started accepting more offers, you know, I you know, 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:18.800 if Wayne Cramer called and I worked with the MC 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:20.880 five or whatever. You know, whenever it was something that 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:22.480 was good, it got me back into playing and got 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.440 me into actually trying to enjoy myself again playing me. 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:30.640 Okay, you were inducted in the Hall of Fame where 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:35.079 you grew up recently, and in the quotes you say, well, 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.199 I'm not the best guitar player. I'm not the best singer, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:40.040 So how'd you get the gigs? 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.520 You know, I tell kids this all the time. You know, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.200 I've been in all those readers poles, and I was 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:47.640 number one in the Japan Guitar World Readers Bowl when 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.720 I was in you know, nineteen ninety when my first album, 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.760 Color Code came out, I was number three in the 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.200 Guitar World in America. You know, I was in the 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.560 fifty Greatest Guitar Players of All Time in like nineteen 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:58.760 ninety six and Guitar Player magazine. You know, But it's 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.520 all bullshit. It's like if you got a great publicist 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:04.560 and you hit at the right time and you ride 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.640 this wave right. But the other thing I tell kids 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.640 is this Boba I go, you don't have to be 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.080 the greatest. You just got to be the greatest when 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.800 it counts. And that's something I was great at. I 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.760 could walk in the room and destroy and just destroy 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.560 the room with an audition like Rod Stewart had no idea. 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:22.560 I couldn't play slad guitar acoustic guitar when I got 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:24.360 that gig, and it was too late for him to 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.720 fire me, although he almost fired me every week. It 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:30.320 was like I wrote a book about it. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:33.720 Okay, yes, why don't you tell people why he almost 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:34.240 fired you? 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:37.199 Because I was an idiot. I was a stupid kid. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:39.480 You know, I was a little kid in a band 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.520 full of genius grown ups. I mean it was Carma 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:44.400 and Rojas on bass that you know, he brought the 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.680 bassline to Let's Dance. It was like it was like 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.640 Bowie's Guys, and it was the power station. Tony Thompson 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.120 originally that Tony Brock from The Babies came back in 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.120 my high school band used to play baby songs, you 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:56.640 know what I mean. It's like Carma and Rojas's poster 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:58.360 was on the wall at my mom and dad's house 0:12:58.360 --> 0:13:02.160 in my bedroom. Still. You know, it was like I 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.560 was in. They used to call me young Eddie Martinez 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:06.560 because in eighty seven when I was a staff producer 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:08.959 for David Cushabam, when I scored Billing Ted Sex and 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.360 The Adventure, I was also the only guy doing rap 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.880 songs for those soundtracks because nobody in LA in rock 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:16.520 and roll knew a lot about rap. But I was 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.000 really into Eddie Martinez and run DMC, so they used 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:21.640 to call me a little Eddie Martinez. And now Eddie 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.480 Martinez was in Rod's band, so the whole thing was 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:27.839 just like nuts. So I think I was super immature. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:34.600 You know. One time at Miami Stadium, I was playing. 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.160 It was only the third gig of the tour, of 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:39.000 my first tour since my high schol band, keep in 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.199 mind where I sold out Miami Dolphin Stadium, Joe Robbie Stadium. 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.520 I saw myself on this giant diamond vision screen and 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.600 I was starting the song first cut as the Deepest, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:54.160 and I just stopped. I started prank, and I just froze, 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.000 and I pointed at this thing of myself and I 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:58.760 was like, oh my God. And then I realized Rod 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.040 and I was staring at me. Sixty five thousand people 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.439 there and I started the song again and go afterwards, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:05.480 I was like, what are you doing, you know, stopping 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.839 to wave at the girls. And I told him, I go, 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:09.840 wasn't waving at the girls. I frozen. He goes, that's 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.520 even worse. I mean, I was almost fired so many times. 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.680 But but I was also this had this young energy 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.080 that he loved that was unifying our band. And we 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.240 became like a that band in eighty eight, if you 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.560 recall that an order tour. It brought him back and 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.840 we sold three or four million records and it was 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:30.880 part of our band was like an army. It was 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.520 what you dream of and you know, but but yeah, 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.480 in the beginning it I almost got blown out, Like 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.400 every every week was I was in trouble. And then 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:41.520 I became the scapegoat for everything, you know what I mean. 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:43.560 It was like if somebody else made a clam they 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.600 point at me, and Roderd think it was me, and 0:14:45.720 --> 0:14:48.640 yeah it was. It was. You know, I got hazed 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.320 a lot. I got hazed a ton until on Rod's airplane, 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:53.960 I started a fight with the whole band. And then 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.240 after that everybody got cool. And because I was born 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:58.920 a fighter, you know, and I like to. You know, 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.640 I used to punch people out open I was a kid, 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.120 but because everyone did where I lived, surfing, and those 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.640 guys I think were in shop because they're still musician musicians. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:07.920 You know. 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:11.360 What ways were you haved? 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:14.720 Well, you know, like I'd get my bag. We had 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.680 the zone. We had our own airplane, and so we 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:19.880 used to fly from one city in the afternoon and 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.680 go play a concert and fly back to when we'd 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:23.600 home base out of one city like Atlanta, and we'd 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.640 go do like ten shows and all that, and you know, 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.160 you know about that stuff. And and the one time 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.320 I get my clothes on the airplane, my bag and 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:32.680 I go to open it up to get my clean 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.560 clothes out because I'm all sweaty, it's stinky from the concert, 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:37.720 and there's a bunch of squished fruit in my bag. 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.320 You know, my clothes are you know, stupid shit like that, 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:44.840 or you know, Rod Stewart used to paint penises like 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.920 I like Kelly Emberg. We were all going into into 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:52.240 uh Montreal and Rod you had to hide your passport. 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:53.120 That was one of the things you had to do 0:15:53.160 --> 0:15:54.520 in the Rod Street Band, And you had to hide 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:57.400 stuff like that. Like so like Kelly Emberg left her 0:15:57.400 --> 0:15:59.040 passport out and next thing you know, she opens it 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:01.760 up at the custom and there's a penis drawn next 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:03.520 to her face. Or you know, I'd go to go 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:05.200 on stage with a brand new white jacket and on 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.320 the back there was a giant black penis drawn on it, 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:11.320 you know. Or one of Rod's friends would come on 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.840 from a soccer team and he'd fall asleep and they'd 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.280 fill his hair with shaving cream and cigarette butts and 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.320 you know, put rigs and it chose. I mean, it 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.080 was just like that kind of shit all day long, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:23.760 because Rod and them were still like, this is nineteen 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.680 eighty eight, and you know, Rod was still a kid. 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:27.640 He's still kind of a kid. 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:33.880 Actually, So when it ends the World tour, what's your 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.040 relationship with Rod and the band? 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.960 They were like my big brothers, and I loved them 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.800 so much. They were everything to me, and I didn't 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:46.640 want to quit the band, but I had signed, I 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:51.440 secretly signed the biggest recording contract Island Records had ever 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.400 given to somebody right before, right during the New Rod 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.520 Stewart tour, and I was so afraid that they were 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.040 going to find out and fire me. So I didn't 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.600 tell anybody. And then one day in Wisconsin, I'm sitting 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.480 down having a dinner before a show backstage with Randy 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.239 Phillips and Rod, and Randy Phillips goes, hey, I heard 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:11.280 you signed a big contract with the Island. And I'm like, oh, 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:18.280 you know, it's like I I yeah. And Rod started 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.760 laughing at me, and I go, what's so funny? And 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.440 he goes All my career, everyone in my band, they're 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.280 always they're going to leave, They're going to get their 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.560 own record deal, They're going to do this. And because 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.480 you're just like this kid and you get this huge 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:36.919 record deal, and because none of them ever did, I 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:38.080 guess you know what I mean. They all used to 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:39.960 threaten to quit. I'm gonna get my own deal, and 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:41.800 I never threatened to quit to get my own deal. 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.000 I didn't even want to know I had a deal. 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:46.800 But when I got done, you know, with part of 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.439 the out of order tour, Island Records had said to 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:51.680 be you. And by then Bill Grahm was my manager, 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.600 and there Mordy Wiggins, and then we're like, look, do 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.240 you want to do you want to be his guitar player? 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.600 Do you want to be your own artist. And I 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.200 had to quit the band. But it was almost like 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:02.359 getting a divorce. It was like leaving my family. It was. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.840 It really crushed me. I did not want to leave 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:05.919 those guys. 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:11.000 So what's your relationship with Rod today and what's happened 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:12.800 over the ensuing thirty five years? 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.359 Thirty five years is nuts. I love Rod Man. Rod 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:18.480 loved my book and he teased me one time. I 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:20.600 popped into a show at Buffalo and He's like, I'm 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:22.240 getting your book and I can't wait. I'm gonna sue 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:25.880 the shit out of you, you know. And I saw 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.640 Rod this this the it was this this last February 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:31.080 or the February before I came. I think it was 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:33.359 this last February. I was down at the hard Rock 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:35.720 Seminal hard Rock where I have a business. I have 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.560 a sports music bar, and so I had the new 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:44.199 Seminal Guitar Guitar Tower and Hollywood, Florida, and I was 0:18:44.240 --> 0:18:47.040 down there with my Seminal friends because they own all 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.440 the hard rocks, and Rod was playing. So I goes, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.560 let's go see Rod. So Jimmy, Jimmy the sax player, 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.160 was still in the band. He was in the band. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.000 When I was in the band, Jimmy Roberts, and Jimmy 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.800 came and met me before the show, said hi, and 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:02.320 I had a couple of tickets and I didn't really 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.840 ask for anything, but Rod found out I was there, 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:07.840 and before I could leave, some guy came out and 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:12.160 grabbed me because he wants to see you and took 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:13.919 me and my friends all backstage, and it was like 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:15.760 it was like he was I got the photos. He 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:18.520 was hugging me and he kissed my kissed my head 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:20.840 and it was just like it was. It was the 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.080 best because in a way psychologically he was like my 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.280 big brother, almost like a father figure to me, you know, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.040 because it was twenty something years older than me when 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.120 I was in his band, and for me it was 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.560 it was beautiful. I love Rod story. I would take 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:34.080 a bullet for him still to this day, even if 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:35.040 he makes a shit record. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:43.960 How did you actually get that gig? 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.919 I was hot? You know in La? You know how 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:49.480 it is, You remember how it was if you got 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.760 a buzz in La you know, some music connection magazine. 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:54.679 Butd Scope I used to just think I was the 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.600 coolest so but Scopa Scoop would write about me and 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.440 everybody would write about me, and and I was around Hollywood, 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:03.040 and I had this band, Color Code, and I was 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.520 mixing this funk and rock thing and it sounded cool 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.040 and people liked it. And I was also became a 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.280 staff producer for David Kirshenbaum, and then I scored Bill 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.359 and Ted's Excellent Adventure. You know, I was there when 0:20:13.400 --> 0:20:15.840 Tracy Chapman walked in with her birkenstocks and an afro. 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:18.080 You know, it was like I was around when this 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.359 shit was happening. And Jamie Cohen loved me, you know, 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:22.879 so a lot of a and our guys loved me 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.240 and would take me out with them to see bands. 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.479 And I had this already done. George Clinton R and 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:32.560 B Skills Senens in the closet. I told everyone. Everyone 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:34.440 thought I was George Clinton's guitar player, so they thought 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.520 I was famous already. But little did they know I 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:38.760 was not from Detroit and I was not his guitar player. 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.000 I just played on that record and so but they 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:42.320 would hire me, and I would tell him I was 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.760 double scale, so I did like that was a girl 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.480 from Climax. I'm blanking on her name right now. She 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.119 was the drummer that sing ladies, you know, they did 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:50.760 Ladies Room and all that, and I did that. And 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:53.360 then Dick Griffy asked me if I wanted to join 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.400 a band with Babyface and La Reid, you know, because 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.040 they were artists before they became record executives. And I 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:03.480 didn't want to do that. And then Thomas Dolby Andy 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:07.520 Taylor called me, And it turns out that Andy Taylor 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:14.360 was managed by Randy Phillips and Arnold's Arnold Arnold Stifeler, 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.359 Steph Yeah, Arnold Steve for Sorry. So Arnold and Randy 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.520 managed him and and Andy Taylor had just left Randa Rand. 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:23.440 He had a big buzz in nineteen eighty seven. He 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.680 had a big hit going. It's called Don't Let called 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:29.359 Take It Easy with the Florid EDDI singing backups, and 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:31.560 he auditioned me and he thought I was cool, and 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:36.400 I became his guitar player. But right before a week 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.840 before the tour, we're opening the Psychedelic First Tour, and 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:41.320 the first gig was the La Form and the second 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:44.840 gig was going to be San Diego Opener Amphitheater, and 0:21:44.840 --> 0:21:48.560 I was my big homecoming and Andy fired me. It's 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.080 like I've never been you know. I was devastated. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.399 Okay, a little bit slower. Why did he fire you? 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:58.399 I think he fired me because he's a dick. But 0:21:58.960 --> 0:22:01.320 I also think he fired me because he was insecure 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.240 and I was hot. I was hot. I worshiped Andy, 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.359 but I was up. I was up in his you know, 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.080 I was in his game with him. I was. I 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:10.800 wasn't there to be in the back and be all 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.400 like passive. I was like aggressive when I played, and 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:17.640 I thought he would like that. And that's what Rod 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:20.200 Stewart liked about me. I was. I was up. And 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:22.160 if you watched the Rod Stewart tour from eighty eight, 0:22:22.200 --> 0:22:24.239 I was up in it. Man. I was like it was. 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:28.520 It was Rockstar Central. But Andy like this is silly, Okay, 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:30.800 I search the world. Randy Phillips said, you gotta go 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:33.520 buy some amplifiers. Here's some money. You know, the good 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.520 old days when you could go buy six Marshal stacks. 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.080 So I ordered six Marshall stacks and I got Dave 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.280 Wider made a guitar center to get him and find 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:42.439 me Red ones. Okay, in nineteen eighty seven, it was 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.920 hard to find red Marshall Stacks. Andy saw him. He 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:49.879 goes and he spray painted all of them black. So 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:51.760 right away I was in a rub. I was in 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:53.879 a rub. You know. It was like everything I was 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:58.400 doing was wrong. And I made a joke about swinging 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.639 from a rope from the top of my aps Ted nugent, 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:02.800 you know, I was joking, but he freaked out, and 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:07.520 I think that's why he fired me. But he fired me. 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:09.840 I then got a call from Jamie Cohen to go 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.199 to San Francisco and produce the tubes for Columbia. They 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:15.640 were doing demos. I was cutting demos on him because 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:17.160 I wanted to see if they were going to sign him. 0:23:17.640 --> 0:23:20.520 While doing that, I got a call from Randy Phillips saying, Hey, 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:23.320 would you want to come audition for Rod? And that 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.160 was the dream, right, that was the dream Rod. People 0:23:26.200 --> 0:23:29.800 forget now, but Rod Stewart was a superstar and he rocked. 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.800 I don't care what anybody says, you know. And I 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:36.879 auditioned for Rod and he said I got the gig, 0:23:37.280 --> 0:23:38.800 and then they called me back and said I don't 0:23:38.840 --> 0:23:40.919 have the gigs. They realized that I just didn't have 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.479 any skills whatsoever. And I never toured. I only had 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:49.520 good rock skills, so I just kept calling, and I 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:54.280 kept calling Arnold, I mean Arnold's office, and Malcolm callingmore 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:57.440 Rod's personal assistant. And Tony Thompson was the drummer who 0:23:57.520 --> 0:23:59.840 was idolized, and I called him and I said, hey, 0:24:00.240 --> 0:24:02.159 around anything going on, you know? And by then I 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:04.159 was living with the Frank Shackler. I don't know if 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:05.480 you remember him. He was an A and R guy 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.560 at Electra. I mean I'm at Aristas sorry, And we 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:11.520 lived in this house of Nika Costa, nik A Costa's 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:13.440 mom's house. I lived in the guest house while a 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:14.439 Nica and I used to have to pick her up 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:17.840 from high school. But I call and call and just 0:24:17.880 --> 0:24:20.480 I had no shame and I had no pride. Hey 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:22.280 you They ever did me, and no one ever called 0:24:22.280 --> 0:24:24.320 me back. But all of a sudden, out of the blue, 0:24:25.119 --> 0:24:28.159 I get a called Stevie. It's Malcolm Rod would like 0:24:28.240 --> 0:24:30.159 to see you. Could you come down to Audible And 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:32.520 I'm like, I went to Audible and he asked me 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:35.480 the audition again turned out Eddie Martinez decided to go 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:38.000 back to Robert Palmer because he was Robert Palmer's guitar player, 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:43.360 and I played a lot like Eddie, and I rehearsed 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:45.280 and I worked my ass off and I got the gig. 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:47.119 And Rod looked at me and he said, Okay, you 0:24:47.160 --> 0:24:48.800 got the gig, and this time I mean it. And 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:51.159 eight days later we were playing higher on Bissom Stadium in 0:24:51.160 --> 0:24:51.800 Puerto Rico. 0:24:53.720 --> 0:24:56.280 Wow, let's go back. How did you get your deal 0:24:56.320 --> 0:24:56.920 with Ireland? 0:24:58.640 --> 0:25:02.080 Well in eighty seven, and well, you know it's weird, Carter. 0:25:02.960 --> 0:25:05.000 There was a guy called Dino I Raley and I 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:07.720 used to date his daughter Julie, and Dino used to 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:10.840 run Restless Records and used to run the label with 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:12.840 George Harrison's dark Horse for A and M. And he 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:15.320 was he was an old promo guy from the early days. 0:25:15.560 --> 0:25:20.840 And he had found this girl in nineteen eighty six, 0:25:20.960 --> 0:25:24.560 I think it was named Melissa Ethridge, and he asked 0:25:24.600 --> 0:25:28.600 me to help him develop Melissa Ethridge. So we went, 0:25:29.119 --> 0:25:31.639 we got he got some money from EMI, and we 0:25:31.720 --> 0:25:33.800 went to the old EMI America studios right there on 0:25:33.840 --> 0:25:36.800 Sunset they used to have there, and I cut a 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:43.160 bunch of demos of Melissa Ethridge and I was horrible. 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:46.080 I produced him, but I was way off. I made 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.159 a rock because everything in that part of the eighties 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:52.320 was heavy bon joviature. So I made a rock and 0:25:52.359 --> 0:25:54.640 it was I was way off and it was awful, 0:25:54.680 --> 0:25:59.160 but she was great. And there was one song, ironically 0:25:59.240 --> 0:26:02.520 that I didn't play on and I produced that Chris 0:26:02.560 --> 0:26:04.920 Blackwell hurt and he freaked out on her, and Chris 0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:12.760 Blackwell signed her. And so that Dino guy made me 0:26:12.840 --> 0:26:15.320 learn about making demos. So he introduced me to a 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:18.160 guy called Carter who was his friend. And you remember Carter, 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:20.200 I'm sure. So of course Carter. 0:26:20.040 --> 0:26:23.600 Wrote the lyrics for instance, and Peppermint's longtime A and 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:27.439 R guy at Capitol brought Tina Turner back from the 0:26:27.480 --> 0:26:28.560 dead career. 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:33.440 Wise to answer, well, Carter, Carter, these are the best 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:35.479 things that ever happened to me. And I'm gonna tell 0:26:35.480 --> 0:26:38.840 you why, because nobody was kissing your ass back then. 0:26:39.160 --> 0:26:44.960 Carter said, I think this sucks, but there's something here 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:48.920 that's a little interesting. So I mean he just tells 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:49.760 you flat out you suck. 0:26:50.240 --> 0:26:51.880 Well, that was Carter very much. 0:26:52.720 --> 0:26:55.520 Yeah, I think this really sucks. He goes, but then 0:26:55.560 --> 0:26:57.680 he's a remember in his office at a m he 0:26:57.720 --> 0:26:59.600 had this elephant leg for a chair. I'm sitting on 0:26:59.640 --> 0:27:04.560 this eleph He's like super eclectic, right, and he goes, 0:27:05.000 --> 0:27:07.399 take this ten grand, and I want you to go 0:27:07.480 --> 0:27:09.800 work on some things that sound like this and come 0:27:09.840 --> 0:27:11.360 back and see me in two months or a month 0:27:11.440 --> 0:27:13.760 or whatever it was. So I did that and I 0:27:13.800 --> 0:27:18.959 cut some cut some shit, and I came back and 0:27:19.119 --> 0:27:21.439 he listened to it and he go, aw, this sucks, 0:27:21.440 --> 0:27:24.760 and this sucks, and he goes, this one's pretty good. 0:27:25.359 --> 0:27:28.800 So he goes, why don't you go, you know, over 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:31.800 to New York. Here's a guy's number. I wanted to 0:27:31.800 --> 0:27:34.200 work with you and work on something, work in this direction. 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:35.960 So I went and did that, and I you know, 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.639 he gave me twenty grand, you know. And back then 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:41.720 it was the guy I can't even remember Glenn fight, 0:27:42.040 --> 0:27:44.000 Glenn Fight maybe or something like that. I don't know, 0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:46.000 but it was like So I went over there and 0:27:46.040 --> 0:27:47.439 I did this, and then I came back and he goes, ah, 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:49.160 it's all cool, but it's not for me. So then, 0:27:49.240 --> 0:27:51.760 you know, in those days, you take I owned the demos, 0:27:51.960 --> 0:27:54.600 they give him back. So I took the demos and 0:27:54.640 --> 0:27:56.760 at this time I started going to London. They started 0:27:56.800 --> 0:27:59.439 flying me over to London early nineteen eighty seven, so 0:27:59.520 --> 0:28:01.560 I started in the new was not was what Ap 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:04.199 Dog album, but it was before Dawn asked me to 0:28:04.200 --> 0:28:05.639 co produce the song Outcome to the Freaks. So I 0:28:05.680 --> 0:28:10.080 was playing guitar on it and we we were doing that, 0:28:10.200 --> 0:28:11.840 and then I was getting a call from the guy 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:14.119 who one of the guys that worked with paul Oakenfeldt 0:28:14.119 --> 0:28:16.639 and invented acid house music in London, and they were 0:28:16.920 --> 0:28:18.800 They were saying, nobody plays guitar like me in London 0:28:18.840 --> 0:28:20.439 and will you come over? So they kept flying me 0:28:20.480 --> 0:28:22.399 over and while I was there, I was working with 0:28:22.440 --> 0:28:24.480 a company called Park Music that managed these guys, but 0:28:24.520 --> 0:28:28.200 they also managed a young kid called Terrence trad Darby 0:28:28.720 --> 0:28:31.280 and his album hadn't come out yet, and they offered 0:28:31.280 --> 0:28:33.480 me that gig, but there was no rock guitar on it. 0:28:33.600 --> 0:28:36.119 You know, later I would become late Terrence's music director, 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:38.560 but this is way early. This is eighty seven. Terrence's 0:28:38.560 --> 0:28:41.280 album comes out Hardline. According to terrorits Had Explodes, goes 0:28:41.360 --> 0:28:46.240 number one, sells twenty million copies. I go back. I 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:47.880 just get to put a band together. If it was 0:28:47.920 --> 0:28:50.240 and I was with Winston and Carla Zar who you know, 0:28:50.240 --> 0:28:52.480 all of us AMT Fiddler. We were all up up 0:28:52.520 --> 0:28:54.440 and comers, and nobody kN who were Amp Fiddler from 0:28:54.440 --> 0:28:57.440 p funk Me Carla Zar who became the drummer for 0:28:57.520 --> 0:29:00.880 Wendy and Lisa and the water Boys, Amp Phil you 0:29:00.920 --> 0:29:03.160 know who took Bourney where else place in Funkadelic. And 0:29:03.720 --> 0:29:06.480 we put this band together around Don David and Harry 0:29:06.520 --> 0:29:08.520 and Sweetpeat from What's Not Was, And next thing you know, 0:29:08.520 --> 0:29:10.360 we have a number one record called Walk the Dinosaur, 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:12.720 just number one, and we're just we're so we're doing 0:29:12.760 --> 0:29:15.040 top of the Pops. When in London, I mean a 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:18.360 guy called Mitchell krass now Bob Krasnow's kid, who's a 0:29:18.400 --> 0:29:20.640 head A and R in London, and he thought I 0:29:20.760 --> 0:29:24.240 was cool. He heard my demos, he thought they were cool. 0:29:25.000 --> 0:29:27.320 But he wanted me to go to Holland and play 0:29:27.360 --> 0:29:30.320 guitar on this record for this artist he was developing 0:29:30.320 --> 0:29:32.080 and wanted to sign. And I by this time I 0:29:32.080 --> 0:29:34.520 had just gotten fired by Eddie Taylor, and I said, no, 0:29:35.160 --> 0:29:36.800 I'm not doing it. I go I'm only going to 0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:38.800 work on my own stuff and I'm never going to 0:29:38.840 --> 0:29:41.200 get myself in a position again where somebody can humiliate 0:29:41.240 --> 0:29:43.640 me like Andy did, because my high school friends and 0:29:43.680 --> 0:29:46.000 parents have bought tickets to see us in San Diego 0:29:46.080 --> 0:29:48.320 with the first and I was I've never been so 0:29:48.360 --> 0:29:50.080 embarrassed in my life because everyone thought it was a 0:29:50.120 --> 0:29:51.960 liar and full of shit, and you know, I wasn't there. 0:29:52.600 --> 0:29:57.240 So instead of him saying taking no for an answer, 0:29:57.360 --> 0:29:59.480 he said, I'll give you five thousand dollars that you 0:29:59.480 --> 0:30:02.000 can work down downstairs on your own demos while you're 0:30:02.040 --> 0:30:04.800 working on this other girl's record. And I said, yeah, okay, 0:30:04.840 --> 0:30:07.320 I'll do that. So I went to Holland and def 0:30:07.400 --> 0:30:10.040 Leppard was working on a Hysteria album in one room 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:11.880 with mut Lang, and I was working with the Zeo 0:30:11.880 --> 0:30:13.400 and these other guys in the room next door. It 0:30:13.480 --> 0:30:16.680 was super awesome. I mean, I hate to keep sounding 0:30:16.720 --> 0:30:18.520 like this, but the late eighties and the early nineties 0:30:18.560 --> 0:30:20.680 was just the most amazing time to be an artist. 0:30:20.760 --> 0:30:22.840 It was just insane, that kind of shited it went on, 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.680 you know. And so I'm in Holland and I'm doing that, 0:30:26.480 --> 0:30:30.240 and Mitchell hooked me up with a guy called Steve 0:30:30.240 --> 0:30:34.200 Pross in La at Electra Records, and Steve Pross had 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:39.040 just signed the Pandoras. The Pandoras then got dropped. He 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:42.640 was really convinced that Pandoras were real. So I took 0:30:42.720 --> 0:30:44.920 five grand from Restless and I went and recut their 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:47.960 record called rock Hard, and produced it. And by doing 0:30:48.000 --> 0:30:51.160 it and Steve really felt loyal to me. So Steve 0:30:52.360 --> 0:30:55.640 left Electra got fired actually, and got hired at Island 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:57.520 and signed me to Island. And that's how I got 0:30:57.520 --> 0:30:57.960 my record. 0:30:57.960 --> 0:31:03.560 Doue, Okay, finish up with Rod Stewart. What's the experience 0:31:03.800 --> 0:31:06.600 for you making the record? When the record comes out? 0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:12.760 The problem was is I got super good during that 0:31:12.840 --> 0:31:15.080 year with Rod Stewart, playing with the Carlin Rojas and 0:31:15.120 --> 0:31:17.800 Jeff Gollub and Tony Brock and I mean they were 0:31:17.840 --> 0:31:20.040 the best musicians in the world, and I got really 0:31:20.080 --> 0:31:21.640 really I'm not trying to brag. I mean I just 0:31:21.680 --> 0:31:24.760 got really, really good a year of that's like every 0:31:24.880 --> 0:31:27.680 night at arenas and stadiums, you know, you either get 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:30.200 good or you get fired. And I got really good. 0:31:30.280 --> 0:31:32.800 So when I came back to my band that I 0:31:32.880 --> 0:31:36.640 had before I left on tour with Rod, I almost couldn't. 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:41.440 I almost couldn't even I was I just couldn't were like, 0:31:41.440 --> 0:31:45.040 like I was a different person and we had to 0:31:45.120 --> 0:31:50.040 work really hard to I had to rediscover myself. I 0:31:50.160 --> 0:31:53.480 was become way too commercial. I remember Island's like, what 0:31:53.520 --> 0:31:55.040 are these crappy songs? 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:55.440 You know? 0:31:55.480 --> 0:31:56.800 You know you make it a you know you're not 0:31:57.040 --> 0:31:59.480 what happened to your alternative edge? And I'm like, you're right. 0:31:59.480 --> 0:32:01.960 I was really into otis reading now because of Rod, 0:32:01.960 --> 0:32:03.880 and I was really in the East Memphis soul, and 0:32:03.920 --> 0:32:06.240 I had to sort of learn how to get back 0:32:06.280 --> 0:32:09.240 to being who I was before Rod. But my skill 0:32:09.360 --> 0:32:15.040 level was way higher, and I'd spent Rod had told 0:32:15.040 --> 0:32:16.920 me go go meet your album, hurry and finishing it and 0:32:17.040 --> 0:32:18.640 come on, we're going to do the South American tour. 0:32:19.600 --> 0:32:22.120 I couldn't do that. I just couldn't do it. I 0:32:22.640 --> 0:32:27.040 didn't I didn't have enough of the great songs I needed. 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:32.040 I remember Tony Berg came over to talk to me 0:32:32.040 --> 0:32:34.640 at my Hollywood Hills house and and talked to me 0:32:34.680 --> 0:32:37.080 about producing my album. And I loved Tony, you know really, 0:32:37.120 --> 0:32:38.800 Tony was always nice to me when I was nobody, 0:32:39.280 --> 0:32:43.200 and he said to me, he goes he listened to 0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:48.040 the demos, like have you ever read a book. And 0:32:48.120 --> 0:32:49.880 you know what, he was right. I hadn't. I hadn't 0:32:49.920 --> 0:32:52.520 been shit, you know. I you know, I was a surfer, skateboarder. 0:32:52.720 --> 0:32:54.920 It was full of my own bullshit. And and I 0:32:54.960 --> 0:32:58.560 had just been in a bidding war, okay, on my deal, 0:32:59.640 --> 0:33:06.160 and I thought about saying, off, Tony Berg, we can talk. 0:33:06.320 --> 0:33:08.880 Shut up, you know. I thought about my ego. Then 0:33:08.920 --> 0:33:11.160 I this might have been a turning point in my life. 0:33:11.360 --> 0:33:13.560 I stopped myself and I thought about it, and I said, 0:33:13.600 --> 0:33:16.959 maybe I need to shut up and listen to what 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:19.680 he's saying, you know what. And he was dead right. 0:33:19.840 --> 0:33:23.160 He was dead right. And that's that's that was a 0:33:23.200 --> 0:33:25.680 life changing move for me, because I could have just 0:33:25.720 --> 0:33:27.560 did my own thing and been my own bullshit and 0:33:27.600 --> 0:33:29.680 you know, followed me. Everybody's telling me how great I am. 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:32.160 I'm the guy and Bill and Ted's you know, huge 0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:34.680 movie now and I did that and wasn't wasn't number one, 0:33:34.920 --> 0:33:36.840 and you know what I mean. It's like, but I 0:33:36.920 --> 0:33:39.080 listened to him, and so I found a guy called 0:33:39.120 --> 0:33:43.000 parthon On Huxley. I loved him. Jamie Cohen and David 0:33:43.520 --> 0:33:48.120 David at Columbia, you know, David. Why am I blanking 0:33:48.120 --> 0:33:55.160 on his name? David the produce McCartney. You know, you 0:33:55.280 --> 0:33:57.600 know what I'm talking about, you know, David David, David David. 0:33:58.040 --> 0:34:02.240 Well, there was the guy who the guy that was 0:34:02.320 --> 0:34:04.080 four one five records keep going. 0:34:04.320 --> 0:34:06.560 Yeah, he still produced mccartey now and all that stuff. 0:34:06.560 --> 0:34:13.680 But David David had signed Parthenon Huxley, and I loved 0:34:13.680 --> 0:34:16.600 the Parthenon Huxley's record. It sounded like Bowie mixed with 0:34:16.640 --> 0:34:20.680 you know, I don't know, And so I loved his lyrics, 0:34:20.800 --> 0:34:22.920 and so I sat down and started writing lyrics for 0:34:22.960 --> 0:34:26.319 Parthenon Huxley and and it taught me so much, and 0:34:26.600 --> 0:34:29.000 it saved my record. But that took me. That took 0:34:29.040 --> 0:34:31.799 me that whole year of nineteen eighty nine to go 0:34:31.840 --> 0:34:35.520 through that metamorphosis. Well, David Kahn, David Kahn. So, David 0:34:35.600 --> 0:34:39.840 Kahn had signed Parthenon Huxley, and and I used to 0:34:39.880 --> 0:34:41.880 hang out with Jamie Cohen and David Conn their officers 0:34:41.920 --> 0:34:44.920 were next to each other. And you know, I watched Fistbone, 0:34:45.360 --> 0:34:48.000 you know, record got me bone. And because David invited 0:34:48.040 --> 0:34:49.759 me to the studio in nineteen eighty seven, I sat 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:51.480 in a room and watch watching or would play those 0:34:51.480 --> 0:34:54.919 bass parts, you know, So I sit there. I got 0:34:54.920 --> 0:34:58.840 parthon On Huxley involved, and then I wanted to work 0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:04.120 with always dreamed of working in Australia with the guy 0:35:04.160 --> 0:35:08.719 who had produced In Excess and he had produced Midnight Oil, 0:35:09.560 --> 0:35:12.480 British guy. I'm blanking on his name right now, and 0:35:12.480 --> 0:35:14.279 it's super cool. I just actually ran into him a 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:19.080 slim Jim Phantom's wedding party not too long ago. And 0:35:19.160 --> 0:35:20.640 I was going to go to Australia and do it 0:35:20.680 --> 0:35:22.560 with him because I loved those In Excess and Midnight 0:35:22.600 --> 0:35:25.120 Oil records. But Island Records is like, We're not sending 0:35:25.120 --> 0:35:27.759 you to Australia for three months, no way. So Bill 0:35:27.840 --> 0:35:32.319 Laswell called he had mad credibility. He was considered untouchable. 0:35:32.400 --> 0:35:34.279 Like no, you know, you don't call Bill Laswell. He 0:35:34.320 --> 0:35:36.319 calls you. You know, record companies bag him to do 0:35:36.360 --> 0:35:38.319 records and he says no to everything. And he said, 0:35:38.440 --> 0:35:40.440 you know, Randy Phillips told me that he turned down 0:35:40.440 --> 0:35:43.880 four hundred grand to produce Simple Minds for Randy to 0:35:43.960 --> 0:35:46.120 do my record for forty grand, you know what I mean. 0:35:46.239 --> 0:35:49.000 It was like, so Laswell called and that's why I 0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:50.960 went to New York and I recorded with Laswell in 0:35:50.960 --> 0:35:52.920 New York with that whole scene that you know he 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:55.440 had did Public Enemy and I mean, I mean a 0:35:55.480 --> 0:36:00.279 Public Image and Johnny Lyden, all these different records that 0:36:00.320 --> 0:36:05.520 became my whole start as a solo artist or recording artist. 0:36:05.880 --> 0:36:08.840 And were you happy with that record? Were you happy 0:36:08.880 --> 0:36:12.239 with the commercial performance of that record? 0:36:12.480 --> 0:36:16.640 No? I hated that record, but I think I was wrong. 0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:19.240 Everyone still to this day that it's like a cult, 0:36:19.360 --> 0:36:22.560 cult classic record. The problem was the record was hugely 0:36:22.600 --> 0:36:26.920 successful in Europe and in Japan, but I was on 0:36:27.000 --> 0:36:31.080 Island Records, and in nineteen ninety they got bought by PolyGram. 0:36:31.680 --> 0:36:34.799 So I was on tour opening for Joe Satrianni, which 0:36:34.880 --> 0:36:38.160 was which was both a blessing and a curse because 0:36:39.480 --> 0:36:43.120 I was gone from doing twenty thousand seaters with rod 0:36:43.280 --> 0:36:45.720 full of supermodels and movie stars and people like screaming 0:36:45.719 --> 0:36:48.560 and going crazy to opening for Joe Satrianni in front 0:36:48.560 --> 0:36:50.959 of about three thousand, five hundred to five thousand people 0:36:50.960 --> 0:36:54.160 a night, sold out everywhere, and it was pretty much 0:36:54.440 --> 0:36:57.200 three thousand, It was pretty much four thy nine hundred 0:36:57.239 --> 0:37:00.360 ninety nine guys and maybe one girlfriend, and it was 0:37:00.440 --> 0:37:02.719 dudes and they would just stare at your neck and 0:37:02.719 --> 0:37:05.000 they would stare at my fingers, you know, and then 0:37:05.040 --> 0:37:07.480 they'd yell, oh, he plays panatonics, and I was like, 0:37:07.520 --> 0:37:09.200 I don't even know what a panatonic is. I never 0:37:09.239 --> 0:37:13.280 took a lesson. So it's like it was no fun, 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:17.880 but it made me a real It established me as 0:37:17.880 --> 0:37:19.920 a guitar player that was a serious guitar player in 0:37:19.920 --> 0:37:25.880 the world. And that's sort of like it was. It 0:37:26.000 --> 0:37:30.200 was not fun for me. So the record didn't sell 0:37:30.239 --> 0:37:34.120 well because Warner's was losing it, so they couldn't the 0:37:34.400 --> 0:37:37.000 distribute distributor was losing it so they couldn't just shit 0:37:37.080 --> 0:37:39.360 with it, and PolyGram couldn't touch it for six months. 0:37:39.520 --> 0:37:41.759 So I really fell through the cracks in America and 0:37:41.800 --> 0:37:46.920 I and I never recovered, but I almost I almost 0:37:46.960 --> 0:37:50.640 recovered when Charlie Miner called me on my second album. 0:37:52.280 --> 0:37:55.120 Okay, well, Charlie Minor, legendary promo guy at A and 0:37:55.239 --> 0:37:57.200 M Records, Charlie calls you, and. 0:37:57.239 --> 0:38:01.680 What, Charlie, here's a song I that's blowing up in 0:38:01.800 --> 0:38:05.239 Japan called Start Again. And he says, this is a 0:38:05.400 --> 0:38:07.759 huge record I can make this, you know how he was, 0:38:07.760 --> 0:38:10.360 I can make this a charide record in America. And 0:38:10.440 --> 0:38:12.799 I got to hang out with Charlie Minor. And then 0:38:12.840 --> 0:38:16.959 his assistant was Charlie Little Charlie who ended up running 0:38:17.000 --> 0:38:21.320 Sony Records in the late nineties. Charlie Walker, Charlie Walkee 0:38:21.360 --> 0:38:23.160 as Charlie WALKI used to be our day to day 0:38:23.160 --> 0:38:26.040 for Omaguy and the Derandauran tour and Charlie Miner. You know, 0:38:26.239 --> 0:38:28.600 he'd come up and it was like he was like 0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:31.840 the Godfather or some shit man mine was. So he 0:38:31.960 --> 0:38:34.759 was like, you know, the man, and so in dubious 0:38:34.840 --> 0:38:39.120 dubious of course. So I get a call. Charlie's wants 0:38:39.160 --> 0:38:41.960 to meet you. He's got some kind of production deal. 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:44.319 He's going to sign you, and he's going to make 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:47.640 this a number one record. And I'm finally nineteen ninety four, 0:38:47.960 --> 0:38:50.239 I'm going to break through. I'm going to get my 0:38:50.360 --> 0:38:53.160 due in America. And I'm supposed to go see him 0:38:53.200 --> 0:38:55.399 on a Monday. And this is a true story about 0:38:56.960 --> 0:38:59.160 I call up on the Friday. I call up on 0:38:59.200 --> 0:39:02.920 the Monday and I'm saying okay, guys to his assistant 0:39:03.200 --> 0:39:05.440 and she answers the phone that she sounds really strange, 0:39:06.760 --> 0:39:10.200 and she tells me the story how that weekend, Charlie's 0:39:10.200 --> 0:39:14.160 girlfriend caught him with another girl literally and walked in 0:39:14.239 --> 0:39:16.960 the room and shot him dead. And do you remember 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:17.680 when that happened. 0:39:18.480 --> 0:39:20.840 I saw him Friday night, you know, a couple of 0:39:20.920 --> 0:39:22.160 days before of a Sunday. 0:39:22.200 --> 0:39:22.760 That happened. 0:39:22.760 --> 0:39:23.440 It was very weird. 0:39:23.480 --> 0:39:25.200 And I was supposed to see him on the Monday 0:39:25.280 --> 0:39:28.400 or the Tuesday. So there you go. It was really weird. 0:39:28.480 --> 0:39:30.160 And I just thought of my curt. I think I'm 0:39:30.200 --> 0:39:32.839 cursed in America. I am cursed. I mean, I can 0:39:32.960 --> 0:39:34.440 play with the biggest people in the world that I 0:39:34.440 --> 0:39:36.239 can't seem to get my You know, I sold a 0:39:36.239 --> 0:39:39.520 few million solo albums, just hardly any in America. It 0:39:39.560 --> 0:39:41.800 was like so and there was no Internet, so nobody 0:39:41.880 --> 0:39:44.799 knew how successful I was around the world. They just 0:39:44.840 --> 0:39:48.160 assumed I bombed or you know, I don't know. Steve 0:39:48.200 --> 0:39:49.920 Luca there used to ask people because he lived up 0:39:49.960 --> 0:39:52.319 my street, or Stevie getting all that money for that 0:39:52.360 --> 0:39:54.960 Mercedes Benz or whatever, he thought I was a drug dealer. 0:39:55.000 --> 0:39:55.360 I think. 0:40:02.960 --> 0:40:07.120 So, what did you learn making solo records? And how 0:40:07.120 --> 0:40:10.160 do you feel about the status of your solo career today. 0:40:10.920 --> 0:40:17.000 I think my solo career was it was two things. 0:40:17.040 --> 0:40:21.920 I you know, during those days, you could keep making 0:40:22.000 --> 0:40:26.120 records if you had credibility, so if I sold just 0:40:26.280 --> 0:40:28.960 enough records to always have a record deal. But I 0:40:29.080 --> 0:40:32.680 never delivered what everyone thought I I just never did, 0:40:32.800 --> 0:40:35.040 except for in Japan. I was Japan for some reason. 0:40:35.080 --> 0:40:38.120 I would just because there's this huge I wish, I mean, 0:40:38.200 --> 0:40:41.759 like people ripping my hair out, and and I did 0:40:41.760 --> 0:40:45.000 well in Germany, and I did well in France and 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:49.400 and you know, but it's just I would have liked 0:40:49.440 --> 0:40:52.040 to have I would like to have had that, you know, 0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:53.920 a couple albums that sold a few million copies in 0:40:53.920 --> 0:40:55.560 the States, because in right now I could probably go 0:40:55.600 --> 0:40:57.279 make you know, one hundred grand a night playing all 0:40:57.280 --> 0:41:00.839 the festivals still to this day, you know, and now 0:41:00.880 --> 0:41:02.760 I can only do that in a couple of countries. 0:41:03.040 --> 0:41:05.239 But I wish that I could every summer go out 0:41:05.280 --> 0:41:07.520 and do my lallapaloozas and do all that shit, you know. 0:41:07.920 --> 0:41:12.400 And that's what not having success in America gets you. 0:41:12.400 --> 0:41:15.640 You don't get that ride where. But you know, I'll 0:41:15.640 --> 0:41:18.840 tell you something else. In the two thousandth fix, I 0:41:18.840 --> 0:41:21.600 started working at American Idol, and that's when things were 0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:23.840 really different because we would have an artist I remember 0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:26.400 doing Jordan Sparks. We sold two million albums and they 0:41:26.480 --> 0:41:29.480 drop her the next year, So things really changed later on. 0:41:29.600 --> 0:41:31.520 So you know, you could sell two million albums and 0:41:31.560 --> 0:41:32.520 still nobody give a shit. 0:41:34.719 --> 0:41:38.799 So at this late date, do you still have a 0:41:38.880 --> 0:41:41.800 dream of breaking through as a solo artist in America 0:41:41.920 --> 0:41:43.359 or if you put that dream. 0:41:43.080 --> 0:41:48.800 To bid I kind of never really have that dream 0:41:48.800 --> 0:41:51.600 of being a superstar. I just wanted to be able 0:41:51.640 --> 0:41:55.120 to I like playing big places. I wanted to be 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:58.760 able to keep playing the big, big rooms. That's my dream. 0:41:58.880 --> 0:42:01.880 But I do. Here's my dream now, Okay. I've written 0:42:01.880 --> 0:42:03.520 a lot of songs for a lot of people, all 0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:06.319 those Sash Jordan songs and Jeff Healy songs and all 0:42:06.320 --> 0:42:09.319 this stuff that I wrote back in the nineties. My 0:42:09.480 --> 0:42:11.440 dream is some country person's gonna cut one of them 0:42:11.440 --> 0:42:13.040 and it's gonna go number one, and I'm gonna get 0:42:13.200 --> 0:42:15.239 make up fortunes and leave my kid with a ton 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:17.880 of money. That's what I's That's my dream. 0:42:19.800 --> 0:42:23.440 Okay, how old is your kid sixteen. 0:42:23.520 --> 0:42:26.080 Now, okay, you have. 0:42:26.160 --> 0:42:30.480 The girlfriend who passed who is the mother of your child. 0:42:31.000 --> 0:42:33.480 It's a woman named Karen, Karen Silva, and she was 0:42:33.560 --> 0:42:37.160 one of my best friends and I and she came 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:39.040 in my life when I was at the I just 0:42:39.160 --> 0:42:41.759 I was just lost soul. I was a lost soul. 0:42:42.080 --> 0:42:43.600 I was hanging around in La every day with a 0:42:43.600 --> 0:42:45.800 bunch of my buddies that were all Seinfeld writer producers, 0:42:45.800 --> 0:42:47.879 and they were all super rich. And there's a lot 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:49.640 of drugs and a lot of a lot of booze 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:51.160 and a lot of drugs, a lot of women, a 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:55.920 lot of booze and a lot of drugs. And I 0:42:55.920 --> 0:42:58.440 had my friend and I used to go to Africa 0:42:58.440 --> 0:43:00.319 on Safari and she'd come and we do all these 0:43:00.320 --> 0:43:03.400 things together. And she got to the point where she 0:43:03.840 --> 0:43:05.319 was going to be too old to have a child, 0:43:05.320 --> 0:43:07.200 and she was going to have to maybe go to 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:10.000 a clinic. And I thought to myself, when am I 0:43:10.040 --> 0:43:12.279 ever going to be able to get it together? So 0:43:12.320 --> 0:43:13.799 I said, let me help you, because I knew she'd 0:43:13.800 --> 0:43:18.240 be a fantastic mother, and and it changed my life. 0:43:18.360 --> 0:43:22.880 It saved my life. You know. I I work my 0:43:22.920 --> 0:43:26.239 ass off now. And I love working, and I got 0:43:26.280 --> 0:43:27.800 a kid, you know, and to take care of it, 0:43:27.880 --> 0:43:30.600 I have to set an example. And and she's an 0:43:30.600 --> 0:43:35.279 incredible mother. And and we we know we live on 0:43:36.040 --> 0:43:37.440 you know, I got a house here in Austin. It's 0:43:37.440 --> 0:43:39.000 you know, five thousand square feet. And she was one 0:43:39.040 --> 0:43:40.239 side and I live on the other. And we're mom 0:43:40.320 --> 0:43:43.080 and dad. We do things together as a family, but 0:43:43.120 --> 0:43:45.480 we're not a couple. But you know, and my kid's 0:43:45.520 --> 0:43:47.239 always known what's going on, and we have we have 0:43:47.280 --> 0:43:49.000 a good time, and my kid's doing amazing. 0:43:50.480 --> 0:43:51.720 Were you ever a couple? 0:43:52.440 --> 0:43:58.600 Rinda early on? Yeah, okay, why do you live in Austin? Well, 0:43:59.680 --> 0:44:02.480 I was, you know, I work in Canada. I was 0:44:02.480 --> 0:44:04.360 a film company in Canada, and I was in Canada. 0:44:04.440 --> 0:44:06.360 We were living on I run the lake. I sold 0:44:06.360 --> 0:44:08.880 my house and got rid of my house in Carlsbad, California. 0:44:09.000 --> 0:44:11.000 Got rid of my house in the Hollywood Hills. I 0:44:11.000 --> 0:44:12.799 haven't had a house in Venice Beach. Got rid of that. 0:44:12.840 --> 0:44:15.640 I got rid of everything in California, moved to Canada. 0:44:16.160 --> 0:44:18.000 And when it was time for my son to start school, 0:44:18.040 --> 0:44:19.560 his mother was adamant. He had to go to a 0:44:19.600 --> 0:44:25.160 Waldorf School, And so we went and toured Waldorf schools 0:44:25.200 --> 0:44:29.000 in Toronto and Burlington and East Aurora, New York and 0:44:29.160 --> 0:44:31.000 places where. Because I lived in a place called Niagar 0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:33.040 around the lake, this little town where the War of 0:44:33.080 --> 0:44:36.680 eighteen twelve was spot and I was also then working 0:44:36.680 --> 0:44:38.880 at the Smithsonian. I took a job at the Smithsonian 0:44:38.960 --> 0:44:42.319 National Museum of the American Indian where I created the 0:44:42.360 --> 0:44:44.960 exhibit that later would become the film Rumbled the Indians 0:44:45.000 --> 0:44:47.560 of Rock the World. So I was flying in and 0:44:47.600 --> 0:44:50.719 out of DC, and I was shooting a lot of 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.600 stuff that was ended up in the movie Rumble, and 0:44:53.640 --> 0:44:58.120 I went to Austin to shoot one of these Jimmy 0:44:58.120 --> 0:45:01.760 Hendricks experienced things and talked to Janie Hendrix about Jimmy, 0:45:02.160 --> 0:45:04.279 and you know, I talked to a lot of guys. 0:45:04.320 --> 0:45:06.440 Brad Whitford and they're all my different friends that I've 0:45:06.440 --> 0:45:09.640 had forever in the music business were there. And while 0:45:09.640 --> 0:45:11.440 in Austin, I ran into a lot of my old 0:45:12.120 --> 0:45:15.040 music business friends that were that, you know, chewed a 0:45:15.040 --> 0:45:16.279 lot of the same dirt as me. And when you 0:45:16.320 --> 0:45:19.239 have somebody that really knows what you went through, it's 0:45:19.239 --> 0:45:21.160 a lot easier to communicate because a lot of people 0:45:21.200 --> 0:45:24.000 didn't get that life. So my neighbor's Charlie Sexton, you 0:45:24.040 --> 0:45:25.880 know who. Charlie and I were pal since I was 0:45:25.920 --> 0:45:28.200 in rod Stewart, you know. And Charlie was playing with 0:45:28.200 --> 0:45:30.399 Bob Dylan at the time. And I bought a house 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:32.160 around the corner, and his kid was going to the 0:45:32.160 --> 0:45:36.680 same school. And Marty, Marty McGuire from the Dixie Chicks, 0:45:36.680 --> 0:45:40.120 her daughter was in my son's class, and that Waldorf 0:45:40.160 --> 0:45:42.560 was happening and it was a great price in Walt 0:45:42.600 --> 0:45:45.080 and Austin had still had music then before it got 0:45:45.160 --> 0:45:48.200 the tech takeover. And I bought a house here right 0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:49.880 next to the school. We just said we're moving to Austin. 0:45:50.040 --> 0:45:50.759 So that's what we did. 0:45:52.360 --> 0:45:55.040 Okay, So you do do not live in that same house? 0:45:55.239 --> 0:45:56.719 Oh yeah, I live in that same house. 0:45:57.440 --> 0:46:00.320 Okay. So you talk about the tech take you and 0:46:00.400 --> 0:46:03.680 I've talked to other musicians who've moved further and further 0:46:03.800 --> 0:46:06.200 out from the center of town. What's going on with 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:07.560 music in Austin now? 0:46:08.239 --> 0:46:09.799 I don't think there's such a thing. I think it's 0:46:09.840 --> 0:46:13.279 all bullshit. First of all, you know, it used to 0:46:13.320 --> 0:46:15.120 be cool because you could go see Junior Brown on 0:46:15.160 --> 0:46:17.040 a Sunday afternoon and a beer was two bucks and 0:46:17.040 --> 0:46:18.520 you could park your car and leave it all night. 0:46:18.640 --> 0:46:22.680 And this was only eleven years ago, ten eleven, twelve 0:46:22.760 --> 0:46:25.240 years ago. You know, a house here on an acre 0:46:25.760 --> 0:46:27.960 for what the down payment of my San Diego house 0:46:28.120 --> 0:46:30.560 was right for the whole house on an acre, you know. 0:46:30.960 --> 0:46:34.400 And I remember calling Great Cabin, one of my Seinfeld buddies, 0:46:34.400 --> 0:46:35.840 and I say, hey, I just bout a house. It 0:46:35.840 --> 0:46:39.000 was two hundred and fifty three thousand dollars. He's like what, 0:46:39.560 --> 0:46:42.239 I goes, Yeah, he goes what He's like, he just 0:46:42.400 --> 0:46:44.800 you know, now that house is probably two million bucks. 0:46:44.880 --> 0:46:48.920 But it's like, you know, it was this little town 0:46:49.600 --> 0:46:52.680 that was so cool and every and there's all these 0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:56.160 people around and it was like they had great restaurants 0:46:55.400 --> 0:46:58.680 and there's music everywhere. But all of a sudden, Allehandra 0:46:58.800 --> 0:47:01.680 Escaveto had to move out and Junior Brown's gone, and 0:47:01.760 --> 0:47:05.280 nobody could afford. The rents went bonkers. The rents were nuts, 0:47:06.440 --> 0:47:08.919 and then the housing prizes went nuts because the tech 0:47:08.960 --> 0:47:13.560 people kept coming in. And you know, tech people, they 0:47:13.560 --> 0:47:16.000 don't have a realistic idea of money. Someone gives them 0:47:16.000 --> 0:47:19.040 a ton of stock, and then they're like, okay, that 0:47:19.080 --> 0:47:20.920 seems cheap, and they have no A lot of them 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:23.680 have no artistic sense. There's no style, so they all 0:47:23.680 --> 0:47:26.480 look the same. I'm pretty soon every place you'd look 0:47:26.520 --> 0:47:29.520 downtown had every guy had a beard, and they sit 0:47:29.600 --> 0:47:31.480 there with an ipa and I couldn't even find a 0:47:31.520 --> 0:47:34.680 corona anymore. But my kid was doing so good in school. 0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:37.080 I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to get 0:47:37.080 --> 0:47:39.560 out of here because my kid is all about my kid. 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:42.880 So I'm still here because he's now at sophomore in 0:47:42.960 --> 0:47:43.440 high school. 0:47:44.360 --> 0:47:46.319 And is he what school does he go to now? 0:47:46.640 --> 0:47:48.040 We used to go to the Waldorf and now he 0:47:48.040 --> 0:47:49.280 goes to Saint Michael's Academy. 0:47:50.719 --> 0:47:54.319 Okay, I got to get into this. What's it like 0:47:54.440 --> 0:47:57.279 with both of you living in the same house. Does 0:47:57.280 --> 0:48:02.160 your the mother of your son? Does she bring people home? 0:48:02.239 --> 0:48:04.759 Do you bring people home? Do you get jealous? What's 0:48:04.760 --> 0:48:06.480 it like you have dinner together? 0:48:06.920 --> 0:48:08.720 Oh? Yeah, we have dinner, and we go on vacations 0:48:08.760 --> 0:48:10.200 together and everything, or you know, I get a sweet 0:48:10.239 --> 0:48:12.520 and I sleep on a couch and no, but no, 0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:17.480 we we have one goal and it's to raise that son. 0:48:17.520 --> 0:48:21.439 Of ours. We don't. I have no ego. I've I've 0:48:21.480 --> 0:48:24.360 done it. You know, if you knew me, Bobby probably 0:48:24.400 --> 0:48:26.560 saw me around back when I was a kid. I 0:48:26.600 --> 0:48:29.879 had had no no, no. I had everything you could 0:48:29.920 --> 0:48:33.040 ask for as a guy, constantly everywhere. And you know, 0:48:33.040 --> 0:48:34.680 when you get to hang out with Keith Richards and people, 0:48:34.719 --> 0:48:39.080 then you can multiply it by twenty. And I have 0:48:39.239 --> 0:48:41.640 no fascination with anything. I've never had a hard time 0:48:41.640 --> 0:48:44.439 with any stuff. So for me, when we're at home, 0:48:44.480 --> 0:48:47.200 we're all about being mom and dad, and I don't 0:48:47.200 --> 0:48:49.000 ask her what she does, and she doesn't ask me 0:48:49.120 --> 0:48:52.040 what I do, And my priority is him and her 0:48:52.160 --> 0:48:54.080 to make sure they're taking care of it. Everything's great. 0:48:54.120 --> 0:48:56.600 I work, she stays home and she takes care of 0:48:56.600 --> 0:48:59.000 our son and he gets a full time mom and 0:48:59.040 --> 0:49:03.000 I work my ass off, and when he turns eighteen, 0:49:03.520 --> 0:49:06.759 I'll probably buy two houses and put him in a 0:49:06.760 --> 0:49:10.040 trust and she can live where in it as she wants. 0:49:10.040 --> 0:49:13.640 And everything's about him. Everything's about him. So we don't 0:49:13.680 --> 0:49:16.000 have any of those issues, and I don't at least. 0:49:16.920 --> 0:49:18.560 Let's go back. How did you get the gig? 0:49:18.600 --> 0:49:18.920 On? Bill? 0:49:18.960 --> 0:49:19.359 And Ted? 0:49:20.440 --> 0:49:22.759 Well? So in San Diego there was a guy called 0:49:22.760 --> 0:49:25.440 Mark Levy. Mark Levy was an agent and he man. 0:49:25.680 --> 0:49:27.200 He was an agent for some of the really big 0:49:27.239 --> 0:49:30.759 local bands in San Diego, where I'm from, and he 0:49:30.800 --> 0:49:32.960 moved to LA and somehow he had hooked up with 0:49:33.040 --> 0:49:35.360 Randy Phillips. And you know Randy Phillips, and I know 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:38.239 you don't. Of course, Mark Levy, when he was looking 0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:42.800 for the guitar player for Andy Taylor helping Randy Phillips, 0:49:43.320 --> 0:49:45.160 he knew me and he called me, and of course 0:49:45.200 --> 0:49:48.360 I got the gig because I just nailed every audition 0:49:48.400 --> 0:49:52.480 when I was young. And later on he said, do 0:49:52.480 --> 0:49:55.480 you know David Kershenbaum And I said, I hadn't know 0:49:55.560 --> 0:49:57.520 the name from reading it on liner notes? You know 0:49:57.560 --> 0:49:59.320 me and liner notes? Did I read liner notes and 0:49:59.320 --> 0:50:01.440 liner notes life? I feel bad for kids today. They 0:50:01.440 --> 0:50:04.520 don't have liner notes to understand who's doing what. But 0:50:05.200 --> 0:50:07.680 David Kussebaum's you know Joe Jackson. The first two Joe 0:50:07.719 --> 0:50:09.719 Jackson albums are like bibles to me. I love him, 0:50:10.400 --> 0:50:13.120 so of course I know. You know David kushimbamb Is. 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:16.960 He wants to meet me because he's looking. He got 0:50:16.960 --> 0:50:19.319 a studio called Power Tracks on Kouwanga there next to 0:50:19.719 --> 0:50:25.080 next to the old Shandhara, and he was need some 0:50:25.120 --> 0:50:28.960 help and so he met me and that's when he said. 0:50:29.000 --> 0:50:32.160 What happened was they had known I'd played with Parliament Funkadelic. 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:37.520 They there's a guy called Gene Page who used to 0:50:37.560 --> 0:50:40.080 do all the arrangements from the big Motown stuff. There's 0:50:40.480 --> 0:50:42.560 Geen Page was this Motown arranger. You know, he did 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:45.319 Love Unlimited Orchestra, you know, for Berry White and all this, 0:50:46.880 --> 0:50:48.960 do all the string stuff and everything. You know, he's 0:50:49.000 --> 0:50:52.240 a genius. And he had these sixteen year old rapper 0:50:52.320 --> 0:50:56.960 kids and they were called uh I forget what they're 0:50:57.000 --> 0:51:00.200 called right now, but there were these two kids. It's 0:51:00.200 --> 0:51:02.959 sixteen years old and they rapped. And in nineteen eighty seven, 0:51:03.600 --> 0:51:05.319 I don't care what anyone says, no, not that many 0:51:05.360 --> 0:51:06.880 people in LA were knowing what was going on with 0:51:06.960 --> 0:51:10.520 rap music was much bigger in New York and nobody 0:51:10.560 --> 0:51:12.160 was dealing with Doctor Dray then, because he had a 0:51:12.160 --> 0:51:14.759 band called the La Dream Team and you'd listen to 0:51:14.800 --> 0:51:18.399 the Stevie Wonders station called kjla's Kind of Joy, Love 0:51:18.400 --> 0:51:22.400 and Happiness KJLH, and you'd hear the dream Team, The 0:51:22.480 --> 0:51:25.440 Dree dream Team is in the house, you know, and 0:51:25.440 --> 0:51:28.680 they sampled. Everybody used the sampler. All of a sudden 0:51:28.719 --> 0:51:30.920 was new, the new sampler and blah blah blah. And 0:51:30.960 --> 0:51:32.759 I kind of got into that stuff because I liked 0:51:32.800 --> 0:51:35.959 one DMC. Like I said before, So David Kushier mom says, 0:51:36.000 --> 0:51:38.239 I need someone who knows about rap music. They to 0:51:38.239 --> 0:51:40.000 just call it rap music. And I go, I do. 0:51:40.600 --> 0:51:42.960 I got it, And I know these two kids Gene 0:51:42.960 --> 0:51:46.640 Page introduced me to, so David didn't know. So David 0:51:46.680 --> 0:51:48.319 had me come in the studio and it was a 0:51:48.360 --> 0:51:50.640 movie called Big Shots and he was the music supervisor 0:51:50.680 --> 0:51:53.240 for it for Lori Mar I think it was or something. 0:51:53.600 --> 0:51:55.840 So I cut this song called put on the Brakes 0:51:56.160 --> 0:51:58.440 with the two rappers. They used it in the movie 0:51:58.520 --> 0:52:01.160 and in the Atlantic signed I put out a twelve 0:52:01.160 --> 0:52:03.480 inch and so now now it's and it says produced 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:06.279 by David Kirshienbaum and Stevie No Wonder Solace because my 0:52:06.360 --> 0:52:08.560 nickname was No Wonder back thanks Bootsy Collins used to 0:52:08.600 --> 0:52:11.800 call me Stevie No Wonder And and all of a sudden, 0:52:11.840 --> 0:52:14.880 David's like, come on, let's keep going. So then I 0:52:15.320 --> 0:52:18.120 start working. He's got in the studio at that time, 0:52:18.160 --> 0:52:22.040 he was doing what's his name, the guy with the glasses. 0:52:22.080 --> 0:52:29.799 It's saying somedays some way, Oh, Marshall, Marshall Crenshaw. So 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:32.400 he's producing Marshall Crenshaw. And he has me working in 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:35.319 the studio from seven pm until you know, whenever. I 0:52:35.440 --> 0:52:39.319 drop all night every night on soundtrack stuff. So the 0:52:39.360 --> 0:52:42.600 next movie we get is this one called it was 0:52:42.600 --> 0:52:46.319 called Action Jackson with Carl Withers and Vanity and they 0:52:46.360 --> 0:52:49.440 need more rap songs, so I bring in bring in 0:52:49.440 --> 0:52:53.399 the boys again, you know, And I do another one 0:52:53.440 --> 0:52:55.880 and it becomes another twelve inch for Atlantic. It says 0:52:56.080 --> 0:52:59.600 produced by David Kirshiabamb and Stevie Solace, you know. And 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:02.480 so I this time, now it's eighty seven, I'm producing 0:53:02.440 --> 0:53:04.359 them there and I'm cutting my demos at night in 0:53:04.400 --> 0:53:06.240 the studio when it's empty. I can work there whenever 0:53:06.280 --> 0:53:10.480 I want. And uh, he comes to me one day, 0:53:10.600 --> 0:53:14.759 David Kushimbaum, and he says to me, we got to 0:53:14.800 --> 0:53:18.439 go see this band that we have to produce because 0:53:18.440 --> 0:53:20.760 they want him in the bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure 0:53:20.840 --> 0:53:23.759 soundtrack album. And I really didn't know much about Bill 0:53:23.800 --> 0:53:26.560 and Ted's excellent Adventure. Nobody did. Really. It wasn't like 0:53:26.600 --> 0:53:29.920 some blockbuster budget or anything, you know, and uh, it 0:53:30.000 --> 0:53:33.040 was a Delentis picture and it got dropped. They dropped it, 0:53:33.080 --> 0:53:35.000 and I think Lormar somebody again picked it up or 0:53:35.040 --> 0:53:37.160 vice versus something like that was Lormar and the delarent 0:53:37.280 --> 0:53:38.839 just picked up with it. But we never even thought 0:53:38.840 --> 0:53:40.040 it was going to come out. But he made me 0:53:40.080 --> 0:53:42.839 go see this band, and I had to produce them. 0:53:42.920 --> 0:53:45.000 And I had no say in it. David said produce him. 0:53:45.040 --> 0:53:46.560 I had to produce them. And it was a band 0:53:46.600 --> 0:53:51.759 called Warrant. You remember Warrant this they had worn Cherry Pie. Yeah, 0:53:51.840 --> 0:53:54.920 it was way before Cherry Pie. So the Warrants this 0:53:55.000 --> 0:53:57.440 big buzz band in Hollywood and they're you know, they're 0:53:57.600 --> 0:53:59.880 playing everywhere, and I kind of like poison or whatever. 0:54:00.400 --> 0:54:03.360 And I hated that kind of music because again I 0:54:03.400 --> 0:54:06.200 thought the eighties hair metal, you know, unless it was 0:54:06.239 --> 0:54:08.160 you know, I liked the bon Jovi, you know, because 0:54:08.160 --> 0:54:11.279 the songwriting was so good on you know, you give 0:54:11.320 --> 0:54:13.759 love a bad names. But I hated the whole thing. 0:54:13.840 --> 0:54:15.719 There was a million of those eighties bands that are 0:54:15.800 --> 0:54:19.760 just horrible, you know, and they're horrible, and I didn't 0:54:19.800 --> 0:54:22.680 like Warrant, but I tell David, David, I do I 0:54:22.680 --> 0:54:24.239 got to do it, because yeah, you got to do it. 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:26.920 So I go to the rehearsal with David and those 0:54:27.000 --> 0:54:29.319 kidchers my age, you know, I'm the same age as then, 0:54:30.040 --> 0:54:31.839 and I met him and I fell in love with him. 0:54:31.920 --> 0:54:36.800 They were the most amazing, amazing guys. They were just wonderful, 0:54:36.960 --> 0:54:40.759 enthusiastic and sincere, and they worked really hard and they 0:54:40.800 --> 0:54:43.640 wanted to be great. They had no egos. And ironically, 0:54:43.640 --> 0:54:45.920 you saw the last week or whatever, I got to 0:54:45.960 --> 0:54:48.400 San Diego Lifetime Achievement Award and you're talking about at 0:54:48.440 --> 0:54:51.720 the music thing there in San Diego, like, and Jerry 0:54:51.760 --> 0:54:53.960 from Warrant showed up. I saw him backstage. He came 0:54:54.000 --> 0:54:56.839 to see me. Yeah, one hundred years later, right. So 0:54:57.480 --> 0:55:02.320 I produced Warrant for the soundtrack for Kushimbaum. Aaron Jakovis 0:55:02.400 --> 0:55:05.720 was trying to sign him at A and M and 0:55:07.600 --> 0:55:10.000 Columbius came in and swooped up and signed him, and 0:55:11.360 --> 0:55:13.760 so we pulled them off the Bill and Ted's soundtrack. 0:55:14.400 --> 0:55:16.360 So now I'm not thinking about Bill and Ted for 0:55:16.360 --> 0:55:18.920 a while I'm working on another shit for David and 0:55:19.040 --> 0:55:22.759 my own stuff, and it was not was and I 0:55:22.800 --> 0:55:25.480 get it. David comes up to me in the office. 0:55:25.480 --> 0:55:27.600 I go in the office of power tracks and he goes, okay, 0:55:29.200 --> 0:55:35.080 this movie Bill and Ted. They're realizing that the soundtrack 0:55:35.200 --> 0:55:38.640 the score, not the soundtrack. I'm sorry, the score. It's 0:55:38.680 --> 0:55:40.440 a story about these two kids that would want to 0:55:40.480 --> 0:55:42.200 be in a rock band and they play rock guitar, 0:55:42.640 --> 0:55:44.600 and it's all about this guitar and this rock and 0:55:44.640 --> 0:55:46.680 roll and there's not one ounce of rock and roll 0:55:46.719 --> 0:55:50.440 in the score. In the score, and Amos Newman's Amos 0:55:50.440 --> 0:55:54.080 Newman's brother I think did the score. It was either 0:55:54.080 --> 0:55:58.080 Amos Newman's brother or Amos Newman's cousin. I forget Amos 0:55:58.080 --> 0:55:59.760 told me which one it was. I just can't remember. 0:56:00.120 --> 0:56:04.200 So they hired me. Stephen Herrick was the director and 0:56:04.239 --> 0:56:06.880 he'd only done one other movie, okay, Stephen Herrick that 0:56:06.960 --> 0:56:09.879 went on to do you know mister Holland's Opus, and 0:56:09.960 --> 0:56:11.719 I think he did one hundred and one Dalmations and 0:56:11.760 --> 0:56:15.880 he didn you know, Three Musketeers and rock Star. You know, 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:17.520 he did a ton of shit, but this was he 0:56:17.600 --> 0:56:21.759 was still young. So he had this soundtrack and this 0:56:21.960 --> 0:56:24.040 music in there, and it was like it was like 0:56:24.040 --> 0:56:26.200 a traditional score, and between me and you was kind 0:56:26.200 --> 0:56:28.000 of a crappy score. It sounded like something I could 0:56:28.000 --> 0:56:29.839 have done on a fair light, even though they used 0:56:29.880 --> 0:56:32.760 an orchestra. You know, it just wasn't great. No disrespect 0:56:32.800 --> 0:56:35.680 to Ames's cousin, but it just wasn't great. So I 0:56:35.800 --> 0:56:41.920 rescored the whole film and played guitar over the score. 0:56:42.400 --> 0:56:45.000 I rescored over the score, which is really weird, right, 0:56:45.520 --> 0:56:47.359 And then I also had to do the score where 0:56:47.360 --> 0:56:49.160 they were jumping around and didn't know how to play 0:56:49.800 --> 0:56:52.839 you know, Bill AND's head, and I was really took. 0:56:52.880 --> 0:56:57.920 I took it very serious. Everything that I did when 0:56:57.960 --> 0:57:00.840 they were jumping around and the guitar and trying, and 0:57:00.880 --> 0:57:03.080 I saw, I'm so horrible. Well, everything I did it 0:57:03.080 --> 0:57:06.640 sounded horrible to me, sounded fake. It sounded like a cocky, 0:57:06.719 --> 0:57:10.360 egotistical guy trying to play like a dummy. And I 0:57:10.360 --> 0:57:12.959 felt like I was making fun of Bill and Ted 0:57:13.280 --> 0:57:15.520 and I didn't like that, And I know that sounds nuts, 0:57:16.120 --> 0:57:19.160 but I felt like I was disrespecting them, those characters 0:57:19.440 --> 0:57:22.520 by just trying to be I look at how shitty 0:57:22.560 --> 0:57:26.200 I am. And so I ended up. What I ended 0:57:26.280 --> 0:57:29.960 up doing was I turned my guitar upside down and 0:57:30.000 --> 0:57:32.840 I played it left handed. So when you see those 0:57:32.880 --> 0:57:36.200 parts in the movie and it sounds I'm actually trying 0:57:36.200 --> 0:57:38.520 to play chords and I'm trying, but it sounds like shit. 0:57:38.880 --> 0:57:42.160 And that's how I did the wild stallions. Okay, so 0:57:42.240 --> 0:57:46.480 then that's over, and i'd score over. I score over 0:57:46.520 --> 0:57:49.160 this Robbie rob song and do because they really wanted 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:51.640 you too, and they couldn't get YouTube, so they got 0:57:51.720 --> 0:57:54.760 Robbie rob song called in Time, but they wanted me 0:57:54.800 --> 0:57:56.240 to put so I put all this guitar over the 0:57:56.240 --> 0:57:58.600 top that was like like the edge. So it's only 0:57:58.640 --> 0:58:01.080 in the soundtrack that way, and there's no version of 0:58:01.080 --> 0:58:03.760 that that exists other than the soundtrack version, which became 0:58:03.800 --> 0:58:07.360 this cult internet cult classic of Robbie Robin Time featuring 0:58:07.400 --> 0:58:10.440 Stevie Solace. That version, I don't know why, so you 0:58:10.440 --> 0:58:12.360 can find it online. It's still like it's got a 0:58:12.400 --> 0:58:15.640 whole massive fan base just for that weird version. But 0:58:17.000 --> 0:58:22.920 he says the movie's done, it not testing well, the 0:58:23.040 --> 0:58:26.240 ending's not testing well, you know, and I'm like, okay, 0:58:26.240 --> 0:58:27.840 I don't even know what that means really, because I'm 0:58:27.880 --> 0:58:32.000 stupid kid. And he goes, Steven wants us to go 0:58:32.560 --> 0:58:35.280 into the Palisades and on Monday night or so whatever 0:58:35.280 --> 0:58:38.400 it was, and we're going to shoot this new ending 0:58:39.160 --> 0:58:41.320 and I need you in it. And I go, what 0:58:41.320 --> 0:58:43.280 do you mean? He goes, they want you to play 0:58:43.320 --> 0:58:47.080 some kind of guitar solo. I go, okay, So we 0:58:47.160 --> 0:58:50.320 go to the Palisades. They got somebody's house, and they 0:58:50.320 --> 0:58:52.480 got the phone booth in the garage, and they got 0:58:52.520 --> 0:58:54.920 all this. You know, the set decorator made this person's 0:58:54.960 --> 0:58:57.200 garage look like the set of Bill and Ted. It 0:58:57.240 --> 0:59:01.760 was in a garage, and and Keanu, who was completely unknown then, 0:59:02.240 --> 0:59:06.000 and the other guy I'm blanking on his name right now. 0:59:06.680 --> 0:59:10.240 They were all there, and George Carlin was there, and 0:59:10.320 --> 0:59:14.280 so they dressed me in George Carlin in a matching outfit. 0:59:14.400 --> 0:59:17.480 And I got to share the share of a dressing 0:59:17.560 --> 0:59:21.200 room Winnebago with George Carlin. So me and George Colin 0:59:21.240 --> 0:59:23.880 would sit there all night, and he told me the 0:59:23.880 --> 0:59:26.880 most insane stories I asked him about. I go went 0:59:26.880 --> 0:59:28.520 out a little kid. I saw you walk out on 0:59:28.560 --> 0:59:31.880 like like the Grammys or Academy Awards or something, and 0:59:31.920 --> 0:59:34.400 they go, ladies and gentlemen, George Carlin, and he walked 0:59:34.440 --> 0:59:37.160 out and he stood at the microphone and he didn't 0:59:37.200 --> 0:59:40.880 say one word, not one word, and it was dead silent. 0:59:41.160 --> 0:59:43.480 I mean dead silent for like at least it felt 0:59:43.480 --> 0:59:45.479 like an eternity, and all of a sudden, one person 0:59:45.560 --> 0:59:49.320 kind of goes, and then another person, and then by 0:59:49.320 --> 0:59:52.760 the end of it, everyone was laughing, and he just says, 0:59:52.800 --> 0:59:54.520 thank you very much, and he walked off the stage. 0:59:54.520 --> 0:59:56.680 I don't know if you ever saw that, but it 0:59:56.720 --> 0:59:59.680 was like an keep going. You got to find it. 1:00:00.040 --> 1:00:02.040 And he said to me, he goes, Oh my god, 1:00:02.320 --> 1:00:04.720 he goes. He goes, I had a plan, he goes, 1:00:04.760 --> 1:00:06.280 He told me the whole thing. He says, I was 1:00:06.320 --> 1:00:08.360 going to try this experiment. He goes, but I had 1:00:08.360 --> 1:00:10.320 a bail at it one minute and he says, I 1:00:10.360 --> 1:00:13.120 was dying. I was standing there, just dying, because he 1:00:13.160 --> 1:00:14.520 was standing there at the mic just kind of looking 1:00:14.560 --> 1:00:16.640 at people, just kind of looking around, looking at people 1:00:16.960 --> 1:00:19.480 and not saying anything. And he said he was dying, 1:00:19.520 --> 1:00:22.640 and right before he broke he heard that first laugh. 1:00:22.760 --> 1:00:24.920 So he goes, hold on, just hold on. Then he 1:00:24.920 --> 1:00:26.840 heard the second he goes, okay, to hold on, and 1:00:26.880 --> 1:00:29.240 then he said he felt the confidence and just not 1:00:29.360 --> 1:00:32.080 say anything. And so I was one of the most 1:00:32.120 --> 1:00:35.480 fascinating nights of my life. So then after that, Stephen 1:00:35.480 --> 1:00:39.520 Harrett calls they they stand me on a soap box 1:00:41.120 --> 1:00:44.840 and Keanu and Alex Winter and the two girls they 1:00:44.880 --> 1:00:48.520 stand around me and they're staring at me and they're 1:00:48.560 --> 1:00:52.320 shooting me from the neck down. Okay, now it's like September. 1:00:52.600 --> 1:00:54.600 So and I surf and I'm at the beach olch 1:00:54.760 --> 1:00:56.360 so my hands and I'm a Native American and my 1:00:56.360 --> 1:01:00.919 hands are dark brown. Keep that in mind. My hands 1:01:00.960 --> 1:01:03.720 are dark brown. They shoot me from the neck down, 1:01:04.480 --> 1:01:05.680 and I go, what do you want me to play? 1:01:06.280 --> 1:01:11.000 And Steven goes, I don't know, just something crazy, and 1:01:11.800 --> 1:01:13.480 so I think. The first thing I think of is 1:01:13.480 --> 1:01:16.880 the opening chord to Eruption No I, A big a chord. 1:01:17.320 --> 1:01:19.200 And then I just go and I think this is 1:01:19.240 --> 1:01:21.160 a comedy. I don't take it seriously as a musician. 1:01:21.200 --> 1:01:23.720 I think it's a comedy. And I just start moving 1:01:23.760 --> 1:01:26.560 my fingers in the most crazy way and I'm playing 1:01:26.640 --> 1:01:30.760 air guitar. Okay, it's just air guitar and I'm moving him. 1:01:30.920 --> 1:01:33.680 If you're look at like new stuff that you would 1:01:33.680 --> 1:01:35.080 never do. And it was like I was trying to 1:01:35.080 --> 1:01:40.400 be ridiculous. And then I finished that, and then they 1:01:40.400 --> 1:01:43.280 have George stand on the box and he holds the guitar, 1:01:43.560 --> 1:01:46.280 and then they picture his face. He's doing all his 1:01:46.320 --> 1:01:48.840 facial expressions that you see in the movie. And now 1:01:48.880 --> 1:01:52.200 if you look, now, George Carlin's neck is as white 1:01:52.240 --> 1:01:54.080 as a ghost, and so is his face. And then 1:01:54.160 --> 1:01:57.400 look at the hands, they're almost black. Okay, now you'll 1:01:57.440 --> 1:01:59.160 notice it, and you'll be like, I never noticed that, 1:01:59.520 --> 1:02:01.120 And so that it's always been my big joke I 1:02:01.200 --> 1:02:04.960 laugh about. So we do this thing, and the next 1:02:05.040 --> 1:02:07.160 day I go back to Kirshienbaum's studio to power tracks, 1:02:07.160 --> 1:02:08.560 and I got a score ahead. I got a score 1:02:08.640 --> 1:02:11.760 to what I did. And so all I did was 1:02:11.840 --> 1:02:13.760 I watched my fingers and I played in this. I 1:02:13.800 --> 1:02:15.720 just tried to emulate exactly what I was doing and 1:02:15.840 --> 1:02:19.840 just followed my fingers. It was no no mathematics involved. 1:02:20.120 --> 1:02:22.000 I never took a lesson, so it certainly wasn't I'm 1:02:22.000 --> 1:02:23.600 going to go from this to that to this kind 1:02:23.600 --> 1:02:27.840 of movement and nothing. It was just nonsense cut till 1:02:27.840 --> 1:02:31.320 the movie comes out. The solo at the end becomes 1:02:31.360 --> 1:02:34.000 the iconic thing. And now every Bill and Ted movie 1:02:34.080 --> 1:02:36.040 has like the next one with Steve Vai, and then 1:02:36.080 --> 1:02:38.960 the third one was just somebody else. And it all 1:02:39.000 --> 1:02:42.680 started as a joke. Now I'm in London hanging out 1:02:42.680 --> 1:02:45.360 with Jimmy Dunlap, you know, I don't know, sometime ten 1:02:45.480 --> 1:02:46.880 years ago or twelve years ig, I don't know what 1:02:46.920 --> 1:02:48.480 it was been, and I'm having a drink in the 1:02:48.520 --> 1:02:50.720 afternoon and they had a barn and soho, and these 1:02:50.800 --> 1:02:53.720 kids came up and wanted my autograph from London and 1:02:53.760 --> 1:02:57.880 they go, we're studying at the Conservative yor some music 1:02:58.160 --> 1:03:01.520 thing there, and they said, our fine, our whole thesis 1:03:01.640 --> 1:03:03.840 is based on what you did in Bill and Ted. 1:03:04.400 --> 1:03:06.080 And I'm like, oh, yeah, what did I do? And 1:03:06.120 --> 1:03:07.600 they go, well, you know, you go from a pan 1:03:07.680 --> 1:03:10.320 of time to a you know, mix, a loading to 1:03:10.360 --> 1:03:12.080 a blah blah blah and then back up to a 1:03:12.120 --> 1:03:14.960 ball and I'm like look, and I'm going wow. I 1:03:14.960 --> 1:03:16.520 didn't have the heart to tell them I just played 1:03:16.560 --> 1:03:20.400 air guitar, but they analyzed what I did, so again, 1:03:21.680 --> 1:03:24.240 was I smarter than anybody else? Or am I the 1:03:24.280 --> 1:03:26.240 dumb ass and the jokes on me? Maybe I was 1:03:26.360 --> 1:03:28.680 channeling shit that was this cool and I had no idea, 1:03:28.680 --> 1:03:31.640 and I should just shut my mouth because they seem 1:03:31.720 --> 1:03:34.240 them they seem to think it's fascinating, and I was like, 1:03:34.240 --> 1:03:35.640 I don't even know what the hell it is. The 1:03:35.800 --> 1:03:38.640 segrets just purely so kind of like you become kind 1:03:38.640 --> 1:03:41.440 of legendary in a funny way when I die. I 1:03:41.520 --> 1:03:43.400 was hanging out with Kunta Reeves just a few months 1:03:43.440 --> 1:03:45.200 ago in Austin, and I took Charlie Sexton, and I 1:03:45.280 --> 1:03:48.000 took the actor Graham Green to meet Keanu and went 1:03:48.040 --> 1:03:50.160 to a show and Kan and I were talking because 1:03:50.160 --> 1:03:51.920 they had just done Bill and Ted three or it 1:03:52.000 --> 1:03:54.040 just came out the year before them, and I said, 1:03:54.040 --> 1:03:55.760 you know what, I'm gonna do all these things like 1:03:55.880 --> 1:03:59.120 Jagger and blah blah blah and rumble and whatever they 1:03:59.640 --> 1:04:01.960 and they're on my tombstone. It's gonna say I'm the 1:04:01.960 --> 1:04:03.000 guy that did Bill and Ted. 1:04:09.880 --> 1:04:12.680 Okay, we even say Bill and Ted blows up? How 1:04:12.680 --> 1:04:14.160 does that affect your career? 1:04:15.640 --> 1:04:18.840 I just I'm like the guy I do was not 1:04:19.040 --> 1:04:21.600 was it's number one. I played with Rod Stewart. He's 1:04:21.640 --> 1:04:23.919 three and a half million records, eighteen months sold out. 1:04:23.960 --> 1:04:28.200 It's like what you might call it. Everybody wants me 1:04:28.240 --> 1:04:29.840 and I'm in La and it's like I got a 1:04:29.960 --> 1:04:33.000 huge contract on the island and I'm it was like 1:04:33.080 --> 1:04:35.240 I could, you could, I could do It was like 1:04:35.280 --> 1:04:37.919 I was could do anything. So then in ninety three, 1:04:37.920 --> 1:04:39.520 when I needed a break from everything and I was 1:04:39.560 --> 1:04:42.400 changing record labels, you know, I had been working with 1:04:42.480 --> 1:04:44.760 Terrence Trent Darby. His name is Sonona Maitreya now he 1:04:44.840 --> 1:04:46.320 changed his name and I actually just had lunch of 1:04:46.360 --> 1:04:49.400 them in Italy about three four weeks ago. But he 1:04:49.400 --> 1:04:51.200 he calls me and he's in La now, and so 1:04:51.280 --> 1:04:53.960 I go work on his album and then Michael Lipman says, 1:04:54.240 --> 1:04:56.960 you got to be Terrence's music director. We're going on 1:04:57.000 --> 1:05:00.920 tour Grand Rand and I'm like okay, So you know, 1:05:01.080 --> 1:05:02.680 so I go do that for a year and I'm 1:05:02.720 --> 1:05:05.560 and now I'm an MD. So I'm producing records and 1:05:05.600 --> 1:05:07.240 I'm a music director and I'm the guy in charge 1:05:07.240 --> 1:05:10.040 of hiring people. So every musician's like up my ass 1:05:10.160 --> 1:05:12.400 because they all want gigs and it seems like I 1:05:12.480 --> 1:05:14.160 just had my pick of all the gigs, and I 1:05:14.200 --> 1:05:16.720 had had it this way for a long time. You know. 1:05:17.720 --> 1:05:20.600 It's just really lucky, really really lucky. And I have 1:05:20.720 --> 1:05:23.040 music directs still to this day, tons of stuff. You know. 1:05:23.120 --> 1:05:26.760 So how did Bill Graham end up being your manager? 1:05:28.680 --> 1:05:30.560 That buzz going we talked about and around eighty six 1:05:30.600 --> 1:05:34.040 eighty seven in LA and somebody introduced me to Morty Wiggins, 1:05:34.560 --> 1:05:38.120 and Morty had signed Morty had signed Ivan Neville. So 1:05:38.240 --> 1:05:40.640 Morty was thinking, I'd like you to work with Ivan Neville. 1:05:40.680 --> 1:05:42.200 And I didn't know who Ivan Neville was because I was, 1:05:42.240 --> 1:05:44.920 you know, an educated guy from San Diego, surfed and skateboard. 1:05:44.960 --> 1:05:46.400 I didn't know the Neville brothers. I didn't know any 1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:50.920 of that shit. And so he arranged. Morty arranged for 1:05:51.040 --> 1:05:53.840 me and Ivan Neville to meet because he hadn't recorded 1:05:53.840 --> 1:05:56.439 his first record. If my ancestors could see me now, 1:05:57.800 --> 1:05:59.880 and then they saying that Dan Reid network. So they 1:06:00.040 --> 1:06:02.760 had all these diverse multicultural bands. Dan Reid had a 1:06:02.800 --> 1:06:06.040 couple African Americans in the band, and Ivan was an 1:06:06.040 --> 1:06:10.120 African American, a part native played Creole. You know, they 1:06:10.160 --> 1:06:12.920 had all these people of color, and so Mordy started 1:06:12.960 --> 1:06:18.040 hearing my demos, and Morty signed me, and he signed 1:06:18.040 --> 1:06:21.240 me before I joined Rod Stewart and he started developing me. 1:06:22.000 --> 1:06:24.760 And so I was with Bill Graham, and I got 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:27.880 to tell you, Bill Graham, there was only two people 1:06:27.960 --> 1:06:30.920 that I was ever starstruck around. Maybe a little bit 1:06:30.920 --> 1:06:32.440 when Bowie would come talk to me. I was a 1:06:32.480 --> 1:06:34.520 little bit because I was just love Bowie so much, 1:06:34.560 --> 1:06:39.320 but really uncomfortably starstruck. I was always really uncomfortably starstruck 1:06:39.360 --> 1:06:40.920 when Bill Graham would come sit with me and talk. 1:06:40.920 --> 1:06:42.920 Because Bill was just like he had this in charisma. 1:06:43.160 --> 1:06:45.000 A lot of people hated him, like Rod stories to 1:06:45.240 --> 1:06:47.760 that guy's are very blaslah blah. But I thought he 1:06:47.800 --> 1:06:49.680 was the most fascinating guy and I thought he was 1:06:49.760 --> 1:06:53.760 hilarious and he would I felt just I was all 1:06:53.760 --> 1:06:55.320 geeked up around him all the time. He was like 1:06:55.360 --> 1:06:57.720 he had so much star power, you know. And the 1:06:57.800 --> 1:06:59.880 other guy was really geeked up around was George Harrison. 1:07:00.000 --> 1:07:01.880 George Harrison sitting at my table and buy me drinks, 1:07:01.880 --> 1:07:04.040 and I'd be like, I just I just lose my 1:07:04.080 --> 1:07:07.280 cool completely. But Bill Graham had that effect on me. 1:07:07.560 --> 1:07:11.920 Okay, when you were getting called to play in England, 1:07:12.080 --> 1:07:14.520 et cetera. Did you have a manager? Were you fielding 1:07:14.560 --> 1:07:15.400 all that yourself? 1:07:15.920 --> 1:07:19.240 Oh? That myself? Man? Yeah, But you know I had friends, 1:07:19.280 --> 1:07:23.320 you know, I had friends that were smart and and 1:07:23.720 --> 1:07:26.440 you know, like Ken Kushnik was Don was his manager, 1:07:26.480 --> 1:07:28.280 and David Passik and they would help me. They go, 1:07:28.400 --> 1:07:29.560 you need to buy a suit because we're doing the 1:07:29.560 --> 1:07:30.680 top of the pop. So I don't know how to 1:07:30.680 --> 1:07:32.560 buy a suit. So they, you know, they well, you 1:07:32.800 --> 1:07:34.480 don't spend more than one hundred and fifty dollars. You know. 1:07:34.520 --> 1:07:36.480 They were like babysitters almost, like you know, we're all 1:07:36.480 --> 1:07:40.040 like a bunch of dummies. And you know, now if 1:07:40.080 --> 1:07:42.120 you go see the Walk to Dinosaur video or spying 1:07:42.120 --> 1:07:43.680 a house eleven and all that, you'll see me back 1:07:43.680 --> 1:07:45.080 there going, oh fuck, that's Stevie. 1:07:45.360 --> 1:07:47.800 Okay. How'd you know how much to charge? 1:07:49.160 --> 1:07:51.080 I don't know how I knew that, but I didn't 1:07:51.080 --> 1:07:55.560 and I'm sure I didn't charge enough, you know, because money. 1:07:55.720 --> 1:07:59.040 I needed money. I remember Kurshian mom. You know, if 1:07:59.080 --> 1:08:01.520 they were to say, hey, to produce this track and 1:08:01.600 --> 1:08:03.840 we're just gonna give you a payout, just take two grand, 1:08:03.880 --> 1:08:05.600 and I'm like, I'll take that two grand right now. 1:08:05.840 --> 1:08:07.880 And in nineteen eighty seven, two thousand dollars there was 1:08:07.920 --> 1:08:09.960 a lot more money than it is right now, you know, 1:08:10.520 --> 1:08:13.240 especially for me. You know, rent back then in Hollywood 1:08:13.320 --> 1:08:16.040 was probably three hundred dollars for a cool house, you know. 1:08:16.520 --> 1:08:20.320 So it was I didn't know how much I wasn't 1:08:20.320 --> 1:08:22.560 getting rich. I'll tell you that I didn't start. I 1:08:22.560 --> 1:08:24.840 didn't have real money till I joined Rod Stewart, and 1:08:24.840 --> 1:08:26.559 then all of a sudden it was like, oh my god. 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:29.920 You know, if you could make three thousand dollars a week. 1:08:29.960 --> 1:08:33.559 When I was a kid, it was like unheard of money, 1:08:34.000 --> 1:08:35.880 unheard of money. Then I found out all my friends 1:08:35.880 --> 1:08:37.559 were making ten thousand a week. I didn't know though. 1:08:37.640 --> 1:08:39.760 For me, three thousand. I was out of my mind. 1:08:39.960 --> 1:08:41.960 So how did you get the gig? With American Idol? 1:08:42.920 --> 1:08:47.000 In the nineties there was a group of Paul Ponteis, 1:08:48.040 --> 1:08:53.840 you know, Amos Newman, Sterling, Macelewain, a whole bunch of 1:08:53.840 --> 1:08:58.960 guys that had a surfing club, John Marks, you know, 1:09:01.080 --> 1:09:09.240 and it was all agents, lawyers, managers, record executives, no musicians, 1:09:10.040 --> 1:09:12.600 And I surfed and I surfed a lot, and I 1:09:12.640 --> 1:09:16.160 was a good surfer, and they asked me if I 1:09:16.200 --> 1:09:18.800 wanted to go on one of their trips. I was 1:09:18.800 --> 1:09:21.320 the only musician invited. And I became a part of 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:24.040 this private little group of clubs and we were all 1:09:24.040 --> 1:09:26.320 inside it, and we hired each other and we only 1:09:26.479 --> 1:09:28.960 we John Mark's, you know, And I'm going to play 1:09:28.960 --> 1:09:30.880 Fuji Rock Fest? Can you can you help me with 1:09:30.960 --> 1:09:32.960 the contract? Yeah, I come over with you know. It 1:09:33.000 --> 1:09:35.040 was like that. It was like we were like goodfellas 1:09:35.040 --> 1:09:39.320 and we'd help each other. And I got a phone 1:09:39.400 --> 1:09:42.559 call from Stirling mclewain, who was managing He was already 1:09:42.560 --> 1:09:48.559 done managing Hanson, I think at that particular time. He says, 1:09:48.600 --> 1:09:51.320 you know, I'm getting a call from from nineteen Entertainment 1:09:51.439 --> 1:09:56.240 and they want me to come over there and work 1:09:56.280 --> 1:09:59.720 with this kid called Daughtry maybe and manage them, and 1:10:00.080 --> 1:10:03.800 said And at this particular time in the early two thousands, 1:10:04.439 --> 1:10:06.120 I worked with a girl called Lamya who was in 1:10:06.200 --> 1:10:08.639 Duran Duran and she was in soulda Soul and Peter 1:10:08.800 --> 1:10:11.080 Edge att signed her and it was a Clive Davis thing. 1:10:11.080 --> 1:10:12.120 And I had to go to New York and I 1:10:12.200 --> 1:10:16.080 music directed it, and I really got into this whole 1:10:16.120 --> 1:10:18.320 thing because I loved that Clive Davis would come into 1:10:18.320 --> 1:10:20.720 a room and he would talk to me about what 1:10:20.760 --> 1:10:24.920 we were doing, and everyone make tuckshit after he left. 1:10:25.280 --> 1:10:27.160 Oh what do you mean? Clive says, you know, take 1:10:27.160 --> 1:10:28.800 it up, take it up, and I go, you guys 1:10:28.840 --> 1:10:30.439 don't get it. I know what he means. You know, 1:10:30.920 --> 1:10:33.880 you know Clive. I loved it. I loved having that 1:10:33.960 --> 1:10:37.160 kind of power around me and I listened to I 1:10:37.720 --> 1:10:40.040 never thought Clive was a goof. I thought clyd was amazing. 1:10:40.479 --> 1:10:45.400 And so all of a sudden, Sterling goes to Idol. 1:10:46.280 --> 1:10:48.080 He says, I need you to help me with Daughtry. 1:10:48.479 --> 1:10:51.599 So I came and I started working at nineteen and 1:10:51.680 --> 1:10:53.760 my first guy, I was a music director and a 1:10:53.800 --> 1:10:56.160 consultant for nineteen and a music director for Chris Daughtry. 1:10:56.520 --> 1:10:58.920 And we started to plan early. He started to planning, well, 1:10:58.960 --> 1:11:00.519 how are we going to market this kid? Where are 1:11:00.560 --> 1:11:03.599 the songs coming from, what's his band going to look like? 1:11:03.920 --> 1:11:05.519 You know, who's just you know, all of that kind 1:11:05.520 --> 1:11:06.680 of stuff. How are we going to deal with this? 1:11:06.760 --> 1:11:08.240 And I was so I'd sit in and I was 1:11:08.280 --> 1:11:10.880 in all those meetings with the Imperia and everybody, and 1:11:12.280 --> 1:11:15.920 we come out with Daughtry and we sell five million records. 1:11:16.120 --> 1:11:18.760 And I put this whole thing together and taught them 1:11:18.760 --> 1:11:20.479 all how to play the songs because Phil X, and 1:11:20.479 --> 1:11:22.799 my dear friend Phil X had played did the album, 1:11:23.000 --> 1:11:24.920 and he's an insane guitar player. So I'd have to 1:11:24.920 --> 1:11:26.960 teach these guys how to play the parts, you know, 1:11:27.000 --> 1:11:28.519 because they couldn't figure it out, because a lot of 1:11:28.520 --> 1:11:32.800 that shit was tricky, and Clyd Davis would call again 1:11:32.840 --> 1:11:34.800 all of a sudden, you know, I wouldn't want to 1:11:34.840 --> 1:11:37.120 do IDL And when it started, I thought it was lame. 1:11:37.160 --> 1:11:39.080 I hated and Mick Jagger wouldn't have called me if 1:11:39.120 --> 1:11:40.760 I was the guy who worked at American Idol in 1:11:40.800 --> 1:11:42.880 two thousand and three or whatever it was. But in 1:11:42.960 --> 1:11:45.080 two thousand and six, the writing was on the wall. 1:11:45.120 --> 1:11:48.240 The music business was in a free fall, and IDOL 1:11:48.360 --> 1:11:51.959 was the biggest thing in town in two thousand and six, biggest. 1:11:52.040 --> 1:11:54.320 It was just big. And so I took that gig 1:11:54.360 --> 1:11:57.040 and instantly clid d you know, talking to Clive Davis again, 1:11:57.080 --> 1:11:58.880 and I'm talking to big guys again, and I'm back 1:11:58.880 --> 1:12:01.000 in that game that you know, well, you know, you 1:12:01.040 --> 1:12:02.680 got to do something every four years to keep in 1:12:02.720 --> 1:12:04.960 that game where people take your phone calls or they 1:12:04.960 --> 1:12:06.960 call you. And I was back in that game and 1:12:07.000 --> 1:12:09.280 we sold a ton of records with Daughtry. So then 1:12:09.320 --> 1:12:11.240 I came back next year and I did Jordan's Sparks 1:12:11.280 --> 1:12:12.920 and we sold a couple million with her, and with 1:12:13.000 --> 1:12:15.040 her she was seventeen, so I actually played guitar in 1:12:15.080 --> 1:12:17.120 the band until I until she turned eighteen. Then I 1:12:17.200 --> 1:12:19.040 hired a kid to take my place and we went 1:12:19.040 --> 1:12:22.559 out with Alicia Keys. And then into the next year, 1:12:23.160 --> 1:12:27.000 I did David Cook, which was really fun because David 1:12:27.120 --> 1:12:28.920 was just a sweet kid. It was like tried to 1:12:28.960 --> 1:12:30.120 make it his whole life, and all of a sudden 1:12:30.120 --> 1:12:32.360 he was the most famous guy on the planet, and 1:12:32.479 --> 1:12:33.720 you know, he was just like, oh what do I do? 1:12:33.760 --> 1:12:36.280 He didn't know what to do. And I enjoyed mentoring 1:12:36.320 --> 1:12:39.160 those guys, you know. And then the last year, I 1:12:39.560 --> 1:12:42.640 took three idols. I had Alis and Irita, and I 1:12:42.640 --> 1:12:46.520 had Chris Allen who won, and I had Adam Lambert 1:12:46.600 --> 1:12:49.760 who was just a wild card, and I pretty much 1:12:49.800 --> 1:12:51.720 took over all of SR and I had all the 1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:53.559 idols in there, and I was running the whole thing, 1:12:53.640 --> 1:12:58.400 and that was a crazy year. But those four years 1:12:58.439 --> 1:13:00.559 and I was there, there was the highest rated show 1:13:00.560 --> 1:13:04.080 in the world, I think, And and the next year 1:13:04.479 --> 1:13:07.439 I left. The next year because all the winners were country, 1:13:07.479 --> 1:13:09.640 and I don't know anything about country music, but it 1:13:09.800 --> 1:13:12.439 looked like and the ratings started going down then. So 1:13:12.600 --> 1:13:15.840 in the bullshit word of World of Hollywood, it kind 1:13:15.840 --> 1:13:17.880 of looked like Stevie Laft and are not doing so 1:13:17.960 --> 1:13:20.080 good now, right, you know people actually think stupid shit 1:13:20.160 --> 1:13:21.640 like that, And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know 1:13:21.680 --> 1:13:22.840 it is I'll ride that. 1:13:23.200 --> 1:13:25.960 Okay. Just to be clear, you would work with the 1:13:26.040 --> 1:13:29.599 act once they had won, or you would be there 1:13:29.640 --> 1:13:31.639 while the television show was being shot. 1:13:32.240 --> 1:13:35.080 Let's start early in the season and we would start 1:13:35.080 --> 1:13:37.960 to identify who they wanted to keep, because nineteen could 1:13:38.040 --> 1:13:42.680 keep twelve of ten of them. I don't forget what 1:13:42.720 --> 1:13:45.120 the number was. They had contracts with all of them. 1:13:45.160 --> 1:13:47.200 They could not decided, so it wasn't like they just 1:13:47.240 --> 1:13:49.719 got the winner. As a matter of fact, Doctry didn't 1:13:49.720 --> 1:13:52.280 even win. They farmed out the other ones and they 1:13:52.360 --> 1:13:54.160 kept Doctry as an in House, and that's why they 1:13:54.200 --> 1:13:59.200 brought in Stirling mackawin. So I would come in about 1:13:59.560 --> 1:14:02.600 a first quarter of the series and I could go 1:14:02.640 --> 1:14:04.760 down on set if I wanted, and I could do it. 1:14:04.800 --> 1:14:08.040 But I hated that stuff, if you really want to 1:14:08.040 --> 1:14:09.960 know the truth, I just thought it was like it 1:14:10.040 --> 1:14:12.760 was like babysitting or something. It was like the TV show. 1:14:12.800 --> 1:14:15.280 But what was good about it was I could take 1:14:15.360 --> 1:14:18.559 people on set or I could do you know, being 1:14:18.680 --> 1:14:21.519 seen reminds people that you got power in that town. 1:14:21.920 --> 1:14:25.479 And so on the final the Big Idol finales, when 1:14:25.520 --> 1:14:28.360 I could roll in backstage and you'd see anybody who's anybody, 1:14:28.920 --> 1:14:31.960 or I'd have my idol playing at the Jingle Ball 1:14:32.160 --> 1:14:34.679 and you know, all the heads of Disney and everybody 1:14:34.720 --> 1:14:37.559 and their kids are backstage. You know, I had power 1:14:38.120 --> 1:14:40.960 and everything in that town. You know, I don't know 1:14:40.960 --> 1:14:43.559 about now, but everything back then was about perceived power, 1:14:44.200 --> 1:14:47.479 and I had power. You know, I wouldn't have to 1:14:47.520 --> 1:14:49.800 sell millions and millions of albums and I still have power. 1:14:49.800 --> 1:14:51.639 You know. MC Jagger would call me on the phone. 1:14:51.680 --> 1:14:53.080 I gave me power, you know. 1:14:53.640 --> 1:14:57.639 Okay, so it ends with American Idol. Would you turn 1:14:57.720 --> 1:14:58.839 next with this power. 1:15:00.960 --> 1:15:03.320 I never really turned next back for the power that 1:15:03.360 --> 1:15:07.679 I can remember, I went for and I started touring, touring. 1:15:07.840 --> 1:15:10.720 My old catalog was doing really well in Germany and 1:15:10.720 --> 1:15:12.519 these countries, and I kept getting tour offers. So I 1:15:12.600 --> 1:15:15.479 just started touring a lot. I became a dad during 1:15:15.479 --> 1:15:18.040 the year that Jordan Spark's won. You know, my son 1:15:18.080 --> 1:15:19.880 didn't realize that Jordan Sparks used to pick him up 1:15:19.880 --> 1:15:21.680 and sing to him. He was a baby. We used 1:15:21.680 --> 1:15:26.120 to stop rehearsal with Adam Lambert so Adam could so 1:15:26.160 --> 1:15:28.400 my son could play on his drum set for ten minutes. 1:15:28.439 --> 1:15:30.719 You know. You know, it's like my son's like whatever. 1:15:30.880 --> 1:15:32.759 You know, he didn't give a shit. Steven Tyler texts 1:15:32.920 --> 1:15:35.120 my son and they talked about this his Skibbles commercial, 1:15:35.120 --> 1:15:37.880 and he's just like, yeah, whatever. You know, my son 1:15:37.920 --> 1:15:40.280 grew up in it. You know, he's got no fascination 1:15:40.400 --> 1:15:43.479 with it or cares about it at all. But so 1:15:43.560 --> 1:15:46.599 I started touring Europe. I'd go off and do gigs 1:15:46.640 --> 1:15:49.000 like with Steven Tyler, with Billy Gibbons. They'd call me 1:15:49.040 --> 1:15:51.360 and I'd come play guitar with with those guys. When 1:15:51.920 --> 1:15:57.000 and then I was always pretty famous in Japan. So 1:15:57.120 --> 1:16:01.320 I got a call in twenty sixteen from a guy 1:16:01.360 --> 1:16:04.479 called Koshi Inaba and he's in a band called the Bees, 1:16:04.920 --> 1:16:07.439 and he's the biggest selling artist in the history of Japan. 1:16:07.479 --> 1:16:09.719 He sold over one hundred million records just in Japan. 1:16:10.360 --> 1:16:12.880 And he was a friend and he loved my records 1:16:12.920 --> 1:16:14.880 and I used to play on his solo albums and 1:16:14.920 --> 1:16:17.559 we were just friends. And he calls me in twenty 1:16:17.560 --> 1:16:21.800 sixteen and he says, I'm really burned out. I'm uninspired. 1:16:22.160 --> 1:16:25.400 I can't write a song. I'm kind of depressed. He goes, 1:16:25.439 --> 1:16:27.120 you think you'd want to come over, you know, and 1:16:27.200 --> 1:16:30.280 maybe try writing some songs with me, And I'm like yeah. 1:16:30.520 --> 1:16:32.240 So I jump on a plane, I go to Tokyo 1:16:32.960 --> 1:16:36.240 and we start writing. And I said, let's not write 1:16:37.240 --> 1:16:40.240 Stevie solo songs with the Koshi Nava singing. Let's not 1:16:40.280 --> 1:16:43.479 write Koshi Nava songs with STEVEE. Sauas playing guitar, because 1:16:43.520 --> 1:16:45.680 we kind of did that throughout our the you know, 1:16:46.040 --> 1:16:48.519 in the nineties and stuff, you know, we did that. 1:16:49.479 --> 1:16:52.040 I go, let's think about this, let's think about a concept. 1:16:52.280 --> 1:16:55.320 I go, and when I was in England, in eighty 1:16:55.360 --> 1:17:00.960 seven eighty eight, everything had this funk feel. Durand Tears 1:17:00.960 --> 1:17:05.840 for Fears. They all had slap bass, boom boom, you know, 1:17:05.960 --> 1:17:08.400 like it was not was the funk bass that slapped, 1:17:08.800 --> 1:17:11.840 but it wasn't black music. It was like this pop 1:17:11.920 --> 1:17:14.679 swore of music that kind of rocked like Duran Durant, 1:17:14.680 --> 1:17:19.360 but it all had this synthetic synthesizer bass. It was 1:17:19.400 --> 1:17:21.760 kind of like fun, but it wasn't funk. And I 1:17:21.800 --> 1:17:25.240 had slapping bass, and and I go, let's let's write 1:17:25.280 --> 1:17:28.280 songs with that groove so the girls can dance. And 1:17:28.320 --> 1:17:29.960 I go, and let's make all the guitars sound like 1:17:30.000 --> 1:17:32.280 the Clash. It's just just go back, and let's make 1:17:32.320 --> 1:17:33.960 him sound raty, like we're in the Clash, because he 1:17:34.040 --> 1:17:36.120 loved the Clash, and let's do what happened. So we 1:17:36.160 --> 1:17:38.280 started writing songs and it was really fun, and he 1:17:38.439 --> 1:17:41.120 started having fun. So we'd go to Nackville and we'd 1:17:41.120 --> 1:17:42.760 worked on some songs and we'd fly to LA and 1:17:42.760 --> 1:17:44.960 I'd have Taylor Hawkins play drums. I don't know if 1:17:44.960 --> 1:17:46.800 you know that, but I discovered Taylor Hawkins. I'm the 1:17:46.840 --> 1:17:48.640 guy that discovered him. 1:17:48.280 --> 1:17:51.639 And well, I know that, but tell my audience the story. 1:17:51.760 --> 1:17:56.320 Okay, well well let me tell you finish Koshy. So 1:17:56.439 --> 1:17:58.439 we finished, We do the album. I get all my 1:17:58.479 --> 1:18:00.160 friends to play on a Taylor and I I mean, 1:18:00.240 --> 1:18:02.360 tons of people are jamming on it and it's really 1:18:02.400 --> 1:18:06.479 really fun and the albums it's not just songs. But 1:18:06.520 --> 1:18:09.800 then his manager in Japan's like going, this, this is amazing. 1:18:10.040 --> 1:18:12.240 He goes, I'm putting it out. I'm like what he goes, Yeah, 1:18:12.240 --> 1:18:13.960 And I booked a tour in January. We're gonna go do. 1:18:14.439 --> 1:18:16.479 It's a small tour. We're gonna do three months of 1:18:16.720 --> 1:18:19.840 five thousand seaters. And they put the tickets on sale. 1:18:19.880 --> 1:18:22.439 We called it a Naba Solace and it sold out 1:18:22.479 --> 1:18:24.920 and I'm not lying every it was sold out within 1:18:25.000 --> 1:18:27.840 three minutes. And I went over there and so I 1:18:27.840 --> 1:18:30.280 got to put my own band together. So I hired 1:18:30.280 --> 1:18:33.639 Stuart Zender from Jamikoy to play bass, am fiddler again 1:18:33.840 --> 1:18:36.040 from Parliament Funkadelic, who was was not Wes and we 1:18:36.080 --> 1:18:38.720 ever had to play synth. And Matt Sharad who I 1:18:38.760 --> 1:18:40.920 worked with a ton who was a remixer and a 1:18:40.960 --> 1:18:42.479 producer and he was the drummer for Beck and the 1:18:42.560 --> 1:18:45.040 drummers for Crowded House, and I put this super band 1:18:45.040 --> 1:18:47.559 together with me and I Naba and we went and 1:18:47.560 --> 1:18:51.160 played and people went crazy. So we came back, took 1:18:51.160 --> 1:18:52.760 a year off when he went back to his bad 1:18:52.760 --> 1:18:54.559 bees because they could do, you know, ten nights at 1:18:54.560 --> 1:18:57.719 the Tokyo Dome. And we came back and did another 1:18:57.720 --> 1:18:59.439 album in twenty twenty, and we booked it. This time, 1:18:59.439 --> 1:19:01.960 we booked another tour, and this time it was multiple 1:19:02.080 --> 1:19:04.559 nights at Castle Hall, multiple nights. You know, it was 1:19:04.840 --> 1:19:08.800 twenty thousand seaters now doing multiple nights. We sold eighty 1:19:08.840 --> 1:19:13.080 five thousand tickets in four minutes and I go over 1:19:13.240 --> 1:19:15.840 I shoot the cover of Rolling Stone. So I'm under 1:19:15.840 --> 1:19:17.600 cover of Rolling Stone for the first time of my 1:19:17.600 --> 1:19:21.720 life with me and in Aba and Covid hits. Whole 1:19:21.760 --> 1:19:24.720 tour cancels. We rebook it for twenty twenty one. We 1:19:24.880 --> 1:19:26.960 still can't do it. We ended up sending all the 1:19:26.960 --> 1:19:29.439 money back for the eighty five thousand tickets. It was 1:19:29.479 --> 1:19:31.519 a lot of money, Bob, a lot. I was like 1:19:31.560 --> 1:19:35.439 buy a new house money. And and we haven't remade 1:19:35.439 --> 1:19:37.040 it up yet and we're hoping maybe in twenty twenty 1:19:37.040 --> 1:19:38.559 five I'm gonna go back, so I'll have to lose 1:19:38.600 --> 1:19:41.000 some weight and to try to, you know, make it happen. 1:19:41.640 --> 1:19:43.479 So yeah, that's what I've been doing. And that's big, big, 1:19:43.479 --> 1:19:46.640 big stuff because it's multiple arenas again, and you know, 1:19:46.720 --> 1:19:49.160 it feels good when you can sell twenty thousand tickets. 1:19:50.479 --> 1:19:54.000 Now, it would appear from the outside you work with 1:19:54.080 --> 1:19:57.640 somebody and then you don't work with them again. What 1:19:57.680 --> 1:19:58.639 would you say to that? 1:19:59.240 --> 1:20:02.280 Yeah, I mean I started doing. Wayne Kramer asked me 1:20:02.840 --> 1:20:04.719 to come help them with a new MC five album 1:20:04.720 --> 1:20:07.560 with Bob Ezrin, and I did it. And then d 1:20:07.560 --> 1:20:10.320 Wayne said, let's put a band together and let's go 1:20:10.400 --> 1:20:13.320 do do some some dates. And I'm like, I love 1:20:13.320 --> 1:20:15.280 you wayn Kramer. I'll do whatever you want, you know. 1:20:16.760 --> 1:20:20.599 But I was really adamant. I had thought Wayne had 1:20:20.600 --> 1:20:23.240 put a band together with some really great musicians, guys 1:20:23.280 --> 1:20:27.720 you know from Soundgarden and a bunch other you know 1:20:27.840 --> 1:20:30.360 guys that you know from the eighties and nineties that 1:20:30.400 --> 1:20:33.880 were famous guys. But they all thought the MC five 1:20:34.240 --> 1:20:41.000 was it was just brutality and punk rock force. They 1:20:41.080 --> 1:20:42.680 just think that because it's one of the these one 1:20:42.720 --> 1:20:44.679 of the inventors of punk rock. They give him that credit, 1:20:44.920 --> 1:20:48.439 but if you really listen to the MC five, they 1:20:48.439 --> 1:20:50.160 were they were trying to be a soul band. They 1:20:50.160 --> 1:20:53.160 were trying to be an R and B band with 1:20:53.280 --> 1:20:57.760 distorted guitars, and they were failing miserably and creating something 1:20:57.760 --> 1:21:01.360 completely new and original by accident. So so Wayne and 1:21:01.439 --> 1:21:05.200 I realized that nobody was playing the music right, and 1:21:05.240 --> 1:21:07.160 it bothered him. So him and I started going back 1:21:07.200 --> 1:21:09.800 to the actual original masters. And I had listened to 1:21:09.800 --> 1:21:13.479 to fred Sonicsmith's parts, and I'd listened to what Wayne 1:21:13.520 --> 1:21:14.680 was doing. And Wayne and I would sit there with 1:21:14.760 --> 1:21:17.640 just two guitars like kids, not even plugged in. It 1:21:17.720 --> 1:21:19.439 was like going back to being a kid again. And 1:21:19.479 --> 1:21:22.080 Wayne and I would go through these parts and figure 1:21:22.080 --> 1:21:25.200 out why they worked and what made them work. And 1:21:25.280 --> 1:21:28.439 so when we went out on that tour, we really slam. 1:21:28.520 --> 1:21:30.800 It was amazing. I mean, people were saying, Mike Caller 1:21:30.880 --> 1:21:33.120 and guys like there was, you know, Stevie dan Zance 1:21:33.320 --> 1:21:35.680 was the best, one of the best shows they'd ever seen. 1:21:35.760 --> 1:21:37.639 Definitely the best MC vibe show they had ever seen, 1:21:38.040 --> 1:21:41.280 you know. And so I was going to go back 1:21:41.280 --> 1:21:43.000 with Wayne. The album was getting ready to come out, 1:21:43.040 --> 1:21:44.600 and then, as you know, Wayne passed away out of 1:21:44.600 --> 1:21:48.719 the blue, just unannounced, fast, just like he was gone. 1:21:49.160 --> 1:21:50.720 And but we were going out this year and we're 1:21:50.760 --> 1:21:52.519 going to do tons of festivals and big shows. And 1:21:53.200 --> 1:21:55.040 it was a real shame because now he's going in 1:21:55.120 --> 1:21:57.080 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and he's not here, 1:21:57.200 --> 1:22:00.000 and you know, it's it's a bit of a crush. 1:22:00.120 --> 1:22:02.880 But I do stick with them sometimes, you know. 1:22:04.960 --> 1:22:07.600 But it's more that you decide to move on, or 1:22:07.680 --> 1:22:09.519 is it more that they decide to move on. 1:22:11.040 --> 1:22:15.040 I think it's me. I if I want to stick 1:22:15.040 --> 1:22:16.240 to one thing for a long time, I do my 1:22:16.280 --> 1:22:20.200 own thing. But I do like playing like I love 1:22:20.240 --> 1:22:21.840 playing with you now because that is my thing. I'm 1:22:21.880 --> 1:22:24.519 writing all the songs, you know, and I'm producing the 1:22:24.600 --> 1:22:28.000 records with Koshi, so it is my thing. So I 1:22:28.000 --> 1:22:30.439 could play with him, and let's face it, I'm not 1:22:30.479 --> 1:22:32.920 gonna lie when you can go on to it and 1:22:33.000 --> 1:22:35.600 you know your shows are automatically sold out and you 1:22:35.600 --> 1:22:38.400 don't have that anxiety. Is there anybody here tonight? I'm 1:22:38.400 --> 1:22:40.840 playing in Paris. Oh my god, don't tell me it's empty. 1:22:41.160 --> 1:22:44.200 You know, those anxieties are real and when you know 1:22:44.320 --> 1:22:46.640 your shows are all sold out and you've got a 1:22:46.680 --> 1:22:49.760 captive audience that just worships you. I mean, it's a 1:22:49.800 --> 1:22:54.080 lot more fun. I mean, you know, the MC five 1:22:54.680 --> 1:22:58.840 we're playing small places, and there was MC five worshippers there, 1:22:59.040 --> 1:23:02.400 but it wasn't like We're playing like Lollapalooza or something. 1:23:02.479 --> 1:23:02.680 You know. 1:23:10.720 --> 1:23:16.000 Okay, to what degree does your mood depend on whether 1:23:16.120 --> 1:23:17.320 people are looking for you? 1:23:19.000 --> 1:23:21.040 I don't really think about that too much because I 1:23:21.080 --> 1:23:22.800 got a lot going on. You know, I really endo 1:23:22.840 --> 1:23:25.760 making movies and television and writing and developing television, and 1:23:26.360 --> 1:23:28.840 I keep myself really busy. I have a really cool 1:23:28.880 --> 1:23:31.200 company with a partner of Mohawk and native guy named 1:23:31.200 --> 1:23:35.200 Bran Porter. Up on the Six Nations Reservation in Canada, 1:23:35.400 --> 1:23:39.960 I became a Canadian permanent resident and after Rumble, and 1:23:42.080 --> 1:23:46.719 I really love developing television. I love developing films because 1:23:46.760 --> 1:23:49.800 I don't know what I'm doing and it's scary and 1:23:49.840 --> 1:23:52.680 it's therefore it's exciting. Where in music, I kind of 1:23:52.680 --> 1:23:56.200 feel like, you know, Bowie could call me and I 1:23:56.280 --> 1:23:58.760 know what to do, and I know what to do, 1:23:59.040 --> 1:24:01.559 and I really know what to do, you know, I 1:24:01.640 --> 1:24:04.200 know what the sound should sound like. And I know 1:24:04.200 --> 1:24:07.600 where the energy comes from. You know, I said in 1:24:07.680 --> 1:24:09.960 my speech last week in San Diego for that big 1:24:09.960 --> 1:24:13.240 award I got, I said, I never thought my job 1:24:13.280 --> 1:24:16.400 as a guitar player was to play notes. I thought 1:24:16.439 --> 1:24:19.400 my job was to move energy. And I've always felt 1:24:19.439 --> 1:24:23.479 that way. And that's what I do when I play 1:24:23.520 --> 1:24:25.599 with these guys. I try to create energy. 1:24:26.240 --> 1:24:31.200 You know, what's the status of these developing projects. 1:24:31.960 --> 1:24:35.760 I got a really badass series right now that I'm 1:24:35.800 --> 1:24:38.200 working on with a guy called Cliff Roberts, a producet Emancipation. 1:24:38.280 --> 1:24:40.200 He used to be a big agent, William Morris. He 1:24:40.760 --> 1:24:42.960 manages a lot of the biggest writers and showrunners in 1:24:43.000 --> 1:24:46.240 the business. And so John Fusco, who's one of my 1:24:46.240 --> 1:24:49.800 favorite writers. He's Spielberg's favorite writer. You know. He did 1:24:50.200 --> 1:24:53.200 Young Guns one and Young Guns two, and in the 1:24:53.479 --> 1:24:58.000 Thunderheart and he did Crossroads, you know, with the Crossroads film. 1:24:58.040 --> 1:24:59.760 That was his first movie he ever wrote. But he's 1:24:59.760 --> 1:25:03.320 done gigantic. He's a gigantic showrunner. He did the series 1:25:03.600 --> 1:25:07.680 Marco Polo on Netflix, and so he's the showrunner with 1:25:07.720 --> 1:25:10.280 me and my partner writing partner's guy called Kevin Monroe, 1:25:10.280 --> 1:25:13.440 who wrote and directed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Miramax, 1:25:13.479 --> 1:25:17.120 and he had done my son's favorite movie, Ratchet Klank. 1:25:17.160 --> 1:25:19.879 So I got this insane team of people, and as usual, 1:25:20.520 --> 1:25:22.519 I'm the shittiest guy in the room. I'm the stupidest 1:25:22.520 --> 1:25:23.920 guy in the room, and that's where I want to be. 1:25:24.240 --> 1:25:27.439 These guys are beasts, and so I'm working on that 1:25:27.560 --> 1:25:29.880 right now or shopping that around. It's a series. It's 1:25:29.880 --> 1:25:34.559 like a Native American Godfather or the Sopranos kind of 1:25:34.560 --> 1:25:37.400 a thing about a family that you know, you know, 1:25:37.479 --> 1:25:40.360 can face down another season of being on welfare on 1:25:40.400 --> 1:25:43.240 the reservation and they discover what sovereign law means and 1:25:43.240 --> 1:25:46.120 they learn how to create their own tobacco supplies instead 1:25:46.160 --> 1:25:49.320 of smuggling for the big tobacco into Canada. They'd learned 1:25:49.360 --> 1:25:51.000 how to do it themselves. And you know, it's like 1:25:51.040 --> 1:25:53.840 the Brofmans who were who were literally bootleggers and then 1:25:53.880 --> 1:25:56.720 became a legitimate business and became very powerful. And it's 1:25:56.760 --> 1:26:00.200 a story about a Native group that does this. It's 1:26:00.200 --> 1:26:02.760 called Smoke River and I hope I get to make 1:26:02.800 --> 1:26:05.120 that series, and I hope soon because it's kind of, 1:26:05.200 --> 1:26:07.280 you know, John Fusco said, as he said, it's a 1:26:07.439 --> 1:26:09.720 game changer. And I got a couple more things like that. 1:26:09.720 --> 1:26:11.879 I work with Robert Stromberg, who directed in The Lificent 1:26:12.200 --> 1:26:14.880 But I actually grew up with Robert and Carlsbad, California. 1:26:15.040 --> 1:26:17.160 We had rival rock bands. And then you know, Robert 1:26:17.520 --> 1:26:20.000 did Avatar and all these other He got five Academy 1:26:20.000 --> 1:26:23.680 Award nominations. And so I worked with Robert and and 1:26:23.720 --> 1:26:25.160 when we work with a group, a lot of group 1:26:25.160 --> 1:26:27.160 of Native Americans. I had a new two films that 1:26:27.520 --> 1:26:30.200 premiered at tiff and you know, Rumble one Sun Dance, 1:26:30.280 --> 1:26:33.160 and I got nominated for an Emmy for Rumble as well. 1:26:33.280 --> 1:26:37.800 So I'm an Emmy loser, official Emmy loser. Well you 1:26:37.800 --> 1:26:39.160 know what it is. And they saying that he's an 1:26:39.160 --> 1:26:43.280 Emmy nominated producer. That just means you lost. If you 1:26:43.320 --> 1:26:45.679 really think about it, people always say, come on, man, 1:26:46.160 --> 1:26:48.640 it's you nominate to lose. You know, They're like feel like, 1:26:48.640 --> 1:26:51.599 I'm like, I'm serious, and I'm like, na, Emmy loser 1:26:51.720 --> 1:26:53.960 sounds so punk rock. I just think it's so cool. 1:26:54.880 --> 1:26:57.080 Absolutely, So how do you pick up the guitar in 1:26:57.080 --> 1:26:57.799 the first place. 1:26:59.080 --> 1:27:01.639 I started playing when I was and it just became easy. 1:27:02.080 --> 1:27:02.720 Don't ask me. 1:27:02.760 --> 1:27:06.120 It was like, well, there must have been some inspiration. 1:27:06.400 --> 1:27:08.200 Was there music in the house or what. 1:27:08.760 --> 1:27:10.360 When I was a little kid, my stepfather was in 1:27:10.360 --> 1:27:13.880 a rock band who I recently lost contact with him 1:27:13.920 --> 1:27:16.200 fourth grade and I recently found him in the Florida Keys. 1:27:16.439 --> 1:27:18.600 It's crazy and we talk all the time now, but 1:27:19.760 --> 1:27:22.080 he had a rock band, so he was introducing me 1:27:22.120 --> 1:27:24.639 to Clapton. I was listening to Clapton as five years old. 1:27:24.680 --> 1:27:26.479 You know, some sign Your Love was like my favorite song. 1:27:26.520 --> 1:27:29.479 I was listening to Hendrix. I was listening to led Zeppelin, 1:27:29.720 --> 1:27:33.439 so ironically weird when I hang out with Jimmy Page, 1:27:33.479 --> 1:27:35.360 but I can still remember the day, being in the third, 1:27:35.479 --> 1:27:37.960 you know, first grade or something, whenever it was listening 1:27:37.920 --> 1:27:41.640 in good times, bad times, you know, hanging out with 1:27:41.800 --> 1:27:43.880 playing with Steven Tyler, and I can remember being in 1:27:43.880 --> 1:27:46.280 the back of the van and and my brother in 1:27:46.400 --> 1:27:48.080 law and his friends are all, you know, in their 1:27:48.080 --> 1:27:51.439 twenties playing me get your Wings into It's just it's 1:27:51.479 --> 1:27:54.800 just all a complete mind blowing thing for me. That 1:27:55.360 --> 1:27:57.360 you know. When I got this award last week, you 1:27:57.400 --> 1:28:02.200 talked about Billy Gibbons, ro Robin xandervitt, Rick Nielsen and 1:28:02.280 --> 1:28:04.800 Sammy Hagar all made their own homemade iPhone videos and 1:28:04.800 --> 1:28:07.200 set it in and they put it into the the 1:28:08.560 --> 1:28:10.439 the video that they played before they introduced me, and 1:28:10.439 --> 1:28:12.680 it's like all of a sudden san Diego, like, damn you, 1:28:12.680 --> 1:28:15.120 there's some good star power. And then Matt's arm came 1:28:15.160 --> 1:28:17.720 down to introduce me. And so having these kind of 1:28:17.720 --> 1:28:19.479 guys in my life that I worshiped as a kid 1:28:19.560 --> 1:28:22.760 that actually talk to me like a peer, now, that's 1:28:22.840 --> 1:28:26.000 to me the greatest reward of everything, better than money, 1:28:26.040 --> 1:28:29.160 better than than anything. To me, that's just like, that's 1:28:29.160 --> 1:28:31.000 to me is the dream. That's the real dream. 1:28:32.800 --> 1:28:37.640 Okay, But there must have been a specific spark that said, hey, 1:28:37.720 --> 1:28:38.799 I want to play the guitar. 1:28:39.040 --> 1:28:42.200 Here's what it was. I started playing guitar. It seemed 1:28:42.240 --> 1:28:43.479 like it was coming easy to me, and I was. 1:28:43.520 --> 1:28:45.000 I was possessed by it. 1:28:45.040 --> 1:28:45.360 I was. 1:28:45.600 --> 1:28:47.519 I would play three hours a day and I never 1:28:47.560 --> 1:28:49.160 took a lesson, but a couple of friends would help 1:28:49.200 --> 1:28:51.160 me out, teach me how to play a chord or whatever, 1:28:51.200 --> 1:28:56.920 you know, which was really super helpful. And I just 1:28:57.040 --> 1:28:59.440 played and I and I and I surfed and I skateboarded, 1:28:59.479 --> 1:29:01.240 and so the way I played guitar was kind of 1:29:01.240 --> 1:29:03.040 the way and I raced motocross, and the way I 1:29:03.120 --> 1:29:05.000 raced motocross it was aggressive. And the way I served 1:29:05.080 --> 1:29:07.280 was somewhat aggressive. And the way I skateboard it was aggressive. 1:29:07.560 --> 1:29:09.599 You know. I lived in San Diego, an Oceanside done, 1:29:09.640 --> 1:29:12.439 you know where Tony Hawk and the Flying Tomato, you know, 1:29:12.520 --> 1:29:16.760 Sean shown White and the greatest surfer Joey Brand who 1:29:16.840 --> 1:29:18.439 you know won the pipeline. I said, I was around 1:29:18.479 --> 1:29:20.280 all these kind of energy, that kind of energy, and 1:29:20.360 --> 1:29:23.120 my guitar playing felt like that same, like it all 1:29:23.160 --> 1:29:25.800 made sense with all of that, and so I kept playing. 1:29:25.840 --> 1:29:27.120 So then I got a band. I was in the 1:29:27.160 --> 1:29:29.479 band and I just played vis the guitar. But I 1:29:29.560 --> 1:29:33.519 was good. Wasn't great? It was good then that band 1:29:34.240 --> 1:29:36.360 more when I was still in high school. All the 1:29:36.360 --> 1:29:38.200 guys were older than me, a year two older than me, 1:29:38.560 --> 1:29:40.519 and we became the hottest band in San Diego. I 1:29:40.520 --> 1:29:42.280 mean we would play everywhere and it was like high 1:29:42.320 --> 1:29:45.880 school dances and colleges and girls were screaming like We're 1:29:45.920 --> 1:29:50.800 the Beatles. And so I told my dad I didn't 1:29:50.800 --> 1:29:51.760 know what I was going to do with my life, 1:29:51.800 --> 1:29:54.200 but I said, Dad, I'm pretty good at this thing, 1:29:54.520 --> 1:29:59.000 and I go, let me give it till I'm twenty 1:29:59.040 --> 1:30:04.120 four years old. In twenty four I haven't made it. 1:30:04.720 --> 1:30:06.599 I'm going to join the Coast Guard because I love 1:30:06.640 --> 1:30:08.320 the ocean, right. I'm from the beach, and I'm from 1:30:08.320 --> 1:30:10.960 the and I worked on fishing boats and I all 1:30:11.040 --> 1:30:12.880 want to join the coast Guard. So that's my out. 1:30:12.960 --> 1:30:16.320 And so my dad's like, okay, Luckily, I'm luckily I 1:30:16.360 --> 1:30:17.479 made it before the ad. 1:30:18.400 --> 1:30:23.880 So okay, okay. You talk about your father being in 1:30:23.920 --> 1:30:28.439 the Marines, moving give me the narrative here. You have 1:30:28.479 --> 1:30:32.400 a biological father, you have a stepfather. Was your biological 1:30:32.479 --> 1:30:36.280 father still in the picture? You talk about your ex stepfather, 1:30:36.520 --> 1:30:39.000 meaning you're broke up with your mother? What was going 1:30:39.040 --> 1:30:39.519 on here? 1:30:39.640 --> 1:30:43.479 So my parents were splitting up before I was born. 1:30:44.720 --> 1:30:46.800 I didn't know this, of course I was born, but 1:30:47.040 --> 1:30:50.320 my mom got pregnant with me and they stayed together. 1:30:50.920 --> 1:30:54.040 But that only lasted I think a year or two, 1:30:54.080 --> 1:30:56.360 maybe two, I don't know exactly, because I was, you know, 1:30:56.600 --> 1:30:59.679 the baby my mother fell in love with the musician. 1:30:59.680 --> 1:31:01.920 My dad. I'd moved out. My mother fell in love 1:31:01.920 --> 1:31:05.519 with a musician, so I had she married him, and 1:31:05.560 --> 1:31:07.519 I had him as a stepdad. But my real father 1:31:07.640 --> 1:31:10.040 was in my life always, you know. He worked on 1:31:10.080 --> 1:31:11.680 the marine base and he was in my life. And 1:31:11.680 --> 1:31:14.320 it was great because my stepdad was a hippie and 1:31:14.360 --> 1:31:17.000 my mom became a hippie and so, you know, we 1:31:17.160 --> 1:31:19.840 learned about you know, we'd go to the Paula Indian 1:31:19.880 --> 1:31:23.000 Reservation and they'd all everybody, all the families. We'd run 1:31:23.000 --> 1:31:25.120 around naked, and she was like hippie shit, you know, 1:31:25.520 --> 1:31:28.600 And I grew up in that. But my father was 1:31:28.640 --> 1:31:31.240 a disciplined man, and he was super cool, super cool. 1:31:31.280 --> 1:31:34.240 Not an asshole, but he he provided me with a 1:31:34.280 --> 1:31:37.640 foundation of discipline. So when my mother and my stepfather 1:31:37.720 --> 1:31:40.000 split up when I was four years old, I was 1:31:40.000 --> 1:31:43.040 in fourth grade, I'm sorry. My mother went off the 1:31:43.080 --> 1:31:45.880 deep end. She had lost a child, and you know, 1:31:46.080 --> 1:31:48.000 and I and she went off the deep end and 1:31:48.000 --> 1:31:51.280 she was on prescription drugs and she disappeared. And I 1:31:51.320 --> 1:31:53.280 was a period of about four days, three days when 1:31:53.320 --> 1:31:55.639 I was by myself at the house because my older 1:31:55.680 --> 1:31:59.080 sister had left already too and and I was literally 1:31:59.120 --> 1:32:01.320 by myself. I have to dressed myself and get to school. 1:32:01.400 --> 1:32:04.040 Was awful. And my dad showed up one day to 1:32:04.120 --> 1:32:05.479 check what are you doing? What checked on me? And 1:32:05.520 --> 1:32:07.360 I told him, whe's your mom's I haven't seen her, 1:32:07.320 --> 1:32:09.560 and he's get in the car. I moved. This is 1:32:09.680 --> 1:32:12.960 in fifth grade now. I moved to Oceanside and I'm 1:32:12.960 --> 1:32:16.720 moving with my dad. And we were like two bachelors, 1:32:17.400 --> 1:32:20.639 and he worked three jobs. And I never went back 1:32:20.680 --> 1:32:23.400 to live with my mom and she got it together. 1:32:23.439 --> 1:32:24.920 She figured herself out, and I bought her a house 1:32:25.000 --> 1:32:27.000 years later whenever he came and looaded, you know. But 1:32:27.880 --> 1:32:29.519 I lived with my dad. My dad was really great 1:32:29.520 --> 1:32:34.599 for me. And then my dad ended up remarrying years later. 1:32:34.680 --> 1:32:37.240 And that's my stepmother who is still in my life. 1:32:37.320 --> 1:32:39.920 And my mom passed away at eighty seven, and my 1:32:39.960 --> 1:32:44.000 father passed away at eighty unfortunately he got cancer. But yeah, 1:32:44.200 --> 1:32:45.960 so I had him both in my life. And actually 1:32:46.040 --> 1:32:48.640 the combination of the hippie step dad and the discipline 1:32:48.720 --> 1:32:51.679 real dad was really fantastic. It was a really fantastic 1:32:51.680 --> 1:32:52.400 combination for me. 1:32:53.800 --> 1:32:56.760 Okay, who in this picture was Native American. 1:32:57.280 --> 1:33:02.040 My mother and my father, but not the stepfather. No, No, 1:33:02.080 --> 1:33:02.680 he's a white guy. 1:33:03.880 --> 1:33:06.720 And your father's got remarried. 1:33:07.280 --> 1:33:13.360 He got remarried in my mom's cousin actually, and yeah, 1:33:13.439 --> 1:33:15.479 not his cousin. Let's not get that. Let's make a 1:33:15.520 --> 1:33:19.639 sense my mom's cousin and that caused a big ruckus 1:33:19.640 --> 1:33:22.439 in the family. Oh my god. You know. But you know, 1:33:24.040 --> 1:33:28.680 he identifies as Chicano because a lot of people in 1:33:28.800 --> 1:33:31.880 the New Mexico days, especially back in the thirties and stuff, 1:33:31.920 --> 1:33:34.160 would never want to admit to being Native American because 1:33:34.160 --> 1:33:36.040 if you're a Native American, you were probably you know, 1:33:36.400 --> 1:33:37.920 you were looked at as the scum of the earth, 1:33:38.479 --> 1:33:41.240 which sounds crazy now, but it's the fact. So nobody, 1:33:41.800 --> 1:33:43.560 nobody wanted to be a Native. You could be a 1:33:43.680 --> 1:33:46.640 Native in those days, and if somebody raped you, or 1:33:46.720 --> 1:33:50.120 somebody kidnapped you, or somebody killed you, it was not 1:33:50.960 --> 1:33:54.439 priority number one to figure out where you were. And 1:33:54.920 --> 1:33:56.760 essentially nuts to me. And I didn't know about any 1:33:56.800 --> 1:33:58.639 of this stuff until I got older and started learning 1:33:58.640 --> 1:34:01.559 about it. You know. So a lot of people, there's 1:34:01.560 --> 1:34:04.240 a lot of Native people like Robert Trhillo from Metallica, 1:34:04.520 --> 1:34:08.320 Randy Castillo, who was in Rumble from Ozzie. A lot 1:34:08.360 --> 1:34:11.839 of US pat vegas from from uh, you know, saying 1:34:11.640 --> 1:34:15.040 come and get your love from from Redbone. A lot 1:34:15.080 --> 1:34:18.439 of US guys in America grew up Taboo from Black 1:34:18.479 --> 1:34:20.760 Eyed Peas. We grew up not really knowing who we 1:34:20.760 --> 1:34:23.120 were or a lot about our culture because we were 1:34:23.120 --> 1:34:26.000 in this mix everybody from the New Mexico Southwest area. 1:34:26.680 --> 1:34:30.840 We're either trying to identify as Spaniards or Mexican or Chicano, 1:34:31.720 --> 1:34:34.840 and you know, you start to have to dig to 1:34:34.920 --> 1:34:38.040 make sure you know what Indian you were because because 1:34:38.080 --> 1:34:40.120 a lot of the older aunts and stuff. But deny it, 1:34:40.160 --> 1:34:42.559 I'm not a Savage. I remember my two aunts were 1:34:42.600 --> 1:34:46.880 arguing with my cousin Gilbert, and you know, she was 1:34:46.960 --> 1:34:49.680 one was saying we're Apache and the end she said, no, 1:34:49.720 --> 1:34:51.920 I'm not. I'm not a Savage. I mean and they 1:34:51.920 --> 1:34:54.519 were like losing their minds over this stuff. So it's 1:34:54.520 --> 1:34:57.679 weird to think that this is still an issue. Right, 1:34:57.760 --> 1:34:59.160 So a lot of people don't know who they are. 1:35:01.120 --> 1:35:05.200 And then you talk about your mother going to the reservation. 1:35:05.479 --> 1:35:08.320 Was that part of you growing up going to the reservation. 1:35:10.160 --> 1:35:11.640 It might have been, but to me it was just 1:35:11.680 --> 1:35:13.760 some hippie shit. There's a bunch of hippies with long hair, 1:35:13.800 --> 1:35:15.120 and they'd go out and play music and we all, 1:35:15.160 --> 1:35:16.760 all the kids would swim in the river there and 1:35:16.800 --> 1:35:19.439 Paula at the Indian restaurant, but she was not a 1:35:19.479 --> 1:35:22.600 part of the Paula tribe. But we would go to 1:35:22.600 --> 1:35:25.040 the Paula Indi Indian reservation all the time. Wait before 1:35:25.080 --> 1:35:26.760 there was a casino there, and there was nothing out 1:35:26.760 --> 1:35:31.000 there but wild dogs and a few skins and uh. 1:35:31.080 --> 1:35:35.160 But you know, I always felt at home in Indian Country. 1:35:35.360 --> 1:35:37.120 I didn't know a lot about it. And like I 1:35:37.120 --> 1:35:40.080 said in Rumble, when I was losing my mind after 1:35:40.160 --> 1:35:41.960 Rod Stewart, when I was just so full of my 1:35:42.000 --> 1:35:46.040 own bs and I was so yeah, I was out 1:35:46.080 --> 1:35:48.880 of my mind. Everything was tequila and parties and chicks 1:35:48.920 --> 1:35:53.599 and rockstar shit. And Randy Castillo, who was the drummer 1:35:53.640 --> 1:35:55.280 of Ozzie, it was like me, and it was from 1:35:55.320 --> 1:35:57.479 New Mexico. My family's from New Mexico. And he said, 1:35:58.120 --> 1:36:00.360 he says, I got to take you to Indian Country. 1:36:00.400 --> 1:36:02.920 You're out of control. And I didn't know what that meant, 1:36:02.960 --> 1:36:04.800 you know, Indian Country. And so I went with him 1:36:04.800 --> 1:36:06.120 and we went to Santa Fe and then he took 1:36:06.160 --> 1:36:08.360 me up to Taos, and that started me on this 1:36:08.520 --> 1:36:12.960 path in the early nineties of balance where I would 1:36:13.000 --> 1:36:15.240 lose my mind in La and I could go to 1:36:15.320 --> 1:36:21.679 Indian Country and kind of just not be, not trying 1:36:21.680 --> 1:36:23.680 to be some kind of badass rock star. I was 1:36:23.720 --> 1:36:25.760 just I was trying to be trying to be a 1:36:25.840 --> 1:36:29.640 human being, right, And Randy was the same way. And 1:36:29.680 --> 1:36:31.240 then we'd go back to LA or New York or 1:36:31.280 --> 1:36:33.200 London or whatever we need rock stars and go play 1:36:33.400 --> 1:36:37.519 sports arenas and and that that's kind of how it was. 1:36:39.600 --> 1:36:43.480 Okay, we hear about the plight of the Native American 1:36:43.600 --> 1:36:50.400 on the reservation, we hear about economic issues, obesity, alcoholism, 1:36:50.960 --> 1:36:55.639 to what degree is that something you're invested in because 1:36:55.680 --> 1:36:57.839 your upbringing certainly was very different. 1:36:58.080 --> 1:37:00.360 My upbringion was super different. Like my part in my 1:37:00.360 --> 1:37:02.599 film company, Bran Porter grew up on the Six Nations 1:37:02.640 --> 1:37:06.639 reservation where Robbie Robertson's from, actually, but Robbie would only 1:37:06.640 --> 1:37:09.360 spend summers there because he had a Jewish dad and 1:37:09.400 --> 1:37:12.120 they lived in Toronto and lived a good life. But 1:37:12.920 --> 1:37:15.559 I've got to be honest, I don't think I would 1:37:15.600 --> 1:37:17.479 be where I am right now talking to you if 1:37:17.479 --> 1:37:20.559 I was brought up on a reservation. There's a definite 1:37:21.760 --> 1:37:25.719 energy that has been passed down from generation to generation 1:37:27.120 --> 1:37:31.240 where the people are made to feel like they're worthless, 1:37:32.439 --> 1:37:34.599 made to feel like, hey, this isn't for me. This 1:37:34.720 --> 1:37:36.479 is maybe for them, but we don't get to do 1:37:36.479 --> 1:37:38.360 these kind of things. So I'd be like, hey, look 1:37:38.400 --> 1:37:40.400 at me, I did it. I remember these kids would 1:37:40.400 --> 1:37:43.439 tell me I was doing a TV series that I 1:37:43.479 --> 1:37:47.679 was producing and hosting in Winnipeg in two thousand and seven, 1:37:47.720 --> 1:37:49.360 eight nine, ten or something like that. I did three 1:37:49.360 --> 1:37:51.720 seasons of it, and the Native kids would come to 1:37:51.760 --> 1:37:52.960 me and go, we want to do what you're doing, 1:37:53.000 --> 1:37:56.120 but they won't let us. And I'd say, like, who 1:37:56.120 --> 1:37:59.320 are they? Because whoever they are, they let me, you know, 1:37:59.400 --> 1:38:01.880 and they think of about that what I said. But 1:38:02.400 --> 1:38:04.799 I was brought up to believe that anything was possible. 1:38:04.840 --> 1:38:08.120 I was brought up to believe that there's the King 1:38:08.120 --> 1:38:10.479 of England has his blood is not better than my blood, 1:38:10.720 --> 1:38:12.599 And I'm not buying any of that kind of bullshit. 1:38:12.600 --> 1:38:14.400 And I was brought up to believe that. You know, 1:38:14.400 --> 1:38:17.040 I don't think that he has royal blood and I 1:38:17.040 --> 1:38:20.400 have bullshit blood, you know. I challenge all that, and 1:38:20.880 --> 1:38:23.839 I think that Native people now are finding more strength 1:38:23.840 --> 1:38:26.920 and there's becoming more success. But there's still a lot 1:38:26.920 --> 1:38:30.320 of this feeling, especially on the poor reservations where you're 1:38:30.360 --> 1:38:32.400 living on welfare, then pretty much all you're getting in 1:38:32.520 --> 1:38:34.200 is all the food whatever they'll give you, and most 1:38:34.200 --> 1:38:38.280 of its gmode crap and a bunch of terrible stuff 1:38:38.320 --> 1:38:41.720 that's not good for you, you know. So there is 1:38:41.760 --> 1:38:45.519 a lot of problems with the diabetes and obesity, bad water. 1:38:45.640 --> 1:38:49.040 I go into Indian reservations, Bradworter and I spend our 1:38:49.080 --> 1:38:52.000 own money and we hooked up with swear Water and 1:38:52.040 --> 1:38:53.880 we go into Indian country, these places where they don't 1:38:53.920 --> 1:38:55.760 have he can't drink the water, and we put in 1:38:55.840 --> 1:38:59.320 water filtration systems in there ourselves because we can't wait 1:38:59.320 --> 1:39:01.200 for the government any more to figure out the problems. 1:39:01.200 --> 1:39:02.840 So we do it ourselves, and then the government guys 1:39:02.880 --> 1:39:05.519 call us, hey, hey, what are you guys doing. It's 1:39:05.560 --> 1:39:07.280 like what can we do to help? And it's like 1:39:07.280 --> 1:39:09.280 we're just doing it. Either don't come and do it 1:39:09.280 --> 1:39:11.840 with us, or we're going to do it Anyways, luckily 1:39:11.960 --> 1:39:14.120 my partner and that and where he works on Six 1:39:14.240 --> 1:39:17.360 Nations there were very well financed. So we're able to 1:39:17.400 --> 1:39:19.559 if we have to spend forty thousand dollars on water 1:39:19.560 --> 1:39:23.080 filtration systems and donate them through our Dream Catcher charity 1:39:23.400 --> 1:39:25.280 that we do in Six Nations, you know we can. 1:39:25.439 --> 1:39:28.080 We can get these things as we're very fortunate that way. 1:39:30.240 --> 1:39:35.639 Now in Canada they talk about the natives there. There's 1:39:35.680 --> 1:39:41.479 been a lot of controversy Native Canadian schools and tragedies tragically. 1:39:41.560 --> 1:39:44.479 Ip even has a song about that. What is the 1:39:44.600 --> 1:39:48.400 difference between being a Native in Canada as opposed to 1:39:48.439 --> 1:39:49.680 a Native in America? 1:39:49.800 --> 1:39:54.439 If any Well, there's a couple of things. In Canada, 1:39:55.760 --> 1:39:59.920 people identified with being Native and brought We're brought up 1:40:00.160 --> 1:40:03.840 as Native. They even have these cards called status cards, 1:40:03.920 --> 1:40:06.559 or everyone kind of has one. And then there's guys 1:40:06.600 --> 1:40:09.640 like us whose families denied it. They didn't want you know, 1:40:09.640 --> 1:40:11.360 they're great. My great grandpaent mom didn't want to be 1:40:11.400 --> 1:40:13.880 sent onto the trailer tears. So if you were in 1:40:13.880 --> 1:40:16.200 Mexican you could stay in farm in New Mexico. But 1:40:16.240 --> 1:40:18.439 if you're an Indian, you're gonna get shipped off, you know, 1:40:18.479 --> 1:40:21.240 so then we're not Indians. So there's a huge denial 1:40:22.200 --> 1:40:25.280 of My one friend Brian right McLoud who wrote that encyclopedia, 1:40:25.280 --> 1:40:27.320 told me, you guys are part of the lost Indians, 1:40:27.320 --> 1:40:28.599 that's what they call them. They don't know who we are, 1:40:28.640 --> 1:40:29.880 We don't know where we were. You know, we have 1:40:29.920 --> 1:40:33.960 the search fried you know where our family came from 1:40:33.960 --> 1:40:36.559 and how they identified and what they had to do 1:40:36.680 --> 1:40:44.200 to survive. In Canada, their fronts, tons of programs where 1:40:44.560 --> 1:40:46.519 you're an artist, you want to make a film, you 1:40:46.520 --> 1:40:49.760 want to make a record, there's all these funds for 1:40:50.160 --> 1:40:53.160 not just Native people but for their citizens. You know, 1:40:53.479 --> 1:40:55.479 you can get funding to do all kinds of stuff 1:40:55.520 --> 1:40:57.960 through your tax dollars. So everyone goes your taxes are high, 1:40:58.320 --> 1:41:01.000 but you actually get a lot for tax dollars, you 1:41:01.000 --> 1:41:03.920 know what I mean. And so that's why you see 1:41:03.960 --> 1:41:06.959 a lot more development in the arts from the Canadian 1:41:07.080 --> 1:41:10.080 Indigenous community. The Americans one just like here, you know 1:41:10.120 --> 1:41:13.160 it is it's it's if you can't sell something and 1:41:13.200 --> 1:41:15.040 make the money, then you can't you don't get money 1:41:15.040 --> 1:41:18.960 for it. You know, there's it's a lot harder to 1:41:19.000 --> 1:41:22.000 be successful in America. Than it is in Canada. 1:41:24.160 --> 1:41:27.320 What do you think about some of these Native American 1:41:27.439 --> 1:41:33.240 shows like Smoke Signals and Reservation. Never mind the recent 1:41:33.280 --> 1:41:34.800 Scorsese picture. 1:41:35.479 --> 1:41:38.160 That's funny my my friend Lily, Lily got the Academy 1:41:38.160 --> 1:41:42.880 Award nomination for that new Scorsese picture. Marty was, actually, well, 1:41:43.000 --> 1:41:46.559 that makes it sound like every Native American knows every 1:41:46.640 --> 1:41:49.559 other Native American. Kind of do you kind of do 1:41:49.640 --> 1:41:51.320 you figure out there's not a lot of us, Bob, 1:41:51.680 --> 1:41:53.639 we kind of do you figure out who's who, especially 1:41:53.640 --> 1:41:56.760 the people that are doing things. You know, then you 1:41:56.800 --> 1:41:58.439 have a little bit of this thing that goes on 1:41:58.600 --> 1:42:01.880 with gatekeepers, which I don't participate in that because I 1:42:01.920 --> 1:42:06.960 just think that's just ridiculous, but you know I had Marty. Yeah, 1:42:06.960 --> 1:42:08.520 wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. 1:42:08.920 --> 1:42:11.360 What gatekeepers in the Native American world? 1:42:12.200 --> 1:42:16.120 You put some it happens, it's a common nature. People 1:42:16.160 --> 1:42:17.800 have been held down for a long time. So you 1:42:18.280 --> 1:42:25.719 empower some person and can they really allow you Remember 1:42:25.720 --> 1:42:28.360 on the movie Out of Africa where they were trying 1:42:28.360 --> 1:42:30.960 to put a school on for the for the African kids, 1:42:31.080 --> 1:42:33.280 and the chief shut it down because he found out 1:42:33.280 --> 1:42:35.400 that the kids were actually becoming smarter than the chief, 1:42:35.960 --> 1:42:37.880 so he shut it down. Well, there's a lot of 1:42:37.880 --> 1:42:40.960 that gatekeeper thing where oh, this girl's so popular with 1:42:41.000 --> 1:42:44.240 her music, and so warners or give her a record label, 1:42:44.320 --> 1:42:46.960 and she's supposed to help develop native stuff. Well she 1:42:47.040 --> 1:42:48.840 never had a hit record herself, or he never had 1:42:48.840 --> 1:42:50.960 to hit record themselves, So how are they supposed to 1:42:51.040 --> 1:42:52.760 know if this guy's any good. So what they end 1:42:52.800 --> 1:42:55.120 up doing is they work with people who worship them 1:42:55.280 --> 1:42:58.320 and are their friends, and anybody that might be a threat, 1:42:58.320 --> 1:43:01.600 that might be more popular better than them, maybe they 1:43:01.720 --> 1:43:05.920 push away where I again, not that I'm not trying 1:43:05.920 --> 1:43:07.640 to brag. I want to be the dumbest guy in 1:43:07.640 --> 1:43:09.200 the room. I want to surround myself with the baddest 1:43:09.200 --> 1:43:11.559 ass dudes there are. But if I surround it with you, 1:43:11.800 --> 1:43:14.240 I'm gonna try to eat you alive. I'm gonna try 1:43:14.240 --> 1:43:16.880 my best to eat you alive to prove that you 1:43:16.920 --> 1:43:19.280 are the best. And otherwise I'm gonna eat you alive, 1:43:19.280 --> 1:43:21.120 and I'm gonna get bored with you. You know, And 1:43:21.160 --> 1:43:22.880 me and my friends do this, Phil X and I 1:43:22.920 --> 1:43:25.400 and Richie Kotts and all those guitar player guys. We 1:43:25.479 --> 1:43:27.639 love each other and we respect each other. But when 1:43:27.640 --> 1:43:30.880 we get on that stage, man Philo embarrass me or 1:43:31.120 --> 1:43:33.040 I'll try my best to like, I'm not gonna be crappy. 1:43:33.040 --> 1:43:34.479 I'm gonna kill them, you know what I mean. It's like, 1:43:34.760 --> 1:43:38.240 I think there's competition, but up there, instead of finding competition, 1:43:38.320 --> 1:43:41.280 what they do sometimes is they surround themselves with people 1:43:41.280 --> 1:43:45.599 who worship them. And that's no good for anybody. 1:43:45.640 --> 1:43:48.719 But you were talking, I cut you off about these 1:43:48.840 --> 1:43:55.320 Indian As people say, but Native American productions Killers of 1:43:55.360 --> 1:43:59.080 the Flower Moon smoke signals reservation. You're gonna give me 1:43:59.080 --> 1:43:59.559 your take. 1:43:59.439 --> 1:44:03.840 On those, Yeah, I like. Okay, So Killers of the 1:44:03.880 --> 1:44:09.360 Flower Moon, let's say. You know, obviously it's like a 1:44:09.400 --> 1:44:13.719 powerful movie. You see the Injustice. Okay, there's another series 1:44:13.760 --> 1:44:18.080 that's really amazing you should watch and it's called Little Bird, 1:44:18.240 --> 1:44:20.080 and it's about how the nuns used to come in 1:44:20.120 --> 1:44:23.920 and take the kids away because they were let's find 1:44:23.960 --> 1:44:25.760 a better home so these kids have a better chance. 1:44:26.000 --> 1:44:28.120 You know. They was horrible. They were doing it into 1:44:28.160 --> 1:44:32.280 the eighties. I think, you know, they're you know, and 1:44:33.840 --> 1:44:36.560 these things are like a victim films, you know, and 1:44:36.840 --> 1:44:38.519 people need to know the history. So you have to 1:44:38.520 --> 1:44:41.320 make these victim films, but non native people who are 1:44:41.560 --> 1:44:44.679 gatekeepers that get to decide what shows get made. Oh, 1:44:44.800 --> 1:44:48.680 you know, it's like in spinal Tap when Artie Fluffkin says, Oh, 1:44:48.840 --> 1:44:51.000 kick my ass, it's my fault. Well, they're kind of 1:44:51.040 --> 1:44:53.320 like that. Oh, all white people are bad. We need 1:44:53.360 --> 1:44:56.360 to tell this story how we screwed you over, you know. 1:44:56.640 --> 1:45:01.759 And if you really watch Rumble, Rumble the co director 1:45:01.840 --> 1:45:07.200 Catherine Bainbridge, and they kept reaching for the negative because 1:45:07.200 --> 1:45:10.719 they were angry, and there was negative, There was racism, 1:45:10.800 --> 1:45:13.519 there was all this stuff. And I kept pushing for 1:45:13.680 --> 1:45:16.760 a film about heroes. I don't want to film about victims, 1:45:17.160 --> 1:45:19.000 and a lot of the films that get made, unfortunately, 1:45:19.000 --> 1:45:21.479 and Rumble was the story of heroes. We really kept 1:45:21.520 --> 1:45:23.840 the victim thing out of it. You feel the victimness 1:45:23.840 --> 1:45:25.320 if you do it right, but you don't have to 1:45:25.360 --> 1:45:27.719 harp on it. And we don't want to be victims, 1:45:28.000 --> 1:45:30.080 you know, we want to be heroes. And a lot 1:45:30.120 --> 1:45:32.599 of these films that get made now are still victims. 1:45:32.600 --> 1:45:37.760 Oh you got your ass kicked, and it doesn't leave 1:45:37.800 --> 1:45:41.160 you feeling like anything's better, If anything that makes you 1:45:41.200 --> 1:45:43.040 feel like I'm trying to releaeve some guilt or some 1:45:43.080 --> 1:45:45.519 shit if I'm non native and I don't like that. 1:45:45.560 --> 1:45:49.080 Reservation Dogs was at least it had a lightness to 1:45:49.120 --> 1:45:51.519 it that was fun. And the kid, the Pharaoh, the 1:45:51.600 --> 1:45:54.400 young kid, he's got so much star power. I love him. 1:45:54.520 --> 1:45:56.559 He's doing a film right now in England. He texted 1:45:56.560 --> 1:45:58.840 me yesterday because, like you said, all the guys and 1:45:58.880 --> 1:46:04.240 all us native guys to know each Okay. 1:46:03.280 --> 1:46:06.720 Prior to this moment, I only knew you in email. 1:46:07.320 --> 1:46:11.959 I'm talking to you now. You're incredibly endearing. 1:46:12.400 --> 1:46:13.760 Oh thank you. I mean, you talk to me. 1:46:13.760 --> 1:46:16.200 I feel like you're You're the best. You're our best friend. 1:46:16.240 --> 1:46:19.439 We want to hang with you. You have any enemies, 1:46:19.479 --> 1:46:20.680 anybody dislike you. 1:46:21.520 --> 1:46:23.640 A lot of people hate me because you know, some 1:46:23.680 --> 1:46:26.320 people don't like I'm not you know. Maybe it sounds cocky, 1:46:26.360 --> 1:46:28.080 but I try just to be confident. I try to 1:46:28.080 --> 1:46:33.040 know who I am. I'm not usually the best diplomat, 1:46:33.200 --> 1:46:35.639 like if somebody's you know, I had the hardest time 1:46:35.640 --> 1:46:37.680 when we're when I was a kid, and I don't 1:46:37.720 --> 1:46:39.479 know how you did this being in a music business. 1:46:39.479 --> 1:46:41.719 But I go see your friend's Ben and I suck, 1:46:42.400 --> 1:46:45.400 and I'd have to lie to them and I and 1:46:45.439 --> 1:46:47.360 I feel like when I was lying to them, like hey, man, 1:46:47.439 --> 1:46:48.920 you guys are great, I feel like they were looking 1:46:48.920 --> 1:46:51.040 in my eyes and telling me you could see I'm lying. 1:46:51.600 --> 1:46:53.559 So one day my friend Melvin Brandon Junior is from 1:46:53.600 --> 1:46:55.800 den Rey Network, says to me, Oh, you don't lie 1:46:55.800 --> 1:46:58.760 to them, you say, And when they say, hey, what'd 1:46:58.760 --> 1:47:00.960 you think of the show? You say, and you guys 1:47:01.000 --> 1:47:04.519 were up there doing it. And it got me off 1:47:04.560 --> 1:47:06.840 the hook because it was positive. It didn't mean that 1:47:06.880 --> 1:47:09.320 I liked them, and I didn't have to lie, you know. 1:47:09.479 --> 1:47:11.920 So I got to tell you. You know, you print 1:47:11.960 --> 1:47:13.880 a lot of my letters. When I write write on 1:47:13.920 --> 1:47:15.880 some of the things you write about, which which some 1:47:15.880 --> 1:47:17.519 some of the guys around here are like, oh, your 1:47:17.560 --> 1:47:21.080 Bob's little little a little pal. You always post your letters, 1:47:21.600 --> 1:47:23.479 and I'm like, yeah, I think it's cool. And then 1:47:23.520 --> 1:47:25.880 you post my letters, man, because you know, it means 1:47:25.960 --> 1:47:28.040 maybe I'm saying something that makes sense to some people 1:47:28.080 --> 1:47:30.599 with some brains. You know, you don't know, you know, so, 1:47:30.720 --> 1:47:33.200 but yeah, I get shipped sometimes because you post my letters, 1:47:33.200 --> 1:47:34.600 and some of the people in the business, you know, 1:47:35.080 --> 1:47:38.800 we are more. So we call doll your bob's a 1:47:38.800 --> 1:47:41.400 little pet. I get some shit for that, just so 1:47:41.520 --> 1:47:43.439 you know, you make it. 1:47:43.360 --> 1:47:46.800 Sound like it was all an accident, but nothing's a 1:47:46.800 --> 1:47:50.600 fucking accident. There's a lot of desire, a lot of networking, 1:47:51.360 --> 1:47:54.720 and somehow you do it and don't look like you 1:47:54.800 --> 1:47:57.679 have sharp elbows. A lot of people they do it 1:47:57.720 --> 1:48:00.760 and you go, I can see him in that, and 1:48:00.800 --> 1:48:04.080 you get a negative feeling about him, but not from you. 1:48:04.240 --> 1:48:06.759 Maybe because I can actually put on the instrument deliver, 1:48:06.920 --> 1:48:08.559 or I can write the song. And I had publishing 1:48:08.560 --> 1:48:10.720 deals with Virgin with Polygrin. You know, you gotta do it. 1:48:10.760 --> 1:48:12.799 You don't just get those deals. You got to deliver. 1:48:13.320 --> 1:48:15.920 So maybe people can respect the fact that, you know 1:48:16.000 --> 1:48:18.280 that I produced a track with Don Woz who became 1:48:18.280 --> 1:48:21.080 the biggest producer you know, and I actually was a kid, 1:48:21.400 --> 1:48:24.479 you know, but not like I'm the greatest. But also 1:48:24.680 --> 1:48:26.400 I think all those a lot of people have those 1:48:26.439 --> 1:48:29.360 desires and that drive and the push and they just 1:48:29.400 --> 1:48:31.920 don't get lucky. I just think I got lucky. And 1:48:32.000 --> 1:48:34.519 you know how it is if you connect, if you 1:48:34.680 --> 1:48:37.640 fall into one thing once I did George Clinton, like, 1:48:38.000 --> 1:48:40.120 let's just say it wasn't George Clinton. Let's say it 1:48:40.160 --> 1:48:43.280 was David Cassidy or something, which still would have been 1:48:43.320 --> 1:48:44.680 a job and he would have paid me, and I 1:48:44.720 --> 1:48:47.479 could have played in Vegas. Well, that wouldn't have worked. 1:48:47.640 --> 1:48:51.439 George Clinton had so much credibility that it was George Clinton. 1:48:51.760 --> 1:48:55.160 You must be cool, okay. Keith Richards used to say, 1:48:55.760 --> 1:48:58.040 you know, this is a big thing that happened. One time. 1:48:58.200 --> 1:49:00.960 I got invited to Keith richards fiftieth birthday party before 1:49:00.960 --> 1:49:03.400 I knew him in New York. I was in New 1:49:03.479 --> 1:49:08.160 York City and walk in the door and it's very private, 1:49:08.760 --> 1:49:11.559 and the first guy I see is Bernard Fowler, who's 1:49:11.960 --> 1:49:14.479 like my brother. And Fowler looks me. He it was 1:49:14.640 --> 1:49:17.880 blah blah blah. And then there's there's Clapton sitting there 1:49:17.920 --> 1:49:20.360 in Naomi Campbell and you know the whole thing, you 1:49:20.400 --> 1:49:23.479 know it is. And then I see Ivan Neville. Iven 1:49:23.520 --> 1:49:26.920 comes up gives me a big hug. Everything's cool. Keith 1:49:27.000 --> 1:49:32.160 Richards walks up, he shakes my hand, kind of gives 1:49:32.160 --> 1:49:34.360 me a hug and talks to me a bit and 1:49:34.680 --> 1:49:38.960 then he leads, and so I think I'm in. Keith 1:49:39.080 --> 1:49:41.080 likes me I'm in because you know, if Keith don't 1:49:41.120 --> 1:49:43.400 like you, there's nothing you can do. Man, it's gnarley, 1:49:43.840 --> 1:49:45.880 you know. And when I was playing with Jagger, I 1:49:45.920 --> 1:49:48.240 used to yell, Mick, tell me what Stone songs were 1:49:48.240 --> 1:49:49.840 playing because I don't want I don't want to not 1:49:50.000 --> 1:49:51.720 know it and play it wrong and have Keith want 1:49:51.760 --> 1:49:53.800 to pull his knife out and stab me, you know, so, 1:49:54.320 --> 1:49:58.000 but Keith so, Keith walks away. Later on I find 1:49:58.000 --> 1:50:02.439 out Keith goes back to Bernard Fowler and he says, 1:50:02.520 --> 1:50:07.120 who the fuck is Salas? Is he cool? The Fowler? 1:50:07.320 --> 1:50:09.559 You know, he's not a hype guy. He's like, yeah, 1:50:09.600 --> 1:50:12.280 he's cool. Later on I find out he goes to 1:50:12.280 --> 1:50:15.719 Ivan Neville, Who the fuck is Salas? Is he cool? 1:50:16.200 --> 1:50:19.400 Ivan never goes, yeah, he's my brother, He's cool. Then 1:50:19.880 --> 1:50:21.920 I got invited to sit at his table and you know, 1:50:22.000 --> 1:50:24.559 drink vodka. But you know, there's a thing about it 1:50:24.640 --> 1:50:27.240 that when you got to get in and you got it, 1:50:27.280 --> 1:50:30.040 you don't just get in and you can't be all bullshit, 1:50:30.680 --> 1:50:32.280 you know what I mean. And maybe you got to 1:50:32.280 --> 1:50:34.120 know how to fight, you know what I mean. Maybe 1:50:34.160 --> 1:50:35.800 you got to know how to tell someone to fuck off. 1:50:36.160 --> 1:50:38.320 You know, and not be an ass kisser, but you 1:50:38.400 --> 1:50:40.960 got to be. You know, if you associate with the 1:50:41.040 --> 1:50:45.760 right kind of people, you you may not get rich 1:50:45.840 --> 1:50:47.679 or rise to the top, but you will get respect 1:50:47.960 --> 1:50:50.960 and and and when you lose that respect, like if 1:50:50.960 --> 1:50:53.599 I were have picked the wrong bands to play with. Okay, 1:50:53.600 --> 1:50:55.720 I'll tell you. Richie Cootson one of my best friends, 1:50:55.920 --> 1:50:59.200 insanely great guitar player. Early on, he joined Poison when 1:50:59.240 --> 1:51:02.439 c c de Bill quick. Okay, that didn't turn out 1:51:02.479 --> 1:51:04.280 so good. They wrote a few hits and then he 1:51:04.360 --> 1:51:07.800 went on his own again. Years later, he gets a 1:51:07.840 --> 1:51:11.400 call to audition for Trent Resnor. You're Twiggy because Tweggy 1:51:11.439 --> 1:51:14.799 knows Richie's an incredible guitar player and incredible singer. Richie 1:51:14.840 --> 1:51:18.840 comes in auditions for him, blows Trent Resnor doesn't want 1:51:18.880 --> 1:51:20.439 him to come, but he comes, and he doesn't He 1:51:20.479 --> 1:51:24.040 does it as a favorite of Twiggy. He blows Trent 1:51:24.120 --> 1:51:28.640 Resnor's mind like he should because he's amazing. Trent Resner goes, 1:51:28.680 --> 1:51:30.479 Oh my god, he goes, I had no idea you 1:51:30.479 --> 1:51:32.280 were going to be this good. He goes, I want 1:51:32.320 --> 1:51:35.200 to hire you, he goes, but I can't think of 1:51:35.200 --> 1:51:38.640 what I'm gonna say the first time a magazine or 1:51:38.760 --> 1:51:42.160 somebody interviews me and asks, what made you hire the 1:51:42.200 --> 1:51:46.400 guy from poison so Richie couldn't get that gig. So 1:51:46.439 --> 1:51:49.040 sometimes you gave, You make a wrong move and you 1:51:49.120 --> 1:51:50.400 pay for it for a long time. 1:51:52.880 --> 1:51:56.439 Wow, you're really drop in wisdom here, Stevie. We could 1:51:56.520 --> 1:52:01.520 go on forever. Listen. You're a great guy, all incredible stories. 1:52:02.080 --> 1:52:05.400 I could literally talk to you all afternoon. I want 1:52:05.400 --> 1:52:08.480 to thank you for taking this time with my audience. 1:52:09.160 --> 1:52:11.880 Awesome, Thank you, Bob's it was a pleasure and I'm 1:52:11.880 --> 1:52:15.599 glad I'm on your radar. Thank you until next time. 1:52:16.000 --> 1:52:17.320 This is Bob Left, Sat