00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Quest Loft Show is a production of iHeart Radio. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Quest Love Show. I am Questlove and man, the hits keep happening. Our legendary guest today has made history, starting back in nineteen eighty one sweeping the Grammys, first time sweeping the Big Four that means album, song record and oh best New Artist. Of course, he has worked with everyone. We will get into it. Of course. We know this man needs no introduction. Name it from Michael McDonald to Brian Wilson, to Bert Backrack to Peter Allen, Carol, I cannot wait to ask you what that room was like. And my research I also discovered that you might have a Ginger Baker story to tell I do. I hope you survived it. Our guest today and myself appeared in the very enjoyable yacht Rock Doc, a doc so good that my own producers a little bit angry at me, like what the hell? But I enjoyed doing that so much. We have met a few times, and one of those times was a bucket list moment for me. Recreating the legendary SCTV bit of Rick moranis doing Michael McDonald as a background singer on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. We were supposed to do this in New York City, but somehow the star saw that we get to do this in La So of course took that opportunity to welcome the great Christopher Cross to the Quest Left Show. Thank you for doing this for.

00:01:55
Speaker 2: Me, best pleasure, Thank you honor to be here.

00:01:57
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, just to look at the the writing credits for the author theme, right, this is Bert Backrack, Carol berrys Aira, Peter Allen and yourself. I always wanted to know which one of you actually came up with the phrase between the Moon and New York City.

00:02:18
Speaker 2: Well, it's pretty fun because Bette Middler made a joke at the kade Mere Words about four on a song. What is this you know? Because there are four writers right. Well, what happened was I was asked by Iran Pictures to score the movie and I was like, well, okay, I've never scored a movie, but you know that was during my fifteen minutes and everything. Everybody's coming to me with stuff. But then Stephen Gordon, who wrote Arthur, was also first time director, so he didn't want everything to be new so he said, I think we need to find somebody to score it who's got some experience. So they gave it to Backreck and Bert was married to Krabar Sega at the time, right, And so they called me up about you know, Burt's going to score, but we need a theme which you want to write it with us, And of course I was under no illusion that, you know, I was the new kid in town, so as Don Henley like to say, and so you know, they invited me over the house. I went there about midnight, their house in Beverly Hills, and it was pretty heavy.

00:03:05
Speaker 1: I walked in. They asked you to come at midnight.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: Well, just whatever it worked out. I got there about midnight at Bird's house and I walked in there. Course there's two oscars on the mantel already, so it was intimidating for sure, but Sonny would and answer your question. We started working on the music, and then once we get the music kind of settled with Bert and I, then Carol and I started working on a lyric, and Carol actually stumbled on the realization that she and Peter Allen had a song they'd never finished, and it had the line when you get caught to in New York City, And that line actually came Peter was circling Kennedy and he was going to be his partner and he was stuck in a hold and the line popped into his head. So Carol told me when you get caught to the movie, because the moon was out his window on the plane and he's wanting to land to be with his partner. So Peter said, you know, I came up with the line. So Carol calls him on Australia said, hey, look, I'm working on the song with Christopher Cross and Bert and you know there's that song we never finished and has that line when you get Caught in New York City and it'd be perfect for what we're doing. Are you cool with us plugging this in? And Peter was very gracious about it, and so that's how it happened. He kind of he remotely phoned in the chorus of.

00:04:19
Speaker 1: The song and wanted to Oscar for it.

00:04:21
Speaker 2: He did, Yeah, I okay, but that's okay.

00:04:25
Speaker 1: Actually is a way better than in my mind. I had this whole thing of like I'm trying to figure out like how to for superpowers like arm wrestle some real estate into the song, like did you come with an acoustic guitar?

00:04:41
Speaker 2: Was Bert Bird's on piano? I just came and but I but I, but I had my ideas and from when I was originally supposed to do something, and so Burton and I kind of, you know, got the music together, and after that was done, then Burt just sort of played to accompany us, you know, writing the lyric. Carroll had a yellowpad. But you know, there's a thing quest about countain lines. I learned from Will Jennings, the great songwriter one time when I worked with Will, and I was trying to figure out, well, how much credit should I get or you get? And he said, man, I'm not into Countain lions. And it was a real piece of wisdom for me. I was just an experience because you don't count lines, man, you just.

00:05:15
Speaker 1: Whatever does that? I just split it happy, whatever.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: Your participation is. So yeah, I mean Peter wasn't actually in the room, but when Carol told me the line, we were looking at Rushes from the film and I'm like, you're crazy, that's insane, that's like perfect. So yeah, that's how it happened. As far as I remember.

00:05:30
Speaker 1: Wow, that's great. What is your first musical memory in life?

00:05:37
Speaker 2: Well, probably you know, Buddy Holly, Peggy Sue or something, or Everly Brothers, possibly Ray Charles, I Can't Stop Loving You. I mean, these are all singles that I bought for ninety nine cents back in the day.

00:05:50
Speaker 1: You know, what was the first record that you brought with your own money?

00:05:55
Speaker 2: How to be one of those? Probably Everly Brothers, Wake Up Lit SUSI, or maybe Buddy Holly Sue Again. I bought remember I Can't Stop You, but also bought a lot of weird things like Yaka yak and you know the coasters. Yeah, those things. So we used to buy singles and my sister had one of those little carrying cases of forty five. You know. Also, Ricky Nelson was a big We watched that was You Heard show, so you know, things were very eclectic then, you know, the charts were all over the place. You had like Hella Mother, Hell of Fadda, and then you had yeah, so it was a lot different than it is now.

00:06:26
Speaker 1: Wait, that was a Hello Mother, Hello Fada.

00:06:30
Speaker 2: That was a big hit.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: That was an actual song. See, okay, I feel so dumb now.

00:06:35
Speaker 2: Well, no, You're the You're the ultimate music.

00:06:37
Speaker 1: No, that was a single, Okay, So you know, like when something becomes classic, then it becomes a commercial, right, Like I didn't know that Barefoot and it wasn't.

00:06:45
Speaker 2: Just a speaking no no.

00:06:47
Speaker 1: No. I knew it was the Speaking Span commercial because it got picked up in commercials. But I mean, you know, I got nieces and nephews that think that, you know, the rap song from Black Sheep is the choice of yours driving Hamsters was just for that commercial. I'm like, no, that was like one of the biggest rap songs of all time, but I didn't know that that was an actual song. I just know it as the downy commercial. No.

00:07:13
Speaker 2: And like things like uh sorry, there's a single that was out called Stranger on the Shore by this guy Akerbilk, who was this Swedish clarinetist or something, and you know, Cherriot's a fire theme. All these kinds of things. Radio was so eclectic. It was in fact, I was doing to Jimmy Webb about MacArthur Park because it was seven and half minutes long and you would never get away with that now, and so it was. I had all kinds of singles, but I think the early exposure was probably like I said, I'd have to if I will go back Everly Brothers, Buddy, Holly Ray, Charles, Richie Allen's Big One.

00:07:46
Speaker 1: You know you mentioned MacArthur Park. You know. I grew up in a Chibis family, and there's a turnaround in that song. I'm two years old and and my dad was such a tyrant, and this is way before I'm drumming for him. I didn't start drumming for him until I was eleven, but I remember it was like the musical version of if you ever see in a Bronx Tail when the Hell's Angels come in and they mess up the bar, and that moment where he's like, and now you can't leave. My dad was like, I will make you motherfuckers do that turnaround until I'm satisfied, and I don't care if it takes all night. And literally, I remember, this is the only time I felt like it was a musical punishment for his band. They had to play that turnaround like ad nausea and I'm in bed. It's like nine pm and they're rehearsing in the living room downstairs, and that loop just yea.

00:08:52
Speaker 2: Because so many people said to me, what the hell is a song about someone left a cake out on the rain. It's a monster romance. I mean, the cake is a woman. You know, it's like hello until now.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: Like I again, because I was three years old, I literally took everything that he said in that song, like literally. So anytime I see a coconut cake like Magnolia, like Downstream from Fallon, I still get thoughts of a white coconut cake inside raised storm. Why are we talking about this song?

00:09:33
Speaker 2: Because I just brought up you know how radio was so eclectic then, Like I said, anything went. There was all this stuff, like I said, from Ray Stevens, you know, things like Ali you all these things. So my exposure was pretty broad. What city Sanatoria, Texas?

00:09:47
Speaker 1: Okay? Do you remember the first concert you ever went?

00:09:50
Speaker 2: To tell the truth? I think it was Herman's Hermits.

00:09:56
Speaker 1: What yours is? When was this? Well?

00:09:58
Speaker 2: How to be? Sixties? You know, I was born in fifty one, so sixties. I saw Hermas Hermits. I saw the Who procol Harum quite a few bands early on. I can't keep track of the order, but certainly Hermas Hermits was one of the early ones who I saw quite a few times.

00:10:13
Speaker 1: I saw, you know, the Moon's drum set stay intact.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: Or yeah, they didn't blow it up that day, and yeah, and then people like h of course I got to see lots of great stuff. You know, Hendrix many times, you know, so really yeah three times, Jimmie three.

00:10:28
Speaker 1: Times pre eighty four. Live records didn't feel the same that it always felt like. And then I discovered once I started investigating, that some live records weren't live records at all, like, oh, that's why it sounds so pristine. They were, you know, right every yeah, or some sound check recordings with overdubs or whatever. But I always wanted to know when you saw a live okay Hendricks, for example, were you able to feel the music like that or did it down like tinny and far away, like almost the equivalent of like your monitors being on and only your monitors being on.

00:11:06
Speaker 2: Well that with Jimmy because he came Santonio when he played in an old theater that had a big velvet curtain, you know, it was closed, and Jimmy was using I'm a guitar player, so Jimmy was using these big sun amplifiers at the time, like bigger than anybody used there. He had three of them like this, you know.

00:11:21
Speaker 1: He's the sound would come from.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: He was the first. Yeah, he was the first guy to kind of really crack it up. And I remember I was in the seventh row and I heard, you know, some rumblings behind the stage and I heard this bitch and it was Jimmy plugging in his guitar, you know, all right, and he hit like a fifth on the guitar and the curtain just and we were like, oh my god, what like velser raptors back there or something. And then he started Foxy Lady and they opened the curtain and he was in total green with the hat with the feather and it was so amazing. The sound was so incredible that he was like from outer space. Man, it was like something you'd never ever seen. But so yeah, So in the case of Hendricks, he had a big sent He couldn't hear Mitch Mitchell for shit.

00:12:09
Speaker 1: I was going to say, was the sound just coming from the stage.

00:12:12
Speaker 2: Or mostly from the States? Well, look at the Beatles at Shay Stadium. You know, they just had like sure columns or vox columns. I mean it was ridiculous compared to so yeah, but still you know, seeing these artists. You know, I'm still thrilled to have gotten to see him, you know, Kareem live and stuff like that at the film where No, it was it was incredible.

00:12:31
Speaker 1: Where's the moment where you saw a concert where you noticed the difference where it's like whoa, like real speakers that hit you in the stomach wow? Or was it just such a slow gradual.

00:12:43
Speaker 2: Actually I had a little local band called Flash and we actually got to open for several shows for Zeppelin on their very first tour in San Antonio, Texas had a rule that you had to have a local band on the show for thirty minutes of every show, So we got to open for Zeppelin on their first tour in the States. I was about nineteen, so sixty sixty nine seventy. It was out, yeah, and they were in a big venue and they had actually had a DCPA system and all that stuff. So that's probably the first time I saw real production, you know, probably then.

00:13:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, so you mentioned that you were in a heart rock group, which I'm in the irony of it all is what represents you now. But you know, did playing heavy aggressive rock sort of shape your approach to writing pop melodies now, like.

00:13:37
Speaker 2: Well, actually, you know, opened for Zeppelins just because my manager at the time had a production company they brought Zeppelin in, so we just got to be on the show. I wouldn't say we were so Actually one of my biggest influences at the time was Zappa, so the music was kind of like, you know, a bit progressive. I remember I met Frank and he sort of questioned me about me, claiming he was a big influence, and he kind of put me on the griddle, said, well, like I don't hear the He said, I like you music, but I don't hear the kinship. Can you give me somebods? And I came up worlding in for the money, bow tie Daddy, all this stuff, and.

00:14:10
Speaker 1: Then he's written a ray of song like that. Yeah, everything was in the eleven nine meter like.

00:14:16
Speaker 2: But it was pretty funny with him. So what's interesting about Frank is years later he asked me to come sit in with him at a show out here and I couldn't. And a two weeks later in the mail, I get a cassette and it says Zappa wind that he played right like the wind in his show. Really, yeah, it's a trip.

00:14:33
Speaker 1: How is his rendition of it?

00:14:34
Speaker 2: It's fast. He plays Wahwath guitar through the whole thing, and he said, Chris crosspos coming to I couldn't make it. So Brian the drum roady will be singing right like the wind and uh, it was all pretty funny. But no, so my music wasn't so much rock, although one of my big things on the internet to miss I actually subbed for Richie Blackmore in Deep Purple one time because Richie got sick and I subbed him. So, you know, I have long hair. I had hair, and I was influenced by Jeff Beck and rocketar players and stuff certainly, but but no, so my music was kind of interesting at that time. I said, I was kind of influenced a lot by Zappa and people like that. But then once I started getting into Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson, and then that's when things really turned.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: I was going to say, what did pet Sounds mean to you when it came out? Like I know a lot of us have these kind of retroactive responses to it, like, oh, it was a classic I always grew up with, But I know that that was a hard sell for people. Only certain few got it and people caught on later. But how much does God only knows mean to you as a well?

00:15:42
Speaker 2: I don't argue with mcartney. It's probably greatest, I mean, somewhere of the Rainbows right up there, But I think God only knows certainly great songs ever written. And Carl's my biggest vocal mentor so of course it was very important to me that, you know, because I was so close to Carl and I kind of emulated Carl growing up. But you got to realize, again, you're so much younger than me. Pet Sounds, but see, I got exposed to them early on. Like I remember Brian asking me, what's your favorite song of mine? And I told him it's the Lonely Sea, which is a very obscure tune off an early record, and Brian kind of dug it. He's like, the Lonely Sea, Yeah, cool, you know, and I said, yeah, I used to sit in the dark room and just listen that over him again. But no, Pet Sounds was revelatory. I mean, obviously the Beatles, you know, that's where Sergeant Pepper came in front of thing. So I mean it was incredible. In fact, even and then Surfs Up too, you know Surfs Up that records incredib Remember Mike McDonald picked me up for dinner one night and he had Surfs Up playing in his car, and you know, Mike definitely comes from an R and B place and I was like, wow, cool, and he said, yeah, somebody gave me this. He said it's pretty amazing, and I'm like, well, yeah, it.

00:16:44
Speaker 1: Is vouch like my dad loved. I mean, even though he was sort of cut from the cloth of do op and whatnot, but vocalists were his things. So, I mean, he was listening to streisand Johnny Mathis. He pattered himself after nacking Cole, but he had pet sounds in there. And you know, I remember I didn't catch one until it probably until I moved to London in ninety four. But I remember the second song, No No, the one that has a bike horn in it. Yeah, and when I was a kid, I was really amazed that they had the like bike sounds and bike bells in it. But you know it to me, the beauty that that album represents, I hear that a lot in your vocal Oh definitely, I feel like you're half that. And also how many times have you heard Bill Withers, Like, you have a tone in your voice that's very similar to Bill Withers. That appealed to me because he was like, my god before the Jackson's came along, like Bill Withers.

00:17:53
Speaker 2: Was Yeah, well no, I actually got to know a Bill a little bit. He and Marcia and their daughter forgets her name, beautiful girl. But no major fan of Bills, you know it. That was amazing, you know he was like he was in the army and that he got out and he started doing music and he just had an incredible career in the time he did. But Withers is amazing. So there are a lot of influence. I mean, Karen Carboner was a big influence on me, I would say vocally, but Carl was probably more than anybody else. The guy and Carl and I did a lot of background work together.

00:18:22
Speaker 1: I was going to say, what was it like having him because the list of people that are singing background with you, like from the Eagles to the Wilsons, what is that like having him in there?

00:18:33
Speaker 2: Well, having Carl come in to sing on my second record was kind of out of body for me. I mean standing next to him at the studio singing was just you know, beyond a dream come true. And then later on Carl and I did when Brian wasn't doing that well, he and I would do a lot of vocal sessions as an exempt. We did California Girls for davidly Roth. Wait, yeah, that's Carl and did all the background vocals. Yeah, because Brian Brian wasn't. Ted Templeman called me and said, hey, you know, David's doing a cover of this California Girls going to come in. I said, yeah, sure, and then Ted calls back and says, hey, we're thinking maybe kralcook them with him. I'm like, oh, I get it, now, I get it. That's okay. But so we did a lot of things together, Carl and I did where I was sort of subbing for Brian, if you will, because Brian wasn't that well. So yeah, we did California Girls, which is kind.

00:19:21
Speaker 1: Of have you ever heard is a rap record?

00:19:27
Speaker 2: David? No, Brian's Brian made a rap record?

00:19:31
Speaker 1: Dog? Okay, so that's not right. The Vasti Boys in eighty nine, their pet Sounds is an album called Paul's Boutique, and this is their second album. Of course you know, the first album sold gazillion copies, and you know, known of these Braddy dudes whatever, and they went totally left and made one of the greatest musical art collise records of all time. It's like one of the last Kamikazi sampling records. And it was produced by these guys called the Dust Brothers. It got massive critical claim even though it only sold like it went gold, but it got massive critical acclaim. And I believe somehow Brian Wilson got word. I don't know, maybe kids put him onto it or whatever, but he liked Paul's boutique and wanted to meet the producers of it. So they introduced him to the Dust Brothers. And I think if you go on YouTube, it's not Earth Girls or Smart or Smart Girls, I like Smart Girls or something like that. It's it's almost like it's a PSA song.

00:20:40
Speaker 2: About Is this his answer to California Girls?

00:20:44
Speaker 1: Oh? It probably could be. So he did five songs with the Dust Brothers. And look, I mean, of course old guy rapping. It's gonna come off like the name is Brian and I'm here to say like, and I'm here to say it's always the second every old white Guy rap song. But yeah, he tried it and then stopped after the fifth song.

00:21:08
Speaker 2: But probably a good idea.

00:21:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean I minor the balls and the nerve to try to conquer this.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: So yeah, the adventure to stuff I think's great. I was unaware off to check it out.

00:21:17
Speaker 1: There you go for all the type casting that you get for the genre of yacht rock, do you own a boat? I do not.

00:21:40
Speaker 2: One time, when Sailing was released, Warner Brothers bought fifteen Hoby Cats with the Christopher Cross first album logo on the sail, and they get put him in malls and I would go around when I was on the road and people would throw cards in the boats and I would pick the card out and you won the boat. So they gave me one. So for a while I had a Hoby Cat. But no, I've never what happened to it. I don't know. I've got the sail, but the boat's along gone. I think I washed away in malibur Ing. But you know, I always talk about the canvas doing miracles. It is more also a painter's canvas. But maybe that's trying too hard. I did do some sailing when I was younger, with an older friend of mine who took me out of the coast and stuff, and I'm sure that had something to do with it. But no, I'm not a real avid sailor. I've been on the America's cup boats and Dennis Connor and stuff like that, but it's all just pr stuff, you know.

00:22:26
Speaker 1: And I'm certain that even now you've done gigs at DOC adjacent or oh.

00:22:31
Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, I've done it. Yeah. At nausea, I.

00:22:35
Speaker 1: Say, are you tired of performing near water and outdoors and everything.

00:22:40
Speaker 2: Well, it's like we talked about the Dock, you know. I mean, all of us have kind of a love hate thing with the whole yacht rock thing. You know, it's a little kitchy, but it's been fantastic the way it's brought the younger audience. But I think in the end of the Dock, I think Fagan kind of speaks for all of us in a way. Fagan anywhere it was fantastic because you know, my daughter Madison, who you know, produced the doc and when she the last hold out was Donald for the five songs to get licenses, and so the whole deal with Donald was this, Okay, if you do this, you know, call me up and record it and put it just as I say. Then I'll let you use the song.

00:23:16
Speaker 1: So well, that's all he wanted. This his last middle finger. Yeah uh Donald figure.

00:23:22
Speaker 2: Wow okay, but yeah, sure, I'm the poster child for the whole yel rock.

00:23:26
Speaker 1: Thinker amen own. It is legendary to me. Okay. So the one thing I learned in the doc, especially when you're talking about your grammy journey, have you since that night been able to properly speak to Barbara Streissan.

00:23:43
Speaker 2: Never met her all this time. I saw at a party once and Calvin Kleine. It was one of these, you know, Hollywood parties, and I ran it a Calvin Kline, who I didn't over to start talking to him and I said something, Oh, there's Brobaras stressing. You know, I've never met her, and he said, she didn't like you. But you know what, I think the problem was I have incredible respect for her and she and Barry and they were up for guilty. But the problem was I heard that somebody told her her press people said you need to come to the awards because you're gonna win, and as you know, you know that's that's not really true. I don't think. I don't think anybody knows who's gonna No one knows, you know. After I have messed new artist, I sat down. I was fine for the night. I was done, you know, they like and then other stuff started happening. So when Dinnah Ross, when she announced the album of the Year, I didn't know what to do.

00:24:31
Speaker 1: I just what is the burden of that level of success.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of nowhere to go but down, you know, like Elvis said, doing to be nice to people on the whip. If you don't want to plan on't come back down. For me, it was meteoric and I came out of nowhere, and so there's almost nothing I could have done to sustain it.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: Now.

00:24:51
Speaker 2: I think another page of my second record was a bit ballid heavy, and the first record was much more eclectic. So but I've always made the records from where I was at emotionally, so I couldn't really control that. But maybe if I'd made a record like some of my later records, like Secret Letter in these that are more you know, diverse as a second record, maybe it's been different. But I got kind of labeled as a balladeer, especially after doing Arthur that was in between the first second records, and that's sort of oh that's who he is, you know kind of thing. But I wouldn't change it with thing for the world. But no, it's a big burden, the sophomoric effort. I think everybody that's you know, Bruce hornsby Ricky Lee Jones, it's a tough Tracy Chapman, it's a tough thing to sort of try to do the gate duplicate that you know, and some people Billy Ollis is doing really well with it. But it's a yeah, it's just but you know, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Quest It's like, you know, the career I've had, I never would have imagined any of it. So I'm just thrilled at what's happened.

00:25:44
Speaker 1: Have you ever went through the Nirvana phase where I'm almost certain that a year after Nevermind came out like they refuse to do smells like teen spirit, like we're just not doing it? Like for you is was there a time where you could I don't feel like doing sailing tonight or I like to win.

00:26:05
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I feel it's a disservice to the audience. They paying for a ticket to come see you, and those are the songs they come to. I've got about six well known songs. So I was telling the guys earlier that sometimes I feel like I could play those six songs three times and it would be totally fine for the audience. But the biggest no, no, no, I'm thrilled with the songs. They're kind of like stones in the river that I step on to get across from a note e minute set. But I mean, it's it's tough. I've made twelve albums and I'm very fond of the later work, and it's tough that only a very few people I us know about these later deep cuts, but we do play some of them.

00:26:38
Speaker 1: How do you curate the big six next to what you really want to do?

00:26:43
Speaker 2: Well? You just like I said, there are little stones in the river. I just play them where I've got. I give them a little treat, you know, with a start with never be the Same or something, and then I'll sneak in a couple of deep cuts and about the time they're like, I'll go, oh wait a minute, here's sailing, you know. So, And like the other night, I had something happened and I had to do something acoustically because the PA went wrong. So I played Sailing again on the acoustic by myself and the audience sang along and everybody runs the event. He played it twice. You know, I literally think I could do the tune two or three times that, but I don't regret it. I mean, look, they put me on the map, so it's absolutely great. There are artists I know who who you know, they don't do that. They won't play certain songs and all that, and I think that's kind of a disservice to your fans, you know that.

00:27:25
Speaker 1: I think I shared this before we did a show like once a year when he's active, Dave Matthews will do like his personal festival where he curates all the artists that come whatever. And spin doctors were coming on right before the Roots were about to perform, and like the way that like they treated two princes almost like it was filler, like it was the fourth song or the fifth song. They did it in such a strug way, like oh by the way, and I'm staying there at the side, like wait a minute, like you guys do know that this is the song that they came to hear and the fact that they had another forty to fifty minutes to go without any of their signature songs like was such a curious choice to me, but they sort of treated it like, we'll just make it our fifth song instead of like the encore or whatever.

00:28:25
Speaker 2: Well, you know, if I was elting John and I had I could play two hours of hits, I would have a problem, right. And then there's actually like Steely Dan, where you know, they haven't had really that many big hits on the radio, but every song's a hit. Oh well, man, you know, can't buy thrill in this early. But I'm saying they can play something.

00:28:42
Speaker 1: I know them for the filler. Actually, I know, like you know we we especially your first album, Like I thought half those songs were actual singles and hits. I didn't realize that only a few.

00:28:57
Speaker 2: But four of them were.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, but I identify arts based on their filler. Whatever makes it the radio makes it the radio. But for me, the true sign of an artist is what they do with the songs that aren't that. And so because equality is still high level to me, I just always I literally thought your entire first record was all singles that.

00:29:20
Speaker 2: God bless you to that I think that that you know, Dave Matthews is an artist who's kind of almost like, in my mind, almost like a deep cut artist because he's so esoteric. But I think for me, I'm kind of stuck with these songs that everybody knows. I wouldn't never not play them. I get a wonderful reaction to them that makes me feel great. But the only downside is, like I said, i'd say half two thirds of the audience in my opinion from what I can feel, they come for those songs, and then some people are receptive. But I'll start the show. I go learn to from James Taylor. James up with a blackboard and he'll say, here's the first set, here's the second, here's Bibe James, here's fire and Rain. But I'm also going to be playing some I just saw James. He said, I'm gonna be playing some songs for my new record, and he said, I know what you're saying is goddamn new songs, but he said I want to play them, and it was good, and I do that too. I'll say, listen, hopefully we're going to play all the songs you came to hear, but we're also going to play some deep cuts later. I hope you enjoy them, because otherwise you wouldn't hear them. And you know, people they do try, but they're never getting the reaction to a deep cut that you would. But then again, some guy in the audience will yell out some obscure tune, you know. Okay, so, but and maybe I underestimate how much the audience knows about other songs and deep cuts just because of amun insecurity. But you know, I think it's all a blessing and a curse.

00:30:33
Speaker 1: You know, what is the best compliment a fan has given you about your music? And what's the best compliment that appear has given you about your music?

00:30:48
Speaker 2: Well, the best compliment a fan, let's see, or the most surprising one. Well, somebody said to me, this is a tune. I have a window album called Angry young Men, and it's about teenangs and stuff. And there's a line that says to come to maturity with some sense of dignity, and I really mean it about personal growth. But he said, you know that line in your song. He said, I know what it means, but I also think it applies to your career because you said you've managed to maintain your dignity throughout all these records you've made because you just you keep doing the best work you can and all this stuff. And I loved that comment. And then the nicest comment I heard from Maurice White, Rest of Soul It's starting Marri's White one day and I said, you know, vocally, I'm kind of ethnically challenged, you know, And Maurice said, man, it's not about that, man, I can feel it when you sing.

00:31:42
Speaker 1: True.

00:31:43
Speaker 2: And that was like very heavy for me for Maurice to say that to me. And I think what he was trying to say was, look, man, that stuff's cool, but like the important thing is can somebody feel when you're singing? And he said, I feel it when you sing? Man. That was probably one of them really took it to heart. That was pretty wonderful.

00:32:01
Speaker 1: So all right, so you're a Texas musician, but you're kind of the poster child of what we associate as the southern California right sound. What is traditionally Texan about your music or your songwriting that critics get wrong? What do you feel is in your Texas roots that is in your music?

00:32:25
Speaker 2: Well, I think right, like the wind is. Certainly it's sort of based on all these cowboy serials I used to watch, you know, and also living in San Antonio, there was an allure fascination with going into Mexico because when you were a kid, it was like debauchery and it was all the stuff you could got down there your parents didn't want you to do. You know, I could just get over to Mexico. You could drink tequila and you could do crazy shit. So but I'll admit that, you know, even in Austin, a lot of people because they moved to Austin pretty early on in sixty nine, you know, I was a fish out of water, you know, Austin some more of a blues roadhouse kind of country music kind of vibe. And so I never really fit in as far as my music. And of course I always identified, you know, with the Beach Boys in southern California, so Johnny Mitchell and all that stuff. And so I admit that I'm not your typical Texan kind of sounding artist. Was very influenced by Billy Gibbons as a guitarist, and Zzi's amazing, but you know, Texan is Texas is known for the Stevie Ray kind of vibe, and I think now in Texas. The problem is, if you go to a globe in Texas, you hear all these young guitar players who are trying to be Stevie Ray. And a friend of mine coined a great phrase that they're Stevie Ray vannabees, and you want to go, look, you're not You're not Stevie Ray and stop trying to be him, because there was only one Stevie Ray. But anyway, yeah, I'm not your typical I don't really, except for Right at the Wind, which kind of has those roots. I mean, I don't know, I think that you're right. I'm kind of more of a southern California boy, you know, with what and I grew up you know, Jonny Mitchell, Dave Crosby, acoustic guitars. That's why the whole MTV video thing didn't really I didn't connect and resonate with that too well because it wasn't how I grew up. I grew up with songwriters.

00:34:06
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that because you didn't appear on your album covers or like rarely in your videos. Again in retrospect, especially with a song like right Like the Winner and sailing, Like if Stevie Wonder made videos for songs in the Key of Life, I'd be disappointed because I have the exact picture of, you know, whatever synaestiesia level that I have of what I think those songs are, as we all do with anything that we heard pre nineteen eighty one. But knowing what you know now, would you have leaned into getting heavy into videos, knowing that you're probably the last artist that could pull the anonymous trick and reap in millions in sales? But retroactively, do you think that you would have played that card a little bit different?

00:35:03
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the truth of it is, you know, the video thing came along very much litt But I will say I think videos in general, at least early on, to me, they sort of obscured the lyrical landscape of somebody like Joni Mitchell. I don't want to see a Joni Mitchell video. You know, she's so brilliant that I want to just paint my own picture of my head for whatever she and I'd rediscover her lyrics. All tam Sam was steely down. I mean, the only video Donal ever made it was New Frontier, which he didn't play himself, right, But I'll admit. Look, the first album, that cover was painted by a drummer, Jimmy Newhouse, that I was working with at the time, and he showed it to me and said, I think this is what your music looked like. So I brought it to Warners and they did it. But I'll admit too, you know, I was overweight, I certainly do look like Brad Pitt, and so I was pretty self conscious, and so I wasn't that interested in putting my picture on the cover.

00:35:52
Speaker 1: You know.

00:35:52
Speaker 2: In fact, I remember it at Howard Sterns show. Robin said, you know, she made some crack about the fact that she loved my voice, but she said, I was disappointed when I saw you. I thought you'd looked like Kenny Loggins.

00:36:03
Speaker 1: Oh god.

00:36:04
Speaker 2: And Howard jumped to my defense, you know, but uh but anyway, so I think part of it's that was just my being self conscious about my own appearance that I didn't really you know, I look like Rick Springfield or something. I probably would have put a picture everywhere, but so and then the video thing, I just physically wasn't used to doing that kind of thing, and it wasn't Also what I was drawn to because the artists that I reveal, like Randy Newman, you know, Jony uh They, Tom Waits. You know, Tom's much more theatrical now. But you know, it just it wasn't ever present at that point, so I didn't acclimate to it.

00:36:51
Speaker 1: What was your relationship with the Warnicker and Austin like the Warner Brothers family during that time period.

00:36:58
Speaker 2: Well, Michael Aston most the one that signed me. He a kind of an interesting story real quick. I was sending my demos and from Texas. You know, I'd make these demos in the studio and I would send it to Warner Brothers. And I looked in the Billboard magazine because I didn't anything about an R. I didn't anything about that stuff. I looked in there and there was Moe Austin, chairman of the board, and then below him was David Berson, who was his assistant. So I said, okay, I'll send my tape to David Berson. I did anything about an R. Lenny Worthy couple. I send my tape to David person who'd never gotten a tape. He was a lawyer in Moe's office, okay, and he'd never gotten a tape from anybody. So he's going to have lunch with Lenny worker that day, and he said, hey, check this tape out I got in the mail. Lenny said, give me a break, I'm at lunch. Puts it in and Lenny says, you know what, I kind of like his voice. Give it to me. And that's how it all got started. To give it to Michael Austin to check it out, and then it all and Michael ended up signing me. But I actually the sertatipitous nature of it. I sent my tape to the wrong guy, and Lenny told me at the time they were not accepting any outside material unless it came from a known producer of somebody. So he said, chances are your tape would have been putting an envelope and sent back to you. Thanks, no thanks, But because you sent it to the wrong guy and he played it for me, then you got heard and we started a dialogue. But now I was very close with Russ and Lenny, and I'm still close with all of them. Michael, I saw Michael recently lost his house in Pelsas for Sadley, but yeah, yeah, those guys were the guys at the time, you know, they were producing Brandy and Ricky Lee and all that. And I always wanted to be on Warner Brothers because you know, they had Ben Morrison and Joni and they the artist. They seemed like more of a naturally, the whole building was all wood, and it was a different vibe than MCA or one of the big corporate companies. So but no, yeah, that's how it all went down for me. Man, I sent my tape to the wrong guy.

00:38:42
Speaker 1: So there was a time period in which a record label felt like home and we're nurturing and you could go to those guys and like, when's your version of the Mason Dixon line of suddenly this just became a corporation and suits without I always heard that Warner Brothers was like a home.

00:39:04
Speaker 2: It was, and I think based on what I saw from other companies, you know, not to pick on Memsia of these more corporate well, you know, Napster probably was the beginning of kind of all that. But I'll say that, like, you know, Moe started Repriets with Frank Sinatra, and Moe's was a record guy, you know, from the beginning, and so there was a different feel there. I mean, I think that there was a true love of music there, and so it was a very different vibe of I met a lot of people like I was at Warner Brothers in New York and met Vegan, you know, so there was it was a camaraderie there. Anyway, answer your question, I don't know. I mean I will say one thing. You know, I'm seventy five soon. And there was a cycle of life back then. People talk about the record companies. Yes they charged too much for CDs. Granted they could have sold for five bucks. But regardless, I sold ten million records and Warners probably made a hundred million dollars whatever and whatever I made. But there was a cycle to life. You know, you wrote songs, you went in the studio at their expense, with producers, You made a record, went out on the road, went to record stores and did in stores, went to the radio. There was any way back into the studio. There was a cycle of life back then to this whole thing, and you were not responsible for a lot of it. Didn't have to come up with the money, didn't have to promote their record, didn't have to do all this stuff. So I don't begrudge them for the money they made. Plus it was kind of sweet because you just wrote music and toured and played. Now whether granted there's a lot of advantages the YouTube and pro tools and all this stuff you can do in your house, but promoting yourself, it's all left up to you, and so I lament the loss of all that. It was a pretty cool model.

00:40:32
Speaker 1: So how do you How did you wind up choosing the personnel for your first album and subsequently, I mean they worked on at least the first foard like Michael uh oh.

00:40:45
Speaker 2: Michael Lomarti and was just signed as a staff producer.

00:40:48
Speaker 1: Oh so he see, I didn't come along at a time in which like house producers, right produced, like so Russ Titlement was also.

00:40:58
Speaker 2: Staff producer Lenny Warnicker Ted Temple, So this is why, right, and so Michael had been you know, played Longinson Messina and he's from Chicago and Michael and Marty and he has just been signed. And then Michael Austin brought me to Warner Bros. For the meeting. I was actually kind of a dick. He introduced me to know Marty and I was like, okay, what's up? And I was looking around for Ted Templemanute Gary Katz around who's right.

00:41:19
Speaker 1: Right, right?

00:41:21
Speaker 2: And so finally Michael Austin could tell the meeting was not going well, and he said, you know, Michael and Marty and played on a lot of Steely dance stuff. And I said, because he knew I was Steely Frisson, really like what Michael and Michael and Marty and humbly said, well like everything you know? So this this is great, so I said, And so I said, you know, I just come from Texas and I don't know anything. So I said to him, you know Larry Carlton and he goes, yeah, sure. I said, can you get in to plan my record? And he said sure? And I said, you know, he doesn't do sessions anymore, he's like an artist now and he said no, but I know very pretty well. I think I can play Brik. So here's the deal. If you can get Larry Carlton to plan my record, you can produce my record. And that was the agreement that I made that day. Okay, and later on years later, when I told Carlton the story said, I should have been getting points.

00:42:05
Speaker 1: It came in hot. Okay.

00:42:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, but and then so but the original band they were from Texas. They were the original band that I that I formed back in Texas, and they played on the first record, and uh one tune think of Laura on the second record. But you know, Marty and was used to Steely Dan and used to session musicians. So the second record we went with Steve gadd Nae Bilberril Senior and we started going down that road and Toto and all those people, so we started going there, you know. But that was the model I always dreamt of. You know, Steely's always been my sort of template for the kind of records I wanted to make. So when I had the opportunity to play with Gad and these guys, when I was thrilled.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: Oh man, and there, Carl, did you at any point just have a video camera handy like taping your sessions?

00:42:49
Speaker 2: Just to I think that. I don't think it was video cameras then there was. There was I think the polaroids. Yeah, but no, but it was it was I was my own fly on the wall because it was I started out as a you know originally, and and I believe me, all these guys I worked with, like Jeff and Steve and Vinnie and all these guys, I mean just fantastic players. It was kind of a dream come true because I was kind of, like I said, living the Steely dream. I was working with all the same musicians that they worked with, and I wanted to make those kind of records. I wanted to make that kind of sophisticated pop.

00:43:22
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, now I feel like such an imposter, but like my guitar player, Kirk is living in my head right now.

00:43:28
Speaker 2: It's like love him.

00:43:29
Speaker 1: You never asked you as guitarist, like what gear they like, because people want to know, like what were you using? What was your your acts of choice for that particular album to get that clean sound.

00:43:41
Speaker 2: Well, stratt, you know, certainly a strat for those days, and I think it was playing fenders, you know, it was not that remarkable strat fenders and I think that, you know, my like I said, my my guitar heroes were you know, Gibbons and Jeff Beck and you know, people like that, Larry Carlton. But yeah, I've always been a gearhead, but yeah, it was it was more of the production style of getting these players in the studio who kind of make the magic. You know, you bring in a tune with a chart and they expound on that harmonically, you know, they bring a thing to it, like even Fagan. I think Donald plays well, but I think Greg fill gains Can, Marty and these guys can you know, spread their fingers bigger than Olascar Peterson style, right, And so that's one of the things I loved about what Amartian did for the music is playing, but also the string arrangements and everything like that.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to say, like for songwriting sessions because of Michael's mastery of keyboards and just the way he thinks in terms of chord progressions and whatnot, how did that open up your world as far as ideas you had in your head, Because I mean I've heard the demos of the stuff you did. So the demos that you did, did you do those on your own?

00:44:52
Speaker 2: Well, get them on my own, and I think they're very I said in my box set, I think they're very The bones are there, you know, the bones are there that we a Marty and of course played, He did the string arrangements, He did things to the music to make it, you know, more sophisticated. But the bones on sailing right out the when those those tunes, uh, you know, we had such a long way to go in all those parts because singing him but but A Martian brought some wonderful things to it. And I think for me at one moment with a Marty that was funny was he's probably the most talented cat I've ever worked with. He's just incredibly powerful. But he at one point he was second record. I think he was doing some takedowns. I was playing him a new tune. He was doing some takedowns and I noticed he's writing ahead of what I'm playing for him really, and I was like, what the fuck? Man? You know I didn't play that cord yet He goes, well, I mean I know your style harmonically, so I just figured monitor and I said, well, man, I feel like I kind of a chump here. But but you know, he he's he's so brilliant that he could do that. But no, he brought a lot, a lot to the music. And Uh. In fact, the on Sailing, the solo song was written and we had a synth solo on it, on the solo and Sailing, and I came back to the studio after being at dinner or something and Michael was seen the lights for him singing at the Grand piano and he said, I've got someone want you to hear. He had played the solo to Sailing, you know, and it was exquisite. But I was so wrapped into the Steely Dan thing that he said, and it was it was really emotional for him. He was very proud of it, and he said, and deservedly so. But he said, what do you think? And I said it's pretty beautiful. But I said, I think there's a note in the second bar that's a little late. And he said what And I said, I mean Steely Dan would never let that go. And he just went, you know what, man, I am so I am so sick of hearing about Steely Dan. And he got his portion left, you know, and he'd wait, yeah, he just said, you know what, man, if you don't get And of course I listened to it a few times and when of course it's exquisite, perfect, but I was so wrapped up in the perfection of how Donald Walter worked that it was like and he done all those records.

00:46:52
Speaker 1: Were you afraid of being too pristine?

00:46:55
Speaker 2: No, the more pristine the better. And of course people say Steely's too sterile and all that stuff. I hear those arguments. But for me, I mean they're as first of pop record making at the time, and even it holds up. I mean they're the masters that in my opinion, can.

00:47:10
Speaker 1: You rank your top five steal the albums? Because the thing is, I know that entire catalog, but it's not because I put it on the record and listen to it. I just happen to be at a place where I'll catch this verse of this bar. Maybe I'll be on the airplane. Remember they used to curate the music for you with those little plastic headphones. You hear a song or whatever. I know all the songs.

00:47:34
Speaker 2: Like.

00:47:35
Speaker 1: A great example is uh, it's so hard to pronounce a lot of yeah votasofa I could never say that word. What is it again?

00:47:45
Speaker 2: Bots means like a guru, you know?

00:47:49
Speaker 1: All right? So I think, for one, I'm a weird kid that in a three thousand album household there be a bunch of records that had scary looking covers. To me, so the Royal Scam album covered this is probably why I got turned off the silly Dan The Royal Scam album covered with the buildings with things. Nah, I couldn't do that, so I would hide certain records that were scary to me, either the bottom of the pile or like away in the household, and Royal Scam was one of those things. Which was weird because once we got into the sampling age and everyone's praising Conye for this, you know, genius level sampling and steely damn record, and I'm realizing that too, these things came from Royal Scam. I was like, damn, Like I did myself a deserve is not studying this record because I was scared of the album cover.

00:48:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, kids, Charlot Man on that record score. So my best top five stuff can't buy thrill met all of them. Pretzel logic, you know, Royal Scam.

00:48:53
Speaker 1: Or Katy, what's your number? What's your fifth record?

00:48:56
Speaker 2: Katie Laude? Asia? Of course Asia?

00:48:58
Speaker 1: You know so Asia is number four?

00:49:00
Speaker 2: Well it's a tough one, man. You're uh, Asia?

00:49:03
Speaker 1: All right? You could save one album from their catalog? What is it They're going to give you permission to curate a box set for? Just what's the album that you want to dive into the most?

00:49:16
Speaker 2: Well, probably Asia only because I think for all of us, that's when the big shift moved, when they started to really go into the jazz idiom thing, us jazz players and all that stuff, and it kind of blew up. But it's mind when they and They'll said the same thing, when they started to really let that influence come out, their influences from the jazz era. So I think it's an incredibly gorgeous record. You know, the cover was painted by that comedian Phil Hartman.

00:49:41
Speaker 1: I learned this.

00:49:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but but no, I think Asia's you know, it's Joni. I read something recently. She loves Galcho and Asia both. She just loved and loves them both, and she she really has a lot of respect for them. I mean, I think, I mean all this the later all the records they've made then of course kamic here and some of the stuff they did later it was more groove stuff. But yeah, and then Nightfly when Walter was not doing well. I was in the studio when they were.

00:50:07
Speaker 1: Always wondered why that wasn't a Steely Dan record as opposed to a Fagan solo record.

00:50:12
Speaker 2: Well, Walter, to my knowledge, Walter was you know, using whatever crossing the street and near was sit by a cab leg broken pretty bad. He was in the hospital for like a year, so during that time they had started Gaucho and Donald finished Gaucho on his own. And I actually got to go in the studio when they were when Donald's working on Gaucho. And then after that, you know, Donald made Nightfly just because Walter was not around, so he made a solo record and that's the story I heard. But and then I got to be in the studio in New York when he was doing and we're going on a new Frontier or something, so it was pretty cool.

00:50:43
Speaker 1: But you have to witness that.

00:50:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, Donald, I'd be up with New Frontier. I was down there for that. Also, Roger Nichols's engineer was a good friend of mine, and Gary would Katz would have be down sometimes and Donald was fine with it. But but yeah, I think Gaucho Donald finished on his own, and then Nightfly he did. But yeah, it was because Walter wasn't doing well.

00:51:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, when so legendary drummer James Gatson had passed away earlier yes year, and I revisited all of his session work and you know, of course I know that he is on Nightfly. Like for me, I will say, like ig wise, if I had to choose a soundtrack for like a nonspecific but a very happy moment in my life. Like I don't know what it was about what was happening in November December of eighty two, seventh grade, but every time I hear that song, like it takes me back. And the thing is is that that wasn't a rosy picture of my life. But I think the purpose of music is to appear in your life as the highlight to an otherwise drab and dreary time. So like for me hearing hearing those records, especially with New Frontier and everything like that.

00:52:08
Speaker 2: That, yeah, it was just you know, Greg filling Gains up until just very recently he was in Toto, working with Toto. Now I think he's playing with Sammy Hagar. But anyway, Greg played on my GUI and uh no, it's funny with them because you know, you're right, it's such a wonderful field to that tune. And yet you know, most of the time you see Donald, he doesn't look like the happiest guy. And I just saw a funny thing about Steely DWN the ten funniest things they ever said, and one of them was Walter was interviewed and they said, do you guys have any hobbies or pastimes, and Walter said brooding. Brooding is a big one, which I loved.

00:52:44
Speaker 1: How did you wind up being friends with them?

00:52:46
Speaker 2: Because well, I can't say so. Well, I can't say I'm really friends with Donald. I mean, we're aint. He's like so many people in this business. I know, not like something like Michael McDonald I'm very close to. But Donald's an acquaintance. You know, we're friendly when I see him. But I met him years ago at Warner brother But you know, he's not the most at least in my experience, not the warmest. Yeah, warm and fuzzy. He's not that easy to get to talk to. Walter was more affable. But yeah, I mean, I'm just such an awe the guy. But I've been, you know, fortunate to be. I got invited down with my cats to those two sessions and stuff like that. He's actually wonderful. It's just you know, he's not a big talker. You know, he doesn't really gives you one word answers or stuffing that maybe not to other people he knows real well.

00:53:24
Speaker 1: But you know, I think in I forget the album that they worked on in the nineties, but cats called me in if I'm doing more than three takes, then something's wrong. You know, normally I can nail what you want in two takes. I think I got out there in two hours, right, They were like, okay, let's do it again. I think they have this theory where it's like they want you to be not so studied but like muscle memory. And I think by that point in ninety four, I was so helping on being such a perfectionist metronome, and they kept trying to get me like what you know, like play looser, you know, play more purple or yeah, I'd get finally when I like when I finally got to DiAngelo, who you know, the magic of playing with DiAngelo was you know, the sloppier you are, the more. But in my mind, I'm thinking of like all the drummers in all city high school and obstacles I had to like overcome as far as like technique and especially now, like you know, musicians are so help bent on look mino hands and this technique I have and whatever. So just to undo the perfection and just.

00:54:42
Speaker 2: If you should have doctor Bernard pretty for you went to do the session because you know when Bernard did Babylon Sisters. Michael was on the date, so was Chuck Raindy, and Michael told me that, oh wasn't there, but Michael told me that first take. Bernard got up and walked out, said I got my part and already, and then Chuck Rady looked at each other and like, no one walks out on Steely Dan. So then Donald Walter listened to the board and said he's right, and he got first take. So you got to have his Bravados.

00:55:11
Speaker 1: Party did a session for my dad once and my dad introduced me to him. I think it was like two or three and my dad says, come here, he says, do you know this is I was like no, and he's Bernard Party. He's like, Bernard, tell me how do you keep food on the table? And Bernard's like the two and the four and I didn't understand what that meant. But basically, the more straight ahead you are not fancy.

00:55:39
Speaker 2: Then well of course he you know, he did the famous pretty shuffle, which.

00:55:42
Speaker 1: Is yes, nothing but Grace notes right exactly, all right. So you paint this picture of an outlaw on the run and whatever headed for the border? Did you base that character on a movie that you saw or a dream that that you had, Like, what, what was the basis of your outlaw character?

00:56:16
Speaker 2: For well, when I was my dad was a doctor in the army, So back then you go to the movies for twenty five cents. So we'd go to the movie theater on the base and they would have these cowboy serials like The Lone Ranger or Hoplng Cassidy and these kind of guys, and they were always chasing the outlaw, you know, and trying to catch them before he made it to Mexico. And even though they never showed what went on there, you know, the rumors grew and so it was just like it was, like said Teenagster, the anarchism of just escaping your parents' control. So Mexico became this mystical world of like debauchery, that you could go down there and drink and you could do stuff you know that your parents would hate. So that's kind of what it's about. If I could just make it at the border in Mexico, like the Onion. The Onion some years ago had a thing it said Christopher Cross finally made it to the border of Mexico. But interesting story for you is I don't know I ever told this on a thing. So we used to play the club, you know, covers and stuff like that, and I have to tell McCartney this unless he checked your bucket. I don't think I ever told Paul. But we were doing nineteen eighty five the Wings tune, and we you know, we played four or five hours and nights. He had extend tunes and all this stuff as a dance floor. So we're playing nineteen eighty five. It's a C minor. So we're playing nineteen five getting into a jam and people are dancing. And I started doing that and people I noticed that they were like really getting into it, you know, and it was another level of energy.

00:57:39
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty five. That's where the inspiration for that center around came from.

00:57:42
Speaker 2: So I took that part and I went, you know, there's something about this that's got the thing. So then I wrote the tune around that. I had that part first, and then I wrote the verses.

00:57:53
Speaker 1: Damn.

00:57:53
Speaker 2: And I don't think I've ever told Paul that. He's probably gonna say I should have got a royalties. He is enough royaltieth, But no, that's it. The seat of the song came from my Tenay McCartney, I ripped them off.

00:58:06
Speaker 1: I love that turn around man, wow.

00:58:09
Speaker 2: And but I had that and then I had to build a song around it. And then of course I mentioned the doc, the yacht rock doc, that I had the music all finally finished and we're driving down to you know, from Houston or gig descent to Austin. When I went to record the thing. That's when I said to the doc, which I got all this bad stuff whereas I took a hit acid and were in the car and I wrote the lyrics on the way down to.

00:58:29
Speaker 1: Austin that made you even cooler than me, Like, well.

00:58:32
Speaker 2: Yes, a couple of these guys you probably know them that they were on they have some kind of podcast thing and my daughter sent it to me, said these guys are really cool and they're like yeah, man, all right, Christopher Cross so weed, you know, and they were like totally up. Well, your generation maybe, well, but for my generation.

00:58:49
Speaker 1: I'm not. There's nothing more majority about me at all, like you know, when you have that magic part. And this is what I always wanted to know about song structuring, because for my world, when we're mining for gold, especially in terms of where classic hip hop was where a lot of the music was derived from sampling from other records. You're always searching for the perfect four bars or the perfect eight bars to make your foundation. When you have a magical idea that's based on that, why didn't you make that the main course? Now, granted, the way the song is structured now Chef's kiss, I wouldn't change a thing like that coming at the end made it more magic. But at one point, were you trying to build the song just around that turnaround?

00:59:43
Speaker 2: No, I felt it was kind of an instrumental bridge.

00:59:45
Speaker 1: I did, so you knew that that's your your victory lap and you have to work backwards, right.

00:59:50
Speaker 2: And also from all my other song writing influences, you know, I had vers in Beatles. Hey, you know a BA B you know how to have a chorus and a verse and a chorus and stuff like that, and well that's ABC. Yeah, well well it is, well, got such a long way to go. It's sort of the chorus. But but no, like was sailing as an example, like I was sitting in my kitchen.

01:00:10
Speaker 1: Oh damn, see, I always thought that is the bridge.

01:00:12
Speaker 2: No, the chorus has got such a long way to go, that's the chorus and the bridge is that okay, you know what, it's.

01:00:22
Speaker 1: You know what.

01:00:23
Speaker 2: Quest it's semantics, man, whatever you call it. You're the boss, you know whatever. No to me, got such a long way to go? It's the chorus and then the bridge is about it.

01:00:31
Speaker 1: Up part Yeah, but then you return to the a part to say.

01:00:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would go to another verse, but you know, ah.

01:00:39
Speaker 1: Damn, it's okay. So weird that we're seeing the song structure.

01:00:43
Speaker 2: In a word, pretty interesting. I kind of dig it.

01:00:45
Speaker 1: The roots like you right now, because the roots and I argue like this where we'll battle over where's the one? And of course it's my band, so I get you know, House Rulves. But God, now that you put that in my head because in my mind I tend to make these little short list or whatever, and in my mind I love right like the wind because I was like, wow, the song is so strong that even his bridge is stronger than the chorus, Like the chorus doesn't exist because his bridge just nails it. But you see that, Okay, If that's the case, then or what would you called the song? Why'd you call it a long way to go?

01:01:30
Speaker 2: Well? Because I'm just a genius but.

01:01:33
Speaker 1: No, don't you love the nerve of me trying.

01:01:35
Speaker 2: To I think, Okay, check it out. I think it's interesting. I wish's call Mike Joll say okay, when run like the Wind, like, what do you think the chorus is? And I've never thought this is you bring something whole new. I think asking you're musician friends, like right like the wind, what's the chorus? And see what they say. I could be completely mistaken. I've been thinking about my whole career.

01:01:54
Speaker 1: Wow, this is always thought that the verses of the verse and then the first change in the first change in the song is a bridge that's going to lead us to a destination which is so all ride like the wind, right like the wind, which isn't It's.

01:02:10
Speaker 2: Kind of a reprieve. But I think and I got a long way to go, such a long big that's the chorus.

01:02:16
Speaker 1: Okay, I mean, let's v on this kid.

01:02:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do I know? I only wrote the song, but.

01:02:23
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let you have this. But in my mind, no.

01:02:25
Speaker 2: I think you should. I think you should ask. I remember one of the great things that that mean was Jimmy Jaan Terry Lewis told me that they were in the car and right like the wind came on, they pulled over into a parking lot.

01:02:38
Speaker 1: Yo. They always whenever song comes over, they always pull over.

01:02:43
Speaker 2: And they were telling me they pulled up over the parking lot and turn it up really loud, and Jimmy Terry was saying, what the fuck is this? You know, because they said the whole thing with the strings and all that stuff, just as producers they were checking it out. But yeah, I don't know, we know what seriously was sailing Like Joni Mitchell uses of modal tunings because she had polio as a child and all that, so I got all that from her, the tuning thing, so sailings in a modal tuning. And when I wrote that song, and that's why this sort of mystical thing of the stuff gets beamed down, I don't completely disagree because I'm sitting around just when I started playing that data at a riff and out of the blue, I just sang the first verse and chorus just unsolicited. So then I had the verse, verse and the chorus. So then I started writing with a pen and paper, like it's not Farda Never never Land all that stuff. But I did not have any kind of a bridge. I had this versus and choruses for two years quest because it's in a modal it can get very linear and sort of stagnant, and so it took me about two years to come up with the bridge, the piano solo part, which changes keys and everything to lift it out of the modality of the modal tuning thing, because sometimes moddal tunings are kind of drone and all that. So, yeah, the whole process of this is pretty interesting because but the initial part of sailing, I got to say, I don't argue that I don't know where it came from, and I'm not one of those kind of guys. But it came out of nowhere. I just sang, it's not far down to Paradi at least it's not familiar.

01:04:07
Speaker 1: Win is right.

01:04:08
Speaker 2: Literally just unsolicited it August and then the chorus and all without thinking about it.

01:04:13
Speaker 1: During this period. What are your weapons of choices? Because oftentimes, and I asked this a lot of songwriters, especially now with the iPhones, when I get an idea and I'm alone, I will baseline, okay, first guitar line, rhythm, guitar part, and then I'll return to it four days later. And it is all just gibberish, and I never how do you document when something hits you or do you just suffer?

01:04:43
Speaker 2: Well, when I got up, when I came up with the verse and chorus part, I got up off the linoleum, sure it was on, and just went, wow, that is that's something there that I got something. I'm wanted something here with this, And then I just kept playing and planet planet Now. Sometimes you know, I'll do a little chart, kind of write a little chart of the chords and stuff like that.

01:05:03
Speaker 1: I forgot about that part again, you get actually no, we.

01:05:05
Speaker 2: Had no way to record and that kind of stuff and nothing like that. But no, you just play it repetitively to you. And of course I was sober at the moment, but usually with me if I was high or something and wrote a song that I thought it was brilliant. The next day when I wake up and listened to it, and I went, this is all you know, I think that happens to a lot of people.

01:05:23
Speaker 1: So not enough. It's made about you just having a world class voice and the beauty and the tone of your voice. The guitar solo in right like the wind. You did the.

01:05:34
Speaker 2: Honors I did yes.

01:05:35
Speaker 1: However, I mean, you had access to Graden Lucifer, like, you know, all the aces of that particular moment. What was the decision in having you nailing the guitar solo?

01:05:52
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not really sure. Maybe o'martian said, hey, you should play a solo on something, you know, because I was so enamored by Jay and Larrying all these people. I mean, with the second record with Steve Luke atther when he played some solos on stuff, and of course Eric Johnson was on the first record. A lot of those guys encouraged me to kind of, you know, how you should play something. But I don't know. I think maybe Omartian said, hey, you should play a guitar solo on something. But I'm not really sure how that all went down, but I played it. But interestingly, you know, Biato just did a show about this is the greatest guitar solo you never heard, because it's kind of buried in a wall of sound, but it sticks with you. But so he did a thing where he soloed it and then he did everything about it, and you know, I thought it was really nice, but I didn't think too much about it. But I was so enamored by you know, Eric Johnson who I grew up with, and all these guitar players that I just wanted them to do everything. You know. It was like they're so great. But I think encouragement. Larry may have said to me, hey man, you know you should play something, you know, So they were happy to do the session work. But they were all very supportive about me planned. But yeah, that's one of those that just and also it's probably the most suited to my style, you know. And uh and I told you my early influences for certainly Billy Gibbons, but you know Jeff Beck and Desuals.

01:07:06
Speaker 1: Now, I don't know if this is who who engineered the first album.

01:07:10
Speaker 2: I got named Chet Himes, great great engineer.

01:07:14
Speaker 1: What else didst Way?

01:07:15
Speaker 2: He didn't do much else. He he did that and kind of struggled with some substance stuff, and then he passed away. But he was he was nominated for a Grammy but he didn't win. But brilliant guy and did that first record and he did the second record, but then he passed away.

01:07:29
Speaker 1: And so yeah, you know McDonald's voice on your your records is such a specific I mean you know, there's not enough superlatives for what Michael McDonald brings to the table as far as like his harmonies and and but I'd always wanted to know, especially for his his very distinctive baritone, that is there some sort of consideration frequency wise wise or even chord wise because he is an instrument. I think he's an instrument more than he is a voice, and so is there any consideration to make space for him to shine through? Like okay, well let's not use this particular patch of keyboard or oftentimes if I work on a song, especially with singers that are heavy into harmony one, I have to sacrifice myself. There's certain records in which the rhythm is there, but I'm not fully playing drums.

01:08:31
Speaker 2: Like oh, Charlie whilst leaving off the high you.

01:08:35
Speaker 1: See where I'm going. Like at the time, did you know that McDonald was going to kind of paint all over your walls as you're tracking the rhythm section or was that just an.

01:08:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to take credit, but I do. I mean, like in the documentary, Yeah Rock document there's a thing where Gary and Gary said Donald. Fagan said of McDonald, he sounds like a Herd of Camel's you know he does well. So what happened was we were cutting. We were in the studio cutting the first record, and Michael was kind of taking the streets next door. It's studio. Hey, we were in the studio at Warners. So Marty and Martin went over and said, hey, you know, I'm producing this kid from Texas. She's coming to check it out. And Michael and Bonald came over and listened to what we were doing, and we're actually doing a really song. Really, I don't know anymore, and McDonald said, wow, man. Michael said the funniest thing. He said, you know, man, uh, you know this experience you have when you come to somebody else's session and you think, why doesn't our session sound this good?

01:09:33
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, when you're on someone else's things like.

01:09:36
Speaker 2: This sounds amazing. So that he said, if you need any background votos to let me know. So we stuck on Mike and his face and he sang on that. Then we got around doing rod like the Wind. We had such a long way to go and we were singing it, and of course then we realized, wow, there's only one cat to do this. So and then as the year's gone on. He sang on so many things, but I don't know that we really made a thing. But at the end of ride like the wind, the complaint with a lot of people in my guitar sols baried. He more not feel spectr but kind of a wall of sound. You got the strings, you got Mike's voice, you got all this stuff happening. And it's funny because people say to me, you and Mike sound so good together, and I'm like, what are you talking about. We're completely different, you know, in our style and everything we do. I love him to know these incredible as no one like him, but you know, he comes from a completely different place than I do, and our voices are really really different. But maybe that's the charm in it. But either way, yeah, I don't recall this in terms of mixing, but you know what mixing was. I'm not great at that. My contributions would be like, call me when you're pretty close and I'll come in and tell you what I think. You know, sorry, bring this up. Bring that. I don't have the patience to sit there and like.

01:10:37
Speaker 1: Mass oh, so you're not a micromanager in well.

01:10:40
Speaker 2: And it's funny because steely, you know Donald is, but I guess, but no, I'm more like, okay, we cut the record, you know, get it to a place where you can play it for me, and then I'll I'll tell you had a snared up shool loud or I have good I have good instincts, I think with the overall soundscape, but I'm not big on sitting there going you know, let's listen to the Snares.

01:10:58
Speaker 1: Maxing is my heaven, like well, because I love to hear when a song. Do you get demo? Okay? Well, all right, I'm so excited about everything you said. I'm like losing my composer here in terms of being professional, do you get demo itis? In terms of if you live with a rough mix too long when it's perfected in cleaner and everything, do you still like find yourself like, ah, the demo was where we captured the magic or or are you willing to now accept the new finalized?

01:11:39
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I only want to improve. I mean when we brought in the original demos, the eight songs of what I've gave to warners, you know, we had the demos and that's what they signed me off of. But when we started going to the studio, in a real studio with all the stuff and Amartian. I was not resistant at all to like, you know, wanting things to get you know, more polished and better what Marchael brought to and the whole thing, because you know, I mean the demos. I did my best. There were twenty four track demos, but you know, I've learned so much from Omarty and doing the four records I did with him. But you know, I produced those demos myself, so there was plenty of room for improvement. But no, I don't have a lot of demo itis. I think that I've heard of that. I know what it could be like. But you know, I again, you know I heard Larry Carlton told me that he was emptying for Donald canbut steal it in But Donald would send him recordings of him playing suitcase piano on a little bit he recorded with a little black mic on a cassette and send them to Larry to do the takedowns for the sessions. And I'm like, where are those cassettes? And Larry said, I don't know, there's somewhere. I said, We'll go and get them. Yeah, I was like, and then I found out later from his son Travis that they burned in a fire. But can you imagine Donald thing, I'm playing Babylon's Sisters by himself at a piano with the little mike, you know, try it's priceless, but so no, I always wanted things to get slicker and slicker, you know.

01:12:57
Speaker 1: Okay, So, because it's so flawless, is there a mistake or something that's wrong on the record that only you know about that we don't know about that you hear it every time, like is there half a second of a wrong chord or something like?

01:13:16
Speaker 2: No, they're pretty perfect.

01:13:17
Speaker 1: I think, okay, no, But.

01:13:19
Speaker 2: You know what, when I did the thing about the sailing someone with them, Marty and I brought up to Steely Dan reference.

01:13:23
Speaker 1: Uh huh.

01:13:24
Speaker 2: He said, look, there are mistakes on Steely Dan records. You just don't hear them, just like all the early the Beatles stuff that we've heard, you know, with Paul's voice cracking. And I remember, I think I asked on it once about it and Donald said, yeah, like Walter and I can't even listen to Katie Lyed because it was mixed on some weird speakers that we hate and kimb really Stanton, I saw you talking abou katy lyes like unbelievable, and he said, no, they don't like it. They don't like the sound of it. That's what Donald me. That's what I remember the Donald or Gary telling me. But no, I don't know anything that really really sticks out. I mean, I tried, We worked very hard, and I don't have any musical regrets, you know, with the stuff that I did.

01:13:58
Speaker 1: So I know that the digital thirty two track machine, I forget the the.

01:14:03
Speaker 2: Well, there was the Sony one and then you know.

01:14:05
Speaker 1: Right Misbashi, So I know that well, Okay, so I know that Stevie Wonder caught a lot of hell for kind of the flatness of the Journey through the Secret Life of Plants album. I believe he was like one of the first guinea Pigs to record on that digital technology. Your album was recorded on the same board, was it not?

01:14:32
Speaker 2: Well, the first album's recorded on a Harrison, which is not particularly a great board, but it was what they had at the time. It was steady the out at the time. But I was the first album was right, no analog two tracks, okay. The second album we used one analog machine and one digital machine the three M digital machine. The first album was all analog.

01:14:50
Speaker 1: At the time. Could you tell like a difference or I mean, I'm sure we all sold like perfect sound and da da da da da.

01:14:57
Speaker 2: But we cut the basic tracks on the twenty four track analog machine. Just have liked sound of the drums and everything. I mean, I think analog superior is about especially for drums and based things. There's a warmth there. But then we got used the digital machine. I did like the fact that you could, even early on with those machines, you could drop in twenty seconds of something, you know, so that you know, I used to stand that there for hours singing parts. If I was flat, I had to sing it again and all that, so you know, you got into the comping thing. So that was why people liked it a lot. But no, I still think analog over I don't know what they said. I think analog is superior as far as a great analog machine. In fact, Eric Johnson cuts his basic tracks on two inch sixteen so it's a two inch machine, but it's a sixteen track head, so the gaps are wider. Oh, and then he saves that tape and sets it aside, and then when they mix he brings it out again.

01:15:49
Speaker 1: I never thought of that.

01:15:50
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's that to get the real meat.

01:15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm learning a lot of here. Now you're telling me that this is a make especially the record. Let's start up Lovie.

01:16:00
Speaker 2: Before you were born, you know, this stuff was happening, but no, analog is amazing. But certainly the convenience of digital with all this stuff. I mean, there was a thing Elliott I forget his name now, he built this comping machine this before you're born. Probably you put in trs from the console. You put in seven tracks of vocal come in from the board, tracks of vocal, and you could pick A and B track and you could slide this fader over. It was a really expensive machine. You could slide it over to do a comp so fast really that it was a manual comp And I'm already and used it a lot. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Seven vocal tracks come in, he says, okay, I want these two words from this track onto this track here, and then right at that point he slides the fader over and it slides track seven to five. That kind of thing, and people use that quite a bit before all the protool shit. Yeah, now it's just so much about convenience and the even I just thought commercial was shack where they're doing.

01:17:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's just hitting me right now. Your album comes out, I mean really in the dawn of the eighties, and I remember, Okay, so I specifically remember where I was when I first heard you. My dad was buying a brand new stereo system, you know, he was like a gearhead and whatnot. So your album was used as the demonstration record to show us what speakers. However, another piece of technology that gets invented kind of the same year that your album coming out is the Walkman, right, So for such a perfect sounding that's made for stere Yeah, was there concerns that now? Because even now when I create, most of us get our like we now judge it based on playing it on our laptop or listening on the phone or whatever. It's no, it's not. I haven't heard music on loudspeakers in a second in the age of Walkman. Where was that concerning that?

01:18:27
Speaker 2: Very much? So it was not welcome at all. In fact, it just evolved from there in my opinion, And of course, like Neil Young came out with this thing called the Ponos. I still have my pon Yeah, that Neil brought out and trying to somehow rectify the situation. But no, it just devolved from the still trying to fix it. Well, I mean Neil brought it out trying to fix No. He Neil brought the Ponos out, and I remember he took it tomorrow Austin and showed him trying to fix this problem with the degradation of the quality of the MP three and all that stuff.

01:18:56
Speaker 1: Wait, you're saying that he has been working on the ponos for the longest time.

01:19:00
Speaker 2: Well, no, this is a long time ago. I'm saying when all this stuff came out and there was this degradation with them compression and all that stuff and compromises, and you know, Neil brought out this Ponos thing, the thing like this, and he brought it to my Austin showed it to him because it was like really high five and it was twenty four bit or whatever. It was just a lot better. Now thinks are getting much much better. We got ninety six K and all that stuff. But no, that was a drag to have to listen to. In fact, my second record Another page was this first record on Warner Brothers on cassette, and you know, cassette sound like shit. I mean the tape is like that big you know.

01:19:39
Speaker 1: Wait, I didn't. I didn't realize that.

01:19:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, just on Warner Brothers. Another page, the second record they added Arthur to it on the cassette only, and so you could get to buy the cassette.

01:19:50
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask you how come you didn't put Arthur on the second record.

01:19:55
Speaker 2: Because there was a lot of contractual shit with doing our Arthur. It wasn't on Warners or whatever the case, but Warners ended up they put it on the cassette to drive people to buy cassettes so you can bought another page vinyl. It wasn't on there, but if you have, that's marketing. But to me, when you put on the album, you know and listen to it, it's made. But then the cassette is disappointing.

01:20:18
Speaker 1: You know, I've read that, And I don't know if this came from you opening for Zeppelin. You brought something from Jimmy Page. What is it that you?

01:20:27
Speaker 2: Oh, Jimmy. Jimmy was playing these high wad amplifiers from England that this got Dave Reid Mason's garage and the only people that I'd seen in magazines were he in Townsend. So I was on the road. I was on the couple shows with him, and I was hanging out and you got to realize, first tour in the States, there wasn't all this security. They weren't huge like they got. So we all shared the same dressing room. It was kind of like access and Jimmy was very, very nice, and so you know, I asked him about these amplifiers. I said, wow, these are so cool. I've seen him in magazines, but we don't have them here and he said, well, just Pete and I have them. But he said, if you want one, give my guy some money. We'll have Dave build you one, send you one, and again him seven hundred bucks. I was like nineteen, and my friend said, you'll never see anything. But two months later by boat here comes this cabinet and head and I had a high want that Jimmy Page.

01:21:14
Speaker 1: So prime Jimmy Page sold you a camp.

01:21:17
Speaker 2: Well, he had one made for me in England and had it and then shipped to me in San Antonio. But what's cool about I was the Coolescon Santina because on a high watt. But also I got from.

01:21:27
Speaker 1: Jimmy page where is it now?

01:21:29
Speaker 2: I have no idea. Come on, man, sad to say serious, I probably sold it for drugs.

01:21:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're not sitting in an like that with any of your not here.

01:21:38
Speaker 2: I'm always been wrong.

01:21:39
Speaker 1: Where are your Grammys right now?

01:21:41
Speaker 2: Well, they're at my place to stop playing?

01:21:43
Speaker 1: Where in New York and my Okay?

01:21:46
Speaker 2: But you know what's interesting is I saw Jimmy. The Beach Boys did two big concerts in Philly and Russian DC, and Jimmy was on the show Solo planned some blues and stuff on the show. This is like fourth of July. Carl's still alive. Okay, But anyway, I went back to say a lot to Jimmy because you know, I was then. I was Christopher Cross, you know. So I went back so alone. He was very very gracious again, but I told him the story, and Jimmy said, you know, man, I don't remember anything about this, but he said, but I got to tell you. I love the story. It is such a touching thing. I remember it. I've never seen Jimmy since, but I said, he said, I love the story. I said, really, and he said yeah, because it sounds like I was nice to you. And I said, oh man, I was like a puppy dog at your feet. Can I have your pick or whatever? He said, it sounds like I was nice to you. And I said, you were so nice you can't imagine, he said, And Jimmy said, you know what.

01:22:36
Speaker 1: Legend terry people love when the boomerang comes back.

01:22:40
Speaker 2: He said, I like this story because he said, I've not always been the nicest guy. That was just like heavy man, meaning like we got huge, and there were moments when I probably wasn't that nice, and so the fact that I was nice to this young kid got you this amplifier. I mean, remember but and I thought that was I don't know Jimmy at all, but I thought that was very touching that he said that, because you know he was he was so patient and nice. Churse they weren't huge then. In fact, after the first night, we were in the dressing and beyond the second show and Jimmy said, how do you kids? He and Plant said, how do you kids follow us around? Or your parents are rich or something? And I said, well, no, we're opening the show. And he said really, So we weren't very good. But the next night we're playing our set. Thirty minutes, I look on the side of the stage and there's Jimmy and Robert standing there, Robert and his classic Swayed vest. And they didn't stay very long, but they said, yeah, but it was crazy. It was fantastic opportunities to and so that's where the Ginger Breaker story. Same thing, this same promoter, Joe Miller, put me on a bunch of different I used to work for Joe as a production assistant, doing anything I could do just to learn about the business. And my job that night when Blind Faith came through town was to gingerhead ulcers. So my job I got a big silver bucket with ice, and my job was to get quarts of milk, which I'd have the spout open, and I crouched down behind Ginger's kit silver double bass drums. And remember I was a drummer, So I crouched behind back there and my job was to Ginger would reach down, I'd hand him a quarter of milk. He would chug it and then just throw the carton, you know. So by the end of the night, and it was amazing quest watching him double. You know he was technically you know, it was amazing and watching him. By the end of the night, I'm sitting there and I'm covered with milk and Ginger and and Ginger gets up and doesn't say one word to me. He doesn't say thanks, thanks a lot, kid, nothing, just like couldn't couldn't, couldn't be bothered to say, hey, thanks a lot.

01:24:48
Speaker 1: You know, this is the promo, this is the cliff where what is now?

01:25:01
Speaker 2: So that that was my only interaction with Ginger Baker, But I got to tell you it was staggeringly cool just to be that close to him and watching him play.

01:25:09
Speaker 1: When I when I saw that you did it. My my my question, d was how did you survive Ginger Baker? Okay, that's that's the nicest.

01:25:18
Speaker 2: Now he would just and he'd just throw the cord and it hit me. Yeah. And I had the silver bucket with all the eyes from the coats and milk, and they said, now, kid, be sure that you opened the spout so it's ready. And when Ginger grabs it, I go and he can just chug it. You know, I guess it's south is Ulcer. But so later on, as the years went on and I heard all these stories about mister Baker that I realized, well, that seems to be kind of and of course I did. I did get to know Jack Bruce quite well and did stuff with Jack. And I was telling Jack then he said, well, man, that's you know, that's ginger.

01:25:51
Speaker 1: Did you appreciate how close you were to the fire.

01:25:54
Speaker 2: Or oh yeah, I mean again, man, you know, like you know better than anybody, like at a Beyond say show, you wouldn't get anywhere near her are out or you know, but no, in those days, it was more relaxed, like it wasn't big security.

01:26:07
Speaker 1: No.

01:26:07
Speaker 2: I'd come out Peter Grant like no, and well for blind Faith, like I would come out during the day and sit on a case and Eric would come out with his red through thirty five and his martial stacks like in the cream days. He was still there and he would just play for like thirty minutes in the hall by himself, and I was just sitting there watching that. And it was life changing. I mean, to be around that stuff. Nowadays you wouldn't get near them, but in those days it was it was different. Question. It was just like all the security stuff that we have now, it's just it's all blown up. It's kind of like you said earlier about the sound systems. I mean, it was just different then. They weren't huge, huge stars like they are now.

01:26:44
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, So you know, I would imagine one of the burdens of coming out so strong is that, you know, there's a portion of the audience that's just attached to that particular work or not. And don't say all of them, but what projects are near and dear, like close to you that you felt were overlooked that we should pay attention to.

01:27:14
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, you know, it's like when you have kids, you know, the little ones are always the kind of the most precious and all that. So as much as I'm so proud of the first work I did, I made twelve records over the years, and the later ones, like Secret Ladder and Doctor Faith, they're kind of in this later area. Those two are just I think, really really and Doctor Faith in particular is no keyboards on the work. It's all guitarist textures and stuff. So I think Doctor Faith's Secret Ladder or two I'm extremely proud of. I think the songwriting holds up, you know, trying not to look the record have any Cereal on it, every record, So those two I think are are worth a listen, but you know, and they're fans that know them, but they didn't sell, I mean collectively the next ten records after my first two, you know, sol or anything compared to the first two, you know. So, but I've always done what I love to do, and I did it from my heart, and so I'm not really doing any new work at the moment, but super proud of all that work. And we do play those songs in the show because I insist on at least trying to expose the audience to some of these later tunes. And and I'll enevitbly gets some social media to say, hey, why didn't you play Hunger or one of these obscure tunes. I said, well, you know, no one really cares, you know, but people do care. But so it's it's a hard balance because I think two thirds of the audience comes for Arthur Sailing, right, like the win those songs.

01:28:32
Speaker 1: You know, So of those twelve records, what's the most creative, rebellious thing that you've done that I'm not aware of?

01:28:41
Speaker 2: Interesting? You know about Secret Ladder, It's it's it's a it's a thing where it's got a guitar, acoustic guitar, and people are climbing out of the soundhole, up the frets to heaven, you know, to the clouds. And Jimmy, when I was on the show with you, Jimmy wanted an album to show and I said, well, we only put it on CD. When have an emma, Jimmy had one made up and he showed it, you know, And then Jimmy said to me when I was standing out there, he said, this is like the coolest idea, Like who get you know? This is cool with the guitar because he plays guitar. But anyway, I digress. What did you ask me? Oh?

01:29:15
Speaker 1: No, I just have you ever done anything? Oh rebellious creatively? Well, there's a song on your rap record with the Dust, but yeah, I'm playing.

01:29:25
Speaker 2: There's a song on album called Every Turn of the World's my third record, and a song called Charm the Snake, and it's pretty aggressive, and I think it kind of hurt me at radio because radio just couldn't couldn't play it. It was just too rock for them, you know. But it's and actually I think Hinley at one point told me like one of the favorite things I've done because it was kind of like Sunset grill or something. You know, it's pretty aggressive, but and I used this weird instrument called the synthax and stuff. But anyway, that's kind of an outside track for me. But by that time I was cemented as the ballot a deer and and radio just couldn't handle it playing. You know, I wasn't going to get played on album radio and it was too aggressive for pop radio, and I kind of just fell down the middle. But that's probably the tune that's probably the most.

01:30:11
Speaker 1: You know, what's the best advice that you were given? And subsequently, what's the advice that you are glad that you ignored?

01:30:22
Speaker 2: You know, I think I think McDonald at one point said, you know, bad or good like the out rock thing. Mike said, you know, bad are good. When people are talking about you, they're you know, mentioning you, that's a good thing.

01:30:33
Speaker 1: You know.

01:30:33
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm glad to be humiliated or whatever it takes. It takes, you know, but uh yeah, you know, I think it's it's uh far as what to tell people. I mean, send your tape to the wrong.

01:30:44
Speaker 1: Guy, you know, Oh, that's one.

01:30:48
Speaker 2: I mean, it's our business. As you know, it's it's so tough. There's so few people. I thank the audience every not for their support, because I said, there's so many musicians that I know and don't know who never had this opportunity to sit up here and play the music for people, you know. And so I think people like Carl Wilson and Brian and people like this that I got to meet, who you know, just recognized me and you know, as an artist and all that kind of thing, even like Paul, you know, like McCarty apparently you know, there's a book where John Lennon, I guess, talks about sailing and he was a big fan and all this stuff, and I never got to be John. But I asked Paul about and Paul said, well, I don't, I don't know per se you know that about that particular thing. But I know that we all had your record, and I'm like, now, wait a minute, you all had my record. He goes, well, everybody had your record.

01:31:34
Speaker 1: And you do know that everyone had your record.

01:31:36
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, wait a minute, you're the Beatles. You have so you know those kinds of moments where John Lennon. You know, those are the things that validate you to where like I told Johnny Mitchell once, I said, I I told her I want to write down everything you say. But I said, you know, I hope I wish my music could mean as much to someone as yours as to me. And she said, well, you know, I look at music and it's like some people don't like my voice or don't like my music, you know. And she said so, I'm not sure right, Well, she was just being gracious, but she said, so, you know, you do what you do, and you know, some people embrace some people don't.

01:32:13
Speaker 1: You know.

01:32:14
Speaker 2: And I think and these friendships that I've had over the years, like Randy Newman, people like this that I rever so much that you know, I just feel somewhat validated, like I said, people like Brian Wilson. And in my house, I have framed one Christmas Eve. I got the tube in the mail and it was an orchestral piece of paper with God only knows written outside by Brian. Oh wow, and I have it and Brian. I asked Brian why he sent it to me. He said, well, because I know how much you love Carl and he's saying that I thought you'd like to have it, and you still have it, right, I do. And Carl said to me once, Carl said, when we were doing all these vocal sessions, he said, we make a nice sound. I love that man. So all these little validations I think, you know, in spite of the meteoric early success and that stuff means the world to me.

01:33:01
Speaker 1: You know, what's your favorite mental album?

01:33:06
Speaker 2: Well, Hezia really well, I mean listen Blue Blue for the Roses. I mean I can, that's what I like. Steely Dan like, don't make me pick, but if I mean Hezia's when she got with Jako because of Zacho, well, no, it just opened up her head. And I think even more than Summer Lawns well, Edith and the Kingpin. Don't make me choose, but yeah, I think yea certainly Edith. But Haia like I heard that. Joan said to some bass player, Uh, can you play something besides the root And he said, lady, I'm a bass player. I got four st rings. That's what I do. And she said, he said, but there's this guy in Florida. I'll give you his number. He does that kind of shit and it was Jacko, and she called him and he flew out to La and Jones said, immediately we had a conversation musically, but I feel like Hazia, but Hissing's amazing, like I said Edith in the Kingpin and you know, uh uh, I mean Scarlett. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean there's not a bad piece of music in any of that stuff. I mean, Blue is incredible, Ladies of the Candle that but for the Roses is one that Ludwig's on, all that stuff. I love that stuff.

01:34:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I've I've Butzer for You is the yeah, and I love it. I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining, but it's just everyone always goes to that. But I always feel like that's like saying Thriller is your favorite album, or Songs in the Key of Life like or Sergeant Pepper's like and no One I think. I still say the Hissing of the Summer Lines is.

01:34:36
Speaker 2: Well, it's right. I agree with you. I mean, like Coyote and those tunes stuff. But you know, with Stevie, it's interesting because not probably songs a yes, but like Superwoman was on Music of my Mind. Yeah, I mean that to me.

01:34:50
Speaker 1: Oh, no, there's nothing like Music of My Mind.

01:34:52
Speaker 2: Sounds a quil but Music of my Mind, I mean that record is one that really really got me.

01:34:56
Speaker 1: You know, I'm with you there before I close my fire, I don't question is oh because of the iconic flamingo artwork on your album covers, where is the original drawing that adorned the debut album?

01:35:14
Speaker 2: I think I would hope that Warner's probably has it, because what happened was when Jimmy newhouse, this drummer came in with it was an album shaped size thing, but it was the water color was covering the page. It wasn't in the green right, and he said, I think this is what your music looks like. Hung it on the wall, kind of like a focal point. And then when I went to Warner's we got the album deal. You know, they put up fifty records a month. I said, what do you think about this? And they said, you know, it's cool. I said, okay. So then they had this guy Flora Holmes in Atlanta kind of put the green around it and all that. But somewhere peach Onsen are one of the art people at Warner's, is probably in the Warner's archive. Somewhere where they kept it because I gave it to him to draw the original thing with it. But originally it was almost like a Joni Mitchell watercolor. But the whole album was just that lagoon scene, and then you put it in the circle and the flamingo has no particular Everybody asked me, like, what's the significance. It's just kind of like Linda Ronstet's heart. You know, it just became a thing that people identified me with. So now, at one point when the record stopped selling very well, one of the guys said, I think we should take the flaming go out back and beat the shit out of it.

01:36:20
Speaker 1: Oh man, well, Christopher Cross, I thank you so much. This is like, even as you were talking, I think it was the first time I had an out of body experience where I actually said to myself like, wow, I feel like I'm listening to the world's coolest music podcast. Then I was like, idiot, this is your podcast.

01:36:41
Speaker 2: Right, No, no, you tukon. I'm honored to be here. I'm a massive fan, and yeah, I filled to call your friend, and I'm just glad to speak the time with you.

01:36:50
Speaker 1: Thank you for embracing me and I thank you so much and yo the great Christopher Cross on the Quest Left Show and we will see you on the next round, people Right. Quest Love Show is hosted by Me Amir Quest Love Thompson. The executive producers are Sean g Brian Calhoun and Me. Produced by Brittany Benjamin and Jake Paine. Produced for iHeart by Noel Brown, Edited by Alex Convoy. iHeart Video support by Mark Canton, Logo's graphics and animation by Nicker Blog. Additional support by Lance Coleman. Special thanks to Kathy Brown. Special thanks to Sugar Steve Mandel. Please subscribe, break review and a share a Quest Love Show wherever you stream your podcast, and make sure you follow us on socials That's at q LS. Check out hundreds and hundreds of QLs episodes, including the Slim Supreme Shows and our podcast archives. Westlim Show is a production of iHeartRadio.