Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. For
Speaker 1: those of you new to the show, I interview musicians,
Speaker 1: tech stars, business people and hope to give you some
Speaker 1: entertainment and some education at the same time. For those
Speaker 1: who've been listening for a year already, you know the drill.
Speaker 1: My guest today is songwriter and performer extraordinary Carla Bonoff.
Speaker 1: I normally don't give a huge intro, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to it this case. How did we know the name
Speaker 1: Carla Bonoff? She wrote songs on the Linda Ronstad album
Speaker 1: Hastened Down the Wind, and I moved to l a permanently.
Speaker 1: I was here a little bit before that, but permanently
Speaker 1: in the summer of seventy six, and I used to
Speaker 1: go to this record store which no longer exists, called
Speaker 1: Grammy and Granny Records in Westwood and one of the
Speaker 1: benefits of living in Los Angeles as you could buy
Speaker 1: promo records people cash them in. This is what it was,
Speaker 1: still vinyl before CD. I get a few tales about
Speaker 1: selling my promo c d s. But in the bin
Speaker 1: I saw Carla's debut album. Okay, I still have it
Speaker 1: with the price stick around it because I kept all
Speaker 1: my vinyl. It could have been it was either a
Speaker 1: dollar ninety nine or two forty seven. And I came
Speaker 1: home and I played it. I loved it so much.
Speaker 1: I literally went back and bought all the copies and
Speaker 1: gave them to my friends. And I can tell you
Speaker 1: story after story about turning people on to the first album.
Speaker 1: In any event, Carla, glad to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's a privilege to be here. So how
Speaker 1: did you get those tracks on the ron Stad album? Oh? Wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of history. I mean, that's what the
Speaker 1: shows about. Well, it really goes back to Kenny Edwards. Okay,
Speaker 1: tell my audience who Kenny Edwards was an incredible musician
Speaker 1: and songwriter. But he began in the Stone Ponies with
Speaker 1: Linda Ronstep. So when Linda came out from Tucson with
Speaker 1: Bobby Kimmel and they got together with Kenny and they
Speaker 1: formed that band. So I met Kenny right after the
Speaker 1: Stone Ponies broke up and we started our own band
Speaker 1: with Wendy Waldman and myself and Andrew gold Um called Brindle.
Speaker 1: So we got signed to A and M. We made
Speaker 1: a record they dropped us, which fell apart, and Kenny
Speaker 1: and Andrew went back and started playing in Linda's band.
Speaker 1: Right about the time she was really hitting it big
Speaker 1: with that heart like a will. So Kenny would go
Speaker 1: off on these tours and I would I was writing,
Speaker 1: and I would give him cassettes and you know, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe just put this in Linda's person Um, nothing would
Speaker 1: ever happened really with it. And then when one day
Speaker 1: called me up, he goes. You know, I decided maybe
Speaker 1: if I just picked up a guitar and played the
Speaker 1: song for her myself, um, and she would hear it,
Speaker 1: and he did, added a sound check, he played her
Speaker 1: Lose Again and she totally loved it, and they learned
Speaker 1: it right there and it was in the show. And
Speaker 1: so they came back to play the universal lamphitheater. She
Speaker 1: was playing like twelve nights. That was the day before.
Speaker 1: There was a roof before they down, and yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a fun that was a fun run. But that's
Speaker 1: when she started doing them. So that's lose Again, did three?
Speaker 1: She did if He's Ever? So she was getting ready
Speaker 1: to make the next record. I guess um hastened down
Speaker 1: the wind. So then then she asked me if I
Speaker 1: had more so. Then I just started, well, how about
Speaker 1: this one? How about this one? So that's how it
Speaker 1: ended up being three once I think her mind kind
Speaker 1: of opened up to the idea. Then she then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden it was three. And it was kind
Speaker 1: of weird for me because I was getting ready to
Speaker 1: make my own record too. I didn't have a whole
Speaker 1: lot of other songs. Those are my good songs, so
Speaker 1: we can talk about that. But I ended up recording
Speaker 1: them all those same three songs, right right, And I
Speaker 1: think your versions are much better. Usually the person who
Speaker 1: wrote the song add something extra that someone does not.
Speaker 1: But without making it about Ronstad, how did you feel,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a totally different era. There are
Speaker 1: many fewer records out. Linda Ronstadt one of the biggest
Speaker 1: acts in the country, and she's going to record your tracks.
Speaker 1: In an addition, you're gonna get paid. So what was
Speaker 1: going on in your brain? Well, I mean it was
Speaker 1: huge for me because I'd been, you know, playing with
Speaker 1: my sister and playing in Brindle and playing the troubadour,
Speaker 1: and I mean I've been out there for ten years really,
Speaker 1: from the time I was fifteen till maybe twenty five.
Speaker 1: When this happened just you know, not going to college,
Speaker 1: trying to make a living. So it was like an
Speaker 1: overnight for me, like three songs on that album. You're right,
Speaker 1: I mean not only the recognition, but the fact that
Speaker 1: I would suddenly probably make like a serious amount of
Speaker 1: money from Okay, So how long did it take to
Speaker 1: see a check after the album came out? Trying to
Speaker 1: remember it takes a while, I know, That's why I'm
Speaker 1: asked you. Yeah, probably a year. Okay. So when the
Speaker 1: money came in, did you treat yourself to anything? Well,
Speaker 1: I actually had a business manager who was also Linda's
Speaker 1: business manager, and he said to me, you you need
Speaker 1: to either buy a house or invest your money or
Speaker 1: do something because otherwise Uncle Sam's just gonna take it.
Speaker 1: And he was a great business manager. And so I
Speaker 1: bought my first house, which I lived in for twenty
Speaker 1: one years. So where was that house in the Hollywood Hills? Okay?
Speaker 1: And now you live in Santa Barbara. I think that's
Speaker 1: a well known fact. We're not going to give the street. Um,
Speaker 1: did you move from Hollywood Santa Barbara? Was there some
Speaker 1: place in between? Now? I moved straight from twenty one
Speaker 1: years in the Hollywood Hills to Santa Barbara. What was
Speaker 1: the decision there? The decision, I think was the fact
Speaker 1: that A the music business was not really you know,
Speaker 1: centered here, and I was touring mostly, and I realized
Speaker 1: I can't fly from anywhere. I don't have to live
Speaker 1: here to go on the road. And I think also
Speaker 1: the traffic had gotten so bad that I wasn't leaving
Speaker 1: my house. I was stuck in my house except for
Speaker 1: maybe these these hours between eleven and one where you
Speaker 1: could go out. And and I just went, why am
Speaker 1: I doing this? I don't need to live here. I
Speaker 1: don't have a job here. Um, And I was tired.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm born and raised here. I wanted to
Speaker 1: live somewhere different, never lived. So how many years ago
Speaker 1: did you move to bar Twenty years ago? Now? Okay,
Speaker 1: and that worked for you. You were glad about the position.
Speaker 1: I wish I'd done it sooner. Okay, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the beginning. You're born and raised here where West
Speaker 1: l A West? I mean for those of us, I
Speaker 1: literally live in West l A. So we're in West
Speaker 1: l A right New u c. L A. On a
Speaker 1: street called Warner Avenue. Okay, I don't I can't I
Speaker 1: know the street. Where is that? You know, we're a
Speaker 1: Hillgard Avenue of course, so it's Hillgard comes down to Wilshire,
Speaker 1: it turns kind of into Warner exactly for those people
Speaker 1: don't know. It just really right up beside U C.
Speaker 1: L A. So in Westwood, which, of course, in the
Speaker 1: seventies was the hippest place in l A. And I
Speaker 1: was a ghost top really well. When my parents bought
Speaker 1: this house in the you know, in the fifties or forties. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it was a little college town. It was
Speaker 1: a sleeping college town. You know, they wanted to live
Speaker 1: there because it was quiet. Okay, let's stay there. Your
Speaker 1: parents or your father did what for a living? My
Speaker 1: father was a radiologist, okay, and so was my grandfather.
Speaker 1: My grandfather, Um, was the first radiologist in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: actually first radio has doctors didn't specialize then, they were
Speaker 1: general practitioners. So he went to USC and and actually
Speaker 1: specialized in being a radiologist. This is your grandfather, my grandfather,
Speaker 1: and and your father followed in his footsteps. And okay,
Speaker 1: so it's married to your mother. Did your parents stay married? Yeah? Okay?
Speaker 1: And how many kids too? I have an older sister,
Speaker 1: an older sister, what's she up to or what it
Speaker 1: was her life about? Um? She and I played music
Speaker 1: together a lot and starting as teenagers. Um. And then
Speaker 1: she decided she didn't really like it that much, so
Speaker 1: she went back to school and got a PhD at
Speaker 1: U c l A. And what in history of religions?
Speaker 1: And what was your career if if there was one
Speaker 1: after the PPD ended up teaching college. Okay, so you're there.
Speaker 1: And did your parents make you take piano lessons? And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: every young Jewish kid has certainly did. So what age
Speaker 1: did you start at? Young? Like five six seven? We
Speaker 1: had a very strict Russian piano teacher and that was
Speaker 1: your parents idea, not your idea, okay? And did you practice? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did, but it was she expected a lot like
Speaker 1: two three hours of practicing reading music, And so I
Speaker 1: developed a definite distaste for it, and and finally rebelled
Speaker 1: and went, I don't want to do this anymore. After
Speaker 1: how many years, after three or four? I think by
Speaker 1: the time I was eight or nine, I was no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. And did you give
Speaker 1: up music completely playing music at that point? No? I
Speaker 1: played clarinet in school. Yeah, and like yeah, in sixth
Speaker 1: grade orchestra. Do you think you could still play it?
Speaker 1: I don't know, okay, sexually. And when you go to
Speaker 1: school where? I went to school at University Elementary School,
Speaker 1: which was part of u c l A, which was
Speaker 1: kind of an experimental grammar school, very liberal arts oriented,
Speaker 1: lots of music and art. Um. I love that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's on the campus of u c l A. Really,
Speaker 1: And then I went into public school, which was horrible
Speaker 1: from where where was high school? University High School right
Speaker 1: in West l A, where a lot of musicians actually
Speaker 1: went both before and after you. Okay, so you're in
Speaker 1: your house now. It's hard for me to view this
Speaker 1: through the eyes of a woman, But in my era
Speaker 1: were very similar ages. Um, you got a transistor radio, okay,
Speaker 1: which was a really big deal. And when you were
Speaker 1: a boy, you listened to sports first. So were you
Speaker 1: a radio listener? Were you addicted in that way? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I remember having that transistor radio and listening to kf
Speaker 1: W B B Mitchell read. But B Mitchell Read late
Speaker 1: at night would play things like the Stone Ponies. That's
Speaker 1: where I was hearing music like that. Okay, But what
Speaker 1: you're I mean, let's let's go back before when the
Speaker 1: Beatles hit in sixty four. Are you listening to the radio.
Speaker 1: Are you up on popular music? Or is that a
Speaker 1: turning point? Oh? Yeah, I was listening to all of it. Basically,
Speaker 1: Beatles and Motown on transistor radio was a k h J.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember definitely, But before that, because they're
Speaker 1: really was Beatlemania where a beat you a big music
Speaker 1: popular music fan. Well, I'm trying to place my years,
Speaker 1: but I mean, what would what would have been before that?
Speaker 1: I think, well, that was like the Four Seasons, the
Speaker 1: Beach Boys. Yeah, I mean whatever was on the radio,
Speaker 1: we were absorbing. So you were definitely hooked on the radio.
Speaker 1: And at what point does it cross your mind, WHOA,
Speaker 1: I want to do this for a living? Well, see
Speaker 1: that's a guitar lessons and that kind of well a
Speaker 1: little bit slower, right. You gave up the piano after throw,
Speaker 1: I gave a piano. I played violin and clarinet, and
Speaker 1: I finally picked up a nylon string. That's how it
Speaker 1: all started, a harmony nylon string from Westwood Music, and um,
Speaker 1: you know it just sort of rang about for me.
Speaker 1: I got that and so when in this history because
Speaker 1: we had a nylon string guitar in the house that
Speaker 1: we didn't play during the folk era prior to the Beatles,
Speaker 1: and then after the Beatles we started playing that and
Speaker 1: then went to electrics whatever. So did you get your
Speaker 1: folk guitar to play Beatles songs? Or we were playing
Speaker 1: you know, we were playing folk music, folk music, Train
Speaker 1: Puff the Magic Dragon right right right. It was Peter
Speaker 1: Paul and Mary was sort of early music. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: five Miles and all that other stuff. So you got
Speaker 1: the guitar from Westwood Music? Howd you learn how to
Speaker 1: play it? I ha got guitar lessons, but I taught
Speaker 1: myself a lot by ear. I remember just having the
Speaker 1: turntable and like putting on the Peter Paul and Mary
Speaker 1: record and just you know, learning how to play it.
Speaker 1: I just could figure it out. Okay. At this point,
Speaker 1: do you feel okay? You said you played music with
Speaker 1: your sister. Was she playing the guitar too? We were
Speaker 1: both playing Okay. But outside of the house where you
Speaker 1: had did you have a lot of friends who were
Speaker 1: also into playing music? No? No, this was my I
Speaker 1: would just get my school work done and then go
Speaker 1: into my own head and that was my escape. So
Speaker 1: so you were really dedicated. You would really sit there
Speaker 1: with the records, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It was the only
Speaker 1: thing that held my attention really, and maybe because public
Speaker 1: school was so bad, we didn't have great teachers. But
Speaker 1: and then I was fortunate enough I kind of outgrew
Speaker 1: this guitar teacher. I had Prayabe when I was thirteen
Speaker 1: or fourteen, and she said, I don't think I can
Speaker 1: teach you anything else. I think you need to go
Speaker 1: to the fellow that taught me. Who was this guy
Speaker 1: Frank Hamilton's. It was in the Weavers and taught right
Speaker 1: around the corner from here. Were in downtown Hollywood now
Speaker 1: Barney Kestle's Music World, which is at the Yucca and
Speaker 1: Vine Street I heard about. I've never been there before
Speaker 1: my time. L It was a music store and then
Speaker 1: little cubicles with guitar teachers. So Frank, of course was
Speaker 1: just what an amazing talent. And you talk about learning
Speaker 1: the real folk music, you know, he was teaching me
Speaker 1: those arrangements from the Weavers. That's where I learned the
Speaker 1: waters wide and Okay, so you govern the guitar lesson
Speaker 1: traditionally half an hour you call them. You really practice.
Speaker 1: This was your thing, okay, and at what point a
Speaker 1: do you think, well, this could be a career path.
Speaker 1: You know, what happened was I started I don't know why,
Speaker 1: I just started writing melodies and music. I wasn't writing lyrics.
Speaker 1: My sister was really into poetry, so and we were
Speaker 1: both playing acoustic guitar. So we decided, I think this
Speaker 1: was right about when Joni Mitchell's first came, right that
Speaker 1: we wanted to make music like that. So we started
Speaker 1: trying to write songs like that. Okay. For those of
Speaker 1: us who grew up outside of Los Angeles, California was
Speaker 1: a dream. Okay. We had the Beach Boys, we had
Speaker 1: all these other things. We watched all the shows made
Speaker 1: in southern California. Now, were you here realizing that you
Speaker 1: were at the epicenter of the scene, that the acts
Speaker 1: were in Laurel Canyon and you go see in the clubs, etcetera.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're in the middle of it, you
Speaker 1: don't you don't see that. Of course, looking back now,
Speaker 1: it's like insane when I think about all the music
Speaker 1: I could go here, and what was happening at the
Speaker 1: troubudaor I mean, it's crazy that we could see Joni
Speaker 1: Mitchell play for two weeks, two sets at night in
Speaker 1: the Tribute or a hundred and fifty people in there.
Speaker 1: But I mean it never occurred to me. What's it
Speaker 1: like growing up in somewhere in Michigan. I had no idea. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're playing guitar with your sister. At what point
Speaker 1: do you start going out to hear in music? Well,
Speaker 1: we were already going out to hear music. I mean
Speaker 1: we were going to the Tributor every chance we could
Speaker 1: get to. Okay, people, this was now you had to
Speaker 1: driver's license or how did you get that? She did?
Speaker 1: She would drive us. Okay, So you would go to
Speaker 1: the Troubadoor. Where else would you go? We went to
Speaker 1: the Tribuador God. We would go to the Santa Monica Civic.
Speaker 1: They were concerts there. There was this um place called
Speaker 1: the Valley Music Theater that turned into a Jehovah's Witnesses
Speaker 1: that had like we see the Doors and Jefferson Airplane. There.
Speaker 1: There was a place that Cheetah on the Venice Pier
Speaker 1: that had like the same kind of acts. Um the
Speaker 1: Hullabaloo here in Hollywood. UM had a revolving stage that
Speaker 1: would go around and they would switch the band so
Speaker 1: it'd be like Neil Diamond and then the stage would turn.
Speaker 1: It would be Iron Butterfly, and then the stage would
Speaker 1: turn and it would be UM the Sunshine Company. I
Speaker 1: mean all those groups. And okay, so you went with
Speaker 1: your sister, But was there a whole group of girls
Speaker 1: who would go with these shows that you would know
Speaker 1: or just the two of you? It was just us,
Speaker 1: but we met people. We met other people like in
Speaker 1: the Troubadour who were doing the same thing we were doing.
Speaker 1: And there were a lot of people on those Monday nights. Okay,
Speaker 1: well from my audience talked about Monday night. UM. During
Speaker 1: the week the Troubador had national acts like James Taylor,
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell. Earlier than that, we went to see people
Speaker 1: like Joe and Eddie and Buffy st re right right right,
Speaker 1: you know, Um Joe and Eddio from Toronto. Bob ezbrind
Speaker 1: goes on to me all the time I had had
Speaker 1: a dial them up on the internet. I've never even
Speaker 1: heard of them. Yeah, so there were acts like that.
Speaker 1: I remember Tim Buckley was of course one of the
Speaker 1: great albums. Yeah, and Robert Klein would open for Tim Buckley.
Speaker 1: Really they always would have comedians. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think of all the people we would go see everything
Speaker 1: that was happening there. Um. So you're in terms of money,
Speaker 1: you're in my family. If it was had to do
Speaker 1: with the arts, there was unlimited money. And in terms
Speaker 1: of going to the show, where did the money come from?
Speaker 1: Your allowance or your parents? Dug into the roll and
Speaker 1: thought about that. I guess it wasn't expensive to go
Speaker 1: to the True Door. It probably was like six dollars
Speaker 1: or five dollars to get in there. I think we
Speaker 1: never had any trouble getting in there. Okay, so it's
Speaker 1: Monday night is hoot night. Monday night was whot night. Um.
Speaker 1: And maybe there were four or five slots in that
Speaker 1: you could get on, just to be clear, because I
Speaker 1: was this is before my time, so there were only
Speaker 1: four or five acts a night. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: the record companies maybe would put acts on for just
Speaker 1: those of us who were connected to anything there. The
Speaker 1: way you had to do it was you had to
Speaker 1: line up at the box office, um, and wait for
Speaker 1: them to open the window and then if you were
Speaker 1: one of the first four to sign up, you could
Speaker 1: get on. So I would literally cut school. I would
Speaker 1: climb over the fence at Uni, go to the troubador
Speaker 1: and then sit there in that little alcove in the
Speaker 1: window and and get my sister and I on to
Speaker 1: that thing, you know. And it was terrifying. I was
Speaker 1: so afraid doing them. But I mean, Jackson Brown would
Speaker 1: be doing them more every now and then somebody like
Speaker 1: Neil Young would just come and doing for fun. I mean.
Speaker 1: And in those days that the you know, the bar
Speaker 1: was on the inside and record company people were there,
Speaker 1: and it was scary because a lot of people would
Speaker 1: see you. Okay, so do you remember what year you
Speaker 1: first appeared? Um? I was sixteen, so probably, um, sixty
Speaker 1: nine maybe, Okay, so you're there. Are you any good
Speaker 1: the first time? I don't think so. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think my sister and I had some promise we could play,
Speaker 1: and I think I was writing some interesting music, but um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't singing well and we were very young. Really,
Speaker 1: you would you bill yourself as the daughters of Chester
Speaker 1: p What does that mean? My dad was Chester Paul
Speaker 1: bon Off. So we came up with that name for
Speaker 1: because Lisa and Carlos seemed stupid. So okay, so how
Speaker 1: many times do you do that? At the Troubadoor? We
Speaker 1: did them a lot. We also went down to Pasadena
Speaker 1: and did the ice House. We did that. There was
Speaker 1: a little restaurant in Santa Monica called the Attica. We
Speaker 1: would get up and play there. Um. One of our
Speaker 1: very first I told the story the other night um
Speaker 1: jobs that we got was at this club called Artie
Speaker 1: Fat Buckles, which was at Sunset and Gardener, down some
Speaker 1: little steps and we got hired. And the people that
Speaker 1: hired us said, you'll be opening for these two guys.
Speaker 1: Their name is Long Branch Penny was and we were
Speaker 1: like who Um, So we walking in there was JD. Southern,
Speaker 1: Glenn Fry twenty three and nineteen. Now you're there and
Speaker 1: you're having these Are you I hate to use the
Speaker 1: modern term, but I will anyway. Are you networking with people?
Speaker 1: Are you saying are you just waiting for things to
Speaker 1: come to you? I don't think anybody was thinking I wasn't.
Speaker 1: We were just excited to be playing there, and I
Speaker 1: think to be just in the environment. Um. When Jackson
Speaker 1: would get up and play a new song. It would
Speaker 1: just be amazing to me. I mean, I don't think
Speaker 1: I was really thinking about getting a record del yet.
Speaker 1: I was just feeling whether that could be something I
Speaker 1: could actually do. Um. We did ultimately make a demo
Speaker 1: for Electra. I still have a coffee of it. It's
Speaker 1: pretty My sister and I did. We got um. I
Speaker 1: went to school with Jim Densmore, who was John Densmore's
Speaker 1: younger brother, and some have the Doors of the Doors.
Speaker 1: John got us an audition UM with David Andrew Ley. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we went in and they had us go in
Speaker 1: the studio and play our repertoire live just you know.
Speaker 1: So I actually have a tape of us playing that
Speaker 1: and laughing and being embarrassed. And we didn't get signed.
Speaker 1: But what do you remember what they said to not
Speaker 1: make a deal. He said that we needed to remember this,
Speaker 1: that we were too young and we needed to go
Speaker 1: out and live a little, and we were just we
Speaker 1: were horrified. Okay, now what comes to time to go
Speaker 1: to college and you come from a family of radiologists,
Speaker 1: how does that go down? Not? Well? Not well? Um,
Speaker 1: they just said to me, we would like you to
Speaker 1: try to at least go. I got into u c
Speaker 1: l A. Um, go to college just for one semester, okay,
Speaker 1: but when did you decide you weren't going well, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I mean at this when we lost a little time here. Actually,
Speaker 1: my sister and I broke up because she wanted to
Speaker 1: go back to school. So I met Kenny Edwards. How um,
Speaker 1: how I had my sister. Oh, here's how it happened.
Speaker 1: My sister and I decided we wanted to do transcendental meditation.
Speaker 1: So they had a big meeting at Royce Hall at
Speaker 1: u c l A. And it was a meeting to
Speaker 1: sort of learn about going up to Squaw Valley for
Speaker 1: a month with Marishi. So my sister and I went
Speaker 1: to this and I remember spotting this really handsome, tall
Speaker 1: guy walking up the aisle and I realized it was
Speaker 1: that's Kenny Edwards of the Stone Ponies. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: he was a rock star of course, of course, and um,
Speaker 1: so that's how I met Kenny. Actually I did go
Speaker 1: to Squaw Valley and I well a little bit slower, right.
Speaker 1: So now you're at Royce, Saul, do you go up
Speaker 1: and introduce yourself? Now I didn't there but my sister
Speaker 1: and I signed up to go to this month long
Speaker 1: course with the Maharishi at Squaw Valley. I was sixteen
Speaker 1: or seventeen, she was nineteen. What did your parents say?
Speaker 1: They let us go? I'm sure quite why? And so
Speaker 1: you were there? How many people were in Squaw Valley
Speaker 1: people and Kenny was one of them. And I spotted
Speaker 1: Kenny and I had my Martin guitar and I followed
Speaker 1: him around and convinced him that I could play the
Speaker 1: guitar as well as Joni Mitchell. So was he giving?
Speaker 1: Was he giving you the time of day? You know,
Speaker 1: he had just gotten out of the Stone Ponies, and
Speaker 1: I think he really wanted to focus on his spirituality
Speaker 1: and he was not really I don't know. He wasn't
Speaker 1: focused on me at least not at that point. But
Speaker 1: ultimately there was a romance with Kenny. How much longer
Speaker 1: after you meet him? Does? Um? He went off to
Speaker 1: India because he was really deep. He was deep into
Speaker 1: it and he wanted to become a teacher. So he
Speaker 1: went off to India. But when he came back, um,
Speaker 1: somehow we got together and he knew Wendy Waldman and
Speaker 1: Andrew Gold from another. I can't even remember how he
Speaker 1: knew them, but we all got together and decided to
Speaker 1: form a group. So our romance began and our group
Speaker 1: Brindle began, probably Candle, Oh God, Andrew thought up the
Speaker 1: name and he spelled it with a y because he
Speaker 1: was such a Birds fan. So we just went, Okay,
Speaker 1: that sounds good. So it's got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: those dogs that are different colors, striped whatever. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're forming a band because everybody's hanging out or you saying,
Speaker 1: we're going to form a band and we're going to
Speaker 1: get a deal and we're gonna make it. We were
Speaker 1: serious at that point. We wanted to get a deal
Speaker 1: and we wanted to make it, and we did get
Speaker 1: a deal. Okay, But before that, when did you decide
Speaker 1: you didn't want to go to college. I think at
Speaker 1: that point, um, it was just becoming obvious to me.
Speaker 1: I went for one summer quarter and got seasoned D's
Speaker 1: and I was already so deeply in the music business
Speaker 1: at that point. Um. No, my parents were not happy
Speaker 1: about it, but I think I was lucky I found
Speaker 1: what I wanted to do, you know, And Okay, so
Speaker 1: you could at what point did you move out of
Speaker 1: the house when I was about eighteen, and what we
Speaker 1: you know, you're a musician. How you paying the rent?
Speaker 1: How did we pay that? I moved in with Kenny
Speaker 1: and in a house that Andrew also lived in, and
Speaker 1: we rehearsed there and started our band. And so your parents,
Speaker 1: I'm down on this totally. In fact, they were like,
Speaker 1: if you're going to go do that, then leave your
Speaker 1: car here and we're not giving you anything. Um. I
Speaker 1: think they thought I would just turn around and come
Speaker 1: right back. But I'm not quite sure how we survived.
Speaker 1: It was just amazing. We didn't need a lot of
Speaker 1: money then, right, that's differently, you can't make it a
Speaker 1: minimum wage today, whatever your money. We could ran a
Speaker 1: big house for two hundred dollars a month for all
Speaker 1: of us. And where was that house? Somewhere in West Ally. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're living in the house. You form the group,
Speaker 1: so everybody in the group is living there. Wendy was
Speaker 1: not living there because she was living into Panka Canyon
Speaker 1: because she was married. So we three of us were
Speaker 1: living there, but Wendy would come there. And how long
Speaker 1: after you formed the band did you get your deal
Speaker 1: with a and M. Somehow Wendy had met Chuck Plotkin.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how she met Chuck, but Chuck got
Speaker 1: interested in us, and then he got us to deal
Speaker 1: at Day and M. And you made a complete record
Speaker 1: that didn't come out. We did. We made a record
Speaker 1: with Chuck and UM Chad Stuart producing, And what was
Speaker 1: the rationale for not releasing it? You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think they got us. We were two girls and two
Speaker 1: guys writing songs. This is before Fleetwood Mac. It's just maybe,
Speaker 1: I mean, it really wasn't anything like that. I think
Speaker 1: we're on the wrong label. They had the Carpenters, they
Speaker 1: had UM, but they had Joe Cocker and Peter Frampton. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it was two things. I think they didn't
Speaker 1: understand what we were trying to do and we weren't
Speaker 1: really that great yet. I think we needed to make
Speaker 1: another record. Okay, so the record, even you would own
Speaker 1: that the record was not I think Wendy was the
Speaker 1: closest to being ready to make the record. Um. I
Speaker 1: think that it was a little disjointed. Um okay, so
Speaker 1: now the records rejected. Does the band girl really break up?
Speaker 1: Not right away. We ended up going and playing a
Speaker 1: Top forty bar out by the airport called the Carolina Lanes,
Speaker 1: which was a nude room, a bowling alley, a rock
Speaker 1: and roll basically a biker bar, rock and roll club.
Speaker 1: Five sets a night like Top forty, and then we
Speaker 1: would intersperse our Brindle songs in there. Wednesday night was
Speaker 1: hot pants night. Okay, so what you do on Wendy
Speaker 1: were hot pants? How about you? I don't think I
Speaker 1: could do it. But the cool thing about that was
Speaker 1: I had to play a lot. I learned to get
Speaker 1: strong as a player because we had to play all
Speaker 1: these Rolling Stones tunes and Carol King tunes, and so
Speaker 1: I had to learn all this stuff and play all
Speaker 1: the keyboard parts. And I mean it really actually was
Speaker 1: good for all of us. I think, um just getting
Speaker 1: strong as a musician, being able to play that much.
Speaker 1: So how long does that gig last? It didn't last
Speaker 1: very long because I think ultimately Linda had guys go
Speaker 1: and play out in her band, and for us that
Speaker 1: was like, you know, and Wendy got signed to Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: so it kind of fell apart. They went and worked
Speaker 1: for Linda. I mean, Kenny was making nine dollars a week,
Speaker 1: which was like, oh my god, we started saving money. Okay,
Speaker 1: but you were suddenly the odd person out. You didn't
Speaker 1: have a solo deal and you weren't with Linda. I
Speaker 1: would think that was would be depressing. Well I was.
Speaker 1: I was Kenny's girlfriend. So for me, what was interesting
Speaker 1: about that time when I got to go out on
Speaker 1: the road a lot and kind of watch Linda and
Speaker 1: learn from Linda, see what it was like to be
Speaker 1: on the road beyond the bus. And you know, she
Speaker 1: really taught me a lot just watching what she had
Speaker 1: to go through, just watching her do her makeup, watching
Speaker 1: her figure out what to wear. So you're on the
Speaker 1: road with your boyfriend and Linda and you're learning all
Speaker 1: these lessons from Linda. Yeah, and how long does that
Speaker 1: go on? I mean I didn't do it all the time,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I would do it on and off.
Speaker 1: And I mean it was really exciting. She was really
Speaker 1: gigantic star. Yeah and so and it was I remember
Speaker 1: when they when Kenyan Andrews first started going out with her,
Speaker 1: they were sharing a room. I mean, so they really
Speaker 1: started right at that base of things. And when they
Speaker 1: came back and made the record that had You're No
Speaker 1: Good and all that stuff on it. That was really
Speaker 1: the big record for her. But they had learned all
Speaker 1: that stuff on the road and then I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember when they were flying on the Concorde and I think,
Speaker 1: caviare you know? So it changed changed, right, It's almost
Speaker 1: hard to comprehend. But okay, you're on the road some
Speaker 1: now you're at home, you're writing songs. Yeah. At that
Speaker 1: point I really just had, you know, to figure out
Speaker 1: what I was going to do. So I just kept
Speaker 1: trying to get better as a writer. And how did
Speaker 1: you get your deal with Columbia. I actually got my
Speaker 1: deal playing a Monday night at the Troube door. Um
Speaker 1: I started doing those alone. UM Norman Epstein was managing
Speaker 1: me and trying to get me gigs wherever we could,
Speaker 1: but we would still do those Monday nights and UM
Speaker 1: I played one of those. I think Linda had already
Speaker 1: decided to do a couple of songs and I was
Speaker 1: at the Tributor and this fellow, Peter Philbin came up
Speaker 1: to the dressing room and said, I just want to
Speaker 1: congratulate you. I love your music. I'm sure you're signed
Speaker 1: to Asylum or whatever, and and we was like, no,
Speaker 1: we're not signed. So he had just come out to
Speaker 1: be an an or guy. He had not signed anybody.
Speaker 1: He was brand new. So he brought me to Columbia.
Speaker 1: But it was a long road because, um, I don't
Speaker 1: think they trusted him a because he was new. So
Speaker 1: they made me go to New York to the big
Speaker 1: black Rock building and actually audition and for all of
Speaker 1: the all of the people, like in one of those rooms,
Speaker 1: one of those conference rooms with an upright piano. And
Speaker 1: I've never been to New York, and I mean it
Speaker 1: was terrifying. I remember I was staying in this hotel
Speaker 1: and I woke up. We got there at night and
Speaker 1: I looked back to the window and I went, why
Speaker 1: is it so dark out there? There's nothing out there.
Speaker 1: I didn't have any idea. I was looking at Central Park.
Speaker 1: So yeah, in the morning, I had to go his
Speaker 1: conference room with I was like Bruce lun Ball and
Speaker 1: all those people, Yeah, and just play like on the
Speaker 1: stupid piano and played the guitar, had a little dressed on,
Speaker 1: and I remember they just thanked me and we left.
Speaker 1: And then that night Peter took us to dinner and
Speaker 1: I said, well, have you heard anythings like no, and
Speaker 1: still nothing. Nothing. The next morning, nothing and I went, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm getting out of here, and I just I think
Speaker 1: I met up with Kenny on the road and it
Speaker 1: was like a couple of days and then finally my
Speaker 1: manager call and they said, well, they've decided to saw you.
Speaker 1: You must have been elated. I was. And we were
Speaker 1: also talking to Clive Davis too, so I can't remember
Speaker 1: the time frame of that. But I also had to
Speaker 1: go to the Beverly Hills Hotel to the bungalow and
Speaker 1: play for Clive on the piano, and I think we
Speaker 1: were balancing both of those. Thank God, you didn't sign
Speaker 1: with Clive. Well, you know, I didn't sign with Clive
Speaker 1: because I remember I played him someone to lay down
Speaker 1: beside me, which was something I knew even then I
Speaker 1: was really proud of. And he started trying to rewrite
Speaker 1: it exactly and I said to Norman, I said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I can't do that, you know, because that's
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, like with everything. Um, so that's
Speaker 1: why we didn't do that. Okay. So one of the
Speaker 1: amazing things is about about your music is the insightful lyrics.
Speaker 1: Let's start with someone to lay down beside me even
Speaker 1: though it's not real, okay, which is the line? How
Speaker 1: did you come up with that? I don't know, I
Speaker 1: really don't know. I wrote the music first, and I
Speaker 1: had the music for a long time, and I knew
Speaker 1: that was that it was good, and I just couldn't
Speaker 1: come up with any lyrics. And one night, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I watched a TV show and I was just walking
Speaker 1: around and I just sat down and it came out.
Speaker 1: So it was one of the things very fast once
Speaker 1: you were in the mood right, and of the tracks
Speaker 1: on the first album where they all done that fast
Speaker 1: when the time came, or were some eatd out over time.
Speaker 1: The you know the way what would happen for me
Speaker 1: is I wouldn't write very much, but when I would write,
Speaker 1: it would happen fast. Um, so you were waiting for
Speaker 1: inspiration to hit you. Yeah, And lyrics were always hard
Speaker 1: for me. I could write are so phenomenal. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if he's ever near, they say just once
Speaker 1: in life you find someone right that's right, but love
Speaker 1: so hard to find in this state of mind. I
Speaker 1: hope I'll know if he's ever hear there's so much wisdom.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm quoting off the top of my head
Speaker 1: forty year old lyrics and becau as they mean that
Speaker 1: much to me. So I'm wondering, you know, the process
Speaker 1: of coming up with that. Maybe it's quick, but what
Speaker 1: kind of space are you in to have so much insight?
Speaker 1: You know? It's mischief. You know when I look back
Speaker 1: on being twenty three or four or however old I
Speaker 1: was when I wrote those things, and I don't think
Speaker 1: I was all that. I think it was very subconscious
Speaker 1: and just stream of conscious. I wasn't really thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It was just I think I was accessing just some
Speaker 1: part of my brain that was pure and insightful. Well
Speaker 1: that's one of the fascinating things about all these musicians.
Speaker 1: You know, we laugh at teenager musicians at this point,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the people were very young, certainly
Speaker 1: Jackson Brown when he started writing whatever. And I can
Speaker 1: listen to some of those records now in my sixties
Speaker 1: and they finally understand them, okay, having lived all this time,
Speaker 1: and I say, how did these people come up with
Speaker 1: this in sight? Like at that age? He wrote these
Speaker 1: days when he was sixteen, So how does that happen?
Speaker 1: I mean, that's mysterious to me because obviously it's sixteen.
Speaker 1: What could he know right exactly? But even you, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're talking about in terms of relationships. Um, you know
Speaker 1: Rose in the garden. You know, about having a relationship
Speaker 1: and sometimes you have to let them go that you
Speaker 1: know that didn't come from something in your life or
Speaker 1: something I was trying to remember that, you know, I
Speaker 1: think so, I mean, I think, Um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, that first batch of songs for me just came.
Speaker 1: I felt like they were a gift. It just kind
Speaker 1: of came to me from, you know, some other wonderful place.
Speaker 1: You know. I still feel like that. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't. I was never able to go
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to write a song about this,
Speaker 1: or come up with a title like some people will
Speaker 1: come up with a title and write a song. I
Speaker 1: could never intellectualize about writing like that. And that's why
Speaker 1: I think I'm not prolific, because I don't really know
Speaker 1: how to. Yeah, but a couple of things, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't it always love that you know makes
Speaker 1: you cry, breaks your heart, but you wouldn't have it
Speaker 1: any other way. I mean, these are songs that really
Speaker 1: helped me through things. I mean, you know there's some
Speaker 1: Jackson Brown lines to like, uh, you know, well without
Speaker 1: quoting those things at this particular point, this is not
Speaker 1: the kind of wisdom you find on a Kelly Clarkson
Speaker 1: are justin Bieber record. In addition, it's not the kind
Speaker 1: of wisdom you found back then, which I believe is
Speaker 1: one of the I mean, I remember, you know, I've
Speaker 1: told people about that album. You know, in the nineties,
Speaker 1: back in the days of a O. L Chat, people
Speaker 1: said they're in the music as you gotta get this
Speaker 1: record and I'm not doing it. The both smoke up
Speaker 1: your ask. That's how much the record meant to me.
Speaker 1: So I have to believe you may not be revealing it,
Speaker 1: but beneath the surface you must be a study of humanity.
Speaker 1: You must be a student of humanity or have insight
Speaker 1: that the average person probably does not. Maybe, Okay, let's
Speaker 1: let's stay with writing songs. Okay, your first album comes out. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're riding the coattails of Linda having covered your songs.
Speaker 1: So what's it like when your album finally comes out? Well,
Speaker 1: it was interesting. Um, there was some confusion obviously, because
Speaker 1: Linda's album had come out like six months before mine,
Speaker 1: and there were some similar musicians on the tracks too,
Speaker 1: So um, I got a tour opening for Jackson. I
Speaker 1: did a short club tour, and then I got a
Speaker 1: tour opening for Jackson, and um, I had this moment
Speaker 1: where I was playing the songs and realizing these people
Speaker 1: think that I'm covering, of course, and it took me
Speaker 1: about three or four nights to go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to how people I wrote these
Speaker 1: They don't know. UM. So that was kind of horrifying
Speaker 1: in a way. So there was some of that confusion.
Speaker 1: But once I once I talked a little and explained
Speaker 1: to people, and they were really on my side and
Speaker 1: it was actually pretty wonderful. UM. And people often asked
Speaker 1: me like, are you sorry? You gave Linda your best songs?
Speaker 1: But if I hadn't, I don't know, you know what,
Speaker 1: people have noticed me as much. I mean, would my
Speaker 1: have first album done as well? Would people have paid
Speaker 1: attention to it? Maybe not? You know, so when you
Speaker 1: went out on the road, you go out alone. No,
Speaker 1: I had a band on that first tour. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you okay, you do that with Jackson, what's the
Speaker 1: next step. Well, I did a couple of tours with Jackson,
Speaker 1: and then of course you're in that Columbia Records time
Speaker 1: thing where it's like, well, you gotta make another record,
Speaker 1: so you come back. It took me ten years to
Speaker 1: make that first one. I'm on the road for the
Speaker 1: first time, and then you come home and you want
Speaker 1: to breathe, and they want you to make another record.
Speaker 1: And I really had maybe one or two songs, and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, you know, now I
Speaker 1: have what six months to do this, So it was
Speaker 1: pretty terrifying trying to you know, really then trying to
Speaker 1: crank stuff out. I mean I did it, um, and
Speaker 1: I had some help. Actually at the time, I was
Speaker 1: dating Cameron Crowe and he was so young. He was
Speaker 1: so much because I certainly know Cameron, I certainly know
Speaker 1: Nancy Wilson and I don't, but I didn't know that
Speaker 1: was part of your history. Well it was brief. But
Speaker 1: he was so disciplined and so good about writing every day, um,
Speaker 1: because I think he was working on fast times. Then
Speaker 1: it was before that when that was becoming a book.
Speaker 1: Um that he was such a good influence on me
Speaker 1: because I was trying to write Restless Nights, and he
Speaker 1: would write every day, and so I would write every day,
Speaker 1: and um, I lived like a mile down the road
Speaker 1: from him, and it really helped me focus and get
Speaker 1: that record room. But let's stop just for one second.
Speaker 1: How does it end with Kenny? Oh? How did it
Speaker 1: end with Kenny? I don't know. It just kind of
Speaker 1: fell apart, you know, the days of those days of
Speaker 1: Hollywood and craziness and drugs and you know, it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, we were together for nine years and it
Speaker 1: just kind of we were great friends, but we just are.
Speaker 1: Romance kind of disappeared. So we stayed friends for up
Speaker 1: until a day. Okay, So how do you meet Cameron Crowe?
Speaker 1: I met Cameron Crowe at the Universal Amphitheater at probably
Speaker 1: at one of Linda's shows. Outside um, I think he
Speaker 1: introduced himself. He was still writing for Rolling Stone, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So okay, you know these are the perks of being famous.
Speaker 1: Any other perks of being famous? Oh god, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You mean meeting people like that? Meeting people opportunities, you know,
Speaker 1: once you're a known quantity, not that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe you get into first class occasionally on
Speaker 1: an airplane. That doesn't even happen anymore. Okay, So Cameron
Speaker 1: is very disciplined. So your disciplined and you crank out
Speaker 1: the album. Are you happy with the album? I was
Speaker 1: happy with most of it. I mean some of it.
Speaker 1: That album to me has the water is wide, it
Speaker 1: has um only a fool it had. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think one of their songs were on that, But I
Speaker 1: thought that was a pretty good album. It had trouble again,
Speaker 1: um when you walk in the room the letter, So
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't you know. I think my first
Speaker 1: album is still probably my best album. But for how
Speaker 1: fast I had to crank that one out, I think
Speaker 1: it was okay. Okay, Now being on the inside of
Speaker 1: the belly of the beast, Um, what was the label's
Speaker 1: reaction into what degree was that record successful in their
Speaker 1: eyes and your eyes commercially? You know, it was always
Speaker 1: so hard for me to tell what they thought. It
Speaker 1: was such a big record company and there were so
Speaker 1: many big artists Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson and other
Speaker 1: things that they were focused on. I don't really ever
Speaker 1: think that that I got the shot. Maybe that I
Speaker 1: should have had. I think they tried. Um, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say, you know. I mean I think the production maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know why there weren't more hits
Speaker 1: on some of those things. I think, oh, baby don't
Speaker 1: go with on that too. I think there were hit
Speaker 1: songs on that album. Maybe we didn't produce them as hits.
Speaker 1: I feel like there should have been hits. Um, And
Speaker 1: is that record promotion? Is that the record itself? I
Speaker 1: mean it's hard to hindsight when you try to look
Speaker 1: at that and go, well, why couldn't they make Trouble
Speaker 1: again it or Baby Don't go it? I mean, did
Speaker 1: we not make the right record? I don't know. You
Speaker 1: got to deliver a third album it was even harder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you they the so called work track was
Speaker 1: a cover first, right. Um. Glenn Fry is the one
Speaker 1: that played me personally. Um. I was at his house
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you know, Glenn had a
Speaker 1: great collection of obscure R and B stuff, so um,
Speaker 1: he played me the Jackie Moore version of that from
Speaker 1: seventy seven or something, and I remember saying to him, Wow,
Speaker 1: what a cool song. I'm surprised nobody's made that a hit.
Speaker 1: And he said, yeah, I was thinking I should send
Speaker 1: that to Bonnie Rate. I was like, wait just a
Speaker 1: minute there. So, um, that's how that came about. Glenn
Speaker 1: produced part of that album, and then he and I
Speaker 1: had a falling out. Well that's good, he's just he's
Speaker 1: so we could talk. What was the falling out about?
Speaker 1: I never could quite figure it out. Um, Glenn was
Speaker 1: an interesting person and volatile and um, you know, once
Speaker 1: Glenn decided he was not into something, then he was done. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't really think it was anything that you could
Speaker 1: point to specific. But so Kenny Cannon came in and
Speaker 1: took up the the last half of that and help
Speaker 1: me make the rest of that record. So it was
Speaker 1: it was a tough album for me, Okay, and then
Speaker 1: that album comes out and you're back on the road
Speaker 1: and what is it like? It was pretty fun actually,
Speaker 1: because I had a really good band. I had Kenny
Speaker 1: and Andrew in my band and Mike Bots on drums
Speaker 1: and a young keyboard player, Michael Rouff on keyboards. So
Speaker 1: we had a great band and did a lot of
Speaker 1: fun shows. So and I had a hit record of
Speaker 1: some sort. Um. I also got to go out and
Speaker 1: open for James Taylor on a summer tour, which you know,
Speaker 1: James is my hero. So being able to watch James
Speaker 1: every night and open for James was that was a
Speaker 1: treat for me. And okay, that's cycle Lens. Then you
Speaker 1: don't make a record. What happens? What does Columbia say? Well,
Speaker 1: that's when the ship kind of hit the fan for me,
Speaker 1: because I think I came home from that and that
Speaker 1: album and all the things that kind of happened, and
Speaker 1: I just got really depressed. Um and actually, looking back now,
Speaker 1: clinically depressed at that point in my life, I, Um,
Speaker 1: I just didn't want to make any more records. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to do it. I didn't want to write, UM,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I think I was confusing my personal happiness
Speaker 1: with my professional happiness, Like why aren't I happy in
Speaker 1: my personal life with you know, this success? And so
Speaker 1: I kind of just rebelled against everything and I basically stopped,
Speaker 1: you know, doing anything. So ultimately I got dropped by Columbia.
Speaker 1: My manager left and went to work for a record label. UM,
Speaker 1: so I had no record label, UM and I just
Speaker 1: it took me a couple of years. I was in
Speaker 1: a lot of therapy trying to get my life together. Um,
Speaker 1: I learned that it takes medication to get out of
Speaker 1: depression and really didn't exist then. Um. So, no matter
Speaker 1: how much therapy I had, I couldn't seem to pull
Speaker 1: myself out of that. And I didn't really come out
Speaker 1: with prose Act till about eighty eight or nine, and
Speaker 1: I finally I was at a therapist and she said
Speaker 1: to me, you know, I said, look, I'm good. When
Speaker 1: I leave here, I'm good for thirty minutes and then
Speaker 1: I get home and it's just I'm right back there.
Speaker 1: And she goes, you know, I think maybe you need
Speaker 1: to be evaluator. And I went to somebody and they said,
Speaker 1: I'm interested who you went to? Remember? Well, I went
Speaker 1: towards psycho. Yeah yeah, but was he U c l A.
Speaker 1: I went to somebody U c l A. We ultimately
Speaker 1: got medical trouble. That's why his interest was the same.
Speaker 1: They ask you all those questions, are you hopeless? Do
Speaker 1: you know? Do you lose interest in things? And there
Speaker 1: was a checklist then, um, and she said, well, I
Speaker 1: think you need to be on some medication. I was like, fine,
Speaker 1: just something and it was mind blowing to me. Within
Speaker 1: three days of taking medication. I woke up and I went, oh,
Speaker 1: my god, is this how normal people feel? Do you
Speaker 1: remember what the medication was? It was prozac. I didn't
Speaker 1: wake up with this feeling of like dread and hopelessness. Um,
Speaker 1: when you wake up like that, you can't work, you
Speaker 1: can't write, you can't create. Okay, so let's go back.
Speaker 1: So do you still take prozac? No? Not anymore? How
Speaker 1: long did you take it? For quite a while? I
Speaker 1: mean I had, you know, probably ten fifteen years. And
Speaker 1: how you decided to go off? I just started weaning
Speaker 1: myself off of it, as it wasn't with a professional Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that once my life got back together and
Speaker 1: things started to turn around again and I felt pretty
Speaker 1: good and just I just experimented with it and I
Speaker 1: was able to to stay off of it. Other people
Speaker 1: my family and not the case. I think it's very genetic.
Speaker 1: My mother was very depressed. My grandmother apparently couldn't get
Speaker 1: out of bed and dress herself. I hear those things
Speaker 1: about my great grandmother, So I think it's passed down
Speaker 1: through the maternal side of my family. Um, I watched
Speaker 1: my mother, I mean, as a kid, certainly going through it.
Speaker 1: So I'm lucky that there was something for me and
Speaker 1: I was able to kind of get what about your sister,
Speaker 1: same thing for her? And so, but if you look
Speaker 1: at it externally, if you live in Santa Barbara and
Speaker 1: you live alone, Yeah, you live alone, that sounds like
Speaker 1: it could be depressing. Yeah. Well, but I mean I stopped.
Speaker 1: I stopped taking medication along before I moved up there. Okay,
Speaker 1: but I'm just talking about what I guess I should
Speaker 1: ask a question. Since you stopped taking the medication, do
Speaker 1: you have episodes of depression. I've had one or two,
Speaker 1: but they're really more about something specific, which is man
Speaker 1: to Jamal, not this other kind of low grade thing
Speaker 1: that you have no reason for having. Let's do not functional,
Speaker 1: let's go back. Okay. So, but at the time you've
Speaker 1: been on the road, everything was not perfect when you
Speaker 1: started to sink into this depression. So do you think
Speaker 1: the triggers were there? Yeah? I think that I wanted
Speaker 1: a personal life too. I want to be happy, I
Speaker 1: want to be in a relationship. I wanted all this
Speaker 1: other stuff and I didn't have any of that. It
Speaker 1: seemed like I had this music thing, and maybe I
Speaker 1: was confused about what I thought that would bring to me,
Speaker 1: and I think that was the ugly realization, which is
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in that. I mean, you know yours,
Speaker 1: but generally speaking, I find that a lot of acts,
Speaker 1: you know, are not whole emotionally, and they ultimately believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, music will save them, and when the music
Speaker 1: can't save him anymore, they can't write it other hit record.
Speaker 1: Now that is not your case. You ultimately wrote great
Speaker 1: stuff off that, But I find that a lot of
Speaker 1: time people say, well, how come they can't write anywhere
Speaker 1: they were in a different space. Yeah, I think, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think when I was younger, I was
Speaker 1: hungry to get away from my family growing up and
Speaker 1: to be a different kind of a person and to
Speaker 1: prove that. There was a lot of proving I can
Speaker 1: do this. And then once you've proven it in a
Speaker 1: way and you've had some success, um, then you kind
Speaker 1: of go, okay, well now what you know? So I
Speaker 1: did that? Okay? So you say, now what, you've made
Speaker 1: enough money that you didn't have to worry about money temporarily?
Speaker 1: Not really okay, but you know that to duality, you're depressed,
Speaker 1: and then you get depressed because you're not working and
Speaker 1: it gets worse, and then you get to press because
Speaker 1: you don't have any money, right, so then you have
Speaker 1: to do something. Just basically what happened to me was
Speaker 1: it got so bad I was going to lose my house.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I gotta pull this out somehow,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something. So what did you do? I
Speaker 1: think I just did whatever I could. I tried to
Speaker 1: write songs for movies. Um, I got lucky on I
Speaker 1: met a fan who was writing, who was a music
Speaker 1: supervisor for Miami Vice, and I got to write a
Speaker 1: song for one of those shows, and that led to
Speaker 1: making some demos for a record label, and just stuff
Speaker 1: started happening again. Okay, so then ultimately you make a
Speaker 1: record for Danny Goldberg. How does that come together? Um?
Speaker 1: Jeff Hyman, who was a big fan of mine, UM,
Speaker 1: was a and R for Danny Goldberg, and I think
Speaker 1: he sought me out, and Um, I had a bunch
Speaker 1: of songs at that point, I'd put a few together
Speaker 1: and that's how I got signed there. Okay, ultimately, when
Speaker 1: it's all said, because the album label ultimately went to
Speaker 1: Funked and before you were on Columbia Good experience or
Speaker 1: bad experience on gold Castle. It was good, really. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that was kind of a weird time the
Speaker 1: early eighties a singer songwriters. The music was changing, and
Speaker 1: so I don't think it was as easy of a
Speaker 1: time for me or for a label like that. But
Speaker 1: there was this whole um radio format, the Wave, which
Speaker 1: saved me because they would play all this jazz stuff
Speaker 1: and then they would play a few vocal things. So
Speaker 1: they played two songs from that album a lot, and
Speaker 1: that really kind of remember what two songs they were. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was New World and Way of the Heart. Okay,
Speaker 1: because this album is a real return to form, obviously
Speaker 1: made on a budget as opposed to you know, working
Speaker 1: for Columbia. But you know, goodbye my friend. I remember
Speaker 1: writing about that on nine eleven. Okay, that's certainly a
Speaker 1: great song and the best part of you. That's got
Speaker 1: a great sound on it. Okay, still be getting over you. Wow.
Speaker 1: I'm someone takes a really long time to get over people,
Speaker 1: if I ever get over them. So that was there,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just one great track after another,
Speaker 1: the one you mentioned, New World and all my Life
Speaker 1: and tell me why. I mean, it's a surprise because
Speaker 1: most people have been away cannot recapture the heights. But
Speaker 1: this was something you said, Well, I it was on
Speaker 1: a major label, maybe it would have been promoted to
Speaker 1: the point would be as successful as the previous albums. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like if I hadn't lost those years and
Speaker 1: I had made that album for Columbia, maybe, um, it
Speaker 1: would have been different. Um. You know, Mark Oldenberg produced
Speaker 1: that and he did a beautiful job. Unfortunately, that was
Speaker 1: the time of the drum machine. So, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we would like to go back and read something. Well,
Speaker 1: you know that's one of the other things. Is even
Speaker 1: there somebody you know the new Hosier track, it's got
Speaker 1: a drum machine on and go. That's I mean, can
Speaker 1: we can we get rid of that? Okay? So you
Speaker 1: put out that album, okay, and that's kind of the
Speaker 1: end of the new material, right, So what does that
Speaker 1: sell us? I don't know. You know, um, I have
Speaker 1: a couple of new songs, but you know, I've just
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know. It's hard for me. It's
Speaker 1: hard for me to be motivated to do it, I think,
Speaker 1: especially in this climate. Well that's my question. You know,
Speaker 1: now you can spend all the time and make the
Speaker 1: record and ultimately fine, it's it's over in a day.
Speaker 1: You put it out and get the bank and that's it.
Speaker 1: So is that the motivating it is for me? I
Speaker 1: mean I think what CITs now are something to sell
Speaker 1: on the road, right, and maybe someone will play it
Speaker 1: somewhere on a folk show or something. But so that
Speaker 1: because I don't just do it because I gotta do
Speaker 1: it and I gotta right and I'm not one of
Speaker 1: those people. It's hard for me. I mean, it's hard
Speaker 1: to make a record. It's a lot of work. Um
Speaker 1: what about the concept of getting a publisher because you
Speaker 1: know your skill level is at the A level and
Speaker 1: theoretically writing a song that could be covered by somebody else.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't really know how that works these days. Um, well,
Speaker 1: you publish your own songs, who administers them? I do, okay?
Speaker 1: So you do everything yourself. You're not with you know,
Speaker 1: because they have these administrators like Cobalt. I mean there's
Speaker 1: different sides of publishing, but they have you know, Cobalt
Speaker 1: in downtown based on technology where they say they can
Speaker 1: find all this money overseas, etcetera. You haven't explored that, well,
Speaker 1: I have a great business manager who they administer that
Speaker 1: and they take care of that stuff for me. So
Speaker 1: I don't know if to find out, I think you
Speaker 1: should explore that. Not that the business manager shouldn't get paid, okay,
Speaker 1: but it's not like the old days with one guy
Speaker 1: can go to meet him and you know, collect all
Speaker 1: the money, etcetera to have those meetings. And it's of
Speaker 1: course there's certain publishers who work you know, who worked
Speaker 1: tracks to what degreeed people are open to that you'd
Speaker 1: have to meet with people. Okay. So if you're not
Speaker 1: the type of person who needs to write music, what
Speaker 1: is your life about today? Well, I'm on the road
Speaker 1: a lot um with Nina Gerber, my great guitar player.
Speaker 1: So we've been touring a lot um. So I do that.
Speaker 1: Um usually weekends we do weekend wyor Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. UM.
Speaker 1: I do have this new CD, right, we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that in a minutum. And I live
Speaker 1: in a beautiful place. I you know, I live on
Speaker 1: an acre and I have gardens, and I have lots
Speaker 1: of friends, and I don't deal with traffic, and um,
Speaker 1: you know it's good. I don't know, you know, if
Speaker 1: I made a record, what like you say, what it's
Speaker 1: over in a day, right, right, it's hard. So let's
Speaker 1: go back. So now you've reached the pitnacle. You've had
Speaker 1: a hit record, you had lit a rod stack cover
Speaker 1: your records, you had a major label deal, and you
Speaker 1: also say you woke up one day and your personal
Speaker 1: life was not living up to snuff. In your mind
Speaker 1: all these years later, any regrets anything you would have
Speaker 1: done differently knowing we can't. But as we're talking about well,
Speaker 1: I think, you know we were talking about this. I
Speaker 1: think if I were I wish that I had had
Speaker 1: someone smart enough around me to say, you know, this
Speaker 1: time in the in the music business, it's like being
Speaker 1: an athlete. You probably got about ten years where you
Speaker 1: really have your opportunity and don't worry about anything else,
Speaker 1: just to go for it because you can do all
Speaker 1: this other stuff later. And I wish that I hadn't
Speaker 1: been so naive about that. I realized that I had
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity, and obviously the mental stuff made
Speaker 1: it harder because I was not feeling good. But I
Speaker 1: regret that I didn't really you know, when I kind
Speaker 1: of had it in the palm of my hand. I
Speaker 1: didn't really go for it. And then what about I
Speaker 1: mean this is, you know, I've dedicated my life to
Speaker 1: a certain path and as a result, I got married.
Speaker 1: My ex wife said she tricked me into it, which
Speaker 1: is a whole separate story. And I don't have any children,
Speaker 1: and it's a very different path from everybody else, and
Speaker 1: I'm willing to own that, although that forces career issues
Speaker 1: to be much more important than if you have children.
Speaker 1: So do you have any regrets you didn't go the
Speaker 1: other way get married to have children. Yeah, a little bit,
Speaker 1: But I think I probably did the right thing. I
Speaker 1: think I probably wasn't going to be a great mother.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be I would have had to change everything.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been able to be on the road.
Speaker 1: I think if I had a kid, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been able to leave my kid. So I think I
Speaker 1: would have ended up quitting anyway. I don't think that
Speaker 1: I was someone that could do both. And did Lisa
Speaker 1: have kids? I have two beautiful nieces. Okay, so let's
Speaker 1: go back to the new album. The album is very
Speaker 1: interesting because there covers of your own songs. There's cover
Speaker 1: of Jackson Brown song, why don't you tell the audience
Speaker 1: about your new album? Well, actually, the reason this I
Speaker 1: even started at all was I was thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: I have all these songs, but I don't own the
Speaker 1: masters to them, so in order to license something, I
Speaker 1: don't really have any control. So it seemed like it
Speaker 1: would make a lot of sense for me to rerecord
Speaker 1: these things so I could own the masters, own them,
Speaker 1: I own all the publishing, and then I could control it.
Speaker 1: So it really was done initially kind of as a
Speaker 1: business move. I thought it was because that's usually what
Speaker 1: people It was not meant to be a c D,
Speaker 1: so I just thought, I'm just going to go in
Speaker 1: cut these songs. Nina and I play them beautifully, and
Speaker 1: I think, actually, I think I'm singing better than I
Speaker 1: did a long time ago. So I thought we'd just
Speaker 1: take a weekend and just we'll just blow them all out.
Speaker 1: And it started to come out really good. So then
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I have all these tracks, maybe I
Speaker 1: should do something with it. So it kind of became
Speaker 1: a CD. And then the Jackson Brown tune, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure a lot of people heard because it was on
Speaker 1: this other obscure tribute album. So I put that on there,
Speaker 1: and then I went in and cut a song of
Speaker 1: Kenny's as well. Um, and that's so you know, at
Speaker 1: least it's something okay. But if you read the credits,
Speaker 1: the producer engineer his memories thanks, so I googled and
Speaker 1: he died at some point. It was a pretty crazy time.
Speaker 1: I was just getting going on this. We had cut
Speaker 1: the tracks and he had a heart attack fort nine
Speaker 1: and died. It took us a while to get back
Speaker 1: into the studio to do this. Then we had a
Speaker 1: huge wildfire and a mud slide. So all this stuff happened,
Speaker 1: but the CD did get finished with a great friend
Speaker 1: of Robinson, I Canbury, who's the one who passed away,
Speaker 1: Shaan mckugh, another great musician up in Santa Barbara. Because
Speaker 1: it's hard to drive down to l A and work
Speaker 1: on a record, let's just go back for a second.
Speaker 1: Was your house affected by the fires and the floods?
Speaker 1: Mine was okay? But all around me not good. Okay.
Speaker 1: So the project, if you look at some of the
Speaker 1: recording dates, were done a couple of years ago, right,
Speaker 1: So when did you decide you were going to actually
Speaker 1: release it? As soon as I finished it. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it just took us a while because of all those
Speaker 1: disasters to get it done. Really are the recording dates
Speaker 1: on there? I didn't even notice that. Well, there was
Speaker 1: something in there that indicated to me, maybe the fact
Speaker 1: he got credits and he died a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: which is what tipped me off. Okay, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's just by the time we gotta beything finished. Okay.
Speaker 1: So are you playing some of these tracks that are
Speaker 1: you have not previously recorded live? Yeah? Yeah, you mean
Speaker 1: like the Jackson song we play and karre Me Home,
Speaker 1: which is a new song we're playing that. We haven't
Speaker 1: played Kenny song yet. We need to do that. We
Speaker 1: have played it in the past. We play all of
Speaker 1: those and other ones too. So I mean I'm mostly
Speaker 1: I'm touring, okay. But and then you sit there after
Speaker 1: the gig at the merch table and you signed the
Speaker 1: c ds, etcetera, and you find your way. It still
Speaker 1: wants the CDs. They do, they really do. And they
Speaker 1: want vinyl too. I'm gonna have to get some vinyl.
Speaker 1: They definitely want vinyl. It's an interesting thing though. I
Speaker 1: hear from acts that go on the road and so
Speaker 1: other things. You know, the stand the CD can't die.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm selling. Although I think a lot of
Speaker 1: times when it's autographed, even vinyl, the people just want it.
Speaker 1: They don't even play it, but as long as they
Speaker 1: buy it. Now, going back to being on the road,
Speaker 1: a lot of people just stop. Okay, So at what
Speaker 1: point did you decide that you wanted to work? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think you've been working in the whole last
Speaker 1: twenty five years, have you. I've been working a lot.
Speaker 1: Actually maybe there were sometimes I didn't in the eighties,
Speaker 1: but no, starting in the nineties, I've had agents and
Speaker 1: been on the road. Who's your agent now? My agent
Speaker 1: is s R O Artists and Madison, Wisconsin. Yes, okay.
Speaker 1: And you do you enjoy playing on the road or
Speaker 1: do you find that it's a you know, a drudge drudge.
Speaker 1: Once I'm up there, I enjoy it um obviously the
Speaker 1: traveling and flying and driving not so much. That's hard.
Speaker 1: So in a typical year, how many gigs do you play?
Speaker 1: Probably thirty or forty, not a ton. Okay. Well, as
Speaker 1: I say, I've seen you a few times in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, and I agree with you. You know,
Speaker 1: your voice is spectacular, which is not the case with
Speaker 1: most people as their careers have gone on. You know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people and I won't even mention.
Speaker 1: We just have to go see them, even selling tickets
Speaker 1: and you're there and you go, wow, this is bad.
Speaker 1: I know. I don't know. I guess it's just I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: It must be a genetic thing or something. I haven't
Speaker 1: had to tune. You know, a lot of people tune
Speaker 1: their guitars down. I have to step. I haven't had
Speaker 1: to do that yet, which is good. Okay, we're all
Speaker 1: getting older by the minute. With the time you have left.
Speaker 1: Any specific goals, I don't know. You know, I'd like
Speaker 1: to figure out how to write some more songs, you know,
Speaker 1: without it being uh something that's difficult. You know. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I know people really want them for me,
Speaker 1: and I feel bad about that because people ask me
Speaker 1: or please make a new record, please make a new record,
Speaker 1: and I don't know. I gotta get motivated, okay, the
Speaker 1: people who ask you to make new record, or fans
Speaker 1: or business people or other musicians. No, it's always fans.
Speaker 1: Like I put this out and we look on Facebook
Speaker 1: and people are complimentary and they love it, but they
Speaker 1: do go please, can we have a whole new CD
Speaker 1: of new songs? Okay, the audience wants it. You find
Speaker 1: it difficult? But how much of that is what we
Speaker 1: talked earlier? Even if I make it, it's not like
Speaker 1: the old days. You know, we get all this promotion
Speaker 1: and you get all this uh you know mind share?
Speaker 1: Is it that? Or you find it difficult to write?
Speaker 1: I think it's said it's difficult for me to write.
Speaker 1: I think if I wrote easily and easy enough to record,
Speaker 1: and um, it's just not that easy for me. But
Speaker 1: I'm also not very disciplined. I don't sit down and
Speaker 1: try well. It seems to me, is I'm analyzing you
Speaker 1: here that you're somewhat of a perfectionist and if the
Speaker 1: song is not going to be at the level of
Speaker 1: your other songs, you don't want to do it. Well,
Speaker 1: why would I want to do that? I don't want
Speaker 1: to make a shifty out. No, no, just hanging in
Speaker 1: there with to begin with, it's talking about my own
Speaker 1: expert my experience totally different. When I was in high school,
Speaker 1: Mr Harrity in the English class, he'd taken a sabbatical
Speaker 1: which in public school. I don't know how that happened,
Speaker 1: but he took a year off and he came back
Speaker 1: and every morning, for five minutes, we had to write,
Speaker 1: and if you didn't have anything to say, you had
Speaker 1: to repeat the last three words. So I am a
Speaker 1: writer completely different from everybody else. Everybody is. The picture
Speaker 1: of a writer is well, I make a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: I sharpened my pencils, and my goal is to get
Speaker 1: a page done a day. I could not be doing
Speaker 1: it completely different. I got a record blasting arm standing
Speaker 1: the tar. I got inspiration. It's exactly how you say
Speaker 1: you wrote those earlier songs. Okay, it hit, and I
Speaker 1: got to be near the computer fast enough to do that.
Speaker 1: But I do know. I mean, I've done it long enough.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna write anything terrible, just like you're not
Speaker 1: gonna run anything terrible. But you you're right it and
Speaker 1: you say, okay, this is not going to be at ten.
Speaker 1: You know you can see it veering as you do.
Speaker 1: But two things happen. One, you never know what will
Speaker 1: resonate with the audience. You know, when you hit in eleven,
Speaker 1: you're done, and you go, this is just great, and
Speaker 1: you'll hear it from people. But even if you have
Speaker 1: a seven or eight using you know this one to
Speaker 1: ten scale, somebody resonates. And the point is, I hate
Speaker 1: to admit it. You know a lot of times you
Speaker 1: get warmed up or I had a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I haven't been in such great space myself the last
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and I said, well, I want to
Speaker 1: write to make myself feel better. And I was out skiing,
Speaker 1: and by time I'm done skiing, I'm not in the mood. Okay.
Speaker 1: Finally I said, I'm just gonna start writing because I'm
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. And all this stuff for the
Speaker 1: last four days came out that I didn't even know
Speaker 1: it was going to come out. Okay, Now you have
Speaker 1: to want to do it. I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: nature of being creative person is to be to a
Speaker 1: degree ill adjusted, and the creativity is a way of
Speaker 1: connect thing with people. And you know two things. One,
Speaker 1: when you connect with people feels really good. But this
Speaker 1: is analogous to your point about being at the therapist,
Speaker 1: which I know totally. You're at the therapist, you're talking
Speaker 1: up a storm, even though you can't talk outside the office.
Speaker 1: You leave, you're on the top of the world in
Speaker 1: thirty or forty five minutes, Bang, you're at the bottom, okay,
Speaker 1: and being That's one thing I envy in a musician.
Speaker 1: If you happen to write a hit song. On one level,
Speaker 1: it's a sentence. You got to play it for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. But on another level, you can
Speaker 1: perform it, whereas if you're writing prose, you're right at
Speaker 1: once that's it. Okay. So you know, I think there
Speaker 1: has to be a raw motivation. You know. The other
Speaker 1: thing is we all get older and we ask, well,
Speaker 1: you know I did this, Should I be doing something
Speaker 1: completely different? You know I'm not gonna live forever. But
Speaker 1: the question becomes as I somewhat, I mean, someone of
Speaker 1: your caliber. I have no doubt that if you applied yourself,
Speaker 1: you could get very major covers. Because we have the
Speaker 1: hip hop world. That's not your world, okay, then only
Speaker 1: we have the pop world. They don't write most of
Speaker 1: these songs, and if you listen to the lyrics, they're
Speaker 1: not that good. Okay. Sure, when you write a song,
Speaker 1: you have assuming you say yes, you know, you have
Speaker 1: no control over what they're gonna do with it. But
Speaker 1: you know, most people can't do it, you can do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm intimidated by that world of getting your
Speaker 1: songs covered out there. It just seems like all those
Speaker 1: young artists were writing with the producers and they want
Speaker 1: the writing, the publishing and the credit. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I know some great writers that aren't getting covers people
Speaker 1: in Nashville. So I don't know. I guess I'm skeptical.
Speaker 1: I was too skeptical. And this is one of the problems.
Speaker 1: If you're ignorant, you're better off because all the things
Speaker 1: you're bringing up are totally reel by the same token.
Speaker 1: If you write a hit song, okay, that will help
Speaker 1: your mood. In an addition, I can certainly say you
Speaker 1: can't change a certain word. I'm totally with that. And
Speaker 1: you also say, well, I'm not giving up, but maybe
Speaker 1: even though it's a scam, you give up and then
Speaker 1: as you gain you know, it's like anything else with leverage.
Speaker 1: The question, you know, as I say, question, is whether
Speaker 1: you would get off on it. I mean, only you
Speaker 1: can answer that. I think it's just getting back in
Speaker 1: the game, you know. I think I'm disconnected from all
Speaker 1: of the you know, the outlets for that. So i'd
Speaker 1: have to well, I would say that you know, there
Speaker 1: are not some publishers are better at collection, some better
Speaker 1: or better at covers, And I think having a couple
Speaker 1: of meetings with these people would show you opportunities. For
Speaker 1: you can have a meeting enough to sign anything, and
Speaker 1: you can also write a track and then say this
Speaker 1: is the track. You don't have to give up anything
Speaker 1: to do it. Because I'm here giving advice because I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer. I mean, I find the same motivation
Speaker 1: of the internet. You know, there's so much stuff out there.
Speaker 1: You write something and you go, well, you know, who
Speaker 1: am I going to reach than my core audience? And
Speaker 1: it's somewhat somewhat depressing for especially for those of us
Speaker 1: who lived through an era what it was different. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just have to get off my butt and be
Speaker 1: a little more disciplined. I think I know it's in there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I went to a writing coach when I
Speaker 1: had writer's block during that whole period, and somebody sent
Speaker 1: me to a writing coach and he said, Okay, I
Speaker 1: just want you to wake up every morning and just
Speaker 1: write a page, just stream of consciousness. Don't It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you say. You don't kind of read it
Speaker 1: later or anything, just right. So every morning, before coffee
Speaker 1: or anything, just do the writing. And he goes and
Speaker 1: then bring it back into me um, and he goes,
Speaker 1: just somewhere in there, there's going to be something, find
Speaker 1: a line. There's got to be something in that you
Speaker 1: can is as a song title. And I was like,
Speaker 1: oh God, he's going to give me an assignment. And
Speaker 1: so I had had a dream about my dad or something,
Speaker 1: and I wrote this thing about I always just want
Speaker 1: to stay Daddy's a little girl. And because that's what
Speaker 1: I want you to, Okay, here's this. I know you
Speaker 1: to write a song called Daddy's Little Girl. That's a
Speaker 1: great fool And I was just like, oh, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this is awful. It's assignment. I don't
Speaker 1: write that way. It'll come out bad, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to end. I went and forced this song out
Speaker 1: and it's a great song. So it just proved to
Speaker 1: me that I was full of it thinking that I
Speaker 1: couldn't write that way. So I think you're right. I mean, basically,
Speaker 1: if you're talented, you're not going to write something horrible.
Speaker 1: You might write not write the best thing you wrote
Speaker 1: but if you have those skills, you're probably gonna write. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're right, I have I have no. Well, the
Speaker 1: other thing about my writing is different. You always want
Speaker 1: to write in eleven and you're disappointed once you've been
Speaker 1: doing a long time throughout eleven. But one thing is
Speaker 1: for sure. You cannot hit the eleven each time. Nobody can.
Speaker 1: But if you stay at it, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's always like you know, for me, it's like what
Speaker 1: you say, either as a raw stimulation or I'm in
Speaker 1: the shower, something just comes to me and then it does.
Speaker 1: But you know, also as your point with your depression,
Speaker 1: you get older, you've seen the game, so it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's not as exciting. It's hard to get motivated. Again.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of it. I'm probably too much,
Speaker 1: too negative about that, but right I just wish I
Speaker 1: was one of those people that just I've no people
Speaker 1: that just go, I just have to write because I'm
Speaker 1: not happy if I'm not writing songs, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: can you give me an injection of some of that? Okay,
Speaker 1: when you do write a song, let's say you're writing
Speaker 1: the lyrics, you say, it's more difficult. When you finally
Speaker 1: do you talk about the earlier songs coming all at once?
Speaker 1: How fast? How long has it taken write the lyrics
Speaker 1: for a song. Maybe you dare too so very quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and not all day long. I mean either kind of
Speaker 1: have it or I don't. It either sort of happens
Speaker 1: or a pieces of music that just sit there for
Speaker 1: years that never gets well. You know, the only thing
Speaker 1: about it is when your music, generally speaking, certainly not personally,
Speaker 1: it resonates with people who are square pigs in a
Speaker 1: round hole, okay, in that they use the music to
Speaker 1: feel good about These are not I'm not saying a
Speaker 1: cheerleader or football captain can't enjoy your music, but people
Speaker 1: who you're when your fans say they want more, they
Speaker 1: want more insight, that's what you know. We Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 1: we wanted more and then she lost the plot and
Speaker 1: she's kind of crazy anyway. But I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'll I'll let you get up off the couch. But
Speaker 1: those are some of my thoughts. Now it's inspiring. I
Speaker 1: think those are good thoughts. Okay, But let's it to
Speaker 1: Carla Bonoff. You can where are you playing? Yolk? For
Speaker 1: the next six months. Oh, it's on our website. We're
Speaker 1: going to the Northwest. Um, then we're going back east.
Speaker 1: We're going everywhere, go everywhere. And these tend to be
Speaker 1: solo dates or you I know you played with j
Speaker 1: D in Minneapolis, but these other gigs mostly just yeah
Speaker 1: for an evening with Carla bonof Right, So how many
Speaker 1: songs might someone expect to hear? Um? We play almost
Speaker 1: two hours actually, So if you go, you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: the song you want, and you can buy the new album.
Speaker 1: And you can also, because I know I did it,
Speaker 1: you can stream it on Spotify another streaming services. Carla,
Speaker 1: it has been wonderful to have you here. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much.