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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Just a quick note here. You can listen to

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Speaker 1: all of the music mentioned in this episode on our playlist,

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Speaker 1: which you can find a link to in the show

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Speaker 1: notes for licensing reasons, each time a song is referenced

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Speaker 1: in this episode, you'll hear this sound effect. All right,

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Speaker 1: enjoyed the episode. A few bands represent the eclectic nature

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Speaker 1: of Los Angeles, as well as The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

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Speaker 1: Their blend of punk, funk and rap that they perfected

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Speaker 1: on nineteen ninety one Blood Sugar, Sex Magic felt like

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Speaker 1: it could have only come from southern California. That album,

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Speaker 1: by the way, is produced by Broken Record host Rick Rubin,

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Speaker 1: one of his first projects after moving from New York

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Speaker 1: to LA. The secret to the Red Hot Chili peppers

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Speaker 1: funky sound was their dexterous bass player of Flee, a

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Speaker 1: prodigious bassis with massive stage presents whose charm landed him

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Speaker 1: roles in movies like The Big Lebowski and Queen and Slim.

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Speaker 1: His talent was incubated in Los Angeles that doesn't exist anymore.

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Speaker 1: He writes about it vividly in his book, a memoir

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Speaker 1: of his adolescence called Acid for the Children. Flee discussed

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Speaker 1: the book recently with Malcolm Gladwell in front of an

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Speaker 1: audience at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles. They also

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Speaker 1: talk about Flee's upbringing and how he developed his distinctive

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Speaker 1: style of bass playing. It was our very first live

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Speaker 1: taping of the podcast, and we partnered with case or W,

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Speaker 1: in my opinion, the best music station in LA to

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Speaker 1: get it done. So here's Malcolm Gladwell and Flee live

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Speaker 1: in conversation. I noticed no one's chanting. Yeah, Malcolm, it's

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Speaker 1: a pretty much you guys know we're here to talk

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Speaker 1: about books, right. I was trying to think, you know,

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Speaker 1: this is a great thrill. First of all for me

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Speaker 1: to be here. I think you're the I is trying

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Speaker 1: to figure this out backstage, the third most famous person

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Speaker 1: I've ever met. It's pretty I mean it's really good.

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Speaker 1: Number three, Wait, you're saying I'm the third most person,

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Speaker 1: most famous person you've ever met. I bet Obama once.

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Speaker 1: You're not. I mean you're very famous, you're not that level.

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Speaker 1: And number two I met Oprah once. I think you're

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Speaker 1: three behind Obama and Oprah in my in my book.

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Speaker 1: So so it's very very exciting. So where I, uh,

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Speaker 1: we're going to discuss your book, which, by the way,

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Speaker 1: is really lovely. Thank you. And I say that in

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Speaker 1: all sincerity, not as a and I think that's the

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Speaker 1: right word. There's there's something incredibly heartbreaking and beautiful about it,

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Speaker 1: and that's where I wanted to start. One of the

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Speaker 1: one of the many unexpected pleasures of this book is

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Speaker 1: the picture that you paint of Hollywood in the seventies,

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Speaker 1: and I wanted to start there because it's a Hollywood

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean may be wrong, doesn't really exist anymore,

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Speaker 1: is that right? It doesn't exist in the slightest And

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Speaker 1: I actually had written extensively lamenting the loss of that

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Speaker 1: time and just how the city has changed. And I

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Speaker 1: took it out because I kind of got into grumpy

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Speaker 1: old man territory. But I thought it was kind of

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Speaker 1: some of the best writing that I did, and I

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Speaker 1: sort of would like to release a special little grumpy

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Speaker 1: old man book of the stuff that I took out,

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Speaker 1: just because it was a love note to a Hollywood

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Speaker 1: of yesteryear that now exists on the tip of a

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Speaker 1: real estate agent's tongue in describing you know that this

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Speaker 1: was where Charlie Chaplin kept his woman or something, you know.

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Speaker 1: But Hollywood was obviously, you know, its whole heritage coming

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Speaker 1: up as the beginning of the film industry. But in

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Speaker 1: the seventies when I got there, it was this place

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Speaker 1: that was so I mean, in one way, very dangerous

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Speaker 1: and predatory and kind of revelling in the free love

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Speaker 1: of the sixties, and that being exploited and turned into

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Speaker 1: money and created a really seedy, mean spirited, dangerous casting

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Speaker 1: couch type of vibe which was really gross and disgusting.

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Speaker 1: And as a young boy in Hollywood, I was, you know,

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Speaker 1: I dealt with that. And also a young boy who

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Speaker 1: was unwatched and a street kid and wild and out

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Speaker 1: till five o'clock in the morning on the Hollywood streets

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Speaker 1: when I was twelve years old, came into many a

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Speaker 1: scary encounter. But also it was alive with a wildness.

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Speaker 1: It was like the wild West, man, I mean it

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Speaker 1: was there was so much art and so much music,

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Speaker 1: and it was so untamed and ferrell and its way,

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Speaker 1: and there was so much money. I mean, it was

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Speaker 1: just a weird, wild I mean glam You you move

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Speaker 1: here from New York and you're how old at that point,

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Speaker 1: I was just turned eleven years old, and your family,

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Speaker 1: you and your mom and your stepfather and your sister,

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Speaker 1: moved first to where to Koreatown? Is that? Am I remember?

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Speaker 1: We lived in a miracle mild districal mile. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: then you and then you moved from there to where

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Speaker 1: exactly Hollywood, to Willoughby and Laurel in Hollywood. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: there's a I wanted to get into a little a

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Speaker 1: little bit more. One of the things I remember you

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Speaker 1: talk about when you went to high school, this sort

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Speaker 1: of what is now a curious fact which would not

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Speaker 1: have been curious to you at all back then, which

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Speaker 1: is in that era, a public high school was still

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Speaker 1: a place where everyone went, so they were You had

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Speaker 1: friends whose parents were prostitutes, and friends whose parents were

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Speaker 1: rich and lived in the absolutely and middle school too.

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Speaker 1: And when I was in sixth grade, I mean back then,

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Speaker 1: public school you just went where you lived, and it

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Speaker 1: had every economic class, every racial class, every ethnicity, everybody together.

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Speaker 1: And I don't know if the standard of education was

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Speaker 1: higher than or not, but it was like private school

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Speaker 1: was much more rare than I didn't hear about kids going,

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Speaker 1: but I you know, I came across every kind of

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Speaker 1: person from you know, gang members to rich kids who

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Speaker 1: had lived with a wealth unlike anything I had ever

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Speaker 1: encountered to, you know, kids who were like trading switchblades

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Speaker 1: and bags of weed in seventh grade. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: really the last moment in this city's history where you

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Speaker 1: had that kind of full integration in the public school system.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really odd. I mean, this is

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Speaker 1: a race of nerdy sociological point to begin with. But

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Speaker 1: I wonder, I think ultimately, well, I wonder whether it's

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Speaker 1: connected to the kind of art that was coming out

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Speaker 1: of the schools at that time. Like you you describe

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Speaker 1: you had a friend Freddie Gold, yeah, who lives in

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Speaker 1: the fancy house above Sunset. Yeah, and like so in

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Speaker 1: the same in your same friend group you were living

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Speaker 1: in under I guess your family had we're all right,

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Speaker 1: I mean right, yeah, we're we're We actually had it

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Speaker 1: like a pretty nice little spot. I mean, we were

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Speaker 1: just getting by, but but we did find it wasn't

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Speaker 1: like we were. Someone of your economic background today does

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Speaker 1: not have a school friend named Freddy Gold who lives

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Speaker 1: You're kind of no. Now, if you're rich, you're going

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Speaker 1: to a private school, and it really speaks to where

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Speaker 1: we're at now, like the devisiveness and the haves and

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Speaker 1: have nots, and this gulf becoming wider, and the have

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Speaker 1: nots being this entire new strata of society that is

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Speaker 1: living on the street and sleeping in their own ship,

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Speaker 1: you know, and being in Los Angeles. It's so prevalent

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Speaker 1: and so intense. It's difficult to understand it. You know.

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Speaker 1: Back then, when when I walked around the streets of

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Speaker 1: Hollywood in the seventies, when you saw a homeless person

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, there's a bum, there's a guy eating

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Speaker 1: out of a trash can. It was a rare thing.

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Speaker 1: And now it's just a huge segment of society, and it's,

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Speaker 1: you know, part of the divisiveness of the country that

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Speaker 1: we live in. To describe, tell us the touch points

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Speaker 1: of your you know, your adolescent world in Hollywood. So

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Speaker 1: you would go, where were you playing basketball? Where were

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Speaker 1: you when you're you're thirteen or fourteen year old self?

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Speaker 1: Tell me all your hangouts thirteen fourteen, I was hanging

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Speaker 1: out at Laurel Elementary School. I was hanging out at

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Speaker 1: Carthay Elementary School. I was hanging out at West Hollywood Park,

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Speaker 1: shooting hoops. I was hanging out like around Hollywood Boulevard

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Speaker 1: and Sunset and stuff because there were just so many

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Speaker 1: little hustles that I had with my friends to get money.

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Speaker 1: We used to me and my friend j D used

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Speaker 1: to sit up on Hollywood Boulevard with kazoos and trash

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Speaker 1: can lids and do songs, you know, play songs to

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Speaker 1: get money. It was all about the hustle when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, because from a very young age. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't that I was ever a homeless kid or anything

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Speaker 1: like that, but I was completely unwatched and I was

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Speaker 1: a street kid I got, you know, from that age.

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Speaker 1: Home was just a place to crash. Sometimes I came home,

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Speaker 1: sometimes I didn't, and I just got into everything that

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Speaker 1: I could. But there were so many little hangouts you

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Speaker 1: know that we found, like found older people that would

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Speaker 1: get us high, so we'd go over to their house,

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Speaker 1: you know, anywhere where. One of the things the first

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Speaker 1: half of the book is about your childhood, and although

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Speaker 1: you talk a lot about your stepfather, that point you

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Speaker 1: just said about how you were unwatched is the striking

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Speaker 1: you know, to a twenty nineteen year Yeah, the striking

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Speaker 1: fact is where in God's name are his parents did?

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Speaker 1: But none of you have friends seemed to have. I think, well,

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Speaker 1: I think I met kids that fit into, you know,

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Speaker 1: my social plan, you know, other kids that had that

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Speaker 1: sort of freedom as well to varying degrees and form.

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Speaker 1: My parents, you know, my stepdad, who was the main

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Speaker 1: father figure around, was in and out of substance abuse

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Speaker 1: and just wasn't paying attention. My mom had her own,

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Speaker 1: you know, relationship problems and problems. They were just too

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Speaker 1: involved in their own their own pain and their own

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Speaker 1: difficulties in their own like struggle to navigate their way

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Speaker 1: with your life to watch me, you know. And I

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Speaker 1: know that they loved me, but they just didn't have

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Speaker 1: the skills and the tools to translate that. Leven too

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Speaker 1: being present and paying attention. Did your sister take care

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Speaker 1: of you? Look? Well, no, she was wild. We were

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Speaker 1: both wild, me and my sister. You know. Yeah, no

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Speaker 1: because I no, no, uh. Because The weird the kind

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Speaker 1: of fascinating paradox about the book is as you describe

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Speaker 1: your childhood, you're describing chaos and mayhem one on the

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Speaker 1: one hand, and you at the same time you seem

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Speaker 1: to have had an extraordinar amount of joy as a child. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I did. I you know, It's funny like I've always,

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Speaker 1: in general, had a thing inside of me that yearned

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Speaker 1: so much to you know, to connect and to love,

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Speaker 1: and to find things and to believe in, find things

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Speaker 1: to believe in, like when it's a kid. I just

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Speaker 1: I loved literature. When I discovered music, it changed my life.

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Speaker 1: I loved the music, but the fact that I was

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Speaker 1: unwatched and the fact that I was a wild street kid,

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Speaker 1: even though it made growing up very difficult because I

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Speaker 1: didn't have the structure and I didn't have, you know,

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Speaker 1: my parents guiding me into growing up and becoming a

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Speaker 1: man like that, that transition from being a kid. But

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Speaker 1: by that token, I had freedom, you know, and it

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Speaker 1: got me into a lot of trouble. I was a thief,

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Speaker 1: I was aug user. I was out of control. I

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Speaker 1: had to make huge mistakes to learn. I had to,

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Speaker 1: you know, to to A lot of the book is

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Speaker 1: my search for moral for my moral compass, but as

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Speaker 1: well it's I looked from my family in the street.

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Speaker 1: I looked from my family with my friends. And when

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Speaker 1: I connected with my friends, it was it was profound

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Speaker 1: and it was where I found, you know, extreme love

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Speaker 1: and connection. The unhealthy part about it was I looked

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Speaker 1: to my friends to fulfill roles that parents are supposed

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Speaker 1: to fulfill, and you know, fourteen year old boys you're

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Speaker 1: getting high with can't do that, you know. So that

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Speaker 1: was difficult for me and kind of left me in

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Speaker 1: an a raw and vulnerable, uncomfortable position many a time.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's you know, no accident

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Speaker 1: that someone like me and the friends that I made

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Speaker 1: as a kid ended up starting a band that was

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Speaker 1: able to connect with people. Because any connection that any

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Speaker 1: musician ever has with anyone is equal proportion to the

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Speaker 1: connection that they can have with one another when they're

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Speaker 1: playing together, or that if they're a solo person, the

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Speaker 1: connection that they have with the divine voice of music.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's equal. And oftentimes, like people talk

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Speaker 1: about talent, you know, like, well you've got talent because

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Speaker 1: you can do this, it's like, I don't know, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean? And sometimes I think like in music,

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Speaker 1: the best talent is no talent because you might not

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Speaker 1: have a natural feeling for rhythm or harmonic progression or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But because you don't have it, you come at it

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Speaker 1: from your own complete, your own way, and you invent

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Speaker 1: something you know that is really unique, and yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I want to come back to that, but I just

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Speaker 1: wanted to dwell for a moment on this paradoxical happiness.

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Speaker 1: And there's a passage in your book and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to make you read a little bit of it, but

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Speaker 1: you're describing November twenty first, nineteen seventy eight. So how

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Speaker 1: old are you in nineteen seventy eight years? Is this

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Speaker 1: that the day that I'm happy? The happy day, happy day? Yeah? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think I'm fourteen. Yeah, you're like, you're like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I you know, I had described so many sad situations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I only put things in the book that shaped me,

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Speaker 1: Like I had many a wild tale that probably would

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Speaker 1: have been the most exciting stories for people to read,

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Speaker 1: and probably would have been the headlines and anything writing

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Speaker 1: anybody about the book, in any article about the book.

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Speaker 1: But it was important to me to not write things

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Speaker 1: for entertainment values, but just to be honest to things

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Speaker 1: that actually changed me and opened me up. So amidst

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Speaker 1: all these like traumatic things and melancholy things, I was like,

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Speaker 1: you know what I had beautiful days too, So I

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Speaker 1: think that's so. This is this beautiful day you described,

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Speaker 1: you walk a mile to school bouncing your basketball, and

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Speaker 1: I love this little thing about the piece sign I

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Speaker 1: drew in my ball popping up between potholes and sloping sidewalks.

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Speaker 1: By the way, there's so much lovely language in this book.

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Speaker 1: But anyway you get to I'm gonna have you to

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Speaker 1: set up the little party I want you to read.

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Speaker 1: So you get to class and you play. You played

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Speaker 1: basketball before school. Then you sit in social studies class

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Speaker 1: and you deliver an or report on the composer Hector

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Speaker 1: Bosio Symphony fantastic. You get an A plus. You eat pizza,

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Speaker 1: you you flirt with a girl that you have a

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Speaker 1: crush on, and then just start reading by shot after

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Speaker 1: after school, just read that last little bit. Shot more,

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Speaker 1: Uh okay, shot more hoops? Okay away, I shot my hoops.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, shot more hoops? After school? My shot was

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Speaker 1: so on. Then ran home ah the house, all to myself,

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Speaker 1: practice trumpet out of my urban book, The Trumpeter's Bible,

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Speaker 1: the classical melodies resonating through my cranium and echoing around

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Speaker 1: my bedroom. Then cooked myself a delicious spaghetti dinner, lay

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Speaker 1: on my bed, satiated and content, reading Richard Box, Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Livingston Seagull watch the Laker game, happy and cozy before

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Speaker 1: falling into a deep and restorative sleep. So it's like,

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Speaker 1: but it's to my point, this is this description of

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Speaker 1: this perfect day as a fourteen year old, and there's

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Speaker 1: no mention of any adult. Yeah, well right, it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of fascinating. Yeah, and it's about and also it's

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Speaker 1: but it's about you find It's about you seeking out

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Speaker 1: and finding things that bring you pleasure. Like you the

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Speaker 1: book you read, the game you watch, the present, the

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Speaker 1: music presentation you give, the basketball you take with you

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Speaker 1: to school, the all you had to create this environment

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Speaker 1: for yourself. I thought it was sort of such a

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Speaker 1: striking contrast to the life of a contemporary fourteen year old. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess for me as a kid and really writing

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00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,040
Speaker 1: about this book, like, I learned a lot about myself

287
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Speaker 1: and I wrote a lot of things I wrote about.

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Speaker 1: I was like, holy shit, why didn't anybody talk to

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Speaker 1: me about this stuff? Like earlier on when my parents

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Speaker 1: split up. You know, when I was a kid, my

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Speaker 1: father worked for the Australian government and he wore a suit,

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Speaker 1: had a briefcase, went to work every day. We had

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Speaker 1: dinner at seven o'clock at night. He played golf on

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Speaker 1: the week. As it was, he ran a very tight ship.

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Speaker 1: It was structured. It was almost like militantly so. And

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Speaker 1: we came from Australia to America because my father got

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Speaker 1: an assignment to New York at the Australian Consulate. We're

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Speaker 1: supposed to be in New York for four years, then

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Speaker 1: go back to Australian continue on in our very normal,

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Speaker 1: proper life. But my mom, my wild ass mom, and

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Speaker 1: all her heart following wildness left. My dad took up

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Speaker 1: with a junkie jazz musician who lived in his parents' basement.

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Speaker 1: And you know, my dad went back without us and

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Speaker 1: we moved in with this new man who was a

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Speaker 1: drug addict who lived in his parents' basement. And that's

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00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:07,560
Speaker 1: when everything just went crazy. And when I look at

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00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:11,399
Speaker 1: that in particular, and I had never really like I

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00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:13,960
Speaker 1: knew all this stuff that happened, but I had never

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Speaker 1: really like looked at it with any real degree of objectivity.

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Speaker 1: And when I wrote about it, it was very emotional

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Speaker 1: for me to look at it and kind of like

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Speaker 1: that was one of the times I was like, jeez, Mom, dad, stepdad,

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Speaker 1: Like you never ever sat down and talked to us

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Speaker 1: about it. And when I first kind of realized that

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Speaker 1: I had a tanty, for a minute, I was fucking angry.

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Speaker 1: And then I, you know, as time went by, I realized, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, they did the best they knew, they just

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Speaker 1: didn't know. But but oh sorry, But just to your

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Speaker 1: question and your comment, I was really lucky as a

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Speaker 1: kid to fall in love with books and the time

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Speaker 1: that I had with any book, and since I was

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Speaker 1: a little boy, and even when I was the wildest,

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Speaker 1: out of control, drug shooting, freak out, criminal ass motherfucker,

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Speaker 1: I read every day unless I was too high to

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Speaker 1: do it, you know, and I and even then I

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00:19:11,720 --> 00:19:15,200
Speaker 1: would probably make some you know, bumbling attempt, but I

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00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:18,640
Speaker 1: got so much joy and felt so much hope and

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Speaker 1: saw that there was a life like even if it

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Speaker 1: was a fantasy life, it was something that was beautiful,

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Speaker 1: and the same thing with music. It opened up these

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Speaker 1: doors and these feelings of this limitless possibility that was

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Speaker 1: so beautiful and beyond anything that I understood in a

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00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,600
Speaker 1: world that often seemed you know, hypocritical, and cruel that

334
00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:40,480
Speaker 1: I did have, that I created those things for myself.

335
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Speaker 1: But you're the first person to mention and that beautiful

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00:19:43,240 --> 00:19:45,240
Speaker 1: day that there's no parents around, And I never thought

337
00:19:45,240 --> 00:19:49,040
Speaker 1: of that, but I realized that outside of like with

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00:19:49,080 --> 00:19:52,960
Speaker 1: my friends and the love that I got from sports,

339
00:19:53,400 --> 00:19:55,800
Speaker 1: like playing basketball in particular, and the thing that I

340
00:19:55,840 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 1: loved about it was an unspoken connection, you know, that

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00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:01,359
Speaker 1: sort of telepath thing you have with people, and the

342
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,440
Speaker 1: same thing playing music, and the same thing kind of

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00:20:04,480 --> 00:20:06,560
Speaker 1: with a writer when you're reading their book. You're connecting

344
00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:12,360
Speaker 1: in this way and the things the magic of my solitude,

345
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 1: with those things that gave me hope are really that's me,

346
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:21,680
Speaker 1: Like those are the pillars of the best of me. Yeah. Yeah.

347
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:25,960
Speaker 1: On the parental theme as well, what's interesting is that

348
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,480
Speaker 1: this book is full of kind of pathology and loss

349
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:33,119
Speaker 1: and dysfunction, but it's almost all adult. So you have

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00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,959
Speaker 1: a count, did I am I counting correctly? Three pedophiles,

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00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:44,159
Speaker 1: three adult suicides. I mean, it's like you're surrounded by

352
00:20:44,160 --> 00:20:50,240
Speaker 1: all of these deeply screwed up adult figures who are

353
00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:53,960
Speaker 1: making your life incredibly difficult and sad and complicated, and

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00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,920
Speaker 1: the simple and beautiful pleasures seems to be the are

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Speaker 1: the ones that are kind of peer play measures as

356
00:21:00,440 --> 00:21:03,720
Speaker 1: opposed to that's the kind of right well, I guess

357
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:09,400
Speaker 1: for me, like simple and beautiful, like it's also profound

358
00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:13,760
Speaker 1: and complex and layered and and infinite. But in terms

359
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 1: of the adults, uh, there are three pedophiles in there.

360
00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:22,480
Speaker 1: There's a there's a guy you look up later he

361
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:24,480
Speaker 1: turns out to be a pedophile. Oh yeah, there's the

362
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 1: guy who lies down next to you. You go to

363
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 1: his house and he you met you miraculously escaped. And

364
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 1: then there's another pedophile. I was keeping track, but after

365
00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:36,159
Speaker 1: a while there's a there's like a lot of it.

366
00:21:36,200 --> 00:21:38,760
Speaker 1: This is like Holly and the Seven very stuff. Man.

367
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Speaker 1: But I you know, when writing about it, I there's

368
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:48,080
Speaker 1: different things I've had in life, Like I'm glad I

369
00:21:48,160 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: never became a junkie and when I did shoot up

370
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Speaker 1: drugs like a moron, I'm glad that I never owed

371
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 1: eed and died or you know, got a deadly disease.

372
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Speaker 1: And I feel like there's, man, there's some protective angel

373
00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: like looking out for me. Because also growing up with

374
00:22:06,119 --> 00:22:09,800
Speaker 1: like I put myself in situations a million times growing

375
00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:11,680
Speaker 1: up in Hollywood as a little kid, where I could

376
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,359
Speaker 1: have really been hurt, like this, will you tell that

377
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:18,240
Speaker 1: crazy story about the swimming pool that you guys would

378
00:22:18,320 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: jump Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I would have thought it

379
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,120
Speaker 1: was burnt that. You're right, you were like you struggled

380
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:28,560
Speaker 1: to find out which of the swimming crazy swimming school

381
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: stories I was referring to. Yeah, yeah, this is the one,

382
00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:35,600
Speaker 1: because there's two swimming stories. One is like late at

383
00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:38,640
Speaker 1: night we would go sneak into pools of apartment buildings

384
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:42,240
Speaker 1: to swim. I'm talking about when we jumped off the roofs. Yeah,

385
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 1: well that was you know, Anthony and I, as you know,

386
00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: when we met when we were fifteen, it was very explosive.

387
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 1: We met, and it was antagonistic right from the first second.

388
00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: And also literally from the first second. I looked at

389
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 1: him and I knew that this was a person I'd

390
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 1: be hanging out with for the rest of my life.

391
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:05,440
Speaker 1: And there was no doubt I knew. And it was intense,

392
00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:10,040
Speaker 1: And you know, my mom said to me, my mom's

393
00:23:10,080 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: passed away, but I remember her telling me like kind

394
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,200
Speaker 1: of towards her later years, She's like, Michael, I remember,

395
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,880
Speaker 1: you know when when you came home when you were fifteen,

396
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: and you walked in and you were a lit You

397
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:26,760
Speaker 1: were glowing with something, something that I hadn't seen in

398
00:23:26,840 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 1: you before. And you said, Mom, Mom, I finally found

399
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 1: someone I can talk to. And that was the day

400
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: that I'm in Anthony, And I remember like that week

401
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:41,520
Speaker 1: it was it was raining, and so for p class,

402
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: we had to sit up on a and you know,

403
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: we just to sit and talk. You could go down,

404
00:23:45,119 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 1: but you sat in the gym and we just sat

405
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: and we just started talking and it was just, you know,

406
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 1: this NonStop river of communication had you Was that the

407
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,679
Speaker 1: first time you ever met him? Yeah, so it was

408
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,160
Speaker 1: just a kind of random encountering. It was just like, yeah,

409
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: I had this kid and his shirt in a headlock.

410
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 1: And it's so funny because Tony shirw could you know,

411
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,199
Speaker 1: could beat the hell out of me. But but he

412
00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 1: was my best friend at the time. And uh, I

413
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:12,040
Speaker 1: had come out of hanging out with these kids that

414
00:24:12,080 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: were real like kind of bad kids, I mean relatively

415
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: bad in terms of like every day it was just

416
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 1: a what crime can we do to these kids that

417
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:22,560
Speaker 1: were good kids? You know, they different homework. We played

418
00:24:22,560 --> 00:24:24,960
Speaker 1: sports in the street, you know, we might have smoked

419
00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: a little weed here and there, but you know, but

420
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 1: and I had this kid in a headlock and I

421
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: was giving him a noogie. I don't know if you're

422
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: familiar with the noggie, but it's when you get some

423
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:35,479
Speaker 1: of the headlock and you grind your knuckles in. And

424
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,719
Speaker 1: Anthony came up and and he's lay off, and you know,

425
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:40,679
Speaker 1: and and he was. I was scared of him. And

426
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 1: he looked unlike I can. In nineteen seventy six, seventy seven,

427
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 1: in my tenth grade, every kid had had long hair

428
00:24:48,760 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: or a big afro and pooka shells and ope shorts

429
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: and like lead zapp and he had a crew cut,

430
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: and like he just looked different. You had tight pants

431
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, and muscles buff and you know,

432
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: and it's in cancers. I lay off and whoa, you know,

433
00:25:04,320 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: and I just felt this, you know, this feeling of

434
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 1: like that we both were apart from everything and that

435
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:15,720
Speaker 1: we would see things in a way that was different.

436
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 1: And I was right. It's like that when you describe

437
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,680
Speaker 1: the moment you meet Anthony in this book, it's I mean,

438
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,400
Speaker 1: it's you realize the book is a love story, right,

439
00:25:26,560 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: it's just extraordinary romantic in the in the most beautiful

440
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 1: sense of that word encounter and it it's and what's

441
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: amazing to me is like you say, you say, you

442
00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:39,919
Speaker 1: came home that night and you you realize that this

443
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: is almost your this was your soulmate from the get go. Yeah, yeah,

444
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: I just knew that we'd be you know, I don't

445
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: know what the right word for it is. And one

446
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: of the things, and perhaps it's hard for me to

447
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 1: have an objective view on it because our friendship is

448
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: still this moving, fluctuating and sting that it's difficult for

449
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: me to understand. And I tried to understand it as

450
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: best I could because it was such a big part

451
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: of my childhood, such a big part of my growing up,

452
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: and but as I write in the book, it was

453
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 1: it was difficult. It's difficult for me to understand because

454
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,199
Speaker 1: it's not like other things where people fulfill something for

455
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: you in life, you know what I mean. You know,

456
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: like if it's a romantic relationship, it's an intellectual relationship,

457
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: it's someone you might share spiritual path with. It's all

458
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: these different things. But when he with He and I,

459
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: it was like from the beginning this's just this electric motivation.

460
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: And at the same time, it's sort of like North

461
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: and South magnets, you know, how they have to be together,

462
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: they have to exist together, but they push against each

463
00:26:45,160 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 1: other too, And I wrote about it, like, you know,

464
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: I write this piece about these these uh what do

465
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: you call those big horn sheep, like ramming heads together

466
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:58,159
Speaker 1: and how they fight, and it might not it's just

467
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:00,200
Speaker 1: because that's what they do. It feels good to mash

468
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,120
Speaker 1: their heads into each other and they're alive and they're

469
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: electric and everything is flowing through through them. And even

470
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,400
Speaker 1: though like with Anthony and I, we butt heads all

471
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:11,200
Speaker 1: the time and we have completely different world views and

472
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: you know, different ways of going about life. But you know,

473
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:19,120
Speaker 1: you know what he reminded me of. There's a very

474
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:23,719
Speaker 1: famous marriage researcher called John Gottman who does this exercise

475
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: with couples, and what he does is he had asked

476
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 1: them to describe the very first time they met. And

477
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: his theory is that in the very first encounter between

478
00:27:34,280 --> 00:27:37,720
Speaker 1: two people are the seeds of their unual relationship. And

479
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: he gave these hilarious examples, like, you know, the couple

480
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: will be in some kind of therapy because the guy

481
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 1: is like cold and unresponsive, and he'll say, well, what

482
00:27:48,400 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: happened in the first time you met? It goes, well,

483
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 1: he was twenty five minutes late for the day, he

484
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: had forgotten his wallet, he was distracted by the baseball

485
00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: game going. You know, it's like it's all there, So

486
00:27:59,160 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 1: maybe think when you yeah, you're you're goofing around and

487
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:09,120
Speaker 1: then incomes this kind of like dynamic charismatic Yeah, like

488
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 1: weird dude who's not out of step with I think

489
00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: it's going around and instantly there's a kind of but

490
00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:19,200
Speaker 1: this conflict from the beginning, absolutely right. Yeah, Yeah, it's

491
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: a really interesting way to look at it. You know,

492
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,479
Speaker 1: I just got married a few weeks ago. As I

493
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: was saying, and of course when you're thank you, but

494
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: of course when you're saying that, I'm just thinking, like,

495
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 1: the first time I saw this woman, it was just like,

496
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: will you marry me? You know what they mean? Just

497
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 1: like and I hadn't said a word. Yeah, but that

498
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: type of fascinating it. Yeah. When we come back, Malcolm

499
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: and Flee continue discussing Flee's relationship with the Red Hot

500
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:51,240
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers Anthony Keatis. We're back with Malcolm and Flee

501
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: Live from the Palace Theater in Los Angeles. Talk a

502
00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: little bit more about your relationship at that moment from

503
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: in that early stage with Anthony. So you have this

504
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: kind of electric complex connection. What happens the next day

505
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: We just started because this came. You know, the beginning

506
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: of this conversation was. We used to go around in

507
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: Hollywood and we'd most apartment buildings have swimming pools, so

508
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: we'd go any apartment that had a building had a

509
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:25,560
Speaker 1: swimming pool. We'd try to get up on the roof

510
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 1: to jump into the pool, and you know, we'd like

511
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 1: getch our clothes, run in sometimes oftentimes naked, get up

512
00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: on top of a pool and just come flying out

513
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: of the sky and you know, lad in this pool.

514
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: And sometimes people would be sunning themselves by the pool

515
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: and here come these crazy kids like literally flying out

516
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: of the sky, screaming and yelling and landing in their

517
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: pool naked. You know, people just oh and it was

518
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,479
Speaker 1: just like the thrill, like everything about it, the freaking

519
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 1: out of the people, the wild flying through the sky,

520
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: the running out of their being in trouble, the mixing

521
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 1: up this like this like chaos happening for thriving on

522
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 1: the chaos of the moment, and would you just basically

523
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: like like emblematic of everything that we did, Like it

524
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 1: was just like every day, like what can we do

525
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 1: that will be wild? And would you have ever done

526
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: those things without him? Did you need him to do that?

527
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: I think I needed him to take it to that

528
00:30:25,080 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: level because I found a like minded person. And it's

529
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: funny because when my mom told me that I found

530
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: someone I could talk to, Anthony's mom once told me, Oh,

531
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: Anthony told me he found someone who will do anything.

532
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 1: So maybe, you know, for both of us, we just

533
00:30:47,040 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: kind of fed on each other. You know, I don't know, Yeah, yeah,

534
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 1: did you did you? Did you keep a journal in

535
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: those years? I never did know? The crazy thing I

536
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: would now that I when I started writing this book,

537
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: I wrote it pretty much all by hand in a journal,

538
00:31:03,720 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: and you know, just kept filling up journals. And I

539
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: realize that I've only ever written in journals when I'm

540
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 1: absolutely miserable, like when I'm going through like a lot

541
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: of like anxiety, panic attacks, deep sadness, deep like just

542
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: being in horror of my being in my own skin.

543
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: When I'll write to try to understand what I'm going

544
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: through and but in writing and I just like, during

545
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: the writing process of this book, I learned when you know,

546
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: beyond like just like trying to understand my life and

547
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: make sense of it. One of the big things I learned,

548
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: I love writing. I just fucking love it. Like just

549
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:45,080
Speaker 1: the way the words sitting next to on the page,

550
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: like the color of the way different words look next

551
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: to each other. I learned what a literation means, you know,

552
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,800
Speaker 1: Like I just every time I sat down and wrote,

553
00:31:54,400 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: when I lifted my head up afterwards, I felt connected

554
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: and engaged to a part of myself that I had

555
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,840
Speaker 1: never really activated before. And it was such a beautiful thing,

556
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: and I forgot what I was coming around to God,

557
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:09,640
Speaker 1: it was going to be great. Well, no, I was good.

558
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: I was going to say, you're I thought, you must

559
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: have because your memory for all this detail is astonishing. Well,

560
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that made me end

561
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: the book when the Chili Peppers started is when I

562
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: started writing about my childhood. I think I don't have

563
00:32:25,960 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: that grade of a memory, you know, I mean comes

564
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: and goes. But once I started writing about something, I

565
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: always wrote from a place of feeling like would be

566
00:32:34,520 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: one little thing about an event that I remembered, but

567
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: I knew it was something I've been carrying around my

568
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: whole life and was one of those things that guides

569
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: me without me even knowing that it guides me. It's

570
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: like something like, oh, I'm scared. I don't know why

571
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: I'm anxious, and because something triggers something from my childhood.

572
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: But it's a murky memory. It's just like a color

573
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: or shape and a distance. And so I'd start from

574
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: feeling like how did I feel? And when I came

575
00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: from that place of like physical sensation and I started writing,

576
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: it's like it would become clear. It would like the

577
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: clarity and the and the thing would come into focus.

578
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: And then I not only did the event itself in

579
00:33:12,440 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: a narrative of the event come into focus, but then

580
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:18,240
Speaker 1: I would start digging underneath, like what was the thing underneath?

581
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: It made it so? And why is it such an

582
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: important thing to me? And that I loved that, I

583
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 1: loved learning that. It's not like Keith Richards who had

584
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: to hire a team of researchers to write his autobiography.

585
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: What did he do? He had to heah, he literally

586
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: had a team of researchers. Wow, reconstruct his own Yeah, memory,

587
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: that's wild. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean that's like an

588
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: extreme way to go in a way that I really

589
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,719
Speaker 1: did not want to go because it was important to me,

590
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 1: and I think that I got my facts really straight

591
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:52,920
Speaker 1: in this book. I'm sure that I missed some things.

592
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 1: I'm here and there, but I didn't care about that

593
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: in the slightest. Like I thought, even if something happened

594
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 1: and I have it completely wrong in my head, like

595
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: the story, I've twisted it somehow through some neuroses or whatever,

596
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: that this is the story that I'm carrying. You know,

597
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: in all my life, I'm basing my actions and my

598
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: thoughts and my relationship to the world based on this

599
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: story that I'm holding. And if I learned that I

600
00:34:18,880 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: had it wrong, that would be fascinating, you know, that'd

601
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:22,360
Speaker 1: be great, and that would be a you know, it

602
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: could be a watership a watershed, not watership down, a

603
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,319
Speaker 1: watershed moment for me, and that you know, learning from

604
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: my mistake. But but I felt like my the way

605
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: that something lives in my heart is of equal validity,

606
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: or even a dream is of equal validity to any

607
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: like actual factual thing. That happened. Yeah, when you met Anthony,

608
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: your your relationship at first was how much was it

609
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:55,920
Speaker 1: about music? Did you Was the music a part of

610
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,799
Speaker 1: what you were sharing in those early years or yeah,

611
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,799
Speaker 1: it was part of it. I mean from a young age,

612
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: we started like going out and sneaking into clubs and

613
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:06,719
Speaker 1: getting into places and seeing bands played. And I was

614
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: seeing rock music for the first time because as a kid,

615
00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,000
Speaker 1: I didn't like rock music. I thought it was dumb music.

616
00:35:12,080 --> 00:35:13,799
Speaker 1: I thought it was music for people who didn't care

617
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: about music. Because I grew up in a jazz household

618
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:23,360
Speaker 1: and jazz being this like really sophisticated, cerebrally, emotionally, spiritually,

619
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,040
Speaker 1: I just saw rock music as something for kids who

620
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: care about haircuts and silly magazines and stuff. And all

621
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 1: of a sudden, now it's taking on a different meaning

622
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,880
Speaker 1: because I meet Anthony and then more profoundly with Hello later.

623
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: But I start we start sneaking in, I started seeing

624
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: rock music, and even though I still want to be

625
00:35:43,680 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: Dizzy Gillespie when I grow up, I wanted to be

626
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,360
Speaker 1: a jazz drumpet player, I start feeling this visceral feeling

627
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: about things, and I'm a kid, I'm starting to come

628
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:55,240
Speaker 1: into my sexuality. I'm starting to come in and I'm

629
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: getting this. I'm out in Hollywood clubs as a little kid,

630
00:35:57,640 --> 00:36:00,880
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing all this crazy behavior you're and you know,

631
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: nudity and people making out and doing weird things in

632
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: nightclubs where little kids don't belong. I don't get the

633
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: sense of reading your book. Did you and Anthony ever

634
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: paid admission to any club? No? And you're no. We

635
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,280
Speaker 1: we we like to sneak in, challenging you to produce

636
00:36:20,320 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: a single ticket. Y. Yeah, no, we used to have

637
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 1: this thing like it probably still works. If you want

638
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:29,360
Speaker 1: to get into a movie theater, walk in backwards. We

639
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,759
Speaker 1: used to do this thing, just walk in backwards. It

640
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:44,920
Speaker 1: works all the time. Yeah. Deep. How would if Anthony

641
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:49,000
Speaker 1: was sitting here undecided me, how would he respond to

642
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: your account of your meeting. I'm sure it was, you know,

643
00:36:55,719 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: very different for him. I know that with anthy and I,

644
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: if we, you know, we work together in a room

645
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: and we both experience the same thing, we'll walk out

646
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: and we'll both have different stories to tell. So how

647
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 1: do how do your stories differ? We just they just do.

648
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: They're just we We were both very intense about who

649
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: we are, and I don't think I can really put

650
00:37:19,120 --> 00:37:22,400
Speaker 1: a qualitative same in us on how they differ, because

651
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: that it varies from situation a situation. Yeah. Yeah, but

652
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:28,560
Speaker 1: you know, I feel like I'm talking about all these

653
00:37:28,600 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: differences because you know, is someone that I love deeply,

654
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: and we're brothers and we love each other. And sometimes

655
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:39,239
Speaker 1: I worry that in me trying to understand it that

656
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 1: I wrote about in my book. And it is a

657
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 1: love story of my book, even though there are many

658
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 1: love stories in my book, and my book is a

659
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: book of my story is a story of love, of

660
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: yearning for it and being distracted and going wrong ways

661
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: and and all of that. But with us, you know,

662
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:02,799
Speaker 1: no matter what, love has always been enough. Yeah. The

663
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 1: other great love story of the book is about Helle

664
00:38:06,280 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: el Slovak. Yeah, tell me, tell us about your first

665
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:15,480
Speaker 1: encounter with him. Well, I remember the first time I

666
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: really noticed him because we were you know, it had

667
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: been in school together since seventh grade. But I think

668
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 1: I guess it was the last year of junior high

669
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: and ninth grade eighth or ninth and for the school

670
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: talent show, he and a few of his friends dressed

671
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: up like kiss for the Talent Show and came out

672
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,839
Speaker 1: of the Talent Show and lip sync to Kiss and

673
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: they had it down. It wasn't like they just put

674
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: on a mask like they had spent days. They had

675
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:47,440
Speaker 1: you know, the makeup, that high boots, every outfit had

676
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 1: been sewed and studded, and the belts and they really

677
00:38:50,880 --> 00:38:54,600
Speaker 1: looked like other worldly kiss guys. And I didn't even

678
00:38:54,640 --> 00:38:56,479
Speaker 1: know what Kiss was. It was, you know, I didn't

679
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,359
Speaker 1: know about this stuff. But I remember seeing him mime

680
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 1: in the talent lunch show with my with Jack and

681
00:39:02,520 --> 00:39:04,920
Speaker 1: with Jack Irons, who was, you know, the other founding

682
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 1: member of the Chili Peppers, and just being amazed. I

683
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: was like at their commitment and their intensity and their

684
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: belief in this thing. There was like a cartoon to me,

685
00:39:15,239 --> 00:39:18,200
Speaker 1: it was just like some silly, you know thing, But

686
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,720
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like, Wow, they really believe

687
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 1: in this, like their commitment, their kicks and their moves,

688
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:25,920
Speaker 1: and they're back to back like rocking out, you know,

689
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: wil Luila looking at tongues out like I was really

690
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: like impressed in a way that I had never been

691
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: impressed by, even like you know, real virtuosos and rock

692
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,439
Speaker 1: music and and so I noticed him then. And then

693
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: there was one day and I, you know, count this

694
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: story in my book where Anthony and I were out,

695
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:49,640
Speaker 1: like you know, stoned as usual, riding the bumper cars

696
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:52,399
Speaker 1: in North Hollywood, and we were always hitchhiking, always trying

697
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: to get a ride and always had a hustle. And

698
00:39:54,800 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 1: we were walking down the street and we saw him

699
00:39:57,360 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 1: drive by. I guess we were just turned sixteen, were

700
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:01,640
Speaker 1: old enough to drive, and he had a green dots

701
00:40:01,680 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: and five ten and it was blasting Lavilla strangiata by

702
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: rush and rocking out and we saw him and we

703
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: know that dude, that's that's he's in my social studies class.

704
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: And we ran and chased him down, and you know,

705
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: because you wanted to ride, and he gave us a ride.

706
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: And right away, just like when Anthony and I connected,

707
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: we became a threesome. Yeah, and it became every day.

708
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:23,239
Speaker 1: But to my point, you remember that it was a

709
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,319
Speaker 1: dots and five ten, Yeah, Well he was you know, yeah,

710
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 1: it was a fantastic car and a banging stereo in it. Yeah,

711
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 1: it's like Rick Ruben. On the episode of Broken Record

712
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 1: that just aired, he was interviewing Tanya Tucker and she's

713
00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 1: remembering these touring in the early seventies when she was,

714
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:45,719
Speaker 1: you know, fourteen years old. Yeah, and she's the same thing.

715
00:40:46,160 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: She's describing everything, and she's like yeah. And then we

716
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: had like, you know, two brown Fort LTDs that we

717
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: were saying, who remembers that particular model of the you know,

718
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one four B. When you're a sixteen year

719
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:03,439
Speaker 1: old boy in Los Angeles, car is a very significant thing. Yeah.

720
00:41:03,440 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have said a DUTs in five ten was

721
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,520
Speaker 1: very significant. Yeah, but well, no, I remember it well

722
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: because I mean he had a car. We were in

723
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:17,359
Speaker 1: it constantly. Describe sixteen year old HELLEL. Slovak. I fell

724
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: in love with Hellel. He was just an absolutely beautiful boy,

725
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: had long, curly hair, and he was an artist. He

726
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,839
Speaker 1: painted these beautiful paintings, and he had an interesting like penmanship,

727
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: the way he would write, and he would get into

728
00:41:34,239 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 1: drawing things, like he'd go through a phase of just

729
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 1: drawing cows that he and he would draw these beautiful

730
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 1: cows with these pastoral landscapes and he would he was

731
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,880
Speaker 1: just an artist. I'd never met a kid like this before.

732
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:53,200
Speaker 1: He was sensitive and poetic, and artistic, and he loved

733
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: rock music. And he had this red Messenger guitar that

734
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: he slung over his shoulder, and he just looked so

735
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 1: sexy and cool the way he held it. And and

736
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:07,239
Speaker 1: like I said, I had never liked rock music, but

737
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: when I met Helle, I fell in love with rock

738
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: music because I fell in love with him, and we'd

739
00:42:12,680 --> 00:42:19,760
Speaker 1: sit in his room and you know, he just played

740
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:23,719
Speaker 1: me all this this great rock music like Hendrix, like

741
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: I had missed out on Hendricks. You know, it was

742
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: already nineteen seventy seven, and I didn't know about Hendricks yet.

743
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:33,879
Speaker 1: I knew he existed, I knew the songs, but all

744
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: of a sudden, like this sound, this virtuosity, this power,

745
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:42,240
Speaker 1: this thing is just filling me up and it's changing

746
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: my life. And his belief in it and his dreams

747
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 1: and his like yearning to connect and to this music

748
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:52,799
Speaker 1: to like breathe through him as a vehicle for his

749
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:56,120
Speaker 1: life was so intense. And we'd just sit and listen

750
00:42:56,239 --> 00:43:00,760
Speaker 1: and look at art books, and it just changed everything

751
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: for me. I you know, it was it was really beautiful.

752
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 1: And and when I wrote about hellel in this book,

753
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,160
Speaker 1: I didn't it was important to me. I really just

754
00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: wanted to write about my childhood and to write about

755
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: how I felt then and to be in my head

756
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 1: is how I was when I was a kid, too,

757
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: because I thought that like the value and the honesty

758
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: of the story would be not like coming from an

759
00:43:23,480 --> 00:43:25,560
Speaker 1: adult point of view, but how I was then, like

760
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,239
Speaker 1: how I was trying to make sense of things, but

761
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:33,239
Speaker 1: it was I couldn't think about it. He died in

762
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, and his life and death are so

763
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,279
Speaker 1: intertwined to me at this point it was difficult for

764
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:43,399
Speaker 1: me to write about him without writing about his death.

765
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:47,680
Speaker 1: So I did write about it. And because he's become

766
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: for me in a way, like I have all these

767
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:54,040
Speaker 1: beautiful stories and memories and from him, and he's really tragic.

768
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, you talk about the book being

769
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,520
Speaker 1: sad and beautiful at the same time, and that's how

770
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: my memory sorry for him. It's like all these beautiful

771
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: things and in this tremendous sense of loss and sadness

772
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 1: of his death at such a young age. And so

773
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: I wrote about that too, you know. And because he

774
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: exists for me now in my dreams and in my thoughts,

775
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:27,040
Speaker 1: and every day there's a the little throughout the book,

776
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:31,839
Speaker 1: you have these little moments when you which worked really

777
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:36,600
Speaker 1: beautifully where you in italics. You kind of give us

778
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:40,920
Speaker 1: either flashbacks or you jump into the future or asides,

779
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 1: and you have one about his funeral that is one

780
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 1: of the most heartbreaking things I've ever read. I do

781
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about. You know, I

782
00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: wrote that it's been like, you know, the book was

783
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 1: going to come out last this year, and I decided

784
00:45:01,440 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: to wait a year just because I was going through

785
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: some stuff. But so I don't remember exactly what I wrote.

786
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:12,399
Speaker 1: I haven't looked at it in a while. Yeah, this guy,

787
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:15,080
Speaker 1: I know, I wrote two pieces, one like the day

788
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: that he dies. Oh that no, No, Then there's another one.

789
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:24,320
Speaker 1: There's another part. Yeah, well you know, hello died from

790
00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: a heroin overdose. Yeah. We were just kids, you know.

791
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:30,760
Speaker 1: I mean we were twenty six, but I was twenty

792
00:45:30,800 --> 00:45:38,960
Speaker 1: six going on fifteen, and for a long time I've

793
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 1: really kind of, you know, I'm way better, I don't know,

794
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:46,040
Speaker 1: but kind of beat myself up because I didn't know

795
00:45:46,120 --> 00:45:48,719
Speaker 1: how to be there for him. Then, you know, I

796
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: was angry because I was like, you know, we have

797
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:53,840
Speaker 1: this thing going man, we got this band. This is cool.

798
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: You know, we the funk. We gotta like find our rhythm.

799
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,719
Speaker 1: We gotta and we he and I like he had

800
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 1: asked me to start playing bass. We had this we

801
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: all profound connection and we were had this music that

802
00:46:03,600 --> 00:46:05,840
Speaker 1: we thought was unique, and we were propelling it forward.

803
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 1: And when he got strung out on heroin, I felt abandoned.

804
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:12,759
Speaker 1: I felt left. I felt like he was leaving me,

805
00:46:12,920 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: and I got angry at him. And so the way

806
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:22,440
Speaker 1: that I expressed my concern for his you know, drug

807
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: problem was to be angry, and I got mad at him,

808
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: and I you know, judged, and I you know, I

809
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,280
Speaker 1: came from a place, so come on, get it together.

810
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: We got to do this. And it causes me great

811
00:46:35,400 --> 00:46:40,840
Speaker 1: difficulty to now know, like from my knowing now and

812
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,200
Speaker 1: having obviously dealt with many a friend, with many a

813
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: person in my life with substance abuse problems, like had

814
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 1: I been able to be there, that maybe I could

815
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: have helped a lot, that maybe I could have saved him,

816
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,400
Speaker 1: Maybe I could have helped him to you know, capture

817
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 1: the beautiful light of who he was and to shed

818
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:02,640
Speaker 1: all these you know, deadly distractions from his life and

819
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: too but I didn't know that then, and and uh,

820
00:47:06,560 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: even though I know it's, you know, not my fault,

821
00:47:10,239 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 1: I a lot of that. I guess that part that

822
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: I was writing was driven by me coming to terms

823
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 1: with that, with my inability to help him, and yeah,

824
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:26,279
Speaker 1: and I and just the feelings of of loss, and

825
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,399
Speaker 1: you know, I often for a long time, I had

826
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: a recurring dream where he would come in my dream

827
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 1: and there would be he would be be kind of upset,

828
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: you know that I wasn't there for him in that way,

829
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 1: and you know, so I guess it's just me working

830
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 1: through that and understanding it. Yeah, he you talked about

831
00:47:53,280 --> 00:47:55,959
Speaker 1: he was the one who introduced you to the base. Yeah,

832
00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: so he he'd been. He'd and them that that was

833
00:48:00,520 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: his band in high school. Anthem with the why why yeah?

834
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: And what kind of music did they play? It was

835
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: rock music yearning could be prog rock. It's the best

836
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: way I can describe it. It was, you know, it

837
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,279
Speaker 1: was it started off like when before I joined the band.

838
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: It was they were doing a lot of covers Zeppelin

839
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: and Queen and stuff like that, and writing their own

840
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: songs which are kind of in that like hard rock

841
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: vein like mid seventies classic rock. I guess that is

842
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 1: what you call it now. But it started to become

843
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 1: more progressive and more already and more crazy, weird court

844
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 1: progressions and quirky, clever kind of things. And yeah, it

845
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: was like that. So did you like the music of

846
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:52,399
Speaker 1: Anthem before you? Did? You? Did? You? Did? You? Did

847
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: Anthem come after you became friends with Hello? Yeah? It did?

848
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 1: Oh it did. So I didn't really know about it before.

849
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 1: But when I first, you know, all my judgments about

850
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,200
Speaker 1: rock music started going away when I went over to

851
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 1: Jack's house in his bedroom where they would rehearse, and

852
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: I'd see them playing. And I had always played music

853
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 1: in an academic setting. I played in La Junior Philharmonic,

854
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:18,399
Speaker 1: I played in whatever. I played in the LACC jazz band.

855
00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: When I was in high school, I played. I wanted

856
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:21,440
Speaker 1: to be a trump player, but it was always a

857
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 1: teacher and a conductor and a stand with music on it.

858
00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,560
Speaker 1: And I'm watching them play music just by themselves, with

859
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: no parents and rocking out and rock posters on the walls,

860
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,360
Speaker 1: and like, you know, girls who were cool at school

861
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,879
Speaker 1: would come and watch, and I was like, wow, this

862
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 1: is you know, this is a whole other world and

863
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 1: I started, I started really softening to it and kind of,

864
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,240
Speaker 1: you know, opening my heart to the idea of it.

865
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:46,359
Speaker 1: So he comes to you and he suggests, yes, see,

866
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,399
Speaker 1: whether you will be the play the bass for the band. Yeah,

867
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: And it's a night that I remember so vividly. It

868
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: was another night where it was raining and we're sitting

869
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: in his dots and I've ten in front of his

870
00:50:01,120 --> 00:50:05,000
Speaker 1: mom's house, and uh, it was raining and we were

871
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: listening to this DJ we really loved named Jim Latt

872
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:10,919
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah he was you know, he was good.

873
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: And it was raining and he and he was playing.

874
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 1: He started playing Riders on the Storm by the doors

875
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: and we're laying back. I'm sure we were stoned, you know,

876
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: and we were sitting back and there's a plan and

877
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 1: he's like and he's like Mike. He goes, uh, you

878
00:50:27,680 --> 00:50:29,440
Speaker 1: know if he had a bass player named Todd at

879
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 1: the time, and he says, I think, you know, Todd,

880
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 1: he doesn't really believe in it. It's like a hobby

881
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: for him. You know, he doesn't live it. He doesn't

882
00:50:38,040 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 1: breathe it. And you know, maybe you could learn to

883
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 1: play bass, and why don't you learn to play bass

884
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:46,840
Speaker 1: and join the band, and I just started fucking shivering

885
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: all over and in that moment, you know, I felt

886
00:50:53,680 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 1: so like I don't know if honored is even the word,

887
00:50:58,080 --> 00:51:01,319
Speaker 1: like seen and loved and valued, like because I knew

888
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:04,320
Speaker 1: it meant everything to him, that the band is a

889
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 1: fucking sacred thing, you know, and like when he when

890
00:51:09,440 --> 00:51:11,680
Speaker 1: he asked me to join, I just it was the

891
00:51:11,719 --> 00:51:14,520
Speaker 1: most loving thing that anyone had ever said to me

892
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 1: in my life. It was so great. And you know, sorry,

893
00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: I got I got emotional, but but you know, I

894
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: was just fucking stoked. And the next day I ran

895
00:51:27,640 --> 00:51:31,520
Speaker 1: out and got a basse and you know, got a

896
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,759
Speaker 1: base and right away to started whacking away at it.

897
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: And two weeks later I was on stage at Gazari's

898
00:51:36,200 --> 00:51:39,600
Speaker 1: and Hollywood playing a game, and that, you know, it

899
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:42,600
Speaker 1: became what I did for the rest of my life.

900
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: Did you want me to come back? Fully picks up

901
00:51:47,120 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: his bass and walks us through the evolution of his

902
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: playing style. We're back with more of Malcolm's interview with Flee.

903
00:51:57,000 --> 00:52:02,879
Speaker 1: You have your bass sitting there, very tendal risingly. I'd

904
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: love for you to give us a little guided tour

905
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:12,719
Speaker 1: in your in the kind of evolution of your You

906
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:14,719
Speaker 1: play the bass in a very distinctive way. I would

907
00:52:14,719 --> 00:52:16,600
Speaker 1: love for you to explain to us how did that

908
00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:22,040
Speaker 1: come about? To walk us through the steps? Okay, well,

909
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 1: playing trumpet, like I said, had been a very academic

910
00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: like institutional way of learning. And as soon as I

911
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:33,360
Speaker 1: started playing bass, like all that one out the window.

912
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:36,320
Speaker 1: And not that I wasn't that harmonically sophisticated or anything,

913
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 1: but like when the first day I got my bass,

914
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:41,399
Speaker 1: I had one lesson from Hollel because I started going

915
00:52:41,400 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: like this, and he goes, he goes, it's good when

916
00:52:45,120 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: you walk with your fingers just like you're walking. So

917
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:51,080
Speaker 1: I started going, and I remember the first thing I

918
00:52:51,120 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: ever learned to play there was a song at HELLEL

919
00:52:53,640 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: had written called one Way Woman, Hey the Baby, have

920
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,839
Speaker 1: you heard the news? He used to sing it, and

921
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: we keep going. I can't remember, and like, I am

922
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:10,680
Speaker 1: a fucking awful singer, and hello was worse than mean

923
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 1: it but it went, it went, It went like that,

924
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: and I can't remember, and I'm making it, you know,

925
00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:20,279
Speaker 1: I don't mean to make a mockery of it, because,

926
00:53:20,320 --> 00:53:22,320
Speaker 1: believe me, when I got on stage of the Gazari's.

927
00:53:22,880 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 1: I played that thing with every fucking atom that I

928
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 1: had investigents in it, and you know, and so I

929
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:35,719
Speaker 1: just started playing. But then the way that I really

930
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: learned to play, and then I started figuring out, like

931
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:40,640
Speaker 1: remember of the first things I learned to Kashmir by

932
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 1: Led Zeppelin. You know, I just started playing and learning things.

933
00:53:45,560 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 1: But the way that I really learned was we would

934
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,600
Speaker 1: get in a room and we would just start improvising

935
00:53:52,480 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: and and you know, no plan, no no song, We

936
00:53:55,520 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: just we just improvised. And I just started making up rhythms,

937
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,320
Speaker 1: you know, and even at first that they'd be very simple.

938
00:54:03,360 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 1: Because I came from I didn't know rock music at all,

939
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:11,920
Speaker 1: and I came from wanting to be a jazz trumpet player.

940
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 1: I didn't approach the bass in the normal way so

941
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: like most rock bass lines would, you know, And I

942
00:54:18,760 --> 00:54:21,600
Speaker 1: didn't know that at all. So right away I was like,

943
00:54:22,920 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, I just was nutty, you know,

944
00:54:26,000 --> 00:54:31,840
Speaker 1: and and I just started, you know, growing as a

945
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,040
Speaker 1: bass player, and it wasn't really you know, and I

946
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:37,839
Speaker 1: just kept doing that and like following, as my friend

947
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: Ian Mackay says, follow the thread, so say you'll you

948
00:54:41,600 --> 00:54:44,680
Speaker 1: write something, you're like, you're like like just that right,

949
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 1: and anything like okay, so that's good, you know, and

950
00:54:48,880 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: just following the thread and finding the next thing. And

951
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: I just kept doing it and doing it and developing

952
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:57,919
Speaker 1: my style. I didn't really have like the normal ramp

953
00:54:57,960 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: up because I just right into playing gigs and jamming

954
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:04,360
Speaker 1: and stuff. There's a part, you know, I was listening

955
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:08,160
Speaker 1: to rocky music, and you know, I didn't really even

956
00:55:08,239 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: learn other people's songs, which is kind of a weird

957
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:12,959
Speaker 1: way too, because most people learned songs and I still

958
00:55:13,080 --> 00:55:18,200
Speaker 1: don't do that that much. But I when I was

959
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: in I just started playing. And it was eleventh grade

960
00:55:21,239 --> 00:55:24,040
Speaker 1: and then I saw a kid named Ray, Like there

961
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: was Anthem was a band in high school, and there

962
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,560
Speaker 1: was another band. It was a funk band called Star

963
00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: and they had a bass player named Ray. And I

964
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: had only seen bass play like this with the fingers,

965
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,759
Speaker 1: and Ray was going like this with his thumb and

966
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:43,840
Speaker 1: I was like, what the fuck? Ray? You know, and

967
00:55:43,880 --> 00:55:47,320
Speaker 1: he was like bouncing is bouncing and popping and plucking

968
00:55:47,400 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 1: and thumping. And I watched him. He was like, yeah, man,

969
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 1: you know, are you hitting your song? Slide it down?

970
00:55:53,200 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: And that, you know, blew my mind when I saw

971
00:55:57,239 --> 00:56:01,040
Speaker 1: Ray do that, and then the kind of a big

972
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: so I started doing that. I started you know, playing

973
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:08,440
Speaker 1: punk and slapping. And then but then, but then what

974
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:13,759
Speaker 1: happened like a big change for me was at a

975
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:16,920
Speaker 1: certain point I discovered punk rock. And when I started

976
00:56:16,960 --> 00:56:20,440
Speaker 1: liking rock music, I disliked. I liked the virtuoso players

977
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: I liked, you know, I like Hendrix, and I liked

978
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:25,560
Speaker 1: prog rock like Alan Holdsworth and Bill Bruford and Yes

979
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:29,760
Speaker 1: and these guys that were very proficient, technically accomplished virtual

980
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,600
Speaker 1: show players. And I saw, like I'd seen punk rock

981
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:35,640
Speaker 1: shows and it was wild, and I appreciated, like the

982
00:56:35,719 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 1: intensity of it, but I was like, they don't know

983
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:41,319
Speaker 1: how to play. I didn't like it. And then I

984
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:46,400
Speaker 1: had a one night I took acid. And by the way,

985
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: my books called as of the Children, but I do

986
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,399
Speaker 1: not recommend children taking acid. That's not the point of it.

987
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: But when we could talk about that if you want.

988
00:56:53,719 --> 00:56:56,960
Speaker 1: But but I saw this band called Fear playing and

989
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:00,520
Speaker 1: they're playing this really fast, hardcore punk rock and I

990
00:57:00,560 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 1: was just you know, granted I was on LSD, but

991
00:57:03,800 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: I was entranced. You know, I was absolutely entranced, and

992
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:12,880
Speaker 1: I just the movement of it. They actually, you know,

993
00:57:12,880 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 1: were actually really good players within the context of this

994
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:19,120
Speaker 1: really fast, relentless hardcore punk rock. And when I saw

995
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 1: them play it, it's like opened the door. You know.

996
00:57:23,080 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 1: It might have been on assets, so the door was

997
00:57:24,680 --> 00:57:27,760
Speaker 1: there to be opened, but the thing was there for real,

998
00:57:28,000 --> 00:57:31,240
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, so I'm blown away by

999
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:33,320
Speaker 1: this band. Afterwards, I'm telling everyone about it. Oh my god,

1000
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: there's band Fear. There's no crazy and the singers so charismatic,

1001
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:39,360
Speaker 1: and the music and the crazy time signatures. And then

1002
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:41,000
Speaker 1: three days later I see an add in the paper

1003
00:57:41,120 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 1: Fear fires bass player looking for a new bass player,

1004
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: and I call it, and I, you know, I call up.

1005
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 1: I go down an audition and I was like, you know,

1006
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm the wildest man that ever lived, and I love

1007
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:54,800
Speaker 1: this music like there's no way they're not going to

1008
00:57:54,920 --> 00:57:58,080
Speaker 1: hire me, and they did hire me, and so then

1009
00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:01,640
Speaker 1: I started playing in Fear and the music was really fast.

1010
00:58:02,240 --> 00:58:05,640
Speaker 1: It was punk rock, very simple but fast, and also like,

1011
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: here's a Fear song it's called give Me Some Action.

1012
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:15,120
Speaker 1: It goes anyways. But when I coupled, when I thanks

1013
00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 1: when I when I coupled that feeling of punk rock,

1014
00:58:18,600 --> 00:58:20,880
Speaker 1: because and I fell in love with punk rock. I

1015
00:58:20,920 --> 00:58:24,160
Speaker 1: had a real awakening, the real Even though I played

1016
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: in Fear and I loved being in Fear and it

1017
00:58:26,040 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 1: was exciting and thrilling, the thing that got me was

1018
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:36,000
Speaker 1: the germs I heard. Thanks I I you know, I

1019
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 1: heard the germs. I was like, what's that? And person

1020
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 1: I was with it was like, oh, the germs. They

1021
00:58:40,160 --> 00:58:42,720
Speaker 1: couldn't know how to play there. You know, they're obnoxious.

1022
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:44,919
Speaker 1: The singer was a creep. You know. That's what someone

1023
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: told me at the time. And I was like, yeah,

1024
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:48,680
Speaker 1: but I was getting my head. They were saying it

1025
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,240
Speaker 1: and it was someone I admired. But in my in

1026
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:53,080
Speaker 1: my head, I was like that that I got to

1027
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:55,200
Speaker 1: hear that, And I remember the next day I went

1028
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:58,720
Speaker 1: out and got their record GI and when I heard it,

1029
00:58:58,920 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 1: I remember it like, let's another thing. I write about

1030
00:59:01,040 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 1: it my book. It's a very vivid memory because it

1031
00:59:03,640 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: changed a part of me forever, which was that when

1032
00:59:08,880 --> 00:59:13,440
Speaker 1: I heard it, it had this magical, spiritual, intangible quality

1033
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 1: to it that just affected me, that made me tingle

1034
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:21,000
Speaker 1: all over, that made me get lost in the ether.

1035
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:26,040
Speaker 1: And here's this like really violent, like relentlessly intense music

1036
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:28,920
Speaker 1: with no melody and the singers snarling and yelling. You know,

1037
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:32,160
Speaker 1: it doesn't it's not like he's even singing, And but

1038
00:59:32,320 --> 00:59:35,560
Speaker 1: it just like I just like I was on. It

1039
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:37,800
Speaker 1: just took me away. It took me into the ether,

1040
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:42,200
Speaker 1: and I was so moved by it that it changed

1041
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 1: the way I looked at music forever. It made me

1042
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: feel that it didn't matter if you knew how to

1043
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: play fast, if you're a virtuoso. And even though I

1044
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: still you know, love that the discipline and all the

1045
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:54,360
Speaker 1: work ethic that it takes for someone to become a virtuo.

1046
00:59:54,440 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 1: So I realized that the motivation and the integrity and

1047
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 1: the intensity of the message someone wants to to communicate

1048
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:08,080
Speaker 1: their vehicle might be something really remedial. And the love

1049
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:09,760
Speaker 1: of the connection of the people in the band and

1050
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:13,360
Speaker 1: all these these these things that make music sacred can

1051
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:16,560
Speaker 1: exist as vibrantly and the most simple thing as they can.

1052
01:00:16,640 --> 01:00:19,680
Speaker 1: And like the greatest John Coltrane solo, So the Germans

1053
01:00:19,720 --> 01:00:21,640
Speaker 1: did that for me. And that sivnity is when am

1054
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:24,160
Speaker 1: I really fell in love with punk rock. Then I

1055
01:00:24,200 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 1: took the energy of you know, punk rock and funk,

1056
01:00:29,320 --> 01:00:32,840
Speaker 1: and I started putting them together, you know, and I

1057
01:00:32,920 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 1: started developing a style of my own, even though I

1058
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: already I did have my own voice as a bass player,

1059
01:00:37,520 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 1: but I kind of there started playing these these bassline,

1060
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: these like fast funk basslines with punk rock energy from

1061
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:51,439
Speaker 1: those two different styles, and you know, created this new

1062
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 1: kind of hybrid of a sound and also you know,

1063
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 1: influenced by a lot of the great kind of post

1064
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 1: punk bands. I guess you call it, like Uh from

1065
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:03,680
Speaker 1: New York. I really loved Defunct with Joe Bowie and

1066
01:01:04,000 --> 01:01:07,520
Speaker 1: James Chance, the contortions. There's kind of that no New

1067
01:01:07,600 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 1: York sound and stuff, as well as just the reckless

1068
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:13,120
Speaker 1: freedom of the great free jazzers when they played punk,

1069
01:01:13,200 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 1: like the Uh. You know, lots of lots of people

1070
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:22,360
Speaker 1: when when you say that, the moment you you said,

1071
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: fuse those two traditions in your own playing, When is

1072
01:01:25,960 --> 01:01:29,280
Speaker 1: that happening? Is that early Chili Peppers? Is that just

1073
01:01:29,400 --> 01:01:35,400
Speaker 1: before the Chili Peppers? You know, just before I started, Yeah,

1074
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 1: maybe six months before so, And at that time things

1075
01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:43,160
Speaker 1: are moving so quickly, you know, I guess it's like

1076
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 1: maybe that happens when you get older, time goes faster,

1077
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:51,720
Speaker 1: but events, significant events. I think maybe that's like an

1078
01:01:51,760 --> 01:01:54,320
Speaker 1: archetypal thing or a developmental thing with people I don't know,

1079
01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:56,880
Speaker 1: but happen at that age, and if you're willing to

1080
01:01:57,600 --> 01:02:01,920
Speaker 1: have the diligence to to deal with them and integrate

1081
01:02:01,960 --> 01:02:04,760
Speaker 1: them into your life, they can be really profound. What

1082
01:02:05,240 --> 01:02:09,000
Speaker 1: were your musical peers, how are they responding to that,

1083
01:02:10,000 --> 01:02:13,040
Speaker 1: to that style of playing? Were you getting? I was

1084
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:15,800
Speaker 1: doing it by myself at first, because I was playing

1085
01:02:15,800 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 1: you know, I left Anthem, which I had become what

1086
01:02:18,080 --> 01:02:22,320
Speaker 1: is this? I joined Fear, and and Fear was you know,

1087
01:02:22,320 --> 01:02:24,080
Speaker 1: punk rock. They didn't want to hear about me slapping

1088
01:02:24,120 --> 01:02:29,440
Speaker 1: and playing funk, you know. But when I got together

1089
01:02:29,560 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: and started playing with Hellell and Jack again and Anthony

1090
01:02:32,360 --> 01:02:34,080
Speaker 1: and we started with Chili Pepper, is it just all

1091
01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: of a sad just happened. Like I had this stuff,

1092
01:02:36,720 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 1: I had this way of playing, and all of a sudden,

1093
01:02:38,960 --> 01:02:41,480
Speaker 1: I was like this, and you know, they just we

1094
01:02:42,520 --> 01:02:44,880
Speaker 1: everyone knew what to do, you know, as well as

1095
01:02:44,880 --> 01:02:47,320
Speaker 1: everyone else was. It wasn't just me. Everyone was finding

1096
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: their place and sometimes things it's just like a zeitgeist,

1097
01:02:50,760 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 1: you know, it's like something's in the air and you

1098
01:02:53,080 --> 01:02:57,160
Speaker 1: express it. I you know, I It's funny the more

1099
01:02:57,200 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 1: I learned about music, and when I went and iudied

1100
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:03,600
Speaker 1: music even like you know, because I never studied music

1101
01:03:03,600 --> 01:03:06,160
Speaker 1: really academically, I mean like kid public school stuff. But

1102
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:08,560
Speaker 1: when I was forty six, I went to college for

1103
01:03:08,600 --> 01:03:12,560
Speaker 1: a year to USC and studied music academically, academically, which

1104
01:03:12,560 --> 01:03:16,040
Speaker 1: I had never done. And it became so apparent to

1105
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: me that so you just start getting into saybak, which

1106
01:03:20,600 --> 01:03:25,320
Speaker 1: is you know, very like mathematically complex, but it's all

1107
01:03:25,360 --> 01:03:27,800
Speaker 1: these things are just there. It's like, you know, it's

1108
01:03:27,880 --> 01:03:31,160
Speaker 1: things that resonate at various speeds and you figure them

1109
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:33,200
Speaker 1: out how to put them together to make these mathematical

1110
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:35,920
Speaker 1: equations that formed the sound, and it just becomes like

1111
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:38,240
Speaker 1: breathing because you're so good at it. It's just all there,

1112
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:40,120
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And it's like if our

1113
01:03:40,240 --> 01:03:43,640
Speaker 1: ten are anten are tuned, we pick it up. And

1114
01:03:43,680 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: I just think at that time it was there. Did

1115
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:52,720
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about do you mentioned the beginnings

1116
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:57,800
Speaker 1: of the Chili Peppers. Talk a little bit about Anthony's decision.

1117
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 1: So it goes from someone who's an avid fan of

1118
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:07,440
Speaker 1: music to deciding that he wants to make y Oh, well,

1119
01:04:07,480 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: you asked earlier if we had if our relationship was

1120
01:04:12,120 --> 01:04:15,680
Speaker 1: musical from the beginning, and we appreciated music together for sure.

1121
01:04:15,840 --> 01:04:17,480
Speaker 1: You know, we would listen to music all the time,

1122
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,840
Speaker 1: and he would play stuff like him and his in

1123
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:21,400
Speaker 1: his house where he lived with his dad, and they

1124
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:23,440
Speaker 1: would play me music that I had never heard, like

1125
01:04:23,520 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: Blondie's first album I remember hearing and just you know,

1126
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 1: stuff that I didn't know about because we didn't listen

1127
01:04:29,480 --> 01:04:33,400
Speaker 1: to rock music in my house. And but but he

1128
01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 1: Anthony was an actor, you know, he was had done

1129
01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 1: film parts, and he wanted to be an actor, and

1130
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 1: he was, you know, gearing himself towards a life as

1131
01:04:42,400 --> 01:04:46,400
Speaker 1: an actor. And you know, but we were so wild

1132
01:04:46,480 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 1: and crazy and distracted and running around on the street

1133
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:52,280
Speaker 1: that neither of us like, even though we loved to

1134
01:04:52,280 --> 01:04:53,919
Speaker 1: do the things that we did, we were just all

1135
01:04:53,920 --> 01:04:56,160
Speaker 1: over the place. You know. It wasn't like we had

1136
01:04:56,280 --> 01:04:59,520
Speaker 1: we weren't that disciplined. But one night he went to

1137
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:04,440
Speaker 1: go see Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and he

1138
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: came home the next day we were like all crashing

1139
01:05:06,560 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: in this apartment up on Wilton and Franklin, and he

1140
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:12,919
Speaker 1: came in and he was just lit up. He was like, man,

1141
01:05:12,960 --> 01:05:15,120
Speaker 1: I saw these guys are rapping, you know. It was

1142
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:17,160
Speaker 1: like we were just learning about hip hop, you know.

1143
01:05:17,160 --> 01:05:19,040
Speaker 1: And he saw Grandma's rest for his right. He was like,

1144
01:05:19,040 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: it was incredible. You know, these stories and these narratives

1145
01:05:21,480 --> 01:05:23,560
Speaker 1: and it's poetry but it's like it's rhythm and it's

1146
01:05:23,600 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 1: singing but it's not. It's rapping, and it's fucking amazing.

1147
01:05:26,280 --> 01:05:29,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it, you know. And he just sat

1148
01:05:29,480 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 1: right down and wrote this, started writing this rap. And

1149
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,280
Speaker 1: at the same time a friend ours who I write

1150
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:37,000
Speaker 1: about in a book, My dear friend Gary Allen, was

1151
01:05:37,040 --> 01:05:38,560
Speaker 1: doing a show and he said, why don't you guys

1152
01:05:38,600 --> 01:05:40,400
Speaker 1: get something together and do an opening act for me?

1153
01:05:40,880 --> 01:05:42,760
Speaker 1: And I'm Anthony wrote this rap and I had this

1154
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:44,880
Speaker 1: groove the song, and we made this our first Chili

1155
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:46,800
Speaker 1: Pepper song called out in La and we got together

1156
01:05:46,840 --> 01:05:51,960
Speaker 1: and we played and that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1157
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 1: Did you end the book on right at the moment

1158
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:01,480
Speaker 1: at at the birth of the Chili Peppers? Does this

1159
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:07,080
Speaker 1: mean you're running part two? At the time, I was

1160
01:06:07,160 --> 01:06:10,600
Speaker 1: absolutely convinced that I was going to do a part two,

1161
01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:12,680
Speaker 1: and now I'm kind of un offense about it. I

1162
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:15,840
Speaker 1: don't know. I definitely want to write, and I have

1163
01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:17,680
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different things in my head and

1164
01:06:17,720 --> 01:06:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm writing stuff, and whether I want to release another

1165
01:06:21,000 --> 01:06:25,480
Speaker 1: memoir at least next I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I

1166
01:06:25,520 --> 01:06:31,400
Speaker 1: wanted to end with and sadly, I think we do

1167
01:06:31,520 --> 01:06:35,880
Speaker 1: have to with one of my favorite you know, the

1168
01:06:35,880 --> 01:06:42,240
Speaker 1: book begins with this incredibly powerful and evocative picture of

1169
01:06:43,440 --> 01:06:47,640
Speaker 1: the Hollywood of your preteen years of the early seventies,

1170
01:06:48,320 --> 01:06:53,960
Speaker 1: and then it ends with this extraordinary, vivid depiction of

1171
01:06:54,480 --> 01:06:59,680
Speaker 1: the Hollywood the musical scene of your early twenties. And

1172
01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:03,040
Speaker 1: one there's one little chapter, and I'm going to make

1173
01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: you read again. Where you is when you have a

1174
01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:09,960
Speaker 1: part time job with the veterinarian and you liberate a

1175
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: whole series of pills. Oh yeah, yea from you remember this?

1176
01:07:14,880 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 1: That's office. I was going to actually try to because

1177
01:07:16,880 --> 01:07:19,280
Speaker 1: when I did the pill installation, because I had stole

1178
01:07:19,320 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 1: pills from the Veterinarian veterinary hospital I worked at and

1179
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:26,000
Speaker 1: installed them as an art piece, and I thought, you know,

1180
01:07:26,040 --> 01:07:29,600
Speaker 1: I beat Damien Hurst to the punishment. Yeah, so imagine

1181
01:07:31,120 --> 01:07:35,680
Speaker 1: what hundreds of these pills, Uh, hundreds for sure, Yeah,

1182
01:07:36,160 --> 01:07:40,000
Speaker 1: for every variety of pill, so all along the kind

1183
01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:42,080
Speaker 1: of Yeah, there was like a mantle that went along

1184
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:45,400
Speaker 1: the house that we're renting. So you have Santa Monica

1185
01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 1: and Fromosa. I want you to read these last two

1186
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:57,200
Speaker 1: chapters here that page. The pills were we had a party,

1187
01:07:57,360 --> 01:08:02,200
Speaker 1: by the way, and if that is an obvious yeah, yeah,

1188
01:08:02,360 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 1: and I put all these pills up. The pills were

1189
01:08:05,760 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: for various animal maladies like diarrhea, raw spots from excessive itching,

1190
01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:17,760
Speaker 1: and also included antibiotics and tranquilizers. The crowd of Hollywood

1191
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,960
Speaker 1: high and low lives ate the pills and puped and

1192
01:08:21,000 --> 01:08:26,760
Speaker 1: pooped for days afterward. Emerging through the craziness of the

1193
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:30,639
Speaker 1: party crowd came Snickers, a dude from a local punk

1194
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:35,000
Speaker 1: band called The Stains. He commandeered the stereo, took off

1195
01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:38,160
Speaker 1: the artie music we're playing, and put on an ACDC record.

1196
01:08:38,880 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 1: When I tried to put on some Ornette Coleman, he

1197
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:43,840
Speaker 1: jumped up in front of the record player and whipped

1198
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:47,680
Speaker 1: out a bowie knife, a forty ounce of schlitz in

1199
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:50,320
Speaker 1: one hand and the Knife and the other. He stood

1200
01:08:50,400 --> 01:08:53,240
Speaker 1: guard over his ACDC for the length of the album,

1201
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:58,200
Speaker 1: stoically hanging his head, greasy hair hanging down over his

1202
01:08:58,320 --> 01:09:03,519
Speaker 1: wildly bloodshot eyes. I wasn't gonna fuck with him, true rocker.

1203
01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:10,080
Speaker 1: We later became friends. Snickers was a wild dude that

1204
01:09:10,320 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: I think, and The Stains were a great band. That

1205
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: h story I think in some ways sums up the

1206
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:24,800
Speaker 1: the wild and magical and wonderful spirit of this extraordinary

1207
01:09:24,840 --> 01:09:27,760
Speaker 1: book that you've written. And I would I think I

1208
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:30,160
Speaker 1: speak for everyone in this audience when I say that

1209
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:35,120
Speaker 1: please please write Part two. I've been waited absolutely. Thank you,

1210
01:09:36,160 --> 01:09:44,439
Speaker 1: ladies and gentlemen, join me in thanking please. Asting was good.

1211
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:50,040
Speaker 1: We could have been more thrilled. I've done our first

1212
01:09:50,080 --> 01:09:52,800
Speaker 1: live Broken Record with Flee. Make sure to go pick

1213
01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:55,519
Speaker 1: up his book Acid for the Children. You can check

1214
01:09:55,520 --> 01:09:57,600
Speaker 1: out a playlist we put together featuring songs from some

1215
01:09:57,680 --> 01:10:01,440
Speaker 1: of Flee's favorite albums. It's that Broken Record podcast dot com.

1216
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:03,080
Speaker 1: You can also sign up for a behind the scenes

1217
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 1: newsletter while you're there. Broken Record is produced by Pushkin Industries,

1218
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:10,280
Speaker 1: with helping Jason Gambrell and Mia Lobell. Our theme music

1219
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:12,280
Speaker 1: is by the Great Kenny Beats. Stay tuned for next

1220
01:10:12,320 --> 01:10:16,040
Speaker 1: week's episodes. You heard me right, We're dropping two. I'm

1221
01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:17,799
Speaker 1: justin Richmond. Thanks again for listening.