Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast, recorded
Speaker 1: live here at the tune In Studios in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: My guest this week is America, probably the world's most
Speaker 1: famous drummer, the man you recognize from Melancamp, Fogerty, so
Speaker 1: many other acts. Melissa ether rids the Kennedy Senator honors
Speaker 1: Kenny aroon Off doing Bob Okay, so it's hard to
Speaker 1: find a date because you're so busy. So what do
Speaker 1: you got going on right now? Well, Tomon flying to
Speaker 1: Chicago to do a the Chicago Drum Show. It's it's
Speaker 1: with a lot of drummers perform, and I don't do
Speaker 1: as many of those anymore. But what I'm gonna do,
Speaker 1: I'm one of the feature drummers, is I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: my I'm gonna perform, but I'm also doing a kind
Speaker 1: of a teamwork speech, because it really is what drummers are.
Speaker 1: We serve songs, we serve artists, we serve bands, and
Speaker 1: so I have a whole multimedia thing I do. So
Speaker 1: I perform, but I have the whole show. I have
Speaker 1: a whole show. Okay, you put it together yourself. You
Speaker 1: have a consultant. No I put together myself, but I've
Speaker 1: been working with about four or five years ago. I
Speaker 1: decided to start getting into the speaking thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and like anything else, okay, with your motivation giving back
Speaker 1: or money or both making money and giving and giving back.
Speaker 1: Wisdom is that. Okay, I'm just getting all the story.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I because that's so important to me. I decided,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing these drum clinics for like thirty
Speaker 1: five years, but now it's more about inspiration. When I
Speaker 1: wrote my autobiography, I came with all these things and
Speaker 1: with the bottom lines, I'm gonna go do that and
Speaker 1: fly back Sunday night. Monday. I pack and then I
Speaker 1: go on the road for six weeks with Fogerty NonStop
Speaker 1: and zz Top together. It's a great package, most of
Speaker 1: the East Coast and a little bit in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: Then I come home for two days and then I
Speaker 1: go to Europe for three weeks with my own band
Speaker 1: called Supersonic Blues Machine featuring Billy Gibbons, and the two
Speaker 1: albums I made was Supersonic uh. You know, we feature
Speaker 1: like guitar players like Billy Gibbons, Steve Lucasur, Eric Garrells,
Speaker 1: Walter Trout, Robin Ford, Warren Haynes, I really to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, and I don't really want to go
Speaker 1: on the voad for nine weeks. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I have a wife at home and i'd like to.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I ever said that, you know,
Speaker 1: I always like, well whatever, But so yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: pretty crazy schedule. On top of which, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: editing a book, another book, and I gotta keep his
Speaker 1: speaking thing going, and I'm just dealing with lots of
Speaker 1: business sessions and all this stuff while I'm on the road.
Speaker 1: Now do you like this level of chaos? Well, I
Speaker 1: definitely have been addicted to it most of my life.
Speaker 1: I'm just starting at my right as we were talking
Speaker 1: about how we're now seven, kind of getting into mm hmmm,
Speaker 1: how do I want to manage my time? You know what?
Speaker 1: You know, one of my one of the things that
Speaker 1: mean the most to me, and I'm trying to filter
Speaker 1: on my time and what I do in today towards
Speaker 1: those things. Now, let's let's assume you were home for
Speaker 1: a week, or let's say you went to a desert
Speaker 1: island for a week. Would you freak out or would
Speaker 1: you say, God, it's great to have a week off
Speaker 1: for the first time. I would what I would do
Speaker 1: and one day I can't take a whole day off,
Speaker 1: but but I can knowing that I have some time
Speaker 1: during the day to have off. Then I you know,
Speaker 1: I always have work with me. So it kind of
Speaker 1: like I reward myself. I work a little bit. I
Speaker 1: just won't work as much as I would in the past,
Speaker 1: or I just work all day and then just look
Speaker 1: out at the beach. Now I want to get on
Speaker 1: the beach, you know, or hang out and go shopping
Speaker 1: with my wife or whatever it is. It's just relaxes
Speaker 1: the mind. And you know, I always have to be
Speaker 1: when I get on a plane. There's two things I
Speaker 1: do well, three things sleep, uh, my office, and I
Speaker 1: like to watch movies, you know, so like watch the
Speaker 1: bomby iPad, you're download, No, I do well more and
Speaker 1: more becoming that you know you're on United and then
Speaker 1: they say download appened. Then you get more more, but
Speaker 1: then fifty percent time it doesn't work right. It's like like, well,
Speaker 1: the big thing now you know it's Netflix. You can
Speaker 1: download to the iPad, so you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about a connection. So, uh, how far out are you booked?
Speaker 1: I'm booked you already. Someone tried to book me. They're
Speaker 1: trying to book me to be the musical director for
Speaker 1: this event in two thousand nineteen, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: hire Sammy Hagar to do it with me, because then
Speaker 1: I've been getting into this musical director type thing where
Speaker 1: you know, a huge, you know, wealthy you guy wants
Speaker 1: to put on this huge event and I end up
Speaker 1: being a musical director, and which is It's tedious and
Speaker 1: a lot of work, everything from monitors to you know,
Speaker 1: the schematics of of the each band and how many
Speaker 1: mikes and how high the stage is and or how
Speaker 1: hi the risers. I mean, it's just everything. So what
Speaker 1: did your wife say about being on the road all
Speaker 1: the time. Well, we haven't been on the road six
Speaker 1: weeks or nine weeks since we met, which was thirteen
Speaker 1: years ago, so we're not looking forward to that at all.
Speaker 1: But um, she is fin you up a three year
Speaker 1: nursing school. This nursing program is like med school. It's
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like It's it's kind of caite
Speaker 1: my first marriage. I was with somebody who was in
Speaker 1: law school, and I thought that was insane. Now I'm
Speaker 1: I'm in my my marriage with my wife and I'm
Speaker 1: watching to go through this. I just would like to
Speaker 1: be here with her, but it is what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll get We'll be fine. And did your first marriage
Speaker 1: break up because you were on the road? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, dude, I was. I was the model
Speaker 1: rock and roll guy. Just debauchery. I mean, look at
Speaker 1: my My book is called Sex Drums Rocking Roll, but
Speaker 1: probably back then it might have had a little bit
Speaker 1: of sex, drugs rocking roll. I mean we were I
Speaker 1: was with Mellencamp and we went in eight years from
Speaker 1: playing in clubs to arenas uh and sold out three
Speaker 1: and sixty uh you know seats, you know, no opening act,
Speaker 1: three hours show. So we were young. Audience was young.
Speaker 1: Girls were throwing their bars underwear at us. I mean,
Speaker 1: you do the math. You're on the road for right,
Speaker 1: we should come home for a week, you go go back
Speaker 1: out for eight weeks and you eat this NonStop. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe other people the difference today is they say,
Speaker 1: is today their cell phone cameras? So I don't think
Speaker 1: you can probably get away with a lot of that behole,
Speaker 1: no way, no, never mind, the me too movement. Oh
Speaker 1: tell me about it. I mean I should be in
Speaker 1: jail because for just you know, I mean when when
Speaker 1: what's his name? And I'll frank, you know, put his
Speaker 1: hand on something. Girls, how many times I did that?
Speaker 1: But we were laughing. Everybody was laughing about it, you know,
Speaker 1: the girls. I talked to the girls women, because they're
Speaker 1: not young spintin. They'll go like this, I take pictures
Speaker 1: with my hands up in the air now, and I
Speaker 1: don't sue me. Don't sue me. They go like, I'll
Speaker 1: sue you if you don't touch me. That's the other side. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not clutching that because I'm being caught in the across.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm But the thing is what you're talking about too.
Speaker 1: It's like, man, you could be a picture and this
Speaker 1: happened before, where I just you know, you've had a
Speaker 1: couple of glass wine and you just or take can
Speaker 1: a picture, but your hand goes around the way so
Speaker 1: you're pulling in a little close and you could look
Speaker 1: at the picture and go like wow. But when you
Speaker 1: were doing it was just like ah, yeah, come here,
Speaker 1: you know, like letting up in the moment kind of moment,
Speaker 1: but with no motivation or any any agenda. But the
Speaker 1: picture tells the story, as Rod Stewart once sang, So
Speaker 1: you're from western Massachusetts. What was it like growing up
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties and western mass You know
Speaker 1: stock Bridge? Right? I do? But my audience doesn't, all right,
Speaker 1: Well that I just want to let them know that.
Speaker 1: You know, so the stock Bridge, as you know, is
Speaker 1: a was a very unique place to grow up. Um
Speaker 1: in Western Masster were all these little towns three miles apart,
Speaker 1: and I grew up in the hippest, coolest of them all, Stockbridge.
Speaker 1: Uh you know, we had a summer stock theater right
Speaker 1: down the half a mile down the hill from me.
Speaker 1: So we I mean I was hanging out with Anne
Speaker 1: Bancroft and h you know, Franklin Jell And when he
Speaker 1: was just making it they're doing summer stock. How do
Speaker 1: you end up hanging out with them? Well? Oh kay,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. The real reason why I met
Speaker 1: is because in that area they had summer stock. Bill Gibson,
Speaker 1: who wrote The Miracle Worker, lived in stock Which and
Speaker 1: I went to school with his son, and uh, He
Speaker 1: was friends with Arthur Penn, who was a director who
Speaker 1: had done I think he directed Bill Gibson's play Golden
Speaker 1: Boys on Broadway. He convinced our dependent build a house
Speaker 1: on the same street in stock which is is a building.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm jumping, I have it. Didn't Arthur Penn
Speaker 1: direct Alice's restaurant, just you know, right, okay, But going
Speaker 1: back to um So, Arthur Penn builds a house on
Speaker 1: your street, on the street. And and ironically, my brother
Speaker 1: lives on that street. Identical twindentical twin who's a doctor.
Speaker 1: And this is like a dirt road. I mean when
Speaker 1: I say street, there might be like eight houses on it,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's in woods and everything in pond
Speaker 1: and you know, and your parents do what for a living?
Speaker 1: And my mom was a school teacher. My dad worked
Speaker 1: for Peter J. Swite suits to the division of Kimberley
Speaker 1: claud There were these paper mills that ran My dad
Speaker 1: was studied chemistry and his specialty was in paper. And
Speaker 1: there are these mills that would run there was a
Speaker 1: river that would run down Vermont, New Hampshire into Massachusetts
Speaker 1: and Connecticut. They had these mills and and in the
Speaker 1: town over three miles away, which is radically different than
Speaker 1: my town as far as uh it was more like
Speaker 1: we called it them. It was like one of the Greaser's,
Speaker 1: the tough guys. But they had the mill there, and
Speaker 1: so my dad would commute three miles a day down down.
Speaker 1: That's why he moved to western Massachusetts job. It was
Speaker 1: either that or they we're gonna go to um Minnesota.
Speaker 1: My mom went from she's from New York and went, well, no,
Speaker 1: at least Stockbridge is two and a half hours from
Speaker 1: New York Minnesota. So but anyway, so I'm I'm at
Speaker 1: my my friend Tommy's house on the street, the Gibsons,
Speaker 1: and I remember it was my turn. He had a
Speaker 1: house a little they had a little cottage, and we
Speaker 1: would jam and play rock and roll out there, you know,
Speaker 1: probably smoke a little pot was thirteen, and we had
Speaker 1: the black lights, and it was my turn to go
Speaker 1: down to the house and sneak some beers out of
Speaker 1: the fridge. I go down there, I'm a little buzz,
Speaker 1: grabbed two or three beers, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: Mrs Gibson, his mom, who's the therapist, says, Kenny, is
Speaker 1: that You're like, oh shit, I'm busted, and I screamed,
Speaker 1: put the beers baxtures, come out of here and say
Speaker 1: hi to everybody. They're having a dinner on a porch
Speaker 1: at night, the candles and the wines going, and there
Speaker 1: is a Bancroft, Mel Gibson and Franklin No not Mel
Speaker 1: gives it wait Mel Brooks so and they would come
Speaker 1: up and do Summer stock just to get out of
Speaker 1: the city. That's how it all tied. And then I
Speaker 1: eventually was in a musical there. And you know, my
Speaker 1: mom loved the theater because she grew up New York,
Speaker 1: so she was always getting his tickets. And then she'd
Speaker 1: get she knew Arthur pen and then we'd be backstage
Speaker 1: meeting Richard Dreyfus or whoever, Goldie Han, whoever was there
Speaker 1: acting and and and then you mentioned this Alice's Restaurant.
Speaker 1: There was this little diner in stock Bridge, and I
Speaker 1: was in fifth grade. I was a little kid trying
Speaker 1: to hang out with these kind of cool guy people,
Speaker 1: and there was this lady called Alice's. Yeah, this little diner,
Speaker 1: and then she uh eventually hooked up with all these
Speaker 1: people would come in there like Arlo Guthrie and all
Speaker 1: the hippies, and and the famous story about Alice's restling
Speaker 1: for the audience is that they eventually got this church
Speaker 1: in Housatonic, another little town three miles away on the river,
Speaker 1: and they got this church and they lived in it
Speaker 1: like hippies, like you know, Woodstock was only two hours away.
Speaker 1: So they all had they had this famous Thanksgiving and
Speaker 1: they had all this garbage and they didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do with it. So they put it in uh
Speaker 1: the v W bus, a hippie v W bus, right
Speaker 1: and loaded up. They go to the dump, but the
Speaker 1: dump is is closed, so they know what to do that.
Speaker 1: They're all stone and high and they just dump it
Speaker 1: on the side of the road down an embankment. Now,
Speaker 1: my best friend's dad was the chief of police, officer Obie,
Speaker 1: you remember that was my This this big menacine cop.
Speaker 1: And he finds out that this is gardenge. Ok, we're
Speaker 1: getting the real story story for the song is they
Speaker 1: just dumped on a day you couldn't dump. Did they
Speaker 1: put it in the dump or they put it on
Speaker 1: the side of the road, not in the dump, Not
Speaker 1: in the dump because they couldn't get in and This
Speaker 1: was like an embankment, like the road and then there's
Speaker 1: the guard rail and then it goes drops down on
Speaker 1: a grassy hill. They saw it there, but they don't
Speaker 1: you know, they're their names were on letters they had picked.
Speaker 1: I mean it was the evidence was there in the movie.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is too. In the
Speaker 1: movie they say they have to submit the evidence of
Speaker 1: the judge and he's blind. That had to be a joke,
Speaker 1: I would think, so I can that. Yeah, So anyway,
Speaker 1: and so they didn't. They just were told to clean
Speaker 1: up your mess. And they ended up bringing it all
Speaker 1: the way down to the barge in New York City
Speaker 1: for whatever reason they before they dumped it and so
Speaker 1: Arlo Guthie wrote a song called Alice's Restaurant, which we
Speaker 1: can it was a funny story with great lyrics. Arlot
Speaker 1: lives in that area. Arthur Penn thought it was time
Speaker 1: to make a movie out of this whole scene. And
Speaker 1: then I was I could have been in it, but
Speaker 1: I was like, no, that's not cool. Okay, before the
Speaker 1: song comes out, because I'm growing up, like you know,
Speaker 1: hour and twenty away whatever, I know about it from
Speaker 1: the song, But did you know about it when it happened.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it was a big deal. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a big deal. They were my I kind of
Speaker 1: looked up to all those guys. They were all older
Speaker 1: than me and and I thought they were the coolest,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was. I wanted to be part
Speaker 1: of their gang. But I couldn't drive. Alan was a bicycle,
Speaker 1: and you know, so I was kind of I always
Speaker 1: go to the restaurant because it was like just a
Speaker 1: mile from my house and just get on my bike
Speaker 1: or walked down. It was a food any good killer.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a real diner, a
Speaker 1: cool diner. In Alice was a great cook, and she
Speaker 1: eventually created Alice Is at Avalok, which was right above
Speaker 1: tang Wood in Lennox on the Hill. She took over
Speaker 1: the whole place became the Coose Restaurant hun And you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're growing up. Your mother is into theater. Did
Speaker 1: she make you take piano lessons? Yeah? What they age?
Speaker 1: Did you start piano lessons? Well, it started when I
Speaker 1: can't remember. She put each one of us on her
Speaker 1: lap and she teach us a song. And each each
Speaker 1: kid who was I had my brother, twin brother, and
Speaker 1: my sister was four years younger. We learned these songs
Speaker 1: and then you know, she was of the back down everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're gonna be musical or be a
Speaker 1: well rounded kid, you studied piano. But one day I'm
Speaker 1: it's like nineteen sixty four and I'm outside playing with
Speaker 1: my brother and my mom screams at us to come
Speaker 1: in the house. I thought I was in trouble, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't. On our black and white r c A
Speaker 1: TV set with the rabbit ears and the tinfoil, you know,
Speaker 1: was he had Salivan show guess Who. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there looking at these four guys with long hair. I
Speaker 1: could not I was. I was bouncing off the walls.
Speaker 1: I was. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was,
Speaker 1: I said, man who? These guys said, well, those are
Speaker 1: the Beatles. And I was enamored by ringo stars, do
Speaker 1: rum kids, it and the whole thing. And I literally
Speaker 1: naively asked my mom to call him up and get
Speaker 1: me in the band. I had no other I did.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any other way to do it. Well,
Speaker 1: pause briefly and get right back to Kenny Aaronoff, recorded
Speaker 1: live in the tune In Studios in Venice, California. This
Speaker 1: podcast is brought to you by tune In, which brings
Speaker 1: together all the live, sports, music, news and podcasts you love, original,
Speaker 1: live and on demanded audio, all in one place. Go
Speaker 1: to tune in dot com slash left sense to download
Speaker 1: and listen. Now more with legendary drummer Kenny Aaronoff. Were
Speaker 1: you a big fan of music? Were you listening on
Speaker 1: the transistor? The big thing was my parents always had
Speaker 1: jazz and classical music on the turntable, you know, and
Speaker 1: they and show tunes because from New York, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like you just show tunes, you know, and
Speaker 1: musicals and you know, West Side Story and this story
Speaker 1: and that story, you name it. It was there and
Speaker 1: they would take us. I don't know if you knew this,
Speaker 1: but in Lennox they had obviously the bost pontif New Orchestra,
Speaker 1: but they had this thing called Music in and in
Speaker 1: sixties had a huge jazz uh program up there, and
Speaker 1: I would go up there. Uh. It was somebody thought of,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's create a program out of the city.
Speaker 1: Get out of New York in the summer and go
Speaker 1: to the Booshers, and they created a whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I'd see Dave blue Back every summer, Ray Charles, I'd
Speaker 1: see Charles mingus h. I wish I had seen Coltrane
Speaker 1: and el Fitzgerald, all these great jazz us, And so
Speaker 1: I was right there. Man, Okay, so you see the Beatles.
Speaker 1: How do you get a drum? Kid? I couldn't. I
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it. So my mom goes down to New
Speaker 1: York Manny's of course, gets a snare drum. How don't
Speaker 1: she know to go to Manny's. Somebody told her somebody
Speaker 1: because they were in that whole circle of music and
Speaker 1: and they knew a lot of New Yorkers. This guy,
Speaker 1: Dick Cats, was a jazz pianist who actually lived in
Speaker 1: a house in summer and he was studying at the
Speaker 1: music in he was doing taking workshops and giving workshops.
Speaker 1: Who says Manny's is the place to go because there
Speaker 1: was not really a drum shop there. Definitely wanted maybe
Speaker 1: there was a music store in our area, but not
Speaker 1: not not in stock but that's for sure. It was
Speaker 1: like three times over. So we're down there. My mom
Speaker 1: goes listen to my kid wants to she says, Mrs Aaronoff,
Speaker 1: here's a snare um. You buy this snare at um.
Speaker 1: If he doesn't like it in three months or six months,
Speaker 1: you bring it back and we'll give you your money back.
Speaker 1: Who does that? I don't remember. I just remember going
Speaker 1: to me and he's you know, other than seeing the
Speaker 1: young Gene Cornish there and then all other famous musicians
Speaker 1: as a young kid, they would buy and sell stuff
Speaker 1: so fast you would save your money for a guitar
Speaker 1: and they go, what do you want feder strata caster? Okay,
Speaker 1: bring it down? How about this? How much money you
Speaker 1: got in your wallet? Touch? As they said today, how
Speaker 1: much money you got in your wall? I'm like what
Speaker 1: they would They would push you in and out right exactly, dude.
Speaker 1: It was like ruthless. It's like I was nervous when
Speaker 1: I get in there, absolutely like they do the right thing,
Speaker 1: you know, I know. Okay, So you got the snare
Speaker 1: drum and then I got a symbol and I stood
Speaker 1: up and played. Okay, did you take lessons? Well you
Speaker 1: know that in no, not high school in uh junior
Speaker 1: huh even less than that, like up to grade six times.
Speaker 1: That music teacher that taught everybody ever or there used
Speaker 1: to be. That's what instructor exactly, That's what I called him,
Speaker 1: right right, So band instructor, and he kind of taught
Speaker 1: me how the hold the sticks, and he needed he
Speaker 1: saw that I was in the drums and it was boring. Man.
Speaker 1: I had to plan a pad and learned to read,
Speaker 1: and it was like not fun, was not the Beatles.
Speaker 1: As far from the Beatles as you give me, so
Speaker 1: I would. But but that was the beginning of me,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to read. Trying to to me was
Speaker 1: like and and and and move forward. In the high
Speaker 1: school and junior I had nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: marching band and nothing that wasn't cool. I was playing
Speaker 1: at clubs, playing Hendricks and the Stones and Beatles and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Why would I want to listen to
Speaker 1: a squeaky clarinet? Okay, so you have your snare, drum
Speaker 1: and a symbol. At what point do you form a band? Well,
Speaker 1: right away it was called the Alley Cats, and uh
Speaker 1: actually have a picture not on me, but and I
Speaker 1: stand up and play. And then for Christmas or Hanuka
Speaker 1: or whatever. Basically you had the band. Did the band
Speaker 1: play any gigs? The first gig. There was a thing
Speaker 1: called the Grange meeting. And what the Grange meeting was
Speaker 1: all the elderly's of stock Bridge would meet once a
Speaker 1: month at the town hall and they discussed how to
Speaker 1: keep the the the looks and the vibe of Stockbridge,
Speaker 1: you know, preserved, you know, to say, you know, they
Speaker 1: go over things and the month, and the mother of
Speaker 1: the piano player, she wasn't too elderly, but she was
Speaker 1: part of the Grange meeting, said wow, would you like
Speaker 1: to have my boy and he and his band come
Speaker 1: down and entertain us. We get a call and we
Speaker 1: think we're up playing mass and square guard parents, you know,
Speaker 1: throw my Snares symbol in the in the station wag
Speaker 1: and we go down. We set up and to me
Speaker 1: it was like I was on the Sulvan Show. I
Speaker 1: mean it was like and we're playing, you know, all
Speaker 1: these Beatles songs and a couple of Beach Boys songs.
Speaker 1: We get done. It was maybe five songs and everyone's
Speaker 1: up dancing and all going like that's what they'd call
Speaker 1: a rock band, Like it was new, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: what the Beatles do. You know, it was this new thing.
Speaker 1: And we get done, and I'm shutting my eyes and
Speaker 1: picturing the whole thing. I'm in complete love and flipped
Speaker 1: out about this. And they said, do you know any
Speaker 1: more songs? And we said no, So we played the
Speaker 1: same five again. Wow. Wow, I thought the story was
Speaker 1: gonna go opposite. You were playing for the town elders
Speaker 1: and they were gonna say springtime for Hitler and get
Speaker 1: all the sting. So okay, So that was the beginning.
Speaker 1: So when do you get a full drum kid? Well,
Speaker 1: the next Christmas hun a good time, you know, I
Speaker 1: got a base from next birthday. I got a Floria
Speaker 1: toime next and I saved up my money for the
Speaker 1: rack time. I just put it together slowly but sure.
Speaker 1: And I still have that kid and the funny stories
Speaker 1: that snared him. Um. When I got older, it was
Speaker 1: a kind of it only has six lugs, and when
Speaker 1: you only have six lugs, the standard is ten maybe eight.
Speaker 1: It was six because the less lugs and more ringky
Speaker 1: the drummers. For jazz drummers, that's you don't play loud
Speaker 1: and you want lots of tone and dynamics and you
Speaker 1: control every with your hands. So that was interesting at
Speaker 1: a six lug and I realized it wasn't really good
Speaker 1: rock and roll drum, so I gave it to some
Speaker 1: kid for a couple of bags of homegrown pot. Now
Speaker 1: check this out. Whenever became famous, that kid, Carl Landa
Speaker 1: emails me and goes, Kenny, I was about to sell
Speaker 1: you snare them on eBay? Would you like to buy
Speaker 1: it back? So when I call up a guy who
Speaker 1: knows about buying and selling old drums, just it's probably
Speaker 1: worth four to six hundred dollars. So I bought the
Speaker 1: thing back for four dollars. Wow. How many drum sets
Speaker 1: do you have? Well, I've had. I've been up as
Speaker 1: much as fourteen. But I'm starting to get rid of
Speaker 1: them because it just takes up too much space. They'm
Speaker 1: not going to use them. And your original drums were Ludwig,
Speaker 1: just like Ringo tweeted the other day that it's fifty
Speaker 1: five years since he got his first Ludwig. Kid, And
Speaker 1: what do you play now? Tom? I've been with Tom
Speaker 1: of thirty five years. What's the real difference between drums?
Speaker 1: Definitely the manufacturing if if first of all, if any
Speaker 1: company can't make a good sounding drum now, they shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in the business. It's not rocket science anymore. It
Speaker 1: is a formula. But you know, um, the thing I
Speaker 1: like about tomah whose they came on strong. It was
Speaker 1: a family run business and out of Japan, and their
Speaker 1: hardware was extraordinary. They're very creative and innovative company. And
Speaker 1: they they they're a little in common and they and
Speaker 1: I was blown away. And then it was Billy come
Speaker 1: from mahavishn Orchestra, Alvin Jones, Uh, all these different cool
Speaker 1: drummers literally de Vito from Billy Joel. Uh didn't be.
Speaker 1: I really dug their roster and then I played their
Speaker 1: equipment and it was unbelievable. It just sounded great. Now
Speaker 1: almost every company has a great sounding drum. But the consistency,
Speaker 1: they've never let me down. At any level of drum,
Speaker 1: whether it's for the beginner, the quality is extremely high. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they believe you know you don't you know, you
Speaker 1: don't be cheap in any level on anything. And that's
Speaker 1: how you get somebody to fall in love with your product.
Speaker 1: And as they graduate up to the expensive kids, you
Speaker 1: know that they're committed. And uh, yeah, I could leave time.
Speaker 1: I remember a lot of companies tried to grab him
Speaker 1: when I was big like Pearl. They I was a
Speaker 1: Nashville recording a lot down there and the Pearl which
Speaker 1: headquarters there. They brought me in they wanted they were
Speaker 1: trying to offer me to switch, and I said, look it,
Speaker 1: unless you offer me something that Tom has already given me,
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm not gonna leave a company for a
Speaker 1: lateral move. It's gotta be something. What is there? I mean,
Speaker 1: more advertising now I get I'm I'm I get plenty
Speaker 1: of advertising, more drum clinics and maybe guaranteed, you know,
Speaker 1: but I'm on tour all the time. You know, it
Speaker 1: didn't make sense. Okay, Um, I'm just thinking a question
Speaker 1: about the drums that fascinated me, but it eludes me
Speaker 1: right this very second. But ultimately you get hooked in
Speaker 1: with Tanglewood and you go to Boston to be taught drums.
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell my audience about that? Well, when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, there was no school rock and
Speaker 1: in our family everybody went to college and I was
Speaker 1: a given. Um. You know, post World War Two. You know,
Speaker 1: my dad, my grandparents came from Russia. Education education. My
Speaker 1: dad gets an education. But before you can even really
Speaker 1: get starready, flying bombers over Berlin, bombing the ship out
Speaker 1: of Hitler at last fifty And when did you find
Speaker 1: out about? Uh? Pretty young, because he had these books
Speaker 1: where he was he was the navigator and bomba deere.
Speaker 1: I had pictures of like the pictures that scrap books of,
Speaker 1: you know, Bombay's opening and bombs going down and what
Speaker 1: do you talked about it? Not really, you know, but
Speaker 1: but I I still I have his suit, his his
Speaker 1: uh whatever he was, you know, I have the Sudi
Speaker 1: war um and uh, my my brother has all his
Speaker 1: all those pictures and you know, and my brother smartly.
Speaker 1: They were ten people in these these big, huge bombers,
Speaker 1: and they started that the whole Spielberg type of thing.
Speaker 1: They would get together every year. They still probably are,
Speaker 1: but you know, there's only a few left. And there
Speaker 1: were six people in that plane of his. That's out
Speaker 1: of the ten that were still alive when they started
Speaker 1: doing this. Then there was four and the last three,
Speaker 1: ironically was pilot, co pilot and navigator my dad. And
Speaker 1: then we were all the guys up front last week.
Speaker 1: So my brother says, I gotta get this on film.
Speaker 1: So he goes and he does seventeen CDs or DVDs
Speaker 1: worth of filming interviewing these guys and my brother's psychoanas.
Speaker 1: So he came at it from an interesting standpoint. The
Speaker 1: night they get down there. The next day is that
Speaker 1: like the two the weekends UH convention, my dad almost dies.
Speaker 1: He has goes into spasms and they have to bring
Speaker 1: the hospital and eventually they put a a pacemaker in
Speaker 1: the defiberator. I think he may have had the pacemaker,
Speaker 1: but he needed a defibrillator that would have he He lived,
Speaker 1: but he could have died. And my dad said, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: film filmed these guys and will film me later. And
Speaker 1: that's what he did. So um amazing, I mean the stories,
Speaker 1: I mean from their perspective. I'm almost dying. My dad
Speaker 1: said he saw more planes go down. You just get
Speaker 1: in formation and there'll be nine of them. I think
Speaker 1: you take off, uh. And these planes were put together
Speaker 1: with spit and glue. They they were they was the first.
Speaker 1: That was the beginning of the air force and they
Speaker 1: but they had to do it to to beat the
Speaker 1: crap out of Hitler because he was taking over the
Speaker 1: whole world. So um, they get in formation and and
Speaker 1: the first plane would send off at a colored flare
Speaker 1: of some sort, so you knew you had to be
Speaker 1: with the squadron of yellow. And they get all these
Speaker 1: nine planes up and they get in formation, and my
Speaker 1: brother asked the pilot, you know who might maybe was
Speaker 1: twenty at that time flying, how did you I mean
Speaker 1: you you know, the flag was coming up from below
Speaker 1: and they were blowing out planes out of the sky.
Speaker 1: You see your buddies plane go. You see. It was
Speaker 1: just absolute hell and explosions and planes were getting beat up.
Speaker 1: And he said, how did you stay focused? He says, Mo,
Speaker 1: My job was. I just looked at the coordinates I
Speaker 1: had to go. I just ignored life or death. This
Speaker 1: is where I have to go. That's my job. Do it.
Speaker 1: And they survived a couple of times they almost had
Speaker 1: they were running out of gas and they are One
Speaker 1: time the bomber deer the bombay opened up and all
Speaker 1: my dad's navigation plans went. You know how he navigated
Speaker 1: him stars? Wow, the stars. He had to learn about
Speaker 1: the stars in case that happened. Thank god they were
Speaker 1: high enough that you can see. And then they had
Speaker 1: to you know, he's using protractors and slide rules. I
Speaker 1: remember high school chemistry. I gave up science after the
Speaker 1: slide rules. You know they have calculators now. So anyway,
Speaker 1: but you end up going to Boston for so what
Speaker 1: happened was, Yeah, in high school, I saw my buddy
Speaker 1: Tommy Gibson was getting better on drums. Uh you know
Speaker 1: Bill Gibson's son, and I was like, God, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? He said, Oh, I'm studying with the percussions
Speaker 1: from the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Are depressed when I want
Speaker 1: to do that. So I go down in the summer,
Speaker 1: you know they're there, but in the winter he's in Boston.
Speaker 1: So I get a bus, grahound bus to go down there,
Speaker 1: and I go to Arthur's house. He says, what's your name?
Speaker 1: Very menacing, slightly whiplash style, you know, like kid, what's
Speaker 1: your name? I said, Kenny? Kenny? What Kenny arnofs? What
Speaker 1: have you prepared for me today? I'm like, what Tommy
Speaker 1: didn't tell me about preparing? He said, do you play marimbus? Is? No, Well,
Speaker 1: if you prepared a timpany piece for me? Said, I've
Speaker 1: never played timpany and I'm just getting smaller and small.
Speaker 1: He find says, what do you place I played drum
Speaker 1: sets as well. Let's come down stairs and I'll have
Speaker 1: you play some drum set. So he puts on spinning
Speaker 1: wheels by blood, sweat and tears. In thirty seconds, he
Speaker 1: pulls me off the chair and he points to a
Speaker 1: rubber practice pad. That was the definitive moment where it's
Speaker 1: like I don't need this, but something told me inside
Speaker 1: me that I do. And that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: some severe discipline and you know the winner. I didn't
Speaker 1: practice a lox. There was a lesson every month, but
Speaker 1: in the summer when he was gonna be there every
Speaker 1: week and he's yelling at you and screaming at you,
Speaker 1: I started practice. So then when I was starting to
Speaker 1: go to college, there was no School of Rocks, so
Speaker 1: I started auditioning, you know Western mass you know college
Speaker 1: so I could be near home. And I get into
Speaker 1: University of Massachusetts, and I had I prepared something on
Speaker 1: vibes because my dad got a set of vibes for
Speaker 1: me second hand at Carol's Music Shop in New York
Speaker 1: for like three hundred bucks. Had vibes and uh My,
Speaker 1: Tommy had timpany. At practiced on timpany and I barely
Speaker 1: got into u mass and that's the fear of of
Speaker 1: of failure. The day I graduated high school, I started
Speaker 1: practicing eight hours a day, seven days a week because
Speaker 1: I was terrified to fail. And I was terrified I
Speaker 1: was gonna be way behind. And I was I got
Speaker 1: to school. All these kids that were in marching band
Speaker 1: and symphony orchestra that reading skills were better, they could
Speaker 1: follow conductors. I was a rocker, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I was terrified and the fear of failure. I would
Speaker 1: practice to they throw me out of the building every night.
Speaker 1: And it gets better because I'm starting to get better,
Speaker 1: you know. And to teach you the reason why he
Speaker 1: actually with this. If all happened, if your parents had
Speaker 1: not insisted you go to college, Jess, I don't know
Speaker 1: what I would have done. Probably I would have gone
Speaker 1: anywhere because everybody was doing that. Everybody was going to college,
Speaker 1: he said. But it wasn't an issue of saying, funk this.
Speaker 1: I just want to play in a rock band. No,
Speaker 1: because I had no business model. Living in stock which
Speaker 1: we didn't have. There was nobody who had done it.
Speaker 1: If I lived in New York, maybe I wouldn't done it,
Speaker 1: but there was no business. Mom. I was like, how
Speaker 1: do you do this? I realized that my mom wasn't
Speaker 1: gonna get in touch of the Beatles, you know, I
Speaker 1: realized I was I had no business. Okay. And when
Speaker 1: you're going to college with what goal? Just to get
Speaker 1: a degree or to then play in a rock band
Speaker 1: or whatever, good good, good question. My brain was saying,
Speaker 1: you get into a symphony orchestra. My heart was saying
Speaker 1: in a rock band. And I always was playing in
Speaker 1: rock bands, jazz bands, R and B bands, any band,
Speaker 1: any music was fun. I just did whatever anybody. I
Speaker 1: wasn't selective. I just as long as I was playing,
Speaker 1: I was having a blast. And how did you slept
Speaker 1: the drums around all the time? Not an issue? I
Speaker 1: don't care. Somebody had a car. I didn't have a
Speaker 1: car until I got out of college. Somebody always had
Speaker 1: a car or something. We picked them up. They wanted me,
Speaker 1: They get me in the drums. Okay. So you're practicing
Speaker 1: eight hours a day at mass, the eight hours a
Speaker 1: day at home, they getting new mass, and then you
Speaker 1: got full load of academics and music. And so I
Speaker 1: practiced the wee hours a night. And there was his
Speaker 1: hot cellis is how does a cellis can be in orchestra?
Speaker 1: And uh, she I heard going to Aspen this summer.
Speaker 1: She was a junior and what's asking? So oh that,
Speaker 1: but Juilliard has this incredible program at Aspen. So I
Speaker 1: find out, I get the papers and I audition and
Speaker 1: uh um, I don't hear from them. And it's the
Speaker 1: end of the the the the school year, and I
Speaker 1: I'm to go home. I got my dad station wag
Speaker 1: and I got all my stuff and I got I'm
Speaker 1: gonna study with Arthur Press again, and I got our
Speaker 1: Almond Brothers type band and uh and so I'm a
Speaker 1: head about two miles out of town. I go, oh, kid,
Speaker 1: I forgot my mail. I go back and went I said,
Speaker 1: it looks like I gotta check, and I open it up.
Speaker 1: It's you are accepted to AskMen. I think I was
Speaker 1: an alternate because there's two weeks before, so I go there.
Speaker 1: I am the absolute, by far, the worst percussious, Sarah.
Speaker 1: These guys were playing remember and Timpani and the Juili
Speaker 1: Yard Youth Orchestra when they were in diapers, and they
Speaker 1: were a monster. Now the teacher there was this incredible,
Speaker 1: brilliant man George Gabor, who taught at Indiana University, number
Speaker 1: one school and music in the country, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: blown away by this guy's head. You know, his whole
Speaker 1: thought process, his whole he was way deeper than just
Speaker 1: playing percussion. So I said, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to go to Indiana University study with you. He said,
Speaker 1: come back in January and audition. I went to No.
Speaker 1: One audition. Now demanded an audition. He had to find
Speaker 1: a faculty from four different departments from Indiana. That's the rule.
Speaker 1: You have to audition for four different faculty head department
Speaker 1: heads to get in so that it's not one sided.
Speaker 1: And they happened to be up there. They were all
Speaker 1: part of the asaid a lot of Indiana professors would teacher.
Speaker 1: I get in and for four years I busted my asset. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how many years have you done at you mass?
Speaker 1: One year? You mass forward Indiana and every spring I
Speaker 1: would audition to get into tang Wood, which is in
Speaker 1: my backyard, which is the number one student orchestra in
Speaker 1: the country, and it's run by the Boston Symbiy Orchestra.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing about being an orchestra you get
Speaker 1: conducted by all the conductors that conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Speaker 1: So I auditioned one year for Vic Firth my you
Speaker 1: know the timperest and uh I strike out miserably. Next
Speaker 1: year I come back. Did you have stage fight or
Speaker 1: you were good enough both? I was nervous man, and
Speaker 1: end up doing that summer uh starry with Arthur Press
Speaker 1: and had my own fusion band. I never ever stopped practicing, massively,
Speaker 1: practicing and um. And then what what is it when
Speaker 1: a drummer practice is what do they do well on?
Speaker 1: Remember there were scales, and they're there a tunes and
Speaker 1: melodies and and arpeggios and technical things. Then I do
Speaker 1: that for like maybe two hours or two or three hours,
Speaker 1: and over the timpany the same thing technical exercises. Then
Speaker 1: you're learning uh A tunes and melodies that have been
Speaker 1: written specifically for the timpany tuning, and then you play
Speaker 1: along with symphony uh you know, um, symphonies, you know
Speaker 1: by you know Beetho. And I remember one of the
Speaker 1: questions that alluded me when they say tuning drums, how
Speaker 1: do you tune a drum? Well, the the whole concept
Speaker 1: is that the shell on top and bottom has where
Speaker 1: the shell ends as a bearing edge, and you can
Speaker 1: sharpen those edges at a forty five or sixty degree angle.
Speaker 1: The sharper, the more aggressive the drum sounds. The rounder
Speaker 1: the edge, the more you have a bigger tuning range
Speaker 1: and it's a little bit warmer sounding. Then you have
Speaker 1: a head that you put on, and that's a whole variable.
Speaker 1: Then there's this uh, steel or metal hoop that goes
Speaker 1: over the head that's just a little bit wider than
Speaker 1: the shell. And in that hoop there might be eight
Speaker 1: six on a tom maybe six lugs snared them eight
Speaker 1: or ten lugs. And lugs are just like screws, and
Speaker 1: on the shell are these little casings that will receive
Speaker 1: the screws. And you're basically the concept. You're trying to
Speaker 1: bring this hoop down on top of the head, tighten
Speaker 1: that head down on that bearing edge evenly. When you
Speaker 1: do it evenly, you get your shooting to get one tone,
Speaker 1: one bing up by like that you want boom. So
Speaker 1: what I do is I tuned the bottom head first fingertight,
Speaker 1: get the lugs down, then I start turning equal turns,
Speaker 1: like maybe with a tuning a drum key half turn,
Speaker 1: half turn all the way around, half turn, half turn
Speaker 1: all the way around, and listen to feel how the tightness.
Speaker 1: Maybe do a quarter turn quarter turn stop there. Then
Speaker 1: I put the top head on and I start tuning
Speaker 1: it up, and I'm using my ears. I've got this
Speaker 1: technical ability, but I'm really using my ears now at
Speaker 1: this point, when does it start to sound good? I'd
Speaker 1: like to have both the top and bottom head the
Speaker 1: same pitch, because then the drum sounds like one note,
Speaker 1: don't and each drum does have a sweet spot where
Speaker 1: it sounds the best. Let's say Thomas shipped you a
Speaker 1: drum kit. How long would it take you to get it?
Speaker 1: Twee you're satisfied. Oh, I could probably get it pretty
Speaker 1: good in thirty minutes. But I'm like a speed demon
Speaker 1: on it. Uh. You know when I do these drums
Speaker 1: seminars um and they have a new kid, I tell
Speaker 1: them ahead of time, get the heads on, get it
Speaker 1: tuned as good as you can, and I come in
Speaker 1: and tweak it real fast. I'll check the bottom head
Speaker 1: first of Melia and go like, wamen, this is too tight,
Speaker 1: bring it down. Then I started bringing the top head
Speaker 1: up or down to the start sound like, and I
Speaker 1: keep tweaking sometimes just one. Now, if you hear a
Speaker 1: weird garden good, a weird vibration, I'll feel around and
Speaker 1: they might be a head could have a flaw and
Speaker 1: it's a little not tight on the on the baring edge,
Speaker 1: and so I have to tune that particular lug tighter. Okay.
Speaker 1: And when you go to the studio, usually in the
Speaker 1: old days, you go to a big studio, the first
Speaker 1: thing they're doing is getting the drums sound of tuning
Speaker 1: the drums. Are they when they talk about tuning the drums,
Speaker 1: they talk about the same thing you're talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to get the You want to get
Speaker 1: the drums to sound the best that those drums can sound.
Speaker 1: And if I if, if you're doing it like my
Speaker 1: my well known snare sound from the eighties with Mellencamp
Speaker 1: had a ring to it. We would tune after every take.
Speaker 1: We we had a recording of that pitch and we'd
Speaker 1: retune to snare at them to get it back to
Speaker 1: that pitch. So it was consistent. So if you were
Speaker 1: splicing between takes, you had the same tuning then then,
Speaker 1: But but a lot of times I'd go into sessions
Speaker 1: and people like, wow, what's that ring? And I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's Kenny aaron Off and they go, well, can you
Speaker 1: put a tape on it? I'm like, I don't care,
Speaker 1: I'm sure whatever, and I would go. At one point,
Speaker 1: I was showing up in l A with hundred scenario
Speaker 1: dooms just because I thought more was more. Now I
Speaker 1: have my own signature series. I only need about really
Speaker 1: six scenaridoms I gotta covered. You're listening to my conversation
Speaker 1: with legendary drummer Kenny Aaronoff, recorded live at the tune
Speaker 1: In Studios in Venice, California. I hope you're enjoying this
Speaker 1: episode of the Bob Left Sets Podcast. If you want
Speaker 1: to see photos and videos of Kenny Aaronoff and the
Speaker 1: tune In Studios, go to at tune In on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram. Now more of legendary drummer Kenny aaron Off
Speaker 1: on The Bob Left Sets Podcast. Okay, occasionally you're in
Speaker 1: the studio and the producers say, oh, I want to
Speaker 1: rent this specific drum kit, now your your level? It
Speaker 1: does that ever happen? Rarely? It's occasionally like they want
Speaker 1: or you go in new studio and this is where
Speaker 1: the producer always works. And the drums this is this
Speaker 1: is what we like to use, or all my dubb
Speaker 1: but they really want Kenny Aronoff complete. Then you have
Speaker 1: me bring my drums, dude Fogy nineteen eight, I get
Speaker 1: called to do Fogerty record. I'll I'll go right ahead
Speaker 1: and say this. He spent five years practicing all instruments
Speaker 1: to get ready to make a record. You know, he
Speaker 1: he quit the music business. He was disillusioned by failure
Speaker 1: after or just all this stuff that went down between
Speaker 1: him and the management, and it seemed like everything was
Speaker 1: not a good thing with music. So he let it.
Speaker 1: His wife convinced to get back and he spends five
Speaker 1: years doing I get called in the fifth year of
Speaker 1: making Blue Moon Swamp. I didn't notice the way later,
Speaker 1: and so that's ten years. I'm the thirtieth drummer, last guy,
Speaker 1: and so I say, okay, when do you want my
Speaker 1: cartage coming to bring my drums? And were Bob fog
Speaker 1: his buzzes. You don't need to bring your drums all there.
Speaker 1: John had learned. He he learned how to tune drums.
Speaker 1: He knew that he wanted a Thomas twenty two by
Speaker 1: eighteen maple drum kit front head off. He had learned
Speaker 1: how to take a piano packing blanket, certain way of
Speaker 1: folding it, sticking it in just the right place, a
Speaker 1: certain beater, remo fiberskin three based from head which he
Speaker 1: would tune he liked. My favorite start was super Funding
Speaker 1: four with a coded ambassador. He would tune it. He
Speaker 1: hit it down to a science half turn, half turn,
Speaker 1: third turn, turn, a quarter turn, and then take mole
Speaker 1: skin and tune it to an F shot. He was
Speaker 1: tuning with my drums. Were you satisfied out? Well? You
Speaker 1: know me, uh, the whole A lot of my successes
Speaker 1: served the boss, served, the team, served whatever. But here's
Speaker 1: the quirky thing, which is a side story. You know,
Speaker 1: I got pretty pretty good at my crafty recording. So
Speaker 1: we learned this song and it's me and it's Bob
Speaker 1: Glober bass player and John, and I'm thinking we're all
Speaker 1: getting this together because we go out and we play
Speaker 1: this song two takes and then go back and listen
Speaker 1: to John to make a few comments. Two takes, go
Speaker 1: back and listen to it. After six takes, I went
Speaker 1: pretty damn good, he says. Now, let's keep going. So
Speaker 1: we do it for three and a half hours and
Speaker 1: then took lunch break. We did the next song like
Speaker 1: this is awesome, and John says me after the first day, says,
Speaker 1: you know, I really enjoy working with you man, You're
Speaker 1: the drummer I've been looking for my whole life. Would
Speaker 1: you mind coming back tomorrow? I went absolutely creed. So
Speaker 1: I go, Okay, what songs are we doing today? And
Speaker 1: they went, um, same two songs. I'm like what. So
Speaker 1: then I go like, what am I doing wrong? You know?
Speaker 1: So I'm trying real hard. This is what John liked.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. I was like, and then he
Speaker 1: invites me back next day it's Wednesday and says, all right,
Speaker 1: what are we doing today? Same two songs. Thursday, I'm like,
Speaker 1: really lose my mind. I'm like, you're not We're not
Speaker 1: doing the same too song? I said, yeah, we are.
Speaker 1: And Friday. Then I realized what was happening. Friday, same
Speaker 1: two songs, and he invited me to come back the
Speaker 1: next week and it was a new set of songs.
Speaker 1: But he through those five years, he was such a perfection.
Speaker 1: She was trying to find his voice and his sound
Speaker 1: and and the snare them thing. And this is for
Speaker 1: the listeners that we had the same issue with Mellencamp.
Speaker 1: It was like we were trying to get this unique
Speaker 1: drum sound and you get that, and then you get
Speaker 1: this cool guitar sound and you put it together. It
Speaker 1: didn't work. And like if you put red the color
Speaker 1: red on a canvas, and then you put red on red,
Speaker 1: it starts to look brown. Literally. So we had to
Speaker 1: find frequency where the guitars would not overlap much on
Speaker 1: the snare sound. And that was a challenge. And that's
Speaker 1: why I always bought so many snare dums. And you know,
Speaker 1: I would work with the engineers and I would listen
Speaker 1: and oh, yeah, the snare is the same pitch. Let
Speaker 1: me tune it down a little bit. And you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, when the whole you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: we would build. You build everything around the drum sound
Speaker 1: you had to get. There was no pro tools, so
Speaker 1: you had to get complete takes. You didn't want to
Speaker 1: be the guy to mess up a take and then
Speaker 1: they have to split tape and you can only get
Speaker 1: three takes on one wheel. Now, if you're getting into
Speaker 1: two wheels and three wheels, that's five dollars a reel plus.
Speaker 1: You're going like, okay, let's listen to take number nine
Speaker 1: that's on real three. Let's go back and listen to
Speaker 1: take number two on reel one. I mean, you really
Speaker 1: messing up. The drummer has to play perfect, end time right,
Speaker 1: sounds right, feels right, groove right, everything, so they can
Speaker 1: build it anything off of that. And I still try
Speaker 1: to record like that, even with pro tools. What about
Speaker 1: a click track click track? No problem? I love it,
Speaker 1: use it and not use it started, shut it off. Uh,
Speaker 1: the click track is a is a good mechanism. What
Speaker 1: do you explain for those people don't know what a
Speaker 1: click track? Click track is? Like a metronome, It's got
Speaker 1: a like if the temple is one twenty got cut
Speaker 1: cut cut cut personally like a cow bell in my
Speaker 1: head because I'm so definite. Has your hearing suffered a
Speaker 1: big time? You were the hearing aids. I try not
Speaker 1: to well, well, my wife I do. I wouldn't admit
Speaker 1: that to anybody, but I'm admitting it on your show.
Speaker 1: I haven't me at home because her voice is very,
Speaker 1: very high, and she's English and she speaks quiet, and
Speaker 1: to preserve my relationship I because she got sick of
Speaker 1: me saying what okay, so so so the click track
Speaker 1: is the greatest thing about a click track is if
Speaker 1: you go, if you are editing between takes, you're the
Speaker 1: same tempo, right, you can and if you click track
Speaker 1: goes all the way through the song easy to make edits.
Speaker 1: And nowadays we use pro tools, which are some form
Speaker 1: digital format which means you can go between a thousand
Speaker 1: takes in a split second and grab something from here
Speaker 1: and grab something there. If you're recording with a click track,
Speaker 1: the edit is easy because that takes that out of
Speaker 1: that factor out of the equation. What I find though,
Speaker 1: that the challenge for me is to make is to
Speaker 1: not allow the track to sound stiff or boring. Sometimes
Speaker 1: songs should speed up, you know, could you imagine that
Speaker 1: who on a click track? It wouldn't sound like to
Speaker 1: be horrible And so um, what I will do is
Speaker 1: I will manipulate the click. I'll kind of push your
Speaker 1: head and of course come back in the versus and
Speaker 1: and so I manipulate the click. I kind of get along,
Speaker 1: tip pull back or I And sometimes I've done sessions
Speaker 1: who I say, just shut it off after a certain
Speaker 1: point and let it breathe. Okay, So what's agree er,
Speaker 1: There's still sessions, still sessions that you're called for anybody's
Speaker 1: So I just did Brian Wilson and that was in
Speaker 1: a big studio because there's a budget. Um, I did
Speaker 1: something with Sammy Hagar and run DMC and I have
Speaker 1: my own studio. Now. I didn't want to have my
Speaker 1: own study. It was a big investment. But when I
Speaker 1: saw the budgets change in uh, this project coordinator, Sherek
Speaker 1: Souftcliffe called me up. And I didn't even have an
Speaker 1: apartment in l A l A yet, I was still
Speaker 1: living in Indiana. Peop would fly me all over the
Speaker 1: world just for one song because there was a budget.
Speaker 1: People selling records, there was money to be made. It
Speaker 1: didn't get any business. You make money, you have money
Speaker 1: to reinvest in the business. And we did that. So
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Sherry sucklerf I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: was at the Sunset Marquis Well, you know, let me
Speaker 1: explain Rock and Roll Hotel Block and Rottle Hotel de Bautry.
Speaker 1: I was one of the guys there and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they would fly me. I'd live in Indiana.
Speaker 1: They pay for my my everything, every expense in my parking,
Speaker 1: I'd be in first class. I'd land, I'd get a
Speaker 1: cool rock and roll Mustang or some car. Say at
Speaker 1: an expensive cool hotel like Sunset Marquis where there I'm
Speaker 1: hanging out with you two and the Stones, and it
Speaker 1: was a great place to be because you were networking,
Speaker 1: and and I could be there for two weeks, three
Speaker 1: weeks a month, and you know that hotel was expensive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they would be a per diem and I
Speaker 1: would get paid really really well. Sherry calls up, says, Kenny,
Speaker 1: if you happen to be in town, I got this session.
Speaker 1: When we mean, if I happened to be in town,
Speaker 1: I said, of the budgets changing, she said, yeah, what
Speaker 1: year this, I'd say that in the mid two thousands,
Speaker 1: and uh, I went wow. In one month, I got
Speaker 1: an apartment. So now all of a sudden I had
Speaker 1: an expensive two and a half to three grand I
Speaker 1: didn't have. But for me, it was like take my money,
Speaker 1: but don't take that career of mine. Eventually I bought
Speaker 1: a house here and then the next step was eventually
Speaker 1: got a studio, two rooms, a control room and spent
Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of thousands on great equipment to sound
Speaker 1: like Kenny Arnold great Mike's drums, says always Mike, and
Speaker 1: I've done Avril Levine in there. I've done she went there.
Speaker 1: But they sent me the tracks. People can send me
Speaker 1: tracks on all the world, Sammy Hagar list, last year's
Speaker 1: both this couson and he said, hey, Kenny, I want
Speaker 1: you to play drums on this and it's for me
Speaker 1: run DMC or d m C. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: do you want me to do it in my studio?
Speaker 1: You want to do it in a you know, a
Speaker 1: big room. And he says, send me what your studio
Speaker 1: sounds like. Send him some stuff and went, whoa man,
Speaker 1: that sounds great. Just doing your room so that I
Speaker 1: don't charge from my room. I just charge for me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it works. So how much she charge? I guess?
Speaker 1: I say, well, you know, I could ask you can
Speaker 1: you can decide whether the answer. Let's just put this way.
Speaker 1: It's it's not that expensive, but some people might think
Speaker 1: so if they don't have a record deal. Uh. The
Speaker 1: fee is for one song, is for the studio, me
Speaker 1: and the engineer. I pay the engineer and then if
Speaker 1: two or more it drops down, and three or more
Speaker 1: it drops down. Very reasonable. But I'll get these emails
Speaker 1: from ound the world and and and I'll say what
Speaker 1: the fee is, and I never hear from anybody. Well,
Speaker 1: it happens to all of us. But will you if
Speaker 1: someone is willing to pay and you have the time,
Speaker 1: you're willing to work for any with anybod Yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: work for anybody. And what I do is I'm very
Speaker 1: very detailed chart writer, right, write every note out. And
Speaker 1: the whole purpose of that is when I get in
Speaker 1: the studio, I'm not wasting anybody's time, including me. As
Speaker 1: like being an actor, like let's go and let's do
Speaker 1: the scene, and while I'm still hot, let's do it again,
Speaker 1: and let's do it again. And I like my engineer
Speaker 1: to move fast, and I get three takes. Usually the
Speaker 1: first take is just to make sure I wrote everything
Speaker 1: out right. Then it's bam bam bam, and their performances
Speaker 1: and that you can hear it and feel it. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Tanglewood. So the first year you
Speaker 1: don't make it. What happens the next three year? Second year,
Speaker 1: I don't make it, third year, and I'll make it.
Speaker 1: And it's almost like strike three year out and fourth
Speaker 1: year I get in. Seven percussionists in the whole world.
Speaker 1: I get in. I work with Leonard Bernstein says you
Speaker 1: is our you know, another American composer, conductor, Aaron Copeland,
Speaker 1: Arthur Feedler, and this is the elite orchestra. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I got great pictures of me and Bernstein. I just
Speaker 1: did that thing. Screwball. Um. I got asked to perform
Speaker 1: with David Pack who worked with Bernstein and hung out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he had apparently was involved with that that score
Speaker 1: or we're doing something with Leonard's mass and uh when
Speaker 1: he was young and they became friends and Alec Bernstein, Uh,
Speaker 1: Leonard's son I hadn't seen since I was a kid.
Speaker 1: And it was a great reunion. And uh anyway, Leonard
Speaker 1: was cool man because later on when he uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he I want to concerto competition. This is this is
Speaker 1: this was a tangle whether you want to know Indiana
Speaker 1: University well before let's finish off tangle with So you're
Speaker 1: there finally the fourth year and other than having a
Speaker 1: great experience, do you learn anything? Oh my god? That
Speaker 1: was That was elite. Dude. Okay, he's a great story.
Speaker 1: First day, I'm nervous. You know, this is the best workers.
Speaker 1: I'm nervous still. I mean I've gotten way, way good.
Speaker 1: But it's you know, I'm with the elite from all
Speaker 1: over the world, and says heos Hour one of the
Speaker 1: greatest conductors ever, who is a conductor for Bosses of
Speaker 1: the New Orchestra San Francisco, who Leonard Bernstein had found
Speaker 1: in Japan and brought him to Tanguin when he was
Speaker 1: a kid. Zaro had an impeccable memory. He walks in
Speaker 1: and conductors the story. Here's to show different styles of conducting.
Speaker 1: He comes in and says to the orchestra, looks at them.
Speaker 1: He's trying to gain power and control. He says, what
Speaker 1: what are we playing? What are we what are we
Speaker 1: doing today? We had all the scores memorized, and they say, okay,
Speaker 1: we're doing this is let's play this. It was a
Speaker 1: revel thing and this conducting style was unbelievable. Wow, the form,
Speaker 1: the flow, and then about thirty seconds he stops and
Speaker 1: he rips through all the different sections. You're out of tune,
Speaker 1: you're behind the beat. You to to establish power. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the rehearsal, I'm picking up a
Speaker 1: lot of cussion stuff on the floor in the back.
Speaker 1: Everybody scattered. It was just me and then I hear
Speaker 1: some talking. I look up. I'm still on the ground.
Speaker 1: I look up past my music stands. There's Bernstein with
Speaker 1: those hours and those hours going. I don't understand. This
Speaker 1: orchestra is supposed to be the best, and they're not performing.
Speaker 1: And here's the difference. Leonard put his hand on his
Speaker 1: shoulder and said says, so show some love and compassion
Speaker 1: and they will play for you because they are the best. Wow.
Speaker 1: And then all the you know, in the percussion world,
Speaker 1: timpany is like the cool spot you know, you're by
Speaker 1: yourself kind of is all the percussion and is timpany
Speaker 1: And timpoty is a very very dynamic instrument. It supports,
Speaker 1: you know, basis when they're doing a long like you know,
Speaker 1: or cellos and on the timpany you're going, you're trying
Speaker 1: to make this sustained role that supports, or you play
Speaker 1: we allowed and you're you're tuning every day. I'm a tunable.
Speaker 1: Have to be in tune because if you're out of tune,
Speaker 1: like even by a little bit. It's just a virtuostic instrument,
Speaker 1: and every one of the highest paid people in the orchestra. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the first week I'm playing percussion, second week, I'm playing percussion,
Speaker 1: third week. Finally I'm the only guy hasn't playing Timothy
Speaker 1: the Bailiest fifth Symphony, this big killer Timpothy part with
Speaker 1: Burnstein conducting, and oh this killer so you you didn't
Speaker 1: choke a good joke. I crushed it. And the piece
Speaker 1: is so beautiful that I literally had was having to
Speaker 1: pinch myself while I was on stage, Uh to not
Speaker 1: well up with here because it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: So this concerto thing I was telling about now we're
Speaker 1: back in Indiana University. Yeah, when I auditioned it U mass,
Speaker 1: I'd never played a remember before I had this vibraphone,
Speaker 1: which is a metal Mallard instrument, and the members the
Speaker 1: bars are bigger, and it's a longer instrument. So the
Speaker 1: you know you're you're gonna miss notes if you're used
Speaker 1: to this aracing of one instrument you missed, you have
Speaker 1: to adapt. So I was the story is at eight
Speaker 1: and I played for the first time just about when
Speaker 1: I was about to turn twenty three. I had worked
Speaker 1: so hard. I had won a concerto competition playing a
Speaker 1: violin concerto that I saw it's all Parlman play in
Speaker 1: in his performance at Indiana University with orchestra as his encore,
Speaker 1: and I decided at that moment that would be my
Speaker 1: marimba piece on my senior recital and your senior recital
Speaker 1: at Indiana University you had to play timpani multiple percussion
Speaker 1: mallet piece uh, and then you could decide if you
Speaker 1: want to play drums, set or UH. Most people, if
Speaker 1: you were a classical major, would just pick a snare
Speaker 1: doorm a two, but it's all very classical and virtuosic.
Speaker 1: I picked this piece. I practicing in my senior year
Speaker 1: um three hours a day, three sixty five days a year,
Speaker 1: just for that one piece in my recipe idol. But
Speaker 1: teachers blown away by my performance ability and what I
Speaker 1: had done. I had memorized all the phrasings of it's
Speaker 1: a promin, you know, like a violin, and I've done
Speaker 1: such a great job that he said, I want you
Speaker 1: to enter this concerto competition. If you win, you bit
Speaker 1: to perform in the opera hall, which is the size
Speaker 1: of the New York met at Indiana University with a
Speaker 1: full orchestra, six piece orchestra. I auditioned and I win,
Speaker 1: and so I the first time. When the night I
Speaker 1: was supposed to do it, I was so nervous, and
Speaker 1: I'm walking to the huge uh opera hall and everyone's
Speaker 1: running out of the building. Looked like the Preside Adventure.
Speaker 1: You know. What had happened is a grid went out
Speaker 1: in Indiana University and the power was gone. So I
Speaker 1: couldn't perform a blessing because I was nervous. I was
Speaker 1: gonna make it. I was gonna mess up. So the
Speaker 1: conductor said to the orchestra, look, we don't have to reschedule,
Speaker 1: but I feel bad for Kenny didn't get do what
Speaker 1: do you all like? Let's do it? Look can that
Speaker 1: do it? So when I did finally perform, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a weird feeling. They roll like you know, they
Speaker 1: roll them mber out and I walk. I'm not used
Speaker 1: to being up front. There's the conductor, the orchestra's back
Speaker 1: is on my back. Is the orchestra on the side
Speaker 1: of the conductor, And he looks at me says, are
Speaker 1: you ready, and I'm shipping my pants five people in
Speaker 1: front of big opera and we start and I'm going,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I got this. It's all memorized, you know.
Speaker 1: I got this. And I get into the performance and
Speaker 1: the very last page, right before the cadenza, where I
Speaker 1: have two mallets, and I pick up two more mallets,
Speaker 1: and it's just like goo goo goo goo goo goo
Speaker 1: goo goo goo goo goo good good good good good
Speaker 1: goo go go. But little, a little, a little, a little,
Speaker 1: a little, a little bit, a little up and down
Speaker 1: this saying, and I'm like, oh, I got it. There's
Speaker 1: a couple of missnows. But I tore it up. It
Speaker 1: was huge. That was like the big you have made it.
Speaker 1: And then I get into the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra per
Speaker 1: my teacher, and I turned it down because while before
Speaker 1: I had gotten that position, I started studying drum set
Speaker 1: for the first time with wheel badass teacher from Berkeley
Speaker 1: was a jazz drummer, Alan Dawson, and in New York
Speaker 1: one of the biggest session the Hall Bline of New
Speaker 1: York Gary Chester. And I'm starting I'm practicing eight hours
Speaker 1: a day and I want to be in the Beatles again.
Speaker 1: We'll take a quick break and come back with more
Speaker 1: of my conversation with legendary drummer Kenny Aaronoff, recorded live
Speaker 1: at the tune In studios in Venice, California. This week,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with a veritable rock star behind a drum kid.
Speaker 1: In the past, I spoke with Tony Hawk and the
Speaker 1: head of YouTube and Google Music, Lee or Co. Check
Speaker 1: out the archives of the show to learn how people
Speaker 1: double down on their passions to make it big in
Speaker 1: their respective industries. Subscribe to the podcast on tune in,
Speaker 1: Apple or your podcast player of choice. Okay, let's get
Speaker 1: back to my conversation with legendary drummer Kenny aaron Off. So,
Speaker 1: and all this time you're Indiana, the dream of the
Speaker 1: Beatles had evaporated, or you said, focused on I may
Speaker 1: always played in bands, but yeah, the dude, I was
Speaker 1: focusing on my my to get through college, to do
Speaker 1: an excellent job and get a job, and you know,
Speaker 1: presumably a symphony orchestra. And can you still play the
Speaker 1: marimba today? I just pulled it out. I haven't remember. Because, uh,
Speaker 1: the president of Kodak Film wants to do a documentary
Speaker 1: on Kenny and when he played them that piece, he went, dude,
Speaker 1: we need an excerpt for that in the document entry.
Speaker 1: So I started to pull the murmber out with the
Speaker 1: idea that I would learn to work up a part
Speaker 1: of that piece, just you know, and uh oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I could get back up, just you know, just putting
Speaker 1: in the time. Right, So how do you end up
Speaker 1: with melocap? Well, so I turned on Juice from I'm
Speaker 1: living at home, I'm humbled, and like here I am.
Speaker 1: I played with Burnesty. Now I'm back in my own
Speaker 1: house where I grew up, practicing in hours a day, traveling,
Speaker 1: trying to play in some bands in New York. And
Speaker 1: a bunch of guys from Indiana called me up. So
Speaker 1: we want to start a band with the idea of
Speaker 1: the business modelers, get a record deals, sell records, go
Speaker 1: on tour like the Beatles. I went and one of
Speaker 1: the dads invested thirty grand. This is the nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money. We got a truck, lights,
Speaker 1: p a and we're in a band house. Loved it,
Speaker 1: moved back there. After three years, we didn't get a
Speaker 1: record deal, and I decided I'm twenty seven. I decided
Speaker 1: I gotta should probably go to New York. I knew
Speaker 1: more people New York than l A, so I'm gonna move.
Speaker 1: And then I hear about two weeks leaving, I hear
Speaker 1: about this Johnny Cougar, guy singer songwriter said Johnny Cougar
Speaker 1: just fired his drummer last night or something. They got
Speaker 1: in an argument, and I started thinking, well, that's a
Speaker 1: guy on MTV. I'm not a huge fan of music,
Speaker 1: you know. I was more in diffusion, you know, more technique.
Speaker 1: When you're younger, you want to play as many notes
Speaker 1: as possible, and this was a songwriter, and I went
Speaker 1: but down. On the other hand, I was into the
Speaker 1: Beatles and the Stones and songs, so it was in
Speaker 1: my blood. So I went, wait a minute, this guy's
Speaker 1: tourings making I want this bad. So I called up.
Speaker 1: I had the guitar players number, and he said, well
Speaker 1: call me a couple of weeks that we're just going
Speaker 1: through some stuff and call me, says um. John had
Speaker 1: asked around who's the best drummer in Bloomington and people says,
Speaker 1: you could check out this guy, Kenny. I learned that
Speaker 1: that name from just being hard worker and the guy
Speaker 1: that's always going for it, you know, just it just
Speaker 1: exuded out of me. So, um, I get an audition.
Speaker 1: I said, what should I do? And they said, be
Speaker 1: familiar with the John Cougar record, which had I need
Speaker 1: a Lover on on ear from that and so covered
Speaker 1: by Yeah, and which gave him some money. So that
Speaker 1: the thing is, they said, be familiar with it. With
Speaker 1: with my training, I wrote every note doubt and memorized
Speaker 1: every song, so practicing my six hours six to eight hours,
Speaker 1: say that was that I didn't realize, but that was
Speaker 1: the discipline I've learned at Indiana University and U MASS
Speaker 1: and asked me and Tangwood. That prepared me unusually for
Speaker 1: a rock band audition. And and then I would like
Speaker 1: literally go, I'd yell out a song and start playing
Speaker 1: without the music. I mean, I had it down. So
Speaker 1: I show up at John's house almost didn't get the audition.
Speaker 1: First of all, I beat up five cars leaking oil
Speaker 1: on his driveway. He's looking at that, looking at me.
Speaker 1: I'm dressed, not cool. I have a beard, and I
Speaker 1: didn't know what cool was back then, and UH had
Speaker 1: no style. And and then he sees me pull out
Speaker 1: this mammoth drunk kid, you know, double bassed from twelve
Speaker 1: times a billion symbols. I walk up to him, Hey,
Speaker 1: John Tenney, who was John Mellencamp turns around, walks into
Speaker 1: the house and went, wow, this guy is not a
Speaker 1: happy guy. He was going through a divorce also, And
Speaker 1: I didn't also realize and I say in my book,
Speaker 1: I mean, dude, here's a guy from India and he goes,
Speaker 1: he gets a record deal, his manager, Tony de Freeze
Speaker 1: that gave Bowie his name, Ziggy start Us. John makes
Speaker 1: a record. He shoves the record across him and John goes,
Speaker 1: who's Johnny couz Is that's you? He says, that's not
Speaker 1: my name me cripping the rust belt. He goes, he
Speaker 1: probably went home and got his asked kicked by his uncles.
Speaker 1: That that resolved everything with fistfights, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: They were like brick players. Not only did he have his,
Speaker 1: and he said, well, if you want your record to
Speaker 1: come out, your name is Johnny Cougar. So he gets
Speaker 1: he takes that and loses his deal. A year later,
Speaker 1: Now he's Johnny Couse. This guy was not a happy guy.
Speaker 1: He was fighting, and I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: I was just happy to be playing in a band
Speaker 1: that was on the radio. John was in fear of
Speaker 1: losing his deal again. So I auditioned and I said,
Speaker 1: they said, you know any these songs? I said, I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with some of the songs that I pick one.
Speaker 1: I picked one, and I'll never forget. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just destroyed everything. I broke symbols, sticks. I figured, well,
Speaker 1: they must play loud in arenas. And John's mouth was open,
Speaker 1: his eyes are bugged out. He gets up after two
Speaker 1: soon goes upstairs and yells, Mike, get up here. Mike
Speaker 1: goes up and I'm packing. I'm nervous. I really want this.
Speaker 1: Mike comes down, looks at me, smiles, shakes my hand, says,
Speaker 1: welcome to Hell. I'm going. What does he mean by that?
Speaker 1: I found out that was the beginning, and uh, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make this quick. I tell everybody I'm
Speaker 1: going to Elie to make a record at Cherokee Studios
Speaker 1: on fair effect. I am so excited. I've told everybody.
Speaker 1: I get here and I'm staying at the Chateau Marmont
Speaker 1: and uh rock and Roll Hotel also and in two days, John,
Speaker 1: we have a band meeting, John says you're not on
Speaker 1: the record, and as he starts to say, you go
Speaker 1: back to Indiana, I said, no fucking way am I
Speaker 1: going back home? And I'm scrambling, I'm trying to negotiate
Speaker 1: a deal. I'm humiliated, and I'm thinking in my head,
Speaker 1: don't you understand I played with Bernstein blah blah, had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with serving this song or getting a
Speaker 1: song on the record. I asked drummers all the time,
Speaker 1: what's your purpose when you're making a record of what's
Speaker 1: your purpose as a drummer? And they fumbled around. I say,
Speaker 1: the purpose of a drummer when you're making records get
Speaker 1: the song to be number one. That's it. Every part,
Speaker 1: every idea, everything you say, everything you think. The goal
Speaker 1: is to get the song on the radio to be
Speaker 1: number one. Because when it does, then you made millions
Speaker 1: for the company. Then they say who played on it? Oh, Kenny,
Speaker 1: Let's get him on the next one, and the next
Speaker 1: one and the next one. And that's how I ended
Speaker 1: up on so many hits and being a team player
Speaker 1: and getting a long and adjusting. Monday, it's bb King
Speaker 1: and Bonnie right, Tuesday's out and John Wednesdays, the Smashing Pumpkin.
Speaker 1: I mean they're all different. Everything is different, and you
Speaker 1: have to be able to adapt. And so I I
Speaker 1: didn't have any of that yet. So I was I
Speaker 1: was fighting and I just said, John, I'm not going home.
Speaker 1: I'll sleep on the floor. I said, are you am
Speaker 1: I still your drummer and he said, yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: playing on the record. He was perplexed. He didn't know
Speaker 1: what to why I was asking because I was sleeping
Speaker 1: the floor. You don't have to pay me, which is
Speaker 1: probably the deal breaker. And then I did. I watched
Speaker 1: these guys and I learned from them, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I was quite an education about tuning how to play
Speaker 1: these radio friendly drum parts that serve the song. I
Speaker 1: went home and set up my eight hour day practice routine,
Speaker 1: got Stones Records out, Credence Records out, a C d
Speaker 1: C Records, started up trying to I mean, it's much
Speaker 1: easier to learn something that's technically hard than to learn
Speaker 1: how do you practice simple? There's no book on simple Simple.
Speaker 1: It's like looking through him, like it's like looking to it.
Speaker 1: Uh microscope where playing technicals looking through a telescope. They're
Speaker 1: both valid just different directions. So I was befuddled. How
Speaker 1: do you so? The only one you could do is repetition.
Speaker 1: I just kept playing the Stones Records, started to understand
Speaker 1: it and let me jump two years later. So that
Speaker 1: album you didn't play on was American Fool I did.
Speaker 1: American Fool I did. It was nothing matters when one
Speaker 1: of it did so, which was not successful. It wasn't
Speaker 1: considered successful even though he had two singles in the
Speaker 1: top forty. But he almost but the two this time,
Speaker 1: I think in then he did a video with the
Speaker 1: egg Lady from that Crazy movie and then, uh, the
Speaker 1: other one was ain't even done with then. I kind
Speaker 1: of an R and B thing. Cropper was the producer,
Speaker 1: Steve Cropper, you know, and and I didn't know this,
Speaker 1: but you're right. It was not considered successful when we
Speaker 1: were making American Fool two years later, which that got
Speaker 1: two Grammy Awards. The most the story on that as
Speaker 1: they finished the record and the label said we don't
Speaker 1: want to put this out, it's right because after nine weeks,
Speaker 1: I felt like I'd been and this is where I
Speaker 1: came up with the iconic Jack and Dian drum apart,
Speaker 1: fighting for my life um, thinking that if I don't
Speaker 1: come up with something, I'll be replaced again or fired.
Speaker 1: And I come up with that song was off the
Speaker 1: record gone, nobody knew what to do with it, and
Speaker 1: I programmed this drum machine thing because that one of them,
Speaker 1: which I thought is hideous. I'm being replaced now, not
Speaker 1: by a human, by by a machine. I went, this
Speaker 1: is what's going on here? And then they that wasn't
Speaker 1: good enough, so I had to come up with this.
Speaker 1: They wanted like persent part the Red Sea right now. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what, I have to come up with this
Speaker 1: drum part? Thank god I did. Became John's biggest, most
Speaker 1: successful single. I made million dollars for the company, not
Speaker 1: for me. But he's still like one of the is
Speaker 1: one of the greatest songs played from the eighties. And
Speaker 1: after we after that, I go home. I felt like
Speaker 1: I've been in Afghanistan for nine weeks. John calls here
Speaker 1: two weeks later says, we're not done. We got only
Speaker 1: four songs. Record label doesn't like it. Uh, we only
Speaker 1: got four songs. Two guys have gotten fired. Me and
Speaker 1: John was got in a fist fight. John was a
Speaker 1: complete manic, crazy man, and he you know, did some
Speaker 1: crazy stuff and I just went after him. Anyway, we're
Speaker 1: out in the band without tail between the legs, and
Speaker 1: that's what John Road. Hurts so good. And we came
Speaker 1: back out here six months later and recorded the Cherokee
Speaker 1: the same room that I was told not to play
Speaker 1: and finished the record. And then and I was in
Speaker 1: the same room at the Chateau Marma when Jack and
Speaker 1: Ian went to number one. The first song that came
Speaker 1: on off of that record that let off was hurt
Speaker 1: So Good. It stayed at number two for six weeks.
Speaker 1: And this is on the top one d This meant
Speaker 1: something back then, the top one hundred med something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was for those listening when you were in the
Speaker 1: top one hundred. You couldn't get away from that song
Speaker 1: was on every station on the radio. And then we
Speaker 1: had MTV, so we were on. We were it was obnoxious,
Speaker 1: just you couldn't get away from us. And then they
Speaker 1: say it started to go down a little bit and
Speaker 1: they said released Jack and the hand. They released Jack
Speaker 1: and Diane. He creeps up Jack and hurts what good
Speaker 1: didn't leave. Now we have two singles in the top ten.
Speaker 1: That's huge, and we John's career seriously launched. Then that
Speaker 1: was like a right, So millions of records, one Grammys,
Speaker 1: We were on a Saturday Live, we were on every
Speaker 1: TV show, imaginable, and I was in the room. They
Speaker 1: shout to my mom when the song went to number one,
Speaker 1: Jack and Dane and the same movement where I got
Speaker 1: told not to play the record. But my fear was,
Speaker 1: holy sh it. Not everybody thinks I can do this again?
Speaker 1: Can I? How do I prepare for? How do you practice?
Speaker 1: There's no method. I was very insecure about, like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, god, do again. I'm not really number one?
Speaker 1: No way, Oh man, what do I do? What do
Speaker 1: I practice? I gotta do this again? And obviously, okay,
Speaker 1: did you get the proper respect from John in terms
Speaker 1: of your addition to Jack and Diane. He never would
Speaker 1: would tell me such a thing. A matter of fact,
Speaker 1: he told me years later. I thought about this. He said,
Speaker 1: you know this is that makes that songs that guitar part.
Speaker 1: But about to me, it sounds like now I think
Speaker 1: he wanted me to sign off on it or something.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. John's don't mean anything. Hell not.
Speaker 1: The programming the drums were a big part of that.
Speaker 1: But John would never tell me ever to my face
Speaker 1: that I was doing a good job. He just he
Speaker 1: was like the Bobby Night coach of Indiana University, just
Speaker 1: completely big. You know Bill Belichick. Well I don't know
Speaker 1: about Bill Belichick, but you know Bobby and he's never
Speaker 1: get a compliment. It's like he gets his people to
Speaker 1: always fight to be better. And John, for seventeen years,
Speaker 1: I was trying to come up with beats that would
Speaker 1: make his songs unique. And that was my what degree?
Speaker 1: What is this process? Did people start to pay attention
Speaker 1: to you as an individual? Yeah? Scared when the well
Speaker 1: about the American fool, But then the home record I
Speaker 1: started to get a sound, were starting to we push
Speaker 1: the drums up front. John wanted our songs to blow
Speaker 1: any song that came on the radio before us and
Speaker 1: after us. Great mentality. It's like, so I want the
Speaker 1: drums loud, I want vocals. I want this thing to
Speaker 1: just me the loudest thing on the radio. And it was.
Speaker 1: And it worked because we were competing with either Tiger
Speaker 1: and at the knee and Ivery and then he was
Speaker 1: so good it was like a C D C. You know,
Speaker 1: And uh so I get hired to do. I have
Speaker 1: to say it was actually probably after Scare Call and
Speaker 1: the Scarecrow record, my sound became locked down as this wall,
Speaker 1: what do they do? Who is that? That sound? That
Speaker 1: so powerful? It was like a drum record, simple drum pus.
Speaker 1: So then I get calls to do like buyd Setser's
Speaker 1: first solo record, Night Feels Like Justice, Blend the Car
Speaker 1: Heaven on Earth, which went to number one, And I'm
Speaker 1: starting to get these calls, you know, to to record,
Speaker 1: and then uh, John and a eight. We went from
Speaker 1: I went from number nineteen eighty eight John on it
Speaker 1: was like another Man did, which I didn't play drums on,
Speaker 1: American Fool, which I played drums on, which had pink
Speaker 1: houses of authority and coming down. Then it was Scar
Speaker 1: Car Now we're arena rock band too. Was selling Milliams
Speaker 1: records in Jubilee, which we rechanged this whole. We came
Speaker 1: up with a whole new sound of violent and according
Speaker 1: together Americana and we're selling out arenas. And then John
Speaker 1: quits last show of the Jubilee tour, hands me a
Speaker 1: bonus check when they actually had bonus checks. He says,
Speaker 1: I quit and I took it literal he didn't quit,
Speaker 1: but I thought he just gotten divorced, had car payment,
Speaker 1: child payment, uh, you know, mortgage, blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I'm at the most of
Speaker 1: this guy and never saw it coming. He can just quit.
Speaker 1: He's got millions in the bank. I don't he can
Speaker 1: quit whenever he wants. I'm like, that will never happen again.
Speaker 1: And that's where I went. I freaked out. And then
Speaker 1: I started to look at the same thing everybody else saw,
Speaker 1: but look at it different. I went, I've been working
Speaker 1: with one rock star for eight years, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go work for all the other ones. And so I
Speaker 1: started coming out here. To what degree did you pitch people?
Speaker 1: And to what degree were they looking for you both?
Speaker 1: I was all over the radio, and then when they
Speaker 1: started hearing and I was coming out here, and one
Speaker 1: day I get this call, Hey, Kenny, it's Don Don Was.
Speaker 1: I'm like, from What's not? Was? Yeah, how did you
Speaker 1: think you're playing an iggy pop record? Now, Don was
Speaker 1: really just beginning. He was renting a house up in
Speaker 1: Low Canyon. He says, Now, don you know it wasn't
Speaker 1: I was to be honest, I go to the record
Speaker 1: plan to meet him. I go right up to the singers,
Speaker 1: the black singers. I thought he was a black guy,
Speaker 1: and I go, so Don, and then he says, Sweepy goes,
Speaker 1: I ain't know Donn was, and I go over to
Speaker 1: Don Was, not knowing it's Don. Was said, dude, when
Speaker 1: does Don could get here? And Don starts bursting out laughing,
Speaker 1: he's Barefoot's got the afrot laugh aces I'm done. Was,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what you sound like that on the phone.
Speaker 1: I was laying lass off and Sweepy is laughing. All
Speaker 1: those guys are laughing. So Don says, look at Iggy
Speaker 1: wants to meet you first, which I thought was cool
Speaker 1: because he has vibe. So I go to his house
Speaker 1: and you know, Iggy's sitting laying down on the count
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, I played Timpany in high
Speaker 1: school in Detroit, and I WHOA, I played Timpany too,
Speaker 1: and he liked me. So I played on that record
Speaker 1: and one night when Don said Don, they said Donna
Speaker 1: has to leave. He's going to the Grammys. He wins
Speaker 1: two Grammys for Nick of Time and one for Love
Speaker 1: Check Be fifty two. All of a sudden, Don is
Speaker 1: getting I'm ton of calls. Now I do Bob Dylan's
Speaker 1: record with him. Now I do Bob Seger with him.
Speaker 1: Now I do Elton John with him. And then I've
Speaker 1: been working with Don since nine. The big thing I
Speaker 1: do with Don as we do these big, huge extravaganzas
Speaker 1: like the uh, the Greg Allman Tribute, so I get
Speaker 1: to play with twenty artists Tomorrow Hagger Tribute while I'm
Speaker 1: playing with Loretta Lynn and Keith Richards and Don Henley,
Speaker 1: and then he's just one after another. And then I
Speaker 1: did the Kenny Rodgers Tribute with you can imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: Dolly Pardon, Lionel Richie, all these It's just and then
Speaker 1: and then that, and then having done the Kennedy Center Honors.
Speaker 1: For the viewers listening, it's like I write meticulously every
Speaker 1: single note, doubt uh that I'm gonna play. I have
Speaker 1: tempo marking's, I have a vocal cues, I have guitar cues,
Speaker 1: and Don basically he's the musical director. But once the
Speaker 1: show goes, I'm I'm I'm counting off the tempo's ending
Speaker 1: all the songs. Uh. He he hands the baton to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm timing. I know the script of the show,
Speaker 1: the flow of the show. I'm looking over to see
Speaker 1: when Don Henley walks on looking for the next artist.
Speaker 1: Are they gonna speak into the micro They not, and
Speaker 1: I have to make a decision. I got my hands
Speaker 1: up here, I've got the click going in my ear.
Speaker 1: I've grabbed the attention to people. The guitar players are
Speaker 1: the keyboard player. This is get ready, one two, three, four,
Speaker 1: And as soon as the song is over, I gotta
Speaker 1: click going for the next song. So it's already going
Speaker 1: because you could go from one two to one twenty.
Speaker 1: It's not much, but it makes a difference with vocals.
Speaker 1: So don I make Don's life easier. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: making tweaks and adjustments on charts until ninety minutes before
Speaker 1: the show, and it's a sixteen camera shoot and they're
Speaker 1: recording it. I can't mess up. Ninety minutes before the show.
Speaker 1: I get all my charts, and I didn't take pictures
Speaker 1: of them, put them my iPad, put them in order,
Speaker 1: and usually have thirty minutes to eat and get ready,
Speaker 1: and then I'll do this whole performance. Let's just say hypothetically,
Speaker 1: you're booked that they can't get you. That just happened. Okay,
Speaker 1: who do you say to get I let them decide,
Speaker 1: great answer. Okay, so Mello Camp decides he's not retiring. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you've built this whole business from the session work. How
Speaker 1: does it end with you in Mello Camp? Well, that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of headbutting, because now I took myself
Speaker 1: off the small teeny retainer. I mean, that's such an
Speaker 1: obvious flare up in the sky. But I you know,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, you know this way, he can't tell
Speaker 1: me when he wants me, but you don't tell him
Speaker 1: Melancamp retainer or not when he wants you. He wants you.
Speaker 1: And this has happened before or after that. What I
Speaker 1: was saying that John was like, I'm making more money
Speaker 1: in the studio and I in the studio that I'm
Speaker 1: with you and I've made you millions. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to my head. And I'm treated with respect and
Speaker 1: nice and John, I'm not even gonna put him down,
Speaker 1: just say it wasn't his demeanor to be nice, like
Speaker 1: nice nice, and so I would like be in the
Speaker 1: car those last five years after we got back together,
Speaker 1: and then we're back you know when we finally get
Speaker 1: back together officially as a band in nine and I'm
Speaker 1: driving to the student gonna rock on the rock. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get and I get in there, and John was
Speaker 1: going through a lot of I mean, in all fairness
Speaker 1: to John, he was like running all the business. He
Speaker 1: was dealing with interviews, dealing with the record labels, dealing
Speaker 1: with managers, dealing with merchandise. He was dealing with this everything,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think you know he had relationship issues.
Speaker 1: It was just tons of stuff. And then he had
Speaker 1: a heart attack eventually, and it was like there was
Speaker 1: so much times to play. When I get in the studio,
Speaker 1: he'd had sunglasses, he'd be smoke con cigarette, the blinds
Speaker 1: would be drawn and it was just depressing. And once again,
Speaker 1: no insult to him, but he was suffering. But I
Speaker 1: walk in there and I would feel it and it
Speaker 1: was no fun. And I'd be like, come on, let's
Speaker 1: go up. We'd be in this dark place for an
Speaker 1: hour and a half. Now let's cut this song. And
Speaker 1: I'd be like constantly trying to coach myself and like,
Speaker 1: no dis respect to John at all. Man, he was
Speaker 1: going through a lot. Man. He was running the whole show.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't fun to be around. So eventually John
Speaker 1: called me and I was doing something and I can't
Speaker 1: make it. I think I was with little Feet out here.
Speaker 1: We'll just cancel. Tell them. You gotta tell them that
Speaker 1: you're not available when I call you. I said, doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. They you know, producers build rhythm sections.
Speaker 1: They want Kenny in this studio with that bass player.
Speaker 1: And if I'm gonna constantly be bambling, I think gonna work.
Speaker 1: And there was no It eventually ended where we parted ways,
Speaker 1: you know, And what's your relationship with him? About? If
Speaker 1: I play with him like I've done stuff with him.
Speaker 1: We joke like I did the mer hag contribute. He'll
Speaker 1: come up and slug me in the arm, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: And we'll stand in front of each other, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's a very serious guy, but our conversations are fun, funny,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like we make He'll make
Speaker 1: a dig at me, but it doesn't bother me because
Speaker 1: you're playing like the Merle Haggard tribute. Have you ever
Speaker 1: played with him in his band? I played with Merrow
Speaker 1: Another Don was saying, where you know Willie Nelson and
Speaker 1: Merroll came on to do Poncho and Poncho and Lefty Lefty,
Speaker 1: and they were for some event. I played with Morril
Speaker 1: a bunch of times, you know, okay, But in terms
Speaker 1: of John Mellancamp, oh, not in his band. No, it's
Speaker 1: only one of these things where like the Obama inauguration,
Speaker 1: And that's that's how I broke the eyes. I was
Speaker 1: playing Obama Inauguration. I played with twenty four artists. One
Speaker 1: was Melancamp and I thought, I don't want to wait,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be awkward, so I wait till I see him.
Speaker 1: So I called him up on the phone. They go,
Speaker 1: John's Kenny, Hey, Kenny, Oh, oh, Kenny, how are you?
Speaker 1: He was really friendly. So this I want to let
Speaker 1: you know that it's really cold on stage. We're outside
Speaker 1: and you up what Lincoln is and we're down below you.
Speaker 1: So you really are kind of alone. I just know
Speaker 1: you'd like to be around the band. Just what I
Speaker 1: just want are You're still hitting a lot of symbols
Speaker 1: and went, yeah, and we're doing pink House. I said,
Speaker 1: you know the third chorus where you sing stop singing,
Speaker 1: it's a drum solo and it's just symbols going crazy,
Speaker 1: and he goes, this is motherfucker. I'm gonna come down
Speaker 1: there and take those symbols up. And I said, I
Speaker 1: hope you do. I'll get more camera. It was kind
Speaker 1: of he really wanted to know if he was performing
Speaker 1: right after Biden's speech because he wanted the attention. You know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so is Mike the only guy left from the original band?
Speaker 1: That's right. I went and saw them here at the
Speaker 1: Hollywood Bowl and I have to say it wasn't the
Speaker 1: rock band that I was in, but it was cool man.
Speaker 1: The songs were great, except he placed Jack and Diana
Speaker 1: Cousty guitar and I got to the drum field he
Speaker 1: skipped it. He didn't even play. Just well, that's a
Speaker 1: tribute to you on some level. Okay, So now you're
Speaker 1: playing sessions, but you all still go out of the
Speaker 1: Road with Melissa Ethridge for ten years on and off,
Speaker 1: Joe Cocker for ten years, on and off, Pumpkins for
Speaker 1: one year, a Bob Seger for one year, and Fogrety
Speaker 1: now I'm up to twenty five years. Okay. So first
Speaker 1: you're playing sessions. At what point do you decide do
Speaker 1: you end up going down the road on tour. You know,
Speaker 1: this is what makes me different. Is like for the
Speaker 1: viewers out there, usually you're either a session drummer or
Speaker 1: you're a touring drummer. So a couple of us like
Speaker 1: Jeff Percarroll did it, uh, Jerr Robinson, Jared and toured
Speaker 1: that much. You didn't want to ever leave town because
Speaker 1: you don't want these sessions. What I did was I
Speaker 1: was living Indiana. I was recording in l a lot,
Speaker 1: but Nashville was only four and a half hours south
Speaker 1: of me. So I started a whole business down there.
Speaker 1: I was making, you know, playing with Johnny Cash, the
Speaker 1: real the real guys, uh, you know, Willie Nelson's Waylon
Speaker 1: Jennings and and then in the country pop schlock started coming.
Speaker 1: I was playing on that too, But I I I
Speaker 1: was juggling everything, and in New York sometimes, and when
Speaker 1: I went on tour with Seeger and Melissa, I struck
Speaker 1: a deal like this. I got paid a lot, but
Speaker 1: I said, you pay me on show day. On days off,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay me, but those are my days.
Speaker 1: And I would fly anywhere to make records and keep
Speaker 1: it all going. All right, There are issues of getting
Speaker 1: back in time for the show. I got two big
Speaker 1: ones recently. Fog I'm in Mumbai, India with my band,
Speaker 1: Supersonic Blues Machine with Eric El's and Billy Gibbons, and
Speaker 1: I'm being promoted. So this is the classic thing fogies
Speaker 1: get a gig. I'm not unretained or I don't have
Speaker 1: any So we've got a gig the day after and
Speaker 1: I'm like, huh, I can make it, but it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: I can make it, but I'm gonna be in Mumbai
Speaker 1: the day before, so you've gotta cancel it. Went I can't.
Speaker 1: It's my band and I'm being promoted. It's Kenny Aaronoff.
Speaker 1: It's my band. You gotta cancel it. So I said,
Speaker 1: let me see what the flights are, you know, instead
Speaker 1: of like there is no no, that's my new thing.
Speaker 1: There's no no. You just just come up with keep
Speaker 1: the conversation going. So I'm like, okay, look, I'm wanna
Speaker 1: let me look into this. So I said, I'll make
Speaker 1: it work. So I leave the stage. I figured out
Speaker 1: I catch a four am flight from Mumbai to Dubai
Speaker 1: to me our layover. Unless is a military coup or
Speaker 1: sandstorm that goes to Houston. My only problem is I
Speaker 1: land in Houston five thirty. I have to be on
Speaker 1: stage at nine. And at San Antonio the problem was
Speaker 1: the rush hours insane is not the problem, but getting
Speaker 1: into Texas as a problem. So I tell them that.
Speaker 1: They're like, no, no, no, I said, Okay, let me
Speaker 1: see what else I can do. I get a private chet.
Speaker 1: Somebody offers me a private chet for five dollars if
Speaker 1: I get them v I p passes. Now I land,
Speaker 1: I can get there by six thirty. I tell them
Speaker 1: that they're like what, they can't believe I got that together.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, what if? What if something really happens?
Speaker 1: I said, And I went to the next level. I
Speaker 1: got my buddy Stephen Perkins to sub for me in
Speaker 1: case I didn't make it. He went there, he learned
Speaker 1: the whole show, did sound check, and I made it
Speaker 1: on time, and I did the show, and then I
Speaker 1: would love that. I was like Piston Vinegar. I I
Speaker 1: the fact that you know that it was a challenge
Speaker 1: made me. The adrenaline flowed and we kicked as the
Speaker 1: next day though we had we got on Don Henley's
Speaker 1: jet and flew all the way to New York or
Speaker 1: somewhere east. And that's when I felt it. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh man, and we had a couple of shows there,
Speaker 1: corporate shows, and I was hurting. Yeah, no, we just
Speaker 1: had for some reason, we want his jet. I just
Speaker 1: used that as a cool thing to say, so, but
Speaker 1: but um, I was gonna say, you know when you know,
Speaker 1: I was in business class of first class, so that
Speaker 1: that flash slept the whole you know, eight hours. So,
Speaker 1: so who have you not played with? You want to
Speaker 1: play with? Well, my super group I played with Sting,
Speaker 1: but my ideal super group would be staying obviously, I'm
Speaker 1: bass singing and Jeff Beck on guitar played with Beck
Speaker 1: played on Blaze of Glory with him, but never played
Speaker 1: with him. You played the drums on Blaze of Glory. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot you know. So yeah, and Jeff Beck, this
Speaker 1: is a great story. John. One day I get a
Speaker 1: call out of Blue I'm in Nashville. The chords is, Hey,
Speaker 1: k's John bon Joeli. I'm like what he says, Hey,
Speaker 1: I got this project. I want to record two songs
Speaker 1: for this movie soundtrack. Are you available? BLA Bla says yeah,
Speaker 1: So I'll call you a couple of weeks, it comes
Speaker 1: I got four songs. Oh my god, that's awesome for Okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I'll call you a couple of weeks, dude, like, I'm
Speaker 1: doing the whole soundtrack. I'm doing I got a whole album.
Speaker 1: It's a whole concept. I'm even acting the movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna nail down you. Still available to said yep,
Speaker 1: calling a couple of weeks called says I got good
Speaker 1: news and bad news. I'm like, oh, no, what's the
Speaker 1: good news? Jeff Becker is on the record, what Molly
Speaker 1: hro what's the bad news? Jeff wants Terry bos you
Speaker 1: play Johnny side other way? No, but you know, Terry's great,
Speaker 1: Jef's great. I get off the phone and I start
Speaker 1: pacing back and forth and I'm so bummed out, you know.
Speaker 1: And then get a call from the co producer, Danny
Speaker 1: korschmer Hey, Kenny's Danny. What's up? Man? He says, um,
Speaker 1: hey man, get you drums there. On Tuesday at nine am,
Speaker 1: I went, Danny, have you spoken to John Lady? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I says, I'm not playing on the record. Terry Bojo says,
Speaker 1: what that's not yet? You're the right guy for the record, Terry,
Speaker 1: and then he said something very very smart that I
Speaker 1: should have known better. There's no way Jeff Beck is
Speaker 1: gonna be there on a tracking session. Let's do take
Speaker 1: number four hundred. No, you record this song, you bring
Speaker 1: Jeff into just a couple of takes and it's done.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna be there making a record with bon
Speaker 1: Jovie from like you know, eleven in the morning, the
Speaker 1: eleven at night. That's not his style. I was right,
Speaker 1: so he says, So anyway, tell you a tech the
Speaker 1: bring the drums here by nine am. So I played
Speaker 1: on the record. So why is the drummer always the
Speaker 1: business guy in the group. I don't know. Maybe you've
Speaker 1: learned to have to defend yourself. You're the guy you
Speaker 1: know all the music jokes. You know, you've got the
Speaker 1: brand and the guy that's oh yeah, and then we
Speaker 1: got a drummer, you know. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's a good question maybe, but that's
Speaker 1: what you do. You agree with that that usually the
Speaker 1: drummers the business guy. The drummer in many cases Danny
Speaker 1: Surfing from Blood, Sweat and Tears, Mick Jagger is the Stones,
Speaker 1: but Charlie Watts. It all goes to Charlie. You know,
Speaker 1: he's one of the guys. Uh, silent leader. Um. And
Speaker 1: that's just form my intuition. Um. You know there's other
Speaker 1: Don Henley definitely running the show, you know. Um. Um,
Speaker 1: I think the drummers are you know, we have to
Speaker 1: defend ourselves, stick up for ourselves, protect yourself, make sure
Speaker 1: you don't get screwed. You know, maybe that's part of it.
Speaker 1: What's the most memorable gig you've ever played? May not
Speaker 1: be the best you performed, but your favorite where you
Speaker 1: go I'm in the pocket. This is a great experience. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the most memorable ones besides the concertom was
Speaker 1: recording with the Buddy Rich Big Band. Scared the living
Speaker 1: crap out of me. I walk in there. I'm the
Speaker 1: last guy. There's a tribute record to honor Buddy Rich.
Speaker 1: And so they got they got all these great drummers
Speaker 1: and Neil Pert and Cathy, which decided they should have
Speaker 1: Kenny Aronoff and you know a couple of rock guys
Speaker 1: that are big. So Cathy calls me up and says,
Speaker 1: I want you to pick two songs. So I picked
Speaker 1: jazz songs. Actually just one songs, big swing face, she says,
Speaker 1: because they sent me some rock songs that were like horror.
Speaker 1: Buddy wasn't the rock drummer and the music wasn't good.
Speaker 1: So I picked this great jazz tune, big band jazz tune,
Speaker 1: and I'm excited. But I've got sessions book three weeks
Speaker 1: before every like New Orleans, LA, Nashville in Montreal. So
Speaker 1: I said, Kathy, I better book me as the last
Speaker 1: guy last day in case I don't make it. And
Speaker 1: she calls me a couple of weeks before and says, look,
Speaker 1: everyone's doing two songs and I'm like, God, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I want. I was about to say I would love to,
Speaker 1: but I don't know if I can pull it off
Speaker 1: straight no chaser. He says, we think you should do
Speaker 1: straight No chase. I went what I says, all right,
Speaker 1: all right, Oh now I'm nervous. It's really fast, and
Speaker 1: so I said, well, okay, but I I got the
Speaker 1: final say if it's no good, and she's okay. So
Speaker 1: I barely get any sleep the night before because I'm
Speaker 1: according late and I have to fly from Montreal. I'll
Speaker 1: go through customs. I get there. I'm so tired and
Speaker 1: I get to New York. I don't lay down on
Speaker 1: the bed, you won't wake up, and and uh so
Speaker 1: I purposely walked the studio from the hotel just to
Speaker 1: keep myself awake. I walk in there and there's cameras
Speaker 1: and everyone's filming me, and the band is looking at
Speaker 1: him in and they looked at me like I was
Speaker 1: a janitor, like who's that guy? You know? Like, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I'm like nervous. And so eventually get
Speaker 1: the drums and it's a new time a drum kit
Speaker 1: with a new shell. So I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how the tune is and Neil post going, let's go
Speaker 1: on the clock. You know, I'm the last guy last day.
Speaker 1: So go to the van and talk about the arrangement.
Speaker 1: A big swing face, says, well, we actually do it
Speaker 1: a little differently. I'm like, oh no, so I make
Speaker 1: my adjustments. We record. After four takes, I go in
Speaker 1: there and Neil says, all right, and one what's just yeah?
Speaker 1: I said, you know, I need to do it again.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit I can do it better and said,
Speaker 1: oh no, you only get four takes, Like, well, why
Speaker 1: didn't you tell me that in the beginning, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, this is my last shot. I thought,
Speaker 1: I have as much as I want. So they bring
Speaker 1: in the expert, Freddy Gruber. First I had a kid
Speaker 1: sounds great, So that was it. I got voted out.
Speaker 1: Now we're doing straight now Chaser. Now I'm like fight mode.
Speaker 1: It's the it's a super Bowl. So I get in
Speaker 1: fight mode and uh, it's blazing fast and it's a
Speaker 1: solo at the end. The thing that's miracous. I played great.
Speaker 1: I'm reading music and great. The solo was impeccable. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it was genius, but there was not
Speaker 1: one flaw like oh he's out of time or oh
Speaker 1: it was like and it was just and I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: when I was playing so fast, I looked at my
Speaker 1: hands and went, wow, who's playing that? I can't play
Speaker 1: like this? Who's playing? And I said, shut up, Kenny,
Speaker 1: who's ever playing? He's doing a good job. You don't
Speaker 1: want to interfere with that guy. It was literally an
Speaker 1: out of body it was flowing. It was just that
Speaker 1: whole flow thing. And so yeah, I have a lot
Speaker 1: of great experiences of Kenny Center Honors and Obamas, But
Speaker 1: that one stands out because it was so different, so unique,
Speaker 1: so scary, so terrified, and I lose the occasion. So
Speaker 1: it's extremely memorable. So you wrote a book, and for
Speaker 1: those people listening who were interested, the book is not
Speaker 1: a typical rock memoir. It's really Kenny story covers a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff, but much more in depth. I
Speaker 1: really recommend I've read a lot of these books, just
Speaker 1: not because Kenny's here, but it's really great. But you're
Speaker 1: also now right, what's the name of that book again?
Speaker 1: That's called sex Droms rock and Roll? And I wanted
Speaker 1: to put a whole bunch of others. By the way,
Speaker 1: three pages got cut out, just too many sessions, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to put this this other thing in there,
Speaker 1: and so I decided to write another book. What an idiot?
Speaker 1: This book is more are you live in your life loud?
Speaker 1: Are you dying on the vine? It's like how I
Speaker 1: became successful? How to make success? You're not born successful?
Speaker 1: There's no magic pill. How just a little kid from
Speaker 1: a town of three thousand. I mean, everybody's got stories
Speaker 1: like this, But now I'm putting in some deeper things,
Speaker 1: like you know how to connect the head with the heart,
Speaker 1: and you know how you you can't do it just
Speaker 1: from your brain. You can make yourself do stuff, but
Speaker 1: you really have to connect with your heart to be exceptional.
Speaker 1: And that's what I've I've done a lot of work
Speaker 1: on that in the last year, and I'm starting to
Speaker 1: put that back in the book. This book will be
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's it's got team leadership stuff in it,
Speaker 1: but it really is how to de beat your own
Speaker 1: demons and become successful. Now, your brother is a psychoanalyst.
Speaker 1: Did you discuss these issues with him? We I've been
Speaker 1: trying to talk to him more and more about this
Speaker 1: stuff because he's, you know, an executive coach and I've
Speaker 1: been working with an executive executive coach. It's brilliant stuff.
Speaker 1: You know. Some people think it's phony blown. I think
Speaker 1: it's it's amazing. It's uh, it's it's it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: And my brother does it. So we have these great talks.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's basically you know, you you know, we
Speaker 1: all have we all created ways to survive as as
Speaker 1: little kids, and so as an adult you can't ever
Speaker 1: get rid of like those those triggers you know, but
Speaker 1: you can come up with new agreements. That's what's happening
Speaker 1: to me. Okay, I got a new deal. When somebody
Speaker 1: it's like, for example, it's not personal when John fog
Speaker 1: he wants to put me in a little plastic house
Speaker 1: that's they're discussing on stage to keep the sound away
Speaker 1: from his ears or something. At first, you go like,
Speaker 1: I'm not getting that. You know. Now it's like, well,
Speaker 1: hey man, he's just trying to do something that makes
Speaker 1: him feel good. It's not about me. That's a whole
Speaker 1: flip because you can go I can't believe of that
Speaker 1: person is talking like that. Well, a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's it's not even about you, it's about them. You know.
Speaker 1: They're the ones going through this ship. You just have
Speaker 1: to be in their way. So I'm handling things differently
Speaker 1: based on that, not taking it personally. I can still
Speaker 1: decide what I want to stick around or not, but
Speaker 1: it isn't because of that emotional trigger and dynamic. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the best example, but that's a
Speaker 1: tip of the iceberg of some of this stuff. And
Speaker 1: so to be successful, you have to be able to
Speaker 1: navigate through this stuff. If you really want to have
Speaker 1: a a full career, and that's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: I'm writing in the book, I'm I'm really pushing the
Speaker 1: speaking business to be an inspirational because I love being
Speaker 1: in front of the drums. Going back to the drums.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, the next step. You've been listening
Speaker 1: to Kenny aaron Off. I'm a Bob left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: As you can tell, he's not only drummer extraordinary, but
Speaker 1: rack and tour extraordinary. We could literally go on for
Speaker 1: another hour, though, but I'm afraid of burning out my one.
Speaker 1: If you'll have to come back tell some more rock
Speaker 1: and rolls, Kenny, thanks so much, dude, I and all
Speaker 1: you fans out there, thanks for listening. Okay, until next time,
Speaker 1: Bob left Sets with Kenny art Off. That wraps up
Speaker 1: this week's podcast with Kenny Arnoff. The guy had such
Speaker 1: great stories I canna let him go on for hours.
Speaker 1: I was afraid of burning you out. Hopefully I'll come
Speaker 1: back with more rock and roll stories. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: Don't hesitate to email me at Bob and left sets
Speaker 1: dot com with feedback and suggestions. I may not always respond,
Speaker 1: but I read every email. Until next time I'm Bob
Speaker 1: left sets, thank me. Don't know exactly m