Speaker 1: With me in the studio for this podcast Loves Someone
Speaker 1: with Delilah is the amazing Richard Marks and uh my
Speaker 1: podcast producer Diana just said, why aren't we rolling tape
Speaker 1: on this because this is such good stuff. It's all
Speaker 1: downhill from here. We said all the good stuff before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dang it, dang it, um, But on this podcast, I
Speaker 1: not only want to talk about your music, your music history,
Speaker 1: you're writing your life. I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: ways that you are changing the world for good. That's
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure. I don't know that I am,
Speaker 1: but I'm certainly giving in a the old college try.
Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about all that and so
Speaker 1: much more with Richard Marks. Right now, We're gonna just
Speaker 1: pause a moment to talk about the fabulous people who
Speaker 1: sponsored this podcast and make it all possible. The Home Depot,
Speaker 1: if you like to organize, is all your things. This
Speaker 1: month is dedicated to you. There's something about the beginning
Speaker 1: of the year that provides this burst of energy to
Speaker 1: organize everything around you, to clean out closets and garages,
Speaker 1: to put everything away just so thank goodness, the home
Speaker 1: Depot is there to meet your every storage container need.
Speaker 1: Your home Depot store has tote containers of every size
Speaker 1: and every kind, from see through to heavy duty, and
Speaker 1: shelving systems to put all those totes onto. And if
Speaker 1: that's not enough, every big game in the storage business
Speaker 1: is on display, Husky and Sterilite and h d X
Speaker 1: the home depot. How doers get more done? In the
Speaker 1: studio loves Someone with Delilah with Richard Marx, and all
Speaker 1: week long people have said, sir Richard Marx is coming
Speaker 1: to your farm, and I'm like, yes, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be right here waiting for him. And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: bet you've heard that like five hundred million bazillion times
Speaker 1: I have. And it never gets old, especially even now.
Speaker 1: Did Daisy say that when you guys met, No, but
Speaker 1: after we got married. It was really after we get married,
Speaker 1: almost four years ago that she started doing that all
Speaker 1: the time, and it really doesn't get old. So, like,
Speaker 1: we'll be out somewhere and she'll go, I just need
Speaker 1: to run into Ralph's to get some spinach for okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll pull up, or if I have to run
Speaker 1: an errand or something, and she's She'll go, I'll be
Speaker 1: right here waiting for you. That's her. Just look at
Speaker 1: herund that it never gets old, never gets old. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But when I say, it's a little different than when
Speaker 1: the most beautiful woman in the world that you're married,
Speaker 1: she really she I get speechless, you know, talking about
Speaker 1: her even now and you've been married four years. How
Speaker 1: long did you date before? Not that long, maybe a
Speaker 1: year and a half. How long after you met Daisy
Speaker 1: one days? By the way, if you went and looked
Speaker 1: at my closet, you would notice that I have a
Speaker 1: lot of the dresses that she's designed. Her. Her brand
Speaker 1: has been on fire for fifteen years. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I don't look like she looked like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, what's up with that? But um, how long
Speaker 1: after you met the most beautiful woman in the world,
Speaker 1: Richard Marks, did you know you were going to, like,
Speaker 1: I want to spend the rest of your life with her? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, our trajectory was a little complicated
Speaker 1: because I actually talked to her on the phone twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago. Briefly, she was supposed to interview me
Speaker 1: on MTV. You know, she was on MTV for many years,
Speaker 1: and I always, like everybody else, I had a crush
Speaker 1: on her, you know, from Afar. I thought she was
Speaker 1: a girl crush on her, Yeah, most of most of
Speaker 1: them are most of the women in my life have
Speaker 1: a crush on days. So, you know, she's obviously physically beautiful,
Speaker 1: but there were even back then. I remember when I
Speaker 1: would see her on MTV, I would think she's just cool,
Speaker 1: like she would be fun to hang out with. But
Speaker 1: it was that was it because I was married for
Speaker 1: you know, hundred years, and from the time I was one,
Speaker 1: I was with my ex wife and and so there
Speaker 1: was never like, you know, it was just a crush.
Speaker 1: It a little crush. But we spoke on the phone
Speaker 1: because she was supposed to interview me and something happened,
Speaker 1: and so we talked in the phone for like a minute.
Speaker 1: Flash forward to I'm single for half a second, and
Speaker 1: I did a gig in l A and she that's
Speaker 1: where I met her. And when she walked backstage, which
Speaker 1: she she usually doesn't do the backstage thing, um, but
Speaker 1: she walked into the room. And this sounds so sappy,
Speaker 1: but it's really like that. It was the moment. Despite
Speaker 1: all the songs I've written, I never really believed in
Speaker 1: love at first sight or any of that stuff, even
Speaker 1: though you wrote about it, and I've played all those
Speaker 1: songs all those years, and there are aspects, of course
Speaker 1: to a lot of the relationship songs that I've written
Speaker 1: that I stand behind, but a lot of it is
Speaker 1: also just sort of you write about what you hope
Speaker 1: and what you wish. You know, I didn't believe in that,
Speaker 1: because it just seems so ridiculous. You can't know that.
Speaker 1: All I can tell you is when when I first
Speaker 1: saw her, when she walked through the door, what happened
Speaker 1: to me physically was I just remember thinking my life
Speaker 1: is different now, and no matter what would have happened,
Speaker 1: there was something just so electric about that moment her
Speaker 1: walking towards me and we met. And what's really amazing
Speaker 1: is it was at a at this gig in l
Speaker 1: A at the Grammy Museum. So there's actually there was
Speaker 1: a Getty photographer. There's a photo of the minute we met.
Speaker 1: Did he get the look on your face? Did he
Speaker 1: get he just it's a sweet smile, but for both
Speaker 1: of us, but you know, we literally, you know, hugged
Speaker 1: and then the guy said, hey, can I get a
Speaker 1: picture of you guys? And we turned and so we
Speaker 1: had there's that photograph and it was you know, we said,
Speaker 1: how could we not have met all these years? Well,
Speaker 1: the thing that's amazing about her is that, um, we
Speaker 1: exchanged numbers and I started to I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, she she's just extraordinary and she's this and
Speaker 1: she's like, I've got to get to know her. And
Speaker 1: we started to hang out a little bit. But she
Speaker 1: was so smart that she knew I was coming out
Speaker 1: of a really, really long marriage and that I'd never
Speaker 1: been single in my adult life, and she made me
Speaker 1: be single for a while. She kind of shut us down.
Speaker 1: She was like, you need to know what it's like
Speaker 1: to be single. You've never experienced that. And she's like,
Speaker 1: I hope it doesn't ultimately blow up on my face,
Speaker 1: but I can't just sort of dive into a relationship
Speaker 1: knowing that you've never had that experience and you need
Speaker 1: to go hang out. And I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to. I Like, she was like, why would I
Speaker 1: ever look at another woman when I You've got me
Speaker 1: the heart, mind, body, and so it was brilliant and
Speaker 1: I reluctant, Like she really kind of gave me no choice.
Speaker 1: She kind of just said, you know, I love hanging
Speaker 1: out with you, but you you need to you need
Speaker 1: to go play the field. You need to play the field.
Speaker 1: You need to know what it's like to be on
Speaker 1: your own and Engleland, and so she kind of we
Speaker 1: we That was about eight nine months and them, little
Speaker 1: by little we started to reintroduce ourselves to each other.
Speaker 1: And that was really cool because it wasn't just sort
Speaker 1: of like a full on dating thing. We were we
Speaker 1: then got to know that she started to court her.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, well, I always courted her. I was
Speaker 1: always into into that, but there was something about like
Speaker 1: when we reconnected eight or nine months later, it was
Speaker 1: really through sending each other links to thoughtful ideas and
Speaker 1: lectures and quotes, and it was that kind of courting.
Speaker 1: It was like we were we were connecting in a
Speaker 1: way like like how can we help each other as
Speaker 1: human beings because we really like each other, we really
Speaker 1: really care for each other, and we were both on
Speaker 1: this journey of exploration, which we're still on together as
Speaker 1: a married couple. And it was really kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Plus Martinis, it was pretty and Martini's wow, Uh, so
Speaker 1: you reconnected and you started this courtship and then how
Speaker 1: long was it before you walked down the aisle. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: so we had sort of decided. I felt like we
Speaker 1: had decided that we didn't need to get married. In fact,
Speaker 1: we both talked a lot about how we thought that
Speaker 1: marriage was kind of dumb. It says he who has
Speaker 1: a wedding ring on right. But I will say this,
Speaker 1: one thing I did learn, at least in my experience
Speaker 1: with all the people that I know whose stories I
Speaker 1: really know, is that there seems to almost always be
Speaker 1: some agenda two two people getting married by one person
Speaker 1: or the other. Either it's financial security, or it's I
Speaker 1: want to have a baby, or it's I don't want
Speaker 1: to be alone, I don't want to grow old alone.
Speaker 1: And where there is even the most kind sweet it's
Speaker 1: still an agenda. It's still I need something from that person,
Speaker 1: and a contractual obligation like a marriage will will get
Speaker 1: me what I'm after. It's really true. And so we
Speaker 1: were fine. We were really having a great time. You know,
Speaker 1: we adopted a couple of dogs and and we were
Speaker 1: just great. And then it hit me. We took this trip.
Speaker 1: I was performing in Singapore. I had a private show
Speaker 1: in Singapore on a Saturday night, and a week later
Speaker 1: I had a public show and a beautiful venue the
Speaker 1: following Saturday, and so we spent the weekend between in
Speaker 1: the Maldives. We've never been there before, and we traveled
Speaker 1: really well together, and we had this blissful week. And
Speaker 1: I remember coming back to Singapore thinking I want her
Speaker 1: to be my family. But there was just something about
Speaker 1: like I want to marry her for the only reason
Speaker 1: that I think you should, which is like there's no reason.
Speaker 1: I just want her to be family, you know. And
Speaker 1: I decided that I was going to propose when we
Speaker 1: got back from this trip, and it was the day
Speaker 1: the next day, and I remember saying, um, you know
Speaker 1: when it she opened the the ringbox. She was so
Speaker 1: shocked she couldn't breathe. So the first thing I said
Speaker 1: was breath. You can breathe, I said. And I just
Speaker 1: want you to know there's no wrong answer. I would
Speaker 1: love to marry you, but if this is not something
Speaker 1: you want to do, or you want to you don't
Speaker 1: want to change what we are, I'm totally fine either way,
Speaker 1: You're it's all good. And she took a minute and
Speaker 1: she said the most amazing thing to me. She said,
Speaker 1: I decided a long time ago that I never wanted
Speaker 1: to be married, but I want to be married to you.
Speaker 1: And so we got married a month later. We were
Speaker 1: actually um, this was in December. We were we were
Speaker 1: going to have all of our family together over the
Speaker 1: holidays in Aspen. We rented a house and askedpen to
Speaker 1: spend Christmas with our families. And so she said, you're
Speaker 1: really serious about this because we could just do it
Speaker 1: at the house over the holiday. I said great. And
Speaker 1: her sister gras an of got ordained in the state
Speaker 1: of Colorado and she married us. Sweet. Yeah, it's awesome,
Speaker 1: sweet sweet sweet. So yeah, we're coming up on four
Speaker 1: years married and you have children that are older. How
Speaker 1: did they how did they take to step mom being
Speaker 1: the most beautiful woman in the world. Well, I mean
Speaker 1: as they as they got to know Daisy as far
Speaker 1: as my boys, you know, they obviously are protective of me, um,
Speaker 1: and they sussed it out pretty quickly. And so they
Speaker 1: had gotten to know her for several months. And and
Speaker 1: we had a birthday party from my mom, her eightieth birthday,
Speaker 1: and we were toasting her and celebrating stuff, and then
Speaker 1: my oldest son, Brandon said, I just want to make
Speaker 1: one more toast and he said, I want to make
Speaker 1: a toast to Daisy because I've never seen my father
Speaker 1: so happy. And they've all it all started with that.
Speaker 1: They started they saw, you know, my my middle son,
Speaker 1: Lucas and I. He's going kind of going through some
Speaker 1: personal stuff right now with his relationships, and um, he's
Speaker 1: a really thoughtful, amazing man, young man, and he's really
Speaker 1: fascinated with the concept of changing your behavior there there.
Speaker 1: You know, there's the argument that some people go it
Speaker 1: just just can't be done, and I believe I completely
Speaker 1: disagree with that, you know, And we were kind of
Speaker 1: going back and forth like do you ever really change?
Speaker 1: Are people really? Um? Did they have the potential to
Speaker 1: really change? And Lucas said, and every time I have
Speaker 1: that question, I think of you. And he said, you're
Speaker 1: a different man than you were before. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean that in any um pejorative or negative way about
Speaker 1: my ex wife, who's a wonderful person. It was me.
Speaker 1: It was like I wasn't I wasn't living my true self.
Speaker 1: And what my sons now have now been seeing for
Speaker 1: five years is this other aspect of me that's fleetly
Speaker 1: authentic that they have gotten even closer to my relationship
Speaker 1: with my sons has never been better, and it would
Speaker 1: be a drag, but it would be doable. If they
Speaker 1: didn't if they didn't really get along that well with Daisy,
Speaker 1: we would deal with it, right. But they've become such
Speaker 1: close friends with her, and they, like I do, they
Speaker 1: admire Daisy and respect her like I do, but they
Speaker 1: also just love they love hanging out with her because
Speaker 1: she's so freaking fun. It's just we we as a
Speaker 1: as the new version of this family, just have a blast.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the fun things Like if
Speaker 1: if somebody were to peek into your life and see
Speaker 1: like the crazy stupid fun things that you and Daisy
Speaker 1: or you're you and Daisy and the boys are you
Speaker 1: and your mom like to do? What would be a
Speaker 1: window into that that somebody might be shocked at. It's
Speaker 1: not crazy stupid stuff. It's stuff like, uh okay, Like
Speaker 1: a month ago, I was getting ready to go on
Speaker 1: the road and we hadn't had a We try to
Speaker 1: have a family dinner of some kind at least every week,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't happening for a while. So we finally
Speaker 1: got all the boys together to come over with my mom,
Speaker 1: who's four, but like super cool um, and we had
Speaker 1: a really nice dinner and then Daisy surprised us with
Speaker 1: this game. Well, we went into the living room and
Speaker 1: she said, everybody's gonna write down one word to describe
Speaker 1: that person, and then one word to describe that person,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna so it became this game where it became.
Speaker 1: It was hilarious, but it was It's those kind of things,
Speaker 1: like it's more thoughtful. What's the right word, it's real,
Speaker 1: Like we really really talk about real stuff. We don't
Speaker 1: talk about Game of Thrones, you know. We talked about
Speaker 1: life and helping each other. And that's really taken a
Speaker 1: hugely forward since Daisy and I got married in terms
Speaker 1: of the whole family. Authentic. I like that you use
Speaker 1: that word earlier, authentic. Can you imagine if everybody would
Speaker 1: take off the mask and stop hiding and stop pretending
Speaker 1: and being whatever they're not, whatever they think they're supposed
Speaker 1: to be, and instead we're just authentic. Well it's harder now, especially,
Speaker 1: I think, because you know, things like Instagram have made
Speaker 1: it that much more difficult to be just sort of
Speaker 1: who you are because the competition for people put on
Speaker 1: themselves to be I'm not. I'm not having as good
Speaker 1: a life as they are on Instagram. Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: you saw their real life, you'd be like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: well it's funny, you should say. Because our listeners can't
Speaker 1: see this. But on your phone case has a gorgeous
Speaker 1: picture of your wife, Daisy Fuentes. I mean, she's so
Speaker 1: it looks like it should be on a billboard. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I thought when I saw that
Speaker 1: is that would be really funny. One of those pinterests fails,
Speaker 1: you know, if I tried to get the same here's
Speaker 1: Daisy's flintas wearing this this fish net outfit, and here's
Speaker 1: the But that was my thought because, like you said, competition.
Speaker 1: My instant thought was that kind of I I don't
Speaker 1: wake up looking that gorgeous. Not that not that I
Speaker 1: don't love myself and love that what God made, because
Speaker 1: I do. And I'm much more comfortable in my skin
Speaker 1: today than I ever have been in my life. Um,
Speaker 1: And I praise God. I thank God for the life
Speaker 1: that I have and and the body that I have.
Speaker 1: And I got a new hip so I can walk,
Speaker 1: and I have to ride horses, and and and isn't
Speaker 1: it amazing to be able to do stuff without pain. Gosh,
Speaker 1: you know I got I got both my hips replaced
Speaker 1: it when I was fifty one, so like four or
Speaker 1: five years ago, and it was like life. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: had to use the cart at the grocery store. Oh wow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I could not walk. So I am. I am happy
Speaker 1: as can be with the body of But back to
Speaker 1: your point that it is very hard to be authentic
Speaker 1: in a world where everything is captured, videotaped, everything is instagrammed,
Speaker 1: everything is face tuned, everything is an image, a brand,
Speaker 1: the Richard Marks brand, instead of you your music. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break here to talk about
Speaker 1: one of our sponsors. So let's talk about your music.
Speaker 1: Because I was mentioning before. I have been on the
Speaker 1: air full time since nineteen nievable. Yeah, and I've been
Speaker 1: doing this show since nine. Wow. I think I've played
Speaker 1: every song you've You've ever readden a part of well
Speaker 1: you definitely play every song I recorded, because I didn't
Speaker 1: start recording until seven. But the first song I wrote
Speaker 1: that someone else recorded I was nineteen or twenty. Kenny Rogers,
Speaker 1: Kim Karnes and James Ingram in a song called what
Speaker 1: about Me? What about Me? This is They wouldn't. There
Speaker 1: were a bunch of stations in the South that wouldn't
Speaker 1: play it because it was a love triangle between Kenny
Speaker 1: Rogers and James Ingram and Kim Carnes, and there were
Speaker 1: a bunch of Southern stations and said, we're not going
Speaker 1: to play a song between a white man and a
Speaker 1: black man over a white woman. That's still how screwed
Speaker 1: up it was. Yeah, yeah, you you must have played
Speaker 1: you know, every single, every yeah, and I played them
Speaker 1: on vinyl when I was playing damn right, you did
Speaker 1: yeah with a penny on the needle. So you didn't
Speaker 1: start recording until seven. But how many hits did you
Speaker 1: write before then? A few because you worked with in sync.
Speaker 1: Oh that was way after Yeah, yeah, that was in
Speaker 1: the nineties. So I wrote what About Me with Kenny
Speaker 1: Rogers and David Foster, and then I wrote a song
Speaker 1: with Kenny called Crazy I guess sound Crazy Ready for you.
Speaker 1: I'm still in touch with Kenny Rogers, but I love
Speaker 1: Kenny Rogers And that song went to number one Country
Speaker 1: Top five A c in like that would have been
Speaker 1: eighty four as well. And then just some random song
Speaker 1: I wrote a song on a Chicago album. I wrote
Speaker 1: a song with Philip Bailey for the movie The Goonies.
Speaker 1: And and I was making a living as a songwriter,
Speaker 1: but mostly as a background singer. So I sang on
Speaker 1: a ton of records you played before I had a
Speaker 1: record deal. I sang on all night long by Lionel Richie.
Speaker 1: I sang out all the Lionel Richie hits. I kissed
Speaker 1: Lionel Richiel. Did you He's the coolest, He's so cool,
Speaker 1: he is so cool him. Yeah, we had a moment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it was it was an autograph line, but for
Speaker 1: me it was a moment. Yeah. He uh. You know.
Speaker 1: I've told the story many times, but when I was
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, I had written four or five songs.
Speaker 1: I was living in Chicago with my parents. I was
Speaker 1: in my senior year of high school, and I had
Speaker 1: written my first four or five songs that I thought
Speaker 1: were worthy of at least demoing. And I found a
Speaker 1: studio and I paid for it, of course, by myself,
Speaker 1: with my savings. And I made this demo tape cassette
Speaker 1: which went from a friend of mine in college who
Speaker 1: was a year ahead of me. And I was in
Speaker 1: college to his roommate, to another guy, to another guy
Speaker 1: who was working with the Commodores at the time. This
Speaker 1: is right as Lionel was just about to go solo,
Speaker 1: and the phone rings and it's Lionel Richie, and you
Speaker 1: were eighteen. I was eighteen, maybe seventeen actually, because I yeah,
Speaker 1: I gret I was still seventeen when I gradually. I
Speaker 1: was seventeen and in my senior year of high school.
Speaker 1: And he said, I heard this tape of yours and
Speaker 1: my phone number was written and pencil on the back.
Speaker 1: He called the number and he just called to tell
Speaker 1: me that he thought I was really talented and then
Speaker 1: I should give it a shot. And he said, look,
Speaker 1: I have no work for you. I don't I can't promise.
Speaker 1: I'm not here to promise you anything. I just want
Speaker 1: to tell you, you know, I hear tapes all the time,
Speaker 1: and if these are your first, this is your first
Speaker 1: batch of songs. May you should hear my first songs?
Speaker 1: They sucked? And I just you know, you should move
Speaker 1: to l A. I don't know what your plans are.
Speaker 1: Your parents are gonna probably hate me, but you know,
Speaker 1: because I was thinking about going to Northwestern and going
Speaker 1: and my bailed and my parents were like, go go
Speaker 1: to l A and try. He can always go back
Speaker 1: to school of you know, And so he said, but
Speaker 1: look me up if you come out to l A.
Speaker 1: He gave me his number and so year year and
Speaker 1: changed later tude, I come out wait and he invites
Speaker 1: me over to the studio. He's making his solo record.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting in the studio and I, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was just so thrilled to meet him, and he
Speaker 1: was so he's such a charming guy. And I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there watching them. They're doing background vocals on this song
Speaker 1: called You Are, which became a huge hit for him, right,
Speaker 1: and they were really struggling with the blend. He couldn't
Speaker 1: find the sound that he was looking for, And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden he looked through the glass at me
Speaker 1: any point and he come out here. I go out
Speaker 1: there and he's you sing my part that I was singing,
Speaker 1: and he switched the parts with the other two singers
Speaker 1: and he went in the control room anyway, okay, go chorus,
Speaker 1: and we sang and he went that's the sound. And
Speaker 1: I never missed a day at the studio. He said,
Speaker 1: I want you to sing background vocals on this record.
Speaker 1: But I just want you to know that if I'm
Speaker 1: in this room, whether you're singing or not, you're welcome
Speaker 1: to be in this room. And so for four months,
Speaker 1: every day I went to the studio and watched him
Speaker 1: make that record. What a gift, that gift. And so
Speaker 1: cut two and this is you'll really appreciate this. So
Speaker 1: cut to six months ago, maybe I get this incredible
Speaker 1: um offered to come and open for Barbara Streisand at
Speaker 1: Hyde Park in London. And Barbara and I have been
Speaker 1: friends for a long time. So wait, like, could your
Speaker 1: life be any more magical? Could your life, Richard Marks,
Speaker 1: be any more like Blass? I know, married to the
Speaker 1: most beautiful in the world, best friends with your three boys,
Speaker 1: best friends with mama. The hair, you got great hair,
Speaker 1: and you get to open for Barbara Streisand and you
Speaker 1: got you got a phone call it eighteen from Lionel Richie,
Speaker 1: who friends with But wait, this is so great, this
Speaker 1: is such a bookend. So I knew that Lionel had
Speaker 1: played the night before at Hyde Park opening for Stevie.
Speaker 1: Wonder Stevie wondered, Lionel Richie, Barbara Streice on Richard barks
Speaker 1: You're killing me. This was the night before, and then
Speaker 1: the next night was you and Barbara and barb Christmus
Speaker 1: Offerson was on as well, but um and so I'm
Speaker 1: on stage and it was such a magical gig and
Speaker 1: then watching Barbara do her thing was amazing. And I
Speaker 1: get back to the dressing room and there's a text
Speaker 1: on my phone from Lionel and the text says, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting on my hotel balcony listening to you sing right
Speaker 1: here waiting, and I'm so proud view I mean, that's
Speaker 1: thirty seven years later, how sweet. And I texted I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, where are you. Let's go to dinner.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm getting ready to go to the airport.
Speaker 1: But he said, I'm I'm sitting here and I'm listening
Speaker 1: to you sing to these, you know, ten thousand people
Speaker 1: in London and I'm just so proud of you. So
Speaker 1: go back the thirty six years to when you were
Speaker 1: a teenage kid and he called you and encouraged you
Speaker 1: in your music, and then the gift of time he
Speaker 1: poured into you in the studio and you know, I
Speaker 1: wrote a book about it. I talked about it on
Speaker 1: my show every night, the importance of changing the world
Speaker 1: one heart at a time. And I had a friend
Speaker 1: in my kitchen the other day said, I finally got it.
Speaker 1: She said, I finally got it. I said, what she goes,
Speaker 1: this whole one heart at a time thing you're talking about.
Speaker 1: She had been with me when I was interacting with
Speaker 1: some of my adopted kids and some other children that
Speaker 1: our family has kind of taken in, and she said,
Speaker 1: when you pour yourself into one person, it makes a difference. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's my whole message right there, into one person
Speaker 1: like Lionel Richie did for you. The impact that has
Speaker 1: it's like that ripple, you know, the pebble in the pond.
Speaker 1: The ripples go out forever. That impact, his impact and
Speaker 1: influence on your music, your impact and your music's influence
Speaker 1: on generations of people. It just grows and builds and
Speaker 1: and it's the essence, I believe, of love and the
Speaker 1: reason we're here. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean you can
Speaker 1: imagine when you're especially at that sort of age of
Speaker 1: seventeen or eighteen, to have someone like him say that
Speaker 1: to me, it was like a rocket, confidence and hope,
Speaker 1: like the fuel that that gave me was life changing,
Speaker 1: and I have the only thing I've been able to
Speaker 1: do for him for Lionel is tell these stories. I
Speaker 1: want everybody to know. I I tell everybody who will
Speaker 1: listen with the best part about being friendly with Lionel
Speaker 1: richees when you call him and he picks up and
Speaker 1: he goes, hello, God, he's so cute. So for years
Speaker 1: I've got to play your music, and now you're back
Speaker 1: in the studio recording again. Tell me about your new stuff,
Speaker 1: because my producer Janey came to me a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago and was so excited that I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that anybody cares. At this point, you know,
Speaker 1: it's well, that's the cool thing about the fact that
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I still get to be on the
Speaker 1: air because I've I've seen I know the stories, I've
Speaker 1: seen the history. I watched Daisy Fuentas back in the
Speaker 1: day when I had a TV on I haven't had
Speaker 1: a TV for twenty years. For you, we didn't. We
Speaker 1: never watched TV. But having that history and loving your
Speaker 1: music really cool. Well, you know, I got to a
Speaker 1: point in the last ten years i'd say where I
Speaker 1: sort of um, I felt like touring and playing concerts
Speaker 1: is really what my career is and for as long
Speaker 1: as I'm able to do it. Um, I really am
Speaker 1: a believer that records and putting song that's on the
Speaker 1: radio and all that stuff. It's really for younger people.
Speaker 1: But the conflict was that I, you know, I still
Speaker 1: write songs all the time, and I love and I
Speaker 1: love making new music and I love making records. But
Speaker 1: I did get to a point where it was a
Speaker 1: little bit like, what's like why why you know? Um?
Speaker 1: I have a couple of acquaintances who are sort of
Speaker 1: peers of mine, who were around the same age or
Speaker 1: older than me, that were popular when I was popular
Speaker 1: on the radio, and they still have this what I
Speaker 1: consider a delusion of I'm gonna have another number one record.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna and it's like, dude, no, you're not. And
Speaker 1: it's okay because you had a lot of hits. And
Speaker 1: I feel like once I determined that it really just
Speaker 1: has to be about my love of writing and recording
Speaker 1: new music and that's all that matters, then it was like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I want to make an album. Actually, this is another
Speaker 1: great story. I found myself at a dinner at a
Speaker 1: really small dinner six or eight months ago with Chris Martin.
Speaker 1: And I've never met him before, and I'm a fan.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of Coldplay and what he does,
Speaker 1: and he's a really really at least from my one
Speaker 1: couple hour hang with him, he was really charming and
Speaker 1: kind and and we had a couple of really great conversations.
Speaker 1: And he asked me, so, so, I know you're touring
Speaker 1: all the time, but like, are you making a new
Speaker 1: record or anything. I said, yeah, I just I'm finishing
Speaker 1: a new album and and I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it means for somebody like me, but
Speaker 1: and so then somebody started talking and the conversation shifted
Speaker 1: for five or ten minutes, and I could see Chris's
Speaker 1: face like like, look at me, like we're not done
Speaker 1: with that conversation. Sure enough, politely he got out of
Speaker 1: that conversation and said to me, can I go back
Speaker 1: to what you were saying, like, I'll tell you what
Speaker 1: it means for you. It's still coming through you. And
Speaker 1: it's like he said, I'm sure when you started writing
Speaker 1: songs it was about Yeah, you had a lot to prove,
Speaker 1: and you've had an incredible career, but it's still about
Speaker 1: the songs still come through us. Like, as long as
Speaker 1: the songs are still coming through us, that's what matters.
Speaker 1: And here's this guy that's, you know, much younger than
Speaker 1: I am. Then it was a really kind sweet thing
Speaker 1: to say, and it was like, yeah, man, yes, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what it's about. And so what this new music
Speaker 1: is about is me just going in and having fun
Speaker 1: and recording. And you know, the song, the single another
Speaker 1: One Down, I ended up writing with my son Lucas
Speaker 1: and he produced it. Um I wrote another song with him.
Speaker 1: I wrote several songs by myself, which I have traditionally done.
Speaker 1: Most of my stuff has been self written. But I
Speaker 1: collaborated with some new people on this record too, which
Speaker 1: was really really fun young songwriters. And and my friend
Speaker 1: Matt Scandal from the band Vertical Horizon is my best
Speaker 1: friend but also I think one of the most talented
Speaker 1: guys in the world. And and it's a very schizophrenic album,
Speaker 1: like there's there's stuff that's sort of like modern country,
Speaker 1: and then there's stuff that's like super modern pop, and
Speaker 1: then there's like it's all over the place. But the
Speaker 1: thread is my voice and it's just a collection of songs.
Speaker 1: I really really love that. I want people to hear
Speaker 1: simple as that very cool. That is pretty simple but
Speaker 1: pretty sweet. And I'm glad that that you got another
Speaker 1: one down to get to us so that we could
Speaker 1: share it with our And I love that you guys
Speaker 1: played it, that you played it well. I'm very fortunate
Speaker 1: in that, you know, there's all this research and there's
Speaker 1: all this gobbledegook that all the records or radio companies do.
Speaker 1: That that tells me who my target audience is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, you know, they're they're big on research,
Speaker 1: and you know, imagine when you're on year, you're talking
Speaker 1: to a twenty seven year old, you know, female driving
Speaker 1: home from work, picking up her child at daycare, and
Speaker 1: and the da da da da da. But the truth
Speaker 1: is I get phone calls from young people. I get
Speaker 1: phone calls. I got a phone call the other day
Speaker 1: from somebody who lives down up Mount Shasta, off the grid.
Speaker 1: He's in his late eighties. He cuts his own firewood
Speaker 1: because his cabin, the house that he lives in is
Speaker 1: only heated with firewood, and he's like completely off the grid,
Speaker 1: and he's got this radio that he picks me up
Speaker 1: on every night when we talked for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, dude, you are so not my target audience.
Speaker 1: And I so love this conversation we're having. And so
Speaker 1: it's nice that a broad range of people get to
Speaker 1: hit to hear your music. You know, they here right
Speaker 1: here Waiting and all of your big hits every night,
Speaker 1: because they're perfect for every request and dedication anyone ever makes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've listened, but right Here Waiting
Speaker 1: is a song that that I used to play for
Speaker 1: couples who were getting back together or couples who had
Speaker 1: been separated by the military. Yeah, that's that was huge,
Speaker 1: especially when the song was a hit in eighty nine.
Speaker 1: You know it's go four. I met obviously many men
Speaker 1: who were deployed at the time, and they'll go, man,
Speaker 1: that was my song with my wife or my girl.
Speaker 1: And I also met a lot of widows and widowers
Speaker 1: of military personnel who died during that time, and that
Speaker 1: was their song. This one woman told me that, um,
Speaker 1: this is like a couple of years later after her
Speaker 1: husband was killed, when she got his belongings back. One
Speaker 1: of the belongings was his laptop, and she said, the
Speaker 1: screensaver or his you know, his screensaver on his computer
Speaker 1: were the lyrics to write here waiting. I mean, I
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say to stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's so because when you write songs from such a
Speaker 1: helfish personal place, I never I've never written a song
Speaker 1: that I thought I want to write us an anthem
Speaker 1: for the world. I want to write songs that other
Speaker 1: people can. It's I swear to you. I am so
Speaker 1: selfish about my writing. I write songs that please me,
Speaker 1: that make me feel something, that are therapy sometimes, and
Speaker 1: I hope that other people like them. That's it. So
Speaker 1: when someone says stuff like that, it's a privilege. It's
Speaker 1: such a privilege to have created something that impact someone
Speaker 1: in any way, let alone like that. I have people
Speaker 1: now that will come up to me and if they say,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to thank you because we
Speaker 1: we used your song on our wedding. I go should
Speaker 1: have known better. So you're you're recording and you're touring,
Speaker 1: I actually don't use that word. I just do show.
Speaker 1: I do you know, sixty seventy eight shows a year
Speaker 1: all over the world, and then the next year I
Speaker 1: just do a bunch more shows. So I just play
Speaker 1: shows and it's such a blast because it's not it's
Speaker 1: not album centric. It's not I'm not promoting anything except
Speaker 1: my catalog of songs. Yeah, except now you have an album.
Speaker 1: So we should talk about a tour like I could
Speaker 1: do backup? Maybe, yeah, I could do the day. Absolutely could.
Speaker 1: You could wear this thing that Daisies were who they will,
Speaker 1: It would be an interesting take on that. Richard Marks,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming and be in here with us,
Speaker 1: always a pleasure and sharing all these great stories. Next
Speaker 1: time you see lion, will give him a kiss on
Speaker 1: the other cheek. Will sure kiss him on the right cheek,
Speaker 1: Not that I remember, but if you could, of course
Speaker 1: you remembers it is Richard Marks, thank you for sharing
Speaker 1: time loves someone with the line till I love