Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lefsnets Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is that one and only Christopher Cross. Chris,
Speaker 1: you recently met the Pope.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, Bob, it was, I said, I just
Speaker 3: did a post yesterday about it. And I met a
Speaker 3: lot of famous people in my life have been very lucky,
Speaker 3: you know, heroes and presidents and people like that. But
Speaker 3: I've got to say meeting his holiness was a think
Speaker 3: to itself. He's a very chrismatic person and I love
Speaker 3: his outlook on justice and you know, his social you
Speaker 3: know outlook, and so I was very excited to meet him,
Speaker 3: and he was just amazing just to be in his presence.
Speaker 3: And I bought a Rosemary at the gift shop. My
Speaker 3: girlfriend bought me rose mey. He blessed it and I
Speaker 3: don't know, He's a very special person. So that was
Speaker 3: very exciting.
Speaker 2: Well, give us some of the backstory. How did this happen?
Speaker 3: Well, they asked me to do this. They do it
Speaker 3: Christmas show over year in Italy. They filmed on December sixteenth,
Speaker 3: then then it's aired Christmas Eve all over Italy. It's
Speaker 3: a big deal. It has it's done with the Vatican
Speaker 3: in conjuncture with a charity that benefits girls sincere Leone.
Speaker 3: So uh, normal, I've done a lot of those kind
Speaker 3: of things. So I'm like, well, I don't know if
Speaker 3: I want to do that. It's for the orchestra, it's
Speaker 3: a big show. But then they said, well, there won
Speaker 3: a lot of money and everything. But they said, but
Speaker 3: there's a you know, there's a perk. You get to
Speaker 3: have an audience with Pope. I said, no, wait, okay,
Speaker 3: So that was because it wasn't being about the show.
Speaker 3: I've done a lot of those kind of things, so
Speaker 3: that was really a deciding factor to do it, because
Speaker 3: you know, how often do you get to meet the pope.
Speaker 3: So he's eighty seven now and so, and I like
Speaker 3: him as a pope as popes go, and so it was.
Speaker 3: It was really really an amazing experience. I feel I'm
Speaker 3: still kind of walking on air a little bit from it.
Speaker 2: Now, are you Catholic?
Speaker 3: I was raised Catholic, Bob, certainly, I'm retired now, but
Speaker 3: but you know, you never can completely retire from the
Speaker 3: devil and the fear and all the stuff they teach you.
Speaker 3: But but no, I'm kind of retired, but you know,
Speaker 3: you're a doctrinated into that philosophy and that religion, so
Speaker 3: it's it's there. But so I'm you know, I was
Speaker 3: raised Catholic. So but I one of the bishops there
Speaker 3: said well, how can we bring you back? You know,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, you know, but no, So I
Speaker 3: was raised Catholic, so I certainly know a lot about
Speaker 3: the history tradition of the Catholic Church. And I you know,
Speaker 3: I went away from it and not a big fan
Speaker 3: of a lot of things about it. But as I said,
Speaker 3: he seems like he's so gentle and wonderful, and he
Speaker 3: seems to be trying very hard to get women in
Speaker 3: the church, and and it'd be inclusive with LGBTQ and
Speaker 3: all that, and I applaud that. So I think it's great.
Speaker 2: Okay, you do the show. How do you meet him?
Speaker 2: What do you do? What's the procedure to actually get
Speaker 2: one on one with him?
Speaker 3: Well, you go to the Vatican and you're brought in.
Speaker 3: You know, it looks like sort of likes I could
Speaker 3: a you know TV show and black cars and you know,
Speaker 3: pulling into the Vatican, the Swiss guards are there, and
Speaker 3: you go into the Vatican where people typically don't go.
Speaker 3: We went through this beautiful garden it was actually a graveyard,
Speaker 3: and we went into this really beautiful room that held
Speaker 3: maybe one hundred people because there were some sponsors and
Speaker 3: all the artists that were on the show got to
Speaker 3: meet him as well, and theyve video and you know,
Speaker 3: they had the whole thing figured out, and he came.
Speaker 3: You know, we waited for a bit and His Holiness
Speaker 3: came in and he sat in a big chair and
Speaker 3: I was in the front row, right across from him,
Speaker 3: and he read a statement in Italian which I didn't understand,
Speaker 3: which had to do with the event and just thanking
Speaker 3: the artists. And then one by one we went up
Speaker 3: and you introduced ourselves and had a moment with him.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say we hung out in a conversation,
Speaker 3: but you know, I thanked him for his work, and
Speaker 3: I asked him if he would, you know, bless my Rosary,
Speaker 3: and he did something kind of cool. Normally, the bishop
Speaker 3: was telling me he'll just do the sign of the Cross,
Speaker 3: but he covered my hand with his hand to bless
Speaker 3: my Rosary. And the bishop later told me that's kind
Speaker 3: of cool that he doesn't do that all the time,
Speaker 3: so but it was it was brief. You know, It's
Speaker 3: not like I said, we didn't hang out and have
Speaker 3: a beer, but just he has a wonderful smile and
Speaker 3: his way about him is just he's really really a
Speaker 3: you know, pretty special person. Obviously don't get to be
Speaker 3: the Pope without it, but I don't know, it's just
Speaker 3: one of those things. My girlfriend got to meet him too,
Speaker 3: and she said, you know, I never thought I would
Speaker 3: get to meet the Pope. So yeah, it was. And
Speaker 3: the show was wonderful. There were a lot of great artists,
Speaker 3: all that kind of thing, and I got to do
Speaker 3: I played sailing, but then they wanted me to put
Speaker 3: a traditional Christmas song, but I asked if I could
Speaker 3: do a song that Rob Muir and I wrote called
Speaker 3: A Dream of Peace at Christmas Time that has a
Speaker 3: children's choir, And it took a little wrangling, but the
Speaker 3: Vatican agreed and so I closed the show with that,
Speaker 3: and that was very nice. And I think it's because
Speaker 3: it's about, you know, a dream of peace, and with
Speaker 3: the war in Ukraine and the Goaza situation, I think
Speaker 3: Pope Vatican thought it was a good message, you know.
Speaker 2: Okay, I mean, this is literally the apotheosis or the
Speaker 2: pope theosis in terms of people you could meet. But
Speaker 2: I gotta ask in terms of your career. You mentioned
Speaker 2: you met a lot of famous people. Who else is
Speaker 2: in the upper echelon?
Speaker 3: Uh? Well, Joni Uh, Joni Mitchell obviously a huge influence.
Speaker 3: That was a McCartney, you know, meeting Paul, knowing him
Speaker 3: a little bit, you know, I do know, I'm want
Speaker 3: to see him when I see him. Uh, Brian Wilson, certainly,
Speaker 3: Carl Wilson, because there's such huge influences on me. People
Speaker 3: like I would say Randy Newman is right up there,
Speaker 3: two in the top five. You know, I've gotten old
Speaker 3: Rady cart Well. But you know, those these people that
Speaker 3: were just you know, on some other planet me when
Speaker 3: I was starting out music and just following and learning
Speaker 3: from them and then later to get to meet them
Speaker 3: or know them or whatever. Yeah, those people, I'd say, Randy, Jony, Paul,
Speaker 3: you know, never met Tom Waits, but I'd like to.
Speaker 3: But anyway, Yeah, so I didn't get to meet John unfortunately,
Speaker 3: but I've kind of read there were some books that
Speaker 3: came out about John, and apparently he liked my song Sailing.
Speaker 3: Apparently he liked it, so I act Jack asked Jack Douglas,
Speaker 3: who produced Double Fantasy. I said, so, if John had lived,
Speaker 3: I'd be hanging out with him at the Dakota and
Speaker 3: Jack said, and Jack said, yeah, he really dug your
Speaker 3: song and he definitely would have hedge over. And so
Speaker 3: I'm thinking, you know, but anyway, so Barta, you know,
Speaker 3: when you meet people at heroes like Brian and people
Speaker 3: like that, it's a it's a out of body experience
Speaker 3: at first, and then of course, you know, then you
Speaker 3: spend a bit over time with him, but you never
Speaker 3: really get completely you know, when I see McCarthy or
Speaker 3: write or something like that, you never completely get used
Speaker 3: to it, you know, because there they are, you.
Speaker 2: Know, okay, being a musician with this level of success,
Speaker 2: you meet them, you're in a circumstance to meet them.
Speaker 2: Like with Joni Mitchell, do you talk music with her
Speaker 2: or just hey you're a great guy, I'm a great woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I learned, uh, I learned pretty early on Bob that,
Speaker 3: you know, people of this caliber, trying to explain how
Speaker 3: they do what they do is pretty it's a little
Speaker 3: bit on a tiny little way, I know, how it is.
Speaker 3: It's very hard to do to explain like your process
Speaker 3: and how you do that. So I learned pretty quickly. Two.
Speaker 3: You know, don't go there. Don't ask those questions because
Speaker 3: they've been asking them a million times and they kind
Speaker 3: of don't know what to say other than that, you know,
Speaker 3: you're either Lebron James or you're not. You know you're
Speaker 3: Tiger Woodsy, you're not, You're Joni Mitchell, you're not. So No,
Speaker 3: I don't talk about music, which is I talk about
Speaker 3: books or you know, other areas of art, like Joni would.
Speaker 3: She gave me a book of An Sexton's poems to
Speaker 3: read for inspiration, that sort of thing. But no, I
Speaker 3: would never just directly ask anybody. Randy Newman told me
Speaker 3: once I asked him about songwriting came up and Randy said,
Speaker 3: I don't care if I get any better, as long
Speaker 3: as it I'll get any worse, which is so Randy.
Speaker 3: But so no, I tend to not try to ask
Speaker 3: about process because you know, most people like that. I
Speaker 3: feel like it's sort of beamed from outer space and
Speaker 3: you're just the receptacle and how it actually happens. Like
Speaker 3: you saw the Get Back movie I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: they're coming up with get Back just sort of improvisationally
Speaker 3: in the studio, and that's sort of how it is.
Speaker 3: You know, it just sort of happens and you look
Speaker 3: around the room and go, wow, what was that? So?
Speaker 2: Okay, where do you live now?
Speaker 3: I live in Austin, Texas. I'm from Santa Antonio, Texas,
Speaker 3: about note miles south, but I live in Austin and
Speaker 3: I also have an apartment in Manheat.
Speaker 2: Okay, So you're in Austin, which is a noted music town,
Speaker 2: although it's burgeoning and the musicians are being squeezed out.
Speaker 2: Are you integrated into the music community there or it's
Speaker 2: more like this is where you live.
Speaker 3: It's really where I live. I'll pay of the truth
Speaker 3: because you know, throughout my career here, early on, I
Speaker 3: played cover bands and fraternity parties and that sort of
Speaker 3: thing to make a living. I chose like Stevie Ray.
Speaker 3: Stevee used to go play at the Roman for fifty
Speaker 3: bucks and play his play for his soul, you know I,
Speaker 3: which I think is fantastic. I don't have that courage.
Speaker 3: I played clubs and fraternities, playing you know, bos Gua
Speaker 3: Exton's on the radio to make money, and then I
Speaker 3: kept my phone music to the side, just the demos
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing. But also, you know, my
Speaker 3: music's more of a California sound. South the California sound.
Speaker 3: It's more harmonic. It's not typical of sort of the
Speaker 3: the style of music that people think of in Austin,
Speaker 3: the sort of rock blues, country, uh thing. So I
Speaker 3: wouldn't say that I really identified too much with the
Speaker 3: Austin sound, you know, per se, because I was always
Speaker 3: my brand was always in California with Brian. But interesting
Speaker 3: trying to tell you, I h when I was doing
Speaker 3: demos in the studio, I sent I needed to send
Speaker 3: a demo. So I looked in Billboard magazine, but I
Speaker 3: didn't know anything about an R or any of that stuff.
Speaker 3: I looked in Billboard magazine and I really loved Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3: They had Randy, they had Joni, they had Hindricks, they
Speaker 3: had a lot of artists that I really like, Van Morrison.
Speaker 3: So I thought I'd like to be on Warner Brothers.
Speaker 3: So I looked at the billboard. It said Moe Austin
Speaker 3: share of the board, who I you know, I think
Speaker 3: miss him so much. It was an incredible man. Uh so,
Speaker 3: so I can't get to him. But I knew nothing
Speaker 3: about an R or anything like that. So I looked
Speaker 3: below his name and this game David Berson, assistant to
Speaker 3: Most And I said, okay, well I could send him
Speaker 3: my tape. It turns out David is an administrative he
Speaker 3: does anything to do with an R, but he'd never
Speaker 3: gotten a tape in the mail. And he took the
Speaker 3: tape and he made Lendy Warner Cuz head of man
Speaker 3: or listen to it. And that's how the whole they
Speaker 3: got started. And Lenny told me later, had you just
Speaker 3: submitted to tape, Dan R, we would have stuff in
Speaker 3: an envelope sent it back to you because we weren't
Speaker 3: really accepting submissions. But you sent it to the wrong guy,
Speaker 3: and that's how we got started talking. So it's serendipity,
Speaker 3: how about that?
Speaker 2: Okay, before we leave this topic, I just have to
Speaker 2: ask non musicians that you've met in addition to the pope.
Speaker 3: Boy, non musicians mean somebody I've met that I, uh,
Speaker 3: I was really excited to meet that weren't musicians. Hmm, boy,
Speaker 3: I that's terrible that no one comes to mind. They
Speaker 3: should you know, my world is so it's so singular,
Speaker 3: you know, that's what where I.
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you back in the day, did
Speaker 2: you play for politicians? What was that experience?
Speaker 3: Like, well, I, I mean watching my album came out
Speaker 3: and I was got well known. I did go to
Speaker 3: the White House and I played for Reagan at the
Speaker 3: Ford's Theater. There was a thing where you every year
Speaker 3: they did a benefit to refurbish Ford's Theater and I
Speaker 3: was on a bill with some pretty wonderful George Benson
Speaker 3: was on the bill, and he and I kind of
Speaker 3: connected because we're sort of musicians about like Lena Horror
Speaker 3: and all these great people were on it. And I
Speaker 3: can't say that I voted for Reagan, but you know,
Speaker 3: still an opportunity to go to the White House and
Speaker 3: meet the president and all that. So that was pretty
Speaker 3: cool going to the White House. I did get to
Speaker 3: meet him. I did get to meet Bill Clinton at
Speaker 3: a small event at Carol King's house that Carol had
Speaker 3: and I went and got to meet Clinton, who I
Speaker 3: did vote for. So that was pretty great. But so
Speaker 3: I've got a few politicians. But you know, I'm going
Speaker 3: to be mad at myself later when I can't think
Speaker 3: of it as far that's okay, other genre, but you know,
Speaker 3: you get I'm so singularly passionate to the music, think
Speaker 3: Bob that it's like, I don't know, I'm kind of boring.
Speaker 3: That's all I do. That's all I've ever done, you know,
Speaker 3: dropped out of high school, just went for it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Just now you're talking about politicians. Do you play privates? No,
Speaker 2: that seems like a definitive decision. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Well, the only artist I've heard that absolutely does not
Speaker 3: is so Collins phil apparently just I ever met him,
Speaker 3: but he just won't do it. I have in my past,
Speaker 3: I've played him, but I don't anymore. And the reason is,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to play for fans who've come
Speaker 3: to a theater and bought a ticket to see me,
Speaker 3: and hopefully they've had some of them in the audience
Speaker 3: are familiar with my entire catalog and aren't just there
Speaker 3: to Arthur's team. But still they came with the explicit
Speaker 3: purpose of seeing me. It's not because it's some insurance
Speaker 3: company and they've got a bunch of money to pay
Speaker 3: a bunch of money. So I you know, I don't
Speaker 3: enjoy that I don't enjoy that sort of model where
Speaker 3: you're going. And now it's gotten so commonplace that a
Speaker 3: lot of these private events they don't really pay attention
Speaker 3: to you, per say, anyway, because they just got to
Speaker 3: sing Rod Stewart, you know. And so I find it
Speaker 3: sort of impersonal and unintentionally disrespectful. So I don't do it.
Speaker 2: So how do you end up growing up in San Antonio?
Speaker 3: My father was a physician in the army, pediatrician. I
Speaker 3: was born in San Antonio. We moved fairly quickly to
Speaker 3: Tokyo for five years, then to d C for five years.
Speaker 3: My father was David Julie Eisenhower's pediatrician Ike's grandkids. But
Speaker 3: then we moved back to San Antonio. My father was
Speaker 3: sent back to Centronia and I lived there till about
Speaker 3: sixty nine. And then, as I told you, I dropped out.
Speaker 3: I came back. I went after the hate the summer
Speaker 3: of my junior year, heyte Ashbury, and I came back
Speaker 3: with long hair. I went to my for my senior
Speaker 3: year at my high school, which was a public high school,
Speaker 3: and they told me you can't come out with long hair, so,
Speaker 3: which is ironic, as I have none now, and I said, fine,
Speaker 3: I'm not coming in. So I dropped out, and shortly
Speaker 3: after that I moved up to Austin because I just
Speaker 3: knew that Austin was a more virginy music scene. It
Speaker 3: was kind of hip for there was a lot more
Speaker 3: going on. So, uh, some of my compadres and I
Speaker 3: learned up a truck and moved to Austin. But and
Speaker 3: it was kind of Mecca compared to Santonio.
Speaker 2: Wait a second, so San Francisco. I grew up on
Speaker 2: the East coast, certainly closer to San Antonio than Connecticut.
Speaker 2: But to actually pick up and go to the Heat,
Speaker 2: tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Well, I went out there with a couple of friends
Speaker 3: and just you know, to see you know, the great work,
Speaker 3: see the brave new world go out. And so we
Speaker 3: were in the West coast and so went down to
Speaker 3: the Hate to sort of see what's going on.
Speaker 2: And also well a little bit slower, you went by car,
Speaker 2: you flew there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well I flew there and uh and then
Speaker 3: you know got around. You know, it's been so long
Speaker 3: I forget, but uh, and you know, we went down
Speaker 3: to the Hate and saw what was going on, and
Speaker 3: then you know, went to Fillmore West, saw a bunch
Speaker 3: of cool bands and got really you know, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: So I got all into that let my hair grow out,
Speaker 3: and I guess I thought it was you know something,
Speaker 3: and my high school didn't agree. So I was no
Speaker 3: academic laws, trust me, but uh so let me go.
Speaker 2: But your father was very successful academically. What did he
Speaker 2: say when you dropped out of high school?
Speaker 3: Well, you know two things. I was the fourth of
Speaker 3: five children, and I have kids, and you know, the
Speaker 3: first one, you try to keep them real clean and
Speaker 3: you dote on them, and then as they as you
Speaker 3: have more of them, you get bad. They're dirty or whatever.
Speaker 3: They fell down there. So I think he was a
Speaker 3: little bit kind of whatever. But he also had played
Speaker 3: bass in college upright base, and he told me those
Speaker 3: are the best times of life. And he he I think,
Speaker 3: loved music, and he used to play a lot of
Speaker 3: music around the house, like Glenn Miller, that sort of thing,
Speaker 3: and that's how I got exposed to music. When I
Speaker 3: was about twelve. My dad kind of drank too much,
Speaker 3: but occasionally he'd get out his upright Base to play
Speaker 3: along with his Glenn Miller records in the dining room,
Speaker 3: and so he was. I think he was. You know,
Speaker 3: he told my mom he'll manage, he'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: And he always used to tell me too, He said, look,
Speaker 3: school is fine, but as long as you read, if
Speaker 3: you read, you'll be fine. But anyway, I went down
Speaker 3: the music store and I asked the guy I was twelve.
Speaker 3: I said, you got my dad listens to Glenn Miller,
Speaker 3: Pete Fountain, He got any music like like for younger people,
Speaker 3: And he brought out bab Brubek Time Out and that
Speaker 3: that was the first album I got and I took
Speaker 3: it home. Was just asked for set of drums at
Speaker 3: Christmas and the rest is sort of history.
Speaker 2: Okay, Siana, Antonio very close to the Mexican border. What's
Speaker 2: it like growing up in San Antonio?
Speaker 3: Well, it's a lovely town. And I will say that musically,
Speaker 3: I was was very influenced and impressed by the Hispanic
Speaker 3: bands like study Ozuda and the Sunliners. These are big
Speaker 3: horn bands with percussion and giant production, and I used
Speaker 3: to always go see them when I could. And I
Speaker 3: think rhythmically, you know that sensor rhythm did kind of
Speaker 3: find its wind to my music for sure. But you know,
Speaker 3: Centuria is a lovely town, but it's you know, it's
Speaker 3: a little sleepy. And so you have these the big
Speaker 3: Hispanic bands that were you know, big stars and everything,
Speaker 3: but there wasn't There was a little teen can play
Speaker 3: thing called teen Canteen that cannamed Sam Kinsey ran all
Speaker 3: the bands and play there, but there wasn't really a
Speaker 3: way out, you know. It just seemed like it was
Speaker 3: just a metre alugnation society of all these musicians that
Speaker 3: were so nice to each other that wasn't competitive. They
Speaker 3: were like, you know, we don't go see each other
Speaker 3: and say you're great, you're you know, you're great, you know.
Speaker 3: And I kind of figured, well, that ain't gonna get
Speaker 3: me anywhere. So I wanted to go to the dre
Speaker 3: into the pool and I heard about Austin. There was
Speaker 3: luck going on there and that's where it was happening.
Speaker 3: So it was accessible. I could drive up there, and
Speaker 3: we got on a little crappy house and started trying
Speaker 3: to find our wind to the scene, you know again,
Speaker 3: playing cover tunes.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're in Tokyo, then you're in d C. The
Speaker 2: Beatles hit in sixty four. You're eleven, going to be
Speaker 2: twelve years old. In my group, we were listening to
Speaker 2: the treeransistor for the baseball games, then the Beach Boys
Speaker 2: and the fourth seasons, and then the Beatles hit.
Speaker 3: What was your experience, Well, prior to the Beatles, it
Speaker 3: was the Everly Brothers, Richie Allen's Ray Charles and then
Speaker 3: of course the you know, it was such a singles market.
Speaker 3: I'm seventy two, so you know, you had things like
Speaker 3: a Stranger on the Shore by Acker Bilk. The next
Speaker 3: minute is it's a team able to cap BIKKINI. It
Speaker 3: was so diverse. It was very eclectic, not like it
Speaker 3: is now. You know. Ricky Nelson used to watch the
Speaker 3: Aussie you know you Hear It show, so that was
Speaker 3: a lot of it until the Beatles came out. And
Speaker 3: the minute I heard I guess someone holds your hand?
Speaker 3: That sort of changed my life. And I was playing
Speaker 3: drums for about six years, and I was a singing drummer,
Speaker 3: and I just decided I got to get a guitar,
Speaker 3: and I gotta I gotta do that, you know, So
Speaker 3: I bought a seventeen dollars guitar. I'm left handed, but
Speaker 3: the guitar bought seriars. Cadillac was seventeen dollars. It was
Speaker 3: right handed. I didn't know any better, so I play
Speaker 3: right handed. But the Beatles, it was the songs, of course,
Speaker 3: but the sound of those flat wound strings on those
Speaker 3: gretch guitars through those vox amps. I mean, the whole thing,
Speaker 3: just the experience was transformative. And so that's what really
Speaker 3: got me to want to, you know, try to try
Speaker 3: to do that. And actually the first song I learned
Speaker 3: on guitar, my little Texas country cowboy guitar, was you
Speaker 3: really got me, thinks. So the whole British invasion, you know,
Speaker 3: it was a huge impact for me. I was very
Speaker 3: drawn into that and all that, the Hollies, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: But the Beatles were you know, it was cathartic for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you were playing drums. Were you taking lessons?
Speaker 2: Were you playing in the school orchestra? Was it just
Speaker 2: something you did at home?
Speaker 3: Well, I wanted to be. It's funny because I was
Speaker 3: drawn to Joe Morello, who was the drummer and they
Speaker 3: brew back. But I really had no skills. But uh,
Speaker 3: I did try to take drum lessons from the symphony
Speaker 3: that the guy played the symphony, and I refused to
Speaker 3: hold my sticks in a traditional grip. I wanted to
Speaker 3: hold them like Ringo. And he said, you'll never play
Speaker 3: drums properly hold you sticks like that, and I won't
Speaker 3: teach you if you're going to do that. And I said, well,
Speaker 3: you know, Ringo's the greatest, and he said, Ringo's terrible,
Speaker 3: you know, So I said, I said, well, yeah, f
Speaker 3: off and I left. And so I was just, you know,
Speaker 3: I wasn't. I mean, wipe out was my big moment
Speaker 3: in the show. These little makeout parties and stuff we played,
Speaker 3: because the wipe out this kind of my moment. I
Speaker 3: only had one tom coom, but so, you know, the
Speaker 3: drums were just you don't have to know a lot
Speaker 3: played drum. It's just more of a physical thing. But
Speaker 3: I was the singer because the other two guys are
Speaker 3: too embarrass to sing. But then, you know, getting into
Speaker 3: the guitar was a big, big thing. Like I said,
Speaker 3: I was happy playing the drums. Still, I heard the
Speaker 3: beatles and then I realized, man, you know, all these
Speaker 3: girls screaming. I gotta I gotta figure this out. So
Speaker 3: I got a guitar and left the drums behind, which
Speaker 3: again was no big loss. But and I've always been
Speaker 3: self taught. I never cook any music lessons or anything
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you get a guitar, how long until you
Speaker 2: get an electric guitar?
Speaker 3: Well, I had acoustic for a year or so, and
Speaker 3: then I bought a guitar seventy dollars. I can't even
Speaker 3: think of the name of it. I don't think you
Speaker 3: had a name. It was just this great piece of crap,
Speaker 3: played terrible. But I got a paunch store and played
Speaker 3: that for quite a while. And then my parents could
Speaker 3: see I was pretty serious about the whole thing. And
Speaker 3: I wanted a Rickenbacker like the little Beatles sounded at the
Speaker 3: beach boys had them too, and I wanted a Rickenbacker.
Speaker 3: So my poor parents, I just tortured the hell out
Speaker 3: him until they bought me this five hundred dollars Rickenbacker guitar.
Speaker 3: That was my first. And I got a super reverb
Speaker 3: Fender ramp, and that was a big, big thing for me.
Speaker 3: You know, I was at actual equipment, so it just
Speaker 3: it grew. But again, you know was my probably was
Speaker 3: in the army. He was a colonel. But you know,
Speaker 3: we lived on the bass. You know, he probably made
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand dollars a year. There wasn't a lot
Speaker 3: of money to throw it, you know, this sort of thing,
Speaker 3: and I would go down to the music store and
Speaker 3: stare at all the cool stuff. But you know, I
Speaker 3: just grew as I could SA. It really wasn't until
Speaker 3: I was thirty years old. Then the album came out
Speaker 3: and I actually had some money to do something, you
Speaker 3: know that I got cool equipment and did all that.
Speaker 2: So after you got the guitar from sears It, what
Speaker 2: point did you start playing out when you were playing
Speaker 2: the guitar.
Speaker 3: Well, that took a little while because in junior high
Speaker 3: I was a drummer and we had our little band.
Speaker 3: We were called the Psychos. I read a lot of
Speaker 3: Ed Growmind Poe, watched Twilights or on that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So we were the Psychos. So we'd play it. We
Speaker 3: only had four or five songs. We play at these things,
Speaker 3: I say, makeout parties where you go to your friend's
Speaker 3: house and maybe one of their parents had give you
Speaker 3: fifty bucks. You played by the pool. That was as
Speaker 3: a drummer. When I switched to guitar, I took a little.
Speaker 3: There was a break because I had to kind of
Speaker 3: learn what I was doing. Then I went from Catholic school.
Speaker 3: I asked my parents if I could leave Catholic school
Speaker 3: and go to public school, and so I did. But
Speaker 3: it was a very lonely transition because I didn't know anybody.
Speaker 3: Everybody had come from public junior highs. So the first
Speaker 3: couple of years I was kind of a loner and
Speaker 3: I just basically focused on learning the guitar. But there
Speaker 3: were other people in high school trying to do band stuff,
Speaker 3: and I met them and you know, and did things.
Speaker 3: But also in the community of San Antonio, trying to
Speaker 3: reach out to especially older guys who I could possibly
Speaker 3: play with, who teach me something. But that was a
Speaker 3: slow process. I don't think I really played anywhere with
Speaker 3: the band until I was a junior high school, probably
Speaker 3: maybe sophomore.
Speaker 2: But okay, so now you're in high school, you're wood
Speaker 2: shedding at home. At what point do you form bands
Speaker 2: in high school?
Speaker 3: Well, as I said, there were other kids who were
Speaker 3: also interested, you know, and some of them had some money.
Speaker 3: One good kid, I remember he had a stratocaster it's
Speaker 3: pretty cool, and he had some equipment but so you
Speaker 3: meet these kids and you learn you have this like
Speaker 3: mindedness of wanting to do music, and so like, well, look,
Speaker 3: you know, why don't I come over. I'm me and
Speaker 3: my guitar and we'll kind of jam around. And then
Speaker 3: before too long, my parents let me practice in my
Speaker 3: bedroom at our house and we had drums and everything
Speaker 3: set up there. And so I started to you know,
Speaker 3: I said earlier that aren't really a network, but I did.
Speaker 3: I networked for my own purpose. I found guys who
Speaker 3: could play decent and you know, did form a band.
Speaker 3: And so I was networking to that degree, trying to
Speaker 3: find guys that I could put a court to together.
Speaker 3: We could we could try to do something, you know.
Speaker 3: And I was writing songs pretty early on with that
Speaker 3: whole thing. Not that they were any good or doing
Speaker 3: anything with them, but I that was the beatle thing.
Speaker 3: I wanted to do that, you know. And it was
Speaker 3: a long process of experimentation, but so, you know, it
Speaker 3: was but junior year, my band were called Flash and
Speaker 3: we were kind of a big deal in Sentenio. We've
Speaker 3: kind of you know, made a few waves.
Speaker 2: Okay, and the material was and you were the front person.
Speaker 3: I was sort of and it was a quartet. The
Speaker 3: material was original material, and there's songs that I wrote,
Speaker 3: you know, believe it or not. I was a big Zappa
Speaker 3: fand so some of the early music was a bit
Speaker 3: avant Garden terms of time, structure, time things like that.
Speaker 3: Songs like right someone was called a plastic bag on
Speaker 3: the end of the event Coad Hanger, trying to be
Speaker 3: like Frank, you know, weird. But so we played at
Speaker 3: clubs and stuff. We could play your own music. And
Speaker 3: again in San Antonio there was this all the other
Speaker 3: kids that all the other guys had come out and
Speaker 3: see your band, you're great, and then you will see them
Speaker 3: and and so I played my original material and we
Speaker 3: were good. And a local promoter in town, Joe Miller,
Speaker 3: lovely guy, had company called Jam Productions, and he brought
Speaker 3: groups into San Antonio, and he brought led Zeppelin in
Speaker 3: and I think there was a there was a lawn
Speaker 3: in Texas at the time where in concerts they had
Speaker 3: to have a local band play on the show for
Speaker 3: thirty minutes. Yeah, God bless him. That's a great rule,
Speaker 3: you know. So you don't see that now. So Joe
Speaker 3: arranged he kind of believed and we saw something and
Speaker 3: we used to practice at his house, his wife Nancy. Anyway,
Speaker 3: Joe let me open for Zeppelin the first time that
Speaker 3: came up with Jeff Throte and Zeppelin and we opened
Speaker 3: for Zeppelin.
Speaker 2: Were you a Zeppelin fan?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, of course I you know, a big Jimmy
Speaker 3: So what was like, Well it was trippy because uh
Speaker 3: uh we actually, you know, the things were a lot
Speaker 3: different than you got to realize that there wasn't all
Speaker 3: the security on that stuff and the guy they were new,
Speaker 3: so it was pretty poorous backstage, you know, they weren't
Speaker 3: like they got to be later. So Jimmy and Robert
Speaker 3: plant actually asked me, uh, you know, what do you kids?
Speaker 3: Do your parents have money or something like that. You know,
Speaker 3: we get doing this and uh, I said, no, our
Speaker 3: band were playing. He thought they thought we were just
Speaker 3: hanging out. I said, no, our band is opening the show.
Speaker 3: So that night in the wings, I looked over and
Speaker 3: there was planting page and we were terrible, trust me.
Speaker 3: But the cool thing that happened out of it was
Speaker 3: Jimmy used these great, these really cool lamps called high Watts.
Speaker 3: They were sort of like a Marshall lamp, but they
Speaker 3: were even newer, and they're made by this Dave Reeves
Speaker 3: in a garage in London, and I'd seen him in magazines,
Speaker 3: but Jimmy had him and Pete Townsend Adams. So I
Speaker 3: asked Jimmy about it, and I said, boy, that they're
Speaker 3: just so cool. He said, well, if you want one,
Speaker 3: give Clive and my roadie money and I'll get Dave
Speaker 3: to build you one. So I gave him sent I
Speaker 3: get Clive seven hundred bucks, which was a lot for me,
Speaker 3: and everybody said, I'll never see your money. And a
Speaker 3: couple months later, by boat, I come home from school
Speaker 3: and they're in my living room are two cardboard boxes
Speaker 3: and it was a high, white headed cabinet that I
Speaker 3: got to Jimmy Page. And I was the coolest motherfucker
Speaker 3: in town man, trust me. I mean not only because
Speaker 3: I had a highway, but I got him jim Page.
Speaker 3: Another thing that Joe did. He had brought in Deep
Speaker 3: Purple to the club and there was their first show
Speaker 3: in the US and Richie Blackmore got a flu shot
Speaker 3: and he got quite sick, and they talked about what
Speaker 3: to do, and they decided they didn't want to cancel
Speaker 3: the show because of the very first show in the US,
Speaker 3: and Joe said, look, I've got this kid that I
Speaker 3: know pretty good, Tark Bind He's a big fan of Richie's.
Speaker 3: He could sit in. So I sat in. I played
Speaker 3: for Richie Blackmoorg with deeper.
Speaker 2: What did you know the material?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I knew, you know, the hits and some of
Speaker 3: that stuff. And we played some blues. I mean it
Speaker 3: didn't They told people, if you want to leave, you can.
Speaker 3: You know, my real name's not cross at s Gepherd.
Speaker 3: So they said, Chris Geppert's going to get play and
Speaker 3: people knew me and I had cool equipment. So I
Speaker 3: got up there. I think had a flying V at
Speaker 3: the time, headlong hair. So I got up and played.
Speaker 3: We played, We went over a few things during the
Speaker 3: day and we played some blues and uh, it was
Speaker 3: kind of a mess. But you know what Richie called me.
Speaker 3: Some years, if not too long ago, they did a
Speaker 3: documentary about him and he said, you know, I want
Speaker 3: you to be interviewed because he said, in all the
Speaker 3: years we played, lots of people sat in, but no
Speaker 3: one ever subbed for me. And it was the thrill
Speaker 3: of a lifetime, you kidding. It was like and you
Speaker 3: know what, It's interesting. You know who opened the show
Speaker 3: was Eric Johnson, Wow, the guitarist, and that's how I
Speaker 3: got to meet Eric. So I got to do a
Speaker 3: lot of cool things like that, we open for the Airplane,
Speaker 3: all these things because of Joe Miller, and they were
Speaker 3: really good learning experiences for me, you know, because I
Speaker 3: got to hang out on shows like Blind Faith and
Speaker 3: I got to hang out with It was just different.
Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't much of security, you know, like
Speaker 3: Blind Faith. I wouldn't I sat out during soundcheck, you know,
Speaker 3: So I had access to some pretty cool stuff.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're scene primarily as a singer songwriter for those
Speaker 2: who don't know how hot a guitarist are you?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm okay, I put it. You know, I'm a
Speaker 3: singer songwriter first, and the guitar is just it. It's
Speaker 3: a vehicle for what I need to do. But playing
Speaker 3: in the cover bands and stuff, we couldn't afford a
Speaker 3: lead guitar player, so I had to play guitar, so
Speaker 3: I had to learn how to play lead. I originally
Speaker 3: was just a rhythm player. I learned how to play
Speaker 3: lead and sort of not by choice. And I remember
Speaker 3: my bass player Andy Sam would always get some bad
Speaker 3: because and he was really fantastic get learning stuff on
Speaker 3: the radio. He could pick out anything. And I never
Speaker 3: played the solo right in any of us. So I
Speaker 3: can show it to you, And I said, I don't care.
Speaker 3: It'll be off the radio in two weeks. I'm writing
Speaker 3: my own songs anyway. You know, it's a hard question
Speaker 3: to answer. I mean you have to ask other players.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, in Austin you could throw a
Speaker 3: rock and hit a guitar player. So I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: you know, I'm okay. I get by. I mean I
Speaker 3: think when I have someone play on my record, like
Speaker 3: Larry Carlson or Eric Johnson or Steve Luketther from Toto,
Speaker 3: I can't play their solos. I just play some other shit.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'm okay.
Speaker 2: Okay. When did you realize you could sing.
Speaker 3: Well right away? I told you when I was in
Speaker 3: sixth grade, somebody had a sing and and and the
Speaker 3: guys are too embarrassed. You know, I don't want to sing,
Speaker 3: so I was a singing drummer. And then of course
Speaker 3: when the Beatles stuff came out, and I would sing
Speaker 3: like and I love her. I mean the girls, would
Speaker 3: you know, sort of swoon and then Chris. I was
Speaker 3: so into the Beach Boys that I would just I
Speaker 3: remember telling Brian that I used to sit in the
Speaker 3: dark room with a turntable and listen to The Lonely
Speaker 3: See over and over and over again. And Brian was
Speaker 3: kind of faster. He said, really the Lonely Sea and
Speaker 3: he went cool. But I began to emulate them, he
Speaker 3: and Carl, you know, and try to sound like them.
Speaker 3: And that's the thing. I'm not a rock singer, like
Speaker 3: I can't sing like you know, Sammy Hagar, who I
Speaker 3: think is amazing. I wish I could, but or Steve Perry,
Speaker 3: those kind of people. But part of that's just how
Speaker 3: I've trained my voice, because Carl Wilson especially is my
Speaker 3: mentor vocally, and I just tried to learn to sing
Speaker 3: like them.
Speaker 2: Okay, on your web page, you have a whole page
Speaker 2: dedicated to equipment. You said you couldn't afford equipment for
Speaker 2: a long time. Are you like a geek when it
Speaker 2: comes to equipment?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, I'm a I'm a real gearhead. In fact,
Speaker 3: Eric Johnson, I've become who I met him. I was nineteen,
Speaker 3: but we're very very close friends now, and he's incredible
Speaker 3: and one of the grest guitar players alive. And he's
Speaker 3: really into gear too. So yeah, all my guitar friends, uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we're all kind of gear geeks. You know,
Speaker 3: the latest pedals and and you know whatever it is.
Speaker 3: So but you got to be careful because you can
Speaker 3: get lost in that. And at some points I'll stop
Speaker 3: and go, Okay, I got good gear. I just don't
Speaker 3: play music, you know, I don't. I want I want
Speaker 3: to listen to another pedal. I just want to play.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm pretty into the gear thing, kind of
Speaker 3: a gearhead for sure. I got signature signature amps and
Speaker 3: all that stuff.
Speaker 2: How many guitars and how many amps do you have?
Speaker 3: Uh? Well, I got about ten amps and I got
Speaker 3: maybe twenty guitars. Not a lot. I mean, I've gotten
Speaker 3: rid of a lot of stuff over the years. In fact,
Speaker 3: people ask me, where's the high watch that Jimmy Page got.
Speaker 3: I don't even know stadly, but I've gotten to I
Speaker 3: don't collect vintage guitars. I've played these guitars called Tom
Speaker 3: Anderson's that are just like gorgeous, like Mercedes type stratocasters,
Speaker 3: and I play Taylor Acausic guitars and they're just so
Speaker 3: well made. I find for myself that the newer guitars
Speaker 3: that are really really well made, stay in tune and
Speaker 3: you know, intonation and stuff are better for me than
Speaker 3: the old guitar that has a lot of character and
Speaker 3: a lot of mojo. Maybe, but they're just not practical
Speaker 3: to take around, you know, on the road.
Speaker 2: And what about you have your own signatury. Tell me
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Well that's made by a company called Divided by thirteen
Speaker 3: and they're a small boutique builder in California. And the
Speaker 3: guys that play with McCartney, Rusty and Brian Daisen and
Speaker 3: wonderful amps, and Fred built me one that's kind of
Speaker 3: designed the way I wanted it to be. But it's
Speaker 3: a one twelve combo amp that has two different types
Speaker 3: of tubes in it and stuff, and they're great. It's
Speaker 3: called the nine point fifteen three C. But I said
Speaker 3: I had ten ms. I've got eight of those, eight
Speaker 3: of those combos because I have multiple sets of gear.
Speaker 3: But you know, I don't play real loud bob on stage.
Speaker 3: I use inner monitors. And my whole thing is I'm
Speaker 3: working with jazz musicians, so it's all about, you know,
Speaker 3: really clean and musical, you know, So we don't play loud.
Speaker 3: It's about, you know, I really try to show off
Speaker 3: the virtuosity of the guys I play with because they're
Speaker 3: just unbelievable. And that's comes from the Asia model, you know.
Speaker 2: So what's the theory with two different types of tubes.
Speaker 3: Well, the divided by thirteen it has two six V
Speaker 3: six's in it, which are what's in a Deluxe Finder Deluxe,
Speaker 3: and has two El eighty fours in it, which are
Speaker 3: what's in a vox Ac thirty. So I it's getting free.
Speaker 3: I have three amps on stage and I use what's
Speaker 3: called a wet dry rig. In the center is my
Speaker 3: dry amp. It's just dry, and it's on the EL
Speaker 3: eighty four settings more aggressive. The side amps are on
Speaker 3: the sixty six settings and they're eighty percent wet, so
Speaker 3: out front the guy can really control the amount of
Speaker 3: effects and stuff like that. And what's great about you
Speaker 3: get a lot focused because the cineramp is dry. It's
Speaker 3: like being in the studio. The delay and stuff is
Speaker 3: not mixed in with the dry but on the sides
Speaker 3: it's like eighty percent wet. So it creates this incredible
Speaker 3: wall of sound, which the front of house guy's got
Speaker 3: to be good, but he has a lot of control.
Speaker 3: Then over I can play with as much delay as
Speaker 3: I want on stage, but out front he could dial
Speaker 3: it back. But it's a huge sound in stereo, and
Speaker 3: it's it's pretty massive. I mean, some guys, I'll say
Speaker 3: you should hear my rig and they go, I don't
Speaker 3: want to hear it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 3: I don't want to. I don't want to drag that
Speaker 3: around the church, you know, I don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: Tom Anderson builds my guitars. I think Tom said that.
Speaker 2: So to what degree are the same people with you
Speaker 2: over the last few years.
Speaker 3: Well, I have musicians that are New York, Austin, La Paris,
Speaker 3: and they're all, uh, I got chose the Asian model
Speaker 3: after Asia, I really kind of started emulating everything Dan
Speaker 3: did and as far as the style of production of
Speaker 3: records and on stage, these guys are all jazz trained,
Speaker 3: you know, seriously jazz trained musicians, and they bring that
Speaker 3: you know, nuance to the music. So it's not jazz,
Speaker 3: but they're bringing their jazz style into it. And my
Speaker 3: show is all charted music charts and they're all on
Speaker 3: a server. So the guys have iPads and I'll bring
Speaker 3: up a set list and so basically working for me,
Speaker 3: it's all reading music. I haven't rehearsed in twenty five years.
Speaker 3: Everything's on charts, and every to work in my band,
Speaker 3: he got to be a really good reader. So I'm
Speaker 3: working with guys from New York, LA. It just depends
Speaker 3: who I who I you know, what I'm doing, who's available.
Speaker 3: Lately I've been working with an ensemble out of Paris, Trio,
Speaker 3: which just amazing guys out of Paris that I work with.
Speaker 3: But I work with us guys like I play with
Speaker 3: Keith Carlock, who plays of Steely Dan. Keith works with
Speaker 3: me when he can, Travis Carlton, Larry Carlton, some plays
Speaker 3: Basement when you can. But it's a lot of who's available,
Speaker 3: you know. But I have a nice network of people
Speaker 3: in four or five places that I can call on,
Speaker 3: and because we don't rehearse, it's easy. I just they
Speaker 3: show up and play.
Speaker 2: Okay, they have charts yourself taught? Can you read music?
Speaker 3: I can read charts, meaning you know chord charts and
Speaker 3: things like that, but I'm not great with notation. Those
Speaker 3: guys are. But uh, and I have what are called MRLs,
Speaker 3: which are music Master Rhythm lyric charts, so they have
Speaker 3: the chords and everything and the lyric because I'll be
Speaker 3: honest with you, you know my age. I mean, I
Speaker 3: have over one hundred songs. I mean sometimes I need
Speaker 3: a little cheat sheet too. It's just really forms for security.
Speaker 3: That's kind of a teleproctor. So I have the I
Speaker 3: have the chord chart and the lyrics, so I can.
Speaker 3: I can read those kinds of charts, but no, I
Speaker 3: cannot read like a violin chart or something. Those guys can,
Speaker 3: but so I can. I can exist in their world enough.
Speaker 3: But of course I wrote this song, so I know.
Speaker 3: But there's so many of them that the guys, yeah,
Speaker 3: they know sailing probably without looking at the chart, but
Speaker 3: most of the stuff they need to have a chart
Speaker 3: to play it. But I'm playing with them because they're
Speaker 3: it's like Asia, you know. Donald Walter started bringing in
Speaker 3: guys like Michael Lomartian and Greg Fillingates, these incredible jazz
Speaker 3: players to interpret that music, and it brought it to
Speaker 3: a home to the level.
Speaker 2: You know, I once saw Steely Dan and Walter Becker
Speaker 2: was ill, and Larry Carlton came in and played off
Speaker 2: the charts. It was mind blowing fact that he could
Speaker 2: just do that instantly.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, you know my biggest When I got
Speaker 3: my deal with Warner Brothers, they assigned me Michael Lomartian
Speaker 3: as a producer. He had just been signed as a producer,
Speaker 3: and I was I didn't really know who he was.
Speaker 3: I was looking. I was really at the for Gary
Speaker 3: Katz or Ted Temple, one of these guys. And I
Speaker 3: was at the Water Brother's office, and I was not
Speaker 3: being terribly perceptive to Michael Lomartian, who's a genius. But
Speaker 3: so I said to him the Wonder Brothers Rep. Michael Austin,
Speaker 3: who was most son who signed me, said, you know,
Speaker 3: Michael plays with Steely Dan. I said, oh really, like
Speaker 3: what did you play on? Michael said, humbly, he said everything.
Speaker 3: So I said, you know, Larry Carlton, this is a
Speaker 3: true store. I said, you know Larry Carlton. He goes yes.
Speaker 3: I said can you get him to plan my record?
Speaker 3: And he said yes, And I said he doesn't do
Speaker 3: sessions anymore. He's like a star he's like, you know,
Speaker 3: because I was a huge fan of Larry's and so
Speaker 3: Michael said, well, I know, Larry, I think I can
Speaker 3: do it. I said, well, here's the deal. If you
Speaker 3: can get Larry Carlton to plan my record, you can
Speaker 3: produce record. And that was that was the deal we made.
Speaker 3: And I finally told Carlton this story a few years
Speaker 3: ago and he said, man, I should have been getting points.
Speaker 3: But true to form, Michael Hamardine got Larry Carlton to
Speaker 3: planed my record. He played on two tracks, and it
Speaker 3: was just it was the thrill of a lifetime, one
Speaker 3: of those times like the Pope, you know, sitting with
Speaker 3: Larry Carlton because he's he's you know, a huge, huge
Speaker 3: hero mine and so many players you know. So but yeah,
Speaker 3: that whole model. Even back then, I was into that.
Speaker 3: Having these guys that could play like that bring that
Speaker 3: sensibility to my songwriting and so and I think my
Speaker 3: songwriter has got more sophisticated over the years, but they
Speaker 3: bring it to home toother level. These guys.
Speaker 2: Okay, you drop out of high school, you moved to
Speaker 2: San Antonio alone or with other band members.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I moved up up to Austin with Rock Austin.
Speaker 3: I believe Rob me or I think you You may
Speaker 3: not remember, but he used to have exchange letters of
Speaker 3: the occasion. Rob Yeah, yeah, So Rob and Andy Salomon
Speaker 3: bass player. We've moved up in a truck, you know,
Speaker 3: and moved all the crap into a house. You're paying
Speaker 3: forty bucks a month rent, and we started playing in
Speaker 3: cover bands. There's an agent in town, Llawyer and Charlie
Speaker 3: Hatchett that booked everybody. And we just started playing fraternity
Speaker 3: parties and clubs, anything we could play, just to make
Speaker 3: a living, you know. And so we did that for
Speaker 3: quite a while. But I was always writing, but I
Speaker 3: just didn't see any point, you know, the people that,
Speaker 3: like I said, Stevie, who is true artist. You know,
Speaker 3: he wasn't making much money doing that. He's playing for
Speaker 3: his soul and that's wonderful. But you know, Austin, but
Speaker 3: there wasn't a town yet where you could really get
Speaker 3: appreciation for playing around music at my level at least,
Speaker 3: So I just kept my head down and played cover
Speaker 3: tunes and made money. I could play make fifteen hundred
Speaker 3: bucks a nights for the band at the fraternity party.
Speaker 3: But I'd never really bothered playing my tunes out. I
Speaker 3: just made demos and I sent them for Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: Okay, you moved to Austin, you've dropped out of high school,
Speaker 2: totally self supporting or does your father send you any money?
Speaker 3: I had a car and they paid my gas. I
Speaker 3: had a gas card and they paid my gas in shirts.
Speaker 3: But otherwise though we made a living. We were living
Speaker 3: at a house. You just paid forty bucks. Let the rent.
Speaker 3: We lived off you know, Big Lone Stars and Peanut
Speaker 3: M and M's probably, but uh we just you know,
Speaker 3: it was all about you know, the dream. You know,
Speaker 3: we're just living that dream. But it was fine. We
Speaker 3: didn't need much and you know those when you're young,
Speaker 3: you don't care what your surroundings are like. But uh so, yeah,
Speaker 3: we lived in that house and played tunes like you know,
Speaker 3: played cover tunes and stuff that did. I I had
Speaker 3: an arrangement with a studio there in Austin, and I
Speaker 3: could go in at night and record. I invested some
Speaker 3: money in uh in some equipment and set up their
Speaker 3: B studio so I could go in and record in
Speaker 3: the twenty four tracks studio and start doing demos and
Speaker 3: I sit sent two sets of fork song demos to warners.
Speaker 2: You know, oh okay, a little bit slower you move
Speaker 2: when you're not even twenty. You don't get a deal
Speaker 2: until your late twenties. What goes on in that ten.
Speaker 3: Years playing playing, like I said, fraternity parties, clubs, I mean,
Speaker 3: Austin was I told you it was really happening. As
Speaker 3: far as there was there were clubs. There were the
Speaker 3: University of Texas coll They's fraternity parties, but all these
Speaker 3: college students going out, so there there were places to
Speaker 3: play and make good money playing cover tunes. It's just
Speaker 3: that to be an original band was pretty hard, and
Speaker 3: it was only people that were really really special like
Speaker 3: Stevie who you know, it was just a prodigy who
Speaker 3: went out and people did go to hear them. But
Speaker 3: even at that level, you know, playing these places that
Speaker 3: artists like that played, they didn't get paid a lot
Speaker 3: of money. They did it for the love of it,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of integrity there, and I have
Speaker 3: incredible respect for those people. But for me, I had
Speaker 3: a child at the time, you know, I'd gotten married
Speaker 3: at a child that I just I felt it was
Speaker 3: a better plan just to keep hacking out the radio tunes.
Speaker 3: Plus all that music had an influence on me too,
Speaker 3: you know, learning those songs and singing and playing beach
Speaker 3: Boys and that sort of thing. But that was just
Speaker 3: my model. That's what the way I did it. And again,
Speaker 3: through this strange quirk of fate with warners, I got
Speaker 3: a deal. When I was, like you said, twenty eight,
Speaker 3: twenty nine, how.
Speaker 2: Did you end up getting married?
Speaker 3: Well, I was in Houston, Texas, playing in a cover
Speaker 3: band called Heather Black and Good Band, and you know,
Speaker 3: young girl, pretty girl came back of the club and
Speaker 3: she was at eighteen. I was twenty two or something,
Speaker 3: and I think she was trying to just piss off
Speaker 3: her father. But we ran off from the lobe after
Speaker 3: two weeks and it didn't go well. In fact, Rob,
Speaker 3: Rob Muhir, he went to the courthouse for us to
Speaker 3: get married, and it was so impetuous and I didn't
Speaker 3: you know, Rob was standing behind us when they stood
Speaker 3: up for us at the courthouse. And I'll never forget
Speaker 3: as soon as a female judge a sin as, she said,
Speaker 3: I pronounce you met her wife. I heard Rob under
Speaker 3: his breath go, this is not going to end well.
Speaker 2: But you ended up having a child.
Speaker 3: Well we did, but we were only married seven years,
Speaker 3: but we had a child, and it was it was
Speaker 3: just doomed, doom to failure. I only knew the girl
Speaker 3: two weeks I married. It was listen, I was just
Speaker 3: some horny guitar player who you know. You know. So
Speaker 3: that was my first failed experience as a matrimony. But
Speaker 3: I'll never forget Rob saying that was pretty funny. But so,
Speaker 3: you know, I got married and kid, I just I
Speaker 3: felt like I responsibility to you know, Justin was literally
Speaker 3: he was, you know, two or three, and I had
Speaker 3: to support these people in an apartment, and so I
Speaker 3: needed to go out and make money. And I said,
Speaker 3: we get paid fifteen hundred bucks to play Attorney party.
Speaker 3: And that was a lot of money than Bob, it was,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: And it was cash, no tax cash.
Speaker 3: You know. It was just it was just the plan.
Speaker 3: I had a plan, you know, and and it seemed
Speaker 3: to be more practical. I never could have supported my
Speaker 3: family Bob trying to play my tunes around town. And
Speaker 3: then when my album came out, everybody was so surprised, Wow,
Speaker 3: where you been? What these songs and all that real, Well,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just tad them under my hat.
Speaker 2: Okay, you made the demos, you send them to Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: But how long had you been working on songs and
Speaker 2: recording them at home?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I've been writing songs since the very
Speaker 3: beginning when I got that cowboy guitar. That was, you know,
Speaker 3: a junior high. But the oldest song on the first
Speaker 3: record is a song called Poor Shirley, and it was
Speaker 3: about four years old to the release of the record.
Speaker 3: So most of those songs were you know, fairly recent
Speaker 3: in terms of my historical path as far as the
Speaker 3: ones that ended up on that record.
Speaker 2: You know, Okay, you were making a living as a
Speaker 2: working musician. You know, the Beatles made it in their
Speaker 2: very early twenties. At this point, most people in the
Speaker 2: rock world had made it by their mid twenties. Did
Speaker 2: you ever waiver in the dream? Did you always think
Speaker 2: you were to make it? Did you even think you
Speaker 2: were going to make it?
Speaker 3: Well, your musicians have a strange way of believing, believing
Speaker 3: in themselves, you know, in spite of all things of
Speaker 3: the contrary. But and answer your question, you've hit on
Speaker 3: something here, because no, Because I'll tell you the truth.
Speaker 3: The last six months or so, when I was trying
Speaker 3: to get my deal with Warners and all that stuff,
Speaker 3: I kind of told myself, look, I can't keep doing this.
Speaker 3: You know, I got a family. If if I don't
Speaker 3: get something going pretty soon, I'm just going to call
Speaker 3: it and just you know, go get a job and
Speaker 3: do something we after school or whatever. And so I
Speaker 3: gave myself sort of a six month window to see
Speaker 3: what was see what was going to come of it,
Speaker 3: if anything should come to fruition, And then fortunately I
Speaker 3: got signed. Yeah, but I was, I was going to,
Speaker 3: you know, pretty much call it today. I was because
Speaker 3: I've been trying for a long long time, and like
Speaker 3: you said, I was older. Most people had deals by then,
Speaker 3: and so uh and that was part of the problem too.
Speaker 3: You know when I when all this happened, it was
Speaker 3: so medioric. I didn't have a regular art to my
Speaker 3: career like someone like the police and those people. You know,
Speaker 3: I just it just I went from playing in fraternities
Speaker 3: back we finished their record in seventy nine, I went
Speaker 3: back to Austin and went back to playing clubs until
Speaker 3: the album was released, playing Eagles songs. And then the
Speaker 3: next thing had happened. The album comes out and I'm
Speaker 3: opening for the Eagles. So it was overwhelming. And I
Speaker 3: wish very much that I could go back and play
Speaker 3: those early shows with the kind of confidence and professionalism
Speaker 3: I have now, because I was just up there, you know,
Speaker 3: totally out of my element. No I from playing a
Speaker 3: little club, playing twenty thousand seediter, I had no business
Speaker 3: doing that.
Speaker 2: Okay, you sent the tapes off. How did you actually
Speaker 2: hear from Warner Brothers and what they say?
Speaker 3: Well, when David Berson, he got the tape and he
Speaker 3: liked it, and he went to lunch with Lenny Warnker
Speaker 3: that day and he said, Lenny, I got a tape,
Speaker 3: let me play for And this is the story they
Speaker 3: told me. Lindy said, give me a break. I meant
Speaker 3: lunch all I do listen to the tapes all day long.
Speaker 3: But did David insisted they put it in, And this
Speaker 3: is what they told me later. Lenny said he really
Speaker 3: liked my voice. He thought it was radio friendly, and
Speaker 3: so he said, I give it a damn tape. So
Speaker 3: you got the tape and they reached out to me
Speaker 3: and said, listen, you know, we really like your voices
Speaker 3: through a radio friendly, and they did what they all
Speaker 3: do at the time, So send us some more material.
Speaker 3: We're interested, and they keep stringing you along. So I
Speaker 3: did another set of demos and sent those and Michael Austin,
Speaker 3: who was Most's son, he was new to the an
Speaker 3: Are but fortunately he believed in me, you know, and
Speaker 3: kind of put his influence behind it. But they still
Speaker 3: didn't believe in the songs. I remember them saying, your
Speaker 3: voice is great, but we may have to feature other
Speaker 3: songs to record. Not too sure about these songs. And
Speaker 3: they had heard sailing and I'd like to win in
Speaker 3: all those songs, and the demos were, you know, real
Speaker 3: good representations of what you hear on the record later.
Speaker 3: But so Michael Lomarty and the producer, was the one
Speaker 3: who said, listen, let us go in the studio see
Speaker 3: because I think there's something here. And so then we
Speaker 3: went in and you know, and recorded. But and Michael
Speaker 3: did a great job of making the record, you know,
Speaker 3: enhancing with the strings and all that. But initially they
Speaker 3: just were focused on my voice. They said, your voice
Speaker 3: is like James, you know, it's like James Taylor, as
Speaker 3: good as James. But it just that when you hear
Speaker 3: James Taler on the radio, you know James Taylor, and
Speaker 3: they said that there's a uniqueness to that that's important
Speaker 3: at radio. So we liked that about your voice. And
Speaker 3: so then it's funny because I want to say, really,
Speaker 3: I was just trying to sound like Crol Wilson. But
Speaker 3: eventually they signed me, and I made the record.
Speaker 2: Okay, a little bit slower from the time you sent
Speaker 2: the demos to them. How much longer did it take
Speaker 2: till you got signed?
Speaker 3: The first demo went out about seventy six, nineteen seventy six. Wow,
Speaker 3: for four years.
Speaker 2: And in that four years did you go into the studio?
Speaker 2: Was a Martian or was that after the deal was signed?
Speaker 3: After the deal was signed, I mean Martin was a
Speaker 3: big deal. I mean that was when Michael Austin brought
Speaker 3: us out, brought me up to California with my manager
Speaker 3: and we met and I had no idea that was
Speaker 3: actually really close to a deal, but he met. He
Speaker 3: was just wanting me to meet with one of their
Speaker 3: producers and they recommended Michael. But no about four years,
Speaker 3: I I you know, hung in there with him. But
Speaker 3: I also I did try bob along the way like
Speaker 3: I went to A and M and a couple of
Speaker 3: other labels who passed. But I always really wanted to
Speaker 3: be on one of us, like I told you, so
Speaker 3: it was like, you know, your first choice at a
Speaker 3: college or something. So but I did go to a
Speaker 3: couple of labels and got passed on, and M passed
Speaker 3: on me. They had just signed Captain and Taneil kick Cohen,
Speaker 3: the head of van Ar, said, we don't need another
Speaker 3: act like that. We just signed Captain a Tanil.
Speaker 2: So how'd you get a manager and a lawyer?
Speaker 3: Well, my manager at the time was a local guy
Speaker 3: who'd played in bands early got into the management. They
Speaker 3: got him Tim Nie, a really a nice guy. Managed
Speaker 3: Bruce Hornsby as well. And Tim was great and he
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, maneuvered this whole thing, you know,
Speaker 3: once we had something going, you know, he kind of
Speaker 3: massaged the deal and stepped in and worked with Water Brothers.
Speaker 3: Because I didn't have any idea of what to do.
Speaker 3: And so Tim went out to LA and he represented me,
Speaker 3: and then later after my ALBM came out not too
Speaker 3: long left that later, Tim went in with Irving and
Speaker 3: they co managed me for a while. Then eventually I
Speaker 3: just was managed by Irving. But right away Irving said,
Speaker 3: you need a lawyer, and so I got Michael Roosevelt
Speaker 3: and so right off the VAT I had a really
Speaker 3: good law firm. Can't across Michael Roosevelt. But you know
Speaker 3: with Irving, he don't. I mean, Irving came in, so
Speaker 3: that to the first record. But what I got to
Speaker 3: do was doing another record. That's when Irving, you know,
Speaker 3: really stepped up, because you know, he was like, Okay,
Speaker 3: hold on a second. You know, this guy just sold
Speaker 3: his AID records and he has a standard record deal.
Speaker 3: Let's I'm not gonna do that again, you know, in
Speaker 3: that cause so I was at Therevy for a long time,
Speaker 3: long time. In fact, I think chronologically I was within
Speaker 3: longer than any other artists at the time other than Hindley,
Speaker 3: you know. But you know, as time went on, Irving
Speaker 3: gets so big. You know, he's with Christina and all
Speaker 3: the stuff he does, and so I just I felt
Speaker 3: I needed someone who was waking up more day to
Speaker 3: day and trying to make me a buck. And nothing
Speaker 3: against Serving, but I left and went with a guy.
Speaker 3: Now he's managed me for about fifteen years. Then Toby
Speaker 3: Ludwig it's great because you know, Irving is a ruler
Speaker 3: of the world. I mean he's you know, he's busy
Speaker 3: and understandably with you know, managing you two and the
Speaker 3: Eagles and all those people. But there were some great
Speaker 3: things that happened. I mean, Don Henley I'd known because
Speaker 3: he's from Lyndon, Texas, and so I knew Don. Don
Speaker 3: sang on the record, which was huge. P and JD.
Speaker 3: Salder's sang on the first record. But then Don arranged
Speaker 3: for me to go open for the Eagles, which was
Speaker 3: a real big moment. And then Don gave my record
Speaker 3: or induce very to Stevie Nickson. I ended up opening
Speaker 3: for Fleetwood for a long time. So both those things
Speaker 3: were real big catalysts too. But having Michael McDonald on
Speaker 3: my record and Alderry Carlton, all these people at radio,
Speaker 3: that's undeniable that that gave me a leg up because
Speaker 3: you know, these DJs get fifty albums a day and
Speaker 3: they're reading the credits and they're like, who's this kid.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm McDonald, Barry Carlton, what's going on? Put
Speaker 3: it on, listen to it. So I really believe that
Speaker 3: having Michael on Brodac. The wind was huge.
Speaker 2: So how did all those people end up on the record.
Speaker 2: Were those Michael o'martian's choices or did you say I
Speaker 2: want this person?
Speaker 3: Well, Henley, I said, he's a Texan, so Texans, you know,
Speaker 3: they stick by each other. So Don would supportive of
Speaker 3: beginning it, you know deal. He said, well, you get
Speaker 3: a deal to sing on your record, you know? And
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, you said, just because he doesn't
Speaker 3: do that very much. So I got Henley and Don
Speaker 3: brought Jade in. But uh, we were at Warner Brothers Studios,
Speaker 3: which is no longer there on Compston in the Valley.
Speaker 3: I was a studio I and the Doobies are in
Speaker 3: the studio a doing Take It to the Streets and
Speaker 3: Omartyan knew McDonald from Steely Dan, so he went over
Speaker 3: and brought Michael over to listen to what we were doing
Speaker 3: McDonald and McDonald thought it was cool and he said, hey,
Speaker 3: if you want a background bugs, let me know. So
Speaker 3: we stuck on Mike in his face and he's sang,
Speaker 3: I really don't know anymore first, and then we brought
Speaker 3: him back letter for I'd like to win. But that
Speaker 3: was through Marty and Martin got Larry Carlton. I was
Speaker 3: a huge Valerie Carter Van and Lenny Waterker made it
Speaker 3: called the Valerie, and she liked the song Ted Tempelm
Speaker 3: was pretty snical let Larsen and so that came together
Speaker 3: with NICKI, which I'm so thrilled since we lost her
Speaker 3: boss Valerie too. Who else? Uh? Yeah, so and Eric
Speaker 3: Johnson of course played on my track, which nobody really
Speaker 3: knew who he was at the time, but I was
Speaker 3: determined to make sure that changed, and so he played
Speaker 3: on Mitchell Jiggelow and that kind of helped people find
Speaker 3: out about him and subsequently he got a deal on orders.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so the people came different ways. But it
Speaker 3: was a pretty star studed record for nobody.
Speaker 2: Okay, people always say, hey, my first record, I went
Speaker 2: in there, I was green, I was manipulated. What was
Speaker 2: your experience in making the record and how long did
Speaker 2: it ultimately take?
Speaker 3: It took us a six weeks or so, maybe tiple months.
Speaker 3: It was a great experience because you know, Michael Elmarty
Speaker 3: and he was new as sort of a producer, but
Speaker 3: not as he'd played with log and Somebsceni did all
Speaker 3: the Seely Dance stuff. So for me, it was the
Speaker 3: perfect thing. I had this guide through this process who
Speaker 3: worked with Seely Dan, because I just wanted to be
Speaker 3: Steely Dan. So you know, Michael knew the process inside
Speaker 3: and out. We just sort of followed him and he
Speaker 3: initiated us me into that world. And as we went
Speaker 3: on and I started using more session players as I
Speaker 3: went on later that was something Michael was very comfortable
Speaker 3: with because you know, I used to gab people like that,
Speaker 3: but now the record was we were kind of for us.
Speaker 3: We were just remaking our demos and then Michael was
Speaker 3: playing on it, which is brilliant. Robert play Roads, Michael
Speaker 3: played Grant and then of course some already did the strings,
Speaker 3: which were fabulous, you know, on those songs. So we
Speaker 3: were I would say it was pretty easy and seamless
Speaker 3: because we had a great producer.
Speaker 2: Okay, just a couple of little backfill You left with
Speaker 2: players from San Antonio to Austin. To what degree were
Speaker 2: these the same players and what degree did the members
Speaker 2: feel as was a band as opposed to a solo act.
Speaker 3: Well, I can't speak to it. I mean, at the time,
Speaker 3: you know, I was signed to Warner Brothers as a
Speaker 3: solo artist. I mean they I wrote the songs, I
Speaker 3: sang the songs, and I think from their view that
Speaker 3: was the entity that they wanted to sign, you know,
Speaker 3: because I was responsible. I sang all the songs. I
Speaker 3: wrote all the songs, So you know, there wasn't any
Speaker 3: in their mind that you know, I wasn't a band.
Speaker 3: I was a solo artist. Now what was in the players,
Speaker 3: I don't know. But we made that record together and
Speaker 3: they did plans and tracks on the second record. But
Speaker 3: OMARTI and you know, was used to work with studio musicians,
Speaker 3: and I had this burning desire to you know, up
Speaker 3: my game and work with those kind of people. And
Speaker 3: so Michael, you know, understood that. So with the second record,
Speaker 3: I started using some studio players like Steve gabb Ablueberry
Speaker 3: El Senior, people like that, because I said, from the
Speaker 3: very onset, I always wanted to make records like Steely
Speaker 3: Dan and the best way to do that is to
Speaker 3: get those kind of guys. But the band toured with
Speaker 3: me initially, you know, even to the second record. But
Speaker 3: I think it's just a natural evolution, at least from
Speaker 3: my standpoint as an artist, as a singer songwriter. You
Speaker 3: know what's best for my music?
Speaker 2: Okay, how did it become Christopher Cross? As you say,
Speaker 2: that's not your birth name.
Speaker 3: The studio in Austin was called Pecan Street Studios. I
Speaker 3: think it was called that anyway. Steve Shield's really great
Speaker 3: guy who owned the studio. He was dating this girl
Speaker 3: named DeVaughn and we released a little single called Talking
Speaker 3: about Her in seventy six on Steve's Little Starbars label.
Speaker 3: Eric Johnson played on it and it was a real
Speaker 3: rock and roll song. And we were at dinner one
Speaker 3: night and I was trying to think of some name
Speaker 3: I could use to, you know, go under. This was
Speaker 3: just a release of mine, and Devon said, why don't
Speaker 3: you try yourself Christopher Cross, and the DJ still sorting
Speaker 3: it to Criss Cross, and so I went okay, And
Speaker 3: that's how it became. She just suggested. I said okay,
Speaker 3: because I just figured Geffert wasn't very memorable, and I
Speaker 3: also thought there could be some privacy advantage to it.
Speaker 3: So that's how the name came out. Devon to suggest
Speaker 3: that we went with it, and we released this little
Speaker 3: single that was Christopher Cross. It was really me in
Speaker 3: the studio with Eric Johnson and some of the people.
Speaker 3: And it didn't do anything, but that's kind of how
Speaker 3: the name came about.
Speaker 2: And if I look at your passport, what does it
Speaker 2: say Cross.
Speaker 3: I did a DBA pretty quickly, much to my mother's chagrin.
Speaker 3: She was not happy about it.
Speaker 2: But you never changed it legally, or did you? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think it's I mean, I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 3: a lawyer, but I mean my past words as Cross
Speaker 3: a DBA voice. I've done business this Cross since you know,
Speaker 3: my justin my son by my first marriage goes by
Speaker 3: Getfert but Raydon Madison, my kids by my second marriage
Speaker 3: got by Cross.
Speaker 2: Do your friends call you Christopher or Chris?
Speaker 3: New friends call me Christopher, and that's what I prefer.
Speaker 3: Old friends and my brother and people like that. The
Speaker 3: brother they call me Chris. My girlfriend calls me Chris.
Speaker 3: But uh, I prefer Christopher. I think it's a really
Speaker 3: pretty name and I like it. But growing up it
Speaker 3: was Chris. But the Criss Cross thing, you know, I
Speaker 3: get mistaken for those two rapper kids too, you know,
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I like, I think Christoph's pretty named,
Speaker 3: so I prefer Christopher. But people that know me a
Speaker 3: long time just can't do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So how long after the album was finished did
Speaker 2: it come out?
Speaker 3: Well, it was supposed to come out I think before
Speaker 3: the first of the year and eighty. But Eddie Rosenblatt,
Speaker 3: who was one of the vps at Warners, said, look,
Speaker 3: this record's just going to get lost in the Christmas mess.
Speaker 3: Let's hold it. And it was brilliant on his part
Speaker 3: because they held it till after January. It was released
Speaker 3: in January and then we got a little bit of
Speaker 3: a hearing and so it came out and boom. You know,
Speaker 3: I'd like to win, would have it never made its
Speaker 3: number one because Blondie had called me and it was
Speaker 3: only a single, so it kept us out of the
Speaker 3: singles charts being number one. But then Sailing, which I
Speaker 3: was not in favor of releasing MO released it then
Speaker 3: went to number one. But so yeah, about three months
Speaker 3: after we went back to Austin. We were planning more
Speaker 3: cover gigs and stuff, and it came out in January
Speaker 3: and then the very first tour, I did you know
Speaker 3: my chronology made I'd be perfect. I apologize this so
Speaker 3: long ago. You know, it's like asking Rango if he
Speaker 3: used a te towel on tax Man, you know, can't.
Speaker 3: People asked me, did you just a click on your record?
Speaker 3: And he was like, I don't know, I don't think.
Speaker 3: So my first tour was I got to open for
Speaker 3: Bonnie Raid because Bonnie was on Warders, and so they
Speaker 3: sent me out for six weeks with Bonnie, which was
Speaker 3: the perfect indoctrination into the world of touring because she's
Speaker 3: just fantastic and so and she was so sweet and
Speaker 3: you know, it was it was great. So I got
Speaker 3: to do that. And then shortly after that this went down,
Speaker 3: took me out with the Eagles, and that I did
Speaker 3: quite a few things with him. So it's all pretty heady, Okay.
Speaker 2: How did the painting become the cover? And of course
Speaker 2: many people felt that it was a painting because you
Speaker 2: weren't photogenic? Was that even an issue? What went on there?
Speaker 3: Well? Through all these incarnations and musicians that group in Houston,
Speaker 3: where I met my first wife. Our drummer's name is
Speaker 3: Jimmy Newhouse, great drummer. He didn't continue playing, but he
Speaker 3: was incredible. He was also a painter and one day
Speaker 3: he brought in this album shaped watercolor of the Lagunsium
Speaker 3: of Flamingo. Now, I didn't have the green, it was
Speaker 3: just all the watercoating. And he said, I think this
Speaker 3: looks like your music, and so put it on the wall,
Speaker 3: kind of like a focal point, you know, in a
Speaker 3: delivery of a baby or something. He just that was like, hey,
Speaker 3: that's our album cover. And when we went to Warner Brothers,
Speaker 3: we showed it to him, and you know, we were
Speaker 3: one of fifty new acts, so like, yeah, okay, that
Speaker 3: looks okay. And they sent it to a guy Naed
Speaker 3: Floroid Holmes in Atlanta, who put the green around it
Speaker 3: and all that, but the initial and he did the
Speaker 3: back nighttime scene. But that initial image was was created
Speaker 3: by Jimmy Newhouse. And yes, I would say that my
Speaker 3: physical insecurities, It's not so much that I requested that
Speaker 3: I not be on the record, but I was relieved,
Speaker 3: you know, because I didn't feel terrible. I felt self
Speaker 3: conscious about my weight. I've lost a lot of weight now,
Speaker 3: but you know, at the time I didn't feel particularly
Speaker 3: like sex simple. So I was happy to have the
Speaker 3: album be kind of anonymous. But Warners seemed fine with it,
Speaker 3: and of course maybe they were fine with it because
Speaker 3: they didn't feel I was pootogenic. Whatever the case it's.
Speaker 3: You know, it's become pretty iconic, and it stayed because
Speaker 3: like Linda Ronstadt's heart, I mean, Flamingo's just carried through
Speaker 3: now and everybody wants to read all the significance of it,
Speaker 3: and there really isn't any other than it, just a
Speaker 3: corp of fate. But but yeah, I would say that's
Speaker 3: all true. And I think that I'm much more comfortable now.
Speaker 3: But you know, and I did Howard Stern Robin said something.
Speaker 3: Howard was being so nice to me that Robin had
Speaker 3: to mix it up, so she said, I was I
Speaker 3: was so disappointed when I saw you, because she said
Speaker 3: I loved your voice, but you didn't look like Kenny Loggins.
Speaker 3: And Howard proceeded to jump in and defend me. They
Speaker 3: wait till there's a good looking man, Riddy, what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? He said, Well, listen his hair, I mean,
Speaker 3: he said, what is he supposed to go get plugs
Speaker 3: in his head? And looked like somebody shot him in
Speaker 3: the name of the head as shot in there with
Speaker 3: a head with a nail gun. And I always joked
Speaker 3: with people that you know, if I look like Brad Pitt,
Speaker 3: forget it, I'd be like bigger than the Beatles, you know.
Speaker 3: But that's all probably true, and that's why the MTV thing.
Speaker 3: I did make a few videos, but it was very
Speaker 3: It was very reluctant on my part because I wasn't
Speaker 3: used to the visual visual medium. And I think the
Speaker 3: Buggles radio video killed the radio stars is very was
Speaker 3: very prophetic and true.
Speaker 2: So when did you first hear yourself on the radio?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the album popped pretty quick. So I
Speaker 3: was in the car and rode like the wind came
Speaker 3: on and it's it's a little like hearing your voice
Speaker 3: on an answering machine, you know. It's a little strange
Speaker 3: in the beginning, but I don't know. And then I
Speaker 3: started hearing it everywhere, so it was it was pretty
Speaker 3: fantastic that it all happened so fast. Bub when right
Speaker 3: out the wind came out, and then suddenly with these
Speaker 3: multiple singles and pretty we had never be the same.
Speaker 3: And then pretty soon people were buying the record, the
Speaker 3: album because there were so many singles. They just bought
Speaker 3: the record that it was just all happening, you know,
Speaker 3: And then I was playing these big shows and playing
Speaker 3: at the super Dome with the Eagles for seventy thousand people.
Speaker 3: It was overwhelming, so you know, I heard on the radio.
Speaker 3: But then it didn't take too long before the train
Speaker 3: sped up, and it was I was just kind of
Speaker 3: hanging on to pay the truth because my personal life
Speaker 3: was falling apart, and you know, my marriage was falling apart,
Speaker 3: and you know, there's a lot going on.
Speaker 2: Why is your marriage falling apart?
Speaker 3: Uh? Well, I knew the girl two weeks before I
Speaker 3: met her, and as Rob said, this is not going
Speaker 3: to end well. So I won't drag it through all
Speaker 3: the tales, but it was. It was destined to fail
Speaker 3: from the beginning, probably, but I think you know uh
Speaker 3: that you know, it's it's probably scary for my ex
Speaker 3: wife at the time that everything was happening so fast
Speaker 3: and maybe shouldn't feel like she was a part of
Speaker 3: it or whatever. I really don't know, but like a
Speaker 3: lot of marriages, that was falling apart, So I was
Speaker 3: dealing with that at the same time I'm dealing with
Speaker 3: all this stuff. You know, that was demands, people wanting
Speaker 3: me to do everything, and you know, I took my
Speaker 3: son to Disneyland and we had to leave because there
Speaker 3: were too many people. Bugget, you know, it's crazy, and
Speaker 3: I was just an army brat.
Speaker 2: So so when the album was finished, forget what anybody
Speaker 2: else says, did you feel that it was going to
Speaker 2: be successful?
Speaker 3: No, Warners. I'd heard from people at Warners that if
Speaker 3: you make or if you sell fifty thousand records, they'll
Speaker 3: let you do another record. So my attitude was if
Speaker 3: I can, if I can sell fifty thousand records and
Speaker 3: get them to let me do another record. By my
Speaker 3: third record, I think I can have something on the radio.
Speaker 3: That's what I thought. I had no idea that this stuff.
Speaker 3: In fact, Warners, even the an Ar department were unsure
Speaker 3: about the songs, as I told you, and they said,
Speaker 3: we still don't hear a hit. So I heard on
Speaker 3: the radio this boss Gag song. I'm a big fan
Speaker 3: of Bozz Camera Action do it Again. And it starts
Speaker 3: with the chorus. And my song form had always been
Speaker 3: the Beatles, you know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus bridge. I said,
Speaker 3: that's what's I gotta start a song with the chorus.
Speaker 3: If I wrote this song, say of the Mine, which
Speaker 3: Nico Lets sang on and Lenny Mordakers said that's a hit,
Speaker 3: that's a radio record. Well, Amarty and with all respect
Speaker 3: went against that and said, I think right, like the
Speaker 3: Wind's got four on the floor coming out of disco
Speaker 3: and all that, I think it's that's what we go
Speaker 3: with that. He was right, but either way, no, I
Speaker 3: had no inclination that anything would happen. I was just
Speaker 3: hoping to sell fifty thousand records and get to make
Speaker 3: out of the record.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're opening for Bonnie Raid. At what point
Speaker 2: are people there to see you and reacting to your
Speaker 2: music with Bonnie Raid they knew with the Eagles, at
Speaker 2: what point were you not just the opening act but
Speaker 2: people were fans?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I'm sure there were. I think I
Speaker 3: have some memory of we're at some point but brought
Speaker 3: out The Wind was up in the charts, and Bond
Speaker 3: came to me and said, I think I should open
Speaker 3: for you because she's so funny like that. But you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure there were people. But you know, when you open,
Speaker 3: when you're playing with people like Bonnie Ray and the Eagles,
Speaker 3: I mean, these are incredibly popular, you know, they're rock stars.
Speaker 3: So I don't know I mean, I think I always
Speaker 3: got the feeling, like, especially when we're out with Fleetwood,
Speaker 3: that you know, they just people would just wanted us
Speaker 3: to get off the stage so they could see Fleetwood.
Speaker 3: You know, they just because they're they're Fleetwood back and
Speaker 3: they're the Eagles all that. So I didn't get a
Speaker 3: sense that, as I said Bob, at the time I
Speaker 3: walked out on stage, I had nine songs to play,
Speaker 3: It's all I had. And it was just overwhelming for me,
Speaker 3: you know, just to see all these people and to
Speaker 3: try to somehow step up my game from being a
Speaker 3: local club guy to being this successful pop entity or
Speaker 3: whatever that I was clearly not prepared, you know for it.
Speaker 3: I did my best, but I don't know that anybody
Speaker 3: could do a whole lot, you know. It's just what
Speaker 3: happened to me is very unusual. It was so meteoric,
Speaker 3: so quick that you just could barely capt your breath,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The Grammy, So I had no idea I was going
Speaker 3: to win anything. I mean, they told me you might
Speaker 3: win Best New Artists, And after I got that Grammy,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I am upset for life.
Speaker 2: Going back, you talk about being green, was it just
Speaker 2: raw experience or did you learn certain things how to
Speaker 2: be a better performer.
Speaker 3: Well, they're being very kind calling me a performer. I
Speaker 3: don't think I'm an entertainer. I'm a singer songwriter and
Speaker 3: I think that that's what I do, and I come
Speaker 3: out and play my songs and represent them with the
Speaker 3: best musicians I can, the best production I can. I
Speaker 3: think that's gotten better and better and better over the years.
Speaker 3: But you know, I never I was always too shy
Speaker 3: and everything, like I could never be Hendrick's or you know,
Speaker 3: jump around, and it just wasn't. My physicality wasn't. I
Speaker 3: had this really lilting voice coming out as a big guy,
Speaker 3: and I just I don't know, I never so performing stretch.
Speaker 3: I think what I do is I'm a singer songwriter
Speaker 3: that tries to present his material in the most you know, professional,
Speaker 3: respectful way I can. But I wouldn't really call myself
Speaker 3: a performer entertainer, you know what I mean. That's for
Speaker 3: guys like you know, Freddie Mercury. You know.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're a local working musician, your songs on
Speaker 2: the radio, you're opening for Household, amnach Day, Max. What
Speaker 2: point do you start thinking about money, how much money
Speaker 2: you're going to make.
Speaker 3: Well, it takes a little while because you know, it's
Speaker 3: not like right after it's the hit, Sunday's a pack
Speaker 3: a pile of money. I mean it, uh, it kind
Speaker 3: of creeps up on you, you know, and then you'll
Speaker 3: like I heard that. I read in Clapton's book that
Speaker 3: he saw George Harrison's house and he Clapton and Cream
Speaker 3: they had apartments in London. They were on a stipend
Speaker 3: from Robert Stigwood. And Eric's book he said that he
Speaker 3: came back from going to George's house and said to
Speaker 3: Robert Stigbot, well, I hope someday I can have a
Speaker 3: house like that. You know, I saw one on the
Speaker 3: way back to It was for sales like six hundred pounds,
Speaker 3: and maybe some day Robert stigwould said, you can afford that,
Speaker 3: no problem. I just put you guys on a stipend
Speaker 3: to keep your and blow on your money. But you
Speaker 3: want to go buy that house and George's they went
Speaker 3: for six grand, go ahead. But Eric had no idea
Speaker 3: that he could afford that. So I think it's the
Speaker 3: same with me. So I think it struck me when
Speaker 3: I bought a house. We lived in an apartment, and
Speaker 3: I talked to my people and said, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of buy a house. And I said, sure. It wasn't
Speaker 3: anything fancy, but you know, and then I bought a Porsche.
Speaker 3: You know, all the usual things that people do. But
Speaker 3: you know, you acclimated that pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Okay, the album is a huge success. I buy the albums,
Speaker 2: got all these signals on it. You win the Grammys.
Speaker 2: At the time, the Grammys didn't have quite the impact
Speaker 2: across the industry amongst pit people. So someone like me,
Speaker 2: what happens at the Grammys, I pay attention, but I'm
Speaker 2: not reacting. The reason I bring all this up was
Speaker 2: there's a perception that there was a backlash of you
Speaker 2: having all this success. Did you feel a backlash?
Speaker 3: Uh? No, not really. I mean I think for me,
Speaker 3: the Grammys. The thing that I love about the Grammys
Speaker 3: and the Oscars and Imans and Tony's or they're voted
Speaker 3: by members of the community, your peers, you know, And
Speaker 3: so for me, that's what meant the most to me
Speaker 3: is that the other artists, musicians and producers voted my
Speaker 3: record the best record of the year, you know, And
Speaker 3: so you know, I didn't beat Sergeant Pepper. I mean,
Speaker 3: there were some good albums up that year, but I
Speaker 3: mean so I just sort of accepted that as validations
Speaker 3: that these that year. You know, I made a good
Speaker 3: record and people rewarded me with it. But I think that,
Speaker 3: you know, there maybe at times you'd hear things other
Speaker 3: artists would make comments, but it was rare, you know,
Speaker 3: somebody would say, oh, I don't get that, you know,
Speaker 3: what's the big deal with him or whatever. You know,
Speaker 3: there's no I never I don't think I really felt that.
Speaker 3: I think that I was just kind of I accepted it.
Speaker 3: And what meant so much to me, as I said it,
Speaker 3: was that the way the voting is now, the Grammys
Speaker 3: have changed a lot, it's gotten to be this huge spectacle,
Speaker 3: but at the time it was sort of a reward
Speaker 3: for your work, where your peers said you did the
Speaker 3: best work of the year. And I really took that
Speaker 3: to heart.
Speaker 2: So what point in this art do you start thinking
Speaker 2: about the follow up record?
Speaker 3: I'm always writing, but you know, the sophomore jinks is
Speaker 3: it's tough. I think it's tough for anybody who goes
Speaker 3: to the best New Artist syndrome, you know, you've got
Speaker 3: people like Hornsby and Rickie Lee Jones, Tracy Chapman, anybody
Speaker 3: that wins it. You know, it's it's a tough You're
Speaker 3: you're a tough act to follow. And so I did
Speaker 3: have that on my mouth. But I was writing, and
Speaker 3: I was in sort of a romantic period of my life.
Speaker 3: And so the second album, Another Page, had a lot
Speaker 3: of ballots on it. And I suppose if I had
Speaker 3: released a record like Doctor Faith, which is one of
Speaker 3: my later albums that's more eclectic like the first record,
Speaker 3: that probably would have been better. But you don't control
Speaker 3: your process. I wrote the songs I wrote at the time.
Speaker 3: You know, it sounds like Word's a Wisdom and talking
Speaker 3: my sleep and you uh. In fact, you know all
Speaker 3: right was the last song I wrote, because it was
Speaker 3: sort of an attempt at, you know, having a radio song.
Speaker 3: But so the album maybe it was a little mellow,
Speaker 3: but their fans of mine, that's their favorite record, my
Speaker 3: second record. So but I couldn't have controlled it anyway, Bob,
Speaker 3: because I wasn't writing purposely, trying to write hits or anything.
Speaker 3: I was just doing what I'd always done, you know,
Speaker 3: just make make songs.
Speaker 2: So you didn't feel self conscious, you didn't feel under
Speaker 2: the gun. You just felt new album, new songs, that's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just, I mean I was too stupid and
Speaker 3: I even, you know, to realize it. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: was just excited to get back in the studio, and
Speaker 3: especially after working with Steve Gad and these kind of people,
Speaker 3: So that was very exciting for me. But also I
Speaker 3: was on the road. I mean, I wasn't even in
Speaker 3: the studio when they mixed Arthur's theme. I was on
Speaker 3: the road. I mean, I was trying to figure out
Speaker 3: how can I get in the studio and spend a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks doing that with all these other demands.
Speaker 2: On my time.
Speaker 3: So it was again like a whirlwind. So I didn't
Speaker 3: have a whole lot of time to sit around and ponder.
Speaker 3: For me, I just was kind of it was a
Speaker 3: rushing river, and I was just kind of hanging off
Speaker 3: for dear life. Like I said so, But writing wise,
Speaker 3: I just I've always these twelve albums that I've made.
Speaker 3: They're sincere, They're just that's what. That's when Rob Boys
Speaker 3: used to say, even when the later records didn't get
Speaker 3: as much attention, he'd say, we do this because it's
Speaker 3: what we do.
Speaker 2: Now. My favorite song of yours period is on the
Speaker 2: second album Think of Laura, which ultimately is blown up
Speaker 2: when it's on General Hospital. Tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Well, Laura Carter was a really good friend of my
Speaker 3: at the time, and Laura was tragically killed by a
Speaker 3: really terrible random shooting at her college, Dennisen in Ohio,
Speaker 3: and so I really they were all East coast and
Speaker 3: I was West coast, and I was, you know, after
Speaker 3: I got the news about Lura being killed, I was
Speaker 3: obviously very emotional, and I don't know, I just sat
Speaker 3: on my bed at my rent, I had a house
Speaker 3: in Palisades in California, and just wrote the song. Came
Speaker 3: out pretty quickly, and I think kind of the good
Speaker 3: ones generally do that. So I recorded it and then
Speaker 3: I asked her parents if it's okay if I put
Speaker 3: it on the record, because I really wrote it for her,
Speaker 3: and her parents were really gracious and said, well, maybe
Speaker 3: you can bring some solace to someone else, because she
Speaker 3: was their only child. And so I released it. And
Speaker 3: then Tony Geary, who was on was Luke on the
Speaker 3: soap opera The Genie Francis that played the Laura character
Speaker 3: had left to go pursued acting career in films and
Speaker 3: they rady suffered stuff. So Tony was a big fan
Speaker 3: of that record and got the idea to bring her
Speaker 3: back using the song. Unfortunately, I wasn't I wouldn't have
Speaker 3: been a favor of that.
Speaker 2: But there's a rule.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's different now, but at the time, if they
Speaker 3: don't play enough of it, they don't need a license.
Speaker 3: So they would just play the Hey Law, you know,
Speaker 3: and just ghosted in and they brought the Genie Francis
Speaker 3: character back. But I had no control. I couldn't stop
Speaker 3: it because I felt particularly bad for Laura's parents, who
Speaker 3: I'd just trying to honor their daughter, and then suddenly
Speaker 3: it's become this you know, but you know, it certainly
Speaker 3: helped the song get a lot of attention, but stupidly,
Speaker 3: if I could have stopped it, I would have because
Speaker 3: I just felt this a very personal thing and it
Speaker 3: wasn't meant to be, you know, a prop at a
Speaker 3: TV show.
Speaker 2: So you continue to make records, they're all get a
Speaker 2: lot of publicity marketing, but commercially they're less successful. What
Speaker 2: did that feel like on the inside.
Speaker 3: Well, it's disappointing, but at the same time, I had
Speaker 3: to remind myself that, you know, this kind of meteoric
Speaker 3: success I had, it's incredibly rare, So how do you
Speaker 3: sustain that. It's very hard to sustain. So the Beatles
Speaker 3: did it. People do it. But you know, I just
Speaker 3: I felt that, you know, I was very blessed to
Speaker 3: have happened to be what happened and gave me a foundation.
Speaker 3: I'm still turning. I'm talking to Bob Left. That's a
Speaker 3: meet up. Come on, It's like I'm out turing. So
Speaker 3: I met the Pope. So I don't know. I just
Speaker 3: it was it's again, it's all about the work. And
Speaker 3: I said at one point I did have this sort
Speaker 3: of self doubt and I asked Rob, why do we
Speaker 3: keep doing this? We keep making these records that are
Speaker 3: I think better than that We've done it yet he said,
Speaker 3: it's because it's what we do, you know, And that's true.
Speaker 3: So we were always doing them again back to joy
Speaker 3: as the soundhole on my knee, you know, doing it
Speaker 3: because that's what we do. So we did them, and
Speaker 3: I think the records have gotten better and better. Had
Speaker 3: an now like doctor Faith or secret Lout of these
Speaker 3: later ones that I made. You know, there I think
Speaker 3: to me as good as anything I've done better, probably
Speaker 3: as far as the number of good songs on there
Speaker 3: and the quality of the production and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: I've I've gotten better with age. But and the people
Speaker 3: that discover those records and like them would say that,
Speaker 3: but you know, on a on a bigger scale, No,
Speaker 3: But it's okay because I've you know, I had my
Speaker 3: turn at the trough and I'm doing fine. You know,
Speaker 3: I've been able to support my family and have a
Speaker 3: good life and do what I love to do.
Speaker 2: You know, how did it end with Warner Brothers? What
Speaker 2: did they say?
Speaker 3: Well, the you know, one last thing I was gonna
Speaker 3: say about but no, somebody like Stinging. He came from
Speaker 3: the police, he came from a rock background. So he
Speaker 3: built a foundation with that, and those kind of fans
Speaker 3: are very loyal, you know, and it's totally deserved. And
Speaker 3: then he created this amazing career on his own. That
Speaker 3: one in the case, Alvo was more of a pop
Speaker 3: kind of idle kind of person, and they tend to
Speaker 3: be more more. I think it's it's hard to sustay
Speaker 3: something like that. Well, Warners After the second record, we
Speaker 3: did well, but not as well as the first record.
Speaker 3: I had changed management because irving with GMCA, and I
Speaker 3: started being managed by Sandy Gallen, and one of the
Speaker 3: guys in his office said, you need to make a
Speaker 3: more rock record, show your guitar playing and do that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. So it made Every Turn of the
Speaker 3: World my third record that didn't have a flamingo on.
Speaker 3: It had me in a race car because I raced
Speaker 3: cards for a while. It was a very edgy kind
Speaker 3: of more rock record, and the single rush I reat
Speaker 3: with Warner's wonted release Every Turn of the World, which
Speaker 3: is more of a rock pop tie track. But Sandy's
Speaker 3: people want to release Charmed the Snake, which is this
Speaker 3: very aggressive kind of avant garde record, and pop radio
Speaker 3: couldn't play it because it was too heavy for them.
Speaker 3: Rock radio wouldn't play it because it's some Christopher Cross,
Speaker 3: and so the record didn't do anything. Then finally Lenny said,
Speaker 3: Lady Walker, so just go make a Christopher Cross record.
Speaker 3: So then I made Back on My Mind, which I
Speaker 3: think is actually quite a good record, but the love
Speaker 3: and feeling was gone by then. They just, you know,
Speaker 3: it was too long. After that, I think that possibly
Speaker 3: that things started to transition and it became DreamWorks and
Speaker 3: all that anyway, But it was just sort of Bonnie
Speaker 3: left and went to Capital and where she had a
Speaker 3: massive hit, and so it was just sort of agreed that,
Speaker 3: you know, it was over, like a marriage or anything else.
Speaker 3: It'd been a good run, but probably the best time
Speaker 3: I move on. And I couldn't really argue with it,
Speaker 3: because you know, part of me, I suppose you always
Speaker 3: blame the record company. Wasn't their fault. But so I
Speaker 3: I left, and I moved up to Santa Barbara and
Speaker 3: was not doing anything for quite a while. And then
Speaker 3: I got a call from my attorney who had some
Speaker 3: money from Japan. Some Japanese label wanted me to make
Speaker 3: a record. So I made a record called Window, and
Speaker 3: I just you know, kept doing that. Every few years,
Speaker 3: I'd make another record. Somehow got money and found money
Speaker 3: and made a record, and as I said, you know,
Speaker 3: humility aside. I think the records have gotten better and
Speaker 3: better over the years, and I think this real good
Speaker 3: work there. But you know, most people come to my
Speaker 3: show's probably come for those five or six songs that
Speaker 3: they know, but there's always a few out there, they'll
Speaker 3: yell out some obscure in fact, really funny. There's a
Speaker 3: song on Doctor Fifn called Dreamers, which I think is
Speaker 3: a Robin I wrote. It's a good song, and I'll
Speaker 3: admit in the concerts I'm with them and secure when
Speaker 3: I play the deep cuts, because I've got my hits.
Speaker 3: But when I'm playing the deep cuts, I realize a
Speaker 3: lot of people are waiting for Arthur or whatever. In fact,
Speaker 3: some night's second song right like they'll win. I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: delay gratification, you know, hang on a second. But so
Speaker 3: one night recently at a show, some guy yells out
Speaker 3: something and I thought he said free bird, and so
Speaker 3: I said, hey, look scattered and I have an agreement.
Speaker 3: I don't play their songs that are playing my songs.
Speaker 3: But he actually said dreamers. He wrote it on social
Speaker 3: media and said no, I said dreamers. So I'm so
Speaker 3: kind of, you know, a shell shocked by that that
Speaker 3: I couldn't even imagine that someone would yell out an
Speaker 3: obscure deep track, but I did. I did a couple
Speaker 3: of shows in Austin some years ago called the No
Speaker 3: Hits Show. Tony Bucks, come hear me play unplugged but
Speaker 3: no hits, and now I got one hundred people, small club.
Speaker 3: It was great, just played inside tracks, you know, but
Speaker 3: all artists want that, you know, all artists want, you know,
Speaker 3: people to embrace their obscure material.
Speaker 2: You know, if I come to your show and I
Speaker 2: call out an obscure track, will you play.
Speaker 3: It if we can? Sometimes I'll start it and kind
Speaker 3: of play a little bit of it. But the guys
Speaker 3: are always in charts, so you know, they used to
Speaker 3: have that thing. I saw Bowie do it once where
Speaker 3: it was people called out songs and I realized later
Speaker 3: it was sort of staged. But I've wanted to have
Speaker 3: the balls to do that and just go anybody want
Speaker 3: to hear something, and I probably should do it, but
Speaker 3: having one hundred songs, it'd be a little tough even
Speaker 3: for me. I can't remember my own some of my
Speaker 3: own songs, I you know, so it would be an
Speaker 3: interesting experiment, you know. But people yell out things sometimes
Speaker 3: and I'll go, oh, thanks so much for that. You know,
Speaker 3: We're not playing that tonight, but thank you. And then
Speaker 3: sometimes people are going to say, hey, could you play
Speaker 3: this tune at the show in San Diego? They will
Speaker 3: learn it, you will play it.
Speaker 2: How did you end up getting married again?
Speaker 3: Well, I was looking at California and uh, I've been
Speaker 3: stinkled for twelve years or so, and you know, met
Speaker 3: somebody and I guess you know, people from a family,
Speaker 3: you know you somehow, especially live in somech Texas, you
Speaker 3: grow up with those kind of traditional values and you
Speaker 3: sort of want that duality. So in juxtaposition of my career,
Speaker 3: I thought, hey, I should have this too, you know,
Speaker 3: I should have like a regular life, you know. And
Speaker 3: like Michael McDonald, he and Aby have been married for
Speaker 3: thirty five years or whatever, and you know, our kids
Speaker 3: grow up together. So I had other role models that
Speaker 3: have successful marriag just so try again. So met Jane
Speaker 3: and we got married. We were married for eighteen years.
Speaker 3: So that was a good run. But you know, it
Speaker 3: just ran itself out, you know. And I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's my fault. Maybe I'm difficult to live with.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I think one thing is when
Speaker 3: I got married the first time, I eloped, and when
Speaker 3: my father got I called my parents to tell him
Speaker 3: I was getting married. I never met her. My mother
Speaker 3: got on the phone and tried to be welcoming, but
Speaker 3: my father at one point he groffly grabbed the phone
Speaker 3: so let me talk to her, and he said, hey, listen,
Speaker 3: my dad was you know, he was a brilliant man,
Speaker 3: but alcoholic and you know, didn't have the best bedside matter.
Speaker 3: But he said, I want you to listen to me
Speaker 3: very closely. And you know my wife first wife said yeah.
Speaker 3: He said, you're marrying a musician. Do you know what
Speaker 3: that means? And she said, yeah, it's very exciting because no,
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about all that crack. You're marrying a
Speaker 3: musician and they are a different breed, so just be
Speaker 3: sure you know what you're getting into. And he gave
Speaker 3: a come back to my mom, and I thought that
Speaker 3: was one of the most insightful things I'd ever experienced
Speaker 3: when I thought about it later, because musicians are a
Speaker 3: different breed artist, and you're married to not just them,
Speaker 3: but you're married to their career and their work, and
Speaker 3: if you get jealous of it, it's over. And I
Speaker 3: don't care what the gender is. You know, you know,
Speaker 3: Larry Klein Graham Nast there with Joni Mitchell, so they
Speaker 3: did fine. But I'm just saying, you.
Speaker 2: Know, so, how do you end up going out with Ringo.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't.
Speaker 2: I thought you did Ringo's All Star Band.
Speaker 3: No got from your mouth to God's Ear. No. I've
Speaker 3: tried and tried and tried, and of course Luke, Todd,
Speaker 3: Greg Listinette, they've all thrown my name in the fire,
Speaker 3: you know, to Ringo, and I've met Ringo. But I think,
Speaker 3: and I think personally i'd be perfect for it because
Speaker 3: they've got a couple of hits and I play and sing.
Speaker 3: But at the time they were really pitching me to Ringo.
Speaker 3: He was he'd had Colin hay and some different heat
Speaker 3: people play with him, and he said, look, I don't
Speaker 3: want to reinvent the Wheel. I just want to get people.
Speaker 3: And when Todd left, he got Colin Hay back. I
Speaker 3: think he said, I just want to get somebody I've
Speaker 3: already gott I've already used because I know what I'm doing.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to do this that much longer. So
Speaker 3: it never worked out, but everybody tried, and it was
Speaker 3: certainly a big dream of mine, but I never got
Speaker 3: to do it. I've done a lot of these Beatles
Speaker 3: shows with Todd run Gren where we go out and
Speaker 3: play and any like.
Speaker 2: So that was I was going to ask you about next.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I thought you did All Star band?
Speaker 2: How did you do that?
Speaker 3: Ringo calls? I've got to get off this call. Uh. Well,
Speaker 3: my manager, Toby Lidwig does a lot of concert promotion.
Speaker 3: He's got the Abba shows and all that stuff, and
Speaker 3: so he came up with this concept of doing Beetle
Speaker 3: tribute shows. We've done about seven of them, you know,
Speaker 3: themes Sergeant Pepper whatever it is. And the very first
Speaker 3: one he did I wasn't on. That was Alan Parsons
Speaker 3: and David Pack and Wilson John Outwhistle from Who. So
Speaker 3: then the next time Todd and I started doing them
Speaker 3: with Denny Lane, and we've done a whole bunch of them,
Speaker 3: and we just last time Todd picked Revolver in River Solim.
Speaker 3: We chose to songs from that. So put a band together.
Speaker 3: We just go out and do a few of our
Speaker 3: hits and do the deal things and they're very successful.
Speaker 3: People really love it and it's fun, you know, because
Speaker 3: the songs are timeless, and h Todd's really brilliant and
Speaker 3: fun to work with.
Speaker 2: So I do that.
Speaker 3: But it's Chris Todd Werker Bringo, but it's it's not
Speaker 3: like playing in the All Star band.
Speaker 2: And then what's it like working with Todd, who's a
Speaker 2: unique character, who's both a performer and a producer and
Speaker 2: an engineer to boot.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I've always said genius is a term
Speaker 3: I don't like to throw him out. I think it's
Speaker 3: true of Brian Joni you know there their son, but
Speaker 3: I will Todd's brilliant for sure, really really a unique,
Speaker 3: interesting guy, really really brilliant. And so he's I love Todd.
Speaker 3: I think he's great. And I think the key with
Speaker 3: Todd is if you can play and sing and you've
Speaker 3: got command to your instrument, you're okay with him, you know,
Speaker 3: if you're faking it or whatever. He doesn't have much
Speaker 3: patience for that. But he's funny as hell and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, really well read and a very clever guy.
Speaker 3: And so I was a huge fan. I mean the
Speaker 3: ballad the second record that Todd made.
Speaker 2: Was that's the best line.
Speaker 3: Okay, Todd, listen to this, this is well less. That's
Speaker 3: saying that. Whenever I talked to him about I say,
Speaker 3: why don't you play more things? In Beninni and Jean
Speaker 3: Or whaling wall those things. He said, oh you like
Speaker 3: all that shit? And he said what song? Todd said,
Speaker 3: what do you want me to play off that? And
Speaker 3: I said, well, how about be nice to me? And
Speaker 3: he said, oh, it's so whiney, you know. And that's
Speaker 3: that's perfect of Todd. You know, he can also be
Speaker 3: very self deprecating. But I've I've considered it to be
Speaker 3: real honored to get to work with him because he's
Speaker 3: a big influence on me in terms of my I
Speaker 3: used to play those tunes and bars and Quarterly the
Speaker 3: structures and all that stuff. He's incredibly brilliant, So I
Speaker 3: love having the opportunity I can to work with him.
Speaker 2: Now, you had a bad experience with COVID. Tell us
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Todd sent me a birthday message when I turned
Speaker 3: seventy and said, get a vaccine and get the fuck
Speaker 3: out of Texas because he lives in Kawaii, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So twenty twenty, I got COVID Alpha, which is the
Speaker 3: original strain. My girlfriend Joey and I got very sick.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea how you got it? Well?
Speaker 3: I went down to Mexico with Pat Benatar to play
Speaker 3: a show and nothing, nothing at all to do with Mexico.
Speaker 3: But at the time, you know, we weren't warned about
Speaker 3: masks and all that stuff. So I went down to
Speaker 3: Mexico when I looked at fans and different things, and
Speaker 3: pat nobody was wearing masks, Neil Nanemore. So I'm pretty
Speaker 3: sure I got it there, maybe from a fan or whatever,
Speaker 3: but I'm not blaming anybody. But I came back and
Speaker 3: I think probably gave it a joy and I think
Speaker 3: I got it mixed goo. I don't know. But at again,
Speaker 3: there was no you know, the government wasn't telling us
Speaker 3: a lot. You know, there was not a lot of
Speaker 3: information about it. So I got very, very sick, and
Speaker 3: I started getting over. I started feeling better for a
Speaker 3: couple of days, and then I was sitting at my
Speaker 3: couch at home and I suddenly said to Joy, I
Speaker 3: can't I can't move my legs. I'm paralyzed. And we
Speaker 3: called the doctor and he said, you have gallambarre syndrome.
Speaker 3: Get to the get to the ear right away. So
Speaker 3: I went down there. By that time, my hands were
Speaker 3: also paralyzed. On my face kind of like I had. Ah.
Speaker 3: I mean, what's that disease? Uh? People get anyway. Uh,
Speaker 3: the bill's point to Bell's policy, it's kind of like that.
Speaker 3: But it was from my hands from paralyzed, couldn't walk,
Speaker 3: went to the hospital. I was in ar about a month,
Speaker 3: got treatment. Uh. It was tough because during COVID protocol,
Speaker 3: people couldn't visit me. I was alone in the in
Speaker 3: this room, alone day after day of pain because it's
Speaker 3: a spinal thing, and so it was very painful. But
Speaker 3: I finally got out of hospital. I got good treatment quickly,
Speaker 3: and most most of the symptoms abated over the next year.
Speaker 3: They say all the damage happens in the first two
Speaker 3: weeks and then all the healings in the next year.
Speaker 3: So over the next year, my legs through therapy physical therapy,
Speaker 3: I got used to my legs about eighty percent back,
Speaker 3: my hands, relaxed my face, and so I kind of
Speaker 3: came out of it. My legs are still compromised a bit.
Speaker 3: Stairs are hard to climb and that sort of thing,
Speaker 3: but I can get around. But that was tough. It
Speaker 3: was a very tough time for me in my life.
Speaker 3: It was very humbling and really gave me a window
Speaker 3: into people with disabilities that I've never had it's not
Speaker 3: a fair world to those people, I mean, trying to
Speaker 3: get around in a wheelchair. It's just we've done better,
Speaker 3: but we had a long way to go making the
Speaker 3: world accessible, you know. So that was a real, you know,
Speaker 3: taste of character. But I think I you know, my
Speaker 3: girlfriend was incredibly supportive, and friends who were in My
Speaker 3: friend jeff Foscuett, we haven't talked about yet, Jeffrey. He
Speaker 3: would stay on the phone with me at night, three
Speaker 3: in the morning, just talking me through just you know,
Speaker 3: my experience with this thing. It was just terrible. So
Speaker 3: I got through it and h thanks to the doctors
Speaker 3: and everything and nobody. Lot of people don't die from it.
Speaker 3: The guy Joseph Heller who wrote Catch twenty two, he
Speaker 3: got it. He was in a coma for two years
Speaker 3: on a ventilator. I fortunately was treated quick enough to
Speaker 3: where I never had pulmonary involvement. But MIMA is all scalable.
Speaker 3: But it was a real eye opening thing, Bob, for sure,
Speaker 3: I feel very blessed to have gotten through it, but
Speaker 3: also to have it happen when I was younger, I
Speaker 3: mean older, because if I'd been like twenty, I think
Speaker 3: it would have been rough. Now you know, I get
Speaker 3: a run fine, and I'm not trying to ski anymore anyway,
Speaker 3: So that's okay.
Speaker 2: Were you a skier before I was well?
Speaker 3: I never skied until I was thirty, when I got
Speaker 3: some of that money and I went out and learned
Speaker 3: how to skik because you know Army Bratt. We never
Speaker 3: went anywhere. Actually I remember I went skiing Don Henley
Speaker 3: and has a place in ask But I would skal
Speaker 3: with Henley in Eskmen. But so yeah, I skied, and
Speaker 3: I race cars and all that stuff. But none of
Speaker 3: that anymore, but it's appropriate. I'm too old anyway.
Speaker 2: So are you done recovering or will you regain any
Speaker 2: more use of your legs?
Speaker 3: No? No, All the recovering happens in the first year.
Speaker 3: So I've healed as much as I can. I have.
Speaker 3: They do these tests and so all the healing is done.
Speaker 3: I can walk fine. It's just that like when I'm
Speaker 3: in Manhattan, if I walk three or four blocks, it's
Speaker 3: like I walk kein blocks. You know, my legs are
Speaker 3: very inefficient and stairs are difficult. But I'm doing okay.
Speaker 3: I can I can get around and walking and stuff.
Speaker 3: It helps aerobically, but None of that's going to ever
Speaker 3: change my leg the way my legs are because it's
Speaker 3: spinal damage. It's not musk, it's not you know, muscular.
Speaker 3: But I'm doing fine. I can get around okay. I
Speaker 3: worked with a walker for a long time after the
Speaker 3: chair and that it came, but I can. I have
Speaker 3: to be super careful, like on stairs and stuff. But
Speaker 3: I'm I'm doing okay and I'm not playing. I rest
Speaker 3: a lot during the day on the bus so I
Speaker 3: can stand the ninety minutes. But yeah, I'm very lucky.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned Jeffrey Jeffrey Fasquett, guitarist, key member of
Speaker 2: the Latter Day Beach Boys and Brian Wilson tour. Tell
Speaker 2: us about how you met Jeffrey in your experience with him.
Speaker 2: He recently passed.
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know what's really funny, I was thinking about this.
Speaker 3: I always called Jeffrey Jeffrey Foscuett, and it's a British name,
Speaker 3: And one day Jerry Beckley from America called Foskett and
Speaker 3: I said, but Fuskett, that's how his name is really pronounced.
Speaker 3: And I asked jeff Jeffrey about he said, well, yes,
Speaker 3: it's pronounce Fuskett, and I said, I've been calling you
Speaker 3: Fosquette all this time, and he goes, it's okay, I
Speaker 3: don't care. And I said, well, how the hell did
Speaker 3: I get calling you Foskett anyway? And he goes, Carl,
Speaker 3: Carl called me Fosquett, and I said, oh, so all
Speaker 3: comes back to Carl. So in nineteen one, they when
Speaker 3: I was starting to another page the album with Laura
Speaker 3: on it, The World that Open was my oyster because
Speaker 3: I'd had this big record, so I could call anybody,
Speaker 3: you know. I called Art, Garfuncle, and I helled these people,
Speaker 3: and of course my dream was to have Carl Wilson
Speaker 3: sang on my record. So I called Carl as he
Speaker 3: was it said so gracious, and he came down and
Speaker 3: sang with me, and it was just, you know, unbelievable
Speaker 3: dream come true for me. But through that connection, Carl
Speaker 3: and it became fast friends, and I started getting involved
Speaker 3: with the Beach Boys, but I opened for them a lot.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I would sit in and sing tunes of Brian's
Speaker 3: and that sort of thing, And of course Jeffrey was
Speaker 3: in the band, and then he also later transitioned to
Speaker 3: being Brian's MD and so I got into that whole
Speaker 3: beach boy world and Jeffrey was in the middle of
Speaker 3: all that. So we just became again fast friends through Carl,
Speaker 3: and that friendship sustained till the day died. You know,
Speaker 3: and great amazing singer. He and I always joked that
Speaker 3: the two of us together made one Carl. You know
Speaker 3: what we sang, but you know, skilled harmonic musician, guitarist, producer,
Speaker 3: amazing singer and one of these guys networks. He knew everybody.
Speaker 3: He knows everybody you know he and but a lot
Speaker 3: of that was he would admit through Brian because because
Speaker 3: he had such access to Brian, and he was sort
Speaker 3: of Brian's guy. You know, he'd be hanging out with
Speaker 3: McCartney or hanging out with whoever because of Brian. But
Speaker 3: so you know, he always had he always knew everything
Speaker 3: before anybody else. Like if you try to scoop him
Speaker 3: by saying, hey I heard, he said, yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: He was that way. But he was an incredibly good
Speaker 3: friend and we had a lot of fun playing that
Speaker 3: music too. I went to London to Albert Hall and
Speaker 3: played with them and did some songs with the band.
Speaker 3: Brian wasn't there. But and through that all association, when
Speaker 3: Brian first started trying to come out, he did an
Speaker 3: album called Imagination that was sort of a constructed record
Speaker 3: by this guy, Joe Thomas. But they wanted a band, yeah,
Speaker 3: and they formed this band. It was Paul Schaeffer, myself,
Speaker 3: Timmy Schmidt, and a couple of national guys and we
Speaker 3: were Brian's band and we did Letterman and we did
Speaker 3: Farm Made Medity, things like that where we we you know.
Speaker 3: But it was and Brian was first coming back and
Speaker 3: it was tough because he was very uncomfortable. You know,
Speaker 3: he's gotten much much more comfortable, but at that point
Speaker 3: it was really terrifying for him to suddenly be thrust
Speaker 3: out on stage again.
Speaker 2: Well, I certainly know that album that really sounds like
Speaker 2: the Beach Boys. I saw that tour Lonely See You,
Speaker 2: phenomenal record. You're a big Beach Boys fan. What's your
Speaker 2: favorite Beach Boys album or a couple of songs?
Speaker 3: Well, pet sounds, I mean, you know, that's that's the
Speaker 3: one McCartney and Lennon that blew their mind. I think,
Speaker 3: I mean, God only knows. Paul says, the greatest song
Speaker 3: ever written and I would agree they had a poll
Speaker 3: at some point and the greatest song was Somewhere with
Speaker 3: the Rainbow, which I wouldn't argue either. But so God
Speaker 3: only knows because the way it's it's the songwritings he
Speaker 3: and Tony ash are amazing. But if Carl sang it,
Speaker 3: you know, and I have I have a handwritten lyric
Speaker 3: here in my house that Brian sent me. This handwritten
Speaker 3: God only knows, signed by Brian because he said, you
Speaker 3: know you love Carl, so I thought you'd like to
Speaker 3: have that. But so God only knows. But there's a
Speaker 3: tune that Mike and Al wrote called all This is That,
Speaker 3: which I love too. But then I just did a cover.
Speaker 3: Uh everybody says, watch you do a Carl cover record.
Speaker 3: I'm not, you know, I'm gonna touch that stuff, but
Speaker 3: I did. Recently I did a cover of this two
Speaker 3: Field Flows, which is on I think it's on Holland.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I did it completely different than Carl would
Speaker 3: do it. But so I'd say God only knows that certainly.
Speaker 3: And you know I wasn't made for these times. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, the warmth of the sun. I mean, I
Speaker 3: just go on and on and on. I mean his
Speaker 3: catalog is crazy, but I do love that tune. All
Speaker 3: this is that but there and of course surfs up.
Speaker 3: You know pet sounds me. This serfs up a whole
Speaker 3: other level. It's kind of like Asia or something. It's
Speaker 3: just uh. I love the work as much as some
Speaker 3: people didn't like the collaboration with Van Dyke. I did.
Speaker 3: I love those obscure, heaty lyrics that Van Dyke used
Speaker 3: about music.
Speaker 2: Now, Carl had a great voice. I love what he
Speaker 2: did with I was made to love her. But my
Speaker 2: favorite Carl song his girl Don't Tell Me from Summer
Speaker 2: Days and Summer Nights.
Speaker 3: I met you last sun Kennos Day. Yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker 3: I love that song and it's one of my faves.
Speaker 3: Carl his voice, Brian's Brian. But I really think Carl
Speaker 3: was the strongest of all those singers. I mean, oh Darl,
Speaker 3: I mean not Darling. With the song of the Beach
Speaker 3: boy was I've had to sing that on stage and
Speaker 3: forget about it. I mean it's so hard to sing,
Speaker 3: and I would watch him just belt it out. The
Speaker 3: guy had an incredible instrument, So yeah, lonely see I
Speaker 3: would sit around and just listen to the dark, to
Speaker 3: them and emulate them. And so Carl was definitely my
Speaker 3: vocal hero, and Brian's certainly a major writing hero. And
Speaker 3: it's funny. I went to dinner with Brian and Jeffrey
Speaker 3: and we went to McCormick miss or something, and so
Speaker 3: I picked up the check and Brian said, you buying
Speaker 3: my dinner? And I said yeah. He goes why and
Speaker 3: I said, well, I just want to somehow say thank
Speaker 3: you for all that you've done for me. Brian said,
Speaker 3: what did I do? I said, I don't know. It's
Speaker 3: taught me everything I know. But he's so humble, you know,
Speaker 3: he kind of just kind of shrugged. It was cute,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I learned a lot from those guys, all
Speaker 3: of them, you know, even Dennis. I mean that song
Speaker 3: Forever that didnist saying oh nomenal, yeah, unbelievable and Brian.
Speaker 3: Dennis brought Brian that and he had the song, but
Speaker 3: he needed a bridge. And the bridge song is so
Speaker 3: Brian because it's a you know, in my huhever and
Speaker 3: then it goes into this bridge that goes to a
Speaker 3: whole nother planet, and that's so Brian, and Brian sort
Speaker 3: of helped Dennis you know, write that, But I love
Speaker 3: that song, love it, you know, on.
Speaker 2: The same album It's about time. You know that song
Speaker 2: open Sunflower or second song. Okay, I used to blow
Speaker 2: my mind sky high looking for that. Okay, your songs
Speaker 2: in your royalty stream, do you still own those?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know. Actually your assistant Margaret was telling me
Speaker 3: she works for BMG for a while, and I did
Speaker 3: sell my catalog early on the first four records to BMCH.
Speaker 3: But there's a reversion thing that you can file these
Speaker 3: reversions after thirty five years, there's a law that all
Speaker 3: that reverts back to you. And so I was very
Speaker 3: cautious and out all that because I quickly learned that
Speaker 3: was a mistake and nothing against BMG. But my advice
Speaker 3: to wrong writers is usually don't sell your cattle. Don't
Speaker 3: say you're publishing. But so I was able to get
Speaker 3: it back because after thirty five years you can do that.
Speaker 3: You got to be do it right, figure out how
Speaker 3: to do it, but you can do it. And the
Speaker 3: same with the masters.
Speaker 2: Okay, just because you regret it, why did you regret
Speaker 2: it and would you sell it again?
Speaker 3: Well, the reason at the time was, you know, I
Speaker 3: got some money, but nothing like the dollars we're seeing
Speaker 3: float around now. These multiples are crazy. But the real
Speaker 3: reason was I signed and I got this money, which
Speaker 3: was some money. But right after I signed with BMG,
Speaker 3: in Sync recorded Sailing on their first record, but nothing
Speaker 3: to do with was BMG said we're gonna get you
Speaker 3: all these commercials and all this great stuff. BMG had nothing.
Speaker 3: Johnny Wright, who produced and managed in Sink, got the
Speaker 3: idea and used his Florida people to construct this R
Speaker 3: and B pop version of sal It was on their
Speaker 3: first record. The record was massive. BMG made all their
Speaker 3: money back in one feel smooth. So had I just
Speaker 3: not done it, I couldn't. I would all lend it
Speaker 3: come myself. I mean, you know, McCartney's a big collector
Speaker 3: of catalogs and it's a smart thing to do from
Speaker 3: a business decision. But uh, and on these these these
Speaker 3: three sixty five deals and stuff, I'm a big fan
Speaker 3: of all that. You know, royalties have always been too low.
Speaker 3: I mean my first royalty rate was twelve percent, you know,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I uh, I've been around long enough. I
Speaker 3: could get it back, but you got to you got
Speaker 3: to make a concerted effort to hire a good lawyer
Speaker 3: to do that. But there's a law now that it
Speaker 3: reverts back, just like there was a law seven years
Speaker 3: after the seven years after you record your record, you
Speaker 3: can re record it. That used to be a lot
Speaker 3: that the labels are changing that you know they're going
Speaker 3: to say now you can't do that anymore, because you know,
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift just did that. She recorded all her stuff again.
Speaker 3: But you know these are all just turns of the road,
Speaker 3: you know, bread less traveled or whatever. I mean, it's
Speaker 3: all good. I mean, you live and learn. And again
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here talking to you getting ready. I just
Speaker 3: got tough with the seven week term. I just got
Speaker 3: the pope. I'm going to be going out in the
Speaker 3: summer again. I get ready to go to Lincoln Center
Speaker 3: and do a benefit for Michael Brecker, the great Jess
Speaker 3: sax player. So you know, I'm I'm doing lots of
Speaker 3: fun stuff and life is good.
Speaker 2: So how much do you work and how much do
Speaker 2: you want to work?
Speaker 3: Well, I want to work all the time. I mean,
Speaker 3: seventy two after what I went through, I want to
Speaker 3: make able of sunshine. So I'd like to work as
Speaker 3: much as I can these like four or five years.
Speaker 3: So I want to be out there doing Beetle shows
Speaker 3: with Todd or doing my own thing or whatever I
Speaker 3: can do, so playing Ringers All Star band, whatever it is.
Speaker 3: I love being on the road. I love being on
Speaker 3: the bus. I live on the bus and so I
Speaker 3: I love that. And that's where this thing gets. Like
Speaker 3: my girlfriend Joy is so fantastic because she gets it.
Speaker 3: She gets me, She gets all that and she that
Speaker 3: that's where I want to be. But she doesn't take
Speaker 3: it personally and she gets that that's part of the
Speaker 3: animal I am. But yeah, you can ask my manager.
Speaker 3: I'm like, when are we going back out? But i mean,
Speaker 3: after seven weeks, I'm fatigued a little bit and a
Speaker 3: little break, but I'm I'm definitely ready to go out again.
Speaker 2: So where did you meet this woman who can understand
Speaker 2: your lifestyle?
Speaker 3: I met her here in Austin at a dinner party.
Speaker 3: I went actually with Eric Johnson and she was there
Speaker 3: and we were introduced. And I was by myself at
Speaker 3: the time and she was as well, and we were introduced,
Speaker 3: and so I just kind of reached out to her
Speaker 3: and we you know, connected, and so you know how
Speaker 3: things work out. But she's wonderful. Him's joy and she
Speaker 3: works in nonprofit healthcare, which is a very rewarding and
Speaker 3: a career that I really have so much respect for
Speaker 3: helping people with health care needs. But she's you know,
Speaker 3: we got together. We've been together around ten years or so,
Speaker 3: so it's later in life. So she's just and not
Speaker 3: that you know, this thing with not understanding artist is
Speaker 3: that pervasive. It's just that it can be a problem
Speaker 3: you've got to understand. And Joe laughs about it. She
Speaker 3: thinks it's funny that you know. But maybe she loves
Speaker 3: the break too. Maybe she can't wait for me to leave.
Speaker 3: I don't know. But I'm really enjoying what I'm doing
Speaker 3: more than ever, and partly above because that all that
Speaker 3: early in security. You know, I've lost a lot of weight.
Speaker 3: I lost fifty pounds. I used to weigh too eighty
Speaker 3: five and now I weighed to twenty. I lost fifty
Speaker 3: pounds because of gambret and I've Type two diabetes. So
Speaker 3: I'm really conscious about my eating of it so now,
Speaker 3: and I want to lose a little bit more about
Speaker 3: lost love with So I'm feeling more confident physically but
Speaker 3: also musically. I feel much much more confident in my
Speaker 3: skills and what I'm able to do. And now I'm
Speaker 3: surrounded by these amazing musicians on stage that are just
Speaker 3: world class, and so every night they bring stuff to
Speaker 3: the stage that's just inspiring. So it's really fun for
Speaker 3: me to step out there and you know, see what's
Speaker 3: going to happen each night.
Speaker 2: You know, you've been fantastic, very forthcoming. I really have
Speaker 2: to thank you. I could talk to you all day.
Speaker 2: It's we're from the same areas, so many similarities. You
Speaker 2: have the success, but you tell such a great story.
Speaker 2: I want to thank you for taking this time to
Speaker 2: speak to my audience.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm a huge fan. I told you that in
Speaker 3: the email, but I'm a huge fan. I have so
Speaker 3: much respect for what you do and say. I think
Speaker 3: you're incredibly honest and you say a lot of things
Speaker 3: that need to be said. I think to the world
Speaker 3: about music and you know, and you tell it like
Speaker 3: it is, and I think we need that right now.
Speaker 3: So and I was saying, you know, I don't know
Speaker 3: a lot inviies anywhere, but I gotta say it's been
Speaker 3: a lot of fun. I was nervous, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: talking to you today. But you know you did tell me,
Speaker 3: you said it's not a gotcha, you know, and you're
Speaker 3: you're you're true to your word. You know.
Speaker 2: Well, as I say, you know, you were somewhat reluctant
Speaker 2: and then you were so great. I mean, you never
Speaker 2: know what to expect. I'm not blowing smoke. Well, you
Speaker 2: were really great, very forthcoming. The story issues. I say,
Speaker 2: I could have gone down a million more avenues, So
Speaker 2: thanks again.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 2: Listen till next time. This is Bob left Sex