Speaker 1: Quest Love Suprema contain languages some of our listeners may
Speaker 1: find offensive. Listener discretion is advised. Supremo sub Frema roll
Speaker 1: call sub prima Suprema roll call sub prima sub prima
Speaker 1: roll call Suprema Deep Were you Romeo Blue Fans? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dick the scene. Yeah matter. Girl in Toronto named Juliette
Speaker 1: Green Subrema roll call Subrema sub prima roll call. My
Speaker 1: name is Fonte and I'm a winner. Check out my
Speaker 1: new hairstyle from my man's centner God Suma road call Sugar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm your fantasy. Yeah sure guy, Yeah, I taste so sweet.
Speaker 1: Bring my road unpaid Bill, Yeah, so much to do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: shout out to Lenny Kravitz. Yeah, my second favorite jew.
Speaker 1: There's only one thing on which to focus. Yeah, boss
Speaker 1: Bill wants to know. Yeah, why did everybody hate circuits?
Speaker 1: Roll car? Road Car? It's like, yes, so fresh, so clean.
Speaker 1: Lenny Kravitz is here. Oh yeah, and I'm black velveteen R.
Speaker 1: My name is Lenny. Yeah, I just woke up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be really hard to get me to spoke
Speaker 1: up Roma roll Wait, I gotta say something real quick. Uh,
Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, let it just let it be known that, yeah,
Speaker 1: was not dressed like this door Mike Burbiglia. She didn't
Speaker 1: have that gold velvet on. No, not for she has
Speaker 1: gold velvet and she gold velvet. Team. I'm going out laterally. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is for all my ladies. That was day was
Speaker 1: where I was sitting. Okay, there you go. Yeah, girl
Speaker 1: was sitting out tonight. Yeah. I was gonna say, they
Speaker 1: got to come out every once and again every it is.
Speaker 1: It's atrees l and gentleman, welcome to another episode of course,
Speaker 1: Love Supreme. Uh. Actually, you know what I oh our
Speaker 1: guest today and apology because I never truly give him
Speaker 1: enough credit for his his influence and his artistry, and
Speaker 1: I believe that he has truly kept the the concept
Speaker 1: of what they once called in the eighties retroneuvo. I
Speaker 1: think Nelson George's coin that term retroneuvo slash instant vintage
Speaker 1: vibes alive long before the Daptone Empire or the cats
Speaker 1: that La cast from break Astro or you know anyone
Speaker 1: that's built empires off of keeping vintage vibes a lot
Speaker 1: Mark Rosson yea, yeah, yeah, every everyone you know this
Speaker 1: man was first so influential, without no doubt, even at
Speaker 1: this day and age, he's probably still the coolest dude
Speaker 1: to walk on the planet. Some thirty years after his debut,
Speaker 1: UH Let Love Rule UH came into our lives and
Speaker 1: we want to welcome thank you, brother Leonard. Wait, what's
Speaker 1: your middle names? Albert Leonard Albert Kravit. That's what he
Speaker 1: look I got his uncle name that tea Leonard Albert Kravice.
Speaker 1: So to to Bill and Steve. Yes, Now do you
Speaker 1: feel that the playing fields even, it's like a little
Speaker 1: more even? This is a very balanced that's right. You
Speaker 1: know the host is neutual. So I'm just saying your hands,
Speaker 1: but I mean I'm neutral. I'm just saying that, you know,
Speaker 1: we these two rarely. This is the most words they've
Speaker 1: spoken in like twelve combined episode totally. Anyway, n How
Speaker 1: how are you doing, Pale? I'm good man. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try and be as professional as possible on that. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know you, So I want to explain my
Speaker 1: road call real quick, because that was a mess. First
Speaker 1: of all, your your timing was like that that was me.
Speaker 1: I feel like you did that on purpose though, no No,
Speaker 1: I was trying to sink sugar your song and I
Speaker 1: sucked it all up. Okay, so that's that coming in
Speaker 1: later and fix that. No, we can't. We can't fix
Speaker 1: any road calls. But sorry, Yeah that's bad. So how's
Speaker 1: it going, man? It's going really well. Man. I feel
Speaker 1: I feel rate creatively. UM, I just had an amazing
Speaker 1: time making this record, raised vibration, and I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm where I'm supposed to be, which, like you said,
Speaker 1: after thirty years, it feels really good too. I feel
Speaker 1: like you're still being completely authentic to yourself, and that
Speaker 1: you're still excited to make music. UM, having amazing experiences
Speaker 1: like like the first ones were, you know. Um, so
Speaker 1: you're saying there was a time period in which you
Speaker 1: didn't know if you were coming or going or or
Speaker 1: well right before making this album, Um, because I've done
Speaker 1: so much and I've gone too many places musically, I
Speaker 1: really wasn't sure who I was at that moment, what
Speaker 1: I had to say, where I was going stylistically with
Speaker 1: the music. Um. A lot of people were giving opinions, UM,
Speaker 1: which is good about what they thought I should be doing,
Speaker 1: and UM, try this, try that work with this one.
Speaker 1: Do this. You never worked with the producer, you know,
Speaker 1: you always do everything yourself, you know, ah, and and
Speaker 1: so and and this whole thing about remaining relevant, which
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about because it really doesn't mean anything.
Speaker 1: Uh well to me, Um, being relevant is being true
Speaker 1: to who you are at any given time. Um, And
Speaker 1: what was I gonna go do? I was gonna go
Speaker 1: make a trap record, you know, like not that I
Speaker 1: don't dig it, but you know what I'm saying, like
Speaker 1: try to be that guy, like okay, let me go,
Speaker 1: let me go be hip, and so you know you could, right, So, Um,
Speaker 1: it's weird. So you're saying that that you were met
Speaker 1: with quasi indifference about Strut because you played No, I
Speaker 1: had not to do it. Strut like that was gone.
Speaker 1: It was after that, was after the tour, after the
Speaker 1: whole thing, And I knew I was going to make
Speaker 1: a record, and I had no idea what I was
Speaker 1: going to do. And so after trying this, trying that,
Speaker 1: doing this, doing that, listening to everybody writing all these
Speaker 1: tunes and that I was trying to write, um they
Speaker 1: were okay, um, but I wasn't feeling it like that.
Speaker 1: And so I just got really quiet, closed the studio door,
Speaker 1: went back to just live an island life, being quiet
Speaker 1: and just being out in nature. And I woke up
Speaker 1: one morning, like four in the morning with a song
Speaker 1: in my head Randy the studio started putting it down,
Speaker 1: and the floodgates just opened. You know. I had to
Speaker 1: I had I had to wait. I had to wait
Speaker 1: to receive what it is that I was being given.
Speaker 1: So when you're in your your island and the Bahamas, uh,
Speaker 1: is there a pressure like every morning that you wake
Speaker 1: up when you're like, Okay, where's my inspiration coming from?
Speaker 1: Because usually when people live and beautiful isolated places like that,
Speaker 1: usually the purposes is to connect with the land and
Speaker 1: receive ideas absolutely and just live. So I'm not on
Speaker 1: the schedule. I'm not you know, like I have to
Speaker 1: go in every day or I just wait until I
Speaker 1: feel it. And once I feel it, and once these
Speaker 1: dreams start and the music starts coming out, then it
Speaker 1: just keeps coming and then I'm just in there like
Speaker 1: for months, just working. You know. Yeah, So where were
Speaker 1: you born? I was born in bed stuy Brooklyn Troop
Speaker 1: and Coski Hoscot Troop Avenue three. I used to live.
Speaker 1: It was me j Mike Tyson. You know that crew
Speaker 1: you were in the Marcy Project, the same neighborhood. Okay,
Speaker 1: I see, Um in general, Well, I mean i've I've
Speaker 1: I've seen interviews before where just like you know, you
Speaker 1: were in two Worlds, Black and well you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: album was also called a Black and White World. So, um,
Speaker 1: but what was I mean to be a child in
Speaker 1: the sixties in Brooklyn? Uh? Was this a well received idea?
Speaker 1: Especially you've been before, born before. I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're I'm not trying to fish for your age. You
Speaker 1: look like twenty years ago because you still you had
Speaker 1: the hair style from when you first started. Really, but
Speaker 1: I know there was a six and the third digit
Speaker 1: of your birth year. So I'm just trying to figure
Speaker 1: out in terms. I mean, I really caught the seventies.
Speaker 1: I really caught the early seventies by the time I
Speaker 1: was really we're late sixties two. But um, I mean
Speaker 1: the first things I was hearing was Jackson five. Okay,
Speaker 1: so seventies. So how how what was your childhood like
Speaker 1: the Yeah, my mom at the time was doing theater.
Speaker 1: She was in a theater company called the Negro Ensemble.
Speaker 1: Company and where so many of our great African American
Speaker 1: actors and actresses come from. Um, so she was doing that.
Speaker 1: She was a secretary by day at NBC over Rockefeller Plaza.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I grew up in that building and uh
Speaker 1: yeah she she was a secretary for this guy named
Speaker 1: Ed Stanley. I forget what his position was. My dad
Speaker 1: was a producer. He started out as a page became
Speaker 1: a producer. They met there. They met at thirty Rock.
Speaker 1: They met at thirty Rock. Damn, so you're a thirty
Speaker 1: rock baby, Yes, they met. They met at thirty Rock.
Speaker 1: Uh did he ever say how how I wanted they
Speaker 1: caught her? But that feels disrespectful? Yes, how did he
Speaker 1: catch your eyes? He was very much into the arts,
Speaker 1: very much into music, very much into jazz. Um Like,
Speaker 1: he produced the Paganini show that was on there, and
Speaker 1: he was working with all these jazz musicians, hanging around
Speaker 1: with Louis Armstrong and all these folks, okay, and going
Speaker 1: to the theater. And he was that. He was that cat.
Speaker 1: And you know, he was kind of smooth, he was
Speaker 1: kind of he has he has some swagger. He was Ukrainian,
Speaker 1: you know, Russian jew. Uh Now, Ukraine gets specific. Before
Speaker 1: it was all Russia. Um, and he went after my
Speaker 1: mom and they were dating and and uh and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: then they got married. Russian Jews don't for their swagger.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Russian you know what I'm saying. All
Speaker 1: of us are yeah annotations now. And my mom was older,
Speaker 1: she was like in her no, but I mean she
Speaker 1: was like later thirties and um or late thirties almost.
Speaker 1: I remember when they met. Yeah, my mom hadn't been married.
Speaker 1: My mom was like she was holding out, so waiting
Speaker 1: for a real you know, waiting for a Russian Jew,
Speaker 1: right man, get on your mind. And they were. They
Speaker 1: were very friendly. You know who Bobby Short is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Bobby Bobby shut you usuld sing at the Cafe car.
Speaker 1: I haven't like New York. There you go. That's my ship.
Speaker 1: He's he's he's a brother who sang like Rogers and
Speaker 1: Heart and in Ellington and Cole Porter and Cafe Society singing.
Speaker 1: He wasn't that well, he's probably too young. I'm like,
Speaker 1: he sang that, but my father is a child. Oh
Speaker 1: that's him. He sang that. Charlie. Yeah. I think it
Speaker 1: was Lauren Hutton running around. He was a child, and
Speaker 1: she was anyway, they were, they were. They were all
Speaker 1: like a crew, and you grew up around Bobby Short. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Used to drive Bobby home after the gigs. When I
Speaker 1: got older, used to wait because I used to always
Speaker 1: go back like when I like when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I was going there since I was five years old.
Speaker 1: And then when I got older, you know, I still
Speaker 1: went love anytime I was in New York, I went
Speaker 1: to see Bobby and I would go to the second
Speaker 1: show and I'd drive him home. But anyway, the point
Speaker 1: was where you have I'm sure you have. You have
Speaker 1: for the longest I've known you, all of your your life.
Speaker 1: Foot notes. Oh, by the way that it's a mind
Speaker 1: blowing ship. I'm gonna skip a little bit ahead, but
Speaker 1: you're you're Sherman Hemsley. Story of the first time you
Speaker 1: smoke weed? Whatever? Yeah, was with Sherman people people, I've
Speaker 1: heard stories. You know. He was so different from his character.
Speaker 1: Used it had like an acid, I tried to explain.
Speaker 1: He used to drive in He had this silver Cadillac
Speaker 1: uh Seville, the box one first, and he had this
Speaker 1: this this Mexican brother named Ralph had a big old
Speaker 1: Curly Afro used to drive him and that car would
Speaker 1: pull on the lot. All you can see it was
Speaker 1: like teaching chong. All you can see was smoke and
Speaker 1: he was either jamming yes or the Grateful Dead Santana
Speaker 1: I tried. Okay, So the members of Gentle Giant manage.
Speaker 1: All right, which member of Heart is not married to
Speaker 1: what's his name from walling Stone Heart? Nancy? You mean, yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: so which one Anne is married to? Cameron Crowe? Right,
Speaker 1: I believe ye? So yes, So Nancy, her managers are
Speaker 1: members of Gentle Giant. And at the time when she
Speaker 1: came on the Tonight Show, and uh, she really didn't
Speaker 1: know who Gentle Giant was. And so she's just happened
Speaker 1: to mention like, yeah, my management, you know, they used
Speaker 1: to be a band together. Now they're you know, they're
Speaker 1: management and something like that. D're and something some giants
Speaker 1: something something gentle or gentle Giants. She said, yeah, what
Speaker 1: you heard? Those guys and we lost our collective minds
Speaker 1: because we're a lot of us are from the school
Speaker 1: with Jay Dilla, and he samples a lot of like
Speaker 1: prog rock and art rock stuff and got us into
Speaker 1: all that stuff. So early. Yes, that was Sherman stuff man, right,
Speaker 1: And so Sherman used to always play like you know,
Speaker 1: like when you listen to the radio on a black sitcom,
Speaker 1: you're supposed to like rerun. Used to always dance with Teddy,
Speaker 1: what's happening, what's happening? Get up? Get never noticed that.
Speaker 1: I never noticed that. Anytime we run dance, it's like
Speaker 1: the fake version, the fake version, and just like yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the and then a good times. It was
Speaker 1: Jimmy Horne's uh let's do it, listen, let's dance as
Speaker 1: the floor anyway. But Sherman Hemsley, whenever he's jamming, it's
Speaker 1: like g it's like something seven nineteen. That was his thing, man.
Speaker 1: And you know you always saw him in that VP
Speaker 1: suit with the gray hair. You know they put that
Speaker 1: gray hair, and he he didn't have gray hair then.
Speaker 1: And he'd be wearing some tattered blue jeans flares with
Speaker 1: with the with the yes tidy t shirt and and
Speaker 1: he'd be smoking some good but in that dress from
Speaker 1: straight up hippie. And I'm like, you know eleven, and
Speaker 1: uh my mom was watching me, like what you're doing
Speaker 1: going up in Sherman's room. So yeah, So are you
Speaker 1: saying that he was your your hippie shaman or your
Speaker 1: he was he was that cat on the set. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be just like it's crazy. Yeah, it's azing, alright,
Speaker 1: So back to your chos talking about by short. So
Speaker 1: my mom said to Bobby side, that's my dad's name,
Speaker 1: side right or Irving? Yeah, middle names, Saul. I mean
Speaker 1: it's as Jewish as it gets. Some more Saul saw Kravitz.
Speaker 1: It was my rabbi's name. And uh, my mom said, sigh,
Speaker 1: asked me to marry him. So Bobby looked at her
Speaker 1: and said, she said, what do you think I should do?
Speaker 1: He said, I don't see nobody else asking nice. But
Speaker 1: well he got a point, and I guess the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of crazy because my mom was all that,
Speaker 1: you know. But anyway, they got together and I'm sitting here.
Speaker 1: Was she the fashion queen that she was on TV? Amazing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: She was? She was that lady from the yeah oh yeah. Side. Note,
Speaker 1: this is weird to tell you like three million people. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I try to tell you last time as a surprise,
Speaker 1: but you gotta have you ever met Apollonia Coterio y no,
Speaker 1: we spoke because she has told you for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she had the pictures for me. She toldever, No, she's
Speaker 1: got the pictures. Do you remember the episode when the
Speaker 1: Jefferson shot uh in Hawaii? Yeah, the whole week? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So apparently she took like a bunch of polaroids and
Speaker 1: had photo books but left it behind, and uh, Apollonia
Speaker 1: just happened to be scrounging through like, you know, vintage
Speaker 1: stores or whatever, and saw found my mom's pictures but
Speaker 1: in att yeah, at some sort of like five and
Speaker 1: dime thrift store things. So she yo, what any of
Speaker 1: her clothes still around? Not for enohing. I just wonder, Zoe,
Speaker 1: you get that joint tailor you cut it off a half.
Speaker 1: I assume that your mom was like five eleven at least,
Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, that means it's not okay. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of pieces of it always got like and they
Speaker 1: should be in a museum somewhere, not for nothing too.
Speaker 1: If they can't, f Zoe, they should be a museum.
Speaker 1: They should have be in the Msonian in d City.
Speaker 1: I think we're all everyone's looking everyone's looking at me.
Speaker 1: What I'm sorry? I am a lack anyway, I didn't
Speaker 1: you really think I didn't know Zoe that small? Small too,
Speaker 1: but I let some things out. No, but I mean, dude,
Speaker 1: like trust me. So he used to sleep on his couch.
Speaker 1: I remember that he had a long time in Philly,
Speaker 1: was in band and whatnot. For real, Lenny and Zoe,
Speaker 1: you are single hand? Did we responsible for all of
Speaker 1: the French toast jokes? Y'all got with the oils that
Speaker 1: I know, like coconut oil. For my two years, Zoe
Speaker 1: wouldn't tell me the vanilla oil that she uses. There's
Speaker 1: a vanilla, now, there's a vanilla. But then at your house,
Speaker 1: you know, okay, another tea in my moment, you know,
Speaker 1: like when when you're wait, what do you say? Said
Speaker 1: she smell like you? Because you know she was first okay,
Speaker 1: got it? She wouldn't tell me. I hoped was first vanilla.
Speaker 1: I got serious, and then no, and then uh, she
Speaker 1: would never tell me. And then uh I went to
Speaker 1: that cookout at your spot in Miami and in the
Speaker 1: bathroom I saw the bottle there, that's right, and you
Speaker 1: started using it well, But then but then I went
Speaker 1: this dude smelled like a vanilla cake. I remember, But
Speaker 1: you still you're not spraying yourself with poopo re right,
Speaker 1: because it was alright, but like these little were the
Speaker 1: silver bottles, bottles, they were these little bottles, right, they
Speaker 1: came from France, right exactly. Yeah, but she left it
Speaker 1: there so I took a photo of it and then
Speaker 1: I ordered like forty two gallons of it it at Costco.
Speaker 1: Sack legit mad at me for like Jack and her
Speaker 1: swag like that was her thing, right, Yeah, she got
Speaker 1: mad at me, so she stopped using it. But could
Speaker 1: be girls and all that stuff, like like you know,
Speaker 1: I had a girlfriend in Paris that used to wear
Speaker 1: it and she was a little girl. She she loved
Speaker 1: that oil. That that's where that oil Worksbusters, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this is just rock that oil smell good today. Second
Speaker 1: of all, do you have like a favorite smell thing
Speaker 1: or do you just rocking straight? Lenny? I'm just because
Speaker 1: we were talking about smells. I just wanted to yeah
Speaker 1: you personally, yeah, straight, n it's straight, Len a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the time saying we're talking about No,
Speaker 1: we were talking about the oils. So anyway, can we
Speaker 1: we went from French toast anyway, man, let me get
Speaker 1: to music. At least. So wait, do you have any
Speaker 1: siblings or you the only child? I have two half
Speaker 1: sisters from my dad's first marriage. Okay, where are they?
Speaker 1: They sing? It's like speed dating tonight. Are they older sisters? Right? Yes?
Speaker 1: Just you need that in your life, older than me,
Speaker 1: older beautiful Jewish women. Okay, I need them in my life.
Speaker 1: So how did you get interested in music? It was
Speaker 1: all around me? I uh okay. First concerts. First concert
Speaker 1: was Jackson five Master Square Garden with the Commodore's opening
Speaker 1: before they were called the Commodore's they had. I remember
Speaker 1: talking to Lionel about it. He's like, we didn't even
Speaker 1: have a name. Then they had some other name. They
Speaker 1: were going under Saw James at the Apollo when I
Speaker 1: was like six, Saw then started going. You know. I
Speaker 1: saw Duke Ellington at the Rainbow Room. Um. I used
Speaker 1: to hang with him because my parents were close with him.
Speaker 1: I remember being at a sound check sitting on his
Speaker 1: lap while he played. It was actually that was my
Speaker 1: fifth birthday, um, because they played Happy Birthday to me. Whoay,
Speaker 1: so Miles, all that stuff, Lionel Hampton, Sara Van, you know,
Speaker 1: going to the opera, going to the ballet, going to
Speaker 1: Shakespeare in the Park, going to off Broadway and you know,
Speaker 1: Black Theater and Broadway. So all this stuff was around me.
Speaker 1: My parents used to take me out with them, which
Speaker 1: was really cool, whenever I could go, whenever they saw fit.
Speaker 1: Took me to parties, they took me to clubs, they
Speaker 1: took me to go see stuff. So I saw these
Speaker 1: people before I was ten years old. I'd seen like everybody,
Speaker 1: one of the few kids allowed in the studio before
Speaker 1: that that I didn't make. I I don't have any
Speaker 1: pictures like with Liza Minnelli. And but were you usually
Speaker 1: the loan child in those situations where there's like maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of other kids and you might see no
Speaker 1: excuse me, So when did you discover that you had
Speaker 1: a voice? Not until well, okay, so when I was eleven,
Speaker 1: when my mom got the Jeffersons, we moved to l
Speaker 1: a And yeah, I'm sorry, the building actually Drummer Trivia,
Speaker 1: the building that's on I forget eighty something in third
Speaker 1: Grady Tate lived in that building. What and he was
Speaker 1: a friend of ours. So before the Jefferson's we used
Speaker 1: to go over. In fact, Grady Tait gave me my
Speaker 1: first drumsticks and drum pad. Yeah, gave me my first
Speaker 1: little Remo drum pad with a little gray rim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he gave me my first sticks and pad. But he
Speaker 1: used to live in that building that was the Jefferson's building.
Speaker 1: Everyone's like Grady Tate about to say just help help,
Speaker 1: they help the baby. He's noted jazz, you know, God, studio,
Speaker 1: drummer everything. If you remember, see, I'm bringing up stuff,
Speaker 1: remember schoolhouse, frock that stuff. There was a song called
Speaker 1: Naughty Number nine. Naughty Number nine was gratty tap. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's also yeah got he also sing. I asked questions
Speaker 1: for me, but I also asked for the people because
Speaker 1: I asked the question. I wonder why too, because Mike
Speaker 1: were big Leia didn't you were like twelve hoodies. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're talking about anyway, so to my voice.
Speaker 1: So we moved to l A, which was a culture
Speaker 1: shock because I was getting ready to go into the
Speaker 1: sixth grade and now I'm in Santa Monica and it's
Speaker 1: like no one on the street, and I'm like, where
Speaker 1: the hell am I Little white kids with blonde hair
Speaker 1: on skateboards going by at it and it was very
Speaker 1: new to me anyway, she wanted to keep me off
Speaker 1: the street because she was going to be very busy
Speaker 1: doing this, doing this show. So there was a boys
Speaker 1: choir that a friend of her son was in called
Speaker 1: the California Boys Choir, and that boys choir at the
Speaker 1: time was the second rated boys choir in the world,
Speaker 1: next to the Vienna Boys Choir. So my mom had
Speaker 1: me audition. She shot, I'll be great, would keep me
Speaker 1: off the street. I learned about music and anyway, I
Speaker 1: ended up auditioning, not really understanding what was going on,
Speaker 1: got in, got trained, and then graduated into the concert
Speaker 1: choir and then ended up but my first concert was
Speaker 1: Hollywood Bowl opening night of the season, Maller third Symphony
Speaker 1: l a Philharmonic Um. I ended up singing on albums
Speaker 1: with zuber Mada and the first record expected my first
Speaker 1: studio session was doing the Maller third, the same one
Speaker 1: but with m zuber Mada. So I sag. I had
Speaker 1: this classical career. So I had this classical voice, and
Speaker 1: then my voice changed. When I was like fifteen, left
Speaker 1: the choir and then went to high school and I
Speaker 1: was just really playing guitar, bass and drums always yeah,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to be the singer, and I
Speaker 1: just didn't I wanted to be I just want to
Speaker 1: be the guitar player or the bass player, the drummer.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be just chilling on the side, you
Speaker 1: know who, guy in the glasses. And then I ended
Speaker 1: up in a band, and then something happened with the
Speaker 1: singer and they all looking at me, and then I
Speaker 1: ended up being the singer. And I was very insecure
Speaker 1: about it, for it wasn't then of the band wave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what what period was this? Oh? This is like uh,
Speaker 1: this is like eighty really so it's like Rick James
Speaker 1: Jackson's Prince, you know, Cameo, you know black Beard? Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: Scorns sent two keyboard players, drums, get two guitars, bass,
Speaker 1: you know the whole thing. Anyone notable in the group.
Speaker 1: Did you ever get in the studio with him? We
Speaker 1: did some demos, but this was all like really early stuff.
Speaker 1: Do you know where those demos are? Do you know
Speaker 1: what those guys are? Albert Cravit, do you know where
Speaker 1: those demos are? Look at me like that? Are you
Speaker 1: fiving on right now? You know what? I know? If
Speaker 1: anybody finds something gonna be you so that was your
Speaker 1: first band. Yeah, it was like because I was just
Speaker 1: I was really I moved out when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: and I was just like, wait, how does one do that?
Speaker 1: Um another drumming story. Okay, I was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: living in l A, living in my parents house. My
Speaker 1: dad and I were like having a hard time button heads.
Speaker 1: There was a Buddy rich concert at Disneyland. Disneyland was
Speaker 1: having a jazz series, so that night was going to
Speaker 1: be Buddy Rich and then separately Freddie Hubbard and a
Speaker 1: few other folks, and so I wanted to go see Disneyland.
Speaker 1: Say what, Freddy Hubbard? It did? Man? Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: it's like inside Sugar Steve's head all the time. You
Speaker 1: just summed it up. So I told my dad, are
Speaker 1: you thinking of cursing out? Like? I mean, that could
Speaker 1: go so many different ways in front of cheering, so
Speaker 1: a sorry, sorry, no no. So I told my dad
Speaker 1: I want to go see Buddy rich because you know,
Speaker 1: I want to see him. My dad was like, you
Speaker 1: went out last night. I was like, yeah, but tonight
Speaker 1: I let see Buddy Richard. We got in this big
Speaker 1: argument and that was the first time I did that,
Speaker 1: Like Richard pryor thing where Richard Pryer talks about getting
Speaker 1: into a fight with his dad and standing up and
Speaker 1: I'll kick your ass. I'm not afraid of you anymore.
Speaker 1: All that, and I was shaking and my dad was
Speaker 1: like ex Green Beret, like, oh crazy jumping out of
Speaker 1: airplanes with knives and machine guns. I'm stand up. He's
Speaker 1: looking at me like I'm crazy. And that was it.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, you live, you live
Speaker 1: under my roof, under my rules, or you go. And
Speaker 1: I went was Buddy rich Worth. There was some mean
Speaker 1: press rolls, baby, I mean wait. So at the end
Speaker 1: of the night where I got Buddy and Fronday, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh shout, I ain't gonna where to go. And my
Speaker 1: mom was freaking out. Remember there's no cell phones, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So but I stayed out. That
Speaker 1: was it. I was in the street, I was in
Speaker 1: people's couches. I slept on studio floors. I stopped. I
Speaker 1: stopped in a car for the four Pinto for a while.
Speaker 1: Did it ever cross your mind to go stay with
Speaker 1: the Jefferson's and that in that building in New York?
Speaker 1: I just got de Luxe apart exactly place. We wait,
Speaker 1: I mean, so were you were your pre or your
Speaker 1: fourier years? Were they independent? Yeah? I mean after I left,
Speaker 1: I know, even before like what because even the idea
Speaker 1: of going out like probably like I'm going that usually
Speaker 1: like you know, father's all of that. You you ain't
Speaker 1: telling me you going out? You're gonna ask? I was respectful,
Speaker 1: but that's at that point. We just but what was
Speaker 1: what was out there for you? I haven't talked to
Speaker 1: any black celebrity that was like coming of age in
Speaker 1: the late seventies in early eighties? So what is out
Speaker 1: there for you? In Los Angeles during this time? Man?
Speaker 1: It was wild. There's no House of Blues, There's no
Speaker 1: like what Sunset Boulevard looking like? Uh? Well, there was
Speaker 1: the Roxy. What was your hangout? What was your like?
Speaker 1: I mean I hung out of people's houses. I hung
Speaker 1: out it at uh I was? I was friends with
Speaker 1: with Kennedy Gordy also known as Rockwell, we went to
Speaker 1: high school together. I was gonna say, do you have
Speaker 1: any Apollo connections? Not Apollo when I met? All right,
Speaker 1: so okay to us? Now I went to a show, right,
Speaker 1: I went to a Jo show? If Benny came in
Speaker 1: and nobody knows about Polo right when y'all a deep connoisseurs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when I mentioned it, Benny's eyes got like, how
Speaker 1: do you know? And shut then up and then the
Speaker 1: dance moves. I knew. I knew Benny when he was
Speaker 1: sixteen because I was going to Beverly. I was in
Speaker 1: the same class as Kennedy, as Rockwell and then it's
Speaker 1: older older brother Carry and Benny was berries gopher assistant
Speaker 1: when he had the afro on the whole thing. Benny,
Speaker 1: Benny was his the diddy to Andre Rolle. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that was big. Yeah. And uh, because you
Speaker 1: said the second you said wave, I said, damn, that's
Speaker 1: almost like one step removed away from Apollo. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so it was. But you gotta tell So I used
Speaker 1: to find I used to be up at Barry's house
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, you'd wake up in the morning
Speaker 1: and Jermaine be sitting there and Diana and you know,
Speaker 1: Marvin and everybody. I mean, it was, however, are you
Speaker 1: getting at this point? Like and did you know like
Speaker 1: the magnitude I had never seen, man. I grew up
Speaker 1: in New York, you know, in apartments, I had never
Speaker 1: seen anything like these people were living in Like I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what existed. Get his own arcade, pinball
Speaker 1: machines and video games and you know, VHS players all
Speaker 1: over the place, rooms and cars and instruments and you know,
Speaker 1: I'd never seen anything like that in my life. It
Speaker 1: was a bugout. But yeah, that was one of the
Speaker 1: places I used to hang. And then I stayed with people,
Speaker 1: you know, living on couches and you know all that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So, but the scene, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of clubs, clubs, studios, people's houses, studios. Clubs were good. Then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I know that, you know, the the hard rock
Speaker 1: heavy metal scene that was formed on Sunset Boulevard at
Speaker 1: least like for the Motley Cruise and all that those.
Speaker 1: But where would the progressive black people hang? Like? Where
Speaker 1: were they allowed? What spaces were they allowed to be in? There?
Speaker 1: Weren't clubs like where those bands really? Well, actually there
Speaker 1: were some clubs on Cranshaw. There was one called the
Speaker 1: Total Experience. All you know who I am, right, they
Speaker 1: know more than I do. Okay, I'm just I'm Ronald McDonald.
Speaker 1: These guys are grim rock, you know. Croy As a
Speaker 1: middle question, so when he's when he said that, what
Speaker 1: did that trigger with y'all too? O Son Simmons was
Speaker 1: the owner of Total Experience. Simmons that all that the
Speaker 1: club was also where they shot the Dold Mic I
Speaker 1: actually did a gig in the toll Experienced once. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Really what was that club like? Because everybody, man, it
Speaker 1: was just that's for all the our House of Blues, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: And then there was a jazz place on the brand
Speaker 1: Washington called the Parisian Room where Arthur Price sock used
Speaker 1: to you know, Arthur Price, don't do that because you
Speaker 1: know what, when you look at me, you don't look
Speaker 1: at Bill. It's kind of special. That's gonna like, that's
Speaker 1: gonna help her out the lower brown commercials that New
Speaker 1: York's not the only one that doesn't know that because
Speaker 1: Bill Sherman, you didn't not don't know tonight. You don't
Speaker 1: know tonight. Let it be low. She wasn't commercial. But
Speaker 1: in the in the seventies there was a commercial side
Speaker 1: side Lenny's bringing out all the assists on the on
Speaker 1: the side of mirror stories. So another reason why television
Speaker 1: was taken away from me is whenever uh, we would
Speaker 1: have Gingerbrell for dinner and Canada d comal. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: would get a mug and then pour my candidate drives
Speaker 1: just so that the yeah it can flow over. There's
Speaker 1: must be a reason why we know each other. I
Speaker 1: did the original reason why television, But then you don't
Speaker 1: step up to like Martin Nelly's Oh that was like
Speaker 1: the Champagne of parents. Stopped that real quick. No, I'm
Speaker 1: fortunately mom, I'm sorry about this, Mom, I gotta tell
Speaker 1: this story. The main reason why TV was taking out
Speaker 1: my life was over Hawaiian punch commercials because if you're
Speaker 1: a three year old, an impressionable right, right, So basically
Speaker 1: maybe it's a racist commercial because like the wine native
Speaker 1: guy would go to the tourists and say, how about
Speaker 1: nice and wine punch? He's like sure, and he right.
Speaker 1: And so one day I told my mom's mind, come here,
Speaker 1: I want you to say sure, to ask you. She's like, huh,
Speaker 1: just say sure, okay, okay? How about Mom said sure?
Speaker 1: And and then no more. TV got the fact that
Speaker 1: you're still alive ever doing that to a black moment.
Speaker 1: I almost want to beat you myself. Dog mom, she wait,
Speaker 1: stop all those stuff too late? You didn't get the
Speaker 1: phone corner of the hot wheel track straight in the
Speaker 1: straight track. The girl, Wait a minute, are you saying
Speaker 1: if roxy roper, use a strap because that would make
Speaker 1: me happy. But her favorite thing, we're not even get
Speaker 1: to Mama's in like can ben his weight telling us
Speaker 1: what her weapon of choice was on her kind of
Speaker 1: I'm sorry rose her kind of mind. Fun one was
Speaker 1: like she had this big um brush like a board
Speaker 1: that wood, yeah, and with that handle, and she'd had
Speaker 1: me come she said come here, and she said put
Speaker 1: out your hand and I had to put knuckles up,
Speaker 1: put out your put it out, put your hand. Yeah, yeah, sorry, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but wait, you actually said something before you got to wait,
Speaker 1: which was you said on Crunchhall. Now the thing is Crunshaw.
Speaker 1: That okay, that's where black focus. This is cshaw. I
Speaker 1: mean it's still real. But that was really real. Yeah?
Speaker 1: But was it cool? I mean did you feel I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm when gang had activity was heavy in l A.
Speaker 1: Were you cool then? I used to go to the
Speaker 1: drag races. I used to do all that stuff. Man,
Speaker 1: you went, Yes, I was out there, man, I was
Speaker 1: in the street. My mom would have had a heart attack.
Speaker 1: That was everywhere. But why, Like because I was free
Speaker 1: and I was hanging out with all kinds of people,
Speaker 1: and I'd meet people and you up in their house
Speaker 1: that night. You don't even know who they are, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like I was like that you
Speaker 1: were that trusting I was, Yeah, I mean I had
Speaker 1: I thought I had a good sense of who folks were.
Speaker 1: And I and I, you know, I would meet people,
Speaker 1: then you'd like sleeping in their house, like knowing them
Speaker 1: for like a night, you know. Like but like I
Speaker 1: never had a problem. You never had a problem. You know.
Speaker 1: My parents were just like not into me hanging with
Speaker 1: strangers or they got to know my mom, wou wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been dude, she she didn't know, you know, so
Speaker 1: you got your But then I would I would yourself
Speaker 1: fift I would go see her, like I would go
Speaker 1: to the set. I go to the Jefferson's, to the tapings.
Speaker 1: I go see her, you know, go watch the show.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I mean, I still was. She worried about
Speaker 1: you completely, but like I don't know if he's gonna
Speaker 1: make it. And but now when Zoe turned fifteen, and
Speaker 1: I looked at it and I was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I see now I see. I mean no, I mean
Speaker 1: Zoe didn't leave anything, but like I was gonna says,
Speaker 1: he's rather conservative. If she didn't leave till she was
Speaker 1: eighteen when she went to school, you know. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: she just never struck me as like, I mean, she
Speaker 1: could have easily went down the low hand route she was,
Speaker 1: but she believe me they were coming for her, really
Speaker 1: they were coming for but no, she she held it together.
Speaker 1: She just I was impressed the fact that she just
Speaker 1: saw that as corny, you know what I mean, she
Speaker 1: just like that's corny. I was like, oh, ship, you
Speaker 1: taught me something m like because she's like like I'll
Speaker 1: be DJ somewhere and she's like, I'm tired, like grandma.
Speaker 1: That's how I see her as my grandmother. So how
Speaker 1: did you How did Zaro enter your life? And how
Speaker 1: interest Okay, well before the moment when everyone so, First
Speaker 1: of all, I met Zoro on the lawn of Beverly
Speaker 1: Hills High. He went there too, No, he did not
Speaker 1: go there, but he was trying to meet people. He'd
Speaker 1: come down from from Oregon and he wanted to meet people.
Speaker 1: So he was we had this big lawn looked like
Speaker 1: a country club at Beverly High, and uh, he had
Speaker 1: this boom box, and he had a sister who was
Speaker 1: dating a very wealthy Middle Eastern man. So this guy
Speaker 1: would would buy him suits, silk suits and watches and things.
Speaker 1: So he was like all he was all g Q
Speaker 1: down on the lawn Beverly Hills High with a drum pad,
Speaker 1: a pair of sticks, a boom box, playing earth Wind
Speaker 1: and Fire and jamming to the earth Wind and Fire.
Speaker 1: So of course I come out of class and I
Speaker 1: see this dude on the lawn like sitting there playing Jupiter,
Speaker 1: you know, And I was like, who's this cat funky?
Speaker 1: So I went up to talk to him, and that's
Speaker 1: how everything started. Now, Buddy Rich, that was me and
Speaker 1: Zoro formerly known as Dan Donnelly. Okay, that's his real name,
Speaker 1: Dan Donaldy. So he was Dan. So Dan was the
Speaker 1: one that drove me to Disneyland. That we went. We
Speaker 1: went to the concert together and Buick Regel cream colored
Speaker 1: Buick regal Um. Was he what the apparency of him
Speaker 1: as the bad influence and you know he was he
Speaker 1: was a good kid. No, no, he he was Danny.
Speaker 1: Now Zoro happened because I got him the audition for
Speaker 1: New Addition? Wait, how that happened? Okay, this all leads
Speaker 1: all this connects. Now you Zoro is a connection here
Speaker 1: because I was trying to get record deals and doing
Speaker 1: my thing, and at the time Gerald Busby was trying
Speaker 1: to sign me and he was over M c A
Speaker 1: after he had left A and M Records and so
Speaker 1: him and Luill Silas and all them cats, and they're like,
Speaker 1: we're trying to put a band together for New Addition.
Speaker 1: Do you know a drummer? I said, I know a
Speaker 1: great drummer. I called Dan. Yo, they're having a new Edition, Uh,
Speaker 1: drum audition. Here's the address. But he went he got
Speaker 1: the gig now, so now he's playing New Edition. I'm
Speaker 1: going to see them play shows. I think the first
Speaker 1: one I saw was at is there is there around Amphitheater, Westbury.
Speaker 1: I went to see a new Edition and U t
Speaker 1: FO opened Yo. The U t FO killed it. They
Speaker 1: all killed it. So I'm going to see shows when
Speaker 1: I can. Now they're playing Universally app the Theater in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I go to see. I go with I
Speaker 1: go with Rockwell we went together to the concert and
Speaker 1: that's where I met Lisa bone yep, because she let
Speaker 1: me started. Yes, yes, waitnute, do you know who can
Speaker 1: you ask Bill this squeeze questions? Because my comment denominated
Speaker 1: it's more fun with you. Do you know he's always
Speaker 1: the drummer. He would be the quest lover of the eighties.
Speaker 1: So basically he was a cat. He must add his
Speaker 1: own publicist because he you know, he did it. He
Speaker 1: was his own publicist. That's him. He was damn donnally. Okay,
Speaker 1: he gets the gig with new addition, He's like, I
Speaker 1: need a hook. I gotta figure this out, so he's
Speaker 1: Spanish Zoro. He gets a hat and the pencil mustard.
Speaker 1: So watch if you watch, because then he played with
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown. Watch the big ass. Yeah. He then ends
Speaker 1: up on the covers and inside of Black Beat and Soul,
Speaker 1: right on Cynthia Hornor and all the folks. And he
Speaker 1: turned himself into it. He made himself way before that
Speaker 1: was really happening. Mostolls will be popping. Yeah low key,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe should be zero supreme. Yeah, good work. No,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that had that might have had an
Speaker 1: effect on me because I was beside there were no
Speaker 1: celebrity drummers. Celebrity drummers and he was just in right on.
Speaker 1: I know who Zara is because you know, he was
Speaker 1: a famous drummer in the early eighties and then when
Speaker 1: I came out of my first album eight nine, he
Speaker 1: was came back and he was my touring drummer. Okay, see,
Speaker 1: most of us that start with Sindy didn't know that
Speaker 1: he came on the third album. Zara was on the
Speaker 1: first two tours that Mama said, yeah, and he is where.
Speaker 1: He's back in l A. He's still drumming and uh,
Speaker 1: you know he he was explained with Frankie Valley a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Wait, a hatless zero came up
Speaker 1: to me and gave me, what time are we talking?
Speaker 1: I was still at felonce. So let's say two thousand
Speaker 1: and tens, A hatless Zoro came up to me outside
Speaker 1: of thirty Rock and gave me, he's a these are
Speaker 1: for you, and he put it in my hand and
Speaker 1: walked away. And it was twenty of his books, his autobiography.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, and I was just looked like, who
Speaker 1: would do. He's a motivational speaker as well, but at
Speaker 1: the time I was a little paranoid because now in
Speaker 1: the in the post nine eleven, the stranger walks out
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying you ever talked to Gnard to
Speaker 1: Michael Walden, Zoro sort of did that to me. He
Speaker 1: was like, brother blessings, Yeah, this is for you. You
Speaker 1: don't know who I am. But then and he put
Speaker 1: in my hand and he ran off. And instantly I
Speaker 1: was like, you said some white powder and then page
Speaker 1: or what? And I looked and I was like, oh, books.
Speaker 1: And then when I got in the car and pulled
Speaker 1: the book out, I was like, holy ship, that was Zoro,
Speaker 1: Like who does that? Like that was the thing? Like
Speaker 1: he just the night he just are you googling right now?
Speaker 1: Am I supposed? This is what everybody should be doing.
Speaker 1: Right was listening to quest lets And I had a
Speaker 1: DJ company in high school. He owned the equipment because
Speaker 1: he had the bread right and I DJA called g
Speaker 1: Q Productions. I mean it was you know, and we
Speaker 1: did the local house parties in Baldwin Hills and Dara Heights,
Speaker 1: Yes Heights, yes, baby, Wow? What kind of stuff did
Speaker 1: you play? Hills in the jungle down? You know what
Speaker 1: was happening at the time, you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: Yarborn people's cameo. You know, this also solidifies that a
Speaker 1: lot of our great artists were they were? But where
Speaker 1: were you? Because in my mind then you must have
Speaker 1: went through some type of style evolution, like where were
Speaker 1: you style wise at that time in the eighties rocking
Speaker 1: parties in the jungle? Um, I was just kind of
Speaker 1: clean cut, you know, bin Hills looking. You know, that's
Speaker 1: what does that even look like that? You know? But
Speaker 1: wait because that leads to my next question. Was that
Speaker 1: Herb Albert gig real? Or was that just just for soul?
Speaker 1: The thing sultry? That was just for soul? Trying? Because
Speaker 1: I was making my demos in studios C, A and M.
Speaker 1: The room in the front right and on the left right,
Speaker 1: um Mitchell, is that the blue room? Sound road call?
Speaker 1: All right? It was like michell, you sound you sound
Speaker 1: like you sound like you sound like? Said McCoy right now.
Speaker 1: Um So I was making my demos there and I
Speaker 1: got to know everybody on the lot and then you
Speaker 1: know they out he did ask okay, now I'm not
Speaker 1: is the blue room? I was like, what is it? Then?
Speaker 1: You know on the left on the left it's a
Speaker 1: small room and had a little with Api or something.
Speaker 1: At the time, I can't remember. That's important to note
Speaker 1: that you actually recorded at the So I was doing
Speaker 1: my demos there. That's the Romeo blue face, and I
Speaker 1: know everybody on the lot, and then her that's why
Speaker 1: I met Gerald everybody, and then Herb was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're doing soul training. Don't think you're not going to
Speaker 1: get past explaining Romeo. Can you play keytar for me?
Speaker 1: And so I did that show. Yeah, that was it,
Speaker 1: no tour, that was that was the greatest moment in
Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, it's like something wait but okay, so right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I knew you would. So on my birthday when I
Speaker 1: hopped on a plane just to have lunch at Gero's restaurant.
Speaker 1: Remember talking to you about that, all right, So the
Speaker 1: thing was they were like, okay, we can take you,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna have to be here at eleven in
Speaker 1: the morning, which is like required some action going on
Speaker 1: for this nineteen hour trip. So I land there and
Speaker 1: of course, like I'm still crazy out of my mind
Speaker 1: after having been up for like twenty hours straight. But
Speaker 1: this is a once in a lifetime mill so I'm
Speaker 1: like trying to keep myself up and whatnot. Because I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I know what to do. I
Speaker 1: watch Sultry. I've watched three episodes and then we'll go
Speaker 1: get my food. In the first episode, I watched outside
Speaker 1: to watch some episodes I've never watched before, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I heard bald stuff right, And this is
Speaker 1: a ridiculous story. Imagine, imagine, I think only is going
Speaker 1: to get this reference. But you remember in the five
Speaker 1: Art Beats when they went through their electric phase and
Speaker 1: Robert I'm sorry forgive me, yes, but Lenny was rocking
Speaker 1: his guitar on that level the eighties long Coats, and
Speaker 1: he was killing it. And then I don't think I
Speaker 1: think I'm the only one who supposed it online. So
Speaker 1: then and then Don comes out to the Romeo Blue.
Speaker 1: I was like, I found I found it, so okay,
Speaker 1: you just did it as a favorite. Just yeah, I
Speaker 1: got the pit I see. So wait a minute, why
Speaker 1: didn't you sign Okay, so I assume that I was
Speaker 1: making demos, but if you signed with Gerald Busby, they
Speaker 1: didn't get anything of what I was doing. So even
Speaker 1: back then, you were trying to sell us on the
Speaker 1: vibe you are that, And I passed up about five
Speaker 1: record deals. Gerald tried to give me a deal. Um,
Speaker 1: then I R S Records was on the same lot.
Speaker 1: So that's Miles Copeland, Stuart Copeland's brother who was running that.
Speaker 1: They wanted to hook me up with this producer, Martin Russian,
Speaker 1: who had produced The Go Goes. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do that and I wanted to keep my publishing, and
Speaker 1: so that didn't happen. Then John McClean came to A
Speaker 1: and M and completely revamped A and M with Janet
Speaker 1: and put her with Jimmy and Terry and all that history. Um,
Speaker 1: did you know John McClean personally or we're still friends.
Speaker 1: We'll come back to that. We'll come back to that.
Speaker 1: I'm making a note. Okay, good, Okay, No, we got
Speaker 1: Si McClean questions. Okay, he's hard to nail down. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's he's uh, he's that cat. He's mysterious but
Speaker 1: very very interesting cat and a good friend for a
Speaker 1: long time. But he offered me a deal, not only solo,
Speaker 1: but he offered me a deal with a bunch of
Speaker 1: other guys, one of them being Tony Lamon's He wasn't
Speaker 1: he Tony? You know about Tony? Right? So Tony before
Speaker 1: Prince Okay, Tony and I went to junior high school together.
Speaker 1: His name was Tony Fortier and he played french horn
Speaker 1: in the orchestra that I played percussion. And later he
Speaker 1: had come to a Wave concert and I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: him in a few years. And then he started hanging
Speaker 1: out and we started making music together. And he was
Speaker 1: kind of on this like Slide meets the Beatles kind
Speaker 1: of thing. It was funky, and I was playing most
Speaker 1: of his instruments. Were a lot of his instruments on
Speaker 1: certain tracks, making demos um and then and it was
Speaker 1: it was it was like where I went with Let
Speaker 1: Love Rule, but it was it was more on the
Speaker 1: funk side, but it was that raw. And then I
Speaker 1: was Then then we did a gig. We did a
Speaker 1: gig that Sheila. I guess Prince sent Sheila to come
Speaker 1: to the gig. She saw this gig. We used to
Speaker 1: call those gigs in like a rehearsal showcase. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: did the showcase. She was there. This was somewhere in
Speaker 1: the valley. I was, yeah, I guess you was scouting
Speaker 1: for that. I was playing bass. And then they ended
Speaker 1: up signing Tony Um. I went my own way to
Speaker 1: go do my stuff. But what Prince did was which
Speaker 1: I thought was a mistake. Um is he and nothing
Speaker 1: against this producer because I love scritty polity record, but
Speaker 1: he put him with David Gamson. But but Tony was raw.
Speaker 1: If I played you these demos, they were they were
Speaker 1: as nasty as slide. I mean they were nasty, nasty
Speaker 1: funk with all these harmonies and beetle kind of influence
Speaker 1: and and um, I thought that the record was way
Speaker 1: too slick. And remember Tony telling me that Prince said
Speaker 1: that they didn't sound like records to him. He wanted
Speaker 1: them to be more polished. But I thought it was
Speaker 1: a mistake because Tony's whole thing was the rawness was
Speaker 1: a big part part of his thing. That's like if
Speaker 1: you took me let love Rural time and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's great, but we're gonna have honey, who I love,
Speaker 1: who I love? You know, Um, but you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like great on the on the Seal records,
Speaker 1: it's great on yes, and Trevor Horne, not for you,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what I'm saying. So I mean
Speaker 1: it's a different thing. So what we're talking about Tony anyway,
Speaker 1: U where were we? No, Tony, the record was too polished. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but before that, why do we why we were YouTube connected?
Speaker 1: I was asking about John McLean so one of the
Speaker 1: groups groups that they were trying to do like a
Speaker 1: black like like Duran Duran, right, And that was John's
Speaker 1: thing at the time. It was me, Tony uh and
Speaker 1: like three other guys and and they were throwing the
Speaker 1: thing in, Man, you guys are gonna be big. We're
Speaker 1: gonna send you to SOT the France and record and
Speaker 1: do this and do that, and the money and the deal,
Speaker 1: and I I turned it down. Wise, I have a
Speaker 1: quick question about this period. There's a rumor that I've
Speaker 1: been hearing for years that, um, there was supposed to
Speaker 1: be a movie starring you, Tony, you, Tony, Mickey Free
Speaker 1: and somebody else as a band against the Maserati people
Speaker 1: that Prince was ready. I didn't know about that. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe they always it was supposed. I think it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be the Dawn movie. Yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And I think you guys were supposed to play the
Speaker 1: Coco Boys character. Wow. I didn't know the Poco Boys band.
Speaker 1: And it was going to be that you guys against Maseratio,
Speaker 1: So I don't know that that might have been something
Speaker 1: that they were talking about. And then, of course, tragically
Speaker 1: Tony died. He died in a car accident. Is Tony,
Speaker 1: Is that how you met Ingrid Chops? Because they were dating.
Speaker 1: They were dating at one point where they because I
Speaker 1: heard that Tony and Prince had a falling out because
Speaker 1: over her. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to speak for her,
Speaker 1: but yeah, um, we met and she she came to
Speaker 1: some of my early gigs, but I don't remember the
Speaker 1: day I met her with Was that a gig or
Speaker 1: was that I don't I'm not sure if it was
Speaker 1: through Tony or just her coming to a gig. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why did you choose Romeo Blue? Um? That's the title?
Speaker 1: Because I didn't know that. I thought Lenny Lenny Kravitz.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a rock star, like this motherfucker. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a doctor on Fifth Avenue or a lawyer
Speaker 1: like I was wrong with that nothing. But at that time,
Speaker 1: you know, you got prints and this one and Madonna,
Speaker 1: and I was like Lenny Kravitz whenever. First, because there
Speaker 1: was a few times where I heard the name Romeo blue,
Speaker 1: and but I didn't give it. I didn't get Romeo
Speaker 1: to myself. It was these dudes that I was hanging
Speaker 1: out with. Um they did in the hood somewhere I
Speaker 1: forget it, and they used to call me Romeo. And
Speaker 1: I guess at that time I was talking to some girls. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just the name they rove me a blue just sounds
Speaker 1: like I might could steal your girl. And then like
Speaker 1: I was like, you're not trying to have any male fans,
Speaker 1: like with the name Romeo. And then I, um, who
Speaker 1: talked you? Who talked to you? Out of it? Just
Speaker 1: to be in the Lenny Kravitz, I knew it was corny.
Speaker 1: I was just like, this is not me, okay, I
Speaker 1: want to I want to be me like it. It
Speaker 1: brought me back around to myself like playing this character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how long were you? Because I had like the spiked
Speaker 1: hair and the clothes and blue contact lenses, like I
Speaker 1: was doing this bow and this was this was before
Speaker 1: there were those Now we have those soft contact lenses these.
Speaker 1: I wanted these blue eyes, right, So my lawyer turned
Speaker 1: me on to this special effects guy who made the
Speaker 1: contact lenses for The Incredible Hulk for luf ridden contact.
Speaker 1: These these contacts, these contact lenses were like bottle caps.
Speaker 1: They were hard, and I'd go out, I'd just be
Speaker 1: like blinking, and you know, it was ridiculous, man, but
Speaker 1: I was but I was committed context. It was bad, man,
Speaker 1: it was bad. It was bad. And then I just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm just gonna be n graphics man,
Speaker 1: That's it. And then, uh so I was doing this
Speaker 1: stuff with Tony Um and there was another band that
Speaker 1: I was singing. I sang their demos. It was a
Speaker 1: band called Maggie's Dream that was here in New York City,
Speaker 1: and I was singing their demos. I was doing Tony stuff.
Speaker 1: But all in a while I was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out who I was. And then I met Lisa at
Speaker 1: the New Edition concert. We then became friends for like
Speaker 1: a year or so and then ended up being like
Speaker 1: brother and sister. Actually the relationships turned out like that. Constantly.
Speaker 1: We were She had boyfriends, I had girlfriends that there
Speaker 1: wasn't like a slot, there was nothing happening. My bench
Speaker 1: is fool right now, like in the contract, We'll see
Speaker 1: what's up, you know what I mean? So you see
Speaker 1: me on the off season. I got my start in
Speaker 1: five already. So she's doing Cosby out in l A
Speaker 1: now at Universal Studios. Same actually same actual studio as
Speaker 1: the Jeffersons, which was interesting. So so you grew up
Speaker 1: on the Yeah, on the set, I mean of the Jeffersons. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you wait, well know when I when after
Speaker 1: Lisa and I met and became friends, and then I
Speaker 1: I was I was going back and forth between New
Speaker 1: York and l A. Then I came back out to
Speaker 1: l A. At some period she said, asked me to
Speaker 1: come to the studio, went to Universal, the same studio,
Speaker 1: same building is my where my mom films, and we're
Speaker 1: hanging out. She had this mustang like we're in the series.
Speaker 1: It's must stay in convertible sixties. It was beautiful car. Anyway,
Speaker 1: She would let me use her car in the day
Speaker 1: while she was rehearsing and filming, so I could go
Speaker 1: right and do my music and do whatever hustle and
Speaker 1: I was doing, and then I would pick her up
Speaker 1: at work. She lived in Venice at the time. Then
Speaker 1: you gotta drive all the way from studios of the city,
Speaker 1: all the lay at Venice, and then I would find
Speaker 1: my way wherever I was going Eventually she's like, why
Speaker 1: don't you just start staying over? Like just stay over,
Speaker 1: Like here's a room, there's a rolling Stone interview. No,
Speaker 1: it's it's in the interview interview where she's talking about
Speaker 1: her brother Romeo A. Seriously, it exists somewhere. I've seen it. Well,
Speaker 1: at some point you stuck in the room. Well what
Speaker 1: had happened when? Anyway, so you know you understand my way.
Speaker 1: We ended up. So then I would get up in
Speaker 1: the morning, drive her to Burbanks and I would go
Speaker 1: do my thing, pick her up. This went on for months,
Speaker 1: and then we grew close and what do we do? Then?
Speaker 1: You know, we fell in love and in the whole
Speaker 1: world fell in love with you, and everybody wanted to
Speaker 1: So is the Love Rule album about her? That whole
Speaker 1: thing was both of us. That was really like where
Speaker 1: we were, you know. And so in doing all that
Speaker 1: stuff with Tony Lman's and the other group, and and
Speaker 1: I'm turning down all these deals and I didn't go
Speaker 1: with Tony, I didn't go with John McClain, I didn't
Speaker 1: go with Joe Busby. I didn't go with Benny Medina.
Speaker 1: He actually Benny offered Tony and Tony and I had
Speaker 1: a development deal and Warner Brothers. They moved us into
Speaker 1: the oak Wood UH apartments in Burbank, and at the
Speaker 1: time Slide was living there too, George Clinton was there.
Speaker 1: It was it was nasty, literally nasty. It was nasty.
Speaker 1: And so then Lisa and I are, you know, getting close,
Speaker 1: and we're living our life and we have we have
Speaker 1: this whole like hippie lifestyle and all this love and
Speaker 1: these ideals and everything, and upart moving into her house.
Speaker 1: She's like, yeah, bring your gear. I brought my stuff.
Speaker 1: Keep friend of Rhodes. I brought my guitars myself. I
Speaker 1: started writing the album. That's how it started, right there,
Speaker 1: Venice in her house. And this is before you even
Speaker 1: had a deal, before you signed with I had no deal.
Speaker 1: I made the record. I had no deal. The record
Speaker 1: was done, I had no deal. Yeah, when was it finished?
Speaker 1: And well, it came out in eighty nine, so it
Speaker 1: was done in eight. Yeah, And then I was taking
Speaker 1: it around everywhere and people were just like, we don't
Speaker 1: know what to do with this. Okay, you gotta tell Okay,
Speaker 1: there's one story that I'm envious about as far as
Speaker 1: your daughter is concerned. Uh Hank and Chuck told me
Speaker 1: the story that she your Zoe was the fifth person
Speaker 1: to hear Mason of Millions, because I guess at some
Speaker 1: time point, I don't know if they were mastering the
Speaker 1: record there and you guys were next door, or you
Speaker 1: were mastering your record there and they were next door,
Speaker 1: whatever the case, but they explained to me that, um,
Speaker 1: after being guarded about letting the outside world hearing anything
Speaker 1: from it takes a nation of millions, that you and
Speaker 1: pregnant Lisa were the first audience to hear the record
Speaker 1: right when it was completed, And I was like, wow, man,
Speaker 1: like fucking Zoe gets to hear this record before. In
Speaker 1: the reaction in that room, though, I'm I think I
Speaker 1: think Chuck said that it was when our chaosky one
Speaker 1: that's like uh, Zoe started kicking uh, at least in
Speaker 1: the stomach. So the song about Joe break so okay.
Speaker 1: There there was no UM. I mean, there wasn't an
Speaker 1: idea of retro. I wasn't thinking any retro had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with it. I wanted I wanted to make
Speaker 1: records that sounded like the records that I loved, and
Speaker 1: I get that you weren't intentionally. And I remember the
Speaker 1: first thing I said when I called my engineer in
Speaker 1: New York who I was working with, I was like,
Speaker 1: I wanted to sound I said, carpet E. I wanted
Speaker 1: to sound like like how it sounds like us sitting
Speaker 1: right here with these carpets in this room with I
Speaker 1: wanted to feel organic. I wanted to hear the room.
Speaker 1: I wanted to feel the plushness of the sound. And um,
Speaker 1: well very much wanted that sort of innervision sonics different
Speaker 1: music that I played obviously and so but that was
Speaker 1: like where I was coming from. I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be intimate in your face, and I wanted you to
Speaker 1: hear my hands playing the instruments, you know, but not
Speaker 1: that Okay, at least in eighty nine, Like there wasn't
Speaker 1: uh to technology or anything like that. But the thing
Speaker 1: is that even today, if I wanted to make something
Speaker 1: that sonically uh close to quote the stuff that we
Speaker 1: grew up on, um, it would cost me more. Like
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that could be easily done. It takes time,
Speaker 1: It takes technique, It takes having the right gear, having
Speaker 1: all that tube equipment and all that, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like so where did you where did you
Speaker 1: find the Because you more than God? Okay, I don't
Speaker 1: want to Anglan no, no, no, I'm just saying you
Speaker 1: more than Okay. So when daptone does it, they kind
Speaker 1: of overdo it. I mean with the processing, in the
Speaker 1: in the in the in, the compression and stuff like.
Speaker 1: I get what they're going for, but it almost sounds
Speaker 1: like too overdone, whereas your stuff sounds supernatural al right, like, uh,
Speaker 1: the first song sitting on top of the world, right,
Speaker 1: So but how are you able to mixing wise? Achieve
Speaker 1: achieve that? Because when people go on natural, especially starting
Speaker 1: in this ship, sounds like Kenny g or No, there
Speaker 1: was nothing. It sounds like that. You know, use these
Speaker 1: these tama you know these Tama drunks. I mean, was
Speaker 1: you You did all the instruments on your and your
Speaker 1: first records. Well, also, my engineer Henry Hurst played the
Speaker 1: Hammond on some of the song's brilliant performances and played
Speaker 1: like a base on a tracker or two. So what
Speaker 1: the instruments were you using? I had I I had
Speaker 1: a a Fender Deluxe tweet Amp. I had a epifone Sorrento,
Speaker 1: I had a telecaster I had a set of Gretch drums.
Speaker 1: I had a Fender base, an app that was it
Speaker 1: and his and and this studio. How do you know
Speaker 1: how to make the stuff with that I had? I
Speaker 1: had a brilliant engineer, first of all, a guy by
Speaker 1: the name of Henry Hirsch who had a studio in
Speaker 1: Jersey and Hoboken called Waterfront. And he was brilliant. And
Speaker 1: he and I when I was making demos with another band,
Speaker 1: that band, I was talking about Maggie's dream Um. We
Speaker 1: had gone there. It was like thirty dollars an hour.
Speaker 1: It was something we could afford. And that whole thing
Speaker 1: didn't work out. But he and I connected, We saw
Speaker 1: eye to eye talking about music, and then I knew
Speaker 1: that when I was gonna make my record, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call this guy because he gets it. And he had
Speaker 1: He had a Triumph board. We had We didn't even
Speaker 1: we had no tari and TRR ninety. It wasn't even
Speaker 1: like some like crazy student a MTR ninety, which is
Speaker 1: a great workhorse machine. But we had that he had.
Speaker 1: We had the proper like we had forty seven tubes
Speaker 1: and and then we ended up getting a fair Child
Speaker 1: compressor and we had a couple of politics, but really
Speaker 1: it wasn't that much. It wasn't that much gear. But
Speaker 1: this guy was a genius and he taught me so
Speaker 1: so much. He knew exactly how he did. And we
Speaker 1: used to just I mean we used to go at it.
Speaker 1: You know, was it trial and era we'd spent We'd
Speaker 1: spend days on a drum sound bro. You know, I
Speaker 1: I too would try to we start fighting. You know,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. I would try to achieve that and couldn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, even now, I'll say, like twenty years into
Speaker 1: my career, I think I'm just finding satisfaction because I
Speaker 1: but in the age of no pro tools or anything,
Speaker 1: were you're rewinding tape over and over again, I would
Speaker 1: have just imagined that we're taking you forever too. And
Speaker 1: I was overdubbing one instrument on top of the other.
Speaker 1: It was no band. It was a trip. But um,
Speaker 1: it's all that stuff, all fears you yeah, freedom train, yea,
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah? What was that? Yeah, I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: So he wrote everything and I guess demo stuff at
Speaker 1: at Leasta's house and then went to and then I
Speaker 1: went to Waterfront and cut the album. So just completed
Speaker 1: the album, I've had no deal taking it around. You know,
Speaker 1: it's still the go to the Black Department, you know,
Speaker 1: So what was the feedback. The feedback was, we think
Speaker 1: you're talented, but you you can't do this. You need
Speaker 1: to do what. I guess whatever was going on in
Speaker 1: Black ready at that time in eighty eight, say like
Speaker 1: Riley Virgin was cool, but going around all the other labels,
Speaker 1: they were just like, we you can't do this. We
Speaker 1: don't get you can't do this. You gotta do this.
Speaker 1: And so even with like so who's Terence? Terrence was
Speaker 1: hitting in there, So even with that, he was arrival.
Speaker 1: But it was as different as he was. I still
Speaker 1: had all those guitars and all that Terence and stuff
Speaker 1: was way more R and B and sane. Prince was
Speaker 1: still envy was always his own thing, and I was
Speaker 1: coming upright. I built this garden for us and freedom.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like it's no one you see that
Speaker 1: couldn't get half. They couldn't see it. So then I
Speaker 1: went to I had I was granted a five minute
Speaker 1: meeting at Virgin in l A with this lady God
Speaker 1: bless her, Nancy jeffries Um. You know yeah, she was,
Speaker 1: I knew this guy who was managing me, and she said,
Speaker 1: you got five minutes. Because she used to get on
Speaker 1: the plane every Friday to fly back to New York
Speaker 1: because her husband lived in New York and she spent
Speaker 1: the weekends in New York in the week in l A.
Speaker 1: Her husband worked with Philip Glass. He did so produced
Speaker 1: engineers anyway, they worked together. So she goes, you got
Speaker 1: five minutes. I put on let Love Rule, and she said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, and then she went and got Jeff
Speaker 1: eare Off played le Rois, played another one. I played
Speaker 1: b and he said hold on. He got his partner,
Speaker 1: Jordan Harris. The three of them are sitting there and
Speaker 1: there I'm playing three four different songs. They're writing on pads,
Speaker 1: passing it around. I'm what's going through. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to get signed fifteen I'm the original groups. And later
Speaker 1: I come to find out they had written John Lennon
Speaker 1: meets Prince And after fifteen minutes, Jeff said, come to
Speaker 1: my office. And that was it, Like, after all those years,
Speaker 1: then okay, we're gonna sign you. He's like, I have
Speaker 1: no idea if we can sell a record. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to market you. I don't know what to
Speaker 1: do with you, but we believe in it, and so
Speaker 1: we'll we'll deal with you. And that was it um
Speaker 1: for all of for all of the Lennon flak that
Speaker 1: you've gotten. Can I ask, where does where does Elvis
Speaker 1: Scots Stello stand in nowhere? When I love us? I
Speaker 1: love els. When I read that first Rolling Stone review
Speaker 1: and they said that I sounded like Elvis Carstello, I
Speaker 1: had no idea. I didn't even know that said that
Speaker 1: the first because everybody was saying very first uh review
Speaker 1: in Rolling Stone for that love Rulello was the was
Speaker 1: was mentioned, But I didn't know. The only Elvis Costello
Speaker 1: song I knew was uh, every day I write the
Speaker 1: book or whatever. I don't know if this yeah, which
Speaker 1: I loved, right, But I didn't understand. I didn't hear
Speaker 1: the similarity of the tone of voice or anything. So
Speaker 1: that was just coincidental. I have no idea. Okay, when
Speaker 1: do you hear it? So no, I didn't know about
Speaker 1: that Rolling Stone review. But yeah, I always felt that
Speaker 1: your voice was closer to Elvis's tone, and I thought that, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe you know he was a hero because I thought
Speaker 1: it was just too and it's easy, little hanging fruit
Speaker 1: just to say John Lennon. I didn't know where the
Speaker 1: Lennon thing was coming from, truthfully. When there was a
Speaker 1: manager who was trying to manage at the time, and
Speaker 1: he was he had heard the record let LaRue was done,
Speaker 1: and he said, man, have you you must be a
Speaker 1: fan of the Plastic on a record And I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. He turned me
Speaker 1: onto the Plastic on the record. I was like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: like there's some similarities here, like you would never heard it.
Speaker 1: I had never heard the Plastical. I just knew the Beatles.
Speaker 1: And then funny enough, when I met Yoko Um. She
Speaker 1: came to one of my first gigs in Switzerland, UM
Speaker 1: in Geneva and she's I'm in my dress room. One
Speaker 1: was banging on the door and like, who is it.
Speaker 1: It's Yoko Ono. Was like, who's like trying to mess
Speaker 1: with me? Three? Three or four more knocks. Finally I
Speaker 1: opened the door. Is Yoko Ono and she's like, I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan and did da da da? And she
Speaker 1: said this so I'm not saying anything about it, like
Speaker 1: it was just super flattering. But she was like the
Speaker 1: way you sing is the way John wanted to sing.
Speaker 1: And I was like, wow, that's how I called him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well wait, since you mentioned it, uh, what five albums
Speaker 1: can you before? I just wanted to no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it hasn't. Um, it's just UM. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of those comparisons that maybe UM from back then, the
Speaker 1: Lennon Costello things. UM. I think a lot of that
Speaker 1: has to do with the making the close miking and
Speaker 1: that that sounds just that in your face ship with
Speaker 1: the vocal m and I was screaming and I was
Speaker 1: raw and totally when I listened when I finally heard
Speaker 1: Mother and all those songs, I was like, I was
Speaker 1: those records maybe I found out God all those songs
Speaker 1: I mean huge. Yeah, so that level was like that
Speaker 1: in a sense to me when it came out was um.
Speaker 1: And I read that review and everything, and I'm a
Speaker 1: huge Costello fan and a huge Lendin fan. But really,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the comparisons from from the
Speaker 1: rawness and the dryness rather than Yeah, at that time,
Speaker 1: there were no dry records. That's what I'm saying, how
Speaker 1: did you? Everybody was like whoa, I mean that record
Speaker 1: was dry? How did you resist, you know, production, well,
Speaker 1: because I really believed in the way this stuff sounded.
Speaker 1: It sounded so intimate to me. And when I turned
Speaker 1: the record in, they were like okay because they heard
Speaker 1: the record and they signed me. But then I guess
Speaker 1: they thought they were listening to like Ross. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: that's it, and they were like, no, no, you gotta
Speaker 1: get somebody to mix this record. So they called this guy,
Speaker 1: what's his name? He mixed you too? No, Lily White, No,
Speaker 1: And we went to Green Street Studios. James m oh god, anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll get his name. Really nice guy. And then he
Speaker 1: started taking it and you know, trying to make its
Speaker 1: liquor and more and hord and then I ended up
Speaker 1: and then it didn't. I was like, no, do they
Speaker 1: have those mixes anywhere? I'd like to hear what because
Speaker 1: at the time, at the time it was like bon
Speaker 1: Jovi and it was like triggers and drums, you know
Speaker 1: all that. So here was this stale no dope. But
Speaker 1: I wouldn't put it on that right, you know, for
Speaker 1: all those all that non linear you know, and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. Um, I would have liked the mix of
Speaker 1: built this Garden for us that would have been funny.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So top five No, no, no, Now, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: were those mixes like once you don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know someone in virgin I got a call. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: in some buildings somewhere in I can't wait. So what's
Speaker 1: on the let level deluxe thing that came out everything?
Speaker 1: And I know, but what what came out on on
Speaker 1: on that edition? Which edition? The anniversary? Yeah, the anniversary edition?
Speaker 1: All of his like I guess demos and stuff. Every
Speaker 1: the same exact record, but all the demos like little
Speaker 1: cassette things singing in with a guitar or something, just
Speaker 1: like you're I would assume the stuff that you did,
Speaker 1: uh Cold Turkeys on there, but also like there's a
Speaker 1: live concert. It's it's like three discs of stuff, but
Speaker 1: a lot of your two discs. I'm sorry forgive me.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, mixture of the living room demos and I
Speaker 1: guess you're well, you do your lyrics inside of a
Speaker 1: cassette player that sort of thing, I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Yeah. Yeah, so just we're all we're all
Speaker 1: demo stuff like that. So okay, I'm sure at this point,
Speaker 1: at the stage of your life, like their albums that
Speaker 1: influence you and you've gotten hip to them after the fact,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I got in the Beatles late when
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties. But on your first album,
Speaker 1: what were you? You're like, what was your top five?
Speaker 1: Can't live without records? I remember when I was making
Speaker 1: that record. Talking Book was constant, constant. I remember jamming
Speaker 1: that day and night on my Uh. I think I
Speaker 1: had made here? M deep, what's that made here? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we atually? Yeah, we're talking Book was made here. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry forgetting. And there's the roots. See that rose right
Speaker 1: behind you. That's the Stevie Wares. I'm talking about roots.
Speaker 1: We haven't said. Come on, man, I will lead up
Speaker 1: to it. Dag nabbit, We've been up to you. You
Speaker 1: ain't gonna playnna play it? Angry angry. I'm getting angry too, anyway. Yes,
Speaker 1: ninety minutes to the center. We're an Electric Lady Studios
Speaker 1: in New York City, home of Talking Book and the
Speaker 1: music of My Mind and Divisions, a lot of Roy
Speaker 1: Airs stuff and Jimi Hendrick stuff and nothing my life. Yes, wow,
Speaker 1: yeah he recorded that here. You never recorded here. We chose,
Speaker 1: We chose. The reason why we chose vood because well,
Speaker 1: besides the House of Jimmy, they kept the same instruments
Speaker 1: forever in the same microphone, So Defender Roads, they've taken
Speaker 1: care of all the equipments. Beautiful. Yeah, like here is
Speaker 1: where who got their coffee cup on the top of Okay,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of damage that we here. Came here
Speaker 1: I did. Didn't you come by during the Voodoo session? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: he did, and he said, quote, there's a discrepancy in
Speaker 1: the drumming. Did everyone was I not? Oh, she's always
Speaker 1: know you sent me a thing once. But I remember
Speaker 1: also taking it to my studio on this is during
Speaker 1: the five album. When I was making the five album,
Speaker 1: it was me. I was not hip to that stutter
Speaker 1: and drum stuff was like it always for like, go on,
Speaker 1: you know they that's that's you, bro, Yeah, that's you.
Speaker 1: You know. It took me along, like did you invent that? No,
Speaker 1: it's what happened. Was what happened was I was meticulous
Speaker 1: and straight, straighter than six o'clock. And then I never
Speaker 1: heard that before. That's a grand poop I line right there,
Speaker 1: come on, yeah anyway, So basically, uh, I wanted people
Speaker 1: to think I was a computer. But then when I
Speaker 1: heard Dreaming Eyes of Mine, and then when I heard
Speaker 1: Jay Dilla, I was like, yo, they sound drunk, Like
Speaker 1: that's cool. But I was still trying to be straight
Speaker 1: with with my drummers and and meticulous because I wanted
Speaker 1: to be like, oh man, that was LEVI is such
Speaker 1: a metronome. But playing with D. D just naturally sounds
Speaker 1: like a cool sign hanging from his mouth, and and
Speaker 1: that he had some moonshine. He just always plays super
Speaker 1: laid back and right, and it forces you. So it
Speaker 1: took me and Pino about a good three months to
Speaker 1: feel safe to do that, because I mean, you're also
Speaker 1: thinking what I wanted to avoid. I was always with
Speaker 1: D's program, but I always feared the day that another
Speaker 1: musician would be like, damn, drums is fucked up. No, no,
Speaker 1: But I was all old school and my laid back
Speaker 1: too and four and I was I just wasn't in
Speaker 1: that head. So we took it. We took it to
Speaker 1: the whole another level. And when you said that was
Speaker 1: like and Henry and I were like, there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with this. And I looked at like, you know, I
Speaker 1: told you, I know you were just like letting a hip.
Speaker 1: So can I ask the question he told me was like,
Speaker 1: I mean with a new excuse me, professor, Professor Kravis.
Speaker 1: So here's my question. Within the Voodoo like the album,
Speaker 1: can you give us an example of where we might
Speaker 1: have heard that stutter just for something? Every song everything
Speaker 1: behind and doing it, I mean every people are doing
Speaker 1: it un titled right, Like really is that? Because I
Speaker 1: hear it? I mean, it's just a beef that should
Speaker 1: be where you think it should be, and it does
Speaker 1: it it's behind or you know, and it's it's it's
Speaker 1: But at the time we wanted him to play on
Speaker 1: he's always in my hair. I really took it to
Speaker 1: the next hip. I mean I was o Dan on
Speaker 1: Slum Village, so by that point, you know everything, I
Speaker 1: wasn't in the right family line at the time. They
Speaker 1: did it right, Oh man, you don't know. Did you
Speaker 1: ever introduced the stutup at some later point? Um? Well, Elliott, no,
Speaker 1: because you got I mean, I consider of the next
Speaker 1: generation of drummers. I mean, for a while, what's his
Speaker 1: name was drumming with you? Um uh, drums with wasn't
Speaker 1: wasn't Daryl drumming for you? For a second, Darry Jones.
Speaker 1: Was he not drumming Daryl Jones? But you actually know? Damn.
Speaker 1: I don't want to find this out on my own
Speaker 1: radio show because I'm about to be loud and wrong
Speaker 1: in the studio or live live. Who is your drumming
Speaker 1: that Druones with your tall black Franklin Vanderbilt Jr. Damn,
Speaker 1: all this time the first time, it's okay, that's name.
Speaker 1: Now I've been loud and wrong like people where they're
Speaker 1: born and not, but all this time because frank and
Speaker 1: and Daru kind of position their drums in a very
Speaker 1: particular way that I just thought they were the same
Speaker 1: person based on how they They're the only people I
Speaker 1: knew who sneered drum leans and tilts towards twelve a
Speaker 1: clock taking for the clock again Jack White, Jack Jack White, right,
Speaker 1: the smooth criminal Lean. Yes, So I always thought that
Speaker 1: Daru was also your drummer and Jack White drummer. Now
Speaker 1: I'm realizing that there's two. So it's Franklin. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: on he's on the New torn now. Yeah, yeah, he's bad.
Speaker 1: One day I would get names and places on the maps. Right,
Speaker 1: there's also a singer and I don't know if she
Speaker 1: still with your shoes. A friend of mine. We went
Speaker 1: to college together, y'alls? Right, Yes, how did y'all they
Speaker 1: they did a few years with me. Unstruck the princess thing.
Speaker 1: That's right. She sang in the because I called her.
Speaker 1: She was in town. Had her coming joined the choir
Speaker 1: when we did Doves Cry and the Cross. Yeah, how
Speaker 1: did you guys think up? How did you come across her?
Speaker 1: Through Erica Jerry who was one of the background singers.
Speaker 1: She she was singing with um Raphael Sadik and they
Speaker 1: were opening for me in Europe, and so we got
Speaker 1: to know her and then I just called her. I
Speaker 1: was like, I need three girls for the tour. She
Speaker 1: brought them all and she she knew yaz. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: go way back. She's amazing. Okay. So now in your
Speaker 1: your wise age and in hindsight, I now get the stutter.
Speaker 1: Let me just getting He went and did five that
Speaker 1: ship so like gang bustles. So I think he you
Speaker 1: are no, but I'm saying that, Uh, after let love rules,
Speaker 1: let love rule comes to be colored. And that was
Speaker 1: so when it comes out, Uh, you become a household name.
Speaker 1: And even though I know you've had the bigger album. No, no,
Speaker 1: it was like the introduction. But yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: doors open for you. And also I would like to
Speaker 1: think that the effects of what happened during that first
Speaker 1: album is what caused the second album to happen, because
Speaker 1: there's act I mean, there's some confessional yeah here my
Speaker 1: dear going on with the second album. So what I
Speaker 1: want to know is not that a person should ever
Speaker 1: regret moves or any of course their life takes, but
Speaker 1: what was it to have success and what occurred that
Speaker 1: and do you have any regrets of your initial breakout?
Speaker 1: I hope I asked a whole lot of money. Okay,
Speaker 1: talk to me about the effects of the effects of
Speaker 1: the album coming out. And I mean it was fantasy.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what was going on. Man, this was
Speaker 1: all I had just grown up, being a fan all
Speaker 1: my life. And now I'm now I'm doing that thing
Speaker 1: that I love and I'm going around the world and
Speaker 1: I'm playing and people know the music and it's like
Speaker 1: you're the new guy, you know. I mean, Prince called
Speaker 1: me on the phone. I mean it was like when
Speaker 1: you're the you know, it's it's to call me on
Speaker 1: the phone. I mean every you know what it was
Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, you're meeting these people and
Speaker 1: everybody's come yok, and was coming around and this you know,
Speaker 1: and um, actually wait real quick, because you played when
Speaker 1: you were mine at the Apollo with prints. Yes, what
Speaker 1: was that like? Um, I don't even remember. It was
Speaker 1: just like he wudn't hear me all the time, but
Speaker 1: the mic wasn't that he had me and he had
Speaker 1: me off on the side because he you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't want me right there next time. No, but he
Speaker 1: kicked my ass. It's just you know, but he he
Speaker 1: always wanted to make sure, you know. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a trip. That was one of the first times.
Speaker 1: We think it's the first time we played live. And
Speaker 1: then we talked about TV. And then he would call
Speaker 1: me like we'd be in Amsterdam. He called me the
Speaker 1: middle of night, I have a show so another city,
Speaker 1: meet me at this club and we'd go play for
Speaker 1: a few hours, and then he'd give me like a
Speaker 1: bag of money, like he was so generous about it.
Speaker 1: He'd be like, all right, I made this, and here's yours.
Speaker 1: Here's your cut, he's your cut, and uh he walk
Speaker 1: out with a bag of money but damn he did
Speaker 1: the opposite with me. He wants made me take a
Speaker 1: taxi cab like Philly. The butter was like that sounds
Speaker 1: like more of the revolution stories too. I was like
Speaker 1: that sound his version is different because when the revolution
Speaker 1: was talking, he liked you mother wouldn't even come to
Speaker 1: my cab. Remember my song lady cab driver there? That
Speaker 1: was pretty good. That's pretty good. But anyway, it was
Speaker 1: a fantasy. It was a fantasy. I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: wasn't thinking I was I was just doing. I had
Speaker 1: no idea what was going on, no idea, and financially
Speaker 1: at that time, like were you good? Like were you making?
Speaker 1: Where was your money? And I was renting an apartment.
Speaker 1: I wasn't you know, I wasn't making like that. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess. Starting on the third record, We're are you
Speaker 1: Gonna Go? My Way? Hit, then it turned into more
Speaker 1: of a like oh wow, oh we're going around the
Speaker 1: world playing arenas and you know, speaking of that song,
Speaker 1: thank you for putting that in guitar Hero, because that
Speaker 1: turned my son's onto your music, and like we we
Speaker 1: played that and they loved that song and that thanks
Speaker 1: that put them onto your music. I started showing them
Speaker 1: more your stuff. Thank you, yeah, m M cors Love
Speaker 1: Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora