Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Steps Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is movie producer, record producer, all around
Speaker 1: creative wonder Kin Spencer Prophet Spencer. Good to have you
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Bob. It's good. I've been following you
Speaker 1: for a year. It's good to see you're good to
Speaker 1: talk to you man. Okay, So you have this new
Speaker 1: movie about American Pie, Don McLean's legendary song. How did
Speaker 1: this come to be? Well, it started when I was
Speaker 1: a student U c l A. I pulled over when
Speaker 1: I heard the song. Three minutes and I still kept listening.
Speaker 1: Six minutes and I still kept listening. I was in
Speaker 1: a band. I've failed, but I said to myself, if
Speaker 1: I ever grow up and get to be a macher
Speaker 1: in the music business, I'd like to do something with it.
Speaker 1: Four years ago, I heard from Don's manager after I
Speaker 1: finished my John Coltrane documentary with Denzel Washington narrating, and
Speaker 1: Kurt Webster said, are you interested in doing it doc
Speaker 1: on Don? I said, I'm really interested because I knew
Speaker 1: that Don wrote American Pie to me a great piece
Speaker 1: of poetry, not that I put it with you know,
Speaker 1: Keats and Shakespeare, and Dennison, but I consider it great,
Speaker 1: great literary work. I said it would be my honor
Speaker 1: if I could do a dock on the journey of
Speaker 1: the song, taking down up to when he wrote it
Speaker 1: and then following the trajectory of the song for the
Speaker 1: life of the song, past president of future. That's what
Speaker 1: we did. But I got involved with it spiritually way
Speaker 1: back fifty plus years ago. Okay, what was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for the manager to call you to connect? I believe
Speaker 1: we had a mutual friend, Ray Dela Garza, and he's
Speaker 1: seen my John coltrane Um documentary which was on Netflix
Speaker 1: at the time, directed by John Sheinfeld and Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: had narrated Bill Clinton, Common Santana Or in it. It's
Speaker 1: real good. And my approach to making dots is very
Speaker 1: different than the normal bear. And possibly that that plus
Speaker 1: Forbes article that said that I was from the inside
Speaker 1: coming out as opposed to guys like brilliant guys Scorsese,
Speaker 1: e Ron Howard, Peter Jackson, genius directors. But they're from
Speaker 1: the outside end, as you know, because we met during
Speaker 1: your sanctuary days. I come from the music. I care,
Speaker 1: I get goose bumps, and uh, I want to make
Speaker 1: film that reflects the goose bumps. Okay, so he calls you,
Speaker 1: at what point do you decide you're gonna do it?
Speaker 1: And what's the first step? First step is I immediately
Speaker 1: and viscerally and spiritually said I have to be involved.
Speaker 1: Then the question is who pays for it, who distributes it,
Speaker 1: who markets it. There's some wonderful guys running the new
Speaker 1: Paramount Global company from Bob back issues the chairman to
Speaker 1: Bruce Kilmer, president of music. Now Bruce for thirty five
Speaker 1: years used to be a VH one. So I called Bruce.
Speaker 1: I sent him the Coltrane film. I said I'd like
Speaker 1: to talk to you about gave him a little bit
Speaker 1: of the vision. He set up a zoom call Bob,
Speaker 1: Bruce and I talked, and within seventy two hours I
Speaker 1: started the process. We papered it with his business affairs
Speaker 1: guys who were terrific, and literally within three weeks I
Speaker 1: was on a director search. So how did you know
Speaker 1: what the budget would be? Because I asked for and
Speaker 1: so you just pull the pull the number out of
Speaker 1: your rear red and said this this sounds to be
Speaker 1: like what it would take to make a Doomic Lane film. No,
Speaker 1: I said, how much is Bob lefts it's his house
Speaker 1: worth now triple it now, now, seriously, I can't spend
Speaker 1: less than a couple of million bucks to do something
Speaker 1: the way I want to do it. Um, we brainstormed
Speaker 1: what it could be. I didn't know who I would get,
Speaker 1: I didn't know how deeply Garth Brooks would get into it.
Speaker 1: I didn't know how many songs we would use to
Speaker 1: decorate the spirit of the time, the trajectory. I wanted
Speaker 1: to do new, young versions of it to show the
Speaker 1: public that the song is not only a classic then,
Speaker 1: but it could be for the future. And we did,
Speaker 1: and I just estimated in my head. I pulled the
Speaker 1: number a little bit out of my butt, but I
Speaker 1: kind of knew what it takes to do it at
Speaker 1: the level that I want to do it. And it's
Speaker 1: not like a generica. Okay, if you make a deal
Speaker 1: with Paramount and the Paramount plus it ultimately released on
Speaker 1: and how many how many rights do you cough up?
Speaker 1: Do they own it a percent? Do you have a
Speaker 1: back end interest? What are the deals in today's documentary world? Well,
Speaker 1: the deals with me are different than they are with others,
Speaker 1: and I can't you know, it's almost like Woodward and Bernstein.
Speaker 1: I can't reveal my sources. I can tell you that's
Speaker 1: the copyright is in the name of uh my company
Speaker 1: named Morland, named after my children. I can tell you
Speaker 1: that they have the perpetual right to stream it. I
Speaker 1: have some territories. I have some extension rights. We've done
Speaker 1: an illustrated children's book on it, which is a prequel,
Speaker 1: and it kind of talks about Donna as a young
Speaker 1: newspaper boy learning about friendship and hope and how music.
Speaker 1: For me it's people soul. I'm able to carve out
Speaker 1: certain extension rights to it, but I can't go into
Speaker 1: the details of what the deals truly are, other than
Speaker 1: saying I continue making an Elvis comeback doc right now
Speaker 1: with the same people, plan to do anymore. I really
Speaker 1: like working with this team over a paramount plus, so
Speaker 1: I had to find a director. I looked at different
Speaker 1: people's work over a period of six months. Don was
Speaker 1: tremendous in doing zoom calls. When I found someone I
Speaker 1: was interested in, we did four and I remember when
Speaker 1: Godless I'm Argan, when he was alive, he had told
Speaker 1: me of a director that had done that Tom dow
Speaker 1: Dock that actually dealt with them, great documentary, right, And
Speaker 1: this guy is not famous, he's not a household name.
Speaker 1: He's not sitting with m Emmy. He's an Academy nominations
Speaker 1: like some of the people that I talked to. But
Speaker 1: I'm all about the work. I'm not just about somebody's
Speaker 1: resume or somebody you know that somebody's going to pay
Speaker 1: me to do something. So I looked him up, and
Speaker 1: I looked at a couple of other things Mark Mormon
Speaker 1: that he did, and I said, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: guy is really good. He really understands the psychist of
Speaker 1: music and the evolution of music through periods, which is
Speaker 1: what that doctor Tom down Dock was. And I was
Speaker 1: also working with Eddie Kramer, who is kind of one
Speaker 1: of the quintessential engineers. I am making Eddie stock through
Speaker 1: his Hendrix, Rolling Stone Zeppelin period. And I said to myself, Man,
Speaker 1: this guy Mormon really knows the stuff. I reached out
Speaker 1: to him cold and we talked and we bonded. He
Speaker 1: flew out to l A. I did a zoom call
Speaker 1: it Don. Don trusted me Don like Mark, and we started. Okay,
Speaker 1: now the film goes extensively into the plane crash with
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper. Richie Valens has uh the
Speaker 1: actual corn field that they crashed in. How did you
Speaker 1: decide on the construction of the movie in terms of
Speaker 1: what was going to be the varying, varying elements. Well,
Speaker 1: the elements were product of brainstorming between myself and the director.
Speaker 1: But Mark has vision, he's a cinematographer. We definitely wanted
Speaker 1: to anchor this to the field of Dreams and Iowa,
Speaker 1: where the plane did crash. Don doesn't pilgrimage. He did
Speaker 1: one fifty years later to the Surf Ballroom, which was
Speaker 1: the place, the last place that Buddy Holly and you
Speaker 1: know they did that concert. So all of this was
Speaker 1: the vision of his start there. But it's not a
Speaker 1: Buddy Holly doc. It's not Iowa a doc. It's just
Speaker 1: the anchor. But the song traveled way beyond Iowa. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm very interested having watched the film. Was the
Speaker 1: Surf Ballroom just preserved as it was because they realize
Speaker 1: the monumental effect of those artists that they have gigs there?
Speaker 1: Is it a museum? I know that ultimately Don plays
Speaker 1: there in the in the film. But what's the status
Speaker 1: of the Surf Ballroom today? It's living and breathing. It
Speaker 1: is considered a national monument. They've kind of upgraded it.
Speaker 1: You can see by watching the film the pictures of
Speaker 1: some of the icons who have played there, and of
Speaker 1: course you see a tribute to Richie Ballance and Buddy
Speaker 1: Holly and the Big Bopper. But now it's a living, breathing,
Speaker 1: functioning place. But at the same time it became the
Speaker 1: anchor of the stock at least get going with it. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have a long history of dealing with artists, and
Speaker 1: one thing we know about artists, it's their one and
Speaker 1: only career. If they make a mistake, it might kill
Speaker 1: their career and a manager, dus or whatever label can
Speaker 1: move on. Right, How difficult was it working with Don
Speaker 1: who does not have a reputation for being easy going.
Speaker 1: I think Don is a brilliant, wonderful, warm guy if
Speaker 1: you catch him properly, he's intelligent, he's got a number
Speaker 1: of degrees. He doesn't suffer fools. Well, I had to
Speaker 1: be on my game and I was, and he's got
Speaker 1: a very smart manager who also paid attention. But I
Speaker 1: found on to be very gracious, and he said, if
Speaker 1: it ain't broke down, fixed it. Every time Mark and
Speaker 1: I would come up with stuff and we'd have rough
Speaker 1: cuts of this stat or the other. I'd share it
Speaker 1: with them. I'm very collaborative with the artists, and because
Speaker 1: I come from the music as opposed to a suit
Speaker 1: trying to impose my view on it, Don became very collaborative.
Speaker 1: He was great. Who is Don's manager? Guy named Kurt
Speaker 1: Webster based on a national Okay, so what did you
Speaker 1: learn making the movie about American Pie and Don mc lane? Well?
Speaker 1: I learned the reveals that he decided to reveal. Who
Speaker 1: was the jester? Was it Bob Dylan? What was thorny crown? Well,
Speaker 1: Elvis was the king, but he didn't wear a thorny
Speaker 1: crown because Jesus Christ bore the thorny crown. What I
Speaker 1: learned was what was inside Donald's head and a heart
Speaker 1: and spirit. When he wrote a big song for the country,
Speaker 1: the Marching, I used to run the sts at u
Speaker 1: c l A very much protesting the war in my
Speaker 1: younger days, and when the marching element came up in
Speaker 1: the song, little did I know that there was a
Speaker 1: march that was really happening. People were marching in seventy
Speaker 1: seventy one. I got it's very deep. It's much deeper
Speaker 1: than just a campfire song, but it's got a good hook.
Speaker 1: How did you segue from making records to making documentaries?
Speaker 1: By having directed a number of videos on the records
Speaker 1: that I produced, getting next to the creative as I've
Speaker 1: always been, And actually in nine seven I had the
Speaker 1: good fortune to work with Robbie Robertson, whose best friend
Speaker 1: at the time was Martin Scorsese. We made it doc
Speaker 1: on how Robbie kind of wanted to be in film
Speaker 1: Scorsese wanted to be in music. How they teamed up
Speaker 1: after the Last Waltz and I was able to work
Speaker 1: with Ida grow Wits and some people that I knew
Speaker 1: In putting that doc together. We had two Emmy nominations.
Speaker 1: That was before it was fashionable to do music docs.
Speaker 1: How did I segue? Because I come from the music
Speaker 1: and I care about with the songs and the music
Speaker 1: represents It became a logical outgrowth for me as I
Speaker 1: started evolving my career and morphing into the next step.
Speaker 1: As you get older, you don't want a babysit rock
Speaker 1: artists anymore. I had the good fortune to spend three
Speaker 1: songs with Stevie Wonder that I got to produce and
Speaker 1: arrange music with him with the Symphony Orchardstrap. Very the
Speaker 1: quiet riot very different than when I met you, Bob,
Speaker 1: when you were working in Sanctuary, I was producing The
Speaker 1: wasp Ountain, which wind up selling a couple of million
Speaker 1: records back in But I do remember you coming into
Speaker 1: my studio, and boy, little did I know that you
Speaker 1: would become probably the most articulate purveyor of pop cultures
Speaker 1: through your writing. So I'm really thrilled to talk to you. Man. Wow,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to respond to that, so I'll
Speaker 1: just keep flowing. Okay, many many producers from your era
Speaker 1: you have have no more work, and if they're they're
Speaker 1: living on their glory. Then there are people like Tom
Speaker 1: Mormon who did a complete one eighty and ended up
Speaker 1: running a B and B. In your particular case, did
Speaker 1: you ultimately see way, there's no future for me in
Speaker 1: this The game changes. I'm getting older and I'm going
Speaker 1: to pivot to this. How conscious was the whole decision? It?
Speaker 1: It was a natural outgrowth. I never worried that I
Speaker 1: would be lacking work. I've been working since I worked
Speaker 1: for Clive Davis, one of his twenty three um. I decided,
Speaker 1: after having two children, I didn't want a babysit rock
Speaker 1: artists anymore, and I didn't want to be in the studio,
Speaker 1: so I started supervising music for film before it became fashionable.
Speaker 1: A good friend of mine, Jerry Off say it became
Speaker 1: the head of production at showtime, and if you look
Speaker 1: at my IMDb you'll see fifty five films that I quarterback.
Speaker 1: I mixed the scores, I wrote some title songs, and
Speaker 1: that was my gradual evolution. I didn't do it to
Speaker 1: make a living because I did a lot of back
Speaker 1: end deals, because I'm the kind of guy that eats
Speaker 1: what I killed. I don't try and frontload anything. By
Speaker 1: the way, I was up in Massachusetts at Rman's place.
Speaker 1: Tom is an old friend of mine. It's wonderful. I
Speaker 1: love the whole, that whole Brookshire's area lot, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But now my conscious thing was logical. In
Speaker 1: two thousand two, I teamed up with the buddy of mine.
Speaker 1: We made the first DH one on biographical movie, which
Speaker 1: I put together, and I decided, you know, this is
Speaker 1: kind of cool building uh, media out of music, and
Speaker 1: I started doing that way before it became super fashionable.
Speaker 1: I started that as I told you did any cost
Speaker 1: for VH one in two thousand two, and it just
Speaker 1: naturally evolved to do that making a difference in pop
Speaker 1: culture using music and media. Now, the music business and
Speaker 1: movie business are different in many ways. Certainly, the budgets
Speaker 1: are lower in music and it's easier to get started.
Speaker 1: There are producers who have multiple projects and they're waiting
Speaker 1: for funding for decades. What has been your experience and
Speaker 1: how do you deal with this frustration? I kind of
Speaker 1: feel that I don't pitch. I share, and because I'm
Speaker 1: next to the talent and I get the proprietary rights, uh,
Speaker 1: I p is king and distribution is great and for me,
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem making anything that I do
Speaker 1: get out to the World's the question of who's the
Speaker 1: appropriate distributor marketing. I have a great team that worked
Speaker 1: for me, that I believe in, I trust, and we've
Speaker 1: all known each other for one guy does all my
Speaker 1: underscore stuff. I've known for forty years. But if you
Speaker 1: look at my sight, the average longevity of my relationships
Speaker 1: to my team is probably a decade plus. And my
Speaker 1: model also is I pay out of budgets so they
Speaker 1: can go and build their life and do their work
Speaker 1: their own way. But I've got fierce loyalty because maybe
Speaker 1: I'm a decent guy at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: but I really care about the art. Well, Eddie Kramer
Speaker 1: certainly deserves a documentary. Anything else in the pipe yeah part,
Speaker 1: you would know all these people who, as you are
Speaker 1: a student of the business of pop culture. My friend
Speaker 1: Del Bryant, who used to be the president of b
Speaker 1: m I, his parents, Police and Buddle O'Brian actually wrote
Speaker 1: all the big Everley Brothers hits. So the doc we're
Speaker 1: going to make his call. That's done. It signed papered.
Speaker 1: All I Have to Do Is Dream, which was one
Speaker 1: of the big Everley hits. But when you think of
Speaker 1: the people who covered some of the Bryant songs from
Speaker 1: Paul Simon too, you look at the influence that the
Speaker 1: Everley Harmonies have had on McCarty, Lennon McCartney, etcetera. We're
Speaker 1: going to make a doc called All I Have to
Speaker 1: Do Is Dream, the pioneers of Nashville, and I can
Speaker 1: link a little bit about that because in the sixties,
Speaker 1: as you know, New York was a hotbed of new
Speaker 1: acoustic music and there were a lot of renegades there. Well,
Speaker 1: the Bryants were the pioneers of bohemians of Nashville before
Speaker 1: it was fashionable, you know, to be cool in Nashville,
Speaker 1: which it is today. So they would Devil would be
Speaker 1: sitting on his dad's knee when Orbison and the Release
Speaker 1: and Carl Perkins and all these people would come over,
Speaker 1: and we're going to have demos that Della has. This
Speaker 1: is a doc about his parents journey, but we're also
Speaker 1: going to deal with the music. But we're not going
Speaker 1: to do a generic music doc. It's really going to
Speaker 1: be about pioneering music out of a Nashville Anchor will
Speaker 1: bring it forward with some modern covers like I did
Speaker 1: with McLean, But really that's the project of Excited about
Speaker 1: Steven Schwartz wrote Godspell, Pippen, and the current Wicked movie
Speaker 1: which he has written. Stephen is elected for me to
Speaker 1: be his producer and produced the doc on his journey,
Speaker 1: not a Wicked documentary, documentary on the kid who was
Speaker 1: at Carnegie Mellon when he wrote god Steal. Then he
Speaker 1: went and wrote Pippen. Then he had a problem with
Speaker 1: Bob Fosse. Then he started writing music for films. He
Speaker 1: tamed up with Alamanka. That's going to be an interesting story.
Speaker 1: We will do that working with God bless his memory.
Speaker 1: Lamont Dozer was one of my dearest friends. We've written
Speaker 1: some songs together when our kids had play dates. My
Speaker 1: younger son Morgan used to date. Is not date could
Speaker 1: go to school with his daughter. So he had written
Speaker 1: the songs that he wrote in the sixties, whether it
Speaker 1: be you know heat wave or standing in the Shadows
Speaker 1: or this same old song. We live that through the
Speaker 1: administration prior to Biden and so are we in a
Speaker 1: heat wave? Is it the same old song? Were we
Speaker 1: hearing the same things? So I've teamed up with a
Speaker 1: director who's a South African, brilliant guy, and we are
Speaker 1: sculpting the story from a South African point of view culturally,
Speaker 1: but from a world point of view because Laumont, after
Speaker 1: he left Motown, he toured South Africa, he toured Nigeria.
Speaker 1: We're just going to approach it a little differently than
Speaker 1: the normal person. That which is do a soup to nuts. Hey,
Speaker 1: it's a dock on all this hits. Guys had fifty
Speaker 1: one number one songs. But I'm interested in what those
Speaker 1: songs mean to people then and today, as we did
Speaker 1: with Lamont, as we did with Don McLean. Okay, going
Speaker 1: back to Dell, who owns his parents songs now? Del
Speaker 1: how Sobriant he and his brother own a So I
Speaker 1: have no licensing issues, I have no sink issues. Everything
Speaker 1: is built in into my partnership with Dell. Great. So
Speaker 1: you're a student of the game yourself. What do you
Speaker 1: think about all these artists selling their catalogs. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about publishing catalog primarily those Springsteen were sold the records too, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we understand, and an opal of years who were in
Speaker 1: the Sanctuary it was kind of next to that. Mark
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I think, And funny I've gone back
Speaker 1: and forth with them. I'm proud of how he's built
Speaker 1: what is hip knows his company. I see what the
Speaker 1: big boys are doing, and I think that's really smart
Speaker 1: because if you're Paul Simon, if you're Bob Dylan, and
Speaker 1: you're after seventy years all you can get three four
Speaker 1: five million dollars for your work and still consult on
Speaker 1: it and still have a voice on how the things
Speaker 1: are used and licensed. I think that's actually really smart,
Speaker 1: because songs are the bedrock of the business. Who owns
Speaker 1: all your rights? Me? So you haven't sold anything? No,
Speaker 1: Well I did in the past, um because well, these
Speaker 1: days I'm owning the i P to my films. I
Speaker 1: used to own the I P to the copyrights on
Speaker 1: the songs that I wrote and the records I produced.
Speaker 1: Some of them were owned by the distributors. When I
Speaker 1: got smart, I wound up having j vs after my
Speaker 1: Billy Thorpe experience. If you remember Children of the Sun,
Speaker 1: of course I wrote that I produced that with Billy.
Speaker 1: It was on Capricorn when they went belly up. I
Speaker 1: didn't get a dime and we sold a million records. Bob.
Speaker 1: In y eight I developed laser computer animated laser light shows,
Speaker 1: started Planet Arry shows, and I didn't get paid a time.
Speaker 1: I realized I need to control my i P a
Speaker 1: little more, so it evolved. I did go to law school.
Speaker 1: The only thing I learned out of that was that
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be a lawyer. A and B.
Speaker 1: When Clive offered me a job, he could either pick
Speaker 1: up my option as an artist, or take the job.
Speaker 1: I took the job, kidding forget. That was the end
Speaker 1: of my recording career. So I've been that guy behind
Speaker 1: the curtain, the frustrated artist, that frustrated guitar player. My
Speaker 1: last who odd guitar? As I played with Ray Parker Jr.
Speaker 1: On the Tina Turner asked the Queen album, if you
Speaker 1: look and you google if there were only two guitarists
Speaker 1: me and right. But you know what, when I got
Speaker 1: the chance to work with Jeff Beck with Brian May,
Speaker 1: I said, wait a minute, these are real good guitarists.
Speaker 1: If you see that guitar behind there, I use it
Speaker 1: to strom you know, my hope, my future grandchildren to sleep.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you man, I'm not as good as
Speaker 1: the people have worked with. That's why I defer. Don
Speaker 1: McLean is one of the best guitarist show ever meet. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Quiet Riot stuff. Yeah, I assumed that Sony owns
Speaker 1: the recordings. Are you still getting revenue from that or
Speaker 1: if you sold the rights to that? Now? I still
Speaker 1: get revenue every quarter and the masters because at the
Speaker 1: time I didn't have the Cloud, I had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: Walter Yetnikoff gave me the opportunity, and that's the story
Speaker 1: into itself. Because they all hated that record. I made it.
Speaker 1: I directed the videos with a guy named Mark Rezko,
Speaker 1: who was an out of work commercial Sky and MTV.
Speaker 1: Actually Bob Pittman and his team Les Garland helped me
Speaker 1: get it on the air. When I put a second
Speaker 1: on my house made the video at cal Arts bypassed
Speaker 1: the label, sent it to EMPTV. They put on the air,
Speaker 1: went through the roof the first bang your Head video.
Speaker 1: But I didn't own the masters. I owned the publishing
Speaker 1: that I did sell back. Okay, you sold the publishing
Speaker 1: just on that. Yeah, what was your motivation? M getting divorced?
Speaker 1: That's a good motivation. Absolutely. How many times you've been married?
Speaker 1: While I have the best marriage a human being could have.
Speaker 1: I my first marriage was was someone you probably know of,
Speaker 1: Trudy Green who and Trudy is still my dear friend.
Speaker 1: After fifty years of friendship, we realized we'd be better
Speaker 1: business partners than husband and wife. So that thing lasted
Speaker 1: a year in my twenties, then the mother of my
Speaker 1: children fifteen years when that didn't work, I met Judy
Speaker 1: by accident. She's been with me now. Twenty two years
Speaker 1: she was the publisher of the l A Weekly. She's brilliant.
Speaker 1: She's got a heart of gold, and rather than me
Speaker 1: talk about it on this podcast, people can read about
Speaker 1: her and google her. But she runs my book division
Speaker 1: and she is about the smartest person I've ever met
Speaker 1: in my life, next to my kids. My kids are
Speaker 1: pretty smart too. Okay, if you stop working today, do
Speaker 1: you have enough money to get to the end? Yes? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's good. What's what's up with your book division? Well?
Speaker 1: I like the idea of making books, whether it's the
Speaker 1: book first and then the doc. I'll show you this
Speaker 1: Elvis book that Babs Lerman wrote the forward too, just so,
Speaker 1: just so you know, we're audio only. Oh okay. Bass
Speaker 1: Lerman is a brilliant director. He's now crossed the three
Speaker 1: million mark with the Elvis Stone. My dear friend Steve
Speaker 1: Steve Binder actually directed and produced the original Comeback special.
Speaker 1: I'm in production on that now, telling the Elvis and
Speaker 1: Steve Buddy story Elman, Louise, Butch and Sundance, Elvis and Steve.
Speaker 1: As you can see when you watch the bass Lerman movie,
Speaker 1: Elvis and Steve, will Steve Divide Colonel Parker. He didn't
Speaker 1: want to do a some special. And if you remember
Speaker 1: the scene in the Bass Movie when Elvis says, so, Steve,
Speaker 1: what do you think of my career? And Steve says,
Speaker 1: it's in the toilet, it's true. So partnering with Viacom
Speaker 1: and Paramount Plus and Paramount Corporate and CBS UM on
Speaker 1: this who are my partners? We are making the story
Speaker 1: from through Steve's lens. And it happened that Steve wrote
Speaker 1: a book on it. We published if we put it out.
Speaker 1: He got Bads to write the forward to the book.
Speaker 1: He consulted on Bads this movie, and we're using the
Speaker 1: Bads movie, not using but it's propelling sales of the
Speaker 1: book when our doc comes out. It's also going to
Speaker 1: help that book came first. Judy helped me put the
Speaker 1: book together with Steve. Steve wrote it. He's brilliant, he lived.
Speaker 1: He is the only living guy who can truly speak
Speaker 1: to the Elvis Comeback Special because he's the guy who
Speaker 1: directed it, produced it, and conceived it. Um on the
Speaker 1: lean thing. When I got to know Don and learned
Speaker 1: his story of being a young paper boy and being
Speaker 1: inspired and being affected by Buddy Holly's death, Judy and
Speaker 1: I talked about it. She came up with a brilliant
Speaker 1: idea on how to look at the prequel to him
Speaker 1: writing the song that's the Journey. I have a distribution
Speaker 1: deal with kind of the A and M Records Island
Speaker 1: speaking at Chris Blackwell of books called IPG based out
Speaker 1: of Chicago, and they're doing that book and a dozen
Speaker 1: other books for us. I'm making a book on every
Speaker 1: dock that I produced because I can. Okay, going back
Speaker 1: to the American Pie, you have recreations. They're done very subtly.
Speaker 1: At first you think that, uh, it's actually the film
Speaker 1: from that era. That's an interesting choice. How did you
Speaker 1: and the director make that choice? First of all, I'm
Speaker 1: going to correct you. It's not recreations, Chloral, It's only
Speaker 1: a slight piece that exists. And that was Mark Mormon's
Speaker 1: genius because it couldn't we couldn't get footage from seventy one,
Speaker 1: but it could look like seventy one who could feel
Speaker 1: like it and Don guided him through it because Don
Speaker 1: was there. So if you do it, and you do
Speaker 1: it with some vision, you pull it off. And I
Speaker 1: give a lot of props to Mark Mormon for doing that. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's pull the lens back. If someone who's been in
Speaker 1: the game from many decades, and what do you think
Speaker 1: about the recorded music business today? I think songs of
Speaker 1: the bedrock of music and harmony. I'm working on a
Speaker 1: dock with the guys Manhattan Transfer Pentatonics that takes you
Speaker 1: back to the Andrew sisters and the Mills brothers, and
Speaker 1: that Jordanaire's harmony. Songs will always exist. How you sell it.
Speaker 1: Used to be a tracks, used to be in you
Speaker 1: used to spin it around on seventy eight eight tracks too,
Speaker 1: you know, digital to now downloads. It's always going to
Speaker 1: have content. So what do I think of it? If
Speaker 1: the songs are great, I'm a big believer you use
Speaker 1: media to propel the songs. That's why I'm doing what
Speaker 1: I'm doing at this age. I'm doing it because I
Speaker 1: get off on it. I love it, I understand it,
Speaker 1: I relate to it. And yeah, money is a byproduct
Speaker 1: of the work. You do the work, the money comes.
Speaker 1: I don't do it for the money. I do it
Speaker 1: for the goose bumps. Once you have those, the money comes.
Speaker 1: I make a lot of money, but I make the
Speaker 1: money doing good work. Okay, let's go a little deeper
Speaker 1: into the music itself. Okay, you made your bones in
Speaker 1: the rock era. What do you think of rock today
Speaker 1: and what do you think of hip hop and pop?
Speaker 1: I think if there's a story, whether it's rock, whether
Speaker 1: it's bang your head, which became a social cultural thing.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I had produced Tina Turner and
Speaker 1: Paul Anka, which wasn't rock. Before I had mixed records
Speaker 1: for Bobby Womack and Bobby Goldsboro. So I you know,
Speaker 1: I had this great success as a rock producer, but
Speaker 1: I'm a music producer. Working with Stevie Wonder with a
Speaker 1: symphony orchestra, working with BB King. That's not rock. It's music,
Speaker 1: and I'm all about the music and I care about it.
Speaker 1: Stephen Schwartz, his songs that he wrote for Pippen and
Speaker 1: Godspell and Wicked, that's not rock, it's good music. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of songs. Laura Nero, James Taylor, Elton,
Speaker 1: John Kat Stevens. Those are my favorite. Paul Simon is
Speaker 1: my favorite writer the history of my life, because when
Speaker 1: we all came to look for America, that was my story.
Speaker 1: I was born in Germany. I came to America when
Speaker 1: I was six. My kids are the firstborn propers in America,
Speaker 1: so I'm all about it. And he epitomized the spirit
Speaker 1: of coming to America in a song. I love Paul
Speaker 1: Simon and I love songs. So what I think of
Speaker 1: the music business. I think Taylor Swift is a fine
Speaker 1: artist that she writes songs. I think there's some artists
Speaker 1: that still harkened back to songs. I think riffs and rap.
Speaker 1: If rap has a story to it, I did it.
Speaker 1: I like anything that's storytelling. Okay, let's go back to
Speaker 1: Quiet Riot. Warrener and his partner with the managers was
Speaker 1: that David Jacob was his name or something like that.
Speaker 1: Warren was the sole manager. Warren used to be in
Speaker 1: the grassroots and he he nderstood music, but now he
Speaker 1: didn't partner. Maybe subsequently he partnered with others. But during
Speaker 1: the Quiet Riot era, Warren was the manager. Okay, So
Speaker 1: Quiet Riot was a local band Los Angeles had two
Speaker 1: Japanese albums. How did you get involved? When I made
Speaker 1: my label deal with CBS and Night One, I had
Speaker 1: to have a day job because I was real poor
Speaker 1: coming up, so I was producing any money for the company.
Speaker 1: And I remember working for Clive that I went to
Speaker 1: a concert that actually when we signed Pink Floyd. I
Speaker 1: was drafting papers during the day and at night i'd
Speaker 1: go out with Gilmore Waters. We went to Hammersmith and
Speaker 1: I heard Slave, and I heard them invite the audience
Speaker 1: to participate with songs like Mama, We're all crazy now
Speaker 1: and you know, uh, come on Field a Noise, and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, that just I remembered that. So on
Speaker 1: this poor guy producing any money, not that poor anymore,
Speaker 1: but I was producing it had this label deal. I
Speaker 1: lost the window with Billy Thorpe because when those masters
Speaker 1: got hung up in bankruptcy. I continued on Billy because
Speaker 1: I built my relationship with the artists. We put on
Speaker 1: a Thorpe record. It didn't do much, and I said,
Speaker 1: holy Ship. Yet mcough gave me this deal because he
Speaker 1: thought I had vision. What am I gonna do? I'm
Speaker 1: driving around. I hear Police Rock Sand, I hear soft
Speaker 1: Sell on the radio, very passive. Then I hear KHJ
Speaker 1: radio playing come on Field the Noise, the oldie by Slave.
Speaker 1: I said, holy Ship. That jumps right out of the radio.
Speaker 1: A friend of mine who was managing an epic band
Speaker 1: called Molly Hatchett called Pat Armstrong. He said, are you
Speaker 1: hip to this band that's doing? I said, friendly with
Speaker 1: Patty wanted me to produce and stuff for him. I said,
Speaker 1: I need to find a band who can sing anthem
Speaker 1: participatory rock songs. He goes, there's this band playing the
Speaker 1: country club and resida. I'm an l a guy, and
Speaker 1: they sing those kind of songs. The lead singers Demonich.
Speaker 1: He looks like a Marcel Mars character. So I said, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, Pat, you got credit with me. I
Speaker 1: got in the car. I drove up one night to
Speaker 1: the country club and there were six people in the audience,
Speaker 1: and there was this group called Why. They were called
Speaker 1: do Bro, named after Kevin du Bro. Rudy Sarzo was
Speaker 1: still working with Ozzie Osborne, playing bass for Ozzie. So
Speaker 1: I listened to them and I hear party all night,
Speaker 1: I hear bang your head. I'm going, okay, if I
Speaker 1: can convince these guys to do a cover, which I
Speaker 1: understood was really hard, and that's why the disconnect with
Speaker 1: Kevin I started day one. But I had a studio passion,
Speaker 1: the one you were in and I saw after the show.
Speaker 1: I went up to them and I said, I'm an
Speaker 1: ex Spenser proper. Kevin was a student of music. He said,
Speaker 1: didn't you produce that Tina Turner album? I said yeah.
Speaker 1: He said, didn't you get involved with Billy Thorpe. I
Speaker 1: said yeah, I produced his records and I wrote Children
Speaker 1: of the Sun with Billy. I'm that guy. He said, wow,
Speaker 1: well that's cool. I said, hey, i'll produce you, but
Speaker 1: you need to do something for me. I'll do three
Speaker 1: of your songs. I'll give you a studio time. You
Speaker 1: got to do a cover. He said, I hate slave
Speaker 1: their posers. I said, yeah, you might hate them, but
Speaker 1: guess what. They had a number one record in England,
Speaker 1: and if you do a cover, it's congruent with all
Speaker 1: your other songs. So he talked to Frankie Bennelli, the drummer,
Speaker 1: Carlos the guitar player. They couldn't get arrested. They've been
Speaker 1: shot everywhere. They've all been turned down, poisoned, wrap. All
Speaker 1: these bands were totally rejected by the l A record
Speaker 1: community because music was passive, you know, Duran Durant was happening.
Speaker 1: Cindy Labera girls just want to have fun. What's happening?
Speaker 1: Heavy metal was not anywhere close. Black Sabboth couldn't get
Speaker 1: arrested them Pop radio okay. I took them into the studio. Uh.
Speaker 1: I did it all on spec On on a weekend
Speaker 1: at my time. We recorded the first four songs, which
Speaker 1: became the Metal Health Album. I dug it. I sink
Speaker 1: to twenty four track machines together. I made it sound
Speaker 1: like we were in a stadium because I wanted to
Speaker 1: replicate what I experienced was Slade. And I mixed, and
Speaker 1: I called Tony Martell and Don Dempsey epic and I said, guys,
Speaker 1: we made a deal. My Thorpe record failed. I got something.
Speaker 1: They said, oh, what do you got? I said, I
Speaker 1: really believe in that. I believe it will connect with
Speaker 1: the street, it'll connect with the kids. I flew into
Speaker 1: New York. My hair was longer than yours currently, Bob,
Speaker 1: and certainly longer than mine. Was down to my shoulders.
Speaker 1: And I flew in to New York. I sat off
Speaker 1: in a conference room and I played the first four
Speaker 1: songs on the Mental Health Album. By the second song,
Speaker 1: Tony Martell wrote me a note, We'll pay you the
Speaker 1: full cost of the album. We hate this, we we
Speaker 1: don't get it. Would you please not play the rest?
Speaker 1: I wrote them back a note, I'm playing the four
Speaker 1: songs because I took the time to fly out of here.
Speaker 1: Listen to it. They listened to it. Then Tony said
Speaker 1: to me, we'll give you. At the time, I had
Speaker 1: seven My deal was seventy all in the in the
Speaker 1: world for an album. It increased after that, but it
Speaker 1: was that so they gave. They made it commitment to me.
Speaker 1: Zach Rolis was the lawyer who became the coachair of Universal,
Speaker 1: and they paid me the seventy grand I then spent
Speaker 1: six months shopping those four songs. Everybody I played it
Speaker 1: to hated it, turned it down, am it? Clive, mo Joe,
Speaker 1: all the guys that you know. So I called the
Speaker 1: Ethnic I'm revealing stuff that I didn't put in a book.
Speaker 1: That I've written a book, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: for a few years anyway. So I called Walter and
Speaker 1: I said, you made a label deal with me because
Speaker 1: you thought I had vision. I need you to put
Speaker 1: out this, this quiet right thing. I need to finish
Speaker 1: the album. You paid me. You don't have to give
Speaker 1: me any more. Money, but I need to make the record,
Speaker 1: he said, finished. I finished. Took me three weeks because
Speaker 1: those days. Paul Simon spent three years making Bridge over
Speaker 1: Troubled Water. I spent three weeks making the Acquired Right album.
Speaker 1: I flew back to New York, I played it. They
Speaker 1: hated it even more. So, you know, it's the album
Speaker 1: that's sold eight almost eight million copies at the time.
Speaker 1: It would have million albums today. But anyway, so Walter
Speaker 1: did me a solid God rest his soul, and he
Speaker 1: put out four thousand records under miscellaneous Q. Well, Bob,
Speaker 1: you know when Cindy Lauber, when Michael Jackson's selling you
Speaker 1: and it's on thrill or four thousand under miscellaneous. Q
Speaker 1: meets dick. Right. So what I did is I got
Speaker 1: on the plane and I went to the stations that
Speaker 1: took the Billy Thorpe record number one, and I went
Speaker 1: to kat x Q and Dallas, to k M O
Speaker 1: D and Tulsa, and I did interviews and they played
Speaker 1: Bang your Head and the phones went perserved. To MTV's credit.
Speaker 1: Why I loved the Viacom MTV machine so much. They
Speaker 1: were doing call out research and I got a call
Speaker 1: from my friend of mine at the time, Les Garland,
Speaker 1: or for Pittman. He said, you know, you got a
Speaker 1: record that's really tracking. And Tulsa case App and Sacramento
Speaker 1: and kat x Q and d Alice km odeon tell Us,
Speaker 1: I said, and kiss Sam Antonia. Those are the stations
Speaker 1: I went to interview times. So give me a video.
Speaker 1: So I called Martel and MC give me give me
Speaker 1: a budget for video or whatever they cost. They said,
Speaker 1: when you get to a hundred thousand units, call us okay.
Speaker 1: So I said, you're wrong. This is the beginning of
Speaker 1: me bucking the man. And I don't care. It's funny.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I thought interview years ago I called me
Speaker 1: a renaissance disruptor. Why because I care about the music.
Speaker 1: I don't care about what you Mr Sup think. What
Speaker 1: I care about is what the artists in the street
Speaker 1: and the kids and the public things. So I put
Speaker 1: a second on my house. I had a business card
Speaker 1: that said Pasha CBS because I called my company Pasha
Speaker 1: because I liked what the word meant. That started to
Speaker 1: saying letter as my last name, and I went out.
Speaker 1: I called every ad agency I knew because I thought
Speaker 1: a video would be like an a commercial and there
Speaker 1: was a director named Mark Ressica who was directing commercials,
Speaker 1: but he was out of work and he was working
Speaker 1: with a lady named Beth brod A who is subsequently
Speaker 1: became a terrific film producer and doc producer. And I
Speaker 1: got marked together. I put up the second of my house.
Speaker 1: I went. I talked to the d N at cal
Speaker 1: Arts and I said, your kids can work on the video.
Speaker 1: Let me have your venue. It's a CBS because I
Speaker 1: had a poscious CBS card, so I bullshitted him that
Speaker 1: this is a CBS thing, and he gave me access
Speaker 1: to their gym. We made the doc. We used some
Speaker 1: techniques to make fifty kids look like five kids, and
Speaker 1: I didn't bypassed effect. I sent it directly to the
Speaker 1: guys that MTV. To their credit, they put her on
Speaker 1: the air four Am, then two am, then twelve am,
Speaker 1: then ten pm. Then when it became a number one
Speaker 1: video after UM has video. All of a sudden, director
Speaker 1: and I told Warren, we need to image this band
Speaker 1: as a metal band. They're a pop band, but let's
Speaker 1: put a out. And I had a relationship with Don
Speaker 1: Arden because Don used to manage l O and I
Speaker 1: had brought el O from England when I was running
Speaker 1: A and R at United Artists. So I got the
Speaker 1: band out with Black Sabbath. Then when it was time
Speaker 1: for the next record to put out, and we put
Speaker 1: uct Bang Your Head. Didn't do much pop radio, but
Speaker 1: come On, Feel the Noise. I thought that's the single,
Speaker 1: so I serialized the video the Kid who Caught the Mask,
Speaker 1: because we merchandise masks. I brought the album cover to
Speaker 1: life because there was a mask on the album cover.
Speaker 1: Because every kid, it could be every kid and a
Speaker 1: red leather strait jacket. He had to bust out of
Speaker 1: the room to rock right Bang your Head, that's the video.
Speaker 1: So the kid who Caught the Mask in the first video,
Speaker 1: the mask was a crucifix over his bed. Come on
Speaker 1: Feel the Noise. The band appears there and they had
Speaker 1: to rock. The record went to number one. The record
Speaker 1: sold millions. Epic was my best friends. I renegotiated my
Speaker 1: deal for a ten album put I retroactively got my
Speaker 1: royalties up to where they should have been. Because I
Speaker 1: know you're going to ask me about the business, but
Speaker 1: I gave the increase to the band. Why because I could,
Speaker 1: because my half of it as partnered. I do partnership deals,
Speaker 1: whether it be McClean dale, anybody I worked with, Schwartz.
Speaker 1: Why because they're invested. I'm invested. But we make money
Speaker 1: if the work is good. I didn't make money on
Speaker 1: quite right up front and made set. I actually lost money.
Speaker 1: But when it's sold, they made a lot of money.
Speaker 1: You know why, because the work speaks. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: a little bit slower, mental health Garland puts it on.
Speaker 1: At what point does Epic wake up or they don't
Speaker 1: wake up until come on feel the noise? Now they
Speaker 1: woke up when we started selling records because when the
Speaker 1: video hit, MTV would be a driver of attention and
Speaker 1: the band was not on the road. Black Sabbath, who's
Speaker 1: doing some good stuff. They they have a wonderful machine,
Speaker 1: the Columbia record of the CBS distribution machine, Second and None.
Speaker 1: They woke up and we didn't put up common Field
Speaker 1: a noise until the album sold five units. Then we
Speaker 1: started kicking and selling, having five days of five thousand them.
Speaker 1: But now they woke up when the band did their
Speaker 1: job on the road, when MTV did their job and
Speaker 1: the kids responded, and then they woke up and said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe this guy's right. Let's go back
Speaker 1: a chapter. Don Arden forget his daughter. He's got an
Speaker 1: interesting reputation. To what degree is it true? And what
Speaker 1: were your experiences with him. He's passed away and he
Speaker 1: at Alzheimer's before, so it's not like you have to
Speaker 1: worry about retribution. I don't worry about retribution unless you're
Speaker 1: a Republican. I didn't say that. Okay, um, here's a punchline.
Speaker 1: Don was a gentleman to me because nobody United Artists
Speaker 1: in America would release Jeff Lynn or Roy Wood's Wizard
Speaker 1: because it was too cool. I flew over to England
Speaker 1: when I became head of an art and I heard
Speaker 1: Jeff Lynn, I heard I can't get it out of
Speaker 1: my head. I heard El Dorado. I said, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: this is cool. So I was able to because I
Speaker 1: was in charge of twenty four years old at Ballston Steele.
Speaker 1: We put the record out. Don Arden became my new
Speaker 1: friend because you know, and so when it was time
Speaker 1: for Quiet Riot ten years later to find an act
Speaker 1: to open for it was very logical because Don Arden
Speaker 1: at the time when he was alive, he's he's a
Speaker 1: real good manager, He knew his stuff. Did he threaten people?
Speaker 1: Was he a tough guy? Did Bob Hoskins play the
Speaker 1: Don Arden role as the quasi mob guy? I don't know.
Speaker 1: He treated me with respect and therefore I can only
Speaker 1: say good things about him. May rest in peace. Okay,
Speaker 1: just because we worked with him, how did you end
Speaker 1: up finding Dwayne Baron to work with you on the
Speaker 1: first Quiet Ride album? Because Dwayne worked for me. He
Speaker 1: actually picked up my laudry at the time, and he
Speaker 1: was kind of a junior guy at my studio. When
Speaker 1: my very dear friend he's still next to me, Larry Brown,
Speaker 1: had a health scare. He couldn't do the spec work
Speaker 1: that I told you about on the weekend. So I
Speaker 1: asked Dwayne to join because I Dayne learned the engineering process.
Speaker 1: This is his first time at bat. He did a
Speaker 1: great job, so I gave him the whole album to engineer.
Speaker 1: He built a career from that. Okay, let's stay with
Speaker 1: Quiet Riot. They have this monster album. You know, they
Speaker 1: paved the way for a lot of other acts. It's
Speaker 1: the heyday of MTV. How did the band react and
Speaker 1: what happened on the second record when Kevin du Bro
Speaker 1: May he rest in peace. And I don't know I'm
Speaker 1: saying this shot off this big mouth that he was
Speaker 1: better AUSSI is a phony. He is best rock artists
Speaker 1: in history. Seven and a half eight million records went
Speaker 1: to two million on the second run, and radio started
Speaker 1: getting wise to not liking Kevin. How did the band react?
Speaker 1: They were pissed at Kevin. Ultimately they threw him out
Speaker 1: of the band. How did I react? It hurt my
Speaker 1: bottom line, but thank god it wasn't the only act
Speaker 1: that I was working with. But how did the band react?
Speaker 1: Kevin was not the best thing for He's a great singer,
Speaker 1: he was a good showman, and he was an hassle Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean Kevin who used to be around. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like he was hiding out ends up moving to Vegas, uh,
Speaker 1: drugging himself to death. I mean, there are some people
Speaker 1: you can see that coming. But I said, this guy
Speaker 1: is like a suburban night What was the what was
Speaker 1: going on there? I lost touch with them after the band,
Speaker 1: after Frankie and Carlos threw him out of the band,
Speaker 1: we got a new singer named Paul Shortino made a
Speaker 1: quiet riot for album. Because I kept the brand alive.
Speaker 1: It didn't do what people expected. That was the end
Speaker 1: of my connectivity until they sued me for conspiring with
Speaker 1: CBS to steal the royalties because they were broken I wasn't,
Speaker 1: and they lost. He got thrown out some rejudgment, the
Speaker 1: only time I've actually been sued in my career. But
Speaker 1: I lost touch with them. I don't know how Kevin
Speaker 1: imploded in Vegas. He was doing too many drugs earlier
Speaker 1: on all of them. Frankie actually not, but yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: Kevin is Kevin. I don't want to speak ill of anyone.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to look at the future. I'm more
Speaker 1: excited about working with the people i'm working with than
Speaker 1: the people I had. Although I had a good fortune
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonder, total gentleman, Little Riverband, Johnny Farnham, brilliant people,
Speaker 1: terrific eyes. I've had the good fortune to work with
Speaker 1: some gentlemen, and I've had the good fortune or the
Speaker 1: bad fortune to work with some assholes. You brought up
Speaker 1: the asshole Okay. As you mentioned earlier, you were born
Speaker 1: in Europe. What were the circumstances there? My parents were
Speaker 1: in Auschwitz and broken out. I was born everyway. Let's
Speaker 1: let's stop there. They were literally in And how did
Speaker 1: my father survive Auschwitz? You're probably are going to ask
Speaker 1: me exactly. He was a brilliant chess player, and he
Speaker 1: and his fellow inmates would carve little pieces of chess
Speaker 1: guys and they play the German guards. I learned this
Speaker 1: as a kid from my parents. Of course, the Germans
Speaker 1: loved how Saul prophets Sorsky. That was my real name.
Speaker 1: If you look me up on Wikipedia, it isn't profit.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm a Polish Jew that was brought up
Speaker 1: by Eastern European people who didn't speak English. Pretty cool,
Speaker 1: and the Germans wanted to learn how to play chess
Speaker 1: as good as Saul. So he was that guy that
Speaker 1: taught some of the guards how to play. One of
Speaker 1: them even I'll never forget my dad told me in Yiddish,
Speaker 1: because I grew up speaking German and Jewish to my parents,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to play the fuel now that
Speaker 1: I know how to checkmate. You know whatever. The point
Speaker 1: assault survived, he my mother made it through. They ultimately
Speaker 1: moved to Germany. They were a little bit, a little
Speaker 1: bit slower. How long were each of them in the
Speaker 1: camps five years wow. And they Okay, where did they?
Speaker 1: Where were they in Poland? And what were their circumstances
Speaker 1: before the war? My father they were in Slomnicki Pole,
Speaker 1: in the small village where I actually had my younger
Speaker 1: son have his bar mitzvah. I found that temple that
Speaker 1: my dad had his bar mitsvan in this little village
Speaker 1: thirty kilometers outside of Krako. That's where my parents are from.
Speaker 1: And so your parents knew each other before they went
Speaker 1: into the camps. My father's best friend was my mother's
Speaker 1: first husband. His name was Michael Novotny. Michael went into
Speaker 1: the camps too. He was killed, he was gassed. They
Speaker 1: had a son named ben Oh Barry in English my stepbrother.
Speaker 1: In ninety eight he left, Uh Well, he got out
Speaker 1: of the camps when they were liberated. He went to
Speaker 1: Israel to fight for Israeli independence. He wounded up being
Speaker 1: at the top of Israeli intelligence. Had passed away nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. So next year, seventy fifth anniversary of Israel's independence,
Speaker 1: I'm also working with a few friends of mine to
Speaker 1: produce a special on the seventy fifth anniversary of Israel's independence.
Speaker 1: It parallels mine. I'm gonna spend my seventy fifth birthday
Speaker 1: in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa next year. Okay, what
Speaker 1: economic circumstances did your parents come from before the war? Poor?
Speaker 1: Poor and poor. My father made twenty bucks a week
Speaker 1: when he came to America after he exhausted the few
Speaker 1: dollars that he had made. He and my mother were
Speaker 1: really smart, so they opened a shop in Munich selling
Speaker 1: feather beds and quilts, and with a partner, my dad
Speaker 1: cashed out of that. He brought everything to America because
Speaker 1: he didn't want his only kid, I was born after
Speaker 1: the war to grow up and post war Germany. We
Speaker 1: went to a movie once when I was five years old,
Speaker 1: and the graffiti on the wall box was Juden and
Speaker 1: Hunt Hunt. It's like Hunton Uton for voting, juice and
Speaker 1: dogs forbidden. My dad broke down and started to cry,
Speaker 1: and he said he didn't want his only son to
Speaker 1: grow up in Germany. So we packed it up. We
Speaker 1: took the vote over, We did the Elis Island thing.
Speaker 1: Lived in New York. But wait a little bit, wait, wait, love,
Speaker 1: It's flow down for a second. The war is over.
Speaker 1: How do your parents find each other? They knew each
Speaker 1: other in Slomniki, Poland because my mother's husband was my
Speaker 1: dad's best right. But there was a whole issue after
Speaker 1: the war of literally reconstructing and finding people, taking ads
Speaker 1: in Jewish newspapers, etcetera. The have any idea how they reconnected? No,
Speaker 1: wasn't there. I do know that I'm a product of
Speaker 1: their love, and nothing I love more in my life
Speaker 1: than my parents who came to America. Like Paul Simon said,
Speaker 1: they how came to look for America. That's my story.
Speaker 1: I came here when I was six years old. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you came here when you're sick. Do you have
Speaker 1: any memories of living in Munich? Just the graffiti on
Speaker 1: the wall and my dad cried just playing with my
Speaker 1: German Shepherd dog because my parents wanted me to have
Speaker 1: a dog. My son, Sterling, has a new shepherd. My
Speaker 1: two kids grew up with German shepherd's. I'm a I'm
Speaker 1: a dog guy. Judy, my my wife, my best friend
Speaker 1: loves dogs too, but we had pugs. They just passed away.
Speaker 1: But anyway, do I have any recollection? Answer your question? Okay,
Speaker 1: you get the Alice island. Is that where the name
Speaker 1: is changed or when is the name changed? My parents
Speaker 1: didn't speak English. I did okay in school. We lived
Speaker 1: in Albuquerque. We moved to l A when I was ten.
Speaker 1: They became naturalized citizens when I turned sixteen. My dad said,
Speaker 1: do we do you want to Sammy? Because they called
Speaker 1: me Sammy if you look my My Polish name was
Speaker 1: German name was Solid and Samuel is the name I
Speaker 1: was going to school with. And I had my bar
Speaker 1: missi a ring that said sp So my dad said,
Speaker 1: this is an opportunity if we get our citizenship. At
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen, Well, my favorite actor at the
Speaker 1: time I started becoming pretty tuned into things with Spencer
Speaker 1: Tracy and they hurt. The win started with an s.
Speaker 1: My favorite band was Steve Uh Spencer Davis Group with
Speaker 1: Stevie one would say keep on Running, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite songs of all time. So I decided Sam could
Speaker 1: become Spencer Proffitt need Profits Sorsky needed to be shortened
Speaker 1: because I didn't want to go through my life with
Speaker 1: the name Sam Profsky, which is what I started high
Speaker 1: school with. So Spencer my bar mr Ring sp Sam
Speaker 1: Profit Sursky became Spencer Proffer. When I turned sixteen, which
Speaker 1: is when the name champion. Okay, you go through Ellis Island.
Speaker 1: Did you have any relatives? Where did your parents start
Speaker 1: a hundred percent fresh? You were in New York for?
Speaker 1: How long and how did you end up in Albuquerque?
Speaker 1: Six weeks in New York. The only Jews my parents
Speaker 1: knew from Poland lived in Albuquerque. So we took a train.
Speaker 1: We are in New York for six weeks just to
Speaker 1: get our bearings. Stayed in a hotel. I have a
Speaker 1: few memories of that, and we took a train to Albuquerque.
Speaker 1: I got the ship beat out of me as a
Speaker 1: kid going to school. In my first day at school,
Speaker 1: my mom wanted a little girl. I were later hosen.
Speaker 1: I didn't speak English and there were many wonderful Hispanic
Speaker 1: and Indian people there who thought that I was somebody
Speaker 1: who could get beat up on. So they beat up
Speaker 1: on me. And that's that was my first experience in America.
Speaker 1: How long did you live in Albuquerque? Four years? And
Speaker 1: were although you have these Jewish friends, how many Jews
Speaker 1: were in Albuquerque? Very few? And did you feel the
Speaker 1: anti semitism totally? And usually children of immigrants certainly Jewish
Speaker 1: parents want their children to do very well in school?
Speaker 1: Did you feel that pressure all day? That's why I
Speaker 1: got my PA at twenty That's why I passed the
Speaker 1: bar twenty three. But at the same time, I love music.
Speaker 1: I started playing guitar when I was fifteen sixteen. I
Speaker 1: used to with my buddy, who went to med school,
Speaker 1: right songs, to beat the lyrics, right um lyrics, to
Speaker 1: beatle melodies, and I wanted to do that. I started
Speaker 1: a band with my buddy and we got signed. We
Speaker 1: had four different record deals, ultimately signed by Clive Davis
Speaker 1: to Columbia Records. That's how I met Clive. That's how
Speaker 1: I got that job. While I was last Okay, what
Speaker 1: are your parents doing for a living in Albuquerque and
Speaker 1: what is their motivation to move to Los Angeles. My
Speaker 1: mother was not super well physically. She was a house like.
Speaker 1: My father fixed sewing machines and made twenty dollars a week.
Speaker 1: He worked for Brother International, and he was he saw
Speaker 1: one of the kindest, nicest, most wonderful guys. He was
Speaker 1: so good at his craft. He was so meticulous, like
Speaker 1: he approached Chessie approach fixing sewing machines. When brother International
Speaker 1: set up their offices in Los Angeles, saw that transferred
Speaker 1: to be a mechanic in Los Angeles. We moved to
Speaker 1: l A to Broil Heights, to the heart of the
Speaker 1: Jewish gatop. Okay, at what point, into what degree did
Speaker 1: your parents end up speaking English? And since you know,
Speaker 1: the other thing is they probably didn't understand what your
Speaker 1: life was about. And to what degree did you uh
Speaker 1: exercise freedoms that if they knew what was going on,
Speaker 1: they probably wouldn't have approved. I'll tell you a funny story.
Speaker 1: The first time I got whipped by my dad with
Speaker 1: the belt. Okay, first of all, they started speaking broken English.
Speaker 1: I enrolled them in night school because I started supporting
Speaker 1: my folks when I was thirteen years old. That's a
Speaker 1: long story. I started selling newspaper subscriptions. I started making
Speaker 1: out hunter bucks a week. I would help my dad
Speaker 1: buy the food. We go to Canador's Delly every Sunday week,
Speaker 1: buy holi weet, buy egg bread, We buy all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff to eat for the week. But I'll never
Speaker 1: forget my dad playing chess at a park and with
Speaker 1: these other refugees from Poland, and they had a daughter
Speaker 1: who was twelve, and I was twelve, and I wound
Speaker 1: up in the bushes with the daughter, and and all
Speaker 1: I can say is when I got home that night,
Speaker 1: I got beat up by my dad, Sammy, how dare
Speaker 1: you go into the whatever? So but my parents were
Speaker 1: wonderful parents. They were the biggest influence on me spiritually
Speaker 1: and ethically than any human could ever be. And that's
Speaker 1: why I have such a strong immigrant dreamer mentality. That's
Speaker 1: why I'm such a fan of the current administration. I
Speaker 1: love Michelle Obama, Barack Obama. They were two of my
Speaker 1: favorite presidents. And anybody who's about immigrants against immigrants and
Speaker 1: dreamers is not the sight of the coin that I
Speaker 1: grew up. Okay, and you end up going to high
Speaker 1: school where fair facts? I Well, you've got a fair
Speaker 1: faxx I. You know, a fountain right there on Melrose,
Speaker 1: a fountain of music legends. What kind of student were you?
Speaker 1: I mean, not only academically? Were you were good? Were
Speaker 1: you popular? Did you have a lot of friends or
Speaker 1: did you go home and study? What were we like?
Speaker 1: I was popular, I was smart, I was class president.
Speaker 1: I was playing sports. I was at an all city
Speaker 1: football quarterback and I had a couple of girlfriends and
Speaker 1: I got right into u c l A right after
Speaker 1: at the age of seventeen. And what was your experience
Speaker 1: like at u c l A. Fabulous. I love the campus,
Speaker 1: but I had to work. My dad had a heart attack.
Speaker 1: He didn't speak good English. I bought him a liquor
Speaker 1: store on Washington Boulevard and Culver City. What I would
Speaker 1: do at u c l AS, I'd go to I'd
Speaker 1: opened the store, drive down with my dad, then go
Speaker 1: because that was Culver City, U c l AS and westward.
Speaker 1: I'd go do my classes. Then I would go teach
Speaker 1: young kids guitar, make a few bucks doing that. Then
Speaker 1: at the end of the day come back. My dad
Speaker 1: would be sitting across the counter, just selling liquor and stuff.
Speaker 1: I bring him home. That was my life for about
Speaker 1: three years until my god, my dad got too sick
Speaker 1: to do that. Then we sold the liquor store. Ok A,
Speaker 1: you were in the sixties, you know there's an explosion
Speaker 1: of music, certainly Los Angeles, never mind in UK and
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. You are in the heart
Speaker 1: of the action. Do you feel it? Into what degree
Speaker 1: are you embracing it? I felt that I loved it.
Speaker 1: I had a girlfriend whose boyfriend Lucien Clark, who was
Speaker 1: the lead singer of the Birds, so I would I
Speaker 1: met Jean, I met Roger mcgwen, I met all those guys,
Speaker 1: so I was able to get into Ceros the night
Speaker 1: June one nine when they played Tambourine Man, which was
Speaker 1: their big cover that blew it up, blew up. I
Speaker 1: was kind of there when Elliott l I seen. I
Speaker 1: was a big, tall kid. I was smart enough to
Speaker 1: talk my way into the Troubadour and I loved that
Speaker 1: early music. That's where Elton first. I saw Elton John
Speaker 1: when he was brought over Rostrigan brought him over on UNI.
Speaker 1: That's when I saw Crosby Stillson, Nash Jackson, Brown, Carol King.
Speaker 1: I embraced it all. I loved Steven Stills. For what
Speaker 1: It's Worth was one of my favorite songs of all time.
Speaker 1: So for me as a kid growing up with this,
Speaker 1: it really rang my belt. My parents didn't know shift
Speaker 1: from Shinola about what any of that was. But I
Speaker 1: was a good boy because I did good in school
Speaker 1: and I supported them, But more importantly, I loved them
Speaker 1: and they loved me. That to me permeated my soul
Speaker 1: for the rest of my life. Okay, now simultaneous who
Speaker 1: you were playing the guitar and trying to make it
Speaker 1: as an artist. Yes, I had a record deal on MGM.
Speaker 1: I had a record deal on ABC Dundehill. I actually
Speaker 1: had a single out that I used for a TV
Speaker 1: show I wrote music for called the Hardy Boys, called
Speaker 1: Namby Pamby and the Days of the United Food com
Speaker 1: Company and me I got love on my comming. I
Speaker 1: had a single that I sang and played guitar and
Speaker 1: called Namby Pamby, You're Sweeter and Candy. Anyway, I had
Speaker 1: these record deals until I started getting influenced by Edison
Speaker 1: Lighthouse member My Baby Loves Love and some of those songs.
Speaker 1: So I put a band together where I was the
Speaker 1: lead guitar guy and I wrote the songs with my buddy.
Speaker 1: But I found a good singer named Joe Reid. So
Speaker 1: I had a band of signed the Clive Sign called
Speaker 1: Proper Marmal's at Read and we had a record that
Speaker 1: went I think with an anchor and and But that
Speaker 1: was like my first real not real record deal, because
Speaker 1: I had three record deals before that. But that was
Speaker 1: the first time that it was really kind of cool.
Speaker 1: And when I met Clive, to his credit, I auditioned
Speaker 1: for him at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And the lawyers
Speaker 1: that I got to work for me, that's a long
Speaker 1: story on how I got them. Actually, he said to Clive,
Speaker 1: this guy is doing well in law school. I was
Speaker 1: executive editor of Law Review. You know what that means.
Speaker 1: I was published. I was one of these kind of
Speaker 1: overachiever guys, which I still am to my detriment. So
Speaker 1: why I had talked too much? I worked too hard.
Speaker 1: I care too much. But you know what, when I
Speaker 1: leave this planet, at least I will have had a
Speaker 1: great run. Let's go back to the initial three record deals.
Speaker 1: How does a little you know, a little picture. You
Speaker 1: know what. I end up getting a record deal because
Speaker 1: I'm a smart little pisher and I was a decent
Speaker 1: looking pisher who had girlfriends whose bosses worked at some companies.
Speaker 1: And that's how I wound up getting her Albert deal
Speaker 1: on her breast to cover one of my songs. Because
Speaker 1: I was dating Don Costa's assistant, and Don Costa was
Speaker 1: a major major guy was producing Sinatra, and I went
Speaker 1: to a Sinatra session just as a fan way back
Speaker 1: at our c a on sunset, way back and the
Speaker 1: session finished early, and my buddy and I, who had
Speaker 1: written songs for pro from almost Ad and Reid, had
Speaker 1: written this instrumental thing, so don let me have this
Speaker 1: three hour sessions, you know, union sessions, so don let
Speaker 1: me have I made up the court chart. I gave
Speaker 1: it to the guys. We did it. That was my demo,
Speaker 1: pretty good. And I read that Chuck k was the
Speaker 1: guy running Irving Almo Publishing, and I kind of bullshitted
Speaker 1: my way into saying, hey, I have a song for
Speaker 1: her Bralbert blah blah blah. I got in. I brought
Speaker 1: the demo, which was used the Sinatra musicians, and he said,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Because Chuck is a really smart guy.
Speaker 1: He ran a really great publishing company. Subsequently, I think
Speaker 1: he became president of Warner Chapel. Really good guy. And
Speaker 1: I said yeah. So I went to the car, I
Speaker 1: got my guitar and I sang the song called Picture
Speaker 1: Postcard that I had just written. He said, Gary Lewis
Speaker 1: and the Playboys are doing a new album. They just
Speaker 1: had a hit with Rhythm of the Rain. I need
Speaker 1: to call snuff Garrett let him hear the song, so
Speaker 1: he calls, he holds up the phone. I get my guitar,
Speaker 1: I sing, I play it. Within two days, I was
Speaker 1: in my first recording studio, producing my first demo. This
Speaker 1: was when I was eighteen years old. When do you
Speaker 1: give up the dream of being an artist? Ship? When
Speaker 1: Clive offered me a choice of picking up my option
Speaker 1: or taking a job, and I knew I couldn't sing
Speaker 1: for Ship. I was twenty three years old. Okay, So
Speaker 1: at what point do you decide you're going to go
Speaker 1: to law school? Was that something your parents instilled in
Speaker 1: you from a young age. Yes, and the fact that
Speaker 1: I would kind of logically do a lot of my
Speaker 1: deals or look at the paper, and I kind of
Speaker 1: thought that could be good. Of course, my mother wanted, Sammy,
Speaker 1: you got to go to law school. You've got to
Speaker 1: be a lawyer. You know that good Jewish ethic. And
Speaker 1: I applied and I got in, so I decided I
Speaker 1: would go. But I still kick my band. You'll think
Speaker 1: this stop. My third year in law school, I have
Speaker 1: a scholarship and I already knew I had my job
Speaker 1: with Clive because Clive offered me the job. I was
Speaker 1: in my second year, so my third year, I just
Speaker 1: needed to get through and I was doing real good
Speaker 1: as the top five percent of my class. I hired
Speaker 1: people to take my class, the classes to do notes.
Speaker 1: I go on the road with my band. Then i'd
Speaker 1: come back and I take the test. Believe me, I
Speaker 1: dropped my standing. But I kind of knew that I
Speaker 1: was just crazy. Gain how I passed the bar the
Speaker 1: first time. I have no idea, but I did. And
Speaker 1: I moved to New York because I knew I had
Speaker 1: my job at CBS. Okay, so how long do you
Speaker 1: work at CBS and what exactly you doing? Your drafting
Speaker 1: contracts anything else? Yeah, I was a shadow. I was
Speaker 1: listening to mixes, I was drafting contracts. I had a
Speaker 1: title as an assistant director of business Affairs, so budget wise,
Speaker 1: they could pay me through particular pipe. Clive got blown out,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole scandal. My office was down in
Speaker 1: the hall. My dad had another heart attack, addressed his soul,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to move back to California's living in
Speaker 1: New York in an apartment and actually a brownstone that
Speaker 1: was owned by a photographer who was Jean Shrtmann's photographer
Speaker 1: and I had dated her for a minute. That was crazy.
Speaker 1: But anyway, long story short, I wanted to come back
Speaker 1: to California, so Erwin Siegelstein became the president of CBS,
Speaker 1: and they didn't want to lose me because they thought
Speaker 1: I knew what I was doing, so they offered me
Speaker 1: a big gig in San Francisco. While I was there,
Speaker 1: I wanted to come back to oh I because that's
Speaker 1: where my parents lived. We sold the liquor store, so
Speaker 1: I started putting the word out. A guy named Mike
Speaker 1: Stewart was chairman of the United Artists Records at the time,
Speaker 1: and he saw that I was looking for a job,
Speaker 1: so I had an interview. He gave me the job
Speaker 1: on the spot to be his number two guys twenty
Speaker 1: four years old. So guess what. I didn't take the
Speaker 1: CBS San Francisco job. I took the job to be
Speaker 1: head of at our national executive director of the company.
Speaker 1: Stewart thought he was getting a clone, Clive clone. I'm
Speaker 1: not a Clive clone. Clive is his own guy in
Speaker 1: his own right, but he was a big mentor to
Speaker 1: me and I respect the shift out of him. Sorry
Speaker 1: to use such good words. But I'm a rock guy
Speaker 1: through and through anyway. So the answer to your question
Speaker 1: is I took the gig at U A and that
Speaker 1: lasted until Transamerica sold the company. That I okay, wait
Speaker 1: wait wait, wait a little bit slower. So what's your
Speaker 1: take on Clive? I think Clive is brilliant. I think
Speaker 1: Clive said to me after the debicot that happened at
Speaker 1: CBS that since the guys that he had meantor be
Speaker 1: at Dick ash Er Walker at the coff they had
Speaker 1: their best quarter ever when Clive left. But I give
Speaker 1: it as a tribute to Clive and his spirit and
Speaker 1: his way with artists when he had started ariston. So
Speaker 1: I'm a at Clive Davids stand. I have a different style.
Speaker 1: I'm different. I come from the music. But the point is,
Speaker 1: what's my take on Clive. I have a lot of
Speaker 1: respect to Clive David's. Okay, you go to U A
Speaker 1: U A at the time is this is before it
Speaker 1: ends up being merged in the Capital with R you know,
Speaker 1: with Artie Mogul already Mogul, etcetera, etcetera. So it's a
Speaker 1: relatively moribund company. So that's a big change from CBS Records. Secondly,
Speaker 1: Mike hires you as an A and R guy. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna do any business affairs now. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: almost like a GM. So Harold Cider ahead of business
Speaker 1: affairs would interface with me, the marketing people would, the
Speaker 1: promote people would. Ultimately the guy who's had a promote,
Speaker 1: Ray Anderson, went to work for me when I started Passion, Okay,
Speaker 1: I pulled him out of that. So what I did
Speaker 1: and how I dealt with this moribound company. As I
Speaker 1: went and listened to re record and every artist that
Speaker 1: was on the roster, most of which were sleeping, That's
Speaker 1: when I heard that the English company had Hawkwind, they
Speaker 1: had Roy Woods Wizard, they had electric light orchestra. I
Speaker 1: said to Mike Store, I gotta get on a plane,
Speaker 1: I gotta go here. What else This guy Andrew Africans
Speaker 1: last night had an are in English Company. But during
Speaker 1: the day I would do the Anar gig. I would
Speaker 1: deal with the guys that war Cherry Old, Steven, Steve Gold.
Speaker 1: I had all that good fortune to get to do
Speaker 1: that gig. But at night I put my hands on
Speaker 1: every record I could as a producer, because I come
Speaker 1: from the music so I had a dual job. I
Speaker 1: had eleven records in the top fifty and eighteen months
Speaker 1: bot as a producer that I hit Royalty No why
Speaker 1: work for an insurance company. Lenny Warnerker got a Royalty
Speaker 1: Russ titled and the Guys that Warners did. I didn't.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I'm years old. Good opportunity, That's
Speaker 1: what I did. I helped build that asset up that
Speaker 1: when Jerry rubenstand Artie Mogul came to buy the company,
Speaker 1: I helped build it up so that they could make
Speaker 1: more money. So what year do you leave you? Ay?
Speaker 1: And what do you do I leave you? I moved
Speaker 1: in with Trudy Green, who you probably know was a manager.
Speaker 1: Trudy was my girlfriend at the time, and we moved
Speaker 1: into a one room apartment with a four poster bed
Speaker 1: in My guitar and I I was friendly with. I
Speaker 1: met Graham Nash through the Hollies because the Hollies were
Speaker 1: assigned to CBS. They were the first people to actually
Speaker 1: cover Springsteen with a song called Sandy, and Alan Clark
Speaker 1: was the lead singer. He had to have these my
Speaker 1: brother here that I breathed and Alan wanted to make
Speaker 1: a solo record and he asked me if I would produce.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I took a superstar like that,
Speaker 1: although I had worked with Tea and I've worked with Paul.
Speaker 1: Remember I'm a punk and I make a solo record
Speaker 1: with Alan. David Geffen had ship. It's just in the
Speaker 1: process of leaving Asylum. But I actually played him a
Speaker 1: couple of songs that I decided I wanted to do
Speaker 1: with Alan because Alan had a voice of gold. I
Speaker 1: loved Alan. I thought Alan his real name is Harold Clark,
Speaker 1: and he and Graham Nash, who is still my friend today,
Speaker 1: close friend love Graham Um started the Hollies. So I
Speaker 1: made the deal with Geffen. We made the deal on Asylum,
Speaker 1: and I made the album with Alan. What I did
Speaker 1: is I made a few dollars on that because I
Speaker 1: was partnered with that, and I made a decent deal,
Speaker 1: so we got to keep what we didn't spend. So
Speaker 1: I had friends because remember I was at u A,
Speaker 1: so I'd make deals with studios and stuff. I made
Speaker 1: the album for less money than I got from Lecture Asylum,
Speaker 1: so that helped me a little bit. That's the beginning
Speaker 1: of Pasha, Let's slow down now here, you make the
Speaker 1: deal for the Alan Clark record, which is not a
Speaker 1: hit record. Geffen leaves as he thinks he's gonna die,
Speaker 1: which turns out to be untrue. Where does that leave you?
Speaker 1: Knowing that cut one side one of Alan's album Blinded
Speaker 1: by the Light was a hit because Alan lived near
Speaker 1: Manford Mann, who in England, and Joe Smith came over
Speaker 1: to take over. He and Mel Posner were running elect
Speaker 1: and I did Alan's album that was cut one side one.
Speaker 1: We did a rock version of Blinded by the Light.
Speaker 1: When I'm told that whoever wrote that the lyrics are
Speaker 1: to us so terror it's too off the wall. We
Speaker 1: don't understand it. And Nikki Chan of My Chapman had
Speaker 1: had some hits and I knew Nikki pretty well, and
Speaker 1: so they picked that song to release his single didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I was pushing Blinded by the Light. People told me
Speaker 1: I was nuts. Manford Man covered it had the record
Speaker 1: of the year. Where did it leave me? Frustrated? But
Speaker 1: I had some frustration with Billy Thorpe when that company
Speaker 1: Capricorn a little bit slower? Okay, Yallen Clark album comes out.
Speaker 1: Are you then done with Asylum? And how do you
Speaker 1: get hooked up with Billy Thorpe? Okay, these are great questions.
Speaker 1: You did your homework, man, Thank you. I remember all
Speaker 1: this keep going okay, and I remember it too. And
Speaker 1: the only reason I'm a little more long winded about
Speaker 1: it is because nobody has asked me these questions. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: go into this is what this is the juice, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm interested in. Okay, all right. I made
Speaker 1: four albums with Alan, not one even though it failed.
Speaker 1: The next album I did, I made the deal with
Speaker 1: Ahmed Atlantic. We had actually we had a hit, but
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that in a minute, because he
Speaker 1: didn't ask me what to talk about Billy Thorpe. So
Speaker 1: I went to a party in nineteen. So I'm now
Speaker 1: working for myself and I have a few dollars because
Speaker 1: I made the Silent Clark deal and it was a stiff,
Speaker 1: but I still I made my follow up to the
Speaker 1: Billy Thorpe album with Electric Silent. They gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of money to do that because Thorpe Children of
Speaker 1: the Son was a big deal, but Capricorn had gone
Speaker 1: belly up and Billy. Whooooooa, whoa, whoa. You're doing the
Speaker 1: Alan Clark record. How do you find Billy Thorpe and
Speaker 1: end up on Capricorn? Okay, So while I'm making the
Speaker 1: Alan Clark album, I'm invited to a party at a
Speaker 1: lawyer's house and mc fleetwood was there, and Alan Parsons
Speaker 1: was there, and all these people were there, and Billy
Speaker 1: Thorpe was there. Who's Billy Thorpe. Billy Thorpe was the
Speaker 1: spring stand up Australia. Billy Thorpe could sell out stadiums
Speaker 1: and he wanted to come to America to make a mark.
Speaker 1: He was going to work with Alan Parsons, who was
Speaker 1: a brilliant talent before he started the Alan Parsons project.
Speaker 1: But Alan had just produced a record by a group
Speaker 1: on Capitol called Pilot, and they thought that they should
Speaker 1: do the follow up with their uncle's brother's cousin or whoever.
Speaker 1: So Alan didn't get the nod to produce the follow
Speaker 1: up after having its Magic being a huge hit, so
Speaker 1: I think Alan wanted to start his own thing. That's
Speaker 1: when he started the Allen Parson's project. He was going
Speaker 1: to work with Billy admit Billy at the party, so
Speaker 1: we just started talking. And I had just bought some
Speaker 1: paintings by a surrealist named Ario Campanelli, and I knew
Speaker 1: that Billy was kind of like thinking about things that
Speaker 1: are very extra tresteal and very you know, very tripped out,
Speaker 1: and I like, uh, I like impressionistic guard, I love mone,
Speaker 1: I love and Go. But I also like mcgreet and Dali,
Speaker 1: and Billy did too, So we started having an art conversation.
Speaker 1: Then we started having a music conversation. And Close Encounters
Speaker 1: had just come out as a movie, and you see
Speaker 1: the last scene aliens to make contact with you don't
Speaker 1: know what happened after them. So Billy and are hanging out.
Speaker 1: There were too many cute girls at the party. And
Speaker 1: he's a guitar player. He's a great guitar player. Was
Speaker 1: a great guitar player. I played a little bit. So
Speaker 1: we said, why don't we go out and see this movie?
Speaker 1: Then let's go to my house and jam. So we did,
Speaker 1: and we saw Close Encounters. Then we went to my house.
Speaker 1: We smoke a couple of joints, we drank some Corvosier.
Speaker 1: We were hanging out and Billy I was reading Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan's Cosmos, and Billy was a fan of extraterrestrials, so
Speaker 1: we made up a thing the Earth was going to
Speaker 1: self destruct in the year this is down nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: seven seventy eight, and Eastern Afghana standing in crisis was
Speaker 1: happening politically, so we said we were talked, is really smart?
Speaker 1: I like smart people. So Billy said, Americans and the
Speaker 1: Afghanistans are Afghanistanians are going to team up to fight
Speaker 1: the Russians and the world will blow up. So why
Speaker 1: don't we write a song about that? Because we're off
Speaker 1: the wall kind of guys. And we made up a
Speaker 1: friendly race from another galaxy called the Children of the Sun.
Speaker 1: We're going to watch the self destruction and come down
Speaker 1: from a crystal planet, made up planet to offer the
Speaker 1: Earth links and choice of staying or leaving. By the
Speaker 1: end of the song, they're gonna leave by the end
Speaker 1: of the album. That who started new civilization? That became
Speaker 1: my laser lightshop. So we wrote this song five in
Speaker 1: the morning. We finished it. It was like seven minutes.
Speaker 1: That's why I fell in love with the Don McLean song,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't afraid of long songs. As long as
Speaker 1: they told the story. And Children of the Sun told
Speaker 1: the story, told the story of the self destruction, of
Speaker 1: the destruction of the earth, and the optionality for the
Speaker 1: people who were left. That was the song. Okay, Capricorn,
Speaker 1: I went shopping that we had the song. So I
Speaker 1: knew a couple of people because I just come out
Speaker 1: of you a. Everybody hated it, hated it, just like
Speaker 1: they hated quiet. Right, So I'm not used. I'm not
Speaker 1: against being told no because I know how to say no.
Speaker 1: He turned it in DS through the side door. Okay.
Speaker 1: So there's a promotion guy who's working at ABC Records
Speaker 1: at the time named John Scott. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know John. Of course I know John Scott. It
Speaker 1: takes a lot of credit for the success of Tom
Speaker 1: Petty's career. Okay, Well, he can take credit for this.
Speaker 1: He heard Children of the Son, he got it, and
Speaker 1: he was working at ABC. What did ABC Records mean
Speaker 1: to me? Well, Trudy and I started the management company
Speaker 1: and our first client with Stephen Bishop and save it
Speaker 1: for Ray. Need to add on and on for number
Speaker 1: one records on ABC. John Scott was a promotion man
Speaker 1: at ABC together with Charlie Minor to ABC, so I
Speaker 1: knew John and I called John and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm getting all these people that passed on the Children
Speaker 1: of the Sun song. What do you think? He said,
Speaker 1: fucking great. And I'm trying to remember the chronology of
Speaker 1: when I made the record, which I made on my
Speaker 1: dime on spec because I just built a studio. That's
Speaker 1: another story. And how I built Pasha, how I used
Speaker 1: my money and all that. But anyway, John was friends
Speaker 1: of Frank Fentor and Phil Walden. He used to party
Speaker 1: with those guys. So when he told them about it,
Speaker 1: they came to Pasha, which I had just built. I
Speaker 1: lit some candles, I burned some incense. I played them
Speaker 1: Children of the Sun. They got it, so they said,
Speaker 1: won't put it out? Okay? I had everybody else passed
Speaker 1: on it. John Scott promoted it for me because he
Speaker 1: left ABC became an independent promotion man. The rest that
Speaker 1: that was a struggle to that record only happened regionally.
Speaker 1: It happened in phases. Ultimately it caught on. It became
Speaker 1: the biggest rock record after My Sharona. I think My
Speaker 1: Sharona beat it, but it was a number two it's
Speaker 1: still on Syrious Sex Sem on Deep Tracks is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest recurrens of all time. But that was
Speaker 1: seventy eight, was on Capricorn, the Almond Brothers suit Felt Walden.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of money changing hands sideways, and
Speaker 1: I got stuck in it because I had a number
Speaker 1: one record and you couldn't buy the record because they
Speaker 1: couldn't press them because the company went back. Okay, how
Speaker 1: did you decide and where did you get the money
Speaker 1: to build Pasha? Right there on Melrose. Okay, when I
Speaker 1: made my Alan Clark record, I made the deal. And
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer in the world outside of because
Speaker 1: I came from there. So I made a deal X,
Speaker 1: the Asylum deal, the Electric deal with US in Canada.
Speaker 1: I had built a relationship with a guy named Freddie
Speaker 1: Hind who had also passed to all these guys bomb
Speaker 1: are leaving us or and I produced a band called
Speaker 1: Randy Pie. It was a platinum record in Europe. The
Speaker 1: only guy who spoke English was the lead singer of
Speaker 1: the rest of the guy spoke German and French, and
Speaker 1: I speak fluent German. So I made the record there
Speaker 1: when they had the gold record party. PolyGram flew me
Speaker 1: to Hamburg as the guest of being the producer. I
Speaker 1: met Don dr Verner Vogel Sang, who was a Nazi,
Speaker 1: I think, but I spoke fluent German, which is pretty cool,
Speaker 1: and I produced the record. He offered me the presidency
Speaker 1: of Polydor Records. I had already left you a because
Speaker 1: I had done Alec clark solo record, worked with Clark,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want the job. I said, why don't
Speaker 1: I do it? Produce action deal with you, and we
Speaker 1: did a five album deal. I negotiated. My lawyer at
Speaker 1: the time was Don Passman, who's turned out to be
Speaker 1: a fantastic lawyer and he graduated to be one of them.
Speaker 1: He's still a dear friend of mine now fifty years later.
Speaker 1: And I called on. I said, these guys wanted to
Speaker 1: do a five album deal with me. Can you get
Speaker 1: on a plane? He said, well, he just started his
Speaker 1: gang tyrant round thing and he couldn't. But I sat
Speaker 1: there and I made notes, and he gave me all
Speaker 1: the notes that I should do. I go into a
Speaker 1: meeting the next day. I make this five album deal
Speaker 1: in the form of a loan. The guys were speaking
Speaker 1: German to each other. They didn't think I knew. They
Speaker 1: didn't know I had a lot of degree. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to it all. I actually had to take a leak.
Speaker 1: I started cracking up because they didn't know that. I
Speaker 1: closed the deal and I took the recording budgets of
Speaker 1: that some cash. I then went to City National Bank,
Speaker 1: a local bank. I got matching funds. I had Larry Brown,
Speaker 1: who was the engineer that Duane Barron took over for.
Speaker 1: His dad was a builder, and we built Pasha. How
Speaker 1: did you get the space? It was garbage space on
Speaker 1: Melrose next to Astro Burger, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in Hollywood because I thought it would be cool and
Speaker 1: it was available space, and we just gutted it and
Speaker 1: Larry Brown's dad and Larry designed it to my aspects.
Speaker 1: I listened to it. We really made it. Stated the
Speaker 1: art to speaker systems, I sink up machines, and Larry
Speaker 1: is brilliant to this day. If you go into my website.
Speaker 1: He's now an Emmy winning composer, but he was an
Speaker 1: engineering engineered a lot of stuff for Zeppelin earlier. I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer that you keep your friends that are
Speaker 1: your friends. I just met most of mine through the business.
Speaker 1: My wife has a lot of friends that she met
Speaker 1: not as a publisher the Early Weekly, but as a
Speaker 1: pure soul, as as a good person. My friends I've
Speaker 1: met through the business, but some of them are great
Speaker 1: people that my friends. Okay, did you leased the building
Speaker 1: or own the at least it I had an option
Speaker 1: to buy it. I was a schmuck. I should have.
Speaker 1: I didn't because there was a leak once and my
Speaker 1: current lawyer, my litigator, who's the smartest lawyer litigator I know.
Speaker 1: We took on the landlord and then he got set
Speaker 1: with me because we beat him. He had to pay
Speaker 1: for the damage to somebody inside of Pasha, and therefore
Speaker 1: he wouldn't sell me the building. So the answer is,
Speaker 1: at least okay, Now you have the studio. What are
Speaker 1: you making making fourteen years of a couple of hundred albums?
Speaker 1: But because I could build back studio time under my
Speaker 1: label deal, I would make a few extra dollars. What
Speaker 1: am I making? Archie Trick Little I mixed my little
Speaker 1: river band record there. I've worked with a lot of
Speaker 1: famous things and not so famous things. John Butcher, black
Speaker 1: artist who channeled I did four albums with John, including
Speaker 1: one with Glenn Ballard, who wound up becoming his own guy.
Speaker 1: So I made good records there. It was great sounding
Speaker 1: stuff because I come from there. But when my kids
Speaker 1: came onto the planet Sterling in more eight, I decided
Speaker 1: to sell out. I didn't want to make records anymore,
Speaker 1: although I could, and subsequently I still ten years later,
Speaker 1: did three records with Stevie Wonder. I did stuff, but
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do that as a career. I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to graduate and I was all of
Speaker 1: my visual correlations and stuff anyway when I started with
Speaker 1: Thorpe when I was shipped twenty seven years old, so
Speaker 1: I decided I kind of wanted to go into that
Speaker 1: realm and put music and visual together. So that happened.
Speaker 1: My dad died finally, unfortunately, I moved up to santy
Speaker 1: Andez before Bernie Toppon did. I bought a ranch and
Speaker 1: I lived there for a year. That I came back
Speaker 1: and a friend of mine became the head of Showtime,
Speaker 1: Jerry off site, So Jerry said, I'm going to change
Speaker 1: the what we got together. We had lung Time down.
Speaker 1: Jerry used to be a lawyer, low below, and he said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna change the look of this network Showtime. Would
Speaker 1: you help me change the sound of it? I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want a job. I don't need a job.
Speaker 1: He said, but if you put the compoke you, you
Speaker 1: hired composers, you decide what music goes where. We'll do
Speaker 1: the kind of deal you want. So I did a
Speaker 1: back end deal. I didn't take big fees, but I
Speaker 1: took a piece of I took half the publishing every
Speaker 1: film I've worked on. You don't like that. I got
Speaker 1: a book a it was VHS at the time. Every
Speaker 1: Showtime movie turned into a VHS, and Jerry had great taste.
Speaker 1: We made some great movies, so I got a lot
Speaker 1: of back in that was good. So I did that
Speaker 1: for seven years. Okay, just we'll go back before we
Speaker 1: go forward. You have this deal with Polly do her
Speaker 1: for X number of albums? How do you end up
Speaker 1: going to CBS? Because okay, I have the polydordeal. The
Speaker 1: Thorpe deal happens that they put out Children the Sun
Speaker 1: internationally does good, put out some other records or noble failures.
Speaker 1: They're really good, but they didn't make it. And I
Speaker 1: knew Yetnikov when he was running international, when Clive Davis
Speaker 1: was president, and yet Nikov became the chairman of CBS.
Speaker 1: And when I got stiffed on the Thorpe record and
Speaker 1: the Polydor deal was ex North America, I wanted and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Garcio started Cariboo and he was a producer. He
Speaker 1: started Cariboo a seventy two. But and and Clarence Avon
Speaker 1: had Taboo. These are really great guys, terrific guys who
Speaker 1: had their own labels. I thought, you know what, I
Speaker 1: should have a label, not because my ego. I should
Speaker 1: have a label because I'm going to do stuff different
Speaker 1: than the guy don't block. So I'd like to find
Speaker 1: talent and do something with it. So I called Walter,
Speaker 1: and Walter said, boy, chick, you can understand one worse.
Speaker 1: You should meet Tony Martell. Because Tony Martell got rest
Speaker 1: Hissal Martel Foundation ran the division feeding into Don dem
Speaker 1: c an epic and subsequent is funny enough. When Don
Speaker 1: Dempsey left, the guy who took this place with Ray Anderson,
Speaker 1: who used to work for me, crazy. Okay, it's six degrees.
Speaker 1: It's not six degrees for me. It's two degrees. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the punchline is Walter introduced me to Tony. He said,
Speaker 1: a guy like you should have a label. Tony was
Speaker 1: a match. He said, okay, So we did a really
Speaker 1: horrible deal. A guy named Zach Horol was represented CBS
Speaker 1: the way before he went to Universal. This is Zach
Speaker 1: as a lawyer on staff, and Zach did the deal
Speaker 1: with me. It was a great deal for CBS and
Speaker 1: a horrible deal for me. But that's why I went
Speaker 1: to do an any money project because I could get
Speaker 1: paid as a producer. Because my label deal was seventy
Speaker 1: five grand all in for the world. Well, guess what
Speaker 1: how much money can I make? Recording costs? Even if
Speaker 1: I own the studio, I still have hard costs. Still
Speaker 1: got to give it. I did a fifty deal with
Speaker 1: the band I do with all my people, have done
Speaker 1: this my whole life until today. So I made nothing,
Speaker 1: but I got a label there. But then the first
Speaker 1: record I put out was the subsequent Thought record, which stiffed.
Speaker 1: So that's when I said that Pat Armstrong, who had
Speaker 1: Molly Hatchett an epic, what the funk? I heard um
Speaker 1: come on field the noise on the radio. That was
Speaker 1: the second record I put out through my deal. There
Speaker 1: you go. You say you had a fifty fifty deal
Speaker 1: with the acts, go a little bit deeper. Fifty fifty
Speaker 1: of net, No, fifty fifty of anything I make. If
Speaker 1: if something comes off the top, it comes off the top.
Speaker 1: That's the same deal I do with investors and people.
Speaker 1: Now you give me a dollar, you recoup your dollar.
Speaker 1: I don't get anything once it's recouped. If its success,
Speaker 1: will whack it up. Okay, So whiir Riot was signed
Speaker 1: to you? Correct? So you weren't worried about a producer
Speaker 1: royalty because you were the label. Correct. But you'll like
Speaker 1: this as a lawyer. The label was signed you know,
Speaker 1: corporations in California or people. But Spencer is an individual.
Speaker 1: So Baskar Mannett and I had a relationship. I did
Speaker 1: a bunch of records at Capital as a producer. Little
Speaker 1: River Band put Butcher Dempsey didn't think black people could rock,
Speaker 1: and John Butcher wanted to make a record with me.
Speaker 1: So I went to Capital. I made it three Alton
Speaker 1: deal as a partner with John. But Pasha was here.
Speaker 1: I had records of Pasha after quite right, I had
Speaker 1: a lot more and I was producing Records on Capital
Speaker 1: to Carmine. Hit Piece has banned King Cobra. I did
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff there. I'm one of those crazy
Speaker 1: guys that loves to work. Okay, but if you're getting
Speaker 1: seventy k an album YEP for Quiet Riot YEP, and
Speaker 1: the record recoups, how's the money whacked up? Well, to
Speaker 1: answer your question, before it recoups, you do the second record.
Speaker 1: Then the band wants to do videos. My cheap videos
Speaker 1: became they wanted the biggest directors. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: videos are now a hundred thousand dollars. I meet my
Speaker 1: video for nineteen, But that's recoupable. Zach Horowitz did a
Speaker 1: good deal. Everything is recoupable. So my deal is fifty
Speaker 1: fifty after recoupment. But we weren't recouped until years and
Speaker 1: years later because we did a second record that advanced
Speaker 1: was bigger. The band got a big vance. Then there
Speaker 1: was a third record. They were never recouped. But so
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, did I get paid
Speaker 1: as a producer a pittance? Because I own the label?
Speaker 1: So I did I get a label share? Yeah? But
Speaker 1: do I get paid retroactive to record one as a producer? Yes?
Speaker 1: When it recoups didn't recoup. Did I get my label
Speaker 1: share when you cross collateral lives that it gives the
Speaker 1: other eight albums? Did I see any money there? No?
Speaker 1: So the point is did I see money at Capital
Speaker 1: because I wasn't getting at CBS. Sure, I'm a survivor
Speaker 1: and I'm a survivor's kid. Okay, So you work with Showtime?
Speaker 1: What comes after Showtime? Your present? Uh? Now? Endeavor? No,
Speaker 1: so Jerry leaf Showtime. After building that network up, I
Speaker 1: then make a movie for VH one. I'd make an
Speaker 1: MTV deal to build media using their platform. I then
Speaker 1: team up with an old friend of mine who you
Speaker 1: know who managed Monthly Crew at the time, named Doc McGee.
Speaker 1: And Doc and I set up a company called McGee Proffer.
Speaker 1: We set up joint venture together, partners, and we get
Speaker 1: offices together. That's how I met Darius Rucker because Doc
Speaker 1: was you know, Doc ultimately managed Arius. Doc is a
Speaker 1: real good guy. But he managed. He didn't manage Kiss,
Speaker 1: now I think he did. Yeah, he did. He managed Kiss.
Speaker 1: He didn't manage Von Jovi or Monthly Crew anymore. But
Speaker 1: I met Doc at Pasha when Monthly Crew made their
Speaker 1: first record there so Doc and I got together. Socially,
Speaker 1: I don't like Doc a lot. He's a very smart guy,
Speaker 1: he's very honorable, he's very ethical, and so my next
Speaker 1: chapter was Mgee Proffer and I would do stuff. I
Speaker 1: made a deal at the h one. We made a
Speaker 1: deal with um Brian Becker, whose chairman of Clear Channel,
Speaker 1: Mike would consult them on building assets out of Clear
Speaker 1: Channel properties. It was an interesting period where I decided,
Speaker 1: ultimately I want to do stuff with music and visual
Speaker 1: and you know, Doc moved to Nashville with Arius. Then
Speaker 1: I started this next chapter, Medior seventeen. Okay, how do
Speaker 1: you get hooked up with space Camp? Morgan, my son
Speaker 1: who is now flying for United Airlines for aur RA.
Speaker 1: He's thirty four years old, always wanted to be a
Speaker 1: pilot from the age of five. When my I love
Speaker 1: my children. My children mean everything by holding companies called
Speaker 1: Morlan Morgan sterling. Okay, Morgan, when he went to the bathroom,
Speaker 1: when he sat down on the john, there was a
Speaker 1: seven forty seven cockpit there, so he took off every
Speaker 1: time he took off. Okay, So Morgan decided he found
Speaker 1: his credit space Camp. There was a space Camp in
Speaker 1: northern California. Then there's the headquarters in Huntsville. So Morgan
Speaker 1: went to Space Camp first sleep away camp. I went there,
Speaker 1: I checked him in, I came back home. When he graduated,
Speaker 1: he goes to school, he gets to be a at
Speaker 1: American You. He's living in Paris, and he says to me, Dad,
Speaker 1: I want to go and do some gift back back
Speaker 1: to Space Camp because I learned fraternal skills. He went
Speaker 1: there eight consecutive summers as a camper. I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of my kids. And he learned to be a match
Speaker 1: at the highest order. And he said, Dad, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back to be a counselor for the summer
Speaker 1: profile dollar. I don't even know what he made because
Speaker 1: my kids have their things. That's there's I think mine,
Speaker 1: But my thing is there's still anyways. Bottom line is
Speaker 1: he said, Dad, there's a movie here. I said, what,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? He said, there's a movie here.
Speaker 1: Because there's so many kids who aspirationally want to be
Speaker 1: astronauts and they want to be what I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Let me introduce you to the CEO Space Camp. So
Speaker 1: I got hooked up initially because Morgan went there but
Speaker 1: then to make a movie there. Morgan introduced me to
Speaker 1: Deborah Barnhardt, who was the CEO of Space Camp. I
Speaker 1: got on the plane, I flew there. I said, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. I can do this, I can do that.
Speaker 1: I'd like to. I had an idea to make a
Speaker 1: film about the campers and make it some joy long
Speaker 1: story short on how the story came together, but Morgan
Speaker 1: helped me sculpt it because he lived it. I made
Speaker 1: the deal, and I also fell so in love with
Speaker 1: the ethos of the place. I gave twenty five scholarships
Speaker 1: out of my pocket for kids who wanted to be
Speaker 1: Space Campers. We made the movie Walden Media, where my partners,
Speaker 1: Walden Media still Entrances company. My Clarity was the lead guy.
Speaker 1: We made the movie Danny Glover of Mirrors or you
Speaker 1: know There's some good people. It's called Space Warriors, and
Speaker 1: they had a put deal. We thought it should be
Speaker 1: Disney Sunday Night movie, but the Walden had a with Hallmark,
Speaker 1: so the movie had to go on the Hallmark channel.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was the right channel for that movie,
Speaker 1: but what it was, it was wonderful. We won the
Speaker 1: Set Award for the best movie of the year. Teaching
Speaker 1: kids about science, space and education. I give all the
Speaker 1: credit to my son Morgan. So a couple of times
Speaker 1: you mentioned politics and being on the left side of
Speaker 1: the divide. There's someone who's very worldly and has had
Speaker 1: the perspective of growing up and immigrating from Europe to America.
Speaker 1: How do you see today's world divided the way that
Speaker 1: Don McLean did when he wrote American Pie. We were
Speaker 1: a divided country back in seventy two when there was
Speaker 1: Nixon until things changed. How do I see it? I
Speaker 1: kind of I'm that immigrant dreamer guy who just wants
Speaker 1: to do right. I want people to have the lives.
Speaker 1: I want people to earn what they make. I want
Speaker 1: them to keep what they earn. I'm a big believer
Speaker 1: in treating people right, never lying, ever cheating, keeping to
Speaker 1: who you are, Like I was brought up by my
Speaker 1: parents that I told you about. So, how do I
Speaker 1: see the world messed up? Um? How do I feel
Speaker 1: about it? I want to make a difference in media,
Speaker 1: in pop culture, using media because I can't. That's why
Speaker 1: I did the Rock and the Core thing for the U.
Speaker 1: S Marine cars. I don't know if you know about that.
Speaker 1: Quincy Jones and I teamed up in two thousand five
Speaker 1: and we did an event at Camp Pendleton for forty
Speaker 1: five thousand marines. Beyonce and Kiss headlined it. Doc let
Speaker 1: me have his production crew. We produced the event and
Speaker 1: we formed a five or one C three so the
Speaker 1: proceeds could go to the people coming back from Iraq,
Speaker 1: Education Fund for returning troops, Reparation fund for the families
Speaker 1: that got killed. I produced it. Doc McGhee was my
Speaker 1: partner on it. Quincy Jones was the executive producer. But
Speaker 1: I didn't do that for politics. I did it because
Speaker 1: guys needed If you're a if you're a soldier man,
Speaker 1: you're fighting for what you believe in, whether you're on
Speaker 1: the left or the right. The bullets don't have a
Speaker 1: donkey or an elephant on it. So where do I
Speaker 1: come out. I come out right in the middle. I
Speaker 1: want everyone to get married and to be a unit.
Speaker 1: Is that the way of the world today? Now? Whose
Speaker 1: fault is? It? Not my place to say on your podcast.
Speaker 1: But what I want to do is I want to
Speaker 1: tell stories of brilliant music people don McLean being at
Speaker 1: the top of that list. Lamont Stephen Schwartz Del Bryant,
Speaker 1: who's a kid who grew up with his parents being bohemians.
Speaker 1: And there's more Lee Abrams. You know the Abrams very well. Well.
Speaker 1: Lee and I are doing a project called Sonic Messengers.
Speaker 1: It's about radio's impact on pop culture in the world.
Speaker 1: We just got John Clice to be our executive producer
Speaker 1: because I want to see I want there to be
Speaker 1: an English perspective on American radio to the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
Speaker 1: Lee had the oumption. I met Lee when brook Hard
Speaker 1: Abrams took My Billy Thorpe Blazer Light Show and he
Speaker 1: ad Means the guest speaker, and I premiered as the
Speaker 1: Rubeny Fleet Space Theater in San Diego. Became friends with
Speaker 1: Lee in nine seventy nine. So Lee and I got
Speaker 1: back in touch. We're doing a project together two as partners,
Speaker 1: Lee and I fifty fifty. So those are the kind
Speaker 1: of people I like to work with. People who are smart,
Speaker 1: who are ethical, who have vision, and who want to
Speaker 1: make a difference. And Lee wants to talk about how
Speaker 1: radio form pop culture all the way to when he
Speaker 1: founded XM Radio. And you know, we wanted to we'll
Speaker 1: do some podcasts with you. We'll figure out what we
Speaker 1: need to do. But leaves. My friend Del Bryant is
Speaker 1: my friend Stephen Schwartz, and my friend Don McLean has
Speaker 1: become my friend. Why because I'm that kind of guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, you're a great talker, great salesman.
Speaker 1: You're still active. I'm sure you'll be reaching your hand
Speaker 1: out of the coffin trying to make one more deal. Uh, Spencer, Spencer,
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for taking the time to
Speaker 1: talk to my audience. Bob, I want to thank you
Speaker 1: even more for inviting me because your podcasts, your blog
Speaker 1: is as about as good as it gets from the
Speaker 1: monorn music business, at least to me. And I agree
Speaker 1: with when you have your people right, and when you
Speaker 1: people say you shouldn't have said this, I say hell
Speaker 1: with them. I agree with Bob. Judy loves your podcast.
Speaker 1: She doesn't subscribe like I do. I read it religiously,
Speaker 1: but my wife reads up and she does go. This
Speaker 1: guy's a good guy. You should talk to him one
Speaker 1: day and guess what we're talking here? We are? Okay,
Speaker 1: great talk Ada Spencer. Until next time. This is Bob
Speaker 1: left Sex