Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today are hit makers on their fiftieth anniversary
Speaker 1: tour celebration The Act America. You have Deuey Banel and
Speaker 1: Jerry Beckley. Great to have you guys here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So what's it like fifty years later? It's quite similar
Speaker 1: to the beginning, Bob. We're still together. You know, some
Speaker 1: people might not know, but we it was never a breakup,
Speaker 1: never come back kind of thing. We've been doing about
Speaker 1: a hundred shows a year for the last fifty years. Okay,
Speaker 1: but the classic question would be when you started, did
Speaker 1: you envision that you'd be doing it fifty years later. No,
Speaker 1: I can honestly say I'm shocked myself that we're still
Speaker 1: and really we are on kind of a resurgence. It's
Speaker 1: been a real special last couple of years. Is the
Speaker 1: live show is locked in. We've been through all the
Speaker 1: ups and downs and peaks and valleys, and we've got
Speaker 1: this a couple of younger guys in the band now
Speaker 1: that really kicked us in the butt. Our drummer rylan
Speaker 1: Steen and and Steve Ecadion guitar, and then we have
Speaker 1: a good seasoned, uh solid bass player Enrich Campbell, so
Speaker 1: that five pieces just chugging along. So what do you
Speaker 1: think accounts for the resurgence? Classic hits? Hits, help is
Speaker 1: the same, you know, and there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: hits um and you know, we honor those every night,
Speaker 1: so you play all the hits every night. I have
Speaker 1: this equation in my head. I figured that the people
Speaker 1: that come night after night, those are the people that
Speaker 1: bought these records in the millions throughout this career. Those
Speaker 1: are the people that put our kids to college. You know.
Speaker 1: Our our half of the bargain is to now go
Speaker 1: out and take this music to those people and perform
Speaker 1: it around the world, which we're very happy to do.
Speaker 1: But you're talking about a resurgence. Why do you think
Speaker 1: it's on an upswing? Well, I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: resurgence per se. It just seems like it's locked in.
Speaker 1: You know. We were always kind of like, who are
Speaker 1: these young guys that came out of nowhere? And there's
Speaker 1: always been you know, we had a little bit of
Speaker 1: proving ourselves in the seventies and so on, but we
Speaker 1: just got into this cruising thing where we're just going
Speaker 1: to power through and keep doing what we do. It's
Speaker 1: not a it's a simple enough formula, try and write
Speaker 1: some decent songs and like a record every once in
Speaker 1: a while. And so maybe it's because there's been a
Speaker 1: we've lost a bunch of guys the venue before everybody dies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that yeah, I don't want to put it that way,
Speaker 1: but we all know people our ages, you know, they
Speaker 1: drop off. So, uh, was there ever a time in
Speaker 1: the fifty years that you thought I'm done, I'm not
Speaker 1: do this, not personally done. We we've had some challenges,
Speaker 1: as do we said, some ups and downs. When Dan,
Speaker 1: our original founding member, left in seventy seven, that was
Speaker 1: a personal challenge he was addressing and he did actually
Speaker 1: a great job, but it didn't allow for us to
Speaker 1: carry on as a three piece. So that was a
Speaker 1: bit of a hurdle, but it gave Dewey and I
Speaker 1: the kind of green light to carry on. So I
Speaker 1: can't say that I ever had a I'm out kind
Speaker 1: of the writing and stuff goes. We seemed to be
Speaker 1: every day we'd wake up and have some idea. In
Speaker 1: the seventies, record something or this song or recorded cover
Speaker 1: and I think that aspect of that excitement. It's really
Speaker 1: hard to recreate that. I think any long term a
Speaker 1: veteran band will say, you know, we had our these
Speaker 1: years that just seemed to couldn't do anything wrong, you know,
Speaker 1: but I've never wanted to stop. We can't do anything else.
Speaker 1: We graduate from high school together, never went to college,
Speaker 1: you know. I learned my three chords, and Jerry's a
Speaker 1: school musician over there on the keyboards and so on.
Speaker 1: So I mean, really, uh, realistically, we still feel comfortable
Speaker 1: and enjoy it. So now in the era the Internet,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information that it used to be there.
Speaker 1: But I didn't know until I did some research what
Speaker 1: were the exact circumstances as of Dan leaving the act. Well,
Speaker 1: we were still on a pretty heavy um series of
Speaker 1: Right Record Produce tour and it filled the year for
Speaker 1: all of us, and Dan was having a harder and
Speaker 1: harder time making the commitment to do all of that,
Speaker 1: and we would book a tour, or we would try
Speaker 1: and rehearse and nes, hey, I can't make it or something.
Speaker 1: He he had some emotional challenges, to put it, I
Speaker 1: suppose mildly. He um. He had a very stable home
Speaker 1: life with his wife, but he was wrestling with some
Speaker 1: demons and him having the time to focus on that,
Speaker 1: he went through a rebirth, he became born again Christian,
Speaker 1: devoted the remainder of his life to doing contemporary Christian music,
Speaker 1: which we performed on when we could when asked, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't keep up the schedule that we were doing.
Speaker 1: Now did you see it coming? Yeah, well we were
Speaker 1: all thrown into the spin dryer effect, you know, with
Speaker 1: the number one record an album when we were like
Speaker 1: eight years old and moved out to l a and
Speaker 1: we we were from military families that had moved around
Speaker 1: all of our lives and had that vibe. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot to take in. And there was the
Speaker 1: usual pitfalls, drugs and women and the hectic road life,
Speaker 1: none of which were at anything really unusual when you
Speaker 1: look at the history of bands and everything, and it's
Speaker 1: just some can weather through some of that and some don't.
Speaker 1: And and Dan really did have We didn't know this
Speaker 1: even that he had a strong Christian rate. He was
Speaker 1: raised Baptists were his families, all from Missouri in for
Speaker 1: a little place called farming to Missouri. We ended up
Speaker 1: visiting out there and you know, we we loved Danny.
Speaker 1: We were the three Musketeers. We've gone through high school
Speaker 1: and we're laughing it up and then suddenly we've got
Speaker 1: this thing, this career for God's like. He went back
Speaker 1: to college for one semester but didn't take and he
Speaker 1: came back to England and Jerry and I were still
Speaker 1: in England where our parents were, and so it was
Speaker 1: it sad time and it was that was the first
Speaker 1: big transition. It wasn't a shock, to answer your question.
Speaker 1: We we could see it. I mean, obviously we were
Speaker 1: all complicit in that in what we've just lump in
Speaker 1: as the seventies, but it was really hitting Dan harder
Speaker 1: than it was us. And he had a So what
Speaker 1: was it were looking back with all these years and
Speaker 1: now that he's past, what did he add to the band? Well,
Speaker 1: a trio obviously, I always think of like the three
Speaker 1: legs of a stool. I mean, it's a very very
Speaker 1: stable thing. We had a democracy from day one. One
Speaker 1: of the things that happened very early on in the
Speaker 1: group was Dewey sang Horse with No Name, which was
Speaker 1: a huge hit for us. The follow up was a
Speaker 1: song called I Need You a ballad which I sang,
Speaker 1: so we right away established a pattern of handing it around.
Speaker 1: It never fell on any guy's shoulders. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: a sting thing where he had the right and sing.
Speaker 1: Dan contributed some huge hits for us. A Lonely People
Speaker 1: don't cross the river. His element, apart from being a
Speaker 1: great lead guitarist, his writing kind of skewed a bit
Speaker 1: more country, so those songs did to have a banjo
Speaker 1: on him and just slightly different color, which I think
Speaker 1: really rounded it. Was a good rock guitar player too.
Speaker 1: He was our lead guitar player, and he was our
Speaker 1: high harmony singer, and that was another feature that we had.
Speaker 1: That's it's an alchemy that you can't really predict the
Speaker 1: three voices, the blend, and that was a magical thing
Speaker 1: when we first sat down with our acoustic guitars and
Speaker 1: he had a song and Jared had a song, and
Speaker 1: I had a song, and we started arranging and you know,
Speaker 1: doing the usual thing, getting these voices gone and Dan's
Speaker 1: high harmony, it was hard to recreate that. We've been lucky. Okay.
Speaker 1: So once you left the yacht, did you change the
Speaker 1: material so you did require it or did you double
Speaker 1: it or did somebody else do it? We had Timothy
Speaker 1: Schmidt came in a lot. Christopher Cross when we got
Speaker 1: to know him, just really fine high voice singers. If
Speaker 1: we needed the three part harmony, but there's a great
Speaker 1: history of harmony that's two part Everly Brothers and all
Speaker 1: the Beatles stuff was built kind of on that mold.
Speaker 1: So we were very happy to be to do two
Speaker 1: part harmony. It wasn't like a big piece missing. We
Speaker 1: were never gonna play Dan as it were, you know.
Speaker 1: As as a matter of fact, we did some audition,
Speaker 1: we did. We even audition we did just Michael stepped
Speaker 1: in our our guitar tech Michael Woods at that time
Speaker 1: when Dan left, he'd been working with us for a
Speaker 1: couple of years and knew all the songs by heart.
Speaker 1: Was a guitar player himself. A lot of guitar techs
Speaker 1: are you know, and he just stepped right in and
Speaker 1: we said, okay, that's good. I think we were gonna
Speaker 1: have auditions. And he said, hey, would you guys consider
Speaker 1: letting me audition and we said, yeah, you can have
Speaker 1: the gig. Just like that. We did the same thing
Speaker 1: when we got We had drummer. We were just three
Speaker 1: kids on stools, originally acoustic guitars. Three no rhythm section
Speaker 1: at all. In fact, if you listen to the first album,
Speaker 1: there's not as hardly any drums right here, because like
Speaker 1: on Sandman, there's Dave Attwooder and old high school guy
Speaker 1: who played drums. But when we came to the l
Speaker 1: A and David Geffen and Elliot Roberts picked us up
Speaker 1: and we were we were thrown into the deep end
Speaker 1: of the pool. And now we're filling arenas and so on.
Speaker 1: We've got to get a band, We've got to get
Speaker 1: a thing here. You know. It was on the job
Speaker 1: training and we did call some rehearsals and we ended
Speaker 1: up picking the first guy, Willie Leacox. Yeah, he was
Speaker 1: a friend to our bass player at the time, David
Speaker 1: Dickie and some guys had flown in to to to
Speaker 1: audition and bless their hearts, you know, one guy got
Speaker 1: got a ticket for jaywalking here in Hollywood somewhere, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was really sad, but that's how professional
Speaker 1: we were were. Okay, he sounds good enough, and it showed,
Speaker 1: frankly for a while. Although Willie Leacox was a schooled drummer.
Speaker 1: He's from his family's all big band players from Iowa,
Speaker 1: and he was good. You know, he stayed forty four years.
Speaker 1: You don't, don't change it if it's not broken. He
Speaker 1: just essentially retired about four years ago. So let's go
Speaker 1: to the end before we go back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: What's it like to be an act with a lot
Speaker 1: of hits and non quantity in the concept of putting
Speaker 1: out new music today? Because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: acts the Internet era. They make a new record, good batter,
Speaker 1: Otherwise it sinks in a day. Yeah. And in addition,
Speaker 1: if they play that new material live, that's when their
Speaker 1: fans tend to have a bathroom break. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: even we can see that we have many albums that
Speaker 1: we can pick from to do the deeper cuts in
Speaker 1: the show. But if you're I always say painters paint musicians, right,
Speaker 1: I continue to write. I mean, I can't honestly say
Speaker 1: that the only reason I did this was to make
Speaker 1: money off of it. It was a creative outlet, of
Speaker 1: vital creative outlet. But you're right that dynamic ebbs and flows,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter who you are. UM And I think
Speaker 1: you just have to wrap your head around it. The
Speaker 1: good news for us is that we built an incredibly
Speaker 1: strong performance space that it didn't revolve around, you know,
Speaker 1: And we did experience putting out albums that we really
Speaker 1: had put the nose to the grind so and it
Speaker 1: worked hard on Jerry's studio and stuff that Jerry and
Speaker 1: I had done, and and it was disappointing when it wasn't.
Speaker 1: What happened the seventies, huh. You know, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a strange thing. You put your heart and soul into it.
Speaker 1: I don't think I put any more effort into those
Speaker 1: albums that tanked completely that I did into the ones
Speaker 1: that were huge hits. I don't know how that works.
Speaker 1: But Jerry is more prolific than I as far as writing,
Speaker 1: I'm not driven to do it in the days when
Speaker 1: we when we first signed with Warners, we had a
Speaker 1: seven album deal. We had an album every year, the touring,
Speaker 1: everything capital the same thing. Then you're motivator. You have
Speaker 1: to you have to produce, you have to do something,
Speaker 1: and so I'm not doing it to this day. I'm
Speaker 1: I need some impetus. Something is our project. What are
Speaker 1: we doing? Even then? It's um. It's something I really
Speaker 1: have to make myself do. So at this stage of
Speaker 1: the game, is already planned to do a new album
Speaker 1: or new music because of the anniversary coming up. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of archival things. Every label that we've been
Speaker 1: on is doing a box set release. We just did
Speaker 1: a show with the London Palladium that they filmed within
Speaker 1: cameras and that's it that came out. So most of
Speaker 1: this stuff is archival. UM. Recently or a few years ago,
Speaker 1: we did an album of covers in Nashville with a
Speaker 1: wonderful group of players and stuff, which was a need
Speaker 1: experience because it didn't put the weight of writing on
Speaker 1: our shoulders. But you know, I'm sure this is your
Speaker 1: business as much as it is. You know, you have
Speaker 1: a new record coming out. I do solo records every
Speaker 1: so often. It's it's kind of cleaning house a little bit,
Speaker 1: you know. I I assemble a dozen tunes. If I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate to have a label that's interested, I will support
Speaker 1: it to the best of my ability. But I'm not
Speaker 1: holding my breath, you know. Okay, but you will put
Speaker 1: out another solo album at something. Yeah, I've got one
Speaker 1: coming out in September. Will you do it yourself? They'll
Speaker 1: be a label. Well, it's done. But this one is
Speaker 1: on Blue Alwan, which I didn't last and it's a
Speaker 1: lovely small something like you've made it something to happen.
Speaker 1: He's street email exactly. He's got that. Kirk Pesk's got
Speaker 1: great ears, this guy who runs this and he did
Speaker 1: an album. I did an album with him a few
Speaker 1: years back. It was just a pleasure from start to finish.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a different it's a different time.
Speaker 1: So if you cut the record at home and you
Speaker 1: make a deal with Blue Alawn, do they give you
Speaker 1: any money? Well, yeah, what do you have? What do
Speaker 1: you call that harshold question? Anybody? Yeah, there's enough to
Speaker 1: enough to warrant the effort. But I think, okay, that's
Speaker 1: all I needed. Let's go back to the beginning. Let's
Speaker 1: buy for Kate. Let's start first with you. Jerry, So
Speaker 1: where you from? Originally? I was born in Fort Worth, Texas.
Speaker 1: My dad, as Dewey's, was in the U. S. Air Force.
Speaker 1: I moved to England when I was one year old,
Speaker 1: so I have no memory of Texas. Okay, your father
Speaker 1: did what in the year force? He was a sack
Speaker 1: bomber pilot. He flew beef fifty twos during the Cold War,
Speaker 1: and he ended up at the Joint chiefs of Staff
Speaker 1: at the Pentagon, and when we met, he was the
Speaker 1: commander of the U. S Air Force in the UK.
Speaker 1: So he and I know some other people with the
Speaker 1: military fathers. And it's not irrelevant where you're living. It's
Speaker 1: not like growing up with a regular suburban dad. You you,
Speaker 1: as anybody that grows up in the service, would know
Speaker 1: that you're you're denied a hometown, you're denied lifetime friends.
Speaker 1: You moved from the minute and the get go. The
Speaker 1: only good news in that, well, there's quite a bit
Speaker 1: of good news. It broadens your horizons. You see the
Speaker 1: world in a much broader way than most people would
Speaker 1: living in a in the town that they were born.
Speaker 1: But also everybody that you are with is in the
Speaker 1: same boat. You're not sitting there going why do I
Speaker 1: feel different from all of these people. It's not like
Speaker 1: you had ten years of some kind of stability and
Speaker 1: then your mom remarries a guy in the service or something.
Speaker 1: So we are all in that same boat. And I
Speaker 1: think it's something we shared and it's it was a
Speaker 1: bonding element rather than an alienating thing. Okay, but your father,
Speaker 1: I mean, we see movies like The Great Cian Tini.
Speaker 1: What's it like having it's the only thing, you know,
Speaker 1: But what's it like having such a military success as
Speaker 1: your father? He was being a sack bomber pilot. He
Speaker 1: was gone a lot. It was secret at the time,
Speaker 1: but during the Cold War, they would go out of
Speaker 1: an air base and Goose Bay, Labrador and fly around
Speaker 1: the Arctic Circle for two weeks at a time, staying
Speaker 1: in the air. I'll be like in the movies where
Speaker 1: they refuel from in the air. So he would be
Speaker 1: gone for weeks and and I we weren't allowed to
Speaker 1: even ask where he was and stuff. So there was
Speaker 1: a lot of absent dad stuff. But he was an
Speaker 1: incredibly devoted father and one of our biggest fans. He
Speaker 1: kept a scrapbook from day one, and he was very
Speaker 1: proud of all of us. And in your particular case,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of in the house, was he strict,
Speaker 1: because in the military he wasn't. He was. I have
Speaker 1: great memories of all of this. But for example, when
Speaker 1: we we got stationed in England and there was a
Speaker 1: somewhat of a welcoming parmade. The parade the new base
Speaker 1: commander and I had quite long hair at the time,
Speaker 1: and he said you might want to skip that one, son,
Speaker 1: you know. He he wasn't the kind that said, you know,
Speaker 1: look sharp and okay. So you were one years old
Speaker 1: when you moved to London from Fort Worth and then
Speaker 1: were you in London the rest of the time. I
Speaker 1: was there till I was five or six, and then
Speaker 1: I moved to um off At Air Base in Omaha, Nebraska,
Speaker 1: which was a SEC base, and we were there a
Speaker 1: few years. Then we were in Ohio for a couple
Speaker 1: and then when he got stationed at the Pentagon, we
Speaker 1: moved to the DC area and I was there till
Speaker 1: sixty five, and we went to Germany, were at Ramstein
Speaker 1: Air Force Base for a year, then went to England
Speaker 1: and that's where I met Dewey for our last two
Speaker 1: years of high school. So you were going for the
Speaker 1: last two years of high school. Now, Dewey, what's your backstory? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, my dad saluted Jerry's dad, that was
Speaker 1: the senior master's large in the Air Force. But but
Speaker 1: but they knew each other. They you know, they probably
Speaker 1: did a small base well that when we became, when
Speaker 1: we broke afterwards, but it was a small base. It
Speaker 1: was more of an administrative base by then. Your dad,
Speaker 1: his dad wasn't really flying at that point, and my
Speaker 1: dad was born and raised in Alaska and really yeah
Speaker 1: and wait wait, so that must have been like the twenties.
Speaker 1: It was third how his dad was army as it
Speaker 1: turned out, and he and his older brother, first chance
Speaker 1: they could, signed up for Uncle Lart went into the army.
Speaker 1: My dad, I went to the Air Force and his
Speaker 1: first UH stationing was in Yorkshire, England, where he met
Speaker 1: my mom and I was born, So I was born
Speaker 1: in Yorkshire, England. By the way, Jerry didn't mention your
Speaker 1: mom's English to my mother is English. So then he
Speaker 1: and your father met her in the UK during the
Speaker 1: war World War two. And now did your parents stay together, Yes,
Speaker 1: they did in yours and mine right, and my mother
Speaker 1: passed away in but we we did the same thing.
Speaker 1: My dad was actually off it also. My dad was
Speaker 1: in communications, radar and stuff. He was in the Korean War,
Speaker 1: and we lived in several places. Biloxi, Mississippi, was a
Speaker 1: training base. Where were you born born? In Harrogat, Yorkshire, England.
Speaker 1: He could never be president, probably not, thank goodness, but yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was similar to Jerry. We only stayed there
Speaker 1: a year or so and went back to this U
Speaker 1: s UM and we bounced around Pensacola, Florida, Long Island,
Speaker 1: New York, Biloxi twice, Omaha. Coincidentally, when Jerry and I
Speaker 1: compared notes, we realized as we were living in the
Speaker 1: same place at the same time in Omaha. Dads were
Speaker 1: there because Sack Headquarters in Omaha, so that's the big
Speaker 1: Air Force space there. And then we were out here
Speaker 1: in California, Vandenburg Air Force Base. My dad was part
Speaker 1: of a team that fired some missiles out there in
Speaker 1: sixty two sixty three. And San Jose, California. There's another
Speaker 1: base up there, Sunny Vale. But then we went back
Speaker 1: to England in sixty five two. Um we left San Jose.
Speaker 1: The music scene was happening in the Bay area. Then
Speaker 1: that's when I was really starting to feel some stuff
Speaker 1: going on. And we moved to Norfolk, England, a base
Speaker 1: they're called Lake and Heath Milden Hall. So I did
Speaker 1: my sophomore year of high school there and then he
Speaker 1: was transferred down to London. The base where we met
Speaker 1: and Jerry and I and Dan and the rest of
Speaker 1: the people we met and friends were there at the
Speaker 1: Central High London, England. Okay, now, is that an American
Speaker 1: school dependents? There was another one in the heart of
Speaker 1: London called a s L which was for more of
Speaker 1: m kind of kids of oil companies and things and
Speaker 1: executive civilian kids. But this was outside of London and
Speaker 1: it was basically for the kids stationed in their parents
Speaker 1: at the base. And how many kids went to that
Speaker 1: school was a hundred and something a graduating class sixty
Speaker 1: nine graduate, all quantit huts. You know. It was an
Speaker 1: A base. Yeah, it's all r A F bases that
Speaker 1: the U S leases. I guess the same deal in
Speaker 1: Germany and everywhere else Belgium. But okay, just a cover
Speaker 1: for a second. Dan's back story was essentially the same.
Speaker 1: He came. He came the senior year. He wasn't there
Speaker 1: for the last two years. His dad was a colonel
Speaker 1: who worked in the b X system, the supply system,
Speaker 1: and he had a totally different He lived in Japan
Speaker 1: and the Philippines and Pakistan and stuff. Fascinating story. But
Speaker 1: we all ended up outside of line. His father was
Speaker 1: in the Air Force Colonel. Okay, so you're in London
Speaker 1: in the late sixty for someone who lives like in America,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a paradise for musical for American teenagers,
Speaker 1: are you kids? Yeah, we'd see all kinds of great music.
Speaker 1: So you did partake of that. Yeah. We saw King
Speaker 1: Crimson every day or was it once a week? It
Speaker 1: was a five day or five nights at the Marquee
Speaker 1: when they first started, and we went every night. We
Speaker 1: were like stunned, you know, Robert greg like, but we
Speaker 1: saw all kinds of great music. You know else comes
Speaker 1: to mind Led Zeppelin a couple of times they were
Speaker 1: just kind of firing up. I saw Jimi Hendricks at
Speaker 1: the Royal Albert Hall. That was great. Um. We saw
Speaker 1: the Stones in Hyde Park and really have to Brian
Speaker 1: Jones let letting go of the butterflies that didn't fly. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a place called the Lyceum Ballroom, the Roundhouse, which
Speaker 1: we ultimately that was when we when we first started
Speaker 1: getting some traction, we were playing the Roundhouse. Um. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was just a lot of the festivals. The Bath
Speaker 1: Festival was a great festival in nine seventy that had
Speaker 1: a bunch of American acts. We wanted to go see
Speaker 1: all these American acts because they were coming over Miss
Speaker 1: Janis Joplin. We saw the James Gang at the Lyceum.
Speaker 1: You know, Three Dog Night Sly came over here in London,
Speaker 1: so everybody played London. So when did both of you
Speaker 1: start playing musical instruments? Hey, I started piano when I
Speaker 1: was three, when we're living in England. The house was
Speaker 1: a furnished house and it had a piano in it,
Speaker 1: and I was just starting to fiddle around. And my
Speaker 1: mom thought, he seems keen on this. Um. Got me,
Speaker 1: got me some lessons, and I took. I took lessons
Speaker 1: till I was ten, and then at that point guitars
Speaker 1: seemed cooler than piano, so I switched to guitar. Well,
Speaker 1: if you played piano at one time, you could read music.
Speaker 1: You could read music. Today I can follow along. I
Speaker 1: can't site read anymore, but I could when I was ten.
Speaker 1: I could read anything you put in front of me.
Speaker 1: So you were a good piano player. I was all right, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's our Jarre's our musical director. You're not. But we
Speaker 1: put all of the stuff in his hands. He's really
Speaker 1: great at that. And when we get into arranging and
Speaker 1: so on. Um, I picked up a guitar in sixty
Speaker 1: sixty three music. Yeah, it was in uh, Dick Dale lost.
Speaker 1: We lost recently and that was a sad moment for me.
Speaker 1: And I'm really glad because that I'd met him and
Speaker 1: seen him. We actually Dick Dale open for us one day.
Speaker 1: But um so it surf music, single notes, stuff, d D.
Speaker 1: I'm not schooled. I'm really the worst when it comes
Speaker 1: to that. Within our umbrella, I'm comfortable. It's really tough
Speaker 1: for me to even sit down and jam with guys.
Speaker 1: But but I enjoyed that. And then the Beach Boys
Speaker 1: came along right in that same time. It's Safari's and
Speaker 1: and um the Shantas and the Ventures and so then
Speaker 1: then the Beach Boys came along and then we moved that.
Speaker 1: That year was huge for me. It was like eighth
Speaker 1: grade or something grade and it was the Kennedy Assassination.
Speaker 1: It was Ali knocking out Sunny List, and it was
Speaker 1: the Beatles sixty four there on Ed Sullivan the thing
Speaker 1: you hear every I'm sure Bob, everybody you talked to
Speaker 1: that Beatles thing on Ed Sullivan and we were, you know, smitten,
Speaker 1: and now we're going to England, oh wow, and it's
Speaker 1: just snowball from there. But I never did get off
Speaker 1: my butt and get into some music theory and learn
Speaker 1: some things. You know. I was always depending on the
Speaker 1: other guys in the band. It's a relative thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I went through uh Bill Evans thing
Speaker 1: recently where I went back and listened to all of
Speaker 1: that stuff Walster Debbie and stuff, and it just so
Speaker 1: humbling when you see somebody who really knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing. You see, that's what it's for. I had
Speaker 1: it all wrong. Yeah, but you know, some people the
Speaker 1: least talent have created some of the greatest records. Well,
Speaker 1: but I think when you say the least talent at
Speaker 1: least least school, I always think of that like a
Speaker 1: guy like Bill Withers, who wrote some of the greatest
Speaker 1: songs ever. If you just sat at a piano in
Speaker 1: sometimes in my life, you know, it's just it's just
Speaker 1: this on a ladder thing. But it couldn't be a
Speaker 1: better song. It's an incredible song, but it's very simple. Okay,
Speaker 1: So at this point you're thrown together in high school.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any chance you're going to be
Speaker 1: professional musicians before you form the act? No? No, I
Speaker 1: think that that curve when you change from boy. We're
Speaker 1: having a great time Fridays at the teen club too.
Speaker 1: We're actually going to make a living at this. There's
Speaker 1: a story that I've told where, um, we were actually
Speaker 1: going to try and make this as a profession. And
Speaker 1: my dad was a bit concerned because we both just graduated,
Speaker 1: and my my brother was coming over from the States
Speaker 1: and he when he came over, he said, no, He said,
Speaker 1: when you come, I'd like you to have a word
Speaker 1: with your brother because we're not so sure this music
Speaker 1: thing is really going to pan out. And by the
Speaker 1: time he got their Horse with No Name was number one,
Speaker 1: and he said to my dad, well, what do you
Speaker 1: want to tell him that staying okay? Was there any
Speaker 1: of the thing your father said, Hey, you got to
Speaker 1: go to college. Well, this happened so quickly for us
Speaker 1: that we never got to that point of I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, we put out a first album in a
Speaker 1: single that went basically number one around the world, so
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of second guessing about it
Speaker 1: that everybody, including the label, was just over the moon.
Speaker 1: You know. See when we get when we graduated in
Speaker 1: sixty nine, whatever that is June, Dan did go. We
Speaker 1: worked at the base to make some money. Hey, we
Speaker 1: got a job. We were working in the warehouse in
Speaker 1: the cafeteria. Dan's dad, as Jerry said, was part of
Speaker 1: the b X and the food services or something's Colonel Peak.
Speaker 1: So he got us a job there in the on
Speaker 1: the base. But Dan was slater to go to college
Speaker 1: and his family, I think, and we never really talked
Speaker 1: about it much. I mean we were worried about the
Speaker 1: draft of course at that point. And Dan did go
Speaker 1: off and do one semester. Jerry and I stayed and
Speaker 1: worked at the base. I actually took a shot at
Speaker 1: drama school. I'd love the school plays and I thought,
Speaker 1: you know England Thespian's. You know, I bailed out of
Speaker 1: that after about three months. It was called the Corona
Speaker 1: Academy of Dramatic Arts, and like Mark Lester, it was
Speaker 1: for kids. It was a kid's school, teenagers and so on.
Speaker 1: But I was in way over my head and you know,
Speaker 1: they were doing ballet and fencing and whatever, and I'm
Speaker 1: going okay. Meanwhile, I'm talking with Jerre a lot and
Speaker 1: We're hanging out in London, and uh, that's one thing
Speaker 1: led to another. The music was still the thread. We
Speaker 1: still wanted to play some music, see some music. We
Speaker 1: were still learning. It was exciting the scene in London,
Speaker 1: you know, and before you know it, I'm writing a
Speaker 1: couple of songs. And this I was living with another
Speaker 1: guy my parents. My dad had retired from the Air
Speaker 1: Force and went back up to Yorkshire with my mother,
Speaker 1: who always wanted to go home, and they got a
Speaker 1: pub up there. But I stayed down in London with
Speaker 1: another kid that was going to high school, John Alcazar,
Speaker 1: and was drumming in the room, you know, going to
Speaker 1: the base to work and playing my guitar and came
Speaker 1: up with some songs. Jerry was doing the same. And Jerry,
Speaker 1: you can pick it up there because you started getting
Speaker 1: some sessions in London. I was doing. I was, you know,
Speaker 1: you read liner notes, and I knew where the studios were.
Speaker 1: So I would go down and basically offer my because
Speaker 1: I could play most things adequately, and I'd offer myself
Speaker 1: that what do you need a base? Keyboards? And so
Speaker 1: I started playing on some people's demos at Morgan Studios
Speaker 1: and a couple of other studios, and they would give
Speaker 1: me studio time in return. They wouldn't pay me. They
Speaker 1: say you can use it from you know, like ten
Speaker 1: at night or something. So I started cutting some of
Speaker 1: my earlier and it it led to some of the
Speaker 1: earliest context that we eventually used in the in the business.
Speaker 1: So but at that time at ten PM and later
Speaker 1: you're cutting by yourself or the other two. Well, no,
Speaker 1: not not doing. I hadn't involved doing in this. I
Speaker 1: was working with whoever was basically hiring me from the studio.
Speaker 1: They say are you available, you know on wednes Day
Speaker 1: they need a bass player, and I sure go in
Speaker 1: and I'd play on whatever gig on the base. Well,
Speaker 1: that was kind of the segueing time when it started
Speaker 1: this started to take over. We basically just worked the summer.
Speaker 1: You know, we drove a fork lift and made tea
Speaker 1: from you got to drive afore. Yeah, we were tea
Speaker 1: boys too for the bridge because they always have British
Speaker 1: guys working with the Americans. You could just it's like
Speaker 1: that thing, you got to share this thing and alright,
Speaker 1: YouTube out go get the tea and bring me a
Speaker 1: box of Swan which for matches and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: cigarettes and things like that. We were we realized that
Speaker 1: if you were a tea boy, you could leave early,
Speaker 1: could go out and the tea was like ten to
Speaker 1: ten twenty, but you could leave about nine fifteen, take
Speaker 1: people's orders. Then you set up the tea and it's
Speaker 1: over at ten twenty, but it has to be cleaned up,
Speaker 1: so we could fudge it into about two and a.
Speaker 1: Good jobs like that, you make your own work so
Speaker 1: you don't have to work those lazy Yankee kids. Okay,
Speaker 1: what about the draft? What did you two guys? It
Speaker 1: was lottery by that right, and we had pretty good numbers.
Speaker 1: Dan had a bad number. And Dan had come back
Speaker 1: by then and he did get the crap number. I
Speaker 1: mean he was and he had to go to Germany
Speaker 1: to take his physical because you had to go wherever
Speaker 1: the whatever the um area that well, it didn't need
Speaker 1: to be an army base, and it wasn't. We didn't
Speaker 1: have an army in the uk um it What happened
Speaker 1: he well, he had he had some childhood illnesses that
Speaker 1: were undiagnosed, at least one apparently literally on his medical
Speaker 1: record undiged what we don't want anybody with an undiagnosed
Speaker 1: as ease um. So he got the four f And
Speaker 1: do you remember what your numbers were? I think I
Speaker 1: was in the one hundreds somewhere. I think it was
Speaker 1: like two hundreds, but I remember that. Okay, So let
Speaker 1: me be clear. When you're in high school, you're doing
Speaker 1: it on Friday afternoon? Is that the time when you
Speaker 1: say there's a band or really does the band complay?
Speaker 1: There was there was a band we played. We played together,
Speaker 1: not all three at the same time. There was a
Speaker 1: band that Dewey and I were in, and then Dewey
Speaker 1: left and Dan came in the band. But this, here's
Speaker 1: this is just topt It was cover. So I think
Speaker 1: that the thing it changed when instead of just covers,
Speaker 1: you had to do covers and you didn't have to
Speaker 1: but we'd all play the hits whatever they were to
Speaker 1: be wild. But we started to rearrange songs. If you
Speaker 1: remember when like Vanilla Fudge did keep Me Hanging On.
Speaker 1: They took an upbeat motown song and turned it into
Speaker 1: a power ballot. So we thought, oh, so you know,
Speaker 1: you know, there's really no rules, so we would take
Speaker 1: a fast song and make it into a slow song
Speaker 1: or vice versa. I think that was the transitional period
Speaker 1: between just being a cover band and writing, creating something
Speaker 1: of our own and are you working out it all?
Speaker 1: Playing any live games? Mostly at the base. There was
Speaker 1: a team club that we played every Friday. Did you
Speaker 1: get paid for that? I think there was petrol money.
Speaker 1: As we graduate from high school, that's summer. You have
Speaker 1: jobs on the base, you have this exchange, you play
Speaker 1: for studio time. What's the next step. I had done
Speaker 1: a session for a duo that was being shopped around
Speaker 1: a couple of English songwriters. And the guy that took
Speaker 1: him around and I'm not sure what labels he took
Speaker 1: him to, took him to Warners Ian Samuel, who was
Speaker 1: and our guy at Warners, and he said, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't hear anything. And he said, oh, what's that
Speaker 1: who's playing that guitar? And he said, well, actually that's
Speaker 1: a this American kid who was helping us do the recordings.
Speaker 1: He says, and he said he's got his own band,
Speaker 1: and he and said, will bring me his band? Really? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's how we got into We had that little
Speaker 1: moment with Middle Earth Records, and that was Dave House
Speaker 1: and was managed Dave House. Well, the Middle Earth Records
Speaker 1: is not the same story or a story before, No,
Speaker 1: that's that story. He that guy had signed this duo
Speaker 1: and he was shopping him around and when he took
Speaker 1: him to Warners, they passed, but they wanted to know
Speaker 1: who that guitar st okay, So he wanted to know
Speaker 1: what happened after that. Well, we hadn't. We were now
Speaker 1: the three of us had worked up five or six
Speaker 1: songs and we didn't have any tapes. So the only
Speaker 1: way to perform was to take these guitars and and
Speaker 1: play in the offices. So we went in and played.
Speaker 1: A guy named Martin Wyatt, who's still this isn't Warner UK.
Speaker 1: The understanding with the intermediary, he'll be the label this
Speaker 1: This ian was a staff producer and and our guy
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers. And we were playing in the office
Speaker 1: of the head for the head of A and R
Speaker 1: guy named Martin Wyatt, and we played basically half of
Speaker 1: the first album, Riverside and I Need You and stuff.
Speaker 1: And he has since gone on record and said it
Speaker 1: was the hardest thing he's ever had to do. In
Speaker 1: the business was to keep a straight face while we
Speaker 1: came in and played all this stuff. And he said
Speaker 1: he ran into his boss, a guy named Ian Ralfini,
Speaker 1: you might know that name, and um he said, you'll
Speaker 1: never guess what's just walked in here, you know, and
Speaker 1: they signed us. Yeah it was okay, yeah, yeah. What
Speaker 1: was it like being on your side of the fence?
Speaker 1: Did you expect this time? Well, it was pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still I'm still was numb about it. Right.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Ian Samuel's partner roommate was this
Speaker 1: guy incredibly calledful guy named Jeff Dexter. He's in a
Speaker 1: lot of the British folklore and he did a lot
Speaker 1: of m seeing and things at the Roundhouse. Ile why
Speaker 1: he introduced artists and he got us on a couple
Speaker 1: of club shows, the Country Club and this guy Bob
Speaker 1: Harris have you ever heard that named Bob Harris's DJ
Speaker 1: in England BBC. He got us on the BBC doing
Speaker 1: just what Jerry saying, those three or four songs that
Speaker 1: we had worked up, got really tight harmonies, had all
Speaker 1: our acoustic guitar parts, just three of us sitting there.
Speaker 1: He got us on the BBC, and that caused a
Speaker 1: little bit. I don't know where all the buzz comes
Speaker 1: from or how like Jerry says, Martin Wyatt got some
Speaker 1: stuff going around. Hey, these guys are good. We can
Speaker 1: we got to sign these guys or whatever and getting
Speaker 1: on the radio. But that was all super like, Wow,
Speaker 1: what's going on. It's happening around us by some kind
Speaker 1: of supernatural forest. Okay, let's go back for a second.
Speaker 1: Before you went and played Warner for the audition, how
Speaker 1: much rehearsing gets you done. We had just learned these
Speaker 1: tunes at our houses, our individual homes, in our car.
Speaker 1: We would rehearse in the cars. We we really I mean,
Speaker 1: we've been in bands. We knew that this just sounds
Speaker 1: pretty good. But it had become the era of the
Speaker 1: singer songwriters. We'd all sold our electric gear in the
Speaker 1: amps and things, so we all had acoustics. But I
Speaker 1: think another thing that this guy that was running us
Speaker 1: around town, he said, Okay, now tomorrow we're gonna go
Speaker 1: see Atlantic. And remember we played for Phil Carson in Atlantic.
Speaker 1: This is nine and we didn't realize that if you're
Speaker 1: playing for one label and they're interested, you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to go to the other on Phil. Phil would be
Speaker 1: meeting with Ian from Warners and say we've got these
Speaker 1: great guys America going into the studio, and he said,
Speaker 1: we've got them going this. So we were cutting the
Speaker 1: same songs for all the different labels around town, making
Speaker 1: basically the same demo, tightening up our arrangements for the
Speaker 1: master recordings O. So you had those two demo deals.
Speaker 1: Any other demo deals we did. We went to Dick
Speaker 1: James d j M, which is at the time was
Speaker 1: kind of where Elton was just starting that and we
Speaker 1: cut things there. We went into Chalk Farm for Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: which is a great old demo studio that a lot
Speaker 1: of the reggae music. So we cut those same songs
Speaker 1: three or four times and kind of honed them down.
Speaker 1: So when Warners pushed go, we said, that's great to beat,
Speaker 1: you know, because it was obviously Joni was on Reprieve,
Speaker 1: it was Warner Reprise and Neil was on you know,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like a great fit. And uh Ian
Speaker 1: was assigned to be a co producer, but basically just
Speaker 1: a guy to watch the budget go in and just
Speaker 1: capture what they're doing, what they're doing is already fine
Speaker 1: if you can just get that on tape. The budget
Speaker 1: was three thousand pounds, which was seven and a half grand.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, this is to make the record
Speaker 1: of the album. This is to make the album. So
Speaker 1: we went into studios on Water Street in Soho. And
Speaker 1: and because he and Ian Samuel was actually a bit
Speaker 1: of a legend. He'd written Move It for Cliff Richard.
Speaker 1: He was kind of woven into the London music isn't older? Yes,
Speaker 1: he said, I've got a great engineer named Ken Scott.
Speaker 1: He's just been working with Dave Bowie and stuff. So
Speaker 1: Ken engineered the first album. We did the whole thing
Speaker 1: for bucks. So you did for seventy five hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: How long a period of time was about three weeks
Speaker 1: to three weeks, right, Yeah. We had David Linley, of
Speaker 1: all people who we didn't know from Adam at the time,
Speaker 1: came in. I think he was who he was with Terry.
Speaker 1: He was playing with Terry Read in London. He was
Speaker 1: just before Jackson and so Terry Reid was the next
Speaker 1: as you probably know that it's going to be the
Speaker 1: next big thing on numerous times in his in his
Speaker 1: life and Linley was available and played, and then they
Speaker 1: brought in this percussionist, nam Ray Cooper of course, yeah stuff,
Speaker 1: and so those are the only two additional guys. Okay,
Speaker 1: So essentially you're saying you produced the record yourself, we
Speaker 1: co produced it. Yeah, it's co credited to us. Okay.
Speaker 1: Are you happy with the alt? Yeah? I think yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. I think the original recordings are are good,
Speaker 1: you know. Okays, a lot of people say I wanted
Speaker 1: the studio and I'm not happy. You know, I pushed
Speaker 1: around Rose anxious. Okay, so that you make that record
Speaker 1: and how long does it take to come out? The
Speaker 1: One of the interesting things about that was that record
Speaker 1: didn't include Horse with the name. So the original British
Speaker 1: release came out and it was getting airplay and same cover,
Speaker 1: same cover, same everything. But here's one something that the
Speaker 1: label did that would never happen now. They then said
Speaker 1: to us, what else you got? We're not sure there's
Speaker 1: a single now. They just invested and released the album.
Speaker 1: But we went back in the studio a month or
Speaker 1: two later to cut a few new things, and that's
Speaker 1: when we cut Horse and that was released as a
Speaker 1: separate thing. The album and the single were two different
Speaker 1: releases in the UK. Okay, so you cut the record,
Speaker 1: are you now playing live? We're still doing these little
Speaker 1: club John's up. Now. Now we've got a van of
Speaker 1: Ford Transit band with three airplane seats in there. We've
Speaker 1: got a roady guy Claude and a little whim p
Speaker 1: a system and our acoustic guitars. And Jeff Dexter has
Speaker 1: getting us bookings and colleges and pubs and growing up
Speaker 1: and down the m one and we did. We went
Speaker 1: to Holland. He got us a little tour of all
Speaker 1: these clubs around Holland and then we got put on
Speaker 1: the catch Steven's European leg of his tour. And at
Speaker 1: that point it was just the three of you. Now
Speaker 1: we we had actually evolved to having a bass guitar
Speaker 1: that Jerry and Dan would switch off on. So on
Speaker 1: certain arrangements be to acoustics and bass. I always I
Speaker 1: also always remember we got this one off date in
Speaker 1: Holland opening for the band and we thought, oh this
Speaker 1: is and we were playing with some British bands that
Speaker 1: were just starting. Brindley Schwartz Nick Lowe came out of Brindley,
Speaker 1: Swarts and Curved Air which um uh, what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Police's drummer drummer for kurbjer Stewart. Um. Yeah, he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Actually he was added to Kryptiner. But and Lynda Lewis
Speaker 1: was a great singer, young singer, and she also sang
Speaker 1: with Eldon. Yeah, and that was our little kind. They
Speaker 1: were all Warner's acts burgeoning, you know, upcoming acts, and
Speaker 1: we play shows all of them. So before you we
Speaker 1: cut the cut the additional tracks. What was the plan
Speaker 1: they thought? They thought about I need you? I need
Speaker 1: You sounds kind of like maybe, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a slow song. What else have you got?
Speaker 1: So that's what put us Okay, before you get there,
Speaker 1: this was the dark ages. You made a deal with
Speaker 1: Warner Did you have a music attorney? I don't think
Speaker 1: there was somebody. I think there was somebody legal, but
Speaker 1: clearly they it was Warner Brothers music. You know, the
Speaker 1: publishing was totally integral to the deal. If you want
Speaker 1: to cut right to it. Yeah, we lost all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and to this day it got worse actually because David okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll wait for that. Okay. So now they said,
Speaker 1: I go back to the studio with cut some additional
Speaker 1: stuff and so then how does that work? Well, they
Speaker 1: picked they said we liked this Horse song and it
Speaker 1: was actually called Desert Song. We couldn't get into Trident,
Speaker 1: so we went to Morgan, which I knew because I
Speaker 1: had worked there a lot, and we had a different engineer.
Speaker 1: I think we might have had Philip McDonald on that,
Speaker 1: and we went in to cut a couple of tunes,
Speaker 1: but feature Horse with no name all came out great.
Speaker 1: Ray Cooper did some percussion and we put it out
Speaker 1: as a single MAXI single. I think it had two
Speaker 1: songs on the B side and it went right to
Speaker 1: number one in the UK. Okay, So, although I've read
Speaker 1: a little bit about it, tell my audience the gest station,
Speaker 1: how horse was the only name came together? It was
Speaker 1: I was playing around with tunings, different tunes, David Crosby
Speaker 1: and needless to say, you haven't even mentioned what about
Speaker 1: us being these knockoffs the ESN guys, Right, well we'll
Speaker 1: get well but the best people. Yeah, it's beautiful. Well,
Speaker 1: we were just we just picked apart those records, the
Speaker 1: first first to CSN Records, the first three Neil Young
Speaker 1: solo albums. I mean, we're Buffalo Springfield fans of birds
Speaker 1: fans and and Joni Mitchell was incredible, so they were
Speaker 1: really right in our face and right at that time.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, I picked around to find my own
Speaker 1: little weird tuning. Again, being unschooled, it's kind of unorthodox
Speaker 1: what I did. And I found some cords, different fingering
Speaker 1: and just got those things going. And I was always
Speaker 1: an outdoor guy, always loved nature, those travels around the US,
Speaker 1: the desert places we lived, Biloxi, swamps, snakes, whatever, so uh,
Speaker 1: and it's rainy in England and it really was rainy.
Speaker 1: It was really a tough summer, I remember that year.
Speaker 1: And so I just went, you know, wrote some imagery
Speaker 1: some desert, the heat was hot, to plays and birds
Speaker 1: and rocks and things and pretty simple, Bob, It's just
Speaker 1: a travelogue, I mean it. It turned into a bit
Speaker 1: of an environmental thing that was going on. We were
Speaker 1: passion teenagers and save the planet, you know, and so
Speaker 1: under the cities, you know, lies a heart made of brown,
Speaker 1: but the humans will give no love and that was it,
Speaker 1: and the law laws and whatever. So so the song
Speaker 1: was written, how far in advanced the recording and did
Speaker 1: you write it for the recording. No no, I mean
Speaker 1: that we were, like I said, we were writing kind of.
Speaker 1: It was the second nature now and you go back
Speaker 1: to your room or whatever. The distractions weren't as much
Speaker 1: as they seem to be as you get older and
Speaker 1: families and stuff. There was a lot of dead air.
Speaker 1: We have certainly was the analog age in more than
Speaker 1: one way. Life was slower and whatever. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of strumming in your room and would shedding, and
Speaker 1: so it was going on at the time. You have
Speaker 1: any idea when you wrote it this was going to
Speaker 1: be a gigantic kid. I didn't. I thought it was
Speaker 1: more of a novelty song, if you will. My mother
Speaker 1: loved it. I've always said, moment the ears, You had
Speaker 1: the ears. But but we were casting our faith to
Speaker 1: the wind. These decisions were gonna be warners. We did.
Speaker 1: We did agree that I Need You had this most
Speaker 1: solid universal shot at being the first single, and of
Speaker 1: course best leg plans. Uh. Someone said, well, let's see
Speaker 1: what else they've got and when so they had not
Speaker 1: released Ideaed You as a single, No no, no single.
Speaker 1: They put the album out and the album was getting
Speaker 1: some airplay and like this, this next batch hadn't been written.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like, oh, we should have cut it for
Speaker 1: the album. We were just as do we said, writing
Speaker 1: all that, and then of course hitting the obvious point
Speaker 1: you've heard your whole life. People thought it sounded like
Speaker 1: a Neil Young record. Were you conscious of that when
Speaker 1: you cut it? Yes? Said no. Like I say, it
Speaker 1: felt like that music was running through our veins and
Speaker 1: we were inspired by it and the tone of my voice,
Speaker 1: I was I leaning that way. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: like people who sound like Bob Dylan or they sound
Speaker 1: like Neil you know. Um, it's it's a gray area
Speaker 1: for me. You know, my voice is evolved since then.
Speaker 1: For one thing, literally when we were teenagers, we had
Speaker 1: these kind of younger voices. We listened to our our
Speaker 1: old recordings. It's like that doesn't even sound like me,
Speaker 1: you know. So I don't know. But um, I love
Speaker 1: Neil Young and and still do his music. And well
Speaker 1: you know that once the record in America, which is
Speaker 1: my viewpoint, and I bought the first album right when
Speaker 1: it came out. Once that became a giant hit, there
Speaker 1: was some backlash. Did you feel and also, um, Neil
Speaker 1: who we've been following since the started. Buffalo Springfield had
Speaker 1: three or four solo albums that had got to the
Speaker 1: point of Harvest. So Harvest and Heart of Gold are
Speaker 1: coming out, and America's coming up with this song that
Speaker 1: in theory kind of sounds a bit like him. Our
Speaker 1: bass player always likes to point out if you look
Speaker 1: at the chronology, Horse was before, it was before, but
Speaker 1: that's picking, you know, picking it apart um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: clearly it would be hard. And the irony is that
Speaker 1: he finally got a number one record and he was
Speaker 1: knocked off after one week by Horse, but one that
Speaker 1: sounds like his dad apparently in his books, as his
Speaker 1: dad said, called Neil, hey like your new song. But
Speaker 1: you know, I just quickly on that one too. I
Speaker 1: just want to say that, I know we never took
Speaker 1: things personally really, I mean, the career has been here
Speaker 1: this long. We were still going to pursue our path.
Speaker 1: We weren't going to be knocked off our our trajectory,
Speaker 1: if you will. And I understand people protecting their heroes.
Speaker 1: A lot of Neil Young fans thought it was a
Speaker 1: direct rip off, and you know, and and I I
Speaker 1: can I understand when people are trying to protect their
Speaker 1: own heroes or or they think that this is a
Speaker 1: you know, scandalous But Neil never said anything. He was
Speaker 1: We ended up in the same office with him. Althoughays
Speaker 1: a very private man. We can't say he's a friend
Speaker 1: or we know him closely, but he was always cordial
Speaker 1: to us. And okay, let me go to a personal note.
Speaker 1: Tell me the backstory of cn Man because that's my
Speaker 1: favorite song on that album. Sand Man was, to be honest,
Speaker 1: those a minor chords. When we were in high school.
Speaker 1: We were doing a big song meaning disaster and I
Speaker 1: was done, you know, in the event of something happened,
Speaker 1: and we would segue into sand and we put him
Speaker 1: so sad man, and um, that was another one that
Speaker 1: I was sitting there thinking lyrically, at least I have
Speaker 1: a lot of ambiguous lyrics, something that don't connect. I'm
Speaker 1: sure every writer throws in lines at what does that
Speaker 1: have to do with anything, you know, the tropic of
Speaker 1: Sir Galahad or alligator lizards in the air. But uh,
Speaker 1: but I was we were definitely focused on the Vietnam situation,
Speaker 1: and then there were young airmen at the base and
Speaker 1: so on and and you've been here, I've been I've
Speaker 1: been here, You've been there. We ain't had no time
Speaker 1: to drink that beer. And it was it was an
Speaker 1: homage to some degree. I'd heard reports of a guy
Speaker 1: saying that he couldn't he was yet insomnia, he was
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, he was on in some jungle situation and
Speaker 1: just could not sleep at night. So running from the
Speaker 1: Sandman kind of a image came into my mind, and
Speaker 1: and then the chorus, and that was That was the
Speaker 1: most edgy song, I guess on the first time. Although
Speaker 1: here was a great song, I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know the song here on that album, which
Speaker 1: we played to this day, and it's gotten stronger and
Speaker 1: stronger in the set. I think. Yeah, we played that
Speaker 1: every night. Okay, good, I see it on Friday night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, So let's go back. You cut with Horse
Speaker 1: with No Name, and a lot of times, not all
Speaker 1: the times, in the process of doing something, go holy ship,
Speaker 1: I have some great Here was that the case at all?
Speaker 1: You know? Warners I remember saying, because we played them
Speaker 1: three or four things, and they said, well, it's definitely
Speaker 1: that desert song because it was called the Desert song.
Speaker 1: And okay fine, which is an early lesson of sometimes
Speaker 1: you should listen to the label because they are the
Speaker 1: people that are going to be out on the street.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be making the calls. It so um, we
Speaker 1: basically played it and arranged it as we did. Ian
Speaker 1: who was in the chair said what we got to
Speaker 1: change the name? Um because you know there's an opera
Speaker 1: in the den, so he said it should be Did
Speaker 1: he say Horse? Yeah? I think, But I think we
Speaker 1: were all pleased with it and it wasn't like, well
Speaker 1: that's it. There was no debate even though we were
Speaker 1: making a single. It was it was designed to we're
Speaker 1: gonna come how long after you cut it? Does it
Speaker 1: come out with a pretty quickly? And then it takes
Speaker 1: off immediately? Well the machine kicked in. I mean they
Speaker 1: got us on Top of the Pops, which is like
Speaker 1: that was the crowning thing in in England for your
Speaker 1: listeners who aren't younger. Maybe there's two TV stations over there,
Speaker 1: BBC one and BBC two and I guess i t
Speaker 1: V and Top of the Pops was what every kid,
Speaker 1: you know, seven thirty on a Thursday night or something
Speaker 1: would would you know, get around the TV to see
Speaker 1: the light of stuff, and we got on that twice
Speaker 1: I think yeah, and whatever was on top of it
Speaker 1: was obviously the fix was in a little bit because
Speaker 1: it was such a controlled audience that whatever was on
Speaker 1: top of the pops would miraculously appear in the charts,
Speaker 1: you know, in the next week or two. Okay, while
Speaker 1: this was happening in the UK, what was happening in America?
Speaker 1: What what Warners signed in the UK had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Burbank. It was a it was an uh
Speaker 1: its own, isolated kind of company, except that it was
Speaker 1: responsible for all of the American content, so Reprise and
Speaker 1: everything would be Sinatra. Actually it was at the time
Speaker 1: owned by the car car park company Kinney and um,
Speaker 1: so for them to sign a few acts like they
Speaker 1: did with us, it didn't mean at all that Burbank
Speaker 1: would even listen to it. But because we were called America,
Speaker 1: and because the album had done well and now we
Speaker 1: had a number one record, they said, yeah, maybe we
Speaker 1: should we should think about that. Would they come over
Speaker 1: and do a club tour. We'll put it out if
Speaker 1: they'll come over and do a club tour. And I
Speaker 1: love this part of the story. We said sure, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're mery. We'd love to go over there. Warner said,
Speaker 1: we'll send us the parts, we'll press it up everything.
Speaker 1: So they sent him the parts of the single you know,
Speaker 1: because you had it was pressed, and send him in
Speaker 1: the parts for the album and they just hit go
Speaker 1: and there was about a hundred thousand things pressed before
Speaker 1: they even realized that the single wasn't on the album. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the earliest of the release was hey, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you know that song is not on this is that
Speaker 1: Horse thing? Oh um. But we came over and they
Speaker 1: booked us basically in clubs all that, you know, the
Speaker 1: bottom line, the main point bitter and bitter, bitter and
Speaker 1: um and in d C which no, no main point,
Speaker 1: the seller and we were pining for the Everly brothers
Speaker 1: and Don and Phil had put a great band together,
Speaker 1: which by the way, had Warren Zevon on keyboards and
Speaker 1: Wady walk Tell on guitar. And this was February seventy
Speaker 1: two and Horse blew up. So there was a line
Speaker 1: around the block to see these eighteen year old kids
Speaker 1: from the UK who were doing thirty minutes. Phil and
Speaker 1: Don would come out and everybody leave, So they got
Speaker 1: a little piste. They had nothing to do with us,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't what they had in mind. The next
Speaker 1: week we were in a place called Lenny's on the
Speaker 1: Turnpike outside of Boston, and when we got there we
Speaker 1: were told that Don had got sick and that they
Speaker 1: weren't going to be coming and that we were going
Speaker 1: to be the headline. He said, well, we don't really
Speaker 1: have a whole show, and he said, it's okay. We've
Speaker 1: got this kid out of college, Jay Leno. He's a comic.
Speaker 1: He's gonna he's gonna do it's crazy. So it blew
Speaker 1: up pretty quick and by the time we got to
Speaker 1: l A we did the Whiskey, not the Troubadour, because
Speaker 1: Doug Uston at the Drupadour had this thing about options
Speaker 1: in the future. So we did the Whiskey, sold that
Speaker 1: out for a week and it wasn't it wasn't number
Speaker 1: one by that point, but it was like number two.
Speaker 1: It was on its way. And so that week, you know,
Speaker 1: we had Brian Wilson and that was when the the
Speaker 1: you know, the spin dryer started and we flew into
Speaker 1: New York City, first time any of us had done
Speaker 1: the Limos and oh my gosh, you know, and we
Speaker 1: meet Todd runn Gren up at the Warner's office in
Speaker 1: New York and we go to Manny's and get to
Speaker 1: buy new guitars. I mean, it was like it was
Speaker 1: a candy store thing. We're going to Max's Kansas City
Speaker 1: and seeing war Hall and it was such it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: I mean, we really and we stuck close to each
Speaker 1: other because we hadn't been in the US for so long,
Speaker 1: and you know, we lived pretty simple lives in the
Speaker 1: military and move around you've got this cloistered kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: And there we were on our own, wildly checking it
Speaker 1: all out. And like Jerry said, by the time we
Speaker 1: get to to l A, we're at the Whiskey and
Speaker 1: we're staying at the Hyatt House. Led Zeppelin just left
Speaker 1: there and there was still some hangers on and a
Speaker 1: lot of it from the Zeppelin tour. I think, um,
Speaker 1: so I did all that stuff and Warners had a hit.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was clearly a huge hit. So now
Speaker 1: we had the entire machine behind us and we're in
Speaker 1: limos going everywhere, and you could hit the radio station,
Speaker 1: you know, it was buttons then and switch and you
Speaker 1: could hear it on two or three stations at the
Speaker 1: same time. You'd hear it and on Kailast and you didn't.
Speaker 1: We got sick of it real quick. But where were
Speaker 1: you the first time you heard it on the radio? Well,
Speaker 1: that was in England English? So what was that like? Cool?
Speaker 1: It was again, it's felt like an out of body
Speaker 1: thing at that point. You know, it was like once
Speaker 1: once you get your your land legs and you're going
Speaker 1: forward and you're putting out new releases, you're looking for
Speaker 1: it and you want to hear it on the radio
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a validation. But at that point
Speaker 1: we didn't know what we were validating at all, as wow,
Speaker 1: it's on the radio, Okay, So how do you hook
Speaker 1: up with Jeff and Roberts. We would go see all
Speaker 1: of these acts when they came to London, so Joanie
Speaker 1: would come in, Neil come in and play Royal Festival
Speaker 1: Hall and stuff. So now that we're part of the
Speaker 1: Warner's camp, we've kind of got a little bit of
Speaker 1: an inn. We can get backstage and stuff. Elliott Roberts
Speaker 1: came over with Joanie to do some dates and I
Speaker 1: think he was in that he was in the Warner's
Speaker 1: office and he had said, I introduced myself for he
Speaker 1: introduced himself and and we got talking and he sort
Speaker 1: of said, yeah, you know, we're putting together this band
Speaker 1: called the Eagles, some players back, and you know, we
Speaker 1: were just at all all ears and asking about JOONI
Speaker 1: had played the Festival Hall, this fantastic show, and so
Speaker 1: had Neil a couple of weeks before or whenever it was.
Speaker 1: So we've seen their artists and really it was amazing,
Speaker 1: but he laughed. There was no pitch at that point.
Speaker 1: I was living with my girlfriend's family at that time,
Speaker 1: s into the wife and get a call about three
Speaker 1: in the morning, so he wasn't even dealing with the
Speaker 1: time zones, you know, and it was it was David
Speaker 1: Geffen's secretary saying I got David Geffen on the line
Speaker 1: and he he said, we're interested, we'd like to think
Speaker 1: we can do better for you. And the pitch was on.
Speaker 1: And we remember we had this relationship with Jeff Dexter
Speaker 1: and Sound well they were so called managers, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing. And we've just been back in the States
Speaker 1: for that club tour and we're chomping at the bit
Speaker 1: to go do another tour and we were literally on
Speaker 1: a plane within I had some stuff to tie up.
Speaker 1: Jerry and Dan you went over first. Yeah, he said, well,
Speaker 1: we'll send you tickets and we didn't tell the label.
Speaker 1: We snuck out of London and we moved into Geffen's
Speaker 1: house and Joanie was staying at the house and Derek Taylor.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know the legend of Derek,
Speaker 1: but it was a dear friend of He was at
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers and they were having a panic, where's our
Speaker 1: number one? Acted that we can't get him on the phone.
Speaker 1: And after a day or so, Derek knew that we
Speaker 1: had gone to the to Geffen, and so he finally
Speaker 1: in a meeting said everybody, I'm down there in l
Speaker 1: a with you know. It's in shock. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: But we moved into Geffen's house and he said, look,
Speaker 1: we're going to change a few things here, and which
Speaker 1: they did. Well. We were all American. I'd never been
Speaker 1: to California in my life until we played The Whiskey.
Speaker 1: It was my first time ever. But he said, this
Speaker 1: is where you belong. I mean, this is on office.
Speaker 1: We've got an incredibly creative thing going on. You should
Speaker 1: be a part of this. So we agreed to be
Speaker 1: honest and it was the classic we we do this
Speaker 1: with a handshake, there's no contracts. David had a real
Speaker 1: way with him. He was a very personable guy. He
Speaker 1: was full of energy, exciting. He was like twenty nine
Speaker 1: years old and he thinks something like that. And there
Speaker 1: we were in the middle of it all up into
Speaker 1: Hollywood Hills house in a swimming pool, and it was
Speaker 1: just we were just you know, bowled over and ultimately said,
Speaker 1: you guys need to get an apartment here pretty soon,
Speaker 1: and we immediately started. Yeah, we lived on King's Road
Speaker 1: right there off the strip. We walked up to the
Speaker 1: Rainbow and whiskey and everything. But we had to start
Speaker 1: a new record. It's time when we had this, we
Speaker 1: had music that was we were prolifically putting out a
Speaker 1: writing stuff. He got us into the record plant using
Speaker 1: Hal Blaine and Joe Osborne from the Wrecking Crew. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, we got our That was our first rhythm
Speaker 1: section before we got Willie Leecox and David Dickie we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier. So we're in there working, you know,
Speaker 1: and meanwhile David is busy on the phone. I presumably
Speaker 1: because I am was as naive as they get. We
Speaker 1: didn't like our early discussion. There was no attorney there
Speaker 1: telling don't let them do this, don't do that, do this.
Speaker 1: In fact, in reality we had David is the one
Speaker 1: who set us up with a legal firm and a
Speaker 1: business management firm who were still with firms. Yeah we're
Speaker 1: still widows firms. And he did reum renegotiate the record deal.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal. And at that time him unbeknowns
Speaker 1: again this is all hindsight and it's water under the bridge,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna it's too easy to get to
Speaker 1: feel bad. But he could theoretically have negotiated our publishing
Speaker 1: back we had a million selling, number one record that
Speaker 1: puts you in the driver's seat, and potentially we would
Speaker 1: have that today. But he did. He did negotiate an advance,
Speaker 1: a big, substantial advance. Anything over a hundred dollars was
Speaker 1: big to me in those days, you know. And and
Speaker 1: we started the second album and we signed a new
Speaker 1: record deal and that was good and we were off
Speaker 1: to the races. But it's all in retrospect that we
Speaker 1: could have done better. We could would it could have
Speaker 1: should have, but I think it was all for the better.
Speaker 1: His his cashe his clout, us being in that lookout
Speaker 1: management office, and he was a powerful man even then.
Speaker 1: And look where he is now, right. Uh. We benefited
Speaker 1: from all of that and for being in that room,
Speaker 1: in that building with all of those artists, and in
Speaker 1: in a strange way, I look back, we were these
Speaker 1: young kids, wet behind the ears, but David was putting
Speaker 1: his artists in front of us on those first tours.
Speaker 1: Jack j d South opened the first tour. We're filling
Speaker 1: big rooms. Put one of your other artists in front.
Speaker 1: Jackson he opened for us on the second tour. I
Speaker 1: thought we were just so lucky to have these guys
Speaker 1: out there on the road. But but it worked in
Speaker 1: reverse too. We we were able to to expose them
Speaker 1: to some bigger crowds. We've seen Jackson opening for Jonie
Speaker 1: in in England, and I think I saw him open
Speaker 1: for Laura Nero too. I saw him open for Laura Nero.
Speaker 1: She used to play every Christmas at the film Wore
Speaker 1: East and that's one of the few times where you
Speaker 1: didn't even know who he was. And he played solo,
Speaker 1: acoustic and he go, wow, that's something you're waiting for
Speaker 1: the record to come out, because normally if you don't
Speaker 1: know the music, he didn't hear it. Laura too, you know,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of where he cut his teeth on
Speaker 1: the thing. Another thing was they also had a very
Speaker 1: protective nature. It was no longer the thing of how
Speaker 1: can we get our people out in front of the people.
Speaker 1: It was like, you don't get to talk to Neil,
Speaker 1: you don't get to talk to Joanie. So we benefited
Speaker 1: from that in it. At the time with the number
Speaker 1: one album and single By the way, there was a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, trying to get to us, and
Speaker 1: they kind of put up a wall and said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're all too cool for that. Man. We didn't go
Speaker 1: to the Grammys when we were when we won the
Speaker 1: Best New Artist of seventy two, that he didn't so much. No,
Speaker 1: he would never verbalize that, but it was a general vibe.
Speaker 1: That's that's the establishment, man. It's it's always the um
Speaker 1: for Best New Artist is always the first award, and
Speaker 1: believe it or not, seventy two it was in Nashville.
Speaker 1: The Grammys were in Nashville, and we were told we
Speaker 1: were going to go because we had a night off.
Speaker 1: And our year, by the way, it's just fantastic year
Speaker 1: was ourselves, the Eagles logging into me, you know, John
Speaker 1: Prine and Harry Chapin. Now, normally Best New Artist doesn't
Speaker 1: really get that strong of we thought at the last minute,
Speaker 1: they said, no, you're not going. We're not going. Okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll just watch it on TV. And they said,
Speaker 1: and before we announced the winner, here's the nominees. Loggins
Speaker 1: and Messina Kurtin opens and they do your Mama don't
Speaker 1: dance or something, and we thought, oh, well, that's why
Speaker 1: we're not going there. There they must be winning. And
Speaker 1: then the winner was America, and Dusty Springfield took the
Speaker 1: stage to accept accept the Grammy for America because the
Speaker 1: people just we need you to stand by in case
Speaker 1: somebody's not here. And she said, I bet the lads
Speaker 1: are very happy, you know, which we were, brittish artist,
Speaker 1: Where did you put the Grammys? Where are they today?
Speaker 1: You know, because we weren't there. It took a few
Speaker 1: weeks and a box showed up on my doorstep with
Speaker 1: those three dreaded words. Some assembly require and you had
Speaker 1: to put the Grammy together you had. It came in pieces.
Speaker 1: You had to screw the well bay. He had to
Speaker 1: put it together and it's still on my bookcase. I
Speaker 1: ended up mine got damaged. The original one was would
Speaker 1: I noticed it was display at L a X recently
Speaker 1: with all the various shapes and sizes, and I ended
Speaker 1: up having mine got damaged. I wrote a lot of
Speaker 1: Hey can I get a new one? It was like
Speaker 1: you had to really had to certify, you know, get
Speaker 1: a certified letter and a picture. You're broken one and
Speaker 1: all this, And I got a newer one with the
Speaker 1: black onyx bace or whatever it is. But it's a
Speaker 1: it's a treasure. Okay. So you make the second record
Speaker 1: and you make it. Who's the producers on that? We
Speaker 1: did that one? We did? And you're happy with the
Speaker 1: second record? Yeah? I mean we again. We had such
Speaker 1: a talented rhythm section. It really went very smoothly. We
Speaker 1: were in Studio A at the record plant. Stevie Wonder
Speaker 1: was in b the entire time, so we got to
Speaker 1: go in and watch him do inter visions or music,
Speaker 1: talking book or whatever. It was just an incredible time.
Speaker 1: And that album came out and Venture Highway was a hit, right,
Speaker 1: out of the door. So we cleared that sophomore you
Speaker 1: know that jinks. We we had that and Don't Cross
Speaker 1: the River, which is a song of Dan's. We had
Speaker 1: two large hits, and we met Henry Dilts and Gary Burden,
Speaker 1: who were doing the covers for a lot of those guys,
Speaker 1: and and we took a trip up the Big Sir
Speaker 1: and hung out at the at the Salon Institute, and
Speaker 1: we just got California eyes big time. You know. Okay,
Speaker 1: what you know for those of us were living in
Speaker 1: these gas we had no idea there was you know,
Speaker 1: venture of freeway whatever. How did that come up? Well,
Speaker 1: that's another one I wrote, uh, sort of fantasizing in England.
Speaker 1: I had written that roughly at the round the same
Speaker 1: time as horsewo Name within a month or two. And
Speaker 1: again it was dredging up this imagery from when I
Speaker 1: lived in California and our family had driven up and
Speaker 1: down down to l A. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know where Vanderberg Air Force Space is, and it's like
Speaker 1: Santa Maria Lompoke midway up the coast, and so I
Speaker 1: would and this was again it was sixty three because
Speaker 1: I remember the assassination of the President and all that,
Speaker 1: and so the surf scene was on the free wind
Speaker 1: blowing through your hair and vent I remember we pulled
Speaker 1: over a flat tire. I looked up at this freeway
Speaker 1: sign that said Ventura something or another, and it's just
Speaker 1: stuck in my head. I wonder about that sometimes. I
Speaker 1: was thinking the other day about the surf music, the
Speaker 1: ventures and the word Ventura. It was literally about the
Speaker 1: word Ventura because I didn't have any experience, and and
Speaker 1: highway it's just what I called the road, you know.
Speaker 1: But there is a Ventura Freeway, there's a Ventura Boulevard,
Speaker 1: there's a town in Ventura. There actually some segment of
Speaker 1: the highway. One is called Ventura Highway. There's a little
Speaker 1: piece of it or something that. Okay, that's the second album.
Speaker 1: Everything's good, you're on the road, everybody's happy. Who's the agent?
Speaker 1: Do you remember who the agent was? Alan Frey? Alan
Speaker 1: Frey at At I f a internet famous. Okay, and
Speaker 1: now we're at the third album. That's when we kind
Speaker 1: of we had our we're big now and we're gonna
Speaker 1: spend more time and we're gonna four hits. We had
Speaker 1: four charting because Horse and I need you the first venture.
Speaker 1: So we were produced at Jared. We've got these apartments
Speaker 1: our King's Road. We're all living in the same building.
Speaker 1: Some guys from Three Dog Night and stuff we're in there,
Speaker 1: and some actresses and things. But you set up a
Speaker 1: studio you had. Jerry was always on the front end
Speaker 1: of getting the equipment and stuff. We were able to
Speaker 1: afford things more and we started demoing some stuff. The
Speaker 1: album became Hat Trick three in a Row and the
Speaker 1: title song Hat Trick was a pretty ambitious thing that
Speaker 1: the three of us wrote together. Up until then, we
Speaker 1: each brought our song to the table this is mind,
Speaker 1: This Mind, but we collaborated on that one track, and
Speaker 1: um it was a long time in the studio. We
Speaker 1: were producing ourselves. We've got different players and we got
Speaker 1: Joe Walsh came in and played on a song called
Speaker 1: Green Monkey, and we Hadna Carl. We met the Beach
Speaker 1: Boys by then and we were big Brian Wilson freaks.
Speaker 1: Still are and love love the Beach Boys. They've been
Speaker 1: our mentors to some degree for these decades because we
Speaker 1: then were opening for them quite a bit. But um it,
Speaker 1: it dragged on a bit more than it might have.
Speaker 1: The recording and we took it on ourselves and don't
Speaker 1: ask me how we felt for this song by a
Speaker 1: guy named Willis Allen Ramsey called Muskrat Candle Like, okay,
Speaker 1: there was a very famous record, did everybody seem it?
Speaker 1: So you have that album? Yeah, we did, and it
Speaker 1: was produced by Leon Russell produced and we really loved
Speaker 1: this song. We by the way, we're still like those
Speaker 1: days with our albums are vinyl on the floor putting
Speaker 1: stuff on. You gotta listen to this one. I'm down
Speaker 1: in my apartment listening to some album. Take it up
Speaker 1: to Jerry's, Hey, listen to the song. We're doing that.
Speaker 1: So we're still immersed in whatever releases are going on,
Speaker 1: and this song jumps out and we just said, let's
Speaker 1: work that up. We had done one other cover on
Speaker 1: the second album, John Martin. John John Martin was another
Speaker 1: guy we played with in England. We forgot to talk
Speaker 1: about him because he was he was something too fantastic guy. Um,
Speaker 1: and we've done it. We've done his song called Head
Speaker 1: and Heart. But now here's another cover song, David Geffen
Speaker 1: and be with you. I heard your version first, did
Speaker 1: because I think Clapton did it. Did Clapton. Did you
Speaker 1: know he did? May you never? I think somebody else
Speaker 1: said somebody much later, like twenty or thirty years. I'd
Speaker 1: have to remember. John wrote some great stuff. He's a
Speaker 1: He was a tragic figure in the end. He didn't
Speaker 1: farewell in his life at the end. But so now
Speaker 1: we've got this song, we've changed it to Muskrat Love.
Speaker 1: We each single verse. We were collaborating a lot, and
Speaker 1: it fit into our set pretty nice. It was acoustic
Speaker 1: in that vein, and the office didn't like it. I
Speaker 1: don't think they didn't. They wondered, first of all, why
Speaker 1: you're recording so much? All that money at the table? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that was yeah, and uh, just just for
Speaker 1: for the sake of it. It did become a huge
Speaker 1: hit with Captain and Tenil, so whatever our senses were,
Speaker 1: our radar, it was a song that went on to
Speaker 1: be a number one record. But so now we've were fallible.
Speaker 1: Our record now is Not didn't do as well. The
Speaker 1: third album, Muskrat didn't do as well. And we've had
Speaker 1: two platinum back to back or double platinum antains. This
Speaker 1: one didn't go gold, so it kind of caused there
Speaker 1: was a ripple in the force. Yeah there, okay, that's it.
Speaker 1: They're done. Um, And that was Hat Trick. It It
Speaker 1: kind of came and went. We toured behind it and
Speaker 1: did what we were doing. Anyway, it was the fourth
Speaker 1: album that changed things with George Martin. Of course that's
Speaker 1: way okay. So obviously, well let's go back before Hat
Speaker 1: Trick is not as successful. You're working amongst a group
Speaker 1: of superstars. Did you feel you're on their level it's
Speaker 1: some case as you were selling more records, or did
Speaker 1: you feel slightly inadequate? Well, when you're comparing yourself to
Speaker 1: Neil and Joanie, I think you would be wrong to
Speaker 1: do to take any other stance. It was an honor
Speaker 1: to be just in their circumference. I think. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: really what it felt like like. You know, yes, there
Speaker 1: were times when I don't think I'm supposed to be here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's only in retrospect, you go, but you were,
Speaker 1: You were there, you were producing this stuff. You were
Speaker 1: part of that room. And everybody's in their bands are
Speaker 1: all in their own little bubbles. You know. We travel
Speaker 1: around here and pass each other in the night, and
Speaker 1: this guy's that bands doing that, and we're all in
Speaker 1: our own little heads, you know, and so were the
Speaker 1: Eagles were doing their things. I would go over to
Speaker 1: some sessions or play cards with those guys and get
Speaker 1: to know them. They were all from different worlds, you know,
Speaker 1: J D what so. So in retrospect, we were just
Speaker 1: part It's like high school. It's like life is like
Speaker 1: high school. Yeah, there's the big men on campus and
Speaker 1: that your leaders and the nerds and the jocks, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that's what it was everybody. So
Speaker 1: there's the big powerful you know, there's Neil Young, there's
Speaker 1: David Crosby. Crosby has always been from from day one
Speaker 1: we we met David. We met Crosby at Geffen's house
Speaker 1: and you would think maybe they could be you know,
Speaker 1: and Davids had pretty much a had had a good
Speaker 1: tongue on the world's most opinionated man man. But he
Speaker 1: was from day one and to this day we're still
Speaker 1: in touch and he's supportive. Yeah, he's okay. So how
Speaker 1: do you decide to work with George Martin after the
Speaker 1: third album hadn't done well? We thought, of all of
Speaker 1: these pieces, we certainly have to do the tour and
Speaker 1: we want to do the writing maybe it's the production
Speaker 1: that we could turn over to somebody else. Made a list.
Speaker 1: We always say about we made this list and of
Speaker 1: which George was the top of the list. But to
Speaker 1: be honest, I can't really remember what that list was.
Speaker 1: You know. I think maybe Roy Halley or some of
Speaker 1: the good engineers from that era. But we had George
Speaker 1: at the top because we, being Beatle fanatics, knew exactly
Speaker 1: where his hands were on those songs. We knew that
Speaker 1: the strange chard in eleanor Rigby was George had written
Speaker 1: this thing. We you know, we had followed like the
Speaker 1: world as those records had evolved, and we were pretty
Speaker 1: clear on what what he contributed. It turned out that
Speaker 1: he was in l A four Live and Let Die.
Speaker 1: He was nominated with Paul for the soundtrack to the
Speaker 1: James Bond film, and so he was available for a
Speaker 1: meeting and he sat down and he said, I have
Speaker 1: to tell you, lads, um, I'm not sure what a
Speaker 1: producer does. He says, I can tell you what I do,
Speaker 1: but the term is such a broad term and there's
Speaker 1: so many ways to approach it. I know what I do.
Speaker 1: We were a multi platinum act with number one record
Speaker 1: and follow up hits. It wasn't like we were unknown.
Speaker 1: He was looking for things to do. He was starting
Speaker 1: to do things like Jeff Beck and Paul Winner Winner concerts,
Speaker 1: and so he said, no, this sounds like it would
Speaker 1: be a good fit. The only thing I ask is
Speaker 1: would you be willing to come to England because I've
Speaker 1: built a lovely facility air studio as he was no
Speaker 1: longer a d m I, and he said, I really
Speaker 1: can't be gone that long because he looked at our
Speaker 1: previous hat trick schedule, which was months, and he thought,
Speaker 1: if we're committing anguished in the studio on that. So
Speaker 1: we said, hell, yes, we'll go to You know, we're
Speaker 1: both do we and our both half English. We took it,
Speaker 1: you know, why not? So games on. We we headed
Speaker 1: over there, and when we got to Air, he said, look,
Speaker 1: I've held two months. I'm not saying that we need
Speaker 1: to be done by that time, but we'll see how
Speaker 1: it goes. But I've got two months held and we
Speaker 1: were done with that album in thirteen days. We did
Speaker 1: the entire record mixed, mixed. We prepared ourselves. You know,
Speaker 1: we weren't going to go over there and waste his
Speaker 1: time so we had worked out in the in those
Speaker 1: apartments and uh, actually, but yeah, we were lonely people,
Speaker 1: lots of we were cutting four tracks a day. We
Speaker 1: were done with all the tracks in the first four
Speaker 1: or five days. In retrospect, could you have cut him
Speaker 1: as well yourself? No, Now, the thing that he brought
Speaker 1: if because it believe me, there's so many George fans
Speaker 1: or numerous but they'll say what did he bring? And
Speaker 1: I said, I always say he brought focus. He he
Speaker 1: refocused the camera and we were so concerned as do
Speaker 1: we said with pleasing him. Jeff Emeric was there engineering
Speaker 1: and they were a team through the Beatle Ears and
Speaker 1: for him, he even said to us when he's done,
Speaker 1: he said, this can't possibly be a success. Nothing this
Speaker 1: easy could be a success. So and it was for
Speaker 1: all of us. It was that was kind of the
Speaker 1: rereboot coming out of Hat Trick, and it did change
Speaker 1: the field and the vibe. Everything was a little a
Speaker 1: little more different. The next album was going to be
Speaker 1: George Martin. We had a relationship then and we were
Speaker 1: it was a different feeling every time we recorded in
Speaker 1: different places. George was quite an adventure guy, liked right well,
Speaker 1: he built the studio and Monserrat because one of the
Speaker 1: projects we did with him, we decided, let's go to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Why don't we record on paradise. So we barged over
Speaker 1: the entire record plant to the island of Kawaii and
Speaker 1: we had the most wonderful two months. We made a
Speaker 1: crap album, but we had We had a great ton
Speaker 1: of Warner's money and our money. He then took that,
Speaker 1: as you know, this is a great id and that
Speaker 1: he then built Monster At off of that model, and
Speaker 1: he went and made Paul's record London Town down there
Speaker 1: on a ship. He really always wanted to record on
Speaker 1: a ship, remember that. But the logistics were so crazy,
Speaker 1: you know, moving in the whole thing. Okay, But also
Speaker 1: we put him back in the charts. This was George
Speaker 1: who done all that Beatle music was now again it
Speaker 1: had made him a current and the shocker to find
Speaker 1: out that George Martin really didn't make a lot of
Speaker 1: dough on those Beatle records of it. I know his son,
Speaker 1: I know that he was in the studio then on
Speaker 1: that fourth album when they were little kids. He and Judy,
Speaker 1: I mean, and Le and Lucy Lucy, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so you have ten men, you have lonely people, and
Speaker 1: then the How's Sister Golden Air? What happens there? Well,
Speaker 1: that the next album. But because Tim Man and Only
Speaker 1: People were big hits for us and we were back
Speaker 1: and George's in the charts now, he's quite willing to
Speaker 1: come to the States because the last one only took
Speaker 1: two weeks. So we booked the sauce leto the record
Speaker 1: plant in Sauceleto. We thought this would be lovely. I
Speaker 1: had Sister as a song, but I was already happy
Speaker 1: with the few I'd submitted for the holiday on the
Speaker 1: previous album, and I'm very proud of those tunes. But
Speaker 1: when people asked me that I've been sitting on it
Speaker 1: for a year. So I had a demo that was
Speaker 1: virtually like the final master and it was just part
Speaker 1: of the batch. We always do an album. Each one
Speaker 1: of us would throw in three or four and um,
Speaker 1: I had Sister and Daisy Jane on that album, so
Speaker 1: it was you know, and that became part of George's
Speaker 1: He had to decide of these songs. He was very diplomatic,
Speaker 1: very it was an admirable guy, tall and dashing and handsome,
Speaker 1: and had this great accent. Well, I don't think we
Speaker 1: need that one necessarily on that's too similar to the
Speaker 1: one we did. But you know, get rid of those
Speaker 1: songs and to the ones that he felt, and he
Speaker 1: was good about that. I think we all had to
Speaker 1: defer to his choices on the song selection. What about
Speaker 1: you know, many bands there's an issue how many songs
Speaker 1: I got on the album songs you got on the
Speaker 1: album because we're making a different amount of money. Did
Speaker 1: that ever come up? Well, we were lucky that way
Speaker 1: that there were three writers and each of us had hits,
Speaker 1: and each of us had has our writer's name on
Speaker 1: that hit. But I think we you know, it's always
Speaker 1: a group effort at the end of the day. There's
Speaker 1: always so many contributors to a song. But I'm the publishing,
Speaker 1: the person of the credit that you know that the
Speaker 1: like the famous Lennon and McCartney stories where it helped
Speaker 1: each of them because it egged them both on. I
Speaker 1: think in our case, because we knew we were supposed
Speaker 1: to contribute three or four each, and this is why
Speaker 1: we picked we'd picked three each or four each in
Speaker 1: and picked one cover song that we all agreed on
Speaker 1: but it I think that kind of competition was very
Speaker 1: constructive during that time because we'd each had some success.
Speaker 1: It wasn't kind of the George Harrison thing if I
Speaker 1: can't get my songs listened to, you know. And the
Speaker 1: first album was thirteen days. The subsequent work with George
Speaker 1: it got longer and but not crazy. It never again focused.
Speaker 1: This guy was he knew what he was doing and
Speaker 1: we were not in awe of him. By this point
Speaker 1: we had a really good working relationship, like a father.
Speaker 1: Each day was structured. You know. He'd know, we got
Speaker 1: to work on this background vocals on the third verse
Speaker 1: in that song. Today, we've got to cut the track,
Speaker 1: this new track. Or when we were working by ourselves,
Speaker 1: especially on hat Trick, it was almost come in and okay,
Speaker 1: let's I want to do my song today. Let's and
Speaker 1: it dragged out and we'd stay up late in the
Speaker 1: studio and we're trying to get someone to run off
Speaker 1: a tape off, run off cassette for us at three
Speaker 1: in the mornings, like go home and listen to it.
Speaker 1: George cut all that out, you know, he had a
Speaker 1: working schedule, and remember he'd say we're cutting tracks, let's
Speaker 1: do it one more time. I'll call this the egg
Speaker 1: and bacon cut, because we were going to stop and
Speaker 1: have bacon, and they called egg and bacon in England.
Speaker 1: So you know, he just kept it moving along gently
Speaker 1: and smoothly, and because you can waste a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the studio if you want to, I mean
Speaker 1: back in that era. Did he charge more than all
Speaker 1: the other producers? No, no he didn't. And if you
Speaker 1: know that history that his he had a staff deal
Speaker 1: at E M I. He made no money from all
Speaker 1: those Beatles records. He he actually openly in interview said
Speaker 1: it wasn't until he worked with America that he made
Speaker 1: real money because we were selling millions of records, of
Speaker 1: which he had a good producer's points, and uh you
Speaker 1: know about time, not until they did the anthology project
Speaker 1: when they all got to renegotiate before we do this,
Speaker 1: and he made a ton off of all the Beatle
Speaker 1: re releases. Okay, so you know, for an amateur sitting here,
Speaker 1: George Martin says, want to record in England, I'm adding up,
Speaker 1: you know, sitting in the suburbs, the flights, the hotel rules,
Speaker 1: you know, does anybody ever say, well, that's going to
Speaker 1: cost us a lot of money. We were never good
Speaker 1: at that and didn't spot that until the way through.
Speaker 1: Like you can, you can extrapolate that out to getting
Speaker 1: private planes and keeping a limo on twenty four hour
Speaker 1: call because you might want a burger and three of
Speaker 1: them on. We didn't do good in that department, mob. Okay,
Speaker 1: So at the end of your hit run at the
Speaker 1: end of the seventies, did you have any money? My
Speaker 1: joke line is that we tried our best to spend
Speaker 1: it all, but we haven't been successful. We did, We've managed.
Speaker 1: We're not like some, but we're certainly no complaints. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how do you end up with Capital? Our deal
Speaker 1: had come was winding down the seven years with Warners
Speaker 1: and what was the The last album was Silent Letter.
Speaker 1: The last one we did that was Oh that was
Speaker 1: on Capital. Perspective was the last one we did Harbor.
Speaker 1: The one in Hawaii was the last one we did
Speaker 1: with Dan and the deal was over basically, but they
Speaker 1: had an obligatory live album. Dan had left and we
Speaker 1: owed one more album. So we went into the Greek theater.
Speaker 1: We had met um Elmer Bernstein and so we went
Speaker 1: in three nights at the Greek with Elmer Bernstein conducting
Speaker 1: the l A Phil and we recorded all of that.
Speaker 1: George was allowed to produce in the States. He was
Speaker 1: now kept the place in the States and his tax
Speaker 1: structure didn't allow him to perform, so we asked Elmer
Speaker 1: if he would conduct. So that was the final Warner's album.
Speaker 1: Those albums hadn't done well by that point that the
Speaker 1: usual ebbs and for us, so Capital was interested. They
Speaker 1: paid us a pretty healthy advantage. We had changed management.
Speaker 1: By then, John Hartman and Harlan Goodman, who were part
Speaker 1: of the Geffen Roberts management team, had had peeled off
Speaker 1: and had taken I think Crosby and Nash and Poco
Speaker 1: and us. So I heart been well, yeah, I do
Speaker 1: his class I speak of yeah right, and of course,
Speaker 1: bless his heart. Phil was his brother. Of course, those
Speaker 1: bugs from Phil. Phil did the cover of our greatest hits,
Speaker 1: The History album is a piece of art. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you switched to Capital, Yeah, and now we're a duo.
Speaker 1: And George actually said before we did that silent letter
Speaker 1: out and he said, I'm not sure I've really got
Speaker 1: any more to contribute. I mean, he was clearly saying
Speaker 1: I think as his run. Its course, I'll do it
Speaker 1: if you like, which we basically said to of course,
Speaker 1: you've got to do it diplomacy. So that was the
Speaker 1: last one we did with George and it didn't Although
Speaker 1: it had some international success, it didn't have anything here
Speaker 1: in the States and Capital. Having ponied up this money,
Speaker 1: now was given an album that was now two guys
Speaker 1: instead of three with no hits on it. So it
Speaker 1: was rocky from from day one. Yeah, that those years
Speaker 1: are are kind of now we're into the eighties and
Speaker 1: stuff is changing. Stuff was changing all the time in
Speaker 1: the seventies to the disco movement, and but now the
Speaker 1: eighties is a whole new thing, new wave, and our
Speaker 1: music isn't really adapting to that. We've we finally started
Speaker 1: using some different writers and some we figured we can
Speaker 1: change virtually everything but ourselves. You know, we can try
Speaker 1: some different and people were suggesting, you gotta use this producer,
Speaker 1: you gotta listen to this song, I gotta record that song.
Speaker 1: I remember feeling a bit discombobulated during that first few years,
Speaker 1: but we got You Can Do Magic was written for
Speaker 1: us and Russ Ballard, who was a great British writer
Speaker 1: he'd written for the Zombies and he wrote I'm Winning
Speaker 1: for Santana, which was one of their only actual hits,
Speaker 1: and that was that was a breath of fresh air
Speaker 1: and that was a shot in the arm and it
Speaker 1: got us back into the top ten and we were back.
Speaker 1: It jelled and we came back together. I thought, pretty well,
Speaker 1: those were exciting times at that point, and we could
Speaker 1: appreciate it that much. We hadn't had a hit for
Speaker 1: a while and there it wasn't. It put us back
Speaker 1: in in the mainstream, if you will, and we were
Speaker 1: doing TV and all this stuff, but it still felt
Speaker 1: like we were trying stretching to get some some stuff
Speaker 1: on these records of our own, and some of it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It's not as cohesive when you have three producers on
Speaker 1: a record coming from Bobby Columbia was working with us
Speaker 1: at that point. I remember when when you're selling, everybody's happy,
Speaker 1: they don't mess with it. You know, we were producing
Speaker 1: them ourselves or George and they put them out and
Speaker 1: you're selling. When you're not selling, everybody starts to come
Speaker 1: up with, you know, and investor trying to accommodate all
Speaker 1: of this different inputs. So whoever was the head, and
Speaker 1: Capital had three or four heads while we were there.
Speaker 1: It was it was, it was changing almost yearly. It's
Speaker 1: interesting Hart had the same experience, right, They on their
Speaker 1: ole material, They're an epic, and they went to Capital
Speaker 1: and then ultimately they started singing other people's songs. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well again, I can't really say what their dynamic was
Speaker 1: that caused that, but I think everybody's intentions, right, everybody
Speaker 1: wants to sell records. It's not like, hey, I'll show
Speaker 1: you what we can do with these guys. We can
Speaker 1: trash these guys in a couple of And by the way,
Speaker 1: we were also growing up, if you will, and had
Speaker 1: marriages and children and mortgages, and it wasn't the apartments
Speaker 1: and the Three Musketeers anymore. There was a lot more
Speaker 1: to life, which is what starts happening, as we know.
Speaker 1: And I had moved to Marin County at that point,
Speaker 1: and I had had a son, Um in seventy seven
Speaker 1: and my daughter in eighty one. You'd had Matt, So
Speaker 1: it's no more seven music and rock and roll, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the juggling starts there. And it's okay, are both
Speaker 1: of you married been married? How many times I'm un
Speaker 1: numbered to my last marriage? Three? Three? And how long
Speaker 1: you are you been married the third time? We've been
Speaker 1: together for seven years. Now we've been married for two.
Speaker 1: And how many kids don't you each of you have?
Speaker 1: I have two sons and I have now inherited three
Speaker 1: step kids, so I have five total. I was married
Speaker 1: twenty seven years to my first wife with two two
Speaker 1: kids and son and a daughter. I've been married seventeen
Speaker 1: years to my Okay, those are two long runs. How
Speaker 1: does it end after twenty seven years? Oh, it wasn't
Speaker 1: that great. I mean it was we'd had a happy life,
Speaker 1: you know. It's we've been divorced since and I've been
Speaker 1: married for seventeen years to Penny, my present beautiful wife,
Speaker 1: and we're very happy. And I wasn't so happy at
Speaker 1: the end of my first marriage and things. The kids
Speaker 1: were already out, my son had already gotten out of
Speaker 1: high school, and my daughter was a senior, and things
Speaker 1: just um, I wish I had an answer for that stuff.
Speaker 1: It is. It's just much. There's always sad stuff. You
Speaker 1: just can't get around life in in these areas that
Speaker 1: you know, I always envisioned sitting on the porch in
Speaker 1: the rocking chair, looking back at my rock and roll
Speaker 1: life and having the same nuclear family and everything. You know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm very grateful for the for what did happen
Speaker 1: in the first marriage and the children and the life
Speaker 1: we had in Marin County. It was cool and hanging
Speaker 1: out with the dead and beautiful home. That's when we
Speaker 1: did have spent some money in and stretched. But I'm
Speaker 1: very happy now. It's it's a whole second second life now.
Speaker 1: Usually when you're successful, the forces are very expensive. So
Speaker 1: at this point, do you guys have to go on
Speaker 1: the road to pay the bills? Well, we'd probably have
Speaker 1: to adjust our lifestyle a little bit if we didn't,
Speaker 1: and the road it became a business many years ago
Speaker 1: for us. But it's to just call it that is
Speaker 1: really it's not fair because it's so much more than
Speaker 1: we're working bad. I mean, it's okay, So these days
Speaker 1: a year do you work? We'd like to call it
Speaker 1: a hundred shows, which is about two hundred days of travel,
Speaker 1: but it's it's been settling down about eighty six Sames.
Speaker 1: How often do you play outside of the US? Every year?
Speaker 1: We're off to Italy. First two weeks of July. I
Speaker 1: now live. My wife is Australian and we live in Sydney,
Speaker 1: and so we have a home in Venice here and
Speaker 1: we have a home in Sydney. And for example, we
Speaker 1: just heard today that we're off to Australia for two
Speaker 1: or three week tour later in the year. You know,
Speaker 1: every day the phone rings and you're just not sure
Speaker 1: how it's gonna You don't at least it's yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't all just fall in your lap. Here's next year.
Speaker 1: You know, it has to be pieced together by a
Speaker 1: variety of people, and very grateful for that fact. You
Speaker 1: know that the people still want to come to the
Speaker 1: show's agents can't not find work. There's stuff out there.
Speaker 1: Lots of venues we we repeat play year after year,
Speaker 1: and it's a nice mixture of of of theaters. And
Speaker 1: of course the casino circuit is great, and arenas and
Speaker 1: festivals and tours in Europe. We were just in Israel
Speaker 1: for the first time recently. There's always some new experience
Speaker 1: out there. I mean, we've played Africa, we've played Morocco,
Speaker 1: we've played India, we've played Indonesia, Malaysia, your name at
Speaker 1: the Philippine tours of US bases that took us into
Speaker 1: the DMZ in Korea. I mean, we've just had an
Speaker 1: unbelievably fantastic time of it and we're not we're not
Speaker 1: looking to stop soon, you know, we're The Italian tour,
Speaker 1: for example, is all roman amphitheaters, outdoor, historic, under the
Speaker 1: stars in the middle of the summer in Italy. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just beautiful. Well, I know this guy was a
Speaker 1: photographer for led Zeppelin and it's heyday, this of course
Speaker 1: before digital photography. And he says, I've been all over
Speaker 1: the world that I see nothing. So when you guys
Speaker 1: go to these places, do you take advantage or of
Speaker 1: Tuesday it's, you know, Pittsburgh. It's a bit of both.
Speaker 1: I think I try to personally, I try and add
Speaker 1: some time before or after if we're going to someplace lovely,
Speaker 1: my wife and I will try and add a week
Speaker 1: if we can. We're off to Italy and we'll go
Speaker 1: four days early, which is as much as we could
Speaker 1: fit in in the schedule. So you do what you can,
Speaker 1: but work comes for We've always had an interest in it,
Speaker 1: and I think the fact that we traveled as kids, uh,
Speaker 1: in the Air Force, you're you're just that little bit
Speaker 1: more looking at things and trying to center yourself in
Speaker 1: these places that you've never been. And and I think
Speaker 1: that applies in this business. We're into constantly looking look
Speaker 1: at the maps, look at a visitor's guide, see what's
Speaker 1: around the hotel. Obviously it's stressful physically when you're touring
Speaker 1: and your one night ers and you get into a town,
Speaker 1: you don't want to do anything, but we try, especially
Speaker 1: foreign dates, you try to make an effort to see
Speaker 1: what's going on. Plus, I think we're somewhat anonymous personally.
Speaker 1: It's not like it. I always used the analogy of
Speaker 1: Elton going to the grocery store. We don't really have
Speaker 1: that problem. If you're playing in a city and it's
Speaker 1: sold out or something, then there's a good chance you're
Speaker 1: going to be spotted or followed or something. But in general,
Speaker 1: we can move, move amongst the people. Okay, so if
Speaker 1: you do that many dates when you start something, what
Speaker 1: is the most number of dates you'll play in a row?
Speaker 1: Three tops? Now, because of voices and stuff, we've got
Speaker 1: to save these voice Since we were we used to
Speaker 1: do five, six nights and two shows a night. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't know how we even lasted. Okay, so all
Speaker 1: your records on Warner Brothers, they own the publishing. But
Speaker 1: since then you got yeah, we got our own publishing,
Speaker 1: since you just set up your own little publishing company.
Speaker 1: So any bucket list things now that you know there's
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years left podcast, you did it by a
Speaker 1: car out there on the outside. I mean, there's always
Speaker 1: something you want to do. You know. We've gotten to
Speaker 1: an age though we both agree, well, I'm just probably
Speaker 1: not going to do that one I don't see my son. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to climb killaman jar. Oh. I don't
Speaker 1: think I had that on my list, but that's gone.
Speaker 1: But We've checked off a lot of stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm hoping to still see great things. You know.
Speaker 1: I learned to scuba dive in this business, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've traveled. We've been on Safari and after Arica and uh,
Speaker 1: it's just been some trippy things. Man, sounds great. Okay,
Speaker 1: you've been listening to America Dewey and Jerry here on
Speaker 1: Bob Left Sets podcast. Thanks so much for coming by, guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you, true honor