WEBVTT - Episode 5: Billy Joel with Will Stegemann 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:03.880 Hello, this is Christian Bush and welcome to episode five 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:13.039 of Geeking Out, my new podcast. Every episode is a 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.160 new person talking about what they're obsessed with that has 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.119 nothing to do with their job. The only requirement is 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:21.200 that they're totally geeking out on it and they want 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:24.759 to talk about it. From homemade bamboo furniture to secret 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:29.480 paminaciese recipes from Disney Prince's Collections to Doctor Who, lego 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:33.720 sets from your favorite Netflix Ben snacked the Internet tracking 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.960 great White Sharks. Tell me what you love, why you 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.360 love it, how you got into it, and what makes 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:43.960 it awesome. Every episode is presented in three chapters. Chapter one, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.320 my guest and I talk about what they're obsessed with. 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:50.000 Chapter two is a game I call Tradja, where my 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.519 guests and I turn each other onto one thing that 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.120 we've discovered. And chapter three closes the show with me 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.200 talking about music that I'm currently geeking out on and 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:04.080 why I believe that curiosity is contagious and the life 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:11.559 is better with a soundtrack. So let's go Chapter one. 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:22.119 Today's guest is Will Stegman. Will is a professional businessman 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.480 with a normal person job who I met because he's 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:29.120 good friends with my manager, Whitney. Will lives with his wife, 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.640 Nina and their pitbull Olive in Los Angeles, California. Whitney 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:35.880 and I met up with him on a rooftop in 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.119 Westwood last fall. So you're going to hear the occasional 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:45.040 traffic helicopter overhead as we talk. So introduce yourself, Hi, 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:46.880 and Will Stegman. We'll tell us what you do for 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:52.240 a little I work for a very big corporation that 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.040 you probably do business with in some way, shape or form. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.240 And um, what I officially do, they're probably does doesn't 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.680 matter to anyone who's gonna do this right now. Not 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:05.680 to be mysterious, no, but I work a regular office job. 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.280 I do a regular nine to five. I work in 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.880 customer experience. I guess is the the umbrella that it 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:16.200 fits under it? And um, I am, I should say, 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:21.440 reluctantly geeked out and obsessed with a musician from my hometown. 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.000 I grew up on Long Island. I grew up about 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.680 twenty minutes from where Billy Joel grew up, and I, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.000 for a very long time wanted nothing to do with 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.760 the guy like I grew up. It was so like 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:36.720 he was our he was our Springsteen. He was our 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.919 he was our local hero. In my memory, the local 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.440 radio station would play Piano Man at nine o'clock every 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.600 Saturday night, like it was just the thing that we did. 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.440 And everybody lumped him. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:54.560 who knew him. Um, and he lived there. He lived 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.480 there even you know, you know, he had a place 0:02:57.520 --> 0:02:59.720 in New York City, he had a place in Miami, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.760 and he still had a place on Long Island. You know, 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:06.760 you could see him in restaurants all the time. Um. 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:09.639 He was just part of the local fabric and I 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.720 wanted zero to do with it now, So I grew 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:15.680 up there. I lived there for the first almost twenty 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:20.079 five years of my life and just partly turned five, 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.760 picked up my stuff, and I moved away to where 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.880 we are now. Where are we now? We are now 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:32.280 in Los Angeles. Specifically, we are on our roof right, yes, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.280 And I don't live on this roof, like your listeners 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.120 should know, Like I'm not, I'm not homeless. Um, I 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.800 have a roof. But when I would tell people where 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.280 I was from, everyone would always ask like, oh, you're 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:46.760 from Long and likely Joel you must love him like, nope, 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:48.880 in fact, I don't. And then I would tell people 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.880 that every year I would make a New Year's resolution, 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:55.480 and it was January one, We're gonna go through this 0:03:55.480 --> 0:04:00.200 whole year without ever hearing a single village. Also, it's 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.600 like I started this when I was still living on 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.240 Long Island, which meant I failed every year, But from 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:10.920 like nine six on, it's like, this year, no, Billy Joel, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.360 We're not gonna go places where we think we're gonna 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.640 hear him um, which was nowhere, Like and maybe I 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:18.640 go to a hospital, but there was a good chance, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:20.479 like if you're at a hospital, you're still gonna hear 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:26.240 like uptown girls while you're you know right, it's it's inescapable. 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:28.680 So I would every year do it, and then like 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.919 I would be on the fourth of January sitting in 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.039 a diner and all of a sudden you hear you know, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.760 Downeaster Alexa playing over the over the diner jukebox at 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:40.800 two o'clock in the morning, and you're like, what is 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:45.919 going wrong with my life? That, like I can't avoid this, 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.839 this this guy, I just it wasn't personal. I didn't 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.440 know him. I just thought everything that he stood for 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:54.760 and believed in and everyone who enjoyed him and his 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.159 work was done. That's a dumb straight down just didn't know, 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:05.440 didn't know a thing. M hm. So I spend fifteen 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:10.400 years vowing every year to not hear Billy Joel. I 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.000 moved to Los Angeles, where I feel like, oh, probably 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.359 gonna hear less of them. They're not the case. Every 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.560 year he would pop up, usually within the first sixty 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:21.680 days of the year. I would call and be put 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:24.120 on hold, and there would be like a music version 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.880 of you know, always a woman like bastard got me again? 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:33.440 Like every year that sneaky Long Island Bastard would would 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:39.479 nail me. So two twelve rolls around two twelve. I 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.440 am how old am I? Then? I am thirty seven, 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:47.280 and I got a job, I'm married, I'm doing well. 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.719 I'm a different person than the kid who used to 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.640 sit being angry and diners and cursing Billy Joel on 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.599 Long Island. But I still won't listen to the guy. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:06:02.000 So two twelve, it's the It's New Year's Day and 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.960 my wife is watching TV and she says to me, Hey, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:08.839 there's this movie on and I think you want to 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.839 watch Um. The movie is called Last Play at Shay. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.040 Shea was Chase Stadium with the New York Mets play 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.800 and the other thing that I'm obsessed with is the 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:22.400 New York Mets. So my wife sees this and says, oh, 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:24.880 Last Play at Shay, that's gotta be about the Mets. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.200 Let me get my husband in here, who loves the 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.600 Mets and hates Billy Joel, in this room to watch this. 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.440 So she flips the channel and I come walking in 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.560 and I realized, oh, Last Play at Shay is not 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:39.080 a movie about the Mets. Last Play at Cha is 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:43.200 a Billy Joeld concert film. So it's the first day 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.720 of the year. I'm not even twelve hours into two 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:52.240 and I'm blown it up. So I decide in that 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:56.400 moment after I storm out, and I'm like, how could 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:58.480 you do this to me? Because it was really like 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:03.080 that Twilight Zone moment, like it's a cookbook, it's not 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.520 a mess thing. It's a Billy Joel movie. No. So 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.000 it's over and my wife is like, I'm so sorry 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:13.480 that I ruined it for you, and I'm like, We're 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:15.760 gonna regroup, you know, We're gonna do this year. We're 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.200 gonna flip this script. I've been putting this off for 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:23.000 too long. I'm gonna listen to every goddamn song this 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:28.240 guy ever wrote, recorded and released, and I'm gonna I'm 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:30.480 going in. I'm going in deep. I'm gonna find out 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.280 what is it that I don't like about this guy? 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.000 Why does he set off all of these things in me? 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.360 And over the course of two thousand and twelve, I 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:41.680 did this thing called a Year of Billy Joel, where 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:46.280 I basically dedicated the whole year to just studying Billy 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.800 Joel's music, and over the course of that year became 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:56.240 just kind of obsessed with it. Um the music, his story, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:01.760 UM his upbringing, the source, his of his material, his 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:07.360 his writing process. I became so deep into it that 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.760 now will be five years later, Um, there isn't a 0:08:11.840 --> 0:08:14.320 day that goes by that somebody doesn't send me a 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.440 link to something Billy Joel related, or um, bring something 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:20.360 to my attention, like, hey, do you know about this? 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.160 You should write about this. It's this thing that like 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.040 five years ago, just as a joke, I decided to 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:30.080 do this, and it's just it's take. It's the thing 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.559 that people know me for now as the guy who 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:37.760 hated Billy Joel and then decided to give him a try. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.040 And would you say that you love Billy Joel? Now, 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:46.080 I love I really enjoy Billy Joel the person. But 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:47.640 it's like I enjoy it when I hear it, but 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:49.760 it's not the thing that I seek out, but it 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:55.320 seeks me out. It's it's like your obsession, now, is it. Yeah, 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:57.240 that's a way way to put it. I'm like in 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:02.000 Billy Joel's gravitational orbit. And as much as I try to, like, 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.680 I can't get away from it. It's like every day 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:09.520 somebody sends me something, Um, I hear something. You know, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.319 there's there, you know, reissues and stuff coming up. Or 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.640 I get into a dispute about something, or someone else 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.440 is arguing about Billy joelian on the Internet, and if 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.760 I'm within five thousand miles of that argument, someone's like, oh, 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:26.080 talk to Will, He'll settle this for us. So I'm 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.040 I'm also now the Billy Joel argument settler. It's true. Yeah, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.400 I will. I will tag Will on Facebook if anyone 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.439 says anything bad about Billy Joel and I'm like, well, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:38.240 I that Will have something to say about this. Judge 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.200 will right. So then the other thing is like learning 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.280 like who all of the other secret Billy Joel fans 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.200 are like people who who are like, oh yeah, it's 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:48.199 sort of like my guilty pleasure. And it's like, I 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:52.000 wouldn't even say that it's my guilty pleasure. It's just 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.200 the thing that I identify with. Like the thing that 0:09:55.280 --> 0:10:00.000 really got me obsessive about it was more his individuals 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.560 story um as like just just kind of hard luck 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.240 kid living in the middle of nowhere on Long Islands. Like, 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:13.160 if you live on Long Island, you are acutely aware 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.880 that the biggest city in the world is less than 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:20.040 an hour to the east. You're a train ride or 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.560 a car ride from New York City, and you know 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:25.760 that that magnetism, that power that is in New York 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:28.640 is right there. Sometimes you can see it. And you 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.920 also know that they don't want you. You also know 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.480 that you are an outsider, and you'll always be an outsider. 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.280 There'll always be somebody from Long Island. Um and sort 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.560 of the chip on your shoulder that you carry if 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.439 you grow up in the shadow of a place like 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:51.640 New York City or Los Angeles, you feel like there's 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.400 something there that you want to be a part of, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.000 and yet you don't feel welcome. And I felt that 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.960 way growing up. It wasn't until I started reading into 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.280 views where he talked about his upbringing and that sense 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:08.840 of disconnect from the place he wanted to be um 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:11.959 and I really began to say, oh, Like it's cliche, 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:15.320 but like, dude, I've been hating all these years, were 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.880 not so different to you and I like I realized, Oh, 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.560 Billy Joel and I are essentially the same person, but 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.520 with a different skill set. He has a marketable skill set. 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:28.720 I have a skill set that brings me to rooftops 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.920 in the middle of Los Angeles to talk about projects 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:36.240 used to do. So It's amazing though, Like the more 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:40.800 I read about him, the more I um. It was 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.920 like watching a movie that you hadn't seen before, Like 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:46.760 I had never really studied the movie of Billy Joel's career, 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.000 but through learning about him, I began to root for him, 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.680 like as if I ignored the fact that I knew 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.880 what the ending was or the ending up to that point. Obviously, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.200 he's still with us, he's still performing, so his story 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:02.160 is still being told old, but the story of like 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:07.400 him struggling, him getting ripped off by a record label, 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.280 him getting a signing possibly one of the worst contracts 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:15.720 in the history of music. UM, and having you know, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.760 having to basically have the mob get him out of that, 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.120 UM get him out of that deal. UM. You know, 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.120 going through like having to really struggle just to sort 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:30.960 of get to the starting points and then have some success, 0:12:31.600 --> 0:12:34.840 have a record of the year, make some money, then 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.559 get completely ripped off to the point where, oh, he's 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:44.800 broke again. He stopped recording new music in the early nineties, 0:12:45.120 --> 0:12:47.880 but continued to tour for a decade because he was broke, 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:54.679 because he had to because someone he trusted UM robbed him. UM. 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:55.960 You know, I had the same thing happened to me, 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.360 obviously for less money, but like people I trusted like 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.640 took money from me. And it was like every time 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:07.040 I would read something about him, I could find some parallel. 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.400 And the thing that it did for me was it 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:17.680 helped me to sort of understand maybe where I handled 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:23.360 adversity the wrong way, maybe where I um turned my 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:27.199 back on people out of anger. As I was doing 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.480 this and reading about Long Island and reading about Long 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.680 Island's favorite son, I missed Long Island a great deal. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.360 I really missed it. I had been living here for 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:42.800 about twelve years at that point, so I was suddenly homesick. 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:44.920 In the twelve years that I had lived in l 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.880 A M, I had grown up. I went from being 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.520 a kid to an adult, you know, being married and 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:55.439 you know, not living like in an apartment with four roommates. UM, 0:13:55.559 --> 0:13:58.360 just living something with my wife and my dog. My 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:03.760 dad had passed away, and between my dad's passing and 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:08.200 just time, I felt disconnected from my own upbringing. So 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.400 I the thing that I got out of this, in 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:15.040 addition to becoming just really into the life of a musician, 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:21.680 UM was one finally giving his music a chance. And 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.440 like I said, it's good. It's way better than I 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:26.720 give him credit. I gave him credit for it's way 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.200 better than I ever understood. And I think he is 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:35.400 grossly underestimated as a musician. So that was a gift. 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:37.920 That was something I didn't expect. But also it made 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:42.640 me go back home and connect and talk to family 0:14:42.680 --> 0:14:45.520 members I hadn't spoken to, maybe go to my high 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.800 school reunion. Really, you've never been, never been, never been. 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:52.880 Just coincided with my twentieth high school reunion, and I 0:14:52.920 --> 0:15:00.880 went they did, Yes, they did, because it's of course. 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:03.640 And then I went to the diner afterwards, the same 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.440 diner that I was once asked to leave for yelling 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:09.680 at somebody from playing piano. Man. Um. I went back 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:11.480 to that diner and I put on some Billy Joel 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.080 songs on the jukebox, and I sat with my wife 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.400 and we listened to Billy Joel on a Long Island jukebox, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:18.320 and I felt like, oh, I've made it all the 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:22.080 way back home, like this is good. This is a 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.760 really good thing, Um. And you know, now when I 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:27.960 go home, I have a different relationship with my hometown. 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.080 I feel a lot more warmth towards it. I can 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.680 go home and not really be angry about things, leave 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.560 the past in the past, and move forward. And where 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.840 did you start? Did you like started like, did you 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:44.760 do it chronologically? Yes, as I started the writing portion 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.360 of the project with his first record, this thing called 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.480 Cold Spring Harbor, which of all of the Billy Joel records, 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.440 it's it's I would say it's the worst of them, 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:59.200 but it's not all. It's not entirely his fault. When 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:05.120 the record was was UM recorded the producer who also 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:10.120 owned the label who signed him to this terrible contract. Basically, 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:13.200 a twenty year old Billy Joel signed a contract saying 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:19.440 that UM he owed this rinky dink Long Islands, UM 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:26.000 UM outlet ten records, and UM the record company basically 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:28.920 could control everything and got a big cut of everything. 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.640 So Billy Joel basically signed his life away at twenty 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.359 because nobody else was offering him anything. You know, Columbia 0:16:36.480 --> 0:16:40.360 wasn't showing up at his house, Electra wasn't looking for him. 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:43.240 This local guy wanted to help make records. All I 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.720 gotta do is signed a ten record deal and give 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.240 him a large percentage of my publishing. Great, where do 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.520 I sign? So so he signed this horrible deal. Then 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:57.800 so his producer guy, but I already ripped who owned 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.160 the record label already? RiPP goes to after the record 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.240 and he does it at the wrong speed. Now, I 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.439 don't know if you've ever mastered a record, UM, but 0:17:08.520 --> 0:17:14.679 you probably understand how it works. Yeah, so not funny 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:16.920 if you are the guy who's put his life into this. 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.760 So when I talk about, like Billy Joel at this point, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:25.560 does everything right, you know works hard? Signs the deal 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.800 that was given to him, says, I'm gonna make the 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:31.560 best of his rights, a good collection of songs for 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.960 a year old. You know, it's not a great record, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:39.320 but there's promise there. Um it comes out and because 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.800 it's mastered at the wrong speed, his voice sounds really 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:48.080 high and the piano sounds like basically, take take a piano, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.920 stick it in like an aluminum backyard shed, and then 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.879 put a mic outside of that shed. That's what the 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:57.640 record sounds like. So the label is this little rinky 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.920 dink operation. It's like, well, I ain't gonna pay the 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.480 remastered this. Nobody's ever heard of this guy just put 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.800 it out like this. Oh my gosh. So young Billy 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.480 Joel gets the pressing of his first record and it 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:15.000 sounds like garbage, like it's it is. They later re 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.440 released it. They remastered and rereleased it about ten years later. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.199 So the version of it you would buy now is 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:25.399 the better version where it sounds correct. But it's on YouTube. 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.240 Go to YouTube, look up Cold Spring Harbor original mastering, 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.760 and you don't recognize the voice. So Billy Joel here's 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:38.159 this record and feels like, oh my life is my 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.800 career is over? So he just takes his band on 0:18:40.840 --> 0:18:42.760 the road and it's like, well, I gotta earn a living. 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.520 I can earn a living playing live shows. He builds 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.919 a good reputation as a solid live act um and 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:53.880 he's still working on new material. Columbia UM, somebody from 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.320 Columbia sees him and they approach him, and he's like, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.480 I would love to sound you guys, Dylan's on your label, Like, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.560 of course, this is where I want to be, but 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.320 I'm under contract to these guys for the rest of 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.359 my life to the point where you know. Of course, 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.560 the reaction of Columbia was bright, you have a ten 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.359 year deal with who will take care of this? And 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:21.000 allegedly Columbia sent some muscle over to Basically, they worked 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.960 out a deal where UM Family Productions, which was the 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:28.760 name of this guy's company, UM got some sort of 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.600 buy out and they got a piece of each record 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.960 and for the first ten records of Billy Joel's career 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:38.199 there's a Columbia logo and a Family Productions logo on 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.359 it because that was the deal. So, if you're trying 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:47.040 to get somebody into Billy Joel, even though you started 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:51.520 at the top, where would you start them regardless of 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:56.560 the album. I would start with deep cuts, start pick 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:01.680 up Piano Man, which was his first hit, and end um, 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.359 don't play piano Man. Okay, listen to everything else on 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.440 the Listen to everything but Piano Man. Listen to Um 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.520 Traveling Prayer, which is this great bluegrass song like Dolly 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:16.000 Parton recorded in one of Grammy four and if you 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:17.919 listen to it like Dolly singing, you'd never know it 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:22.119 wasn't her song. Um, Listen to Traveling Prayer. Listen to 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.280 Stop in Nevada, which is about him and this woman 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.080 that he's now going to get married to them, sort 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:32.040 of heading west. Um. And then if you do want 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.399 to listen to Piano Man, the important thing to know 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.920 about Piano Man is that everything he's telling you in 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:42.360 the song Piano Man is based on true life events. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:46.800 And he swears, and I'm gonna reveal here he and 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:49.239 I have spoken about this, both on the phone and 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.760 face to face. He swears to me that someone actually 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.919 ordered a Tonic and Gin and also made love to 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:03.080 his Tonic and Gin. Want a real estate novelist. We've 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.200 never got into that. Look, I didn't How much time 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:08.640 do you think I had let's back up for a second. Yes, 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:10.480 the part where you just said you got on the 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:15.640 phone with him. Yes, yes, So what happens is, I'm 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.240 doing this Year of Billy Joel through two twelve. In 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.040 September of two thousand twelve. It ends up like not 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.160 on the Today's Show, but on the Today Show blog, 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:29.480 which they promote on the show, because that the year 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:32.080 you tracked it online. That's what you're saying, you did 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:34.920 you like, right, every day I wrote, I wrote four 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.400 days a week, four or five days a week. So yeah, 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:41.679 I should have talked about that. As it's in a second. 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.240 As it's going, I'm listening to every song and I'm 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:47.640 writing a little essay about every song. Some days it's 0:21:47.640 --> 0:21:51.320 four sentences, some days it's two thousand words whatever comes 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:54.359 to mind from the song. And as I'm writing about 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:58.320 the songs, um, I'm also writing about myself. I'm talking 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.919 about my family, and I'm talking about like being at 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.560 my dad's house when I'm seven years old, and like 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:09.040 he and my mom have just separated and it's really 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.679 weird and it's uncomfortable, and my dad puts on like 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:16.720 this this like sand Billy Joel Songs Mixtape that he made. 0:22:17.520 --> 0:22:20.040 So I'm sitting in this basement department with my dad, 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:23.760 and my dad's listening to Captain Jack, which is the 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:27.320 saddest song imaginable. And as my dad's listening to Captain Jack, 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:31.720 he's painting over the windows so that the sunlight can't 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.840 get in. Oh my god, And like I realized, like 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.480 I'm my parents had me really young. So when I'm seven, 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:41.879 my dad is years old. So like my dad is 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.320 about the same age Billy Joeld is at that point, 0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:47.280 and like my dad feels like his life is over. 0:22:47.840 --> 0:22:50.280 So we're just sitting there listening to sad music while 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.200 my dad is like blocking the life out of our 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.399 of our home and like just putting us in darkness. 0:22:58.320 --> 0:23:01.000 And I hadn't thought about that since I was a child, 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:04.560 Like I remember that that night so vividly because all 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:06.440 I wanted to do was watch the Mets because the 0:23:06.480 --> 0:23:07.840 Mets were gonna be on. It's like, when can we 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.520 watch the game? It's like when when I'm done with this, 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:12.720 Like as soon as I'm done shutting out everything good 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:16.879 in our life, we can watch the Mets and maybe 0:23:16.880 --> 0:23:20.919 we'll get pizza too. So it ends up on the 0:23:20.960 --> 0:23:24.600 Today show thing. So it suddenly gets some like some 0:23:24.640 --> 0:23:26.520 other outlets pick it up. It was like a Huffington's 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:31.480 Post thing. Um, so it got some press. So Billy 0:23:31.560 --> 0:23:35.120 has a publicist who gets clippings every day and this 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:40.480 was when he got so it was billed as the headline, 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:43.440 which is summed me up very well. Billy and Jill 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:50.400 Hayter changes his tune with year long dedication, so appropriate headline. Yeah, 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:53.639 So the publicist contacted me. I was like, hey, I 0:23:53.640 --> 0:23:56.320 would love to talk to you about this, Like, oh yeah, 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:59.360 no problem, Like give me a call. So I don't 0:23:59.440 --> 0:24:02.560 think anything of it. So a week later, I'm driving 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:05.480