Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, Hello, Hello, what's going on, y'all? It's Questlove.
Speaker 3: We've been re releasing a lot of the QLs episodes
Speaker 3: that we taped during the pandemic. In today's classic episode
Speaker 3: with Bruce Hornsby, who has been incredibly cool when we
Speaker 3: spoke to him in twenty twenty, is no exception. Bruce
Speaker 3: is an absolute open book when he talks about the
Speaker 3: music he loves and finding success in the eighties with
Speaker 3: the Range and his relationship with that material. And he
Speaker 3: also gets into his collaborative relationships with the Grateful Dead
Speaker 3: and fellow QLs guest Bonnie Rait, and his unexpected connection
Speaker 3: to a legend from my hometown. Yes, I'm always in
Speaker 3: Philadelphia despite what you heard. Yeah, his role in the
Speaker 3: life of Alan Iverson is in the eye opener. So
Speaker 3: this year Bruce released an album and to Go Park,
Speaker 3: which features Bob wear Ezra from Vampire Weekend and Bonnie Ray.
Speaker 3: So I want you to check it out. And this
Speaker 3: episode is fun, spirited pack with some stories and Bruce Hornsby,
Speaker 3: Me Fontagelo, Unpaid Bill and Sugar Steve. Enjoy it, Ladies
Speaker 3: and gentlemen, what's up? This is another episode of course
Speaker 3: Love Supreme. I'm your host Questlove Jenkins. Where we're teams
Speaker 3: Supreme Today, Sugar Steve.
Speaker 2: In the house. Hello, Hello Quarantine Steve, Quarantine Bill. Yeah,
Speaker 2: what's up man? How you doing?
Speaker 4: Holding it down?
Speaker 2: Okay? Its asterisk or just the definitive.
Speaker 4: It holding it semi calling down. Everything's good, working on
Speaker 4: some music for the street all as.
Speaker 3: Well, Okay, gotta keep the streets happy and fan takeolo.
Speaker 5: I'm good brother, I'm good man, doing the work as well.
Speaker 5: I can't complain cool, cool, all right.
Speaker 3: Mark Yesterday is a Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, producer, composer.
Speaker 2: He has actually come to us in many.
Speaker 5: Forms of the past, for real, for real, for real,
Speaker 5: either as.
Speaker 3: A soloist or fronting one of his many projects sounds
Speaker 3: like Quesla, either a member of the range the Noisemakers
Speaker 3: at one point Ambrosia and Ambrosia.
Speaker 6: Yes, not really, but okay, we'll take it.
Speaker 3: We'll take it. Wait a minute, you know what, and
Speaker 3: I often do this. I'm not interrupting my own intro.
Speaker 3: Yes or no, all right.
Speaker 2: I'm a soul trained collegist. Is that you on soul train?
Speaker 2: With Sina Easton.
Speaker 6: That's hilarious. You've nailed me.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I think like I have all the episodes
Speaker 3: that I keep him on loop. And like three weeks
Speaker 3: ago she was on doing Sugar Walls and I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: that was okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 6: Well well look yeah, there's a funny story about it. Look,
Speaker 6: I played with her for two years and sure we
Speaker 6: did Soule Train and I'm out there looking like a
Speaker 6: complete clown. Most likely I haven't seen that for years.
Speaker 6: But I'll tell you what, as a parent of a
Speaker 6: Division one basketball player who's now a pro in Germany,
Speaker 6: I used that to uh for a great benefit. My
Speaker 6: son Keith played at LSU and he was live on
Speaker 6: national TV his junior year against testas A and l
Speaker 6: on ESPN one, and he had a pretty rough game.
Speaker 6: And we're back at the hotel, the Cook Hotel on
Speaker 6: LSU campus and he just bumming. He's really down, and
Speaker 6: I said, you know what, I'm going to change your
Speaker 6: mood right now. Go to YouTube and look up she
Speaker 6: Easton strut and the Sheena Easton Sugar Walls featuring me
Speaker 6: looking like a complete idiot. And so he looked at
Speaker 6: his dad just sort of undulating around with sunglasses on,
Speaker 6: and it just he just fell out and his mood
Speaker 6: chains just like I predicted. And so you know what,
Speaker 6: whatever works to help your kids get through the tough times.
Speaker 6: My clownish appearances in Sena videos work.
Speaker 3: I assure you, that exaggerating laz and gentlemen.
Speaker 5: Anyway you had say on, I forgot we was still
Speaker 5: on the intro.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's on a show.
Speaker 3: We don't even talk about his work with DJ net
Speaker 3: Jack Dsonnet and my high school mate Christa McBride.
Speaker 6: Yes, Philadelphia schoolmates.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, not to mention.
Speaker 3: You know your your musicianship, your DNA is all over
Speaker 3: our favorites by Bonnie ray Don Henley, so many projects.
Speaker 2: This intro is going to be forever leads.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 7: He played with Squeeze yep, when I don't know, it's
Speaker 7: on Wikipedia.
Speaker 6: Just to be accurate. I played on one. I played
Speaker 6: on one of their records, a great record. Walk a
Speaker 6: Straight Line is a beautiful but you know that one. No,
Speaker 6: it's it's a great not a hit, but it's a
Speaker 6: beautiful song album Squeezehead.
Speaker 5: What album is it on?
Speaker 6: It's called play? Okay, early mid nineties, Uh, and I
Speaker 6: played accordion yeah on this so right, yeah, let.
Speaker 3: Me just say the two words so we can start
Speaker 3: the episode. Bruce Hornsby the Quest Love sup, Thanks you anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: we often fall in a rabbit holes even before we
Speaker 3: get the name of the.
Speaker 6: Artist who cares. It's fine, Bruce Hornsby, Easton veteran.
Speaker 3: So right now you're celebrating the release of your twenty
Speaker 3: second record.
Speaker 6: Correct, Yes, that's that's true, sir.
Speaker 3: So, So without my knowledge of your your your deadhead years,
Speaker 3: can I can I assume that the fact that you
Speaker 3: have about I believe it is twenty six live albums.
Speaker 2: That's the lesson that you learned from playing with the
Speaker 2: Grateful Dead.
Speaker 6: Well okay. People always ask me, how did playing with
Speaker 6: the Dead change your musician ship, change your approach, et cetera.
Speaker 6: I was always an improvising musician. I went to school.
Speaker 6: I was one of those music school geeks. I started
Speaker 6: off at Berkeley for two semesters, but then I went
Speaker 6: to University of Miami. Sun Tan, you known to a
Speaker 6: lot of people for your paid vacation for rich Nordon kids,
Speaker 6: Northern white kids. Anyway, I came out with that background,
Speaker 6: and so the improvisational aspect of the Dead was not
Speaker 6: anything that was sort of epiphanal for me, epithantic it.
Speaker 6: What I got out of them mostly was inspiration on
Speaker 6: the songwriting level. People don't realize that they have fifty
Speaker 6: truly great songs. Half of them sound like they could
Speaker 6: have been written one hundred years ago or plus. Old
Speaker 6: folk music a deep well of influence there. So so
Speaker 6: I love them. I miss Garcia. He was quite a guy.
Speaker 2: He was a rocket during the Garcia years.
Speaker 6: Oh yes, the last spot I played with them, just
Speaker 6: for twenty months or so. I played about one hundred
Speaker 6: shows with them from eight from nineteen ninety to ninety two.
Speaker 6: We'd opened for them before that.
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh so you played the ninety two Okay.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but then I was sitting with them when they
Speaker 6: were geographically close to me up through ninety five, up
Speaker 6: right up to his.
Speaker 3: Dead Okay, so yeah, I went to one Garcia show
Speaker 3: I think in Houston when Branford Marcellis was singing with them.
Speaker 6: Yes, my guy. Yes, Branford and I played together with
Speaker 6: It Dead quite often. It's his birthday's coming up here
Speaker 6: pretty soon, fellas, So maybe you should shout his ass out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, are you on without a net the deadline?
Speaker 6: No, that's Branford's on that, Okay. To respond to the
Speaker 6: twenty six live albums to which you're referring, that's albums,
Speaker 6: I mean they're just available online. There's no there's no
Speaker 6: CDs made of those. But frankly, we're like a lot
Speaker 6: of bands. I write the songs, we record the songs,
Speaker 6: and then we learned how to play the songs. So
Speaker 6: consequently the live thing expands everything that we started with
Speaker 6: on the original record, and so so quite often live
Speaker 6: is the best way to hear us because it's very loose,
Speaker 6: it's very free. Branford sits in with this quite often
Speaker 6: because he knows that we're winging it like crazy, because
Speaker 6: I don't know what I'm gonna do. So if I
Speaker 6: don't know what I'm gonna do with the band, guys
Speaker 6: definitely don't. And it makes it great fun.
Speaker 3: It is there a pressure for you to make a
Speaker 3: memory each and every night, knowing that some of these
Speaker 3: fans will.
Speaker 2: Follow you there.
Speaker 3: To me, is no more loyal fan base than you know,
Speaker 3: anything associated with the Dead Yes, six degrees within it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's how did that affect your actual the
Speaker 3: way that you put on shows.
Speaker 6: I think I probably started taking a little more out
Speaker 6: than I had been doing. You know, I was always improvising,
Speaker 6: but I got a lot freer, much to the chagrin
Speaker 6: of a lot of my fans. You know, when you
Speaker 6: come out having these big hit radio songs, you acquire
Speaker 6: an audience that I call sort of a soft core one,
Speaker 6: people who are only there to hear the songs. They know, yeah,
Speaker 6: that's right. And so I was never that guy. So
Speaker 6: I've it's been my self appointed job to piss those
Speaker 6: people off for many a year, and so been nasty
Speaker 6: letters abound in my world for thirty two years.
Speaker 3: Now you're saying that you've gone shows without playing maldern
Speaker 3: Rain or the way it.
Speaker 6: Is, or well, not many. I've become a lot more
Speaker 6: kind about it in my sonescence here in my sixties,
Speaker 6: but there have been shows. But the only times that
Speaker 6: I didn't do that was when I felt the audience
Speaker 6: was so jacked, so responsive, so deeply involved in what
Speaker 6: we were doing without playing those old war horses, that
Speaker 6: I could get away with it, and it wasn't a problem.
Speaker 6: Of course, I still get a couple of nasty letters
Speaker 6: from people who again are softcore fans, and they would
Speaker 6: just come to hear those five or six songs that
Speaker 6: they know. But so, yeah, now it's really gotten bad
Speaker 6: because my last two records have really gone. I'm a
Speaker 6: modern classical music devo te and so that a stringent atonal, chromatic,
Speaker 6: dough decophonic sound has been filtering into my music, much
Speaker 6: to many fans chagrin. I apologize to that, Matt.
Speaker 8: That is actually the That is the first time we've
Speaker 8: ever heard the word do decophonic used on quest those
Speaker 8: and that is amazing and I'm.
Speaker 6: Happy to be a first to give you all a
Speaker 6: first here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I saw you play once downtown and uh, there
Speaker 4: was a lot of feedback and it was in the
Speaker 4: key of F. So so they played everything in the
Speaker 4: key of F. And for that it was fucking hilarious
Speaker 4: because every song was just in F, no matter what,
Speaker 4: in what range. They took everything into F and so
Speaker 4: like because they kept out feeding back and so like,
Speaker 4: so is not to be a total They played everything
Speaker 4: in F and it was hilarious.
Speaker 6: Well, look, if you're a musician of any worth, you
Speaker 6: should be able to transpose instantly. You can't. You're not
Speaker 6: going to play with me, and so uh.
Speaker 4: That we share a guitar player, Doug Doug Dryberry, who
Speaker 4: used to be a noisemaker many years ago, is Sesame
Speaker 4: Streets guitar player.
Speaker 6: So well, not that many years ago, Doug. Doug was
Speaker 6: with me for fifteen years, and uh, I made a
Speaker 6: change that maybe six five or six years ago. But Doug,
Speaker 6: it's a great asset, a great utilitarian sort of an
Speaker 6: orchestral guitar player. It's a it's a great New York
Speaker 6: guitar player named John Leventhal, most well known for the
Speaker 6: Sean Colvin Great Records and Levinthal had played on my
Speaker 6: sixth record, Spirit Trail in ninety eight, and I wanted
Speaker 6: somebody to give me eleven Thalien sound, and so I
Speaker 6: got Doug and he did a great job for me.
Speaker 6: I started hearing another sound in my head. So alas,
Speaker 6: I made a change, but I love Doug and he
Speaker 6: did a great job for us, like I say, for
Speaker 6: fifteen years.
Speaker 5: Awesome.
Speaker 3: So your musical roots, I know that you started out
Speaker 3: in Virginia. What city were you born in?
Speaker 6: I was born in Richmond, and I grew up in Willisburg,
Speaker 6: fifteen miles down the road, and I still this is
Speaker 6: where I am now. I moved back after ten years
Speaker 6: in la I moved back in nineteen ninety here for
Speaker 6: back here for thirty years and we're in Guardians. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you can have that ship.
Speaker 5: I went there once. They took us on the trip
Speaker 5: there like third grade one time, and like that was it.
Speaker 2: No, I diddit.
Speaker 3: Roots show there, our get the Sponte, the the one
Speaker 3: we did.
Speaker 2: Like one O six in part live.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, so how did you how did you go over?
Speaker 6: How did they.
Speaker 5: Our song?
Speaker 3: Break you off with nice for about four minutes and
Speaker 3: then the rest of the show was like, Okay, they're
Speaker 3: just they're just out there.
Speaker 2: They were like, where's mister cheeks? That we're done? So yeah,
Speaker 2: I can relate.
Speaker 5: I've been about. What about Colonial Williams Williamsburg? They still well, we.
Speaker 6: Made it our self appointed job as local counties to
Speaker 6: pelt tourists and local College of Women marry students with
Speaker 6: water balloons, and so we would ride through town and
Speaker 6: just wear an ass out.
Speaker 3: Uh Jesus christ Man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, our karma was probably not so good then hopefully improved,
Speaker 6: but uh we actually got stopped by the cops and
Speaker 6: take it to the cop the police station our senior
Speaker 6: year in high school. Uh, some young, well appointed young
Speaker 6: College of Women marry grad students. We just pelted him
Speaker 6: and he flagged the cops down and we were through.
Speaker 6: So that's but yeah, that was as exciting as it
Speaker 6: got in the little last town of Winnsburg, which I love.
Speaker 6: Obviously I moved back here, but yes, Williensburg is my town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we got Karen.
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm right down the street.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'm I'm in North North Carolina, born and raised
Speaker 8: where I'm in Raleigh. And I saw your son. He
Speaker 8: went to Ashville, right, he went to Yes, yes, he's
Speaker 8: in the mountains.
Speaker 6: Yes, you saw him Plans State, yeah, man, Yeah, he
Speaker 6: put twenty three on ency State and then they recruited him.
Speaker 6: Mark Gottfried recruited him, but he picked LSU and it
Speaker 6: worked out great for him. But yes, Robby's a good
Speaker 6: old town. We like playing that museum, the outdoor.
Speaker 5: One had the art museum out uh huh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's nice, it's really nice. And you know Branford
Speaker 6: lives in Durham.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Man, Branford, So Branford.
Speaker 8: He actually I'm I graduated from North Flina Central and
Speaker 8: Branford taught there. He was there the artist in residents
Speaker 8: for years, and uh, he's just super cool dude, man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, the best. He's also a fellow prankster with me.
Speaker 6: So I could talk about that, but I'll I won't
Speaker 6: do it because he may not approve. We'll see.
Speaker 2: What was your first musical memory.
Speaker 6: Well, it's not a memory when someone's recorded you at
Speaker 6: a at age three or four. You know, you don't,
Speaker 6: at least I don't remember that. But since the tapes
Speaker 6: around then you feel like you remembered it. There's a
Speaker 6: tape of me singing hound Dog at age about three
Speaker 6: and a half or four. Yeah, krocking all the time,
Speaker 6: you know all that business. Uh and some other songs too,
Speaker 6: with the Wind and the Rain in her Hair by
Speaker 6: Pat Boone. Our parents were turning us on to this stuff.
Speaker 6: So yeah, sadly, alas, I probably heard Pat Boone's tooty
Speaker 6: fruity and not little Richard Riches. As sad as that sounds,
Speaker 6: that's that's that was what was happening in my house.
Speaker 2: But yeah, ye siblings or was it just you?
Speaker 6: Yes, I'm the emotionally disturbed middle child, and so yes,
Speaker 6: I have an older brother and a younger brother and I.
Speaker 6: It's it's interesting since I was in the middle. I
Speaker 6: was really close with each of them and they were
Speaker 6: friendly always, but not like not like relationship that I
Speaker 6: had with each of them. My older brother was the
Speaker 6: original deadhead in our family, Bobby Hornsby, and I used
Speaker 6: In my freshman year of college, I was a little
Speaker 6: Brucey playing Fender Rose and singing lead in a dead
Speaker 6: cover band called Bobby High Test and the Octane Kids.
Speaker 6: So that was Bobby Hornsby and my younger brother ended
Speaker 6: up writing a lot of songs with me later in
Speaker 6: the aforementioned Mandolin Rain is a co write with my
Speaker 6: younger brother, John Valley Road School about a song about
Speaker 6: a young girl who gets knocked up, as they used
Speaker 6: to say, put in the family way, and they sent
Speaker 6: her away to the school for unwed Mothers a while.
Speaker 6: A strange way to have a hit, the top five
Speaker 6: song that one. So he yeah, so he wrote that
Speaker 6: with me. He wrote songs for several years, but now
Speaker 6: he's out of it. But yeah, they're was I was.
Speaker 6: I'm the middle guy, the little student. I was a
Speaker 6: jock as a kid, though I was into music a
Speaker 6: little bit but I mostly wanted to hoop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was gonna say, your your relationship with basketball.
Speaker 3: I'm a Philadelphian, so yeah, it has been no it.
Speaker 3: How your involvement uh in the life of Allen Iverson, Uh,
Speaker 3: some could say literally saved his life at the time.
Speaker 3: It's too curious, like what was it about him? Because
Speaker 3: the thing is that I'm not one, I'm not a
Speaker 3: sports guy, but I'm still trying to understand the mentality
Speaker 3: of college sports fans and how they see that just
Speaker 3: as important as professional sports. And but what was it
Speaker 3: at the time that made you want to get involved
Speaker 3: in his situation?
Speaker 6: Well, I think addressing first the college versus pro thing.
Speaker 6: You've got a whole lot of people, for instance, in
Speaker 6: the southern part of the United States, where say, in basketball,
Speaker 6: they're only maybe they're only outside of Florida, there's only
Speaker 6: the Atlanta Hawks and the New Orleans Pelicans. So for
Speaker 6: most of this vast area, college sports is king. That's
Speaker 6: one reason why the SEC, I think, is so huge,
Speaker 6: because they only came into and the a SEC too,
Speaker 6: so those are the only games in town. And that
Speaker 6: Having said that, what what did you just ask me?
Speaker 6: Other than that.
Speaker 3: Well, what made you personally get involved with Alan iverson situation? Oh?
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, So well, Chuck as we call him, Bubba Chuck,
Speaker 6: that was Chuck was his name, uh locally, at least
Speaker 6: in the hood of Hampton. When they when he got
Speaker 6: sent to jail, graffiti all over Hampton said free Chuck.
Speaker 6: I just got chills thinking of going down and seeing
Speaker 6: all this because he was a beloved figure. Even as
Speaker 6: a kid. People just knew he was special. There's an
Speaker 6: aau program in our area, legendary program called the Blue
Speaker 6: Williams League Boo wiam the Summer League, and Chuck was
Speaker 6: a star in that. And then he played at Bethel
Speaker 6: High School and he led his team. He was a
Speaker 6: fantastic football player too. He was just special athlete. He
Speaker 6: got he got over two hundred offers h in football
Speaker 6: as well, and so so.
Speaker 2: He was just as good at football as he was
Speaker 2: in basketball.
Speaker 6: Well, it's arguable who can say he was just fantastic
Speaker 6: at both. So you know what he is saying, greater, greater,
Speaker 6: He was just great in both.
Speaker 2: What was his position in football?
Speaker 6: He was a quarterback, Okay, yeah, and he was so
Speaker 6: fast and he had all that duke, all those all
Speaker 6: those changing directions. You know, he'd go this way and
Speaker 6: then go there. You just he was crossing people off
Speaker 6: on the football field. So the story goes that I
Speaker 6: went to see him played at Fort Eustace. We have
Speaker 6: a very great military presence, huge military presence in our area.
Speaker 6: In one of the bases is Fort Ustess. They had
Speaker 6: a Christmas tournament. Chuck was playing. Bethel High School was playing.
Speaker 6: So I went to see the game and Anne Iverson,
Speaker 6: his mom, came up to me and, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 6: asked me to sign something, and so I told him, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: we left. We loved Chuck, et cetera. And uh So,
Speaker 6: then after his junior year where he led his team
Speaker 6: to the state championship in football and then in basketball,
Speaker 6: he was in a bowling alley in pocosin Virginia, a
Speaker 6: little an area Newport News or Hampton, I guess, And well,
Speaker 6: a brawl broke out and he and a bunch of
Speaker 6: others were arrested for brawling in a bowling alley and
Speaker 6: also maving by mob. So he was He and three
Speaker 6: or four of his friends were convicted and sent to jail.
Speaker 6: And I thought it was a travesty, miscarriage of justice.
Speaker 6: So we're I'm proud to say that we and Virginia
Speaker 6: elected the first black governor in America, Doug Wilder. And
Speaker 6: he was and he was the governor then, and I
Speaker 6: had done some work for him, some events for him.
Speaker 6: So I started lobbying him through his chief of staff
Speaker 6: as a friend of mine. And I don't know, I
Speaker 6: was just one of many probably to do this, but
Speaker 6: but but Wilder. Around Christmas time of say ninety two, Wilder,
Speaker 6: Doug Wilder pardoned Allen. Now he should have pardoned everybody,
Speaker 6: And about two weeks later, the hubub was so intense
Speaker 6: that finally he did let everybody go. So was not
Speaker 6: to show favoritism to the local favorite son, Killer Hooper,
Speaker 6: you know, killer Jock. So about two months later I
Speaker 6: get a call out of the blue from his high
Speaker 6: school coach, a guy named Mike Bailey, and he says, hey, Bruce,
Speaker 6: Alan knows about what you did for oh you. Also,
Speaker 6: I had just become friends with our mutual guy, Spike Lee,
Speaker 6: and so Spike and I. The first thing I did
Speaker 6: was Spike in ninety two, he made a video for me.
Speaker 6: Branford was in it. Because he played on the record
Speaker 6: a song about the first interracial romance in my town
Speaker 6: of Williamsburg and all the consternation it caused with the
Speaker 6: local sort of conservative government crowd. Anyway, we're in we're
Speaker 6: in editing, and I told him about Chuck and oh,
Speaker 6: that's right, I had told him earlier about that. Anyway,
Speaker 6: I forget the exact timeline. But this guy calls me
Speaker 6: and so I had gotten Spike when when when Chuck
Speaker 6: was in jail, I said, Spike know you know this
Speaker 6: kid I told you about. Well, now he's in jail.
Speaker 6: And Spike said, yes, I've seen it on ESPN. I
Speaker 6: know all about it. I said, will you do me
Speaker 6: a favor and send him just pat care package from
Speaker 6: Spike Lee. It might pick him up when he's at
Speaker 6: the City Farm in Newport News. And so Spike did that. Anyway,
Speaker 6: the sky calls. He said, well, Alan knows what you've done,
Speaker 6: what you've done, and he'd like to thank you. I said, well,
Speaker 6: you guys come up and we'll play some ball, and
Speaker 6: he said, well that's what he would like to do.
Speaker 6: So we ended up doing that and becoming friends through
Speaker 6: that forever.
Speaker 2: Wow, Now is there any truth that you.
Speaker 6: Oh no, god, okay, that it's not just one game.
Speaker 6: It was three. But you know, I'm just setting the
Speaker 6: record straight. I don't need to talk shit. I don't
Speaker 6: care about living about making that some moment. I never
Speaker 6: bring it up. I ever talk about it. But look,
Speaker 6: it's out. Look it just happened. Maybe I caught him
Speaker 6: rusty because he had obviously not been playing a whole
Speaker 6: lot of ball for the past four months. But I
Speaker 6: had one of those days where I just couldn't miss,
Speaker 6: you know, I just was just just just netting my
Speaker 6: ass off, and and we were playing a game. Maybe
Speaker 6: he was not aware of this game. It's perfect for him. Really,
Speaker 6: it helps the smaller guy, and he's a little small
Speaker 6: shorter than me. Uh. It's it's the way the pros play.
Speaker 6: You start the top of the key, and you can
Speaker 6: either pick a two dribble or three dribble maximum, which
Speaker 6: basically means the big guy can't just back in, back in,
Speaker 6: back into the bracket, throw some little last land to
Speaker 6: a pitiful land hook and and do that all the time.
Speaker 6: So you've got to make a move. You gotta you know,
Speaker 6: you've got to commit and shoot the ball. So that's
Speaker 6: that's what we played. Of course, he dunked on my
Speaker 6: head about five times. I mean, you know, he's a freak.
Speaker 6: He was a freaky athlete. Anyway, there are lots of
Speaker 6: witnesses and I could name them all for you, so
Speaker 6: including including his high school cook. But you know, what,
Speaker 6: the hell with it, I don't care. I love I
Speaker 6: love Chuck, and uh, you know, maybe maybe he let me.
Speaker 6: You have to ask him.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, there's there's Uh there's a friend of Pharrell's
Speaker 3: who I guess went to high school with Alan, and
Speaker 3: like one night they were at a party for the Neptunes,
Speaker 3: and you know, it's like they're in the nightclub, and
Speaker 3: you know, the guy was trying to bring up like
Speaker 3: old high school times and you know, Alan was like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, way back in the day, like really not
Speaker 3: trying to talk basketball when you're in a nightclub situation.
Speaker 2: Well, this guy like insists like whatever high school.
Speaker 6: Game they played, like oh boy, he had.
Speaker 3: Walked or something, or like he did some violations. I
Speaker 3: don't know what happened. But the next thing I know,
Speaker 3: Pharrell told me, tells me that this guy grabs his
Speaker 3: basketball and he's outside in the park a lot and
Speaker 3: it's pouring down rain and he's playing against Alan Iverson's
Speaker 3: roll's voice like he's just in front of the rolls voice,
Speaker 3: like trying to cross as if that roll's voice is
Speaker 3: Alan Iverson, Like for no reason at all.
Speaker 6: Just oh, he was out there alone, playing out there.
Speaker 3: Alone, just like playing car, trying to cross the roles
Speaker 3: voice like it was park like Alan was nowhere.
Speaker 2: You know, it was just that is one of those
Speaker 2: moments that's sad. Really, yeah, it was. It was so
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 3: What was the moment that really drew you into your
Speaker 3: music career right now?
Speaker 6: Like, well, what what was the moment that made.
Speaker 2: Me say, I mean as younger?
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, there made me say, okay, the hell with
Speaker 6: the standard routine, I'm casting my lot with the muse
Speaker 6: Tho's that moment you're you're asking about. Okay, Well, I
Speaker 6: went to one year of real college. I was a
Speaker 6: bit of a school hopper. I went to three colleges,
Speaker 6: University of Richmond, the one sort of lost year that
Speaker 6: made and then Berkeley and Miami. So that was a
Speaker 6: year that made me realize, okay, this this is what
Speaker 6: I need to do. But I was such a late
Speaker 6: starter because I had been a jock as a kid,
Speaker 6: and that's what I cared about. But I started playing
Speaker 6: piano in eleventh grade, and so kind of late stage
Speaker 6: seven seven.
Speaker 2: Started playing piano in eleventh grade.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I had a lot of catching up to do,
Speaker 6: and yes started How that's just freaking well, okay, so
Speaker 6: how use I mean?
Speaker 2: You're really good? So I just think that.
Speaker 5: I can't we have started that late? Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 6: Well, look, it's all about it's all about putting in
Speaker 6: the time, as anyone knows. As you know, I when
Speaker 6: I once I got into it, I got deeply involved.
Speaker 6: And when I went to college, I practiced for several
Speaker 6: years for from five to eight hours every day. So
Speaker 6: if you're willing to do that every day, Christmas Day,
Speaker 6: New Year's Day, then you're gonna catch up a little bit.
Speaker 6: Although I do feel like I love classical music, but
Speaker 6: my technique because I was such a late starter. It's
Speaker 6: it's commonly said that if you want to be a
Speaker 6: classical virtuos or a concert pianist, you have to start
Speaker 6: at age three, four, five, six, you know, no late,
Speaker 6: no later than that, because the demands are so intense.
Speaker 6: And I really feel that to be honest, I always
Speaker 6: going men, bitch you sorry, as you know, to myself,
Speaker 6: and so so that's that's a regret. But hey, everyone's
Speaker 6: life path is different. I was just a guy who
Speaker 6: like like playing sports first and so got into this later.
Speaker 6: So yeah, but I got deeply into it and went
Speaker 6: to music school and and got a lot out of
Speaker 6: that too. So that so that's my story. Just started
Speaker 6: started late, but couldn't stop. I just I just had
Speaker 6: to do it at all times.
Speaker 1: Why did you leave Berkeley?
Speaker 6: I went Berkeley because I wanted to practice for hours
Speaker 6: a day, and they had a limited number of practice rooms.
Speaker 6: So if you wanted to practice four out of today,
Speaker 6: you had to wait about six and a half hours
Speaker 6: to do that because they kick you out. It was
Speaker 6: a good a line of sign up sheet in the
Speaker 6: line they kick you out at for two hours for
Speaker 6: you know, for good reason, I guess, because there's got
Speaker 6: a lot of people waiting. Yeah, that's right. So and
Speaker 6: also since I was late to start, I felt I
Speaker 6: needed to. I'd amassed all this information, you know, this
Speaker 6: theoretical knowledge at Berkeley, heart, take taking, harmony, et cetera,
Speaker 6: and I thought I needed some time to really really
Speaker 6: assimilate and deal with this and really ingest it. So
Speaker 6: I lived in a farmhouse outside of Willnsburg, and that
Speaker 6: was when I started my eight hours hours day regiment.
Speaker 6: I played this little cocktail piano bar and at night
Speaker 6: to make a buck and shed on this old upright,
Speaker 6: And then I went to Miami from there.
Speaker 5: Were you learning just by ear or were you reading
Speaker 5: at that time?
Speaker 6: Well, I started playing by ear because it came fairly
Speaker 6: naturally to me. I started because of two guys. My
Speaker 6: older brother went to New England prep school, and we
Speaker 6: were just local Virginia hooples who listened to the top
Speaker 6: fourtyest station in the soul station. We didn't get the
Speaker 6: underground stuff, you know, the stations where back then you
Speaker 6: could hear Miles Davis next to Hendricks, next to Joni Mitchell,
Speaker 6: you know whatever. And so so he turned me on too.
Speaker 6: I know this sounds crazy to think that this could
Speaker 6: be sort of underground, but Elton John's second record, Tumble
Speaker 6: Wee Connection, is least mostly the one record he probably
Speaker 6: almost ever made that had no hit on it. It's
Speaker 6: one of the best ones. It's a deep, beautiful record,
Speaker 6: and it got me into playing. And then he turned
Speaker 6: me onto Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen with the
Speaker 6: great Leon Russell playing piano. So Leon and Elton. Leon's
Speaker 6: a soul man. He came straight out of you guys
Speaker 6: familiar with Kojik Church of God in Christy deep deep
Speaker 6: gospel music roots. I mean, it's just the music that
Speaker 6: comes out of there. Like you hear those old Sam's cooking,
Speaker 6: the soul Stirrs records, all that stuff that Leon played,
Speaker 6: that good, good, gonna go, all that stuff. You're hearing
Speaker 6: that in the background of where Sam's cooking, the soul
Speaker 6: sterers are singing that killer gospel. That's where that came. Yeah,
Speaker 6: that's the right gospels, that's right gospel quartets. And so
Speaker 6: between Elton and Leon, I was hooked, and so I was.
Speaker 6: I was learning those by ear. But my mom, see,
Speaker 6: my grandfather was a musician for a living in Richmond,
Speaker 6: and he was the supervisor of music in the public schools,
Speaker 6: the public schools system, and then uh he uh was
Speaker 6: also the uh the theater organists at the local mosque.
Speaker 6: If you went to the State jc's convention, you he'd
Speaker 6: be the guy over in the corner playing Las Turkey
Speaker 6: in the Star some old pretty convincedrul ship. But uh so, anyway,
Speaker 6: she my mom look at me and she's thought, my
Speaker 6: hands just looked terrible. I was probably playing like this,
Speaker 6: and she said, you know what, you you may be
Speaker 6: sounded okay, but you look rough. You got to start
Speaker 6: taking lessons. And so then I started to learn to
Speaker 6: read and learn sort of the the jazz language, the
Speaker 6: two fives, et cetera, all the color tones and all that.
Speaker 6: So that my mom was good for me. And so
Speaker 6: that's how that happened.
Speaker 3: Real quick, What year were you at Berkeley and were
Speaker 3: there any other notable students that were there at the
Speaker 3: time that was in the year that you went.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, I've always heard it's a it's a badge
Speaker 6: of dishonor to actually graduate from Berkeley, because.
Speaker 1: I've heard it you only go for a little bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean you ain't getting a GigE.
Speaker 1: Yeah you don't have a gig.
Speaker 6: That means you're saying, yeah, you know, so okay. I
Speaker 6: went for summer and fall of seventy four, but I
Speaker 6: was in the accelerated program, so I crammed two years
Speaker 6: into two semesters. And let me see, anybody who was
Speaker 6: there who really emerged. Pat Metheene was there, but he
Speaker 6: had come from Miami. He had been a student at Miami,
Speaker 6: but he was so bad he became a teacher like instantly.
Speaker 6: But he was playing with Gary Burton when I was
Speaker 6: at Berkeley, and so I saw an amazing concert at
Speaker 6: the Sanders Theater in Harvard with Keith Jarrett opening on
Speaker 6: solo piano, imagine that. And then Gary Burton's great Quartet
Speaker 6: with Pat and Mick Goodrick and maybe Bob Moses. So
Speaker 6: it was a fertile scene in Boston. You know, they
Speaker 6: had the Jazz Workshop in Paul's Ball. You could go.
Speaker 6: I would go. I had enough money to go see
Speaker 6: hearsay Bill Evans or Horace Silver one of the week nights.
Speaker 6: But I would go and listen through the wall on
Speaker 6: Boylston Avenue, Boyston Street just to hear more. So it
Speaker 6: was amazing to be able to hear all these people,
Speaker 6: all these legend Cannonball Addelee Miles, on and on and on.
Speaker 2: How heavy was the competition there?
Speaker 3: Because I know, especially now, like if we're anywhere near
Speaker 3: that campus in Boston, like or at least there's the
Speaker 3: musicians I see now looking on YouTube or whatever. I
Speaker 3: feel like there's such a not a cutthrough, but a
Speaker 3: need to out floss each other into in terms of
Speaker 3: like overplay.
Speaker 6: In yeah, play everything is. I really wasn't good enough
Speaker 6: to be perfectly honest with you, I really wasn't good
Speaker 6: enough to really emerge into the scene where I was
Speaker 6: hearing the great guys. I was fairly mid level, and
Speaker 6: so I don't remember. And I also don't remember anyone
Speaker 6: emerging to have a great career.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 6: When I went to Miami, that's different. Okay. When I
Speaker 6: was at Miami, it was sort of the latter stages
Speaker 6: of the gold An era of University of Miami right
Speaker 6: when I hit. When I got there, Pat Pat had
Speaker 6: been there, Jocko had been teaching near Jocko Obastorius.
Speaker 2: Uh oh he held a job.
Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 6: Well it was a personal it was private lessons. I'm
Speaker 6: sure it was loose hair can't he can't make it
Speaker 6: today listen to you know that, that kind of thing.
Speaker 6: But the Dixie Drags, you guys, know, they those guys
Speaker 6: were Steve Morse sort of like I don't know, like
Speaker 6: virtuosic rock and roll, bluegrass or something that Steve morrise
Speaker 6: was crazy that the virtuosity level was high. Uh. But
Speaker 6: then uh, Carmen Lundy Rob Watson but known as Bobby
Speaker 6: Watson now uh and uh and and Carmen's little brother,
Speaker 6: Kurt Lundy. I played in Carmen's band. That was sort
Speaker 6: of a rite of patches. If you were emerging as
Speaker 6: one of the better players in the hierarchy of the school,
Speaker 6: you got to play Carmen Lundy's bend. You guys know Carmen, right,
Speaker 6: you guys know I. Yeah, okay, so she's had a
Speaker 6: nice career as a jazz singer. And uh yeah, Bobby Watson,
Speaker 6: Carmen pat pat Metheenie of course. Uh.
Speaker 2: And you're looking at.
Speaker 3: It more serious jazz sort of road or just you're
Speaker 3: going for whatever it took you.
Speaker 6: Well, I was just going with the inspiration. But it
Speaker 6: was pretty taell tale at that time. I would go
Speaker 6: to the record store and I'd buy an Ornet Coleman
Speaker 6: record and a Joni Mitchell record, and I'd always find
Speaker 6: myself listening to the Joni Mitchell record more. You know,
Speaker 6: I get a ROBERTA. Flack record and a Hubert Laws record,
Speaker 6: say and the flute.
Speaker 5: Player, Yeah, and so on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, it's it's fantastic and so. But I always
Speaker 6: I thought to myself, well, I think I really like
Speaker 6: this jazz music. It's a it's a great intellectual pursuit.
Speaker 6: But I think my heart was in in in songs
Speaker 6: and songs with words. And so when I got out
Speaker 6: of Miami, we put together a band up in Virginia
Speaker 6: and started down the long road. Eight years later, I
Speaker 6: got signed to our Sia Records at age thirty, So
Speaker 6: it was wow, over, let's back that.
Speaker 3: Up six years eighty two, you and you joined Ambrosia.
Speaker 6: No, but I didn't. That's a that's a fallacy on
Speaker 6: Wikipedia whatever.
Speaker 2: Oh so you had nothing to do with No.
Speaker 6: No, they were great friends of mine. Okay, I was discovered.
Speaker 6: The aforementioned band we put together in Virginia after Miami.
Speaker 6: After I graduated. We were playing around the local area,
Speaker 6: and we where we're playing bars and lounges where you're
Speaker 6: you know, you expected to play shake your booty and
Speaker 6: brick house and all that stuff. But we gradually acquired
Speaker 6: an audience who would come to these lounges to hear
Speaker 6: my songs. So we were big fans of Mike McDonald
Speaker 6: of the Doobie Brothers, and so they were coming through
Speaker 6: town and uh so we knew where they were staying
Speaker 6: because the same people that booked the big concerts at
Speaker 6: Hampton Coliseum booked our little ship ass gigs at the
Speaker 6: at the Stake and Ale. So we walked in. My
Speaker 6: drummer and I were both sort of big guys. I'm big,
Speaker 6: bony ass guy, but my drummer is a big, strong guy.
Speaker 6: And we walk in and found Mike McDonald in the lobby.
Speaker 6: We went up to him and said, hey, Mike with
Speaker 6: the baddest motherfuckers in his town and we're playing right
Speaker 6: over here and you should come here. So he says, well,
Speaker 6: I will if I can. I'm going to the movies.
Speaker 6: But so sure enough he came.
Speaker 1: Everyone could do a Mike McDonald opression.
Speaker 5: We've had him on the show. We actually had him.
Speaker 1: He was doing a depression of himself.
Speaker 6: Well he's a beautiful guy, as you know, he's just
Speaker 6: the sweetest person, so self effacing, humbled. Uh. Anyway, he
Speaker 6: came and we were just raging at it, and he
Speaker 6: invited us over to the long story short, he kind
Speaker 6: of he sort of discovered us and helped us meet
Speaker 6: some people in LA and that's what got me out
Speaker 6: to LA. About a year and a half later, a
Speaker 6: lot of us moved to California.
Speaker 7: Did you ever end up working with Michael McDonald after
Speaker 7: that on projects or anything.
Speaker 6: No, But our claim to fame was that Mike McDonald
Speaker 6: and we the Doobie Brothers were playing some PBS special
Speaker 6: and live thing and he was wearing a Bruce Hornsby
Speaker 6: band T shirt and so that was of course, that
Speaker 6: was a huge thing for us. We thought that was beautiful.
Speaker 6: We slept on his floor for ten nights, my drummer
Speaker 6: John Molo and I and at that time he was
Speaker 6: singing on everybody's record under the La Sun, and so
Speaker 6: he would take our admittedly be very mediocre demo tape
Speaker 6: around and try to turn people onto it and that,
Speaker 6: but to no evail. Again, years later I got signed.
Speaker 2: Oh but yeah, right, this is from moving to LA.
Speaker 2: What year did you move to LA?
Speaker 6: Nineteen eighty Yeah, okay, graduated seventy seven from UM and
Speaker 6: then two and a half years around the local scene
Speaker 6: from Virginia Beach to Richmond with Willnsberg in the middle,
Speaker 6: and then moved uh to LA.
Speaker 2: Well, obviously I know what prompted to move to La.
Speaker 2: Oh you know.
Speaker 6: You got we got onto this because you asked me
Speaker 6: about Ambrosia. So yes, okay. So the opening act for
Speaker 6: the Dewey Brothers and on that tour was Ambrosia. And
Speaker 6: so they came to the gig too, and we became
Speaker 6: friends with them. And when we moved we went to
Speaker 6: La later that summer we slept on some of those
Speaker 6: guys floors, and so they became friends with us. And
Speaker 6: then about eighty three eighty two, eighty three eighty four,
Speaker 6: they had made a record called Rhode Island, and it
Speaker 6: was very venturous, sort of pro rock record because a
Speaker 6: lot of everyone knows the hits make a wish baby,
Speaker 6: how much I feel yet, But really their their heart
Speaker 6: lay in in the uh, the more progressive, you know that,
Speaker 6: that kind of thing, and I liked that too. So
Speaker 6: they made a record called Rhode Island, and uh, I
Speaker 6: wasn't on it, but I wasn't doing much then, and
Speaker 6: they said, hey, why don't you come be in a video.
Speaker 6: So now I'm outing myself again.
Speaker 9: I know that I know what you're up to here,
Speaker 9: because now you're making me admit to another laughable performance
Speaker 9: on a video that is unfortunately out in the world.
Speaker 6: But you know what, do I care? I look hilarious again.
Speaker 2: So if you want to extra, I see now.
Speaker 6: I started off as a video pitiful and so that's
Speaker 6: all I did with him. I was just in that video.
Speaker 6: The Rhode Island Record didn't really do much commercially, and
Speaker 6: so they kind of broke up the band and uh
Speaker 6: but right around that time, I was starting to get
Speaker 6: my own thing going, and soon enough I finally got
Speaker 6: my chance.
Speaker 3: So what was what was pounding the pavement like in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles between nineteen eighty and eighty six when you
Speaker 3: finally got your deal? Well you have what was what
Speaker 3: was the steps of not the steps of heartbreak?
Speaker 2: But I mean, what was it like back then?
Speaker 6: Well, you'll have you'll I'll have to set the scene
Speaker 6: by remembering the pop music trend of the time. The
Speaker 6: early eighties were just chock a block with new wave music,
Speaker 6: guys in skinny ties and the kind of haircut buzz
Speaker 6: whatever they had. Groups like you had, Well I didn't have.
Speaker 6: I didn't have any of that. I looked just like
Speaker 6: some Schmendrick who you know, sold sold coffee somewhere. I mean,
Speaker 6: I I just was totally not this. The pictures of
Speaker 6: me are pretty funny. Well if I just pictures of
Speaker 6: me now are probably pretty funny too. But anyway, that
Speaker 6: so I was really I'm trying to paint the picture
Speaker 6: that I was really a fish out of water stylistically,
Speaker 6: you know, for that I was wrong for the times.
Speaker 6: But then maybe I kind of caught a wave in
Speaker 6: this way. Maybe that's why I got signed. I don't
Speaker 6: think about it much, but in eighty five the pop
Speaker 6: trends tended to were starting to move away from from
Speaker 6: this sort of brit pop new wave thing, and LA
Speaker 6: had its own new wave groups like X and the Blasters,
Speaker 6: but it started moving into more of an Americana you know,
Speaker 6: Bruce Springsteen, John Bellencamp, Tom Petty thing. So my music
Speaker 6: was sort of tangentially related to that stylistically, and so
Speaker 6: maybe that, but I was playing all this piano and
Speaker 6: so it was a little different. And I don't know.
Speaker 6: I'm proud to say the guy who signed me was
Speaker 6: the rhythm guitar player for the Zombies back in the sixties,
Speaker 6: So just the best British Man, Paul Atkinson, with that
Speaker 6: great resume, and he just and I tell this to
Speaker 6: people all the time. The least as far of sort
Speaker 6: of a cautionary tale of what not to do, The
Speaker 6: least commercial tape I ever made was the one that
Speaker 6: got me signed, and the one that was the truest
Speaker 6: to my sort of artistic heart. At the time. I'm
Speaker 6: just soloing on piano, just stuff that's not done, and
Speaker 6: Paul Atkinson basically couldn't take the tape out of his car,
Speaker 6: So you're just trying to move somebody in a deep way.
Speaker 6: And that's what this tape did. It was my sort
Speaker 6: of screw you to the mainstream record business. I thought
Speaker 6: it was going to come out in some small label
Speaker 6: like Windham Hill or something. But you Have, Okay, I
Speaker 6: get it.
Speaker 7: It's kind of interesting that Paul Atkinson signed you Have.
Speaker 7: He's from the Zombies, which was a keyboard centric band.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Rod Argent exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so he might have had a taste for that.
Speaker 6: An affinity for a keyboard or dominated pop yet. So anyway,
Speaker 6: that's what happened, and then we met our first record
Speaker 6: and it was a total fluke. The way it is
Speaker 6: was thought to be a B side. There's lots of
Speaker 6: stories like this. This is not rare. Rod Stewart's Maggie May,
Speaker 6: for instance, one of the iconics that was thought to
Speaker 6: be a B side as well.
Speaker 2: So you're saying The Way It Is was kind of
Speaker 2: an afterthought like here.
Speaker 6: Well was the title I titled the record that the record,
Speaker 6: our first record was called The Way It Is? But again,
Speaker 6: a song about racism with two, not one, but two
Speaker 6: improvised piano solos is not this formula for pop radio,
Speaker 6: you know, and so at all, But it broke on
Speaker 6: the BBC BBC Radio one broken England, then throughout Europe,
Speaker 6: then throughout the rest of the world, and then here
Speaker 6: and so I was really lucky, man, I broke on
Speaker 6: a song that, at least for me, felt like it
Speaker 6: had a little more gravitage than the standard record that
Speaker 6: you were hearing on hit radio then, and so yeah,
Speaker 6: I was God, it's a I call it a wonderful accident,
Speaker 6: a great fluke.
Speaker 3: I want to ask you before we even get to
Speaker 3: the actual crafting of the Way It Is. I just
Speaker 3: got to know, how did you avoid like eighty six
Speaker 3: would have been a very tempting year patch wise for
Speaker 3: you to fall into Yamaha d X seven itis with
Speaker 3: those like fake.
Speaker 2: Road sounds and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hated no one is such a strong piano player, Like,
Speaker 3: how did you avoid falling into that? Because literally every
Speaker 3: other hit was just peppered with the DX seven fake
Speaker 3: Rhodes bell sound?
Speaker 2: How did you avoid that?
Speaker 6: I thought it was the horror. I thought it was horrible.
Speaker 6: I was not. I just I didn't want to make
Speaker 6: that sound. And look, it's what I do. It's what
Speaker 6: I did. And so again I made this tape with
Speaker 6: no regard to that. That's why I said, it's the
Speaker 6: least commercial attempted tape that I ever that I made.
Speaker 6: And so so it was again it was it was honest,
Speaker 6: and it was maybe fresh, and so it's easy to
Speaker 6: Monday Morning Quarterback to me was just a wonderful accident.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that was a record, man, the way it is,
Speaker 8: and I don't know, you know you said it was
Speaker 8: a B side and it was kind of a thing
Speaker 8: that kind of went off. That was one of the
Speaker 8: first records I remember it kind of being marketed as
Speaker 8: like a serious song, so to speak, and just as
Speaker 8: a kid like I just remember just kind of the
Speaker 8: bookends of my elementary school education, like the way it
Speaker 8: is and we didn't start the fire. Like I remember
Speaker 8: my teacher like making us right about those songs, like
Speaker 8: oh interesting, wow, the way it is, like okay, so
Speaker 8: what do you think this is about? What do you
Speaker 8: think you know? And and and it just always resonated
Speaker 8: with me. And I think even the Mirrors one about
Speaker 8: you know, the d X seven, that kind of plastic
Speaker 8: keyboard kind of sound that was hot at the time.
Speaker 5: One of the things that always took out.
Speaker 8: To me that you were actually playing a real piano
Speaker 8: and I mean I was, I mean god, I was
Speaker 8: probably like seven eight whatever when this came. But but
Speaker 8: I remember it vividly, and that was just always one
Speaker 8: of my favorite songs.
Speaker 5: And you know, all the times it's sampled.
Speaker 8: And everything, I mean, it was just I just always
Speaker 8: thought that was just a gorgeous song.
Speaker 6: How about a fast Car like Tracy Chapman, Did you
Speaker 6: like that when that yeah fall? Yeah, of course, yeah.
Speaker 3: But do you do you think growing up in Richmond
Speaker 3: sort of prompted you to craft the song and the
Speaker 3: way that you did, because again, I mean, people really
Speaker 3: weren't especially with uh, I mean barely with with hip hop.
Speaker 3: I mean hip hop really wouldn't it wasn't starting to
Speaker 3: get in your face for real, for real until eighty
Speaker 3: seven eighty eight. Right, Yeah, So I mean to even
Speaker 3: bring up something as topical or whatnot, Do you think
Speaker 3: that's just experience experiences in Richmond, Virginia, or or like
Speaker 3: what prompted that.
Speaker 6: Well, I think it's just growing up in a small town. Yes, Williamsburg,
Speaker 6: which is fifty miles for Richmond. So I have small
Speaker 6: more of a small town feeling in Williamsburg. And look,
Speaker 6: it's just it's just based on my upbringing. I was
Speaker 6: the only white dude on the basketball team in high
Speaker 6: school and that was just the best experience for me.
Speaker 6: My old teammates are still my hanging pals in town.
Speaker 6: Here we go out and talk shit and have a
Speaker 6: laugh and get some to beat all for years now.
Speaker 6: It's just beautiful. And so I'll shout out Lawrence Jones,
Speaker 6: Keith Drewett, Peebe, Martin, Alonzo Dandridge Al Jackson. I could
Speaker 6: keep naming him. So are my guys.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: And so it was a very intense time. I came
Speaker 6: in just after integration, just after the first couple of years,
Speaker 6: but it was it was still sort of a fraud scene.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 6: It was definitely attention in the air and uh but
Speaker 6: I don't know, I embraced it. They embraced me, my teammates.
Speaker 6: My teammates embraced me, and uh and and spin ever
Speaker 6: thus so uh so I I just wrote that song
Speaker 6: based on my my upbringing in Williamsburg.
Speaker 8: I was curious to know what was it like working
Speaker 8: with Huey Lewis as a producer, Like, what was I mean?
Speaker 8: We knew him as an artist, but what was he
Speaker 8: like kind of behind the boards and in working in
Speaker 8: that capacity?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 6: He he produced three songs on the record, one of
Speaker 6: which I changed completely after the record. The original version
Speaker 6: of the record has a band version of this song,
Speaker 6: the River Runs Low. I just thought it was doing
Speaker 6: this song justice, so I stripped it all down and
Speaker 6: it made it a keyboard vocal record. Hughey is one
Speaker 6: of the great guys, and he was a big cheerleader
Speaker 6: for me, kind of like Mike McDonald had been. We
Speaker 6: were making a demo for Epic Records in eighty four
Speaker 6: and hue had sports at the time, which was just
Speaker 6: Hugh was all everything around the world, and he called
Speaker 6: up and said, Hi, this is Huey Lewis signed the Range.
Speaker 6: I was hiding behind the name of the Range. We
Speaker 6: were just the Range. Then RCA asked me to just
Speaker 6: be Bruce Hornsby. So I compromised on Bruce Hornsby and
Speaker 6: the Range. But it didn't help us. We didn't get
Speaker 6: signed by Epic. But that just shows you Hughey's real
Speaker 6: intense feeling for what I was doing. And as a producer,
Speaker 6: we just had a great time in the studio and
Speaker 6: we did a song about this old horror this old
Speaker 6: horrorhouse in the countryside in Willisburg. He called down the
Speaker 6: road tonight and he he produced, He produced that song.
Speaker 6: He should have cutted himself. He'd have had a hit
Speaker 6: with it.
Speaker 8: I think, yeah, I could imagine Hue Lewis sing about
Speaker 8: whole houses that.
Speaker 6: Better than I. Yes, I think you're right, more better suited.
Speaker 3: With with with the shock of or you know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if it shocks you to have your first
Speaker 3: single totally come out the out the box as across
Speaker 3: the board hit pressure wise, what was that like, uh
Speaker 3: to be like, how did your life change as far as.
Speaker 2: The results and you know, of having.
Speaker 3: That hit single and then suddenly being ubiquitous because it's not.
Speaker 2: Like you had a hit single. I mean, this song
Speaker 2: is you know.
Speaker 6: It's lasting. Yet when you said shock, I thought you
Speaker 6: were going to ask me about my Shaka song.
Speaker 2: Didn't get there yet, Yeah, I didn't get there yet.
Speaker 6: There every time I come to and play with you,
Speaker 6: your keyboard player, somebody in your band says, can we
Speaker 6: play love me still? So I'll get with it, which
Speaker 6: I love. Yeah, I have a good a good story
Speaker 6: about you and that song on Fallon, but that's that's
Speaker 6: about about nine years later. So obviously this is a
Speaker 6: full dose of pop stardom. That's you know, smacking me
Speaker 6: in the head. And to be honest, I was pretty
Speaker 6: bad at it, mostly because when you're when you're making,
Speaker 6: when you're having success at top forty, at least in America.
Speaker 6: Oh and absolutely in Europe. It's sometimes even sillier over
Speaker 6: there with all the lip syncing shows you have to
Speaker 6: be on. But I would yeah, exactly right, you said
Speaker 6: a Top of the Pops and the light in You're
Speaker 6: in Holland, Germany all around, so I would be saying
Speaker 6: I was being Cleveland because the record company will send
Speaker 6: me there to sit at a at a table sign autographs.
Speaker 6: So here I am, and next to me is Tiffany,
Speaker 6: and next to me is Debbie Gibson on the other side,
Speaker 6: and then there's new kids kids on the block, and
Speaker 6: I'm going, man, what's wrong with this picture? It's me?
Speaker 6: And so it just didn't fit. I just I didn't
Speaker 6: know how to handle it. I should have just taken
Speaker 6: the piss out of it, as the Brits would say,
Speaker 6: and just made it into a big joke. But then
Speaker 6: people that have got mad at me, and I'd be
Speaker 6: drawing stupid things signing different names. I started.
Speaker 2: I just did that everyone.
Speaker 6: Well, I did that for a little while, but I
Speaker 6: got tired of suffering the slings and arrows of just
Speaker 6: gruntled fans who would go, oh, come on, man, take
Speaker 6: it seriously, we really like you, you know, And so
Speaker 6: then you go, you know what, I'm the dick here,
Speaker 6: and so sorry, you're right, you're right. But but basically
Speaker 6: it was I was not a good fit for that thing.
Speaker 6: And so the second record we made was very much
Speaker 6: of a piece with the first record. Stylistically, I wanted
Speaker 6: to cement this sound, which was basically a Linn drum machine, piano,
Speaker 6: an OBX or juno pad boom, vocals boom, and so
Speaker 6: I did this again for that reason, and then I
Speaker 6: instantly started getting letters from fans, well how dare you change?
Speaker 6: And I thought to myself, well, you know what, motherfucker,
Speaker 6: you haven't seen anything yet, you know, you just just wait.
Speaker 6: And so then I started taking it out and my
Speaker 6: third record, I had Wayne Shorter on the record and
Speaker 6: Bayla Fleck and Oh Charlie Hayden Nig say wow, way
Speaker 6: to go. Uh, And so then the letters really started coming. Uh.
Speaker 6: But I so I just never looked back because I
Speaker 6: never I never trusted hit radio anyway. I knew it
Speaker 6: was sort of ephemeral and not going to be around
Speaker 6: for me. Because I U again they hit off. The
Speaker 6: second record was the song this aforementioned song.
Speaker 2: Valley Road.
Speaker 6: I'm really blowing. I'm playing like McCoy tyne or chordal
Speaker 6: harmony in the left hand seven. I got the come,
Speaker 6: you know, just emphatic, demonstrative stuff and it's on the radio.
Speaker 6: My my musician friends could not believe what I was
Speaker 6: getting away with. And I didn't get away with it
Speaker 6: for long, just those two times and kind and then
Speaker 6: that was it.
Speaker 3: It's kind of weird for me because all right, so
Speaker 3: I'm slightly older than Fante, so like in my mind though,
Speaker 3: I think even to this day, if I asked myself,
Speaker 3: I still consider Henley's end of the Innocent mm hmm
Speaker 3: kind of like your fourth single.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well it's filing Drummon that you know all over again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I still feel like it's it's I never
Speaker 3: consider that a Don Henley song, Like to me, that's.
Speaker 2: Like your song and it's your and you're not your DNA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yet I don't want to sound like a suit
Speaker 3: like the suit byd the an R guy.
Speaker 2: But you know, you could have.
Speaker 3: You could have just served them up, like you could
Speaker 3: have served at least nineteen of them like hotcakes.
Speaker 2: Like why did you? I okay breaks on it, like.
Speaker 6: Well, you asked me if I felt pressure to come
Speaker 6: up with hits or something like that us and I
Speaker 6: didn't really answer it. But I can do it now
Speaker 6: because I had this big hit with a song that
Speaker 6: no one thought was anything. I really felt that no
Speaker 6: one at the record company felt they knew what a
Speaker 6: Bruce Hornsby hit was supposed to sound like. So I
Speaker 6: took that as total license to be free and and
Speaker 6: and write songs about interracial romances and the girl who
Speaker 6: got pregnant, on and on, so so, and then I
Speaker 6: never got pressured from RCA. They were really good to me.
Speaker 6: I think I was helped by the fact that the
Speaker 6: record company was really struggling and I was the only
Speaker 6: artist that at the time did much for them, so
Speaker 6: they pretty much left me alone and I ran with
Speaker 6: that like crazy. Pat mcfeeney started playing on my records.
Speaker 6: That was really special because he was He played so
Speaker 6: amazingly on my fourth and fifth records, Harbor Lights and
Speaker 6: Hothouse Man. He just turned it out. It was so beautiful.
Speaker 6: Branford played on those just great. So by then the
Speaker 6: record company has just thrown up their hands. Look, I
Speaker 6: was trying to sort of be a purist about it
Speaker 6: and and just follow my musical instinct and and the
Speaker 6: recipe damn and aggress was kind of damn for me.
Speaker 6: I stopped up having hits.
Speaker 3: But it was okay back in the eighties when the
Speaker 3: myth of winning the best New Artists was an actual
Speaker 3: that's the cursing. Yeah, yes, right, So how did you
Speaker 3: feel when your name was called?
Speaker 6: I frankly was so clueless at the time that I
Speaker 6: didn't start hearing about that curse until after we'd won it.
Speaker 6: And so, so how did I feel? I've thought, that's, well,
Speaker 6: this is great, but you know, I'm a three time winner,
Speaker 6: but I'm a ten time loser. Just so you just
Speaker 6: set the record straight. It's pretty it's a pretty sorry
Speaker 6: batting average three for thirteen. But yeah, how did I feel?
Speaker 6: I didn't know about it. When I've heard about it later,
Speaker 6: I thought, well, whatever happens, I'm certainly it seems to
Speaker 6: me looking back on my career that I had this success,
Speaker 6: and then I've been trying to rid myself of that
Speaker 6: audience ever since, because.
Speaker 3: I'll ask this question then, is your best new artist?
Speaker 3: Is it on the mantel piece or is it a doorstopper.
Speaker 6: It's neither. It's it's down the bottom shelf of a
Speaker 6: little little case. That how his old scrap books and
Speaker 6: the three Grammys, you know, they they grew with the
Speaker 6: through the years. You know. My second win was the
Speaker 6: Best Bluegrass Record, and the third win was with Branford
Speaker 6: the song we did for the Olympics Barcelona Mona back then,
Speaker 6: and uh, I think people just voted for us because
Speaker 6: Kenny g had won for one hundred years and they
Speaker 6: wanted somebody.
Speaker 5: Else to.
Speaker 1: Wow Bruce Horse problems.
Speaker 2: I love it exactly, exactly, not a problem.
Speaker 3: Just you just go about working also with uh with
Speaker 3: Bonnie Ray as well, because that's your.
Speaker 6: Yeah. Look, she's my big sister in music. Uh we
Speaker 6: we became tight. She was a big fan of my
Speaker 6: early records and subsequent records. Uh and uh so she
Speaker 6: I would see her at parties in l A. After
Speaker 6: I had hits. Of course, I'm invited to these slickster parties,
Speaker 6: which was Yeah, it was fun. She's a lovely person.
Speaker 6: She sent me a fan letter one time and it
Speaker 6: was so sweet. So I'm all for Debbie Gibson. She's
Speaker 6: a talented person too, so that's fantastic. Yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 6: Bonnie asked me to play on her record her I
Speaker 6: guess it was second record she made with Don was
Speaker 6: and uh producing, and all of a sudden, I for
Speaker 6: a little little time there, I was sort of Don
Speaker 6: was his boy. I played on a Segur record, and
Speaker 6: a Bob Dylan record and a Bondie Rate record all
Speaker 6: in all winter just a few months period when I
Speaker 6: was still living in LA My latter days in l A.
Speaker 6: But that record was just one of those Kis moments.
Speaker 6: You had this fantastic song, and I give Don credit
Speaker 6: because he didn't dress it up a lot. We cut
Speaker 6: the track just a trio. I was playing some little
Speaker 6: key board rosied not the ex seven, mind you, but
Speaker 6: something some sort of rosy sound, and then the heavy
Speaker 6: well yeah, then they have you have you over dubbed
Speaker 6: the piano And he told me later he kept trying
Speaker 6: to dress it up, maybe strings, I don't know, maybe
Speaker 6: a little hornted, And finally he just he realized he
Speaker 6: took all the faders down in the mix and just
Speaker 6: put on those original four elements drums, bass, election, piano, acusi, piano,
Speaker 6: and vocal and it just resonated. So it was very
Speaker 6: We might have cut two or three tracks so fast.
Speaker 6: And look, I consider that to be Bonnie's iconic hit
Speaker 6: record and one that will be around forever. So look,
Speaker 6: how could I not be proud of being a part
Speaker 6: of that. It was just and and she's the greatest anyway,
Speaker 6: she's She's sent me some crazy lewd uh Twitter thing today,
Speaker 6: you know, so we're she's She's a hilarious great just
Speaker 6: beautiful woman.
Speaker 8: Do you think there was something with you guys kind
Speaker 8: of understand each other because or I guess kind of
Speaker 8: the creative kinship that you guys had, because Bonnie was
Speaker 8: also someone that didn't really hit pay dirt in her
Speaker 8: career until much later, you know.
Speaker 6: Even later than me.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 8: Do you think that kind of played a role with
Speaker 8: you guys understand each other?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it could. I think basically we have similar musical
Speaker 6: interests and she's one of the great singers, one of
Speaker 6: the great soulful singers, and I like soul music. I'm
Speaker 6: not one of the great soul singers, but I love
Speaker 6: it and so so look, I think we just connect personally.
Speaker 6: She likes to have a laugh and I do too,
Speaker 6: but not anyway, It's just like I said, she's my
Speaker 6: big sister that says it all to me.
Speaker 4: Bruce, How does how does your mindset change when you're
Speaker 4: going from like side manning Bonnie Ray to like playing
Speaker 4: your own shit? Or is it just the same approach,
Speaker 4: because like, I can't make you love me. It's like
Speaker 4: a fairly simple harmonic situation. At the end of the
Speaker 4: I change, I changed.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you get that song, so I almost feel
Speaker 3: like you produced it even though you did.
Speaker 4: I'd love to hear it before you sat down to
Speaker 4: play it, but I heard. I'm sure that's a whole
Speaker 4: other situation.
Speaker 6: But the cords were more standard. You know, I'm a
Speaker 6: Bill Evans fanatic. You know, I love all that. I
Speaker 6: love that French impressionism, harmony, ravel whatever, and uh so
Speaker 6: I'm always interested in maybe finding a place for that
Speaker 6: I called I had to find a fine figure out
Speaker 6: a fascial way to describe my style because people are
Speaker 6: always asking me. They always say, well, we can always
Speaker 6: tell it's you, and why do you think that is?
Speaker 6: And I say, well, I think it's a sort of
Speaker 6: a harmonic aesthetic a way of playing chords. And I
Speaker 6: call it Bill Evans. Me's the hymn Book because I
Speaker 6: love the uh the movement in the left hand of
Speaker 6: him of him music, church music. But then I love
Speaker 6: those beautiful sexy chords Bill Evans play too, so uh
Speaker 6: uh so, I don't know that's I don't know if
Speaker 6: I answered your question.
Speaker 8: That makes total sense, because even when I hear something you,
Speaker 8: you play something like I really love your take on
Speaker 8: Nola's thing for she's got to have it. And just
Speaker 8: the way you play it, it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 8: it is. It's gorgeous.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 6: So I love it sounds like hearing you say that,
Speaker 6: because yeah, right, you know that's my thing. If you're
Speaker 6: gonna do that, do a cover. And in that case,
Speaker 6: Spike's Dad's great original theme, Bill Lee, and I wanted to,
Speaker 6: you know, make it my own. That's what. Why why
Speaker 6: do a cover if you're not going to try to
Speaker 6: spin it and do it and not replicate what's come before.
Speaker 6: What what's the point of that? So yeah, thanks man.
Speaker 6: I was proud of that, and I did it pretty fast.
Speaker 6: I gave him three takes and and Spike used the
Speaker 6: right one to me, he's the one I liked the most.
Speaker 6: And so yeah, that's good. That's but we've seen since
Speaker 6: we seem to be going chronologically. Then we can go
Speaker 6: back to to ninety five where we were talking about Patpathenias.
Speaker 2: There wait, just one more thing, one important part you missed. Okay,
Speaker 2: you just banded the group. Everyone went to the Grateful Dead.
Speaker 2: So how how was that?
Speaker 3: Like, Hey, guys, I'm going over here, you guys take
Speaker 3: care of Like what was the.
Speaker 6: Well it wasn't exactly like that. I joined the Dead
Speaker 6: in nineteen ninety and the Range was split apart in
Speaker 6: ninety two, but so probably by joining the Dead played
Speaker 6: a part in that. But mostly I wanted to move
Speaker 6: on the first record without that band. And I always
Speaker 6: loved it when people would say, oh, I just missed
Speaker 6: the old band sound, and I would say to myself, well,
Speaker 6: what you're referring to as the old band sound is
Speaker 6: me playing along with the drum machine and with the
Speaker 6: bass virtual one man show all those hits that say
Speaker 6: the Range, I mean, the band was great and just
Speaker 6: like I've said before, the Range live we beat the
Speaker 6: dog shit out of those records, you know, just on
Speaker 6: an impact and intensity and groove level. The guys were great, Molo,
Speaker 6: Joe Puerta, George Marinelli, on and on, Pete Harris, David Mansfield.
Speaker 6: So so they wasn't disbanded, but okay, So I we
Speaker 6: got asked to open for the Dead in nineteen eighty
Speaker 6: seven out of the blue. And as I said before,
Speaker 6: my older brother was a big deadhead and all his
Speaker 6: hippie friends up up in University of Virginia. They used
Speaker 6: to drop acid paint their faces and go play innermural volleyball.
Speaker 1: A it sounds like high school life was easier than
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 6: They just exalted if they ever just hit the ball,
Speaker 6: made contact, you know. So so I I had my
Speaker 6: training with them, so I knew a lot of dead music,
Speaker 6: and so we played a dead song, well, an old
Speaker 6: traditional song in the dead manner called I Know You
Speaker 6: Ryderer in our gigs. I don't know, maybe they heard
Speaker 6: about that, or they were just fans of the first record,
Speaker 6: and we got a call to open for them in Monterey, California.
Speaker 6: So we did that twice two days in eighty seven,
Speaker 6: eighty eight. They asked us again eighty nine, some more,
Speaker 6: some more. Every year they'd asked us to play a
Speaker 6: couple of times, and then, sadly, their keyboard player, Brent Midland,
Speaker 6: died of an overdose in the summer of nineteen ninety,
Speaker 6: right after we'd played with them. And it was so
Speaker 6: strange because it was this growing relationship Garcia had had
Speaker 6: before that played on our third record, played fantastically on
Speaker 6: two songs and I'm in I'm Seattle, And at seven
Speaker 6: eight in the morning, I just heard it Garcia that
Speaker 6: Brent died in the middle of the night. I'm walking
Speaker 6: down the street and some young guy comes up to
Speaker 6: me and says, hey, Bruce, You're going to join the Dead.
Speaker 6: It was so wild. I mean, the rumor mill was
Speaker 6: our aready out that I was going to replace, and
Speaker 6: I told them so, Yes. Sure enough, they came out
Speaker 6: to a gig that we did in Conford, California, just
Speaker 6: a few days after this and asked me to join.
Speaker 6: Garcia and Phil Lesh came out and I said, look, guys,
Speaker 6: if you'd have caught me four years ago, before I
Speaker 6: had this thing going on, I would have said yes
Speaker 6: and lived happily ever after as your keyboard player. But
Speaker 6: I've got this thing going on pretty solidly now. But
Speaker 6: I will help you if you need me to. So
Speaker 6: they asked me to help them through the adjustment period.
Speaker 6: Their new keyboard player, Vince well Nick, who didn't have
Speaker 6: a long history with the music, he learned it pretty quickly.
Speaker 6: He grocked it fairly rapidly. And so I played with
Speaker 6: them for about two years, twenty months, about one hundred shows,
Speaker 6: and I wouldn't trade that. I wouldn't trade that time
Speaker 6: with them for anything.
Speaker 2: It was And how happy was the RCA with you?
Speaker 2: Doing this.
Speaker 6: Look, as I said before, these these execs were really
Speaker 6: nice that they allowed me major latitude, major leeway. You know,
Speaker 6: they gave me long rope with which to hang myself
Speaker 6: on a career level, you know. But again, it wasn't
Speaker 6: about career. I wasn't trying to build this. I was
Speaker 6: just trying to to be moved by music and and
Speaker 6: just it just sounded like great fun, and it really was.
Speaker 6: I mean, where else can you play one song for
Speaker 6: an hour?
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, what was the longest What was
Speaker 3: the longest show you did?
Speaker 6: Longest show is probably four four and a half hours,
Speaker 6: But there's an asterisk asterisk there because there's some long
Speaker 6: ass breaks. You know, maybe maybe you take an hour
Speaker 6: between the first set and the second set. Sometimes it
Speaker 6: was very loose. I couldn't believe it. They have the
Speaker 6: most amazing audience anywhere, you know this twenty fifteen fairly
Speaker 6: well concerts they could have played. They had a million
Speaker 6: over a million tickets. Almost yeah, okay, you say.
Speaker 2: I almost went.
Speaker 3: I had a gig that night, the one in Champa,
Speaker 3: Rzisco I wanted to go to. I'll say, during this
Speaker 3: Corona break, there's some video out I think Lee Oscar
Speaker 3: of War sitting in with them, and also uh Slilent
Speaker 3: Family Stones drummer Greg Rico, you know all like I'm
Speaker 3: a studio musician junkie, So I didn't realize how many
Speaker 3: like luminaries that they pull into the fold and and
Speaker 3: how they adept you know, and then how they just
Speaker 3: just instantly yet right.
Speaker 6: In Ornett sat in with them a few times and
Speaker 6: which was always amazing.
Speaker 2: So opening for the Dead is it?
Speaker 3: Is it a little bit different than like, have you
Speaker 3: ever met an audience that you didn't vibe with right away?
Speaker 2: Or like opening for the Dead how was that?
Speaker 6: Well, it could be rough because the Deadheads can be
Speaker 6: fairly biopic, fairly tunnel vision, you know. They they're really
Speaker 6: not there to hear you, and so so.
Speaker 2: You a jammy version of the.
Speaker 6: Sure but we were kind of doing that anyway. But
Speaker 6: so yeah, it was tough. It was really tough. When
Speaker 6: I would we probably opened for them eight times or
Speaker 6: so eight nine times, and probably only twice did we
Speaker 6: ever really garner a crowd and have them really be
Speaker 6: interested in what they were doing and when So when
Speaker 6: I started playing in the band, I made it. I
Speaker 6: was a self appointed sort of psychologist to these poor
Speaker 6: opening acts who would go out there and just be
Speaker 6: roundly ignored. You know. Dwight Yoakum came out there and
Speaker 6: he's playing away and man, I mean he's a beautiful guy.
Speaker 6: I just said to him. Then I feel you. I've
Speaker 6: been there, you know, so it can be real tough. Now,
Speaker 6: some acts like Traffic, Steve Winwood or Dylan with or
Speaker 6: Little Feet. You know, the Dead fans just really embrace
Speaker 6: certain groups, maybe some reggae groups. If Ziggy Marley was playing,
Speaker 6: they probably loved that sort of related musical styles.
Speaker 7: I guess since we're on the Dead and that they
Speaker 7: asked you to join did And I'm not trying to
Speaker 7: be funny, morbid or disrespectful here, but the three previous
Speaker 7: keyboard and pan players had the keyboard died.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I don't know if you did that cross
Speaker 5: your mind.
Speaker 2: Like, uh no, slowly no.
Speaker 6: I left the Dead because I came home in the
Speaker 6: middle of a where there's spring tours. They'd have the spring,
Speaker 6: the summer, and the fall tours around the US. I
Speaker 6: came home in the middle of the March tour in
Speaker 6: ninety two. I just my wife and I had just
Speaker 6: had our twin sons, Russell and Keith, named for Keith
Speaker 6: Jarrett and Leon Russell, and so uh, I came home
Speaker 6: and they didn't know me, and and I went, you
Speaker 6: know what, I don't like this. I need I need
Speaker 6: to get off the freaking road at least most of
Speaker 6: the time for a while anyway. So that's when I
Speaker 6: went back to finish the tour and I said, hey, guys,
Speaker 6: and vince Vin's really had the gig solid. He was
Speaker 6: doing a great job by then. He was doing solid
Speaker 6: the whole time, but he really seemed to be getting
Speaker 6: in the groove with it and so knowledgeable about the music.
Speaker 6: So so that was my my swan song. Although I
Speaker 6: would sit in with them when they were geographically close
Speaker 6: to me, when he was really struggling in his last year,
Speaker 6: they would actually call me up and say, hey, we're
Speaker 6: in Charlotte, would you would you come down here? Will
Speaker 6: fly you down here to play because he was having
Speaker 6: such a hard time it was. It was so listless
Speaker 6: on stage, so low energy, and they thought I could
Speaker 6: maybe prod and give a little cattle prod and get
Speaker 6: him going. So I did that in in Charlotte and
Speaker 6: then in uh at RFK Stadium two nights in DC,
Speaker 6: and then a month and a half month five weeks later,
Speaker 6: he was gone.
Speaker 5: Damn yeah.
Speaker 8: I kind of had like a kind of a two
Speaker 8: part question along along those lines of just your family
Speaker 8: and your you know, your kids and everything.
Speaker 5: At this point of your career.
Speaker 8: When we first got on the show, you were saying,
Speaker 8: you know you're in the studio working on something, do
Speaker 8: you think of yourself more primarily as a player or
Speaker 8: a singer or producer, and like kind of what is
Speaker 8: the hierarchy you know when you sit down to create?
Speaker 6: Well, well, I said, down to create, it's all about
Speaker 6: the song. So it's all about being a songwriter.
Speaker 5: As the songwriter first.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and what frankly, my last two records that are
Speaker 6: receiving such great I don't know, sort of acclaim around
Speaker 6: the world. It's amazing. It's some of the more adventurous,
Speaker 6: strange music I've ever made. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: I'm being embraced by all these these vaunted venues I've
Speaker 6: been taking. I've been writing music to some Spike Lee
Speaker 6: cues and because I thought through the years Spike hired me,
Speaker 6: I'd always do a little bit if build things for
Speaker 6: him here in there in.
Speaker 5: Fact, no Man, shadow Lands. I love that song.
Speaker 6: Well, I was just going to say, because question love
Speaker 6: you your first acting gig was bamboozled.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, and Oscar worthy of performance?
Speaker 6: Is that your Sheena Easton moment?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not. No, it isn't because you know, I
Speaker 2: knew that it was a sattire. It was just, yeah,
Speaker 2: the way that Spike often does these these social experiments.
Speaker 2: So I'll say.
Speaker 3: That the only part that was like hard to do
Speaker 3: about that movie was the fact that he purposely would
Speaker 3: put our trailer.
Speaker 2: Five blocks, five city blocks away from where we were shooting.
Speaker 3: Why because he wanted us He at the end, I
Speaker 3: was like, you you did a school Days on us.
Speaker 5: You purposely he wanted you to feel the shame of.
Speaker 3: Wanted us to walk through the streets in New York
Speaker 3: can it closed and in black faith?
Speaker 2: Like five blocks wow? Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it was yeah, like we knew it that this
Speaker 3: was and you know, at the time in two thousand,
Speaker 3: I was like, yo, you know, you don't think that's
Speaker 3: going to get it. Now it's like we're past it,
Speaker 3: Like you know, it's more like a documentary than.
Speaker 5: It's like it's like idiocracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, it is.
Speaker 6: It is so Yeah, well that sounds cold, but it
Speaker 6: sounds like it has a real purpose. And what he
Speaker 6: made y'all do.
Speaker 2: Total No, it had an absolute purpose in doing it.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Yeah, so what was it? How did
Speaker 2: you do? Was this your or you did clock us first? Correct?
Speaker 6: Okay, my my Spike, I guess the resume goes like this.
Speaker 6: We made this video. Uh, we brand for it in
Speaker 6: New York City. I trove in New York cap Then
Speaker 6: in ninety five he called Massy if I would to
Speaker 6: write an en title song for his great movie Clockers.
Speaker 6: I think it's one of his great ones. And uh,
Speaker 6: you have so many And I just had. Shaka Khan
Speaker 6: had called me right around the same time and said
Speaker 6: he said, hey, would you write a song with me?
Speaker 6: And I said, yes, come to Virginia because I heard Shaka. Look,
Speaker 6: I love her to death, but I heard she was
Speaker 6: famous for making a meeting at noon and showing up
Speaker 6: many hours late. Yes, so I thought to myself, well,
Speaker 6: if I'm going to wait on her, I'm gonna wait
Speaker 6: in my house. So she came and we had the
Speaker 6: best time. We wrote this. The song love Me Still.
Speaker 6: And then Spike, right around the time we were writing it,
Speaker 6: he calls me and said, hey, uh, I'd like I'd
Speaker 6: like an entitle I need an entitle song. What do
Speaker 6: you got? I said, well, Shock and I are writing
Speaker 6: a song and we'll get and said, okay, well I
Speaker 6: claim it. And so that's as simple as that.
Speaker 5: Without even having heard the song, he was just like that, Well.
Speaker 6: I guess, I claimed first write a refusal.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, okay, you know, I guess.
Speaker 3: So wait, were you initially trying to put that on
Speaker 3: her on another album of hers?
Speaker 6: Or it was just we're just writing a song. It
Speaker 6: was it was for her though, it was for it
Speaker 6: was she she was writing the words, she was going
Speaker 6: to sing it. Uh so, and she's done it. Great,
Speaker 6: She's on her greatest hits record. And then six years
Speaker 6: later he asked me again for Bamboozled, and this time
Speaker 6: though he wanted it to be specific to the script
Speaker 6: to the story. I guess it's Damon Wayan's character, right,
Speaker 6: and so I basically wrote it from his point of view,
Speaker 6: and and look, so that that ended up being the
Speaker 6: entitled song for that and then years so he kept
Speaker 6: asking for little Little bits and pieces for Boobies. But
Speaker 6: then in two thousand and eight he called me and said, hey, uh,
Speaker 6: I want you to score I'm doing I'm doing this
Speaker 6: documentary ESPN documentary on the late Great Kobe Bryant. It's
Speaker 6: called Kobe Doing Work, and I'd like you to score.
Speaker 6: So I think this was my audition. So that was
Speaker 6: my first one, and that was two thousand and eight,
Speaker 6: came out and nine, I believe, and then all the
Speaker 6: way up through last year with that She's Got to
Speaker 6: Have It Part two, the second season, I did a
Speaker 6: bunch of stuff, probably six or seven full scores and
Speaker 6: some little incidental music. So in that time eleven years,
Speaker 6: I wrote probably almost two hundred and forty different pieces
Speaker 6: of music. And now and then I would think, Man,
Speaker 6: this song, this piece, this instrumental cue, it sounds like
Speaker 6: it needs to be expanded into a song. So I
Speaker 6: started doing that three years ago, and I started giving
Speaker 6: myself chills while doing this because the cues themselves were
Speaker 6: very vibe. He's cinematic, and that became my record absolute zero.
Speaker 6: And then I can't follow it up with you know,
Speaker 6: just last week came out Non Secure Connection, also chock
Speaker 6: full of score of music that became songs. Yeah, Scott's Fighters. Yeah.
Speaker 8: And do you you know when you talk about your
Speaker 8: songwriting process, I was scared to know. Do you think
Speaker 8: of yourself as a singer or is it just kind
Speaker 8: of your voice is just the I guess, the vehicle
Speaker 8: to kind of get it out. Like if someone came
Speaker 8: to you and was like, yo, I have a song
Speaker 8: I wrote for you.
Speaker 5: Is that something that you have explored.
Speaker 6: For oh, people writing songs for me to do?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, specifically as a saying yeah, no.
Speaker 6: I don't people excuse me, don't do that much. But
Speaker 6: I had that. Look, if there was ever a book
Speaker 6: written about me, you should be called slow learner. And
Speaker 6: I feel like as a vocalist, what I do now
Speaker 6: is far, far exceeds what I did then, just on
Speaker 6: a soulful level and expressive level. And so so yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm just deep. People ask me, well, do you have
Speaker 6: any interest in doing this and scoring films blah blah
Speaker 6: blah and or doing this and that I say, Look,
Speaker 6: I'm just really trying to do what I do better
Speaker 6: and better. And I also tell them that I'm like
Speaker 6: Tom Hagen and the Godfather, who has one client as
Speaker 6: a lawyer Don Corleoni. I'm as a film composer, I'm
Speaker 6: the same. I have one client, Spike Lee. I'm not
Speaker 6: interested in doing this for other people. We have a
Speaker 6: special relationship.
Speaker 5: And so that's now y'all have a synergy. Man, it
Speaker 5: definitely is.
Speaker 8: It's just you know, when you were just describing your
Speaker 8: your style kind of like the Bill.
Speaker 5: Evans meets the him kind of thing.
Speaker 6: Yes, it fits his.
Speaker 8: I mean it fits the tone of his movies, like
Speaker 8: the thing you guys have.
Speaker 5: It works, man.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, he just likes what I do. He called
Speaker 6: me up last week about something, uh and said, look,
Speaker 6: it just I'm gonna keep calling you because I like
Speaker 6: what you do. So so that's not I love him.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what. I'll tell you one great Spike story.
Speaker 6: Speaking of the Bill Lee the uh, the uh. We
Speaker 6: were recording that with Leslie Odom Junior singing from Hamilton, Hamilton,
Speaker 6: and he's he's he was in Harriet Tubman lately. He's
Speaker 6: had a great post Hamilton career. Anyway, were doing recording
Speaker 6: in Brooklyn, recording Leslie and with a great jazz group
Speaker 6: backing us up. And so I said, hey, Spike, I
Speaker 6: need a ride to my hotel. Somewhere in middle middle
Speaker 6: of the session, said you have no problem, we'll get it.
Speaker 6: So the session ends and he says, hey, let's it's
Speaker 6: a nice day. Let's just walk to your hotel. So
Speaker 6: we go out in the street, just the two of us,
Speaker 6: and man, it was like walking with I don't know,
Speaker 6: I mean, well, I just I was just I just
Speaker 6: loved it. People are hanging out of cars, hanging out
Speaker 6: of an apartment. Go spy, go spy, and he was. I
Speaker 6: said to him, is it always like this? Yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 6: But then later on, you know, Spike, Spike, Spike, and
Speaker 6: he looks at me said, well, maybe today is a
Speaker 6: little more intense than you but it was. We had
Speaker 6: the best time. It was a beautiful November afternoon in Brooklyn,
Speaker 6: and we just walked and walked and walked. And it's
Speaker 6: one of my great Spike Lee mothers is walking with
Speaker 6: him while he's just getting the love from you know,
Speaker 6: he was just getting his king Brooklyn, exactly right. It's
Speaker 6: just fantastic.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you, so with where we are
Speaker 3: now today in Corona and the world slowed down. I
Speaker 3: know for a lot of musicians, this is the time
Speaker 3: period in which the portals of a lot of ideas
Speaker 3: are opening up. And you know, again you've done blue
Speaker 3: grass work with Ricky Skaggs and you know, jazz working
Speaker 3: all the other things. Like what have you what have
Speaker 3: you been trying to cook up as of late? Like
Speaker 3: how have you how have you spent the last well
Speaker 3: as of this recording six seven months?
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, in early mid March when the quarantine shut
Speaker 6: down era began, obviously, like everyone else, I wasn't going
Speaker 6: to go anywhere. But I have this great facility, this
Speaker 6: great studio, So I just decided, Okay, well I'm going
Speaker 6: to try to take the deep dive and try to
Speaker 6: really take it to another level. So I wrote six
Speaker 6: songs in six weeks from mid March to the end
Speaker 6: of April. Then I had to go do a few
Speaker 6: other things, some music for other records, et cetera. But
Speaker 6: and I've learned how to play these the songs off
Speaker 6: this current new record, because now we're in the remote
Speaker 6: era and so you have to perform in your house,
Speaker 6: and so I did that. And I was just in
Speaker 6: La last week working with Tony Burr, who says, hi
Speaker 6: to you questlove. Tony Berg has a studio in Brentwood
Speaker 6: on Kentter and he said, you worked there with a
Speaker 6: woman named Susan Rogers and engineer.
Speaker 2: Okay, wow, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: That's right. So he says, hello, Tony Brook's a great,
Speaker 6: great producer. He produces, It produced Fiona Apples of her
Speaker 6: great records. He produces young girl Phoebe Bridges, who's sort
Speaker 6: of all the rage in that world, very very strong.
Speaker 6: So that's what I've been doing, just uh, just working
Speaker 6: on new stuff. And that's I'm lucky, just like I
Speaker 6: guess all of us. We get to do what we
Speaker 6: love to do for a living. And so I'm just
Speaker 6: continuing to try to be creative at this point in
Speaker 6: my career. Sometimes I'm trying to make a sound that
Speaker 6: I've never heard before. So it takes me far afield
Speaker 6: into again dough decophonic stylings.
Speaker 2: Wow, there you were coming.
Speaker 5: So you were coming up? Where your kids?
Speaker 8: Like were they aware that you know their dad was
Speaker 8: Bruce Hornsby? Like how did you navigate being a musician
Speaker 8: and a parent?
Speaker 6: And I think I think they gradually it Just as
Speaker 6: you grew up as a kid, you you sort of
Speaker 6: gradually become awake. You know, you wake up every year
Speaker 6: a little bit more. And so they they knew about it.
Speaker 6: Say when they were seven or eight, where they see,
Speaker 6: we did a tour. And when they were six, Bonnie
Speaker 6: Ray Jackson, Brown, Shawn Colvin and I and David Linley
Speaker 6: did a tour. The boys came around on this tour
Speaker 6: and you know they're red Rocks and seeing a big
Speaker 6: crowd of nine thousand going crazy for their grizzled old
Speaker 6: cood of a dad. And so anyway, that's they've enjoined it.
Speaker 6: My boys are fans of what I do, and so
Speaker 6: that's really really nice, really good.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, before we let you go, I do have
Speaker 2: one question.
Speaker 3: So obviously you got a long, long mileage out of
Speaker 3: the way it is via Tupac, But did you ever
Speaker 3: foresee or think that there will be a time in which,
Speaker 3: even twenty years after Tupac, that the way it is
Speaker 3: would come back again?
Speaker 2: Another Polo G.
Speaker 6: Polo G wishing for a hero man, Yeah, wishing for
Speaker 6: a hero. So I love it. I really love what
Speaker 6: Polog did. We got uh out of the blue and
Speaker 6: maybe February of this year we got reached out to
Speaker 6: by his people saying, Polog you would like to fly
Speaker 6: to Virginia to ask your permission. I said, well, just
Speaker 6: send me the thing. And I heard it. I went, man,
Speaker 6: save your dat's wells.
Speaker 2: Input. Person waits, that's really a thing.
Speaker 6: Well it was. It wasn't this case. It wasn't this case.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: So I said, hey, save your time money. I love
Speaker 6: what you did. It's called wishing for a hero and
Speaker 6: uh and yes we may work together at some point. Yeah,
Speaker 6: the odd couple kind of like Spike and Bruce another
Speaker 6: it works, it works well. Look, I just uh, I
Speaker 6: love what. I love what Tupac did. It's a positive
Speaker 6: message and same with Polo g. The the video is beautiful.
Speaker 6: This record has this great gospel choir coming in in
Speaker 6: sort of halfway through and taking you home when it's
Speaker 6: I love it. So I'm I'm proud and grateful to
Speaker 6: these great young artists for their interest in my music,
Speaker 6: at least that song.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I always wondered if that myth is really real?
Speaker 3: Like on television and movies, you always hear this thing
Speaker 3: about like it just takes one song to change your life.
Speaker 2: And then I.
Speaker 3: Think Carl Douglas, creator of what is now the Unplayable
Speaker 3: Kung fu Fight Fighting Once Fantasy said that you know,
Speaker 3: just that one song can you know, can change your
Speaker 3: life and you don't have to work.
Speaker 2: Another day again, Like you got this one song to
Speaker 2: fall back on.
Speaker 6: But maybe I'm gonna try to get to those cats
Speaker 6: as fast as lightning. Maybe I'm gonna try to get
Speaker 6: the lyrics.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry I tought you off what you say, man.
Speaker 3: I mean I also know that you're not in the
Speaker 3: game just to monetarily, you know, kick off of you know,
Speaker 3: burn hunundred dollar bills with the cigar or burned cigars
Speaker 3: with the one hundred dollar bills.
Speaker 5: So you see that, I'll go to the whole house
Speaker 5: with Huey Lewis. That's there.
Speaker 6: Maybe I'll start burning hundreds. No, I don't think so
Speaker 6: I'll leave that to uh the Wolf of Wall Street guy,
Speaker 6: you know, DiCaprio and them.
Speaker 2: Good. That's good.
Speaker 3: Well, we thank you very much Bruce for being on
Speaker 3: the show today, and and.
Speaker 2: Yes we we are still.
Speaker 3: I listened to our version of love Me Still from
Speaker 3: the tonight show.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm so glad you brought it up. Can I
Speaker 6: just end with my quest love story?
Speaker 5: So yes, yes, yes, please, we're in.
Speaker 6: That little that little rehearsal room. It's tiny, right, and
Speaker 6: uh so you're piano player. He says, hey, can we
Speaker 6: play Lovely Still? So I said sure. So we're playing
Speaker 6: it in the normal way, and I'll of a sudden,
Speaker 6: I guess you had this great idea to play it
Speaker 6: as a slow shuffle.
Speaker 5: So we said, can.
Speaker 6: We try it this way? So we started playing. We're
Speaker 6: playing a little bit, and I guess, so you you
Speaker 6: made the greatest sort of producer sort of request. You said, hey,
Speaker 6: play it like you're drunk, which was great because because
Speaker 6: what I really felt was, I was when I think
Speaker 6: you really meant truly you meant was, hey, man, you're
Speaker 6: a little on top, we're laying back always. You just
Speaker 6: need to get back with us. So I started really
Speaker 6: sitting on it, and what a feel. The next time
Speaker 6: I came back, we had to do it again. And
Speaker 6: now my band plays love Me Still, the quest Love version.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, question, I was going to cover that version
Speaker 3: before you recover and govern your version.
Speaker 2: Whatever you want. Yeah, thanks man, but well we gotta
Speaker 2: do it. We gotta do it now.
Speaker 6: Sounds great.
Speaker 5: That room was going crazy that day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's probably whatever our movements. That's that's the
Speaker 3: top ten moment inside that room. Well, it was you
Speaker 3: and we're now playing accordion with us. Yes that I
Speaker 3: put that up there, definitely, definitely.
Speaker 6: Well I'll take it up. I'll be lumped in with
Speaker 6: weird Al anytime.
Speaker 3: He's a bad man this Quest Love. Thank you very
Speaker 3: much Bruce Orensby for joining us, and we'll see you
Speaker 3: on the next go round of Quest Love Supremo.
Speaker 6: It been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: No, thank you for Tom. Thanks, thanks for the music.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3: For more podcast from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.