Speaker 1: Pushkin, Cheryl Lyn's Got to Be Real, Steely Dan's Black Friday,
Speaker 1: Toto's Georgie Porgi all some of the most monster keyboard
Speaker 1: piano grooves of all time, and they all have at
Speaker 1: least one man in common. That's prolific musician and songwriter
Speaker 1: David Page. David honed his chops early growing up in
Speaker 1: la where he worked under the tutelage of his father,
Speaker 1: Marty Pache, an esteem composer who worked with artists like
Speaker 1: mel Tormat, Ray Charles, and even Ella Fitzgerald. While in
Speaker 1: college at USC, David started playing keyboard professionally and touring
Speaker 1: with Sonny and cher From there, he went on to
Speaker 1: co write and play on Boss Gags multi platinum album
Speaker 1: Silk Degrees. He also worked extensively with Quincy Jones, playing
Speaker 1: up multiple iconic albums including Michael Jackson's Thriller and Bad.
Speaker 1: All throughout his work as a session musician, David also
Speaker 1: served as Toto's principal songwriter and wrote chart topping hits
Speaker 1: like Rosanna, Hold the Line, and, of course, most famously, Africa.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, I talked to David Page about what
Speaker 1: it was like to be such an accomplished player at
Speaker 1: such a young age. He shares crazy stories about working
Speaker 1: with Michael Jackson and Quincy on Thriller and how he
Speaker 1: came up with the intro to Michael Jackson's Human Nature,
Speaker 1: probably the greatest keyboard riff of all time. David also
Speaker 1: plays part some some of the best songs he's written
Speaker 1: and talks about how they came to be. This is
Speaker 1: broken record liner notes for the digital Age. I'm justin Mitchman.
Speaker 1: Here's my conversation with David Page. A few weeks ago,
Speaker 1: I was on a run and Cheryl Lyn's got to
Speaker 1: Be Real came all. I was on my run and
Speaker 1: I was like, that's the perfect groove, Like the keyboard
Speaker 1: is the perfect ground. Was like, I gotta go home
Speaker 1: and learn that. So I went home trying to messing around,
Speaker 1: and She's like, who played on this? I had no idea.
Speaker 1: I looked it up and it was you. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was like, what the fuck? It was me?
Speaker 2: Me and Ray Parker helped me put the rhythm section together.
Speaker 2: We got Gadson and a guy that just moved out
Speaker 2: from Detroit and played on the Emotions record named David Shields,
Speaker 2: and that was like the last record he did was
Speaker 2: like got to Be Real kind of thing. But that
Speaker 2: was a great rhythm section, and uh we cut that
Speaker 2: and uh it's one of my favorite R and B
Speaker 2: things that I've ever done, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Do you mind playing just the I'll show you.
Speaker 2: The song started this way with me coming in with
Speaker 2: a riff and Cheryl started singing a little bit, and
Speaker 2: then David Foster came in and we were I was
Speaker 2: in Sunset sound and he came in and played a
Speaker 2: little B section for me. You know, but a riff was.
Speaker 1: Right, the greatest groove.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I heard a Mariah Carey song. It sounds
Speaker 2: like it sounds just about like got to be Real.
Speaker 2: She's got a song out where they just came out
Speaker 2: right after that. Really it sounded like got to be Real. Yeah,
Speaker 2: same changes, no, no, no, man like it's all good.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Your dad was a producer on that, right, I was
Speaker 1: co producer.
Speaker 2: We co produced that together. He kind of discovered her,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's nineteen seventy eight, nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight, you're right, and you're called in by your dad.
Speaker 2: My dad made a call to someone at Sony, which
Speaker 2: was CBS at the time, and so I just heard
Speaker 2: this girl. He had a friend that worked Butler, I
Speaker 2: forget what his first name was, the jazz department at Sony,
Speaker 2: and my dad called him and said, I just heard
Speaker 2: this girl on the Gong Show, Cherylnn. And he says, well,
Speaker 2: funny enough, we're trying to do an album with her
Speaker 2: right now, some cuts with her, and so they gave
Speaker 2: it to my dad. My dad, I was had come
Speaker 2: off with Silk Degrees with bos Skaggs, so my dad said, well,
Speaker 2: if I team up with David, let's co produce this thing.
Speaker 2: So we ended up co producing her first album, you.
Speaker 1: Know, and David Foster is a part of that.
Speaker 2: He is a part of that. He came in just
Speaker 2: for a second. I was at Sunset Sound and Foster
Speaker 2: just came over to hear what we were doing, and
Speaker 2: I said, I'm working on the song. Got to be real,
Speaker 2: so you know, he went and I went and he did.
Speaker 1: You know. You know, so when you're called in to
Speaker 1: work on a song like that or I mean, obviously this,
Speaker 1: you're a bigger part of this project in general, But
Speaker 1: when you're working on a song like that, how did
Speaker 1: that riff come to be? Like how did well.
Speaker 2: I heard it was kind of influenced by the emotions
Speaker 2: to the song called Best of My Love. Yes, and
Speaker 2: I heard don and I like that beat, but I
Speaker 2: always like putting the hump in it, you know, you know?
Speaker 2: And I dansting on drums, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: He just killed it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And at the same time, after I found that out,
Speaker 1: I was looking at the year seventy eight, and I
Speaker 1: realized at the same time that that record is huge.
Speaker 1: You're putting out Toto's first.
Speaker 2: Yeah, first album. And consequently Cheryl sang on Georgie.
Speaker 1: Porgie Porgie, which I never knew that was her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was her. She just came in because we
Speaker 2: weren't going to do put the song on, because I
Speaker 2: get to the part I'd just say it Georgie Pogi
Speaker 2: put and it was just like whitebread, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. And Cheryllynn heard it and she goes, well,
Speaker 2: let me sing that, and she goes Georgie Polgy put
Speaker 2: kiss the Girls and we crossed over under the R
Speaker 2: and B market had sold like a million copies.
Speaker 1: Man, So do you remember writing that song Georgie?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was listening to a lot of dance music.
Speaker 2: I was listening to a lot of Verry White because
Speaker 2: he had started his stuff with piano, and I was
Speaker 2: listening to Quincy Jones on I Want You album with
Speaker 2: Marvin Gaye, and because my friend, uh leon Ware was
Speaker 2: a friend of my dad's and I had written something
Speaker 2: with leon Ware, and I was very influenced by that
Speaker 2: album and that Chuck Rainey and Gadson on and those
Speaker 2: guys beautiful sound I Want You, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And it was very much that.
Speaker 1: H m hm hm.
Speaker 2: I it was kind of very white thing. Remember very white?
Speaker 2: Did you know? It's kind of came out of that era,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: This is your first album with Toto. Now you're accomplished.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about it. But you mean, you've played on
Speaker 1: so many records throughout the seventies. How are you thinking
Speaker 1: about writing this song? You have that wonderful piece, You
Speaker 1: maybe have that second part, that Bury White rind and piece.
Speaker 1: How you put it together? The lyrics.
Speaker 2: That's just because I've learned to get the form of
Speaker 2: a song right, to have a verse, a B section,
Speaker 2: and a chorus and then kind of an maybe an
Speaker 2: instrumental or a bridge, and I'm not a big fan
Speaker 2: of bridges. I used to like verse chorus instrumental and
Speaker 2: take it out, no bridge for you bridge because people,
Speaker 2: well they kind of throw bridges away. I like the
Speaker 2: Beatles and Elton and these guys. When they write a bridge,
Speaker 2: it's like it lifts the song, which is what a
Speaker 2: bridge should do to be, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, at what point would you take
Speaker 1: a song like that to the rest of the group.
Speaker 2: Right as soon as we start gotting our deal, and
Speaker 2: I've been playing this a little bit song a little
Speaker 2: bit with Jeff. We would go and do sessions together
Speaker 2: and on the breaks when everybody else was out of
Speaker 2: the room, I'd started playing these things and Jeff was
Speaker 2: getting to the group. So we rehearsed a lot of
Speaker 2: our album on other people's records, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: playing just jamming on them when there's brakes or no
Speaker 2: one's in the room or whatever. You know. So when
Speaker 2: I got to the record, I had like two or
Speaker 2: three things already cooking, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: How did you guys get your deal?
Speaker 2: Interesting? We never had to perform live to get our
Speaker 2: deal with like the only group and the only group
Speaker 2: that got to produce itself. We had people named Don Ellis,
Speaker 2: vice president of CBS, and a guy named Terry Powell.
Speaker 2: And after we'd done the Boss Skaggs record So Degrees,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of spotlight on us because we
Speaker 2: were the rhythm section for that whole record. And then
Speaker 2: we came in and went out on the road with
Speaker 2: him too, and toured with Boss and so CBS was like, well,
Speaker 2: why did you guys form a band? And we had
Speaker 2: already been planning this whole thing since high school to
Speaker 2: put our band back together high school band. So we
Speaker 2: were like, oh, good, idea, you guys. We just we
Speaker 2: started working on demos then, and I did miss Son
Speaker 2: for a demo, which was Boss skag Song, a song
Speaker 2: I wrote for Boz. And we just did some demos
Speaker 2: and I started writing more, you know, getting into my writing,
Speaker 2: and it just happened.
Speaker 1: And because you guys were so adept in the studio,
Speaker 1: they were totally comfortable letting you guys, just.
Speaker 2: As they were letting us do whatever we wanted to do.
Speaker 1: You know, you know, what does it feel like to
Speaker 1: be you in nineteen seventy eight? I mean Georgia Porgy's
Speaker 1: on the radio.
Speaker 2: Hold the lines on the radio. Yes, yeah, it was
Speaker 2: great to be on the radio. First time we heard
Speaker 2: ourselves on the radio. We we all called each other
Speaker 2: so fast in the radio. I was at my sister's
Speaker 2: apartment and I heard this thing piano I heard and
Speaker 2: I said, that sounds really familiar, said, it sounds like me.
Speaker 2: It actually sounds like me playing. Oh fuck, that's our record.
Speaker 2: It's on the radio. And every we were all calling
Speaker 2: the radio stations requesting it and ship like that like teenagers,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And it did it feel different with it actually being
Speaker 1: your group, Yes, your song versus.
Speaker 2: And we were like, we were like screaming kids, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Oh my god, I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: We were tried calling each other and all the lines
Speaker 2: were busy because we were all calling each other.
Speaker 1: Calling each other, calling the radio.
Speaker 2: That's right, all calling all of our friends request the song.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. Because back to then, if
Speaker 2: you have people called in enough, they'd added to the station.
Speaker 1: You know what station?
Speaker 2: Were you guys first getting played on kJ R UP
Speaker 2: in Seattle. There was a guy named Steve West who
Speaker 2: was a friend of our managers because our managers had
Speaker 2: managed Chicago and RUFUS amazing, that's what they had, and
Speaker 2: so they knew program directors all around the United States.
Speaker 2: So this guy they hopped on it, and as soon
Speaker 2: as a p one which is the top radio stations
Speaker 2: or p ones, as soon as he went on it,
Speaker 2: it broke and everybody went on it, you know, and
Speaker 2: then we ended up going double plattinum the record.
Speaker 1: Obviously, if you listen to that first record, it's pretty
Speaker 1: clear you got as are fluent musically, like you can
Speaker 1: play anything. I was always curious if on the label
Speaker 1: side or manager side, was there ever any like, well,
Speaker 1: guys that hold the line feels very different from Georgie Porge.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. They were like, there's a lot of the comments
Speaker 2: where there's no thread. You guys don't have a sound.
Speaker 2: What is your sound? We can't tell you if you're
Speaker 2: an R and B group or you're a rock and
Speaker 2: roll group or adult contemporary group. What are you? We
Speaker 2: just said, this is it, this is what we are.
Speaker 2: We do all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean, because to your point,
Speaker 1: Georgie Porgie feels like a song that would have like
Speaker 1: you know, I mean the way they group things back then,
Speaker 1: that would have been like a song would have been
Speaker 1: a huge hit on black radio, the line there's no
Speaker 1: way that would have ever played on you know.
Speaker 2: Totally right, you know what I mean. It was all
Speaker 2: thought of like that, you know, But that's why we
Speaker 2: want to be different. We wanted to just do what
Speaker 2: a good music of any kind, any genre.
Speaker 1: You know, when you guys started going out on that record,
Speaker 1: what were you noticing about your audience? Was it growing
Speaker 1: over time?
Speaker 2: It was? It was a little bit. You know, we
Speaker 2: had we wait until we had again the double platinum
Speaker 2: album before we went out and started touring a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That was uncommon then too. I mean that's a common
Speaker 1: occurrence now that someone has this huge album or huge
Speaker 1: song and then has to go figure out how to
Speaker 1: go do a lot. That's right, That's right. Less common then, yeah.
Speaker 2: Less common then. Yeah, you had to kind of work
Speaker 2: your way up and make an audience. But the thing happened.
Speaker 2: It broke in Europe. Now we didn't know what Europe
Speaker 2: was all about. Europe In Amsterdam, there was a guy
Speaker 2: named big Al who was the DJ there and he
Speaker 2: broke I think hold the line there at Amsterdam and
Speaker 2: Europe just went nuts, like beatle crazy nuts over this stuff.
Speaker 2: So when we did a promotional tour there, they took
Speaker 2: us around to all the clubs where they were playing
Speaker 2: their music and it was just like it was great,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. There was just so many
Speaker 2: people screaming and everything like that. But he broke our record,
Speaker 2: and then we started getting offers for gigs with good
Speaker 2: money back then to come in and play shows, you know,
Speaker 2: to headline and should O were in Europe and stuff.
Speaker 2: So Europe has just been a big cash cow and
Speaker 2: a great long, multi generational audience for us since then.
Speaker 2: And they never even you cannot have a hit record
Speaker 2: for a long time, and they're still becoming to your
Speaker 2: concerts and stuff like that, very loyal fans and great
Speaker 2: music audiences over Europe.
Speaker 1: You had your your like an incredible career as a
Speaker 1: as a studio guy at the time. Were you thinking
Speaker 1: for sure that first record was going to be what
Speaker 1: it was that would have.
Speaker 2: The people were planning on it.
Speaker 1: We were.
Speaker 2: We always had confidence in ourselves. It's some one thing total.
Speaker 2: Did we knew what we could do if we got
Speaker 2: the chance, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: So you guys were ready to become the main show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we were shooting for the big time the
Speaker 2: whole time.
Speaker 1: So tell me a bit about growing up. What were
Speaker 1: you for some encounters.
Speaker 2: I grew up in Resita till I was five and
Speaker 2: my father. I remember my father playing piano. He had
Speaker 2: a piano room there. You did all his writing, and
Speaker 2: I'm in we were hearing the Blues in the Night
Speaker 2: in there, my mom and then told me, you know,
Speaker 2: Blues in the Night. He had done a version with
Speaker 2: Elephantz Cheryl and mel Tourmee, And so that was the
Speaker 2: first song that I picked out on a piano. My
Speaker 2: dad heard me picking it out, so he said, you
Speaker 2: need to know how to play that. Then I started
Speaker 2: taking piano lessons and stuff. That's who you knew that
Speaker 2: I had some kind of gift, you know.
Speaker 1: And you were a kid kid at that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like five five, okay, But I didn't
Speaker 2: start studying piano until I was eight because I got
Speaker 2: into drums. My dad was using a drummer named Shelley Mann.
Speaker 2: Shelley Mann just did a whole bunch of things with
Speaker 2: Bill Evans, and he did all the Mansini stuff. He
Speaker 2: had to Shelley the Man and the Manhole his club.
Speaker 2: But I used to sit next to him and just
Speaker 2: watch him play drums, and that's all I could think
Speaker 2: about twenty four hours a day was drums.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And then I started getting more serious about a piano
Speaker 2: when my dad said, you know, if you have to
Speaker 2: get your technique together, you're not going to be able
Speaker 2: to make it. So I got a warning. I got
Speaker 2: a wake up call early, and by the time I
Speaker 2: was twelve, I started studying classical music. My dad put
Speaker 2: me with a classical teacher and I started, you know,
Speaker 2: going through all the literature and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Were you into it at that time? Get into the
Speaker 1: class No?
Speaker 2: Okay, no, but I do. I wanted to be a
Speaker 2: professional musician. So I was like, whatever it takes, this
Speaker 2: is the world I'm going down.
Speaker 1: Fine, even it feels like it's taking you further away
Speaker 1: from even if it's like it's hard and it has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with rock and jazz, you know, but
Speaker 1: I knew that.
Speaker 2: My dad said, Oscar Peterson study classical. All these guys
Speaker 2: study classical, you know, so if you want to play
Speaker 2: like Oscar, you better spend the time, you know.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of times kids want to
Speaker 1: buck their parents or you know, my dad was a
Speaker 1: played football and so I wanted nothing to do with football,
Speaker 1: you know, professional. He did play professionally for a bit
Speaker 1: and got injured.
Speaker 2: But ooh man, I'm a big NFL nut.
Speaker 1: Everyone is, and I'm not, just honestly because because it
Speaker 1: was just too prosibly like everything was.
Speaker 2: Like, oh yeah, I bet, I bet you were just.
Speaker 1: Smothered with that shit. Within I was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to go. I want to go do music
Speaker 1: or whatever. I mean, what do you think it is
Speaker 1: about your relationship with your dad that allowed you to
Speaker 1: connect with them with what he does professionally?
Speaker 2: Well, because I love music and I was a very
Speaker 2: quiet kid, and you had to be quiet in those days.
Speaker 2: You couldn't talk at all when the music studio with
Speaker 2: my dad. There's no talking log with musicians or anything
Speaker 2: like that. You have to be. It was a deaf mute,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So me and my dad
Speaker 2: got along real great, and he showed me how to
Speaker 2: do things, you know, and we watched football and baseball
Speaker 2: together and stuff. But he was always working. So the
Speaker 2: first job I had, Joseph Williams and I talk about
Speaker 2: this all the time because my dad was peers with
Speaker 2: John Williams. They were good friends, Joseph. When I talk
Speaker 2: about our first jobs as students to them were sharpening
Speaker 2: his pencils and making sure they didn't run out over racers.
Speaker 2: That's your job. You sit in a room all day long,
Speaker 2: not say a word, and just hear you hear on
Speaker 2: sharpening pencils in the room, like all day long.
Speaker 1: Amazing.
Speaker 2: That's what we did. And finally started I start singing
Speaker 2: a few things. My dad goes, can sing me a
Speaker 2: line here for this, and I'd sing a line in
Speaker 2: an arrangement and he'd use it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He was composing arranging.
Speaker 2: He was composing and arranging for the fifth dimension. He
Speaker 2: did up, up and a way for them, you know.
Speaker 2: He did the produced and arrange the way we were
Speaker 2: for Barbara Streissan and all these big orchestral things. You know.
Speaker 2: So and I got to help him on those arrangements.
Speaker 1: You know, once you got to a certain level, would
Speaker 1: he show you how he approached Yes, those things.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, I got them. And he'd a master's degree
Speaker 2: in music composition, so he knew how to teach me.
Speaker 2: But he'd never stopped writing. He was a writing machine
Speaker 2: like John Williams. Same thing, the writing machine, you know
Speaker 2: all they do. You just see him writing pencil to paper,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's amazing what those guys can that
Speaker 2: neew because of their classical training, how that would translate
Speaker 2: to orchestra, you know, when you just have a piano.
Speaker 2: Guys now because they can play a synthem, they can
Speaker 2: play a string sound, they can play a flute sound,
Speaker 2: you can hear. Oh that'll work, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Where back then they just had pianos, you know, you
Speaker 2: have samplers and all that stuff. You know. So my
Speaker 2: dad taught me. Literally, I was as apprentice for twenty years.
Speaker 2: You know, gosh, it was great.
Speaker 1: Did he have any like maxims or things he would
Speaker 1: always return to and things he'd always tell you, like
Speaker 1: things had lots of rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably like your dad had some rules.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad was like, you know, hey, the melody,
Speaker 2: the singer is the most important part. Make sure you
Speaker 2: can hear the melody, the singer, the singers, the whole thing,
Speaker 2: the singer and the song, you know, and you're you're
Speaker 2: just servicing the singer, you know, and he worked with
Speaker 2: just great singers, you know, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis, Jesse Belvin, Ella,
Speaker 2: Sarah vaugh Ray, Charles, I mean everyone insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, at what point did you realize that talent level
Speaker 1: of talent your dad was working with.
Speaker 2: I didn't until we would start. We would start going
Speaker 2: to shows at the Greek Theater and Sammy Davis would
Speaker 2: be there or somebody like that, and they'd introduce my dad,
Speaker 2: put a spotlight on him in the audience, and I went, wow,
Speaker 2: my dad would stand up, everybody applauding for him, you know,
Speaker 2: And once I heard that, that's pretty cool, amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: just be a kid in your and everybody respects your dad.
Speaker 2: That's all they got. All the adults who worked for
Speaker 2: my dad were super nice to me. They treated me
Speaker 2: like I was an adult. And they were all dressed
Speaker 2: so cool. They're just like all the dressing guys came from,
Speaker 2: like Ellington's band, the way those guys would gold cuff
Speaker 2: links and loose ties and hats on and lots of
Speaker 2: jewelry and all this stuff, you know. Where I was like,
Speaker 2: I was looking at my school teachers like this is
Speaker 2: boring right here. You know. I'd go with my dad's
Speaker 2: guys and they're all dressed shark and they're super nice
Speaker 2: and smoking cigarettes, doing shit, you know. So it was
Speaker 2: a cool existence. It was like the jazz area. Jazz
Speaker 2: area was still there. My dad was still making jazz
Speaker 2: records with singers at the time, so I got to
Speaker 2: see that crossover when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: We have to pause for a quick break, and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back with more of my conversation with David Page.
Speaker 1: We're back with more from David Page. You told me
Speaker 1: when you were before I started recording, that you were
Speaker 1: fourteen when when you met Quincy Jones for.
Speaker 2: The first song was fourteen. When I met Quincy, my
Speaker 2: dad was working on a one to Quincy's solo's album,
Speaker 2: and I forget the name of the album, but the
Speaker 2: song was called The Anderson Files and it was a
Speaker 2: Sean Conry movie that had come out. Quincy had done
Speaker 2: the music for well. Quincy used to throw my dad
Speaker 2: have my dad ghost for him ghost arrange, and my
Speaker 2: dad did a couple of charts for him, and I
Speaker 2: got to help my dad with those charts, sing a
Speaker 2: couple of lines to him. You know, and so I
Speaker 2: went to Quincy's house and I think it was Benning
Speaker 2: at Canyon at the time. I think you lived there
Speaker 2: at bel Air and anyway met him, and you know,
Speaker 2: I've I ended up working for him later on the
Speaker 2: Thriller album and James Ingram and Patty Austin stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So it was he's been we've been family members. Quincy
Speaker 2: with us first since I was a kid, you know.
Speaker 1: So crazy. So you're a kid and you're immersed in
Speaker 1: this world of jazz through your father, through just your
Speaker 1: interest too, and you're learning and oscopias and z heroes,
Speaker 1: you're picking up classical music, trying to get ready, and
Speaker 1: then the seventies hit and you started doing some incredible
Speaker 1: sessions like really young.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The first hit record I did was Seals and
Speaker 2: Croft's Diamond Girl. Okay, that was a very that was
Speaker 2: one of the first sessions. But that was the first
Speaker 2: hit record I had. And once I had that, the
Speaker 2: word got around and I started getting calls for sessions.
Speaker 1: I heard a story about you being at USC that
Speaker 1: was me.
Speaker 2: That was that was during that time, and you got
Speaker 2: a call from Jackson Brown, Jackson Brown, and it was
Speaker 2: so funny because it was like USC at the time.
Speaker 2: In the dorm I was in, which is an all
Speaker 2: boy dorm, it was like animal house, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I mean there were guys showing movies, throwing
Speaker 2: parties and shit, and and there was only fifth phone
Speaker 2: at the time. No one had cell phones. It was
Speaker 2: a payphone in the hallway. And the guy knocks on
Speaker 2: my door and I'm in the room doing something I
Speaker 2: forget and he says, there's a guy named Jackson Brown
Speaker 2: on the phone for you. Don't hang up on it.
Speaker 2: When I got in the hallway and he goes like,
Speaker 2: where the hell are you at. It sounds, you know,
Speaker 2: because people are screaming and doing all kinds of shit,
Speaker 2: And he says, we want you to come down and
Speaker 2: play on his for every Man record down at Sunset
Speaker 2: and I played on a song called these Days where
Speaker 2: Jackson there's.
Speaker 1: Incredible signature songs that he wrote when he was a kid.
Speaker 2: And yeah, Nico did, and yeah that John Hayney was
Speaker 2: there at Sunset Sound, you know, wow. And it was
Speaker 2: cool when you.
Speaker 1: Turn up when you're coming from then, you know, coming
Speaker 1: on and you're driving them down to the studio.
Speaker 2: No switch. I was like at my jacket, my jeans
Speaker 2: and on it. It's like where I used to just
Speaker 2: stay in my clothes, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: How often would you walk into a session like that
Speaker 1: and have to play on something you wannt too? And
Speaker 1: two quite a bit.
Speaker 2: I started weeding out those sessions though whenever I wasn't
Speaker 2: a great reader. I'm not a great reader. There's guys
Speaker 2: that sight read and that's their job what they do.
Speaker 2: A guy I learned from Mike Lange, who was one
Speaker 2: of the best. He did all Jerry Goldsmith stuff. So
Speaker 2: I would just started to go to how much reading
Speaker 2: is involved? I'd have to ask because my dad told
Speaker 2: me to do that, because he would have to do
Speaker 2: the same thing. John Williams was the guy you'd call
Speaker 2: if you want sight read stuff. And my dad would
Speaker 2: just play new sessions with jazz guys where the reading
Speaker 2: wasn't too terribly hard, you.
Speaker 1: Know, right.
Speaker 2: So I got a reputation for playing and being a
Speaker 2: rock and roll player and an R and B player.
Speaker 2: I started working at Motown when I was eighteen, with
Speaker 2: Motown out in the West coast called mo West, and
Speaker 2: so we did all these orchestral dates with rhythm section
Speaker 2: two drummers and everything. It was live music doing stuff.
Speaker 2: We did some stuff for Thelmy Houston and Diana Ross
Speaker 2: and some of the Jacksons.
Speaker 1: You know, gosh man, I mean, obviously you've got the
Speaker 1: talent and everything, but what luck to was it feels
Speaker 1: like the seventies really, like to your point of now
Speaker 1: there's Mo West, It's like the business really seemed to
Speaker 1: be coming out.
Speaker 2: It really did. I mean it was thriving the session
Speaker 2: industry and songwriters and doing all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I hadn't hit as a songwriter yet, but that led
Speaker 2: up to Jeff introduced me to bos Skaggs, who because
Speaker 2: Jeff and I Boss had been producing a guitarist that
Speaker 2: was with the Allman Brothers named Lesdudeck and they needed
Speaker 2: an organ player. So I played Hammond pretty good and
Speaker 2: we went out and we did that album with Boss producing,
Speaker 2: and Boss liked how he played, so he asked me
Speaker 2: if I wanted to maybe co write an album. He
Speaker 2: was looking for co writer. He'd never co written with anybody,
Speaker 2: and so I said hell yeah, and we sat down.
Speaker 2: I think it was on this piano up at Santa Barbara.
Speaker 2: My dad had a ranch up there. We stayed there
Speaker 2: for two weeks. I wrote, like most of the stuff
Speaker 2: on Silk Degrees album on piano, you know, and that
Speaker 2: album just took off. That album was like a Pinnacle
Speaker 2: you know, Watershed album low down. I mean yeah, Lito, Lito,
Speaker 2: you know, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Man. How were the Steely Dan sessions?
Speaker 2: Steely Dance says were fun? Okay? Uh, Donal and Walter
Speaker 2: characters and Jeff idolized them. Jeff was in Steely Dan
Speaker 2: for a while, you know, he was a drummer, so
Speaker 2: they heard about us. They wanted to start using session
Speaker 2: players instead of their band. So, uh, somehow we got
Speaker 2: a call. Jeff knew their guitar player, Danny Diaz, and
Speaker 2: they called Jeff and they were looking for a piano
Speaker 2: keyboard player. They could play other keyboards. So they called
Speaker 2: me and I was on clavinet. It was on the
Speaker 2: Pretzel Logic album. It was a song called night by
Speaker 2: Night that I played on and I was playing. All
Speaker 2: I had to do was keep time on the clavnet
Speaker 2: because I was Billy pressed and out of Space had
Speaker 2: come out and I was all over the clavinet. That
Speaker 2: was my act. You know, give me a wa wall
Speaker 2: pedal and clavinet and I'll kill it, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. So I did that. Then they did an
Speaker 2: album after that was Katie Lied with Chef played on
Speaker 2: the Whole Thing. I played on Black Friday. That was
Speaker 2: me and Michael Halbardy and playing keyboards, and I played
Speaker 2: on Doctor Wu on that album on Katie Lin. But
Speaker 2: they were fun because Donald was so neurotic and anxious.
Speaker 2: He'd be pacing back and forth singing the guide vocal,
Speaker 2: but the lyrics were so interesting. We were just like, man,
Speaker 2: dig it's deep. You know. You had to concentrate, like,
Speaker 2: don't start listening to them singing, because you'll fuck up,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And now in hindsight, people kind of regard Steely
Speaker 1: Dan and those sessions and the work that was done
Speaker 1: as like kind of like that's almost biblical, I can't
Speaker 1: touch it.
Speaker 2: That is.
Speaker 1: Did they have that reputation at the time when you.
Speaker 2: Were They didn't. They didn't. They were kind of on
Speaker 2: the dark side and low key, and people didn't know
Speaker 2: about him.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 2: Steely Dan wasn't a big no nip they had Ricky
Speaker 2: Don't Lose That number was the one song that they did,
Speaker 2: but it was other than that. They were kind of eclectic,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, And they were doing different
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff, jazzy kind of stuff back then, and
Speaker 2: people they weren't mainstream, you know, the record companies didn't
Speaker 2: know what to do with them at all until Irving
Speaker 2: Asoff said I know what to do with him, and
Speaker 2: he signed him, got Warner Brothers to sign him, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, out of away from ABC Dunhill, you.
Speaker 1: Know, man, Yeah, when did your interest in songwriting start.
Speaker 2: To I've always been in. I started in high school
Speaker 2: when Elton John first came out with his first record.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to be Elton John. I mean that
Speaker 2: was my hero, had glasses on, short hair and performed
Speaker 2: rock and roll at the piano and stuff. So I
Speaker 2: just started writing songs, copying his kind of songs. And
Speaker 2: also I had known my dad did a lot of
Speaker 2: work with Jimmy Webb. I learned that's the guy started copying,
Speaker 2: I mean, first emulating his trying to try and to
Speaker 2: emulate him before.
Speaker 1: He get intoubt in it's Jimmy Webb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jimmy Webb. And I was doing to play like
Speaker 2: and play like him and right like him before I
Speaker 2: made the Elton John connection. It was it was my apprenticeship,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: That's what I was like going to school and you
Speaker 1: were like doing.
Speaker 2: I was doing. Here's the trip, Okay, I was. Me
Speaker 2: and Jeff and David Hungate were Sunny and SHARE's rhythm
Speaker 2: section on the road. When I got out of high school.
Speaker 2: The first gig I had was touring with them, okay
Speaker 2: on the road and they were They had the Sunny
Speaker 2: and Share Show. At the time. They were the biggest
Speaker 2: thing in the United States. They were working, getting like
Speaker 2: one hundred grand a night. So me and Jeff I joined.
Speaker 2: Jeff had already been with him for six months. He
Speaker 2: left high school early, and so my dad said, Okay,
Speaker 2: he's going to college next year. Now, how are we
Speaker 2: going to deal with that? And the and the stunning
Speaker 2: and Share people said, we will fly him in to
Speaker 2: go to his classes when we're not playing and shit
Speaker 2: like that, and so they flew me in. I was
Speaker 2: going to USC a couple of days a week. I
Speaker 2: was visiting a bunch of classes, but I go to
Speaker 2: you US see, I would do an Ironside's date and
Speaker 2: I would fly back to Las Vegas to conduct for
Speaker 2: Sonny and Share.
Speaker 1: Wow, that was a trip. I imagine you probably didn't
Speaker 1: care about going to us, was it?
Speaker 2: I just had to do it. I had to do it,
Speaker 2: fill out my grades and pass.
Speaker 1: What was it like? Angham was Sonny and Share at
Speaker 1: that time?
Speaker 2: I mean he was kind of her fall guy, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. She would make jokes and he
Speaker 2: was the little short Italian guy. But they were selling
Speaker 2: out these huge arenas. We met all these promoters, all
Speaker 2: the big Elton John promoters, all the big agents and
Speaker 2: everything like that. Because they were big time. They had
Speaker 2: their own jet. We were traveling on huge Get this
Speaker 2: chu Hefner's Playboy jet was the jet that we traveled with,
Speaker 2: like Bunny Stewardess's okay, And I was just out of
Speaker 2: high school. We were all just out of high school,
Speaker 2: and we were just like you gotta be frigging like
Speaker 2: it's off the scale. We're in shock. We were kind
Speaker 2: of in shock, like what do we do? Of course, Jeff,
Speaker 2: Jeff is an old hand. Jeff was like drummers man.
Speaker 2: I was putting the moves on everybody, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean, A newbie, I was new meat man.
Speaker 2: I was just like yes, Bam.
Speaker 1: You know, when did you first meet the Pacaro brothers?
Speaker 2: I mean, because Jeff, when I was when I was
Speaker 2: fourteen and a half fifteen, you know, and I met
Speaker 2: a Mike and Steve was playing always playing different instruments.
Speaker 2: He was playing a French shorn, he played a cello,
Speaker 2: and Mike was playing started to play. Mike played some drums,
Speaker 2: and then Mike started playing study bass. And Mike was
Speaker 2: a great bass player. He was our high school bass
Speaker 2: player and he was great.
Speaker 1: When did you meet Steve Luke? At there?
Speaker 2: Andy Leads, Steve's little younger brother, was hanging out with
Speaker 2: Steve Ricaro and Steve Lucather and Mike Landau. They were
Speaker 2: all friends. So I was starting my band and I
Speaker 2: was looking at like Dean Parks and Louis Shelton and
Speaker 2: Larry Carlton, and Andy says, you need to check out
Speaker 2: these guitar players that are with Steve Riccaro's band. And
Speaker 2: so I went to Taft High School, which is right
Speaker 2: down there with Winetka in Ventura, and I walked in
Speaker 2: and I heard this somebody playing like Jimmy Hendricks. I
Speaker 2: thought the band was on a break and they put
Speaker 2: a record on and they were playing Hendricks And I
Speaker 2: walked in there and Lucather was on stage and Landaut.
Speaker 2: Landau was real short. He was a real short guy.
Speaker 2: And Lucather had on a monkey mask, okay, a rubber mask,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't see I couldn't see him that well
Speaker 2: because it was kind of smoky, and I was in
Speaker 2: the back of the thing. But I'm I'm looking at
Speaker 2: because guys look like he's been imprisoned or something like that.
Speaker 2: And I get closer and I realized he's he was
Speaker 2: doing like leaping in the air like Pete Townsend, sliding
Speaker 2: on his knees, playing Johnny B. Good, singing it with
Speaker 2: a monkey with a with a monkey mask. Gone, that
Speaker 2: was just Lucather, crazy guy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Just he was silly, silly crazy, Okay, and he still
Speaker 2: is silly crazy. But that's how I met him. And
Speaker 2: I was looking at John Mike Landau, and I thought
Speaker 2: Landau had a stratocaster, and I like stratocasters, so I said,
Speaker 2: I think maybe the little guy that plays like Hendrick's
Speaker 2: And Lucather says, no, man that he says, the other
Speaker 2: guy's a star. We need to star in our band,
Speaker 2: and Jeff of course said, that's our guy right there.
Speaker 2: So Jeff picked him and I said, I don't have
Speaker 2: a problem with that, but he was new and he
Speaker 2: was just shredding the whole time. I said, yeah, but
Speaker 2: he's got to play like on our records. And Luca says,
Speaker 2: he'll learn. We'll put him next to Carlton and Louis Sheldon.
Speaker 2: He'll he'll learn fast. And he did very quick study,
Speaker 2: you know. And then you hear him play on Georgie
Speaker 2: Porgy and you hear him play on her first album.
Speaker 2: You know, he was already seasoned, you know what I
Speaker 2: mean by seventy eight, you know.
Speaker 1: In a way like real fortuitous. You guys got him
Speaker 1: because he did. It's so funny, like by the time
Speaker 1: you guys are really starting to take off, it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, the Van Halen's of the world are out there,
Speaker 1: right and you know this really kind of heavy guitar
Speaker 1: sound is popular. Yeah, and you guys have Steve to
Speaker 1: kind of bringing.
Speaker 2: Out to Steve was friends with all the heavy metal players.
Speaker 2: It was him and Eddie were best friends, okay immediately,
Speaker 2: and we're to when any passed, you know, wow, So
Speaker 2: Eddie van Haill was always hanging out Luca her Luca
Speaker 2: that had all the hammering ship that Eddie was doing
Speaker 2: down and uh and it was uh, it was fun
Speaker 2: time because you had to have a gun slinger guitar player.
Speaker 2: We had the guy who was Lucather. You know, he
Speaker 2: was just shredding. You would rip all these guys. He
Speaker 2: had more chops than any guitar player in town. I mean,
Speaker 2: Larry Carlton, all these guys. Lucather was like Maha Vishnu
Speaker 2: John John kind of chops. That's what these guys had.
Speaker 2: Chops in high school. Wow, you know, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's amazing all the talent that you guys had. You
Speaker 1: guys to this day are able to still remain friends.
Speaker 1: But but I mean, because there's a world where you
Speaker 1: or or Steve or Lucather could have just been like,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to do my thing.
Speaker 2: You know really well, we weren't. No one everybody was.
Speaker 2: The bands were the thing at the time. They say,
Speaker 2: there's a saying now, back in the day when I
Speaker 2: was growing up, everybody was in bands. Now they're singers. Now,
Speaker 2: it's all about singing. And I think it's great that
Speaker 2: everybody's singing now. I wish I wish I'd studied singing.
Speaker 2: My dad didn't want me to be a singer because
Speaker 2: he thought I would end up in a piano lounge
Speaker 2: being a singer, piano player. Entertainer and that was the
Speaker 2: worst word at the time. My dad said, you don't
Speaker 2: want to become an entertainer. You want to be a musician, really,
Speaker 2: And so I missed out on singing lessons and stuff,
Speaker 2: but which I ended up taking later on, and stuff
Speaker 2: like what I was gonna.
Speaker 1: Ask about the band, like did you guys think of yourselves?
Speaker 1: Obviously you guys are like incredible musicians, but they did
Speaker 1: any of you guys think of yourselves as singer?
Speaker 2: Luca there could sing a little bit. He could sing
Speaker 2: like Georgie Porgy saying I'll be over you won't hold
Speaker 2: you back. But and I could sing barely to just
Speaker 2: get some of my songs out.
Speaker 1: But we found this that you guys would like trade
Speaker 1: off singing, like you know, be Steve if you look
Speaker 1: at their into you andto.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the whole idea I used as a
Speaker 2: model the Beatles. I like the Beatles because you never
Speaker 2: got tired. It wasn't one guy singing a solo outcrid.
Speaker 2: I don't care who the artist is. A whole album
Speaker 2: of them, I get a little bored. I like Fleetwood
Speaker 2: Mac and I like the Beatles because they had various
Speaker 2: diversity and their singing, you know, and so that's what
Speaker 2: I wanted to do with our band. We did it
Speaker 2: on the first album. Those guys never sung. I never sung,
Speaker 2: I mean really on an album before. And we all
Speaker 2: sang on the first album.
Speaker 1: And then you guys have a sing on Bobby Kimball.
Speaker 2: We had to get a singer because they were kept going, well,
Speaker 2: who's your singer? They really before they signed the paper,
Speaker 2: they want to know do you have a singer? And
Speaker 2: a band that I had been co produced called Essus
Speaker 2: Fools had a singer named Bobby Kimball, and they broke up,
Speaker 2: and I said, let's try this guy out. And he
Speaker 2: came in and I played hole the line and he
Speaker 2: just grabbed the lyrics and we started ripping to hold
Speaker 2: the line and it sounded the first time we played
Speaker 2: it, it sounded like the record with him singing and us playing.
Speaker 2: So everybody's looking around the room, We're looking at each
Speaker 2: other like we're a band. We're a band. We knew
Speaker 2: we were a band. You know.
Speaker 1: We have to take another quick break and then we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more from my conversation with David Page.
Speaker 1: Here's the rest of my conversation with David Page. Let's
Speaker 1: jump ahead to you reconnect with Quincy to do thriller.
Speaker 1: Do you know was it Michael was a Quincy? Was
Speaker 1: it the boat? How did you guys end up getting.
Speaker 2: Up getting in? Because I had Steve ricarl had been
Speaker 2: doing programming synthesizers for David Foster and Greg Phillip Gains
Speaker 2: at all Quincy's people. I wasn't in that club yet.
Speaker 2: So Steve, what are you doing? He goes, I'm doing
Speaker 2: a Quincy Jones day. I said, you know what, I
Speaker 2: want to go do a Quincy Jones date. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go. I'm gonna be your assistant, and I want
Speaker 2: to carry a piece of gear in to get in
Speaker 2: to the the door. So I got the party. So
Speaker 2: I got in the door. I think they were doing
Speaker 2: Donna Summers. I think it was State of.
Speaker 1: The Native Independence.
Speaker 2: That was Steve. Steve Riccaro did that, and I was
Speaker 2: kind of playing for him because he would be the
Speaker 2: major programmer. But I could play really pretty well. So
Speaker 2: set up the stuff, set up the sounds, and sweteen
Speaker 2: would say, Steve, play something, and Steve would say, well,
Speaker 2: that's David's here to Dave play something. And I started playing,
Speaker 2: and Quincy would walk in the room and go, wow,
Speaker 2: that's nice. What are you doing? Can you stay? Can
Speaker 2: you hang out a little bit? And I'm sure. And
Speaker 2: ever since then I do the Donna summers James Ingram
Speaker 2: and uh then I got called him thriller, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Because I was part of Quincy's club.
Speaker 1: And so State of Quincy later said, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, you can demeuror if you want. But Quincy
Speaker 1: later said that the Billy Jean bassline was a rip
Speaker 1: of that State of Independence programming, that thing that you
Speaker 1: and really.
Speaker 2: I don't know you said that, Yeah, could have been.
Speaker 2: That could have been you know, boom boom boom boom
Speaker 2: boom boom boom.
Speaker 1: That was that.
Speaker 2: Now that I think about it, it is. I'm gonna tell
Speaker 2: Steve that today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because let me know what he says.
Speaker 2: Because we brought all of our synthesizers down there. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was a room full of synthesizers, and Steve was
Speaker 2: doing that live. It was it had the drum machine,
Speaker 2: it had all the sense pumping and basically the whole
Speaker 2: record was done with Steve Riccaro doing synthesizers on his
Speaker 2: micro composer.
Speaker 1: So you guys basically play on human nature. You guys
Speaker 1: do a number of you plan a number of different
Speaker 1: things on thriller, but human Nature really is like it's like,
Speaker 1: that's yeah, Toto. Essentially, are you mad at a Steve
Speaker 1: when he takes a song like human Nation?
Speaker 2: Hell? No, no, because the total would have never done
Speaker 2: that totally.
Speaker 1: No, I don't.
Speaker 2: They may have, but Steve, we were we were off
Speaker 2: the road and Quincy was looking for songs, and so
Speaker 2: I sent I don't know what I sent in, but
Speaker 2: I sent in a cassette and had on the back
Speaker 2: of my cassette spend They had the super scope tape
Speaker 2: machines that when they'd get to the end, it would
Speaker 2: start playing the other side of the cassette automatically, and
Speaker 2: so it jumped to the other side and played Steve
Speaker 2: Bricaro's demo for him, and he was like, why why
Speaker 2: tell him that is human nature? And Quincy dug it
Speaker 2: and she played it for Michael and they were just
Speaker 2: like they cut it. You know, wow, that was like
Speaker 2: the left last song that went on the record.
Speaker 1: You don't how did you because I want to talk
Speaker 1: about this. I'm curious how you and Steve found how
Speaker 1: to coexist in terms of as keyboard players send to play.
Speaker 2: You would come up with something and say, Dave, I
Speaker 2: need your I need some magic on this. I need
Speaker 2: you to I need an intro, like you said on
Speaker 2: Human Nature. I've got the chords, but I need an intro.
Speaker 2: So I think those are the chords you played me
Speaker 2: for the intro, and I from Jimmy Seals. I had
Speaker 2: been used to doing fingerpicking guitar parts and in translating
Speaker 2: of the piano, so I could do you know, I
Speaker 2: would cross hands and do so. I did a little
Speaker 2: Jimmy Seals kind of thing for Human Nature and that went.
Speaker 2: And that's the answer to Human Nature that I came
Speaker 2: up with.
Speaker 1: That is one of the coolest. That is one of
Speaker 1: the coolest.
Speaker 2: And song and every time that comes up, it goes
Speaker 2: into that part.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, It's so beautiful. What was
Speaker 1: it like being in the studio with Michael if Michael.
Speaker 2: Michael was great in the studio. He was a perfectionist
Speaker 2: and he just believed in you painting. He came up
Speaker 2: to me, here is a typical Michael Jackson thing you'd see.
Speaker 2: I want you to think of Michael angela painting Assistine chapel.
Speaker 2: You have a total blank canvas. And if you need
Speaker 2: a choir, you need this, orchestra, you need whatever you need,
Speaker 2: just do it. Just come up and think with it. Now.
Speaker 2: This wasn't during Thriller though. This was after Thriller. Michael
Speaker 2: continued working with me, but working with Michael. I got
Speaker 2: in there one day and I was working on Billy Jean,
Speaker 2: which I did and ended up using my parts, none
Speaker 2: of my parts, but I did it with Michael, and
Speaker 2: he would listen to what you're playing, and he kind
Speaker 2: of let a couple of little mistakes go by, and
Speaker 2: I stopped him and I said, Michael, listen, I'm a
Speaker 2: perfectionist and I want to make sure that all this
Speaker 2: stuff is perfect when we put it on there. So
Speaker 2: in the interim he liked the fact that I wanted
Speaker 2: perfection on his record, and he called me in and say,
Speaker 2: I want I want you to come in and listen
Speaker 2: to my vocal that I'm doing and tell me if
Speaker 2: it's tell me if it's good. And it kind of
Speaker 2: got me in trouble with Quincy a little bit because
Speaker 2: Quincy was there and he goes, Quincy goes, Michael, is
Speaker 2: that what do you think? And he goes ask David
Speaker 2: Page what he thinks on the human nature vocal and
Speaker 2: I'm like, uhh, Quincy just gave me the look, gave
Speaker 2: me the look like oh really you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh man, you know, so we
Speaker 2: got that straightened out and uh. And then Michael was
Speaker 2: great to work with anybody that worked with him. He
Speaker 2: was just like Jeff did beat Jeff. They came to
Speaker 2: Jeff and all they had was these drum cases that
Speaker 2: went do do Do Do Do?
Speaker 1: Do? Do? Do?
Speaker 2: Do Do Do do? And and they were singing the
Speaker 2: line I think in there. And then Steve and Jeff
Speaker 2: played all the instruments on Steve Luke and that played bass,
Speaker 2: played rhythm guitar, Eddie did the solo, and Jeff played
Speaker 2: the drums on it.
Speaker 1: You know, look wanted to do the solo.
Speaker 2: How did it end up that he was lucky to
Speaker 2: play on He was happy to play. Yeah, And then
Speaker 2: they said they were trying to get Ed van Halen,
Speaker 2: which was Luke's friend. Luke's like, right on, you know.
Speaker 2: D didn't want to do it at first because they
Speaker 2: have van Halen had a no session band role. You
Speaker 2: can't play in other people's records. So Eddie called him
Speaker 2: and said, this is Quincy Jones. He goes, yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: and he hung up on him. Okay, Ed, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, And I said, no, really seriously, you know.
Speaker 2: So they he sent a tape in and they flew
Speaker 2: it in I don't know where. He just soloed and
Speaker 2: they just took a piece of it dropped it in lin.
Speaker 1: Wow. Total four. You guys spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: in the studio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we spent a lot of time all the time.
Speaker 1: So that's another year, man, where it's like if seventy
Speaker 1: eight your first records coming out, all these big hits
Speaker 1: and you got Sheryl Lyn's record out at the same time.
Speaker 1: This is like you got total four thriller.
Speaker 2: All the all the burners are on, you know, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got four records behind Youah, a bunch of hits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we're doing sessions and touring and doing
Speaker 2: our total records at the time, you know, so it
Speaker 2: was just kind of a revolving door at the recording
Speaker 2: studios Sunset Sound. We'd see guys that are working on it, Thriller,
Speaker 2: What are you doing, I'm working with Quincy today. Well
Speaker 2: we'll be there in a little bit.
Speaker 1: And you know, how did Sunset Sound become your home?
Speaker 1: Which is one of the great studios.
Speaker 2: It was one of the great studios, and you know,
Speaker 2: we could basically work everywhere. I mean, we did Thriller
Speaker 2: at Westlake, the whole thing. You know. We did Toto's
Speaker 2: rec first record at Studio fifty five, which was it
Speaker 2: ended up becoming Richard Perry's studio. But we just liked
Speaker 2: Sunset Sound as a record recording place. And that was
Speaker 2: during the Hydra record we started working at Sunset Sound
Speaker 2: again cool and we loved playing there. We loved that
Speaker 2: that was a real progressive music. We were trying to
Speaker 2: push ahead. Well, now that we had been had a
Speaker 2: hit album, we kind of wanted to play some serious
Speaker 2: concert stuff here. You don't get into the way we
Speaker 2: would sound if we went out live and I just
Speaker 2: playing pop. Georgie Porgy and god, the.
Speaker 1: First record is like, let's let's craft a record.
Speaker 2: Let's craft the record, let's find an audience. So we
Speaker 2: did a whole of a lot of different kinds of
Speaker 2: things to find out. I know that there's got to
Speaker 2: be a single in there somewhere, you know, And surely enough,
Speaker 2: the record company grabbed all of the line, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, little did I know? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah? But then Hydro was like, let's Hydra was more more.
Speaker 2: We were listening to Genesis the time, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Peter Gabriel and these progressive English groups that
Speaker 2: were doing just blowing our minds, you know, So we
Speaker 2: wanted to get more progressive and more musical, you know,
Speaker 2: because we're all just making music basically for ourselves and
Speaker 2: our friend musicians, so we could get together and smoke
Speaker 2: a little bit and and listen to music, you know,
Speaker 2: and and we wanted to have something interesting to play him,
Speaker 2: you know, because everybody else was bringing in all this
Speaker 2: stuff that they're they're doing, and it was like, you know,
Speaker 2: real real musical stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you guys went into Prince at all? Because
Speaker 1: I know he was hunkered down at Sunset Sound.
Speaker 2: Ran into Prince one time, and he was down there
Speaker 2: before we were down there. During we were down there,
Speaker 2: I didn't run into him. I think Jeff ran into
Speaker 2: him one time, but he was down there with James
Speaker 2: Newton Howard working on his first album. Ray Parker, who's
Speaker 2: my neighbor down the stirt, down down the hill, bad man,
Speaker 2: and he's like my best friend. We grew up together,
Speaker 2: we both He came out from Detroit when he was
Speaker 2: nineteen and I started working when I was eighteen and nineteen.
Speaker 2: So we have been friends since we've been really young.
Speaker 2: So Prince saw Ray Parkers had a studio in his house,
Speaker 2: and Prince said, I want that. So Ray built Prince's
Speaker 2: first studio. Really yeah, So Ray set Prince up and
Speaker 2: then I heard later on that Prince really liked Luca.
Speaker 2: There is a guitar player, and I just I've gained
Speaker 2: so much respect for him lately. Hearing Hill he plays
Speaker 2: guitar and the shows of acoustic work, and he's just
Speaker 2: he was a real talent.
Speaker 1: You know, man, you guys were around some of the coolest,
Speaker 1: greatest the era of music. You guys existed because the
Speaker 1: point again the left, like the what remained of the
Speaker 1: jazz great. It's like said Oscar Peterson came to your
Speaker 1: house to work on to check out synthesizers.
Speaker 2: He did because the Roland, the guy who invented a
Speaker 2: bunch of rolling stuff, was living at my house. Okay,
Speaker 2: Foster called me up and said, I got a guy
Speaker 2: from Canada and Ralph bike for Roland. Do you guys
Speaker 2: interested in this? We said, send them over and he
Speaker 2: would just build stuff for us. And so he became
Speaker 2: friends with Oscar because Oscar's Canadian too, so he brought
Speaker 2: Oscar Peterson over. We're like I called James Duton Howard.
Speaker 2: So you got to get over here right now. Man,
Speaker 2: this is gonna get serious here. You know. Of course
Speaker 2: I didn't have any I didn't take any pictures during
Speaker 2: the time, and I don't have any pictures from it.
Speaker 1: Did he play on this piano?
Speaker 2: No, I have a piano downstairs. Oscar played on because
Speaker 2: a nine foot ball with st ten. He looks at
Speaker 2: my piano. It was nice box.
Speaker 1: Unbelievable, man, How did you guys change as people before
Speaker 1: having those hits and having the hit? I mean, did
Speaker 1: at any point? Did it get competitive? But not amongst
Speaker 1: you guys, but with other groups? Did you feel like
Speaker 1: we want hits. So did you feel like you want
Speaker 1: to compete on the live?
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, what was What's so funny because after,
Speaker 2: like years later, I talked to some people the Recession guys,
Speaker 2: Danny Korchmeyer, Danny Cooch, a, Waddie Walke Tell, and they
Speaker 2: told me we were so pissed off at you guys
Speaker 2: when he came out with all the line They go,
Speaker 2: that's a goddamn do wop song and we should have
Speaker 2: played that. We should have played the solo on that record,
Speaker 2: not Lucather and everything like that, because look at it
Speaker 2: played like a Brian May kind of Queen's you know,
Speaker 2: he shredded it, you know, and they were gonna play
Speaker 2: like Doom Do Doom Do Do Do Do Do Do
Speaker 2: Do Do do? They wanted to treat it like about
Speaker 2: you guys, and that you could do that, but then
Speaker 2: have Luke at there do like a Brian John. We
Speaker 2: were mashing up genres, you know.
Speaker 1: At the time, it's the coolest thing about you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, And later on we'd be Luke, we kind
Speaker 2: of were competitive with the songwriting he bring in this
Speaker 2: and I'd be like I still today can't write. He
Speaker 2: writes every time he breaks up with somebody, he would
Speaker 2: write a great ballad, a love ballad, and he just
Speaker 2: he's great pills and he sings it and he sings
Speaker 2: him too. You know, how did you guys work that out?
Speaker 2: But I mean, there's so many people in the group
Speaker 2: who could sing the song, someone who could write the song.
Speaker 2: We would listen to the best songs in yours. Anybody
Speaker 2: has a song, bring it in and we'll listen to it. Now,
Speaker 2: just listen to whose voice it's that. And so each
Speaker 2: of us would try. You know, everybody tried to sing Africa.
Speaker 2: They just couldn't spit all the words out. And I
Speaker 2: was I ended up singing the song that I wrote.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd written it a little easier to you know.
Speaker 2: So, as usual, the band says to me, next time
Speaker 2: you're going to write a number one single, make sure
Speaker 2: that you're not the singer on it. Make sure our
Speaker 2: lead singer sings the whole thing. And I'm like, guys,
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: You guys really not know Africa would be.
Speaker 2: No no idea really, no idea really. That was the
Speaker 2: last song that was eleventh hour song that we had
Speaker 2: the whole album done, and we just start experimenting with well,
Speaker 2: here's maybe a song that and they used to say
Speaker 2: it was a joke, Dave, save this for your solo record,
Speaker 2: which there was none, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 2: or or maybe for the next album. This is a
Speaker 2: good song. No, no, this stor our sense of humor,
Speaker 2: just fucking with me, you know. So we start experimenting
Speaker 2: with it around, making a loop. We we knew we
Speaker 2: had time because we'd already done our album. So we
Speaker 2: got in the studio and made a loop, a drum
Speaker 2: loop with any Castro and Jeffercarl and then I put
Speaker 2: on a C. S eighty thing and we started building
Speaker 2: it little by little and just everybody was making their
Speaker 2: own parts up, and it just came came to being,
Speaker 2: you know, and we were like, well, okay, this is
Speaker 2: the last cut. It's kind of different kind of world music.
Speaker 2: And then they called from New York. Sony called it
Speaker 2: says they're playing it in a disco, a big disco.
Speaker 2: It's a big hit in New York. Africa is and
Speaker 2: this started going around the United States. People start picking
Speaker 2: it up, and it just gained momentium.
Speaker 1: So cool, you guys have these incredible pop songs. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Africa, Rosanna, songs like that, and then the
Speaker 1: solos that you're playing. How did you pull back? Because
Speaker 1: I mean I would love to hear like an eight
Speaker 1: minute so yeah, of you? I mean, how did you
Speaker 1: guys try yourself?
Speaker 2: Times we played Rosanna? We jammed on the end there?
Speaker 1: Did you you just hear the little.
Speaker 2: You hear a little short one?
Speaker 1: Hear the short? I want to?
Speaker 2: We said, well, we're going to keep it short this time, guys,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, keep the endiing there, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, get it all in. But that
Speaker 2: was that went longer. That fade out probably in another
Speaker 2: two minutes, you know what I mean, We just faded
Speaker 2: it out. You know.
Speaker 1: Love to hear that? Yeah, loved me too. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you guys did it, as like there's not
Speaker 1: many groups who could be as musically inclined as you guys.
Speaker 1: And also but also we like kind of know, like, okay,
Speaker 1: we got to do the short version.
Speaker 2: That's the reason we just decided instead of forming a group.
Speaker 2: We got offers to form our out of our high
Speaker 2: school band to sign a deal, and we turned it
Speaker 2: down because we said we want to go in and
Speaker 2: learn how to make records so that we don't come
Speaker 2: out we don't learn on our first record. We're just
Speaker 2: barely learning how to make records here. So we each
Speaker 2: went off our different directions and we did a lot
Speaker 2: of sessions and gained all this knowledge, so we were
Speaker 2: ready to We were like co producing ourselves by the
Speaker 2: band members, by their just their experience.
Speaker 1: Did you learn about a lot about songwriting playing on
Speaker 1: other people's songs?
Speaker 2: Yeahs I learned a lot about what I didn't want
Speaker 2: to do because I kept I would try and make
Speaker 2: them a little more of my songs. I try and
Speaker 2: re arrange them when using my changes. But everybody else
Speaker 2: wanted to use these jazzy cords tho. It's like, and
Speaker 2: I was going for the everybody else. That's what Foster had,
Speaker 2: Graydon and those guys were always that the earth wind
Speaker 2: and fire. Yeah they were. Everybody was trying to be
Speaker 2: earth winded fire at the time, Okay, and so was I.
Speaker 2: So we all were yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: kind of earth windy right there. Do you know what
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: Domins and Russ Joan Bias last, Oh, yeah, you can.
Speaker 2: Know about that record that I knew the producer. I'd
Speaker 2: worked with him, the guy named David Krushenbaum, and he
Speaker 2: hired me and we all great thing that I got
Speaker 2: to play with Joe Sample. Joe Sample and me played
Speaker 2: together on that. I played piano and he played roxy
Speaker 2: chord I think or electric piano, Roxy court and had
Speaker 2: Larry Carlton, Dean Parks, Jim Gordon on drums and I
Speaker 2: just got to play on that record, and uh, it
Speaker 2: was fun. Joan Bias was great. We just I had
Speaker 2: done a midnight special with her with our band. She
Speaker 2: ended up using our band for backup band on Midnight Special.
Speaker 2: But a funny story about Steely Dan Walter Becker heard
Speaker 2: the Diamonds and Rust album and saw that Larry Carleton
Speaker 2: had arranged it, and that's why he called Carlton to
Speaker 2: arrange the World Scam album because he said, if he
Speaker 2: they can make Joan Biaz sound this good, they're gonna
Speaker 2: be able to arrange our stuff. And that was that
Speaker 2: was the deal. They That was the album that they
Speaker 2: got turned on too. Larry Carleton.
Speaker 1: I mean that's the song Joan Bias says, that's her
Speaker 1: best song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great.
Speaker 1: It was moved.
Speaker 2: She was like the Dylan's counterpart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was moved to Colin and tell her
Speaker 1: this is incredible, you know, I mean.
Speaker 2: What a god. We could talk for another two hours.
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I wanted to go through the
Speaker 1: room and just ask about everything you got.
Speaker 2: Let me show you downstairs real quick.
Speaker 1: I'll be awesome and maybe we'll do it again.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, I think we should do it again. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Cool. Thanks so much to David Page for inviting us
Speaker 1: into his home and playing for us. You can hear
Speaker 1: all of our favorite Toto songs and other stuff Davids
Speaker 1: played on on a playlist at broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
Speaker 1: broken Record Podcast, where you can find all of our
Speaker 1: new episodes. You can follow us on Twitter at broken Record.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
Speaker 1: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
Speaker 1: is Ben Tollway. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
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Speaker 1: by any Beats. I'm justin Richmond.