WEBVTT - Holly Knight 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.719 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:17.159 My guest today is songwriter Holly Knight. She has a 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:20.840 new book entitled I Am the Warrior, My crazy life 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.800 writing the Hits and rocking the MTV Eighties. So, Holly, 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.440 why did you write the book? Why did I write 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.360 the book? I guess I wrote it for a number 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.839 of reasons. I tried to actually write it a few 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:41.080 years ago, and I took it to a person that 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.760 represents writers, and she came back and she said, well, 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.400 you know, it's really well written. I really like it, 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.080 but you're not a household name and I probably won't 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.240 be able to get you a deal. So I went, oh, 0:00:55.280 --> 0:00:57.120 and I put it aside for about a year and 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.480 a half, and then people kept bugging me and going, 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:02.360 why aren't you know? I'd be in the kitchen at 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:04.440 some party or something and they don't you have to 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:06.680 write a book. You have so many stories and they're 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:11.200 so very there's so many different artists. So I thought, 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.720 you know what, uh fuck it, I'm doing it, and 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.120 so I put together a book proposal. I've learned how 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.240 to do it the proper way, you know. I got 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:25.560 an agent and I got a deal and that's how 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.240 it started, really, and then you know, the pandemic was 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.760 going on, so I was home all the time anyway, 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.200 and I thought, you know, I really need a break 0:01:33.600 --> 0:01:39.000 from songwriting, which happens to me during different so periodically 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.120 I just have to stop writing and I need something 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.800 else to put my creative juice into. So I really 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.000 enjoyed it. Actually, I had a lot of fun writing 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:51.400 this book. Okay, what's the reaction been from some of 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:55.040 the people you mentioned. You're very honest, you say who 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.280 you have sex with. Some people you're not so charitable too. 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:04.680 Have you gotten any feedback you mean the people in 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:08.200 the book? Yeah, I got. I got feedback from Kathy 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:14.160 Valentine and Cassandra Peterson, my two buddies, and they loved it. 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.080 I mean, Cassandra was so sweet and she said I 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.640 had no idea you loved me so much, which is 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:24.280 pretty funny. But and Kathy as well, and they both 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.000 said that they were really impressed with the fact that 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.160 it was actually really well written. It wasn't just like 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.680 schlocked down. They're like, here, this happened, and this happened. 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.400 I tried to be you know, tried to be sort 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.679 of artistic and as far as the guys, let's see, 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.680 I had everybody has been just freaking out over it 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.440 and telling me they love it. But the people that 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:46.880 are in it, I haven't gone out of my way 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.520 to tell too many of them that they're in the book. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.120 And a lot of them I sent the book to, like, 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.839 I sent it to Jean Gene Simmons, and I don't 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.040 know if he reads books, but he put a really 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.000 nice blurb on it, which was fantastic. And what was 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.320 great about it was his blurb totally mirrored the story 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:07.840 that I wrote about in the book, which kind of 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:11.639 was validating. You know. I sent a copy to Paul Stanley. 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:16.840 I doubt he'll read it. Stephen. I didn't send it 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:19.560 to Steven Tyler. He's got a lot of stuff going 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.240 on right now. What about Rod Stewart, You know, you 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:26.120 take a few swings into him, not vicious, but he 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.680 comes over to write a song and you never write right. Well, 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.639 well that's his fault. You know. He was too busy 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:36.120 being mischievous and horsing around. And it was really important 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.960 to me to write something good. I mean, look, these 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:44.600 people call me to write something that you know, they've 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.080 run out of either juice or steam, or they've been 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:49.480 doing it too long, or they want fresh blood. And 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.080 so I can't just write an ordinary track, you know, 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:55.440 I have to write something that's really, really good. And 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:57.320 it was just frustrating. I mean I talked about it 0:03:57.360 --> 0:03:59.640 in the book, and I don't think I put him 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:02.240 down it all. I just sort of told the facts 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:05.520 and said that I was, you know, all the different 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.240 things that happened, and honestly, when I saw him, I 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.240 mean that happened what twenty years ago, no more like 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.719 thirty five years ago when I wrote Love Touch. But 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.000 he had made a remark, you know, as you know, 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:21.279 he made a remark in the book about how it 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.120 was sorry, not in the book, he made a remark 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.960 on an anthology record that he did, and he said 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:31.000 that this song love Touch was one of the silliest 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:35.560 songs or embarrassing songs he'd ever recorded, which was a shocker, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.599 because that's not how it went down at all. He 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:40.919 absolutely loved it, and he got me to come in 0:04:40.960 --> 0:04:43.080 and sing it, and I played all the instruments on it, 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.359 and he sent me flowers afterwards telling them how he 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:48.960 loved it. So it was like a complete about face. 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:50.599 And I think that had a lot to do with, 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:54.840 you know, the Man's club and everything that the rest 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:56.880 of his band and people whispering in his ear. But 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:58.680 the funny thing is I saw him at the Tina 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:04.440 Turner premier in London and the West End and he 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:06.520 was like, my best friend. I don't even I've seen 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.000 him before that he doesn't remember any of that. He 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.520 turned once to someone and it was his family. I 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:15.480 ran into him in Central Park in New York at 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.599 a restaurant and he turned to his family and said, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.599 Holly and I wrote this hit song, this great song together, 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.440 And I'm thinking, well, wow, no you didn't write it 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.640 with me, But now you think it's a hit song again, 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:32.400 So you know what the fuck it's you know, getting older? 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.880 What can I if you get paid anyway? I love touch? 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:40.159 Does it bug you when he says the song is 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:45.920 sillier doesn't like it? Yeah, I think it does bet 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.480 me because you know, I'm still I still have feelings, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.800 and if it were true, I would even say, yeah, 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:53.480 that's not one of the best songs I've written. I mean, look, 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:55.720 I've written a lot of songs with or you know, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.120 for kiss and I wouldn't go walking down suns and 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:01.080 saying this is the best song I've ever written. I mean, 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:04.559 water seats its own level, and they're great kiss songs, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.680 but they're not the level of some of the songs 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.960 I write where I put a lot of effort into 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.440 lyrics and things like that. And that's why I said 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.760 in the book, I said, you know, I'm sorry, but 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:20.680 the lyrics I felt to love touch were fucking poetry. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.040 And I said it because I really feel that, you know, 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.840 there's some really a lot of thought went into that tune. 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:28.240 I think he missed the whole point of it. I 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:30.400 don't know, I'm not. I mean, I'm not upset about 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:31.840 it now. I got it out in the book. It's 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.120 amazing how cathartic this book has been, because there were 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:37.160 a lot of things that I was kind of walking around, 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.240 you know, chewing on it like a bone, and it 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:43.159 just this somehow helped me to let it go. So 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.000 you mentioned earlier the boys club men's influence. What's it 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.320 like being a woman, or has been being a woman 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:58.200 in a guy's world. It's been interesting. I was always 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.640 a tomboy growing up, and also I kind of grew 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:03.640 up with a bit of a chip on my shoulder 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:11.040 based on my upbringing, and I also took music very 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.480 very seriously. I mean I started playing piano when I 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:18.080 was four, and I was playing Mozart sonatas in you know, 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.320 Mendelssohn at a ridiculously young age. So I was very confident. 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:24.920 I mean, there's a lot of things I'm not confident about, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.520 or weren't I wasn't confident about, but music was definitely 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.760 not one of them. So when I walked into those rooms, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.160 I just felt like, let's get to work. I have 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:35.920 every right. I have as much right to be here 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.440 as you do. And the minute we would start working 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.600 or I would start playing something, they would shut up, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.920 you know, they would actually you could actually see the change. 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.880 It was really quite amazing to watch. And then, you know, 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:51.720 my name started getting around and I think people just 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.280 accepted me. There was a lot of respect. It was 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.760 kind of unbelievable in a way that they just sort 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.280 of opened their doors and treated me like an cool 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.360 to be honest, except for the few times, and one 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.000 of them was the Rod Stewart story. That's probably the 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.680 probably the I don't want to say dark, but it's 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.240 probably the most revealing one as far as you know, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.640 being around guys, because I mean, to walk into the room. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:18.240 I had been asked to do a tour by the 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.160 management and by Rod, and it was a short tour. 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:23.240 It was three weeks and their keyboard player couldn't make it, 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.840 and I thought, it's just be so much fun. And 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:27.800 when I walked in, Rod wasn't there, and I went 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:32.439 up to the guitarist and yeah, I definitely I had 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.560 something to say about him in the book, for sure, 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:36.959 But you know, he looked at me like, well, who 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.640 are you? We didn't order any pizza, but let's go. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.720 You know, we're living in the me too era and 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:49.640 not all men, but some men are very forward and 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.840 it can be tough being a woman. Did you have 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.600 any of those experiences? No, not really. I had one 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.640 I mentioned in the book when I was about eighteen, 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.200 and I was, you know, going sneaking backstage to like 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.760 Madison's Square Garden to sort of I mean, we didn't 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.680 call it networking then, but that's basically what I was doing. 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:15.360 And I really described the backstage areas like another like 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.320 the other side of the looking glass, like just such 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:23.640 a strange alternate reality. And there was a band one 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:28.600 night who they were the opening act to the bigger band, 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.640 and this guy came up to me. I think he 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.440 was a bass player or something, and he said follow me, 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:35.959 and I followed him into a room and then he 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.079 just turned around and grinned and said, I really would 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.200 like a blowjob. And I just like I looked at 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:43.920 him like I was. I wasn't scared. I was more 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.280 like disgusted, like ill, and I ran at her there 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.080 as fast as I could. And after that, I just 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:56.520 you know, I mean, this is not to take away 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.760 from people that have been constantly you know, these stories 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:01.920 of women that have been abused and raped by men. 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.160 I mean that it's disgusting how that goes on, but 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.800 that's not my story. My story was more like, don't 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.280 fuck with me. You know, if you if you want 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:14.880 the best to me, let's work together. And then there 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:16.640 were times, like I said in the book, there was 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.680 plenty of ass grabbing, but that was on both sides. 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.560 You know, if I wanted to be with someone, I 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.040 was flirting back. So you know, the me too movement 0:10:27.160 --> 0:10:30.240 wasn't really sort of happening for me. And I know 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:33.440 there are there's so many women that that story is true, 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.960 and for them, I think it's wonderful if they have 0:10:36.280 --> 0:10:39.680 the courage to speak up, you know. But I really 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:42.640 I'm one of those people. Like this book is not 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.240 about you know, who tried to rape me or how 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.920 I went into rehab. I talked about that too. You know. 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:51.040 I did smoke pot and I did do blow, but 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.960 I wasn't addicted and I stopped doing it thirty years ago. 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.280 And this is not a story about all the drugs 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.760 that nearly killed me. I So, in other words, not 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.520 everybody that drinks alcohol is an alcoholic, you know what 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:10.960 I mean? Sure, okay, but you do delineate having sex 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:15.040 with some of these people you're working with, and that 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.080 is not in most people's books written by women. Do 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.440 you think you're the same and they just don't write 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:27.080 about it or are you different? Well, I can't speak 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:31.160 for anybody else's experiences, but I imagined, well I know 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.000 some of them, okay, and I'm not going to name names, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.680 but yeah, of course, you know, you think if it's different, 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.679 it's not like you pick up a guy like, for instance, 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:44.720 kiss They would pick up someone in the hallway of 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:46.640 like you know, the place they were playing in or 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.559 they would probably they would boast about just meeting someone 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:52.560 and asking them to give them, you know, head or something. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.120 That was never the case with them. I mean I 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.679 was a little classier than that. These were people that 0:11:58.200 --> 0:11:59.800 I worked with. I mean, look, if you look at 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:02.520 an actor, he ends up sleeping with the actress that 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.120 he's doing the movie with. It just happens. You spend 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.240 all the time with him. They're charismatic, you're attracted to 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:12.800 each other, and stuff happens. But I went I never 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:15.199 picked up people and did one night's stance. Even when 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:19.959 I was in my bands like Spider and Device, I 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.840 never picked up ever someone on the road. So that's 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.719 a little bit of a difference, you know. But some 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.280 of the guys that I worked with I slept with, Yeah, 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.120 and I'm still friends with him or some of them 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.600 I dated, and some I married. How many times you've 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:41.360 been married three and are you presently married? No, I've 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.520 been married and divorced three times. So what did you learn? 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.640 I learned that I have to value myself more and 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.280 reach for the higher hanging fruit on the tree, and 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.560 that I well, the second time I got married, I 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:02.439 really wanted to have children, and you know, my biological 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.839 clock was ticking in and I fell in love with someone, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.439 and you know, I was a great wife in my opinion. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:13.360 I just ended up leading them because I never I 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.160 wasn't very prudent with the choices I made, you know. 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:18.920 So what I've learned is just to value myself and 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.560 realize that if I'm going to enter in into a series, 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:25.839 I'll never get married again, that's for sure. But now 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.600 I'm dedicating love as a battlefield when I play. I 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:33.160 dedicated to my ex husbands, you know. But um, okay, 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.720 if someone who's been married and divorced myself, people just 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:44.040 once I live with I live just one's been married, Okay, 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.760 and people always say, oh, you know it was equal. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.160 We agreed, it's never equal. Somebody wants it more than 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:56.560 the other person. Were you the personally and how was 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:03.560 it with your three marriages? Um? I would say that, Well, 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:04.960 like I said, at the end of it, I had 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:09.720 to kick all three of them out. Um, but I 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.120 would say that, let me think, I have to think 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:18.160 individually here for a second. Um, I think they needed 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:23.840 me more than I needed them. Okay, they needed me 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.160 for different reasons than I needed them. What they needed 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.560 me for was, um, a free ride. You know, I 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:36.240 was the breadwinner, and we could do a whole podcast 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.400 on that. But I think that's that's a little different subject. 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.080 But when one reads the book, if one is Hollywood fluent, 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:49.240 shit doesn't just happen. So I'm reading the book and 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:51.360 I said, well, you know, this woman had to be 0:14:51.360 --> 0:14:55.160 pretty aggressive in order to be in these situations. Would 0:14:55.200 --> 0:14:58.480 you agree with it? How would you characterize your own behavior? 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.880 I would say more than aggressive. I would say confident 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.920 and sort of creative with how I went about getting 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:15.160 their attention sometimes or you know, and sometimes yes, aggressive. 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:17.960 You know. For instance, when I was working with Tina Turner, 0:15:19.640 --> 0:15:21.920 I really wanted her to cut a certain song. She's 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:23.680 cut none in my but I wrote this one song 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.240 and I said, you called up her manager said you 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:28.280 have to get her to cut this tune. I know 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:30.400 this is the perfect tune for And I did that 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.080 whole thing and she ended up cutting it. And it's 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.880 funny because Roger did a BBC interview where he talked 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:42.280 about it. You know, but um, are you talking about 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:48.320 my work or my personal life? I'm talking about your work. Yeah, 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.240 I would say I was confident, and I think my 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.240 work spoke for itself. I didn't have to do a 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:54.800 lot of selling once my name got around. Yeah, well, 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.280 I'm more talking about you know, before you had a 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:01.920 hit with Obsession, and you know with Pat Benatar thereafter, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.920 when you're scrapping, even when you're a teenager in New 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.720 York City, you know, everyone talks about getting backstage. It 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:15.120 is not easy to get backstage, it is. I was tenacious, Okay, 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:19.720 I was absolutely tenacious. I was relentless. Are you kidding? 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:24.320 If if maybe we're talking about semantics here, if that's 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.240 what you mean by aggressive. Absolutely I was very clever, 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:30.240 and you know I talked about it in the book. 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.160 I would I would spend most of the time talking 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:37.000 to the photographers because they always got invited to the 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:39.480 best parties, and they were the nicest ones. They weren't 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:43.000 as pretentious as you know, the other uber, trendy cool 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:47.320 people backstage. They were more down to earth and um, 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.560 I mean I never had a business card or anything, 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:52.920 but I was always trying to weasel my way into 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:56.400 some sort of conversation or or you know, and it 0:16:56.440 --> 0:16:58.240 took a while. And like I said that, we didn't 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.480 have the word networking, but that's what I was doing, 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.840 and one thing led to another, to another to another. 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.840 But I think it was more confidence. And I also 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:09.960 talk about in the book the fact that it was 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.040 kind of crazy the way. I know you're finding it 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.880 hard to believe, Bob, But a lot of things fell 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.679 in my lap. You know, I'm not I wasn't in 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.920 a band where we had a struggle for two three 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:25.520 years and things just happen. And I really believe in 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.000 a spiritual way that when the universe wants things for you, 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:30.879 it gets out of your way. And not only that, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.520 it aid and it bets the process. And these things 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.760 just kept coming in. That's not to say I haven't 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.119 you know, I haven't had to eat shit and I 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.840 haven't had to be turned down all the time. I 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.439 mean even now, you know, I've been in the Songwriters 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:47.240 Hall of Fame. But sometimes it's just degrading the way 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.080 people treat you. The songwriters get treated pretty much like shit. 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.439 So tell me about this chip on your shoulder, be 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.520 a little deeper. What are you talking about. Well, when 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.160 I was growing up and my parents divorced, my mother 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:08.520 was physically abusive, and you know, I didn't really get it. 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:10.199 I didn't want to get into it too much, but 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.280 I told one story just so it would sort of 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.119 show how something inside of me, that the fire in 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.600 my belly was ignited, so to speak, where I got 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.199 tired of it and I learned to fight back. In 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:25.280 the beginning, I didn't fight back. And when I learned 0:18:25.320 --> 0:18:28.879 to fight back, it's like anything, when you give someone power, 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:31.640 it's you giving them the power the minute you take 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.040 it away. That it's like, you know, that's seen in 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:37.680 the Wizard of Oz where the horrible mean Wizard you 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:39.480 put back the curtain. You see he's just a little 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.520 old man and he's yeah. So it's sort of like that. 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:46.399 And so what came with that was a chip on 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.439 the shoulder, you know, talking back to my mother getting 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:52.800 smack some more. And I just sort of carried that 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.000 on with me as I was sort of out there. 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:58.600 I mean, I talk about it in the book. I 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:00.760 don't get into it too much, but I was out 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:04.560 there for about four years, just traveling. I lived everywhere. 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:06.560 I lived in Seattle fore year, I lived in Boston 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:11.040 for two years. I was doing everything from food stamps too. 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:14.720 I'd work long enough to qualify for unemployment, and then 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:16.760 I'd get the unemployment and then when that would run out, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:18.600 you know, I would do all of those things, and 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.840 I had lots of you know, straight jobs those were. 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.679 That was probably the last time I ever had, like 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.239 us a real job, like working for someone else, was 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.200 when I was in Spider and that lasted I think 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.000 about a week, and then we got a record deal. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.640 And that's why I talked about these things. I kind 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:41.160 of fall inside into your lap seemingly. But what'd your 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:46.520 father say when you told him about the abuse? Well 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:49.720 that was also difficult because my father was in total 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:54.600 denial and he wouldn't he wouldn't validate anything I was saying. 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:56.960 He wouldn't call her up and tell her to cut 0:19:56.960 --> 0:20:00.280 it out. And it took about fifty years. I went 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.800 into a therapist's office with him and finally found out 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.320 what was what that was all about, which I don't 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:08.920 really need to I wouldn't want to, as disrespect to him, 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.000 get into it now. But that also made me angry, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.440 like why aren't you protecting me? You know? He would 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.560 always sort of like say, oh, she's like one of 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:20.560 those European women like Gina Lola Bridget as she likes 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:23.320 to pick up plates and throw him, you know, and 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.280 I would say, no, that's why are you glamorizing that? 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.200 So that that also added to the chip on my shoulder, 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:34.240 you know, and also the fact that you look, my 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.720 book is dedicated to anyone who ever had a dream 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.679 and was told no, And that was me because I 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.960 was this sort of blossoming classical pianist. My mother really 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:45.359 wanted to groom me for that, and she said, you're this, 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:47.960 You're not this. So then there was this angst once 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.280 I discovered rock music, and the louder the better, you know, 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:54.920 that's where the rebelliousness started to grow, and the chip 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:59.440 on my shoulder and all that, and you know, that's 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:04.120 all part of It's so funny how so many things 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.520 in my life have led up to, you know, the 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.720 fact that I wrote The Warrior, that I write songs 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.000 that are about fighting and all that. It's like none 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.720 of it was premeditated. It just kind of unfolded that way. 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.600 And you know a lot of times, so when I 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.440 was writing the book, I would come to these sort 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:25.480 of realizations. I never really analyzed it before until someone says, 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:26.960 explain it to me. And then you have to put 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:37.320 it into words, you know, so you ultimately run away 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.400 from home and go on this ajira for years. Tell 0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:44.479 us a little bit about that. I left home when 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.280 I was fifteen, and it was right before my sixteenth birthday. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:53.080 I just, you know, I didn't like the abuse that 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:57.000 was going on at home. My father wasn't listening to me. 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.359 And then one day I went up to my school, 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.560 which was music and art that was at the time. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.920 It was in a really rough neighborhood, which I don't 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:07.399 even know the neighborhood is so rough now, but it 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:09.640 was one hundred and thirty fifth Street in Convent Avenue 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.800 and now this school is next door to Juliard. I 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:15.880 so wished should have been that way when I went there, 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:18.639 But again that's my journey. So I remember one day 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.159 I walked up to school and there was like police 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.159 tape everywhere and they were pulling a body out of 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:27.000 this garbage cam that was chopped up in pieces. They 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:29.200 just pulled the head out and I looked and I thought, 0:22:30.080 --> 0:22:32.480 this is crazy. I'm getting out of here. And I 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.880 had met I already had a boyfriend at that point 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:37.919 who was twenty. He was a drummer, and we had 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:40.639 sort of been talking about doing the what IF's, like 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:42.840 what and I'm thinking, what if I play a house. 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:44.840 I'm fifteen, What if I go out there and just 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:47.920 grow up really fast and playhouse? And I was sort 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.040 of entertaining the idea, but I never thought it would happen. 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:54.280 And then one day I was working at sam Ash. 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:56.160 I had got a job there, which, by the way, 0:22:56.200 --> 0:22:58.760 I loved. I loved working. I loved that feeling of 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:00.960 making my own money, and to this day that is 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:05.080 so important to me, not to be dependent on someone else. Okay, 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.679 a little bit, a little bit slower, so you're on 0:23:07.760 --> 0:23:11.000 forty eight Street, but be Mannis and all these things, 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:15.560 you know, and it was sort of an intense buying experience. 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:18.240 You just walked in and said, you gotta hire me. 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:22.520 How did you actually get the job? It's like the 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:25.000 things that fall into my left I walked in there 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:29.399 and I remember the manager's name was Herb and I 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.800 said to him, I'm looking for a job. I'm still 0:23:31.840 --> 0:23:34.360 in school, so I can only work part time. I'm 0:23:34.359 --> 0:23:41.480 a musician. Are you hiring? And he just took my number, 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.600 kind of looked at me there like whatever, because everybody 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:47.640 that worked there. They were all men, and I got 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:51.040 a call at home that night and asking if I 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:52.479 could come in the next day. So I guess they 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:56.639 must have fired someone like unexpectedly, and you know, I 0:23:56.720 --> 0:23:58.320 was in the right place at the right time, and 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:01.840 he called me in and I loved working there because 0:24:02.320 --> 0:24:05.000 it was sort of with Then this happens a lot 0:24:05.040 --> 0:24:07.600 with musicians that get jobs at all these places like 0:24:07.640 --> 0:24:11.719 Guitar Center or whatever. At least you're around music, and 0:24:11.760 --> 0:24:14.439 it puts you one step closer to being in the 0:24:14.560 --> 0:24:18.040 music business, even if it's a fantasy. But then also 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.639 the fact that so many people come into these stories 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:22.720 that are legendary. I mean they have to buy equipment, 0:24:23.440 --> 0:24:25.520 and I don't know how it is now, but in 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:27.680 that day they wanted to come in and check out 0:24:27.680 --> 0:24:31.199 the equipment themselves. Now they maybe they send someone I 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:34.560 don't know, but I did all the like really crappy 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:36.879 little jobs that no one else wanted to deal with. 0:24:37.080 --> 0:24:40.840 Like if he wanted to sell like an amphead at 0:24:40.960 --> 0:24:42.840 new and it had some knicks on it, he would 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:44.560 give me a sharpie and I'd have to color it 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:47.439 in and make it look new. Or he sent me 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:49.480 in the back where all the cables were. I mean 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:51.919 to this day, when a roadie sees me take a 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:54.439 guitar cable and wrap it up there, they're like, where'd 0:24:54.440 --> 0:24:57.560 you learn that? It's like after doing hundreds in the 0:24:57.560 --> 0:25:00.240 backup over and over and over, just like a giscop boom, 0:25:00.280 --> 0:25:02.400 it got really I got good at it, but they 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:05.199 were kind of crappy things. And then one day on 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:06.679 my break, I was in the back and I was 0:25:06.760 --> 0:25:10.200 playing keyboards and then I hear someone clapping and I 0:25:10.280 --> 0:25:12.320 turned around and it's heard of the manager and he said, 0:25:12.320 --> 0:25:14.600 where did you learn to play like that? And then 0:25:14.640 --> 0:25:16.959 I told him more about me, and then from that 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.840 point on he used to have me demonstrate keyboards to buyers, 0:25:20.880 --> 0:25:22.840 like I couldn't actually make the sale because I wasn't 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:25.200 legally old enough or I didn't have a so I 0:25:25.240 --> 0:25:27.440 don't remember what it was, social Security or something, but 0:25:27.800 --> 0:25:29.199 he just sort of would call me out and I 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:33.040 haven't just go play and you know, and make it sound, 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:34.800 and I try and make it look like it was easy, 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:37.240 like if you press this, but you get this sound 0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:39.639 and blah blah blah, and so it was. It was. 0:25:40.280 --> 0:25:42.800 It was cool and a lot of you know, my God, 0:25:42.920 --> 0:25:45.520 A lot of really big artists came in, and I 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:48.120 would just sort of like poker face to stare, like, 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:52.480 holy shit, it's Jimmy Page, Holy shit, it's Frank Zappa, 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:54.960 you know. I mean it was like, you know, It's 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:57.439 one thing when you see something I said in the 0:25:57.440 --> 0:26:00.400 Book of you start to believe that you know people 0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:02.439 when you see them all the time on TV or 0:26:02.480 --> 0:26:04.640 in magazines and stuff. But then when they walk in 0:26:05.920 --> 0:26:07.960 and you realize it's sim and you think, I don't 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:10.480 really know them at all, but I know that face 0:26:10.520 --> 0:26:12.399 and I know what they've done, and I you know, 0:26:12.440 --> 0:26:13.960 I did that a lot in the book, and I 0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:16.200 still do that. I'm a fan, girl. I'm a fan. 0:26:16.600 --> 0:26:20.320 I'm a music fan, especially that era, you know, the 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:24.120 seventies and eighties. There's really nothing like it right now, 0:26:24.440 --> 0:26:28.040 you know, that's for sure. Okay, So tell me about 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:32.040 actually leaving New York. You mean when I ran away 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:34.560 the first time? Or yes, because I ran away a 0:26:34.560 --> 0:26:37.880 few times. Okay, So I was fifteen and I lied 0:26:37.920 --> 0:26:40.080 to my mother. I had found out that, oh right. 0:26:40.520 --> 0:26:42.440 I started to tell you about sam Ash I saw 0:26:42.560 --> 0:26:46.800 brochure and it was a summer school program up in 0:26:46.840 --> 0:26:52.120 Boston called the Electronic Boston School of Electronic Music, and 0:26:52.160 --> 0:26:56.800 they were teaching electronic music on synthesizers like ARP twenty 0:26:56.840 --> 0:27:00.320 six hundreds and the Mogue, not just the Mini because 0:27:00.359 --> 0:27:02.480 they had the big mugs like with you know, you 0:27:02.520 --> 0:27:05.840 had to be practically a phone operator to learn how 0:27:05.840 --> 0:27:08.120 to use those because you had to plug all these 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:12.840 cables in and everything. I was really fascinated with all that. 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:15.399 I mean, I was like Emerson, like a Palmer geek, 0:27:16.320 --> 0:27:20.119 and I sort of saw myself as a female version 0:27:20.160 --> 0:27:22.560 of him. You know. I wanted to perform. I didn't 0:27:22.560 --> 0:27:24.080 know I wanted to be a songwriter. I just want 0:27:24.119 --> 0:27:26.120 to be a rock star, you know. And I didn't 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:28.200 want to be a rock star because I cared about 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:32.240 so much about being famous. I didn't even think about 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:34.600 the money part. I just wanted to play the music 0:27:34.640 --> 0:27:37.720 that I wanted to be played, to be playing, and 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:40.560 I wanted to play to an audience. So that's really 0:27:40.560 --> 0:27:43.119 how it started. The songwriting thing sort of came after 0:27:43.200 --> 0:27:46.760 the fact, after I'm probably getting ahead of myself again, 0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:51.159 but um so I left home pretending that I was 0:27:51.200 --> 0:27:53.120 going to come home on such and such a date, 0:27:53.200 --> 0:27:55.119 like it was labor weekend. I'll see you, you know, 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:57.320 I said, I was just glad to be away from 0:27:57.359 --> 0:27:59.800 my mother, and I think she was probably glad to 0:27:59.840 --> 0:28:04.240 get than me too, So I told her i'd be back. 0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:06.639 And then about a week or so before I was 0:28:06.640 --> 0:28:09.040 supposed to be back, I'd been plotting this all summer. 0:28:09.119 --> 0:28:11.000 I mean, this was like the great escape to me, 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:15.800 and we'd saved money. I went with the boyfriend, Danny 0:28:15.920 --> 0:28:21.320 the drummer, and somehow I felt safe. And the funny 0:28:21.400 --> 0:28:24.800 part is like it wasn't like I was going out 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:26.200 on the road with a twenty year old that was 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:27.800 taking care of me. It was kind of the other 0:28:27.840 --> 0:28:30.639 way around. He was the child and I was taking 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:33.720 care of him, you know. But at least I felt 0:28:33.920 --> 0:28:36.320 more protected, and I felt that was my first love. 0:28:36.359 --> 0:28:37.760 I fell in love with him, and I had this 0:28:37.840 --> 0:28:40.720 fantasy that we would form a band, and that never happened, 0:28:41.320 --> 0:28:44.440 and we just we went on these crazy adventures that 0:28:44.720 --> 0:28:46.560 you know, when I originally wrote the book, I wrote 0:28:46.560 --> 0:28:49.600 about one hundred pages more and I wrote about some 0:28:49.680 --> 0:28:52.800 of these escapades we went on on the road, because 0:28:52.840 --> 0:28:56.160 that's even more like unbelievable, some of those stories. But 0:28:57.120 --> 0:28:59.360 I decided that this book had to have some sort 0:28:59.360 --> 0:29:02.920 of hook. So the hook for me was the MTV era, 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:06.280 which was unlike any other to me. You know, that's 0:29:06.320 --> 0:29:09.160 when I had started really having a lot of hits 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:12.520 and stuff. But so before that, yeah, so we traveled 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:15.280 around and eventually I ended up back in New York 0:29:16.680 --> 0:29:21.200 and you graduate from high school. I did. What I 0:29:21.240 --> 0:29:24.680 did was I went to Bourns and Noble and I 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:28.120 got and they were around back then, and I got 0:29:28.200 --> 0:29:31.280 the you know, like when you're studying for college, you're 0:29:31.320 --> 0:29:33.720 studying for certain exams, you have these practice books. So 0:29:33.720 --> 0:29:39.520 I got some practice books for the GED And the 0:29:39.560 --> 0:29:42.040 thing that was amazing was I always had really really 0:29:42.080 --> 0:29:44.440 good reading skills. Like when I was in fourth grade, 0:29:44.440 --> 0:29:47.320 I was reading on a ninth or tenth grade level. 0:29:47.400 --> 0:29:50.920 So that's always gotten me through life because I'm so 0:29:50.960 --> 0:29:53.200 self taught on so many levels and the fact that 0:29:53.240 --> 0:29:55.720 I liked to read. And then the Internet came along 0:29:55.760 --> 0:29:58.760 and it was just like this explosion of like available 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:02.240 knowledge right at your finger tips. Um. So anyway, I 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:05.800 studied from the book and I took the test and 0:30:06.080 --> 0:30:08.800 got my diploma, and I thought, well, that's funny. I've 0:30:08.800 --> 0:30:10.520 just spent three years out on the road, and I 0:30:10.560 --> 0:30:12.920 got my diploma like everybody else my age, you know, 0:30:13.120 --> 0:30:16.320 I had to wait till I was eighteen to qualify, 0:30:16.560 --> 0:30:18.360 and then I sent it to my dad because I 0:30:18.440 --> 0:30:20.120 know he was really ashamed, but I was kind of 0:30:20.160 --> 0:30:23.680 ashamed too that I hadn't graduated. But I knew I 0:30:23.680 --> 0:30:25.880 was going to work it out, you know. And as 0:30:25.920 --> 0:30:28.200 it turned out, I scored really high and I could 0:30:28.240 --> 0:30:30.800 have gone to college, but I didn't have to because 0:30:30.840 --> 0:30:35.400 then my career things happen. You know, So what did 0:30:35.840 --> 0:30:38.880 what did your mother ever say about your success when 0:30:38.920 --> 0:30:43.720 you had it? It took her a long time to 0:30:43.760 --> 0:30:45.640 actually come out and say I'm proud of you. And 0:30:45.720 --> 0:30:48.080 she's probably said that to be in baby three or 0:30:48.120 --> 0:30:52.800 four times my entire life. So hence that's another another 0:30:52.880 --> 0:30:55.760 part of the chip on the shoulder, you know. Um 0:30:57.880 --> 0:31:00.960 she's she's passed away now, so right, that's another thing 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:02.720 that I thought, now I can write the book because 0:31:02.720 --> 0:31:06.400 both my parents aren't around anymore. Because I didn't want to. 0:31:06.760 --> 0:31:09.040 I didn't want to hurt make it worse, or hurt 0:31:09.080 --> 0:31:12.320 their feelings or anything. But um, I always sort of 0:31:12.320 --> 0:31:14.840 when I tell these stories, I placed the story more 0:31:14.880 --> 0:31:17.800 on me as opposed to them, you know what my 0:31:17.840 --> 0:31:21.960 interpretation of that is. But um, like, for instance, I 0:31:21.960 --> 0:31:25.680 would give her, I would give her like a bunch 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:30.520 of CDs and to listen to and enjoy different ones, 0:31:30.600 --> 0:31:32.760 like like different bands, like one would be bon Jovi 0:31:32.880 --> 0:31:34.720 and one would be Aerosmith and one would be Kissed. 0:31:35.320 --> 0:31:36.920 And I knew she hated that kind of music, so 0:31:37.000 --> 0:31:38.880 she just gave them away. She kind of used it 0:31:38.920 --> 0:31:41.720 to make herself look like, look look at my daughter, 0:31:41.840 --> 0:31:44.640 Look what she did. But she didn't she didn't really 0:31:44.680 --> 0:31:48.480 listen to them herself. And and I wasn't surprised at 0:31:48.480 --> 0:31:50.840 that point, but it still bothered me. You know, it's 0:31:50.840 --> 0:31:53.440 funny when you have this relationship with your parents, no 0:31:53.520 --> 0:31:56.800 matter how fucked up they are, and maybe when they're 0:31:56.800 --> 0:32:00.400 even when they're fucked up, you want you still care 0:32:00.440 --> 0:32:03.920 what they think, even though they've talked and treated you 0:32:03.960 --> 0:32:08.440 badly or whatever. You still want more than anybody else's approval, 0:32:08.520 --> 0:32:10.640 or you want them to say I'm proud of you 0:32:10.760 --> 0:32:14.560 or whatever. It's very important because it's part of who 0:32:14.560 --> 0:32:21.720 you are. Okay, you ultimately join what becomes Spider. Tell 0:32:21.840 --> 0:32:25.480 us how you get into that band, which very interestingly 0:32:25.560 --> 0:32:28.680 includes Anton fig of course, was the drummer for David 0:32:28.720 --> 0:32:37.080 Letterman forever. Yeah, I was friends with someone who you know, 0:32:37.120 --> 0:32:42.000 he was just he was great at hooking people up. 0:32:42.080 --> 0:32:46.240 And he invited me to go see a band one night, 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:49.200 and I went and band had a couple of members 0:32:49.240 --> 0:32:52.680 that were just filling in because they wanted to do 0:32:52.760 --> 0:32:54.200 their own band. And I met them and one of 0:32:54.240 --> 0:32:58.600 them was Aunton and the other one was Keith, and 0:32:58.800 --> 0:33:02.560 I just immediately like him. And I remember thinking Keith 0:33:02.600 --> 0:33:05.640 had said something about wanting to do his own music 0:33:05.880 --> 0:33:07.720 and wanted to get a record deal and wanted to 0:33:07.720 --> 0:33:09.840 be in a band, and that they were just doing 0:33:09.880 --> 0:33:12.920 this as if you know, a temporary gid to make money, 0:33:13.400 --> 0:33:17.520 and that just really that was like. When he said that, 0:33:17.560 --> 0:33:21.000 I thought, this is the one, This is the one 0:33:21.480 --> 0:33:23.960 if I'm going to give him my number, and he 0:33:24.000 --> 0:33:26.240 seemed interested in me, and I thought, if he calls me, 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:29.840 I'm definitely going to go check it out. And I 0:33:29.880 --> 0:33:31.720 figured if he doesn't call me in the next couple 0:33:31.760 --> 0:33:36.920 of days, I'm going to call him. I don't care. 0:33:37.400 --> 0:33:40.280 So the next day he called me after I had 0:33:40.280 --> 0:33:44.040 met him, and it was about eleven or eleven thirty 0:33:44.080 --> 0:33:47.640 at night, and he said, we you know, I talked 0:33:47.640 --> 0:33:51.520 to Amanda who was the singer, and Keith and Anton 0:33:51.640 --> 0:33:53.840 and we'd love for you to come down and have 0:33:53.920 --> 0:33:56.880 a listen to our music. And I said, I'd love to. 0:33:57.000 --> 0:33:59.000 When when are you thinking? And he said right now, 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:01.760 I'm like ready for bed. It was like one of 0:34:01.760 --> 0:34:04.720 the few nights I've taken a bath and already tucked 0:34:04.760 --> 0:34:08.279 in like thinking. And I thought, get your ass up, 0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:10.799 this is it, this is the one. This is what 0:34:10.840 --> 0:34:13.960 you've been waiting for for four years. See when I 0:34:14.040 --> 0:34:17.279 was when I had run away with Danny, we would jam, 0:34:17.320 --> 0:34:19.239 you know, but we were always like a basement band, 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:21.680 and it usually was just me on keyboards and him 0:34:21.719 --> 0:34:25.280 on drums, and it just I always had the stream, 0:34:25.320 --> 0:34:29.360 and it bothered me that he wasn't. He he didn't 0:34:29.400 --> 0:34:32.480 have sort of the same ambitions. So I was very 0:34:32.560 --> 0:34:34.960 much focused on wanting to make it. At that point, 0:34:35.480 --> 0:34:37.400 I wasn't half asked about it at all. I was 0:34:37.440 --> 0:34:40.160 going out every night, I was sneaking backstage. I was 0:34:40.280 --> 0:34:43.160 networking and going to tracks and to clubs and talking 0:34:43.200 --> 0:34:45.560 to people. And you know, I got a job in 0:34:45.560 --> 0:34:48.240 a music store, so it was all moving in that direction. 0:34:48.480 --> 0:34:51.520 So it's not like I was, you know, a waitress 0:34:51.600 --> 0:34:54.640 in like a in a bar restaurant, and then all 0:34:54.680 --> 0:34:56.520 of a sudden I decided I wanted to be in music. 0:34:56.560 --> 0:34:59.320 This was started when I was four. You know, music 0:34:59.400 --> 0:35:03.440 was my first language and it still is. Anyway, they 0:35:03.440 --> 0:35:10.240 invited me down and we ended up jamming, and yeah, 0:35:10.280 --> 0:35:12.920 it was really funny because Amanda said something like it 0:35:13.000 --> 0:35:14.880 was too late to go back uptown. I lived up 0:35:14.880 --> 0:35:16.960 on seventieth and on the West Side, and they were 0:35:17.000 --> 0:35:19.800 down in Soho in a loft and Amanda said, you 0:35:19.800 --> 0:35:22.560 should just stay spend the night. You can sleep with 0:35:22.600 --> 0:35:27.919 antone in his room, and we went okay. So I 0:35:27.960 --> 0:35:29.480 went in the room and slept with him and he 0:35:29.520 --> 0:35:32.000 became my boyfriend. I mean, that's how funny it is 0:35:32.000 --> 0:35:34.720 when you're young. It's just you're just young and stupid, 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:37.520 and it's like it doesn't take much if you're attracted 0:35:37.520 --> 0:35:40.840 to someone to go, you know, okay, let's give this 0:35:40.920 --> 0:35:43.080 a shot. So he was my boyfriend in the band 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:45.160 for about two and a half years. He's still a 0:35:45.280 --> 0:35:49.920 very good friend of mine, as is Keith. We're all buddies. Okay, 0:35:50.440 --> 0:35:56.560 a couple of things. Hey, what happened to Keith and Amanda? Ultimately? 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:59.719 And then a man has a baby with Keith when 0:35:59.719 --> 0:36:02.640 you get there. Then she ends up being involved with 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:07.360 the Anton as they say, where are all these people today? Yeah, 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:12.240 you know, people talk about the social sort of incestuous 0:36:12.239 --> 0:36:14.239 stuff that went on in Fleetwood Mac. But we have 0:36:14.320 --> 0:36:17.799 him beat because when I broke up with Anton, it 0:36:17.840 --> 0:36:19.480 was just too much, you know, like as we were 0:36:19.480 --> 0:36:21.600 trying to get a deal, it was just twenty four 0:36:21.680 --> 0:36:23.720 seven too much. And I knew that being in the band, 0:36:23.760 --> 0:36:26.000 that that was the more important of the two. So 0:36:27.400 --> 0:36:29.879 I moved out of I had moved in the lot, 0:36:29.920 --> 0:36:32.200 and we were all living in this lot together except 0:36:32.239 --> 0:36:35.120 the bass player, and so I decided that I was 0:36:35.160 --> 0:36:38.040 going to move into my own place. And then about 0:36:38.080 --> 0:36:41.840 a year later, things started to deteriorate between Amanda and 0:36:41.880 --> 0:36:44.640 I for reasons that I write about in the book. 0:36:44.719 --> 0:36:47.719 She's the only one I don't talk to. Well, I 0:36:47.719 --> 0:36:49.640 don't talk to Jimmy, but it's not because I'm not 0:36:49.719 --> 0:36:52.680 talking to him. It's it's more like I just don't 0:36:52.680 --> 0:36:56.280 know where he is. He was an amazing bass player. 0:36:56.480 --> 0:37:00.839 But anyway, so after I think was going on while 0:37:00.880 --> 0:37:02.400 I was in the band. I still don't know it. 0:37:02.400 --> 0:37:06.279 I've never really asked them. But Amanda divorced Keith. They 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:09.520 still had the child Shay together, and then she started 0:37:09.560 --> 0:37:13.320 seeing Anton. At this point I had left the band, 0:37:13.560 --> 0:37:16.279 so but I knew something was going on. I told 0:37:16.360 --> 0:37:18.640 him I'd finished out the tour. She just made a 0:37:18.680 --> 0:37:22.399 switch and went from and they were best friends. They 0:37:22.440 --> 0:37:27.240 had grown up together in South Africa, and Amanda's also African, 0:37:28.040 --> 0:37:31.480 and I think Keith was more like you could have 0:37:31.520 --> 0:37:33.840 her take her. She's always take her off my hands, 0:37:35.320 --> 0:37:38.080 but you'd have to ask him. But that's the story 0:37:38.120 --> 0:37:41.480 that I got. And then they got married and they 0:37:41.480 --> 0:37:45.000 had a child together. So now the lead singers had 0:37:45.120 --> 0:37:48.360 gotten married to two different members at different times and 0:37:48.400 --> 0:37:53.280 had children with both of them. And Keith and Anton 0:37:53.360 --> 0:37:57.520 are still like best friends. That's the best part. They 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:00.320 don't talk to her, but they're like boys stick together, 0:38:00.480 --> 0:38:04.600 you know. I think the whole thing's actually pretty funny 0:38:04.600 --> 0:38:07.680 when I think about it now. So tell us about 0:38:07.760 --> 0:38:13.240 changing your name. So we all we were so focused 0:38:13.280 --> 0:38:15.479 on getting a record deal, and you know, we wrote 0:38:15.520 --> 0:38:21.040 original material, and I changed my name because my original name, 0:38:21.080 --> 0:38:24.200 which is German Jewish, which I meant, you know, I 0:38:24.320 --> 0:38:27.640 talked about in the book. It just didn't nobody ever 0:38:27.680 --> 0:38:31.840 pronounced it correctly in the first place. And I was 0:38:31.880 --> 0:38:33.680 just trying to think of a name that would be cool. 0:38:33.880 --> 0:38:37.480 And I had a dream one night, and in the 0:38:37.600 --> 0:38:40.080 dream I was Holly Night. So Holly has always been 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:43.080 my name, but the Night came to me in a 0:38:43.160 --> 0:38:45.719 dream and I never questioned it. It It just seemed so 0:38:45.800 --> 0:38:48.279 normal in the dream. I loved it, and I when 0:38:48.280 --> 0:38:51.240 I woke up, I thought that's it. And I didn't 0:38:51.239 --> 0:38:54.720 really read into it until much later is my life 0:38:54.719 --> 0:38:58.759 started unfolding the significance of the word night because the 0:38:58.880 --> 0:39:02.320 Nights are warriors and they're fighters, you know, and they 0:39:02.320 --> 0:39:04.800 protect people. I just liked it because it was British. 0:39:04.840 --> 0:39:07.680 I was sort of without knowing what an Anglo file was. 0:39:07.719 --> 0:39:10.640 I was a total Anglo file. You all started with 0:39:10.719 --> 0:39:12.719 James Bond and then I'm just to this day, it's 0:39:12.760 --> 0:39:16.640 like English accent just melts me. And it's a very 0:39:16.640 --> 0:39:19.640 common name in England. It's like akin to what Smith 0:39:19.760 --> 0:39:22.319 is here, you know, But also just the rhythm of it, 0:39:22.680 --> 0:39:25.320 because I now I look back and I go Okay, 0:39:25.360 --> 0:39:28.279 the rhythm of lyrics and the rhythm of things Holy Knight. 0:39:29.120 --> 0:39:32.920 I have a son, Tristan Knight, Dylan Knight. It's all 0:39:32.920 --> 0:39:36.360 the same sort of you know, rhythm to it. And 0:39:36.400 --> 0:39:39.160 that's It's funny because all these years I've had different 0:39:39.160 --> 0:39:42.520 publishing companies and I always sort of play around with 0:39:42.560 --> 0:39:45.560 the word nights. So I've had My first publishing company 0:39:45.600 --> 0:39:49.239 was Ninty Night. Of course these are all with k's okay, 0:39:49.440 --> 0:39:53.120 ninety Night. Then I had night Club. Then I had 0:39:53.440 --> 0:40:00.839 um Nightlife Music. My Instagram is night Vision. Then I 0:40:00.880 --> 0:40:04.360 had another publishing company because every time you change your 0:40:04.360 --> 0:40:07.120 publishing deal, you have to change your publishing name, at 0:40:07.160 --> 0:40:10.080 least I did. And then I had good Night like 0:40:10.200 --> 0:40:12.359 good Night Songs, and the one that I have now 0:40:12.400 --> 0:40:23.520 is Knighted Knighted Songs. Okay, you wit. You end up 0:40:23.520 --> 0:40:26.319 connecting with Bill alcoyne. Tell us about that and what 0:40:26.400 --> 0:40:31.440 Bill was really like. Bill was like no other manager 0:40:31.520 --> 0:40:33.279 that I've met, and I've met a lot of them, 0:40:33.520 --> 0:40:35.640 worked with a lot of them over the years. He 0:40:35.760 --> 0:40:39.799 was very unique. He was very charismatic from manager he 0:40:39.920 --> 0:40:45.480 managed kiss and what happened was I'll try and make 0:40:45.480 --> 0:40:48.160 this really short. There were three South Africans in the 0:40:48.239 --> 0:40:52.400 group and they befriended Eddie Kramer, who was also you know, 0:40:52.440 --> 0:40:55.879 they had that expatriot think of another South African. And 0:40:56.000 --> 0:40:58.920 for those that are listening, if you don't know, you 0:40:58.960 --> 0:41:02.480 know he did Hendrix in Zeppelins as a producer. He 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:04.839 wanted to produce the band when we got our record deal, 0:41:05.320 --> 0:41:10.080 and so Bill A. Coyne was managing Kiss and they 0:41:10.120 --> 0:41:12.960 each were about to do a solo record. Eddie Kramer 0:41:13.040 --> 0:41:15.560 was doing Ace Freeley's record, and Keith thought, oh, I 0:41:15.600 --> 0:41:18.200 have the song and he said to Eddie, can you 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:20.520 give this to Ace? Maybe he'll cut it. Well. Ace 0:41:20.600 --> 0:41:22.600 heard the song and didn't really care for it, but 0:41:22.719 --> 0:41:26.839 he loved the drummer and that was Anton, so he said, 0:41:26.880 --> 0:41:28.680 do you think he would come and play on the record, 0:41:28.719 --> 0:41:32.800 So he did. Then they became friends, Party Animal friends, 0:41:32.840 --> 0:41:37.960 and and Kiss heard Anton play on Ace's record and 0:41:37.960 --> 0:41:39.400 they were like, oh my god, we should get him 0:41:39.400 --> 0:41:41.759 to play on the Kiss records because Peter Chris was 0:41:41.920 --> 0:41:45.279 you know, he was a mess at the time and 0:41:45.840 --> 0:41:49.040 wasn't really in any condition to play on any record. 0:41:49.400 --> 0:41:52.759 So Anton ended up playing on Dynasty as well. But 0:41:52.800 --> 0:41:54.480 I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. 0:41:54.520 --> 0:41:56.400 It's all in the book. There's a great chapter on 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:59.640 the Spider and Kiss Sing and anyway, that's how we 0:41:59.680 --> 0:42:03.480 met the band. We met Kiss and we started to 0:42:03.560 --> 0:42:07.439 get to know them because I was Anton's girlfriend. Every 0:42:07.440 --> 0:42:10.200 time Anton would go out shrinking or parting, I was 0:42:10.960 --> 0:42:14.279 invited because I was the girlfriend, you know, So I 0:42:14.320 --> 0:42:17.759 got to know Ace, and you know, eventually they got 0:42:17.800 --> 0:42:20.799 to Bill, who came down to see us play. We 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:24.120 were the house band at a club called Tracks, and 0:42:24.239 --> 0:42:27.120 he came back to the little dressing arms the size 0:42:27.120 --> 0:42:29.640 of a bathroom. We were all practically naked standing there 0:42:29.719 --> 0:42:32.279 changing and he's just talking, like doesn't care at all 0:42:32.280 --> 0:42:34.560 that we're changing in the same room. He goes, I 0:42:34.600 --> 0:42:37.520 want to manage you, and we were like what. We 0:42:37.600 --> 0:42:39.680 looked at each other, did we really hear him say that? 0:42:39.760 --> 0:42:41.480 And he says, yeah, I want to manage you, and 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:44.000 we all screamed like holy fuck, you know, or some 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:47.520 form of it. Because everybody wanted Bill a coin. He 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:49.719 was like the superstar. There were a few of them, 0:42:50.000 --> 0:42:54.640 but he was definitely one of them. And then that's 0:42:54.680 --> 0:42:56.440 how we ended up going about trying to get our 0:42:56.520 --> 0:42:59.640 deal and we signed to rock Steady, which was you know, 0:42:59.680 --> 0:43:03.319 the aduction company. But going back to what was Bill like, Okay, well, 0:43:03.360 --> 0:43:05.880 Bill was totally out with being gay at a time 0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:09.000 that nobody who's really being out with it. He just 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:12.600 didn't care. He just wore like a badge on his coat. 0:43:12.760 --> 0:43:16.320 And speaking of coats, he didn't look anything like a 0:43:16.440 --> 0:43:19.680 rock and roll This guy wore like suits, business suits 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:23.160 in a tie, you know, so we really kind of 0:43:23.200 --> 0:43:27.320 elegant or whatever. And even though he looked really straight, 0:43:27.360 --> 0:43:30.080 he's probably one of the most rock and roll trashy 0:43:30.200 --> 0:43:32.960 people like when it came to you know, his own 0:43:33.000 --> 0:43:37.960 personal lifestyle and stuff. But yeah, I liked him immensely. 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:40.200 But you know, he favored the boys in the band, 0:43:40.280 --> 0:43:42.040 so he would try and if we would go over 0:43:42.080 --> 0:43:45.480 to his fancy apartment in the Olympic Powers, which was 0:43:45.600 --> 0:43:49.280 really sort of a fabulous place. You know, disco music 0:43:49.320 --> 0:43:51.279 would be playing and he'd be giving the guys like 0:43:51.840 --> 0:43:54.080 something that would keep them up and erected. He was 0:43:54.120 --> 0:43:56.640 giving us something that would just make us pass out 0:43:57.360 --> 0:43:59.440 so that he could have his way with the boys. 0:43:59.480 --> 0:44:01.400 And again, if you think of the me too, you 0:44:01.400 --> 0:44:04.160 know what and even me, like we just looked at 0:44:04.200 --> 0:44:06.920 him like fuck off. If we would laugh about it, 0:44:06.960 --> 0:44:10.040 and then he would laugh and that was it, you know. 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:14.600 He never he never actually tried to like do suddenly 0:44:14.600 --> 0:44:17.120 with the guys unless they were willing at that time, 0:44:17.200 --> 0:44:19.279 That's my take on it. And we never took any 0:44:19.320 --> 0:44:21.759 of his drugs. We were like, I'm not taking that, 0:44:22.120 --> 0:44:24.160 you know, I'm not going to go to sleep in 0:44:24.200 --> 0:44:27.520 your apartment. So um, I don't know. I look at 0:44:27.520 --> 0:44:29.480 it as all part of the whole sex drugs in 0:44:29.600 --> 0:44:32.399 rock and roll territory, and it was really good fun, 0:44:32.760 --> 0:44:36.759 you know. And I really liked Bill a lot, So 0:44:37.120 --> 0:44:42.040 tell us about getting hooked up with the Commander Mike Chapman, right. 0:44:43.920 --> 0:44:46.080 I really liked some of the things I've read that 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:48.120 you've written about him, by the way, and things where 0:44:48.120 --> 0:44:50.840 I wanted to chime in because you were interested in 0:44:51.239 --> 0:44:55.000 all that. Mike was again very much like Bill a 0:44:55.080 --> 0:44:56.960 coin and as much as he was one of the 0:44:57.040 --> 0:45:00.840 straightest looking guys, like he would always wear white polo 0:45:01.000 --> 0:45:05.160 shirts and white tennis shorts and sneakers. He just looked 0:45:05.160 --> 0:45:08.560 so straight, you know, and he is probably one to 0:45:08.640 --> 0:45:10.200 this day, I could say one of the most rock 0:45:10.200 --> 0:45:13.920 and roll guys I know, because it's a mindset, you know, 0:45:13.960 --> 0:45:18.120 it's not about what you're wearing. And I was going 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:20.239 out with a guy named Gray who worked at the 0:45:20.280 --> 0:45:22.040 Record Plan and he had done quite a lot of 0:45:22.080 --> 0:45:26.080 records with Mike. He did the Blindee records, and he 0:45:26.200 --> 0:45:28.600 did a lot of stuff before that, during this sort 0:45:28.600 --> 0:45:32.160 of CBGB's period, and he told me that I should 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:34.560 check out Mike Chapman. And he said, you know what's 0:45:34.560 --> 0:45:38.719 different about him is he's he's a really good songwriter. 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:41.440 So you don't just get someone that's pushing the faders. 0:45:41.520 --> 0:45:43.360 You're going to get someone that really knows how to 0:45:43.400 --> 0:45:46.520 write tunes and knows good tunes. And he said, And 0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:49.719 I thought that was really important because I always thought 0:45:49.719 --> 0:45:51.440 the only way you're gonna get on the radios is 0:45:51.520 --> 0:45:54.840 to have like great songs, you know. You know, I 0:45:54.840 --> 0:45:56.840 mean the word pop we all know comes from the 0:45:56.880 --> 0:46:00.120 word popular, but that doesn't mean what it means now 0:46:00.120 --> 0:46:03.080 in today's world that pop sometimes is looked down upon 0:46:03.160 --> 0:46:07.319 as cheesy or lightweight. Pop. To me, back then just 0:46:07.440 --> 0:46:09.440 meant it was popular because it was weird. It was 0:46:09.520 --> 0:46:12.440 so so good that everybody wanted to hear it, you know, 0:46:13.960 --> 0:46:16.120 So I sort of made up my business. While they 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:18.239 were trying to get Eddie, I was trying to get Mike. 0:46:18.640 --> 0:46:20.680 And at this point I had discovered that I could 0:46:20.680 --> 0:46:24.319 write songs. And I say this in the book. I 0:46:24.400 --> 0:46:26.920 just started writing because they were writing and their songs 0:46:27.000 --> 0:46:29.680 kind of were pretty mediocre and they weren't the kind 0:46:29.680 --> 0:46:31.440 of songs that we're going to get us on the radio. 0:46:31.920 --> 0:46:33.799 So I just started thinking, well, if they have the 0:46:33.800 --> 0:46:35.800 confidence to do it, I'm going to have the confidence 0:46:35.800 --> 0:46:38.920 to do And that's really how I became initially how 0:46:38.920 --> 0:46:41.600 I started writing. And so by the time my friend 0:46:41.600 --> 0:46:44.040 Gray had told me about Chapman, I thought, yeah, it's 0:46:44.160 --> 0:46:47.600 very very important to have good songs, you know. So 0:46:47.800 --> 0:46:50.120 I we didn't have the Internet in that day, so 0:46:50.400 --> 0:46:52.319 and I kept saying to Bill, Bill, can you try 0:46:52.320 --> 0:46:54.480 and get ahold of Mike Chapman? And Bill was busy 0:46:54.520 --> 0:46:56.960 with Kiss. That was the other thing, like we always, 0:46:57.040 --> 0:47:00.040 everybody else came second because Kiss was the moneymaker. So 0:47:00.640 --> 0:47:03.200 we a lot of times we were left to our 0:47:03.239 --> 0:47:06.279 own devices to figure these things out. And I think 0:47:06.280 --> 0:47:09.319 maybe he thought it was premature anyway, But anyway, as 0:47:09.400 --> 0:47:11.880 Seren deputy would have it. I met him at a 0:47:11.880 --> 0:47:14.800 club at Tracks. I met him at the club Tracks 0:47:15.719 --> 0:47:17.840 where we were the house band, and I was talking 0:47:17.880 --> 0:47:20.279 to the Knack who he had just produced. He had 0:47:20.320 --> 0:47:26.319 done my Sharona and and we were talking to him. 0:47:26.440 --> 0:47:30.160 Someone had introduced us, and Mike walked over and they 0:47:30.200 --> 0:47:33.880 introduced us and you know Australian slang kind of now. 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:35.239 I look back at and I thought he looked like 0:47:35.280 --> 0:47:40.759 Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee. And we had a nice 0:47:40.880 --> 0:47:42.480 enough chat. It was nothing or whatever, and then he 0:47:42.520 --> 0:47:44.520 excused himself to go to the bar and get a 0:47:44.600 --> 0:47:49.520 drink in and Prescott, the bass player, said, that's my chat. 0:47:49.840 --> 0:47:51.799 He produced our record. He didn't even say Mike Chatman. 0:47:51.840 --> 0:47:53.960 He said he was the one that produced our record. 0:47:53.960 --> 0:47:55.719 And I said, was that Mike Chapman, Because when they 0:47:55.760 --> 0:47:58.520 introduced me, they just said Mike, not knowing that I'm 0:47:58.520 --> 0:48:01.840 looking everywhere for this guy. So the minute I found 0:48:01.840 --> 0:48:04.520 out it was, they said, yeah, it's Mike Chapman. So 0:48:04.560 --> 0:48:07.480 I went. I found Anton who was wandering that around 0:48:07.520 --> 0:48:09.759 the club and I had to beat it out of 0:48:09.800 --> 0:48:11.839 him to get the tape. We just done a bunch 0:48:11.840 --> 0:48:15.040 of songs demos to try and get a record deal, 0:48:15.120 --> 0:48:16.919 and he didn't want to give it to me because 0:48:16.920 --> 0:48:21.040 he said it was my own copy. And I I 0:48:21.080 --> 0:48:23.440 didn't beat it out of him, but close to it, 0:48:23.680 --> 0:48:25.759 and he gave it to me, and I kissed him 0:48:25.800 --> 0:48:28.120 on the cheek and ran away and gave it to 0:48:28.200 --> 0:48:31.279 Mike and I said, I didn't know you were the 0:48:31.440 --> 0:48:35.759 Mike Chapman. I'm so sorry because I've been looking for you. 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:38.400 I've been hunting you down and I need. I'm going 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:41.279 to court you because I want you to produce you. 0:48:41.760 --> 0:48:43.959 I said all these things, like, there's a really long speech. 0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:48.239 And finally, so did you listen to the tape? You know? 0:48:48.920 --> 0:48:51.480 And he remember he stuck it in his pocket and 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:54.080 I'll never forget He pat it and he said, yep, 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:56.680 I'm gonna listen to this tape. He said, but I 0:48:56.760 --> 0:48:58.400 have to tell you a bit of an asshole when 0:48:58.440 --> 0:49:01.120 it comes to calling people back. He said, just keep 0:49:01.200 --> 0:49:02.960 calling me. I'm at the record plan. I'm doing a 0:49:03.000 --> 0:49:06.640 Blondie record. He was working on Auto American, which had 0:49:06.680 --> 0:49:09.719 all those huge hits on it, like a rapture and 0:49:11.719 --> 0:49:15.799 the tide is high tide kind of thing. Anyway, Yeah, 0:49:15.840 --> 0:49:19.400 and so he would never take my call. And I 0:49:19.440 --> 0:49:21.120 called him for two weeks straight and I could hear 0:49:21.160 --> 0:49:23.359 in the background he's going, oh shit, it's said, Holly 0:49:23.480 --> 0:49:25.279 night check again. I told her to call me, and 0:49:25.480 --> 0:49:28.239 because I remember I heard Debbie once saying like, who 0:49:28.320 --> 0:49:31.120 is she? Is that your girlfriend? Erstanding? You know, I 0:49:31.200 --> 0:49:34.000 was like no, no, no, yeah. So um, he didn't 0:49:34.040 --> 0:49:37.360 call me back. And I guess when you asked me 0:49:37.400 --> 0:49:40.040 the question before, was I aggressive? I guess the answer 0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:43.360 is yes. Um. See, to me, I'm normal, so I 0:49:43.400 --> 0:49:47.239 don't think of it in terms of aggressive. But he 0:49:47.320 --> 0:49:49.400 told me I could. He told me to be relentless. 0:49:49.440 --> 0:49:52.120 So I took him up on it, and that's to me, 0:49:52.200 --> 0:49:54.719 that's what it takes. You know, you just try and 0:49:54.760 --> 0:49:56.879 hope that you're not being obnoxious. You know, there comes 0:49:56.880 --> 0:49:59.799 a point there's a fine line between obnoxious and just 0:50:00.200 --> 0:50:05.799 you know, um for two you know just I can't 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:10.520 think of the word right now, but tenacious. Yeah. Um. Anyway, 0:50:10.560 --> 0:50:13.560 so he called me up and he said I'm leaving today, 0:50:13.600 --> 0:50:15.400 I'm done with the record. I'm getting on the plane 0:50:15.440 --> 0:50:18.279 going back home to LA And my heart sunk. I 0:50:18.320 --> 0:50:21.520 thought he's not We lost that chance, and he goes no. 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:23.200 He says, I'm going to listen to your tape on 0:50:23.239 --> 0:50:24.879 the plane. I have nowhere to go. I'm a cap 0:50:25.040 --> 0:50:27.800 I'm a I'm not going in. I'm a captive listener. 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:30.480 So I will call you in a few weeks. And 0:50:30.520 --> 0:50:33.080 I was like subscited and I hung up, and it's like, 0:50:33.160 --> 0:50:36.360 oh God, I can't I can't wait to tell the 0:50:36.640 --> 0:50:39.600 guys in the band. And eight hours later he called 0:50:39.600 --> 0:50:41.879 me and he said, I listened to your tape three 0:50:41.920 --> 0:50:44.879 times on the plane. He says, you guys are fabulous. 0:50:44.920 --> 0:50:49.680 I have a record label and I want to sign you. Okay, 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:54.560 this is a complicated thing. Mike was the guy with 0:50:54.640 --> 0:50:59.319 the O'china chap with his partner in uh Nikki Chin 0:50:59.560 --> 0:51:04.080 in the UK, and he moves to LA and forms 0:51:04.200 --> 0:51:08.960 Dreamland Records. Ultimately he's too busy to record your record. 0:51:09.000 --> 0:51:11.040 You work with Peter Coleman. It has got a pretty 0:51:11.080 --> 0:51:14.239 good track record himself, certainly, you know with Pat bennettar 0:51:14.320 --> 0:51:20.360 on the first album, etc. In retrospect, was that a misstep? 0:51:20.440 --> 0:51:23.000 Forget that it led to your songwriting career. Do you 0:51:23.000 --> 0:51:25.680 think that Spider would have broken through if you signed 0:51:26.000 --> 0:51:33.080 with a regular major record company. It's possible. I mean, 0:51:33.480 --> 0:51:38.360 things happen there. You know, at any at any given point, 0:51:38.440 --> 0:51:40.399 you can take this road to the left or this 0:51:40.480 --> 0:51:43.280 row to the right, and it changes the trajector of everything. 0:51:45.960 --> 0:51:48.759 So it's hard to say. Maybe if we'd have been 0:51:48.800 --> 0:51:54.319 in a major label, we would have gone on to 0:51:54.440 --> 0:51:56.480 make well, I mean, we made two records, but we 0:51:56.520 --> 0:51:58.799 would have gone on to make a third record, and 0:51:58.880 --> 0:52:02.080 it would have been in the director of a song 0:52:02.160 --> 0:52:05.640 that I wrote on a second record with Mike Chapman, 0:52:07.400 --> 0:52:10.360 which was better be Good to Me and became the 0:52:10.440 --> 0:52:13.720 second single on Tina Turner's Private Dancer. But I'm getting 0:52:13.719 --> 0:52:20.879 ahead of myself. I just really wanted I wanted to 0:52:21.719 --> 0:52:23.879 work with Mike. I wasn't. I mean, it was nice 0:52:23.880 --> 0:52:25.360 that he owned the label, and it's great because we 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:27.480 got a deal, and who knows if we would have 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:30.400 gotten another deal. You know, we had a couple of 0:52:30.480 --> 0:52:33.719 labels that had passed on us, or we had one 0:52:33.840 --> 0:52:35.920 I think it was Sony. They liked us a lot, 0:52:35.920 --> 0:52:37.520 but they wanted to see us live and we were 0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:39.480 getting ready to do that when this all happened, and 0:52:39.520 --> 0:52:42.160 we just let's just go for this, you know, I 0:52:42.200 --> 0:52:46.120 thought he was so cool and the kind of records 0:52:46.160 --> 0:52:48.080 that he was doing were so artsy. You know. He 0:52:48.160 --> 0:52:52.000 just had this reputation for doing things that were artsy 0:52:52.080 --> 0:52:55.840 but commercial, and to do both is very hard. Okay. 0:52:55.920 --> 0:52:59.040 It's one thing to be able to write something that's 0:52:59.040 --> 0:53:02.680 super artsy, but people can't relate to or latch their 0:53:03.200 --> 0:53:06.239 their hooks into. And it's very easy to write something 0:53:06.239 --> 0:53:09.759 that's commercial fluff, which is an artsy But to meet 0:53:09.800 --> 0:53:12.640 in the middle and do both, that's that's the that's 0:53:12.719 --> 0:53:17.560 the key to writing for me, writing great songs, um, 0:53:17.880 --> 0:53:20.200 so you know, I mean even when when I was 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:22.800 writing Loves a Battlefield with him, that to me is 0:53:22.800 --> 0:53:25.160 a little bit more daring, an archie title. It's not 0:53:25.239 --> 0:53:29.200 your normal title, like you know, like a lot of songs. 0:53:29.239 --> 0:53:31.919 So I just I like that. I like the fact 0:53:31.960 --> 0:53:34.920 that he was successful. I like the fact that he 0:53:35.040 --> 0:53:37.600 lived in London and had done all the glamor stuff 0:53:37.640 --> 0:53:42.319 like you know, um, The Sweet and and um some 0:53:42.400 --> 0:53:45.440 of those other bands, even Susie Quatroo. I mean, there 0:53:45.440 --> 0:53:48.239 weren't a lot of women doing rock and so when 0:53:48.920 --> 0:53:52.880 when he said he loved the band, um, that meant 0:53:53.000 --> 0:53:56.360 a lot. And what meant even more was when I 0:53:56.400 --> 0:53:59.439 decided to leave the band, because what happened was, as 0:53:59.480 --> 0:54:02.960 we were doing a couple of records, we would never 0:54:03.000 --> 0:54:05.600 tell the label who wrote what. We would just turn 0:54:05.640 --> 0:54:09.560 in the songs because we wanted them to be, you know, unbiased. 0:54:09.719 --> 0:54:12.120 Just pick the songs you like, and they would always 0:54:12.120 --> 0:54:14.360 pick mine and they would always end up being the single. 0:54:14.800 --> 0:54:18.759 And that just created a lot of animosity in the band. 0:54:18.800 --> 0:54:21.520 And what's weird was it wasn't from the guys as 0:54:21.640 --> 0:54:25.279 much as much as it was from the singer, who 0:54:25.360 --> 0:54:29.160 was a girl like I was. More I was, my 0:54:29.239 --> 0:54:31.360 alliance was more with the guys, and it kind of 0:54:31.400 --> 0:54:34.319 shifted with her. But I'm not sure if some of 0:54:34.360 --> 0:54:37.720 the personal stuff that was going on probably had something 0:54:37.760 --> 0:54:41.120 to do with it too, although I never really talked 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:42.760 to her about it. But I decided to leave the band, 0:54:43.800 --> 0:54:49.680 and Mike became my future. He became my mentor, you know, 0:54:49.920 --> 0:54:52.800 more than anybody that I can think of in my life, 0:54:53.239 --> 0:54:55.920 with all the people that I've written in my entire career, 0:54:56.080 --> 0:54:59.040 I think, to this day my favorite person to write 0:54:59.080 --> 0:55:01.600 with as Mike because he's the real thing, you know, 0:55:02.280 --> 0:55:05.040 and he's got that thing that I try to have 0:55:05.239 --> 0:55:07.360 as well, which I think I do, is to be 0:55:07.640 --> 0:55:13.759 artsy but also to be a commercially successful. Okay, to 0:55:13.880 --> 0:55:20.000 what degree every single act Sandy Cinnamon everything stiffed on 0:55:20.239 --> 0:55:26.840 his level? To what degree did that affect him? Well? 0:55:26.840 --> 0:55:30.719 He ended up breaking up the label and just sort 0:55:30.719 --> 0:55:34.239 of ending that whole relationship with Nikki Chen. I think 0:55:34.239 --> 0:55:36.160 there was a lot of stuff that was going on 0:55:36.520 --> 0:55:39.920 also that between them that he was just he just 0:55:40.040 --> 0:55:42.640 reached the end of his rope. I mean, you know, 0:55:43.680 --> 0:55:46.400 they had this famous Chinny Chap alliance, you know, the 0:55:46.440 --> 0:55:49.279 great songwriters, and you think, oh, it's like Lennon McCartney, right, 0:55:49.320 --> 0:55:52.920 But in Lennon McCartney's case, they actually both contributed and 0:55:53.040 --> 0:55:56.880 we're both geniuses. In Mike's case, Nikki was the business 0:55:56.920 --> 0:55:59.640 partner and Mike was the artist and the writer, and 0:55:59.760 --> 0:56:03.240 Nick he was he could call himself a writer. Anybody 0:56:03.280 --> 0:56:06.440 can call himself a writer. But I've written with a 0:56:06.520 --> 0:56:08.520 Nikki and I can tell you that he's not a writer, 0:56:09.280 --> 0:56:12.920 and Mike is. And Mike, for some stupid reason, just 0:56:13.000 --> 0:56:17.279 kept giving up income and credit credit, sorry, kept giving 0:56:17.360 --> 0:56:21.000 up credit to Nikki for songs that basically he sat 0:56:21.040 --> 0:56:23.600 there with a yellow pad. And I know this because 0:56:23.680 --> 0:56:26.000 Mike we've talked about it, and I said, are you 0:56:26.040 --> 0:56:28.839 okay with me talking about this? I mean, you know, 0:56:31.160 --> 0:56:33.000 he said, I want you to talk about it. I 0:56:33.000 --> 0:56:35.120 am so sick of it. I want people to know 0:56:35.440 --> 0:56:37.920 what really happened. But you know, all those great songs 0:56:37.920 --> 0:56:41.200 that came out of them and stuff, it was pretty 0:56:41.239 --> 0:56:44.040 much it was Mike and I write about it in 0:56:44.040 --> 0:56:45.960 the book because the first song I ever wrote with 0:56:46.000 --> 0:56:48.800 Mike was better be Good to Me, and that became 0:56:48.960 --> 0:56:51.400 our was going to be our second single on the 0:56:51.440 --> 0:56:54.799 Spider record, and a few weeks later after we had 0:56:54.840 --> 0:56:58.680 recorded it. Oh, by the way, he ended up producing that. See. 0:56:58.680 --> 0:57:00.399 That was part of my little scheme, as I thought, 0:57:00.400 --> 0:57:02.240 if I could get him to write with me, maybe 0:57:02.280 --> 0:57:04.640 I can just get him to produce it. And because 0:57:04.640 --> 0:57:08.400 he was such a I mean, he was a great producer, 0:57:09.560 --> 0:57:13.480 just got great performances out of the band, like so 0:57:13.560 --> 0:57:15.839 much more than Peter ever did. I mean, Peter was 0:57:16.320 --> 0:57:19.600 a sweetheart, but Mike was. Mike was like, you know, 0:57:19.680 --> 0:57:22.840 he was like a supernova. He really had that skill. 0:57:23.040 --> 0:57:26.720 And we didn't sound the same on that track. There's 0:57:26.720 --> 0:57:29.200 actually a version of it out there on YouTube where 0:57:29.200 --> 0:57:31.000 we played that song in Germany and you can air 0:57:31.080 --> 0:57:33.960 our version, and it's much more kind of druggy. It's 0:57:34.040 --> 0:57:36.640 like it's like Lou Reed's take a Walk on the 0:57:36.640 --> 0:57:39.280 wild Side, you know. And I love Tina Turner's version, 0:57:39.360 --> 0:57:43.680 but it's very very fast, upbeating and all that. But anyway, 0:57:43.720 --> 0:57:47.360 I walked into the office and Nicki's name was on 0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:50.640 the song on the lyrics, and I said to Mike, 0:57:51.360 --> 0:57:54.800 I think there's a mistake. Nicki's name is on the lyrics, 0:57:55.760 --> 0:57:57.800 and he said, yeah, I know, and I kind of 0:57:57.840 --> 0:57:59.920 looked at him. I was so young, and I was 0:58:00.120 --> 0:58:02.479 star struck at that point with Mike, just the fact 0:58:02.480 --> 0:58:05.120 that he was working with me, because everybody was always 0:58:05.120 --> 0:58:08.200 approaching him, wanting him to do their next record. You know. 0:58:08.240 --> 0:58:10.640 He just had number one after one after one, and 0:58:11.200 --> 0:58:13.840 so I was very careful. I didn't want to I 0:58:13.840 --> 0:58:15.320 didn't want to piss him off, and I didn't want 0:58:15.400 --> 0:58:17.120 him to think that I was being an ingrate. But 0:58:17.400 --> 0:58:20.000 I wasn't happy about it. And he said, I tell 0:58:20.000 --> 0:58:22.120 you what, he said, just agree to this. It'll never 0:58:22.200 --> 0:58:26.120 happen again. And I said, why's that and he said, well, 0:58:26.160 --> 0:58:29.000 because he's been doing this for years, and I'm done 0:58:29.000 --> 0:58:32.600 with that. We have a partnership agreement that whenever one 0:58:32.640 --> 0:58:34.480 of us writes, we both share in it. Of course, 0:58:34.600 --> 0:58:40.360 Nikki never really wrote anything significant without Mike or with Mike. Actually, 0:58:41.680 --> 0:58:44.400 he said, just agree to it and you'll never have 0:58:44.440 --> 0:58:46.520 to do it again. So I did so to this day, 0:58:46.560 --> 0:58:49.480 I just like I get you know, I get angry 0:58:49.520 --> 0:58:51.200 when I see his name there. And the thing is, 0:58:51.360 --> 0:58:53.479 I'm not the only one. I mean, it happens all 0:58:53.520 --> 0:58:56.840 the time to songwriters. You know, we're a publisher or 0:58:56.920 --> 0:59:01.000 not a publisher, a producer will just add their well, 0:59:01.000 --> 0:59:03.120 they won't add their name, but they'll give you an ultimatum. 0:59:03.160 --> 0:59:06.360 If you don't put me on as a songwriter, we're 0:59:06.360 --> 0:59:11.720 not cutting your song. So you know, after that happened, 0:59:11.760 --> 0:59:14.640 I just I found I would never agree to that again. 0:59:14.640 --> 0:59:16.600 I didn't care who it was. They were either going 0:59:16.640 --> 0:59:18.600 to write this song with me, but I wasn't gonna 0:59:18.680 --> 0:59:20.760 even if it was something like Madonna, I wasn't going 0:59:20.800 --> 0:59:22.360 to let them put their name there just so I 0:59:22.360 --> 0:59:27.360 could get the cut. Okay, where is Mike today? And 0:59:27.480 --> 0:59:30.520 you said he said you could tell his story? Where 0:59:30.600 --> 0:59:32.800 is he today? Is he working in how much contact 0:59:32.920 --> 0:59:37.920 you have with him. He lives in London. He is 0:59:37.960 --> 0:59:43.800 working sort of in the trendy Shoreditch sort of musicians. 0:59:43.800 --> 0:59:46.560 He's working with a lot of young people. I have 0:59:46.600 --> 0:59:49.280 no idea what he's put out. I mean, I don't really, 0:59:50.200 --> 0:59:52.680 I don't think he's I don't know. He's always busy 0:59:52.760 --> 0:59:57.240 working on something. But you know, I have to say, like, 0:59:57.480 --> 0:59:59.840 this happens to everybody. It happened to me, it hap 1:00:00.120 --> 1:00:02.560 to him, It's happened to you too, It's happened to everyone. 1:00:02.600 --> 1:00:06.080 You have some point in your career where it's just explosive, 1:00:07.120 --> 1:00:09.320 and then you're sort of established and you go on 1:00:09.400 --> 1:00:13.240 and you continue, but you're not always on the top forever, 1:00:13.440 --> 1:00:15.280 you know, even if your talent is still the same, 1:00:15.360 --> 1:00:17.600 even if you've gotten better or whatever. It's just sort 1:00:17.600 --> 1:00:19.880 of like a rite of passage that goes on to 1:00:19.960 --> 1:00:23.400 the next person or whatever. I mean, even groups like 1:00:23.600 --> 1:00:27.160 the Stones, it just happens, you know. So I think 1:00:27.600 --> 1:00:30.640 his last you know, the really big period was also 1:00:30.760 --> 1:00:34.640 during the eighties, you know. I mean I've since then, 1:00:35.800 --> 1:00:37.840 I've had a you know, I've had a lot of 1:00:37.880 --> 1:00:42.760 stuff happening. I've written songs for movies and TV themes 1:00:42.760 --> 1:00:45.400 and all that. But the eighties was really what this 1:00:45.440 --> 1:00:48.480 book is about. That it was just crazy, the amount 1:00:48.560 --> 1:00:50.880 of success and how well it was going and everything. 1:00:50.880 --> 1:00:54.440 And fortunately it was such a significant time period that is, 1:00:55.480 --> 1:00:58.040 it's bigger now than ever. I get more covers now 1:00:58.120 --> 1:01:01.200 on those songs than I did back then, you know. 1:01:01.400 --> 1:01:03.680 But going back to Mike, we're on very good terms. 1:01:04.320 --> 1:01:07.080 We go through a love hay period where sometimes I 1:01:07.120 --> 1:01:09.560 want to kill him, where sometimes he wants to kill me. 1:01:10.240 --> 1:01:13.120 He's still as rude as as ever when it comes 1:01:13.120 --> 1:01:17.320 to returning calls. He's kind of an asshole that way, 1:01:17.360 --> 1:01:20.480 probably by his own admission, and he just he disappears 1:01:20.520 --> 1:01:23.240 he's very eccentric. But then when we see each other, 1:01:23.280 --> 1:01:26.600 it's like it's like we never stopped talking, and it's 1:01:26.720 --> 1:01:30.360 there's there's a very strong bond and love there, you know. 1:01:31.320 --> 1:01:33.600 And it's interesting because in the beginning, like I said, 1:01:33.640 --> 1:01:35.800 I was so starstruck to be working with him that 1:01:35.920 --> 1:01:39.040 like I just sponged up stuff and I never talked 1:01:39.040 --> 1:01:41.640 back to him. And then as I started getting older 1:01:42.880 --> 1:01:45.400 and started having success without him and things like that, 1:01:45.400 --> 1:01:47.320 where he would challenge me on something, or I would 1:01:47.360 --> 1:01:49.640 end up calling him a prick, you know. I mean, 1:01:49.720 --> 1:01:52.200 it's really is that classic thing of you know, the 1:01:52.240 --> 1:01:55.920 mentor protege, and then the protege matures, and it can 1:01:56.000 --> 1:01:59.720 never be the same for the mentor. You can never 1:01:59.800 --> 1:02:02.640 catch up. The protege is never allowed to catch up 1:02:02.680 --> 1:02:05.840 with the mentor, even if that person has or has 1:02:05.880 --> 1:02:10.480 surpassed them. You know. But I think he's immensely talented, 1:02:10.600 --> 1:02:16.040 immensely eccentric, and he's still alive in kicking. That's all 1:02:16.080 --> 1:02:25.360 I pretty much I can say about him. Okay, let's 1:02:25.360 --> 1:02:28.480 talk about the process a little bit. You co wrote 1:02:28.520 --> 1:02:32.520 with Mike. Do you like to co wrote? Would rather 1:02:32.640 --> 1:02:35.920 do it yourself? Do you see it as a job 1:02:36.280 --> 1:02:39.080 I wake up, I got to put something down? Or 1:02:39.120 --> 1:02:44.040 do you wait for inspiration? Tell me about all that? Okay, yeah, 1:02:44.080 --> 1:02:47.920 those are good questions. I do like to collaborate. I 1:02:47.960 --> 1:02:53.040 always have if it is the right match. If it's 1:02:53.120 --> 1:02:57.200 not the right match, you really end up babysitting the writer. 1:02:57.360 --> 1:03:00.360 And I've gone through that where the record label has me, 1:03:03.080 --> 1:03:05.160 has sent me people to work with, and it's like 1:03:05.240 --> 1:03:08.280 songwriters one oh one, where they're sitting there on their 1:03:08.280 --> 1:03:10.960 phone and they're texting and I'm doing all the heavy 1:03:11.000 --> 1:03:13.880 lifting and going, do you like this? Is this like 1:03:13.960 --> 1:03:16.640 something you would do? I mean, I need some feedback here, 1:03:16.680 --> 1:03:20.080 you know, And what happens. It's kind of like, look, 1:03:20.120 --> 1:03:22.400 you could be the world's greatest tennis player, and if 1:03:22.400 --> 1:03:24.440 you're playing a game on someone that doesn't hit the 1:03:24.480 --> 1:03:26.720 balls back, you can play the worst game of your life. 1:03:27.160 --> 1:03:29.120 So if I don't like the person I'm running with, 1:03:30.080 --> 1:03:32.840 I'm too nice to say now that's got to go 1:03:32.960 --> 1:03:35.400 or whatever, I just can't do it. So I don't 1:03:35.440 --> 1:03:39.360 really like those kind of collaborations. I've only had maybe 1:03:39.760 --> 1:03:43.080 five people in my entire career that I've just absolutely 1:03:43.120 --> 1:03:47.800 loved working with and felt that's what collaboration is supposed 1:03:47.840 --> 1:03:50.480 to be about, Like you're both sort of supertools and 1:03:50.520 --> 1:03:54.520 you both bring something that maybe on your own you 1:03:54.560 --> 1:03:57.680 wouldn't create, or a lot of times I'll be running 1:03:57.680 --> 1:03:59.200 on my own and I'll think this is great, and 1:03:59.200 --> 1:04:00.800 then the more I play it, I start to think 1:04:00.840 --> 1:04:04.520 this sucks. But if you're collaborating with someone and they go, no, 1:04:04.880 --> 1:04:07.120 that part's the best part, Like, well, why don't we 1:04:07.160 --> 1:04:09.640 try this? And then they put it in a different 1:04:10.240 --> 1:04:13.160 slant and then all of a sudden, that's when collaboration 1:04:13.320 --> 1:04:18.200 is great, you know, But that doesn't happen that often. 1:04:18.320 --> 1:04:20.800 So I these days, I like to write a lot 1:04:20.880 --> 1:04:23.200 on my own because I'm older, and I just I 1:04:23.240 --> 1:04:25.760 guess I've been doing it long enough. I you know, 1:04:26.960 --> 1:04:30.160 I just have plenty to say and write about. But 1:04:30.440 --> 1:04:34.160 I don't like collaborating with a lot of people at 1:04:34.160 --> 1:04:37.320 the same time. The first time I sort of experienced 1:04:37.360 --> 1:04:40.960 that was in Nashville, and you know, of course, of course, 1:04:41.040 --> 1:04:43.040 now you know, you see a lot of a lot 1:04:43.080 --> 1:04:46.160 of people listed on one song or whatever. I'm I'm 1:04:46.200 --> 1:04:48.680 I don't write like that. I'm very old school, you know. 1:04:49.880 --> 1:04:52.320 Even though I know a lot about programming, and I 1:04:52.400 --> 1:04:55.840 do all my own pro tools stuff and programming, I 1:04:56.000 --> 1:04:58.240 saved that for after. I'm very old school where I 1:04:58.280 --> 1:05:01.480 like to sit down with a guitar or guitar or 1:05:01.640 --> 1:05:07.560 obviously keyboards and and write. And um, doing songs by 1:05:07.600 --> 1:05:10.320 committee just seems like a free ride to me. For 1:05:10.320 --> 1:05:13.280 for a lot of people that you know, they end 1:05:13.360 --> 1:05:15.960 up being called songwriters, but that I think their gigs 1:05:15.960 --> 1:05:19.880 are a little bit different, you know. Um, for instance, 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:25.720 a programer, right a programmer. To me, that's like coming 1:05:25.760 --> 1:05:28.680 and playing guitar or whatever. That's your job. But if 1:05:28.720 --> 1:05:30.480 someone can sit down and play the song without your 1:05:30.480 --> 1:05:33.280 program drums or whatever, that's you didn't write the song. 1:05:33.760 --> 1:05:36.840 You know the song. It's like all the parts that 1:05:37.000 --> 1:05:39.520 if you miss them, if you take those out, that's 1:05:39.520 --> 1:05:44.080 what That's what to me. Songwriting is about um. But 1:05:44.240 --> 1:05:46.320 there are different levels of it and styles, and I 1:05:46.400 --> 1:05:48.640 acknowledge that. I mean, there are different art forms of 1:05:49.200 --> 1:05:51.480 the way people go about writing songs. But for me, 1:05:51.600 --> 1:05:54.800 and I'm not talking about anybody else, for me, it's 1:05:54.920 --> 1:05:59.640 old school, okay. You know in Nashville they literally have 1:05:59.720 --> 1:06:03.960 a ointments. Let's say you're going to collaborate. Do you 1:06:04.000 --> 1:06:07.360 want to bring something into the session? When the session 1:06:07.520 --> 1:06:09.800 is over, you want to work on it? How do 1:06:09.840 --> 1:06:14.600 you do it? I prefer to bring in something, And 1:06:15.000 --> 1:06:16.880 I talk about this in the book. When I was writing, 1:06:16.920 --> 1:06:19.920 either if I was asked to write with Heart for instance, 1:06:20.200 --> 1:06:26.200 which I was, or bon Jovi or you know, whoever 1:06:26.240 --> 1:06:29.360 I was working with. I liked Rod Stewart for instance. 1:06:29.680 --> 1:06:31.920 I like to walk in with something and so before 1:06:31.960 --> 1:06:33.960 I would get together, if I had the luxury that 1:06:34.000 --> 1:06:37.520 it wasn't the next day, I would just wipe everything 1:06:37.560 --> 1:06:39.560 off on my schedule and to sit down and jam 1:06:39.560 --> 1:06:41.320 in the studio alone so that I could walk in 1:06:41.600 --> 1:06:43.200 and this is going to date me, that I would 1:06:43.240 --> 1:06:47.240 walk in with a cassette and a walkman and start 1:06:47.280 --> 1:06:50.520 to play something. So the same thing in Nashville. I 1:06:50.600 --> 1:06:53.919 was actually flown down by Winona Judd to write with her, 1:06:54.360 --> 1:06:56.800 and I remember looking online and realizing that she wasn't 1:06:56.800 --> 1:07:00.800 a songwriter, and so I thought I had better go 1:07:00.960 --> 1:07:02.960 prepared with like a whole bunch of ideas. So I 1:07:03.000 --> 1:07:04.720 remember I went to I was I had to go 1:07:05.240 --> 1:07:07.919 to Hawaii. I was vacationing, and I had to take 1:07:07.960 --> 1:07:10.919 my kids because school was out and it was only 1:07:10.960 --> 1:07:12.280 a time to do it. So I brought a guitar 1:07:12.320 --> 1:07:14.760 with man. I just recorded all the starts of these 1:07:14.800 --> 1:07:18.600 ideas so that when I went down to Nashville, I 1:07:18.640 --> 1:07:20.880 would have something to sort of bring to the party. 1:07:21.280 --> 1:07:24.520 I don't really like sort of being I like being 1:07:24.520 --> 1:07:27.640 on the front end, not the back end, and I've 1:07:27.640 --> 1:07:31.520 done that and I don't really like it. Okay, tell 1:07:31.600 --> 1:07:33.960 us the story of writing better be good to me 1:07:34.400 --> 1:07:41.000 with Mike and how it's ultimately recorded by Tina. I 1:07:41.040 --> 1:07:43.760 walked in. I had an idea for a song. I 1:07:44.560 --> 1:07:47.439 had something like be good to Me? And he said, well, 1:07:47.440 --> 1:07:49.720 why don't we make it a little bit more, you know, 1:07:49.760 --> 1:07:52.120 a little bit more empowering, like better be good to me? 1:07:52.160 --> 1:07:53.800 And I went, oh, I like that, you know. And 1:07:53.800 --> 1:07:57.400 then as Mike and I were wont to do, we 1:07:57.440 --> 1:07:59.560 would just start jamming, like he would pick up a 1:07:59.600 --> 1:08:02.840 guitar and I would play keywords, but usually I'd be 1:08:02.840 --> 1:08:07.160 playing a bassline or something, not because I can't play 1:08:07.200 --> 1:08:10.200 all that stuff, but to me, you know, basslines are 1:08:10.240 --> 1:08:13.960 so important, and that's sort of I've learned since then, 1:08:14.000 --> 1:08:15.880 that's sort of my forte. I start a lot of 1:08:15.880 --> 1:08:19.519 times with a cool bassline. And we wrote that song 1:08:19.560 --> 1:08:21.559 in one day, and then we went and cut it 1:08:21.600 --> 1:08:23.439 a few days later, and then by the time I 1:08:23.560 --> 1:08:27.400 left Spider, there's a whole I don't know if you 1:08:27.439 --> 1:08:29.719 want to hear the whole story of why didn't get released, 1:08:29.720 --> 1:08:33.000 but the music business, which you can read in the book, 1:08:33.000 --> 1:08:35.599 but the music business went in the crapper when they 1:08:35.640 --> 1:08:38.720 had that whole payola scheme got exposed and all that. 1:08:38.960 --> 1:08:41.639 So everybody that put out a record during that time, 1:08:42.360 --> 1:08:45.080 their record didn't do anything unless they were so big 1:08:45.160 --> 1:08:48.080 like Zappelin or something, didn't matter. They didn't need the 1:08:48.160 --> 1:08:51.200 radio play. But for a new band, you had to 1:08:51.240 --> 1:08:54.400 have the radio play to get you heard. That was 1:08:54.439 --> 1:08:56.320 I guess, you know, it's funny. It's like, I think 1:08:56.400 --> 1:08:59.360 that's sort of what our social media was back then, 1:08:59.560 --> 1:09:02.200 was getting a single on the radio. That's how you 1:09:02.240 --> 1:09:07.640 advertise the record. Very different now, but so, I don't know. 1:09:07.680 --> 1:09:09.639 It was about a year later, and at this point 1:09:09.680 --> 1:09:12.680 I had already written I think it'd already. It was 1:09:12.880 --> 1:09:16.040 right around the same time that I had been working 1:09:16.080 --> 1:09:18.960 with Mike on Love as the Battlefield and Tina Turner 1:09:19.320 --> 1:09:22.840 was doing Private Dancer, and someone the publishers just played 1:09:22.880 --> 1:09:25.519 the song to someone that brought it into one of 1:09:25.520 --> 1:09:27.680 those you know, A and R meetings where they all 1:09:27.720 --> 1:09:30.160 sit around and they play back all these different songs. 1:09:30.200 --> 1:09:34.880 And Tina was there and I wasn't in the room. 1:09:34.920 --> 1:09:36.600 But the urban legend is is that she got up 1:09:36.640 --> 1:09:39.599 and started like doing her thing, walking around the room 1:09:39.640 --> 1:09:42.439 and doing her little stomping those little things she does 1:09:42.479 --> 1:09:45.040 with her legs, and saying, this is perfect, this is 1:09:45.080 --> 1:09:48.080 exactly what I want to say, because she had just left, 1:09:48.400 --> 1:09:51.000 well not just but a few years before, she had 1:09:51.040 --> 1:09:56.200 finally gotten up the nerve to leave Ike. And before 1:09:56.240 --> 1:10:01.400 this record, you know, she was playing hotels and Vegas things. 1:10:01.960 --> 1:10:05.759 You know, nobody had any idea that what was about 1:10:05.760 --> 1:10:08.360 to happen to her. And Better Be Good to Me 1:10:08.439 --> 1:10:12.400 was the second single, so that was amazing. That put 1:10:12.439 --> 1:10:15.639 me on the map right around the same time as 1:10:15.960 --> 1:10:18.720 Love's Battlefield was becoming a hit. So I had two 1:10:18.800 --> 1:10:24.760 hits at once, and that that's I didn't meet her 1:10:24.840 --> 1:10:28.280 or anything. I mean, you don't always meet You usually 1:10:28.320 --> 1:10:31.080 don't meet the artists when you're When you write a 1:10:31.120 --> 1:10:33.640 song and you hand it over that set, it's like 1:10:33.720 --> 1:10:35.720 putting your kid up for adoption. As I said in 1:10:35.760 --> 1:10:38.880 the book, it's like you just hope that they don't 1:10:38.920 --> 1:10:46.360 fuck the kid up, you know. And you know, that's 1:10:46.400 --> 1:10:49.920 really kind of when my career started happening. When I 1:10:49.920 --> 1:10:52.760 hadn't mentioned this before, but when I left Spider, I 1:10:52.800 --> 1:10:54.360 went to Mike and I said, what should I do? 1:10:54.360 --> 1:10:55.840 I don't want to be in this band anymore. And 1:10:55.880 --> 1:10:57.559 I was really afraid of what he was going to say, 1:10:57.600 --> 1:10:59.680 because I thought he'd tried to assume me because they 1:10:59.760 --> 1:11:02.120 put all this money in and I signed a contract 1:11:02.120 --> 1:11:06.400 and he said leave. He said, move out to California. 1:11:06.600 --> 1:11:10.439 Come out and we'll write together. If we're not writing together, 1:11:11.160 --> 1:11:15.120 I will turn you on to writers that you should 1:11:15.120 --> 1:11:17.320 be working with. I'll sign you to a new publishing deal. 1:11:17.720 --> 1:11:20.240 If I have a record and they need a song, 1:11:20.360 --> 1:11:23.120 he said, of course, we wanted to come from their camp, 1:11:23.120 --> 1:11:25.479 but if they can't, I'll go and ask you to 1:11:25.479 --> 1:11:28.519 write them a song, which he did that also, he 1:11:28.560 --> 1:11:30.920 did that with Patti Smithe when I wrote The Warrior. 1:11:31.680 --> 1:11:35.040 So I packed up my stuff and my cat and 1:11:35.160 --> 1:11:37.720 I got on a plane and I moved to California. 1:11:37.760 --> 1:11:40.719 And it's really funny because I kind of describe all 1:11:40.800 --> 1:11:43.760 that time before that as film noir, you know, New 1:11:43.840 --> 1:11:49.479 York City, gritty, cool edgy, dark. Get to California, and 1:11:49.520 --> 1:11:52.879 all of a sudden, it's like Fuji color cotton candy. 1:11:53.080 --> 1:11:57.000 You know, this completely different. I mean, if people think 1:11:57.040 --> 1:11:58.960 that they know how to party in New York, forget it, 1:11:59.040 --> 1:12:02.760 because at least back then in the eighties, it was ridiculous. 1:12:03.400 --> 1:12:06.680 And so then I started to talk about those escapades 1:12:06.720 --> 1:12:10.000 and things, and you could just sort of like a flower. 1:12:10.040 --> 1:12:12.040 You could see it unfolding as I started to have 1:12:12.360 --> 1:12:16.320 more hits and things like that. And for a long time, 1:12:16.360 --> 1:12:18.040 Mike was a big part of that. I mean, some 1:12:18.120 --> 1:12:21.000 of the best songs I've written and biggest songs I've 1:12:21.000 --> 1:12:24.200 written or with him. But I also had a lot 1:12:24.200 --> 1:12:27.439 of success without him, you know, working with when I 1:12:27.439 --> 1:12:32.160 worked with Aero Smith, when I worked with Hart. But 1:12:33.840 --> 1:12:37.200 you know, I'm probably getting ahead of myself. Okay, you 1:12:37.280 --> 1:12:39.880 do love as a battlefield. You write that with Mike, 1:12:39.960 --> 1:12:43.639 and in the book you say the ultimate version produced 1:12:43.640 --> 1:12:47.880 by her husband is completely different from how you envisioned it, 1:12:48.160 --> 1:12:53.040 and you're not happy. Yeah. Well, when we first got it, 1:12:53.520 --> 1:12:58.400 we just looked at each other, like, what the fuck 1:12:58.560 --> 1:13:02.160 happened to our song. We didn't have a big, fancy demo, 1:13:02.400 --> 1:13:05.920 which was nice. We just put you know, we put 1:13:06.680 --> 1:13:11.000 the whole essence of that song out there, and Neil 1:13:11.080 --> 1:13:13.040 decided that he was just going to put his stamp 1:13:13.120 --> 1:13:16.040 on it and change it. So we sent them like 1:13:16.080 --> 1:13:18.360 a real I say that book, like a real meat 1:13:18.439 --> 1:13:22.800 in potatoes, a Game of Thrones kind of anthem for 1:13:22.880 --> 1:13:25.920 the masses, and they sent us back a dance track 1:13:27.040 --> 1:13:31.479 with all these crazy synthesizers in it and everything, and 1:13:31.560 --> 1:13:34.519 Neil likes to say that we sent them a ballot. 1:13:34.560 --> 1:13:37.920 It wasn't a demo. It was a typical type of 1:13:38.080 --> 1:13:39.680 tempo that I would write, which is sort of like 1:13:39.680 --> 1:13:44.599 an eighth note mid tempo rocker, you know. But her 1:13:44.680 --> 1:13:50.040 vocal was sensational, and as time went on we learned 1:13:50.080 --> 1:13:51.439 to love it. As it went up the charts, that 1:13:51.479 --> 1:13:54.360 he left it more and more, you know. But there 1:13:54.360 --> 1:13:57.559 have been all kinds of versions of it that are 1:13:57.720 --> 1:14:00.640 actually closer to what we did. You know. Also, I 1:14:00.680 --> 1:14:05.040 did an audio book and I narrated it. It's out 1:14:05.080 --> 1:14:09.240 now too, and it has demos of some of those songs. 1:14:09.240 --> 1:14:11.760 So I have the demo to Love as a Battlefield, 1:14:11.840 --> 1:14:14.720 or the demo to the Bass and the Warrior with 1:14:14.840 --> 1:14:17.040 Nick Gilder singing on it. And I've never played them 1:14:17.040 --> 1:14:20.200 to anyone. So what I like about it is when 1:14:20.240 --> 1:14:22.639 you hear those demos, you can go, yeah, it's all there, 1:14:22.920 --> 1:14:25.200 It's all there, you know, maybe the tempo is different, 1:14:25.720 --> 1:14:28.439 bells and whistles or whatever. I would have to say that, 1:14:30.400 --> 1:14:32.439 out of all the songs that we did, I think his, 1:14:33.200 --> 1:14:36.400 you know, their interpretation was more of a departure than 1:14:36.640 --> 1:14:39.120 other songs that I've had out there, So I kind 1:14:39.120 --> 1:14:43.040 of go into it in the book, you know. Okay, 1:14:43.520 --> 1:14:46.639 So tell us about The Warrior and how it ends 1:14:46.680 --> 1:14:51.719 up getting to Patty smythe Mike was doing a record 1:14:51.760 --> 1:14:55.639 with Patty and Scandal, and he felt that they didn't 1:14:55.680 --> 1:15:00.640 have enough singles, or any singles. Maybe they had. They 1:15:00.840 --> 1:15:03.160 had some good songs though they thought that I liked, 1:15:03.560 --> 1:15:05.080 but they didn't have the one that was really going 1:15:05.120 --> 1:15:08.920 to put them on the map. So he said, I 1:15:08.960 --> 1:15:10.879 want you to write a song for them on producing 1:15:10.880 --> 1:15:13.479 the record, and they need something I don't have the time. 1:15:13.680 --> 1:15:16.400 He said, I'm going to introduce you to Nick Gilder, 1:15:16.960 --> 1:15:18.880 and he had had a number one hit with Nick 1:15:19.720 --> 1:15:23.320 with Hot Child in the City, and I loved his 1:15:23.400 --> 1:15:26.200 quirkiness is his voice. You know, I thought for the 1:15:26.200 --> 1:15:29.400 longest time Nick Gilder was a woman because of the voice, 1:15:29.439 --> 1:15:31.280 you know, it was so high and everything. Anyway, we met, 1:15:31.960 --> 1:15:35.000 we talked about the fact I played him some stuff 1:15:35.000 --> 1:15:38.759 that that Patty had done, like Goodbye to You, and 1:15:39.320 --> 1:15:42.479 that was another song they had that I liked m 1:15:42.840 --> 1:15:45.479 and so we wrote. We ended up writing The Warrior, 1:15:45.560 --> 1:15:48.840 but then I sent it to I sent it to 1:15:48.920 --> 1:15:50.920 Mike and maybe he was in a shitty mood that 1:15:51.000 --> 1:15:54.920 day or something, but he didn't really respond. And it's 1:15:54.960 --> 1:15:57.240 sort of like going to the oracle. It's like when 1:15:57.280 --> 1:15:59.400 he loved something, you know, i'd be walking on air, 1:15:59.479 --> 1:16:01.640 and if he didn't like something, I'd be like, like 1:16:01.880 --> 1:16:04.320 so depressed, like I wanted to kill myself, you know, 1:16:05.160 --> 1:16:07.920 And I thought, but this is a really good song, 1:16:08.040 --> 1:16:10.040 Like how can you not hear this? Like what's wrong 1:16:10.080 --> 1:16:13.080 with him? But I didn't really say anything or whatever. 1:16:13.320 --> 1:16:16.000 In the meantime, Nick was really happy that he didn't 1:16:16.080 --> 1:16:18.519 love it, because Nick wanted to record it. He wanted 1:16:18.560 --> 1:16:23.680 to to be a single for him. And then like 1:16:23.720 --> 1:16:26.360 a day or so later, maybe a week, I don't know, 1:16:26.640 --> 1:16:28.880 he might called up. He said, you know that song, 1:16:29.040 --> 1:16:31.280 that that warrior song that you sent me? He said, 1:16:31.280 --> 1:16:33.000 I can't find He said, could you send me a 1:16:33.000 --> 1:16:37.599 copy of it? And I thought, I said sure, I'll 1:16:37.720 --> 1:16:40.479 drop it off, and I remember hanging up going you know, 1:16:40.600 --> 1:16:44.080 he's been he's been walking around singing that motherfucking song 1:16:44.160 --> 1:16:47.679 for the last few days and realizes it's just that good. 1:16:47.760 --> 1:16:51.160 So and that's exactly what happened, and so he said, 1:16:51.280 --> 1:16:53.120 he calls me up after you least, because this song 1:16:53.200 --> 1:16:55.479 is a fucking hit. We're cutting it. It's going to 1:16:55.560 --> 1:16:59.840 be their single. And so he went in the studio 1:17:00.000 --> 1:17:02.280 with him. In the meantime, Nick said I don't I 1:17:02.320 --> 1:17:05.240 don't want her to cut it, and and Mike had 1:17:05.280 --> 1:17:07.160 to get like really tough on him and say, look, 1:17:07.200 --> 1:17:10.960 I'm the publisher of Lise of Holly's Share, and I 1:17:11.040 --> 1:17:13.760 won't let you release the song. I will not. This 1:17:13.840 --> 1:17:17.120 is because there's a there's a rule that says, or 1:17:17.160 --> 1:17:21.240 a law that says, when you write a song, you 1:17:21.280 --> 1:17:23.920 get to say who cuts it as the songwriter the 1:17:23.960 --> 1:17:26.639 first time. Once it's out there, anybody can cut it 1:17:26.920 --> 1:17:28.519 as long as they pay you, you know, and they 1:17:28.520 --> 1:17:30.400 have to license it and they go through something like 1:17:30.439 --> 1:17:35.120 a Harry Fox agency. But and the reason that's very 1:17:35.160 --> 1:17:37.920 relevant to today is because so many times I don't 1:17:37.920 --> 1:17:39.960 even know that the song's getting cut, and then I 1:17:40.040 --> 1:17:42.679 find out by going to a movie or watching a 1:17:42.720 --> 1:17:46.720 TV show, or someone texting me and saying, oh, I 1:17:46.800 --> 1:17:48.720 love that song. It's the theme song, you know that 1:17:48.800 --> 1:17:52.280 one on on Glee or something. This happens all the time. 1:17:53.479 --> 1:17:57.160 It even happened when when when Biden did the victory speech. 1:17:57.320 --> 1:17:59.200 I didn't know until I was watching them accept the 1:17:59.240 --> 1:18:01.960 speech and the best came came on. But again I'm 1:18:01.960 --> 1:18:05.479 getting ahead of myself. I'm very add that way. Going 1:18:05.520 --> 1:18:10.000 back to what you were asking, Um, Mike just got 1:18:10.000 --> 1:18:13.000 really tough with him and so Nikki had to back 1:18:13.040 --> 1:18:16.080 off and he did. I think he's really happy now that. 1:18:16.600 --> 1:18:19.240 I think it's the biggest aside from Hot Chama City, 1:18:19.320 --> 1:18:23.200 probably bigger. It's funny because I just spoke to Patty 1:18:23.360 --> 1:18:28.960 yesterday because we've we've stayed friends and stuff, and we 1:18:28.960 --> 1:18:31.200 were just talking about it because the Warrior is coming 1:18:31.240 --> 1:18:33.840 out in two really big movies. Um. I think one 1:18:33.960 --> 1:18:39.600 is that movie eighty for Brady. It's in that that's out, Yeah, 1:18:39.640 --> 1:18:42.479 that's out. Yeah. And then what's coming out is Cocaine Bear, 1:18:42.640 --> 1:18:47.880 So the Warrior is in that movie as well. So yeah, 1:18:47.880 --> 1:18:50.479 the licensing is just crazy. And she was asking me 1:18:50.560 --> 1:18:56.800 questions about the licensing is just Um, it's the gift 1:18:56.800 --> 1:19:00.160 that keeps on giving. Now, of course you've been in 1:19:00.160 --> 1:19:03.599 which anybody who knows the song would remember that video. 1:19:04.360 --> 1:19:09.080 That video help her hurt the track. I don't think 1:19:09.080 --> 1:19:14.719 it helped well. I thought that it was so sort 1:19:14.760 --> 1:19:17.760 of stupid and jaw dropping that it almost worked on 1:19:17.800 --> 1:19:21.360 that level. It's like, can you watch can you believe this? Right? 1:19:21.439 --> 1:19:23.200 And let me tell you that what you just said 1:19:23.280 --> 1:19:27.439 is the gospel for so many videos during that period 1:19:27.439 --> 1:19:30.280 of the MTV. I mean some of those things like Obsession, 1:19:30.320 --> 1:19:33.760 for instance, when I saw the video to Obsessions Obsession, 1:19:33.920 --> 1:19:36.920 and you see these guys walking around in togas serving 1:19:37.120 --> 1:19:39.840 or dirves, You're thinking, like, what has that got to 1:19:39.840 --> 1:19:41.720 do with the song? But did we really care? No? 1:19:42.520 --> 1:19:44.360 You know some of them. I mean, the Love is 1:19:44.400 --> 1:19:47.160 a Battlefield one was also a shocker for me. But 1:19:47.439 --> 1:19:49.680 I thought Patty was really cool looking, and I just 1:19:49.720 --> 1:19:52.559 pictured her as being like a rock check and somehow 1:19:52.640 --> 1:19:56.920 the megap artists, I guess, she wanted her to look 1:19:56.920 --> 1:19:59.640 like a ninja, so she it looked like she had 1:19:59.640 --> 1:20:02.080 been ruck across the face with a lightning bolt, if 1:20:02.080 --> 1:20:04.280 you remember that, And then they had her hair swept 1:20:04.360 --> 1:20:07.280 up in like a bride of Frankenstein kind of do. 1:20:07.560 --> 1:20:10.720 And the whole video was just ridiculous. And I never 1:20:10.720 --> 1:20:13.479 really talked to Patty about it. And then I saw 1:20:13.520 --> 1:20:15.519 her when I when I got inducted in the Songwriting 1:20:15.560 --> 1:20:17.800 Hall of Fame. She inducted me. So she came and 1:20:17.880 --> 1:20:21.200 she sung the Warrior. So we got together before that 1:20:21.360 --> 1:20:23.960 just to catch up, and we're sitting in this diner 1:20:24.000 --> 1:20:26.800 and I I just kind of summoned the courage and 1:20:26.840 --> 1:20:30.200 I said, tell me something, what did you think of 1:20:30.240 --> 1:20:33.960 the video to the Warrior? She probably sprayed her soda 1:20:34.080 --> 1:20:37.400 like she goes, I hated it, you know, she's I 1:20:37.439 --> 1:20:40.560 don't know what the fuck they were thinking. It was ridiculous, 1:20:40.840 --> 1:20:44.000 you know. Um. But then at the same time, you 1:20:44.000 --> 1:20:46.960 look back, it's like it's a part of that time 1:20:47.000 --> 1:20:50.439 period that you know, it's funny like at the time 1:20:50.439 --> 1:20:52.880 you see and you go, oh, god like, but then 1:20:52.920 --> 1:20:54.320 you look back at it now and it's sort of 1:20:54.400 --> 1:20:56.800 like there was no time period like that. You know, 1:20:56.840 --> 1:20:59.679 you got cow's walking through the room like well, PAMs 1:20:59.720 --> 1:21:10.320 are forming and you know, okay, let's stay with the 1:21:10.360 --> 1:21:15.879 concept of hits. Professionals know you can't write an eleven 1:21:15.960 --> 1:21:20.599 every day. My experience has been if you create eleven, 1:21:20.720 --> 1:21:24.040 you know, then there are people like William Goldman said, 1:21:24.040 --> 1:21:30.919 no one knows anything. What's your experience? Can you explain? 1:21:31.280 --> 1:21:34.880 So I'm accurate when I answer this. It's an interesting question. 1:21:37.560 --> 1:21:40.720 I mean, better than ten eleven is like iconic where 1:21:40.720 --> 1:21:44.720 in your catalog the warrior better be good to Me 1:21:44.920 --> 1:21:48.320 or something like that. When you write something of that caliber, 1:21:48.880 --> 1:21:56.400 do you know it's a hit? That's the first question. Okay, yeah, 1:21:56.520 --> 1:21:59.360 good question. Um, we knew when we wrote Love as 1:21:59.360 --> 1:22:02.960 a Battlefield that it was a hit. We weren't sure 1:22:03.000 --> 1:22:05.920 when you heard their version it was a hit. But 1:22:06.000 --> 1:22:08.000 we knew when we wrote it was a hit. And 1:22:08.120 --> 1:22:10.080 as it turned out, it was an iconic. It it's 1:22:10.080 --> 1:22:16.000 an evergreen, even their production of it. But to get 1:22:16.040 --> 1:22:18.880 to an eleven, I don't think you know, I think 1:22:18.920 --> 1:22:22.640 that that just you've hit the lottery. You didn't mean to. 1:22:23.240 --> 1:22:26.080 I mean, the minute you start thinking I'm going to 1:22:26.160 --> 1:22:28.920 write something like that, there's no way you're going to 1:22:29.000 --> 1:22:32.160 do it authentically. There's just no way. So you have 1:22:32.280 --> 1:22:34.760 to keep it real. So I have to say, and 1:22:34.880 --> 1:22:36.280 you know, I wrote about it in the book. When 1:22:36.320 --> 1:22:40.040 we wrote the Best we had no idea how big 1:22:40.080 --> 1:22:41.880 it was going to be, and it wasn't big in 1:22:41.920 --> 1:22:45.000 the beginning. It's gotten big over forty years. It's just 1:22:45.040 --> 1:22:48.439 like a monster that just keeps growing and growing. And 1:22:48.520 --> 1:22:52.240 growing and tapping into something. You know, in order to 1:22:52.280 --> 1:22:54.880 have those kind of songs, it has to sort of 1:22:54.960 --> 1:22:58.160 gell with what's going on in the world, you know, 1:22:58.200 --> 1:23:00.920 because you've got to tap into a collector of consciousness 1:23:01.080 --> 1:23:05.680 of pop h you know, pop culture and society and 1:23:05.960 --> 1:23:09.200 what's needed at any given time. And I think that 1:23:09.280 --> 1:23:11.600 the Best has done that. I mean, it gets licensed 1:23:11.640 --> 1:23:13.720 so much. It was just on the Super Bowl. It 1:23:13.840 --> 1:23:17.360 was licensed for with Pringles, so it was on the 1:23:17.400 --> 1:23:22.320 Super Bowl. You know, it's been the use of it 1:23:22.320 --> 1:23:26.400 has just been like so insane that people just keep 1:23:26.439 --> 1:23:28.760 relating to it. And when we wrote it, we knew 1:23:28.760 --> 1:23:30.920 we had written a very good song. I don't know 1:23:31.000 --> 1:23:32.920 if we even thought it was as strong as like 1:23:34.439 --> 1:23:37.400 love as a battlefield, you know, because it was straighter. 1:23:37.439 --> 1:23:40.559 It was just so simple and it was so you know, 1:23:40.720 --> 1:23:42.559 love is a battlefield the way we wrote it, just 1:23:42.600 --> 1:23:44.680 the title with kind of quirky and stuff, but the 1:23:44.760 --> 1:23:50.080 Best was just straight ahead, wholesome, simple, something that people 1:23:50.240 --> 1:23:52.920 just love to sing. I mean when it then it 1:23:52.960 --> 1:23:55.440 got on Ship's Creek and it was on three episodes 1:23:56.720 --> 1:24:01.320 and it became like the wedding theme for the LBGT community. 1:24:01.360 --> 1:24:04.960 I mean you can't plan those things, you know. Okay, 1:24:04.960 --> 1:24:07.640 but let's talk about the other thing you said earlier 1:24:07.720 --> 1:24:11.799 that you're usually brought in as a first class utility player. 1:24:12.160 --> 1:24:14.880 Someone has a project, but they don't have that little 1:24:14.960 --> 1:24:18.599 something extra. How do you create that little something extra? 1:24:20.040 --> 1:24:30.880 Are you talking about as a musician or as a songwriter? Songwriter? Yeah, Um, 1:24:31.000 --> 1:24:35.960 I don't know. I just know that I like to 1:24:37.080 --> 1:24:40.360 I think I'm good at at hooks, you know, and 1:24:41.120 --> 1:24:44.439 getting things that are simple enough that people they're quirky 1:24:44.560 --> 1:24:47.719 enough that they don't It doesn't sound like I'm selling 1:24:47.720 --> 1:24:50.880 out and deliberately trying to write a hit song. I 1:24:50.960 --> 1:24:53.920 just try and write a really great song. And I 1:24:54.479 --> 1:24:57.880 you know, I'm not just a fan of of you know, 1:24:57.960 --> 1:25:01.680 straight ahead bands like Leeds Appelin or the Beatles. I 1:25:01.720 --> 1:25:03.720 mean I'm a fan of bird Back rat you know. 1:25:03.760 --> 1:25:08.400 I love jazz. I grew up with all different kinds 1:25:08.439 --> 1:25:12.280 of music and classical which I still love, and I 1:25:12.280 --> 1:25:16.000 implement a lot of that in my songs. So, for instance, 1:25:16.040 --> 1:25:20.800 I'm really into writing bass lines, and they're the relationship 1:25:20.840 --> 1:25:23.599 of the bass lines to the chords are different than 1:25:23.680 --> 1:25:26.280 the normal Like I don't always play the root. I 1:25:26.320 --> 1:25:28.400 don't mean to get too technical of the music stuff, 1:25:28.400 --> 1:25:31.400 but I do these things kind of deliberately. You know. 1:25:31.400 --> 1:25:35.000 I was influenced by people besides bird Backer, Todd Rundgren, 1:25:35.080 --> 1:25:39.080 and I think I bring all that stuff into the music. 1:25:39.160 --> 1:25:43.240 But I think also simpler is better. I try and 1:25:43.320 --> 1:25:46.879 keep things simple, like it's not about quantity, it's about quality. 1:25:47.360 --> 1:25:49.880 I've even been that way in my songwriting. I don't 1:25:49.920 --> 1:25:52.720 write a lot of songs these days, you know. I 1:25:52.760 --> 1:25:55.120 think the busiest ever was was in the eighties. I 1:25:55.160 --> 1:25:57.800 write when I feel like it. I don't, you know. 1:25:58.000 --> 1:25:59.640 I don't go in at nine and say I'm going 1:25:59.680 --> 1:26:01.679 to be at five. I mean, they do that in Nashville, 1:26:01.720 --> 1:26:04.320 like it's unbelievable. They go, Okay, we're gonna write from 1:26:04.400 --> 1:26:06.240 nine to three. The song is going to be written 1:26:06.240 --> 1:26:08.080 by three, and then we have another session, so we 1:26:08.120 --> 1:26:11.600 have to go. And I don't write like that, you know. 1:26:11.720 --> 1:26:13.559 I mean even when we wrote Loves the Battlefield, we 1:26:13.560 --> 1:26:15.000 wrote the whole thing on one day, but then we 1:26:15.080 --> 1:26:17.519 spent another week coming up with the one line, and 1:26:17.560 --> 1:26:20.040 we came up with hundreds. We just didn't like them, 1:26:20.080 --> 1:26:25.519 you know. So I don't really think like a business person. 1:26:25.560 --> 1:26:27.680 When I write, I think like an artist. I you know, 1:26:28.280 --> 1:26:30.280 anytime I've tried to do that, I've written the worst 1:26:30.280 --> 1:26:33.960 piece of shitka years ago. So do you have any 1:26:34.040 --> 1:26:38.439 hits in your suitcase? Stuff you've written that people that 1:26:38.680 --> 1:26:40.519 even people have not cut her, they've cut in a 1:26:40.560 --> 1:26:43.680 bad way, or haven't been promoted that way, all of 1:26:43.720 --> 1:26:45.519 the above, and I have you. I call it my 1:26:45.560 --> 1:26:48.360 bone yard, and some of the best stuff I've written 1:26:48.840 --> 1:26:51.120 is in that bone yard. And I now it's like 1:26:51.200 --> 1:26:53.519 because it's forty years later, I think of it as 1:26:53.640 --> 1:26:57.360 vintage Hallowey Night, but it's still like ready to be, 1:26:57.400 --> 1:26:59.519 you know, birthed out there. I have a lot of 1:26:59.520 --> 1:27:03.360 songs like that. It's crazy. Okay, let's talk about working 1:27:03.360 --> 1:27:07.240 with Aero Smith. Errol Smith comes back there on have 1:27:07.280 --> 1:27:11.280 a first record done with Mirrors, completely stiff. They're doing 1:27:11.320 --> 1:27:15.280 the second album they call you in what ends up 1:27:15.360 --> 1:27:20.000 resulting as Ragnall, which is the biggest track off that album. 1:27:20.160 --> 1:27:23.439 To tell us how that came to be, Well, my 1:27:23.520 --> 1:27:27.559 friend John Claudner called me up and he was sort 1:27:27.600 --> 1:27:31.000 of before I had met him during the Heart Sessions 1:27:31.160 --> 1:27:35.800 and we just became friends and he thought I was 1:27:35.800 --> 1:27:37.800 a badass. So he called me up and he said, listen, 1:27:37.840 --> 1:27:40.640 I got this song, and he kind of talks like that, 1:27:41.280 --> 1:27:44.720 you know, yes, well wait wait wait, when is the 1:27:44.840 --> 1:27:50.840 last time you spoke with Klaudner. It's been decades, but 1:27:51.320 --> 1:27:53.360 when my book came out, he was writing me on 1:27:53.479 --> 1:27:57.280 LinkedIn saying that's great. I get wait to read in everything. 1:27:59.200 --> 1:28:01.439 But he had mind. At that point, he was with 1:28:01.520 --> 1:28:04.040 Deafin Records. He was the president of Define Records, and 1:28:04.400 --> 1:28:07.679 what I liked about him was like he really honored 1:28:07.680 --> 1:28:09.760 a lot of bands that still had a lot of 1:28:09.800 --> 1:28:11.760 life in them and maybe even new life that they 1:28:11.760 --> 1:28:14.320 had never even had before that they weren't quite ready 1:28:14.320 --> 1:28:16.880 to be put out the pasture, which everybody else was doing, 1:28:16.960 --> 1:28:20.559 you know. So he signed quite a few bands, you know, 1:28:20.800 --> 1:28:25.160 Aerosmith was one of them, and he said to them, 1:28:25.160 --> 1:28:26.840 this is a make or break record. And at that 1:28:26.840 --> 1:28:28.800 point they had gotten really, really clean. So there were 1:28:28.800 --> 1:28:31.320 a lot of things going on. And he matched me 1:28:31.400 --> 1:28:33.280 up with Steven. He said, I'm going to send you 1:28:33.320 --> 1:28:35.160 a song. Would you have a listen to? He said, 1:28:35.160 --> 1:28:38.559 I think it's a really good song. Potentially, he says, 1:28:38.680 --> 1:28:41.120 it's not a hit. I don't know if it's going 1:28:41.200 --> 1:28:43.479 to be a hit, but if you could take a 1:28:43.479 --> 1:28:46.680 look at it and tell me what you think, if 1:28:46.680 --> 1:28:49.240 you want to work on it. And so that's what 1:28:49.280 --> 1:28:51.040 he did, and he sent it to me and I said, well, 1:28:51.040 --> 1:28:54.080 wait a minute, how does Steven feel about this? And 1:28:54.240 --> 1:28:56.040 Joe Perry? I mean, I don't want to be shoved 1:28:56.080 --> 1:29:01.280 down their throat. Which is really funny because when I 1:29:01.280 --> 1:29:03.280 did talk to Steve and I actually said that to him, 1:29:03.280 --> 1:29:07.320 and of course that provoked a really you know, flirtatious 1:29:07.360 --> 1:29:09.720 comment when I said, oh, I don't want it to 1:29:09.760 --> 1:29:13.200 be shoved down your throat. But no, he was all 1:29:13.200 --> 1:29:17.040 for it. He had talked to John, and I think 1:29:17.080 --> 1:29:18.960 they were just sort of like they were so clean 1:29:19.000 --> 1:29:20.880 and so excited to be given a new life of 1:29:21.360 --> 1:29:24.639 a lease on life, that they were open to this stuff. 1:29:24.680 --> 1:29:27.080 You see, a lot of bands were never would never 1:29:27.160 --> 1:29:29.880 have been open to this. To them is like selling out. 1:29:29.920 --> 1:29:32.320 It's like, if you can't write your own songs, you're 1:29:32.360 --> 1:29:36.680 not worth you know, anything. And I think that's a 1:29:36.680 --> 1:29:39.000 bit sad that they think that way, because it's like 1:29:39.040 --> 1:29:40.800 if you're a great actor, it doesn't mean you can 1:29:40.800 --> 1:29:43.240 write a great screenplay, you know. And some look at 1:29:43.240 --> 1:29:45.400 Tina Turner. She doesn't write around things. So I don't 1:29:45.400 --> 1:29:47.880 think it's something to be ashamed of. And I think 1:29:48.040 --> 1:29:51.280 enough people started doing it that there was a group 1:29:51.360 --> 1:29:53.640 of songwriters that was kind of referred to as the 1:29:53.800 --> 1:29:56.800 songwriter elite, and they would go out and write with 1:29:56.840 --> 1:29:59.080 these people. And I was one of them, you know. 1:29:59.160 --> 1:30:04.960 Desmond Child was another, Billy Steinberg was another, and so 1:30:05.400 --> 1:30:07.000 and I think the fact that I was a woman 1:30:07.200 --> 1:30:13.400 a woman definitely interested Stephen, you know. So he called 1:30:13.439 --> 1:30:16.679 me up and we ended up talking for two weeks 1:30:16.680 --> 1:30:19.519 on the phone before I actually not two weeks solid. 1:30:19.560 --> 1:30:22.280 I mean like every day you call me up like clockwork, Hey, 1:30:22.320 --> 1:30:24.080 how are you doing, how's your David? And you know, 1:30:24.520 --> 1:30:27.400 and we just kind of talked for sometimes two hours, 1:30:27.479 --> 1:30:31.400 four hours and became friends before we ever met each other. 1:30:31.560 --> 1:30:35.400 And you know, eventually the conversation got around to, Okay, 1:30:35.439 --> 1:30:36.800 we got to nail this, we got to hit this 1:30:36.840 --> 1:30:38.360 out of the park. And I said to him, look, 1:30:38.439 --> 1:30:41.320 I don't think it needs a lot of changes. See, 1:30:41.400 --> 1:30:43.760 unlike some people, they hear something and they just want 1:30:43.760 --> 1:30:46.480 to change it just so they their ego can be satisfied. 1:30:46.479 --> 1:30:49.120 Like they changed it and put their stamp on it. 1:30:49.240 --> 1:30:52.479 I'm more like I don't really have a big ego 1:30:52.520 --> 1:30:55.280 when it comes to my career. I always think, like 1:30:55.760 --> 1:30:57.880 what's best for the song, Just like when I was 1:30:57.920 --> 1:31:00.679 writing the book. Does it serve the book? If it's 1:31:00.880 --> 1:31:03.880 if it's you know, trimm the fat off, or if 1:31:03.920 --> 1:31:06.760 it's something that you have a personal thing going on 1:31:06.880 --> 1:31:08.479 with someone, but it really doesn't need to be in 1:31:08.520 --> 1:31:10.240 the book, then it doesn't need to be in the book. 1:31:10.280 --> 1:31:13.400 So I said to Stephen anyway, Um, I don't think 1:31:13.400 --> 1:31:16.280 it needs to be rewritten. I think the track is beautiful. 1:31:16.840 --> 1:31:18.960 I think a lot of it's good. But the song 1:31:19.040 --> 1:31:23.640 means nothing to me. And it was called ragtime, you know, 1:31:24.400 --> 1:31:26.840 so I was able to I felt like I was 1:31:27.080 --> 1:31:30.080 the doctor that came into it, like you know, tighten 1:31:30.160 --> 1:31:34.320 the screw or whatever, the specialist. And it worked. You know. 1:31:34.439 --> 1:31:36.840 We changed the lyrics as some of the lyrics to 1:31:36.960 --> 1:31:41.439 match with I came up with ragdollum. But it is 1:31:41.520 --> 1:31:44.559 not the way I like to write, you know, I don't. 1:31:44.760 --> 1:31:46.320 As I said before, you said, well you know, like 1:31:46.360 --> 1:31:48.120 how do you like. I like to be the initiator. 1:31:48.160 --> 1:31:50.800 I like to bring in a new, fresh idea, or 1:31:51.400 --> 1:31:55.840 be jamming in the room, you know, uh together. But 1:31:55.960 --> 1:31:58.400 I don't like being brought in to change something that's 1:31:58.400 --> 1:32:01.000 already I feel like I'm tramp on like a like 1:32:01.040 --> 1:32:05.200 a you know, hallowed ground, like a gravyheart or something. 1:32:06.080 --> 1:32:08.960 So it worked out in this case, but I sort 1:32:08.960 --> 1:32:11.000 of made it a point after that not to do that. 1:32:11.400 --> 1:32:14.680 I also did it because I wanted to work with Aerosmith. 1:32:14.720 --> 1:32:16.920 I was just such a huge fan, and at that 1:32:17.000 --> 1:32:18.840 point they were kind of over. I mean they'd been 1:32:18.840 --> 1:32:21.960 doing so many drugs, and the record they had put 1:32:22.040 --> 1:32:24.680 up before that it was not a good record. You know. 1:32:25.640 --> 1:32:27.040 I just wanted to be able to say that I 1:32:27.080 --> 1:32:28.840 had worked with him. I didn't even care if they 1:32:29.000 --> 1:32:31.559 sold another record or not. I just was a big fan. 1:32:31.920 --> 1:32:37.080 You know, talk about rejuvenation, you also rejuvenate heart. Now 1:32:37.120 --> 1:32:40.800 you say they're very happy about that, But did you 1:32:40.840 --> 1:32:43.840 ever work with one of these people? Say then they said, 1:32:44.240 --> 1:32:46.040 we'll pay you, but we're not putting your name on 1:32:46.080 --> 1:32:51.519 the record, not as a songwriter. I mean I did 1:32:51.520 --> 1:32:54.400 that with Kiss when I played on a Kiss on Mass, 1:32:54.439 --> 1:32:57.160 I played on the whole record and or most of it, 1:32:57.760 --> 1:32:59.920 and they told me you were not giving you credit, 1:33:00.160 --> 1:33:03.240 you can't have credit, and I knew that Anton had 1:33:03.280 --> 1:33:06.120 also had to agree to the same thing. You know, 1:33:06.640 --> 1:33:08.880 we're going to pay you, and they paid them very well, 1:33:08.880 --> 1:33:11.600 but we're not. We can't tell people that you're that. 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:14.720 Peter Chriss is out and you're in. Although they did 1:33:14.760 --> 1:33:17.519 offer him the job, they actually after a few records. 1:33:17.520 --> 1:33:19.680 I actually asked him if he would join Kiss and 1:33:20.720 --> 1:33:23.920 I have to say, you know, in a in an 1:33:24.400 --> 1:33:28.200 amazing feat of loyalty, he turned them down. I don't 1:33:28.200 --> 1:33:30.920 know if he regrets in Nail, but you know, because 1:33:30.920 --> 1:33:36.799 they're still out there killing it. But that never happened 1:33:36.800 --> 1:33:39.400 as a writer, and I never would have worked with anyone. 1:33:39.439 --> 1:33:40.920 If they said I wasn't going to get a credit 1:33:41.000 --> 1:33:43.240 and I was going to gos right, I would told 1:33:43.280 --> 1:33:47.320 him to fuck off. Okay, so you have all these hits, 1:33:47.880 --> 1:33:52.640 originally you're signed to Mike's publishing company. How much of 1:33:52.640 --> 1:33:56.479 this stuff do you own out right? And how hard 1:33:56.520 --> 1:34:02.560 has it been to get paid? It's never hard to 1:34:02.600 --> 1:34:05.000 get paid. I've been I get paid because I have 1:34:05.320 --> 1:34:09.000 the right people surrounding me that make sure I get paid, 1:34:09.120 --> 1:34:12.080 and I have deals with people that I considered to 1:34:12.120 --> 1:34:19.880 be honest and ethical, which is almost unheard of. Right. 1:34:20.040 --> 1:34:23.280 That's like my business manager I've been her name's Tina Fastbender. 1:34:23.320 --> 1:34:25.960 I've been with her thirty five years. And you hear 1:34:26.080 --> 1:34:28.840 all these nightmare stories. It's like the me too thing. 1:34:29.040 --> 1:34:33.800 Somehow I've just managed to always I mean again, not 1:34:33.840 --> 1:34:35.559 to say that I haven't had a lot of crappy 1:34:35.600 --> 1:34:37.880 things happen, but when it comes to those kind of 1:34:37.920 --> 1:34:42.560 horror stories that you are about, I've been really fortunate 1:34:42.720 --> 1:34:46.599 not to get ripped off. And here's the other part 1:34:46.680 --> 1:34:51.200 that's great. I'll be honest. I did sell a big 1:34:51.240 --> 1:34:55.040 part of my catalog for a lot of money to 1:34:55.600 --> 1:34:58.840 accompany a primary Wave, which is now you know, they're 1:34:58.840 --> 1:35:02.360 buying up so many any catalogs. But I have a 1:35:02.439 --> 1:35:06.200 very good relationship with them. I mean the CEO, Larry Mistell. 1:35:06.280 --> 1:35:09.000 If I if I texted him, he texts me back immediately. 1:35:09.640 --> 1:35:12.640 It's not like my experience in the past. You know, 1:35:12.640 --> 1:35:15.000 I've signed an EMI Publishing for many years, is like 1:35:15.120 --> 1:35:18.400 just to get a response or respect or anything was 1:35:18.439 --> 1:35:22.280 always so hard. So I have these good relationships with 1:35:22.320 --> 1:35:24.200 these people and they're out there killing it for me 1:35:24.240 --> 1:35:26.000 getting all these covers now I mean, I have so 1:35:26.040 --> 1:35:29.960 many amazing covers because I have someone actually working like 1:35:29.960 --> 1:35:32.680 we're all it's a win win for everybody, you know. 1:35:33.160 --> 1:35:35.120 But the other thing I was going to say was, 1:35:35.520 --> 1:35:38.680 you know, there's this law that after you've written a 1:35:38.680 --> 1:35:42.360 song for thirty five and you've written a song and 1:35:42.520 --> 1:35:46.080 thirty five years go by, and you approach the person 1:35:46.160 --> 1:35:49.759 that has the publishing on whatever songs you're talking about, 1:35:50.640 --> 1:35:52.080 and you get a lawyer and you say I want 1:35:52.080 --> 1:35:53.800 the songs back, they have to give him back to you. 1:35:54.960 --> 1:35:59.880 So I've gotten back copyrights for songs that I rig 1:36:00.160 --> 1:36:03.519 only gave away. Didn't know I was giving it away, 1:36:03.520 --> 1:36:05.559 But it turned out to be a blessing because if 1:36:05.600 --> 1:36:07.439 I hadn't given them away and I owned them, they 1:36:07.479 --> 1:36:10.160 would have been part of the catalog sale. But because 1:36:10.240 --> 1:36:13.000 I didn't own them, I couldn't sell them. And then 1:36:13.120 --> 1:36:17.360 after the catalog sale had happened, I knew I was 1:36:17.400 --> 1:36:19.519 getting these songs back, and so I did. I got 1:36:19.560 --> 1:36:24.400 back all my publishing to songs like the Warrior Love 1:36:24.479 --> 1:36:28.240 is a Battlefield Obsession, better be good to me. So 1:36:30.560 --> 1:36:33.040 that was a really nice that's only been in the 1:36:33.120 --> 1:36:36.080 last few years. It's had them because you know, like 1:36:36.120 --> 1:36:37.599 if you write a song, it has to be thirty 1:36:37.600 --> 1:36:39.880 five years from the date. And I ended up telling 1:36:39.920 --> 1:36:41.920 a lot of songwriters that that didn't know that. Then 1:36:41.960 --> 1:36:44.640 in fact, I told Steven Tyler that he didn't know 1:36:44.680 --> 1:36:46.720 anything about that, and hopefully he listened to me and 1:36:46.720 --> 1:36:50.320 he got, you know, some of his publishing back. Okay, 1:36:50.560 --> 1:36:54.080 you all those songs you just mentioned are not part 1:36:54.120 --> 1:37:00.240 of primary wave deal love is a Battlefield Warrior are 1:37:00.240 --> 1:37:05.200 separate right right? Okay? No, well no, if they own it, 1:37:05.840 --> 1:37:08.000 they own a piece of it. But um, they could 1:37:08.040 --> 1:37:11.760 only buy what I had available, so some of it 1:37:11.840 --> 1:37:13.679 would have would have been other things which I can't 1:37:13.720 --> 1:37:16.760 really like get into the details in the interview. I mean, 1:37:16.920 --> 1:37:20.599 you know, I wishing wasn't wasn't one of them. Okay, 1:37:20.800 --> 1:37:24.280 but I know Larry pretty well. He usually likes to 1:37:24.320 --> 1:37:29.080 buy fifty percent before a hundred percent. Does he own 1:37:29.080 --> 1:37:33.200 a hundred percent or just fifty percent? Um? I can't 1:37:33.240 --> 1:37:37.639 really I'm not really comfortable talking, okay, Okay, okay, So 1:37:38.200 --> 1:37:42.559 what you do with the money? What do I What 1:37:42.600 --> 1:37:46.160 did I do with the money? Yeah? This always intrigues me, Okay, 1:37:46.240 --> 1:37:49.240 because musicians are not known for being good for the money. 1:37:49.280 --> 1:37:52.080 If you sold your catalog within the last year and 1:37:52.120 --> 1:37:55.480 invested in the stock market, immediately took a thirty percent haircut. 1:37:56.120 --> 1:37:58.640 So I'm always interesting. Peace oh sell Sell says, well, 1:37:58.640 --> 1:38:00.160 what are you gonna do with the money? I'm just 1:38:00.520 --> 1:38:03.080 you know, you get this big chunk of change. Where 1:38:03.080 --> 1:38:06.160 do you put it? Well, first of all, I'm not 1:38:06.320 --> 1:38:09.720 selling my publishing. That's like that, you know, that's for 1:38:09.840 --> 1:38:14.960 my kids, and that's very valuable. As far as the 1:38:15.000 --> 1:38:17.000 other things, like, like I said up the I'm with 1:38:17.040 --> 1:38:21.040 the same business manager for thirty five years. I'm Jewish. 1:38:21.200 --> 1:38:23.840 I'm not the kind of person that you know, I 1:38:23.840 --> 1:38:27.080 don't like taking risks because i feel like I've worked 1:38:27.160 --> 1:38:29.880 so hard to get that money. It's like I'm not 1:38:29.960 --> 1:38:32.040 just going to throw it at the stock market. But 1:38:32.240 --> 1:38:34.080 at the same time, you know, you can't just leave 1:38:34.120 --> 1:38:37.599 it in the bank between inflation or whatever. You know, 1:38:37.640 --> 1:38:39.559 you have to see, you have to decide what kind 1:38:39.560 --> 1:38:41.479 of things you're going to invest in. And I'm always 1:38:41.560 --> 1:38:44.320 very conservative, and I've only taken a chunk of it 1:38:44.360 --> 1:38:46.479 and the rest of it, I've invested in different things. 1:38:46.520 --> 1:38:51.200 You know, I've invested in real estate and I mean Basically, 1:38:51.439 --> 1:38:55.439 the theory is if you're in it and you just 1:38:55.560 --> 1:38:58.479 let it sit and pretend it doesn't you know, just 1:38:58.640 --> 1:39:00.479 leave it alone, it's going to come back. It's going 1:39:00.520 --> 1:39:03.120 to come back around. So maybe a lot of people 1:39:03.200 --> 1:39:06.519 lost thirty percent, but I think, what the small amount 1:39:07.200 --> 1:39:11.639 what I compare my empire that I invested in stock 1:39:12.960 --> 1:39:15.160 was a small amount. I didn't take all the moneyges 1:39:15.160 --> 1:39:17.960 invest it because that's just stupid to me, that's not smart. 1:39:20.400 --> 1:39:23.120 But I took about a nineteen percent hits. I have 1:39:23.200 --> 1:39:25.679 good people working for me. It was last year was brittle, 1:39:26.520 --> 1:39:30.759 you know. But also real estate. You know, I bought 1:39:30.760 --> 1:39:34.320 a house that like has like quadrupled in value and 1:39:34.360 --> 1:39:37.479 it was expensive to begin with. So I'm doing all right, 1:39:38.680 --> 1:39:43.320 you know. Okay, so the book is focused on the eighties, 1:39:43.360 --> 1:39:46.480 and then it totally cracks me up. You moved to Fearfield, Connecticut, 1:39:46.520 --> 1:39:50.559 where I grew up, So really, yes, So where did 1:39:50.560 --> 1:39:56.360 you live in Fearfield? Spring Failed Hell? Sorry? Greenfield? Hell's 1:39:56.360 --> 1:39:59.680 just beautiful. I mean that's like you know that when 1:39:59.680 --> 1:40:02.400 I farmers, Yeah, when I grew up there were no 1:40:02.479 --> 1:40:08.599 Jews there. But that's okay, But did you consciously decide 1:40:08.600 --> 1:40:11.960 to extract yourself from the scene, or you just sort 1:40:11.960 --> 1:40:16.719 of found yourself moving away from it. Well, I'll explain 1:40:16.760 --> 1:40:19.840 to you what happened. I had I had already had 1:40:19.880 --> 1:40:22.120 one child, and I thought, you know, the year that 1:40:22.200 --> 1:40:25.080 I moved to Connecticut, I that was the year the 1:40:25.200 --> 1:40:29.280 Rodney King beatings, the big earthquake, the mudslides. I mean, 1:40:29.360 --> 1:40:31.679 that was that horrible year. I think it was nineteen 1:40:31.800 --> 1:40:35.360 ninety four or something like that, and I wanted to 1:40:35.360 --> 1:40:37.400 have another child, and I thought, I don't want to 1:40:37.439 --> 1:40:40.240 really raise them here because it's like the earthquake was 1:40:40.280 --> 1:40:44.559 really scary. That alone was scary. So I thought I 1:40:44.560 --> 1:40:48.080 would move to Connecticut because it was outside of New 1:40:48.160 --> 1:40:50.920 York and everybody would just cop on a train and 1:40:51.000 --> 1:40:54.519 come up to the Bucolic countryside and work in my studio. 1:40:55.200 --> 1:40:58.799 The reason I picked Connecticut also is because Mike Chapman 1:40:58.920 --> 1:41:01.840 had moved there and he bought this estate. It was 1:41:01.880 --> 1:41:05.400 like the vom Trapp family. There's a long driveway and 1:41:05.560 --> 1:41:08.880 this big, big house, and it was in Easton, which 1:41:09.000 --> 1:41:11.759 was just down the road from Weston, where Keith Richard 1:41:11.800 --> 1:41:14.559 live and meet Loaf. There were some other musicians there, 1:41:14.560 --> 1:41:17.080 but I wanted to work with him again. I wanted 1:41:17.120 --> 1:41:19.439 to recapture. I wanted to go back to the beginning 1:41:19.439 --> 1:41:23.240 where it was just writing great songs. So I wanted 1:41:23.240 --> 1:41:26.160 to be closer to the Only thing is is that 1:41:26.320 --> 1:41:28.320 we had changed now. I mean, he had children, I 1:41:28.360 --> 1:41:30.800 had children. We had other responsibilities, and we wrote stuff. 1:41:30.840 --> 1:41:33.880 But I think we needed to be in LA to 1:41:33.920 --> 1:41:35.640 write the kind of songs that we wrote. Like if 1:41:35.640 --> 1:41:37.479 I were to write with them now, I'd still I'd 1:41:37.520 --> 1:41:39.360 want to work here. I want to want to work 1:41:39.360 --> 1:41:43.880 anywhere else, you know, just something that contributed, if you're 1:41:44.280 --> 1:41:47.439 going to try and recapture what was magical or whatever. 1:41:49.520 --> 1:41:51.640 And I still write agy songs. I mean, I have 1:41:51.680 --> 1:41:54.599 a song I just put together with it. I produced 1:41:54.600 --> 1:41:59.000 a band that I've put together of women, and it's 1:41:59.560 --> 1:42:01.720 the first song we did that I'm putting out is 1:42:02.040 --> 1:42:07.680 it's an acronym. It's AMFOO, which stands for Adios motherfucker 1:42:07.760 --> 1:42:09.920 Year on your own. So it's not like I've lost 1:42:10.080 --> 1:42:12.360 the bite or anything or of who I am. You know, 1:42:12.520 --> 1:42:18.960 I don't know what's relevant with what I do necessarily 1:42:18.960 --> 1:42:21.080 as far as production and stuff. What's out there. I mean, 1:42:21.160 --> 1:42:24.200 the music business has just changed so much it's like 1:42:24.439 --> 1:42:27.280 it just blows my mind, you know. And I'm still 1:42:27.320 --> 1:42:30.639 a rocker, and it's rock. It's not really it's sort 1:42:30.640 --> 1:42:33.280 of coming back or not sort of it is coming back. 1:42:33.360 --> 1:42:40.720 But so I moved there and I liked it the 1:42:40.760 --> 1:42:43.519 first year or the you know, having dar was so 1:42:43.640 --> 1:42:45.559 quaint and charming, and then all of a sudden you realize, well, 1:42:45.600 --> 1:42:50.120 no deer or in quaint and charming because they carry 1:42:50.160 --> 1:42:53.920 line disease, which is from Kinnecticut, you know, and all 1:42:53.920 --> 1:42:57.240 these things that seem so glamorous and beautiful. I hated 1:42:57.240 --> 1:43:00.479 the weather. I hated living there, And I came back 1:43:00.479 --> 1:43:03.479 to California one day for a business thing, like four 1:43:03.560 --> 1:43:07.439 years had gone by, and in that four years, because 1:43:07.479 --> 1:43:10.040 I wanted to spend time being a mother and stuff. 1:43:10.560 --> 1:43:12.720 It's like what happened to Holly Night? Where did she go? 1:43:13.360 --> 1:43:16.240 I laughed? You know, when I came back, it was 1:43:16.280 --> 1:43:18.960 all of a sudden, like you know, while you were gone, 1:43:19.000 --> 1:43:20.880 a new breeds just came up and took over. And 1:43:20.920 --> 1:43:23.599 so I had to spend a lot of time sort 1:43:23.600 --> 1:43:26.200 of clawing my way back in there, and I did. 1:43:26.240 --> 1:43:30.360 I always I've always had songs in movies and TV shows. 1:43:30.360 --> 1:43:33.960 And written themes, and but I could never quite get 1:43:33.960 --> 1:43:36.719 back to that place that I did in the eighties. 1:43:36.760 --> 1:43:38.479 And that's not to say I'm not going to. I 1:43:38.479 --> 1:43:41.280 mean I think it's very easy to have like one 1:43:41.320 --> 1:43:43.160 wave and then you take some time off, and then 1:43:43.160 --> 1:43:46.200 you have another wave. And I think I'm totally capable 1:43:46.240 --> 1:43:48.640 of that. And that's why when you asked me if 1:43:48.640 --> 1:43:52.000 I have songs, you know, in a vault somewhere, it's like, God, yes, 1:43:52.120 --> 1:43:56.880 it's like I do. And I think a lot of 1:43:56.920 --> 1:43:59.200 it has to do with how the business has changed now, 1:43:59.320 --> 1:44:01.680 don't I don't even feel that inspired to want to 1:44:01.720 --> 1:44:04.599 do what I did before because with streaming and all 1:44:04.600 --> 1:44:06.840 these things that are going on, you can't really really 1:44:07.280 --> 1:44:13.360 carve out. There's a handful of people that are doing it, 1:44:13.479 --> 1:44:16.000 but I'm not that interested in it. I sort of 1:44:16.040 --> 1:44:17.760 like I feel like I've done that. Like if I'm 1:44:17.760 --> 1:44:19.160 going to do something, I don't want it to be 1:44:19.200 --> 1:44:21.880 contrived or I don't care about getting back on you 1:44:22.160 --> 1:44:24.760 being the most famous songwriter or whatever. I just I 1:44:24.840 --> 1:44:26.880 have a lot of interests and things that I do, 1:44:27.720 --> 1:44:31.360 and writing the book was one of them. Okay, if 1:44:31.360 --> 1:44:34.719 someone calls you up to write a song talking about 1:44:34.760 --> 1:44:38.640 the economics when we had physical media on an album, 1:44:39.120 --> 1:44:41.360 a stiff made as much money, or an album track 1:44:41.439 --> 1:44:45.080 made as much money as the hit, whereas in streaming 1:44:45.479 --> 1:44:49.800 the hit is streamed many multiple times more. If I 1:44:49.960 --> 1:44:52.719 called you up and say, write a song on my album, 1:44:53.000 --> 1:44:55.200 would you first say are we writing the single? And 1:44:55.240 --> 1:44:58.679 if we're not writing the single, I'm not interested. I've 1:44:58.760 --> 1:45:04.240 heard that from other songwriters. Um, I don't know if 1:45:04.240 --> 1:45:06.720 I'd be that sort of blatant at that. That just 1:45:06.720 --> 1:45:08.599 seems like, well, you know, you still got to write 1:45:08.680 --> 1:45:14.360 for the pleasure and the art of it. But I 1:45:14.400 --> 1:45:16.360 would hope that I would write it, just have the 1:45:16.400 --> 1:45:18.639 ability to write a song that which is obviously they'd 1:45:18.640 --> 1:45:20.719 have to make it a single because it'd be that good. 1:45:21.520 --> 1:45:24.160 You know. I try not to write bad songs anymore, honestly. 1:45:25.280 --> 1:45:28.200 You know, like I said before, it's not about the 1:45:28.479 --> 1:45:32.960 quantity as much as the quality. So I mean, how 1:45:33.000 --> 1:45:34.560 do you say to someone I have to write the 1:45:34.560 --> 1:45:36.840 first single or I'm not doing that. It's like, we'll 1:45:36.840 --> 1:45:38.639 write the song first and we'll tell you if it's 1:45:38.680 --> 1:45:40.680 good enough, and then you know, and how do you 1:45:40.840 --> 1:45:42.920 sort of say that, I'm so famous as a writer, 1:45:43.120 --> 1:45:45.599 my song has to be I mean, that's pretty nervy, 1:45:45.880 --> 1:45:51.160 you know, And maybe maybe some writers say that it 1:45:51.240 --> 1:45:54.120 is nervy, but there's only twenty four hours in a day. 1:45:54.400 --> 1:45:57.280 And other people say, well, I'd rather write a Broadway musical, 1:45:57.360 --> 1:45:59.400 or I'd rather do this, or rather do that. I 1:45:59.400 --> 1:46:02.519 don't want to take the time because it might be 1:46:02.720 --> 1:46:06.920 economically unfruitful in addition to eating up someone my time. 1:46:07.920 --> 1:46:11.439 I have the perfect answer for that. Actually, if the 1:46:11.479 --> 1:46:12.880 way I feel now is I like to write on 1:46:12.920 --> 1:46:15.040 my own. If I'm going to write with someone else, 1:46:15.080 --> 1:46:16.680 it has to be one of two things for me 1:46:16.760 --> 1:46:18.960 to do it now, because I don't need to write anymore, 1:46:19.240 --> 1:46:23.080 you know, cash that I'm fine whatever, And that doesn't 1:46:23.120 --> 1:46:25.360 mean I don't keep writing, but you know, it's like 1:46:25.439 --> 1:46:27.840 for my pleasures different than if I'm going to get 1:46:27.880 --> 1:46:30.160 it out there and sell it and all that. It 1:46:30.320 --> 1:46:32.240 Either it either has to be a new artist that 1:46:32.320 --> 1:46:34.679 I think is so talented that I believe in them 1:46:34.760 --> 1:46:37.559 and I'll write with them, or I want to write 1:46:37.560 --> 1:46:40.960 with like the big artists. You know, I'm good enough. 1:46:40.960 --> 1:46:43.519 And if if I can't do that, I don't I 1:46:43.520 --> 1:46:45.120 don't want to write with like you know, some label 1:46:45.120 --> 1:46:46.960 are going to send over one of like how many, 1:46:47.880 --> 1:46:50.160 although they don't even really sign that many fans anymore. 1:46:50.840 --> 1:46:52.439 I want to I have a list of people that 1:46:52.520 --> 1:46:54.400 I want to work with right now that I haven't 1:46:54.439 --> 1:46:56.479 worked with, and I know I could write a hit 1:46:56.520 --> 1:46:59.680 song with them, and I think they would benefit from 1:46:59.760 --> 1:47:04.479 my style of writing. Do you want to know who 1:47:04.520 --> 1:47:08.880 some of them are? Surely it is okay. I would 1:47:08.880 --> 1:47:12.040 love to work with Lady Gaga. I was really a 1:47:12.080 --> 1:47:15.200 fan like of her early artsy stuff, you know, and 1:47:15.240 --> 1:47:17.280 like even when she was doing Bad Romance. I think 1:47:17.600 --> 1:47:20.200 lately she's doing like a lot of ballads and all that, 1:47:20.280 --> 1:47:23.640 and she's sort of, you know, she's become so conservative, 1:47:23.800 --> 1:47:26.120 like whether it's working with Tony who I love Tony 1:47:26.160 --> 1:47:30.040 Bennett or whatever. She's a chameleon. But I like the 1:47:30.160 --> 1:47:33.160 artsy side of her and I would love to write 1:47:33.200 --> 1:47:35.160 with her. I think we'd write some killer songs together. 1:47:35.680 --> 1:47:38.360 So she's one I would love to work with. Trent Resner. 1:47:38.439 --> 1:47:41.840 I think he's just so talented. I mean he's done 1:47:41.880 --> 1:47:44.639 everything from nine inch Nails to doing film scoring, and 1:47:45.160 --> 1:47:47.240 you know, I love the record he did with Halsey 1:47:47.960 --> 1:47:51.000 just for the sheer pleasure of working with him. I 1:47:51.040 --> 1:47:53.080 would love to work with him. I'd love to work 1:47:53.120 --> 1:47:56.880 with some of the more commercial artists like Kelly Clarkson 1:47:57.520 --> 1:48:01.000 and Adele. You know, I feel as a woman, I 1:48:01.040 --> 1:48:02.760 have a lot in common with them. We're all like 1:48:02.880 --> 1:48:05.800 women raising kids on our own, and we're all like, 1:48:06.000 --> 1:48:08.200 you know, when the doors are closed, we're we can 1:48:08.240 --> 1:48:11.960 be just as trashy and funny. And you know, I 1:48:12.000 --> 1:48:15.479 think they as people we would get along. And because 1:48:15.640 --> 1:48:17.920 if we got along as people and we're good at 1:48:17.960 --> 1:48:20.679 what we do, we would write ahead. That's the soup 1:48:20.840 --> 1:48:22.360 that you want to make. And that's what was so 1:48:22.439 --> 1:48:25.439 great with heart, you know, and we talked. I you know, 1:48:25.560 --> 1:48:27.519 that's one of my favorite chapters in the book, The 1:48:27.560 --> 1:48:30.880 Thirty Toes. It's like you have a connection and then 1:48:31.200 --> 1:48:34.560 with that connection and that that's what they talk about chemistry, 1:48:34.600 --> 1:48:37.120 you know, like when you know people meet and oh 1:48:37.160 --> 1:48:40.439 we have chemistry. It's the same exact thing as a writer. 1:48:40.600 --> 1:48:43.960 And I think, I know, I mean, like I said, 1:48:44.000 --> 1:48:47.000 they're still to this day at my age that I'm 1:48:47.200 --> 1:48:50.120 vulnerable about, but songwriting is not one of them. It's like, 1:48:50.240 --> 1:48:52.479 put me in the room with them, and I'll hit 1:48:52.520 --> 1:48:55.280 it out of the park. But those opportunities aren't you 1:48:55.680 --> 1:48:58.800 think I'm in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, you know? Um, 1:48:59.760 --> 1:49:01.519 I know there are other writers out there that can 1:49:01.560 --> 1:49:03.120 just pick up the phone and say, you know, I 1:49:03.160 --> 1:49:05.760 have blah blah. It's not that easy as you would think, 1:49:06.760 --> 1:49:08.840 you know. And even if I go to primary way 1:49:08.880 --> 1:49:12.000 for something, just to make it happen to that, I'm 1:49:12.080 --> 1:49:13.680 having to do now what I had to do when 1:49:13.720 --> 1:49:15.559 I was young and I was hungry. I am having 1:49:15.600 --> 1:49:18.040 to come up with different ways to reach out to 1:49:18.120 --> 1:49:21.000 an artist and get their attention. And that is also 1:49:21.080 --> 1:49:24.880 another reason, which was your very first question, why now, 1:49:24.920 --> 1:49:27.200 why did you write this book? Because I want to 1:49:27.200 --> 1:49:31.200 get the attentions of some of those people, hopefully in 1:49:31.280 --> 1:49:36.120 some way, so I can write with them. So your 1:49:36.200 --> 1:49:40.160 kids are grown, what's your day to day life like now? 1:49:40.520 --> 1:49:45.679 And how often do you sit down to write songs? Well, 1:49:45.720 --> 1:49:47.759 you know, the last couple of years it was totally 1:49:47.800 --> 1:49:50.960 devoted to writing this book. And as I said, I 1:49:50.960 --> 1:49:53.599 wrote about one hundred pages more than my editor just said. 1:49:53.680 --> 1:49:56.439 You kept trimming it down and trimming it down. And 1:49:56.800 --> 1:49:59.519 what I like about that? Some reader wrote some review 1:49:59.560 --> 1:50:02.960 and he said, Holly Knight's book is just like her 1:50:03.400 --> 1:50:07.479 songs All Killer and no Villa. I thought that was 1:50:07.880 --> 1:50:10.280 he They're right, you know. It's like I don't know 1:50:10.320 --> 1:50:13.479 how many books I've read that are you know, memories 1:50:13.520 --> 1:50:15.920 that it's like they start out with a bang, but 1:50:15.960 --> 1:50:18.720 then they sort of settle into this sort of like normality. 1:50:18.720 --> 1:50:20.920 If this one got to this place on the hits 1:50:20.920 --> 1:50:24.280 and gets really boring, it's like I tried to write 1:50:24.280 --> 1:50:27.320 that book, so it was like boom boom, boom boom done. 1:50:27.840 --> 1:50:32.280 You know. So anyway, in answer to your question, that 1:50:32.400 --> 1:50:34.160 took up a lot of my time. But a typical day, 1:50:34.400 --> 1:50:37.000 I got a dog during the pandemic. I know you're 1:50:37.000 --> 1:50:39.320 not a dog person, but this one is sort of 1:50:40.080 --> 1:50:44.240 this close to a wolf. And I had this one 1:50:44.240 --> 1:50:46.639 thing in my book that says it's at the very beginning, 1:50:46.640 --> 1:50:49.519 and it has a sword and it says you've seen it. 1:50:49.520 --> 1:50:52.080 It says, you can't throw me to the wolves. They 1:50:52.080 --> 1:50:54.880 come when I call. So I have this relationship with 1:50:54.960 --> 1:50:57.760 this this dog that takes up a lot of time, 1:50:57.800 --> 1:50:59.680 and like two hours a day I have to go 1:51:00.120 --> 1:51:02.840 hiking or walking with her because if I don't show 1:51:02.880 --> 1:51:06.360 she's a husky. She'll destroy my house. So I get 1:51:06.400 --> 1:51:08.800 I bike ride a lot. I go. I live in 1:51:08.840 --> 1:51:11.000 the Palisades, so I go down to the beach and 1:51:11.080 --> 1:51:13.920 I'll ride my bike early in the morning. So that's 1:51:13.960 --> 1:51:16.680 one of my rituals, you know, and then I'll come 1:51:16.680 --> 1:51:18.680 home and I'll answer my emails. And I have a 1:51:18.680 --> 1:51:21.880 lot of different projects on the table right now that 1:51:22.439 --> 1:51:24.640 are offshoots and what's coming out of the book. So 1:51:24.680 --> 1:51:27.920 I'm kind of focusing on that. But I woke up 1:51:27.920 --> 1:51:30.920 the other day and I thought, you know what, it's 1:51:30.960 --> 1:51:33.960 time to get back to songwriting. Not because I need to, 1:51:34.080 --> 1:51:36.679 but just because I miss it, you know, I miss 1:51:37.600 --> 1:51:39.920 I miss that feeling I get when I tapped into 1:51:39.960 --> 1:51:44.960 that ether and stuff. And so I think that I'm 1:51:45.000 --> 1:51:47.360 going to focus on that a lot. I love to travel. 1:51:47.439 --> 1:51:50.320 I'm really into photography. I have a photography website and 1:51:50.360 --> 1:51:53.840 I do fine art photography and I take it pretty seriously. 1:51:54.040 --> 1:51:56.880 And you know, as long as it's creative, as long 1:51:56.920 --> 1:51:59.679 as I can do things, and it's creative, like always 1:51:59.720 --> 1:52:03.880 create and doing things, I'm happy, you know. So that's 1:52:03.880 --> 1:52:07.240 about it. I mean, I'm getting older and just doing 1:52:07.280 --> 1:52:10.200 normal things like everybody else, the little things that you 1:52:10.280 --> 1:52:14.599 love to do. Oh okay, as one gets older, Let's 1:52:14.600 --> 1:52:18.280 put it this way, the scene of the eighties is gone. Okay, 1:52:18.400 --> 1:52:22.200 the Internet era. You can stay home and have connection 1:52:22.360 --> 1:52:24.600 whereas you used to have to go out. This is 1:52:24.680 --> 1:52:29.400 ultimately asking you how social are you today? Part of 1:52:29.400 --> 1:52:31.800 it is age, part of it scene being changed. Are 1:52:31.800 --> 1:52:35.120 you more of a homebody? In addition or writing is 1:52:35.160 --> 1:52:40.920 a relatively private thing. I'm a little bit abouth, you know, 1:52:41.520 --> 1:52:44.320 but I am very much a homebody, you know, I 1:52:44.360 --> 1:52:48.040 think because I left home so young, and I always 1:52:48.080 --> 1:52:51.160 lived in you know, I live in one place for 1:52:51.280 --> 1:52:53.360 five years, then move on this place I've lived in 1:52:53.439 --> 1:52:57.599 for twenty five years, and you know, over time, I've 1:52:57.640 --> 1:53:00.439 just like every year I remodel another room and more 1:53:00.479 --> 1:53:03.559 and more mine and um during the pandemic, I really 1:53:04.000 --> 1:53:06.840 I did that a lot. So everybody that comes to 1:53:06.920 --> 1:53:08.840 my house is like, yeah, well, why would you leave? 1:53:09.120 --> 1:53:12.080 You've got your recording. I have an incredible recording studio, 1:53:12.160 --> 1:53:15.680 in a incredible kitchen. I have incredible hikes everywhere. I 1:53:15.680 --> 1:53:18.720 can go swimming in my poll I've got so I do. 1:53:18.920 --> 1:53:21.559 Because of that, I tend to, you know, get a 1:53:21.560 --> 1:53:25.240 little antisocial. But then then I really love to go 1:53:25.280 --> 1:53:27.920 out too and and and be social, but I can 1:53:27.960 --> 1:53:30.320 only do it for so long. Like where when I 1:53:30.360 --> 1:53:32.000 was younger, I would do it every night, and I 1:53:32.040 --> 1:53:34.439 would be out till five or six in the morning 1:53:34.439 --> 1:53:36.960 and then go to the cab breakfast before i'd go home. 1:53:37.479 --> 1:53:39.560 Now it's like find the time it gets to be 1:53:39.600 --> 1:53:42.000 about like eleven or something. I'm like a wiped out, 1:53:42.280 --> 1:53:45.200 you know, but I wake up early. I wake up, 1:53:45.240 --> 1:53:47.439 like at six in the morning, not because I want to, 1:53:47.640 --> 1:53:51.120 but because my body just is making me, you know. 1:53:52.080 --> 1:53:55.920 So Um, in that way, I'm pretty normal, you know. 1:53:56.000 --> 1:54:00.360 I'm you know, you can't live a life of like 1:54:00.640 --> 1:54:04.639 insane this forever. It just doesn't. Your body can't take it, 1:54:04.760 --> 1:54:08.360 you know. But I'd say, I'm I'm pretty normal. Okay, 1:54:08.439 --> 1:54:12.320 So we're doing this podcast actually at my incentive, I 1:54:12.400 --> 1:54:17.440 asked you. But getting the word out is almost impossible 1:54:17.479 --> 1:54:21.200 these days, and as sophisticated as the music businesses and 1:54:21.320 --> 1:54:24.200 all the complaints we have that, the book business is 1:54:24.240 --> 1:54:27.439 even more antique. So how have you gotten the word out? 1:54:27.439 --> 1:54:33.160 And as it worked, Um, I hired a PR person, 1:54:33.480 --> 1:54:38.560 and unfortunately I've gotten more podcasts casts than you can imagine, 1:54:38.600 --> 1:54:42.200 but they're not I wouldn't say they're the caliber. And 1:54:42.320 --> 1:54:44.680 this one and this is a this is a big, 1:54:44.840 --> 1:54:47.000 a big one for me. You know. Um, what I 1:54:47.040 --> 1:54:49.120 really wanted to do was I wanted them to get 1:54:49.160 --> 1:54:52.600 me in things like Rolling Stone with an excert or something. 1:54:52.640 --> 1:54:56.000 And it's like, oh my god, it's so it's so hard. 1:54:56.080 --> 1:54:59.640 It's just it's unbelievable. So, you know, Brick by Brick, 1:54:59.680 --> 1:55:02.680 I've doing these podcasts. And the good thing is that 1:55:03.720 --> 1:55:07.400 in on Amazon it was listed as number one for 1:55:07.520 --> 1:55:12.040 hot New releases in music, so that's good. The same 1:55:12.080 --> 1:55:15.680 thing with Audible was number one for hot new releases. 1:55:15.800 --> 1:55:19.680 But whether that sells books or not, I don't know. 1:55:19.720 --> 1:55:22.800 I mean, I could pick your brain about that, because 1:55:22.800 --> 1:55:25.600 it's not easy. I mean unless you're a huge household 1:55:25.720 --> 1:55:29.280 name or your Prince Harry or something, or Pamela Anderson 1:55:30.080 --> 1:55:33.040 trying to you know, it's a slow process trying to 1:55:33.040 --> 1:55:35.720 get your book out there and doing the right pieces. 1:55:35.760 --> 1:55:39.200 I mean, I'm hoping to get some more reviews on 1:55:39.240 --> 1:55:42.280 the book. I've got a lot of reviews, but they're readers, 1:55:42.320 --> 1:55:46.240 which is actually the most important. But you know, I'm 1:55:46.320 --> 1:55:49.480 still working on that. I'm hoping that. I think the 1:55:49.520 --> 1:55:53.600 next big search for books book sales is Mother's Day 1:55:53.920 --> 1:55:58.760 and I think that would be hopefully, you know, I'll 1:55:58.760 --> 1:56:01.280 get more pr and things. I mean, all you can 1:56:01.320 --> 1:56:03.440 do is what you can do. I've done the job. 1:56:03.600 --> 1:56:08.040 I'm doing social media, which I hate, but I'm doing 1:56:08.040 --> 1:56:10.240 a lot of it and I'm paying someone to do right. 1:56:10.280 --> 1:56:12.400 So you know, I've got Instagram and I've got Twitter, 1:56:12.520 --> 1:56:16.080 and you know, the numbers are starting to grow, But 1:56:16.160 --> 1:56:19.440 that doesn't mean. Look, it's like anybody to go on 1:56:19.560 --> 1:56:23.560 social media and they'll hit like, but to actually follow you, 1:56:24.480 --> 1:56:27.080 that's a big commitment. And I'm the same way. Like 1:56:27.120 --> 1:56:29.440 I can say I like something that someone said, but 1:56:29.480 --> 1:56:32.880 to follow them that means now every day their streams 1:56:32.880 --> 1:56:34.920 are going to be taking up my time in invading 1:56:35.400 --> 1:56:37.520 my life. So do I commit to that or not? 1:56:39.120 --> 1:56:42.600 So it's I think it's just tough out there for everybody, 1:56:42.600 --> 1:56:45.360 and you just hope it's like the thing with the best. 1:56:45.400 --> 1:56:48.360 You hope you hit the jog or not of some nerve. 1:56:49.080 --> 1:56:52.080 Am I saying that right jug or not? Jug? You 1:56:52.120 --> 1:56:54.440 said a little jail, But I wouldn't have stopped you 1:56:54.480 --> 1:56:57.680 if you hadn't stopped yourself. Yeah. Yeah, Well it was 1:56:57.680 --> 1:56:59.600 funny when I did the audible book and I got 1:56:59.640 --> 1:57:03.320 to where I had written albeit, I said I'll bite, 1:57:03.440 --> 1:57:07.680 and the producer was like cracking up. I said, I, 1:57:08.400 --> 1:57:10.920 how do you pronounce it? Tell me please? I knew that, 1:57:11.640 --> 1:57:14.640 so I tend to do that. But um, you know, 1:57:14.760 --> 1:57:18.720 just hoping that something happens, one thing where just enough 1:57:18.760 --> 1:57:21.040 attention happens that people go out and buy it, because 1:57:21.080 --> 1:57:23.840 I think the people that are going out and buying 1:57:23.840 --> 1:57:27.000 it are loving it, you know, really really loving it. 1:57:27.000 --> 1:57:30.520 I've gotten so many great, like you know, fan letters 1:57:30.520 --> 1:57:33.960 and responses on it. But I don't want it to 1:57:34.000 --> 1:57:36.200 just sit there like I want it to be big, 1:57:36.320 --> 1:57:41.320 you know. Um. I have like one project that possibly 1:57:41.440 --> 1:57:43.560 might happen that's going to come as an offshoot of this, 1:57:43.600 --> 1:57:45.720 which would be great that I can't really talk about. 1:57:45.760 --> 1:57:48.760 But that might be the thing that then turns around 1:57:48.800 --> 1:57:52.760 it sells a book. Do you have any suggestions? Let's 1:57:52.760 --> 1:57:55.240 put it this way. We can talk off Mike about 1:57:55.280 --> 1:57:59.320 all this stuff, but there is no silver bullet, and 1:57:59.480 --> 1:58:02.960 selling book is even harder than selling a record, and 1:58:03.040 --> 1:58:06.240 selling a record is very difficult at this point in time. 1:58:06.760 --> 1:58:11.520 The only thing I know about publishing is it's you. 1:58:11.520 --> 1:58:13.880 You have to do everything. Whereas you know when some 1:58:13.960 --> 1:58:17.240 of these other businesses, the third parties can get action, 1:58:17.360 --> 1:58:21.000 but it's very old school. We can get an initial 1:58:21.080 --> 1:58:25.280 push and then it's all in your hands. Anyway, Holly, 1:58:25.320 --> 1:58:27.840 I want to thank you so much for taking the 1:58:27.920 --> 1:58:32.000 time and talking with my audience. Thank you so much 1:58:32.040 --> 1:58:34.080 for having me. I was so excited when you invited me. 1:58:34.200 --> 1:58:37.760 I think you're a badass. I really love reading your 1:58:39.160 --> 1:58:42.600 emails you send out and your blogs and somebody I've 1:58:42.960 --> 1:58:46.480 read them and going yes, you know, there's been a 1:58:46.480 --> 1:58:51.680 few I went no, no, and then yeah, of course 1:58:51.880 --> 1:58:55.080 because we're both you know, we're both passionate and smart. 1:58:55.200 --> 1:58:58.760 So but no, I'm a fan, and thank you so 1:58:58.880 --> 1:59:03.200 much for inviting me to do this. Absolutely until next time, 1:59:03.440 --> 1:59:26.720 it's Bob left six h