Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob left Said podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only Ivan Never, who
Speaker 1: has a new solo album, Touch My Soul. Ivan, you
Speaker 1: haven't put out a solo album for almost twenty years.
Speaker 1: Why now? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 3: You know, VENI late than Never, I guess I was
Speaker 3: kind of just playing around, playing with my band Dumpster Funk,
Speaker 3: doing a little bit of this, a little bit of that,
Speaker 3: and it occurred to me, oh, let's write a song, Ivnant,
Speaker 3: and I kind of just came up with a tune,
Speaker 3: and next thing you know, I got a whole record
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, So how do you know it's a
Speaker 1: solo record and not a Dumpster Funk record.
Speaker 3: Ah, I think you can tell. It's not as funky.
Speaker 3: It's got a little grease. It's is soulful, but a
Speaker 3: few more ballads and few more mid tempo, kind of
Speaker 3: soft kind of.
Speaker 2: Sounding things, and.
Speaker 3: Topic wise, it's a little more personal from my point
Speaker 3: of view than with Dumpster So yeah, there's a few
Speaker 3: few elements that will let you know it's not a
Speaker 3: dumpster record.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly listened to the record and the record
Speaker 1: is great. You know, I'm not saying that than you,
Speaker 1: because you know people of aren't vintage and make new
Speaker 1: music and usually roll in your eyes. But I guess
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. In the writing process, how did you
Speaker 1: know you had a solo album and not a Dumpster
Speaker 1: Funk record?
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny, it's it's it's uh.
Speaker 3: The thing about it is, those guys are playing on
Speaker 3: a lot of this record. The members of Dumpster Funk
Speaker 3: are playing with me, Tony Hall, Devin Truss, Claire uh
Speaker 3: ian Neville, Nick Daniels, the whole lot of them in
Speaker 3: some some form of fashion. They're all involved in this thing.
Speaker 3: But the writing process was just me by myself in
Speaker 3: my son room, which is right down a few steps
Speaker 3: away from where I'm sitting, and there's a piano in there,
Speaker 3: at the digital piano, and I go sit in there
Speaker 3: and I start making up little pieces and that's kind
Speaker 3: of where I developed the ideas for the songs, and
Speaker 3: I recorded them on my phone on voice memo, little piece,
Speaker 3: little piece here, little piece there, and then I would
Speaker 3: go into the recording studio and start building songs based
Speaker 3: on those ideas. And it was just me by myself,
Speaker 3: starting the process and building the foundation for what people
Speaker 3: became this record, So that's the difference. And Dumpster Funk
Speaker 3: is a group thing, and it's more of a close
Speaker 3: to a democracy. It's like guys meeting and converging in
Speaker 3: a room and somebody has an idea, or all of
Speaker 3: us have ideas.
Speaker 2: And we meet up in the middle somewhere.
Speaker 3: But in this process, I was guiding the ship the
Speaker 3: whole time, whereas in Dumpster Funk we take turns driving
Speaker 3: kind of so to speak.
Speaker 2: But here I was doing all the driving.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you normally write songs or you suddenly got
Speaker 1: inspirations that I want to write a set of songs?
Speaker 1: What was the genesis?
Speaker 2: Well, I do write a lot.
Speaker 3: I have written a lot with Dumpster Funk, and I've
Speaker 3: written a lot of lyrics and a lot of ideas
Speaker 3: that we've had as a group. I've had a big
Speaker 3: part in a lot of the songwriting. And I wrote
Speaker 3: some songs maybe a few years ago for a project
Speaker 3: called Neville Jacobs with a friend of minees by the
Speaker 3: name of Chris Jacobs. He lives in Baltimore, great singer songwriter,
Speaker 3: and he and I had a project and we did
Speaker 3: a little dabbling and co wrote some things, and he
Speaker 3: actually helped me with a few of these songs as well.
Speaker 3: So it was a different mindset to start writing some
Speaker 3: Ivan music. It was a different little mindset, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get all the demos, you talk about
Speaker 1: going into the studio. What's the situation. You have a
Speaker 1: home studio, use commercial studio? What studios?
Speaker 3: It was part It was mostly home studio stuff and
Speaker 3: a couple of different spots. And it wasn't like I
Speaker 3: was dem I was I was making it up as
Speaker 3: I went along, basically, So it wasn't like I demoed
Speaker 3: and then cut the songs. I was making it up
Speaker 3: and putting parts on and building the tracks and that's
Speaker 3: what they became. And it was not like I was
Speaker 3: going to record them again, like I would build a
Speaker 3: song with just a piano piece. And maybe this thing
Speaker 3: called a rhythm king, a maestro rhythm king. It's a
Speaker 3: little beatbox thing that maybe who used it, sly Slyestone
Speaker 3: used it on this Fresh album. There was a guy
Speaker 3: by the name of Timmy Thomas who had a song
Speaker 3: called why Can't We Live Together? Back in the day
Speaker 3: he had he used that little beatbox. So did a sugary.
Speaker 3: Oh this used it the same little beat beatbox little thing.
Speaker 3: I used that in a bunch of songs to when
Speaker 3: I was starting out with the with the with the
Speaker 3: ideas and that's and sometimes I would keep that rhythm
Speaker 3: in the song and I'd put some live drums on
Speaker 3: them and maybe some other little loopy thing, and maybe
Speaker 3: I would have Tony C. Hall Tony Hall come and
Speaker 3: play a bass, or I played bass on a couple
Speaker 3: of things with some key bass, and I kind of
Speaker 3: built it and made it up as I went along, because,
Speaker 3: to tell you the truth, when I started out, I
Speaker 3: had one song. I had one song that I wrote
Speaker 3: by itself. It was a one off and it was
Speaker 3: a song called Hey Altogether. That's the first song I
Speaker 3: wrote for this project.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so have you heard Steve Winwood's version of
Speaker 1: why Can't We Live Together?
Speaker 2: You know what, I've never heard that. I'm interested to
Speaker 2: hear that.
Speaker 1: You know, you hear the you hear the beat box
Speaker 1: on the original Timmy Thomas, it's the same song. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's completely it's really great. As a keyboard player,
Speaker 1: I think you would enjoy it. But are you technically savvy?
Speaker 1: Are you a good engineer in the studio.
Speaker 3: I am not technically savvy at all.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The thing is, I there was a period in the
Speaker 3: late eighties when I did a lot of my own recording.
Speaker 3: I had a place in Los Angeles where I wrote
Speaker 3: a lot of songs for my first record, and I
Speaker 3: did a lot of the engineering.
Speaker 1: But this was before it.
Speaker 3: Went high tech and it went computer digital and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and I was given I was pretty good
Speaker 3: with a drum machine and all that stuff back then,
Speaker 3: But for this project kind I kind of dumb me
Speaker 3: down a little bit, and I haven't really kept up
Speaker 3: with some of the technical progression that we've made. And
Speaker 3: I have friends that know how to do something. I
Speaker 3: know how to tell someone what I want, and I
Speaker 3: know how to look at the screen and say, see
Speaker 3: that piece right there, that piece, let's blah blah blah
Speaker 3: with that piece, you know, let's make a loop out
Speaker 3: of that little one little section there, and things of
Speaker 3: that nature. I know how to do that and editing.
Speaker 3: If I'm in the room with someone who's technically savvy,
Speaker 3: I could tell them what to do by what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, the opening track, as you say, is all together.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of special guests, your father, Bonnie, Ray,
Speaker 1: Michael McDonald, trompone Shorty. How did they end up on
Speaker 1: the record? How do you actually record?
Speaker 3: Well, that they were These pieces were all done separately
Speaker 3: in their respective homes or their studios that they go
Speaker 3: to wherever they live. Like Bonnie has an engineer near
Speaker 3: her house where she lives in northern California, and she
Speaker 3: had someone she sang. I sent her the song. Now,
Speaker 3: the funny thing was Michael McDonald. I had cross paths
Speaker 3: with him over the last several years, maybe about six
Speaker 3: or seven years ago, there was a project that I
Speaker 3: was a part of. It was a live performance thing.
Speaker 3: It was called The Last They were doing a version
Speaker 3: of the Last Waltz and it was included Warren Haynes
Speaker 3: and Don was and Mike McDonald was in that group.
Speaker 3: And I was a part of that. And that's where
Speaker 3: I really kind of got to know Mike a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: He happened to be in New Orleans. Oh, he was
Speaker 2: coming to New Orleans.
Speaker 3: And this was like four years ago, like a little
Speaker 3: bit right before the pandemic. He was coming to New
Speaker 3: Orleans and I get I text sent them a text.
Speaker 3: I'm like, Mike, I got this. Oh you're gonna you're
Speaker 3: gonna be in New Orleans? How long you're gonna be
Speaker 3: down here for? And we kind of he hit me
Speaker 3: up and yeah, I'm gonna be down there for a
Speaker 3: few days. Well, anyway, long story showed, he ended up
Speaker 3: having a day or a couple of hours and he
Speaker 3: came by the studio and I he had him sing
Speaker 3: some stuff on this on this song, and I had
Speaker 3: him sing some stuff on this song and he, uh,
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 2: He did. It was amazing.
Speaker 3: It was amazing listening to him, listening to his voice,
Speaker 3: especially when he left, and me and the engineer we
Speaker 3: were just listening back at Michael McDonald's voice. This amazing,
Speaker 3: you know, distinctive voice that I loved. Right, And then
Speaker 3: I got I've got my dad.
Speaker 2: To sing some stuff. And the funny thing was the
Speaker 2: stuff my dad saying.
Speaker 3: For some reason, it didn't I didn't get the right
Speaker 3: stuff from my dad initially.
Speaker 1: And then Bonnie.
Speaker 3: I had just finished touring with Bonnie maybe a year
Speaker 3: before that, and I was I had played you. I
Speaker 3: known Bonnie for many years, so I found the right time,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, I got this song, Bonnie, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: have my dad on it. I got Mike McDonald on it,
Speaker 3: and I'd love for you to sing on it. And
Speaker 3: so she she, she said, Okay, send me the song.
Speaker 3: I said to the song. She dug it. She got
Speaker 3: with her engineer and she sang a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 3: Find So I got it back and I listened and
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh my god, this is so great. And
Speaker 3: I had Mike McDonald and Bonnie singing on this, on
Speaker 3: this choruses and on this bridge. And then I got
Speaker 3: David Shaw. He lives in New Orleans. He's got a
Speaker 3: band called the Revivalist. I got David Shaw to come
Speaker 3: over and sang. He sang some harmonies on some of
Speaker 3: the choruses and whatnot. I got Trumbone Shorty to put
Speaker 3: a few little licks on it in the vamp section.
Speaker 1: I sent it.
Speaker 2: I ended up.
Speaker 3: Mike McDonald text me and says, hey, how's it going
Speaker 3: with that song? Do you need anything else for me?
Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, sure, I want to do a couple.
Speaker 3: You want to do a couple of little ad libs?
Speaker 1: Perhaps?
Speaker 3: And he sang a few ad libs and he sang
Speaker 3: some little ooh stuff in the beginning. So the first
Speaker 3: voices you hear on this song is Mike McDonald. He
Speaker 3: goes in the beginning. So anyway, long story show. I
Speaker 3: ended up and then I called my dad. I said, Dad,
Speaker 3: I said, listen, I didn't really get exactly what I
Speaker 3: need it from you, but I need you to do.
Speaker 3: I need about five or six just classic Aaron Neville yoldas.
Speaker 3: You don't even have to sing any words. I just
Speaker 3: need some oo. I need a few of those. Just
Speaker 3: give me five or six of those and I'll have
Speaker 3: everything I want.
Speaker 2: And so I ended up with all this beautiful stuff.
Speaker 3: And that's where I really had a fun time, sitting
Speaker 3: with an engineer. It was this guy, this guy name
Speaker 3: is Basie Bob, who helped me with edit all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And he mixed that song.
Speaker 3: And we sat in his studio and listened to this stuff,
Speaker 3: and we listened to me singing, and here comes a
Speaker 3: Bonnie rate little line. Here comes to Mike McDonald line,
Speaker 3: and let's put an Aaron Neville yola right here. And
Speaker 3: it was a beautiful thing. I had so much fun
Speaker 3: doing that.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, as I referenced earlier, we're older, the world
Speaker 1: has changed, acts put out new records and they immediately disappear.
Speaker 1: So you finished the record. It doesn't sound sounds like
Speaker 1: you did. Didn't cost that much. How did you ultimately
Speaker 1: find a record company it amp it up for release.
Speaker 2: Well, that that was a I owed. I owed something.
Speaker 2: I old Dumpster Funk for that.
Speaker 3: Dumpster Funk had been talking to this label of the
Speaker 3: Mascot label group to do a Dumpster Funk record. Now,
Speaker 3: Dumpster Funk had music in the can that we had
Speaker 3: been working on over the past, you know, of five,
Speaker 3: six or seven years, and so we had some stuff
Speaker 3: that we had gathered up, some music. And then so
Speaker 3: when Dumpster got to deal with this label, I had
Speaker 3: this one song, his hay all together song that was done.
Speaker 2: And this is like I'm talking, this is doing two.
Speaker 3: This is like two twenty twenty when they said during
Speaker 3: the pandemic twenty twenty twenty twenty one or something like that,
Speaker 3: when Dumpster got to ink the deal with Mascot label group,
Speaker 3: and they offered me a side a deal as well
Speaker 3: based on the one song. So now we worked the
Speaker 3: Dumpster record a little bit, we played tour and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, and now it's time for me. I have
Speaker 3: to write about eight or nine more songs. That's basically
Speaker 3: what happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so the record is done. You're talking to me,
Speaker 1: but how do you plan to get the word out?
Speaker 1: And you're gonna go on the road as I've been.
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I plan on going on the road this
Speaker 3: ivan where it makes sense, especially early on, and then
Speaker 3: I'm gonna incorporate some of this stuff, maybe one or
Speaker 3: two things where where it also.
Speaker 2: Makes sense with Dumpster Funk.
Speaker 3: I might even do some double duties with Dumpster when
Speaker 3: where we can where I might open up some Dumpster
Speaker 3: Funk sets some shows and do an Ivan set. But
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to get
Speaker 3: this music out there, to get it get it heard
Speaker 3: by some folks. So I'm ready to play.
Speaker 1: You know. So what's it like having your father be
Speaker 1: Aaron Biftels.
Speaker 3: You know, it's pretty cool because he's a he's a
Speaker 3: very cool guy man, and it was very you know
Speaker 3: growing up with him. He was he was larger than life,
Speaker 3: you know when I was a kid, but for.
Speaker 2: Many reasons, not just because he was this singer guy.
Speaker 3: Because when I was young, he hadn't really found any
Speaker 3: like real success like he had. He was known around
Speaker 3: town a bit, and I knew that by the time
Speaker 3: I was maybe seven years old or something. He had
Speaker 3: this big hit song called tell It Like It Is,
Speaker 3: and we we I remember hearing that song and everybody's saying,
Speaker 3: this is going to be a hit record.
Speaker 2: And all this stuff. And he didn't make he didn't
Speaker 2: make any money.
Speaker 3: Off of that that music, so we didn't wait, wait.
Speaker 1: Wait, since I'm talking to you, do you have any
Speaker 1: idea if it was a big hit record. While he
Speaker 1: didn't make any money.
Speaker 3: The business side was not together at all, and the
Speaker 3: people involved, you know, there was a there were a
Speaker 3: lot of shady dealings going on in those days, and
Speaker 3: somebody made some money, I'm sure, because it sold a
Speaker 3: lot of a lot of copies and it was maybe
Speaker 3: made it to maybe number.
Speaker 2: Two anyway, But this guy is big.
Speaker 3: He was He was generally a big guy, and he
Speaker 3: was kind of tough and he I saw the respect
Speaker 3: that he commanded from the people on the streets. I'm
Speaker 3: talking about in the neighborhood. Like, not music people, I'm
Speaker 3: talking about street people. They respected this guy, Aaron Neville
Speaker 3: was respected, you know, not only in the music but
Speaker 3: on the street. I mean, you know, he's got a
Speaker 3: tattoo in his face. He had a tattoo in his
Speaker 3: face back in the days, and everybody didn't. Everybody didn't
Speaker 3: have tattoos, and so he was a pretty rough, you know,
Speaker 3: tough dude, you know who, you know, held his own.
Speaker 3: But it was also impressive that he could sing like
Speaker 3: like an angel. Here's this big tough guy that he
Speaker 3: his voice. He starts singing and he's got this light,
Speaker 3: little beautiful voice.
Speaker 2: So you know what it was.
Speaker 3: It was very cool growing up with him, and then
Speaker 3: when I got to be a teenager, he and I
Speaker 3: got really close again.
Speaker 2: For there was some reasons that, you know, there.
Speaker 3: Was a time when he and my mom kind of
Speaker 3: didn't see i'd I, and so I got to spend
Speaker 3: a little bit of time with him as a teenager,
Speaker 3: and he kind of treated me like I was kind
Speaker 3: of a grown up a little bit, and I felt
Speaker 3: pretty cool to get to hang with him during that period.
Speaker 3: And sooner later, him and my mom they ironed things
Speaker 3: out and we were back together as a family. And
Speaker 3: by this time I started playing piano, and he showed
Speaker 3: me a couple of songs on the piano he showed
Speaker 3: me the first songs that I lunged how to play.
Speaker 3: My dad showed me, and you know, soon after, I
Speaker 3: mean a few years later, I was in the band
Speaker 3: with he and his brothers, my uncles, with the Nether brothers,
Speaker 3: and that was kind of where I got my educated,
Speaker 3: My music education was playing with those guys. So it's
Speaker 3: always been, you know, like just an honor to like
Speaker 3: Aaron Aaron Nevills my dad. But I got to tell
Speaker 3: you something a lot of people don't know is that
Speaker 3: I was born named after him, and they changed my
Speaker 3: name when I was very young for some other family reasons.
Speaker 3: My mom's folks didn't really get on with my dad
Speaker 3: that that.
Speaker 2: Well when he was when they were young, he was
Speaker 2: a bad dude.
Speaker 3: And my mom's folks didn't like my dad too much,
Speaker 3: so they changed my name from Aaron to Ivan, and
Speaker 3: I still have his middle name. His name's Aaron Joseph
Speaker 3: Neville Senior. My name is Ivan Joseph Neville. I have
Speaker 3: a younger brother who later was he was named Aaron
Speaker 3: James never Junior. So I was able to grow up
Speaker 3: being the oldest of my siblings and kind of known
Speaker 3: as Little Aaron but I was Ivan, so I had
Speaker 3: my own identity, which I didn't have to totally live
Speaker 3: in the shadow of Aaron Neville's son like that. So
Speaker 3: if I would have been kept that name and I
Speaker 3: would have been Aaron Jr. How different things might have been.
Speaker 3: So there was that element as well. So, you know,
Speaker 3: I was known as the oldest and little Aaron, but
Speaker 3: my name was Ivan, so I had my own kind
Speaker 3: of thing.
Speaker 1: How many kids in the family.
Speaker 3: I have two brothers and his sister, and I'm the oldest.
Speaker 1: And what are your two brothers and your sister up to?
Speaker 3: My sisters retired? She but ye know, she retired and
Speaker 3: she works. She works works in a civil sheriff's office.
Speaker 3: She's been working there. She worked there for thirty some
Speaker 3: years and retired. My youngest brother, Jason, he sings and
Speaker 3: he performs. He's got a band. He plays around town
Speaker 3: in New Orleans. His name is Jason Chason Neville. And
Speaker 3: my other brother, little Aaron, we call him Fred's. He
Speaker 3: took on his own identity too. His nickname is Fred.
Speaker 3: But he's Aaron Jr. And he does all kinds the
Speaker 3: odd things, odd jobs and whatnot. But yeah, and he's
Speaker 3: music being clined as well, but he didn't go into
Speaker 3: music the way I did.
Speaker 1: Okay, so your father has this huge hit when you're
Speaker 1: like seven, while you're growing up, does your father what's
Speaker 1: he doing for a living? Is he singing for a
Speaker 1: living or does he have another job?
Speaker 3: He was singing, and he had other jobs as well,
Speaker 3: Like there were times when he was singing and he
Speaker 3: would go on the road, in which I got to
Speaker 3: tell you, I would I would welcome the times when
Speaker 3: he was gone.
Speaker 2: There were times when he would leave because he was
Speaker 2: a tough guy.
Speaker 3: He was a tough He was a stern father figure
Speaker 3: in our house, and when he was gone it would
Speaker 3: seem a.
Speaker 1: Little easier around around for me.
Speaker 3: I could get away with more stuff with my mom
Speaker 3: than I could with my dad.
Speaker 2: But he when he was around, he played music.
Speaker 3: He had some jobs and he played with my uncle
Speaker 3: aunt and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But he also had jobs working on the riverfront.
Speaker 3: I remember one time he showed up at the house
Speaker 3: with a van would have sit with cigarettes and I
Speaker 3: can remember the Yeah, the van had like cigarettes and
Speaker 3: candy and stuff. He had all kinds of jobs, all
Speaker 3: kinds of little jobs. But the riverfront was a was
Speaker 3: a mainstay. That was his bread and butter. Like when
Speaker 3: he didn't have any singing jobs, he would go work
Speaker 3: on the riverfront.
Speaker 1: So my mom worked.
Speaker 3: My mom worked, she worked, She worked at Charity Charity
Speaker 3: Hospital in New Orleans. My whole child, all my childhood.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that. Thanks for answering
Speaker 1: telling me the story. So until you he had come
Speaker 1: with age like eighteen, does your father ever strike it
Speaker 1: rich or is he struggling and doing different stuff while
Speaker 1: you're growing up?
Speaker 3: You know, he didn't strike it rich, but he was maintaining.
Speaker 3: By the time I was eighteen, the Neville Brothers had
Speaker 3: started playing as a group. He and my uncles, my
Speaker 3: uncle Art, Charles and Cyril. They started playing as the
Speaker 3: Neville Brothers around nineteen seventy seven, I would think, And
Speaker 3: they started, uh seventy seven, seventy eight, and they started
Speaker 3: They were making decent money as they started out, And
Speaker 3: then I started playing with them pretty early on, like
Speaker 3: maybe late.
Speaker 2: Seventy eight, early seventy nine. I started playing with the Nevill.
Speaker 3: Brothers as as an additional keyboard player and singing backups
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 1: So, what what kind of kid were you growing up?
Speaker 3: I was pretty I was pretty smart early on, and
Speaker 3: I started acting up, and I liked sports a lot.
Speaker 3: But you know, I was pretty excitable. I was pretty
Speaker 3: like fidgety and talked a lot. I told you know,
Speaker 3: I was. I would tell a lot of stories and stuff,
Speaker 3: and I was a pretty good kid.
Speaker 1: But I liked sports.
Speaker 2: I like play football, and I was musically inclined.
Speaker 3: I knew that I had I had a slight ability
Speaker 3: to sing a little bit, but I was very shy
Speaker 3: about it. And I did pick up a guitar when
Speaker 3: I was about ten years old, and I asked my mom.
Speaker 3: I said, Mom, I wanted guitar. She bought me a
Speaker 3: guitar from the five and dime store. It was a
Speaker 3: little electric Japanese electric model with a little some little
Speaker 3: little amp. And I would play a little bit. I'd
Speaker 3: play a couple of bass lines or guitar lines from
Speaker 3: Sliner family Stone songs, maybe simple sing a simple song
Speaker 3: I'd learned that. I learned chicken strut by the meters.
Speaker 3: I learned maybe one or two Jackson five songs, and
Speaker 3: then I lost interest. I didn't have the discipline at
Speaker 3: the time, or I was very impatient with it, and
Speaker 3: I didn't I put it down. Matter of fact, I
Speaker 3: think I loaned it. I loaned it to my uncle
Speaker 3: Cyril the guitar. I had kind of set it down
Speaker 3: for a while. I wasn't playing it. See, let me
Speaker 3: borrow that guitar, and I loaned in the guitar and
Speaker 3: I never saw it again. And I wasn't that mad
Speaker 3: about it because I had kind of lost interest in
Speaker 3: playing it. Then I started playing piano when I was
Speaker 3: about fifteen years old.
Speaker 1: Okay, you said you were living with your father. Your
Speaker 1: father showed your stuff. Go a little deeper. How you
Speaker 1: picked up the piano.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, so at the time I was I was living,
Speaker 3: I was I was living with my mom. When I
Speaker 3: started going up to my dad's house, he was still
Speaker 3: living in our old house where we had where I
Speaker 3: had grown up at. And then when my mom and
Speaker 3: him he got back together. We were all together on
Speaker 3: a street called Valence Street, and Valence Street was pretty
Speaker 3: much Neville Central. My uncle Art lived down the block
Speaker 3: a block away. My grandmother's house, where my dad and
Speaker 3: then grew up, was across the street from Art. I
Speaker 3: had great aunts, great aunts, my great uncle, Big Chief
Speaker 3: Jolly of the Wild, choppatolas.
Speaker 2: They were all around and my dad.
Speaker 3: We had my mom's She was my mom's piano that
Speaker 3: she played as a kid. She took piano lessons as
Speaker 3: a child and her mother and her parents bought her
Speaker 3: a piano. And that piano was in our living room
Speaker 3: in our house uptown, and I would sit down and
Speaker 3: fool around my dad. You know, there was a guy
Speaker 3: by the name of James Booker, and James Booker was
Speaker 3: a family friend. He went to grade school with my dad,
Speaker 3: he went to high school with my mom, and he
Speaker 3: would stop by the house every so often. I mean
Speaker 3: like maybe a couple two or three times a year.
Speaker 3: James Booker would show up out of nowhere, and he
Speaker 3: was this character. He was this very very unique person man.
Speaker 3: And he would sit down and play the piano like
Speaker 3: nothing I had ever heard in my life. And that
Speaker 3: was very inspirational hearing him play. And I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: I might never get to play like that, but I
Speaker 3: wouldn't mind playing a little bit of piano.
Speaker 2: That's some cool stuff. So my dad taught me a song.
Speaker 3: I think he taught me the song called Cabbage Alley,
Speaker 3: which was a meters song. My uncle Art it was
Speaker 3: a riff my uncle Art and it was kind of
Speaker 3: a riff that he had kind of got from Professor
Speaker 3: long Here, and I learned that song first. I think
Speaker 3: my dad taught me Such a Night by Doctor John.
Speaker 3: He taught me that, and one time when Booker was visiting,
Speaker 3: he taught me a song by Professor long Here called
Speaker 3: Big Chief. And those were my first ones that I
Speaker 3: that I kind of would fool around with.
Speaker 2: And I immediately.
Speaker 3: Started making up little songs, like I started trying to
Speaker 3: write pretty quickly, and I was just that was it?
Speaker 1: What was the inspiration to write? I don't know.
Speaker 3: I've listened to the radio all the time, and I liked,
Speaker 3: you know, I liked all the local music that New
Speaker 3: Orleans is just known for all the stuff that.
Speaker 2: You hear around and you hear on the radio, but.
Speaker 3: You'd also hear this other stuff you'd hear, you know,
Speaker 3: like like I liked a lot of different music as
Speaker 3: a kid. I liked the Beatles, I like the Stones,
Speaker 3: I liked the Family Strong Jackson five. But in the
Speaker 3: early seventies there was a lot of great music that
Speaker 3: was playing that I had really dug a lot, like
Speaker 3: Elton John stuff and later on the Doobie Brothers at
Speaker 3: late seventies, and there was I started wanting to try
Speaker 3: to write songs.
Speaker 1: How did you end up becoming proficient at the piano?
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. I just kind of kept
Speaker 2: doing it.
Speaker 3: I kept at it, I kept playing a little bit,
Speaker 3: and I kept I would sit down and just make
Speaker 3: up little chord progressions. And when I was in high school,
Speaker 3: when I was in eleventh and eleventh to twelfth grade,
Speaker 3: I was in the stage band and the teacher, his
Speaker 3: name was mister Francis. He would let me sit in
Speaker 3: the back room. There was a little piano room, and
Speaker 3: he'd let me sit in there and just play around.
Speaker 3: And I would just be in there, playing and making
Speaker 3: up stuff and practicing the things I knew. I should
Speaker 3: have been studying more about music theory and how to
Speaker 3: learn how to read music, which I did not. But
Speaker 3: I kind of developed a little style of my own,
Speaker 3: and I started writing songs and so the never but
Speaker 3: when I was started playing with the Brothers, I started
Speaker 3: incorporating some of my stuff and my stylings into their music.
Speaker 3: And I would write songs and they would say, oh,
Speaker 3: we might want to play that, and they would maybe
Speaker 3: perform a couple of songs that I have perhaps written.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, New Orleans is its own world, and
Speaker 1: really the average person doesn't understand it in terms of music.
Speaker 1: There was a heyday with Fats Domino. Then Doctor John
Speaker 1: got signed to Atlantic in the early seventies, there was
Speaker 1: another push. But explain New Orleans to us and where
Speaker 1: you lived in the city.
Speaker 3: I can only explain New Orleans by talking about the
Speaker 3: signature dish. And it's called gumbo, and it's kind of
Speaker 3: a mixture of everything. It's a little bit of this
Speaker 3: like gumbo from when I was growing up and my
Speaker 3: mom and they made gumbo.
Speaker 2: They had a little bit, a little bit.
Speaker 3: They put some chicken, they'd have some seasoning onions, bell peppers, celery,
Speaker 3: and garlic. They mix in a little bit of that.
Speaker 3: They saltaste some chicken. They add some sausages to it.
Speaker 3: They add some shrimp, some crab meat, and they would
Speaker 3: make this thing called the root. And by the way,
Speaker 3: my mom's maiden name, my mom's family's name was root
Speaker 3: l o Ux, So they knew something about making a root.
Speaker 3: And that's what that's with flour and oil and then
Speaker 3: that roole and you add all those ingredients to that
Speaker 3: root and that's what makes that gumbo special and it
Speaker 3: tastes lea. You could taste a little bit of everything
Speaker 3: in there. And that's what New Oleans music is. Because
Speaker 3: you got brass bands, sounds, you got the more Dixieland
Speaker 3: version of that, you got the more street version of it.
Speaker 3: You have the Mardi Gras Indians, you have the sounds
Speaker 3: that you hear on a Sunday afternoon when you go
Speaker 3: on your pouch and there's a second line going down
Speaker 3: the street. There's a social and pleasure club. These guys
Speaker 3: they join these clubs and they put ready, they have
Speaker 3: their little celebrations on a Sunday. And you know about
Speaker 3: where the term second line comes from. Second line comes
Speaker 3: from the funerals, the celebration at a funeral when someone dies,
Speaker 3: you got the you got the casket, the body and
Speaker 3: the family, and you got a brass band, and you
Speaker 3: got the crowd behind the brass band.
Speaker 1: And that's the second line.
Speaker 3: And it's like, so there was music involved in every
Speaker 3: aspect of New Orleans life, and it's all about the celebration.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know, there's something about the
Speaker 3: mixture of that, and you got the Caribbean vibe.
Speaker 2: You got the Caribbean rhythms that you hear in New
Speaker 2: Orleans music.
Speaker 3: How that was a cross influence, like the Caribbean was
Speaker 3: influenced by New Orleans music, like reggae reggae was influenced
Speaker 3: by New Orleans music, as New Orleans was influenced by
Speaker 3: all those sounds from all over the Caribbean and things
Speaker 3: of that nature.
Speaker 2: So, man, there's a it's just so uh so gumbo.
Speaker 3: Gumbo is the simplest way for me to put how
Speaker 3: I you know what I I mean when you think
Speaker 3: of all of the count and you think of doctor John,
Speaker 3: and you think of the Professor long Hair's and and
Speaker 3: and uh and the Meters and and Alan Tucson, and
Speaker 3: then you got the Marcella's family, the Neville family, the
Speaker 3: Baptiste family, the Lasti family, all these music the Andrews,
Speaker 3: all these musical families and and just it's it's it's
Speaker 3: something to behold, I must tell you. And growing up
Speaker 3: here it was absolutely so much fun and it just
Speaker 3: seemed so natural. I didn't see, like, wow, I thought
Speaker 3: everybody had all this cool music and all this cool food.
Speaker 3: That were, you know, but obviously a lot of it
Speaker 3: was unique is unique to New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk more socially. You know, Bourbon Street, Party Street.
Speaker 1: Then you go to the other side of town. You
Speaker 1: have big homes. You have to lane where you grew up.
Speaker 1: What was it like, and you know, did the experience racism?
Speaker 1: You know, what was it like just living in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was, there was. There was definitely some racism.
Speaker 3: And you know, the neighborhoods in New Orleans is so
Speaker 3: unique because you know, where I live right now, it's
Speaker 3: not much different than where I lived long time ago,
Speaker 3: back in the days on Valence Street. Right now, if
Speaker 3: I walk three blocks toward the lake.
Speaker 1: I'm in the hood.
Speaker 3: I mean I'm in I'm in a neighborhood called Central
Speaker 3: City where they might you might hear some gunshots go
Speaker 3: off around there on a regular basis. You gotta watch it,
Speaker 3: watch it back, you know, you know, be aware of
Speaker 3: your surroundings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Anyway, but if you walk three blocks toward the river.
Speaker 3: You in a place called what you called, it's called
Speaker 3: uh hang On hang On Garden District.
Speaker 2: The Garden District is lots of old beautiful New.
Speaker 3: Orleans homes and it's obviously predominantly white, you know, And
Speaker 3: that's kind of how New Orleans has always been.
Speaker 2: I mean, when I grew up on Vallence Street, we.
Speaker 3: Had a little area I would say in between Colisseum
Speaker 3: Street or maybe Perry Street. Perry Street to the River
Speaker 3: was predominantly black, but so so. And I lived three
Speaker 3: or four blocks from Perry Street, but if I walked
Speaker 3: half a block across Perry Street, it was it was.
Speaker 3: It was similar to the Garden District. It was white neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: And it was when I when I've come to know
Speaker 3: as like maybe old old white New Orleans money, you know.
Speaker 2: And St.
Speaker 3: Charles Avenue was within walking distance from my house growing up.
Speaker 3: And Saint Charles Avenue is absolutely old, big gazillion dollars,
Speaker 3: million dollar homes. They look like, you know, they're like mansions.
Speaker 3: And some of them also some of them take on there.
Speaker 3: There's a few of them that have like a plantation
Speaker 3: vibe to them. I ain't gonna lie, right, but.
Speaker 1: There was this thing.
Speaker 3: There was a division because Marti Gros, the Mardi Gras
Speaker 3: parades were that was most that was uh, that was
Speaker 3: mostly for white people. So the black people had their
Speaker 3: one parade, it's called the Zulu Parades. So they figured
Speaker 3: they would mock themselves and they would go and be
Speaker 3: on floats in blackface, and that's that's that parade is
Speaker 3: one of the most popular, most beloved parades of all
Speaker 3: But it's still and mind you don't want to tell
Speaker 3: you the truth. It's you would think it would be
Speaker 3: drastically different now, but it's but it's actually not. You
Speaker 3: would think the separation would would not be so drastic,
Speaker 3: but it still is. Because my son who goes through school,
Speaker 3: he goes to private school and he goes through I
Speaker 3: went I went to Catholic school.
Speaker 2: I went to predominantly white school in grade school from
Speaker 2: first grade all the.
Speaker 3: Way through seventh and that school is still predominantly white.
Speaker 3: And that's that blows my mind, you know, and the
Speaker 3: public schools which are predominantly black. And you got a
Speaker 3: few charter schools that are mixed, but to charter schools,
Speaker 3: you have to go through so much red tape to
Speaker 3: get in these charter schools, and there it's you know,
Speaker 3: it's so it's mind blowing to realize how separate we
Speaker 3: kind of still are to some degree, you would think
Speaker 3: that a lot of that stuff would have changed a
Speaker 3: little bit more than it has, you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: that's funny, man, and that you know, when I was
Speaker 3: thinking about that song, hey, altogether, I was thinking about that,
Speaker 3: I was thinking more. I was thinking more about community
Speaker 3: and how we all grew up where I grew up.
Speaker 3: You know, and you walk down the street and the
Speaker 3: people in your neighborhood, you would wave to them and say, hey,
Speaker 3: how you doing, how are you? And then you would
Speaker 3: you would see a stranger, black, white, or whatever color
Speaker 3: they were, and you could say, hey, how you doing,
Speaker 3: and they would speak back to you, Hey, how are you?
Speaker 2: Good morning? Stuff like that, And it's.
Speaker 3: Over the last especially recently, you know, you know, people
Speaker 3: because because everybody's opinions about this and that, political beliefs,
Speaker 3: religious beliefs and all this, we've we've come to let
Speaker 3: our opinions divide us so drastically. Whereas I think, you know,
Speaker 3: I guess for a long time, maybe in politics a
Speaker 3: lot of us agreed to disagree about some things, but
Speaker 3: we could still be friends. Now it's gotten so polarized
Speaker 3: that there's people, you know, who can't be friends with
Speaker 3: each other because of their political beliefs or religious beliefs.
Speaker 2: The things of that nature.
Speaker 3: So you know, this song hey altogether is basically I
Speaker 3: was trying to, you know, say something without being preachy,
Speaker 3: but have put a positive spin on. Look, if we
Speaker 3: just all if people just send hi to one stranger
Speaker 3: a day, if you walking down the street and you
Speaker 3: see somebody you've never seen in your like, you say hey,
Speaker 3: how you doing? And that person responds it says, oh, hey,
Speaker 3: how are you? That would be a beautiful thing. And
Speaker 3: not that it's it's gonna happen, but it would be
Speaker 3: cool if people did acknowledge one another a little bit
Speaker 3: more because we're all just human. We're all human when
Speaker 3: it you know, when the day ends, we all got
Speaker 3: to do certain things that you know, we all have
Speaker 3: in common. We all have to go use the bathroom
Speaker 3: in a similar way. We all have to do you know,
Speaker 3: we all brush our teeth. You know, we all got
Speaker 3: to do certain stuff and and I think we you know,
Speaker 3: it'd be it'd be cool if we remembered a little
Speaker 3: more of our similarities and concentrated more on that than
Speaker 3: our differences.
Speaker 1: Okay, so do you finish high school?
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I finished high school. I finished graduated from Walter oh
Speaker 3: Coin Senior High School. I had, by the way, I
Speaker 3: had going to several schools.
Speaker 2: I did.
Speaker 3: I did a few little hands antics that went on
Speaker 3: starting with my I think in seventh grade, I started
Speaker 3: acting a little bit out and I, okay, moved around,
Speaker 3: But I did. I finished high school. I went to college.
Speaker 3: How long did you go to college? I went to
Speaker 3: college for a couple of semesters, maybe three semesters, and
Speaker 3: I and I quit.
Speaker 2: I started playing with the news a.
Speaker 1: Little bit slower. How did you quit college and end
Speaker 1: up playing with the devil Brood?
Speaker 3: I was still I was in college, and I was
Speaker 3: going let me see, I was going to university in
Speaker 3: New Orleans. And I had my band. I had a
Speaker 3: band that me and some of my friends, a band
Speaker 3: called Renegade, And we were playing around, playing like you know,
Speaker 3: like wedding receptions or school dances and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: and a couple of frat parties here and there, and
Speaker 3: I just kind of didn't I wanted to study, and
Speaker 3: I knew that I should have studied harder. I knew
Speaker 3: that I really wanted to I needed to apply myself
Speaker 3: and I just I just didn't do it. And I
Speaker 3: just I just my interests went to the music and
Speaker 3: not the studious side of music. I wanted to play.
Speaker 3: I wanted to play music, and I wanted to play
Speaker 3: with my dad and my uncles. So I went to
Speaker 3: university in New Orleans for one or two semesters, and
Speaker 3: I went to a Gatto community college for half a semester,
Speaker 3: and I had all music classes at del Gatto and
Speaker 3: I didn't even stay. I started playing with my dad
Speaker 3: and my uncles. I started getting those weekly checks, and
Speaker 3: I was like, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you literally start playing with your dad
Speaker 1: and your uncles because they had a group. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, do they want to let you in?
Speaker 2: Right? No, that's that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I don't know what were they thinking.
Speaker 3: You know the funny I'm gonna I'm gonna go back
Speaker 3: a little bit and tell you My first paying gig
Speaker 3: was with my dad.
Speaker 2: My dad he had a gig playing for a house party.
Speaker 3: This group of people that purchased this club called the
Speaker 3: five oh one Club that is now known as Tippetinas,
Speaker 3: one of the most beloved and famous UH venues to
Speaker 3: play in New Orleans. Tippotina's. There's a group of people
Speaker 3: that that that bought that club. They used to have
Speaker 3: house parties that were in a basement in a house
Speaker 3: on Calton Avenue, and my dad was hired to play
Speaker 3: a party for them.
Speaker 1: So he got me.
Speaker 3: He got my great uncle George Landry Beating, also know
Speaker 3: his big Chief Jolly of the watch oppatuita jolly. Myself
Speaker 3: and my dad performed at these folks party and he
Speaker 3: there was a piano, there was a set of Hunger drums,
Speaker 3: there was a cow bell and tambourine, and we all
Speaker 3: accompanied one another and we played some songs together and
Speaker 3: there was a lot of weed smoke going on in
Speaker 3: this party.
Speaker 2: It was a fun party and all of that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. Back then.
Speaker 3: This was magnets is in the seventies. This is like
Speaker 3: maybe nineteen seventy seven, seventy six, seventy seven. And my
Speaker 3: dad paid me one hundred dollars. He gave me a
Speaker 3: hundred dollar bill. After the night was done, I was like,
Speaker 3: what one hundred dollars for this? I got to play
Speaker 3: music and smoke pot and I got a hundred hundred
Speaker 3: dollars for that. I like that, so shortly after when
Speaker 3: my dad and his brother started the Neville Brothers. Now
Speaker 3: I eased into it. Now I didn't immediately start playing.
Speaker 1: They did.
Speaker 2: They did.
Speaker 3: I think it was their second or third tour they did.
Speaker 3: They toured California, and I think it was called the
Speaker 3: Mardy Gra Mambo, and it was the Neville Brothers along
Speaker 3: with Doctor John and maybe I made I think it
Speaker 3: was the Neville Brothers Doctor John, and I think and
Speaker 3: it was. And they brought along my great uncle, Big
Speaker 3: Chief Jolly, and it was the Never brother with the
Speaker 3: Wild Chopp of Toolers and Doctor John opened the show.
Speaker 3: And I went along as dressed up as an Indian,
Speaker 3: as a Mardi Gras Indian. So I had one of
Speaker 3: one of my big my uncle Jolly's Indian suits. I
Speaker 3: would put that on and come out toward the end
Speaker 3: of the show and be an Indian along with Jolly.
Speaker 3: I think Cyril had a few feathers, and my uncle
Speaker 3: Charles would go off stage and he put on the
Speaker 3: Indian costume and we would do music that from the
Speaker 3: Wild Chopp of Tula's album, which was the Neville Brothers
Speaker 3: and the Meters performed that music and the recording studio
Speaker 3: So that was my first tour with them. And the
Speaker 3: fun thing was I did I there was a clavinet
Speaker 3: rhythmic keyboard that you know, I would play. Sometimes they
Speaker 3: didn't let me play that. I got to play Doctor John.
Speaker 3: He invited me to play in his set. He would say,
Speaker 3: I haven't man, why don't you come play face and
Speaker 3: claud net with me?
Speaker 2: Come play somebody that funk and clavinet on right place.
Speaker 2: I would go play the right place, wrong time with
Speaker 2: him lavinet.
Speaker 1: And that was my.
Speaker 3: First uh uh entry into being with the Never Brothers band.
Speaker 3: Then when we got back home, I had started writing
Speaker 3: some songs. They let me come join the band. I
Speaker 3: came in the band. I started playing the second or
Speaker 3: third keyboard because they were at the time.
Speaker 2: There was another keyboard player.
Speaker 3: There was a guy named Jerald Chilman, my uncle Art,
Speaker 3: and here comes Ivan as well. So there was three
Speaker 3: keyboard players in that version of Neville Brother's band.
Speaker 1: Okay, you said your father was a tough guy. Were
Speaker 1: your uncles like Campa? Were they different?
Speaker 2: Oh? They were, you know what, They were very in
Speaker 2: their own ways, like Art.
Speaker 3: Was more of the father, I would say, kind of
Speaker 3: a father figured all of them. To everybody, and he
Speaker 3: was kind of he was the big brother, and they
Speaker 3: all respected art. And how I looked at my dad.
Speaker 3: I saw how my dad and him looked at art.
Speaker 3: So art scared the.
Speaker 1: Crap out of me.
Speaker 3: When I was young, I was like, I was behaving
Speaker 3: really well when I was around art.
Speaker 2: Usually at all times.
Speaker 1: We got really close and we started playing music together.
Speaker 3: But my uncle Cyrriel was the youngest of the brothers,
Speaker 3: and he was closer in age to me and so,
Speaker 3: but he had a wild streak in him, and he
Speaker 3: was kind of the one that was more apt to
Speaker 3: go kind of buck wild and kind of had to
Speaker 3: keep an eye on soil back back then.
Speaker 2: And my uncle.
Speaker 3: Charles was the quiet one who was probably the most
Speaker 3: lethal of all of them as far as being being
Speaker 3: a tough guy. Charles is probably the most dangerous one
Speaker 3: of all. But he was quiet, very soft spoken. But
Speaker 3: don't get on his bad side, do not. He would
Speaker 3: quietly give you a look like okay, and you would know,
Speaker 3: you would know, okay, okay, I'm gonna shut my mouth up.
Speaker 3: I'm not messing with Uncle Charles. So yeah, they all
Speaker 3: had their own little version of you know, that tough side,
Speaker 3: and they all carried it differently.
Speaker 1: Not only are you going on the road leaving the
Speaker 1: home still a teenager making money with your father. So
Speaker 1: what do I know, the eye fage guy and this
Speaker 1: is long before smartphones, etc. They go on the road,
Speaker 1: they're drinking and drugging, you know, having sex whatever. That
Speaker 1: is part of the road. But you're also out with
Speaker 1: your father.
Speaker 4: So what was your experience Like I was, Hey, I
Speaker 4: was the youngest one, and those guys were all like
Speaker 4: mostly kind of they were all married and stuff like
Speaker 4: that at the time.
Speaker 3: So I was definitely doing all of that, all of
Speaker 3: the above. I was drinking, drugging, I got a lot
Speaker 3: of the overflow. I got a lot of the women
Speaker 3: that those guys didn't spend time. They didn't you know,
Speaker 3: they were like busy being cool guys, and they I
Speaker 3: would do all of the dirty work for them. Believe me,
Speaker 3: I know. I loved that. Part of it is weell
Speaker 3: because I had to think for drinking and doing drugs.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed that stuff at that time. I really did.
Speaker 1: Okay, So how does it evolve from you playing in
Speaker 1: the Double Brothers to the next thing.
Speaker 2: I ended?
Speaker 3: I wrote a bunch of songs. I started writing a
Speaker 3: little bit more. I got an opportunity to go to
Speaker 3: California once with UH and and perform and record with
Speaker 3: a group called Rufus Rufus Uh you might know Rufus
Speaker 3: and Shaka Khan.
Speaker 2: Shaka was the singer with the band Rufus.
Speaker 3: Well, they did a recording that Shaka wasn't wasn't was
Speaker 3: not involved in it, and I was on a.
Speaker 2: Record with them.
Speaker 3: The record was called Sealed and Red, and I sang
Speaker 3: some of the songs. I wrote a song that was
Speaker 3: on that record and played keyboards on some of the stuff.
Speaker 3: And that was my first real trip to Los Angeles
Speaker 3: without like on my own. And then I came back
Speaker 3: to New Orleans and I UH, I reacquainted with my
Speaker 3: with my dad, my uncle's and we ended up going
Speaker 3: We ended up going on the road and opening up
Speaker 3: for the roll Stones, I think in nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 3: and I was I met Keith Richards and Ron Woods
Speaker 3: and those guys and hit it off with them.
Speaker 2: Pretty pretty, pretty pretty good, and.
Speaker 3: That kind of UH that that that in a later
Speaker 3: time that would come, that relationship would come back and
Speaker 3: I would I would explore more stuff with them. But
Speaker 3: around nineteen eighty four eighty three, I went back to
Speaker 3: Los Angeles and I moved to Los Angeles, maybe eighty
Speaker 3: two eighty three, probably eighty.
Speaker 2: Three eighty three.
Speaker 3: I moved to Los Angeles and I met a friend
Speaker 3: who was playing, who had previously played.
Speaker 1: With the Brothers.
Speaker 2: His name was hutch Hutchinson, hug Hutchinson was playing.
Speaker 3: He had met Bonnie Raid and some other mutual friends
Speaker 3: that I knew some I knew of some of these people,
Speaker 3: but he had joined Bonnie Rate's band. So in nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty four I got a gig playing with Bonnie Ray
Speaker 3: and I played with her from maybe eighty four to
Speaker 3: maybe eighty six or eighty seven, maybe three four years,
Speaker 3: three years or something like that.
Speaker 1: Well, that was a dark period in her career where
Speaker 1: she lost her.
Speaker 3: She she had she she didn't had your loss. You
Speaker 3: had didn't have the deal at the time, a record deal,
Speaker 3: and she was mostly playing to like a cult kind
Speaker 3: of following. But did she had a loyal a loyal following,
Speaker 3: you know, on the circuit and it was not you
Speaker 3: know what she would later do in the later in
Speaker 3: the later eighties, she would And it's basically you know what,
Speaker 3: it's basically probably a product of what she did.
Speaker 2: With her life.
Speaker 3: She kind of straightened her stuff out a little bit
Speaker 3: because we were all partying. It was the eighties, and
Speaker 3: by the time I left her group, uh, she had
Speaker 3: she started. She changed her life a bit. And then
Speaker 3: she's I mean her in her her story. You know,
Speaker 3: that's her story. But I know she ended up making
Speaker 3: that record of Nick a time late eighties in that
Speaker 3: catapult of her career to a whole nother level, and
Speaker 3: she became a big star.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in her band, you gotta check. But
Speaker 1: are you happy or you say, man, I want to
Speaker 1: do my own thing, you know what?
Speaker 3: I was very happy. And then at some point while
Speaker 3: while I was not on the road, we had a
Speaker 3: little studio place we called the Room, and it was
Speaker 3: on It was on Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, right
Speaker 3: off of Vine Street, and it was right near all
Speaker 3: kinds of other classic Clover studios, which was a famous
Speaker 3: studio that I think Bruce Springsteen, maybe.
Speaker 2: Even maybe even Elvis might have recorded. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I heard all kinds of people recorded right across the
Speaker 3: parking lot from our little place. Paramount Studios was a
Speaker 3: maybe on the other side of the street, as was
Speaker 3: SI R. It's a lot of stuff going on around there,
Speaker 3: and I would be in this place. I started writing
Speaker 3: songs there. I started developing what would become my first
Speaker 3: album and my answer if my ancestors could see me now.
Speaker 3: So basically, when I stopped playing with Bonnie around eighty
Speaker 3: six or eighty seven, I started working on that music.
Speaker 3: It's something cool happened along the way too, Like right,
Speaker 3: Bonnie had just finished and I don't know, this may
Speaker 3: be one of your questions you might have to do.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm just gonna go into it.
Speaker 3: This is a it's a cool story. When I finished
Speaker 3: the tour with Bonnie in New York, I think it
Speaker 3: was around nineteen eighty six, maybe eighties, it had to
Speaker 3: be eighty six, and the Rolling Stones were recording in
Speaker 3: New York and I happened to go to a the
Speaker 3: session where they were recording, and I ended up singing
Speaker 3: backups and playing bass guitar on a song on an
Speaker 3: album called Dirty Work by The Stones. And got to say,
Speaker 3: that's my favorite credit of all time on any record,
Speaker 3: was playing bass on the Stones record and that that
Speaker 3: kind of kindled rekindle a little spark between me and
Speaker 3: Keith during those sessions, which would later I would later
Speaker 3: get a call from him to help him with some
Speaker 3: solo stuff he was working on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, okay, how does it end with Bonnie?
Speaker 2: No, we were I had, I think, I wanted. I wanted.
Speaker 3: I wanted to start working more on my own stuff,
Speaker 3: and I was ready that I had written all these
Speaker 3: songs and I got a chance to. So I was
Speaker 3: talking to some people about managing me as well, and
Speaker 3: I talked to someone that was at the time, Bill
Speaker 3: Graham was managing my dad and my uncle's and someone
Speaker 3: over there was talking to me about doing getting getting
Speaker 3: myself a record deal and stuff like that, and I
Speaker 3: joined up with them with Bill Graham's management company, and
Speaker 3: I got a record recording contract. So I had to
Speaker 3: go on and do you know, do my own thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did Diddy Gorchbar end up being the producer
Speaker 1: I had?
Speaker 3: You know, when I met I met Danny through some
Speaker 3: other mutual friends. So when I was when I did
Speaker 3: the Dirty Work album, is where I met Steve. No,
Speaker 3: you know Steve Jordans a matter of fact, No, you
Speaker 3: know what I met. Jim Keltner brought Steve Jordan to
Speaker 3: our studio in La one time, and that's when I
Speaker 3: met Steve Jordan. But when I went to these dirty
Speaker 3: Work sessions there Steve Jordan was and he and Charlie
Speaker 3: Drayton were at those sessions and we got acquainted during
Speaker 3: that time. And fast forward, I'm in La talking to
Speaker 3: the label about who was going to possibly produce my
Speaker 3: record and we talked to one person that Uh, I
Speaker 3: forget the guy's name, but he was.
Speaker 2: He was a cool guy. I just didn't at.
Speaker 3: The time, I was really partying heavy and I was one.
Speaker 3: I was into playing music, but I was into having
Speaker 3: a good time as well. My priorities I don't know what.
Speaker 3: I guess the music was at that time. The music
Speaker 3: was more important, but I still I wanted to have
Speaker 3: a fun time. And I met with this guy, I
Speaker 3: think his name was David Segerson and to maybe produce
Speaker 3: and he I didn't He and I didn't really click,
Speaker 3: so they said, well we maybe, and I happened to
Speaker 3: meet up with with Jordan and someone we were doing
Speaker 3: some stuff with, Keith Uh. I had been hanging out
Speaker 3: with Keith a little bit, and then we were all
Speaker 3: I was gonna meet Jordan and some other fellas at
Speaker 3: the Chateau Montmont and and and.
Speaker 2: There was Coach. That's where I met Coach.
Speaker 3: And we were sitting in a room hanging partying, and
Speaker 3: and I had heard of Coach. I'd heard he had
Speaker 3: done work with Don Henley and stuff like that. And
Speaker 3: he was a cat who had been around on the
Speaker 3: California scene and played with Linda Ronstat and James Taylor
Speaker 3: and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: So I and I met Cooch and he was a
Speaker 2: cool guy.
Speaker 3: And then his name came up, said maybe, how would
Speaker 3: you feel about working with this guy, Coach Dandy Kochmint
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yeah, you know what, I just hung
Speaker 3: out with him like two weeks ago with Jordans and them. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I could. I could work with that cat. But you
Speaker 3: know what funny thing was, he wasn't. He didn't let
Speaker 3: me get away with all my party and ship stuff.
Speaker 3: When we when we got the recording, he was he
Speaker 3: put he put the he put the foot down and
Speaker 3: was like, you know what, dude, this is your record.
Speaker 3: You got to show up for this stint. Partying is
Speaker 3: one thing, but you gotta you gotta make your music.
Speaker 3: And he was a pretty stern character, you know, and
Speaker 3: it was an amazing time working with him as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, you actually have a hit and you're on MTV.
Speaker 1: I think that's why I first became aware of you.
Speaker 1: What was that experience like for you?
Speaker 3: It was it was a lot of fun. I was
Speaker 3: kind of I was a little bit confused because it
Speaker 3: seemed to me like the label. The people at the
Speaker 3: record label were not They didn't understand because I was
Speaker 3: my music was not. I wasn't didn't sound like some
Speaker 3: guy that was from the Neville family in New Orleans,
Speaker 3: first of all, and I didn't sound really like a
Speaker 3: black guy at the time. I was making music that
Speaker 3: sounded more rock pop kind of stuff. So they didn't
Speaker 3: really know what to do with me, I thought, and
Speaker 3: I was playing doing I was open. Matter of fact
Speaker 3: around this time, right when I was making when I
Speaker 3: was finished making my record, Keith called up and he
Speaker 3: was gonna make he started working on on Keith Richard's
Speaker 3: first solo album, Talk is Cheap. So I did that
Speaker 3: record with him, and then I ended up doing I
Speaker 3: ended up opening up for some of the Keith Richards,
Speaker 3: an expensive Windo shows. I opened up for that for Keith,
Speaker 3: and then I played with Keith, and I did a
Speaker 3: lot of ground, a lot of stuff that you're supposed
Speaker 3: to do when you have a record out. I was
Speaker 3: on MTV or it was playing the videos and the
Speaker 3: song the one song went to like number twenty something
Speaker 3: on the pop charts, I believe, or twenty seven or
Speaker 3: something like that, and it was pretty doing pretty well,
Speaker 3: but it didn't go any further than that. And I
Speaker 3: had a couple of songs that were in films, that
Speaker 3: song Not Just Another Girl, and it was a song
Speaker 3: called Falling out of Love that was.
Speaker 2: In a John Ritter movie called skin Deep.
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of stuff, and you think
Speaker 3: that it would have translated into a little bit more
Speaker 3: a more success and more uh touring and more money,
Speaker 3: but you know what, and it was a combination of
Speaker 3: maybe a little miss uh, I ain't gonna say mismanageable,
Speaker 3: but them not really knowing what to do with me
Speaker 3: because I did everything I thought I was supposed to do.
Speaker 3: I toured with Robert Cray, I opened up for Little Feet,
Speaker 3: I opened up for Keith, played with the Winos, I
Speaker 3: was visible on MTV, but you know what, I was
Speaker 3: getting loaded.
Speaker 2: I was getting high as.
Speaker 3: A kite on a daily basis, and so that was
Speaker 3: probably that probably had something to do with some of
Speaker 3: the non productive factor, because there were times when I
Speaker 3: did I would I didn't show up for a thing,
Speaker 3: a thing or two here and there. I maybe didn't
Speaker 3: show up, or I showed up, and maybe the people
Speaker 3: were maybe like, damn, I we wish he wouldn't have
Speaker 3: showed up because I was doing a lot of drugs.
Speaker 3: I was doing a lot of coke, drinking a lot,
Speaker 3: and I was it was. It was kind of taking
Speaker 3: a toll to to many degrees, to a to a.
Speaker 2: In a big way.
Speaker 3: Because by the time the nineties, the nineties hit and
Speaker 3: then we did I did an. The second record never
Speaker 3: came out on Poly Poly Door, the follow up never
Speaker 3: came out. I was pretty I was doing I was
Speaker 3: pretty heavy into getting high and.
Speaker 2: The drug the drug use and all that started.
Speaker 3: Taking a uh kind of a uh you know, taking
Speaker 3: a precedent over the music.
Speaker 2: And it was that was I was.
Speaker 3: It was more important for me to get loaded than
Speaker 3: it was to make music. Now I was still making
Speaker 3: music and I was still playing. I was I did
Speaker 3: Keeps second record, we did another couple of tours. I
Speaker 3: did another record finally called Thanks. When I was making
Speaker 3: that record, I was living in New York at the time,
Speaker 3: and I was pretty I was coming to the point
Speaker 3: where I was just spiraling out of control and I
Speaker 3: was gonna soon be going down because by the time
Speaker 3: I played on a Voodoo Lounge album, which was a
Speaker 3: total like when I played on Dirty Work, it was
Speaker 3: a fun experience. It was I'm playing there when we're
Speaker 3: in a studio with the Rolling Stones, and it was
Speaker 3: like nineteen eighty six or something like that, and everything
Speaker 3: was going on, and I was getting high and I
Speaker 3: was playing some music with the greatest rock and roll
Speaker 3: band in the world. I was having a blast. But
Speaker 3: by the time nineteen ninety five hit, I wasn't having
Speaker 3: so much fun anymore. I wasn't having fun and the
Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol abuse was taken over and the music
Speaker 3: was less important to me. Like I said, And I
Speaker 3: remember I remember one night in particular. I remember I
Speaker 3: was in I was in Los Angeles. I was in
Speaker 3: a club place called the Viper Room. You heard of
Speaker 3: the Viper Room before.
Speaker 1: I was in the Viper Room, and it was a
Speaker 1: hot night.
Speaker 3: The Stones were in town that week playing and it
Speaker 3: was like star studyed. It was like all the musicians.
Speaker 3: It was a musicians dream to be in this room.
Speaker 3: I think the band Bernard Fowler and Stevie Sallas and
Speaker 3: Carmin Rojas had a band and I was playing with
Speaker 3: them a little bit, and up on stage at some
Speaker 3: point was all of us, Billy Gibbons from Zz Top,
Speaker 3: Michael Hutchins from in Excess, and Adam Durrants from County Crows,
Speaker 3: and it was women like you wouldn't believe in drugs
Speaker 3: all over the place. And I was absolutely miserable. I
Speaker 3: was miserable. And I remember that night, I'm like, why
Speaker 3: am I not having fun? Why is this not the
Speaker 3: most fun night in ever? And it was because I
Speaker 3: had I was spiritually sick. I was spiritually and emotionally sick.
Speaker 3: It was the things I was doing had run its
Speaker 3: course and it was time for me to start to
Speaker 3: figure out a way to change my life.
Speaker 2: Now. It took me until nineteen ninety eight to make
Speaker 2: that change.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it was like I got, okay, you have
Speaker 5: to ru music the VIP room, I mean fun. How
Speaker 5: do you make the change?
Speaker 1: What is that look like it took a long time.
Speaker 3: It took some another couple of years, and I was
Speaker 3: just kind of delving deeper into the drug world, and
Speaker 3: you know, I was doing you know, I had been
Speaker 3: doing cocaine and drinking like on a regular basis every day.
Speaker 3: I was smoking crack at the time I was doing that,
Speaker 3: you know, I was. I was pretty miserable, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm fortunate that I escaped. I had gone to I
Speaker 3: had gone to rehabs. I had gone to drug treatment centers.
Speaker 3: I had been to five of them up to this point.
Speaker 3: I had started going. I had started going, like around
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine. I went to the Betty Ford Center,
Speaker 3: and I got out and I didn't do anything to
Speaker 3: better myself or to try to find some program or
Speaker 3: find some formula that was working without drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2: And I didn't.
Speaker 3: It didn't work, it didn't take and I went to
Speaker 3: rehabs five more times. The sixth time was my last time.
Speaker 3: The last time I went, I was in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 3: And it wasn't anything spectacular that had happened. It was
Speaker 3: just that I was just I had this big hole
Speaker 3: in the middle of me, this big hole inside me
Speaker 3: that was I couldn't fill it. And with all the
Speaker 3: drugs and all the alcohol, I couldn't fill that hole.
Speaker 3: And I knew it, and I went to I called someone.
Speaker 3: I called the guy by the name of Buddy Arnold.
Speaker 3: Buddy Arnold had come up with this thing called MAP,
Speaker 3: the Musician's Assistance Program, and Buddy I had. I had
Speaker 3: met with Buddy. It was maybe in June of nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety eight and my friend rest his soul, Marty Grebb.
Speaker 3: Marty Greb who was an amazing musician who played with
Speaker 3: me and Bonnie rates Band years before. He had been
Speaker 3: sober for like maybe twelve or thirteen years at the time.
Speaker 3: And I called him up as as Marty, which come
Speaker 3: get me, man, I think, I'm I want to try
Speaker 3: to go to treatment reab, you know. So he come
Speaker 3: and got me and I went to see Buddy Arnold
Speaker 3: at the Musicians Union on Vine Street. That was where
Speaker 3: the office was for the Musician's Assistance Program. And I
Speaker 3: talked to Buddy, Buddy, you know, did with the assessment
Speaker 3: and whatnot, and it's okay, we got a place for you.
Speaker 3: And it was maybe a Thursday, and I was like, ah,
Speaker 3: how about if I come back Monday and we go
Speaker 3: to this place. And Buddy said, you know what I
Speaker 3: haven't Yeah, yeah, you jive call me a jive MF
Speaker 3: jive man SAMF.
Speaker 2: And he said, you.
Speaker 3: Know what, don't o D don't go to jail. Call
Speaker 3: me when you're ready. So this is about around June
Speaker 3: of ninety eight, so August two, two or so months later,
Speaker 3: I was in that same kind of frame of mind,
Speaker 3: in the depths of despair, and I.
Speaker 2: I called Marty.
Speaker 3: I said, Marty, can we get a hold of Buddy
Speaker 3: tonight because I need to go and I don't want
Speaker 3: to wait until tomorrow. I don't want to wait till Monday.
Speaker 3: We can go right now. And it was a Thursday.
Speaker 3: The funny thing was there had been an intervention that
Speaker 3: was playing that following Sunday at the Universal Amphitheater where
Speaker 3: the Neville Brothers, Doctor John and bb King were playing
Speaker 3: the show. And the brothers and Doctor John had they
Speaker 3: had talked to Buddy had talked to these people, and
Speaker 3: they were gonna corral me. I was going to go
Speaker 3: to this concert and somebody was gonna put me in
Speaker 3: a car and bring me to some treatment center. But
Speaker 3: I beat them to the punch, and that Thursday, Marty
Speaker 3: came and picked me up. This last time, he picked
Speaker 3: me up and brought me to this place and passed
Speaker 3: it called Buddy on and woke Buddy up about twelve
Speaker 3: midnight that night and brought me to this place in
Speaker 3: Pasadena called Larsoncinas Hospital. And I went there and that
Speaker 3: was that was it. I went there for twenty eight
Speaker 3: days or so, and I did, you know, I did
Speaker 3: what you do when you go to reab, you know.
Speaker 3: I knew the lingo, I knew what to do. But
Speaker 3: for some reason, something happened. I got out of that
Speaker 3: place and I did what these people told me to do,
Speaker 3: and I started working a twelve step program and all
Speaker 3: of that, and I just I got in there.
Speaker 2: I got into it, you know.
Speaker 3: And I knew people I knew Bonnie and Steve Bruton
Speaker 3: and Mike Finnegan and Marty and a few other people
Speaker 3: that I knew that were musicians who had gotten sober.
Speaker 3: So that helped and that inspired me. And I saw
Speaker 3: others who had done it, you know. I saw Steve
Speaker 3: Jones from the Sex Pistols. He used to go to
Speaker 3: this one meeting. I used to go to saw a
Speaker 3: guy named Tony Morehead used to he was this big
Speaker 3: time tour manager. And I saw a bunch of people
Speaker 3: doing this thing, and I just started doing it. And
Speaker 3: the funny thing was I was wanted and when I
Speaker 3: play music again, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 2: Am I gonna be creative and all this crap?
Speaker 3: And when I started, I was playing with a band
Speaker 3: called the Spin Doctors at the time, that was the
Speaker 3: last gig.
Speaker 1: On the block.
Speaker 3: Their fame had kind of waned a little bit. They
Speaker 3: had kind of they had peaked and were kind of
Speaker 3: on the downslide from where they where they where their
Speaker 3: peaked success was. But they were still working and they
Speaker 3: were still performing. And I was playing keyboards with Spin
Speaker 3: Doctors during my first couple of years, and uh, I
Speaker 3: was able to do it, you know, and and and
Speaker 3: realize the beauty and how cool it was to play
Speaker 3: music and not be all, you know, stuck and stupid stuck,
Speaker 3: and and not be mine altered and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And it became a beautiful thing over a period of
Speaker 3: time one, you know, and I it's twenty five years
Speaker 3: coming up on twenty five years later this year, it'll
Speaker 3: be twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Okay, the first five times you went to uh, was
Speaker 1: that because somebody told you you had to go? Or
Speaker 1: was not because you wanted to go? You know what?
Speaker 3: Every one of those times it was for one of
Speaker 3: those type of reasons. The first time I was told
Speaker 3: to go, the second time I had another reason to go.
Speaker 3: I went because I had my The second time I
Speaker 3: went my Oh no, the second time I was gone,
Speaker 3: I was going to be arrested. I was going to
Speaker 3: be arrested. Second time I was going to maybe go
Speaker 3: to jail. I had gotten popped. I got popped in
Speaker 3: lax for something from possession or some shit whatever. And
Speaker 3: then the third time, my daughter was born and I
Speaker 3: had I was trying to straighten up to be a
Speaker 3: better dad, which it took me another It took me
Speaker 3: another eight years after she was born. She was born
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety. In ninety eight, I finally did it.
Speaker 3: But I've gone to Yeah, I had gone for all
Speaker 3: the you know, for me, would I like to say
Speaker 3: that I don't think there's any bad reason to try,
Speaker 3: whether it's because you want to go or because of
Speaker 3: other people, because you never know it.
Speaker 2: Maybe it'll stick, maybe it won't.
Speaker 1: But for me.
Speaker 2: Those other times didn't It didn't work, and I.
Speaker 1: Was okay, so the five times it doesn't work, How
Speaker 1: long does it take until you fall off the wagon?
Speaker 2: Well, some sometimes it took like the next day.
Speaker 3: I sometimes it took one day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I would leave a rehab.
Speaker 3: At least twice or three times I left rehab and
Speaker 3: went straight back to getting loaded. At least three times.
Speaker 3: There was a couple of times where I maybe stayed
Speaker 3: sober for maybe ninety days, three months. Maybe once I
Speaker 3: stayed clean for it, maybe six months. And yeah, maybe
Speaker 3: twice I stayed clean along a little bit longer than normal.
Speaker 3: But it was pretty much inevitable until I figured out
Speaker 3: that I was done and that I don't you know,
Speaker 3: I kind of made up. I made up in my mind,
Speaker 3: and I kind of accepted some things, and I kind
Speaker 3: of followed this. I saw this, uh uh, you know,
Speaker 3: this little game plan, this format that I was that
Speaker 3: was laid out in front of me. I knew about it,
Speaker 3: and I kind of did what these people told me
Speaker 3: to do. And my friends that I knew, I started
Speaker 3: doing this stuff and it just started working, and I
Speaker 3: started figuring out about, you know, about myself and how
Speaker 3: to how to be comfortable in my own skin on
Speaker 3: the match without having to you know, be around people
Speaker 3: and not have to have a drink, and you know,
Speaker 3: and be okay with being somewhat sensitive and somewhat vulnerable
Speaker 3: and awkward and those human feelings that we get that
Speaker 3: we try to mask and we try to you know,
Speaker 3: take off the edge. I figured that, you know what,
Speaker 3: I think I can deal with this stuff without taking it.
Speaker 1: What edge is there?
Speaker 3: Okay, I feel a little bit uncomfortable, so what let
Speaker 3: me just try to look within and feel some comfort
Speaker 3: here if I can't. And I kind of just took it.
Speaker 3: I took uh. I took kind of pride in in
Speaker 3: in getting getting through those times, and especially early on
Speaker 3: it was more difficult. As time went on, it just
Speaker 3: got easier to do.
Speaker 1: And at this late date, did you ever go to
Speaker 1: a meeting?
Speaker 2: I still do? Yeah, I still go. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you you play with the spin doctors. What's
Speaker 1: the next step? After that?
Speaker 3: I started working on some of my own music again,
Speaker 3: and I did a record called Uh. The record was
Speaker 3: initially called Saturday Morning Music, but I repackaged that same record,
Speaker 3: and I something a friend of mine that I that
Speaker 3: I met. His name is Gary, Gary Gold. He he
Speaker 3: was we we had an acquaint I was acquainted with
Speaker 3: Bruce Willis, and Bruce Willis had a studio up his
Speaker 3: house up up up maul Holland near Colewater Canyon and
Speaker 3: somewhere up there. And I recorded that record up at
Speaker 3: Bruce's house, and Bruce decided he didn't want to be
Speaker 3: in the business anymore.
Speaker 2: We did the record.
Speaker 3: It was put out on a label that Bruce had
Speaker 3: kind of come up with, and he didn't want to
Speaker 3: be involved in that business anymore, and so he let
Speaker 3: me say take the record, do what you want with it,
Speaker 3: and I re released it and repackaged it. It was
Speaker 3: called initially Saturday Morning Music, and then it was the
Speaker 3: re released version was called Scrape, and it was some
Speaker 3: songs that a lot of songs that were written about
Speaker 3: kind of where I was at that point and trying
Speaker 3: to you know, trying to be a man and trying
Speaker 3: to mature as an adult and stuff like that. Because
Speaker 3: then you realize, when you do take away the drugs
Speaker 3: and alcohol, you realize how stunted your growth had been
Speaker 3: for many years. You know, you realize how you know,
Speaker 3: how emotionally immature that I really was, and so it
Speaker 3: took a lot, you know, to a lot of acceptance
Speaker 3: to try to grow it the person.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, rehab is expensive. Sometimes insurance pays. You know,
Speaker 1: what was it like financially for you? Okay?
Speaker 3: So the first five rehabs were all paid by insurance.
Speaker 3: I had done enough sag stuff where I had done
Speaker 3: enough songs and films and things of that nature. And
Speaker 3: over the years that I was able to, I had
Speaker 3: insurance to pay for rehabs and they would pay probably
Speaker 3: what fourteen fifteen grand or something, and I would maybe
Speaker 3: do pay like a deduction or what they call it
Speaker 3: a prem what they call that the.
Speaker 1: Deductible, the deductible.
Speaker 3: I would pay maybe something, And there were times when
Speaker 3: I didn't pay, I didn't pay anything. But the last
Speaker 3: one was paid for by Music Cares and by MAP
Speaker 3: Music Musicians' Assistance Program. They paid for me to go
Speaker 3: to that last one. The insurance was used up on
Speaker 3: the first. I went five times and it was paid
Speaker 3: for and that last one I had run out of
Speaker 3: all of that stuff. And Music Musicians Assistance Program, now
Speaker 3: you know, it is Music Cares, and that's what they do.
Speaker 3: They're still doing that stuff for people, and they paid
Speaker 3: for my treatment.
Speaker 1: Did you have any did you have any guilt? Did
Speaker 1: you think that helped you? Oh?
Speaker 2: That I had used up all of these people's money,
Speaker 2: that U using MAPS money?
Speaker 1: Oh, you know?
Speaker 2: And no, I didn't have any joke I felt.
Speaker 3: I was so kind of I was so tore up
Speaker 3: and just kind of desperate to try to get my
Speaker 3: life somewhat together.
Speaker 2: Because I knew.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, I might not get
Speaker 3: another chance like this, and I better try to do this.
Speaker 3: I've had chances before and I blew them, So maybe
Speaker 3: this is the one.
Speaker 2: Let me try it, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you play with spin Doctors, you make another
Speaker 1: record which you know as me package comes out twice.
Speaker 1: Where does that leave it? I ended up?
Speaker 2: I end up?
Speaker 3: Uh I did that record. I soon started. I got
Speaker 3: back my uncle Art. My uncle Art had had a
Speaker 3: back surgery and I had to come and help him out,
Speaker 3: and I subbed for him with the Neville Brothers. This
Speaker 3: is in maybe two thousand and one, two thousand and two.
Speaker 3: While the time I was those records had come out
Speaker 3: and things of that nature. I ended up playing back
Speaker 3: with the Brothers. I played with my dad and my
Speaker 3: uncles for a while. And during that time I started
Speaker 3: a band. In two thousand and three, we had a
Speaker 3: one off gig at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Speaker 3: I started a band called Dumpster Phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of questions. First, you're cleaning, so you're
Speaker 1: out with the brothers. What are they doing?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 3: Those guys had pretty much mellowed out during this time.
Speaker 3: They were not doing They were all cleaning their own ways.
Speaker 3: I mean, they weren't like practicing, uh a twelve step
Speaker 3: kind of thing or whatever, but they were they were
Speaker 3: pretty tame.
Speaker 2: Like there was a bus.
Speaker 3: There was a there was maybe two tour buses, and
Speaker 3: one bus was the bus you went on if you
Speaker 3: didn't want to be around marijuana smoke. And the other
Speaker 3: bus was the bus that people some of the younger
Speaker 3: people like my you know, some people in the band
Speaker 3: that still smoked and you I was on.
Speaker 2: The clean bus. I was on the clean bus, and
Speaker 2: yeah it was cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, some people there's just turned out California sober people
Speaker 1: occasionally have a drake or keep people occasionally smoke, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately that David Crosby smoked a little bit, are you.
Speaker 3: I'm one hundred percent sover since nineteen ninety and I've
Speaker 3: had nothing but maybe an advil.
Speaker 1: That's it, you know, Okay, So tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit slower how you end up forming the band that
Speaker 1: becomes dumpster Fuck.
Speaker 3: I got an offer to play the Jazz and Heritage
Speaker 3: Festival in two thousand and three, and I was thinking
Speaker 3: to myself, what do I want to do. Do I
Speaker 3: want to put together a band to back up ivan
Speaker 3: Neville And I'm thinking, no, you know what, I want
Speaker 3: to put together a band like just I want a
Speaker 3: band of guys where I don't sing all the songs,
Speaker 3: where I got other guys that sing and we all
Speaker 3: can play and create some cool, unique thing. And I
Speaker 3: was thinking, so I said, yeah, that's what I'm going
Speaker 3: to do. And let me think of who I'm going
Speaker 3: to call for to play bass. It's either gonna be
Speaker 3: Nick Daniels or it's gonna be Tony Hall. And you
Speaker 3: know what, I called both of them, and I said,
Speaker 3: because I know Tony can play guitar as well. But
Speaker 3: I already had some songs in mind that I can
Speaker 3: call can incorporate two basses. So I said we'll call
Speaker 3: it get Tony and Nick I called Raymond Weber for drums.
Speaker 3: Raymond had been playing with Tony a little bit on
Speaker 3: the side on some other stuff, and I think I
Speaker 3: think Raymond and Tony had been playing with Harry Connick Jr. Together,
Speaker 3: and I called up Raymond. I called Ian my cousin Ian.
Speaker 3: And for the first gig, it was probably other people
Speaker 3: that was involved. I think my younger brother Fred, he
Speaker 3: played percussion and sang Dirty Dozen brass band with a
Speaker 3: horn section.
Speaker 1: And we had.
Speaker 3: Juniora mcgeechee, Japanese guitar player who's a New Orleans Cat
Speaker 3: became a New Orleans Cat on guitar as well, And
Speaker 3: that was the first version of Dumpster Funk, and I
Speaker 3: called it dumpster Funk I had. I had written some
Speaker 3: songs with my two younger brothers, and there was a
Speaker 3: song that we had that I came I was trying
Speaker 3: to think of what's stinky, what's really nasty and stinky,
Speaker 3: and I came up with the with the term with
Speaker 3: the word dumpster funk. I'm like, dumpster funk, what's nastier
Speaker 3: than a dumpster? And so that became the name of
Speaker 3: the band. And for that first gig, it was called
Speaker 3: ivan Nevills Dumpster Funk, and we played one show and
Speaker 3: that was it, and then we ended up playing a
Speaker 3: couple of more one offs. We played Bonneroo Music Festival
Speaker 3: a few years later, and we played a gig here
Speaker 3: and there around the time of Jazz Festival. We played
Speaker 3: Jazz Festival the next couple of years, and we played
Speaker 3: a few shows around the Jazz Festival night night shows,
Speaker 3: and we played Bonnaroo, I think, and after when Katrina
Speaker 3: happened in five we were all obviously, people were everywhere
Speaker 3: and we weren't able to come back to New Orleans.
Speaker 3: And then Dumpster played way more shows, and then eventually
Speaker 3: we played Bonnaroo Music Festival and it was an epic set.
Speaker 3: We played at two.
Speaker 2: In the morning. We played right after Doctor John.
Speaker 3: Doctor John had a set, He had a set set
Speaker 3: and it was called a night Tripper.
Speaker 1: He did the night trip a set.
Speaker 3: Nobody had seen that in years, and we did a
Speaker 3: Dumpster Funk set right after Doctor John Knight Triper set,
Speaker 3: and it was crushing and that was like, Okay, we're this.
Speaker 1: Is a band.
Speaker 3: This is a band, And we basically became a full
Speaker 3: time band the following year and yeah.
Speaker 1: How many dates a year do you play as Dumpster Funk?
Speaker 3: I don't know how many dates we play a year,
Speaker 3: Maybe one hundred or so, maybe something like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe, So that's you main source of income in this period.
Speaker 1: You you're playing with the brothers and the two buses,
Speaker 1: you get called at O three to do jazz Fest
Speaker 1: the next five years years or so in between before
Speaker 1: it becomes full time dumpster Funk. What are you doing?
Speaker 2: I was Dumpster Funk. I could do others stuff. I
Speaker 2: had other projects.
Speaker 3: I had another project that we did that was born
Speaker 3: out of the out of Katrina, called the New Orleans
Speaker 3: Social Club, and that was a band with myself, myself,
Speaker 3: Raymond Webber.
Speaker 2: George Porter Jr.
Speaker 3: And Leon Os Telly from the Meters along with Henry Butler.
Speaker 3: We did a record we were stranded in Austin just
Speaker 3: right after Katrina. We did a record called sing Me
Speaker 3: Back Home. And they had a bunch of special guests uncle,
Speaker 3: my uncle, Cyril, Willie T from New Orleans or Willy
Speaker 3: Willy Willie T, h Irma, Thomas trum On, Shorty John Bote,
Speaker 3: and some others I can't think of right now I
Speaker 3: think sub Dudes.
Speaker 2: That was a record called sing Me Back Home.
Speaker 3: That was a project that we played maybe six dates
Speaker 3: a year with that group, and just obvious recording sessions
Speaker 3: with various people would call me up to play on
Speaker 3: a record here or two or whatever her and just stay.
Speaker 3: I just stayed busy doing stuff, you know, and Dumpster
Speaker 3: played a lot of shows.
Speaker 1: Where were you when Katrina happened?
Speaker 3: I was in Brazil. We were in Brazil playing a gig.
Speaker 3: Tony was doing an annual gig in Brazil in the
Speaker 3: month during the month of August, and we were over
Speaker 3: there and a bunch of us were over there. It
Speaker 3: was most of the guys that dumps the Funk were there,
Speaker 3: and No May a matter of fact, I think no,
Speaker 3: the whole Dumpster Funk, the whole band Dumpster Funk was
Speaker 3: that was over there, as was John uh wh who
Speaker 3: else was there, Develle Crawford, Uh, Terrence Simeon, a few
Speaker 3: other a few other groups that I can't think of
Speaker 3: with New Orleans groups.
Speaker 2: And we were all over there in Brazil.
Speaker 3: And then we were watching it, watching the news as
Speaker 3: best we could, and we saw this hurricane coming to
Speaker 3: hit New Orleans, we got stranded over there, which I mean,
Speaker 3: if you're in Brazil, it's not the worst place to
Speaker 3: be stranded, I guess.
Speaker 2: And then we couldn't come back to New Orleans.
Speaker 3: And then we I flew to Hawaii from from uh,
Speaker 3: from from Brazil. We had a gig in Brazil and
Speaker 3: in Hawaii Jumps to funk it. We played in Hawaii
Speaker 3: and then uh, we found out that New Orleans was
Speaker 3: underwater and all of that, that all that in that
Speaker 3: that uh happened here, the tragic stories that we heard
Speaker 3: about people that were in New Orleans.
Speaker 2: It was pretty pretty pretty sad.
Speaker 1: What happened to your property in the world? You know what?
Speaker 2: At that time, I was in between stuff.
Speaker 3: I had a place in California with my with my
Speaker 3: my ex wife and my daughter, and I had kind
Speaker 3: of been spending most of my time in New Orleans
Speaker 3: at my mom and dad's place. And that place got
Speaker 3: maybe eight feet of water in that house. And I
Speaker 3: never went back to that house. My mom and dad
Speaker 3: never went back to that house.
Speaker 1: So where are your mom and dad now?
Speaker 3: Well, my mom passed away in seven and my dad's
Speaker 3: living in New York. Now, he's living in New York
Speaker 3: he got remarried and he's got a farm up there
Speaker 3: in New York, upstate New York, and he's chilling. He
Speaker 3: and his dog Apache and his wife Sarah, My mom,
Speaker 3: Joel rue Neville. She passed away in seven. She died
Speaker 3: of cancer.
Speaker 2: And uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, southern California kind of like New Orleans without humidity
Speaker 1: Hawaiian between New York state farm could be more different
Speaker 1: from New Orleans. Yeah, and he's happy that, you know,
Speaker 1: It's funny.
Speaker 2: He loves it.
Speaker 3: And for years, I don't think he ever really cared
Speaker 3: for New York that much.
Speaker 2: I remember when we used to go to New York.
Speaker 2: He couldn't.
Speaker 3: He'd stay in the hotel room the whole time, in
Speaker 3: all the club sandwiches and the hey good way to
Speaker 3: get out of there. But he had had some experiences
Speaker 3: in New York that I guess maybe you know, and
Speaker 3: some of it was was he had some dark times
Speaker 3: in New York back in the days that I'm sure
Speaker 3: he doesn't regret, because they had a lot of stuff
Speaker 3: was bowing out of that. But he loved it where
Speaker 3: he is now. He's got a farm. He and his
Speaker 3: wife they up there growing garlic and eating their fresh
Speaker 3: eggs and stuff like that. They grow all you know,
Speaker 3: food and vegetables and whatnot. And he likes that. He
Speaker 3: likes it. Let's go back to funk. What's your definition
Speaker 3: of funk? And funk has had very peaks in the seventies,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Where's funk in the marketplace today?
Speaker 1: What can it become?
Speaker 2: That's a hard one.
Speaker 3: The definition, you know, what funk is is just vibe, man,
Speaker 3: and it's kind.
Speaker 2: Of where the groove. You got the groove, you.
Speaker 3: Got drum space, and it can be you know, you
Speaker 3: got the one, you got the one that, but then
Speaker 3: you got space. And my, my, my idea of funk
Speaker 3: is where where the notes are not played in between
Speaker 3: the notes is to me is where the funk lives.
Speaker 3: You got the one and then you got the space.
Speaker 3: Boom d do do do boom.
Speaker 1: Could do you can do do big, big dude? You
Speaker 1: know that. I mean, that's just something that just came
Speaker 1: to mind, just all though. What that is.
Speaker 3: But funk is very is it's all kinds of funk.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of different variations of funk. But to me,
Speaker 3: funk is where the where the notes are not the
Speaker 3: space in between the grooves.
Speaker 1: You're touring, you're with dumpster funk, with just a funk
Speaker 1: band in your own unique way. What's the status of
Speaker 1: funk in America in the world today.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of groups that are borrowing from the period,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a lot of funks that a lot
Speaker 3: of groups that try to that. I guess they've listened
Speaker 3: to that stuff that were coming out of the seventies,
Speaker 3: the early seventies specifically, And there is there are some
Speaker 3: there is some music out there that's pretty funky and nasty.
Speaker 2: There is some stuff, and I guess in its own way.
Speaker 3: It's being kept alive, it's being it's it's still it's
Speaker 3: still growing, it's still generating, and it's still it's still regenerating,
Speaker 3: like it's influencing next generations and because of what what
Speaker 3: what funk did for hip hop and how that regenerated
Speaker 3: funk in some way, and it keeps, it keeps kind
Speaker 3: of reinventing.
Speaker 2: Itself in some kind of in some way or another.
Speaker 3: And I think it's alive and well, I mean, you're
Speaker 3: not gonna hear as much of it as you, you know,
Speaker 3: as you used to hear, but it's it's alive and well.
Speaker 1: Okay, you play the dumpster Funk. You have this new
Speaker 1: solo record. The game used to be completely different. The
Speaker 1: game used to be I want to get a label deal.
Speaker 1: The label is going to spread the name and hopefully
Speaker 1: something catches fire. Today there's so much stuff in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: Are you fine with being where you are? Or you'd
Speaker 1: have a desire or a burning desire to have more
Speaker 1: people aware of your music?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely want you definitely, you definitely kind of uh.
Speaker 2: You want you want more people to be aware of
Speaker 2: what you're doing.
Speaker 3: I feel like I got, you know, I got some
Speaker 3: cool messages in some of this music, and this music
Speaker 3: is very it's very refreshing, I think, and it's soulful,
Speaker 3: and I really want people to hear it, you know.
Speaker 3: And I mean in this day and age, you got
Speaker 3: to hope that, you know, right, people hear it and
Speaker 3: you maybe get some songs and some films or some
Speaker 3: some that and that and that venue that's kind of
Speaker 3: where you know, it can really get that extra little
Speaker 3: leap to the next next thing, to that extra little life.
Speaker 3: You know, So you you gotta be optimistic about it
Speaker 3: and hope that it can get out there and hope
Speaker 3: the right people can hear it, and enough people hear it,
Speaker 3: you know, because it needs to touch some souls, you know.
Speaker 1: So how many times have been married?
Speaker 2: I've been married once and soon to be married again.
Speaker 1: I'm with Okay, okay, how many kids do you have?
Speaker 2: Two kids?
Speaker 3: One one on a grown young lady by the name
Speaker 3: of Ivy, Ivy Joel. She's thirty two, and I have
Speaker 3: a son who's nine. His name is Isaiah.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, a little bit slower. So you have the
Speaker 1: daughter with your first wife. What is your daughter up?
Speaker 1: What is Ivy up to today?
Speaker 3: Ivy is right now, Ivy's working. She works for groomed
Speaker 3: for grooming pets. She's really into animals and she does,
Speaker 3: uh she does. She has a little dog walking side
Speaker 3: business and she works at a pet grooming place. And
Speaker 3: she's a hustler. She does a little bit of everything.
Speaker 3: She does a I think she does a little driving,
Speaker 3: does a little delivering stuff and yeah, she but she
Speaker 3: her passion right now is dog grooming animals, grooming animals.
Speaker 1: Is she off the payroll?
Speaker 2: Is he off the pay rum? You know?
Speaker 1: Not?
Speaker 2: I mean not really, but.
Speaker 3: Kind of you She's got she does her own thing,
Speaker 3: but actually I still help out a little bit.
Speaker 1: Okay. And then did substances break up your first marriage
Speaker 1: or what happened?
Speaker 3: Nah, it's just kind of you know, we you know,
Speaker 3: we kind of grew apart somewhere in there. I mean,
Speaker 3: there was a lot of that, you know, the substance
Speaker 3: when when when?
Speaker 1: When?
Speaker 3: When when all that stopped? You know, and you kind
Speaker 3: of just grow kind of apart from a person. You know,
Speaker 3: we kind of grew apart and it just wasn't the same. Uh,
Speaker 3: we weren't on the same path anymore, you know to
Speaker 3: some degree, and you just kind of, I don't know,
Speaker 3: you outgrew I don't know. Your relationships just do that
Speaker 3: sometimes where you just he's somewhere else, you know, and.
Speaker 1: It Okay, So you're saying it wasn't the drugs an
Speaker 1: alcohol that broke up the relationship. It was when you
Speaker 1: got sober.
Speaker 3: That's probably is the combination of the two, because the
Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol made it very There were some dark
Speaker 3: periods in there, but when the so when the so
Speaker 3: so sobriety started, that wasn't it wasn't exact like if
Speaker 3: that's not if you're it's hard. It's hard to be
Speaker 3: on the exact same page with someone, especially on that path.
Speaker 2: So that uh, she had her own path.
Speaker 3: In that avenue, and and I have my own path,
Speaker 3: and we basically grew apart.
Speaker 2: I mean we and we're friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, this woman you're going to marry imminently? Is she
Speaker 1: the mother of the nine year old?
Speaker 2: She's the mother of the nine year old?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, So why do you suddenly get married after all?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would go there right, you know. It's you know,
Speaker 2: one of those things.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I love I love her, and.
Speaker 3: I just kind of I think we should we should
Speaker 3: we should just do it, you know, sheould just be married,
Speaker 3: you know, and then it just and you know what's
Speaker 3: funny is my my son was like, why why do
Speaker 3: you remmmy? He have different names? And that's come up before.
Speaker 3: But I don't even think she wants to change her name.
Speaker 3: I think she's going to keep her own last name.
Speaker 3: She didn't want to change her name in the novel, so,
Speaker 3: uh whatever.
Speaker 1: So how did you beat her?
Speaker 2: I met her? I met her actually through music. I
Speaker 2: met her through music at uh at.
Speaker 3: Uh maybe I've first met her at at tip of
Speaker 3: tin as as a matter of fact, and mutual friends.
Speaker 1: Mutual friends.
Speaker 3: She she knew some some some uh, we had some
Speaker 3: similar acquaintances and happened to kind of some sparks, kind
Speaker 3: of had something and something happened. We saw each other
Speaker 3: one time and it was like, oh you how you doing?
Speaker 3: It's not and then went from there and then next thing,
Speaker 3: you know, we've been together for quite a while.
Speaker 1: Okay. I could tell only after a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: that you're a great guy, a great friend, great to
Speaker 1: hang around. So is this part of your success that
Speaker 1: people like you and they will want to hang around you?
Speaker 1: Say that again?
Speaker 2: I didn't. I didn't get that cause yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're there's something about you that's very inviting. Talk
Speaker 1: to you and it's like you're intelligent, you're warm, you're laughing,
Speaker 1: you're good. Hay, okay, is that been part of your success?
Speaker 1: Like you know, working with Bonnie of course you knew much,
Speaker 1: or working with Keith, you know, do they just like
Speaker 1: being around you? You know?
Speaker 3: I'd like to think so. I'd like to think that,
Speaker 3: you know, people kind of have a fun time around me,
Speaker 3: and I'm I'm kind of I'm a funny guy sometimes
Speaker 3: as well, and I try. I tend to to to
Speaker 3: be in a decent mood for the most part, and
Speaker 3: I tend I think people kind of enjoy being around
Speaker 3: me a little bit, and I really, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Actually I'm not a bad guy.
Speaker 1: Okay, but uh, in typical life, and I realize every
Speaker 1: day isn't identical. But you're home. To what degree are
Speaker 1: you in contact with other people? Texting, email, talking on
Speaker 1: the phone, or only when you need something? What's your
Speaker 1: life like?
Speaker 3: I stay in touch with people. I call people sometimes
Speaker 3: just to say hi, you know. I call people and say, hey,
Speaker 3: it was up, Yeah, how you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm you know what.
Speaker 3: I talked to a buddy of mine, a friend. Uh
Speaker 3: uh his name, his name Dwight. I talked to Dwight.
Speaker 3: I was just thought of I thought about him, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, uh, you know.
Speaker 1: I just called him up.
Speaker 2: I called him up.
Speaker 1: Hey, how you doing? Said, oh, what's going on?
Speaker 3: Man? So glad you called. But you know what, I
Speaker 3: have a friend that I've known since I was I've
Speaker 3: known him since I was in ninth grade, and we
Speaker 3: talked almost at least every few days. And I do
Speaker 3: stuff like that, Like I got folks that I kind
Speaker 3: of just stay in touch with and I just we
Speaker 3: just you know, have conversations and talk.
Speaker 1: Are they civilians or are they in the business.
Speaker 3: My boy, my friend Rage Rage, I've known, you know what.
Speaker 3: He's not in the business now, he's a civilian. But
Speaker 3: he and I actually wrote songs together be back in
Speaker 3: the days. We were songwriter. We were budding songwriters when
Speaker 3: we were teenagers. But he went on to do some
Speaker 3: different things as and I stayed into the music and
Speaker 3: me and I just are close friends and we've remained
Speaker 3: close for many years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So in a typical day, are you hearing
Speaker 1: from other musicians? Is that constantly going on? Or is
Speaker 1: that only when you cross paths.
Speaker 3: That that that happens? Look mostly mostly the close circle,
Speaker 3: our inner circle. I hear, you know, like I might
Speaker 3: hear from George Porter Junior every you know, every so often, Hey,
Speaker 3: what's up by and blah blah blah. We have something
Speaker 3: to talk about. We have a show that we're doing
Speaker 3: in the coming weeks, and we may talk about that.
Speaker 3: I talk to Tony Hall, who plays bass and dumps
Speaker 3: the funk and he plays on my record, the solo record.
Speaker 3: I talk to Tony pretty every day. I talk to
Speaker 3: Tony every day. I talk to my cousin Ian at
Speaker 3: least almost every every day. And I talk to my brother,
Speaker 3: my brother Fred, probably once a week. I probably talked
Speaker 3: to my dad probably every two days at least. And
Speaker 3: I have a group I have a group text with
Speaker 3: my dad, my aunt and my uncle and some of
Speaker 3: my cousins, and we have a group text that we
Speaker 3: say good morning every day.
Speaker 1: Every day, say good morning. The rest of the day.
Speaker 2: What happens the reason say good nothing more, just say
Speaker 2: good morning.
Speaker 3: Somebody might text later on it says oh I'm late, hey,
Speaker 3: But I usually send good morning in some in a
Speaker 3: foreign language. I go and look up good morning in
Speaker 3: many languages, and I send my text via whatever language
Speaker 3: I found that looked interesting for that morning. I send
Speaker 3: it and my aunt, my aunt athel Groth, she will
Speaker 3: go and look up that language and tell me what
Speaker 3: it is. And she'll say, oh, is that Arabic or
Speaker 3: is that whatever language is that Korean or whatever language
Speaker 3: you chose today, And I'll put the thumbs up by
Speaker 3: her answer if it's correct.
Speaker 1: Well, you're talking about you're talking about good morning? Are
Speaker 1: you an early morning person.
Speaker 2: Or I'm early.
Speaker 3: I got well, I have a nine year old, so
Speaker 3: he goes to school, so I got it. My first uh,
Speaker 3: my first duty of the day is I got to
Speaker 3: make him breakfast at like six forty five.
Speaker 2: So I'm up. I'm up, six thirty five, six forty
Speaker 2: I'm up.
Speaker 1: Okay. And you talked about being down and ultimately going
Speaker 1: to rehab, and then you said just a few minutes
Speaker 1: ago that you're a generally up guy. What's it like
Speaker 1: when you're down?
Speaker 3: You know, that happens sometimes, it's just it's just kind
Speaker 3: of it passes, basically. I mean, you kind of have
Speaker 3: times when you feel a little when you and that's
Speaker 3: usually when I'm thinking about when I'm in my own mind,
Speaker 3: almost in my own head, thinking about me, that's usually
Speaker 3: when the the uh, the more negative uh ivan comes
Speaker 3: to the fourth to the fourth to the uh to
Speaker 3: the you know, appears. He rears his ugly head, and
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I have to just work out of
Speaker 3: it it basically, I have to just figure out Okay.
Speaker 3: Usually when I start thinking about what can I do
Speaker 3: for somebody else, Like sometimes in the morning, I might
Speaker 3: wake up and I might have an impending doom concept
Speaker 3: going on in my head and I'm not feeling very positive,
Speaker 3: and then I remember, oh, I got to go and
Speaker 3: make breakfast for Isaiah, and I immediately.
Speaker 2: Thinking of someone else other than myself.
Speaker 3: It changes my concept, it changes my outlook, and I
Speaker 3: use that tool a lot. If I get into a funk,
Speaker 3: I try to think of what I could do maybe
Speaker 3: for someone else, or I'll call someone that may need
Speaker 3: a helping hand in some nature of some kind.
Speaker 6: And that's kind of what I do in those situations. Now,
Speaker 6: I know you've ben asked a million times and I
Speaker 6: don't want to. I'm not looking for some story that
Speaker 6: hasn't been.
Speaker 1: Told, but since you know, what's the story with Keith Richards.
Speaker 3: Keith is absolutely an amazing cat man. He's so intelligent,
Speaker 3: he's so like, very nice man.
Speaker 2: All the stories that we've always you know, heard about.
Speaker 3: Keith over the years, and how notorious he's known for being.
Speaker 3: Now I've been hey, I've been around him and some
Speaker 3: hell in some serious Hans, and we've had some amazing Hans.
Speaker 2: But he's probably the most.
Speaker 3: I would say, the most productive and structured person in
Speaker 3: those kind of environments that I've ever been around. Like
Speaker 3: when we when we were into those kinds of things,
Speaker 3: like into the whatever substances who were doing or whatever.
Speaker 2: He was always the guy that was focused on the music.
Speaker 3: And whereas another like myself or other would be waiting
Speaker 3: for the next round of drink and drug, he's still
Speaker 3: playing this riff.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh my god, look at him.
Speaker 3: He's all about the music and he's one of the
Speaker 3: most productive people I've ever been around in that mindset,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, and to see him how he's
Speaker 3: you know, he's had to adjust his his situation in
Speaker 3: his life. As you get older, you have to change
Speaker 3: a little bit, you have to. And I mean Keith's
Speaker 3: with Keiths with seventy what is he seventy eight or seventy?
Speaker 1: How old is.
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 1: You right?
Speaker 3: I mean, look he's man, he's and they're they're just
Speaker 3: working on a new record from what I understand, and
Speaker 3: a possible another tour, you know, so he's still doing it. Man,
Speaker 3: He's He's an amazing cat. He's always been.
Speaker 1: A very a very sweet man to me.
Speaker 3: You know, He's like a big brother, an uncle, and
Speaker 3: uh yeah, I cherish uh my time with him and
Speaker 3: in my relationship with him.
Speaker 2: I really do.
Speaker 1: He's seventy nine eighty at the end of the year December.
Speaker 1: You know, people like Bonnie and Keith. Do you keep
Speaker 1: in contact with him or you're just gonna run into
Speaker 1: him at some point?
Speaker 3: No, I keep I keep I keep contact with Keith.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, you you've got every blue moon
Speaker 3: or so. I might call him up just to see
Speaker 3: what he's doing, to check in with him, and he's
Speaker 3: not like he's got a cell phone. Well, you know,
Speaker 3: I've ever seen him with a cell phone. So I
Speaker 3: called him on his landline at home when I kind
Speaker 3: of maybe maybe get a heads up and just find
Speaker 3: out if he's home. I usually get a heads up,
Speaker 3: and if I think he's home, I just give it
Speaker 3: a shot and call and you and he might if
Speaker 3: he's walking by the phone, he might pick up.
Speaker 2: He sees my name, you probably pick up and say, oh, hey,
Speaker 2: I was up.
Speaker 3: And we'll have a chat and talk or whatever, and
Speaker 3: that's it. But yeah, I do stay in touch with him.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've been through a lot. We've delineated it, both
Speaker 1: the drugs and alcohol. You have a pedigree with your family,
Speaker 1: You've had successes and solo artists to what degree are
Speaker 1: you concerned about legacy If everything just goes around like
Speaker 1: now and you end up dying twenty years from now,
Speaker 1: are you happy or not if you want to die
Speaker 1: twenty forty years now, are you really concerned with leaving
Speaker 1: your mondy?
Speaker 2: You know, I kind of.
Speaker 1: I just want to do the best I.
Speaker 3: Can while I'm around here, you know, and try to
Speaker 3: just enjoy the rest of this journey, you know. And
Speaker 3: I want my son to remember his dad's cool guy
Speaker 3: and uh uh, you know, a righteous person that you know,
Speaker 3: try to be helpful to others, and just what I
Speaker 3: just want to to be remembered as someone who tried
Speaker 3: to help a little bit, who tried to help someone
Speaker 3: else when he had the chance, and to.
Speaker 2: That's mostly it, you know.
Speaker 3: And it made some good music here and there, you know,
Speaker 3: and hopefully some of this music will, you know, people
Speaker 3: will listen to it and it will create those times
Speaker 3: and places that music has done for me in my life,
Speaker 3: because there are songs that I hear that remind me
Speaker 3: of places and people, and hopefully some of my music
Speaker 3: touches people like that, you know. That's that's really all
Speaker 3: I can ask for.
Speaker 1: Well, on that note, it's been great talking to you Ivan.
Speaker 1: Really you're a great guy. I want to wish you
Speaker 1: luck on the record. And once again, as I say,
Speaker 1: you know, people send me this stuff and you know
Speaker 1: I rolled my eyes, but I was shocked your stuff is.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I wish you success. I can't tell you whether you're
Speaker 1: going to have it or die right right people, but
Speaker 1: if people met you when they hurt the record, you
Speaker 1: know you've got a good shot.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, man, I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you a lot. Man. Thanks for talking.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: I enjoy talking to you.
Speaker 1: I love talking to you too. In any event, till
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob Leftsis