Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob Left Sets podcast. Those
Speaker 1: people who follow me in my writing know that I'm
Speaker 1: a huge Doobie Brothers fan. I was not initially, I
Speaker 1: certainly like listen to the music, and then they were everywhere,
Speaker 1: so that any band that's everywhere, it has that many hits,
Speaker 1: maybe doesn't deserve my attention. But I spent the best
Speaker 1: month of my life in nine and a condo and
Speaker 1: Mammoth Mountain, which is a big ski area that you
Speaker 1: can usually skip to July four in California, and the
Speaker 1: guy brought his eight tracks, and he brought this eight
Speaker 1: track was a combination of what were once vices and
Speaker 1: the Captain and me, and it just totally closed me.
Speaker 1: I mean, this morning, I played isaas Silver on my
Speaker 1: Amazon Echo show. So it's a great thrill and an honor.
Speaker 1: And this is not b sing because I'm a huge
Speaker 1: fan to have from the Doobie Brothers, the legendary voice
Speaker 1: Tom Johnston. Thank you glad to be here. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we always started at the beginning. We're you know, like
Speaker 1: that old Cheech and Chong number. Where was your born? Uh?
Speaker 1: Just north of l a At, well not just north,
Speaker 1: but in the Central Valley and by Celia, by Celia
Speaker 1: for those people were not California savvy. Tell them how
Speaker 1: far from Los Angeles? That is probably about two hours
Speaker 1: north of l A. Okay, that's the old day. I
Speaker 1: don't know about now, but that's what he used to be. Okay.
Speaker 1: But when you grow up in Vasilia, what does your
Speaker 1: father do for a living? He had an aircraft shop, untilarry,
Speaker 1: an aircraft shop, well, he worked given an aircraft repair shop,
Speaker 1: made a shop for crop desting and private aircraft. That's
Speaker 1: where I worked my own childhood. That's what. Okay. So
Speaker 1: if he's repairing those things, one would think that was
Speaker 1: he was a pilot too. He was a pilot. And
Speaker 1: are you a pilot? No? Yeah, I never did it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I thought about it, but I
Speaker 1: didn't give it. I wanted to motorcycle wars. You wanted
Speaker 1: to stay on the ground and have danger on the ground.
Speaker 1: I got flying nuts, so that wasn't a problem. Right.
Speaker 1: But okay, so your father is an airplane mc pchanic
Speaker 1: and your mother worked outside the home. She was a homemaker,
Speaker 1: but she had a degree in teaching and stuff. They
Speaker 1: both came from Little bitty towns in Missouri, and they
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen thirty three and um, him to
Speaker 1: get his degree in aeronautical engineering and her to be
Speaker 1: his wife. I guess I mean. But they met back
Speaker 1: in Missouri. Oh yeah, Soliman and Bourbon to eighty bitty
Speaker 1: little towns right on what used to be Highway sixty six.
Speaker 1: Well you've certainly been there. Oh yeah, Okay, the relatives
Speaker 1: are still there, the ones that are still hanging in Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: So they come to word, does he get his degree
Speaker 1: in California? You know, I'm a little unclear as to
Speaker 1: where he got it. I was not born yet, and
Speaker 1: this was quite a while ago. Um, I'm not really
Speaker 1: sure where he guys. And they came for opportunity to California,
Speaker 1: well him specifically a good yeah, to get the gig
Speaker 1: with get his degree, and then he went up to work.
Speaker 1: Nobody's gonna know what I'm talking about here, but he
Speaker 1: went up to work. Eventually invited sell at an airport
Speaker 1: called that was run by Tex rank And who was
Speaker 1: a World War two guy. And this was in World
Speaker 1: War two and he was a mechanic for so Okay,
Speaker 1: if you're growing up in Vizilia, and your mother did
Speaker 1: teach or she stayed at home. She didn't teach at
Speaker 1: any time after I was taking air as it were. Okay,
Speaker 1: she sometimes went over and did the books at the
Speaker 1: shop from my dad. Okay, So how many kids in
Speaker 1: your family? Three and you're we're in the hierarchy at
Speaker 1: the bottom. You're the baby of the family. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's more. I think it's more like a mistake
Speaker 1: that wasn't supposed to have any how much older. Your
Speaker 1: other siblings brothers nine years older than me and my
Speaker 1: sister seven years older than me. It does sound like
Speaker 1: you're a mistake. And what are your brother and sister
Speaker 1: if they're still with us, what are they up to?
Speaker 1: My brother took over the shop, and my sister ends
Speaker 1: up in Oregon. She lives over there, close to the coast.
Speaker 1: And Okay, I grew up in Connecticut, fifty miles from
Speaker 1: New York City, so we got New York TV, New
Speaker 1: York radio. But you're living in Vesalea. What were you
Speaker 1: getting your radio from? And your TV? God, Fresno and
Speaker 1: it's I sell you right between Bakersfield and Fresno. So,
Speaker 1: as I recall, it wasn't on radio coming out of Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: but Fresno had a big station and a TV station,
Speaker 1: and so you were listening to that. But there was
Speaker 1: also a period of time when I was in my teens.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit town called Fowler, California, but I
Speaker 1: don't know, he probably wouldn't. Um that had this great
Speaker 1: blue station. That's all he played all day. And the
Speaker 1: guy's name was Happy hair Eld's House of Blues, and
Speaker 1: so I would listen to that a lot. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're the youngest. Traditionally, the baby gets their way. The parents,
Speaker 1: you know, they're tired for the other two children, they
Speaker 1: give you a little slacked if the other kids didn't
Speaker 1: get is that true. I don't know, because I didn't
Speaker 1: have that. They were so far ahead of no comparison. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know I followed my brother around when I
Speaker 1: was young and kind of got away and stuff. But um,
Speaker 1: I have to thank him for turning me on A
Speaker 1: Little Richard. That's how I got now was like nine
Speaker 1: years old, and that that was the first time I
Speaker 1: ever got to hear a Little Richard. And he brought
Speaker 1: the album home and he played it a couple of times.
Speaker 1: I played it every day. So it's kind of like
Speaker 1: the Beatles. The Beatles started with Little Richard. Prior to
Speaker 1: that was their music in the home, there was uh,
Speaker 1: dixie Land, primarily my dad with Dixie Land buff. Okay,
Speaker 1: so until the Little Richard Richard came along, you were
Speaker 1: not a big music radio listener. You were not. I
Speaker 1: listened to whatever was on, but nothing really grabbed me
Speaker 1: until a Little Richard and Bo Diddley and and even
Speaker 1: Elvis press leaders really stuff. Okay, so that is all
Speaker 1: pre Beatles stuff. What at what point do you then
Speaker 1: pick up an instrument? Well, I was playing clarinet and
Speaker 1: stuff all against my will. I did not want to
Speaker 1: do this. This is from age eight. Tell freshman in
Speaker 1: high school, I played that, and I played sax and
Speaker 1: then uh, at age twelve, I started playing guitar. And
Speaker 1: I didn't take lessons on purpose, and I just said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this myself. Okay, let's go back. You
Speaker 1: took saxophone and clarinet in school, so you learned how
Speaker 1: to read music for a while. Yeah, I've asked my questions.
Speaker 1: Could you read music now? Now? Okay, so you pick
Speaker 1: up a guitar your parents bought you of the guitar. No,
Speaker 1: I bought it. You bought it? Where'd you get the money?
Speaker 1: It was only twelve bucks. It wasn't too bad. I
Speaker 1: bought it from a bass player friend of mine, uh
Speaker 1: in high school. I mean we weren't in high school, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I ended up being high school and then we
Speaker 1: were in bands together, and um, twelve bucks for a
Speaker 1: crack in the top old arch back harmony. And the
Speaker 1: dream was what it really wasn't so much of a dream.
Speaker 1: It was just kind of think of a rebellion thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe I just didn't want to be associated with those
Speaker 1: other instruments. Actually I didn't mind the sex so much,
Speaker 1: but I really didn't like the clarinet. So the guitar
Speaker 1: is my thing. Nobody was telling me to do this,
Speaker 1: and this is totally exploration for me. So that's what
Speaker 1: it became. And how did you learn? You said you
Speaker 1: wanted to teach yourself. I listened. I listened. I figured
Speaker 1: it out on and I listened to like Jimmy Reed.
Speaker 1: I started with Jimmy Reid's It's pretty basic and sit
Speaker 1: down and figure it out on the guitar, which really
Speaker 1: wasn't that tough. And then I'd start building on that
Speaker 1: as the years went by, and pretty soon by the
Speaker 1: time he had high school, you're in high school bands
Speaker 1: and you're playing okay, but British Invasion and went ahead. Okay.
Speaker 1: But I just remember because certainly after the Beatles, we
Speaker 1: all got guitars and we all formed bands. And I've
Speaker 1: told this story before. I was in the bedroom of
Speaker 1: a friend of mine and we're playing guitars. He goes, now,
Speaker 1: we're gonna change key and I said, WHOA, I'm out.
Speaker 1: I don't have that patrol ability. So some people have
Speaker 1: natural ability. Would you consider yourself to have that? I
Speaker 1: never really thought about it. I guess out to a point. Um,
Speaker 1: I could hear this stuff. It's nobody explained it to
Speaker 1: me so much. The only thing I ever learned from
Speaker 1: anybody about playing guitar, at least especially in those days,
Speaker 1: with how to make a bar accord, and then after
Speaker 1: everything else, I just kind of figured out, Okay, so
Speaker 1: you had this twelve dollar guitar and you're practicing in
Speaker 1: your room. At what point do you graduate to another
Speaker 1: guitar and start a band. Um, as soon as I
Speaker 1: could afford another guitar, which basically was a single pick
Speaker 1: up electric k and a crumming little lamp from the
Speaker 1: music store in town. Do you remember the brand of
Speaker 1: the app? You know, I don't because whatever it was
Speaker 1: really off brand. It wasn't mainstream. Remember was a Marshal
Speaker 1: right exactly? And oh yeah, you were saying, Um, I
Speaker 1: didn't really started playing with people till I was probably
Speaker 1: a freshman in high school. So freshman in high school?
Speaker 1: What year is that? You mean? What year is like? Okay,
Speaker 1: so probably this is pre Beatles. So you had to
Speaker 1: know how to play Hideaway by Freddie King by that
Speaker 1: That was my question. So you play that? What else?
Speaker 1: I played a lot of blue stuff as best I
Speaker 1: could At that point. I wasn't way a dance but
Speaker 1: um I had also by that time as a freshman
Speaker 1: in high school, I had a kind of a life
Speaker 1: altering experience that buddy of mine I used to hang
Speaker 1: with all the time, who was a senior when I
Speaker 1: was a freshman, was way off into James Brown. And
Speaker 1: so James Brown comes to town on his first Apollo
Speaker 1: Theater album, to ur town being Fresno, and he says,
Speaker 1: we gotta go see him. I said, all right, because
Speaker 1: I already heard the album by then it was pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: So we went up and signed and I never seen
Speaker 1: anything like that in my life. It was amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy never stopped moving, just constant power, constant um God.
Speaker 1: Besides screaming and the amount of talent he had in
Speaker 1: those days, he was even singing more than he did
Speaker 1: later on when he got into the heavy funk stuff.
Speaker 1: But a huge show. He had like two drummers, bass player,
Speaker 1: two guitar players, chick singers and they would come out
Speaker 1: in layers that like before he even did his show.
Speaker 1: That was like forty five minutes of I think they
Speaker 1: were called the Black Perris came out and sang and
Speaker 1: his band played, and then he came out and played
Speaker 1: organ which was a little questionable. But when he hit
Speaker 1: the stage, it was just like a tornado hit the stage.
Speaker 1: It was insane, and there was people standing on top
Speaker 1: the Civic Center. Then there they were up on top
Speaker 1: of these old wood, wooden, armed ironed like seats just
Speaker 1: and they weren't all you know, it was like black white,
Speaker 1: every everybody going nuts, going absolutely insane. Let's go a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. I've driven through Brazili. I don't really know,
Speaker 1: is it an integrated town. Is it all white? Now?
Speaker 1: Vice Alia was not at that point in time. I
Speaker 1: don't know what it's like. No, I hardly ever go there.
Speaker 1: PACTA basically don't. Um. Hillary had a lot of black center.
Speaker 1: So to get to Fresno and Fresno, how did you
Speaker 1: get to Fresno for that gig? Drive up the highway?
Speaker 1: But somebody had somebody had a license at that point,
Speaker 1: Oh Bobby did. Yeah, Okay, he was a senior. I
Speaker 1: was a freshman. I didn't have a license. That's why
Speaker 1: I figured. That's how I asked you was taking a
Speaker 1: freshman and you're at the Civic Center in Fresno. Exactly
Speaker 1: how integrated is the audience? It was probably three quarters
Speaker 1: to a quarter o. The west side of Fresno is
Speaker 1: basically African American and um, but I there wasn't a
Speaker 1: lady next to me. She must have at that time.
Speaker 1: She seemed old to me looking back on it and said,
Speaker 1: let's define old. But she was probably in her fourties
Speaker 1: and she was standing on her seat just like doing.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that it was amazing, it really was.
Speaker 1: She was into it, man. Okay, So any fear coming
Speaker 1: from Vezilia being in an integrated audience. Never thought about it.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it. The racism was not an issue.
Speaker 1: No one you know what talked to you. Okay, So
Speaker 1: you come home from the big and you say to yourself,
Speaker 1: what that's more of what I was trying to, Um,
Speaker 1: take away from what I just went through. That was amazing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't be It was a live faltering event.
Speaker 1: You know if people don't realize the men they talk
Speaker 1: about it. But we used to go see bands. There
Speaker 1: were no video, no internet whatever, and the experience would
Speaker 1: hang with us. We talked to people they wouldn't really
Speaker 1: know I was talking about. It's like you could even
Speaker 1: play the record and get the same experience. Well, they
Speaker 1: were the people that I hung away in school, had
Speaker 1: no idea what I was talking about. They didn't even
Speaker 1: know who James Brown was. So it was I mean,
Speaker 1: other than Bobby, who also went to same high school
Speaker 1: I did. But um, it was kind of a small
Speaker 1: cult if you will, that knew what that was about.
Speaker 1: And as time went on. In high school bands I
Speaker 1: would play little blues, mostly rock and roll, anything from
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry to the Birds to Box Tops two, a
Speaker 1: little bles too, and then we do the other half
Speaker 1: of the gig would be James Brown muth. Really, I'm
Speaker 1: the one that handled that end of it. You could
Speaker 1: give us a little demonstration, now, I don't think so. Okay,
Speaker 1: at what point in your okay, so what kind of
Speaker 1: gigs you playing? Like high school dances and stuff? But
Speaker 1: in your community were you known as like the musician
Speaker 1: the star? Was there any stature or just another guy
Speaker 1: playing music with a lot of musicians playing. I mean
Speaker 1: for that side of community. I mean I was down
Speaker 1: the ladder from other guys that I knew. They were
Speaker 1: the older and had established names in right exactly. But
Speaker 1: it's also an era where you could be a king
Speaker 1: of your own town. And since your mother was a teacher,
Speaker 1: are you doing well in school? I was doing, Okay,
Speaker 1: you've done okay, I was done a big fantasychool. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're not a big fan. But uh, it's not like
Speaker 1: you got into music and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you stopped paying attention to school. No, No, I didn't.
Speaker 1: My ear and his best I gave it a good shot. Okay,
Speaker 1: So then, uh, what point do you think it doesn't
Speaker 1: even happen? At that point you say, whoa this could
Speaker 1: be a career. I didn't think that way in those days. Um,
Speaker 1: Although we did cut a record when I was a sophomore,
Speaker 1: but that was just kind of a fluke thing. And
Speaker 1: I cut another one when I was eighteen, and I
Speaker 1: did go down and try and stop it here in
Speaker 1: l A. As a matter of fact, with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. Nothing came of either one of my Well
Speaker 1: what did you do? Just looked up record companies and
Speaker 1: knocked on the door, well and got total rejection. Absolutely yeah,
Speaker 1: And that didn't discourage you. Not really. I didn't expect
Speaker 1: much to happen. Um. I had nobody representing me whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and I was on my own, and I was with
Speaker 1: this guy that had played drums and bassed on the
Speaker 1: song when I was eighteen. And did you write the song? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: when did you start writing songs? Probably when I was fifteen,
Speaker 1: I guess. And did you take it seriously? Right? One
Speaker 1: after an other? Are just now and again. I would
Speaker 1: write stuff for the band that I was in, you know,
Speaker 1: and we, in essence we kind of all wrote it,
Speaker 1: but I would write the lyrics such as they were,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of an offshoot of a Chuck
Speaker 1: Berry kind of thing, and the other side was kind
Speaker 1: of a quote unquote half soul half rock and roll thing.
Speaker 1: And uh it sounded very amateur, okay, because usually the
Speaker 1: initial songs you think are great, but really they suck.
Speaker 1: Now they were pretty bad, okay. And at what point
Speaker 1: in this history to the Beatles hip sixty two, as
Speaker 1: I recall, Oh, I mean for you at sixty two
Speaker 1: was loved me do. But in the UK the Sullivan
Speaker 1: at sixty four. So in sixty four you're still in
Speaker 1: high school, yeah, I was. So it was this a revelation.
Speaker 1: Did you watch them, mom, ed Sullivan? I did, And
Speaker 1: we had all these kids in school that were following
Speaker 1: the Beatles ardently, um, wearing the paraphernalia that you know,
Speaker 1: the hats, the beetle boots, the frank. I thought it
Speaker 1: was a little hicky, but whatever, I thought they were. Okay.
Speaker 1: I thought they were you know something. You were not
Speaker 1: a big Beatles fan, No, I was more of a
Speaker 1: blues And how about the Stones Stones I liked, okay,
Speaker 1: so they were blues. Yeah, that's why I mentioned back.
Speaker 1: I mean they used to have the Battle of the
Speaker 1: Beans on Saturday night on the radio, Stones versus the Beatles. Well,
Speaker 1: the Beatles developed and I became a serious fan. Oh really,
Speaker 1: when did you become a Beatles fan? Probably by the
Speaker 1: time I was hitting freshman in high school. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's given me a freshman in college, and that would
Speaker 1: be which Beatles songs? Which Beatle albums? If you remember,
Speaker 1: I didn't own any I just listened to him, but
Speaker 1: I wasn't a die hard be What songs did you say? Hey,
Speaker 1: this is pretty good? Uh let me think hard days night?
Speaker 1: Uh eler Rigby Okay, relatively early, but not the initial stuff. Okay.
Speaker 1: And you go to college and you go to college where,
Speaker 1: first of all junior college and vice he had a place,
Speaker 1: c Os College is quas okay, and you stay there
Speaker 1: for how long? Two years? And so you're living at
Speaker 1: home and what's going You're playing music? And are you
Speaker 1: riding motorcycles? Yet? I did buy one finally, after all
Speaker 1: the years of working. My dad shot much, but I
Speaker 1: did buy one. Okay. If that's something that's stuck with
Speaker 1: you forever to this day, write anymore? When did you stop?
Speaker 1: I quit in two thousand and three, and it's a
Speaker 1: it's not because of you know you're gonna break your
Speaker 1: neck or any of that kind of stuff. We had
Speaker 1: to move out of the house for a year to
Speaker 1: have it worked on, and we got back in and
Speaker 1: I looked down and I said, I'm done. Be you're done,
Speaker 1: because you figure you'd beat the odds, And maybe it
Speaker 1: really wasn't. It's like somebody just turned the switch off.
Speaker 1: The interest wasn't there anymore. How much did you ride
Speaker 1: before you? Uh? Did the switch did go off? I
Speaker 1: would call it weekend warrior kind of writing. I mean
Speaker 1: I had various friends guys in the band I would
Speaker 1: ride with, as well as a lot of guys that
Speaker 1: I knew around town and stuff. It's all in northern California, um,
Speaker 1: and we go right up and down the coast and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But I never took trips across out
Speaker 1: the country or any of that kind of Did you
Speaker 1: ever have an accident? I had a couple. And does
Speaker 1: your body still suffer the consequences? Not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 1: Let we'll take a quick break and come back with
Speaker 1: more of my conversation with Tom Johnston to the Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 1: I love getting people's stories, whether they're a famous performer, manager,
Speaker 1: record label exec or tech star. I want to know
Speaker 1: what makes them tick and how they became successful. This week,
Speaker 1: Tom Johnson tells us about going to college, informing the
Speaker 1: Doobie Brothers, and a fifty year career that came thereafter.
Speaker 1: You can dial up by other conversations with artists like
Speaker 1: Paul Rodgers, Cascade, and Shirley Manson by subscribing to the
Speaker 1: podcast on tune in, Apple or your podcast player of choice.
Speaker 1: While you're there, be sure to rate and review the podcast. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to more of my conversation with Tom Johnston.
Speaker 1: So you're in junior college, you're playing in bands. You
Speaker 1: finished two years of junior college, and then one um,
Speaker 1: I went to San Jose. And why Santa Jose of
Speaker 1: all the other places, well as one of two places
Speaker 1: that got accepted that I had a lot to do
Speaker 1: that they were Sant JOSEVI. What was the other choice? Oregon?
Speaker 1: And Okay, I went up there and and I said,
Speaker 1: I don't think so, because by that time I had
Speaker 1: already met my sister lived in Santose, and I had
Speaker 1: already met this bunch of people up there who lived
Speaker 1: up in Santa Cruz Mountains. And I didn't not skip
Speaker 1: yet but I would not long after that, and um,
Speaker 1: that's Skip Speps the originally for the movie Grape. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I there was this whole community that she knew and
Speaker 1: hung with, which I became involved with before I ever
Speaker 1: moved up to I used to go up there while
Speaker 1: I was in high school. And how far is that
Speaker 1: from Brazilia? That's about what three and a half for
Speaker 1: It's relatively far. Yeah, And we would drive up there
Speaker 1: on on the weekends and he'd let us crash in
Speaker 1: her place and then we go hang out and say hey,
Speaker 1: and go to the film War and watch whoever was playing,
Speaker 1: watch all this stuff in the streets, take it all in,
Speaker 1: go back and be vice for the rest of the week.
Speaker 1: It's a big difference. Yeah, people have no idea what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. So you go to San Jose primarily
Speaker 1: because you get in there and you have a whole
Speaker 1: social scene started. Yeah. And I was a graphic design
Speaker 1: major and they had a good department for all that.
Speaker 1: But then the first question, did you finish the Jose State?
Speaker 1: I finished it time wise. I was a semester short
Speaker 1: of the degree, simply because I got some bad advice
Speaker 1: and I took an industrial design class that did me
Speaker 1: no good at all finishing. I did all the rest
Speaker 1: of the requirements. Okay, bad advice me, And you thought
Speaker 1: this would help you graduating It didn't, meaning I had
Speaker 1: no idea what what I needed to do and what
Speaker 1: was required. This guy says, oh, you should take this,
Speaker 1: my counselor at the point at that time, take this
Speaker 1: industrial design class and you know this is something you're
Speaker 1: gonna need. Well, that turns out it kept me from
Speaker 1: graduating when I was supposed to graduate because it didn't
Speaker 1: fit in the curriculum of graphic design. So did you
Speaker 1: ever get a degree? No? Okay, you guys freaks. Bruce
Speaker 1: Freakstein's mother says, you can still go back everybody back.
Speaker 1: Yeah I can, But I don't think it was tough.
Speaker 1: I gotta say there was a lot of really good
Speaker 1: artists out there, really people that could really draw, I
Speaker 1: mean ragular drawing, you know, like radar type stuff and amazing.
Speaker 1: But they would have been good in the other field
Speaker 1: as well. I probably would ended up doing pay steps.
Speaker 1: I wasn't okay artist, but I wasn't okay. But while
Speaker 1: you're going to San Jose State, are you is your
Speaker 1: then music career? Burgeoning such as you think, well, maybe
Speaker 1: this graphic design, think it is not my future. The
Speaker 1: way that all came about, Um, I went to you know,
Speaker 1: I did the classes, but I was also I was
Speaker 1: like half doing that and half hanging out in the
Speaker 1: Santa Cruz mountains, hang on Santose, playing in a couple
Speaker 1: of bands in Santose. All this is all going on simultaneous. Um.
Speaker 1: I have to say that that's probably one of the
Speaker 1: best times I've read. There's a lot of fun. Um.
Speaker 1: I had a forty dollar room and it was on
Speaker 1: twelve Street where everything started for the band. But it
Speaker 1: was kind of a music center, and there was always
Speaker 1: people in their places in San Jose and Santose. Okay,
Speaker 1: just for those who also don't know how far to
Speaker 1: get from San Jose to Santa Cruz, oh, shooting those days,
Speaker 1: probably twenty five minutes Santa Cruz the town not much
Speaker 1: more than that really, probably half an hour. And then
Speaker 1: if you're not talking about the time, you talk about
Speaker 1: the mountains, I'm talking about Santa Cruz mountains. That's not
Speaker 1: saying in Santa Cruz, I'm not gonna get the same
Speaker 1: ideas there's a ridge of mountains between San Jose and
Speaker 1: then the beach. But I'm not a big expert there either.
Speaker 1: There are certainly roads, but there aren't that many businesses there, right, No,
Speaker 1: there was. It was pretty rustic, okay, but there were
Speaker 1: no gigs that you were doing up in the mountains
Speaker 1: or not at that time. No, okay, So you're living
Speaker 1: the life and you're supporting yourself being a musician, or
Speaker 1: your parents are sending your money. Actually they did help
Speaker 1: support me as long as I was going to school.
Speaker 1: As soon as I stopped going to school, that was gone.
Speaker 1: So what I would do And the other thing is
Speaker 1: after the semester of school, you got this time to
Speaker 1: kill for summer. Well, I said, I'm not going back
Speaker 1: to sell you. When I left that town it was
Speaker 1: review here. I didn't want to go back, and so
Speaker 1: I would either work in cannaries the first time, which
Speaker 1: was well that's hard work. It was hard work. Good
Speaker 1: money though, no, I know, and you know when Alaska
Speaker 1: it's good money, but no, not that kind of cannriies.
Speaker 1: Now this is uh, you know, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: dole or whatever it was. We're processing all this fruit
Speaker 1: and stuff and you had to be there at five
Speaker 1: in the morning and then you'd worked till two in
Speaker 1: the afternoon, and lots of incentive to do something different. Yes,
Speaker 1: here was and then after that I did construction the
Speaker 1: next year, and uh anything, so I didn't have to
Speaker 1: go back too If I say not that I hated
Speaker 1: by saying that much. I just there was nothing for
Speaker 1: me there. So okay, So how much How long did
Speaker 1: you work in construction and at the Canary one summer
Speaker 1: and one one summer and the other. Um, so now
Speaker 1: you're out of school, then what's the next thing after
Speaker 1: when you're out of school. Well, we got we got
Speaker 1: our first album in seventy one. The band got together
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy. We're talking to Doobie Brothers. Um, I
Speaker 1: was in two bands before that. Well, let's go a
Speaker 1: little bit slower. So how long after college did the
Speaker 1: Doobie Brothers started. Actually I was still in college when
Speaker 1: they do we rather started. Okay, but but you were
Speaker 1: still going to school. So tell us about the two
Speaker 1: bonds before that, they were just local bands. Uh. There
Speaker 1: was an old one called South Bay Experimental Flash. I
Speaker 1: was in for a month and you know, they were
Speaker 1: just passing fancies. There was another one I don't recall
Speaker 1: the name of because it didn't als much longer than that.
Speaker 1: And then there was PUD, which was the band that
Speaker 1: was based in Twelfth Street, in the house on twelve Street,
Speaker 1: and that's what John Hartman who came who was the
Speaker 1: first drummer of the band, came out from Falls Church,
Speaker 1: Virginia along with his buddy who played bass, Greg Murphy,
Speaker 1: and I went and picked them up with a friend
Speaker 1: of mine in a van and Sam. They were living
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, Hay, I would call living. They were
Speaker 1: staying in San Francisco, and we threw him in a van.
Speaker 1: We took him down and they took up residency in
Speaker 1: twelve streets. How did you even know who they were?
Speaker 1: I want to say Skip had something to do with Okay.
Speaker 1: So Skip spends legendarily not rooted to the planet and
Speaker 1: uh in mbi Grape which last for braver. Time you
Speaker 1: meet him? When what is his status? When you meet him?
Speaker 1: He was on his own. He had just finished cutting
Speaker 1: Ore in Nashville solo album. My sister introduced me to him.
Speaker 1: Um just really sisters a hip pivotal. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: pivotal moment meeting him because because of him, I met
Speaker 1: a lot of other people and and all these players
Speaker 1: that were in the Santa Cruise Mountains and in bands
Speaker 1: like Mountain the Current and Chocolate Watch Band, all of
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that was around there. Okay, you
Speaker 1: meet him, he's older than you would assume, you're somewhat gnaw.
Speaker 1: I was otter of fact that he was a kind
Speaker 1: of a chrismatic character. Anyway, he went into your average Joe.
Speaker 1: He besides being a little out there and as he said,
Speaker 1: not necessarily in touch with the planet. We didn't know
Speaker 1: that back then. We're younging down and we believe anything,
Speaker 1: but he was. He just had this chrisma like people
Speaker 1: would flock to. This guy was amazing, It really was. Okay,
Speaker 1: was it you asking for things? Or is he the
Speaker 1: type of guy was giving to Hey, you got to
Speaker 1: know this person. It just happened. Like a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in my life in that period of time, things
Speaker 1: would just happen. It's not really that I asked for anything.
Speaker 1: It's just we would jam together a lot. We played
Speaker 1: him a couple of throw together bands, which is how
Speaker 1: I met Pat. We were I'm sorry I should clear
Speaker 1: that up. Um. He was in a band called Pachuco
Speaker 1: with If I started naming the people out, nobody's gonna.
Speaker 1: I don't bother the um okay, but you're in you go.
Speaker 1: You got to get the two guys from Falls First Church,
Speaker 1: Virginia who you know through Skip Spence. You moved them
Speaker 1: into twelve Street. What is twelve Street? Like twelve Street
Speaker 1: the epicenter of hip hip area of San Jose or
Speaker 1: is that just where you live? It was a student
Speaker 1: get him. It was like what three blocks from the school.
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason it became kind of a musical
Speaker 1: meca for a lot of musicians. I'm not saying everybody
Speaker 1: that played something lived there, they didn't. But we had
Speaker 1: a basement and in that basement there was always a
Speaker 1: jam session. And I could come home from school and
Speaker 1: there'd be one going on. I could, you know, do
Speaker 1: whatever I did for the for the art program. And
Speaker 1: I usually would take whatever it was and would work
Speaker 1: for two or three classes, which freed up my time
Speaker 1: a lot more. This weeat deal, you know, and and
Speaker 1: I would be down to jama and Skip would be
Speaker 1: in the heart of it. Sometimes. Other times we have
Speaker 1: horn players that we had a band, the band I
Speaker 1: mentioned which was PUD was a power rock trio, but
Speaker 1: we also sometimes had some check singers. We also sometimes
Speaker 1: had a horn section, so it would like veer off
Speaker 1: into like R and B land. It was kind of
Speaker 1: a mismash everything. And how much were you gigging? Not
Speaker 1: that much when you stop and thinking that we did.
Speaker 1: We did play, but we didn't play a lot. We
Speaker 1: played you know, Ricardo's Pizza parlier when we played at
Speaker 1: the Student Union at San Jose. We didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of gigs. And at this point in time, this
Speaker 1: is just an advocation. You're really a student pretty much. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so that you're in PUD at the next trigger moment
Speaker 1: is meeting Pat. Yeah I'm at Pat when we played
Speaker 1: over at the Gaslight Theater in Campbell one night, and
Speaker 1: that we're as Campbell. Keep yeah, I do this, I
Speaker 1: have attendency. Oh you know where I'm talking about. This
Speaker 1: is is just part of Santose really, I mean it's
Speaker 1: all one big city now anyway, But back then San
Speaker 1: Jose was a very small town, or was not small
Speaker 1: tam It was a small city, nothing like it is
Speaker 1: now being the you know, the tech boom and all,
Speaker 1: but um Campbell was out west of downtown Santose where
Speaker 1: I lived, and they had that, but it was just
Speaker 1: a little club slash theater kind of plays more of
Speaker 1: a club. And Pat Simmons was playing with a guy
Speaker 1: named Peter Grant and they were doing uh, what would
Speaker 1: be called americana now what we used to call folk
Speaker 1: music sort of but a lot of fingerpicking, and that's
Speaker 1: pretty much all I was. Peter Green was a banjo
Speaker 1: player and Pat was playing guitar, and they were both
Speaker 1: really really good. And I was there with John Hartman,
Speaker 1: Skip Spence and I think Greg was playing bass, Greg Murphy.
Speaker 1: I should have clarified, I don't know what happened Greg
Speaker 1: Murphy and got a clue. Um. So we're playing rock
Speaker 1: and roll and I was singing. I was doing the singing,
Speaker 1: and and we watched them play. I think they played
Speaker 1: before we did. And then we got up and played
Speaker 1: and we were taking somebody else at the place who
Speaker 1: couldn't make the game. Serendipity, Yeah, And so you know,
Speaker 1: we got to talk and Pat and I got talking
Speaker 1: to John. John was part of that, and we invited
Speaker 1: him to come over. And jam was Pat going to
Speaker 1: school or anything. He was as same as they said, well,
Speaker 1: although I never knew that at the time, I never
Speaker 1: saw him. Everybody's big enough school where that was easily,
Speaker 1: it wasn't hard to do. So you invite him to
Speaker 1: come to jam in the basement, right, and he did,
Speaker 1: and we did that a few times, and eventually we
Speaker 1: all just said, you know, kind of decided let's let's
Speaker 1: start a band. Okay. So it wasn't a light bulb moment,
Speaker 1: just it was it was what i'd call him movement.
Speaker 1: It was another one of those things that just happens,
Speaker 1: no plans, no destination, Let's just do this, okay. And
Speaker 1: at what point you formed the band? At what point
Speaker 1: do you think, well, this this could be something. I
Speaker 1: don't know that I ever really thought that at that point. Really,
Speaker 1: I was so happy to play, and we played quite
Speaker 1: a bit. We played every place around there, and then
Speaker 1: we eventually ended up in the Chateau Libreta, which became
Speaker 1: like the center point for so many bands in the
Speaker 1: area from all over San Jose, Santa Cruz, San Francisco,
Speaker 1: a little bit, not a lot um, and it was
Speaker 1: just so much fun to do that and hang out
Speaker 1: up there. I mean, it was just a lifestyle. I
Speaker 1: didn't owe money for anything. I didn't have any money,
Speaker 1: but it all kind of worked out. I didn't. It
Speaker 1: was probably the freest time in my entire life. But
Speaker 1: you were making money being the band when you did
Speaker 1: play that could pay your bills. Yeah, but not a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, we weren't getting rich by any means. Man.
Speaker 1: We were just hasn't have to pay the rent and
Speaker 1: and buy food, and that was pretty much. That's a big,
Speaker 1: big change in America today. I mean, you're from California,
Speaker 1: but statistically people don't leave where they grew up because
Speaker 1: I don't have the money. Whereas you know, getting in
Speaker 1: your car and driving places in the sixties seventies was
Speaker 1: a big movement. In addition, it was much cheaper to live. Well, god, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean today he asked, well, you could go what again?
Speaker 1: I mean today, you know you could have a job
Speaker 1: and you still gotta live at home. I've heard about that. Yeah, So, okay,
Speaker 1: you formed the band. At what point do they become
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers. Uh. We had a gig to play
Speaker 1: one night and we were sitting around the breakfast at
Speaker 1: the table in the kitchen. We call it at the
Speaker 1: breakfast table. Whatever the everything table, and I want to
Speaker 1: say there was some combustibles being used, and uh, one
Speaker 1: of the guys that lived in the house, it wasn't
Speaker 1: part of the whole music scene, but just lived in
Speaker 1: the house, came in with his dog, which he was
Speaker 1: wanting to do at any given time, and he said,
Speaker 1: you guys ought to call yourself the Dowey Brothers. You're
Speaker 1: always doing this and we all liked it. And he said,
Speaker 1: that's a really stupid name, man, but we don't have
Speaker 1: a name, and we didn't um, and we had a
Speaker 1: gig that night. All right, we'll use it for tonight.
Speaker 1: And we never got rid of the name. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you become the Dewbie Brothers Drewbie Brothers. At what point
Speaker 1: do you have two drummers that happened god, I would
Speaker 1: say late seventy one. Mike Cossack. We knew from cutting
Speaker 1: our first album up at Pacific Studios in sam Mateo.
Speaker 1: He was in a band called Morning Rain. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people up there at that studio. Santana cut
Speaker 1: his first album there. Um Keith Canuson, who was a
Speaker 1: drummer later on, was in a band called Mental Bomb.
Speaker 1: They were up there Uh, that's where we ended up.
Speaker 1: Skip turned us onto the guy that owned the studio,
Speaker 1: and we went up there and cut a demo. The
Speaker 1: guy sent it to Warner Brothers. We got sold on
Speaker 1: the basis of that. We got it's a little bit slower.
Speaker 1: How long had the band been together before you cut
Speaker 1: the demo? Probably a year? Okay? And did you have
Speaker 1: a manager at that point? Let's define the word manager.
Speaker 1: We had a guy that hung around, if you want
Speaker 1: to call that a manager. So then Skips advice, you
Speaker 1: go to the studio and you cut how many tracks?
Speaker 1: It wasn't really advice, he just turned us down the
Speaker 1: guy that had the place, Okay. So how many tracks
Speaker 1: did you cut? Jeez? Probably five or six? And any
Speaker 1: of those that appeared on the album? Ultimately, Um, nobody? Okay, nobody,
Speaker 1: which is on the first album and it was so
Speaker 1: Quicksilver Princess might have been on the first album. Okay.
Speaker 1: How do you get it to Warner Brothers? The guy
Speaker 1: that owned the studio sent it okay? And how long
Speaker 1: after he said it did you hear it back? Jeez?
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it could have been a month.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure we would be doing that all
Speaker 1: the time, so it was probably about them. You were
Speaker 1: busy doing what sending me. Okay, you're busy playing. But
Speaker 1: in terms of the demo, this is the only demo
Speaker 1: you cut and you only send it to Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: We didn't send it any uh. And Lenny Wankers and
Speaker 1: Ted Templeman came up to listen to the band in
Speaker 1: the studio just Fast. It was pretty weird, yeah, because
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. But they liked what they heard and
Speaker 1: it was basically Lenny was running the show. And uh,
Speaker 1: so they came up and watched Just play. And then
Speaker 1: Joe Smith is the one that signed the band, but
Speaker 1: that was his position in the company at that time.
Speaker 1: We didn't know what any of this man. We were
Speaker 1: green as green could be if he had no idea
Speaker 1: and uh, but you must have been very excited. We were.
Speaker 1: We were said, I can't believe this is happening. Um.
Speaker 1: At the same time, partly was going it isn't happening.
Speaker 1: You just think it's happening right right right. If you do,
Speaker 1: you still think maybe it's just happening. No, No, I
Speaker 1: put in too many miles by now. Okay, and the
Speaker 1: guy who owns the studio, he's doing you a solid,
Speaker 1: or he wants a piece of what goes for. He
Speaker 1: definitely got a piece of it, while not at the
Speaker 1: I don't think he got a piece of ya. With
Speaker 1: Wonder Brothers probably wouldn't have allowed that to happen, But
Speaker 1: he did make a boot album off of the demo tape.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a stand up guy. Let's just put it
Speaker 1: that way. And uh, he did that. Santani did it
Speaker 1: as he did it some a couple of other bands
Speaker 1: that had used his studio just to make money. And
Speaker 1: when it came to getting the front money that we
Speaker 1: got from Warner Brothers, I think we got twenty seven
Speaker 1: dollars a piece, and we thought Jesus were rich. So
Speaker 1: we all went straight to Leo's and bought new guitars
Speaker 1: and right right, right, right right. They, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: got the lion's share of whatever the sun was. I'll
Speaker 1: let me know, Uh, one one of the guys, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna give up names here, but one of the
Speaker 1: guys bought a car which he wrecked within a week
Speaker 1: and a half. The guy that on the studio, he
Speaker 1: just probably bought more gear for the studio. I don't
Speaker 1: know you're listening to my conversation with Tom Johnson of
Speaker 1: the Dubie Brothers, recorded live at the twot In Studios
Speaker 1: in Venice, California. I hope you were joining this episode
Speaker 1: of the Bob Left Sets podcast. If you want to
Speaker 1: see videos and photos and hear sound bites from Tom
Speaker 1: and our other guests as they joined me in the studio,
Speaker 1: visit at tune in on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Now
Speaker 1: more of my conversation with Tom Johnston on the Bob
Speaker 1: Left Sets podcast. Okay, so they signed you. The first
Speaker 1: record is cut? Wherewith who? It was cut in that
Speaker 1: same studio in Pacific Studios in San Mateo with Lenny
Speaker 1: warren Cer and Ted Templement. Lenny Warrenker was the head
Speaker 1: producer and Ted was actually under the tutelage. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say of Lenny at that he'd been in
Speaker 1: Harper's Bazaar. Correct with the fifty n st Bridge song?
Speaker 1: You're cutting the album? The album is done? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with the album? We were ecstatic? Okay, we yeah,
Speaker 1: We've never been in the studio first of all, so
Speaker 1: this is all newdad, and we've been playing every place
Speaker 1: you could find for probably more than a year actually,
Speaker 1: and that was our existence. And we were driving around
Speaker 1: in a van, which the bass player at that time,
Speaker 1: Dave Chagrin, his dad bought for him. And that was
Speaker 1: our life. And then the rest of the time of
Speaker 1: the twelve Street and Pat didn't live at twelve Street,
Speaker 1: but um, everything happened around that that that house, and
Speaker 1: we just kept doing. Even after we made the record,
Speaker 1: we went right back to doing what we were doing
Speaker 1: because you can't stop what you're doing. You gotta pay
Speaker 1: the bill, so to speak. Okay, so the record is made,
Speaker 1: how long until it comes out? Um, geez, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Probably a couple of months, three months, honestly, don't know.
Speaker 1: But did you you were happy with a record? Did
Speaker 1: you believe it would be a hit? I think at
Speaker 1: that time in your life being is how you have
Speaker 1: no idea what a hit is? Uh? The first song
Speaker 1: I got put out was nobody answered, oh man, that's great,
Speaker 1: this is gonna do something. Hopefully it didn't. The album
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. Nothing did anything. It was it went
Speaker 1: as I called teflon. Uh. Okay, Well, the funny thing
Speaker 1: is that is a great track. Okay, it was you know,
Speaker 1: on your box set from like twenty years ago. That's
Speaker 1: a leadoff track and it really hooks you. So the
Speaker 1: track was good enough, Why do you think it didn't happen?
Speaker 1: I don't know, um, any one of a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: We re cut that song twice actually I think about
Speaker 1: it once in two thousand ten and then again in
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen for the country covers of with
Speaker 1: a bunch of country artists, um, which actually is my
Speaker 1: favorite version of that song. Okay, So the album comes out,
Speaker 1: it's a stiff YEP. What does the label say, because
Speaker 1: theoretically they can say we're due. This is the time
Speaker 1: period when you could get away with that, and um,
Speaker 1: we were allowed to do another album, so we did.
Speaker 1: We started working on our own. We didn't have a producer,
Speaker 1: which was a huge mistake. And why Well, because we
Speaker 1: didn't know what we were doing. Okay. Was there there
Speaker 1: no one to you know, control the catch? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: mean what we'd had on the first album, for instance,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of guidance, uh from Lenny and
Speaker 1: it was we were being cast as an acoustic driven band,
Speaker 1: which really wasn't what we were, but that's what he
Speaker 1: heard and I said, Okay, at least it's a professional.
Speaker 1: We're we're doing something. It's real, let's go do it.
Speaker 1: And we did some electric stuff, but mostly it was
Speaker 1: kind of a lot of acoustic stuff, and everything I
Speaker 1: wrote was kind of based around acoustic guitar and everything
Speaker 1: that pat Rod was kind of based on acoustic guitar
Speaker 1: and more comfortable. He was more comfortable with that than
Speaker 1: I was, not because I didn't play a lot of acoustic,
Speaker 1: but because that was his main instrument where I did.
Speaker 1: I did both, but I wasn't as fluid on acoustic
Speaker 1: as pat was. Mine was all about rhythm, the strumming
Speaker 1: style stuff, and his was fingerpicking, which he was really
Speaker 1: good at and still is really good at, and um
Speaker 1: but I was also way off into the electric blue
Speaker 1: in soul music and R and B and all the
Speaker 1: rest of it, and eventually rock and roll with Cream Hendrix,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Okay, so you start making
Speaker 1: the second record alone and it's a disaster. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: needed guidance. They did well. We got We kept a
Speaker 1: couple of songs out of the batch of songs we
Speaker 1: started with only a couple, and then one of them,
Speaker 1: White Sun, we kept I can't remember what the other
Speaker 1: one was. At the moment um, they they said, you
Speaker 1: guys are spending a lot of it. We were wally
Speaker 1: Hiders in San Francisco and he says, you guys he
Speaker 1: they Warner Brothers said you're kind of blowing it. You're
Speaker 1: you're spending a lot of money. And we sent him
Speaker 1: tapes and said, no, I don't think so. So they
Speaker 1: gave ted the job of going to corralis get us
Speaker 1: going in the direction. And I gotta say, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we were his first band, because
Speaker 1: I know he did um um, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Yes he did, and Morrison, I want to say it
Speaker 1: was around that era, but you were his first hint
Speaker 1: as a band. Yeah, and he really helped. He had
Speaker 1: ideas that to this day just blow me away. Give
Speaker 1: me an example of one idea. Well, harmony ideas, although
Speaker 1: we were a big harmony band anyway, but he would
Speaker 1: say when to do it, when not to do it,
Speaker 1: let's say, or maybe that's too much. At that point,
Speaker 1: he being a former drummer himself, would have tons of
Speaker 1: drum ideas, um and just how a song was going
Speaker 1: and says, what if you put the chorus. Here put
Speaker 1: the two verses, then the course and maybe um assault
Speaker 1: this is your basic standard right out here. This is okay,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do verse one. Then you're gonna have the
Speaker 1: the section between verse one of your verse two, and
Speaker 1: then you're gonna have the pre course, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have the course. Then there is a solo, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna have the course, and this is all the stuff
Speaker 1: that's supposed to hook everybody, right, And we kind of
Speaker 1: had the idea of that mostly, but not the way
Speaker 1: that he would come up with ideas on how to
Speaker 1: do it, and it really helped. It helped a lot,
Speaker 1: and it continued to help progressively as we got more
Speaker 1: into UM writing better songs, more professional songs. I guess
Speaker 1: you could say just from we started touring bang on
Speaker 1: the first album. We started touring and uh we started
Speaker 1: learning stuff about you know, from other guys and other
Speaker 1: bands that we were playing with on the road. Uh.
Speaker 1: First one being Mother Earth UM in nine, which was
Speaker 1: an eye openers first time we'd ever toured, and by
Speaker 1: the time we did to lou Street, UM and Ted
Speaker 1: became involved. For whatever reason, it instigated the writers to
Speaker 1: do better stuff. I have to say that's that is
Speaker 1: a fact. Okay, So the album is called to Louse Street.
Speaker 1: Y Well is the name of one of the songs
Speaker 1: on the album. I know, but I mean, if you know,
Speaker 1: I was stunned. I was in New Orleans and you
Speaker 1: see the sign, but you're living in northern California. Why
Speaker 1: is one of the songs In nine We flew down
Speaker 1: to New Orleans to supposedly play with the Eagles and
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry. I believe it was in some like football
Speaker 1: stadium thing or something, and we got rained out, so
Speaker 1: we didn't play anything, but we did get our first
Speaker 1: dose of New Orleans, which is a very intoxicating thing.
Speaker 1: New Orleans is so picturesque, there's so much history. The
Speaker 1: music of New Orleans is phenomenal. I immediately fell in
Speaker 1: love with all that stuff, and so we kind of
Speaker 1: became a Southern band, if you will. Wow, you know,
Speaker 1: I picked it up, picked up the vibe, if you will,
Speaker 1: and the bands at all would come through that whole area,
Speaker 1: but not just there, but oh Mississippi, New Orleans, um,
Speaker 1: the Carolina is all the Southern rock scene was. Well,
Speaker 1: then you have to ask you do have two drummers?
Speaker 1: Because the Allman Brothers had two drummers. No, we did
Speaker 1: it because we thought we had John. Oddly enough, it
Speaker 1: was John Hartman's idea to bring in another drummer for
Speaker 1: more power. John was always into like Mountain Cream, hendricks Um,
Speaker 1: Jethro Toll, whatever. And I have to say it ended
Speaker 1: up being a really good idea and I wasn't against it.
Speaker 1: I just hadn't thought of it, and we were using
Speaker 1: The first night we ever did that was up at
Speaker 1: the Chateau, which was not a big room. It's a
Speaker 1: tiny little room. Ceiling was right above your head if
Speaker 1: you're standing on the stage, and um, we brought my
Speaker 1: Cossack into play with us and we didn't rehearse with
Speaker 1: it or anything. We just did it and it was
Speaker 1: pretty crazy, but it felt good. So we adopted doing that,
Speaker 1: and then that became part of the whole. When you're
Speaker 1: writing the songs, you would include that whole scene going on.
Speaker 1: And we of course knew who the Almond brothers were.
Speaker 1: We were huge fans, but it wasn't the driving for
Speaker 1: us for having two drummers. Um. And then we continued
Speaker 1: doing that for years and years. So the songwriting was
Speaker 1: it shared by the group. Where the people who wrote
Speaker 1: the songs. The songwriting basically would be a guy comes
Speaker 1: in with an idea. It sounds like it started a
Speaker 1: good jail, right, But this happened before we even went
Speaker 1: up to Pacific Studios. I would write stuff and bring
Speaker 1: it in, and that would bring stuff in. This is
Speaker 1: all before we ever made the demo, and we would
Speaker 1: work it up as a band. You know, the bass
Speaker 1: player would co up with the basse idea, that drums
Speaker 1: would come up with their version of an idea for
Speaker 1: what we unless we had something very specific in mind,
Speaker 1: and it was all trial and air, trial and air,
Speaker 1: and we get it to where we thought it would
Speaker 1: sounded the best. And then that never really changed for
Speaker 1: a very long time. I mean Toalu Stree, Captain and
Speaker 1: me Vices and habits Um. But by then, of course
Speaker 1: you had the direction of a very good producer and
Speaker 1: a very good engineering Don Landy So and then but
Speaker 1: in terms of this late date, because when the hit
Speaker 1: stop credits are important, Okay, so the song credits as
Speaker 1: the money shared as you see on the album, or
Speaker 1: is it shared with everybody who it was from the
Speaker 1: album that south album sales. That sort of thing points
Speaker 1: you mean, I mean the songs, not the album whoever
Speaker 1: wrote it as the one that got the publishing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so now you do to lose street. You've done one
Speaker 1: album that you were happy with that's stiffed the second
Speaker 1: album you've made not. What are your thoughts? Well, I
Speaker 1: think we grew a lot with that album. I don't
Speaker 1: think I know we did. And I think I give
Speaker 1: a lot of the credit uh for that number one,
Speaker 1: to being in a better studio, but mostly from hanging
Speaker 1: out with Ted and hearing his ideas, because he was
Speaker 1: hanging around with some heavyweights in l A and he
Speaker 1: was learning some really good stuff and and he brought
Speaker 1: that in and I think it changed the band, the
Speaker 1: quality of the band. And that's why I said I
Speaker 1: think we upped our game as far as our writing. Okay,
Speaker 1: but when the record is done, do you now say, oh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a hitter. You say, I've had
Speaker 1: one stiff? Who the hell knows. I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: really cared that much. I don't mean that in uh,
Speaker 1: I don't care about this thing. I just nobody was
Speaker 1: so uh fixated on the idea we gotta get hit,
Speaker 1: gotta have it, got it, I wouldn't like that. It's yes,
Speaker 1: we we We cut the songs and I wrote one
Speaker 1: song which is listening to music, and I called ted
Speaker 1: up at three in the morning and played fun this is.
Speaker 1: I wrote it in my bedroom on twelve Street, which
Speaker 1: is why I wrote long train runners, where I wrote
Speaker 1: China Growths, where I wrote maybe you got to move
Speaker 1: back there, maybe, well, there's a different time period. What
Speaker 1: you're doing in your life really effects what you're right.
Speaker 1: I gotta say that's that's one thing I've learned. But um,
Speaker 1: I wrote a lot of songs in that room and anyway,
Speaker 1: so I called him, woke him up, which he wasn't
Speaker 1: happy about, and I played it for him over the phone.
Speaker 1: I said, this is a single and it's the only
Speaker 1: thing I've ever called in my life that I did know,
Speaker 1: at least for me, I know. No, I'm a big
Speaker 1: believer in that when it comes to art, when you
Speaker 1: hit it, when you get in eleven, you know, and
Speaker 1: when people you tell you they don't know, either they've
Speaker 1: never had an eleven or they're not a real artist.
Speaker 1: And you wait for those moments you know, you don't
Speaker 1: know where they come from. You don't and that's the
Speaker 1: best ones because you're channeling whatever that energy exactly. How
Speaker 1: spooky that sounded a weird hippie. I totally agree, I
Speaker 1: believe it. Okay, So listen to the music is on
Speaker 1: the album. How long after the album is released do
Speaker 1: you start to realize listen to the music is going
Speaker 1: to be a hit. When I heard it on the radio,
Speaker 1: that's when I knew something that's gonna happen. And um,
Speaker 1: I was in my Volkswagen, which I think you've actually
Speaker 1: written about it. I was in my Voliswagen driving down
Speaker 1: the road somewhere around Santa's and on comes listen to
Speaker 1: the music coming, Holy ship, that's us. Pull the car
Speaker 1: over and you know, turn it off, crank the radio
Speaker 1: and sit there and going, I don't believe it. We're
Speaker 1: on the radio. That was a big deal then, Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: It was also an interesting era because that was the
Speaker 1: FM AM area era, and most of the FM bands
Speaker 1: did not have hits that translated to a M video,
Speaker 1: whereas listening to the music did, and the Dewly Brothers
Speaker 1: were gigantic seemingly overnight. What did it feel like on
Speaker 1: your rend? It really didn't happen overnight for one thing,
Speaker 1: but it was certainly a start. And after that came
Speaker 1: Jesus Just all Right, and also Rocking down the Highway,
Speaker 1: which was not as popular as those two, and Listening
Speaker 1: to Music being the most popular out of that bunch,
Speaker 1: and Um, which led to another album. Okay, before you
Speaker 1: get to the next album. Now you're on the road,
Speaker 1: you're headlining all the time, and your headlining or opening.
Speaker 1: We started out opening and we played with anybody and everybody.
Speaker 1: We played opening for Ronnie Montrose, who at that time
Speaker 1: had Sammy agar re lead vocalist. We played with Rare
Speaker 1: Earth a lot, who I loved out. They were a
Speaker 1: great band. I didn't care if they did coverage. How
Speaker 1: did they killed Red Bone? We played with people may
Speaker 1: not know who I'm talking about something. Um, trying to
Speaker 1: remember some of the other bands we played with, Oh,
Speaker 1: Steely dan Um, they were just getting started at that
Speaker 1: period in time. Um do it again, I think was
Speaker 1: the first thing I heard by him and reeling in
Speaker 1: the years after that, and okay, so you do you
Speaker 1: remember who your agent was? No, you want to know,
Speaker 1: I don't remember because I paid zero attention to that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Okay, at the time, we live in
Speaker 1: the life. Yeah, we were. We were kind of the
Speaker 1: low end of it. I'm not saying we were. We were.
Speaker 1: We were getting our feet wet, much more so than
Speaker 1: we had on the first album. But until the Captain
Speaker 1: and Me came around, we didn't really get to the
Speaker 1: stadium scene or the big halls and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And headlining okay, but for other than the
Speaker 1: money that might come in from that, assuming get trickles
Speaker 1: down to you, there's the drugs, there's the sex, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Are you partaking of those? It was rock and roll
Speaker 1: and you enjoyed it. I did. I have to say that. Um,
Speaker 1: after a while, the way we were touring, which was
Speaker 1: over two Hunter days year around two Hunter days a year,
Speaker 1: happened very rapidly, and when that happens, everything turns into
Speaker 1: a blur. And in that way of living, of doing
Speaker 1: playing that many shows, always being on the road. I
Speaker 1: mean we were in seventy two we were driving Winnebay
Speaker 1: goes around and then that morphed into driving i mean
Speaker 1: skinny into flying on on airlines, which frankly wasn't that
Speaker 1: much fun. And we were touring with people like Mark
Speaker 1: volunteer acts and stuff like that, and and we were,
Speaker 1: you know, getting around some heavier people and because Ringo
Speaker 1: back then are backed Mark Bowling and um. But all
Speaker 1: the same, you were playing constantly and it wasn't two
Speaker 1: on one off like nowadays. It was five and oh.
Speaker 1: And then you get a day off and your voice
Speaker 1: is gone and you're a shot and you're pretty much
Speaker 1: you know, you're pretty tired. And that continued to all
Speaker 1: the rest of the albums that you know, and up
Speaker 1: to up to and including Stampede as far as the life,
Speaker 1: I mean, you you toured for that amount of gigs
Speaker 1: every year, and then when you weren't doing that, you're
Speaker 1: in the studio making another album except for a little
Speaker 1: time at home. So I'm trying to I look back,
Speaker 1: I said, when the hell did we write the songs?
Speaker 1: Because it frankly is a blur. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: there's a lot of songs that I look back, except
Speaker 1: for a couple that have special stories attached to them.
Speaker 1: I don't remember anything about doing that, about writing that song.
Speaker 1: It's just part of the whole my asthma of what
Speaker 1: was going on. Okay, But you know, people wonder why
Speaker 1: musicians do drugs, and I always say, okay, get off stage.
Speaker 1: We're ten thousand people think you're god. You may even
Speaker 1: you know, have some sexual activity. After that, then you're
Speaker 1: in the v cool with the same assholes you've known
Speaker 1: for years, and you can't come down from the energy.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, it's the next day,
Speaker 1: so you start with drugs just to wind down, uh
Speaker 1: to a point. Um, it was just it was just
Speaker 1: like a scene and whatever was going on is whatever
Speaker 1: it was. You know, It's like he just partly took
Speaker 1: of the scene and sometimes it was pretty nuts, which
Speaker 1: kind of slowed down much later on. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: there was the chicks and it was all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but it was, you know, from one day to the next.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't outstandingly different. It was just all part
Speaker 1: of the same thing. Okay, so tell me about making
Speaker 1: the Captain and me, well, okay, we come off the road,
Speaker 1: we write the songs. I mean, one time, I can
Speaker 1: definitely tell you I remember writing China Growth in the
Speaker 1: same room as the other one. You don't you didn't
Speaker 1: upgrade your digs now since you're a big Tory musician,
Speaker 1: I didn't st we weren't making that much money. Everybody
Speaker 1: seems to think you get instantly rich. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: That's not the case at all. Um. I wrote the
Speaker 1: songs that I mentioned earlier on I think I wrote
Speaker 1: Listen to Me to the China Grove Long Train Running
Speaker 1: wasn't really a song in my book anyway. That was
Speaker 1: a jam, and I questioned ted about putting that on
Speaker 1: a record. I said, we've been playing this is seventy one.
Speaker 1: I make up the words every night. The only thing
Speaker 1: that is uh constant is without where would you be now?
Speaker 1: That's all we got. That's it, And and then we'd
Speaker 1: play it for like twenty minutes, you know, on and
Speaker 1: on on. So I didn't consider that a real song.
Speaker 1: So I didn't consider a real song too either. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting to hear. Yeah, that's really how I went down.
Speaker 1: And I had to be talked into cutting that song.
Speaker 1: He said, I don't know, man, he said, really hits
Speaker 1: me as a jam. He said, well, why don't you go.
Speaker 1: We were working at Amigo Studios, which became Warner Brothers Studios,
Speaker 1: which was on Constant, which is all all that's gone now.
Speaker 1: But that was a real cool studio. This is in
Speaker 1: the valley Valley and of course Harlot Gut We did
Speaker 1: the album called Amiko after cutting the record there well,
Speaker 1: and he played on one of our albums. He really Yeah.
Speaker 1: We toured with Harlo and U j. D. Salad was
Speaker 1: hanging around there right, Couter was hanging around there. Randy
Speaker 1: Human knew I was hanging around there, James Taylor was
Speaker 1: hanging around. Who is all these people? All right? You
Speaker 1: know it sounds like fun? It was. We had a
Speaker 1: really good time. I enjoyed working There was a really
Speaker 1: a lot of So you're cutting Captain and me yep,
Speaker 1: and I talked. Ted liked that song as well. He
Speaker 1: didn't think it but at first I didn't think it
Speaker 1: was a single. Leader and and I wrote it in
Speaker 1: the bedroom and I wrote it on acoustic, and I said, no,
Speaker 1: this is an electric song. So I went and grabbed
Speaker 1: John out of his room. I said, we're going down
Speaker 1: to the basement and we're gonna we're gonna play this
Speaker 1: electrically and we're gonna play really loud. And so we did.
Speaker 1: So I had drums and me John Hartman. I should
Speaker 1: mention his name was a while some people know who
Speaker 1: I'm talking about instead of me. Just going through what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, um, and we were playing it was probably
Speaker 1: one or two in the morning, and you know, it
Speaker 1: was pretty loose in that area as all students and
Speaker 1: data really didn't care. They weren't bothered by it, and
Speaker 1: it was kind of a wild neighborhood. And uh so
Speaker 1: that was the beginnings of that until we got it
Speaker 1: into the studio, though it didn't come to fruition as
Speaker 1: a song. And as far as the lyrics to that
Speaker 1: after We've been touring in seventy two and Winnebagos. At
Speaker 1: some point in time, we were driving down the road
Speaker 1: that goes into San Antonio, Texas, and there was a
Speaker 1: road sign that said China Grove. I didn't remember it
Speaker 1: at all. I had no memory of that. However, I
Speaker 1: friendly believe that that planet is see That popped out
Speaker 1: later on with Billy Payne, who played the piano on it,
Speaker 1: uh as he did on from Little Feet, who played
Speaker 1: on basically most of our albums. He was a keyboard
Speaker 1: player and he came up with incredible parts, and he
Speaker 1: and table to workout stuff and and so in the
Speaker 1: bridge of that song before it had words, in other words,
Speaker 1: is what I've been saying. I didn't have any lyrics
Speaker 1: for that song. And when that didn't, that didn't, that didn't.
Speaker 1: He did that, I went wow. So I went off
Speaker 1: and wrote all this stuff about the Sheriff's with the
Speaker 1: Samurai soars and I was crazy, little town called China Grow,
Speaker 1: and I thought I was making it up, and uh,
Speaker 1: at that time, I was making it up as you
Speaker 1: would with anything else. But uh, I got told by
Speaker 1: a cab driver in Houston a year later, he says, no,
Speaker 1: there really is a China Grow. I said, get out
Speaker 1: of here. He says, no, I'm serious. It's right down
Speaker 1: there by San Antonio. So that's why I said, it's
Speaker 1: got to be something that I saw on the road
Speaker 1: sign and okay, the album cover you're on the freeway
Speaker 1: that is not finished. I think up near Pasadena or something. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: see Lamar or something like right, So, how did you
Speaker 1: decide to do that? We didn't. That was Warner's idea. Um,
Speaker 1: and they were I had to say at that point.
Speaker 1: And the record company was your manager, and they did
Speaker 1: everything I did, not only the artwork, but they also
Speaker 1: got you know, a lot. They'd hook you up with
Speaker 1: the with the promoters and and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: totally different scene from what's going on now, and so
Speaker 1: they came up with this idea to go out. This
Speaker 1: was from an earthquake in I think it was left
Speaker 1: over from that and uh, so they wanted to take
Speaker 1: pictures on top of that stretch of road that just
Speaker 1: fell off. And we did that, and they brought out
Speaker 1: from the movie studios. Wondered by thes movie studios. They
Speaker 1: brought out all the clothes we were wearing. They brought
Speaker 1: out the horse team and that stagecoach and we did
Speaker 1: that shot down below the freeways as it is on
Speaker 1: the front of the album cover. But we also did
Speaker 1: the shots on the centerfold whatever you want to call
Speaker 1: at the inside of the album. Um that was up
Speaker 1: on top and this big old table Chalice is and
Speaker 1: all this stuff and top pads and so, uh that
Speaker 1: album comes out. Are you aware it's going to be
Speaker 1: such a monster? You know? People ask you that a lot.
Speaker 1: It's like somebody asking you, did you have a think
Speaker 1: when you wrote whatever that it would still be played
Speaker 1: almost fifty years I said, Hill, No, how could you
Speaker 1: possibly know? There's it's unknowable. That's not something you could say,
Speaker 1: Oh fifty years and now this song is. Nobody knows
Speaker 1: those kind of things. It's impossible to all those kind
Speaker 1: of thing um, so it's always an interesting question when
Speaker 1: people ask you that stuff. So suddenly you are literally everywhere.
Speaker 1: I remember in concert on TV. Seemingly every time you
Speaker 1: turn on the TV, you guys are on. So at
Speaker 1: that point you must feel pretty good. It was me.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of fun. Plus we had gun
Speaker 1: International by then and we were playing, you know, over
Speaker 1: the Pond. We played it at the Rainbow in in
Speaker 1: uh London, which was really the in spot to play
Speaker 1: in that period in time. We also played and a
Speaker 1: lot of other towns in England. We also played in Germany,
Speaker 1: and we played in France. We played in Paris. All
Speaker 1: this stuff like was growing and it it happened really fast.
Speaker 1: You didn't have time to think about it, just all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're there and you're doing it. And
Speaker 1: that crazy Warner Brothers tour in seventy four with six bands,
Speaker 1: it was really a lot of fun to remember what
Speaker 1: it was called the Warner Brothers Music Tour, and it
Speaker 1: was to promote everybody that was on it. And we
Speaker 1: were supposed to lead a lead band, but Little Feet
Speaker 1: was on it and they were incredible. This is while
Speaker 1: they were really hot. Uh, Tower Power was on it.
Speaker 1: Um Montrose was on it. Uh, Larry Graham's Graham's Simpler
Speaker 1: Stations and a band called Bonarut. And so what we
Speaker 1: would do is each night we would play, they would
Speaker 1: do not a lot everything, but they would change out
Speaker 1: the guys that were going to be the three bands
Speaker 1: were gonna play, and so everybody played with everybody on
Speaker 1: one night or another. And I remember one night we
Speaker 1: played in Leeds and Elton John showed up and he
Speaker 1: played with all three bands that were playing that night,
Speaker 1: which was us, I want to say, maybe Little Feed
Speaker 1: and on Rue kind of unclear because it changed on regularly,
Speaker 1: but he got up on stage with each band and
Speaker 1: then I ended up riding back to London in the
Speaker 1: back of his P five roll along with Jeff Baxter,
Speaker 1: and uh, that was my first time around Alton John.
Speaker 1: And then see you. Stuff like that happened a lot,
Speaker 1: and that tour was insane. It was crazy, but at
Speaker 1: the same time, Uh, you learned stuff doing that and
Speaker 1: songs got written on that tour, not for the Doobies.
Speaker 1: But I remember sitting down with Larry Graham and Butch
Speaker 1: his B three player, and he wrote this Ain't Nothing
Speaker 1: but a Warner Brothers Party, which came out to describe
Speaker 1: that tour. It was a great tune, funky tune, and
Speaker 1: I was I was playing guitar and you know, helping
Speaker 1: with a rhythm of it, and uh, just a lot
Speaker 1: of camaraderie, hanging out with guys that you really respected
Speaker 1: a lot as musicians and really like their music. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's a very cool thing. I really enjoyed it. Okay,
Speaker 1: but it now, is there any blowback from other musicians
Speaker 1: because you're so successful? No, I don't recall that ever,
Speaker 1: Han't you mean other bands? No, not at all. Huh.
Speaker 1: And now that you're so big, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that we were as big as you're implying that.
Speaker 1: And listen, you're this is even when I write something
Speaker 1: that I'm not have a you know, a minimal amount
Speaker 1: of reach compared to you. But when you're the creator,
Speaker 1: you're at the eye of the hurricane. People are talking
Speaker 1: about you all the time and there that you have
Speaker 1: no idea of I was just gonna say, you're not
Speaker 1: aware of it. No, you're completely unaware what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just with the same guys. You know
Speaker 1: you're doing playing a gig and you're still going to
Speaker 1: the next time. You didn't change anything. No, I mean
Speaker 1: there was a moment. I very vividly remember when Captain
Speaker 1: Me came out. It was seemingly everywhere, and it was
Speaker 1: one track after or another on the radio on all
Speaker 1: formats and Doobie Brothers, you know, they'd had the hit before.
Speaker 1: We listen to the music, but it was really the tip.
Speaker 1: So then you have another album coming up to follow
Speaker 1: that up, which is what were one Spices are now
Speaker 1: Habits the title they as came up with that title. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was an apt title. Okay, now I love that album,
Speaker 1: But at first the album did not live up to
Speaker 1: its uh financial uh what people thought it might be.
Speaker 1: The first track was another Part Another Sunday, which I
Speaker 1: love I played all the time to this day, but
Speaker 1: that didn't make it as far as the other tracks. Well,
Speaker 1: and the best of my understanding, because it's a little
Speaker 1: unclear to me, but that got yanked off the radio
Speaker 1: by warners. Not it wasn't there I did he yank
Speaker 1: it off the radio. It's supposedly from being under pressure
Speaker 1: by radio stations saying you can't have a song that
Speaker 1: says in the radio. It just seems the radio just
Speaker 1: brings me down. You can't do that. That's what I
Speaker 1: was told. I don't know if that was jib or well,
Speaker 1: but that's what I got. That might have been the party.
Speaker 1: So the flip side of it was Blackwater, which started
Speaker 1: in Rollingo getting spins by a local DJ, and it
Speaker 1: started gaining popularity and getting listens and people liked it,
Speaker 1: and then it's somehow morphed into Minnesota I think it was,
Speaker 1: and started getting real heavy rotation, and the next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, as a nationwide hit. It was our first
Speaker 1: number one record. Okay, I gotta believe you'd never thought
Speaker 1: that was gonna be a hit. I didn't think about
Speaker 1: it one way the other. I didn't. I wasn't choosing singles,
Speaker 1: they were choosing singles. I just wrote songs that I wrote. Okay,
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden, you know, I remember being
Speaker 1: that's when I first moved to l A. Remember, you know,
Speaker 1: the song would come on the radio and the people
Speaker 1: in the car would literally seeing different parts. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was around. It was an exactly. It was really big
Speaker 1: and did you then see that the band was any
Speaker 1: bigger than it had been, or you already felt you
Speaker 1: were at a certain level. Once again, when you get
Speaker 1: to a certain place, we're on the road all the time.
Speaker 1: Everything is everything. You don't really pay attention to that.
Speaker 1: And at what point did you move out of twelve
Speaker 1: St Okay? And you move where to Marin County, Okay?
Speaker 1: So at this point you have money. I had some money.
Speaker 1: I wasn't wealthy, but I had some money I could pay.
Speaker 1: I bought a house, so I had enough money to
Speaker 1: do that. In those days, it wasn't like buying a
Speaker 1: house would be in Fairfax, which is where I moved,
Speaker 1: would be now right, and you buy a good car.
Speaker 1: I did buy a car, Yes, I bought an Audi
Speaker 1: early AUTI and um. So I had enough money to
Speaker 1: do those kinds of things. And mostly I would spend
Speaker 1: a lot of money on guitars and amps and Okay,
Speaker 1: at this late date, how many guitars do you have then?
Speaker 1: Before I really went's doing that, I probably had five
Speaker 1: times fives. I had probably ten guitars, and how many
Speaker 1: you have now? Ah, I went through the phase where
Speaker 1: I had forty guitars and left behind and got rid
Speaker 1: of most of them. But um, at this point, I
Speaker 1: probably have twenty guitars and now and when you go
Speaker 1: on the road, how many do you bring? And then
Speaker 1: they're already out there. They stay in Nashville where our
Speaker 1: stuff is. All our stuff is drums, keyboards, guitars, amps, everything,
Speaker 1: So it's all sitting in a locker. And when you
Speaker 1: go out, then the stuff gets on you know, it
Speaker 1: is put on the truck and it's driven to wherever
Speaker 1: you're going to practice before you start digging, and then
Speaker 1: you do the rehearsals and you started playing. So your
Speaker 1: home now, which is where I live up in Marine County,
Speaker 1: different town, but but you have guitars in the house now,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Okay, I have a studio upstairs at the
Speaker 1: writing studio. It's not a full on studio, but that's
Speaker 1: where I do my writing now. Okay, the next album
Speaker 1: is Stampede. Okay. Jeff Baxtre suddenly of the band. He
Speaker 1: was already in the band. Jeff started hanging around with us.
Speaker 1: We had been playing with Steely Dan and he would
Speaker 1: come over and hang out with us when he wasn't
Speaker 1: doing them. In fact, he would go on are some
Speaker 1: of our tours when they went off the road, which
Speaker 1: I think was probably late seventy three, yearly seventy four,
Speaker 1: and U and he ended up on stage with us playing,
Speaker 1: and he was a phenomenal player. He played pedal steel,
Speaker 1: He played great leads, and he also played polsterring, which
Speaker 1: is something I was unfamiliar at that time, which was
Speaker 1: a telecaster strap was hooked up to a uh like
Speaker 1: a well, I at strap lock, but if you pulled
Speaker 1: on it to change the tones on it. Really yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounded like a pedal steel. It was a really
Speaker 1: an interesting device, and I haven't seen it since it
Speaker 1: was on a telecast. Okay, how come he doesn't play anymore?
Speaker 1: Do you have any contact with him? I played a
Speaker 1: benefit with him about god four months ago. Now he
Speaker 1: still plays, He still play is great. Uh. He's has
Speaker 1: done some things that have been pretty interesting with the
Speaker 1: Pentagon and all the rest of that. But he he
Speaker 1: just finished moving back. I want to say to Virginia
Speaker 1: to be with his daughter and his grandchild. Okay, you
Speaker 1: cut Stampede. Are you as happy with Stampede as you
Speaker 1: are with the previous record? I was you were. I
Speaker 1: was enamored with it because I got to do take
Speaker 1: Me in Your Arms Number one. That was that. That's
Speaker 1: my I take claim for that because I had tried
Speaker 1: for a couple of years to get the band to
Speaker 1: do that and I wasn't getting any takers initially, and
Speaker 1: then eventually I guess Ted came to bad for me
Speaker 1: and they liked It's not they didn't like it that
Speaker 1: he just maybe didn't hear what I heard. I said,
Speaker 1: this would be killer. And then the arrangement, well, the
Speaker 1: arrangement took place in the studio with Ted overseeing the
Speaker 1: whole thing, and he brought in some chick singers who
Speaker 1: were fabulous, um I think it was and out the
Speaker 1: field Shirley Matthews and one other guy wasn't clydie King
Speaker 1: and I can't remember who her name was, but boy,
Speaker 1: they were something else. For that album we had that
Speaker 1: had an exploration song called music Man where I got
Speaker 1: to play backwards solos more than one. So was my
Speaker 1: Hendrix moment, if you well, that was a big deal
Speaker 1: to me. But it was a cool song and it
Speaker 1: also had Curtis Mayfield did the strings on it. Really
Speaker 1: Unfortunately I didn't get to go to that set. It
Speaker 1: was in Chicago, Teddy flew back to Chicago. They did
Speaker 1: the strings and he had his wah wah Watson whoever
Speaker 1: it was guitar player that did the the wa. Uh
Speaker 1: wasn't really strumming, it was more of a sound effect.
Speaker 1: It was really cool. It sounded like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: we were doing a Curtis Mayfield song, but rock and
Speaker 1: roll and Uh. I was very enamored with that tune.
Speaker 1: And it was never a single anything. It was just
Speaker 1: fun to do. And then there was another song that
Speaker 1: that we cut just extemporaneously. It was cut in a
Speaker 1: garage in Nashville. We were there a year and a half,
Speaker 1: two years before guy's name was buzz Case On. It
Speaker 1: was out on Murphysboro Road and I was with the
Speaker 1: former drummer of of Mother Earth, Carl Himmel, and he
Speaker 1: he was just hanging out. We were just hanging out
Speaker 1: with nobody's idea to do anything. We ended up a
Speaker 1: buzz Case on studio. He had a sixteen track out there.
Speaker 1: Tyran was with us, and so the three of us
Speaker 1: put this track down that we just made up on
Speaker 1: the spot. I made up the words on the spot,
Speaker 1: which never really got written. So they stayed those words,
Speaker 1: and then we added those check singers. This happened in
Speaker 1: seventy three, by the way, and that two years later
Speaker 1: ended up on Stampede and it was called Working on
Speaker 1: You and it was just a fun song to do,
Speaker 1: and it ended like an old man Assis ending or something.
Speaker 1: Everything just kind of falls apart of That's funny you
Speaker 1: mentioned that the first double album, the Manassa's album. I
Speaker 1: don't exactly you're talking about, great record, Okay, then its
Speaker 1: then it all falls apart, right my ulser he bloomed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had an ulcer in high school and due to
Speaker 1: the frantic living pace of you know, being on the
Speaker 1: road all the time and all the crazy stuff that
Speaker 1: went along with that, it got worse and it got
Speaker 1: pretty bad, and so I had Right when the tour
Speaker 1: for Stampede was taken off, I had to leave. And
Speaker 1: that was a drag, but that's what happened. So that's
Speaker 1: when they first they just started doing it on their own,
Speaker 1: and then they Jeff Baxster suggested bring in Michael Donald
Speaker 1: just to play keyboards and sing backgrounds, and that's how
Speaker 1: it was for that tour. Who sang your parts? Pat
Speaker 1: did a lot of it. Pat Simons did a lot
Speaker 1: of the singing and I wasn't there to watch any
Speaker 1: of this, but that's my understanding. And then they started
Speaker 1: working on Taking to the Streets, which is when Michael
Speaker 1: contributed as a songwriter and UM which that song being
Speaker 1: one of them Taking to the Streets. I had one
Speaker 1: song on that album and that's all I contributed. And
Speaker 1: by the so by the time they go out for
Speaker 1: a spring tour, I went out with him. I did,
Speaker 1: and we did this before the album came out. No,
Speaker 1: the album was out, okay, I remember the Spring of
Speaker 1: seventy remember, and it sounded so different from what came before.
Speaker 1: It was very different from what came before. UM on
Speaker 1: the road with him I did. I did that tour
Speaker 1: with him, and then I stayed with the band UH
Speaker 1: and had I think four or five songs for the
Speaker 1: next album, which was Living on the Fall Line, which
Speaker 1: I don't think did that well all things considered, UH,
Speaker 1: especially after Taking to the Streets was pretty successful in
Speaker 1: all the previous albums had been pretty successful. UM, and
Speaker 1: I just decided I'm going to withdraw for right now.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I feel a part of this musically.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm in the right spot, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to break. So I left and I
Speaker 1: spent a year playing baseball, lifting way. It's um getting
Speaker 1: healthy again if you will, and um, And then I
Speaker 1: started writing again, and the next thing you know, I'm
Speaker 1: doing a solo album in seventy nine with Ted So
Speaker 1: at all, you know, I didn't stay away very long.
Speaker 1: We'll stop here for a brief moment and get right
Speaker 1: back to my conversation with Tom Johnston. For those who
Speaker 1: are unaware, I'm primarily a writer and have a newsletter
Speaker 1: called the Left Sets Letter. You can sign up and
Speaker 1: read the history of my work at left sets dot
Speaker 1: com in addition to experiencing my commentary on music, business, technology,
Speaker 1: and my life. You'll be the first to find out
Speaker 1: where we've published a new episode of the podcast. Go
Speaker 1: to left sets dot com and sign up for the newsletter.
Speaker 1: I know you'll enjoy it. Now more with Tom Johnston
Speaker 1: of the Doobie Brothers, recorded live at the tune In
Speaker 1: Studios in Venice, California. Okay, so once again, now you
Speaker 1: were sold a walk. What are your expectations and what's
Speaker 1: it like? It's pretty different. Remember, first of all, you're
Speaker 1: in the Driver's Seat and um, it was an exploration
Speaker 1: album as well. I look back at it now that
Speaker 1: they weren't the greatest songs ever, and I hadn't been
Speaker 1: planning on doing it and then I ended up getting
Speaker 1: to do it. So I kind of wrote the songs hastily,
Speaker 1: if you will. Um. But it had one song that
Speaker 1: did fairly well, which was Savannah Knights, and it was
Speaker 1: all kind of an R and B sh album. But
Speaker 1: I got to do a lot of stuff that I
Speaker 1: always wanted to do but never could doobies. I got
Speaker 1: to use towers horn section and like I said, David
Speaker 1: Garibaldi on drums and Cheese Toudakov from a band called
Speaker 1: Crack and played bass, and it sounded sort of like
Speaker 1: rockle So I wanted to be like a Tower Power
Speaker 1: kind of unit. Um. The song started off sounding like
Speaker 1: a Temptation song, ended up sounding like a James Brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was I don't how that happened. But none
Speaker 1: of these are singles. They were just fun to do
Speaker 1: and we used so many different players. That's another thing.
Speaker 1: I wasn't you. I mean, we thought we'd had other
Speaker 1: guys come in and on the albums through the period
Speaker 1: of three or four albums in there who were studio guys.
Speaker 1: We had Right Couter play on an on an album.
Speaker 1: We had the Gutty playing an album. We had um Mac,
Speaker 1: Malcolm Cecil and as a Bob margol if I think exactly.
Speaker 1: They came in and said yeah, and they step with
Speaker 1: Stevie wondering right. They set up the synthesizer and I
Speaker 1: played the keyboard horn parts on on Captain and me
Speaker 1: Um for Natural Thing and Yukaya. I love Natural Thing.
Speaker 1: It was fun to do. I had no idea what
Speaker 1: these guys were all about. They just showed up and said,
Speaker 1: up this big monster thing. Okay, I'll play it on keyboards.
Speaker 1: Oh when you're in the heat of the moment, did
Speaker 1: you say, but now suddenly you're out of The Doobie
Speaker 1: brother and the Jubie Brothers have a renaissance and they're
Speaker 1: as successful as you were. You they were very successful.
Speaker 1: Not the same sound, but it's called the Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? It was pretty different,
Speaker 1: and it's like an adjustment that you have to make.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to change what I was about
Speaker 1: and what I was musically. Where I came from and
Speaker 1: the interesting part about all that is both Michael and
Speaker 1: I are R and B guys. I have a lot
Speaker 1: of R and B influences. His was a little different
Speaker 1: in mine. Mine was like I started with Little Richard
Speaker 1: and worked my way up through Joe tex and and
Speaker 1: and Wilson Pickett and all those kind of guys. He
Speaker 1: was more into the Ray Charles and the more gospel
Speaker 1: kind of things. So you could have that much variation
Speaker 1: and go in completely different directions. And he was a
Speaker 1: keyboard player. I was a guitar player. UM, So that
Speaker 1: was probably the difference um and stylistically, song wise, it
Speaker 1: was very different because I still had a rock and
Speaker 1: roll edge to a lot of this stuff I did.
Speaker 1: And so when it came time to do solo albums,
Speaker 1: as I said, the first one was an experiment, a
Speaker 1: lot of fun I had. I had a ball doing
Speaker 1: that album. That was so much fun. I got to
Speaker 1: play with guys, some of which I didn't even know it.
Speaker 1: David Page played on it, Um Yeah, a plethora of Dummer's.
Speaker 1: Keith played on it, Michael playing on that album at
Speaker 1: some point, Um Path playing on that album. Um Rick
Speaker 1: Slauser played on a lot of the tracks, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what happened to Rick Mark, because Mark Jordan was
Speaker 1: a keyboard player. He was really good and he played
Speaker 1: on a lot of stuff. Um Towers Horns used Memphis
Speaker 1: Horns on a couple of the songs. So you've got
Speaker 1: this plethora of really top notch players, and that, to
Speaker 1: me is what that experience was all about. It was
Speaker 1: a growth period, and then we went out. I went
Speaker 1: out and toured on it and did a lot of
Speaker 1: with um various bands. UM Kenny Loggins was one of
Speaker 1: my toured with for a while and it was a
Speaker 1: pretty wild and wooly tour. You got the band such
Speaker 1: as it was, which was me, three Memphis Horns, John Hartman,
Speaker 1: and Um something. Anderson on the other said, we had
Speaker 1: two drummers again, uh, Mike White on bass. Probably nobody's
Speaker 1: not gonna be filming familiar with these names. They were
Speaker 1: in household names. But so we went out and toured,
Speaker 1: so the crew and the band are all on the
Speaker 1: same bus every night, and it was lunacy. That lasted
Speaker 1: for a month and a half and then that was
Speaker 1: the end of the touring for that album, and then
Speaker 1: I did another solo album with a different producer, so
Speaker 1: that's another big step. And those were actually, in a
Speaker 1: sense more commercial songs. But the album didn't do very well,
Speaker 1: and I was told that it sounded too much like
Speaker 1: to Do You Brothers. I said, it was that a
Speaker 1: good thing? I am? I don't know if that is
Speaker 1: good or bad and different. I said, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to do anything in particular. I'm just writing songs and
Speaker 1: here's what they sound like. And uh so that one
Speaker 1: was produced by Michael o'martin, who did Christopher Cross and
Speaker 1: some other people like that. And then after that I
Speaker 1: just kind of played around Maran and hung out with
Speaker 1: a band called Border Patrol and we did gigs and
Speaker 1: stuff and that lasted until a D seven And then
Speaker 1: in a D seven Keith had this idea. The band
Speaker 1: by the way, they right there, Okay, you make two
Speaker 1: solo records. Then Warner Brothers says they we don't want
Speaker 1: to make anymore. Right, Okay, now you don't have you're
Speaker 1: not at the level you were before without a recording deal.
Speaker 1: You try to get a recording deal with somebody else. No, okay,
Speaker 1: do you have enough money to get you through? I did, Okay,
Speaker 1: I wasn't like large and in charge, but I getn't
Speaker 1: buy and okay, So then get to eighty seven. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the band, the Doobie Brothers, they ended. They split up
Speaker 1: in ninety two. They did a farewell tour ascuse me
Speaker 1: and they did a farewell tour which I went and
Speaker 1: played on one of the last gigs with him over
Speaker 1: in Berkeley, and um, which was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed. You remain friendly with these guys pretty much? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I sad him with him in Seattle
Speaker 1: one night when they were playing with John k and
Speaker 1: he was doing a solo album thing, and you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't sit there with him a lot, but once
Speaker 1: in a while I would show up. And when the
Speaker 1: night they got their first Grammys and stuff, I was
Speaker 1: on that first solo tour and I ended up in Bakersfield,
Speaker 1: drove down to l A And went to the after
Speaker 1: party and hung out with all the guys in the
Speaker 1: band and lost and and everybody else was there. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we stayed on good terms. And then in seven there's
Speaker 1: this idea. There was an idea by Keith Canudson, who
Speaker 1: had read a book which I don't remember the title of,
Speaker 1: about guys who had out in Vietnam and what they
Speaker 1: were going through and the problems they were having health wise,
Speaker 1: housing wide, you name it. They were having all kinds
Speaker 1: of problems. And he called each one of us in
Speaker 1: the band and said, would you be interested in getting
Speaker 1: together and doing a gig to raise money for these guys,
Speaker 1: And everybody said, sure, why not? And that included four
Speaker 1: drummers for a guitar player, one bass player who was
Speaker 1: tyrant because Willie Weeks had been playing bass for the
Speaker 1: band at the end, and Um Michael of course on
Speaker 1: one side and Cornelias Pumpus on the other side playing keyboards,
Speaker 1: and then Cornelias played sax. So we had this huge
Speaker 1: conglomerate on stage, which was insane. So we had to
Speaker 1: rehearse that get the songs together, which is everything from
Speaker 1: nobody to admitute by a minute, all of it one
Speaker 1: night and the first um the first gig was a
Speaker 1: trial gig before we did the Hall with Bowl, which
Speaker 1: was the prize. That was when we wanted to get
Speaker 1: the money for the Vietnam vets from. So we played
Speaker 1: in San Diego, the place we used to play all
Speaker 1: the time. I think it was called a Porratorium if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. And uh so we get there and
Speaker 1: we walk on stage expecting absolutely nothing because we hadn't
Speaker 1: done anything in all the formats at once, for sure,
Speaker 1: and we had never done anything with that many guys
Speaker 1: on stage, and the band had been apart for a while,
Speaker 1: so nobody's really expecting a heck of a lot of anything.
Speaker 1: And we get this standing ovation we had not let
Speaker 1: us start playing. It was a ridiculous. Everybody looking to going,
Speaker 1: what is going on? Man, this is crazy. Nobody hadn't
Speaker 1: inkling anything like that was gonna happen. So apparently the
Speaker 1: band had been missed in its absence, but we didn't
Speaker 1: know it. And uh so we ended up playing the
Speaker 1: show they were The crowd was ecstatic. So we left
Speaker 1: that thinking, wow, that's amazing. I wasn't expecting that, and
Speaker 1: I mean everybody's saying that was something, right. And so
Speaker 1: the next show is probably the next night actually at
Speaker 1: the Hollywood Bowl, and it was the second fastest selling
Speaker 1: show they'd had behind the Beatles. That was the fastest one,
Speaker 1: and it was packed and we played the show made
Speaker 1: a ton of money for the Vietnam debts, and we
Speaker 1: played one more for the Stanford Children's Hospital, which was
Speaker 1: one of our pet charities. After that, and then we
Speaker 1: played ten shows to pay for all this because it
Speaker 1: cost a force to do all the rehearsing and everything
Speaker 1: and everybody, the whole routine, the multiple drummers, Guitarsit went
Speaker 1: on all those gigs and we played them like you
Speaker 1: with a small tour, you know, we played and that
Speaker 1: was no but that's just the way it ended it up.
Speaker 1: And because we had this huge debt, we had incurred
Speaker 1: putting this together. But while we were doing the rehearsals
Speaker 1: putting this together and doing the songs from the early
Speaker 1: do we period, Ted was there for all the rehearsals
Speaker 1: and he came up to all the guys from the
Speaker 1: original band. He said, what would you think about reforming
Speaker 1: the band in this original form and doing an album?
Speaker 1: At that point, none of us were doing anything that
Speaker 1: really added and we all said sure, why not? So
Speaker 1: we did and that was supposed to happen. It didn't
Speaker 1: happen until Lady nine and Ted wasn't the producer and
Speaker 1: we were not Warner Brothers. Stuff changed from the idea
Speaker 1: until it actually happened. By then we were on Capitol.
Speaker 1: Do you think it would have been different if Ted
Speaker 1: had been the producer? I do, I do, um, because
Speaker 1: we started off with a couple of producers at one time,
Speaker 1: Eddie Schwartz and Charlie Midnight, and then that morphed into
Speaker 1: Rodney Mills and then he did the second album that
Speaker 1: was on Capitol and we the first album was Cycles,
Speaker 1: and it did pretty well and it had the Doctor
Speaker 1: on it, which I with those two guys if I
Speaker 1: hadn't written it with those two guys, because I had
Speaker 1: written this song for a band I was playing in
Speaker 1: and Marin, but it didn't have that chorus and it
Speaker 1: didn't have some of those lyrics. Those that had not
Speaker 1: been added, that song wouldn't have been ahead. That was
Speaker 1: the catch the catchy part of it for then. I
Speaker 1: mean they hadn't added that those core structures and stuff,
Speaker 1: which I thought, that's really poppy. It's like almost bubble gum.
Speaker 1: But um, it did well and it served its purpose
Speaker 1: and uh and the band was back, if you will.
Speaker 1: Then we did the second on which was Brotherhood, and
Speaker 1: do so well, and then we just have been on
Speaker 1: the road since. Okay, so a couple of questions. Now,
Speaker 1: let's stay with the recording. Do you make a recording
Speaker 1: sibil sibling rivalry ivalry I believe in and there are
Speaker 1: I believe that record is very good. But there are
Speaker 1: multiple writers. So when you have there was no producer,
Speaker 1: and I was against that. I didn't think that was
Speaker 1: a good idea, but this is what they wanted to do.
Speaker 1: They wanted to try doing it with the producer. I said, Okay,
Speaker 1: so you do get multiple writers, you also get multiple
Speaker 1: sounds because you got four guys singing lead. And I
Speaker 1: didn't think that was a great idea, but I didn't
Speaker 1: raise a ruckus about it too much. Um. So the
Speaker 1: album really didn't do anything, and we weren't really on
Speaker 1: a label. It got put out by Rhino, but we
Speaker 1: were doing it with a guy from Florida was just
Speaker 1: a money guy. Much like what we did. Um ten
Speaker 1: years later, Okay, you make a record ten years later,
Speaker 1: but at this time it is with Ted Templeman. It
Speaker 1: was with Ted Templeman. It was not a Warner Brother,
Speaker 1: it was not any label. It was once again a
Speaker 1: money guy who was from Texas. And uh, we were
Speaker 1: with what they called themselves a record company, but they
Speaker 1: really weren't. And it's too bad because that really was
Speaker 1: a good record. It had good songs on it. They
Speaker 1: were well thought on. Billy came out and Billy Payne
Speaker 1: came out and played on it. I had written four
Speaker 1: songs on keyboards, and so I just said, here, you're
Speaker 1: the guy, you play these. But I had already UH,
Speaker 1: but I'd written him on keyboards and by then I'm
Speaker 1: working with uh digital performer and I could play all
Speaker 1: this stuff because of Mittie allows you to play bass,
Speaker 1: allows you play drums, you play keyboard parts, and you
Speaker 1: could fudge it. And so if you can't really play
Speaker 1: the part you're not fluid or not, you slow it
Speaker 1: down and you play the part and needs speed it
Speaker 1: back up again. So you're down here in l A
Speaker 1: now for writing sessions. What would these songs be for? Uh,
Speaker 1: we'd like very much to put out at this point,
Speaker 1: probably an EP because people don't buy albums anymore. They
Speaker 1: don't care about that and UM, to me, it's important
Speaker 1: to stay valid. To me, if you're a musician, if
Speaker 1: you just sit around and rest on your laurels, you're
Speaker 1: not growing and you're not getting the job done. We
Speaker 1: play plenty of gigs every year and we love playing
Speaker 1: for people. That's what's kept the band thriving and alive.
Speaker 1: But I think there's something as a musician. It's not
Speaker 1: just me that feels this way. We all feel this
Speaker 1: way that in order to be valid you need to
Speaker 1: put out new stuff. It's you know, in this day
Speaker 1: and age, it's probably not gonna do anything per se.
Speaker 1: It's not going to be some humongous hid but people
Speaker 1: know you're still making an attempt to be honest about
Speaker 1: your music, and that to me is important. And on
Speaker 1: one hand you say nothing's gonna happen, but another hand,
Speaker 1: I don't know what. But in the other hand, if
Speaker 1: you're actually doing it, you must have an inner flame
Speaker 1: saying well, I would like alway that yeah, at this
Speaker 1: point in the game, Yes, there's always that hope. And
Speaker 1: then I had that for World Gone Crazy. I thought
Speaker 1: that album was gonna do something. I was really disappointed
Speaker 1: when it did so. In this particular case, since you
Speaker 1: would be doing an EP somewhere between four and six songs,
Speaker 1: is there a desire to hit a certain level of
Speaker 1: quality to give your project a better shot in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I don't think that's ever change. You
Speaker 1: always want to do the best you can do where
Speaker 1: you're at at that time, with the knowledge you have
Speaker 1: with the songs that you're writing, and that's what you know.
Speaker 1: I'm co writing at this point, which is something I've
Speaker 1: never used to do. And uh, I really enjoyed the
Speaker 1: two songs that I've written down here in l A
Speaker 1: with with John and it's it's been just for those
Speaker 1: people who are not up to speed, and um, guys
Speaker 1: got a lot of vision. It reminds me of Ted.
Speaker 1: You didn't have personality, is like night and day from
Speaker 1: not at all like, but he has vision and he
Speaker 1: hears things and it's it's mind blank because you're doing
Speaker 1: it in his studio and he's got an engineer and
Speaker 1: as you're tracking, I mean, as you're writing the song.
Speaker 1: It's kind of what reminds me of my my writings
Speaker 1: sessions in Nashville, and that you've got two or three
Speaker 1: guys in the room all at the same time writing stuff.
Speaker 1: So as you're writing the chords, you're writing the verses.
Speaker 1: That's something I never did before in life. It was
Speaker 1: I would write the songs generally first, the whole damn thing,
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, what's gonna work on this. But that
Speaker 1: type of writing, when you've got more than yourself, you've
Speaker 1: got anywhere from two to three people in the room.
Speaker 1: It's like you get this first stretch of the song, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's write the verse. I said, well, we don't have
Speaker 1: a song. Yeah, this is how we do it back
Speaker 1: here whatever. And so it's a learning it's a learning
Speaker 1: curve for me. And it was really interesting. And that
Speaker 1: was with Jeffrey Steele and who has had a lot
Speaker 1: of success back to l A Boy originally, and um
Speaker 1: Um wrote with Chuck Cannon wrote with Bob d. Pierre.
Speaker 1: You guys are all successful back there in Nashville, most
Speaker 1: of his country. And this is all for the same theoretically.
Speaker 1: P No, this was just for me to go back
Speaker 1: and write with people, just to do it. And what's
Speaker 1: happened to those songs so far? Nothing? They are saying
Speaker 1: one of them might get used. I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I there's one of my things is a possibility for
Speaker 1: what we're doing, okay. And also you switched managers relatively recently.
Speaker 1: What was that about. We had reached a place with
Speaker 1: our former manager where we just thought it was time
Speaker 1: to cut ties. And actually I had been thinking that
Speaker 1: for a while, and without getting into depth about this,
Speaker 1: some things occurred that convinced other people in the band
Speaker 1: that it was time to do that, and we did,
Speaker 1: and so I took it upon myself to make some
Speaker 1: phone calls. And so the decision to cut ties was
Speaker 1: before you had a new person, okay. And both the
Speaker 1: people that I called were receptive and positive about it.
Speaker 1: And the last person that we spoke with, and the
Speaker 1: last person I called and that we went and sat
Speaker 1: down at a meeting with was Irving. He's off and
Speaker 1: he was great. He knew all about the band. He says,
Speaker 1: I know what you've been doing. Uh Um, I'd like
Speaker 1: you to meet our staff, and which is the same
Speaker 1: thing I did with with another manager in Nashville, and
Speaker 1: he came out to us in in St. Louis and
Speaker 1: we had a big meeting. They were great, They really were,
Speaker 1: I mean, they were first class about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Both guys um and it just seemed to me that
Speaker 1: it was a better fit. And after I got the
Speaker 1: guys down to l A and they saw what Irving
Speaker 1: was all about and how things were done and his
Speaker 1: people that did online presence and as people who did
Speaker 1: this and did that. Um, they kind of agreed, and
Speaker 1: so we chose Irving. And so since you've been with Irving,
Speaker 1: what operation, how is it different from your previous life? Uh?
Speaker 1: Touring is still touring. That had never changed. But as
Speaker 1: far as the quality of how things are done, it's
Speaker 1: night and day. Uh. From the business standpoint, it's on
Speaker 1: another planet. So and we also changed book agencies. We
Speaker 1: went from Paradigm to C A A, which has also
Speaker 1: been a really neat thing for us to do in
Speaker 1: a very positive jump. And um, so it's all changed, right.
Speaker 1: And then so the band has been back together its
Speaker 1: original format a close there to for a better part
Speaker 1: of thirty years. How many days a year do you
Speaker 1: do gigs? We do about eighty shows a year. And
Speaker 1: how do you come up with that number? Uh? I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's not really we haven't got to a
Speaker 1: point where we sit down, I won't do more than this.
Speaker 1: It's just that's what we've been doing for a while
Speaker 1: and or between eighty two shows up till about five
Speaker 1: years ago, six years ago, and then we were kind
Speaker 1: of trying to keep it down to eighty. UM. At
Speaker 1: one point we talked about seventy and in fact, since
Speaker 1: we've been with everyone. We were talking about with seventy
Speaker 1: but it hasn't happened. Yeah, we're still doing eight because
Speaker 1: shows come up you don't want to say no to.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much. They don't want to say no because, well,
Speaker 1: there there, you want to go play with these people. Perhaps, Um,
Speaker 1: shows come up all the blue that you don't know
Speaker 1: we're gonna happen, like some of the stuff we did,
Speaker 1: like those classic gigs for instance, they got interjected into
Speaker 1: a tour we were doing with Chicago at the time. Um,
Speaker 1: where are you gonna go play with um Steely Dan
Speaker 1: and the Eagles the day that you play, get on
Speaker 1: a plane and fly back to Detroit to play the
Speaker 1: next gig that night after you're done, and and other
Speaker 1: things like going to Europe. Uh. And we played with
Speaker 1: Steely Dan and then we did a European tour by
Speaker 1: ourselves in places of some of the places I'd actually
Speaker 1: never played before. It was kind of hip. Really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: And then and this now, when you're singing, listen to
Speaker 1: the music. You're singing one of your big hits. What
Speaker 1: you have to sing otherwise the audience is going to
Speaker 1: revolt are you think, are you thinking about doing your
Speaker 1: laundry or you think about other stuff? Are you still
Speaker 1: know it's it's still a thrill to do those songs.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you why, because it could be exactly
Speaker 1: like you just just gribe. I can see where that
Speaker 1: would happen. It's because of the response the crowd gives
Speaker 1: you when you play those songs. So in essence, every
Speaker 1: night that song takes on a life of its own
Speaker 1: because of the people in front of you, not because
Speaker 1: you're playing it. God, you know the thing and you sleep,
Speaker 1: but when the crowd is singing along with you, and
Speaker 1: in particular a couple of songs, they're anthemic and nature
Speaker 1: for the that very reason. How can you not be
Speaker 1: happy with that? Man? It's pretty hard. Okay, So generally speaking,
Speaker 1: let's talk about when you're playing with another band, how
Speaker 1: far can you stretch it before the audience. I don't
Speaker 1: want to say tunes out, but we all go to
Speaker 1: shows these days, and you're on stage whatever. There's the
Speaker 1: casual fan of knows the hits, and then there's the
Speaker 1: die hard fan. So when you don't play and a
Speaker 1: few people who don't really know any of the hits, right, So, hey,
Speaker 1: to what degree do you feel you want to convince
Speaker 1: the fans bring them along, or to what what's it
Speaker 1: like being on stage when you're not playing the big hits.
Speaker 1: It might be songs that you really dug as album
Speaker 1: cuts in the first place. In particular, things like for me,
Speaker 1: dark Eyed Cajun Woman or something like that meant a
Speaker 1: lot to me alone as a person because it was
Speaker 1: the blues and it was a tip of that had
Speaker 1: to be be king. And it's the only time I
Speaker 1: ever got to write a blue song that was a
Speaker 1: really that really was a blue song. Is there a
Speaker 1: dark eyed Cajun woman? There is a dark eyed Cajun
Speaker 1: woman that really exists. It came off of Captain and me.
Speaker 1: We'll be doing that. I have been doing a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there a woman who? Oh no, it
Speaker 1: was all fictitious, But that was a big seminal moment
Speaker 1: for me in the studio. Not for anybody else probably,
Speaker 1: but for me it was. So you'll enjoy playing that live,
Speaker 1: I do. I mean, there's a lot of songs I
Speaker 1: enjoyed playing live. It's just how you build a set
Speaker 1: in order to how you know, take the crowd on
Speaker 1: there on this little journey with your sot A spirit,
Speaker 1: And do you find if you headline that the fans
Speaker 1: are a little more die hard as opposed to play
Speaker 1: if you're opening Let's say, for uh, when the first
Speaker 1: tour we did when we got with Irving was with
Speaker 1: Journey and um and it was us and and Dave
Speaker 1: Mason played before we did, and we played, the Journey played,
Speaker 1: and so every night to places, which as they always
Speaker 1: are in any of these kind of ship gigs, are
Speaker 1: always packed pretty much, and uh, we were getting really
Speaker 1: great response, so it was it was not you know,
Speaker 1: we were this this is an extension of what we've
Speaker 1: already been doing anyway, so it's more of the same
Speaker 1: but different bands than we had played with before. We'd
Speaker 1: played with Dave before, but we've never played with Journey
Speaker 1: since way back when, and then um, this last year
Speaker 1: we've been with Steely Dan. We just just finished that
Speaker 1: two our month ago. We were out for over two
Speaker 1: and a half months straight and wide swath musically, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got jazz rock and all these phenomenal players on stage,
Speaker 1: and Donald still sounds great as ever and really a
Speaker 1: killer band, but completely musically different from what we did
Speaker 1: and the crowd loved it, which was very cool. So
Speaker 1: it all works. We had You've had a lot of hits,
Speaker 1: so at this Okay. A couple other questions. How many
Speaker 1: times you've been married? Once? Really? Uh? And I'm still
Speaker 1: married to her now. We've been married for over thirty years. Okay.
Speaker 1: So because most bands, seems the band goes on the road.
Speaker 1: Remember Metallica, They went on the road for extended period
Speaker 1: of time, they came home, everybody got divorced. How did
Speaker 1: you how did you maintain that relationship in the face
Speaker 1: of this crazy lifestyle. Well, it's not that crazy nowadays.
Speaker 1: It's it's work, you know. I mean, you're out making
Speaker 1: a living. It's not the days of the seventies and
Speaker 1: the hey day. You know, sex, drugs and rock and
Speaker 1: roll are gone. Um, it's just it's a job. But
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the job. I love playing music and I love,
Speaker 1: as does everybody else in this band, interacting with the crowd.
Speaker 1: And to me as a musician, when I'm on stage,
Speaker 1: the prenuptialate job that you have is to get that
Speaker 1: crowd up every single night and barring security guys and
Speaker 1: a place that won't allow him to get up even
Speaker 1: and then I still try, but the idea is to
Speaker 1: get him up dancing, say along with you if they
Speaker 1: know the songs, which in a lot of cases they do. Um,
Speaker 1: that's an every night thing. And on that note, what
Speaker 1: a better time to end with the pinnacle moment of
Speaker 1: what's still going on the road. You can certainly see
Speaker 1: the Doobie Brothers on the road, as we said, eighty
Speaker 1: times a year. They come to your marketplace eventually. But
Speaker 1: even so, the records, I really would say go back
Speaker 1: to listen to those early records Vices and to Lose
Speaker 1: Street and the Captain Me. They don't really sound like
Speaker 1: anything else in the marketplace. There's a unique sound and
Speaker 1: as a results are also not dated. It also has
Speaker 1: something to do with the level. They're the high level
Speaker 1: that recorded on but really satisfying music. I mean, I
Speaker 1: literally play them all the time. So it's a thrill
Speaker 1: to have you here. Thanks so much, Tom, appreciate if
Speaker 1: I play here until next time. It's Bob left Sets.
Speaker 1: You're listening to me on my own podcast recorded live
Speaker 1: here at tune In Studios in Venice, California. How great
Speaker 1: was that? Listen? I'm a huge Doobie Brothers fan to
Speaker 1: sit here and get answers to some questions I've had
Speaker 1: for decades and listen to Tom talk about what it's
Speaker 1: like being in the band and being on the road
Speaker 1: was very special and stimulating. I know you loved it too.
Speaker 1: Until next time, I'm Bob. Leff says, don't know