WEBVTT - Bill Payne from Little Feat : One of the most iconic keyboard players in music history 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:01.320 Taking a Walk. 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:05.160 So music and art are they're not benign. They're there 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.080 to help, They're they're there to guide. I don't mean 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:10.840 just the people that have to write it. I mean 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:13.880 we lock out on a lot of things that we do. 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:19.080 But you mentioned it before too, Buzz, which is it 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:21.680 enables an enacts the spirit of community. 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:25.480 Hi, I'm Buzznight and welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast. 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:28.800 This is the podcast where we love talking with musicians. 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:30.600 We get the inside. 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:33.760 Scoop about what they're up to and how they got 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.920 there with their latest project and all other fun high 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:42.280 jinks along the way. I'm very pleased on this episode 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.360 to have a returning guest. We were able to take 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.640 a walk in person together pretty early on in the podcast, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.560 and it was a delight in person. But if it 0:00:54.600 --> 0:00:58.920 can't be in person, it's a delight to welcome back 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.440 the one and only Bill Payne from Little Feet to 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:05.039 the Taken Off Podcast. Bill, it's so great to be 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:05.479 with you. 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.000 Save here and yeah, what an honor to be invited back. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.240 I mean, I've been keeping track of the various people 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:17.119 you've had on. It's it's an amazing array of artists 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:22.280 and thinkers and just good people, so creators to all 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:23.800 you're doing mans, it's. 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:28.160 Great having a blast, and you know, for me, it's 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.920 so amazing because I get to talk to people that 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:38.320 I've followed and cross paths with or admired over the years, 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:40.760 and you are certainly one of those people. And the 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.759 band Little Feet also is very near and dear as 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.720 are you to my heart, so thank you for being on. 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:49.280 It's really tremendous. 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:51.160 Thank you so much, rn Bill. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:54.360 Since the podcast is called taking a Walk, I do 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:58.120 want to ask you if if you had the opportunity 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.760 to take a walk or a saunter with somebody living 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:08.520 or dead, they could be certainly affiliated in and around music, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.520 but doesn't have to be. There's no rules to what 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.720 we're doing here. Who would you take a walk with 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:17.359 and where would you take a walk with them? 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:25.800 Oh my gosh, that's well. I mean, I'm thinking this 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:28.560 book I'm writing, called Carnival Ghost, I've got a huge 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:34.160 section it on surfing for a number of reasons. I 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.640 mean not only the art and act of surfing, but 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:42.239 the music that surrounded it, the films that I went 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:48.200 to and watched people on stage narrate their movies. Well, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:51.440 one of those guys was Bruce Brown, who also did 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:58.079 movies on motorcycles. Bruce had Barefoot Adventure. He went to 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.480 South Africa with a couple of different people in another film, 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:08.720 but he had a soundtrack to Barefoot Adventure, which featured 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.359 Bud Powell. Let's see I've got Thad Jones, I think 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.679 was on trumpet man. Are some great great jazz musicians. 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.959 Dennis Budenmeyer was on there. Who I got a chance 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:24.680 to tell me I was aware of this record. I'd 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.720 love to take a walk with Bruce Brown. He passed 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.120 away a few years ago, and I'd probably do it 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.400 up in the Santa Barbara area, on one of those 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.720 those beaches up there, maybe even along the cliffs of 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.120 a further north of Santa Barbara, between Santa Barbara and 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:45.119 the Gaviota Pass, some lovely territory up there. I spent 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.880 a lot of time surfing and just trying to think 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.400 out my next moves, and it is a good contemplative area. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.160 I think it'd be wonderful to talk with him up there. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:58.680 I love it, I love it. We have a lot 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:01.680 to catch up on. We want to talk about the book. 0:04:01.720 --> 0:04:05.720 We'll come back to that. Certainly your photography as well. 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.840 I want to hear if you've been continuing to dabble 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:14.360 at that. But the exciting news too that we want 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.880 to talk about is Strike up the band, the brand 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:24.159 new Little Feet release which has got some amazing folks 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:28.599 on it. You've got Lark and Poe and Molly Tuttle 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.720 and Larry Campbell. I want to hear how that all 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:35.159 came together, how this new project came together for you 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:36.320 and the band. 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:41.640 Well, from the inception of putting the band back together 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:46.480 after Paul Brer passed away in twenty nineteen. Scott Gerard 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:52.320 was on the Very Show the very date in October 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:56.359 that Paul passed away. They joined us. Lynn, Larry Campbell 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:59.840 and Teresa Williams had been on the tour up until 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.799 they had a couple of other obligations they had to fill, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:07.880 so we brought in Scott. I had met him during 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.200 the tour with the Dbie Brothers and he was the 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.800 musical director for Greg Alman. We had a gig coming 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.720 up also in Jamaica. Where are we going to do it? 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.479 Are we? We decided, with the way Scott was playing, 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:22.480 the way we all felt about it, that we should 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:27.480 definitely do that a cemented relationship with Scott, which we did, 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:32.760 and a few months later we brought in Tony Leoni 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.960 on drums, so everything was set and in COVID hit 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.880 so we were communicating the well exactly what you and 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:47.919 I are doing now over the Internet and sitting tracks 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.159 back and forth and recording and whatnot, but no get togethers. 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:57.520 That didn't happen until tomorrow, November twenty twenty one. When 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:00.840 we did get together, we had this agenda which management 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.160 helped figure out, which was let's go and take song 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:09.040 requests from fans, which we did, which opened a whole 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.560 catalog that we hadn't played in a long time, songs 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:16.760 like Strawberry Flats for example, off the very first album. 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.080 But it's shortly to follow that. Bud was there the 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.160 notion of going out and playing Waiting for Columbus, which 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.440 I had always sort of balked at, to be honest 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.080 with you, but it made perfect sense now that we 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.720 had this band that could play anything. It was a 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:39.000 gutsy move to try and replicate a record, if not replicated, 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:41.680 at least play songs in order and then put our 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.360 spin on it. I thought it was a necessary thing 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:48.240 to do. But even so, the notion of putting in 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.679 a record together was deeply planned. I'd written twenty songs 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:57.160 with Robert Hunter, for example, four of which had been 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:03.159 recorded in twenty twelve on Richter ragg I just thowt like, 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:05.799 we don't have to prove we can play Dixie Chicken. 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:08.799 Somebody asked me how to keep that song so fresh? 0:07:08.800 --> 0:07:10.640 And I said, well, what do you do when you 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.920 sing happy birthday to someone? You see it from the heart. 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.800 I hope, yeah, that's wonderful. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.200 That kind of thing. That's what we do. So this 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:25.120 was a long, securitious answer to a project that was 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.119 the inception was in the beginning of the band coming 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:32.960 back Together, which was in twenty twenty. But we brought 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:37.800 Advance Powell, who works with Christa Ableton. He's engineer and 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.520 worked with Fish. He was one of those guys. Honestly, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.640 we recorded at Blackbird Studios in Nashville, which he helped 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:47.880 put together with George Massenberg was also involved in that, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.400 who was also one of our engineers for many, many years. 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.560 Advance is one of those guys a buzz that can 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.120 just before you even think of what you're going to 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:03.520 say to him. He's already there, or when I contemplate saying, hey, listen, 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.800 when we oh, no, you've already got that. Okay, God, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.200 he was ten steps ahead of me almost the entire way. 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.640 He brought in Christian Rodgers to sing backgrounds on some vocals. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:19.840 She's out now with Post Malone, so I mean his 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:24.880 taste are great. He solidified that by choosing Littleviedt I 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.000 thought to work with. But he and I as a 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:35.040 production team also fell into line very well with any 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:37.400 kind of scene like that. It takes a while for 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.920 people to sort of acclimate to one another, which was 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.280 the case with the band and with Vance. But he 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.400 was so adapt at making people feel comfortable, and we 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.880 had a couple of all ramps we could take with 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.080 Scott Grard, who wanted to work with our engineer who 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.920 he also brought in, which is Charles A. Martinez turn 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:03.480 Els or Charlie as we call him. That work with 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:08.040 Steely Dan, with with Donald Fagan, those credittions alone the 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.360 doors wide open for him as far as I'm concerned. 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.600 So then it was a matter of songs. I started 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.000 writing songs with with I went back to New York 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:19.320 to write with Tony and with Scott. We came up 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.200 with a couple of things there. One of them was 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.640 the very first track on the record, which is a 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:26.880 title that I'd come up with and actually had to 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.480 start to some music with as well, and some lyrics. 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.880 Four days of having three days of work. And when 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.679 people hear that, I mean, I'll literally be in an 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:40.240 uber in Denver, in New York and Saint Louis, wherever 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:43.000 the heck I am, and I'll ask the drive where 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.000 are you from? And do you sally? They're from Africa, 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.800 sometimes Guatemala. Wherever I'll play them, I'll play first, I'll 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:53.880 play some where they're from. I'll play that music where 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.679 they're from. Oh you're from the Congo. Here's some Congolese 0:09:56.760 --> 0:09:59.760 roombaut for you. And I say, well, now here's a 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:02.679 big I play with, and I'll play that track and 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.040 they're like, oh that's. 0:10:04.840 --> 0:10:09.240 Good, Oh that's awesome. Those are like many focus groups, 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:09.840 you don't. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.120 And honestly answer. I mean to throw it out in 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.120 people like that. It's you know what it's like, It's 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:21.280 you get honest reactions from people sometimes strike up. The 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.880 band reminds me greatly of of of Let It Roll. 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.040 For one main reason is that Letter Roll we were 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.880 we were reintroducing the band to people. We were in 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:36.880 a very similar position this time, and when things are 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.240 running smoothly with Letter Roll, we had at the Helm 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:45.920 Peter Asher management. This time we have Ken Levitan Brian 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:50.160 Pennox at Vector. When things are going smoothly, as I said, Uh, 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.839 you can almost script what's going to happen. I'm pretty 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.080 good at that. And I just was not surprised at 0:10:58.080 --> 0:11:00.440 the reaction we've been getting. I knew it would be good. 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.439 It's still that the old adage when you're playing, you 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:09.800 put your mask on first. So I'm there, I have 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.840 my mask on, I'm ready. I just think it's a 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:17.280 really the portraitures that are on that record are are 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.319 well framed. I enjoyed the writing process, not in wiscont 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.680 and Tony, but but with Charlie Starr from BlackBerry Smoke, 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:29.439 John levinthal is a good friend in New York, Vince Herman, 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.320 who I just worked with that Red Rocks, who's in 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.600 a band called Leftover Salmon. We did the last song 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.840 on the record, which was New Orleans Cries When She Sings, 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:42.120 which is an ode to UH to New Orleans, a 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.120 dangerous place, but a wonderful place. Nonetheless, life is pretty 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:46.640 good right. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:49.000 Now, it's tremendous. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:53.760 And thinking about really the uh, the added collaborators too, 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.240 I'm just so fascinated by that that group. Big fans 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.840 of all of them, for of all talk about your 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:05.559 opportunity to connect with and work with Larkin Poe. 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.880 If I'm not mistaken, that was an idea that Scott 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:13.680 Gerard might have had. But it was also an idea 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:17.400 for sure that that Vance Powell brought to the table 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.080 because they live in town. They live in Nashville, so 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.960 he felt he could contact them and wheeld them in 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.360 and Scott I had a song and form as well, 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:33.480 but I deferred to Scott, and I'm glad I did 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.640 because I think they worked out beautifully on the title. 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:40.240 Trucks struck up the band. 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.640 And then there's the phenomenal Molly Tuttele connecting with her. 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:45.560 What was that? 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:51.160 I told Molly before we went to the studio, I said, listen, 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.160 the only thing this bluegrass about this song that you're 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:57.240 going to play and was called Bluegrass Pines by Robert 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.160 hundred myself, is the title. Other than that, it's a 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:04.720 long securitis song and if you need any help, let 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.920 me know, but I'm turning you loose on it. I'll 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.200 be there to help guide it. But I want to 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.760 play acoustic guitar and just to feel comfortable to try 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:17.600 things and let's see what fits. So she said exactly that, 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:25.920 And it's just an extraordinary, extraordinarily warm person, which I 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.959 would have expected nothing less, but sometimes you don't know 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.800 until you actually meet people. So that was a thrill 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.400 to to've had her on this record. 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:36.160 I mean, I think it's so brilliant, you know, once 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.960 again for fans of the band for a long time 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.800 to get what they you know, always will expect at 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.480 a Little Feet as as a band and the great playing, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.400 but then adding these these these new voices which are 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:59.000 really emerging brilliantly out of places like Nashville, and and 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:02.640 they're just these phenomenal players that are just just a 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:07.720 whole different generation. And what's so cool about that generation 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:13.000 is that they have such great respect for certainly the 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:14.920 past as well. 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:20.160 Yeah, well well said of Uzz and Little Feet is 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.800 known and has been known for a long long time 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:27.800 as a musician's musicians group, which we still are and 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:32.600 we're not pop stars or rock stars. Some people try 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.120 and put that label on I've tried to put on 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:37.600 me a couple of times, and I said, look, if 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:39.280 you want to think of you a rock star, go ahead. 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:46.560 I think of myself as a rockhead mainly, but mainly 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:50.800 I am undoubtedly a musician. So that's what when those 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.720 doors are open, that's that's who we're inviting in our people. 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:58.520 We're in the same club. And the club, ironically is 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.320 for most of us as Breator Mark used to say, 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.440 I would never join a club that would accept me 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:08.880 as a member. They're pretty much of that mindset too. 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.600 But we are a rather exclusive club. As a musician, 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:17.720 and the trials and errors and tribulations that come with 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.440 taking your arts seriously but having trying to have fun 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:25.040 with it is those are the past we've chosen over 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.080 the years when we have very similar stories to tell 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.680 along those lines, which is which is great. So when 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.600 I meet people, and I've done this for a long time, 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.960 is it's not always a musician within little Feet who 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:42.680 already had the mantle of being a band's band and 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:44.960 that kind of thing. Or when Eric Clapton came to 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.240 see us, I said, man, you saw us week a 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.320 week or two ago. What's going on? He goes, I 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.800 brought my band here. I want to I want to 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:57.240 hear a proper band. I go, oh, okay, good, thank you. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:01.920 So as a proper band, that's that's a pretty good 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.600 high compliment from Eric. But we we are, I mean, 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:08.800 that's that's what we do. And being part of a 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.880 proper band for me is what platform are you using 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:16.920 to tell the story? Are you writing your own songs? 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.080 That's not necessary. You don't have to. There are plenty 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.880 great writers. There's plenty of great songs out there. How 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.600 do you treat it with it within regard to not 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.240 only your instrument, but how you blend with others? How 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:34.040 do you play with others? There's so much that's involved, 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.840 and so much that like being an athlete where they 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.440 have great peripheral vision, whether it's on the basketball court 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.320 or the hockey or whatever they're doing. Within music, you 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.080 have great, or should have pretty wide and great peripheral 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:54.200 hearing as well. So it's what you hear and what 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:55.680 you react against. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:17:00.680 It's like our conversation, Yeah, natural flow, which is you. 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:04.080 You guys have always made it look so easy, but 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:08.159 there's nothing easy about what you're what you're doing. It's complicated, 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:13.119 it's intricate, it's it brings you to different places, and 0:17:13.200 --> 0:17:17.800 it blends all different genres. Now it's it's very popular 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:22.080 for artists to go, well, yeah, I'm blending genres. I 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:26.480 find my own, you know, particular niche there between this 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.440 genre and that genre. But in my opinion, when I 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:35.560 first discovered little Feet a few years back, that's everything 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.280 little Feet was about. It wasn't really genre defined in 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:39.840 my opinion. 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:43.639 Yeah, I'm with you, and I think that. Fortunately, for 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.480 most of the stuff we play, it sounds easy. In 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:49.879 other words, it sounds like falling off logs, so you're 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.520 you're not struggling to I mean, you might not struggle, 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:55.520 but you might have to hear a song a few 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.920 times to get a craft around your head. But the 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:04.040 water is pretty warm. It's a warm dive as a 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:07.200 musician when you try and play it, though, it's the 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.480 people come up to me, I mean, gosh, and they'll say, 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:13.240 well it was, and I go harder you thought, and 0:18:13.240 --> 0:18:16.119 they go, yeah, I was thinking. Because I'm writing a 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:22.200 chapter now in this book Horrible Ghosts about songwriting, and 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.560 I want to take people through the process, and one 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.919 of the things I'm discovering about that process is is 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:32.560 that in trying, for my part, trying to keep the 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:37.719 music is interesting as the lyrics. Depending on what the 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:43.720 song is, the lyrics oftentimes will take precedent precedence only 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:49.119 in the cadence that I'm following. So if it's everything 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.280 four to four, like one two three four, but a 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:55.200 lot of my songs have like one two three four 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.639 and then boom, boom doom again, like two more extra 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:02.439 beats in a certain in section to accommodate lyrics or 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:06.760 to commodate a musical phrase. So I've never ever shied 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.399 away from that. It used to to confuse Richie Hayward 0:19:09.480 --> 0:19:13.119 sometimes because he'd go, look, the one is here, and 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.200 it would but I said, no, Richie, when I'm going 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.560 one two three, and then I'm feeling the beats happening there, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.160 and then it's one two three, one two three four, 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:27.040 so it's a seven beat phrase rather than four. But 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.200 he'd laugh and go, Okay. I said, as long as 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.440 you know what you're doing, you counted any way you want. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.840 But what I'm feeling is when the accent hits hard. 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:39.720 That's where I start to recount. That's where one starts 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:44.000 for me, much like in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff, 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:48.600 where the astronauts didn't they didn't want to evalue it 0:19:48.640 --> 0:19:50.600 too heavily what they were doing back in the day 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:55.000 because they were basically, I don't they were human beings, 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.879 but they didn't feel they were much better than the 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.159 monkeys that were crawling in some of those capsules, this 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:05.679 popping them off into the air. In the beginning, for me, 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.840 I didn't really think about whether something was in a 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:13.280 certain time signature or didn't have three eight beats before 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.080 we talk took off on something I just I didn't 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:18.600 want to know. And then later I thought, well, why 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.240 am I I don't need to remain ignorant of this. 0:20:22.359 --> 0:20:27.240 Let's uh if the proposition of learning, where it's learning scales, 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.600 or learning more chords, or listening to a broader context 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:36.560 of music, UH and or reading maybe literature or books 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:38.399 that are a little over your head and you have 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:40.439 to look at a dictionary every now and then, what 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.480 you're doing is expanding your vocabulary. I don't see how 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:47.840 that hurts anyone or anything, So I've I then began 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:52.400 to take that approach and go a little more consciously 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.720 into what I was doing and why, and without fear 0:20:55.720 --> 0:21:00.280 of interrupting or hurting my creativity, which is the way 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.880 a lot of people think it does well. 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:06.359 When I think about working with you know, Lark and 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:10.240 Poe and Molly Tuttle and of course you know Larry 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:13.439 Campbell on the new project, and then I sort of 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:19.199 reflect with with your work beyond Little Feet, which to 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:22.920 name a few, I mean, I think of certainly your 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:27.280 work with Bonnie Rait and James Taylor. But then I 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.320 go off to thinking about your work you know that 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:35.040 you did with Pink Floyd and and uh, and then 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:38.920 of course the longstanding work with the Doobie Brothers. It's 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:44.560 always covered, you know, different territory for for sure. Is 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:48.880 there any territory that you haven't covered that you would 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:50.120 still like to cover? 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.919 Well, that's an excellent question, and uh, I guess the 0:21:53.960 --> 0:21:57.560 short answers is no. But there's a song I've I've 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.159 I've got that I help will up here on the 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.680 next record. We have done some jazz, but we haven't 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.320 I've embraced jazz in the last few years more than 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:11.400 I've ever done in my life. Become more cognizant of things, 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.760 listening to a lot more of Herbie Hancock, who might 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.960 have also been a person to take a walk with, 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:20.359 to be honest with you, he's one of those guys. 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:25.960 Wayne Shorter, so Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock with their 0:22:26.000 --> 0:22:31.720 collective work. I've got a song called Train's Blues, which 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.840 I might change because I didn't come up with the title. 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.720 But Train's Blues is also an album that John Coltrane did. 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:42.920 There's a couple of books called that, so the title 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:47.280 might shift, but the music's pretty interesting and it takes 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:50.960 us to Paris, the book that starts to really open, 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.639 not only musically but lyrically. Neon Park helped shape some 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.000 of the songs Paul Breer did. It's it's not an 0:22:58.000 --> 0:23:01.320 easy song to play, but I think it's going to 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:03.600 sound really, really good. I got a couple of people 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:09.680 for the horn section that I'm contemplating for that. But yeah, 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.680 I think what happens is when we listen to or 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.320 when I listen to music. I'm going to listen to 0:23:15.400 --> 0:23:19.560 something in the next two weeks, two years, whatever, and 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.399 I'm going to go, well, I'd like to have that 0:23:23.560 --> 0:23:27.320 perform some part of my writing. So I guess in 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:30.280 that sense it was difficult for me to answer your question, 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:33.639 what have I not tackled yet that i'd like to. 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.880 I think that door is always open, though, and it's 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:41.760 increasingly open, not only on the level of music, but 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:46.760 on the level of the expansion of ideas through lyrics. 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:51.240 In describing a section or a part of my writing yesterday, 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:56.119 I was suggesting that having the music be as important 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.879 as the lyrics. I caught myself and I went, you 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:02.560 know what, wait a second. When I used to set 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.520 myself in the room to play piano, the piano for 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:14.040 me was an instrument to exploit visualization, sometimes at the 0:24:14.040 --> 0:24:17.439 beach and hearing the waves break, or the seagulls, the 0:24:17.480 --> 0:24:21.600 wind heading the surf. I come home and play for 0:24:21.720 --> 0:24:25.199 my mother or my parents. This is what I saw today, 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.320 that kind of thing, And I thought, well, so that 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:34.280 was already ingrained in my ethic as a musician from 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:37.920 the very get go. But now as a guy who's 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.000 seventy six years old and writing about it, I went, well, no, 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:45.000 don't discount that. Just admit that, you like the Chinese 0:24:45.040 --> 0:24:49.879 where they keep burying their past, you forgot about it, 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:53.520 You forgot about the importance of it. But that importance 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:59.680 is being visual, is what created songs like Gringo, Red, Streamliner, 0:25:00.440 --> 0:25:02.200