Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is the one and only Daryl Hall. Darryll,
Speaker 1: you've been out this summer with Todd Rundgren on the road.
Speaker 1: How did that come together? Well, I, you know, I
Speaker 1: have what I call a body of work album that
Speaker 1: I put out in one February March, I Forget and uh,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to tour behind it and play songs
Speaker 1: that uh that are you know that are my solo
Speaker 1: part of my solo work, and and and I wanted
Speaker 1: somebody to sort of make the Dallas House the life
Speaker 1: of Dallas has experience, uh come to the stage. And
Speaker 1: my first thought was my old friend Todd Rundgren. And
Speaker 1: because it really is a perfect combination. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: his his musical history and mine are a sort of
Speaker 1: very unique and very unique and similar, and and uh
Speaker 1: it's a great It wound up being a really great show. Uh.
Speaker 1: He uses my band, and then we do stuff together
Speaker 1: and stuff separately, and it's all really it's all really
Speaker 1: working out very well. Now. You're both from the Philly
Speaker 1: area in the late sixties. Uh, Todd was from Upper Darby.
Speaker 1: He had the band Naz were you aware of all that?
Speaker 1: Did you like that? Did you know Todd back then?
Speaker 1: I didn't know Todd back in the in the late sixties.
Speaker 1: He worked, uh, he was doing that stuff, right, he
Speaker 1: was in NAZ and what he struck stopped at all
Speaker 1: those bands, which I was aware of, but I was
Speaker 1: I was definitely well ensconced in the world of Philly soul,
Speaker 1: you know, with Gamble and Huff and Tommy Bell and
Speaker 1: people like that, and and UH and and all the
Speaker 1: all the radio stations that were involved in that UH,
Speaker 1: in that UH genre. And so we didn't really know
Speaker 1: each other, and we met in UH. We really met
Speaker 1: in New York in the early seventies, appropriately at at
Speaker 1: a movie showing of Fantase. And how did Todd end
Speaker 1: up uh doing the producing the third Holland Oldts album,
Speaker 1: war Babies. Well, it started with that. You know. I
Speaker 1: thought I had just moved to New York and I
Speaker 1: I was experiencing New York. You know, I was really
Speaker 1: full of beans. It was like Philadelphia was one experience
Speaker 1: I had left that and I said, I want to
Speaker 1: do something completely different and really opened my mind up
Speaker 1: and and opened my mind to the sound of New
Speaker 1: York when I said the sound, you know, the the
Speaker 1: actual street sounds of New York. And I wanted to
Speaker 1: make a record to write songs that reflected that. And
Speaker 1: I was aware of Todd's he had just started working
Speaker 1: with Utopia, and I was I went to see him,
Speaker 1: uh a bunch of times, really, and I was so
Speaker 1: impressed with what he was doing. And also that was
Speaker 1: what he was in his his role. He was he was,
Speaker 1: he was he was producing everybody from Alice Cooper to
Speaker 1: the New York Dolls to god knows who, you know,
Speaker 1: a million people. And Uh, I said, okay, well, why
Speaker 1: don't this this on paper sounds good? You know, an
Speaker 1: ex Philadelphia moved to New York. Obviously he's gonna understand,
Speaker 1: you know, creative person. And let's try and see what happens.
Speaker 1: And what war Babies album is the result of what happened?
Speaker 1: You know? Well, that was your third album on Atlantic,
Speaker 1: and it was not commercially successful. Now, you know most
Speaker 1: people when things are not happening, they sort of break
Speaker 1: apart from those people. How did you maintain a relationship
Speaker 1: with Todd? Uh? I have always respected time and and
Speaker 1: it was just because it wasn't a commercially accessive, accessible
Speaker 1: or with commercially accepted album that that really wasn't what
Speaker 1: my agenda was about with that album. Um, I was
Speaker 1: naive enough and uh idealistic enough to just say, okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on. I did that. That was that was
Speaker 1: an interesting experience, and let's let me use that and
Speaker 1: and uh incorporate that into whatever the future is. And
Speaker 1: I never really lost track of Todd over the years,
Speaker 1: and and uh and so we we've sort of maintained
Speaker 1: this kind of loose relationship for all those years. Now
Speaker 1: ultimately you and your partner produced the Hall and Oates
Speaker 1: albums together, Daryl Hall and John Oates. Uh what did
Speaker 1: you learn from working with Todd? Um? I learned what
Speaker 1: not to do? Don't know? So what shouldn't you do?
Speaker 1: Try try and be accessible, don't don't be inaccessible for
Speaker 1: its own sake. Uh, that that is a lesson I learned.
Speaker 1: Uh It Todds of stubborn, a stubborn guy, and he
Speaker 1: he has a a version to uh to being easily accepted.
Speaker 1: And I used to have arguments with him about it. Said, Todd,
Speaker 1: you know this song, this could work out really well
Speaker 1: and a lot of people would like it. He and
Speaker 1: he did everything he could have like Funk with that idea.
Speaker 1: You know. Uh, It's just it's his personality and he's
Speaker 1: in his mellowness and age now he he has accepted
Speaker 1: the idea that you could be accessible, which is even
Speaker 1: a better reason for us to be working together on stage. Okay,
Speaker 1: do you think if someone else had produced War Babies
Speaker 1: or you've done it yourself, it would have been more
Speaker 1: commercially viable. It would have been more commercially viable, but
Speaker 1: it would have been the same album. Maybe I don't
Speaker 1: even know if it would have been the same songs.
Speaker 1: Uh it was. I tend to write for projects, and
Speaker 1: uh that was written with the idea that I was
Speaker 1: going to work with Todd in New York and New
Speaker 1: York environment, and and uh I may have written a
Speaker 1: completely different set of songs on my own with somebody
Speaker 1: else or whatever. You know. Tell me about writing for projects,
Speaker 1: what do you mean there? Well, I I don't write.
Speaker 1: I mean I do write randomly, but I tend to
Speaker 1: not not focus my writing until I know that I'm
Speaker 1: going to either work with somebody or there's some project
Speaker 1: that's coming up. Um, and then I write with that
Speaker 1: in mind. It's sort of like energizes me and I
Speaker 1: start writing like crazy and you know, coming up with
Speaker 1: ideas and do this all of a piece, and uh
Speaker 1: that that tends to come out. I like to keep
Speaker 1: a momentum going. I recently, i've uh deviated from that.
Speaker 1: And I didn't like that because I was doing a
Speaker 1: lot of false starts because I'm so busy with other things,
Speaker 1: and I would get all excited about something to do it,
Speaker 1: and then it would sort of like sit on the shelf,
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't like doing that. I like working
Speaker 1: for the project, putting out the project, keeping the enthusiasm
Speaker 1: going for the project, and taking it through to its completion.
Speaker 1: So what would be the time window prior to going
Speaker 1: into the studio we call an album a project? When
Speaker 1: would you get excited and then start to compose when
Speaker 1: I knew I was gonna start doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: when when it when it started getting scheduled and I
Speaker 1: knew who I was gonna work with. Uh, And and
Speaker 1: even in the early stages of the recordings, I would uh,
Speaker 1: my my mind would be on fire, you know. And
Speaker 1: that's and I write things right, you know, very spontaneously
Speaker 1: and quickly. Uh Uh. That's usually the way as worked
Speaker 1: for me. Okay, And you say you change the content
Speaker 1: depending on who you're working with, Yeah, to some degree,
Speaker 1: I changed the mood. I might change. I won't change
Speaker 1: the emotional uh source of of the song that that
Speaker 1: comes from me and my experiences. But as far as
Speaker 1: production goes and even my the melodies I choose, with
Speaker 1: the chords I choose, it really has to do a
Speaker 1: lot with with with with with with the moment, with
Speaker 1: with what what I'm trying to um with the people
Speaker 1: that I'm working with. Really, Okay, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the beginning. You grow up in the Philly area, in
Speaker 1: town and the suburbs where I grew up in Pottstown,
Speaker 1: which is a Chest County and it was it was
Speaker 1: an industrial town with farms all around it. And I
Speaker 1: sort of had my feet on both sides. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: I lived in amidst farm land, a bicycle right away
Speaker 1: from the deepest neighborhoods that you want to deal with.
Speaker 1: And uh so I've always been a sort of a
Speaker 1: rural urban person, you know, a foot in both sides.
Speaker 1: And what did your parents do for a living? My
Speaker 1: mother wore it was a singer and and she was
Speaker 1: in a band. And she worked also at a radio station,
Speaker 1: the Pottstown Radio Station. And uh, and my father was
Speaker 1: around a pattern making department because Potstown was at that
Speaker 1: time was a very industrial town. And how many kids
Speaker 1: in the family. I have a sister that's it five
Speaker 1: years younger than me. And what's your relationship with her?
Speaker 1: Extremely close? Anything you see visually? Uh, ever is my
Speaker 1: collaboration with her? You know, she's a graphic a graphic designer, artist, ah,
Speaker 1: many many things, and she she sort of controls my
Speaker 1: visual world. Okay, I'm a little younger than you, and
Speaker 1: I remember listening to the early sixties radio and knowing
Speaker 1: some of those tracks, listening to sports and then the
Speaker 1: Beatles hit and it really took off. What was your
Speaker 1: experience listening to radio and getting into music. Well, in
Speaker 1: Philadelphia it's a really unique environment, or it was a
Speaker 1: really unique environment, continues to be really to some degree. Uh.
Speaker 1: And in the when I was a teenager, pop radio
Speaker 1: was not popular. Uh in Philadelphia people the hip Wi
Speaker 1: Zi anyway, it wasn't popular with those people. And and
Speaker 1: if you were cool, you listened to you either listened
Speaker 1: to soul of music which was everywhere, and that was
Speaker 1: that was baby food, or even the precursor of that,
Speaker 1: which was was street corner music, which was the acapella
Speaker 1: music and doo wop and early early vocal rock and roll. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there was a guy named Jerry Blavitt who was
Speaker 1: a very very influential person to people who cared about music.
Speaker 1: And I was just a total devu tea of that,
Speaker 1: and I was just I was sort of a street
Speaker 1: corner singer and uh um. And that was my beginnings
Speaker 1: doing that. And then that's closely aligned with the whole
Speaker 1: soul thing, you know, I mean vocal groups, uh, whether
Speaker 1: they be the Temptations or or the Dandeliers. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's just a progression of the same
Speaker 1: kind of music. But we rejected. The Beatles were not
Speaker 1: even thought about in Philadelphia until later later period, let's say,
Speaker 1: around Revolver Stargard Pepper, people started saying, oh, the Beatles
Speaker 1: have something interesting to offer Philadelphians. Before that, they just
Speaker 1: looked at him like a bar band. Okay, you say
Speaker 1: you were street corner singer, You're living in a rural area.
Speaker 1: What did that literally look like? Being a Street corner singer. Well,
Speaker 1: I my parents lived in a rural area, but my
Speaker 1: all her, all their friends lived in black neighborhood in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: I mean sorry in pots Uh so I would I've
Speaker 1: sort of lived. Sometimes I would sleep at home, but
Speaker 1: I would, especially in the summertime, I would just be
Speaker 1: over there on on on Walnut Street in Pottstown. And
Speaker 1: uh and it was it was. It was music on
Speaker 1: the streets. That's the best way I could put it.
Speaker 1: It was it was an integrated neighborhood. And uh and
Speaker 1: it was the kind of music I liked, everything from
Speaker 1: gospel music and church music from the corner churches to
Speaker 1: uh uh two people playing record players in their houses
Speaker 1: on the front porches and stuff like that. Okay, you
Speaker 1: come from a soul influence. What about doo wop or
Speaker 1: Dion and the Belmonts where it was part of your consciousness?
Speaker 1: Was that something different? Well? Do Deanna go abouts were
Speaker 1: way too pop? I mean that that that's uh that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. Yes, I do want music. Vocal group man,
Speaker 1: you know, people just standing around um and and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Okay, so you're growing up. What kind
Speaker 1: of kid? Are you? A good student? Bad student? Have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends out you know, an outsider. I
Speaker 1: was an outsider. I was a restless, a restless person. Uh,
Speaker 1: I was you know, I'm a I know you know this, Bob.
Speaker 1: I'm an avid reader, like a book worm and in
Speaker 1: the story and and all that kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: that put me in odds as a child. You know,
Speaker 1: I was a good student. Yeah, very good student until
Speaker 1: I so I got to be a teenager and then
Speaker 1: I became a very restless and indifferent student. And uh,
Speaker 1: I was more interested in, uh hanging out than I
Speaker 1: was uh doing my homework. So at what point did
Speaker 1: you learn to play musical instrument? I started playing piano
Speaker 1: at five, and uh, and I played. I took you know,
Speaker 1: former piano lessons until I was about twelve or thirteen.
Speaker 1: And uh then my mother or for some bizarre reason,
Speaker 1: decided that she wanted me to play the trombone and
Speaker 1: I and I picked up the trombone. And I pretty
Speaker 1: much hated the trombone, you know, I mean, what cornball instrument.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to play the saxophone. But she said
Speaker 1: something about your mouth shape isn't right for you know,
Speaker 1: why didn't I get a saxophone? I don't know, but
Speaker 1: uh uh, So I stopped the piano lessons and then
Speaker 1: started playing on my own and writing songs and and
Speaker 1: becoming you know, learning sort of playing self taught, so
Speaker 1: you know, self teaching. And then when I when I
Speaker 1: was I went to tump of University music school so
Speaker 1: that I resumed my more formal piano studies. And I
Speaker 1: was actually a piano opera major. And I went there
Speaker 1: for five years. And but you didn't graduate, right? I
Speaker 1: quit a few weeks before in graduation. What was the
Speaker 1: reason there? I had a choice between having to complete
Speaker 1: this rigorous UH student teaching program or playing a bar band.
Speaker 1: And I was in a I thought it was a
Speaker 1: good bar band, and and my supervisor says, you can't
Speaker 1: do both. You have to choose your life. Either you're
Speaker 1: going to do this music education thing or you or
Speaker 1: you're going to be a rock and roll singer. And
Speaker 1: I said, okay, you just made my mind by now.
Speaker 1: Frequently when someone has as much success as you do,
Speaker 1: their old college reaches out and gives him an honorary
Speaker 1: degree or something. Has temple reached out. Yeah I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't bother with it. I've been I've been offered
Speaker 1: honorary honorary degrees by Berkeley and Temple, and I just
Speaker 1: I'm not interested. I don't care. Okay. So when you're
Speaker 1: going to Temple, you're then living in Philly. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I moved to Philadelphia when I was a seventeen and
Speaker 1: immediately jumped into the heart of the whole thing. And uh,
Speaker 1: that was the that was the great thing about being
Speaker 1: going to Tumpy University where in North Philadelphia, at five
Speaker 1: blocks from the Uptown Theater and uh and you know,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of the one of the deepest
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods in the city. And uh I lived in
Speaker 1: inhabited that area for five years. And and beyond that,
Speaker 1: of course, uh and that that really quote of sort
Speaker 1: of formed me. You know, I was I was. I
Speaker 1: mentioned what I was into in Pottstown, but then when
Speaker 1: I got to Affiliate really just kind of locked in
Speaker 1: and I immediately met, uh with within a few months,
Speaker 1: I met Gamble and huff And and Tommy Bell and
Speaker 1: people like that, and uh so it all it all
Speaker 1: started formalizing and and you know, coalescing. Okay, So when
Speaker 1: you went to Temple on this music program, what did
Speaker 1: do you think do you think, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: got to do something now, or I want to do
Speaker 1: something you know more class to call, probably want to
Speaker 1: mark time before I become a rock and roller soul star.
Speaker 1: What was in your mind? Well, No, I was learning
Speaker 1: things in school. I learned how to be a ranger
Speaker 1: and and uh you know, I did a lot of
Speaker 1: sophicio and you know, I home home my craft, uh formally,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, I was sitting in the corner,
Speaker 1: and I was hanging out and making records with the
Speaker 1: Temp Tones and and uh and and and hanging out
Speaker 1: with Tommy Bell and people like that. So it was
Speaker 1: that to me, that was my real education. Was was
Speaker 1: was was being introduced and and working with with with
Speaker 1: the early Philadelphia sound. Well, how did you meet tom
Speaker 1: Bell and Gamble and Huff. I had a band, We
Speaker 1: formed a temple called the Temp Talents. It was a
Speaker 1: vocal group and uh we they used to have just
Speaker 1: like the Apollo in New York. They used to have
Speaker 1: talent shows when I believe it was Wednesday nights and
Speaker 1: uh we uh did did a talent show at the
Speaker 1: at the Uptown Theater and we won the talent show
Speaker 1: and the prize was you got to make a record
Speaker 1: with Kenny and Leon and and uh so they had
Speaker 1: this you know, small label, Arctic Records. We went into
Speaker 1: the sport track studio Virtue Sound Studios and uh uh
Speaker 1: Frankie Virtue Studio and uh uh and and we made
Speaker 1: uh we made a record. And uh, this guy Jimmy Bishop,
Speaker 1: who was a DJ and one of the top DJs
Speaker 1: in phil in the in w D as in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: uh picked us up and started sort of semi managing us.
Speaker 1: And uh and you know, we had a chart record
Speaker 1: in w D A S charts, R and B charts
Speaker 1: and uh. Through that, I can't remember how I met Tommy.
Speaker 1: I actually can't remember, but immediately got along with him
Speaker 1: and I used to go and hang out and he
Speaker 1: used to have an office at Cameo Parkway. This was
Speaker 1: before Philadelphia National and H and I used to go
Speaker 1: and sit there and listen to him play the piano
Speaker 1: and come up with ideas. And uh so I certainly
Speaker 1: learned a lot from Tommy Bell. What year are we in?
Speaker 1: Uh sixty? Okay? The fact that you were white? Did
Speaker 1: they see color? Were you the only white guy? Was
Speaker 1: it accepted? Was it integrated in those days. That was
Speaker 1: it was, it was integrated. I never I never once
Speaker 1: had a problem with any of that stuff back in
Speaker 1: the day, and I never have since then. So you
Speaker 1: have a dream, you have a record, it's on the chart.
Speaker 1: What did that feel like? I mean, it's played on
Speaker 1: the radio. It was wild. I remember I was walking
Speaker 1: on on Broad Street. Uh. And these kids, they're really
Speaker 1: cool kids, like you know, it's cool Italian kids. They
Speaker 1: look like it could have been on American dand Stand
Speaker 1: or something. And then and they're walking down the street
Speaker 1: and they're singing girl and I Love You and they're
Speaker 1: like harmonizing. And I ran up to him and I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: that's my song, and that's my song and they went,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I get the funk out of here. You know,
Speaker 1: So you have that one success, then what about a
Speaker 1: follow up? Oh? I don't know. I wasn't thinking about
Speaker 1: follow ups. I My brain wasn't. It's never been there, Bob.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a commercially oriented person. And the
Speaker 1: irony is that I've had such success commercially, but I
Speaker 1: don't really care about that stuff. I don't write for
Speaker 1: those kind of with with that in mind, Um, I
Speaker 1: U I we made another record, you know, and and
Speaker 1: it was called say These Words of Love. He didn't
Speaker 1: do anything. And then I moved on and the Tempts
Speaker 1: broke up. And then, uh, like I said, I moved on. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you moved on, you know, you had the singing groups.
Speaker 1: At what point did you form a band? And it
Speaker 1: was more you know, rock and soul. I never really well,
Speaker 1: I was in a bar band for a while and
Speaker 1: that was what I quit the Temple for. And it
Speaker 1: was called Paling the Profits and they were that was
Speaker 1: the closest thing to a bar band I was ever in.
Speaker 1: And uh, I don't know. I didn't really get along
Speaker 1: with Paler that well, he's a he's a good guy,
Speaker 1: but I you know, we we bumped heads. So that
Speaker 1: didn't last too long. And uh then I started just
Speaker 1: sort of kicking around and and and using my connections.
Speaker 1: I started hanging out with uh with in Stigma Sound
Speaker 1: and doing backup work, doing on the odd keyboard playing
Speaker 1: and things like that, odds and ends and uh and
Speaker 1: and sort of hooked up with this guy named John
Speaker 1: Madera who was his One of his claim to fame
Speaker 1: was he wrote it at the Hop okay, and you know,
Speaker 1: and he wrote you Don't on Me with Leslie Gore
Speaker 1: and one to three with Letty you know, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean that's that's John Madera. You know, he wrote those
Speaker 1: songs and he had a production of production and publishing company,
Speaker 1: and I sort of attached myself to that, and he
Speaker 1: gave me a little money occasionally, and I played, you know,
Speaker 1: I do sessions for like thirty bucks and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and and well I lived in a place it only
Speaker 1: cost eighty five dollars a month, so it was it
Speaker 1: wasn't that hard to live and uh and then I
Speaker 1: uh uh yeah, the end of all that is when
Speaker 1: I met John and we decided to play some songs
Speaker 1: together acoustically and uh and we started playing in coffee
Speaker 1: houses and places like that. And that's when that Okay,
Speaker 1: when you met John and you formed men and playing
Speaker 1: pistically was that because it was the moment the late
Speaker 1: sixties what was going on? Because that seems to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of a change from your soul background.
Speaker 1: It was a change. I think that uh, meeting John,
Speaker 1: I was the reason that I got together with him
Speaker 1: is because he was involved in a scene that I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about I knew nothing about bluegrass music
Speaker 1: or folk music or any of that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: It just didn't it wasn't, you know, it was invisible
Speaker 1: to me. And uh, I was sort of fascinated by
Speaker 1: it because I was still a student, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to expand my mind and I was learning,
Speaker 1: trying to learn about things that I didn't know that
Speaker 1: and I did gravitate the bluegrass music because it's it's
Speaker 1: it's over kind of soul. I mean, bluegrass is very
Speaker 1: soul for music. And we started I started listening to that.
Speaker 1: He started turning me onto all that stuff. And that
Speaker 1: was really how we form related in our early relationship. Musically,
Speaker 1: was my natural what did I do, you know, my
Speaker 1: my background, my soul thing, and and his what I
Speaker 1: what they call these days Americana, you know, and and
Speaker 1: mixing those two things together. Okay, you're doing this. It's
Speaker 1: just one of the many things you're doing or you're saying,
Speaker 1: wait a second, this is my road to success. Well,
Speaker 1: at that point we were sort of doing both. I
Speaker 1: was still with Gamble and Huff doing stuff. But one day,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can remember this, I had made a
Speaker 1: decision and Kenny. He came to He came to me,
Speaker 1: He said, do you want do you want to work
Speaker 1: with Philadelphia International? You want to be a songwriter, you
Speaker 1: want to be an artist? And I I said no,
Speaker 1: I said, I think I want to move to New
Speaker 1: York with Oates and we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna
Speaker 1: take what we do and go out of Philadelphia. I
Speaker 1: just wanted. I wanted to expand outside of Philadelphia. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but I did. And so that was
Speaker 1: a decision made and we moved to New York and
Speaker 1: then all that other ship started. Okay, did you let
Speaker 1: me stay? When you're in Philadelphia? What is your rep
Speaker 1: is you? Are you known as that guy who's got
Speaker 1: that voice or you're just one of the people. You know,
Speaker 1: How were you perceived? Uh? Yeah, I was perceived that way,
Speaker 1: that that guy, that guy that sings that way. Uh
Speaker 1: I was. You know, it was a relatively small environment
Speaker 1: and community, and uh uh yeah, I got it. I had.
Speaker 1: I had a reputation for doing what I do. Now,
Speaker 1: for those on the inside, they know that success is
Speaker 1: not accidental and usually it's a matter of relationships. Working
Speaker 1: in religious anybody's working in mand is not successful knows that,
Speaker 1: so are you relatively a hustler? Connector to what degree?
Speaker 1: Was John like that? What was going on? I am
Speaker 1: a person who takes advantage of opportunities whenever I can
Speaker 1: find them, and if they if if I feel like
Speaker 1: they make sense to me. I'm certainly more that way
Speaker 1: than Oates was. Okay, so you moved to New York,
Speaker 1: no manager, no band, Where do you live? What's the
Speaker 1: first step? Well, I did sort of have a manager. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we'll go back to that. I I did not
Speaker 1: get along with John Madera. Ultimately we parted company not
Speaker 1: so well. And he but the one thing that he
Speaker 1: did for me is he had a temporary he used
Speaker 1: to lease his publishing out and at the time he
Speaker 1: at least his publishing publishing out the Chapel Music up
Speaker 1: in New York. And I went up there and with
Speaker 1: him to go to the office one time I don't
Speaker 1: know why, and met this kid, uh named Tommy Montola,
Speaker 1: and ah, he was years old and he had an
Speaker 1: office the size of a telephone booth and uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not even sure if that was his office.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he said, what's going on, you know, and
Speaker 1: we we became sort of started talking, became friends, and
Speaker 1: he heard what I did and he said, basically said,
Speaker 1: why don't you move to New York City and I'll
Speaker 1: manage you? And he was years old. Well I was
Speaker 1: only twenty two and h and I said, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can't stand what I'm doing, so let's go for it.
Speaker 1: And he started pretending to be a manager. And uh.
Speaker 1: One thing that happened that chapel, which was very useful,
Speaker 1: is that this guy named Norm Wiser, who is his boss,
Speaker 1: hooked hooked me up with a trip and John too
Speaker 1: too with with a trip to the West Coast and
Speaker 1: we went to l A and we started auditioning to people,
Speaker 1: four people, and we uh we wound up with this
Speaker 1: guy named Errol her mc grath who had a little
Speaker 1: tiny label called Clean Records, and even he used to
Speaker 1: be sort of a he had a salad of musicians
Speaker 1: and artists and all that. And we played for him
Speaker 1: and he said, would you like to sign to our label?
Speaker 1: And we said yes. And then he for whatever his
Speaker 1: reasons that this is a part behind the scenes that
Speaker 1: I don't know about. Somehow that parlayed into me auditioning
Speaker 1: for a Reef Martin and an Amen and Jerry Greenberg
Speaker 1: U in New York City. And the next thing I knew,
Speaker 1: Earl gave up his claim to us and I was
Speaker 1: on Atlantic Records. Well of course, or or all ended
Speaker 1: up running Rolling Stones Records, which was through Atlantic. Who
Speaker 1: knows what the story was there? What year we in? Okay,
Speaker 1: this this is about n Okay? So was it you
Speaker 1: and John that are out there? Yeah? This is this
Speaker 1: is a whole notes story. Tommy makes a deal with
Speaker 1: Atlantic Records. Tommy didn't have the ability to make that question.
Speaker 1: He was twenty one years old. No, No, this guy
Speaker 1: Role McGrath made a deal. He roma grath said, check
Speaker 1: these guys out. I sat down to a broken piano
Speaker 1: and aid for a Reef Marten with with with the
Speaker 1: flu and and and and am it And they said
Speaker 1: you're signed, buddy. And that's how it happened. Okay, who
Speaker 1: made the deal for you? Who? Need you have a lawyer? What?
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Yeah? I had a lawyer and
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name. I did have a lawyer. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lawyer was involved. Okay. Frequently when someone is knocked
Speaker 1: around as much as you have. If you have any success,
Speaker 1: somebody comes out and says, I have paper you know,
Speaker 1: you know I had a contract those songs of mind
Speaker 1: that happened to you at all. Yes, John Madera, John
Speaker 1: Madera has been living off me for years. He claims
Speaker 1: made claims of of uh of owning demos that I
Speaker 1: did on my own and with John and with this,
Speaker 1: with these guys, this guy named Tommy Sellers, we had
Speaker 1: this kind of studio band we called Gulliver and he
Speaker 1: put them out under Hall and Oates Record early days,
Speaker 1: all on Oates and all that, and he never I
Speaker 1: never saw a dime at all. And that's that story.
Speaker 1: But yes, of course that that inevitably happens. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you signed with Atlantic, you're making a record. We're along
Speaker 1: the line, do you have a band or if you
Speaker 1: ever have a band. Well, we started when we were
Speaker 1: playing in these tiny places. It was just the two
Speaker 1: of us, and then we we did add a drummer
Speaker 1: and and a guy who uh played upright bass, and
Speaker 1: and an electric bass. And so by the time we
Speaker 1: actually had a this beginning of a record deal, we
Speaker 1: actually had a four piece band, and we we went
Speaker 1: in the studio with the first album with part of
Speaker 1: the with those guys to some degree, and also a
Speaker 1: Reef studio bands, you know, various people that that he
Speaker 1: liked to use for the Atlantic records. Okay, you moved
Speaker 1: from Philly to New York and with Tommy's you know, instigation.
Speaker 1: What was it like suddenly being in New York And
Speaker 1: did you ever gain a rep in New York or
Speaker 1: just Tommy got you to go to the West coast
Speaker 1: we meet her in McGrath, etcetera. No, we we didn't
Speaker 1: really move to New York until we had already signed
Speaker 1: with Atlantic and we're we're in the process of starting
Speaker 1: to make the first record and and so we we
Speaker 1: were newcomers in town and uh we were in the
Speaker 1: Atlantic studios and uh uh like that, I mean that
Speaker 1: was we weren't really even playing in New York. We uh,
Speaker 1: it was mostly just for recording and and then we played.
Speaker 1: We were playing in Philadelphia, we played a few other places.
Speaker 1: We weren't really playing a lot a lot at that
Speaker 1: period of time. Okay, you meet John, you ultimately lived together.
Speaker 1: You know the nature of these relationships as you kind
Speaker 1: of grow up with people, then you grow apart you're
Speaker 1: in you know, buses. How do you maintain a friendship
Speaker 1: if at all? Or how do you start to argue
Speaker 1: over you know, this ends up being over decades. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's it becomes sort of very similar to brothers
Speaker 1: in my case, in John's case. You know, you get
Speaker 1: along with your brother. Sometimes you don't get along with
Speaker 1: your brother. You uh, you know you don't have to
Speaker 1: be around that person, but yet you know you see
Speaker 1: him at Christmas time? You know, hey, how you doing?
Speaker 1: And and that's that's as much as you need to
Speaker 1: do that kind of stuff. That's that's that's pretty much
Speaker 1: describes my relationship with John. Uh. We we have experienced
Speaker 1: a lot together over the years, and we've experienced a
Speaker 1: lot separately. And time changes. Time changes things. It changes
Speaker 1: your relationship. It doesn't change certain things, uh, brothers or brothers,
Speaker 1: but time does change things. Okay, see him make a
Speaker 1: record with the wreath. You know who's some of a
Speaker 1: lot of experience and a lot of success. What was
Speaker 1: that like? And what you learn from a reef? Everything?
Speaker 1: I learned everything from Reef. He he was, he was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I I will never stop saying that I, uh, the
Speaker 1: best thing ever happened to me was was my relationship
Speaker 1: with Reef. He was a He was to me A
Speaker 1: Reef and Quincy Jones are the two best producers in
Speaker 1: modern music. Uh. He could do anything. He could put
Speaker 1: anything together and make it work and make it real.
Speaker 1: His his his musical knowledge was so desparate, it was
Speaker 1: so all encompassing, h that you couldn't throw anything at him,
Speaker 1: No artist could throw anything at him that he didn't
Speaker 1: have the ability to relate to and understand and and
Speaker 1: and formulate into something coherent and and good. Um. He
Speaker 1: was a real gentleman. And I had a very close
Speaker 1: relationship with him for years and years, even after all
Speaker 1: this stuff went down, Uh, and all the way to
Speaker 1: his death. A relationship with Okay, a lot of people
Speaker 1: say they make the first record even though you had
Speaker 1: experience in your case, and they're kind of overwhelmed and
Speaker 1: they let the producers steer them. Was that your experience?
Speaker 1: Who you have so much experience you could sort of
Speaker 1: stand up for what you wanted? Well, I I didn't
Speaker 1: know what I wanted with a Reef and the whole
Speaker 1: Oats record. I don't even like that record. If you
Speaker 1: want the truth, Uh, but what I like what a
Speaker 1: Reef did to it. That that's the best part. The
Speaker 1: best part is a Reef of that record. Um um.
Speaker 1: It was a It was a bunch of songs that
Speaker 1: we had written while we were in school and all that,
Speaker 1: and it was sort of a compilation that we decided
Speaker 1: it was a first album, you know. So I was
Speaker 1: I was more than happy to have somebody like a
Speaker 1: Reef directing the show. Now, I'm not usually like that,
Speaker 1: and I don't respond so well to autocratic producers. He
Speaker 1: wasn't that, by the way, but uh, I was very
Speaker 1: happy that he jumped in and made something out of
Speaker 1: that record and out of those songs. Okay, what does
Speaker 1: the label say when the first record is not really successful?
Speaker 1: They didn't. It was different times. Many they they said,
Speaker 1: don't worry about hits, just make great music. And that
Speaker 1: was what Alma said to me, and I always respect
Speaker 1: him for that. You know. They they believed in developing artists.
Speaker 1: So next you make a band in luncheon at what's
Speaker 1: the different experience there from making the first album? Well,
Speaker 1: I we that was purpose purpose written. That was written
Speaker 1: for that project, as I was talking about earlier, and
Speaker 1: uh uh, it was a really to me, that was
Speaker 1: a whole of its album. Um, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of John's John could remat it a lot to that album,
Speaker 1: and She's Gone is the ultimate contribution. That is the
Speaker 1: ultimate Hall of Notts song because it was written by
Speaker 1: all of notes and uh uh it was really really
Speaker 1: exquisitely produced album, interestingly produced. Uh. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anything like it. It's a bizarre album, but in its
Speaker 1: own way. Uh. And I'm I'm I continue to be
Speaker 1: very proud of that album. I think that was a
Speaker 1: great album and it and it defines whatever. And if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about Hall and Oates, that's that's
Speaker 1: the record to pay attention to. Now. Frequently when someone
Speaker 1: writes a classic, they know it. And did you know
Speaker 1: She's Gone was a classic? And how did you feel
Speaker 1: about the fact that it didn't get traction at that time?
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody knows they read a classic until
Speaker 1: after the fact. That's impossible to know. I knew that
Speaker 1: I were a groups. We wrote a good song. A
Speaker 1: reef his eyes lit up the first time I played it.
Speaker 1: I sat down and played that that riff that I
Speaker 1: play on the on the piano. I knew there was
Speaker 1: something good about it, and uh I uh was what's
Speaker 1: the word I was? I was patient enough to let it,
Speaker 1: let the cards fall, you know. I mean the first
Speaker 1: thing that happened was it got covered by a bunch
Speaker 1: of people. Uh even Lou Rawls covered it, you know.
Speaker 1: Uh Tavaris had a hint with it, um and and
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until Sarah smiled at anybody really focused
Speaker 1: on it as as as a Darrel and Johns song,
Speaker 1: although on quote underground radio and it got a lot
Speaker 1: of play back in those days. Okay, since who owned
Speaker 1: your publishing at that point, well that's always been a
Speaker 1: key subject. Uh, I don't even know. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what. I wasn't paying it. I was stupid, like
Speaker 1: many people were stupid, and I wasn't paying much attention
Speaker 1: to my publishing. I didn't even understand publishing back then.
Speaker 1: When did you learn about publishing? Too late? Too late
Speaker 1: to who owns your songs? Today? Uh? I owned them
Speaker 1: and the other seventy yeah right now? BMG. Okay, just
Speaker 1: so I know of the publishing such that if you
Speaker 1: write the song, you get seventy five cents on the dollar. No,
Speaker 1: I get period yeah, okay. And b MG does not
Speaker 1: own it, it's just licensed to b MG. Real they
Speaker 1: owned Okay. So out, let's assume you stop working tomorrow
Speaker 1: only only owning only you're publishing. Is that enough to
Speaker 1: have you make ends meet? Oh? Yeah, probably is okay?
Speaker 1: So you make the second album, you make the third album,
Speaker 1: At what point do you realize there's gonna be no
Speaker 1: future in Atlantic? And how did you end up at
Speaker 1: our c A. Well, it was it was ah, it
Speaker 1: was more business. I again, this was more Tommy Matola
Speaker 1: talking to people. You know, he talked to us, guy
Speaker 1: Mike bernick Er and and and I mean I kind
Speaker 1: of remember these names, uh at our c A and
Speaker 1: I think they offered us a lot of money to leave,
Speaker 1: and I think Jerry Greenberg said it's okay, we're not
Speaker 1: it's not really it's not really clicking yet, and we'll
Speaker 1: let it go. And I'm not quite sure how that
Speaker 1: all went down, but that's that's sort of what happened. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know to what degree you were conscious, but
Speaker 1: at the time Our c H did not have a
Speaker 1: good reputation for breaking acts. I didn't know ship. All
Speaker 1: I know is they were giving us you know, Matt All,
Speaker 1: I was incredibly ignorant, Bob. That's all I can say. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how did you How did you approach the first
Speaker 1: album in r C A differently from how you approached
Speaker 1: the records on Atlantic Um. I can't remember because Chris Bond,
Speaker 1: uh oh, I was working. We had a guitar player
Speaker 1: named Christopher Bond, and he was active when they abandoned
Speaker 1: Legendent record and he said let me produce you and
Speaker 1: I said okay. And it was basically he was the
Speaker 1: band's guitar player and he was very talented guy. And
Speaker 1: and uh uh, I don't know what else to say
Speaker 1: about it. I wrote a bunch of songs and there
Speaker 1: they are. So how did you write? Sarah Small sat
Speaker 1: down with the piano and wrote it. It was I
Speaker 1: was in living in an apartment street and uh I
Speaker 1: basically it was a postcard. I mean Sandy was there.
Speaker 1: I mean she was in the other room probably when
Speaker 1: I wrote it. Well, were you writing it for a
Speaker 1: project or did you get an inspiration standing in the
Speaker 1: shower and go I gotta run with this? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I totally inspirational. And then always songs are inspirational.
Speaker 1: It just happens to be within the project. But yes,
Speaker 1: I I was reading, I knew that I was writing
Speaker 1: for that album, and I said, okay, here's a song.
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was total inspiration. And so
Speaker 1: let's assume you're writing for a project. You know, you
Speaker 1: could sit in your studio and say it's from the guitar. Well,
Speaker 1: you could wait for a bull to lightning. What is
Speaker 1: that experience like? Or there's certain tricks you use try
Speaker 1: to be inspired, Well tricks, There are no tricks. I
Speaker 1: I just observe. I observed and opened my heart and
Speaker 1: and and that's how things happen. And that's as simple
Speaker 1: as that. It's it's it's it's not it's anti intellectual.
Speaker 1: Well two things. What happens if hey, what happens? If
Speaker 1: it's not coming, I walk away. I just move on.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. I don't be laboring. Okay, do
Speaker 1: you ever say this isn't working, so let me go
Speaker 1: to a movie, let me go out for a drive,
Speaker 1: and maybe that'll loosen me up. Well, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: even sit down with the idea that I'm going to
Speaker 1: do anything. I usually it's an inspiration and I walk
Speaker 1: over to the guitar, walk over to a keyboard, and
Speaker 1: and and make something happen. It isn't that I sit
Speaker 1: there and like a typewriter and say, okay, well this
Speaker 1: is working, and this isn't working. It's it's working because
Speaker 1: I walk over to the keyboard now and one of
Speaker 1: these projects. Did you ever find that you weren't inspired
Speaker 1: enough before the recording date hit? No? No, I always
Speaker 1: I always rest to the occasion. Uh. The results aren't
Speaker 1: always what I was hoping for or whatever, but but
Speaker 1: I I rested the occasion. I always do. So how
Speaker 1: did you meet the Allen sisters? I met Sarah Allen
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia? Uh, actually John introduced me to her. Johnny
Speaker 1: used to like to walk around and he still probably
Speaker 1: does that, and uh, you know, on the streets and
Speaker 1: just say a lot of people and uh, Sandy Allen,
Speaker 1: Sarah Allen, who was living around the corner. Not to
Speaker 1: my knowledge, she was just out of college. She was
Speaker 1: a charter she worked for Charter Airlines, and uh, she
Speaker 1: was in and out of town, you know. And she
Speaker 1: came over to the house one day and I met
Speaker 1: her and I said, no, you know, and we eventually
Speaker 1: we did something clicked, and uh we wound up living
Speaker 1: together and uh we trying to remember we didn't live
Speaker 1: together Philadelphia. We that was right around the time when
Speaker 1: I was moving to New York and we we shared
Speaker 1: that apartment on eighty two Street, and her sister lived
Speaker 1: in Chicago. She was a la kid and uh I
Speaker 1: met her around that time. Family stuff, and and we
Speaker 1: grew very close, all the three of us, and uh
Speaker 1: and and Joanna moved to uh the East Coast, and
Speaker 1: we were all sort of hanging out together and it was, uh,
Speaker 1: it was, it was. It was really quite nice. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: like I said, John, I was just a kid, and
Speaker 1: uh but she was a very eager to learn kid.
Speaker 1: She was really a talented musician. I have to say,
Speaker 1: she was really talented. Okay, now you've been married, how
Speaker 1: did you decide to get married? Is your work? As
Speaker 1: things are kind of bouncing off the walls before. So
Speaker 1: that was that was I look at that as kids stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, as you know the error I grew up in.
Speaker 1: You went study and you got married, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: this girl, it was it was a school school stuff,
Speaker 1: and uh, we quickly learned that we weren't going to
Speaker 1: last you know it was we were just kids, and uh,
Speaker 1: it lasted like two and a half years or something
Speaker 1: like that. How did it end imicably? It did just
Speaker 1: sort of who and in the fifty decade, five decades
Speaker 1: fifty years since then, have any contact or never seen her?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen her in decades. Okay, So how do
Speaker 1: you end up writing songs with the Allan system? Well
Speaker 1: it started on the silver album. I had this song
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't matter, Yeah, it doesn't matter. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean Sandy was around. You know when we say
Speaker 1: Sandy is Sarah? You know? And uh, uh she was
Speaker 1: around just as we're there is her birthday? Sandy or Sarah?
Speaker 1: And how did one day come? The name is Sarah
Speaker 1: Allen and and she everybody calls her Sandy that knows
Speaker 1: her any reason, any reason? Why do we know she's
Speaker 1: been Sandy is says she was a kid. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're sitting around continue there, So anyway, I'll use Sandy
Speaker 1: now because I know that everybody knows who Sarah is.
Speaker 1: And uh, and she used to just sit around and
Speaker 1: well she'd be there, you know, in the house we
Speaker 1: were I've right in the living room, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: she started contributing things, and she's in that song. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter anymore. She contributed to the song, and
Speaker 1: I went, oh, okay, well, she actually has something interesting
Speaker 1: to say here. And in those days she didn't. It
Speaker 1: was it was not anything official, and she didn't really
Speaker 1: write with me very much in those days. I can't
Speaker 1: remember when she actually started really collaborating or co writing
Speaker 1: or throwing lyrics out. I can't remember which song would
Speaker 1: have been the first one other than that one. Uh.
Speaker 1: But in the in the late around and well, all
Speaker 1: those eighties songs is when it really came into fruition
Speaker 1: and she was really in the middle of all that
Speaker 1: and and really contributing a lot. Uh. And as far
Speaker 1: as Joanna goes, Janice the first, the first song I
Speaker 1: ever wrote with Janna. She was that at that time,
Speaker 1: she was living where the parents had no no with
Speaker 1: the parents. She was living in l A. And Uh.
Speaker 1: She had the idea of a song called kiss on
Speaker 1: my list, and it was a first song I ever
Speaker 1: wrote with her. She's twenty and and I sat down
Speaker 1: whether to a world or her piano she had in
Speaker 1: her little living room, and I started playing those chords
Speaker 1: and and and she started. You know, we we literally
Speaker 1: wrote the song together. And I wrote it because she
Speaker 1: says she wanted to be an artist, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: let's write a song for you. And I did that song,
Speaker 1: and I went back to New York and made it.
Speaker 1: I did a four track demo of it, and that's
Speaker 1: what you hear. That's the four track demo. Yeah, oh
Speaker 1: really kissing. Okay, let's go. Let's go back to the
Speaker 1: silver album. So Sarah Smile as a hit, and in
Speaker 1: the wake of that, She's Gone is released and as
Speaker 1: a hit too. What was your experience? Sarah Smile had
Speaker 1: an amazing and and somehow appropriate beginning. We were we
Speaker 1: had released that was the third third single that that
Speaker 1: r c A released on on the Silver album, and
Speaker 1: we were in Germany. We were in Germany touring and
Speaker 1: somebody said, in Ohio on the on the black stations
Speaker 1: in Ohio, suddenly they're planning Sarah Smile. I think it
Speaker 1: was it started in Dayton or Acron or somewhere like that,
Speaker 1: I can't remember. And Uh, it suddenly started spreading all
Speaker 1: over into all the black stations, and we had it.
Speaker 1: We had a hit on R and B radio. Uh
Speaker 1: and it was like, whoa, this is happening, and it
Speaker 1: really was word of mouth. It was one of those
Speaker 1: things that spread like wildfire. And then then uh, then
Speaker 1: pop radio what I call white radio star at that time,
Speaker 1: started playing it and it became this giant year. And
Speaker 1: but it all started in the black community. I mean, uh,
Speaker 1: Sarah Smile was was generated from that world, which again
Speaker 1: I find to be appropriate to the song and to
Speaker 1: my career in life. So that's successful. She's gone as successful.
Speaker 1: How does that change your confidence and outlook? Well, I
Speaker 1: figured we had some figure, we had some ability to
Speaker 1: to stick around for a while. I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: have any master plan, but I thought, okay, well it's working.
Speaker 1: Something's working. Now we can go out and tour. You know,
Speaker 1: now we can play we have songs to play for
Speaker 1: people that they want to hear. And it was, um,
Speaker 1: it was the beginning, you know, it was the beginning.
Speaker 1: It validated what I was doing, and that's encouraging. Validation
Speaker 1: is really an important thing because it makes you more
Speaker 1: confident what you're doing. Okay, so that record, how does
Speaker 1: the bigger than both of the album come together? That
Speaker 1: was another Cris Bond record and we did it, and
Speaker 1: we decided, well, he was living in California and we
Speaker 1: decided to go out there and do it. Uh and
Speaker 1: it was uh yeah, that's what I'm That's all I
Speaker 1: could say. It was a California record, and the musicians,
Speaker 1: the sidemen that we're on it were a lot of
Speaker 1: the l A players. Okay, so how did your right,
Speaker 1: rich girl? Okay, let's we'll backtrack a little bit and
Speaker 1: I'm back at street. UM in my apartment, same keyboard,
Speaker 1: I wrote Sarah smile on UM. Sandy had a old
Speaker 1: boyfriend came over from uh Ohio and uh he was
Speaker 1: you know, this was a mid seventies, early seventies. Everybody
Speaker 1: was high as motherfucker, you know, and he was Let's see,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think his father had a fast
Speaker 1: food chain or something like that. I'm not even I'm
Speaker 1: a little vague on all that. But anyway, he in
Speaker 1: my in my perception, he was a rich He was
Speaker 1: a rich guy. You know, he came from a rich
Speaker 1: he came from a rich family. And uh so he
Speaker 1: he left and uh, he was acting kind of strange.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was a good guy, but I it
Speaker 1: gave me, gave me the inspiration, and I sat down
Speaker 1: as he left. I went, he's a rich guy and
Speaker 1: he's gone too far because he knows it. Don't bad
Speaker 1: it anyway, And I wrote it about rich guy and
Speaker 1: then I U I said, no, that doesn't sound right.
Speaker 1: I can't write a song called rich Guy, So I
Speaker 1: changed the Rich Girl. Did you know as you were
Speaker 1: writing it how successful it would be? Uh? No, no,
Speaker 1: definitely not. So you cut it in l A. You
Speaker 1: got a finished version. You still have no idea how
Speaker 1: successful would be. I think it's the rare person and
Speaker 1: in my entire career, and I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: sucking success, you know, commercially, I never was sure. Everything
Speaker 1: is a surprise. Everything is surprised. Sometimes songs that I
Speaker 1: thought we're gonna be hits were zero, and sometimes I
Speaker 1: thought songs okay, whatever, but became it. It's you never know, man,
Speaker 1: you can't tell. And a lot of that has to
Speaker 1: do with things that are out of my control, has
Speaker 1: to do with the fucking Paola and you know, record
Speaker 1: business in a level ship, Okay. I vividly remember hearing
Speaker 1: Rich Girl the first time and having to go by
Speaker 1: the album, which was great. Needles to say that becomes
Speaker 1: an iconic hit. How does life change for you? Uh,
Speaker 1: it didn't really change. It was just more the same. Uh,
Speaker 1: you cant understand something. Two. Tommy Montola was a very
Speaker 1: controlling human being. I think anybody that knows anything about
Speaker 1: Tommy Montola's history, he liked to keep things under his control.
Speaker 1: He didn't like things to get out of control. He
Speaker 1: didn't like things to get too high or too low. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you were sort of in a bubble, uh, asked
Speaker 1: Mariah Carey. Uh, you were in a bubble if you
Speaker 1: were controlled by Tommy Montola. And Uh, it wasn't conducive
Speaker 1: to highs and you know, major major highs or realizing
Speaker 1: where you were what you were doing. All I knew
Speaker 1: that I was a road musician. I was out playing
Speaker 1: on the road and then I was in the studio
Speaker 1: writing songs. At what point, if any, did you start
Speaker 1: to see some money about five years ago? Really? What
Speaker 1: changed five years ago? Which what change was? I got it.
Speaker 1: I got the right manager for the first time in
Speaker 1: my life. And Jonathan Wilson, he was a PR guy
Speaker 1: and now he's your manager. How did that come together? Well?
Speaker 1: He was PR guy, and I realized that we had
Speaker 1: a rap war and and and an understanding of each other.
Speaker 1: And he had an instinct an instinct, and I ran
Speaker 1: with it and UH made it, made a major decision
Speaker 1: in my life and John's life, and uh and and
Speaker 1: never looked back. And I've never been felt more justified
Speaker 1: in doing it. And what is John done differently from
Speaker 1: the people before? Let me let my instincts drive the bus. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you have this major success, Just one thing, one
Speaker 1: ly come there which always sticks out for me? Earth
Speaker 1: shoes Chicago Blues. Was that yours? Or was that John's? No,
Speaker 1: it's mine? So what I mean earth shoes for a
Speaker 1: big deal that. Remember, you know a lot of people
Speaker 1: write songs. They don't like to put specific names. And
Speaker 1: you remember where that came from, if at all, it's
Speaker 1: a long time ago specific names to what you put
Speaker 1: earth shoes in the song? Oh earth shoes? Well, I
Speaker 1: couldn't think of I was thinking of all the different things,
Speaker 1: uh that that you could uh, all the opposites that
Speaker 1: you could think of it. It didn't matter, because you
Speaker 1: just have to follow your instincts. Do what you want,
Speaker 1: be what you are. You know, do you believe in
Speaker 1: hot cars, leather bars? And movie stars. Do you believe
Speaker 1: in earth shoes? Chicago Blues? What do you know? It's
Speaker 1: it's yeah, like that. I wrote that song. By the way,
Speaker 1: John didn't read that song. Okay, if the credits are
Speaker 1: such that, I didn't want to make an assumption. Okay,
Speaker 1: you're incredibly hot, then you get cold. Do you feel
Speaker 1: that you're getting cold and nothing seems to be working? No,
Speaker 1: I don't. I felt that first of all, the late
Speaker 1: seventies were a bizarre time. They were a bizarre time
Speaker 1: societally and a bizarre time musically. And I was caught
Speaker 1: in the crossfire. Uh I was. I look at that
Speaker 1: as as as as au opened up an opportunity to me,
Speaker 1: and uh I uh that's when I that's when I
Speaker 1: started working with Robert Fripp and uh and and did
Speaker 1: those albums that I did with with him, and and
Speaker 1: started being more involved with in that world. And uh
Speaker 1: that opened my whole, that whole that expanded my life
Speaker 1: to be quite a degree and allowed and allowed me
Speaker 1: to get to the next stage. It was a transitional period.
Speaker 1: How did you meet Fripp and what you learned from Frip?
Speaker 1: I learned that you could have douce that my my
Speaker 1: sense of uh spontaneity and and and and and let
Speaker 1: anything's happen uh uh quickly and on the spot. And
Speaker 1: I that there are there were people that could roll
Speaker 1: with that and and and and and expand upon it,
Speaker 1: and you could have that kind of interaction creatively. Uh.
Speaker 1: Robert is like that. We we we created that ship
Speaker 1: out of nowhere. I mean, I I just came up.
Speaker 1: He would just play a guitar riff, and I would
Speaker 1: start seeing whatever came into my mind. And uh and
Speaker 1: a lot of those songs are like that. I mean
Speaker 1: some songs are more structured than that, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it did come that way. And uh we my
Speaker 1: the Sacred Songs album happened. We made that album in
Speaker 1: about six weeks start to finish, and u uh and
Speaker 1: and the Exposure album, which I did the whole album
Speaker 1: when you know, saying all that wrote wrote us, saying
Speaker 1: almost all the songs. Um that that didn't take much longer.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. Um. But it's that sense of
Speaker 1: spontaneity that I and and and and freedom, freedom and
Speaker 1: joy and all those things. That's that's what I got
Speaker 1: from working with Robert. Okay, how did you end up
Speaker 1: working with David Foster was that your choice are foisted
Speaker 1: upon you. It was sort of foisted David that we
Speaker 1: were his second project. He was again, he was a kid.
Speaker 1: He was twenty two. Uh, and he had I forget
Speaker 1: who he had done first, was an earth Wind of Fire.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was earth Word Fire, which is a hell
Speaker 1: of the beginning. Uh, or maybe it was the Sons
Speaker 1: of Champlain. I don't know whatever I'm battling. Um I
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it foisted because he was suggested and uh,
Speaker 1: I thought that he was interesting and I met him
Speaker 1: and and and he had a very strong personality as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, and uh he was he had very
Speaker 1: strong opinions musically. But yeah, he was a kid, so
Speaker 1: he was unformed. And uh we uh we. We went
Speaker 1: to California and we made a couple of records. Okay,
Speaker 1: as I say, these records are not really big successes,
Speaker 1: like bigger than both of us. And the next thing
Speaker 1: I know, you're playing clubs and you put out a
Speaker 1: live album. I certainly went to the rocks you to
Speaker 1: see you from the inside. There's no understanding that, wow,
Speaker 1: this is going in the wrong direction. We need a hit.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was that we ever said
Speaker 1: it's going in the wrong direction, But I think that
Speaker 1: the idea that we needed to hit, especially in the
Speaker 1: early eighties or ninety or whatever, was certainly on, you know,
Speaker 1: in our minds. Uh uh. If it wasn't my mind,
Speaker 1: it was, it was certainly in Matola's mind. Uh And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: like that, I mean, but then I don't know. I
Speaker 1: wrote a bunch of songs, then they became his. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how do you end up producing yourself? And whose
Speaker 1: idea is it to cover you've lost that love and feeling.
Speaker 1: I thought that the key, I thought that the key
Speaker 1: to some kind of success was for me to produce
Speaker 1: the well I go, I have to include John in this,
Speaker 1: for me and John to produce the album ourselves, because
Speaker 1: I just felt that nobody really understood what we were
Speaker 1: doing other than ourselves. And uh that came especially after
Speaker 1: working with David, who is a very talented guy. We
Speaker 1: all knew that, and but he had his own opinions
Speaker 1: and and he didn't necessarily see music the same way
Speaker 1: as I did. Uh. So that was that was the
Speaker 1: important step, is producing ourselves. And uh uh And as
Speaker 1: far as who you also love feel we had we
Speaker 1: had done the whole album and we felt that we
Speaker 1: needed something else to a round out the album. And
Speaker 1: I happened to be in the Mud Club in New York.
Speaker 1: That was one of those days when everybody went to
Speaker 1: mud club and uh and and they played in the
Speaker 1: room they were playing you lost that love of feeling,
Speaker 1: and I thought to myself, that's an interesting thing, you
Speaker 1: know what to duo. Maybe we should just like sing
Speaker 1: do a modern version of that song. Uh. And that's
Speaker 1: and we the next we were in the Electric Ladies
Speaker 1: studios and I think it was like the next day.
Speaker 1: We went in there and we cut it. And we
Speaker 1: cut that song in about three hours and U there
Speaker 1: it is, so tell me the story if you make
Speaker 1: my dreams. Uh, well, there's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: story other than I was sitting in my apartment in
Speaker 1: h in the village and uh and I I came
Speaker 1: up with that. I had a my working instrument of
Speaker 1: those days was a c a Yamaha CEP thirty and
Speaker 1: I mentioned that because of the distinct sound of it,
Speaker 1: and it's that honky kind of strange, unique sound. And
Speaker 1: I just started playing that riff at where I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, and uh, I started singing something over it,
Speaker 1: and uh uh there was you know, I and I
Speaker 1: you make my dreams. And I thought to myself that
Speaker 1: that's that's lame. You make my dreams come true. And
Speaker 1: and I realized that I tried to think around it
Speaker 1: and outthink myself, and I want to no that, let's
Speaker 1: just stick with the original thought. It's it's it's directed.
Speaker 1: It is what it is. You make my dreams come true.
Speaker 1: And then I beside I was going to offset that
Speaker 1: with a slightly more flower flower um h verse lyric.
Speaker 1: And if you listen to those lyrics, there a lot
Speaker 1: more high blown than you make my dreams come true? Right, So,
Speaker 1: now you have unbelievable success with this album. You have
Speaker 1: three hits. That's gotta feel good. And what do you
Speaker 1: think about going into the next record. We were really
Speaker 1: in a whirlwind at that point. We were we were
Speaker 1: on the road, we were experiencing immediate success. We were
Speaker 1: all over the world. Uh we were. If we weren't
Speaker 1: all over the world, we were in the studio making
Speaker 1: the next record. It was a very active time and
Speaker 1: with not a whole lot of time to reflect or
Speaker 1: understand what was going on around us? Uh? The old,
Speaker 1: the old cliche I of the hurricane. Uh was pretty
Speaker 1: much the way to describe. Okay, I can't go for that,
Speaker 1: Oh can do. What's the story there? I we were
Speaker 1: doing the privatized album right yeah, and and uh I was.
Speaker 1: It was sort of after hours and I I had
Speaker 1: this cord crappy little organ and uh and I started
Speaker 1: I turned on and I had and I had a
Speaker 1: thing called the rolling COMPUVERYTHM, which is the most rudimentary
Speaker 1: drum machine that ever was built. And uh, I pressed
Speaker 1: rock and roll one boom Dick Dick boom, you know
Speaker 1: that beat, and I started playing boom but at on
Speaker 1: on the organ and uh and then I started playing
Speaker 1: in the right hand in it, and uh, I said,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, I think I have something here, and
Speaker 1: uh I I I John was packing. He was He
Speaker 1: was still there and he was packing his guitar. I said,
Speaker 1: you know, John, come in plug it, just play play
Speaker 1: exactly what I say to you. Play bump bump up
Speaker 1: bump bomb right here. He was right there, Okay, bompopo
Speaker 1: bomb and he played exactly what I dictated to him.
Speaker 1: And I had a track that was it. That was
Speaker 1: the track. And then I went in the in the room,
Speaker 1: in the vote, in the in the control room, and
Speaker 1: said give me a microphone and I started saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: that right, and I started doing that and that was
Speaker 1: That is literally how the song was created. And then
Speaker 1: how did the ultimate lyrics come together through my frustration? Okay,
Speaker 1: so in the midst of all this, MTV launches and
Speaker 1: you make videos. This is in the rudimentary era of
Speaker 1: videos at first private eyes, etcetera. But also suddenly which
Speaker 1: we learn, MTV makes people bigger than ever. So what
Speaker 1: was your experience with m DV like it not like
Speaker 1: and then you end up having a long career there. Well,
Speaker 1: I had a love hate relationship with it. I I
Speaker 1: was there, as you said, I was there from the
Speaker 1: the beginning, like the first bloody day, and uh, nobody
Speaker 1: really knew what they had and they didn't really know
Speaker 1: what they were doing that they didn't have they had
Speaker 1: no scripting, the VJs. Uh, they would just give Marth
Speaker 1: Quinn or you know who, you know, you name it
Speaker 1: two hours, just go here's here's play this. When that's
Speaker 1: a bat Pat Benatar, play this would played that you
Speaker 1: know and you and just talk, and I have to
Speaker 1: hand it to these well, they were like radio DJs.
Speaker 1: They would just talk and uh, very early on they
Speaker 1: asked me to do it, and both both on my
Speaker 1: own and with John uh to to be VJs and
Speaker 1: we would just do anything just to pass the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember one time I had t bone
Speaker 1: on their cooking cooking eggs or something in between songs.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was it was all kinds of It
Speaker 1: was anything goes. It really was anything goes, and that
Speaker 1: was great. It was like the early days of television
Speaker 1: when you hear about Sid Caesar and you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know those days. It reminds me a lot of that.
Speaker 1: It was nobody really had any rules. So they didn't
Speaker 1: because it was a brand new thing. So uh, it
Speaker 1: was a really heady time, really a really fun time.
Speaker 1: But then you had to deal with the videos and
Speaker 1: the videos where you know, these extravaganza is generally done
Speaker 1: by cokeheads that did commercials, you know, uh, and and
Speaker 1: they were all always overblown and they were always ridiculous
Speaker 1: and they always had nothing to do with the song.
Speaker 1: And that was the part it didn't like. So there
Speaker 1: it is okay, but now everybody over the all over
Speaker 1: the world. Not only knows your songs, they know what
Speaker 1: you look like. And you could you feel that change
Speaker 1: anywhere you when people knew who you were? And was that,
Speaker 1: you know, inhibiting or it was it wasn't was it inhibiting?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean I had already experienced that to
Speaker 1: some degree, but it actually my my big commercial success
Speaker 1: came simultaneously with that. So I can't differentiate. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All I know is that I was you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was Darryl Romania. I mean people, which you know
Speaker 1: I was. I couldn't go to Christmas shopping or do anything.
Speaker 1: I mean I I was chased down the streets and
Speaker 1: you know it was like the Beatles, you know that
Speaker 1: that's bullshit, you know it was. It was that that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, screaming girls and uh uh it was.
Speaker 1: It was weird. I got to say it was weird.
Speaker 1: So you have a long run of success album after
Speaker 1: album with hits. Did you just feel you would come
Speaker 1: up with hits or do you go into the studio
Speaker 1: and you say you start your project, Man, I gotta
Speaker 1: I gotta equal I gotta have something like that on
Speaker 1: the album. No, I have never in my I thought
Speaker 1: that way, because that is the death of anything, death
Speaker 1: of creativity. I at the back of my mind, I
Speaker 1: always tried to do my best, and I realized what
Speaker 1: what I what I was doing. But I wasn't writing
Speaker 1: songs with the idea they were gonna be hints. I
Speaker 1: write the best song I can think of to express
Speaker 1: the emotion that's going on in my head in my heart. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's that's that doesn't get any farther than that, really,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's how the songs get written. So
Speaker 1: at the peak of your success you end up going
Speaker 1: to air a staff. How does that come together? Oh? Again,
Speaker 1: that was the machinations of Tommy. Uh I I didn't
Speaker 1: care where I was one of the truth and and
Speaker 1: you know again more than I have to say, and
Speaker 1: being insulated and isolated. Uh h and uh, I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know. Clide Clide, Jesus Clive not client. Uh.
Speaker 1: Clive Davids said he wanted us badly. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know he and and he he basically gave us
Speaker 1: a pitch to go there. And I guess it worked.
Speaker 1: Worked for Alan Grubbin and Tommy Mattola and nothing to
Speaker 1: do with me. Clive has a great, great, a big
Speaker 1: reputation for meddling with the music. Did he meddle with
Speaker 1: your music? Yes? He tried it? Did it didn't? My
Speaker 1: My experience with with Clive didn't really turn out very well. Uh,
Speaker 1: because I I don't like being told what to do
Speaker 1: by anybody. And I mean, I don't want to put
Speaker 1: Clive down, you know, but yes, he was a middler,
Speaker 1: and he and just what he thinks. His instincts are
Speaker 1: not necessarily what's best for the artist. And uh, you
Speaker 1: know I had I had one memorable meeting where I
Speaker 1: walked out of the basically walked out of the meeting
Speaker 1: when he tried to get me to sing a song
Speaker 1: called I've Got a New Blue Suit. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's a bad experience all around. Clive is middling and
Speaker 1: you have no hits. What's going through your brain? What's next?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh, I can't even remember what was
Speaker 1: going on. Then, you know what I I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was I was starting to think about making some
Speaker 1: solo records, and uh and and and moving into that
Speaker 1: direction for a while. And uh, I've always spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in England, especially in London, and I
Speaker 1: decided I had a house at that time. I well,
Speaker 1: I had boadhouse, and I decided to move to England.
Speaker 1: So I moved to England and made a couple of
Speaker 1: records basically out of there. And uh, I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of it. That's what I'm promoting right now. That's I'm
Speaker 1: I'm promoting the uh excerpts from the from those albums.
Speaker 1: And uh, I looked at that as it was. That
Speaker 1: was that was a lot of fun. The early nineties
Speaker 1: were great. Okay, so things keep moving on MTV changes,
Speaker 1: it becomes hip hop, you know, grunge, etcetera. Very slick videos.
Speaker 1: You make those albums when you come up for air.
Speaker 1: What does the world look like to you? Uh? It
Speaker 1: was it when I came up for air out of
Speaker 1: my good time in London, it started going like, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I gotta figure out what I'm really gonna do.
Speaker 1: And uh, I I will say that the second half
Speaker 1: of the nineties, I was I was looking for direction,
Speaker 1: I was looking for something. I was looking for whatever
Speaker 1: U Matola had left. I mean that was that. We
Speaker 1: go back to that in that nine is when we
Speaker 1: parted company, just to be very specific. He ended up
Speaker 1: going from the management side to the label. Is that
Speaker 1: what rupture the relationship ors is something totally separate. It
Speaker 1: was a little a combination of both. He he he
Speaker 1: left me for Mariah and uh and I say it
Speaker 1: that way because that's what it was like. And uh
Speaker 1: and uh and then at the same time he managed
Speaker 1: to Uh, well, there's book has been written about it
Speaker 1: that he got into managed to get into the position
Speaker 1: of the head of it, of the sony and uh.
Speaker 1: Uh so we didn't really have That's when our relationship
Speaker 1: changed completely. And uh uh uh and I moved on
Speaker 1: and I and I went up with with somebody who
Speaker 1: used to work in the mental organization, and and and
Speaker 1: he was also my tour manager and he started managing
Speaker 1: me for quite a while until until Jonathan came on
Speaker 1: the scene. Okay, so prior to Mariah coming on the scene,
Speaker 1: and based on what you just said, can we say
Speaker 1: that you were number one in Tommy's book, that you
Speaker 1: trumped everything and he was thinking about you, etcetera. Oh,
Speaker 1: without a doubt, without even in shadow of a doubt.
Speaker 1: I mean he had other artists, uh, and I feel
Speaker 1: bad for those other artists. If you want the truth.
Speaker 1: I mean one of my somebody who I think is
Speaker 1: one of the great overlooked artists as August Arnell with
Speaker 1: Kid Creole in the Coconuts. He was he was managing August,
Speaker 1: but he christ he you know, he had had a
Speaker 1: clue what to do. It lost. Yeah, And and even
Speaker 1: though Aggy had great success in Europe outside the United States,
Speaker 1: Tommy didn't know what to do with him. He was busy,
Speaker 1: busy with me basically, and you part ways. Is that
Speaker 1: the end of the relationship or do you have any
Speaker 1: contact with him thereafter? Through today? Not through today so much? Uh?
Speaker 1: We we we were in contact for many many years
Speaker 1: after all that. Uh now nowadays we're not really so
Speaker 1: much in contact. So you come back to the States,
Speaker 1: it's the nineties, you're looking for direction. Pick up from there.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I did. I did my solo albums, two
Speaker 1: solo albums. I did an album called Marigold Sky with John.
Speaker 1: Decided to try a record with John, and then uh
Speaker 1: then I'm did oh I did to do It for
Speaker 1: Love album which with with John that was in England.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh then we did other things. We we
Speaker 1: did We did a Christmas album and I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: this all kind of runs together. Uh, it was just
Speaker 1: kind of random. I don't know. We we we didn't
Speaker 1: really have a focus direction either as Hall and Oates
Speaker 1: or as solo artists. It was sort of in between.
Speaker 1: It was the beginning of that is the beginning of
Speaker 1: of us going in two different directions and uh uh,
Speaker 1: but but still doing the occasional project and doing and
Speaker 1: and uh and playing live. That was when we sort
Speaker 1: of became a live band for real and started playing everywhere.
Speaker 1: And was that driven by a need to be on
Speaker 1: stage or a need for money? Both? You gotta make money.
Speaker 1: You gotta you have to support a band, and you
Speaker 1: have to support yourself. Uh. You know, I'm like anybody
Speaker 1: you have a job, and uh uh as far as
Speaker 1: need to do, I do. I need it. I I've
Speaker 1: been doing in my whole life. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if you call that a need or not. But I
Speaker 1: do live to perform. I love to perform. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a performing animal. Okay. At what point in this story
Speaker 1: do you get into construction projects? Ah, that's that's a
Speaker 1: parallel story. I've been doing that forever. I grew up
Speaker 1: in a in a in a strange family of there
Speaker 1: were either musicians and or people who worked in Like
Speaker 1: my grandfather was a stonemason and brick layer. When I
Speaker 1: say brick layer, he wasn't. He built houses, He built chimneys.
Speaker 1: He was, he was. He was a specialist. And uh,
Speaker 1: I used to live on construction sites. My father built
Speaker 1: the house that I grew up in. Um. I I've
Speaker 1: always been around people who work with their hands, and
Speaker 1: carpenters and and and and and and specialists. And I
Speaker 1: grew up in Chester County, which is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and in the midst of the eighteenth century basically, uh,
Speaker 1: that's you know. My family houses are those kind of houses,
Speaker 1: you know, antique structures, and uh, I've always had a
Speaker 1: love of history. And let me thank the first. The
Speaker 1: first house I renovated was that one I told you
Speaker 1: about that I would pay eighty five dollars a month
Speaker 1: for it was a late eighteenth century house row house
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia that was completely destroyed. And I went in
Speaker 1: there and started renovating and painting and doing everything and
Speaker 1: fix that house up to live in. And then the
Speaker 1: second one. I've done so many houses, it's just over
Speaker 1: the years, uh uh I've done many many historic houses,
Speaker 1: and I really like doing it. I know how to
Speaker 1: organize it, I know how to I understand the history
Speaker 1: of it. I understand how things, how things work. I
Speaker 1: understand construction. I understand all those things, and I really
Speaker 1: enjoy it. It's sort of an avocation. The house that
Speaker 1: I'm doing this in right now is the house that
Speaker 1: I completely renovated from scratch, Hies House. Okay, so they're
Speaker 1: always existing houses. You never want to build from scratch.
Speaker 1: Oh No. The house that I did the Life of
Speaker 1: Darrell's House show, and I did, I took two houses
Speaker 1: down in in uh in uh, near Hartford, Connecticut, and
Speaker 1: moved them to Dutchess County, New York, uh from the
Speaker 1: and and then and built them from below the foundation up.
Speaker 1: So I reconstructed those houses out of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: out of the original materials. Okay, it's let's just say,
Speaker 1: this is what you like to do. Are you always
Speaker 1: looking for a project? How do you find the house? Well?
Speaker 1: I'm always sort of in a projects. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's been much time that I haven't been under construction
Speaker 1: or in a situation where this construction going on under
Speaker 1: my under my direction. But as I say, what do
Speaker 1: you decide? How do you find the projects to work on? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of in in well just about all the
Speaker 1: cases I was there were houses that I want up
Speaker 1: living in for at least a while. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: say you really know how to do it. Let's say
Speaker 1: we find a classic house seventeen hundreds eighteen hundreds in
Speaker 1: need to repair. Walk me through the steps of bringing
Speaker 1: it up to your standards. Well, it depends what it needs.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's let's talk about the worst case scenario.
Speaker 1: What what might that be? That might be something that
Speaker 1: needs foundational work, needs detail work. Uh need you know
Speaker 1: to what degree can you do with your friends? To
Speaker 1: what degree you need to outside contract stuff like? Okay? Sure? Uh, well,
Speaker 1: I mean you need specialists because that's the whole thing.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I like about it is
Speaker 1: that that all these people are artisans and they do things.
Speaker 1: I like to do things in a in a way
Speaker 1: that we're done originally. I don't like to bring things
Speaker 1: in unless I have to, uh that are that are
Speaker 1: that are modern additions to it? For example, this house
Speaker 1: and I'm in I had foundational issues the wall over
Speaker 1: by the not this room, and then the other side
Speaker 1: of the house was starting to cave in around where
Speaker 1: the chimney stack is and I had to shore that up.
Speaker 1: I had to use I beams and I had uh
Speaker 1: re restructure the wall to uh to shore up the foundation.
Speaker 1: Uh some I had had columns. I had to uh
Speaker 1: you know that weren't there before. Um, Well, there you go.
Speaker 1: That's that's how you fix it. You're need to say,
Speaker 1: you're a working musician. To what degree are you supervising
Speaker 1: all this? Well, it depends on the project. I was
Speaker 1: very much supervising the Flinthill project because it was I
Speaker 1: was there as to do with proximity this house. It's
Speaker 1: been taken me forever to do. It started when I
Speaker 1: had the TV show and I was that's when this
Speaker 1: this house that I'm sitting and started that project and
Speaker 1: I'm now just finishing it because I've been working so
Speaker 1: much that I couldn't be around physically, and so it's
Speaker 1: taken years to uh uh to to bring to completion. Um.
Speaker 1: But I find that you have to use good g C.
Speaker 1: You have to have a sympathetic GC, somebody who really
Speaker 1: understands antique architecture. And I have an architect who is
Speaker 1: my friend as well as uh she's an amazing uh uh.
Speaker 1: She has an amazing ability to work with an antique
Speaker 1: projects and uh and I trust her. I trust her.
Speaker 1: She doesn't she does the heavy lifting literally uh and
Speaker 1: uh you know does does the drawings and all that.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it's it's all about my decision making.
Speaker 1: Anybody's involved with construction know that it's done by individuals
Speaker 1: and it's never perfect. To what degree have this Has
Speaker 1: this been your experience and to what degree do you
Speaker 1: let things go? To what degree do you make them
Speaker 1: do it over? Now? Well, towards the end of one
Speaker 1: era of this project that I'm in, uh, I had
Speaker 1: a GC walk off the job. He was a jerk.
Speaker 1: He basically I I turned him onto some people and
Speaker 1: instead of any any any left me for those people.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's one of those kind of and
Speaker 1: so I was stuck. I was stuck without a g C.
Speaker 1: I was stuck with that and uh uh and I
Speaker 1: was in the middle of it was a very difficult
Speaker 1: at the time. I was not getting along with my
Speaker 1: with my wife and and uh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into that, but uh, I had to hire an
Speaker 1: architect and I hired a g C from the area
Speaker 1: that I really wasn't that familiar with, and uh and
Speaker 1: in a construction company to to sort of keep the
Speaker 1: project going. And they acted like they knew what they
Speaker 1: were doing, but they didn't know what they were doing.
Speaker 1: And then I wound up having to go on the
Speaker 1: road to pay for all this and uh uh. Anyway,
Speaker 1: long story short, that's when they started doing funked up
Speaker 1: things and I came back and said, what is this?
Speaker 1: And I did make them rip things out. I'm still
Speaker 1: in the process of some of the things of undoing
Speaker 1: some of them at work. So that happens, so you
Speaker 1: enjoy it. But when the process is done and you
Speaker 1: sell it, are you in the black or the red? Uh?
Speaker 1: Depends depends on the time. Uh depends on the real
Speaker 1: estate time. Right now, I would be in the right now,
Speaker 1: I would be in the in the black because it's
Speaker 1: a good time for real estate. But if I like
Speaker 1: the Flynn Hill project, it was sort of a financial
Speaker 1: disaster because I was doing it all. It was my
Speaker 1: my major one, my my big work, right and uh,
Speaker 1: magnus opus and and and uh and I completed it.
Speaker 1: When right when the real estate when when everything fell
Speaker 1: to pieces when when nothing was worth anything. So that
Speaker 1: wasn't such a great result, but but the project itself
Speaker 1: was was amazing. So how many houses you own right now? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: I this one that I didn't. I have a studio
Speaker 1: house that's about a couple of miles away, and I
Speaker 1: have a family house in London. Okay, So tell me
Speaker 1: about the genesis of life from Darrell's house. I just
Speaker 1: had And it was an idea, a simple, simple idea
Speaker 1: that I could bring the world into my into me
Speaker 1: as opposed to me going to the world. And at
Speaker 1: the time, the Internet wasn't being used for entertainment in
Speaker 1: any way. It was being used for communication and information,
Speaker 1: uh and things like that and commercialization. But nobody even
Speaker 1: really had anything that resembled an entertainment show, at least
Speaker 1: nothing important, especially not a music show. So I decided
Speaker 1: I was going to do a music show, and I
Speaker 1: got somebody to fund it, which is super important changed
Speaker 1: my life, and uh, we started doing it. We just
Speaker 1: did it. It was it was all very real, and uh,
Speaker 1: I said, you know, no audience, Let's just get it
Speaker 1: in a room and with people and show show the
Speaker 1: world what it's like to be in the inter sanctum
Speaker 1: of of you know, musical creativity and interaction and uh.
Speaker 1: And one of my first guests with Smokey Robinson, I
Speaker 1: called in my cards, you know, I called in my
Speaker 1: I was just on the phone with people, and Smokey
Speaker 1: unbelievably came up to Duchess County, you know, which is
Speaker 1: not that closed anywhere, and U he came up and
Speaker 1: it was amazing, and uh, that was one of the
Speaker 1: first shows. But and it just went from there and
Speaker 1: people really responded to it, and I'm so happy. It
Speaker 1: made me so happy. It's it's the happiest I've ever
Speaker 1: been is doing is doing these these shows and that
Speaker 1: in that series. It fulfilled me. It defined me really,
Speaker 1: It's it shows people what I do, what I'm like,
Speaker 1: what I'm like as a person, what I and what
Speaker 1: I do in life, what I'm good at. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so I got some new shows coming. Okay, that's giving
Speaker 1: my next question. So you know you put them out
Speaker 1: of the web series. As you say, the buzz was
Speaker 1: unbelievable and you were way ahead of everybody else. Then
Speaker 1: ultimately you've gotta deal for television. So what's the status
Speaker 1: of it now? Well, you know, everything changes now I don't.
Speaker 1: I have I have regained the funding, and so that's
Speaker 1: an important part. This is not an easy show to
Speaker 1: do financially. And uh uh. But having said that, how
Speaker 1: to put it out I'm not sure because everything changes,
Speaker 1: I mean, how do I want to put it out now?
Speaker 1: I mean I've been toying with the idea of of
Speaker 1: just going on YouTube and putting it out that way,
Speaker 1: you know, because YouTube is now a channel, a channel
Speaker 1: into itself. Uh, maybe do a combination of I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't found I don't know where it's spot is
Speaker 1: going to be, but it's going to be somewhere obviously.
Speaker 1: But but the thing is that it is international show
Speaker 1: and whatever I do will be I want to do
Speaker 1: something that makes it easier for everybody around the world
Speaker 1: to watch it. So I may use regular terrestrial television,
Speaker 1: I might use some streaming service. I might use YouTube
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know yet, or a combination thereof.
Speaker 1: So how many shows you plan to do? But to
Speaker 1: start with six? Next one season and then um, let's see, now,
Speaker 1: how expensive is it to do a show? Well, it
Speaker 1: costs money, but it's not the production. The production is
Speaker 1: relatively well, you know, it's a little bit of money,
Speaker 1: but it's the clearances and all that stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money. You have to pay a
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, you know, artists and publishers,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's a lot a lot involved in it,
Speaker 1: a lot of legal things and a lot of machinations.
Speaker 1: And it was hard to get going in the beginning
Speaker 1: because there was a lot of people who didn't understand
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and they thought that I was
Speaker 1: trying you know, they were some people thought that I
Speaker 1: was like Napster Jr. You know, back in those days,
Speaker 1: that I was trying to steal from the artist, not
Speaker 1: enhance the artists career. So I had a lot of
Speaker 1: of of resistance to getting this stuff started. But I
Speaker 1: will say that my manager and me figuring it out
Speaker 1: how to do it and at this late day, because
Speaker 1: you've done so many At first you call in your cards,
Speaker 1: how do you select guests? Now? Well, I still call
Speaker 1: in cards. Um. I have some feelers out right now
Speaker 1: that that are interesting ones. Um. But a lot of
Speaker 1: it comes down to scheduling. Most artists have lives and
Speaker 1: they work and then they're on the road and they're
Speaker 1: not in this necessarily in anywhere near upstate New York,
Speaker 1: you know. So there's a lot of that that that
Speaker 1: that that's actually one of the biggest factors in trying
Speaker 1: to get people to figure out how they're going to
Speaker 1: actually be able to do the show. Most people say, yes,
Speaker 1: that's the funny thing, not funny and it's the happy thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: People say yes, you man, I love that show. I
Speaker 1: watch it all the time. And I said, Okay, when
Speaker 1: can you do it? Well, you know, I'm doing a
Speaker 1: tour that maybe next year, you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So will it be done in the same space, with
Speaker 1: same format, with cooking, etcetera. I think, so, I'm going
Speaker 1: to incorporate this house, which is different than the old house,
Speaker 1: and I do it in my club, So I think
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to do the music in the club
Speaker 1: and the food and conversation and dinner here in this house,
Speaker 1: which is only a couple of miles away. Now, people
Speaker 1: always talk about owning a club and owning a bar,
Speaker 1: but it is a business and it's an incredible headache.
Speaker 1: So how did you decide to own the club and
Speaker 1: how much of your in putting hands on attention, does
Speaker 1: it need? Well, Luckily I have a partner and he
Speaker 1: has another club. He has a club in the West Coast,
Speaker 1: and uh so he's and his his his club is
Speaker 1: a version of the kind of club that I have,
Speaker 1: and so he understands that it started with a lot
Speaker 1: of his bringing his his cook in and things like that.
Speaker 1: So I had a lot of help in getting it going.
Speaker 1: I make the creative decisions. I have a lot to
Speaker 1: do with the food. Uh I. Uh, you know, we
Speaker 1: figured out as far as the booking goes and things
Speaker 1: like that. Um, and I leave the actual nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts financing and and those those that area to my partner,
Speaker 1: who uh, like I said, has plenty of experience in this. Uh.
Speaker 1: I will say that we managed to somehow survive the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which was really not easy. So prior to the pandemic,
Speaker 1: is this just a labor of love or can you
Speaker 1: make any money? Well, it's it's it's sort of a
Speaker 1: it's a generator, you know, it's it's it's it's I
Speaker 1: have people from all of the world come and play there,
Speaker 1: and people from all the world actually come there, So
Speaker 1: it's become a it's become a physical shrine to whatever
Speaker 1: is the Darrel's House kind of thing and uh uh
Speaker 1: and it's it is a labor of love. I love clubs.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of clubs. Clubs are where all
Speaker 1: the good stuff happens, uh, the best music and U
Speaker 1: I uh. And it's also the place that that I
Speaker 1: do my show out of. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a home for me. It's the home home of
Speaker 1: the show. Uh. So it's uh, you know, it provides
Speaker 1: a lot of it. There's a lot of the generates
Speaker 1: out of it. Okay, just to be clear, where the
Speaker 1: original episodes were shot from live from Darrel's House. That
Speaker 1: is not the club. That's the house you used to own, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the Flint Hill house that I created
Speaker 1: from scratch and you ultimately sold that when in in
Speaker 1: in about twenty you know, I don't know, I'll say something.
Speaker 1: We're in that area, maybe I don't know. Okay, needless
Speaker 1: to say, we're all getting older by the minute, and
Speaker 1: no one gets out of here alive. You know, do
Speaker 1: you feel that at all that you know there's a
Speaker 1: limited time left and you want to accomplish or you
Speaker 1: just want to ride. What what's your perspective on aging
Speaker 1: and you know the grim Reaper. Well, my perspective is
Speaker 1: that at this time of life, it is time to
Speaker 1: not pull punches. Do whatever it is that makes that
Speaker 1: fulfills for me. I'll say me do whatever it takes
Speaker 1: to fulfill myself. What I do it, now, do it,
Speaker 1: don't funk around. You want to do something, go do
Speaker 1: it if you can do it, uh because right that
Speaker 1: much of a future come on, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do it until I can't do it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I have a I'm very lucky that I have a
Speaker 1: pretty good jeans. My mother's ninety eight and my father
Speaker 1: was ninety six when he died, and that wasn't his fault.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Um, I think I have some time left,
Speaker 1: you know, and and but I'm gonna do my best
Speaker 1: to take advantage of that time. That's what else gotta say.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, you started a long time ago when
Speaker 1: music really drove the culture. He had a hit, everybody
Speaker 1: in the world knew it. Today, we live in a
Speaker 1: very broad culture where a number one hit reaches fewer
Speaker 1: people than ever before. In addition, there scenes that don't
Speaker 1: seem to stream that well, but do incredible live business.
Speaker 1: Do you keep up on hit music or you just
Speaker 1: say I'm doing what I'm doing. That's just something different. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't keep up with anything. I don't try to.
Speaker 1: I use I I listen to music randomly. I'm not
Speaker 1: a great audience, although I'm a very heartfelt audience. What
Speaker 1: I like something. I'm really a lucky person because that
Speaker 1: what you talked about, I experienced. I had a hit.
Speaker 1: The whole world knew about it. It was that I
Speaker 1: I benefited from that. I I made my bones on
Speaker 1: that and and I used that for what I do now,
Speaker 1: which is very tribal. And I I can relate to
Speaker 1: tribalism very well. I mean, I like having my people
Speaker 1: and and playing to the people that give a shit
Speaker 1: about me. And uh that's yeah, I mean it. It's
Speaker 1: worked out very well in my favor. I think, I
Speaker 1: feel okay. We both came of age in the sixties.
Speaker 1: Fifties were sort of somnambulance. Sixties come along, you know,
Speaker 1: the boomers take over. There's a war of the generations,
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. Needless say, it's radically different. What do
Speaker 1: you think about today's environment? Well, we live in a dysfunctional,
Speaker 1: crashing and burning world. It's that's a whole other podcast
Speaker 1: if you want the truth. I mean, I don't even
Speaker 1: know what to say. I'm I'm I'm a I see
Speaker 1: this horrible, horrible disparity between mindsets and uh, that's that's uncrossable.
Speaker 1: And I don't see things getting better. I'm a historian,
Speaker 1: maybe an amateurist story, but I'm an a storian. And
Speaker 1: uh and and I we were I see parallels. Man,
Speaker 1: We're headed to the dark ages. Good luck. Well, we've
Speaker 1: believed in the sixties that use could save the world.
Speaker 1: Does music have a role or have times changed or
Speaker 1: it never had that power? I think that there was.
Speaker 1: There was a time where music actually did have a
Speaker 1: lot of power. It really did. Uh, Beatles come to mind,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean you know, I mean it was
Speaker 1: it was changing things. It was, it was, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It drove a social movement, I think in
Speaker 1: in in the late sixties. Uh. Now, does music have
Speaker 1: any thing, any power? No, but it can't because of
Speaker 1: what you said before, Because you can't have a hit
Speaker 1: and everybody in the world hears it. So you have
Speaker 1: your tribe and that's it. You know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: never going to have that kind of ability to move people.
Speaker 1: It can't possibly. And what about legacy? Do you care
Speaker 1: if you're remembered? You care if your songs last? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: I'll take the John Lennon thing and says who gives
Speaker 1: a ship after him dead? You know, I mean, do
Speaker 1: I care? No? I caring is a funny word. Uh.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm proud of what I've done, and uh
Speaker 1: that's that's all I can say about it. You know,
Speaker 1: I mean people could once it leaves me, it belongs
Speaker 1: to the world. I think that's a perfect note to
Speaker 1: end on. Darryl. I want to thank you for taking
Speaker 1: the times, very insightful, great to learn things I didn't know.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, sure man, we could do it until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sex