Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Michael McDonald, who has a new autobiography,
Speaker 1: What a Fool Believes. Michael, you reveal so much truth
Speaker 1: in the book, an he regrets.
Speaker 2: No, I mean not yet anyway. It's funny, you know,
Speaker 2: every time someone says that to me, I kind of
Speaker 2: crange a little bit, thinking, well, what did I say?
Speaker 2: Because I didn't think I was all that revealing. Most
Speaker 2: people who knew me at all, you know, probably had
Speaker 2: some idea that I was a little left of center
Speaker 2: for a while there, you know, But I felt like
Speaker 2: if I was going to tell my story, I needed
Speaker 2: to be as honest as I could about you know,
Speaker 2: addiction and things like that that I probably would have
Speaker 2: not talked about I've had. I been doing just an
Speaker 2: op ed about my experience as a musician, but this
Speaker 2: being a personal memoir, it seemed like it was it
Speaker 2: kind of was incumbent on me to say something about
Speaker 2: my personal life that would be would cast a little
Speaker 2: bit of a different light on all of it.
Speaker 1: Well, definitely cast a different light. You're always the guy
Speaker 1: who's very dignified. A lot of people have no idea
Speaker 1: including myself. Now, you know, there's been a lot of publicity,
Speaker 1: but let's go through it.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: You wrote the book with Paul Rise or exactly how
Speaker 1: is it inspired?
Speaker 2: Well, I would have to give Paul most of the
Speaker 2: credit for that. We've known each other about twenty years,
Speaker 2: and you know, Paul is by nature, he's one of
Speaker 2: those guys that, uh, he's you know, he's a writer himself. Uh,
Speaker 2: he's hearing screenplays, books, uh, you name it. Uh uh
Speaker 2: developed TV shows, movies and characters in movies. So his
Speaker 2: interest in people in general is the very nat comes
Speaker 2: very natural. You know, he's he's one of those guys
Speaker 2: that's likely to kind of know what makes you tick,
Speaker 2: just out of his own curiosity. And so as friends,
Speaker 2: we we you know, he was always Uh. We met
Speaker 2: at a party years ago and wound up back at
Speaker 2: his house playing music in his studio till we ours
Speaker 2: and uh we found out that we both really loved
Speaker 2: the Beatles and uh in Botown and all the stuff
Speaker 2: that we we had grown up listening to. Uh and
Speaker 2: uh he kind of came to it. Our conversations were
Speaker 2: kind of steered towards, oh, you know, things like got
Speaker 2: the Beatles bridges on their songs, you know, from this
Speaker 2: album to that album that had the greatest bridges and
Speaker 2: all their songs. We started kind of replaying those memories
Speaker 2: of you know, those songs and what great bridges they had,
Speaker 2: stuff like that, you know, kind of musing uh uh conversation.
Speaker 2: And and from that point we we we were friends.
Speaker 2: And he would always come here us play when I
Speaker 2: was when we played in town, and I actually came
Speaker 2: up and played with us on stage. Paul's a great,
Speaker 2: very accomplished piano player, and uh he said, I dare say,
Speaker 2: much better pianel player than I. But we uh so
Speaker 2: we we always we had that in common, music in
Speaker 2: common from the get go, and uh, you know, but
Speaker 2: his interest in a lot of what what went on
Speaker 2: with Steely Dan and groups like that were as interesting
Speaker 2: to him as say, our conversations were about the Beatles
Speaker 2: and stuff. Can't we any any inside stuff we could? Uh?
Speaker 2: We heard or said. We would always share, you know,
Speaker 2: about the bands we liked. But he was always very
Speaker 2: interested in stealing Dan, Donald and Walter and the Dubies,
Speaker 2: Pat and Tommy and all. How all that happened, and
Speaker 2: seemingly at the same time. At one point he said
Speaker 2: to me, you know, you should write a book so
Speaker 2: I can stop pestoring you with all these questions. And
Speaker 2: I said, well, you know, I thought about it, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how I would even do that. I've
Speaker 2: written a little bit of you know, op ads for
Speaker 2: magazine and stuff, or short stories, but I you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think I could take on a book and
Speaker 2: really know what I was doing. He goes, well, I've
Speaker 2: written a few, so let me help you, you know,
Speaker 2: if you're up for it. So I thought, well, how
Speaker 2: lucky am I in this moment to have Paul Riser
Speaker 2: of all people, offer to help me write this book.
Speaker 2: And that alone made me think, well I should do it.
Speaker 2: You know, whether I was apprehensive about it or not,
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you. I kind of was, you know,
Speaker 2: because immediately you start to think about on your life
Speaker 2: and you go, well, how would I talk about this,
Speaker 2: or how would I talk about that? Or who would
Speaker 2: I talk about? Who would I you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: how would I be careful not to throw anyone under
Speaker 2: the bus for any reason? However inadvertently, you know, because
Speaker 2: it's you know, you always have to be careful when
Speaker 2: you're telling your story, you know, because it involves other people,
Speaker 2: and you want to be cognizant and you know, sure
Speaker 2: not to throw anybody under the bus, like I say,
Speaker 2: even if you don't mean to, you know. So there
Speaker 2: was a lot of fact checking, and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff that Paul was unbelievably helpful with and
Speaker 2: not to to say not the least which almost in
Speaker 2: every aspect of writing the book, we kind of edited
Speaker 2: as we went, you know, and he was uncanny with
Speaker 2: his ability to like, you know, well, hey, you know
Speaker 2: this should go This shouldn't come here, this should come
Speaker 2: later in the book. And I don't even know how
Speaker 2: he knew that, because there wasn't a letter in the
Speaker 2: book yet. We haven't even written it, you know, but
Speaker 2: he just somehow knew instinctually that don't give this away
Speaker 2: too soon, you know, this might be more valuable later,
Speaker 2: and uh, and things like you know, I would write
Speaker 2: for a couple of days, you know, and come back
Speaker 2: to him with this, you know, a couple of the
Speaker 2: pages worth of stuff, and he would boil that down,
Speaker 2: uh to like here, well here's where you're I think
Speaker 2: your story really is a lot of this other stuff
Speaker 2: nobody cares, you know, but uh, this this year is something,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, develop us and develop that, do
Speaker 2: you know, Try to develop that and try to focus
Speaker 2: on that, and then we'll get back together. And of
Speaker 2: course I would, you know, the first couple of times,
Speaker 2: I would like, Oh, yeah, you're just you're trashing my
Speaker 2: whole story here. You know. I worked for hours on this,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, but every time I read it
Speaker 2: the second time, what he had suggested that I get
Speaker 2: rid of, you know, or or however he suggested to
Speaker 2: edit it, uh, a lot of cut, cutting and pasting,
Speaker 2: you know. The second time I read it, I would
Speaker 2: be totally in agreement with what he was suggesting, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I learned to not even question him after
Speaker 2: a while. I would just hand him stuff and we
Speaker 2: would look at it together, and pretty much he would
Speaker 2: zero in on what needed to be done with it,
Speaker 2: you know. So I have to give him a lot
Speaker 2: of credit in the writing of this book. First of all,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have ever gotten done without his work ethic,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I'd still be wondering about the
Speaker 2: preface at this point, you know. But it was really
Speaker 2: helpful all the way down the line even reading the
Speaker 2: audio or the audiobook having him there, you know, he
Speaker 2: was he was on hand with me and kind of
Speaker 2: directed me through it and really kind of reminded me
Speaker 2: in most cases. And I'm not even sure I still
Speaker 2: did a very good job of it. But you know
Speaker 2: how how I said it when I told him the
Speaker 2: story or when we talked about it, you know, because
Speaker 2: I was tended to start reading things like Frankenstein, you know,
Speaker 2: like and then I, well, yeah, and then we went here,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know he would go, you know,
Speaker 2: when you said that the first time, it was kind
Speaker 2: of like this, you know, kind of offhanded, and so
Speaker 2: I was able to kind of recapture some of the
Speaker 2: spirit of how we had first talked about all this,
Speaker 2: uh what became text in the book. You know, I
Speaker 2: honestly don't know how I would have gotten through this
Speaker 2: experience without him, And the audio book almost killed me.
Speaker 2: You know. It was like, you know, eight days of
Speaker 2: six hour days of reading, uh these things that all
Speaker 2: of a sudden seemed like a tongue twisting contest. You know,
Speaker 2: it was you know, you never know how goofy some
Speaker 2: of your you're paraphrasing or writing of anything, is until
Speaker 2: you have to go read it. You know.
Speaker 1: So, what are a couple of your favorite Beatles songs
Speaker 1: with bridges?
Speaker 2: Uh? Why? So many? Uh? No reply is one of
Speaker 2: those great bridges, you know. While you know, if I
Speaker 2: were you, I'd realize that I will to be a fool,
Speaker 2: and you gave me no reply. You know. They just
Speaker 2: had such a great sense of chord progression and relative
Speaker 2: key knowledge, you know that I think was very natural
Speaker 2: for them, just being guitar players. They I don't think
Speaker 2: they really were steeped in music theory, but they you know,
Speaker 2: they they had played enough club gigs, Like I always
Speaker 2: tell my son, you know, playing those club gigs is
Speaker 2: where you learn everything you need to know about pop music,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. And but it seemed like Beatles six
Speaker 2: uh revolver all the way through those records, all the
Speaker 2: way up to the Revolver and on from there. One
Speaker 2: thing the Beatles always did well was write a great
Speaker 2: bridge to their song.
Speaker 1: You know, it seems so obvious. How come no one
Speaker 1: else can do that? No one else sees that magic
Speaker 1: in a record.
Speaker 2: You know, It's a funny thing. I don't know that
Speaker 2: any of us see the magic when we're when it's happening.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure the same for the Beatles. You know,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: You you're just kind of when you're making a record,
Speaker 3: you're more or less just kind of have your head
Speaker 3: down swing and trying to come up with something that that,
Speaker 3: uh you think we'll capture the listeners imagination, you know,
Speaker 3: and uh, I know with the Doobies for a long time,
Speaker 3: for us, it was, you know, we wanted to kind
Speaker 3: of incorporate uh.
Speaker 2: Key feelings in our songs that you know, we thought
Speaker 2: we you know, would lift the listeners you know, emotion,
Speaker 2: you know, or or uh and and a lot of
Speaker 2: that came from listening to early the early stuff, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: some of the great R and B songs, uh, you
Speaker 2: know from Motown and the Beatles stuff for sure, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh and then you know, I think we all
Speaker 2: learned a great appreciation of uh American music from the
Speaker 2: British bands because they really fed it back to us.
Speaker 2: Most of us missed so much great American music because
Speaker 2: the radio stations weren't playing it on mainstream radio when
Speaker 2: we were kids. You know, we heard these English bands
Speaker 2: playing Muddy Waters and Howland Wolf and you know, Willie
Speaker 2: Dixon songs and we were just like, what is this stuff?
Speaker 2: It's so great, you know, and it was it was
Speaker 2: part of our own culture and we weren't aware of it.
Speaker 1: How'd you first hear the Beatles?
Speaker 2: I remember hearing about them when I was in sixth grade.
Speaker 2: One of the eighth graders came to school with his
Speaker 2: hair combed down, and the nuns kicked him out of school,
Speaker 2: sent him home, and it was a big, you know,
Speaker 2: old gossip. It was about which Brandon showing up with
Speaker 2: his hair combed down in his face and pink sent home.
Speaker 2: And then you know, that's the first I ever heard
Speaker 2: about the Beatles, And wasn't shortly after that or I
Speaker 2: want to hold your hand, you know. Uh. And you
Speaker 2: know it was kind of a bit of sophistication and
Speaker 2: pop records that we didn't hear. I think some of
Speaker 2: our pop records prior to that had a certain sophistication,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. I always my ear was drawn too
Speaker 2: early on uh kind of pop R and B stuff.
Speaker 2: For that reason. I remember hearing stop Her on Site
Speaker 2: by uh Uh Edwin starred and uh, it's just something
Speaker 2: about the arrangement. It was just so much hipper than
Speaker 2: a lot of uh pop records were you know that
Speaker 2: that followed a certain formula of simplicity. You know, Uh,
Speaker 2: some of these records it's it was like they let
Speaker 2: themselves go or something, you know, and uh, what they
Speaker 2: what they did was they kind of gave credit to
Speaker 2: the listener for being able to appreciate what they were doing.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh, writers like Burt Backrack and the Beatles,
Speaker 2: you know, they kind of went ahead and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: followed their own muse and the audience was quick to respond.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many songs by Burt Backrack and
Speaker 2: Hal David and that. You know, if you asked the
Speaker 2: typical in our person at the time, well it's a
Speaker 2: little Yeah, you can't put a six four bar in
Speaker 2: the middle of the pop song. People are gonna fall
Speaker 2: up the chair, you know. But that's not true. Because
Speaker 2: if you make it sound natural and it's and you
Speaker 2: make it, you do it just because it's a beautiful
Speaker 2: thing to do in that moment, people will get that,
Speaker 2: you know, and they'll they and proof is in the pudding.
Speaker 2: They love those songs to this day.
Speaker 1: You know, you're from the same generation. I am a
Speaker 1: lot of us listen to the baseball games on our transistor.
Speaker 1: Then we shifted to music, and then the Beatles hit
Speaker 1: What was your Experience?
Speaker 2: I used to listen. We had those little Japanese transistoradd
Speaker 2: it was forgot him for Christmas. And what an amazing,
Speaker 2: you know, cultural shift that was for all of his
Speaker 2: kids walking down the street with these things pressed against
Speaker 2: our ears. And I used to go to bed on
Speaker 2: Sunday night with mine, sneaking into my bedroom and put
Speaker 2: it under my pillow, and when my mother left the room,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know, it was trying to get
Speaker 2: us to go to sleep, you know, in time for
Speaker 2: school on Monday. I would I could pick up stations,
Speaker 2: uh late at night on Sunday night that you couldn't
Speaker 2: normally pick up during the day. The airways were all
Speaker 2: to crowded their gains or something. But it was a
Speaker 2: station out of Nashville, Tennessee, and it was a gospel
Speaker 2: music station. And the DJ was a guy who apparently
Speaker 2: where I got this correct, he went around the mat
Speaker 2: Nashville metro area to all the churches and he would
Speaker 2: record choirs on you know, fairly sophisticated portable tape player
Speaker 2: at the time, and at the end of his day
Speaker 2: that afternoon, prior to his airtime, he would edit these
Speaker 2: tapes and he would pick the best performances from the
Speaker 2: what he thought was the best choir performances of that
Speaker 2: Sunday from the different churches, and that would be his
Speaker 2: program that evening, and he would just with very little talk,
Speaker 2: he would just segue from one performance into the next.
Speaker 2: End each one was more passionate and more exciting and
Speaker 2: you know, powerful than the last one. And I remember
Speaker 2: the kid thinking even back then that you know, gospel
Speaker 2: music is really so much more passionate than rock and roll.
Speaker 2: I mean, rock and roll is great, and I love
Speaker 2: rock and roll like anybody else, but it's kind of
Speaker 2: ways to go to catch up with gospel music as
Speaker 2: far as just pure power and uh and emotion, you know,
Speaker 2: especially in the performance and live performances. You know, Uh,
Speaker 2: the gospel performances have you know, historically, uh, the gospel performers,
Speaker 2: I should say historically have been you know, unbelievable uh artists,
Speaker 2: you know, with the prowess beyond you know, superhuman prowess.
Speaker 2: To me, you know, uh, to this day, when I
Speaker 2: listen to what's popular now is a lot of these
Speaker 2: YouTube you know, excerpts of gospel piano players, and it's
Speaker 2: just you want to just throw in the towel and
Speaker 2: you know, pick up another profession after you hear these guys,
Speaker 2: and some of them are like in their teens, you know,
Speaker 2: and they're just already that great, you know. So it's
Speaker 2: always been, uh something a bar, a musical bar for
Speaker 2: me is what goes on in gospel music, something that
Speaker 2: I've never felt, you know, I've been a part of,
Speaker 2: but I sure enjoy listening to it, and I use
Speaker 2: it as an inspiration to, you know, maybe trying to
Speaker 2: learn something in my old an shaw.
Speaker 1: So in the summer of sixty nine, when the Edmund
Speaker 1: Hawkins singers have Oh Happy Day, are you pissed? Because
Speaker 1: it's taking room from the Beatles and other things where
Speaker 1: you say, oh, this is great, this is just in
Speaker 1: my wheelhouse.
Speaker 2: No no, I love that track, and it kind of
Speaker 2: brought to the airwaves what had always been there, but
Speaker 2: it had been disguised as pop R and B. And
Speaker 2: you know, all of our rhythm blues music is the
Speaker 2: director of the American gospel music, you know, and by
Speaker 2: that I mean African American gospel music, because that really
Speaker 2: is the true well, you know, there's a Southern gospel
Speaker 2: and all that, and rock and roll has also mirror that.
Speaker 2: You know from the beginning. You know, all the different
Speaker 2: forms of pop music in this country that are truly
Speaker 2: American I think come from gospel roots. You know. It's
Speaker 2: the music that people found here, that they further developed here,
Speaker 2: that they found comfort in living their day to day lives.
Speaker 2: That's what got them through, you know, and then it
Speaker 2: evolved into more secular music that they enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 2: in their living rooms and outside of church. You know.
Speaker 2: But you know, all the early R and B performers,
Speaker 2: I think most of them grew up in church and
Speaker 2: learned to just sing and play. Probably most of them
Speaker 2: in church.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the Beatles break on the radio in January
Speaker 1: sixty four, thron ed Sullivan three times in February. In
Speaker 1: my world, we were all playing eylon string guitars folk,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as Beetles hit, everybody got an
Speaker 1: electric guitar and everybody started forming bands. What was your experience.
Speaker 2: Much the same? I think. I think every uh, you know,
Speaker 2: if you didn't just play sports, you know, every other
Speaker 2: American male had a garage bad you know, and dreams
Speaker 2: of making a hit record and uh, you know, being
Speaker 2: being like the Beatles. You know, that was our template
Speaker 2: for uh, you know, social status, you know. Uh, and
Speaker 2: we were no different, you know. We We started out
Speaker 2: and one of drummer's basement, you know, and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: we were probably as terrible as every garage band starts
Speaker 2: out as and uh, but we you know, developed it
Speaker 2: a little further, found some new equipment along the way,
Speaker 2: and we're able to actually play a few gigs and
Speaker 2: the rest of for the most part, most of us
Speaker 2: made a life out of playing music. With all the
Speaker 2: guys I played with when I was twelve thirteen years
Speaker 2: old are still playing music to this day.
Speaker 1: And that's their primary way of putting food on the table,
Speaker 1: so to speak.
Speaker 2: Yes and no. I mean, I think there's not any
Speaker 2: of us that haven't worked outside of the music business
Speaker 2: just to you know, like you say, put food on
Speaker 2: the table. But I pretty much stayed within the bounds
Speaker 2: of working because I was single, you know, for the
Speaker 2: longest part of my life till I met my wife.
Speaker 2: I didn't really have a lot of responsibility, and I
Speaker 2: took that to a whole new level, you know, when
Speaker 2: I was a musician, just you know, to keep my
Speaker 2: attention and focused in one area. You know, I pity
Speaker 2: the woman who would have ever been hooked up with
Speaker 2: me during those periods, because I you know, I lived
Speaker 2: very hand of miles for a while there in a while,
Speaker 2: get a lot of CouchSurfing as a musician in La Okay.
Speaker 1: In my world, everybody formed a garage band. The story
Speaker 1: I tell as I was playing guitars with my good friend.
Speaker 1: He says, now we're going to change keys, and I
Speaker 1: said to myself, I'm out, there's no future here. When
Speaker 1: did you know this was your thing and you were
Speaker 1: going to write it to the end.
Speaker 2: You know, there was a lot of complexity with that
Speaker 2: for me. You know, I think just somewhere in there,
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, if I have anything to offer,
Speaker 2: it's somewhere in this realm, and anything else would be
Speaker 2: starting over for me. And I didn't really have a
Speaker 2: lot of confidence on myself as far as you know.
Speaker 2: I remember one time in park I think I talked
Speaker 2: about this in a poko in front of the bank
Speaker 2: and I was eating Ah. You know, I'd taken my
Speaker 2: life to a whole new economic bottom, you know, at
Speaker 2: that point, you know, and uh, just watching this guy
Speaker 2: in a three piece suit stand there smoking cigarette and
Speaker 2: I kind of just assumed he was on a break.
Speaker 2: He was a bank executive, and I'm thinking, God, what
Speaker 2: must it. What's it like to be him? You know,
Speaker 2: to have all these people's money that you're responsible for
Speaker 2: and this job of great responsibility. And I wouldn't last
Speaker 2: a day in that environment, you know. Uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I could barely you know, uh get it together to
Speaker 2: get my piano to the shop and pick some keys
Speaker 2: and you know, uh this ding dong and Dr Pepper.
Speaker 2: It's going to be my one meal for the day,
Speaker 2: you know. But I, uh, you know, it was just
Speaker 2: a period of my life. I was young, and we're
Speaker 2: all we all went there. I think, I, I uh,
Speaker 2: I stretched that period out a little more than most people,
Speaker 2: but I think that we all know what that's like
Speaker 2: to be that age and you know, kind of irresponsible,
Speaker 2: you know, in terms of what the world sees as responsibility,
Speaker 2: you know. I to this day, I marveled a lot
Speaker 2: of my friends who tell me about their kids and
Speaker 2: what their kids are going, and you know, and I go, well,
Speaker 2: I was at that age, I was just looking for
Speaker 2: another club gig. You know, I wasn't really I wasn't
Speaker 2: even really that concern with what lie beyond that. You know.
Speaker 2: It was just can I borrow an amp in time
Speaker 2: to do this gig? You know? And then you know,
Speaker 2: I gotta be careful with this cord because I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, get it just right. It's going to crackle
Speaker 2: when I play. You know. I was in that world,
Speaker 2: you know, but you know I wouldn't trade it. I
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. I think it was a lot of it
Speaker 2: for me was I was avoiding growing up. You know,
Speaker 2: I was somehow locked in a time frame in my
Speaker 2: own emotional state, you know, emotional maturity, and I just
Speaker 2: didn't think I was cut out to go and learn
Speaker 2: to be a teacher or a lawyer or any kind
Speaker 2: of other professional music was it? Or it was all
Speaker 2: or nothing for me with music, And I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: at least I have a shot at this bringing something
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, you talk in the book your father
Speaker 1: was a saloon singer, literally, and your parents got divorced,
Speaker 1: you know, your school career ends. Was there anybody saying
Speaker 1: Michael or Mike as you refer to, you know, maybe
Speaker 1: you're going down the wrong path. You need to buckle down. Well,
Speaker 1: you've always kind of on your own.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny, you know, of the two parents I had,
Speaker 2: my mother was more like, you know, hey, go for it,
Speaker 2: do you know, do do your best, you know, and
Speaker 2: be you know, you know. Uh. And my dad was too,
Speaker 2: because you know, his interest in music and everything. But
Speaker 2: I think he was more wary about the fact that
Speaker 2: I might find myself out on limb in life and
Speaker 2: uh and then with no real uh you know, plan
Speaker 2: b you know, for how to you know, go into adulthood,
Speaker 2: you know, with some semblance of uh, you know, dignity.
Speaker 2: But you know, uh, so he would always do kind of, yeah,
Speaker 2: you should kind of look into these junior college courses
Speaker 2: and you know, uh, get that ged while you're at it,
Speaker 2: you know, and then go to junior college and just
Speaker 2: kind of pave away for yourself beyond this, you know.
Speaker 2: And uh, eventually I did that. I I went and
Speaker 2: took the test that you know, you know, literally anyone
Speaker 2: could pass, you know, uh, but uh, I I never
Speaker 2: you know, I never took seriously any college courses or
Speaker 2: any other profession besides just playing music, and I think
Speaker 2: that was where my passion was, was just the chance
Speaker 2: to play music again. It didn't matter where or under
Speaker 2: what circumstances. I was one of those guys that when
Speaker 2: I was playing in a crappy bar somewhere with two people,
Speaker 2: you know, at the sitting at the bar and no
Speaker 2: one else in the room. You know, I could close
Speaker 2: my eyes and imagine I was at Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 2: you know, playing singing the song I was about to play,
Speaker 2: you know, h It didn't matter that I wasn't. In
Speaker 2: my mind, I could go there, you know. And I
Speaker 2: think I used to do that a lot, just you know,
Speaker 2: if I was singing this song for uh, the biggest
Speaker 2: audience in the world, how would I do it? How
Speaker 2: would I sing it? You know? To me, it was
Speaker 2: always about the song and about the moment and about
Speaker 2: the chance to perform it. Uh, didn't didn't really matter where.
Speaker 1: You know, it is nearly impossible to make it. You
Speaker 1: focus on luck in the book, but you must have
Speaker 1: had a lot of drive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I think looking back, not in the
Speaker 2: areas I should have. I think, you know, I think
Speaker 2: one of the things that I was always a terrible student,
Speaker 2: you know. I you know, I've never got to practice much.
Speaker 2: I I to this day. I have a real issue
Speaker 2: with it. I'm not sure what it is. I try
Speaker 2: to practice, and I try to you know, I try
Speaker 2: to force myself, but I find that I drift off,
Speaker 2: you know, almost immediately into some other place that isn't
Speaker 2: really very much fruit, you know, in terms of what
Speaker 2: you hope to get from practicing. And you know, for me,
Speaker 2: I learned to play better when I play gigs, you know,
Speaker 2: when I when I'm playing a lot, when I'm in
Speaker 2: a dance situation and there's a reason for me to advance,
Speaker 2: uh you know, my just my keyboard part or something,
Speaker 2: or teach myself to do something I haven't done here
Speaker 2: for you know. But when I'm on my own time
Speaker 2: and I'm at home and I'm gonna I'm going to
Speaker 2: go through all these piano tutorials I've downloaded on my phone,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to slowly practice these things. I'm good
Speaker 2: for about five maybe maybe one minute, you know, and
Speaker 2: and my brain just you know, dislodges, you know, and
Speaker 2: I I find it's really difficult for me to do that,
Speaker 2: to rudimentarily do anything, you know, I I I got
Speaker 2: to be immersed in it for me to actually put
Speaker 2: it together and actually advance a little further with whatever
Speaker 2: it is I'm doing. You know, I play a little
Speaker 2: mandolin with the band. I can't play the mandolin. I couldn't,
Speaker 2: you know. I know a couple of songs. But and
Speaker 2: from the first time I ever picked up a banjo
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, I learned just enough to
Speaker 2: do what I had to do in the next song
Speaker 2: I was gonna play. But uh as far as sitting
Speaker 2: there and practicing the banjo until I got pretty good
Speaker 2: at playing the banjo, I was never capable of doing that.
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, an intention deficit. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, they got names for all this stuff now
Speaker 2: that they didn't have when I was a kid, But
Speaker 2: I think I suffered from a lot of them. And
Speaker 2: uh so for me, you know, it was like to
Speaker 2: throw me in the middle of it. And if it's
Speaker 2: something I enjoy overall, uh, I'll learn what I got
Speaker 2: to learn to do the job I got to do,
Speaker 2: you know. And music was that way for me. You know,
Speaker 2: I wished I had been a better stud music, you know,
Speaker 2: ad a better instrumentalist in all the different respects. You know.
Speaker 2: I'm a you know, a guy plays a little bit
Speaker 2: of some things. Nothing well, you know, and uh, but
Speaker 2: I you know, I would put it together in some
Speaker 2: form or fashion to write a song or to play
Speaker 2: this next song with a band. You know, I would
Speaker 2: come up with some kind of keyboard part that I
Speaker 2: thought worked. And you know, and I'm I'm I'm changing
Speaker 2: my parts. Uh. We've been out for three years dubies
Speaker 2: and up or our third year of the fiftieth anniversary tour. Uh,
Speaker 2: I'm still changing my keyboard parts. You know. It's just
Speaker 2: you know, I'm a slow learner and I'm slow to
Speaker 2: develop those things. But if you give me the chance, uh,
Speaker 2: and I have enough time, I can catch up, you
Speaker 2: know pretty well, you know, But uh, that's kind of
Speaker 2: my m o. You know. That's Uh. I've ever been
Speaker 2: one of those guys that can sit down and rip
Speaker 2: off something in every key you know. I wish I was,
Speaker 2: but I'm not. I don't think I ever will be.
Speaker 1: But to sage, you know, one of the big turning
Speaker 1: points in the book is you put together a band
Speaker 1: for a studio Christmas party. You meet Jeff Percaro and
Speaker 1: he calls you two years later to be in Steely Dan,
Speaker 1: tell me about the conversation in the interaction with Jeff
Speaker 1: Percaro at that Christmas party.
Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting question, really, because, uh, your your
Speaker 2: last question is, you know, you seem to have I
Speaker 2: had a lot of perseverance in the music business, you know.
Speaker 2: I was one of these I was always no matter
Speaker 2: what didn't happen or didn't or whatever imploded or you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I always thought, well, there's an opportunity here somewhere, I
Speaker 2: just have to you know, there'll be another shot at this,
Speaker 2: you know. And though this usually was the last thing
Speaker 2: you expected, and this was one of those things where
Speaker 2: I you know, it was just a gig that I
Speaker 2: had been kind of left in my lap, and I
Speaker 2: failed miserably at delegating and preparing for this thing. And
Speaker 2: I promised this person I would, you know, I wouldn't procrastinate,
Speaker 2: and I would make sure all this stuff was in
Speaker 2: place so that we could do this gig. And of
Speaker 2: course I didn't. And it was a week out and
Speaker 2: this is nothing but disaster looming, you know. And a
Speaker 2: friend of mine said he knew some guys who might
Speaker 2: be able to help us out and play. And you know,
Speaker 2: they were kind of like the young uh you know,
Speaker 2: a list guys in town and his brother worked with him.
Speaker 2: They probably would just doing this gig for fun, you know,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't need to rehearse, you know much, just
Speaker 2: write up some chord charts for them. They do sessions
Speaker 2: every day. They know how to improvise them, you know,
Speaker 2: just some songs that we all remotely know or I
Speaker 2: have heard before, everybody will be able to pull it off.
Speaker 2: And so that's what we did. And I met Jeff
Speaker 2: Percaro on the gig. Mike Paccaro, his brother played bass.
Speaker 2: H David Page came down just to kind of check
Speaker 2: it out, and he sat in on a couple of things,
Speaker 2: and we had a guitar player friend of mine. I
Speaker 2: can't and uh we uh, we got through the night,
Speaker 2: you know. But what what I remember mostly was them
Speaker 2: talking about doing the Steely Dan album they were recording
Speaker 2: at the time, and that was my favorite band at
Speaker 2: that moment. You know. I just love those guys. I
Speaker 2: love them what they did, and uh, you know, probably
Speaker 2: the band I like the most since the Beatles, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh and I thought, Wow, how lucky you know
Speaker 2: to be this guy's you know, playing with these guys
Speaker 2: every day. And I had done a gig prior to
Speaker 2: that club gig a disco in the South Bay area
Speaker 2: and a good friend of mine, Bobby for he was
Speaker 2: a drummer friend of mine, Bobby frederoa uh and we
Speaker 2: played together in some bands, and Bobby was a great
Speaker 2: singer and great player, played with the Righteous Brothers and
Speaker 2: each Boys for years. But he was auditioning for Stewie
Speaker 2: Dan and he was talking about going to this audition,
Speaker 2: and this is the second time I heard about somebody
Speaker 2: having something to do with Stewe Dan. I thought, God,
Speaker 2: how do you get on that train? You know, these
Speaker 2: guys are so lucky, you know. But I noticed that
Speaker 2: they also had a lot of confidence. Like Jeff was
Speaker 2: in a very charming way. Was he was just downright cocky.
Speaker 2: He just he knew he he knew he was good.
Speaker 2: You know, he didn't. It wasn't like me like wondering
Speaker 2: if you know, what's that next choro? So now you know,
Speaker 2: I was always like double checking myself and wondering, who
Speaker 2: is going to go? Yeah, this guy doesn't really play
Speaker 2: that great we should get somebody else, you know. Uh,
Speaker 2: I was always in that world in my head. And
Speaker 2: parents of these guys that never give a second thought
Speaker 2: about whether they deserve the gig or not, you know,
Speaker 2: they just you know, this is what I do, and
Speaker 2: I'm damn good at it, you know. And I really
Speaker 2: admired that if I found that just really alluring, you
Speaker 2: know about these guys, and uh, they were talking about
Speaker 2: playing with Steely Dan like it was just to walk
Speaker 2: in the park, you know. And uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: knew if I were in that room on that floor,
Speaker 2: I'd be sweating bullets, you know. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: that was what I remember about meeting those guys first time,
Speaker 2: was just being introduced to that you know that the
Speaker 2: Cats send, you know, the guys that were you know,
Speaker 2: they they knew they belonged in the circle of a
Speaker 2: list musicians, you know. And these guys were like in
Speaker 2: their teams at that point, they were like nineteen eighteen,
Speaker 2: nineteen years old and already playing you know a lot
Speaker 2: of major recording dates in Los Angeles of all places.
Speaker 1: Well, what was the conversation or what happened that night
Speaker 1: such that two years later, Jeff Percaro said, come audition
Speaker 1: for Steely Dan. Why did he remember you?
Speaker 2: I think he enjoyed playing with me. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think we had We had a lot of fun that night.
Speaker 2: We played a lot of great R and B stuff
Speaker 2: that we all liked, you know, that we hadn't probably
Speaker 2: had a chance to play in a while, dance music
Speaker 2: that I was used to playing because I played in
Speaker 2: the clubs more than they did. But you know, average
Speaker 2: White band, you know, Tower Power stuff, you know, some
Speaker 2: Steely Dan stuff, and a lot of the older R
Speaker 2: and B stuff resa you know, all our favorite songs.
Speaker 2: And we were for the most part improvising, just kind
Speaker 2: of playing off the court yard and in some cases
Speaker 2: making up the arrangements as we went, you know. But
Speaker 2: it was a lot of fun. And and I think
Speaker 2: Jeff enjoyed my voice as a lead singer, and you
Speaker 2: know some of the different you know, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: you always try to bring your own interpretation to a song,
Speaker 2: you know. So and I think he knew enough about
Speaker 2: what we were doing and he's we were playing, and
Speaker 2: that he thought he might have been impressed that I
Speaker 2: sang as high as I did, you know, because a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't think I do, and I don't
Speaker 2: sound like I do, but uh, I'm basically a tenor
Speaker 2: as far as vocalist goes. And so when they were
Speaker 2: finally uh and they were talking about leaving, they were
Speaker 2: finishing the record that then this is a year before
Speaker 2: he called me, uh and they were going to go
Speaker 2: out on tour. Well they that never kind of came
Speaker 2: to fruition. Uh. It was a year later and they
Speaker 2: were still trying to put a band together to go
Speaker 2: on tour. So Jeff suggested me as possibly playing some
Speaker 2: miscellaneous keyboards and uh and being able to sing uh
Speaker 2: the backgrounds, you know, and they even handle the lead
Speaker 2: uh Donald, So uh, I wanted to take a break,
Speaker 2: you know on something I'll find the song to to
Speaker 2: throw it around a little bit. So uh. For whatever reason,
Speaker 2: he he, he liked what we did that night enough
Speaker 2: to call me the year later and said, you know,
Speaker 2: I thought about you. You know, I suggested that guys
Speaker 2: maybe should come down to audition, and they said, sure,
Speaker 2: have him come down. I said, great, I'm free all week.
Speaker 2: You know, well, well it's a good time because like
Speaker 2: right now, you know, come on down, bring your piano,
Speaker 2: just you know, well run through some stuff. And see
Speaker 2: what they think, you know. Ah, so I was amazed
Speaker 2: that he even thought of it. A year later, we
Speaker 2: pretty much became friends immediately. You know. It wasn't well,
Speaker 2: you know, from from the moment we started rehearsing with
Speaker 2: Steven Dan. I think Jeff and I became kind of
Speaker 2: lifelong friends. I appreciated very much what he had done
Speaker 2: for me and his confidence in me to be able
Speaker 2: to pull it off. Ah. But also we you know,
Speaker 2: we had a kind of a kindred spirit and sense
Speaker 2: of I don't know, you know, family, uh, the start
Speaker 2: sensitive sensibilities, you know, regarding life in general, you know,
Speaker 2: uh and uh so and Jeff was just one of
Speaker 2: those guys that everybody loved. The guy. You know, he
Speaker 2: reminded me of my dad in that way. I think
Speaker 2: that was my you know what I I why I
Speaker 2: think I I gravitated into our friendship so much was
Speaker 2: he didn't remind me of my dad. He was just
Speaker 2: one of those guys that was, uh, everybody seemed to like.
Speaker 2: You know, he had a charm about him, you know
Speaker 2: that uh that you know, attracted people. And I think
Speaker 2: in a way I was he reminded me of my
Speaker 2: dad in that way just kind of had that personality
Speaker 2: that you know, uh, it was like the farthest thing
Speaker 2: from reality for me. You know, I always felt like
Speaker 2: I was, you know, somebody was going to call out
Speaker 2: my name and they were gonna put me in a
Speaker 2: paddy wagon or something, you know. Uh, but I always
Speaker 2: was attracted to people who seemed self assured, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh uh my dad was like that, and Jeff
Speaker 2: was was definitely like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, musicians are the best networkers exton. And you were
Speaker 1: really in that world you're in LA, you're playing different
Speaker 1: shows and putting bands together. Were you the type of
Speaker 1: person who was just a good hang or they only
Speaker 1: heard you once and said, you know, that's the hot guy.
Speaker 1: You got to get to him. What was the magic
Speaker 1: of your networking such a you could continue to work.
Speaker 2: Well, that's probably one of the most important things in
Speaker 2: especially in session world, is you know, it's one thing
Speaker 2: to be a good player, to be able to handle,
Speaker 2: you know, and even but to be a good personal
Speaker 2: person could be a good hang or you know, to
Speaker 2: to be able to hang with guys and you know,
Speaker 2: have a certain sense of humor, you know, you know, whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, it makes for a good conversation that was
Speaker 2: equally important. You know, it seemed like there was a
Speaker 2: camaraderie with all session players and producers. You know that
Speaker 2: it was about enjoyment of being around those people by
Speaker 2: as much as their their talent and their ability to play.
Speaker 2: And I think, uh, you know, there were always those
Speaker 2: guys that probably were a little socially in that that
Speaker 2: but played so great that you know, you wanted them
Speaker 2: on your session. You know, everybody kind of you know, uh,
Speaker 2: but you uh for the average guy, but it was
Speaker 2: a good player, you know, or could do the job. Uh.
Speaker 2: An important ingredient would be to be a good hang
Speaker 2: and to be someone that people liked, uh, that were
Speaker 2: happy to see walk in the room, you know. Uh.
Speaker 2: And I that was never lost on me. You know.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure I ever uh was all
Speaker 2: that good at it, but I I knew it was important,
Speaker 2: you know, And I knew that, uh, I I wanted
Speaker 2: to you know, I don't know what the word is,
Speaker 2: you know, endear myself to the people and the room,
Speaker 2: you know, so uh that that somehow was an important
Speaker 2: ingredient that might getch you the next gig. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of focus on your family. Your
Speaker 1: father leaves the house, he comes back now and again,
Speaker 1: but you got your mother, you got your two sisters.
Speaker 1: You talk about from the time you start working as
Speaker 1: a teenager, you're kicking in for the household bills. Then
Speaker 1: they follow you out to California. You know, there are
Speaker 1: some situations that are uncomfortable, but when one reads it,
Speaker 1: you go, this must have been a big drag on
Speaker 1: you emotionally and made it even harder to be successful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know, I mean.
Speaker 4: Uh, I do remember having a taste of freedom from
Speaker 4: the familial you know, effort to you know, stay afloat
Speaker 4: that we grew up with.
Speaker 2: But and you know, just to be actually on my
Speaker 2: own living in California at nineteen, you know, I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is an eye opener. In some ways. I think
Speaker 2: it opened the door to me, you know, possibly getting
Speaker 2: into more trouble than I bargained for because I just
Speaker 2: really wasn't used to well. I was in bands and
Speaker 2: we were on the road back in the Midwest a
Speaker 2: lot too, so were was no shortage of you know,
Speaker 2: shenanigans back then. But coming to California, it was just
Speaker 2: such an eye opener. It was just such a different world,
Speaker 2: you know. It was nothing like where I came from,
Speaker 2: you know, And so when it was time to bring
Speaker 2: my family back out, there was a certain kind of like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm really kind of enjoying this, you know,
Speaker 2: being grown up on my own, you know, living my
Speaker 2: own life in California. But uh, you know we did
Speaker 2: all well, not to sound you know, modeling, but you know,
Speaker 2: my mom for sure had sacrificed so much just to
Speaker 2: raise us, you know, my sisters and I and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, this was kind of I knew what part
Speaker 2: of this was surgery, you know that somehow I would
Speaker 2: you know, be able to make a living in California
Speaker 2: and they'd all be able to move out and you know,
Speaker 2: we've uh whatever behind us. You know. For my mom,
Speaker 2: it was a leaving a failed marriage and leaving you
Speaker 2: know a lot of hard work, you know, and maybe
Speaker 2: being able to cash in a little bit on the
Speaker 2: rewards of you know, sticking sticking out with all of
Speaker 2: us and you know, and doing her best for us,
Speaker 2: you know, And I felt I owed her that, you know,
Speaker 2: so uh, you know, I knew that was her dream
Speaker 2: was to move to California, and my sisters and I,
Speaker 2: you know, we're always very close, so you know, uh,
Speaker 2: I knew once they got out here, they would take
Speaker 2: over a lot of the I always left the family
Speaker 2: stuff to them, you know, you know whatever. Uh, And
Speaker 2: I was always kind of given this carte blanche of like, well,
Speaker 2: he just goes and does what he does, and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, and he's you know, uh, as long as
Speaker 2: he helps out financially, we're good. You know. Uh, they
Speaker 2: don't really need me around. They just you know, needed
Speaker 2: my help. And we all we needed you know, when
Speaker 2: we're growing up, we all needed that to band together.
Speaker 2: You know. My mom and her sisters, my grandmother. Uh,
Speaker 2: we lived in a kind of communal situation, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: not in the same house, but we all they all
Speaker 2: raised each other's kids, and my grandmother raised us for
Speaker 2: the most part while they all worked. And uh so
Speaker 2: it was a very uh a meshed kind of a
Speaker 2: family for better or worse, very a meshed kind of
Speaker 2: family experience.
Speaker 1: Okay, but it ultimately doesn't work out and everybody goes
Speaker 1: back to Saint Louis and then it works better and
Speaker 1: everybody comes back. What was your emotion after you make
Speaker 1: a record, nothing happens, family comes out, you go back
Speaker 1: to Saint Louis. Well, how did you feel.
Speaker 2: Oh? I think that played into my a part of
Speaker 2: myself that I didn't even really know consciously yet, which was, uh,
Speaker 2: this is not over for me. I'm going to get
Speaker 2: back out to California. You know. I think I had
Speaker 2: that in the back of my mind, you know, from
Speaker 2: the minute I got everybody back home, you know, and
Speaker 2: uh we all left after the earthquake, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: and my album got de scrapped. You know. I just
Speaker 2: I think even then that it could be one of
Speaker 2: the lower points of my uh inspiration in terms of
Speaker 2: the music business. I wasn't ready to give up, you know,
Speaker 2: even with my dad doing you know, while you're home,
Speaker 2: you should take that g D. You know, uh, maybe
Speaker 2: look at this community college up here in Florence. And
Speaker 2: you know, even in those conversations, I was going, Nah,
Speaker 2: I gotta I've had a taste of California. I know,
Speaker 2: I think I know what's going on out there to
Speaker 2: the degree that I maybe thought I did. And and
Speaker 2: but I knew I had to get back, you know,
Speaker 2: that somehow I would figure that out. I wasn't sure
Speaker 2: how h.
Speaker 1: Okay. You know, you start out, you're a teenager by
Speaker 1: time you contemplate going to California. What is the dream?
Speaker 1: What is it you want? What do you see on
Speaker 1: the horizon?
Speaker 2: I think I wanted to make records, you know. That
Speaker 2: was that That's how I saw the music business, you know,
Speaker 2: in the simplest form, was I want to make a
Speaker 2: record that someone can actually put out and maybe get
Speaker 2: on the radio and then let people decide whether I'm
Speaker 2: any good or not, you know, but just to be
Speaker 2: able to get into that those circles where people actually
Speaker 2: made records that were actually viable, possible radio play, you know,
Speaker 2: for the radio stations around the country. You know, I
Speaker 2: wanted to be that guy that, like myself, when I'm
Speaker 2: driving down the freeway and I hear that song come on,
Speaker 2: and that joyous moment of reaching over and just cranking
Speaker 2: that sucker, you know, as loud as I can and
Speaker 2: listen to that song all way down the highway. I
Speaker 2: wanted to be that for somebody else. I wanted I
Speaker 2: want someone else to have that experience concerning my music.
Speaker 1: Did you see yourself as a solo act or a
Speaker 1: band or the front man. Was there something in your
Speaker 1: mind's eye.
Speaker 2: I was always pretty malleable with that. I was always
Speaker 2: more comfortable being in a band, in a band, you know,
Speaker 2: being a band guy, you know, but I was willing
Speaker 2: to try solo artists. Thing that was my first deal
Speaker 2: with Warner Brother with R Cier, was to make a
Speaker 2: record as a solo artist, singer, composer. But I'm not
Speaker 2: sure I was ever really prepared to do that, you know.
Speaker 2: I think I just took everything kind of one step
Speaker 2: at a time, you know, figured i'd figure out the
Speaker 2: rest of it, what it was like to be a performer.
Speaker 2: You know. I wanted to sing like Tom Jones, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to write songs like Burt Backerack and uh
Speaker 2: somewhere into that realm, you know, I thought I would
Speaker 2: be happy. I loved R and B. But I didn't
Speaker 2: consider myself a real R and B singer, you know,
Speaker 2: per se you know, ah and are really having a
Speaker 2: chance in that market much, you know. I I love
Speaker 2: singing and stuff, and I loved that was my favorite
Speaker 2: music at the time. But I feel I kind of
Speaker 2: I guess I saw myself more as a pop artist,
Speaker 2: you know, in my mind's eye, or that I had
Speaker 2: more of a chance of being successful making records in
Speaker 2: that realm you cut to chase, you know, the record
Speaker 2: got scrapped and probably for everyone's benefit, and I went
Speaker 2: back home for a minute, got back out to California,
Speaker 2: but always it was the drive to kind of somehow
Speaker 2: get into the recording pusician, you know. And then it
Speaker 2: wasn't long before working for Richard producer. I worked for
Speaker 2: quite a bit, played on a lot of sessions that
Speaker 2: I my my dream then kind of I was nothing
Speaker 2: if not valuable. You know. I thought, well, if I
Speaker 2: could just you know, get a little better on piano
Speaker 2: and play more sessions, I would be happy. And just
Speaker 2: being a guy that played sessions enough to pay the
Speaker 2: bills and you know, work, I could work in clubs,
Speaker 2: you know, in my off time. But if if I
Speaker 2: could work enough to do more sessions and make a
Speaker 2: living good living at it, uh that I would be happy,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh So for a while that was
Speaker 2: all I was really shooting at it. But then you know,
Speaker 2: it would come up that friends of mine were going
Speaker 2: to go on the road with somebody. I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: that sounds like fun, and that sounds like a great gig,
Speaker 2: you know, and uh, you know, none of us got
Speaker 2: paid that much for it. He had to be really
Speaker 2: the ace guy, doing so many sessions that they had
Speaker 2: to pay you thousands of dollars to leak down, you know,
Speaker 2: to turn your back on that, you know. But I
Speaker 2: wasn't that guy, and so I was more in the
Speaker 2: rome of guys who would go on the road next
Speaker 2: to nothing and you know, play as mindy cakes as possible.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you were lucky enough to be
Speaker 2: with the band, you loved it. It was nothing better
Speaker 2: than that. You know. It's kind of like being in
Speaker 2: love and being broke, you know. It was like, you know, hey,
Speaker 2: this is the best. You know. So I was always
Speaker 2: looking for one of those gigs to come up. And
Speaker 2: when it actually happened that my steely Dan's dream kind
Speaker 2: of came true, I couldn't believe it, you know, that
Speaker 2: I would actually get to play with this band who
Speaker 2: eded at the moment, was my favorite band in the world,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's like a lot of those kind
Speaker 2: of gigs you get them, it's a dream come true
Speaker 2: and I can't think of it being any better. And
Speaker 2: then they break up, and you know, you're back to
Speaker 2: the Trojan Room in Glendale, playing a couple of their
Speaker 2: songs in your set at night. You know. So you know,
Speaker 2: it was the ups and downs of all that. But
Speaker 2: you know, as long as I could make a living
Speaker 2: as a musician, I was. I was for the most part,
Speaker 2: I was happy. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, eventually you have this large success, you know, you
Speaker 1: buy a house, your mother has her friends staying in
Speaker 1: your house. But to what degree when you have the
Speaker 1: success and you have everybody can use more money, but
Speaker 1: you have more money than you need to pay the bills,
Speaker 1: to what degree did you have a responsibility to take
Speaker 1: care of the other three family members? And to what
Speaker 1: degree did they ask?
Speaker 2: You know, I I don't know that My family was
Speaker 2: ever really very demanding and everybody had their own you know,
Speaker 2: my sisters were both singers and bands, and uh you know,
Speaker 2: we all worked. You know. I I helped out my
Speaker 2: family as much as I could. You know, I always
Speaker 2: happy to do that. You know, Uh, my mom, it
Speaker 2: was my It was kind of like the delegation was
Speaker 2: mom is my responsibility and financially and uh uh the
Speaker 2: girls you know had their own lives. You know, they
Speaker 2: had husbands at a certain point, and so I wasn't
Speaker 2: really interfering in their lives that much. I would be happy,
Speaker 2: you know, to help them out financially if I could
Speaker 2: on something, But for the most part, everybody was pretty
Speaker 2: so sufficient. You know. Uh my mom, I think we
Speaker 2: all felt deserved to break, you know. And uh, so
Speaker 2: you know, I got her a house, and but she
Speaker 2: wasn't happy unless she was working. So she continued to work.
Speaker 2: And so she went to school, became a travel agent.
Speaker 2: And my mom and her uh you know, inevitable style,
Speaker 2: wound up being a travel agent to like more celebrities
Speaker 2: than I'd ever met in my life, you know. And
Speaker 2: uh she was like the celebrities of the travel agents,
Speaker 2: of the stars, uh, actors, you know, the beach boys
Speaker 2: all they they did their travel through my mom. Uh
Speaker 2: you know, all kinds of folks that I met actually
Speaker 2: through my mom as their travel agent, you know. But
Speaker 2: so she was happy working. But now she didn't need
Speaker 2: to struggle so much to just you know, raise three
Speaker 2: kids and uh, you know, less than one hundred bucks
Speaker 2: a week, you know. Uh, those days were over and
Speaker 2: so we we we all and we all participated. My
Speaker 2: sisters were always really more on uh, on site kind
Speaker 2: of help with my mom whenever, you know, she needed,
Speaker 2: especially as she got older, you know, uh, organizing her
Speaker 2: health care and stuff like that. To Cathy was always
Speaker 2: really great about that, you know, and her sister Marge,
Speaker 2: my aunt Betsy was always really a bit at that.
Speaker 2: Nobody gave me much credit for being able to handle
Speaker 2: those things very well. So we all kind of took
Speaker 2: on our best suited jobs.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're on the road with Steely Dan. You talk
Speaker 1: about being in London and the two key members were
Speaker 1: in their own hotel room. To what degree was the
Speaker 1: band all in it together or were Walter and Donald
Speaker 1: separate and the rest of the band.
Speaker 2: Hung well, I think it would be safe to say
Speaker 2: that everybody saw Walter and Donald as the source of
Speaker 2: creativity for what was eventually would be Seely Dan in
Speaker 2: any sense. You know, those guys wrote the songs, They
Speaker 2: were the brains behind the operation, you know kind of thing,
Speaker 2: and we all felt really fortunate to be part of
Speaker 2: their music, you know, we all fans first. Now, there
Speaker 2: were the guys that were originally in the band who
Speaker 2: came out to New York for them, who played them, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, from the beginning, you know, on the Winnebago
Speaker 2: tours as we say, you know, and had been in
Speaker 2: from the beginning. But even those guys I think looked
Speaker 2: to Donald and Walter as they all brought their particular expertise.
Speaker 2: Danny Diaz, Jeff Baxter, Jimmy Hotter, they they all had
Speaker 2: what they did well, and that's what they brought to
Speaker 2: the band. But I think everybody looked to Donald and
Speaker 2: Walter for that creative source that that made the band
Speaker 2: what it was musically ultimately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but how much in terms of hang could you
Speaker 1: hang with Walter and Donald or was it clear they're
Speaker 1: in their own bubble?
Speaker 2: Probably a little of both, you know, but uh, they
Speaker 2: were both very funny guy. It's great hang you know
Speaker 2: when we all we all pretty much hung together at
Speaker 2: the cage on days. But at the same time, there
Speaker 2: was a probably you can on the off days, uh,
Speaker 2: I would probably be running around town with one of
Speaker 2: the guys in the band or the crew, you know,
Speaker 2: we all you know, and so this was kind of
Speaker 2: a special treat to be called up to Donald and
Speaker 2: Walters enclave at this hotel in London to spend the
Speaker 2: day just hanging out. But we did that a lot.
Speaker 2: We did that too, you know. And like I say,
Speaker 2: those guys were very funny. It was always fun to
Speaker 2: be around them, you know, and their their view of
Speaker 2: the world around them was always worth the price of
Speaker 2: the mission, you know. Uh. They had a real sense
Speaker 2: of irony when it came to encountering people, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: and just different things the way they looked at life,
Speaker 2: you know, especially in the music business, and so uh
Speaker 2: that was all part of that scene. You know. They
Speaker 2: were kind of hiding out from the promoters and h
Speaker 2: in our executives and uh management uh and held up
Speaker 2: in their ivory tower of Blake's Hotel, and everybody was
Speaker 2: down in the lobby pulling their hair out trying to
Speaker 2: get a phone call up to those guys. And they
Speaker 2: had just you know, decided we're going to do this
Speaker 2: our way, the highway, you know, and uh so and
Speaker 2: we will let you know when we're ready to talk
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And somehow in the middle of that, we were invited
Speaker 2: up to the room to just kind of hang out
Speaker 2: for the afternoon and you know, ah and you know,
Speaker 2: hang well.
Speaker 1: Denny Diaz, to my knowledge, ultimately became a computer programmer,
Speaker 1: not everybody he can eke out a living in music.
Speaker 1: Those people, how do they ultimately make a decision to
Speaker 1: make a left turn? What have you learned?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, I think that's just such a personal decision,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think if you have the what's
Speaker 2: tempting is if you actually have an acumen for something
Speaker 2: like that, Like I think Denny's interest was always there,
Speaker 2: you know, for it stuff and you know, computers, uh
Speaker 2: and he was always fascinated with technical things, technical you know,
Speaker 2: uh uh here, recording, you know, uh stuff, So it
Speaker 2: would be an easy transition for him, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think once again, you know, the great equalizers when
Speaker 2: when he gets married, you know, you look at your
Speaker 2: life differently. You know, you're not willing or you know,
Speaker 2: collectively as a unit, you're not willing to charge the
Speaker 2: road of economic despair, you know, any more than you
Speaker 2: have to, you know. And so you know, for some
Speaker 2: of the guys, I think it was an easy transition
Speaker 2: for some of them. Not, you know, not so much,
Speaker 2: you know. But now it's a hard question to answer.
Speaker 2: For me. All I know from my own experience was
Speaker 2: I would have been afraid to enter most of any
Speaker 2: of those worlds you know, I didn't even understand them
Speaker 2: as they pertained to music, much less what I understand
Speaker 2: them outside of music. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in bands in the area of Missouri, Indiana, Illinois,
Speaker 1: and you ultimately interact with Irving Azoff World as an
Speaker 1: agent in Illinois, and he ultimately becomes your manager in
Speaker 1: your solo career. What was Irving like when he was
Speaker 1: in Illinois?
Speaker 2: Exactly like Irving is now. I don't think he's changed
Speaker 2: one bit, but in all the good ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a great respect for his friend first, you know,
Speaker 2: but as a manager for sure, you know, as a
Speaker 2: as a I think, as a person with great perspective
Speaker 2: about the music business. And I think it's made him
Speaker 2: as many enemies as friends, you know. But I think
Speaker 2: it's very telling that most of his friends are artists
Speaker 2: that he has helped, you know. You know, Irving was
Speaker 2: one of those guys where you know, the suits. I'll
Speaker 2: love to tell you what a scoundrel Irving can be,
Speaker 2: you know, ruthless, you know, blah blah blah. Pretty much
Speaker 2: every musician that's ever worked with him is you know,
Speaker 2: can we will tell you that the guys the best
Speaker 2: there is you know, as far as looking out for
Speaker 2: artist interests, for being wise in his advice to artists, uh,
Speaker 2: and guiding their careers. Uh. I think you'd be hard
Speaker 2: pressed to find anyone. It's even you know, in his league,
Speaker 2: you know, to be quite honest. Uh. You know, all
Speaker 2: the guys from that from that office that was our
Speaker 2: booking agency and Champagne Illinois, of all places, uh, I
Speaker 2: have done really really well. They were They were kind
Speaker 2: of the new age of perspective on management of musical artists.
Speaker 2: You know, John Barrick, all the guys in those offices
Speaker 2: were really uh kind of groundbreaking, uh, artist centric kind
Speaker 2: of view of the business. You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you start off the bands as a guitarist, ultimately
Speaker 1: you're a piano player. Tell us how what's going on there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Again, you know I was always just doing you know,
Speaker 2: for me musically, I was just do whatever was required
Speaker 2: for the next song we were going to learn off
Speaker 2: of some record. You know. It was just it was
Speaker 2: if there was a piano on it. That's why I
Speaker 2: started playing piano again. Bands. Was all of a sudden
Speaker 2: there was these records coming out. They had keyboards and
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, so I I uh, would you know,
Speaker 2: just learned the song on that instrument, you know, as
Speaker 2: best I could, you know, and uh we would kind
Speaker 2: of come up with our own arrangement of it for
Speaker 2: a four piece band, you know. And so uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of learned to play any instrument more from
Speaker 2: my experience with bands than from any formal training or
Speaker 2: lessons that I ever took on piano or or anything.
Speaker 1: You know, you have a unique voice. If we heard
Speaker 1: you sixty years ago, would you still sound like you
Speaker 1: do on your famous records?
Speaker 2: Probably not. I think the voice all by itself, for
Speaker 2: anyone is an ever changing instrument, you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think there's certain traits that remain, you know, are
Speaker 2: recognizable as remain. But as you get older, you know,
Speaker 2: you have to kind of adjust to what your strengths
Speaker 2: are at this point time physically as a singer. And
Speaker 2: I was always kind of a you know, if you
Speaker 2: have a two categories crooner screamer, I was always a
Speaker 2: little more to the screamer side of things, you know,
Speaker 2: and playing singing in keys that were probably a little
Speaker 2: bit technically too high for me, uh ah not, you know,
Speaker 2: not taking it easy, you know, in terms of kind
Speaker 2: of pushing my voice, you know, as much as I could,
Speaker 2: and I felt that that's what uh I could bring
Speaker 2: to you know, I could be you know, I could
Speaker 2: do the Mitch Ryder stuff, or the James Brown songs
Speaker 2: or the you know uh where. I paid for that
Speaker 2: later in like, you know, as I got older, I
Speaker 2: suddenly realized and even early on, I paid for it.
Speaker 2: I realized, you know, you can't just scream all the time.
Speaker 2: It won't be singing two years from now, you know.
Speaker 2: So I started to develop a style of singing for
Speaker 2: myself that had as much to do with function as
Speaker 2: it did with form. You know. It was so that
Speaker 2: I could keep singing all night, you know, and uh
Speaker 2: but that I could sound like I was really putting
Speaker 2: it out there, you know, which I was in one respect,
Speaker 2: But I was learning to not hurt myself in the process,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh I learned later when I started
Speaker 2: to become more acquainted with some of my favorite singers
Speaker 2: from that era, that they all had that they had
Speaker 2: all developed that some of the best gospel singers, you know,
Speaker 2: they just sound like they're ripping their own vocal cards
Speaker 2: out from the inside, but you know, they really have
Speaker 2: a technique that allows them to you know, just uh shout,
Speaker 2: scream this this song out, you know, uh, but without
Speaker 2: hurting themselves, you know, with it's a it's an intrinsic
Speaker 2: kind of ability that they develop, you know. And uh
Speaker 2: and and playing clubs I had. I found that that's
Speaker 2: one of the best things playing clubs did for me
Speaker 2: was allow me to develop my vocal uh style in
Speaker 2: a reasonable way, a four man function, you know, because
Speaker 2: I was saying enough all the time that I was
Speaker 2: able to kind of find my voice in the nightclubs
Speaker 2: that I played.
Speaker 1: Okay, some people are writing three songs a day. Other
Speaker 1: people write, you know, only when they have a record.
Speaker 1: Do what's your writing situation?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, I think I've always been the guy
Speaker 2: who would be lucky to write three songs a year,
Speaker 2: you know. You know, I don't. I'm not a prolific
Speaker 2: writer again, you know, like like a lot of things musically,
Speaker 2: I I approach it with a like you know, there's
Speaker 2: not a time I go to write a song that
Speaker 2: I'm not thinking in the back of my mind, I
Speaker 2: don't know, do I know how to do this? It's
Speaker 2: been a while or you know, you again, you change
Speaker 2: your approach, you know, over the years, and I certainly
Speaker 2: have done that, you know, or are you to just
Speaker 2: write grooves on the piano and then come up with
Speaker 2: words for it would be a very simplistic way of
Speaker 2: looking at it. Uh. I started to kind of take
Speaker 2: the songs themselves a little more seriously and hope that
Speaker 2: I was maybe saying something uh lyrically that you know,
Speaker 2: people could relate to on a deeper level. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, musically, I wanted to do to you know,
Speaker 2: develop and and and that entailed both things being more simple,
Speaker 2: you know, taking you know, appreciating simplicity more in my writing. Uh.
Speaker 2: You know, I always felt like I was one of
Speaker 2: those guys that were whatever new thing I learned, I
Speaker 2: would use it to death till even I was sick
Speaker 2: of it, you know. Uh So I would always have
Speaker 2: to kind of go through that process to where it
Speaker 2: till it finally became something useful and meaningful for me.
Speaker 2: You know. When I started to of understand a little
Speaker 2: more theory where chord progressions and key changes and relative
Speaker 2: keys and all that were concerned, then I started to
Speaker 2: write songs that had more chords in it than music itself,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean and to it fault, you know.
Speaker 2: But you know, you go through your faces and you
Speaker 2: you hopefully come out on the other side having learned something,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's always been a learning process for me,
Speaker 2: you know. And I think with writing songs it will
Speaker 2: always be. I go through this kind of love hate
Speaker 2: thing where I feel like it's something I'm putting on
Speaker 2: the back burner, leaving it on the stove too long,
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to look back and see it's
Speaker 2: catching fire or not, you know, out and then something happens,
Speaker 2: like the dude has decided to do a new record,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, it's like, well, I guess
Speaker 2: I should pull out some of these notebook and start
Speaker 2: looking through them and seeing if I got anything here,
Speaker 2: you know, that I could make into a song, you know.
Speaker 2: And but I've never been one of those guys with
Speaker 2: a burning passion to write the next song. I've just
Speaker 2: been a musician who writes some music. And again, you know,
Speaker 2: I've worked with writers who are really very professional composers
Speaker 2: and take it very seriously, and that's a whole other
Speaker 2: level of songwriting to me. You know, it's a whole
Speaker 2: nother business of songwriting. For me, I'm just like I say,
Speaker 2: like one of the guys in the band, who's I
Speaker 2: got a song? You know what about this? You know,
Speaker 2: as opposed to you know, the very backrecs and people
Speaker 2: like that who do it very diligently and you know,
Speaker 2: take on huge projects like Broadway plays and movies and
Speaker 2: things like that.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, I love, I keep forgetting. But your
Speaker 1: favorite song of mine is real love. Not only is
Speaker 1: it great musically, the lyrics are incredibly insightful. Tell me
Speaker 1: about that song.
Speaker 2: Uh, well, as I think for that song for me,
Speaker 2: uh was uh, you know, kind of I think one
Speaker 2: of one of the dobies. We started to kind of
Speaker 2: enter a little bit more into the you know, R
Speaker 2: and B world, but we always had that, you know,
Speaker 2: uh kind of one foot in the rock and roll world.
Speaker 2: And but our music started to develop a kind of
Speaker 2: an rhythm B lose uh sometimes even more of a
Speaker 2: jazz fusion feeling, and and that song was somewhere in
Speaker 2: between that. That song was one of one of our
Speaker 2: simpler songs. I actually cut the song for my solo,
Speaker 2: my first solo record, with Jeff Percaro and some other musicians.
Speaker 2: Steve luftre Think played on the date. Uh uh uh
Speaker 2: Patrick Henderson, Uh who I believe I wrote the song
Speaker 2: with it, if I'm not mistaken getting old to Foggy here,
Speaker 2: But we had cut a nice track of it, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh but at the time, I thought it was
Speaker 2: like the best thing I got. Right now, I'm not sure, Ah,
Speaker 2: I have anything I'm really half crazy about for the
Speaker 2: next Doobie's album, you know, and I saw I felt
Speaker 2: like I owed it to the Doobie's troject to do
Speaker 2: whatever I thought my best offering was, you know, and
Speaker 2: then I would figure out what to write for my
Speaker 2: solo record later because time wise and everything it was,
Speaker 2: it wasn't as urgent as the next Dewbie Brothers record was, uh,
Speaker 2: scheduling standpoint and all that. So I went it, went
Speaker 2: ahead and cut it with the band, and I think
Speaker 2: that was the version. I think that really turned out
Speaker 2: the best of that song. And it was a you know,
Speaker 2: providential that I cut it with those guys. You know,
Speaker 2: it was meant to be a do Bee brother song.
Speaker 1: But what about the lyrics. The lyrics are so you know, insightful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, well yeah, I think, uh, it's just uh
Speaker 2: the song for me, it was about you know, how
Speaker 2: we when we can't find love, we uh, we're almost
Speaker 2: willing to accept anything in its place, you know that
Speaker 2: might at least allude to love, you know. Uh and
Speaker 2: uh and somehow that's the best we can do for
Speaker 2: a while, you know. And uh uh that's pretty much
Speaker 2: what the lyric was about. You know, let's let's let's
Speaker 2: pretend that that that that's what we have here and uh,
Speaker 2: because otherwise what are we doing here? You know? Uh?
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people experience that with
Speaker 2: with love and in the pursuit of love. You know,
Speaker 2: there's so many things that we accept that are really
Speaker 2: less than love. You know. There's a song on the
Speaker 2: new Dubi Brother's album called it Ain't the kind of Last,
Speaker 2: And oddly enough, that's a reoccurring theme in my Uh.
Speaker 2: But I just think it's it's uh, what what most
Speaker 2: people experience in terms of the world of in the
Speaker 2: world of love, of love and relationship. Uh. I think
Speaker 2: what it is is we have to learn to love
Speaker 2: ourselves first, you know, and uh and then uh that
Speaker 2: love we're looking for will come uh in its own time.
Speaker 2: But until we the journey for most of us is
Speaker 2: learning to love ourselves first so that we can actually
Speaker 2: be in a position to accept something like real love.
Speaker 2: You know, uh in the process. I think I've written
Speaker 2: about that probably far too many times, but ah, it's
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's definitely a universal theme, you know.
Speaker 1: M what's the story if I got to try?
Speaker 2: I wrote that with Kenny and we Kenny login, Kenny
Speaker 2: logans yes, and the song is pretty self expen It
Speaker 2: was really basically like, you know, it's so easy to
Speaker 2: h m hm, look at the world around us and
Speaker 2: lose the ability to envision what it is we all want,
Speaker 2: you know, Uh, right now we're going to that. You know.
Speaker 2: We look at the world around us, we look at
Speaker 2: our options, we look at what's happening with people, We
Speaker 2: looking at the way people are treating each other. It's
Speaker 2: really easy to lose faith, you know, you know, humanity,
Speaker 2: you know, but that gift to envision something better, you know,
Speaker 2: the simple fact that we really all are the same,
Speaker 2: if we ever get around to accepting that reality and
Speaker 2: that we all want the same things, and that we
Speaker 2: could start there at any point in time that we
Speaker 2: really want to, you know, uh, if we just h
Speaker 2: respect each other and give each other the dignity to
Speaker 2: be who we are and not you know, uh somehow
Speaker 2: try to make a society that's exclusive for for whatever reason, uh,
Speaker 2: whether it's religion or politics or you know, money. You know,
Speaker 2: it makes us want to to go that path. You
Speaker 2: know that. You know, if you just keep your eye
Speaker 2: on the ball. You know, the flame of truth can
Speaker 2: only burn if we keep it in our sight. You know.
Speaker 2: Uh it Uh it'll go out if we stop seeing it,
Speaker 2: you know. Uh. And uh those people who were brave
Speaker 2: enough two to see it in spite of what uh
Speaker 2: reality of reality around them was telling them, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: but to keep that vision in their in their mind's
Speaker 2: eye and in their heart. Most of them paid for
Speaker 2: it with their lives, if on any on any real
Speaker 2: and important level, Those people who meant the most, who
Speaker 2: made the most change, which we died for it. Uh So.
Speaker 2: But I think as the average person, we we have
Speaker 2: to we have to take that vision that they handle us.
Speaker 2: We have to keep it alive. You know. If that's
Speaker 2: all we do, we're doing the right thing, you know,
Speaker 2: because you know, it's it's hard for us to understand
Speaker 2: that we're not really here for any other reason than
Speaker 2: to love each other. There's no other purpose for us
Speaker 2: to be here, you know, ah, and to act in
Speaker 2: the service of each other. You know, that's a that's
Speaker 2: a hard thing to grasp, uh, because there's all kinds
Speaker 2: of uh pitfalls that make us think that some reason
Speaker 2: we have to be afraid of something or someone, you know,
Speaker 2: and that we have to defend ourselves against each other.
Speaker 2: You know. It's it's shaped the world we live in
Speaker 2: in so many ways, but the reality is still the
Speaker 2: same reality. We're all the same and we all want
Speaker 2: the same things. And the sooner we get onto the
Speaker 2: business of being of service to each other, the better
Speaker 2: off will be.
Speaker 1: Okay, Steely Dan stops touring, you get a call to
Speaker 1: be with the Doobie Brothers. They are on the road
Speaker 1: promoting a record. Tom Johnston has to go home. You're
Speaker 1: not a backup singer. Now, You're not sitting behind Walter
Speaker 1: and Donald. You're the front person. I mean all I know,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone knows the Doobie Brothers hits. I did
Speaker 1: not become a real fan until the spring of seventy five,
Speaker 1: when I live with these guys and they played well,
Speaker 1: what were one's vices? Are now habits at infinitum. Therefore,
Speaker 1: when the next album came out, I bought it the
Speaker 1: day came out, and I was surprised. I played it
Speaker 1: to death, but I was surprised. What was it like
Speaker 1: from your viewpoint to take the stage with the audience
Speaker 1: having one expectation of the Doobie Brothers and there you are.
Speaker 2: It was surreal, really because there was no shortage of
Speaker 2: you know, when I was singing one of Tom's songs,
Speaker 2: you know, there was you know that you know, voices
Speaker 2: in the audience like where's Tom? You know, you know,
Speaker 2: and obviously you know, uh And I don't know that
Speaker 2: there was any real announcements to the public about where
Speaker 2: Tom wasn't there, you know. Uh. I there must have been,
Speaker 2: you know, but not as far as in a moment
Speaker 2: on the show. We just you know, kind of put
Speaker 2: our heads down and played the songs the best we could.
Speaker 2: And and like you said, I was singing some of
Speaker 2: Tom's songs, you know, and Pat was taking the rest
Speaker 2: of them, you know. Uh. I don't think the audience
Speaker 2: has ever stopped missing Tom when he wasn't there, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it ever. It was like something that oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know we we miss him, but not now. It
Speaker 2: was ongoing, you know. Ah and to this day, you know,
Speaker 2: I think the best form of the Dubies to this
Speaker 2: day is with Tom and uh when we go out
Speaker 2: and play, we we enjoy a whole other kind of
Speaker 2: energy with the band, to the band and to our
Speaker 2: live performance with Tom there. You know, there's not any
Speaker 2: of us that would would would rather not have him there.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's the best. Like I said, the
Speaker 2: best form of the Doobies areas for all of us. Uh.
Speaker 2: But we we did play you know without him for
Speaker 2: for could spend time there and uh that we we
Speaker 2: kind of closed ranks musically, you know in some ways. Uh,
Speaker 2: but uh it was never hard to you know, uh
Speaker 2: take the stage with Tom again. You know, it was
Speaker 2: a natural thing, you know. Uh he takes his place
Speaker 2: in the band rightfully. So uh uh and uh you
Speaker 2: know in many ways need to charge musically when he's there.
Speaker 2: For me, I always enjoyed playing his music, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, with or without Tom there, I just always
Speaker 2: loved the songs. You know, long train and listen to
Speaker 2: music as a silver I have to say, guilty pleasure.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed singing them too, you know. So when Tom
Speaker 2: would come back and I was like, Okay, well I
Speaker 2: don't get to sing that anymore. But but in some
Speaker 2: ways it was kind of fun too, because I would
Speaker 2: pay a little more attention to what I was playing,
Speaker 2: because when I'm singing and playing, I have to kind
Speaker 2: of dumb down my part a little bit just so
Speaker 2: that I pay attention to singing a song enough, you know.
Speaker 2: So when he would come back, I'd find, oh, I
Speaker 2: got to play orient on this in this section, or
Speaker 2: I could do this, and so it was always, you know,
Speaker 2: some part of that that was enjoyable too. But I
Speaker 2: always enjoyed the Doobie Songbook. I was missed playing it
Speaker 2: when I wasn't with the band. Enjoy my own songbook,
Speaker 2: and there's there's songs that I miss playing for my
Speaker 2: solo shows, but uh, but truly with the Doobies, it
Speaker 2: was always it was a lot of fun and a
Speaker 2: lot in a thrill to come back and play Blackwater
Speaker 2: and There's a Driven Snow, all these songs that I
Speaker 2: had really missed playing, you know, because a lot of
Speaker 2: them are are a little different, uh, more rock and
Speaker 2: roll than what I do on my own, you know,
Speaker 2: while which is a little bit more of an R
Speaker 2: and B and in my show, I probably do more
Speaker 2: ballads than this band does, you know. Uh, but you
Speaker 2: know it's uh. That's the biggest part of it for
Speaker 2: me is being a part of this band, is the
Speaker 2: being given the opportunity to play these this songbook for
Speaker 2: the audience that loves it so much. Because some of
Speaker 2: these people have been coming to see us for fifty years,
Speaker 2: you know, and we we appreciate that. You know, that's
Speaker 2: as much a part of the experience for us as
Speaker 2: it is for them. You know, I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: any of us would be sick to death of all
Speaker 2: these songs by now it wasn't for the audiences that
Speaker 2: we play for every night.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have taken it to the streets, living in
Speaker 1: the on the fault lines, not really going in the
Speaker 1: right direction commercially, minute by minute, you know, is a
Speaker 1: gigantic success before it's released, Do you or anybody in
Speaker 1: the band know what you have?
Speaker 2: I don't think we had a lot of confidence in that. Well.
Speaker 2: I should always speak for myself. I remember playing it
Speaker 2: for a friend of mine and who I trusted is
Speaker 2: musical taste. I didn't trust that much else about him,
Speaker 2: but I trusted in musical taste. And I knew he knew,
Speaker 2: you know, a good record when he heard it, you know,
Speaker 2: And so I had the rough mix. I said, I'm
Speaker 2: going to play this for you, and I was so
Speaker 2: desperate to play it for him. I met him while
Speaker 2: he was shopping somewhere. We sat in his car on
Speaker 2: the parking lot, and I said, you know, indulge me
Speaker 2: and listen to this and tell me what you think.
Speaker 2: Give me your honest opinion, because I think I needed
Speaker 2: an honest opinion. I knew if I played it for
Speaker 2: most other people, I knew they would even if they
Speaker 2: hated it, they would struggle to find some positive spin,
Speaker 2: you know. So I knew this guy would give me
Speaker 2: the unabashed opinion that he had, you know. So we
Speaker 2: listened to it. He kind of about halfway through the album,
Speaker 2: when he wasn't looking at me, I sort of suspected,
Speaker 2: doesn't look good. And then when the last song finished,
Speaker 2: he just kind of stared straight ahead for a minute.
Speaker 2: It looked over ringas this is a piece of shit, sorry,
Speaker 2: you know, And I remember what came out of my mouth.
Speaker 2: It was like I said something I was afraid of
Speaker 2: that or something. You know. It's like I co signed it,
Speaker 2: you know, for that moment, you know, because I didn't know.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if it was a good album or not.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't know if this was me taking
Speaker 2: the band down for the last time and into the
Speaker 2: shitter and h never to return. You know. It was
Speaker 2: my biggest share in the moment. So when he responded
Speaker 2: that way, it was like it was like, ah see,
Speaker 2: I knew it, you know. Uh, And I is that
Speaker 2: really affected me. For the next few weeks when we
Speaker 2: weren't working, I was sitting around in my bathroom, you know,
Speaker 2: watching late night television, you know, uh, smoking pot, trying
Speaker 2: to forget it all, you know. You know, I was
Speaker 2: really in the dumps, you know, about the whole thing.
Speaker 2: And next thing I hear is the records come out
Speaker 2: of the box like like a racehorse, you know, going on.
Speaker 2: The charts were sold thirty thousand units the first week,
Speaker 2: and and I'm like, what, you know, are we talking
Speaker 2: about the same record here? And because even the people
Speaker 2: at Warner Brothers weren't that crazy about it, From what
Speaker 2: I understand, later on, people would tell me, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: was at that a at Army when they played your record.
Speaker 2: He was like, yeah, so it was a big surprise
Speaker 2: to all of us that it did so well. In fact,
Speaker 2: I think we were breaking up. We were at the
Speaker 2: end of a Japan tour. We had gotten into some
Speaker 2: moraw over something and decided that's it, we're breaking up,
Speaker 2: you know nothing, that we're not going to do this anymore.
Speaker 2: We're all really, really tired. This was the end of
Speaker 2: six months of solid touring, you know, and we're so
Speaker 2: we decided, okay, we're going to break up. And somehow
Speaker 2: on our way home, a couple of us went to
Speaker 2: Hawaii just for some R and R kind of you know,
Speaker 2: look our wounds and figure out what we're going to
Speaker 2: do with our lives. I got to call for pat because, yeah,
Speaker 2: it seems like we've got to like a record. It's
Speaker 2: going to be number one, you know, in a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks by any all accounts, and I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe we should think about staying together a little longer
Speaker 2: and going on touring. And so that's what we decided.
Speaker 2: You know, how do you how do you break up
Speaker 2: when you have the top ten album and single and
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't like we all we all weren't friends.
Speaker 2: We all got along. We know, if we had our arguments,
Speaker 2: it was just usually frustration and we think the normal
Speaker 2: things that bands go through. But we all really always
Speaker 2: were cognizant of the fact that we loved each other
Speaker 2: as friends first, and it was really you know, what
Speaker 2: was most important. You know, I think you know, uh,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's too easy to let heavy resentments become
Speaker 2: like your whole relationship with a person. And for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: I don't know that it was because we're such incredible people,
Speaker 2: but we never we never seemed to do that, you know,
Speaker 2: we we always stopped short of that. And if we
Speaker 2: and it has had a beef with each other, we
Speaker 2: we worked it out and we apologize, you know, and
Speaker 2: kind of go forward, you know from there as friends.
Speaker 2: You know. Uh. Again, I don't know how we accomplished
Speaker 2: that and any but other than it was more important
Speaker 2: to us just to remain friends.
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, you're saying back up in steely Dan, but
Speaker 1: that was seen as the two being guys you were
Speaker 1: in the Doobie Brothers. Patti is now the focus, even
Speaker 1: though you have tracks on the records minute by minute
Speaker 1: comes out. It is not only ubiquitous. You become one
Speaker 1: of the biggest stars in the world. You're singing backups
Speaker 1: on different What was that many people spin out at
Speaker 1: that point? What was that like for you? And how
Speaker 1: did you cope?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I mean that perception of you know, a
Speaker 2: big star. I you know, I don't know, you know,
Speaker 2: I had my moments, you know. I'm sure I was
Speaker 2: hard to live with, you know, more than once or twice,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh, I remember talking to a friend
Speaker 2: of mine, you know, and guy to grew up with,
Speaker 2: and he said to me, gosh, you know, we all
Speaker 2: we all had these aspirations, you know when we played
Speaker 2: together back in the day. Because he because, man, and
Speaker 2: you've really done it. You you know, you're you're there,
Speaker 2: you know. And I remember thinking how it was so
Speaker 2: strange to hear that, you know, because I guess I
Speaker 2: was so wrapped up in the day to day uh,
Speaker 2: frustrations of my own and feeling like, you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of it was that that what happens to people.
Speaker 2: It's never enough, you know, you're you're you're sitting around
Speaker 2: bitching about shit that you know you should be grateful
Speaker 2: for you know. Uh, you know, I was that guy,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean I didn't have to sign the
Speaker 2: sense to relax and realize that, hey, I should be
Speaker 2: nothing but grateful right now. I shouldn't be sitting around here,
Speaker 2: you know, worrying about half the crap I worry about
Speaker 2: because it's not important. What's important is I've been blessed,
Speaker 2: you know. And if I don't realize that now, I'm
Speaker 2: never going to realize that, you know. But uh, you know,
Speaker 2: I always approached the whole starting thing with a lot
Speaker 2: of trepidation, you know, like you know, the minute I
Speaker 2: walked through the door into the room, it's going to
Speaker 2: become when it's going to be when it becomes very
Speaker 2: obvious that I don't deserve this, you know. And uh
Speaker 2: so I was always kind of kind of you know,
Speaker 2: backing out of the room with it, you know, just
Speaker 2: for self preservation more than anything. It wasn't that I
Speaker 2: was modest. It was just I didn't really want you
Speaker 2: to see me for who I thought I really was.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't you know, I didn't have the
Speaker 2: social prowess to be at this party. You know, That's
Speaker 2: kind of how I felt, you know, so when I
Speaker 2: went off as a solo artist h after my solo record,
Speaker 2: I couldn't have had a better band I had. You know,
Speaker 2: edro Winter was in the band, Robin Ford was playing guitar,
Speaker 2: George Pearley on drums, you know, just great musicians, Willie
Speaker 2: Inks on bass, Brian on piano. I was, you know,
Speaker 2: it still wasn't enough for me to feel like comfortable
Speaker 2: up there, you know, fronting the band, you know, being
Speaker 2: the guy in the spotlight. Those are really painful times
Speaker 2: for me just personally, you know, and I was always
Speaker 2: just trying to kind of hide that from everybody. You know,
Speaker 2: that guy, Hey, I got this, you know, but I
Speaker 2: don't got this, you know. At the same time, you know,
Speaker 2: I had to work my way through all that, and eventually,
Speaker 2: as a solo artist, I got to where I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed it. I got comfortable with it. But I didn't
Speaker 2: ask myself to be a star anymore. You know, I
Speaker 2: didn't expect myself to be a front man extravagant. You
Speaker 2: know that that guy was, you know, the best show
Speaker 2: in town. You know, I just I accepted the fact
Speaker 2: that I'm a pianel player, singer, I can deliver a song. Well,
Speaker 2: and I got a great band, and if that's what
Speaker 2: people came to hear, I got it covered, you know.
Speaker 2: And I can put together a show. I can sequence
Speaker 2: the songs. I can come up with the arrangements. I
Speaker 2: think we're best live. I can do all that stuff,
Speaker 2: and I can talk to the audience, you know, genuinely,
Speaker 2: but not try to be somebody I'm not, hopefully you know.
Speaker 2: And so you know, so it's kind of like the
Speaker 2: Perry Como of rock and roll or something, you know,
Speaker 2: just you know, trying to be comfortable in my own skin,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, how much of this is raw insecurity or is
Speaker 1: it also leavened with social anxiety? Is it purely I
Speaker 1: don't want the spotlight on me, or if there's a
Speaker 1: room of people, I'd rather be home in the hotel room.
Speaker 2: I think a little bit of the letter, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever really felt comfortable in social situations,
Speaker 2: you know, even whether it's a small situation or Lord,
Speaker 2: I'm actually more comfortable in front of ten thousand people
Speaker 2: than I am in a room with five or six,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, because I know what I gotta do
Speaker 2: in front of ten thousand people. I just got to
Speaker 2: sing the song and play the right chords, you know,
Speaker 2: and I got all these other guys doing you know,
Speaker 2: uh the same making the same effort for the same reason.
Speaker 2: So uh, that's that's a lot more comfortable for me
Speaker 2: then uh. Uh, you know, being uh in you know,
Speaker 2: in the spotlight per se as we say, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's how people feel. I think in social situations,
Speaker 2: you feel like the world of this room is revolving
Speaker 2: around me at the moment, and usually it's couldn't referther
Speaker 2: from the truth. But you know, uh, that's that's part
Speaker 2: of having a self confidence to know that much, you know,
Speaker 2: to know that you're not the center of attention right now.
Speaker 2: You know, those of us who were in six tend
Speaker 2: to think we are okay.
Speaker 1: So with this lead date, if you're not on the
Speaker 1: road and you're home with your wife, your kids are
Speaker 1: out of the house, are you the type of person
Speaker 1: who's ringing up all your friends making social engagements? Are
Speaker 1: you the type person, Well, somebody reaches out to me,
Speaker 1: I'll reconnect, but more I'm doing my own thing.
Speaker 2: I'd rather do my own thing, you know. My wife
Speaker 2: and I would like to kind of covet our time
Speaker 2: together when I'm home, because lately it seems like I've
Speaker 2: been busier than ever, you know, I really there was
Speaker 2: a period of time just prior to this, of course
Speaker 2: with COVID too, but we we really enjoyed just being
Speaker 2: alone together, you know, and being kind of isolated to
Speaker 2: a fall, you know, because I think we got we
Speaker 2: got to be like homebodies, you know. But but I
Speaker 2: have always been that way. I've always been more comfortable alone,
Speaker 2: you know, in my own little world. And and my
Speaker 2: wife and I are soulmates to large degree. We you know,
Speaker 2: We're very comfortable with each other. You know, I would
Speaker 2: rather not have a lot of social obligations. It comes
Speaker 2: with the territory being being a musician and a celebrity
Speaker 2: musician or whatever. Uh So there's always something going on
Speaker 2: that I have to do, ah and and it's not
Speaker 2: that I don't enjoy them once I get there, but
Speaker 2: I never feel like doing that, you know. I always
Speaker 2: feel like, God, I'm gonna have to get ready for this.
Speaker 2: What's the song they want me to do? I gotta
Speaker 2: remember remember the lyrics, you know, all that stuff that
Speaker 2: you go through, and you wonder if you know Am
Speaker 2: I going to say something stupid backstage, you know, to
Speaker 2: somebody you know, but you you do it. But my brothers,
Speaker 2: I would rather just go down to the beach with
Speaker 2: the dogs and you know, get as much of that
Speaker 2: kind of time in as I can while I can.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, you make a record with the woman Amy who
Speaker 1: is now your wife, you reconnect years later, it becomes
Speaker 1: a romance. We're guys, we know how this works. In
Speaker 1: the back of your mind, did you say, oh, that
Speaker 1: woman Amy, maybe she's right, I got a thing for that.
Speaker 1: Or was it like, holy fuck, now it's Amy and
Speaker 1: we're connected. What was it like?
Speaker 2: I think I always had a crush on her, you know,
Speaker 2: from the first time I met her. You know, she
Speaker 2: just was very special to me, you know. And it
Speaker 2: wasn't like I hadn't been in love before, you know,
Speaker 2: someone who was very special to me. You know, I
Speaker 2: had a crush on you know, like most guys, you know,
Speaker 2: but she stood out, you know to me. And I
Speaker 2: loved her voice too when I when I worked with her,
Speaker 2: she just said such a kind of a I would
Speaker 2: consider kind of a sexy voice to me. You know,
Speaker 2: she wasn't a belter you know, she wasn't like this
Speaker 2: powerhouse female singer. She was more of a kind of
Speaker 2: a folky not even met Joni Mitchell or Alison Krause
Speaker 2: kind of you know, where she had kind of a
Speaker 2: very ethereal tambre to her voice. It was, you know,
Speaker 2: they're feminine and beautiful, you know, and brought a certain
Speaker 2: kind of feeling too melody, you know. And I always
Speaker 2: liked that she had a yeol little too. She always
Speaker 2: used to kind of yield a little bit when she sang,
Speaker 2: and I just enjoyed her voice very much. I always
Speaker 2: thought if I ever produced somebody, I would like to
Speaker 2: do a record with her, you know, But I hadn't
Speaker 2: thought about it that much recently until this year of
Speaker 2: the night we played the Forum again in LA and
Speaker 2: that's actually where we got back together. We met again
Speaker 2: because she was in the audience and she sent a
Speaker 2: note up to do one of the guys it was
Speaker 2: mixing front of the house back to me and uh
Speaker 2: and uh. So I got in touch with her and
Speaker 2: I said, well, well, well we should definitely think about
Speaker 2: doing a record, you know, with you and uh And
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind I wanted to see
Speaker 2: her again. You know. So when we got together, we
Speaker 2: we hit it off like it was you know, we
Speaker 2: hadn't as if we'd been friends the whole time, you know,
Speaker 2: and uh, there's just something about her that it was
Speaker 2: was immediately engaging to me, you know. And uh, the
Speaker 2: record we did was fun, but it was it was
Speaker 2: I had trouble committing to a time frame because I
Speaker 2: was touring with the band, and so it took a
Speaker 2: better part of a couple of years to do the record.
Speaker 2: But every time that we got in the studio together,
Speaker 2: it was a real joy, you know. Uh. And Amy
Speaker 2: you know really uh I started to rediscover her talent,
Speaker 2: you know, and was as much a part of it.
Speaker 2: So to you know, to actually finish that record and uh,
Speaker 2: you know, get nominated for a Grammy with it, you know,
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, like the dream come true.
Speaker 2: You know for me, I I to be a producer
Speaker 2: at all would have been a dream come true. But uh,
Speaker 2: Patrick Henderson and I produced that record on her and
Speaker 2: for Capital, and so you know that was uh and
Speaker 2: in course of all of it, we you know, uh
Speaker 2: kind of uh reunited in a relationship that uh had
Speaker 2: you know been you know, we had met in the
Speaker 2: years past from time to time, and even you know, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, I knew that we had something between us,
Speaker 2: but it seemed like we always went separate ways, you know,
Speaker 2: and I, you know, I wasn't really at that point
Speaker 2: in my life a good you know, as far as
Speaker 2: you know, relationship material, and probably she wasn't either, you know.
Speaker 2: We were just both kind of pursuing our careers, living
Speaker 2: our lives, you know, as best we could. So now
Speaker 2: you know, we were working together and we were pretty
Speaker 2: much in constant contact again, and it was inevitable, I think,
Speaker 2: for us to get together and get married have kids.
Speaker 2: And that's the remarkable part to me. I look back
Speaker 2: on some of the first times I met her, thinking,
Speaker 2: you know, I wish you didn't have a boyfriend and
Speaker 2: you know, or whatever it was at the time. And
Speaker 2: to think that all these years later we rapsed two
Speaker 2: kids together and were in their thirties and been married
Speaker 2: for almost you know, coming up on fifty years here
Speaker 2: in Attle, while kind of amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, when she sent that note, do you think
Speaker 1: in the back of her mind she thought romance too.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. I think she might
Speaker 2: have been thinking more of maybe maybe this guy could
Speaker 2: produce my next rador, but I'll take it. Whatever it was.
Speaker 2: It was we were we were laughing the other night
Speaker 2: because she was at the gig with me for him.
Speaker 2: This is where it all started, you know. You know,
Speaker 2: we hadn't thought about that in a while until we
Speaker 2: were kind of sitting around the back at the stage
Speaker 2: of the floor when she was young. And you're right,
Speaker 2: or I said you that note. The rest is history,
Speaker 2: as they say.
Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of the book focuses on drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 1: People don't see you that way. That's kind of a revelation.
Speaker 1: So what was that all about drinking and drugging?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was about what it's about for
Speaker 2: most people who suffer from addiction. Uh. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: nuns and priests and doctors and lawyers who suffer from
Speaker 2: addiction who you probably wouldn't necessarily until it gets so
Speaker 2: bad that you know it's obvious. But the great obsession
Speaker 2: of every person who drinks is too to drink and
Speaker 2: use like other people, you know, normal people, you know,
Speaker 2: so you you devise all these incredible schemes and ways
Speaker 2: to uh hyde the tactic that's not really what's going on?
Speaker 2: And uh it's uh, it's alone arduous journey, you know,
Speaker 2: into that world of addiction. Uh. And it was a
Speaker 2: battle I certainly lost, you know, and it's surrendering and
Speaker 2: losing ultimately losing to it. I found something much better,
Speaker 2: you know, which was uh, you know, sobriety and uh
Speaker 2: living bile without any of that and uh and maybe
Speaker 2: understanding myself a little bit more as a spiritual being
Speaker 2: as a human. You know that that I entered a
Speaker 2: world where there's not many coincidences. Uh, when I entered
Speaker 2: the world sober, you know, re entered the world sober.
Speaker 2: I I when I'm paying attention, which isn't all that often.
Speaker 2: But when I am paying attention, I noticed that everything
Speaker 2: has a meaning. Things have meaning that I would have
Speaker 2: seen before. You know. Uh, acquaintances are not just acquaintances.
Speaker 2: They hold some uh information Hm that's there to inform
Speaker 2: me in a in a larger way what the hell
Speaker 2: I'm doing there and what life is really all about.
Speaker 2: I'm not much on the religion. I've never been very
Speaker 2: good at that, you know. My take on that is
Speaker 2: that's man's effort to create God in his own image.
Speaker 2: That's why I look about religion, you know, uh, and
Speaker 2: anything that co signs us hating each other is can't
Speaker 2: be that can't be that great anyway. So I I
Speaker 2: think God in my understanding today is some God that
Speaker 2: is I'll never understand, you know. And I'm okay with that. Uh,
Speaker 2: I'm okay with a consciousness being unfathomable ultimately, but that
Speaker 2: it does exist, and it's better for me to plug
Speaker 2: into that and than to be left to my own thinking.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't thinking never did much for me,
Speaker 2: you know. Ah, it was you know, just brought about
Speaker 2: calamity after calamity for me. But ah, when I do
Speaker 2: turn it over to whatever, that higher power does much
Speaker 2: better job of thinking than I do. I do better,
Speaker 2: you know. I I'm more comfortable in my own skin.
Speaker 2: I find that life treats me a lot better, you know.
Speaker 2: And that's the best I can come up with on it.
Speaker 2: On that subthing.
Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree when you look back when you
Speaker 1: got sober, was their carnage, missed opportunities, fuck ups, creating
Speaker 1: bad blood because it didn't look like that from the exterior.
Speaker 1: What was that a factor or was that did that happen?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, yeah, all over the place. You know, I,
Speaker 2: you know, I seem to, for all my best intentions,
Speaker 2: leave a trail of wreckage in every turn. You know
Speaker 2: that I was my life had become some effort to
Speaker 2: stay a step ahead of you know, or h uh
Speaker 2: you know, uh, you know, like like a lot of people,
Speaker 2: you know, I've you know, I found myself doing things
Speaker 2: that I don't you know, I don't want to think
Speaker 2: that I'm that person you know or you know, uh,
Speaker 2: secrets I hope to cake to the grave, you know, uh,
Speaker 2: things that I'm not proud of myself for. You know,
Speaker 2: I had to come to an understanding that probably well
Speaker 2: a lot of people have those things. That's not just me.
Speaker 2: And again that that whole myopic world of oh you
Speaker 2: know this is all about me. It's not about me,
Speaker 2: it's about you know. Uh, maybe I'm not that person
Speaker 2: if I actually have regrets, you know, and obviously I'm
Speaker 2: not that person, you know. Uh uh. You know I've
Speaker 2: tried to make amends where I could, you know, and
Speaker 2: I haven't made all of them, you know, some of
Speaker 2: them I don't know how to make, you know. Uh uh.
Speaker 2: I look for the opportunity to at some point you
Speaker 2: know uh uh and I and I but in the
Speaker 2: in the meantime, I have to own it, you know.
Speaker 2: I have to know that, Yeah, that was me. I
Speaker 2: did that. You know, nobody else did that, you know,
Speaker 2: for whatever whatever missteps got me there, Uh, that was me,
Speaker 2: you know. And uh and I am sorry, you know,
Speaker 2: but I I you know, I have to make the
Speaker 2: conscious amend two be better, you know, to do, to
Speaker 2: do better from my honor, to be to not be
Speaker 2: that person, you know, from this point forward. You know,
Speaker 2: I think everybody has regrets, but that's not for me
Speaker 2: to say one way there, I know, I do, you know,
Speaker 2: but I uh. At the same time, I I believe
Speaker 2: that the most important thing I learned to do after
Speaker 2: in sobriety is forgiven and to learn to love myself,
Speaker 2: you know, so that I could actually have a relationship
Speaker 2: with other people that's meaningful, and that I could actually
Speaker 2: do the next right thing in the most spiritually meaningful way,
Speaker 2: you know, not just because I want to get something
Speaker 2: from you or some reaction from you, but because I
Speaker 2: because in my heart I know it's the right thing
Speaker 2: to do, whether I really want to do it or not,
Speaker 2: you know, And that you know, uh, that's that's all
Speaker 2: the little difficulties of life that we all share.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's one amazing story in the book, and I've
Speaker 1: even told this story to other people where your sponsor
Speaker 1: says that you have to make amends to someone who
Speaker 1: ripped you off. Can you tell that story?
Speaker 2: Well, to make a long story short, yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: It was part of the amends thing. You know, I
Speaker 2: didn't quite understand, you know. Uh, but you know, I
Speaker 2: it was easy for me to understand when I did
Speaker 2: something wrong and I needed to say I was sorry,
Speaker 2: you know, if I could the opportunity came, I could
Speaker 2: do that, you know. But when somebody did something to
Speaker 2: me that I felt righteously indignant about, you know, and
Speaker 2: you know that was complex, you know in terms of
Speaker 2: what my pardon it was, I understood it. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: probably have a part in this, and I need to
Speaker 2: be aware of that. I need to even in some
Speaker 2: cases apologieship. But it's easier ship than done if it's
Speaker 2: a situation like the one I was looking at. And
Speaker 2: you know what I realized in the first seconds of
Speaker 2: the conversation was he was kind of an awkward silence. Guys, like,
Speaker 2: what are we talking about? Exactly, you know, and I realized,
Speaker 2: this guy hasn't lost a minute's sleep over something that
Speaker 2: I've been chewing on for twenty years, you know, and
Speaker 2: drinking the poison hoping that he would die, you know,
Speaker 2: in my brainstorm conversations that they never really had with him.
Speaker 2: I was setting him straight, you know, I'm telling him
Speaker 2: off in any number of ways, each one better than
Speaker 2: the last, you know, taking it from the top over
Speaker 2: and over again in my brain, my little brain. And
Speaker 2: he hadn't even thought about it in the whole twenty
Speaker 2: years or whatever it was between the time that happened,
Speaker 2: and I realized that, you know, also that it probably
Speaker 2: would have never happened had I not. It had my
Speaker 2: fingerprints all over it. You know. I was famous, and
Speaker 2: I let you do something for me that I don't
Speaker 2: feel like I'm capable of doing. And then I love
Speaker 2: to criticize what a shitty job you did, uh you
Speaker 2: know later, you know, but I gave you total responsibility
Speaker 2: for it, you know, and uh you know, uh so
Speaker 2: I you know, it was a lot of the learning
Speaker 2: process about what makes me tick and how I really
Speaker 2: create my own problems, and basically, when it's all a
Speaker 2: sudden done. My biggest problem is me, not him, not
Speaker 2: anybody else, you know, not that person, place, or thing,
Speaker 2: but really how I react to it, what I do
Speaker 2: in the process of experiencing it, you know, And that's
Speaker 2: an ongoing listen. I have to learn over and over
Speaker 2: and over again. You know, I never gonna walk away
Speaker 2: with enough knowledge on that subject you to go, Okay,
Speaker 2: I got this, you know. Uh, I'm always going to
Speaker 2: be learning that lesson, you know, in life. Uh, I'm
Speaker 2: always going to go there first unless I can find
Speaker 2: the wherewithal to stop myself and h give give enough
Speaker 2: thought to what I'm about to do next, or say next,
Speaker 2: or experience next, to maybe turn it over to that
Speaker 2: higher power we're talking about, see what possibly uh mhm,
Speaker 2: God of my understanding, what would rather have me do
Speaker 2: than what I'm about to do? Because if I get
Speaker 2: in the ring with anything myself, I'm needially going to
Speaker 2: get knocked out. That's just h Yeah, my best thinking
Speaker 2: got me on a seat in that hy a meaning
Speaker 2: So I'm not you know, I'm not the best thing
Speaker 2: that ever happened to me. But not uh, nothing that
Speaker 2: really had anything to do with my prowess as a
Speaker 2: great thinker.
Speaker 1: Okay, how did you end up hooking up with the
Speaker 1: Dubies for the fifty at the Anniverse? We tour and
Speaker 1: we know that it's business. If they can continue to
Speaker 1: book dates in big venues, people still want to come.
Speaker 1: Is this an endless tour?
Speaker 2: It seems like at times, you know, we're enjoying ourselves,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, like I say, ninety percent of
Speaker 2: it for us is is the audience that shows up,
Speaker 2: you know. You know, like I say, all these songs
Speaker 2: as much as we enjoy playing them, and we do,
Speaker 2: but we enjoy playing them for those people that enjoy them.
Speaker 2: You know, we'd probably be sick of them long ago.
Speaker 2: But you know, to take into the streets. I don't
Speaker 2: know how many times I can sing that song, But
Speaker 2: really what it's about in the course of an evening,
Speaker 2: it's when we hit this intro or the song and
Speaker 2: the crowd you know, reacts, you know, positively and with
Speaker 2: with with excitement. Then that's what the song is. And
Speaker 2: that's it's that moment, It's that communion with the audience.
Speaker 2: That what it's all about. It's not the song anymore,
Speaker 2: it's it's just the experience, you know, of playing it
Speaker 2: for people who want to hear it, you know, And
Speaker 2: as long as that's happening, I know there's any limit
Speaker 2: to what how long we would be doing this sort
Speaker 2: of health reasons, you know. But we're having a pretty
Speaker 2: good time of it right now. And like I say,
Speaker 2: we're no one's more amazed than we are that we're
Speaker 2: still on backstage stays that size playing for people in
Speaker 2: the venues. It big. You know, I would have not
Speaker 2: given you any odds on that happening fifty years ago,
Speaker 2: you know, And we were just young enough back then
Speaker 2: to not be thinking too much about what we would
Speaker 2: be doing at this point in our lives. You know,
Speaker 2: we're very lucky to be doing this at this point
Speaker 2: in our lives. Uh, you know, even with the in
Speaker 2: terms of like were some gags with the Eagles and
Speaker 2: all these guys that we knew in the seventies that
Speaker 2: we played with that we made records at the same time,
Speaker 2: Donald and Walter, Uh, you know, I worked with them
Speaker 2: up until Walter's passing, you know, And I see Donald
Speaker 2: talk to Donald, and none of us would have ever
Speaker 2: thought that we'd be taking the stage together in our seventies,
Speaker 2: you know, I just wouldn't have been anything any of
Speaker 2: us would have bet on, you know. But you know,
Speaker 2: here we are.
Speaker 1: So do you have a hankering? A lot of times
Speaker 1: people say I'm doing this, but I have a hankering
Speaker 1: to get back to my solo career. Is that going
Speaker 1: through your brain or are you saying this is good
Speaker 1: as long as this is good, all right?
Speaker 2: I don't really have a hankering to get back to
Speaker 2: my solo career. I had a great band when I
Speaker 2: played with the guys, and I would love to play
Speaker 2: with them again, you know, just because I love those
Speaker 2: guys that I love playing with them and I missed
Speaker 2: playing some of those songs. But it's not like a
Speaker 2: hankering to do to be a solo artist again. You know.
Speaker 2: I really very much enjoy being a Dobie brother. I
Speaker 2: always did, you know, and it's enough for me, you know.
Speaker 2: But you know, when there are moments when I do
Speaker 2: go out, I for one off, I just did a
Speaker 2: cruise and it was great, wonderful cruise with Patty LaBelle
Speaker 2: and Marcus Miller band and a great group of musicians.
Speaker 2: And I was doing a lot of the material that
Speaker 2: I did with my solo band and it was wonderful
Speaker 2: to do those songs again. But again, for some reason,
Speaker 2: I'm fulfilled overall sense of fulfillment, uh, just being back
Speaker 2: with the Doobies, you know, and playing with Tom and
Speaker 2: Patt and John McFee and all the guys in the band, Mark,
Speaker 2: John Ed and Mark and uh, you know, I feel
Speaker 2: extremely lucky to be on stage with these guys, musicians
Speaker 2: of this caliber and people of this character. You know.
Speaker 2: There's just nothing better than that than hitting the road.
Speaker 2: And you know, the only thing when you complain about
Speaker 2: is that we wish we were playing more. You know,
Speaker 2: we have a pretty much easier schedule than the old days.
Speaker 2: We don't play you know, four nights in a row anymore,
Speaker 2: you know, And there was something about that that I
Speaker 2: really liked. There was some kind of a you know,
Speaker 2: it lent itself to the development, you know as a band.
Speaker 2: You know, when we played every night, you know, we
Speaker 2: would actually listen to our show the night before on
Speaker 2: the on the plane the next day because we were
Speaker 2: interested in just to hear how we were doing at
Speaker 2: this point, you know. And uh, you know, I think
Speaker 2: I think we all miss that a little bit. We
Speaker 2: missed that, you know, getting out there playing six five
Speaker 2: or six in a row because you your whole take on,
Speaker 2: on your perspective on what you do develops with that.
Speaker 2: You know. And and now we're at that age where
Speaker 2: if we take a week off, we've all pretty much
Speaker 2: forgotten the song altogether. And you know, we're all at
Speaker 2: home woodshed and trying to remember the chords. And you know,
Speaker 2: uh that I you know, I don't have quite the
Speaker 2: memory I used to have, so uh, it's it's nice
Speaker 2: to get back together and rehearse, and you know, I
Speaker 2: have a reason to again. It said, if I have
Speaker 2: a reason to play music, that's what it takes for me.
Speaker 2: I don't do so well in my idle time.
Speaker 1: Okay, Michael, I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 1: sharing your inner life and thoughts with my audience.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank yous appreciate it so much.
Speaker 1: But I will say this, if you're interested in any
Speaker 1: of this at all, the book really goes into depth.
Speaker 1: You know, it starts off with Saint Louis and it
Speaker 1: goes through every step. You know, the dark days in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: the family stuff, the drug stuff. Really get to know
Speaker 1: who Michael is. And you've learned some in this podcast,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more. In any event, Thank you Michael.
Speaker 1: Until next time, This is Bob Left, SATs
Speaker 2: Six