Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: All Right, ladies and gentlemen, every story has a beginning,
Speaker 2: and you're about to hear that very very awkward. In
Speaker 2: the beginning, we shot a pilot for Quest Love Supreme
Speaker 2: with our very own Unpaid Bill when the time. Didn't
Speaker 2: know that by the time this centerview was over, he
Speaker 2: was going to join the show.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know the genesis of this show.
Speaker 2: I think it started with my fandom of Fonte and
Speaker 2: the Boss Bills Gordon Cartreil podcast, and then you know,
Speaker 2: Sup Steve and I always talked about joining our own podcast,
Speaker 2: and I remember the notes from our boss is saying
Speaker 2: that it might help to have a voice of a
Speaker 2: woman on the show.
Speaker 1: So Laia will have joined us, I think.
Speaker 3: By episode five.
Speaker 2: So this is episode one, the pilot episode of Quest
Speaker 2: Love Supreme never heard before with Unpaid Bill. If my
Speaker 2: memory serves me correct, I believe that Fante really knocked
Speaker 2: the ball out of the park and rare form like
Speaker 2: Fante was so good. I think that's what made Unpaid
Speaker 2: Bill want to join the show.
Speaker 3: So enjoy.
Speaker 1: This is the first time I'm hearing it with you, guys.
Speaker 3: This is the very first episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Hope you enjoyed, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first
Speaker 2: episode of Quest Love Supreme. To my left we have
Speaker 2: the Grand Imperial, the awesomest, the best podcast Ranter.
Speaker 3: I know, supremely talented. What's going on? What up? Fonta Up?
Speaker 2: And also we should acknowledge our resident team of Bill
Speaker 2: bring Child Johnson. He's mute right now to Michael Steve Mandel,
Speaker 2: later episodes will also offer his two cents.
Speaker 3: How you do?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you and later I said, And to my
Speaker 2: right we have our very first guest, honored mister Bill Shermon. Bill,
Speaker 2: you have a long storied history. And when the show
Speaker 2: gets more professional, then I will have your actual credits on.
Speaker 2: But being as though we made this phone call extremely
Speaker 2: last minute, Bill was my one of one of the
Speaker 2: fortunate eight producers of a small off.
Speaker 3: Broadway play called Hamilton. You might have heard of it.
Speaker 3: You might have heard it. How you doing, Bill, I'm
Speaker 3: good man. That's great. Well, we're glad to have it
Speaker 3: has an off Broadway place. I say it was a joke. Guy.
Speaker 1: I was playing in Harlem somewhere at Harlem Church.
Speaker 3: All female Okay, you know. Actually I saw.
Speaker 2: This play once in Harlem. They were redoing the Nativity
Speaker 2: scene and they happened to have I think Felicia Rashad
Speaker 2: was like the Angel and no Felicia Rashad was. I
Speaker 2: think Mary and Stephanie Mills singer Stephanie Mills was the
Speaker 2: one of the angels before the whiz. No, this is
Speaker 2: way cost me show. This is like last year. This
Speaker 2: was I'll tell you what this is when the Roots
Speaker 2: were mixing ill Adolph half Life, so this this had
Speaker 2: to have been nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: I like the fact that you can chronologically know what
Speaker 4: happened in your life by what Ruth record we were
Speaker 4: working on or you were working on, which I think
Speaker 4: is fantastic because I can probably see parts of my
Speaker 4: life when Ruth records came out that were important to me.
Speaker 2: Well, no dates, My memory bank is about what albums
Speaker 2: came out, Like I don't. That's how I remember dates,
Speaker 2: not like what's her name, Mary lou Henter from Taxi
Speaker 2: that has this, Like you can tell her like April fourteenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, and she'll tell you.
Speaker 3: Exactly what happened that.
Speaker 2: Wow, Like I've tested it a few times when she's
Speaker 2: been on the Tonight Show. But I only remember based
Speaker 2: on Prince albums, Michael Jackson records, and what the roots
Speaker 2: were doing that year, that's all.
Speaker 5: So Yeah, I remember Iladelf. That was I skipped school
Speaker 5: to buy Iladelf. But I remember I I.
Speaker 3: Mean you a juvenile, that was Hladelf.
Speaker 5: That was one of the two albums that I broke
Speaker 5: the law, well, other than the records I stole still
Speaker 5: in that you know whatever. But like one of the
Speaker 5: first record I can remember breaking the law for was
Speaker 5: Goodie Mob Soul Food.
Speaker 3: I drove to the mall on a learner's permit to
Speaker 3: buy that album from the mall.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like yeah, you know what I mean, Like I mean,
Speaker 5: I drove to the ball the several So then on
Speaker 5: on Ill Depth Half Life, I remember the record came
Speaker 5: out and I was a junior in high school. My
Speaker 5: homies were seniors and at the time, you know, juniors
Speaker 5: only upper classes would go off campus for lunch. And
Speaker 5: so one of my boys, like Yo, were going to
Speaker 5: the record Change you get their roots joint.
Speaker 3: I said, I'm riding with y'all.
Speaker 5: Fuck that, let's go, And so I went and I
Speaker 5: didn't go back to school that next day.
Speaker 3: I think I showed I went back for like football
Speaker 3: practice or something. But that was it. I was. I
Speaker 3: was a truant for wow, I'm it. Yeah, man, I
Speaker 3: had to have it.
Speaker 4: Have you You could skip school and then go back
Speaker 4: to play football.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you could because the coaches, like, you know it
Speaker 5: was they needed to help.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's cool. Did you have you ever committed a
Speaker 3: musical crime that nature to buy a record? No?
Speaker 4: I skipped school a couple of times, for sure, as
Speaker 4: we all did. I didn't skip school to buy a record. Really,
Speaker 4: I'm trying to remember. No, I didn't. I mean, I've
Speaker 4: committed many musical crimes in the name of music, for sure.
Speaker 4: But that's like a whole different story altogether.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I don't know if I should share this
Speaker 1: story or not.
Speaker 3: Yes, you should. I think that definitely. That's the whole
Speaker 3: purpose of the ship. I definitely think you share it.
Speaker 3: All right, So the worst whipping I ever got in
Speaker 3: my life was over nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Close the time the Times first record.
Speaker 2: What I have just set it up for you because basically,
Speaker 2: all right, so there's a song called after high School
Speaker 2: that's on the Time's first album, and.
Speaker 1: You know, it was one of those moments at performing arts.
Speaker 2: Now, I went to the private performing arts from first
Speaker 2: grade to seventh grade.
Speaker 1: And so you know, it's in the early eighties. So yes,
Speaker 1: it was very much close.
Speaker 2: To what life was like on that on Fame, like
Speaker 2: people would break breakout and song breakout and.
Speaker 1: Dance full scale production.
Speaker 2: Yeah seriously, So someone had it was one of those
Speaker 2: cliched moments.
Speaker 1: Someone had a big giant boombox and.
Speaker 2: Put the Time cassette in and put it after high
Speaker 2: School on and then we were all doing that Eddie Murphy,
Speaker 2: this is how white people dance dance, you know, the
Speaker 2: Carlton right like, and it was a happy moment.
Speaker 1: And then I unfortunately danced a little too close.
Speaker 2: To the boom box and caused it to fall on
Speaker 2: the ground, Like I ruined that moment.
Speaker 1: To think of that rerun Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shadows, I know a lot of references, a lot
Speaker 2: of you won't get, but just just.
Speaker 3: Google it, kids.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I feel like we should have like some kind
Speaker 5: of like annotations like okay, so Al Dunbard the Doobie
Speaker 5: Brothers episode of What's Happening?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was the bootlegger. So so we.
Speaker 5: Have to add say, okay, so it was the time
Speaker 5: Rerun went to re won't wanted tickets to a Dowie
Speaker 5: Brothers concert at their high school.
Speaker 3: And you know what I'm saying, And like he was
Speaker 3: he was the fact.
Speaker 5: He was, you know, the fat kid that had the
Speaker 5: like the day he could hide the tape players.
Speaker 3: So he was like the original napster of like nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy five. So like, so he goes.
Speaker 2: And tries to take the ship and this episode, no,
Speaker 2: oh my god, man nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: I was born in seventy eight.
Speaker 5: I was right right behind youself, but nah, I Roba
Speaker 5: used to watch this every day. So your man that
Speaker 5: played Al Dunball was also the black guy. Theodore Wilson
Speaker 5: who also played He was also carried on Good Times.
Speaker 5: I can't remember which one he was on Good Time.
Speaker 5: He wasn't He wasn't Lynna. Yeah, the name is Lynna.
Speaker 3: He wasn't him. He was like another guy.
Speaker 1: He was like, I get him and what's his name?
Speaker 1: Mixed up?
Speaker 5: How from Hal Williams. Hall Williams was, Who's Lester Jenkins?
Speaker 5: It's oh, what is we going down? The black rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: It's not even minute.
Speaker 5: Dunbar coerces rerun to take this this uh this this
Speaker 5: this this deeper rob show with Michael McDonald there in
Speaker 5: his full beard and uh he jump up and the
Speaker 5: tape player falls out, and so he gets caught like
Speaker 5: you know, the Dowbie brothers see him, like, dude, we
Speaker 5: thought you was our friends.
Speaker 3: How could you boot like I should.
Speaker 2: He's paraphrasing it, but it was amazing, like, first of all,
Speaker 2: brothers do this show with a gong, it's on fire
Speaker 2: and everything they doing, taking into the streets and then
Speaker 2: reruns dancing his ass off, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the tape player just falls to the.
Speaker 3: Floor and the show stopped.
Speaker 5: Someone notices it, one of the brothers noticed, and then
Speaker 5: the Doobie brothers just look at him like it's it's
Speaker 5: one of those like silent to be continued.
Speaker 3: It's like it was like a very special episode, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And so so yeah, so they find so they got
Speaker 5: they hook up and they go to Shirley's place and
Speaker 5: they arrest al Dunbar and that was how was Yeah, it.
Speaker 3: Was brought to his resolution.
Speaker 2: Mine wasn't that dramatic, but basically to avoid the school
Speaker 2: bully from beat me up because I destroyed his his
Speaker 2: radio shack tape player. I just thought, well, maybe I'll
Speaker 2: just you know, swipe some money from.
Speaker 3: Home and I'll replace.
Speaker 2: Right, There's nothing like being caught in a black household
Speaker 2: with a black father.
Speaker 3: That's real.
Speaker 1: It really got.
Speaker 3: No, it's even shut off. No, it's real.
Speaker 5: It's real because it's just like I don't know what
Speaker 5: I think with black fathers.
Speaker 3: Man, Like it's just like we was. We were just
Speaker 3: before we started taping.
Speaker 5: We was talking about your your nephews, right like Bill,
Speaker 5: his nephews is going through some stuff, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 3: And so he was like, my go to go straighten
Speaker 3: them out?
Speaker 5: And Bill Sherman was like, man, they could kind of
Speaker 5: straighten you out because they Oh. And the things I
Speaker 5: don't understand about black men, I think once you get
Speaker 5: to a certain age, you're just not defeating us.
Speaker 3: Because it's like when I'm twenty years old and I
Speaker 3: would like fight.
Speaker 5: I would just hit you with my fist, but like
Speaker 5: at like thirty seven, forty fifty, I'm hitting you with
Speaker 5: every disappointment I've ever had in life, Like I'm hitting
Speaker 5: you with Vietnam.
Speaker 3: I'm hitting you.
Speaker 5: I'm hitting you with my failt first marriage, I'm hitting
Speaker 5: you with every job application that got denied. So for
Speaker 5: you to steal from a black dad when you came
Speaker 5: up like back in the day, like oh, man.
Speaker 2: Dude, all in the name of Briyan of repairing his
Speaker 2: tape player and maybe possibly buying that time except for myself,
Speaker 2: oh woking up at two in the morning. Oh, I
Speaker 2: canna laugh at it now, but it was quite the opposite. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So that that was the worst crime. Well, I mean
Speaker 2: I went through a lot in the early eighties to
Speaker 2: listen to music like I'll share more of that later.
Speaker 3: But anyway, Bill, let's talk about your life from black
Speaker 3: Fithers to me. Fucking you going through a divorce right now?
Speaker 5: So you probably got a lot more in common with
Speaker 5: black fathers than you realize.
Speaker 3: Are you about to in a little bit true? True?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 3: Is that the reason for the hair changed? No?
Speaker 4: No, the reason this comes up a mere And I
Speaker 4: made the Hamild's record, and I had really long hair
Speaker 4: and looked like a like a like cool, like a
Speaker 4: hobo a cool.
Speaker 2: Hope you look hipsterisk okay of the eight producers of Hamilton.
Speaker 2: I thought, okay, I have a lot of in comn
Speaker 2: with this guy, like everyone else is a suit that's true.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, So I cut it all off because it
Speaker 4: was getting long and I didn't I want to look
Speaker 4: like a hobo anymore. And then and then I saw
Speaker 4: a mirror to think and I said, yoh man, what's up?
Speaker 4: And he didn't recognize me all at all, hilariot.
Speaker 2: We were taking a photo with the Hamilton gold record
Speaker 2: and he was staying next to me.
Speaker 3: Like, hey, how you doing.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, no autographs now, no selfish my head, like, dude, yeah, so.
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize you, Bill, Sorry.
Speaker 3: It was pretty great.
Speaker 2: So actually this isn't your first Grammy, Like what is
Speaker 2: in the Heights your first for rate into professional producing,
Speaker 2: or like what's your history with with that stuff?
Speaker 3: With music?
Speaker 1: Start from the beginning.
Speaker 4: I grew up playing the saxophone. I was really into
Speaker 4: jazz as like a Dexter Gordon Coltrane, Hank Mobley fanatic.
Speaker 3: Who was a kid. How old?
Speaker 4: Uh thirteen through twenty two?
Speaker 3: Okay, do you still play sax now?
Speaker 4: Every once in a while, I played to the other
Speaker 4: day for my kids. And I couldn't understand that that's
Speaker 4: something I did. It was pretty funny.
Speaker 2: I'm a little traumatizing myself. I'm like, why didn't you
Speaker 2: tell me this? I don't know, it never came up.
Speaker 2: Why would it.
Speaker 3: Do you play instruments? I mean I can play the.
Speaker 2: Piano, Okay, Well, I was making light of the fact
Speaker 2: that you didn't share with.
Speaker 4: And I and the kazoo, and yeah, so I played
Speaker 4: the saxophone. I went to college. I went to Wesley
Speaker 4: and University in Connecticut. I studied jazz for a while,
Speaker 4: and then I got into world music. I was really
Speaker 4: into West Africa and got drumming. That was my thing
Speaker 4: for a while. I went to Ghana first semester I studied,
Speaker 4: and I played. I played with a bunch of fale
Speaker 4: As guys while I was there in Ghana who had
Speaker 4: come from Nigeria. This is also a discussion we've never had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like it did.
Speaker 4: And in addition to all the other ship that you
Speaker 4: know about me, this you might not.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: I met Lynn Manuel Miranda in my junior.
Speaker 3: Year of college.
Speaker 4: And the great story with that, which I tell all
Speaker 4: the time, is his girlfriend at the time was producing
Speaker 4: this musical that I was music directing, but I wasn't
Speaker 4: really into musicals.
Speaker 3: But that's not the point.
Speaker 4: And Lynn said, uh, he came up to me afterwards
Speaker 4: and he said, you don't know me and I don't
Speaker 4: know you, but we're gonna work together for really long time.
Speaker 2: Did you think it was just a random crazy person totally?
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, whatever, smart guy.
Speaker 3: So we we we did.
Speaker 4: We worked on his senior thesis and some other ship
Speaker 4: and whatever, and then we graduated and then we were
Speaker 4: gonna put on in Heights. We put on In the Heights.
Speaker 4: That was my first musical. I never had a big
Speaker 4: background of musicals. I just like music a whole lot.
Speaker 4: And then I arranged orchestrated with Alex Lackmore in Heights
Speaker 4: and then we won a Tony and a Grammy and
Speaker 4: all that stuff. And then from there, I also play
Speaker 4: in this group called Freestyle of the pre which is
Speaker 4: a hip hop improvay which has you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: He's making up, he's making this.
Speaker 4: Follow Yes, this is all made up. This is my
Speaker 4: life story, but it's all fictitious.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, do you know what you guys don't
Speaker 3: know at all? Steve, are you back checking you? Guys?
Speaker 3: We speak a bullshit. It's probably what you would you would,
Speaker 3: you guys, don't.
Speaker 2: I've known Steven Mandel, our engineer, for near twenty years,
Speaker 2: and anytime there's a pie of f moment for me,
Speaker 2: he's there, his smirk, He's totally enjoying the fact that
Speaker 2: I literally am believing everywhere you're saying right.
Speaker 3: Now, huh, okay, you should it's true. Okay style style.
Speaker 4: What you know about this because you were supposed to
Speaker 4: come to one of our gigs a long time ago
Speaker 4: when we first met. It's we get suggestions from the
Speaker 4: audience and we make up hip hop tunes and Lynn's
Speaker 4: in it, and Chris Jackson's in it, and I play keyboards,
Speaker 4: and there's beat boxer and we do all this thing right,
Speaker 4: you know, not real. It's not real, but you should
Speaker 4: see it. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: See.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is that Da Vid was on
Speaker 2: the Tonight Show. No, but David was on the Tonight
Speaker 2: Show speaking of hip hop improvisational group that he was
Speaker 2: a part of with the same people.
Speaker 3: You just mentioned.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: That's the first real thing.
Speaker 2: Everything up to now has been alive a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's real. It's all real, all right.
Speaker 3: So what was the.
Speaker 1: Concept of the the hip hop Improvisational.
Speaker 4: Week GETSU justificy on. So it's like they do a
Speaker 4: thing called person placer sing. It's like get a person,
Speaker 4: one guy gets person, one guy gets placed, one guy
Speaker 4: gets a singer, and then we just make up hip
Speaker 4: hop tunes about that.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, so musical version of whose line is?
Speaker 4: And it's a hip hop version who's lining it anyway? Essentially,
Speaker 4: but all the music's made up to it's all What
Speaker 4: was the period of this It's it's ongoing. But like
Speaker 4: when we graduated from college in two thousand and two,
Speaker 4: we toured a lot and went around to play a
Speaker 4: lot of the comedy festivals.
Speaker 3: This is Wesleyan. It's post Wesleyan.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but a lot of the guys are from wesley.
Speaker 5: So like, how I guess my question because I just
Speaker 5: think musicals, I mean, they fascinate me, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, Like I'm not I'm never was a person
Speaker 5: that was really big into them, but I my the
Speaker 5: craft that goes into them and just you know, having
Speaker 5: to tell a story through song, like that's that's just
Speaker 5: a lot of fucking words.
Speaker 3: As a writer, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So, like, how do you go from just a saxophone
Speaker 5: player to writing musicals? Like how was it something you
Speaker 5: kind of fell into or was it like how did
Speaker 5: you find your groove in that?
Speaker 3: Not on purpose? Uh?
Speaker 4: I lived on Long Island as a kid. My parents
Speaker 4: would bring me to see musicals like every once in
Speaker 4: a while. But it wasn't something I was drawn to,
Speaker 4: Like I'm not the genre specifically is not wasn't a
Speaker 4: thing that I was into. And I met Lynn and
Speaker 4: he and we.
Speaker 3: Just did this.
Speaker 4: We did these shows of his because I just liked
Speaker 4: the music and in the heights was all like Latin
Speaker 4: music and hip hop and stuff like that and stuff
Speaker 4: I know, and and then it just kind of like
Speaker 4: if you asked me what I wanted to do when
Speaker 4: I was eighteen, it wasn't I want to write musical.
Speaker 4: That was probably not even anywhere on my brain. I mean,
Speaker 4: I just like, I just like music, and this was
Speaker 4: one of the things that I do. And then it
Speaker 4: sort of spawned all these other things, which is you know,
Speaker 4: similar to you. It's like you do this thing and
Speaker 4: does all these other things. You write cookbooks, you know
Speaker 4: that kind of shit. And then uh so is the
Speaker 4: is the cook book out? Is it not a cook
Speaker 4: It's not a cookbook. It's not a cookbook at all.
Speaker 4: I've read it. It's cover to cover twice. That's bullshit, Steve,
Speaker 4: don't it's an EXPOA Steve, you're the official judge of
Speaker 4: You're right, yeah, a ref, Steve, A ref.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So when the idea of Hamilton was presented to you,
Speaker 2: at what point do you enter the foray as far
Speaker 2: as the the genesis at least?
Speaker 4: Like well, I probably entered Hamilton the same time you did,
Speaker 4: because I didn't work on Hamilton the show. I worked
Speaker 4: on Hamilton the record. We probably got the call at
Speaker 4: the same time I worked on In the Heights the show.
Speaker 4: I arranged orch Stray the music for that. But I
Speaker 4: did not work on Hamilton the show. I just made
Speaker 4: the record, So probably we got the call.
Speaker 2: So when it was presented to you, did you instantly
Speaker 2: feel like, oh, I'm instantly getting my second you know,
Speaker 2: Tony and my second Grammy.
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: No, you know, it's funny. It should totally be a thing,
Speaker 4: I you know, to be totally honest, I saw an
Speaker 4: early reading of Hamilton, and I was like, I thought
Speaker 4: to myself, there's no way that like my Jewish grandmother
Speaker 4: or anyone's Jewish grandmother is gonna pick it up to
Speaker 4: be able to take it all in. And I watched it,
Speaker 4: and I was like, it's like lyrically, it's just profound,
Speaker 4: and so you just sort of wow, and and then
Speaker 4: then and then it from that moment on, it just
Speaker 4: gained steam over and over and over, and I just
Speaker 4: sort of watched it become this thing. I didn't.
Speaker 3: I didn't.
Speaker 4: I didn't think that it was going to have the
Speaker 4: impact that has. Of course, you could say that about
Speaker 4: anything that's really impactful in the world, but I was
Speaker 4: I didn't think people would get it or could follow it.
Speaker 2: But I was wrong, and you knew what it was
Speaker 2: at the time when it was presented to you, because
Speaker 2: the thing was, I don't know. I believe that if
Speaker 2: it were properly or thoroughly explain to me what it was,
Speaker 2: I would have probably made a few excuses to not
Speaker 2: because it was just like, Okay, there's going to be
Speaker 2: a hip hop play about the Founding Fathers and the Constitution.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not on paper. That's not a very premise at all, especially.
Speaker 2: In the light of the the sort of can't miss
Speaker 2: Tupac on Broadway play.
Speaker 4: Happened, like yes, Williams, Chris Jackson is right, yes.
Speaker 2: Right, yes, yeah, it happened, and then it went away
Speaker 2: in three weeks and so.
Speaker 4: But that was like a jukebox musical in the same
Speaker 4: way Jersey Boys is.
Speaker 3: So that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Like to me, nothing was going to top failure, and
Speaker 2: I was just like, Okay, that's a lightning in a
Speaker 2: bottle moment, which I mean was rather bittersweet working on it.
Speaker 2: But it's just that it took two of the most
Speaker 2: cynical people I knew to run to me and be like, yo,
Speaker 2: you really need to see this now, Like Tarik Black
Speaker 2: thought of the roots. Tarik and my manager Sean g
Speaker 2: are excited about not much. I mean, even if something
Speaker 2: is real dope, be like, yeah, that's cool, it's all right.
Speaker 2: But they were like, you gotta see this. And even
Speaker 2: then they didn't tell me it was a hip hop.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to expects. I just sat there
Speaker 2: and notice that this was the longest song in history,
Speaker 2: Like it's.
Speaker 1: A play with no dialogue in it, all of what
Speaker 1: like ten lines.
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying like, how in the world did like,
Speaker 2: did you even think that this would hit jack pot
Speaker 2: or well.
Speaker 4: Lin Lynn's been my very close friend for a very
Speaker 4: long period of time. And he called me while he
Speaker 4: was reading that book, the Hamilton Book, which I tried
Speaker 4: to read but only got through about one hundred pages.
Speaker 2: To be honest, for those for those that don't know,
Speaker 2: the whole genesis of it all was once in the
Speaker 2: Heights Mania ended.
Speaker 3: Uh le Manuel went on.
Speaker 2: Vacation with his wife and decided, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: a book with me for summer reading, and takes the
Speaker 2: nine hundred biggest book.
Speaker 1: It's like the you know, the family Bible that's in
Speaker 1: every ye those.
Speaker 2: Yes, wait, I'm not the only one, hey man. Every
Speaker 2: black family keeps the birth certificates and.
Speaker 3: Keep it close. You gotta keep it close to Jesus.
Speaker 3: We love Jesus.
Speaker 5: And I'm in the South too, so I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: we really love Jesus. So dog, I really thought that
Speaker 5: was just a Thompson the household thing. Oh no, brother,
Speaker 5: But I mean, but your people like you, Philly, but
Speaker 5: I mean your people from.
Speaker 1: The South, Okay, but that is my family's from North Carolina.
Speaker 3: There is that is wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, Lin took this near Black Family Bible
Speaker 2: on vacation with him and uh and somehow got the
Speaker 2: inspira it was.
Speaker 3: According to him, he couldn't put it down.
Speaker 2: Well, there's the difference. I got past the index. Maybe
Speaker 2: I got past the index. So I don't know, but uh,
Speaker 2: like how though, I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean he he Lynn has always been like a
Speaker 4: sponge for all kinds of things, like pop culture things.
Speaker 4: He reads all of like the People magazine, the E
Speaker 4: W magazines weekly, and he just and and he's always
Speaker 4: reading and learning and watching and whatever. And I don't
Speaker 4: know who who knows, you know, I mean like when
Speaker 4: you when you know you're about to write a tune
Speaker 4: and you know it's gonna be the ship versus, just
Speaker 4: like some other song. He just knew he had something.
Speaker 4: But you know, the interesting thing was he uh, he
Speaker 4: googled it because he thought that someone already had this idea.
Speaker 4: There's no way that this stor hasn't been told in something.
Speaker 4: And he googled it and nothing came up. And so
Speaker 4: I suppose he called his agent and there it was,
Speaker 4: and here we are.
Speaker 2: Wow, it's amazing how did you get started on Sesame Street? I?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 4: After in the Heights, I was the music director of
Speaker 4: the Electric Company, the reboot of The Electric Company, I.
Speaker 3: See, and uh did you?
Speaker 2: Did you have immediate fantasies of rebooting it like the
Speaker 2: original seventies show, which I feel is another stoner Yeah.
Speaker 4: I also just had immediate fantasies of holy shit, I
Speaker 4: have a job.
Speaker 3: That was That was the immediate fancy fantasy.
Speaker 1: The new Electric Company isn't necessarily.
Speaker 3: Like no, It's totally not. It's totally not.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you verify that, because I feel like
Speaker 2: Steve is like, are you really going to start?
Speaker 3: No, I haven't seen it because.
Speaker 4: You're The old Electric Company was just more I think
Speaker 4: of the stoner TV you're talking about, but I think
Speaker 4: the newer one was like super sleek, super Now someone's
Speaker 4: like three to one contact.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's go back to special. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I gotta say that one of the best experiences of
Speaker 2: my life was meaning that cast when they came here
Speaker 2: for the first time at the to the Tonight Show
Speaker 2: and how cool they were. Again, was this like a oh,
Speaker 2: I just have a job thing or initially that wear
Speaker 2: off after man, you know, so you weren't impressed to
Speaker 2: the fact that here's Bob and Maria and I was.
Speaker 4: I was more impressed with the puppets because they were
Speaker 4: more part of my generation of growing up.
Speaker 3: Can I tell you something? You can this is your show?
Speaker 3: Are they right? What? Okay? Not right? That means.
Speaker 2: If I were to askte are they right?
Speaker 5: You would know what I'm I mean all the puppets right,
Speaker 5: or all the people that the puppeteers right.
Speaker 2: I've seen them many a times when the camera's not on,
Speaker 2: still in character.
Speaker 3: Oh wow?
Speaker 2: Now is that just so that they can execute a
Speaker 2: good job, because even when it's long, even when the
Speaker 2: shoot is done, they're still talking to me.
Speaker 3: It's like method acting to the hundred power.
Speaker 4: But I think the thing about to me, the thing
Speaker 4: about the puppeteers is like, there's like twenty five people
Speaker 4: in the world that do what they do, and so
Speaker 4: it's this small sect of people that just this is
Speaker 4: their life and this is their thing, and and and
Speaker 4: and in the same way it was for Jim Henson,
Speaker 4: it was just like this is this is this is
Speaker 4: what it is.
Speaker 1: But you're telling me that Jim Henson twenty four to seven.
Speaker 3: Was like, well, I don't know. I've never met Jim Henson,
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 4: But but with these people it's just it's it's it's
Speaker 4: who they are. It's like just such a in the
Speaker 4: same way that the puppets sort of like an extension
Speaker 4: of their hand, the voice is sort of an extension
Speaker 4: of the way they talk, and so they just particularly
Speaker 4: I mean, it happens more so with particular people who
Speaker 4: are just more whatever. And who plays Zoe on the show,
Speaker 4: Zoe Jen Barn you're talking about Abby?
Speaker 3: Is that? Aha? Lebie Leslie?
Speaker 2: Leslie, She's great, I'm sure right now she's talking and Abby's.
Speaker 2: The other thing about it is her actual voice and
Speaker 2: Abby's voice are very similar, so so that might have
Speaker 2: something to do with it. But like the guy who
Speaker 2: plays Elmo doesn't talk like Elmo most of the time.
Speaker 2: He talks like you know, another person, a real person,
Speaker 2: Red Flax.
Speaker 3: Right, they're all nuts, I'm sure, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, in the same way whoever would come in here
Speaker 4: and fill this be Like, those guys are fucking nuts too.
Speaker 3: It just depends. I'll show you. Yeah, I'm sure they would.
Speaker 5: I read I read something you did an NPR interview
Speaker 5: and Uh. I read you saying, uh sometimes the quote
Speaker 5: was sometimes composers think that because the session stout have
Speaker 5: to dumb it down. But these day children have unbelievably
Speaker 5: sophisticated ears.
Speaker 3: I think them and down is disrespectful to kids.
Speaker 5: And uh, I don't know what what you thought about that,
Speaker 5: Like do you think why do you think kids today
Speaker 5: are more their ears are more sophisticated, or do you
Speaker 5: think they are more or less sophisticated than the kids
Speaker 5: back from the Joe ropostal Ara era where you had
Speaker 5: like Porner sisters and you know, Stevie and all that
Speaker 5: kind of stuff going on.
Speaker 3: Asked me to quote my quote.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, quote on your quote.
Speaker 3: Did a little research. I think google me, he told
Speaker 3: me Google. I was reading up on you.
Speaker 1: You'll here like what you've done the interviews before.
Speaker 2: You know, man, just because you called yesterday and some
Speaker 2: HU canceled and I don't even nobody I feel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm totally there. I want to be away. I
Speaker 3: want to stay. I will well.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've written for Sesame Street.
Speaker 3: I I the way I look at.
Speaker 4: It is like if my my daughters come downstairs and
Speaker 4: they hear what I'm writing and they don't like it.
Speaker 4: It means it's not good. My kids listen to like
Speaker 4: Top forty radio. They're not into kids music, and they're
Speaker 4: into into hooks and catchiness and things that make today's
Speaker 4: pop music as good as it is. And that's just
Speaker 4: what kid's ears are open to now. And so like
Speaker 4: when I ask people to write for Sesame Street, which
Speaker 4: is something you didn't did not do, is is they
Speaker 4: often like will go to vaudeville like the first thing
Speaker 4: because to people, to the general world, like Tesame Street
Speaker 4: is liked or like some two beat shit and and
Speaker 4: and these days it's not like kids get turned off
Speaker 4: by that just as much as anybody else does. And
Speaker 4: I think that if you can write music that appeals
Speaker 4: to everybody, kid, parent, you, whomever, I think that that's
Speaker 4: that's kind of the thing that I try to push for.
Speaker 4: That being said, sometimes we you should talk about this
Speaker 4: because because I feel like at least the tune that
Speaker 4: that you wrote was this weird sort of conglomertion of
Speaker 4: music that totally worked and was like would be considered
Speaker 4: by the general ear to be Sesame Street and something
Speaker 4: that for hell would put on his next record or
Speaker 4: whatever it is. It's like this weird and that's what
Speaker 4: that's kind of what I try to do every day.
Speaker 2: It was adventurous enough to actually want to sing something
Speaker 2: that weird, or it would be right up Sally. But
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something, I don't know if singing dumb
Speaker 2: it down is necessarily a valid thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know why.
Speaker 2: I'm going through a phase right now in which I
Speaker 2: really respect pop music, simple music. And I don't know
Speaker 2: if it's the light of and light of Prince's passing
Speaker 2: or whatever it is, but I have the utmost respect
Speaker 2: for anyone that can write the most simplest song ever
Speaker 2: and it sticks.
Speaker 3: And that's one thing I'm learning to do.
Speaker 2: Like twenty years ago, you couldn't have told me what
Speaker 2: a melody was, Like, Oh, the melody is what you
Speaker 2: play with your right hand, you know.
Speaker 3: I was. I was. I more or less came from
Speaker 3: a vibe place.
Speaker 2: My music felt vibe like it puts you in a
Speaker 2: place where it's like a relaxed place, or I guess
Speaker 2: people we'll call it like.
Speaker 3: Sunday house cleaning music.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But it really wasn't until five years ago that
Speaker 2: I realized, like, I don't know how to write a
Speaker 2: pop song, and now working at Fallon, where you're constantly
Speaker 2: told to write these seven second jingles, Now I'm more aware, like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got to write an impactful song in seven seconds.
Speaker 2: So I kind of I respect that the art more so.
Speaker 2: I don't think that.
Speaker 5: Has influenced your recording anyway, like you work with Roots.
Speaker 2: This next Roots album I believe will be our most
Speaker 2: focused album as okay as a as a music fan,
Speaker 2: I feel like the way that I feel about earth
Speaker 2: Wood and Fire, and the way I feel about Stevie Wonder,
Speaker 2: the way I felt about Prince as a music fan,
Speaker 2: and I'm always like dog, all they have to do
Speaker 2: is get the same microphones, the same sound mixing, boartant,
Speaker 2: the same instruments. So you know, I know a lot
Speaker 2: of people will say like, well, you're too close to
Speaker 2: your creation, so you can't. I know that no artists
Speaker 2: can ever go one linear all the time, that they
Speaker 2: have to circle back and start all over again. So
Speaker 2: I think the music fan of me knows that we
Speaker 2: have to go back to step.
Speaker 1: One again, gotcha.
Speaker 3: I don't want to go back to ninety four.
Speaker 2: I kind of want to go back to ninety This
Speaker 2: album is going to be very close to ninety six
Speaker 2: ninety nine. This will be the Hladelph Things Fall Apart
Speaker 2: album that I think a lot of our early fan
Speaker 2: BASI has been waiting for.
Speaker 1: It's break beat heavy.
Speaker 2: But having wrote for the show so much, I can't
Speaker 2: ignore the education that I've gotten being a DJ and
Speaker 2: being a songwriter on the show, which is I'm instantly thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: where's the melody, where's the where's the part that you know?
Speaker 2: My assistant will be like, oh I remember that song,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's going to be hard to ignore the
Speaker 2: education I've gotten again, like like do you believe in
Speaker 2: good songs are bad songs?
Speaker 3: Or effective so versus non effective?
Speaker 5: Yet well, I think I guess to me is more
Speaker 5: of a thing where for me it's a little bit
Speaker 5: of both. It's like I think that there can be
Speaker 5: songs where like if the only place I can enjoy
Speaker 5: it is if I'm halfway drunk, then probably is you know. No,
Speaker 5: I'm just saying like like if that's the only place,
Speaker 5: if that's the only time, ship like any other go
Speaker 5: through any like play like right now on like you know,
Speaker 5: wherever a hot nine, seven, one or five?
Speaker 3: Wherever?
Speaker 5: But I mean if But I'm saying, if I can
Speaker 5: only enjoy those songs in that particular setting, it is
Speaker 5: an effective song and I can get it. But once
Speaker 5: I come out of that kind of haze, I can
Speaker 5: be like, Okay, this is kind of a shitty song,
Speaker 5: but it does work in its context.
Speaker 3: But it's like McDonald's.
Speaker 5: It's like, I like McDonald's, and when I want McDonald's,
Speaker 5: I fucking want McDonald's.
Speaker 3: But I'm not about to argue in someone the nutritional
Speaker 3: value of McDonald's. It's like, nigga, I'm not about to
Speaker 3: do that, you.
Speaker 5: Know what I'm saying, Like it's just if you want
Speaker 5: a quarter pound, to eat your quarter pound and be
Speaker 5: happy and just that's what it is. But don't I'm
Speaker 5: not about to them argue as to why you should
Speaker 5: eat McDonald's every day, like getting me?
Speaker 3: So, is there a committee on session?
Speaker 2: Because I would imagine a show so well respected, with
Speaker 2: all these songs that stick, I would imagine that there
Speaker 2: is a jury of you know, of people that are
Speaker 2: are constantly dissecting, uh, every creation that's on the show,
Speaker 2: like what's that?
Speaker 1: What's the songwriting process?
Speaker 4: Like I spayed four week all of the lyrics are
Speaker 4: given to given to me by the scriptwriters, and prior
Speaker 4: to that, they're passed through the education department. So they've
Speaker 4: gone through the lyrically, it's gone through a bunch of
Speaker 4: different things because it needs to be grammatically correct and
Speaker 4: it needs to get across the education thing we're trying
Speaker 4: to get across. Once that's done, it comes to me
Speaker 4: and then it's just sort of like so for every song, yeah,
Speaker 4: pretty much.
Speaker 3: Songs about emotions and even songs about the number two. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 3: every song goes through this stinking process. Yeah what red flag?
Speaker 3: No nos are there in sesame street songwriting?
Speaker 4: Like most of it's about the character. If it's not
Speaker 4: written like the character would say it, like, for example,
Speaker 4: like Elmo never says, I am.
Speaker 3: How come Elman cookies talk grammatically and correct? It's a
Speaker 3: good question. Don't know the answer to that. You could.
Speaker 4: You should ask them the next time you see them.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that believes I still have a job.
Speaker 3: Okay, that really is weird. Yeah, yeah, he I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah he says that, that's right.
Speaker 4: I mean because he's because they're three or they're five,
Speaker 4: and maybe that's what kids who are three or five too.
Speaker 4: I should probably know that.
Speaker 2: My kids are three or five anyway anyway, So the
Speaker 2: process is so then so then it comes to me
Speaker 2: and then it's like, if it's a song that exists
Speaker 2: in a script, it's how does it throw.
Speaker 4: You know, how does it work narratively? And what does
Speaker 4: it want to feel like and sound like? And then
Speaker 4: if it's a pull out song, it's like, if it's
Speaker 4: for a celebrity, who are they and what do they
Speaker 4: sound like? And can we make it sound like them?
Speaker 4: And then it sort of goes from there, and then
Speaker 4: I write it or somebody writes it, and then it
Speaker 4: goes back to the producing staff I'm sure similar to
Speaker 4: whatever goes on here, and and they approve it or
Speaker 4: they don't really Da da dah, and then.
Speaker 3: It's sort of that's it.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of people, but at this point, forty
Speaker 4: seven years later, are there hurt feelings?
Speaker 3: Nothing's worse than getting the song rejected.
Speaker 4: I gotta say this. I mean, I've written ten thousand
Speaker 4: songs at this point. If one gets rejected, I just
Speaker 4: go and write another one. Like I don't personally, I
Speaker 4: don't really I'm not too precious with anything at this
Speaker 4: point because I can't be because it just needs to
Speaker 4: happen too quickly.
Speaker 2: So oh so if you don't have it, then blah
Speaker 2: blah blah will have it, yeah, or like if it
Speaker 2: comes back and I was if I'm if I'm so
Speaker 2: far away that they're like trashing right a new one,
Speaker 2: then I'm like what at this point?
Speaker 4: Like how can I be that fucking far away?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: But it happens from time to time, but must sometimes
Speaker 2: just like it's too fast, we want it to be
Speaker 2: slower so.
Speaker 4: Kids can understand it that I get a lot, or
Speaker 4: it's not cooking enough, funny enough. You mentioned like if
Speaker 4: if it's not a thing that a your kid could
Speaker 4: sing back or be they want to stand up and
Speaker 4: dance to, then then it's not good enough.
Speaker 5: That's how often I wanted to ask, man, how often
Speaker 5: for you is it that because I haven't done I've
Speaker 5: done some TV work, some movie work, writing for stuff, whatever,
Speaker 5: and I haven't done a lot of it, but I've
Speaker 5: done some.
Speaker 3: How often for you is it that you will do
Speaker 3: a song?
Speaker 5: They send it, they reject it, and they asked you
Speaker 5: to make changes or whatever, and it actually is better,
Speaker 5: like you like you sit back after it's done and
Speaker 5: be like, well, damn, that was right, versus man.
Speaker 3: Y'all fuck my song up? Like, how often does that
Speaker 3: happen for you? A few times a week?
Speaker 4: I mean, it depends, really, And so this week I
Speaker 4: wrote this song for Titus Burgess for this show I'm
Speaker 4: working on, and it was too fast and they wanted
Speaker 4: it to be slower. And I'm always hesitant about slowing
Speaker 4: things down because it just fucks it up all the time. However,
Speaker 4: in this case it came to I brought it back
Speaker 4: a little bit and worked totally fine. So there's that,
Speaker 4: and then the same thing that happened, like I wrote
Speaker 4: a song where I crunched the verse really quickly. Because
Speaker 4: the other thing about children's songs, if you've listened to them, is,
Speaker 4: especially with Sesame Street, you're trying to get so much
Speaker 4: across that there's a lot of words, a lot of syllables.
Speaker 4: It's not like you're holding notes, You're not like soaring
Speaker 4: and stuff's not really it doesn't really happen. So so
Speaker 4: in doing so, you know, you have to make sure
Speaker 4: that every word, like you can't overlap like the end
Speaker 4: of a verse into a chorus, because you can't then
Speaker 4: hear the end of the verse mix wise or not,
Speaker 4: like if it's on the screen and there's two people
Speaker 4: at the same time. That's another thing about Sesame Street.
Speaker 4: It's not a lot of duets or not a lot
Speaker 4: of people singing at the same time, unless it's like
Speaker 4: a chorus thing, Like you would never hear two puppets
Speaker 4: like singing harmonizing or harmonizing for sure, but like singing
Speaker 4: count over. They would never sing over the top of
Speaker 4: each other. Hey man, Which, by the way, that was
Speaker 4: a deep cut and I was really happy about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but nobody knew any.
Speaker 2: Sesame Street songs on the show Man, Like the old
Speaker 2: producer Staffs is looking at me like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no one's going to get this, but you got it.
Speaker 2: I always thought that frank Oz should have like a
Speaker 2: Lozengers deal or something.
Speaker 3: He's the best.
Speaker 2: It's how was he able to utilize that voice?
Speaker 1: And he was Cookie Monster for at least forty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Grover and Piggy and Bird oh wow, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So frank Oz left Sesame Street like I don't know,
Speaker 4: ten years ago or something, and the guy who took
Speaker 4: over his name is David Rudman. He and I believe he's
Speaker 4: also the hands of the Swedish Chef, which I think
Speaker 4: is a pretty cool thing. But yeah, but he does
Speaker 4: Cookie Monster and and baby Bear and a bunch of
Speaker 4: other stuff. But yeah, he he When we record with him,
Speaker 4: we sometimes if it's too low. He can only last
Speaker 4: a certain amount of time because that voice is so insane.
Speaker 2: How many voice characters are still on the show that
Speaker 2: were there? Is Carol Spinny. Carol Spinny is the last
Speaker 2: still bill Big Bird. He's he does the voice of
Speaker 2: Big Bird and the voice of Oscar.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and last year am I allowed to ask how
Speaker 2: old Carol Spinny is.
Speaker 3: He's a male?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, all right, I think he's eighty something. Seriously,
Speaker 4: And yeah, the best line about Carol, of which there
Speaker 4: are many, is like a few years ago or five
Speaker 4: or six, he said I don't think I can do
Speaker 4: Big Bird and roller skates anymore, which I thought was
Speaker 4: a pretty good line.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Wait, he was also the body of Big Bird, yes,
Speaker 2: for the entire span of the show. Oh, and just
Speaker 2: stopped doing it since I two years ago, a year ago.
Speaker 3: So now someone.
Speaker 4: Someone someone bodies it and he does the voice. Same
Speaker 4: thing with Oscar the Grouch. Wow, yeah, pretty amazing. There's
Speaker 4: some great eight or something. Yeah, like are there voices
Speaker 4: insured or I don't know, it's a good question. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I have no idea they should be saying. But Frank,
Speaker 4: you have a backup bird just in case there is,
Speaker 4: there's a backup bird.
Speaker 3: Is he good?
Speaker 4: He's great. He's also that guy is Matt Vogel. He's
Speaker 4: in the Electric Mayhem band. Who's the guy who plays
Speaker 4: the bass in the Electric Mayhem band. I'm blanking Shannon Tweed.
Speaker 6: Actually I actually figured out why Cookie Monster doesn't speak
Speaker 6: grammatically correctly?
Speaker 4: Why grammatically correctly.
Speaker 3: Correctly? He's a monster.
Speaker 6: Oh he's not like a real you know person, He's
Speaker 6: he's crazy or whatever.
Speaker 4: We just have thoughts from Steven Steve Star.
Speaker 2: He's going to be the start this podcast three months.
Speaker 3: He's gonna get his own second. He's that makes it.
Speaker 3: That makes I was I think it was diabetes because sugar,
Speaker 3: the sugars. Yeah, sugar, Yeah, yeah, that is that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the sugars. That is another thing that goes into the
Speaker 3: Black Bible.
Speaker 2: All right, So Steve and I met, Uh. Steve was
Speaker 2: an engineer at Electric Lady Studios. So during the whole
Speaker 2: soul quarium, renaissance of of what uh voodoo and Erica's
Speaker 2: Mama's Gun and all the all the common records.
Speaker 1: That's how Steve and I worked with each other.
Speaker 2: So when he left Electric Lady and I hired him
Speaker 2: as my full time engineering Philly.
Speaker 1: Uh what started in two thousand and six.
Speaker 3: I'm still thinking about cooking. I'm sorry, shout.
Speaker 6: We should do we should do an episode where the
Speaker 6: cookie Monster learns how to speak correctly.
Speaker 4: We did one where he didn't eat cookies.
Speaker 3: Monster.
Speaker 4: People were like up in arms, like, yeah, I didn't
Speaker 4: like to take that.
Speaker 3: I do not that I watched it. Know, that's that's
Speaker 3: his legacy.
Speaker 4: You're the only friend I have to watches just for
Speaker 4: the record.
Speaker 6: Well, anyway, he's in his mouth, he crumbles him up
Speaker 6: and he throws them like he doesn't even eat any
Speaker 6: of it.
Speaker 4: I like that you're telling me this, like I don't know.
Speaker 3: Thanks, Thanks Steve.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So when Steve came to Philly to work full
Speaker 2: time for the Roots, his tired diet became my diet.
Speaker 3: So every day, Yeah, do I even need to finish it? Yes?
Speaker 3: Steve is one of the first.
Speaker 1: White people I know that had the sugars.
Speaker 3: Oh damn what we got? Cookie Monster is fine.
Speaker 1: I'm fed up.
Speaker 3: You let quiess love seriously.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a soul food church, like down the street from.
Speaker 2: The there's a soul food church down the street from
Speaker 2: the studio, so we ate there.
Speaker 1: Everything like clockwork is man.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of equivalent.
Speaker 2: What was the McDonald's thing for thirty days of supersize? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I mean he ate soul food at least like
Speaker 2: four months in the road and by the end he
Speaker 2: was done.
Speaker 3: Shots.
Speaker 2: Wow, Wow, Steve had the sugar, Steve Sugar, How did
Speaker 2: you recover?
Speaker 3: Just left?
Speaker 6: You don't recover from you just keep going with it.
Speaker 3: Damn, Steve. Steve's in the Black Bible, man, Yo, you
Speaker 3: were fishing in the Black Bible. Steve. You got daby
Speaker 3: that's like the blackest disease up like that and.
Speaker 5: The gout like no one, no one figures out what
Speaker 5: the gout is.
Speaker 3: But it's just you don't want that ship. I got
Speaker 3: all that ship. Welcome you ride a dice d ride
Speaker 3: to Dad. You know what, one day, one day we're
Speaker 3: going to listen to this episode.
Speaker 1: When we're like professional and.
Speaker 3: I'll be dead.
Speaker 6: It wasn't just fried chicken that came and died that
Speaker 6: takes it takes longer than four months to get it too,
Speaker 6: you know.
Speaker 2: But you're also so you're gonna take now.
Speaker 3: You Yeah, you still do it.
Speaker 6: Whenever I eat, I have to take in something and
Speaker 6: then I take in something like a one that different
Speaker 6: kind of that helps you twenty four hours a day.
Speaker 1: Try and keep it like there's no coming back from it.
Speaker 3: Not yet. They're working on it. Don't worry. Wait, did
Speaker 3: I really do this? Theme? Like I feel bad? It's
Speaker 3: like for a moment right now, go ahead.
Speaker 6: They're working on it. Like your family gonna be like, no,
Speaker 6: I didn't tell them that you did this.
Speaker 2: All right, so we can just take this past. Have
Speaker 2: we talked about music at all?
Speaker 3: Right? Black Bible? There was Steve's diabetes.
Speaker 5: Great show man, we're talking about music. We supposed to
Speaker 5: be talking about something when we when we dried out all.
Speaker 3: Of our resources. What's Steve has diabetes? That was depressing?
Speaker 3: Ship from man.
Speaker 4: Don't pass out, Steve, keep it together, yo, because.
Speaker 3: It's such a depressing disease. Like I got an uncle.
Speaker 5: Nah, dude, like no, like dude, because it's because the
Speaker 5: thing is is Okay, I'm gonna tell you the tragedy sympathy, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: for real you and I'm gonna tell you the tragedy
Speaker 5: in this. It's because, like Steve, like you're a skinny guy,
Speaker 5: so you ain't even got the fatness to go with
Speaker 5: the diabetes.
Speaker 3: So it's not even like you earned it, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean. It's like it's like you're not even
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: It's like it's like I know a chick that's like
Speaker 5: a fat vegan and it's just like honey.
Speaker 7: Wow wow, yeah, Like it's just you know, I mean,
Speaker 7: like why like you you if you go if I'm
Speaker 7: a fat, if I'm gonna be fat, I'm gonna have
Speaker 7: everything that comes with it, and I'm gonna earn the fatness.
Speaker 5: So to be a skinny guy with that's fucking miserable.
Speaker 5: I really, you have myself and to think about every
Speaker 5: time I sit down to eat a meal, I gotta
Speaker 5: think about what I'm gonna eat. I got an uncle
Speaker 5: with diabetes. Thanksgiving, he can't have sweet Tata pot and.
Speaker 3: He can't do it. Like it'll be like what we
Speaker 3: call the ems. All right, we're gonna blue smoke after all? Yeah,
Speaker 3: right straight there? You know, Yeah, I gotta earn it.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Okay, weird music, So I have I.
Speaker 4: I orchestraighted in the Heights in two thousand and eight
Speaker 4: and I wanted Tony. It was a wild night and
Speaker 4: the first time I ever won an award and that
Speaker 4: was great.
Speaker 1: Do cast albums get Tony's at all?
Speaker 4: No, they get Grammys.
Speaker 3: I'm not. I'm not gonna get it. Bye, you are
Speaker 3: you playing?
Speaker 2: I'm going and I'm bom wrestling that stage when how
Speaker 2: many people are gonna get on that stage with one hundred?
Speaker 3: Yo?
Speaker 2: Wouldn't it be hilarious if the voting Academy just assumes
Speaker 2: that Hamilton is going to get Best Playing.
Speaker 3: So they decided, like, let me just give it to
Speaker 3: something else.
Speaker 4: I mean, I thought when we were so when they
Speaker 4: we did the Grammys and they gave the award on
Speaker 4: the stage at the Richard Rogers, and I was the
Speaker 4: only person in LA for a moment, I was like,
Speaker 4: what if Seth McFarland walked up there and is suddenly
Speaker 4: presenting the best Cast album that no one gives a
Speaker 4: fuck about? And he goes and it goes to not Hamilton,
Speaker 4: I mean the patant and that it would have been unbelievable.
Speaker 4: That would have been such a great moment, like and
Speaker 4: I would have been the only person there in l
Speaker 4: a be like wow, that would have been like.
Speaker 5: A Steve Harvey at the pageant moment, right because the
Speaker 5: winner is Hamilton.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, folks, I gotta be real. That was ship. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the way that the Roots one, our first Grammy,
Speaker 2: was that moment because it's like.
Speaker 3: I've heard your.
Speaker 5: Buty'all were up against like it was like Doctor Dre
Speaker 5: and Snow was to go ahead.
Speaker 3: It was just kidding.
Speaker 2: Got to Doctor Pare the Roots of General told to
Speaker 2: shut the fuck up, go ahead.
Speaker 3: It was wait, I ain't gonna even on the red carpet.
Speaker 2: Moby was like, yeah, I'm really excited to going to
Speaker 2: present the you know the best Rapperward or whatever.
Speaker 3: They were like, well, who are your favorites? I don't know.
Speaker 3: It could be doctor Dre, it could be Eminem, could
Speaker 3: be snoop ah Man.
Speaker 2: I really hope it's Bust Rhymes Jane Jackson. I love
Speaker 2: that song. I love those guys. Matter of fact, even
Speaker 2: if they're not the winners. I'm gonna say that bust
Speaker 2: Rhymes and Janet Jackson is the winner.
Speaker 3: So that was the movie.
Speaker 4: So that was the energy that he can vegan Skinny Vegan.
Speaker 3: Probably that was.
Speaker 1: The energy that he put on the red carpet.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, we already lost uh two Grammy's two eminem
Speaker 2: earlier that night, and so sitting in the audience, I
Speaker 2: was like, well, I know we're not gonna win, so
Speaker 2: it's whatever. And suddenly I didn't Now I didn't hear
Speaker 2: what movie said from the stage, but when they called
Speaker 2: her name, I was like, holy crap, Like we won.
Speaker 3: How this happened?
Speaker 1: It's it's like that scene in Boogie Knights when Don Chetle.
Speaker 2: Goes into the door and all white and everyone gets
Speaker 2: shot and fills, except.
Speaker 5: He walks off with the he makes it and starts
Speaker 5: his his shot his seal shop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and doctor Dre and Snoop versus Doctor Dre and
Speaker 2: Eminem versus R. Kelly and Puffy versus Janet Jackson and
Speaker 2: Bustin Rhymes, and then the roots in Eric Aboudu and
Speaker 2: somehow you.
Speaker 3: Won, y'all were the last one standing.
Speaker 2: I felt it was only that specific situation at which
Speaker 2: we were allowed to win now. I went home to
Speaker 2: night to watch the victory tape and then movie was like,
Speaker 2: and the winner is.
Speaker 3: In theory?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, the Roots?
Speaker 3: And did he say that? He said the winner is.
Speaker 2: In theory the Roots, and Eric about du wow. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what in theory meant, so I was like,
Speaker 2: what does in theory mean?
Speaker 3: That means you didn't deserve to win a mirror, but
Speaker 3: you're technically the winner. Yah ah man.
Speaker 4: And I was like, that's some shit. Can I ask
Speaker 4: a question about that song? Because because we were talking
Speaker 4: before about hooks and pop music and things.
Speaker 3: Like that, which one you got you got?
Speaker 4: Is there something to be said that The Roots is
Speaker 4: biggest pop success. Is one of the only songs you
Speaker 4: have that has like melody and stuff in it that
Speaker 4: that that has the hook of hooks?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we got lucky.
Speaker 1: I mean, plus, you can't discount Scott Stewart.
Speaker 2: Like of all the keyboard players that have been in
Speaker 2: the Roots, Scott's right hand is automatically programmed to think
Speaker 2: of what the melody is. I mean, at the time,
Speaker 2: what was the number one communication device two way pages?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was kind of a Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2: Scott's whole theory was it's not a hit if you
Speaker 2: can't put it in a two way page. And I
Speaker 2: was like, I never thought of that. But then, I mean,
Speaker 2: in the in the light of Neptune's beats with you know,
Speaker 2: just simple one New Chords, it felt at the time
Speaker 2: it felt like, oh, that's just lazy songwriting whatever. But
Speaker 2: now I get and understand what melody is. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it baffles me every day that we've never had a
Speaker 2: dance jam or a dance hit or you know.
Speaker 5: Now I will say this, I was always questioned, I
Speaker 5: want to ask you this. I was always wondered, you know,
Speaker 5: like Bill was saying, what you got me? Being the
Speaker 5: one that I had Melody, one of my favorites, still
Speaker 5: one of my favorite melodies by y'all to this day,
Speaker 5: is complexity with jill Off phrenology.
Speaker 3: Right, why why you got me? And not that one?
Speaker 5: I mean, aside from one getting a push or you
Speaker 5: know whatever, or one being pushed as a single, because
Speaker 5: complexitly wasn't a single, It wasn't a.
Speaker 3: Singing something that was hard to sing.
Speaker 2: In my in my heart I felt and in my
Speaker 2: heart I knew. I think I wanted to make cool filler.
Speaker 2: I think I made great filler, and even the artist
Speaker 2: that I like, Stevie Wonder printing the Beatles, and like
Speaker 2: you can judge a really good artist based on the filler,
Speaker 2: Like I like their filler more than I like the
Speaker 2: sing Gotcha Bill?
Speaker 5: Do you spend a lot of time working on lyrics?
Speaker 5: Like is that something that you like? What comes first
Speaker 5: to you? Is it music first? Lyrics first?
Speaker 3: Like justing now right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I always get sent a page of
Speaker 4: lyrics for the most part when I'm working on like
Speaker 4: TV shows and things like that. But then when I'm not,
Speaker 4: I'm not I hire lyricist. I'm not a lyricist per se.
Speaker 4: I think for me, the music always comes first, or
Speaker 4: the or the or the the hook, Like I'll write
Speaker 4: hooks first and then go back first.
Speaker 5: That's the same way I am too. For me, it's
Speaker 5: like I was an English major in college. So for me,
Speaker 5: writing a song like the hook is like your thesis statement,
Speaker 5: and then your verses are like the paragraphs to support
Speaker 5: the thesis statement. So it was it was very much
Speaker 5: My process is the same way.
Speaker 2: See I'm asked backwards verses verse.
Speaker 3: I'll even go deeper than that beat first.
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm so non singles thinking I think
Speaker 2: of the album, and when I'm thinking of the album,
Speaker 2: the first thing I work on are the interludes. Okay
Speaker 2: to me, I don't know you remember that feeling of
Speaker 2: getting Pete Rock's records thelues.
Speaker 5: Look, man, I remember buying. I didn't break the law
Speaker 5: for main ingredient.
Speaker 3: I didn't. That was like break This is a fun
Speaker 3: breaks breaks the law episode.
Speaker 5: Okay, the last that was last one, I can last record.
Speaker 5: I remember breaking the law for it.
Speaker 3: I broke the law for.
Speaker 5: I had a home it that worked at a record store,
Speaker 5: and I broke the law. Now it wasn't best By.
Speaker 5: It wasn't best By. It was another record store. I'm
Speaker 5: not gonna name because I don't know if the statuteation
Speaker 5: is up on this ship.
Speaker 3: So, but it was a record store.
Speaker 5: So he would just let me came in and I
Speaker 5: gave him like five dollars and he would just let
Speaker 5: me like grab whatever funk.
Speaker 3: I wanted one of those.
Speaker 5: Records, mans records, right, let's talk about it. One of
Speaker 5: those records was Okay Computer and that was my first
Speaker 5: introduction radio hit and ever since then I was I
Speaker 5: was converted. But but now I remember main Ingredient. I
Speaker 5: bought main Ingredient, and honestly, main Agreed was a record
Speaker 5: for me. I didn't like I Gotta Love. Like I
Speaker 5: heard the singer. I was just like Kanye said, that's
Speaker 5: his favorite song.
Speaker 3: No, that's no. Yeah, I'm like, bro, that is Everyone's.
Speaker 2: Frowning in this room even though people had never heard.
Speaker 5: Everyone's like, yeah, I hate it, I gotta love. But
Speaker 5: but I still bought the record. I was like, let
Speaker 5: me see and oh my god, but yeah, the interludes,
Speaker 5: You're right, the interludes for that record.
Speaker 3: Were better than a lot of the same thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to me, like, I feel like I work
Speaker 1: ass backwards.
Speaker 2: I figured that interludes first, and then I match the
Speaker 2: song to that interlude, and then you work on the groove,
Speaker 2: and then you add the verses, and then the hook
Speaker 2: is the afterthought. Like I work completely backwards from you know,
Speaker 2: from how the average That's how I used to do.
Speaker 2: Now I'm thinking of what's your hook, what's the thing
Speaker 2: that's going to stick? Which I almost feel like like
Speaker 2: a dirty businessman for doing that.
Speaker 3: Like, hey, you gotta make a living, brother. I mean,
Speaker 3: but I think I think too.
Speaker 5: I mean, what you're doing to DJ, I imagine it
Speaker 5: would be kind of hard to not be informed by that,
Speaker 5: you know what, I because I remember one time I
Speaker 5: went to one of your I think we did the
Speaker 5: thing over it.
Speaker 3: It was at the do Over in London.
Speaker 5: We were in London for the Olympics, right, and some
Speaker 5: of the stuff you played with records that I would
Speaker 5: not listen to, like you in my car or in
Speaker 5: my life, but they totally killed the party. And I
Speaker 5: mean they were good records, but you know they worked
Speaker 5: in that setting.
Speaker 2: What I spend and what I listened to are just night,
Speaker 2: night and day. What do you well, you don't DJ D?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Okay, Like what is your go to? I have to
Speaker 2: listen to to get me through the day.
Speaker 4: I know people ask me, I don't listen to a
Speaker 4: lot of music. I'm the opposite of you don't.
Speaker 1: So you're too immersed in music.
Speaker 4: I feel like I go downstairs to my office at
Speaker 4: nine am and I come out at six am. My
Speaker 4: ears are just shot, and I just when I'm in
Speaker 4: the car listen to like the news or comedy most
Speaker 4: or Top forty because I feel like so often that
Speaker 4: not when people are asking me to write something. They're like, oh,
Speaker 4: it sounds like the new but tune, so I have
Speaker 4: to know what that reference is and I gotcha. And
Speaker 4: to my kids because they know them and I should.
Speaker 3: So are you listen because I do the same things.
Speaker 5: I will listen to like talk radio or NPR or
Speaker 5: something like just to kind of cleanse or just kind
Speaker 5: of decompress, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: You say you go.
Speaker 5: Downstairs in your office. Do you work from home? Is
Speaker 5: that kind of your home base?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I kind of move around. It depends on what the
Speaker 4: day it is. Like it's either Sesame Street in Queens
Speaker 4: or our studios on Fifth Street or record music or
Speaker 4: I'm at in my basement.
Speaker 5: So do you have like a home studio just set
Speaker 5: up just kind of do anything up?
Speaker 4: It's easy.
Speaker 5: How do you find your balance as a dad? And
Speaker 5: or is there even a balance?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, do your daughters control the radio yet?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah?
Speaker 4: They They will pick certain songs and ask to stay
Speaker 4: on certain channels. And my one daughter will move the
Speaker 4: dial and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: She knows what she's So who controls the music in
Speaker 3: the household? My kids?
Speaker 4: They it's it's pop radio. All the time in my house.
Speaker 2: What's the most adult intellectual thing they listen to on
Speaker 2: pop radio?
Speaker 3: No? Just I mean, yeah, you ain't gonna find much yet.
Speaker 3: I was listening to.
Speaker 2: Beatles at five, so yeah, my kids so. But it's
Speaker 2: also the parents responsibility, I agree with. Do you let
Speaker 2: them choose what they want to listen to?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't put it on them. I haven't yet.
Speaker 4: But it's interesting because I did not have parents, but
Speaker 4: both my parents are doctors, so clearly we have a
Speaker 4: lot in common.
Speaker 3: And uh uh.
Speaker 4: My parents listened to like smooth My dad listened to
Speaker 4: like Dave Sanborne, like smooth jazz all day long, wow,
Speaker 4: and like like for real and uh and I was
Speaker 4: a saxophone player and I was like no, and uh
Speaker 4: uh yeah, like super smoothy. But they they didn't know music.
Speaker 4: They still don't know me. They have no idea. So
Speaker 4: like when I was a kid, all the cool kids
Speaker 4: listened to like the Beatles and led Zeppelin and Pink
Speaker 4: Floyd and like that was the thing in the very
Speaker 4: white suburban neighborhood. I grew up on Long Island. Calm
Speaker 4: down a fucking second before you judge me, And so
Speaker 4: then it did not until later. You're shaking your head
Speaker 4: because you feel for me. Okay, okay, my bad, so
Speaker 4: and so now.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why I was shaking my head, but
Speaker 1: go ahead.
Speaker 4: So not until later, was was right right at high
Speaker 4: schools ending in college was starting where it was like,
Speaker 4: this is what you have to open up your head
Speaker 4: a little bit. It's not just about these particular things.
Speaker 4: And so then it became more of a like a
Speaker 4: quest as as as opposed to as opposed to like
Speaker 4: something being given to you, you know you have to
Speaker 4: go and get it. And I thought that that part
Speaker 4: of it was cool because it became a thing of discovery.
Speaker 4: Like I didn't get into the Beatles until way after
Speaker 4: I should have, and so when I finally did, I
Speaker 4: was at a different place musically that it meant more
Speaker 4: to me, and I was interested in very different things.
Speaker 3: I think you do have to kind of brainwash the key.
Speaker 3: I mean, at least I do.
Speaker 5: I mean you got a brainwashing, because I mean they
Speaker 5: gonna get brainwashed from other people. So at least, like
Speaker 5: when my music, I was not punished, the only time
Speaker 5: I can remember being even like something like kind of
Speaker 5: getting getting words at me my granddad. I had Bigger
Speaker 5: and Death for LL the second album. I had Bigger
Speaker 5: Deafer and I'm Bad comes on and I had it
Speaker 5: playing and he was in the room and oh my,
Speaker 5: I ain't met a motherfucker who could do that yet
Speaker 5: that one l Lyric I had the same experience. Oh
Speaker 5: my god, it was just the same thing. Yeah, that
Speaker 5: one that you let it play. I let it play,
Speaker 5: but it was it was too late, like I cut you.
Speaker 5: I was on the other side of the earth and
Speaker 5: I ran faster.
Speaker 2: And Carl Lewis and I ran yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: It was man and my grandad from neighborhood where what
Speaker 5: was that tape at you listen to talking about motherfuckers
Speaker 5: and my grand yo And I'm thinking about this now,
Speaker 5: my granddad, because I know there's a link here. My
Speaker 5: grandfather was a huge fan of that King Cole. That's
Speaker 5: really all he listened to.
Speaker 3: So if it wasn't that King Cole, he wasn't trying
Speaker 3: to fuck with none of that ship.
Speaker 5: Were any rappers, any black men you're objected to listening
Speaker 5: to it?
Speaker 3: I was. He would my granddad every Christmas.
Speaker 5: He would bring out the Christmas album and he would
Speaker 5: just sit us in the den and you just had
Speaker 5: to listen to that and that was it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't no talking. This is not up for discussion.
Speaker 3: It's not debate.
Speaker 5: Utfo no nah, none of that no utfo. Oh my god, no.
Speaker 3: None of that, none of that joint, none of the
Speaker 3: Christmas records. It was all. It was all that, King cole.
Speaker 2: My jazz education was kind of also asked backwards because
Speaker 2: jazz was punishment in my household. Oh wow, like you
Speaker 2: you were punished, Yeah, Like I feel like my parents
Speaker 2: felt as though jazz music was a way to exercise
Speaker 2: the prince demons out of me. So whenever, I mean,
Speaker 2: my public telling of the amount of times I've gotten
Speaker 2: punished for owning nineteen ninety nine is super legendary. But
Speaker 2: they would break the record and then you know, it
Speaker 2: would be like no stereo for two to three weeks,
Speaker 2: which is like a lifetime to me. And the only
Speaker 2: thing I was allowed to listen to was Christian radio
Speaker 2: and jazz music.
Speaker 3: And so usually it's like each your vegetables kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So all my knowledge and my associations of all
Speaker 2: those culturing songs Alabama and Love Supreme and the entire
Speaker 2: Coltrane plays the blues record is based on just the
Speaker 2: fact that this is world music, not that Prince, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean dad just thought like Prince was a dude
Speaker 3: that wore a diaper. Oh wow.
Speaker 2: I mean he saw the Yeah No Midnight Special when
Speaker 2: he's doing I Want to Be Alone. You know, boy,
Speaker 2: don't you ever wear no diaper?
Speaker 5: Like and you know what, man, anything you say that
Speaker 5: is like, I guess that's kind of where I'm at
Speaker 5: now with my kids because my oldest son, he is
Speaker 5: in the music.
Speaker 3: But the thing I will say about him is that
Speaker 3: he listens to everything. He listens to. He'll listen to
Speaker 3: like Young Thug and Little Yachty.
Speaker 5: Like all the all the XXL cover dudes, but then
Speaker 5: the Freshman covered dudes, he'll listen to them. But then
Speaker 5: he'll listen to the Beatles, like he'll listen to And
Speaker 5: that was the thing, Like when we were talking earlier,
Speaker 5: you said the kids are more sophisticated, because I think
Speaker 5: what it is now, like kids now they ain't got
Speaker 5: a paper ship, so they can listen to everything.
Speaker 3: Like I remember buying music or stilling music back.
Speaker 5: In my day, Like you had to make a choice,
Speaker 5: you know, what I'm saying, even a choice of what
Speaker 5: the steal.
Speaker 3: You couldn't fit all the ship in the bag.
Speaker 5: It's like I got to make a choice of them
Speaker 5: steal today but back then. But now, like kids, wait,
Speaker 5: let's have another front race long moment, tell us another
Speaker 5: story front.
Speaker 3: Well, no, I mean you couldn't get caught stealing the ship? Nah,
Speaker 3: I never did. I never did.
Speaker 5: But it was because because they switched it up. They
Speaker 5: switched you got called ste Island. Bill has the story.
Speaker 3: I got caught stealing when I was fourteen from Target.
Speaker 3: I had Target.
Speaker 8: Target just came out like last year, right, I'm thirty six,
Speaker 8: All right, this was this was ninety four.
Speaker 3: I used to every Friday.
Speaker 8: I would go to the mall and I had like
Speaker 8: this big Charlotte hornet starter jacket with the pocket in
Speaker 8: the front flap.
Speaker 3: You was mental or bad.
Speaker 8: I had this small pa because you know, you know
Speaker 8: how they had the little plastic thing passic around the
Speaker 8: plastic around it. So I would take them to take
Speaker 8: the CD to the handicap bathroom, cut the plastic thing
Speaker 8: off of it, open the CDs, tossed everything in the
Speaker 8: trash and just walking.
Speaker 3: It was like a real thief. Yeah, handicap. You took
Speaker 3: it too far. That should lasted for a good year.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I didn't even do all that.
Speaker 5: See, all I did was like I just I didn't
Speaker 5: even have like I had like a little key, like
Speaker 5: my key, my mailbox key in my that went to
Speaker 5: my in college, like you get your mailboxy. My mailbox
Speaker 5: key was mad sharp. So all I would do is
Speaker 5: just you know, beforehand, we would just like take them
Speaker 5: and you just go to college. Yeah, this was like
Speaker 5: I think it, but it was I didn't have I
Speaker 5: didn't get my first computer until two thousand and three four.
Speaker 3: So like that was when I got the computer. Man, I.
Speaker 5: I would have got one, but by last one, I remember,
Speaker 5: like you just opened a little joint because then they
Speaker 5: started changing it and they would put the sensors inside
Speaker 5: the CD coup So then what you do, that's when
Speaker 5: I had the key. You just take the key and
Speaker 5: then you just get the CD out and then you
Speaker 5: just leave the case and put the case back up
Speaker 5: in So like if I was still in a stero,
Speaker 5: it's like ever here fucking you know everything. But the
Speaker 5: girl clear, no, no, no, I'm just saying that I'm
Speaker 5: not getting rested with clear.
Speaker 3: But it was like the E section. I mean, who
Speaker 3: was who was popping at that time? Right? It was
Speaker 3: all at see. Okay, so what did you get caught stealing? Well?
Speaker 3: How did you get caught?
Speaker 8: First off, Okay, I got caught because somebody came into
Speaker 8: the bathroom like right after I did and saw all
Speaker 8: the ship that I had thrown away in and they snitched.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they snitched. So it was a Storm employee.
Speaker 3: It was I don't think it was a stor employe.
Speaker 8: It was probably like some woman and her child or
Speaker 8: whatever walked in the titles and CDs. I stole LLL scratched
Speaker 8: his first album.
Speaker 5: Wow, which was an EP. It was like where my Homies?
Speaker 5: Like eight times it was like, where are my homies?
Speaker 3: Homies? Where my homies?
Speaker 8: At L scratched Keith Murray's Most Beautifulest Thing in the World.
Speaker 3: Okay, TLC is crazy, sexy, cool, all right? And the
Speaker 3: one that is clown worthy Ray Carri's Christmas out.
Speaker 2: Oh right after that kid Cold Right now?
Speaker 6: The cover though of that.
Speaker 2: You're in the VHS section, Steve, you know what, Actually,
Speaker 2: I stole a steep. I stole I forgot. I used
Speaker 2: to work One of my biggest shames in life was
Speaker 2: that I got fired from Sam Goodies.
Speaker 3: From Sam Goodie, you still, I know, like how what
Speaker 3: I know?
Speaker 2: It's like it's such a new brainer, right, I should
Speaker 2: still be working at Sam Goodie right now. But yeah
Speaker 2: it was. It was January of eighty nine and three
Speaker 2: ft high and rising by day. Last Soul just came
Speaker 2: out and I took the promo concept from the store
Speaker 2: and I guess.
Speaker 3: That's not well, it's not only one copy of it.
Speaker 2: I guess the manager wanted it.
Speaker 3: They called.
Speaker 2: They didn't call me out on it, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's just like, all right, we're letting you go.
Speaker 3: A mire and I didn't say anything. I just walked away, defeated.
Speaker 3: Then I started, I would get tier worth getting fired over. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's if you're gonna get fired. I wasn't better.
Speaker 2: But when we did have an in store for our
Speaker 2: second album, do You Want More? Uh, I denied the.
Speaker 3: The store uh doing an in store there? Instead? I
Speaker 3: did a Tower Records. That's how Records. That's how bitter
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just wrote the music for a Tower Records documentary,
Speaker 4: not just it was a long time ago that.
Speaker 3: It's the one.
Speaker 1: Music documentary that you're not in that. I did a
Speaker 1: five hour interview for Colin Hanks.
Speaker 3: You're still not in that.
Speaker 1: I got put on the cutting room floor.
Speaker 4: But you know that if you go to IMDb or
Speaker 4: the first face I think that's there, it's the roll
Speaker 4: and then you.
Speaker 3: But you're not even in it. You got hanked. I'm
Speaker 3: not bitter, though, not all. I didn't see the movie.
Speaker 2: Like, is it that it's only Tower employees that were
Speaker 2: in it or no?
Speaker 4: I think I was like, yeah, no, buts in it
Speaker 4: as well? Right, I think so yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: He might have gotten other cuttingroom floor too.
Speaker 3: How is it? Is it good? I haven't seen?
Speaker 2: I mean, but I spoke for like five hours and
Speaker 2: and ain't usually.
Speaker 3: Nothing was usable. Dang, my feelings were hurt. It's okay, Well.
Speaker 1: We've learned a lot here todayly and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: This can go on forever.
Speaker 5: But I got my work cut out for me today.
Speaker 5: Yeah you good, and you have to give them a
Speaker 5: cut tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: Bill wants to prepare this years and events. No, Sean
Speaker 2: wants to prepare everything. Yeah, so I'm cool with right.
Speaker 2: I know you guys are prepared. See, I keep responsible
Speaker 2: people in my life because I am a slacker at
Speaker 2: the heart.
Speaker 3: I feel you, bro, Yeah all right, well whole responsibility.
Speaker 5: And you know what, And that's it's very profound that
Speaker 5: you say that, because I've been trying to explain that
Speaker 5: people like it's like because they see you working.
Speaker 3: Hard and they're like, man, you're going to get it.
Speaker 3: You work really hard.
Speaker 5: And it's like the reason I'm working hard is because
Speaker 5: I'm trying to get it. You know, I've officially got
Speaker 5: it when you motherfuckers never see me again, you.
Speaker 2: Know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Like that, Like that's when you know I've made it.
Speaker 5: Like when when you don't see me tweeting, we don't
Speaker 5: see no Instagram with all that social media.
Speaker 1: Is over, Oh Son, there's no such thing as disappearing.
Speaker 3: You know, think, well you might get to do this
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, the two phone actually four? But yeah, Liam,
Speaker 3: so why so why would you need full phone? Which
Speaker 3: one of the which one is the whole phone?
Speaker 9: And that's what's supreme, Lad, that's the fife on behalf
Speaker 9: of our our new in Bill Sermon, Bill Johnson, Mandel.
Speaker 3: Coleman and your Shoely quest Love. We thank you very much.
Speaker 3: We pray that you come back next time. God Willie
Speaker 3: next ones that good night you go. We come back
Speaker 3: next Yes see you later.
Speaker 1: West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
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