Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Bob left That's Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest this week is the andys Later. You know him
Speaker 1: as a manager, a record company executive. Now he's got
Speaker 1: another feather in his cap. He is the writer and
Speaker 1: director of the new movie Echo in the Canyon. Andy, Hi, Bob,
Speaker 1: Good to see you man. Okay, so how'd you come
Speaker 1: up with the idea for this film? Well, I was
Speaker 1: a journalist, you know, in the late seventies and eighties
Speaker 1: of rock Critic, and the idea of the of people
Speaker 1: listening to each other and these records being traded back
Speaker 1: and forth was always there. But you know, you come
Speaker 1: to a point in your life where you sort of
Speaker 1: reflect back on what you've done, as you know, in
Speaker 1: an attempt to go forward. And that moment came for
Speaker 1: me when I was looking at this film. I had
Speaker 1: just left Capital, which we will describe as fired and uh,
Speaker 1: and I saw this film called Model Shop. Okay, just
Speaker 1: to stop there for a secure because that's featured in
Speaker 1: the film and you talk about it, but it was
Speaker 1: kind of hard for me to google it. And the
Speaker 1: reason I asked this is how did you find it?
Speaker 1: Jacob and I were sitting on my couch trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what we were doing. Jacob Dilan and I
Speaker 1: was sitting on my couch and and we saw this
Speaker 1: thing on TCM. So it was completely random. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the in the film, we start seeing all these
Speaker 1: places where we would go all the time, and it
Speaker 1: was like, you know, the farmers market and in Libreya
Speaker 1: and Santa Monica and and it just looked beautiful. It
Speaker 1: looked like and it was not you know, shot in
Speaker 1: the nine sixty seven by a French director named Jacques
Speaker 1: Demy and and it reminded us of, you know, the
Speaker 1: reason that we came here in the beginnings of the
Speaker 1: music scene. You know, you never know how something's going
Speaker 1: to inspire you, and so for sure, and so the
Speaker 1: sight of that made us think of music. And so
Speaker 1: we said, oh, you know, you know, you know the birds,
Speaker 1: you know that bells of Rimney. I love it. And
Speaker 1: we started talking about all these songs, and I said,
Speaker 1: let's let's go, what if we do a record of
Speaker 1: these songs? And Jacob was like, well, which songs? And
Speaker 1: then we got out of guitar and we started listening
Speaker 1: to the songs and and that, and then it evolved
Speaker 1: from there. Okay, do you play the guitar? How? Well, well,
Speaker 1: I've been playing since some fourteen. And Peter Buck from
Speaker 1: r M and I had a band. How did they
Speaker 1: come together? Well, we were the only two guys at
Speaker 1: Longstreet Hall at Emory University that had guitars, and and
Speaker 1: I had a Carlo Rebelli stratocaster, which was the set
Speaker 1: cheap Samash version. You know, I had a Hendrix white
Speaker 1: and and Peter had a real Fender stratocaster. And so
Speaker 1: we would jam and you know, in our in our
Speaker 1: dorm and and it's funny because we would, you know,
Speaker 1: we would play like in the midnight hour, and you
Speaker 1: know when you're jam with somebody, I play chords and
Speaker 1: then you play lead, and then you play chords, and
Speaker 1: I believe and everything Peter did ounded like last Train
Speaker 1: to Clarkson, and he made a career out of it.
Speaker 1: You know. Okay, but when did you realize this was
Speaker 1: not your path? Well? I you know, it all goes
Speaker 1: back to the hot Tuna story, Bob. I mean, our
Speaker 1: audience is not here as part of that story. Well
Speaker 1: that's a good story. So in nineteen seventy five, my
Speaker 1: friend Larry Dale and I, who were freshman member university,
Speaker 1: wanted to go see Hot Tuna play and they were
Speaker 1: playing at the Gore Ballroom in in Atlanta, and we
Speaker 1: U said, look, we gotta go down there at five o'clock.
Speaker 1: We gotta get online early because we want to be
Speaker 1: in the front. So we got there at five o'clock
Speaker 1: and it looked like nobody was there. I thought they
Speaker 1: canceled the show. Maybe that's how they do it in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: but at least in the seventies. So we went. We
Speaker 1: went around to the back and and we saw these
Speaker 1: boxes that said Jefferson Airplane on them, and we said
Speaker 1: to this guy, hey, are those official Jeffer Jeffers boxes?
Speaker 1: And the guy said yeah, want to lift them up
Speaker 1: those stairs? And I said could we? So Larry Dale
Speaker 1: and I we lift the boxes up the stairs, and
Speaker 1: you know, we load their gear in, and I say
Speaker 1: to the guy, hey, do you think if we come
Speaker 1: back after we could we could carry these boxes out.
Speaker 1: The guy go sure, So we're all static we're lifting
Speaker 1: Jefferson NEVNY boxes. Anyway, after at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: we helped them load their gear and we say, look,
Speaker 1: you guys are playing at the Academy of Music in
Speaker 1: New York. Do you think you would get us in
Speaker 1: next week if we come and help, you know, help
Speaker 1: you load those boxes? And said, yeah, look, if you're there,
Speaker 1: sure we'll get your X sage. Because the Vinny, the
Speaker 1: guy who was the road, he was the guy named
Speaker 1: Vinie Delbono when he was from New York. And then
Speaker 1: we became friendly and and you know, got drunk together. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we go to New York and I am standing backstage
Speaker 1: and I say to Vinny, you know you guys don't
Speaker 1: have any tour jackets, like you don't have any satin
Speaker 1: jackets that everybody has satin jackets. Now I have an
Speaker 1: idea to make a satin jacket. If I give you one,
Speaker 1: will you show it to you him? And he says yeah, sure.
Speaker 1: So the next day I go to Paragon Sporting Goods
Speaker 1: on seventeen Street. I go downstairs and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: want to make a baseball jacket. Can you point me
Speaker 1: in the direction to the guy who does that? Point
Speaker 1: me downstairs and I say to the guy, look, I
Speaker 1: want to do it like San Francisco giants clus I
Speaker 1: wanted black statin jacket. I want Arne stripes and I
Speaker 1: want yourma, this is the name on the back end.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna draw you the logo and this is what
Speaker 1: the logo looks like. And can you have the guy
Speaker 1: do that and send it to me? And I give
Speaker 1: the guy the money and he sends me the the
Speaker 1: prototype in Atlanta, and I send it to Vinnie and
Speaker 1: I get a phone call and he says, Yama loves
Speaker 1: the jackets. We want twenty five and you can ship
Speaker 1: them to me. And I said, no, no no, no, I
Speaker 1: want to bring him out. And so so of course
Speaker 1: I whack up the price of the jackets to pay
Speaker 1: for my planet and give me a little spending money.
Speaker 1: And I go out there and they take the jackets.
Speaker 1: But what that leads to is, you know, a a
Speaker 1: kind of friendship with Hot Tuna. And when Hot Tuna
Speaker 1: breaks up, I ask if I can interview you Ama
Speaker 1: from my school paper, and I interview this time. Are
Speaker 1: you already writing for the school paper? I think I
Speaker 1: wrote a record review, you know, and for the Emery
Speaker 1: Wheel and Yourma lets me interview him, and I, you know, thought,
Speaker 1: this is it. This is the pinnacle. You know, I've
Speaker 1: got the hot tune to break up story and I
Speaker 1: and I send a letter to Jim Hanky, who was
Speaker 1: a music eatitor a rolling Stone at the time. So
Speaker 1: I've got the exclusive if you want it. You know,
Speaker 1: I sent one of those schmucky letters anyway, which which
Speaker 1: didn't get returned, but anyway, so that started my path
Speaker 1: in you know, in in journalism, and as it relates
Speaker 1: to Peter Buck when r E. M. You know Peter,
Speaker 1: we graduated, he moved to Athens, he started this band,
Speaker 1: and I wound up writing the first story about them
Speaker 1: in the Atlanta Journal Constitution because I eventually went to work.
Speaker 1: There was very lucky another the you know, strange story
Speaker 1: of how I got there. Well, so I was writing
Speaker 1: for the Emery Wheel and I had all these clippings
Speaker 1: and I was at a party and there was a
Speaker 1: guy named Roger Pavey. He was the entertainment editor of
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Journal. And he said to me, I, you know,
Speaker 1: we were at this party and and I had this
Speaker 1: weed and I said, hey, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: you want to smoke some weed with me? And the
Speaker 1: guy I didn't really know who he was, and he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and it turned out this is who he was.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, you know, I'm writing for my
Speaker 1: school paper. I'd like to do some reviews for you.
Speaker 1: Can I send you my clippings? And he said yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: s our kids sand So I got my clippings together.
Speaker 1: I sent him to Roger. I didn't hear anything. Three
Speaker 1: weeks later, I called it. I trump at the paper.
Speaker 1: I say, hey, Dandy Slater, I sent you my my clippings.
Speaker 1: You remember, he said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Hey you
Speaker 1: got any more of that weed? I said yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes right, We'll meet me at manuel S tavern.
Speaker 1: You know, we'll, you know, we'll talk about this. So,
Speaker 1: needless to say, they started signing me is and how
Speaker 1: much was a review worth actually, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: at that time forty dollars was like a hundred parts.
Speaker 1: So it was good. And that event that they liked
Speaker 1: my writing, you know, And and so they started giving
Speaker 1: me more assignments. And and one of the assignments that
Speaker 1: I got was, you know, to cover to cover the
Speaker 1: Athens music. So you and I wrote this story about R. E. M.
Speaker 1: And then eventually wrote the first story in Rolling Stone
Speaker 1: about R. E. M. The New Faces piece. But so
Speaker 1: that's really the let's go a little bit slower. So
Speaker 1: when you're at emery, do you know you want to
Speaker 1: be a journalist? No? I actually, you know, there were
Speaker 1: guys at the time working at Columbia who were giving
Speaker 1: records to me for free, like the guys who became
Speaker 1: you know, big executive, or John Faggott who was a
Speaker 1: head of promotion at Capital he worked there, and guy
Speaker 1: named Alan Orman and a guy named Ed Nwf was
Speaker 1: still Warner Brothers. And those guys were giving me records.
Speaker 1: You remember, this is nine teen seventy five seventy six.
Speaker 1: The record businesses, as you know, a colorful, wonderful place
Speaker 1: to probably, like you know, the tech industry is now,
Speaker 1: and to me it just all seemed shiny. Mean I
Speaker 1: was studying, like you know, political science. My parents wanted
Speaker 1: me to be a lawyer. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: would have said my major was like the Grateful Dead,
Speaker 1: because all I really wanted to do was follow them
Speaker 1: around and any you know, and find any tributary that
Speaker 1: that that Jerry had gone down, whether it was Merle
Speaker 1: Haggard or you know, or Hank Williams or any of
Speaker 1: the great stuff I learned from listening to those records.
Speaker 1: But um, you know my it was really the journalism
Speaker 1: became the the outlet for me to express the things
Speaker 1: I felt about music, and which I, by the way,
Speaker 1: don't think I was very well expressed, but you know
Speaker 1: it led me to to being able to get inside
Speaker 1: and and see this world that was mystical to me. Okay,
Speaker 1: but before you fell in with the hot tuna, did
Speaker 1: you believe you could make it as a musician. No, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're having fun in college. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: making it as a musician. I just you know, I
Speaker 1: thought I could play things that other people had had
Speaker 1: had played. You know, I think there's there's several kinds
Speaker 1: of of accomplished musicians. You know. There are guys who
Speaker 1: can absolutely mimic what they hear and go on the
Speaker 1: road and make your record come to life. And then
Speaker 1: there are are guys in a studio that you work
Speaker 1: with who you know, can hear melody and hear counterpoint
Speaker 1: and bring sections to life and whatever instrument they are,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you need. And I clearly was not
Speaker 1: that so as somebody who was just mimicking what I heard,
Speaker 1: I kind of felt like you know, tracing paper fake.
Speaker 1: So I really didn't do any but all through the
Speaker 1: ensuing forty years, you've continued to play the guitar. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually I have a I have a band which uh,
Speaker 1: which which we play well? Anyway, with a band, you know,
Speaker 1: how often do you play? Well, we were playing every
Speaker 1: Tuesday night, you know, at this bar and uh and occasionally,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a little apprehensive about talking about this
Speaker 1: band because it's because it's turned into well, okay, in
Speaker 1: one or we that was at a point in my
Speaker 1: career where I had had it was a transitional place.
Speaker 1: So I had been a manager, and I had managed
Speaker 1: the Beastie Boys and Lenny Kravitz and co managed Don Henley,
Speaker 1: and all of that went away and I sort of
Speaker 1: started over. Okay, just to be clear, that went away
Speaker 1: because well, I think each of those situations, you know,
Speaker 1: being a manager sometimes has a lifespan, and sometimes you
Speaker 1: know your partner it is one thing, and the partner
Speaker 1: it is that it just it just you know it
Speaker 1: it evolves that way, you know. In the In the
Speaker 1: case of Lenny Kravitz, I think he was used to
Speaker 1: having a very hands on, day to day personal manager
Speaker 1: that would do those kinds of things, and for me,
Speaker 1: management was was as a partnership was a creative partnership,
Speaker 1: you know, as much as it was a business partnership.
Speaker 1: And I think Lenny was just getting used to having
Speaker 1: somebody other than the guy he had been friends with
Speaker 1: forever and I wasn't really going to do that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the with the Beastie Boys. That was. That
Speaker 1: was one of the most amazing, you know, times of
Speaker 1: my life because I was around the making of Paul's Critique,
Speaker 1: which was legendary, which is just an incredible record, and
Speaker 1: they you know, were and the surviving members still are,
Speaker 1: you know, just so brilliant. Um. And that was I
Speaker 1: think that record was difficult because it was coming off
Speaker 1: the heels of a huge success at def Jam, a
Speaker 1: licensed Hill and and you know, they had expectations of
Speaker 1: what they wanted to do, and they made a record
Speaker 1: that was completely groundbreaking and outside of any uh any
Speaker 1: place to fit in radio to drive it. I mean, hey, ladies,
Speaker 1: you know is one of the great singles and that
Speaker 1: artful synthesis of all of those styles that are in
Speaker 1: that record. Uh, at that time just didn't was not
Speaker 1: a follow up to Hit five. You're as party as
Speaker 1: you know and as you so eloquently in your column
Speaker 1: stated many times, you know, radio listeners often want to
Speaker 1: hear something that sounds familiar to them, and it drives
Speaker 1: the business of radio. And if you don't fit into
Speaker 1: that format, unless you have a very powerful uh machine
Speaker 1: behind you that can keep record on the radio till
Speaker 1: the test, well at least at that time, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have three weeks and you're gonna be done. And in
Speaker 1: the case of Paul's boutique, you know, Capital was trying
Speaker 1: very hard to mimic the success of License to Ill
Speaker 1: and Hay Ladies did not sound like Fight Fear right
Speaker 1: at the party, and the band was also in a
Speaker 1: transitional place where they were starting to play instruments and
Speaker 1: touring in the way they had before was impossible. So
Speaker 1: all of that, you know, led to a kind of
Speaker 1: one album, Uh, you know, Lifespan for me, and you
Speaker 1: know we remained great friends. But I'm off on a tangent,
Speaker 1: but cool. You know that digression is this splice of life,
Speaker 1: you know that that led me to a place where
Speaker 1: you know, and and Henley and I had a I mean,
Speaker 1: I I learned so much. I mean, I would say
Speaker 1: of what I know about making a record and being
Speaker 1: uh a manager in in the record is really from Dawn.
Speaker 1: So tell me us, tell us two things you learned. Well.
Speaker 1: I learned about the attention to detail. And I learned
Speaker 1: that in making something you must examine and re examine
Speaker 1: and be sure before you put it out into the world.
Speaker 1: And I also learned to approach the the the putting
Speaker 1: those things out in the world with dignity and grace.
Speaker 1: And he was always somebody who was smart, articulate, and
Speaker 1: and you know, very thorough about about how he did
Speaker 1: what he did. And I had a lot of respect
Speaker 1: from him. You know, It's funny because I was a
Speaker 1: journalist at a time in the late seventies. What was
Speaker 1: very fashionable at that time was to sort of deconstruct
Speaker 1: the thing that the Eagles and phillywood Mac had built
Speaker 1: and punk rock and that you know, ethic was was
Speaker 1: the sign of the times. And when I met the
Speaker 1: Eagles and interviewed them and went on the road at
Speaker 1: them in nineteen seventy nine, I found Don to be
Speaker 1: this really well read, you know, well spoken, um uh writer.
Speaker 1: He was like a writer's writer to me. He was
Speaker 1: a you know, the lyricist. And so when I eventually
Speaker 1: came to work with with with him as a solo artist.
Speaker 1: You know, I said, my friends who are journalists will really,
Speaker 1: you know, really like you if you just talk to them,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's clear that you're a man of letters. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was, you know, part of the beginning of
Speaker 1: our you know, friendship and working relationship that started when
Speaker 1: so I can't I went to I left journalism. Let's
Speaker 1: see what the eagles came through town in Atlanta and
Speaker 1: psalters tell your experience there. Well, getting an interview from
Speaker 1: the eagles was, you know, was the genesis for the
Speaker 1: newspaper wanted a story on the eagles, and I I
Speaker 1: when I, you know, all these things happened to you
Speaker 1: in your life and you just, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: really know where they're gonna lead you. But I was
Speaker 1: on an airplane when I was thirteen, going to Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. From my cousin's high school graduation, and there
Speaker 1: were two guys sitting behind my grandparents and I and
Speaker 1: I one of them was wearing a Live Dead T
Speaker 1: shirt and I was like, that looks like Bob Ware.
Speaker 1: So I got up on my chair and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: are you you famous? Ebob ware and the guy says
Speaker 1: to me, no, man, I've known more famous than you.
Speaker 1: I'm Eric Anderson, I'm a songwriter. And the other guy
Speaker 1: next to him said, well, I'm Michael Kleffner and I'm
Speaker 1: the program director of w n a W. And he
Speaker 1: had this big handlebar mustache. Anyway, I later, you know,
Speaker 1: years later, after the Hot Tuna, you know, Rhody Vinny
Speaker 1: and you know Escapade, and I became friends with those
Speaker 1: guys they met, you know, they're friends who worked for
Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead. And I was luckily lucky enough, you know,
Speaker 1: at nineteen or twenty to be backstage at the Academy
Speaker 1: Music when the Dead played, I think it was. I
Speaker 1: think it was the Academy Music still then um when
Speaker 1: they played, and there was this guy with the handlebar
Speaker 1: mustache back there, and I was like, well, that's the
Speaker 1: guy I saw when I was thirteen. And I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I met you with my parents and you're at w
Speaker 1: n W. And he said, no, I'm head of promotion
Speaker 1: for Atlantic regoritarys my card and hey, give me a call.
Speaker 1: I was right write, so I wrote him all I kept,
Speaker 1: you know, I kept hocking him when I was in college.
Speaker 1: I would write them, you know these letters. Hey, I
Speaker 1: really want to work for Atlantic Records. Hey, you know
Speaker 1: I really like the record. He says, Hey, I'm a
Speaker 1: journalist now. Hey, then I saw I had you know,
Speaker 1: this is nineteen seventy seven and seventy nine. I started
Speaker 1: working for the newspaper and they needed an interview with
Speaker 1: the Eagles. And I read in Billboard that he went
Speaker 1: to work for Irving Azof and front Line Management. So
Speaker 1: I called it Michael Kleffner and I say, Michael, I'm
Speaker 1: now in Atlanta at this big paper. I need to
Speaker 1: interview the Eagles. He's all right, I'll introduce you assaulters
Speaker 1: pray for this the Eagle. So so I call up
Speaker 1: Larry So. I say, hey, Larry Man Slater and on
Speaker 1: the pop music critic at Atlanta Journal, I like the
Speaker 1: inter of the Eagles, and he says, they don't do interviews.
Speaker 1: I gotta go by, like ship, what do I do?
Speaker 1: I need this story? Damn it? Okay, I go I
Speaker 1: got it. Okay, called Laric back Larry. Hey, it's Anny
Speaker 1: Slaria pop musical advantage of Hey you doing yeah? Yeah
Speaker 1: what I said? Look, I don't want interview Eagles. I
Speaker 1: want to interview you. I want to interview you, and
Speaker 1: I want to interview with Irving, and I want to
Speaker 1: interview the crew, and I want to do a story
Speaker 1: about what it takes bring the Eagles to Atlanta. Because
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Okay, I'll get out there. I'll get
Speaker 1: on the road shoulders, maybe don fell to Will walked
Speaker 1: by it out of the cope machine and ask him
Speaker 1: three questions and I'll string together a story. So he
Speaker 1: just okay, you can come meet us in whatever with Durham,
Speaker 1: North Carolina. I said, okay, So I get the photographer,
Speaker 1: Me and Rick Diamond, the photographer. We go. We drive
Speaker 1: out there in our car. We go to we go
Speaker 1: see the Eagles. You know, We're talking to Irving and
Speaker 1: talking to Larry, and I'm hanging around and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to talk to Felder. Irvings is exactly what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: He says, hey, listen, I see what you're doing. He says, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like you guys. I'll tell you what if you
Speaker 1: let Henley approve his quotes that he says to you,
Speaker 1: you can interview the Eagles. I said, well, is this
Speaker 1: a breaking journalistic No, it's not really it. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna let him, you know, the fact check his quotes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I said, okay, so everything. Lets me into the Eagles,
Speaker 1: I I. He says, you come to the three E party.
Speaker 1: It gives me. It gives me a three E pen.
Speaker 1: I go to this party. It's nineteent nine. It's in
Speaker 1: the top of a hotel suite. It looks like Playboy
Speaker 1: After Dark. I'm like, man, this is cool. UM twenty
Speaker 1: two and so I you know, and iView Henley Irving
Speaker 1: sits there middle of the interview and he says, you
Speaker 1: know what, I like this guy now. I like the
Speaker 1: Eagles and seven. I mean, I love this Rotto, I think.
Speaker 1: And I was there from the beginning. I'm a huge
Speaker 1: Eagan even though it was unpopular. I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh so many other racks were. It's
Speaker 1: turning around. Yeah. But you know when you listen to
Speaker 1: even the architecture of sound of Desperado, and you listen
Speaker 1: to the reprieve of the duel and dal and Repres,
Speaker 1: and you hear the banjo and you hear the room sound,
Speaker 1: and you realize what they created. I mean, it's really
Speaker 1: brilliant and So for me talking to Don about that stuff,
Speaker 1: I wasn't as interested in this petticultural war between New
Speaker 1: York and l A was going on. I was interested in,
Speaker 1: you know, the ideas behind the songs and not so
Speaker 1: much the lifestyle. And I think Don responded to that,
Speaker 1: and that's eventually how we became friends. But they came
Speaker 1: to Atlanta. They liked the story. And I was standing backstage,
Speaker 1: uh during the encore with Irving and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: you guys don't have tour books. You should really have
Speaker 1: a tour book, and you should take me and Rick
Speaker 1: on the road with you, and Rick can take the
Speaker 1: pictures and I can write the copy. And Irving said,
Speaker 1: that's a good idea. Get get it. You see that
Speaker 1: car over they're just getting that car. I go, okay,
Speaker 1: So me and Rick we get in the car and
Speaker 1: the next thing I know, there's twelve cars and we're
Speaker 1: pulling out of the Omni and we're at an airport
Speaker 1: and Irving says, get on that plane. I said, my
Speaker 1: car is at the Omni. What do I do? You say,
Speaker 1: don't worry, we know the Omni. Next thing I know,
Speaker 1: I'm in I'm in Cleveland. Rick and I have no luggage,
Speaker 1: only the clothes we're wearing. And we were on the
Speaker 1: road at the Eagles, and Rick eventually took the pictures
Speaker 1: and I wrote the copy which Psalters edited and it
Speaker 1: turned into nothing, but you know, they did the tour
Speaker 1: book and and you know, that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: my friendship and relationship with Larry and Irving. And ultimately
Speaker 1: they did introduce me to you know, Yawn Winner and
Speaker 1: and I eventually became a writer for Rolling Stone and
Speaker 1: for Billboard and for People and really, you know, they
Speaker 1: they like gave me the imper mater, like this guy's cool.
Speaker 1: You can you can talk to him, and he's not gonna,
Speaker 1: you know, jerk you around for sensationalism. So you know
Speaker 1: that was just that. Okay, So how do you make
Speaker 1: the transition from writer to business person? Awkwardly? Um? I
Speaker 1: So Salters had a job at frontline and his job
Speaker 1: was the frontline, was the management, front line manager. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, even though Cameron Crow very astutely in an
Speaker 1: article referred to Larry as vice president in charge of
Speaker 1: whatever Irving tells him to do, he actually was, you know,
Speaker 1: the head of the album covers and publicity. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was a junior manager. And so when when Irving
Speaker 1: went to run m c A Records in n two
Speaker 1: maybe two or three, Larry went with him, and they
Speaker 1: were looking for someone who could take Larry's place. And
Speaker 1: now I had interviewed all of the fiance and the
Speaker 1: main thing was I think Henley, Yeah, he liked me,
Speaker 1: and and I had it. You know, they were trying
Speaker 1: to find somebody I guess that they could trust. And
Speaker 1: Michael Rosenfeld and Howard Kaufman, uh, I had known, and
Speaker 1: they said, and I was going to try to move
Speaker 1: to California because my girlfriend at the time was going
Speaker 1: to be a doctor and she was going to do
Speaker 1: her residency at Kaiser Permanente and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose her, right which this was, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the one of the few times I chose love over business. Um.
Speaker 1: And I was leaving journalist because I actually I didn't
Speaker 1: think I was any good to be honest. I mean
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to be you know, like David Frick
Speaker 1: or Charles m. Young or Hunter Thompson, any the guys
Speaker 1: that I felt were great, you know, or Tom Wolfe,
Speaker 1: the great Cholis you know, so I said that I
Speaker 1: should really get out of this, and so I got
Speaker 1: this job with with Frontline Management, doing Larry's job, and
Speaker 1: so it was you do, You're gonna be in charge
Speaker 1: of publicet and you're going to be in charge of
Speaker 1: album covers and there's a new thing called MTV starting
Speaker 1: and you you know you can do that because that's
Speaker 1: all Larry did. And and so you know, my my
Speaker 1: transition to businessman is really around two things. One is
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make videos. And the first one of the
Speaker 1: first videos I make is with Henley and I had
Speaker 1: seen this French There was a French artist named Exel
Speaker 1: Bauer and there was a song called Cargo. And I
Speaker 1: saw this video because a friend of mine, Gayle Sparrow,
Speaker 1: who actually worked at MTV, sent to mysues to work
Speaker 1: for Epic Records, and and I started to Don and
Speaker 1: I said, hey, don you know this guy, this this
Speaker 1: this thing looks really cool. Maybe we should give him
Speaker 1: boys a summer and like do something with this guy.
Speaker 1: Looks like the Twilight Zone. It's cool. And he said, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll send it to him. So I sent it to Mendino,
Speaker 1: and Mendino, you know, love the song and he did
Speaker 1: the video and don one video at the year that
Speaker 1: year from that video, and then I became the manager.
Speaker 1: So that was one pivotal moment for me. And from
Speaker 1: the eighty three to about eighty five, UM, I mean
Speaker 1: that was my job. Really. I was like the young
Speaker 1: creative guy with the head fullest crazy ideas about photography
Speaker 1: and things to do, and you know, and so I
Speaker 1: think these guys who were ten years older than me
Speaker 1: and sort of looking to I don't know, get input
Speaker 1: from somebody other than an older businessman, which Howard was
Speaker 1: one of the best. Learned everything from him. And so
Speaker 1: that was, you know, the nature of my business thing.
Speaker 1: The other thing that happened in the very first meeting
Speaker 1: at Frontline Management when I got there, Howard went through
Speaker 1: the client list and there was Henley and Steely, Dan
Speaker 1: and the go goes and boss gags and Jim and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Buffett and they got to the last name on
Speaker 1: the list and it was Warren Zevon and Howard said
Speaker 1: Warren Zevon, Okay, well, let's see, are eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in debt to the I R S. He's living in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: he's a drunk. He has no recordly, he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to work. He's off the roster. And I stand up
Speaker 1: and I go, but Howard, he's the best writer we
Speaker 1: have on on the roster. And he goes Slater, he's
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in death to the
Speaker 1: I R S. Not the bank. They're gonna come after him.
Speaker 1: He's a drunk, he's living in Philadelphia, doesn't want to work.
Speaker 1: He's off the roster. And I say, but artists love him,
Speaker 1: and maybe other people will come here. He goes, listen,
Speaker 1: you've been here five minutes. I'll tell you what you
Speaker 1: manage them? Okay, next subject? Oh great, I get the
Speaker 1: client list like, go to my little office. Dial a
Speaker 1: phone like, Hi, Warren's Andy Slay your new manager fulne management. Click,
Speaker 1: hangs up. Man like, well that's weird. Okay, call back,
Speaker 1: get some answering machine leaving message. Later your new manager
Speaker 1: filily management. He like, talked about your career. Call me
Speaker 1: back nothing, okay, Wait two days call back answering machine,
Speaker 1: leave another message okay. Finally a week later, get him
Speaker 1: on the phone. He goes, hey, listen, I was at
Speaker 1: the dentist today and I don't really think I can
Speaker 1: talk to you, so just wants you call me Thursday.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, one quite Thursday. Okay, Thursday comes, don't
Speaker 1: get him on the phone. So I think, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call Peter buck Okay, I called Peter Buck up.
Speaker 1: I go, hey, Peter H. Tandy, how are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm managing Warren's Eiland. He goes, you're managing what? Your manager?
Speaker 1: He was just a journalist three weeks ago as well,
Speaker 1: you know what? So I say, hey, you know, if
Speaker 1: Warren has some songs, maybe you guys would do a
Speaker 1: demo with him and we can get him a record deal. Now,
Speaker 1: at that time, Aria and I think had made Murmurs
Speaker 1: just one record, so that they were cool and just
Speaker 1: starting out. And he said, oh man, yeah, remember how
Speaker 1: he used to listen to Excitable Boy with it? He said, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I'll pick him up at the air, but we'll bring
Speaker 1: him to Athens. Will we'll make a tape of them. Okay, great.
Speaker 1: So then I call Gary Gersh who was at e
Speaker 1: m I. He didn't want to do that. And then
Speaker 1: I called Michael Austin, who just started working for his father,
Speaker 1: had Warner Brothers and I and I had, you know,
Speaker 1: he and I had we had met in Atlanta with Irving.
Speaker 1: I think he was he signed a band called Riggs. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I called Michael and I said, look, managing Warren's Evan,
Speaker 1: will you give me some money for a demo? There's
Speaker 1: this band R E M. They're cool. It could make
Speaker 1: He says, yeah, yeah, I'll give you five grandmother, send
Speaker 1: you the paper. Call walking. Next phone call warrant. I
Speaker 1: wanted to say, a new manager from Image. How you doing.
Speaker 1: He goes, I'm doing great. I go, you got Do
Speaker 1: you have any songs? Because of course I got songs, kid,
Speaker 1: What are you talking about. I'm a songwriter, like okay, okay,
Speaker 1: because I got this five grand for you to make it.
Speaker 1: You've got five grand. I need that money, give me that.
Speaker 1: I said, No, I can't give you the money, but
Speaker 1: maybe we can make a demo. There's this band in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: They're really cool. They're you know, they're R E M.
Speaker 1: And they're making their first record. You know, when you
Speaker 1: come down to Atlanta, maybe with them and make a demo.
Speaker 1: And he goes, fly me first class. I go, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll fly first class, five first class. Peter I called Peter.
Speaker 1: Peter picks him up the airport takes him out to Athens.
Speaker 1: Two days later, I call Peter. I go, hey, man,
Speaker 1: how's it going. He goes, well, you know, the songs
Speaker 1: are good. But Warren he teaches us the songs and
Speaker 1: then he kind of takes a nap. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: what were you guys working? Like really late? Three him no,
Speaker 1: like three in the afternoon. I go, oh, he must
Speaker 1: be drinking. He goes, well, I don't know, It'll be fine,
Speaker 1: don't worry, it's I said, okay, man. He goes, tell
Speaker 1: you what, We're gonna do a show at the forty
Speaker 1: Water Club this weekend. You should come down. I was like,
Speaker 1: oh great, okay. So I got my little haircut, my
Speaker 1: little jacket, little tie. I'm now manager, you know. Go
Speaker 1: down Athens. Go down to Athens, talk into the dressing room.
Speaker 1: Before the show. Warren's in the corner. He sees me
Speaker 1: and he walks away. I'm like, oh, that's weird. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's pretty show Jeter. Maybe I'm not gonna maybe I
Speaker 1: won't bother him. So they play the show and it's
Speaker 1: all great. After the show, I see him in a
Speaker 1: dressing me and I walked towards him, and he walks
Speaker 1: out of the room and I'm like, that's this guy's
Speaker 1: definitely really avoiding me. So I'm standing in the dressing
Speaker 1: room and somebody point pats me on the back and says, hey, hey, Slayer,
Speaker 1: you're back in Georgia. What do you do? And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I feel these two arms grabbed me
Speaker 1: and turned me around. He goes, that's who you are.
Speaker 1: He thought it was from the I R S. I
Speaker 1: thought I was coming after his sign because I looked like,
Speaker 1: you know, a complete nerd. But that led to my
Speaker 1: you know, relationship with Warren, which was really you know,
Speaker 1: one of the great the great things in my in
Speaker 1: my working career. And eventually, you know, I got him
Speaker 1: out of Philadelphia. Why was he in Philadelphia, Well, he
Speaker 1: had fallen in love with the DJ name Anita, and
Speaker 1: I think she was the inspiration for the song Reconsider Me.
Speaker 1: But uh, I managed to get him an apartment at
Speaker 1: the Oakwood Gardens Apartments. I was making forty dollars a
Speaker 1: year and he was in debt to the I R S.
Speaker 1: And he will you know, he had other issue, other
Speaker 1: financial issues, and but I signed in this department, and
Speaker 1: I would get these calls from the norther was on.
Speaker 1: It was on bar I'm Mountain exactly, so you know,
Speaker 1: it was where I was like a transient kind of
Speaker 1: place where actors were auditioning for something. Came in for
Speaker 1: two days. Anyway, I got him an apartment there, and
Speaker 1: all kinds of shenanigans were going on. He was shooting
Speaker 1: the gun off in the department like a crazy stuff,
Speaker 1: and you know, but eventually I realized I had to
Speaker 1: get him a car. And you know, there was the
Speaker 1: frontline management was in the Atlas Leasing building and somehow
Speaker 1: I managed to convince the daughter of the owner of
Speaker 1: the Atlas Leasing company to get Warren a corvette. Oh god,
Speaker 1: so Warren had a great court. I got Warren a
Speaker 1: great corvette, and you know, he had his apartment and
Speaker 1: I kept giving him money and he was playing me
Speaker 1: these songs and they were amazing, and I worshiped the guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, he was you know, Warren Warren was really
Speaker 1: the writer's right or he was like the He was
Speaker 1: like the low Archer or the Philip Marlowe to me
Speaker 1: of the l A scene, and uh, you know, and
Speaker 1: probably to to a lot of those guys to you know,
Speaker 1: to Don Henley and the JD. Souther and obviously to
Speaker 1: Linda Ronstadt. They had tremendous respect for him as a wrinter.
Speaker 1: You know, all of his songs that there was never
Speaker 1: a wasted word in one of those songs. You know.
Speaker 1: He used to say, he said, you know, when I
Speaker 1: go for the when Henley goes for the high note,
Speaker 1: they give him the Grammy. When I go for the
Speaker 1: high note, they give me the heimlich Maneuver. But eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, I got him a record deal and eventually
Speaker 1: helped him get sober. I mean I get him sober. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean he these he came with all these kind
Speaker 1: of crazy ideas he'd have, Like, you know, he had
Speaker 1: a polaroid camera that he decided he was going to
Speaker 1: take a polaroid of all of his prescription drugs. So
Speaker 1: when the cops stopped me, just whip out the polaroid.
Speaker 1: When he was loaded and couldn't walk the line, he
Speaker 1: just said, look, I got the thing, you know, But
Speaker 1: there was all these this stuff. Eventually, I think that's
Speaker 1: something that you know, he came to himself, and I
Speaker 1: was just trying to find a place to to to
Speaker 1: get him to that. Would you know, he would embrace
Speaker 1: the idea of being sober. And I just remember driving
Speaker 1: him around to these rehabs and and he would you know,
Speaker 1: I remember sitting in one rehab with him, you know,
Speaker 1: near Fox Studios, and I forget the name of the place.
Speaker 1: And you know, we were sitting there in the in
Speaker 1: the reception room, in the intake thing, and there was
Speaker 1: some guy in the room and he looked over. The
Speaker 1: guy looked over at Warren and me, and he said,
Speaker 1: I drank the lie. I drank the lie. And Warren
Speaker 1: looked at me and he said, let's get out of here.
Speaker 1: I'm not going in this place with these cucka boos,
Speaker 1: you know. But eventually, eventually he got sober, and you know,
Speaker 1: through his sobriety eight things happened as that they do
Speaker 1: for people who okay, So while you were there, he
Speaker 1: started off eighty granted debt. Did you ever make any money?
Speaker 1: Did Frontline? Did ever turn around? So they made money? Well,
Speaker 1: I will tell you something. And this is the great
Speaker 1: thing about Howard Kaufman, who I miss every day. You know,
Speaker 1: Howard said to me, you got this guy back on
Speaker 1: his feet, and you keep all the money for the commissions.
Speaker 1: And you know, I mean people don't know what kind
Speaker 1: of guy that guy was. You know, he was a
Speaker 1: very tough businessman. I mean, you know, I think if
Speaker 1: you're a promoter, you probably you know, had had a
Speaker 1: lot of issues with you know, with how he how
Speaker 1: he extracted money from you. But you know, he fought
Speaker 1: first clients, and he taught me so many things. Man.
Speaker 1: He taught the first thing you know, he taught me
Speaker 1: he said, your word has to be good, because if
Speaker 1: you tell a guy that he's got something, that's it.
Speaker 1: And I never really had any contract with Howard any papers,
Speaker 1: and you know, and and all of our partnerships, whether
Speaker 1: we worked on Don Henley or the Beastie Boys, whatever,
Speaker 1: whenever he said this is the deal, that was a deal.
Speaker 1: And you know that's not always the case in the
Speaker 1: music industry, as you and I know, it's so so
Speaker 1: Howard was really really a huge influence, uh for me,
Speaker 1: and uh and I miss him. But but but but Warren,
Speaker 1: you know, but Warren didn't make money. And Warren did
Speaker 1: get out of debt, and Warren did all the things
Speaker 1: that you know people do when they get sober cleaned up,
Speaker 1: all the Wreckage and and had and had a great
Speaker 1: you know, second run of his of his career, and
Speaker 1: and we we made a record with R. E. M.
Speaker 1: For a Virgin called Sentimental Hygiene. And I I was
Speaker 1: a producer that record, but when I was working on it,
Speaker 1: I didn't know I was a producer. You know, I
Speaker 1: had played music with Peter Buck and we so I
Speaker 1: knew like when a song was too fast, or the
Speaker 1: key might have been wrong, or maybe there was too
Speaker 1: many bars in the turnaround between the first chorus and
Speaker 1: the second verse, you know, things like that. And I
Speaker 1: was just saying, hey, this sounds fast, Hey, this sounds
Speaker 1: So I was in the studio all the time because
Speaker 1: they were my friends, and I was saying to Warren,
Speaker 1: I think he was going to do a song called
Speaker 1: Boom Boo Mancini. And I said, Warren, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really it seems like it's a piano song. It's not,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I was saying these things. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the record, you know, as we
Speaker 1: went down to the mix, you know, the engineer Nico
Speaker 1: Bolos said to me, you know you're producing this record.
Speaker 1: I said, this is what producing is. He says, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so you know Warren. That was the beginning of
Speaker 1: making three records with Warren and a career of you know,
Speaker 1: working as a record producer. Taking the things that I
Speaker 1: had learned from watching Don Henley make records, and the
Speaker 1: things that I learned from Nico Bolis engineering records and
Speaker 1: Greg Ladonia engineering records, and applying them to the things
Speaker 1: that I thought I heard that I couldn't play, but
Speaker 1: I could find other people to play. Okay, how does
Speaker 1: it end with Warren? Well, it ends in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: one when I get to a place where I have
Speaker 1: a little traveling problem where I can't really leave my
Speaker 1: room that much. You know, I was well, since you're
Speaker 1: being honest about that, recalling that drugs or agoraphobia. No,
Speaker 1: it's not a goraphobia. I mean, I'm using the metaphor there.
Speaker 1: I I mean, it wasn't really that happy. You know.
Speaker 1: I had gotten to these places where I had tremendous success.
Speaker 1: It seemed like on the outside, you know, I was
Speaker 1: managing these people, I was making this money, but inside,
Speaker 1: you know, there was that just that hole, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out why I wasn't happy, And so I
Speaker 1: was trying to medicate that, to to get the right
Speaker 1: you know, the right feeling. And really what it was
Speaker 1: was I just kind of needed, uh, to be sober
Speaker 1: and to not chase it chemically, to be you know,
Speaker 1: to have a sense of serenity and and and piece
Speaker 1: of myself. And and when I went to do that,
Speaker 1: because I don't think I was the kind of drinker
Speaker 1: or drug user that had the lampshade on your head
Speaker 1: and didn't have it together. You know, I had a
Speaker 1: job and stuff, but inside there was just a yearning
Speaker 1: for the noise in my head to to just get
Speaker 1: to get lower and uh. And I couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1: And so when I went to rehab, I mean, a
Speaker 1: couple of my friends have gotten sober and uh, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, maybe this is for me. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should try to do this. And and I went
Speaker 1: to I went to rehab, I went to a place
Speaker 1: in the marina. And when I went to the marina,
Speaker 1: I got a phone call from Warren. You know, I
Speaker 1: said to him, look, man, I gotta I gotta get
Speaker 1: my ship together because it's just not happening for me.
Speaker 1: And when that happened, he said, look, man, you know
Speaker 1: I don't know, if I could really have a manager
Speaker 1: that's newly sober and and I said, okay, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that was it. Well, it's just thinking, do you think, well,
Speaker 1: I also think at the time that there are other
Speaker 1: influences of other people trying to tell him a look,
Speaker 1: you know, come with me. You know, that's just the way.
Speaker 1: You know, but that's just the way it is. Let's
Speaker 1: go back. So what came. So you're saying that once
Speaker 1: you got to rehab, all your problems go away. Well, no,
Speaker 1: what happens when you go to rehab is all the
Speaker 1: bad problem solving things go away. But then your problems
Speaker 1: are there, and so you have to figure out how
Speaker 1: to you know, deal with your emotions, uh in a
Speaker 1: way in reality, and that takes a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: And you know, luckily, the the twelve step program is
Speaker 1: is a really great thing because it it it gives
Speaker 1: you a framework to start looking at things that you
Speaker 1: didn't look at. And if you know, and I was
Speaker 1: super cynical. I mean, I was like, look, I am
Speaker 1: not going to I don't want to be in any club.
Speaker 1: I don't even I didn't want to join a fraternity
Speaker 1: and you know, and you know, in college. But I
Speaker 1: got to this room where there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people of musicians who I respected, and people who were
Speaker 1: talking to me saying, look, man, you know you're a
Speaker 1: cool guy, and this is if you do this, this,
Speaker 1: this is what will happen. And I was like, yeah, right, okay.
Speaker 1: But but they were smart and they were cool, and
Speaker 1: they embraced me, and you know, I I'm forever indebted
Speaker 1: to those guys. Um, you know, and and and it
Speaker 1: it's slowly worked. It doesn't work overnight, but it does.
Speaker 1: But if you if you stay with it, uh, and
Speaker 1: you find your own place in it, you can change
Speaker 1: your life. And you know, they so they tell you
Speaker 1: all these things are gonna happen. I fear financial and
Speaker 1: security is gonna be gone and you're gonna get everything back.
Speaker 1: And you know, so before I got sober, as I said,
Speaker 1: it was the manager of all those artists. And I
Speaker 1: had been a journalist and I had been a creative
Speaker 1: director and a record producer and then it all went away.
Speaker 1: And for four years, not a lot happened, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I was managing a band that didn't really
Speaker 1: do much and sold forty thousand records and got the
Speaker 1: deal dropped in. I was in a place where where's
Speaker 1: my beautiful reward. I'm doing what they told me to do,
Speaker 1: and you know, and then something very interesting happened. I
Speaker 1: I was always told in a you know, stay out
Speaker 1: of their results. Just do the work. Do the work
Speaker 1: in general and life. You're not in control of the universe.
Speaker 1: There's an order to the universe. Just do the work
Speaker 1: and don't worry about what happens. I was like, what
Speaker 1: is that? Did you have enough money? That's well? I
Speaker 1: mean I had a little money. I mean I had
Speaker 1: a call are that had a rip in the hood
Speaker 1: that I couldn't drive in the rain. And I had
Speaker 1: an apart you know, one of those creepy apartments that
Speaker 1: people have with you know, when they're when they're in
Speaker 1: that situation. I mean, but I was okay. I mean
Speaker 1: I was making it work. You know, you you make
Speaker 1: whatever whatever work. I felt I could live in a
Speaker 1: you know, one room in one room, as long as
Speaker 1: I had music and a guitar and you know, in
Speaker 1: the bed and a TV. But so this this thing happened.
Speaker 1: I Howard, you know. And the great thing about Howard again,
Speaker 1: when I lost everything, Howard said, you have an office here,
Speaker 1: and you'll always have an office here. And when I
Speaker 1: went to rehab what I found out? Howard said, got
Speaker 1: everyone in the office and said, and he went to rehab.
Speaker 1: If I hear any of you tell anyone in the
Speaker 1: business what's happening with him, you're fired. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of loyalty that guy had anyone. I came out,
Speaker 1: I didn't have a going on, and a lot of
Speaker 1: have a lot going on for for three or four years,
Speaker 1: and then something strange happened. I had become friends with
Speaker 1: a lawyer who was representing the Smashing Pumpkins and they
Speaker 1: were looking for a new manager on Melancholy in the
Speaker 1: Infinite Sentens and Howard and I went to Chicago to
Speaker 1: have a meeting with with Billy and the band. Now
Speaker 1: we go to this meeting and uh, and you know,
Speaker 1: Billy's super smart record like a record guy could have
Speaker 1: been one of the great It wasn't a great artist
Speaker 1: be one of the great record men of of today.
Speaker 1: And we talked a lot about music and the things
Speaker 1: we liked and bands we liked and obscure stuff. And
Speaker 1: Howard talked about the record business, its night and how
Speaker 1: you make money on the road, and you know how
Speaker 1: you make money with T shirts and all the all
Speaker 1: the stuff. He knew better than anybody. And we left
Speaker 1: the meeting and the lawyer said to me, you got it.
Speaker 1: These guys loved you, and I was like, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: is right. I'm back. I'm going to be the co
Speaker 1: manager of the biggest band in the world. This is
Speaker 1: the greatest thing. And two days later she called me
Speaker 1: and she said, well, Andy, look they had one more
Speaker 1: meeting and it was with Cliff Bronstein and they went
Speaker 1: with them, and I was devastated. I mean, that was
Speaker 1: the point where I think all this stuff to tell
Speaker 1: him he's bullshit, Like I'm I'm doing what they tell me.
Speaker 1: I'm living the good life, straight life, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to me and doing all the things I'm supposed to do,
Speaker 1: helping other people. And where's the reward? And you know
Speaker 1: I was saying this. I was in New York at
Speaker 1: the time. It was Christmas, and my girlfriend at the
Speaker 1: time had a friend who had a kid, and then
Speaker 1: she had a babysitter for this kid. And the babysitter
Speaker 1: I knew somebody who had made a cassette of three songs,
Speaker 1: so the babysitter gave it to my girlfriend's friend who
Speaker 1: was in the music business, and she said, look to
Speaker 1: my girlfriend, I know he's really bummed out. I don't
Speaker 1: know I got this tape. I don't know what this is,
Speaker 1: but maybe he can do something with this. That's a tape.
Speaker 1: It's something. I put the tech cassette tape on and
Speaker 1: there were three songs on it, and the girl's voice
Speaker 1: was other worldly. And that girl was Fiona Apple. Now what?
Speaker 1: And so I went on, of course, to to meet
Speaker 1: her and to produce her first record, and and and
Speaker 1: you know, we know what happened there. She went on
Speaker 1: to sell four million records. But the point of the
Speaker 1: story is if I had gotten what I wanted and
Speaker 1: what I thought, which was to be a manager and
Speaker 1: to manage the Smashing Pumpkins, I would have probably taken
Speaker 1: that tape and thrown it, you know, to the side
Speaker 1: or something, or just not at any time to do
Speaker 1: anything with it. But because I produced that record, and
Speaker 1: then when I went on and I went on to
Speaker 1: produce the Macy Gray record, being a producer and selling
Speaker 1: between those two records twelve million records and a manager
Speaker 1: me to the opportunity to run capitol records. And so
Speaker 1: what it teaches you is that do the work. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not that's not the way it's supposed to work out.
Speaker 1: So if you get bummed out and you think, you know,
Speaker 1: I should have gotten that, maybe there's something else down
Speaker 1: the road for you. And you know, that's the way
Speaker 1: you have to live your life, because you know, if
Speaker 1: you if you if you live in regret and you
Speaker 1: live in the what if, so you will never get anywhere. Okay,
Speaker 1: three questions. What happened to the girl who was going
Speaker 1: to become a doctor? The girl who was going to
Speaker 1: become a doctor? Well, this is what happened. One night
Speaker 1: I came home from being on the road and I
Speaker 1: found a parking ticket in my card five in the
Speaker 1: morning at some address in Pasadena. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: what is that? When? When? What is there? Probably with
Speaker 1: five in the morning. Anyway, it was at some guy's house,
Speaker 1: and you know, um and he was a doctor. And
Speaker 1: she eventually married the doctor, but it had two kids
Speaker 1: as divorced. And and by the way, I she was
Speaker 1: my high school sweetheart and I and I love her
Speaker 1: and owe her a lot for for not not the
Speaker 1: least of which is you know, helping me get seven
Speaker 1: hundred on my English achievement test. Anyway, Okay, so how
Speaker 1: did it end with managing Henley? Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: I think again it ran its course. Um, maybe a
Speaker 1: couple of things. Uh. I wasn't that together at that point.
Speaker 1: It was at the point where I was sort of unhappy.
Speaker 1: And I also think that, you know, as I was
Speaker 1: managing Lenny Kravitz and Lenny Kravitz had a number two
Speaker 1: hit record with it Ain't over till It's over. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I was together enough to manage both
Speaker 1: of those things myself, and I was spending more time
Speaker 1: with Lenny, and you know, I think that also Irving
Speaker 1: was coming back from being a record executive and he
Speaker 1: was coming back to management and looked on with his
Speaker 1: client and you know, his longtime client, and and you know,
Speaker 1: he had every right, I think, to you know, rekindle
Speaker 1: his relationship with him, or continue with the relationship that
Speaker 1: he had with him, and put the Eagles back together,
Speaker 1: whatever he wanted to do. And I just think that that,
Speaker 1: along with my not paying attention and also my not
Speaker 1: being that together, probably you know, led to you know,
Speaker 1: to to our you know, working relationship. Okay, and then
Speaker 1: you we started this with the band who formed in
Speaker 1: so what was that that was? After you got sober?
Speaker 1: After I got sober, there was nothing going on. I
Speaker 1: was playing at the Kivets Room in by the way
Speaker 1: two and three. It was happening right there was, I mean,
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell was there at one top point and and
Speaker 1: I remember playing on a Sunday night with these three
Speaker 1: guys and we were playing down by the river and
Speaker 1: there were five guys in the in the room and
Speaker 1: one of them was Rick James. And Rick, you know,
Speaker 1: saw us playing down by the river and had his
Speaker 1: like one year old baby in his arms. And I
Speaker 1: could which I couldn't believe. You know, we got up
Speaker 1: on stage and he sang down by the river with
Speaker 1: I think he was in a band with nearly on
Speaker 1: and so you know he was sort of smiling. And
Speaker 1: but that's the kind of stuff that was, you know,
Speaker 1: going on. And Mike Myers came once and you know,
Speaker 1: people were I think Rolling Stone wrote an article on
Speaker 1: like the cover of the music section. They called it
Speaker 1: the Last Schmaltz, you know, the sort of rock on
Speaker 1: Rye and and and all the bands that were playing
Speaker 1: there with the Chili Peppers came there. It was like
Speaker 1: a whole scene, you know, in affects it. But what
Speaker 1: happened to me? So I was playing with these guys
Speaker 1: and we were doing a bunch of Neil Young songs,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you know, room was crowded,
Speaker 1: there was girls, it was it was happening. And this
Speaker 1: guy jumps up on the stage and it grabs a
Speaker 1: mic and and he starts singing, and he sounds exactly
Speaker 1: like Neil. I mean, he's got it down. So we
Speaker 1: play a couple of songs and and it's like and
Speaker 1: then he just runs off the stage and I put
Speaker 1: my guitar down and I chased after and said, hey man,
Speaker 1: who whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, where'd you come from? What's
Speaker 1: going on? He goes, I sell Deli meat to the
Speaker 1: Canaderas I heard you guys playing, I'm like, oh my god.
Speaker 1: So so his name was Gary Williams. And so Gary,
Speaker 1: you know, said to me at the time. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll come back. Let's we can jam again. So we
Speaker 1: started playing and Gary says, you know, we should form
Speaker 1: something and I can write and you play great, and
Speaker 1: so we started kind of trying to put a you know,
Speaker 1: a band together. And I'm like thirty two years old, sober,
Speaker 1: thinking what am I doing with the rest of my
Speaker 1: life here? So yeah, you know what I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be in the band. I'm gonna be the band.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, I had a moment of clarity
Speaker 1: at this point. I realized I wasn't that good at
Speaker 1: twenty two and you know, I didn't do this with
Speaker 1: Peterbuck and probably not good enough now at thirty two. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I was starting to work with the Wallflowers
Speaker 1: and and and then I thought, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what do I do here? So Gary said to me, look,
Speaker 1: I know you're working with this band, the Wallflowers. You
Speaker 1: either got to commit this thing to me. We're going
Speaker 1: to commit to the Wallfers. And I thought, bet on
Speaker 1: myself or bet on Jacob Doylan. I think I would
Speaker 1: have bet on Jacob Dylan. So I we didn't. The
Speaker 1: band dissolved, but later, like twenty years later, I saw
Speaker 1: him at a at a show and and I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you remember remember how we used to you know? He
Speaker 1: I said, well, let's let's try to play again. Because
Speaker 1: I was out of capital. I didn't know what I
Speaker 1: was doing. And so we got the band back together
Speaker 1: and we started playing. And and you know, it was
Speaker 1: really because I was I was dating this girl, and
Speaker 1: and and she was playing around town, and she was
Speaker 1: talking about how important all these gigs were, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're you know, how it is right, we we
Speaker 1: put up with these things that sometimes our our romantic
Speaker 1: partners say, you know, because we want to be supportive,
Speaker 1: and then we're supportive to a point. And I was saying,
Speaker 1: she was saying, and it's so you don't understand this
Speaker 1: gig we have at the I don't know what it was,
Speaker 1: the hotel cafe. And I said, anybody can play there,
Speaker 1: it's not that big deal, and and she goes, it's
Speaker 1: a big deal, and I said, okay, So I called
Speaker 1: up Gary said Gary, we're gonna play, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: play every freaking place that she's playing. Okay, I'm gig everywhere. Explained.
Speaker 1: So for like you know, a month or so, I
Speaker 1: just you know, I had my band and I saw, like,
Speaker 1: you know, honey, see now I'm playing their Thursday. Now
Speaker 1: I'm playing there Saturday, now I'm playing. There, I'm playing,
Speaker 1: I'm playing. But and then I thought, you know, then
Speaker 1: I actually thought, oh wait a minute, because well, we
Speaker 1: were a cover band, and we we were actually Neelly
Speaker 1: Young cover band, which I hope Neil Young doesn't here,
Speaker 1: but he's gonna hear because I just said it to you.
Speaker 1: But so we were playing around and I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: this is fun. This is more fun than having to
Speaker 1: like make the number for David Muttons and e M
Speaker 1: I fuck okay. So but you know, we did it
Speaker 1: a little bit. We played a bunch of things. We
Speaker 1: played in New York and I don't know. I had
Speaker 1: this one moment where I was walking on um it
Speaker 1: was like in the Bowery and I saw this poster
Speaker 1: and it said the Incredit InCred the Unforgettable Fire, uh
Speaker 1: a true YouTube experience. And I saw saying I went, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's me. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: could do this, And I realized, I just I'm about
Speaker 1: to take the biggest nose dive in the history of
Speaker 1: the musical. I'm going from the CEO of Capitol Records
Speaker 1: to the guitar player in a cover band. What am
Speaker 1: I doing? So you know I quickly, you know, altered
Speaker 1: course that was that the other three guys who stayed
Speaker 1: too or is there? Everybody plays in their session musicians
Speaker 1: and guys play with other people. But we have a
Speaker 1: lot of fun when we do it. You know, still
Speaker 1: play like once a year. But you know, really it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just we're all such diehard crazy Horse
Speaker 1: fans and Neil Young fans that you know, we we
Speaker 1: love playing that music. And Gary and Gary and the
Speaker 1: singer are really great. I mean, you know, Unfortu is
Speaker 1: still selling Deli meats. Gary is still selling Deli meat
Speaker 1: at Canner's where you can find him someday and YouTube
Speaker 1: can join a band with him. Okay, tell us the
Speaker 1: story of the famous Fiona Apple video, which one the
Speaker 1: one in the back seat of the car criminal. I
Speaker 1: believe it was well that video, I mean I think
Speaker 1: it's uh, I think it's a it was inspired by
Speaker 1: the photographs of Nan Golden. Uh. If you look at
Speaker 1: some of those shots, that's what that is, and that
Speaker 1: and and that during that time. I mean, you know
Speaker 1: Mark Romantic, who is the director, who's a genius, I
Speaker 1: mean one of the great Uh. You always had a
Speaker 1: point of view that came from a place of art,
Speaker 1: never a place of commerce. You couldn't talk to me
Speaker 1: about selling anything. He was you know, he was a
Speaker 1: a very well read, uh and and learned guy in
Speaker 1: terms of the history of photography. And so that video
Speaker 1: was really based on that. UM I do remember one
Speaker 1: at one point I came to the set and it
Speaker 1: was shot in a lot in her house, beautiful house.
Speaker 1: I came to the set and Jeff Airoff, who was
Speaker 1: the president of the record company, he says to me,
Speaker 1: I gotta talk to you. You you've got to do something.
Speaker 1: I said, what, man, what what? Everything? This looks cool?
Speaker 1: Here he goes, she's in her underwear and she's selling
Speaker 1: and you've got to stop her. And I said, uh, okay.
Speaker 1: So I went over to the set and found it
Speaker 1: was like and I don't know if she's in like
Speaker 1: a nighty or something. And I said, uh, if you know,
Speaker 1: I just Jeff Aroff just said, you know, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're in your underwear filming and you gotta stop. She said,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. You tell him I know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing, and to leave me alone, and you know,
Speaker 1: and that was and and honestly I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: Fiona did does what Fiona wants to do always, you know,
Speaker 1: and I would say that nothing she does is not
Speaker 1: from a place that's well thought out and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and and artistic and and Okay, so the sexual content
Speaker 1: of that we're attributing to both her and Romanic. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't really when I look at that, I don't
Speaker 1: see it as that. I mean, it looks like a
Speaker 1: Calvin Klein ad. You know, it looked like the count
Speaker 1: cli I don't want to get whatever. My personal opinion,
Speaker 1: because we're jaded, perception was that it was sexualized of
Speaker 1: a young woman. Again, you know, I didn't see it
Speaker 1: like that, and I haven't looked at it in a
Speaker 1: long time. I would have to look at it through
Speaker 1: today's and say that. But really, at that time, you know,
Speaker 1: it was, uh, it seemed to me like a moving
Speaker 1: extension of the photographs of Nan Golden. Okay, let's just
Speaker 1: jump ahead, because you mentioned you produced the Macy Gray record.
Speaker 1: Both those acts had gigantic, gigantic success and then never
Speaker 1: really followed it up. Why is that. Well, Fiona has
Speaker 1: one of the great careers. I mean, I have to
Speaker 1: say her influence on modern music, you know, and the
Speaker 1: singer songwriter is pretty pronounced. And the records that she's
Speaker 1: made since then, and and you know, the second record
Speaker 1: is you know, I would think maybe her best record. Um,
Speaker 1: but they're all like you know, like I said about Zevon,
Speaker 1: and I would say about Johnny if you read those lyrics,
Speaker 1: and Bob, you should read those lyrics, there is not
Speaker 1: a misplaced word. And as an interpretive singer unparalleled to me,
Speaker 1: and you know, just look through the stuff. So I
Speaker 1: think whether it's someone like King Princess, a current artist
Speaker 1: you know, who is influenced by her, or you know,
Speaker 1: just her contemporaries, she stands, you know, as to me
Speaker 1: as as one of the greats. And I'm not that
Speaker 1: easy to impress it. I think she hasn't had another hit,
Speaker 1: She has a great career, She can do whatever she wants,
Speaker 1: She has artistic freedom, she can play in So you
Speaker 1: don't think that she was inhibited or had a backlash
Speaker 1: because of the Gargangelan success on the first album. I
Speaker 1: think that, as you know, and you have often said
Speaker 1: in your column, the best way to establish a career
Speaker 1: in the music business is to build credibility first and
Speaker 1: a base and expand upon that and never waiver from
Speaker 1: you know, your artistic endeavors to get to grab for
Speaker 1: something elusive like a big hit record. Um, sometimes you
Speaker 1: have a big hit like Radiohead had a big hit,
Speaker 1: and but they are they are as good as the
Speaker 1: success and they decide creatively to go in different directions.
Speaker 1: You know, you could say the same about Neil Young.
Speaker 1: You know he has heart of gold and he makes
Speaker 1: Tonight's tonight. I mean, you know that success gives you
Speaker 1: the freedom if you're an artist, to create in a
Speaker 1: way that you that you want. And you can either
Speaker 1: be beholden to commercial success, you know, or use the
Speaker 1: platform to be a true artist and express herself. And
Speaker 1: and I think in Fiona's case, she used the platform
Speaker 1: to express herself in the ways that she she wanted to.
Speaker 1: And what about you know, Macy was different. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know for me, I I as a record producer,
Speaker 1: I only wanted to make a record when I had
Speaker 1: an idea or I had songs that I had an
Speaker 1: idea of something to do with. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be in a studio and say, okay, this is I
Speaker 1: make my living. Let me I'll produce the next guy,
Speaker 1: and I've got to make money doing this, though I
Speaker 1: was very fortunate to be able to do that with
Speaker 1: great writers. Warren was an amazing writer, and Fiona is
Speaker 1: an amazing writer. And that first Macy Gray record has
Speaker 1: some of the some of her best lyrics on that record.
Speaker 1: I think if you look at any of those songs,
Speaker 1: they really are great stories and and real, uh, pure
Speaker 1: emotions from the heart, you know. In making the Macy record,
Speaker 1: I mean that was also such an incredible experience for
Speaker 1: me because I got to basically take the records I
Speaker 1: loved his kid and rip them off. I mean, we
Speaker 1: did sly Stone. You know, why don't you call me?
Speaker 1: It's just us doing sly Stone and and uh in um,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to meet you. We're doing kind of
Speaker 1: al Green and you know, and and still we're doing
Speaker 1: a Wreath of Franklin. So what I was trying to
Speaker 1: do was so trying to make some kind of artful
Speaker 1: synthesis of old and new. And that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I always have done, you know. I I have the
Speaker 1: sonic reference points, so here the string sound of something
Speaker 1: in something modern, or we'll have the Stevie wondered drum
Speaker 1: sound you know the high Stevie Wonder high hat on
Speaker 1: something and you'll hear that really loud. And you know,
Speaker 1: with that record, I Macy wanted to make a rap record.
Speaker 1: She she loved Lauren Hill and she won. She gave
Speaker 1: me The Miseducation of Lauren Hill and said this is
Speaker 1: what I wanted to be. And I said, here's Mad
Speaker 1: Dogs and Englishman. Watch this movie. This is what your
Speaker 1: band should be. It should be this big rainbow coalition
Speaker 1: and you should go around and and that's what you
Speaker 1: should do. And and and there were such crazy things
Speaker 1: on that record. I mean, you know, I remember we
Speaker 1: were we were I wanted to bring wah Wah Watson
Speaker 1: in to to play on on one of the songs
Speaker 1: because I was trying to do some stuff with Eric Marshall,
Speaker 1: who's an amazing, you know, modern young guitar player at
Speaker 1: the time, and and wa wa Watson and and you know,
Speaker 1: uh so Wahwah came in and and he set up
Speaker 1: his whole thing, which took about two hours, which was
Speaker 1: a wah wah pedal and a guitar um and and
Speaker 1: we we gave him the track and he started saying, well,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna gesticulate, and you know, and he was talking
Speaker 1: a lot about what he was going to do, and
Speaker 1: Mace was getting very frustrated it. So so we put
Speaker 1: the track up and we're already he's built this moment
Speaker 1: up with the track up, and he goes, what and
Speaker 1: she literally grasps me by the collar and shed we
Speaker 1: go outside and she goes, get this guy, why these
Speaker 1: old guys have to be in my room? But I
Speaker 1: don't need these guys on my record. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: ship anyway. But you know, her whole, her whole uh
Speaker 1: uh posse of people were so amazing to work with.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, okay, so why did it? Why
Speaker 1: couldn't she never follow it up? You know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean I think sometimes and this is just conjecture.
Speaker 1: I like making first record with artists because their first record,
Speaker 1: at least back in the day in fact, you could
Speaker 1: before you could make one in your house. You you
Speaker 1: weren't able to utilize all the tools of the studio.
Speaker 1: And they come in with these songs that they've worked
Speaker 1: on their whole lives with and you take the best
Speaker 1: of these songs and you can maybe build a sound
Speaker 1: that becomes the foundation for what they're gonna do next.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's fun because it allows me to
Speaker 1: do what I want to do. After you sell eight
Speaker 1: million records as she did, and people tell you, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know how how how great you are I guess,
Speaker 1: or how great your music is, then you want to
Speaker 1: try to expand and do other things. I mean, I
Speaker 1: will tell you this one story. Jacob Dylan went to
Speaker 1: Carnegie Hall to play a a Neil Young benefit tribute
Speaker 1: and it had like Patti Smith and the Roots and
Speaker 1: you know, all these bands playing nearly Young songs. And
Speaker 1: I said, Jacob, this is like the after I left Capital.
Speaker 1: I said, who are you taking to play guitar? He
Speaker 1: said no, but I'm the house And I said, why
Speaker 1: don't you take me? He says, you know what, let
Speaker 1: me call you back to find that answer why not?
Speaker 1: And to hit the Jacob's credit. He called me back
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, man, you got me
Speaker 1: to play in front of the Stones at Dodger Stadium,
Speaker 1: and you got me to play in front of the
Speaker 1: Who and Madison Square Gun Come with me, said great,
Speaker 1: So Jake came to my house. We learned the song
Speaker 1: and be okay, we go to the thing. We go
Speaker 1: to Carnegie Hall. Okay, I'm standing on a side of
Speaker 1: the stage and I'll never forget this. You know, they're
Speaker 1: about to walk and I saw the people that I
Speaker 1: know in the business and I think, I think, Pete,
Speaker 1: you're in the guitar player with sing He says, hey man,
Speaker 1: you know they were about to say, Jacob, you go on.
Speaker 1: And so I start to walk on on the stage
Speaker 1: of Carnegie On Pete your and you can see his
Speaker 1: face going no, Andy, no, no, no, that not you,
Speaker 1: not you, And that was it was me. So I
Speaker 1: went on stage and I played these two solos and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. I got a text from my cousin
Speaker 1: and he said, hey man, I'm at Carnegie Hall and
Speaker 1: you know, Jacob Dolan's guitar player looks exactly like it.
Speaker 1: But I did this thing and after the show, we're
Speaker 1: at this after party. Were people who were at the
Speaker 1: show and were you happy with your performance? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: was great, write the song four thousand times and one thing.
Speaker 1: I wasn't nervous, very cool to play Carnegie Hall. And
Speaker 1: he says, all a one of the great moments of
Speaker 1: my life that I get to play lead guitar kind
Speaker 1: of your own people cheer. Was like wow. But here's
Speaker 1: the point of the story. So after the show, Jacob
Speaker 1: says to me, Oh, you see those people over there,
Speaker 1: they're looking at you, and I go, oh yeah, He goes,
Speaker 1: you know why they look at you? Know? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I guess because you're the lead guitar player. And I'm
Speaker 1: walking around the reception and I'm getting that kind of
Speaker 1: like fish out from people. Oh hey, I like yoursel,
Speaker 1: like your sol. And I said to him, you know
Speaker 1: what this is. While you guys are nuts, if you
Speaker 1: do this every day, you're gonna be gonna be crazy.
Speaker 1: So the point is, if you're whoever and you sell
Speaker 1: eight million records and people do that to you every day,
Speaker 1: it has to have an effect on you. And you
Speaker 1: also want to be in control of your own destiny.
Speaker 1: And I think Macy wanted to make the records she
Speaker 1: wanted to make. She didn't want to make that record,
Speaker 1: and and that's what she did. And whether or not
Speaker 1: she was able to to, you know, continue the success
Speaker 1: of eight million records or all I try as a
Speaker 1: number one record. You know who knows what those factors are.
Speaker 1: But clearly I think we all get empowered to do
Speaker 1: things that we shouldn't do. And luckily, you know, some
Speaker 1: of us in the business world say I must know
Speaker 1: my limitations and don't do those things. Okay, let's jump
Speaker 1: ahead to capital. Was that a job you were looking for?
Speaker 1: You know? I really never sat in a marketing meeting,
Speaker 1: let alone ran one. And I was not thinking that
Speaker 1: was something that I I wanted to do. I had
Speaker 1: gotten three offers to do it. I had a meeting
Speaker 1: with Tommy Mattala at Scalinatela and he wanted me to
Speaker 1: run one of his companies. And I just thought, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's doesn't I really want to make some
Speaker 1: cool ship. I don't know if I that's a big
Speaker 1: company that seems very political. And then when Tom Alley
Speaker 1: was going to leave Interscope and he had signed that
Speaker 1: deal with Warner Brothers, Jimmy came to me and he said,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Ivan came to me and he said, you should
Speaker 1: you know, you should run uh Interscope and go see Doug.
Speaker 1: And I went to see the Great Doug Morris and
Speaker 1: I had a great meeting with him, and Doug said
Speaker 1: to me, you know what, I wanna make Tom Molly
Speaker 1: work for you, because he was still in his contract.
Speaker 1: Tom and I were friends, and I went to see
Speaker 1: Tom and and I said, hey, man, you know, we
Speaker 1: had the success with the wallflowers, an airscope and everything,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know what's going on? He said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, and you gotta do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: And you know, uh, you decide what you want to do,
Speaker 1: and it just, you know, it didn't feel it felt
Speaker 1: not right to me. It felt like, I guess, uh,
Speaker 1: I just didn't see a path to doing something that
Speaker 1: I wanted to do just to have the job and
Speaker 1: have a title. That wasn't it. Really. I was never
Speaker 1: in it for that. And then Ken Barry came to
Speaker 1: me and he said, look, you want to own Capitol Records.
Speaker 1: And to me, at the time, Capitol Records was in
Speaker 1: a sort of strange place. Roy Lott had tried to
Speaker 1: transition it from what Gary Gersh had started there, and
Speaker 1: he was trying to make it into Arista, and I
Speaker 1: just saw it as this this brand that if you
Speaker 1: were able to connect the legacy of the company to
Speaker 1: the contemporary business in some way and market that that
Speaker 1: you could make it into a place where people would
Speaker 1: want to go and sign. And I thought, if you
Speaker 1: have a couple of hits, that's better. And I have
Speaker 1: no hits. I have your interscarp you gotta keep having it.
Speaker 1: If you're a Sony company, you better have a lot
Speaker 1: of hits fast. And so I they they made me
Speaker 1: this crazy offer. And I said, okay, and and and
Speaker 1: and and the craziest thing, you know, when I got there,
Speaker 1: I you know, again, I did something. I followed my
Speaker 1: heart and I didn't really sort of think it through,
Speaker 1: which I have often done in in my life, probably
Speaker 1: personally more than business. And and I got to the
Speaker 1: first meeting, and I remember calling up. I remember calling
Speaker 1: Michelle Anthony and saying, you know who I was very
Speaker 1: close with. And she said and I said, look, um, okay,
Speaker 1: now what do I do? And she says, well, look,
Speaker 1: you're a manager, you're a record maker, your in publicity,
Speaker 1: you know, marketing. Look at their meeting schedule to go
Speaker 1: to the meetings and see what you think. So I
Speaker 1: went to the first meeting. At the marketing meeting, you know,
Speaker 1: I looked at their records and I listened to everybody talk,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was I make some suggestions to
Speaker 1: things that I thought and everybody was agreeing with me.
Speaker 1: I thought, wow, this is crazy. So went back in
Speaker 1: my office. I called my brother. I said, is the
Speaker 1: craziest thing. He said, what. Remember I've been trying to
Speaker 1: let trying to get you guys to listen to me
Speaker 1: my whole life. Well, I just went to this meeting.
Speaker 1: Everything I say is truly it's incredible. Of course, I
Speaker 1: later figured out, you know, who was really good at
Speaker 1: what they were doing and who could do what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and I and I changed that. But
Speaker 1: a crazy thing happened within the first eight weeks of
Speaker 1: being there, and I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: In that first eight weeks, ken Berry says to me,
Speaker 1: We're going to merge Priority Records into Capitol Records. I'm like, whoa,
Speaker 1: hey what, oh yeah, yeah, you know. And and you know,
Speaker 1: their roster there that the company that they built was
Speaker 1: a great one, but it was a you know, a
Speaker 1: street It was a you know, like the West Coast
Speaker 1: sort of uh rap company, and and and the roster was,
Speaker 1: you know, with all sorts of characters. And but I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about hip hop. I mean, I was like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you know, I knew pop rock. But
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I'll figure that out. And I met
Speaker 1: with the people and I figured out who knew what
Speaker 1: they were doing and who was good. And I kept
Speaker 1: the people who looked like they knew what they were
Speaker 1: doing in a and arm promotion. And you know, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll go with this. And but two weeks later,
Speaker 1: my boss gets fired. Ken Barry gets fired the guy
Speaker 1: who hired me, and I'll never forget this. Like I
Speaker 1: call up Howard Kaufman and I go, holy sh it,
Speaker 1: my boss just got fired. What's going to happen with
Speaker 1: this new guy? And how it says to me, pray
Speaker 1: he hates you. I go, what he goes, have you
Speaker 1: seen your contracts? Later? They'll have to pay you every
Speaker 1: dime And I said, no, no, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: the money. I wanted that this looks seems like it
Speaker 1: could be fun anyway. So Alan Levy and David Bunns
Speaker 1: came in and and you know, in that first year,
Speaker 1: I just said, let's just whatever sounds like a hit,
Speaker 1: let's just go with whatever. Records are done in England,
Speaker 1: these records are done. Good will promote these, I'll sign
Speaker 1: some stuff. And you know, in that first year, I
Speaker 1: think we had we called him Minogue. We did like
Speaker 1: a million records, and a band called Dirty Vegas. We
Speaker 1: did like a half million records. And then I signed
Speaker 1: Uh the Vines, and you know they did they had
Speaker 1: almost a million records, and Chingy did three million records.
Speaker 1: And then I took Coldplay because I thought they were good.
Speaker 1: I want to see them at the Mayan Theater and
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. And I said to the manager, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, look, if the band will do a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dates in America, we can break the band.
Speaker 1: You know, you may not have a bigger hit than Yellow.
Speaker 1: But that's the one problem I've always seen where English
Speaker 1: bands have hits over in England and they don't spend
Speaker 1: the time here, you know, because they were having a
Speaker 1: problem with Robbie Williams and it was all this disparity
Speaker 1: between England. And you're gonna say that guy doesn't spend
Speaker 1: any time. You can't come in and do Jay Leno.
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna be a hit. So you know,
Speaker 1: Coldplay did all those dates, and you know, we saw it.
Speaker 1: We saw all those records, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, months and leaving they were they were sharpening
Speaker 1: the knife and then getting the noose and the gun
Speaker 1: ready to put somebody else. We were having hits, and
Speaker 1: so you know, they focused on Virgin and fixing that.
Speaker 1: And you know, through the course of that, through the
Speaker 1: course of the time of Capital, I mean, we broke
Speaker 1: a British Act. Every year. We broke We woke Kylie,
Speaker 1: we wroke dirty Veg. Guess we wrote Lily Allen, we
Speaker 1: broke ran Belly Ray. Uh, they will cold play. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, in the history of Capital, I don't think
Speaker 1: you have a British Act being broken every year. And
Speaker 1: you know, in a way, I think the British company
Speaker 1: didn't love that because they were so used to ruling
Speaker 1: the roost and being able to beat up on the Americans.
Speaker 1: They didn't know anything and these guys can't do anything.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, you know, we were going
Speaker 1: to the meetings and you know, we had doubled the
Speaker 1: market share and you know, and double the profits and
Speaker 1: like in like two years, and so it was it
Speaker 1: was a good time. And uh, you know, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really care where the records came from. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wanted our records to do well. I wanted to
Speaker 1: sign our stuff, and you know, and we did. I mean,
Speaker 1: we did two million Yellow Card records, and we we
Speaker 1: signed LaToya, We did million records with her, and a
Speaker 1: million records at least, and Marie Presley and you know,
Speaker 1: and all sorts of uh, you know, all sorts of
Speaker 1: other stuff we signed into Paul we broke okay go.
Speaker 1: I mean we had a long list of stuff that
Speaker 1: I thought was you know, we put Snoop with Farrell
Speaker 1: and did their first record and did beautifully at a
Speaker 1: number one record. We had a healthy company. I got
Speaker 1: a new contract. But you know, in the end, it's um,
Speaker 1: it's not really what I wanted to do every day.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, I love
Speaker 1: music and I love making music. And the things I
Speaker 1: did I did from the heart. And making the number
Speaker 1: was great, and it was a great education, and I
Speaker 1: got to do some incredible things when I was there,
Speaker 1: and had great relationships with artists that I really really respect,
Speaker 1: and that was great. And also learning how to you know,
Speaker 1: how to run a business and and and having a
Speaker 1: successful business but corporate life is a killer and you know,
Speaker 1: you really you have to be more lucky than smart.
Speaker 1: And how did it end? Well, you know it ended.
Speaker 1: It was a long tail. You know, there were things there.
Speaker 1: It's like when we did well, I think they were
Speaker 1: kind of piste off, you know, because they didn't want
Speaker 1: us to do that. They didn't want us to do that.
Speaker 1: Because they wanted version do that, they hired the guy there. Uh,
Speaker 1: and when we weren't doing well, and there's always that time,
Speaker 1: you know, in the course of a five year plan.
Speaker 1: They didn't like it. But I do remember, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we would have these meetings and um, well, in one
Speaker 1: of our financial meetings, we would have these conference the
Speaker 1: video conference meetings, and so you know, our numbers were
Speaker 1: pretty good. We had this meeting with the guys in
Speaker 1: New York and and they kept asking us questions and
Speaker 1: we had answers for the questions. Okay, So at the
Speaker 1: end of at the end of the financial meeting, they said, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. It sounds too happy, and they clicked the
Speaker 1: video off. But they didn't turn the video off, so
Speaker 1: when we left the room, we could hear everything they
Speaker 1: were saying. And every time we had one of these meetings.
Speaker 1: They couldn't figure out how I turned the video conferencing off.
Speaker 1: So everything they said, we're gonna go after this, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at this, and we're gonna look at that.
Speaker 1: This is what this was. And we knew everywhere they
Speaker 1: were gonna go. So in three weeks when they came
Speaker 1: looking for the numbers of the things, we had all
Speaker 1: the answers, you know, But it was that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I think, you know, to survive in at that
Speaker 1: time at e AM, I in a corporate environment, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, you had to be a little bit more political,
Speaker 1: and I just wasn't political, you know. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we had a conference at once where we all got
Speaker 1: together in the marketing conference and I think they had
Speaker 1: some guy from Sachi and Sachi and they were sort of, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is in the the months era and they and
Speaker 1: they had these guys telling us about how to run
Speaker 1: our business better. And they said, look, the consumer tells
Speaker 1: you what the product is and what to do with
Speaker 1: the product. Then we do this research. And he said,
Speaker 1: you know the research that we did, will we show you.
Speaker 1: We're in there, like they got the troop movements and
Speaker 1: a pointer, and I say, you're going, guys, you want
Speaker 1: me to make records and run marketing and like make
Speaker 1: sure the promotion guys are actually getting records played, Like
Speaker 1: what am I doing? But I didn't say they're my face.
Speaker 1: I'm sure didn't look really really happy all day. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the guy gets to the point where he says, so Paumala,
Speaker 1: they wanted to know what to do with the soap,
Speaker 1: and they went and did the research, and the soap
Speaker 1: they realized from the consumers had to be green. So
Speaker 1: I raised my hand and I go, yeah, but when
Speaker 1: I tell the soap at Capitol Records to be green,
Speaker 1: they tell me funk off because they're artists and their
Speaker 1: people and like I don't understand what we're doing, and
Speaker 1: I never forget. Months pulled me aside and he goes,
Speaker 1: why do you have to be that guy? And I said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean that guy? You mean the guy
Speaker 1: who's processing facts, Like I don't know, like this is
Speaker 1: not that relevant. He goes, just go back there and
Speaker 1: listen and you know, and don't disrupt things. So but
Speaker 1: that was my life, and you know I think that
Speaker 1: um you know, I I also, I mean I remastered
Speaker 1: the Beatles records. Okay, I I wanted to. When I
Speaker 1: was a kid, as when you were a kid, I
Speaker 1: had those records, I had some things new I wanted
Speaker 1: to because the Dylan catalog had been remastered and the
Speaker 1: Stones catalog had been remastered, and they and like by
Speaker 1: the time they were going to decide to do it,
Speaker 1: I just thought, we gotta do this. So I went
Speaker 1: to Ted Jensen, who was a master guy, and and
Speaker 1: I went to Neil aspinall what you know, may rest
Speaker 1: in peace. What a great guy, you know, who managed
Speaker 1: to be those And I said, well, let me do
Speaker 1: this because I really I just want to make these
Speaker 1: things sound good. And he said, okay, you can take
Speaker 1: those records and you can you send it to me.
Speaker 1: The British company did not like that because I went
Speaker 1: straight to the Beatles, but I had a really good
Speaker 1: relationship with all of them, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: that they didn't think I wanted to rip them off
Speaker 1: or take some money and make my number with their masters.
Speaker 1: They knew like I cared, I think, and so we
Speaker 1: made these American records and it really it's just irritated them.
Speaker 1: And then I remember I had done a family portrait
Speaker 1: of our roster. And I had figured out how we
Speaker 1: could at that time a two thousand three or four
Speaker 1: take Coldplay and the Beastie Boys and and Radiohead and
Speaker 1: Kylie and put them in and McCartney and put them
Speaker 1: in a photo and put it in billboard. And that
Speaker 1: just made them crazy, because that's they didn't think of
Speaker 1: the idea. And so there was constant friction, and I
Speaker 1: think it ended when they you know, realized they were
Speaker 1: going to sell the company and they were showing a
Speaker 1: certain amount of profit and to the new buyer, they
Speaker 1: were showing a program of merging the company and cutting
Speaker 1: the overhead. And I guess the new buyer didn't really
Speaker 1: do the due diligence because they were in the I
Speaker 1: don't know, bar business and refrigerator business and they yeah,
Speaker 1: and they thought, hey, yeah. Then they then they merged
Speaker 1: the company and they just thought they could run as
Speaker 1: many records and create as much profit, and they didn't
Speaker 1: realize that they needed, you know, two companies. And also
Speaker 1: at the same time, after you know this, there was
Speaker 1: this like you know, perfect storm going on where Radio
Speaker 1: was you know, consolidating, and it was very much about
Speaker 1: call out research. So that was tightening and retail was
Speaker 1: going away, and I just don't And I think you
Speaker 1: had instead of being right on your records because the
Speaker 1: profit structure, structure would be a certain way it now
Speaker 1: you had to be right about fifty of the time.
Speaker 1: And all of that together with a new president who
Speaker 1: you know, was had also a kind of I think,
Speaker 1: uh focus in music that wasn't broad enough to carry
Speaker 1: that company. It all just came crashing down. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: jump ahead ten years today. What do you see as
Speaker 1: the state of the music business and the music today.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard for me to to evaluate the
Speaker 1: business portion of any of it really because I'm not
Speaker 1: really astute. I'm not looking at it like like you
Speaker 1: look at it. I like to ask you that question
Speaker 1: and I read what you say about that stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm happy that music is thriving, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy that that that the companies are healthy because there's
Speaker 1: a another resurgence of of money coming in from streaming
Speaker 1: and people are, you know, buying their records again, you know,
Speaker 1: finding news to buy the same music again in new music.
Speaker 1: So I think it's healthy. I think the unfortunate thing
Speaker 1: is that everyone can make a record and everyone can
Speaker 1: put one out and it doesn't matter. So there's so
Speaker 1: much you know, we live in this age of of
Speaker 1: you know, of hyper information and short attention span and
Speaker 1: being bombarded with stuff, and it's just trying to get
Speaker 1: above the noise. And so that's just in you know,
Speaker 1: in our in our business. And you know, at one time,
Speaker 1: I think to make a record, you have to be
Speaker 1: really good because you have to get somebody who's going
Speaker 1: to invest a coup hundred thousand gollars to put you
Speaker 1: in the studio, and you know, and then you have
Speaker 1: to have somebody who had vision to make you into
Speaker 1: the thing, to create that alchemy that we we know
Speaker 1: is the brand of the band that we love and
Speaker 1: that we want to buy the T shirt of. And
Speaker 1: I I don't I don't know. Um. If you know,
Speaker 1: if it's possible, uh to to to affect popular culture
Speaker 1: through rock music the way it was you know, let's
Speaker 1: say in the last twenty years before the the the
Speaker 1: age of the smartphone, where you have all human knowledge
Speaker 1: in your hand. Um. I mean, obviously the bridge between
Speaker 1: hip hop and popular culture and pop music is there.
Speaker 1: It affects other forms of the of the culture. It
Speaker 1: affects you know, fashion and and art. But you know
Speaker 1: the thing that I love and that would be, you know,
Speaker 1: more rock music. I don't. I think the bridge between
Speaker 1: alternative culture and pop culture may be broken. It may
Speaker 1: be broken forever. Okay, so today you consider yourself a manager, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I never really consider myself I'm now. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you I would say that per se
Speaker 1: because I'm not looking for management clients. I have relationships
Speaker 1: with a few artists that I love that I work with,
Speaker 1: and some of it's as a producer, some of it's
Speaker 1: as a producer and a manager, some of it's just
Speaker 1: as a manager. But really, I you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make this film and I and I had this
Speaker 1: idea and I made this film. Before we get to
Speaker 1: the film, so what are those acts you're you're working with. Well,
Speaker 1: at the moment, it's Jacob Dylan, Fiona Apple, who I've
Speaker 1: known and for twenty five plus years, Cat Power, and
Speaker 1: a singer named Jade Costrinos who was in the band
Speaker 1: called Edward Sharpen the Magnetic Serios. Okay, so let's get
Speaker 1: back to the movie. So you're sitting on the couch.
Speaker 1: You see this movie the model Model Shop, Model Shop,
Speaker 1: excuse me, and then you decide, okay, uh, we should
Speaker 1: make a record of these old tunes. Continue the story
Speaker 1: from there. When we start getting into the songs, I
Speaker 1: realized the ones that I'm picking, in the ones that
Speaker 1: Jacob is liking, all have stories behind them. And there
Speaker 1: are stories that are kind of integral to these bands. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I just want to know. I want to go
Speaker 1: find out the you know, the what's behind the songs
Speaker 1: from the people and you know. So we start to
Speaker 1: make this record, and you know, in making the record,
Speaker 1: because it was a record first, and I get these songs,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to find a way to make, like
Speaker 1: in the other records that I made something modern out
Speaker 1: of something old. How do I synthesize this into something
Speaker 1: that's just not tracing paper bar band Hollywood in bar
Speaker 1: band shit. And I had this idea of turning these
Speaker 1: songs into duets, mainly with women, so that when you
Speaker 1: hear never My Love or you hear Expecting to Fly,
Speaker 1: that those were songs, you know, sung by bye bye
Speaker 1: by a bunch of guys or a guy, and I
Speaker 1: turned it into a conversation between a man and women
Speaker 1: you showed me done by the Turtles written by mcgwyn
Speaker 1: and Clark, but when cat Power and Jacob sing it,
Speaker 1: it becomes a conversation and it's a great one. And
Speaker 1: so you know, that gives me the the the impetus
Speaker 1: to kind of go further and then take some of
Speaker 1: the arrangements of some things like you would hear in
Speaker 1: a in a bird song and take the twelve string
Speaker 1: and put it in a mom momas in Papa song,
Speaker 1: and you know, take this string line that you would
Speaker 1: hear here, and you know, and and mix and matches.
Speaker 1: It gives you the feeling that you're there in that place.
Speaker 1: But it's not when you go listen to the original
Speaker 1: next but it it's like, whoa, this is way different,
Speaker 1: but it feels the same. So how does that have fun?
Speaker 1: That to me was interesting and it was fun, and
Speaker 1: that's so I started. And then at that point I
Speaker 1: was like, well, this is something bigger because the collection
Speaker 1: of songs suggests this time and around the time that
Speaker 1: we were doing this, we first of all, we read
Speaker 1: your column about going back. Okay, that's number one, um,
Speaker 1: and you know that becomes you know, part of our
Speaker 1: our film. But um, it it, you know it. It's
Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of the Birds, and
Speaker 1: it really starts with the birds, as you know, when
Speaker 1: the Birds electrified folk music in Nive that that changes
Speaker 1: everything for everyone. And I don't know, you know, and
Speaker 1: when we start to make the movie, we think about
Speaker 1: the fiftieth anniversary of that, and so I say, you know,
Speaker 1: I start to write out a treatment and find somebody
Speaker 1: to I mean, so find somebody to believe enough to
Speaker 1: to finance it. And I wasn't going to make the film.
Speaker 1: I had this treatment and I went to very accomplished
Speaker 1: documentary filmmakers and I said, look, yeah, it was like
Speaker 1: a rock critic giving them some rock critic theory bullshit.
Speaker 1: And I said, look, this is an important thing. And
Speaker 1: they're like, nah, I don't want to do it now.
Speaker 1: I need two million dollars. That's like, okay, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: all right. So somebody said to me, look, you hired
Speaker 1: video directors. You ran all the marketing and you know advertising,
Speaker 1: and your company you make records. You know these people,
Speaker 1: some of them. You make the movie. I said, I
Speaker 1: can't make I'm not a director. They said, sure you are,
Speaker 1: you can do it. Because I didn't want to find somebody.
Speaker 1: They said, you just get this. So I called this
Speaker 1: producer and I said, you know, get me a DP
Speaker 1: that I can talk to, that I can show them
Speaker 1: the phya and get me an editor and then then
Speaker 1: let's see what we can do. And and you know,
Speaker 1: that's that becomes the you know, the beginning of of
Speaker 1: of making the film. But you know, the the that
Speaker 1: period we started by thinking it's going to be the
Speaker 1: electrification of folk music and how people migrate from New
Speaker 1: York to l A. And that's the story. And as
Speaker 1: I find out, as documentary filmmakers later told me, you
Speaker 1: found out everything we all find out, which is the
Speaker 1: story is not where you think it is, but the
Speaker 1: story is somewhere else, and you find the story. And
Speaker 1: what I found by talking to these people was that California,
Speaker 1: which was the ultimate horizontal city, the promised land, the
Speaker 1: land of freedom where anything is possible. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you could go and and and and electrify folk music.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I used it, expecting to fly
Speaker 1: as a sort of frame for this film. Uh, the
Speaker 1: beginning obviously the beginning of the end. And and really
Speaker 1: to me, that song represents a few things. I mean
Speaker 1: that song, you know, it's about the end of a relationship.
Speaker 1: But even in the title, it's like it suggests, no
Speaker 1: matter how outlanded your dreams are, you think they're going
Speaker 1: to come true, which is like that era. And as
Speaker 1: we know, that kind of boundless optimism never lasts. But
Speaker 1: you know, that period, it really is there. What the
Speaker 1: story that I find is that there's really three periods
Speaker 1: of Little King. There's the period where they were Roger
Speaker 1: mcgwinn sees the hard Day's Night, sees the twelve string
Speaker 1: takes the twelve string electric tosting electrifies folk music, and
Speaker 1: every band comes to California because they are supposed to
Speaker 1: be the American beatles that got the velvet collars, they
Speaker 1: got the whole thing. And and that period of being
Speaker 1: in a band, you know, which is explored in the film,
Speaker 1: is really about multiple singers and multiple songwriters and that
Speaker 1: collective energy that they all saw in a Hard Day's Night.
Speaker 1: Hey we're traveling around. Hey, look isn't this great? We're
Speaker 1: like our little gang and they all come here and
Speaker 1: that period ends, and and in the film you really
Speaker 1: find out, you know, Michelle tells you it ends partly
Speaker 1: because she liked Danny and John, and you know, Crosby
Speaker 1: tells you that the Birds are you know, and because
Speaker 1: he's as he says, he was an asshole, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of tied in some ways to him wanting to
Speaker 1: put Tryad on the Bird's record and they going back
Speaker 1: because they want to have a hit. And Steven Stills
Speaker 1: tells you, okay, we we were had a wealthy material,
Speaker 1: but it was divergent directions and in the end, you know,
Speaker 1: there's Neilly Young in the end, you know, as on
Speaker 1: the search for the individual, because after the band period,
Speaker 1: there is the psychedelic period, and after the psychedelic period,
Speaker 1: it's a retrenchment back to country rock and roots. And
Speaker 1: I'm telling you things you're you already know, Bob, and
Speaker 1: it're written about, but it becomes the search for the individual.
Speaker 1: So it's not Buffalo Springfield. It's Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
Speaker 1: And so for me, I wanted to explore the idea
Speaker 1: of the band and that period and the thing that
Speaker 1: you know, I think with the film, I was sitting
Speaker 1: there and because the contemporary record business had rejected me
Speaker 1: in that moment and I left Capital, I was rejecting it,
Speaker 1: and so I looked back at this film, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just thought to this time when things were
Speaker 1: much simpler and it wasn't so complicated, and I didn't
Speaker 1: have corporate governance and ship on top of me, and
Speaker 1: and so it sent me to to somehow interpret and
Speaker 1: pay homage to that music that I loved that I
Speaker 1: listened to on w ABC and Cousin Brucey and w
Speaker 1: m c A. And I was a good guy, and
Speaker 1: I heard good vibrations and I heard California dreaming, and
Speaker 1: I thought, God, there's this place. I'm in my little
Speaker 1: concrete park playing stoop ball and stickball, and it's cold,
Speaker 1: and that place that that looks like it does and
Speaker 1: it's a mad, mad, mad mad world with the big
Speaker 1: w and it's beautiful by the sea, and you know,
Speaker 1: and and that's what I wanted to celebrate and the
Speaker 1: place we live when time was simpler. Because if you
Speaker 1: squint your eyes and you drive around l A, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're always on the edge of nature. There's a
Speaker 1: coyote in your right, there's you know, and it's that
Speaker 1: that thing between the city and nature. And I just
Speaker 1: need to find a way to give my own creative
Speaker 1: interpretation like those writers did of that time, and this
Speaker 1: film really represents that for for me. Okay, anybody who
Speaker 1: refused to be interviewed, not really. I mean, each one
Speaker 1: of those bands is a documentary in itself. The Beach Boys,
Speaker 1: the Bird, the Moms and Pop is the Buffalo Springfield.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they all and even some of
Speaker 1: those individual members. So to try to, you know, build
Speaker 1: a singular narrative that takes you from the rick and
Speaker 1: back or twelve string through that sort of period of
Speaker 1: the bands, you know, to why bands break up, to
Speaker 1: the search for the individual, you know, kept it narrow
Speaker 1: and there's no one really else that we wanted to
Speaker 1: talk to. You know. Again, we we used Neil Young
Speaker 1: as the sort of metaphor at the end for the
Speaker 1: search for the individual. You know, when Steven tells you
Speaker 1: right leaves the band gonna be on TV to be
Speaker 1: on the Johnny Carson Show, and you know, and expecting
Speaker 1: to fly was really his warning sign and that, you know,
Speaker 1: and that is also that is also the song that
Speaker 1: I feel like his arrangement with Jack Nietsi was a
Speaker 1: kind of nod to a day in the life on
Speaker 1: Sergeant Pepper. It's their California version of that, I think,
Speaker 1: and and that ushers in the psychedelic period in a sense.
Speaker 1: And and so that's why, you know, that's the end
Speaker 1: of the movie, and that's the place. How does get
Speaker 1: in the movie, Well, we were trying to find also
Speaker 1: the the the arc of how people were influenced in England.
Speaker 1: You know, we knew the Beatles, look, I mean in
Speaker 1: the film it you know, you learned that that bells
Speaker 1: are Rimney by the Birds influenced George Harrison to write
Speaker 1: if I Needed Someone, which goes on Robert Soul, which
Speaker 1: Brian Wilson tells you in the film he heard which
Speaker 1: makes him write pet Sounds, which the Beatles here and
Speaker 1: day write Sergeant Pepper. And in in doing this, you
Speaker 1: know the other people that came from England at the time.
Speaker 1: Obviously Cream was you know, one of the biggest bands
Speaker 1: in the world at that time English band, along with
Speaker 1: the Beatles and the Stones. Uh, And we just wanted
Speaker 1: to we knew he had a connection to California and
Speaker 1: to Laurel Canyon. And when he tells you that that
Speaker 1: head Sounds was the thing that the Cream was aspiring
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, I've never heard that before. And
Speaker 1: then he tells you that Let It Rain was inspired
Speaker 1: by Questions, And Stephen tells you that that that Questions
Speaker 1: was inspired by since you've asked, so the film is
Speaker 1: really more about the echo of people's ideas than it
Speaker 1: is about the canyon. The canyon is the place that
Speaker 1: the canyon is the place where it takes where it
Speaker 1: all sort of happens. But you know, and the other
Speaker 1: thing is that that we shot a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in the rooms where these things were recorded, and we
Speaker 1: recorded in those rooms, and you know, to me, having
Speaker 1: worked there a lot in my life with Macy, with Fiona,
Speaker 1: with the Wallflowers, I I always was so humbled by
Speaker 1: those rooms and the feeling I got when I went
Speaker 1: in there, and they were always beautiful to me, and
Speaker 1: so I wanted to shoot them in a way that
Speaker 1: they could be beautiful because Bob, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they're going to be here in ten years, because the
Speaker 1: with the you know, with Hollywood and the expansion of Hollywood,
Speaker 1: a single story building on Sunset's worth a lot of
Speaker 1: land value, and I just don't know if those guys
Speaker 1: are going to be able to hold out when somebody says,
Speaker 1: here's fifty million bucks. And you know, so remember that
Speaker 1: the human voice. What we love about the human voe,
Speaker 1: what we love about Sinatra, you know. Besides the tone
Speaker 1: of his voice is what happens when an echo chamber,
Speaker 1: When that voice is projected an echo chamber, that's what
Speaker 1: gives a voice depth, you know, and in some ways,
Speaker 1: you know, changes the tonality of things in those rooms.
Speaker 1: It's sunset sound. I mean, you know, some of them
Speaker 1: are gone. You know, Columbia Studios is gone. You know,
Speaker 1: gold Stars, Brian tells you he loved the echo of
Speaker 1: gold Star. That's gone, but those rooms still have it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I ran into I was at book soup
Speaker 1: and I ran into Jimmy Page, who I only no peripherally.
Speaker 1: I don't really know him, but I ran into him
Speaker 1: a couple of times, and we were talking about we
Speaker 1: were talking about Bells are Rimney because he had done
Speaker 1: a I think he recorded a version of Bells round
Speaker 1: the end. We were talking about and he said, you
Speaker 1: know the bells from me that guitar Mcquin's guitar that
Speaker 1: sounds like the echo chambered studio on its sunset sound,
Speaker 1: doesn't it? And you know, so for him and for
Speaker 1: Mick and Makers to to have that specific a sense
Speaker 1: about it, like it was a Strata barius, you know,
Speaker 1: I has a specific guitar. Is is something powerful? So
Speaker 1: you know, Echo in the Canyon is you know, hopefully
Speaker 1: a documentation of of of a great moment in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles history. Okay, Brian Wilson is surprisingly loose see it
Speaker 1: in your movie? Did you just get them when he
Speaker 1: was locked on? Or was he loosened the whole time
Speaker 1: you interviewed him. Well, I'll tell you. When we went
Speaker 1: to talk to Brian, I had never met him, and
Speaker 1: even though I had you know, rand Capital for seven
Speaker 1: years and we put out sounds of the summer and stuff.
Speaker 1: But I said to somebody who was friends with him, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, what what should I do here? Because
Speaker 1: you know I worshiped the guy and you know, I
Speaker 1: mean and Bob. When you think about it, the Beatles
Speaker 1: had George Martin, and George Martin was the arranger. The
Speaker 1: Beach Boys had Brian Wilson. That was all in his head.
Speaker 1: He was standing there with those you know, incredible musicians,
Speaker 1: string players, the Wrecking Crew adults, and he was his
Speaker 1: kid with these ideas. So I just, you know, the
Speaker 1: the magnitude of of that I had to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, put aside to get to capture the stuff
Speaker 1: on film. And I said to somebody, hey, when we
Speaker 1: talked to him, you know what, what what do we do? Like?
Speaker 1: What you like? And what is it? And he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, Brian, he loves food, you know, don't you know,
Speaker 1: don't just launch into some stuff like talk to him.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, So when Brian came to the set,
Speaker 1: he sat down and you do the interview, and I said,
Speaker 1: and you know, he knew I had worked there. You know,
Speaker 1: somebody told him i'd worked there. And I said, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you you work at the studio and he goes, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I said you like chicken? He goes, I love chicken.
Speaker 1: I said, you know, this is this chicken place called
Speaker 1: al Wazire Chicken. You know this down the street. You
Speaker 1: ever had it? He no. I go, oh man, this
Speaker 1: is the best. I used to eat this stuff every day.
Speaker 1: This is the best chicken in Hollywood. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we had we did ten minutes on Alba's here Chicken
Speaker 1: and you know, and then luckily, you know, he didn't
Speaker 1: have to answer for the fiftieth time how you know
Speaker 1: how genius the arrangement and good Vibrations was okay, but
Speaker 1: you know they're playing and I forget the song. I
Speaker 1: just wasn't made for these times, right, And he says, uh,
Speaker 1: you know what key? He immediately knows what key and
Speaker 1: what they're playing. It not a change. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like a lightning striking from the sky. Well, I
Speaker 1: don't hope Brian well enough to tell you if this
Speaker 1: is true, But you know, maybe he just doesn't want
Speaker 1: to talk to everybody, so he goes to that. You know,
Speaker 1: if he wants to talk to you, he'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: And if he's doesn't, he'll just kind of say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm Brian, and then I'm not going to give it
Speaker 1: to you. Well, actually a new movie is coming out.
Speaker 1: Interview with Brian Wilson, the editor Jason Fine of Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone Shirt goes around in a car. I'll save the
Speaker 1: story for him, but making the movie, Okay, what are
Speaker 1: two things you learned that you didn't know? That I
Speaker 1: have to have a lot of respect for filmmakers because
Speaker 1: it is a incredibly difficult job, and that I probably
Speaker 1: could not have done it in any point in my
Speaker 1: life if I had not done every job in a writer,
Speaker 1: in a record producer and a musician and an executive,
Speaker 1: because of what it takes to really piece it together.
Speaker 1: So you know, I also learned that the film business
Speaker 1: is UH is a difficult place, and music business is
Speaker 1: like a playground that I can go on. And but
Speaker 1: that would be a different riff. You know. The way
Speaker 1: I always say is, you know, you could everybody can
Speaker 1: listen to a record and whether the person be ten
Speaker 1: or seventy five, they'll say, well, had a good beat,
Speaker 1: and I could dance to it. But you put a
Speaker 1: five year old in front of a TV show and say, well,
Speaker 1: the plot wasn't believable. I didn't like that. Everybody's got
Speaker 1: a damn viewpoint in the film business, never mind the
Speaker 1: money in the distribution. I will tell you that there
Speaker 1: were people who said to me, just put the concert footage.
Speaker 1: What is all this stuff with the thing with the eck?
Speaker 1: Come on? And I was like, oh god, I do
Speaker 1: remember this. I remember when I you know, it reminded
Speaker 1: me of a moment UH when I had first produced
Speaker 1: Shadow Boxer and Fiona and I went to meet Donnie
Speaker 1: Ironer and I had the demo there to you know,
Speaker 1: to get to get the funding to do to do
Speaker 1: the record. We end of the office and Donnie said,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. This is just like visions of Love, Mariah Carrie.
Speaker 1: You know, visions that's what you need to make this.
Speaker 1: You need to make this. You don't listen to them,
Speaker 1: I need to make visions of love. And Fiona looked
Speaker 1: at me like with horror on her face as we
Speaker 1: were walking out of there, and I, you know, because
Speaker 1: I had said, oh, okay, yeah, it's just like ah
Speaker 1: six eight, it's a waltz all so yeah, I see
Speaker 1: where you're going with this. Yeah. Yeah, And you know,
Speaker 1: I walked out the office and to me like what
Speaker 1: and I was like no, no, no no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: We just tell him, yes, we just get the money.
Speaker 1: What do we want? You know. But the same thing
Speaker 1: in the film business, you know, when you're trying to
Speaker 1: get money from people, you just you know, unfortunately, you
Speaker 1: have to be right. I mean, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to have something that has success because because if you're wrong,
Speaker 1: they never talked to you again. Luckily, in the music business,
Speaker 1: you know, I people made money every time I asked
Speaker 1: them for money and they get give me money to
Speaker 1: do things. Um, I was only doing things, and I
Speaker 1: thought I could, you know, make something interesting. But the
Speaker 1: film thing is very was was very tough, and because
Speaker 1: it takes more money, and and you you know, when
Speaker 1: you make a song as a producer, you listen down
Speaker 1: three minutes, you know what you got, You go to sleep,
Speaker 1: you wake up the next day, you listen three minutes.
Speaker 1: You get to a certain point when you're making a film.
Speaker 1: You have to watch the hour and a half film
Speaker 1: to know what's going on. And in the course of
Speaker 1: making this film, there were things that I really wanted
Speaker 1: to cover. I wanted to cover the sunset strip and
Speaker 1: love in the beginning of garage rock. And I wanted
Speaker 1: to cover the Monkeys because they were you know, Hollywood
Speaker 1: interpretation of the Beatles. And and you realize that as
Speaker 1: the narrative is being developed, and as you're you're sitting there,
Speaker 1: somebody becomes an elbow and it becomes too long, and
Speaker 1: it could be two minutes, but you've got to watch
Speaker 1: an hour and a half all the time to really
Speaker 1: get it. Just like a song, you know, when you
Speaker 1: think the bridge is too long or turn and it's
Speaker 1: so you think you watched it, I have to say
Speaker 1: five hundred. I mean, it just it's what it's what
Speaker 1: it takes. And when you're doing the sound, and when
Speaker 1: you're doing the mix and you're doing dialogue and you
Speaker 1: have to do then you have to do the the
Speaker 1: underscore and the dialogue and the some of the effects
Speaker 1: that you're using, and you know, then the mix, the
Speaker 1: mix changes things. So you know, it's like it's like
Speaker 1: three D record making. You know, it's not five one.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not a five one mix of record
Speaker 1: because you've got picture and you and and you've got
Speaker 1: the color of the picture, and you know all the
Speaker 1: time you've got old footage and you want to try
Speaker 1: to blend things. And so I love the process of that.
Speaker 1: I love being able to create it. I I love
Speaker 1: that somebody gave me the opportunity and gave me the
Speaker 1: money to do it. And I hope I can make
Speaker 1: their money back for them, Like would you make another movie? Well,
Speaker 1: I have the rights to to uh to another film
Speaker 1: and and to another story, another music story, and I
Speaker 1: and I'm a little beat up to beg for three years.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, you know so, I but I do want
Speaker 1: to do it. I mean, the miraculous thing about this
Speaker 1: film is that somebody decided they liked it and they
Speaker 1: were going to put it at the Cinerama Dome, and
Speaker 1: you know, and that's where the arc Light wants to
Speaker 1: show him in the arc Light. They you can't really
Speaker 1: tell them what to do. They know they have the
Speaker 1: best movie theater in America. And you know, obviously the
Speaker 1: Landmark has a you know, has a great game has
Speaker 1: a great theater here too. So I am just, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not shocked, but but really in awe the
Speaker 1: fact that the place that premiered Apocalypse Now and e
Speaker 1: T and Star Wars uh, and it's the premier movie
Speaker 1: house in America. It's eight hundred seats. It's when you
Speaker 1: go in there, it's incredible that they wanted to show
Speaker 1: the film there and premiere the film there. So I'm
Speaker 1: that's Ma's And then how long untill people the rest
Speaker 1: of the country can see? Uh? It opens in New
Speaker 1: York had May thirty one, after that at the at
Speaker 1: the Angelica and at the Landmark of Town, and then
Speaker 1: it goes to San Francisco, San Diego, Chicago, Boston and
Speaker 1: all the cities in June fourteen one, and as of
Speaker 1: now it's a it's at fifty cities. But the one
Speaker 1: good thing about what's happening on if this is relevant, uh,
Speaker 1: the band is going to play music that night. After
Speaker 1: the performance, they're gonna we're gonna do music four nights
Speaker 1: in the in the cineramadon which they've never done four
Speaker 1: nights in a row. And on one of those nights,
Speaker 1: Steven Stills is going to play, and Cat Power's gonna play,
Speaker 1: and Jacob's gonna play, and it's it's it's gonna be. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a great celebratory event with the old
Speaker 1: and the new. Okay, you've been wonderful, Andy. You know
Speaker 1: we could really go on for hours. You've done a
Speaker 1: good job of telling your story and keeping it in interesting.
Speaker 1: That's the Andy s leader, writer and director of the
Speaker 1: new film Echo in the Canyon, and you've heard in
Speaker 1: the podcast all the other things he's accomplishing the music business. Andy,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming. Thank you, Bob. Okay, until next time,
Speaker 1: it's the Bob Left Sets Podcast.