Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Rich Robin Show of the Black Crows,
Speaker 1: who have a new album, A Pound of Feathers.
Speaker 2: Rich, why that title the Black Crows?
Speaker 1: Ha ha, No pound of feathers.
Speaker 2: Oh, pound of feathers? Oh well, it was a you know,
Speaker 2: it was a lyric of Chris Is in one of
Speaker 2: the songs. At the end he sings a pound of
Speaker 2: feathers and a pound of or a pound of lad
Speaker 2: and you know, it just kind of one of those
Speaker 2: things that's stuck. You know. We always try to sneak
Speaker 2: a bird, you know, a bird reference in there every
Speaker 2: once in a while.
Speaker 1: So who decided that was the title? You or your brother?
Speaker 2: Chris brought it up, and it was me. Chris and
Speaker 2: our manager talked about it, and we my manager and
Speaker 2: I liked pound of feathers, and Chris had another one
Speaker 2: that I can't remember what it was, and so we
Speaker 2: kind of chose pund of feathers.
Speaker 1: So, you know, we live in a totally different world today.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of acts of your avingteage. You
Speaker 1: don't even make new records. How do you decide that
Speaker 1: it's time to make a new album.
Speaker 2: You know, Chris and I have always written. I write
Speaker 2: all the time. Chris writes lyrics all the time. He's
Speaker 2: got notebooks and notebooks of lyrics. And so basically the
Speaker 2: way it works with him and I is that I'll
Speaker 2: I'll send him musical pieces. Some of them are full songs,
Speaker 2: some of them are you know, a verse and a
Speaker 2: chorus or whatever it may be. And then whatever he
Speaker 2: whatever pulls something out of him, whatever inspires him, is
Speaker 2: what we tend to make a song, you know, And
Speaker 2: so we just I believe in making records. I still
Speaker 2: believe in making out full albums. I don't I don't
Speaker 2: adhere to the new record label kind of philosophy of
Speaker 2: let's make an EP or let's do a single. It's
Speaker 2: just like make a fucking record. I mean, it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's a piece, it's a whole thing. There's a journey
Speaker 2: on a record. The sequences art is an art form.
Speaker 2: The way the songs work together is an art form.
Speaker 2: The way the the recording and all of these different
Speaker 2: elements are creative elements of what I do and what
Speaker 2: we do as a band, and what Chris and I
Speaker 2: do as writers and it's still valid to me, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And so we make a record
Speaker 2: when we're ready to, when we have songs, we're ready
Speaker 2: to go in and you know, bust one out.
Speaker 1: So you say you're constantly coming up with a musical
Speaker 1: idea in the plural. So do you play the guitar
Speaker 1: every day?
Speaker 2: I don't necessarily play the guitar every day, but when
Speaker 2: i'm it kind of depends on where I am. If
Speaker 2: I'm on tour, I have a guitar in my room.
Speaker 2: If I'm at home, I have a studio at my
Speaker 2: place in Tapanga, and I mean I'm in upstate New York,
Speaker 2: I have, you know, three guitars up here if I
Speaker 2: want to mess around. But I don't make it a
Speaker 2: mission to play guitar. But I always pick one up,
Speaker 2: and I'm always I'm always inspired to pick it up.
Speaker 2: Like I've always believed that if you pick up an
Speaker 2: instrument when you want to, you're always going to be
Speaker 2: happy about it instead of like, oh it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's two o'clock, I have to sit down and do
Speaker 2: my scales or whatever it may be. I'm more interested
Speaker 2: in in that inspiration, you know, So I play you know,
Speaker 2: I have drums at my house. I play bass and
Speaker 2: drums and guitar, and you know, have some keyboards, and
Speaker 2: I love to be in the studio and make stuff
Speaker 2: and so a lot of times I'll just put together
Speaker 2: whole songs for Chris and send them to them. And
Speaker 2: but this record was a little bit different. You know.
Speaker 2: We decided to use the studio as a tool to write.
Speaker 2: So I had about twenty five or thirty things I
Speaker 2: sent to him, and he chose, you know, twelve or
Speaker 2: fifteen that he liked, and then we went in and
Speaker 2: kind of saved the arrangement for the studio. And a
Speaker 2: lot of times certain things will spark other things, which
Speaker 2: then lead to other things. And that's what's really cool
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: Let's go back a step. What do you do in
Speaker 1: upstate New York?
Speaker 2: I have five kids, and there's a school up here.
Speaker 2: They're a school burned down last year in the Palisades
Speaker 2: and they go to a specific school. It's called the
Speaker 2: Waldorf School. And the two big Waldorf schools in Los
Speaker 2: Angeles burned down. There was one in the Palisades and
Speaker 2: there was one in Altadena. And we had been up
Speaker 2: here before because we love the area. It's gorgeous. But
Speaker 2: we you know, my wife's from LA, so we moved
Speaker 2: out to La. Kind of lived between Nashville and LA.
Speaker 2: But we just bought about eighty acres up here, and
Speaker 2: we're going to build a house and maybe live on
Speaker 2: both sides of the of the continent or of the country.
Speaker 1: I mean relative to California. New York is a small state,
Speaker 1: but by the East Coast standards, New York is a
Speaker 1: large state. How do you decide where you want to
Speaker 1: buy land. I'm not looking for your address, but generally speaking.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I like trees, and I like I mean,
Speaker 2: I grew up in Atlanta, so we had, you know,
Speaker 2: we had a lot of being on the East Coast.
Speaker 2: There's seasons, there's you know, I lived in outside of
Speaker 2: New York for like fourteen years. I lived in the
Speaker 2: city for a couple of years, and so and I
Speaker 2: used to go up to Woodstock all the time, make
Speaker 2: to make records and to you know, just to be
Speaker 2: there because I love it. It's you know, the Catskills and
Speaker 2: the Berkshire. So I'm kind of the property I bought
Speaker 2: is right in between the Catskills and the Berkshires. We
Speaker 2: have views of boat which is just beautiful. It's peaceful,
Speaker 2: you know, it's just it's amazing. And about three or
Speaker 2: four families from La moved here too to send their
Speaker 2: kids to the school, and so we have friends here
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, so how many kids are living with you? Now?
Speaker 2: Five?
Speaker 1: So you all five kids? What's the oldest.
Speaker 2: Fifteen? And the youngest is five? And then have I
Speaker 2: actually have seven kids, but two of them are older.
Speaker 2: One's twenty nine and one's twenty five. So my younger bunch,
Speaker 2: they all live here at home.
Speaker 1: So the older ones, what are they up to?
Speaker 2: My oldest one, his name's Taylor. He went to Occidental
Speaker 2: and studied. He studied a form of AI consciousness that
Speaker 2: I think it was kind of a curriculum that he
Speaker 2: wrote himself, and he majored in that. And then he
Speaker 2: minored in acting and minored in speaking Russian. So he
Speaker 2: learned the Russian language, and he was really interested in teaching.
Speaker 2: So he moved to Russia for two years. He lived
Speaker 2: in Saint Petersburg teaching English, and I kept sending I
Speaker 2: kept sending him things like, hey, you know, maybe you
Speaker 2: should think about getting out of there. Things are getting weird,
Speaker 2: you know, as the build up was going, and he
Speaker 2: was like, no, that's just Western propaganda. They're not doing anything.
Speaker 2: And literally randomly, it was just random. He flew home
Speaker 2: and the day he flew home, Putin invaded Ukraine while
Speaker 2: he was on the plane flying home to see his mom,
Speaker 2: and he got he landed. He's like, I can't believe
Speaker 2: that happened. I'm like, yeah, I've been telling you. There's
Speaker 2: you know, one hundred thousand troops on the Ukrainian border.
Speaker 2: So he moved to Georgia, the country. So he moved
Speaker 2: to Tubilisi for like six months to a year, and
Speaker 2: then he moved to Turkey because he has a Russian
Speaker 2: girlfriend and she couldn't get a visa to a lot
Speaker 2: of these places. And then they wound up in Argentina
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. And now he's back in
Speaker 2: Chicago and he goes to Northwestern School of Journalism.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you ever go visit him in these places?
Speaker 2: I never visited him in He came to visit, like
Speaker 2: when he was in Russia, he and and his significant
Speaker 2: other came to visit us in Amsterdam. But I've I mean,
Speaker 2: I've been to Russia but not while he was there.
Speaker 2: It was a lot more of a hasshole to get
Speaker 2: over there because we were that's when we were starting
Speaker 2: our touring, and then literally COVID hit, so he moved there.
Speaker 2: I saw him in February January, February of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: and that and then he went home, and then I
Speaker 2: came home, and then the world shut down, and so
Speaker 2: he was literally stuck in Saint Petersburg for two years.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the twenty five five year old up to.
Speaker 2: He's in a band called the Sunday Mourners and he
Speaker 2: lives in LA He's I think he's either just he
Speaker 2: just graduated or finished his term in December. He was
Speaker 2: going to Chapman but he's His band's great and they
Speaker 2: just opened for the OCS. They did some shows with
Speaker 2: X they did they're doing. They did a full tour
Speaker 2: of the Midwest, and I think in the maybe the
Speaker 2: summer of the fall. I can't remember what they're planning,
Speaker 2: because they want to go to Europe. They have a
Speaker 2: single out and record out and they have a lot
Speaker 2: of interest from labels and booking agents, so I think
Speaker 2: they're going to go over to the UK and do
Speaker 2: a full tour over there, and they're going to do
Speaker 2: East coast down into the South again in the States.
Speaker 2: So their band's great. He's the singer.
Speaker 1: What is your philosophy young kids who've graduated from college
Speaker 1: and being on the payroll, not being on the payroll.
Speaker 2: I want them to be happy and fulfilled and if
Speaker 2: and if that makes him happy and he can do it,
Speaker 2: and he can you know, he can provide for himself,
Speaker 2: then I think it's an amazing thing, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. I always show my support, but I never
Speaker 2: get involved. You know, Chris and I and you know
Speaker 2: we're not involved. You know, Chris doesn't get involved with
Speaker 2: his kids, and like in the sense of like pushing
Speaker 2: for things. I think he's very similar in that way.
Speaker 2: I will always be there to help if they need it,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to like insert myself and what
Speaker 2: their trajectory may be or what they have plans for.
Speaker 1: Well, your older son is going to journalism school at Northwestern.
Speaker 1: That's a big chunk of change. Is he paying for that?
Speaker 1: Are you paying for that?
Speaker 2: We pay for that, the parents. But he's it's a
Speaker 2: year it's a year program. So he's you know, he's doing.
Speaker 2: I'm really proud of him. It's one of the best
Speaker 2: journalism schools in the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, does the one who's in the band, does he
Speaker 1: ever call up and say, I'm sure, can you send me,
Speaker 1: you know, one thousand or three thousand dollars?
Speaker 2: He does other jobs, like he he models, and like
Speaker 2: he does other things outside of the band to kind
Speaker 2: of help him. He works at a record store. Like
Speaker 2: he's got his whole thing down. He lives within his means,
Speaker 2: so he's cool to exist. You know.
Speaker 1: So their mother, when did you get involved with their mother?
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety two? Okay, she was twenty and I
Speaker 2: was twenty three or twenty four. I was twenty four.
Speaker 1: Is this somebody, because you know, Black Crows basically started
Speaker 1: to blow up in nineteen nineties. Is someone you knew
Speaker 1: before that or you met subsequent to No.
Speaker 2: I met her at a show. Actually a friend, a
Speaker 2: kind of acquaintance, brought her to the show and we
Speaker 2: saw each other and we were together for twelve years
Speaker 2: and had two kids. So that ended because just I
Speaker 2: think we were too young and I was gone a
Speaker 2: lot and she it's just you know, it's that age
Speaker 2: old story. We grew apart, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I think that's really all it was.
Speaker 1: So if your kid said I want to get married
Speaker 1: at twenty three, you would say.
Speaker 2: What I would say, Luckily they're both past twenty three.
Speaker 1: Well they're coming up. We got five coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, I would say. I mean, look, I could
Speaker 2: you know, I can always give my like this is
Speaker 2: what happened to me, but this age twenty three, this
Speaker 2: is your life too, So you're going to have to
Speaker 2: make this decision. But I would, as someone who went
Speaker 2: through this, I would have to tell you that this
Speaker 2: is something that can happen and you have to you
Speaker 2: have to really look at it for yourself. But I'm
Speaker 2: not the type of person to like force an agenda
Speaker 2: or force them into something that they may not. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, look, life is life. Kids don't listen to
Speaker 2: their parents. I never listened to my parents, and it's
Speaker 2: just the way it is, you know. And so I would,
Speaker 2: like I said, I'm always there to be like, hey,
Speaker 2: this didn't really pan out for me. So if you
Speaker 2: want to take that chance, go ahead, you know, okay?
Speaker 1: And when did you meet your prison significant other?
Speaker 2: I met her in two thousand and she and we
Speaker 2: were together in five or six, I think it was six,
Speaker 2: but we were together. Yeah, we've been together ever since.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you just end up with five more kids
Speaker 1: or did you want a big family?
Speaker 2: I you know, it's tough when you go through a
Speaker 2: divorce and you don't you know, you instantly get moved
Speaker 2: to almost like a visiting uncle status. At least back then,
Speaker 2: that's how it was, where it's like you get to
Speaker 2: see your kids every other weekend and on Wednesdays or whatever.
Speaker 2: And that that was just like the the way that
Speaker 2: the divorce industrial complex tended to work, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. It was like, this is what it is.
Speaker 2: I had to travel because I was working, and I
Speaker 2: still had to pay for everything, and that's what it was.
Speaker 2: And so obviously I missed so much, you know, but
Speaker 2: I also love kids and I love having kids, and
Speaker 2: so you know, I just I just kind of go
Speaker 2: with it. You know. I don't have a ton of
Speaker 2: you know, we never really had a ton of planning
Speaker 2: going on, you know what I mean. It wasn't like,
Speaker 2: let's sit down and have five kids and this is
Speaker 2: what we're going to do. We would you know, have
Speaker 2: kids and we would be thrilled about it, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, that's how.
Speaker 1: It was, okay, So you know, it's funny. I was
Speaker 1: talking to Stuart Copeland and he has seven kids, and
Speaker 1: he says, you never really know what you're going to get.
Speaker 1: They all have their own personality.
Speaker 2: What's your experience one hundred percent? And they come out, man,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so many things that when they come out,
Speaker 2: there's certain there's already bits of their personality that are
Speaker 2: already there one hundred percent. It's amazing, you know, it's like,
Speaker 2: really it's so far out to see and then to
Speaker 2: watch them grow and then watch those things that are
Speaker 2: these you know, I don't know, these strong sort of
Speaker 2: urges in their personality, and then they integrate into a
Speaker 2: larger personality as they get older and older and older.
Speaker 2: It's really amazing. I mean, my teenager, my fifteen year old,
Speaker 2: he was he has a lot of the qualities that
Speaker 2: he had when he was a kid, but now he's
Speaker 2: getting into the grumpy teenage sort of face. So it's
Speaker 2: I don't know how much of that is kind of
Speaker 2: clouding the positivity of his youth, but I think it's
Speaker 2: still in there because it comes out everyone in all.
Speaker 1: So what intrigues you to invest and have them go
Speaker 1: to Waldort schools? What's that about.
Speaker 2: It's a specific way of looking at the world. It's
Speaker 2: more of an analog way of looking at the world.
Speaker 2: Like I still, although there's technology all around, I still
Speaker 2: believe in the analog way of looking at life and
Speaker 2: looking at the world and making music and you know,
Speaker 2: everything I do, I would prefer to do it that way. Then,
Speaker 2: I think if you have that base of being able
Speaker 2: to exist, I mean I tell them all the time,
Speaker 2: like you need you need to learn how to be bored,
Speaker 2: because being bored can be an incredibly rewarding thing. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's where a lot of I mean, that's where creativity
Speaker 2: comes from. That's where the creativity is but was born from,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of times instead of having something
Speaker 2: constantly in your face entertaining you twenty four to seven,
Speaker 2: to just sit back and do some reflection and look
Speaker 2: at the world in a different way. And so they
Speaker 2: do these things. The way they teach is more of
Speaker 2: a holistic way of teaching. They teach about, you know,
Speaker 2: like thetle in their younger grades. They you know, they
Speaker 2: bake bread and they cook things and they make things,
Speaker 2: and they want it to be like the normal sort
Speaker 2: of rhythm of life, to just be present in the classroom,
Speaker 2: just to be able to smell bread being cooked or
Speaker 2: go out here. They're encouraged to use their imaginations and
Speaker 2: they're really they try to be strict. It's hard in
Speaker 2: today's world, but there's a no media sort of thing
Speaker 2: where you're not really supposed to watch movies or TV
Speaker 2: or devices, and we thought it would be a great
Speaker 2: thing for our kids, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now we live in this technological world. To
Speaker 1: what degree do you restrict their device use, screen use?
Speaker 2: Well, when we're at home, we only allow them to,
Speaker 2: like they're going to watch some stuff, but we have
Speaker 2: a TV and we make them watch movies. You know,
Speaker 2: we really try no YouTube. None of them have you know,
Speaker 2: social media, and you know, my older son kind of
Speaker 2: sneaks into it sometimes, but the younger kids, they don't
Speaker 2: have social media and they can't, you know, other than
Speaker 2: when we travel they have iPads to just because traveling
Speaker 2: is can with five is pretty chaotic. But you know,
Speaker 2: when we land, that's it. Those things go up and
Speaker 2: they have to either watch a movie or play outside
Speaker 2: or do whatever.
Speaker 1: So what point do they get a phone.
Speaker 2: I don't know, that's it. I mean my fifteen year
Speaker 2: old got one a couple of years ago, so he
Speaker 2: was like thirteen, I think when he got a phone.
Speaker 2: So we try to push it to that, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I would say even later, but you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes the fighting to get one. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: when he was in la they were going to a
Speaker 2: different school. He was going to a different school in Malibu,
Speaker 2: and all the kids had phones, and it was just
Speaker 2: kind of like everyone's got a phone but me. You
Speaker 2: know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, you have five kids, and you have
Speaker 1: two older kids who were out of school, but you
Speaker 1: know there were some expenses here. You feel the financial
Speaker 1: pressure to work and make the money.
Speaker 2: I mean yeah, I mean we go out and to
Speaker 2: our and I'm really fortunate to be able to do
Speaker 2: that and take care of everyone. But my older kids
Speaker 2: they're pretty I mean they're pretty self sufficient, you know.
Speaker 2: Like I said, my twenty five year old, he's you know,
Speaker 2: he does has he works at a record shop, He'll
Speaker 2: do this stuff. He does a little modeling. He makes
Speaker 2: a little bit of money. My older son has like
Speaker 2: five jobs when he's not in school. He's really he's
Speaker 2: got a strong work ethic and so he doesn't want
Speaker 2: to rely on us.
Speaker 1: You know, So how many boys and how many girls
Speaker 1: of the younger five and do they get along?
Speaker 2: Four boys and one girl?
Speaker 1: Where's the girl in the hierarchy?
Speaker 2: She's the second youngest. Okay, so she's seven, but she
Speaker 2: kind of rules the roost, you know. She she screams
Speaker 2: like nobody's business. She's she can control, she can control
Speaker 2: what's happened, like she's so smart. She gets in on
Speaker 2: it quickly and understands what's happening and can can traverse.
Speaker 2: You know. She's the most like my dad, which is amazing,
Speaker 2: you know, which is funny because my dad and my
Speaker 2: grandmother in particular, were really charismatic people like my dad
Speaker 2: and Chris were a lot of like my grandmother was
Speaker 2: just like them. You know. She was a really far
Speaker 2: out lady, you know, just ahead of her time. And
Speaker 2: so my daughters like that, and she just kind of
Speaker 2: rules everyone in the house, puts them in their place,
Speaker 2: and she's amazing.
Speaker 1: Okay. I mean there have been legendary battles between you
Speaker 1: and your brother. That's your first hand, you know, growing
Speaker 1: up experience. Now that you have kids, do you think
Speaker 1: that's just a nature of siblings or was there something
Speaker 1: special about the to you that caused friction.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think in a sense it's the nature
Speaker 2: of siblings. Although my older two GID kids always got
Speaker 2: along a lot better than Chris and I and my
Speaker 2: younger kids. You know, my fifteen year old's a little
Speaker 2: annoyed by everyone. He can't stand being around the little kids.
Speaker 2: He's just like those kids annoying me. I can't be
Speaker 2: around them. But there's also a cushion there because they
Speaker 2: have other siblings to go to. With Chris and me,
Speaker 2: it was just the two of us, and it was
Speaker 2: also a different time. There was a lot of like
Speaker 2: just deal with it, like you just have to deal
Speaker 2: with what's in front of you. And I think today
Speaker 2: there's a lot more negotiating room for people to deal
Speaker 2: with one another, you know, And so back then, I
Speaker 2: think that's really what it was. Chris, you know, it
Speaker 2: was always the you know, kind of ringleader. He always
Speaker 2: drew like kind of dictated what we would all do.
Speaker 2: We had cousins and we had people that were around,
Speaker 2: but you know, I once we started writing music, writing
Speaker 2: songs together. It always worked, but there was always a
Speaker 2: push and pull because I have I have very strong
Speaker 2: ideas about music and where I need where I think
Speaker 2: it needs to go, and he has strong ideas about
Speaker 2: what he wants, and so I think that's where a
Speaker 2: lot of the stuff would come from. You know a
Speaker 2: lot of those you know, battles that we would get into.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to your father. Tell me about him
Speaker 1: being so charismatic? What was up with him?
Speaker 2: He was just I mean to this day there's people
Speaker 2: in Atlanta. You know, he passed away in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: so to this day in Atlanta, like, we'll go the
Speaker 2: other I was there a couple of years ago and
Speaker 2: I had to go do laundry somewhere and we were
Speaker 2: on tour and I was like, oh, well this place
Speaker 2: will do I remember my you know, like this is
Speaker 2: where dad used to go at whatever. And I went
Speaker 2: in there and the woman was like, oh, your Stan Son.
Speaker 2: You know his name was Stan Robinson. And I was
Speaker 2: like yeah, and then like two other people in the
Speaker 2: laundry at I was like, I remember Stan. I love
Speaker 2: that guy. You know, that's just how he was. Like
Speaker 2: everyone remembered him. Everyone loved him. He was funny, you know,
Speaker 2: he was. He was just gregarious. He'd walk into a room,
Speaker 2: he knew everyone's name. He knew, you know, every matre
Speaker 2: d at every restaurant. He would go to every waiter
Speaker 2: he knew. He just knew everyone. He was. He put
Speaker 2: himself out and that's how he was. He was always
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: And how do you earn his living?
Speaker 2: He was He was a musician in the late fifties,
Speaker 2: when he was about eighteen, he had a hit called
Speaker 2: Booma Dip Dip and it was on it was top
Speaker 2: forty or whatever. He was on the Alan Fried Show
Speaker 2: and Dick Clark Show. We found footage of him on
Speaker 2: the Dick Clark Show actually, And then he got into
Speaker 2: acting off Broadway or like, he tried out for the
Speaker 2: Traveling Troop of for West Side Story, and then he
Speaker 2: did some things here and there. He did some commercials
Speaker 2: and then he wound up coming back to Atlanta and
Speaker 2: he started a fote group called the Appellachians and they
Speaker 2: they were on like I think they were on ABC,
Speaker 2: Paramount Records, and they toured around the South there. You know,
Speaker 2: he actually played at the Rhyman and when Chris and
Speaker 2: I play there there's a plaque downstairs of him or
Speaker 2: a mention of him. And so, but later he kind
Speaker 2: of went down the road of my dad, of his
Speaker 2: dad and his mom, and they were in the you know,
Speaker 2: the clothing business took yeah, exactly, and his so his dad,
Speaker 2: I was, he was a traveling salesman. And my grandmother
Speaker 2: started a children's clothing company in Atlanta, this place called
Speaker 2: the Merchandise Mart. And so she was one of the
Speaker 2: first women to start her own business. And she had
Speaker 2: her own showroom and down there, and she grew it
Speaker 2: into a sizable thing, and then Dad took it over.
Speaker 2: You know. Dad went into that after the after we
Speaker 2: were born and the music kind of just you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't working out the way he wanted. He went
Speaker 2: into started working for clothing companies and then he found
Speaker 2: finally started working with my grandmother and then took that
Speaker 2: business over. So he sold children's clothing for years.
Speaker 1: So at what point did his family come from the
Speaker 1: old country.
Speaker 2: They came after World War One from Poland, which is
Speaker 2: what we were told, and they were Rabinowitz and they
Speaker 2: were naturalized Robinson and they came through Ellis Island.
Speaker 1: And your grandparents were born overseas.
Speaker 2: No, my granddad was, my grandmother was so ike was Jewish,
Speaker 2: came from a Jewish family, but my grandmother was Baptist,
Speaker 2: so her dad and her dad and first husband were
Speaker 2: both Baptist ministers. And so how those two met up,
Speaker 2: I have no I have no idea, but you know,
Speaker 2: she was our bubby. We called her Bubbs. You know,
Speaker 2: she was like Bubby we called her. But you know,
Speaker 2: we grew up. Dad had two older half siblings from
Speaker 2: her name was Tatsi from I mean that was her nickname.
Speaker 2: Her real name was Thetis, but they called her Tatsi uh,
Speaker 2: And then we called her Bubby. But you know, she
Speaker 2: had you know, she had two kids from an older
Speaker 2: from her first marriage, and then they were my dad's
Speaker 2: half siblings. And I think there was like a fourteen
Speaker 2: year difference.
Speaker 1: So how did your father meet your mother?
Speaker 2: They met at a party and Buckhead in Atlanta, and
Speaker 2: I remember them driving us by the house and they're like,
Speaker 2: that's where your dad and I met. You know, my
Speaker 2: mom would say she was a stewardess for Eastern Airlines.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And she moved down to Atlanta from Nashville, her and
Speaker 2: her two sisters and they all I think they all
Speaker 2: flew for Eastern you know, and so that's how they
Speaker 2: got to Atlanta. Then her and dad met and then
Speaker 2: we started, you know that they started the family.
Speaker 1: Okay, was it an instant romance between them?
Speaker 2: I guess, I mean, you know they do that generation
Speaker 2: doesn't talk too much about that kind of stuff typically,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So I mean Mom said
Speaker 2: it was you know, Mom said that there was instant
Speaker 2: they were kind of together, but then she was like
Speaker 2: when they first had Chris, it was a little harder
Speaker 2: for them, and then they everything smoothed out and then
Speaker 2: they kind of went. But they got divorced in ninety three,
Speaker 2: so you know, they were together for twenty eight years
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, they got divorced. Did either of them or both
Speaker 1: of them get remarried.
Speaker 2: No, Well, my dad, my dad got married, but I
Speaker 2: think it was for like a couple of months and
Speaker 2: then it just didn't pan out and then he split up.
Speaker 1: I went to college with somebody whose parents divorced when
Speaker 1: he was in his late twenties, and it fucked them up.
Speaker 1: So what was your experience?
Speaker 2: You know, it didn't mess me up too.
Speaker 1: Bad.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, they were unhappy. I think you know, again,
Speaker 2: I always take a you know, I always take more
Speaker 2: of a like it's their life, I and that's you know,
Speaker 2: they're still here. It changes the dye dam slightly, but
Speaker 2: it is what it is kind of thing. So to me,
Speaker 2: it was just like part of life, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, this thing happened, it changed a little bit,
Speaker 2: but they were both cool and then later they became
Speaker 2: more like friends and they would talk to each other
Speaker 2: and kind of could lean on each other a little bit.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't you know, it sucks to watch your
Speaker 2: parents go through that. It sucks to watch, especially our
Speaker 2: mom go through that because it was dad who kind
Speaker 2: of initiated the whole thing. But you know, but again,
Speaker 2: like you can't help how you feel. You can't help
Speaker 2: who you love. And if you if if it's hard
Speaker 2: to be around each other, then you know, then it shouldn't.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't be around each other, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: That's how I saw it.
Speaker 1: So how much of a Jewish influence was there in
Speaker 1: the family growing up.
Speaker 2: We had? I mean there was a good amount, because
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, culturally, there was a lot we
Speaker 2: had cousins in Atlanta. Our uncle Saul owned a bike
Speaker 2: shop in Atlanta. It was Cohen's Bike Shop, and he
Speaker 2: was my granddad's either his cousin or his I can't
Speaker 2: I don't know there was a relation there. And I
Speaker 2: can't remember if it was his cousin or his brother,
Speaker 2: because I know I sister or no, maybe it was
Speaker 2: his brother in law because my sister married him. So
Speaker 2: and they and so we would go to their house,
Speaker 2: and you know, we kind of grew up going and
Speaker 2: I mean it was an interesting life Chris and I
Speaker 2: had because we did have No one ever pushed religion
Speaker 2: on us, but there was there was a religion around us,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, or like like culture or religion,
Speaker 2: and so you know, we were around it. You know,
Speaker 2: we went to the family functions, we interacted with everyone,
Speaker 2: and so it was it was kind of there through osmosis,
Speaker 2: you know, in that sense. I mean Dad was going
Speaker 2: to convert, but then he had a fight with his rabbi.
Speaker 2: Then he bailed out. He said so, and he always
Speaker 2: said because his dad was Jewish and his mom was Baptist,
Speaker 2: he became a druid.
Speaker 1: So, but your mother is not Jewish.
Speaker 2: Nope, she she I mean for a minute, like for
Speaker 2: a couple of years, she kind of went she was
Speaker 2: a Lutheran because her sister was a Lutheran. But then
Speaker 2: I don't know, I guess it wore off, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean. She may she took made Chris and
Speaker 2: I go to church a couple of times, but it
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know, a handful of times. Dad
Speaker 2: wasn't into it at all, and so Dad was like,
Speaker 2: you know, don't make him go to church, and we
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know what the impetus for everything was,
Speaker 2: but we went in and got out pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're exactly do you grow up in Italanta? How
Speaker 1: far from the city center was your neighborhood like subur
Speaker 1: what was the story?
Speaker 2: We were in the suburbs. So when we were born,
Speaker 2: Chris and I were born in Buckhead, which is part
Speaker 2: of the Atlanta downtown like the city Atlanta city proper.
Speaker 2: But then Dad got a job we moved to Charlotte,
Speaker 2: North Carolina for two years, and then we moved back
Speaker 2: out into the suburbs. And it was a suburb called
Speaker 2: eas East Cobb County, and it was about thirty five
Speaker 2: minutes from the city, you know, thirty five to forty
Speaker 2: minutes tops. And that's you know, I mean I was
Speaker 2: fourth or fifth grade when we moved there. I think
Speaker 2: it was fourth grade, so it was fourth through twelfth
Speaker 2: grade we lived there, you know, and that's kind of
Speaker 2: where everything musically got started. That's where we would go
Speaker 2: in the basement and play music and you know, started
Speaker 2: cultivating our own musical tastes. Okay, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't have an older brother. I have an older sister.
Speaker 1: But I know a lot of people have older brothers
Speaker 1: and the younger brothers entrall to the older brother, you know,
Speaker 1: and before you hit you know, maturity, et cetera. What
Speaker 1: was your relationship with your brother?
Speaker 2: You know, we would get along. We got along, you
Speaker 2: know a lot. We got along really well. But obviously
Speaker 2: there were sometimes where we would fight and you know,
Speaker 2: get upset. I mean I was always kind of bigger
Speaker 2: than him, so I could, you know, we would we
Speaker 2: would get in arguments and I could, you know, I
Speaker 2: could hold my own let's just say it that way.
Speaker 2: But he was also he would he would forge himself
Speaker 2: into the world more than me. I mean a because
Speaker 2: I was younger, but b just because of my personality.
Speaker 2: So you know, he would go out and look for
Speaker 2: records and he would go do these things and he
Speaker 2: would bring them back and then I would go in
Speaker 2: and take the ones I like and listen to him
Speaker 2: in my room. And you know, I would always obsess
Speaker 2: over the types of like all the instrumentation, and he
Speaker 2: would obsess over the stats, like who played what, who
Speaker 2: did this, who played that? But I could I could
Speaker 2: sing every note of every instrument that was going on
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 1: Okay, were you good in school? Were you popular? Did
Speaker 1: you play sports? What kind of kid were you?
Speaker 2: I played football for like six years or you know,
Speaker 2: something to that effect, but Chris played. Yeah, I played
Speaker 2: football in soccer when we were kids. I remember playing
Speaker 2: soccer and football. I played from fifth grade to ninth grade,
Speaker 2: and then I stopped and was more interested in other things.
Speaker 2: You know. I had two really good friends and some
Speaker 2: other friends, but like, the three of us were really
Speaker 2: close and we would do everything together, you know, that
Speaker 2: kind of thing, always staying at each other's houses and
Speaker 2: doing stuff. And then we had a broader group of
Speaker 2: friends outside of that. And one of my friends lived
Speaker 2: right up the street from me. So it was, you know,
Speaker 2: it was easy just to walk over every day. Chris
Speaker 2: had a ton of friends, and you know, he was
Speaker 2: more out there, but I was more you know, I
Speaker 2: was a little shyer, you know what I mean. I'm
Speaker 2: a lot more shy than Chris was. And I had
Speaker 2: my own issues to deal with because I was OCD
Speaker 2: and no one really knew what that was and that time.
Speaker 1: So were you a good student, mediocre student? You're a
Speaker 1: good student.
Speaker 2: If I wanted to be. I mean, you know, growing
Speaker 2: up in the South and doing like going to public school.
Speaker 2: I mean I went to thirteen schools and so like
Speaker 2: in my whole you know, kindergarten to twelfth grade. So
Speaker 2: it was you know, I would have falling out with
Speaker 2: teachers or you know, it was a lot of times
Speaker 2: it was boring and I would just be like Jesus,
Speaker 2: this is so boring to me. And but if I
Speaker 2: had to, like I you know, I remember like these
Speaker 2: teachers would get mad at me and they're like, if
Speaker 2: you if you don't get a hundred, you're we're going
Speaker 2: to fail you and you're gonna have to repeat. And
Speaker 2: I would get one hundred if I wanted, you know,
Speaker 2: And because I'm like, the last thing I want to
Speaker 2: do is go to this fucking school again and deal
Speaker 2: with this. And so I could get good grades and
Speaker 2: I could pass if I wanted, but most of the
Speaker 2: time I was so bored I didn't. I didn't really,
Speaker 2: I was so uninterested in what they in the way
Speaker 2: that they were presenting these things to me.
Speaker 1: Just if you move to the suburbs, Like when you're
Speaker 1: in fourth or fifth grade, how do you go to
Speaker 1: thirteen schools?
Speaker 2: Well, it was starting from kindergarten, it was one school,
Speaker 2: then another, then you know, like first grade was when
Speaker 2: we moved to Charlotte. So I went to first grade,
Speaker 2: and then the second grade was a private school. Then
Speaker 2: we moved back to Atlanta in the third grade, and
Speaker 2: then moved out to East Cobb in the fourth grade.
Speaker 2: And so then it was like I was in one
Speaker 2: school for fourth and fifth grade. Then I went to
Speaker 2: middle school, which was sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. Then
Speaker 2: I went to high school. And when I went to
Speaker 2: high school, I went to one school and then they
Speaker 2: pulled me out and put me in private school, and
Speaker 2: then I went to a boarding school, and then I
Speaker 2: came back to another school, and so It's just it
Speaker 2: was just kind of moving around within, you know. It
Speaker 2: was just, you know, it was just sort of how
Speaker 2: it happened, you know what I mean, which also created
Speaker 2: a lot of like social issues because I was always
Speaker 2: a new kid coming into school, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Usually the new kids figure out how to fit in
Speaker 1: and git along.
Speaker 2: Though I can get along and fit in, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't like having a group of friends that you grew
Speaker 2: up with that you could deal with.
Speaker 1: So why did you go to boarding school?
Speaker 2: My dad? I went to my dad's boarding school. It
Speaker 2: was just, you know, I got you know, my parents
Speaker 2: wanted me to go there. So I went up there
Speaker 2: to Darlington. It was in Rome, Georgia, and it was
Speaker 2: where my dad and my godfather went and so it
Speaker 2: was a great school and it was kind of cool.
Speaker 2: But you know, I went there for a year and
Speaker 2: then came back.
Speaker 1: And what about your brother do he go there too?
Speaker 2: He didn't go there. He went to a school because
Speaker 2: Chris was dyslexic, so he had some learning issues, and
Speaker 2: he went to the school called Brandon Hall, which was
Speaker 2: more of like a tutorial school. There was one on
Speaker 2: one teacher on one student or one teacher on two
Speaker 2: students and they were designed to be able to deal
Speaker 2: with those issues at that time, and I wound up
Speaker 2: going to Brandon Hall two for a year as well.
Speaker 1: So tell me about the ocd.
Speaker 2: Uh. It's just something that I've always had and it
Speaker 2: was pretty you know, pretty It's just extreme anxiety of
Speaker 2: the world, you know. I you know, I feel energy
Speaker 2: from people and from places, and I can and I've
Speaker 2: always been able to feel it. And when I walk
Speaker 2: into a room, the energy can be like crushing, where
Speaker 2: it can be pleasant, you know, just kind of depends
Speaker 2: on which room and where you're being in. The same
Speaker 2: thing goes for people. There's certain people that when they
Speaker 2: come around, their energy doesn't work with mine, and then
Speaker 2: other times the energy works and it's great. And so
Speaker 2: it's just it's just something I've had to deal with.
Speaker 2: I mean, as I got older, I was able to
Speaker 2: control it, and then now it's just kind of it's
Speaker 2: very little. But as when I was a kid and
Speaker 2: I didn't know what was going on, and my mom
Speaker 2: tried to understand, and she tried to look into it
Speaker 2: and and was helpful, you know, but ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: no one talked about it and no one knew much
Speaker 2: about it, so it was kind of it was just
Speaker 2: something I had to deal with.
Speaker 1: Well, do you have rituals, repetitions, you know, focus on things?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I used to weigh more and now it's now
Speaker 2: there's certain things that I'll but not I don't have
Speaker 2: any of those anymore. I don't have to like do
Speaker 2: you know, repeated things and you know, touch surfaces or
Speaker 2: do this or do that, you know. I kind of
Speaker 2: I was able to get past.
Speaker 1: That and with help or you just outgrew it.
Speaker 2: I I I went to actually went with my first wife.
Speaker 2: We went to a marriage counselor, and she and the
Speaker 2: marriage counselor and this came up, and the marriage counselor
Speaker 2: told me she just said, well, you know, follow it through,
Speaker 2: like what's going to happen if this happens. And then
Speaker 2: it just clicked with me, just just that simple thing
Speaker 2: was like, Wow, you're right, She's like, you know, how
Speaker 2: is this going to continue down the road? There is
Speaker 2: an end? You know. I mean, because when I was
Speaker 2: a kid, there was so much there was a lot
Speaker 2: of pressure because you know, I was writing these songs.
Speaker 2: I was the youngest in the band, and I remember writing,
Speaker 2: you know, having to write a whole record, and you know,
Speaker 2: because I was young, and because as the band got bigger,
Speaker 2: Chris and I became more volatile towards each other because
Speaker 2: everyone was buying for you know, you know, who's say
Speaker 2: is going to be what or whatever, And there was
Speaker 2: a lot of resentment growing and I would get panic attacks,
Speaker 2: you know when I when I was like twenty two
Speaker 2: or twenty three. You know, you come off a record
Speaker 2: like Shake Your money Maker. I was nineteen when I
Speaker 2: made it, sold seven million albums, and then all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, you're supposed to make another record, and so
Speaker 2: we just go in and do it without thinking about it.
Speaker 2: But by the time we got to America, it was
Speaker 2: like a thing. And I was and I was getting
Speaker 2: married and making this record and all these things were
Speaker 2: kind of hitting me at the same time. And that
Speaker 2: was one hundred percent, I think, circling the center issue,
Speaker 2: which was this OCD shit that I had to deal with.
Speaker 1: So when was the last time you had a panic attack?
Speaker 2: Well, my mom gave me some amazing advice one time
Speaker 2: because she used to have them, and she just said,
Speaker 2: there's a time limit, like the physical effects of a
Speaker 2: panic attack last ninety seconds. And when I knew that
Speaker 2: there was a time limit, then I was like, oh shit.
Speaker 2: Logically I could look at that and say, this isn't forever.
Speaker 2: And knowing that there was a time limit to it,
Speaker 2: then I was able to kind of see when it
Speaker 2: was coming or when they were coming, and then work
Speaker 2: through it in a logical way. And then I haven't
Speaker 2: had one since.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, so you talk about your brother coming
Speaker 1: home with these records. He's reading the credits, you're analyzing,
Speaker 1: learning how to play all the parts. You remember what
Speaker 1: some of those records were.
Speaker 2: I mean early on it was like you know, rim records,
Speaker 2: the replacements, you know. I remember he had a David
Speaker 2: Bowie record. I think it was like the greatest hits.
Speaker 2: I think it was Change is One or something, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of and I love David Bowie
Speaker 2: and I love those songs. And when I first heard Murmur,
Speaker 2: just this sound of that record was so profound to me,
Speaker 2: you know, it just kind of I remember hearing it
Speaker 2: on this station in Atlanta. It was called ninety six Rock,
Speaker 2: which played like and you know, like like you know,
Speaker 2: skinnerd or whatever, but they're playing this and I heard
Speaker 2: Radio for Europe and it was one of the coolest
Speaker 2: sounding things I'd ever heard, and it just hit me.
Speaker 2: And so I would listen to that record, you know,
Speaker 2: a thousand times. You know, a lot of stuff like that,
Speaker 2: Chronic Town. Then there were bands that came from California,
Speaker 2: like the Rain Parade, which were part of this Paisley
Speaker 2: underground movement that was out there. The Long Riders, the
Speaker 2: Rain Parade, the Three o'clock, the Dream Syndicate. We were
Speaker 2: way into you know, X. I loved X. I loved
Speaker 2: the I mean, Billy Zoom is an amazing guitar player,
Speaker 2: and the songs were deeper and cooler than some of
Speaker 2: the punk rock that we first got into, like the
Speaker 2: Dead Kennedy's or The Black Flag or that, and so
Speaker 2: it was like the Clash and it became more like
Speaker 2: rock and roll thing because the Clash and X and
Speaker 2: these bands and the Ramones and you know, they were
Speaker 2: more they were more rock and roll and they had
Speaker 2: some swing, they had some difference and it wasn't just
Speaker 2: hardcore punk. Yeah, So you know, that's kind of where
Speaker 2: it started. My dad had the first thing I taught
Speaker 2: myself how to play on guitar was a Dylan song.
Speaker 2: It was Oxford Town and Dad had he had that
Speaker 2: record at home, and I was and I just remember
Speaker 2: picking it out and then I picked out a couple
Speaker 2: of rim songs, and I picked out a couple of things,
Speaker 2: and that's just that's just how it got started.
Speaker 1: Okay. Was the guitar the first instrument you played?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And I started banging around on my dad's guitar.
Speaker 2: He had this, He had this guitar that was a
Speaker 2: it was an old it was nineteen fifty three Martin
Speaker 2: d twenty eight wow or fifty four, and so I
Speaker 2: just remember picking it up and listening and like picking
Speaker 2: stuff out on the guitar, just picking it out. And
Speaker 2: then Dad would be like, you know, he didn't want
Speaker 2: us messing around with that guitar. So she was like,
Speaker 2: all right, here's four chords or four or five chords.
Speaker 2: He's showed me like ed AC and g and then
Speaker 2: he showed me how to do harmonics, like this is
Speaker 2: what you do to make a harmonic, and that was
Speaker 2: about it. He was gregarious. He was great. I loved him,
Speaker 2: but he did not have the patience to like sit
Speaker 2: down and teach me more than that, so I had
Speaker 2: to grow what you know. I never started playing guitar
Speaker 2: really till I was fifteen, fourteen or fifteen, and so
Speaker 2: I was late, you know, doing that, but I just
Speaker 2: kept at it and I was and so, you know,
Speaker 2: I took those five chords and the first thing I
Speaker 2: started doing was writing songs. And so Chris got a
Speaker 2: bass for Christmas, and I got a guitar for Christmas,
Speaker 2: and then we got an amp to share and it
Speaker 2: was a bass amp and that was kind of it.
Speaker 2: And Chris, you know, he kind of played bass for
Speaker 2: a little bit, but he went he decided to be
Speaker 2: a singer, you know. So that's how that that's how
Speaker 2: that worked.
Speaker 1: So what was the guitar you got?
Speaker 2: I got a Lotus. It was a I guess it
Speaker 2: was a Japanese company. It was called Lotus, and it
Speaker 2: was a strat copy and so it looked like a
Speaker 2: stratocaster and we were into U two at the time,
Speaker 2: and it was like the edge is black and white
Speaker 2: strat that he had. I remember that. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, that's cool. It's like the Edges guitar. But
Speaker 2: it was the name of the brand was Lotus, and
Speaker 2: uh and there was a bit there was a punk
Speaker 2: rock band in Atlanta called Neon Christ, and I slapped
Speaker 2: a big Neon Christ sticker on it.
Speaker 1: So, okay, it came late fourteen or fifteen. Your dad
Speaker 1: showed you a few chords. Did you ever take any lessons?
Speaker 2: No, I always most of the things I've done, I
Speaker 2: kind of taught myself, you know, taught myself how to
Speaker 2: ride a bike. I taught myself really how to swim.
Speaker 2: I had a little bit of help, but it was
Speaker 2: just like, you know, they would throw you in the
Speaker 2: pool and like you got to deal with it. I
Speaker 2: remember them pushing us off the diving board in Atlanta
Speaker 2: at the YMCA, and Chris and I just having to
Speaker 2: you know, make it, and so you just kind of
Speaker 2: have to do what you have to do. So a
Speaker 2: lot of those things I just taught myself and I
Speaker 2: so I started writing songs pretty quickly, and you know,
Speaker 2: we weren't much of a cover band. We were always
Speaker 2: right off the bat, just writing our own stuff. And
Speaker 2: one guy, you know, Chris, moved out when he was eighteen,
Speaker 2: so he's two and a half years older than me.
Speaker 2: I was still I was sixteen at the time. Maybe
Speaker 2: I was fifteen, and there was a he lived with
Speaker 2: Steve Gorman, our old drummer, and Steve and Spinn and
Speaker 2: these other guys moved in with Chris into a house.
Speaker 2: And one of the guys in Steve's band was called Mary.
Speaker 2: My hope that one of the guys, his name is
Speaker 2: James Hall. He was the singer. And James showed me
Speaker 2: what open e with tuning was because I heard a
Speaker 2: song and I was like, what is that? That's amazing,
Speaker 2: you know, and he was like, oh, that's open tuning,
Speaker 2: this open e and you showed it to me, and
Speaker 2: it just sounded different to me. It just sounded so
Speaker 2: different than even just someone strumming an e and what
Speaker 2: you could do with it. And so I kind of
Speaker 2: started with that and just ran with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you started late and you come out full flowered
Speaker 1: five years later. Were you just practicing all the time?
Speaker 1: How'd you get so good? No?
Speaker 2: I'm you know, Chris and I hate we are the
Speaker 2: worst at rehearsing where and where even now we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got to rehearse for five days and but no,
Speaker 2: I just I mean, I stuck with it. But I
Speaker 2: loved building. It's just it's like building. It was building
Speaker 2: a song. I love taking new approaches and kind of learning.
Speaker 2: You know. Every time I would learn a new court
Speaker 2: or a new approach, that would just be another piece.
Speaker 2: There would be another word or another paragraph that I
Speaker 2: could add to my language of what I was writing
Speaker 2: or doing. We were playing shows.
Speaker 1: A little bit. You went to varying schools, but I'm
Speaker 1: older than you. The Beatle era, we all saw the Beatles.
Speaker 1: We all formed the band. Some people had downs, some
Speaker 1: people didn't. But there were bands who played at the
Speaker 1: school dances, the bar Mitzvas, whatever. What was your experience?
Speaker 1: Were a lot of people in bands? Was it something like?
Speaker 2: So? Where we were and I think the only time
Speaker 2: we ever really played out where we were was we
Speaker 2: played a graduate, Chris's graduation party, and it didn't end well.
Speaker 2: But we played Chris's graduation party, and that was really
Speaker 2: the only time. Maybe another time at like a house
Speaker 2: party out there that we played, but yeah, that was it.
Speaker 2: Every other time. We kind of went straight to downtown
Speaker 2: Atlanta and we started playing in the Atlanta music scene,
Speaker 2: which was more of an alternative scene. There was a
Speaker 2: lot of punk rock bands there, but there was a
Speaker 2: lot of you know, RIM kicked the door open for
Speaker 2: tons of bands in Atlanta that were part of that.
Speaker 2: I mean Rim and the B fifty two's. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was a ton of stuff in the South between
Speaker 2: Nashville between Chapel Hill, where you had bands like Let's
Speaker 2: Active and you know the DB's, and then you had
Speaker 2: you know, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa and Columbia, South Carolina. So
Speaker 2: there was a ton of bands in that area. And
Speaker 2: Atlanta was the biggest city in the whole Southeast, so
Speaker 2: a lot of those bands would come through and we
Speaker 2: would play. But that's where we were, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean. We started with bands like Driving and Crying
Speaker 2: they were going at the same time, and a lot
Speaker 2: of local bands, and so that's I would get in, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I would finish with school when I by
Speaker 2: the time I was sixteen, I had my own car,
Speaker 2: so finished school in our drive sound check. So we
Speaker 2: would be playing shows. We played shows and Athens. We
Speaker 2: played shows, you know, all over even on weeknights, and
Speaker 2: I would finish school, come home, get my guitar, drive
Speaker 2: down to you know, to cab County or Atlanta or
Speaker 2: wherever we were playing a show, and then I would
Speaker 2: play the show, then come home by one in the morning,
Speaker 2: and the wake up and go to school the next day.
Speaker 1: Okay, your brother moves out, he's living with other players.
Speaker 1: At what point does it become a band or was
Speaker 1: it already a band before that?
Speaker 2: You know, it was a band before that, because you know,
Speaker 2: we started a band. It was like our cousin was
Speaker 2: on drums and because he got a drum kit for Christmas,
Speaker 2: and we got guitars and a bass and so we
Speaker 2: just kind of started bashing around right off the bat.
Speaker 2: But my cousin was playing soccer and his dad wanted
Speaker 2: him to didn't want him to be in a rock band,
Speaker 2: I guess. So we you know, we took it seriously
Speaker 2: and he wasn't prepared to take it the way we
Speaker 2: took it, I guess, And so we you know, started
Speaker 2: just bringing in new people. We brought in a new
Speaker 2: bass player, we brought in a drummer. So we started
Speaker 2: moving forward like that, like we didn't there there was
Speaker 2: never a time where Chris and I were like, let's
Speaker 2: be in a band, let's do this. We just kind
Speaker 2: of did it, you know what I mean. It was like,
Speaker 2: all right, well he left, so let's get another guy
Speaker 2: in here. And while we're at it, let's get this
Speaker 2: bass player, this guy Keith Joyner who played bass with us.
Speaker 2: He was a really good musician. And Jeff Sullivan from
Speaker 2: Actually who went on to play with Driving Crying. He
Speaker 2: was our drummer. And so we just started doing you know,
Speaker 2: more and more shows, you know, talent shows or shows
Speaker 2: at clubs. The first club show I ever played was
Speaker 2: I was fifteen, and we played the day of Live
Speaker 2: Aid and it was in Chattanoogam. We drove up there
Speaker 2: and opened for this band from California called Yoh, And
Speaker 2: you know, we just we packed up to station wagons
Speaker 2: full of shit. We drove up there and brought some
Speaker 2: friends and the only people that were in that building
Speaker 2: were our friends. And so, you know, we kind of
Speaker 2: started pretty quickly. You know.
Speaker 1: So you're saying you never played covers, It was always originals.
Speaker 2: We did play a couple of covers, so we did
Speaker 2: play you know, we played a couple of covers, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't like our mainstay, you know, like I'm trying, like,
Speaker 2: we played a couple of velvet underground songs and what
Speaker 2: else do we play? By the time Towards the end,
Speaker 2: we were doing like Down in the Streets by the Stooges,
Speaker 2: and then we would do we'd throw in like an
Speaker 2: Aerosmith song. We did No No More.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: Actually, it's a fucking stellar No one.
Speaker 1: Ever talked about it.
Speaker 2: It's one of my favorite Aerosmith songs. But that was
Speaker 2: a night George Jacolia saw us because we actually booked
Speaker 2: some Uh. Chris was friends with this girl in Athens
Speaker 2: named Velina and she was dating Jefferson Holt who was
Speaker 2: managing RAM at the time, and Jefferson was starting a
Speaker 2: record label. And also we had been dealing with A
Speaker 2: and M Records at this all that this was all
Speaker 2: going on at the same time. A friend of ours
Speaker 2: who now owns this this I don't even know how
Speaker 2: what you would describe it, but you know, have you
Speaker 2: heard of thirty Tigers? Of course, yes. So our good
Speaker 2: friend is David Massias, right, So Dave was our first manager.
Speaker 2: He worked at the record bar in Atlanta and Chris
Speaker 2: and it was at Lenox Mall, and so Chris and
Speaker 2: I would go in there and Dave was like, I'm
Speaker 2: a drummer. So we're like, well, we live in the
Speaker 2: you know, we live out in the suburbs. You want
Speaker 2: to come try out. He came out and he was horrible.
Speaker 2: He was like, they actually had songs that I couldn't
Speaker 2: even He's like, I couldn't even hold a beat. He's like,
Speaker 2: all right, I'm not good, but I'll be your manager.
Speaker 2: We're like all right, man, you know, like whatever, we
Speaker 2: liked Dave. He was a great guy, and so Dave
Speaker 2: was like he was really supportive and cool. So he's like,
Speaker 2: here's what I want you to do. I want you
Speaker 2: to go make a demo. You have these songs. I
Speaker 2: really like them. Let's see what we can do. So
Speaker 2: he kind of he booked us. He started booking us
Speaker 2: shows in Atlanta, and he booked us a studio session
Speaker 2: at this guy's house somewhere in like I don't even.
Speaker 2: It was like Decater, Georgia or something, and this guy
Speaker 2: in the basement had his own studio, and so we
Speaker 2: went in there. We recorded maybe four or five songs,
Speaker 2: and Dave was like, you know, I'm just going to
Speaker 2: send him out and see what happened. So he sent
Speaker 2: him to A and M Records, and he sent and
Speaker 2: one of them made its way to this guy named
Speaker 2: Aaron Jacovis. I don't know if you remember that. Aaron was.
Speaker 2: So Aaron was an A and R guy at A
Speaker 2: and M, and he was like you know, he called
Speaker 2: Dave back. He's like, yeah, I like what I hear.
Speaker 2: Let's try to get him to do some demos or whatever.
Speaker 2: So he paid for us to do demos, Like was
Speaker 2: I guess it was like a technically a developmental deal
Speaker 2: with A and M. So we had two sessions of
Speaker 2: demos for A and M. And we did them in Boone,
Speaker 2: North Carolina, at this guy's house. His name was Steve
Speaker 2: Grombach and he was the producer of the third Rain
Speaker 2: Parade record, Crashing Dream, and so we were excited because
Speaker 2: we loved Drain Parade. We're like, I can't believe we're
Speaker 2: working with this guy. So we drove up there and
Speaker 2: did some stuff and we made Yeah, we did two
Speaker 2: demos with A and M. And they were cool and
Speaker 2: Aaron was kind of cool. And then he lost interest
Speaker 2: and we don't know why. He just kind of stopped
Speaker 2: calling and it just didn't happen. So that's when Jefferson
Speaker 2: got involved. And Jefferson was like, well, I have a show.
Speaker 2: He was booking a show for something up north. He's like,
Speaker 2: you guys want to do the show? And I think
Speaker 2: it was a band called Will and the Bushman and
Speaker 2: it was a It was at a club called Drums
Speaker 2: in New York, and so we were like, all right,
Speaker 2: you know, we'll go check it out. Of course, you know,
Speaker 2: we were kids. We were excited to go. So we
Speaker 2: drove up to New York and the show was in.
Speaker 2: There was a show in d C. There was a
Speaker 2: show in I think it was d C, New York
Speaker 2: and Boston. If I could be convoluting two timelines, but
Speaker 2: I think that was it. And so we went up there.
Speaker 2: We played our set, and that set in particular we
Speaker 2: played I think it was down in the Street or
Speaker 2: it was nineteen sixty nine, but we played that. We
Speaker 2: played no More and More, and we played our songs
Speaker 2: and we finished, and I remember I was sitting out
Speaker 2: in the audience and there wasn't much of an audience,
Speaker 2: and George was sitting right next to me, and he
Speaker 2: seemed so much older than me, you know, he was,
Speaker 2: he was only like maybe five years older than me.
Speaker 2: But I was like, man, who's this old guy staring
Speaker 2: at me? You know, and he was like, hey, man,
Speaker 2: that was pretty good. I'm like thanks, and he's like,
Speaker 2: I'm George. And we met him and started hanging out.
Speaker 2: And he was an A and R for A and
Speaker 2: M Records on the East Coast, so he was in
Speaker 2: the New York office and he had heard of us.
Speaker 2: He said he was in Atlanta and asked some people
Speaker 2: around if there was some good, you know bands, and
Speaker 2: someone had said us, and so he wanted to come
Speaker 2: see us in New York. So he came down and
Speaker 2: he really liked our covers. He's like, that's really cool
Speaker 2: that you did No More, No More in that iggy song,
Speaker 2: But I like your other stuff and so it was
Speaker 2: just it kind of kicked everything off, you.
Speaker 1: Know, before you get there. Once Chris is out of
Speaker 1: the house and you talk about this era of going
Speaker 1: to school and then playing at night. How much did
Speaker 1: you gig? And since you're playing all originals, where are
Speaker 1: you playing? Are you making any money? What's happening in
Speaker 1: that period?
Speaker 2: So there's no money, I mean maybe fifty bucks, one
Speaker 2: hundred bucks tops, you know, and but we're playing, you know,
Speaker 2: like we would drive up there. There was a club
Speaker 2: in Atlanta called the Cotton Club, which we remember we
Speaker 2: opened for Alex children there one time, which was pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: But that was a local club that we played a lot.
Speaker 2: There was a club called the White Dot. There was
Speaker 2: a club called The Point. There was a club on
Speaker 2: Ponce de Leon that we one of the first shows
Speaker 2: we ever played, like you know, second or third like
Speaker 2: professional shows opening for like Larry T and The Now
Speaker 2: Explosion and that was on Punts and I can't remember
Speaker 2: what this celebrity club, that's what it was. So there
Speaker 2: was a ton of clubs in Atlanta that bands would
Speaker 2: go play and they would play original music. But we
Speaker 2: I mean as far as money goes, we would make
Speaker 2: fifty bucks or one hundred bucks tops the Dugout, which
Speaker 2: was near Emory. But you know, because of the South
Speaker 2: and the way it was, we could drive up to Athens.
Speaker 2: We played the forty Wok Club, and we would play
Speaker 2: the Uptown Lounge and there was another club there called
Speaker 2: the Rockfish that we played. We would drive up to Charlotte.
Speaker 2: We would drive to Columbia. There was a place called
Speaker 2: Rockefellers in Columbia. There was another place. There was a
Speaker 2: place in Jacksonville. Man, what the fuck was the name
Speaker 2: of that place. Einstein at Gogo play in Tuscaloosa a
Speaker 2: lot playing Birmingham, and Birmingham was a couple of hours away,
Speaker 2: so we could go play there. So we built a
Speaker 2: network of shows. We could go play and do you know,
Speaker 2: either our own shows on a Tuesday night for the door,
Speaker 2: you know, or we could go you know, open for
Speaker 2: someone and get a hundred bucks here or there.
Speaker 1: It's hard to win over an audience without a record
Speaker 1: playing original material live. I mean, did you have any fans?
Speaker 1: What was going on?
Speaker 2: I mean in Atlanta people would show up, you know,
Speaker 2: there was a there was you know, it was harder
Speaker 2: to get people. Maybe Athens we had some friends, you know,
Speaker 2: but for the most part it was hard for people.
Speaker 2: It was hard to get people to show up. But
Speaker 2: we kept at it. You know, we all loved doing
Speaker 2: what we were doing and none of that really mattered
Speaker 2: to us, you know, we were just having fun.
Speaker 1: And how often would you play?
Speaker 2: We would probably I mean we got to a point
Speaker 2: where we'd probably do about four to five shows a month,
Speaker 2: you know, we try to do one every week or
Speaker 2: every at least every two weeks.
Speaker 1: Okay, from the time that you reference your first professional
Speaker 1: gig till you're sitting next to George Draculius. How long
Speaker 1: a period of time is that?
Speaker 2: It wasn't that long because I don't think I was
Speaker 2: old enough to drive. Maybe I just turned sixteen when
Speaker 2: we went to New York, because I remember driving the
Speaker 2: van and I took a right the wrong turn, and
Speaker 2: I wound up on the access road on the fifty
Speaker 2: ninth Street bridge and there's no rail right there, and
Speaker 2: they're they're like, oh my god, and like we're stuck,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm just like trying to stay away
Speaker 2: from the fucking falling into the river. So I remember
Speaker 2: driving up there, So I was probably sixteen, So maybe
Speaker 2: it was a year.
Speaker 1: Okay, when was the dream to me? Was it from
Speaker 1: day one? Or was this a lark and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you got a reaction? What was going through
Speaker 1: your head?
Speaker 2: It was more of a lark and we got a
Speaker 2: reaction for me, I mean. But also, like unlike most
Speaker 2: of the things in my life, I enjoyed the process.
Speaker 2: I was more interesting, I mean, And that's what happens
Speaker 2: when you're young. You know, the process is more fun
Speaker 2: than the end. You know, you're not looking to an
Speaker 2: end to a means to an end. You're loving the process.
Speaker 2: And like every time we would go out into the
Speaker 2: world and every time we would play one of these shows,
Speaker 2: it was always different. It was always cool, it always
Speaker 2: you know, and it shifted like that. And so the ride,
Speaker 2: the journey was what was amazing. And so we never
Speaker 2: never really I mean, I think everyone was like, oh man,
Speaker 2: it would be great to be in a huge band,
Speaker 2: but I don't think any one thought about it like that.
Speaker 1: You know. So you're sitting next to George. What happens next?
Speaker 2: So George, you know, introduced himself and George is. We
Speaker 2: love George. I mean, he's such a charming, hilarious person.
Speaker 2: He kind of became our I mean, he really did
Speaker 2: become our mentor you know, he took us in. He
Speaker 2: was like, I like your band, I like what you're doing.
Speaker 2: You know, you have ways to go, but I'm I'd
Speaker 2: like to help you get there, you know, and he would.
Speaker 2: And so we started. That's just basically when we started,
Speaker 2: and you know, he was like this kind of came
Speaker 2: up with a plan to sign us to A and M.
Speaker 2: We needed some more songs, and so he's like, I
Speaker 2: want you and Chris to go home and write, this
Speaker 2: is what I want, you know. And so Chris and
Speaker 2: I really took that. And the good thing about George
Speaker 2: is that, you know, he let us figure it out ourselves.
Speaker 2: He wasn't saying it wasn't the type of producer or
Speaker 2: an R guy that would be like, you got to
Speaker 2: write this kind of song and this is what you
Speaker 2: need to do. But we would send him a song,
Speaker 2: he'd be like, ah, that sounds good, keep at it,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's good and bad and it's not
Speaker 2: really bad. But for us at the time, it was
Speaker 2: frustrating because we're like, well, what are we doing wrong.
Speaker 2: It's like nothing, you just have to come to this
Speaker 2: on your own. And so in that sense, it did
Speaker 2: give us a work ethic to where we would just
Speaker 2: constantly write and constantly write until we reached a level
Speaker 2: where we where we you know, I mean, I kind
Speaker 2: of remember the first song I wrote for Shake Your
Speaker 2: Money Maker. That was on where she Talks to Angels,
Speaker 2: and I was like seventeen and it was an open
Speaker 2: E tuning and I wrote it and I knew something
Speaker 2: different was there. And then one of the next songs
Speaker 2: was Jealous again and I remember we were opening for
Speaker 2: Driving and Crying in now Spille at the exit in
Speaker 2: and they heard that song at sound checking there and
Speaker 2: and their guitar player was like, holy shit, what is
Speaker 2: that song? We're like, Oh, it was just one we
Speaker 2: just wrote, you know what I mean, And you know,
Speaker 2: Chris and I had just finished it, and so you
Speaker 2: could kind of tell when the new stuff was coming
Speaker 2: in and it was much better, you know. And that
Speaker 2: was one hundred percent because of George telling us like,
Speaker 2: that's really good. Keep trying, buddy, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: that's that's cool, but you got to keep trying to
Speaker 2: keep trying. And so we really, I think it helped
Speaker 2: us hone our uh our writing skills. It helped us,
Speaker 2: you know, learn a little bit of patients, although we're
Speaker 2: not the most patient people. And it really it really
Speaker 2: brought us to this place, you know, where we were
Speaker 2: where we put in the hard work to make these
Speaker 2: songs the best they could be.
Speaker 1: So from the time you meet George to the time
Speaker 1: you sign a deal when you go in the studio,
Speaker 1: how long a time is that.
Speaker 2: So I met George when I was sixteen, I think
Speaker 2: it was sixteen. By eighteen so in two years we
Speaker 2: were making Shake Your Money Maker, we did a demo
Speaker 2: session at the place we were going to record, where
Speaker 2: we just went in and recorded all the framework of
Speaker 2: all the songs, and then we were going to start
Speaker 2: again in like March. I think it was March or
Speaker 2: April when we started making the record, And so so
Speaker 2: it was a couple of years, and we had a
Speaker 2: couple of times where George would come down, you know,
Speaker 2: because it wasn't like once we met him, we all
Speaker 2: went home. We would talk to him every once in
Speaker 2: a while, we'd write a song, we'd send it to him.
Speaker 2: There wasn't a plan, and so it didn't really start
Speaker 2: moving quickly until we got to let's say, eight songs
Speaker 2: that he thought were worthy of putting our record. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like, all right, these eight are cool. We need
Speaker 2: a ballot, or we need this, or we need that,
Speaker 2: or we would kind of you know, George. It was
Speaker 2: George had this idea of doing hard to handle and
Speaker 2: you know, and yeah, and and so those were the
Speaker 2: kind of suggestions that he brought, you know. And I
Speaker 2: think it was Chris that said, well, I don't want
Speaker 2: to do an Otis redding. I'm not. You know, I'm
Speaker 2: like twenty years old. I don't want to bust out
Speaker 2: an otis writing song. But he said, what if you
Speaker 2: do it like walk this way, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: like a more rock and roll version. So that's what
Speaker 2: was cool with it. And as time went on and
Speaker 2: as more songs went and that he liked and we
Speaker 2: were moving towards something, that's when it started speeding up.
Speaker 2: And so by the time I had like she Talks
Speaker 2: to Angels, which was set, I was seventeen. So within
Speaker 2: those two years is really you know, when we started
Speaker 2: making the record.
Speaker 1: Well what point do you make a deal with Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin and Death American.
Speaker 2: We didn't sign a deal until after we made the record,
Speaker 2: and you know, we never really saw any money until
Speaker 2: after the record was done. Like Rick just kind of
Speaker 2: paid for stuff, and but you know it was it
Speaker 2: was real loose and not you know, but we trusted George,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like we just he was like,
Speaker 2: let's go make a record. We're like, all right, great,
Speaker 2: so we go in. We made this record. Took us
Speaker 2: a month. It costs like seventy thousand dollars to make.
Speaker 2: I remember because I was a kid and I was like, wow, you.
Speaker 1: Know, well, who was it George's seventy k who was paying?
Speaker 2: No, it was Rick. But like George wouldn't buy you know,
Speaker 2: there was no food, there was no strings, there was
Speaker 2: no like the one thing they paid for. It was
Speaker 2: like I had this telecaster and it needed it was
Speaker 2: totally needed to be refretted, and George paid for that.
Speaker 2: And that was about it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: It was like nothing else. And so we would go
Speaker 2: to you know, we would go there and we'd be like, man,
Speaker 2: we're hungry, and George'd be like, here when everyone share
Speaker 2: my big goal or whatever it was, or you know,
Speaker 2: he would buy some fries and be like, everyone share
Speaker 2: my frid like it wasn't you know which at the time,
Speaker 2: we didn't care because it was funny, you know, like
Speaker 2: we were just like whatever, we're making a record. But
Speaker 2: the studio and all that was paid for by Rick.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming, you know, we never really know what happened
Speaker 2: with that. But and then you know, the record was finished.
Speaker 2: We didn't have a manager yet, so then we had
Speaker 2: started looking for management, you know what I mean, And
Speaker 2: that's when we decided to you know, that's when the
Speaker 2: late the contract came in and there was this attorney
Speaker 2: in Atlanta who it wasn't great and he basically it
Speaker 2: was a really shit deal and it was like Rick
Speaker 2: owned a lot of stuff that he shouldn't have owned,
Speaker 2: and we were getting paid nothing. And the guy was like, look,
Speaker 2: this is the best you're going to get. You might
Speaker 2: as well sign it, and you know, being teenagers, were like,
Speaker 2: all right, you know, I guess we should sign it.
Speaker 2: And you know, but we got out of that quickly.
Speaker 2: We hired a manager that was that was able to
Speaker 2: see and we found a way to renegotiate and get
Speaker 2: all of it back.
Speaker 1: Was that before or after the record came out.
Speaker 2: It was after the record came out we had to
Speaker 2: deal with the deal that we had. But then a
Speaker 2: year into the tour, we discovered that, you know, as
Speaker 2: the record was kind of taking off, Rick didn't pick
Speaker 2: up the option for the second record and he just
Speaker 2: forgot and so we were five million records sold by then,
Speaker 2: and we were lying. And so our manager was like
Speaker 2: because he went to him and good our manager went
Speaker 2: to him in good faith and just said like, come on, man,
Speaker 2: this is a shit deal. You know, this is a
Speaker 2: shit deal. Let's make it right, you know what I mean, like,
Speaker 2: let's let's let's make this right. And Rick was like, nope,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing it. That's it. I'm not touching it.
Speaker 2: And so a year in or maybe it was a
Speaker 2: year or two, I can't remember the exact time. Whenever,
Speaker 2: the time was that he was supposed to pick up
Speaker 2: the option. Our manager was like, he didn't pick up
Speaker 2: the option, so we're going to go and you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to give him one more chance. Maybe he
Speaker 2: doesn't do it, then we're going to play hardball. And
Speaker 2: that's what happened, and so we got everything back retroactively
Speaker 2: signed a huge you know, it was it was like
Speaker 2: along the lines of like a Celine Dion deal, which
Speaker 2: is one of the biggest deals signed in the industry
Speaker 2: at that time. And so it was a great deal
Speaker 2: for us and it worked, and you know, so we
Speaker 2: were able to reclaim a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Who was the manager and who was the lawyer at
Speaker 1: that point.
Speaker 2: Our manager was a guy named Pete Angelus and our
Speaker 2: lawyer was John Branca.
Speaker 1: Okay brinca obviously experienced Pete Angelus has all this history.
Speaker 1: He's a wild character with David Lee Roth, how was
Speaker 1: your experience with Pete?
Speaker 2: He you know Pete when we first started, like after
Speaker 2: the record was done, we changed our name because we
Speaker 2: made the record under mister Crow's Garden and that was
Speaker 2: our more like jangly rimy kind of name that we liked.
Speaker 2: And everyone agreed at the label, like you got to
Speaker 2: change your name. Your your sound has changed, this is
Speaker 2: a new thing. Let's do this, and you know, so
Speaker 2: we kind of kicked things back and forth, and once
Speaker 2: the record was done, the name was the Black Crows.
Speaker 2: This is what it was going to be. We you know,
Speaker 2: we were looking for managers and there were a couple
Speaker 2: of guys out there that were interested, and one of
Speaker 2: them was Rob Stewart's manager, and one of them was
Speaker 2: Pete Angelis and we were talking to for a minute,
Speaker 2: but I think he obviously he had his hands full
Speaker 2: Peter Minch and Bernstein and then some smaller managers. There
Speaker 2: was a guy in Atlanta that was interested, but we
Speaker 2: just like Pete, you know, like he flew down to Atlanta,
Speaker 2: he came to see us. We did a show. He
Speaker 2: set up a show for us, and like we gave
Speaker 2: away free alcohol and like twelve people showed. It was
Speaker 2: like and we were you know, Chris and I were like, man,
Speaker 2: only you know, can't even give away tickets or whatever,
Speaker 2: and so but it was cool. He was there, he
Speaker 2: got to see it, and we just really liked him
Speaker 2: as a person personally. But I remember us always saying like, man,
Speaker 2: we're not David ly Roth and that whole thing is
Speaker 2: not us and that's not anything that we want. He goes, no,
Speaker 2: that's Dave. I understand that this is you. I totally
Speaker 2: get it. And so, you know, but yeah, he was
Speaker 2: He was smart, and he had a vision and we,
Speaker 2: you know, we appreciated his vision. And that's who he chose.
Speaker 1: And how long did he last?
Speaker 2: He was our manager for like twenty four years?
Speaker 1: Okay, how long after the album is finished is it released?
Speaker 2: So we finished in the summer of eighty nine and
Speaker 2: it came out in March of ninety.
Speaker 1: What transpires in those six months and what happens in
Speaker 1: terms of the band working Once the record comes out.
Speaker 2: We start doing more shows. We now were signed to
Speaker 2: a label, we have a record, and so we can
Speaker 2: start doing more and more. You know, we have the
Speaker 2: opportunity to do more stuff. And we started opening for
Speaker 2: bigger bands. I remember we played with the Red Hot
Speaker 2: Chili Peppers in Atlanta at the Fox. When they were
Speaker 2: playing there, we played with this band that was they
Speaker 2: were like an indie band at the time, like a
Speaker 2: college band called the Rave Ups. No, it wasn't the
Speaker 2: Rave Ups. I can't remember the name of the band,
Speaker 2: but we opened for them as Charlotte. So we started
Speaker 2: getting more and more shows like that. There was a
Speaker 2: band in Atlanta called the swimming Pool Cues and so
Speaker 2: I remember playing with them one New Year, so we
Speaker 2: would We started like adding and ramping up the amount
Speaker 2: of shows we were playing, and we found a manager.
Speaker 2: That's when we hired Pete. We hooked up with this
Speaker 2: guy who worked for the Georgia Satellites. His name was Kevin,
Speaker 2: and he let us rehearse in his basement because that's
Speaker 2: where the satellites rehearsed. So I remember rehearsing down in
Speaker 2: the basement and he was on tour and we became
Speaker 2: and we were we paid the first month or so.
Speaker 2: When he came home from tour, he was like, man,
Speaker 2: I really like your band. I want to let you
Speaker 2: rehearse for free. I love what you're doing. Or whatever,
Speaker 2: and he became a friend of ours and he was
Speaker 2: kind of cool, put us on some he helped book
Speaker 2: us some shows too. Before this was all before we
Speaker 2: hired Pete, because Pete probably wasn't hired until January, so
Speaker 2: it was between the end of the record in January.
Speaker 2: It was about five or six months that we did
Speaker 2: for us. At the time, it felt like an eternity,
Speaker 2: you know. But you know, you look back now, you're like, man,
Speaker 2: that was nothing. And so, but you know, we kind
Speaker 2: of used his house as a headquarters to talk to
Speaker 2: these people, to talk to managers and to and we
Speaker 2: asked his advice because he had been in the industry
Speaker 2: and we thought he knew something and so, but it
Speaker 2: turned out to bite us in the ass. The night
Speaker 2: before we left, or the week before we left to
Speaker 2: go on tour, his wife was pregnant. He didn't know
Speaker 2: she was pregnant. He was going to be our tour manager,
Speaker 2: and she gave birth unexpectedly all of a sudden. He's
Speaker 2: a father, it's all. It's a whole story. She was
Speaker 2: a larger woman, and I guess she didn't tell him
Speaker 2: that she was pregnant. And then there was some drugs
Speaker 2: involved and so whatever. But so she, you know, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden he found himself as I'm a father,
Speaker 2: and so he was going to be our tour manager,
Speaker 2: but he's like, I can't. I have to stick with
Speaker 2: the satellites because they're more solid for me. So he
Speaker 2: let us go and that was cool, and then a
Speaker 2: year later, when we hit a million records, he came
Speaker 2: down to see us and started asking us for money
Speaker 2: and then started writing threatening factxes, saying he's gonna you know,
Speaker 2: we promised him something and we owe him this and
Speaker 2: wants fifty thousand dollars and if we don't pay him,
Speaker 2: it's going to get ugly, and just more and more.
Speaker 2: It kind of ramped up, and then he wound up
Speaker 2: suing us at the end of shaking money Maker for
Speaker 2: like two point two million dollars or something. That's what
Speaker 2: he was trying to sue us for.
Speaker 1: Gow did that end up?
Speaker 2: Well, he sued us and he lost, and we or No.
Speaker 2: It was a it was kind of a hung jury,
Speaker 2: and it was a weird scene because after the trial
Speaker 2: you can interview the jury and see what the thinking was.
Speaker 2: And apparently there was one guy that had convinced half
Speaker 2: of the jury that he was going to sell a
Speaker 2: book of the trial, and so he got half the
Speaker 2: jury to sign on to his book by using, you know,
Speaker 2: like a like some sort of napkin, which is what
Speaker 2: the guy like, we wrote, we wrote about this guy,
Speaker 2: you know, Kevin. We're like, you're one of us, Kevin,
Speaker 2: you know all these things, and then he said that
Speaker 2: and it was on literally on a napkin, and he
Speaker 2: said that was a contract that promised him, you know,
Speaker 2: seventeen percent of all proceeds from the record, Like we
Speaker 2: were just saying, we're going to miss you, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, It was like that. And so but
Speaker 2: this guy who was some finance guy on the jury
Speaker 2: convinced he's like a school teacher, and a person that
Speaker 2: worked for you know, Bell South at the time, which
Speaker 2: was like a phone company, and someone that was like
Speaker 2: a truck driver. He convinced them they were going to
Speaker 2: make a lot of money. So they voted against us.
Speaker 2: The other people are like, this guy's fucking crazy. He's
Speaker 2: trying to take advantage of you. We see all this
Speaker 2: that's going on. So it was a hung jury, and
Speaker 2: instead of us going back to trial and giving the
Speaker 2: attorneys another couple hundred thousand dollars. We just decided to settle,
Speaker 2: and our manager Pete flew down and negotiated with them
Speaker 2: and wound and finished it in a day, and it
Speaker 2: was done and we never had to deal with it again.
Speaker 1: Okay, from the outside, it looks like an instant's success.
Speaker 1: What was it like from the inside.
Speaker 2: From the inside, Yes, you're correct, it does look like
Speaker 2: that from the outside. From the inside, I mean, just
Speaker 2: by nature of being teen, I mean, you know, I
Speaker 2: was still a teenager. It seemed to take forever. I mean,
Speaker 2: not only was I a teenager, but most of it
Speaker 2: I was still in high school.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was like, I'm actually referring to
Speaker 1: when the record is finally released. Oh, it seemed like
Speaker 1: it was successful instantly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, we did two tours opening
Speaker 2: for these club bands. One was called a junk one
Speaker 2: was called Junkyard, and one was called MSG, which is
Speaker 2: McAuley Shanker Group. And so McCauley Shanker Group was Michael
Speaker 2: Shanker and another guy McCauley, who was a singer, and
Speaker 2: you know, they would do clubs and Junkyard did clubs,
Speaker 2: and so it was like two four. I think it
Speaker 2: was like four or six week lags around the States,
Speaker 2: just right back to back, and then we got Aerosmith
Speaker 2: and Aerosmith was kind of the first arena shows, big
Speaker 2: shows we were playing. And so right before Aerosmith, we
Speaker 2: flew to Europe to do a quick stint our, first
Speaker 2: time in Europe, came back to do Aerosmith, and it
Speaker 2: was just kind of growing, but it was it was
Speaker 2: growing steady, but it wasn't like it didn't feel like
Speaker 2: an you know, it's basically a March to December where
Speaker 2: we in December we hit a million records, the first million,
Speaker 2: and so that's you know, nine months and so for
Speaker 2: us and being on tour and how time moved back
Speaker 2: then and how we were as kids because I was
Speaker 2: I didn't turn twenty, so you know, you're dealing with
Speaker 2: you know, you're dealing with this. It seems like a
Speaker 2: long time, but it wasn't like painstaking because we're always
Speaker 2: doing something. You know, it's Junkyard and then it's this
Speaker 2: other band, and then it's Robert Plan you know, Aerosmith,
Speaker 2: Robert plant Heart. Then we played we did a headline
Speaker 2: club show, and then we played with Eazy Top, and
Speaker 2: then we finally got to the point where we could
Speaker 2: headline our own theaters because we got kicked off as
Speaker 2: Easy Top and so, you know, and then once we
Speaker 2: joined Easy Top in January, we were selling like two
Speaker 2: hundred thousand albums a week and so it quickly went
Speaker 2: from a million to three million albums like like that.
Speaker 2: And then that's when it like that January is when
Speaker 2: it just seemed to just launch, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And that's when it kicked in and we're like, holy shit,
Speaker 2: like this is a big deal.
Speaker 1: So how'd you cope with the success?
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, everyone, you know, when you're when you're
Speaker 2: on tour, you're in a bubble. You know. Some people
Speaker 2: call your bus a submarine, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And so we're and and it's very insular. So the
Speaker 2: world was changing around us, but we were still on
Speaker 2: this one path. It didn't, you know. So when we
Speaker 2: first did our first bunch of theater shows in America,
Speaker 2: that felt like a big deal. We were on the
Speaker 2: cover Rolling Stone. We got kicked off as Easy Top
Speaker 2: because Chris was you know, ZZ was at the time
Speaker 2: was sponsored by bud Light. No, it wasn't bud Light.
Speaker 2: It was Miller Lte, and so, you know, Chris was
Speaker 2: becoming slightly disillusioned with some of the older bands because
Speaker 2: they were, you know, using backing tape or taking money
Speaker 2: from corporations and and he's he's a romantic, so he
Speaker 2: was like at the time, he was like, that's kind
Speaker 2: of bullshit, you know, like, and so he would say
Speaker 2: some things like we're brought to you by no one
Speaker 2: or whatever it may be. And then ZZ, I mean
Speaker 2: Miller Lte started getting up tight about what we were saying,
Speaker 2: and so they started complaining to Bill Hamm, who was
Speaker 2: Zz's manager. And Bill Hamm would come to us, started
Speaker 2: coming to us and our manager and saying like, hey,
Speaker 2: you need to tell your singer to watch his mouth
Speaker 2: or whatever. And that was all Chris needed to make
Speaker 2: sure he didn't watch his mouth. It would just he
Speaker 2: would just go out and double down and randomly, We're
Speaker 2: playing in Atlanta at the at the Omni. There's three
Speaker 2: nights at the Omni, and we were doing it. It
Speaker 2: was scheduled to be a like a big interview with
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone, but it wasn't a cover. So they sent
Speaker 2: David Frick down. So David was down there to do
Speaker 2: this and we got That was the night we got
Speaker 2: kicked off, and they came in and they're like, all right,
Speaker 2: you know, you're off the you're off this tour. And
Speaker 2: so we were like, all right, man, you know, and
Speaker 2: it and then it was just big news. The next day,
Speaker 2: was on the cover of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The
Speaker 2: next day, you know, all of these things happened and
Speaker 2: then and it was for you know, the reason, like
Speaker 2: you know, Chris said, it's bullshit and I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: I'm I don't work for Miller Light and fuck those
Speaker 2: guys and blah blah blah blah blah, and it turned
Speaker 2: into this thing. And so that then pushed us to
Speaker 2: be on the cover Rolling Stone, and it pushed us
Speaker 2: into this next level. And so you could kind of
Speaker 2: tell at that moment that things were getting big, you know,
Speaker 2: because it was constant, certain things were consequential. And then
Speaker 2: the next and so we got kicked off as Easy Top,
Speaker 2: and that's when we booked our whole summer headline theater
Speaker 2: to Or with this band called Jellyfish opening for us,
Speaker 2: which was an amazing band and we loved touring with them,
Speaker 2: but we were playing you know, four or five thousand
Speaker 2: seat places. We played the Santa Barbara County Bowl. You know,
Speaker 2: we were playing these places and we're headlining, all of them
Speaker 2: are selling out, and it was like shit, you know,
Speaker 2: this is amazing. And then after that ended, we went
Speaker 2: to Europe and we did Monsters of Rock and Stadiums
Speaker 2: with ac DC and Metallica, which was phenomenal too, because
Speaker 2: we're playing in front of one hundred thousand people a night.
Speaker 2: We're going up there. I mean, although we were the
Speaker 2: opening band or one of the opening bands, I can't
Speaker 2: remember if we were first or second sometimes, but it
Speaker 2: was like, you know, ACDC came over and they were like,
Speaker 2: we love your band. It's proper rock and roll band.
Speaker 2: And you know, we had played some shows with Aerosmith
Speaker 2: and Metallica the summer, so we knew those guys and
Speaker 2: and it was just this thing and it was like
Speaker 2: fuck man. We played Amsterdam and Malcolm and Angus came
Speaker 2: to see us at the Paradiso on a night off,
Speaker 2: which we thought was really cool. And then we played
Speaker 2: that show in Moscow. So there was that big show
Speaker 2: in Moscow that where there was you know, a million
Speaker 2: people that showed up to it. Was US a CDC Metallica,
Speaker 2: I think Pantera was there, and it was right after
Speaker 2: the fall of you know, communists basically, and so we
Speaker 2: were flown over and that was kind of the pinnacle
Speaker 2: of everything, you know, where it was just like things
Speaker 2: were really amazing. And you know, it's always to me,
Speaker 2: I always like and it to like climbing Mount Everest.
Speaker 2: You know, we as a group of people over it.
Speaker 2: Because that tour lasted eighteen months or twenty months and
Speaker 2: three hundred and fifty shows and we just we just
Speaker 2: climbed this mountain, you know what I mean, and together
Speaker 2: and that was a really cool thing to be able
Speaker 2: to do, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, when did you see your first check?
Speaker 2: The first big check we got We signed a publishing
Speaker 2: deal and that was a big check and that really
Speaker 2: that really put a lot in perspective. So that was
Speaker 2: about a year, maybe fourteen months into the tour.
Speaker 1: So when you got money first on the contract? Was
Speaker 1: it just you and your brother forget the song, right,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the record deal? Was it just you
Speaker 1: and your brother? Are all members of the band.
Speaker 2: It was all of us, Okay, I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: So when you get the first money, what do you
Speaker 1: do with it?
Speaker 2: Well, we never got any money from Rick, and it
Speaker 2: wasn't and we didn't and we were still we were
Speaker 2: so unrecoup because we were taking so much, you know,
Speaker 2: it was like tour support, all these different things, and
Speaker 2: Rick had some interesting ways of accounting, so there was
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that was in there. It wasn't
Speaker 2: until that publishing check that Chris and I got, we
Speaker 2: each got one, that I really had a lot of
Speaker 2: money in our pockets for the first time. And I
Speaker 2: bought a house and a car, and he bought a house,
Speaker 2: and that was kind of the first, you know, but
Speaker 2: it was while I was on tour, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, because still at that time, I was flying
Speaker 2: home and staying with my parents because I never really
Speaker 2: moved out because I made the records when I was
Speaker 2: so young and then been left, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So getting my own house was a big deal. You know.
Speaker 1: Well, you make four records with Rick P. D Angelis,
Speaker 1: we negotiated the contract with Brinka. Do you ever get
Speaker 1: paid record royalties from Rick?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did after that, especially retroactively, because once we
Speaker 2: renegotiated and everything kind of came back, money started coming
Speaker 2: in that was O.
Speaker 1: Okay. In terms of the royalties, In terms of the publishing,
Speaker 1: do you still own that?
Speaker 2: Well, we get yeah, we get royalties from everything.
Speaker 1: Well, I guess that you were in an era the
Speaker 1: last five seven years where people are selling their catalogs,
Speaker 1: they're selling their publishing, they're selling their royalties. Is that
Speaker 1: something you've ever done?
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I mean no one's talked to I mean,
Speaker 2: we haven't really talked about it right now about that
Speaker 2: because a lot of people are selling their stuff, but
Speaker 2: you have not. No, we haven't sold it. Now.
Speaker 1: Okay, if you never worked again, do you get enough
Speaker 1: money coming in from all this that you don't have
Speaker 1: to work?
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, we would have to make adjustments, but yeah,
Speaker 2: we do. Well.
Speaker 1: Okay, So now let's go back. When do you start
Speaker 1: thinking about and writing and recording the second album?
Speaker 2: Chris and I were writing songs. I mean, we wrote
Speaker 2: maybe two or three albums worth the material during the
Speaker 2: Shaker Moneymaker tour, and so you know, we're constantly writing,
Speaker 2: and so there were two or three songs that we
Speaker 2: had that wound up being on Southern Harmony. One was
Speaker 2: my Morning Song. I remember writing that in Houston while
Speaker 2: we were on tour with Jellyfish, and then I wrote
Speaker 2: Thrown to My Pride. I remember playing Thorn in My
Speaker 2: Pride in.
Speaker 1: Which is my favorite Black Rose song. I'll just leave
Speaker 1: it at that.
Speaker 2: Oh well, thank you. I remember playing that in Dublin
Speaker 2: one of the last shows. And then I wrote black
Speaker 2: Moon Creeping at the sound check in at the County
Speaker 2: Bowl in San Barbara. So we had those three songs,
Speaker 2: and then but when we got to when it was
Speaker 2: time to make that record, because we got home like
Speaker 2: right around Halloween, like it was fat, I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: like we finished. I think it was like a week
Speaker 2: before Halloween, and George came out because we were going
Speaker 2: to start writing the next record. We wanted to go
Speaker 2: right in. We felt like we had all this newfound
Speaker 2: power as a band, you know what I mean, like
Speaker 2: playing three hundred and fifty shows straight, We're like firing
Speaker 2: on all cylinders. We want to use that. So Chris
Speaker 2: had bought his house. I had my house, so we
Speaker 2: you know, Chris had a setup in his base in
Speaker 2: his garage and it was just me and him and
Speaker 2: I went over there. We wrote the rest of the
Speaker 2: record in about three in about two to three days,
Speaker 2: it was over the weekend. You know, George was there
Speaker 2: and he was on the phone a lot, and so
Speaker 2: I remember he was upstairs and Chris and I would
Speaker 2: just be writing, like George's on the phone, you know,
Speaker 2: so let's just write. And then at the end of
Speaker 2: the weekend, George like, all right, let's get started, and
Speaker 2: Chris and I were like, we're done. Like, you know,
Speaker 2: we weren't going to let We weren't going to let pressure.
Speaker 2: We weren't going to allow pressure to have any effect
Speaker 2: on how we wrote that record. We were excited to
Speaker 2: write it, we wanted and the songs were rocking and
Speaker 2: it was we were really happy with what was coming out.
Speaker 2: But we weren't going to be too precious about it.
Speaker 2: We weren't going to like sit and try to, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we sold all these records, we need to
Speaker 2: try to do that again. And where's this where's the
Speaker 2: hard to handle, And where's this she talks to angels
Speaker 2: or whatever. We were just like, man, fuck it, this
Speaker 2: is a record we're going in. We're gonna make it,
Speaker 2: and we made it in eight days. It took us
Speaker 2: eight days to make that record, and most of the
Speaker 2: takes were single takes. The first time we played it
Speaker 2: to tape is when is the one that was in
Speaker 2: and then the rest of them were second tape. There
Speaker 2: were no you know, songs that took ten takes or
Speaker 2: you know, we had to keep coming back to. It
Speaker 2: was just we were in. We were firing on all cylinders.
Speaker 2: It was it was done, and we were thrilled with
Speaker 2: what it was.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, that album goes double platinum, then the
Speaker 1: sales start to decrease. To what degree does that bother
Speaker 1: you it?
Speaker 2: You know, it debuted at one and it was poised
Speaker 2: to but you know it was poised to go, you know,
Speaker 2: but also at the time, at the end of Shaking
Speaker 2: money Makers, when grunge came out, right, like Nirvana's first
Speaker 2: record came out at the end of that record, So
Speaker 2: there was hair metal, then there was and then for
Speaker 2: a short year and then it was like Nirvana and
Speaker 2: grunge came and so you know, we had about an
Speaker 2: eighteen month period where you know, we kind of pushed
Speaker 2: hair metal out of the way for something different, and
Speaker 2: then this other thing came and so we were you know,
Speaker 2: we were playing roots rock music, roots rock and roll music,
Speaker 2: and also we chose our own path. Like again, we've
Speaker 2: always been on our own path. When Some Harmony was
Speaker 2: finished before it came out, Lars called me from Metallica
Speaker 2: and was like they were getting you know, They're like,
Speaker 2: we're doing the Stadium tour with Guns and Roses and
Speaker 2: we want you to be on the tour with us,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I was like, oh, wow, you
Speaker 2: know that would be cool. But I said, I think
Speaker 2: we're going to do our own thing, you know, we
Speaker 2: want to do our own tour. And Lars was like, man,
Speaker 2: you're making a mistake. You know. He was really cool,
Speaker 2: he was always great, but he was like, I think
Speaker 2: it would be really good for your career, you know,
Speaker 2: to play in front of all these people. And but
Speaker 2: you know, we were really dead set on doing our
Speaker 2: own thing. And what we chose to do was three
Speaker 2: or five nights at theaters. You know, we wanted to
Speaker 2: go in. We opened three nights at this theater and
Speaker 2: you know, in Minneapolis, and then played you know, five
Speaker 2: nights at the Fox and five nights at the Beacon
Speaker 2: in New York. And we we kind of took a
Speaker 2: different approach and a different route, you know, And so
Speaker 2: I don't know, chicken or egg what came before then.
Speaker 2: But as we're going off on our own and doing
Speaker 2: our thing, and as the music industry is changing, we
Speaker 2: make a Moorica, which is not a commercial record by
Speaker 2: any means, you know, like and we weren't really trying
Speaker 2: to make a commercial record again, like we were just
Speaker 2: you know, we're always trying to push ourselves to write
Speaker 2: better songs, Chris and I are always trying to push
Speaker 2: ourselves to write better songs. And you know, another fifteen
Speaker 2: or eighteen month tour for Southern Harmony and I pick
Speaker 2: up a lot more tools than my tool belt, er
Speaker 2: language that I can use in my writing. Chris is
Speaker 2: you know, we're all pulling more life experience for us
Speaker 2: to add to what we're writing about. But we wanted
Speaker 2: to make like a we wanted to make a very
Speaker 2: specific record, and we weren't. You know, it was a
Speaker 2: much more like our songwriting became more sophisticated, came more emotional,
Speaker 2: like deeper emotionally a heavier record, and Amorica is a
Speaker 2: heavy record, and there's not a lot of room for
Speaker 2: you know, there wasn't there wasn't much thought given to
Speaker 2: the choruses or these types of things. We were just
Speaker 2: making our record. We put our head down, just went
Speaker 2: through and made this album.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Oddly enough, Rick on that record took an interest, which
Speaker 2: was really the first time he took an interest, and
Speaker 2: was like, he came to us and said, Chris and Rich,
Speaker 2: I think Descending is could be the best song you
Speaker 2: guys have ever written. He said, the verse is absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 2: The musical piece is gorgeous. It just it needs a chorus.
Speaker 2: And you know, he was like, I want to bring
Speaker 2: someone in. I want someone to you know, what tools
Speaker 2: can we give you to help you rewrite the chorus?
Speaker 2: And we were punk rock back then. We were like,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, this doesn't need a new chorus.
Speaker 2: This is how we wrote it. This is what it is.
Speaker 2: And he felt the same way about gone to the
Speaker 2: first song on the record and he was like, that
Speaker 2: just needs a chorus. It doesn't have one, you know,
Speaker 2: And in that sense he was correct, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: from a commercial standpoint, he was correct. Those two songs
Speaker 2: could have benefited from big choruses. And in my opinion,
Speaker 2: Chris's verse, what he sings on the verse and Descending
Speaker 2: is one of the lyrically and melodically is one of
Speaker 2: the most beautiful things he's ever sung.
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with Wig and what's
Speaker 1: the difference between working with him and George?
Speaker 2: Well, Jack, you know. So we made one record one
Speaker 2: America and it was called Tall. And that's when this
Speaker 2: is when Chris and I were really at odds and
Speaker 2: there was a lot of you know, substances going around
Speaker 2: with Chris and not with me, but with Chris, and
Speaker 2: so there was then there was more ego, and there
Speaker 2: was more weird stuff happening, and so he decided he
Speaker 2: wanted to produce the record. I'm like, you're not producing me, Like,
Speaker 2: I know what the fuck I'm doing. I don't need
Speaker 2: you to produce me. And so we wound up making
Speaker 2: the first record. Chris met this guy who was an engineer,
Speaker 2: but I didn't, you know, And Chris conveyed everything he
Speaker 2: wanted from a record to this guy without asking what
Speaker 2: I wanted from the record, and I'm like, well, that's
Speaker 2: not what I want, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 2: so it was just a dirge. It was like a
Speaker 2: fucking six or sex. It took seven months maybe in
Speaker 2: the studio, and it was and so we made this record,
Speaker 2: and at the end of it, we were just like,
Speaker 2: it's not very good. It's just not good. We don't
Speaker 2: I don't like it, you know. Even the other guys
Speaker 2: in the band were like, yeah, you know, I think
Speaker 2: it could have been better. Our manager was, you know,
Speaker 2: like yeah, I don't think this is it. And after that,
Speaker 2: Chris and I took some time. We got back together
Speaker 2: and we were like, well, let's make a studio album.
Speaker 2: I want something that sounds amazing in this in the sense,
Speaker 2: you know, something that is like that audio files would
Speaker 2: put on and listen and be like, man, this sounds
Speaker 2: fucking you know. The sounds can be their own sort
Speaker 2: of tapestry. And we felt really strongly about those two
Speaker 2: Jellyfish records, especially Spilt Milk the second one, because we
Speaker 2: love those guys they were our friends. But also those
Speaker 2: records sounded unbelievable. And it was Jack Quig who did
Speaker 2: that record, and so we reached out to him and
Speaker 2: he came in and we made we kind of went
Speaker 2: back in half or maybe seven out of however many
Speaker 2: songs is on America and I wrote some more songs
Speaker 2: and and then yeah, we went in and made a
Speaker 2: Moorica and it did. It was one of those things
Speaker 2: that sounds fucking stellar. It's an amazing sounding record. But again,
Speaker 2: you know, Descending Gone could have been something else if
Speaker 2: we had written, if we had focused on that, but
Speaker 2: we weren't the right place to do that.
Speaker 1: How do you end up working with Jimmy Page.
Speaker 2: So America comes out, We do that, then we make
Speaker 2: Three Snakes, and Three Snakes is kind of more of
Speaker 2: a of a pathway into We wanted to make like
Speaker 2: led Zeppelin three. The juxtaposition between like big drums and
Speaker 2: acoustic guitars, like the sound and the presentation of led
Speaker 2: Zeppelin three we loved. We're like, man, this is fucking great.
Speaker 2: What if we do this?
Speaker 1: Do this?
Speaker 2: We made this record, but again, tickets, I mean, the
Speaker 2: album sales continued to kind of plateau, and you know,
Speaker 2: people at the label were getting up tight. Our manager
Speaker 2: was kind of getting up tight. So we're like, we
Speaker 2: need to make a rock and roll record and kind
Speaker 2: of get back to our roots and see how this works.
Speaker 2: So we hired Kevin Shirley, who had been working with Aerosmith.
Speaker 2: We sign our manager was able to pull us away
Speaker 2: from Rick and get us directly onto Columbia, and so
Speaker 2: Rick wouldn't really we wouldn't. We didn't like Rick, and
Speaker 2: we didn't We couldn't, you know, we wouldn't have to
Speaker 2: deal with Rick anymore. So we signed with Columbia, do
Speaker 2: this big thing, have a comeback and made this rock
Speaker 2: and roll record, which is a great It is a
Speaker 2: really good rock and roll record. There's choruses, it's exciting,
Speaker 2: sounds good. We do a bunch of shows, do a
Speaker 2: bunch of headline shows, and then we got a bunch
Speaker 2: of Aerosmith stadium shows in Europe because they would do
Speaker 2: stadiums in Europe. And in nineteen ninety we toured with
Speaker 2: Robert Plant. He was one of one of the bands
Speaker 2: we toured with in arenas and we loved Robert. Robert
Speaker 2: was always so cool to us. Couldn't have been cooler person.
Speaker 2: The next year on Southern Harmony, Robert was doing. We
Speaker 2: were doing festivals and Robert was opening for us, which
Speaker 2: was a little weird for us. I was like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is and I remember we were playing three nights
Speaker 2: at the Royal Albert Hall in London and Robert was like,
Speaker 2: can I bring Jimmy down? We're like, fuck yeah. Of course,
Speaker 2: you know, they were putting together Page Plant, and Robert
Speaker 2: wanted Jimmy to come, and we were excited to have
Speaker 2: him come. And it was Robert and Jimmy, Jimmy and
Speaker 2: Ron Wood was there too, and we met Jimmy and
Speaker 2: he couldn't have been cooler, and he loved the band
Speaker 2: like that. I think that was the first time he'd
Speaker 2: seen us, so he really loved the band. It was like, man,
Speaker 2: you guys are great. We hung out with him and
Speaker 2: he liked it so much and he was good. And
Speaker 2: Jimmy was close with our friend Ross Halfin, who's a photographer,
Speaker 2: and so we're like, well, Jimmy, were playing in Paris
Speaker 2: in two days, if you want to come, And so
Speaker 2: Jimmy came and him and Ross flew to Paris and
Speaker 2: we were up there and you know, Chris had a
Speaker 2: bunch of vinyl on the floor because we traveled with
Speaker 2: this massive stereo in our in our dressing room, and
Speaker 2: Chris went and bought a bunch of vinyl and they
Speaker 2: would fly home with the stereo. And so Jimmy was
Speaker 2: there looking through the virus like oh yeah, I love
Speaker 2: this and this, and we really hit it off, and
Speaker 2: so you know, we always kept in touch. And then
Speaker 2: the next year the next record we played, you know,
Speaker 2: the Albert Hall, and Jimmy came down again and we
Speaker 2: just really hit it off in that way, and we
Speaker 2: had done some shows with Page Plant, so we did
Speaker 2: so the Amorica tour in the summer, we toured with
Speaker 2: the Stones and Page Plant at the same time. So
Speaker 2: in between playing with the Stones at we did three
Speaker 2: nights at Wembley Stadium. We broke off and would go
Speaker 2: do shows with the Page Plant in the UK and
Speaker 2: then come back the next night play with with the Stones.
Speaker 2: And it was like a magical, unbelievable summer of that.
Speaker 2: And so we just really headed off and it was
Speaker 2: always cool cut to by your side, by your side
Speaker 2: comes out we're doing these shows with Aerosmith. Jimmy was
Speaker 2: part of a he was part of a charity event
Speaker 2: that he I guess set up with his wife at
Speaker 2: the time, Hermione, who she was from Brazil and I
Speaker 2: think it was called the Brazilian Children's Fund and he
Speaker 2: did this thing every year at the Cafe de Perry
Speaker 2: in London, and so he wanted us to be his band.
Speaker 2: He's like, I want you guys, he goes, I've already
Speaker 2: done it with Robert and I've done it with these people,
Speaker 2: but I really want you to be my band. And
Speaker 2: so we were so flattered and like, man, we would
Speaker 2: love to first song we learned was like in My
Speaker 2: Time of Dying, which was amazing, and you know, Jimmy
Speaker 2: was like, what would you guys like to do? And
Speaker 2: we chose to do like ten Years Gone and you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: cool stuff, and so we were so excited and then
Speaker 2: we got we learned our parts in New York and
Speaker 2: got everything together and then we got together with him
Speaker 2: before the event at this place called No Me's and
Speaker 2: it was just something that was so it just felt right.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like when you play with someone that
Speaker 2: sound that is like, oh shit, you know, that just
Speaker 2: sounds like they've been in your band forever or you've
Speaker 2: been in their band forever, whatever it is. And it
Speaker 2: was so natural and so cool. And while we were
Speaker 2: doing it, our manager, actually Pete at the time, said
Speaker 2: we should do this, like let's you know, this would
Speaker 2: be cool to do. Let's do a couple of shows,
Speaker 2: and he approached Jimmy and Jimmy was like, man, I
Speaker 2: would love to do that, that's great, So he put
Speaker 2: you know, I think it was like three shows in
Speaker 2: New York, one show in Boston, wanted Detroit, and in
Speaker 2: to in La at the Greek, and so we just
Speaker 2: kind of booked these shows and said, let's see how
Speaker 2: it goes. And it was the most fun some of
Speaker 2: the coolest shit we've ever done, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: Like all these people showed up in New York. The
Speaker 2: excitement was so palpable, like you could feel it in
Speaker 2: the dressing room. You know. We played the Roseland Ballroom
Speaker 2: three nights and it was like a small place. It's
Speaker 2: like four thousand seats and you think about those people
Speaker 2: getting in to see that thing, and what's it going
Speaker 2: to be like you just felt it. And Amed Urnaguet
Speaker 2: was there and all these people came out of the
Speaker 2: out of the you know, the woodwork to see it.
Speaker 2: It was something that was amazing. Joe Perry jam with
Speaker 2: us in Boston, you know, just such a fucking cool
Speaker 2: thing to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, in two thousand and one, you do the Brotherly
Speaker 1: Love Tour with Oasis and Black Crows. I saw it
Speaker 1: at the Greek. I think you guys closed I had
Speaker 1: seen Oasis at the Whiskey. Oasis were long in the
Speaker 1: tooth at that point in time. What did you think
Speaker 1: when Oasis came back last year and sold stadiums in
Speaker 1: America forgetting?
Speaker 2: I was shocked, Like, are you fucking kidding me? I mean,
Speaker 2: I was happy for them. I love those guys, you know,
Speaker 2: but I was like, I mean, because the last time
Speaker 2: I saw them in America before they split up, they
Speaker 2: were doing theaters, you know, they never got to that
Speaker 2: level in the States, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: they're doing fucking stadiums in LA, Chicago and New York.
Speaker 2: I was I was like, oh my god, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: Chris saw a couple of the shows. I think I
Speaker 2: think he saw New York and maybe La or London.
Speaker 2: I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Okay, you and your brother get back together before COVID.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of excitement. There's a little bit of backlash.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you for it. Some people say, hey,
Speaker 1: you did it for the money. What would you say
Speaker 1: to them?
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, everyone's gonna have their take, you
Speaker 2: know the fact that we didn't. You know, there's two
Speaker 2: a band. Being in a band is like being in
Speaker 2: a marriage or being in a family. There's a family
Speaker 2: dynamic that surrounds every band, and our family band dynamic
Speaker 2: was fucking toxic, and it was toxic from the moment
Speaker 2: we started seeing success is when infighting started happening and
Speaker 2: all this shit. You know, our old drummer had said
Speaker 2: a couple of times, like the scariest thing to all
Speaker 2: of us in the band is when you and Chris
Speaker 2: get along, because we can't, you know, because there's no
Speaker 2: stopping and a lot of and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of that attitude there, and so there was a lot
Speaker 2: of there's a lot of push to keep Chris and
Speaker 2: I separate, to divide and conquer, to to push what
Speaker 2: I call little pettige power agendas that people wanted to
Speaker 2: push instead of looking at Chris and I getting along
Speaker 2: as something that's a positive for everyone. And so when
Speaker 2: we got back together, we talked about it. I mean,
Speaker 2: what most people don't understand is we got offered tours
Speaker 2: every year that we were broken up, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, like there we could have toured anytime, but
Speaker 2: at this time and moment, we you know, Chris and
Speaker 2: I had been out on our own. We think it
Speaker 2: was eight or nine years apart, and we you know,
Speaker 2: decided that it was something that was important to us
Speaker 2: and the way the way we did it was going
Speaker 2: to have to be a different way. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to do this. If we're going to
Speaker 2: just start the same bullshit, if we're going to fight
Speaker 2: and it's going to be this and there's going to
Speaker 2: be you know, pettiness and people trying to divide us.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm not going to fucking do it. I
Speaker 2: don't want to do it. And he said the same thing,
Speaker 2: and I and we both agreed that like the only
Speaker 2: way to keep it positive is to bring in new people,
Speaker 2: is to bring in new band members and bring in
Speaker 2: new management and kindind of start over where it's established
Speaker 2: that we that this is where everything comes from, and
Speaker 2: we need to just get and for Christ andize relationship
Speaker 2: and for the relationship of the band and for the
Speaker 2: and for moving forward. This is how we need to
Speaker 2: do it. And so that's what we did.
Speaker 1: Before we get back to the Black Crows, I saw
Speaker 1: you as one of the guitarist with Howard Lease in
Speaker 1: what was called Bad Company Phenomenal Show, and you were great,
Speaker 1: But how do you end up playing in that situation.
Speaker 2: There was a couple of years ago there was a
Speaker 2: tribute to Jimmy Page from the Experience Hendricks Project and
Speaker 2: I had done. After the Crows split up, I was
Speaker 2: doing my solo stuff and I got asked to do
Speaker 2: this Jimmy Hendricks tour and it was it was something
Speaker 2: I'd never done. I'm like, oh, I've never done anything
Speaker 2: like that. I've always been in my own band. I've
Speaker 2: always been kind of safe and protected in my own band.
Speaker 2: So I was like, oh wow, trying to challenge myself.
Speaker 2: And so I went out and did that and everyone
Speaker 2: was so cool. Jamie, you couldn't have been cooler. And
Speaker 2: this guy, John McDermott, who runs or manages the Hendricks catalog,
Speaker 2: was out on that tour and he was one of
Speaker 2: the people that wanted me to be involved, and so
Speaker 2: he wound up helping me out, you know, because I
Speaker 2: had a manager and it wasn't panning out, and so
Speaker 2: I asked for his help and he was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can help you out. So he helped put together
Speaker 2: a couple of things, and one of the things he
Speaker 2: put together was this tribute to Jimmy. I mean, that
Speaker 2: guy knows everyone, but Bad Company's manager asked him if
Speaker 2: I would play on a couple of things with Bad Company,
Speaker 2: and so I'm like four, because they were doing at
Speaker 2: this experience Hendrick's thing. They were doing what was the
Speaker 2: name of that band that he was in with Jimmy
Speaker 2: Radioactive and uh get Satisfaction Guaranteed the Firm.
Speaker 1: Those were the two best songs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was like, yeah, sure, you know, I'll play.
Speaker 2: I don't care. That'd be cool, you know. And so
Speaker 2: I kind of flew there and played with them and
Speaker 2: it was cool, you know, and that was it. And
Speaker 2: then about maybe a couple of months later, they called
Speaker 2: me and said, Mick Rauss can't do the American leg
Speaker 2: and we were just they were just wondering if you'd
Speaker 2: be up for filling in for six weeks, and I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, that would be amazing. I mean I love Free,
Speaker 2: I mean Free is an amazing band, and I love
Speaker 2: Simon and Andy Frasier, you know, and Paul's amazing, and
Speaker 2: so I was like fuck yeah, and I just I
Speaker 2: did it because I thought we'd play Free songs at soundcheck,
Speaker 2: you know. But but it was cool and I went
Speaker 2: and did it, and you know, Paul sounded amazing. Simon
Speaker 2: sounded great. It was a cool thing to do, and
Speaker 2: it was just six weeks and so I filled in
Speaker 2: for Mick and then he came back, and then I
Speaker 2: think is when he started having his you know, more
Speaker 2: medical issues.
Speaker 1: Did you play any free songs in soundcheck?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a little bit. You know, I think
Speaker 2: like Simon, because Howard was into it too. Howard love
Speaker 2: free and he you know, I think he played mister
Speaker 2: Big and you know Simon, but Paul wasn't having it.
Speaker 2: He's like that man never told over here. And I
Speaker 2: was like, all right, but I you know, I would
Speaker 2: have done like I'll be creeping or you know, ride
Speaker 2: on a pony or something. Would have been cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Black Groves gets back together, he amps up,
Speaker 1: COVID happens. Okay, the novelty of Black Crows being back
Speaker 1: together is over. It's been you know, seven years at
Speaker 1: this point in time. Okay, So how do you see
Speaker 1: Black Crows going forward in terms of, you know, what
Speaker 1: you want on of it? It's completely you talk about
Speaker 1: grunge coming in the early nineties, we're in an era
Speaker 1: where no one has dominance. The Rolling Stones put on
Speaker 1: a new album, it gets pressed very few people who
Speaker 1: actually listen to it. What's your vision going forward?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we love playing, we love being
Speaker 2: in the studio. We're going to do what we do,
Speaker 2: and you know, that's it's kind of what we've always done.
Speaker 2: We've always been We've always been outside what everyone else
Speaker 2: does in the industry. We've never been part of any
Speaker 2: any kind of movement. Like we were kind of our
Speaker 2: own movement for two years from ninety to ninety two,
Speaker 2: and then something else came, but we still existed consistently
Speaker 2: throughout the world unto ourselves. And so I think we're
Speaker 2: you know, just keep going as long as it's fun
Speaker 2: and as long as we feel happy about what we're doing.
Speaker 2: And you know, that's pretty much it.
Speaker 1: Do you care about the size of the audience, size
Speaker 1: of the buildings you play in?
Speaker 2: You know, we're selling more tickets still to this day
Speaker 2: than we ever did, you know, I mean consistently, we're
Speaker 2: still selling a lot of tickets. We're still selling big
Speaker 2: So I mean, it's it's cool. I mean, it's nice
Speaker 2: to have people come see you. I mean, it feels
Speaker 2: great when people come see you and they like what
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 1: Okay, the album comes out, it's a completely different era
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety. Hey, do you care about reviews? Do
Speaker 1: you care about the number of streams? And how much
Speaker 1: what of this will people see in the new sets?
Speaker 2: Again, it's one of those things you make music because
Speaker 2: you want people to like it and you want people
Speaker 2: to stream it. But if they don't, then that's cool too,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like it is what it is.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, They're going to like
Speaker 2: what they like or not like what they like. As
Speaker 2: far as as like how many songs, we'll probably play
Speaker 2: two or three songs a night, new songs from this record,
Speaker 2: maybe a song from the last from Happiness Bastards, and
Speaker 2: then a bunch of stuff from our old records, stuff
Speaker 2: that from unreleased albums and covers and you know, so
Speaker 2: we still change it up a bit, and we still
Speaker 2: you know, change the set list every night. We still
Speaker 2: add new songs in and make it dynamic, and that
Speaker 2: makes it more interesting for us.
Speaker 1: Okay, there were some other things you've done that have
Speaker 1: not been common. You've done it. You did a tour
Speaker 1: that was another under play. You've also played nights where
Speaker 1: you've played for a long time. You know, mixing it
Speaker 1: up is one thing, but left to your own devices,
Speaker 1: how do you like to do it?
Speaker 2: You know, left to our own device. I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're always kind of on our own devices. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I like changing songs every night. I like
Speaker 2: playing where we play. I like I still like getting
Speaker 2: on stage and having that band move like an engine,
Speaker 2: Like everyone is moving and everyone is It's you know,
Speaker 2: some people have likened it to like esp but we
Speaker 2: all know where we're going. We're all writing. It's like
Speaker 2: riding away. It's like everyone's writing this way. And that's
Speaker 2: the magic when it hits and everyone's doing this thing,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of and it can fall off the
Speaker 2: rails at any time, and that's what makes it exciting
Speaker 2: to me. You know, that's you know, I think being
Speaker 2: older it made us realize that, you know, there are
Speaker 2: people that want to hear she talks to Angels are
Speaker 2: hard to handle our remedy every night, you know, so
Speaker 2: we try to do that. You know, we try to
Speaker 2: play those recognizable songs every night, but then we also
Speaker 2: will add some cool, rare stuff, and we'll add some covers,
Speaker 2: and we'll add these other things. So I kind of
Speaker 2: feel like we have more of a balance now than
Speaker 2: we used to.
Speaker 1: Now. When you broke it was the tail end of
Speaker 1: the MTV rock era, but MTV was still extremely powerful
Speaker 1: hip hop for his grunge. Then hip hop starts to
Speaker 1: take over. Then it was like a floating party, a club.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could even be simple about it, say
Speaker 1: it's Sunset Strip, it's the Rainbow, etc. We live in
Speaker 1: an era where everybody can connect via the Internet, but
Speaker 1: you could live anywhere this point in time, is your
Speaker 1: life primarily your family in the Black Rows? Or to
Speaker 1: what degree are you hearing from other people? I'm more looking,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you hearing? And how is it
Speaker 1: different today as opposed to yesterday? And what do you
Speaker 1: think caused that? Just the Internet or age?
Speaker 2: Yeah? For me, I mean, you know, my family is
Speaker 2: where I spend most of my time when I'm away
Speaker 2: from the Crows, because this is because I'm gone a lot,
Speaker 2: and so this is where I want to be. And
Speaker 2: but I do you know, we do experience things. We
Speaker 2: go out and see bands and you know, see it
Speaker 2: and do other things as well as far as what
Speaker 2: the world is now versus what it used to be.
Speaker 2: It's it's I I mean, it's kind of bizarre now.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a you know, back then, there was
Speaker 2: a two formats that you could get your music out,
Speaker 2: you know, radio and MTV, and it was pretty focused
Speaker 2: and you knew that if you went out and toured
Speaker 2: and you worked hard, you could pretty much get somewhere
Speaker 2: if you worked at it for a while. You know, Now, man,
Speaker 2: there's streaming, there's social media. You know, my son tells
Speaker 2: me that everyone expects them to bring fans in and
Speaker 2: that everyone expects that. So like that, you know, you
Speaker 2: have to have x amount of social media people in
Speaker 2: order to get booked or this or that or streamed
Speaker 2: all this bullshit, and it just seems it seems bizarre
Speaker 2: to me. As far as being in a band, it's
Speaker 2: got to be really difficult because we grew up in
Speaker 2: a totally different time. And then you have a bunch
Speaker 2: of people now, the youth, they don't drink, they don't
Speaker 2: want to go out, they want to sit at home
Speaker 2: and watch Netflix or you know, do whatever they do
Speaker 2: on their phones or computers or whatever. And so you're
Speaker 2: competing with reality and with a virtual world, which is
Speaker 2: really intense and kind of anti humans. It just seems
Speaker 2: it seems the opposite of having human relations. And I
Speaker 2: think maybe that's why the youth is having such a
Speaker 2: hard time. Maybe that's why they have such anxiety. Maybe
Speaker 2: because they weren't kind of forced to go out and
Speaker 2: forge their way into the world and deal with failure
Speaker 2: and deal with rejection and be okay with it and
Speaker 2: try it again and try it again. You know, it's
Speaker 2: a different way of looking at it. And I think that,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that that's I mean, that's a shame.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 2: missing out on humanity right now, and what it means
Speaker 2: to be human, or what it means to relate to humans,
Speaker 2: and what it means to hear things that aren't perfection
Speaker 2: or what is seems to be a perceived perfection. You know, music,
Speaker 2: when you play it, when you write it, you know,
Speaker 2: you get excited when a chorus is coming, you speed
Speaker 2: up a little bit, then you kind of slow down.
Speaker 2: When the verse comes, you reset. You know, there's a bridge,
Speaker 2: you lean into it, you kind of reset after this,
Speaker 2: depending on how it is. There's humans tend to you know,
Speaker 2: the key is relative, a key of a song is relative.
Speaker 2: Some people sing slightly flat, but it's part of the
Speaker 2: charm of their voice. Some people sing a little sharp,
Speaker 2: but it's part could be the part of a charm
Speaker 2: of their voice. But what we've done with these tools
Speaker 2: is we've eradicated the human element of making music. So
Speaker 2: John Paul, you know John Bonham's you know, squeaky kick
Speaker 2: drum sound and you know, since I've been loving you
Speaker 2: would be extracted by AI because it's not part of
Speaker 2: the song. The bleed of a horn part into a
Speaker 2: drums would be extracted because it's not part of the song.
Speaker 2: Or you know, everyone puts this music in a grid
Speaker 2: and it has to be perfectly in time, and the
Speaker 2: AI fixes it and all this shit, and at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it's like, man, that's that's what
Speaker 2: music is. That's the magic. The human element of it
Speaker 2: is the magic. That's the uniqueness of it. You know,
Speaker 2: there's this song on Southern Harmony and Musical Companion one
Speaker 2: of our records called sometimes Salvation and at the end
Speaker 2: there's a circular chorus that keeps going around. And one time,
Speaker 2: because Steve and I recorded it in the room and
Speaker 2: I'm looking at him and we add a beat to it,
Speaker 2: and then just by accident, but we were both together,
Speaker 2: so we both do this thing, and you would look
Speaker 2: at it and it's different. It's never been played that
Speaker 2: way ever. Again, that's the one time it's been played
Speaker 2: that way. But it sounds fucking great. We didn't try
Speaker 2: to recreate it because we thought it would be a
Speaker 2: little hokey to recreate it. But that's a piece of
Speaker 2: magic that was caught in that moment, and that's what
Speaker 2: makes that magical. And when you suck all of that
Speaker 2: out and you take all the humanity out, and you
Speaker 2: take the breath of humanity out of music, the music
Speaker 2: that speeds up or slows down or does this or
Speaker 2: does that, that's when it gets really kind of weird
Speaker 2: and you start to look at this thing and you're like,
Speaker 2: what are we doing? You know, what the human ears
Speaker 2: meant to hear is the ear and the heart, Like
Speaker 2: the music needs to hit you in the heart and
Speaker 2: you need to be able to feel something from it.
Speaker 2: And so you know, that's where a lot of this.
Speaker 2: I do think technology in particular kind of took over
Speaker 2: and has deadened the senses of what music as it can.
Speaker 1: Be finally you grew up there. You haven't spent all
Speaker 1: your life there since. But what is different about Atlanta
Speaker 1: as opposed to New York in LA What is different
Speaker 1: about the South?
Speaker 2: The South, you know, we grew up and by osmosis
Speaker 2: we were I mean, you know, the South is a
Speaker 2: fascinating place, and it's a sensual place. The food is sensual,
Speaker 2: the sounds are sensual. The weather, I mean, shit, you know,
Speaker 2: in the summer it's fucking hot. It's this, it's that
Speaker 2: you have seasons. But there's a culture in the South
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist anywhere else in America. There's I don't
Speaker 2: think there's really anywhere in America that has a specific
Speaker 2: culture that that's like that the South does. And the
Speaker 2: South culture is an amalgamation of all these different sort
Speaker 2: of cultures that came together and created this whole thing
Speaker 2: from New Orleans to Atlanta to the Appalachian Mountains and
Speaker 2: everything kind of came And if you think about Southern
Speaker 2: writers and Southern musicians and Southern painters and Southern filmmakers
Speaker 2: and Southern and all of these things, there's a very
Speaker 2: specific thread that kind of goes through it that makes
Speaker 2: you feel a part of something something different, And there's
Speaker 2: also a lot of shame down there, I mean from
Speaker 2: the past. I mean, it's there's a there's a whole
Speaker 2: paradoxical existence in the South. That's but it's amazing, you know,
Speaker 2: you have all these elements and so you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: if you think about it coming from it, even from Georgia,
Speaker 2: you have Grand Parsons, you have ram, you have Little Richard,
Speaker 2: you have Hotus Reading, you have you know, you have
Speaker 2: the Almond Brothers. You know, you have the B fifty two's,
Speaker 2: you know, you have bands like us, you have you know,
Speaker 2: all of this music that comes from this one place,
Speaker 2: you know, and then you expand that out into Alabama
Speaker 2: and Mississippi and Louisiana and all the different types of
Speaker 2: music and the type and just the rich tapestry of
Speaker 2: all of this. Uh, you know, creativity that comes from
Speaker 2: that place, and it's in the soil and it's in
Speaker 2: the energy of the place. Uh. And it's just you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's some but it's getting lost too, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's it's it's kind of leveling out and changing
Speaker 2: as well. But when we grew up there, at the
Speaker 2: time we grew up that was palpable. You know, Rim
Speaker 2: was just as much of a Southern band to me
Speaker 2: as Skinnrid was, or you know, the Almond brothers or
Speaker 2: whoever it may be that, but their vision of the
Speaker 2: South was different. It was there was something really beautiful
Speaker 2: about it, there was something tender about it, and there
Speaker 2: was something incredibly artistic about it, but it was no
Speaker 2: less southern. You know.
Speaker 1: Well, it's been amazing talking to you, Rich, because this
Speaker 1: is gonna come out in a way that's going to
Speaker 1: sound I'm like judgment, but I'm bringing up. Your brother
Speaker 1: tends to eat up all the year, and therefore you
Speaker 1: don't get to talk that much, which gives one the
Speaker 1: impression that you're shy and you don't talk that much.
Speaker 1: But you can talk and you're you're a very sharp guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen some of the records you know, no More,
Speaker 1: No More, ten years gone, and all these others. I
Speaker 1: can talk to you for days. There's so much other stuff,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna stop it here for now. Rich. I
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for taking this time
Speaker 1: with my audience.
Speaker 2: Of course, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 2: It was great talking to him.
Speaker 1: You bet till next time. This is Bob left six