Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to Bob Leftste's podcast. My guest
Speaker 1: today is drummer, songwriter producer Stan Lynch. Stan, you have
Speaker 1: a new band, speaker wars. Why a band? Why?
Speaker 2: Now? You know I'd have to go to therapy to
Speaker 2: figure that one out. But I think it was just
Speaker 2: the time was right to play. And I think a
Speaker 2: wise man once said to me, while you can and
Speaker 2: still want to, you should. So I'm enjoying being in
Speaker 2: a group. And I love the guy that my partnered with,
Speaker 2: this guy John Christopher Davis. He's great and he's the
Speaker 2: one who sort of talked me into it. How do
Speaker 2: you know this gentleman, Stan who John?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: We met on a blind date in Nashville, Tennessee. We
Speaker 2: were both staff writers at the time different publishing companies,
Speaker 2: and John was being groomed to become a country star,
Speaker 2: if you will. We got together to write songs and
Speaker 2: bonded instantly over old rock and roll and gospel and
Speaker 2: all kinds of cool stuff. We'd both just have the
Speaker 2: same north Star. And then they I got asked to
Speaker 2: produce his record and went in and the first thing
Speaker 2: that happened was they played us both five songs that
Speaker 2: we had never heard of, and we'd been writing for
Speaker 2: his album. They played us these five Puppy Mill Nashville
Speaker 2: songs that were just horrible, and they said these are
Speaker 2: going to be your first five and I remember, without
Speaker 2: missing a beat, I didn't know you couldn't say this,
Speaker 2: but I said, these songs are horrible. Why would we
Speaker 2: cut Why would we cut these when John is such
Speaker 2: a good writer. Well, I didn't know it, but we
Speaker 2: were both fired right then, instantly, And on the way
Speaker 2: out the parking lot, I was walking out and I thought, well,
Speaker 2: this guy's gonna kick my ass. He's gonna hate me
Speaker 2: forgetting his ass fired. And I'm walking to my car
Speaker 2: and I hear it, you know, hey Lynch, And I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: oh great, this is where it ends. And he runs
Speaker 2: out and gives me a big hug and he said,
Speaker 2: thank you man. He goes nobody's ever stood up for
Speaker 2: me like that, and and he just gave me this
Speaker 2: big hug, and I went like, God, this guy's got soul.
Speaker 2: You know, he's got soul. And that kept the relationship going.
Speaker 2: It started there. We started his buds and I love
Speaker 2: the way he saying, you know, I'm a sucker for
Speaker 2: a guy who can sing. You know, as from a
Speaker 2: drummer's point of view, there's nothing more important than a
Speaker 2: singer that will set you up, you know that you
Speaker 2: want to set up. And he he, he made me
Speaker 2: feel good, you know, listening to him sing. So that's
Speaker 2: that's the story.
Speaker 1: Tell me about you said up a singer and a
Speaker 1: singer setting up the drummer.
Speaker 2: Well, and for me, this isn't every drummer, but for me,
Speaker 2: it was always about the vocal, like I was playing
Speaker 2: with it, playing around it, toying with it, trying to
Speaker 2: be inspiring and being inspired. And that was what was
Speaker 2: so wonderful about my old band was that Tom would
Speaker 2: sing every take in the studio if we if we
Speaker 2: cut sixty takes, that guy was at the mic sixty times.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of unheard of nowadays. But back then
Speaker 2: we were either so unsophisticated and didn't know any better,
Speaker 2: or that was just what we wanted to do. We
Speaker 2: wanted to be a performing band, and even in the
Speaker 2: studio we were performing. So that to me is if
Speaker 2: you know, I would work around the vocal. I never
Speaker 2: really knew what my drum part was going to be.
Speaker 2: Till I heard the singer.
Speaker 1: Okay playing live. Now, there are some drummers who wear headphones.
Speaker 1: Things are different today within ears, but back in the seventies,
Speaker 1: could you even hear the vocal to play along with it?
Speaker 2: We could once we had monitors, yeah, and that there
Speaker 2: were some unsung heroes in the band. You know, everybody
Speaker 2: thinks of like a band as they there's five guys
Speaker 2: or whatever, but there's so many. It takes a village
Speaker 2: to make a great rock and roll band. And we
Speaker 2: had this guy, Davey Bryson, who was a monitor man.
Speaker 2: And as soon as we could get a monitor guy,
Speaker 2: he was on stage with us. I mean, I can't
Speaker 2: He was as close as the bass player to me,
Speaker 2: and he was part of the show. And you could
Speaker 2: give him the little look with your upper lip that
Speaker 2: said I need more vocal or But yeah, as soon
Speaker 2: as we were a tour ring band of any whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, of any statulate bird, yes,
Speaker 2: we had a monitor guy who was second to none,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, I could hear that. I could definitely
Speaker 2: have Petty was Yeah, that would be the number one
Speaker 2: thing I needed to hear.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you met John how many years ago.
Speaker 2: Man, it's I couldn't put the date down, but it's
Speaker 2: probably been a good eighteen to twenty.
Speaker 1: Maybe, So why a band?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Why not? Okay? The record is very straight ahead rock
Speaker 1: and roll. Okay, there's a ballad that I've heard that
Speaker 1: could go, as we say in the old days, to
Speaker 1: different formats. But what I mean, you know, radios other
Speaker 1: than country doesn't really mean that much traditional radio. But
Speaker 1: you have a band. I'll just put it straight. The
Speaker 1: record's great, but it's out of sync with what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world at large. So how do you
Speaker 1: beat the system?
Speaker 2: Well, that's a two part. You made a statement and
Speaker 2: then asked a question. It's out of sink, thank god,
Speaker 2: because I'm out of sink. My whole life has been
Speaker 2: out of sink. I wouldn't know if bell bottoms are in.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know if synthesizers are in. I wouldn't know
Speaker 2: what's in. I've never known, and it's been the ultimate blessing.
Speaker 2: So let me address that. And then the question was
Speaker 2: I forget.
Speaker 1: Well, you know you're going well and you've got a
Speaker 1: great memory, and you can play back pretty well. But
Speaker 1: you answered the first half. But the decision to actually
Speaker 1: do it, And what are your thoughts in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know, getting it out to the world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, right, Well, let me first and foremost
Speaker 2: say I have extremely managed expectation. My goal, if there
Speaker 2: is one, is I'd like John to be heard because
Speaker 2: I think he's a cool singer and I think he's
Speaker 2: a cool dude. And I would like to be able
Speaker 2: to play live with guys that can play and play
Speaker 2: songs that I was part of molding and creating because
Speaker 2: I don't really want to be in a cover band
Speaker 2: and I was never worth a shit as a hired gun.
Speaker 2: I couldn't play anybody's charts but my own. And so
Speaker 2: what do I hope will happen? Maybe is hey, I
Speaker 2: hope it gets heard, and I hope you get a
Speaker 2: shot at playing some live gigs because it'd be a
Speaker 2: lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, live is where the money is today, and also
Speaker 1: with this kind of music, live is the best way
Speaker 1: to break it at this age, with this experience. How
Speaker 1: much you're willing to work.
Speaker 2: I like work, I enjoy it. This isn't work, this
Speaker 2: is this has been my church. Like the last thing
Speaker 2: I remembered, I was fifteen years old, I was working
Speaker 2: at McDonald's. That was the last time I had a
Speaker 2: job where I remembered kind of dreading going to work.
Speaker 2: And after that it was like, shit, this is this
Speaker 2: is ah, this is just what I get to do.
Speaker 2: And I'm when presented with a possibility of playing, I
Speaker 2: would play. And how much is my willing to work.
Speaker 2: I'm willing to wear my balls down to a nub
Speaker 2: if it's fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I say you're gonna play thirty dates in
Speaker 1: thirty five days, I mean, you might have a couple
Speaker 1: of questions, but you're gonna say no way, Are You're
Speaker 1: gonna say, oh, okay, let me hear the details. I
Speaker 1: could do that.
Speaker 2: I'd probably go, that's a lot of gigs in a
Speaker 2: short number of days, but let me hear the details.
Speaker 2: You know, if if it's not oppressive, or the travels
Speaker 2: not odious, or the everybody's got a good way of
Speaker 2: doing it, I would I would question the thirty five
Speaker 2: what was it thirty and thirty five days?
Speaker 1: Something that was like yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Would go, like, could be tough. At the same time,
Speaker 2: I'd go, I'd have to once again, I'd ask my singer,
Speaker 2: how many times can you walk up to the mic
Speaker 2: and do this before dust comes flying out of your throat.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, is it just the two of you or is
Speaker 1: it really a band?
Speaker 2: It's really a band now. It started with the two
Speaker 2: we added over time. Well, John had a band in Texas,
Speaker 2: so we took the pick of the litter from his
Speaker 2: group and we found a couple other guys that I
Speaker 2: really liked. I've got a really good We wanted good singers.
Speaker 2: That was really important to me that we had guys
Speaker 2: that can really sing. So we kind of handpicked and
Speaker 2: we got a band.
Speaker 1: Okay, he was in Texas. He's not a household name. No,
Speaker 1: was he earning a living playing music?
Speaker 2: Yes, good question. He's well, he's kind of an entrepreneurial
Speaker 2: guy and he owns a I got the what do
Speaker 2: you call it when lone star attitude. He's got a
Speaker 2: whole marketing thing that supports himself. He runs several businesses.
Speaker 2: One of his businesses is a booking agency, and he
Speaker 2: keeps himself busy and booked, and he loves to play
Speaker 2: gigs in Texas. Is a still has what I had
Speaker 2: when we grew up. Places to play. You can actually
Speaker 2: go work like it's that's that's gone the way of
Speaker 2: the Dodo bird now. But you can actually in Texas
Speaker 2: be a working musician with a working bands, and that's
Speaker 2: what he loves to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the record's done. Now, how long ago did
Speaker 1: you guys say we're making a record, we are a band.
Speaker 2: It was very organic process. I don't know if those
Speaker 2: two statements wherever made you consecutively. It was really during
Speaker 2: COVID that, you know, when the world came to a
Speaker 2: screeching halt, and I think I about six weeks into it,
Speaker 2: I went, well, shit, I got to do something, and
Speaker 2: I have a recording studio, and I started learning how
Speaker 2: to fileshare, you know, and create records. You know, send
Speaker 2: me this, I'll send you back, and send me this
Speaker 2: I'll send you And I did a lot of that
Speaker 2: file sharing recording during COVID. And one of the guys
Speaker 2: that was the most exciting for me was John. He
Speaker 2: would send me pieces, I'd send him back pieces. He'd
Speaker 2: get on a plane and come down because I mean,
Speaker 2: you remember at the time when we were setting fire
Speaker 2: to our groceries because we're all gonna die and you didn't,
Speaker 2: you know, So John was the you know, we'd both
Speaker 2: get tested and we'd come he'd come down and stay
Speaker 2: with me. And so we started assembling our songs and
Speaker 2: we have We got tons of songs. And then we
Speaker 2: went and to a guy Larry Maser, who uh he
Speaker 2: sort of orchestrated it. He helped us pick what he
Speaker 2: felt should be on a record, what he and we
Speaker 2: kind of went to committee at that point, which I
Speaker 2: never even considered doing. You know, I was just going,
Speaker 2: I don't know, let's just record a bunch of songs.
Speaker 2: And we did. And then after that, I've gone into
Speaker 2: band mode, which is what do y'all want to do.
Speaker 2: I'll listen, you know, I'm listening.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you've cut the record in your own home studio?
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, amongst others. There was here Dallas, I think
Speaker 2: where else we recorded, but mostly in between this another guy,
Speaker 2: Mike Pisteercy, who's really a great engineer. He's a guy
Speaker 2: in Texas who has a great facility there and he
Speaker 2: warmed to us early in the game and said you
Speaker 2: can come and work here, and he's got a sound
Speaker 2: stage and that's where we learned to be a band.
Speaker 2: We went in there and just you know, threw down
Speaker 2: and ate pizza and played our asses offten we figured
Speaker 2: out what we're doing and so, like I said, it
Speaker 2: takes a village. A band requires so many people to
Speaker 2: give a shit before it works.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know the initial Tom Petty records were cutting
Speaker 1: shelters studios, which certainly wasn't the record plant. Then there
Speaker 1: was a lot of success. You could basically work and
Speaker 1: pay whatever you want. What are your viewpoints about today's
Speaker 1: recording situation in terms of budgets? You know, do you
Speaker 1: need a big room to cut the base or you
Speaker 1: could do everything on a small level and you're happy,
Speaker 1: or you wish you had more money. What's your viewpoint there?
Speaker 2: Yes? Both, I mean it home recording now, it's no excuses.
Speaker 2: I mean, your demos can be records, and many people's
Speaker 2: they are. I mean, you know a lot of artists
Speaker 2: don't even know how to interface with a real recording
Speaker 2: studio quote unquote with musicians. And I mean, i'd say
Speaker 2: a great majority of the records we hear today are track.
Speaker 2: You know, they're created, and I prefer I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: my dream would be, you know, to go like the
Speaker 2: way I grew up. You know, I want to I
Speaker 2: want to record like Free and Bad Company, and I
Speaker 2: want to go in and just rumble for it, you know,
Speaker 2: like I love that shit counting four no click tracks,
Speaker 2: four or five guys in the room that you know
Speaker 2: that is the best. That does require a budget, because
Speaker 2: you do need some form of facility, and you're gonna
Speaker 2: need engineers, and you're gonna need people to help. Once again,
Speaker 2: when you're bearskins and knives and you're doing it yourself,
Speaker 2: you just do it. You just get in, You do
Speaker 2: whatever you can to create your product. And I'm good
Speaker 2: with either one, but I would love to have the
Speaker 2: old school way where you kind of rehearsed your songs,
Speaker 2: you knew what you were kind of gonna do, or
Speaker 2: had a rough idea, and you go in and cut
Speaker 2: three or four tunes at a time, and you had
Speaker 2: great engineers helping you get sounds and you got that
Speaker 2: energy together and it was very romantic and exciting. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure that's happening a whole lot anymore.
Speaker 1: So, how did you actually cut this record track by
Speaker 1: track or band in the room.
Speaker 2: Most of it was done. A lot of it was assembly,
Speaker 2: Like we'd start with a song as a demo and
Speaker 2: we just listen to it and go, well, how would
Speaker 2: it grow up? Would what would this thing do if
Speaker 2: it started to walk and talk? And we would build
Speaker 2: And then a few of the songs we actually did
Speaker 2: just kind of go, why don't we just play this
Speaker 2: damn thing. We've got enough guys and we've got an engineer,
Speaker 2: and the time fell on it where we could do it.
Speaker 2: But we were pretty we're pretty ghetto.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know this is not like you're seventeen. Everybody
Speaker 1: here needs to earn a living. So let's say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we want to go on the road next month, never
Speaker 1: mind six months. Rough is one band member gonna say,
Speaker 1: oh I already have gigs booked, or I got to
Speaker 1: do this, or is everybody saying this is a priority.
Speaker 2: I feel a priority out of the guys, and they've
Speaker 2: already proved it, you know, when we've had like, look,
Speaker 2: we've got two weeks and Mike set his facilities available,
Speaker 2: everybody drops everything and gets their asses there, and we
Speaker 2: all we all dig it. We're all getting it. You know.
Speaker 2: It's like and everybody's bringing something to the table, and
Speaker 2: but yeah, I don't I don't really know everybody's personal story.
Speaker 2: I mean, I haven't put my nose into everybody's tent.
Speaker 2: I'm probably in a unique situation because I can do
Speaker 2: what I love when I want to do it. So
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that that will not be a problem. And
Speaker 2: I'm pretty pretty sure that everybody's ready to roll.
Speaker 1: And at this point in time, are there any live
Speaker 1: dates booked.
Speaker 2: We're working on that. We'd have to ask Larry, but
Speaker 2: I think that's we We just did a gig in
Speaker 2: Gainsville that was fun. We went and played and just
Speaker 2: to make sure we could actually what happens if you
Speaker 2: count for live and make sure nobody make sure I
Speaker 2: don't have any excessive drinkers or you know. So it was.
Speaker 2: It was a scratching sniff to make sure everybody could
Speaker 2: do the gig. And I thought everybody did great. But
Speaker 2: at the moment, I think we got a record coming
Speaker 2: out and what is it in April? I think? Uh?
Speaker 2: And so hopefully then, like I said, I have manager expectation,
Speaker 2: but I'm feeling a little frisky that we can get
Speaker 2: some work and have some fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, you live in Florida, right, true, we're in Florida.
Speaker 1: I don't need your specific address, but generally.
Speaker 2: An undisclosed location almost at the Georgia border. I'm I
Speaker 2: have a place that's out in the middle of the
Speaker 2: woods in central Florida, outside of the town I grew
Speaker 2: up in. And uh, pretty much if you were thinking
Speaker 2: of the Panhandle, you'd be I'm kind of dead between
Speaker 2: the Panhandle and the Atlantic, right square in the middle
Speaker 2: of the state.
Speaker 1: Okay, did it snow there the other day?
Speaker 2: Close? But it's just north of us. It did, But yeah,
Speaker 2: it By the way, you're in La correct, correct? How
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 1: Well? Thanks for asking. You know, I'm not that far
Speaker 1: from the fires. And there were a couple of scary moments,
Speaker 1: and you know, we got say, okay, I got my
Speaker 1: shit ready to evacuate, but didn't have to. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people lost their houses. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a death in the family. You take it. I
Speaker 1: don't think we've completely metabolized.
Speaker 2: How could you?
Speaker 1: But uh, going back to your story, how much property
Speaker 1: do you have?
Speaker 2: I got it just coming on too close to forty
Speaker 2: acres out here. It's a tree farm that I started
Speaker 2: back in I think around seventy nine or eighty. I
Speaker 2: got started buying property here because it was just a
Speaker 2: pretty spot, and we planted a lot of trees, and
Speaker 2: we've already done a first cutting, and we've got lambs
Speaker 2: up on the pasture, and you know it's it's it's cool.
Speaker 2: I got it, Uh, I have the life. I would
Speaker 2: have never thought this was what would have been so
Speaker 2: appealing when I couldn't wait to get the hell out
Speaker 2: of here. But when it's somewhere in the somewhere. After
Speaker 2: about I guess about fifteen years of Los Angeles living,
Speaker 2: I realized, like, this isn't my home. I love it
Speaker 2: in LA. And I got great work. I had a
Speaker 2: great life, fully energized, fully realized, but I could never relax.
Speaker 2: I had an assbucker that was just tight. And when
Speaker 2: I came down here, I went like, oh, it's too close,
Speaker 2: so close to nature. I grew up on the water.
Speaker 2: I got a little place over and on the on
Speaker 2: the coast. That's fun. I can go over there, I
Speaker 2: can attempt to surf. Still, I'm that guy, you say, we, who'se? We?
Speaker 2: Me and my gal?
Speaker 1: And how long has this gal been part of the picture.
Speaker 2: Probably since I wrapped up LA. So I'm thinking she
Speaker 2: would correct me and tell me exactly, but probably since
Speaker 2: mid nineties.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've been with my girlfriend for twenty years. We're
Speaker 1: not married. You've never been married, right.
Speaker 2: Well, we never bred. Neither of us had kids, so
Speaker 2: I think it's very I think with children, it would
Speaker 2: be probably helpful if everybody had the same name. I
Speaker 2: get that. You know, that would be convenient, Like you know,
Speaker 2: all those name left SAIDs, get behind me and let's go,
Speaker 2: you know, like I mean, that would make more sense.
Speaker 2: But without kids, I want to be I'm on my
Speaker 2: best behavior as a non married man. I'm still semi courting.
Speaker 2: I'm doing my best, you know, Like, I get the
Speaker 2: feeling i'd be the kind of guy with married I
Speaker 2: might have. I would have the potential to be a
Speaker 2: dick pretty quick.
Speaker 1: Okay, this woman you met her in La? Is she
Speaker 1: from La? What does she think about living in the
Speaker 1: moonies in Florida?
Speaker 2: Well, she's from Texas. So I met her in Texas
Speaker 2: on a blind date.
Speaker 1: And wait, wait, wait, stop, stop there your rock and
Speaker 1: roll star. How did a rock and roll star go
Speaker 1: on a blind date? Tell me, well, it was nice,
Speaker 1: I was. I found myself without a well, okay, take
Speaker 1: a picture of this. I'm turning forty I've lost my job.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm kind of like, I'm scared to death. I'm single.
Speaker 2: The woman I was with had decided she'd had about
Speaker 2: enough of me, and and then I was sort of
Speaker 2: just hanging and a dear friend of mine and his
Speaker 2: wife said, you know, because I was spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time in Texas, and they said, well, we we
Speaker 2: got a gallop, but next time you're in why don't
Speaker 2: we go out for dinner? And that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're living in Florida. What's your everyday life like?
Speaker 1: Are you pretty much cloistered in your own world? Or
Speaker 1: do you have friends there you so you're more isolated?
Speaker 2: D all of the above. I mean, I've got the
Speaker 2: same crowd. I've got friends that I went to high
Speaker 2: school with. I'm that guy. I've got the same guys
Speaker 2: literally that are We talk every day. And I was
Speaker 2: in my first band with these guys when I was fourteen.
Speaker 2: There are still my friends. One of my buddies, you know,
Speaker 2: we had a music store together in Gainesville for twenty years.
Speaker 2: And so I've kept my roots were always here. My
Speaker 2: father lived here, so I got to come back here
Speaker 2: and live down the road from him and get to
Speaker 2: know him, and my everyday life is it's cool. I
Speaker 2: try to stay engaged creatively as much as I possibly can,
Speaker 2: I mean, without burning out. So I set aside time
Speaker 2: every day or you know, every other week, actually four
Speaker 2: or five days a week every other week to get
Speaker 2: in my studio and try and that's always good. My
Speaker 2: daily routines are fairly banal. I get up and take
Speaker 2: a walk. I like to cook, I like to enjoy.
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful, Bob, that's the bottom line. I'm very
Speaker 2: fucking grateful. You know that. I you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You're the one who mentioned losing
Speaker 1: your job. You know we have not met previously. You've
Speaker 1: emailed me a couple of times in the past. Okay,
Speaker 1: what do I know? You're a very just from these
Speaker 1: twenty minutes, you're a very affable guy, very easy to
Speaker 1: talk to. You work with Don Henley, who you know,
Speaker 1: generally speaking, let's call him not easy at a little prickly, okay,
Speaker 1: and you seem to get along with him. You go
Speaker 1: with Tom, who's not the most easy going guy but
Speaker 1: is easier than Don. Yet there's some friction there, you know,
Speaker 1: what's going on there?
Speaker 2: Boy? Is that a layered group of questions and statements.
Speaker 2: Don was never prickly for me. I met Don in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty and was immediately welcomed by him and Tony Tavy,
Speaker 2: who was his guy. You know, for lack of a
Speaker 2: better term, he handled you know, his Don's dude probably
Speaker 2: handled everything from his drums to making sure he got
Speaker 2: in the car. And I met them in eighty at
Speaker 2: a gig. They immediately made me feel welcome. And I
Speaker 2: didn't know him from Adam, and I'm probably more smitten
Speaker 2: with the concept of look, it's the Eagles, it's Don.
Speaker 2: And he immediately said, hey, you can sit right here
Speaker 2: on stage and if you want to watch me play drums.
Speaker 2: He immediately took treated me like I was family. So
Speaker 2: I never sensed the oh my god, you know the
Speaker 2: I never got it. I heard about it, you know,
Speaker 2: I would hear just like you like, oh, gee, Don
Speaker 2: can be tough. He's a tough Customer's this that never
Speaker 2: got it. Never felt that he was a big brother.
Speaker 2: He always looked out for me and made it real
Speaker 2: easy to hang and also gave me my second act.
Speaker 2: But that's another conversation. Okay, So then you asked Tom
Speaker 2: Now Tommy. When I met Tom, I was a little
Speaker 2: boy in Gainesville. They were a little older, and I
Speaker 2: found him to be hysterical. They were these guys were
Speaker 2: They were intelligent, They were Southern, but they weren't Hicks,
Speaker 2: and they weren't rednecks. You know, I'm from Ohio, I
Speaker 2: grew up in Florida, but I'm not so blood simple that,
Speaker 2: you know. I I see the world outside of my box.
Speaker 2: And so did Tom, So did Benmont, So did Mike,
Speaker 2: so did Ron. They were all kind of worldly even
Speaker 2: though they hadn't been exposed yet. They were wide open.
Speaker 2: They were curious, That's the one. They were curious people.
Speaker 2: They were exciting, and so my early run with the
Speaker 2: band was nothing but brotherhood. It was hysterical, and I
Speaker 2: couldn't have asked for goof of your guys to go
Speaker 2: on the quest with.
Speaker 1: So what ended? Why did it end?
Speaker 2: I probably several components to that. I think first and
Speaker 2: foremost was I had a belly full of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: I was starting to branch out, and thanks to Don
Speaker 2: and Danny Kortschmeier and Steve Lucather, I was writing and
Speaker 2: being asked to do things beyond the drumming, and that
Speaker 2: was something that always intrigued me and I wanted and
Speaker 2: I'd kind of worn out. I'd worn out on Tom
Speaker 2: Petty and the Heartbreakers. Where it was going and what
Speaker 2: music they were making. Didn't I didn't feel part of it.
Speaker 2: It was like, not what I want, not what I
Speaker 2: wanted to do naturally, and I wasn't willing to grow
Speaker 2: in the way that they needed a drummer at that point.
Speaker 2: So it was almost a subconscious conscious decision to say,
Speaker 2: fuck it, I'll just make myself so uninterested and they'll
Speaker 2: feel Everybody felt it, and I just didn't. I didn't
Speaker 2: fit in anymore, you know. I just didn't fit in.
Speaker 2: And I had a home in Florida, I loved going
Speaker 2: to and I had a whole other life, and Tom
Speaker 2: was making solo records, so it was like it was
Speaker 2: a natural movement.
Speaker 1: Well, how did you find out you were no longer
Speaker 1: in the band? And was it a shock when it happened.
Speaker 2: No, it was a surprise, but it wasn't a shock.
Speaker 2: It was no. I it was a fully executed swan
Speaker 2: dive away from the group. It wasn't he had a
Speaker 2: point of no return for everybody. Uh and how did
Speaker 2: what was the question? How did I find out? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Tony Dimitriotis called me the Bandager yep. And but you know,
Speaker 2: it was like, yeah, I was sad. I was a
Speaker 2: little I was scared, you know, because that would have
Speaker 2: been you know, I used to kid my last name
Speaker 2: is Stan drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I
Speaker 2: didn't have a last name, you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: you couldn't say that anymore. So that was weird, you know,
Speaker 2: after so many years to like go, well, I woke
Speaker 2: up with my own last name. You know, my name
Speaker 2: is Stan Lynch and I'm doing something else. So and
Speaker 2: then you know, you went through the couple of years
Speaker 2: of weren't you or did you? Or what happened? Or
Speaker 2: and then you know, it's a nice evolution, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm very grateful and thankful that I caught the
Speaker 2: wave when I did. And I'm also incredibly grateful that
Speaker 2: I didn't do that last twenty years for everybody's sake,
Speaker 2: including my own, because man, that would have been horrifying
Speaker 2: for all of us.
Speaker 1: Tell me how it would have been horrifying for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I didn't particularly care for the music, so that
Speaker 2: would have been the first and foremost. I couldn't find
Speaker 2: a way to play drums like that, which was very
Speaker 2: metronomic and that should That's sounds strange for a drummer
Speaker 2: to say, because that is your job. But it wasn't
Speaker 2: what I wanted. I wanted to be. I came from
Speaker 2: a different style of drumming. I wanted to be British.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be Keith Moon meets Mick Fleetwood meets
Speaker 2: Charlie Watts. You know. I wanted to be this free
Speaker 2: and important component within the music, not just the thing
Speaker 2: that goes boom schmeck, boom schmeck, and that once they
Speaker 2: needed boom schmack. I couldn't really even do it. Quite frankly,
Speaker 2: it was intimidating. It was it's not what I know
Speaker 2: how to do, and I'm not any good. I'm better
Speaker 2: at it now after owning a studio and producing records
Speaker 2: and learning the the job of the drummer, I've gotten better.
Speaker 2: I can do that and uh and but I just
Speaker 2: it's not where my love of drumming is.
Speaker 1: Okay, Tom Betty and the Heartbreakers, you know they have
Speaker 1: big breakthrough after declaring bankruptcy on the third album. So
Speaker 1: starting you know, around nineteen eighty they're playing arenas, but
Speaker 1: you are one member of a five member group. In addition,
Speaker 1: you're not the songwriter in the group. You lose your job.
Speaker 1: What about the money, Let me think about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there's always a fear of going broke
Speaker 2: when you're a musician, no matter how much money you got.
Speaker 2: I think that's just the nature of the beast. Like
Speaker 2: you're you know, you're essentially self and Floyd your whole life.
Speaker 2: I mean, I I was pretty good at not freaking
Speaker 2: out about money once I had some, and I wasn't.
Speaker 2: I never lived an extreme life. I lived well within
Speaker 2: my means, and so I never really felt like I
Speaker 2: was going to be living under a bridge or you
Speaker 2: know what about the money, It's nice to have it,
Speaker 2: and I've been very lucky. It seems like I've been
Speaker 2: able to do well with that. That's never been a
Speaker 2: real problem for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, when you're no longer in time Pitty and
Speaker 1: the Heartbreakers, did you have enough money that if you
Speaker 1: didn't want to play musical work you could have done that?
Speaker 2: Well? Depends on your lifestyle, don't It Absolutely I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: I probably had enough to go live in an airstream
Speaker 2: out out on the Swany River and fish for the
Speaker 2: rest of my life. But that might not have been
Speaker 2: what I wanted. But at the same time, that didn't
Speaker 2: scare me. I was never scared of having a used
Speaker 2: car and having a small house. That just didn't freak
Speaker 2: me out. I mean, I mean, I liked it. When
Speaker 2: I was a kid in LA it was fine. I
Speaker 2: had the fancy car and the groovy apartment, and you know,
Speaker 2: I had all that cool shit, the trappings of a
Speaker 2: young buck, you know. And uh, but you know, after
Speaker 2: the band was over, I was like, well, shit, I
Speaker 2: got a little place in Florida. It's fun. I got
Speaker 2: my old friends. I just didn't want to be an embarrassment.
Speaker 2: I guess more than anything, I was more. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to be I didn't want to feel like I
Speaker 2: let anybody down. I remember asking my dad, like, hey Dad,
Speaker 2: I'm not in the band anymore. You know, it didn't
Speaker 2: It's just I couldn't take it, or you know, it
Speaker 2: didn't work out. And I remember I think, and you know,
Speaker 2: am I going to be Is he gonna be ashamed
Speaker 2: or something? And it is a perfect father. He looked
Speaker 2: at me and he goes, Stan, what took you so long?
Speaker 2: And I thought, wow, he knows what I've been. You know,
Speaker 2: it was hard. He just knew, like you know, Jesus
Speaker 2: and Tom. One of the last things he said to
Speaker 2: me goes, you know, eighteen twenty years stands an ice
Speaker 2: run and I went, yeah, hard to complain, you know.
Speaker 2: And like I said, the last twenty that those guys did,
Speaker 2: I was never envious. I mean, I was happy for them,
Speaker 2: for the guys I love. I was happy that they
Speaker 2: were enjoying it. But I was never thinking, man, that
Speaker 2: should be me up there. I never had never crossed
Speaker 2: my mind.
Speaker 1: Okay, did you communicate all this to your father? Very
Speaker 1: intuitive and really knew who you were.
Speaker 2: I think Dad a little both. Yeah. Dad was smart,
Speaker 2: you know, he's he was a professor, you know, psychology,
Speaker 2: and he could overthink anything with me. You know. It
Speaker 2: was fun and I you know, I loved having him
Speaker 2: in my life because he was such a grounding force
Speaker 2: at the time. You know, he was because he never
Speaker 2: he didn't give a shit about anything, you know, Like
Speaker 2: I mean, I think I sent a couple of platinum
Speaker 2: albums to my dad, you know, when he had an office,
Speaker 2: you know, said doctor Lynch on him or something. You know,
Speaker 2: he thought that was cute. You know. He came up
Speaker 2: to Madison Square Garden we were playing up there with Dylan,
Speaker 2: and he thought that was fun and put him on
Speaker 2: the bus and you know, but he was never like
Speaker 2: taken in by it. You know, my mom loved it
Speaker 2: for different reasons too, But it was fun. I mean
Speaker 2: I had a good family, you know, I really did.
Speaker 2: You know, it was cool.
Speaker 1: Well, just before we leave the money behind, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of rockers who you're vintage will complain that
Speaker 1: streaming doesn't pay and this and that. How are your
Speaker 1: royalties at this point.
Speaker 2: I I don't know how. That's the sound of me
Speaker 2: not fucking wood. So far, my life has been good.
Speaker 2: I got a full refrigerator, nobody's ever, the lights have
Speaker 2: never gone off, got pretty cars I got. I don't
Speaker 2: want for anything. I'm sated, and uh it's a wonderful
Speaker 2: time right now for me. I mean literally, if I
Speaker 2: want it, I've got it. And if there's something in
Speaker 2: the that I see that I gotta have, I get one.
Speaker 2: And but mostly I can't speak to the actual like
Speaker 2: you asked me, like, you know, spotify royalties in these roles.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me let me generalize the question. Sure,
Speaker 1: do you have a significant or adequate or some kind
Speaker 1: of income from having been on those Tom Petty records.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been very fortunate. I was well protected and
Speaker 2: my divorce from the band was well handled by a
Speaker 2: great attorney. And I'm uh, you know, because I was
Speaker 2: ready to just throw anger and add everybody. And he
Speaker 2: I remember, my attorney was so sweet. He goes, let
Speaker 2: me go back and let's make sure we formalize all
Speaker 2: these deals and and he said, Stan, it's not I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to get the QUO quote Jeffrey Light,
Speaker 2: fabulous attorney. He said, it's not how you feel in
Speaker 2: the next seven days, it's how you're going to feel
Speaker 2: in the next seven years. And I couldn't even think
Speaker 2: that far in advance. But he was basically saying, let's
Speaker 2: make sure everything is protected and you don't just go
Speaker 2: running off into the woods screaming fuck you or you know, no,
Speaker 2: let's don't get into that. And he was lovely. And
Speaker 2: I've been very fortunate to have people take care of me.
Speaker 2: I have a great administrator, who handles all my songwriting
Speaker 2: and publishing, guy named Wicks and Wixy Music and Los
Speaker 2: Angeles and these people. Like I said, it takes a
Speaker 2: village to make someone's life work. And uh, I've tried
Speaker 2: to be a decent guy, you know, I've tried to
Speaker 2: be straightforward. And they've been really the people I've been
Speaker 2: with now for man, they've been with these people for
Speaker 2: decades and they're very wonderful and they're straight with me,
Speaker 2: and and uh, but yeah, in an issue of your question,
Speaker 2: I think I'm you know, I got something most guys
Speaker 2: don't have, Bob.
Speaker 1: Okay, just to put a bow on it. At this
Speaker 1: point in time, in terms of royalties, how does it
Speaker 1: break down between the work you did with Tom and
Speaker 1: the work you the songwriting and other work you did
Speaker 1: in terms of percentage half and half, three quarters, one quarter.
Speaker 2: It would very you know, it depends on the what
Speaker 2: what you know when your songs are being used for
Speaker 2: certain things that require certain licensings and then you do
Speaker 2: better there or you do but generally it's a good
Speaker 2: I wouldn't know what the percentage is, but it's probably somewhere,
Speaker 2: like you know, you'd imagine somewhere in the middle it
Speaker 2: works out well.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to you were born in Ohio.
Speaker 1: Did your parents stay together while they were alive?
Speaker 2: No, they split up pretty quick when I was around fifteen.
Speaker 1: What was that like, being fifteen years old and having
Speaker 1: your parents put up freedom?
Speaker 2: It was the smell of freedom. It was. They all
Speaker 2: took off and got their own separate lives. My dad
Speaker 2: had a girlfriend, my mom had a boyfriend, and they
Speaker 2: took off, and I think they kind of forgot where
Speaker 2: I was, which was almost perfect. And I was in
Speaker 2: a band already, and so I just moved in with
Speaker 2: the bass player. So I was feral by the time
Speaker 2: I was sixteen and pretty much living in a band
Speaker 2: house with guys older than me. And it was amazing
Speaker 2: because they were we were beyond broke and having the
Speaker 2: time of our lives, the funniest shit guys. And I'm
Speaker 2: playing in a titty bar, you know, three nights a
Speaker 2: week while I'm still in high school. So my life
Speaker 2: was like a fairy freak brother.
Speaker 1: Okay, how many kids in the family too. I got
Speaker 1: a big sister, And what's she up to? She's cool,
Speaker 1: she's got three kids, she's living down the road from
Speaker 1: me now here. She's a designer, interior designer. And once
Speaker 1: this schism happened, and you win feral. Was she on
Speaker 1: her own path or was she like being your big sister?
Speaker 2: No? She split, she went to she's a little older,
Speaker 2: so she went to college. She left.
Speaker 1: Okay. So you say you spent the first ten years
Speaker 1: of your life in Ohio?
Speaker 2: No? No, first two?
Speaker 1: First two, Okay, And you moved to Florida because.
Speaker 2: I think Dad had a shit winner. He was working
Speaker 2: for UPS, and he woke up one day and just said,
Speaker 2: it's cold. I don't remember this obviously, according to according
Speaker 2: to my mother, he piled us all into a nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty five bell Air convertible and drove until he ran
Speaker 2: out of road. He went to mile marker one basically
Speaker 2: and drove to almost a key west and said we're here.
Speaker 2: And my mom went like, what the shit is happening?
Speaker 2: And Dad's like, I don't know, but I'm You're never
Speaker 2: going to see snow again as long as I fucking live.
Speaker 2: And he dropped anchor I think in like Coral Gables
Speaker 2: in Miami in nineteen fifty nine, and then we lived
Speaker 2: in Miami on and off between Miami and Gainswell, when
Speaker 2: my parents, we would commute to Gainsville, they go one
Speaker 2: would go to college while the other worked. And you know,
Speaker 2: Dad got his PhD. Mom made it to our masters.
Speaker 2: So we were bouncing between Miami and Gainesville, Florida throughout
Speaker 2: the pretty much the sixties.
Speaker 1: Okay, you said your father was a psychologist. What about
Speaker 1: your mother.
Speaker 2: Mom's cool. She was a I think she got her
Speaker 2: master's in art and she was an artiste, and she
Speaker 2: taught and she was like a substitute teacher and my
Speaker 2: librarian in school, and she's very wonderful. Like mom was,
Speaker 2: was super artistic and laughed at everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, people who haven't been there don't know that North
Speaker 1: Florida and South Florida are really pretty different.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it's night and day.
Speaker 1: Okay. North Florida is more like Georgia. But in any event,
Speaker 1: you know, Miami was always a place for people to
Speaker 1: come down and Florida place to come down, but it
Speaker 1: became gargantuan in the eighties with Madonna and the drugs,
Speaker 1: et cetera. What was it like growing up in Florida
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties.
Speaker 2: In Miami don't know wherever you were. Oh, Miami was
Speaker 2: a gas We lived in a well. It's one of
Speaker 2: the few places where you can create real estate, like
Speaker 2: you just dredge a canal and then you have an island.
Speaker 2: So they were creating this thing. We lived in North
Speaker 2: Miami in a place called Keystone Island, which I gather
Speaker 2: is pretty tony now, but at the time this was
Speaker 2: just like you, I don't know. Houses were probably twenty
Speaker 2: nine to five, you know, and you had a dock
Speaker 2: and you lived on a canal. So it was fantastic. Man,
Speaker 2: I wanted a boat before I could, you know, I
Speaker 2: didn't give a shit about a car, you know, I
Speaker 2: just wanted So my sister and I we had an
Speaker 2: eight foot boat with a three horse and we could
Speaker 2: just put in the canals. It was like Huck Finn.
Speaker 2: It was unbelievable. Miami was great. My grandparents would come
Speaker 2: down from Ohio, of course, like a pilgrimage to Miami
Speaker 2: and stay at the Fountain Blue and it was all.
Speaker 2: It was great, you know, like the Beatles were playing
Speaker 2: in Miami, you know, we went to the Jackie Gleason
Speaker 2: Show was being taped in Miami. It was it was.
Speaker 2: It was racy and kind of sexy and and uh
Speaker 2: and a little forbidden me. It was. It was wonderful.
Speaker 2: You know. I took drum lessons in Miami when I
Speaker 2: was a little kid, and Gainesville was a more of
Speaker 2: a a bicycle hippie liberal bastion in the middle of Florida.
Speaker 2: You know, when you got to into Gainesville, it was uh,
Speaker 2: I mean, hell, the town games was probably fifty five
Speaker 2: thousand people when we moved there. And and it was
Speaker 2: a college, you know, and they had a football team,
Speaker 2: and you could sell Coca Colas, and I could park cars,
Speaker 2: and I had a rock band, and you know, it
Speaker 2: was it was unbelievable. The simplicity of it all was,
Speaker 2: and the kindness. You know, occasionally you'd meet a real douchebag,
Speaker 2: or you'd beat somebody was a schmuck, or you get
Speaker 2: beat up, but by and large, every but he was.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool, Okay. Was there any thought that you
Speaker 1: were off the beaten track? No one's off the beaten
Speaker 1: track today with cable and streaming TV and the Internet.
Speaker 1: But did you ever think, well, it's really happening in
Speaker 1: New York, in la or London, and I really got
Speaker 1: to go there, I feel out of the loop or
Speaker 1: that didn't even occur to you.
Speaker 2: You mean back then? Yeah, oh yeah, we knew. We
Speaker 2: knew that as soon as because you max out in
Speaker 2: Gainesville by the time. And I'm fortunately being a little
Speaker 2: younger than the guys, like they were probably in their
Speaker 2: twenties when they went to California, the guys in mud
Speaker 2: Crutch and there was a band called RGF that Ron
Speaker 2: Blair was in, and they had maxed out by the
Speaker 2: time they were twenties, and they were already you could
Speaker 2: see it. They were like, we got to get the
Speaker 2: hell out of here. I'm still in junior high school,
Speaker 2: but I'm already maxing out. And you knew it. You
Speaker 2: knew you had to go measure your dick against a bigger,
Speaker 2: bigger pond than you were in. Like and I remember
Speaker 2: literally my mom going, well, honey, don't go to New York.
Speaker 2: The weather's terrible, because she'd lived in New York as
Speaker 2: a kid, and she was like, no, you don't want
Speaker 2: to go there, no, honey. And I'm like going, like
Speaker 2: I said, because I'm thinking of going to LA and
Speaker 2: you know, as soon as I can get you know,
Speaker 2: I want to drop out of school and go And
Speaker 2: she was like, oh, well la is at least it's
Speaker 2: you know, your great weather, you know. So that was it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was either going to be New York
Speaker 2: or la for me. You know, I knew you knew
Speaker 2: you were going somewhere, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, going back a little younger, What kind of kid
Speaker 1: were you growing up? Were you they could tell you
Speaker 1: were never isolated? You have a lot of personality. Were
Speaker 1: you the straw that stirs the drink like you know
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson in New York? Were you the leader who
Speaker 1: have a lot of friends, you play sports, You're the
Speaker 1: class clown? Were you good in school? What were you like?
Speaker 2: I was terrible in school, I kind of was. I
Speaker 2: was borderline dyslexic for the longest time, never read a
Speaker 2: book until I even really went to California when I
Speaker 2: finally read Jaws and the Family, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I finally sat down and decided I got to read
Speaker 2: a fucking book. And I was probably the class clown.
Speaker 2: I got beat up a couple of times. I wasn't
Speaker 2: a jock. So you were either, you know, you were
Speaker 2: either a long hair or you were a jock. When
Speaker 2: I was a kid, and the jocks did not dig
Speaker 2: the long hairs. You know, we were pussies. So you know,
Speaker 2: I mean I got revenge when people realized I was
Speaker 2: in the band that was playing the dance tonight. You know,
Speaker 2: that was like, that was how I got back, like,
Speaker 2: you know, oh shit, we beat up Lynch. Oh shits,
Speaker 2: he's in the band tonight. Probably don't want to beat
Speaker 2: him up anymore. Oh yeah, he's cool like you know,
Speaker 2: and I'm you know, and it was all about getting
Speaker 2: the girls attention. When we were kids. That was the
Speaker 2: only thing you wanted to do, you know, like I
Speaker 2: want I want to be noticed. And uh but yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't think I was particularly a bad kid. I
Speaker 2: mean I ran a foul of the law a couple
Speaker 2: of times, but not you know, nothing too serious. But
Speaker 2: it was it was cool. I had a good life. Man.
Speaker 1: Still, do did you finish high school?
Speaker 2: Kind of there was I went to every high school
Speaker 2: in Alachua County, you know, because I was living alone.
Speaker 2: I was living with a band, so I could change
Speaker 2: high schools at will, Like I could just walk into
Speaker 2: the next high school after four months and go we
Speaker 2: moved and make up a new address and they'd go okay.
Speaker 2: So my theory was if I was always the new student,
Speaker 2: I couldn't say well, I just didn't know, and so
Speaker 2: I'd get d's and c's and that was fine, you know,
Speaker 2: as long as I passed is all. I cared. And
Speaker 2: I bullshitted my way through school. And then at the
Speaker 2: last minute I was going to drop out, and I
Speaker 2: got accepted to this laboratory school in Gainesville at the
Speaker 2: last second, and I went there, and thank God for them,
Speaker 2: they would give me credit for going to California. Literally,
Speaker 2: I went to LA and as long as I came
Speaker 2: back and told the story, they'd go great. You know, So,
Speaker 2: yes I did. I graduated, but under odd conditions.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was the sixties and early seventies. Other than
Speaker 1: beating the system, was there anything positive about going to
Speaker 1: the laboratory school?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. They were creative as hell. They would kind
Speaker 2: of let you do your thing, you know, like if
Speaker 2: whatever your thing was, like I claimed I was a musician, Great,
Speaker 2: you're a musician, do your thing, let's see it, you know.
Speaker 2: And and you know, I'm going to be in pottery.
Speaker 2: I'm going to make pottery. It's like, yeah, the great
Speaker 2: thing about it was then. The people there were progressive,
Speaker 2: they were forward leaning. They were you know, because this
Speaker 2: is a time too during integration and segregation. Segregated South
Speaker 2: was you know, melding and not very well. You know.
Speaker 2: So this school was mostly it was all actually uh,
Speaker 2: faculty members from the University of Florida's children, So they
Speaker 2: were I felt that they had a little more of
Speaker 2: a liberal leaning and a little more open mindedness as
Speaker 2: a result of that, maybe that family background that was
Speaker 2: my after being in all the public schools. These people,
Speaker 2: these kids were they were more open minded, you know,
Speaker 2: they were just kind of like, I don't know, so
Speaker 2: that helped.
Speaker 1: Okay, you've lived in Florida much of your life, certainly
Speaker 1: been to Florida a number of times, never lived there.
Speaker 1: We hear about this incredible right wing turn as someone
Speaker 1: who's lived in Florida, is it different? What's different about
Speaker 1: Florida today from when you were growing up?
Speaker 2: Honestly, maybe it's just me and maybe that I do
Speaker 2: live a little bit obviously isolated life. It's no different.
Speaker 2: And stupidity knows no geographical location. Uh, simple mindedness knows
Speaker 2: no geographical spot. You know, Racism knows no place. You
Speaker 2: know what I mean, it's it's everywhere man, And so
Speaker 2: I find life is kind of a mirror like if
Speaker 2: I if I, if I show a cool face that's
Speaker 2: accepting and caring and uh, you know, and curious, that's
Speaker 2: that tracks that crowd of people. Now, if I want
Speaker 2: to go and wear a maga hat and be a
Speaker 2: dick or whatever, I you know, whatever, whatever flag I
Speaker 2: want to fly, I'm going to find that. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: find my people. And you could do that in La
Speaker 2: You could do that in the most quote liberal living
Speaker 2: leaning places in the world. That's my impression. My Florida
Speaker 2: is really loving and kind and honest. The people I
Speaker 2: work with and meet and that I've surrounded myself with,
Speaker 2: I would trust them literally with my life. I'd give
Speaker 2: them my car keys. Everything comes back to the tanks
Speaker 2: always full.
Speaker 1: Okay, going back to music. You're growing up. Was there
Speaker 1: music in the house or was it a matter of
Speaker 1: the transistor or seeing the beatles on Ed Sullivan? What
Speaker 1: got you into music?
Speaker 2: There's a little music in the house. Dad could play
Speaker 2: trumpet kinda and my mom could play piano kainda and
Speaker 2: my grandmother on my mother's side was a pianist, and
Speaker 2: she was very big in the symphony in Cincinnati. And
Speaker 2: so I had some music in the background.
Speaker 1: But were they playing records in the house. How did
Speaker 1: you get involved in popular slash rock music?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, the radio, I remember it. I had a
Speaker 2: bake light radio in Miami and there was a big,
Speaker 2: you know, fifty thousand watch station in Miami. And man,
Speaker 2: I would go to sleep with that thing glued to
Speaker 2: my ear. And you know, sitting the dock of the bay,
Speaker 2: Wilson Piccott wass be playing Pretty Woman, will be playing
Speaker 2: you know I walked the line would be playing. These
Speaker 2: were stations that played everything. You know. It wasn't It
Speaker 2: was just you know, sixteen Tons was playing Love and
Speaker 2: Spoonful would be playing occasionally catch a Beatles and Dave
Speaker 2: Park five and and I would listen to literally it
Speaker 2: would be like in a lightning storm. I would have
Speaker 2: that radio on and you'd hear it crackle and it
Speaker 2: would just come to me like magic. It was just
Speaker 2: the music came. It just sent me away to this
Speaker 2: special place where I don't even know how to describe
Speaker 2: it. It was like a drug when you're a little boy.
Speaker 2: For me, it was I just couldn't wait to get
Speaker 2: home and turn on the radio.
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. So when did you
Speaker 1: start playing an instrument?
Speaker 2: I started playing violin in the first grade. Tanked, I
Speaker 2: was terrible. I tried to play trumpet probably in the
Speaker 2: later maybe a couple of years later, tanked terrible. And
Speaker 2: although I did play bugle in the cub Scouts, so
Speaker 2: I could play all the bugle calls. And I started
Speaker 2: playing drums. I think I was about eight or nine.
Speaker 2: I took my first drum lesson in Miami and just
Speaker 2: fell in love with it. The guy there who was
Speaker 2: teaching me was a bebop guy and he had a
Speaker 2: drum kit, so that was magic, you know. And because
Speaker 2: and I'd already seen the Beatles obviously on TV. I
Speaker 2: was about eight when that came out, I think, and
Speaker 2: that just sent me. And then seeing Charlie Watts and
Speaker 2: seeing Mick Avery's from the Kinks, and you know, it
Speaker 2: just I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. You know,
Speaker 2: my sister screaming because Paul McCarty's so cute, and I'm
Speaker 2: watching Ringo like there's nobody else on that stage. And
Speaker 2: the same with mc Jaggery's amazing. I'm like Charlie Watts,
Speaker 2: holy shit, you know. And they both had those small
Speaker 2: four piece kits. And when I went and took my
Speaker 2: drum lesson, he had the same kit, you know, and
Speaker 2: it was like, I need to know how to do that.
Speaker 2: And then I just took lessons all the time. I
Speaker 2: took drum lessons in Gainesville for another few more years,
Speaker 2: and I was just bit bit up with it.
Speaker 1: You know, people played full guitars and eyelin string guitars.
Speaker 1: Then the Beatles hit, a lot of people picked up guitars.
Speaker 1: Why did you pick up the drums as opposed to
Speaker 1: any other instrument?
Speaker 2: I don't know, man, that's just like, uh, what's your
Speaker 2: favorite color? You know, like most guys pick blue, some
Speaker 2: guys picked green. And to me, the guitar it just
Speaker 2: didn't look as fun. It looked more I think the
Speaker 2: drums looked more physical, and they looked exciting, and it
Speaker 2: looked probably looked I mean, how puile is this? I
Speaker 2: got to smash shit? You know, like it looked like
Speaker 2: something like yeah, like I'm gonna bang on stuff, and
Speaker 2: it looked like you were getting to me. It seemed
Speaker 2: like you were the center of attention, which was probably
Speaker 2: what I wanted to be.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, back in those days, they would start
Speaker 1: you with a drum pad. Yes, so at what point
Speaker 1: did you get a drum kit? And we're the kind
Speaker 1: of kid who practiced or not.
Speaker 2: Well. The Jean Bardow, who was my drum teacher in Gainesville,
Speaker 2: he was that guy. He had a beautiful drum kid
Speaker 2: in the corner and I wasn't allowed to sit behind
Speaker 2: it or even touch it. And for literally a year
Speaker 2: and a half I played on a practice pad with
Speaker 2: a metronome, and he taught me all my twenty six rudiments.
Speaker 2: You know, there's thirteen essential and there were twenty six,
Speaker 2: and there was a diploma you got called National Association
Speaker 2: of Rudimental Drummers or NARD. And I won in my
Speaker 2: NARD card. And so I practiced. I'd go once a
Speaker 2: week and I only didn't practice once. And I came
Speaker 2: back and he said, you didn't practice, And he said,
Speaker 2: if you're not going to practice, I don't want to
Speaker 2: teach you. And I was so heartbroken that he busted me.
Speaker 2: That I always practiced whatever he taught me, and I
Speaker 2: learned all my rudiments and then at the end of that,
Speaker 2: I passed, I got my nard, I got my diploma.
Speaker 2: I still have it up. And I said, now can
Speaker 2: I play drums? I want to play the drum kit
Speaker 2: and I'll never forget it. He said, you know, I
Speaker 2: thought better of you, He said, I thought you were
Speaker 2: going to really be a percussionist. I taught you to
Speaker 2: be a percussionist. I wanted you to be a symphony player. Essentially.
Speaker 2: He wanted me to be a real musician. And he said,
Speaker 2: if all you want to do is play the drums,
Speaker 2: he goes, I don't want to teach I don't I
Speaker 2: don't have anything to teach you. And he was and
Speaker 2: he basically dismissed me, and it was kind of like, okay,
Speaker 2: But at that moment it was already like I think
Speaker 2: I was already ready. I was ready to be in
Speaker 2: a band, you know, I wanted. So I had a
Speaker 2: Mutt you know, I got Mut drum kits, like you know,
Speaker 2: you'd buy a crummy bass drum from a pawn shop
Speaker 2: and a you know, you'd steal a snare drum from school,
Speaker 2: or you know, you'd so I had these Mutt kits
Speaker 2: that never made any sense until Finally I was making
Speaker 2: enough money because my parents weren't gonna buy me drums.
Speaker 2: They weren't those kind of they weren't that kind of family.
Speaker 2: They were like, we might do matching funds, you know,
Speaker 2: like if you have thirty dollars, we'll do thirty or
Speaker 2: But mostly I got a job. I was playing, and
Speaker 2: I was playing in a band that was a kind
Speaker 2: of a corporate band, and you had to wear Dickey's and.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, wait wait before you get there. Did
Speaker 1: you ever play in the drum corps at school?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, I sucked at all that. I got washed
Speaker 2: out of that pretty quick too. I got washed out
Speaker 2: all that.
Speaker 1: Okay, you say you took lessons from years, so you
Speaker 1: must have taken lessons from other teachers.
Speaker 2: Really just two guys.
Speaker 1: Who's the other guy?
Speaker 2: His name was Sonny and I don't remember his last
Speaker 2: name in Miami and uh, and then Jean was the
Speaker 2: guy in Gainesville. And then you learn from other drummers.
Speaker 2: Go over to another guy's house and he'd go, have
Speaker 2: you heard the drum solo from Toad? Or do you
Speaker 2: know how to play the lick? The opening lick for
Speaker 2: love is a beautiful thing by you know the Rascals
Speaker 2: or do you know how to play? In my life
Speaker 2: by the Beatles and other drummers would learn the parts
Speaker 2: that they teach them to you. So I was pretty
Speaker 2: self taught as a drummer, like from the drum kit.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people who play the drums have
Speaker 1: no education, no classes at all. But if having classes
Speaker 1: did that give you a little bit of a leg up?
Speaker 2: Maybe, I mean maybe maybe. I know I played weird.
Speaker 2: My hand position was traditional, Like there's a thing it's
Speaker 2: called traditional drumming, and then there's match grip. Charlie Watts's
Speaker 2: traditional ringoes matched and I played traditional, which I think
Speaker 2: was kind of weird in rock, like I mean the
Speaker 2: cats that I grew up listening, you know, Mitch Mitchell
Speaker 2: and the Henrick's Experience played traditional, and McK avery's from
Speaker 2: the Kinks played traditional. A lot of cats from the
Speaker 2: British era, they were jazzer's I think they were. They
Speaker 2: were inventing rock and roll, those guys, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, Like Charlie Watts kind of invented it, you know,
Speaker 2: like he was a swing he swung so hard, and
Speaker 2: those cats like Ringo and all those guys were they
Speaker 2: swung when they played. It was it wasn't just it
Speaker 2: wasn't stiff, It wasn't you know, meat and potatoes. It
Speaker 2: was all the subdivision and the goo and the and
Speaker 2: it was like listening to the you know, the great
Speaker 2: drummers like Al Jackson Junior from Booker T and the
Speaker 2: MG's and they all played traditional and cool, and that
Speaker 2: was where I was coming from.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a practical matter. If you were a
Speaker 1: traditional or you know, you're holding both sticks the same way,
Speaker 1: how does that affect your ultimate playing and ultimate sound?
Speaker 2: Well, I can only say what it does for me.
Speaker 2: Playing traditional allows me to do. Okay, drums are math.
Speaker 2: You know you've heard the you know one, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: we've all heard drummers count off. Well, traditionally that's a
Speaker 2: quarter note, there's four to a bar. That's math. But
Speaker 2: if you go one and a two and a three
Speaker 2: and a fouriena, that's different math. And those are the
Speaker 2: subdivisions that create the goo and the the grit in
Speaker 2: rock and roll is how you subdivide. And that's what
Speaker 2: I think is missing when the drum machine entered. You know,
Speaker 2: when Roger Lynn invented the drum machine, and became the
Speaker 2: most influential drummer of the eighties. It's like it didn't
Speaker 2: subdivide as. It was very staccato, like boom bap boom bap,
Speaker 2: and playing traditionally it allows you to drag and rush.
Speaker 2: You can articulate all these cool little things with your
Speaker 2: left hand. That's what I think it allowed me to do.
Speaker 2: And it was very frustrating for certain producers. You know,
Speaker 2: I know a couple of them just hated it. They
Speaker 2: hated that I played like that. They made fun of it,
Speaker 2: and I'm I thought it was just drumming.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're putting together this mutt kit. At what
Speaker 1: point do you form a band? Join a band?
Speaker 2: Probably pretty quick. It's all happening pretty fast. I'm fifteen
Speaker 2: and I'm hanging around with Marty Girard who later him
Speaker 2: and Jeff started the Motels, And I'm Marty and I
Speaker 2: are in a band in Gainesville and he's a little
Speaker 2: older than me, so sweet, can well, let's.
Speaker 1: Go back a little bit. Sure, I'm two years older
Speaker 1: than you. Beatles hit. If you didn't have a guitar,
Speaker 1: you'd one. There was always a drummer. You went to
Speaker 1: somebody's house, they played Gloria, you played some Beatles songs. True,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately there were bands that worked every weekend,
Speaker 1: but there were a lot of little steps between that.
Speaker 1: What was going on for you. Garage bands we called them.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I was in a couple of fun garage bands,
Speaker 1: and one with my buddy Jeff, who I still know
Speaker 1: that I.
Speaker 2: Grew up with. His parents had a two car garage,
Speaker 2: you know, and lived out in a subdivision, and we
Speaker 2: went out there and would play all four songs we knew,
Speaker 2: you know, like probably a Creten's Clearwater song or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know. And yeah, there was this not that many
Speaker 2: of those. I probably was in maybe two different garage bands,
Speaker 2: and you know living room bands, you know, where we
Speaker 2: could and the parents were very tolerant, you know, they
Speaker 2: were like they would let us just because we mised
Speaker 2: of us have sucked and we were loud, and we
Speaker 2: had much equipment and you know, but yeah, that that
Speaker 2: that happened pretty quick. And then you could see in
Speaker 2: the garage band who wanted to make money, who wanted
Speaker 2: to go get a make a living, you know, like
Speaker 2: who wants to give this a go? And that was
Speaker 2: where the living room balls guys with living room balls
Speaker 2: sort of stayed there like that's as far as their
Speaker 2: balls would let them go. Then the other guys would
Speaker 2: go like, wait a minute, I got I got gymnasium balls.
Speaker 2: I can go play the high school gym. Wait I
Speaker 2: got auditorium balls. I'll play the U off auditorium. And
Speaker 2: you'd sort of lose certain guys on the way because
Speaker 2: everybody's you know, it's a little scary. You know, the
Speaker 2: first time you play, and first time we play in
Speaker 2: a bigger place, you're like, am I really cut out
Speaker 2: for this? Or is my impostor syndrome raging? Are they
Speaker 2: going to see through me? You know, you're you're worried,
Speaker 2: you're going to be laughed off stage at every at
Speaker 2: every step, and then at some point you just grow balls.
Speaker 2: You just go, well, I got arena balls, I got
Speaker 2: I got the balls. I'm doing it. So, yeah, there
Speaker 2: was a lot of fun. It was a lot of
Speaker 2: fun being in a band back then because you didn't
Speaker 2: really know what was going to happen, but it was something.
Speaker 2: It was always fun. It was really fun.
Speaker 1: So your experience going from the living room to the
Speaker 1: gym to the VFW, was it natural or did you
Speaker 1: have to get over your stage fright? What was your experience.
Speaker 2: I kind of always suffered from stage fright all the
Speaker 2: way through the end. I had a little bit of it,
Speaker 2: but I always felt that it was probably that was
Speaker 2: I learned that that was okay, Like I think maybe
Speaker 2: it was Bill Graham. I remember one day we were
Speaker 2: playing Winterland and I said, you know, I'm nervous, you know,
Speaker 2: and he played ping pong with me, I remember, to
Speaker 2: cool me out, and I said, he goes, you're still nervous,
Speaker 2: and I said, yeah, a little bit, and he goes,
Speaker 2: make it work for you. And I remember thinking he's right,
Speaker 2: like use that energy, use it, you know, harness it.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, I was always a little scared when
Speaker 2: I look out and see my friends. Or that's the
Speaker 2: worst is to be playing at a gig and you
Speaker 2: know there's five really great drummers out there. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the worst. You know, when my drummer buddies would
Speaker 2: show up, be like, ah shit, you know. But most
Speaker 2: of the time, when you're in a band and they're good,
Speaker 2: and you know everybody in the band is like going
Speaker 2: to be like a finger on a fist, most of
Speaker 2: that nerves goes right out the window the second you
Speaker 2: step on stage with them. And that's what it was
Speaker 2: with the Guys and the Heartbreakers. I mean, everybody out
Speaker 2: there was so good. If I was feeling nervous, I
Speaker 2: just look over at Ben Mott and go, Jesus, that
Speaker 2: guy's fucking good, you know, and all your nerves would
Speaker 2: disappear because you were I'm in the bosom of greatness.
Speaker 1: Okay, So after you left the garage from the living room,
Speaker 1: was the first band that hung together for a while
Speaker 1: and how much.
Speaker 2: Did you work? Well, it would have been the band
Speaker 2: with Marty Girard. We worked for about a year and
Speaker 2: a half and it was good. I mean we played
Speaker 2: a lot of gigs. We played everywhere from between West
Speaker 2: Palm Beach to Atlanta to Chattanooga to Alabama, and you know,
Speaker 2: we play a week in Tampa, and you know, we
Speaker 2: were working. We were like a working band, and we
Speaker 2: play one nighters at the University and we played the
Speaker 2: three nights a week at the Titty Bar, and so
Speaker 2: we put in our By the time I got to California,
Speaker 2: we'd already put in our ten thousand hours for real.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you're in the band with Marty Gerard. Are
Speaker 1: you done with school?
Speaker 2: No, I'm still faking it. I'm still kind of fake
Speaker 2: in school.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you're in the band with Marty Gerard. Is
Speaker 1: that the last band before you go to California?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: So how do you decided? Under what aegis? Do you
Speaker 1: actually go to California?
Speaker 2: Well, the band was breaking up because Marty's pop had died,
Speaker 2: and Marty decided to make a different because I thought
Speaker 2: he was my ticket out of the ghetto. Marty was smart, talented,
Speaker 2: we still is, and you know, and he's cool, and
Speaker 2: he was older and he liked me. So I thought, Man,
Speaker 2: I'm riding Marty all the way to the show. But
Speaker 2: when Marty said, you know, I'm putting a fork in
Speaker 2: it for a minute. I'm going to go to college.
Speaker 2: You know, my pop's gone. I got to deal with
Speaker 2: some family stuff. I spent probably about a week in
Speaker 2: Florida and went, that's it, I'm out, And so I
Speaker 2: just loaded my shit up, took my share of the PA,
Speaker 2: and loaded my shit into the van and drove to California.
Speaker 1: Did you know anybody in California? Did you have any money?
Speaker 1: What was the plan?
Speaker 2: I had no money. I remember my dad loan me
Speaker 2: a hundred bucks and that was it. That was it.
Speaker 2: He was pretty disappointed in me because I think he
Speaker 2: thought I was going to get that out of my
Speaker 2: system at that point, like you probably got this oide
Speaker 2: of your system now. And he thought I was going
Speaker 2: to go to college. And I remember one of the
Speaker 2: last thing I said, Dan, I'm going to la and
Speaker 2: he goes, uh. I think his quote was great, just
Speaker 2: what the world needs another fucking out of work drummer.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of encouragement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well he was. He he's stuck with that
Speaker 2: theme pretty good throughout the entire you know, my entire career.
Speaker 2: But it was I think he was basically scared to
Speaker 2: death of what was going to happen if it failed.
Speaker 2: I think my father was. He was, he was fear
Speaker 2: of verse. He wasn't you know, he wasn't going to
Speaker 2: go into the abyss. He was like, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get a well, hell, he had kids and a wife.
Speaker 2: He's going to get a job at the post office
Speaker 2: before he takes on something that stupid. So I went
Speaker 2: to California. I didn't have any money, but I didn't
Speaker 2: know a few people. My sister had already moved there
Speaker 2: and with her boyfriend who was later to be in
Speaker 2: the Heartbreakers. Briefly he was the guy who started the motels,
Speaker 2: Jef Gerard, and I went out there and I probably
Speaker 2: stayed with him for a for a maybe a week
Speaker 2: or two, and then I was sort of booted from
Speaker 2: their house because they didn't need me hanging around. And
Speaker 2: then I think I knew of people. I knew that
Speaker 2: the Mudcretch guys were in LA but I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to find him or didn't know where they were.
Speaker 2: But the Coconut Telegraph, the Florida Telegraph was working pretty good,
Speaker 2: like we you know, by the time I got a phone,
Speaker 2: I think I was living in a basement and one
Speaker 2: of the guys, the guys who lived up stairs, was
Speaker 2: from Gainesville and he was a singer, so he was
Speaker 2: telling me where Ron Blair was, who was living next door.
Speaker 2: And then I ran into Benmont and we would It
Speaker 2: was very natural, like we all just sort of, oh,
Speaker 2: we ran into each other.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, if you left with one hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: did you have to have a day job.
Speaker 2: I did briefly get a day job, but I was
Speaker 2: scamming a lot too. I was, uh, you know, I
Speaker 2: was not above cashing a check that wasn't mine, you know,
Speaker 2: if I found one or I was you know, the
Speaker 2: world was different. Let me put it that way, you could.
Speaker 2: I was scamming. I got food stamps, I got you know,
Speaker 2: I was a punk. But I did get a job
Speaker 2: at Peaches Records on Hollywood Boulevard. I remember, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so that was cool. I got there until you know,
Speaker 2: so I worked, but I did get a real I
Speaker 2: actually got it, you know. But but fifty bucks or
Speaker 2: one hundred bucks a week was plenty, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, but you came to be a drummer. So how
Speaker 1: were you going to further or what did you do
Speaker 1: to further your musical career?
Speaker 2: I signed up with mcs LA Musicians Contact Service for
Speaker 2: fifteen bucks a month. You could you wrote, you wrote
Speaker 2: a like on a business not a business card, an
Speaker 2: index card, and you put your thing on the wall.
Speaker 2: It would say like, you know, drummer seeking, all original seeking,
Speaker 2: you know, original band members, originals only, pros only you know,
Speaker 2: like have gig well, you know, have professional gear. And
Speaker 2: I auditioned for several bands in California and I got
Speaker 2: a job with one that was fun, a bunch of
Speaker 2: guys from Texas. I was playing with them for about
Speaker 2: a year or six maybe six months. I guess they
Speaker 2: were great, a lot of fun. And then in that
Speaker 2: time frame I met Re met Ben Monteche again, and
Speaker 2: that's when the band. That's how that all got together,
Speaker 2: well a.
Speaker 1: Little bit more granular. You reconnected with him. How did
Speaker 1: it end up being Tom Betty Heartbreakers?
Speaker 2: I think I was living in the basement. Ben came
Speaker 2: over told me mud Cretch had broken up, which was
Speaker 2: that was the band that got to They took to
Speaker 2: California and got signed. I think it all. I don't
Speaker 2: I don't know really what happened, but it it fell apart.
Speaker 2: Ben Mott was in my basement and we were probably
Speaker 2: drinking and talking and and we came up with this
Speaker 2: idea though of we both we both loved British rock.
Speaker 2: Benmont has wide ranging tastes, but we we had that
Speaker 2: in common that we both loved, like the faces and
Speaker 2: free and we both loved all of that. We loved
Speaker 2: that kind of mutt in the stones, sort of somewhat machismo,
Speaker 2: just cool. We liked all that stuff and we decided
Speaker 2: we were going to put together a band called Drunks
Speaker 2: and we were going to be like the baddest, coolest
Speaker 2: band ever. And during this, you know, fever dream somewhere along.
Speaker 2: And during that couple of days, he got studio time
Speaker 2: and we ended up in a recording studio to cut
Speaker 2: Benmont's songs. And Ben said, well, who do you want
Speaker 2: to bring? And I said, well, Ron Blair lives next door.
Speaker 2: I'd never played with Ron, but I'd hung out with
Speaker 2: him a bit and loved his record collection and he
Speaker 2: was just a cool guy. So he came to the
Speaker 2: session and Ben brought Mike.
Speaker 1: Okay, then how does it become Tom?
Speaker 2: I think Tom showed up to play harmonica at some
Speaker 2: point and I didn't really think anything of it, and then, uh,
Speaker 2: I think the next day literally Tom called me, probably
Speaker 2: called everybody, but I remember him going, you know, like Stanley,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you doing? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: I'm in a band. I'm in this band with these
Speaker 2: guys from Texas. He goes, what do you want to
Speaker 2: throw in with me? You know? And I said, well
Speaker 2: what does that mean? You know? I said, I don't
Speaker 2: want to leave a band unless I'm getting in a band.
Speaker 2: And he said, well, let's start a band. And I said,
Speaker 2: well that sounds good, and and he said, we're gonna
Speaker 2: I've got a I'm going to make an album. I've
Speaker 2: got to I guess he had a deal, you know,
Speaker 2: he still had a deal as a writer. And that's
Speaker 2: how that worked in its way into.
Speaker 1: That Okay, he makes that phone call, then what happens
Speaker 1: do you rehearse, do you go on the road, do
Speaker 1: you immediately go in the studio? How does it play out?
Speaker 2: Kind of Yes, we all got together in the at
Speaker 2: Shelter Studio, which wasn't a studio yet. It was called
Speaker 2: the Brown Room, and it was just a room on
Speaker 2: top of a like a just a room. It was terrible,
Speaker 2: you know, had Christmas lights and it was just gross.
Speaker 2: It was hot, and it was in the a ceedy
Speaker 2: part of town and just what you'd expect. And we
Speaker 2: went up there and just bashed our brains in and
Speaker 2: we learned covers and we learned to communicate with each other,
Speaker 2: like we learned what we both what we all liked, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we found our common ground probably within it
Speaker 2: felt quick, but I mean I'm guessing maybe a month
Speaker 2: we found our common ground in that brown room, and
Speaker 2: and then Tom would start introducing pieces of songs that
Speaker 2: he was writing, like, you know, starting from the groove,
Speaker 2: you know, you would just say like how you know
Speaker 2: you He would just show you little snippets, and then
Speaker 2: I think this is about right chronologically, Danny Cordell said,
Speaker 2: sent me and Tom to Tulsa and we went to
Speaker 2: the church where Leon had a church and to go
Speaker 2: I guess just to go check it out. I don't
Speaker 2: even know what we were doing there, but we shared
Speaker 2: a room and we went and walked around and we
Speaker 2: recorded a song just the two of us on the
Speaker 2: first record called Luna.
Speaker 1: My favorite song on the record.
Speaker 2: We did that in some weird I don't know what
Speaker 2: the hell was going on that night. We were probably
Speaker 2: both blitzed, and who knows how that happened. And then
Speaker 2: we came back and we were started. Denny Wood if
Speaker 2: he had a we went into a proper studio. I
Speaker 2: think we went into A and M one night and
Speaker 2: cut a song. We went into other places, and then
Speaker 2: at that time the shelter was being moved to the
Speaker 2: brown room, so we had a quote recording studio to
Speaker 2: work in, and we made those first records. At least
Speaker 2: the first record was very primitive. I mean, whoa, I
Speaker 2: mean the drums are on one track, you know, like
Speaker 2: you can pull the drums out by pulling one fader,
Speaker 2: which is for those of you that don't know, that's
Speaker 2: pretty primitive recording, you know. And and we made those
Speaker 2: records almost like we didn't even know. I didn't know
Speaker 2: we were making records. I thought we were just recording.
Speaker 2: And then Denny would come in and go, oh, that
Speaker 2: sounds great. Guys, you know that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're throw in with Tom. He's got a deal.
Speaker 1: Do you think you hit the big time or you
Speaker 1: still I'm just figuring it out.
Speaker 2: Any day that I was moving up the food chain,
Speaker 2: I had hit the big time. Any day that I
Speaker 2: moved from shit to a little better shit, you know
Speaker 2: and a little less shit, was was almost the day
Speaker 2: I could retire.
Speaker 1: Okay, what did Denny Gordell add as a producer?
Speaker 2: Swa DIVI? You know, he had this worldly it just
Speaker 2: had this sense of him like you know, he he
Speaker 2: he had been exposed to a lot more music. Well
Speaker 2: you know his background, I'm I'm pretty sure you know.
Speaker 2: And and he had a tremendous pedigree, you know, and
Speaker 2: he turned me on to like. I remember one night
Speaker 2: they were all using these words like groove and feel,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, how do you quantify that shit? You know,
Speaker 2: like Stan, we're looking for a feel and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: but I remember, he said, and he just he burned
Speaker 2: this giant joint with me. And he had a Ferrari
Speaker 2: Daytona out in the parking lot and he said, get
Speaker 2: behind the wheel, and I did. I got behind the
Speaker 2: wheel and we went under the underpass. I forget in
Speaker 2: la which one, but he said, put it in a
Speaker 2: second gear and punch it. And I did. The twelve
Speaker 2: cylinder car just what you know, and he goes, he goes,
Speaker 2: that's a groove and I go that helps, and he goes.
Speaker 2: Then we went and saw it at the same night.
Speaker 2: We're stone out of our minds, or I was. We
Speaker 2: go to the Santa Marcocific and watch Bob Madley and
Speaker 2: the whalers and the place is just you know, they're hypnotized.
Speaker 2: The whole place is hypnotized. And I'm just freaking out.
Speaker 2: And he goes, he looks over me and whispers in
Speaker 2: my ear. He goes, that's a feel, Stan, and I go,
Speaker 2: there's groove and feel. So that's what Danny brought. And
Speaker 2: he brought that like how to make the intangible real
Speaker 2: to a young, a nineteen year old guy, how to
Speaker 2: make it real for you, Stan? And when I was
Speaker 2: struggling with a drum part, I remember looking at me
Speaker 2: and just blowing smoke in my face and going, you know,
Speaker 2: if you leave all that shit out, Stan, they'll always
Speaker 2: misinterpret you as tasteful. Haha. I mean so when you
Speaker 2: say what did he bring, he brought everything right, Like
Speaker 2: he the fact that he didn't fire me and just
Speaker 2: bring in Jim Calder, who was sitting there the whole time.
Speaker 2: You know, Calder and Jim Gordon were in that in
Speaker 2: his per you know, they were in his sphere. Those
Speaker 2: were his drummers. The fact that he just said, Hey,
Speaker 2: let this fucking idiot figure out how to be in
Speaker 2: a band, and I'll help him along. Jim give him
Speaker 2: a little advice, you know. And it was like, so,
Speaker 2: you know, a guy like Denny Cordell without him, I
Speaker 2: don't know if there is it's another It takes a village,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Let's back up for one second, you're stan Lee in
Speaker 1: an era where that's not really a hip name. What
Speaker 1: was it like growing up as Stanley?
Speaker 2: It was you know, it's just like what you just said.
Speaker 2: It was said you could say Stanley, or you can
Speaker 2: say it in a way that's just yep. You know
Speaker 2: what's coming next. You know it's a you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: it was kind of cool for a minute when it
Speaker 2: was standing man, you know, musual a right, like you know,
Speaker 2: it was cool for a minute for those of you
Speaker 2: that even know that is, but like, you know, stand
Speaker 2: the man. But then it was like, yeah, you're right Stanley.
Speaker 2: Oh oh you know whatn't I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, Okay, the first album is done before it comes out,
Speaker 1: do you guys think American Girl will be a hit?
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that means. But just so
Speaker 2: you know, when we recorded that song, one of my
Speaker 2: dear friends who I still know and love to this day,
Speaker 2: happened to be there as my buddy. He was there
Speaker 2: when we recorded that, and I remember when we played
Speaker 2: it back, I didn't really think anything. I was probably
Speaker 2: kind of so excited that I was still on the record,
Speaker 2: you know that they were liking it. But I remember
Speaker 2: him looking over. He goes, that's a hit record, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? He goes,
Speaker 2: that's a hit record, man, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 2: so people knew something about that song was special before
Speaker 2: I did, you know. But I always knew that there
Speaker 2: was something big about it, you know.
Speaker 1: So the record has come out out on Shelter, which
Speaker 1: is not the most powerful record label. It's nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: Because Tom wears a leather jacket on the cover, people
Speaker 1: throw the Heartbreakers a little bit into a punk world,
Speaker 1: which it isn't. And because it's the era of the press,
Speaker 1: gets a lot of press, almost no action. How do
Speaker 1: you decide to go to England and how does it
Speaker 1: get traction in England?
Speaker 2: Once again entered Danny Cordell, who probably had I believe
Speaker 2: had contacts with Island Records, you know, in England. He
Speaker 2: was tight with those cats. And I think we were
Speaker 2: offered a slot in England opening for Nils Lofgren, and
Speaker 2: we went there on a wing in a prayer. I
Speaker 2: think we borrowed twenty grand from the Kiddy, you know,
Speaker 2: like we asked if we could get our hands on that.
Speaker 2: That's my memory of it. And we ended up there.
Speaker 2: You know, we flew there in each other's laps, and
Speaker 2: you know we're all living in you know, like two rooms,
Speaker 2: and off we go.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we were reading about it across the pond.
Speaker 1: How much did you work and at what point did
Speaker 1: you say it's working?
Speaker 2: Well? England was really good to the band quick. Some
Speaker 2: something happened in England that was not happening for us
Speaker 2: anywhere else. And we opened We did that tour with
Speaker 2: Nils and we were good. That's the other thing I mean,
Speaker 2: I can honestly tell you, without Bravado, that was a
Speaker 2: fucking good band. And we knew what we were doing.
Speaker 2: We didn't know many songs, but we knew that. We
Speaker 2: knew that album, and we knew how to play it,
Speaker 2: and we knew a couple of covers, and we we
Speaker 2: were disciplined when we walked. I didn't care if if
Speaker 2: you were half dead, you went out and played a
Speaker 2: great We played great, and we did that tour with
Speaker 2: Nils and then literally we were going to come home
Speaker 2: the next night, next night and the record label said,
Speaker 2: why don't you stay in headline all those same shows
Speaker 2: that you just did. We were like, holy fuck, really,
Speaker 2: So that's how that it was that quick walking around
Speaker 2: London and seeing posters with our name on them, and
Speaker 2: you know, it was very quick.
Speaker 1: Okay, since you mentioned covers, how did you guys end
Speaker 1: up doing The Animals? Don't bring me down?
Speaker 2: We were stoned in love with the Animals, I mean
Speaker 2: the band. That was one of the things we all
Speaker 2: could agree on, like, well, there were many things like
Speaker 2: what is cool, Eric Burda The Animals, that's fucking cool.
Speaker 2: And so I didn't even know it was a goffin
Speaker 2: King song. I didn't, you know, I had know concept
Speaker 2: of who wrote this shit. I just knew that that
Speaker 2: song that whole you know, I loved every There wasn't
Speaker 2: an Animal song I didn't love. So I think the
Speaker 2: fact that Benmont could could play that correctly, and when
Speaker 2: as soon as I heard him play it, like you
Speaker 2: went game on once again. I turned to Ben and
Speaker 2: Mike because those guys had it. If they heard it,
Speaker 2: they knew it. And that was almost the concept of
Speaker 2: the everybody in that band. You didn't have to write
Speaker 2: it down, you didn't have to You heard it, you
Speaker 2: know it go and Tom had an amazing sense of
Speaker 2: retention for lyrics. I mean Jesus Christ. That song Jaguar
Speaker 2: and the t Bird, it's verbal diarrhea for three minutes
Speaker 2: and Tom remembers words. So he had a special extra
Speaker 2: chromosome that made all that work. You know, that was
Speaker 2: really beautiful like so that that the animals, no brainer?
Speaker 1: Okay. So on this side of the pond in La,
Speaker 1: which is you know, is regional radio, totally different market,
Speaker 1: they started playing a live version of Breakdown. At what
Speaker 1: point do you guys realize something is happening, quantify something,
Speaker 1: help me out here? Okay? If you were paying attention,
Speaker 1: which is not everybody, but it's a different world, either
Speaker 1: you were reading the magazines or you weren't. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know to that song original they played at k Rock
Speaker 1: was a free format station, and then you guys played
Speaker 1: the Whiskey a couple of times, which is really only
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty people. Yeah, but there was a
Speaker 1: lot of press about it, etc. Did you guys feel like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're on our way now.
Speaker 2: Nah. I don't think I ever thought that. I thought.
Speaker 2: I guess, okay, people Florida. Nobody in Florida had heard
Speaker 2: of us yet. So that was my litmus test in
Speaker 2: a weird way, like you know, I call home, or
Speaker 2: I call an old girlfriend, or I call somebody I knew,
Speaker 2: and they'd say like, yeah, man, we're blah blah blah,
Speaker 2: and go, oh, really, you're in a band called the
Speaker 2: the heart Heartbreaks. I haven't heard that. Or you're in
Speaker 2: a band called the Breakdowns. Oh that's cool, you know,
Speaker 2: like it'd be like, oh shit, it's not. It wasn't
Speaker 2: getting through home yet. I didn't think we'd I knew
Speaker 2: we'd connected probably by the time. That's not really your question.
Speaker 2: But Saturday Night Live the first time we played that
Speaker 2: and you walked off the stage and you walk down
Speaker 2: the street in New York City the next morning and
Speaker 2: they went yo yo yo, petty hey yo at a refugee.
Speaker 2: You know, it was like that was when to me
Speaker 2: because being on TV was a big deal back then.
Speaker 2: People don't realize that now, you know, because everybody's on
Speaker 2: fucking TV and TV you know what it was, it
Speaker 2: even mean, But back then, being on Saturday Night Live
Speaker 2: was was a big deal, and MTV was a big deal,
Speaker 2: and I think we were. I didn't. I didn't. We
Speaker 2: didn't get MTV on the West Coast. I don't think
Speaker 2: that was what was so funny. I think when it
Speaker 2: came up, I was in New York staying with a
Speaker 2: buddies place in the village, and he got MTV and
Speaker 2: I remember turned on the TV and it was like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, it's us eight times a day, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like and uh and he's going like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're all sick it, you know, like going right, of course,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, the second album, you're gonna get it. Very good
Speaker 1: album in my own eyes, not as good as the first.
Speaker 2: Sure, you know.
Speaker 1: The big press story is listen to her hard. Tom
Speaker 1: won't let the label change the word cocaine in the band.
Speaker 1: Did you feel like you'd lost any momentum or it
Speaker 1: seem like we're still you know, we're going forward.
Speaker 2: I wish I could tell you there was any thought
Speaker 2: or any even aware self real awareness. All I knew
Speaker 2: is we were still in business, literally, like the boys
Speaker 2: from Florida were still in business, Like we got to
Speaker 2: make another record and we're actually I think we were,
Speaker 2: unless I'm mistaken. I think that was around the time
Speaker 2: we're playing like civic size gigs and we're playing the Paramount,
Speaker 2: We're playing theaters. Now I think I got a I
Speaker 2: can think I got that right, and so in my mind,
Speaker 2: we're kicking ass. So I wasn't. And I think we
Speaker 2: even had a gold record when that thing came out.
Speaker 2: I remember, yeah, there's pictures of us getting We got
Speaker 2: our gold records, and I put one on the wall.
Speaker 2: So loss of momentum contraire, I would say, in my mind,
Speaker 2: it's like the foot was on the you know, it
Speaker 2: felt like it felt like victory to me. You know,
Speaker 2: it smelled like smelled good, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So Shelter is sold to MCAM is very lame
Speaker 1: label at the time. Ben doesn't like that there's a
Speaker 1: declaration of bankruptcy. What does it look like from inside
Speaker 1: the hornet's nest there?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you left out ABC in there too,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, AB Shelter had to deal with ABC, and
Speaker 1: then ABC was sold to MCA.
Speaker 2: Well, the cool thing about ABC was we met John Scott,
Speaker 2: who was the you know and that one again it
Speaker 2: takes a village. John Scott was the guy who heard break.
Speaker 2: He has certainly told me and he wrote a book
Speaker 2: about it exactly. But with all due respect, got to
Speaker 2: love that guy. Man I mean, you know anyway, Okay,
Speaker 2: like I said, it takes a village. Let me name
Speaker 2: a few people before this is over, okay, MCA. I
Speaker 2: wasn't really privy to all the bookkeeping, horror of all
Speaker 2: of that. All I knew was the bottom line that
Speaker 2: we could sell. I think it was postulated we could
Speaker 2: sell five million records and never break even. That was
Speaker 2: the log line the takeaway for me, and Tom just said,
Speaker 2: well fuck it. And I remember we were making torpedoes.
Speaker 2: We were all taking tapes and sequestering them away under
Speaker 2: weird names, and we're not even making a record, and
Speaker 2: it was, uh, it was an odd time. And then
Speaker 2: filing for bankruptcy. I think once again, Tom was a
Speaker 2: master at spinning that which to me could have been
Speaker 2: an embarrassment. That could have been embarrassing, like oh here
Speaker 2: he goes following, Tom flipped the script and made that
Speaker 2: into a on a battle, uh you know, like it
Speaker 2: was like Dave and Goliath, and he made he made
Speaker 2: it as the underdog versus the overlord. And I think
Speaker 2: that that played beautifully. And I think you know, to
Speaker 2: his credit, he never felt embarrassed or shamed by bankruptcy.
Speaker 2: He felt this is the way. This is the way
Speaker 2: it's got to be handled. That's my fifty cent tour
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you start working with Jimmy Ivan. He'd been working
Speaker 1: with Dinny Cordell. What's it like with Jimmy and what
Speaker 1: does Jimmy do? He brought a lot of awareness. I
Speaker 1: think he was very good for Tom in his song selections.
Speaker 1: I think he pushed Tom to bring him great songs.
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably any good producer, now that
Speaker 1: I've learned the job. First order of business, do we
Speaker 1: have great songs?
Speaker 2: And I think Jimmy went right to Tom and said
Speaker 2: let me hear him, and to Tom's credit, most of
Speaker 2: them were there. He brought Shelley Acus, who was unbelievably
Speaker 2: talented engineer compared to what we had previously been dealing with,
Speaker 2: which was you know, I wouldn't have known that there
Speaker 2: was between a soup spoon and a SM fifty seven,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So Shelley brought all this
Speaker 2: incredible knowledge to the table microphones recording, and he even
Speaker 2: took me drum shopping, you know, literally to help me
Speaker 2: get a drum sound, because he said, your drum sound
Speaker 2: starts here. You know it starts with you and your
Speaker 2: drum sound isn't what we need. And so he literally
Speaker 2: spent three days going to music stores helping me create
Speaker 2: a sound. So Jimmy brought a lot of that New
Speaker 2: York energy hit records. He even knew what the fuck
Speaker 2: that meant, you know what I mean, he actually knew
Speaker 2: what that meant. And I believe he also knew that
Speaker 2: MTV was fixing to become the biggest radio station in
Speaker 2: the world, and he knew that Tom was going to
Speaker 2: be part of that. I think he had all He
Speaker 2: had a big picture that I certainly didn't have.
Speaker 1: Okay, damn, the Torpedo is gigantic, Okay, hard promises after
Speaker 1: that not quite as big, but the band is on
Speaker 1: an arena tour. Long after Dark not as good as
Speaker 1: the previous two From Inside the gold Mine.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like, hmm.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is going in the wrong direction or is
Speaker 1: it just another you know album you're making?
Speaker 2: You know at that point where Heart promises now no
Speaker 2: long after Dark, oh, long after Dark, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I thought from a you're you know, you've got a
Speaker 2: nice forty thousand foot view that I don't have. You
Speaker 2: know what, I mean like you're looking at it. I'm
Speaker 2: looking out at out through it. And from my perspective,
Speaker 2: it was pretty cool, you know what I mean? Literally,
Speaker 2: I don't know, like you said, we're on arena tours,
Speaker 2: there's new songs on the set list. Now there's these.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed that record more than Torpedoes because I thought
Speaker 2: the drums were more fun and more bombastic, you know,
Speaker 2: like I enjoyed like the Waiting and night Watchmen and.
Speaker 1: No, I love that album. I'm talking about the album after.
Speaker 2: Oh Long, After Dark, Right, Yeah, I kind of guess
Speaker 2: I might have felt a little bit of a you know,
Speaker 2: maybe some little like a sag is that the word? Like,
Speaker 2: you could feel like the arc is like it's well
Speaker 2: and but Tom was a very good cheerleader too, and
Speaker 2: he would say, you know, like when like you Got
Speaker 2: Lucky is a hit, and he would say, Stanley, that's
Speaker 2: going on the set list. So as long as long
Speaker 2: as we were thinking about the live gig, my life
Speaker 2: was made. That was my depth of my awareness at
Speaker 2: how old a guy I was at that point, you know,
Speaker 2: my late twenties. Was like we're gonna tour, you mean,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go go on the road again.
Speaker 1: Right, okay, But then you switch everything up, you know,
Speaker 1: more time goes by two and a half years. You
Speaker 1: start working with Dave Stewart, who's hot with the rhythmics.
Speaker 1: You put out an album that whatever people's expectations are,
Speaker 1: suddenly it's played on MTV and the band is as
Speaker 1: big as it ever was, if not bigger. So what
Speaker 1: was the view from inside there?
Speaker 2: God? I was such a simpleton. I mean, I wish
Speaker 2: you could the guy you're talking to you right now
Speaker 2: is not that guy. So that guy was probably thinking, boy,
Speaker 2: the girl in the video is really cute. We're getting
Speaker 2: to make videos. This is awesome. I got a nice car.
Speaker 2: I was such a bonehead. But you know what, I
Speaker 2: think I was actually the perfect drummer at that point.
Speaker 2: I was exactly what you'd expect out of a rock
Speaker 2: and roll drummer in his late twenties experiencing success. So
Speaker 2: from my perspective, it was Alfredy Newman, What me worry?
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, so what did Dave Stewart add
Speaker 2: to the bis? Dave was cool, you know, it was
Speaker 2: like not really my cup of tea for the band.
Speaker 2: I didn't understand, like, you know, I cool guy, I
Speaker 2: mean really cool guy, but I didn't understand what he
Speaker 2: was doing with our band. To me, we were a
Speaker 2: gang and I don't under you know, I would never
Speaker 2: understand why any people were in our gang that weren't
Speaker 2: in our gang. You know, so Dave. But but I
Speaker 2: played on a record. Dave had me play on a
Speaker 2: sisters are doing It for themselves that you're you know
Speaker 2: e rhythmic Aretha and I Love on a session four Dave.
Speaker 2: He was very exciting. I didn't understand what he was
Speaker 2: doing in our band, but that was but Tom loved it.
Speaker 2: He was having fun. So what am I gonna say? Great?
Speaker 1: Okay? What was it like touring with Dylan?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man? Uh? That was the high point of drumming
Speaker 2: for me? It was It was never as good and
Speaker 2: it will probably never be that good again because that
Speaker 2: was a high, total high for me. And what was
Speaker 2: it like? It was like a high wire act every night,
Speaker 2: but knowing you were gonna, you were gonna, you were
Speaker 2: gonna connect it was but every night was shot from
Speaker 2: a cannon. I don't even know we're gonna what we're
Speaker 2: gonna do, but it was. He was amazing, the most soulful, fearless,
Speaker 2: uh rock star. I've ever had the pleasure of looking
Speaker 2: at it, at his ass, you know, from like that
Speaker 2: guy is the shit. That's all I remember thinking. And
Speaker 2: I wasn't enamored when we started. I became a fan
Speaker 2: as we played with him. I missed Bob the first time.
Speaker 2: I was so stupid I missed it. But boy did
Speaker 2: I get it when we were on the road with him.
Speaker 2: That guy taught me that you know it's your way
Speaker 2: or if you ain't doing your thing, you're doing somebody
Speaker 2: else's thing. And he was the shit.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know people have been on the road with Bob,
Speaker 1: worked with Bob. They're on a thirty day tour. He
Speaker 1: nods to them, doesn't he really even talk to him?
Speaker 1: What was your experience?
Speaker 2: Extremely personable, he talked a lot. We actually kind of
Speaker 2: hung out, like we we went and saw Frank Sinatra
Speaker 2: and Sammy Davis together. Like I won't say that we
Speaker 2: were like asshole buddy, he's I mean, I don't think
Speaker 2: he needed an asshole. He didn't need a new friend.
Speaker 2: He was, but I think he he was extremely tolerant
Speaker 2: of this bombastic load of shit that was playing behind him.
Speaker 2: The whole time, and he said, I think he kind
Speaker 2: of got a kick out of it. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: I never asked him, but I got great feedback from him.
Speaker 2: Uh uh. He was funny. He's funny as shit. Man.
Speaker 2: He was personal nice to my mother.
Speaker 1: Well, can you say, Okay, are you the type of guy,
Speaker 1: because you're verbal and agreeable, that you're the one who's
Speaker 1: gonna make the friends with Bob Dylan or you just
Speaker 1: want to five friends of.
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan and the band? Good question. I I just
Speaker 2: did what felt natural, Like if Bob and I were
Speaker 2: in the room, I'm going to start talking, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna and if he doesn't want to talk, he'll
Speaker 2: walk away. I mean, I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 2: Bob is that concerned with everybody else. I think if
Speaker 2: Bob was in the mood to say hi to me,
Speaker 2: he would then, and if he was in the mood
Speaker 2: to make a joke, he'd make a joke. And and
Speaker 2: if he was in the mood to be jocular on stage,
Speaker 2: I don't think he premeditates. He's not a lot of
Speaker 2: showbiz in Bob. You know, there's like a I think
Speaker 2: it's his personality off stage and on stage, I don't
Speaker 2: know that the veneer. It's very thin between them, if
Speaker 2: there is one at all, it's like, eh, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I found him to be hysterical and uh, I loved it,
Speaker 2: and we got to go places I would have never
Speaker 2: gone if it hadn't been for Bob.
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you know people make movies, go on
Speaker 1: the road with people, best buddies. They never see him again.
Speaker 1: You ever hear from or run into Bob Dylan again.
Speaker 2: It's been ages, but I got to say. When Sammy
Speaker 2: Davis died, he left a message on my answering machine
Speaker 2: that touched me. And I got a Christmas card from
Speaker 2: Bob oddly enough once where he had He was so sweet,
Speaker 2: and I felt that maybe I I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to respond. I was, Oh, I was, and still am
Speaker 2: in over my head how I would or why I
Speaker 2: would reach out, or if he would even give a shit.
Speaker 2: But I've always sent messages through his manager or anyone
Speaker 2: near him. Please tell him I love him, tell him,
Speaker 2: I hope he's well, and you know, because I mean it.
Speaker 2: It's like, but no, no, I don't think, no, I
Speaker 2: don't know. We're not communicating.
Speaker 1: Okay, it ends with the Heartbreakers. You're now Stan Lynch,
Speaker 1: How do you pick yourself up? And where do you
Speaker 1: go from there?
Speaker 2: I was very fortunate. Probably within about two days of sitting,
Speaker 2: you know, in my house, just kind of going what
Speaker 2: the fuck is going to happen? The phone rings and
Speaker 2: it's Don Henley and it's like, he goes, you know, hey, Bud,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? And I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He goes, you know, he basically like I heard, you know,
Speaker 2: that's Don. It's always pretty curt very short, and I heard,
Speaker 2: you know, what are you doing? I go, and he goes,
Speaker 2: We'll get your ass on a plane, put your studio
Speaker 2: in a bunch of boxes and get it out of here.
Speaker 2: I go, what's going on? He goes, I'm putting the
Speaker 2: Eagles back together, and I need a song and I
Speaker 2: want you to help. You know, see what you got.
Speaker 2: I want to see if you got a song for
Speaker 2: the band. So I went from like fucked beyond belief
Speaker 2: to wow, my big brother calledy has something for me
Speaker 2: to do. So it went. It was it was a
Speaker 2: complete like I went through I shot through a door
Speaker 2: courtesy of Don and ended up at his place writing songs.
Speaker 1: Well, you have a song on the Health Wheezys Over album,
Speaker 1: but from the moment you get on the plane, how
Speaker 1: much work is there with How long did that period
Speaker 1: of time Health wheeze Is Over last for you? Before
Speaker 1: that happened, before the No No no, once it started.
Speaker 1: Once you came to LA, come to write songs. You know,
Speaker 1: you can write song in a day and go home.
Speaker 1: You can write song, can make a record of be
Speaker 1: a year. I mean, how long were you out working
Speaker 1: on that before you had to figure out what we're
Speaker 1: going to do next?
Speaker 2: Oh well, one thing leads to another, Work leads to work,
Speaker 2: work begets work. So with Down, I went out there
Speaker 2: and you know, I wrote a lot of stuff that
Speaker 2: didn't connect with him. He didn't like it great, but
Speaker 2: you know, you go through your process and then one
Speaker 2: thing did connect and the next thing he said was
Speaker 2: wanting you come co produce it. So I went to
Speaker 2: LA and started writing with Don, and then probably an
Speaker 2: album came up after that. Like I would just I
Speaker 2: stayed in gear. I never stopped really with with Don
Speaker 2: and with other people. It's just one thing led to
Speaker 2: another and I just stayed working.
Speaker 1: Well, how busy were you.
Speaker 2: As much as I could stand.
Speaker 1: And you talk about having a staff writing deal with John,
Speaker 1: how did that come together?
Speaker 2: Well, when I throughout with the Heartbreakers, I always had
Speaker 2: a publishing deal is what they called him, and you
Speaker 2: were a staff writer essentially, you know. And I probably
Speaker 2: had been through six or seven publishing companies by the
Speaker 2: time I stopped doing that, So I was always a writer.
Speaker 2: Somebody had my my publishing, you know. I made a
Speaker 2: series of goofy deals until finally Wickson said, quit making deals.
Speaker 2: We're going to get all your shit back and we're
Speaker 2: going to administrate it correctly, and we're going to organize you.
Speaker 2: And I'm not quite sure if that answers your question.
Speaker 1: Well, you said that when you met John, it sounded
Speaker 1: like you were one thing to have a publishing deal.
Speaker 1: It's another thing where they give you money every week.
Speaker 1: So I guess I thought it was the kind of
Speaker 1: deal where hey, you know, we'll pay you write a
Speaker 1: certain number of songs other people try to get covers.
Speaker 1: Or is it just like, hey, you have a deal,
Speaker 1: like you always have a deal.
Speaker 2: It's the deals were there's every kind of deal. It
Speaker 2: depends on how hungry you are and how broke you are,
Speaker 2: Like you can make co publishing deals where they give
Speaker 2: you an advance annually and then they own pieces of
Speaker 2: it for a certain amount of time. It's very complicated.
Speaker 2: And that's where I said, like this guy Wicks and
Speaker 2: Randall came in with an army of lawyers and figured
Speaker 2: out my trail of tears for the last twenty five
Speaker 2: years of publishing, and you know, and got it all
Speaker 2: back for me. But with John and I, we happened
Speaker 2: to both be in Nashville writing for separate companies. He
Speaker 2: was with I think Pierce Southern. I might have been
Speaker 2: with Warner Chapel, and we were both just writing songs
Speaker 2: for other people.
Speaker 1: Okay, you end up having a country hit with Tim McGraw.
Speaker 1: How does that happen?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: You tell me, I mean it, I don't know, dude. Well,
Speaker 3: let me ask you. You know, in Nashville they have
Speaker 3: these writing sessions. Yes, how was the song written? And
Speaker 3: how long until it got to Tim?
Speaker 2: Relatively quickly? I mean it was we were we were
Speaker 2: all thrown together. There was a guy I was working
Speaker 2: with who I had known pretty well, and it was
Speaker 2: we got together and we wrote one afternoon, but probably
Speaker 2: wrote three songs is what you do in Nashville. You know,
Speaker 2: you you write a lot of songs, which is not
Speaker 2: what I do, but when you're in Nashville, you do it.
Speaker 2: And we wrote, then you demo. At the end of
Speaker 2: the week, we demoed the song and I think we
Speaker 2: played for the publisher. Now at that point, I was gone, shit,
Speaker 2: I just wrote I was out of there. And then
Speaker 2: I think I got the call from my Cope part,
Speaker 2: my Cope writer on that, and he said, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: on hold for McGraw and I'm like, eh, cool, whatever
Speaker 2: that means. And then he said, oh, yeah McGraw cut it. Well,
Speaker 2: whatever that means, because you could probably cut fifty songs.
Speaker 2: And I make the you know, it's like all this
Speaker 2: is all and then he goes, I think it's just
Speaker 2: it's going to be a single. I'm like what. And
Speaker 2: then it was like then Steven's called me when he
Speaker 2: goes Son of a Bitch went to number one. So
Speaker 2: I flew to I flew to Nashville and we drove
Speaker 2: around of the car till we heard it together, which
Speaker 2: was really fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back with Don Henley. You know he
Speaker 1: reaches out after you lose your gig with the Heartbreakers,
Speaker 1: but you worked with him on a second and third
Speaker 1: solo albums and have songwriting credits. How did that come together?
Speaker 2: Because he's a he's a good dude, and he must
Speaker 2: have seen he saw something in me that he felt
Speaker 2: it was entertaining, and he really trained me into the
Speaker 2: discipline of writing. Like my first writing with Henley came
Speaker 2: from Danny Kortzmeyer introduced me to Don. Danny and I
Speaker 2: became friends and Don Danny said, come down. He's producing
Speaker 2: Don's second album, and he said, you know you should
Speaker 2: come down, you know, come down, you know, hang out
Speaker 2: and hang out with us. And in the process, Dany
Speaker 2: said something funny to Don, like, you know, you should
Speaker 2: get together with this guy. He's funny. And Don's like,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, what's he got, you know? And they gave
Speaker 2: me a track and uh and and I wrote words
Speaker 2: like and you know, Don corrected my spelling literally like
Speaker 2: before he would even read it. He remember him saying,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't read. He goes, can you fucking read?
Speaker 2: And I remember going like, oh JESU, this is the
Speaker 2: most embarrassing day of my life. And he was like, Tony,
Speaker 2: get this idiot. Some books. You know, he needs to
Speaker 2: read these books. And you know, Stan, you're smart, but
Speaker 2: you you're basically a functional illiterate. And so Don took
Speaker 2: me under his wing and taught me how to co write,
Speaker 2: you know, essentially for him for his process. He said,
Speaker 2: here's what I need, here's how it works for me.
Speaker 2: And that's not universal, that's very specific for Don. And
Speaker 2: and he's, uh, but what an education? What an And
Speaker 2: that's an invitation only room. You know, you don't invite
Speaker 2: yourself to co write with people like that. You just
Speaker 2: you wait and if they invite you. And he's invited
Speaker 2: me pretty much every time since his second solo to try, Hey,
Speaker 2: pony up, there's no guarantee, Stan, pony up? What do
Speaker 2: you got? And then the last few records we've co
Speaker 2: produced together and it's been great. I mean, what an education?
Speaker 2: What an education?
Speaker 1: Okay? On the two thousand album, you know, Inside Job,
Speaker 1: which I love, not as commercially successful as the one before. Sure,
Speaker 1: my favorite song on that album is My Thanksgiving. You
Speaker 1: have a writing credit on that. Can you tell me
Speaker 1: what you did on that? If you can remember music music?
Speaker 2: Basically, I think I had a twelve string guitar that day,
Speaker 2: and and Jay Winding was there and he's these guys
Speaker 2: are really talented, by the way, you know, when I
Speaker 2: say Jay Winding, it's like for those that don't know shit,
Speaker 2: these guys are top, top drawer. And he had a
Speaker 2: relationship with Don, and we were all in the room
Speaker 2: massaging chord changes and Don would say, I like that,
Speaker 2: I like where that's going, I like how that feels.
Speaker 2: And Jay would say, you know, hey, what if we
Speaker 2: do this? And we were three on a match. That's
Speaker 2: really what it was all reassuring each other that's going
Speaker 2: to be cool, you know, But I agree, you know.
Speaker 2: But but Don's Don's gift is well, he's got a
Speaker 2: few but that he can phrase, and he can convey emotion,
Speaker 2: and he's a poet.
Speaker 1: Okay, the average person doesn't know how the music business
Speaker 1: really works. But if your name is not on the
Speaker 1: record and you want to work, you got to hustle.
Speaker 1: You gotta keep relationships. Obviously, you make friends, create opportunities.
Speaker 1: But once you were on your own, starting in the
Speaker 1: mid nineties, to what degree did you work it and
Speaker 1: still work it?
Speaker 2: Was I still working in the nineties.
Speaker 1: No, No, okay, let's talk about people further down the
Speaker 1: food chain from you, someone who goes on the road
Speaker 1: playing with the band, but it's not a member of
Speaker 1: the band.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Okay, that person is keeping up relationships twenty four to seven,
Speaker 1: sure because they know this job is gonna end. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need another job. Okay, you've been independent for thirty years.
Speaker 1: To what degree are you working at networking? And make
Speaker 1: sure that you have enough work or is it always
Speaker 1: just falling in your.
Speaker 2: Left I can honestly tell you I have no hustle.
Speaker 2: I don't. I never had a manager, you know I didn't.
Speaker 2: I have no social media presence. I reach I work,
Speaker 2: I think around after my tenure with the group, I
Speaker 2: decided subconsciously I would only work with friends. I'm only
Speaker 2: going to work with people who like me or I
Speaker 2: like them. And it became more like a canoe trip metaphorically,
Speaker 2: like music for me was like, I'm not getting into
Speaker 2: the canoe with an asshole or somebody that's just gonna
Speaker 2: yell at me. I'm gonna go get in the river
Speaker 2: and we're gonna paddle together and we're gonna laugh, and
Speaker 2: if we get somewhere cool, we're gonna pull over to
Speaker 2: the side. And eat, and it's like, I've been really
Speaker 2: fortunate that I haven't had that experience where I've had
Speaker 2: to be what's gonna happen next, Shit, this gig's gonna end.
Speaker 2: I was almost grateful when a gig ended because I
Speaker 2: needed the break. Like, you know, those Don Henley records stressful.
Speaker 2: They're stressful for Don, they're stressful for me. They're stressful
Speaker 2: because he has a high bar. He's hard on himself,
Speaker 2: so he demands everybody bring their best game and he's
Speaker 2: disappointed if you don't. So there's a lot of stress
Speaker 2: when you work with someone of you know, that kind
Speaker 2: of heat. So when those records would come to an end,
Speaker 2: I would honestly go home and sit on the beach
Speaker 2: for six weeks grill and chicken and drinking a bottle
Speaker 2: of wine, going, oh great, you know, it felt like
Speaker 2: a tour, you know. So I've been very fortunate that
Speaker 2: it's the work has been there with the people I
Speaker 2: love to work with.
Speaker 1: Okay, outside of your village where you live, to what
Speaker 1: degree is Stan Lench recognized?
Speaker 2: Nil? You know, my body is, my physical presence has
Speaker 2: changed so dramatically. You know, it's like, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: a grown man. I mean I was, I was a
Speaker 2: boy when I was in the Heartbreakers, you know, I
Speaker 2: you know, like, you know, the most important thing you
Speaker 2: can be in your twenties and thirties is is good looking.
Speaker 2: You know, in your forties and fifties, you better be
Speaker 2: smart and you know, and and hopefully rich whatever that means,
Speaker 2: you know, accomplished, you know, and by the time you're
Speaker 2: my age, you know, you don't trade on any of
Speaker 2: the same things that I traded on as a kid.
Speaker 2: I now I trade on you know, joy and created,
Speaker 2: creativity and and you know, I trade in those areas now,
Speaker 2: Like so I'm not. I'm It's not that I feel
Speaker 2: like I've made it. It's more like I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't. The only thing I got to prove is
Speaker 2: to the people that that respect me. And most of
Speaker 2: the people I'm trying to impress are dead.
Speaker 1: You know, who are you trying to press? Who's dead?
Speaker 2: Oh jeez, I'd love to impress John Lennon, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd love to impress you know, I shoot, I'd love
Speaker 2: to impress Charlie Watts. I'd love to impress Brian Jones,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, there's so many it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: like my heroes, most of the heroes i've you know,
Speaker 2: they were older than me, so therefore they've moved on.
Speaker 2: And those are the people in my jury. Now when
Speaker 2: I'm working, I'm going, you know, Charlie Watts would go, no, man,
Speaker 2: that's not swinging, get the fuck out of here, or uh,
Speaker 2: you know. And I'm lucky, like you know, I still
Speaker 2: have friendships with the people I admire, like you know,
Speaker 2: like Steve Lucather. He'll call me and goes, Stanley, let's
Speaker 2: let's work on a tune. And I'm like, are you
Speaker 2: shitting me?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 2: Of course I will, you know, and you know, and
Speaker 2: you know Luke so I mean, how he's a fucking bonfire.
Speaker 2: Just stand next to you know, like you want to
Speaker 2: get warm, Call Luke. It's like you're on fire by
Speaker 2: the time you hang off the phone. And that's how
Speaker 2: I feel about the people. Well, hell, one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of them now are that way from me, because otherwise
Speaker 2: I don't answer their calls and they don't they don't
Speaker 2: call me. We turn each other on. And that's why
Speaker 2: I'm maintaining these kind of friendships business relationships. There there's
Speaker 2: very it's all messed up, you know, as fucked up
Speaker 2: as music is it as fucked up as the sounds.
Speaker 2: It's my social life.
Speaker 1: I know what you're talking about. Okay, So the speaker
Speaker 1: Wars albums coming out, YEP, it could set the world
Speaker 1: on fire. You say you're managing your expectations. Let's assume
Speaker 1: that you have some you know, are you saying, I'm
Speaker 1: committed no matter what happens, We're going to make another
Speaker 1: second record. This is another record of second record. This
Speaker 1: is a band. We're saying, this is what I'm doing now, all.
Speaker 2: Of the above. It's like we're John and I are
Speaker 2: always writing songs. We've we've already got a we've got
Speaker 2: a chest full to look at for another record already
Speaker 2: which will be better than this record, because that's the evolution.
Speaker 2: I feel like with this band, we're putting a like
Speaker 2: us like a bookmark in the in our lives right now.
Speaker 2: We're kind of going, this is what we can do
Speaker 2: today with given what we had to work with. If
Speaker 2: we get another shot, it'll be better because that's what
Speaker 2: we do, you get better. And I'm looking forward to
Speaker 2: hopefully getting a shot at playing so we can evolve
Speaker 2: more as a band, and that will allow us to
Speaker 2: record more as a band. So I look for natural evolution.
Speaker 2: There's been no planning to my life to this point,
Speaker 2: so there's no point in planning.
Speaker 1: Okay, Stan, you're very entertaining, very warm. I'm sure my
Speaker 1: audience will love you. I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: taking this time, and I certainly wish you luck with
Speaker 1: a record. You know, that's the kind of record those
Speaker 1: of us were died in the wool rockers cotton right too.
Speaker 1: You know it sounds like what you know we believe
Speaker 1: in the song is right there. You can hear the instruments,
Speaker 1: there aren't the trappings. It's good.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. It's very it's it's primitive and it's basic,
Speaker 2: and it's what we wanted to do to get started.
Speaker 2: You know, Like I said, it takes a village. So
Speaker 2: your listeners, if you have a chance, I hope you listen.
Speaker 2: And it means the world to me to just be
Speaker 2: allowed to keep I keep being allowed to do this.
Speaker 2: I uh shit, don't stop.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna stop right now until next time. This
Speaker 1: is Bob left Sex
Speaker 2: Sh