Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sex Podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Block Billy F. Gibbon Billy, Mr Bob,
Speaker 1: So good to be here with you. Man. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: getting into the rock and roll thing. I in fact,
Speaker 1: I just read uh one of the latest left Sets newsletters,
Speaker 1: so I'm up to speed on just about nothing I saw.
Speaker 1: I need you to give me about a hundred and
Speaker 1: ten thousand more. Okay, let me ask you a couple
Speaker 1: of questions right up front. Yeah, back in the seventies
Speaker 1: it was Billy Gibbons. Now it's Billy F. Gibbons. What changed? Oh?
Speaker 1: I ran into some friends up in Vancouver, BC that
Speaker 1: we're heavy into numerology, and they convinced me to become
Speaker 1: a bit superstitious, uh uh, saying that the the the
Speaker 1: birth name was out of balance, and so they provided
Speaker 1: me fifty selections of first names and fifty selections of
Speaker 1: possible last names, all of which sucked. So but they said,
Speaker 1: you know, if you use your initial from your your
Speaker 1: birth given middle name, it all balances up. Billy F. Given.
Speaker 1: In fact, you and I talked about this at the
Speaker 1: palm one night, and I was it was a bit
Speaker 1: shy because since then, everybody they have they have graced
Speaker 1: me with another word that starts with F, which I'll
Speaker 1: go with. Okay, okay, So do you believe in numerology
Speaker 1: of those things? I'm not saying no. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not a superstitious guy, don't think. But who's to say,
Speaker 1: you know? Okay, in okay, let's just take a little further.
Speaker 1: Are you into astrology? Not necessarily no, although although having
Speaker 1: been born in December, you know the Sagittarius things, you know,
Speaker 1: the Sage brothers. That's a strong that's a strong thing.
Speaker 1: Have you been vaccinated? You know, I'm waiting, I'm in line.
Speaker 1: My physicians sitting on the fence. So I had the
Speaker 1: antibody's test, right, and they were so up that they
Speaker 1: encouraged me to donate some blood to the local clinic,
Speaker 1: which I did. They said, hey, we need those antibodies,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, okay, does that mean that I
Speaker 1: had it? Uh and didn't know it. That's another possibility
Speaker 1: that they're not nobody's you know, everybody's sitting on the
Speaker 1: fence kind of faith here and there. But the good news,
Speaker 1: the curtains seems to be rising. I feel things thawing out.
Speaker 1: I was out and about uh in town and Uh,
Speaker 1: they're making announcements. Now I gotta go back to work.
Speaker 1: So what it was? What was it like being out
Speaker 1: of work for all that time? Oh? It was boring.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely boring. In fact, the only thing that
Speaker 1: cut the ice. I got a phone call unexpectedly from
Speaker 1: our man with the big bad back beach are fearless
Speaker 1: drummer from points beyond Uh. And I'm not speaking about
Speaker 1: Frank the man with no beard beard or Dusty Hill.
Speaker 1: That's that's the trio on that side. The other trio
Speaker 1: started off with Matt sarm and Austin Hanks Mr left
Speaker 1: hand Austin Hanks playing the They called me up and
Speaker 1: they said, are you tired of just sitting around doing nothing?
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, what you got in mine? And they said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna come scoop you up. We're out in Palm Springs.
Speaker 1: You over in Las Vegas. We have we found a
Speaker 1: recording studio near Joshua Tree. And at that moment I
Speaker 1: mistakenly said, yeah, the Rancho de la Luna, I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with it, and they said, no, no, you you were
Speaker 1: over there working with the Queens of the stone Age.
Speaker 1: This is a this is across the street. But what
Speaker 1: Matt didn't tell me was it was across the street
Speaker 1: and twenty miles so we were out in the out
Speaker 1: in the middle of the desert. But the good news
Speaker 1: is that it indeed, uh, you know, when you're doing
Speaker 1: the only way out of doing nothing is to start
Speaker 1: doing something, and this was an opportunity to get it
Speaker 1: going on. So we have Okay, let's let's go back
Speaker 1: a chapter. Did you write out the pandemic in Vegas? Yes.
Speaker 1: I had gone to London at the end of February
Speaker 1: to to make an appearance on the invitation of Mick Fleetwood,
Speaker 1: who had organized that glorious celebration tribute to the early
Speaker 1: days of Fleetwood mic when they were a four piece
Speaker 1: of blues band, which a lot of folks think Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mike is a pop band. They started off with that
Speaker 1: brief fore man lineup, Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie,
Speaker 1: m mc fleetwood on on drums and Miss Gilligan, my
Speaker 1: lovely sweetheart, was with me. And at the conclusion of
Speaker 1: that glorious occasion, which I do believe might have been
Speaker 1: the last large public gathering for a music event in London.
Speaker 1: It was London Palladium. Place was packed. And then we
Speaker 1: went on to take a holiday in Spain and uh,
Speaker 1: of course, uh, it was so early in the game.
Speaker 1: The word of this virus was yet to be spoken,
Speaker 1: and we were carrying on and just having a big
Speaker 1: old time. However, uh zz Top Tour had been booked
Speaker 1: to begin up Peeling the Onion with a startup in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, so off we go. We got a NonStop
Speaker 1: flight out of Madrid, which turned out to be uh,
Speaker 1: the last flight out of Europe as the curtain was dropping.
Speaker 1: In fact, had we not gotten out, I've been speaking
Speaker 1: Spanish to you today. But land in Las Vegas and
Speaker 1: hopped in the taxicab and the driver turned around. He said, uh, hey, Billy,
Speaker 1: uh dog on it. I had tickets for your show.
Speaker 1: I said, well, don't worry it. This is Wednesday, man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start on Friday. We got a couple of days.
Speaker 1: He goes, where have you been? It's postponed. That's how
Speaker 1: I found out that this was a serious drop of
Speaker 1: the curtain. And I got on the phone and I
Speaker 1: called up the management office. I said, hey, I said
Speaker 1: I was informed that, uh, we're sitting on the fence.
Speaker 1: Are we gonna play? And they said no, no, it's
Speaker 1: it's here. You have a house in Vegas. Have a
Speaker 1: house in Vegas. Yeah. Gilligan wanted a ranch, and a
Speaker 1: friend of mine said, hey, man, I got I got
Speaker 1: your ranch, which I thought he was joking, and in
Speaker 1: fact I was over there to play a walk on
Speaker 1: with Matt's arms outfit Kings of Chaos, and I got
Speaker 1: off the stage and I walked into I said I
Speaker 1: wanted the dressing room and said, hey, Gilligan, where you been?
Speaker 1: She goes, oh, I was talking to your buddy Markling,
Speaker 1: and he grabbed me by the shoulders and he's a man,
Speaker 1: I know you've been talking about that ranch. I got
Speaker 1: your ranch, And it had been this ongoing joke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going to get a ranch. So we caught the
Speaker 1: late night red Eye back to Los Angeles, and three
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning the phone rang and man, you
Speaker 1: left town. Where where I got your ranch? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you are joking, of course, he said no, look at
Speaker 1: your computer, and sure enough there was a there was
Speaker 1: a little ranch property on the screen. I said, okay,
Speaker 1: So we got on the early morning flew back to Vegas.
Speaker 1: I got off the plan. I said, man, why why
Speaker 1: the long face? He goes, I tried to catch you.
Speaker 1: Somebody bought the property you that you were looking at,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, we're here. Let's let's go see
Speaker 1: what we didn't get. As you know, like I needed
Speaker 1: another house. How many houses? How many houses do you have? Uh?
Speaker 1: Once too many and a hundred ain't enough. I live
Speaker 1: on a tour bus. It just keeps changing talents. But anyway,
Speaker 1: you start looking for property in Vegas. Yeah, we're standing
Speaker 1: in the middle of Rancho And I turned around and
Speaker 1: I said, well, just for questions, I said, what would
Speaker 1: a place like that go for? And the real estate
Speaker 1: girls went into a mild panic and and said, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, she got pregnant with baby number six. They've
Speaker 1: already bought another property. This one's coming on the market
Speaker 1: in the morning, and it seemed to be reasonably priced.
Speaker 1: Gilligan jumped up, said, hey, it's got a stable in
Speaker 1: the back. It's our ranch, so low and behold we
Speaker 1: signed on the dotted line. It turns out to be Uh.
Speaker 1: It was next door to a house previously owned by
Speaker 1: Dean Martin. This house had was Bridget Bardoe's wedding house
Speaker 1: from nineteen fifty seven. That's a little history there. So
Speaker 1: it's a ranch. What makes it a ranch as opposed
Speaker 1: to just a piece of property, I'd call it a
Speaker 1: ranch at a ranch at this was in a an
Speaker 1: interesting development. It was. They broke ground in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: nine and I think it's considered the one of the
Speaker 1: first commercially developed residential areas. And each each footprint was
Speaker 1: two acres. And of course, back in those days, Las
Speaker 1: Vegas was a cowboy town. Everybody had horses and they
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that there was enough room. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's still a couple of couple of stables in the
Speaker 1: in the little circle there, so I think ranchet. So
Speaker 1: since Gilligan was excited about the stables, does she ride?
Speaker 1: She rides my butt. She rides me all the time.
Speaker 1: I can't get away from that. But the being okay,
Speaker 1: does she ride horses? Uh? You know, that's a good
Speaker 1: question I have. I've yet to see her saddle up.
Speaker 1: I've yet to see her. Okay, So you've been married,
Speaker 1: You've been with Dilligan about fifteen years or so at
Speaker 1: this point. I actually been married together longer that time.
Speaker 1: Does she go with you when you go on the road,
Speaker 1: Does she stay home? No, she's she's on the road,
Speaker 1: on the road. Count In fact, I've learned to learn,
Speaker 1: as you know, uh, girls all in the world. As guys,
Speaker 1: we just take care of the stuff on it. But
Speaker 1: early on, I guess it started actually as a during
Speaker 1: a tour of Europe. We would end the show on
Speaker 1: a Friday night dry overnight Saturday morning. Uh, she'd rattle
Speaker 1: my cage and we'd get up to go with the
Speaker 1: runner and the catering girl to go see the local
Speaker 1: grocery store. So we'd be traversing the aisles, looking at
Speaker 1: foreign languages and saying different colors in different shapes. It
Speaker 1: was a real eye opening experience. So I credit Gilligan's
Speaker 1: willingness to be on the road to be quite quite educational.
Speaker 1: So now you're seeing more than a hotel room. Definitely, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And although the hotel rooms are on the horizon, it
Speaker 1: does it does appear that we're gonna be out and
Speaker 1: about time to rock and roll. Right, And do you
Speaker 1: always go by bus or do you sometimes locate one
Speaker 1: city go by jet to the varying gigs, yes on occasion. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a time back in the eighties when uh,
Speaker 1: commercial flights, we're fine, But the ownership of your own
Speaker 1: aircraft was actually a plausible outing, given the fact that
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, you know, there was money flying
Speaker 1: around left and right. Uh, we were putting forty or
Speaker 1: fifty hours a week on this aircraft, so it was
Speaker 1: quite affordable. And then we got lazy, and then they
Speaker 1: decided to turn busses into rolling houses, microwave refrigerator, flat
Speaker 1: screen TVs internet. Uh, you don't even have to look
Speaker 1: at the road. You leave it to the to the driver. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's say a traditional gig ins at eleven PM.
Speaker 1: What's your routine after eleven Well, we've we uh we
Speaker 1: hang out. Uh. We we let the doors close, and
Speaker 1: we'll mingle with a few fans maybe here and there,
Speaker 1: and depending out on the weather, we'll we'll go outside
Speaker 1: and and if we're really lucky, some of the the
Speaker 1: neighborhood establishments may still be open. We might tiptoe around
Speaker 1: the corner, but by and large it's straight ahead back
Speaker 1: on the wide road and go into the next gig.
Speaker 1: I guess I'm asking if the gigins at eleven, at
Speaker 1: what time do you try to fall asleep because it
Speaker 1: takes a while to come down from a gig. Oh,
Speaker 1: you said it. I don't know if we're I don't
Speaker 1: know if we hit dreamland until six am. It's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's so it's so exciting to get up
Speaker 1: on the deck and you know, jumping around and shouting
Speaker 1: it out. It does definitely get the pulse beating. And
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right, it takes a while. That takes a
Speaker 1: while to come down. Okay, So when you go out
Speaker 1: with Gilligan, are you on the bus just the two
Speaker 1: of you or there are other people on the bus
Speaker 1: with you? No, it's just uh, we share a separate coach.
Speaker 1: In fact, uh celebrate by the way, a zz Top
Speaker 1: celebrates five decades together uninterrupted, by and large. And I've
Speaker 1: been asked many times how in the world have three
Speaker 1: nearly unlike minded guys outside of two hours on the deck,
Speaker 1: how have you managed to keep it together? And the
Speaker 1: answer is simple to words separate buses. Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to Vegas for a minute. So you've been there
Speaker 1: in excess of a year. How have you entertained yourself
Speaker 1: other than this album you made The Ranch. The Ranch
Speaker 1: yet is a mere two blocks from there. There's kind
Speaker 1: of this Hawaiian Polynesian tiki bar that somehow didn't get
Speaker 1: the message. The doors had to close that they say,
Speaker 1: they didn't get the word. They stayed open, which was
Speaker 1: rather unusual. Uh, most of of I mean from if
Speaker 1: you tell, if you started in Texas and if you relegated,
Speaker 1: just a corridor through the southwest, through the desert southwest,
Speaker 1: all the way to the west coast. Everything was shut,
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the planet. And here's this
Speaker 1: little Polynesian place. Uh, for whatever reason, they didn't get
Speaker 1: the message. But around the corner from that was a
Speaker 1: little casino and they too, they said, well, the the
Speaker 1: tiki bars open, we might as well stay open. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a few dice games that caught our attention.
Speaker 1: Left and right. Are you a gambler, Well, yeah, the
Speaker 1: the For those that are listening, Uh, if you'll allow
Speaker 1: me to describe what I just pulled out of my pocket,
Speaker 1: I've got, I've got the I've got the rolling bones
Speaker 1: and uh they're official, their three quarter fully squared up.
Speaker 1: But unfortunately that's the only thing I was able to
Speaker 1: take take away from the last dice game. They said, here,
Speaker 1: you'll you'll need this on the street corner, go take this. Okay,
Speaker 1: So how do you know Matt sor him? I've known
Speaker 1: Matt for quite some time. Uh we met early on.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of you know, Matt has
Speaker 1: has served as the cornerstone backbeat guy the Cults, Guns
Speaker 1: and Roses and of course Velvet Revolver and being a
Speaker 1: fan of every outfit he seemed to be part of,
Speaker 1: had my attention. And it was actually Gilligan was talking
Speaker 1: with Matt and he had just left another interesting aggregation.
Speaker 1: This was kind of a uh goodly jam band made
Speaker 1: up of a bunch of different guys whoever came off
Speaker 1: the road had the opportunity to join the outfit called
Speaker 1: Camp Freddie and then uh, that's fond the the establishment
Speaker 1: of Kings of Chaos, Matt's next gangly bunch of guys.
Speaker 1: And said, well, y'all to asked Billy to Billy to
Speaker 1: come up and do a couple and that really that
Speaker 1: really cemented this kind of arms length friendship. By taking
Speaker 1: the deck and letting Matt provide that glorious backbeat, I
Speaker 1: really fell for it. Uh, he's a powerhouse hitter man. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you go way out into the desert. The studio
Speaker 1: is there? Where do you sleep? Aha? This? Uh? As
Speaker 1: I mentioned the Rancho day La Luna, david Catching's joint,
Speaker 1: uh freak it in by so many really talented artists.
Speaker 1: Across the way was a gentleman from England that had
Speaker 1: invested in a large footprint property and I guess when
Speaker 1: it became known that he was actually creating a recording
Speaker 1: studio as part of this purchase, his next door neighbor
Speaker 1: got very nervous and immediately put her for sale sign
Speaker 1: next to it, and he he bolted, He got the
Speaker 1: heck out of there. And so one house became two,
Speaker 1: and the former neighbor's domicile became the campgrounds. The garage
Speaker 1: became the performance room, and I guess it must have
Speaker 1: been the uh the lawnmower room became the control house.
Speaker 1: But it's really turned into be quite a stately affair.
Speaker 1: It's uh globally competitive, as we should say, it's really cool.
Speaker 1: How do you know Austin? Austin Uh came from Alabama.
Speaker 1: I'm at Austin down on third Uh right in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles at a famous place UM that's known for uh
Speaker 1: a twenty page menu, one page is food and nineteen
Speaker 1: pages of of tequila. And Austin was he was holding
Speaker 1: court behind the bar. He Uh. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he was ever an actual bartender. They just hired him
Speaker 1: to watch over the place. He's, uh, he's a rather
Speaker 1: strident fellow and uh he's not ready to take any
Speaker 1: guff from anybody. But what a great fellow. And then
Speaker 1: it became known that he played guitar and he said, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: he said, I'm holding court down at a place off
Speaker 1: of Kwanga and Selma. Huh. Unfortunately it's long gone um
Speaker 1: over the past couple of years. But he had a
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon show with a great gang of guys, and
Speaker 1: I was just amazed. Not only is he a great singer,
Speaker 1: comes from Alabama, Austin, but been on the West coast
Speaker 1: for twenty years, and uh, hearing him sing was one thing,
Speaker 1: but watching him play. He plays right handed guitar upside
Speaker 1: down and backwards like he does the Albert King Jimmy
Speaker 1: Hendricks routine. I can't look at it. It makes me
Speaker 1: go crazy inside out and backwards. I call him. But
Speaker 1: the three of us, Austin Hanks, Matt Storm and yours
Speaker 1: truly decided to make Noise a few years back. And
Speaker 1: uh that actually had its origins when we were taking
Speaker 1: a stab leaving the Cuban record. The first bf G
Speaker 1: solo record was following an invitation to play the Havannah
Speaker 1: Jazz Festival way back, when, of course I left me
Speaker 1: scratch in my head. I said, I'm not sure I
Speaker 1: want to go to Cuba with a I don't want
Speaker 1: to bust up a jazz festival with a rock and
Speaker 1: roll party. So we dug deep and uh we we
Speaker 1: let the Cuban influences creep into the studio and and
Speaker 1: that resulted in the release of the album entitled perfect
Speaker 1: A Mundo, which did pave the way we actually went
Speaker 1: to Havana. I was able to put together an outfit,
Speaker 1: had the two girls on drums, Gigi Martin was on
Speaker 1: piano along with Mike Flanagan on B three. Alex g
Speaker 1: was holding a turntable and a set of congas in
Speaker 1: the back. Really a great outfit. And from there, well,
Speaker 1: let's stay there for a second show. You know, I
Speaker 1: was supposed to go a couple of years ago and
Speaker 1: didn't happen. But my main reason I want to go
Speaker 1: to Cuba is for the cars. Now I've heard actually
Speaker 1: did inside their hun days. They aren't really the original.
Speaker 1: So what were you were there? You're such a car guy.
Speaker 1: Oh uh. We not as soon as we landed. And
Speaker 1: it's very interesting the Havana airport, the Havanna so called
Speaker 1: International Airport. It's very small, not much to it, and
Speaker 1: the operatives inside are all female and they've got fish
Speaker 1: net hose. They look like strippers. Uh. It's really crazy.
Speaker 1: But we made quick, uh quick ways back to we
Speaker 1: had We had taken out space at a nice villa
Speaker 1: and on the way everybody was bug eyed because there
Speaker 1: was not a car on the road after nineteen I
Speaker 1: would say the the most contemporary vehicle we had seen
Speaker 1: was I think we said nineteen sixty. Uh, and they said, well,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, that's about when it when the gates closed,
Speaker 1: it was about that was about the last vehicle to
Speaker 1: be brought in. But we did see, oh this was beautiful.
Speaker 1: We saw a nineteen fifty four Cadillac convertible and I said,
Speaker 1: g was pull over, it's on the sidewalk and there
Speaker 1: was a crowd gathered around. They were not tourists waiting
Speaker 1: to take a ride. They were guys looking under the hood,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what to do to get the
Speaker 1: car back running. And as we peeked under the hood,
Speaker 1: there was a late model. When you said Hyundai, I
Speaker 1: think it might have been a Hunded diesel engine of
Speaker 1: powering this fifty four Cadillac convertible. But you know, they
Speaker 1: pick up a tin can, they'll twist it up and
Speaker 1: it'll be the it will become an ignition key or
Speaker 1: apart to the transmission. They're that they're that inventive. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you you finished the Cuban project and continue the
Speaker 1: narrative up to the new album Hardware. Yes, Uh, we
Speaker 1: were We were fortunate. We played two nights in Havana,
Speaker 1: one at the h the brick factory turned art museum
Speaker 1: and they had a beautiful venue in there. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then we we we closed out the trip with an
Speaker 1: appearance at the Big Theater. Uh. Just a glorious and everybody,
Speaker 1: do you know that they've learned how to play music
Speaker 1: as part of their lifeblood. They clap on the two
Speaker 1: and four. It's not a one in three crowd this
Speaker 1: is they got the backbeat down. But I remember going
Speaker 1: to the airport. Uh. Upon arrival, of course, you have
Speaker 1: to check every single thing and you're bringing in and
Speaker 1: on departure you have to check off everything to make
Speaker 1: sure you're taking it back out. Well, Mike Flanagan are
Speaker 1: fearless keyboardist. Uh. He was looking at a ticket and
Speaker 1: he said, gee was he said, my departure date seems
Speaker 1: to be marked differently than everybody else. Sure enough, we
Speaker 1: were leaving on a Sunday. His ticket predicated that he
Speaker 1: leave on a Monday, which was gonna be a large problem.
Speaker 1: But fortunately Gigi Martin and Marcel Fernandez, who both speak
Speaker 1: fluent Spanish, they came to the rescue. They assigned me
Speaker 1: to go, uh look at the the equipment being loaded
Speaker 1: onto the ferry back onto the airplane. Well, little did
Speaker 1: I know the the dossier had already been sent and
Speaker 1: was already boarded up on the plane. Next thing, I'm
Speaker 1: being escorted into a side room where a girl is
Speaker 1: looking at me filling out a form, and uh, I
Speaker 1: happened to glance down. In my limited Spanish, I could
Speaker 1: see I was in trouble. It's Aid Act, the title
Speaker 1: of the paper that she was filling out. It was
Speaker 1: titled Act of an Adversary, and so I had to
Speaker 1: dredge up some Spanglish as quickly as possible. We finally
Speaker 1: ironed it out and made way. Uh we flew, we flew,
Speaker 1: let's see Havana back to Miami and then uh we
Speaker 1: all went back to the West coast and and just
Speaker 1: a great recollections. I gotta say it was quite an
Speaker 1: eye opener. We had a blast. It was, it was
Speaker 1: all good, all good. Well that begs a question. No,
Speaker 1: you have this beard which makes you instantly recognizable around
Speaker 1: the world. Is that a good thing or a bad
Speaker 1: thing for you personally? Well, it's uh, it's definitely uh
Speaker 1: a point of identification. And as I've mentioned, uh uh
Speaker 1: we do have one. We we do get a kitchen
Speaker 1: pass one night a year. It's Halloween. Just I could
Speaker 1: go out on Halloween. Dude, you look like that's easy,
Speaker 1: top guy, You're gonna win the contest man. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we get we get one one night a year. Um.
Speaker 1: I it was quite popular down in uh in Cuba. Uh.
Speaker 1: They were, they were they were actually setting was speaking
Speaker 1: about competition. They were setting up a a A a
Speaker 1: vote a right in or call in vote, you know,
Speaker 1: like Fidel or Guillermo. That's been kind of crazy, but
Speaker 1: it'd go a yeah, the Bears. You're in an airport
Speaker 1: in Barcelona, Okay, in your mind, you had a long night.
Speaker 1: You're there, people gonna come up and talk to you. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've gotten so used to it. There was a brief period, uh, well,
Speaker 1: a long running series where I was asked to join
Speaker 1: the cast and crew for the TV show called Bones.
Speaker 1: And it was a delightful excursion running a dozen years,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it. And I remember taking the
Speaker 1: the Ave, which is the high speed rail between Madrid
Speaker 1: down south to the delightful city of Valencia, and uh,
Speaker 1: we were sitting on this nice train and and uh,
Speaker 1: each car had a flat screen TV, so you could
Speaker 1: kill these forty five minutes by watching this. And uh,
Speaker 1: there was a disturbing glare coming over my right shoulder,
Speaker 1: and and finally I looked over and the guy was
Speaker 1: looking at the screen, and then he would look at
Speaker 1: me and look back at the screen. Finally he pointed
Speaker 1: to me, and he he pointed up to the screen
Speaker 1: and they were they're actually broadcasting a series of Bones
Speaker 1: and there I was, so he said, he said, Senor,
Speaker 1: yes you're famous. I like your beard. So yeah, the
Speaker 1: beard goes, the beard goes where we go? Man? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you show up out there, knew Joshua twee. How
Speaker 1: do you start making the record? Well, we didn't plan
Speaker 1: on starting the record per se. It was Uh. It
Speaker 1: was set as just a nice way to take a
Speaker 1: ride and met's a rag top car. I thought, g was,
Speaker 1: what's it gonna take to inspect a studio? It's four
Speaker 1: walls with no windows, will be in and out in
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. However, those thirty minutes magically turned into thirty days,
Speaker 1: which turned into month and month and month. Uh. However, Uh,
Speaker 1: not planning to start anything, there was no equipment truck
Speaker 1: following u Sin. So the good news is Matt very
Speaker 1: quickly discovered a set of drums over in a dusty corner.
Speaker 1: Austin found a couple of old Fender guitars in the
Speaker 1: opposite corner, and the engineer was waving his hands and
Speaker 1: gee fellas he said, Uh, I don't know if that
Speaker 1: stuff is playable. Uh, he said, you can give it
Speaker 1: a shot. So Matt went about tuning up the drums,
Speaker 1: Austin and I were we We were forced to plug
Speaker 1: into a Fender reverb tank which went into an old
Speaker 1: Fender amp. But sure enough the light came on. We
Speaker 1: lit the fuse and the engineer was was beside himself.
Speaker 1: He said, Hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna get the tape
Speaker 1: rolling right now. And you can actually hear the first
Speaker 1: track from that first unexpected entry into the studio, the
Speaker 1: song which became the title West Coast Junkie. What makes uh,
Speaker 1: what makes it entertaining, is here we are playing on
Speaker 1: old Fender guitars with Matt's backbeat, and the sound is
Speaker 1: nothing short of sixties surf music, and we're miles and
Speaker 1: miles from the nearest drop of water. It was. It
Speaker 1: was kind of that incongruous coupling, you know, surf music
Speaker 1: meets sand and cactus, which was crazy. So at what
Speaker 1: point did you say, hey, we want to make an album? Well,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, we never left that that kind of
Speaker 1: did it. And I credit the engineer, both engineers. Uh,
Speaker 1: my sidekick, Mike Fiorentino. He likes to go by his
Speaker 1: the loose Italian translation of his last name, Fiorentino, Tiny
Speaker 1: Flowers and Matt's engineer, Chad Slawser. Those two guys were
Speaker 1: so enamored with the fact that we were actually making
Speaker 1: usable sounds they locked the door and refused to let
Speaker 1: us leave. So here we are. We got the key
Speaker 1: to the the what was the I called it the
Speaker 1: neighbor's house. It had been turned into the bunk I
Speaker 1: guess you'd call it the bunk house today. But there
Speaker 1: we stayed. And the good news is we were so
Speaker 1: we were having such a good time, the good time
Speaker 1: and this this message goes out to all of the
Speaker 1: left sets followers that are engaging and this uh, rather
Speaker 1: crazy avenue called the entertainment game. Just remember, the good
Speaker 1: times you have in the studio will find their way
Speaker 1: into the grooves. So that's that's the lesson I can
Speaker 1: leave you with. That's what was happening as we as
Speaker 1: we stepped inside that place. It was fast and furious, loud,
Speaker 1: and it was it was okay okay. In terms of
Speaker 1: writing the songs, were they just jams like the stones
Speaker 1: that turned into songs? How did you end up with songs?
Speaker 1: Very much stones approach? Uh, we had no pre preparation. Well,
Speaker 1: I take that back, we had blank paper in one
Speaker 1: pocket and a pencil in the other, and there we
Speaker 1: from there we started it, and it was it was
Speaker 1: lifting titles or provocative phrases or experiences that we had
Speaker 1: all shared out of thin air. The one exception was
Speaker 1: after we had had become ensconced in this uh, this
Speaker 1: place of desolation, one of the high points was getting
Speaker 1: to get in the car and drive the mile after
Speaker 1: mile back into the nearest place of civilization. There was
Speaker 1: a great Mexican restaurant, Las Palmas, and that was our
Speaker 1: our big day out to go get Mexican food, and
Speaker 1: we got to know the young lady that she was.
Speaker 1: She was the owner, she was the cook, she was
Speaker 1: the bookkeeper, I guess you could call her. She was
Speaker 1: the everything. But on this particular day, we've been out
Speaker 1: there for a couple of months, things were going pretty
Speaker 1: pretty good, and we walked in and the place was
Speaker 1: literally on fire. And we took a step back and
Speaker 1: she bounded around the corner. She had a blanket in
Speaker 1: one hand and a smile. She said, don't worry, I'm
Speaker 1: not burning up your breakfast. She goes, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: this taken care of, which fortunately she did, and upon departure,
Speaker 1: We've had some great Mexican food, and now we had
Speaker 1: a song title She's on Fire. So using what happens,
Speaker 1: let's stay with the Mexican food. Forget breakfast, which is
Speaker 1: his own thing. You go to a Mexican restaurant, what
Speaker 1: do you water? Oh? First thing you look for, Uh,
Speaker 1: you want to you want to sample the hot sauce.
Speaker 1: But you scan the menu for for two see if
Speaker 1: you could make discovery of mola. That's uh in my book,
Speaker 1: that's one of the Yeah, they always go to starters.
Speaker 1: Do they have mola? And in this case they not
Speaker 1: only had moley, they had a couple of varieties of molay.
Speaker 1: How did you get so hooked on oh man? Uh?
Speaker 1: Having spent some time in Mexico, Uh, growing up in
Speaker 1: between Texas California. There was a a neighbor in Texas
Speaker 1: that was a big shot with Standard Oil and at
Speaker 1: that time they had they had created an alliance with
Speaker 1: the Mexican government who nationalized their oil indeor p Max
Speaker 1: became part of They were connected with Standard Oil. But
Speaker 1: apparently they had some big problem. And I was twelve
Speaker 1: years old at the time, and my buddy who lived
Speaker 1: next door, he said, uh, yeah, we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: Mexico City. We'll be back in two weeks. My dad's
Speaker 1: gotta go down there. I gotta put some problem aside
Speaker 1: for them. Well, after three months, I got a I
Speaker 1: got a phone call from my buddy and he said,
Speaker 1: it looks like we're never getting out of here. Can
Speaker 1: you get your parents to let you come down? Well, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve turning thirteen. My parents were all too
Speaker 1: ready to let me, let me go. So off we go.
Speaker 1: And upon arrival it it I became aware that you know,
Speaker 1: our summer months in the USA generally was June, July, August,
Speaker 1: back to school in September. No, in Mexico, you're still
Speaker 1: in school during those months. They don't go. They don't
Speaker 1: get out until much later. I said, well this sucks.
Speaker 1: I called my my folks back and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: still in school. I'm staying until we get out of school,
Speaker 1: and I may never come back. And uh so that's
Speaker 1: my Mexico story. But it was down there where we
Speaker 1: discovered the virtues of a good recipe for mola. How
Speaker 1: long we How long were you there? Ultimately? Uh? I
Speaker 1: wound up staying about a year and a half. Wow,
Speaker 1: how was your Spanish after a year and a half. Well,
Speaker 1: we learned all the bad words. We learned all the
Speaker 1: bad words. That was That was it. Okay, let's say
Speaker 1: north of the border, you're in l A. Where do
Speaker 1: you go for Mexican food? Um, you got thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: I'll give you the list. Let's start. I'll cut you
Speaker 1: short if we run out of time, start with the top. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, someone found out that I had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to engage with the Bob Left Sets podcast and they said,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, you gotta ask Bob about food. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, that'll take three or four hours. I
Speaker 1: don't know if the podcast last that long. But knowing
Speaker 1: that on occasion, you've been very explicit of ut uh
Speaker 1: finding high standards when it comes to being a foodie. Uh,
Speaker 1: that does count. Standards do count. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to Mexican food, I like to tip my hat. Uh.
Speaker 1: I spoke about Molly. The One of the other aspects
Speaker 1: of knowing you have arrived at the right place. The
Speaker 1: quality of hot sauce. You gotta check it out if
Speaker 1: the chips are crispy. Of course, it's never it's never humid.
Speaker 1: Enough in Los Angeles to get the let the chips
Speaker 1: get uh, you know, soft and gooey. I mean they're
Speaker 1: always always crispy, but just recently, uh, I bumped into
Speaker 1: a friend, Mr. Craig Lay, who was part of a
Speaker 1: four man team that started a very interesting, uh and
Speaker 1: somewhat now famous spot right on Sunset Boulevard, two doors
Speaker 1: west of the Whiskey You go go and uh this
Speaker 1: place rock and Riley's by the way, if for those
Speaker 1: that needed an Irish pub destination. But Craig decided to
Speaker 1: uh take a rental spot on the adjacent property, which
Speaker 1: had had unexpectedly become vacated. And he called me up
Speaker 1: and he said, hey man, He said, what would you
Speaker 1: think about getting involved with me in a in a restaurant?
Speaker 1: And I said, oh my god, where's the rabbit hole
Speaker 1: I can throw my money down? So he said no,
Speaker 1: it's a Mexican restaurant. And I said, gee, Craig, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure about this. I said, Uh, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna call it? He said, oh, you're gonna
Speaker 1: love it. Well, unfortunately he told me the name and
Speaker 1: if I and I will reveal the name because it's
Speaker 1: so bad it had it, there was no way that
Speaker 1: it could fail. It's called justin Caso's. So I said,
Speaker 1: where do I put my money? Craig, justin Casos And
Speaker 1: sure enough, um right is as California showed the twinkling
Speaker 1: of reopening. He had a grand I should call it
Speaker 1: a grand soft opening just a month ago. Here we
Speaker 1: are now in the middle of June. I'd say it
Speaker 1: was right at the beginning of the month he said,
Speaker 1: we're gonna open the doors. And they've had a record
Speaker 1: breaking crowd ever since. So justin Caso's as crazy as
Speaker 1: that name, maybe, uh, it's it's a great spot. And
Speaker 1: to add to our discussion of now we've added hot sauce,
Speaker 1: we've talked about mola, we must talk about Caso, which
Speaker 1: is a very unusual dish to find in Los Angeles. Uh,
Speaker 1: to the point where if you mentioned Caso uh to
Speaker 1: a local, they said, well, what is that cheese dip?
Speaker 1: Oh No, you have to go to Texas. You gotta
Speaker 1: go back there to get kiso. But just in Casos
Speaker 1: they have not one, not too not three, but four
Speaker 1: different offerings a very interesting caso. So if you're a
Speaker 1: if you're a cheese fan, if your cheese head, you
Speaker 1: gotta go to justin Casos. Yeah, you definitely don't see
Speaker 1: that everywhere in l A. Let's go back to the
Speaker 1: hot sauce. Give me your thoughts about hot sauce versus
Speaker 1: salsa and where you're at there, good point. It's often confused.
Speaker 1: Hot sauce could include saltza, which is a more rustic
Speaker 1: version of the more liquefied version of maybe you'd call
Speaker 1: it a pepper sauce. Um, let's start with tabasco, which
Speaker 1: is very viscous, almost watery, and then you get into
Speaker 1: a if you go down years ago, you really had
Speaker 1: to be uh, quite knowledgeable when you entered a grocery
Speaker 1: to find any kind of an aisle that had hot sauce.
Speaker 1: Now you've got not one, but you've got both sides
Speaker 1: of the aisle with so many different flavors of hot sauce,
Speaker 1: different offerings. In fact, I've added uh I made friends
Speaker 1: in back in Nashville. There's a songwriting buddy of mine.
Speaker 1: We've had some success together as writing songs and playing
Speaker 1: together Mr Tim Montana who's actually from Montana, And one
Speaker 1: afternoon we were in the studio back in Nashville, and
Speaker 1: I said, where where's Tim? And the engineer said, oh,
Speaker 1: we're waiting on the he's upstairs. You've got a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I said, what's he doing up there? He said, well,
Speaker 1: the commissaries up there. He's making some hot sauce. I said,
Speaker 1: Tim's making hot sauce. I said, I got a recipe
Speaker 1: for hot sauce. And the next thing you know, Tim
Speaker 1: and I are putting our heads together and and UH
Speaker 1: we combined a couple of recipes here and recipes there,
Speaker 1: and UH. I said, hey, Tim, I said, this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. He said, yeah, Man, what are we gonna
Speaker 1: call it? I said, well, whisker bomb. You've got a beard,
Speaker 1: I've got a beard. It's it's it's the Bomb of
Speaker 1: Pepper Sauces. And believe it or not, it's you can
Speaker 1: you can find it online. We we found ourselves at
Speaker 1: UH in San Antonio, Texas, and we bumped into a
Speaker 1: guy that was the head of the hot sauce division
Speaker 1: of a great grocery chain down there called H E. B.
Speaker 1: And UH we had a bottle of hot sauce. In fact,
Speaker 1: I had our costumer. All of the jackets that I wear,
Speaker 1: I've I've always got a part. Get never without hot sauce.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta gotta keep it handy. And I
Speaker 1: had some whisker bomb. This guy from h G B
Speaker 1: took a sampling and he said, when can I have it?
Speaker 1: I've got shelf space, bring it on. Well, as a
Speaker 1: working musician, you really don't have. You know, there's only
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of the day. Uh, twenty two of
Speaker 1: those hours you're on a bus. The other two hours
Speaker 1: you're on deck. So I said, we need to find
Speaker 1: somebody to get it in a bottle. So we found
Speaker 1: We went off Louisiana. What better spot you gotta You
Speaker 1: gotta place down Louisiana. That's uh, uh creating or they're
Speaker 1: bottling up our recipe whisker bomb. Uh, it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of it's it's it's caught on. It's got enough, it's
Speaker 1: got enough spice to get your attention, but it's not
Speaker 1: going to leave you running for the water fountain. I
Speaker 1: highly recommended Bob Okay you personally, how hot do you
Speaker 1: like your hot sauce? Not very I went to the match. Uh,
Speaker 1: my good buddy. Uh, everybody's become familiar with the extremes
Speaker 1: they've got TV shows, you know, the contestants, who can
Speaker 1: who can consume the hottest whatever. We went down that avenue.
Speaker 1: Guy Fieri, who's a friend of mine. Uh, he's been left.
Speaker 1: Uh he said yeah. He said, is it milk or
Speaker 1: is it buttermilk? Or is it how do I put
Speaker 1: the fire out? And I said, well, we've we seem
Speaker 1: to have hit the wall on that on that point,
Speaker 1: but I've kind of backed off. I like flavor. I'll
Speaker 1: go with I'll go with flavor. Okay, I see in
Speaker 1: your code people can't see because this is what the
Speaker 1: only you do. Have a little bottle of Tabasco. What's
Speaker 1: your verdict on Tabasco? Very good? It's of the accountable.
Speaker 1: It's in uh where whisker Bomb can be found in
Speaker 1: three hundred stores, but those three hundred stores are only
Speaker 1: in Texas. HP. Tabasco, on the other hand, can be
Speaker 1: found in eighty countries and that's around this planet we
Speaker 1: live on. So Tabasco, Uh, it's I should say, it's
Speaker 1: it's flavorful and it's accountable and with you have to
Speaker 1: be a little judicious, now, don't get me wrong. Uh,
Speaker 1: take it slow and away you go. And how about
Speaker 1: you know they have the Habanero. They have the green
Speaker 1: you know, you even go in there is just your
Speaker 1: basic original red. Yeah, now Habannarrow, that's that's getting up there.
Speaker 1: In fact, just recently, uh um, there was a there's
Speaker 1: a guy. I believe he's uh down on the southern
Speaker 1: part of the East Coast. I believe he's in North
Speaker 1: Carolina or South Carolina. The first it was the Ghost Pepper,
Speaker 1: and the Ghost Pepper had won some evaluation study that
Speaker 1: through the Scoville units, through the ceiling, Scoville units being
Speaker 1: the kind of the go to scale of which you
Speaker 1: base your heat index. But the Ghost Pepper is now
Speaker 1: eclipse the Carolina Reaper. I don't they should make this
Speaker 1: as a as a you can take paint off cars
Speaker 1: with this stuff. I don't know what. Why would you
Speaker 1: put this in a bottle? I don't know. It's it's
Speaker 1: for the extremists and yeah, okay, take it, take it. Okay.
Speaker 1: What might surprise people that you put hot sauce on? Well,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about whisker bomb goes on everything. Um.
Speaker 1: I was. I was back in Las Vegas. I was
Speaker 1: invited by Jay and Michelle Naylor, my friends from Palm Springs.
Speaker 1: They owned the uh famous contemporary art gallery right on
Speaker 1: the main drag. But they also uh commute over to
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, and they extended this particular evenings invitation to
Speaker 1: include a speech by the former mayor of Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: Mayor Oscar Goodman. A lot of folks will relate to
Speaker 1: Mayor Oscar Goodman. The name rings true. He he made
Speaker 1: an appearance as himself in the film Casino. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was the representative attorney. Talk about a guy in
Speaker 1: real life that's unfiltered. Uh. He gives occasional talks uh
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas. He has selected uh the setting for
Speaker 1: these informal talks at a place called Oscars. Not that
Speaker 1: the food is uh all that uh memorable. I think
Speaker 1: he selected that place because it's got his first name
Speaker 1: in the name of the restaurant. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: good combination. The food is absolutely wonderful. But Mayor Oscar
Speaker 1: Goodman served all three legal terms, and when he was
Speaker 1: forced to step down, his popularity was such that they
Speaker 1: voted his wife. Caroline Goodman, is now the mayor of
Speaker 1: the current Mayor of Las Vegas is Mayor Oscar Goodman's wife.
Speaker 1: But during the during the speeds. This was just last
Speaker 1: week I happened to be. Fortunately I was able to
Speaker 1: accept the invitation, and they served a delightful menu, and
Speaker 1: fortunately I had both Tabasco and Whisker Bomb in the pocket. Uh.
Speaker 1: They had a braised grilled halibut as the main course.
Speaker 1: And when I say grilled, it was served on a
Speaker 1: was served on a plate with these delightful darkened and
Speaker 1: deep grill marks, and it created just enough trough to
Speaker 1: catch the hot sauce. So with with with everybody, you
Speaker 1: got a little bit of spice. Its good. That's how
Speaker 1: do you know everybody? Oh? Man? Uh? Well you know? Uh? Um,
Speaker 1: let's see. You and I met years ago when you
Speaker 1: and I were doing Monster Radio together at the Peterson
Speaker 1: Auto Museum. You know you have the best memory of
Speaker 1: any musician I've encountered. Yes, well, uh, those being such
Speaker 1: memorable days, the recollections are stalwart. Um. In fact, now
Speaker 1: that the door seemed to be reopening, anybody with automotive
Speaker 1: leanings can visit the Peterson Auto Museum, a great spot
Speaker 1: to spend half a day or a full day. But
Speaker 1: I've gotten to know so many folks through traveling for
Speaker 1: five decades now and Uh, it's really been a reward
Speaker 1: as I as I spoke earlier, and I credit Gilligan's
Speaker 1: back in the discussion here. She's a real go getter.
Speaker 1: And and uh, just the discovery of doing that, stepping
Speaker 1: outside the tour bus to get in a van, to
Speaker 1: go in the center of some town, to see foreign
Speaker 1: languages in different colors in a grocery. It's an eye opener.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't stop there because on the way back,
Speaker 1: you're making your way through you're snaking through a residential
Speaker 1: area here, and you're getting through the back alleys of
Speaker 1: these of towns, and you get to not only if
Speaker 1: you see things, but you get to meet some very
Speaker 1: interesting folks along the way. So yeah, I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: My hands out there. Who is the im trying to
Speaker 1: put the right away? Who have you met? Who you
Speaker 1: were starstruck and said, Wow, I can't believe I'm meeting
Speaker 1: this person. If anybody, yeah, I can tell you right up.
Speaker 1: Nineteen two, cz Top got hired uh travel to Hawaii
Speaker 1: to perform alongside the Rolling Stones for three glorious shows
Speaker 1: at the h I C. It was a Saturday night
Speaker 1: show a Friday. No I'm sorry a Friday night opening show,
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon matinee, and a Saturday night and as
Speaker 1: luck would have it, we were all sharing a five
Speaker 1: day advance as before the performance that was set up
Speaker 1: by gosh uh uh the promoter made sure that not
Speaker 1: only were we coming to do the show, he wanted
Speaker 1: to give us five days to make sure we were
Speaker 1: there and getting to meet the Rolling Stones, particularly Keith Richards,
Speaker 1: who I admired as Uh, you know, the real mover
Speaker 1: and Shaker, I said, T was there, he is. There's
Speaker 1: the guys. So and to this day we've we've remained pals.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good start, which has lasted five decades. Okay.
Speaker 1: You know, when you're coming up as a musician, it's
Speaker 1: all about networking. That's a lot of people don't realize that.
Speaker 1: But frequently when a band becomes very successful, like zz Top,
Speaker 1: it kind of becomes more isolated and you're so busy
Speaker 1: in your own lane you don't know what else is
Speaker 1: going on. But you seem to always be playing with
Speaker 1: different us Issuanes, meeting different people. You know, is that
Speaker 1: just your nature? How did that come to be? Yes? Uh,
Speaker 1: as as pointed out uh quite stridently, actually a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, the documentary accounting for these five decades of
Speaker 1: zz top UH it's called the Little Old Band from Texas. UH.
Speaker 1: The director was not shy and pointing out that actually
Speaker 1: a near fourth member was the fearless manager who kept
Speaker 1: the three guys in check, UH, which is a tip
Speaker 1: of the hat to a guy to take some rambunctious
Speaker 1: teenagers and figuring out how to keep it together. But
Speaker 1: for the longest time we were restricted. There was a
Speaker 1: hard core rule. We were not allowed to jam session,
Speaker 1: we were not allowed to guests appear. It was UH.
Speaker 1: It was like Elvis, if Elvis, if Elvis was a trio,
Speaker 1: it would be easy tough. It was. It was tight.
Speaker 1: But then things loosened up and UH I found a
Speaker 1: great reward and kind of expanding the sonic horizons by
Speaker 1: working with so many great artists and talents within a
Speaker 1: lot of different fields. The one that seems to be
Speaker 1: still on the radar with the release of Hardware. This
Speaker 1: last this most recent solo album, the song Desert High
Speaker 1: was the final composition, and we were sitting around thanking, gosh,
Speaker 1: we've been stuck out here in the middle of nowhere forever. UH.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about this mysterious place, Joshua Tree. It's it's
Speaker 1: quite well known. It's a big tourist draw. It's it's
Speaker 1: you can read eat about the desert. You can even
Speaker 1: study photograph tomes by the dozens of pictures of the desert.
Speaker 1: But until you're there, uh, you don't really understand what
Speaker 1: people say when they when they speak of this mystique.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, upon arrival you feel it.
Speaker 1: Whether or not words are adequate to describe it remains
Speaker 1: to be seen. But we we were sitting around and said, okay,
Speaker 1: grab your pencil. Uh, we're pretty much wrapped up on
Speaker 1: this record. Why don't we throw some thoughts together and
Speaker 1: see what comes up. Let's talk about what it's been
Speaker 1: like hanging out and living in the desert. And we
Speaker 1: we shuffled the papers and uh we collated back into
Speaker 1: this one sheet and the engineer said, hey man, he said,
Speaker 1: we got this one music track left over. I said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the one that's it's the theme song for a cowboy movie.
Speaker 1: It's the song we don't know what to do with.
Speaker 1: He said yeah, he said, go see if these words
Speaker 1: will fit. I said, well, I have no melody in mind.
Speaker 1: I have no clue where we where we'd go. So
Speaker 1: I I stood in front of the microphone and wound
Speaker 1: up just as a measure to see if it if
Speaker 1: it would fit within this uh two and a half
Speaker 1: three minutes, I simply recited the lines, and lo and
Speaker 1: behold the engineers were came in waving their hands. They said,
Speaker 1: you got it, you got it. I said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I'm I was I was speaking, I was not singing.
Speaker 1: They said, no, it's it's it's a great message. I
Speaker 1: think that you've wrapped it up. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: upon playback, uh, it brought an immediate the immediacy was
Speaker 1: right in front of me. Thinking at any moment, I
Speaker 1: I anticipated seeing Tom Wait's step out of the shadows
Speaker 1: with his finger pointing, Okay, you're getting close, You're getting close.
Speaker 1: But having said that, Thomas one gifted artist that I've
Speaker 1: held great admiration towards for quite some time. Who perhaps
Speaker 1: one day the invitation might arrive to add that to
Speaker 1: the list of ways to get it out. It would
Speaker 1: be a would be a great thing. Okay. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: one is very different from the seventies and the eighties.
Speaker 1: Seventies you know you radio there multiple stations, everybody listens.
Speaker 1: Eighties was MTV the world's radio station. You had ultra
Speaker 1: successful tracks on that. But now it's it's hard for
Speaker 1: anybody to get traction. As a result of having a name,
Speaker 1: you get more traction other people. To what degree does
Speaker 1: that disincentivize you from making new music irrelevant of the quality,
Speaker 1: it's very hard to spread the word. Does that even
Speaker 1: come into the equation? Well, there's uh, there's there's a
Speaker 1: number of factors that that exists that haven't been antagonized
Speaker 1: by the radical changes. As you point out from the
Speaker 1: seventies to the present time, it seems fair to say
Speaker 1: that there's there's one element within the human condition. We
Speaker 1: all want to be entertained somehow. We we've got the
Speaker 1: joker gene. You know, we all want out. We all
Speaker 1: want out of ourselves in some manner, and entertainment is
Speaker 1: just that glorious moment when you can call it escapism,
Speaker 1: you can call it a reward for whatever reason that
Speaker 1: seems to be unchanged. It is the one thing that
Speaker 1: underlies Um. I'm a motivational energy and I see a
Speaker 1: lot of guys got yeah, man, he said, I sure
Speaker 1: would like to make a record, but it's so difficult
Speaker 1: to get it out there. On the other hand, I
Speaker 1: was speaking with a gentleman and I was quite flattered
Speaker 1: because he was bragging on this new album hardware, and
Speaker 1: he said, folks, go out and pick up the new
Speaker 1: Billy F. Gibbons record wherever you get your music. And
Speaker 1: I thought, gee whiz, that's a phrase. That's there's it
Speaker 1: used to go to the record store and buy it,
Speaker 1: but now it's wherever you get your music. And it's
Speaker 1: coming from seemingly all angles. There's probably one behind us
Speaker 1: that we can't see yet. It's ready to pounce. But
Speaker 1: on that note, I I encourage just about anyone that
Speaker 1: has the desire to get out. Uh. And I said,
Speaker 1: there's a few elements we've mentioned entertainment. UH. Slowly but
Speaker 1: surely as things begin to thought out, let's not leave.
Speaker 1: Let's not ignore the value of travel. And travel allows
Speaker 1: you to It allows you to expand more. I Q
Speaker 1: is not based on what you can pick up from
Speaker 1: simple book learning. Travel includes the aromatic experience. You're all
Speaker 1: factory senses are going wild. The sun shines differently in
Speaker 1: the west than it does in the east. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's a real brain teaser, but it's also a brain opener.
Speaker 1: Mind expansion is there for the taking. And I encourage
Speaker 1: anybody to add travel to I gotta go do this,
Speaker 1: and in so doing, uh, it adds to the creation
Speaker 1: or the creative process. And if you really want to
Speaker 1: entertain somebody, dig down deep and find that special moment
Speaker 1: where creativeness uh is allowed to flourish. It's as you
Speaker 1: point out, yes, it is difficult today. There's so many
Speaker 1: didn't somebody say that YouTube ads a million videos per
Speaker 1: day and Spotify is adding a million tracks per day.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot of stuff. It's really a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. But keep getting their swinging. So what's
Speaker 1: the last thing? Oh, the adult chores, the leaden chores
Speaker 1: of adulthood. Practice practice, practice, You got? Okay, let's go
Speaker 1: back to travel. Where were the most inspirational exciting places
Speaker 1: that you've been and where have you not been that
Speaker 1: you'd like to go? Um? I actually made it down
Speaker 1: to Antarctica once about years ago. Uh. I had a buddy,
Speaker 1: he was a pilot and he said, uh uh he
Speaker 1: said yeah, he said, man, I'd like to hang out.
Speaker 1: He said, I gotta I got a job. I gotta
Speaker 1: go down to Tierra del Fuego, said, Tierra del Fuego,
Speaker 1: that's the last point of that's the last point of earth.
Speaker 1: He goes, no Antarctica. He said, I'll be going there
Speaker 1: as well. I said, well, count me in. And I
Speaker 1: didn't realize he was running drugs. But I got on
Speaker 1: the plane and you know, I saw the glaciers breaking
Speaker 1: off and splashing into the well. That was greaty Okay,
Speaker 1: that's that's for another story. But traveling, there's still a
Speaker 1: few places that this. Not all stones have been overturned
Speaker 1: just yet. Uh. We were talking about blues and someone said, yeah, blues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where did it come from? I said, well, there's a
Speaker 1: couple of great books. Uh. One called Savannah Syncopeters. It
Speaker 1: was published back in the seventies early seventies as part
Speaker 1: of the studio This a paperback series by the great
Speaker 1: English musicologist Paul Oliver. And this one particular work called
Speaker 1: Savannah Syncopaters. The subtitle was African Retentions in the Blues.
Speaker 1: And it's quite it's quite possible to detect melodies from
Speaker 1: the Yoruba tribe which are still being sung today. You
Speaker 1: find it in early Charlie Patton records back from the
Speaker 1: thirties and you see gis blues. Okay, yeah, so what's
Speaker 1: that got to do with travel? Well, at one point
Speaker 1: blues was in this country. Was probably heard first around
Speaker 1: Mississippi and then it started spreading around. But now you
Speaker 1: can go to there's a blues festival in India. You
Speaker 1: go to Mumbai and you find a blues festival. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I've actually gone to India to play a blues festival.
Speaker 1: So uh, there are places. Um, well, let's go back
Speaker 1: a bit. Yeah, you can find blues just about anywhere
Speaker 1: you want to go. Uh, where do you want to go?
Speaker 1: Go to? Where? Uh? Just throw a dart at the
Speaker 1: map and and take off running, uh and bring back
Speaker 1: the values to throw into that creative process and be
Speaker 1: sure that you sure that those energies come out as entertaining.
Speaker 1: That's the bottom line. Brilliant. Okay. The room you're sitting
Speaker 1: in which is not well furnished from my angle, but
Speaker 1: I see like seven guitars. Are you a gearhead? Definitely?
Speaker 1: Definitely so uh. In fact, I'm sitting with Mr Miguel
Speaker 1: Mike Tiny Flowers Fiorentino. Um he engineered hardware, along with
Speaker 1: some other hit records coming out of Los Angeles, Nashville,
Speaker 1: around the planet, Mike, if you'll hand me, Uh yeah, right,
Speaker 1: but right. I was able to abscond from the studio
Speaker 1: out in the desert with that that famous Fender guitar
Speaker 1: that started the first really West Coast junkie. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a Fender Jaguar. You know that used to be the
Speaker 1: big guitar the early sixties beach boys. And then everybody
Speaker 1: started playing. Uh because I had three pickups and everybody
Speaker 1: started playing this stratocaster. Oh definitely so uh. We we
Speaker 1: also have here the the Fender reverb tank. God, what
Speaker 1: year is that one one of the first years. Uh,
Speaker 1: that came out of the studio. You know, if you
Speaker 1: want to make surf music, go to the sixties. But
Speaker 1: that African piece on the show, Uh, we're we're surrounded
Speaker 1: with guitars. Someone said, how how did you get into that?
Speaker 1: Why this African thing? Get that hat that you're famous for.
Speaker 1: You're constantly showing up with a footstool or a spear
Speaker 1: or a shield or what. Uh, here's a nice APPENDI
Speaker 1: this is a little a doll. Uh. Uh. The the
Speaker 1: the the interesting aspect for me and the connection to
Speaker 1: African art. I consider the blues having read this great
Speaker 1: book by Paul Oliver, African Retentions in the Blues. If
Speaker 1: you're gonna go back to the square one, let's go
Speaker 1: all the way back. And I felt like if I
Speaker 1: put a statue an African carving in the doorway, if
Speaker 1: you had to kind of sidestep around it, maybe you'll
Speaker 1: get the message, Oh yeah, we gotta we gotta become
Speaker 1: Jimmy Reid today. Turn it around you, you gotta become
Speaker 1: Albert King the next day. If you're many guitars, do
Speaker 1: you own? Uh? Didn't we use this phrase early ones?
Speaker 1: Too many? And a hunter day? Enough? Okay, what's your
Speaker 1: go to guitar? Pearly Gates? Pearly Gates. The nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine less Paul sunburst um, I think, initially made popular
Speaker 1: long after the instrument had ceased being produced by Gibson. However,
Speaker 1: with the release of John Mayle's record John Maylan the
Speaker 1: Blues Breakers featuring Eric Clapton, if you'll turn to the
Speaker 1: backside of the album cover, you see Clapton playing a
Speaker 1: sunburst less Paul, and right behind that is a little
Speaker 1: bit out of focus, but you and detect a martial amplifier.
Speaker 1: So that became and to this day it's still a
Speaker 1: go to combination. It's a winning combination. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff out there. The new magnetone amplifiers will get
Speaker 1: you there. Um gosh, if you're lucky to you know,
Speaker 1: stroll by a pawn shop, don't don't forget to look
Speaker 1: in the window. You might find that next quality thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if if you ask me, I'd say Pearly Gates,
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty nine less Paula does it for me. Now.
Speaker 1: Usually people are either a Gibson or a Fender person,
Speaker 1: and you have both, and they're different. Give me your take,
Speaker 1: they're very different. Um Uh. Dusty Hill, my fearless bass player,
Speaker 1: and his older brother, Rocky Hill. Rocky came to me
Speaker 1: and he said, uh, do you think I should go
Speaker 1: to the tattoo shop? I said it, Well, I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure. Uh, you play Gibson guitars. I know you
Speaker 1: talked about having a tattoo of Gibson. He said, no,
Speaker 1: I got two arms, Fender on one, Gibson on the
Speaker 1: other on Uh what about two? You play gretch? Well,
Speaker 1: I got the back of the neck. Come on, man, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been I've been lucky enough to play them all
Speaker 1: that there's something good in all of it. Okay, other
Speaker 1: than yourself greatest rock gutarist of all time? She was,
Speaker 1: There's so many I've made. I've made an interesting recent
Speaker 1: discovery and had the rewarding opportunity to befriend a picker
Speaker 1: out of Nashville as an Alabama guy that has made
Speaker 1: great strides uh throughout the session world playing some of
Speaker 1: the most awesome, ridiculously fast chicken picking. Uh. And he's
Speaker 1: got the greatest name his he goes, but his real
Speaker 1: name is gut three Trap. Gut three Trap. If if
Speaker 1: you have the opportunity to tune into YouTube, just type
Speaker 1: in gut three trap chicken picking and in ninety seconds
Speaker 1: you'll be willing to throw your guitar away. He's one
Speaker 1: of those guys. He's just he's just out there. In fact,
Speaker 1: I recently made an appearance within the last month at
Speaker 1: the Grand Ole Opry, and the organizer of the event
Speaker 1: had invited some stalwart performers. Brad Paisley showed up, Eric
Speaker 1: Church showed up, Lucinda Williams came around. It's it was
Speaker 1: just a stellar evening. And at the last minute the
Speaker 1: organizers said, is there anybody that you would like to
Speaker 1: see added to the lineup? And I said, I have
Speaker 1: made discovery of the fellow named Guthrie Trap. And he said,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, yes, we know. Guthrie Um a brilliant player. Um.
Speaker 1: Do you see yourself colliding? You know he's he's Uh,
Speaker 1: You're the rock and blues guy and he's the country guy.
Speaker 1: That might make for an interesting combination. I said, he's
Speaker 1: so good, I'm going to after standards. I'm only going
Speaker 1: to be able to play the snare drum, which I did.
Speaker 1: I said, folks, that's the reason I'm going to give
Speaker 1: up guitar. Now, great guy, Guthrie Trap. You've also worked
Speaker 1: with Jeff Beck. What was that like? Oh? Man, words
Speaker 1: failed me. Um. I met Jeff when I was probably eighteen,
Speaker 1: and I've been a stalwart follower of what he's managed
Speaker 1: to uncover. I I talked about Jeff uh in hushed
Speaker 1: tone wounds Uh for a number of reasons. Uh. He
Speaker 1: plays just whatever he can dream up, and he leaves
Speaker 1: most of us scratching our heads wondering how he did it. Um.
Speaker 1: And if I can brag just for a moment back
Speaker 1: in sixty eight with the moving sidewalks we got we
Speaker 1: got to team up with the Jimmy Hendrix Experience, which
Speaker 1: was a new act just coming back from the UK,
Speaker 1: and uh I wound up being assigned a room at
Speaker 1: the end of the hallway at these hotels. Jimmy was
Speaker 1: on the left, I was on the right, and vice versa.
Speaker 1: But I, uh, I would see the two equipment guys
Speaker 1: hauling in this piece of furniture. It was. It was
Speaker 1: a record player, but it was one of those giant
Speaker 1: you know, home and they didn't even call I don't
Speaker 1: know what they called it. It was. It was the
Speaker 1: size of a buick. And they loaded into the room
Speaker 1: and he motioned the doors were always open. He motioned
Speaker 1: he'd sent me a signal, okay, come on, come on over,
Speaker 1: and sure enough I've walked in. And the first thing
Speaker 1: he said, how do you think he's doing that? Well,
Speaker 1: he was playing Jeff Beck's Truth, the first Jeff Beck
Speaker 1: Group record. I was My mind was blown and I said,
Speaker 1: well wow, I said Jimmy, I said, this may come
Speaker 1: as news to you, but he's probably playing your records
Speaker 1: thinking the same how does this guy do that? As
Speaker 1: you know, as everybody knows. Uh, Jimmy's preferred go to
Speaker 1: guitar was usually the Fender Stratocaster, and I can probably
Speaker 1: guarantee the inventors of that instrument never had an idea
Speaker 1: of what he would end up doing with it. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing, remarkable stuff. Okay. You also share an interest
Speaker 1: with car of Cards with Jeff. Jeff Beck is an
Speaker 1: actual tinker tinkerer. He actually works on the cars. How
Speaker 1: do your interest in cars alive? Yeah? I go see uh,
Speaker 1: um our buddy, not too far from where you and
Speaker 1: I reside. We take I have discovered the train from
Speaker 1: downtown Los Angeles. You go to Union Station, pick up
Speaker 1: the train down to the past Fullerton exit to the
Speaker 1: next top Anaheim and in the shadows is Jimmy Shine,
Speaker 1: the Jimmy Shine speed Shop. Uh. In fact, I just
Speaker 1: appeared with Mr Jimmy Shine along with the Jay Leno
Speaker 1: at Jay Leno's garage and we had a big laugh. Uh.
Speaker 1: Jay said hey, he said, uh, could we see the
Speaker 1: new hot rod, the new BFG hot rod. It's on
Speaker 1: the cover of your record hardware. I said, sure, I said,
Speaker 1: but but it's not quite finished. Me and Mr Shine
Speaker 1: are still putting some finishing touches on it. And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: he said, uh, do you work on them? And I said, well, Uh,
Speaker 1: with this beard, I'm only allowed to be handed a wrench.
Speaker 1: Jimmy holds the torch. I can't get close. So so
Speaker 1: but we still dig it. Man. Uh. For some reason, gush.
Speaker 1: It goes back to the first what they call the
Speaker 1: first rocking rock and roll record, Jackie Brinston's Rocket. And
Speaker 1: somehow cars, guitars rock and roll. Uh, don't leave out
Speaker 1: pretty girls. There's food in there as well. But there's
Speaker 1: these elements that seemed to coalesce and nobody seems to
Speaker 1: know why. But I don't know. I've seen Jay driving
Speaker 1: his cars on the freeway, you know car. So in
Speaker 1: your particular case, these hot rids went in. Where do
Speaker 1: you drive them? I can get out on the It's
Speaker 1: like owning a lot of guitars. As long as you
Speaker 1: keep them tuned up and put them into service. Uh,
Speaker 1: they stay viable. And as you point out, Jay is
Speaker 1: not shy about getting on the freeway, getting on the
Speaker 1: back roads. Uh. With as many four wheeled crazy things
Speaker 1: that he's got, they they all. Uh, they all see
Speaker 1: the light of day. He's got this one electric car
Speaker 1: that was built in nineteen fourteen, the name of which
Speaker 1: escapes to me. But the cabin is round and the
Speaker 1: windshield wraps around like a fish bowl. It's it's glorious.
Speaker 1: And he's got a foot pedal that rings a bell too.
Speaker 1: Because it's as an electric car, it's quiet. You can't
Speaker 1: hear it coming. And he only takes it out at Christmas.
Speaker 1: He goes down and uh, he's actually uh, he's given
Speaker 1: Gilligan a riot. She got to take it around the
Speaker 1: walk with Jay ringing the bell, of course. But yeah,
Speaker 1: go ouat and get another guitar and make sure you
Speaker 1: play it. Uh, get another guitar, make sure you drive it,
Speaker 1: have a good So the English rock stars they were
Speaker 1: all buying, asked in Martin's Lamborghinis ferraris you tend to
Speaker 1: the American hot rod Spirit thirties and forties, etcetera? Do
Speaker 1: you have any of the Italian hardware, any of the
Speaker 1: modern stuff tesla, etcetera. Not yet. Uh. I have left
Speaker 1: that to my two partners back at the ZZ top
Speaker 1: uh camp. Uh, Frank and Dusty both laned Italiano. I
Speaker 1: got stuck in nineteen thirty two with the road with
Speaker 1: the Deuce coupe, and it doesn't seem to have melted
Speaker 1: down just just yet. Um. I don't know. There's so
Speaker 1: many interesting ways to look at it. Uh. The car
Speaker 1: culture has kind of driven the great Old U s
Speaker 1: A for so long, and it doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: giving up. Although I just recently I learned that the
Speaker 1: registration for new driver's licenses has plummeted. It's uh, it's
Speaker 1: on the way out. Um. And to be quite honest,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned having discovered the the train down to
Speaker 1: to Orange County, Uh, well, how do you get to
Speaker 1: Union Station that's downtown, I said, take a lift or uber?
Speaker 1: Oh you don't drive? I said, well sometimes, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: getting It's a different world, just like music. Well, the
Speaker 1: other thing is, you remember the sixties and seventies. One
Speaker 1: thing you did forget the Sunday drive. See I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get in my car. I'm gonna drive cross country. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of a kid talking about drive cross country anymore.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm gonna get kissasette'. I'mna listening to the ADEO.
Speaker 1: You know, see the look through the windshield, big sky
Speaker 1: Country to go. Yeah. Earlier I mentioned having uh joined
Speaker 1: Jay Naylor and his wife Michelle ms Hell if she
Speaker 1: likes to be called too to hear the speeches with
Speaker 1: Mayor Goodman and our good friends from the Las Vegas
Speaker 1: Review Journal, Mr John Katz. He recently announced he was
Speaker 1: going back to collect his high school car he is,
Speaker 1: which was a sixty seven Marquarie Cougar. Meant looks like
Speaker 1: it just was still sitting on the showroom floor, but
Speaker 1: he was. He was out to get into his sixty
Speaker 1: seven to drive on Root sixty six because he's now
Speaker 1: turned sixty. I said, Okay, there's whatever reason you need
Speaker 1: right exactly. Let's go back to the blue for a minute.
Speaker 1: So two blues records for the uninitiated to start with, Wow, Um,
Speaker 1: I'll I'll dredge up. Not only the favorite artist, that
Speaker 1: being Jimmy Reid. The favorite track is Honey Don't Let
Speaker 1: Me Go. It's got it all. He's singing great. Uh.
Speaker 1: He plays with the drummer and his sidekick Eddie Taylor. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he blows that harmonica and just the right form.
Speaker 1: It seems to me. Uh. When I get up in
Speaker 1: the morning, somebody thought I was out of my mind.
Speaker 1: I had some Doc Martin boots and he said, why
Speaker 1: are you putting air phones around those shoes? I said,
Speaker 1: because I gotta play Jimmy Reid. I gotta walk in
Speaker 1: these shoes later, Jimmy's gonna help me get down the road.
Speaker 1: It's it's that much of a sickness. It's an obsession.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I guess. I mean if it were, if
Speaker 1: it were boiled down to one, it would it would
Speaker 1: certainly come back to Jimmy Reed. And how about from
Speaker 1: the rock blues era, starting with you know, Fleetwood, Mac, etcetera.
Speaker 1: From there on, what record would you say to listen to, um,
Speaker 1: there's one coming well? Uh, I would say the British
Speaker 1: blues guitar greats that rescued this great American art form
Speaker 1: we call the blues. They, when I say rescued it.
Speaker 1: It was seemingly on its way out. It was evaporating
Speaker 1: until the British embraced it. And you had, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the long list. Uh. And we can start with
Speaker 1: the tried and true gang of guys Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page, Peter Green, Mick Abrams from Bloodwind Pig. I
Speaker 1: think Mick was with Jeff Hotel. Uh it stretched far
Speaker 1: and wide, Richard Thompson, who of course was more of
Speaker 1: a folk guy, Fairport convention guy. But so much uh
Speaker 1: could have been lost had it not been for the
Speaker 1: rescue of by the British. Of course, give the British
Speaker 1: a subject and they will, they will study it and
Speaker 1: take it down to the genetics. I mean, they got
Speaker 1: the d NA, they'll take it down to the d N. A. Okay,
Speaker 1: my favorite ZZ top song, you know, I'm bad, I'm nicheanwide?
Speaker 1: How did that come together? I was in Austin, Texas
Speaker 1: going to the Vulcan Gas Company, which was it was
Speaker 1: kind of a destination. It was a music venue that
Speaker 1: always had somebody of interest playing um nightly. And this
Speaker 1: was way way back. And on this particular evening, my
Speaker 1: buddy Billy Clayton he uh announced that he had intentions
Speaker 1: to go see freddie King. I said, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: how could I have overlooked freddie King tonight? He said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's down the street. He's at the balk And Gas Company.
Speaker 1: So the two of us, sure enough, we uh we
Speaker 1: showed up and stayed for the last the last note
Speaker 1: and Freddie was on fire that particular night, and we
Speaker 1: we tiptoed back, crossed over the parking lot and got
Speaker 1: in the car and we just sat there. We didn't
Speaker 1: say much, We didn't say anything. And Billy Clayton, Uh,
Speaker 1: he cracked the code. He said, Man, Freddie King. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's bad. And Billy looked at me, said and nationwide.
Speaker 1: At that moment, it just made so much sense that
Speaker 1: never left. And and Uh I shared that very story
Speaker 1: with Frank and Dusty and they said, okay, there's we
Speaker 1: were looking for a way to get into a song.
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can get out of it. But
Speaker 1: it's one of our favor We still play it, still
Speaker 1: play it another one Jesus left Chicago. Don Fox says
Speaker 1: it's about him, is it? Oh? Man, he'll take He'll
Speaker 1: take credit for just about anything you throw at him. Uh,
Speaker 1: Don Fox. Uh, you know he was first in line
Speaker 1: to pick up and support zz Top as a promoter.
Speaker 1: He dragged us out of Texas straight over to New
Speaker 1: Orleans where he was running the Great Venue the Warehouse.
Speaker 1: And uh about this time, um, I was just speaking
Speaker 1: about uh, the coupling of waiting on the bus that
Speaker 1: leads in right. Uh, segways directly into Jesus Just Left Chicago,
Speaker 1: which was an engineering accident. Uh. Terry Manning, who was
Speaker 1: later working on that, he he took the back in
Speaker 1: the day of Razor blading a piece of ascitate. Uh.
Speaker 1: He made a mistake, but when he when he realized
Speaker 1: the two songs were back to back, Uh, we we
Speaker 1: kind of liked it, and to this day we can't
Speaker 1: play one without the other. Jesus Just Left Chicago. But
Speaker 1: we were talking about that song and it took us
Speaker 1: back to zez Tups first album and I thought, gee
Speaker 1: was I said, we had finished the recordings and then
Speaker 1: it came time, what are we going to call this record?
Speaker 1: We're kind of we kind of like the record. What
Speaker 1: are we gonna call it? And I said maybe we
Speaker 1: should call it zz Tops first album And they said
Speaker 1: it's kind of pretentious, edn't it? I said, yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna light the fuse to make sure we get
Speaker 1: to do another one. So I'm not knowe Billy, We're
Speaker 1: gonna have to you this again because there's some of
Speaker 1: this whole zz Top history we didn't get into want
Speaker 1: to get more into Texas, but we'd have a four
Speaker 1: hour conversation, but I definitely want to continue with those subjects.
Speaker 1: You're quite the rack and tour. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: showing up, Bob. It's such a pleasure. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just recently you did a great thing with Joel Selvyn
Speaker 1: talking about Hollywood Eden his great book. Uh it brings
Speaker 1: me back to the West coast having been stuck in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. I'm ready to go back home and uh,
Speaker 1: I guess uh, I'll come knock it on your door.
Speaker 1: And yes, indeed we'll pick it up where we left off.
Speaker 1: We'll pick up sticks and lay them down. This has
Speaker 1: been a it's been a real enlivening exchange. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Man, you're just great dealing right until next time.
Speaker 1: This is Bob left six