Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, welcome back to part two of my podcast
Speaker 1: with the legendary record producer Bob az Were Bob, good
Speaker 1: to have you back. Thank you, It's very good to
Speaker 1: be here. Okay, let's delve into some of your work
Speaker 1: that we didn't get to last time. Now, you were
Speaker 1: consistently involved with Alice Cooper, but you did not do
Speaker 1: Muscle of Love. Why. Uh, there was a point at
Speaker 1: which the band was starting to flex their muscles, meaning
Speaker 1: the the the instrumental band within the the Alice Cooper group. Um,
Speaker 1: they wanted more recognition, they wanted more respect. They felt
Speaker 1: like I was too sort of in charge of that
Speaker 1: side of things, and I think that there was also uh,
Speaker 1: some disagreement amongst the different factions about what they were
Speaker 1: going to do as their next step. Anyway, it was
Speaker 1: just not comfortable for everybody, and it was clear to
Speaker 1: me on the first day of rehearsal that some people
Speaker 1: in the room were not happy to see me, and
Speaker 1: that happens, you know, in life. Sometimes that happens. By
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I just realized that this
Speaker 1: was not going to be a happy experience, and um,
Speaker 1: I took Alice aside and said Uh, look, I I
Speaker 1: can't do this. And I called Jack Douglas, who had
Speaker 1: been working for me and doing some production for me,
Speaker 1: and I asked my my then partner X my what
Speaker 1: who used to be my boss, Jack Richardson. I asked him, Um,
Speaker 1: if he and Jack Douglas together would take over the project.
Speaker 1: I knew between the two of them there would be
Speaker 1: a continuity there and a comfort factor for the band.
Speaker 1: So they said yes, and I think they did a
Speaker 1: really good job. Now the band broke up slightly thereafter.
Speaker 1: Did you foresee that happening? Yeah, I sort of did.
Speaker 1: I you know I did. I didn't really, I didn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do it that. I didn't talk to
Speaker 1: anybody about that. But I did say to Chef and
Speaker 1: to Alice that, you know, if they do decide to
Speaker 1: go out on their own, that they should call me.
Speaker 1: I'd be very happy to come back. So what was
Speaker 1: the process? Ultimately Alice Cooper went solo, but he was
Speaker 1: identified with the name of the band at that point.
Speaker 1: How did that come together that you went back to
Speaker 1: work with Alice? Well, let's be clear about something. When
Speaker 1: the when the band formed, um, you know, it was
Speaker 1: it was obvious to to chef UM and it was
Speaker 1: suggested by Pat Kingsley, one of the greatest pr people
Speaker 1: in the world, UM, that you couldn't have a band
Speaker 1: called Alice Cooper without having someone in the band called
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper. So um Vincent Fernier got selected. He was
Speaker 1: the lead singer after all, and he literally changed his
Speaker 1: name legally and went through all that process to become
Speaker 1: Alice Cooper. He was also the guy then that spoke
Speaker 1: on behalf of the band. So at seven in the morning,
Speaker 1: where everybody else was sleeping off the gig of the
Speaker 1: night before, he's on the phone with Match Paris or
Speaker 1: some other you know, periodical somewhere. He's doing all this
Speaker 1: spokesman stuff. He's working double duty. So by the time
Speaker 1: it came to determining where the band was going to go,
Speaker 1: it was clear that, you know, Alice Cooper going off
Speaker 1: on his own would be Alice Cooper and the rest
Speaker 1: of the band would have to find um a different name.
Speaker 1: Do you believe there was resentment from the rest of
Speaker 1: the band that he went on using the name? You know?
Speaker 1: I think, you know, maybe at the at the time
Speaker 1: there might have been, but but nobody could you know,
Speaker 1: you you. You can't deny a person the right to
Speaker 1: work under their own name. That's just like, that's just
Speaker 1: common sense. So, you know, resentment that he stayed Alice Cooper,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. There may have been some resentment
Speaker 1: about um, you know, chefs staying with him and me
Speaker 1: going back and that you know, sort of um leaving
Speaker 1: them out there on their own. And I can I
Speaker 1: can understand that. Since then, happily everybody has um remain friends,
Speaker 1: continue to work together. We just did um some sessions
Speaker 1: and Phoenix with the original guys and Alice and um
Speaker 1: we all talked to each other all the time. Dennis
Speaker 1: has written songs on Alice's current records and stuff. So
Speaker 1: all is well, okay, So how does the process go
Speaker 1: down in a more granular fashion in terms of the
Speaker 1: story that you get back to work with Alice. Um.
Speaker 1: The it's a very simple one that that um uh
Speaker 1: they have to do a project, a solo project, and
Speaker 1: Sheep has um uh a clause in his contract, in
Speaker 1: the Alice Cooper contract that allows them to do a
Speaker 1: soundtrack album for different label than Warner Brothers. So they
Speaker 1: go to a sister label so as to keep peace
Speaker 1: in the family. They go to Atlantic Records and then
Speaker 1: Chef calls me up and says, you know we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it again. Would you like to work with Alice?
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, we need a soundtrack, meaning
Speaker 1: we have to come up with an idea for a
Speaker 1: movie or um our TV show. So Alice and I
Speaker 1: got together and UM interestingly, so we get together, we
Speaker 1: start talking about this and we came up we we
Speaker 1: decided to come up with our own story. So we
Speaker 1: come up with a storyline where this rock star named
Speaker 1: Stephen something he uh and his mistress are in a
Speaker 1: private plane somewhere over the Rockies and the plane goes down,
Speaker 1: He disappears, she disappears. Twenty eight days later, he uh
Speaker 1: surfaces alone and he's fine, and he looks fine. The suggestion,
Speaker 1: you know, is that something untoward may have happened there
Speaker 1: during that twey eight days and and he comes back
Speaker 1: and now he's rock star by day and evening and
Speaker 1: by night he's a vampire and a killer. And so
Speaker 1: that was the idea and way we came up with
Speaker 1: this thing, Welcome to My Nightmare. And UM and Sheff
Speaker 1: introduced us to a movie director UH named Denny man,
Speaker 1: who would who would have been the director of this
Speaker 1: project if it had all sort of worked out? Alis
Speaker 1: and I went to Vancouver, BC UH to meet with
Speaker 1: Denny Man on a ship off the coast of Vancouver
Speaker 1: where he was shooting a movie featuring um uh, Ian McShane,
Speaker 1: um Donald Pleasants and Vincent Price Wow and Vette Memu,
Speaker 1: who happened to be my wet dream. Right. So so
Speaker 1: there we were onto forward, you know, and I was
Speaker 1: standing next to Mr Price. He pulled out a cigar
Speaker 1: Monte Cristo, which I was smoking in those days. I
Speaker 1: loved monte Cristos, and I just said, look, I know
Speaker 1: this is very forward, but would you happen to have
Speaker 1: one more of those? And he was Suddenly we were
Speaker 1: like cigar buddies, you know how cigar buddies are, and
Speaker 1: and so we started talking and I'm listening that voice,
Speaker 1: and I just said to him, Mr Price, how would
Speaker 1: you like to make your rock and roll debut? And uh?
Speaker 1: And he he looked at me like it was some
Speaker 1: kind of joke, but then he said sure. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: we'll stay in touch. And of course there was no movie.
Speaker 1: We came up with an idea for a television special,
Speaker 1: uh for ABC Wide World of Entertainment. This was back
Speaker 1: when they they had ABC Wide World of Sports, the
Speaker 1: Agony of defeating, the ecstasy of victory or whatever it was, right,
Speaker 1: and then they decided, well, we're you know, this is
Speaker 1: working so well for sports, We're gonna do it for entertainment.
Speaker 1: So they set up this slot. And I believe we
Speaker 1: were the first ones with this project called Welcome to
Speaker 1: My Nightmare, which is its own show all by itself.
Speaker 1: So we should move on from this, but let me
Speaker 1: just tell you that there has never been a three
Speaker 1: ring circus like that whole experience in my entire life.
Speaker 1: And someday we'll talk all about it. Okay. Meanwhile, you
Speaker 1: work with Kiss, making what many people believe is their
Speaker 1: best album, Destroyer. Tell us a story of that. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the the Kiss situation was really interesting. I
Speaker 1: I always had a published phone number in Toronto when
Speaker 1: I was when I was living in Toronto, and they
Speaker 1: were fans who used to call me and just talk
Speaker 1: to me about stuff. There was this one kid, Mike
Speaker 1: Longman's who called me up. He was sixteen years old
Speaker 1: and he said, Um, there's this band that that needs
Speaker 1: you man, they really need you. You need to work
Speaker 1: with this band. They're called Kiss. I didn't I had
Speaker 1: never heard of them, um, but he was adamant about it.
Speaker 1: So I started looking them up and listening to music
Speaker 1: and stuff. And then literally like three days later, I
Speaker 1: was at CITYTV downtown Toronto doing an interview for an
Speaker 1: artist that I had signed to my label. So I
Speaker 1: was going up this rors to the TV studio and
Speaker 1: as I was going up, the members of Kiss were
Speaker 1: coming down from just having done their um interview in
Speaker 1: in makeup, pull makeup, full costume. They were coming clumping
Speaker 1: down those stairs. It was like a herd of buffalo,
Speaker 1: you know, clo and as they got close to me,
Speaker 1: they were like giants. They were these monstrous guys, you know.
Speaker 1: And and uh, Paul Stanley was in the lead. So
Speaker 1: I stopped Paul and said, hi, um, I'm bob Ezrind
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, we know who you are. And
Speaker 1: I said, well that's good, because now I know who
Speaker 1: you are. I said, are you guys happy with your records?
Speaker 1: And he said yeah, why you know, Like, what do
Speaker 1: you mean I mean? And I just said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't mean anything. I'm just saying, if at any
Speaker 1: point you're not, um, I'd be really interested in talking
Speaker 1: to you about working together. And that was that. I
Speaker 1: didn't speak to anybody after that. And then some months
Speaker 1: later I got a call from Bill a Coin, the manager,
Speaker 1: the manager of the band, saying, you know, the band
Speaker 1: would very much like to meet with you. And first
Speaker 1: we wanted we wanted you to go see them play
Speaker 1: a live So I did. I went to Michigan, Um,
Speaker 1: I think it was Anne Arbor, you know, and uh,
Speaker 1: they were playing in an arena stand you know, you know,
Speaker 1: just general standing, not even seating, and the place the
Speaker 1: place was pretty full, or about nine thousand people in
Speaker 1: the arena, and they were all fifteen year old pimpley boys,
Speaker 1: which to me looked like a massive opportunity because I
Speaker 1: was thinking, like, if they do this well with nothing
Speaker 1: but pimpley boys, imagine if we could just expand the
Speaker 1: platform and um and attract a larger audience. And because
Speaker 1: while I was watching them, like, I was thinking, you
Speaker 1: know what, these guys are actually really good and there
Speaker 1: and they're sexy too in a in a strange way,
Speaker 1: and yet they're they're just playing this kind of you
Speaker 1: know hard drink and hard partying, macho thing for the
Speaker 1: sake of fifteen year olds, that if I could just
Speaker 1: get them to expand their repertoire a bit, that we
Speaker 1: might be able to get to a larger audience. Okay,
Speaker 1: And so you see them, and how do you seal
Speaker 1: the deal? And then what's the next step in making
Speaker 1: the record? So we go to a We go to uh,
Speaker 1: a Middle Eastern restaurant in New York City chosen by
Speaker 1: Gene Simmons, and we have I have Moose for the
Speaker 1: first time and just love it. And then we have
Speaker 1: this conversation where I tell them I remind them of
Speaker 1: the movie The Wild One, which to all your listeners
Speaker 1: is probably way too long ago, But it was a
Speaker 1: biker movie that had legendary Marlon Brando, the leader of
Speaker 1: one bike gang, and Lee Marvin, the leader of the other.
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando's gang were bad, but Lee Marvin's gang was
Speaker 1: really bad, and they descended on this little town and there,
Speaker 1: and they were just going to destroy the place. But
Speaker 1: sure how there was one girl who who heart was pure,
Speaker 1: who believed that she could she could change and save
Speaker 1: Marlon Brando. So she and Marlon brand his name was
Speaker 1: Johnny in the movie. So she decided that she was
Speaker 1: going to she was going to cure Johnny with love
Speaker 1: in a sense, so she and Johnny fall into love
Speaker 1: and and and then of course what happens is Johnny
Speaker 1: goes from zero to hero and he and his guys
Speaker 1: saved the town. So I just said to them, like,
Speaker 1: right now, you guys are Lee Marvin, this is not
Speaker 1: gonna I mean, it's cool to be bad, but I
Speaker 1: want you to be bad but sexy too. And I
Speaker 1: think that it would be great if you were bad
Speaker 1: and and every girl in the world thought they could
Speaker 1: fix you. That to me would be that would be genius.
Speaker 1: So they love that idea, you know. And and I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, let's get to work. It's gonna be the
Speaker 1: material to start off with. We're gonna have to have
Speaker 1: songs that do that for us, and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to make a really good record. I think the meeting
Speaker 1: was terrific because, you know, Jane and Paul and I
Speaker 1: are you know, we're all Jewish boys who grew up
Speaker 1: um with dreams of blonds and envy of of our Protestant,
Speaker 1: our white Anglo Saxon Protestant friends, you know, so we
Speaker 1: had a common platform. We knew where we were coming from,
Speaker 1: and and the other guys were you know, they were
Speaker 1: good humored, and I mean I just found the whole
Speaker 1: band really kind of fun to work with. Okay, So
Speaker 1: none of the songs were written prior to your involvement.
Speaker 1: There were bits and pieces because they knew that they
Speaker 1: were going to start up again. Okay, there were a
Speaker 1: couple of legendary Kiss songs first Detroit Rock City. What's
Speaker 1: the story? How does that come together? Let's let me
Speaker 1: ask you this. You send them off to wood shed,
Speaker 1: when you get back together with them, to what degree
Speaker 1: of the songs complete? Well, I didn't send them anywhere.
Speaker 1: They had already started to work on material for the album.
Speaker 1: The next step really was for me to go to
Speaker 1: each of them individually and sit and listen through their
Speaker 1: like mountains of cassette tapes and and little bits and
Speaker 1: pieces to see what we liked and what sort of
Speaker 1: fit this the new mission. Right. So, um, we went
Speaker 1: through a lot of stuff and there were some really
Speaker 1: good you know, there were great riffs and there were
Speaker 1: not so great riffs, and um, but there was enough
Speaker 1: to get us started and so so once once I,
Speaker 1: once I felt like we had the pieces that we needed.
Speaker 1: Then um, we got together and started to really craft
Speaker 1: them into songs. Now, most of the writing, the writing
Speaker 1: for the album was Um, Gene and Paul, sometimes separately,
Speaker 1: sometimes together, And there was the one obligatory UM song
Speaker 1: that that that had to come from Peter Chris and
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened about the A song there
Speaker 1: should have been one, but anyway, so we got together.
Speaker 1: We had these little bits of pieces, and uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: it would just be me and one of them, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it will be the three of us. A lot
Speaker 1: of the time we went by this time, I was
Speaker 1: living in New York. We came to my apartment and
Speaker 1: sat at my piano, which has a lot to do
Speaker 1: with some of the arrangement stuff like the shout and
Speaker 1: shout a loud don don don don do da da
Speaker 1: don dome that's like a left hand piano thing. And
Speaker 1: the riff for Detroit Rock City, Um, that's and that's
Speaker 1: pure guitar and pure cock and balls. It's just a
Speaker 1: really amazing riff. And uh, I don't you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't know how it turned from just being like
Speaker 1: a regular rock song into being this rock and roll saga.
Speaker 1: But I do know that all of us were theatrical.
Speaker 1: We were all looking for something more than just you know,
Speaker 1: who wants to party and who wants to drink a
Speaker 1: lot for this record, So we started telling a story
Speaker 1: and and um, and then the make of the of
Speaker 1: that record was really exciting too, because we were experimenting
Speaker 1: with new technology and we're adding sound effects. Many people
Speaker 1: don't know this, but the entire front of that song
Speaker 1: was binaurally recorded. It was me wearing a binaural head microphone,
Speaker 1: and that was me in the car. That's me doing
Speaker 1: the dishes nets, you know, and humming as the kid,
Speaker 1: right and uh, but it's in binoral so if you
Speaker 1: put on headphones, it's like three sixty degree sound and
Speaker 1: you're right there in the center of it. So where
Speaker 1: was it cut. It was cut at the record plant
Speaker 1: in New York City on forty four Street West, my
Speaker 1: favorite all time UM rock and roll studio, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, sadly it doesn't exist anymore. It was an
Speaker 1: amazing place where great adventures happened and lots of magic
Speaker 1: was getting the adventures and getting to the sound. How
Speaker 1: important is a specific studio to you, Um, well, there
Speaker 1: are certain things that are important, and then you can
Speaker 1: find the studio that fits. You know, I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to be that guy who can
Speaker 1: only paint on Tuesday afternoons, you know. I basically, you know,
Speaker 1: my mantra is basically, you know, give me, you know,
Speaker 1: give me a cell phone and a flashlight and I'll
Speaker 1: put I'll give you a record, new show, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's I can basically make records anyway, that is
Speaker 1: the truth. But I but I do want, where possible
Speaker 1: to have an optimum circumstance for the band because the
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, their performance in that
Speaker 1: studio depends a lot on how they feel and on
Speaker 1: on what the studio does to inspire them, make them comfortable,
Speaker 1: bring out better performances in them. So in that sense,
Speaker 1: it's very important. For a band like Kiss, it was
Speaker 1: very important that they be in the room together. That's
Speaker 1: that's massive. Um. They needed to see each other and
Speaker 1: they needed to playoff of each other's excitement as things
Speaker 1: as interesting things were happening. But by the same token,
Speaker 1: we had to keep the drums as separate as possible.
Speaker 1: So that we could go back and UM redo some
Speaker 1: parts if necessary, or we could actually edit from one
Speaker 1: section to another into the drum tracks without picking up
Speaker 1: the wrong leakage from the room. So the record plant
Speaker 1: studio was perfect because they had this massive drum booth
Speaker 1: you could put Peter Chris in. It was only open
Speaker 1: at eyesight level, so he could see us all we
Speaker 1: could see him, but UM, most of the sound from
Speaker 1: the room was prevented from getting into the mics of
Speaker 1: his drums. That gave me a tremendous amount of flexibility. Okay,
Speaker 1: is there a specific board you'd like to use? Specific
Speaker 1: mixing monitors? No? Really, how about engineer now? Well, ok okay,
Speaker 1: let me let me do you know that's that's a
Speaker 1: pretty fast I'll answer there are people I love to
Speaker 1: work with UM and you know, in the last little while,
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of work with Justin Quarterloo in
Speaker 1: uh Nashville. He's really good, really fast and UM. And
Speaker 1: then you know, I have some younger engineers that I
Speaker 1: like to work with. I like to bring along to
Speaker 1: sort of learn my system and be UM responsive to
Speaker 1: me on a kind of more natural level. And so
Speaker 1: there's uh, I've got Julian Shank in Nashville as well.
Speaker 1: And then there's Jill Zimmerman in Toronto who's a young
Speaker 1: engineer from Germany that's moved to Canada. Is very talented,
Speaker 1: very smart. Um. And I've worked with Brian Monkar's in
Speaker 1: Canada who is actually uh, you know, fully fledged producer
Speaker 1: but you know, sometimes does some mixing and engineering for me.
Speaker 1: And then in in England where I do a lot
Speaker 1: of work, um the engineer depends on um the job.
Speaker 1: But for all of the Pink Floyd stuff, all the
Speaker 1: things that I did in Pink Floyd Land, it was
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson, who is just phenomenal, incredibly musicals and I
Speaker 1: have you know, I mean there's a long list. Okay,
Speaker 1: so tell us a story that So now am I
Speaker 1: going to piss off the people? I didn't put on people?
Speaker 1: That's why I said, no, it's easier, you know. But
Speaker 1: but you know, there's lots of really good people. That's
Speaker 1: the point. But the more interesting thing is that you
Speaker 1: don't require you don't have the right hand person. You
Speaker 1: must use no. No, I you know, because listen, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this for a long long time. And and
Speaker 1: also you know, when I was starting out like we were.
Speaker 1: We were breaking new ground. I didn't really want somebody
Speaker 1: that only knew one way of doing things. Brian Christian
Speaker 1: was a fantastic partner at that time as an engineer
Speaker 1: because he knew Jack Jack's methodology, but he was also
Speaker 1: aren't enough and had enough experience to be able to
Speaker 1: adapt to me and to start um learning my way
Speaker 1: of doing things and helping me with developing my way
Speaker 1: of doing things. So did Um Shelley yakas you know
Speaker 1: from from the record plant, and Roy Cicala, who you know,
Speaker 1: the great, the late great Roy Sicela, who had a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount to uh to do with my matriculation, and
Speaker 1: and at the very very beginning there was Phil ramonas
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned earlier, David David Green. So I've had,
Speaker 1: you know, I've gone to school with some really really
Speaker 1: good people. I've learned a lot. I've also learned that
Speaker 1: if you push the wrong button, nothing explodes. You don't die.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So you know, you could be afraid of
Speaker 1: doing stuff, but sometimes you just gotta push and if
Speaker 1: it sounds good, you go, okay, that's what I wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, And if it sounds shitty. You go, oh whoops. Okay,
Speaker 1: So tell us about the creation of beth Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we had to have we had to have a Peter
Speaker 1: Cris song to keep peace in the family. And he
Speaker 1: and Stan Pendridge had come up with a kind of
Speaker 1: bouncy little thing called Beck b E, C K and U,
Speaker 1: and it was it was sort of it was a
Speaker 1: little bit like the cock and balls um approach of
Speaker 1: earlier kiss. It was just kind of arrogant and sort
Speaker 1: of dismissive of the girl and basically say, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not that important. I got I got guys to
Speaker 1: hang out with, We're gonna go play music and that.
Speaker 1: But there was a really not there was there was
Speaker 1: a kernel of something there that I really loved. And um,
Speaker 1: it just that you know Beck, that there's was Beck.
Speaker 1: I hear you calling, but I can't come home right now.
Speaker 1: That just exploded in my brain. So I asked, I
Speaker 1: said to Peter, can I take that home and play
Speaker 1: with it a little bit? And he was very gracious
Speaker 1: said sure. So I went home and I just closed
Speaker 1: my eyes and thought about it, and to me, it was, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, I don't know Becca is Jeff Beck
Speaker 1: or Rebecca or whatever. It's confusing. So I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: with Beth because that's a gentle, soft, beautiful name. And
Speaker 1: and when the guy calls her up and he's saying
Speaker 1: he can't come home right now, I don't want it
Speaker 1: to be because she's um not important to him. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be because his heart is broken. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be because home is nowhere to be anymore. And
Speaker 1: that and here comes our here comes our wild one moment,
Speaker 1: our Johnny moment. I want the nasty rock and roll
Speaker 1: guy to break down in tears in front of all
Speaker 1: the girls of the world and say, you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't go home because I didn't feel loved anymore, so
Speaker 1: that they would wrap him in their arms and love
Speaker 1: him to death. So you go back and you show
Speaker 1: it to the band. What, especially Chris, What does he say?
Speaker 1: I honestly don't remember whether it was instantly accepted or not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think, um, I think Paul
Speaker 1: and Jean for sure recognized that it was a better version. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that anybody paid it as much attention
Speaker 1: as I did at the time. But you know, as
Speaker 1: it as it developed, it got you know, it became
Speaker 1: clearer and clearer that this there was something really special
Speaker 1: about this song. Okay, the album comes out and it
Speaker 1: was a monstrous success. What is the band's reaction to
Speaker 1: this success and to what degree did they give kudos
Speaker 1: to you? Okay, well, first of all, the album gets
Speaker 1: reviewed in the long lead press. So, and this is
Speaker 1: just before it's released, and an article comes out, I
Speaker 1: don't remember if it's Rolling Stone or Record World or somewhere,
Speaker 1: and this guy writes an article that basically says that
Speaker 1: I have destroyed Kiss and that and that I have
Speaker 1: you know, I've I've feminized them and basically turned them
Speaker 1: into an and Margaret style. I they yeah, he literally said,
Speaker 1: you know, well, you know, adding and Margaret horns to
Speaker 1: my favorite band. And he says he closes the article
Speaker 1: with the line I have a mind to go to
Speaker 1: Toronto and punch Bob ezran in the nos on behalf
Speaker 1: of Kiss fans everything, you know, and um I sent
Speaker 1: him a funny response, but you know, we we don't
Speaker 1: need that now. But um that got everybody nuts. The
Speaker 1: band got crazy, um management got crazy, and they started
Speaker 1: to wonder if, oh my god, you know, did we
Speaker 1: actually make a huge mistake here. And then I believe
Speaker 1: that that g Bill a Coin, the manager, maybe he
Speaker 1: was hearing voices from elsewhere. You know, there's always other
Speaker 1: voices in other courses. As we say, there's always critics.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants to tell you that what you just did
Speaker 1: would have been better if only they had done it.
Speaker 1: And so somebody must have been saying, you know, this
Speaker 1: is really gonna be a problem for you guys. And
Speaker 1: I blithely go off on vacation with my sons, and
Speaker 1: I have a I have a answering service in New York.
Speaker 1: This is in the days when there were no machines.
Speaker 1: There were little ladies the city at a switchboard in
Speaker 1: New York City that were like my mom, you know.
Speaker 1: They used to when I would stay out too late,
Speaker 1: they would go, where were you? What were you doing?
Speaker 1: You know. So I get back, I get back from
Speaker 1: two weeks of vacation, and I call my answering service
Speaker 1: because then no cell phone, you know, like nobody could
Speaker 1: reach you. That's fine, that was just fine. That was
Speaker 1: the idea. So I get home, I check on on
Speaker 1: my service for messages, and you know, the lady says,
Speaker 1: where have you been, Mr Douglas has been calling you
Speaker 1: and calling you, and he seems very very upset. You
Speaker 1: should call him right away. So no, I thought that
Speaker 1: there was like some health issue or something terrible that
Speaker 1: had happened. I called Jack right away, and he was
Speaker 1: he was struggling with with his words because he just
Speaker 1: he was so comfortable saying to me what he had
Speaker 1: to say. And he prefaced it by saying, look, I
Speaker 1: won't do this if you don't want me to. But
Speaker 1: he had gotten a call from Kiss management asking if
Speaker 1: he would do the next Kiss record. We weren't even
Speaker 1: out yet, or maybe we had just come out, and
Speaker 1: clearly it was um you know, so the opposite of
Speaker 1: a vote of a vote of confidence or any kind
Speaker 1: of thanks or any recognition of my you know, it's
Speaker 1: exactly the opposite of what you're asking, right, And I
Speaker 1: just like I was, like, I sat back in my cheer,
Speaker 1: going wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, say this again. We
Speaker 1: just finished an album, Like, what are you saying? He said, Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Bill had called him and the band was
Speaker 1: very unhappy with the results and they would really like
Speaker 1: to um explorer working with Jack. Now, by that time,
Speaker 1: I think he had done the first Aerosmith record. In fact,
Speaker 1: I know he yet um uh his first record with Aarsmith,
Speaker 1: not their first record. So you know, I was like
Speaker 1: I was, I was just in shock, and I just
Speaker 1: said to Jack, you know what, fuck them. If that's
Speaker 1: the reaction after all that work and all the really
Speaker 1: cool stuff that's on that record and all the time
Speaker 1: we spent together and the friendship I thought we had,
Speaker 1: If that's it, they call around behind my back and
Speaker 1: ask my own um, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say protege, but you know that in a sense he was,
Speaker 1: you know, my own guy. If he wants to replace me,
Speaker 1: that is just so um insulting and uh and just
Speaker 1: you know, it just blew my mind. So I just
Speaker 1: basically said to him, you know what, call him back
Speaker 1: and tell him you'll do it. And while you're at it,
Speaker 1: till tell Bill a Coin to go funk himself. And
Speaker 1: I didn't speak to them for a long time thereafter.
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't reach out. UM. I don't really
Speaker 1: know how it happened. I did stay in touch with Um,
Speaker 1: I did stay in touch with Jean and occasionally but
Speaker 1: not very often. And Paul lived just across the street
Speaker 1: from me, in New York that was even worse. You know,
Speaker 1: it was awkward. He lived directly across the street and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, with his girlfriend at the time. And anyway,
Speaker 1: I don't really remember exactly how we got how the
Speaker 1: conversation came up for bringing us back together, but I
Speaker 1: know that it was, um, a long time there after, years,
Speaker 1: a few years thereafter, okay, but most people at this
Speaker 1: point believe Destroyer is their best album. In addition, I
Speaker 1: believe it is their biggest seller by a mile. So
Speaker 1: they never acknowledged that. Well, no, they did after they
Speaker 1: did later, you know later, Um, I know what they
Speaker 1: didn't acknowledge was that breakup. They didn't acknowledge the breakup
Speaker 1: and how improperly it went down. They didn't nobody called
Speaker 1: to apologize. And at the time I was enough of
Speaker 1: a punk and young enough that to me that was
Speaker 1: like it was a matter of principle. You know, if
Speaker 1: they don't apologize, I'm not gonna you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be the first one to say, what the
Speaker 1: funk happened? You know, So it took us a long
Speaker 1: time to get back together. Today, if that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff happens to me, I know, to just pick up
Speaker 1: a phone and say, you know, are you sure about this?
Speaker 1: Do you really mean that? Um? But I was young
Speaker 1: and brash and and you know what, Listen that that
Speaker 1: brashness and that that youthful energy that had a lot
Speaker 1: to do with making that album what it is. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: these are tall guys, and Gene Simmons only has one personality.
Speaker 1: We know, we've both in a racked with a lot
Speaker 1: of household names, and you see, it's a public face
Speaker 1: in the private face. But with Jeanne, what you see
Speaker 1: is what you get. So well, you know what, I
Speaker 1: I reject that. I I think that for many people,
Speaker 1: what you see is what you get. But um, but
Speaker 1: I love Jeene Simmons. I do. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I love Paul Stanley, and uh, both of them are
Speaker 1: really uh they're deep guys. They're really deep. Now with
Speaker 1: jean anytime he's in the company of somebody who's not
Speaker 1: in the inner circle where he's completely comfortable, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's the Gene show. Seven. So if I come with
Speaker 1: to him with um, a friend, it's the Gene show.
Speaker 1: He doesn't relax, he's he's on, he's he does his stick. Okay,
Speaker 1: So but let me tell you this, and I want
Speaker 1: to tell you this. It's important because a lot of
Speaker 1: people think that about him. But when my son died,
Speaker 1: those two guys showed up at the funeral in public,
Speaker 1: and then they came to the Shiva house and and
Speaker 1: Jean and Shannon came came over to me and literally
Speaker 1: they put their arms around me and made a sandwich
Speaker 1: out of me and they just held me. This is
Speaker 1: Gene Simmons and I and they held me and I
Speaker 1: cried there. You know, I stood there and cried, but
Speaker 1: I felt safe. I felt like people that I loved
Speaker 1: we're protecting me, which is the idea of the ship,
Speaker 1: isn't it in the first place. So there's a soft
Speaker 1: and there's a marshmallow loving kind um side to Jean.
Speaker 1: But he's developed this, you know, he's developed this public persona,
Speaker 1: which which is how he's made a living. So it's
Speaker 1: for him. It's worked out really well. So previously you've
Speaker 1: gone to see lou Reid in the opening act was Genesis.
Speaker 1: You became infatuated with the band, and then you go
Speaker 1: on to work with Peter Gabriel. How do you get
Speaker 1: involved with Peter Gabriel who has just left Genesis and
Speaker 1: he's going to make his first solo album. So, um,
Speaker 1: it's interesting, you asked, because I was talking to Tony
Speaker 1: Smith and I said, was it you that reached out
Speaker 1: to me? Like? How did I get to work with Peter?
Speaker 1: And he said, yes, that that it came from his office.
Speaker 1: Now you know why they asked for me. Maybe it
Speaker 1: had to do with the Lou Reid record. I'm not
Speaker 1: entirely sure, but as as I he may have told
Speaker 1: you before. Maybe it's in the first half. I don't remember.
Speaker 1: But when I when I went to see Lou play
Speaker 1: for the first time at Massey Hall in Toronto, the
Speaker 1: opening act was Genesis, and I had said at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, boyl I really want to work with that
Speaker 1: kid with the flower in his head, which was Peter
Speaker 1: Gabriel and um, and I became a little bit obsessed
Speaker 1: with Genesis in general, but with him specifically. So when
Speaker 1: I got the call, when I got the call from
Speaker 1: London saying, um, you know, would you come over and
Speaker 1: meet with Peter. We want to talk to you about
Speaker 1: potentially working with him, I was like, yep, I'll leave tomorrow,
Speaker 1: you know. So um, I got there and I and
Speaker 1: it was an amazing couple of days because it included
Speaker 1: not just Peter, who is a phenomenal guy, like you
Speaker 1: want to talk about a dear friend. Um, this is
Speaker 1: someone you know. Peter and I have have remained close
Speaker 1: like family style friends all these years, for a very
Speaker 1: very long time. And yet we've only worked together just
Speaker 1: a you know, on a few things. It's not a lot,
Speaker 1: but um, but every time it's been very meaningful. So
Speaker 1: we get there and um, I meet with Tony Smith
Speaker 1: Gail Colson, who is the managing director of the label
Speaker 1: that that Peter signed, which is called Charisma Records. And uh,
Speaker 1: and she's the Flying Charisma label. Well yeah originally, but
Speaker 1: then if he just became Charisma, but you're right, yeah,
Speaker 1: and and uh, she's fantastic and and so on top
Speaker 1: of things, but really smart and and and and very
Speaker 1: invested in Peter as an artist. And of course Tony
Speaker 1: is his manager, so he is totally invested. So the
Speaker 1: three of us are talking about Peter and his career.
Speaker 1: Tony Stratton Smith no Tony Smith manager, So those two
Speaker 1: are and we're talking about career. But then I go
Speaker 1: and meet the owner of the label, Tony Stratton Smith,
Speaker 1: who is a well beautifully dressed, incredibly articulate, wonderful English
Speaker 1: gay man with the the kind of verb that all
Speaker 1: and and style that only the very wealthy English game
Speaker 1: and could have, you know. And he was just an
Speaker 1: amazing character. And uh and we we started up a
Speaker 1: friendship that that went on for a few years too.
Speaker 1: But just spending time with him was such a trip
Speaker 1: I loved. Like every time I'd go back to London,
Speaker 1: I would just have lunch with him because I just
Speaker 1: love listening to him and I love watching him. He
Speaker 1: was such a great show. Anyway, So from and sadly
Speaker 1: he's not with us anymore. But so I go from
Speaker 1: London to meet with Peter in Bath, which is where
Speaker 1: he was, where he lived and where he's from. Um
Speaker 1: and um. He picks me up and he's a very sweet,
Speaker 1: very shy, very kind of held back but gentleman. Um
Speaker 1: and uh. And he tours me around Bath to show
Speaker 1: me where he where he came from. He's very proud
Speaker 1: of that place, and it's Roman roots and and the
Speaker 1: kind of mystical connection that whole area has. Um some
Speaker 1: people consider it some the Druids considered it to be
Speaker 1: the the mystical center center of the universe. So anyway,
Speaker 1: so we did a lot of that stuff, and as
Speaker 1: we were spending time doing that stuff, we were relaxing
Speaker 1: and we were coming down to being just two guys
Speaker 1: who were having a good conversation about stuff that we enjoyed.
Speaker 1: He saw that I was interested in things he was
Speaker 1: interested in, and then I knew a fair bit about him,
Speaker 1: and he was very happy to hear that I saw
Speaker 1: that show that tour and that that's where I had
Speaker 1: made the determination that I wanted to do this. So
Speaker 1: we went to his house, a modest house that he
Speaker 1: lived in with his wife, Jill and his daughter Anna,
Speaker 1: who I think was a toddler at the time. Uh,
Speaker 1: And he had a little upright piano in the front
Speaker 1: the house. That we sat down there and started um
Speaker 1: playing stuff. He started playing stuff to me that he
Speaker 1: was thinking about that that um he wanted to put
Speaker 1: on his solo record, and we started talking about just
Speaker 1: sort of you know, lofty, um conceptual stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: theatrical things like how would the show go, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, is something that I do love to put
Speaker 1: before recording in many cases, and I know I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with a theatrical artist, and since I come out of
Speaker 1: theater originally, UM, I'd love to know what their vision
Speaker 1: is for the show and how we can make an
Speaker 1: album that that fulfills that vision. So in Peter's case,
Speaker 1: you know, this is his big introduction. He's stepping out
Speaker 1: and he needs to be taken seriously by the same token.
Speaker 1: He needs to show all the different sides of him
Speaker 1: that he didn't feel he was getting to express within
Speaker 1: the band. So we so we listen to music. I
Speaker 1: hear lots of good stuff, but I hear lots of
Speaker 1: stuff that's not quite right yet. And he's not ready
Speaker 1: from my point of view, And I feel like also
Speaker 1: he's just beginning to get his hands around who he
Speaker 1: wants to be. And so I don't want to rush him.
Speaker 1: I tell the label and management we're not ready to
Speaker 1: go in the studio. I don't want to go in
Speaker 1: the studio with him now. But what I would like
Speaker 1: is I would like him to come back to New York.
Speaker 1: I will rent him a place there, UM, and I
Speaker 1: would like him to spend um a month in New
Speaker 1: York writing, where I can watch and where I can influence. UM.
Speaker 1: He can come and use my piano and my apartment.
Speaker 1: It's perfectly safe and and so that was that. So
Speaker 1: we do we arrange the trip to go to bring
Speaker 1: Peter to New York for a month. So the apartment
Speaker 1: dig this the apartment I found for him, belonged to
Speaker 1: Garson Kanan and Ruth Gordon. Wow, Hollywood Royalty. And for
Speaker 1: anybody who doesn't know, people are listening, Ruth Gordon was
Speaker 1: the was the next the old next door neighbor and
Speaker 1: Rosemary's baby, and Garson Caden was one of the greatest
Speaker 1: screenwriters of all time. But she of course was Maude
Speaker 1: and Harold and Maude, and she was Maud and Harold
Speaker 1: and Maude. She's like, she's legendary. So this was there.
Speaker 1: This was their Chelsea apartment. It was a magnificent, small,
Speaker 1: kind of rabbit warren of an apartment. And why they
Speaker 1: rented it out, I have no idea, but we went
Speaker 1: through show bizz channels to find one. So that's what
Speaker 1: we got. And uh, Peter and Jill and Anna came
Speaker 1: to New York. They stayed there. Peter came to my
Speaker 1: house every day and um, I had a split level apartment,
Speaker 1: so I would go upstairs to the back to where
Speaker 1: my office was and work on other stuff, and I
Speaker 1: left Peter in the in the living room with the
Speaker 1: grand piano with a cassette machine beside him. And every
Speaker 1: time I heard anything I loved, I would run out
Speaker 1: and go record that record that we want to hear
Speaker 1: that again and Uh. Over that period of time, we
Speaker 1: developed a clear vision of what we were hoping to accomplish.
Speaker 1: We talked about the band we'd like to work with,
Speaker 1: we talked about sort of where to do it. We
Speaker 1: sort of laid out our our master plan and we
Speaker 1: amassed a body of material that I felt confident. So
Speaker 1: then he went back to London to finish those songs,
Speaker 1: and the next time we met was in Toronto where
Speaker 1: we decided to do the record at the Nimbus studios
Speaker 1: called sound Stage, and I put together a band for him.
Speaker 1: It was like the Dirty Dozen. It was a group
Speaker 1: of people that I had worked with on other things
Speaker 1: before and then I knew pretty well, along with a
Speaker 1: few people that came from Peter Um and Uh. I
Speaker 1: brought in Tony Levin was my sort of go to
Speaker 1: bass player at the time. Alan Schwartzberg, who was the
Speaker 1: drummer Jimmy Mailan god rest him, who was a brilliant percussionist.
Speaker 1: But to say percussion is is short changing him. He
Speaker 1: was like a soundscape artist with common you know, instruments
Speaker 1: and things. He was a genius. And and I had
Speaker 1: Steve Hunter, the you know, the brilliant Steve Hunter who
Speaker 1: has been on so many projects with me and has
Speaker 1: so much to do with if I have a sound,
Speaker 1: a rock sound, so much to do with that sound.
Speaker 1: And uh, and Peter brought Larry Fast, who I was
Speaker 1: aware of, a great synthesizer. Um uh he was. He
Speaker 1: was an innovator, a synthesizer innovator as well as a
Speaker 1: terrific musician. And and then he said, may I please
Speaker 1: have one Brit. I said, I give you one brit.
Speaker 1: You get one one push right, you know, you get
Speaker 1: one brit. Um. So he invited, um, Robert Fripp. Thank
Speaker 1: you Okay. So I said, I'll give you one brit.
Speaker 1: You gotta push for one Britton. He said, well, I'd
Speaker 1: like to bring Robert Fripp, which is not a punishment
Speaker 1: by any means. So there they were, you know, this
Speaker 1: group of people. And every day we started off in
Speaker 1: Jack Richardson's office where there was an upright piano, Peter
Speaker 1: would sit down. He would play this very complicated piece
Speaker 1: of music that he had finally uh uh cobbled together
Speaker 1: out of the pieces that we did in New York
Speaker 1: and that we had done some work on after um
Speaker 1: and uh and they were like complicated. This was Prague
Speaker 1: with a capital Prague. So this was like and the
Speaker 1: guys in the band, like a lot of them were,
Speaker 1: They were just sitting there their eyes rolling in their head,
Speaker 1: and they would ask him to like what was that,
Speaker 1: thinking the you can you play that again? You know that.
Speaker 1: They were feverishly taken notes. Tony Levin, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: was reading a novel and and like by the first
Speaker 1: time through he had it, he had clocked it, you know. Um.
Speaker 1: And then everybody once they all knew the song and
Speaker 1: they knew what it comprised of. Then we moved into
Speaker 1: the studio and parts were developed in a sign. In
Speaker 1: some cases I had ideas. In some cases we just
Speaker 1: made it up right there on the spot. So we
Speaker 1: would try stuff, you know, rule uh. So you know,
Speaker 1: Peter loves rule sets, and so do I. They're they're
Speaker 1: just I don't mean as a as a restriction. But
Speaker 1: as you know, we liked the five challenges, you know,
Speaker 1: So for Salisbury Hill, I took away Alan Schwartzburg symbols.
Speaker 1: I just took him off the kit altogether, so you know,
Speaker 1: even if he tried to hit one, he couldn't. And
Speaker 1: I gave him a shaker um and put uh t
Speaker 1: towel over his stare drum to develop a certain sound.
Speaker 1: And so and that that that kind of electronic drum
Speaker 1: sound that we had. We invented it right there on
Speaker 1: the spot. We we we decided it needed a name,
Speaker 1: so we called it a synthabam and and I just
Speaker 1: I played that part doom do do doo dood doom
Speaker 1: bom boom boom, bump bump while Larry was playing um
Speaker 1: the more orchestral sounds and things like that, and we
Speaker 1: cut that track live. We cut them all live. Okay.
Speaker 1: This was seen as a very innovative album. I know
Speaker 1: it was different in Canada, but Genesis was not that
Speaker 1: well known such that when the first album came out
Speaker 1: it was almost a debut like Genesis. And Genesis of
Speaker 1: course came out with their Minus Peter album at a
Speaker 1: similar to they came out with the previous one. I
Speaker 1: think Wind and Wutheringe came out at that time, so
Speaker 1: this was a wild album to listen to, as accessible
Speaker 1: as Saulisbury Hill and Modern Love were the Burgermeister and
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. It was like you heard it,
Speaker 1: It was like what is this? And that was all intentional,
Speaker 1: all intentional. Every little bit of it was intentional, including
Speaker 1: excuse me. You know that song excuse Me? It was
Speaker 1: a little ditty that he had written. Tony Levin said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm in a barbershop quartet. He said, this
Speaker 1: kind of sounds like a barbershop quartet to be and
Speaker 1: I go, that's genius. So we create a barbershop quartet
Speaker 1: out of the members of the band. I didn't hire
Speaker 1: other people. They all learned their parts. Tony helped to
Speaker 1: arrange this thing. In fact, you know, it was basically
Speaker 1: his chart on that. And and also I knew that
Speaker 1: Tony played tuba, had had played tuba in a symphony,
Speaker 1: so uh, we got a tuba, hired a tuba, and
Speaker 1: um and I had Tony played the bass part on
Speaker 1: the tube ins that have on the base and anyway,
Speaker 1: you know, they loved doing it so much that we
Speaker 1: actually took the act on the road in Toronto, in
Speaker 1: the sense that like literally we went on a new
Speaker 1: hazel and Hazelton Avenue and and saying it on the
Speaker 1: sidewalk just to see, you know, people would gather and
Speaker 1: and the the the rap dinner, which which I would
Speaker 1: usually do for projects like this, and just have a
Speaker 1: celebration and a wrap dinner. It was such a great
Speaker 1: experience and everybody had such a wonderful time. I took
Speaker 1: everybody out to a restaurant called Napoleon, which was very
Speaker 1: white tablecloth, very you know, a very high end Toronto restaurant,
Speaker 1: and and and we had bought gifts for everybody in
Speaker 1: the band, which I brought out at a certain point
Speaker 1: during dinner, and and everybody dressed up. Peter dressed up
Speaker 1: in a three piece gray suit with a black shirt
Speaker 1: and black tie and oh, by the way, ball bearing
Speaker 1: uh contact lenses so which over which he wore dark glasses.
Speaker 1: And so you know, we walked him into the restaurant
Speaker 1: and he had his dark glasses on and he and
Speaker 1: the waiters would shout at him because they thought he
Speaker 1: was blind as people do, you know, for for blind people.
Speaker 1: I'd never got that they would shout at him, and
Speaker 1: then at one point they asked him a question. He
Speaker 1: took his glasses off and was looking at them with
Speaker 1: literally ball bearing eyes. And the guy that was taking
Speaker 1: our order, he like threw his pad and jumped back
Speaker 1: and and and had to leave the room. He was
Speaker 1: so shocked. Anyway, it was a fun dinner. Everybody got
Speaker 1: something that was meaningful to them. Frip got a pocket watch,
Speaker 1: gold pocket watch, so he could stand on the table
Speaker 1: and say, and we would say, I say, Robert, what
Speaker 1: time is it? And he would take it out with
Speaker 1: a flourish and tell us the time. Um and Steve
Speaker 1: Hunter got a an electric guitar. I I don't remember
Speaker 1: what everybody else got, but I do remember that I
Speaker 1: bought Tony a tuba and play one a long time.
Speaker 1: So he gets the tuba and I say, gentlemen, excuse me.
Speaker 1: They stood up. He played the tuba and then they
Speaker 1: started singing excuse me as a barbershop quartet in the
Speaker 1: entire restaurant went crazy and applauded. They all gave us
Speaker 1: like a standing ovasion. I said, well, we do two
Speaker 1: shows a night and three on the days. You know,
Speaker 1: please come back anyway, it was just a great time,
Speaker 1: the making of it, the ending of it, the camaraderie
Speaker 1: of it. And as you know, some of those people
Speaker 1: went on with Peter for years and years. Tony still
Speaker 1: with him, okay. And there was a famous story of
Speaker 1: Peter and the wall in the studio. Peter had to
Speaker 1: go up on the wall. No, not the wall, the pillar. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the studio had two pillars in it that were
Speaker 1: structural and there there were brick pillars if we were
Speaker 1: doing Modern Love. And I wasn't getting the performance that
Speaker 1: I thought he was capable of, and so I started,
Speaker 1: almost chokingly, saying to him, listen, okay, we got three
Speaker 1: more shots at this, and if you don't get it,
Speaker 1: you're going up the pillar. And he would laugh and
Speaker 1: I would laugh. So and then we tried again and
Speaker 1: I go, you know, that's not what I'm looking for.
Speaker 1: Two more and it's up the pillar and he would
Speaker 1: laugh and I would laugh. And then finally got to
Speaker 1: no more, and I turned to Brian Christian, the engineer,
Speaker 1: who was a big guy, really big, like six ft three,
Speaker 1: muscle bound, a linebacker kind of guy. We went outside
Speaker 1: into the studio. We we had a ladder um Brian
Speaker 1: held him. Brian like took him up the ladder, held
Speaker 1: him in place while we gaffer taped under his armpits
Speaker 1: on the pillar, and then we took the ladder away.
Speaker 1: And there he was dangling by his armpits. And I
Speaker 1: said to the to the assistant engineer Michael. So they did.
Speaker 1: They put the mic up in front of his face.
Speaker 1: We went back in the control room and I said, okay,
Speaker 1: let's try it now. And when it got to the chorus,
Speaker 1: he made he made Peter Theater out of it. It
Speaker 1: was so wonderful to watch. He was flailing his arms
Speaker 1: and his legs and and he went. He was screaming,
Speaker 1: oh the pain, and you know modern love can stray.
Speaker 1: It was great. And that's the performer and sits on
Speaker 1: the record. Okay. That Peter goes on to make two
Speaker 1: more records that don't get as much promotion and don't
Speaker 1: get as much success at least the third, not at first,
Speaker 1: and they have a much thinner sound than you were record,
Speaker 1: begging the question, although you ultimately work with Peter again, Hey,
Speaker 1: was Peter happy with your record? And why did you
Speaker 1: not do a second record with Peter right away? The
Speaker 1: thing about Peter is that, um, he has to see
Speaker 1: he has to see things from all possible sides. It's
Speaker 1: very important to him. And and I was consciously trying
Speaker 1: to break him out of his habit of of overthinking things,
Speaker 1: you know. So I made it fast. I mean we
Speaker 1: did that whole album and and the mixing and everything
Speaker 1: in about thirteen weeks. And for him that was just
Speaker 1: too quick. I barreled, basically, I sort of took charge
Speaker 1: and barreled through his concerns and and he was very
Speaker 1: sweet and very polite, and actually he was having a
Speaker 1: great time. Uh enemy came over and they did an
Speaker 1: interview with him, which which ended up being titled a
Speaker 1: Mumble Free Gabriel, you know, is rocking and rolling in
Speaker 1: Toronto or something like that. He was feeling confident, he
Speaker 1: was feeling like a rock star, and he was and
Speaker 1: you could hear it. He was performing like that. But
Speaker 1: that was a temporary condition, I'm afraid. And when um
Speaker 1: he went back to England and back to his home
Speaker 1: life and um, his more familiar surroundings, he kind of
Speaker 1: reverted a bit back to the um less than completely
Speaker 1: confident guy, and and he started to wonder about all
Speaker 1: the things that he might have done on the record
Speaker 1: if only I had given him time. And I think
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, Frip didn't love me
Speaker 1: and probably was saying to him, you know, well, if
Speaker 1: you know, if we've done this, we could have experimented
Speaker 1: with that, and that this is too mainstream or whatever,
Speaker 1: and um, you know what happens. It just happens. You
Speaker 1: have a really wonderful time with somebody and then they
Speaker 1: decide that you know, that was great, but now they
Speaker 1: would like to try this instead. And that's what happened,
Speaker 1: you know. And then he had huge success. I mean,
Speaker 1: as as big as my record was, it wasn't the
Speaker 1: biggest one, although it turns out that Salisbury Hill is
Speaker 1: the most enduring of his song. So, uh, at what
Speaker 1: point in this does your marriage break up? Not during
Speaker 1: Peter Gabriel though we were, I mean during your whole
Speaker 1: story here, well you know it was starting it literally
Speaker 1: in and uh, well the reason I'm asking is less
Speaker 1: your personal sturm and drang into what degree was your
Speaker 1: work in the rock and roll lifestyle contributing to the
Speaker 1: breakup of the marriage, Oh hugely? And also my my youth,
Speaker 1: you know, like I got married when we were. I
Speaker 1: got married at seventeen, and and we had our son
Speaker 1: that year because we got married because because Arlene was
Speaker 1: pregnant and um, and so you know, that's just too young.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you're just not ready for it. I hadn't
Speaker 1: even really been out, and you know, I hadn't played
Speaker 1: the field or dated or done anything. I hadn't done anything.
Speaker 1: And suddenly I was I was a dad, and I
Speaker 1: had to be a breadwinner. And and somehow I ended
Speaker 1: up in rock and roll, which is not necessarily the
Speaker 1: best lifestyle for, you know, trying to maintain a young family.
Speaker 1: And and you know, and I was susceptible to everything.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, oh boy, I love the
Speaker 1: you know, all the side, you know, all all the perks,
Speaker 1: you know, from the drugs to the sex, the whole
Speaker 1: rock and roll thing. Um, I participated in. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, in fairness to Arlene, if this was an
Speaker 1: impossible situation, but also you know, we were you know,
Speaker 1: maybe we wouldn't have ended up married together. If we
Speaker 1: had had more time to develop a relationship and really
Speaker 1: understand who we were as people, we may not have
Speaker 1: ended up together. But now we had two kids, and
Speaker 1: so we did the best we could. Um, we did
Speaker 1: a sort of trial separation. I'm making quotation marks in
Speaker 1: the air here. Um, I moved to New York and
Speaker 1: basically we broke down pretty much. Then we did try
Speaker 1: a couple of times to see what it would be
Speaker 1: like if I came back to Toronto, and we gave
Speaker 1: it another shot, but they were short, short forays into
Speaker 1: what was it impossible? Um, you know, an impossible situation?
Speaker 1: So we ended up really breaking up. Then we didn't
Speaker 1: divorce forum several years thereafter, and I took care of
Speaker 1: her and and the kids. We did have some conflict,
Speaker 1: as one does when you're divorced, when you're divorcing, um,
Speaker 1: but we're Arlene is my co grandparent of of you know,
Speaker 1: a wonderful little boy, and co parent with my you know,
Speaker 1: our son Joshua, of whom we are extremely proud, and
Speaker 1: also of our late son David, you know, who we
Speaker 1: still uh dream about and talk about. And we have remained,
Speaker 1: um friendly, and we have a you know, a pretty
Speaker 1: intimate relationship now and you know, as friends, not lovers,
Speaker 1: but as friends. She calls me her husband pretty good.
Speaker 1: I've ever heard that before. Yeah, I mean neither I
Speaker 1: like it. Who blew the whistle? Ultimately? Who wanted out her?
Speaker 1: Are you? It's never mutual? No, I was making her
Speaker 1: really unhappy and I was unhappy. And um yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so how do you end up working with pet Floyd? So? Um.
Speaker 1: While we were doing a lot of work in London
Speaker 1: with Alice Cooper, I met um Caroline Christie who had
Speaker 1: been working for the legendary Derek Taylor at um W
Speaker 1: A and London, and she was kind of our handler.
Speaker 1: She was doing a great job with with us, and
Speaker 1: she basically knew everybody, and everybody knew her. Um. At
Speaker 1: a point I suggested to my then partners and Nimbus
Speaker 1: that we needed more of a presence in London and
Speaker 1: we should hire Caroline to work with us. So she
Speaker 1: she came to work for us, and she that that way,
Speaker 1: she got to see me in the studio a number
Speaker 1: of times. And um. So when it was time for Roger,
Speaker 1: who by then was now UM Caroline's fiancee, they were together,
Speaker 1: they were talking about their future when you hired her,
Speaker 1: when she involved with Roger? Okay, No, but I was
Speaker 1: there when they met. I mean I wasn't in the
Speaker 1: room it was during that time that they met, so
Speaker 1: I knew that she had you know, she was going
Speaker 1: to date him, and uh, and of course I was
Speaker 1: a big Pink Floyd fan who wasn't at the time. Then, Um,
Speaker 1: they came to Canada for Animals. At the end of
Speaker 1: the Animals tour, they played at either Win Stadium in Hamilton,
Speaker 1: Ontario and blew up the scoreboard. That's a famous story
Speaker 1: with their piro. But anyway, so, uh, you know, Caroline
Speaker 1: called me because we're friends, and she came to a
Speaker 1: barbecue at our house. Um, Roger wasn't feeling well, so
Speaker 1: he didn't attend, but we talked about Roger and about
Speaker 1: her her relationship and how great things we were and
Speaker 1: so on, and she said, you know, why didn't you
Speaker 1: come with us and we'll go out to see the
Speaker 1: show together, and I that I'd love to. So I
Speaker 1: went with a friend of mine from the street who
Speaker 1: was who happened to be a psychiatrist. Was he like
Speaker 1: this massive groupie, you know, this massive Pink Floyd groupie.
Speaker 1: And we got in a limo with Roger and Caroline
Speaker 1: drove out to Hamilton's which is about an hour drive
Speaker 1: a little over an hour and um. During that time
Speaker 1: he was talking about his sense of alienation and um,
Speaker 1: how he had thought about, you know, even like building
Speaker 1: a wall between the band and the audience, et cetera,
Speaker 1: and um. And then they did the show. It was amazing.
Speaker 1: And then after the show he and Steve O. Rourke
Speaker 1: decided to have a fist fight in the in the
Speaker 1: bathroom in the dressing rooms, and Roger cut his foot badly.
Speaker 1: So uh, Dr Biddy, my buddy Dr John Biddy, who
Speaker 1: was a psychiatrist with but a medical doctor like, he
Speaker 1: wraps it up and we're going to the emergency room
Speaker 1: in Hamilton's. So here we go in the limo with
Speaker 1: Rogery Garrell. I would get him the emergency room, we
Speaker 1: get his foot stitched up, and then in the car
Speaker 1: on the way back to Toronto, we get um, we
Speaker 1: get very um uh frank with each other about stuff
Speaker 1: you know you just do at six o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: Now you've been you've been through an adventure and um.
Speaker 1: And we talked again about the wall, you know, and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, that could actually be a really
Speaker 1: cool idea. And that was that. That was the end
Speaker 1: of the conversation. So a few years later, when clearly
Speaker 1: things were not going well for them. Maybe it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a few years. Maybe it was just a little
Speaker 1: over a year. I don't remember, honestly. Um he decided
Speaker 1: that he was going to do this project, The Wall,
Speaker 1: which he had written, and basically it was going to
Speaker 1: be a Roger Waters record, that's it, but that he
Speaker 1: did not feel um comfortable in handling the rest of
Speaker 1: the band. He was sure that that was not gonna
Speaker 1: go well. So Caroline said, well, you know, I've spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with Bob in the studio and
Speaker 1: you guys met and you talked about this, like, what
Speaker 1: do you think about bringing Bob in to help you
Speaker 1: with this? That's how the conversation first happened. Okay, but
Speaker 1: I thought based on prior conversation they'd actually done some
Speaker 1: work before that you ultimately flew over and got involved.
Speaker 1: I flew over one time just to meet with Roger,
Speaker 1: and I went to Roger and Caroline's house in the country.
Speaker 1: Roger played me two projects, one that became pros and
Speaker 1: cons and one that was The Wall, and asked me
Speaker 1: which I preferred. There was no question that to me
Speaker 1: it was The Wall. You know, that that would be
Speaker 1: the one that they ought to do next, and apparently
Speaker 1: he had done the same thing with members of the band.
Speaker 1: They picked that one, so he said okay, and we
Speaker 1: started talking about how to do it, what it was missing,
Speaker 1: what role I ought to play. Um, it was beginning
Speaker 1: to become apparent to me that he wasn't really looking
Speaker 1: for me to get involved in the music. So I
Speaker 1: just had to say to look, you know, if what
Speaker 1: you're looking for as an engineer or a button pusher,
Speaker 1: I'm not the right guy for this, because there are
Speaker 1: other people who could do a way better job of
Speaker 1: that than me. But if what you're looking for is
Speaker 1: a collaborator on the musical side of this thing and
Speaker 1: the conceptual side of it, I'd be thrilled and honored
Speaker 1: to to participate. So we had that famous conversation where
Speaker 1: he said, okay, but um, if you write anything, don't
Speaker 1: expect any publishing. So at that time, it was going
Speaker 1: to be an all Roger, you know, it was gonna
Speaker 1: be an All Roger written, you know, written and performed
Speaker 1: by you know anyway. So um, I just decided to
Speaker 1: let that slip and that we would deal with it
Speaker 1: at a later time. And so then I went away,
Speaker 1: and then they did do some work on this thing.
Speaker 1: They had gotten together in London and at britand you Row,
Speaker 1: which was the studio that they worked out of at
Speaker 1: the time, and next door to which was there there
Speaker 1: p a company p A and lights company, so they
Speaker 1: had kind of a warehouse next door. They started working
Speaker 1: on that, and then they called me, and um, I
Speaker 1: got to London and I was told, oh, by the way, um,
Speaker 1: it's not you and Roger producing, it's you Roger and David,
Speaker 1: which meant that was gonna cut my um, you know,
Speaker 1: my my points and my the the money I was
Speaker 1: working for by a third and um, and then my
Speaker 1: mass probably wrong about that. So I'm gonna say so
Speaker 1: that was gonna cut down the point anyway. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually got I walked out of the
Speaker 1: room and just and I called my lawyer and I
Speaker 1: just was saying, like, you know, like this is insulting.
Speaker 1: Here we go again, well you know, like the like
Speaker 1: the uh the kiss situation. And I was just about
Speaker 1: to say, go fund yourself, and he said, Bob, it's
Speaker 1: pick Floyd, and I went, yeah, you're right. So I
Speaker 1: went back and I'll go okay. And then they said,
Speaker 1: and oh, by the way, um, James Guthrie is going
Speaker 1: to be producing too, And I said, no, sorry that
Speaker 1: I gotta draw the line there. That's not happening. He's
Speaker 1: an engineer. I like him, he's a nice guy, he's talented.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to work with him. He is not producing
Speaker 1: this record. So we had a little bit of a
Speaker 1: conversation about that. And I didn't mean it to hold
Speaker 1: James back in any way. And it wasn't that. I'm
Speaker 1: not um a generous guy when it comes to those things,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't quite appropriate. So that was my belief
Speaker 1: then and I stand by it now. So anyway, so
Speaker 1: it was the three of us we were there. Doesn't
Speaker 1: Guthrie at this point get credited as a producer? Yes,
Speaker 1: at that by the very end he got credit. Did
Speaker 1: he get any did you? I don't know whether he
Speaker 1: got paid for it, but god knows, you know, he has.
Speaker 1: He has stayed on with them as a as a
Speaker 1: go to guy on many many levels for forever, you know,
Speaker 1: so he you know, he I think he did well
Speaker 1: with this relationship and he deserved too, because he was amazing.
Speaker 1: He was a great engineer, very musical guy. Um he
Speaker 1: was exactly the right guy for the project at the time.
Speaker 1: So that's how it started. And um and on the
Speaker 1: first day, on my first day, UM, they had rented
Speaker 1: me a really nice flat. They had given me a car.
Speaker 1: The session call was for ten am. They like to
Speaker 1: work from ten to six. This was all new for me. Boy,
Speaker 1: you know, this was not rock and roll, but I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was happy to do it. So I
Speaker 1: got in the car and the studio was in a
Speaker 1: place called Islington, just just off the Angel which may
Speaker 1: be the most complicated intersection in the entire civilized world.
Speaker 1: So uh and and and there was no no GPS
Speaker 1: in those days, so no phone talking to me. I
Speaker 1: had a map and I was trying to find row.
Speaker 1: It was impossible, and I just kept going around the
Speaker 1: circles and ending up in the wrong one way and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. It was terrible. I finally found the
Speaker 1: studio and there was no parking because it's a tiny
Speaker 1: little street and all of them had their they're matching
Speaker 1: BMW's lined up in front of the studio. There's no
Speaker 1: place for rita park. So then I found a parking spot. Finally,
Speaker 1: and I by that time I get back to the studio,
Speaker 1: I am frazzled, I'm angry, I'm just and I'm sweating,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, and I come up. I I
Speaker 1: come up the door to the studio and I go
Speaker 1: down the stairs towards the control room, and up coming
Speaker 1: up the stairs is Nick Griffiths, who was their old engineer.
Speaker 1: And and it was but it was almost like meeting
Speaker 1: Igor on my way to the dungeon, you know. And
Speaker 1: Igor looks at me and says, they did this to me.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm heading into the control room. I opened
Speaker 1: the door, and people are not happy. There's a there's
Speaker 1: four guys and Roger staring at the door, tapping on
Speaker 1: his watch. Which was that was it for me? That
Speaker 1: was that was the last straw, right, a guy tapping
Speaker 1: on his watch. I said, excuse me, can I speak
Speaker 1: to you outside for a second. So we went out
Speaker 1: in the hallway and I just I started just yelled
Speaker 1: at him. I said, I already have a father, asshole.
Speaker 1: I will that this is so demeaning, you know, it's
Speaker 1: disrespectful and I will not be treated like this, and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And while I'm yelling what I don't
Speaker 1: realize is the guys in the control room they can
Speaker 1: hear it, and the rest of the members of the
Speaker 1: band are going, yes, like somebody standing up to him.
Speaker 1: You know. I didn't know any of this stuff really,
Speaker 1: but I just had to get it out. It was
Speaker 1: just by frustration at the morning. Anyway, I got it out,
Speaker 1: and we came back and I said, now let's go
Speaker 1: back in there and let's work like partners. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: work like collaborators, and let's not do any of this
Speaker 1: ship anymore. And and so we went in and the
Speaker 1: mood of the room it changed remarkably, you know, from
Speaker 1: from when I first came in. Anyway. You know, we
Speaker 1: had our ups and our downs during the making of it,
Speaker 1: we had disagreements and stuff. But our relationship Rogers and
Speaker 1: mine was said at that moment, and from that point
Speaker 1: on it was respectful. It was cordial. At sometimes it
Speaker 1: was it was like friendship. Like he would wake me
Speaker 1: up on a Sunday morning to go to McDonald's with
Speaker 1: his kids, you know, because misery loves company, you know,
Speaker 1: But I mean, seriously, he just you know, he liked
Speaker 1: to hang out and um, and so did I and
Speaker 1: The thing that happened at the end of the project
Speaker 1: that estranged us for all that time is something that
Speaker 1: I regret enormously because because I did love the man
Speaker 1: and I and I loved working with him, I loved
Speaker 1: his brain, I love the challenge of him and uh,
Speaker 1: and it was it was very saddening to me that
Speaker 1: that that relationship died over my misstep. Okay, can you
Speaker 1: tell us what the misstep? Is comfortable with that? Sure?
Speaker 1: The misstep is this? The misstep is this? A journalist
Speaker 1: from in Toronto who had been my friend, the guy
Speaker 1: that I hung out with, was supposed to come to
Speaker 1: l A to see the l A shows at the
Speaker 1: Sports Arena and um. And he called me up a
Speaker 1: few weeks ahead of time and he said, the magazine
Speaker 1: won't let me go. I can't go, and I'm dying.
Speaker 1: And I said, oh god, I'm so sorry, because I
Speaker 1: knew what a fan he was, you know, and we
Speaker 1: were gonna hang out. I was going to introduce him
Speaker 1: to the boys and you know, like this was this
Speaker 1: was a massive thing for him to be able to
Speaker 1: attend it and and review it and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And he said, it's he said, I can't tell you.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to hang myself. It is so awful.
Speaker 1: What am I gonna miss? And I said, I can't
Speaker 1: tell you that David I had signed an n d A.
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, come on, it's just us. It's
Speaker 1: just the two of us. Come on. So I said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm about to sit down for dinner, but I'll
Speaker 1: just give you a like, okay, okay, I'll just give
Speaker 1: you some broad strokes short, but but trust me, like
Speaker 1: you'll get to see it. I'll make sure you get
Speaker 1: to see it, maybe New York or something like. They said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you know, I'm dying. So I told
Speaker 1: him some things about the show. We hung up in
Speaker 1: Billboard the following week. It said, over dinner with Bob Ezron,
Speaker 1: we learned we the journalistic we and it laid out
Speaker 1: some stuff about the show. And I got a seasoned
Speaker 1: assisted letter like immediately from the Pink Floyd office. I
Speaker 1: was told that Roger was apoplectic at this and he
Speaker 1: had every right to be, and and that you know
Speaker 1: they were they were going to take action against me,
Speaker 1: and that I was not to come to the show
Speaker 1: and and I mean it really was serious. It was
Speaker 1: really serious and and you know, I was a naive guy,
Speaker 1: like up until then, nobody ever lied to me before
Speaker 1: like that. Nobody'd ever like, you know, put me in
Speaker 1: a position where I compromised myself. They made me compromise
Speaker 1: myself and then they put me into trouble. I'd never
Speaker 1: had that experience, Honestly, I just thought people were what
Speaker 1: they said they were. There's a rule here, never trust
Speaker 1: writers never. Okay, switching back, there's some stories you told
Speaker 1: me I want to cover. Hey, let's go back to
Speaker 1: the wall and the table read. Well. You know, all
Speaker 1: during the making of The Wall, we were also creating
Speaker 1: what we saw as as the stage show. Right, this
Speaker 1: is another one where thinking through the stage show and
Speaker 1: formed the record in a huge way. And we were
Speaker 1: building models, and we were experimenting with bricks, you know,
Speaker 1: like what would bricks look like? How would they fall over?
Speaker 1: And I kill people? How can we make it go
Speaker 1: up fast and down fast? Etcetera, etcetera. By the end
Speaker 1: of the making of the album, where we were now
Speaker 1: in rough territory, we we had we had not yet
Speaker 1: got into mixing um. We had a table model of
Speaker 1: what the um of what the stage was going to
Speaker 1: look like and UM, well I'm saying, is I realize
Speaker 1: I'm answering the wrong question, But that's okay, you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to hear this. So we had a table model
Speaker 1: of the of the show, and we played the songs
Speaker 1: and moved the little figurings around. We had little men
Speaker 1: that were band members, and we had little model inflatables
Speaker 1: and little models of this and that, and we played
Speaker 1: through the show so that everybody could see it for
Speaker 1: the first time, see the the physical realization of it
Speaker 1: for the first time, and know what it was that
Speaker 1: we had been working on for this length of time.
Speaker 1: And so um, you know, so hard and and it was.
Speaker 1: That was a magical moment because everybody, including us, playing
Speaker 1: it all out like that for the first time, everybody
Speaker 1: saw what we what we knew. We add then back
Speaker 1: to your original question. So, um, thinking about the Wall
Speaker 1: as a theatrical piece and thinking about it as UM
Speaker 1: very much a concept record, not in a loose sense,
Speaker 1: in a very um literal sense, and it was going
Speaker 1: to be a story that took us from beginning to end. Um.
Speaker 1: I started playing with the sequence of things of songs
Speaker 1: and bits of songs that Roger had given me and
Speaker 1: things that we were working on in the studio. UM,
Speaker 1: and I started to see a kind of story arc um.
Speaker 1: And then one night, I don't know it just bam,
Speaker 1: just went off in my head, UM, and I saw
Speaker 1: it all like, so there it is, there's the story,
Speaker 1: and I wrote it down. I wrote it like a script,
Speaker 1: like a film script, because it was easier to visualize
Speaker 1: that way. So it opens up with act one seeing one, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the sound of a bomb falling that that
Speaker 1: does not ignite, and then a baby cries. Now we're
Speaker 1: into the next bit, and we just and I described
Speaker 1: every scene and stuffed the song title and the lyrics
Speaker 1: and their lyrics as though they were dialogues. So when
Speaker 1: you look at a film script, you have a description
Speaker 1: of the scene, then you have the name of the
Speaker 1: of the character, and then you have, in a smaller window,
Speaker 1: you have the words they'd say. So I I use
Speaker 1: that format. And where I didn't have the the song
Speaker 1: yet that told this part of the story, I just
Speaker 1: told the part of the story and said song TV
Speaker 1: W to be written, UM. And it came really quickly,
Speaker 1: and by the end of a few hours I had
Speaker 1: a script for what I what I saw as the
Speaker 1: story arc of the wall, and then I brought that
Speaker 1: in the next morning, made copies, photo copies as we
Speaker 1: had in those days, you know. Um, no, sorry, I
Speaker 1: made I made mimiograph copies as we had in those days,
Speaker 1: and handed them out to everybody, and I said look
Speaker 1: and and um, and I had James ready to play
Speaker 1: the pieces in the order that they were in the script. Um.
Speaker 1: So we did a table read through as though it
Speaker 1: was a movie, and you know, I read and and
Speaker 1: then the song would play and we'd sing on top
Speaker 1: of it, or the lyrics were already there and we
Speaker 1: would listen to it. And it became very clear at
Speaker 1: that moment um what the shape of the story was
Speaker 1: going to be and what we had and more importantly,
Speaker 1: what we still didn't have. Tell us the story of
Speaker 1: the creation of comfortably Numb. It's been told a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Um, well, I want your version, which we
Speaker 1: I've heard from you previously. Okay, Well, then you know
Speaker 1: the the the story of comfortably nom is this that
Speaker 1: that in this script that I had written, there was
Speaker 1: a song, um in d I had noted because that
Speaker 1: would be a really great key to go to from
Speaker 1: the song before um that during which Pink checks out
Speaker 1: and um. And so every day, by the way, we
Speaker 1: would have tea because we're British, and we would have
Speaker 1: tea and tea is at at four o'clock every day
Speaker 1: at four o'clock, come hell or high water, we go
Speaker 1: upstairs to the the the upstairs conservatory and somebody would
Speaker 1: bring us a tray with tea and Vicky's so we'd
Speaker 1: sit there and we talked about what we were doing
Speaker 1: and what we'd have to get done in the in
Speaker 1: the remaining ninety minutes right and in there there was
Speaker 1: a lot that was where a lot of stuff was
Speaker 1: discovered too, because I would throw things out and people
Speaker 1: would make suggested. So I said, as anybody got a song, indeed,
Speaker 1: we need a song in d for this this slot
Speaker 1: and to tell this part of the story. And David said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got this little piece I was working
Speaker 1: on for my solo album, but you know it's not
Speaker 1: quite finished, but you know this might work well here.
Speaker 1: And so he plays that high string part tuned in
Speaker 1: a way I'd never heard before and sounding just like magic.
Speaker 1: It was it was gold dust falling from the sky
Speaker 1: and and but it didn't go anywhere. I mean, it
Speaker 1: was it was a lyric that was not relevant to
Speaker 1: this story. So I said to Roger, you know, what
Speaker 1: do you think about taking this and let's let's get
Speaker 1: let's get the story and over top of this thing.
Speaker 1: And and Roger said, he I'm not writing I'm not
Speaker 1: writing lyrics or a melody to that tripe, you know,
Speaker 1: or something like that, you know, something that was half
Speaker 1: a joke but half not not a joke. And so
Speaker 1: as half a joke but half not a joke, I
Speaker 1: said to him, So you don't really think you can
Speaker 1: handle the assignment? Assignment? Is that? Is that? Is that
Speaker 1: what you're saying? Um? And and he told me to
Speaker 1: go fuck myself, as he often did, and and then
Speaker 1: we went back to work, you know. And a couple
Speaker 1: of days later he came and um and played me
Speaker 1: the demo that he had created for Comfortably Numb, and
Speaker 1: he said, here's your fucking song, you know and and
Speaker 1: and I mean when I heard those, and I had
Speaker 1: the lyrics on paper too, there is no pain. You
Speaker 1: are receiving a distant ship smoke on the horizon. You
Speaker 1: are only coming through in waves. Your lips move. But
Speaker 1: I can't hear what you're saying. When I was a child,
Speaker 1: I had a fever and my hands felt just like
Speaker 1: two balloons. Now I have that feeling. Once again. This
Speaker 1: is not me. You do not understand. This is not
Speaker 1: how I am. I have become comfortably numb, and I've
Speaker 1: got goose flesh right now, like right now, all over
Speaker 1: my body. When I say that to you, imagine when
Speaker 1: I read it for the first time, and I heard
Speaker 1: it for the first time, it was one of the
Speaker 1: most brilliant things I'd ever read in literature, poetry or
Speaker 1: song lyric. It was beyond Okay. Now, the other thing
Speaker 1: you've told me is you have this experience. It's unbelievably successful.
Speaker 1: You're at a pinnacle of your career. You go back
Speaker 1: to Toronto, you expect your phone to blow up and crickets, crickets,
Speaker 1: but nothing after the wall. UM, I decided that I
Speaker 1: wanted to come back to Toronto. I wanted to spend
Speaker 1: time with my kids. I wanted to UM, I wanted
Speaker 1: to lead a more you know, I wanted to have
Speaker 1: more of a home life. And and why not. I
Speaker 1: just had the biggest record in uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: biggest record in the world and maybe the biggest album
Speaker 1: certainly of the last ten years, and it was heading
Speaker 1: on to be the biggest rock album of all time.
Speaker 1: So I would go back to Toronto and of course
Speaker 1: people would call me and they would come there to
Speaker 1: work with me. Of course they would, why wouldn't they?
Speaker 1: And then yeah, like after twelve months, it was Crickets
Speaker 1: and I became Bob Who. And I was working with
Speaker 1: a lot of local talent. Some were, you know, really terrific.
Speaker 1: And I mean I did an album with mariraey McLaughlin,
Speaker 1: really talented folk singer, and UM and I worked on
Speaker 1: with a band called The Kings. We did a single
Speaker 1: called Switching to Glide, which is you know, was one
Speaker 1: of those one hit winner It was a big hit
Speaker 1: UM in the United States, and I brought the album
Speaker 1: did You Kings Are Here? Good Man? Good Man good Man?
Speaker 1: UM And and then Randy Phillips became the manager of
Speaker 1: The Kings and we went in to do the second
Speaker 1: album and uh, Randy Who, as you know, went on
Speaker 1: to UH he ran a g for a while. He
Speaker 1: was Rod Stewart's manager and UH and has you know
Speaker 1: a multitude of adventures in in music land. UM and
Speaker 1: he's a really smart guy and and uh and and
Speaker 1: you know, we liked each other. So he just said
Speaker 1: to me, what the funk are you doing here? Like
Speaker 1: you need to come back out to l A. You know,
Speaker 1: you need to come where the work is. And you know,
Speaker 1: by that time, UM, I remarried and and we had
Speaker 1: a baby girl, and we had all you know, hers
Speaker 1: mine an hour, So now were where we had five kids,
Speaker 1: and um and uh. It was not a trivial decision
Speaker 1: to make, you know, but we all decided we would
Speaker 1: do it. And and really, you want to know, the
Speaker 1: real reason why we decided to go to l A
Speaker 1: was because my parents had already moved there, and I
Speaker 1: was I felt terribly guilty from the time they left
Speaker 1: that they were so far away from their grandkids and
Speaker 1: they were getting to see them very much. So this was,
Speaker 1: you know, this was not a hard decision to make.
Speaker 1: I didn't like l A. I didn't want to live
Speaker 1: in l A. I wanted to go to New York.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go to London, but my parents were
Speaker 1: in l A. So that's where we went. And the
Speaker 1: deal was, we're gonna try it for nine months and
Speaker 1: if Dad doesn't like it. We're gonna go to New York.
Speaker 1: And everybody agreed. Then we got to l A within
Speaker 1: you know, literally, uh four weeks, five weeks, I was
Speaker 1: working with Rod Stewart and stuff just started to happen. Um.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the nine months though, I
Speaker 1: was not liking the experience of living in l A.
Speaker 1: I love the work, but I didn't like living there.
Speaker 1: And I just said to everybody, Okay, um, you know
Speaker 1: what we talked about before, I don't like it. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go. And they all looked at me and went, dude,
Speaker 1: we'll help you pack. You know, like the kids. You know,
Speaker 1: they all had by that time, they had the big
Speaker 1: eighties hair, you know, all the shoulder pads. They were
Speaker 1: all due this and do that. They loved it, they
Speaker 1: loved being there, and so we stayed and it ended
Speaker 1: up being really good for all of us. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: most producers have a window whether they're essentially done. In
Speaker 1: your particular case, you have a long career. You are
Speaker 1: a traditional producer, whereas today many producers are essentially engineers.
Speaker 1: You get into the concepts, the writing, etcetera. But then
Speaker 1: it does seem to slow down. You have another adventure
Speaker 1: and then you come back and you walk us through
Speaker 1: those changers. Well, you know, when when we were doing
Speaker 1: the Division bell Um and I was I was commuting
Speaker 1: back and forth to do the Division bell First of all,
Speaker 1: that was really wearing um. But second of all, you know,
Speaker 1: nobody was like we we were not working as hard
Speaker 1: as we used to. You know, we were spending a
Speaker 1: lot of time, um, making pasta and having an you know,
Speaker 1: and going out on the river and stuff. Is a
Speaker 1: beautiful studio, great setting, wonderful um. And I was beginning
Speaker 1: to lose my sense of motivation. You know, I felt
Speaker 1: like I was repeating myself on some levels. And I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess it's just like after so many years. At
Speaker 1: that point, this is now twenty four years into the adventure, right,
Speaker 1: I had already started working on some CD ROM stuff.
Speaker 1: I'd already started on technology. I didn't go straight from
Speaker 1: music and then start technology. I've always been a technology
Speaker 1: guy anyway on a certain level. So that was really
Speaker 1: exciting me. Like every time I would be with that
Speaker 1: and those people, like I was just firing on all cylinders.
Speaker 1: But when I was going back to the boat, which
Speaker 1: was beautiful and wonderful, which I loved, and with David Gilmour,
Speaker 1: who I love, and all this, you know, this great team.
Speaker 1: I was kind of in, you know, I felt like
Speaker 1: I was in a comfort zone, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be in a comfort zone. So I came home
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I think I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop that for a while, and I think I'm
Speaker 1: going to uh go into this technology thing, you know,
Speaker 1: because I believed in interactive entertainment. I was once again
Speaker 1: working with brilliant, amazing people, working with the Monty Python guys.
Speaker 1: You know, I signed them to our company to make
Speaker 1: a series of of c rom games. Um. I was
Speaker 1: already friends with Eric Idol, and I became really good
Speaker 1: friends with Terry Gilliam who you know, you know, Jan
Speaker 1: and I had lunch with him on the last trip
Speaker 1: to England, and I stay in close touch with him
Speaker 1: and he's an amazing guy. UM And Howie Mandel, God
Speaker 1: bless him, another Torontonian, got involved with us to do
Speaker 1: all these educational titles and stuff. I was just having
Speaker 1: a blast and and the creative team and uh technology team.
Speaker 1: These were people that were at the top of their
Speaker 1: game and that's who I wanted to be with. So
Speaker 1: we built a studio in um Burbank. We built a
Speaker 1: large UH animation and in digital entertainment studio. There we
Speaker 1: were doing work for Sony, we were doing work for Disney. UM.
Speaker 1: We invented lip sync on the fly. We had UM
Speaker 1: a new digital income paint program that made it possible
Speaker 1: for us to turn out animation faster than anybody else.
Speaker 1: We had an amazing team and in that building we
Speaker 1: had a couple of hundred young, hungry, energized people as
Speaker 1: as animators and creative directors and UH and engineers too,
Speaker 1: And that's where I wanted to be. So that's where
Speaker 1: I was. What happened was UM Mark Mercuriitis was was
Speaker 1: UH managing Storm Ferguson, who is the guy who made
Speaker 1: all the Pink Floyd artwork except for the wall, which
Speaker 1: was Jerry Scarf. But Storm and his partner Po they
Speaker 1: created some of the greatest artwork and of all times,
Speaker 1: some of the most legendary album covers and certainly all
Speaker 1: of that historical Pink Floyds h So UH they wanted
Speaker 1: to do a CD ram of Storm's work. They wanted
Speaker 1: to get all of his works at him talking and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And and Mark Uh grew up in
Speaker 1: Toronto and was uh an employee of UM, the two
Speaker 1: guys who owned Sanctuary and UH and A and a
Speaker 1: music manager. I mean he he came to Storm through
Speaker 1: music management. He decided to make it his life's work
Speaker 1: to get me back into his studio. So they came,
Speaker 1: he in Storm to Los Angeles to talk to us
Speaker 1: about doing the Storm project. And he announced me basically
Speaker 1: said you are going back into a studio if it
Speaker 1: kills me. And I said do your best, you know,
Speaker 1: like okay, sure kid, you know. But he was relentless,
Speaker 1: like like unstoppable as he is in life. Merk Mercuriatis
Speaker 1: is relentless. And his latest venture proves that. It's called
Speaker 1: him no this which was the name of Storms design
Speaker 1: company that did all those albums, and in honor of Storm,
Speaker 1: it is called Hypnosis, and and Mark's son is called Storm. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: Storm was very meaningful to all of us and very
Speaker 1: dear to all of us. And if you could just
Speaker 1: see my my room here, you will see Storm artwork
Speaker 1: all around the walls of this house. Um. You know
Speaker 1: some that I bought and I also paid for him
Speaker 1: to do a a limited edition art paper addition of
Speaker 1: these of these works, and so out of that I
Speaker 1: got a few artist proofs too. So this is like
Speaker 1: a storm shrine in this house. You know, works on
Speaker 1: a mission, works on a mission, and he starts setting
Speaker 1: me stuff, and he starts calling me in for meetings.
Speaker 1: I think, I uh, I did meet with Iron Maiden,
Speaker 1: you know, based on Mark's recommendation, and it got to
Speaker 1: hang out a little bit with Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer.
Speaker 1: We got on very well, but it's really his band. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but for some reason it didn't work out. But his cousin,
Speaker 1: Rob Dickinson, was the lead singer in CA. And then
Speaker 1: Mark brought me some demos from those guys and they
Speaker 1: knocked my socks off. The sound of Rob Dickinson in
Speaker 1: a way reminded me a little bit of Peter. He
Speaker 1: had that that dusky um, beautiful British Barris Tanner, you know,
Speaker 1: that um that I really loved, and I I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, Merk infected me with that virus,
Speaker 1: you know, and slowly, maturely like it wasn't gonna be
Speaker 1: my record. But what I consider maybe executive producing we're
Speaker 1: working with the team, you know, and slowly, maturely he
Speaker 1: sucked me into, uh, you know, playing a much larger
Speaker 1: role in the project and loving it. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I loved doing it. It reminded me of the excitement
Speaker 1: of the process, and um, that sort of that lit
Speaker 1: the fire underneath me again. Okay, now, before we get
Speaker 1: back to a couple of records you've done in the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. Philanthropy is a big part of
Speaker 1: your life. Can you tell us the genesis of that
Speaker 1: and what you've been involved in. I was in the
Speaker 1: hospital once, you know, I checked myself in for drug abuse.
Speaker 1: Is approximately when this is approximately in this, you know,
Speaker 1: like when I moved to New York, checked myself in
Speaker 1: a Gracie Square, not the nicest hospital in the world.
Speaker 1: It's a psychiatric hospital. But I wanted to go somewhere
Speaker 1: where they locked the doors and I wanted to stop
Speaker 1: doing drugs. So I'm in a room, and in psychiatric
Speaker 1: hospitals there's a window on your door. You don't get
Speaker 1: to be behind closed doors, right people, People can observe you,
Speaker 1: and your name's on the door up front. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: I moved in with a harpsichord, and I had, you know,
Speaker 1: and I had a guitar. And I mean it was
Speaker 1: like I was air to not to not get in trouble,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't there um to stop thinking and creating
Speaker 1: and making music. So I was kind of doing both.
Speaker 1: So I spent a lot of time with the door closed. However,
Speaker 1: several times a day an old man would come by
Speaker 1: and look at me through the window and just stare
Speaker 1: at me, and then he would turn around and go away.
Speaker 1: So one day he came and he looked at me
Speaker 1: and stared at me, and I opened the door to say,
Speaker 1: can I help you, sir? And he said, you know
Speaker 1: what means the name? And I said, uh no, not really.
Speaker 1: He said it means the helper, and then he turned
Speaker 1: around and walked down the hall with his his ship
Speaker 1: stained ass showing through his you know, through those medical
Speaker 1: those embarrassing medical robes that they would dress people in.
Speaker 1: And that hit me like a ton of bricks. But
Speaker 1: that's only just an illustration. Why, you know, where is it?
Speaker 1: What does it come from? It's baked in, man, It's baked.
Speaker 1: First of all, It's baked into us as a people.
Speaker 1: My grandparents used to put food on the on the
Speaker 1: doorstep for what they would refer to as the poor
Speaker 1: family during the depression when they had nothing. And Um
Speaker 1: and my great grandfather into whose house I was born actually,
Speaker 1: and when they would have the high holidays, we would
Speaker 1: come over and we'd open the cellar door. We had
Speaker 1: sellers in those days, and there was a tin a
Speaker 1: tin um box on the door that said uh sedaka,
Speaker 1: and you would have to you would have to put
Speaker 1: money in the box before um, before the holiday would start.
Speaker 1: And and my father was a doctor and a healer,
Speaker 1: and my mother opened our home to every stray in
Speaker 1: not just the neighborhood, but from you know, all walks
Speaker 1: of and from all corners of the world. So I
Speaker 1: grew up with that this was normal. Normal is you
Speaker 1: open your home, you open your heart, you do what
Speaker 1: you can to help people. Well, I certainly know you're
Speaker 1: involved with the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, but you also
Speaker 1: started music rising with Edge from you too. How do
Speaker 1: you even know Edge? And you know, as I said
Speaker 1: at the beginning of our first podcast, you're the straw
Speaker 1: that stirs the drink. I mean, you sit at home
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you have ideas and you
Speaker 1: just start ringing people up. Yeah, you know what, Sometimes
Speaker 1: I've just bumped into somebody and then I have the idea,
Speaker 1: you know, because my dad used to say, like when
Speaker 1: we were little kids, when we had company over, and
Speaker 1: it was almost always relatives, right that would come over
Speaker 1: to our house, my dad would come upstairs and wake
Speaker 1: us up literally to come downstairs and sing for the relatives,
Speaker 1: and and we would go. And my dad would always
Speaker 1: say this phrase, and he said it until the day died.
Speaker 1: This moment will never come again. This moment will never
Speaker 1: come again. So down we would go because that moment
Speaker 1: would never come again, and we had to say and
Speaker 1: and in a way, that's how, you know, that's a
Speaker 1: little bit of how I live my life. You know,
Speaker 1: this moment will never come again. And so when I
Speaker 1: bump into somebody and and I just suddenly I just
Speaker 1: see all the potential of the of the encounter, and
Speaker 1: I go for it. Why not, this moment will never
Speaker 1: come again. I may never see them again. Bob is
Speaker 1: understating it because he's really very heavily involved in philanthropy,
Speaker 1: and you might bump into him yourself. Okay, well, you
Speaker 1: may bump into me. But so Katrina happens and we're
Speaker 1: watching it on television. It is, uh, you know, next
Speaker 1: to the next to Night eleven. It's just one of
Speaker 1: the most devastating things you can see in real time,
Speaker 1: happening right before your eyes in a major city in America.
Speaker 1: And it's not just any city. It's the magic city
Speaker 1: that my uncle, the jazz fanatic, used to play records
Speaker 1: from and tell me stories about, and I used to
Speaker 1: dream of as a place where that's where music lived,
Speaker 1: you know, And and it is a place that the
Speaker 1: members of you two also were, you know, that they
Speaker 1: were in love with and they'd actually gone there and
Speaker 1: worked and stuff. Because it is it is the heart
Speaker 1: of jazz, rhythm and blues rock, you name it. Everything
Speaker 1: comes from West Africa, through the Caribbean, in through that
Speaker 1: port and into America most everything. So when we're watching
Speaker 1: it go under water and we're watching people die, we're
Speaker 1: watching people on rooftops saying please save me and stuff,
Speaker 1: it just it. First of all, I cried watching and secondly,
Speaker 1: then I got really angry because I didn't see the
Speaker 1: response that I wanted to see from the US government.
Speaker 1: It was, as you recall, you know, people were sort
Speaker 1: of saying, well, you know doing you're doing a good job.
Speaker 1: Whatever he said said about Brownie, Hell, heck of a job, Brownie,
Speaker 1: That's what So UM I was planning to do something,
Speaker 1: and then I got a call from Marty Albertson, who
Speaker 1: at the time was the chairman and CEO of Guitar
Speaker 1: Center and sat on the board with me of the
Speaker 1: Mr Hollins Opus Foundation and knew a bit about me
Speaker 1: and sort of the other things that I was doing,
Speaker 1: and so he called me up and he said, look,
Speaker 1: Henry Jessquits, who who owns Gibson Guitars. He wants to
Speaker 1: make uh commemorative guitar and sell a million dollars worth
Speaker 1: of it. And he wants to UM buy instruments and
Speaker 1: give them to people there who have lost their their
Speaker 1: musical instruments in the flood, which sounded like a pretty
Speaker 1: good idea, except for the part about giving instruments to people,
Speaker 1: because we didn't know how we were going to be
Speaker 1: able to do that. But h I said, well, let
Speaker 1: let me think about it and I'll call you back.
Speaker 1: At the time, I was also on the board UH
Speaker 1: the l A chapter board of NERO and UM and
Speaker 1: it was a trustee. Um, so I was here. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a relationship with the people in Music Cares,
Speaker 1: and I called up Kristin Manson, who was running Music
Speaker 1: Cares at the time, and I just said, listen, um,
Speaker 1: I know you guys are sending money to UH your
Speaker 1: members out there. How many people have lost their instruments?
Speaker 1: And she said, that's a really good question. I don't know.
Speaker 1: So up till then, they've had about fifteen hundred requests
Speaker 1: for support. They went back to everybody, and she came
Speaker 1: back to me literally a few days later and said,
Speaker 1: there's people who have lost their instruments. So then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: a million dollars, give or take a little, that's a
Speaker 1: thousand dollars of person. So I said to Marty, Marty,
Speaker 1: if we gave people a thousand dollars and they shopped
Speaker 1: wholesale or at at your cost for instruments, what could
Speaker 1: they buy with that? And he God bless Marty. We
Speaker 1: went from that conversation to tell you what, I'll give
Speaker 1: you the first two dollars of the sale of these guitars,
Speaker 1: which hadn't even been built yet. I'll give you that money.
Speaker 1: And oh, by the way, I'm going to create a
Speaker 1: dedicated on line for you at musicians Friend, which is
Speaker 1: the online service of Guitar Center, that these people can call,
Speaker 1: they can give him a code. Those people will help
Speaker 1: them buy the instrument and we'll ship it to them
Speaker 1: wherever they are. Couldn't be better. So um, that same time,
Speaker 1: right about that same time, you two was playing Toronto,
Speaker 1: and and Michael Cole and I were invited to lunch
Speaker 1: with the band because you know, we sort of knew
Speaker 1: some of the people involved. And so we went to
Speaker 1: lunch and Roger mcnabee was at that lunch, the guy
Speaker 1: that that you would started Elevation Partners with Bono. Yes,
Speaker 1: and um and uh, and so was Jimmy Ivy. So
Speaker 1: he's out at the table and and they sat me
Speaker 1: next to the edge, who I loved. I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: he was really fun to sit with. He was he
Speaker 1: had a great sense of humor, he was easy to
Speaker 1: talk to, he was comfortable. We got laughing. He says
Speaker 1: to me, you know, the first single I ever bought
Speaker 1: with schools up. And I said, you're kidding me, and
Speaker 1: he said, nope, first single I ever bought. And that's
Speaker 1: why I'm in the music business. Then Bono chirps up
Speaker 1: and he goes, actually I stole it, but it was
Speaker 1: my first single or something like, you know. And then
Speaker 1: and then Jimmy I having uh chimes in because Jimmy's
Speaker 1: first gig was at the Record Plan and they put
Speaker 1: him on Alice Cooper as an assistant engineer basically a
Speaker 1: runner under me, because they figured if he could survive me,
Speaker 1: he could survive anything I used to break in their guys, right,
Speaker 1: and he was amazing. He was just like quick witted,
Speaker 1: smart Jimmy Shoes That is exactly right. We named him
Speaker 1: Jimmy Shoe is because he always showed up in different
Speaker 1: you know, he had he had styled. Jimmy had style
Speaker 1: and uh and of course you know he went on
Speaker 1: to be more successful than any of us by a mile.
Speaker 1: But um, so they were all in the room and
Speaker 1: they were just talking about Alice Cooper and this and that,
Speaker 1: and then that gave me the uh, let's say it
Speaker 1: gave me the confidence to be able to turn to
Speaker 1: edge and say, Okay, look, I'm I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: thing for the people in New Orleans, and I want
Speaker 1: to know if you'd like to play too. Um. At first,
Speaker 1: what I said to was, do you have any guitars
Speaker 1: we could sell, you know, and like make some money,
Speaker 1: Like guitars you're not using that we could sell and
Speaker 1: make some money. And he goes, I'll do you better
Speaker 1: than that, and he said, give me your number and
Speaker 1: I'll call you on the weekend. So I gave him
Speaker 1: my home number and and left the lunch, figuring that
Speaker 1: was just another rock star moment, you know, where you
Speaker 1: give up your number and you never hear from anybody
Speaker 1: ever again. Saturday afternoon, we're we're barbecuing and I get
Speaker 1: a phone call. Hey, Bob, it's the Edge, And okay,
Speaker 1: now I've spoken to Yamaha, I've spoken to this manufacturer
Speaker 1: and that manufacturer, and they're willing to do this, and
Speaker 1: they're willing to do that. And what I think we
Speaker 1: ought to do is we ought to uh coordinate with Marty,
Speaker 1: and we ought to and I knew at that moment
Speaker 1: he was in So I said, you know what, buddy,
Speaker 1: let's be partners, you know, let's do this together. And
Speaker 1: he said, you know, i'd love to. I'd be honored
Speaker 1: to be able to do something for that place, you know.
Speaker 1: And so from there it just exploded quickly. We called
Speaker 1: up UH micro Pino and Arthur Foco Uh from Live
Speaker 1: Nation and at that point that company was called spin Coo.
Speaker 1: It had just been spun out of Clear Channel and UM,
Speaker 1: and we asked him for a dollar on a ticket
Speaker 1: help us. To raise money. We hit up the Bush
Speaker 1: Clinton Fund, which had been established just for stuff like this,
Speaker 1: because you two had a connection through UH one of
Speaker 1: Clinton's aids, and they gave us five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: The Buffett family gave us money. UH. Suddenly people were
Speaker 1: giving us money and we were and we were now
Speaker 1: able not just to fulfill the needs of the musicians
Speaker 1: who have lost instruments, but now we could go and
Speaker 1: help the churches, the community centers, and later on a
Speaker 1: little while down line, we could help schools. Over over time,
Speaker 1: we raised well over seven million dollars. We got instruments
Speaker 1: to everybody that needed it. We still had a million
Speaker 1: dollars left, and so I went to Tulane University and
Speaker 1: UM we created a course of study in music rising
Speaker 1: the musical cultures of the Gulf South. So the idea
Speaker 1: was that when it happens again, because it's not a
Speaker 1: matter of if we all know that that this music
Speaker 1: would never be lost. We were going to digitize it.
Speaker 1: We were gonna get videos of the people who played it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna make it something that people could
Speaker 1: study till the end of time. And and it's there,
Speaker 1: and it's been up for years. Okay, So at this
Speaker 1: point in time, I'm not talking about going back through
Speaker 1: your career. What do you see yourself as you see
Speaker 1: yourself as a record producer? Again, that's very funny. What
Speaker 1: do I see myself as you know? I see myself
Speaker 1: as you keep you keep using the term alta kacker.
Speaker 1: That's me for your I see myself as you know,
Speaker 1: as a capetchy old jew. You know, I got a
Speaker 1: headache and my back and my knees. And um, I've
Speaker 1: never said I am a record producer. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was conscious about that because, um, people would say that
Speaker 1: stuff like, well you know, what do you do? Well,
Speaker 1: I am this, And I would think to myself, well,
Speaker 1: you that's not what you are, it's what you do.
Speaker 1: So people say, well what do you do? I say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm uh, I'm in the music business. I
Speaker 1: produced stuff, I produced other kinds of entertainment to and uh.
Speaker 1: But also I'm in education, I'm in um a little
Speaker 1: bit in um uh civil rights and justice and water
Speaker 1: and and I'm a big time right now evangelists for
Speaker 1: the environment. Okay, so yes, you are involved all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. You had ling ling Uh and Metallica hooked
Speaker 1: up for the Grand we did. We did the Grammys.
Speaker 1: That was fun, that was okay. You just had a
Speaker 1: huge success with Andrea Bocelli, a record that was long
Speaker 1: in the birth thing. And you've also worked with Fish.
Speaker 1: How many albums you've done with Fish at this point? Um?
Speaker 1: I did two albums with Fish and how did that
Speaker 1: come together? So? Um, they were getting to a point
Speaker 1: where they were gonna make records again. I think they'd
Speaker 1: had a little bit of a hiatus and they wanted
Speaker 1: to do something serious. Page Um, the keyboard players, was
Speaker 1: a big fan of my work. He knew who I was,
Speaker 1: So when they were thinking about who maybe to work with,
Speaker 1: I guess my name got thrown into the hat. And um,
Speaker 1: and I know um some of the people from Red Light.
Speaker 1: So I had done the Pete Seeger ninetieth birthday celebration
Speaker 1: at Madison Square Garden where we had Dave Matthews and
Speaker 1: a bunch of other people. So I had worked with
Speaker 1: Corin on stuff like that. You know, I guess you know,
Speaker 1: mine was a familiar name. So somebody said, well, why
Speaker 1: don't we meet him? I went to Dick Sporting Goods
Speaker 1: in Alfaretta, Georgia, and and to tell you the truth,
Speaker 1: the reason I went really was because my granddaughter Zoe
Speaker 1: was living in Alfaretta, Georgia at the time, and this
Speaker 1: gave me an opportunity, opportunity to go see her spend
Speaker 1: time with her because it was hard to get to Georgia.
Speaker 1: You know, it was not sort of on my beaten
Speaker 1: path to see her and spend time with her and
Speaker 1: have her come to a show with me and just
Speaker 1: like really have a great bonding experience with my beautiful girl.
Speaker 1: So I said, okay, I'll do it, and then uh
Speaker 1: and Zoe came with me that we had dinner with them.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that bringing my granddaughter was a really
Speaker 1: big plus to these guys. They're real family guys. Their
Speaker 1: kids roll around sound check, you know, they love to
Speaker 1: they love to bring their whole families on the road.
Speaker 1: They're very, very human and um and you know, they're
Speaker 1: good Vermont boys. You know, they're just like really nice, progressive,
Speaker 1: family oriented guys. So they like me, and we had
Speaker 1: really good conversations. Another one of those, a little bit
Speaker 1: like the Purple conversation, UM, where I just said, you know,
Speaker 1: what I saw on stage side is amazing, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna need to try and get that. Let's not be
Speaker 1: let's not be limited by lengths of songs or any
Speaker 1: of that other stuff. Let's just really go for it.
Speaker 1: I went to Vermont and work with them in their barn,
Speaker 1: and we spent weeks together and we had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun, uh, you know, routining material, picking songs. These
Speaker 1: were guys who you know, who would come in with
Speaker 1: like scores of songs to pour through each of them
Speaker 1: and um, and then we broke it down to an
Speaker 1: album's worth of material. We had a lot of fun
Speaker 1: doing it. Then we went to Nashville and the sessions.
Speaker 1: I try to keep the sessions as as fast and
Speaker 1: exciting as they are, and and you know, to create
Speaker 1: an atmosphere for them that was um, that was inspiring
Speaker 1: and UM and felt safe. So they really went for it.
Speaker 1: They liked it. The album came out people said nice
Speaker 1: things about it. I think it did. Okay, they really
Speaker 1: loved the experience, so then they decided when it came
Speaker 1: time to do it again that they would call me back. Okay.
Speaker 1: Fish is a good example here. From the beginning of
Speaker 1: their career, it has primarily been about the live show
Speaker 1: and the records, even when they were the major label
Speaker 1: with Electra, have never been as big as their live show.
Speaker 1: In addition, you mentioned your work with Deep Purple. Now
Speaker 1: need Let's say they're a classic heritage act, but we
Speaker 1: know in the streaming era it focuses more on tracks,
Speaker 1: even if you put out the album, and in a
Speaker 1: world where it's flattened, a lot of these records do
Speaker 1: not have the dominance that they once had, irrelevant of
Speaker 1: their quality, irrelevant of their genre. What's it like in
Speaker 1: terms of your motivation, Because when you were making records
Speaker 1: with people like Alice Cooper and Kissing Pink Floyd, you
Speaker 1: knew these records were gonna come out, They're gonna get
Speaker 1: a good list, and based on their quality and luck,
Speaker 1: they might really become known by everybody, which is almost
Speaker 1: an impossibility today. Okay, that's a that's a big question,
Speaker 1: big long question. In the case of Deep Purple for example,
Speaker 1: and this is true of Alice too, right now, they
Speaker 1: have a fan base that just stays with them no
Speaker 1: matter what they do. And those people they buy physical product.
Speaker 1: So in a world where nobody buys physical product, Deep
Speaker 1: Purple sales are primarily physical. And in Germany alone they
Speaker 1: sell a lot of records. So um, while you want
Speaker 1: to say, well, you know that, you know, why did
Speaker 1: I do that? There's nothing in it for you. Actually
Speaker 1: got royalty papments out of the Deep Purple albums, and
Speaker 1: I didn't get that out of a lot of contemporary people.
Speaker 1: And with and with Andrea Bocelli, for example, we sold
Speaker 1: a million physical albums millions, So um, there are people
Speaker 1: who still buy um. Admittedly they're mostly older people. Um,
Speaker 1: and but older people like music too, you know, and
Speaker 1: they have a right to anyway. What motivates me to
Speaker 1: work with Fish, Well, what motivated me to work with
Speaker 1: Fish was just because it was just such an off
Speaker 1: the wall idea and they were so good the players.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I saw the show and I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: I want to spend a few weeks in the studio
Speaker 1: with those guys, right that that could be a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. Luckily, I'm in a position where, um, you know, I,
Speaker 1: if I didn't do that project, I wasn't going to starve.
Speaker 1: So I got to do it for the right reasons.
Speaker 1: I wasn't doing it for the paycheck. I was doing
Speaker 1: it for the excitement of it. And and sure enough
Speaker 1: that that proved to be true. In the Deep Purple case,
Speaker 1: it was exactly the same thing. I went to see
Speaker 1: Deep Purple play live at Massey Hall again in Toronto.
Speaker 1: It was it was was it the Machine had tour
Speaker 1: where they played the whole album. No, no, I would
Speaker 1: love that. I didn't see that show. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: you saw him at Masket Hall. So Neil Warneck their
Speaker 1: their agent is also Alice Cooper's agent, and and and
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd's agent for the long as well. A friend
Speaker 1: he called me up and he said, you're going to
Speaker 1: produce the next D Purple album. I said, no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: He said, yes, you are, and I said, no, I'm not.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to get pigeonholed as the
Speaker 1: oldies guy. And you know, I've got to stay with Alice.
Speaker 1: And that's for me. That's about it for classic bands
Speaker 1: and he said, well, you have to just do me
Speaker 1: this favorite. Just go see them play live. Now understand
Speaker 1: Machine had the album was was a seminal listening experience
Speaker 1: for me that did a huge amount to put me
Speaker 1: in touch with my love for heavy music. Um. I
Speaker 1: was once asked if I would produce Made in Japan,
Speaker 1: but I was doing something else and couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: And as you may recall, that went on to become
Speaker 1: like the biggest rock album of the past ten years,
Speaker 1: sold like twelve million coffees or something like that. I
Speaker 1: just kept watching the numbers, thinking I didn't make that money.
Speaker 1: Oh crap anyway, But so it wasn't like Deep Purple
Speaker 1: with Strangers to me, and um So I went to
Speaker 1: see them play live. The opening parts of the show,
Speaker 1: they were playing their more contemporary material and it didn't
Speaker 1: really get me off, I have to say. Um. But
Speaker 1: then in the you know boats, halfway through the set,
Speaker 1: they go into this jam where they're all, um, they're
Speaker 1: like showing off there there they hit the virtuoso button
Speaker 1: and they're playing stuff that just knocks my socks off,
Speaker 1: and and all the old people in the audience who
Speaker 1: up until then we're like politely applauding or yelling from
Speaker 1: their seats. They got up and they started dancing in
Speaker 1: the aisles of their arms and twirling circles like they
Speaker 1: were back in Woodstock. It was amazing. It was crazy,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, I haven't heard that in
Speaker 1: rock and roll in so long I almost forgot it existed. Prague, real, unapologetic,
Speaker 1: virtuoso level Prague. I loved it. And then of course
Speaker 1: they closed the show with all the classics, which you know,
Speaker 1: just reminded me of how great a band they were.
Speaker 1: So the next morning we had a late breakfast and
Speaker 1: we talked uh the possibility of working together. Um. By
Speaker 1: this time I think that they had had their confidence
Speaker 1: shaken by people who told them that they had to
Speaker 1: try to be a contemporary rock band. Like that's not
Speaker 1: fair to do to guys at our age. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just not this. Yeah, it's not who we are.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna happen and m and I said to
Speaker 1: them at breakfast, I said, look, if you if if
Speaker 1: you're looking at me as a guy who's gonna make
Speaker 1: like a quote unquote contemporary rock album with you, I
Speaker 1: I think you've come to the wrong place because I
Speaker 1: don't think that's possible for you in norder, I think
Speaker 1: it's relevant. I think that's bad for you. I think
Speaker 1: if you want to make a record, it sounds like
Speaker 1: what I heard in that jam session and in those
Speaker 1: classic songs later on in the set where we don't
Speaker 1: give a ship about length of song, how many you
Speaker 1: know pieces, all this stuff. We don't think about radio.
Speaker 1: We just go in there and be be bravely and
Speaker 1: on a apologetically prague I'm in if that's what you want,
Speaker 1: I'm in. Uh. And and you know when I left now, uh,
Speaker 1: Steve and I had already worked together. Steve Morris, the
Speaker 1: guitar player, we had already worked together when he was
Speaker 1: in Kansas who I also produced By the Way and
Speaker 1: and the Dixie Drags before that, and when Dixie Dregs
Speaker 1: all along the you know, the Dregs went on for
Speaker 1: a long time, and Roger Glutter was one of my
Speaker 1: production heroes, like he had produced some of the albums
Speaker 1: that you know, being a Progue fan and a British
Speaker 1: rock fan, he had produced some of the greatest albums
Speaker 1: in my collection. So for me, like this would have
Speaker 1: been a fun This would have been a great gig.
Speaker 1: I realized after that being would be a great gig,
Speaker 1: so okay, I'm gonna go for it. And apparently they
Speaker 1: liked the speech and we started the process and and
Speaker 1: um and and I've just enjoyed the hell out of
Speaker 1: this relationship. We've we've come, we're friends. We talk, you know,
Speaker 1: when we're not working together, and um, you know, we
Speaker 1: see each other in various places that I you know,
Speaker 1: Ian Gillen came to do his vocals to our to
Speaker 1: Nasau in the Bahamas, where we have a place, and
Speaker 1: he stayed with us. He stayed at our house and
Speaker 1: we did the vocals together. We ate together and hung together.
Speaker 1: You know, I really like them, but I really admire them,
Speaker 1: Like these are really really great musicians. He's an incredibly
Speaker 1: good vocalist and and and he and Roger are seriously
Speaker 1: good lyricists too. So you know, for me, that was
Speaker 1: a that has been and I hope continues to be
Speaker 1: a really fun gig. And we sold records. Okay, we're
Speaker 1: in this crazy COVID era, but what have you got
Speaker 1: in the pipeline of anything? Looks like, uh, nobody's going
Speaker 1: on the road for a little while. So um, uh
Speaker 1: you know. We're is finishing up Alice is album that
Speaker 1: we had to we had to interrupt because of uh coronavirus.
Speaker 1: And we've been finishing it remotely, um, which is which
Speaker 1: is an interesting process. It takes a little a little
Speaker 1: more time than I'm you know that I would really like.
Speaker 1: But but it's also kind of cool because it's like
Speaker 1: I could really concentrate on one thing at a time,
Speaker 1: which is not normally my nature. And then I get
Speaker 1: it all together and and I have managed to clone
Speaker 1: my studio pretty much identically here in my house in Toronto,
Speaker 1: so I can get it up to a point where
Speaker 1: it's um, I can mix it here. All I do
Speaker 1: is send it back to Nashville to Julian who who
Speaker 1: puts it through our hardware and prints it there. But UM,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna finish that. That's gonna be done within
Speaker 1: I would say three or four weeks, um, because it's
Speaker 1: not the only thing I'm doing right now. Right now,
Speaker 1: I am on mission from God to get people to
Speaker 1: register and vote in the next election. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: my buddy Andy, who you know well, who you ski
Speaker 1: with and stuff. We are we're we're on a you know,
Speaker 1: we are on a mission and this is taking quite
Speaker 1: a bit of time. Plus I've got my environmental stuff
Speaker 1: and In Place of War and the Mr Hollins Opus
Speaker 1: Foundation and Music Rising, They're all going at the same time.
Speaker 1: So what I in my spare time, what I do
Speaker 1: is I'm finishing this record. But but Alison I are
Speaker 1: already saying like, well, you know, why stop. We're having
Speaker 1: a good time. Let's keep going. So I think that
Speaker 1: will happen. A couple of people have sent me notes saying,
Speaker 1: you know, would you like to talk about stuff? And
Speaker 1: I'm open to it, though it would be very difficult
Speaker 1: to do under current circumstances. So we'll see, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll see. Bob. Okay, I think we've come to the
Speaker 1: end of the feeling we've known, and I think we'll
Speaker 1: leave a third episode for the future. So Bob, I
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Going through your history and telling
Speaker 1: all these fantastic stories from our audience. Well, it's you know,
Speaker 1: what's fun to tell because it gets I get a
Speaker 1: chance to live it again. You know. I sort of
Speaker 1: stay in the present, as you know, but but to
Speaker 1: go back and relive that stuff, it's really you know,
Speaker 1: it was great times, great fun. I feel unbelievably privileged
Speaker 1: to have had these opportunities and to experience these things. Well,
Speaker 1: this has been great. Bob Till next time. This is
Speaker 1: Bob left stuff