WEBVTT - Joe Satriani 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:12.520 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:19.520 My guest today is guitarist extraordinaire Joe Satriani. Joe, you're 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.880 on a spring tour with Steve Vai. How did that 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:22.360 come to be? 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:29.280 Oh? Well, it started about a little over a year 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:34.920 ago when my son brought me this idea about doing 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:39.880 a documentary about himself growing up around the G three 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:42.480 concerts and the fact we had an anniversary that had 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.479 just come by, and we started with just doing the 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.239 film and it rolled into a G three tour and 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:57.040 then which we wrapped up in February, and then along 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.040 the way, territories were saying, well, I'd like to like 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:02.680 you to come here too, because it was really a 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.480 short tour, maybe just about eleven dates or something like that, 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.000 all West Coast, and so we thought, well, yeah, let's 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.720 just keep going. It's so much fun. Eric had other commitments, 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.880 so then we thought, well, maybe it's just me and Steve. 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.600 And then as soon as we agreed we thought that'd 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.720 be a cool idea, someone said, well, you guys would 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:26.680 be great if you had a track, And then so 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.560 I started to write some music and sent it to 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.720 Steve and then all of a sudden, it was like, hey, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.440 you guys should do an album and keep this tour 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:38.479 going as long as you can. So here we are. 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:42.440 We're on the Satchfy tour, the first leg of it, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.759 and we've got a song out and a video and 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:49.720 it's a reality. It's just so cool. 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:52.760 Okay, let's go back. How many kids do you have? 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:58.120 I just have one, It's easy, Satriani. A lot of 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.360 people have been following me over the years. No him 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:04.560 from doing the podcast way back when and doing a 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.840 lot of videos for me, music videos and the documentary 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.720 Beyond the Supernova as well. So he's a young filmmaker 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.120 out of Los Angeles. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:14.600 So how old is he now? 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:15.799 Thirty one? 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:18.240 Thirty one? Is you off the payroll? 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.240 He's off and on I suppose. I mean I've got 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:24.600 to pay him for his work, right. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.440 So okay, tell me more about this documentary to the 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:31.080 degree you know. 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:39.919 Oh yeah, it's interesting because G three the very first 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.000 G three tour we did in ninety six. 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:46.320 Not everybody who's listening maybe or not be familiar with 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.000 G three, So please explain the concept. 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:54.840 Okay. So, so back in ninety five, I walk into 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:58.040 the Bill Graham management office. I was managed by Bill 0:02:58.080 --> 0:03:03.000 Graham and the team there, and I said to the guys, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.000 I said, look, thank you very much. Everything's great touring 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.400 the world. I'm a solo artist. I can do whatever 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:13.040 I want. But how come I'm isolated from everybody? I said, 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.360 you know, it's just like to get together with another 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:18.880 guitar player. It seems like it's impossible. And when I 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.680 was a kid, that was the dream. I always thought, 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:23.519 when you got to be a famous rock star, you 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.560 could just hang out with your friends and play guitar 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.880 all the time and make music. But in fact it 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:34.000 was the opposite. The labels, the promoters, managers were very 0:03:34.040 --> 0:03:37.480 protectable of their artists, and you just good luck trying 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.400 to stand next to another guitar player on stage, especially 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.600 if they did something similar to yourself. So I thought, well, 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:48.040 I just got to turn that upside down. So in 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.360 a moment of contrarian thought, you know, I said, what 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.880 if we just made our own festival where every night 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:57.640 I'd get to stand next to my favorite guitar players 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.480 and we would just try to I have fun, out 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.240 do each other, whatever you want to call it, but 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:10.120 we'd celebrate the guitar with the audience and everyone thought 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:11.960 it was a great idea. We had to figure out 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.440 how to get it down. You couldn't do it with 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:17.360 like twelve guitarists or so, because as you know, you 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.320 kind of rent the venue every night and there's a curfew. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.400 You got to get in, do the show, and you 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.080 got to get out. So if I had even seven 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.320 guitar players, they wouldn't really have enough time to play 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:32.400 to feel like it was worth their while to come out. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:35.919 So we eventually in that meeting after a few hours, 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.520 we whittled it down to three. If we could fit 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:43.880 three guys, we could get them, entice them with the 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.400 offer that they could come with their own band, play 0:04:46.440 --> 0:04:49.920 for forty five fifty minutes, do their hit single, their 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:52.280 new music, whatever they want to do, as long as 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.799 they stick around for the end jam and we play 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.239 for a half hour, and we'd play not our own songs, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:01.039 but we celebrate the music we grew up listening to. 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:06.040 So that took about a year to convince the promoters 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:08.880 and the managers that it was a good idea, And 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:12.800 it was my job to sell each package to the promoters, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.440 which was also difficult. Some promoters would like one of 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:20.000 my choices and wouldn't like the other, you know, and 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.560 so that went back and forth, but I had it 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.880 set in my mind it had to be Steve and 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.039 it had to be Eric, and I just pushed that 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:31.040 and then come October of ninety six, it was our 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:35.600 first show. It just so happened that a few days 0:05:35.600 --> 0:05:39.599 before then, it was my son's fourth birthday. We just 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:43.160 moved into a new house and we figured he's old 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:45.760 enough to travel now. So that was his first tour, 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.960 was the G three tour. So he joined us with 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:55.279 the bus and it was really fascinating, you know, for 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:58.320 all of us, I think for myself, my wife Robina, 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.839 having a child out on tour, that was something. For Zez, 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.320 of course, it was you know, life altering. But he 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.520 grew up, you know, hanging out with Robert Fripp and 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:11.880 Kenny wyn Sheppard and Steve I and Eric Johnson and 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.600 all the band members, and he just kept coming on 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:19.120 tour until about high school and the schools were like, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.280 you can't just take your kid out, you know, all 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:26.000 the time. So we started changing the touring schedule to 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.680 work around that. And you know, he like any kid 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:31.920 growing up, when he did, he was really into making 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.560 skateboard videos and so he by default was handed the 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:41.120 camera half the time to film us. You know, his 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.559 dad and his buddies just goofing around trying to figure 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.279 out what to do with the Internet. And he brought 0:06:47.279 --> 0:06:51.760 a lot of life into what was an unusual thing 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:54.240 for the rest of us, for us grown ups, you know. 0:06:55.920 --> 0:07:02.680 So his history really was about growing up with a 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:07.960 very strange father who played rock guitar in the era 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:13.840 of hip hop and pop music, and his observations and 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:18.840 his life being the son of an almost famous guy. 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:24.160 And he wanted to make a film about that and 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.360 about G three and about guitar playing and what it 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.520 means to everybody involved. And so the movie has evolved 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.280 quite a bit, and he's interviewed, you know, Robert and 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.080 Brian May and Steve Miller and Steve VII and everybody 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.240 in between, maybe about thirty or forty different guitar players. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:48.800 Since then, he came on tour with us on this 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:53.520 G three reunion tour and for the first time he 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.520 joined me on stage for a song and played a 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.640 song his mind blowing moment for us as Fall and Son. 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.880 But that I think that was a crucial thing in 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:09.160 the film for him to really experience that. After watching 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:14.080 from the sidelines for you know, three decades, he finally 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:16.840 got to figure out for himself what it really feels 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.160 like to walk on stage and play summer song. You know. 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:24.320 So it's not a typical rock documentary. It's through the 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.080 eyes of your son and what it's like to be 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.840 the son of someone who's a rock guitarist. As you say, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:32.720 almost famous or semi four us. 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a funny genre. I exist in 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.840 instrumental rock. Right, it needs to be defined explained. 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.719 Okay, let's go back to G three. So a lot 0:08:47.760 --> 0:08:51.720 of people think every famous person knows each other. That's 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.600 not necessarily true. And you live in the Bay Area, 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.640 so you start G three. Did you already know Eric Johnson? 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.880 And as you press, did you know these people or 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:03.440 did you have to call up and say, you know, 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:05.600 I'm a big fan. How did it all work? 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:08.720 Oh? Well, I mean, first I have to say, in 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.880 case people don't know, I've known Steve I since he 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.959 was twelve. He came to my house when he was 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.840 twelve years old one afternoon, rang the doorbell, and he 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.920 had a pack of strings in one hand. And a 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.319 stringless guitar in the other and he said, can you 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.800 teach me how to play guitar? So we grew up 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:30.720 in the same town and went to the same public 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.240 high school, and I gave him guitar lessons three or 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.440 four or five years, and we became the best buddies, 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.720 comrade guitar players, and we've remained the closest friends. And 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:48.880 that's when we've toured together countless times, So we go 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:52.960 way back. I didn't know Eric Johnson at all, but 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:57.240 in the years leading up to that, I was really 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.920 a big fan, and we actually toured together and nineteen ninety. 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.520 But I have to say I didn't I wouldn't say 0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.720 to you like we were best friends or something like that. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.040 He was just a guy admired that was on a 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:13.400 tour with us for a few weeks in nineteen ninety. 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.960 I did twist his arm to do some jamming every night, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.520 you know, when we completed our set. But he's a 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:26.760 much mellower guy than me and my buddies, I guess, 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.600 so sometimes he would he would decline. Other times I 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:35.000 just thought he was amazing, and at that time I 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:41.280 thought that he represented a really beautiful forward thinking way 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.680 of playing the electric guitar that a lot of people 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.400 didn't know was possible. He really had his own voice 0:10:48.400 --> 0:10:52.080 and a unique set of influences, and he was so 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.760 different than Steve and I. We were just Long Island 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.800 kids listening growing up, listening to Hendrix and Zeppelin and 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:03.320 Sabbath and and Eric was exotic by comparison, you know. 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.640 So it did. Like I said before, it was arm twisting. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:14.280 Because my manager would call their manager, and like just 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.720 about every other response, there's a there's a guarded response, 0:11:17.760 --> 0:11:20.520 you know. Each manager is like, well, I don't know, 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:22.880 I don't know if my artist wants to be seen 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:27.160 in this light standing next to that person. And very 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.680 often the case, I'd reach out to two guitar players 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:32.840 and one of them would refuse to play with the 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:37.880 other for no reason, you know, stylistic, personal, I don't 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.120 know what. And I always used to tell them, look 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.319 that you know, the audience has already decided who their 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.840 favorite is, so you're not going to change your mind. 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.600 It's not a contest. It really isn't. You might think 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.160 it is because that's how we've been brought up in 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:57.040 the entertainment industry. But the audience is smarter. They've already 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.640 made up their mind. They don't really care. They just 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.679 there's so happy that we're playing together and that we're 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:08.480 playing songs that are not us selling like our latest 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:12.600 single or something like that. We're actually just relaxed, casually playing. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.480 But they do get to see us push each other 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:23.199 to excel, and not everyone's comfortable with that. That's cool. 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.560 Not every artist has the same set of tools, you know, 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:29.480 and that's way cool. Steve and I were just so 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.920 comfortable with it. We just as soon as we're standing 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:36.200 next to each other with guitars, we just start seeing 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.520 how far we can go until someone, you know, taps 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:42.440 us on the shoulder and says, okay, that's enough. So 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.080 not every other guitar player gets that or feels that 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.600 way naturally, but most do. 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:52.960 Okay, So you come up with the idea, you sell 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.079 the idea, You have to sell promoters first G three 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:01.719 to work. What did you learn to actually do it? 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:04.120 It's totally different from what you think it might be. 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.280 Well, the thing that was confirmed was that Steve and 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.240 I don't need anything to just stand next to each 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:16.240 other and start playing. That was a beautiful thing. I 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.400 just always felt that, and I know that he felt 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.480 the same way. So there's a It's just the most 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.120 perfect comfort zone you can imagine. And I can't put 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:27.280 it into words. I just know that as soon as 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.160 we're standing extra other next to each other, when we 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:33.600 start playing, we just pick up where we left off. 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.200 And it's been that way since we were kids. So 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.839 that was cool. What the other thing that was confirmed 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.120 was that the audience felt exactly the way I did, 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:49.120 which is they really wanted to see this. They really 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.720 wanted to celebrate with us all the things about the 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.680 electric guitar that you could do. And let's face it, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.440 when you're in a popular band and there's a lot 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:01.959 riding on the success of a new album or something, 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.280 you're guarded. You're putting on a show. You don't show 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.439 everybody everything. You just show them what you want them 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.720 to respond to. But this is different. This is a 0:14:11.800 --> 0:14:15.120 G three tour. This is where you can play whatever 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.600 you want. It's the complete guitarist safe zone. You can 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.360 you can be demure, you can be way over the top. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.320 Anything is acceptable as long as you do it sort 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.760 of within the brother and sisterhood of the band. You know, 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.560 and you know that you're including the audience, they're part 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.560 of the show. So those are the things that were confirmed. 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.680 The things that surprised me that the negative things were 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.400 how some people don't like to play with other people. 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:46.840 It's kind of is the thing you learn, like in 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.440 the in the playground, like when you're a little kid, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:51.160 that there are some kids that love to play with 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:53.280 other kids and other kids don't you know, and you 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:57.520 just got to learn how to avoid them. 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.040 Now that you've done so many what have you I 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.760 learned over the course of all these years. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.320 I've learned that it's good for me. Let's put it 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:10.440 that way. It is good for my playing, for my creativity, 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:16.080 for my continued interest in the electric guitar and in 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:21.000 music in general, and that just doing a rehearsed show 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:26.520 every night is nowhere near the same as exciting in 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:30.160 an almost frightening way that the G three shows are, 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.520 because well, first of all, you don't have two and 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.440 a half hours to play all the songs you know, 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:41.200 and there's no pacing. Really, you get fifty minutes to 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.120 go out there, so it's kind of a supercharge set 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.200 that you do. And then you get to this jam 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:52.040 and you if you really feel up to it. You 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.320 are pushed to your limit and you really don't know 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:58.160 what's happening. You just don't know what the guy next 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:02.600 to you is going to play. And that's happening here 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.680 right now on the sash By tour. Because Steve and 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.440 I are totally crazy. We just don't care if we 0:16:09.520 --> 0:16:12.400 push ourselves to the brink and we fall off the edge. 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:16.840 We find it so much fun and so fascinating, and 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:20.720 we know that we've got each other to, you know, 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:22.840 to pick each other up if we kind of screw 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:23.840 up or go too far. 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.760 Now, some of the people you've worked with I know personally, 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.160 some of I don't. They all have different personalities. I 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.440 have to ask, even though you haven't worked with them 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.520 very recently. Robert Shripp is known as the guy who 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.720 loves to rehearse and likes things his way. What was 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.200 it like having G three with Robert Fripp? 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:50.520 It was so great. I mean, he joined us for 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:56.480 the first two runs and he insisted this is what 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.800 he insisted on, and the first time I heard it, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.880 I thought it was really He goes, well, I'd like 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.080 to start the show before, you know, right before you 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:11.200 open the doors. I don't want to be lit. I'm 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.600 gonna set up behind the amp line, and I don't 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.800 want anyone to announce my name. And we thought, okay, 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:23.160 whatever Robert Fripp wants, we will acquiesce, you know. And 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:25.879 so sure enough people would come in and they'd be 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:32.280 finding their seats, and they'd be hearing this beautiful music soundscapes, 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.720 and people who knew about Robert Frip would immediately start 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.160 to look and go, hey, I think that's Robert Frip 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.200 up there playing, and other people wouldn't pay attention at 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.159 all if they weren't, you know, familiar with Robert's music. 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:49.560 And then the lights would go down and the show 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.000 would start, and you know, I think we had Kenny 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:55.399 Wayne Sheppard actually opening up. The first G three's actually 0:17:55.440 --> 0:18:02.080 were like fives G fives in a way. But yeah, Robert. 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.560 You know what comes to mind is this photograph that 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:12.800 really stuck with me for years, which was I think 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.800 it was we were playing maybe Jones Beach or something 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.800 like that, and there's a picture of Robert Fripp by 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:23.240 his gear with his guitar on. Standing next to him 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.800 is a four year old ZZ holding a plastic pail 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:32.080 and shovel and to me, that was just like the 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:37.119 beauty of the tour is that it really was a 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.760 relaxed family atmosphere when it was at its best, everyone 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.840 was so happy to be on the tour and knowing 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:47.919 as I said before, it was a safe place for 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.119 guitar players. But it was just a really happy group 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.400 of musicians and crew, and almost all of them were 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:56.399 like that. We only had a few that had the 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.760 usual tensions here and there, but they and last you. 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:05.040 Know, okay, through the magic of the Internet setlist FM 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.520 one can look up because some of these dates have 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:13.080 already played that. After you and Steve do your independent performances, 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:17.879 you get together and you do covers, you do entersand me, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.240 how did you decide on these covers? 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:27.240 Well, recently for this tour, I actually was leaning heavily 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:32.440 on my keyboard player, Ray Thistlethwaite. He was an amazing singer. 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:37.080 He's from the Australian band Thirsty Murk and he's just 0:19:37.119 --> 0:19:41.080 a brilliant overall musician, just brilliant keyboard player, great singer, 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:47.200 frontman when he's in his own environment and he's even 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:48.879 I don't know how he puts up with me, but 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.399 he plays rhythm, guitar and keyboards for me, and occasionally 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:54.720 we lean on him to sing. So I thought I 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.439 should just check with Ray some of these weird ideas 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:02.679 I have. So we were just texting beforehand, like what 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.720 do you feel like singing? Can you sing this? Can 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:06.760 you sing that? And we just threw threw out some 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:09.680 silly songs, and at one point I thought, I want 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.840 to do a Metallica song. And I don't know why 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.440 it dawned on me. I just thought, you know, maybe 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.560 because he's he had just recently interviewed Kirk for the documentary, 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.399 but so Kirk was on my mind. So I just 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.119 I thought, what would be a fun song to do 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.960 where we could stretch somewhere, you know, we could stretch 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:32.320 it out and improvise around it. And I thought of 0:20:32.440 --> 0:20:34.879 Enter Sandman. But when I texted it to Ray, I 0:20:35.000 --> 0:20:38.919 was actually joking because he Ray's got a beautiful voice 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.480 and he doesn't sound like James Headfield at all. But 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.320 the response was positive and immediate from Ray. He was like, no, 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:48.360 we got to do that song. I want to do it. 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:51.960 So that's how that happened. And then I wanted to 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:57.520 balance it with something really old and so I picked 0:20:57.520 --> 0:20:59.360 the Kinks. He really got me. I thought that would 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:03.040 be a really great one. And for the first time, 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:07.000 actually we're playing a song that's one of ours. So 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:10.520 the first piece of music that I wrote for our 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:16.280 collaboration is a song called the Sea of Emotion Part one, 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:19.960 and we decided to play that as our first song. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.320 And it kind of makes sense since it's not a 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.960 G three, you know, it really is a satch by tour. 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.280 So and that's great because it has special meaning to 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:29.200 both Steve and I. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:38.880 So, okay, let's go back to something earlier you said 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:45.000 about rock instrumentals. From your viewpoint, what is the state 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.439 of rock instrumentals? Verging into what is the state of 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.399 rock and roll? Because not only are you making this music, 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.600 you've made the music, you're seeing the audience live on 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:55.080 the road. 0:21:56.119 --> 0:22:02.480 Yeah, well know, everything is Brian Eno said, you know, 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:09.200 everything is context with music. It has grown over the decades, 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:13.800 over the centuries, So today everything is context. You can 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:20.199 get music everywhere, and the context of at hand is 0:22:20.200 --> 0:22:22.959 the most important thing. Not everything works in an elevator 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.119 or you know, Carls Junior, or in your car, at 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.359 a concert hall or at a convention, you know, in 0:22:31.440 --> 0:22:33.800 the lobby of a hotel, a club. It's just there's 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:40.040 so many contexts where full fidelity modern music or recorded 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:48.840 music is perfect. So where does instrumental rock music belong. 0:22:48.960 --> 0:22:53.080 I have no idea. All I know is that I 0:22:53.119 --> 0:22:56.480 am a child of rock and roll. I love rock bands, 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:01.760 I love melody, I love harmony. I was taught music 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.840 theory in high school by a Julia graduate who was 0:23:04.920 --> 0:23:08.600 a brilliant teacher that somehow got stuck in this teeny 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:14.800 little public high school in car Place. And so I've 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:18.960 got these influences from my older siblings. I'm the youngest 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:23.199 of five and my parents were total jazz freaks, so 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:27.200 my influences are huge, and I love all of it. 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:32.199 I love dense harmony. I love complicated and simple, but 0:23:32.440 --> 0:23:34.760 if it doesn't have a great melody, I don't really 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:39.520 like it. So I've never been into complicated music because 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:43.400 it's complicated. I see no charm in that whatsoever. And 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:49.159 I know that music is I mean, musicians are supposed 0:23:49.160 --> 0:23:51.919 to make music for people. That's what we're supposed to do. 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:56.440 So we're supposed to make music to accompany life, and 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:01.560 life is crazy, and sometimes you need music to commiserate with, 0:24:01.800 --> 0:24:06.800 sometimes to celebrate with everything in between. So when I 0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:10.960 was a young kid, I realized that the intervals, the 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:15.280 space is between the notes and the relationship between the 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:18.680 melody and the harmony of the most important mood creators ever, 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:24.160 that tells the story. And if you've got lyrics, then 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.160 you're telling the audience exactly what you want them to think. 0:24:27.760 --> 0:24:30.960 And if you don't have lyrics, well then you've really 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:33.960 given them a gift where they can listen to Moonlight 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:37.680 Sonata and decide for themselves whether it's a happy song 0:24:37.760 --> 0:24:39.640 or a sad one, and they can use it as 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:43.080 they like. And I love that. So like when I 0:24:43.119 --> 0:24:45.280 was a kid and I heard Third Stone from the 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:52.159 Sun by Hendrix, it was cathartic, it was beautiful, and 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.920 I thought, wow, this is amazing, this is like so powerful. 0:24:56.320 --> 0:24:59.320 And I knew he was being funny at times with 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:03.560 the song, but to me, the music was so powerful. 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:07.960 It reminded me of listening to Miles Davis or West 0:25:07.960 --> 0:25:14.560 Montgomery coming from my parents' living room. 0:25:11.160 --> 0:25:11.240 Or. 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:19.399 Hearing classical music and just love feeling the power of 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:23.200 the music in an emotional way and how it stimulated 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:28.560 my mind thinking of new things, bringing back old memories, 0:25:28.840 --> 0:25:34.159 things like that. But I was this rock kid. I 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:36.480 still love the Stones and the Beatles. I started out 0:25:36.480 --> 0:25:39.240 as a drummer. I studied for three years until I 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:42.960 figured out I was going to suck, and I became 0:25:43.000 --> 0:25:45.960 a Hendrix fanatic. And when he died, I decided that 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:48.879 very day I was going to pick up the guitar 0:25:49.000 --> 0:25:52.520 and I was going to dedicate myself to playing the guitar. 0:25:52.600 --> 0:25:54.400 But I wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait, wait 0:25:54.400 --> 0:25:58.719 a little bit slower. You're growing up in Long Island. Okay, 0:25:59.080 --> 0:26:00.800 what are your parents do for a living? 0:26:02.280 --> 0:26:06.840 My father was an engineer. He was super smart. He 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:09.840 got out of college maybe three years ahead of time, 0:26:10.400 --> 0:26:14.000 went to work for Sperry Gyroscope. I think they eventually 0:26:14.040 --> 0:26:18.720 were called Sperry. He was there for maybe thirty years, 0:26:18.800 --> 0:26:20.720 and then he moved on to Raytheon or a few 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:25.320 other companies until he retired. My mother was a school 0:26:25.359 --> 0:26:32.040 teacher her whole life. And my three sisters, older sisters 0:26:32.040 --> 0:26:35.920 and one older brother, all smart. None of them is 0:26:35.920 --> 0:26:41.280 silly enough to take up a career in music. But 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:44.239 I have to say growing up on Long Island was 0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:47.000 at that time was the best thing ever, I mean 0:26:47.560 --> 0:26:50.840 the freedom. First of all, my parents were tired by 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:54.320 the time I came around, so I benefited from my 0:26:54.400 --> 0:26:58.800 siblings breaking them down continually for years and years, and 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:01.840 then I came along and they're like, okay, whatever you know, 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:05.080 do whatever you want. Plus the sixties happened, right, So 0:27:05.880 --> 0:27:11.000 I turned fourteen in nineteen seventy and as you well know, 0:27:11.320 --> 0:27:14.560 from fifty nine to sixty nine, all hell breaks loose 0:27:15.080 --> 0:27:21.320 in America, and so I just you know, I mean, 0:27:21.840 --> 0:27:24.720 my rock band practice in the basement, and my parents 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:25.400 would woo. 0:27:26.400 --> 0:27:30.200 A little bit slower. Okay, you're the fifth of five children. 0:27:30.280 --> 0:27:32.720 You're the parents are not in the house all day 0:27:32.720 --> 0:27:36.800 because they're working. Are you a goodie goodie getting good grades? 0:27:36.840 --> 0:27:40.200 Are you someone who's dedicated to baseball? What's your life 0:27:40.400 --> 0:27:43.000 like before this music thing becomes an obsession? 0:27:44.760 --> 0:27:47.360 You know? I started out as a good kid, and 0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:52.760 I was on all the teams. I played football and baseball, 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:54.560 and I was on the wrestling team. I was on 0:27:54.600 --> 0:27:57.040 the fitness team until they tried to get me to 0:27:57.040 --> 0:27:59.560 cut my hair, which was extremely long at the time. 0:27:59.640 --> 0:28:02.760 But I was also in a band, so I should 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:07.000 point out the car place one national championships four years 0:28:07.000 --> 0:28:08.720 in a row, when my brother and I were on 0:28:08.760 --> 0:28:12.760 the team. But that's you say, the fitness team. People 0:28:12.760 --> 0:28:15.280 don't even know what that means anymore. That's like saying 0:28:15.359 --> 0:28:19.760 music theory classes in public high school. People don't know that. 0:28:19.840 --> 0:28:21.480 But back then in New York there was a board 0:28:21.480 --> 0:28:25.200 of regents. Education in public schools was actually really good. 0:28:28.440 --> 0:28:32.400 So I didn't do well. I was in Catholic school 0:28:33.200 --> 0:28:36.120 for the first five years and got in trouble all 0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:41.200 the time, until both my parents and the nuns and 0:28:41.240 --> 0:28:43.560 the priests decided that kids got to go. 0:28:43.720 --> 0:28:45.520 He said, wait, wait, wait, what kind of trouble were 0:28:45.560 --> 0:28:46.280 you getting into. 0:28:47.640 --> 0:28:49.920 Well, I, first of all, I couldn't believe anything they 0:28:49.920 --> 0:28:52.160 were trying to teach me. I'm and I made a 0:28:52.160 --> 0:28:54.360 point of raising my hand and saying, well, that can't 0:28:54.400 --> 0:29:00.920 be right. How does that work? And yeah, so I 0:29:01.320 --> 0:29:03.360 you know, I've always had a problem with that. So 0:29:04.240 --> 0:29:06.520 when I got to public school, it was like I 0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:10.840 could exhale finally, you know, I felt so free. All 0:29:10.880 --> 0:29:16.600 the kids were different, You could express yourself, and there 0:29:16.640 --> 0:29:20.520 were music classes, I mean, that's crazy. And there were 0:29:20.600 --> 0:29:24.360 sports classes, so I mean, you could physically exert yourself. 0:29:24.400 --> 0:29:26.719 And I, you know, I'm not a big guy or anything, 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:32.080 but when you're that young, most everyone's the same size. 0:29:32.200 --> 0:29:37.000 And by the time I got around to quitting the 0:29:37.040 --> 0:29:40.479 football team was the right time because at that age, 0:29:40.600 --> 0:29:43.880 big guys are going to start getting big and if 0:29:43.920 --> 0:29:46.040 you're not one of them, you're going to get creamed 0:29:46.120 --> 0:29:52.800 on the football field. And so it turned out that 0:29:53.000 --> 0:29:58.640 the timing was right for me to move on and 0:29:58.680 --> 0:30:01.800 to become a full time musician. By then, though, I 0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:05.920 benefited from the fact that I had a good upbringing 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:12.800 about exercising in health and whatnot. So I think that 0:30:12.880 --> 0:30:17.120 I I mean, when I walked out of the coach's office, 0:30:16.800 --> 0:30:21.360 I was standing up straight. I was a strong kid, 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:24.560 not very big, but very strong and healthy, and I 0:30:24.600 --> 0:30:26.920 knew what I was doing. So I felt really good, 0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:31.680 even though I was traumatized by the death of Jimmy Hendrix. 0:30:32.920 --> 0:30:36.320 Okay, what inspired you to pick up drums? And what 0:30:36.400 --> 0:30:37.560 was that three years like? 0:30:38.680 --> 0:30:42.560 Oh, it was seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. 0:30:44.920 --> 0:30:49.240 As soon as I started to hear Dave Clark five Beatles, 0:30:49.280 --> 0:30:54.680 the Stones, all the British invasion stuff that my older 0:30:54.720 --> 0:30:58.440 siblings were listening to it just transformed my life. I 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:02.320 would just spend hours in front of a little portable 0:31:02.360 --> 0:31:06.160 record player they had, and I just destroyed those LPs 0:31:06.240 --> 0:31:09.160 and singles. I just played them hours and hours until 0:31:09.200 --> 0:31:12.560 they made me stop. It was a beautiful world. And 0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:17.200 when I got to see Ringo and Charlie Watts playing 0:31:17.240 --> 0:31:21.560 on television, that's you know, I mean, what kid doesn't 0:31:21.600 --> 0:31:23.480 want to make a lot of noise? And drums make a. 0:31:23.440 --> 0:31:24.200 Lot of noise. 0:31:25.080 --> 0:31:28.520 So I actually took lessons for three years from a 0:31:28.560 --> 0:31:31.800 guy I realized I never knew his first name. I 0:31:31.800 --> 0:31:36.560 always knew him as mister Patricuz. I don't know where 0:31:36.560 --> 0:31:39.400 my parents found him, probably in some jazz club because 0:31:39.400 --> 0:31:44.920 he'd always show up in a sharkskin suit. Very cool character. 0:31:46.000 --> 0:31:47.720 You know. He'd sit in the in the kitchen and 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:50.120 have coffee with my parents and then he'd go down 0:31:50.440 --> 0:31:52.560 to the basement and he teached me for a half hour. 0:31:53.400 --> 0:31:55.560 And that went on for a couple of years, and 0:31:55.800 --> 0:31:57.800 you know, I learned how to read and to play 0:31:57.840 --> 0:31:59.960 all the all the stuff, and he would, you know, 0:32:00.200 --> 0:32:02.960 teach me the beatles and stones, all the stuff I 0:32:03.040 --> 0:32:08.040 was into. But ultimately, I mean I didn't know it 0:32:08.080 --> 0:32:09.760 at the time, but now I can look back and 0:32:09.760 --> 0:32:13.040 say I was a bit too spacey to be a drummer, 0:32:13.840 --> 0:32:16.760 because a drummer has to be attentive to every millisecond 0:32:18.000 --> 0:32:20.920 of a song. They are, they're responsible for keeping it. 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:23.800 You know, they're driving the bus. Basically everyone else is, 0:32:24.280 --> 0:32:27.680 especially guitar players, are changing seats all the time on 0:32:27.720 --> 0:32:30.840 the bus. But the drummer is driving the bus. And 0:32:30.880 --> 0:32:34.200 I started not to realize that I wasn't cut out 0:32:34.200 --> 0:32:39.560 for that. I wanted to float on top. And when 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:46.080 rock music really became rock music what sixty six maybe, 0:32:46.960 --> 0:32:48.440 you know, when there was a shift from rock and 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:51.080 roll to like rock songs that weren't about boys and 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:54.640 girls and stuff, and you start to hear different sounds 0:32:54.640 --> 0:32:57.440 coming out of the guitars. I started to feel like 0:32:57.560 --> 0:33:01.080 I was, you know, playing the wrong instrument. And my 0:33:01.760 --> 0:33:06.120 older sister's boyfriends were fascinated by the fact that I 0:33:06.160 --> 0:33:08.520 loved anything that they would bring over. So they'd bring 0:33:08.600 --> 0:33:13.040 over the latest Who record or Hendrix or anything, and 0:33:13.080 --> 0:33:15.280 they'd play it for me just to look at my reaction. 0:33:16.280 --> 0:33:18.520 And of course I was enthralled by all of it. 0:33:18.560 --> 0:33:22.160 But Hendricks changed my DNA. As soon as I heard 0:33:22.520 --> 0:33:25.880 the first song, I just my whole life was different, 0:33:25.920 --> 0:33:28.640 and I knew that that was a path. I just 0:33:28.680 --> 0:33:32.880 couldn't intellectually understand what it was going to do to 0:33:32.920 --> 0:33:36.880 me until until I found out that he died, and 0:33:36.400 --> 0:33:38.600 then I knew exactly what I was going to do. 0:33:39.600 --> 0:33:43.200 Okay, you're living in Westbury? Are you going to shows 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:44.600 Westbury Music Fair? 0:33:45.400 --> 0:33:49.920 Yeah? My very first two shows I saw Chicago when 0:33:49.960 --> 0:33:55.160 they were called Chicago Transit Authority. They're absolutely amazing. Terry 0:33:55.240 --> 0:34:00.120 cath On guitar. Wow, fantastic. That's a funny place, I 0:34:00.160 --> 0:34:01.800 mean because it's in the round, so that you know, 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:05.560 right the stage spins. I got to play there for 0:34:05.600 --> 0:34:09.440 the first time ever back in twenty nineteen with Kenny 0:34:09.480 --> 0:34:11.759 and Doug. We were on the Experience Hendricks Tour. What 0:34:11.880 --> 0:34:15.480 a trip. And then about a week later I went 0:34:15.520 --> 0:34:19.800 to see Jethro Tull there. They were absolutely fabulous, just amazing, 0:34:20.239 --> 0:34:23.920 so two completely unique bands for the time. It was 0:34:24.000 --> 0:34:27.480 just fantastic. I absolutely loved it, and I'd go to 0:34:27.520 --> 0:34:30.200 the film more. I remember seeing Steve Miller at the 0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:35.319 fillmore that I think the week that Hendricks died, it 0:34:35.360 --> 0:34:37.400 was the first time I went to the Fillmore East 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:42.279 and saw Steve play. You know, he tells me a 0:34:42.320 --> 0:34:46.080 funny story about that, because I remember I was sitting 0:34:46.080 --> 0:34:48.040 in the balcony with all the grown ups. You know, 0:34:48.080 --> 0:34:50.920 I was just a little kid, and I just the 0:34:50.960 --> 0:34:55.240 whole thing was magic, just like this is. I remember thinking, 0:34:55.239 --> 0:34:57.040 this is when I grow up. This is what I 0:34:57.080 --> 0:35:00.960 want to do. I want to hang out to rock music. 0:35:01.640 --> 0:35:04.319 And I remember the first time I got to play 0:35:04.320 --> 0:35:06.799 with Steve. I told him the story about what a 0:35:06.880 --> 0:35:10.440 magical show that was, and he said to me, his 0:35:10.560 --> 0:35:15.440 perspective was totally different. Whereas Mungo Jerry was on that 0:35:15.560 --> 0:35:18.719 show and they had hit at the time in the summertime, 0:35:19.080 --> 0:35:24.480 and Bill innocently had given out plastic red plastic clown 0:35:25.040 --> 0:35:29.240 noses to the audience for some reason to celebrate this song, 0:35:29.320 --> 0:35:33.719 I guess. And so when Mungo Jerry played, and I 0:35:33.719 --> 0:35:36.080 think there's another band called Clouds that played as well, 0:35:37.080 --> 0:35:39.640 you know, they played the hit and everyone was happy 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:41.880 and everything was fun. And then Steve comes out, and 0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:44.640 of course it's kind of somber because Hendricks has just 0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:47.840 died and Steve wants to come out and play a 0:35:47.920 --> 0:35:52.000 set playing tribute to Jimmy Hendricks, except that everyone's got 0:35:52.000 --> 0:35:55.440 these clown noses and they start throwing them on stage. 0:35:56.200 --> 0:35:58.800 And I don't remember that I was sitting in the balcony. 0:35:59.080 --> 0:36:02.640 I don't remember that aspect of it, maybe because I 0:36:02.719 --> 0:36:07.439 was getting high from all the smoke. But anyway, Yeah, 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:11.120 we used to go there, Gaelic Park, Academy of Music. 0:36:11.360 --> 0:36:14.440 I mean, there's so many places, even out to the island, 0:36:14.560 --> 0:36:17.480 like to Coomac and watch all the bands touring. 0:36:17.920 --> 0:36:22.000 Okay, let's reel it back. I remember where I was 0:36:22.080 --> 0:36:27.480 when I heard Hendricks died, so literally, how did you hear? 0:36:27.800 --> 0:36:31.080 And there was a schism? And then how long until 0:36:31.120 --> 0:36:33.760 you took this left turn and started to play the guitar? 0:36:34.760 --> 0:36:39.640 Oh wow. I was all suited up for football practice 0:36:39.680 --> 0:36:42.480 at Carplace High School. I was right outside the gym 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:46.600 and a teammate said, Hey, I heard that guy that 0:36:46.680 --> 0:36:53.640 you really liked died, Jimmy Hendrix. And see what was 0:36:53.800 --> 0:36:58.600 Uh I'm trying to I can't remember his name, but 0:36:59.760 --> 0:37:03.280 I I just stood there and I looked at myself, 0:37:04.320 --> 0:37:08.520 you know, in this cheap football outfit that the high 0:37:08.520 --> 0:37:11.480 school could afford, and I just thought I can't do 0:37:11.560 --> 0:37:16.280 this anymore. This is this is you know, I can't 0:37:16.280 --> 0:37:18.160 do it. I don't love and I know, And right 0:37:18.200 --> 0:37:20.000 then I knew what I really wanted to do, so 0:37:20.040 --> 0:37:22.520 I just turned around. I went inside. I went into 0:37:22.560 --> 0:37:26.560 coach Redden's office and I said something like, Jimmy Hendricks 0:37:26.560 --> 0:37:29.880 has died, and I'm gonna you know, I can't be 0:37:29.880 --> 0:37:31.440 on the football team because I'm going to devote my 0:37:31.480 --> 0:37:35.000 life to the guitar. And I maybe, I mean most 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:38.960 likely because I wasn't such a valued team member. He 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:41.920 probably didn't put up much of a fuss, but he went, okay, 0:37:42.080 --> 0:37:43.719 I take off your stuff and you know, put it 0:37:43.719 --> 0:37:46.319 in the locker. So I walked home that night, and 0:37:47.040 --> 0:37:50.440 over a typical Italian American dinner, I stood up and 0:37:50.480 --> 0:37:53.440 told everybody that Jimmy Hendricks had died and I was 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:55.520 going to be a guitar player. And then there's a 0:37:55.520 --> 0:38:00.760 lot of yelling and screaming, but eventually worked out. 0:38:00.920 --> 0:38:04.439 Okay, first and foremost, you need a guitar. So where 0:38:04.440 --> 0:38:05.240 do you get a guitar? 0:38:06.360 --> 0:38:09.080 Well, you know, there's a little bit of backstory to that, 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:13.800 which is that my sister Marion was a folk guitar 0:38:13.880 --> 0:38:16.520 player growing up, and I actually got to see her 0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:20.760 perform at her school a few times, and of course 0:38:21.120 --> 0:38:25.560 i'd witness her playing in the backyard, playing in the 0:38:25.560 --> 0:38:30.359 corner of her room, very quietly, not bothering anybody. And 0:38:30.440 --> 0:38:32.160 it wasn't lost on me that it was a more 0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:36.640 personal instrument, that she could really enjoy music and express 0:38:36.680 --> 0:38:40.279 herself without announcing it to the entire house, like if 0:38:40.280 --> 0:38:43.080 you're a drummer, you know where everybody hears everything you do. 0:38:44.239 --> 0:38:49.080 And I hadn't really thought very much about that, you know, 0:38:49.360 --> 0:38:55.600 bringing that into my life until that moment when over dinner, 0:38:55.680 --> 0:38:57.720 I announced I was going to be a guitar player, 0:38:57.719 --> 0:39:03.160 and my sister Marian said, well, you can borrow them 0:39:03.160 --> 0:39:05.640 on you can start with that. And then my other sister, Carol, 0:39:05.680 --> 0:39:09.600 who had just started teaching at art at Westbury High School, 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:13.520 said that she would donate her first week's paycheck for 0:39:13.600 --> 0:39:16.959 an electric guitar, which was at Roosevelt Field. I don't 0:39:16.960 --> 0:39:20.120 know if you remember Roosevelt Field in the Island, the 0:39:20.200 --> 0:39:24.640 first shopping malls, and Matthew's music was there, and they 0:39:24.680 --> 0:39:27.359 had a guitar that I had that I had been 0:39:27.400 --> 0:39:32.200 looking at because it kind of looked like Jimmy's white stratocaster. 0:39:32.360 --> 0:39:34.799 But I think in my little brain at the time, 0:39:34.880 --> 0:39:38.080 I didn't know there was Fender Gibson or in this 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:41.640 case Hackstrom. But this was one hundred and twenty dollars 0:39:41.760 --> 0:39:46.319 Hackstrom three guitar, a low cost Swedish guitar. And so 0:39:46.400 --> 0:39:49.920 we went there about a week or so and she 0:39:50.080 --> 0:39:53.040 was kind enough to purchase the guitar for me. And 0:39:53.120 --> 0:39:57.359 I had a My family had a woolen sack tape 0:39:57.360 --> 0:40:00.840 recorder that they used to use to record or Jesuit 0:40:01.160 --> 0:40:07.279 speeches all the time. And so since my parents had 0:40:07.280 --> 0:40:10.239 already gone through the drum face and I didn't have 0:40:10.280 --> 0:40:12.880 a big drum kit, it took years, you know, to 0:40:13.000 --> 0:40:15.799 pay off, like getting each little piece. I started with 0:40:15.800 --> 0:40:17.960 a pad, and then a snare drum, and then this 0:40:18.000 --> 0:40:20.480 and that. You know, they were a little skeptical and 0:40:20.520 --> 0:40:22.520 they weren't about to go out and get me an amplifier. 0:40:22.600 --> 0:40:24.920 So they said, well, maybe you can use this, And 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:27.960 so for I don't know, six months, i'd plug into 0:40:28.040 --> 0:40:32.160 this woolen sack tape recorder and the only way I 0:40:32.200 --> 0:40:35.440 could hear myself would be to record, and I would 0:40:35.440 --> 0:40:41.359 record over the jesuit speeches, sorry Jesuits, and then I'd 0:40:41.440 --> 0:40:44.840 listen to myself. And this was key to my development 0:40:44.880 --> 0:40:48.880 because usual beginners, they you know, the moment passes and 0:40:48.920 --> 0:40:51.600 they don't know how much they suck, you know. But 0:40:51.719 --> 0:40:54.759 I knew because I realized when I'd finished playing for 0:40:54.840 --> 0:40:57.360 ten minutes, I go, oh, I can listen to myself 0:40:57.400 --> 0:41:00.200 back now, and I'd play it back and I'd go like, 0:41:00.360 --> 0:41:04.279 oh my god, I'm the worst. How am I going 0:41:04.360 --> 0:41:07.600 to get better? So it was it was a good 0:41:07.640 --> 0:41:10.360 tool actually, because I started to realize, you know, you 0:41:10.400 --> 0:41:12.560 got to play in tune, you got to play in time. 0:41:13.960 --> 0:41:17.319 There's such a thing as tone. There's a lot to 0:41:17.360 --> 0:41:17.759 work on. 0:41:18.120 --> 0:41:21.560 Okay, are you taking lessons? How are you're learning out 0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:22.040 of play? 0:41:23.040 --> 0:41:28.440 No? I had a magic chord sheet that was in 0:41:28.520 --> 0:41:32.000 my sister's guitar case, the Nylon. She played a Nylon 0:41:32.040 --> 0:41:35.360 acoustic and she was the one who said, you know, 0:41:35.400 --> 0:41:38.200 you have to learn chords, so here take this sheet 0:41:38.239 --> 0:41:42.399 and it was about seventeen twenty chords. So that's how 0:41:42.440 --> 0:41:47.160 I started, and I started to realize that I moved 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:50.440 my If I took one finger off a chord, the 0:41:50.560 --> 0:41:53.440 sound was somewhat similar to what i'd heard on the 0:41:53.560 --> 0:41:57.680 radio or on a record, and I found that really fascinating. 0:41:58.320 --> 0:42:01.960 So I just thought, well, I'll memorize these and then 0:42:02.200 --> 0:42:04.560 I'll make a sort of a mental note that when 0:42:04.600 --> 0:42:07.920 I lift off my third finger, it's this extra version 0:42:08.040 --> 0:42:11.600 of this chord. And later on I learned I was 0:42:11.640 --> 0:42:17.440 doing suspensions what we call in music suspensions, and changing 0:42:17.480 --> 0:42:20.600 thirds to fourths or thirds to seconds and things like that. 0:42:22.120 --> 0:42:25.680 But I would because I couldn't. I wasn't taking lessons 0:42:25.719 --> 0:42:29.280 from somebody who was teaching me songs. I just started 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:33.040 writing my own songs and I thought, well, somewhere the 0:42:33.040 --> 0:42:36.120 on line, i'll just get better. And so a lot 0:42:36.160 --> 0:42:39.480 of what I learned in the first six months or so, 0:42:40.520 --> 0:42:43.640 I was just learning how to write it with my 0:42:43.760 --> 0:42:45.680 limited vocabulary. 0:42:52.040 --> 0:42:56.200 Okay, it's not a heavy lift to learn a few 0:42:56.280 --> 0:43:00.600 chords play song, as you know, but from there to 0:43:00.760 --> 0:43:04.600 a level of facility is unbelievably frustrating. 0:43:05.160 --> 0:43:06.520 Yeah, did you. 0:43:06.680 --> 0:43:10.279 Ever vary in your dedication? Did you ever say, well, 0:43:10.320 --> 0:43:13.120 maybe the guitar is not for me. How did you 0:43:13.200 --> 0:43:16.920 deal with the frustration of gaining your skills? 0:43:18.320 --> 0:43:21.920 Well, there are two things that I would point to 0:43:22.040 --> 0:43:28.120 number one. I realized early on that I had the 0:43:28.160 --> 0:43:32.839 ability to play a song from start to finish, and 0:43:32.880 --> 0:43:35.920 I knew, you know, deep inside, I knew this was 0:43:35.920 --> 0:43:39.520 an important thing because I had been playing drums, and 0:43:39.640 --> 0:43:41.600 although I was never in a band, we used to 0:43:41.640 --> 0:43:44.239 play my friends and I and I realized you got 0:43:44.239 --> 0:43:48.759 to start, keep going, don't stop, and then end. That's 0:43:48.800 --> 0:43:52.360 what playing music for people is all about. So that 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:56.200 became a skill that I just assumed you got to 0:43:56.239 --> 0:43:58.200 have that, that you got to do that. You may 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:01.160 not be the fastest drummer, the loudest drummer, or the 0:44:01.160 --> 0:44:03.800 the most complicated, but once you start, you got to 0:44:03.880 --> 0:44:07.200 keep going until the song is over. So I applied 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:12.480 that to the guitar. And then after a number of months, 0:44:13.040 --> 0:44:15.480 some older kids in the school must have heard me 0:44:15.640 --> 0:44:20.040 playing somewhere at high school, they invited me into the 0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:22.480 band and they were fascinated with the same thing that 0:44:22.560 --> 0:44:25.320 I could just sit there and hang with them without 0:44:25.600 --> 0:44:33.680 being given direction. They'd start a you know, some Joe 0:44:33.680 --> 0:44:38.160 walshong or something, you know, and they and I'd say, well, 0:44:38.160 --> 0:44:39.680 what are the chords, and they say, well, it's just 0:44:39.760 --> 0:44:41.600 kind of like does this thing at a minor, and 0:44:41.640 --> 0:44:43.719 I'd be comfortable with that, and I could hang with 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:46.799 that and go back and forth and play things around it, 0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:50.279 because that's how I taught myself, which is to to 0:44:51.280 --> 0:44:55.759 build a personal vocabulary around chords as a way of 0:44:55.840 --> 0:44:59.920 making music. And so they asked me to join the 0:45:00.480 --> 0:45:02.920 It was fascinating because I really did not have the 0:45:03.000 --> 0:45:07.800 technique like what you're talking about, but I could carry 0:45:07.800 --> 0:45:10.319 a song with the limited technique that I had, and 0:45:10.360 --> 0:45:13.359 I just learned not to show people what I couldn't do, 0:45:13.920 --> 0:45:16.600 just focus on what I was capable of doing and 0:45:16.640 --> 0:45:20.440 get the song finished. And I found that there was 0:45:20.520 --> 0:45:26.160 so much to share with the bass player, the drummer 0:45:26.200 --> 0:45:29.120 and the other guitar player on a musical level. It 0:45:29.239 --> 0:45:33.120 was like you started speaking a foreign language that you 0:45:33.160 --> 0:45:35.080 were really good at that you didn't know you were 0:45:35.120 --> 0:45:38.839 good at, and other people in your band knew that 0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:43.880 language too, and you would converse during a song and 0:45:43.920 --> 0:45:46.759 you would throw things back and forth and have some fun. 0:45:47.120 --> 0:45:52.040 And I thought, wow, this is the most important technique 0:45:52.400 --> 0:45:54.680 because we would be doing this at a party in 0:45:54.719 --> 0:45:58.200 a backyard or at a high school dance where your 0:45:58.239 --> 0:46:02.839 peers were ruthless. If you didn't play well, they'd let 0:46:02.840 --> 0:46:08.240 you know right away. But I learned the importance of 0:46:08.719 --> 0:46:12.640 being able to play music first and foremost, rather than 0:46:13.120 --> 0:46:18.760 acquiring technical skills. It was, in fact that the best, 0:46:19.000 --> 0:46:22.080 the most important umbrella of technical skills. But it just 0:46:22.120 --> 0:46:24.680 didn't have They didn't have names, you know what I mean. 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:29.160 They weren't written down in books, you know, like chapter one, Start, 0:46:29.400 --> 0:46:33.000 don't stop, finish you know number two. Pay attention to 0:46:33.040 --> 0:46:35.480 the audience. Lift them up when they want to be 0:46:35.520 --> 0:46:37.400 lifted up, bring them down when they want to go down. 0:46:37.480 --> 0:46:40.800 These are the things you learn only by playing for people, 0:46:41.920 --> 0:46:46.839 your siblings, your parents. You play in a kindergarten, you 0:46:46.880 --> 0:46:48.960 play in a club, you play in an arena. It 0:46:48.960 --> 0:46:51.239 doesn't matter where you're playing. You still got to make 0:46:51.239 --> 0:46:55.520 it work for the audience. So that was part of 0:46:55.600 --> 0:47:01.480 my earliest instruction was playing for people. And I loved it. 0:47:01.520 --> 0:47:05.239 I was terrified. I'm still terrified, but I love it 0:47:05.280 --> 0:47:10.319 as well. But on the other side of it, I 0:47:10.400 --> 0:47:14.120 had a hunger for music. I really wanted to understand 0:47:14.160 --> 0:47:19.520 the mystery of music. When I heard Beethoven, I thought, 0:47:19.560 --> 0:47:23.000 this is so beautiful. What does he know? How does 0:47:23.000 --> 0:47:28.800 he put that together? I remember sitting in my bedroom 0:47:28.960 --> 0:47:33.839 one afternoon and Roundabout came on the radio, and I 0:47:33.920 --> 0:47:36.880 remember staring at the radio and I admitted to myself, 0:47:36.960 --> 0:47:39.520 I don't know what is going on, Like, what are 0:47:39.520 --> 0:47:42.799 they doing? How do they know how to put this 0:47:42.880 --> 0:47:46.719 all together and play together? It sounds so complicated to me, 0:47:46.880 --> 0:47:50.440 but deep inside I knew it was. I bet there's 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:52.760 an e minor chord in there somewhere. They're just doing 0:47:52.800 --> 0:47:54.160 it better than the way. 0:47:54.000 --> 0:47:54.680 I do it. 0:47:55.280 --> 0:47:59.319 And just about that time, the music teacher at my 0:47:59.400 --> 0:48:04.319 high schools offered a music theory class and I just 0:48:04.440 --> 0:48:07.480 jumped on it. And it was fascinating because he just 0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:10.719 opened up the world of music to me and he 0:48:10.840 --> 0:48:14.160 answered all those questions. He taught me ear training, taught 0:48:14.200 --> 0:48:16.520 me every scale, every mode, taught me how to write 0:48:16.560 --> 0:48:22.280 a cantata theme in variations, every trick that every composer 0:48:22.320 --> 0:48:24.960 had used for the last four hundred years. We went 0:48:25.000 --> 0:48:29.279 over it in school and I loved it. And he 0:48:29.320 --> 0:48:33.919 didn't care that I played Black Sabbath really loud most 0:48:33.920 --> 0:48:36.640 of the time when I wasn't at school. He would 0:48:36.719 --> 0:48:38.399 just sit down and show me, like, you know, this 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:41.440 is just music and you can apply it to any style, 0:48:42.200 --> 0:48:45.440 and so it was a wonderful time, very fruitful learning 0:48:45.680 --> 0:48:47.240 experience that I had in high school. 0:48:48.520 --> 0:48:51.880 Okay, this band that you joined, how old are you 0:48:52.000 --> 0:48:53.600 when you joined that band? 0:48:54.719 --> 0:48:57.600 I was still fourteen and I'd been playing less than 0:48:57.600 --> 0:49:03.520 a year. The name of the band was pronounced Mishwa Khan, 0:49:04.400 --> 0:49:07.520 but it was really Mohakan. Of course we didn't know that. 0:49:08.239 --> 0:49:10.560 I think they named it after some weed that they 0:49:10.600 --> 0:49:17.799 had purchased from somebody. And I'm still friends with all 0:49:17.840 --> 0:49:19.600 of them. I just saw the bass player and the 0:49:19.640 --> 0:49:24.120 drummer just two days ago, and all still playing to 0:49:24.160 --> 0:49:26.120 some degree. But they had the good sense to develop 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:32.200 professional lives, real jobs. But I love that experience. And 0:49:32.920 --> 0:49:35.200 you know the difference when you're fourteen and you're playing 0:49:35.200 --> 0:49:38.160 with a sixteen year old, that's like they're really old. 0:49:38.800 --> 0:49:43.920 And so I paid attention and I learned every moment 0:49:43.960 --> 0:49:47.520 that I was playing with them about, you know, how 0:49:47.520 --> 0:49:50.600 to play music with people and how to play music 0:49:50.719 --> 0:49:54.720 for people, And those two things were the I always 0:49:54.880 --> 0:50:04.040 realized were the foremost. It's not about achieving a technical 0:50:04.160 --> 0:50:07.920 level for yourself or for itself. I don't know if 0:50:07.960 --> 0:50:11.480 I'm expressing myself correct. Yeah, you know what I mean. 0:50:11.520 --> 0:50:14.040 You can get fascinated with just sitting there and playing 0:50:14.040 --> 0:50:16.160 something just a little faster, a little bit more compliment. 0:50:17.840 --> 0:50:20.480 Maybe it's because I loved simple music as much as 0:50:20.480 --> 0:50:23.320 I loved complex music. To me, it was just music. 0:50:23.480 --> 0:50:29.320 And I used to watch my parents with the jesuits, 0:50:30.160 --> 0:50:34.279 you know, drinking scotch, smoking cigarettes, playing folk music on 0:50:34.320 --> 0:50:36.880 my sister's guitar, having a great time. I used to 0:50:36.880 --> 0:50:39.960 watch them have parties listening to jazz. I watched my 0:50:40.080 --> 0:50:44.680 sisters dancing to motown music, funk music, my brother playing 0:50:44.800 --> 0:50:49.600 harmonica to Muddy Waters music. And it always seemed to 0:50:49.640 --> 0:50:54.760 me the music was something that accompanied us in our lives. 0:50:54.880 --> 0:50:58.200 It was part of the expression of being alive. That 0:50:58.400 --> 0:51:00.799 was the most important part. And so how could you 0:51:01.480 --> 0:51:06.360 how could you rate you know, Beethoven, Miles, Muddy Waters, 0:51:06.920 --> 0:51:09.719 Pete Townsend. I mean, you can't say one's better than 0:51:09.719 --> 0:51:14.160 the other. These are giants. They've learned how to transcend 0:51:14.200 --> 0:51:20.120 their instruments and make life, you know, with sound. It's 0:51:20.200 --> 0:51:21.560 just I was fascinated with that. 0:51:22.160 --> 0:51:27.160 Okay, so you join this band when you're fourteen. Musicians 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:31.319 all have different experiences, some have one band they go 0:51:31.360 --> 0:51:35.040 from band to band others. You know, they're out till 0:51:35.080 --> 0:51:38.520 one in the morning, playing three sets. Their schools suffers. 0:51:38.840 --> 0:51:41.279 So you're fourteen, that's about the time you're freshman in 0:51:41.360 --> 0:51:45.719 high school. What is your band situation in playing out? 0:51:45.840 --> 0:51:48.520 While you're in high school? We do. 0:51:50.040 --> 0:51:55.040 High school dances, backyard parties in the summer, we do 0:51:55.120 --> 0:51:59.480 Battle of the Bands, lots of that. Within about a year, 0:52:02.320 --> 0:52:06.239 our drummer decides he's going to go to Cornell. He 0:52:06.320 --> 0:52:09.959 was smart, Tom Gar very smart, still a very smart guy, 0:52:10.320 --> 0:52:16.319 teaches economics and in Atlanta right now. And then there 0:52:16.360 --> 0:52:18.920 was some rumblings about, you know, we should get this 0:52:18.960 --> 0:52:20.839 guy in the band, that kind of man. Typical high 0:52:20.840 --> 0:52:24.200 school stuffs as the social scene changes, and then we 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:27.680 wind up with a different drummer, and then it's some 0:52:27.840 --> 0:52:33.680 So if Mishwa Khan becomes Tarsus and Tarsus becomes a band, 0:52:33.719 --> 0:52:35.560 that's I'm in for a good year and a half, 0:52:35.600 --> 0:52:40.840 two years. We have two singers. At one point I 0:52:40.920 --> 0:52:44.480 meet some crazy you know this boy that era, that 0:52:44.600 --> 0:52:47.719 period from fourteen to twenty one is insane. It's just 0:52:48.200 --> 0:52:50.880 if you can get through it, God bless you. You know, 0:52:51.880 --> 0:52:54.360 I don't know how we get through those those years, 0:52:54.360 --> 0:52:59.680 but so much fun, so much drama, but through it 0:52:59.760 --> 0:53:02.480 all well, you know, I moved on from that hackstrum. 0:53:02.520 --> 0:53:06.600 I was able to We used to have classified papers 0:53:06.680 --> 0:53:09.760 back then, and you'd be able to find people selling stuff. 0:53:10.680 --> 0:53:14.960 I wound up buying a telecaster, sixty eight telecaster, and 0:53:15.000 --> 0:53:18.319 then I traded it for a Less Paul a little 0:53:18.320 --> 0:53:22.600 bit later. And I think this is because the other 0:53:22.640 --> 0:53:27.239 guitar player, John Ricchio, it was really brilliant guitarist. I 0:53:27.360 --> 0:53:30.800 learned so much from him. He was really into the 0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:34.200 James Gang. And when when Joe Wall switched to less Paul, 0:53:35.480 --> 0:53:38.799 I was unaware of this. John eventually said, you got 0:53:38.840 --> 0:53:40.479 to get rid of that Telly and get a less Paul, 0:53:41.320 --> 0:53:44.600 and so I moved into the less Paul thing. Never 0:53:44.640 --> 0:53:49.200 stayed in tune God Almighty those late sixties less Pauls, 0:53:50.600 --> 0:53:52.760 and didn't really move on to playing like a Fender 0:53:52.760 --> 0:53:57.160 Stratu till I moved out to Berkeley, California. But we 0:53:57.239 --> 0:54:01.120 had so much fun. I mean, just the craziest of 0:54:01.200 --> 0:54:05.040 times that you know, I mean, when you're doing that, 0:54:05.080 --> 0:54:10.719 when you're playing, when you're when you're playing bars and 0:54:10.760 --> 0:54:18.080 you're fifteen years old. You're living a life that you know, 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:21.200 you thought only grown ups lived, you know, but you 0:54:21.360 --> 0:54:25.200 see just the craziest part of life. You know, people 0:54:25.200 --> 0:54:27.480 are smoking and drinking and getting in fights and getting 0:54:27.520 --> 0:54:31.160 in trouble, and there's basically sex, drugs and rock and roll. 0:54:31.680 --> 0:54:35.640 But you still have to go back to school, you know, 0:54:35.760 --> 0:54:40.080 at when Monday morning comes. And we used to you know, 0:54:40.239 --> 0:54:44.640 sometimes I remember, for a good long time, I must 0:54:44.680 --> 0:54:47.760 have been in tenth or eleventh grade at the time, 0:54:49.080 --> 0:54:51.880 we drove out to the Hamptons and found a gig. 0:54:52.000 --> 0:54:54.040 I'm not even sure how we got this gig, but 0:54:54.480 --> 0:54:56.799 we found a weekend gig and we started to go 0:54:56.880 --> 0:54:59.600 out there and do these little road trips. And my parents, 0:55:00.120 --> 0:55:04.040 as I said before, had kind of given up trying 0:55:04.040 --> 0:55:06.719 to raise me as a normal person. Had let me 0:55:07.320 --> 0:55:10.759 go with the guys and hang out. And there would 0:55:10.800 --> 0:55:14.319 be like twelve of us in one bedroom cabin in 0:55:14.360 --> 0:55:17.760 the back of a club somewhere, staying for the weekend. 0:55:18.400 --> 0:55:20.239 But it was fun. I mean, I just learned so 0:55:20.360 --> 0:55:25.120 much about playing music for people during that, because you know, 0:55:25.160 --> 0:55:27.160 when you're on stage and you're playing, even if you're 0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:31.480 in the corner of a little club. You're observing people 0:55:32.920 --> 0:55:36.759 when they don't think anybody's watching. You just see their 0:55:36.800 --> 0:55:40.640 lives play out. They're just they're getting loose and they're 0:55:40.680 --> 0:55:43.120 doing everything right in front of you, and they don't 0:55:43.120 --> 0:55:45.960 think you're watching, but you are. And it made a 0:55:45.960 --> 0:55:50.080 big impression on me, not only the reaction to the 0:55:50.120 --> 0:55:52.320 way that I played in the songs that we played, 0:55:53.520 --> 0:55:58.680 but I just learned by watching, just like you would 0:55:58.719 --> 0:56:03.719 watch if you were if you were into baseball, and 0:56:03.800 --> 0:56:06.120 you're watching a baseball game and someone does something good, 0:56:06.440 --> 0:56:08.560 you say, I should try to do that, and then 0:56:08.560 --> 0:56:10.880 when you see somebody screw up, you go, I should 0:56:10.880 --> 0:56:13.839 make sure I don't do any of that. So that's 0:56:13.880 --> 0:56:16.640 what I would see night after night, even though I 0:56:16.680 --> 0:56:17.640 was just a teenager. 0:56:19.000 --> 0:56:20.839 So you graduate from high school then what. 0:56:22.320 --> 0:56:26.520 I graduate early. Actually, there was about six of us 0:56:27.840 --> 0:56:33.040 that we had good grades at that point and they 0:56:33.160 --> 0:56:37.200 felt better if we left, and so they allowed us 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:40.799 to take two of every subject for the first half 0:56:40.800 --> 0:56:43.600 of the year, so that we graduated in January. And 0:56:43.880 --> 0:56:45.880 I loved it. I just thought that was the greatest 0:56:45.920 --> 0:56:50.760 thing ever. So myself, I think my girlfriend at the time, 0:56:51.640 --> 0:56:54.520 and a few other friends. I didn't know them too well, 0:56:54.719 --> 0:56:56.960 so we I mean, it was heaven for me because 0:56:56.960 --> 0:57:01.520 I took two music theory classes and that's what I loved, 0:57:01.640 --> 0:57:04.200 and the other classes are okay. I mean it was 0:57:04.200 --> 0:57:09.959 a bit simpler back then. I was taking French and humanities. 0:57:10.000 --> 0:57:12.160 I think they called it something that was the offshoot 0:57:12.200 --> 0:57:13.879 of geography and math. 0:57:13.640 --> 0:57:14.960 And social studies. 0:57:15.680 --> 0:57:20.680 Social studies, Yes, yeah, that's right. So yeah. So in 0:57:20.760 --> 0:57:25.360 January I was out and I thought I'm just going 0:57:25.440 --> 0:57:29.240 to start working full time. It was kind of rough. 0:57:29.280 --> 0:57:32.160 I didn't really land the gig until I started at 0:57:32.200 --> 0:57:37.280 Five Towns Music College the following September, which didn't last 0:57:37.320 --> 0:57:40.240 long at all. It was an absolute joke. I knew 0:57:40.320 --> 0:57:44.520 way more than every teacher in the school that they 0:57:44.560 --> 0:57:48.880 had at the time. The college has turned into a 0:57:48.960 --> 0:57:53.800 really great school, but that first year, that was their 0:57:53.840 --> 0:57:56.520 first year and they had some different ideas about what 0:57:56.600 --> 0:58:00.480 teachers could be. And I mean Bill Wescott, music teacher 0:58:00.520 --> 0:58:04.200 at high school. He gave us a university level education. 0:58:04.760 --> 0:58:07.160 So I went in there knowing everything, and every time 0:58:07.200 --> 0:58:09.680 they would play a wrong scale, I'd raise my hand 0:58:09.720 --> 0:58:11.840 and go, you know, that's not what you just said. 0:58:11.880 --> 0:58:14.240 You did, and so I didn't make friends there either. 0:58:16.200 --> 0:58:18.320 But two things happened that were important, which is I 0:58:18.360 --> 0:58:22.360 got introduced to someone who was playing in a disco 0:58:22.400 --> 0:58:27.160 band and they put guys on salary, and this was 0:58:27.240 --> 0:58:31.400 important for a young kid looking for a job. And 0:58:31.480 --> 0:58:34.919 so I joined this disco band and I actually got 0:58:35.040 --> 0:58:37.880 I made money every week, I got a paycheck. And 0:58:38.120 --> 0:58:40.080 at the time, they didn't call it disco. They called 0:58:40.120 --> 0:58:47.040 it progressive dance music. How's that for euphemism. I didn't care. 0:58:47.080 --> 0:58:49.000 I was just like, I want to play music. I 0:58:49.040 --> 0:58:52.640 need a paycheck. I got to pay for gas oil embargo. 0:58:52.840 --> 0:58:55.120 You remember those times it was tough to drive her 0:58:55.120 --> 0:59:00.200 around New York to gigs. And the other thing was 0:59:00.880 --> 0:59:04.840 one of my schoolmates introduced me to Lenny Tristano. I 0:59:04.840 --> 0:59:06.720 don't know if you know who Lenny Tristano was, but 0:59:06.800 --> 0:59:10.800 he was the father of cool jazz. He was the 0:59:10.840 --> 0:59:15.840 inventor of free form music, really first guy to ever 0:59:15.880 --> 0:59:19.200 record it for Capital, even though they shelled the record 0:59:19.240 --> 0:59:22.280 for nine years until after the Birth of Cool came out. 0:59:23.080 --> 0:59:25.080 I didn't know who this guy was at all. And 0:59:25.320 --> 0:59:29.640 one of my fellow students at Five Towns was more 0:59:29.640 --> 0:59:31.880 of a jazz head than I was. And he said 0:59:32.240 --> 0:59:34.920 when I was told him, I'm looking for like the 0:59:35.000 --> 0:59:39.080 guy I need, like you know, I need the wizard. 0:59:39.320 --> 0:59:41.280 There's got to be somebody out there who could teach 0:59:41.320 --> 0:59:46.720 me the true nature of music. And he said, you 0:59:46.800 --> 0:59:49.760 have to go see Lenny Tristano. And I said, well, 0:59:49.920 --> 0:59:51.720 who is this guy? Where is this guy? And he's like, 0:59:51.760 --> 0:59:55.040 he's in Queens, He's like twenty minutes from where I live. So, 0:59:56.800 --> 0:59:58.640 I mean, I could go on about this, but I mean, 0:59:58.680 --> 1:00:02.560 if you're not interesting, going, yeah, yeah, you going so Lenny. 1:00:03.400 --> 1:00:06.440 I mean, at that time, Lenny was kind of retired. 1:00:06.480 --> 1:00:09.560 He was teaching out of his Victorian house there in Queens. 1:00:10.960 --> 1:00:15.360 He was blind since a very young age, and he 1:00:15.400 --> 1:00:20.320 was eccentric by anyone's standards. You know. He dressed only 1:00:20.360 --> 1:00:24.400 in full length leotards and would walk around the room 1:00:24.440 --> 1:00:26.600 and he kind of talk like this all the time, 1:00:26.640 --> 1:00:28.560 like hey, Joey, what the fuck are you playing? You know, 1:00:28.680 --> 1:00:31.960 that kind of thing right right to your face, you know. 1:00:32.400 --> 1:00:37.960 And but he was the greatest teacher. He changed my 1:00:38.120 --> 1:00:44.360 life because he kind of went to like the heart 1:00:44.400 --> 1:00:46.360 of what it is to be a musician, Like if 1:00:46.400 --> 1:00:49.320 you think you're a musician and you haven't done these things, 1:00:49.640 --> 1:00:53.480 then you're completely lying to yourself. And so, you know, 1:00:53.520 --> 1:00:56.480 after I basically had been a musician all my life 1:00:56.560 --> 1:00:59.960 that I could remember, but I realized that I hadn't 1:01:00.080 --> 1:01:04.440 really addressed me you know, what are my skills? What 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:09.840 am I avoiding learning and simple things? You know, even 1:01:09.880 --> 1:01:13.280 though I'd been teaching guitar to kids and some grown 1:01:13.360 --> 1:01:16.200 ups for a good three years by then, there were 1:01:16.240 --> 1:01:20.880 still these big empty places in my knowledge of music 1:01:20.920 --> 1:01:25.400 that really bothered me. And I think the dissatisfaction with 1:01:26.280 --> 1:01:30.680 the professional music world was putting me off to working 1:01:30.760 --> 1:01:35.880 harder on my own musicianship. But so in a practical sense, 1:01:37.160 --> 1:01:39.880 he give you things like learn this scale everywhere, you know, 1:01:39.880 --> 1:01:41.880 and he's a blind piano player, so he doesn't give 1:01:41.920 --> 1:01:44.320 you doesn't tell you where to put your fingers. He 1:01:44.520 --> 1:01:46.160 just say, if you don't know how to do it, 1:01:46.240 --> 1:01:47.920 go out there and find out how to do it, 1:01:47.960 --> 1:01:49.920 and just come back next week play it for me. 1:01:50.000 --> 1:01:54.400 You know, every note, every fingering in every key, no 1:01:54.440 --> 1:01:58.000 matter what it was, you know, huge lessons. These things 1:01:58.000 --> 1:02:01.160 were daunting for me at the time, you know, And 1:02:02.600 --> 1:02:06.120 then there'd be a harmonic section of the lesson where 1:02:06.600 --> 1:02:10.200 you'd be playing these chords. Then you had to memorize 1:02:10.400 --> 1:02:13.560 and scat sing along with a melody and solo. And 1:02:13.600 --> 1:02:17.440 he didn't care if it was Coltrane or Tony Iomi 1:02:17.480 --> 1:02:21.880 he'd made. No, he wasn't biased against any form of music. 1:02:22.120 --> 1:02:24.720 He just wanted to hear you nail every note. His 1:02:24.800 --> 1:02:27.120 whole thing was the music's got to come from inside 1:02:27.160 --> 1:02:30.200 of you. He could care less about sight reading. He 1:02:30.280 --> 1:02:32.600 just got to be in here before it can come out. 1:02:33.160 --> 1:02:35.920 His other thing was, you know, if you made a 1:02:35.960 --> 1:02:38.560 mistake during those parts of the lesson, the lesson was over, 1:02:39.440 --> 1:02:42.680 he'd walk over to his Grail accounting book and he'd 1:02:42.680 --> 1:02:44.160 just sit there and you'd have to give him twenty 1:02:44.160 --> 1:02:48.760 bucks and split. But if you did good, the lesson 1:02:48.760 --> 1:02:50.960 could go on for two hours, and he'd leave everybody 1:02:50.960 --> 1:02:55.080 else in the waiting room. You know, But I'll tell 1:02:55.080 --> 1:02:58.479 you the one, the funniest, greatest story ever from him 1:02:59.840 --> 1:03:02.680 was he said, after I had been doing this improv 1:03:02.720 --> 1:03:05.360 for a really long time, He's walking around the house. 1:03:06.240 --> 1:03:08.160 I'm left in the room. I'm still playing. I don't 1:03:08.160 --> 1:03:10.680 know what to do. I keep playing. He finally comes 1:03:10.680 --> 1:03:12.240 back in and he goes, oh, that's pretty good. What 1:03:12.240 --> 1:03:14.880 do you think about that? And I use the word 1:03:15.400 --> 1:03:18.640 could or should in my description of my playing, and 1:03:18.680 --> 1:03:20.680 he really went off on me, and he said, you know, 1:03:20.760 --> 1:03:24.919 you kids from the suburbs have the subjunctive disease. You're 1:03:24.920 --> 1:03:27.080 always worrying about what you should have played, what you 1:03:27.080 --> 1:03:29.080 could have played, what you would have played, and you 1:03:29.160 --> 1:03:32.200 never play what you want to play, only play what 1:03:32.320 --> 1:03:36.080 you want to play. And it was like, you know, 1:03:36.680 --> 1:03:40.400 a zen lesson. You realize I'll be working on this forever. 1:03:42.680 --> 1:03:45.080 But it was a great lesson because I understood what 1:03:45.160 --> 1:03:50.520 he meant. He would say like, if you don't if 1:03:50.560 --> 1:03:52.760 you don't know what the next note is, don't play it. 1:03:53.000 --> 1:03:56.560 If you don't want to play the next note, then 1:03:56.600 --> 1:04:00.800 don't play it. So it was so foreign to me 1:04:01.280 --> 1:04:04.280 as a rock and roll kid. Everything he was saying, 1:04:05.440 --> 1:04:09.080 don't put vibrato on a note until you've played the 1:04:09.120 --> 1:04:12.680 note perfectly, and then you've decided vibrato is going to 1:04:12.680 --> 1:04:14.720 make it better, because that's how you feel in the moment. 1:04:15.040 --> 1:04:20.520 He was like a supreme improviser, like improvising was a 1:04:20.520 --> 1:04:28.560 way of life and it required like a super discipline 1:04:28.840 --> 1:04:31.080 that was like, I don't know, the only thing I 1:04:31.080 --> 1:04:35.760 could relate to it was like someone devoting their life 1:04:35.760 --> 1:04:38.560 to being a yogi or a zen master or something 1:04:38.600 --> 1:04:40.520 like that. You know, it's just like a total way 1:04:40.520 --> 1:04:47.240 of life. But it really it forced me to work 1:04:47.320 --> 1:04:50.240 harder and to admit to myself when I didn't know 1:04:50.360 --> 1:04:53.560 something that that's what I should work on, like right away. 1:04:54.000 --> 1:04:56.720 Like if you don't know that scale, sit down right now, 1:04:57.120 --> 1:05:03.240 memorize it everywhere. Don't kid yourself. You know that's that 1:05:03.600 --> 1:05:06.760 was tough. That was tough, and he was fascinating, just 1:05:06.800 --> 1:05:08.240 a fascinating human being. 1:05:15.160 --> 1:05:19.840 Well, since you were essentially self taught, did you learn 1:05:19.880 --> 1:05:22.480 any mistakes? You know, when you go through lessons, people say, well, 1:05:22.480 --> 1:05:24.400 put your fingers here and do this. Whatever. 1:05:24.760 --> 1:05:31.520 Did you get into any bad habits? I'm sure I did. 1:05:33.280 --> 1:05:36.200 The thing with guitar playing is that you can get 1:05:36.200 --> 1:05:39.880 together let's say, all the top ten greatest guitar players 1:05:40.280 --> 1:05:43.920 that you see on all the lists, and then you 1:05:43.960 --> 1:05:47.480 see pictures of them playing. You'll notice like, let's see 1:05:47.480 --> 1:05:52.640 if I have a guitar pick here, you know, like 1:05:52.920 --> 1:05:54.880 somebody will will hold a pick in it. 1:05:55.080 --> 1:05:57.760 Oh wait, wait, wait, wait, this is audio only so described. 1:05:57.840 --> 1:05:59.560 Yeah, so I'm going to describe it to you. But 1:06:00.120 --> 1:06:02.480 that typical thing is you see a guitar player. Their 1:06:02.640 --> 1:06:05.440 arm is coming down over the guitar, they're holding it 1:06:05.560 --> 1:06:11.240 pick and the angle is elbow straight down, the wrist 1:06:11.320 --> 1:06:14.120 is straight and they're picking. Most guitar players play like that. 1:06:14.360 --> 1:06:16.840 But then you'll see other guitar players like Jimmy Hendrix 1:06:16.880 --> 1:06:21.800 where or Neil Sean where it bends and the wrist 1:06:21.880 --> 1:06:27.000 is coming up from underneath the strings and they're picking 1:06:27.120 --> 1:06:31.160 in what seems like a really awkward position. You'll see 1:06:31.200 --> 1:06:33.840 some guitar players where their wrist of their picking hand 1:06:34.240 --> 1:06:38.240 is anchored and never moves at the base of the guitar, 1:06:38.560 --> 1:06:41.640 which we call the bridge. And then other guitar players 1:06:42.120 --> 1:06:46.760 their hand and their wrist never touches the guitar. It floats, 1:06:46.880 --> 1:06:51.520 and it's the elbow that provides all the movement, or 1:06:51.640 --> 1:06:54.920 their elbow stays completely still and only their wrist moves, 1:06:55.800 --> 1:06:58.320 or even that the thumb and the first finger that 1:06:58.360 --> 1:07:00.640 are holding the pick, those are the only things that move. 1:07:00.720 --> 1:07:07.160 It's it's insane how personal it is, and the one 1:07:07.200 --> 1:07:11.560 of the difficulties of getting through the period of beginner, 1:07:11.600 --> 1:07:18.720 intermediate and advanced player is deciding which position fits my 1:07:18.800 --> 1:07:21.920 anatomy because the guitar is awkward as soon as you 1:07:21.960 --> 1:07:25.280 put it on. If you're a beginner, you go like, wow, 1:07:25.440 --> 1:07:28.280 how do I hold this thing? My fingers hurt? How 1:07:28.280 --> 1:07:31.000 can I possibly stretch? How can I play this? And 1:07:31.320 --> 1:07:33.080 you know, my right hand and my left hand at 1:07:33.080 --> 1:07:36.680 the same time. When I when I was teaching a lot, 1:07:36.680 --> 1:07:41.040 I very often, almost once a day, would I'm right handed. 1:07:41.080 --> 1:07:43.440 I'd pick up the guitar and I'd put it the 1:07:43.480 --> 1:07:45.960 wrong way around, and I'd remind myself, this is how 1:07:46.000 --> 1:07:48.920 it feels to the beginner student when they come in 1:07:48.960 --> 1:07:51.040 and I try to get them to play a decord 1:07:51.160 --> 1:07:53.880 or something. This is how awkward it feels. You know, 1:07:54.560 --> 1:07:58.800 I can't play left handed at all. And it's a 1:07:58.880 --> 1:08:02.560 good reminder that that journey out of being a beginner 1:08:02.840 --> 1:08:07.960 is one of understanding what your body can do and 1:08:08.000 --> 1:08:11.000 what it feels comfortable doing, and how are you going 1:08:11.040 --> 1:08:17.120 to have to work around your anatomy? Again, if I 1:08:17.439 --> 1:08:21.080 drawn analogy, you look at the Olympics, you look at sprinters. 1:08:21.600 --> 1:08:25.840 You see some of the funniest variations of a very 1:08:25.880 --> 1:08:29.559 specific thing. I mean sprinting is like super specific, right, 1:08:31.360 --> 1:08:35.360 but still not all sprinters hold their arms and move 1:08:35.400 --> 1:08:37.639 them in the same way. Why is that what you'd 1:08:37.640 --> 1:08:40.160 think they'd all do it the same, right? Is just 1:08:40.200 --> 1:08:42.759 that we're all so different and we have these little 1:08:43.240 --> 1:08:46.759 quirky gifts that make us excel in a certain way. 1:08:47.120 --> 1:08:49.760 If in this case, we hold the pick like this 1:08:49.880 --> 1:08:53.080 and the guitar like that, and you know, Jimmy Page 1:08:53.080 --> 1:08:56.720 played the guitar really low and John McLaughlin plays it 1:08:56.800 --> 1:09:01.120 really high. I wouldn't want them to trade positions. I 1:09:01.200 --> 1:09:03.439 just love the way that both of them play. But 1:09:03.560 --> 1:09:05.439 isn't that weird? You know? So if you're a student 1:09:05.479 --> 1:09:08.400 and you're trying to figure out, like how am I 1:09:08.439 --> 1:09:11.920 supposed to hold this? You know, how do I which 1:09:12.160 --> 1:09:15.800 which fingers? Van Halen very often would he'd hold the 1:09:15.840 --> 1:09:21.240 pick between his thumb and his middle finger, which is 1:09:21.320 --> 1:09:23.559 really awkward to me, but it allowed him to use 1:09:23.560 --> 1:09:27.280 his first finger for tapping, you know, brilliant idea. 1:09:28.760 --> 1:09:30.800 And what about fingering with your other hand? 1:09:32.439 --> 1:09:38.679 That is again, everybody's hand is a unique size, and 1:09:39.800 --> 1:09:43.559 there's you know, we could we could really get into 1:09:43.600 --> 1:09:48.760 the minuti here about tendons and muscles and flexibility. You know, 1:09:48.800 --> 1:09:52.439 Segovia had teeny little hands that if you met him 1:09:52.479 --> 1:09:54.960 on the street, you never say, oh, there's a guitar player. 1:09:56.800 --> 1:09:58.519 But the guy was brilliant and he got around the 1:09:58.520 --> 1:10:01.680 guitar just fine. And and just because you're long and 1:10:01.760 --> 1:10:07.400 lanky doesn't really give you any edge, you know, precision 1:10:07.520 --> 1:10:10.639 is you just don't know. It's very much like dancing. 1:10:11.800 --> 1:10:13.880 Like if you think there's a body type for dancing, 1:10:13.880 --> 1:10:19.719 you're dead wrong. Just anybody can have that wonderful gift 1:10:19.720 --> 1:10:22.879 of being able to move, to connect their inner feelings 1:10:22.920 --> 1:10:25.479 to every part of their body and just surprise you 1:10:25.560 --> 1:10:28.479 with how great they are dancing. And so I think 1:10:28.600 --> 1:10:32.200 music playing instruments is pretty much the same way. You cannot, 1:10:33.200 --> 1:10:35.880 you know, judge the book by the cover. In this case, 1:10:36.400 --> 1:10:39.000 I hope I'm not mixing metaphors her analogies. 1:10:39.640 --> 1:10:44.040 Okay, so you're living in Westbury. Do people know, Oh, 1:10:44.080 --> 1:10:48.080 that's Joe Satriani, He's the hot guitarist. Were you just 1:10:48.160 --> 1:10:50.559 another guy playing guitar on the island. 1:10:52.200 --> 1:10:54.519 I think a mixture of both. There were plenty of 1:10:55.640 --> 1:11:00.880 great guitar players at the time, but very often, you know, 1:11:01.800 --> 1:11:04.320 to give you a start. Sometimes it helps in your 1:11:04.320 --> 1:11:07.800 own little microcosm to be the superstar, you know, for 1:11:07.880 --> 1:11:10.720 a couple of weeks. It just helps you try to. 1:11:12.160 --> 1:11:14.320 It gives you that extra energy to pick it up, 1:11:15.080 --> 1:11:17.479 the instrument up and practice just a little bit more. 1:11:18.680 --> 1:11:21.800 We all need encouragement, you know. I learned that from 1:11:22.040 --> 1:11:26.920 years of teaching. There's no point getting on someone's case 1:11:27.439 --> 1:11:29.640 about what they can't do. Is you really do have 1:11:29.680 --> 1:11:33.040 to focus on their gifts. And that's what we all 1:11:33.080 --> 1:11:35.920 need to carry us through life in general. You know, 1:11:36.160 --> 1:11:39.679 just focus on the gifts, everything else will fall into place, 1:11:40.120 --> 1:11:43.120 you know, again, if you if you keep the you know, 1:11:43.400 --> 1:11:46.280 when I was young, and even when I was teaching 1:11:46.560 --> 1:11:52.840 in a guitar store in the eighties and in Berkeley, 1:11:53.040 --> 1:11:55.519 and I had students that were, you know, eight year 1:11:55.560 --> 1:11:58.800 old kids. I had race car drivers, lawyers, doctors. I 1:11:58.840 --> 1:12:01.479 had you know, all kinds of peace people who had 1:12:01.600 --> 1:12:06.160 real lives outside the guitar store. And you know, people 1:12:06.160 --> 1:12:09.679 would come in and the young kids, the little kids 1:12:10.320 --> 1:12:13.680 just thought I was some weird old guy, you know, 1:12:13.800 --> 1:12:16.760 in his twenties teaching guitar and their parents made them 1:12:16.760 --> 1:12:19.720 come and learn how to you know, play guitar. They 1:12:19.800 --> 1:12:21.880 come in and put their plastic toys on the amp. 1:12:21.920 --> 1:12:24.679 And then they were great though, because they'd learned so fast. 1:12:25.280 --> 1:12:28.360 And you'd have teenagers who just really wanted to be 1:12:28.439 --> 1:12:31.160 rock stars, you know, and you had to figure out 1:12:31.200 --> 1:12:33.200 like do they really want to be rock stars they 1:12:33.240 --> 1:12:35.519 really or do they want to play their instrument really well? 1:12:36.080 --> 1:12:40.280 And then you had professional people who just wanted some relief. 1:12:41.120 --> 1:12:43.200 You know. They'd come in for a lesson and they'd say, 1:12:43.240 --> 1:12:45.400 can you just teach me how to play this Creeden song? 1:12:45.479 --> 1:12:48.479 So after I have a hard day, I can come 1:12:48.520 --> 1:12:51.160 home and just you know, have a glass of wine 1:12:51.200 --> 1:12:54.200 and play a song with my partner some And so 1:12:54.280 --> 1:12:57.760 you have to focus on, you know, how can you 1:12:57.840 --> 1:13:00.439 get that to how can you help them achieve that 1:13:00.600 --> 1:13:03.840 whatever it is they want. And so, like when I 1:13:03.880 --> 1:13:09.439 was teaching Kirk Khmid, he had a real job. After 1:13:09.479 --> 1:13:12.519 the first year, he went from being an exodus into 1:13:12.560 --> 1:13:15.560 Metallica and he had a serious job and some requirements, 1:13:15.560 --> 1:13:18.800 and he had to learn really fast. The great thing 1:13:18.920 --> 1:13:21.840 was he was dedicated. He had his own opinions about 1:13:21.880 --> 1:13:24.479 what he thought was great, and he was super hungry, 1:13:24.600 --> 1:13:27.439 and you know, started taking two lessons a week. That's 1:13:27.479 --> 1:13:32.479 how dedicated he was. And so you And again, even 1:13:32.520 --> 1:13:35.479 if it's someone like Kirk, or if it's just the 1:13:35.600 --> 1:13:38.240 race car driver who comes in after a crazy day 1:13:38.280 --> 1:13:41.479 on the track and he just wants to play some music, 1:13:41.520 --> 1:13:44.559 you know, you just focus on the positive and the 1:13:44.600 --> 1:13:47.160 strengths that everybody has. He don't worry about the little 1:13:47.320 --> 1:13:49.680 you know, where you put your finger and stuff like that. 1:13:49.760 --> 1:13:50.559 Everyone's different. 1:13:51.680 --> 1:13:55.719 So how do you become the teacher to the stars. 1:13:55.800 --> 1:13:57.559 How does Kirk kamide find you? 1:13:59.520 --> 1:14:02.439 I don't really know how that happened. I mean, it's 1:14:02.680 --> 1:14:06.519 really freaky that so many of those players were in 1:14:06.560 --> 1:14:09.599 that area that wasn't my hometown. You know. I went 1:14:09.640 --> 1:14:13.160 out to Berkeley, California, because my older sisters had moved 1:14:13.160 --> 1:14:15.719 out to the Bay Area, and they said, this place 1:14:15.800 --> 1:14:17.840 is nothing like Long Island. You'll love it. You can 1:14:17.880 --> 1:14:20.840 do whatever you want. Nobody cares. You know. That's a 1:14:20.880 --> 1:14:24.599 typical reaction to California. Oh yeah, from New York, you know. 1:14:25.080 --> 1:14:28.360 So and I did like it. And I just happened 1:14:28.360 --> 1:14:32.080 to move into this little bungalow across the street from 1:14:32.120 --> 1:14:35.080 a guitar store, and I used to go in there 1:14:35.400 --> 1:14:38.639 and play all the guitars all day long and never 1:14:38.720 --> 1:14:42.120 buy anything. And one day, the owner, Jim Larson, he 1:14:42.160 --> 1:14:44.479 says to me, you know what, if you're just gonna 1:14:44.479 --> 1:14:47.360 sit here and play all day long and not buy anything, 1:14:47.400 --> 1:14:49.439 you might as well give lessons. And I said, oh, man, 1:14:49.520 --> 1:14:51.800 I gave lessons on Long Island. I don't want to 1:14:51.800 --> 1:14:56.160 give lessons. But anyway, I realized that there was very 1:14:56.240 --> 1:14:59.479 little in the form of work for me out there 1:15:00.320 --> 1:15:02.640 because I didn't know anybody. I had no contacts in 1:15:02.680 --> 1:15:07.160 the Bay area. So I started teaching and I had 1:15:07.240 --> 1:15:12.000 no I mean, I have no idea why I wound 1:15:12.040 --> 1:15:16.240 up seeing guys like Larry Lalande and Alex Skolnik, and 1:15:16.320 --> 1:15:20.080 Kirk Hammett and David Bryce and Kevin Cadogan. I was 1:15:20.120 --> 1:15:24.160 just like the luckiest guitar teacher ever that all of 1:15:24.200 --> 1:15:26.639 these very different kids would come in and they were 1:15:26.720 --> 1:15:34.120 so motivated to learn, and they were so different. Perfect 1:15:34.120 --> 1:15:37.600 example would be like one of one of the luthiers 1:15:37.680 --> 1:15:46.040 who worked for the store. She had a little kid, Charlie, 1:15:46.880 --> 1:15:49.679 and so one day she comes in and she's like, Joe, 1:15:49.800 --> 1:15:52.920 Charlie's driving me crazy. You just could you just teach 1:15:52.960 --> 1:15:54.800 him how to play guitar. So he's you know, he 1:15:54.880 --> 1:15:59.280 leaves me alone. So this little Charlie comes in, and 1:15:59.360 --> 1:16:02.320 Charlie's like not even though he's growing, he's growing up 1:16:02.360 --> 1:16:05.840 right alongside all these what are going to become thrash 1:16:05.880 --> 1:16:08.519 metal players and metal players, he has no interest in 1:16:08.560 --> 1:16:10.800 any of it. And so teaching him was a lot 1:16:10.880 --> 1:16:13.200 of fun because he was just into anything that was 1:16:13.240 --> 1:16:17.880 against what was trending. And of course he becomes the 1:16:18.160 --> 1:16:22.479 Charlie Hunter that's just preeminent funk, jazz, whatever you want 1:16:22.520 --> 1:16:26.400 to call. He just created his own genre and he 1:16:26.439 --> 1:16:31.760 grew up to be just an amazing man and just fantastic, 1:16:31.920 --> 1:16:34.599 just you know. But at the same time, like I said, 1:16:34.600 --> 1:16:39.120 they would, there would be Kirk and who had a 1:16:39.160 --> 1:16:43.679 gig that was extremely important and he was making history 1:16:44.080 --> 1:16:48.240 like with every album, and then like right after him, 1:16:48.240 --> 1:16:50.840 it would be like David Brison from County Crow's who 1:16:50.880 --> 1:16:53.040 was like, you know, he said, look, I don't care 1:16:53.080 --> 1:16:56.920 about soloing, I don't care about shredding. He said, how 1:16:57.880 --> 1:16:59.920 how do you write songs? How do you change keys? 1:17:00.240 --> 1:17:04.200 What chords go with this? How many different ways can 1:17:04.240 --> 1:17:07.320 I give this feeling? And then shift into that feeling. 1:17:07.320 --> 1:17:10.920 It was really fascinating for me as a teacher to 1:17:11.080 --> 1:17:16.280 have this unique variety walking through the door every day. 1:17:16.320 --> 1:17:17.840 And I did that for about ten years. 1:17:19.640 --> 1:17:23.400 And what was the dream other than teaching guitar, which 1:17:23.560 --> 1:17:25.920 wasn't the dream? What did you want to actually do 1:17:26.040 --> 1:17:27.960 other than be free in the Bay Area. 1:17:29.120 --> 1:17:32.240 Oh, I think it never really changed. I always thought 1:17:32.320 --> 1:17:34.960 I'd be like a Jimmy Page figure, I'd be in 1:17:35.720 --> 1:17:39.080 a fourth piece band with a singer. I still really 1:17:39.520 --> 1:17:43.920 love rock music in general, just the attention to songwriting 1:17:44.960 --> 1:17:49.200 is I really love that, and that the bands can 1:17:49.240 --> 1:17:53.400 be unique, that each band member can be celebrated for 1:17:53.479 --> 1:17:56.439 their uniqueness in the band. You know, it's just to me, 1:17:57.160 --> 1:18:00.760 that's what's different than pop music or other forms of 1:18:00.840 --> 1:18:03.519 music that are really strict. You know, like blues is 1:18:03.560 --> 1:18:08.320 really strict. You got to basically quote every cool blues 1:18:08.320 --> 1:18:10.559 player in the world to be accepted by the audience. 1:18:11.439 --> 1:18:16.639 They don't celebrate originality, you know, it's weird. But rock music, 1:18:16.720 --> 1:18:21.600 I thought, well, it's so inclusive. They celebrate everyone's originality 1:18:21.640 --> 1:18:23.639 and they just want you to keep writing great songs. 1:18:23.680 --> 1:18:26.880 And I just thought this is really great, you know, so, 1:18:27.840 --> 1:18:33.160 but along the way I started. I was in this 1:18:33.240 --> 1:18:35.759 band called the Squares for about four and a half years. 1:18:35.800 --> 1:18:39.320 A little bit slower. How many bands you in before 1:18:39.400 --> 1:18:42.080 the Squares? And how did you join the Squares? 1:18:42.760 --> 1:18:46.400 So I wasn't. I did not find in the whatever 1:18:47.120 --> 1:18:51.679 year and a half that I was there floundering around, 1:18:51.760 --> 1:18:57.519 you know, just enjoying the northern California lifestyle. I started 1:18:57.560 --> 1:19:00.599 a band because my ex brother in law moved out 1:19:00.600 --> 1:19:03.719 there as well, and he was nine years ten years 1:19:03.720 --> 1:19:06.920 older than me, very smart guy, worked for Cutter Laboratories. 1:19:06.920 --> 1:19:08.880 But he had always been a guitar player and a 1:19:08.920 --> 1:19:13.720 singer songwriter back in his days at Villanova and Harvard. 1:19:13.840 --> 1:19:13.920 And. 1:19:16.479 --> 1:19:20.080 So we were writing songs together when we were when 1:19:20.120 --> 1:19:22.799 I was really young, when he was still dating my sister, 1:19:23.479 --> 1:19:25.960 and when he moved out, we got the idea to 1:19:26.080 --> 1:19:28.759 start a band, a rock band, and he would manage 1:19:28.760 --> 1:19:31.439 and write lyrics. I would write the music. We just 1:19:31.439 --> 1:19:34.400 needed to find some people to play us. I found 1:19:34.840 --> 1:19:39.120 Jeff Campitelli on drums, Andy Milton on bass, guitar and 1:19:39.200 --> 1:19:42.559 lead vocals, and we were kind of like a not 1:19:42.760 --> 1:19:46.960 good version of Green Day and Blink one two. The 1:19:46.960 --> 1:19:51.000 only way I can describe it. We were very dedicated, 1:19:51.040 --> 1:19:53.360 but I have to admit we were not as good 1:19:53.640 --> 1:19:57.479 as those guys, so no wonder we didn't get anywhere. 1:19:57.479 --> 1:19:59.920 But we practiced like crazy and we were as pro 1:20:00.240 --> 1:20:03.680 as you can get. And during that time I was 1:20:03.880 --> 1:20:06.280 always teaching, so my day job was teaching at the 1:20:06.320 --> 1:20:08.960 guitar store, and then we would either rehearse or gig 1:20:08.960 --> 1:20:13.599 at night. And somewhere along the line, I really wanted 1:20:13.640 --> 1:20:19.920 to produce our own record, but our manager and our 1:20:19.960 --> 1:20:22.960 agent at the time, Neil and Kevin, they just they 1:20:23.000 --> 1:20:25.200 were saying, no, we should just keep trying to go 1:20:25.320 --> 1:20:30.080 down to LA and ironically try to get John Carter 1:20:30.200 --> 1:20:33.840 at Capital to signs to a label. I see, I didn't. 1:20:33.880 --> 1:20:37.320 I mean I could jump ahead and say the first 1:20:37.320 --> 1:20:41.200 time I met Carter again, we laughed about he was 1:20:41.400 --> 1:20:43.879 how he was my nemesis because he turned the squares 1:20:43.920 --> 1:20:51.280 down so many times. That was was, Oh, anyway, I 1:20:51.320 --> 1:20:58.639 love John, But anyway, so, uh, I on a break, 1:20:59.160 --> 1:21:01.320 this is really I mean, you'll be editing all this out. 1:21:01.360 --> 1:21:05.280 But so we rehearsed down by Seventh Street in the 1:21:05.320 --> 1:21:08.479 Berkeley Flats area, in a warehouse that was part of 1:21:08.479 --> 1:21:11.719 the NOLO Press publishing company, and they had a dumpster 1:21:11.840 --> 1:21:15.320 right outside where we rehears, so when we go out 1:21:15.320 --> 1:21:18.040 there to have a cigarette and a drink between songs, 1:21:19.520 --> 1:21:23.200 there'd be this dumpster overflowing with their books. So they're 1:21:23.280 --> 1:21:25.519 how to books, you know, like how to get a divorce, 1:21:25.800 --> 1:21:27.960 how to start a bakery, how to do this, and 1:21:28.040 --> 1:21:30.920 inside the books were tear out sheets. So one day 1:21:30.920 --> 1:21:34.160 we're out there, we're going nowhere, you know, with this band, 1:21:34.280 --> 1:21:37.599 and I'm looking at I'm looking through the dumpster and 1:21:37.640 --> 1:21:40.160 I see how to start a company, how to do 1:21:40.280 --> 1:21:43.240 your own books. And I take this book back to 1:21:43.280 --> 1:21:45.519 my apartment and I go, you know what, I'm going 1:21:45.600 --> 1:21:49.479 to start my own publishing company, my own record company. 1:21:49.600 --> 1:21:52.000 I'm going to make a recording. I'm going to put 1:21:52.040 --> 1:21:55.160 it out when the band takes their Christmas break, and 1:21:55.200 --> 1:21:56.920 I'm going to bring it to the band and show 1:21:57.000 --> 1:22:00.320 them that it can be done. So that's what I did. 1:22:01.240 --> 1:22:06.479 And it was a very weird, avant garde EP that 1:22:06.520 --> 1:22:09.920 I recorded in late eighty four. And you know, I 1:22:09.960 --> 1:22:12.960 went down to the courthouse. I started Strange, beautleful Music. 1:22:13.040 --> 1:22:16.400 I started Rubina Records. I was the president. I was 1:22:16.439 --> 1:22:21.879 also the first client, and I got this record pressed. 1:22:23.040 --> 1:22:26.320 I brought it to the band and no one, no 1:22:26.320 --> 1:22:28.919 one really liked it. I did it. Jeff was intrigued 1:22:28.920 --> 1:22:33.679 by it, you know, and the reaction made me realize 1:22:34.200 --> 1:22:35.840 this is going nowhere. I got to get out of here, 1:22:35.960 --> 1:22:38.320 you know. I started the band, but I just said, look, 1:22:38.479 --> 1:22:40.920 I'm quitting this band. You guys could do whatever you want, 1:22:41.600 --> 1:22:44.439 but this obviously you've got to do it yourself now. 1:22:44.560 --> 1:22:48.400 So I just thought, the next thing I'll do is 1:22:48.880 --> 1:22:51.200 I have to do an album with drums and bass 1:22:51.200 --> 1:22:52.679 and keyboards that people. 1:22:52.640 --> 1:22:56.280 I mean, just for one second. That was the Squares. 1:22:57.680 --> 1:23:01.519 The Squares that yeah, from in nineteen eighty late late 1:23:01.560 --> 1:23:04.559 seventy nine to very early eighty five. 1:23:04.600 --> 1:23:07.520 Oh okay, so you leave the Squares continue? 1:23:08.240 --> 1:23:11.920 Yeah, So I leave the Squares. I'm teaching. I'm trying 1:23:11.920 --> 1:23:14.520 to play with some other bands, not really going anywhere. 1:23:14.960 --> 1:23:20.080 I get a credit card offer in the mail with 1:23:20.640 --> 1:23:25.280 checks totally five thousand dollars, which I go back second 1:23:25.400 --> 1:23:28.200 round to all studios and engineers and I say, look, 1:23:28.200 --> 1:23:30.920 what if I paid you in advance, would you give 1:23:30.920 --> 1:23:34.400 me a break? And I got like the fifty percent break, 1:23:34.680 --> 1:23:37.519 you know, discount if I paid everybody ahead of time 1:23:37.560 --> 1:23:41.000 to do this album. I finished the album. I'm in 1:23:41.080 --> 1:23:45.240 debt for just under five grand. I'm really struggling to 1:23:45.439 --> 1:23:47.519 pay this thing off. And I get a call my 1:23:47.680 --> 1:23:51.000 second call from a local band do a great kin 1:23:51.160 --> 1:23:54.840 band who once again having guitar player problems, and they 1:23:54.920 --> 1:23:57.120 want me to come to the studio like that day 1:23:57.320 --> 1:24:00.360 because I have to finish their album Love and Rock Role, 1:24:01.200 --> 1:24:04.559 And there was no argument. I was like, I need 1:24:04.560 --> 1:24:07.840 cash like today, you know. So I went down there 1:24:08.680 --> 1:24:13.080 to Fantasy Records. They literally recorded me just like listening 1:24:13.120 --> 1:24:15.760 to music for the first time. I'd like, tune up 1:24:15.760 --> 1:24:18.160 and they'd play something and I'd just play along and 1:24:18.200 --> 1:24:20.160 they'd say, we got it, Joe, all right, let's move 1:24:20.200 --> 1:24:23.640 on to the next song. And by the end of 1:24:23.680 --> 1:24:28.000 the early evening they handed me ten thousand dollars cash 1:24:28.000 --> 1:24:30.360 and they said there's more money coming just you know, 1:24:30.400 --> 1:24:32.880 give us twelve months. And I was like, you got it, 1:24:33.200 --> 1:24:35.920 no problem. You know. I really did like the band, 1:24:35.920 --> 1:24:38.200 and we played with them a lot. Greg was a 1:24:38.240 --> 1:24:41.559 fantastic singer in front Man, and I didn't know the 1:24:41.560 --> 1:24:44.479 guys in the band that well, but I knew from 1:24:44.520 --> 1:24:47.519 opening up for those guys for years that they were 1:24:47.520 --> 1:24:50.080 the real deal. It was like a cool not my 1:24:50.160 --> 1:24:52.479 style of music, but I recognized that they were really 1:24:52.479 --> 1:24:56.880 good at it, and so that what followed was well. 1:24:57.160 --> 1:25:00.200 First of all, I paid off the credit card, and 1:25:01.280 --> 1:25:06.960 because about the same time, I'd sent a cassette of 1:25:07.000 --> 1:25:09.240 it to Steve vi Iika. Steve and I were always 1:25:09.240 --> 1:25:12.000 trading cassettes of stuff we were working on, and he 1:25:12.120 --> 1:25:16.759 had just signed with Relativity Records out of Jamaica Queen's 1:25:17.800 --> 1:25:21.080 for his Flexible album. And the way Steve put it was, 1:25:21.439 --> 1:25:24.439 he goes, Joe, my record is so much weirder than yours, 1:25:24.439 --> 1:25:29.000 and they signed me. They gotta sign you. So I said, okay, 1:25:29.040 --> 1:25:31.360 you can to send them the cassette. I don't care. 1:25:31.520 --> 1:25:34.800 I wasn't even thinking that I get anywhere with it, 1:25:35.640 --> 1:25:40.720 but Clifficaltrairie at Relativity Records liked it. We met and 1:25:40.800 --> 1:25:43.960 it took about twelve months, but eventually a P and 1:25:44.040 --> 1:25:47.160 D deal was struck while I was just finishing my 1:25:47.280 --> 1:25:51.280 year with Greg Kin, and in November of eighty six, 1:25:51.360 --> 1:25:53.240 they released Not Out of This Earth, which was my 1:25:53.320 --> 1:25:57.439 first full length LP that I had produced and played on, 1:25:57.520 --> 1:26:02.760 and that was probably the strangest instrumental album I'd done 1:26:02.760 --> 1:26:05.439 outside of the EP, which was certifiably weird. 1:26:05.600 --> 1:26:18.040 But okay, you're playing with Greg Kidd. You get the 1:26:18.080 --> 1:26:21.280 money to pay off the credit card. Everything was slowly. 1:26:21.920 --> 1:26:24.720 It takes you twelve months to make the deal. The 1:26:24.840 --> 1:26:27.280 record is released, and then what. 1:26:28.520 --> 1:26:32.840 I go to New York because Barry Kober and the 1:26:32.880 --> 1:26:37.439 president of the company, is not convinced that they that 1:26:37.479 --> 1:26:40.320 I have the goods, you know, to do an instrumental record, 1:26:41.400 --> 1:26:44.120 and they booked this sort of like a showcase at 1:26:44.160 --> 1:26:47.200 the China Club. I don't know any musicians in New 1:26:47.280 --> 1:26:51.480 York anymore, but I had just played with Danny Gottlieb 1:26:51.520 --> 1:26:59.160 in Sweden along with Jonas Hellborg, Swedish fusion bass player, 1:26:59.800 --> 1:27:02.240 and so I called him up and I said, Hey, 1:27:02.560 --> 1:27:05.560 would you do this one thing for me at the 1:27:05.640 --> 1:27:09.559 China Club. You know, there's no rehearsal, just show up. 1:27:09.880 --> 1:27:13.280 The songs are so easy, you know, and you know, 1:27:13.280 --> 1:27:15.840 because Danny's a great jazz drummer. And I said, you know, 1:27:15.880 --> 1:27:17.040 all you have to do is just play a little 1:27:17.040 --> 1:27:20.280 heavier than usual, don't worry about it. And I didn't 1:27:20.280 --> 1:27:22.360 know a bass player, so he said, well, you know 1:27:22.439 --> 1:27:26.439 Mark Egan. Let's get Mark. And I thought Mark's amazing. 1:27:26.439 --> 1:27:28.479 It's like, why would he be playing, you know, satch 1:27:28.479 --> 1:27:31.479 Boogie and stuff like that. But I needed somebody. So 1:27:32.080 --> 1:27:35.760 we met, we set up, we played, and when we 1:27:35.800 --> 1:27:39.400 got done with satch Boogie, the deal was made. Barry 1:27:39.760 --> 1:27:42.960 heard something in what I was doing, because I when 1:27:42.960 --> 1:27:44.680 he asked me what I wanted to do, I said, look, 1:27:44.720 --> 1:27:48.200 I want to make an album that celebrates everything I 1:27:48.240 --> 1:27:50.799 love about guitars. And I said that means Chuck Berry, 1:27:51.280 --> 1:27:54.960 that means Hendrix, that means some fusion stuff, some classical stuff. 1:27:55.600 --> 1:27:57.960 You know. I said, that's that's who I am, you know. 1:27:58.680 --> 1:28:03.320 And I should point out that earlier, a couple of 1:28:03.400 --> 1:28:08.200 days earlier, when I went out to the company the record, 1:28:08.800 --> 1:28:11.559 I'm standing in the middle of their their main room, 1:28:12.080 --> 1:28:14.400 all the employees around, and Barry's looking at me, and 1:28:14.400 --> 1:28:17.600 he's very uncomfortable and he goes, you don't look like 1:28:17.640 --> 1:28:21.599 a rock star. And I was just thinking, like, oh, 1:28:21.640 --> 1:28:25.479 this is really embarrassing. I got it was like, sorry, Barry, 1:28:25.479 --> 1:28:28.400 but this is what I look like. But you know, 1:28:29.080 --> 1:28:31.320 I kind of knew it, you know, and I understood 1:28:31.320 --> 1:28:33.320 where he was coming from. Because he had he had 1:28:33.360 --> 1:28:36.240 just signed Steve I and Steve looks like a rock star, 1:28:36.360 --> 1:28:38.479 you know, he was a rock star. But he looked 1:28:38.479 --> 1:28:42.120 a part and I didn't, and and and he was 1:28:42.160 --> 1:28:44.240 about to sink some money into me. So I totally 1:28:44.240 --> 1:28:48.599 got it. So it's him being nervous. But it turned 1:28:48.600 --> 1:28:52.639 out all right because they did give me complete freedom 1:28:52.680 --> 1:28:55.479 to do what I wanted. And that album was Surfing 1:28:55.479 --> 1:28:59.240 with the Alien, and thank god that people like that one, 1:28:59.240 --> 1:29:04.320 because that one really reflected my true nature. So you 1:29:04.360 --> 1:29:06.360 know that thing where bands that they get famous for 1:29:06.439 --> 1:29:09.800 the wrong song and it destroys the band or you know, 1:29:09.880 --> 1:29:15.200 they it's the single that killed the band. But in 1:29:15.280 --> 1:29:18.400 terms of that album, Surfing was the best of all 1:29:18.439 --> 1:29:21.720 the albums of mine that could have got that kind 1:29:21.720 --> 1:29:25.280 of embrace, you know, from a world audience, because that's 1:29:25.320 --> 1:29:27.040 exactly who I am, you know. 1:29:27.479 --> 1:29:30.400 Okay, a little bit slower the album you make by 1:29:30.439 --> 1:29:33.280 yourself with the five thousand dollars from the credit card. 1:29:33.720 --> 1:29:36.080 Relativity does put that record out. 1:29:36.760 --> 1:29:39.400 Yeah, it took a long time, but they put it 1:29:39.439 --> 1:29:42.160 out in November of eighty six. By then, I'd already 1:29:42.600 --> 1:29:47.080 started working on Surfing. I'd already recorded a couple of 1:29:47.120 --> 1:29:48.559 demos that went oh okay. 1:29:48.600 --> 1:29:52.720 But even though that record was out, Very still wasn't convinced. 1:29:53.040 --> 1:29:55.040 It was after that record that YE had to do 1:29:55.120 --> 1:29:55.679 the audition. 1:29:56.520 --> 1:29:59.599 Yes, yeah, that's crazy, isn't it. 1:29:59.640 --> 1:30:03.560 Okay, so you're some guy from the Island living in Berkeley. 1:30:04.040 --> 1:30:07.799 You're with Relativity, which is independent, although not that small 1:30:07.840 --> 1:30:11.519 at that particular time. Yeah, a lot of people find 1:30:11.560 --> 1:30:12.559 out about the music. 1:30:15.840 --> 1:30:22.120 Terresta radio was really important. I can't really tell you 1:30:22.200 --> 1:30:26.720 how it was done. I do know that some of 1:30:26.760 --> 1:30:31.000 the most colorful people worked radio. I guess you call 1:30:31.040 --> 1:30:36.519 it in the companies and in you know, the parent 1:30:36.560 --> 1:30:40.519 company was called Important Record Distributors, and they had a 1:30:40.520 --> 1:30:43.960 couple of labels. They had Combat, Relativity, and maybe something else. 1:30:44.800 --> 1:30:48.200 But I was on Relativity. And so between the office 1:30:48.240 --> 1:30:53.799 in Torrance, California and Jamaica, Queens, they had radio people 1:30:53.840 --> 1:30:57.960 whose knew other radio people and they knew disc jockeys. 1:30:58.200 --> 1:31:04.200 And I did IDs for hundreds of stations. I visited 1:31:04.280 --> 1:31:07.560 hundreds of stations. I played guitar at hundreds of stations, 1:31:08.200 --> 1:31:13.360 and stations like wherever Redbeard was in Texas at the time, 1:31:13.479 --> 1:31:20.920 and Chicago, the Loop and La Boston, unbelievable support. When 1:31:20.920 --> 1:31:24.320 that record came out, they would just spin it and 1:31:24.520 --> 1:31:27.559 I was, you know, klex. They would they would play 1:31:27.600 --> 1:31:32.280 the whole record on Sunday twice, you know, top to bottom. 1:31:32.640 --> 1:31:35.559 The record that I thought was so completely out of time, 1:31:36.400 --> 1:31:40.439 the one that both myself and my co producer John 1:31:40.479 --> 1:31:44.200 Kuniberty thought would definitely seal our fate as never being 1:31:44.280 --> 1:31:48.280 hired again, turned out to be the one that got 1:31:48.320 --> 1:31:49.599 embraced by the fans. 1:31:49.920 --> 1:31:50.240 It was. 1:31:50.360 --> 1:31:52.760 The trick was to get the radio station to play it, 1:31:53.080 --> 1:31:55.639 and in pre internet days, that that was it. If 1:31:55.680 --> 1:31:58.360 you couldn't get it on the radio, you were dead 1:31:58.400 --> 1:31:58.880 in the water. 1:31:59.560 --> 1:32:03.080 Okay, you're the guitar teacher to the stars. You have 1:32:03.120 --> 1:32:06.280 a band that can't get signed by a major label. 1:32:08.120 --> 1:32:10.679 You know right now, I wouldn't quite call it sonny, 1:32:10.680 --> 1:32:16.240 but an upbeat disposition. You go from being completely unknown 1:32:17.400 --> 1:32:22.360 to having traction. What was the experience emotionally. 1:32:22.880 --> 1:32:29.280 That was It's really hard to describe the depth of 1:32:29.439 --> 1:32:38.320 despair in like early December eighty seven, like the or 1:32:38.760 --> 1:32:44.519 more like more like October of eighty seven. I just 1:32:44.600 --> 1:32:47.280 really didn't think there was I didn't I was getting 1:32:47.320 --> 1:32:50.200 feedback from the world, only from the people I knew. 1:32:50.680 --> 1:32:53.240 And I thought, it's okay, the recor will come out 1:32:53.280 --> 1:32:56.200 and I'll just teach and I'll just keep going and 1:32:56.400 --> 1:33:00.200 I won't think about what I can't imagine or it's 1:33:00.240 --> 1:33:02.400 not happened yet, and I'm not going to fear and 1:33:02.479 --> 1:33:07.240 imagine future, you know. And then Barry called me one 1:33:07.320 --> 1:33:11.639 day and he said, you know, you're one eighty seven 1:33:11.680 --> 1:33:15.960 on Billboard. And I was shocked that even was on 1:33:16.000 --> 1:33:20.519 the Billboard charts. And I said, wow, what does that mean, 1:33:20.680 --> 1:33:22.120 you know? And he said, well, it means you got 1:33:22.120 --> 1:33:25.840 to put a band together. And I said, Barry, I've 1:33:25.880 --> 1:33:28.719 never played instrumental rock in front of an audience before. 1:33:29.080 --> 1:33:31.360 I said, there is no band. It's like, what do 1:33:31.439 --> 1:33:34.519 I do? You jump around? You're serious, like, you know, 1:33:34.760 --> 1:33:36.400 do you need lights, smoke bombs? 1:33:36.400 --> 1:33:36.880 What do you do? 1:33:38.720 --> 1:33:40.880 And he said no, just put a band together and 1:33:42.080 --> 1:33:45.080 you got to go out and play. And so after 1:33:45.120 --> 1:33:48.400 that phone call, I was like really wondering, like really, 1:33:48.640 --> 1:33:51.960 like as a career, I mean, I always thought you 1:33:52.040 --> 1:33:54.800 put out an album and it might be embraced by 1:33:54.840 --> 1:33:59.000 a small group of people, but as a viable touring act, 1:33:59.040 --> 1:34:01.679 I thought, well, no one that anymore. Jeff Beck maybe, 1:34:01.920 --> 1:34:06.320 you know, but even he would intersperse working with big 1:34:06.439 --> 1:34:09.719 vocal stars, you know, you know, because the genre didn't 1:34:09.720 --> 1:34:15.160 exist anymore really outside of Jeff and so but I thought, okay, 1:34:15.560 --> 1:34:18.479 I have to I'm going to have to figure this out, 1:34:18.520 --> 1:34:24.360 you know. And so I called ste and Jonathan Jonathan 1:34:24.400 --> 1:34:27.599 Moover drummer and Stuart Ham bass player who we had 1:34:27.600 --> 1:34:31.519 played just briefly in the summer at a NAM show, 1:34:32.400 --> 1:34:37.000 and I said, well, you know, they record company wants 1:34:37.000 --> 1:34:39.840 a tour, so we put a tour together. I gave 1:34:39.880 --> 1:34:43.760 my last guitar lesson to Kirk Hammett in early January 1:34:43.880 --> 1:34:49.479 of eighty eight, and we're all excited, Wow, going on tour. 1:34:49.520 --> 1:34:52.400 And I go out on this tour. I'm playing two 1:34:52.400 --> 1:34:56.080 shows a night, six seven nights a week. We're out 1:34:56.080 --> 1:34:59.439 there for about three weeks. Maybe it was awful. It 1:34:59.560 --> 1:35:03.680 was just so hard. You know. There's as you know, 1:35:03.960 --> 1:35:05.720 just because you have a record doesn't mean you can 1:35:05.760 --> 1:35:08.840 sell a ticket. Some people have tickets and they don't 1:35:08.880 --> 1:35:10.920 they can sell tickets and they don't have record sales 1:35:11.000 --> 1:35:14.680 or whatever. So it's a funky business, right. So but 1:35:14.800 --> 1:35:17.080 I was in that position where I was unknown, I 1:35:17.160 --> 1:35:20.840 was untested, Promoters didn't know how to pronounce my name, 1:35:20.880 --> 1:35:24.560 you know that kind of thing. And and I was 1:35:25.200 --> 1:35:28.200 projected to lose about maybe eight grand a week, which 1:35:28.240 --> 1:35:31.000 I didn't have at the time. And I remember we 1:35:31.000 --> 1:35:34.160 were in Boston staying at some awful motel and my 1:35:34.280 --> 1:35:36.920 tour manager gave me the news of how much money 1:35:36.960 --> 1:35:40.840 we're going to be losing. And a little while after that, 1:35:41.080 --> 1:35:44.919 one of my former agents, Kevin Burns, calls me from 1:35:45.680 --> 1:35:48.840 the Bill Graham management office and he says, you're not 1:35:48.880 --> 1:35:51.439 going to believe this. How would you like to audition 1:35:51.520 --> 1:35:54.800 for Mick Jagger? And so we both laugh for about 1:35:54.800 --> 1:35:57.320 a minute because we knew I was the worst guy 1:35:58.120 --> 1:36:00.320 to audition for Mick Jagger, like, you know, I didn't 1:36:00.320 --> 1:36:02.840 look right and I haven't been playing the Stones songs 1:36:02.840 --> 1:36:06.640 for ages. But we both said, you're going, like you 1:36:06.760 --> 1:36:09.280 have to go and then report to the rest of 1:36:09.320 --> 1:36:12.640 us how funny it was. So I go down, I 1:36:12.720 --> 1:36:17.080 do the audition, I get the gig. It's like really 1:36:17.280 --> 1:36:21.000 fun and Jagger is like the funnest guy ever. Plus 1:36:21.000 --> 1:36:25.720 he sings amazing. The band is amazing, and suddenly my 1:36:25.880 --> 1:36:29.439 problem with the tour vanishes because I've got to stay 1:36:29.439 --> 1:36:31.920 in New York City whehearse with Jagger and then go 1:36:31.960 --> 1:36:37.559 off to Japan. So this is this is like all 1:36:37.600 --> 1:36:41.200 part of this explanation because during that those few weeks 1:36:41.240 --> 1:36:45.920 and then getting in Jagger's band, getting in Rolling Stone magazine, 1:36:46.520 --> 1:36:50.280 seeing the chart number just go up and up and 1:36:50.400 --> 1:36:53.080 up and it lands at twenty nine, stays there for 1:36:53.120 --> 1:36:57.519 like six weeks. It was life changing because wherever I went, 1:36:58.360 --> 1:37:00.439 people knew how to pronounce my last name all of 1:37:00.520 --> 1:37:06.400 a sudden, and Mick was great wherever anytime I was 1:37:06.439 --> 1:37:08.679 with Mick, Mick would make sure that I could take 1:37:08.720 --> 1:37:11.000 advantage of any of this because he knew it was, 1:37:11.479 --> 1:37:13.240 you know, one of those things that only happens once 1:37:13.280 --> 1:37:14.920 in a while and you just got to do all 1:37:14.960 --> 1:37:17.960 of it. So he was always saying, if you need anything, 1:37:18.000 --> 1:37:20.599 you need a room, you need transportation, you need time 1:37:20.680 --> 1:37:23.400 to do an interview, let me know, I'll take care 1:37:23.400 --> 1:37:26.160 of it. And it was fabulous the help that he 1:37:26.200 --> 1:37:31.800 gave me. But it was a whirlwind. What other words 1:37:31.880 --> 1:37:35.760 can you use to describe the change of fortune in 1:37:35.840 --> 1:37:39.720 such a short amount of time. It's just great and 1:37:39.800 --> 1:37:42.679 all of a sudden, it's March. I'm at the Tokyo 1:37:42.800 --> 1:37:45.680 Dome and I'm playing satch Boogie where it's just a 1:37:45.720 --> 1:37:48.840 couple of months ago, you know, I was at the 1:37:48.920 --> 1:37:52.920 China Club trying to cue the guys where the bridge is. 1:37:55.920 --> 1:37:59.080 Just to be clear, well, was the success of the 1:37:59.160 --> 1:38:03.120 album driven it all from the press in the fact 1:38:03.240 --> 1:38:06.519 you were working with Mick or was it just the 1:38:06.640 --> 1:38:08.200 record caught on with the audience. 1:38:09.320 --> 1:38:13.200 Oh, I think it's you know, it's everything. You can't 1:38:13.240 --> 1:38:18.439 really discount any little thing that might happen that might 1:38:18.560 --> 1:38:21.880 introduce you to the to the the group of people, 1:38:22.040 --> 1:38:24.800 or that right person who was just waiting to hear it. 1:38:26.479 --> 1:38:29.400 There were plenty of times where people would say to me, 1:38:30.360 --> 1:38:32.519 you know, you're playing with Mick Jagger, you know, like 1:38:32.560 --> 1:38:35.240 they didn't get the connection because they knew me as 1:38:35.760 --> 1:38:39.360 surfing with the Alien guy. And just just like you know, 1:38:39.439 --> 1:38:45.439 when a fan becomes a fan at your fifth album 1:38:45.520 --> 1:38:48.839 and has no idea that you had four other albums, 1:38:48.840 --> 1:38:50.200 and they go back and they listen to it and 1:38:50.240 --> 1:38:52.360 they're like, I don't know that guy. I only know 1:38:52.479 --> 1:38:56.880 this guy album number five, you know. So, But there 1:38:56.880 --> 1:39:01.120 were other people who obviously most of them Let's say 1:39:01.320 --> 1:39:03.160 you playing at the Tokyo Dome. They don't know who 1:39:03.200 --> 1:39:07.080 you are, and Mick would let me go out and 1:39:07.120 --> 1:39:10.280 play two songs. I'd play Midnight all by myself. That 1:39:10.400 --> 1:39:14.080 was so frightening on such a huge stage in front 1:39:14.120 --> 1:39:18.479 of ninety thousand people. A little delicate, two hand tapping 1:39:18.560 --> 1:39:26.040 classical piece. What a crazy idea. But you know, everything 1:39:26.080 --> 1:39:28.439 is everything, you know. Just that one article in Rolling 1:39:28.439 --> 1:39:32.200 Stone doesn't mean anything to people who don't read Rolling Stone. 1:39:32.479 --> 1:39:35.400 But if you read Rolling Stone, then you go, well, 1:39:35.439 --> 1:39:38.040 this must be really happening, because I read this magazine 1:39:38.080 --> 1:39:41.400 and I trust it. You know. The most important element 1:39:41.400 --> 1:39:44.400 of all, though, is if people don't like what they 1:39:44.479 --> 1:39:48.080 hear you know you, As Glenn Johns once told me, 1:39:48.120 --> 1:39:50.400 he said, it's not your job to decide what people 1:39:50.439 --> 1:39:52.960 are going to like. It's your job to play your guitar. 1:39:54.040 --> 1:39:57.400 So if you people will decide what they like you 1:39:57.479 --> 1:40:00.840 just you can't make them like you. And there isn't 1:40:00.960 --> 1:40:04.080 any press or any bit of good luck that is 1:40:04.120 --> 1:40:08.360 going to make that happen. They really have to like 1:40:08.479 --> 1:40:11.200 listening to your music, to put it on day after day, 1:40:11.240 --> 1:40:14.439 week after week, year after year, and to take a 1:40:14.520 --> 1:40:17.080 chance on your follow up album and the next one 1:40:17.120 --> 1:40:17.640 and the next one. 1:40:17.720 --> 1:40:21.200 Well, that begs the question of as the guitarist, to 1:40:21.280 --> 1:40:24.160 what degree do you feel pressure to deliver what you 1:40:24.200 --> 1:40:25.160 think people will like. 1:40:27.360 --> 1:40:34.280 I don't know what people like, and I mean, you 1:40:34.400 --> 1:40:36.599 just can't tell what people are going to like, and 1:40:36.640 --> 1:40:39.320 so you got to let that go, you really do. 1:40:40.600 --> 1:40:47.400 I can say that sincerity is important, and when somebody 1:40:48.120 --> 1:40:54.240 is up on stage doing, you know, doing what they 1:40:54.240 --> 1:40:57.200 believe in, you have the best shot of reaching somebody. 1:40:57.840 --> 1:40:59.920 But if you're being false, I don't think you have 1:41:01.240 --> 1:41:07.040 as much of a chance to find your audience. And 1:41:07.080 --> 1:41:11.880 that's as important to embrace as the fact is. You 1:41:11.920 --> 1:41:15.080 can't make people like you. You just can't. They're just 1:41:15.120 --> 1:41:17.720 gonna either like it or they won't. I mean, just 1:41:17.800 --> 1:41:22.200 look at like fans who love one particular band more 1:41:22.240 --> 1:41:25.400 than any other band but still will say, oh, album 1:41:25.479 --> 1:41:29.880 number three is just the worst to the artist's face, 1:41:29.960 --> 1:41:34.120 you know what I mean. So people it's their prerogative 1:41:34.200 --> 1:41:36.280 to like or not like, so you might as well 1:41:36.320 --> 1:41:37.160 just you. 1:41:37.120 --> 1:41:40.760 Know, Okay, so you cut a record, it's ready to 1:41:40.800 --> 1:41:45.479 come out. What do you feel inside? Are you super anxious? 1:41:46.400 --> 1:41:51.360 Yeah? Because you didn't finish it. The whole idea of 1:41:51.400 --> 1:41:55.360 finishing an album that you abandon it. You are forced 1:41:55.400 --> 1:41:58.479 to abandon it because you've run out of time and money. 1:41:59.000 --> 1:41:59.839 That's the reality. 1:41:59.880 --> 1:42:00.519 You know that. 1:42:02.560 --> 1:42:05.160 Every artist wishes they could just keep working on it, 1:42:05.320 --> 1:42:08.759 keep working on it, and you know, thank god there's tours, 1:42:08.840 --> 1:42:12.200 because that's where you get to work on it. Like, yeah, 1:42:12.400 --> 1:42:15.600 here's a perfect example. Like when we recorded Surfing with 1:42:15.640 --> 1:42:18.320 the Alien. I went in. I left my apartment that 1:42:18.439 --> 1:42:21.879 morning to do that session. I'm looking around the apartment. 1:42:21.920 --> 1:42:24.120 I'm going, what you like, you know, like what I 1:42:24.200 --> 1:42:28.040 need something, And there's a Wahwa pedal sitting in the corner, 1:42:28.240 --> 1:42:31.360 dust on it. I purposely did not play it for years. 1:42:31.439 --> 1:42:33.600 I just sort of like made a rule like do 1:42:33.720 --> 1:42:36.400 not plug that thing in, Joe, you know. So I 1:42:36.479 --> 1:42:38.720 just thought, on a whim, I'm going to bring that. 1:42:39.000 --> 1:42:41.639 So I bring it. I plug it in. I remember 1:42:41.720 --> 1:42:44.360 John looking at me like, Wowa pedal, Like I thought 1:42:44.400 --> 1:42:47.600 you'd like swore those things off, you know, And I'm like, oh, 1:42:47.680 --> 1:42:51.240 let's just try it, you know. And we get around 1:42:51.240 --> 1:42:54.680 to getting a sound late in the day, it's just 1:42:54.720 --> 1:42:57.360 about four o'clock. We're supposed to be out of the 1:42:57.439 --> 1:43:00.200 room studio see at Hyde Street in San francisc Go. 1:43:00.720 --> 1:43:03.599 The other clients are at the door. They're literally looking 1:43:03.640 --> 1:43:06.719 at me, like, you know, with their arms folded, like hey, 1:43:06.760 --> 1:43:09.040 it's four o'clocket out of here. And I'm like, just 1:43:09.120 --> 1:43:13.800 let me do a pass, you know. And so I 1:43:13.840 --> 1:43:17.960 hadn't played the melody yet or it's melody solo section 1:43:18.120 --> 1:43:21.799 melody and then solo at the end with the melody guitar, 1:43:21.840 --> 1:43:24.200 and that was the one we had set up. So 1:43:24.840 --> 1:43:28.120 I do this one long take. Guitar is not entirely 1:43:28.160 --> 1:43:31.800 in tune. The even type processor that we're plugged into, 1:43:32.560 --> 1:43:36.639 you know, is not working that great. And I get 1:43:36.680 --> 1:43:39.760 through the end of the piece, all the way to 1:43:39.800 --> 1:43:43.639 the very end of the song where the fade out 1:43:43.640 --> 1:43:46.680 would have happened, and that's it, and we have to 1:43:46.720 --> 1:43:49.960 turn everything off, break everything down, no chance of fixing, 1:43:50.640 --> 1:43:53.639 you know, like coming in a day later and changing 1:43:53.640 --> 1:43:56.360 a note because we had to strike the amp and everything. 1:43:57.080 --> 1:43:59.840 And I just I remember my heart sunk because I thought, 1:43:59.880 --> 1:44:03.240 oh man, it's like it's so promising. I think I'm 1:44:03.280 --> 1:44:07.280 onto something right. So, as fate would have it, we 1:44:07.320 --> 1:44:10.760 could never do anything better to it. So that's what's 1:44:10.800 --> 1:44:14.200 on the album, and thank god people liked it, you know, 1:44:14.760 --> 1:44:17.400 but every time I play that on stage, I'm like, Okay, 1:44:17.520 --> 1:44:21.760 now is Joe, now's your chance to fix that, you know, 1:44:21.880 --> 1:44:25.920 bar sixty three, to make this in tune and maybe 1:44:25.920 --> 1:44:28.519 you should try this on the B string instead of 1:44:28.520 --> 1:44:31.120 the G string. And I'm still working on it, and 1:44:31.200 --> 1:44:36.280 that alleviates that anxiety of having to abandon a piece 1:44:36.280 --> 1:44:36.799 of music. 1:44:37.280 --> 1:44:43.000 You know, Okay, you go work with Mick Jagger, your 1:44:43.040 --> 1:44:46.479 record moves up the chart, you're done with Mick Jagger. 1:44:46.560 --> 1:44:47.000 Then what. 1:44:50.360 --> 1:44:55.440 I wanted to do an entirely different kind of album. 1:44:57.080 --> 1:45:02.640 I was so satisfied with the way that surfing was embraced. 1:45:02.840 --> 1:45:04.879 I guess it was the way that it was embraced, 1:45:04.880 --> 1:45:10.120 you know, like it's not like people focused on one song. 1:45:12.720 --> 1:45:16.080 What I gathered from touring in all of eighty eight 1:45:16.320 --> 1:45:21.120 was that people really liked the ballads, the melodies, the 1:45:21.160 --> 1:45:26.160 guitar magazines like the pirate techniques and the flashy bits, 1:45:26.240 --> 1:45:34.000 and people that wouldn't normally interview me, like the upbeat, 1:45:34.400 --> 1:45:36.880 fun attitude of the album. All these things. I thought, well, 1:45:36.880 --> 1:45:39.600 this is great. If they liked that part of me, 1:45:41.040 --> 1:45:42.800 then there's no reason for me to try to do 1:45:42.840 --> 1:45:48.479 this again that I want to keep going in my quest, 1:45:48.800 --> 1:45:52.400 you know, with guitar playing and so Flying in a 1:45:52.439 --> 1:45:57.599 Blue Dream was born the idea, and I shocked everyone 1:45:57.840 --> 1:46:00.519 by saying, look, I want to sing, because what people 1:46:00.560 --> 1:46:04.439 did know is I'd been in the Squares for five 1:46:04.520 --> 1:46:06.720 years and I was one of the lead singers. So 1:46:06.920 --> 1:46:09.120 and as I said before, I always thought i'd be 1:46:09.120 --> 1:46:13.320 in a vocal rock band, and I realized that after 1:46:13.439 --> 1:46:17.799 touring with instrumentals in eighty eight and having two tours 1:46:17.800 --> 1:46:20.080 with Mick Jagger, that there was this real benefit for 1:46:20.600 --> 1:46:24.360 having vocals because you could really reach people, you know. 1:46:25.280 --> 1:46:31.320 And the question was would people accept me being in 1:46:31.479 --> 1:46:35.040 character because I don't have a lead singer's voice. I 1:46:35.040 --> 1:46:39.599 don't have that talent, you know, but I could hit notes. 1:46:40.200 --> 1:46:43.160 And I thought, well, if I can get into a 1:46:43.280 --> 1:46:47.519 character and sing rough for Big Bad Moon and sing 1:46:48.160 --> 1:46:53.519 in a very heartfelt, demure version of myself where I 1:46:53.600 --> 1:46:57.479 believe and you know, have these different vocals and try 1:46:57.520 --> 1:47:00.479 to sing like prints for strange, you know that people 1:47:00.520 --> 1:47:03.559 would get the joke and they say, yeah, he's not 1:47:03.560 --> 1:47:06.040 trying to it's just Joe, just Joe having fun in 1:47:06.080 --> 1:47:10.320 the studio. But it was a big album, eighteen tracks, 1:47:11.200 --> 1:47:18.320 lots of crazy two hand tapping, harmonica playing. It had 1:47:18.320 --> 1:47:21.479 a lot of things that I was so excited about 1:47:21.560 --> 1:47:23.519 that I was just dying to bring out on tour. 1:47:24.280 --> 1:47:30.320 And again we were really fortunate. I mean those each 1:47:30.360 --> 1:47:33.880 time I've released a record, it's the records have found 1:47:33.920 --> 1:47:38.920 their audience, which is just mind blowing, you know. And 1:47:39.000 --> 1:47:41.280 so I still on this tour right now. I'm singing 1:47:41.320 --> 1:47:45.360 Big Bad Moon and playing harp and it's so much fun. 1:47:45.400 --> 1:47:47.200 You know, people get it. They know I'm not a 1:47:47.240 --> 1:47:47.759 real singer. 1:47:49.800 --> 1:47:53.479 Let's jump forward. How do you meet Sammy Hagar? 1:47:54.800 --> 1:47:58.920 I meet Sammy Hagar taking a piss in the men's 1:47:59.000 --> 1:48:03.040 room of the one of the bammis that's taking place 1:48:03.080 --> 1:48:04.160 in the Bay Area. 1:48:04.040 --> 1:48:06.040 The Bay Area Music Awards when there used to be 1:48:06.120 --> 1:48:08.240 a magazine BAM. 1:48:08.720 --> 1:48:12.880 Yes. Yeah, and he and I were both up for awards. 1:48:13.400 --> 1:48:16.599 I was jamming with Ronnie Montrose that night and playing 1:48:16.600 --> 1:48:20.439 some songs myself. We were both giving awards out, you know, 1:48:21.520 --> 1:48:25.360 and I knew I'd known who Sammy was. But you're 1:48:25.400 --> 1:48:28.519 not if if you've never met Sammy Hagar, You're not 1:48:28.560 --> 1:48:33.679 prepared for the actual event that is being in his presence. 1:48:33.880 --> 1:48:37.400 Man is like twenty men in one body. You know, 1:48:38.160 --> 1:48:42.439 he's hysterical, he's so funny, full of energy, even in 1:48:42.479 --> 1:48:47.240 the men's room in an semi awkward moment. But I 1:48:47.240 --> 1:48:49.240 guess we hit it off. I don't think because it 1:48:49.280 --> 1:48:51.840 was the men's room. I'm just saying we hit it off, 1:48:51.880 --> 1:48:54.559 and then we wound up just bumping into each other 1:48:54.800 --> 1:48:58.439 at different things like rehearsals or something like that. A 1:48:58.479 --> 1:49:02.040 gig here, a gig there, and but we didn't really 1:49:02.080 --> 1:49:07.599 formalize a relationship until he and Neil Neil Sean invited 1:49:07.600 --> 1:49:10.240 me to join the band Planted Us a few years later. 1:49:11.080 --> 1:49:15.280 And you know, I was really right in the middle 1:49:15.280 --> 1:49:17.960 of making an album and booking a tour, and I 1:49:18.000 --> 1:49:20.320 wasn't quite sure how that was going to work. We 1:49:20.400 --> 1:49:23.559 did one live radio show and when and then I 1:49:23.600 --> 1:49:25.800 went on tour, and when I came back, the band 1:49:25.800 --> 1:49:28.720 had broken up before I had a chance to just 1:49:29.040 --> 1:49:31.479 even figure out what I was supposed to do in 1:49:31.520 --> 1:49:34.120 the band, Like, how do you play in a band 1:49:34.120 --> 1:49:36.280 with Neil Sean? I don't know. He just he's amazing. 1:49:36.320 --> 1:49:41.160 He covers all the bases, you know. But and then 1:49:41.320 --> 1:49:45.479 Sam came around again and called me to do chicken 1:49:45.520 --> 1:49:52.160 Foot back in two thousand and eight, and yeah, one 1:49:52.160 --> 1:49:52.960 thing led to another. 1:49:53.280 --> 1:49:57.800 Yeah, okay, how was the experience with chicken Foot? You 1:49:57.800 --> 1:49:58.960 put out two albums? 1:50:00.640 --> 1:50:06.920 That's so great. I mean, the x, the palpable excitement 1:50:07.240 --> 1:50:11.920 in the studio, Sam's Little studio, bringing in a song. 1:50:12.760 --> 1:50:15.080 You know, I'd email like a song to the guys 1:50:15.960 --> 1:50:19.080 and someone would say, like, okay, three weeks from now, 1:50:19.520 --> 1:50:23.799 we got two days at Sam's studio and we arrive, 1:50:24.479 --> 1:50:27.160 they'd say, oh, yeah, that that that thing you sent us, Joe, Yeah, 1:50:27.200 --> 1:50:30.559 let's do that right now. And you know, as a band, 1:50:30.600 --> 1:50:32.600 we'd sort of chop it up and rearrange it, and 1:50:32.600 --> 1:50:35.160 then we recorded and that would be on the album. 1:50:35.640 --> 1:50:38.240 I was like stunned that they would want to record 1:50:38.280 --> 1:50:41.080 that way, but that's how they wanted to record. And 1:50:42.320 --> 1:50:45.519 so a lot of the first album was done right there, 1:50:45.560 --> 1:50:48.360 maybe half of it in Sam's little place, the rest 1:50:48.360 --> 1:50:56.560 of it at Skywalker. And it was always fun, always dangerous, 1:50:57.160 --> 1:51:02.800 that first tour with Chad destroying drums every night and 1:51:03.800 --> 1:51:06.479 is so much fun. It was really like it was 1:51:06.560 --> 1:51:10.800 like being fourteen years old and you know, totally losing 1:51:10.840 --> 1:51:14.280 control at a high school dancer or someone's backyard party 1:51:14.920 --> 1:51:18.400 and doing a professional gig all at once. It had 1:51:18.439 --> 1:51:23.360 that insanity to it and that love of you know, 1:51:23.479 --> 1:51:27.720 trying to create a true rock and roll moment on stage. 1:51:29.479 --> 1:51:30.360 Just tons of fun. 1:51:31.360 --> 1:51:34.639 So what's this tour you're going on with essentially chicken 1:51:34.720 --> 1:51:36.759 Foot with a different drummer this summer? 1:51:38.760 --> 1:51:41.639 You know, my perspective of it is so different because 1:51:42.640 --> 1:51:45.720 Sam called me and he said, I want to do 1:51:46.360 --> 1:51:52.959 a career retrospective tour where we play Montrose and Hagar 1:51:53.280 --> 1:51:56.160 and chicken Foot and a couple of your songs and 1:51:56.200 --> 1:51:59.439 a lot of Vhalen songs, even some roth era songs. 1:52:00.080 --> 1:52:02.560 And I thought, well, there's no way I'm missing this. 1:52:02.560 --> 1:52:06.479 This is like my friend, my buddy's having a career 1:52:06.560 --> 1:52:10.920 retrospective and I'm part of it. I'm lucky enough to 1:52:10.960 --> 1:52:14.080 be actually part of his career. And so I wanted 1:52:14.080 --> 1:52:16.040 to do it, and I think I agreed before I 1:52:16.120 --> 1:52:19.519 really thought the weight of it when it came to 1:52:19.520 --> 1:52:24.120 the Van Halen stuff, but it was, you know, he said, 1:52:24.120 --> 1:52:26.360 well it'll be at that time, you know, next summer, 1:52:26.400 --> 1:52:29.840 and I thought, Okay, I've got these other projects, but 1:52:29.880 --> 1:52:32.400 I'll have a couple of months to sit down and 1:52:32.439 --> 1:52:35.880 try to figure out all this Edward van Halen stuff 1:52:35.920 --> 1:52:39.240 that I avoided learning on purpose all these decades, you know. 1:52:40.760 --> 1:52:42.400 And then of course he calls me and he says, oh, 1:52:42.400 --> 1:52:45.200 by the way, we're doing this Howard Stern thing. And 1:52:46.200 --> 1:52:51.080 at the time, I'd been painting canvases and guitars for 1:52:51.120 --> 1:52:53.759 three weeks. I was literally I had no callouses left. 1:52:54.200 --> 1:52:57.920 I hadn't been playing. I was trying to cram for 1:52:58.000 --> 1:53:01.240 this art show at the Wentwer Gallery that was happening 1:53:01.280 --> 1:53:04.960 the same week as the Stern show. And so I 1:53:05.000 --> 1:53:06.840 explained to him myself, well, we can't do it. You know. 1:53:06.880 --> 1:53:10.400 It's just I'm not gonna play Eddie van Halen music 1:53:10.400 --> 1:53:15.040 at six in the morning, and besides, I'm painting, you know. Anyway, 1:53:15.240 --> 1:53:19.160 long story short, they twist my arm. We wind up 1:53:19.200 --> 1:53:23.160 doing this show and they were great, and they were 1:53:23.520 --> 1:53:26.200 I mean, Jason, Mike and Sam have been doing these 1:53:26.200 --> 1:53:29.120 songs for decades now, so they were totally. I just 1:53:29.280 --> 1:53:31.800 was sort of trying not to screw up too much, 1:53:32.640 --> 1:53:36.160 remembering each bar as it was coming in front of me. 1:53:36.360 --> 1:53:40.320 You know, luckily, I'm a big fan of the Van 1:53:40.360 --> 1:53:44.040 Halen music. So that's that's the memory I was drawing upon, 1:53:44.160 --> 1:53:48.600 not rehearsal memory, which you know there was none, but 1:53:49.040 --> 1:53:52.240 now it's the set list that Sam was put together. 1:53:52.520 --> 1:53:55.879 Is really a lot of fun. It's and super challenging 1:53:56.240 --> 1:53:57.120 for me for sure. 1:53:59.160 --> 1:54:00.880 Okay, tell us about the painting thing. 1:54:03.000 --> 1:54:06.760 So about I mean, I've been drawing ever since I 1:54:06.800 --> 1:54:09.599 was a little kid, but I didn't really get into 1:54:09.720 --> 1:54:16.760 painting until about eight years ago. My wife, Rabinis, got 1:54:16.960 --> 1:54:19.679 a degree in graphic arts. My son wound up getting 1:54:19.680 --> 1:54:21.960 a degree in art as well, and so there was 1:54:22.000 --> 1:54:26.720 a lot of stuff around the house begging me to 1:54:26.760 --> 1:54:28.960 test it out. So I asked my wife, you know, look, 1:54:29.120 --> 1:54:32.720 I just get me going. When do I use this brush? 1:54:32.720 --> 1:54:34.240 When do I use this one? Do I have to 1:54:34.280 --> 1:54:37.040 do something to the canvas before I put on the 1:54:37.080 --> 1:54:39.960 acrylic or the oil and whatnot? So she gave me 1:54:40.000 --> 1:54:42.080 a crash course, and I took all the stuff that 1:54:42.120 --> 1:54:45.480 I had been doing with pen and pencil and with 1:54:45.560 --> 1:54:48.720 the computer, and I thought, okay, now it's time to 1:54:48.760 --> 1:54:52.520 get your your fingers dirty, you know, And I found 1:54:52.600 --> 1:54:55.560 I really loved it, and then I started doing some 1:54:55.600 --> 1:55:00.480 more guitars as a test. Now I'd done illustrating guitars, 1:55:00.520 --> 1:55:04.160 you know, with pen just drawing goofy figures, but hadn't 1:55:04.160 --> 1:55:07.840 done real works of art that stand on their own 1:55:08.760 --> 1:55:12.320 until I started down this process. And I wasn't thinking 1:55:12.360 --> 1:55:16.200 of selling them or becoming an artist, so to speak, 1:55:16.760 --> 1:55:20.960 until I was invited by Corey and Robbiet Scene for 1:55:21.480 --> 1:55:25.400 Art Collective to do these time laps photography pieces in 1:55:25.480 --> 1:55:28.720 the dark where you wear led lace gloves and you 1:55:29.000 --> 1:55:32.080 play your instrument, and then they create these photographs and 1:55:32.160 --> 1:55:36.760 manipulate them in the in the computer and then print them. 1:55:36.880 --> 1:55:38.800 And so during a break of the one of the 1:55:38.800 --> 1:55:41.680 photo sessions, I took up my phone and I said, 1:55:41.720 --> 1:55:43.839 you know, I've been I've been checking out this stuff. 1:55:43.880 --> 1:55:48.080 What do you think about oil versus acrylic? You know? 1:55:48.160 --> 1:55:51.480 And I was just asking art questions, you know, and 1:55:51.600 --> 1:55:54.200 they got really interested in what they saw and they 1:55:54.240 --> 1:55:58.040 wanted to collaborate. So we started to do these collaborations 1:55:58.080 --> 1:56:04.800 with my artwork, getting going into into the computer, using 1:56:04.880 --> 1:56:09.640 it as backgrounds, adding the images that we were photographing 1:56:09.640 --> 1:56:14.360 of me playing. Uh. And then one thing led to another, 1:56:14.600 --> 1:56:22.040 and Corey Denzigers said he wanted to introduce me to 1:56:22.200 --> 1:56:25.440 Christian O. Mahoney at Wentworth Gallery and he was like, 1:56:25.760 --> 1:56:28.880 would you paint a lot if people liked it? You know, 1:56:29.440 --> 1:56:32.640 It's kind of a funny question. And I thought, well, yeah, 1:56:33.280 --> 1:56:35.800 I would. I think, like, what's a lot? You know. 1:56:36.920 --> 1:56:40.880 And so once I start talking to Christian, you know, 1:56:41.000 --> 1:56:44.120 he's like, well it you know, I mean minimum, we'd 1:56:44.160 --> 1:56:46.600 love to have three hundred pieces. And I'm like, oh, 1:56:47.040 --> 1:56:50.720 I'd never painted, you know. It was just like, oh 1:56:50.720 --> 1:56:52.720 my god, Like how does an artist do that? So 1:56:54.320 --> 1:56:57.520 but I thought it was a really great thing to 1:56:57.560 --> 1:57:02.960 try and and it has been so wonderful for me 1:57:03.280 --> 1:57:06.760 just to be able to have the opportunity to express 1:57:06.840 --> 1:57:10.360 myself not only on the canvas, but also on the guitars. 1:57:11.160 --> 1:57:15.720 And it's when when I walk into one of the 1:57:15.800 --> 1:57:19.840 Wentworth galleries and I see nothing but my paintings, it's 1:57:19.920 --> 1:57:22.320 like hearing your song on the radio for the first time. 1:57:22.840 --> 1:57:26.960 It's that crazy. It's just it's a bizarre experience. It's 1:57:27.080 --> 1:57:31.600 very difficult to explain because it's something that you know, 1:57:31.760 --> 1:57:35.120 it came from inside, that was very personal and all 1:57:35.160 --> 1:57:37.080 of a sudden, it's in the real world and people 1:57:37.080 --> 1:57:39.440 are seeing it and commenting on it and buying it 1:57:39.480 --> 1:57:41.560 and taking it home and looking at it every day. 1:57:41.640 --> 1:57:45.240 It's just it's It's like when someone says I use 1:57:45.320 --> 1:57:47.760 your song to get married or at a funeral or 1:57:48.200 --> 1:57:50.560 at you know this thing. I listen to it every 1:57:50.600 --> 1:57:53.480 day when I'm on my bike or whatever. It's it's heavy. 1:57:53.880 --> 1:57:54.400 It's heavy. 1:57:55.040 --> 1:57:59.520 So you said earlier about music, the public either likes 1:57:59.520 --> 1:58:03.880 it or does the public like your art so far? 1:58:04.040 --> 1:58:07.760 Yes, you never know what people are going to like, 1:58:07.880 --> 1:58:10.560 and that again, this is a perfect example of that. 1:58:10.600 --> 1:58:14.320 Where I'll do a painting of the moon, I'll do 1:58:14.360 --> 1:58:19.120 a painting of flag, I'll do painting of guitars, alien, 1:58:19.240 --> 1:58:21.880 a beautiful woman, and a Drodyn his figure. I don't 1:58:21.880 --> 1:58:23.640 know what people are going to like. I don't even 1:58:24.280 --> 1:58:28.760 stop myself, and Christian never stops hanging whatever it is 1:58:28.800 --> 1:58:31.680 I send him because I think he realizes the same 1:58:31.760 --> 1:58:36.040 thing is that someone will walk by the shop one 1:58:36.120 --> 1:58:38.720 day and they'll see a painting of something that I 1:58:38.760 --> 1:58:42.760 did that we never thought twice about, and they'll say, 1:58:42.800 --> 1:58:45.200 this means so much to me. And that's what I 1:58:45.280 --> 1:58:48.880 learned at the art shows. It's really fascinating how it works. 1:58:48.880 --> 1:58:54.680 So I go there. I spend about twenty minutes with 1:58:54.880 --> 1:58:57.040 each person that buys a piece of art, and I 1:58:57.080 --> 1:59:00.400 get to hear from them what they like about it. 1:59:00.440 --> 1:59:02.840 They want to know all about why I created it. 1:59:03.360 --> 1:59:05.880 And then at the end of the day I play 1:59:06.080 --> 1:59:08.720 for about forty five minutes to an hour. If somebody 1:59:08.720 --> 1:59:10.920 buys one of the painted guitars, we get up and 1:59:10.960 --> 1:59:14.240 we jam together they if they play guitar. So it's 1:59:14.280 --> 1:59:17.840 really a fun personal experience, and it's small, you know, 1:59:17.920 --> 1:59:20.520 it's what fifty people or something like that. It's not 1:59:20.640 --> 1:59:23.560 like doing a concert at the Beacon Theater or something 1:59:23.600 --> 1:59:27.560 like that. It's very personal and you really do spend 1:59:27.640 --> 1:59:30.680 a lot of time with people and the stories that 1:59:30.720 --> 1:59:36.080 they tell me about how they feel when they look 1:59:36.080 --> 1:59:40.360 at the painting. It's really touching. It's a profound experience. 1:59:40.880 --> 1:59:42.360 I have to like get ready for it. 1:59:43.280 --> 1:59:46.280 I know everything has a different price, but approximately how 1:59:46.360 --> 1:59:49.880 much does a painting or a guitar or retail for. 1:59:50.120 --> 1:59:53.360 The guitars are hanging up for about eighteen to twenty 1:59:53.600 --> 1:59:59.320 thousand dollars the paintings, depending on the size. Maybe I 1:59:59.320 --> 2:00:04.480 don't know, fifteen to eighteen for a forty by forty canvas, 2:00:05.960 --> 2:00:09.920 and I know that recently they've done a series of 2:00:10.040 --> 2:00:15.760 prints on canvas as well as metal. Really beautiful process. 2:00:16.200 --> 2:00:18.280 I don't really know how they do it, but they 2:00:18.320 --> 2:00:23.160 transfer the photographs I take of the artwork to this 2:00:23.320 --> 2:00:28.560 metal medium and it adds this dimension, especially the psychedelic 2:00:28.640 --> 2:00:32.360 city scapes that I've done blown up, you know, forty 2:00:32.440 --> 2:00:37.880 or fifty by forty on metal. It's wow, really cool looking. 2:00:38.920 --> 2:00:42.440 Switching gears totally once again, to what degree are you 2:00:42.480 --> 2:00:43.200 a gear ahead? 2:00:45.120 --> 2:00:50.400 Oh? Well, I love gear I mean this is the 2:00:51.240 --> 2:00:56.320 how far I'll go. When Sam called me for this 2:00:56.440 --> 2:01:01.040 summer gig, right, the best of all worlds gig, you know, 2:01:01.400 --> 2:01:03.480 after I said yes and I started to play some 2:01:03.560 --> 2:01:06.800 van Halen through my amp, I realized my amp is 2:01:06.920 --> 2:01:11.400 not the proper amp to do the songs properly, you know, 2:01:12.160 --> 2:01:15.280 and that put me on this quest of you know, 2:01:15.280 --> 2:01:19.960 I had to put the gearhead hat on and figure out, like, 2:01:20.000 --> 2:01:23.760 how am I going to represent decades of this genius's work, 2:01:23.840 --> 2:01:26.680 and because he was a gearhead, you know, how am 2:01:26.680 --> 2:01:29.320 I going to condense it down into something that's manageable 2:01:29.360 --> 2:01:32.520 that I can play every night. I went through every 2:01:32.800 --> 2:01:37.600 manufacturer that made an AMP that could really scream that way, 2:01:38.280 --> 2:01:43.600 and eventually landed a third power and guitar player designer 2:01:43.600 --> 2:01:48.879 and owner Delana Scott totally got what I was asking 2:01:49.040 --> 2:01:52.800 her to do and everything, all the teeny little things 2:01:52.800 --> 2:01:55.320 that bug guitar players when they're trying to pull things off. 2:01:55.960 --> 2:01:59.240 And she made me this amp called the Dragon, which 2:02:00.200 --> 2:02:02.880 blew everybody away. When I showed up at the satch 2:02:02.960 --> 2:02:06.600 Vi tour and at the very first one and only 2:02:06.640 --> 2:02:09.720 rehearsal we had in Orlando with this new amp, and 2:02:09.760 --> 2:02:11.760 I said, I've never played this before, but I want 2:02:11.760 --> 2:02:15.200 to start playing this thing right now. And I plugged 2:02:15.240 --> 2:02:18.160 into this thing. I didn't even set the controls. Delana 2:02:18.200 --> 2:02:22.000 had set all the controls up herself, after you know, 2:02:22.080 --> 2:02:26.520 weeks of describing things over the phone, email, text and everything, 2:02:27.920 --> 2:02:31.560 and I haven't touched the dial since. And every night 2:02:31.600 --> 2:02:37.120 that app sounds so amazing, it's so inspiring, and so 2:02:37.440 --> 2:02:40.120 to that degree that would that would be a good 2:02:40.120 --> 2:02:45.200 example of how far I'll go to achieve the right sound. 2:02:45.240 --> 2:02:50.880 Just for one tour, I will commission a special amp 2:02:51.120 --> 2:02:54.560 and just dive right in and start using it in 2:02:54.560 --> 2:02:57.640 front of my audience who's heard me play Marshals forever. 2:02:57.760 --> 2:02:58.040 You know. 2:03:00.120 --> 2:03:03.600 But gear is important. It's you know, it's the thing 2:03:03.720 --> 2:03:07.360 that is going to set you free so that you 2:03:07.440 --> 2:03:10.000 can be inspired and that the audience can tell if 2:03:10.000 --> 2:03:13.000 you're inspired or not. They don't care so much about, 2:03:13.520 --> 2:03:16.440 you know, mistakes like if your strap breaks or your 2:03:16.480 --> 2:03:20.360 antlows up. That's kind of cool for them because they go, 2:03:20.480 --> 2:03:24.400 I remember that show that's where his trap broke, his 2:03:24.480 --> 2:03:27.080 amp blew up, and and he talked to the audience 2:03:27.080 --> 2:03:30.280 for twenty minutes while they fixed it. You know. But 2:03:30.440 --> 2:03:32.360 if you go and you do a show and it's 2:03:32.440 --> 2:03:35.840 lackluster because you're not inspired by your gear, that's the 2:03:35.960 --> 2:03:38.320 kind of memory you don't want your fans to have. 2:03:38.520 --> 2:03:42.800 So the gear is there to inspire the artist and 2:03:42.840 --> 2:03:43.440 the musician. 2:03:44.000 --> 2:03:46.120 And then how did you decide to play the brand 2:03:46.160 --> 2:03:50.440 of guitar that you do? That took a long time. 2:03:50.520 --> 2:03:55.960 I mean, wow, not to bore or your non guitar 2:03:56.000 --> 2:03:59.120 playing audience. But if I had to whittle it down, 2:03:59.120 --> 2:04:01.520 I could say, you know, there's Fender, and there's Gibson, 2:04:02.360 --> 2:04:08.600 there's single coils, and there's humbucking pickups. There's the scale length, 2:04:09.400 --> 2:04:12.640 tight and snappy of a Telecaster and a Fender, and 2:04:12.680 --> 2:04:16.400 then there's the warm, fat sound of the Gibson scale 2:04:16.480 --> 2:04:21.040 length which is shorter Les Paul's three thirty five sgs, 2:04:22.720 --> 2:04:28.040 and guitar players struggle with that. If they're lucky enough 2:04:28.040 --> 2:04:31.520 to own two guitars, they'll probably wind up getting one 2:04:31.560 --> 2:04:34.880 of each. So they're prepared if they're going to do 2:04:34.960 --> 2:04:35.800 session work. 2:04:35.680 --> 2:04:37.960 Or they're going to be playing in a cover band 2:04:37.960 --> 2:04:41.480 and they've got a switch between imitating Hendricks or Jimmy 2:04:41.520 --> 2:04:45.320 Page or whatever you know. But fast forward to this 2:04:45.440 --> 2:04:48.520 modern world. There's other things that guitar players do now 2:04:48.600 --> 2:04:51.840 that are expected, and it has to do with the 2:04:51.920 --> 2:04:55.280 vibrato bar and then the amount of frets on the guitar. 2:04:55.600 --> 2:05:00.200 So the early guitar, I mean Fender and Gibson, we're 2:05:00.240 --> 2:05:05.760 talking guitars that were designed late forties, early fifties, brilliant guitars. 2:05:06.720 --> 2:05:09.000 They're so brilliant most people still play them. I mean, 2:05:09.360 --> 2:05:11.800 you just can't do that any better, but you can 2:05:11.920 --> 2:05:17.560 do something different that gives you more tools, more frets. 2:05:17.680 --> 2:05:21.320 Most of us play twenty four frent guitars now. It 2:05:21.360 --> 2:05:24.920 does allow us to play higher, but it also gives 2:05:25.000 --> 2:05:27.520 us access to what used to be difficult to play 2:05:27.560 --> 2:05:31.520 in the normal high range. We also have these vibrato 2:05:31.640 --> 2:05:33.560 bars that allow us to change the picture of the 2:05:33.600 --> 2:05:38.040 strings in a radical way, and that's become totally accepted 2:05:38.040 --> 2:05:41.920 now to hear guitars screaming super high and doing dive 2:05:41.960 --> 2:05:48.360 bombs super low. It's just like normal. So I play 2:05:48.880 --> 2:05:55.280 a guitar that has been carefully and slowly meticulously fashioned 2:05:56.600 --> 2:05:59.160 to help me do what I love to do, which 2:05:59.200 --> 2:06:04.320 is to play beautiful melodies, appropriate solos, memorable chre progressions 2:06:05.520 --> 2:06:09.120 and makes a lot of strange noises when the time 2:06:09.200 --> 2:06:14.520 is right, and the thing stays in tune and is 2:06:14.640 --> 2:06:17.640 just rock solid, you know. And and it's a team 2:06:17.640 --> 2:06:21.560 effort because you know, the strings from the Dario and 2:06:21.600 --> 2:06:25.760 the pickups from Demarzio, I mean, everybody, all these companies 2:06:25.880 --> 2:06:29.000 chip in to help me feel comfortable every time I 2:06:29.080 --> 2:06:32.160 hit the stage or I'm in the studio and. 2:06:32.160 --> 2:06:33.920 You go out on the road. Now, how many guitars 2:06:33.960 --> 2:06:36.680 do you bring with you? 2:06:36.720 --> 2:06:40.240 No more than ten? I always try to keep it, 2:06:40.880 --> 2:06:46.640 you know, six, you know, one on the bus, one 2:06:46.720 --> 2:06:51.600 for backstage, and then I hate the idea of making 2:06:52.040 --> 2:06:55.040 you know, my tech change strings like four hours every 2:06:55.120 --> 2:06:57.400 day on every guitar. You know, And so the reality 2:06:57.560 --> 2:07:00.560 is why so we always try to trim down. If 2:07:00.600 --> 2:07:03.160 I can get through a show with three guitars, I'll 2:07:03.160 --> 2:07:06.320 do it. If I've got a couple of songs that 2:07:06.360 --> 2:07:08.760 have weird tunings, then we're kind of stuck. We have 2:07:08.800 --> 2:07:12.800 to have them there. But I don't like having to 2:07:12.880 --> 2:07:16.840 relate to a lot of guitars on a physical level, 2:07:17.080 --> 2:07:18.680 you know, because they're all different, they all feel a 2:07:18.680 --> 2:07:21.760 little different. If I could get through a show with 2:07:21.880 --> 2:07:24.960 one guitar, that would be great, But I abuse them 2:07:25.000 --> 2:07:28.840 so much. You know, after three songs they need a 2:07:28.840 --> 2:07:32.800 little tuning up. And this is not the seventies anymore, 2:07:32.840 --> 2:07:34.960 So you can't do that while people are watching. So 2:07:35.480 --> 2:07:36.920 you got to hand it off and get a new 2:07:36.960 --> 2:07:38.840 one and keep the show rolling, you. 2:07:38.760 --> 2:07:46.200 Know, Okay, and your three favorite rock guitars. Don't put 2:07:46.200 --> 2:07:48.560 a lot of time and effort on it, just you know, 2:07:49.440 --> 2:07:50.920 give me off the top of your head. 2:07:51.680 --> 2:07:55.120 Top of my head, I would really say, Jimmy Hendrix 2:07:56.040 --> 2:08:01.000 is my all global god of all time. H an 2:08:01.120 --> 2:08:09.560 innovator to two above all innovators, and uh, it's oh yeah, 2:08:09.800 --> 2:08:14.800 I mean I can't. I'd have to say I'm going 2:08:14.880 --> 2:08:18.400 to leap ahead from the guys who I mean everybody, 2:08:18.800 --> 2:08:22.400 uh influenced somebody else. But I mean I still hear 2:08:22.640 --> 2:08:26.640 and rely on the pacing and the ingenuity of George 2:08:26.640 --> 2:08:30.640 Harrison and Keith Richards. I know they don't fit with Hendricks. 2:08:31.520 --> 2:08:34.360 People expect me to say, you know, Jeff Beck and 2:08:34.600 --> 2:08:37.760 out in the Holdsworth and stuff like that, but uh, 2:08:38.920 --> 2:08:44.480 those those three guys, they really laid down some stuff. 2:08:44.880 --> 2:08:50.600 I mean, they it's just it transcended their technique. They 2:08:50.600 --> 2:08:53.920 weren't neither of them could play everything, you know, even 2:08:53.960 --> 2:08:59.800 Hendricks he was not like McLaughlin or Holdsworth. He certainly 2:08:59.800 --> 2:09:03.560 won't like a Segovia or Christopher Parkning or something like that. 2:09:04.080 --> 2:09:08.520 So each these were individual human beings that somehow use 2:09:08.640 --> 2:09:13.280 their bodies to produce music that is so memorable and 2:09:13.320 --> 2:09:17.480 so loved and so solid and so enduring. They were 2:09:17.480 --> 2:09:23.440 so inventive all the time, and I rely on that. 2:09:23.520 --> 2:09:27.520 I feel that, Like every time I'm playing something in 2:09:27.560 --> 2:09:32.840 me says that's enough, that's not interesting. You know, it's 2:09:32.960 --> 2:09:36.680 I refer back to the great things that they recorded 2:09:37.440 --> 2:09:43.200 and and and I'm lucky that they were part that 2:09:43.240 --> 2:09:45.000 they've been part of my foundation, I think. 2:09:46.080 --> 2:09:48.040 And if you listen to Hendricks, what do you listen to. 2:09:51.400 --> 2:09:55.040 Everything? Uh? You know, he was I'm a moody person, 2:09:55.120 --> 2:09:57.960 and he was very moody, and he produced music that 2:09:58.120 --> 2:10:01.840 could really make you forget every other song I ever did. 2:10:02.320 --> 2:10:05.280 So nineteen eighty three, I Meerman and I should turn 2:10:05.320 --> 2:10:08.640 to be like, that's like four guitar players. I don't 2:10:08.640 --> 2:10:12.440 know how he did that. That's like so intense, that 2:10:12.560 --> 2:10:17.120 song so beautiful, and again you get I would say 2:10:17.600 --> 2:10:19.680 one of the things about Hendricks is that you never 2:10:19.880 --> 2:10:22.720 got the sense that he practiced or that he was 2:10:22.800 --> 2:10:26.240 showing you something that he practiced or he learned from 2:10:26.240 --> 2:10:32.440 a book. It just didn't Nothing was methodical, nothing was didactic. 2:10:32.560 --> 2:10:37.240 Nothing sounded like I practiced this scale for twelve years 2:10:37.280 --> 2:10:40.400 and now I'm demonstrating, which a lot of guitar players 2:10:40.400 --> 2:10:44.720 they you know, they use that for effect. And that's cool. 2:10:44.960 --> 2:10:48.040 But that's what's so beautiful about what Hendricks did. He 2:10:48.280 --> 2:10:52.200 just transcended it. I mean a machine gun from Live 2:10:52.200 --> 2:10:55.880 at the Fillmore, that's the greatest live performance ever. It's 2:10:56.000 --> 2:10:57.680 just you can't touch it. 2:10:59.440 --> 2:11:04.240 Okay, you said that you're moody. Listening to you today, 2:11:05.680 --> 2:11:09.600 I would not have guessed that at all. So am 2:11:09.680 --> 2:11:12.120 I just getting one aspect of your personality? 2:11:13.040 --> 2:11:16.520 Well, I'm trying to be a professional musician giving an 2:11:16.520 --> 2:11:20.000 interview to a very professional person who I respect, and 2:11:20.040 --> 2:11:23.440 so I don't want to waste your time. But if 2:11:23.480 --> 2:11:25.720 I was deep in songwriting, if I was writing a 2:11:25.760 --> 2:11:28.360 sad song, I'd be so deep in it. 2:11:28.960 --> 2:11:33.240 And well, let's pull it back from music. Are you 2:11:33.320 --> 2:11:38.000 the type of person who gets depressed? Are you an introvert? Extrovert? 2:11:38.040 --> 2:11:41.280 Who's the Who's the Joe Satriani behind the curtain? 2:11:43.720 --> 2:11:47.240 Oh wow, you'd have to ask my wife and son 2:11:47.280 --> 2:11:57.160 about that. But I think I enjoy diving deep into 2:11:57.920 --> 2:12:02.280 a mood, uh, you know, to write music, to paint, 2:12:02.880 --> 2:12:08.640 just just to feel it. And and if I if 2:12:08.680 --> 2:12:12.200 I something's bothering me about something like you know, let's 2:12:12.200 --> 2:12:14.720 say I'm looking at the I pull up a CNN 2:12:14.800 --> 2:12:17.160 and I see a report about something I wasn't thinking 2:12:17.160 --> 2:12:21.240 about and it shocks me. I'll dive deep. I'll keep 2:12:21.280 --> 2:12:25.240 researching that story. And you know, most people will go, oh, 2:12:25.280 --> 2:12:27.760 you know, I don't want to read about that tragedy 2:12:27.840 --> 2:12:30.960 or that horrible thing. You know, I will. I'll go 2:12:31.280 --> 2:12:33.240 all the way deep into it. I want to know 2:12:33.400 --> 2:12:39.560 about that and and and it's different, it's separate from 2:12:39.560 --> 2:12:41.760 that part of me that just would do that to 2:12:41.800 --> 2:12:44.600 write a song. Although that's how I write songs. I 2:12:44.600 --> 2:12:49.400 can't write songs for order, you know, Like if you 2:12:49.480 --> 2:12:52.840 ask me, you know, Joe, I need a song for 2:12:53.000 --> 2:12:54.880 my podcast, you know, I'd be like, oh God, this 2:12:55.000 --> 2:12:59.200 is work, you know, But I will write it. I 2:12:59.240 --> 2:13:01.120 will write a few songs by the end of the 2:13:01.120 --> 2:13:05.040 week about what I've seen, experienced and felt, what I dreamt, 2:13:05.600 --> 2:13:09.000 something real, something imagined, because that's the way I write. 2:13:09.040 --> 2:13:11.560 I just write about real experience, which means I have 2:13:11.640 --> 2:13:17.320 to go deep and like find out what the real 2:13:17.400 --> 2:13:20.240 truth is about this feeling that I have. And that's 2:13:20.240 --> 2:13:23.800 the only method I have to edit myself. And you know, 2:13:23.840 --> 2:13:26.240 when you're writing music, you have to edit. You got 2:13:26.280 --> 2:13:29.120 to take out all the notes that mean nothing to 2:13:29.200 --> 2:13:33.360 get down to the notes that mean everything, so that 2:13:33.400 --> 2:13:36.960 the song is specific about this story you're trying to 2:13:37.000 --> 2:13:41.360 reach people with, you know. So that's when the mood thing, 2:13:42.680 --> 2:13:48.080 my moodiness is beneficial, so I can really turn it 2:13:48.120 --> 2:13:51.320 on and I don't mind wallowing in it or brooding. 2:13:51.680 --> 2:13:54.720 That said Michael Tilson. Thomas said to me once he 2:13:54.800 --> 2:13:57.560 was listening to my catalog and he wrote me an 2:13:57.600 --> 2:14:00.600 email and he said, brooding, brooding is good. 2:14:03.200 --> 2:14:06.360 Okay, As someone who has worked as a musician for decades, 2:14:06.960 --> 2:14:10.040 did you ever sew your wild out? So you're basically 2:14:10.120 --> 2:14:13.360 the guy from Westbury, Long Island, not drinking and drug 2:14:13.520 --> 2:14:15.480 and going back to the room or back to your 2:14:15.480 --> 2:14:16.640 bunk after the show. 2:14:18.800 --> 2:14:23.480 I was famous for delaying going to the party during 2:14:23.560 --> 2:14:27.000 high school because they'd say, come on, we're leaving. It'd 2:14:27.000 --> 2:14:29.880 be like eight, you know, we're going out to so 2:14:30.000 --> 2:14:31.720 and so place is going to be insane, and I'd go, 2:14:31.800 --> 2:14:34.520 I'll meet you there at eleven thirty, you know. And 2:14:34.560 --> 2:14:38.720 because if I hadn't done every scale at every metronome 2:14:38.920 --> 2:14:42.000 level whatever, I just couldn't live with myself. So I 2:14:42.040 --> 2:14:45.000 would practice and practice and practice, and then i'd meet 2:14:45.000 --> 2:14:47.120 them later and I'd arrive at the party and everyone 2:14:47.160 --> 2:14:49.760 would be totally wasted and so and I'd go like, oh, 2:14:49.800 --> 2:14:53.400 this doesn't look very cool. So I mean, I did 2:14:53.440 --> 2:14:56.240 my share of partying but it never took over my life. 2:14:56.280 --> 2:15:02.800 It never confused me. It never took the place of 2:15:02.840 --> 2:15:07.080 connecting with my friends or the people I fell in 2:15:07.120 --> 2:15:09.520 love with, and certainly never got in front of the music. 2:15:09.920 --> 2:15:15.280 You know, how'd you meet your wife? 2:15:15.680 --> 2:15:18.760 Okay, let's see if I can do this sinkly as possible. 2:15:19.160 --> 2:15:24.560 My older sister's current boyfriend at the time had a daughter, 2:15:25.680 --> 2:15:30.760 and the daughter had a roommate, two roommates. One of 2:15:30.760 --> 2:15:35.200 the roommates was my future wife. And I had moved 2:15:35.480 --> 2:15:39.160 to Berkeley and I'd been practicing like twelve hours a 2:15:39.240 --> 2:15:42.440 day for like two months, and I was living with 2:15:42.480 --> 2:15:46.000 my sisters at the time. And one night, my sister 2:15:46.120 --> 2:15:48.360 Jones said, you have to get out of the house, 2:15:48.640 --> 2:15:51.840 like you cannot just you know, be a hermit with 2:15:51.880 --> 2:15:54.640 the guitar. And I was like, okay, okay. She said, 2:15:55.200 --> 2:15:59.360 you know, my boyfriend's daughter is having a birthday party. 2:15:59.560 --> 2:16:01.880 You're a wich want don't you just come? And I 2:16:02.000 --> 2:16:04.360 just said, okay, I just gave up. You know, I 2:16:04.400 --> 2:16:07.040 was tired from practicing. So I went there and there 2:16:07.080 --> 2:16:09.360 she was. That's how we met. 2:16:10.120 --> 2:16:13.200 And was it an instant romance for me? 2:16:13.600 --> 2:16:17.839 It was. It took a lot of work to convince 2:16:17.880 --> 2:16:20.440 my wife because I was unemployed. I kind of looked 2:16:20.520 --> 2:16:23.640 like Cat Stevens when it was Maybe I shouldn't have 2:16:23.640 --> 2:16:26.760 looked like Cat Stevens at the time, you know, long hair, beard, 2:16:27.600 --> 2:16:30.240 wearing clothes that were maybe a couple of years too old. 2:16:33.080 --> 2:16:37.720 But that was nineteen seventy seven, so we've been together 2:16:37.760 --> 2:16:38.280 ever since. 2:16:39.760 --> 2:16:43.000 And when you're off the road, are you the type 2:16:43.040 --> 2:16:46.600 of person who's deep into your mood or you're burning 2:16:46.720 --> 2:16:49.840 up the airways on the phone, whether it be text, email, 2:16:50.200 --> 2:16:52.680 actual phone calls. 2:16:53.320 --> 2:16:58.720 Uh? Well, you, I mean, there's so much business that 2:16:59.200 --> 2:17:03.160 is on the artists today. You know that there there 2:17:03.400 --> 2:17:07.800 there's no more staff at the label to handle things. 2:17:07.920 --> 2:17:11.080 You know, it's just the artist has to be online 2:17:11.160 --> 2:17:15.960 every day keep things going. So I'm not obsessive about it. 2:17:16.280 --> 2:17:18.720 I don't. I never post about private things. I don't 2:17:18.760 --> 2:17:20.879 show people what I'm meeting for lunch or dinner or 2:17:20.879 --> 2:17:25.480 any of that kind of stuff. I keep that part private. 2:17:25.640 --> 2:17:29.200 And I focus on the music and you know, the 2:17:29.200 --> 2:17:33.959 the albums and the and the tours. But I I 2:17:34.000 --> 2:17:43.680 always find that I have to structure practice for the 2:17:43.760 --> 2:17:47.280 next project. I have to carve out time to be 2:17:47.360 --> 2:17:51.160 left alone to write. I like writing alone. I love 2:17:51.200 --> 2:17:55.520 having two months to brainstorm and to collect all the 2:17:55.560 --> 2:17:58.640 materials that I write. I write a lot, you know, 2:17:58.720 --> 2:18:01.800 and only use a third maybe or a quarter for 2:18:01.840 --> 2:18:08.359 an album. But I think in the last twenty years 2:18:08.480 --> 2:18:11.640 it seemed like there's been more randomness. I mean, the 2:18:11.879 --> 2:18:16.840 album cycles have changed. Social media has completely upended the 2:18:16.920 --> 2:18:19.840 old model of how to deal with press and going 2:18:19.879 --> 2:18:23.040 away and coming back, you know, that that whole routine 2:18:23.080 --> 2:18:26.400 of trying to maintain an audience, you know, presence through absence, 2:18:26.440 --> 2:18:30.560 that kind of thing, and so you were always kind 2:18:30.560 --> 2:18:34.480 of like doing something, you know, but then having the collaboration, 2:18:34.720 --> 2:18:40.040 especially with Sam and Chickenfoot, was quite unique, and then 2:18:40.240 --> 2:18:44.560 the cycle of the G three's, and it's just it's been, 2:18:46.320 --> 2:18:48.800 I want to say, more different. It sounds kind of weak, 2:18:48.920 --> 2:18:51.320 but it just seems like it's been a little bit 2:18:51.360 --> 2:18:54.640 more random the last fifteen or twenty years than the 2:18:54.720 --> 2:18:57.439 previous fifteen or twenty which were a little bit more streamlined. 2:18:57.720 --> 2:19:01.520 Well, hanging on that same point, if one talks to 2:19:01.560 --> 2:19:05.840 someone who's a professional sideman, professional studio musician, to the 2:19:05.879 --> 2:19:10.400 degree they still have those they're really big networkers Okay, 2:19:10.720 --> 2:19:12.560 I'm not saying this is the way, it is, just talking. 2:19:12.600 --> 2:19:15.400 You know. Well I was doing this and this person 2:19:15.520 --> 2:19:20.600 called me here and I was driven, you know, who 2:19:20.640 --> 2:19:20.920 are you? 2:19:21.920 --> 2:19:25.560 Yeah, I don't network. I don't. Yeah, I don't. As 2:19:25.600 --> 2:19:28.640 people call me, I guess they reach out or they 2:19:28.680 --> 2:19:33.840 reach out to my manager, and you know, eventually, if 2:19:33.879 --> 2:19:37.039 they know that it's okay to call me in a 2:19:37.080 --> 2:19:40.480 particular week or something, they'll say, hey, you interested in this? 2:19:40.560 --> 2:19:42.880 I just got this from so and so. You know, 2:19:44.640 --> 2:19:48.600 but I, yeah, I don't do that. I you know, 2:19:48.760 --> 2:19:53.680 back in eighty eight, I signed to oh this company, 2:19:53.680 --> 2:20:00.760 gour Vain and Schwartz down in La to do soundtracks. 2:20:01.280 --> 2:20:03.560 Everyone was, oh, you're going to be doing soundtracks. Everyone 2:20:03.640 --> 2:20:08.080 loves the Sincerenrato music. I had this deep u suspicion 2:20:08.520 --> 2:20:11.560 because right away they thought, oh, they don't want to 2:20:11.560 --> 2:20:13.560 listen to my music as it is. They have to 2:20:13.600 --> 2:20:17.120 see something in order to accept music. But you know, 2:20:17.200 --> 2:20:20.119 it's just like work. You know, you spend enough decades 2:20:20.160 --> 2:20:23.320 not working as a musician. You never snicker at the 2:20:23.400 --> 2:20:27.600 offer of employment, you know. So I thought, okay, I'll 2:20:27.640 --> 2:20:31.119 try it, and then then I you know, they were 2:20:31.160 --> 2:20:33.480 sending scripts that were horrible, and then there were all 2:20:33.480 --> 2:20:37.080 these you know, invitations, Oh, you should go lunch with 2:20:37.120 --> 2:20:38.920 this guy, you should go, you know, And I kept saying, 2:20:39.200 --> 2:20:42.280 you realize I live in San Francisco. I'm not in Hollywood, 2:20:42.280 --> 2:20:44.879 you know, and you should move to Hollywood, you know. 2:20:44.920 --> 2:20:46.520 And because you got to hang out with this these 2:20:46.560 --> 2:20:49.480 people know those people, and I just said no, and 2:20:49.560 --> 2:20:52.080 I that was the end of that contract, and I said, 2:20:52.080 --> 2:20:53.800 I don't want to be bothered by any of this. 2:20:54.480 --> 2:20:59.920 It's like I can't write music while I'm I'm prefer 2:21:00.360 --> 2:21:04.080 people not to be their friends, but to get work. 2:21:04.160 --> 2:21:08.040 I just didn't seem sincere at all. And so I 2:21:08.120 --> 2:21:11.440 mean there are I mean, you know, I gave up 2:21:12.640 --> 2:21:15.879 doing drugs because I realized that people who were making 2:21:15.959 --> 2:21:19.720 money making and selling drugs were people that I wouldn't like, 2:21:20.520 --> 2:21:26.320 So why would I help them? You know? And I 2:21:26.360 --> 2:21:29.920 thought the same thing, like why would I be insincere 2:21:30.240 --> 2:21:35.200 in friendships when I don't believe in being insincere. So 2:21:35.640 --> 2:21:38.920 that was easy for me just to tell management, like, no, 2:21:39.000 --> 2:21:41.120 I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to 2:21:41.800 --> 2:21:44.360 keep doing what I'm doing. And if people like the music, great, 2:21:45.040 --> 2:21:47.320 if they invite me to go on tour. Great. If 2:21:47.320 --> 2:21:51.720 they don't, I'll take my lumps when they come. But 2:21:52.000 --> 2:21:53.440 I'm not going to be fake. I'm not going to 2:21:54.240 --> 2:21:56.879 you know, move where I don't want to live and 2:21:57.200 --> 2:21:58.680 go to lunch with people I don't like. 2:22:00.200 --> 2:22:02.640 Well, you know that brings up so many questions, but 2:22:02.879 --> 2:22:04.800 I think we've come to the end of the feeling 2:22:04.840 --> 2:22:10.400 we've known for today. Joe, You've been so sincere, so upfront. 2:22:10.760 --> 2:22:13.320 I can literally continue for hours. There's so much more 2:22:13.360 --> 2:22:16.160 stuff I wanted to ask, but I wanted it the highlights. 2:22:16.760 --> 2:22:20.160 So thank you so much for taking the time to 2:22:20.240 --> 2:22:21.600 talk to me and my audience. 2:22:22.280 --> 2:22:25.400 Oh this has been wonderful. I love your newsletters. They're 2:22:25.440 --> 2:22:27.240 really great. Don't stop. 2:22:28.560 --> 2:22:30.360 I won't and I know you won't either. 2:22:32.920 --> 2:22:35.920 Fantastic And the podcast are just that's really great that 2:22:36.320 --> 2:22:40.120 you do this a voice of reason and insight that 2:22:40.720 --> 2:22:42.840 people need and I enjoy. 2:22:43.120 --> 2:22:46.600 Well. Thank you, Joe. In any event, till next time, 2:22:47.200 --> 2:22:48.720 This is Bob left Sense