Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Michael McDonald

Transcript

Michael McDonald · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Set podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is Michael McDonald, who has a new autobiography,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: What a Fool Believes. Michael, you reveal so much truth
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: in the book, an he regrets.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: No, I mean not yet anyway. It's funny, you know,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: every time someone says that to me, I kind of
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: crange a little bit, thinking, well, what did I say?
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Because I didn't think I was all that revealing. Most
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: people who knew me at all, you know, probably had
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: some idea that I was a little left of center
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: for a while there, you know, But I felt like
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: if I was going to tell my story, I needed
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: to be as honest as I could about you know,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: addiction and things like that that I probably would have
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: not talked about I've had. I been doing just an
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: op ed about my experience as a musician, but this
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: being a personal memoir, it seemed like it was it
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: kind of was incumbent on me to say something about
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: my personal life that would be would cast a little
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: bit of a different light on all of it.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Well, definitely cast a different light. You're always the guy
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: who's very dignified. A lot of people have no idea
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: including myself. Now, you know, there's been a lot of publicity,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: but let's go through it.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Anyway.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: You wrote the book with Paul Rise or exactly how
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: is it inspired?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I would have to give Paul most of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: credit for that. We've known each other about twenty years,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: and you know, Paul is by nature, he's one of
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: those guys that, uh, he's you know, he's a writer himself. Uh,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: he's hearing screenplays, books, uh, you name it. Uh uh
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: developed TV shows, movies and characters in movies. So his
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: interest in people in general is the very nat comes
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: very natural. You know, he's he's one of those guys
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: that's likely to kind of know what makes you tick,
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: just out of his own curiosity. And so as friends,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: we we you know, he was always Uh. We met
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: at a party years ago and wound up back at
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: his house playing music in his studio till we ours
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and uh we found out that we both really loved
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: the Beatles and uh in Botown and all the stuff
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: that we we had grown up listening to. Uh and
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: uh he kind of came to it. Our conversations were
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: kind of steered towards, oh, you know, things like got
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: the Beatles bridges on their songs, you know, from this
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: album to that album that had the greatest bridges and
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: all their songs. We started kind of replaying those memories
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: of you know, those songs and what great bridges they had,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, you know, kind of musing uh uh conversation.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: And and from that point we we we were friends.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And he would always come here us play when I
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: was when we played in town, and I actually came
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: up and played with us on stage. Paul's a great,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: very accomplished piano player, and uh he said, I dare say,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: much better pianel player than I. But we uh so
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: we we always we had that in common, music in
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: common from the get go, and uh, you know, but
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: his interest in a lot of what what went on
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: with Steely Dan and groups like that were as interesting
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to him as say, our conversations were about the Beatles
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: and stuff. Can't we any any inside stuff we could? Uh?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: We heard or said. We would always share, you know,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: about the bands we liked. But he was always very
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: interested in stealing Dan, Donald and Walter and the Dubies,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Pat and Tommy and all. How all that happened, and
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: seemingly at the same time. At one point he said
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: to me, you know, you should write a book so
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I can stop pestoring you with all these questions. And
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: I said, well, you know, I thought about it, but
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure how I would even do that. I've
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: written a little bit of you know, op ads for
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: magazine and stuff, or short stories, but I you know,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I don't think I could take on a book and
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: really know what I was doing. He goes, well, I've
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: written a few, so let me help you, you know,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: if you're up for it. So I thought, well, how
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: lucky am I in this moment to have Paul Riser
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: of all people, offer to help me write this book.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: And that alone made me think, well I should do it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: You know, whether I was apprehensive about it or not,
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: I couldn't tell you. I kind of was, you know,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: because immediately you start to think about on your life
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and you go, well, how would I talk about this,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: or how would I talk about that? Or who would
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I talk about? Who would I you know, uh, you know,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: how would I be careful not to throw anyone under
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: the bus for any reason? However inadvertently, you know, because
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: it's you know, you always have to be careful when
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: you're telling your story, you know, because it involves other people,
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: and you want to be cognizant and you know, sure
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: not to throw anybody under the bus, like I say,
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: even if you don't mean to, you know. So there
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: was a lot of fact checking, and there was a
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff that Paul was unbelievably helpful with and
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: not to to say not the least which almost in
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: every aspect of writing the book, we kind of edited
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: as we went, you know, and he was uncanny with
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: his ability to like, you know, well, hey, you know
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: this should go This shouldn't come here, this should come
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: later in the book. And I don't even know how
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: he knew that, because there wasn't a letter in the
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: book yet. We haven't even written it, you know, but
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: he just somehow knew instinctually that don't give this away
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: too soon, you know, this might be more valuable later,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and uh, and things like you know, I would write
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: for a couple of days, you know, and come back
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: to him with this, you know, a couple of the
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: pages worth of stuff, and he would boil that down,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: uh to like here, well here's where you're I think
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: your story really is a lot of this other stuff
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: nobody cares, you know, but uh, this this year is something,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: you know, and uh, develop us and develop that, do
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: you know, Try to develop that and try to focus
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: on that, and then we'll get back together. And of
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: course I would, you know, the first couple of times,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I would like, Oh, yeah, you're just you're trashing my
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: whole story here. You know. I worked for hours on this,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: you know, and uh, but every time I read it
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: the second time, what he had suggested that I get
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: rid of, you know, or or however he suggested to
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: edit it, uh, a lot of cut, cutting and pasting,
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: you know. The second time I read it, I would
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: be totally in agreement with what he was suggesting, you know.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And so I learned to not even question him after
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: a while. I would just hand him stuff and we
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: would look at it together, and pretty much he would
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: zero in on what needed to be done with it,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: you know. So I have to give him a lot
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: of credit in the writing of this book. First of all,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have ever gotten done without his work ethic,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean, I'd still be wondering about the
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: preface at this point, you know. But it was really
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: helpful all the way down the line even reading the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: audio or the audiobook having him there, you know, he
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: was he was on hand with me and kind of
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: directed me through it and really kind of reminded me
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: in most cases. And I'm not even sure I still
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: did a very good job of it. But you know
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: how how I said it when I told him the
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: story or when we talked about it, you know, because
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I was tended to start reading things like Frankenstein, you know,
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: like and then I, well, yeah, and then we went here,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: you know, and you know he would go, you know,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: when you said that the first time, it was kind
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: of like this, you know, kind of offhanded, and so
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: I was able to kind of recapture some of the
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: spirit of how we had first talked about all this,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: uh what became text in the book. You know, I
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: honestly don't know how I would have gotten through this
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: experience without him, And the audio book almost killed me.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: You know. It was like, you know, eight days of
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: six hour days of reading, uh these things that all
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: of a sudden seemed like a tongue twisting contest. You know,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: it was you know, you never know how goofy some
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: of your you're paraphrasing or writing of anything, is until
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: you have to go read it. You know.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: So, what are a couple of your favorite Beatles songs
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: with bridges?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Uh? Why? So many? Uh? No reply is one of
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: those great bridges, you know. While you know, if I
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: were you, I'd realize that I will to be a fool,
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: and you gave me no reply. You know. They just
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: had such a great sense of chord progression and relative
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: key knowledge, you know that I think was very natural
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: for them, just being guitar players. They I don't think
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: they really were steeped in music theory, but they you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: they they had played enough club gigs, Like I always
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: tell my son, you know, playing those club gigs is
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: where you learn everything you need to know about pop music,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: you know. Uh. And but it seemed like Beatles six
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: uh revolver all the way through those records, all the
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: way up to the Revolver and on from there. One
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: thing the Beatles always did well was write a great
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: bridge to their song.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know, it seems so obvious. How come no one
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: else can do that? No one else sees that magic
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: in a record.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: You know, It's a funny thing. I don't know that
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: any of us see the magic when we're when it's happening.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure the same for the Beatles. You know,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: You you're just kind of when you're making a record,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: you're more or less just kind of have your head
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: down swing and trying to come up with something that that,
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: uh you think we'll capture the listeners imagination, you know,
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: and uh, I know with the Doobies for a long time,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: for us, it was, you know, we wanted to kind
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: of incorporate uh.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Key feelings in our songs that you know, we thought
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: we you know, would lift the listeners you know, emotion,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: you know, or or uh and and a lot of
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: that came from listening to early the early stuff, you know, uh,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: some of the great R and B songs, uh, you
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: know from Motown and the Beatles stuff for sure, you know,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: and uh and then you know, I think we all
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: learned a great appreciation of uh American music from the
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: British bands because they really fed it back to us.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Most of us missed so much great American music because
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the radio stations weren't playing it on mainstream radio when
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: we were kids. You know, we heard these English bands
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: playing Muddy Waters and Howland Wolf and you know, Willie
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Dixon songs and we were just like, what is this stuff?
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: It's so great, you know, and it was it was
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: part of our own culture and we weren't aware of it.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: How'd you first hear the Beatles?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I remember hearing about them when I was in sixth grade.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: One of the eighth graders came to school with his
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: hair combed down, and the nuns kicked him out of school,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: sent him home, and it was a big, you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: old gossip. It was about which Brandon showing up with
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: his hair combed down in his face and pink sent home.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: And then you know, that's the first I ever heard
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: about the Beatles, And wasn't shortly after that or I
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: want to hold your hand, you know. Uh. And you
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: know it was kind of a bit of sophistication and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: pop records that we didn't hear. I think some of
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: our pop records prior to that had a certain sophistication,
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: you know. Uh. I always my ear was drawn too
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: early on uh kind of pop R and B stuff.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: For that reason. I remember hearing stop Her on Site
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: by uh Uh Edwin starred and uh, it's just something
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: about the arrangement. It was just so much hipper than
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: a lot of uh pop records were you know that
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: that followed a certain formula of simplicity. You know, Uh,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: some of these records it's it was like they let
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: themselves go or something, you know, and uh, what they
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: what they did was they kind of gave credit to
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: the listener for being able to appreciate what they were doing.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: You know. Uh, writers like Burt Backrack and the Beatles,
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: you know, they kind of went ahead and uh, you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: followed their own muse and the audience was quick to respond.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many songs by Burt Backrack and
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Hal David and that. You know, if you asked the
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: typical in our person at the time, well it's a
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: little Yeah, you can't put a six four bar in
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the middle of the pop song. People are gonna fall
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: up the chair, you know. But that's not true. Because
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: if you make it sound natural and it's and you
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: make it, you do it just because it's a beautiful
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: thing to do in that moment, people will get that,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: you know, and they'll they and proof is in the pudding.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: They love those songs to this day.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know, you're from the same generation. I am a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: lot of us listen to the baseball games on our transistor.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Then we shifted to music, and then the Beatles hit
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: What was your Experience?
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: I used to listen. We had those little Japanese transistoradd
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: it was forgot him for Christmas. And what an amazing,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: you know, cultural shift that was for all of his
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: kids walking down the street with these things pressed against
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: our ears. And I used to go to bed on
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: Sunday night with mine, sneaking into my bedroom and put
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: it under my pillow, and when my mother left the room,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: you know, and you know, it was trying to get
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: us to go to sleep, you know, in time for
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: school on Monday. I would I could pick up stations,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: uh late at night on Sunday night that you couldn't
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: normally pick up during the day. The airways were all
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: to crowded their gains or something. But it was a
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: station out of Nashville, Tennessee, and it was a gospel
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: music station. And the DJ was a guy who apparently
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: where I got this correct, he went around the mat
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Nashville metro area to all the churches and he would
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: record choirs on you know, fairly sophisticated portable tape player
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: at the time, and at the end of his day
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that afternoon, prior to his airtime, he would edit these
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: tapes and he would pick the best performances from the
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: what he thought was the best choir performances of that
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Sunday from the different churches, and that would be his
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: program that evening, and he would just with very little talk,
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: he would just segue from one performance into the next.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: End each one was more passionate and more exciting and
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: you know, powerful than the last one. And I remember
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the kid thinking even back then that you know, gospel
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: music is really so much more passionate than rock and roll.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, rock and roll is great, and I love
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: rock and roll like anybody else, but it's kind of
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: ways to go to catch up with gospel music as
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: far as just pure power and uh and emotion, you know,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: especially in the performance and live performances. You know, Uh,
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: the gospel performances have you know, historically, uh, the gospel performers,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I should say historically have been you know, unbelievable uh artists,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: you know, with the prowess beyond you know, superhuman prowess.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: To me, you know, uh, to this day, when I
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: listen to what's popular now is a lot of these
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: YouTube you know, excerpts of gospel piano players, and it's
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: just you want to just throw in the towel and
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: you know, pick up another profession after you hear these guys,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: and some of them are like in their teens, you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: and they're just already that great, you know. So it's
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: always been, uh something a bar, a musical bar for
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: me is what goes on in gospel music, something that
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I've never felt, you know, I've been a part of,
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: but I sure enjoy listening to it, and I use
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: it as an inspiration to, you know, maybe trying to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: learn something in my old an shaw.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So in the summer of sixty nine, when the Edmund
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Hawkins singers have Oh Happy Day, are you pissed? Because
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it's taking room from the Beatles and other things where
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: you say, oh, this is great, this is just in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: my wheelhouse.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: No no, I love that track, and it kind of
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: brought to the airwaves what had always been there, but
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: it had been disguised as pop R and B. And
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: you know, all of our rhythm blues music is the
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: director of the American gospel music, you know, and by
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: that I mean African American gospel music, because that really
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: is the true well, you know, there's a Southern gospel
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: and all that, and rock and roll has also mirror that.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: You know from the beginning. You know, all the different
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: forms of pop music in this country that are truly
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: American I think come from gospel roots. You know. It's
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: the music that people found here, that they further developed here,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: that they found comfort in living their day to day lives.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: That's what got them through, you know, and then it
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: evolved into more secular music that they enjoyed, you know,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: in their living rooms and outside of church. You know.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: But you know, all the early R and B performers,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: I think most of them grew up in church and
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: learned to just sing and play. Probably most of them
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: in church.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, So the Beatles break on the radio in January
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: sixty four, thron ed Sullivan three times in February. In
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: my world, we were all playing eylon string guitars folk,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and then as soon as Beetles hit, everybody got an
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: electric guitar and everybody started forming bands. What was your experience.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Much the same? I think. I think every uh, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: if you didn't just play sports, you know, every other
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: American male had a garage bad you know, and dreams
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: of making a hit record and uh, you know, being
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: being like the Beatles. You know, that was our template
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: for uh, you know, social status, you know. Uh, and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: we were no different, you know. We We started out
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: and one of drummer's basement, you know, and uh, you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: we were probably as terrible as every garage band starts
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: out as and uh, but we you know, developed it
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: a little further, found some new equipment along the way,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and we're able to actually play a few gigs and
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: the rest of for the most part, most of us
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: made a life out of playing music. With all the
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: guys I played with when I was twelve thirteen years
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: old are still playing music to this day.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: And that's their primary way of putting food on the table,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: so to speak.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yes and no. I mean, I think there's not any
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: of us that haven't worked outside of the music business
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: just to you know, like you say, put food on
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: the table. But I pretty much stayed within the bounds
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: of working because I was single, you know, for the
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: longest part of my life till I met my wife.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I didn't really have a lot of responsibility, and I
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: took that to a whole new level, you know, when
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: I was a musician, just you know, to keep my
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: attention and focused in one area. You know, I pity
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: the woman who would have ever been hooked up with
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: me during those periods, because I you know, I lived
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: very hand of miles for a while there in a while,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: get a lot of CouchSurfing as a musician in La Okay.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: In my world, everybody formed a garage band. The story
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I tell as I was playing guitars with my good friend.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He says, now we're going to change keys, and I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: said to myself, I'm out, there's no future here. When
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: did you know this was your thing and you were
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: going to write it to the end.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: You know, there was a lot of complexity with that
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: for me. You know, I think just somewhere in there,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: I thought, you know, if I have anything to offer,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: it's somewhere in this realm, and anything else would be
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: starting over for me. And I didn't really have a
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: lot of confidence on myself as far as you know.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: I remember one time in park I think I talked
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: about this in a poko in front of the bank
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: and I was eating Ah. You know, I'd taken my
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: life to a whole new economic bottom, you know, at
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: that point, you know, and uh, just watching this guy
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: in a three piece suit stand there smoking cigarette and
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I kind of just assumed he was on a break.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: He was a bank executive, and I'm thinking, God, what
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: must it. What's it like to be him? You know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: to have all these people's money that you're responsible for
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and this job of great responsibility. And I wouldn't last
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: a day in that environment, you know. Uh, you know,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I could barely you know, uh get it together to
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: get my piano to the shop and pick some keys
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: and you know, uh this ding dong and Dr Pepper.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It's going to be my one meal for the day,
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: you know. But I, uh, you know, it was just
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: a period of my life. I was young, and we're
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: all we all went there. I think, I, I uh,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I stretched that period out a little more than most people,
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: but I think that we all know what that's like
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: to be that age and you know, kind of irresponsible,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: you know, in terms of what the world sees as responsibility,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: you know. I to this day, I marveled a lot
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: of my friends who tell me about their kids and
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: what their kids are going, and you know, and I go, well,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I was at that age, I was just looking for
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: another club gig. You know, I wasn't really I wasn't
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: even really that concern with what lie beyond that. You know.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: It was just can I borrow an amp in time
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: to do this gig? You know? And then you know,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I gotta be careful with this cord because I don't,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: you know, get it just right. It's going to crackle
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: when I play. You know. I was in that world,
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: you know, but you know I wouldn't trade it. I
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it. I think it was a lot of it
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: for me was I was avoiding growing up. You know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: I was somehow locked in a time frame in my
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: own emotional state, you know, emotional maturity, and I just
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: didn't think I was cut out to go and learn
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: to be a teacher or a lawyer or any kind
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: of other professional music was it? Or it was all
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: or nothing for me with music, And I thought, you know,
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: at least I have a shot at this bringing something
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: to it.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: You know, Well, you talk in the book your father
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: was a saloon singer, literally, and your parents got divorced,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you know, your school career ends. Was there anybody saying
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Michael or Mike as you refer to, you know, maybe
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you're going down the wrong path. You need to buckle down. Well,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you've always kind of on your own.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny, you know, of the two parents I had,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: my mother was more like, you know, hey, go for it,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: do you know, do do your best, you know, and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: be you know, you know. Uh. And my dad was too,
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: because you know, his interest in music and everything. But
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I think he was more wary about the fact that
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I might find myself out on limb in life and
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: uh and then with no real uh you know, plan
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: b you know, for how to you know, go into adulthood,
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: you know, with some semblance of uh, you know, dignity.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But you know, uh, so he would always do kind of, yeah,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: you should kind of look into these junior college courses
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and you know, uh, get that ged while you're at it,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: you know, and then go to junior college and just
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: kind of pave away for yourself beyond this, you know.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: And uh, eventually I did that. I I went and
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: took the test that you know, you know, literally anyone
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: could pass, you know, uh, but uh, I I never
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: you know, I never took seriously any college courses or
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: any other profession besides just playing music, and I think
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: that was where my passion was, was just the chance
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: to play music again. It didn't matter where or under
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: what circumstances. I was one of those guys that when
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I was playing in a crappy bar somewhere with two people,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: you know, at the sitting at the bar and no
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: one else in the room. You know, I could close
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: my eyes and imagine I was at Madison Square Garden,
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: you know, playing singing the song I was about to play,
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: you know, h It didn't matter that I wasn't. In
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: my mind, I could go there, you know. And I
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: think I used to do that a lot, just you know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: if I was singing this song for uh, the biggest
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: audience in the world, how would I do it? How
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: would I sing it? You know? To me, it was
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: always about the song and about the moment and about
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: the chance to perform it. Uh, didn't didn't really matter where.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: You know, it is nearly impossible to make it. You
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: focus on luck in the book, but you must have
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: had a lot of drive.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did. I think looking back, not in the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: areas I should have. I think, you know, I think
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: one of the things that I was always a terrible student,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: you know. I you know, I've never got to practice much.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: I I to this day. I have a real issue
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: with it. I'm not sure what it is. I try
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: to practice, and I try to you know, I try
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: to force myself, but I find that I drift off,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: you know, almost immediately into some other place that isn't
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: really very much fruit, you know, in terms of what
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you hope to get from practicing. And you know, for me,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: I learned to play better when I play gigs, you know,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: when I when I'm playing a lot, when I'm in
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: a dance situation and there's a reason for me to advance,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: uh you know, my just my keyboard part or something,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: or teach myself to do something I haven't done here
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: for you know. But when I'm on my own time
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: and I'm at home and I'm gonna I'm going to
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: go through all these piano tutorials I've downloaded on my phone,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to slowly practice these things. I'm good
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: for about five maybe maybe one minute, you know, and
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: and my brain just you know, dislodges, you know, and
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: I I find it's really difficult for me to do that,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: to rudimentarily do anything, you know, I I I got
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: to be immersed in it for me to actually put
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: it together and actually advance a little further with whatever
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: it is I'm doing. You know, I play a little
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: mandolin with the band. I can't play the mandolin. I couldn't,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: you know. I know a couple of songs. But and
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: from the first time I ever picked up a banjo
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: when I was a kid, I learned just enough to
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: do what I had to do in the next song
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I was gonna play. But uh as far as sitting
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: there and practicing the banjo until I got pretty good
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: at playing the banjo, I was never capable of doing that.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, an intention deficit. Uh.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: You know, they got names for all this stuff now
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: that they didn't have when I was a kid, But
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: I think I suffered from a lot of them. And
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: uh so for me, you know, it was like to
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: throw me in the middle of it. And if it's
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: something I enjoy overall, uh, I'll learn what I got
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: to learn to do the job I got to do,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: you know. And music was that way for me. You know,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: I wished I had been a better stud music, you know,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: ad a better instrumentalist in all the different respects. You know.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: I'm a you know, a guy plays a little bit
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: of some things. Nothing well, you know, and uh, but
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I you know, I would put it together in some
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: form or fashion to write a song or to play
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: this next song with a band. You know, I would
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: come up with some kind of keyboard part that I
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: thought worked. And you know, and I'm I'm I'm changing
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: my parts. Uh. We've been out for three years dubies
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: and up or our third year of the fiftieth anniversary tour. Uh,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I'm still changing my keyboard parts. You know. It's just
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm a slow learner and I'm slow to
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: develop those things. But if you give me the chance, uh,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: and I have enough time, I can catch up, you
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: know pretty well, you know, But uh, that's kind of
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: my m o. You know. That's Uh. I've ever been
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: one of those guys that can sit down and rip
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: off something in every key you know. I wish I was,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: but I'm not. I don't think I ever will be.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: But to sage, you know, one of the big turning
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: points in the book is you put together a band
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: for a studio Christmas party. You meet Jeff Percaro and
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: he calls you two years later to be in Steely Dan,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: tell me about the conversation in the interaction with Jeff
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Percaro at that Christmas party.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Well, that's an interesting question, really, because, uh, your your
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: last question is, you know, you seem to have I
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: had a lot of perseverance in the music business, you know.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: I was one of these I was always no matter
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: what didn't happen or didn't or whatever imploded or you know, uh,
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: I always thought, well, there's an opportunity here somewhere, I
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: just have to you know, there'll be another shot at this,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: you know. And though this usually was the last thing
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: you expected, and this was one of those things where
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: I you know, it was just a gig that I
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: had been kind of left in my lap, and I
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: failed miserably at delegating and preparing for this thing. And
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: I promised this person I would, you know, I wouldn't procrastinate,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and I would make sure all this stuff was in
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: place so that we could do this gig. And of
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: course I didn't. And it was a week out and
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: this is nothing but disaster looming, you know. And a
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: friend of mine said he knew some guys who might
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: be able to help us out and play. And you know,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: they were kind of like the young uh you know,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: a list guys in town and his brother worked with him.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: They probably would just doing this gig for fun, you know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: and I wouldn't need to rehearse, you know much, just
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: write up some chord charts for them. They do sessions
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: every day. They know how to improvise them, you know,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: just some songs that we all remotely know or I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: have heard before, everybody will be able to pull it off.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: And so that's what we did. And I met Jeff
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Percaro on the gig. Mike Paccaro, his brother played bass.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: H David Page came down just to kind of check
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: it out, and he sat in on a couple of things,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: and we had a guitar player friend of mine. I
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: can't and uh we uh, we got through the night,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: you know. But what what I remember mostly was them
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: talking about doing the Steely Dan album they were recording
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: at the time, and that was my favorite band at
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: that moment. You know. I just love those guys. I
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: love them what they did, and uh, you know, probably
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: the band I like the most since the Beatles, you know,
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: and uh and I thought, Wow, how lucky you know
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: to be this guy's you know, playing with these guys
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: every day. And I had done a gig prior to
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: that club gig a disco in the South Bay area
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: and a good friend of mine, Bobby for he was
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: a drummer friend of mine, Bobby frederoa uh and we
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: played together in some bands, and Bobby was a great
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: singer and great player, played with the Righteous Brothers and
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: each Boys for years. But he was auditioning for Stewie
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Dan and he was talking about going to this audition,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: and this is the second time I heard about somebody
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: having something to do with Stewe Dan. I thought, God,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: how do you get on that train? You know, these
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: guys are so lucky, you know. But I noticed that
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: they also had a lot of confidence. Like Jeff was
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: in a very charming way. Was he was just downright cocky.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: He just he knew he he knew he was good.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: You know, he didn't. It wasn't like me like wondering
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: if you know, what's that next choro? So now you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I was always like double checking myself and wondering, who
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: is going to go? Yeah, this guy doesn't really play
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: that great we should get somebody else, you know. Uh,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: I was always in that world in my head. And
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: parents of these guys that never give a second thought
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: about whether they deserve the gig or not, you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: they just you know, this is what I do, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: I'm damn good at it, you know. And I really
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: admired that if I found that just really alluring, you
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: know about these guys, and uh, they were talking about
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: playing with Steely Dan like it was just to walk
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: in the park, you know. And uh, you know, I
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: knew if I were in that room on that floor,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: I'd be sweating bullets, you know. So, uh, you know,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: that was what I remember about meeting those guys first time,
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: was just being introduced to that you know that the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Cats send, you know, the guys that were you know,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: they they knew they belonged in the circle of a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: list musicians, you know. And these guys were like in
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: their teams at that point, they were like nineteen eighteen,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: nineteen years old and already playing you know a lot
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: of major recording dates in Los Angeles of all places.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: Well, what was the conversation or what happened that night
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: such that two years later, Jeff Percaro said, come audition
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: for Steely Dan. Why did he remember you?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: I think he enjoyed playing with me. I mean, I
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: think we had We had a lot of fun that night.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: We played a lot of great R and B stuff
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: that we all liked, you know, that we hadn't probably
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: had a chance to play in a while, dance music
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: that I was used to playing because I played in
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: the clubs more than they did. But you know, average
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: White band, you know, Tower Power stuff, you know, some
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Steely Dan stuff, and a lot of the older R
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: and B stuff resa you know, all our favorite songs.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: And we were for the most part improvising, just kind
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: of playing off the court yard and in some cases
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: making up the arrangements as we went, you know. But
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: it was a lot of fun. And and I think
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Jeff enjoyed my voice as a lead singer, and you
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: know some of the different you know, uh, you know,
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: you always try to bring your own interpretation to a song,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: you know. So and I think he knew enough about
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: what we were doing and he's we were playing, and
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that he thought he might have been impressed that I
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: sang as high as I did, you know, because a
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: lot of people don't think I do, and I don't
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: sound like I do, but uh, I'm basically a tenor
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: as far as vocalist goes. And so when they were
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: finally uh and they were talking about leaving, they were
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: finishing the record that then this is a year before
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: he called me, uh and they were going to go
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: out on tour. Well they that never kind of came
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: to fruition. Uh. It was a year later and they
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: were still trying to put a band together to go
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: on tour. So Jeff suggested me as possibly playing some
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: miscellaneous keyboards and uh and being able to sing uh
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: the backgrounds, you know, and they even handle the lead
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: uh Donald, So uh, I wanted to take a break,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: you know on something I'll find the song to to
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: throw it around a little bit. So uh. For whatever reason,
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: he he, he liked what we did that night enough
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: to call me the year later and said, you know,
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: I thought about you. You know, I suggested that guys
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: maybe should come down to audition, and they said, sure,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: have him come down. I said, great, I'm free all week.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: You know, well, well it's a good time because like
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: right now, you know, come on down, bring your piano,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: just you know, well run through some stuff. And see
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: what they think, you know. Ah, so I was amazed
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: that he even thought of it. A year later, we
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: pretty much became friends immediately. You know. It wasn't well,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: you know, from from the moment we started rehearsing with
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Steven Dan. I think Jeff and I became kind of
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: lifelong friends. I appreciated very much what he had done
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: for me and his confidence in me to be able
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: to pull it off. Ah. But also we you know,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: we had a kind of a kindred spirit and sense
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: of I don't know, you know, family, uh, the start
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: sensitive sensibilities, you know, regarding life in general, you know,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: uh and uh so and Jeff was just one of
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: those guys that everybody loved. The guy. You know, he
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: reminded me of my dad in that way. I think
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: that was my you know what I I why I
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: think I I gravitated into our friendship so much was
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: he didn't remind me of my dad. He was just
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: one of those guys that was, uh, everybody seemed to like.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: You know, he had a charm about him, you know
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: that uh that you know, attracted people. And I think
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: in a way I was he reminded me of my
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: dad in that way just kind of had that personality
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: that you know, uh, it was like the farthest thing
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: from reality for me. You know, I always felt like
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, somebody was going to call out
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: my name and they were gonna put me in a
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: paddy wagon or something, you know. Uh, but I always
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: was attracted to people who seemed self assured, you know,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: and uh uh my dad was like that, and Jeff
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: was was definitely like that.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, musicians are the best networkers exton. And you were
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: really in that world you're in LA, you're playing different
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: shows and putting bands together. Were you the type of
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: person who was just a good hang or they only
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: heard you once and said, you know, that's the hot guy.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: You got to get to him. What was the magic
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of your networking such a you could continue to work.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: Well, that's probably one of the most important things in
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: especially in session world, is you know, it's one thing
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: to be a good player, to be able to handle,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: you know, and even but to be a good personal
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: person could be a good hang or you know, to
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: to be able to hang with guys and you know,
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: have a certain sense of humor, you know, you know, whatever,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: you know, it makes for a good conversation that was
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: equally important. You know, it seemed like there was a
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: camaraderie with all session players and producers. You know that
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: it was about enjoyment of being around those people by
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: as much as their their talent and their ability to play.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: And I think, uh, you know, there were always those
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: guys that probably were a little socially in that that
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: but played so great that you know, you wanted them
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: on your session. You know, everybody kind of you know, uh,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: but you uh for the average guy, but it was
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: a good player, you know, or could do the job. Uh.
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: An important ingredient would be to be a good hang
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and to be someone that people liked, uh, that were
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: happy to see walk in the room, you know. Uh.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: And I that was never lost on me. You know.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not sure I ever uh was all
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: that good at it, but I I knew it was important,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: you know, And I knew that, uh, I I wanted
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: to you know, I don't know what the word is,
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: you know, endear myself to the people and the room,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: you know, so uh that that somehow was an important
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: ingredient that might getch you the next gig. You know.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot of focus on your family. Your
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: father leaves the house, he comes back now and again,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: but you got your mother, you got your two sisters.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: You talk about from the time you start working as
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a teenager, you're kicking in for the household bills. Then
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: they follow you out to California. You know, there are
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: some situations that are uncomfortable, but when one reads it,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: you go, this must have been a big drag on
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: you emotionally and made it even harder to be successful.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I don't know, I mean.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Uh, I do remember having a taste of freedom from
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: the familial you know, effort to you know, stay afloat
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: that we grew up with.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: But and you know, just to be actually on my
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: own living in California at nineteen, you know, I was like, wow,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: this is an eye opener. In some ways. I think
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: it opened the door to me, you know, possibly getting
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: into more trouble than I bargained for because I just
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: really wasn't used to well. I was in bands and
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: we were on the road back in the Midwest a
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: lot too, so were was no shortage of you know,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: shenanigans back then. But coming to California, it was just
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: such an eye opener. It was just such a different world,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: you know. It was nothing like where I came from,
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: you know, And so when it was time to bring
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: my family back out, there was a certain kind of like, oh,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm really kind of enjoying this, you know,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: being grown up on my own, you know, living my
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: own life in California. But uh, you know we did
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: all well, not to sound you know, modeling, but you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: my mom for sure had sacrificed so much just to
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: raise us, you know, my sisters and I and uh,
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you know, this was kind of I knew what part
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: of this was surgery, you know that somehow I would
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: you know, be able to make a living in California
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: and they'd all be able to move out and you know,
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: we've uh whatever behind us. You know. For my mom,
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: it was a leaving a failed marriage and leaving you
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: know a lot of hard work, you know, and maybe
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: being able to cash in a little bit on the
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: rewards of you know, sticking sticking out with all of
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: us and you know, and doing her best for us,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: you know, And I felt I owed her that, you know,
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: so uh, you know, I knew that was her dream
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: was to move to California, and my sisters and I,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: you know, we're always very close, so you know, uh,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I knew once they got out here, they would take
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: over a lot of the I always left the family
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: stuff to them, you know, you know whatever. Uh, And
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I was always kind of given this carte blanche of like, well,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: he just goes and does what he does, and uh,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: you know, and he's you know, uh, as long as
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: he helps out financially, we're good. You know. Uh, they
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: don't really need me around. They just you know, needed
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: my help. And we all we needed you know, when
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: we're growing up, we all needed that to band together.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: You know. My mom and her sisters, my grandmother. Uh,
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: we lived in a kind of communal situation, you know, uh,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: not in the same house, but we all they all
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: raised each other's kids, and my grandmother raised us for
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the most part while they all worked. And uh so
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: it was a very uh a meshed kind of a
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: family for better or worse, very a meshed kind of
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: family experience.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, but it ultimately doesn't work out and everybody goes
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: back to Saint Louis and then it works better and
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: everybody comes back. What was your emotion after you make
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a record, nothing happens, family comes out, you go back
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: to Saint Louis. Well, how did you feel.
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: Oh? I think that played into my a part of
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: myself that I didn't even really know consciously yet, which was, uh,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: this is not over for me. I'm going to get
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: back out to California. You know. I think I had
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that in the back of my mind, you know, from
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: the minute I got everybody back home, you know, and
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: uh we all left after the earthquake, uh, you know,
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: and my album got de scrapped. You know. I just
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I think even then that it could be one of
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: the lower points of my uh inspiration in terms of
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: the music business. I wasn't ready to give up, you know,
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: even with my dad doing you know, while you're home,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: you should take that g D. You know, uh, maybe
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: look at this community college up here in Florence. And
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: you know, even in those conversations, I was going, Nah,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I gotta I've had a taste of California. I know,
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: I think I know what's going on out there to
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: the degree that I maybe thought I did. And and
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: but I knew I had to get back, you know,
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: that somehow I would figure that out. I wasn't sure
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: how h.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Okay. You know, you start out, you're a teenager by
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: time you contemplate going to California. What is the dream?
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: What is it you want? What do you see on
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the horizon?
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I think I wanted to make records, you know. That
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: was that That's how I saw the music business, you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: in the simplest form, was I want to make a
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: record that someone can actually put out and maybe get
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: on the radio and then let people decide whether I'm
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: any good or not, you know, but just to be
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: able to get into that those circles where people actually
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: made records that were actually viable, possible radio play, you know,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: for the radio stations around the country. You know, I
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: wanted to be that guy that, like myself, when I'm
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: driving down the freeway and I hear that song come on,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: and that joyous moment of reaching over and just cranking
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: that sucker, you know, as loud as I can and
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: listen to that song all way down the highway. I
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: wanted to be that for somebody else. I wanted I
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: want someone else to have that experience concerning my music.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Did you see yourself as a solo act or a
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: band or the front man. Was there something in your
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: mind's eye.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: I was always pretty malleable with that. I was always
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: more comfortable being in a band, in a band, you know,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: being a band guy, you know, but I was willing
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: to try solo artists. Thing that was my first deal
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: with Warner Brother with R Cier, was to make a
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: record as a solo artist, singer, composer. But I'm not
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: sure I was ever really prepared to do that, you know.
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: I think I just took everything kind of one step
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: at a time, you know, figured i'd figure out the
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: rest of it, what it was like to be a performer.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: You know. I wanted to sing like Tom Jones, and
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: I wanted to write songs like Burt Backerack and uh
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: somewhere into that realm, you know, I thought I would
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: be happy. I loved R and B. But I didn't
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: consider myself a real R and B singer, you know,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: per se you know, ah and are really having a
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: chance in that market much, you know. I I love
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: singing and stuff, and I loved that was my favorite
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: music at the time. But I feel I kind of
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I guess I saw myself more as a pop artist,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: you know, in my mind's eye, or that I had
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: more of a chance of being successful making records in
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: that realm you cut to chase, you know, the record
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: got scrapped and probably for everyone's benefit, and I went
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: back home for a minute, got back out to California,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: but always it was the drive to kind of somehow
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: get into the recording pusician, you know. And then it
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: wasn't long before working for Richard producer. I worked for
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: quite a bit, played on a lot of sessions that
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: I my my dream then kind of I was nothing
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: if not valuable. You know. I thought, well, if I
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: could just you know, get a little better on piano
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: and play more sessions, I would be happy. And just
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: being a guy that played sessions enough to pay the
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: bills and you know, work, I could work in clubs,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: you know, in my off time. But if if I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: could work enough to do more sessions and make a
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: living good living at it, uh that I would be happy,
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: you know. And uh So for a while that was
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: all I was really shooting at it. But then you know,
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: it would come up that friends of mine were going
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: to go on the road with somebody. I thought, oh,
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that sounds like fun, and that sounds like a great gig,
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: you know, and uh, you know, none of us got
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: paid that much for it. He had to be really
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: the ace guy, doing so many sessions that they had
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: to pay you thousands of dollars to leak down, you know,
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: to turn your back on that, you know. But I
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't that guy, and so I was more in the
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: rome of guys who would go on the road next
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: to nothing and you know, play as mindy cakes as possible.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: But you know, if you were lucky enough to be
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: with the band, you loved it. It was nothing better
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: than that. You know. It's kind of like being in
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: love and being broke, you know. It was like, you know, hey,
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: this is the best. You know. So I was always
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: looking for one of those gigs to come up. And
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: when it actually happened that my steely Dan's dream kind
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: of came true, I couldn't believe it, you know, that
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: I would actually get to play with this band who
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: eded at the moment, was my favorite band in the world,
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: you know. And it's like a lot of those kind
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: of gigs you get them, it's a dream come true
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: and I can't think of it being any better. And
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: then they break up, and you know, you're back to
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: the Trojan Room in Glendale, playing a couple of their
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: songs in your set at night. You know. So you know,
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: it was the ups and downs of all that. But
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: you know, as long as I could make a living
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: as a musician, I was. I was for the most part,
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: I was happy. You know.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, eventually you have this large success, you know, you
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: buy a house, your mother has her friends staying in
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: your house. But to what degree when you have the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: success and you have everybody can use more money, but
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: you have more money than you need to pay the bills,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: to what degree did you have a responsibility to take
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: care of the other three family members? And to what
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: degree did they ask?
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I I don't know that My family was
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: ever really very demanding and everybody had their own you know,
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: my sisters were both singers and bands, and uh you know,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: we all worked. You know. I I helped out my
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: family as much as I could. You know, I always
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: happy to do that. You know, Uh, my mom, it
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: was my It was kind of like the delegation was
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: mom is my responsibility and financially and uh uh the
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: girls you know had their own lives. You know, they
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: had husbands at a certain point, and so I wasn't
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: really interfering in their lives that much. I would be happy,
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: you know, to help them out financially if I could
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: on something, But for the most part, everybody was pretty
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: so sufficient. You know. Uh my mom, I think we
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: all felt deserved to break, you know. And uh, so
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I got her a house, and but she
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't happy unless she was working. So she continued to work.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: And so she went to school, became a travel agent.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: And my mom and her uh you know, inevitable style,
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: wound up being a travel agent to like more celebrities
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: than I'd ever met in my life, you know. And
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: uh she was like the celebrities of the travel agents,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: of the stars, uh, actors, you know, the beach boys
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: all they they did their travel through my mom. Uh
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: you know, all kinds of folks that I met actually
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: through my mom as their travel agent, you know. But
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: so she was happy working. But now she didn't need
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: to struggle so much to just you know, raise three
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: kids and uh, you know, less than one hundred bucks
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: a week, you know. Uh, those days were over and
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: so we we we all and we all participated. My
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: sisters were always really more on uh, on site kind
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: of help with my mom whenever, you know, she needed,
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: especially as she got older, you know, uh, organizing her
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: health care and stuff like that. To Cathy was always
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: really great about that, you know, and her sister Marge,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: my aunt Betsy was always really a bit at that.
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: Nobody gave me much credit for being able to handle
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: those things very well. So we all kind of took
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: on our best suited jobs.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're on the road with Steely Dan. You talk
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: about being in London and the two key members were
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: in their own hotel room. To what degree was the
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: band all in it together or were Walter and Donald
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: separate and the rest of the band.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Hung well, I think it would be safe to say
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: that everybody saw Walter and Donald as the source of
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: creativity for what was eventually would be Seely Dan in
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: any sense. You know, those guys wrote the songs, They
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: were the brains behind the operation, you know kind of thing,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: and we all felt really fortunate to be part of
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: their music, you know, we all fans first. Now, there
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: were the guys that were originally in the band who
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: came out to New York for them, who played them, uh,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: you know, from the beginning, you know, on the Winnebago
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: tours as we say, you know, and had been in
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: from the beginning. But even those guys I think looked
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: to Donald and Walter as they all brought their particular expertise.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Danny Diaz, Jeff Baxter, Jimmy Hotter, they they all had
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: what they did well, and that's what they brought to
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: the band. But I think everybody looked to Donald and
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Walter for that creative source that that made the band
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: what it was musically ultimately.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but how much in terms of hang could you
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: hang with Walter and Donald or was it clear they're
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: in their own bubble?
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: Probably a little of both, you know, but uh, they
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: were both very funny guy. It's great hang you know
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: when we all we all pretty much hung together at
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: the cage on days. But at the same time, there
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: was a probably you can on the off days, uh,
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: I would probably be running around town with one of
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: the guys in the band or the crew, you know,
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: we all you know, and so this was kind of
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: a special treat to be called up to Donald and
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Walters enclave at this hotel in London to spend the
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: day just hanging out. But we did that a lot.
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: We did that too, you know. And like I say,
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: those guys were very funny. It was always fun to
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: be around them, you know, and their their view of
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: the world around them was always worth the price of
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: the mission, you know. Uh. They had a real sense
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: of irony when it came to encountering people, you know, uh,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: and just different things the way they looked at life,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: you know, especially in the music business, and so uh
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: that was all part of that scene. You know. They
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: were kind of hiding out from the promoters and h
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: in our executives and uh management uh and held up
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: in their ivory tower of Blake's Hotel, and everybody was
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: down in the lobby pulling their hair out trying to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: get a phone call up to those guys. And they
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: had just you know, decided we're going to do this
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: our way, the highway, you know, and uh so and
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we will let you know when we're ready to talk
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: to you.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: And somehow in the middle of that, we were invited
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: up to the room to just kind of hang out
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: for the afternoon and you know, ah and you know,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: hang well.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Denny Diaz, to my knowledge, ultimately became a computer programmer,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: not everybody he can eke out a living in music.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: Those people, how do they ultimately make a decision to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: make a left turn? What have you learned?
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: Uh? You know, I think that's just such a personal decision,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: you know. And I think if you have the what's
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: tempting is if you actually have an acumen for something
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: like that, Like I think Denny's interest was always there,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: you know, for it stuff and you know, computers, uh
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: and he was always fascinated with technical things, technical you know,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: uh uh here, recording, you know, uh stuff, So it
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: would be an easy transition for him, you know. And
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: I think once again, you know, the great equalizers when
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: when he gets married, you know, you look at your
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: life differently. You know, you're not willing or you know,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: collectively as a unit, you're not willing to charge the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: road of economic despair, you know, any more than you
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: have to, you know. And so you know, for some
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: of the guys, I think it was an easy transition
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: for some of them. Not, you know, not so much,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: you know. But now it's a hard question to answer.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: For me. All I know from my own experience was
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: I would have been afraid to enter most of any
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: of those worlds you know, I didn't even understand them
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: as they pertained to music, much less what I understand
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: them outside of music. You know.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're playing in bands in the area of Missouri, Indiana, Illinois,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: and you ultimately interact with Irving Azoff World as an
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: agent in Illinois, and he ultimately becomes your manager in
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: your solo career. What was Irving like when he was
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: in Illinois?
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly like Irving is now. I don't think he's changed
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: one bit, but in all the good ways. I mean,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: I have a great respect for his friend first, you know,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: but as a manager for sure, you know, as a
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: as a I think, as a person with great perspective
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: about the music business. And I think it's made him
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: as many enemies as friends, you know. But I think
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: it's very telling that most of his friends are artists
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: that he has helped, you know. You know, Irving was
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: one of those guys where you know, the suits. I'll
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: love to tell you what a scoundrel Irving can be,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: you know, ruthless, you know, blah blah blah. Pretty much
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: every musician that's ever worked with him is you know,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: can we will tell you that the guys the best
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: there is you know, as far as looking out for
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: artist interests, for being wise in his advice to artists, uh,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: and guiding their careers. Uh. I think you'd be hard
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: pressed to find anyone. It's even you know, in his league,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: you know, to be quite honest. Uh. You know, all
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: the guys from that from that office that was our
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: booking agency and Champagne Illinois, of all places, uh, I
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: have done really really well. They were They were kind
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: of the new age of perspective on management of musical artists.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: You know, John Barrick, all the guys in those offices
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: were really uh kind of groundbreaking, uh, artist centric kind
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: of view of the business. You know.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, you start off the bands as a guitarist, ultimately
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: you're a piano player. Tell us how what's going on there?
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Again, you know I was always just doing you know,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: for me musically, I was just do whatever was required
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: for the next song we were going to learn off
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: of some record. You know. It was just it was
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: if there was a piano on it. That's why I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: started playing piano again. Bands. Was all of a sudden
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: there was these records coming out. They had keyboards and
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, so I I uh, would you know,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: just learned the song on that instrument, you know, as
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: best I could, you know, and uh we would kind
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: of come up with our own arrangement of it for
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: a four piece band, you know. And so uh, you know,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: I kind of learned to play any instrument more from
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: my experience with bands than from any formal training or
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: lessons that I ever took on piano or or anything.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: You know, you have a unique voice. If we heard
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: you sixty years ago, would you still sound like you
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: do on your famous records?
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Probably not. I think the voice all by itself, for
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: anyone is an ever changing instrument, you know. I mean,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: I think there's certain traits that remain, you know, are
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: recognizable as remain. But as you get older, you know,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: you have to kind of adjust to what your strengths
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: are at this point time physically as a singer. And
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: I was always kind of a you know, if you
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: have a two categories crooner screamer, I was always a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: little more to the screamer side of things, you know,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 2: and playing singing in keys that were probably a little
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: bit technically too high for me, uh ah not, you know,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: not taking it easy, you know, in terms of kind
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: of pushing my voice, you know, as much as I could,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: and I felt that that's what uh I could bring
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: to you know, I could be you know, I could
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: do the Mitch Ryder stuff, or the James Brown songs
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: or the you know uh where. I paid for that
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: later in like, you know, as I got older, I
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: suddenly realized and even early on, I paid for it.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: I realized, you know, you can't just scream all the time.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: It won't be singing two years from now, you know.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: So I started to develop a style of singing for
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: myself that had as much to do with function as
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: it did with form. You know. It was so that
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: I could keep singing all night, you know, and uh
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: but that I could sound like I was really putting
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: it out there, you know, which I was in one respect,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: But I was learning to not hurt myself in the process,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: you know. And uh I learned later when I started
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: to become more acquainted with some of my favorite singers
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: from that era, that they all had that they had
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: all developed that some of the best gospel singers, you know,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: they just sound like they're ripping their own vocal cards
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: out from the inside, but you know, they really have
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: a technique that allows them to you know, just uh shout,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: scream this this song out, you know, uh, but without
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: hurting themselves, you know, with it's a it's an intrinsic
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: kind of ability that they develop, you know. And uh
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: and and playing clubs I had. I found that that's
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: one of the best things playing clubs did for me
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: was allow me to develop my vocal uh style in
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: a reasonable way, a four man function, you know, because
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: I was saying enough all the time that I was
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: able to kind of find my voice in the nightclubs
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: that I played.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, some people are writing three songs a day. Other
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: people write, you know, only when they have a record.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: Do what's your writing situation?
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: Uh? You know, I think I've always been the guy
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: who would be lucky to write three songs a year,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: you know. You know, I don't. I'm not a prolific
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: writer again, you know, like like a lot of things musically,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: I I approach it with a like you know, there's
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: not a time I go to write a song that
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not thinking in the back of my mind, I
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: don't know, do I know how to do this? It's
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: been a while or you know, you again, you change
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: your approach, you know, over the years, and I certainly
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: have done that, you know, or are you to just
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: write grooves on the piano and then come up with
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: words for it would be a very simplistic way of
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: looking at it. Uh. I started to kind of take
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: the songs themselves a little more seriously and hope that
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 2: I was maybe saying something uh lyrically that you know,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: people could relate to on a deeper level. And then,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: you know, musically, I wanted to do to you know,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: develop and and and that entailed both things being more simple,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: you know, taking you know, appreciating simplicity more in my writing. Uh.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: You know, I always felt like I was one of
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: those guys that were whatever new thing I learned, I
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: would use it to death till even I was sick
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: of it, you know. Uh So I would always have
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: to kind of go through that process to where it
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: till it finally became something useful and meaningful for me.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: You know. When I started to of understand a little
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: more theory where chord progressions and key changes and relative
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: keys and all that were concerned, then I started to
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: write songs that had more chords in it than music itself,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean and to it fault, you know.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: But you know, you go through your faces and you
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: you hopefully come out on the other side having learned something,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: you know. So it's always been a learning process for me,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: you know. And I think with writing songs it will
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: always be. I go through this kind of love hate
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: thing where I feel like it's something I'm putting on
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: the back burner, leaving it on the stove too long,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: and I'm not going to look back and see it's
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: catching fire or not, you know, out and then something happens,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: like the dude has decided to do a new record,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, it's like, well, I guess
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: I should pull out some of these notebook and start
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: looking through them and seeing if I got anything here,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: you know, that I could make into a song, you know.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: And but I've never been one of those guys with
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: a burning passion to write the next song. I've just
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: been a musician who writes some music. And again, you know,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: I've worked with writers who are really very professional composers
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: and take it very seriously, and that's a whole other
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: level of songwriting to me. You know, it's a whole
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: nother business of songwriting. For me, I'm just like I say,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: like one of the guys in the band, who's I
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: got a song? You know what about this? You know,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: as opposed to you know, the very backrecs and people
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: like that who do it very diligently and you know,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 2: take on huge projects like Broadway plays and movies and
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: things like that.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: You know, Okay, I love, I keep forgetting. But your
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: favorite song of mine is real love. Not only is
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: it great musically, the lyrics are incredibly insightful. Tell me
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: about that song.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, well, as I think for that song for me,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: uh was uh, you know, kind of I think one
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: of one of the dobies. We started to kind of
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: enter a little bit more into the you know, R
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: and B world, but we always had that, you know,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: uh kind of one foot in the rock and roll world.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: And but our music started to develop a kind of
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: an rhythm B lose uh sometimes even more of a
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: jazz fusion feeling, and and that song was somewhere in
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: between that. That song was one of one of our
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: simpler songs. I actually cut the song for my solo,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: my first solo record, with Jeff Percaro and some other musicians.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: Steve luftre Think played on the date. Uh uh uh
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: Patrick Henderson, Uh who I believe I wrote the song
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: with it, if I'm not mistaken getting old to Foggy here,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: But we had cut a nice track of it, you know,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: and uh but at the time, I thought it was
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: like the best thing I got. Right now, I'm not sure, Ah,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: I have anything I'm really half crazy about for the
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: next Doobie's album, you know, and I saw I felt
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: like I owed it to the Doobie's troject to do
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: whatever I thought my best offering was, you know, and
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: then I would figure out what to write for my
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: solo record later because time wise and everything it was,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: it wasn't as urgent as the next Dewbie Brothers record was, uh,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: scheduling standpoint and all that. So I went it, went
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: ahead and cut it with the band, and I think
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: that was the version. I think that really turned out
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: the best of that song. And it was a you know,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: providential that I cut it with those guys. You know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: it was meant to be a do Bee brother song.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: But what about the lyrics. The lyrics are so you know, insightful.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, uh, well yeah, I think, uh, it's just uh
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: the song for me, it was about you know, how
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 2: we when we can't find love, we uh, we're almost
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: willing to accept anything in its place, you know that
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: might at least allude to love, you know. Uh and
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: uh and somehow that's the best we can do for
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: a while, you know. And uh uh that's pretty much
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 2: what the lyric was about. You know, let's let's let's
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: pretend that that that that's what we have here and uh,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: because otherwise what are we doing here? You know? Uh?
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people experience that with
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: with love and in the pursuit of love. You know,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: there's so many things that we accept that are really
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: less than love. You know. There's a song on the
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: new Dubi Brother's album called it Ain't the kind of Last,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: And oddly enough, that's a reoccurring theme in my Uh.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: But I just think it's it's uh, what what most
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: people experience in terms of the world of in the
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: world of love, of love and relationship. Uh. I think
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: what it is is we have to learn to love
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: ourselves first, you know, and uh and then uh that
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: love we're looking for will come uh in its own time.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: But until we the journey for most of us is
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: learning to love ourselves first so that we can actually
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: be in a position to accept something like real love.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: You know, uh in the process. I think I've written
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: about that probably far too many times, but ah, it's
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: you know, it's it's definitely a universal theme, you know.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: M what's the story if I got to try?
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: I wrote that with Kenny and we Kenny login, Kenny
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 2: logans yes, and the song is pretty self expen It
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: was really basically like, you know, it's so easy to
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: h m hm, look at the world around us and
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: lose the ability to envision what it is we all want,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: you know, Uh, right now we're going to that. You know.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: We look at the world around us, we look at
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: our options, we look at what's happening with people, We
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: looking at the way people are treating each other. It's
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 2: really easy to lose faith, you know, you know, humanity,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: you know, but that gift to envision something better, you know,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: the simple fact that we really all are the same,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: if we ever get around to accepting that reality and
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: that we all want the same things, and that we
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: could start there at any point in time that we
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: really want to, you know, uh, if we just h
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 2: respect each other and give each other the dignity to
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: be who we are and not you know, uh somehow
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: try to make a society that's exclusive for for whatever reason, uh,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: whether it's religion or politics or you know, money. You know,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: it makes us want to to go that path. You
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: know that. You know, if you just keep your eye
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: on the ball. You know, the flame of truth can
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 2: only burn if we keep it in our sight. You know.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: Uh it Uh it'll go out if we stop seeing it,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: you know. Uh. And uh those people who were brave
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: enough two to see it in spite of what uh
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: reality of reality around them was telling them, you know, uh,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: but to keep that vision in their in their mind's
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: eye and in their heart. Most of them paid for
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: it with their lives, if on any on any real
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: and important level, Those people who meant the most, who
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 2: made the most change, which we died for it. Uh So.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: But I think as the average person, we we have
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: to we have to take that vision that they handle us.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: We have to keep it alive. You know. If that's
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: all we do, we're doing the right thing, you know,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: because you know, it's it's hard for us to understand
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 2: that we're not really here for any other reason than
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 2: to love each other. There's no other purpose for us
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: to be here, you know, ah, and to act in
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: the service of each other. You know, that's a that's
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: a hard thing to grasp, uh, because there's all kinds
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: of uh pitfalls that make us think that some reason
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: we have to be afraid of something or someone, you know,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: and that we have to defend ourselves against each other.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: You know. It's it's shaped the world we live in
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: in so many ways, but the reality is still the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: same reality. We're all the same and we all want
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: the same things. And the sooner we get onto the
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: business of being of service to each other, the better
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: off will be.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, Steely Dan stops touring, you get a call to
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: be with the Doobie Brothers. They are on the road
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: promoting a record. Tom Johnston has to go home. You're
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: not a backup singer. Now, You're not sitting behind Walter
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: and Donald. You're the front person. I mean all I know,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: I mean everyone knows the Doobie Brothers hits. I did
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: not become a real fan until the spring of seventy five,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: when I live with these guys and they played well,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: what were one's vices? Are now habits at infinitum. Therefore,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: when the next album came out, I bought it the
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: day came out, and I was surprised. I played it
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: to death, but I was surprised. What was it like
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: from your viewpoint to take the stage with the audience
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: having one expectation of the Doobie Brothers and there you are.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: It was surreal, really because there was no shortage of
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: you know, when I was singing one of Tom's songs,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: you know, there was you know that you know, voices
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 2: in the audience like where's Tom? You know, you know,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: and obviously you know, uh And I don't know that
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: there was any real announcements to the public about where
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: Tom wasn't there, you know. Uh. I there must have been,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: you know, but not as far as in a moment
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: on the show. We just you know, kind of put
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 2: our heads down and played the songs the best we could.
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: And and like you said, I was singing some of
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: Tom's songs, you know, and Pat was taking the rest
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: of them, you know. Uh. I don't think the audience
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 2: has ever stopped missing Tom when he wasn't there, you know,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: I don't think it ever. It was like something that oh, well,
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: you know we we miss him, but not now. It
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: was ongoing, you know. Ah and to this day, you know,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: I think the best form of the Dubies to this
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: day is with Tom and uh when we go out
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: and play, we we enjoy a whole other kind of
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: energy with the band, to the band and to our
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: live performance with Tom there. You know, there's not any
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: of us that would would would rather not have him there.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: You know, it's it's the best. Like I said, the
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: best form of the Doobies areas for all of us. Uh.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: But we we did play you know without him for
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: for could spend time there and uh that we we
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: kind of closed ranks musically, you know in some ways. Uh,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: but uh it was never hard to you know, uh
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: take the stage with Tom again. You know, it was
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: a natural thing, you know. Uh he takes his place
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: in the band rightfully. So uh uh and uh you
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: know in many ways need to charge musically when he's there.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 2: For me, I always enjoyed playing his music, you know,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: you know, with or without Tom there, I just always
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: loved the songs. You know, long train and listen to
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: music as a silver I have to say, guilty pleasure.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed singing them too, you know. So when Tom
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: would come back and I was like, Okay, well I
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: don't get to sing that anymore. But but in some
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: ways it was kind of fun too, because I would
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: pay a little more attention to what I was playing,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: because when I'm singing and playing, I have to kind
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: of dumb down my part a little bit just so
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 2: that I pay attention to singing a song enough, you know.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 2: So when he would come back, I'd find, oh, I
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: got to play orient on this in this section, or
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: I could do this, and so it was always, you know,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: some part of that that was enjoyable too. But I
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 2: always enjoyed the Doobie Songbook. I was missed playing it
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: when I wasn't with the band. Enjoy my own songbook,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: and there's there's songs that I miss playing for my
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: solo shows, but uh, but truly with the Doobies, it
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: was always it was a lot of fun and a
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: lot in a thrill to come back and play Blackwater
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: and There's a Driven Snow, all these songs that I
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 2: had really missed playing, you know, because a lot of
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: them are are a little different, uh, more rock and
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: roll than what I do on my own, you know,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: while which is a little bit more of an R
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: and B and in my show, I probably do more
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: ballads than this band does, you know. Uh, but you
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: know it's uh. That's the biggest part of it for
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: me is being a part of this band, is the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: being given the opportunity to play these this songbook for
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: the audience that loves it so much. Because some of
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: these people have been coming to see us for fifty years,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: you know, and we we appreciate that. You know, that's
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: as much a part of the experience for us as
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: it is for them. You know, I'm not sure that
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: any of us would be sick to death of all
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 2: these songs by now it wasn't for the audiences that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: we play for every night.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have taken it to the streets, living in
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: the on the fault lines, not really going in the
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: right direction commercially, minute by minute, you know, is a
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: gigantic success before it's released, Do you or anybody in
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: the band know what you have?
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: I don't think we had a lot of confidence in that. Well.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: I should always speak for myself. I remember playing it
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 2: for a friend of mine and who I trusted is
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 2: musical taste. I didn't trust that much else about him,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 2: but I trusted in musical taste. And I knew he knew,
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: you know, a good record when he heard it, you know,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: And so I had the rough mix. I said, I'm
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 2: going to play this for you, and I was so
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 2: desperate to play it for him. I met him while
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: he was shopping somewhere. We sat in his car on
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 2: the parking lot, and I said, you know, indulge me
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 2: and listen to this and tell me what you think.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: Give me your honest opinion, because I think I needed
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: an honest opinion. I knew if I played it for
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: most other people, I knew they would even if they
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 2: hated it, they would struggle to find some positive spin,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 2: you know. So I knew this guy would give me
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: the unabashed opinion that he had, you know. So we
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 2: listened to it. He kind of about halfway through the album,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: when he wasn't looking at me, I sort of suspected,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: doesn't look good. And then when the last song finished,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: he just kind of stared straight ahead for a minute.
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: It looked over ringas this is a piece of shit, sorry,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 2: you know, And I remember what came out of my mouth.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: It was like I said something I was afraid of
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 2: that or something. You know. It's like I co signed it,
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: you know, for that moment, you know, because I didn't know.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: I didn't know if it was a good album or not.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't know if this was me taking
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: the band down for the last time and into the
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: shitter and h never to return. You know. It was
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: my biggest share in the moment. So when he responded
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: that way, it was like it was like, ah see,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: I knew it, you know. Uh, And I is that
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: really affected me. For the next few weeks when we
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: weren't working, I was sitting around in my bathroom, you know,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: watching late night television, you know, uh, smoking pot, trying
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: to forget it all, you know. You know, I was
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: really in the dumps, you know, about the whole thing.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: And next thing I hear is the records come out
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: of the box like like a racehorse, you know, going on.
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: The charts were sold thirty thousand units the first week,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 2: and and I'm like, what, you know, are we talking
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: about the same record here? And because even the people
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 2: at Warner Brothers weren't that crazy about it, From what
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: I understand, later on, people would tell me, Yeah, I
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 2: was at that a at Army when they played your record.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 2: He was like, yeah, so it was a big surprise
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: to all of us that it did so well. In fact,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: I think we were breaking up. We were at the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: end of a Japan tour. We had gotten into some
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: moraw over something and decided that's it, we're breaking up,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: you know nothing, that we're not going to do this anymore.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: We're all really, really tired. This was the end of
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 2: six months of solid touring, you know, and we're so
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 2: we decided, okay, we're going to break up. And somehow
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: on our way home, a couple of us went to
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: Hawaii just for some R and R kind of you know,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: look our wounds and figure out what we're going to
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 2: do with our lives. I got to call for pat because, yeah,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: it seems like we've got to like a record. It's
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: going to be number one, you know, in a couple
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 2: of weeks by any all accounts, and I don't know,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: maybe we should think about staying together a little longer
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: and going on touring. And so that's what we decided.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: You know, how do you how do you break up
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: when you have the top ten album and single and
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't like we all we all weren't friends.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: We all got along. We know, if we had our arguments,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: it was just usually frustration and we think the normal
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: things that bands go through. But we all really always
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 2: were cognizant of the fact that we loved each other
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: as friends first, and it was really you know, what
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 2: was most important. You know, I think you know, uh,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 2: it's it's it's too easy to let heavy resentments become
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: like your whole relationship with a person. And for whatever reason,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know that it was because we're such incredible people,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: but we never we never seemed to do that, you know,
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 2: we we always stopped short of that. And if we
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: and it has had a beef with each other, we
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 2: we worked it out and we apologize, you know, and
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: kind of go forward, you know from there as friends.
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 2: You know. Uh. Again, I don't know how we accomplished
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 2: that and any but other than it was more important
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: to us just to remain friends.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, yes, you're saying back up in steely Dan, but
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: that was seen as the two being guys you were
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: in the Doobie Brothers. Patti is now the focus, even
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: though you have tracks on the records minute by minute
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: comes out. It is not only ubiquitous. You become one
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: of the biggest stars in the world. You're singing backups
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: on different What was that many people spin out at
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: that point? What was that like for you? And how
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: did you cope?
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: Uh? Well, I mean that perception of you know, a
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: big star. I you know, I don't know, you know,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 2: I had my moments, you know. I'm sure I was
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: hard to live with, you know, more than once or twice,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: you know. And uh, I remember talking to a friend
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: of mine, you know, and guy to grew up with,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: and he said to me, gosh, you know, we all
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: we all had these aspirations, you know when we played
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: together back in the day. Because he because, man, and
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: you've really done it. You you know, you're you're there,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: you know. And I remember thinking how it was so
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 2: strange to hear that, you know, because I guess I
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: was so wrapped up in the day to day uh,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: frustrations of my own and feeling like, you know, a
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: lot of it was that that what happens to people.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: It's never enough, you know, you're you're you're sitting around
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: bitching about shit that you know you should be grateful
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 2: for you know. Uh, you know, I was that guy,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: you know. I mean I didn't have to sign the
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: sense to relax and realize that, hey, I should be
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: nothing but grateful right now. I shouldn't be sitting around here,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: you know, worrying about half the crap I worry about
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: because it's not important. What's important is I've been blessed,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: you know. And if I don't realize that now, I'm
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: never going to realize that, you know. But uh, you know,
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: I always approached the whole starting thing with a lot
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: of trepidation, you know, like you know, the minute I
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: walked through the door into the room, it's going to
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: become when it's going to be when it becomes very
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: obvious that I don't deserve this, you know. And uh
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: so I was always kind of kind of you know,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: backing out of the room with it, you know, just
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: for self preservation more than anything. It wasn't that I
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: was modest. It was just I didn't really want you
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: to see me for who I thought I really was.
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 2: You know, I didn't you know, I didn't have the
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: social prowess to be at this party. You know, That's
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: kind of how I felt, you know, so when I
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: went off as a solo artist h after my solo record,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: I couldn't have had a better band I had. You know,
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: edro Winter was in the band, Robin Ford was playing guitar,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 2: George Pearley on drums, you know, just great musicians, Willie
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: Inks on bass, Brian on piano. I was, you know,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: it still wasn't enough for me to feel like comfortable
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: up there, you know, fronting the band, you know, being
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: the guy in the spotlight. Those are really painful times
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: for me just personally, you know, and I was always
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: just trying to kind of hide that from everybody. You know,
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 2: that guy, Hey, I got this, you know, but I
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 2: don't got this, you know. At the same time, you know,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: I had to work my way through all that, and eventually,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 2: as a solo artist, I got to where I really
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: enjoyed it. I got comfortable with it. But I didn't
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: ask myself to be a star anymore. You know, I
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: didn't expect myself to be a front man extravagant. You
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: know that that guy was, you know, the best show
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 2: in town. You know, I just I accepted the fact
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: that I'm a pianel player, singer, I can deliver a song. Well,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: and I got a great band, and if that's what
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: people came to hear, I got it covered, you know.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: And I can put together a show. I can sequence
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: the songs. I can come up with the arrangements. I
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: think we're best live. I can do all that stuff,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: and I can talk to the audience, you know, genuinely,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: but not try to be somebody I'm not, hopefully you know.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: And so you know, so it's kind of like the
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 2: Perry Como of rock and roll or something, you know,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: just you know, trying to be comfortable in my own skin,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, how much of this is raw insecurity or is
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: it also leavened with social anxiety? Is it purely I
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: don't want the spotlight on me, or if there's a
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: room of people, I'd rather be home in the hotel room.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: I think a little bit of the letter, you know.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 2: I don't think I ever really felt comfortable in social situations,
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: you know, even whether it's a small situation or Lord,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 2: I'm actually more comfortable in front of ten thousand people
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 2: than I am in a room with five or six,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, because I know what I gotta do
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: in front of ten thousand people. I just got to
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 2: sing the song and play the right chords, you know,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 2: and I got all these other guys doing you know,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 2: uh the same making the same effort for the same reason.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: So uh, that's that's a lot more comfortable for me
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: then uh. Uh, you know, being uh in you know,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: in the spotlight per se as we say, you know,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 2: and that's how people feel. I think in social situations,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: you feel like the world of this room is revolving
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 2: around me at the moment, and usually it's couldn't referther
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: from the truth. But you know, uh, that's that's part
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: of having a self confidence to know that much, you know,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: to know that you're not the center of attention right now.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: You know, those of us who were in six tend
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: to think we are okay.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: So with this lead date, if you're not on the
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: road and you're home with your wife, your kids are
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: out of the house, are you the type of person
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: who's ringing up all your friends making social engagements? Are
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: you the type person, Well, somebody reaches out to me,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: I'll reconnect, but more I'm doing my own thing.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: I'd rather do my own thing, you know. My wife
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: and I would like to kind of covet our time
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: together when I'm home, because lately it seems like I've
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: been busier than ever, you know, I really there was
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: a period of time just prior to this, of course
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 2: with COVID too, but we we really enjoyed just being
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: alone together, you know, and being kind of isolated to
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 2: a fall, you know, because I think we got we
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 2: got to be like homebodies, you know. But but I
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: have always been that way. I've always been more comfortable alone,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: you know, in my own little world. And and my
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: wife and I are soulmates to large degree. We you know,
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: We're very comfortable with each other. You know, I would
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: rather not have a lot of social obligations. It comes
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: with the territory being being a musician and a celebrity
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: musician or whatever. Uh So there's always something going on
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: that I have to do, ah and and it's not
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: that I don't enjoy them once I get there, but
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 2: I never feel like doing that, you know. I always
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: feel like, God, I'm gonna have to get ready for this.
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 2: What's the song they want me to do? I gotta
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: remember remember the lyrics, you know, all that stuff that
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 2: you go through, and you wonder if you know Am
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 2: I going to say something stupid backstage, you know, to
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: somebody you know, but you you do it. But my brothers,
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: I would rather just go down to the beach with
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: the dogs and you know, get as much of that
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: kind of time in as I can while I can.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, you make a record with the woman Amy who
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: is now your wife, you reconnect years later, it becomes
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: a romance. We're guys, we know how this works. In
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: the back of your mind, did you say, oh, that
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: woman Amy, maybe she's right, I got a thing for that.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: Or was it like, holy fuck, now it's Amy and
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: we're connected. What was it like?
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: I think I always had a crush on her, you know,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: from the first time I met her. You know, she
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: just was very special to me, you know. And it
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: wasn't like I hadn't been in love before, you know,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: someone who was very special to me. You know, I
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: had a crush on you know, like most guys, you know,
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: but she stood out, you know to me. And I
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: loved her voice too when I when I worked with her,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: she just said such a kind of a I would
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: consider kind of a sexy voice to me. You know,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: she wasn't a belter you know, she wasn't like this
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: powerhouse female singer. She was more of a kind of
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 2: a folky not even met Joni Mitchell or Alison Krause
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 2: kind of you know, where she had kind of a
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: very ethereal tambre to her voice. It was, you know,
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: they're feminine and beautiful, you know, and brought a certain
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: kind of feeling too melody, you know. And I always
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 2: liked that she had a yeol little too. She always
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 2: used to kind of yield a little bit when she sang,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 2: and I just enjoyed her voice very much. I always
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: thought if I ever produced somebody, I would like to
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: do a record with her, you know, But I hadn't
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: thought about it that much recently until this year of
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: the night we played the Forum again in LA and
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: that's actually where we got back together. We met again
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 2: because she was in the audience and she sent a
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: note up to do one of the guys it was
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: mixing front of the house back to me and uh
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 2: and uh. So I got in touch with her and
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 2: I said, well, well, well we should definitely think about
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: doing a record, you know, with you and uh And
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 2: in the back of my mind I wanted to see
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: her again. You know. So when we got together, we
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 2: we hit it off like it was you know, we
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: hadn't as if we'd been friends the whole time, you know,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 2: and uh, there's just something about her that it was
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 2: was immediately engaging to me, you know. And uh, the
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: record we did was fun, but it was it was
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: I had trouble committing to a time frame because I
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: was touring with the band, and so it took a
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: better part of a couple of years to do the record.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 2: But every time that we got in the studio together,
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: it was a real joy, you know. Uh. And Amy
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: you know really uh I started to rediscover her talent,
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: you know, and was as much a part of it.
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 2: So to you know, to actually finish that record and uh,
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: you know, get nominated for a Grammy with it, you know,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: it was like, you know, like the dream come true.
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: You know for me, I I to be a producer
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: at all would have been a dream come true. But uh,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: Patrick Henderson and I produced that record on her and
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: for Capital, and so you know that was uh and
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: in course of all of it, we you know, uh
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: kind of uh reunited in a relationship that uh had
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 2: you know been you know, we had met in the
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 2: years past from time to time, and even you know, uh,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: you know, I knew that we had something between us,
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: but it seemed like we always went separate ways, you know,
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 2: and I, you know, I wasn't really at that point
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: in my life a good you know, as far as
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: you know, relationship material, and probably she wasn't either, you know.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: We were just both kind of pursuing our careers, living
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: our lives, you know, as best we could. So now
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 2: you know, we were working together and we were pretty
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: much in constant contact again, and it was inevitable, I think,
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: for us to get together and get married have kids.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: And that's the remarkable part to me. I look back
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: on some of the first times I met her, thinking,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: you know, I wish you didn't have a boyfriend and
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: you know, or whatever it was at the time. And
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: to think that all these years later we rapsed two
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 2: kids together and were in their thirties and been married
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: for almost you know, coming up on fifty years here
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: in Attle, while kind of amazing.
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: You know, when she sent that note, do you think
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: in the back of her mind she thought romance too.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know. I think she might
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: have been thinking more of maybe maybe this guy could
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: produce my next rador, but I'll take it. Whatever it was.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: It was we were we were laughing the other night
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 2: because she was at the gig with me for him.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: This is where it all started, you know. You know,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: we hadn't thought about that in a while until we
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 2: were kind of sitting around the back at the stage
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: of the floor when she was young. And you're right,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: or I said you that note. The rest is history,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 2: as they say.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, a lot of the book focuses on drugs and alcohol.
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: People don't see you that way. That's kind of a revelation.
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: So what was that all about drinking and drugging?
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it was about what it's about for
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: most people who suffer from addiction. Uh. I mean, there's
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 2: nuns and priests and doctors and lawyers who suffer from
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: addiction who you probably wouldn't necessarily until it gets so
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: bad that you know it's obvious. But the great obsession
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: of every person who drinks is too to drink and
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 2: use like other people, you know, normal people, you know,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: so you you devise all these incredible schemes and ways
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 2: to uh hyde the tactic that's not really what's going on?
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 2: And uh it's uh, it's alone arduous journey, you know,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: into that world of addiction. Uh. And it was a
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: battle I certainly lost, you know, and it's surrendering and
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: losing ultimately losing to it. I found something much better,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: you know, which was uh, you know, sobriety and uh
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: living bile without any of that and uh and maybe
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: understanding myself a little bit more as a spiritual being
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 2: as a human. You know that that I entered a
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: world where there's not many coincidences. Uh, when I entered
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: the world sober, you know, re entered the world sober.
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 2: I I when I'm paying attention, which isn't all that often.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 2: But when I am paying attention, I noticed that everything
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: has a meaning. Things have meaning that I would have
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 2: seen before. You know. Uh, acquaintances are not just acquaintances.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: They hold some uh information Hm that's there to inform
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 2: me in a in a larger way what the hell
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: I'm doing there and what life is really all about.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not much on the religion. I've never been very
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: good at that, you know. My take on that is
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: that's man's effort to create God in his own image.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 2: That's why I look about religion, you know, uh, and
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: anything that co signs us hating each other is can't
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: be that can't be that great anyway. So I I
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 2: think God in my understanding today is some God that
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: is I'll never understand, you know. And I'm okay with that. Uh,
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 2: I'm okay with a consciousness being unfathomable ultimately, but that
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: it does exist, and it's better for me to plug
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: into that and than to be left to my own thinking.
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't thinking never did much for me,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: you know. Ah, it was you know, just brought about
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: calamity after calamity for me. But ah, when I do
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: turn it over to whatever, that higher power does much
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: better job of thinking than I do. I do better,
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 2: you know. I I'm more comfortable in my own skin.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: I find that life treats me a lot better, you know.
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: And that's the best I can come up with on it.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: On that subthing.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree when you look back when you
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: got sober, was their carnage, missed opportunities, fuck ups, creating
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: bad blood because it didn't look like that from the exterior.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: What was that a factor or was that did that happen?
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, yeah, all over the place. You know, I,
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: you know, I seem to, for all my best intentions,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: leave a trail of wreckage in every turn. You know
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: that I was my life had become some effort to
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: stay a step ahead of you know, or h uh
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, you know, like like a lot of people,
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: you know, I've you know, I found myself doing things
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: that I don't you know, I don't want to think
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: that I'm that person you know or you know, uh,
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: secrets I hope to cake to the grave, you know, uh,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: things that I'm not proud of myself for. You know,
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: I had to come to an understanding that probably well
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of people have those things. That's not just me.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 2: And again that that whole myopic world of oh you
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 2: know this is all about me. It's not about me,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 2: it's about you know. Uh, maybe I'm not that person
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 2: if I actually have regrets, you know, and obviously I'm
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 2: not that person, you know. Uh uh. You know I've
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: tried to make amends where I could, you know, and
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: I haven't made all of them, you know, some of
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: them I don't know how to make, you know. Uh uh.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: I look for the opportunity to at some point you
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: know uh uh and I and I but in the
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: in the meantime, I have to own it, you know.
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: I have to know that, Yeah, that was me. I
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: did that. You know, nobody else did that, you know,
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 2: for whatever whatever missteps got me there, Uh, that was me,
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: you know. And uh and I am sorry, you know,
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: but I I you know, I have to make the
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: conscious amend two be better, you know, to do, to
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 2: do better from my honor, to be to not be
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 2: that person, you know, from this point forward. You know,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: I think everybody has regrets, but that's not for me
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: to say one way there, I know, I do, you know,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: but I uh. At the same time, I I believe
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: that the most important thing I learned to do after
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: in sobriety is forgiven and to learn to love myself,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: you know, so that I could actually have a relationship
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: with other people that's meaningful, and that I could actually
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: do the next right thing in the most spiritually meaningful way,
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: you know, not just because I want to get something
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 2: from you or some reaction from you, but because I
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: because in my heart I know it's the right thing
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: to do, whether I really want to do it or not,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: you know, And that you know, uh, that's that's all
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: the little difficulties of life that we all share.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, there's one amazing story in the book, and I've
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: even told this story to other people where your sponsor
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: says that you have to make amends to someone who
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: ripped you off. Can you tell that story?
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: Well, to make a long story short, yeah, I was.
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 2: It was part of the amends thing. You know, I
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: didn't quite understand, you know. Uh, but you know, I
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: it was easy for me to understand when I did
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 2: something wrong and I needed to say I was sorry,
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: you know, if I could the opportunity came, I could
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: do that, you know. But when somebody did something to
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: me that I felt righteously indignant about, you know, and
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 2: you know that was complex, you know in terms of
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: what my pardon it was, I understood it. Yeah, I
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: probably have a part in this, and I need to
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 2: be aware of that. I need to even in some
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: cases apologieship. But it's easier ship than done if it's
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: a situation like the one I was looking at. And
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 2: you know what I realized in the first seconds of
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 2: the conversation was he was kind of an awkward silence. Guys, like,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: what are we talking about? Exactly, you know, and I realized,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: this guy hasn't lost a minute's sleep over something that
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: I've been chewing on for twenty years, you know, and
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 2: drinking the poison hoping that he would die, you know,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: in my brainstorm conversations that they never really had with him.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: I was setting him straight, you know, I'm telling him
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: off in any number of ways, each one better than
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 2: the last, you know, taking it from the top over
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: and over again in my brain, my little brain. And
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 2: he hadn't even thought about it in the whole twenty
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: years or whatever it was between the time that happened,
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 2: and I realized that, you know, also that it probably
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 2: would have never happened had I not. It had my
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: fingerprints all over it. You know. I was famous, and
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: I let you do something for me that I don't
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: feel like I'm capable of doing. And then I love
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: to criticize what a shitty job you did, uh you
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 2: know later, you know, but I gave you total responsibility
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: for it, you know, and uh you know, uh so
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: I you know, it was a lot of the learning
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: process about what makes me tick and how I really
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: create my own problems, and basically, when it's all a
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: sudden done. My biggest problem is me, not him, not
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 2: anybody else, you know, not that person, place, or thing,
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: but really how I react to it, what I do
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: in the process of experiencing it, you know, And that's
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 2: an ongoing listen. I have to learn over and over
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: and over again. You know, I never gonna walk away
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: with enough knowledge on that subject you to go, Okay,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 2: I got this, you know. Uh, I'm always going to
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: be learning that lesson, you know, in life. Uh, I'm
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: always going to go there first unless I can find
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: the wherewithal to stop myself and h give give enough
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: thought to what I'm about to do next, or say next,
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: or experience next, to maybe turn it over to that
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: higher power we're talking about, see what possibly uh mhm,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: God of my understanding, what would rather have me do
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: than what I'm about to do? Because if I get
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: in the ring with anything myself, I'm needially going to
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: get knocked out. That's just h Yeah, my best thinking
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: got me on a seat in that hy a meaning
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 2: So I'm not you know, I'm not the best thing
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 2: that ever happened to me. But not uh, nothing that
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 2: really had anything to do with my prowess as a
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: great thinker.
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, how did you end up hooking up with the
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: Dubies for the fifty at the Anniverse? We tour and
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: we know that it's business. If they can continue to
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: book dates in big venues, people still want to come.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: Is this an endless tour?
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 2: It seems like at times, you know, we're enjoying ourselves,
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean, like I say, ninety percent of
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 2: it for us is is the audience that shows up,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: you know. You know, like I say, all these songs
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: as much as we enjoy playing them, and we do,
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 2: but we enjoy playing them for those people that enjoy them.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 2: You know, we'd probably be sick of them long ago.
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, to take into the streets. I don't
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: know how many times I can sing that song, But
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: really what it's about in the course of an evening,
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 2: it's when we hit this intro or the song and
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: the crowd you know, reacts, you know, positively and with
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: with with excitement. Then that's what the song is. And
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 2: that's it's that moment, It's that communion with the audience.
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 2: That what it's all about. It's not the song anymore,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: it's it's just the experience, you know, of playing it
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 2: for people who want to hear it, you know, And
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 2: as long as that's happening, I know there's any limit
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 2: to what how long we would be doing this sort
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: of health reasons, you know. But we're having a pretty
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 2: good time of it right now. And like I say,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: we're no one's more amazed than we are that we're
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: still on backstage stays that size playing for people in
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 2: the venues. It big. You know, I would have not
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 2: given you any odds on that happening fifty years ago,
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 2: you know, And we were just young enough back then
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: to not be thinking too much about what we would
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: be doing at this point in our lives. You know,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 2: we're very lucky to be doing this at this point
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: in our lives. Uh, you know, even with the in
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: terms of like were some gags with the Eagles and
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: all these guys that we knew in the seventies that
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 2: we played with that we made records at the same time,
• 1:59:24
  Speaker 2: Donald and Walter, Uh, you know, I worked with them
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 2: up until Walter's passing, you know, And I see Donald
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: talk to Donald, and none of us would have ever
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 2: thought that we'd be taking the stage together in our seventies,
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 2: you know, I just wouldn't have been anything any of
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 2: us would have bet on, you know. But you know,
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: here we are.
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: So do you have a hankering? A lot of times
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 1: people say I'm doing this, but I have a hankering
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: to get back to my solo career. Is that going
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 1: through your brain or are you saying this is good
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: as long as this is good, all right?
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 2: I don't really have a hankering to get back to
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: my solo career. I had a great band when I
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 2: played with the guys, and I would love to play
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 2: with them again, you know, just because I love those
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: guys that I love playing with them and I missed
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: playing some of those songs. But it's not like a
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 2: hankering to do to be a solo artist again. You know.
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: I really very much enjoy being a Dobie brother. I
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: always did, you know, and it's enough for me, you know.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: But you know, when there are moments when I do
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: go out, I for one off, I just did a
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: cruise and it was great, wonderful cruise with Patty LaBelle
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 2: and Marcus Miller band and a great group of musicians.
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 2: And I was doing a lot of the material that
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 2: I did with my solo band and it was wonderful
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: to do those songs again. But again, for some reason,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: I'm fulfilled overall sense of fulfillment, uh, just being back
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: with the Doobies, you know, and playing with Tom and
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: Patt and John McFee and all the guys in the band, Mark,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: John Ed and Mark and uh, you know, I feel
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: extremely lucky to be on stage with these guys, musicians
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: of this caliber and people of this character. You know.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 2: There's just nothing better than that than hitting the road.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: And you know, the only thing when you complain about
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 2: is that we wish we were playing more. You know,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 2: we have a pretty much easier schedule than the old days.
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: We don't play you know, four nights in a row anymore,
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 2: you know, And there was something about that that I
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 2: really liked. There was some kind of a you know,
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: it lent itself to the development, you know as a band.
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: You know, when we played every night, you know, we
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 2: would actually listen to our show the night before on
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: the on the plane the next day because we were
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: interested in just to hear how we were doing at
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: this point, you know. And uh, you know, I think
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: I think we all miss that a little bit. We
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 2: missed that, you know, getting out there playing six five
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 2: or six in a row because you your whole take on,
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: on your perspective on what you do develops with that.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: You know. And and now we're at that age where
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 2: if we take a week off, we've all pretty much
• 2:02:34
  Speaker 2: forgotten the song altogether. And you know, we're all at
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: home woodshed and trying to remember the chords. And you know,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 2: uh that I you know, I don't have quite the
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: memory I used to have, so uh, it's it's nice
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 2: to get back together and rehearse, and you know, I
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 2: have a reason to again. It said, if I have
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 2: a reason to play music, that's what it takes for me.
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 2: I don't do so well in my idle time.
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, Michael, I want to thank you so much for
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: sharing your inner life and thoughts with my audience.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank yous appreciate it so much.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: But I will say this, if you're interested in any
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: of this at all, the book really goes into depth.
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: You know, it starts off with Saint Louis and it
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: goes through every step. You know, the dark days in Hollywood,
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 1: the family stuff, the drug stuff. Really get to know
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 1: who Michael is. And you've learned some in this podcast,
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 1: but there's so much more. In any event, Thank you Michael.
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: Until next time, This is Bob Left, SATs
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: Six