Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Desmond Child

Transcript

Desmond Child · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today is musician, performer songwriter Desmond Child. Hey,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I gotta ask you why, Desmond Child. Okay, I was
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: going to Miami Beach High along with some other notables
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: like Mickey Rourke and Andy Garcia. Were they there when
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: you were there? Yeah? Yeah, because Mickey was one year
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ahead and um Andy was two years behind. Did you
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: know them? Mickey was my protector from the bullies, really yeah,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: but that started in junior high at Nautilus. And do
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you still have contact with him? It's it's like one
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: of those soul things. When you see him, you can act.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: But yeah, but every ten years we run into each
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: other in the strangest places and we talked for three
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: and then I don't see him for another ten years. Okay,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so keep going. So you're going to I'm going to
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Miami Beach High. And you know, I Beach High was
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: like nine o two one oh because all the parents
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: were either Italian or Jewish and they all built ran
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: or whatever all the hotels on Miami Beach. So all
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: the parents they put so much money into that school.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So it was like a private school and how many
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: kids went to the school, do you remember? No? But
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I was like busting myself in from the projects. You
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: remember that movie Moonlight. Yeah, sure, those projects. That's where
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: we live for twelve years. And I just was going
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: to Edison Junior High School and it was like no
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: learning being done. It was all like, you know, okay,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: just the way, because did you work the angles so
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: you could get into that school like you're living with
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: your mother or with my aunt? Yeah, and so I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: it was three busses to get there, and uh, it
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: was extraordinary, and so on the law, you know, during
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: lunch there was a lawn and the kids were out
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: there smoking whatever, wandering off to restaurants where you'd see
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the principal in way you weren't even supposed to be
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: off school grounds. And um, there was a a girl
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and she sort of looked like Yoko. She had this
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: long black hair and granny glasses, all dressed in black,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: and she was playing acoustic guitar and she was playing
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: her own song. And you know, because my mom was
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a songwriter, and I guess maybe there was a kind
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: of connection. And her name was originally Deborah Walstein, and
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: then everyone called her Debbie Wall, and we just immediately
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: bonded and we decided to become a duo. So we
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: loved the name night Child, you know, so she did
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Why did you like the name night Child? Where did
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: that come from? It just it was dark and it
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: was her mon hess and it just you know, the
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: magic theater and all this kind of stuff. And so
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I started wearing all black as well, and I guess
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: we like invented goth okay, And so we had night Child.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: And so in order to be night Child, she became
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Virgil Night and I j and I became Desmond Child
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: and Desmond from oh blahdo bladah wow, because I was
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: trying to think of there aren't that many Desmond's. I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: was wondering what the inspiration was my whole career. When
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: people met me, they couldn't understand that I was white.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: They thought I was Jamaican. You know. It was like Desmond.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: And I was like, what Desmond Decker. Okay, if we
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: look at your passport, does it say Desmond Child? Now? Yeah,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: what does so you change your name legally? Yes? So
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: what's the middle name? I couldn't think of one, So
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: it's just a child, Okay. I first became aware of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you with reviews of Desmond Child and Rouge, and I
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: bought that album. Then you kind of faded from the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: landscape in terms of what my visibility was. Suddenly your songwriter.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: How does that happen? Well, when I was in Desmon
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Child and Rouge, we played all the clubs in New
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: York City and we would plaster the streets with our posters.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I got arrested once for doing so, and we would
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: stencil the sidewalks around Black Rock with our names, you know,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: black Rock CBS. Yeah, Desmon Child and Rouge at Tracks
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: because that was one of the favorite clubs. And so
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: we're playing at Tracks and Paul Stanley from Kiss came
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to see us because he was intrigued, and, um, you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: we made friends. He came backstage and he said, um,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: you know, let's try writing a song. And it was like,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I actually actually didn't know that much about Kiss. I
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: thought that was just for little kids and stuff, and um,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: you know, so we ended up getting together. We wrote
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: a song called I Was Made for Loving You. Well,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: certainly that's a big breakthrough here from it. It's kind
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: of a disco hit. Oh okay, But did they intentionally
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: want to change their sound to that sound. No, no,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I that's what Desmond Child and Rouge was doing. And
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I had got gotten one of the first drum machines,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: so I was writing two beats, this is you know
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: eight machine something like that. You know, it had a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: cheesy little sound, you know, but now of course the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: hip hop world is using those sounds. You know, you
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: hear them. Crazy thing is at the rolling was like
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: the definitive thing we thought that passed in the facts
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: on every record. Now just blows my mind, you know.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So um, well that's a little bit slower, a little
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: bit slower. So all Stanley just sees your flyer and
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: comes comes. There's no connection, No one's reaching out to him.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: And was the flyer what was intriguing about the floor
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: because he thought I looked kind of well, I had
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: this kind of one of the first mullets, and uh,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: these gorgeous girls with you know, looking very hot around
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: So it was kind of like that. People didn't know
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: what to make of us. Actually, looking back on it,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: we was more like the Scissor Sisters. We're kind of
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: hip and playing Reno Sweeney and rubbing shoulders with Andy
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Warhol and Hollywood Lawn, and you know that was an
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: incredible time. We opened for Patti Smith at the Lower
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Manhattan Notion Club, So we were inventing. Okay, so you
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: were part of the seed that he was checking out
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: the sea. Yeah, so we were mixing rock guitars with
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: dance beats. We didn't think of it as disco. I
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: mean when I bought the record, because the record refuted
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the rock press about the record. The record very surprising.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: So it was a little bit all over the place.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And within six months we released a second album called
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Runners in the Night, and that was way more rock.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: And it was also the moment because I started desmon
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Chan the Rouge with Maria Vidal and we were the
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: founders and then we added our best friends Diana Grisselli
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and Merriam Valley, and then um it was I was
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Marie and I had been together now like three or
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: four years, and I realized I was way more gay
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: than I was by and then right between the two albums,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I met somebody that turned my life upside down, and um,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I just realized I couldn't I couldn't stay. And so
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that's what Runners in the Night is all about. And
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the first song, you couldn't stay what with her? And
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: also that broke up the band. So that's why, you know,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: we had so much potential. Where does she today? Oh,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: she's amazing artists on her own, but we actually anyway,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: she's she's married to Rick Knowles and who's going to
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: be that's hysterical and she has her own studio and
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: she h to ask him the story. He's being inducted
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame this year. Okay, but
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: let's go back to Paul Stanley. He meets you backstage
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and the first night he beat back. I want to
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: write a song with you pretty much. He said, hey,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you guys, you know you're pretty good. We should try
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: writting a song together. I I think that maybe his
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: intention was maybe hooking up with, you know, one of
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the girls, right, so you know, it's like we're letting
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the fox into the henhouse, you know. And but I
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: think he I want his respect, and so we we
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: we wrote I Was Made for Loving. Okay, wait, wait, first,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: what he said we're gonna write this? Did he include
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: the whole band Orges? No? Just me? Because I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: solely writing, I realized, But I wondered since he wanted
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: to pull one of the girls kind of like, you know, okay,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: hang with you, hang with Okay, So where did you write?
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I was made? I went to U. S. I. R.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And Kiss was rehearsing for the instrument. Yeah, and it
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: was the big a room with the stage and all that,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: and off to the side there was a grand piano
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: with a cover on it and everything, and they all
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: took a lunch break and during that break we sat
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: together at that big piano and I started playing the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: chords which you made up on the spotter you had previously. No,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I made it up on the spot you know, and
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: this kind of like um emo kind of tonight, I'm
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: gonna give it all to you, you know. It was.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: It was kind of like um bravado. And so when
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: they went into the studio then with Vinny Poncia a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: little bit slower, so you're there, they're on lunch breaks.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: The song finished during lunch. No, it wasn't completely finished,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: but you know, Paul went and ran with it with
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Nny Pontia, the producer. Okay, at this point you're out
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of the loop. I'm out. But so it was really
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: your input was all on that one. Day during rehearsal. Yes,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and also this idea of like four on the floor,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, it was kind of like exciting.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: And then also at that time, big big raves were
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: starting to happen, and it was like the idea of
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: bringing rock to a dance. It was just eighty two,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: what no, this is seventy eight, sev seventy eight. We
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: wrote I think in seven on the seven and then
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I think it was released in seventy something like that.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: And so you know, the thing was is that I
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was I've always been intrigued and and you know with
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the idea of merging styles, you know, like trying to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: grab a little piece of this Pastiche and Desmond Charlon
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Rouge was that we were you know, we had R
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and B elements, we had Latin elements, we had congas,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: we had heavy power chords. We told stories like Laura
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: Nero and Joni Mitchell and Nelton John. So it was
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: like it wasn't like all sex and romance. There was
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: always a character and there was always this and that,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and all of that kind of came together really, uh
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: with when I worked with bon Jovi. Okay, well, well
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a little bit flower Okay, so you're right. I was
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: made with loving for loving you, uh, with Paul stan Right.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: How long after you sit there in s I R
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: do you become aware they're cutting it? Oh? They cut
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it and put it out? What like? Were you part
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: of the loop or did you just hear it when
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: it came out? Yeah? I heard it when it came out. Okay.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: So in between writing it h and then hearing when
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: it come out, it was months, it was Did you
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: have any contact with the band that really? No? I
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: thought all was good, and then all of a sudden,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, I started hearing that my song got cut.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I think from Rick Albertie or Bill a
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Coin or or somebody to my manager. At that time
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: it was Roy Rickson and Matthew Mark and they had
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Star Flight Management. Okay, so you hear the song is
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: gonna be cut. When do you finally hear the wreck?
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I think that they sent me a copy of it. Okay,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: did you hear it? Did it sound like what you
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: thought the song was? That you but but better? Like
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: it was grand? It was bigger than I could have
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: ever Did you immediately hear it? I'm sure you're excited.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Did you say this is a hit. It was already
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a hit. It when they finally sent me the copy,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: it was a hit already all over the world. Okay, okay,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: when did you first hear it? That's what I'm saying.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: When they when somebody you don't even know? It was
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: nothing nothing. I was like, you know, kind of in
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: the dark, and they were too busy to think about me. Wow.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: So uh and you still own all your songs? Well
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: not no, not not not like own own. Uh. There
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: was a catalog sale that I did in and um
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that was with PolyGram uh Publishing, and David Simone was
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: the head of that and my manager at Winston Simone
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you know are not brothers, which is on and they're
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: called the Simoni brothers whatever. Uh. So we did, we
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: did that deal. And at that time, this was after
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: the earthquake, we were living my husband and I were
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: living in Santa Monica, and it really shook, it really shook.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: And I just said, and I had another friend who said, listen,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Miami Beach is where it's happening. You can get a
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: house on the water for almost nothing, just like you know,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and we I just said, let's let's do it. So
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: we sold and we moved to UM to Miami Beach,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: and I was able to make my mother's dream come true.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I bought her her own little mini mansion on Miami Beach.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: That's all she ever wanted. And pretty soon I owned
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: four houses on the on the block. Okay, but connect
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: me with PolyGram and selling. So then it was getting
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: really hard to find work. And at that point, all
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of the bands that I had been working with UM
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: had started making compilation albums like best of and you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: they're already like three per act that we're already being reshuffled.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: And Winston said, you know, maybe this is the time
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to sell. So, you know, it was I was really
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: kind of going broke, and UM, I just said okay.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: And my father, who was Hungarian and lived through the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: Depression and in World War two and all that, he
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was like, grab the money, grab the money, grab the money,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: you know. So so I did, and you know, I
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: think that's why we've I've been able to keep a
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: pretty high standard of living and also sacrifice a lot
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: experimenting with things that maybe I wouldn't have if I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: was like hoping to get the next hit. Okay, just
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: a couple of questions you sold a you sold what
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: did you actually sold the writers and publishers share of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that catalog and retained the performance income from ask Catalcy
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: for myself. So my catalog at Aska and so then
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I started a new catalog before you do that? Okay,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: what did you do with the money? Well, had people
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to pay off, right, But a lot of time people
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: get that check and they blow it completely and they're
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: broke again. No, I've you know, I had to pay
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you know, Tim Collins had always told me that he
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: man Smarrowsmith. He always insisted that everybody pay off their houses,
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: no matter what, even if they had to, you know,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: eat nothing. And so that's what I did. I paid
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: off all my debts and created a studio, built a
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: studio called the Gentleman's Club and started making records there. Okay,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: so you sold, you paid off. How much time did
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you buy with the money you saved? Well? What day
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: is it today? Today is Wednesday? Okay, so that money
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: still you still have the rabbits. Very good, I applaud
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: because we're in an era where mercuriois is buying everybody's
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: catalog and he's paying an incredible wount. But I just
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: worry about the acts who sell who might end up broke.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Obviously not you. But let's go back because of my father,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: because you know that Eastern European like don't spend a penny. Okay,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: so most people not that savvy, certainly not musicians. You
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: have that hit in seventy eight, Okay, from the outside,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: it looks like you don't have another monster hit until
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you work with bon Jovi. No, I mean I had
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: another hit with Kiss called Heavens on Fire with when
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: they took their makeup off right, And so it was
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: that song that bon Jovi was opening for Kiss in Europe,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and they loved that song. In fact, they had written
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: us called In and Out of Love that was very
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: similar sounding In and Out of Love, I feel my
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: heat taking It was in the in the and and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: it was in the style of it. And um so
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Paul had said, hey, you know, because he's very kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of paternal and very generous with everyone, he's like wonderful,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and he said, John, maybe you should try riding with Desmond.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So I got a call from John bon Jovi and
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I went out to this little wooden house the in
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the end of a cul de sac at the edge
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of like this gray brown marsh. In the very distance
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: there was an oil refinery. I mean, this is like
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: where they buried people in the Sopranos. And this is
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: New Jersey, New Jersey. Yeah. And so I walk in
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and I'd make a left, and then on the left
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I could see Richie's bedroom. Yeah, he still lived home
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: with his parents. And there was the far faucet poster
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: in the in the red right right, the bathing suit
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: kiss poster led Zeppelin. I mean, I just had a
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: quick look, and I walked into the kitchen and there's
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: this you know, vision of look like from the Court
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: of Louis, the FOURT with this big you know mullet
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: and um and John was on one of the you
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: know kitchen wall phones, Avocado green on its phone, undoubtedly
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: with Doc McGee, and he kind of like nut looked
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: at me sideways and kind of like nodded. And then
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Richie said, well, come this way, and I had to
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: go downstairs into the basement, which was the laundry room. Okay,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: this is his parents house, Richie's parents, Yeah, and so
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and uh so I went down to the laundry room
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of damn and it was you know, musty,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: and there was like the washing machine, and then there
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: was like like I discarded for Mike, a table where
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: they had put a little keyboard, and then there was
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: two little buzzing amps and some chairs and that was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: their writing room. So I went down there. I was
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: waiting for a which to be sure, because you had
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a relationship with Kiss. They were opening for Kiss. Had
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you ever met them previously? This is the first time,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: And so I had thought of a title because you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: during that time I was working with Bob Crewe. Well,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: when do you talk my audience a little bit of
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: his history legendary. Well, Bob Crew was the producer and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: co writer of all the four Seasons hits with Bob
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Gaudio and he's a character in the stage musical and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: movie Jersey Boys. And so he had moved to California,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: from California to back to New York. And he was fabulous.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was so stylish and he's so handsome.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: He looked like a Viking model with this red hair
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, tall, amazing, big laugh, and uh, somebody
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: said you should work with Desmond. So he we decided
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: he would be my producer. So I spent two years
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: writing with him. Um for me for my project, and um,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: it was a very it was I went to songwriting college,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: That's what I did. And it was very structured. It
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: was brill building style because that's where he came from.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And so he had an apartment that was just a studio,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: didn't have a bedroom, had a little kitchen and just
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: one room and this studio days. Yeah, but that was
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: just for his songwriting. He had a beautiful apartment on
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the East side. You know, there was nothing on the walls.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: He couldn't. He was anal about that, you know, uh
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: like white berber carpet, cream colored walls, black piano that
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: all his hits were written on. There was a black
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: hard bench that went with it, and an armchair, a
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: stool that had you know arms that swiveled, very comfortable
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: for him. And then there was a pile of of
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: um yellow pads. And then he would spend time sharpening
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: pencils and so you'd get the pencil and a pad
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and you know, blank pad and he would not allow
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: song to be started until there was a killer title
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and there were lyrics and there were things to write about,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: things to say. It wasn't the way I wrote before,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: which was like playing chords and mumbling and hoping that
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: those mumbles would sound like something, you know, and then
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: you kind of, oh, you know, build a whole world
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: around that one little mumble. I mean, when I learned
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: how to write the other way, that's when I started
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: having hits, because you know, I would walk in with
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: a title, and he also taught me things like the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: tension of the opposites. Um, you know, so even within
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: each line there was you know, tension of opposites. And
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: his rhyming had to be tight, like Broadway tight. None
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of this of than love, you know, enough doesn't rhyme
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: with love, you know, it was he was like strict
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: so and every line had to flow into the next.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: There couldn't be these disconnected thoughts. And like, for instance,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes I hear songs that it's like you this or that,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: and then the guy gets to the course and he
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: starts singing. She was like, what, So Bob cleared all
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: those cobwebs out of my mind, and so I knew
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to walk in with the title. Okay, just a little
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: bit slower, you have this ship. The bon Jovi hits
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: aren't until really, what are you living? On the royalties
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: from I was made for Loving You. Okay, that's covering you. Yeah,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you're working with Bob Crew. Did you have a specific
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: time you started. Yes, Well, we would meet at I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: think it was called Boni on Street off of Broadway,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: across the street from the mod this modern building where
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: he had his studio, and it was lunch special. I
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: think it was like four nine six. And it always
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: had to be Dutch because he was like in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: program and he used to fly planes to Paris to
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: have croissants with his friends. Wait wait wait wait wait
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: wait wait wait, had to be the program. I think
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: of alcoholics anonymous. He's not the program, but in his
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: own thing, he was like so overly generous that he
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: blew like so much money on lavish parties and all that.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: So for his program he had to um like, everything
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: had to be Dutch. So I paid my my, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: my five bucks, and he pays five bucks and we
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: eat the lunch special. So flying to Paris for croissant
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: was before you got in the picture. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: with you know, movie stars and you know. Did he
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: retain the ownership of his songs. I think he did, right,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: I think he did okay, Yeah, okay, okay, So you
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: went for went for lunch, you paid your five bucks.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Then at one o'clock we'd have to be I'd have
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: to be sitting on that bench ready to go, and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: then we'd start. And just so I know, it was
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: a piano bench. Yeah, hard, So both of you were
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: sitting in front of the piano. No, he was on, yes,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and he was on the stool higher up, high up.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And then at six o'clock sharp, session would end and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: he'd leave to go to his meeting. And five days
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: a week, almost two years, we wrote thirty eight songs together. Okay,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: So when you sat down at one o'clock, did one
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of the two of you already have a title in mind?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: We'd be talking and a lot of it was he
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: was telling stories from the wild sixties and when he
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: met Maria Kllis on the beach in Centrope, and that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: night they threw a little soiree and they both sang
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: together and like, oh, these amazing stories and the crazy,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: crazy Hollywood orgies and just everything. And so then some
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: thing and something he would say would spark a title.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Is that, Oh that sounds like a good title, And
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: so we'd write down a bunch of titles and then
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: we pick the strongest one and start and then usually
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: we couldn't get through that song that day, so the
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: next day we'd pick up and finish that song, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: so then the next time it was like that, Okay,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: once you have the title, how did you write the song? Um? Well,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: he explained that lyrics have melody in our language, like
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I just went data, see what I'm saying. So then
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: how fast you say it? You sing it? And the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: um scoring because he compared lyrics to the script. The
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: music is a score. You make the movie first and
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: then you score it. Because if a scene is supposed
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: to be spooky, then you put in the dark courts.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: If it's supposed to be happy, then you make it
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: sound happy. So that was how he related it to me.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So in a lot of my productions, I try to
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: make the production cinematic, trying to bring out the meaning
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: perfect example, like limon labla loca. When you get to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the second verse, you hear a gong and he goes
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: woke up in New York City in a fun kitchy hotel,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and I that imagine that you know, whore house in
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Chinatown everything's red beaded curtains, incense, you know, And so
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the gong spoke of that like it just evoked that
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: whole kind of bohemian you know moment you know of
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: him just crazy. You know, she took my heart and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: she took my money. She must have slipped me a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: sleeping pill, because remember all those urban legends of waking
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: up without kidneys and so so okay, so I don't
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And then you would write the lyrics. Yeah, we'd write that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: We write the lyrics for the chorus, and then once
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: we got that, then it would speak to us like, uh,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: what how the verses should be, whether they should be
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: like halftime or whether they should be in the same
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: brick brisk manner or depending on what we were we
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: were writing. And so that discipline taught me everything. And
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: that's the discipline I walk into a but but it
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: just keeps staying on that. You write the chorus, you
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: write the first at the time, are you thinking of
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the bridge? Are you thinking? Because everything depends on whether
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: you've made that that hook payoff and everything that that supported,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: all the little you know, braces that that hold up
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: that title and pay off the title. So so you know,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: so times to make it really pay off, sometimes you
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: have to start really on the down low, with slow phrases,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: lots of time between the things you're saying, and then
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: usually have a channel B section that kind of starts
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: to wind up the tension, wind up the tension, so
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: by the time you hit the chorus, you're ready for it.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: You're ready for the rain to to fall, You're ready
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for the sun to come up. You're ready, you know,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: for for whatever is being promised. And so with that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in mind, you know, that's why I started having hits
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: like okay, wait, just so I know, because thinking of
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: all those Beatles hits, a lot of them had bridges.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Assuming you do have a bridge as a songwriter, does
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: that come later or is that something when do you say, oh,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I want to change it up? I think after the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: second chorus. Then you have to have something to stay
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: in the song that's worth staying in the song for
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that you haven't heard before. I saw a lot of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: contemporary music that's just written on the same loop with
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the same chords. It's just cut and paste, and then
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: it's like nothing changes harmonically, and and and the trick
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: is to make it every time you hear those same
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: chords go by having it sound different somehow with texture,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: with you know how fast you're saying things I mean
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: and I I'm writing songs like that also these days.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: But back then it was like now we had to
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: clean the palette, the bridge, had to take us to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: a new place, had to modulate, had to go, had
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: to maybe we want the last course to be modulated.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: So that's where we start modulating. So when you get it,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like the the you like this kind
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: of forced modulation. Okay, you wrote thirty eight songs together.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Was he working with anybody else or just you just me?
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: What happened to those thirty eight songs? I have them?
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: And did any of them end up becoming hits? Why
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: do you think that is? We wrote two songs and
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: then he got me a deal at Epic Records, um,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, they didn't take me seriously or anything
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: like that, and they just kind of they went by
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the wayside. And they weren't kind of progressive like the
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: stuff I was doing with Desmond Child and Rouge. They
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: were more like trying to be like what George Michael
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: later became, like Blue Eyed Soul, and so you know,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't really know who I wasn't. Also, I was really,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: you know, struggling with you know the fact that well,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: how am I going to be an out artist? No
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: women would follow me? Who the other ones that would
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: buy records of a balladeer or kind of romantic figure?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And I remember by then I was already twenty six,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: so I just didn't I didn't know who I was,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: and I was very lost. And then remember all my
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: friends were dying of AIDS and I was terrified, you know,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that I would be next. So had you been promiscuous?
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Not really, but you know, not even people that just
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: had boyfriends or you know, they would get infected. No,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I know, we all know a lot of people. The
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: husband you have, now, how long have you been together
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: with him? Thirty two years? Okay, let's park that for
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: a second. You work for Bob Crew for two weeks
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: for two years? How does it end with Bob Crew? Well,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: when my singles didn't take off, I think it was
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: disappointing for him, you know, and disappointing for me. And
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I was also I mean, I remember, um, we're writing
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: a song, and remember he wrote Lady Marmalade, so he
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was lucky with the word lady, and so we're writing
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: something that had you know, baby maybe, and then he said,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: we'll sing lady. I said I can't. I can't sing lady.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, even if I'm not out, I'm just not
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: not gonna sing lady. Ironically, I later wrote a song
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: with ar Smith called Dude looks like a little right right, Okay, okay, whatever,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and and I just burst out crying no because he
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: was like bearing down on me. He says, you know,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I wrote all those hits without you,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you know, and all this stuff. And I just like,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: like like droplets of tears were It's like that movie
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: about the Little drummer, remember Whiplash, you know, right right right?
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: I mean he was he was he was wonderful. He
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: was never mean like that, but he was strong. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: he said, you know this is bullshit. You know, you know,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: sing lady. And I said I just cannot sing lady.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And so um he when I started like crying, and
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: all the frustration and maybe all the sadness of all
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: my friends had died or everything, I just broke down
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and he came around. He gave me a hug and everything,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and he was really like the you know, a father
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to me and um, and I think it was you know,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I really felt like we had done our time. You know.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like I was being you know, disloyal, but
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: it was like I couldn't go forward with him because
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I had all these other influences and feelings. And remember
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that punk music was in the air in New York
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and the Cure and all of that and all of
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: those things were in my brain too that did not
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: fit into his world. And so you know then you know,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: were part of ways. But I remember when I was
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: producing Ricky Martin and I was doing strings in l
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: A and he came to the session and he sat
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: next to me, and uh, he was just like glowing,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: you know, just like so proud of me. You were
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: protget Okay, when you were writing with him, did you
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: both write lyrics and music? Yes, well I was playing
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: the chords and kind of driving more than male lities,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and he was more strong leaning on the lyrics. But
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I also was was it's hard keeping up with him,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: you know, just like now these days when I write
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with people, it's like it's hard for them to keep
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: up with me because I already I wrote it. Oh,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: oh that's cool. That sounds really good. Okay, we'll sing that.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: You know, if you can, you do it. And also,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: you know you're inspired, so you don't want to hold
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: yourself back to listen to somebody's kind of Oh yeah,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: well you have a nicer personality than me. I I
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: can't handle that well. And you know, maybe why I
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: work alone. So after Bob Crew, before bon Jovi, what's happening? Well,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: I mean I wrote a revolutionary song actually, which was
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a call I got from Jim Steinman and he was
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: producing Bonnie Tyler after he had already had Total Eclipse
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: of the Heart and then he time, of course legendary
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: working bad out of hell. Yes, and so he had
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: written um um, total Eclipse of the Heart for Bonnie Tyler,
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and so he said, I want you to write me
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: a song. Okay, did you know Jim Steinman. No, but
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Mike Winston did, and so it's Winston still your manager,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and so you know he um. He said, Okay, this
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is what I want. I want the verses to sound
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: like Tina Turner. I want the B section to sound
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: like the Police, Yeah, and then I want the chorus
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to sound like Bruce Springsteen. So I wrote this song
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: called if You're a Woman and I was a man,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and it started out with the chorus all a capella,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: you know, and um, it went, if you were a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: woman and I was a man, would it be so hot?
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: To understand? That? A hot? It's a hot and you
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: do what you can? If you were a woman and
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I was a man, do do do do do do
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: do right? And I was playing, uh, you know, I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: I love that these dreams and Billy Jean at that time,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: so I was came up with a variation, you know,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and the song completely went, you know, from style to
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: from the style, and so she she had it as
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: a hit only in one country, France. Okay, just so
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: I know the uh you wrote it? He didn't get
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: any co writing credit, He said, you wrote it. So
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I solely wrote the song. So it was a hit
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: in France. And so when I went to write with
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: bon Jovi, you know, I was piste off because I
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: knew that I had a hit chorus. And so when
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: I had the title, I came in with the title
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: you give love a bad name? Where'd you get that from? Wait?
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Just one second, When you wrote the hit for Bonnie Tyler,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: how long did it take you to write it? Well,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: it took me a long time because I was trying
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: to engineer and record everything myself. Okay, let let me
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: ask you a different questions. Are you the type of
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: person uh where it happens very fast or you get
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the idea and then it's developed faster or slow? How
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: do you do it? Or you do it differently every time?
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Usually these days it usually takes me two days to
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: write a song, co write a song with folks that
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: are on my level of writing, okay, And by that time,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: if someone could take the demo right into the studio
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and just cut it just okay. So you walk into
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the house, Jon bon Jovi's on the phone, Richie takes
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: you back downstairs, and you have you gave love a
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: bad name from where I just came up with it
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: because Bob had told me, had taught me how to
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: write songs where the title had irony right, you know?
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And so I mean, were you just that the title
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: comes to you in a shower or were you working
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: hard to come up with something. I was preparing for
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: my session and then I thought, well, you give love
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: a bad name. Love bad opposites and already the tension
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of the opposite. You're curious, what is what's you know?
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Heavens on fire? Um, I was made for loving you.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: That's not so much. But uh, I hate myself for
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: loving you. How can we be lovers if we can't
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: be friends? You know? It goes on and on. Uh.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: And I've been really successful with with that technique. Okay,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: So now you're in the basement with Richie. What happens?
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: So Richie brings me a glass of water, then he
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: brings me a cup of coffee, and John still on
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the phone. So finally he comes down and um, you know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you know that you were talking and this and that,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and I pull out the title you give Love a
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: Bad Name. And that was my first glimpse of the
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: billion dollar smile. It was like it was dark down there,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: but when that's mile head, it was like the room
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: lit up. It was like, oh my god, he's a star,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: look at him. And so he had a song called
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: We're talking about Richie Now John, Wait, wait, wait, just
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: to be yea yeah, and we taught chichat. Then John
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: finally comes down and he says, he was like, okay,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: what do you gott I got this title, and he
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: his face just lit up, and so I was like,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, so he had a song on a
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: previous album called Shot through the Heart, and he's not
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: wanting to let a good hook go to waste either,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: so he threw down shot through the Heart and you
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: to blame. And then the three of us said, you
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: give love a bad name. And that was our first
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: three fists in the air, you know, like high five moment.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And uh. Then I started. I started contributing my hook
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: from if You a Woman and I was a man
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: because I just felt like, you know, I had that
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of Jersey feeling right like because of
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: the night. I gotta tell you funny story about Springstey night.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: I met him only one time and I said, hey,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: thanks for all those hits I wrote, and he just
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: fell on the floor laughing because that, you know, that
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: upward thing, like because the night and everything and so
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: um so uh and so I I started playing again
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that do do do Do Do Do Do Do Do
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Do Do Do Do Do Do on the piano, and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: I and Richie's was like, no, hey man, no, that's
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: that's like that's like Billy Jean that's like Michael Jackson stuff,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I said, played on guitar, but like do it like chugs,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: like tight chugs. And then he went to John's second time,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: face lit up and the song just like flowed right out,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: right out, and then all of those lyrics that could
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: not have been you know, I could not have been
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in that session without Bob Crewe on my shoulder, you know,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: you know, blood red nails on her fingertips, you know,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: all those descriptions that he was so good at, you know,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: creole lady marmalade, you know all of that. You know
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that's all built in, you know, to the that song
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: and many others. Okay, so you'll write that song. Is
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: it all written that day? Yeah? Okay? Was that the
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: only song that day? Or yes, that was the only thing? Okay.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: So then they were so happy that then they called
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: for another session. This time we did in New York City,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: and I borrowed an apartment that belonged to a friend
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: of mine, Duck Schneider, And it was on twenty third
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Street or two street off Eighth Avenue, and it was
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: just like this walk up and this and that, and
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: there was this big old you know, broken down upright
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: piano and where we wrote living on a Prayer? Okay,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: who wrote Johnny were used to working on the docks? Well,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: well that's the whole thing everybody brought there, stick to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to the session. But because of the time that I
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: lived with Maria on the Upper East Side where it
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: was one of the most beautiful times, and she worked
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: as a waitress at a place called Once upon a Stove,
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: and she was a singing waitress. So all the singing
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: waiters and waitresses had like fake names. So hers was
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: Gina Velvet. So then everybody, we all just started calling
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: her Gina, you know, because she reminded us of Gina
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Lila Bridgeta. And so I can I said, you know, um,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: the story of Johnny and Gina and Johnny because that's
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: my original name. So I was sneaking myself into the song,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: and john said, I can't sing Johnny. People think I'm
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: singing about myself. My name's Johnny. Was like Tommy. It
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: was a song alike, and that's how Tommy and Gina
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: was born. Okay, And then on that album, didn't you
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: co write one more song? Three more? Okay? Well, it
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: was like you give love a bad name? Living on
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: a Prayer and then um, there were two others. Right, Okay,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: how long after you write those songs do they cut
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: them in Vancouver? Months? Like next month. I mean they
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: were like hustling. They had fifty songs and uh. One
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: of the great things that they did, they like invented
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: poloing or something. They would get all their friends, brothers
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and sisters from their high schools to all go into
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: this little theater and then they play one song after
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the other and the kids would kind of like with
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: their applause, they would judge which ones they liked better.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: They would play them live or player recording recording played
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: the demos and they were like, okay, what do you
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: think of that one? You know, it's like but when
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: one was special, then they'd go crazy. They cut that one.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: So because John was serious about it's like, kids have
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: to pick this record, kids have to want this record.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: It has to be what they want. And he was
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: a kid himself, he's two and so these kids were
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: almost his age. So it was like, uh, really, And
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I went to one of those sessions and it was great.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: But they they wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and wrote to get those songs. I mean, I think
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: one of the songs that we wrote for that UM
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: for Slippery was a song called We All Sleep Alone.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: But John felt it was too um passive or feminine almost,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and it's you know, we All Sleep Alone. It's like
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it had more gravitas when Share sang it because of
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: her history and all that. And Um I was asked
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: by John Kloner to produce Share because of my success,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: and so UM I had them co produced We All
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Sleep Alone and another song that was my from my childhood,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Bang Bang, and I had gone down to Palm Springs
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: to have Sunny bano I'll write an extra verse because
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: that song originally was two minutes long. So he was
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: so gracious and he you know, I went down there
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and I didn't contribute anything. I just like he did it.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: And then I went back and I cut it and
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: we decided, you know, I wanted to do something. So
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: it was heavy metal with that song. So and UM
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: that was you know, you know that's when Richie mit
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Share and you know that became tabloid heaven and UM.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: So you know, that was like a wonderful time because
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: you know, we had written these extra songs and so
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I think we we had another song um
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: that was cut by a Canadian band that they and cut.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: How did you feel about them leaving some of your
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: songs off the record? I was happy they had one. Okay,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: So they go to Vancouver, they cut the record. Do
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: you go to Vancouver? Went to Vancouver to do the
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: last minute tweaking of the lyrics? Okay? And how long
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: were you in Vancouver for maybe like four or five days? Briefly?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: How much did Bruce Fairburn contribute? I was never in
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: the room when he was producing, so this I had
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: to like wait till the end of the night, and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: then they'd show up back at the apartments that they had,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and then after that we'd go to some strip joint. Right.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: So was it as wild as they said it was?
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: It was wild, but it was normal. Why right? Okay?
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: You know, So were you happy with Fairburn's production? I
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: couldn't imagine them better, and they brought them to life
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: like beyond my wildest dreams. And then later, of course,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: when I was writing with Arrowsmith, same thing. He brought
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the those songs like to a whole other level. I mean,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: that's one of the biggest tragedies in music that we
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: lost him, And you know, it's not that often that
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, listening to a song that I wrote
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: that didn't turn out well. You know, I'm usually producing
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: these days of songs that I write. But you know,
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: he like topped it, and that showed in a way
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: that it's like sometimes having an objective person come in
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: can really, you know, be so much better. And a
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: good example is I wrote a song with Antonina Our
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Motto and Tim James Rock Mafia called Beautiful Now, and
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: they took it to Z and I mean it was
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: the same song and everything, but what Z did to it,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: he brought it to a whole other level. And I
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: couldn't have been more pleased. So when you work with
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: people that have taste and know what they're doing, they're
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: not going to create something that's bad. Okay, so the
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: record is done. Do you have any idea it's gonna
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: be the monster that it is? Slippery went went No.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: I just thought there was just like another band from
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: New Jersey. I knew we had some good songs, and
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I had no idea. But you know, it's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: like one of those things Bob Crewe would always talk
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: about what is a star and you look up in
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: the sky and you see this extra bright star and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: then later you find out, well, no, those were ten
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: stars all lined up. So he said, okay, first you
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: have the masthead, which is the actual person, then the song,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: then the management or the production than the management, the
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: pr guy, the record company, how much money they put
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: into it, dada. And when they all line up, you know,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and someone's in their moment, fantastic things can happen, and
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: that's really rare, and and you know, I've been part
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: of some of those moments, and so I think the
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: key to begin with is that the song has to
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: really fit the arc type of the person singing it
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: in a very deep way. And I learned that from
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: my acting coach, Sondra Secat, because when she would be
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: analyzing scripts and characters and trying to merge an actor
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: into a part, like trying to really establish, well, what
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: is the arch type of the actor just as a person,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: what's the art type of the character. The closer you
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: can get some somebody to be the same thing, the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: stronger the performance is going to be. Because we're hardwired.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Just like thinking there's a snake in the corner, we're
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: hardwired wired to recognize universal archetypes from history. So you know,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: so I always explained this. So you have an arch
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: type John bon Jovi, he's like the warrior, you know,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: He's he's like the guy next door. He's all sunshine
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and like go and fight for the cause. And then
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: you have the devil and that's Alice Cooper, the dark
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: you know, and so all those you know, archetypes are
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: within everybody, and we love to see them outside of ourselves.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Like just like in tribes, they wore masks and they
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: played characters because it's fulfilled something inside us. That's what
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I believe. So when I work with the people that
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: are trying to find themselves, I try to like, let's
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: get down to, like what's your arc type? Who are you?
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: You know, there was always Venus, and then there was
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Gene Harlow, and then there was Marilyn Monroe. Then there
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: was Gwen Stefani. Right, who's Medusa, you know, Joan Crawford, Madonna,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Lady Gaga, she actually wears snakes on you know. So
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: when somebody's like close and there's it's so fulfilling, like
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: silence of the lamps, like the serial killer, we just
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: can't wait to see him back on the screen. So
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I always bear that in mind. And usually when you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: when you have an instinct like that, all of a sudden,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the person starts to find themselves because what happens is
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: they get signed because maybe this kid looks like Justin Bieber,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and then the competing label thinks, well, he's got the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Justin Bieber hair do and maybe the same kids will
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: like him too. So much happens like that, and they think,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: well sometimes and it can work sometimes. You know, you
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: have the Beatles and you have the Monkeys, right and
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: so um, that's not being an artist. And I always
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: try to tell the people I work with it's like,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: don't you want occur real? Like Shade, there's no one
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: like that. She can make a record every eight years
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and it's a hit. She doesn't care because she's living
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: her life, and then she writes about it and in time,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: those little strands become what she offers. I mean, you
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: want people to come to a market that's only you.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: That's the best kind of career to have, and then
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: it's forever and then you're not you know, you're not
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: chasing empty dreams. And you know that's the thing that's
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: not taught. I mean, for the last thirty years we've
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: had the arts pulled from the schools. Where does somebody
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: even see a picture of a Michelangelo or anything in
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: public schools out there? How do they start to build
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the feeling of like, oh, that's my place in this world.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: I'm an artist, I'm here too, you know, reflect my
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: times and also something deeper, innate that I have to
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: do for my own evolution as a person. Those thoughts
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: don't come into things. It's like, Okay, I love that
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: beat from that song. Pull up that beat, Come on,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: come on, pull up the beat. Let's just put the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: chords from this other song. And but what are they
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: talking about there? Okay, let's flip it and make it
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: something like that. And okay, yeah, you might get the
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: song cut. But does it change the course of pop music?
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Does it matter? Does it does it heal the world?
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Or do something you know that's necessary for the evolution
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: of humanity or or a plan. I mean, those sounds
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: like really grand things. Let's happen. Forget about humanity, the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: evolution of that person. He chooses that career so he
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: can bring something out that he desperately has to say
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: they're so rare people that are authentic. I could go
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: on and on about this, and you articulated brilliantly, and
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: you give me insight. Let me go to a nitty
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: gritty that really does not square with that, but it's reality. Okay,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you've had a lot of success on every level. If
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: you're following your dream, frequently in the arts, you're starving.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: Many people are unwilling to starve and so therefore they
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: never developed their artistry. What is the key to perseverance? Well,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I know because like we were so poor, and my
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: mother was kind of like Blanche Dubois Cuban, you know,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: like poet, but she was also had a hustle that
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: was like Angelica Houston and the Grifters. She dressed me
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: up in a little suit and we she she had
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: one dress, and we go to a cocktail party and
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: we would troll that cocktail party for a millionaire. Uh
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: that would you know see a built in family ready
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: to make him look good. Because my mother was very beautiful.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: She wasn't successful at it. But the hustle Okay, now
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: you say this, you say that, so there's a hustle
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: when you when you're born poor, you know, but I
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: think there's something also that people know in certain genres.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Who's real, who's cool, what's what's what has it? And
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: it's you can't you can't fool people. I agree with everything. Well,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: let's park that, but the hustle has to be there,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: not only outwardly to connect the dots, absolutely inwardly. Inwardly
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: more important than the world comes to you if you're
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: beaming with something that needs to be out there. Okay,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: that album comes out slippery. When webb, it's like an
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: instant success, it's mega, goes on for the better part
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: of two years. What do you think about? What about them? No?
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: You know you're gonna get a big pay day? B
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: is the phone start ringing off the hook? Well? I
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: tried to make the most of it because remember that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: at that time and for decades before, I don't think ever,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: there was an out producer, so there was a real
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: glass ceiling. So the bands would be okay being co
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: writer because it was inequality there. But when you're the producer,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: you're the boss ultimately, and you have to get in
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: there and dick slap these people into shape. And that's
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: something that they just their homophobia or whatever couldn't permit
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: a gay man to be the off of them. So
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: for you know, I couldn't ever get one of those
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: bands to let me be the producer, even though I
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: heard albums they made with other producers like are you
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: kidding me? I could have made a masterpiece here? What
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: what is this? And so you know, they gave me
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the kind of what I call the weirdos, the androgynous people,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: soul l artists. Um, my first production was Ronnie Specter
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: and then you know Share and Alice Cooper, Joan Jet. Okay, no,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: so okay, wait, wait who did you want to be?
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Do you want to be a producer, a songwriter and
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: artist or where what's the hierarchy there? No? I wanted
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: to be a star myself. I wanted to be a superstar,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: but I didn't have the confidence because of my own issues,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: you know, and I was I was having so much
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: success that I didn't want to stop it. I said, well,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: when I'm rich and then my mother's safe and we're
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: all good, then I'll try then then then my moment
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: will come. But so many things got in the way,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: you know, and life got in the way, and I
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: was just like I didn't in the end, I didn't.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: I'm very thin skinned. I didn't have the confidence, and um,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: so I think that. And also I was so good
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: at looking outside of myself and pinpointing. Well, like I
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: could see somebody, I could see the stars around them,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: and then I could see the dark cloud in front
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of the stars. And I was good at like scraping
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: away stuff to get to how that person could shine.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do it for myself. And so, you know,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I made an album that I'm not that happy about
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: in nine called Discipline, and I was just so desperate
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: to be a star that and I didn't have a
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: producer and I didn't have anybody to dick slap me into,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: like what, And I wasn't out on that record. It
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: was like a lie in a way, you know, I was.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I think I'm a good singer, you know, I really,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I think I've finally actually gotten good. You know. It
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: took me a long time to really when singing connect
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: and not try to think, well is it as good
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: as this is that, because that's what goes through people's minds.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: So now when I'm you know, on the other side
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: of the glass, you know, finally am my age I'm
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: able to, like, you know, sing with soul, you know,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: but it took me a lot, very my whole life. Okay,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: you write the bon Jovie songs? Do you start or
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: your managers start getting a lot of inquiries about people
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: and the right. Yeah, they wanted my songs, but didn't
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: want me to produce them. Okay, so what did you
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: do well? Like, for instance, um, Mike great friend now
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Jason Flam he had a girl singer that he was
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: trying to promote, and he had heard my song, just
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: like Jesse James, and wanted to cut it. And I
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: had written it for Bonnie Tyler because I ended up
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: producing Bonnie Tyland. That's a whole wonderful story. Um, but
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: this was a song that Bonnie wouldn't sing because she
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: was embarrassed. Her mother would think it was too suggestive,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: you know, walking into town slinging a gun, smalltown dude
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: with a big city attitude. Just that was enough to
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: say Bonnie didn't cut it. So he had heard it
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: and wanted it desperately. I said, but I have to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: produce it, and no, no, no, you know, because we
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: remember Atlantic Records and all that it was, you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: like that book right, you know, So I was you know,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: it's still like pushed down and um. And so I
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: cut it with Share and we had a hit, you know,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: and um. But I think that that's how it was.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: It was like I have to produce it or you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: don't get the song. So then okay, and then you know,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: look at with Alice Cooper, you know, I I produced
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: that record Poison Poison, that we co wrote together, and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I brought all the successful people I was working with
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: at the time, Bon Joviero Smith, Jone jet Um, you know,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: and then he had Kick Winger and Kane Roberts and
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: all these people. They all contributed to the record and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: it was a wonderful theatrical piece and that song Poison.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Listening back to it now, it's like, how I'm good.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: It was the first hitting Yeah, but just in terms
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: of rock, it was like really evil sounding and it
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: was just like exactly what his art type needed to be. Okay,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: how'd you end up working with Aero Smith John Kalodner
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: who had hired Meat for Share? So just so I know,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: do you had not made a record for Klanter before
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: you got the producing gig Share? Yeah, And he called
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: you do you were you like the first what did
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: he call and say? Were you like the first call?
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Called Winston? So my manager, right new Field fielded everything
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: and um, and we had already you know, had success
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: with Share. But he started seeing the success of bon
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Jovi and all that. So and we wait, wait wait,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I mean he had had success with Cheer you have
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: no no, no, no no. He hired me two work
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: with Share, right, and I started delivering. Okay, that's what
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to know. Yeah, And so then I was
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: having the number one with bon Jovi. So he he
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: had made a record with them called Done with Mirrors,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: which was a total stiff, total stuff. And they were,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: you know, Tim Collins was really trying to get them all,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: you know sober, and the wives sober, and the Roodie sober,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and everybody was in meetings all the time, and you
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: know it was like a cult. And so he made
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: them meet with me. So I flew to Boston. I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: got brought to this big warehouse where they had the
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: stage set up, you know, the mic stand with all
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: the whatever multicolor scarps. But on the floor, you know,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: on the floor level, there were there was an army
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: of guitars must have been a hundred guitars, all with
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: their own straps that matched the guitar, like Sparkles, Tiger, Leopard, uh,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Fenders, get you know, Gibson's Unique Ones, Vintage ones,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I mean all like it must have been like six rows,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: you know, with twenty guitars each. I mean, it was
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: like crazy. And then on the side of the stage,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: I could see the sound man that did this, the
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: stage sound on the side, and Joe was over there
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: and they were running a loop. They were putting a
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: guitar loop backwards right, and Stephen was the one that
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: you know big you know warehouse doors. It opened up
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: and you can see the coming through and Stephen comes
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: in towards the door and he's you know, warm, and
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: you know he's a people pleaser and just you know,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: it was nice. And so he brought me up. I
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: still hadn't said anything, and he said, well, you know,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: what do you think about this? And so Joe played
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: the loop and it was Antona and Data and Data
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: an donna and remind me of boogie woogie or like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: whatever from back in the day, right like it was
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: harmonica or something, and uh, Steven started singing it was
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: like Danna and Donna cruising for the lightest data and
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Dada cruising for the latest. And then he stood back
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: and he says, what do you think of that? And
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: I said, I think that's really bad and it was
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: like that was my opening line, and Joe like crossed
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: his arms and he was like looking at me. I
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: mean he poses that way anyway, looking with his head back.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I squinty, looking sideways and um, you know. Uh. Stephen
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: was like trying to rescue the situation, and I said,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: you know, Van Halen wouldn't put that on the B
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: side of their worst record, and they were like what.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: I just needed to capture their attention and kind of
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: shocked them into taking me seriously or throw me out,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: you know, the throwing out could have it could have
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: gone that way. And then Stephen, who's the people pleaser,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: said well, very sheepishly. When I first started singing that hook,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I was singing, dude looks like a lady. I said, what,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: dude looks like a lady? And I said that's a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: hit title because it had the Bob Crue ring dude
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: looks like a lady. It had everything, you know, cruising
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: for the ladies. What sounds that strip top down in
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: a cadillact. We've seen that story, right, David Lee Roth,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: the millions of those, you know, and um but and
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Joe said, yeah, but we don't know what that means.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: And I said, well, I'm gay, I know what that means.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: And he goes and so so, you know, I said,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: bear with me, come on, let's tell the story. So
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: we you know, I said, how did you come up
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: with that? And he said, well, we had you know,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: gone after hours. You know, everybody's on, you know, in
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: the program. So we were having our sodas and stuff
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: at this bar and there was, you know, at the
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: end of the empty bar, just sitting on the end
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: was this vision of beauty, this giant blond, teased up
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: hair and white skin and black nails and you know,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: curvy and all, you know, very sexy. And then uh
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: and so they were all like drawing straws, you know,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: because they were all you know, married. But there was
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: a single Roadie or something. Okay, go over there and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: say say hello. So at that moment she turns a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: round and faces them, and it's Vince Neil of Motley Crewe.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: And that's when they were like, oh, that dude looks
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: like a lady. That dude looks like a lady. Dude
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: looks like a lady. And that's where he came up
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: with it. So it's really funny because because because then
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I said, okay, so let's write the story. So the
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: whole verses like, walked into a bar on the shore,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: her picture grace, the grime on the door. Could not
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: have written that without Bob Crew, her picture, Grace, the grind,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: all the alliteration, bar on the shore, picture Grace, the
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: grime on the door. And then Stephen threw and she
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: was a long lost love at first bite whatever and so,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: which was a kind of confusing line because then it
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: sounded like he had been with her before, and so
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I tried to stop it, but he loved the way
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: the line sounded. He wouldn't change it. And so, so
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: the fantastic thing about the song is that a normal
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: band would have just like said, well, and then you know,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: I ran out of there, you know, because you know
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: that's just too weird. But in this song, no, this
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the main character stays, you know, let me take a
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: peep peek dear, you know, I like it, like it
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: like it like that my funky lady, and so he
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't run away. So the second verse, never judge a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: book by its cover or who are you gonna love
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: by your lover? And if that isn't like LGBT acceptance,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: and it's like like, if it looks good, go for it, man.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: You know, you know, it's like don't you know, don't
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: stop yourself from going with what you're feeling inside and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: and accept everybody and all that kind of stuff. Because
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: later on the song became controversial because it was like
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: not politically correct us to say the word tranny or
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you know all you know, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: But you know, I think if you look at that
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: second verse which they used and missus doubtfire and the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: broom dance, it's like a song of acceptance. And it
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: was like everybody in the world got a smile when
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: they heard it, and so it brought them back. And
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: it's funny. Uh. A few years ago, when we were
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: doing some work at our house, like the workman came
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: came up to me and he said, you wrote with Aerosmith,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: you wrote my favorite song, Do a Naked Lady. It's
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: like do a Naked that's what he here. That was
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: his story in his head, you know. So I just
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: got such a kick out of that. But when Stephen
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: went to write his his autobiography, he spent like two
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: our pages, two or three pages talking about the creation
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: of dude looks like a Lady. And he painted me
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: out to be like Juan Valdez. So well, he was Latino.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: He had a handlebar mustache like I was wanting. You know,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: it's like like a worker from the fields. That was
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: like whatever. First of all, I never had like a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: mustache on its own, not even in the seventies when
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: it was cool, like you know. And then um, then
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and then he said, well, you know I already had
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: the song written, doesn't mention cruising for the ladies? And
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: um um. You know, Desmond contribute a few little things
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: to the verses, but you know, and you know, it's like, well,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: we just let him put his name on the song whatever.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: And so then Joe co Co writes his book with
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: David Ritz and says, well, Desmond's the one who came
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: up with dude looks like a Lady. We could not
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: have written that song without that title. And it's like,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: wait a second, So I've co written my book with
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: David Ritz and I set the record straight. But I
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: was working with Joe and he was recording a song
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: called Red, White and New in my studio Nashville, and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: I sat him down and one of my writers had
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: written the song. Levi hummed, and so I sat him down. Okay,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: this is how we wrote the song. And I told
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: him the story and he goes, oh, I like your
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: story better than mine, but you wrote a book about it.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna set there. Who are you gonna believe me?
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: Are these you know rehab rockers? Man? Okay? Did you
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: ever confront Tyler about it? That's who I'm talking about. Tyler. No, no, no, Tyler,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: like you know, said I like your story better than mine.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: But it's like and to Joe, it's like I didn't
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: come up with the title, Stephen did. It's like you
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: got it all wrong, you guys, you know, but you
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: know it all worked out and I'm going to set
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: the record straight in my book. Okay, So you're right there.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: How long did it take you to write the record?
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: Write the song? We wrote it that day, wrote it
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: that day that day. What did Klodner say, because he
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: was totally hands on. Well, they had to make the
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: demo and whatnot, and I wasn't there when they did,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: so it took a while for him to finally hear
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the batch of songs. The next day, I walked in
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: and Joe didn't come in. You know, he was like,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: I don't think he was comfortable, right, So, uh, no
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: one was there, not even the roadies. And I go
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: into that big thing and there was a little keyboard
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: like in front of the stage like butt it up
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: right to the to the wall of the state and
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: the stage was above us and it was like a
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: little Wilitzer and there was like a little bench and
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: then he sat next to me and I, you know,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: I started in like I do kind of like tell
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: me about your life. What have you been going through?
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Da da da da da, you know, trying to draw
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: something out, and he said, well, I met this woman Teresa,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: and she really, you know, she saved me. I mean,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I was, just Tyler. This is Tyler.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: What I would be without her? You know, she's she's
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: she's she's an angel, She's my angel. And then when
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: he said the word angel, I saw those bloodubber lips
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: and it was like Mick Jaggers saying angey real. And
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: I said, oh my god, I have to get him
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: to have those blubber lips just like just like Jagger
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: saying angel. And so I talked him into, you know,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: writing this song to Teresa, You're my Angel, come and
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: save me tonight. We wrote that song literally that was
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes. And then, um, I mean it just
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: like flowed just like that everything about it. And um,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: that song made it on the record and it was
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: like their second single, and um, I don't I didn't
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: get that much played and shows and stuff till recently.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they went back to it or not,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: but I did see a show where they did do it,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: but maybe that's because they knew I was there. But um,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like way more pop than they
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: were comfortable with. And you know, I was really the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: first outside person to co with them, you know. And
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: and I think I kind of like almost invented a
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: career because before, you know, it was like not cool
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: for for bands to write with outside people, but maybe
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: they take a suggestion from a producer who would get
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: their name on it, but for a professional songwriter to
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: come in like a consultant and um, you know, uh,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: then do that that was not a career that was happening.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: And when people saw the success I was happening having
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people that had tried to
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: be stars or this or that jumped into that, you know,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and started doing the same thing as me. And then
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I'd start to see their names, you know, like Mark
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Hudson and people like that appear on the same with
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: the same bands that I was working with. Okay, let's
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: go back to the beginning. So you're from Miami. Yeah,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: were you born in Miami? I was born in Gainesville, Florida. Okay,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: your parents. You say you're father was Hungary and he
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: literally came from Hungary. Yes, But my mother was married
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: to an American geologist and she went from Cuba two
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: Ecuador and then Venezuela and lived in oil camps with
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: you know, her husband, who was sixteen years older than her.
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: And she's you know, she looked like an American movie star.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: She was kind of tall, so she didn't really fit
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: in with other more Latina girls that were smaller and
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: and all that. She and she was very kind of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: there was something about her that was androgynous, and so
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: even though she was so beautiful, I mean, she would
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: she would prefer talking to men. She would sit with
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: their legs open, you know, like sit like a man
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: or something like that. She was like that, and she
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: was hanging around Tennessee williams Uh and people like that
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: and the this is the late forties, early fifties in Havana.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: And so she she found this American and she thought
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: it was her last chance. She was twenty three and
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: everyone said she was going to be a spinster. So
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: she marries this guy who really, you know, I don't
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: think he knew what he was getting into because she
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: was full of energy and laughter. And then um, he
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: had his mother who was like um, Maggie Smith, who
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: was an english woman from Manchester, England, and who didn't
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: speak Spanish, and she didn't like my mother at all.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: So my mother was miserable, miserable, miserable, living in an
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: oil camp in Venezuela. So on Wednesdays she would go
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: on a ferry boat to the main little town, which
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: is like the wild West, but there was a movie
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: theater and there'd be an American film, so she'd go.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: And so one day she walked in the movie theater
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: was empty, so she went and sat down and she
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: it was National Velvet with Elizabeth Taylor. And then this
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: man came in and sat next to her in the
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: empty theater and just started looking at her. And he
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: was handsome. He looked like Errol Flynn, a movie star,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: Carrie Grant or something like that. And so they went
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: and had coffee and they began. Every Wednesday, she would
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: go in and then they would hook up. And so
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: in one of those I was conceived. And so when
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: she just to be clear, is that your Hungarian father? Okay,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: what was he doing in Venezuela. He went in with
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: immigrants that that we're all traveling around, you know, um
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: because remember that Russia took over, so even you know,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: so he was hanging around with Jewish um families and
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: he you know, he wasn't Jewish, but he was you know,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: like comfortable, you know, and they were all building businesses.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: And he started building oil platforms out of cement and
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: that was his business. And so you know, so you know,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: in those days, remember if you went to town, you
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: were a suit and tie and all of that is
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: this is and I was conceived on her birthday, January
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: I was born exactly nine months later. So one day
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: she stopped coming and he would wait for that ferry boat,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: and then he'd wait the next Wednesday, and she wasn't coming.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: She wasn't coming, she wasn't coming, and he started getting
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: like really uptight. He was really in love with her.
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: So he takes the ferry boat to the other side,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: goes to the oil camp and they said, oh, no,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: they moved away. Where did they move We not allowed
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: to give you that information. And so they had moved
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: to Gainesville, Florida, and he got a job as a
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: teacher at the Florida University Florida State University or whatever,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: and they had a dairy ranch. He bought a dairy ranch.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: This is my mother's husband, John Barrett. And so my father,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: who was desperate, went to Havana and from little clues
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: that she had said in their time together, he tried
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: to track her down. So he went to the Hotel
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: Nacional and he looked across the barney, thought he sorry,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: ran up to her and um, it was her sister,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: because they were all very similar looking. And uh, she
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: was at that time the mistress of the dictator Bautista,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: this is babe, and she was like the eight girl
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: of Havana and um. So he gave her a letter
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: on the stationary and she put it inside her own
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: letter and sent it to Hathorne. And they went back
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: and forth like that, first to Cuba, then to him,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: and you know, like that and uh. Then finally they
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: agreed to meet in Miami Beach in a little hotel
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: off of seventy one Street that ultimately was where kunan
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: and was hiding, right was before he did the rassade thing.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: And that they were together six days and that was
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the only time we were ever a family. Really. Yeah,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: in those six days, he'd already been born. I was
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: six months old, So I mean that whole process I got.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: So then he felt like he had convinced her that
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: she would leave her husband because I had his child.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: And so she said, she said, okay, I'll do We'll
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: do that. She said, come in thirty days to pick
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: me up in the farm and and that will give
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: me a chance to you know, deal with him and
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: pack all my things and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: So he went there and in a car that he
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: rent a car, and then his brother was driving a
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: U haul and they show up and she was like
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: she still hadn't told her husband. She couldn't deal with it.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: She was like a wreck because she was afraid of
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: what her family would think of her. And so he
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: was there talking to her, and we had and the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: brother was taking pictures really cinematic and I'm like playing
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: on the floor. And then the husband comes home and
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: he's like, who are these men? And so she was
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: like and tear She went into the house and she
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: locked herself in the bathroom. And then um, you know,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: my biological father, Joe Marphy and Mr Barrett went for
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: a long walk, and according to my father, he was like,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: because they had already been having a lot of trouble
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and everything, he said, okay, you know, take her, take
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: the kid, just get out of here. But you know,
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: my mother told a different story that she said, you
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: can take her, but you have to leave the kid,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: which is an impossible thing, like he would never have said.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: So she refused to go, and so then they and
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: then Mr Barrett told Uh Marphy, Joe Marphy that never
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: to try to contact them again, to just leave and
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: never never come back. So then he went back to Venezuela, heartbroken,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: and he married um Um Holocaust survivor, and they began
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: their family and all of that, and then, uh, you know,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: eventually it didn't work out of course with Mr Barrett,
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: so she moved to Miami and then she recontacted him,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: but he had already married. So it's like their their
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: ships didn't cross. But when I when I didn't find
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: out about this story until I had turned eighteen. Really yeah,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: so I thought the other guy was my father. So
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: then when I was eighteen, my biological father insisted to
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: tell me. So I was already living in Woodstock, I
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: had dropped out of school, and I was, you know,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: working at Bearsville as the coffee boy and um making
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: my first demo with Van Morrison's band and with Virgil
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: night Child was going to ride High and we went
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: to see seymour Stein and he was the first executive.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: We we went down to New York and he just
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: started Siren and so, uh, he said, meet me in
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: New York. So I met him and it was like
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: a Luke Skywalker moment. Says he said, do you know
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: you know why I've always kind of come around and
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: all that? And then then he says, because I am
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: your father. You know, it was like it was like
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: a bucket of ice cold water, and then everything made sense.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: And so from that moment on, he gave me money
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: to be able to drive back to Miami because we
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: were flat broke and um. Then he put me through college.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: I went to community college and I graduated from n
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: y U. Really, yeah, okay, you're in school. Let's go
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: back to green school. Your mother ever find another guy? Oh?
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: She had many other men, okay, but none she married.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: She married some how did you feel about that? It
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: was a terrible time. Remember we lived in the projects
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: of Liberty City, and she was, you know, working, and
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: she couldn't hold a job more than three weeks. And
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: she worked at Burger King and she'd come home at
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: night with these like whoppers that nobody ate. So we
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: would take the tops and then throw away the bottoms
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: and make one that was because it was they were
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: like mushy, and that's how we that's when we'd eat,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: and you know, eleven'clock at night, and or it was
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: cereal and milk and stuff like that. It was really
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: poor and very dangerous place. But the beauty of all
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: these things is that I was playing on the swing sets,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: you know, with you know, children of all races, and
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: there was always the R and B station that was playing,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: and so I was listening to Aretha Franklin whistling pickt
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: and all of these records that were different than what
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: would would hear on TV or all of that. So
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: soul and all of that, it really got into into
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: my bones. Okay, you go to elementary school, you go
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: to high school, you fit in you and outsider, what
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: kind of I'm like. I went to my um, I
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: was poor and all that, but I started growing. I
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: started tending towards like the hippie and the spiritual cults
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: and gurus and health food and you know all of
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: that yoga and Rosa Christian Crucian and Sachia Nanda and
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: I went through all of these things. And I would
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: wear all white and then I would have like long
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: hair and beads and sandals and stuff. And I went
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: to my high school reunion my fort and people came
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: up to me and well, first of all, no one
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: invited me to any parties, nothing. And I started hanging
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: around with the weirdos, the people that would eventually finally
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: realized they were gay or artists are just like offbeat, right,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: and so, um, that's where I met Virgil, and so
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: I moved to a hippie house in Coconut Grove called
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: the Maya Family, and um, all of these things, and uh,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: I was never part of the rich kids, and so
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't fit into their world. Their clothes all came
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: from New York. They were driving their parents last year Cadillac.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: I mean it was, you know. And so I went
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: to my high school reunion and they said, oh, you know, Desmond,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: you were always a superstar. You know, you were so
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: mysterious with you were so handsome and and so cool,
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: and you were like you were like an angel walking
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: down the halls and all this kind of stuff. And
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: inside I just felt so like a nothing, you know, Latino,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: poor gay. You know, I just didn't know what until
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: I met Virgil. And then she like gave me a
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: feeling like I belonged to something. We started reading cool
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: books together and and all of that. And then then
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: then when Desmond Child was born, then Desmond Child could
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: be anything I wanted it to be. I was no
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: longer Johnny Barrett, you know, that was a nothing. I
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: was now Desmond Child and I loved the name because
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: it reminded me of Elton John. It had that ring
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: to it. And so I've been able to become maybe
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: the arc type of whatever that is. You know. Okay,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: so when do you start playing music? So we we
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: started playing little cafes, No no, no where did you
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: learn how to play? Take? And I always played piano
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: because my mom was was playing piano. That what was
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: always a piano in my else? Okay, do you take
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: lessons or just figured out by yourself? Figured out by myself?
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Can read music now? No, even though I graduated from
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: n YU the music department, I can. I can know
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: you went down y good experience, bad experience. It was
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: a wonderful experience because I had like the most amazing teachers.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: There was a voice teacher, John Kune. He lived to
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: be two and uh, he believed in me and he
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: really helped me to develop my voice. And then there
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: was Adina Scoville and she had invented the keyboard numerical
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: system where you put your hands on its one, three,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: five and then you can play in any key and
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: that's what Nashville adopted. She invented that in the nineteen thirties.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: And she had written a book called Keyboard Technique Modena Scoville,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: and she was already super old, and she was teaching
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: at n y U. And she you know, when I
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: once I figured out how I can put my hands
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: down and modulate, it made a huge difference because I
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: could almost play anything, even though I mean I can't
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: play fast songs and stuff, but I could pluck out chords.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: And I knew to do a seconds and force and
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: understand all of this. And then I had a UM,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: a music theory teacher that was Holocaust survivor, and she
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: ilsa bunch and she believed in me. So made such
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: a difference, you know, And and um to have people that,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: and so I wasn't want to do homework and all that,
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: so I always sit in the front row. So I
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: just listened really carefully, and then I did well in
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: my tests. I was a big believer when I went
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: to college, irrelevant of what you did, you gotta go
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: to class every day otherwise feel like you're not even there.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: And so I was good at that. And I was
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: driving a cab, I was living with Maria in the
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: little apartment. I worked at a sporting goods store. I
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: did Xerox machine and she was working waitress, and you know,
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: those were like magical, wonderful days and hanging around Reno
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: Sweeney because that's where we wanted to play. And eventually
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: we opened, you know for four you know, bigger stars there,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: and that's that's how we became, you know something. And
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: so we got signed out of there, uh two Capitol Records.
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: So who signed you? Richard Landis and you know, and
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: we were obsessed with Laura Nero. So he put us
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: with Charlie Collelo, who was the arranger of Eli and
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: the Thirteen Confessions. And then I hired Laura Nero's um
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: father to tune my piano so I could just pick
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: his brain about Laura and and he was you know,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: we'd be there three hours and need to tell his
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: stories and stories and so you know, eventually, you know,
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: I got to know her a few years before she
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: passed away. Okay, she was living in Danbury then, and
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: I went to Danbury and she made me dinner. Okay, wait, wait,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: but how did you make the connection? She played in
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: Santa Monica at a little jazz club on Santa Monica
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: Boulevard or something like that. In my place somebody's name.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: I think, whatever, keep going. Yeah, And so I sent
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: back my my my business card and with a little
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: note says I wanted to meet you my whole life.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: And so by the time I got home, there was
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: a message on my voicemail. Hi, It's Laura, and it
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: was like she gave me her phone number, and then
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: she came over for dinner. Wow. Well was that like
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: it was like magical. So then it was lucky because
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: Maria was already with Rick, and uh, Diana was there
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: and I think Miriam was in town. And we had
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: this this dinner you know, with Laura and Desmond Child
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: and Rouge. And then we went to my piano and
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Laura sat at the piano and we started singing through
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: all the songs of Gonna Take a Miracle. Wow, it
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: was like a fans wild exactly. I got it. I
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: got it. I got it. And then and then she
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: invited me, you know, because she invited me to her
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: house for dinner. So I went and I imagined, like
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: this grant remember when I was living with Maria, had
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: this little tiny willeitz Er piano, and I kept singing, God,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: you know, Laura Nero write so many songs much better
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: than mine. And she's probably on gorgeous piano overlooking riverside drive,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: you know, all this kind of stuff. So I go
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: and rent a car, and I go to dan Berry
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: and I go on this thing and you know, she
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: lived in a prefab little gray thing that was like
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: a little trailer. It was literally a trailer. It was
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: like a pre fab It was like as wide as
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: you know, you could drive down a road right. And
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: then she had a little part that stuck out and
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: there was a fouton on the floor and that's where
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: she slept, and her son slept like in a little
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: loft over the closet. And um, she because she couldn't
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: afford to live in the main house that she owned,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: so she had that rented. And she made me and
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: I thought, oh this she's Italian and Joe, She's gonna
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: make the most delicious good. It was just like regular
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: pasta with ragu, tomato, sauce, iceberg lettuce and french is dressed.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: And I brought a bag full of like hogandas which
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: was you know, she loved that. So we had all
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: the four that I had brought in with spoons and
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, and she had a picture
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: window and underneath the picture window was a little will
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: itz Er Spinett like the one I was writing exactly,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: you know, with the little thing, and that's where she
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: was writing. And it was like, wow, isn't that ironic? Okay,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: it's also ironic that she was straight and then she
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: went gay she came out. Yeah, I mean I think
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: she was. She wasn't like I think she was whatever,
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: bisexual or whatever she was whatever. Just an interesting parallel there.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: Why do you why do you think? Oh? Well, when
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: we were listening to her music, Elien the third thing confessions,
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: I have an interesting story because the person who played
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: me that to begin with was Lisa Wexler, Jerry Wexler's daughter.
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: And did you know Jerry, Yes, because he was the dad.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: This is when I was Yeah, but did you know
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: who he was? Kind of? And I would? They were
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: snowbirds and they had rented a house or maybe he
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: had actually bought on Alice in Island, and so I would.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: I would I met her because I was me and
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: my cousin, my cousin Iggy. We would go and fish
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: coins out of the fountain blue fountains and the Eden
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: Rock and the dul and we were putting twenty bucks
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: in our pocket every time we went went there. So
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: I met Lisa and she was like the snowbird, very masculine,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: and you know I always drawn to this and raging people.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: And so she said, oh, come over to my house
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: for dinner, and so I started going over there and
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the dinner uh, you know, because Jerry loved this kind
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: of more like being home for dinner. And you know, Sureley, Anita, Paul, Lisa, Me, Jerry,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: Tom Dowd, a Reef Martin m at her again in
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: and they would be talking about the Vietnam War, the
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: politics and how they were scheming, you know, to take
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: over the music business and all these things. And I
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: just wanted to stay at the table. And she would
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: be like pulling on my shirt, like let's go to
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: my room, smoke a joint, you know whatever. And so
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: she pulled me over there and then she pulled out this,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: uh this record actually it was Lauren NEOs Um more
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: than a New Discovery, the first album she played for me.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: In the minute I heard her voice, it was like
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: touched me. It's like, okay, that's what I want to do.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: That that touched me in a way that nothing ever did.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: Her voice was like this wailing sound, and then her
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: picture and everything is she was like a Madonna or something.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: You see her perform live, I have, Yeah, I did
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: at the University of Miami and then she was also
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: at the Gulf Stream. Yeah, I saw her three times.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that after her initial period she
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: never had more success? Well, well, first of all, she
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: was never trying to write commercially, and it was David Geffen,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: her agent and manager, who was placing the songs in
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: these amazing ways Three Dog Night and The Fifth Dimension
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: and you know, Barbara Streisan and like so many things,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: and she became like, you know, the eight Girl of songwriting.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: But she was a very shy person. And um, you know,
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: I think that David according to what she told me,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: and also Clive Davis. You know, she was at Columbia
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: and David created Asylum Records essentially for her. But you know,
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: she didn't I want to leave Clive because it was
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: like a family to her. So she just wouldn't go.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: And so I think David was very hurt by that.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: And of course what he did was he found Joni
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: Mitchell and made her like the biggest female songwriter of
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: all time. So and so, then I once had lunch
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: with Clive Davis and and I said, well, what's your
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: I asked him, you know, interviewing him kind of like,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: what's your biggest regret in your career? He said that
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't become David Geffen's partner and go with him
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: when he asked me to go, because I was putting
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: out three FT records a year. I couldn't understand his
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: business model, like twelve albums a year, and so it
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: just he'said, I just didn't get it, you know I
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: And so he says, that's my biggest rea rhet and
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: I just thought, well, like wow, And then I started
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: to think about it, and I thought like maybe David
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: was still trying to say, if I could get Clive
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: to come, then Laura will come. I got you, So
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I hope you know I'm not speaking out
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: of turn, but that was the math that I did. Okay,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: what's your favorite Laura Neuros song, Eli's Coming Emily Okay, um,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: beads of Sweat, Um Christmas and my Soul. I have
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: to say that that's that's the one. And when when
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: she died Desmond Child and Ruth sang that at the
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: Beacon Theater, you know, and in her tribute and um,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: you know that song is just so great. Mine is
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: Captain for Dark Mornings. That okay. So so today, Desmond,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: what are you up to today? Well? Um, last year
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: I decided I was going to perform again because I
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: want to, because I just had to. And so I
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: got all my friends together and went back to New
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: York and found a club that kind of remind me
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: of Reno Sweeney and it's called Finstein's Einstein's, as I say,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: I know, Michael Finstein did a podcast with him, um
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: and um it was underneath fifty four below and I
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: think it used to be like the orgy room or
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: something where the drugs were all taken, you know, with
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: Houstin and Liza or whatever. In those days. I was
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: never able to get past the red red rope, not
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: that I really tried that hard. Um. And so we
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: I recorded those three nights and um then compiled it
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: together to be this live album desm Child Live that
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I've you know, put out on b MG, and um,
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just you know, it feels it feels
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: so good. I mean not all the songs that I
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: ever we're hits were on it, but I sing a
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: lot of the songs that became popular that I collaborated
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: with with Aerosmith, bon Jovi and all that, and um,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's kind of it's kind of homespun.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: It's not slick. It's like it's just a live cabaret room.
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: But I'm very happy with it. And um, I mean
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: I opened the show with Laura Nero song The Man
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: Who Sends Me Home, which I dedicated to my husband.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Of course that didn't make it on the record, but
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: at I have it in the cans whatever and so um.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: And then I've been writing my autobiography with David Ritz
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: and it's called Living on a Prayer, Big Songs, Big
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: Life with David Ritz, and it's it's still I think Thursday,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: we're gonna make one last sweep through it and get
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: it up up to date. And you know, I haven't
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: been able to find a publishing deal yet, and I
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: was thinking just printing it myself and publishing it just
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: like Amazon or something. That's a whole separate conversation. I
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: don't know what to do. Um. I had some you
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: should talk to If you want to do it yourself,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: Jason Flam did a children's book which he heavily promoted itself.
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: If you want to go that route, get ahold of Jason. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: Lulul Dog because we have a bulldog looks almost like
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: Lulu's sister. Uh so, um, so I've been working on that. Um.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: I've been working on a Broadway musical called Cuba Libre,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: and it's the true story of my mother's two very
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: beautiful younger sisters, Baba who I spoke about, who is
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: Bautista's mistress, and the youngest one, who was the revolutionary
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: in the family and she became Castro's lover after the revolution.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: So we have two sisters to dig taters one island.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: And so I've been working on it with David Sigerson
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: for since we started looking back, since two thousand four.
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: Are we coming to Uh yes, I mean We've worked
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: for many years, um developing it with you know, producers,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: Broadway producers, but then they got busy with other shows
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: and this and that, and finally I think, you know,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: we have a new resurgence that's coming and hopefully we'll
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: be able to start putting it up on the on
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: its feet. But you know, I put everything I've got
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: into that. And also have another collaborator, Andreas Carlson, who
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: co wrote a lot of the songs for the Backstreet
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: Boys in and Sink back in the day. And I
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: met him and when he came to see me, because
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: he was on a kind of pilgrimage to meet everybody
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: or anybody that he ever saw their name on a
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: kiss cover. So I was it. So we sat and
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: we we just bonded, and he started telling me about
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: oh Town, and he started telling me about lou Perlman
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: and what he was doing there with all these boy briends.
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: I said, wait a second, this is like the idol maker,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: this is like this is amazing. This could make an
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: amazing movie. Right, So then we always talked about, you know,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: how we would do it. So then when Luke Perlman
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: got caught perpetrating one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: history and then he goes to jail, like, the story
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: just got better and better, and so Andreas like maybe
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: and I like eight years ago we bought the rights
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: to a book on the subject called The Hit Sharade
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: by Tyler Gray and then we bought the right. We option.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: I would say I didn't winn't buy the rights. We
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: option the rights uh to an article in Vantage. Then
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: ay Fair called Matt about the boys. And so we
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: finally have amazing partners. Ed pressman, pressman film, um Greg
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: Basser who was with Village Road Show uh and now
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: he has his own company, Gentle Giant. He's Australian David Anton,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: he's a you know, high end brand marketeer. Andreas and
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: myself and um Heather Winters who's one of my close
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: friends since she was the producer of the executive producer
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: of Supersized Me. And so we are now moving forward
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: to try to you know, get the director. The money's
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: called coming, it's all doing. It's a scripted film on
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: the subject. And I think what happened was that I
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: would come to l A and you know, I write
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: with different people and then you know, before you know it,
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, there's like six people on the song.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: And then maybe you could get Selena go Mess to
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: maybe cut a song. But if it's not a single,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: then it's like all that effort, the trip, everything, it's
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: just or it doesn't get cut at all. And I said,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: you know what, I want to be a buyer, not
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: a seller. I want to decide what songs go into
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: some big projects, and I want to put on you know, music,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: and I want to write things. So that's what had
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: gotten into my head. Doing a musical, doing a movie, um,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, and I have other ideas you know that
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: I'm pursuing. And it's fun. It's really creative too because
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: I always wrote for archetypes, so I'm writing for characters
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: and um so this uh but the it's called trans
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: Con Theoretical Airline. The movie is called trans Con The
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: Making of lou Perlman and the Boy Band Revolution. Now.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Uh so if someone calls you to write, co write today,
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: you will say, um, well, like who like an artist
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: or like other pals you know that are an artist?
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: An artist? Well, you know, there's some really great artists
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: that are young and and I listen to them and
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: if I feel that spark, I will write with them.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: So in Nashville there's some new artists that I'm you know,
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: kind of working with and developing. But I'm also meeting with,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: you know, an artist that's already making records and touring. Um,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: and so I'm like I will meet, I will write,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: I will you know. I'm just I just don't put
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: myself on a pedestal. The only problem is when the
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: person doesn't have writing skills that it's like playing like
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: Serena Williams playing with Grandma. It's like, that's not that's
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: not fun for me. And I don't think the best
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: thing comes out because then I impose everything on that
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: other person. They may not be able to pull it off.
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: And how often are you doing that? That's my day
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: job and I'm I'm like, I'll be going to New
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: York to work on my Broadway show or come out
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: here and doing I'm you know, yesterday I was running
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: with for the last two days with Rock Mafia, and
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: you know, we had a hit together with Z called
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Now, so you know we we're doing good. And
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: they welcome me so beautifully. That's that's because I'm not
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: there in their face all the time. I come every
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: few months. They're always happy to see me. And then Nashville,
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: I have my own studio and all that and people
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: are coming and um so why Nashville, there's a game? Man?
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: Well after we had you know, after after nine eleven,
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: see I go from tragedy tragedy earthquake. Nine eleven, I
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: had like twelve people working for me. It was the
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: Ricky Martin machine, and so Ricky lives six blocks away,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: so we had four studios going and and engineers assistant engineers.
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: We were right on the water. Our cook was cooking
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: for ten twelve people every day, you know, lunch and dinner.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: It was like a machine. And then after nine eleven,
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: the record companies. On the one hand, I didn't want
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: to pay too because remember the file sharing and all that.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: They stopped letting people come and rent apartments or stay
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: in hotels to work with me. And also people were
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: afraid to fly, so now I spent. Then my my
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: children were born two thousand two, and so we had
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: a problem because the state of Florida wouldn't allow my
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: husband to be a legal co parent, So that was
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: that wasn't good. And so I had four houses, I
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: had my mom, and and it was like I wasn't
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: working and the things I was getting were real like
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: kind of sea level artists. Just to keep the lights
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: on and takeing on. I said, I'm wasting myself. It's
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: this isn't And at the same time, American Idol started happening,
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: so I started spending so much time in l A.
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: And and Clive was nice enough to put me into
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: with Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken and Carrie Underwood and
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: and Fantasia and all this kind of stuff. So I
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: was working for Clive, but my family was in Miami,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: so you know, I kind of said, Okay, that's it,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: let's just go back to l A. And you know,
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: Max Martin had moved to l A. Everybody was moving
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: to l A. And it seemed like, well, maybe I
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: can jump in like that. So we bought a house
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: and in Montenito, next to sam um Um Will Smith.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: His like property was like stones throw away from ours.
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: It was four and a half acres this house, and
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: it had a waterfall, koy ponds, and it had all
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. But you know was after our
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: friends all had fun at our big fifty foot pool,
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: then they stopped coming to hang out with us. So
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 1: we started to feel very isolated. So we moved to
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: Santa Monica and we had a glorious time because the
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: kids went to like a preschool called Little Dolphins by
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: the Sea, and we met so many lifetime friends there,
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: it seemed like okay. And then finally the market that
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: we had bought a house in Center Market, but the
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: market had really peaked, and we said, because we had
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: always had our little cabin in in in Nashville, I said,
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: let's just sell. Let's go to Nashville and Curtis. We
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: also got scared because a lot of our friends that
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: had teenage kids, you know, going too high private high schools,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: they were all already in rehab once or twice, and
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: we said, do we really want to raise our sons
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: here with these dangers. So Curtis, who's from Missouri, you know,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: and his we can drive to his his mom's house
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: and all that said, know, let's go to Nashville. And
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: we've had a beautiful life there. We really have. Okay,
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: a couple of things. Two songs you're most proud of
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: Weird with Hansen, because that's the song that I feel
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: reflects them where you know, I feel you know, it's
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: like when you're you're feeling different and then kind of
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: getting to the place where you know what, even the
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: prom queen feels different. You know, she everyone looks at her,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: she thinks, you know, everybody thinks she's so perfect and
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: she's the most insecure and so it's one of the
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 1: most beautiful songs, you know, continue and um, it's it's
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: inspired by Burt Backrack and the lyrics of haw David.
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm you know, I feel that song. And um
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: there's a song that I wrote with John bon Jovi
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: called you Want to Make a Memory and I sing
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: it in my show and I love that song because
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, my life is so much I mean,
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: I'm still friends with my high school friends. It's about
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: you know, we have so many memories and um, I
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe that's kind of a maybe the age
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: that I'm in looking back on my life, retrospect in
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: my book, all this kind of stuff. But the idea
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: of making new memories, you have to make an effort. So,
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: you know, we get our friends and we all found
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: this little island in Greece and we meet there every summer.
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: We're going now for our twelve How many people go, Oh,
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: they come in and out, you know, but we stay
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: there for a month and then we stay at the
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: most fantastic It's Mama Mia, right, and you're on a
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: cliff and everything, and uh, you just forget about the world.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: You start leaving your phone in your room, you start
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: not there's no TV. Uh, you stop looking at your computer,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: and you start making a life for yourself and you
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: start peeling away all of this stuff. You know. By
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: the end, it's like, oh, there's just two more days. Really,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: can we change our flights? Can we stay longer? Because
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: you know, you you start getting in touch. And then
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: our kids, who tough guys. I don't know how they
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: turned into such jocks. You know. My son's Roman and
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: Nero named after Lawer Nero and y r Oh. I
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: never saw jockey or jocks. I mean they will they
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: vowed never to see another Broadway show. Yeah, they will
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: not go. They will you know, hell no, we won't go.
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: So we we started them seeing like you know, Billy
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: Elliott in London when they were four years old. You know,
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: it was like um and so they like, you know,
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: they when we're in Greece, they turn like little kids,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: you know, because they see the other European children hugging
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: their parents and stuff, and like when we're natural, it's
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: like and then when we're there, it was like they
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: just run like like in packs. They become like little
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: kids and I just love that about being there, Okay,
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: And what do you think about today's music? I love it.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: I mean I love um the inventiveness. And you know,
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: it's like necessity, you know, because the budgets are you know,
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: they give you Okay, here's five thousand dollars and now
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: deliver your whole record. So what is it? Invention is
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: the daughter of necessity. I think people are making the
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: most out of samples and things and and actually bringing
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: into a high art form and I applaud it and
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: I think it's really good and it's more egalitarian, like
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: you can make a song today tonight and put it
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: out tonight before you'd wait two years for your single
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: to finally appear, and by that point it's out of style.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: And so uh, I just think that this. I'm not
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: afraid of technology. I just love it and I'm working
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: in it. And what about melody? Melody? That's the thing.
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: It's like with these cut and paste things, I think
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: people get too lazy. And also they don't dig deep
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: enough into into the lyrics as much as they could.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love urban music because lyrics are so
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: important to it and the inner rhyming and a literation
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: but I'm just talking about you know, pop music that
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: has you know, urban riffs and stuff like that. It
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: just doesn't sometimes feel like it's deep. Like I love
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: Halsey that song, you know without me. I just love
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: the sound of that and Billie Eilish and like all
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: of that, and the way that they're those productions are
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: there so sparse and they make the most out of nothing.
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: They're like Japanese haikus or something. I see it like
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: that because and I'm like back in the day, the
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: King of Walls of Sound. I love, you know, I
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: listened to Love Deluxe like over and over again. I
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: never get sick of it. It sounds like it was
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: done yesterday like today, and when somebody's doing true art,
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: it's timeless, and you know, I'm always striving for that.
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: And so I love I love the music of today,
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: and it was someone who's creative. What inspires you, well,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I I think that when somebody some some
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: people have natural talent, you know, they're just anything they touched,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: they like, they'll turn that box and all of sudden
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: they turn it on its side, and all of a
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: sudden they put something on top, and it's art. They
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: have the eye or they have the ear. Those people
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: are so rare, you know, because we also live in
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: the world where everybody wants to be famous. It's like
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: you can be famous for nothing and you're just cute
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: and funny or something, and you can have billions of followers.
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: So I think that when somebody walks into my office
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: and they have it, it's like I come alive, like
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: I get it and I feel it. And so there's
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: always somebody being born who has it, and so, but
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: it's not that many because it's a rare thing. Before,
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: when Clyde was putting out three fifty albums, you know,
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: in the seventies in every genre, you know, that was
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: the Harvard of Music, you know, and you know, it
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: was like wow, and you'd listen to those records over
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: and over and over again. Now it's like it sounds
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: it seems like people are putting out three songs a second.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: I think they are. I mean, it's almost impossible to
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: to wrap your head around it. And and of all that,
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: what really is essential? Really, I guess people find it
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: and then it touches them, you know. And so if
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: it's moving people and inspiring people, or even if it's
• 1:59:39
  Speaker 1: not inspiring people's making people mad. I think that's it's
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: bringing out emotion. I think that that's worthwhile. But you know,
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: the who knows where the world's going, right, it's it's
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: going so fast I can't keep track of it. I
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: just want to be as I heard Dolly Parton once
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: say on TV. She said, well I want to be
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: an active participant in the entertainment industry. And there we
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: have it. Desmond, thanks so much for doing this. Has
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: been wonderful. Thank you. I feel like I've been in
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: therapy the whole time. Well, hopefully it will benefit you
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: as much of my audience. Until next time, This is
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: Bob Left says