Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Pat Monahan

Transcript

Pat Monahan · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Chats podcasts.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My Yesterday's Hot on a hand of Twain. That band
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: is going on the road with Bare Naked Ladies and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Matt Nathanson and have a new single, The Weekend Pat.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I read the lyrics of the Weekend. I listened to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the song, and it seems like there's a message tell
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: me what the song is about.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Well, Hi, Bob, thank you for having me on your program.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: I really am a big fan of your work. You're
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: seeming to be the smartest guy in the music industry,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: and I've read many, many, many of your articles that
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I adore. So the weekend is I started singing, I
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: don't talk about the weekend while playing on a piano
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: because my life and I we we noticed that on
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the internet everyone is living this incredibly ideal lifestyle and
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: it seems to be false. And my wife and I
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: don't really brag about our lives, so we essentially don't
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: talk about the weekend. We just make memories and don't
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: post about it. We don't, you know. Some of the
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: lyrics are like, if you have to show the world,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: if you need the world to see you, you know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: think about what other people are going through. If you've
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: got to tell somebody you're a boss, man, chances are
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: you ain't a boss then, because it just seems like
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: a whole lot of what is the Lady doth protest
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: too much? Where you would see so much good and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: then two weeks later you find out that are going
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: through a divorce or whatever. And my idea was the
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: people who come to a training concert were making memories together, Like,
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: it's not about what you post to your friends or
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: try to show the world what you have and how
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: good life is. It's just about having a good life.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: You know, I got that. But there's also the line
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: go on and find yourself a watergate, And there's also
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the issue of I don't talk about the weekend. You'd
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: already know if you're a good friend. I thought that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: maybe this was like a TMZ type reference where Hey,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: you know I've been burned. This is my regular life.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: You know that the tabloids and people online are looking
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to get me in a situation and publicize that. Is
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: that a pure fantasy eater is at the song at all?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: It's definitely in the song. I think everybody's always looking
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: for a way to take somebody down. And I'm not
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: really a famous guy, so I'm not really on people's radar.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: But if you are looking for somebody to lover hate,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: go find something because I'm not it for you, you know,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Like that's all I'm saying.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, to what degree are you on social media? I mean,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: not posting, but spending time going through TikTok Instagram.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Whatever I post, I post on Instagram and TikTok, and
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: it's all very positive. You know. I have four children
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and have seen the negatives of what social media can do,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: and I just try to keep things super up and
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: I definitely page through social media, Instagram and TikTok for
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: comedy and golf, like those are my two things that
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: I look for.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start at the beginning. Just by posting online,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you get hate. Of course, have you experienced hat and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: how do you hope with that?
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Well, it's changed over the years because you know, I've
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: never been in the biggest nor the most popular band
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: in the world, and so people have found many things
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to dislike about what I do and you just don't
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: read it. Like I have friends that are in the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: industry and bands similar to mine, and they read it
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: and it's terrible. It's terrible for them. Nothing is real,
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: you know, Like if you're adored by five million likes
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: and you have five thousand hates, like none of it's real.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Like you just have to remember, I've gotten to the
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: age where reading any opinions of me doesn't really matter anymore.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I don't take any of it personally. It's not about me.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So how good a golfer are you.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I've played some good golf, I've played some bad golf.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: My indexes at around a six right now. And I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: just had a lesson from a good friend of mine
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: who's an older gentleman who has played in six Masters.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: His name is Rick Fair, and he really helped me
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: with some things. I think I might be getting there.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Do you play?
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: What I always tell people is I got a hold
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: in one and I gave up.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, I still don't have one of those.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Well that's a lucky shot. But I played as a kid.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I was never good. And the problem with playing as
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: an adult, I found is people take it so seriously. Yeah,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know if you're dealing with that coach
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: that the pros play a completely different game yep than
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: the average person, the way they worked the ball, etc.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Unless you started at a really young age, you can't
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: accomplish what they're doing. But I have friends and they're
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: so compared. I guess my mother was really played a
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: lot of golf, so I played some too, and it
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: was about you know, doing the right thing ethically. And
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: but as I say, people people are so competitive that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I stopped playing.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I heard something today. I was talking to a
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: friend and he said his brother started playing before him,
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and his brother gave him one piece of advice when
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: he started, and that nobody wants to be around an
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: angry golfer. And I think that's great advice, Like just
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: go out there and enjoy it and be happy that
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: you're with your people.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. The other thing is I don't have the patience
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to work on chipping and sand shots to the degree
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that you need to.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: That's the grind.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: So do you practice at that level?
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I have started to because I It was recently in
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the Pebble Beach per the at and T prom at
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Pebble Beach and it was my seventh one and I
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: played terribly. And I played with a kid named Jake Knapp,
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: who's a really beautiful golfer, wonderful kid, and he said
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: he gets the most joy out of practice, and I
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: was like, huh, that's really interesting because I can only
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: equate that to music, and music for me, I don't
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: practice anymore. I write songs. But I think that's practice, right,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: So we write songs until we get to until we
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: hit oil. Like I have way more terrible songs that
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: no one has ever heard than I have songs that
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: people like that they have heard. And I think that's
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: what practice is. I think that's what golf is. You
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: leave all the bad shots out there so that when
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: you get to the tournament, you have done all the work.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So have you played with you know, supposedly Vince Gill
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: is an amazing golfer and he was friends with Arnold Palmer.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Have you played with any really good people from the
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: music business on either side of the stage?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: You know. I'm actually good pals with Vince, and we
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: threatened to play golf every summer because this guy is
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: like shooting his age and he's sixty seven now and
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: that's insane, Like that's a different level of golf. So
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: I'm hoping that I do get to play with Vince.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: But I played with a lot of really good athletes,
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: really good professional golfers. Some Klay Walker have played with,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: who's a country artist. He plays good golf. There's a
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: bunch of them out there that are really good.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So you had this lesson with fair Give me one
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: tip that he gave you that was an insight.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Just to to narrow my stance. I've been told that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: for a long time, to narrow my stance, and I
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: never really put all the pieces together because it doesn't
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: end there. You have to move the ball a little
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: further away, so you're reaching and I hit a fade,
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: and narrowing my stance and moving the ball a little
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: further away will help me draw the ball, and so
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: you put the little pieces together. But it really helps
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: a lot because I took that lesson to Augusta National
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: and played really good golf.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: And how often do you play.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: It depends, you know. Sometimes it'll be three times in
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a week and sometimes it'll be three times in four months.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: It just depends on I try to take every year
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: off of music, and every year I don't get off,
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: so eventually I'll play some golf.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Are you a member of a club.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm at a club outside of Seattle. My wife
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: is from Seattle. So I'm at a place called Aldera.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, what was the other thing that you said you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: looked for on social media besides golf?
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Comedy?
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, so who's funny? In your book?
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Comedy is the most important thing to me and my bandmates.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: Like you know, no one's interested in who's the new
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: band or anything where, Like you got any gags for me,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: any jokes? Like I think our music is very much
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: a romantic comedy. And so we do a cruise every
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: other year and we always have a comedian on. And
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: my new favorite living comedian is a guy named Rory
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Scovel and so he's going to perform on the cruise
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: with us this year. He's absolutely incredibly talented and maybe
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a genius when it comes to comedy. George Lopez is
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: a good friend of mine, and Ken Jong is a
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: good friend. Like when I meet comedians, there's something that
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: I just inherently love and admire about them. I think
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: the bravery of getting up there and starting from nothing
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: and then having an hour long show is got to
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: be the most difficult thing that you could ever do,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: because you're all by.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Yourself and you know there are a lot of comedians
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: on social media. Are you on social media both to
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: entertain yourself and trolling for new comedians?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but I'm also I'm on social media to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: send the message of you know, like we have a
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: new single, we'll have a new album and a new
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: a new tour. So like I'm in Los Angeles now
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: doing TikTok videos with kids that have millions of followers,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: because that's part of today's promotion or promoting what it
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: is you're trying to promote. It used to be you
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: write a on that maybe people will care about. You,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: try to get some key radio stations to play it,
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: you have call out which you don't have anymore, and
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: hope that it creates a buzz, and other channels start
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: to add it, and the record president is yelling at
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: all of his staff to get that thing played, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: its are and now it's.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: TikTok Okay, So your managers found these people. Have you
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: done any yet?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yesterday I did one where I was on the
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: back of a bicycle singing karaoke to my own songs
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: in a neighborhood in Los Angeles. Earlier today I did
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: one where I sat in these two kids kitchen and
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: sang a couple of songs with them. It's just, you know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: all these people have many millions of followers, and in
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: New York I just did week of it. It's a
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: whole new way of promoting. It's a wild game.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: So since all these people are successful, do you have
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: any insight into who these people are, what makes them successful,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: whether there's something there.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one particular guy who does. He was
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: in New York and he does he's incredibly good at
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: Guitar Hero. And so here's a kid who grew up
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I think it was Denver. I can't remember where he
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: grew up, but he grew up not in New York,
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: and he was so good at Guitar Hero that he
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: was like, I got to figure out what to do
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: with this. So he goes on the streets of New
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: York and gets people to play Guitar Hero to their
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: own music. And then he actually is so good at
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: it that he creates the program for that song if
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: it's not already part of Guitar Hero. And you know
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: what we did, and we did a little over the
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: weekend and drops of Jupiter. Since it's the twenty fifth
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: anniversary and that thing's got over a million views already
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: and I think it just went up yesterday. So some
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: of these people have this really interesting take on how
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: to connect with people through the Internet, and like, I
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: don't have that gift, but this particular guy did.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, But a lot of people have been around a
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: long time poo pooh the influencers, And there's a lot
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of influencers are just in it trying to make money.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: But some of them are very creative with good ideas.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Have you encountered any of that.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, they're not life changing ideas by any means. Actually,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: you know what, I there was one kid in New
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: York that really was a very wonderful you could tell
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: what a deep soul. He was prob twenty four years
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: old and he just has one question, and that question
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: is what makes you confident? And and it's a it's
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: a pretty interesting question. He has a lot of people
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: following because you know, he talks to people on the
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: street that are not trying to pitch anything and people
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: like me that are, and and we all kind of,
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: you know, stumble through the answer. And I think he
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: hit something very human about you know, because what makes
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: you confident, and you're like, oh shit, it's a fleeting thing.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: It doesn't happen all the time. But when I am confident,
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: it's maybe because of these few things. You know, that
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: kid I think is he's doing something extraordinary because he's
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: maybe helping people, you know.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, as you've referenced, the business has completely changed. So song,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: let's focus on this because you're going on tour, etc.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: How long ago did you write this song?
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: You know, it's maybe been five months. Sometimes I have
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: a song for a year before anybody hears it.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, So in this particular case, you write the song
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: in five months, five months ago. In the back of
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: your mind, are you saying, I'm going to use this
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: to promote the tour?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, the truth is I I wrote you know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: seventy or eighty songs and hence the practice, right, So,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: and then I finally hit the weekend and that felt
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: like this is the record I'm supposed to make. So
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: once that song happened, it was It wasn't this is
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: the song. It was I finally found where I can
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: drill now for oil like and that happens with a
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: lot of records, like when we made Save me San Francisco.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: It was a song called I Got You because I
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: wrote Forever and Ever and I wrote a song with
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: a guy named Kevin who is in better than Ezra,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: and we wrote this song I Got You, and I
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: knew this is now where I'm supposed to drill. And
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: so soon after that I was able to write Hey,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: Soul's Sister, and a couple of other songs that people
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: ended up caring about. The Weekend was the same thing,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: except it's lasted this long through other songs that I've written.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: So it became let's start here and then see where
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: we go.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're one of the few acts its started in
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the last century who was still with their major label.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so a lot.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Of people go independent.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: The nature of deals is they need to get renewed.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Usually when the act has a mile on them, the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: label doesn't want to renew it. So you talked about
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the old yelling record company head in the old days.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: How do you still end up on Columbia? What is
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that experience today?
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's a pretty positive relationship because I
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: don't want their money. They don't have to write me
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: a big check for me to give them music. The
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: only thing that I need them for is to get
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: my music out there to people. And that's a very
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: positive relationship for them as well, because they have the
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: resources to help me if they believe in what I'm doing.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: And so they continue to believe in what I'm doing,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: they can try to expose this music because it's to
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: their advantage as well. And then I don't really need
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: their money. Like if I'm a young artist and I
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: really need to get through with a month or the
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: year and I'm asking for money all the time or whatever,
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: or if I'm the kind of guy that wants to
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: make a million dollar album, like those days are not
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: here anymore. There's no reason to spend a million dollars
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: making an album. And so I'm just I'm a practical guy,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: and I think that practicality is probably refreshing to a
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: record label. And we have a great relationship because we
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: know what we expect from one another because we're all
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: grown ups.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: However, there is a sales minimum that they like to see.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: It's not a specific number, it's more of a vibe. Yeah,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: do you feel any pressure there?
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: No, because you know, in the last in the last year,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: we've reached like two billion streams on Hayesol's Sister, over
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: a billion on Drops of Jupiter, and just recently over
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: a billion on Drive By. So they have they have
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: great revenue coming in, or at least better than many
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: other artists, and so they're I think, I think they
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: feel very confident in what they're already receiving from taking
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: a chance on us earlier to like, you know, my
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: manager always says, never count Monahan out, like you never
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: know when something's gonna go.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. And your personal view on streaming as opposed to
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the old model.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I've never criticized any change in the music industry from
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: albums to cassettes to CDs to downloads to streaming. I'm
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: very fortunate that I started when I started. You know,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: we just did a Billy Joel tribute concert and Billy
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: was there. And you know, Billy started at a time
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: when if you sold ten million records, that's a whole
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: hell of a lot of money. I've sold ten million records,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: but it didn't equate into that kind of thing, and
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: and downloads were you know, that's a different kind of math,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: and streaming is a different kind of math. But the
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: more I bitch about things, the less time I have
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: to actually go do the work. And so I just
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: feel for younger people who are debating whether being an
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: artist is their future or not, and making a living
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: is part of a choice for life. And I feel
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: like the world of streaming and not making money from
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: hard copies of things may keep us from getting some
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of the artists that we would have gotten otherwise. That's
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: my only complaint.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: You signed an original deal, did you have a manager
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: or a lawyer who renegotiated rates? If streaming, if you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: own the track, you have to pay a small fee,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: and if you wrote the song, you get all the money.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Someone may not listen to you don't get any money now.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Or you know, if a new act that's got a
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: lot of social media viewership, they might sign a deal
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: where they get fifty percent of the net. Has your
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: deal been renegotiated?
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: My manager, Jonathan Daniel, who I think you know, has
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: continued to renegotiate And the only reason we would continue
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: to have a relationship with a record company at this
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: point would be is if it's advantageous to me. And
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: so I feel really confident that you know I have
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I have a deal with Columbia Records. That's fitting for
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: where I am in my career. If anyone ever asked
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: me to do like a three sixty deal and get
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a piece of my merchandise and touring, and we just
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: never would have continued a relationship in that matter.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Are you a student of the business.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: No, not really. I'm a man of faith in the
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: people who represent me. And there's no one more wonderful
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: and brilliant really than Jonathan Daniel. He's a very smart man,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: and his partner Bob mclenn is lovely and smart, and
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: I just always feel like I'm being protected all the time.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, you get a deal with Columbia Records just before
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: the turn of the entry, Is anybody still working there
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who was there when you signed?
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I was just there as funny, I was just there
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: about a week and a half ago. And there were
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: like two women that were there early days, but everybody else,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: everybody else has changed, and there were some people there
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: twenty years ago, but not twenty eight years ago. So yeah,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: there were like two women that were there in the beginning,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: and then one radio guy and one radio girl who's
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: been there for at least twenty years. Lisa Sonken and
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: it's fun, fun seeing them, and you know, there were
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: very few survivors, me included.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Isn't it weird though, that you have a longer tenure
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: than the people run in the company.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: No, I think that that makes me want to be
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: there even better, even more. I think as time moves
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: on and changes, so does the people. You know, Like
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: the thing that I think inspires me mostly about making
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: music is young artists and even not young artists. But
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: you know, I always mentioned Jay Cole's he's the best
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: hip hop guy out there to me because I love
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: him so much, but he keeps making great work. That's
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: an inspiring to me. And you know, at some point
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: young people won't want to hear him, They'll want to
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: hear the new hip hop guy. And the same goes
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: for a record company. You know, it's not going to
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: be run the same way now as it was when
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: you were selling hard albums. This is streaming. So these
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: are kids that graduated with like computer science degrees, Like
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: it's a different game. So I think they need to keep,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: you know, making sure that the people that are sitting
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: in those pubicles or in those chairs are going to
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: shows and communicating with artists are hip to what's happening
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: in their world?
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: And what do you find interesting intriguing about j Cole.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: I just think he's so smart, he's so good at
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: what he does, and I don't know, he just seems
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: like my kind of guy, like I'd want to be
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: friends with him.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Many rockers are anti hip hop. Why is it just
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Ja Pole or are you really into hip hop?
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: No? I love Kendrick and Drake, and I mean there's
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: so many of them, but you know, those three in particular,
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: I think are just very gifted. Twenty one Savage is great.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I don't know what there is to dislike about hip hop.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Well did you get into hip hop your own way
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: or did one of your kids really turn you.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: On to it? No, it was definitely me because when
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: we do workouts, I make them listen to it. Like
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: my son, who's fourteen, he just wants to listen to
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: every heavy metal band around, like we listened to We
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: just went and saw a Black Label Society. His favorite
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: guitar player is Zach Wilde, like he's he's not in
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: my world of hip hop. So I definitely found my
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: own way.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so many acts who started in the last century
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: who can sell out arenas. Most of them don't even
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: make new music. Okay, Doobie Brothers put out a record
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: every couple of years, but most of them they find
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: it too frustrating in that there used to be a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: level of ubiquity and you have had that level, you know,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you talk Drops of Jupiter, Marry Me, etc. We're people
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: probably know Meat Virginia than any Taylor Swift saw and
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: that's because it's a different era maybe. So to what
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: degree when you sit down is it to write? Is
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: it frustrating knowing that in the tower of Babel Society
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: the reach will probably be limited.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we do really good business, but it's
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: never big enough. You know when I hear about people
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: playing stadiums and I long for that, you know, someone
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: like Billy Joel, Like I was, just like I said,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: in New York doing Billy Joel tribute. And when he
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: was out with Elton, Elton kept making new records and
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: he was like, Billy, you should make more records, and
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: he said, Elton, you should make less. But Billy Joel
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: and Elton John wrote two hundred number one. Like it's
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: kind of like Paul McCartney making a new record right now.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: It's like he doesn't have to. He can go play
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: an arena or a stadium or whatever he likes. I
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: don't really have that. I don't have that level of
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: what they've got. So, first of all, there's a part
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: of me that's competitive enough with me and perhaps that
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: something I do can still break through and somehow, maybe
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: there's a way for me to sell out Wembley one day.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: I have to keep believing that because it's helped me
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: continue since the whole band started. The second reason that
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: I want to keep creating is I started this band
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: with four guys. We weren't close friends. None of those
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: guys are in this band anymore, and for much of
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: the big moments of the band, they were here. And
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: now I'm with my closest friends and I think I'm
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: making really good work. Unfortunately for them, I'm much older
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: than when those other songs hit, but I still feel
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: like I want them to experience what I got to experience,
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: and that's an important part of this for me.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So the dream is still there. Oh yeah, you're not saying,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: you know, I got to pay for my boat, so
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I got to do now dates this summer, no let's
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: go back to an earlier thing. You say you wanted
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to be positive optimism. Are you an even killed guide?
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Do you ever get depressed? Oh yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: I'm originally from Erie, Pennsylvania, So I have as much
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: rage inside me as you ever want to pull out,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Like it's an endless well. But I've also got the
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: most amazing wife in the world, who's like, what's there
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to be mad about? Like, you're not a kid anymore,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: you don't you don't have to be mad at anybody,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: And she's right. So I just try to be psyched
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: as much as I can, Like I hittingly complain all
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: the time to my band, but they know that it's
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: a it's a joke because like what a great life
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: I have. So I definitely get upset and disappointed and depressed,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: and I just try to leave. I try to leave
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: very little room to get bummed out. Like my expectations
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: have changed so much since I started this career. I
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: don't really expect Columbia Records is going to make the
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: weekend a huge hit. It would be a beautiful surprise.
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: But I've also got to go out there on TikTok
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: and do all that. So the fact that I'm not expecting.
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: Really anything from them helps me not be disappointed in them,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: because I have to go do the work anyway, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: so I might as well enjoy it.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: So tell me about this rage being from Erie, Pennsylvania.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I was the last of seven kids,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: and in a town like that at the time, if
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: you weren't an elite athlete or an elite student, there
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: was very little opportunity for you. And that doesn't feel
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: good to who is, you know, a creative sort. And
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: so then I moved to Los Angeles and I was
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: in a bad relationship and we had a child, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: you know, then the anger just continues to move forward.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: How frustrating it is to try to raise a family,
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: have a full time job as a house painter in
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, and try to play every free show you
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: can to get noticed. And so that anger for no
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: one paying attention builds up for a long time, from
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: childhood through early adultism and until I finally meet my
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: wife and she was like, you gotta be less mad
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: about stuff. You're gonna be all right.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Well, your wife helped you. Did you go to therapy too?
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I did a lot of that early days. Yep, I
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: went to a great therapist for many years who helped
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: me kind of appreciate what I've got instead of what
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And what was the motivation to go to the therapist.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I knew that I needed to leave a marriage
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: and didn't have the tools to do it in a
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: way that would protect my children. And secondly, one of
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: the first things I said to her was I am
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: currently a successful musician, which is what I always dreamt about,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: and I am never happy. And so she made me
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: stand up and she goes now bend over and then
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: she started clapping. She just said, you just to you
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: just took your first bow, and I was like, yeah,
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I kind of needed to do that, I think. So
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: she helped me with a lot of those things, and
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I still use her to get through certain things.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, you talk about this time in your personal life,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: which obviously had turmoil in it. Were you also not
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: happy with your business life?
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: No, I was not happy in the band that we
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: were in. It was you know, we had a lot
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: of rules to protect each other, but I wasn't being protected.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: The biggest rule was we cannot right outside of the band,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: and that was not a rule to protect me. That
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: was a rule to protect everybody else. And so as
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: time moved on, I became more resenting these guys, and
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: so that being in a bad relationship, trying to raise kids,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: moving from a full time painting job to a full
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: time touring job, which was rutal because you know, you're
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: not making any money, being in a van with guys
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: that excuse me, I felt it very difficult to be
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: with most times. There was not a lot of joy
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: going on. And I was sober for all those years,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: so everything was crystal clear to me, and I could
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: see all the problems and felt like I wasn't in
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: control to fix them.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: Was part of the therapy, learning how to adjust your
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: band situation, whether it be writing out or getting rid
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: of members or anything like that.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Well, you know it. I naturally started to write by myself,
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: and one member removed himself because he felt like he
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: wasn't being paid attention, paid enough attention to writing wise,
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: And then the next person had to be removed because
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: he was creating a big problem within the band. So
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: now there's just three of us.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: A big problem because of drugs, ratitude or ability.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was it was addiction stuff, and it was
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: just it was becoming too much for us. So now
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: there's three of us left. When we get new people
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: to come in, new managers and new everything, and it was, boy,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: it was just a rocky, rocky road. So I mean,
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: there's so much story to it. But the therapy helped
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: me to try to work on me, because I was
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: really wanting everybody else to work on themselves to fix
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: my problem. And I think the closer I got to
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: like fixing my problem, which was end a relationship, be
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: okay with success, be okay with who you surround yourselves with,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: knowing that you have a choice. And so I went
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: and made a solo record, which was my way of
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: putting the band in time out. And it was not
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: the right solo record and it was not the right move.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: Had I, you know, had Jonathan Daniel in my life,
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: he would have definitely kept me from doing that. But
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I did it, and that was a good opening for
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: me to start writing with other people. And that's when
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I started to really spread out. And so all those
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: songs on all those records, it was me writing with
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: people in New York and London and you know, all
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: over the country, all over the world. And then I
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: was happier and the band was successful, so they were
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: not upset because they were having a good life. But
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: then other resentment comes in and on all sides, and
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: so eventually, you know, it was just like, you guys
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: are not going down the same road I want to
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: go down, so let's not be together in the best
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: possible way. And so I think everyone was paid handsomely
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: to go their own way, and I continued to have
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the time of my life trying to create things that
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: people care about and maybe it matters to their lives.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Going back to the solo album, was it the wrong
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: solo album or you shouldn't have made a solo album?
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Addle I was it was I needed to make a
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: solo album. I don't I don't think I would have
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: been kept from that. But it was the wrong album.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: It was it was basically like a little bit more
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: of an R and B train record, which was like
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: why why? What was the purpose? And the purpose really
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: was to get away from the band, But that's a
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: terrible reason to spend a half a million dollars to
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: make a record that you know doesn't do well. Like
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: it was useful thinking and the right record might have
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: done some good but I know in Europe, you know,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: people really still love that record, but there's you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: forty of them, so I feel like it was just
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I needed some guidance.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: So when that record failed commercially, how did you handle
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: it emotionally?
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Not well? Hm, he's not good. But then I picked
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: up the pieces and started writing the Save Me San
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Francisco album. And the people that I was writing with
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: were in the Crush office, just like using space in
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: the Crush office.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Crush Management, that's your management company. Yeah, just for those
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: people who don't know, Yeah, Crushes.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Our management company. And I ended up writing with a
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: guy named Sam Hollander. Loved Sam. He's a dear friend.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: And I also wrote with Butch Walker, who's now playing
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: and Train. He's been a dear friend for a long
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: time and has been managed by Jonathan and Crush for
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: since the beginning. He was their first client. And I
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: think both Butcher and Sam started talking to Jonathan and saying, hey,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: that that's one of us, and I think he's writing
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: a really great record, so you should help him out
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: a little bit. And Jonathan never comes in he's like
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: I'll manage you. He's always more like, maybe I could
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: listen to some of your songs. And because I would
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: pull him aside at the water cooler and be like, man,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: I could use any help you can give me because
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: I had just left a manager and needed to figure
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: out where to go. And he was like, well, let's
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: listen to your songs. So he listened to seventy two
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: songs and one of them was Hey, Soul's Sister, and
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: he was like, this song's pretty interesting. He's like, let's
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: let's let's get somebody to, you know, help you finish this.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: And and then he was like, if you get a
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: haircut like Pete Wentz, maybe I'll even manage you. And
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: so Train was the first band that they took on
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: that was, you know, a seasoned or not in the
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: genre of music that that Fall Up Boy and Panic
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: at the Disco and Boys like Girls. That was a
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: very specific region of music and age. So we were
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: the first things that they took on, and they really
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: revived our career and then you know, the rest has
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: just been kind of fun.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, you justified about Jonathan Daniel a few times, and
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: without making it specific, what's it there between a good
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: manager and a bad manager? I?
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Well, I have a specific story, but I'm not sure
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: if it will get me in trouble. Okay, I'll just
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: focus on the positive. Jonathan is someone who I've shared
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: stories with about other people who have managed my career
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: and the way they went about it, how lost I was,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: and that I just really needed, you know, kind of
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: an emotional hug. And he has such a good way
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: of when he sees that you're in trouble, whether it's
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: business or personal, he makes it his mission to solve
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: the puzzle. It's he would never make an artist feel like, well, look,
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: this is what you asked for. And he and I
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: have had many conversations about all of the ways that
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: you can handle people, and the way he handles people
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: is with, you know, a very fatherly yet close friendship
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: type of manner where he almost thrives on the problem
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: only because he knows he can fix it or solve
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: it or help you solve it. And that's a wonderful
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: cat to have in your life. Somebody who if you
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: complain about something, doesn't take the complaint and think less
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: of you. He just tries to change the way you're thinking.
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Like I remember one time I was in CSI, New York,
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Soul's sister who was on the show. I was an
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: actor in the show, and Kim Kardashian was in the
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: show with me, and Kim put this at the time
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: as Twitter put this tweet out and named almost everybody
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: in the show who was going to be in it
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: with her except for Train and I Paul Jonathan, and
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: I was just so hurt by it. I was so
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: bummed out. And he just said, man, you just think
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: about the wrong shit. I needed to hear simply that,
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: and I do. I think about the wrong shit sometimes.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: But he never made me feel bad for it. He
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: was just like, that's dumb. Move on, let's go. We
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: got more stuff to do. I need that kind of guidance,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: like you can't follow yourself down a rabbit hole of
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: like self loathing or disappointment, Like there's more fun to have.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Let's go.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back to Eerie. What did your parents
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: do for a living?
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: My mom was she worked for a place called Erie's Magnetics,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: which was a huge magnetic company, and she was she
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: was in like the buying and selling of products and
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: she but she raised six kids before she got a job,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: and then I was born, and she got a job.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: My father was a clothing salesman and a haberdasher haberdasher,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: and he was a very funny man, and I learned
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of great things from both of them.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: So what's the age range? If you're the youngest, your
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: oldest sibling gets how much older than you?
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: My brother who passed away, I think would be seventy two,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: he was the oldest, and then I have a brother
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: seventy one, seventy and then my sisters I think are
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: like sixty eight, sixty five, and sixty two.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have there's a lot of kids. Whenever you
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: have more than one, especially three, frequently the youngest is
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: the baby treated differently in multiple ways. Was that a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: factor you're growing up?
• 46:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, My sisters babied me and took care of me
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: and my second brother, second oldest brother, Jackie. He's still
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: a very very close friend of mine who he was
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: a father figure to me, so like he was the
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: one playing catch with me and buying me baseball gloves,
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: and when he went to college, it was that was
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: my first taste of heartbreak, like having that guy leave
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: the house.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're going to school. What kind of kid
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: are you? You know you're one of the group. You
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: play in sports? Are you the loner?
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: No? I was obsessed with sports. I wanted to be
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: a professional baseball player. I loved Steve Garvey as my
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: favorite baseball player, and I, you know, I was okay
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: at it. I was, you know, pretty good at it
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: until you know, you're fourteen, everybody's growing and you get
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: into high school and I'm like, okay, I can't compete anymore.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: Basketball was never gray up, but I played all through
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: high school or grade school. And I played football through
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: my tenth year of high school and just got my
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: ass handed to me. So sports was out. I started
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: playing drums when I was in eighth grade, and you know,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: no boys wanted to sing in front of girls, so
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I had to start singing until we could find a singer.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: And then it ended up being that I was pretty
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: all right at it. So and I found out that
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: girls liked singers anyway, So it worked out.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Well. You were in high school. Were you a popular guy?
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Were you the music guy? Oh that's the singer, that's
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: the guy in the band. Were you class president? I mean,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: how did work?
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: No? I wasn't all those I was my one claim
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: to fame is that when I went from a Catholic
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: high school after tenth grade to a public high school,
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: I just got to meet so many different people that
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: I never had access to because at a Catholic all
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: boys high school, you know, you're dealing with kids that are,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: you know, playing every sport at a high level. They're
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: academic at a high level, and they're also you know,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: very sweet at a high level and very shitty at
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: a high level. So when I went to a public school,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I got to see so many any variations of kids
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: that I didn't get to see at an all boys
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Catholic school. And I just kind of liked everybody, and
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: I got on with everybody. Whether you were an athlete
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: or a musician, or you know, you were a chess
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: player or a cheerleader, it didn't really matter to me.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: I would sing songs in class for everybody until the
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: teacher came in. And so my one claim to fame
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: is that they voted me prom king in my senior year.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: So that was it was my big high school moment.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, did you have a band in high school that
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: played out?
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: We started in high school and then you know those
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: guys in high school ended up, you know, having different
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: things to focus on, and by then older kids in
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: Eerie started to see me sing. So I was in
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: bands with twenty five year olds at seventeen, and you know,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: the like twenty five thirty year olds. They seemed ancient
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: at the time, but they were five to ten ten
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: years older than me. And that's when I really got
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: my start. And the reason that I ever moved to
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: LA was because I knew so badly I needed to
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: get out of Erie. And I was in a cover
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: band called Rogue's Gallery. We were playing a bar called Sherlocks,
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: and that evening Cher played the small arena in town
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: and Cher's band came in after the show and saw
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: us play, and a guy named David Shelley, who has
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: passed away a few years ago. He was for a
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: guitar player and he pulled me aside and he gave
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: me his phone number and he said, you got the thing,
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: so when you get to LA, give me a call.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: So I packed my shit went to LA and I
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: never connected with him, not once, but he got me
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: motivated enough to go because it was the first time
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: somebody that knew on some level what they were talking
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: about had faith in what I did, and that was
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: all I needed.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: So you graduate from high school, where does that leave
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: you with school?
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I went to a college class for about a month,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: and one day I looked at the teacher and I said,
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: I think I gotta go to I think I gotta
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: leap down. I don't think I can be here anymore.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: And she was super nice. She was like, well, you
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: can always come back. You're good at it, because I
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: think I would have taken college much more seriously than
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: high school. And I just I needed a move. And
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: music was too. It was just too uh, it was
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: too big in my art to pretend it wasn't there.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: So how long after you graduate from high school do
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: you move to La.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: I was nineteen, so I had been out of high
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: school for a year, and I literally like, I, Yeah,
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I got out of high school and waited a year.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: I went to La. I was there from nineteen caned
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: twenty two, moved back to Erie to have a baby,
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: and I just like.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: That this woman you had the baby with, did you
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: meet her in Erie or did you meet her in La?
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: Here?
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: And so when you went to La did she come
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: with you?
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: So you moved to La the only person you know
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you don't contact. Hey, you got to have a car,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and b you have to have money. So you were
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: making enough money as a musician to get out.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: I literally went to Los Angeles on an airplane with
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: four hundred dollars and a friend who moved there a
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: year before I did, who He said I could stay
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: with him until I found an apartment. I also had
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: my brother in law. His stepfather was working a construction
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: site in Los Angeles. So I begged the guy for
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: a job, not knowing how to do anything, and so
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: I worked at a construction site, slept on this kid's
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: floor for like two minutes, and found an apartment in Hollywood,
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: where gunfire and helicopters were a many.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back a step before this guitarist in
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: Shares Band says, you have the thing. Were you just
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: playing in a band or did you have a dream
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: to play at the level you're now at.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: I had a dream always to get to another level,
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: So moving to LA was a chance to, like, you know,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: I can't remember all the magazines that I would put
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: my name in or look at, like Music Weekly or
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: I mean there were four or five of them.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: The recycler, music connection.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Music connection, that's the big one that I used. Yeah,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: And so you know, I would meet all kinds of people.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Finally got a car, so I was driving to every
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: audition with kids that you know. You know, it was
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: just really really hard thinking that somebody out there is
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: going to be who I'm supposed to do this with.
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: And it didn't work. So the reason I met, the
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: reason train started is that my ex wife was a
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: school teacher and my first the guy started the band
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: with was a sign musician in La and his wife
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: was a school teacher, and the girls met and introduced us,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: and his record contract was not going very well, and
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: so we hung out a couple of times. Not you know,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: I went and saw his band and I thought they
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: were good. I moved back to eerie and he calls
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: me and he's like, let's move to San Francisco and
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: see if the two of us can get this thing going.
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: And I got it going, and so you know, I'm
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: grateful that I got to meet him and start to think.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Out, Okay, how long were you in La.
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: And it's like two and a half years, and of.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: That time, how long was the woman you married in La?
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: That amount of time.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, you spent this time in Los Angeles, although ultimately
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: you connected with the musician through your ex wife and
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: her friend. What was your state of mind for two
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: and a half years.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, man, Like this is hard, Like I thought I
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: knew how to work hard, but this is hard hard.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: But it was nothing compared to living it like then
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: moving to San Francisco, finding a paint job, having a
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: shoot one year old, and then playing music at night,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: every single night for free so that people would pay attention.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: That's another level of working hard. So I just you know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: if you have a plan B, you'll take it. If
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: I had a plan B, I would have taken it
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: a hundred times.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. When you were in LA, were you in any
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: bands or nothing ever? Worked?
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I had a friend named Kevin who we would
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: write songs and get together all the time, but he
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: was always looking for like a bigger you know, everybody
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: the thing with LA sometime well at that time, because
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: everybody is like, you know, you'll do the thing with you,
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: but they're always looking for a better thing, and and
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: so it just it was just hard to find drummer
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: and bass players. And then those guys are they all
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: have three other bands that they're in, so I would
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: at least go see other bands so I could meet
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: other musicians. And I fell in love with the several
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: of them and stayed friends with several of them over
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: the years, but none of them ever wanted me to
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: be their singer. And that's you know, it was like,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: that's it was. It was tough. It felt like a
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: huge fail leaving Los Angeles.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: And how long were you back in Eerie before you
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: went to San Francisco?
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe a year or if.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: That, and you were doing what during that year?
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it might have been a year. I was hanging
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: wallpaper and painting and trying to raise a little boy
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: and and just grind men.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Were you playing music?
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: I started to sing with some friends of mine in
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: a band called Exit, and that was that was like whatever,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: So no, no, not really, I just knew that I
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: needed At that point, I'm like twenty two years old
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: and thinking that I moved back to Erie and such
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: a small town and they're like, well, the best singer
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: of our time couldn't make it, and now he's back
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: and he probably thinks he's a big shot because he
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: went to LA And I was like, I need to
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: get out of here as soon as I can. This
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: is very un fun and so you know, moving to
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: San Francisco. I don't think there was another option for.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Me, Okay, because at the time and to this day,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: little things have changed in the twenty first century. San
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: Francisco is the eppisiteer of music in the sixties. You're
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: now moving there much later. When you went to La
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: that's where it was happening. Didn't happen for you, that's right,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: But you must have really wanted to get out of
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Erie because going to San France Cisco was kind of
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: going sideways.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, But here's this is the interesting part of my
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: observation of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Los Angeles is
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: now when I was there, like the peak of hair
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: dress up rock, right like Cinderella and Rat and like
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: all the stuff is blowing up right before a grunge
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: destroys it. And I moved to San Francisco, where the
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: scene really isn't anywhere except coffee houses are like the
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: big thing, and on every corner is a coffee house
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: with somebody playing guitar for free because there's so many
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: places to do it. And the coffee shop owner or
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: the little pub. They want entertainment for free and they
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: can have open mic nights and everything. So that was
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: a huge trend at the time. The open mic night.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: It was like the peak when we got to San Francisco,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: like we could walk two blocks and play five places,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: and we did.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: So you're there. It's just you and that guy. Is
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: it a duo at that point?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's me and a guy named Rob Hotchkiss. Yeah,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: we're a duo. So I played percussion, he plays guitar.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: We're writing all the songs. We're singing his songs and
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: the other songs that we wrote together. And then the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: other guy who was in his band in La comes.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: His name is Jimmy Stafford, so he joins us them
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: we're a trio. Then his bass player from the previous
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 2: band brings a drummer from Durango, Colorado that they were
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: in a band together, so they join us, and now
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: we're a five piece band. And that was Trent.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, like time, it's a five piece band? Are you
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: still playing for?
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, we got after a couple of months, we got
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: like a couple of paying gigs for like five hundred bucks.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: We'd have to bring all of our own stuff. They
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: would have a pa for us, they would mix us,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: we'd play for an hour or whatever, and then we
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: would you know, still play for free, like go play
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: wherever you can for free and try to get paid
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: whenever you can. At the time, we're also making demos
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: all the time, and some of the guys are friends
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: with a few of the fellas in the Count and Crows,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: so we ask if we can use their storage facility
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: to like rehearse in in East Bay, and they say yeah,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: And so like Dave Bryson is still a Palamine and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Jim Bojess who was not in the Drummer at the time,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: he's he is now, but he's a good friend of mine,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: And so those guys let us use their facilities. So
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: we would write songs, and then the more demos we had,
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: the more opportunity we have to make money, because we
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: would send the demos to places and we'd start playing
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: places like the Sweetwater in Mill Valley. Still no shot
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: at all of playing the filmore yet, but we'd play
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: Slims and then we start to get a big enough
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: following that now we have songs, enough demos and songs
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: and a following that, we can start looking for a manager.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: And so the Count and Crows guys put us in
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: touch with their lawyer, and the lawyer takes us on
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: as a lawyer because you know, there's no there's nothing
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: you can't fail because you're not really spending any money
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: until you make money. And so he tries to connect
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: us with managers from every walk of life, and no
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: one wanted anything to do with us except for a
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: guy named Arnie Postelnik, and he was at Bill Grahant Management,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: so he was a local man. I took a song.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, when there's no money, it's usually very hard to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: keep the band together. Yep, Well it was your experience.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: I had a full time job as a house painter
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: until I left that job to make my own house
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: painting company, and it was very successful. I bought a house.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I had two children at the time. Well maybe she
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: wasn't born yet, so I still have one. So I'm
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: hiring my band to paint houses with me. None of
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: them were good painters.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: When you're cutting these demos, who's the engineer and producer?
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, early days, Dave Bryson from the Count
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: Crows helped us out a few times he had a studio.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: We'd go to places like tiny telephone and you know,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: any anywhere that we could. Producers were like, we found
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: a great sound guy that we loved, Egyptian guy named
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: Hannie who I think he mixed us live and tried
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: to engineer some stuff a couple of times. So whoever,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: Like it didn't matter, Like we just wanted to get
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: songs on tape.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, the band is togethered now from the time of
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: high school on. Are you always writing songs or you
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: only writing songs really when you're in San Francisco.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: No, I'm writing early, but they're bad. I mean that
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: whole ten thousand hours thing. It's no lie. You got
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: to get it in. So I've written many, many bad songs,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: but didn't start to get better at it until I
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: was in San Francisco. I started to So when I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: was in high school, the only thing I was good
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: at is writing poetry. Like I was not very good
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: at class. My grades were not excellent. But when my
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: English teacher would read my poetry, she'd be like, this
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: is there's thing, like this is a thing you should write,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: like whatever you have to do to write, and so
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: that ended up being songs because I cared so much
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: about feeling something, and my father was obsessed with great
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: lyric writers like Johnny Mercer was his favorite writer. He
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: might be my favorite lyric writer because of how unusual
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: he wrote. And so I cared so much about the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: English language that that was the one thing I would
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: put time into. So by the time I went to
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: San Francisco, I had already cared as much as you
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: can care about wanting to write something beautiful. So I
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: just had to do the work.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, irrelevant of the well the credits. Let's say, in
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the first album, is that a way for people to
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: get paid? And you really wrote the songs or did
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: everybody really contribute the first album?
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Everyone definitely contributed. I have always written all the melodies
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: and lyrics, but all that music was definitely written by
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: those guys.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, So if you get this guy as a manager
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: with Bill Graham, he's the manager, how long till it
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: becomes something more?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Till the band becomes something more?
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's try to put a day down. If you
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: can remember, what's the year we're in When you get.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: The manager, Oh boy, I would say, man ninety ninety five.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Let me ask a different way. How long from the
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: time you get the manager to the first album was released?
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: Maybe three years because Arnie could not get us a
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: record deal. He nobody was interested and we didn't sound
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: like anybody else. Yeah, grunge was really popular, but then
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, like Hoodie and the Blowfish and
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: Dave Matthews start to come out, so there is a
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: trend towards singer songwriter more. But nobody wanted anything to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: do with us. But we had a friend at Columbia
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Records who was in the He was in the promotion department,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: he wasn't in the A and R department, and he
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: pitched us to Columbia and they were like, okay, let's
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: get him here. From San Francisco to New York. They
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: flew us to New York. We did a show, thinking
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: the next day we'd wake up and go cide a
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: record deal, and they were like, Don Einer was the president,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 2: and he said, I didn't say anything special last night,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: So we go home. My parents have flown from Erie,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 2: Pennsylvania to San Francisco to basically congratulate me on my
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: new record contract that I did not go home with
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: and then we had rehearsal the next week and I said,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know why we're a band. We're not from
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: high school together or friends or any of that shit.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: So we got to figure out what we want out
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: of this, and we need a common goal. So he
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: wrote on this chalkboard it was you know, pretty whatever,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: and everybody would write their goal down, and one common
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: goal was we want to make a record. We might
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: want to make an album, so we all had different
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: jobs to go borrow money, go find a producer, go
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: find a place to record, and we raised twenty five
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars from friends and family. Our manager was not
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: able to help us do that, and we went and
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: made our own album with those songs and an A
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: and R guy at Columbia Records ford it so, the
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: same label that said they didn't see anything special. So
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: he had to pitch this new album to Don Einer,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: who didn't really care about us, so he pitched it
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: as Project X so he would relabel everything Project X,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: and finally Don agreed to give us a chance and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: put us at Aware Records, so they started a relationship
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: with the Greg Latterman at a Ware Records. So Greg
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: was going to be the quarterback. Columbia Records would be
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: the umbrella label. My manager hated this idea because he
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: wanted us to be on a major label, and we
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: didn't care one bit. And so they were able to
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: get Meet Virginia and a song called Free on a
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: bunch of college compilations, and they started working Meet Virginia
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: at radio and it took them forever, but we sold
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: a million albums and it gave us a chance to
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: keep going.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, the album that you recorded for twenty grand twenty five, yeah,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: is the identical album that Columbia puts out.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: We added one song with Matt. I don't remember Matt's
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: last name, Matt. He was such a big producer back then,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: Matt Wallace, So Matt Wallace Records a new song that
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: we wrote because Columbia wanted a little more tempo on
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: the record. I don't even remember what the name of
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: the song is. So we added one song to it.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Other than that, it's the ex album.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, I love that album. That album doesn't sound like
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: it's cut for twenty grand, you know, it sounds like
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: it is a major label album. Why did it end
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: up being of such quality?
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: You know, there was no auto tune back then. I
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: had to re sing. I wanted to quit during that
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: record so bad. I mean, the guy producing us, you know,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: he had never done it before, and he was as
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: lovely as he could have been. Uh, but I would
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: sing and before I would even sing the third word,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: he'd be like, pitchy, stop tape, man, this is visery.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: So we just worked so hard, man, I mean every
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: bit of this. I'm exhausted from telling you this story,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: like this is this is so hard, and we just
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: cared so much. We we would like put pennies on
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: snare drums and you know, try to get everything out
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: of everything we could.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: Did you believe these songs were good?
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: Well? I think we believed from watching our audience that
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: we had something. I'm never sure of anything, Like I'm
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: not a very confident fellow when it comes to creating.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: Like if I create something, I need a lot of backup.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: You know, if I play something for my wife and
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: she's like I love this, I need fifteen other people
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: to say the same thing before I believe it. And
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 2: so people were loving those songs, so I felt like
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: there had to be something special there.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: So for me, the two best songs out of the
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: record are Free and I Am.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: I Am. Yeah, that was the first song we ever wrote. Really. Yeah.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Did you think Meet Virginia was a single or did
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: the people on the business side say it was a single?
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: I think maybe we thought it was a single because
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: it was so weird and weird Wins. We didn't really
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: put those pieces together, that weird Wins, but like, hey,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: Soul Sisters, that sounds weird, man, and I think that
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: was the beginning of us finding a thing, a lane
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: of like we're not anybody else, Like Meet Virginia is
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: just different. It's weird.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: Okay. Do you think going with ladder Men helped or
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: didn't help?
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: No, it helped im mentally, like he cared a lot Greg.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: Greg had a lot of other projects going on, so
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: much of that time. I was not a fan of
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: Greg because I felt like he wasn't keeping his eye
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: on the real prize, which was trained. I feel like
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: he was wanting some of his other things to exceed
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: where we were going, and that bummed me out. So
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: I felt like he needed to be managed a little bit.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: Now that I know Greg better, I know that he's
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: a methodical guy and he cares a lot about everything
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: that he puts his hands on, and I know that
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: he really cared a lot about my band and the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: project and making sure it was successful because it was
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: not going to just be successful for us, It was
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: going to be successful for him. He needed to have
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: a good relationship with Columbia Records to have a future
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: with them.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: When we met previously, which I mentioned before we started
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: the podcast, we were on the street in front of
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: the Viper Room where Tim Divine. Tim Vine said, who
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: signed you? Because I knew, I mean, I know Divine forever,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: but let latterman it hype me that it was his record,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: and Divine this little pissed off and he brought you.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: There were two other members of the band, z Dio
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: who signed you? That is Jim Okay, this first record happens?
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Does the same manager continue? Yes, the first record, as
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: I say, it was worked a long time. Ultimately gets
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: on MDV. I got to ask two questions. One, why
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: is the band named train?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: Rob? When we started the band, you know, thinking about names,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: he listened to an interview one of the members of
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 2: Echo and the Bunnyman said there was nothing romantic about America,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 2: and Rob said, I feel like the most romantic thing
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: about America is the locomotive. Uh. And he was right.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: It's a romantic, beautiful image. And so we just worked
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: with Train for a while and didn't think we'd ever
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: get the name. But there was no other band called Train.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, the artwork from the first album, that theme continues.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the theme. Uh. So the artist was from Orange County.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: His name is Tommy Doherty. Kind of a crazy person,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: but a beautiful artist like this guy's work was just tremendous.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: And Charlie, our bass player at the time, found this
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: piece of art, which is a massive like it was
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: probably twelve by ten this painting, and it the boy
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: looked like a king and a jester at the same time.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 2: And we felt like that's who we are as a band.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: We feel like we're special and royal, but were also
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: really stupid and full of gags. And it was a
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: great combination that represented who we were.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: And how did you decide to continue? It is to
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: be in You know, a lot of people don't.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: Well, the second record has a boy with a crown
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: because we Brendan O'Brien took on that record to produce it.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: Because Limp Biscuit bailed on it the last minute, so
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: he had a spot open for us, and it was
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: just good timing. And we had dinner at his house
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: and we saw a piece of art that was hanging
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: in his dining room and it was the same artist
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: who the cover of Drops of Jupiter that he created,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: Hernandez I think his last name is, and he was
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: Tony Hernandez from Atlanta, and so we looked at all
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: of his art and we were like, Oh, there's a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: boy in a crown. This will be perfect for the
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: theme moving forward.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: And that's why, Okay, first record, Little Engine that could. Hey,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: how much you're gigging? And did you make any money?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: You know, when I got a record advance, I paid
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: off all my credit card. That was it. But I
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: was losing tons of money on that tour because I
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: went from owning a painting company to making four hundred
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: dollars a week. That was not sustainable and it caused
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of problems financially and personally. And that record
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: advance was long gone because I had so much debt
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: by the time the record went out. And like I said,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 2: we sold a million copies, but that money is you know,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: a long term streamline that takes a while to get
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: to you, and these gigs, these tours were like, you know,
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 2: we were trying to just break even and try not
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 2: to make Columbia Records pay for us to be on
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: the road, which a lot of record companies did at
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: the time, and now I don't know if they still
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: even do that. They probably do, but they probably want
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: a piece of the merch and everything else that comes
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: with it. But we just we didn't make much money,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: and we gigged a lot a lot, and every radio
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: station in the country. We'd be there at six in
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 2: the morning. We'd do a show that night and drive
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 2: to the next place to do the same thing. There's
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: a really interesting story that I'll share with you quickly
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: about Meet Virginia breaking So Meet Virginia starts being played
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: on Alice in San Francisco, and it started to get
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: a buzz and it started to go, but we couldn't
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: get the more important stations on the East coast to
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: take it on, like ninety nine next in Atlanta wouldn't
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: take it. But there was another one called the X
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 2: and that was in Birmingham, Alabama, and the program director's
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: name was Dave. I can't think of Dave's last name.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: Dave had a guy working for him named Scott Register.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: So Scott has stercle you know Scott Register, of course.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 2: So reg has a show on Sundays only called Regis
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 2: Coffee House. Absolutely, so he's like, hey, can you guys
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: come in? Because we played Birmingham on a Saturday. He
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: was like, can you come into my show tomorrow and
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: play live on Regis Coffee House. They're like, no, we
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: have to be in New Orleans that evening. Katrina is
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: heading towards New Orleans, so we can't go to New Orleans.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: And we're like, Reg, we can come in to play
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: Regis Coffee House. He's like awesome, So we all go in.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: It's early in the morning, it's all taped, so he's
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: he can't get the gear to work, so he has
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: to call his boss, Dave, who doesn't want anything to
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: do with train, to come in and set him up.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: So he comes in. We do a bunch of songs
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: from the record, a bunch of Lead Zeppelin songs, and
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: Dave's like, I fucking love these guys. So he adds
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: meat Virginia and that's where it broke is Burnham, Alabama,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: because that guy was breaking records every month, and without
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: that serendipitous thing happening, Katrina being a Sunday, him not
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: being able to get the gear to work. All of
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: that paid a huge part of me still being here.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, at what point do you decide it's time for
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: a new album? Is it the manager, is it the band,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: is the label? Have you been writing songs? How does
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: that go down?
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all of the above. Like, you know, the more
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: music you can get out and the sooner you can
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: get it out, you know, you can capitalize on whatever
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: momentum you have. And we had an album done, you know,
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: after a while with Brendan, and it was called something
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 2: More that we had written on tour and then after
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: tour and drops the Jupiter is not on that record
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: because it hadn't been written. And Don Einer was like,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: we don't have a first single, and you're like, we
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 2: have five erst singles. This is a great album, you know,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: because we're all full of our own shit. And he's like,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: you don't know a song that I can start this
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: out with. So my mother had passed away. I'm not
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: in a good place in my life at all grinding
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 2: to try to write songs. I go back to visit
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 2: in Erie, Pennsylvania. Don calls a meeting. He's about to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 2: call me to New York because he wants to tell
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: me I have to start writing with other people. So
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: whatever your band rules are, they don't I don't care anymore.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 2: So I go to bed one night and fifteen minutes
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: later I wake up, I go downstairs and I write
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: all of Drops of Jupiter in fifteen minutes. I go
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 2: to a friend's house and cut a demo the next day.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: The following day, I have to fly to New York.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: My friend brings the CD over. He's like, there's something
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: special about this song. I go to New York. Don
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: starts giving me the talk, like, listen to these guys.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: This is you know, if you had this song or whatever.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 2: And he's gearing me up to tell me he's gonna
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: put me in a room with some people, and I go,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: I wrote this song. I woke up from a dream.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: If you want to hear this, And he was like,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: this is where the magic ones come from. So he
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: puts it in, turns it up real loud, and by
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: the time it gets to plain Old Jane told a
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 2: story about a man he just lifts up his arms
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: and he goes fucking song of the Year. And that
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 2: was his first single.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: How close was the demo to the finished record?
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: Very very close, except Chuck Levell on piano, He's a
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 2: whole other animal, like he gave it the bound bound
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 2: down like you know he he plays piano like a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: drummer like he should, and uh, he gave it life.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: How did Chuck get well his his recording abilities? He's
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: an incredible engineer, like he makes things sound incredibly good.
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: But the song was already arranged and done and the
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: Nona nons and everything. So the only change was that
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: this was when Almost Famous was out and a huge hit,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 2: and all of Elton's songs were being reloved all over again,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: and Paul Buckmaster did all those string arrangements. So Don
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: Einer was like, Paul Buckmaster has to be on this,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: and so Paul, that string line was all Paul and
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: really important to it.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: I want to go back a step. Mead Virginia ends
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: up on MTV. What was it like when you saw
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: the video for Mead Virginia? You know, it's like hearing
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: your song on the radio.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 2: It just always felt like a you know, a little
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: song in a big world. Like the video was little,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: the concept of the song was little. It wasn't like
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: a you know, it's a beautiful day, you know, like
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: not one of those kind of songs it was. It
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: was just a quirky little song that just popped through
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: the surface.
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, Donnie says old song of the year. Are you
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: on the Train? Are you a believer or you a cynical?
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: Guy?
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Said, well, at least I don't have to write with
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: other people.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: Or what I am. I'm like, wow, I'm so relieved
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: that he thinks this is the song. And then I'm like,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: this is so not the song. Like there's no song
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: out there like this song. This is not the song.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 2: And so the first time I heard it, I was
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: actually in eerie driving home and I heard it on
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: a like a college radio station and it was four
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: minutes long, and I was like, no one's gonna like this.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: And then the girl came on afterwards and she was like,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: that's my new favorite song from Train. I think you're
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: gonna be hearing a lot of that one, and I
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: was like what And then and then it kind of
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: started to.
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: Go Okay, drops. The Jubiter was gigantic. Did you feel
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: that the band had made it? Did it change the
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: perception on the inside it?
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: You know, there was a moment where I felt like
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: maybe we had made it. We were in we were
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: in Oslo, and there was a festival happening, and we
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: were scheduled to play, you know, and at the time
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: of year, the sun doesn't go down, so it might
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: have been like midnight and I'm walking to my hotel
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: and I see Chris Martin and he's standing outside of
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 2: the hotel and I keep to myself because nobody knows
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 2: me and I don't want to gush all over the guy.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: But I was loving the Coldplay stuff and I was
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: about to walk past him, and he just grabbed my
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 2: arm and he goes, hey, man, beautiful song. And I
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: was like, that's so cool. So instead of me going
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: beautiful song to him, he got me. And I was like,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 2: should have done it first. So that's when I felt like,
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 2: maybe this is something okay.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: The next album, Man's Calling Old Angels, How's that written?
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 2: Calling Old Angels was through my therapist because while I
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: was in there telling her how unhappy I was in
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 2: my success, she said we all are made up of
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: two things, and that's traders and angels. So it's time
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: to call your angels. And I was like, consider it stolen.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: And then I wrote a song about trying to call
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: angels to help us through this stuff. Okay, we need
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 2: more than angels now, Bob.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: That's true. Sure, that's a separate subject. So when do
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: you see any money?
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: Donnie helped us. He found a manager that he liked
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 2: to help us move forward.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, first wife, you say she gets all the money
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: other than child support? Was it one lump sum and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: then going on? Or do you have to pay her forever?
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: It was for a very long time. Yeah, how do
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: you meet your second wife?
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: I left my marriage in October of two thousand and
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: three and we did a residency tour where we were
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: playing like three nights and like a dozen cities, and
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 2: we went to Seattle and played a place called the Crocodile.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: This isn't May now. So I left my marriage in October,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 2: went right to Australia, toured, came back and that's to May.
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 2: We're doing this residency tour. My last thing on my
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 2: mind is ever meeting anyone ever again ever? And my
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 2: tour manager comes in and before we go on and says, Hey,
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: there's a beautiful woman outside trying to get a ticket
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: for the show, but it's sold out. You want me
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: to let her in? And I was like, sure, I've
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: never done that before. That sounds fun. And so he
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 2: come back. He came back in and he's like, yeah,
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: she's with her mom, I think, but she's got a
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 2: ring on her finger. So I was like, okay, well,
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 2: at least I got to see the show. Like I'm
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm good, you know what I mean, Like, I've
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: been through it.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: So it was actually her mom that made her go
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 2: to the show. She's like, we're going in, and my
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: wife was like, I don't want to go to the show,
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 2: Let's just go to dinner. She's like, no, we have
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: to go see the show tonight. There's no tickets, Mom,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: it's sold out. Doesn't matter, We'll find tickets. And the
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: only reason my wife was in town at the time,
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 2: she was living in San Diego, is because it was
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: her parents' anniversary. So they get in and I decide
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: after the first set of our show, I was like,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: I don't care about the girl with the ring on
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: her finger. There's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 2: out there. I want to talk to her anyway. So
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: I asked a friend of mine to go, I've never
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 2: done this in my career, to go ask her if
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: I could just say hi afterwards. So my friend sees her,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 2: brings her to see me. I say hi to her
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 2: and her mom, same girl with the ring on her finger,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, boy, you got you're engaged.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 2: And she's like h and I was like I just
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: She was like, aren't you married with kids? And I
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 2: was like, I'm not married with kids, but I definitely
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 2: have kids. And I was like, I'd love to talk
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: yeah to getting married. Is there a week you could
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: give me three days? And we laughed a little bit
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: and we exchanged phone numbers, and I found out the
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: next day when or a couple of days later actually,
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: that she was trying on wedding dresses that day, crying
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: in the dressing room, telling her mom something wasn't right
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: and she didn't want to marry this guy. So when
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 2: I said I want to talk to you out of
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: getting married, it was all like this wave of whatever.
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: And so we had coffee and she came to the
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: show the next night. I got to spend a little
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: time with her after the show, and I try to
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: see her every single minute of every day after that.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: So she went home and packed her stuff from San Diego,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: moved back with her parents, and then we ended up
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 2: getting an apartment in Santa Monica.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: How long after you that gig at the Crocodile do
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: you get the apartment in Santa Monica?
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 2: It was just a few months. I because I had
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: to be in Eerie to be with my children, and
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: I decided because of how unhappy I was with the band,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: I wanted to pursue acting. So I was like, why
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: don't we move to La so I can pursue acting
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: take acting lessons. I have enough money that I can
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: pay all my debt and we can have an apartment
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 2: there and live an okay life while I figure shit out.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: And so we lived there for a year and then
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: bought a house close to where her parents live.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, where do you live today?
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 2: I live in Washington State, right across the street from
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: her parents, literally fifty fish and they're they're like my
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: closest friends. It's a really.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: Okay two kids from your first they're out of the house.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: What are they up to?
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: So my son lives with his mom in Erie, Pennsylvania,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: and my daughter lives in Washington State, a couple miles
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: from me, and she's she's over a lot.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: You live in Santa Monica taking acting lessons? What'd you
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: learn about the other side of the fence? Not music
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: but acting TV movies.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: It's really hard. It's really hard because I can pretend
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: with the best of them, and I can remember what
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: I write, but trying to remember what somebody else wrote
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 2: is really hard for me. I don't have a photographic
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: memory or anything. But I got pretty good at it,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 2: and I ended up in a couple of TV shows,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: but that was after Hey Soul Sister, and like I was,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: you know, back on the horse of you know, doing
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: business again. But I don't, you know, the acting thing.
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 2: Nobody ever beat my door down to try to get
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: my tried. I auditioned for several things and didn't get them.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: And it's hard. You have to be a full time actor.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 2: I think, like you have to really commit. Very few
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 2: people can do what Cherry Letto does, you know, and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: be good at both.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, you make another album. There really isn't a hit
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: on it. How does that feel terrible?
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 2: That was I didn't want to make that record. I
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: didn't want to make that record in Atlanta. We did
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 2: not have the goods at all, and it was very disappointing.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 2: We don't play any songs from that record. It was
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: the end of the band for me. It's You happens
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 2: to be a few of my friend's favorite album, not mine.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: It's a period of failure and like leftover sadness. You know,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: I needed to move on.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, when you go back to the studio again, you
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: make another record, You're working with a ton of different people.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: What's going on there?
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: You mean my solo record?
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: No, I'm talking about Save Me San Francisco.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, save Me San Francisco. That so, yeah, we go
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: from we go from for me, It's You to my
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: solo record that doesn't you know it wasn't the right record,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 2: and then sam Me San Francisco. Then it's like the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 2: rules of you can't write in the band are way over,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: Like we got to get back or this is over forever.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: And so I wrote with every person that would meet
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: with me, and two times a day if I could
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: get the time, and you know, through that, I wrote
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: with the Espionage guys and wrote Hey Soul Sister, drive
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: by other songs that I love, Bruises and my friend
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 2: Mark Wattenberg Like. It was all a period of this
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 2: is good for me to go meet people like they
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 2: liked what I did. I didn't know what they did,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: but together we could somehow make something magical. So I
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: wrote with everybody, I could.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: You have your career. But alongside of that, the business
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: is changing dramatically. Okay, it's consolidation in labels. We have
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: Napster or ultimately Spotify comes along and rescues the business.
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: But as we stated earlier, nothing is ubiquitous in the
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: same way is at the beginning of your career? Is
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: that palpable? Do you feel the game has changed or
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: are you still saying, hey man, you know I got
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: to write a hit that's going to get out every
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: radio for about etc.
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: So a radio hit, I don't even know if that's
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: the thing anymore. What you really need to do is
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: focus on social media and if a piece of your
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 2: song gets viral, then radio stations will start to play it.
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 2: But do people listen to radio? I mean, I listen
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 2: to like Serious XM, but it's rare that I would
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: listen to a channel that would play what I'm creating.
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 2: I don't know what does. I don't know what the
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: chances of success are. I think at this phase it's
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 2: more like the way I make a living is through
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 2: live performance. And if I have songs, new songs that
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: matter to the same people that Drops of Jupiter matter to,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: that's a success for me. That's a win. That's a hit.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: If people that love train love something new that I
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: did or that I'm doing, that's a success. What I
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 2: would hope for business wise from it, like hit radio
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: or TikTok or anything, a very low expections of that.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: It's mostly I'm writing songs for train fans and future
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: train fans. That's it.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: Who are train fans?
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: You know, they're pretty great, normal, loving, wonderful humans. And
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: we do a cruise every other year so I can
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 2: be closer to them, like many of them have my
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 2: phone number and email, and we support each other. They
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 2: are responsible for me having a great life, and I'm
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 2: responsible for the music of some of their greatest memories.
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: In terms of gaining new fans, can you feel it?
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: How do you do it? I mean, obviously we talked
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: earlier doing all these TikTok things. Do these work or
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: is it the same core who grew up with you?
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 2: No, it's it is. So this is an interesting thing
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: that's happening. So, you know, heavy metal and hard rock
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 2: is making a huge resurgence, Like my fourteen year old
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 2: son is obsessed with all of it. And there's also
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 2: what train does. There's a nostalgia movement where kids who
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 2: grew up in car seats listening to their moms and
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: music are falling in love with it as teenagers and
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 2: twenty year olds. So we find that every tour we
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: have more and more high school and college kids. And
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 2: I saw this happen with Tom Petty a long time ago.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: Like Tom, you know, has far more amazing songs than
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: I do, but he there was a lull in all
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, there was a massive boom in the
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: Tom Petty world where young people were embracing Tom Petty.
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: I remember my sister in law, who at the time
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: was sixteen, couldn't wait to go see Tom at the
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 2: Gorge in Washington State, And like, I feel like that
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 2: is happening right now and we could be a part
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: of that. I'd like to be a part of that.
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 2: It'd be more fun for me for a teenager to
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: hear a song like the Weekend and go that song's amazing,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: and then they come and see us and they're like,
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 2: holy shit, they do that and that and not have
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: any idea.
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, you became a favorite of Howard Stern and you
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: did ramble on on Howard Stern. That's a cool thing.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: Do you think that enlarged your audience Howard?
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 2: Definitely. I mean I still go to many places, and
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: we haven't been on Howard in a long time. I
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 2: was on when Ralph passed away briefly, but we haven't
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 2: been on for like a new album or anything in
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: a while or had a long conversation. But so many
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 2: people are like, I love you on Howard. You know,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 2: when I met Howard, he was still on k Rock,
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: and then years later when he was on Serious, we
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 2: got to be pretty good pals. And he and I
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 2: are very similar in our love for LED's Uplin, but
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: also as people like he's smarter than I am and
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: funnier than I am, but I think we care about
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: the same stuff and so we had that in common.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: And I know that you've said incredible, great things about Howard,
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 2: and he's a big fan of yours. So when you
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 2: know him a little bit, you realize that you know
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: you're talking to one of the smartest people you'll ever
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: be around, and clever and interesting.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know Fred Astaire famously really had no friends.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: Then there are other people Sammy Hagar. He knows everybody
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: and stays in contact with everybody. Where do you fit
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: on that continuum?
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: I'm I think I'm closer to Sammy, like Sammy's palmine,
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: but I'm way more careful about who I would want
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: to be friends with, especially in the music world. I
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: my closest friends are through Golf. I love and trust them.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 2: We come from different things. We want nothing from one
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: another other than friendship. Sammy wants nothing from you other
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: than like, come and sing with me because it's fun.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: And he's Sammy Hagar, So that kind of relationship musically,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: I love, like, we don't need anything from each other,
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: Let's just be friends and support each other. And I
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 2: have that with with several artists like Mark Roberts from Oar.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: I love that kid. You know, there are Kat Tunstall
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: I think is just absolutely tremendous Sammy. I love like
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 2: there's you know, there's a handful of musicians that I
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 2: want to stay close with forever, But then there's a
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: handful of musicians that I'm good like. I'm more like
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 2: Fred Astaire.
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: On a tip of day. Are you in contact with
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: other high profile celebrities musical celebrities we leave the golf
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: people aside? Or is that more of a rare thing.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not a celebrity. I'm
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 2: not really in contact with a bunch of celebrities. Like
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: I probably know more professional athletes than I know, like
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: I know a.
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: Couple of actors, But like same lost its interest to
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: me a long time ago, Like I used to long
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: for it, And when Chris Martin's career was going like
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: this and he was getting famous, I was jealous of
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: it because I thought I want that. And now that
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: I'm not famous and I don't have to deal with
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 2: all that, I don't really want anything to do with it.
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: And I don't like seek famous people out to hang
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: out with them. I'd love to be friends with Killian
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 2: Murphy because he seems like just such a cool guy
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 2: and so real. But yeah, there's nothing about I don't
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: keep in touch with a lot of eye profile. I
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: keep in touch with George Lopez because he's one of
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 2: my favorite people, but that's not because of anything other
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: than I love him.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: Will you email or text with Howard or just when
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: you know Gary reaches out in order to have you
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: do something, No.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: I definitely I will rarely because I know that he
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 2: complains about you know, like I. He talked about Drop's
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 2: Jupiter turning twenty five the other day, and so I
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: just sent him a note saying, don't respond, thank you
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: for the love. I hope you guys are great. I
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: love you, And then he didn't respond, so I let
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 2: him off the hook.
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: So he's, like Chris said, doctor Respot, he's got a
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: lot of people looking for He's got his own life.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: What's your favorite led Zeppelins?
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I talked to my son about this because
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: we debate about it, and I think it has to
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: be the Rain song. Really Yeah, It's just got so
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: many different layers to it, and the vocals are great.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: I love the lyrics, the everything Jimmy Page is. It's
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: it's just a magical song. How about you ten years gone?
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: Oh wow? Interesting. Is that a physical graffiti?
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know they got those all those they got
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: Cashmere ins one side back in the vinyl days yea,
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: in my time of dying, yeah, ten years. I love
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: how it goes from quiet to loud, which ultimately Boston
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: I won't say Ripped Off was influenced by, and that's
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: how they created Long Time. I know it soars and
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: then it goes acoustic, etc.
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: A great song. Yeah.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: So basically at this point you're training, you call all
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: the shots.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I have great friends that share the stage
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: with me that I try to be as generous as
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 2: I can too. And but you know, having a business partner,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 2: I've learned just the hard way that there's resentment and
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 2: other things that come into play that I don't want
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: to deal with and I don't want them to have
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: to deal with it. So just allow me to be
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: generous and don't ask me to be a partner because
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 2: that kind of relationship I've not been very successful at.
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: So how many dates do you want to do a year?
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: I want to do none. That's not true, you know,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: I think one hundred dates is quite a lot. I
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: think will be about one hundred this year. I'd like
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: to I'd like to work less and make more money.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 2: Like to be honest, i'd like to play who would
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: I know? I want to play bigger venues and play
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 2: less of them, like I think having fifty, we'll see
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: I need more than fifty. If you're going to play
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: Europe in Australia, if I could play seventy shows, I
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 2: think I'd be psyched.
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: Who's your agent?
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 2: It's CIA. Now we just went back to Rob Light
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 2: and the guys at CIA.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so listen, it's a business. So like you're going
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: out with beer naked ladies and Matt Nathanson. How does
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: that come together?
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: It usually starts with Jonathan's partner Bob McLynn. Like Bob,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 2: they'll they'll run a bunch of people by me and
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: ask you know what I think of this? Like we
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: went with Rio and that was very strange to me,
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 2: and I was like, yeah, I mean I love their music.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: Let's see what it's like. And I had the time
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: of my life out there with those guys. And I
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 2: know the bear naked lady guys. I know they're great guys.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: So the more I know people, the better. Because I'm
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: fifty seven years old and like I don't have time
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 2: for a bunch of bullshit, like I want people to
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 2: get on like family. Our goal is to make everybody
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: in those seats happy that they came. And you know,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: we should perform together on stage and and get on
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 2: well with each other, because this time we have on
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 2: this planet is fleeting.
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, you do the cruise every other year, do you
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: have any problems selling? Do you have to work to
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: sell the tickets? Or you got these fans, they're coming.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: You don't have to worry about selling.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: No, they sell in pre sale. Like. I don't even
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: think we would need to put a roster of performers up.
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: It's just become something that people want to do every
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: other year. Every year would be a little harder because
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: you know, you do have to keep in mind that
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: it takes time. You got to fly to Florida, you
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 2: need to save money to do these vacations, and so
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 2: every other year has it's been easy for it to sell.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: I don't have to do any work. Well.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: A friend of mine managed kid Rock. Let's not get
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: into the politics. Kid Rock. Hit Rock did a cruise
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: and he said, yeah, everybody would get to meet him,
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: and then he said never again. Because he hit you know,
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: the whole time. He's the star of the cruise. He
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: could never sleep.
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: What's your experience, my experiences, We've we've figured out a
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 2: way and this is a real thing that if you see,
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 2: we got away with it for a couple of years.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: If you sign up on the pre sale, you get
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: a picture with the band, and plus we're working our
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: asses off this whole time. Man, I'm like game shows
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: and judging things and everything you could think of and
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: the shows that we perform. So if you sign up
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 2: in pre sale, you get to take a picture with
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: the band on the third morning of whatever. And now
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: the whole boat sells out in pre sale, So we
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: meet every cruiser, every cruise, and you know it and
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 2: it's worth worth every second of it.
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, you've mentioned you recently did the Carnegie Hall Billy
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: Joel thing. Do you feel like, oh, yeah, you know
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: I'm going through you know, my manager calls me, I
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: have an oping I'll go, or you have some imposter syndrome,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: saying wow, I can't believe they called me. This is great.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: I have two great stories. Bill. Billy and I sat
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: together at Howard in Best Wedding and I didn't really
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: talk much to Billy because I'm such a big fan.
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to say anything stupid, but I love
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 2: being with him, and I was like, Billy, if you
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 2: went and sang always a woman at this wedding right now,
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: this place would go ape shit. So he's like, you know,
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: So he finally went up and sang, and I heard
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: him or watched him talk to the band leader, and
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 2: then he sang a James Taylor song because he's so
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: he's so not presumptuous that he would be like, yeah,
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: they want to hear a Billy Joel song. So I
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: wanted to go to Billy's so I could sing that
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: song that he wouldn't sing at Howard in Best Wedding.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: But I have this really funny story about Paul Simon.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 2: So I got a phone call like fifteen years ago,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: when Paul Simon's going to be inducted into the Songwriting
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: Hall of Fame. Phone call comes from one of the
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: guys working at my publishing company, Guy goes Hey. Paul
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: Simon specifically asked for you to induct him into the
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: Songwriting Hall of Fame. I was like, holy shit, that's
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: the greatest thing I've ever heard in my life. I
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: can't do it. I'm going to be in Europe. But
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: please tell Paul. I'm such a huge fan. What an honor?
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 2: Years ago by I have a little spot in Maui
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: and Shep Gordon is a friend and Shep has a
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: charity show every year and it gives to the homeless.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: It's some beautiful thing that he does. And he tells
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: me because I'm going to perform there. Sammy does it
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: every year and he's like, hey, Paul's gonna be here.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 2: I was like, ah, Sep, when Paul's here, can you
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: please introduce me. I have a question for him. It's
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 2: been killing me for so long. He was like yep.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: So he comes over. He's like, Pat, Paul just showed up.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: So I go over and I'm like, mister Simon went
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: an honor? Min is Pat Monahan? Whatever? And I goes, hey,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 2: I asked you a question. A few years ago. My
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: publicist called me when you were being inducted into the
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: Songwriting Hall of Fame and said that you specifically asked
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: for me to induct you by name. And I've been
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: dying all these years to ask you if that's true.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: And he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, Pat,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put your mind at ease. I never
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 2: asked for you. It's the greatest, Like, what a great thing.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 2: And I get to have that all.
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: And that's his personality. Okay, you're a songwriter, but you're
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: rademark is your voice. There are people like Paul Anka
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: he could still sing the way he did. There are
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of people household names really can't hit the notes. Yeah,
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: are you fearful? How do you tweet your voice? You
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: fearful of losing it?
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: No? I mean, you know it's gonna be here as
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 2: long as it'll be here, and I just have to
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: keep doing. But I do to take care of it. Exercise, esteem,
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 2: the stuff that you can control. Stress, I think is
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: what really. You know. I had some vocal cord surgery
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: years ago. It was all stress related like that and
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 2: singing too many of Zeppelin songs.
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, what song do you enjoy most playing on stage?
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: You know, drops to Jupiter just because my mom sent
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 2: me that song and probably wrote it for me. It's
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: always gonna be the most important, But right now I
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: love performing the weekend. It's a song. People don't they're
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: not all that familiar with yet, but they seem to
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: love it. Live and new is always fun for me.
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, Pat, I think we've come to the end of
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: the feeling we've known. You've been very honest and forthcoming.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: You're a sharp guy. I want to thank you for
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: taking this time with my audience.
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Bob. You're great at what you do. Man,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: I appreciate all the questions. You're good at it.
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: Until next time. This is Bob Left Sense.