Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Leland Sklar

Transcript

Leland Sklar · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: My guest today is the one and only Leland Sklar,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: bassist extraordinaire. Leland, you have a big presence on YouTube.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Tell me about that.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you, COVID, is really what that was all about.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: When COVID struck, my date book was full for the year.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, it blew away like
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: leaves in a storm. And I'm looking and I'm going, God,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: what am I going to do now? And there's a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: backstory to this. In 2004, I was on the road
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: with Phil Collins. And they hired a bass tech for me.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: I'd never really had a bass tech before. I've always
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: done my own gear. And he came in. I think
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: he had probably been working with a band that bass
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: player had like 10 basses and wanted new strings every
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: day and all that. And when he came to me,
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: he said, so what do you need?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: What do you need?
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: And I said, nothing. And we were going to be
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: on the road a year on this tour. It was
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a long tour. And so we had kind of running
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: jokes through the whole tour about it because he ended
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: up like working with the drum tech and being a
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: general kind of gopher on the tour. Well, towards the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: end of the tour, there was talk that Phil might retire.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: at the end of that tour. He was just pretty
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: well done at that point. Just to be clear for
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: the audience, what year are we in?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: 2004. Okay.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: And so one of the things that hit me was
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: if Phil's retiring, I may not see a lot of
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: these people. Again, we had like 100 crew guys on
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: this tour. And they were from Europe and the East
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Coast and all over the country. And I thought, I
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: may not see them. So I thought, maybe I'm going
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to I'll just take a picture of everybody and make
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: a little memory book for me as long as my
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: memory was still intact and I understood what that was.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: But as luck would have it, the first person that
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: I went up to, his nickname was Chinner. And I said, hey, Chinner,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: give me a smile.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Is there a reason it was Chinner? Chinner. Spell it. C-H-I-N-N-E-R.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: That's what I thought. Does it have to do with
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: your chin? And he had a beard. Okay.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: He came with the nickname.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So he was sitting at his laptop working and I
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: went up to him and I said, hey, give me
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a smile. And all he did was flip me off
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: at that point, which was perfect for that tour. And
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I looked at the picture and I kind of went, oh,
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: this is actually a good idea. So I went and
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: got Phil and Tony Smith as manager. I got all
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: the band, all the crew. Bus drivers, truck drivers, pilots, caterers.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: It was one of those kind of tours where there
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: was all these people. And I ended up with probably
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: about 120 pictures of people flipping me off. And I
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: put it away and didn't really think about it. And
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: then a couple of years later, I went on the
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: road for the first time with Toto. And I thought,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get those guys. I mean, I've known
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Luke since he was 19. So I did that and
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: it started to take a life of its own. And
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: at this point, I've got over 13,000 photographs. But when
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: COVID hit, I was at a friend's house in Pasadena
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: who was having a little get together in his backyard.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And he was kind of like one of these hunter
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: gatherers of people. He had scientists from Caltech. I live
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: in Pasadena. So he had guys from Caltech. He had
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: artists and all kinds of some actors and stuff, about
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a dozen of us. One of the guys was a
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: guy named Richard Tremarchi, whose nickname is Blue, and he
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: has a company called Art Alliance, and they do high-end
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: art books and things like that. He does the posters
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: for the New Orleans Jazz Festival and things like that.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So we were sitting there. I had just met him,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: and we started talking, and I told him about all
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: these pictures I had collected and stuff.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: He said, do a book.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And I said, well, I really hadn't had time. He goes,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: you got time now?
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And so we started to sit in his office. I'd
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: bring all my files over and we would just look
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: at all these pictures and started assembling it. And next
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: thing you know, I ended up with a coffee table
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: book called Everybody Loves Me. And it's about 6,000 pictures
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: in there.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Just because we have cameras here. This is the book.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: This is it.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And it's really a great book to have, like, keep
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: in your car. If you park on a hill, it's
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: big and heavy, so you can put it under the
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: tires so you don't roll away, you know, chalk the
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: tires with it. But I ended up self-publishing it. And
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: to get a deal on the printing, it was done
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: in China. There's really great print companies in China. I
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: had to print 10,000 of these. So I went in deep. And... And,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: of course, COVID's going on, so I can't do any
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: book signings. I can't do any kind of real hustling
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: or anything.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Since you're this honest, 10,000 landed in L.A. is going
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to cost you how much? I forget what it was.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, a couple of thousand bucks for that.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I think the entire getting into it, I think, was
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: probably about 130 grand. But I'm down now to about
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: 1,200 left. Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait. So now you're
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: jumping ahead. So you can't promote it.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: And- Well, I can't promote it, but I started promoting it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Then we put together a website for it. Now, I'd
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: never had a website. I mean, there's so many things
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: that happened with COVID. I had never recorded at home before.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, some friends of mine called
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: and they said, we're doing a cover of Phil Collins'
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Easy Lover. Would you play on it? And I said,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I'd love to, but Because what would happen just previous
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: to COVID was when people would send me files to
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: do things, I would just call friends that had home
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: studios and I'd say, can I come over? I'll bring
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: a file and we'll put base on it. I'll take
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: you to lunch kind of a thing. It was our
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: social life. With COVID, that ended. And so I told
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: these guys, I said, I'd love to do it, but
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not set up. The next thing I know, one
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: of the guys knew somebody at SSL and they sent
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: me an SSL 2 Plus interface. And then I was in- Okay, wait.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I know what SSL- I ramble.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: No, no, no. Digression is the spice of life. It's great.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Solid state logic. I certainly know what SSL is, but
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that interface. Tell me what that is.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's Solid State Logic is the company.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Of course.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: But known for desks in studios. Yeah, and all kinds
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: of electronic, high-end studio stuff. The thing that they sent
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: me was a little box that I would plug my
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: bass into, and then from that, I would plug that
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: into my laptop so I could record directly into my laptop. Now,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: I knew nothing about this, but I'm in a band.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: We're sort of on hiatus right now called The Immediate Family.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: And one of the members of the group, Steve Postel,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: he's like kind of really the gear nerd on it.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So I called him up and I said, what do
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: you suggest? And he said, just do GarageBand. All you're
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: doing is bass. You don't need anything more than that.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: So he gave me a run through on that. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I ended up putting bass on this Easy Lover version
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: that these friends did. And then I kind of just
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: let people know I was available. And since COVID, I
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: think I've done like 18 albums at home.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Just because you've done that much work, are you still
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: doing it the same way with the SSL box and
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: garage band?
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly the same. I just finished doing two projects last week.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Because it's really simple. I'm not a composer, so I
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: didn't really need to go into the stuff where there's
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: all kinds of samples and stuff. I just needed something
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: where they could send me a simple file. I put
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: bass on it. It's a little bit more difficult doing
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: it at home because if we were in a studio
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: like we are right now and I was coming up
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: with an idea, we could discuss it. Me sitting at home,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing what your thoughts are. So sometimes what I
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: do is I end up doing maybe four different versions
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: of the part and I send it to them and say,
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: what works for you? Because I'm just guessing at it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: They might want something busy. They might want something simple.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: They might want something a little more esoteric. So it's
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: a little, I have to dig in deeper when it's
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: just me.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. Conventionally in studios, you got enough money, the old school,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: you start with the bass and drums. In this particular case,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: they're sending you what without bass? Sometimes they're sending me,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the thing that drives me crazy, really out of my
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: mind with this stuff. They'll send me a file and
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the guitar is like maybe not quite in tune or
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's not. They go, oh, no, we're going to be
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: replacing that. Then the drums aren't quite there. They said, no,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: we got somebody else going. So I said, so basically
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I'm playing to shit right now. I mean, the parts are,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you know, when they're saying we're going to replace that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: stuff later, well, that means what I'm playing to may
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: not fit later. I mean, it's a real weird way.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: most of the people that send me stuff, they've got
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: it somewhat together. So, you know, they'll send me a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: click track. If there isn't really a finished drum track,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: at least I've got something that's going to be solid.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: But a lot of times, and this has kind of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: gone on over my entire career, being the bass player,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: generally the bass drums, you know, at most sometimes we
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: have four guys in the studio doing a track. You know,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: I have a guitar player, keyboard player, bass and drums.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And so we're kind of guessing at where this is headed.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And I'll hear something later on when it's finished, and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I'll think, if I'd have known that that's what they
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: were going to add to this, I wouldn't have played
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: that part. But we're shooting blanks at that point. We
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: really don't know. So there's a lot of guesswork involved
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in what we do. You're kind of anticipating where this
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: might be going. Or sometimes when they send me stuff,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I'll also send them some notes that I've thought about
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: and just say, look, if you're doing this, maybe use
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: this part on it. Because if you're going to add
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: like horns and stuff, maybe have the who's doing the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: horn arrangements work off of this line. Because if they
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: do something else, this is going to get cluttered and stuff.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So you're, you're kind of engaged in a different way
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: when you're sitting at home. Okay. So let's assume I
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: was laying down guitar parts. Yeah. It'd be a matter
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: of which guitar, which amp, which effects, if you're laying
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: down bass part, to what degree do you change the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: sound on your end before you put it in?
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: Um, I, that's been a really kind of crazy thing
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: about my career is I really haven't accommodated much of
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: anything except what I do. So, um, You know, occasionally,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: like I remember when we were in the studio doing
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: one of Steve Lukather's solo albums and I'm trying to
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: remember the name of the track we did. But it
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: was one of these ones where I thought bass really
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: should just be in your face. And we hooked up
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: all kinds of distortion stuff and cranked it into like
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: complete distortion.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And it was great.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: That's kind of stuff that when you're sitting in the
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: studio together, you kind of go, let's try this. At home,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: I'm really not set up for that. But in general...
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: my having done this so long to my instinct is
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: usually just to go kind of figure right down the middle.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: What they, what I think would be really a good
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: supportive base part for something. And I don't, but there
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: are times where I'll say, you know, maybe try like
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: regenerating this when you're mixing or something like that, put
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: some distortion or a little, you know, pitch shift or,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: you know, echo on, especially if it's a fretless part,
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: it's kind of nice to throw a little bit of
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: schmutz on it, you know, just to, give it a
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: little more personality.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, you got a lot of stuff going on here. Oh, please,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I know. No, no, no, I love it. I love it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Don't take that the wrong way.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: The fact that we're both naked right now is really fantastic.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: But since they're replacing everything else, do they ever come
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: back to you and go, now we know what you want,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: we want, we do it?
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: I've had people come back and say, could you go
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: at it again? And I go, you understand that this
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: is now another session. We're not still on that old date. So,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: you know, the job is it's a fresh day in
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: the studio with that. But I'm happy to do that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess that leads to my next question.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: You, you know, if somebody's calling you to do a
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: session date who's not your friend. Yeah. You have a rate.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: There's the union rate. It's the rate double, triple, whatever. Yeah. Okay.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Someone's calling you to work in your home or no
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: one calls anymore. They're emailing you to work at home. Yeah.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: How do you decide what to charge? It's kind of.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: First, I want to know how complicated this is going
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: to be. Am I going to have to be writing
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: charts for myself? Or something like somebody sends me a
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: really simple tune, and I go, I don't know. You
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: kind of just feel it. I usually kind of throw
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: out a number at them, and I say, if this
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't work for me, let me know what's good for you.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: And there's been some projects that were people that I
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: did know, and when they wanted to know what to pay,
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I just said, take me out to dinner or something
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: like that. I look at this all kind of, it's
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: my gig, but it's also my life. It's my social
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: life and all that. And it's been an incredible run.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've been in the studio almost every day
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: since 1970 or on the road. And I still pinch
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: myself every day that I get to do this. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: so I'm really happy to accommodate.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Let's talk the 70s and 80s. They're huge budgets. And
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: you're working on an artist track. And generally speaking, you're
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: hoping it sells millions. May not. Yeah. Okay. Today, almost
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: nothing has that. So does that affect your psychological dedication
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: to it? I'm not saying you don't do a good job,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: but can you not just get as excited about it
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: because you know there's a limited audience for it? Not
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: at all. To me.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: When I get hired to do something, if somebody just
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: called me up and they said, look, my Arrowhead delivery
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: guy wants to make a record, and would you be
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: willing to play? I would give him the same attention
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: that I would give Phil Collins on it.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I really do.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I figure when I pick up that instrument, it's not
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: an obligation, but I take pride in my gig. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: so I don't look at it thinking like, well, this
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: is going to sell 10 records and this one's going
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: to send 10 million. Those 10 people are as important
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: as the 10 million. On there, it's kind of like
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: going out to do a concert. I still get excited.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I still play birthday parties. And on the one hand,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: you've come off of gigs that you just played for
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: 200,000 people at a giant festival or something like that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: And now you're in somebody's basement playing for 30 friends
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: on there. I play the same at all that stuff.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: We did one a couple of years back where I
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: got a friend called me and said, my friend's turning
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: 60 and he wants to have a party at his
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: house and all this. And so we show up. I
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: got Vinnie Caliuta came playing drums. Mike Finnegan was playing
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: B3 and singing. And I forget who the other guys were.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Everybody had just come. I had just come off of
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Phil Collins and somebody had just come off of, you know,
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: like this other giant tour. And we're having a ball
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: just playing top 40 cover tunes and stuff. So To me,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: I so enjoy when I get to play that I
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: don't look at the numbers in the same way people
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: have said to me, like with James Taylor, did you
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: ever get sick of playing Fire and Rain? I mean,
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: God knows I played Fire and Rain so many times.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I said, never, never.
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Because somewhere in that audience, somebody's hearing this for the
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: first time live or they've never heard the song before.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So that's who I'm playing to. If somebody's out there going,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: oh God, that song again, well, fine. But I still
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: loved every time I would play it. I would never
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: find myself, you know, on long tours where we're playing
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the same set every night. I go, it's a different
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: audience every night, different venues. Sound is different every night.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So to me, each day is a special day. And
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: so I really, I just think every day how fortunate
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I was that something that would have been my avocation
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: became my vocation. And I, I had a lot of
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: jobs in the sixties and stuff, you know, doing crap
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: work and stuff. And I thought, you know, non-musical non-musical.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Just paying some rent and like what, um, uh, working
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: as a arc welder's assistant, making swimming pool filters. Wow. Uh,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: there was a print shop, right? I went to Cal
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: state Northridge was San Fernando Valley state college back in
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: those days. Um, and there was a print shop that
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: was a couple of blocks from the student, from the campus.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: And a friend of mine said, oh, you got to
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: go talk to those guys there. They are always hiring.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: And I go there and it was basically they were
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: printing porn in there. And I ended up running the
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: offset printing presses and doing layouts for like the magazines
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: and stuff. And they were paying like two dollars an
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: hour under the counter.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: It was cash.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: So I was I mean, because at that time, you know,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: the rent was like. you know, 75 bucks a month
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: or something like that. So like two gigs on a
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: weekend and that thing kind of made the... So when
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: was the last time you had a so-called day job?
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Day job.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: I would think it was probably that one. It was
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: probably that one. Either that or while I was in college,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: my father had one of those corner magazine stands.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: He had it in the valley.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: It was on Balboa and Sadakoy, right on the wall
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: of the Rexall drugstore. And I would work for him.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: When he didn't want to be there, I would do
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: the evening shift there and stuff.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Was that his business, his main business? Yeah. He was
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: a gypsy.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, probably in the course of our lives, he
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: could have, he must have had 25 businesses.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: He was one of these.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: People that He would find something that looked interesting and
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: he would create a business. And then the minute it
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: started to get successful, he would be bored and dump
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: it and start some. So one day we would be
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: tending glass. The next day he had a print shop.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Then the next day he had a swimming pool cleaning company.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Then he had a bookstore in Tarzana and stuff. It was,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: we were always kind of hanging on the edge with
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: him because he was, he was erratic, but fascinating.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Well, how did it work out financially for your family?
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: We were always– I mean, we never went without, but
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: we didn't have a lot. It was just kind of
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: a real valley middle-class family. So what would your mother
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: say when he was constantly– She would just shake her head.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: But it was that time where the moms were stay-at-home
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: moms and dad worked. But, you know, there was a
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: little bit of uncertainty in our lives when he would go–
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: I'm going to start doing furniture refinishing. And then when
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: he would do it, it was this good. I mean,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: he would end up with these great clients, but then
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: he would just be bored with it and he would
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: look for something else to do.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So it was.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: One of those things you were kind of hanging on
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the precipice all the time. But other guys, I knew
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: their dads, like they had that one job and they
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: were there till the day they died or till the
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: day they retired. And I always kind of thought about
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: that where I've had so many friends in the corporate
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: world that um, they would say they were, they had
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: a countdown clock on their desk. You know, they said,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: when this thing goes off, I never have to put
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: a tie on again and all that. Um, and there
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: was a part of me that was not jealous of that,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: but I would go, there's a certain thing about that.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: Like they had their 501k and there's a lot of
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: things that were lined up that made that look like
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: it was stable. And, uh, but they would always look
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: at me and they would say, so what are you doing?
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: I say, well, we're heading to, we'll be in Europe
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: for the next couple of months, touring and stuff. And
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: God is so cool. But I would go the minute
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: that gigs over, I'm unemployed. You know, I mean, knock
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: on wood, every time something's ended within a reasonable amount
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: of time, something else comes along. So you're, it's always
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: been busy.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Okay. In terms of any of the work you've ever
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: done for other people, they ever give you any royalties. Um,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Two times.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't get mailbox money. Well, I assume
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you did, but I just wanted to establish that.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: No, I don't. Okay. You fall down and break your
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: arms on the way to your car here. Yeah. Are
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: you set financially or you still got to work?
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: I'm probably okay if I don't go any farther than
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I already am in terms of expenditure. I bought my
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: house back in 1981. So that was long paid off.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: I don't have to worry about my rent or anything
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: like that. But, you know, as a sideman, I mean,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: people always kind of look like somebody like me and
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: they see you working with Phil Collins. And I go, OK, well,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: for every thousand dollars I made with Phil, he probably
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: made one hundred thousand dollars. So just because you see
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: me in the video and standing next to him doesn't
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: mean we're on an equal plane. But. I've never looked
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: at that as, you know, I've always thought I've always
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: paid my bills. You know, there's never been a year
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: where I haven't covered the bills and managed to put
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: a little bit away every year.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: How did you end up buying a house in Pasadena?
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I grew up in Van Nuys.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: We were a valley kid. And when my wife and
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I got married, we've been together in December. It'll be
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: 56 years.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. She's very patient. You've mentioned that your
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: wife's health is not good.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Well, what happened was a couple of things. She's actually
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: been incredibly healthy. But about 15 years ago, she was
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: at a friend's condominium out in the valley. And there
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: was like the main entrance, but their condo was in
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the back. And there was a side stairs that went
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: down to where she parked. And she always just would
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: go down those. Well, at this point, the people who
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: had the condo had come repainted those stairs, took off
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: the little skid plate on each stair, took off the handrail,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: and then they had watered. And she came walking out
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: and slid and went on her back down the stairs.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: That was misdiagnosed, and she ended up with a bunch
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: of shots for pain. But it turns out it was
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: a major fracture that never got addressed. Well, about four
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: years ago, I guess it was, a little over four
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: years ago, We had like a group of six friends
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and every year we would go to Europe, like go
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: to the Champagne region in France or go to Italy,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: go to Tuscany and stuff. It was like her cousin
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: and his wife and just a really nice group of people. Well,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: about four years ago, we went to Spain and we
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: were outside of Barcelona.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: And we rented a house there that was just a beautiful,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: beautiful house. And they had all the bedrooms for everybody there.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It was really nice.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: And they had a beautiful backyard. And in the backyard,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: they had a swing hanging off of a tree. And
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: everybody was swinging on it. And she was swinging, and
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: it broke and dropped her on concrete. And it burst
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: her T12 vertebrae. Well, first off, you're up there. They
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: don't speak Spanish. They speak Catalan up there. So I'm
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: sitting with my phone looking at Google Translate trying to
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: talk to doctors and stuff. And then we got her
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: into the hospital. And the doctor said, don't worry about this.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: He said they gave a little back brace. And they said,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: you know, just wear this for like a month. You
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: should be okay. They don't give any painkillers over there.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So the most she was getting was Tylenol for a
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: broken back. And at that point, I had to get
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: her home from Spain. The fortunate thing in all of
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: this catastrophe was my neighbor right across the street from
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: me is the head of orthopedic surgery at Keck. So
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I called him from Spain, and they set up with
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: their back guy. So when we got back, she had
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: to lay in bed for a week because the back
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: guy was out of town. But the good thing was
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: that her doctor, at that point when we got home,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: there was fentanyl patches and Percocet and things, so she
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: could at least be comfortable because getting home was hellacious.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: So then she had back surgery, and that got all
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: fixed up. properly, but the other thing from 15 years
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: ago reared its ugly head because of that. And so
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: she's just gone through an ablation surgery where they've fused
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: her sacrum to her pelvis, and she's just in a
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: recovery mode now. And this was weird for me because
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I'm caregiver. At that point, we didn't have anybody else
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: coming in. And they said, you can't walk for six weeks.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: You have to stay in bed and not put any
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: weight on your right leg. So I had to turn
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: down a tour and everything and, and not, um, just
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: be home for six weeks, which I'd never experienced. And
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I got, I didn't get into a funk, but I
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: got into a different head space and almost for the month,
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: I didn't even touch my bass and everyone went up
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: and looked at it. Um, and now she's walking again. And, uh,
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: I just was in Texas this weekend and we have
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: one more gig in Texas with touring with Lyle Leavitt.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And then we hit the road in, um, On the 15th.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: And we're out till the kind of late November on
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: the States. The sad, but while I was home with
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: her recuperating, they did a leg that was Alaska and Canada.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And I was only bummed because I've been to every
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: state but Alaska. And I was thinking, I'm finally going
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: to have every state. And then I had to bail
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: on the tour.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: To stay home.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: But it's what you do, you know, in those situations.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. How'd you meet her?
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: College in the art department. We were both students up there.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: We met, I must have been around 68, I.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Guess.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And I was like the freak in the art department.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I was like the hippie guy and all that, even
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: though I was so far from being a hippie. I
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: looked it, but I was straighter than Ozzie Nelson. I mean,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, Everybody I knew around me was just
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: getting high and everything. I've never done drugs, never drank,
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: never smoked.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, just stop there. So you've never tried marijuana?
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: No.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Have you ever had wine, beer, whatever?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I tasted it, and I realized that my palate doesn't
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: like alcohol. I don't even like alcohol and beef bourguignon.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: It's really got to be cooked out for me to
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: like it. It's just strictly— it was nothing— There wasn't a
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: choice saying, you know, this isn't for me or I'm this.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: It just didn't agree with me. And I was, in
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a way, I'm going to say lucky, but it wasn't lucky.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I was in a band in like 60, late 67,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: I guess, 68, called Mike and the Mad Men out here.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: And Mike Marder was our lead singer, monstrously great singer.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: And I think he died of a meth overdose, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: like as a late teen. I remember playing with Albert
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Collins at— Albert Collins, the great— The great blues player.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I got to play Snow Cone and Frosty with him.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I got to work with Jimmy Reed and all those people.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: We did a gig at Otis Arts Institute with him
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: in downtown. And when I was leaving, there was a
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: park across the street, and I heard somebody screaming in
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: the park. And I went over there and I found
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: a guy who was like on the worst acid trip
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: possible flipping out. And I ended up sitting on a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: bench with him for six hours till he came down enough.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: And then I drove him home. I had no idea
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: who this guy was. But over the years, I saw
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: so much of that. And like when I started with
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: James Taylor, he was still doing heroin. And I would
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: just see, I was surrounded enough to see the dark side.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And I kind of went, what's the appeal?
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: To this.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a part of me that goes, God,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: it would have been interesting to have taken acid and
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: see what that's really all about. But I was always
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: kind of too much of a control freak type A personality.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I was the guy that always made, I drove, I
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: was the designated driver. I always made sure everybody got
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: home okay and they were all drunk and stuff. And
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: I wasn't judgmental about that. I just didn't want them
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: to get hurt. And so it was really, okay, so
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: You know, you've.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Been around a while. It's a different era. Everybody's older.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: But if you go back 30, 40, 50 years, people
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: got off the stage. They go to the bar. They
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: go to the room, whatever. What did you do?
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: Generally, I probably went back to the room and watched
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: TV or you get on the bus. The thing that's
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: been great in contemporary touring is the fact there's internet
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: on the bus. Because, man, when there wasn't, you would
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: have a suitcase designated full of Betamaxes or VHSs, and
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: you would just be sitting there in the lounge watching
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: a movie all night on your drive. Or if you
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: stayed in a hotel, I would just go back and
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: watch TV. I'm kind of an insomniac. I only sleep
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: about three to four hours a night. So things like
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: YouTube and all that have been a godsend. for my entertainment.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: The nature of a band is inherently social. Yeah. Is
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: that your personality or are you just the bass player
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and when you're not playing bass, you're home doing your
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: own thing? That's exactly it. I don't hang.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: At all. It's like I don't get together socially with
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: anybody if we're not working. The working really is our
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: social life. And there's a part of that that really
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: can be heartbreaking, too. I remember one of the people
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: in the 80s who I worked probably the most with
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: was Jeff Piccaro, the great Jeff Piccaro. And every time
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: we'd be together, we'd go, why don't we just get
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: together for dinner? I mean, it's always this. And then
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: he passed away. And we never did have one dinner together.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: But In the studio, for me, that's enough. On the road,
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: that's enough. We've talked about everything we're going to talk
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: about on the road. We've shared our lives together. So
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: when I'm here, I love being home. I love working
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: in my yard and working on my house and stuff
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's go back. You're in art class. How
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: do you literally meet your wife-to-be?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Just in the hallway. I think I helped her with
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: a couple of things. We would just talk, and she
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: was just this adorable babe. And I always think, you know, like,
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: why would anybody talk to me? It's that kind of
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: a thing. But I remember one of her classes, she
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: had to make a kite. They had to make box
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: kites or some kind of stuff. And I saw her
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: working on it. So I said, do you need any help?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: So we sort of just. fell into it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you have a relationship, but this is also
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the 60s turned 70. You don't have to get married.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: How did you decide to get married?
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: We just kind of looked at each other one day
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and said, why don't we get married? And we drove to,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: we thought about families and thought, well, I don't want
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: that person here. Well, I don't want that person here.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So we drove to Santa Barbara and went to the
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: courthouse and walked down the halls until we found a
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: judge sitting in his office. And his secretary was the witness,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: got married, and then drove to Pea Soup Anderson's in
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: Buelton and had dinner and then went home. And we
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: weren't living together either at that point.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Well, once you got married?
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: When we got married, we found a house near where
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: we were living and lived there forever. We got married
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: in 70 and we were there in 73. We found
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: a house in 70 and we stayed there until 73.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: And then in 73, we moved to Pasadena.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: But, you know, it's a big valley. For those who
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: don't know, Pasadena is one, you know, a half hour beyond. Yeah.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Why Pasadena?
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: Well, what happened was her aunt and uncle lived in Arcadia,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: which is like one of the next big cities past Pasadena.
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: And we would go visit with them. And there was
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: a great Japanese restaurant in Pasadena called Miyako. And at
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that point, we were looking for a house in the valley.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And everything was ranch style. And we're going, Christ, this
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: is all we've seen our whole lives. And we were
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: going to go have lunch with her aunt, Joan. And
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Joan said, oh, I've got a friend of mine, Annabelle.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: That was her name.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: She's a realtor and she's going to stop by lunch.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: And she said, she came to lunch and she said,
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: we started talking about houses. She came to eat, didn't
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: come to hustle. But she said, there's a house that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: just came on the market today if you'd consider Pasadena.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: And so we drove over there and we drove home.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: It was a 1928 English Tudor on an acre of land,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: brick Tudor, fantastic. And she said, it's a divorce case.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: They just want to dump it. I think they were
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: asking $ 67, 000. And Maureen goes in the house. I can
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: hear her from the street going, I want this house.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: I'm going, that's a real bargaining chip right there. The
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: owner's in there hearing you. But we ended up, gave
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: them an offer of $ 62, 500 and they took it. And
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: we stayed in that house till 1980. And then we
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: sold it and moved into the house we're in now.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: We've been We were the youngsters in the neighborhood now,
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: and now we're the old farts. Okay.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: What motivated you to go from one house to another?
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: My wife had seen this house for years. One of
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: the things we used to do with Pasadena was come
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: to the Rose Bowl flea market. We're voracious flea market people.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Is there something specifically you look for? Everything. Everything.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you walk into our house, it's kind
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: of like an episode of Hoarders with Cool Shit. But
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: we collected everything imaginable in there. sold collections and changed
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: directions and stuff like that. Just to stay there, how
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: do you sell a collection of this stuff? Well, there
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: was a guy that I met through a friend who
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: has a place that's all kitsch stuff in Orange, California.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: And he came out to the house one day. Bernie,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: my friend Bernie, suggested that Ray come out and take
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: a look. And he just walked around. He said, oh, man,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: this is great. Next thing you know, he sends me
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: a note with a list of all the things he
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: would be interested in. And I said, come back, we'll talk.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: And he came over with a semi and they unloaded
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: a ton of stuff. And what that allowed me to
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: do was suddenly go upstairs to some rooms that had
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: boxes in them.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: And I went, I forgot.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen this crap for 30 years. So I
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: pulled that out and put it where all the other
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: stuff was. It's, you know, it's it's one of those
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: things that it's a really to me was always a
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: fun way of spending a Sunday. was just wandering up
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: and down aisles looking at stuff. And over the years,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: you become really good friends with all the different dealers
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: and stuff. So it's your social life. There's a fire.
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: What are the two things you take?
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: First thing is my dogs. Absolutely.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Anything living is the first thing. Second thing, other than
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: my wife, would have probably been my Frankenstein base.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Let me change it. Let's leave the obvious out, your wife,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: your dogs, your musical equipment, things related to that. Of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the stuff you've accumulated, what are the two things you
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: would take? Oh, that's a really good question. Yeah, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: paperwork and those kind of things. I have a really
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: lovely collection of Austrian German carved bears. They're like hall trees.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: And things like that. Just really spectacular. And you buy
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: those at the flea market? I've found them all different ways.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I've got about 10 of them. And when you look,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're really works of art. But there's so
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: much stuff. I mean, if you saw the house, you'd
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: kind of go, where would you even start? I guess
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: you'd figure what was the farthest away from the flames.
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, certainly we had thoughts going down when Altadena
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: was on fire. We were lucky that we were about
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: three miles from the intensity of it. but we got
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: hit with 100 mile an hour winds. And right almost
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: against the house, I had a 100 foot high, 100
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: year old podocarpus tree. And in the middle of all
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: of it, I heard this crashing sound and about a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: third of that came. If it had fallen backwards, it
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: would have crushed the front of the house, but it
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: fell onto the driveway area. And then the next day
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: I had to have a tree service come out and
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: take this out. And the trunk was about the size
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: of this table. I mean, it was just A magnificent tree.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You're going to the flea market.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: How does this lead to the new house?
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: Because the house we're in is about a block from
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: the Rose Bowl. So we would drive by it every
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: time we went to the flea market there. And she
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: had a girlfriend who's a realtor who contacted her and said,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: you know, that house you love is on the market.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: And once again, it was another divorce case. So they
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: wanted just to get rid of it. I was on
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: tour and Maureen contacted me on tour and said, I
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: think that house I love is available. I mistook it
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: for another house. And when we went to, I came
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: off the road and immediately had to go meet with
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: the realtor and discuss this thing. And I'm going, this
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: isn't the house I thought it was because there's a
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: house very similar to it. That's about an eighth.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Of a mile away.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: And that was the one in my mind I was
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: thinking about. So I was kind of surprised when I
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: saw this one. But I think I was just in
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: shock that I'm like suddenly going, what am I doing here?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: I was happy with the old house. But at that point,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: as they always say, you know, you just make the
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: wife happy.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Okay. A couple of things. What's it like when they
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: have an event at the Rose Bowl?
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: It can be difficult, just traffic-wise.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: It's one of these situations where when you're there, you
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: have these events going on like UCLA football or concerts,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: U2 or somebody like that. But I'm thinking if that
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: was all condos in that ravine, it would be a
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: lot worse. So I put up with it. I kind
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: of knew, you know, of the Rose Bowl game and
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the parade because there was a facility down there called
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the Rosemont Pavilion. And for years, that area is where
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: they built most of the floats. So we would, on
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: New Year's Eve, they would come up my street. So
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: we would get our private viewing of all the floats
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: and stuff. But over the years, they've kind of diversified
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: and sent stuff to Irwindale and different places. But they're
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: still doing some there. The concerts, it's really, for the
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: most part, they're okay. You have an expectation it's going
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: to go on. And you just accommodate it.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: You put.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: put in provisions and you just plan not to go
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: out for that day.
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's go back. Okay. You're married. You're 23. Ever
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: thought of having any children? Nope. So you both pretty...
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Did you agree or that's the way it worked out?
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: We kind of agreed. Maureen's brother, she was 12 when
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: her brother was born and 15 when her sister was born.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: So she kind of raised two kids. So there's no
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: mystery in that. And we were always just happy to
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: have dogs and cats in there. And it wasn't so
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: much like we're never going to have this. I mean,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: if something would have happened and we would have had kids,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: then you become the best parent you can possibly be.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: And every time I would be around other friends' kids,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: they would go, oh, man, you should have kids. You're
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: so good with kids. I go, I'm so good with
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: kids because I don't have any. Because I'm going home now.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: because they're about to throw a tantrum. So we just
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: never really felt that. But her sister, her son, my
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: wife's sister's son, they just had their first baby. And
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: this kid's fantastic. And so she's becoming like this kind
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: of distant granny, auntie kind of vibe and sending lots
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: of little goodies and stuff. So She enjoys that. She
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: would have loved– I think she would have loved more
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: dressing up a kid than dealing with them. And I said,
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: decorate the house.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: So you're working. Yeah. In the 70s, you're in the studio,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: you're on the road. What's she doing all the time?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Just at home, you know. I– Maybe it was a
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: mistake on my part, but I told her one day,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: I said, look, if this ever works, I make a
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: living for us. You don't have to think about working.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: It happened.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Because she's really smart and really talented, and she could
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: have probably really had a good career doing other things.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: When we met, she was working at the phone company
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: as an operator and a delivery girl for a place
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: called the Nosh and Rye in Encino, delivering sandwiches and stuff.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And she was the... literally the breadwinner for us because
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, if I was lucky, I was
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: making like 20 bucks a weekend or something like that
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: doing a club gig. And it all just changed. Upon
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: meeting James Taylor changed my life. That's like the most
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: dramatic moment.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Okay. But let's, we'll save that. Park that for a second. Yeah.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Let's go back. You know, this is a business people
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: on the road. Phil Collins himself, that's what inspired us
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: for a solo album breakup of his marriage. How do
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: you keep a relationship together when you're on the road
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: or when you're busy working hard?
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Part of that keeps the relationship together because you're not
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: on each other's face all the time. I think absence
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: does make the heart grow fonder at times, you know,
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: when you're just talking on the phone and catching up
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: on things. I mean, sometimes you're gone and there's something
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: bad going on at home, and that's very frustrating. But
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: for the most part, I've been really lucky that she
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: has her own circle of friends and she's like gone,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: you know, like she'll say, can you take off? Don't
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: go on the road. Stay home for a couple of
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: weeks because my sister and I are going to go
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: to Europe and they go do this. So she has
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: her own life, but it's not a working life. It's
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: not a business.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: In the pre-internet era where it's easy and everybody's in
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: contact all the time. Yeah. Back in the phone era,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if you went on the road, would you call her
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: every day? No.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: How often would you call her? Twice a week, maybe,
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: or something. I would say, you know, you know how
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: to reach me. I mean, we didn't have cell phones,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: so I say she's got the itinerary and knows the
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: hotel and all that. But other than that, I mean,
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: you would see phone. I remember when we were out
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: with Phil, it must have been on the 1990, the
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: But Serious tour. And one of the background singers, it
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: was his first really big tour he had done. And
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: we were rehearsing over in Surrey in England. And at
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: the end of the first week, I saw him standing
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: at the desk at the hotel, kind of crying. And
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I said, what's going on, man? And he was so
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: excited that every day he was calling all his friends
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: back in the States through the switchboard. And I think
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: at the end of the first week, they handed him
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: a bill for like $ 1, 200 for phone calls, which was
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: his salary. And I said, lesson learned. I mean, nowadays,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: it's so easy. But back in those days, you really
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: had to think about it, especially if you were In
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Japan or in Europe and calling home, this was not
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: just a casual call. So you had to like expedite
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: your thoughts and stuff.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back forward. You do the book and
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: you were telling me how this led to the YouTube.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so what happened was at the end of the 2000–
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: It must have been the 2018, the Not Dead Yet Tour,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: which is the last tour we did with Phil Collins.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: It was an incredibly successful tour. I mean, it was
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: remarkable since Phil was sitting in a chair for the
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: whole show and everything, but we were still selling out
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: stadiums with him.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was amazing.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: But when the tour was over, I had some guys
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: writing to me saying, you know, we saw the show
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: in Brazil or in Germany or something, and they said,
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: It was unreal, but we couldn't hear every note, you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: because you're in a stadium. And I remember James Taylor
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: always used to say, you play a concert hall, you're
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: a concert, you play a sports facility or a sporting event.
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: And no matter, we had the best front of house guy,
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: best system and all that, but still you're in that situation.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: So I kind of thought about it and I didn't
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: think I was going to be doing a YouTube channel.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: What I did was I contacted Michelle Colan, who was
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: our front of house mixer. And I said, could you
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: send me a board mix of a show and I
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: got it and had it in my computer. And what
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: I did was I had a little bass amp next
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: to me, my bass, a little Bose speaker and my
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: cell phone. And what I did was I opened up
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: my laptop, set the phone on the computer and played
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: the first song. But I did a mix so that
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: what you were hearing from the speaker was the show
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: and But my amp was louder, so you could hear
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: every note of what I was doing. So I did
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: one day, I did the first song in the show.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: A little bit slower. Yeah. That's how you did it.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: What was the exact inspiration?
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Well, the inspiration was, I'll show these guys the bass parts.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: Had you ever posted to YouTube before? I'd never done
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: anything on YouTube before.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: So basically, it's COVID. You're thinking to go, well, I'll
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: do that. Yeah.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I had so much time to do things
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: like recording at home, doing the book. And so what
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: happened is the first day, and I mean, I look
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: at the videos now and like half of my head's
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: cut off. I had no idea what I was doing.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: I did the first song the first day. And then
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: the second day, I went and did the second song
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: of the show and showed that part. By the third day,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: I had people writing going, man, we love your YouTube channel.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: And I'm going, what are you talking about? And they said, well,
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: you know, you're with your songs and stuff with Phil's songs.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I really had no idea that that would generate a
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: channel on it. But I continued on every day and
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: I did the whole show. The only thing I didn't
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: do was the last song of the show, which is
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Take Me Home. And I thought, I'm going to leave
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: that at this point. I have said I'm going to
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: leave that as the penultimate video. When I finally close
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: the channel down, that'll be the last thing I'll do
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: on there. But I got to the end of that
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: show and I went, now what? And so it's been
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: really interesting because what it really required me to do
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: to continue it is I had to kind of go
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: through like a forensic anthropology of my career. I started
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: pulling up James Taylor and Jackson Brown and all these
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: different things and showing bass parts from all of those things.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: And without making any effort on it, I think there's
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: 270 some thousand people on the channel at this point.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: And I still post, you know, at least probably at
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: least five days a week. I do things on there.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: And I introduced like yesterday I did an artist named
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Taylor Henry. And we had done his album either at
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: the very beginning of this year or at the end
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: of last year, but it was Dean Parks and Russ
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: Kunkel and myself and him. And they just sent me
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: like the 12 songs or something that we did. And
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: I posted that yesterday on there. And people are writing,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: we love this guy, you know, because a lot of
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: people have said, there's so much music I wouldn't have
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: discovered if it hadn't been for your channel, because It's
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: hard to find music at this point. There's so much
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: of it, but it's not like going to Wallach's.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Music City here and perusing. Right, right, right. You don't
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: have to believe me. Big issue. Yeah.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And then I just found, tomorrow I'll put it up,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: I just found an artist, and I can't pronounce his name,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: but it's an artist from Helsinki, Finland, that I did
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: his album. And I just discovered it again, and so
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put a couple of the tracks up.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, I was looking at a couple of your videos.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: One time you had a takedown notice, right? To what
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: degree is that an issue?
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: I've had probably about four blocks out of like 2,600 videos.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: So it's not a big deal, but it's annoying when
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: you're doing the job of a record company for them
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: because they're not doing shit. Right. And then all of
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: a sudden you're taken down. And I'm going, this is only,
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: I can't monetize my channel because everything's copyright protected on it.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: So I would say maybe out of the, you know,
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: 2600 videos and all these years, I maybe have made
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: like $ 800 on it. And that's only because I post
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: every once in a while pictures of my dogs playing
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. But anything with music in it,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: immediately I can't monetize it. So this is really more
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: of a passion gig than anything else. And one of
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: the fun things for me is when we're on tour,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: is showing all the venues. I take people on walkthroughs
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: of these places where if they came to that venue,
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: if they were able to come to it, they would
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: only see the lobby in their seat. But I take
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: them through the basements and up where the pipes are
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: if there's a pipe organ and all this. And sometimes
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: I get to meet people who work there and they
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: tell stories about it. I love that aspect of it
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: because there's a lot of places I'll get to where
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: people are never going to get there. So they're getting
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: to have a little, they go on the road with us.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Okay. Is the audience stable or growing or going down?
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: It's still growing. I never really– you know, it's like
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of people. They're consumed by looking at numbers
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: on how many views have I gotten. I don't give
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: a shit about any of that stuff.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait, wait. There's monetization, which you say in
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: your case is not a factor. There's inspiration. If no
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: one was watching, you wouldn't do it at all. But
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: you are a known quantity for your talents. your appearances
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: on these works, and also your visual look. Yeah. Okay. So...
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: This is burnishing your personal image. I hate to use
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the word brand because it's not music. Yeah, yeah. But
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: people now know who you are. There's a whole thing there. Yeah.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I mean— It's a package. You know, you could go
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: on the road as yourself doing this. I'm not telling
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: you you've got to do it. No, I get it.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: But you've built something.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I can't go through an airport or
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: any place like that without people going, oh, I love
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: your channel, man. I watch it all the time. You know, it's—
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm really pleased that it's touched people. That wasn't
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: the motivation in the same way. Some of the best
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: gigs I've ever played were soundchecks. You know, we were
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: playing music because we love playing music. And sometimes the soundcheck,
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: it locks and then the show happens and the sound
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: changes because of the audiences. And you're suddenly, it felt
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: better this afternoon. How can we fix this?
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: It can't. So my motivation really is I just... I
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: just enjoy it. It gives me a, okay, you've done thousands. Yeah.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: You know, you talk about one with your dogs. There
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: has to be evolution, new ideas. How has it changed
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: as you've done it?
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: Well, it got to a point where I explained on
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: one of the videos where I said the studio moment
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: is a moment unto itself. I can't replicate like Gene
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Clark's No Other album. on the main track on that,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: I think I have six basses, almost the entire thing.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I said, I can't sit here and play that for you.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: So this time, let me tell you stories about the session,
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: and I'll be an audience with you. And let's just
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: listen to it now, and then I'll tell you a
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: few more stories. So when I transitioned in from sitting
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: there trying to relearn a song every day and playing,
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: showing the parts, when I started to say, look, I'm
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: just going to listen along with you, but here's Who
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: was involved in it? Let me tell you the backstory
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: of the studio and what went on, if I can remember.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: And then if I can't remember, I'll just make something up.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: It morphs all the time. When I started doing the
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: videos of the venues, it kind of saddened me a
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: little bit that I wish I'd have been doing something
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: like this back when I was at with Phil. Because
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: especially like the 2004 tour we did with him, he said,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to do a tour if we go
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: anywhere I've ever been. So on that tour, we were
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: in Latvia and Estonia and Finland and Russia and the
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: Middle East. And we went to all these places. And
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: it was so great because those audiences, like when we
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: got off in Turkey, off the plane, there was a
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: bunch of press people there. And Phil got off and
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: he looked at me and said, I bet you thought
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: we weren't going to show up. Because especially in a
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: lot of volatile areas, if anything's going on, the ban
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: will bail like that. They're not going to show up.
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: And we went to every place, and it was fantastic.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. A couple of things. Let's stay there. Yeah. I
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: know somebody who was a photographer for Led Zeppelin back
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: in the film days. They'd stay up all night developing,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: giving the band. He said, I've been around the world,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: seen nothing.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: What has your experience been? I still....
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: It's like going to a concert and all you see
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: is phones lifted up and you go, can't you live
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: in the moment? Are you going to now go home,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: sit on the toilet and watch the concert? As much
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: video as I do, like when I'm walking around, I'm
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: not this, I'm holding the camera below my mid chest
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: and I'm talking to people and stuff and half the
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: time they might be cut off or anything. But it's
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: really a moment. I want to be in the moments
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: that I'm in.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess I'm asking something slightly different, irrelevant of
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: your YouTube channel. Yeah. There are a lot of people,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: you know. Oh, they stay in the room. They don't
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I try to get out at every place we
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: are and explore the towns and stuff. I remember being
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: in Japan. And I've been to Japan many, many times.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: And we were staying in the Tokyo Hiroton Hotel. And
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: I bumped into Larry Carlton.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: In the lobby.
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: And I said, what you up to? He was there
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: with the Crusaders. And he said, oh, we all kind
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: of stay in our rooms. I went, here in Tokyo,
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: and you're staying in your room? I grabbed him. And
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: we went out and I took him to Akihabara, which
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: is a big electronic area, and Shinjuku, and these places
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: that I had gotten to know over the years. And
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: we had a great time that day. But there's a
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: lot of guys I know that pretty much just sit
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: in their hotel room and they don't explore. And I go,
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: one of the greatest gifts of this gig is the
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: travel and being different places. So if, if weather and
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: time permit, you know, I'm not going to go out
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: if it's a storm going on, I don't want to
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: show up at the gig sopping wet or anything like that,
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: but it's really fun. Sometimes, you know, we get put
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: on places that are so far removed from town. I'm
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: really not going to start calling an Uber or something
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: or a cat taxi to take me on a 45
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: minute drive to get to main street. But if we're
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: in town, I like to get out there and explore.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times, um, You just, you find things.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: And every place, you know, like people go, what's your
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: favorite place? I kind of go, well, where I am
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: at that moment. You kind of discover something and you
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: just kind of go, this is cool. Or it's also
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: good that you go to a place and you kind
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: of go, I don't ever have to come back here.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: I've seen what it is and it's cool, but there's
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: no reason to come back. I just saw what I
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: needed here. In other places, you go, I'd love to
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: come back here and really explore what this place has
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: to offer.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if you're posting five times a week, obviously
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: there's no obligation. There's no contract. There's nothing. You could
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: stop tomorrow. You could post one. Are you posting five
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: times a week because that is an issue of character?
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: You're committed? Or you have that much to say? Or
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: you want to reach the audience? What motivates you to
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: do it? A little of all of that. A little
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: of all of that.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, there was a point where I literally, when
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: it started up through like the first 1,800 videos, They
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: were every day was 1800 days of videos. And if
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I if I was missing a day, man, guilt would
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: start to rack me. I go, I got to do something.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: I got to get something done here. And then when
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: I finally just came to grips with it and I said,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: you know, because people would write in, they go, you know,
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: you don't have to do this every day.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: We're here for you.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: It's it's one of those things that I find it
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: really fascinating. enjoyable, the forensic side of addressing my career.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Because over the years, people would say, what did you
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: play on? And I'd draw a blank. I go, I
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: have no idea. Because the only thing that matters to
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: me is today and tomorrow. I don't think about the past.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Other people that send in information about that, I go,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: thank you for that, because I don't remember any of that.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: But it's become a thing where it's such a wonderful
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: community of people. Like I Out of this, one of
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: the things that came of this was I was talking
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: to Rick Beato about this when I interviewed with him.
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: And he and Aaron, the guy who kind of handles
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: the technical side of things, they said, so you should
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: do a clubhouse or something like that. So I have
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: a clubhouse, a little thing where you can, $ 10 a
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: month you can be. And we do a couple of
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: meetings a month on computer. I'm visual and the rest
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: of it is a chat window. But the community that
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: grew out of this clubhouse is just incredible. People that
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: had never met before didn't know each other now hang
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: out all the time. They've become really good friends. I mean,
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: if nothing else out of this whole thing, to me,
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: that's the most valuable thing that came.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Out of this.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: You're the sideman. Yeah. Well-known, but the sideman. Do you
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: now know your fans? I always have. I always have.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: You know, one of the things is I've I've always
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: loved interacting with people. So like when we do gigs,
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: like after a show, I'll just go out and walk
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: and start talking to people. I walk around town and
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: if somebody comes up and wants to talk, I'll spend
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: time with them and talk. With the book, Lyle was
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: wonderful and he said, look, you want to sell at
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: the merch table.
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: It's great.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: So every night we have a big cutout of me
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: that's saying I'll be there for a meet and greet
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: after the show. And the minute we've finished playing, all
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: the guys are back in the dressing room because we
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: usually have to sit around at least at least an
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: hour to an hour and a half waiting for the
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: for the bus drivers clocks to start. We usually leave
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: at midnight for the next city. I go out there
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: and I sit at the merch table and just meet
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: people and talk to them.
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: And what's the retail? What do you sell the book for? Signed.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Signed it's $ 80 and, and unsigned it's 60, but at
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: the gigs I signed them, I'll sign them for 60.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: I just leave it at that.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. Getting back to the book, you told that story
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: as a lead up to the YouTube channel. Did you
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: see the YouTube channel as promotion for the book?
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, probably it fit right in there. Um, again,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: it's like, I really, I was, you know, a neophyte
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: in this whole thing. I really had no idea. I mean,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: there's people that have this shit down, you know, and
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: they were, they're marketing and they're making a ton of
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: money and all this stuff.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Most of them are not making a ton of money
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: because people, I can't tell you, even people with big
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: publishers a year for a year, they're doing a book,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: getting someone to buy the book is a huge step.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's, it's really hard. So I've, I've hustled
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: and I have a website that's LelandSklar'sBeard.com.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's stop there. What's up with the beard?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, it was one of those things that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: when I went to high school, it was a pretty
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: repressive time where, you know, they would even have grooming
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: guards to keep an eye. They didn't want these kind
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: of hippies around. And when I finally was handed my
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: high school diploma, I said, I'm done. I just stop
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: shaving at that point. I cut my beard all the
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: time because I try to keep it where it won't
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: go into the base. You know, that's kind of my criteria.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: I don't need that tangled up in it. Or if
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: I'm changing instruments, you take it off and you're caught
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: in the strap lock and you're tearing your face along
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: with it. It just became, you know, like a, I
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: didn't really do this as like, I got to make
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: an image for myself. It's just the way I felt
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: about my life and stuff. And I just I thought,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: I'll just grow a beard and let it be that.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: And it became like a calling card. And I always
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: get people that are yelling, hey, man, Oak Ridge Boys
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: or ZZ Top or stuff like that. It was really
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: actually very funny. I was doing an album with the
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: Oak Ridge Boys, and they had at that point had
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: cut William Golden loose, the guy with the long beard.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: And we were in the studio, and Loretta Lynn shows
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: up at the session, and she walks in and looks
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: over at me, and she looks at the guys and goes,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: I can't believe you get rid of one and you
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: found another.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Okay. In this 50 years, have you ever shaved it off? No, no.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: The only thing I did was back around 70, maybe 71.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 2: One night I got kind of bored and I went
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: in and I cut the chin out down. So I
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: was like big mutton chops and I had a handlebar mustache.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: When I got up in the morning, I looked in
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: the sink. I thought there was a dead animal in there,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: and it was my beard. And I kind of looked
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: at it, and I went, oh, this is interesting. And
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: then I just let it grow back out again.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Okay. We live in Los Angeles. It's not uncommon to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: see stars. You go anywhere, you go to the market.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: I get recognized. Yeah, there have been enough TV. Is
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: that working for you?
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Well, the thing I'm fortunate is I'm a sideman. So, like,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: if somebody, if I was with James Taylor, they would
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: see James and they'd be shitting their pants. They'd be
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: freaking out. They come up to me and they go, oh, man,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I saw you with James Taylor, man. It was one
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: of my favorite shows. And we have a dialogue. We
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: have a communication. Nobody's ever come up to me. Maybe
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: in their own mind they walked away and were going, oh,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: I can't believe I just met.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: But for the most part, I've never not engaged people.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, but... Isn't there sometimes someone wants to talk
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: to you and, you know, there's something going on with
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: your wife or your life and you don't want to talk? Oh,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: it'll happen.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: But I'm honest with them. I go, look, something's going on.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: I'm really not in a good space right now. You know,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: maybe if we see each other again, but right now
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: I'm dealing with something. I don't just blow them off.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I try to walk away. But it rarely happens like that.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: Most people are really happy with about three to five
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: minutes of saying hello. And there's so many times where
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: I'm like at my supermarket and guys come up and
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: guys will come and go, man, I'm a bass player. Man,
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: you're playing means so much to me. And I go,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: that's really cool. And I said, what kind of bass
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: do you play? We have a little dialogue. But to me,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: we're all in this together. Our time on this planet
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: is pretty limited. And, you know, why be a dick?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, it's like some of the artists.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was really a funny moment, actually. I
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: was talking to James Taylor at one point when we
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: were on the road. And he said to me and
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: a couple of the other guys, he said, so what'd
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: you guys do? And we went over to the mall
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: across the street, went over there. They had a pretty
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: nice deli and we saw a movie.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: We had a day off. We saw a movie. I said,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: what'd you do?
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: And he goes, oh, I just, you know, I stay
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: in the room and stuff. And a couple of days later,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: he said, you know, it's kind of weird. He says,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: but generally the only time I get recognized is if
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: I'm with you. You know, I mean, James has height.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: James has height because he's like 6'3. Um, so if
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: you put on a baseball cap and some shades other
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: than the height, you know, he could disappear into that.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I really can't disappear, but I've come to grips with that.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, where most people just go, oh God, it
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: was so cool talking to you. I don't know. It's
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: nice talking to you too. I mean, it's an, it's,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: it's an easy, easy relationship for me because as a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: side man, you don't have that star quality about you.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: So people aren't that intimidated or freaked out by seeing you,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: even if they've seen you, you're not, the focus of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: the show. So, you know, they're a little more comfortable
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: just talking to you.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Okay. Not the studio. You've been on the road with
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of acts. Yeah. Have you ever worked with
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: the kind of act is you're in the band, you
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: show up, you play, but you're in the band. I'm
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: in my own world. Oh yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: There's been, there was one like that. I'm not going
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: to get into it, but yeah, there was one like,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: it's the only tour I ever quit in the middle
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: of the tour where I, that we had a two
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: week break on a really long tour. And there was
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: a two-week break in the middle, and I called the manager,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: and I said, I don't care what you do, but
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: I'm not coming back.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: This is on you now. I'm out of here.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: Because the artist was such a pain in the ass
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: to be around. But that's, out of all the stuff
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: I've done, that's really the only one time. Where most
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: people kind of have an expectation of, like, crazy people
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: in the music business and arrogance and all this. Most
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: people I know are great. And most of the musicians
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: I work with are consummate professionals. Things have gotten better.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: A little bit better over the years. From the standpoint,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: there wasn't as much drugs and alcohol involved. So everybody's
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: kind of really lucid. And there you're not dealing with
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: somebody like in the early days, you would get on
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: the bus and you'd have like an 800 mile drive
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: ahead of you. And one of the guys looks at
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: you as you're pulling out and.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Goes, I told you, I love you, man. I love you.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: I go, I'm going to kill you before this driver.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: So get some gaffer tape. Let's just tape them up,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 2: put them in their bunk. You know, I mean, that
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: stuff doesn't happen anymore. Everybody's pretty straight ahead. And especially
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: even if they do anything, don't bring it to the show.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: Do it after the show. You know, the show is everything.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: When you're on the road, that is what it's all about.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: And you want that audience. One of the greatest things
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: to me was Phil Collins' attitude was he said that,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: you know, we would rehearse for a month for every tour.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: and really long, intense rehearsals, dialing everything in. And he'd go,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: first audience deserves as good a show as the last audience,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: where so many bands go out and they spend the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: first two weeks of the tour dialing the show in.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: And then some people, they missed a great show because
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: they were there to see an early one, and it wasn't,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: but with Phil, man, we would have that stuff like
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: a fine Swiss watch by the time we hit that
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: first gig. And it was exhilarating to be at those rehearsals.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: And we would record every rehearsal and then sit and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: listen to it afterwards. Sometimes, like in the last week
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: of rehearsals, we would find like Barry Manilow or somebody
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: in his band was in town. We'd invite him to
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: the rehearsal to watch the show and then talk to
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: them after and say, what do you think? You know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: any thoughts about it? I mean, his approach to it
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: was really the consummate professional. And I loved him so
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: much for that, that he really cares about Everything was
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: about the audience, making sure they got the best show possible.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you're growing up in Van Nuys. Is there
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: music in the house? Oh, yeah.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: Not so much musicians, but a really eclectic musical vocabulary.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: My folks had the old Magnavox, you know, hi-fi. And
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: their record collection was pretty extensive, classical and big band
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: and people like Martin Denny, and all kinds of really
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: interesting things. But there was a piano in the house.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 2: And for me, my introduction into music, I always say
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: I owe it to Liberace. When I was a little kid,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: like four years old, my parents would watch the Liberace
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: show on TV, and I would watch it with them.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: And at one point, I went over and started just
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 2: kind of plucking away at the piano, and I had an...
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: an incredible affinity for it. And they got me a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: piano teacher. And then by the time I was eight,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: I think seven or eight, I had met Eugene Normandy,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. I had won awards
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: from the Hollywood Bowl Association as like one of the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: young up-and-coming pianists in town.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: Now, out of that... Wait, time out.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: Most kids, including myself, we took piano lessons. Our parents
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: made us... And we didn't want to practice. We'd rather
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: be out doing something else. What was your experience?
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: I loved both. But I had no issues with sitting
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: at the piano.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear, since you're playing this from
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: a young age at a relatively high level, you're going
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: to school... Did they say, oh, that's Leland. He's the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: guy who plays the piano. Or are you integrated with
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: everybody else? Oh, I'm integrated. Totally integrated.
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: And really, my real skill was as an artist. So
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 2: I was the kid that was in charge of murals,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: painting murals of dinosaurs and stuff like that. But I
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: was always, I mean, I felt like, you know, like
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: so many of us do, like the dork outcast. But
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: I was still involved with things. And then you find out,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: meet people years later and they go, I thought you
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: were so cool. I go, I thought you hated me
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: kind of thing. But with the piano, there was kind
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: of none of that at that age because you're still
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: in grammar school through all of that. The thing that
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: changed for me was when I went into junior high
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: school at this point, I went to Birmingham out in
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: the valley and Ted Lynn was the music teacher there.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: And I kind of came in with the attitude of, well,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: your pianist is here. And he said, look, we have
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: 50 kids that play piano here. We need a string
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: bass player. And he pulled an old K upright out
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: of the back room there. And he showed me how
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: to hold it. And I plucked one note on that.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: And I felt that vibration of that bass. And at
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: that point, I was ready to move on. I was
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: burned out with piano. I'd been under a lot of
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: stress with recitals and things. And I ended up getting
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: a bass teacher at that point and was studying piano.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: classical and jazz bass and never really looked back at
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: the piano again. And bass became my focus at that point.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: And then the next dramatic change for me was because
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: I was always in bands because I played like the
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: Lighthouse and different jazz gigs and clubs around town and
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: played in bands. But with an upright, you're beating yourself
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: to death trying to be heard over the drums and
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: piano and guitar and all. was my dad took me
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: to Stein on Vine, which was the music store. At
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: that time, it was in the building of the Musicians Union.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: And he took me there and he bought me a melody,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: electric bass, and a St. George amp. I was suddenly
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: a contender at that point.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, how did that go down? Did you beg your
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: father for months and he finally said yes? Or did
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he just realize, said, you know, this is what you need?
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: This is where I was headed. No, they were very,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: very supportive through everything. It's not like that was a, Like, really? Okay,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: just to be clear, you're an art kid totally, or
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: are you playing baseball doing that stuff? Yeah, I still did.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, the sports for me was a little more
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: difficult because they didn't really have, like, really good glasses
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: for kids that were nearsighted. So if you were out
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: there playing baseball, odds are you're going to get hit
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: in the head while you're looking for that ball. I
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: ran track more than anything. Okay, you're not wearing glasses now.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: What's up?
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: Well, my glasses, the last prescription I had, they broke.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 2: And this is an ancient prescription. And I haven't had
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: time to go in and get new glasses.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: So you haven't had your eyes surgically adjusted? Oh, no, no,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: I haven't had any. Or contacts or anything like that?
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 2: I tried contacts once, and I just didn't like it.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 2: It just felt like I had dust in my eyes.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 2: The weirdest one was we did a gig. I forget
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: who I was with. But we did a gig up
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: in the Bay Area, kind of. And the guy who
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 2: had invented the soft contact lens was at our gig.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: And he said, do you want to be fitted for something?
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: Just come over to the lab. We had a day
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: off and a bunch of us went over there and
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 2: he fitted everybody. But the most interesting thing that they
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: had was they had soft contact lens sunglasses.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: So you put those in and suddenly it was like sunglasses,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: but he said, we really can't do them because your
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: pupils look so big that the police think you're high.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: He said they couldn't really market him because it was
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: causing problems with the cops.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you're taking bass lessons.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: Your father gets you electric bass and an amp, and
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: where does it go from there?
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: Well, I was always in bands. There were times when
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: I was in like four bands at a time.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear. Because I'm a little younger
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: than you.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: We all played folk guitar. The Beatles hit everybody. Everybody changed.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Were you in bands before the Beatles? Yeah. Okay.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but the Beatles changed everything. As a matter of fact,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: I was an usher at the Hollywood Bowl when the
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: Beatles played there. So I actually got to hear the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: Beatles play live, which was really... When I finally met
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: McCartney and Ringo so many years later, I told them
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: that and they just blew their minds.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: You were an usher at the Bowl. But.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: I was always in bands, but I was always, you know,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: doing lots of different things. Eventually, at the end, around
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: the late 68, 69, I was in a band in
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: town here called Wolfgang. And it was still one of
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: the best bands I've ever been in. It was two guitars, keyboards, bass,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: and drums. And our singer, Rick Lancelot, who was like
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: a monstrous singer, fantastic. And we were called Wolfgang because
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: our manager was Bill Graham. And Bill Graham's real- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, yeah,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: that's his real name, but- Yeah, that's why we call
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: the band Wolfgang.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, a couple of things before that. Yeah. In the mid-60s,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: if you're growing up in the suburbs where I am
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: on the East Coast, the main goal of a band
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: is getting a gig. Los Angeles is the epicenter of
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: the recording. You're in the San Fernando Valley. Are you
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: putting together a band saying, hey, we can get a
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: recording deal?
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: I had never been in a recording studio at this point.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: In my life. So how did you guys get hooked
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: up with Bill Graham?
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: It was through a secondary management team that turned us
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: on to him. The first live gig we ever played
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: was opening for Zeppelin at Winterland.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: There's got to be a few more steps here. No, no.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: We had only rehearsed. We had a house that we
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 2: collectively rented out in Sunland. And we would just play it.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: every day that we could. And we were all still
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: in college and stuff, but we were up there. But
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: there were a lot of gigs in town. There were
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: club gigs.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, wait, wait, wait. At what point do you get
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: the manager and how does the manager hook you up
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: with Bill Graham? Well, I forget.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 2: One of the guys in the band knew this guy,
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: Bruce Glattman, who had a management company called Shady Management,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: which was the perfect name for this company. Because they
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 2: also handled Zephyr, and that was where I met Tommy Bolin,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: and we became friends back in the late 60s. But
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: I had never been in a recording studio before this.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: And then with Bill, he set us up with David
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: Rubinson to go in and cut some demos. And that
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 2: was the first time.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I know Rubens. What was your experience with him?
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: Well, that was in 1969, so it's pretty hard... Yeah,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 2: but he's a guy.
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: Who's got a large personality. He doesn't doubt himself. No.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was really interesting. And I've listened to the...
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: We never finished the demos. Everything fell apart before we
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 2: finished them. So they're not mixed, but they're still... Everybody
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: who has ever heard them went, are you kidding me?
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: This band was so good. I mean, it was a
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: great band.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: So it was... You make a deal with Bill Graham.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: You're making the demos with Rubenson. You're opening for Zeppelin.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: When does this fall apart?
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: Kind of shortly after that. Because what happened was our
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: drummer's name was Bugs Pemberton. Bugs was in Jackie Lomax
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: and the Undertakers in London, who were rivals of the
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: Beatles at that time. And he had moved to California,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: moved to Los Angeles. And he had a really good
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: friend named John Fishbeck, who owned Crystal Recording Studios, and
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: he had done like early Stevie Wonder records and all that.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: At one of our rehearsals, he brought a friend of
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: his who had just gotten back from England, and it
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: was James Taylor. Now, James, nobody really knew who he was.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: He had done his Apple record. But other than that,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: he was in L.A. making a new album right now,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: his James Taylor album.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: And.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: He hung out with us for a couple of days
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: at our rehearsal and he played us a couple of
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: his songs and we ended up doing like a hard
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: rock version of Country Road and stuff. Well, when he
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: got offered his gig at the Troubadour, which really was
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: the start of his real career, his manager was Peter
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: Asher and he called Peter because they had Russ Kunkel.
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: They had just done the record. So they had Russ
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 2: Kunkel on drums, Danny Korchmar on guitar, Carole King was
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: the piano player. And they used a couple of different
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: guys in the studio for bass. They didn't have anybody.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: And he called Peter and he said, I found my
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: bass player. And they tracked me down and said, could
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: you play this gig at the Troubadour with James? And
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: I said, no, I'd love to.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: It was the antithesis. I mean, Wolfgang was a hard
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: kick-ass band. And all of a sudden, I'm listening to
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: this sensitive, you know, different.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Kind of folk. Okay, just to be clear. when and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: why and how does Wolfgang break up? Well, it sort
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: of went on. Rick, our singer, died, I think, I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: think at that point. And another guy, Lenny. He died.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: He must have OD'd or something.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was something like that happened. But Lenny,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: he went by Lenny Lee. He took over. Kevin Kelly
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 2: was our B3 player. And there was two guitar players.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: It was Bryn Haworth and Randy Zacuto, who I had
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: known Randy and I bumped into him. This is how
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: we put Wolfgang together initially. I bumped him and said, hey, Randy,
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: how are you doing?
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: He goes, it's Israel. I said, What? Okay. Okay.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 2: So Izzy Sakuto. And then as years went on, I
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 2: bumped into him again. I said, so Izzy, how are
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: you doing?
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: He goes, it's Randy.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 2: I'm changing his name. He just passed away recently, but
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 2: he started a company called Mighty Might that made guitar
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 2: replacement parts and stuff. And Bryn is still really busy.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: He went back to England. He was from England. And
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: he's like an evangelical guitarist. He has a huge following
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: in England and makes beautiful records. And Like about a
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: year ago, he contacted me and I put bass on
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: a track for him. I said, this is really so
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 2: much fun to see you again.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: Let's reconstitute. Yeah, I'm sorry. I tend to want to. No, no, no.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: It's great. So if it's the James Taylor second album,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: the first Warner Brothers album, that comes out in the
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: early spring of 1970. Yeah. So you're now like married. Okay.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: We're in this case. continuum, do you say, I'm a
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: bass player, this is my future, I want to be
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: a professional musician?
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: Kind of when we played that gig with James, and
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 2: I was still going to Cal State Northridge, and I
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: was a science, co-science and art major up there. We
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: were just getting into finals, and they said, look, the
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: Troubadour gig went great, and the next thing you saw
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: was James Taylor on the cover of Time magazine as
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 2: the face of this new music And we kind of
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: got swept up in this tsunami of James Taylor as
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: the band. And I'm sitting there looking, they said, we
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 2: got offered a month on the road on the East Coast.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: Can you do it?
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: And I'm looking, I got like finals coming up in
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 2: my fifth year of college. And I said, okay, I'm
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: out of here. Never told anybody in school. I just left,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: never graduated. Somewhere up at Cal State Northridge in a
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: microfilm catalog, I got like 250 units sitting there that
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: were never, you know, Okay.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: I remember that era in the spring of 70. James
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: was not alone. Okay. So you were on the first
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: band tour. The first band tour. And Fire and Rain.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: So the first band tour isn't until the fall. That's
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: when he's on the cover of Time Magazine. But he's
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: gigantic at that point. It hits. I mean, it wasn't subtle. Right.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: Next thing you know, I mean, he was the guy.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: And that's when the labels.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: One of the greatest things in my career, and we
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: all owe this to him, one of the greatest connections
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 2: I have is Peter Asher. And one of the things
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: that happened on that was when you look back at
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: the wrecking crew and the musicians of that period before us,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: when people listen to records, they had no idea who
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: the guys were on the records and gal. They would
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 2: listen to the Association and the Beach Boys and the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 2: Mamas and the Papas and Frank Sinatra and didn't realize
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: it was all the same players. Peter Asher insisted that
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: our names appear on the jacket of the album. So
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: when James hit, all of a sudden the labels were going,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 2: we got to cash in on this, let's find singer-songwriters.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 2: And they were finding the Jackson Browns and all these people.
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: They would look at James's record and they would see
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: our names on it. And they go, well, God, if
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: they're good enough for James. Literally, I went from no
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: studio experience except our Wolfgang demos to being a first
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: call player in town, almost working daily.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear, you could read music, et cetera.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because of piano, because I came up as a
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: classical pianist. So I was very fortunate that I had
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: that skill because when we started working in the studio,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden– now, there's another little stepping back.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: In 1967, I was in a band called Group Therapy,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 2: and we were produced by– everything was done by Mike Post–
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: And Mike Post at that time was the musical director
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: for the Andy Williams show, and he had just done
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: classical gas with Mason Williams and stuff. We lost touch
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: after 67, but in 70, when I started, he tracked
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: me down again. And because I could read, he suddenly
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: asked me if I wanted to work on his TV shows.
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: So I started with him on the Rockford Files and
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: basically did every TV show Mike did at that point,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 2: A-Team and Magnum P.I. and all those shows. And our
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: relationship got back, you know, in full swing there. But
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 2: it was because I was a reader that I was
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: doing movie and television and jingles and stuff where some
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: of the other guys weren't good readers. So they didn't
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: have the opportunities.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. You go on the road with James. Yeah. They
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: say they have a month tour. To the degree you remember,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you worked that month. When do you work with him again? Well,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: I started with Mike.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 2: It was years after that month on there. We didn't
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: immediately start because he didn't start.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Let me restate my question. Yeah. You go to work
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: for a month on the road. Yeah. Now, simultaneous with this-
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: They're still working. Right. He's still, he's making his month's
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: light slim record. Yeah. But you've thrown everything aside to
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: go on the road for a month. Yeah. You come
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: back home, is there work for you? And that work
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: is what?
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: One of the things that I figured out early on
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: is people appreciate being included in your life. So what
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: I would do is there were some producers that had
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 2: started calling and what I would do And I've done
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: this over the years like this. If I know I'm
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 2: going to be going on the road, I contact them
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: way in advance. And I say, look, here's the period
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be gone. And here's when I get
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: back and everything. There's been a lot of times because
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: I've done that, that they'll either move a project up
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 2: or they'll wait for me to come back. Or there
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: are times where they'll say, look, we have to get
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: it done then, but we'll call you for the next one.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 2: Because you were good enough to bring them into your
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: situation and say, here, I'm going to be on the road,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: but when I get back. And there were times where
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: I flew back to LA and went from the airport,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 2: not home. I went to a studio and went right
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: to work. We were really, because there's other guys I
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: knew who never contacted anybody and told them anything. And
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 2: they kind of went, well, they're not answering my call.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: So they found somebody else to do it. If you
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: really are really thoughtful with the people, and this is
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: a profession, as much fun as it is, you're a
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: pro at this. And You really need to treat it
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 2: that way. I would really let them know my schedule.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 2: And generally, it really wasn't a big deal. I had
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: one project. I think it was when Toto contacted me
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: the first time, which I had been in the studio
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: with Luke doing his album. And they had this huge tour.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: It was the Falling In Between tour. And that was
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 2: when they still hadn't diagnosed Mike at that point. They
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: still thought it might be lupus or something like that.
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 2: And then they contacted me and they said, is there
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: any way you could do the tour? And Mike contacted
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: me and he said, can you cover for me on
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: this tour? Well, I was scheduled to go in the
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 2: studio with Reba McEntire at that point. And I called
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Reba up and I just said, look at these guys.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: They're in this situation and this tour is going to
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: be months and months and months and all that.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: She said, do it.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: I had already done a number of records with her.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: And she said, no, we'll work again. We have since then.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: But she said, no, but if you really... talk to
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: people about things like this. Everybody wants to work together.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. That's once you have a name. Getting a name
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: is the first step. They have to want to be
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: calling you. Yeah. You work on... You go on the
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: road for a month. You come home. Your name's not
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: on a record yet. What are you doing for work?
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: We're going in the studio to start Mudslide Slim. Okay.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: And that's when our names started to appear.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: Okay. So... Generally speaking, especially every musician, including the front person,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: but especially the band members, are unbelievable networkers because that's
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: how you get a job. Yeah. To what degree? Everybody
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: works it. Just tell me about you working it.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: I think really everything really came down to Peter putting
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: our names on those album jackets because when James hit,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 2: there was a quantum change. in the scene here. The
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 2: way things were going to be recorded now, it wasn't
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: like the wrecking crew where they sat down with charts
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: and modified the charts, but it was defined like here's
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 2: a three-hour session, then we got another three-hour session. We
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 2: would be booked for like a week or two in
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: the studio and we'd be working out songs and all that.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 2: It was a different energy that went on at that point.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 2: And so, but as they started, James' success hit, the
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: labels really, I mean, because the labels were powerful then.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, now it's pretty impotent, but the labels were
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 2: really powerful and they were really bringing in tons of
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 2: artists on that. So all of a sudden we were
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: getting calls that we weren't even going out hustling and
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 2: the phone just started ringing. And it was a challenge
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: because having never been experienced in the studio before, you're
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: suddenly sitting there, how do I get a sound? You know,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: people are going, where should we set the mic in
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: front of the amp? I and know where it goes
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: or anything. But the thing was, it was kind of
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: the perfect group of guys for this. I met Russ
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 2: when he was in a band called Things to Come
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 2: in 1968, and he remembered me from Wolfgang because we
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: were all playing the same circuits. The first time Russ
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 2: and I sat down and played together, it was like
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: we played together for 50 years together. There was just
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 2: an instant connection. The minute I played with Cooch, Danny Korchmar,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 2: we had that same feeling. And having Carole King playing
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: piano with us was Because nobody knew who she was.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, she was just a piano player.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: But you knew. Well, we knew her by name. But
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: you knew her history. Oh, yeah. So what was it
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: like working with Carol at that point?
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: Well, James, she really did not, she was not pushing
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: herself at all. And James, at one of the shows,
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 2: I think at the Troubadour, said, look at, you know,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: told the audience, he said, you know, Carol's written some
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: great songs. Carol, why don't you go out here and
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 2: play a couple of songs for them? And she'd get
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 2: someplace like Locomotion and Natural Woman and all. And the
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: crowd went berserk over it.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: It was amazing.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: And she still is one of the most delightful people
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: I've ever known. And we're still in constant contact and everything.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: Okay. There are some people, they just seem normal. And
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: then they stand up and sing it and you're just
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: blown away. Other people, even when they're not on stage,
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: you feel there's something there. What was it like with her? Well,
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, certainly. I mean, she's not.
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: She's not Celine Dion singing, but she's got her thing.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: And in the same way like Paul Williams, when Paul
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: Williams sings his songs, it's not the greatest singer, but
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 2: he sells it in a different way. And she's a
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 2: fabulous pianist. So it was just great because she was
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: such a delight. And she's so fantastic where she's like,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 2: on the one hand, she's this You know, the pianist
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 2: singing up there. And then a minute later, she's like
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: the quintessential Jewish mother making sure everybody had dinner and
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 2: everything like that. She's just the sweetest woman you would ever,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: you know, want to be around.
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: In the spring of 71, of course, James cuts his record,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: her song, You've Got a Friend on Mudslide Slim. Tapestry
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: comes out and is the biggest album in history. You've
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: been working with her. She already had one solo album.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: Nothing happened. Yeah. What was it like? Were you surprised?
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: Well, I wasn't surprised because the music was so good,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: but I wasn't involved in Tapestry because she was married
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 2: to Charlie Larkey at that point, who was a bass player.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: And so he did the gig with Russ and Cooch
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 2: and that team. But we were in the studio doing
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 2: Mudslide at the same time. So it was like really
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: kind of crazy. But Her songs were so good. You
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 2: knew this was going to be something special. You never
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 2: really know if it's going to be a hit record.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, like when I did No Jacket Required with Phil.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 2: We're in there and I'm loving this thing. But if
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: I knew something was going to be a hit, then
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 2: I'd invest in it or something. But you don't know
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: because what happens the minute it's out of the studio
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: is out of our hands.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: So you don't know.
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: Sometimes you've been on something that's so good. And then
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: before it gets released, there's a change at the label.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: And the new people that have come in don't want
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 2: anything to do with it. And suddenly it's shelved. And
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: you go, are you kidding me? And that happened lots
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: of times. But with Carol, you knew something really magical
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 2: was going on.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I interrupted you. Yeah. So you have this
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: crew of guys. You're talking about the opportunities. You're just
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: saying the phone is ringing off the hook just because
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: you're on the back of the album cover and they
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: have success. Yeah.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 2: And then the things that we're working on are successful.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: You know, there were so many artists of that period that,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 2: like the Jacksons and Linda and these people, that this
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: movement really took on a life of its own. And
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 2: we were kind of just in the middle of the
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: whole thing and just kind of looking at each other going, wow,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: this is pretty amazing.
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 2: If they didn't call you, who did they call? Well,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 2: there was a number of bass players in town. When
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: I went to college, one of the people that I
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: was in, like, my painting classes with was named Irwin Glob.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: And Bob Glubb is his brother. And Bob's a wonderful
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: bass player.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: And he.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: Came in a little after us in that scene. He's
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 2: a little bit younger. But Bob did a lot of
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 2: work in town, too. So there was a bunch of guys.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: And David Hungate still lived in town here, who was
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: the original bass player in Toto. So he was doing
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of work. And Wilton Felder. beyond being a
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 2: sax player, was also a bass player. So there was,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 2: each seat was a few guys deep on like the
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 2: A calls. And then there were B guys too, that
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 2: sometimes they were better players, but they didn't have quite
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: the opportunity yet. Where you look at so much of
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 2: this is really the gift of a moment. I mean,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: if James Taylor hadn't come to Wolfgang's house, I don't
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 2: know what I'd be doing. I might've finished up in
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: college and been a medical illustrator, which was one of
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 2: the things I was doing.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: Looking at.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: So you don't know, but that's why like when I
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 2: do clinics, which I do occasionally, I always tell people,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: don't say no. Do everything you possibly can because you
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: never know what's going to happen. You might get a
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: gig with somebody and they kind of suck, but there's
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: somebody else in the band who you go, but we're
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 2: doing good to you. Or somebody comes to that show
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 2: and hears you and they go, oh man, I'm going
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: to call you. And these things happen. So you just
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: don't know. But if you say no, like you think
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 2: it's beneath you, you could be blowing it completely. So
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: I've always said yes. I mean, the only time I
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: don't is if it's a conflict of schedule.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. There's a role. The engineer, the side musicians play.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: You have to know it's not your thing, when to
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: speak up. And also, the number one thing they're looking
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: for is somebody they can get along with. Yeah. Talent
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: is always subsidiary. So to what degree were you conscious
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: of that and developed your personality in these situations?
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 2: I think it was always having been in bands. I
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: understood that relationship. And when we got in the studio,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 2: I always thought, More than just sitting here plucking a bass,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: I'm listening to the song and I always would go in.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 2: I really would bust guys' chops about it. I said,
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: we're going into the playback and you're sitting in here
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 2: not paying attention. Go listen and see what's going on
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 2: in there and maybe throw out some ideas. There's been
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 2: times where I've suggested something or I said, could you
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: let me try something else on the bass after we've
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: done it? And there are times where they'll look at
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: me and they'll go, you just made the song. And
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: other times they go, no, we love it the way
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: I go, that's cool. That's fine.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: But you want to be engaged. You want them to
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: know that you actually give a shit about the project
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: and not in a kiss ass way. But, you know,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: you're putting your stamp on this and you'd like really
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: to have some kind of say. So you're not going
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: to get credit on the album as an arranger or
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: a co-writer or anything like that. But you listen to
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: it and you go, you know, there's been times where
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: I've been with an artist in there and I look
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 2: at him and I go.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: Key?
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 2: Are you really sure about this key? Because it sounds
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 2: like you're stretching a little bit hard or you're down
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: below where you could really sell it if we raised
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 2: it a whole step. And there are times when we
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: do that and they just go, God, I didn't even
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 2: think about that. So you're beyond just your instrument. There's
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 2: other things that come with the territory that I find.
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: Really fun.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've only produced one album. It's one of
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 2: those things that People have asked, and it never really
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 2: interested me because I like coming in, playing bass, and leaving,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: going to another project and not living with some of
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 2: the psychodrama that goes on later. But I love being engaged,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 2: you know, talking arrangements and things like that.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: Okay. You know, once you hit Abbey Road, White Album,
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: et cetera, suddenly albums can take a year to make. Yeah.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: Some of these acts you have history with, how do
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: you charge them? Yeah.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 2: Well, for the most part, it's the bands that would
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: spend a year in there. But none of the stuff
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 2: I was involved with really was a band. It was
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: usually something like a solo artist or something like that.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 2: And they might be in for a week of tracking
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 2: or something. Most of them would come kind of prepared
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: so they weren't spending the time in the studio writing
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: and learning. But for the most part, most of the
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 2: guys like me, there was a rate that set by
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 2: the So they were all unions.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: They were all.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 2: Everything went through the union. And instead of scale, we
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 2: would get double scale on it. And it always seemed.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: Fine on that. And how about your union pension? It's okay.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, when you look at how much you put
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 2: into it and what you're getting, it's like it's okay.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: It's like Social Security, how much you pay into it.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: And you kind of look at this check and you
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: kind of go, you know, whatever.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: Right. Okay, so now your name is on the record. Yeah.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: Mudslide Sims, Spring of 71. At what point do you
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: become more of a studio guy than a road guy?
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 2: It never really happened. I would really try to split
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: the year 50-50 if I could. It was really predicated
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 2: on the tours that were going on. I mean, some
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: years they wouldn't maybe tour as much or as long,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 2: so I would have more studio work. in other years
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 2: where the, like with Phil, like when we went out
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 2: for a year, there was no studio work and there
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 2: was no sending files at that point either. Cause now
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: I take stuff with me and I do stuff from
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 2: a hotel room when I'm, when I'm working. But at
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 2: that point you would just kind of look at, now
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 2: one of the things that would happen is like, I would,
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of guys who would not tour
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 2: because they didn't want to give up that studio seat
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: and they, and they would, say, you know, we'd be
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: on a session. They'd say, so what are you doing
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 2: next month? And we go, we're on the road. And
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: they go, how can you do that? You're going to
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: lose your gigs. I go, well, that's if that's what happens,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 2: that's what happens. But I think if somebody put a
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 2: gun to my head and said, you have to make
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 2: a choice between studio or touring, what would you do?
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 2: I would say touring. I like playing live. I like
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: the feeling of a live audience. I like the immediacy
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 2: of when I play a note live, that note's done.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: It's moved to the next note and it's hit their ears.
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: In the studio, you could play that note and they
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 2: could spend a week farting around with it.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, let's move it here. Let's do this little correcting.
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: To me, it's a process. It's like.
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 2: Are you in the pit crew of an F1 car
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: or are you driving the car? I'd love to do both,
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 2: but I'd really like to drive. So what's the studio work?
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 2: Sometimes there's more studio work going on than touring.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: It depends.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: But it really depends. You're not the artist, so you're
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 2: at the mercy of artists.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: Back in the heyday, 70s and 80s, when you were
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: off the road, Were you one of those people who's
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: basically working three sessions a day? It could be a jingle.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: It could be a band. Was that what was going on?
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was everything going on. I mean, that was
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: the beauty. First off, that was the beauty of being
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 2: a reader, that you would get all those other calls
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: where the guys who weren't readers were kind of doing
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: like the pop dates and stuff where they could come
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 2: in and kind of sort of given the time. But
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: you get in the studio on like a major, like
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 2: a movie call. You're not there to say, well, could
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 2: you give me a few more minutes when there's 80
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: musicians sitting in the room? But I could read fly
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: shit coming from piano. I mean, even if a copy
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 2: is screwed up and gave me a bass part in
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 2: treble clef, I could still read it because I knew
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 2: it from piano. And sometimes I would just take a
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 2: second and sketch a couple of notes down on it
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 2: just so that I was there rather than suddenly freaking
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: out on it. But to me, each one of those
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 2: things is so exciting. you know, when we would do
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: all the TV shows and movies, I mean, when we
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 2: were doing stuff like, I always tell people, I said,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: you know, so much of what we end up doing
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: becomes so kind of redundant. And I go, you know,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: when I worked on Groundhog Day, I said, I thought
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: I was just doing a movie. I didn't think I
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 2: was doing my life because there's times where you feel
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: like you're living Groundhog Day. But we did all kinds
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: of Forrest Gump's and Throw Mama from the Train and Planes,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: Trains and Automobiles and Kindergarten Cop and all those kind
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 2: of Those were always fun to work on those dates
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: and Father of the Bride and Brady Bunch and all
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: that stuff.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's assume you're not on the road. Yeah. To
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: what degree is there studio work today?
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 2: It's probably about a quarter of what it once was, maybe.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's work because I still get sent files,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 2: but the actual going into the studio, there's some work.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: there was a lull where there was almost nothing going on.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 2: The only people really doing it were bands, you know,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 2: like you'd find out like at studio, they're like fishes
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 2: in the studio and they've blocked the room out for
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 2: six months or something to do their project. Or the
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 2: orchestral dates, which so much is owed right at this point,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 2: I think to John Williams. I think because before Star Wars,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 2: everything was kind of turning into synths. And I think
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: when the time came for him to score that, he
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: insisted on using an orchestra and that kind of got
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: everybody back in the room again, which was really great.
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: But it's not what it once was, but it's gotten
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: better than it was a few years back. I mean,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 2: I've done probably a half a dozen studio albums this
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 2: year at this point. And there's nothing like it. When
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 2: you walk in the room and you look and I
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: see Jim Keltner or somebody sitting there and the different
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: cats and the minute the music starts up and we
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: start coming up with parts and we're kicking ideas around
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 2: and stuff, there's a juice in that atmosphere that's like
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 2: nothing else. And to me, other than being on stage,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 2: that's my happy place, though, is that. It's not so
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: much sitting around or somebody calls me to come in
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: and overdub bass on stuff. Because at that point, all
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: I can do is the bass. I can't contribute to
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: anything else. But when we're all in the room together,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 2: And you've got some really great tunes. You just kind
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: of go, kind of pinch yourself and go, I love this.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 2: This is really good.
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: Who are your bass heroes?
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 2: Kind of, you know, because I started out earlier on.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: So I was listening to like Red Calendar and Ray
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 2: Brown and Mingus and that stuff, even though I wasn't
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 2: in that league at all because I was still so young.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: But I was listening to what they did. And then
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 2: once kind of pop music really hit, I mean, McCartney
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: had a major impact. I still find him to be
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 2: one of the most fascinating melodic bass players. And then
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 2: I find out later that, you know, a lot of
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: that stuff, they would do like a basic track and
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 2: then he would come in later and make bass parts
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 2: up because I'm kind of thinking, how the hell did
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 2: you think of that on a session? You know, it's
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: like listening to Anthony Jackson's, you know, Money, Money, Money.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 2: And you go, And then I find out he took
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: the tapes home and worked for like a week on
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: it at home.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: I go, good.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, that doesn't diminish the part, but it makes
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 2: me feel better when somebody's giving me five minutes to
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 2: come up with a part, you know, and you go, oh, God.
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 2: But I think, you know, to me, almost anybody who
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 2: picks up an instrument has something to offer. There's times
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: when I've heard like the guys who are the techno
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 2: monsters of the instrument And I'm kind of just bored
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: hearing it. I mean, it's amazing. Now, here's somebody who's
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 2: been playing a year and they're doing something.
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: What's that?
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 2: Because it's in their naivete. They're doing something really interesting
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: with that. They're playing at the top of their ability
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: where some of the guys who are really great are
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 2: playing below their ability to kind of accommodate a thing.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: But I would see like, you know, I remember. One
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: of the great moments was when I was going to
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 2: Valley State College was in 68. Somebody said, oh, there's
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 2: a show concert in the gym. And it was cream.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: And I walk in there and there's, you know, they're
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 2: opening with Tales of Brave Ulysses. And then when Jack
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 2: Bruce opened his mouth, I went, are you kidding me?
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Because the hype was all clapped.
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden you realize the voice
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 2: was Jack and his playing and his harmonica playing on
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: Train Time blew my mind and stuff. But there were
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: all those guys when I got to be friends with
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: Ant Whistle and, you know, seeing The Who play. But
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: there's so many bass players. Like, all the time on Facebook, everybody's,
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 2: here's our top 10. And it's always like Flea and
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 2: Geddy Lee. But I'm sitting there going, there are so
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: many bass players. I mean, they don't talk about how
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 2: incredible Peter Cetera's bass playing was in the early Chicago stuff.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's just fantastic playing. There's... You can't really
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: define really who's... Because everybody has an influence when you
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 2: hear this stuff. And there were a lot of times
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 2: that there was a guy named Bobby Leidig who's no
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: longer with us. But Bobby did all the early Seals
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 2: and Croft. And you listen to those records.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I can hear it in my mind right now. Yeah.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, I try to like take in a
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: little bit. And I always look at kind of like
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 2: your mind is like a Rolodex. And you hear things
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 2: and you kind of tuck them away. And sometimes you'll
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 2: find yourself on a session. And I go, God, yeah,
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: I remember that lick that that guy played there. I'm
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: happy to plagiarize somebody, you know, if I think there's
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: a good part.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, I have to ask because in our era, although
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: he passed early, what was your take on Jocko Pasterius?
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: Oh, Jocko was remarkable. I saw Weather Report with Jocko.
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: And it was, you know, the thing is, like, Jocko
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 2: was Jocko. You know, the thing for guys like me
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: is I get called and they want me to do
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: things for them. I remember when Jocko played with Joni.
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 2: And he sounded like Jocko playing with Joni. It's not
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 2: like he came in and was Larry, her husband at
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 2: that point, who was a great bass player, played like Jocko.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: But he assimilated into her music more. But, you know,
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: Jocko's like one of the great tragedies in this business.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: When you think if this guy had not died, you know,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: what his contributions would have been in the same way
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: Hendrix was. The things he was getting into just before
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 2: his death were really different then. At that point, he
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: was evolving into something really different, and it was pretty fantastic.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 2: There's some videos of him just sitting on a chair playing,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 2: and you're just going, holy crap. But Jocko was amazing,
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 2: but there's a bunch of people like this. I sit
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 2: there and I watch him, and I just kind of go,
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: it's interesting that you could have 20 bass players and
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 2: give them the same bass and have them go in
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: a room playing it with only 20 different basses.
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, which brings us to equipment. Are you an equipment
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: freak or basically I can get my sound out of anything?
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: Right in the middle of that. Maybe leaning more towards
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: I can get my sound out of anything. I'm not
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: a gearhead where other guys I know have amassed tons
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: of gear and amps and pedal boards and basses. I've
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 2: got a few basses. I've got a dingwall, which I
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 2: use for my five-string. I've got my Frankenstein bass, which
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: we built back in the 70s, and that's been my
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 2: main instrument in the studios. I've got a Warwick that's
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 2: a semi-hollow body, semi-acoustic four string and a Hoffner and
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 2: a Washburn AB45 fretless. It was a fretted instrument that
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: I hated and I was going to just dump it.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 2: And I thought, what the hell? I pulled the frets
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: out and filled the marks and the thing came to life.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: So I've got a number of instruments because I also
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 2: look at My job is like an electrician or a
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: plumber or a car mechanic. You go in their shop
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 2: and there's different stuff for different jobs where a lot
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 2: of guys will say, you know, I see them writing going, oh,
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: these guys are like gear whores. They just, they'll do
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: anything to get their name on another instrument. I go,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 2: that's not really the case. But if I show up
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: and I hear a song and I go, this is
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: the right bass for that song. And then not that
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: that bass might not, like when I was doing Vanessa
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: Carlton's record, which she had a thousand miles on it.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 2: And one of the songs we did on that was
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: Paint It Black, Stones, Paint It Black. And I tried
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: my bass and I went, that's the sound. I tried
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: a couple of things and we ended up calling Andy
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 2: Brower and he had a Hoffner and he sent the
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 2: Hoffner over. It worked perfect for that. And so I
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: went and got myself a Hoffner after that. And when
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 2: I did B.B. King's 80th birthday, I just took my
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: Hoffner there and shoved a bunch of foam rubber in
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 2: it and made it sound like an old upright because
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 2: that's exactly what his stuff needed for his birthday thing.
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 2: And we were sitting there with He's sitting where you
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: are for me, and right there's Bobby Bluebland and stuff.
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 2: I'm freaking out the whole time. But that bass was perfect.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: So you used the right tool for the right job.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: And what about amps?
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 2: I was with a company called Euphonic Audio for many,
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 2: many years, and then their supply chain got really screwed
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: up during COVID, and they finally just closed up shop.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: And I was at the NAMM show a couple of
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: years ago, and there's a company out of Italy called GR.
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: And I checked out their stuff and it was amazing
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: because it sounded great. And I could pick the bass
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: cabinet up with one finger. There's amazing technology in them.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: And so that's what I've got out right now with Lyle.
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 2: But back when I worked with Billy Thorpe, when we
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: were doing Children of the Sun, I put together the
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 2: biggest bass rig probably ever. And it was all clips
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 2: and stuff. It was like a half a semi's worth
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: of backline just for the bass rig. And it was
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: the best bass sound I ever heard in my life,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: but it would only work for doing Children of the
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: Sun kind of thing.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: Well, that gets to the next question. How's your hearing? What?
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it's been compromised over the years, but I
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: think the problem for me with hearing is, would not
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 2: have been bass, it would have been cymbals. Because I'm
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: usually located- Use it on the high end. Yeah, between
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: high end guitar and being stationed on stage, usually you're
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: like an earshot of the crash cymbals and stuff. So
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 2: if you're working with somebody, like with Russ, it's not
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: a big issue, but there's other drummers, depending on the gig,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 2: who might really be just flailing up there and you're
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: going to pay the price. There's times where you've come
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: off stage and you're just ringing like crazy. But I'm
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: amazed sometimes too that my hearing is- Not more compromised
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: than it is. I'm still sitting. The only time it
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: really gets weird is like sitting in a noisy restaurant
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: at a table and you're trying to have a conversation.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 2: There's so much ambient noise in the room that's just
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 2: kind of eating it up. But I figure I've got
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 2: nothing to say anyhow.
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you're working with James. Are there any James
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: tours you haven't done yet?
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't do like when he did the album
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: Walking Man. He did that with David Spinoza.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: And I think that was all New York guys on that.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 2: And then James and I, we parted ways in 1990
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: because I contacted him and we had just finished Phil's
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: But Serious album. And that was when we were going
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: to hit the road. And I think we started on
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: like January 3rd and we finished like December 18th kind
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: of a thing. And so at that point, I got
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: Carlos Vega the gig with James. And at that point, Carlos,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: we were talking about what to do. And he did
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 2: lots of work with Jimmy Johnson. So we just said,
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 2: let's see if Jimmy, you know, is available for it.
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: And he did it.
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: And he stayed with him at that point. And the
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: only time I played with James since then was when
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: they did the Carole King James Taylor Troubadour reunion tour.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: And we put the original band back together for that.
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 2: And that was a huge tour. The only thing that
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 2: was a drag about that was all these promoters from
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: Europe had come over to see the show and they
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: offered like the most unbelievable tour. And Carol had already
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: put a cutoff date on the tour because she was
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: working on a book and stuff. And she I think
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 2: at that point, too, she also felt that she probably
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have the stamina to do a major, major tour.
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: And it turns out she got better and better during
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 2: the whole tour. So she, I think, physically could have
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 2: done it, but she had pretty much said no. And
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: there was issues between two different management teams because they
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: had James's and hers, and they weren't communicating on certain things.
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 2: But we all just said, man, I wish we could
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 2: have stayed with that. The thing that was funny was
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 2: back in the days when we would do James's tours,
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: to do a set list, we would write all the
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 2: songs off on three-by-five cards. And then we would lay
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: them on the floor at the rehearsal and look at
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 2: like up tunes, slow tunes kind of thing. And just
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: kind of keep rearranging until we came up with a set.
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 2: When we did it with James and Carol, it looked
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 2: like a confetti on a ticker tape parade. Between the
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: two of them, the amount of songs we were looking
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: at to try to fit into a three-hour show was
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: just insane because you wanted to do them all, but
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: we would have been out there for 15 hours doing it.
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 2: So that was fascinating. with that dime there. Okay, you're
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: on the road with James. Who's the next person you
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 2: go on the road with?
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: Jackson. And Jackson, someone just called you on Jackson because
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: that's a different management team. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, the thing that happened was also through James,
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: we ended up forming this band, The Section.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 2: And so it was basically The Section. James had The Section.
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 2: And then when that ended, The Section went on to
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 2: work with Jackson. And the thing that was good was
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: the two management teams would discuss things so that schedules
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: wouldn't overlap. So, like, we would come off of a
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 2: James tour and maybe have two days off and then
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: go into rehearsals with Jackson and hit the road. So,
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, it worked out. We never really had issues
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: where we couldn't make it happen, but it took some
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 2: logistics that we kind of left up to management. At
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: that point, we were ready to do it. I mean,
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 2: we were happy to do it. And then sometimes he'd
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 2: come off and there'd be a Linda Ronstadt tour. Carol King,
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: the first time I worked with Waddy on the road,
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: was doing the Thoroughbred tour that we had done. That
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 2: was the first time Cooch and Waddy and me and
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: Russ were together. And so it was one of these
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: things that was certain logistical issues with it, but it
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 2: never really was a problem.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. So, you know, you have Linda's part of Peter
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: Asher's group. Yeah. And Carol, you knew. How does it
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: bleed into other acts?
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 2: Well, other acts will come and see you. They'll see
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: a show and they'll go, God, I'd love to work
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: with those guys. And somebody will find a number and
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 2: we get called. Certainly like for me with Toto, I've
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: known the guy since before they formed Toto.
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: So that was easy.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: I spent like 10 years with Veronique Saint-Saëns, who in
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: the early 70s was married to Stephen Stills. And we
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: were at Caribou doing one of Stephen's records, and she
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: was there pregnant with their son. And Stephen said, well,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: let's do my wife's album while we're here and stuff.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: And we did it.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 2: And that was like 73 or something like that. And
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 2: then she contacted me through her management in 91 or
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: somewhere around there. And they asked if I would come
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 2: to France and record with her and tour with her.
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 2: And I'd spent 10 years doing that with her. Um, I,
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 2: I ended up on the road with Tracy Chapman, um,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 2: because they had, they were, she was going to be doing, um,
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 2: farm aid. I think in 93, she was going to
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: be doing farm aid and they had booked Bob Glob for,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: but what they did was they called Bob, I think
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 2: Elliot Roberts called him and, you know, they, they said,
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: are you available?
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: And I think he said, yeah.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 2: But they never confirmed it. And like the day before
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 2: Farm Aid, they called Bob and they said, you know,
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 2: so here's airline. He go, what are you talking about?
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: And they said, well, for Farm Aid, he goes, well,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: I took another gig. You never confirmed it. And Elliot
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: called me and he said, I know it's a lot
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: to ask, but can you learn her show tonight and
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 2: fly to Texas tomorrow and do the show? And, uh,
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: and I did, I stayed up all night and learned
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 2: her show and went there and it was a great band.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was Roy Bitton was playing keyboards and, Oh, God.
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 2: Vernon Reed, I think, was playing guitar and all that.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: And it went great.
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: And they said she loved it. Can you do the tour?
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 2: And the tour was like five months or something like that.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: So they all come in in different little different ways.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 2: But at a certain point, like with Phil, I met
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: Phil doing a Lee Rittenhour record. And at that point,
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 2: Phil said, I'd love for you to work on it.
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: A little bit slower. Phil dropped it by. How did
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: you literally meet him? On the session. He called Phil
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: to do his work on the session. Yeah.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 2: Lee Rittenhour had called me because I knew Lee from
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 2: lots of sessions together. And he called Phil. And I
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 2: walk in there and I knew Phil from Genesis. And
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 2: he knew me from like Mike Post TV and James
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So we hit it off on
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: the session that we were doing. And he said, you know,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: would you be available to work on my record, which
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 2: was face value? And I said, no, I said, I've
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 2: already booked on with James Taylor. I can't do it.
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 2: But I said, I'd love to work with you if
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 2: the opportunity comes up farther down the line. And in 84,
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: he called me and he said, can you come to
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 2: London and do No Jacket Required with me?
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: And I did.
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 2: And then we hit the road in 85 and spent
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 2: most of that. And the thing that was interesting with
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 2: that was at that point when that started, Phil was
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 2: a drummer in Genesis, but they had no signature as
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: a solo artist. And the gigs weren't that big on
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 2: that tour. Then Susudio hits. And next thing you know,
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: they're canceling gigs and moving us into arenas. And that
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: the whole energy of the thing, just we were in
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: the middle of this thing, watching it morph into this
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 2: huge thing. And then after that, it became, you know,
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 2: arenas were the casual little gigs. And then you were
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 2: in like stadiums and stuff like that. It's fascinating to
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: be in the middle of something like that and watch
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: how it evolves. Because it's unexpected. You're not sure why
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: it's happening. The music's still the same, but somehow the
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 2: dynamic of the business and promotion and all that took place.
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: But we never played Susudio any different in a small
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 2: venue as we did in an arena, but the response
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: is different.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, I know I'm harping on this, but by the same,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: you're the sideman. They call you up for a tour,
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: they give you the number?
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: Um, I, I, I got called, I did an album
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 2: with an artist, uh, and, uh, and she loved it.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 2: She loved the album and told management, I'd love to
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 2: do this. And management contacted me and they said, so
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 2: what would it take to do this tour? And it
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 2: was a big tour. And I told them and they said, perfect.
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: That's great. No problem.
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: All of them, they sent me the paperwork and I
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: called him back and I said, that was per day,
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: not per week. And they hung up and that was it. Yeah.
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 2: They said yes because they thought, oh, man, this guy's
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: an idiot. And I said, no, that was a daily there.
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: And I always looked at it as kind of a
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 2: day thing. I mean, if you want to work seven
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 2: days a week, fine. If you want some tours they
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 2: got and they only work two days a week, but
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 2: you're out there. And I go, it's going to be
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: the same for that because it's my time out there.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 2: But we've always been pretty, I mean, I hear about
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: some guys that go out on the road and get
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: staggering sums of money. You know, but I've never been
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: in one of those situations. But I've always been content with,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 2: you know, what I get. I think it's fair and stuff.
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 2: I mean, if somebody offered more, I would certainly take it.
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 2: But I, you know, I usually try to like just,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 2: you know, work with people on it. And I say,
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 2: you know, just let me know what, if this doesn't
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 2: work for you, let me know what would work for you.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 2: And if it's possible, great. Otherwise, you know, maybe another time.
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 2: How about you remember the band, you find out somebody's
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 2: making more than you?
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, I did an album with somebody where I was...
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: I forget what I was getting.
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 2: I was getting like double scale for it. And they
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 2: brought in like one of the famous bass players and
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: they paid him $ 25, 000 for the day that he came in.
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 2: And then the next day I was back in the
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: studio with them and I had to replace the stuff
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: he did the previous day. And I think I made
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: five grand to do the album.
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: Okay. But that's my problem. Right, right. I'd call you up.
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: I'll offer you four months on the road. You're in?
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: Assuming I'm going to pay your rate.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: You in? Or at this point in time, who are you?
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: Are we going to go by bus or plane?
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 2: No, I don't care about that part of it at all. No,
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: if you said to me, you know, I'm going to
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 2: go on tour for four months and I'd love for
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: you to play on it. And if we agree on
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 2: a fee, I don't care about any of the rest
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 2: of it. I don't have to stay in a Four Seasons.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: I'm happy in a Hampton Inn. I'm happy in a bus.
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to be a plane or anything like that.
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 2: I just want the music to be good. And if
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 2: I'm going to spend four months playing crap, I'm not
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: going to do it. I just want to go out
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: and be proud of what we're doing every night. And
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 2: if it's something that you're kind of just going, oh God,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 2: do we have to play this crap again? That's not
• 2:02:29
  Speaker 2: a good way to spend your life. So that would
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: be my only real criteria. I want to hear the
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 2: music first. And then if we could agree on the
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 2: business side of it, because there's times where like people said,
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: we wish we could have had you, but we couldn't
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: afford you. So They hired somebody else and they found
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 2: out they were actually paying the other person more than
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: I was going to even ask on it. You just
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 2: don't know. And it's hard to judge self-worth. I mean,
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 2: you hear about some people that can really just go
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 2: out and they just throw it out there and then
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 2: they accept it. And you kind of go, holy shit,
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 2: who would have thought you could get that kind of
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 2: dough for something?
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: Okay. You formed the section. They were on Capitol, if
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: I remember correctly. Yeah, first album.
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 2: Well, the first two albums were on Warner Brothers, and
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: the third album was on Capitol.
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: Okay. You know, Capitol was not a strong label at
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: that point. Yeah. To what degree were you invested in
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: it emotionally, and why wasn't it bigger than it was?
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: I think when we got— Peter got us our deal with
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: Warner Brothers— And I have a feeling that because of
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 2: our pedigree of the kind of stuff we were playing
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 2: in town, they sort of thought they were going to
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: get an Eagles out of it. And we ended up
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 2: giving them like a rock fusion, you know, no vocals album.
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 2: I think they didn't know what the hell to do
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: with it. They didn't know what bin it was going
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 2: to sit in or anything like that. So that was
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: one thing. I think we just gave them something that
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: they weren't really prepared to promote or how to promote
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 2: it because they would see us like... we'd go on
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 2: the road and we'd open for James or for Jackson.
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 2: We would be the opening act on those shows. And
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: we would come out and play this fusion. And then
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 2: we'd come out and we'd play Fire and Rain and
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: Running on Empty and stuff. So they kind of didn't know.
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: I think they didn't know what we were. And we
• 2:04:15
  Speaker 2: came together really because Russ and Cooch and I and
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 2: Carol were the core band for James. But when Tapestry happened,
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: Carol really She had little kids and stuff, and she
• 2:04:28
  Speaker 2: really wanted to back off the touring at that point.
• 2:04:31
  Speaker 1: And I got a.
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 2: Call to do an album at A & M with
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 2: Tom Janz and Mimi Farina. And Craig Durgey was the
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 2: keyboard player on that session. And I met Craig there,
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: and I called Peter after that. And I said, I
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 2: just worked with this great keyboard player. And if Carol's leaving,
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: this guy's worth checking out. And he ended up coming in.
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 2: And I've talked about this before. We were just all
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 2: so horny to play music, and we loved just jamming together.
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 2: And so, like, we would be out with James, and
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: we would do soundcheck, and James would do his soundcheck,
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 2: and then he'd split, and he didn't want to, like,
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 2: burn up. And we just stayed in with jam and play.
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: And I remember one time Peter just called us afterwards,
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: and he said, I want to play you something. And
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 2: he played us this cassette. And we went, that's really great.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: What was that?
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 2: He goes, that's your soundcheck today. And he said, you know,
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: you should think about this, you know. I mean, there's
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 2: something happening here. And James ended up naming the band
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 2: because that, to me, is the worst part of any
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 2: band is coming up with a name. I mean, I
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 2: remember Don Henley coming to me at a session we
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: were doing, I think, for Rick Roberts. And he goes,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 2: do you think Eagles is a stupid name for a band?
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: And I said, I thought Beatles was a stupid name
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 2: for a band. So James said, well, look, you guys
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 2: are the rhythm section. Why don't you just call it
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 2: the section? And we went, done, fine. And so we
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 2: would go out on the road with James and Jackson
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: and open. And then we went on the road with
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: Mahavishnu Orchestra opening for them. And we still have a
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: cult following. I mean, I still have people that write
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 2: me and going, is the section ever going to do
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 2: anything again? I go, no, no, that was then. This
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: is now. But so many things evolved from that. I mean,
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 2: I got to be friends with Billy Cobham when we
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: were out opening for them. And that's when he got
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 2: his record deal. And he called me and asked me
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 2: if I'd come to New York and do his album.
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 2: And then we did Spectrum. in there, which is still
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 2: the definitive, you know, fusion album, uh, even though there's
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 2: others with more chops and all that, but there's something
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 2: about that album that 1973, we cut it and you
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: listen to it today and it still sounds fresh. And
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: Tommy Bowen, that's probably some of the best guitar playing
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: anybody ever played at that point before his life kind
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: of started folding up with the James gang and deep
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 2: purple and all that. Um, but, um, But the section
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 2: really ended up becoming kind of a package where a
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 2: lot of artists that came along, they wanted to get
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 2: the four of us on it because they knew that
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 2: sound and they knew what we brought to it. So
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: that's when we would end up doing like Warren Zevon
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: and all these different things that came through. And they
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 2: were all, it was just from a writer's standpoint, that
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 2: whole 70s and 80s was a fascinating period. There were
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: some of the best music was written during that period.
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: And every time you'd walk in the studio, there'd be
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: a new face of somebody in there, and you'd just go, oh.
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: God, this is good.
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was really exhilarating. It was one of
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: those things that you just left work every day just
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: kind of pumped and just going, I love this.
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: Okay. Just to focus for one second. You know, in
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: the old days, the 60s, the AM radio, one speaker
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: in the dashboard, you couldn't even really make out the bass.
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: Okay. And we get stereo records. We get the stereo
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: in the late 60s. But it also comes down a
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 1: lot to the mix, the EQ, et cetera. So you
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: come to a session. What is it that you want
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: to add? What is the base supposed to do?
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 2: Well, again, again, it, I always say that everything is
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 2: predicated on the song. So, you know, what, what's right
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: for one song, even on an album, the next song
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 2: may sonically be a little bit different. So you, you do, you,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 2: you judge everything by that song. Uh, Most of the time,
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: the level of engineers that we've worked with over the
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: years have been really high, high quality engineers. So I
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 2: kind of like try to leave everything in their hands
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 2: in terms of what they're used to hearing. Like I'll
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: bring my own direct box, but if I go, you know,
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: if you've got a DI that you really like, we'll
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: go ahead and use yours and stuff. There are times
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 2: where I've, there was a lot of times in the
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 2: studio where I would, Ask the engineer at the end
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 2: of a project, could you burn me a cassette? Just
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 2: give me a board mix. And then later on, you
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: hear the album finished and you go, they lost it.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 2: It sounded so much better when it was the board.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: It was simpler.
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: The sound of them just pushing up the faders and
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: just running it off for you as compared to sitting
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 2: and tweaking and farting around with this stuff. But... Usually,
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: that's the only time where, like during the course of
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: a session, there's so much that's going to happen afterwards
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 2: that if I go and listen to playback and I
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 2: can hear all my parts in there, I'm happy. But
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: we're not involved in the mastering or the mixing of
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 2: the album.
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess just literally playing the bass. If I'm
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: the lead guitarist, okay, I do a solo. I mean,
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: there's some records with bass solos, not a lot of them.
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: I know my role. Yeah. Drums, there's everything. What is
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: the role of the bass and how do you intellectualize
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: where you fit in the oral landscape?
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 2: Well, you're sort of a liaison between the melodic and
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: the rhythmic side of things. With the drummer, you're locked
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 2: in with the drummer rhythmically on it, but you're also
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 2: playing parts that are cognizant of the keyboards and the guitar.
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 2: And then sonically... I just, I try to give, I mean,
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 2: that's one of the things I've had, like basically one
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: sound for everything I've done from country to funk to whatever.
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: I just try to give them a really rich, fat
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: bass on it where everything can sit on it. And
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 2: it's got this foundation under it that sounds that really,
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 2: that actually anchors the bottom down. Because I hear a
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 2: lot of bass parts on things. where guys, I'm hearing
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: like a lot of fret noise and it's too trebly
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 2: and clicky. I mean, it's fine if that's what they,
• 2:10:33
  Speaker 2: that's not the world I live in. So usually, I mean,
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: it's always funny. Like you'll go in and they'll have
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: the drummer getting drum sounds and they're in there for
• 2:10:43
  Speaker 2: a half hour just banging away and stuff and the
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: guitar and they're working on it. And then I'll go
• 2:10:46
  Speaker 2: in and I'll sit down and I go, oh, let
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: me hear you. And I hit two notes and I go, great.
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're done at that point. They've just, you know,
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: I kind of know what they want to hear. And
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: I just give them a nice rich fat bass part. Now,
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 2: like I said, like on that one Luke record, we
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 2: distorted the hell out of it. There's other times where
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: I can step in a little bit where I'll do
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 2: something and I'll go, let me do this part and
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 2: then let me double it up an octave. And if
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: we do that, then let's change the speed of the
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: machine just slightly or whatever they put on the computer
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 2: so that it gets this almost chorusing effect. I used to,
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 2: at one point I had a piccolo bass, which is
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: an octave higher than the regular bass. And I've done
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: things where, like with Billy Thorpe, I doubled almost everything
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: on piccolo bass because we were a power trio and
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: I just wanted it to sound really different. But I'm
• 2:11:43
  Speaker 2: just looking for like a good bed for everybody to
• 2:11:46
  Speaker 2: sleep in at that point. Because if you've got that,
• 2:11:49
  Speaker 2: if you're locked in with the drums... And then you've
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: given them that. You can build anything on top of that,
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: and it's going to get better, hopefully. Where if that's
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 2: a weak foundation, if the drums aren't sonically there or
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 2: feel-wise and the bass isn't there, it kind of doesn't
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: matter if you've got the greatest guitar player or anything
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: in the world. It's just not going to be there.
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 2: And I've always liked the responsibility of the bass, the
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 2: psychology of it. I like the seat that I get
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 2: to sit in and to think, live, you know, occasionally
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 2: you'll have to do a little soloing thing or something
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: like that. But for the most part, you can just
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: sit up there and lock it all down. I know
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: with Lyle Lovett, there's one song called Memphis in it.
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: And at a certain point in the song, it breaks
• 2:12:34
  Speaker 2: down and everybody in the band does a solo. And
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 2: people have come up to me afterwards and they'll go,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 2: why didn't you take a solo? I said, I was
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: playing under everybody's solo. I soloed for the whole song
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 2: and I'm responding to each solo with a different licks
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 2: and stuff. But I said, just because you don't see
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: the spotlight on me doesn't mean I'm not doing it.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: Okay. You're very verbal, engaging. If you're home in Pasadena
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: and you're not working, you're talking to me now, you
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: could be in a session. Are you cool with that?
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: in your own mind, or you're talking enough to your wife,
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: or you got to call some people on the phone
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: and run through it.
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: I can go days without speaking to anybody. When I'm home,
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 2: I am like a total hermit. I mean, I'll talk
• 2:13:21
  Speaker 2: to my wife and I'll talk to the dogs when
• 2:13:23
  Speaker 2: we're out in the backyard playing with them. But for
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 2: the most part, if I'm home, I can spend the
• 2:13:27
  Speaker 2: whole day just weeding in the yard and not talk
• 2:13:31
  Speaker 2: to anybody. I don't sit there clutching my phone. I'll
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 2: check for messages at the end of the day, usually
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 2: my ringer's off. I can completely shut all of this down.
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 2: And I'm really happy just to get into a different headspace.
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 2: And then like when I go to bed at night,
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 2: I'll just lay there sometimes for hours, just perusing YouTube,
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 2: just looking up things in there. I'll find out like
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 2: a great song that I was thinking, you know, a
• 2:13:56
  Speaker 2: classical piece or something. And I'll start to look through
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 2: all the different performances of it just to see, you know,
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 2: if you want to do Nessun Dorma, you know, in
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 2: your like 20 different versions of it, and then you'll
• 2:14:06
  Speaker 2: still end up at Pavarotti at the end of the day.
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 2: But I'm a real kind of homebody. It's like one
• 2:14:13
  Speaker 2: of the things for me that maybe didn't help in
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 2: the early days in the 70s was there was a
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 2: real gathering, not so much partying, but a gathering of
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 2: people all the time at people's houses, and they'd be
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 2: playing songs. And so And I'd finish a session. I'd
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 2: just go home. I'm not the hang guy because, first off,
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 2: there was usually drugs or alcohol involved. And I just,
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: after a little while, you're so bored because they're all
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 2: on the same plane at that point, which is fine.
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 2: But you're sitting there going, I've heard this before.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 1: I don't need it. Love you, man. Yeah.
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 2: So I would just go home and I'd say, I'll
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 2: see you tomorrow at the studio.
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 1: Okay. You're upbeat dynamic. Is this your mood or do
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: you ever have any dark moments?
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can go so dark. I've gotten dark on
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 2: the road and some people said, you don't want to
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: see that. But I have to be pushed. I mean,
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 2: I'm like one of those reeds in the wind that
• 2:15:08
  Speaker 2: you almost have to be flat on the ground before
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 2: you respond to something. But I've been pushed a few
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 2: times and I don't like that headspace. Okay.
• 2:15:16
  Speaker 1: Well, it's one thing if you're reacting to something. But
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 1: there's another thing, let's assume, you know, during COVID was
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: unique situation where you're home and your mood starts to sink.
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: Is that ever going to happen? Oh, yeah.
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, well, I had a bit of that
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: with my wife's, you know, her back now where I
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: literally had to turn down a tour that I wanted
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 2: to do. And I really couldn't do anything because she
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 2: literally could not get out of bed. for almost seven weeks.
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 2: So for seven weeks, I almost didn't even touch my base.
• 2:15:47
  Speaker 2: I just got into a kind of a dark place
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 2: and people were sending me files and I contacted them back.
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 2: I said, I'm really not, I don't feel like doing
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 2: it now. And a couple of them said, well, we'll
• 2:15:56
  Speaker 2: wait till you are. And I got them done last week,
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 2: you know, when she started getting around again. Yeah, I mean,
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 2: my nature, I'm not really effusive all the time, but
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 2: I try to be somewhat upbeat and engaging. But for the,
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 2: but for, Other times, there are times when you do
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 2: get dark, you know, and they're like there's family issues
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 2: going on or deaths from friends. And you just kind
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 2: of wonder what the hell's going on in the world.
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I get up and as soon as I
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 2: turn on the TV and I see the state of
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 2: what's going on right now, I find it profoundly distracting
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 2: and depressing. But I'm also not going to bury my
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 2: head in the sand and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 2: going to be as proactive. I mean, on Facebook, I
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 2: get death threats. On Facebook, people saying, you know, we
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 2: know your touring schedule. We're going to come get you
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 2: kind of thing. Just because of a political statement.
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. Will you ever think twice or you just make
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: the statement?
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 2: No, I just I think I suffer from a kind
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 2: of an emotional Tourette's. I just throw it out and
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 2: then think about it afterwards. But it's already committed. Now,
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 2: at that point, I just kind of go, no, I
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 2: have my standards and my scruples and the life I
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 2: want to live by, and I'm not going to change
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 2: that to accommodate somebody else's. I don't want to hurt anybody.
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say things that would be harmful
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 2: to anybody, but I'm certainly of my own opinions.
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 1: I've been that way.
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 2: My roommate when I was in college was the head
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 2: of SDS, the Students for a Democratic Society. We were
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 2: followed every day by the FBI at school and I mean,
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 2: I went to every march, anti-Vietnam march that there was
• 2:17:37
  Speaker 2: out there and had a big peace sign painted on
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 2: my truck and signs that said peace. I mean, I
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 2: firmly believe in all of that. And our time in
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 2: this world is so. kind of not only limited, but
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 2: it just goes by so fast. I mean, I sit
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 2: there right now, and I can talk about my very
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 2: first session, which was before James was actually not my
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 2: first session. When we played the Troubadour gig with James,
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 2: in the audience was Del Shannon and Brian Hyland And
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 2: they contacted me to do an album with Brian Hyland
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: before I ever was in the studio. So my first
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 2: studio experience actually was with Del Shannon and Brian Hyland.
• 2:18:19
  Speaker 2: But to me, I can still picture that session. And
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 2: I was a squirt. I was a little kid and
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: I'm going to be turning 80 and it still feels
• 2:18:27
  Speaker 2: fresh in my mind. So, you know, there's been a
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 2: massive amount of stuff that's gone on in this period,
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 2: yet it feels like nothing. I mean, I can go
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 2: back instantly. And one of the things that maybe was
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 2: good for me personally, was the fact that I didn't
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 2: drink and didn't do drugs because so much stuff is
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 2: still right there. It's not like I sit there. I mean,
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 2: like when James is interviewed and he talks about how
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 2: many years he lost because he just was out at
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 2: that point. He said he gained when he finally kicked
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 2: drugs and started working out and stuff. He said he
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 2: gained about 20 hours a day. You know, and that's
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 2: his life. That's whatever. And I'm grateful that he got
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 2: his shit together and that he's healthy. and still making music.
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 2: That's great. And I'm happy that Phil is doing better
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 2: than he was a few years ago. We just talked
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 2: the other day, sent me an email and stuff. And
• 2:19:17
  Speaker 2: I've been seeing interviews with him and he's, I don't
• 2:19:20
  Speaker 2: know if he'll ever work again, but with all he's
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 2: done in his life, I just want him to be
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 2: happy and healthy as he can be. So, you know,
• 2:19:27
  Speaker 2: but it's interesting how this stuff goes by. So I've
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 2: set kind of standards for how I function in this world.
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 2: And You know, unless somebody shows me something that I
• 2:19:36
  Speaker 2: think would be better for me, I'm going to stick
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 2: with what I do. And some people get pissed, but
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 2: tough shit.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: So you're going to die on stage?
• 2:19:45
  Speaker 2: Oh, wouldn't it be great? It'd be fantastic. I mean,
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 2: I've worked with one artist for sure who died on
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 2: Magic Sam. I was playing with him back in the 60s,
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 2: and he passed away at the gig. But, you know,
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 2: you hear about this, you know, people dying on stage.
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 2: Dick Shawn? I was just going to say Dick Shawn,
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 2: his one-man show. He died under that pile of debris.
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: They thought it was part of the act.
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and his son was the director. And he came out. Yeah,
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 2: I saw that show twice. And it was the, you know,
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 2: fabulously fantastic junior. Dick Shawn was one of the greatest comedians.
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, just the best. I mean, in Mad, Mad,
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 2: Mad World and stuff. But yeah, I saw that show
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 2: in San Francisco, I think. And then when we got
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 2: to New York with, I think, James, I said to
• 2:20:36
  Speaker 2: some of the guys, I said, you know, Dick Shawn is.
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 2: And they said, well, I think so. I said, let's
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 2: go to the show. And it was the night of
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 2: the blackout. So like all the lights in Manhattan were out.
• 2:20:47
  Speaker 2: And then in the studio, the emergency lights came on
• 2:20:50
  Speaker 2: and Dick's worked it into his set. And he's going, oh,
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 2: be careful when you go out there. It's getting kind
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: of dark out in the, you know, and so we
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 2: opened the door and it's pitch black in Manhattan. It's like,
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 2: holy crap, that was the most amazing experience. But yeah,
• 2:21:03
  Speaker 2: that whole thing of dying on stage like that, you know,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 2: either that or I just want to go to bed.
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I've had so many friends that have died long,
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 2: horrible deaths, you know, like the, you know, the Don
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 2: Grolnick's and, people like that that just withered away in
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 2: a hospital. Man, just let me have a massive stroke
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 2: be gone. I mean, it's tough for the people that
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 2: find you and have to deal with it, but it
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 2: would be nice to be able to go out quickly.
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 2: But to be on stage, you know, I mean, it
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 2: would be kind of weird for everybody around there if
• 2:21:35
  Speaker 2: you just kind of drop on it. But he never
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 2: played that before.
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: We'll see.
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's... Getting nearer and nearer. I mean, it's kind
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 2: of weird when you start looking at numbers.
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a whole other subject because I find that
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 1: most people don't want to admit it. In that, you know,
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 1: once you reach, when you're 60, you've seen the trick. Yeah.
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: If anything is good, I'll find out about it. I'm
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: not susceptible to advertising. You turn 70 and you become
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 1: conscious that this doesn't go on forever. Yeah. So you
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: have two types of people I find. You have the retired,
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: self-satisfied people. Isn't life wonderful? Then you have these people
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: who are doing the identical thing that they've done for 30,
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: 40 years, but without consciousness. Yeah. So you say, isn't
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: this weird? There are people who are dying, health problems.
• 2:22:31
  Speaker 1: We got what's going on in the government. No one
• 2:22:33
  Speaker 1: wants to talk about it. No, same as it ever was. Yeah.
• 2:22:35
  Speaker 1: And it's very strange for me.
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there's a little of all of that
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 2: as you age. I mean, I kind of look at
• 2:22:40
  Speaker 2: it now and I can start to think, I go,
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 2: my folks lived to be like, I think 93 and
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 2: 94 when they did.
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: Wow, you did a good run.
• 2:22:47
  Speaker 2: So I'm kind of going, well, if I can stay
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 2: healthy like they were, then maybe I've got like another
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 2: 12 to 15 years left. And 12 to 15 years
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 2: goes by so fast. I mean, I'm already booking stuff
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 2: into next year. And I'm just kind of going, it's
• 2:23:04
  Speaker 2: a finite amount of numbers on this stuff. But I
• 2:23:07
  Speaker 2: kind of go, if I'm going to get up today,
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, I got up this morning and
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 2: I went, I'm going to go talk to Bob. This is,
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 2: that's why I wanted to not do this as a zoom.
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 2: I wanted just to say, let's come down here and
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 2: sit and talk. This is so much nicer than doing
• 2:23:18
  Speaker 2: it on a computer. Um, but it's, it's one of
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 2: those things where you just kind of go, you just
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 2: want to, you know, just take every day and enjoy
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 2: it as best you can. And if I'm going to
• 2:23:28
  Speaker 2: work great, if I'm not going, one of the things
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 2: that for me was a real life lesson was early on, um,
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 2: If I was like working and all of a sudden
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 2: I would look in my date book and there would
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 2: be two weeks of nothing in there, I would freak.
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 2: I'd be panicked because you think, is there going to
• 2:23:43
  Speaker 2: ever be anything after those two weeks? Is that going
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 2: to fill up? When I finally kind of looked at
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 2: my gig to amortize it as an annual job and
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 2: kind of go, if at the end of the year
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 2: I've paid all the bills, made some money, been able
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 2: to do some things and all that, it's a good year.
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to sit there and look at two
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 2: weeks off Like it's a failure, like everything's over. So,
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, if I look at the end of the year,
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of going, it's fine. If I have a
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 2: period where there isn't work going on, I'll find other
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 2: projects to do. I'll do some repairs in the house.
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 2: I'll work in the yard and do other things. Life
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 2: isn't this kind of one trick pony. And if you're
• 2:24:21
  Speaker 2: not doing that thing, you're not valid anymore. But it
• 2:24:25
  Speaker 2: takes a while to kind of come to grips with that,
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 2: especially when your gig is starting. Because I never thought
• 2:24:30
  Speaker 2: I'd be a professional musician. I knew I'd always play.
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 2: But you just don't know. I have a friend who
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 2: I did a session for Paul Anka back in the
• 2:24:39
  Speaker 2: early 70s with who played guitar on the session. And
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 2: he had aspirations of becoming a studio musician. But he
• 2:24:46
  Speaker 2: could play, but he didn't have the temperament for it.
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 2: And he went on and became an oral kind of
• 2:24:55
  Speaker 2: an orthopedic reconstruct. I mean, an oral reconstruction of surgery.
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 2: And he has two clinics up in Northern California. But
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 2: he still is a Martin and Dorsey. He has a
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 2: Pro Tools studio in his dental clinic and he still
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 2: makes his records. And he's come down and we've done
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 2: a few albums together. He's kind of like a James
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 2: Taylor kind of. And you just kind of go. So
• 2:25:18
  Speaker 2: he didn't have the original dream of music, but he's
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 2: still making music on his own terms. But he has
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 2: an incredibly successful life as an oral reconstructive surgeon.
• 2:25:28
  Speaker 1: You just don't know. Well, that's a better story than
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: most because most don't make it. Well, no, they don't.
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: They don't finish college, go to graduate school. Oh, I know.
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 2: I know. Well, that's the thing is you really have
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 2: to think about all these things and sort of have
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 2: a plan B. I mean, that's one of the things
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 2: I was just back at Berkeley doing a thing back
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 2: there with Victor Wooten and Steve Bailey. And it's one
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 2: of those things where I kind of look at them
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 2: and I go, the only thing they don't teach you
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 2: here is you come out with all these chops and
• 2:25:55
  Speaker 2: everything on Friday.
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: What's Monday?
• 2:25:59
  Speaker 2: You know, there's no gigs waiting for you generally or
• 2:26:01
  Speaker 2: anything like that. And they go to a studio like,
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 2: you want to do, you know, you sweep for us
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 2: for a while and, you know, work your way up
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 2: the ladder. I mean, they kind of paint this picture
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 2: of like, this is going to be this amazing thing's
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 2: going to happen. You've got all this four years or
• 2:26:16
  Speaker 2: how many years of learning and facility, but there's a
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 2: finite amount of gigs when you walk out that door
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 2: and not everybody's going to get them. And there's a
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 2: lot of this business is built on disappointment. And if
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 2: you're the kind of person that can be disappointed easy,
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 2: You're going to drop out and the next guy who's
• 2:26:30
  Speaker 2: maybe a little more tenacious is going to step in
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 2: and they might have a shot at it. So you
• 2:26:35
  Speaker 2: just don't know with all of this. And it's just
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 2: like life. You just kind of live every day in you.
• 2:26:41
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not one of my favorite songs, but
• 2:26:43
  Speaker 2: there's a Henley song. How bad do you want it?
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 2: Not bad enough. Yeah.
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: You know, talent is at most 50%. Yeah.
• 2:26:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: A lot of great people who are not working in
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: the business.
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 2: Better players than most of the guys I know. I mean,
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 2: it's like when I was in high school, my sister
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 2: had a girlfriend. And we were talking one day, and
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 2: she said, oh, you should come over to the house
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 2: and play with my brother.
• 2:27:07
  Speaker 1: He plays guitar. It was Ted Green.
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 2: And here's probably one of the greatest guitar players who's
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 2: ever lived. When I started working, though, I tried to
• 2:27:16
  Speaker 2: get him on sessions. And he wasn't good on sessions.
• 2:27:19
  Speaker 2: He was great at doing his technical books and all
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 2: of his thing. But I got him on and they said, well,
• 2:27:25
  Speaker 2: take a solo. He goes, I don't want to take
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 2: a solo.
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: He goes, shit.
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like I remember being with John McLaughlin
• 2:27:30
  Speaker 2: and I mentioned Ted Green. And John goes, you know,
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 2: Ted Green. It's that thing. But here's the guy with
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 2: all the facility in the world. But he's just he's
• 2:27:39
  Speaker 2: like that. a cult hero to the guitar players, but
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 2: nobody knows who he is. And other guys who maybe
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 2: are crap players, but they're out there just putting it out.
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 2: And the people go, that's the man. Because they're seeing
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 2: this whole different thing. They're just seeing the persona and
• 2:27:54
  Speaker 2: the presentation. And there's some bass players out there that,
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 2: to me, are just like, monstrous players, but they just somehow,
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 2: they don't push themselves or people just aren't aware of
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 2: them or they've never, they're so in the background that
• 2:28:07
  Speaker 2: they're kind of unaware of that this guy's there. And
• 2:28:11
  Speaker 2: other guys that just have a stage presence that, you know,
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 2: is to people is exciting. And they're the guys that
• 2:28:18
  Speaker 2: get the gigs and the big bucks and all that
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 2: and whatever. You know, I don't look at anything other than,
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm grateful to still be a working musician
• 2:28:26
  Speaker 2: in a really great community of musicians. They have really,
• 2:28:29
  Speaker 2: you know, to be able to, it still freaks me out.
• 2:28:32
  Speaker 2: Like if I'm at a someplace in like Clapton's there
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 2: and he'll look over and go, hey Lee, how you doing?
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 2: And I go, why the fuck does Eric Clapton know me?
• 2:28:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, you still think of yourself as like I'm
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 2: this dork from the valley. And so all of a
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 2: sudden when you're around like Robert Plants or any of
• 2:28:48
  Speaker 2: those people and they, I mean, I was, we did
• 2:28:50
  Speaker 2: a gig with Lyle and Tommy Emanuel was on the gig.
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 2: And he came and he said, oh man, I saw
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 2: you in Australia with James Taylor. And I'm about to
• 2:28:59
  Speaker 2: like crawl through ground glass to go touch his shoes.
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 2: Cause I mean, this guy's so remarkable, but we all
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 2: have our own level of, you know, recognition of our
• 2:29:07
  Speaker 2: own self-worth and where we sit in this whole thing.
• 2:29:10
  Speaker 2: And it's just kind of surprising sometimes when you realize,
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 2: you know, it's one thing for somebody to come up
• 2:29:15
  Speaker 2: and say, oh, I saw you at the universal amphitheater.
• 2:29:18
  Speaker 2: But it's another thing when somebody who you've like, like
• 2:29:20
  Speaker 2: when McCartan, when I met McCartan, he goes, oh, I
• 2:29:22
  Speaker 2: always wanted to meet you.
• 2:29:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, You know who I am? I can't
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 1: believe it.
• 2:29:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's weird. It's weird. But, you know, it
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: is what it is. I accept it all. Okay. Final question. Yes, please.
• 2:29:32
  Speaker 1: What's it like going through life with the name Leland?
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 2: I think it came from, like, a great-grandfather in Russia
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 2: or something like that. I think his name was something
• 2:29:43
  Speaker 2: like Leobruch.
• 2:29:44
  Speaker 1: Or something like that. Yeah.
• 2:29:47
  Speaker 2: Lee was a hard one for me when I was
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 2: in grammar school because it was a girl named Lee also,
• 2:29:52
  Speaker 2: but it was L-E-I-G-H was her name. The best part
• 2:29:55
  Speaker 2: for me, if we're going to talk a story about name,
• 2:29:58
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite people I've worked with is Judith Owen,
• 2:30:01
  Speaker 2: who's married to Harry Shearer. And she's a Welsh singer, songwriter, pianist,
• 2:30:06
  Speaker 2: marvelous talent. When we were touring over in England, they
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 2: had us going to every BBC studio to do an
• 2:30:14
  Speaker 2: interview while we were there. And I forget what town
• 2:30:17
  Speaker 2: it was, but we get to the studio and there's
• 2:30:19
  Speaker 2: this young girl who has been told to interview us,
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 2: who has no clue who Judith is, who I am, nothing.
• 2:30:26
  Speaker 2: It was the most uncomfortable thing to be sitting across
• 2:30:29
  Speaker 2: from this girl. And she's finally desperate for something to ask.
• 2:30:33
  Speaker 2: And she looks at me and she goes, Sklar, that's
• 2:30:36
  Speaker 2: an interesting name. Where does it come from? And I said, well,
• 2:30:40
  Speaker 2: I said, it's actually, that part of my family was
• 2:30:44
  Speaker 2: from Ukraine. But I said, it's a similar spelling and
• 2:30:49
  Speaker 2: all that, like up in Scandinavia, it might be a
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 2: double A with an umlaut over it and stuff. And
• 2:30:53
  Speaker 2: I said, but an interesting thing is in all the places,
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 2: it means exactly the same thing, which is glassblower, which
• 2:31:02
  Speaker 2: it does. And she looks at me and she goes,
• 2:31:04
  Speaker 2: have you ever blown any glass? And I said, only Philip. Man,
• 2:31:09
  Speaker 2: I look over, Judith has snot running out of her nose.
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 2: She's dying, and this girl has no clue what I
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 2: just said. It was one of those name moments that
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 2: was really wonderful.
• 2:31:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I just remember the first time hearing Sklar, the
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: legendary programmer of WABC Radio in New York, was Rick Sklar.
• 2:31:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Sklar was one of the major guys, I think,
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 2: at Imagineering at Disney for many years. It's when we
• 2:31:34
  Speaker 2: moved here when I was a little kid that was like,
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 2: maybe a quarter of a page in the white pages
• 2:31:40
  Speaker 2: of Sklar's. And now there's pages, there aren't pages because
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 2: it doesn't exist. But it was one of those things
• 2:31:46
  Speaker 2: that I never, the only other one I knew, there
• 2:31:48
  Speaker 2: was a bass player in the valley named Buddy Sklar.
• 2:31:52
  Speaker 2: And he was, I forget what bands he played with,
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 2: but we were kind of contemporaries of each other. So
• 2:31:57
  Speaker 2: it was really interesting that there were two bass players,
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 2: Sklar's and the San Fernando Valley. But I remember talking
• 2:32:03
  Speaker 2: to Elmer Bernstein, I did a movie with him and
• 2:32:07
  Speaker 2: we were talking names. I forget, but I mean, he's
• 2:32:10
  Speaker 2: one of the greatest composers. I mean, to kill a mockingbird.
• 2:32:13
  Speaker 2: When he got hired to kill a mockingbird, they thought
• 2:32:16
  Speaker 2: they were hiring Leonard Bernstein. They made a mistake and
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 2: they called him because they got a Bernstein on. And
• 2:32:21
  Speaker 2: he said, man, when I found out, he said, I
• 2:32:24
  Speaker 2: really had to bring my A game to that one
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 2: because they were expecting Leonard. Names can be funny on.
• 2:32:30
  Speaker 1: That level, but- Okay. We're going to leave it here, Leland.
• 2:32:35
  Speaker 1: Okie dokie. We could talk all day. You tell great stories.
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: Your memory is unbelievable. Thanks for taking this time with
• 2:32:42
  Speaker 1: my audience. Oh, it's my pleasure. I'll come back anytime
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: you want. Okay. And of course- I'm busy that day.
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. This is not a pitch, but you could
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: definitely watch them on YouTube.
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 2: Please come join me. And my book is on LelandSklar'sBeard.com.
• 2:32:55
  Speaker 2: And I do everything.
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: I'm the mailer.
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 2: I print the labels and stuff. So you're not going
• 2:32:59
  Speaker 2: through any kind of Amazon situation.
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: Get a personal relationship. You betcha. Till next time, this
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: is Bob Lefsetz.