Latest / Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast / Black Eyed Peas' George Pajon Jr. on 28+ Years in Music (Part 1) | 355

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Black Eyed Peas' George Pajon Jr. on 28+ Years in Music (Part 1) | 355 · Hey BigHead: The Vegas Local Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, I got a question for you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I have a question for you first.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I knew you were going to start the episode with Julie.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Have you considered saying something else first?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, I I thought about it and I decided no.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Alright.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: Julie, let's let's go back, let's go back a year from now.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was September 30th, 2025.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_03: What were you doing September 30th last year?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had just started grad school.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know you at all, and I had recently moved to Las Vegas.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_03: Imagine if we got in our DeLorean.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_03: Do you know what movie that's from?
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Star Wars.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, back to the future.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: Imagine if we got back in our DeLorean.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_03: We went 88 miles an hour.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: We went back to 2025.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I told you a year from now, Julie, you would be producer of arguably the number one podcast in Vegas, and you'd be booking people like Emmy Award winner, members of the Black IPs on the show.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_03: What would you say to that?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say, good job, Julie.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew you could do it, and I'm not surprised.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: You're supportive of your past self.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_03: Well, spoiler alert.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: She has the confidence.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_03: She's always had that confidence.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, spoiler alert, you are producer of the number one show on Vegas Local Podcast.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_03: And also you did book a member of the Black IP's Grammy and Emmy Award winner, George Brahone Jr.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_03: on the show.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: George, welcome to the show, man.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: I can't believe you're here.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is like like I I'm I'm shook right now.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so excited for this.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I I love doing podcasts and honor.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: We listen, I don't know what you get in residuals, but you're welcome for all the money that I made you for playing Don't Funk with My Heart over and over and over again when it came out.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, we had to take the speaker out of his office because we got so tired of the same song all the time.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: Once I get hooked on a song, that's it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: I just get stuck on it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um but George, so excited to have you here, man.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you for coming in.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: When you you've been in the music game for forever.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: How old were you when you first started playing guitar?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: 13.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_03: 13.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you were to let's let's play a little games, go back in the DeLorean.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_03: If you were to go back to 13 and to that version of yourself, um, and you were just starting off, and you're looking back and knowing that you'd be a Grammy Award winner, a member of one of the biggest bands in the country, writing Obama's campaign song, Yes We Can, and winning an Emmy for it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_03: Do you think, or what would you think you're more surprised about of accomplishing in the X amount of years you've been in the game?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Just like me.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: He knew he could do it.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because he's got the confidence.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, my mom just gave me a book report of me saying I was gonna do all of this.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you did?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I was in high school, I wrote a book report saying that I was gonna be on stage in front of thousands of people, I was gonna write songs.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I literally had this crazy conference.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where it came from, but I just knew it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: I had dreams about it, I had visions about it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing surprised me, and you know, I get the the common question, do you get nervous?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why I don't.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I expected it all.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I I wasn't surprised.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is like no, this is what I was supposed to be doing.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I I worked for, this is what I'm supposed to be.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here for this.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I had that confidence from very beginning.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: Is there anything left on that list that you haven't checked off yet?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of personal goals.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I haven't reached the things that I personally want to do.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I've reached all the musical goals that I had set out for myself, but now, you know, black IPs, everyone knows that's Will I Am's baby.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: So my service to that group was, you know, making his vision come to fruition.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, part of that family for 28 years and proud of it.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I also have my own things that I want to do, and that's what's left on my list.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whether that happens or not, man, today is so difficult that I have zero where in that 13-year-old self had every expectation of accomplishing it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: This person has zero expectations because it's virtually impossible.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Why is it so hard now compared to early 2000s, 90s, whenever?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you have no help.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's no it's the wild wild west.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do it all yourself.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Where before, you know, you would get it was a typical story.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: You would get signed and you would have, you know, a marketing team, you would have a production team, you would they would hook you up with a producer, you would go through multiple producers before you found the voice of the band.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and sometimes that was lucky would find it in the first person you worked with.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it was, you know, album three that actually connected with people.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was many different variables.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's all on you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're your own marketing person, your own promoter, your own booking agent, your own producer.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Why did that change?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it changed for me.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I can only base it on what I experienced and in my life.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it changed for for I saw it change literally.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were on the road promoting the second record Behind the Front.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And actually uh Bridging the Grab.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the first record was Behind the Front.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we were on the road.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: The way the P's released music never changed.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: We usually had the album done and we would start the album would come out probably end of summer or summer, but we would always start a couple months before.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we would do silly things like I'll wear shirts that said release date on it on TV and and you know, in concert, opening up for different people.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: You had fun with it.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when we were promoting that second record, the only people that had the album were Will and myself.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're at a dorm party after a college gig that we played, and they're playing the record.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Will is screaming from the other side of the room, George, you can't play the record.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can't play the record.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I'm not playing the record.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't give the record to anyone.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I didn't do it, so it had to be you.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're the only person I had, and we're yelling at each other.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sure.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um the college kids like, guys, neither of you did.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he turned the machine around.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I'm downloading it right now.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Is this Napster or something?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was Napster.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that literally we witnessed a shift in everything.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that album was downloaded millions of times, and we only sold 250,000 copies of the record.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So in the label's eyes, the record was a failure.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: But the album was downloaded so many times that our our shows were selling up.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was positives and negatives.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: The negatives were the label didn't even want to, they wanted to drop us because we weren't selling any records.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and but the positive side is we we could we could sell out shows everywhere.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because worldwide, millions of people were downloading music now.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_03: And now that's the new norm.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's the norm.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we watched that shift happen, and what ended up happening is you know, the the most income came from album sales, record sales, singles.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_03: More so than tours?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, by far.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: By far.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: There was multiple ways that a a writer and a producer can make money back then.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you were probably more successful as a producer than you were an artist, where now that's completely opposite.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Producers were the big stars that would like say yes or no to artists, whether they, you know, based on personal preference.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and those guys were sought after and they would get points on the record.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they're probably making more money than the artists themselves because artists have different deals.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't know that artist deals with labels have come with many different like things in the contract.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like some artists have um they're at artist rate, which means that you uh uh before you see a single penny, the label gets 25% off the top.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: So when a producer is not at an artist rate, from penny one, they're making more money than the artist.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so back then, when you were a the trif, what we call the trifecta producer, writer, artist, then you are cleaning house.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're keeping all three levels.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you will make money from mechanicals, uh residuals, you know, royalties, publishing, and then you're also getting the money from the album sales, and then you're also getting production points from the and then touring.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So you get four avenues of income.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's gone.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: There isn't those first three are gone.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's just you make money from touring.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what changed everything.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like the labels can't, it's just basically basic numbers.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't physically be paying for all these different people that are helping these artists develop these artists when there's there's four levels of income gone from the industry now.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so and I I'm gonna preface this by apologizing to Julie, because we're going totally off script now.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: No, that's fine.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right out of the gate.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: We're because I have so many more follow-up questions to this.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna happen with me.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm I like it.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm actually skipping ahead too, because we had a section about streaming on here, and like you had previously discussed like how streaming and like Spotify and all those things have changed the economics of music.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And now you've said like is that kind of why you've stepped away from producing and like leaned more into the artist side of it, or is it something else?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't realize producers, like you know, a song like Wrecking Ball, Miley Cyrus, that has a bunch of writers.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those writers get.00000001% of that streaming.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Most of it goes to Miley.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: That used didn't used to be the way.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the point of helping someone get a billion streams when you're not gonna benefit from it?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're benefiting from that very little, so it's it makes more sense for you to, well, I'll just become an artist.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it's much harder for you to become that person that has a billion streams, but I'd rather gamble that way than to actually like continue to help people and getting these writing teams that you know.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have when I was doing this, I was a writer, I got signed to EMI publishing, and I was a writer for them, and I was writing with everyone.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is after Black IPs, right?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, during.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, during.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, most people don't realize it was during.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I why I said yes, I don't know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I literally get off the stage and I'd have a car waiting from EMI to take me straight to the studio.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd write for the rest of the night, and then sleep on the bus on the way to the next city or sleep on the plane because they would fly me because the bus had already left.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this was happening nonstop, and I got completely burnt out.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that stuff never made it to anything, and that was when I was like, you know what?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Enough.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because here I am writing a hundred songs in a couple month period, and not single one got placed.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm like, okay, this is a waste of my time.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: Is it is it disheartening?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like, does it discourage you from wanting to do it or quit or see, even though you're in one of the biggest bands in the world at the time, does it discourage you and saying, What am I doing?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: or is it just another another path that just didn't work out?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's just a matter of priorities.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was just excited to write and excited to have the opportunity that someone wanted my input.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I said yes to everything, and that's a mistake.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned the hard way.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: How old were you at the time of this?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: All this um probably early 30s.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and so yeah, I had the energy I had.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm more energetic now than I was back then, believe it or not.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Good for you.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but why?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's probably because you you don't say yes to everything now.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: You prioritize what's important.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_03: No, I say yes to everything.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: You still don't.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_03: I thought you were gonna have this moral at the end of the story of how you don't you can't say yes to everything, but no, you still say yes to everything.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I still say yes to everything, but um music-wise, as far as like writing with people, and I say no.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And one of my most famous no's was a big mistake.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Which one is this?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So at the time um we'll uh uh well the peas had moved management, and so our old manager was no longer working with with the band, and he started working for Dave Matthews, and he got us to actually open up for Dave Matthews because Dave Matthews wanted a, you know, he Dave Matthews here can sell out Central Park, you know, and a big stadium, but in Europe it isn't like that.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing as Robbie Williams in Europe can sell out Wembley for multiple nights, but he can't come here and sell out a football stadium.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So he was like, Well, let's do it this way.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get the peas to open up for you, and then you'll sell all the tickets, and a new audience will have the Dave Matthews experience.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: See if it works.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he shows up with his new artist that he just signed.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dave does?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the manager, Bruno Morse.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so he comes up to me, he's like, Hey George, I want to introduce you to my artist Bruno.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I want you to work with him.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to write with him.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, uh respectfully, I thank you for it's an honor that you think of me, but I I'm gonna have to say no.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, What?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Yeah, I'm kind of burnt out right now, and I don't want to be a you know percentage of myself.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I need to take a break.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, but I'll help you.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, how can you help me if you're not gonna help me write with my artist?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you use my studio in LA for free.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so they did, and they they set up Bruno set up camp at my studio that was in uh North Hollywood, and that's where Bruno met Phil, who ended up being the guy that he co-wrote all those songs with.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I helped, but I didn't you were a part of the journey, but I didn't benefit in it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I would have said yes, I would have been Did you hear him before you said no?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: No, you didn't.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know at all.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And as a matter of fact, he was in my studio for a while, yeah, and he had met my wife because of that, and my wife started doing his hair.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my wife's a hairstylist.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he invited her to go see him play an acoustic performance.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some club in LA, and she called me.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on the road with Fergie in Australia, and and she's she called me and was like, hey, should I go to this show?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: What is this kid like?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, actually, I have no clue.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I just was trying to help a fellow musician and our old manager.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have no clue what he's like.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so she went and she called me later on, a couple hours later, saying, Oh my god, he is unbelievably amazing.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, cool.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't in vain.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And later, you know, she ended up touring with him, and that whole Elvis look that he had in the beginning, that was my wife.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And his collaboration together.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So she toured with him for the first three records.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so we're still very close.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just saw him, I was getting my guitars updated for the last Black Eyed Peace tour.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I was in Paul Reed Smith's uh showroom that's in center staging.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: He was rehearsing behind the showroom at center staging.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Watch me walk in.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize they were rehearsing there.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was literally trying to convince Paul Reed Smith's head of artist relations.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I need my stuff.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: My guitars are like 10 years old.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have your new models.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let me try some new ones out for this tour.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, you know, the the company's just not the same.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the industry is so different now.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really do giveaways like that anymore.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're giving me the whole, and then Bruno walks in to say hi.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: George, what what are you doing here?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Gives me a hug, and they like, whatever you want.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_03: Love that.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: He's a he's a fun show.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't seen I saw him like five years ago, and it was the first time in a long time I went to a concert.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a big concert goer that I saw somebody who performing who just looked like they were having fun.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: And it was just a great, a great concert, a great show.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_03: They were jumping around, dancing around.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's a he's a obviously has a great voice.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Insanely talented, insanely gifted.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Shows are amazing.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, if you don't know, he literally writes all that stuff and plays a majority of the instruments.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's he has a team of people, but it's the same team of people.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he's been having, you know, he switched it a couple times, but they're pretty much consistent on the net.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: Man, they just do not miss.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I want to do not miss.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_03: I want to ask a question about because you you saw the shift with Napster when it when it came and how it changed.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: You saw it it was about to change the music industry.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now I feel like this version this era of Napster is AI music being produced.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: I know Timberland, he's publicly all for it.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if that's you know true or whatever, but you know, you can go on Suno and make an album that to the public sounds great.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure to you, with the the ear that you have, you are.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I can hear it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you you can definitely spot it.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: But are you leaning into it?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: Are you despising it?
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_03: Are you somewhere in the middle?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm kind of in the middle because um I'm a nerd.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always been um a gear head and a gear nerd, and so I'm a big proponent of like new technology and adapting, and if it can make the job from going from point A to point B easier, I'm all for it.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm also a purist, and so there's you can't replace the human spirit in any shape, way, or form.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that you just cannot replace, you know, and this was happening before AI.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't realize this.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: This was happening before AI.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: What started, in my opinion, all of this was the the vocal singing shows.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: So you you were like American Idol and stuff.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you were training these kids to what was their responsibility?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Their responsibility was to be good for a minute and a half.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: You were watching all the way, blind auditions down to if you got to the very end, then you got a full song.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so then you had to be good for three and a half minutes, maybe four.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: What does that person have if they some of these people had never even played a full 90-minute show?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these people have never done a 45-minute show.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're giving a voice a following, because everybody that you that's on the voice, you should see their following.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 245,000 people are following these people because they're seeing it on TV.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's still the most watched medium.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you look at when Gwen Stefani was on The Voice, her concert sales went through the roof.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because now, and no one even knew that she was in another band.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Which breaks my heart.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, she was in no doubt.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is the power of that tool.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what you were doing was you were having the same situation as AI.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you were having these kids that were trying to tour that didn't have the experience of being in a garage and working it out with three other people for four years before you actually found a sound.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then going through with a producer.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, these American Idol kids were like, oh, you made it all the way to the final four.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You get to work with this famous producer.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's basically gonna write everything.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna get guys like me to come in and play the guitar parts, and that is gonna be your sound.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not who they are.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you take away all of that safety net and put them on a stage by themselves, they fall apart.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's no human element anymore.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to interact with people.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where you develop those, your, your true voice is through that back and forth, hitting your head on the on on against the wall, making mistakes.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: These kids weren't making mistakes.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You were either you had It was a 50% chance either you made it through, and it wasn't even up to you.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was America voting for you.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so you either made it through or your heart was broken.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened with most of those people that their heart were broken?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are they doing now?
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are they going back and starting over and like, I'm, you know what?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I can do this.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Very rarely do you see someone that's like, you know what?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm gonna keep going.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: F that show.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: I really found something in myself and I'm gonna start from scratch.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do this the way it used to be done.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do it the hard way.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: No one's doing that.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and maybe I'm just poorly informed, but I feel like even a lot of the winners that I remember from some of the you know middle and later seasons, after they won, I heard their name for like a year and then it was gone.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Disappeared.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like only the first look, that medium really worked the first couple years.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we still have people from Adam Lambert.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, I saw a clay, I saw a clay Aiken banner, so he's performing somewhere here.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, but those people came from an actual real background.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were actually musicians in bands that were doing whether they were doing covers or originals, doesn't matter.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they were do putting in the work, you know, and so it they once it became they just ran out of those people.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and now it's just a cattle call.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you've seen it.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: You've they show it on camera where you know people are lining up for eight, nine hours, and the parents are there helping them taking shifts in the line, it's like that's not reality.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's that well, it is, it's reality TV, but it's not reality and what is actually gonna get you the voice that you need to actually survive with the real artist.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the difference.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get, look, it can open the door for you, and that's amazing.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't have the talent to actually stay in that door, you're gonna disappear and you're gonna be eaten up so quickly.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because the people that are actually up there, they've been doing this stuff for 28 years, like me, and nothing will stop them.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're machines.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: That that doesn't matter if you didn't sleep the night before, doesn't matter if you're sick, doesn't none of that matter.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: Are you wired a little differently, do you feel like, compared to most other people?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oh definitely.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Is it is that something that was brought down from your parents or something you learned, or just something you're born with, or a mix of everything?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was it goes back to what I said.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the mistakes, it's yeah, it's the the disappointments and and the failures.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I learned from failure.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: I learned from not succeeding and and then picking yourself back up.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: When you have to do that multiple times, you develop a really thick skin.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and nothing bothers you from that point forward.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get to that point, to me, that's when you really start finding your true voice as an artist and as a writer and at everything.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: Anything, really, yeah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_03: George, you you got me pumped up.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: I'm ready to run through a wall with you right now.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm let's do it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: We'll film it.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_03: I've film it.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_03: But what you're saying is so true, especially about the American Idol thing.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: We've had some comedians on, uh, some smaller ones, some bigger ones, and they've all pretty much said the same thing of like with social media, if a comedian has a uh 30-minute 30-second or a minute clip go viral and they're you know doing crowd work or whatever, then they get too big too fast, and then they're expected to fill out a full hour-long show.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: And then when they go to it, you know, I'll be honest, Matt Reif is funny as hell.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: He was great doing crowd work, but I went to see a show, and his his crowd work was phenomenal, but the jokes were just you know, I I wouldn't I wouldn't come to a show if I just heard the jokes.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's 100% to me, that's the way the whole thing led to AI.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: You had the American Idol voice revolution that remember that happened worldwide.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once the ones here were really successful, then it started popping up, you know, Voice Philippines, America, you know, voice UK that Will has done for 10 years.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: How many people have has Will, Will I Am picked?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that if that one of those people had the talent and the ability that they would still be doing music?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there is one.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she's in the black IPs.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Apple was on the voice Philippines, and he picked J.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ray.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who is who is singing with the band after Fergie retired.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she's been with us 10 years.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: So look, there are six, but here's the difference.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: She went from doing the the voice to getting in a band with basically six big brothers that said no, no, yes, no, no, girl, you gotta do more than you know, that's what she got lucky and and fell into.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and Apple decided that that was gonna be his story because if you don't know, Apple was one of those kids, you know, the commercials where if you send 25 cents a day, you will help.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of those kids.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then the mom reached out to one of the people that was sending the money and said, Would you consider adopting my son?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he said yes.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Apple moved to the United States.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he moved into Will's uh projects, and that's where he met Will.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so Apple wanted to do the same thing in return, and took J Ray, who came from his province in the Philippines.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it's basically the same story.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we've known her since she was, I think she I met her when she was like 19, 20 years old.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: What an incredible story.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so she's been touring with us forever when Fergie Fergie retired in 2000.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, she she stopped the peas to do the solo thing in 2011.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: November 23rd, 2011 was her last show with us.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then she continued doing her solo stuff that I also toured with her and wrote and played on all her records.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And she finished that and retired fully in 2017.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_03: She's she's done with music.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: She just wants to be a mom.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: Love that Fergie.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and she's great at it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so J.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Ray took over right after that.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so actually Jerry's been in the band longer than Fergie.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie was only in the band for eight years.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and it sounds like it ties back to what you were saying earlier, too.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: If the majority of people don't have this team or support system helping them know what's right, know what's wrong, do this, don't do this.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it sounds like she does with you guys in the black eyed piece.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: With us, she does.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, she's lucky because she fell into a spot where that environment still exists.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll we'll give you another example.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie was a star since since she was a child.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: She was on Mickey Mouse Club, if that at maybe whatever that Disney show was at.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Mickey Mouse Club, yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it was her and Christina and Justin.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and so she was in front of a camera since she was a child.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: She had all the artistic tools to become who she eventually became.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: At a very early age.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and she had that from the very beginning.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: And for the same thing for her.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: What she didn't have was we were the first band she ever played with.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Very first time she ever been in a situation where there was an actual band.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there was things that she didn't know that we basically took her under our arm and was like, don't worry, we got you.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: If that happens, look at me or this person, and then we'll adapt.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it would happen all the time.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, you know, her life was very difficult.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she was the closest thing that you know.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can see it with Taylor Swift and Bruno, who we were talking about earlier, where it's this the basically the whole beatomania thing where people go crazy.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie was like that.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was you know, a couple hundred people outside our hotel rooms everywhere we went, just screaming Fergie all night long.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie in Europe.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Fergie?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or Fergie in Europe.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was hilarious.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that is what she didn't have the tools for.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and sometimes it would catch her off guard, and we would, you know, there would be times on stage where she'd be a deer in headlights.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we would notice that and compensate to where the audience would never know that that was happening on the stage.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: So what advice would you give her?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_03: So give give me an example that if she if she's a deer in headlights, she's just she she you're on stage, obviously.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody's all eyes are on all of you guys that are on stage.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: You see something, what's what what what's a piece of advice that that you actually do give her when she is a deer in headlights at that moment, or somebody is a deer in headlights at that moment.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you'd you'd have to be lucky enough to be in a situation like she was in, which was you had a band of brothers that knew what was happening and could uh compensate for it to where she would she would we would essentially what would happen uh, you know, if she would get overwhelmed by the moment or for forget where she was, or like, you know, the typical thing.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're in a city, different city every day.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing that changes for us is the hotel is different.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Everything else looks the same.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: The venues look exactly the same because you're bringing all this staging and lights and the sound system and everything.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: So everything's identical.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's identical.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it's very easy, as silly as it sounds, it's very easy.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: And back then there was no teleprompters.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Back then there was, this is before phones where you can like have it there and read it off the phone.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't exist back then.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is before text messages.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: We were all on on um pagers or uh pagers, pagers, and the first the thing that came after the pager was the what was the thing that everyone would type with their thumbs?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: The black bear, the cheese.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, black bear.
• 32:34
  unknown: Yep.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the technology of the time.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: So there was nothing that you can do other than, and it's very an unprofessional look to have a big white piece of paper on the floor that says, Virgie, you're in Massachusetts.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they love this, this, and this.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: The name of the teams are this, this, and this.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: You have to do those things to actually get the crowd on your side.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, some of these gigs, we were opening up.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they weren't there to see us.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: There is too.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how are you gonna get this crowd that doesn't know your music, and you have to do those tricks?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: You see, that's why I never became a musician for that reason alone, because I'd be too afraid to be like, hello, Cincinnati, and I'm in Boston or something.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: It happens all the time.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only reason why.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only reason.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: The only reason why.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes she wouldn't, she would never say it, she would catch herself before saying it, and then that's what I mean by deer and headlight.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: She would realize she was about to say something wrong.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where I'm at right now, and when I would see that, I would immediately go to a solo.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And people thought, oh wow, that's part of the show.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm walking solo and going, Massachusetts, Boston Rex, uh, Boston Celtics.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: Going back in time a little bit, when you first joined the Black Eyed P's, did you know in that moment?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm sure you you didn't have the wisdom you have now, but did you know that they were going to be as huge as they've become in the US and worldwide?
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I can tell you when I knew.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can tell you when I was like, oh, this is gonna be huge.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: But in the beginning, we all we we were, and that's what made us so strong.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: We were all equal.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: We were all broke.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: We literally all would go and hunt for whatever job I can get after the tour.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your money would last, maybe your you would save every dime of per diem.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is the label paying for you to go out.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: What is this late 90s now or early 2000s?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: 98.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: 98, okay.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: 98.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: I joined in October of 98.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my first tour was in Europe, and oh, I could tell you a funny story of that.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I've never been out of the country.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, I had been one place to France, south of France, and Paris.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that was because I'd the first time I left the country, I did the Prince of Monaco's wedding.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Was the first gig I did out of the country?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like you set the bar pretty high there.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right out of the gate.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the after party for that was insane in Monte Carlo.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was like wild.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: I am very envious of you.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had been out of the country only once for maybe five days.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the second time, and they hand me an envelope filled with the Hoper Diem for the three weeks we were out.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of money for me.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh my God, this is awesome.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I told at the time I had a roommate because we were sharing, you know, economically, everyone had to share share rooms.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so I told my roommate, hey, when this is all over, on our days off, let's take our per diem and and buy a train ticket and go to Amsterdam.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: I always wanted to go to Amsterdam.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't going to Amsterdam on this tour.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so he said, Okay, yeah, let's do it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: But first, I have some friends here that I want to visit.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've never I want to see what a London flat looks like.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, yeah, me too.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: So we go to this friend, and this friend convinced us, you don't got to go to Amsterdam, we have that here.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, I want to go to Amsterdam.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to like they have weed shops there.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've never smoked weed.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm gonna try it, let's try it in Amsterdam.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Mecca of weed smoking, yes.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we convinced no, we have that here too.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he dropped us off, and this is like 98.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is he dropped us off in the roughest part of London.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and we straight got robbed.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna be happy any to this story.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Should have gone to Amsterdam.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Should have gone to Amsterdam.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Got robbed and learned a very tough lesson that I stayed with me for the rest of my touring career.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I learned.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: You look at certain little signs, I'm like, nope, don't go down those stairs because they're gonna rob you.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: And sure enough, that and now I can recognize it.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you spot that.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: I literally can spot it.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a perfect example of like the tools you need that don't have that when you're on the road, yeah, it will eat you up.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: It will tear you apart, and you'll never want to do it again.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes you gotta experience the the shit that life throws at you to you know to and survive it.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: And survive it.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And we went back to the bar where every with the hotel and everyone was at the bar, uh, and and we had this look on our face.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, I have no money now.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I how am I gonna eat?
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and the singer from UB40 was in the bar, and yes, he was having red wine.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_03: I'd expect nothing less.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we're petrified telling this story to our manager, yeah, and he falls off the chair, starts laughing, just laughing at us.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I got super mad, and he's like, young man, you should be grateful that you actually have walking legs right now because that you walked away from this.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm laughing.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, normally, people are in crutches and or dead because you tried to fight the fact that they're gonna rob you either way.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, that's the most dangerous part of London.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing because you're complaining.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're lucky.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: You could wake up in a bathtub full of ice missing a kidney, you never know.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that happened to me here in Vegas.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_03: I can't tell if you're serious about it.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't tell.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: You what do you mean you didn't?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't wake up in the bathtub.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously Hold on.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have did you are you missing the kidney?
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: No, I got lucky and didn't get where's the story going, George?
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so confused.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's and and this is a true story, and I'm telling these stories because you can learn from me.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: Don't make my mistake.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Teach us, George.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_03: Teach us.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, very early on when we were coming to Vegas, oh my god, it was so amazing.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: We used to play the joint all the time.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: The joint was when they got rid of the center bar at when Virgin took it over, it was so heartbreaking for me.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was the place to play, and you would play, and remember, I'm not the front person.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: No one knows who I am.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: The pictures are all of the three guys back then, because there was no Fergie back then.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: We did have a female singer, Kim Hill, but she wasn't on the album covers or anything, so nobody really knew anything but them.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I could go to the bar and have drinks with everyone without not be bothered.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then some people would be like, Wait, weren't you just on stage?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you get free drinks.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was awesome.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of those nights, I had way too much to drink.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was with a friend of mine who used to count cards.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm probably gonna get in trouble for this.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: We love this.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love this story already.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, let's go off the strip, can't do it on the strip.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: We went to a small little casino, won't say which one.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he sat behind me and he would hit my my stool.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: One to hit, two to not hit.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: I want a lot of money.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I came back to my uh hotel I was staying at.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is after the show, he went to the show, and this is like probably three four or five in the morning, my pocket full of money, completely drunk.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And my friend says, I almost said his name, I'm glad I didn't.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: My friend says, Yeah, uh, go straight to the room, listen to me.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, look in my eyes, go straight to the room, and I'm like, okay, I'll go straight to the room.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm walking to the room, the tables are completely empty, uh, and I'm like, I have house money.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, what harm could I do?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: What harm could I do?
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I sit down, order my drink at the time I was drinking, I was known for drinking screwdrivers, so order a screwdriver, and this young lady sits next to me and says, Can I sit here?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Why are you asking my permission to sit here?
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody can sit at the table.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, if I say I'm with you, I can get a drink.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: All the bars are closed.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: True, because I actually tried to get a drink another drink when I was walking back.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: What I was saying in my head, why what ended up why I ended up sitting at a table, was I tried to get a drink to take to the room.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, all the bars are closed.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: The only way I can get a drink is if I sit down.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a mini bar in your room?
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_03: They don't make screwdrivers up at the mini bar like they do down on the floor.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, and we weren't staying in rooms that had actual mini bars that were open.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't afford that back then.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: Fair enough.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so this girl sits at the bar and sit at the table and says what she said.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I I'm not gonna do anything, but go ahead.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And she roofies me.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: Oh George.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I know this?
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because I filed a police report the next morning and they showed me the video.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_04: And she sprinks she put her.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Looking or they put I didn't see her putting it in my drink, but you see me literally pass out on the blackjack table, and she's apologizing to the dealer and the pit boss and says, I'll get him back to the room.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Puts me, puts my arm over her, goes like this with her hat.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_00: She knew what she was doing.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Takes me to the front desk, grabs my ID out of my pocket.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_02: What the fuck?
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Gets my key, takes me to the room.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I just I'm proud of.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: I kept my drink.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_00: The only reason I know that is because that's why I knew something was wrong.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up fully clothed with my hand on my drink on the dresser, and I went, that's not like me.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I never fall asleep like this.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: What did she take?
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: So she went shopping.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: She took, I had at that time I had two computers because there wasn't enough.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Memory and computers to have all your photos and do music at the same time.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I had a work computer and a computer just for photos.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: The computer for photos at the time was the MacBook Air, which was smaller, lighter, so she picked that one.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had a portable PlayStation that I used to plug into the buses and the hotel rooms when I would be bored.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: So she went shopping through all my games and took only the ones that she wanted.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: She went through all my pockets, took all my coins and money.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: That you had just won.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: That had just won.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And took a bunch of other things and then left.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Brutal.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I woke up to the door, you know, the security latch thing that was holding the door open.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I wouldn't have done that.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have done that either.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Something's up.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then I walk around and I'm like, oh no.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: I got robbed.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I called the police.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the police told me the same thing that the singer from UB40 said.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, consider yourself extremely lucky.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, you must have been really nice to her.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because she didn't cut you up.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: They usually have razor blades and they What the fuck?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: They cut people up and then they'll call their person that will come in and actually mine you for your organs.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll end up in a tub in ice.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the cops literally told me they took me outside.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is, and I'll tell you, it doesn't exist there anymore, so I can say it.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: This was when Mandalay Bay had the hotel.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: When they built the hotel, there was this area in between the hotel and Mandalay Bay that was completely dark.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And wasn't lit, and people would stand there and wait to watch people stumbling home that were drunk.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they would follow them and s and hope that they would stop like I did.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_03: George, from Man to Man, maybe not take so many risks anymore.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, I like you so far.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's the first time we've met.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of want you to stick around a little bit longer.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_03: I'd like your organs where now I can see it from a mile away.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: I hope so, man.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: I hope your friend listens to this podcast and goes, I fucking told him to go straight to the room.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: We still laugh about it to this day.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm mad that I actually didn't get out of the car and walk you to your room.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure he's got he's got that survivor's guilt type.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he says now.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm mad that I didn't walk you to your room because I fully believe that you were gonna stop.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_03: Next time you come across another mini George and you see a situation like that, you can do the right thing when walking.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I've done it.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've done it.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've it's actually one of my funnest things to do in this town now.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because most people, okay.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: It be the voice of reason?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: Hold on.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_03: Let's not get ahead of ourselves here.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I do become the voice of reasons, but it's the best people watching on the planet.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'll explain the situation because it's oh, it's so good.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I wish someone would just do a TV show about it or a movie, because it is priceless.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: So get all these people that come here with their nine to five job on a convention.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's just a plumbers convention.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: They'll come here and they've never been to Vegas, they're doing their work, and they're done with their work.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: They have a company card.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll see them all at the center bar in these casinos.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the center bars are littered with prostitutes.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Ladies of the night.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so you see this guy that has no idea and can tell the difference, that's been married his whole life to his high school sweetheart, and can tell the difference between a normal girl and a lady of the night.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that is the best people watching ever.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you'll see all their friends are there, they're ordering a drink, and the girl will start talking to him.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll be like, Of course, it's a beautiful woman.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be like, turn around and go, I still got it.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_04: I got it.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_03: Used to be quarterback of the high school football team.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_03: They went to state and he he hasn't had it since then.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: But no, the whole process goes on.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's buying her drinks.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he's and she's like, I really do.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have a hotel room here?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: I really want to go back to your room with and hold on.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm watching all this going like, oh, and then you wait for the moment where the moment is the best one.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's when she gives them the price.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then that excitement turns into fear of God.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the realization that you have to go home with when you were at that high of high school version of yourself, back down to reality, is just amazing.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I don't usually let it get to the point where, and that's where I I help.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'll wait for my moment and they'll go to the restroom and I'll follow them.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: And be like, hey, I'm just gonna give you some advice.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, when you go back, just say two words.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you're crazy, no way.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, just say how much.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you go back, don't say anything else, just say how much.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_00: If she answers with a price, I'm right.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just saved you from an embarrassing or possibly tragic situation.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because it could you could she could some people say no, and that's when they resort to the other option, which is okay, well, I'm gonna get you anyways.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: I'll get you somehow.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna drug you.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna wait till your friends to leave, and I'm because you they always leave.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: The friends around them are pissed that they didn't get hit up and they leave.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_03: So funny.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I watch this all the time.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that I my other uh PSA.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_04: The more you know.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, PSA is watching people that are in Vegas for the f first time.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_00: And okay, I'm a huge sports guy.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've religiously followed three three teams, and I can't do anything more than that because I wouldn't have a life.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: So those three teams, I can either watch it at home and have coronas, but I'd have to go buy a cor a whatever, 12-pack of corona, which will cost me whatever the going rate is nowadays, 20 bucks, whatever.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I sit there and watch the game in the quiet of my house.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or I can go to the casino to the center bar, I can put$100 into this machine, I drink for free, watch the same game, and I could potentially win and go home with money.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a win-win situation.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_03: That mindset, George, I don't know how you do it, man.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I I guess I do know how you do it, but you you got stories with that with that mindset.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_03: You say maybe.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe you say yes a few too many times, maybe.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: I truly love living here, and I truly love that that is a reality.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so my PSA for those situations is watching someone pay$36 for sure.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a simple Jack and Coke.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be like, can I give you some advice?
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you I know how to gamble.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling you how to gamble.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna give you some advice on how to save some money.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, no one says no to that.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, if you have a hundred dollars, I'm not I'm not interested.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not selling anything.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not selling you anything.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, if you put$100 in the machine and put your denomination at a dollar and just press the button a couple times.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: Just milk it.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: The line, there's a light.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your light.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's a light in the back of your machine that's red, and they usually put a cup behind it where they put the receipt of what they're comping you.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_03: At the bar, yeah.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see that it's a red light.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as that thing turns to green, anything you want is free.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, what?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, I spent$345 here last night.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, try it.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_03: You're a modern-day superhero.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_03: You're a Vegas superhero.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're the hero that Vegas needs.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I start calling the segment PSA with GPJ.
• 52:52
  unknown: GPJ.
• 52:53
  unknown: I like that.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a girl, a lady, an older lady, start crying.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, she's she she's the one that told me he's like, I literally spent uh$345 last night that I didn't have.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I this is my first time in Vegas.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to have cocktails.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it was way much more money than I could afford it, but you know, I threw caution to the wind.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you just told me I could have saved all that money by putting$100 in this machine.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's so crazy.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: Look at you.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_03: Just saving people's bank accounts and lives left and right.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_03: And that's at the big casinos.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you go to the off-strip casinos, we don't even have to put$100 in.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know,$20,$25 denomination, it's free.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the only time that I go to the to the bigger casinos on the strip is if I'm visiting a friend that's staying there, or I'm going to a concert that a friend is playing at.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Or my other, you know, I don't have a lot of uh vices, but one of them is I'm a hardcore cigar smoker.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_03: Not a boy.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm Cuban.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: So it's literally, I've I've watched I watched my grandfather smoking a cigar when I was a child.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so and I was fascinated by it then.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the one that taught me how to smoke correctly.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've when I was able to afford it, I would start it smoking and buying cigars.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm lucky enough that I'm endorsed by Drew Estate.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I get cigars sent to me.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: And people ask me all the time, what's your favorite endorsement?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, by far, my cigar endorsement.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, What?
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have a cigar endorsement?
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Yeah.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_00: What do you have to do for that?
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, stand in front of 120,000 people with a cigar with their with their brand on it.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Send them a picture of it.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_03: Well, let me ask you a question because this is totally off topic now.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're smoking a cigar, do you let the ash kind of just sit on the cigar or do you tap it to knock it off?
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, tapping is is showing that you don't know how to smoke a cigar.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to know.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to smoke a cigar.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: I apparently didn't know how to smoke a cigar either, so I'm glad we did it.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason they they leave the ash on it is the flavor is when it's burning.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the flavor comes from the burn.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why purists will not use torches because you overburn.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: They use wood matches.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're also getting the flavor of the the actual quality match is part of the whole thing as well.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't do any of that, but I it's a fun thing for me.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it believe it or not, as crazy as this sounds, when I'm sitting there and I'm having a conversation and my ash falls all over my clothes, people that smoke all the time come up to me and they'll be like, nicely done, sir.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're like, You know how to smoke.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nicely done, sir.
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is almost like a badge of honor that you ash all over your clothes, but it's the worst because especially when you wear black.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm assuming you wear black a lot.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wear black a lot.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you come to my house, the most common common thing is you see clothes hanging outside everywhere.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's because they stink.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can't bring them in the house.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the whole house smells like it.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so you hang it outside.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I've done multiple concerts, multiple nights, so it's a thing now.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: When I play a show, when I started playing shows, people started realizing that after the show, whatever casino I'm playing at, I'll go smoke in whatever the cigars-friendly bar is.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so people started showing up to my shows and showing me their cigars, their their cigars.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it became like I would play at the barbershop, and there'd be 30 people at the Vespa bar at the Cosmo waiting to smoke with me.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm just sitting there doing what I'm doing right now, telling stories, making people laugh.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm literally just telling my life stories.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is things that actually happened to me.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_00: As horrific as that did sound, I'm I can laugh about it because first of all, it was nice enough that I didn't get cut.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're all very thankful that you're still here.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: Second of all, I survived it and learned from it, and I'm stopping it from happening to other people.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: And can recognize it when it's happening to me.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_03: It just makes your autobiography much more exciting when you get older and you eventually write it.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been offered that quite a few times, and I can't do it.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: You can't do it yet, or you just can't do it, period.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm well, I don't think I'll ever retire.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_03: Just keep on going.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be that guy that dies on the stage.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_03: And that that's probably why you have more energy now than you did when you're younger, because you you keep on going.
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because if if you stopped, you'd still slow down.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the typical thing.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you get injured, uh a foot injury or anything, and you stay in bed for that whole recovery, it's gonna be harder to move after that.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you stay active, it's not gonna be hard to recover.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it that's I think what is what's happening to me.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: You can write the autobiography and on the last page put to be continuous.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_00: To be continued.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not about that.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: It truly isn't about that.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's that I know the secrets.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: And in order for me to do it correctly, uh, I'd have to like sacrifice my relationship or relationships.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_03: Is this something that maybe after in fifty years from now, when you eventually pass on, then maybe you'll release the book sometime?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've thought about doing it, you know.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: A perfect example now, since he wrote about it, it's all over the world.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when Taboo wrote his book, um he was still drinking.
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's been sober for many, many years now.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: But he couldn't remember some of the facts.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, there the ghostwriter is on the tour bus with us, right?
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd be like, that's not how that happened.
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, George, just tell them what you what you remember about it.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so the ghostwriters then started calling me to check the facts.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he he was the first person who's like, you know, your your story, the things I can't publish, my God, that would be a really great book.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah, but I can't do that.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my relationship with they would not, I first of all, they'd fire me.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Second of all, they'd be upset.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: Certain things you don't want, and I'll give you a perfect example.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was upset when Heath spoke about this because my mother didn't know.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she called me, and when she read the story, called me crying.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, not cool, Tab.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: Which, which, which story was this?
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Tampa Bay had just won the Super Bowl.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_03: With Brady?
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_03: Or no, before early 2000s.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I am a sports nerd.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like it, I like it.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I knew I liked you for many reasons.
• 1:00:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a sports nerd.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're playing Tampa Bay.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're opening for Justin and Christina.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we would play at 6 30, we'd be done.
• 1:00:30
  SPEAKER_00: We would only do 30 minutes, we'd be done by 7 p.m.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_00: And normally we would have uh our own show at night, so we would leave right after and go, and we'd be playing our own show at 10.30 at some club somewhere.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: This night we had off.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we got invited to go to the box where the players and the cheerleaders of the Bucks were celebrating their Super Bowl.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so we went up there and Taboo was pretty drunk.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so Will comes up to me and says, Hey, I need you to go with me.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna convince Tab to leave this.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bad look.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can't, there's cameras in here, they keep taking pictures.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: We can't stay here with him being this drunk.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna tell him we're going to the bus and having a drinking contest.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna put up money.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how we're gonna convince him.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: So just go with me on this.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I understand.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right, let's do it.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: So he goes up the tab and he's like, hey, we gotta go.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, we're gonna have a drinking contest on the bus between you and George.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, beat his ass.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's go.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_00: So does the trick, we get down there, but then he really wants to have a drinking contest.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_03: He still remembers the fact that you want to drink it.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: So when we get to the bus, at the time the band was four people.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we had a utility guy, Tim Ezo, he would play acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards, trigger samples, all kinds of stuff.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_00: Flute, sacks.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_00: He played multiple things on stage.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was a big Jack Daniels drinker.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: And someone gave him a bottle of green label.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_00: At that time, this is 98, 99.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: No, actually, I'm wrong.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: 2003, because Fergie was already in the bin.
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: 2003.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: Still, Green Label was not easily found anywhere.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so someone gave it to him.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was very excited.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he was saving this bottle.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: This was towards the end of the tour.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: This bottle had sat there and had a sign off limits.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_00: This I'm taking home and I'm saving it.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do not touch.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: No one would dare do that.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, drunk tab did.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: He grabbed that bottle, opened it up, and went like this.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: He literally took this little tiny thing and gave it to me, and I went, Really?
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's it?
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you're gonna do?
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: My dumbass took the whole bottle to the head.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_00: I finished the whole fifth.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: George, you were playing with fire with so many times in your life.
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing, dude?
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: I literally went like this.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: I bet passed out.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm about to pass out.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to the story.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol poisoning.
• 1:03:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sure.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_00: And they called the paramedics the whole nine yards.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: But luckily, we had on the tour, our stage manager uh had EMT training.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he recognized the signs and started to beat the shit out of me.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's what works.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, because you hit someone until they wake up and their body literally gets rid of the alcohol.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it something to do with like the adrenaline of like getting hit or something?
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you go into basically an alcohol coma.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he recognized that I was starting to go into fetal position.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's basically brain damage.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's like, oh no, oh no, oh no.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_00: So he picks me up and starts punching me.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like straight punching me in the face.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I come to, and of course, just like food poisoning, let it all out.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: You start puking, you start everything.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what saved my life.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, to him's name I will say, Bobby Grant saved my life many times.
• 1:04:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the first time.
• 1:04:40
  SPEAKER_03: Shout out Bobby.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_03: Shout out Bobby.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully, hopefully he doesn't have to save your life too many more times.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, he's if you don't dance on that line too much.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what what changed it.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: I never I never got drunk like that ever again when I stopped mix doing mixed drinks.
• 1:04:59
  SPEAKER_00: At some point I started just drinking Corona, and I've never gotten drunk like that every day.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_03: No more screwdrivers for you?
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_03: That's good.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe mixed drinks are the problem.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I know what it is because I've talked to doctors about it.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's different sugar content.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're changing, like, I'll have a screwdriver.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to a table where they invite us for an after party, they don't have orange juice, they only have cranberry and Red Bull.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: Then you switch to vodka cranberry or vodka.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're switching sugar content and probably a different kind of uh vodka.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you're different, you're switching alcohol content.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so the mixing of that is what get gets most people over the top drunk.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wild.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's the mixing of the different levels of alcohol content and sugar content.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: That your body doesn't know which one to process.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I've gotten this from doctors that have straight told me that I saved My life with drinking Corona.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we that's a whole nother story, but it'll take too long.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_03: But you could be a sponsor, you could be a sponsor for Coronas, it sounds like save your life.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_03: Drink Corona.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone tells me that.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I get that so often.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because literally on stage, I have a cooler with my Coronas.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: You drink while performing even today.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: And not drink drink.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like on stage, I'll have maybe one or two before I go on stage, and maybe one at the most two while I'm on stage.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think you could perform without drinking at all?
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's very, it's not it's not the the alcohol just takes the that anxious, yeah, nervous.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not I don't get nervous, but you know, you're my last show was we played rock and reel.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was 120,000 people.
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's a lot to have to like rise to the occasion and sure.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, you look out and it's just a sea of people.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what makes me just relax and settle is just have one or two coronas and I'm I'm good.
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't overdo it.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: I after the show, that's a different story.
• 1:07:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: But before the show, I'm very responsible.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have one or two, well, one or maybe two on the stage, depending on how much I'm actually sweating.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's another thing that comes into it.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: And believe it or not, I had uh a heat stroke once or twice on stage because you know we we play some really because the peas are just you know, there's only a handful of bands that are worldwide that actually can sell out a stadium in Kazakhstan.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but we've been lucky and blessed to play some pretty amazing places.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like we on the last tour this summer, we played uh uh arena that was there during Roman times that was used for those gladiator festivals.
• 1:08:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's no airflow in these places, and it's very easy to get heat stroke because the adrenaline and everything, I'm jumping around with these guys when I'm we're playing pump and I walk out with them, and then we're jumping around, running down the stage, and you don't realize it while you're doing it, but then when you get back on your riser and you're like, oh wow, I don't feel good.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I had the heat stroke a couple years ago, uh uh years ago on tour in the summer, the doctor the next day, I went to an emergency room that night, yeah, because I broke out in hives all over my body.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so they they did an IV for that, it cured that, but you have to address the heat stroke.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so the doctor told me to drink non-alcoholic beer.
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, wait.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, Do you drink beer all the time?
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, yeah.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, what kind of beer do you drink?
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_00: Corona.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, oh, that's water.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can just drink that.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's perfect.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, and trust me, it's not enough alcohol to dehydrate you.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I have I I because this guy comes to the hotel room.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he's the kind of physician that will go to like a sports team hotel.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_00: He'll come to you, yeah.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: He'll come to you, and he's like, All my soccer players, they no longer are endorsed by Gatorade.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're endorsed by non-alcoholic beer because it is the best form of hydration.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's better than drinking water, and it's better than drinking Gatorade.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is coming from multiple doctors.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_03: Listen, I'm gonna take this advice from George from the Black Eyed P's that I'm not gonna drink Gatorade anymore when I go work out.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting rid of the water jug and we'll put any beer only in the office.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_03: Only Heineken Zero.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we're doing.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's why would you do Heineken Zero?
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's the only non-alcoholic beer that I know of.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Corona Zero.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Corona Zero.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Corona Zero is good.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Athletic brewing's pretty good.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_03: Well, so Julie's gonna get mad at me if we don't talk about life after the black eyed peas because Julie I'm not gonna get mad.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I just I want to talk about what uh the other things George is up to.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Julie, why don't you tell me?
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_03: What is George up to?
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we'll get there.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I do have one.
• 1:10:23
  SPEAKER_03: Are you going back to the black eyed piece again?
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_01: No, not back to the black-eyed piece, but there is like a transition question that I really do want to ask.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you have seemingly created music and played music in literally every genre, including jazz funk, by the way.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I did look up fried plantains.
• 1:10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I wanted to know about it.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't access any of the songs, and I was upset about it.
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_03: How can we listen to Fried Plantains?
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we want to know.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_00: The label that put it out went under.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't even know.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I have to re um reissue it, I guess.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Please do.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: I want to know about Jazz Funk George.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you what that was for me.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when we wrote Where's the Love?
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I told I said earlier that you asked me, did I know?
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I knew that the P's were gonna be huge, was when Ron Fair put the strings.
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He had a full on string section.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when I heard the recording of those strings on Where's the Love, I was like, oh, this is this is special.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna change, change things.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was right.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I actually called my attorney and I was like, hey, um, can you can you start looking into publishing deals?
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because she's like, for what?
• 1:11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You ain't sold anything.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, we're gonna be number one.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have no-brainer, hit single.
• 1:11:51
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, George, you're crazy.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have it on good authority that that band's gonna be dropped.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if I were you, I would save your money.
• 1:12:00
  unknown: Wow.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was right, yeah.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and she was right too, because at the beginning of that Justin tour, my the man uh our man uh tour manager Polo Molina came up to me because we were living together at the time.
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_00: He had moved into my house and he told me, Hey, we got another tour, three months, but uh Jimmy having straight told Will that if we don't go to number one by the end of this tour, he's dropping the bet.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so save your money, save all your per diem, be really frugal because it's probably the last tour.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we all went into that tour 100%, assuming it's impossible.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's an impossible ask.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, well, it happened.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the love went to number one.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_03: Especially when you've never been to number one before, and now this is your last shot to get there.
• 1:12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Never.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so to get back to I'll get back to your question.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_00: The the coolest thing was when we were starting that whole tour, we were playing at 6 30.
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_00: The only people we were playing for were the security guards and the people in wheelchairs.
• 1:13:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because they had to get there beforehand to get things ready, and they had to wheel them in before the the crowd.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_00: When it went to number one at 6 30, sold out stadium.
• 1:13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was unbelievable.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the stories you hear on TV in the movies, it was just like that.
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_00: What does that feel like?
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was life-changing, literally life-changing.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like we left that tour thinking we were gonna be only gone for three months, save all your money, till we never came back three years later.
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_00: We stayed on that tour for three stayed touring for three years.
• 1:13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before we even stopped the momentum to record the next record.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: But to answer your story.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: When we had written Where's the Love, Will would call me every day.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I would go every day to the studio, and every day he'd have a different version of Where's the Love.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_00: He redid that he was so superstitious of that song that he redid it about 15 times in different ways.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Drastically different?
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Drastically.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: One of them had a sample of um fast car.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one of them had a baby sample crying, so it was like bloom, uh, boom, bloom, bloom, bloom, uh, where is the love?
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I got so frustrated at re-writing this song so many times that I stopped coming and wrote that record for I plantains.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was um a Zen artistic soul experience for me.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, I'm just gonna remove myself from the black IPs and go and write art.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I wrote that record in three days.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And called a bunch of my friends, and had them come to my studio, and then those guys, he's like, whoa, this is really good.
• 1:15:20
  SPEAKER_00: You should get Fred Wesley on here.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what?
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can call him.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Call Fred Wesley.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: Fred Wesley's on that record.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_00: You should get Steve from the Headhunters.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 1:15:31
  SPEAKER_00: He would come and play.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know him.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's my friend.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Steve from the Headhunters playing drums on that.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: It so it ended up being an all-star band with people that I had written with up to that point.
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wrote it in three days, got it mixed, and found a company that would take it on and package it for me.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the next time I saw Will, he's like, Where have you been?
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I thought you died.
• 1:16:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, dude, I was we were on version number 20 of Where's the Love?
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I was frustrated.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, So what did you do?
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I threw him the record.
• 1:16:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You wrote a whole album out of frustration?
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Yeah.
• 1:16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, he called everyone.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone that hung around the studio because there were multiple rooms in that studio, in his first studio, and he's like, You guys are all lazy.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look what this guy did out of frustration.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_00: He left for a couple weeks and wrote a whole record and finished it.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I have it in my palm of my hand.
• 1:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are you guys doing?
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, damn it.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that was his thing that he would say to everyone.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what have you guys done?
• 1:16:48
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote a record in three days.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's hilarious.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_03: Is your relationship with Will like a brotherhood?
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, absolutely.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh at dinner last night I had dinner with a with a manager that I'm interested in working with for my original project.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I'm just really impressed by what he's doing in the rock world with one of my well, another band here from town, uh, Nocturnal Affair.
• 1:17:16
  SPEAKER_00: They're killing it with that band.
• 1:17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I met with him just to pick his brain.
• 1:17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he asked me that that question last night.
• 1:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, in my lifetime, it's only happened twice.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been doing music since I've been since I was 13 years old.
• 1:17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Started writing probably around 17.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I've only experienced twice a connection like this with someone, and that's what I have with Will.
• 1:17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Will and I in a studio is magic.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Unstoppable.
• 1:17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's just magic.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like we just write so effortlessly, and so it just comes from a different place.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It really does come from a glorious in place of pure inspiration and pure art.
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I experienced that a second time with Nick from Cairo NiFi.
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same thing.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, at this point in my life, I have no interest in doing anything else.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And when people want to work with me, the first thing I say is like, well, I don't do that anymore.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not just writing just to write anymore.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can try it.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: If there's no magic there, then I'm definitely not interested.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're out.
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm out.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not it, I'm I'm the wrong guy.
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I only want that experience.
• 1:18:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not there, I do not force it.
• 1:18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's unfortunately what 95% of people do.
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have the I guess it's maybe stupidity, but I I think it's guts.
• 1:18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's fearless that I settle for nothing but that.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I write now is from a place of fearlessness, zero expectations, and purely for art's sake.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I follow no formula.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'd have no interest in writing a big pop hook.
• 1:19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have no interest in following what's the trend on TikTok or something.
• 1:19:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you go into writing with the Black Eyed Ps is a completely different experience.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Writing when I was writing for EMI when I wrote with Ricky Martin or with Santana or with you know Kavas or December, all these people that I was lucky enough to write with.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_00: The instructions going into that session was we need no BPM lower than a hundred, 110.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_00: We want big pop hooks, we need memorable, uh universal stories.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_00: So in other words, this the lyrics have to be like, let's get it started.
• 1:20:03
  SPEAKER_00: That you know, that is something that's universal.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that song itself, I said last night at dinner too.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as being me being a massive sports nerd since I was a kid, I've been a sports nerd.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And sports to me is how I quiet my musical brain.
• 1:20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't have the ability.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Will's a person that never he's deathly afraid of quieting his musical brain, his creative side.
• 1:20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's constantly going, constantly going.
• 1:20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do that.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so how I quiet it is I shut that part of my brain off.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a fun person to be around when I'm in writing mode.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_00: It it totally consumes me.
• 1:20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I do not sleep, I dream of parts, and I get up to write them down.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 1:20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've dreamt whole songs from beginning to end.
• 1:21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so that person is not fun to be around.
• 1:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I choose to turn that side of myself off.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I choose to write, then I activate that side of me, and then it's all consuming.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_00: But sports has been how I actively shut that off.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I no longer listen to music, I just follow my sports religiously, and that's what takes all my time.
• 1:21:29
  SPEAKER_03: Being you're a big sports guy, was it to use especially?
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Was it huge when the NBA used Let's Get It Started?
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what I was that's where I was going with it.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, is that Let's Get It Started made all my sports dreams come true.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Literally that song.
• 1:21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So and we the original if you if you don't know, the original version of that song is called Let's Get Retarded.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 1:21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't realize what that means.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone goes to the obvious, you know, or you're talking you can't say the word retarded.
• 1:22:02
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's not what it means.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, in the first verse, Will sings, in this context, there's no disrespect.
• 1:22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Slow your inhibitions, let's get retarded.
• 1:22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Retarded is a musical term, to retard to slow down.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're writing music and you want to slow down this piece, you put retard.
• 1:22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the context.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he says it in the first verse, but no one pays attention to that.
• 1:22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so when the NBA approached us, we had already been doing Let's Get It Started, because you can't, out of respect, when you're playing at 6 30, you can't sing Let's Get Retarded when there's a whole front row is filled with handicapped people.
• 1:22:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's just not fair.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they they don't understand that.
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're we mean in the song.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something you can explain.
• 1:22:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're just gonna take offense.
• 1:22:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Will would come on stage like, hey, we can't sing retarded tonight, let's do started.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So we we're saying, let's get it started.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_00: The NBA didn't know that.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Will had called me and said, Hey, I have a great idea.
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_00: On the same record, we both wrote a song called Hands Up.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 1:23:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he we did a version of Hands Up that he pitched it with cliffs from the NBA season to pitch to the the NBA.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, that's a great idea.
• 1:23:30
  SPEAKER_00: We love it.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_00: But we're actually we're gonna call you, see if you'd be interested in changing Let's Get Retarded to Let's Get It Started.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Yeah, we do that already.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: No problem.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_00: So we went back in, re-recorded that version.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_00: That one, the that version was one of the songs that won a Grammy.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I can't tell you how special that made my life from that point forward.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, my team, I'm from LA, so my grew up in LA.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_00: My team is the Lakers, and so Kobe was in the finals that year.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the playoffs that year, and I'm on Times Square, massive Kobe poster, and above his head, let's get it started.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well.
• 1:24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just like in heavy.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that song, I've played multiple World Cups, multiple, seven Super Bowls.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um most people don't know that you there's a ton of bands that play at the stadium, not just the halftime.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, yeah.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of bands that play free.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we've done it seven times.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Once the halftime, but seven times we've done it.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I've done it personally seven times.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think six with the peas and once with Fergie.
• 1:24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.