Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / John Lennon's Final Interview: A Rock Journalist's Journey [Episode 259]

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John Lennon's Final Interview: A Rock Journalist's Journey [Episode 259] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll.
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Speaker 2: I mean, I'll leave you.
0:05
Speaker 3: You're reading.
0:05
Speaker 2: Little hands says it's time to rock.
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Speaker 1: And roll roll. I totally booked. Hey guys, welcome back
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Speaker 1: to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those who was
0:19
Speaker 1: about to read and rock. As always, you can find
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Speaker 1: us online a Booked on Rock dot com. Hear us
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0:37
Speaker 1: hear and see, make sure you give the podcast a
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Speaker 1: five star review and spread the word about Booked on Rock.
0:43
Speaker 1: Author Lori Kay. She is this episode's guest. Been looking
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Speaker 1: forward to this one. She's here to talk about her book,
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Speaker 1: Confessions of a Rock and Roll Name Dropper, My life
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Speaker 1: leading up to John Lennon's last interview. Kay is a
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Speaker 1: writer and producer, and this book is her long awaited memoir.
0:58
Speaker 1: In it, we read about Kay's music related early life
1:01
Speaker 1: wrapped around that day in December nineteen eighty, which Kay
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Speaker 1: spent with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the legendary
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Speaker 1: Dakota apartment building on Manhattan's Upper West Side. On December
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Speaker 1: eighth of nineteen eighty, while working for RKO Radio, Kay,
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Speaker 1: a then twenty soethter rock journalist, co conducted in interview
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Speaker 1: with her longtime idol, John Lennon. It was to become
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Speaker 1: Lennon's final interview on what tragically turned out to be
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Speaker 1: his last day. That evening, John Lennon was gone down
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Speaker 1: by a man Kay had encountered just hours before. This
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Speaker 1: is Lori Kay's story. Laurie, so great to have you on.
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Speaker 4: Thank you so great to be here. And I should
1:41
Speaker 4: say that Confessions of a rock and roll name dropper.
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Speaker 4: My life leading up to John Lennon's last interview is
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Speaker 4: the story of my rock radio related early life and
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Speaker 4: career wrapped around what tragically turned out to be John
1:55
Speaker 4: Lennon's last day on the planet. December eighth, nineteen eighty
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Speaker 4: also the day of his last interview, which I co
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Speaker 4: conducted with my RKO Radio team, and I was unbelievably
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Speaker 4: able to spend a major part of that day with
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Speaker 4: him and Yoko at the Dakota and I felt like
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Speaker 4: I'd begun to make lifetime friends, which sadly, of course,
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Speaker 4: that couldn't happen because John was shot and killed mere
2:21
Speaker 4: hours after our get together.
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Speaker 2: SI.
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Speaker 1: It's an amazing story, a tragic story, and one that's
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Speaker 1: all in this book. Tickets back to your early years.
2:31
Speaker 1: Tell us where you're from and how radio played a
2:33
Speaker 1: huge role in your life growing up. Your stepfather Also,
2:37
Speaker 1: he didn't make things easy for you, did he?
2:39
Speaker 2: No, he didn't. I'm a SoCal gal.
2:41
Speaker 4: I was raised in La I live here again now,
2:44
Speaker 4: And like every other chapter in my book, Raised on
2:49
Speaker 4: Radio came from one of my very favorite pop rock
2:53
Speaker 4: or musical songs.
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Speaker 2: I have eighteen chapters of my book.
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Speaker 4: They're all named after incredible songs that I love. My
3:01
Speaker 4: chapter Raised on Radio is exactly how my life was
3:04
Speaker 4: because I had a dysfunctional family my mother, grandparents, and
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Speaker 4: eventually a stepfather, and they just made my life so
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Speaker 4: miserable that right off the bat, I requested a transistor
3:18
Speaker 4: radio in earplugs, and almost every moment of the day
3:22
Speaker 4: and night when I was with them, I had it
3:26
Speaker 4: plugged in and I listened to the radio to the
3:29
Speaker 4: top stations AM stations in La, KRLA and KHJ. And
3:34
Speaker 4: that was really exciting because I right off the bat
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Speaker 4: I got to hear everybody from Little Richard did Chuck
3:41
Speaker 4: Berry and then eventually the Beach Boys and then eventually
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Speaker 4: the Beatles. So radio definitely played a huge part of
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Speaker 4: my life from when I was a toddler all the
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Speaker 4: way up.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously the Beatles, like you say, huge part
3:55
Speaker 1: of your life. You even talk about how you knew
3:58
Speaker 1: the German language versions or you had the German language
4:00
Speaker 1: versions if I want to hold your hand and she
4:02
Speaker 1: Loves You, and they were the reason that you made
4:05
Speaker 1: German your foreign language of choice in junior, high, high school,
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Speaker 1: and college. I love that. When did you first hear
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Speaker 1: the Beatles? What was your reaction when you first heard them?
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Speaker 4: Well, I first heard the Beatles in sixty three and
4:17
Speaker 4: sixty four and listen to songs LEEZ Please Me and
4:22
Speaker 4: I Want to hold Your Hand, and I just immediately
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Speaker 4: fell in love with them. And then I got to
4:27
Speaker 4: see them on Ed Sullivan IWO, that was really exciting.
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Speaker 4: Then I got to hear a couple German versions of
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Speaker 4: their songs Come give merdynah Hand which is I want
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Speaker 4: to hold your hand, and zeeleieb Dick which is she
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Speaker 4: loves you, and they impressed me so much that I
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Speaker 4: wanted to sing along and learn German to sing them,
4:48
Speaker 4: and I did as a kid, and then when I
4:51
Speaker 4: was in junior high and got to take a language class,
4:54
Speaker 4: I immediately enrolled in German and kept that going through
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Speaker 4: high school and through college too. It was really cool
5:01
Speaker 4: and still is.
5:02
Speaker 1: Take us back to January of nineteen seventy three. That's
5:05
Speaker 1: when the LAFM radio station kmet DJ B Mitchell Reid,
5:09
Speaker 1: and the prize he had handed you, a pair of
5:11
Speaker 1: tickets to the Rolling Stone, sent you down your career
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Speaker 1: path and eventually to that interview with John and Yoko.
5:18
Speaker 4: It was really incredible winning tickets to the Rolling Stones
5:22
Speaker 4: Nicaragua Benefit at the fab Forum here in LA because
5:26
Speaker 4: I'd never seen the Rolling Stones live, so I was
5:30
Speaker 4: super excited. And it was going to be a really
5:33
Speaker 4: expensive show because they were earning money to pay for
5:38
Speaker 4: people who'd been hurt and killed in the earthquakes that
5:42
Speaker 4: it hit Nicaragua. And since Mick Jagger's wife was Nicaragua,
5:46
Speaker 4: that made sense for him to play. And the guy
5:49
Speaker 4: who put the show together, Bill Graham, was an amazing
5:53
Speaker 4: concert promoter, and I won front row seats and When
5:58
Speaker 4: I went to go pick them up at the KMET office,
6:02
Speaker 4: I thought I would just get the tickets and run
6:04
Speaker 4: out to the car where the guy who was going
6:07
Speaker 4: to be my date that night was. The amazing thing
6:10
Speaker 4: was they said, no, B. Mitchell Reid, otherwise known as
6:14
Speaker 4: the Beamer, wants you to come into his.
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Speaker 2: DJ booth and talk to him.
6:18
Speaker 4: And I said, wow, great, and I went in and
6:21
Speaker 4: he asked me my name and my age and some
6:24
Speaker 4: other questions, and I answered him and he said, wow, Laurie,
6:28
Speaker 4: with a voice and an attitude like yours, you should
6:32
Speaker 4: consider an on air radio career. And I got so excited,
6:36
Speaker 4: and I thought to myself, yes I will, and I
6:40
Speaker 4: immediately did, and it did work out that way. I
6:44
Speaker 4: went to college and then eventually left that college, which
6:49
Speaker 4: was UC Santa Cruz, and ended up at UC Berkeley
6:53
Speaker 4: taking journalism classes, going to journalism school, and one of
6:57
Speaker 4: the professors there said to me, to reading a news
7:01
Speaker 4: story that I'd written, Laurie, why are.
7:03
Speaker 2: You in this class. You already know how to write news.
7:06
Speaker 4: You should go out and get an internship and then
7:10
Speaker 4: you'll no doubt get a job right away, and.
7:13
Speaker 2: You can quit school and go right to work.
7:15
Speaker 4: And I thought wow, And I found out that KFRCAM,
7:20
Speaker 4: which was the top AM radio station in the country
7:23
Speaker 4: at the time and was in San Francisco, was looking
7:26
Speaker 4: for its very first intern which was for their news department,
7:32
Speaker 4: and I immediately applied and was immediately hired and went
7:36
Speaker 4: in and right away they were so proud of me
7:40
Speaker 4: and the way I wrote and could report, and I
7:43
Speaker 4: had already started writing specials for them, and they were
7:47
Speaker 4: thrilled enough to offer me a job pretty soon after
7:51
Speaker 4: my internship ended, and I took it. I was the
7:54
Speaker 4: news editor at KFRC right away. And not only did
7:59
Speaker 4: I get that job right away, but they also hired
8:02
Speaker 4: me to write what turned out to be the longest
8:06
Speaker 4: Beatles special ever written for radio in the United States,
8:10
Speaker 4: which was RKO Presents the Beatles, and it was fourteen
8:15
Speaker 4: hours long. I wrote it and co produced it, and
8:18
Speaker 4: then after it was super popular here in the United States,
8:23
Speaker 4: it got syndicated to play all over the world, and
8:27
Speaker 4: we elongated it to seventeen hours, and we got to
8:31
Speaker 4: change the name to the original title i'd come up with.
8:34
Speaker 4: I love coming up with titles. This one was The
8:36
Speaker 4: Beatles from Liverpool. To legend and that was super successful too,
8:41
Speaker 4: so it worked out really well.
8:43
Speaker 1: So that answers part of the question too, is what
8:46
Speaker 1: led to that interview with John and Yoko. By this time,
8:49
Speaker 1: you've got the experience, you've got the resume, you've got
8:53
Speaker 1: the credentials, so it's obvious that you were the one
8:55
Speaker 1: for the job. It's interesting reading about your childhood and
8:58
Speaker 1: your years in high school and college. It's all wrapped
9:01
Speaker 1: around that day in nineteen eighty when you interview John
9:03
Speaker 1: and Yoko. Talk about that because that was important that
9:06
Speaker 1: there were aspects of your life that you could relate to,
9:09
Speaker 1: and he with you some interesting coincidences with your life
9:13
Speaker 1: and his, So talk about the importance of that and
9:16
Speaker 1: making sure that the book kind of wraps around your
9:18
Speaker 1: history and leading up to that interview.
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Speaker 4: Well, we had some similarities, especially related to our family,
9:25
Speaker 4: because neither of one of us had a father in
9:28
Speaker 4: our lives, hardly at all our real father, and neither
9:32
Speaker 4: one of us was very much taken care of by
9:36
Speaker 4: our mother either. So that was something that made me think, Wow,
9:41
Speaker 4: I'm like John in a lot of ways. And another
9:44
Speaker 4: thing that made me feel close to John was the
9:47
Speaker 4: fact that we mentioned that we.
9:49
Speaker 2: Both loved Bali.
9:51
Speaker 4: He loved going there for vacation and thought it was
9:54
Speaker 4: really cool and told all his friends how incredible it was.
9:58
Speaker 4: And I had gone there during college to live there
10:01
Speaker 4: to study Balinese dance and I loved it there too,
10:05
Speaker 4: so that was another great thing we had in common.
10:08
Speaker 1: We booked on Rock Podcasts We'll be back after this
10:11
Speaker 1: and Creton, we'll go up on back two after our
10:13
Speaker 1: short interimission. Wild stories in the book. One of them
10:19
Speaker 1: involves the Grateful Dead How you became a fan of
10:22
Speaker 1: American Beauty? And the second one is the story of
10:25
Speaker 1: Jerry Garcia trying to talk to I think it was
10:27
Speaker 1: at a concert and you had no idea who you was.
10:30
Speaker 1: But let's start with that first story, how did you
10:31
Speaker 1: become a fan of American Beauty?
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Speaker 4: Well, when I was living on Bali, I couldn't get
10:37
Speaker 4: any music and it was really disappointing because the stories
10:41
Speaker 4: didn't have any CDs. And then I saw on the
10:44
Speaker 4: floor of the room I was staying in a CD
10:47
Speaker 4: but it was Grateful Dead, and I thought, oh, I
10:51
Speaker 4: don't really want to listen to this.
10:52
Speaker 2: I'm I'm a fan of the Grateful Dead.
10:54
Speaker 4: At all, but it was American beauty and I thought, well,
10:58
Speaker 4: I might as well because I don't have anything else
10:59
Speaker 4: to listen to it.
11:01
Speaker 2: And I listened to it and I was amazed. It
11:03
Speaker 2: was really cool. So that was exciting.
11:06
Speaker 4: And then a couple of years later when I was
11:10
Speaker 4: at KFRC and Bill Graham, who had put together the
11:15
Speaker 4: Rolling Stones Nicaragua benefit concert, was a friend of so
11:19
Speaker 4: many people at the radio station, and he would come
11:21
Speaker 4: by and offer us all tickets, especially to bands that
11:26
Speaker 4: were playing in the venues that he had there, and
11:29
Speaker 4: especially bands like Grateful Dead, and I unfortunately had to
11:34
Speaker 4: say to him, no thanks, Bill, I'm not interested, and
11:39
Speaker 4: he wasn't really happy about that at all, but he
11:42
Speaker 4: did offer me plenty of tickets to other bands, so
11:45
Speaker 4: I got to see everyone there, you know, from the
11:48
Speaker 4: Kinks to Tom Petty.
11:49
Speaker 2: Do you name it.
11:50
Speaker 4: And what I was really excited about, because I was
11:53
Speaker 4: super into punk, was when Iggy Pop was going to
11:57
Speaker 4: play at the Bill Graham venue, the Old Waldorf nineteen
12:00
Speaker 4: seventy seven. So I went to see Iggy Pop with
12:03
Speaker 4: a date and it was such a great show and
12:06
Speaker 4: I was so thrilled to be seeing and performed and
12:09
Speaker 4: this weird, old, creepy looking guy kept coming up to
12:14
Speaker 4: me and trying to flirt with me and trying to
12:16
Speaker 4: talk to me and bug me, and finally I just
12:20
Speaker 4: told him to get lost, and I started insulting him,
12:24
Speaker 4: and my date looked at me and said, what are
12:25
Speaker 4: you doing? And I said, I'm getting rid of this
12:28
Speaker 4: creepy guy. He's bugging me, he's ruining my show. I'm
12:32
Speaker 4: loving iggy pop. And my date said, don't you know
12:36
Speaker 4: who it is? And I said no, and I don't
12:38
Speaker 4: want to. And he said, Lorie, it's Jerry Garcia from
12:42
Speaker 4: The Grateful Did And I went, oh no, And I
12:45
Speaker 4: turned around to apologize because I felt terrible, but he
12:49
Speaker 4: was gone, Oh I never could and I felt guilty
12:53
Speaker 4: ever since.
12:53
Speaker 1: Oh my God. Was KFRC and san Fran What was
12:56
Speaker 1: at your first entry into the business. You talked about
12:59
Speaker 1: being an intro and talk about the places various places
13:02
Speaker 1: that you've worked.
13:03
Speaker 4: Well, I was an intern and then I was the
13:06
Speaker 4: news editor at KFRC and did a lot of interviews
13:09
Speaker 4: and wrote a lot of radio specials. But I couldn't
13:12
Speaker 4: go on the air there right away because it was
13:14
Speaker 4: the number one AM station and the head of the
13:17
Speaker 4: station said to me, what you need to do is
13:20
Speaker 4: go be on the air somewhere else first, and then
13:23
Speaker 4: we'll bring you back. So I immediately got an offer
13:28
Speaker 4: from WOW in Omaha, Nebraska, the top AM station in
13:34
Speaker 4: the Midwest, and I went there. It snowed right off
13:39
Speaker 4: the bat horribly, and since I was a SoCal gal
13:43
Speaker 4: raised in la I wasn't used to snow at all,
13:47
Speaker 4: and I wasn't having a good time.
13:49
Speaker 2: I did love being.
13:49
Speaker 4: On the air, but thank god, I only had to
13:52
Speaker 4: be there for slightly less than a month when I
13:54
Speaker 4: immediately got another offer from KINGAM in Seattle. So I
13:59
Speaker 4: ran off to Seattle, got that job, went on the air,
14:03
Speaker 4: and I loved it there. Even though it rained there
14:05
Speaker 4: all the time, I still had a great time at
14:08
Speaker 4: great people and saw so many incredible concerts there. Blondie
14:14
Speaker 4: Ramones played at a small bar there. It was really
14:18
Speaker 4: cool and I had a terrific time, and I would
14:22
Speaker 4: have stayed there for quite a while longer, except one
14:24
Speaker 4: day out of the blue, I got a call from
14:27
Speaker 4: Dave Sholin, the music director at KFRC, saying, LORI, would
14:33
Speaker 4: you like to come to London with me and our
14:36
Speaker 4: engineer and producer Ron Hummel, because we've got an interview
14:41
Speaker 4: coming up with Paul and Linda McCartney and their latest
14:44
Speaker 4: lineup of Wings, which included Denny Lane, the late great
14:48
Speaker 4: Denny Lane. And I said, oh my god, Yes, so
14:51
Speaker 4: I immediately quit my job at King and Seattle and
14:56
Speaker 4: ran back to San Francisco. We went off to London,
14:59
Speaker 4: which was my very first trip to England, and had
15:02
Speaker 4: an incredible interview with Paul and Linda and his latest
15:07
Speaker 4: Wings lineup and talked about their most recent album, which
15:11
Speaker 4: was Back to the Egg and it turned out to
15:14
Speaker 4: be the last Wings album also. And then I came
15:17
Speaker 4: back and went on the air at KFRC and that
15:21
Speaker 4: was really exciting too. Yeah.
15:23
Speaker 1: You interviewed McCartney, George Harrison, Grace Slick, talking Heads, the Ramones,
15:29
Speaker 1: David Bowie and Mick Jagger, whom you put on hold
15:32
Speaker 1: so that he could listen to your newscast before getting
15:35
Speaker 1: down to business. This is one of the one of
15:37
Speaker 1: those great radio stories. He called you just as you
15:39
Speaker 1: were about to go on the air.
15:41
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:41
Speaker 4: Well, I should mention that my interview with George Harrison
15:46
Speaker 4: and the Beatles producer George Martin were solo interviews, and
15:50
Speaker 4: all the other interviews I did were as well, and
15:53
Speaker 4: it was really exciting when Mick Jagger was about to
15:57
Speaker 4: call me because I was the RKO radio show, the
16:02
Speaker 4: top one hundred of the seventies, and of course Rolling
16:05
Speaker 4: Stones had songs on that. So Mick Jagger called, and
16:10
Speaker 4: unfortunately he called right before I was about to go
16:13
Speaker 4: on the air doing a newscast. So I said to him, Mick,
16:16
Speaker 4: would you like me to call you back once my
16:19
Speaker 4: newscast is over, or you can call me back, and
16:21
Speaker 4: he said, no, I'll stay on the line, I'll listen
16:24
Speaker 4: to you, and that made me extremely nervous, but I
16:28
Speaker 4: on me here. I did my newscast and he came
16:31
Speaker 4: back on with me and said, Laurie, you were great,
16:35
Speaker 4: great stories, incredible voice, So it made me love Mick
16:40
Speaker 4: even moore. And I told him about winning tickets to
16:43
Speaker 4: his Nicaragua Benefits show and he was thrilled about that
16:47
Speaker 4: and he talked to me and that was a wonderful interview.
16:51
Speaker 4: And also for that same special, I got to interview
16:55
Speaker 4: David Bowie, who was really exciting to have call me too,
17:00
Speaker 4: and got to tell him about the first time I
17:02
Speaker 4: saw him and all the times I'd seen him since,
17:05
Speaker 4: and he was wonderful to talk to, and he told
17:09
Speaker 4: me how great it was to write Fame with John
17:12
Speaker 4: Lennon and record it with him, and how fast it
17:15
Speaker 4: went and how wonderful it was, So that in a
17:19
Speaker 4: way prepared me for the eventual John Lennon interview.
17:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you get that assignment to interview John
17:25
Speaker 1: and Yoko? December eight, nineteen eighty How did that all
17:27
Speaker 1: come about?
17:28
Speaker 2: Well?
17:29
Speaker 4: I co interviewed John and Yoko with Dave Sholin from
17:34
Speaker 4: KFRC and RKO. Also, of course our engineer producer Ron
17:39
Speaker 4: Hammel was there, and the Warner Brothers exec Bert Keane,
17:44
Speaker 4: who was a friend of Dave's and had basically offered
17:47
Speaker 4: him the only radio interview with John and Yoko about
17:52
Speaker 4: Double Fantasy. So that was exciting and the reason I
17:56
Speaker 4: was asked to come along not only because I was
17:58
Speaker 4: a newscaster and I'd done so so many interviews and
18:01
Speaker 4: come up with so many questions and everything for all
18:05
Speaker 4: of the interviews I'd done. But I interviewed Paul McCartney,
18:08
Speaker 4: I'd interviewed George Harrison, I'd interviewed George Martin and so
18:13
Speaker 4: many other musicians, and so that of course made me eligible.
18:18
Speaker 4: And Dave Schulin immediately asked me to come with them,
18:22
Speaker 4: and it was going to be about a month or
18:25
Speaker 4: so away, and I said, yes, I'd love to, and
18:28
Speaker 4: I listened to Double Fantasy, which really impressed me. So
18:33
Speaker 4: I was super excited about being able to do the interview.
18:37
Speaker 1: Author Lori Kay She is the author of Confessions of
18:40
Speaker 1: a Rockernell Name Dropper, My Life leading up to John
18:42
Speaker 1: Lennon's Last Interview, which is available, came out in twenty
18:46
Speaker 1: twenty three. Am I correct? I think was that the original?
18:49
Speaker 2: Yes it did.
18:50
Speaker 4: It came out on December eighth, twenty twenty three, which
18:53
Speaker 4: was the forty fourth anniversary of John Lennon's assassination and
18:59
Speaker 4: his life last intribute with me and my team we.
19:03
Speaker 1: Booked on rock podcast. We'll be back after this.
19:06
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a break, can't be back.
19:10
Speaker 1: Describe that moment for those of us who just wonder
19:14
Speaker 1: what it was like to actually be inside of John
19:16
Speaker 1: and Yoko's home. You walk in as a wall to
19:19
Speaker 1: wall white shag carpet. I mean, what are you seeing
19:21
Speaker 1: when you first walk into the room, what's that like.
19:24
Speaker 4: Well, I should mention that first of all, we walked
19:27
Speaker 4: into their main office and their staff told us, oh,
19:31
Speaker 4: John and Yoko are at a photoshoot up in their
19:35
Speaker 4: apartment upstairs, so it's going to be a while, but
19:39
Speaker 4: the interview will be in Yoko and John's private office,
19:43
Speaker 4: and they took us into that and that was the
19:45
Speaker 4: place with this amazing, huge white shag carpet and we
19:50
Speaker 4: were told to take off our shoes to walk on it,
19:52
Speaker 4: and it was extremely comfortable. And one of my other
19:56
Speaker 4: favorite things in the room was this amazing long class
20:00
Speaker 4: coffee table which had metal legs and metal snakes climbing
20:04
Speaker 4: up the legs, and I sat on the love seat
20:08
Speaker 4: right in front of it, and all throughout the interview
20:10
Speaker 4: I kept looking at those snakes, thinking, am I really here?
20:14
Speaker 2: Yeah? I am. This is so great. And the cool
20:17
Speaker 2: thing was is that.
20:18
Speaker 4: When John finally got there came in, he sat down
20:21
Speaker 4: right next to me on the love seat for hours,
20:24
Speaker 4: so that was really thrilling too. But Yoko came in first,
20:28
Speaker 4: right talked to her first.
20:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a knock on the door and it's John.
20:35
Speaker 1: You immediately got John to laugh out loud. What did
20:38
Speaker 1: you say when you first meet him?
20:39
Speaker 4: Well, he didn't actually knock. What he did was he
20:42
Speaker 4: opened the door and we saw a nose and round
20:46
Speaker 4: glasses sticking through the door, and I just felt funny
20:51
Speaker 4: and I lowered my voice and turned him and said, can't.
20:55
Speaker 2: You see we're in the middle of an interview.
20:57
Speaker 4: And he started laughing and walked and that's when he
21:01
Speaker 4: sat down right next to me on the love seat
21:04
Speaker 4: mirror inches away, and I thought, oh my god, my
21:07
Speaker 4: dream of life has come true.
21:10
Speaker 2: And it did.
21:11
Speaker 1: Did you get the feeling that John was back to
21:13
Speaker 1: writing and recording for good? He told you that he
21:16
Speaker 1: was back to enjoying it because this was the first
21:19
Speaker 1: time in what five years that he was he had
21:22
Speaker 1: written and recorded new music.
21:24
Speaker 4: Yes, and he was really happy to be working on
21:28
Speaker 4: music again with Yoko, not just writing songs and recording
21:33
Speaker 4: them together, but just enjoying them together with each other.
21:37
Speaker 4: And he had been talking at first about being a
21:41
Speaker 4: house husband and raising son, and I immediately wanted to
21:46
Speaker 4: ask him. I said, John, I want to ask about
21:49
Speaker 4: you getting the urge to make music again. That was
21:52
Speaker 4: my emphasis, and John burst in with his super loud,
21:56
Speaker 4: funny and affectionate reply, saying, oh, it came all over me,
22:01
Speaker 4: all of a sudden love. I don't know what came
22:04
Speaker 4: over me. And then everyone laughed while I reacted confidently
22:09
Speaker 4: to his endearing response, and I said, I know, it's
22:12
Speaker 4: like you were possessed, and he said I was possessed
22:15
Speaker 4: by the rock and roll devil. And of course I
22:18
Speaker 4: started laughing even harder, And you said, John said, was
22:23
Speaker 4: that the question? He asked politely, Did I interrupt you?
22:26
Speaker 4: And I said, no, you got it. And then what
22:30
Speaker 4: he said in just a minute afterwards was just suddenly
22:34
Speaker 4: I had, like, if you'll pardon the expression, a diarrhea
22:38
Speaker 4: of creativity. So that's what writing music again was like
22:42
Speaker 4: for him, and recording it, and that was amazing to
22:45
Speaker 4: hear and made us all laugh so.
22:48
Speaker 1: Much amazing to hear. But then you think, man, all
22:51
Speaker 1: the music that he could have written in those years
22:54
Speaker 1: right up until who knows today, you know, we have
22:56
Speaker 1: Paul still writing and Ringo still doing his thing. It's
23:00
Speaker 1: it's heartbreaking. At the same time, what time was your
23:04
Speaker 1: interview with them? Was this in the afternoon the morning?
23:06
Speaker 1: What time did you do this?
23:07
Speaker 2: So we got there about eleven am.
23:10
Speaker 4: And by the time the interview actually started, it was
23:14
Speaker 4: around noon and it went on for hours, and then
23:18
Speaker 4: even after the interview, we kept talking. We made plans
23:22
Speaker 4: to get together in a couple weeks when John and
23:26
Speaker 4: Yoko were going to be in San Francisco and then
23:28
Speaker 4: go out to Hawaii, and we all decided we would
23:31
Speaker 4: go out to eat at Yoko's favorite Japanese restaurant in
23:35
Speaker 4: San Francisco, which excited me incredibly, not just because I
23:39
Speaker 4: love sushi and sashimi, but because I was so excited
23:43
Speaker 4: to be able to talk to John about all the
23:45
Speaker 4: things we had in common and Yoko about relationships because
23:49
Speaker 4: I really needed help. I hadn't had any really lasting relationships.
23:53
Speaker 4: Of course, unfortunately that wasn't able to happen because John
23:57
Speaker 4: was shot and killed mirror hours after our tribute ended.
24:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you made a connection. And speaking of connection,
24:04
Speaker 1: the connection between John and Yoko, there's been much written
24:07
Speaker 1: about it and talked about how much of a connection
24:10
Speaker 1: they had. There was something really special there. What kind
24:11
Speaker 1: of vibes did you get being in the room with
24:13
Speaker 1: them together? Did you sense that connection between them?
24:16
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
24:17
Speaker 4: And even Yoko told us right off the bat that
24:22
Speaker 4: their relationship was incredible and there was a spiritual bond
24:26
Speaker 4: between them that was bigger than the both of them.
24:29
Speaker 4: And John of course told us when he came in
24:32
Speaker 4: and started talking about meeting up with Yoko and gave
24:35
Speaker 4: us the description of their entire first meeting and first
24:39
Speaker 4: date and first time recording and making love. And he
24:43
Speaker 4: said the time that they had spent a part the
24:47
Speaker 4: eighteen months that lost weekend he was in LA was
24:51
Speaker 4: pretty much the worst time in his entire life, and
24:53
Speaker 4: he was so thrilled to be back together with her,
24:57
Speaker 4: not just to be her house husband, but to be
24:59
Speaker 4: the father of their son, Sean, who was five years
25:04
Speaker 4: old at the time. And it was thrilling because John
25:08
Speaker 4: was excited. Sean had been born on his birthday, October ninth,
25:13
Speaker 4: so he felt that he and Sean were twins and
25:16
Speaker 4: that absolutely thrilled him.
25:19
Speaker 1: And John really appreciated the questions that you asked. He
25:22
Speaker 1: made you feel validated with that. He really liked the questions.
25:26
Speaker 1: What kind of things did you ask him about? And
25:28
Speaker 1: how open was he with answering those questions?
25:31
Speaker 4: Well, everything I asked him, from getting back into music
25:36
Speaker 4: and how he met up with Yoko, that sort of
25:39
Speaker 4: thing he was so excited about, and he would say yes, exactly, yes, love,
25:45
Speaker 4: that's it, and he just made me feel so validated
25:49
Speaker 4: and so complimented, and probably more so than anybody else
25:53
Speaker 4: I'd ever interviewed. So that was really thrilling, and that
25:57
Speaker 4: was yet another reason why I wanted to be friends
26:00
Speaker 4: with him for the rest of my life and thought
26:02
Speaker 4: that that was definitely a major possibility, which badly, of course,
26:07
Speaker 4: couldn't happen.
26:08
Speaker 1: You write quote. While countless books and bios have been
26:10
Speaker 1: published since on the life and times of John Lennon,
26:13
Speaker 1: none of those authors spent that ill fated day with
26:15
Speaker 1: John and Yoko, nor were any of them confronted later
26:18
Speaker 1: on and literally forced into a conversation like I was
26:22
Speaker 1: with the beyond creepy character who was about to become
26:25
Speaker 1: his assassin. You don't name John's assassin, and for good
26:29
Speaker 1: reason in this book, so no need to state his
26:31
Speaker 1: name here, But you did see him after the interview.
26:34
Speaker 1: That's as John and Yoko drive off. He's right there.
26:38
Speaker 4: Well, what happened was is that while we were just
26:41
Speaker 4: ending our interview, Yoko got a call saying that the
26:45
Speaker 4: ride in their limo to the recording studio session that
26:49
Speaker 4: they had booked after our interview. Wasn't going to be
26:52
Speaker 4: able to take them, so she asked if we could.
26:55
Speaker 4: And the guys that I was with were going back
26:58
Speaker 4: to the airport that even and flying back to the
27:01
Speaker 4: West Coast, but I was staying in New York to
27:04
Speaker 4: have dinner with a friend of mine. They said, yeah, sure,
27:08
Speaker 4: we'll take you to the recording studio. And so when
27:11
Speaker 4: we all went out, and John and Yoko ended up
27:15
Speaker 4: coming out, and just before they got in the limo
27:18
Speaker 4: with the guys, we all ended up hugging and saying, oh, goodbye,
27:21
Speaker 4: I'll see you in San Francisco. Was so excited, and
27:24
Speaker 4: they drove off, and this creepy guy who bugged me
27:28
Speaker 4: even before when I first walk out, started bugging me
27:31
Speaker 4: again and following me, saying.
27:33
Speaker 2: Did you talk to him? Did you get his autograph?
27:36
Speaker 2: What do he say? What do he say? What do
27:38
Speaker 2: you say?
27:39
Speaker 4: And he kept following me all the way down the
27:41
Speaker 4: block as I was walking to my friend's office to
27:44
Speaker 4: go out to dinner with him, and finally I just
27:48
Speaker 4: I didn't know how to stop him, but I turned
27:50
Speaker 4: to him and started swearing and acted like I was
27:54
Speaker 4: gonna smack him. He finally turned around and left, and
27:58
Speaker 4: I realized what I should have done obviously was gone
28:02
Speaker 4: to the Dakota Security Department and said, get rid of
28:06
Speaker 4: this guy. He's not somebody you want to have in
28:09
Speaker 4: front of the Dakota. And even if they didn't, maybe
28:12
Speaker 4: they would have been able to get a hold of
28:13
Speaker 4: the police and get rid of him, or maybe they
28:15
Speaker 4: would have looked and seen that in the coat that
28:18
Speaker 4: he was wearing he had a gun, which I wasn't
28:21
Speaker 4: able to tell that was in his pocket. So I
28:25
Speaker 4: felt guilty ever since.
28:27
Speaker 1: John did see him before as well, right that morning,
28:31
Speaker 1: I think he confronted him, or.
28:33
Speaker 4: Well, first after noon when he was on his way
28:36
Speaker 4: to the studio with Yoko. He autographed a copy of
28:40
Speaker 4: Double Fantasy for him that our warner brothers, Ezac Bert
28:44
Speaker 4: Keene had given the guy to shut him up, and
28:47
Speaker 4: John autographed it for him. But he didn't bother John.
28:50
Speaker 4: He just bothered us and then me afterwards. It was
28:55
Speaker 4: just horrible and led me to feel guilty ever since.
29:00
Speaker 1: Talk about the moment you found out John had been shot.
29:02
Speaker 4: Well, what happened was and this is something I fully
29:06
Speaker 4: describe in my book. I kept walking. After I got
29:09
Speaker 4: rid of the guy and went to my friend's office
29:12
Speaker 4: and told him about my incredible day with John and
29:16
Speaker 4: Yoko at the Dakota, and we went out to dinner,
29:18
Speaker 4: and when we were done, we went back to my
29:20
Speaker 4: friend's apartment, and as he was just about to open
29:22
Speaker 4: the door, he said, you're going to hear the radio
29:25
Speaker 4: when I opened the door, because I leave it on
29:27
Speaker 4: in case somebody tries to break in. Then they'll turn
29:30
Speaker 4: around and go away and go somewhere else. So we
29:33
Speaker 4: opened the door. The music was on for about one second,
29:36
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, a reporter came on and
29:38
Speaker 4: said John Lennon has been shot and he's in the hospital.
29:42
Speaker 4: And I immediately screamed and ran out to the middle
29:46
Speaker 4: of the street, grabbed a cab and took it to
29:48
Speaker 4: the Roosevelt Hospital, which had a big glass front door.
29:52
Speaker 4: And I looked in the glass door and there was
29:54
Speaker 4: Yoko sobbing hysterically, holding on to someone that I read
30:00
Speaker 4: later was David Geffen, and she was crying. And I
30:03
Speaker 4: thought to myself, I'd better not go in and try
30:06
Speaker 4: and make her feel better, because I will make her
30:09
Speaker 4: feel worse. She'll remember why she was in town to
30:12
Speaker 4: do the interview with us, and so instead I just
30:16
Speaker 4: felt bad, and I went next door to the phone
30:19
Speaker 4: booth and I called the RKO radio network in New
30:24
Speaker 4: York and they said, oh, come down immediately once I
30:27
Speaker 4: told him what was going on. So I went to
30:30
Speaker 4: the headquarters and I basically spent the entire night doing
30:35
Speaker 4: interviews with radio and TV and print reporters all about
30:39
Speaker 4: the interview we'd done. And then suddenly I got to
30:43
Speaker 4: turn on the TV there and finally the TV reporter said, unfortunately,
30:49
Speaker 4: John has been killed. He wasn't just shot. And I
30:53
Speaker 4: started crying, and they said, and the guy who confessed
30:58
Speaker 4: to it has been rested, and they showed him and
31:02
Speaker 4: I looked and it was the guy who'd been bugging me,
31:04
Speaker 4: and I was crying even harder and screaming, and I realized,
31:09
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it's all my fault. And I felt
31:12
Speaker 4: guilty ever since. And then I had to keep going
31:15
Speaker 4: with interviews, and then that next morning I was told
31:19
Speaker 4: I needed to go on the Today Show, which was
31:22
Speaker 4: also really difficult for me.
31:24
Speaker 3: You saw John lennon yesterday, and you talked about death
31:27
Speaker 3: in a matter of speaking, well, he did bring it up.
31:30
Speaker 3: He mentioned that if if he were to be left alone,
31:36
Speaker 3: if Yoka were to die before he were, he would
31:38
Speaker 3: he wouldn't be able to cope with it. He wouldn't
31:40
Speaker 3: be able to survive. And he said that he hoped
31:42
Speaker 3: to God that he died before Yoka.
31:45
Speaker 1: How was that experience? That must have been a blur?
31:48
Speaker 4: It was really hard. I was not only upset and nervous,
31:52
Speaker 4: and I'd been crying, and I'd been up all night,
31:55
Speaker 4: so I looked like I was, you know, barely awake.
31:58
Speaker 4: It's really hard for me to still watch the show,
32:02
Speaker 4: which actually a link to that show is on the
32:05
Speaker 4: website for my book, which is Confessions of a Rock
32:08
Speaker 4: and Roll Name Dropper dot com, so anyone can see it.
32:11
Speaker 4: Although it's not as bad, to be honest, as I
32:14
Speaker 4: thought it was at the time, it still makes me
32:17
Speaker 4: really upset to have to have done that. And after
32:21
Speaker 4: the show, I flew back immediately to San Francisco and
32:25
Speaker 4: had the copy of the interview with John and Yoko
32:28
Speaker 4: with me, and immediately KFRC put me in a hotel
32:32
Speaker 4: room and said start writing the radio special. And it
32:37
Speaker 4: was originally not supposed to be written or aired until
32:41
Speaker 4: Valentine's Day because Double Fantasy was a love album, but
32:45
Speaker 4: now it had to air right away. So I wrote
32:47
Speaker 4: it right away, listened to the interview and cried as
32:51
Speaker 4: I was writing it, and dedicated the show to Yoko.
32:55
Speaker 4: Of course, finished writing it, and it was just really hard.
32:59
Speaker 4: It aired days later, the same day that Yoko created
33:03
Speaker 4: a ten minute silence for John's passing, which was Sunday
33:07
Speaker 4: after he was shot and killed on Monday the eighth.
33:10
Speaker 1: How were you able to get through that difficult time
33:13
Speaker 1: and when did you start to think about telling your
33:15
Speaker 1: story through this book.
33:17
Speaker 4: Well, I didn't want to work again at all in
33:20
Speaker 4: rock music or on radio, but I had already just
33:25
Speaker 4: said that I would, and I had to do a
33:28
Speaker 4: bunch of interviews with everyone from Neil Diamond to just
33:34
Speaker 4: so many more and so Barry Manilow, and so I did,
33:38
Speaker 4: and I kept going, and I took another job with
33:43
Speaker 4: another company and went on the air there every week,
33:47
Speaker 4: and I kept going, and then I eventually left that
33:51
Speaker 4: job and started writing on the print magazines that I'd
33:57
Speaker 4: been interested in, which was Rock Magazine. Did incredible interviews,
34:01
Speaker 4: including more with Grace slick More and another with Little Richard,
34:06
Speaker 4: which was an incredible interview, and he talked about the
34:09
Speaker 4: Beatles in his situation in concert with them too, so
34:14
Speaker 4: that was really great. And then after that I got
34:17
Speaker 4: an incredible job with Dick Clark, which was amazing, and
34:22
Speaker 4: I talk a lot about that in my book too,
34:24
Speaker 4: and how great Dick was to not just write his
34:28
Speaker 4: weekly radio show, but also he loved my writing so
34:32
Speaker 4: much that he asked me to ghostwrite his weekly nationally
34:35
Speaker 4: syndicated newspaper column. So I did that, which allowed me
34:39
Speaker 4: to do a lot more incredible interviews and go to
34:42
Speaker 4: a lot more concerts. It has Dick Clark and write
34:45
Speaker 4: the articles as though Dick had gone, so I did
34:48
Speaker 4: that and that basically got me through what had been
34:53
Speaker 4: so tragic for me. But I was so busy working
34:57
Speaker 4: that I never was able to write my book book
35:00
Speaker 4: for you know, about forty years. And something that I
35:06
Speaker 4: realized while considering writing my memoir was unless you've kept
35:10
Speaker 4: a daily diary and written down what goes on in
35:12
Speaker 4: your life every day of the year, which I never did,
35:16
Speaker 4: lifetime memories can be really hard to come back to,
35:19
Speaker 4: especially the older that you get, which I was getting
35:23
Speaker 4: a lot older, so it was really hard, and so
35:27
Speaker 4: I didn't write my book, even though people who found
35:29
Speaker 4: out about my experience with John Lennon on the last
35:33
Speaker 4: day of his life said when are you going to
35:35
Speaker 4: write about that? And I never answered, But finally I
35:39
Speaker 4: got to say now. And that happened when the pandemic
35:43
Speaker 4: hit because thanks to COVID, my TV production gigs all
35:48
Speaker 4: came to a close, and suddenly I had time to
35:52
Speaker 4: write my book. And so even though it took me
35:55
Speaker 4: a long time to finish and edit and find a
35:59
Speaker 4: tradition publisher, because the last thing I ever wanted to
36:02
Speaker 4: do was self published, I did, and it, thank god,
36:06
Speaker 4: has been successful and people have been really caring about it.
36:11
Speaker 1: From an emotional standpoint, Was it difficult to write? And
36:15
Speaker 1: then after you were through, did it help to kind
36:18
Speaker 1: of get some closure?
36:20
Speaker 4: Well, it was emotionally extremely hard, as well as all
36:25
Speaker 4: the podcasts I've ever been interviewed on, and radio shows
36:29
Speaker 4: and TV shows and documentaries, and I did so many
36:34
Speaker 4: of those, you know, recently and over the years, and
36:37
Speaker 4: it's always been hard. And even though the book sort
36:41
Speaker 4: of helped my guilt, it didn't take it away at all.
36:45
Speaker 4: I'm still feeling guilty.
36:46
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure you've heard this a million times, but
36:49
Speaker 1: it's easy for any of us to blame ourselves after
36:52
Speaker 1: something like that happens. But there's no way you could
36:54
Speaker 1: have known. And my respect to you for writing the
36:57
Speaker 1: book and sharing your story with us, and it is
37:00
Speaker 1: out in paperback and kindle. There's an audiobook version, right
37:03
Speaker 1: you read the.
37:04
Speaker 4: Audiobook absolutely if recorded it, and it's really popular with
37:09
Speaker 4: people because not only like in my book, do I
37:13
Speaker 4: write the quotes from all of the people that I interviewed,
37:16
Speaker 4: but I also got to include a lot of the
37:19
Speaker 4: original quotes in my audiobook. So you'll hear John Lennon,
37:22
Speaker 4: you'll hear Paul McCartney, you'll hear so many others.
37:26
Speaker 1: So that was exciting, fantastic. That's even added reason to
37:31
Speaker 1: get the audio version Confessions of a Rock and Roll
37:33
Speaker 1: Name Dropper My life leading up to John Lennon's last interview. Now,
37:38
Speaker 1: let's also talk about the website again. You mentioned, but
37:40
Speaker 1: let's get that out there again. And I also put
37:43
Speaker 1: a link in the show notes, so where can people
37:45
Speaker 1: find you online?
37:46
Speaker 4: Confessions of a Rock and Roll Name Dropper dot com
37:51
Speaker 4: And they can go to that and not only find
37:54
Speaker 4: out all about my book and all about me my bio,
37:58
Speaker 4: and see great pictures like the one I took with
38:01
Speaker 4: John and Yoko and Paul and Linda. They can also
38:05
Speaker 4: get a hold of all the links to the podcasts
38:08
Speaker 4: I've done and a lot of the TV and radio
38:11
Speaker 4: shows and print reviews and interviews. And also there's a
38:16
Speaker 4: section on where to purchase the book, so they can
38:19
Speaker 4: look up and find out all about that and see
38:22
Speaker 4: upcoming events. For example, the upcoming event I have that
38:26
Speaker 4: I'm very excited about is I'm going to be part
38:29
Speaker 4: of the fest for Beatles fans again this coming end
38:33
Speaker 4: of March the twenty eighth through the thirtieth, and it's
38:36
Speaker 4: taking place in New Jersey, so hopefully a lot of
38:39
Speaker 4: people will be there because I'll be discussing and signing
38:43
Speaker 4: and selling my book and talking to people a lot,
38:46
Speaker 4: and so that's really thrilling.
38:49
Speaker 1: LORI K, thank you so much, my pleasure.
38:52
Speaker 2: I hope you really liked my book.
38:53
Speaker 1: I loved it.
38:54
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, And I hope everybody, including you, who
38:57
Speaker 4: read and totally dig my book leave me a glowing
39:01
Speaker 4: complimentary five star online review via Amazon or Goodreads or
39:08
Speaker 4: Barnes and Noble or any of the other bookstores that
39:11
Speaker 4: they could have bought it at online and it would
39:14
Speaker 4: just be really cool because that will help promote my book.
39:18
Speaker 2: So thank you very much in advance.
39:20
Speaker 1: You can count on it for me.
39:22
Speaker 2: Cool. Bye. That's it. It's in the books.