Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Finishing With A Bang According To BILLY SHEEHAN From MR. BIG
Transcript
- 0:08Be so far were Well, migoes, my name is Billy, I'm bass
- 0:23player, and uh I'm right here today to do some talking with a friend
- 0:28of mine and hopefully answer some questions and ponder some philosophy. Oh yeah,
- 0:35maybe that sounds like a perfect start of the day to me. How are
- 0:37you doing? Great? Man? Thanks? Is it also here today to
- 0:43talk about your new album, appropriately titled ten, which is released on July
- 0:48the twelfth, Mate, So how you feel about it? Pretty good?
- 0:53I guess yeah. It's it's our tenth record studio record we've done. There
- 0:58have been a lot of other records. It was the first time we played
- 1:02in Japan. We had a wonderful time, and then they knew we wouldn't
- 1:07be coming back until the next record, which was going to be a as
- 1:11a cycle that happens, So they wanted a live record and we just we
- 1:19didn't really have the faciity. We were on tour actually with Rush in America,
- 1:26and so the the soundman took a d tape digital audio tape they don't
- 1:32have anymore, little little tape across seven dollars and ninety five cents for the
- 1:36s tape and put it in and hit record on our show with no multi
- 1:42track, no fixes, no overdubs, no nothing, and so our recording
- 1:49budget for the whole show with seven dollars. Well that that tape became the
- 1:56first raw like sushi. I think in Korea sold like three hundred and fifty
- 2:00thousand units. I don't know how many in Japan, but but I think
- 2:06I hope we recouped our investment. But it was kind of cool that it
- 2:12was completely real and no fixes, no turning the audience up or any any
- 2:17of those cheaters that you can do. So that was so We've done a
- 2:22lot of records and there's a million bootlegs too. There was a great bootlegs
- 2:27store in Japan, I think they're long gone now selling CDs, and they
- 2:31had the most amazing set of bootlegs you can imagine. I got the Band
- 2:38of Gypsy's, Jimmy Hendrick's demos rehearsals, I got the Genesis lamb Lies down
- 2:45on Broadway demoses, the most amazing thing, the Montrose first record, all
- 2:51the demos, Boston demos that led up these iconic records. And so we'd
- 2:59go there after our show and they'd already have our record with artwork for sale
- 3:06and uh, but they were really cool and so well, you guys take
- 3:07whatever you want and uh, you know, for in return for us bootlegging,
- 3:13in return for us stealing from you. But we didn't look at it.
- 3:15They were they were really cool and it was kind of the culture there
- 3:19that they you know, they just love music so much. So it's a
- 3:22little tiny place and on the back street somewhere, so they weren't nobody's getting
- 3:27rich off us. So yeah, we were glad to have all that stuff
- 3:30documented because we didn't have recordings of a lot of the shows, but I
- 3:34have them now on DVD or CD from uh from that from that shop,
- 3:38pretty pretty great. But they literally would have it out the next day with
- 3:44artwork as well. And our record label usually takes, you know, months
- 3:52and months and months and months and to get that together. And actually the
- 3:57cover is usually the the thing that that holds up more records than anything else,
- 4:02getting the cover right and getting all the art work and credits right.
- 4:05So they did it in less than twenty four hours. So pro efficient,
- 4:10aren't they. So tell us a bit more about ten from a musical point
- 4:16of view, bro, and then what you account for with it? Well,
- 4:20we took a break on a tour and we're able to go in and
- 4:26record. I was super busy and couldn't make it for the writing sessions,
- 4:35so I came in and just played bass. And that's kind of cool.
- 4:42Just what do you got? Okay, maybe this will work? And I
- 4:46would put a little baseline down and I do that a lot here in my
- 4:50home studio, record for a lot of clients around the world, and they'll
- 4:54send me. Some of them are pro or semi pro, so I get
- 5:00what they send me is pretty good, but some are brand new or you
- 5:05know, they don't have never made a record before, and they're not sure
- 5:09what to do, and and so we get all these disparate parts that aren't
- 5:15haven't congealed into a song yet, and so we have to with this kind
- 5:21of make it work. So it's kind of a challenge. So we discovered
- 5:26over the couple of years we've been doing this, me and my engineer Scott,
- 5:30that bass can really not necessarily me or my bass, but bass itself
- 5:35really can make or break a recording. It's it's it's amazing how much that
- 5:43low frequency note translates the rest of everything else in a song and we would
- 5:50get a song and we'd look at each other like, oh man, what
- 5:54are we going to do? It's geez, let me try this and hit
- 5:59recording. Okay by and by the end of the day we going way this
- 6:01this thing is working. So fortunately with mister Big, we did not have
- 6:05nearly that uh that uh bad readiness. Uh. The songs were very together,
- 6:13but it was nice to be able to just come in and create a
- 6:15bassline that just came from nowhere and just for my first impression of how the
- 6:20song went. So I didn't have a lot of time to uh even rehearse
- 6:25the songs. So in a way that was kind of good too, because
- 6:28it was spontaneous and came right. I didn't think it through thinking often thinking
- 6:33will ruin a song too much thinking about it. You know, just go
- 6:40for what you go and that happens with writing a lot. You just come
- 6:43up with the part kind of hey, I like the part. Cool,
- 6:45all right, the next day you know, maybe we should hold on.
- 6:48Wait, we had it, and now you're changing your mind. So that
- 6:51was a cool way to approach it. I just went in and played bass
- 6:55and we came came up with some cool stuff. If so you've released the
- 7:00singles that I could luck trying it up on East Side as would they be
- 7:03a good stunning representation i've rolled. Do you think yeah? I think so.
- 7:09Yeah. They were very well received. I had just zillions of comments
- 7:15on my social media. Everyone seemed very pleased with it. So if they're
- 7:19pleased, we're happy. I don't. It's not my goal in necessarily to
- 7:26make the audience happy or to pander to them. I want to do something
- 7:30that they like, but I don't change what I do so that they like
- 7:34it. And I think mister Big has kind of always been like that.
- 7:39We didn't necessarily pander. To Be with You was a huge hit, but
- 7:45we put it last on the record. We didn't really think much of it,
- 7:48you know, and other than the fact that we loved it, but
- 7:50we didn't. If we would have known it was a hit, we would
- 7:53have put it out first. It fold it up with that, So yeah,
- 7:58that's a that's another factor there, I guess. I read an interesting
- 8:03point from Eric that said that that you didn't copy anything from your previous studio
- 8:09albums, and it's saw new stuff from scratch. I decided your career when
- 8:13he's done so much easy. Is it easy to do everything fresh? Like
- 8:18it is easier? How to come up with you and stuff? It can
- 8:20be, It can be. I know there was a time there when we
- 8:24did there were three songs that were in my mind were always the same,
- 8:31Merciless Voodoo Kiss, and one other one that had all had the same beat
- 8:37and and I'm not sure if it was me that for the fourth record finally
- 8:43said we've done that song enough times. Uh. I mean it didn't sound
- 8:48exactly the same, but they was just too similar to me. So I
- 8:52like to have some variation on things, but I like the band to do
- 8:56what the band does best, and that's sing and play. So the singing
- 9:01is uh and the harmonies are been would have been a huge uh uh boost
- 9:07to the availability to an audience because everybody loves to sing. On American Idol
- 9:18or those TV talent shows, nine out of ten or ninety nine out of
- 9:24one hundred are singers. You know, I seen a bass I haven't seen
- 9:26a bass player on there yet or drummer. So it's about singing. It's
- 9:33about singing. So that's always been a super important harmony. There's not a
- 9:37lot of harmony on ten though so unfortunately. But but for me, the
- 9:41earlier records, the harmony and a great choruses, it was, it was
- 9:43a thing for me. So you know we we uh it changed from that,
- 9:48so well we will see how it how that affairs in the end.
- 9:52Well, I can tell you honestly, bro, like, listen whole album
- 9:54just this morning. That's what I was wrong, and the questions up.
- 9:56And it's very rarely in an album that it's great all the way through.
- 10:01Like I got through about track number five and I've gone, that's my favorite
- 10:05song on the album. Then I got to number seven, I'm like,
- 10:07no, that's my favorite. I got to number nine, It's like,
- 10:09no, that is. But usually towards the tail end of an album,
- 10:11you start sort of it start getting too much with all the worst music and
- 10:16well the weaker tracks I guess start coming out. But terms just the banger
- 10:20from start to finish, he said, come up with the best of collection
- 10:24of new songs. Basically, Oh, I'm glad you feel that way.
- 10:28And I really you've got a tough job because I don't know if I could
- 10:31said through a lot of records all the way and have to listen. Back
- 10:37in the day, we would do that by an album it was vinyl.
- 10:39I'm an old man. I know that's how it used to be, and
- 10:41I understand the things changed. So now people are like, something's here is
- 10:46just a snippet of a song and a little video meme on on the rate
- 10:52on the internet, so they they judge from that, and it's valid.
- 11:01Things will never remain the same forever and things are going to change. But
- 11:05I imagine sometimes it'll be diffult for me to sit down and listen to a
- 11:09whole record. Back in the day, it wasn't, but I'm just not
- 11:13used to that anymore. So congratulations on an amazing job of getting through.
- 11:18Thank you for making it easy by having good songs all the way through.
- 11:22Brother. Oh, they're very kind of you. Right on. Thank you.
- 11:26I was sort of tough doing this a little bit before, mate,
- 11:28But read list of being and numerous side projects and Stuffwall You've written so much
- 11:33music over the years, Like, how do you How easy is it for
- 11:37you to create something fresh every time you do a new songs? Well,
- 11:43I I'm always at it. I was down here, I got done with
- 11:48what I had to do today by about six or seven o'clock, and I
- 11:52had two hours before we started this, so I've been down here working the
- 11:58whole time, and I have my iPhone on selfie video. I pointed at
- 12:05myself and I play the part of the song that I just came up with,
- 12:09So that makes it handy. I used to carry on a little digital
- 12:13recorder or before that, a cassette recorder, and every time I had an
- 12:18idea, I hit record. So the iPhone makes it pretty easy to do.
- 12:22But if you work at it, you can come up with a lot
- 12:24of new stuff. And once you get stuck or painted into a corner or
- 12:30you've got writer's block, if there, I guess there is such a thing,
- 12:33you just got to work at it. You just have to sit down
- 12:37and pound and hit it. And if it's not working, I go off
- 12:39and I listen to something completely different, something way out of range. It
- 12:46has nothing to do with what I do or how I play or anything like
- 12:48that. And then when I come back, I've got a kind of a
- 12:52new look at things to some degree. So there's all kinds of ways to
- 12:58ignite that creative spark. Some people, I believe, are just kind of
- 13:07averse to the work part of it, because if you if you work it,
- 13:11I'll sit down. I got nothing that doesn't work? No, I
- 13:13still got nothing. Well, we got all day. Let's go hit it
- 13:18harder. Come on, let's go. And I've seen a lot of professional
- 13:22writers' work. And similarly, I know when I lived in LA I knew
- 13:28a lot of people that were in the movie business. You got a script
- 13:31and you got to come up with something. They get a bunch of guys
- 13:33in a room and they don't leave until they get it right and they hit
- 13:37it. It's hard work. I mean there's blood, sweat and tears.
- 13:39Similarly with songwriters, I've had the good fortune of working with some great songwriters,
- 13:45and it's a it's a job. It's work. You hit it hard.
- 13:48You don't just sit around and wait for inspiration. I think that's the
- 13:52biggest mistake people. I'll sit around till something comes my way. You know.
- 13:56Now, I'm going to keep digging until I find something. You know
- 14:01myself. So so I don't think it's that difficult to do if you approach
- 14:03it in the right manner. Yeah, so you said you can for the
- 14:07last few hours, like coming up with the stuff my place, play something
- 14:11cool that you've just come up with uh. Yeah, it was uh.
- 14:16Uh, that'd be like the the motif uh, and it's it's kind of
- 14:31cool because it's like a single note, pretty simple. I've been used a
- 14:37million times. But do it with a double and then use this hand.
- 14:50Now I haven't I don't remember the exact pattern idea, but that's the idea.
- 14:54So that'll be the motif and then that's the key of E and then
- 15:00way I go back. Then the verse would probably be an E. Or
- 15:03I could do it in a in G major. Go to the from from
- 15:09E minor to its relative major if you will, to the G and do
- 15:13the verse there, then back down and the song arranging is is uh is
- 15:18quite an interesting field for what comes when and where and how and uh generally
- 15:28uh intro verse, chorus, verse chorus, bridge chorus, chorus, goodbye.
- 15:37Now these variations a million variations of that. You do a pre chorus.
- 15:41Sometimes a lot of bands do a pre chorus before the song even starts,
- 15:46which is an old Beatles trick, and the chorus is usually the title
- 15:50of the song. So when they sang paperback Writer, you knew what song
- 15:54it was before it even started. And that's why that's how you have a
- 15:58hit record or bon Jovia shout to the Heart, and you're to blame.
- 16:03You give love a bad name. It's okay. Now we know the name
- 16:06of the song before it even started, and we already can sing along with
- 16:08the chorus the first time it comes. So there's ways of making songs accessible
- 16:14and more hit ley, if you will. And then sometimes you avoid that
- 16:18stuff completely because you don't want to seem like you're following the pack or you're
- 16:23again pandering, like I mentioned earlier, pandering to the audience. Some stuff
- 16:29is designed to be a hit. I mean, people are writing songs to
- 16:33have hits. That's what songwriters do. There's all kinds of ways of doing
- 16:37that. There's all kinds of mechanisms they use to bring that about the chorus
- 16:44right up front, and the title of the song being the chorus. And
- 16:47that's why I think Led Zeppelin all their song titles, they don't sing that
- 16:52in. They don't sing black dog in the whole song. They don't.
- 17:00They did that because they didn't want to have radio hits. They wanted to
- 17:03be like a jamming, you know, music band. They don't want to
- 17:07have get into pop music world. And so they're they're their secret weapon is
- 17:11let's do a title that has nothing to do with all the song I mean,
- 17:15Stairway to Heaven does, of course, and some of them of course
- 17:18do. But nevertheless, they had a lot of songs that I still to
- 17:23this day, I'm not sure what the name of that song is. I
- 17:27love it and I've played in a bands. I'm sure you've been told this
- 17:33before, but they're an absolutely a human being. So why you look at
- 17:37things? He's awesome to say again, I'm sorry, You're an amazing human
- 17:42being. Why you look at things? Well, you're You're way too kind
- 17:48and way too generous to say that. I'm just a blue collar working bass
- 17:52player. Uh that my arms are extra long from carrying those heavy amps up
- 17:56and down the stairs at high school to play the dances, and you know
- 18:03we I've always considered myself a working man pretty much. That's awesome, right,
- 18:08So this is another thing that I found interesting too, Like the album
- 18:12was recorded both live in the studio and on the tour bus. So like,
- 18:18firstly, a lot of people out there don't actually understand what live in
- 18:22the studio is. Can you run us through what that means? Says it
- 18:25was Yeah, when you're actually playing where you said, you know, you
- 18:30count the song one, two, three, fong, go and play through
- 18:33the whole song without any stops. That's playing live in the studio. Now,
- 18:42how songs are usually done is that they'll play along with the drummer and
- 18:48he'll make make a mistake. And now they had the technology we're in the
- 18:52old days with with real to real tape. The drummer had the toughest job
- 18:56because he had to play a whole take himself and make sure it was all
- 19:00correct. Once in a while you could do a little splicer at it,
- 19:04but generally he had to shoulder the most difficult job. You had to get
- 19:10through the whole song. Now you can play the bass to the drums,
- 19:15then put the guitars on, then put the rhythm guitars, then do the
- 19:18lead solos, then bring in the lead vocal and do the harmonies. You
- 19:21don't have to do it all at once. You don't have to play it
- 19:23all at the same time, so the studio allows you to piece it together.
- 19:26Now a digital studio allows anything. If you can imagine it, you
- 19:33can probably do it. You don't even auto tune. Now, you know
- 19:40you could sing happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Heavy birthday
- 19:44to you, and you can make it happy birthday to you can put the
- 19:47melody in later, and when somebody's royally flat, you can just edge it
- 19:51up and make it correct. And I've seen pitch correction fix the impossible.
- 19:56I mean, somebody has just blown it completely. They make it work.
- 20:00It's pretty amazing. So all the records prior to pitch correction, you had
- 20:07to sing it. There's even ways of getting by with that kind of a
- 20:14cheater way that isn't live. They would they would have you sing almost a
- 20:18syllable at a time, a single syllable in the words at a time,
- 20:22until you hit the right note. They had a way of cross fading to
- 20:25make sure that you you could just you know, so you hear a guy,
- 20:30you know sing a line I can't think any of my off hand,
- 20:36but each syllable he can keep going until he gets that syllable right and then
- 20:41pitch and then go on to the next syttle. It's urduous, incredibly tedious
- 20:47work to do, but that's how they did it, especially the guys that
- 20:49had a hard time singing earlier bands. I've got I told you before about
- 20:53the bootlegs I've got I've got the Beach Boys singing. Wouldn't it be nice
- 21:00like a religious experience to bring tears to your eyes? And it's it's them
- 21:04starting the song in the studio and they start, dude, then't then and
- 21:11then they don't. They don't sing, and they're still and they only make
- 21:15it a measure in and then you have uh the Brian Uh, Brian Wilson,
- 21:25the Beach Boys got Yeah. You hear on the talk back talking to
- 21:29Hell, which is Hal Blaine, the drummer who played on all those Hell
- 21:33No. On the first beat, you gotta make it through four measures,
- 21:37he stops again. No no, no, no, okay, now bringing
- 21:38that and then and then finally they do take about number eight and it's starting
- 21:45to turn into magic. I'm raise the hairs on your arm and bring tears
- 21:49to your eyes. And then the vocals come in. It is mind blowing.
- 21:53So there's ways you can get around having to go in the studio and
- 21:56perform. Nowadays more than ever so we do something live, we're doing it
- 22:00for real. We're actually playing it as opposed to piecing it together. There's
- 22:07some of that to some degree, but for us and mister Big, for
- 22:14most all of our records were pretty live. I remember the first track we
- 22:18did was addicted to that rush, and we took a first take on that,
- 22:22and first takes are always the best because you get done, you go,
- 22:26well, I think it can plays a little better, and take twenty
- 22:29four. You're going, let's go back to number one. We we were
- 22:33waste of time. I've seen that happen just so many times, where people
- 22:37think they I did a song with a band I have called Nyas and Hammon
- 22:44b three and Dennis Chambers on drums, and we had Glenn Hughes come in
- 22:48and sing a song mind blowing. He came in and bang, he was
- 22:55on ten minutes and it was unbelievable. And then see look at that.
- 23:00Came in to play guitar, a guitar solo on it. So he came
- 23:03in late. He just flew in, came from the airport. They brought
- 23:07us gear in. Hey Steve, come on, here we go. We
- 23:10set him up. Here's how the song goes, and here's the solo section.
- 23:12Okay, cool, So he hit the solo, man, it was
- 23:18right on. Okay, let's try another one. We're gonna let's try another
- 23:22one. You do a little bit more. And we went on for about
- 23:23two hours. If I sud Steve, sorry, we're using the first one.
- 23:30We couldn't top it. It was just and that spontaneous thing that happens
- 23:34again when I talked earlier about I just got the songs and I played bass
- 23:38right away. That spontaneous thing is often a really helpful way to get a
- 23:45creative take. Just bang, here's the song, here's how it goes go,
- 23:52and you get some really cool stuff that way. Sometimes it doesn't work,
- 23:56but when it does, it's kind of magical and interesting that it just
- 24:00happened just off the top of your head. Okay, how about this all
- 24:04right, shrink rapid and send it to the record star. So you currently
- 24:08the midst of the Big Finagh tol right, So does that mean that this
- 24:12is going to be missed a big bottle album as well? Yeah, yeah,
- 24:18yeah, I don't think we'll record anymore. We had a great run,
- 24:21and a whole philosophy of this farewell tour was I'd rather run across the
- 24:26finish line than then be wheeled across. And no offense to any band,
- 24:33because every band should be working and working as long as they want, under
- 24:37any conditions they care to. But I do see a lot of bands out
- 24:41there that it's not up to speed of what I know they did or could
- 24:45have done. And I'm still their fan and I still love them, and
- 24:51I'll still go to the show, and so will thousands of other people.
- 24:55But but for me, I just we wanted to end on a high point,
- 24:57you know, end on a high get across the finish line, as
- 25:02I said, running instead of crawling. And uh. And also I think
- 25:06there has to be some integrity to it too. I know some bands do
- 25:08a farewell tour every every two years, but this is really a farewell.
- 25:15So we're gonna we'll end off I think in Romania on this leg of the
- 25:18tour that we're heading for. I'll leave here on the tenth and three three
- 25:22days, No in a four days, five days. What if I'm not
- 25:30on tour, I don't know what day. It is, so true,
- 25:33and yeah, we'll start, We're gonna play. I'm excited. We're gonna
- 25:37play in England again. We're gonna play at Leeds where the whole My Generation
- 25:44medley. We played that in Tallas for years and years, the whole first
- 25:48three songs that those the whole first part of that record that starts with My
- 25:52Generation, and uh, quite awesome. We're also going to play Liverpool,
- 26:00the Holy the Holy Ground. Yeah, I can't wait. That's going to
- 26:03be great. There's a record store there I want to go visit. And
- 26:06uh, then we're playing I'm Aris. So we're playing in Belfast and Dublin
- 26:11and so that'll that'll be cool, and doing a bunch of festivals in Germany
- 26:15and Eastern Europe as well, and so the Italian show, a bunch of
- 26:18things. So so we're excited and every place we've played, people there are
- 26:22excited because this is this is it. You know, it's kind of a
- 26:26bittersweet, but we've had an amazing run. So people are coming out that
- 26:32that I saw the band back in the nineties and haven't seen us since.
- 26:34They're all coming out. So we've been sold out everywhere and uh it's been
- 26:38quite an emotional, uh quite touching to have people come out then see you
- 26:45see their their last their last time for seeing us. It's pretty cool.
- 26:48Okay, and then you're going to come and say good Bottias here in Astralia
- 26:52are you going to come and say good bart to us here in Australia.
- 26:56I wish we could, but Australia never booked us. We uh, we
- 27:00only play where we're booked. And bands don't choose where they play. People
- 27:04get the impression that bands sit around in the band. I was like,
- 27:07go, hey, I got an idea. What let's go play in New
- 27:11York City. All right, I'll get my base, come on. And
- 27:14it doesn't worry like that. That stuff was booked months and months and months
- 27:17even a year or more in advance. Festivals are usually a year and a
- 27:19half or two years before their finalized. Really uh. And it's expensive to
- 27:26play in Australia, and it's difficult because it's a long flight and an expensive
- 27:34flight. But we've played there. We played there the Extreme a few years
- 27:38ago. Always had that shower and you were fucking awesome. Oh thank you
- 27:42so much. Yeah, what a joy to play with them. We're a
- 27:45great band as well, and what a joy to play down there. I
- 27:48played across Australia once or twice, I think once with Sevie, once with
- 27:52G three. I've done clinics in most every city and done the mister big
- 27:56show that we just talked of, uh and I love it, but unfortunately
- 28:02it didn't come together. We kept pushing from our end. But if the
- 28:07promoters doesn't want it, they don't want it. Nothing we can do about
- 28:11it because we were selling a product. We can't shoot who buys it.
- 28:15And that's the It sounds awful commercialized to explain it that way, but it's
- 28:19really the true. We gotta, we gotta, we got to show with
- 28:22our songs and an evening of entertainment, and that's for sale. And if
- 28:27you want it, you can buy it. If you don't want it,
- 28:30then you don't, then you don't buy it. You know, it's sad
- 28:36to say. We'll get some hostility sometimes from people online. You know,
- 28:41how come you hate our towne? Why do you hate our country? You
- 28:44know? We Why wouldn't I play anywhere? I've even said years ago,
- 28:48I'll play anywhere in the world other than where there's a shooting war. However,
- 28:55we played in India and there was a shooting war going on in our
- 29:00region and they called a truce so we could have the show. So I'll
- 29:07play anywhere, even in a shooting war, if they can call it truth
- 29:10long enough for us to go there because we had military guys with us the
- 29:12whole time with machine guns security everywhere because it was a hostile environment. But
- 29:19we didn't end up playing where there was a shooting war. So I will
- 29:23play. I love to play, I want to play everywhere. I love
- 29:26Australia. I love never been to New Zealand either at all. I'd love
- 29:32to go there. And we played Japan a lacas. Japan brings us in,
- 29:36they hire us, they get get in touch with the agency and management
- 29:40and we want mister Big to play here and and we were okay, So
- 29:44that's that's their doing. Uh we Uh. South America has been great for
- 29:49us. They always buy shows and bring us down there. So yeah,
- 29:53said that we couldn't do an Australian run, but uh, that's that's the
- 30:00way it goes sometimes. But we had a lot of folks fly in from
- 30:03from Australia to especially our Southeast Asian shows. We played in Thailand and Singapore,
- 30:10going Poor Malaysia, Indonesia. I have a dear friend who's a sound
- 30:15person from Australia. Her name is Jaye. She came in to see us.
- 30:19A bunch of bunch of our shows. It was a joy to have
- 30:22her and a bunch of other Australians. We're down at the shows we did
- 30:26in salteast Asia as well, so I can always tell that a loud part
- 30:30of the audience. That's the section. Hypothetically, if you got room and
- 30:37tortually fucking fonded, provided that wants to bring it up, I'm sorry one
- 30:41more time. Hypothetically, if you got room and trually fucking find and provided
- 30:45to bring you out. Yeah, hypothetically, yeah, all right, contact
- 30:52a local agent, get in touch with our manager. It's easy to find.
- 30:55There's a listing of all these bands on who their managers are and who
- 30:59their agents are. Get in touch and it's coud be close call, but
- 31:03it could happen. I'll make a phone call as soon as I get off
- 31:07this to game mate. I've got someone perfect in mind, right on right,
- 31:10and I'd love that. Wait, so what's this winds up? Right?
- 31:14Like? So you've you've got so much on the game musically, like
- 31:17I can't imagine Mistig finishing being in the end of Philly She and my Like
- 31:21what everybody else do you got playing for the future? Tons of stuff about
- 31:26a bunch of records here in my studio during the pandemic. We just started
- 31:33because I couldn't play live. I just started and I didn't advertise that.
- 31:36People just wrote to me and said, hey, you're playing my record.
- 31:37Okay. I learned quickly though, I have to hear it first before I
- 31:41say yes. I said yes to a couple of oh my god, so
- 31:47or I've give them some advice of what they should do to to prepare it
- 31:51for for a base. Uh, but we did. We did hundreds of
- 31:56songs. At one point, I thought we had six hundred songs. I
- 32:02think we may have miscalculated him. Maybe he's only like three or four hundred.
- 32:06Still, that's a huge amount of song. And so I got a
- 32:10whole bunch of things to do. There, a bunch of friends of mine.
- 32:16I want to put together live shows and go out and tour friends that
- 32:22I know in the biz that you'd probably know. But nothing is secured yet,
- 32:25so I can't necessarily mention it. But I'll be playing a lot.
- 32:30I live to play live, and I play live to live, so that's
- 32:34all I do, and that's my thing. So that's why the pandemic was
- 32:37tough, and I'm forever grateful to the clients who hired me to play on
- 32:40their records because that kept me busy and kept my hands in shape. But
- 32:44playing live, there's nothing like it. It's the greatest thing in the world
- 32:46for me, and it's the thing I do. I do most, and
- 32:51I know I'm well over about five thousand gigs easily by now. Yeah,
- 32:55way pastic and he's a new album, Richie Coupson. One of the things
- 33:00you play uh no uh wandery dogs are off while Mike is doing his dream
- 33:07theater thing and from what what what has been said? When he's done with
- 33:12that, we'll come back and do some more. Very so that's just one
- 33:15of the many bands you're involved with, the rock Smike say, and I
- 33:17will be here. Yeah, I I like playing in a lot of bands.
- 33:23It's it's a little bit different I I uh. I mentioned a band
- 33:27Nias in earlier. It's it's kind of almost a jazzy thing and a fusion
- 33:31proggy jazz blues thing. And so when you do something like that for a
- 33:37while, you come back to another band and you've got a new vocabulary,
- 33:40new new things to play, new ways to approach things. So it's uh
- 33:46I like spreading around like that. But but I do like being in a
- 33:50band. A band is a is a great thing. And the dynamic that
- 33:53happens between people. Sometimes it's because it gets out of control and it's not
- 33:58too pleasant, but but createatively, I love it because especially when things are
- 34:02good, you know, we get an idea, what do you think?
- 34:05Okay, drums? What about okay? Try that? Okay now? And
- 34:08the writing that happens within a group of people. Three is ideal. Four
- 34:15is good too. Five starts to get a little crazy. Six maybe not.
- 34:22But it's a great thing to be in a band. I people ask
- 34:27me you have any advice for young players. Yeah, I got three things.
- 34:30One get in a band, be in a band. I see other
- 34:32YouTubers. I'm an old man, of course. I My ways may be
- 34:37long gone, but I still think it's a valid thing. The YouTuber is
- 34:40amazing. I see guys play the impossible, but they're not in a band.
- 34:45They don't have a record, they're not playing and touring. Maybe that's
- 34:47over and maybe the future is this. Who knows. I very well be
- 34:52wrong, But when you're in a band, you're together with guys and you're
- 34:55working it out of guys and girls whoever it is, and coming up a
- 34:59song, and you're learning how to deal with people and how to and then
- 35:02you're gonna learn how to do business because you're gonna go out be in a
- 35:06band that plays, and that's number two, being a band that plays songs,
- 35:12learn songs, get songs. Oh, I got Beatle bootlegs. I
- 35:15got the first Beatle demo that they gave to Decca Records in England. There's
- 35:21twenty songs on it. Guess how many of them were originals? Seven?
- 35:29Not not wow original arguably the greatest. Hey what happened? Look that?
- 35:40Uh? It is hilarious. I better be careful what I what I make
- 35:45next? Anyway, arguably the greatest writing band in history. And they their
- 35:53first twenty song demo that got them signed didn't have a single original bench that's
- 36:00it. So get in a band and play songs. If you don't have
- 36:05your own songs, you'd be a copy band like every band, like a
- 36:07c DC, like Van Halen, like like the Beatles, like everybody was
- 36:10a copy band. Uh. And then get in a band that plays songs
- 36:15that you sing. Like I said earlier, singing is where it's at.
- 36:20So those three things. Being in a band, playing songs, singing so
- 36:25many musicians. I say, I know this guitar play. He's like,
- 36:29unbelievable. Oh, really great, it's almos exciting. Yeah, it's so
- 36:32great. Yeah does he sing? No? Sorry? Sorry, be so
- 36:45far? A few of them saying them over you're float in here. I'm
- 37:00pup over you. I said, fear and bad you and I I see
- 37:06the lie. Then I'm pup on you. In a couple of days,
- 37:14I'll show you how a field. Don't you don't you know them? I'm
- 37:20counting the wise that you all my mind. Love you, hold time,
- 37:27hold you, hold hold hold you, come on an. I'm you're natural
- 37:37rock. I don't know. I'm put it up over you, getting you
- 37:43out of be right next to me, honey bee, getting up over you.
- 37:51Damn you do a couple of days, I show you how a field.
- 37:59Don't you know? It's real? Now they are cutting away that you
- 38:05about madlied? Oh oh let's m M, says say, I don't over
- 39:22them. You're thrown in here. Now. I'm pumped on you. Now
- 39:28I'm still a red John has a tree. If not ju Le getting pump
- 39:35on you. Jack come from you here the cover the day I'm shot,
- 39:43a power field, a tree, and time. Now I'm shouting the ways
- 39:50that's your own in mine. Love you all the time. Hold hold,
- 39:57hold p come be so bad if you would. Man, I'm think it's
- 40:07time I gotta follow you and your car. Did I love you so?
- 40:15Come? Oh? Let's go about you, about you, about you? Oh comm