Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 419] Roger Daltrey: “The Keith Moon of Singers” with Don Henze

Transcript

[EP 419] Roger Daltrey: “The Keith Moon of Singers” with Don Henze · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: He's the Keith Moon of singers. You think he just
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: shattered his voice into a thousand pieces and he pushes
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: himself to extremes like a racehorse that's about to die
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: around the racetrack, running around, around, and around, hour after
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: hour of singing nonstop. You're like, I never saw anything
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: like this. We're totally booked.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Rock and roll!
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Well, I think I'll leave you to your reading.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll. Rock
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: and roll! We are totally booked. Welcome back to Booked
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: on Rock, conversations with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: stories behind classic rock's greatest songs, albums, and artists. And
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: we want to thank everybody who supports the podcast on Patreon,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Backstage Pass members getting every episode in both audio and
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: video completely commercial free, along with early access to new episodes.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: So thank you to everybody. And if you haven't joined yet,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: you can grab the Backstage Pass, just $ 5 a month.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Click the link in the show notes or go to BookedOnRock.com.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: All right, now onto our guest. I'm really looking forward
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: to this one. Don Henze, author of Roger Daltrey and
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the Bright, Shiny Object, the true story of his unlikely
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: role in the making of Roger Daltrey's troubled 1991 comeback album.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Don takes us behind the scenes of a high-stakes record
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: project filled with rock stars, industry chaos, Abbey Road sessions,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: and his own struggle to find a place in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: music business. Welcome to the podcast, Don.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Eric, for having me. It's a great pleasure for
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: me to be here to meet you. Finally, I've been
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: enjoying listening to your show since I discovered it. It's
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: my go-to podcast in the morning to get my day started.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: It gives me good vibes, man. Good vibes. And I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: love what you're talking about. It's just fascinating. You interview
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: these people and I'm saying, wait a minute, I never heard.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Who is this person? I got to find out who
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: they are. And then the research takes me to YouTube
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking at their videos and their music. And
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: there's that, you know, it's incredible.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Down the rabbit hole you go.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: That's right. Thank you. And thanks for, wow. It's a
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: great honor to be here with you.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you, man. Thank you. Now, Roger Daltrey fans and
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: who fans of course are going to love this book
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: and they're going to really enjoy what we're about to
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: talk about. We're going to get to some of what's
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: in the book, but really, go out and buy this
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: book because it's, it's a story. Like you said, before
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: we started recording, this is a look inside the, the
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: art of Roger Daltrey, the approach to his art that
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: has not been documented.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: He's the Keith moon of singers. He's like Jackson Pollock
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of singers. He throws things on the canvas in the studio.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: He throws things out there that you, you would never hear.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: him do in front of anybody public. He makes the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: most incredible mistakes you could never even imagine. The shrieks
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and the, you think he's just shattered his voice into
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: a thousand pieces and he pushes himself to extremes like
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: a racehorse that's about to die around the racetrack, running around,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: around and around, hour after hour of singing nonstop. You're like,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: I never saw anything like this. I've been in a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: lot of studios and watched a lot of singers. And
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: when I got in the studio with him at Abbey
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: road and watched him, as I mentioned to you a
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: hundred plus hours, I, I thought many times that he
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was finished. His voice was done. He'll never sing again.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But art is, is exactly what he is through and through.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And he's not afraid in the studio to make mistakes.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Now live, He doesn't like any mistakes. I played with him, actually,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in a band for a show at Carnegie Hall. And
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the guitar player made one little mistake at the show
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: at Carnegie Hall. And after the show, Roger was furious. Really?
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: He said, I can't believe Gerard had to just hit
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that one extra note at the end of the song.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And he was ranting and raving and he wouldn't stop.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that's what happened recently with Zach Starkey with The Who.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, but in the studio when nobody's watching except me,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: who was going to write a book about it some
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: decades later, I was watching every second of that. So.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about your music career where when you...
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Before Roger entered your life, talk about where you were
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: in your music career and why you were determined to
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: break into the business at this time.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Well, actually, I was determined to get out of the
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: business at this time. I was 26, and man, oh man,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: had I been through the ups and downs of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: music business, lucky to be alive, saying, if I don't
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: get out now, I'm never going to get out. And
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: it'll be too late. So I've got to get out
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: of this. Yeah. So that's the crazy thing about it
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is right before I met Roger, I was finished. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: come from a long lineage of musicians. And it was
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: do or die that I made it in music. And
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: if I stayed in and I said, there's a good
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: chance it's going to be die, die, you know. So, yeah, no. So...
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: You know, I've been doing music since I'm four. My
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: dad's a drummer. He was a guitar player in the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: 50s and he had been in a duo, like a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: wham sort of thing. He was on the Dick Clark
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: TV show and Alan Freed show. Wow. And he had
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: records out and he was doing record hops. And that's
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: a whole other story. So my father saw that perhaps
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: his dream could be relived through me.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And you picked up the drums. That was your main instrument?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: My father, after doing this guitar thing in the 50s
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: and almost making it famous, like I said, it's a
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: whole other story. Quite interesting, but too long to expound
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: upon at this point. He started playing drums. So since
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: my earliest memory, I heard drums banging in the basement.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: And some of my earliest memories are laying on the floors,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: a three, four-year-old, laying under his tom-tom, watching him bang
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: on the drums. I don't know how I have any
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: hearing left. I think I should have probably lost a
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: lot of my hearing by the time I was six.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I used to sleep in his bass drum when he
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: took the cover off the front, because that was the
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: thing in the 70s, to put a pillow in there.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: I said, oh, there's a pillow in his bass drum,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: and the front is off, so he'd be practicing, and
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I would go in the, and go in late in
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: the hollow of the bass drum. So that's kind of where,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you know, this music thing started, and my grandpa was
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a banjo player. His father, my great-grandfather, was a famous
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: New York City musician around the turn of last century,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: He played at the Hippodrome and in Carnegie Hall. And
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: he was playing with the big bands of the times.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: And he died at an early age of syphilis from
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: having sex with showgirls. So my grandfather, the banjo player,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: told my father, no, music's not the way to go. No.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Killed his father when my grandfather was four. His father
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: died of syphilis from, you know, fooling around with the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: showgirls at the Hippodrome in New York City. So my
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: father didn't listen to him, and here I am talking
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: Well, at what point you were determined, right? I mean,
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: there was a point there where you're like, I'm going
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to make it.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Hell yeah. I mean, it wasn't even, it was a
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: done deal as far as I was concerned. I just
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: knew how hard I worked. I knew I'd been playing
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: all my life, and I hooked up with my first
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: band with incredibly talented people. And it was just a
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: matter of when. It was an if. It was never
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: an if for me. It's only towards the end of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the 80s, things got really kind of weird in the
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: music business and the record companies. And the quote, what
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: was left of the business of music was rapidly deteriorating.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And you can look at what happened since 88 and
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: go right to Now it fell off the edge of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the earth, but it was starting and moving, deteriorating rapidly
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: at the end of the 80s. Now, that's not to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: say some people didn't make it in the 90s for sure,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: but you know, as a rock historian, you know what
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. How close did you get? Were you on a
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: record label?
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: You know, always dealing with record companies and record company
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: interest and record companies come to see my old bands
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: like a wet cat, new music museum. But the closest
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: I came to making it was a Roger. Daltrey was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: managing my band.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Perfect segue. Perfect segue.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: That was the dream coming true. And that was, you know,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: when you're in that, period of going through what i
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: went through uh and really on my way out of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: the business and then i meet roger which.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: He well he unexpectedly walked into manic moose music.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Manic moose uh music was a producer who was producing
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: one of the bands i was in and he was
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: uh he wrote at the time with his partner, a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: famous jazz pianist, Mark Gray, he was doing songs for
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: TV commercials. And this is about 1990, 91. And there
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: was a lot of money. I mean, there was still
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a business in commercial jingles, which doesn't exist now, but
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: they were making money and they would doing jingles. And
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: one of the guys that they would write jingles with
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was this songwriter named Gerard McMahon, who wrote the song
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Cry Little Sister for the movie Lost Boys, Gerard McMahon.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: He was singing on jingles and writing jingles with Joe
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: and Mark. And this is right after Cry Little Sister
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: and the movie Lost Boys had been a huge success
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: in 88. So this is 1990, 91. Roger loved the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: song Cry Little Sister. Roger sang a song on that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: album for the movie, the Elton John song. You don't
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: let the sun, I think it was, go down on me.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: I think it was that, but he loved it. Cry
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Little Sister, Gerard's song, which you know that song, right?
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I must have heard it. I must have heard it.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Cry little sister, they shall not cry.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I must have heard it.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: With your brother. It's this cult classic. That like, like
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a vampire never dies. Gerard made the whole life living
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: on that. He's still making money on it now because
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: Lost Boys is a theater show on Broadway. So now
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: he gets licensed money, publishing money from that song, Cry
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Little Sister, which a lot of people in your audience
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: know the song. Look it up after this and you'll go,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I know that song.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But I've never seen the movie. That's the problem, right?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: If I saw that, was it in the film?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: It's the main thing.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: It's the main thing. Yeah. See, that's the thing. I
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: never saw.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: It starts the beginning of the movie starts with it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So when you hear the song, like I said, I'm
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: not doing it justice. Gerard, Gerard is quite a singer. And, um,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: so Roger contacted Gerard, uh, about producing and writing songs
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: for his, he wanted to do another solo record. And, um,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Gerard was very closely affiliated with Manic Moose Music, where
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Roger eventually shows up and I meet him.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And where is this, in New York?
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: New York, we're on Broadway. Yeah, downtown, Bond Street, Broadway.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: And I was playing drums in Gerard's band. So Gerard
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: was about to get a new record deal any day.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And then we were going to go on tour. And
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: we had Vinnie Zumo as the guitar player, the Joe
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Jackson guitar player, Mark Gray, the keyboardist, and Sean Solomon
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: on bass. And any day, the record deal is going
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to be signed. We're going to have a budget. We're
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: going to go on the road. And I'm working with them.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: We're rehearsing and rehearsing. We're playing shows in the East Village.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: But this is going on and on and on and
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: no record deal. And I'm almost out of money. And
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: I've been doing this now for, you know, all my life.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: And it's killing me now. And next thing you know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Gerard says, Roger Daltrey wants, I'm going to write a
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: record with Roger Daltrey. And all of you are going
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, all the people at Manic Moose,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Joe Carroll, the owner of Manic Moose, Mark Gray, myself
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: and Sean. you know, for putting in all this work
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: for Gerard for nothing, for no pay, well, you're going
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: to play on Roger's record. You're going to play drums
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: on Roger's record. And he's coming to Manic Moose Tuesday
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: morning at 11 o'clock. And we were like, yeah, right.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You know, Gerard said we were going to have a
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: record deal for like a year and a half. And
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: at this point, everything Gerard said was like, now he's
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: going to write Roger Daltrey's next record uh so roger
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: shows up at the studio.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And then he shows up at the sun mountain cafe
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: club in greenwich village.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: At one of our shows yeah.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Joined you on stage for born on the bayou right.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah so i got to play drums for him
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: there uh at uh sun mountain You have to read
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the book for how I met him because it's a,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: that's a crazy, not a typical way of meeting Roger Daltrey,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you know? So the first chapter about meeting him, you know,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it's kind of, that's the shape of everything that happens
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: with me and Roger for the next, actually this went
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: on for years and years. The story only covers, Year
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of my relationship with Roger and his family, but it
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: really goes on for five or six years and it's
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it's it's I could write three books
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: 500 pages long to really get the full story out.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: So this book just it deals with the first year
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: so so Roger comes into this studio and And then
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you have to read it because I didn't really meet
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: him because I was kind of upset that day. It's a,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd have to read the first chapter.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Because you broke up with your girl at the point
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: at that point.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: She broke up with me and the bond, the shepherd,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and I was devastated. And I said, you know, something we, uh,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the intern for the studio manic, most music was by
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: the second story window, like a, like a dog looking
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: out the window. anxiously for roger for about a half
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: hour before he showed up and he said finally it's
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: there he is here he comes and then he we
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: went to the window when we watched roger walk across
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: broadway and he was wearing a jeans jacket and uh
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: cut cut open cut sleeves and uh tight and long
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: he has tommy hair He looked very skinny. When you
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: see him walking across the street, I said, wow, he
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: looks kind of... The word that came to mind was scraggly.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: But I had just gotten a breakup letter from my girlfriend, Vonda,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that morning. And I was crying nonstop for an hour
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: and a half before I showed up to the studio.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I got the letter the same morning... Roger was supposed
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to show up and he did. By the time I
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: got to the studio and I went, I'm still wiping
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: tears from my eyes. And I, I, before he showed up, I,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I was feeling so faint and ill. It was quite
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: traumatic for me. The breakup. It was, it was devastating.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I've been there. Yeah, I have been there. And that's right.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: When he walks in, he sees you.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: I feel you, buddy. I feel you on that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Well, But I didn't have Roger.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Just the way you said that. I got that.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But I didn't have Roger Daltrey walk in the room.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: You're a sensitive guy like me. I can tell. Oh, yeah.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: So Roger walks in the room. Now he sees this guy.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, before he came, I saw him walk
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: across the street. And I said, you know something? I
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: am just not in a condition to meet him. I just,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like. I feel like hell. So as he's
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: coming up the elevator to the second floor, I went
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: into the back storage room. There was a bunch of junk,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: musical junk back there and a couch. And I went
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: back there and I just said, I can't, I can't
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: meet him. I'm just, I feel, I feel, I feel terrible.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: What I can't, I can't meet somebody in this condition.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like half alive. So I went in the back
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: and I laid down on the couch.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: And at some point, though, he gave you some words
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: of wisdom.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I heard him come in because down
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: the hallway, I could hear him come in. He's got
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: a loud voice. And I hear Joe Carroll and Mark
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Gray say hi. And Roger goes, how are you? And
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: then you hear Joe. Hi, I'm Joe. Joe, nice to
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: meet you, Joe. You know, Roger is just all personality,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: all life. I could hear his voice back there in
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: the storage room on the couch. This dark, dingy storage
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: room with an oversized opening door, junk in there. And
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: then from the couch, I could see the door, the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: sound door, glass doors that go into the studio, the
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: recording room of the studio, because it's a full-on studio
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: where we record and so on. And he was coming
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: up there because they were supposed to start recording vocals
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: for this new record. That was what Gerard said. He's
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: going to come up and we're going to do vocals.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: So there was a sound engineer that recorded Julian Lennon
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and he worked on a lot of Billy Joel stuff.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: He was an expert with recording vocals. So he was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: in the studio across from this dark, place where the
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: storage room where I'm on the couch and I can
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: kind of see in there and they're getting the mics
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and things ready for Roger and Roger actually Joe isn't
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: up front meeting Roger yet it's just Mark Gray the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: jazz pianist Joe goes up front it's kind of you
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: know you have to read the first chapter so finally
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: Roger makes his way back turns the corner and walks
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: by the storage room and I watch him go into
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the studio with Gerard and Mark and they're all in
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: there listening to all the songs that have been demoed
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: for Roger's new record and Roger doesn't end up singing
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: there but I'm laying on the couch with the letter
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of from Vonda the breakup letter on my heart and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: I'm looking up at the dark ceiling and and i'm
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: i'm just feeling i'm in agony but i can hear
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the meaning sounds like it's going pretty good so i'm
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: like well maybe i might be playing drums with roger
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: i mean who knows So the meeting and the listening
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: of the songs in the room across from the storage room,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: it comes to an ending and they come out through
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the glass doors and they make the turn and then
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: they head back up to the front office of Manic
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: Moose Music. And the last person out of the studio
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: is Roger. And as he turns and walks by the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: opening to the storage room, he stops and he turns
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: and And he's trying to see me in the shadows there.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: And he walks in, standing up very straight. He goes, hi,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I'm Roger. I go, hi, Roger, I'm Don. What's the matter, Don?
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I just got a letter from my girlfriend. She broke
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: up with me. Oh, keep your chin up, Don. There's
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: plenty of fish in the sea. Turns around. And leaves.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: That's how I met him. That's the start of a very,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: you know, long relationship with Roger.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: So, okay, that performance where he performed with you, was
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: that before or after?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: The performance is after that first meeting. It's about three
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: weeks later or something, you know. Cause that's a board
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: because Sun Mountain cafe at the Sun Mountain. Right.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Right. And he says to you afterwards, he likes your drumming. That,
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: how did that feel?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: His bodyguard. Right.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: He said, Roger loves your drumming. He loves your drumming.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, Nabi is, you know, he's a, he's a,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: he looks like a mobster and I didn't know who
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: he was. Uh, he, he just grabbed my arm after
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I got off stage hard, like probably black and blue
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: on my arm. He goes, he goes, well, Roger loves
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: your drumming, man. And I look at him, and I
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: don't know who he is. And then he didn't get
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the reaction that he expected. Like, oh, wow, that's great.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I just looked at him like, what?
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Do you understand what I'm telling you, man? Roger loves
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: your drumming. Then I went. And then he saw that
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: maybe I understood the, you know, the depth of what
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: he was saying, which I didn't really until I was
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: writing about it. A lot of what happened back then
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: was over my head. I mean, it was so intense.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So when I wrote about it, I spent three years
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: writing that and reliving it on so many dimensions. I
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: started to understand the gravity of some of these things
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: that were just too immense for me to understand at
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the moment. You know, Roger Daltrey had seen my drumming
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: and he loved my drumming. So it's very hard to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: kind of.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Did that really happen?
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Digest that.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: That record, by the way, would become Rocks in the Head.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: So.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Yes. Okay, so now the process of this album begins
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and you go to Abbey Road, right? Is that where
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: you started... Is that the first sessions that you were
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: there with him for, for the album at Abbey road?
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yes. Okay.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: So there's this great story. He immediately rejected the small
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: vocal booth because he felt it wouldn't accommodate his voice.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: And this is where we're talking about the art, everything he,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: he approached everything. And you're watching this pro at work.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: What concerned him about that room? And what did also,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: what did it reveal about his understanding of how to
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: capture his voice properly?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was, blowing the doors off that room.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: He said that his voice was just too powerful. And
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: nobody in the room ever heard. That room was built
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: by the Abbey Road engineers, the best in the big...
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Some of the most famous vocalists of all times had
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: recorded in there. The Beatles didn't record in there, though.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: You know, they recorded in the big room where the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: sound could breathe, as Roger said. He goes, so Scott,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the person who was known for recording vocals and Gerard,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: they'd been in hundreds of studios and they had no
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: idea when Roger was telling them that his voice doesn't
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: have enough room to breathe. They couldn't figure that out.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: But this guy who sold 200, 300, 400 million records
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: Nobody was listening to him. He was very good natured
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and he chuckled.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: He was very patient about it because he could have
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: been like, guys, guys, I know what I'm doing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Yes. He was just so glad to be doing music
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and to be hanging out with music guys.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Well, that's because he was frustrated that Pete Townsend didn't
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: want to work, right?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: That was also part of it. At that point, Pete
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Townsend was done, really done. I mean, he made it
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: very personal. Firm that he was done. Roger, it was
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: over and he was, this was different than other times
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: he had said he was done. And Roger really, uh,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: you know, and Heather too, Roger's wife, they were pretty
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: convinced this was it.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: And he felt like he had enough, plenty of, plenty
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: of gas left in his tank.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And plenty of gas.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: And he's in his mid forties at this point. He's
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: 47 at this.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. 47. So he said, and we're working in that
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: vocal booth up there at Abbey Road on the second
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: floor for quite a number of hours. And he's breaking
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the place. And he's chuckling because his voice is just
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: heating the equipment and coming off of the small sound
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: room chamber door. walls and coming back into the mic
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: and it's doing all kinds of supernatural kind of things
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: if you want to know it's not doing things things
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: are happening in that studio that they cannot figure out
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the they call the abbey road uh vocal sound tech
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: they try the all the different microphones from the abbey
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: road the the um oh they have the most incredible
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: collection of microphones that the Beatles used and every rock
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: and roll record, you know, recorded in Abbey Road used
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the crown jewels of Abbey Road microphones and trying different
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: microphones and this thing and sound baffles. And they go,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I think it sounds good now. What do you think, Roger?
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And Roger goes, nope, it's just not going to work
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: in this room, Gerard. It's just not big enough. The
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: sound can't breathe. And then he comes out and finally says,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: you figure it out. But I think we need to
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: get back to the room I was in last time
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: with the high ceilings. And you need to book that room.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I forget which one it was. But I'm off. That's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: what he said before he left. He wasn't really big
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: on goodbye. He was just like, I'm off now.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: How cool is that, though, man?
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: And then he would just go boom, like a shot
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: onto the next thing. Wherever he was going, it looked like, whoa,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: I want to go there. He looked so excited to
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: go to the next place, wherever it was. You say,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: it must be incredible.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: But he was just so tuned into his own voice
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: and how to get the best out of his voice.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he really, well, you know, he had done a
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: lot of recording up until that point.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: And, you know, it's a very... The Who is very
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: particular in their style of music writing, performing, and also
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: in how they recorded the music. They started a lot
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: of new things. They did things kind of their way,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: you know, like Roger twirling the microphone, Pete smashing guitars,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and the way they recorded followed the same sort of, uh,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: you know, personality that they put to everything. So watching
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: him in that studio for those couple of hours, him
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: giving everything and also in the process of giving everything,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: pushing beyond the limits in ways. If I had an
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: iPhone back then or a Sony Walkman and I recorded
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: these bloopers, It would make, I could have made a
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: million dollars on this blooper tape because he was making
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: sounds that were embarrassing. Shrieks and shrills and his voice
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: would break up, pushing it beyond the limits. It's like,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: almost like the, you know, the tragedy of the shuttle exploding.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: His voice would just blow up.
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: And you would go, oh, whoa, what was that? You know,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: and is he all right?
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: There's a track mirror mirror. If you could share that story,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: because he attempts an extremely high note. This is, uh,
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the recording was around 1991, right? Album came out in 92.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: So yes. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about that. What that revealed
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: about his determination because he was hell bent on getting
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: through it. Yeah.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this was now we finally went downstairs into
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: a room that had about a 25 foot high ceiling.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: We're not in the Beatles room here. We're in the,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: room Pink Floyd, George Harrison recorded. Beautiful open room. And
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's funny because he's got the Neumann microphone, the Crown
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Jewel microphone. He's got the different microphones. And then he
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: always has his Shure SM58 that he uses live. They
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: were going, what are you doing with that, Roger? You know,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: we don't need that. There's no, I always, we always,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the who, the who always, we always use this mic too.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: We always stick it in there. He always, he always
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: would say that. The who, we always use this microphone.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And it was like, okay.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: Who am I to argue? Yeah.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Because I, you know, a lot of times it's funny.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It's Roger Daltrey, but you know, people, I think it
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: was Pete Townsend. they questioned Roger because he's very good
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: natured and kind of easygoing. And he doesn't come across
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: as a technician of any sort. So when he says things,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: he kind of chuckles and people, you know, the engineer
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and Gerard, the producer, they're like, wait, we don't need
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: that SM58, Roger. Don't worry about it. He was like, no,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the who always, we always use it. And then we
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: put the microphone in there. That was, that's, he had
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: to have that SM58 shore microphone. That's quite a microphone.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you that.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: His voice starts to strain, but he somehow rebounds.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Well, he's been in the song Mira Mira, and it
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: has notes. I think they're among the highest notes that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: he's ever sang. And now he's 47, and The Who
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: hadn't been on the road for two years, so he
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: hadn't done much singing. And his voice, these first two sessions,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks, really, were him warming up
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: his voice. Like a great athlete, he's pushing like he
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: just left the last tour, where his voice is warmed
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: up and he's been singing every night for months and months.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: He doesn't know how to just bring it back in
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: and start easy. He's going right for the gusto right away,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: so his voice is breaking up into these bits and
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: shattering into a thousand bits and pieces, making these most
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: horrendous noises and this is happening to quite a dramatic
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: level during this song mirror mirror and if you listen
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: to it and you hear those notes you i think
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: that may be one of the highest notes he's ever
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: had to sing um and he's in there like a
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: pit bull he will not let go one hour, two hours,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: roll the tape again, Gerard, again, three hours, four hours.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And Gerard, the producer, is saying, Roger, there's always tomorrow. Rog,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: there's tomorrow. We've done enough for today. Roll the tape again, Gerard, again.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: And this is four hours now. And it's me, Scott James,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the sound engineer, Gerard, and the assistant, an Abbey Road engineer,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: and we're looking at each other going, whoa. And Gerard,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: he was breaking out in a sweat because he's going
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to be known as the producer that broke Roger Daltrey's
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: $ 100 million voice. But little by little, he's getting closer
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and closer and closer to getting those notes, those highest,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: highest notes on the highest mountain peak. And Finally, he
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: hits that note, and I was watching the look on
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: his face. It was calm and serene and peaceful, and
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: he was in heaven, and he sang that note with
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: such grace and ease. I'll never forget watching him through
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the big window of the recording room, and there was
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: a spotlight on him, and he was at peace. with life.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: He was in nirvana when he hit this impossible note
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: and he hit it like it was nothing, like it
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: was easy. And then he knew he hit it. The
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: headphones came off. He came out of the room and everybody,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: nobody knew what to say. And he didn't even want
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: to hear it back. He didn't say, well, let's listen
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to that one back. He came out He goes, okay,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: let's do Walk on Water now. I think I'm warmed
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: up for that one now. Wow.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And he never sang a line exactly the same way twice?
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Never. Never. He's the Keith Moon of singers. Most singers, they,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: you know, they're like machines. They're very accurate. Singers are,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: because they have to get all the pitches, they have
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: to kind of get the rhythms and Every time he
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: sang a line of a song, it was different. You
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: would try to get, the producer would say, you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: can you sing that word like you did in the
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: last line? You know how you did it in the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: last take, Roger? And Roger would be in the sound
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: room looking at us behind the control board. And Gerard
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: is saying, the producer says, you know, the guy who
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: wrote Cry Little Sister, he's saying, Roger, can you sing
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: it like the rhythm that you did in the last verse?
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: And then Roger would just look out at everybody. You
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: heard me, right, Roger?
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: He's just staring.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, roll tape, roll tape, Gerard would say. And then
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the verse would come and he'd sing it totally different.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: than he ever sang it before. There's no way to
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: get him to sing anything. Whatever Gerard was saying just
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: didn't even register in his brain.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I even chimed in there because I heard him doing
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: some Who inflections. I was like, whoa, that sounds like
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: a Who record. When he sings a note and he
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: twists a word the way he would do something that
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: he sang in Athena and you hear that live, it
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: gives you goosebumps.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, then the next time he sang it,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: he didn't do that. I was like, oh my God,
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: that was incredible. It sounded like he was singing a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Who song. So I started, I couldn't contain myself. I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: started trying to, I started, I told Roger, Gerard about it.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: And Gerard said, yeah, I heard that too. I want
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: him to do that. I want him to do that.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: We got to get him to do that again. So,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: you know, same thing. Roger, you know how you sang...
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you know white girls in a perfect world you need
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: no distraction you know and then we would sing it
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to him and roger would look at us blanks there
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: but looking a little annoyed like and then you you
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: got that roge you know white girls in a perfect
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: world you need no distraction roger Of course, when we
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: rolled tape and we recorded, it didn't come out anything
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: like we were trying to get him.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: It's like a guitarist just riffing and jamming, and then
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: he doesn't remember. Like something comes up magical and doesn't
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: even remember how he came up with it.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: It's like I would imagine trying to get Keith to
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: play Bob O'Reilly the same way twice. Yeah, right. Same
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: thing with Roger, really. He's the Keith Moon of singers.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: To understand, I started to get it. I said, wow,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to hit spontaneity every time is much, much harder than
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: becoming a machine and doing it the same way every time. Right.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: To open yourself up into that oblivion, that blank spot,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: I call it nothingness. to go into that blank spot
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: where you're being controlled by higher powers, you're tapping into something,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: the source. The same thing that Jackson Pollock tapped into
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: when he was throwing paint on those canvases on the floor,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that that world is where Roger was. And so few
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: people can get there. And that's a deadly zone for
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: some reason. That's why a lot of those people It's
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: not an easy place to be in tune with. Kurt Cobain,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: you can name Jimi Hendrix. It made these people, something
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: happened to them and they couldn't, they brought back magic
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: for us all to appreciate, but it killed them. So
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: this is the zone that Roger has been in with
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: his songs. It killed Keith, you know, and Roger is
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: alive and he's, I'm watching him throw himself into this very,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you know, powerful, dangerous place. You follow me when I'm saying?
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you mean so. In other words, when
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: they're back into reality, it's hard for them to live
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: in that real world when they've experienced that euphoric feeling
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: of being in the zone, right? It's hard for them
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: to not want to go back.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: I would say yes, that and the information. that came
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: in with the singing, other things come into that awareness
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: and consciousness. And it's, I would imagine, you know, I mean, yeah,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I think it makes, relatively speaking, that magical world versus reality.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: You see, Roger doesn't really live in the reality like
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you and I live. He would probably kill himself. He
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: goes from one magical place to the next, and that's
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: been happening. So when he throws himself into that pure
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: zone of magic, he's not going to a nine-to-five job
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the next day. Right. Wow. And coming home and blowing
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: his brains out. He's leaving the studio, and he goes,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: right then, I'm off. He's going out to a Michelin
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: star restaurant with John Paul Mitchell and two blondes. Yes.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: And then he's getting in his Mercedes and he's jetting
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: back down to his 450 acre Jacobian mansion from the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: 1600s with 18 chimneys and a trout pond. He's not
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: living in the ordinary world. He hasn't. since he was,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: you know, 16 or 17, really. But I would imagine,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's still a dangerous place. And Roger didn't
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: do any drugs, you know. When he was singing, he wasn't,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: you know, snorting lines of Coke. He wasn't, you know,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: drinking bourbon. He wasn't doing shots of espresso. You know
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: what he was drinking? Chamomile tea, religiously. Wow. And I
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: became his teammate.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, that's in the book. He had an interesting way
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: of centering himself, right?
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: Chamomile tea. Very, very important. That was the first order
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: of business. And it had to be just the right temperature.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: You had to steep that tea just the right way.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I was educated on all this stuff by the lovely
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: woman up in the office at Abbey Road when she
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: saw me fussing around by the kitchen up there in
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the office. She said, what are you doing? And I said,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I have to make Roger tea. She goes, you're making
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Roger tea? She said, oh, let me show you how
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to do it. And she showed me that she got
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: the teaspoon. She got the platter. She got the temperature
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: exactly right. And she showed me how long to steep
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: it with the tea bag. And she made the whole
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: thing and showed me the ritual of making tea properly
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: in England. gave me the tea tray, a thing of honey.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And then she goes, okay, off with you. And I
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: would take the tray down to Roger. And, you know,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: because there's a whole bunch of things that happen why
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not playing on this record now. Why am I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: not playing drums? What happened with that? Well, it's, you know,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: you have to read the book to see how this
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: all worked out. So I've been relegated from playing on
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: the record to just sitting on the couch watching him
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: sing and making him tea now.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Don Henze, the author of Roger Daltrey and the bright,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: shiny object. Yeah. You originally believed you were going to
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: be playing drums on the album, but your only official
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: performance credit would be for backing vocals on days of light.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: And is it just that track or did you get
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: credit on others?
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: I got credited on one, but when I was in
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: charge of making the credit list, like I had to
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: do the, the administrative stuff. So, you know, I had
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: to go Ricky bird guitars, uh, you know, Tommy Price
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: drums and the backing vocals, Robert Lamb. And then when
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it came time to put myself on the record, I
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: was just so disgusted with the whole thing. Like I,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you know, look, it was very special to make Roger's tea.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And when you brought him the tea into the sound
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: room at Abbey Road, he said, thank you so much, Don.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: You're a sweetheart, you know, and So this is the
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: only interaction I have with him is just him thanking
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: me for making his tea. And I go back and
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: sit on the couch and then watch him sing for
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the next five hours, day after day, month after month. And, um,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: but when it came time to do the credits, I
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: didn't even put my, my name on Gerard. The producer said, Hey,
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: you didn't put your name on the credits. So Gerard
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: put my name on there. So that's the only reason
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: why it shows up on the internet. It's because Gerard said,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: you know, but there, the other song I did, I
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: signed backgrounds on was the song, uh, You can't call
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: it love. You can't call it love.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: It's my second favorite track.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I sang backgrounds on that song too.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: You can't call it love.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: And, uh, my second favorite behind days of a light. Ah, yeah.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: The beautiful songs and especially the way Roger sings them. Right.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, just, you know, he, he just, I was
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: never a who fan growing up. Everybody likes the who,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: but I, I never had their records, uh, I was
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: more into Steely Dan and Chick Corea and I was
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: playing to, you know, Buddy Rich records and, and Fusion records.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And I thought Keith's Moondrumming to me was, you know,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: just sloppy and kind of, So as a drummer, I
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: didn't really understand Keith's playing and the magic of it
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: until I watched Roger sing in Abbey Road. And I
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: started going, wow, these guys are artists. They're spontaneous. They're
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: not afraid to take chances and step out on that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: ledge and jump off, you know?
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: People are wondering, watching and listening to this, what happened?
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: Why didn't you end up playing drums?
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to say drums on the record. Then
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: that somehow got squashed. I mean, there's a lot of
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: politics going on. You know, the interesting thing is that
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the Who management was very tied in with Joan Jett, okay?
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: And Joan Jett, the management of the Who, and they
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: were very close with Joan Jett. And so Tommy Price,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Joan Jett's drummer, wound up playing drums. And Ricky Bird,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Joan Jett's guitarist played and then we were working but
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: he didn't cut it the bass player from Joan Jett
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: was coming in and trying to track songs but he
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: couldn't cut it so it was almost Joan Jett's whole
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: band and I'm not sure how that played out behind
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the scenes but so it went from me supposed to
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: play drums because you know I had played drums for
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Gerard for a year for nothing and this is bartering
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: music business bartering you know then it was the playing
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: percussion well you're going to play percussion on it, you know,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: and then, uh.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Jody Linscott got percussion credit.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, she was, she was playing with the who
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and Eric Clapton and then Elton John. And she had
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: been playing with the who for a long time. And
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: that was already made up in Roger's mind that she
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: was going to be playing percussion. And I brought all
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: my percussion gear over there, and I didn't learn I
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: wasn't playing percussion until that first session in that tiny
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: vocal booth room upstairs at Abbey Road. That's where I learned, oh,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not playing percussion either.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: This sucks.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: So they brought in a guy. I'm looking here. Greg Gerson.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Well, he was on one of the songs.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Oh, he's on one. Okay.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. There's one drummer on Can't Call It Love and
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: then Greg Garrison. Tommy Price from Joan Jett, you know,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: played with Billy Idol. Right.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: He's an amazing drummer.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: He just passed away, too.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: Did he?
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: It blows my mind.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And Dave Ruffy.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That's a guy who played on Can't Call
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: It Love.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: He did those in his own studio. It was done
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: on another studio. And then, you know, there's the beginning
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of the... age where you didn't need to show up
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: in the studio. You could do it in your home studio.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: And I, I don't know how those drums, I always
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: thought those drums are a little stiff. Tommy price played on, uh,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: all the tracks except for two.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And, um, yeah, so, uh, you know, so here I am, uh,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: sticking it out in the music business saying, I got
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: to get out of here. And then Gerard saying, I'm
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: going to be working with Roger Daltrey and you're going
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: to be playing drums to, you're going to be, playing
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: percussion to I'm sitting on a couch making Rogers tea.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Why did that happen? Why did they not choose you?
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: Do you know, did you ever get a, an explanation?
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: No. And you know, I, I can understand that Jody
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Lynn Scott was the who's percussion player and she's, she's
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: on tour with Roger. Now she's, she was, she used
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: to date Pete Townsend. She, she's part of that who crew. Um,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and yeah, Gerard was telling me things that maybe Gerard
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to have happen but Roger had already you know
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: made up his mind oh Jody's gonna play percussion of
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: course but nobody told me and I found out everything
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: in the hard way like sitting in the studio with
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: my bag of percussion getting ready to do percussion tracks
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: and Roger the first day he showed up the first
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: thing out of his mouth when he Push the door
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: open into the studio. The first thing he says, Gerard,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: I know an amazing percussion player, Jodi Linscott. She's going
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to do all the percussion. And I'm sitting next to
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: my percussion stuff. And I went, wow. Yeah, I went, wow. Yeah. Wow.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, he didn't mean it that way.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: He bucked in and I left the studio.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're pissed, right?
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: I was beyond pissed. I was like, you know, this
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: is exactly why. I had told, Gerard was saying, look,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: back in New York after we met Roger and I'm
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: not going to be playing drums on this and he's
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: saying I'm going to be playing percussion and Roger Gerard
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: McMahon would say all these things and it's not all
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: his fault really because the music business is like that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: he says people telling him things all the time that
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: never happened it's entertainment business you know that's why you
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: know people wind up dying doing it that's why I
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: had to get out before it killed me and so
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: back in before we went to England, to Abbey Road,
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: he said, you know, and you're going to be coming
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: to do your percussion at Abbey Road, you know. I said,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: so you're going to, I'm going to England? He goes, yeah,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: you're going to, you're going to go to, come to England.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And I was on the phone with him and I said, Gerard,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do it. I said, I'm not,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I don't, I don't want to go to England because
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't, first, I didn't think. He goes, really? You
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: don't want to go to England? He's saying, you don't
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: want to go to England. I go, yeah, I don't
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: want to do it. I'm not interested. And then he said, yeah,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: but this would be a big move for your career.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: And I don't understand. I said, look, send me a
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: plane ticket to England and I'll go. And he said, OK.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: And we hung up the phone and I said, good.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: That's the end of that, because I know I'm not
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: going to get a plane ticket. And two days later,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I got hand delivered at the apartment in Brooklyn,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: a plane ticket to England.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: You didn't think that was going to happen, but it did.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: No.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: But it did. And so now I'm, you know, making
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: his tea. And he's very nice about me making it. Thanks, Don.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: You're a sweetheart. But this is humiliating. You know, I
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: come from a long lineage of famous musicians, New York
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: City musicians, and I'm very talented. musician and and this
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: is roger daltrey and everything but you know that first
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: month at abbey road i said when i got back
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to new york i said okay that was fun and
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: everything and that was an interesting experience but i'm done
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: i'm that's enough of that i'm not going on and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: on with this because i'm running out of money in
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: my bank account i gotta figure out what the hell
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: i'm gonna do so to survive now that i'm not
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: going to be doing music enough of this music stuff
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it's it's It's going to kill me. I went to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: Roger's house though. Yeah.
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, I want to get to that. But, but Roger was,
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: he was looking to write more because Pete Townsend received
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: the songwriting income from the whose catalog. So this was
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: important to him. Now there is a song called everything
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: a heart could ever want. Willow in parentheses.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: That's a song you call just Willow in the book
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: and you supplied lyrics to connected the verse to the
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: chorus but no songwriting credit for you.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: No no no roger peeked over my shoulder.
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: And then uh next thing i know is in the
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: sound room because nobody could get the link from the
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: verse to the chorus it is there had to be
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: something that fit in there they were just going with
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: no words.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: And i and i i can't i wrote something and
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: roger uh was looking over my shoulder when next thing
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: I know he's in the sound room singing those words.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's interesting. But for me, all right,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: we'll get, I didn't care about that because, you know,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to make it famous in my own band.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm feeling like I'm a guy that should be
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: in his own band, like The Who. I'm not looking
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: to scrap around here and write some lyrics for some guy.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I don't care about singing background vocals with Roger. I
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: love that I did that now, but I wasn't bragging
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: about it to anybody back then because it was so
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: far short of my dreams. It was just, it was humiliating.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: I'm making his tea. I'm going eating in Michelin star restaurants.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: And then I get to go hang out his house.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: And I met his daughter Willow there. And, She, I'll
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: never forget the first day singing Willa. My heart thumps
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: heavy now just thinking about it. She was so incredible.
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: How old was she at that time?
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: 16.
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, Roger brought you into his childhood home. Shows
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: you the bedroom.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Well, that comes later.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: That's later.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: But this is, Yeah, that's like the third trip to England.
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: But this is his manor, a Jacobian 450-acre castle. Practically
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: a castle, this thing. You see, you look up at
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: the chimneys, and I remember getting out of the car
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: in the backyard, and I just started counting chimneys. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. 12, 13, 14, 15.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: And I'm saying, well, they go, each one goes to
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: a separate room. I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, wow.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: Is he still living there now?
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Do you know? Yes. Yeah, sure. Wow.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Jesus. How many chimneys can a rock star get?
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: As many as they want.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, you know, when, when I showed up
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: there in his backyard, I, um, I said every fantasy
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: in your mind, your wildest imagination of the way rock
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: stars on that level live, like David Gilmour or Paul
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: McCartney and all these guys, you might have a sort
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: of imagination of the way rock stars live. And mine
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: was pretty fantastical, what I thought I was going to see.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: But nothing in your mind could ever get you ready
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: for standing there and feeling the power and magic of it.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: And you really understand the magnitude of the impact that
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: this singer has had, artist has had on the world.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: I have goosebumps right now. And that's why it took
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: me so long to write it because this is a
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: historical documentation too. And it's important because I think a
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: lot of people should experience that in the way I
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: experienced it because it was priceless in so many ways.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: And if you forget about your own dreams and your me, me, me,
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: and I'm supposed to be the rock star, I'm supposed
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: to make the millions, I'm supposed to have the house.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: If you forget about all that and you just become
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: a little more humble, as I have over the years,
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: you say, Standing there and making it to that place
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: is beyond your wildest dreams.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. You had an experience that very few of
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: us can say we've had. I don't. I think I'll
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: ever get one of those before I'm out of here,
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: before I go off into the next world. You never know.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: You never know, laddie. Who knows? Don't say that. You're
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: a special guy, Eric. You really are. And, and, you know,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: you got a great energy and there's a lot of
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: magic going on with you. I'll tell you that right now. Thanks.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Shame on whoever, whatever, whoever that girl is that broke
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: your heart. May God forgive her.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: She's happy. She went on. She's got a good life
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: where she is. So that, that makes me happy. Hey,
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: Days of Light, that song, I remember being on the
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: rock station in Connecticut, New Haven. And that was played
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: a lot, heavy rotation. So it did very well. Now,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: there is a story in the book about the president
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: of Atlantic Records coming in, not impressed with the early
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: mixes and says, it's got potential here, but come back
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: with a legendary mix. So what did you understand that
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: comment to mean?
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: The other mixes sounded like, you know, a wet... rag
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: or something.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Is, is the version that we hear on the record,
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: the legend you.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Hear on the record is when we, we, we, we
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: got rid of the person who was mixing them on
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: the cheap, who wasn't a sound mixer, but Gerard, the
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: producer had burned through way more money. than we were
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: supposed to be, we were budgeted for. So he didn't
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: have money to hire a hotshot mix engineer, which is
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: a very high dollar to get mix engineers that because
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: they're worth their money. So we had Tony, uh, who,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: who worked on a lot of Steely Dan stuff, but
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't mix it. He's the sound engineer. He gets the,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: He puts the mics on the drums and he gets
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: all the levels right. He knows the mics to use
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: and the EQs and so on. But he doesn't mix
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: the songs. That's an art. And those guys make a
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: lot of money. They name their price. So we got,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: when the president of Atlantic said, you know, look, I
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: hear some good things here. Get me a legendary mix
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: on this and we'll see what we can do. And
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: we brought in Johnny Most. Johnny most came in and
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: he was a hotshot sound mixing guy, you know, he
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: knew it and he had ball balls. That guy, I'll
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: tell you, man, I was like, man, I should have
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: half the balls. Johnny most.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: Was he handpicked by Atlantic or did Roger?
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: No. Uh, somehow, I mean, Gerard, uh, came up with him. Okay.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And he, he had some hits on the radio at
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: the time and he was, he was hot. He was hot.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: He was, he had that, he had the touch, uh,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: He knew the sound. He knew the way things, the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: way the EQ were supposed to go, what was singing
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: in the contemporary mixes, you know, how much echo and
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: reverb and how the voice, things should sit and tantalize
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: the ear. He was young and fluid, baby, fluid. Yo, dude. Yeah.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: I liked him, but he was very arrogant, you know,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: and Roger had no problem with him, but he was
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: very arrogant. He's like, you know, he's like everybody out,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: out of the, out of the, out of the room out.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: That means you, that means you too. I love you, Roger,
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: but everybody out. Wow. Like, Holy shit. That guy's telling
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: Roger to get out of the room. And Roger goes, okay, Johnny.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: You know, knock them dead, you know, and then Johnny's
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: in there going, I've got to come through. This is
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Roger fucking adultery. I, you know, in the way he
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: mixed and I eventually got to be, you know, I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: got to be allowed to go in and sit with
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: him and watch him. And he and I developed a
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: rapport and he became a friend and an ally.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: Well, for a time. Okay. Okay. What happened?
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, if he ever watches this, I love you, Johnny.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: And hopefully when the book is made into a Broadway show,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: we'll all have a big dinner after and we'll be
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: our asses off, you know. But, you know, I had
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: to write about it the way it happened. And I
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: don't know, you know, how he feels about it if
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: he read the book. But like I said, eventually when
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: this gets made into a Broadway show or a HBO
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: series or something, you know, All will be forgiven.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: We should mention the book came out in 2022. Yes.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: But fortunately for me, you discovered this podcast like six
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: weeks ago, and you contacted me, which I'm so glad
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: you did. Okay, so you got these great musicians, engineers,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: and things. There's a lot of pluses there, but you
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: also witnessed miscommunication, overspending, people being replaced.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yeah, overspending, yeah.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: Where did the project lose its way? Would you have
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: done anything differently?
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: It lost its way because they spent so much money
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: making it, there was no money to promote it.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, because that's what I wondered. After Days of Light,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: which did very well, it dropped off the face of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: the earth. It was like nothing. I think Roger was
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: on David Letterman to promote that.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: At the time. He went on a number of talk shows.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: But it just, they could have followed with another single.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, they could have, but my.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Guess is they didn't put money. It takes money to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: do that. Behind the scenes, it takes money. Right. I mean,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: it's called payola, you know. You know, John Lennon had
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: to buy, John Lennon himself bought 100,000 copies of Double
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Fantasy out of his own pocket. Did you ever know,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: did you know that? No. He bought the first 100,000
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: copies so the thing would chart. to get it going.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: It takes, it takes money behind the scenes. It's, it's, it's,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of mobsters and it's a, it's, it's a,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we used probably a $ 250, 000 of the money
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes money to get things rolling. So we
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: were budgeted 250,000. It's been today's money. Maybe that's closer
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: to 500,000 now. So we rifled through Gerard, rifled through
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: that in, in, Four months, you know. And Bill Kerbishley,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: he was coming into the studio complaining about us taking
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: too long after six weeks of working on the record.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: He's like, are you done? Are you done, Roger? You know, no.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: And we've got four more songs. But seven's enough. Seven's enough.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: That's plenty of songs, Roger. Seven. What are you doing?
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: That's like an EP. It's like 11 on it. But
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: when we were done with seven, Bill Kerbishley, you know,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: the who's manager, the money man said, that's it's enough.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: You don't need more. You know, they, they don't need more.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: So it went on for like, the whole thing went
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: on for like another eight or nine months of spending, spending, spending, uh, $ 500, 000
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in that money back then, more than $ 500, 000. And we
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: only got the last bit of money when Johnny Most
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: came in and re-nixed those songs. The president of Atlantic,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: he liked it. He liked Roger's lyrics. And Roger wrote
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: half the lyrics on that record. And I think he
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: was really into the artistry of Roger writing his own lyrics,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: and he gave the final bit of money needed to
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: finish the record because the mixes, Johnny Most came through
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: with the mixes. But what happened with it is they
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: didn't have money for promotion, and Bill Kerbishley was so
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: disgusted with the whole process, him and Roger actually parted ways.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: For quite a number of years. Quite a number of years.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: And Roger didn't make another solo record. This is all
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: over the money. And Roger never, never talks about this
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: time in his career. Never. So what's in this book
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: is a window into something Roger will never talk about. Wow.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: So he wanted more money to be spent on it
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: to promote it.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: Roger's used to doing things like Roger Daltrey. Sure.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: Well, there are.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: He's not thinking about money. He's Roger Daltrey. Those guys
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: never thought too much about money. They knew they had
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: to make it, but they didn't really think about how
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: much are they spending.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 2: The album only reached 83 in Canada. That was it.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: Days of Light, the single, number six on the US
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: rock chart. It did very well, but What other songs
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: do you think could have been hits? Because You Can't
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Call It Love, in my opinion, could have been a hit.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: That could have been the follow-up. Who's Gonna Walk on
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Water could have been.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Who's Gonna Walk on Water. Actually, it's an album
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: where every song I think is really good. Unforgettable Opera.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: People love that song.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: Which you interpret as about Pete Townsend.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: Well, it is. Roger said it's about Pete, not touring.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: Pent up feelings about him. Yeah, reluctant to tour.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: It was his feelings about the frustration of Pete not
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: touring and Roger contemplating a future without his beloved band.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think they toured again until 97. I saw
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: them in that 97 tour, the Quadrophenia tour, was it?
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Wait, did you see him at the Garden?
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: No, in Hartford, Connecticut that summer, I remember.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was at all those shows backstage. There were
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: three of them at the Garden, or two of them,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: two or three, and I went to eat every one
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: of those. Yeah.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: You played Carnegie Hall with Roger.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I did play the full-on drum set with
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Roger at Carnegie Hall. Yep.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: And your great-grandfather performed there three generations earlier.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yep.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: That's a special night for you.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: And if you see me on my deathbed with a smile,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: it'll be either that night with Suzanne on my mind
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: or that, that show with Roger and Carnegie Hall, or
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: maybe both back and forth would be the, you know,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: I'll be shaking my head going, you know, because we,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: we played, we did a medley of whose songs and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: then we did, uh, Perfect World off of the Rocks
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: on the Head album. So it was a blistering set
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: because we were playing a benefit show. So there were
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of different acts there. You know, there was
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: Debbie Harry and there was Groove is in there. There
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: was Bruce Willis. Every famous person in New York City
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: was there. Quincy Jones was there and Bruce Willis and...
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I name them in the book. I couldn't believe how
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: many famous people were there.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a funny story in the book about when
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: you went there to rehearse, I think, and people were
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: kind of treating everybody like dirt until Roger showed up. Oh, hey,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: it's Roger Daltrey. Hey, how you doing, sir?
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: The sound engineer there didn't like Roger either. He's treating
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Roger like dirt too because he said we played too loud.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: The sound engineer at Carnegie Hall during our sound check said,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: if you play like that during the show, I'm going
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: to shut you off. You know, you got to turn down.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: And Roger said, we're a rock band. We're not turning down.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: Damn straight.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: The guy goes, turn it down. We're having this legendary
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: fight during the sound check because the guy said we
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: were too loud. Now, this was one of the few
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: times since the original Who where Roger just played with
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: a bass drummer and guitar in a stripped down. Gerard
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: played acoustic. but it was Ricky Bird doing the meat
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: and potatoes of the songs, Sean Solomon on bass, and
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: me on drums, and and gerard on acoustic it was
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: raw it was loud and we brought the house down
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: people were going fucking crazy is there a recording of
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: that no no i mean this is the days before
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: you know this is 1991 now there's no cell phone,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: maybe somewhere, somebody, somebody took pictures. I haven't seen it.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: It wasn't televised. It wasn't.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Nope. No, not, not this time.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: No cast on FM radio.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Nobody, you know, maybe somebody has a video of it somewhere,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: but I don't know where, I mean, I would love
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: to see that tape.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: If somebody out there has it, but you know, my
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: record of it in.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: The book is the way, really the way it happened.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: And if you want to know what it's like, to
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: play drums for Roger Daltrey. He brings stuff out of
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: you as a drummer, out of me, because I don't
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: think Zach Starkey has much to give. He's a very
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: mushy kind of drummer. There's no real fire in that guy.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: You listen to Keats Moon drumming and every single hit,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: he's bleeding. Those drums like Hemingway played on the keys
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: of the typewriter. And you either have that or you don't.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: You know, Stuart Copeland has that.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, one of my all-time favorites.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: You know, so I have that, you know. And for
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, Zach Starkey doesn't have it. I mean, that's debatable,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: and I know a lot of people love his drumming.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's completely wrong. But this show at Carnegie Hall...
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: The things that Roger brings out of you.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: How many songs did you play?
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: We played, I think it was 23 minutes, nonstop. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: One song to the next. I think we played five songs,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: four songs, or five songs. You know, nonstop. One right
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: from the next. Boom, boom.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: A new track from the album. What else? The Who?
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Um...
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: .
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: .
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. I've played
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: in small clubs where you're, you feel more nervous in
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: front of 15 people than a sold out Carnegie hall
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: with Quincy Jones and Bruce Willis and, you know, Debbie
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: Harry and all kinds of other famous people. I felt
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: completely calm and you feel this power and electricity like
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: never before. And absolutely the, the, the ghost of my great-grandfather,
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: the bass player who played there, was definitely with me,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: giving me a lot of confidence and surety. And I played,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: you know, I did really, really well. Because like I said, Roger,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: if you make one mistake, he's going to freak out.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: So not only was I, I had to play really
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: good in the rehearsals too, because Roger's not going to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: get on stage at Carnegie Hall in front of all
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: of those people unless that band is kicking ass. And
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: I played the rehearsals great and I played the show
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: even better because you have to rise to the occasion.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like being thrown into combat. You don't
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: know really what you're made of until you get thrown
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: into combat. Yeah. And I wish it was more.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: You know, I wish I got to play with him more. Yeah.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: Roger called you a star. He talked about.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Managing your career. You know, this thing is just developing now,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: you know. And the way it progresses as the story goes,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: you cannot predict how this thing is going to happen
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: because life is stranger than fiction. And this is definitely
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: true with me and Roger. And the way these things happen,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: when you read the book, it makes sense. But, you know,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: the details of how it happened and why things happen
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: to progress the way they progress is very unusual and
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: extremely entertaining from what people tell me who have read
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the book.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Bright, shiny object. That's part of the title. And that's
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 2: because in his eyes, you were that bright, shiny object.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: And he had his attention on you, but it shifted
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: to another project eventually.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, before I met Roger, I
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: became like a Phil Collins thing. And, you know, I
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: stepped out to the to front my bands and I
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: was I originally started out as the drummer, but then
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: I became the singer front man. So seeing Roger sing
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: and making his tea and going through that sort of
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: humiliating process and Roger's not really He's not particularly, he
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: doesn't talk to me. He doesn't say hi to me.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: We haven't had any conversations until, you know, his daughter, Willow,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: got a crush on me.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: Did she?
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: He could have been your dad.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: He came to the studio one day at Abbey Road
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: and he comes in the door. He goes, Willow likes dogs. Don,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: he's walking across the room with his hand out. This
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: is a letter from Willow. He gives me the letter,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: and he's standing there, very excited, looking down at me,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: sitting on the couch, and I'm holding this beautiful envelope
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: with Willow's handwriting on it. And he's standing there, and
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: I'm opening up the letter, and I start reading it,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and he's still looking down at me. And he goes, well,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: what does it say, Don? I go, this is private, Roger,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: you know. Come on, just tell me your And I
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: was like, no, she wouldn't want me to tell you
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: what she's writing me. And it was a really nice
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: letter because I had met her at the house that weekend,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the manor house. And I told you I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: saw her and immediately you you I never saw a
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: girl like that in my life, you know.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 2: And you could have been Roger Daltrey's son.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: Son-in-law.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: Son-in-law.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: As the thing developed, eventually he started introducing me to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: his friends as his future son-in-law. We'd go out to
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: dinner and he'd say, this is Don, my future son-in-law.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: And I'd say, oh, I didn't know that.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm looking for pictures of her, let's see.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's, you know, they don't have too much information
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: about Willow on the web. They keep her She doesn't
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: want any attention.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: There's, you'll see one picture of her on the, on
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the web from that time. She's wearing a little purse
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: that I got her on her side. She's got a
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: little bag thing, a colorful little baggy thing. That's like
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the only picture. That's the only information about real adultery
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: on the web.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 2: What a story, man. And we, I kind of gloss
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: over quickly, but if you want to talk, he brought
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 2: you into his childhood home and you, you were, He
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: showed you the bedroom where the Who first rehearsed. I mean,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: are you kidding me? And then you slept in the bed, right?
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: That night?
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Slept in the bedroom.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: That Keith slept in. Keith Moon.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: Well, the bed where Keith had his drums set up.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: Okay. Jesus. What a trip.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: And I couldn't get to sleep. Couldn't get to sleep.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: The things and the energy. The thing's going through my head.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: Where is this, by the way? Where is that house?
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: Chiswick. Chiswick.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: That's the one where he's like, he stocked the refrigerator
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: with beers and food and you guys could take whatever
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 2: you want.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he brings this over to the refrigerator and
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: he opens it and it's stuffed with food and steaks
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: and And he goes, you think you've got enough beer?
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: I think you probably need more beer. Let me go.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I'll be right back. We're like, Roger, that's plenty of beer.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: Don't worry. You sure? But he did. There were no
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: servants at their giant house. They did everything. Heather cooked everything.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Roger ran around like a lunatic getting everything ready for
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: our arrival. And when you sit at his dinner table
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and you have dinner with him, He is so down
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: to earth and natural. You feel so much like yourself
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: with him. It's very relaxing. He's very engaging. You drink
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: lots of wine and you talk nonstop and you eat
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Heather's home cooked meals that are absolutely over the top delicious.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: And you sit at that table in this Jacobian manner,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: 16th century Jacobian manor for hours after hours. And then
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: Roger goes back down into the wine cellar, brings up
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: another three bottles of port. Now he's got his guitar
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: and now he's jamming, sitting at the head of the table,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: jamming blue songs and I'm banging on the table. Wow.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: And he's, he's, he's singing blue songs and one after
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: the other. And then, uh, Scott James says, uh, After
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: he finishes this blues song, Scott James says, do some
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: doors do some doors Roger Scott I hate the doors.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: Oh my god we just realized.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely not absolutely.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: Not James not a doors.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: Fan absolutely not Scott And he gets a little worried,
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: like maybe he's going to get thrown out of his house.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: You know, oh, I hate the Dole Scott.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: And then he'd start playing another song, but he does
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: not stop playing. He goes on and on, just like
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: in the studio at Abbey Road. He loves to sing
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: and sing and sing and sing. And we're drinking wine and,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: He still sounds great at 82.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: He said, that's why, because, you know, he's superhuman. One
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: thing I came to realize is the book shows you
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of his human sides, because we're human after all.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: And maybe he talks about things, maybe he doesn't want
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: people to hear about his shrieks and shrills and missed
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: notes in the studio. These rock stars, they're very particular
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: about what stories they've told to the public over the
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: last 50 years. And they're the same stories and All
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: the stories I'm telling, nobody has told. And, you know,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: he doesn't have control of people hearing those stories. And
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: maybe he doesn't want people to know that and to
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: know this and these details. But he's very human, very
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: amazing in person. The energy is, it's an adventure. It's,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: to me, much... more fun and adventurous and a thrill
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: just hanging out with him in his kitchen and and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: see him play at the garden he's he's absolutely to
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: be around him was one of the greatest gifts him
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: and heather and and and rosie and and willow to
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: experience that family was one of the the most mad
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: deep one of the most magical things in my life
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: and i still have dreams about it and um It
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: changed my whole life. The trajectory of my life is
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: completely different from what it would have been if I
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: didn't meet them.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 2: Roger Daltrey and the Bright Shiny Object. Get this book.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 2: It is out wherever books are sold. It's on Amazon.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's on Kindle, right?
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: Maybe there's another book or two coming?
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I have to make some money with this
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: book because... You know, I can't work. I have to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: work and I work really hard. And this, you can't
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: write a book at the same time. I wrote that book.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: It took three years. And the only reason I could
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: finish it was because I got unemployment from when COVID happened.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: The last eight or nine or 10 months, I pushed
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: through every day on unemployment, writing seven days a week.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: I felt like I was taking years off of my
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: life knowing that it's an hourglass. My unemployment's going to
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: run out. If I don't finish this book and I
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: get another job, I may never finish it. And I'm
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: pushing and pushing and pushing to finish it. But I
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: was praying for miracles. And then COVID came. They call
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: that a miracle. But that allowed me to finish the
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: book because I got unemployment. So to write another book,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: and there's another book, believe me, about what happens after
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: this first storm. year with Roger and the family and
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: with Willow and our relationship. Where does that go? What
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: happened with that? And, you know, Roger eventually, in the story,
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: Roger came to see me sing because I said, you know,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: I'm putting together a band. I'm going to sing. I'm
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: going to show everybody what I can do. I don't
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: just make tea, okay? I'm Don Hensley. I can get
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: on stage and really put a show across. And this
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: may be my last show, but I'm doing one more show.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: You know, and the funny thing is his bodyguard, Nabi,
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: came to see me at the Sun Mountain. And I
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: threw this band together in two weeks and I threw
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: these songs together. And it was Nabi. I mean, he
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: said Nabi never. I don't think he ever laughed, laughed
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: so hard in his life. The things that happened in
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: that show. I started swinging the mic around like Roger.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: I had a swing in and around. And I didn't
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: have the mic taped. You know, Roger puts a lot
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: of tape on that mic to keep it from going
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: like a missile, killing somebody. I'm swinging the mic around
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: and it comes off the microphone and it nips Nabi
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: sitting in the audience right by his ear. I almost
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: hit him right square in the head.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 2: It would have killed him.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: But Nabi fell, literally fell off his chair laughing. He's this,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: you know, ruddy, you know, uh, CISIC guy, you know, uh,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: company boys and he, he's gangster, you know, bodyguard. And
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: he fell off his chair laughing. So when we were
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: back in the studio that week in New York city,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: he would not shut up. Roger, you got to go
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: see Don. You got to go see Don. Don, Roger's like, what?
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: What do you mean, Don? I saw Don sing. You
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: got to go see him. You got to go see him.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: And Roger looked at me, looked at Nobby. Let me
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: know next time you're going to play Don. Um, Like
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: he's very confused because nobody was talking about me as
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: a singer and I was making his tea and nobody
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: could really care less. And they kept me around for
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: some reason. They didn't say, well, why are we paying
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: this guy? Or they weren't really, they didn't really pay me.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: I never asked for money. And so he came, Roger finally,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: after that show with Nabi, I did another show and
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: Roger came to the show. And you know who else
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: was there? Robert Lamb, the singer, lead singer from Chicago
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: was there too. He was a very good friend of mine.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: He would come to all my shows with his then girlfriend,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: a fiance, Joy. And I used to hang out with
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: Robert a lot. As a matter of fact, I was
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: friends with him for a good 30 years until he
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: read my book. Now he won't talk to me. He's
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: in the book and he doesn't like the little stories
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: I told about him in the book. You know, he
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: sold me his Doc Martens, for example, that he was
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: wearing on tour for 20 bucks. And he brought them
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: to me when we went out to dinner that night
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: in a paper bag. And I gave him 25. And
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: he goes, no, no, they're only 20. And I said,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: it's the five dollars is a tip. You know, so
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: I told that story in the book. And now Robert
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: won't talk to me because of that. I think so,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: because when I send Robert an email, I get a
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: response back in 15 minutes. He has a lot of
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: immense respect for my talent, and we go back a
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: long ways, and then he read my book, and now
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: he won't return any of my communications. That's how sensitive
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: these guys are, these rock stars, rock gods. about there's
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: things that people know about them. And I think when
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: people read my book, I think like you, I would
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: say you actually love Roger even more, wouldn't you say?
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: Yes. Makes him human. It comes across that he's a
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: good guy.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but what happens is his superhuman side is even
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: more powerful than I ever could imagine until I experienced
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: that energy up close. So, you know, Roger came to
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: this show and he was blown away. And he said,
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Don's a star. And Johnny Most, the mix engineer, the
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: guy with the big balls and, you know, the hot
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: shot mix engineer, he said, Roger, you know, you're looking
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: for other ways to make money now that the Who
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't tour. How about you manage Don and his band?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: And Roger was like, yes, he saw money, you know. Because,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not kidding when I tell you I
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: could get on stage and really light that place up.
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: I was doing something that was more of a... I
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: forget what the, I forget the word right now, but
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: I was doing a satire on rock and roll in
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. It was real musicianship and real songs,
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: but I was also, it was a satire. I was
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: making fun of the whole thing because the whole thing
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: was becoming antiquated to me and it needed to go
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: elsewhere and I'm rebellious and I'm ready to bring it
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: somewhere else, but I still want to rock. And, you know, so,
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: He was going to make me a star. And that's
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: really where the book kind of this, the last part
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: of the book is about, well, what happens with Roger
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: managing my band, going to make me huge, introducing me
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: now to everybody as a star. Chrissy Hines. Is it
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: Hines or Hines?
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 2: Chrissy Hines.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: Hines. Chrissy, this is Don. This is my friend Don.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: He's a star. And Chrissy Hines goes, really? Really?
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: Wow. Well, the reviews. I'm sure you've seen the reviews
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 2: on Amazon. Must read for Roger Daltrey and Who fans.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the reviews to me blow my mind.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 2: A fascinating insight. The book isn't just about rock and roll.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: It is rock and roll. Incredible. Literally couldn't put it down.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 2: Worthy read and many interesting and exciting notes.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 2: Look behind the music biz and Roger Dalter recording sessions. Self-published, right?
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm not famous. You know, there's a thousand
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: people that have memoirs and there's four publishing houses that
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: can really do something with books now left. And they
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: can't get to the thousand famous people, movie stars and
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: rock stars that all have books. They can't even, they
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: have such a backlog. Here I come along, Don Henze,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: you know, all right, what, you know, how many, do
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: you have a million Instagram followers or, you know, do you,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: how many X followers do you have? Could you sell
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: a book on X? You know, they're, they're just trying
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: to survive like the music business, publishing companies. So, To self-publish,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: I had to get this out and I do whatever
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: I can to reach and connect with people. It's those
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: beautiful people that read the book and like yourself.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: That's why this show is here. That's why this show exists.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: And, you know, you're so thoughtful in the way that
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: you're so open-minded and that takes a great spirit and energy.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: And if there is hope for the future of our culture,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: because I really think our culture is on the ropes
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: right now. And it's people like you that there is
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: hope for a renewal. And I believe there's more than hope.
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: It's happening now as I'm talking with you and listening
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: to your show and Darren's show, for example, and other
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: podcasters like yourself and those people that took the chance
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: to say, I don't know who this guy is. I
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: never heard of it. It's not on the New York
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: Times bestseller list, but I'm going to spend $ 17. 99 on
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: this and see what this is. And those people that
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: have taken a chance touch my heart. And then the things,
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: as you pointed out, that they wrote on the reviews
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: blows my mind. I read them and I'm so thankful
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: to God from the bottom of my heart. It makes
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: it all worth it because going through what I went
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: through is incredible. I'm one of the luckiest people on earth,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: but I still would like to see this go to
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: that next level and the dream to come true.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: Let's see what happens. By the way, you've mentioned Darren.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: That's Darren Paltrow. It's the Paltrow cast. Get a free
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: plug in for Darren. My man, Darren. Have you been
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: on the Paltrow cast?
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: He's reading the book now.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: He's reading as we speak. Darren, get him on your show, man.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: What a story.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: Don Henzey. Thanks, man.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: Keep in touch. Let's see where this leads. If this
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: blows up and it's on Netflix or something, man, I
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 2: got to have you back on.
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: HBO. I mean, there's already a Hollywood people that love it,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: you know, and they're going, okay, you know, what, what
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: do we, what can we do with this and how
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: can we get Roger involved? So it's definitely ready for
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: all of that. It's, it's, uh, I, I mean, I
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: worked hard to put it in that place and now,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: you know, it's out there. It's out there.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 2: Everybody loves a great story.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: It's part of the new movement. There's a new movement
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: going on. I'm 100% sure of it. I feel it
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: in every cell of my body. I know it's going
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 2: Now, where can people reach out and find you online?
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: Well, people, they seem to find me on Facebook. I
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: get a lot of nice messages about the book on
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: my inbox on Facebook. So if you go to Don
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Enzi Facebook, Um, you can message me there and ask
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: me anything about, you know, my experiences with Roger and, um, or,
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: or the book. I have people recently, you know, they,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: they say, Hey, you've got a couple of minutes. I
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: have some, a lot of questions I want to ask you. Can,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: can we talk on the phone? And I'm like, yeah, sure.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: Give them my phone number. Then, you know, we, we
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: talk about, there's so many things, you know, they want
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: to ask and, I just met this guy that's friends
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: with Roger. He's been to Roger's house and he wanted
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: to share stories back and forth with me. So he's,
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: he's local here. So, uh, we, we went out and, uh,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: we had coffee and, uh, you know, then he recommended
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: the book to his friend and then his friend is
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: emailing me. And, uh, it's, uh, look, it's life is magical.
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: Roger said to many times, Dawn, life is magical. And
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, it really is. You know, it
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: really is. And I'm lucky to be here talking with you, Eric.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: And I thank you kindly to your audience, to those
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: people that are watching and sticking with us through, through,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: through this, to this point. Thank you so much for,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: for watching us talk about Roger Daltrey and, and the
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: magic that is, you know, in all of us and
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: growing stronger every day.
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: Thanks Don. God bless, man. You are, You are now
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: a friend of the podcast.
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Eric. It's been a pleasure.
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: It's in the books.