Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Legendary Music Journalist Lisa Robinson

Transcript

Legendary Music Journalist Lisa Robinson · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
0:26
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmondton. Pioneering rock journalist Lisa Robinson will never
0:36
Speaker 1: run out of stories. Over the past forty years, she's
0:39
Speaker 1: interviewed everyone from John Lennon to Lady Gaga, to Jay
0:42
Speaker 1: Z and Emineh. She even sat down with an eleven
0:45
Speaker 1: year old Michael Jackson years before he became the King
0:48
Speaker 1: of Pop. Lisa's career started in the nineteen seventies when
0:53
Speaker 1: she embedded on massive world tours with led Zeppelin and
0:56
Speaker 1: The Rolling Stones. In the decades since, she's partied with Bowie,
1:00
Speaker 1: dined with Beyonce, and talked Through the Night with Joni Mitchell.
1:04
Speaker 1: And today's interview, Rick Rubin reminisces with Lisa, an old
1:08
Speaker 1: friend about her storied career. She has a lot to
1:11
Speaker 1: say about everything, including how she and her husband, music
1:15
Speaker 1: producer Richard Robinson, practically lived at CBGB's in the mid seventies,
1:19
Speaker 1: and why she felt compelled to write her latest book,
1:22
Speaker 1: called Nobody Ever Asked Me About the Girls, which features
1:26
Speaker 1: excerpts from interviews she's done over the years with Bette Midler,
1:29
Speaker 1: Rihanna Adele, Janelle Mooney, Stevie Nicks, and so many more.
1:34
Speaker 1: Here's Rick Rubin and Lisa Robinson. How are you Rick?
1:38
Speaker 1: I miss you? I miss you too. How are you feeling?
1:41
Speaker 1: Do you see where I'm sitting in front of what
1:43
Speaker 1: do we sit? What is it? That is a portion
1:47
Speaker 1: of my original cassettes and my CDs? The Richard made
1:51
Speaker 1: backup copies of five thousand hours of digitized interviews. That
1:57
Speaker 1: is only a portion, that's not a virtual background, that's
2:00
Speaker 1: real in there are the John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Adele,
2:06
Speaker 1: Rihanna Beyonce, I mean, Rommi, Madley, Croft, King, Princess, everybody
2:12
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy two to the present day. And that
2:17
Speaker 1: is only a portion of them. And Richard also put
2:21
Speaker 1: it on a computer. We backed it up on another computer.
2:25
Speaker 1: I backed it up on three external hard drives that
2:28
Speaker 1: are in three separate secure locations. And I just want
2:32
Speaker 1: to get rid of all of it. Richard swear to god,
2:35
Speaker 1: I have four storage spaces that I have been storing
2:38
Speaker 1: all of this shit. Not my tapes, but posters and
2:42
Speaker 1: memorabilion t shirts and Annie's pictures and Bob Bruin's pictures
2:48
Speaker 1: and original photos from cream rock scene, hit Parador four
2:53
Speaker 1: storage spaces fifty thousand dollars a year for over twenty years.
2:57
Speaker 1: So that's over a million point three that I've invested
3:01
Speaker 1: into holding on to all this crap. And then I
3:04
Speaker 1: have more in my house, more in my office across
3:08
Speaker 1: the street, and every rock book that ever has been
3:12
Speaker 1: published about popular music, the blues hip hop that I'm
3:16
Speaker 1: still holding on to all this, I mean, eight thousand
3:18
Speaker 1: vinyl LPs. It's ridiculous. This is my life. What's your
3:23
Speaker 1: first memory of music? Growing up? Sneaking out of my
3:26
Speaker 1: house at the age of twelve to go Stee Colonious
3:28
Speaker 1: Monk at the five Spot. Literally growing up in Manhattan,
3:32
Speaker 1: how did you know to go? Because my parents were
3:35
Speaker 1: left wing Jewish intellectuals, so we grew up listening to
3:39
Speaker 1: like What He Got three and Lead Bailly and Pete
3:42
Speaker 1: Seeger and sort of left wing music. And I started
3:47
Speaker 1: listening to jazz under the covers, and I would here
3:52
Speaker 1: Mars Davis, Dilonious Monk, John Coltrane, and it just sounded
3:56
Speaker 1: like another sexy world down there, and so I knew
4:00
Speaker 1: they were performing in New York in the Village Van
4:03
Speaker 1: Garden five Spot and I just snuck out of my
4:06
Speaker 1: house to twelve, probably looking like a fool maker up
4:09
Speaker 1: black dresses, high heels, hair on the top of my head.
4:12
Speaker 1: I don't know how I got into these places, but
4:14
Speaker 1: I did. And I remember seeing Monk at the five Spot.
4:17
Speaker 1: I'm just seeing Miles Davis and John Caltrane, all these people.
4:23
Speaker 1: And then I became a huge Rolling Stones fan. I
4:26
Speaker 1: just loved them. I didn't like the Beatles that much.
4:29
Speaker 1: I thought they were too white or I don't know,
4:32
Speaker 1: too cute, whereas the Stones to me, were sexier. And
4:37
Speaker 1: I write about this. They're one of the few things
4:40
Speaker 1: that I mentioned about men in my new book, which
4:43
Speaker 1: is called Nobody Ever Asked Me about the Girls, because
4:47
Speaker 1: nobody ever asked me about the girls. You know, over
4:50
Speaker 1: the past forty years, everyone would say to me, what's
4:53
Speaker 1: John Lennon really like, what's Michael Jackson really like? What's
4:58
Speaker 1: David Bowie really like? What's m and M like, what's
5:01
Speaker 1: Jay Z like? And you know, people ask you about
5:04
Speaker 1: the people that you've worked with. In my case, it
5:07
Speaker 1: was people I interviewed, and no he ever asked me
5:09
Speaker 1: about the girls. And at some point I heard Tina
5:13
Speaker 1: Turner on Richard's radio show on wn WFM, and it
5:19
Speaker 1: just drove I heard Navid Staples, Tina Turner, all this
5:24
Speaker 1: black music, irma Franklin doing Piece of My Heart, which
5:27
Speaker 1: I thought and he thought was better than Jonas Joplin,
5:30
Speaker 1: and that just changed my life because I met him
5:34
Speaker 1: three months later, we got married, and it kind of
5:38
Speaker 1: opened a door to a career that he sort of invented.
5:42
Speaker 1: And I barged through my whole first personal experience with
5:49
Speaker 1: popular music or interviewing people as a job. Richard sent
5:54
Speaker 1: me to interview Tommy James, of Tommy James and the
5:57
Speaker 1: Chantels of Crimson and Clover and all that. He was
6:02
Speaker 1: so coaked up and sweating and he had a shag
6:06
Speaker 1: short truce rug. I'll never forget. You could barely open
6:10
Speaker 1: the door to get into the apartment. And this was
6:12
Speaker 1: my first interview ever that I did. I probably still
6:15
Speaker 1: have to tape somewhere here. And I was lucky and
6:19
Speaker 1: that he was one of the very few evolved men
6:22
Speaker 1: who mentored me and encouraged my whole career. And I
6:27
Speaker 1: just barged through that door. He opened it. I barged
6:30
Speaker 1: through it. What do you remember about Tommy James. Just
6:33
Speaker 1: what I told you, he was coked up. He made
6:36
Speaker 1: very little sense. I mean, actually he was allegedly coked up.
6:41
Speaker 1: I don't want to get sued. He just seemed weird.
6:44
Speaker 1: I don't think i'd ever seen anybody on cocaine. I
6:48
Speaker 1: mean since then, of course I am, but I wasn't
6:52
Speaker 1: used to be babbling in the sweating and that was
6:55
Speaker 1: probably one of the main reasons that I never did
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Speaker 1: it once in my whole life, because I've been around
7:01
Speaker 1: so many bands who indulged in cocaine, and I talk
7:06
Speaker 1: enough as it is, so I didn't need to have
7:09
Speaker 1: any further encouragement. I just thought it was always very sleazy,
7:13
Speaker 1: and probably it dates to that initial occasion. Did you
7:17
Speaker 1: listen to his music before you interviewed him? No, I
7:20
Speaker 1: mean I knew about Crimson and Clover, But this is
7:24
Speaker 1: the other thing, you know. I mean, you know, you
7:27
Speaker 1: can create a vibe with someone without ever losting to
7:31
Speaker 1: their music. I mean, my whole thing about interviewing people
7:35
Speaker 1: is I do like to know everything about them, and
7:38
Speaker 1: I have researched everybody, and I listened to every single
7:42
Speaker 1: thing they've ever done. Now I read every interview they've
7:45
Speaker 1: ever done, and then I throw it all away and
7:48
Speaker 1: I just like have it in my head and I
7:50
Speaker 1: go in and it takes a completely different term. The
7:53
Speaker 1: conversation just goes elsewhere, because if you're just talking to
7:58
Speaker 1: people like people, and I've always been interested in people's stories,
8:03
Speaker 1: So I managed to get them to say things to me.
8:06
Speaker 1: Like everybody who I've been talking to for the book
8:09
Speaker 1: keep saying, how did you get these women to tell
8:12
Speaker 1: you all these things that they never told anyone else.
8:15
Speaker 1: The reason I got these women to open up to me,
8:18
Speaker 1: I think was number one. I walked into the room
8:22
Speaker 1: with a certain history, just like you have. You know,
8:25
Speaker 1: they know your work, they know what you've done. When
8:27
Speaker 1: I met Gaga for the first time, she carried on like,
8:30
Speaker 1: you knew Freddie Mercury, you know David Bowie, you knew
8:34
Speaker 1: John Lennon, And so that was an icebreaker right there.
8:37
Speaker 1: And also we had a bottle of wine waiting, and
8:41
Speaker 1: she worked in the room in full Gaga apparition, black
8:45
Speaker 1: lace katsuit, veil covering her face, and she said, are
8:49
Speaker 1: we going to drink? And I said, yeah, but you've
8:51
Speaker 1: got to lift the veil. I mean literally and figuratively,
8:55
Speaker 1: so that was just an unbelievable connection. We were true
8:58
Speaker 1: New York City girls born in the same hospital many
9:02
Speaker 1: years apart. And I just always like to know a
9:07
Speaker 1: lot about the person, but not ask him about that stuff.
9:11
Speaker 1: I just see where the conversation goes. What was the
9:14
Speaker 1: first writing job you had, like an assignment? Was Tommy
9:18
Speaker 1: James the first one? No, I didn't write that up.
9:22
Speaker 1: I don't know what we did with that. I think
9:23
Speaker 1: Richard used whatever coherent quotes he could find. Maybe he
9:27
Speaker 1: used for his syndicated radio show. And he had a
9:29
Speaker 1: little column in a tiny English paper called Disk and
9:32
Speaker 1: Music Echo, and he didn't want to write that column anymore,
9:36
Speaker 1: and he said you write it. And I said, I
9:38
Speaker 1: don't know how to write, and he said, yes, you do.
9:40
Speaker 1: You know how to talk, you know how to write.
9:42
Speaker 1: So I started to write this little column about stuff
9:46
Speaker 1: that was happening in New York. Actually, prior to that,
9:50
Speaker 1: I had written an anonymous gossip sheet which would be
9:55
Speaker 1: equivalent to a blog today, and I called it The
9:58
Speaker 1: Pop Wire Service, and I typed it out on an
10:02
Speaker 1: actual typewriter. I mimiographed it on colored paper. I didn't
10:07
Speaker 1: put a ballline on it. And I sent it to
10:09
Speaker 1: everyone in the music business. Richard knew all of him
10:11
Speaker 1: because he had been working in this business for a
10:13
Speaker 1: few years, and so people started to buzz about it,
10:16
Speaker 1: like who is writing this thing? And how do they
10:18
Speaker 1: know what's going on? And who's going out with you
10:21
Speaker 1: and what's happening In retrospect, it was literally like maybe
10:25
Speaker 1: not as sleazy, but it was a little tmzsh kind
10:28
Speaker 1: of access Hollywood for the day. But anyway, he gave
10:31
Speaker 1: me this column and disco music Deco. I took it
10:33
Speaker 1: over and led Zeppelin, who was considered a heavy metal
10:38
Speaker 1: cheesy heavy metal band in America, saw this column and
10:43
Speaker 1: they were getting terrible, terrible press in America. John Mendelssohn
10:47
Speaker 1: and Rolling Stone. I remember it to this day, and
10:49
Speaker 1: so does Robert Plant. I'd assure you. He wrote about
10:53
Speaker 1: the lemon song that Robert Plants sings, not it's only
10:55
Speaker 1: a dog can hear, And boy, I'm blessed my memory.
11:00
Speaker 1: And so led Zeppelin saw this kind of puff piecy,
11:04
Speaker 1: kind of pleasant, non judgmental, non reviewing, non critical column
11:11
Speaker 1: in disk in Music Echo, and they want a good
11:14
Speaker 1: press in England so their parents would see it because
11:16
Speaker 1: they were getting terrible press in America, so I was
11:20
Speaker 1: asked to go see them. I went to see them
11:22
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, Florida at a stadium. I mean, they were
11:26
Speaker 1: selling at stadiums, but they were critically getting panned. And
11:32
Speaker 1: the minute I saw them perform, I just thought they
11:35
Speaker 1: were majistic. I just thought they were amazing. I thought
11:39
Speaker 1: they combined hard rock, blues, you know, Eastern music, everything.
11:44
Speaker 1: And so then they invited me to go interview them
11:47
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, and I'd never been there, and so
11:50
Speaker 1: I went and I interviewed them on the roof of
11:54
Speaker 1: the Royal Orleans Hotel, and I talked to Jimmy Page
11:57
Speaker 1: about Money Waters and Hallam Wolfen, Elmore James and Willie Dixon,
12:02
Speaker 1: who they ripped off. And I talked to Robert Plant
12:05
Speaker 1: about incredible spring band in Kaleidoscope and Fairpool Convention in
12:09
Speaker 1: Joni Mitchell, and they were they couldn't believe that a
12:14
Speaker 1: young woman knew about any of these people. And as
12:19
Speaker 1: a result, I went on five doors with them and
12:22
Speaker 1: I thought they were amazing and fantastic. And now here
12:26
Speaker 1: we are, however, many years later, at forty eight whatever,
12:29
Speaker 1: and they're considered one of the greatest bands of all time,
12:32
Speaker 1: but I promised you that when I did my first
12:35
Speaker 1: column on them, they were not. And then I started
12:39
Speaker 1: writing about them for Cream Magazine, and I wrote about
12:42
Speaker 1: Bowie for Cream Magazine, and I became the American editor
12:46
Speaker 1: of the New Music Express in England. I moved up
12:49
Speaker 1: from Disk and Music Echo to that, and then Jagger
12:52
Speaker 1: saw that I was writing all this stuff about Zeppelin
12:55
Speaker 1: that was still favorable, and it was around nineteen seventy four,
13:00
Speaker 1: and he thought he was a dinosaur then because CBGBs
13:05
Speaker 1: was happening and the sex pistols in the Clash and
13:08
Speaker 1: buzz cut, that was all happening in England. And I
13:12
Speaker 1: had one foot in this private plane all access passed
13:16
Speaker 1: backstage Zeppelin in the Stones world, and the other foot
13:20
Speaker 1: every night I was in New York and CBGVS standing
13:24
Speaker 1: in two inches of beer or urine, oh god knows what.
13:28
Speaker 1: And Richard and I just made Roxcene Magazine, which was
13:33
Speaker 1: the house organ along with Pump Magazine of that world.
13:37
Speaker 1: And that was when I first saw the Ramones and
13:40
Speaker 1: Patty Smiths and television and talking ads in Bondi and
13:44
Speaker 1: that just blew me away. And so Jagger thought, well,
13:48
Speaker 1: she knows what's happening in this world, and he invited
13:51
Speaker 1: me on the seventy five Stones tour, and I had
13:54
Speaker 1: an amazing gig because they paid me to be a
13:57
Speaker 1: consultant to tell him who to talk to in the press.
14:00
Speaker 1: But I also could write about them. There was no
14:02
Speaker 1: such thing that a conflict of interest, you know, So
14:06
Speaker 1: I did both. And being on that kind of tour,
14:11
Speaker 1: being in those kind of hotels with the room service
14:14
Speaker 1: and everything you'd want available to you, and then going
14:20
Speaker 1: with Patti Smith in a van for seventeen hours or
14:24
Speaker 1: whatever it took to get somewhere, I understood this world
14:28
Speaker 1: for women, and I understood what it's like for women
14:31
Speaker 1: that's different than men, because women did not pick up
14:35
Speaker 1: boys on the road the way guys did. Women did
14:38
Speaker 1: not do drugs the same way. I mean, yes they
14:41
Speaker 1: did drugs, but they didn't have a whole chapter about
14:44
Speaker 1: drugs and sex, and another one on sex in my book.
14:47
Speaker 1: But it's like Debbie Harry told me she could not
14:50
Speaker 1: ask her tour manager to go into the audience and
14:54
Speaker 1: pick out the ten cutest boys, like David Lee Roth
14:57
Speaker 1: would have his tour manager go in and pick out
15:00
Speaker 1: the ten cutest girls to meet him, and I use
15:04
Speaker 1: that word advisably meet quotes around that. But having gone
15:10
Speaker 1: on the Zeppelin and the Stones tour, I then got
15:13
Speaker 1: a syndicate, a column, I got a syndicated radio show,
15:17
Speaker 1: I went on cable television, and I don't know, it's
15:20
Speaker 1: just that my reputation for being trustworthy because if something
15:26
Speaker 1: was off the record, it was off the record, and
15:29
Speaker 1: I was not a critic, and people like that, and
15:33
Speaker 1: so then of course I was accused of writing puff pieces.
15:36
Speaker 1: But basically I didn't really care because I was a fan.
15:40
Speaker 1: I was a music fan, and that continues to this day.
15:45
Speaker 1: Talk about CBGB's a little bit. So you saw the
15:48
Speaker 1: Ramunds Patti Smith television talking heads. Did it feel like
15:55
Speaker 1: the music was of a collection or was it more
15:59
Speaker 1: like these are just a bunch of different interesting artists
16:02
Speaker 1: playing in the same place. Yeah, it was a bunch
16:05
Speaker 1: of different interesting artists playing in the same place, and
16:08
Speaker 1: unfortunately they got labeled as all being part of a
16:11
Speaker 1: New York punk scene and they all hated that. Frankly,
16:15
Speaker 1: Ramones didn't mind it so much because they had more
16:19
Speaker 1: of that image or being punks. I thought television was
16:22
Speaker 1: the best band of all of them, and as a result,
16:25
Speaker 1: of course, they were the least commercially successful. Just like
16:29
Speaker 1: you know, Tomderlane thought he was John Caldrane or Pink Floor.
16:34
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't think he was a punk. Blondie
16:38
Speaker 1: started out as a pop art project. They thought it
16:42
Speaker 1: would be funny to sort of emulate a pop band
16:45
Speaker 1: with a cute girls singer, and that was Chris Stein
16:50
Speaker 1: and Debbie Harry's whole vision for that band. And then
16:54
Speaker 1: they had some hits and then they turned into like
16:56
Speaker 1: a big pop band, but they did some very cool
17:00
Speaker 1: things because Debbie brought fab five Freddie into it and
17:03
Speaker 1: then Raptures. She brought rap sort of to the mainstream
17:06
Speaker 1: a little bit at that point in the seven and these,
17:09
Speaker 1: even though it really wasn't happening in a larger way,
17:14
Speaker 1: I mean cool Hirk started in I don't know what year,
17:17
Speaker 1: it was maybe a little later seventy eight, but in
17:20
Speaker 1: CBGB's Patty was the first woman that like looked like
17:25
Speaker 1: Keith Richards or Bob Dylan, two guys she idolized. But
17:29
Speaker 1: she would punch the air and kind of combine poetry
17:32
Speaker 1: with music, and it was just incredibly liberating and exciting
17:37
Speaker 1: to see a woman do this. And of course the
17:40
Speaker 1: New York Dolls and Mercer Street was even before that.
17:43
Speaker 1: And I thought David Johansson at that time was probably
17:48
Speaker 1: the best rock and roll performer I ever saw, and
17:51
Speaker 1: I still hope that. I think he's much better than Jagger.
17:54
Speaker 1: He was incredibly witty, he was really really funny and smart,
18:00
Speaker 1: and Johnny Thunders was a great sloppy blues rock guitarist,
18:06
Speaker 1: and so CBS was just kind of our home. We
18:10
Speaker 1: went there every single night. Honestly, I think I spent
18:13
Speaker 1: the entire winter of nineteen seventy four there. Every single
18:16
Speaker 1: night we'd stayed till the end of every performance. New
18:22
Speaker 1: York was so different than I mean, it was a dump,
18:26
Speaker 1: but as I've written, it was our dump. And you know,
18:30
Speaker 1: they served hamburgers on paper plates with potato chips. I
18:34
Speaker 1: now cannot believe I ate anything in there. The bathroom
18:37
Speaker 1: downstairs was grotesque. I mean, Helly's dog was at the
18:42
Speaker 1: front desk all the time, slobbery. It was just kind
18:46
Speaker 1: of a crazy place, never to be replicated, never. And
18:51
Speaker 1: the thing is, every city has some place like this.
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure, Seattle did London, you know, the
18:59
Speaker 1: cavern in Liverpool whatever. In retrospect, it's taken on this
19:03
Speaker 1: mythic quality, but when you're living it, it doesn't feel
19:07
Speaker 1: like that. It's just someplace you go and you enjoy
19:10
Speaker 1: the music and your friends with all the people. And
19:13
Speaker 1: I would dread Bob growing around by the nape of
19:16
Speaker 1: the neck to take pictures, and then we put them
19:19
Speaker 1: in Rock Scene, and then some people would start showing up,
19:23
Speaker 1: like Paul Simon slumming, or Clive Davis looking to sign someone,
19:28
Speaker 1: or seymour Stein looking to sign someone, and I would
19:32
Speaker 1: always be posing with anybody, and then when the mud
19:34
Speaker 1: Club happened, Bowie would show up there. So it was
19:39
Speaker 1: always the rock scene, frankly was a shameless self promotional
19:43
Speaker 1: vehicle for me, and so they had always Richard would
19:46
Speaker 1: like these very snarky captions, like a rare smiling photo
19:50
Speaker 1: of Lisa with David Bowie, because it'd be like thirty
19:53
Speaker 1: rare smiling photos of me in every issue. We were
19:57
Speaker 1: going to CBGB's every night. When I first heard the
20:00
Speaker 1: Ramones Rick, I couldn't believe their songs were all under
20:03
Speaker 1: three minutes. I thought everybody else proll them some crazy
20:07
Speaker 1: pump I thought sounded like the Beach Boys on speed.
20:11
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Lisa Robinson In just
20:14
Speaker 1: a moment, We're back with Rick Rubin and Lisa Robinson,
20:21
Speaker 1: who tells the story of a funny run in with
20:23
Speaker 1: Eminem and his manager Paul Rosenberg backstage at S ANDL.
20:28
Speaker 1: Of all the bands you ever saw, the first time
20:30
Speaker 1: you saw the Ramons having never heard them before, was
20:34
Speaker 1: that the most stunning first impression of any band? Now
20:39
Speaker 1: the New York Dolls, I think was Actually, I mean,
20:42
Speaker 1: you also have to understand anything I would tell you,
20:45
Speaker 1: Like everybody always asked me, Okay, who are the five
20:48
Speaker 1: best female performers you ever saw? And I would start
20:52
Speaker 1: with Bette Midler. Then I'd go to Adele maybe, or
20:56
Speaker 1: Tina Turner or Steven Anything would be an incomplete list,
21:01
Speaker 1: and anything could change on a day to day basis,
21:05
Speaker 1: because I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of women and probably
21:09
Speaker 1: zens of men, and I can't say that there was
21:11
Speaker 1: one seminal moment, because every time something it turned me
21:17
Speaker 1: on or got me excited, that time was the best
21:21
Speaker 1: time for that thing. You know, It's a series of
21:24
Speaker 1: steps like it took me a long time to get
21:27
Speaker 1: into hip hop, and Jimmy, I having kept pushing and
21:31
Speaker 1: pushing Eminem, You've got to do a story in Vanity
21:34
Speaker 1: Fair on Eminem, and I kept saying, no, I don't know.
21:36
Speaker 1: Slim as Tady seems a little jokey to me. I
21:40
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I like that to drain Tupac better.
21:43
Speaker 1: And I just California. And then finally I saw Eminem
21:48
Speaker 1: perform and it was like he took my breath away.
21:51
Speaker 1: And then, of course it took me two years to
21:53
Speaker 1: get to interview him, and then I did an unbelievable
21:56
Speaker 1: interview with him, three and a half hours, crazy, lucid, brilliant. Anyway,
22:03
Speaker 1: when I saw him again that stage of SNL and
22:06
Speaker 1: my book was almost coming out, there goes Gravity, and
22:11
Speaker 1: Paul said Marshall, Lisa wrote a book and there's a
22:15
Speaker 1: whole chapter about you. And he looked at me and
22:18
Speaker 1: he went, who else are there chapters on? And I said,
22:21
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, let's Steppelin, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, David And
22:26
Speaker 1: he goes, oh, that's great company. And Paul said, Lisa,
22:32
Speaker 1: tell Marshall the title of the book and I said,
22:35
Speaker 1: there goes Gravity, and for one minute it was like
22:38
Speaker 1: he wasn't sure that that was his line, and then
22:40
Speaker 1: there was recognition that it was from Lose Yourself and
22:44
Speaker 1: he went, oh, thank you. When I went, no, thank you,
22:47
Speaker 1: I mean you saved my ass with that title. I
22:49
Speaker 1: couldn't come up with one, and that was perfect. And
22:52
Speaker 1: then I said, you don't remember talking to me in
22:54
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, do you? You were stoned then, right,
22:58
Speaker 1: and he said probably. And I said I was driven
23:03
Speaker 1: to Detroit because I'd rather be in a car for
23:06
Speaker 1: eleven hours than on a plane for eleven minutes. And
23:09
Speaker 1: I went to his studio in Detroit and I told him,
23:12
Speaker 1: I said, and we did a three and a half
23:13
Speaker 1: hour interview. You don't remember it. I said, you were
23:17
Speaker 1: mad because they put cheese on your hamburger and you
23:20
Speaker 1: didn't want sprite, you wanted mountain dew and blah blah
23:22
Speaker 1: blah with the food order and I remembered all this
23:25
Speaker 1: stuff about it, and he went, wow, you have a
23:27
Speaker 1: good memory. I don't. And you know that was another
23:32
Speaker 1: AHA kind of moment listening to him, same with jay Z.
23:37
Speaker 1: Absolutely blown away by jay Z. And then when I
23:41
Speaker 1: did him for the cover of Vanity Fair. I mean,
23:44
Speaker 1: Moolly spent days together and every single time I saw
23:48
Speaker 1: him perform, I just couldn't take my eyes off of him.
23:52
Speaker 1: And then like I went on one tour with him
23:54
Speaker 1: where Justin Timberlake opened one show and Jay opened another
23:59
Speaker 1: and they alternated. And I can always tell when something
24:04
Speaker 1: really is getting to me because I never go backstage
24:07
Speaker 1: to refill the glass of wine, so I waited it
24:10
Speaker 1: was our bathroom break, and I would do that during
24:13
Speaker 1: Justin Timberlake, never Jay. So you know, there are just
24:17
Speaker 1: people that leave me cold, mostly pop stars, and then
24:21
Speaker 1: there are people that just to this day, when I
24:23
Speaker 1: see Stevie Nixon Lance Light, I cried. Jeremy Mitchell I
24:27
Speaker 1: was always terrified of because I heard she was nuts
24:32
Speaker 1: and I heard she was difficult and hated journalists. And
24:36
Speaker 1: when we did a cover of Vanity Fair, Annie used
24:39
Speaker 1: to do them in panels, like one panel at a time,
24:43
Speaker 1: and one year, I think it was two thousand and one,
24:46
Speaker 1: I was determined to get everyone in the room at
24:48
Speaker 1: the same time, and I worked eight months with the
24:52
Speaker 1: help of Jimmy Ivan who would send some people there.
24:56
Speaker 1: And so that year I got everyone in the room
24:59
Speaker 1: at the same time. And I think that cover was
25:02
Speaker 1: Beyonce Bowie, Jule Beck, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Mitchell, Matt Swell,
25:08
Speaker 1: Wins to Find Annie, jay Z, Missy Elliott, and Chris
25:12
Speaker 1: Cornell another one who's a sad loss. So they were
25:18
Speaker 1: all lined up. But I had never met every other
25:21
Speaker 1: person on that cover I knew, except I've never met Johnnie,
25:26
Speaker 1: and I wanted to go into Annie's studio knowing everyone,
25:29
Speaker 1: or at least not having to say hello to them
25:31
Speaker 1: for the first time. So I told her makeup artist
25:35
Speaker 1: who was a mutual friend. He's also deceased now, Paul Starr,
25:40
Speaker 1: I really want to meet Johnny. Can I go to
25:42
Speaker 1: the Carlisle and just have one drink with her? She
25:45
Speaker 1: was staying at the Carlisle. You could smoke in the
25:48
Speaker 1: lobby of the Carlisle at that time, and Joanie, of
25:51
Speaker 1: course was a chain smoker. Is not anymore, I don't think,
25:54
Speaker 1: But so he said, well, she'll see you for like
25:57
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. It was like getting an audience, and within
26:01
Speaker 1: the first five minutes. I don't know how I managed
26:04
Speaker 1: to get this in, but I thought this is either
26:07
Speaker 1: gonna be some thing she like, or she'll get up
26:11
Speaker 1: and walk away. And I just said that I thought
26:14
Speaker 1: my Donna ruined the culture. And she got up and
26:18
Speaker 1: she hugged me and we sat there for about four hours,
26:22
Speaker 1: went through two bottles of wine, she smoked god knows
26:25
Speaker 1: how many packs of cigarettes, and that went on until
26:29
Speaker 1: whatever four in the morning. But you know, there's people
26:32
Speaker 1: that still kind of turned me on, and I get
26:36
Speaker 1: interested and excited about I love a lot of the
26:39
Speaker 1: stuff Beyonce is doing. I think she's kind of exceeded.
26:44
Speaker 1: You know. You and I have talked about her in
26:46
Speaker 1: the past, and when she was in Destiny's Chop, she
26:49
Speaker 1: was a pop star and I wasn't that interested in
26:52
Speaker 1: her or them, And then I interviewed her, and then
26:56
Speaker 1: I've been at parties with her, and I've seen sides
26:59
Speaker 1: of her that have absolutely impressed me with her discipline.
27:04
Speaker 1: Like I write in the book that the first time
27:07
Speaker 1: I ever interviewed her, we ordered a pizza and she
27:09
Speaker 1: had one slice. I can't imagine ever having one slice
27:14
Speaker 1: of a pizza. And I would say to her, you're
27:16
Speaker 1: only gonna have one slice, I'm gonna eat the whole
27:18
Speaker 1: rest of it, And she say it's part of my job.
27:21
Speaker 1: And then I was at a party with her once
27:23
Speaker 1: where they brought us a brownie to the table and
27:26
Speaker 1: she cut it into four small pieces, and she had
27:28
Speaker 1: one piece, and I just thought, I cannot believe the
27:31
Speaker 1: discipline of this woman. But then as I got to
27:34
Speaker 1: know her a little bit more, and I saw her
27:37
Speaker 1: a little more with Jay, and she took a lot
27:39
Speaker 1: of vacations and she started living her life more and
27:43
Speaker 1: then also evolving more as an artist. But when I
27:48
Speaker 1: scare her sing love on Top, to me, that's like
27:52
Speaker 1: an R and B Gospel of Motown kind of vibe.
27:57
Speaker 1: And then I've been in parties with her where she
27:59
Speaker 1: can just sing along to any OJ song or any
28:01
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson song. And as Jay said, she's a student
28:05
Speaker 1: of the game. She knows every song has ever been done.
28:09
Speaker 1: So you're asking me, was seeing the Romans like the
28:12
Speaker 1: greatest experience in my life? There have been about fifty
28:17
Speaker 1: two one hundred greatest experiences of my life. Considering all
28:21
Speaker 1: of the artists you've talked to over the years, could
28:24
Speaker 1: you say that there's any commonality between them versus the
28:29
Speaker 1: other people you come in contact with in your life. Well,
28:33
Speaker 1: there's a lot of differences between the male and the
28:36
Speaker 1: female artists. First of all, musicians are always worried they're
28:39
Speaker 1: not going to be able to write the next song
28:41
Speaker 1: or the right album. But the difference with musicians is
28:44
Speaker 1: every single one of them has said the same thing
28:47
Speaker 1: to me in that the songs just get plucked out
28:50
Speaker 1: of the air. We don't know where they come from.
28:53
Speaker 1: I mean everyone from Keith Richards to Lady Gaga, who
28:58
Speaker 1: told me that she was watching the hurt Locker, the
29:02
Speaker 1: movie in Australia, and all of a sudden, Born this
29:06
Speaker 1: Way came to her and she ran out and she
29:08
Speaker 1: wrote it in three minutes. Keith Richards told me he
29:11
Speaker 1: woke up one morning and he had recorded Satisfaction on
29:15
Speaker 1: his tape recorder the night before. I mean, they all
29:18
Speaker 1: say that some people probably labor more than others, but
29:23
Speaker 1: musicians have a lot of things in common. They fight
29:28
Speaker 1: with a record company more than writers fight with publishers.
29:31
Speaker 1: The women have had more problems with male record executives
29:35
Speaker 1: than the men in terms of occasional sexual harassment. Cheryl
29:40
Speaker 1: Kroges told me the other day that she thinks there's
29:44
Speaker 1: a lot she had a lot of sexual harassment when
29:47
Speaker 1: she was touring with Michael Jackson and Frank de Leo,
29:50
Speaker 1: who's since deceased. But in my book, I have a
29:53
Speaker 1: whole chapter on abuse, everything from Fiona Apple and Torreamo's
29:57
Speaker 1: talking about rape to Lady Gaga other women talking about
30:04
Speaker 1: more subtle forms of abuse. Women have the big problem
30:09
Speaker 1: of juggling home versus career, and that ideal with in
30:14
Speaker 1: a chapter called motherhood because I never wanted to have children.
30:18
Speaker 1: But the only woman that I've talked to who said
30:22
Speaker 1: she never wanted children and didn't regret it was Dolly Parton.
30:26
Speaker 1: Stevie Nick said that she kind of regrets never having
30:30
Speaker 1: a child, but she knew she couldn't do it or
30:33
Speaker 1: would have broken a fleet with Mac because Lindsey Buckingham,
30:36
Speaker 1: even after they broke up as a couple, she could
30:39
Speaker 1: never bring boyfriends around Fleetwood Mac, and she could never
30:42
Speaker 1: have a child. Men, now, I suppose are more engaged
30:47
Speaker 1: with their children. You know, the Home Meet Too movement
30:50
Speaker 1: has brought a lot of this to like. But I
30:52
Speaker 1: promised to led Zeppelin in the seventies traveling with their
30:58
Speaker 1: wives at home with their children and their farms in
31:01
Speaker 1: England or Wales. It was a completely different story. But
31:06
Speaker 1: commonality with women is very, very obvious, and that's what
31:12
Speaker 1: I wrote a whole book about it, because all these rich,
31:15
Speaker 1: famous women have the same problems that all women have.
31:19
Speaker 1: If you want a career, it's really hard. And even
31:22
Speaker 1: if you have a lot of help, if you're not
31:24
Speaker 1: with that child, you're worrying what's going on with the child,
31:27
Speaker 1: because the women are the caretakers. If a child falls
31:31
Speaker 1: and a concrete street, he yells for his mother. It's
31:35
Speaker 1: just biological, you know. So Gwen Stefani couldn't keep her
31:40
Speaker 1: marriage going. She had a more successful career than her
31:44
Speaker 1: husband at the time, so that fell apart. Bonnie Ray
31:47
Speaker 1: told me she couldn't stay married because everybody called her
31:51
Speaker 1: husband mister Bonnie Ray. I mean, Realna has always said
31:56
Speaker 1: in length to me in this book, I'm always suspicious
31:59
Speaker 1: of people who want to be with me or want
32:01
Speaker 1: to sleep with me. What are their motives? You know?
32:03
Speaker 1: And I can't just pick up a guy and have
32:06
Speaker 1: a fun night and you know, great ride and he
32:10
Speaker 1: wakes up the next day with a great story and
32:13
Speaker 1: I wake up feeling my ship, you know. Adele told
32:17
Speaker 1: me at the time she was very happily married. Her
32:20
Speaker 1: husband was older than she was. He understood her career,
32:24
Speaker 1: he wasn't threatened by it. And I don't really know
32:27
Speaker 1: the reasons why that wasn't able to last. But it's
32:32
Speaker 1: just tough. It's tough for women musicians. We'll be right
32:37
Speaker 1: back with Lisa Robinson. After this quick break, We're back
32:44
Speaker 1: with the rest of Rick's conversation with Lisa Robinson. Tell
32:48
Speaker 1: the story of seeing the Ramans and getting Sire involved.
32:53
Speaker 1: I don't really know if I got Seymour involved, or
32:56
Speaker 1: the fact that we wrote about them very early on
32:59
Speaker 1: and put pictures of them in Rocksone. But when I
33:02
Speaker 1: saw them, I just was blown away. And so I
33:05
Speaker 1: don't really remember the steps to which Seymour sign them.
33:10
Speaker 1: I don't know that it was that easy for the
33:11
Speaker 1: Ramones to get a record deal. I'm not sure everybody
33:14
Speaker 1: got it. I mean, I know how much they meant
33:16
Speaker 1: to you and mean to you, and I know you
33:20
Speaker 1: think that they were the greatest band the bull time
33:22
Speaker 1: if you had to pick one, but I can't believe
33:25
Speaker 1: you would really do that. Top three, Top three really, Okay,
33:29
Speaker 1: So the Beatles, Remans and who has the clash no,
33:32
Speaker 1: maybe like Simon and Garfunkel. Oh, for God's sakes, really, yeah,
33:37
Speaker 1: I really like the doors too. I like the doors too.
33:39
Speaker 1: I see I didn't like their doors. I just thought
33:41
Speaker 1: the doors were like kind of a college band, you know.
33:44
Speaker 1: I just thought it was a bit much. I just thought, Jim,
33:48
Speaker 1: that was that hull stick, you know, I'm going on.
33:52
Speaker 1: And Glorius Davers, who was the editor of sixteen magazine,
33:56
Speaker 1: had an affair with Jim, and she said he used
33:59
Speaker 1: to call her and say, come over to the Chelsea Hotel.
34:02
Speaker 1: I'm about to kill myself for some crazy thing like that.
34:05
Speaker 1: They're both dead now, so I don't know if this
34:07
Speaker 1: is exactly what happened, but this is how I remember it,
34:11
Speaker 1: so I'll stick to this story. And she said one night,
34:13
Speaker 1: Jim Calder And said I'm having a really bad trip.
34:16
Speaker 1: You have to come over. You have to come over.
34:18
Speaker 1: And she said, oh, Jim, really, And she said, yes,
34:22
Speaker 1: You've got to come over right now. And Gloria was
34:24
Speaker 1: the most glamorous woman. She was a model in the fifties.
34:28
Speaker 1: She went out with Lenny Bruce and she went over
34:31
Speaker 1: to Chelsea. The door to his room is open. She
34:35
Speaker 1: walked in the room. She goes Jim. Jim. She goes
34:39
Speaker 1: in the bathroom. She doesn't see him. She thinks he
34:43
Speaker 1: just left, so she leaves. She goes home. She's home
34:47
Speaker 1: ten minutes. Phone rings, She picks it up. It's Jim
34:50
Speaker 1: on the other line. You didn't look under the bed.
34:55
Speaker 1: That's one Jim Morrison. Sorry, what did you say? The Beatles,
34:59
Speaker 1: the Ramones, Simon and Garfuncle, and the Doors. You've worked
35:05
Speaker 1: with so many more fabulous people than that. I mean,
35:08
Speaker 1: Johnny Cash, Leonard Come, Trent Resner, Adele Eminem jay Z.
35:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go on and on and on.
35:17
Speaker 1: Surely you're more sophisticated than both Simon and Garfunnel and
35:21
Speaker 1: the Doors. Really, I don't know. I couldn't pick three
35:24
Speaker 1: top bands. I wouldn't know where to begin. Anyway, anything
35:27
Speaker 1: is incomplete list right, and it always it's always changing.
35:31
Speaker 1: If it would change depending on what I listened to,
35:35
Speaker 1: you know, it changes to me depending on who I'm
35:39
Speaker 1: talking to, depending on the day, depending on my mode,
35:42
Speaker 1: and depending it's almost hourly. I could tell you top
35:46
Speaker 1: ten performances I've seen over forty eight years, which would
35:50
Speaker 1: include Bob Marley at the Roxy. What were you doing
35:52
Speaker 1: in California for the Roxy show with the Stones in
35:56
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, and they closed down the balcony for us.
36:00
Speaker 1: So Annie went with her cameras, the whole band went.
36:04
Speaker 1: I went and we I'm also Bob Morley at the
36:07
Speaker 1: Academy Music and I will or I went with Richard
36:10
Speaker 1: and he jumped up standing ovation at the end, and
36:12
Speaker 1: I never saw him that outward about something. He was
36:16
Speaker 1: very Blaise Richard and jaded in a way and sort
36:20
Speaker 1: of calm, but he was so excited he jumped up.
36:23
Speaker 1: But I was shocked, but at any rate, So we
36:26
Speaker 1: were at the Rock Season nineteen seventy five in the summer,
36:29
Speaker 1: must have been July or August. I take the whobod
36:31
Speaker 1: more Lisa, and we laid out these shots of tequila
36:35
Speaker 1: along under the banister of the balcony, and Annie and
36:39
Speaker 1: I must have each had about ten shots of tequila.
36:44
Speaker 1: And I never drank tequila before, and I was sick.
36:47
Speaker 1: It's like mescal, and I mean I was violently ill
36:50
Speaker 1: to the entire next twenty four hours. When I got
36:53
Speaker 1: back to the hotel and Annie lost her cameras. She
36:57
Speaker 1: left them there. She didn't get her cameras back, but
37:00
Speaker 1: I had the tape of the performance, so it was
37:02
Speaker 1: worth it. But that was one of the greatest performances
37:05
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. Now as an interview, I cannot say
37:09
Speaker 1: brow Molly was a great interview because we did a
37:11
Speaker 1: phoner and I could barely understand half of what he said.
37:15
Speaker 1: Talk about the last book a little bit in There
37:17
Speaker 1: goes Gravity. I only had one chapter about a woman,
37:20
Speaker 1: and that was Lady Gerger. For some reason, I had
37:24
Speaker 1: just been interviewing her for Vanity Fair Cover Stories, and
37:27
Speaker 1: I was so taken with her because she was a
37:30
Speaker 1: phenomenon at the time, and yet I just thought she
37:34
Speaker 1: was adorable and grounded. And I met her parents and
37:38
Speaker 1: I had dinner there, and she kept telling me about
37:42
Speaker 1: her parents in their house, and she said, oh, I'll
37:44
Speaker 1: have to take you there sometime. And I kept thinking, though,
37:47
Speaker 1: she'll wait and take Oprah there, you know, we'll never
37:50
Speaker 1: do it. But she came through and we did it.
37:52
Speaker 1: And we also walked around the Lower East Side and
37:55
Speaker 1: anybody that came up to her on the street she
37:57
Speaker 1: signed an autograph and she was just told me the
38:00
Speaker 1: doorway she wasn't just to sit in and take drugs
38:04
Speaker 1: with and she was just incredibly open with me. So
38:07
Speaker 1: in a book that was full of a chapter led Zeppelin,
38:10
Speaker 1: in my five Doors with Them chapter about the Stones,
38:13
Speaker 1: and mostly my nineteen seventy five forty with Them. Michael Jackson,
38:18
Speaker 1: who I knew from when he was eleven years old
38:21
Speaker 1: and so he stopped speaking at the press. But when
38:24
Speaker 1: I met him when he was eleven, he was the
38:27
Speaker 1: most adorable, outgoing, cute child, and I looked so cute.
38:31
Speaker 1: In the picture of me and him in that book,
38:35
Speaker 1: I'm holding my unlock tape recorder up. We're both looking
38:38
Speaker 1: at the camera. He's eleven, I look like fourteen. And
38:43
Speaker 1: in my new book about the Girls, I have a
38:45
Speaker 1: picture of a five year old Janet Jackson with her
38:48
Speaker 1: back to the camera with braids because she didn't want
38:51
Speaker 1: to be photographed. But when I met Michael, he was
38:54
Speaker 1: so adorable that day and talented and running around the
38:57
Speaker 1: house showing me the animals sort of dancing at the pool.
39:02
Speaker 1: And I remember calling Fran and saying, this kid is
39:05
Speaker 1: going to be the greatest live entertainer ever, And she said,
39:09
Speaker 1: how could you possibly know that he's a loved And
39:11
Speaker 1: I said, just trust me. He's going to be amazing.
39:14
Speaker 1: I just know it. And so there was a chapter
39:16
Speaker 1: on Michael Jackson in which I included the questionnaire he
39:22
Speaker 1: filled out when we had a magazine called Rock and Soul,
39:25
Speaker 1: and it was what is your nickname? He felt this
39:29
Speaker 1: out in his own handwriting. I think he was twelve
39:32
Speaker 1: at the time, Amy, And what is your nickname? And
39:34
Speaker 1: he wrote Niger and he crossed that out, and then
39:40
Speaker 1: he wrote the nose, and then I think there's a
39:44
Speaker 1: question what are your interesting? He wrote, children, all kinds,
39:47
Speaker 1: all times. And I have kept that questionnaire in the
39:51
Speaker 1: safety deposit box for years until I finally thought enough, already,
39:57
Speaker 1: I don't want to pay for the safety deposita box
40:00
Speaker 1: as well as the four storage spaces, so I have
40:03
Speaker 1: that hidden in a secure location as well. But then
40:06
Speaker 1: there's a chapter on the whole CBGB's and David Bowie
40:10
Speaker 1: and mcclash and Lou and Chrissy Hynd and Patti Smith,
40:14
Speaker 1: and chapter on John Lennon because I did so many
40:18
Speaker 1: hours of tape with him and Yoko. I mean, the
40:22
Speaker 1: way I got to John, to be honest, was through Yoko.
40:26
Speaker 1: I heard Yoko's music, and unlike everybody else, at that time.
40:34
Speaker 1: I heard the B fifty twos, I heard punk rock,
40:38
Speaker 1: I heard weird shit. But I had also grown up
40:42
Speaker 1: going to the Living Theater and you know La Mama
40:47
Speaker 1: and all that kind of weird performance are. I knew
40:50
Speaker 1: Yoko a little bit, but not much, and I wrote
40:54
Speaker 1: something nice about her in my column at the time
40:57
Speaker 1: in the New York Post. And then she decreed that okay,
41:01
Speaker 1: I could be John. So I went to meet them
41:04
Speaker 1: both do an interview with her about her album in
41:09
Speaker 1: her Bank Street apartment, which was just totally unassuming apartment
41:15
Speaker 1: on like one floor below the main street to just
41:20
Speaker 1: go down a few steps. There was no security there, nothing.
41:24
Speaker 1: This was I when they first moved to New York,
41:27
Speaker 1: before he got into the whole immigration ship. And I
41:31
Speaker 1: sat in the interviewed Yoko for a long time, and
41:33
Speaker 1: then when we were finished, she brought John out, As
41:35
Speaker 1: I wrote in one of the books, like Dessert, So
41:39
Speaker 1: she brought him out, and he was so excited, like
41:43
Speaker 1: he was so thrilled that someone was a paying attention
41:45
Speaker 1: to Yoko and that it was a woman. And then
41:48
Speaker 1: we both agreed that she had been the victim of racist,
41:52
Speaker 1: misogynistic stuff. They know It's interesting because, like with Adell,
41:56
Speaker 1: when I first talked to Adele, she was already huge star.
42:00
Speaker 1: But we were in the car five minutes she driving.
42:04
Speaker 1: Within five minutes, she started talking to me about postpartum
42:07
Speaker 1: depression after the birth of her son. And I know
42:12
Speaker 1: that she had wanted to talk about this, but I
42:15
Speaker 1: also knew that she was holding off talking about it
42:18
Speaker 1: until she talked to a woman, because every interviewer she
42:21
Speaker 1: had done a fire It was with these men and
42:24
Speaker 1: fashion magazines and about clothes. And so that's why when
42:27
Speaker 1: people ask me, the women relate to you differently, Yeah,
42:30
Speaker 1: of course they do, because I've gone through some of
42:33
Speaker 1: the same misogynistic shit at any rate, not racist as
42:37
Speaker 1: in Yoko's instance, but and jealousy and Beatles fans making
42:41
Speaker 1: her this villain and all that nonsense. Anyway, John was
42:45
Speaker 1: just so happy that I was talking to Yoko, understanding Yoko,
42:51
Speaker 1: writing about Yoko, and then he just talked, talked, and
42:54
Speaker 1: we got along so great, and he was so funny
42:57
Speaker 1: and so witty and just so sarcastic and so clever.
43:01
Speaker 1: And then as the years went on and I would
43:03
Speaker 1: interview him more, and I was one of the few
43:07
Speaker 1: that she would let into the house Jako, and when
43:10
Speaker 1: he went back home, as he put it, between seventy
43:12
Speaker 1: five and eighty, I was there. I would interview him.
43:16
Speaker 1: I also interviewed him during his lost weekend, not in
43:20
Speaker 1: California when he was nuts, but when he was living
43:22
Speaker 1: with May Peing over on forty nine Street, when he
43:25
Speaker 1: did Walls and Bridges. In fact, he signed an ascetate
43:29
Speaker 1: to me, which I have somewhere in the midst of
43:31
Speaker 1: my eight thousand vinyl albums, which I gotta sell them
43:35
Speaker 1: to someone. Q Tip came here to look at them,
43:39
Speaker 1: and he said he was sending somebody back the following
43:42
Speaker 1: week to appraise all of them. And I think it's great.
43:45
Speaker 1: He'll find John Lennon signed Assitate because Richard and I
43:48
Speaker 1: don't remember where we put it. That was two and
43:51
Speaker 1: a half years ago on so many and on a
43:55
Speaker 1: mere quest. Love told me, I want to buy your albums.
43:58
Speaker 1: I want to buy them for my storage in Philadelphia,
44:00
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and I said, okay, amir, come whenever
44:04
Speaker 1: you want. Four years ago it was still waiting anyway,
44:08
Speaker 1: So I'm signed an ascitate to Wilson Bridges and called
44:12
Speaker 1: me the next day after we did the interview, and
44:14
Speaker 1: he said, you know, we were talking about the Beatles convention.
44:17
Speaker 1: He would always call me to go, it's me John Beatles,
44:20
Speaker 1: and I don't you have to say Beatles, even though
44:24
Speaker 1: I know it's a joke. But I don't know anyone
44:27
Speaker 1: else named John who has a Liverpool accent at any rate.
44:31
Speaker 1: He said, remember we were talking about the Beatles Convention.
44:34
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, So you remember you told me you
44:36
Speaker 1: have four Beatles trays and a lunchbox and a thermis
44:40
Speaker 1: And I said yeah. He goes, well, you know I
44:43
Speaker 1: don't have a lunchbox or a thermis or a tray.
44:47
Speaker 1: And I thought, really, okay, I meant I messenger a
44:52
Speaker 1: tray over to him. And then I thought, oh, you idiot,
44:57
Speaker 1: you should have kept the set of four. I still
44:59
Speaker 1: have the three. So I did that chapter on John
45:02
Speaker 1: Lennon because I just I mean, there were a lot
45:05
Speaker 1: of off the record things about John Lennon that I
45:08
Speaker 1: won't talk about because they were off the record. But
45:12
Speaker 1: one thing that I cannot believe happened is when I
45:16
Speaker 1: went to the record plant when they were recording Double Fantasy.
45:19
Speaker 1: He said to me, and that was about three weeks,
45:22
Speaker 1: maybe before he was murdered, and he said, you know,
45:26
Speaker 1: I don't want to be a martyr. I don't want
45:27
Speaker 1: to be Mahatma Gandhi. I don't want to be Martin
45:30
Speaker 1: Luther King. Because I was talking about how he walked
45:33
Speaker 1: around New York and how free he was and he
45:36
Speaker 1: didn't have security. And I said how Bowie and Jagger
45:39
Speaker 1: had both always told me you can walk down the
45:41
Speaker 1: street one way and not get recognized, and you can
45:43
Speaker 1: walk down the street another way and get recognized. And
45:46
Speaker 1: John Savon, I don't give a fuck if I get
45:48
Speaker 1: recognized or now. I like being in New York. I
45:51
Speaker 1: don't care about security. And when I wrote up that interview,
45:56
Speaker 1: I didn't include that quarte in it because I thought,
45:59
Speaker 1: this is looking for trouble and I'll write that in
46:03
Speaker 1: the New York Post and some fucking nut will know
46:07
Speaker 1: that he walks around without security. So you know, that
46:11
Speaker 1: was an off the record thing that I mean. I'm
46:15
Speaker 1: glad I didn't write it, but it was kind of creepy.
46:18
Speaker 1: And then after he died, Yogo invited me over. She said,
46:24
Speaker 1: it's not an interview, I just want to talk to you.
46:26
Speaker 1: It was about a month after he was killed, I think,
46:29
Speaker 1: so I went over there. I didn't have a tape recorder.
46:32
Speaker 1: She was in the bed with the pillows behind her,
46:34
Speaker 1: and she was playing recordings of her new album, Thing
46:39
Speaker 1: was walking on and I said, I don't remember, and
46:42
Speaker 1: she was playing you know, things that she incorporated into
46:46
Speaker 1: the songs, like the fans singing outside the Dakota the
46:49
Speaker 1: night he was murdered. She showed me his sunglasses broken.
46:53
Speaker 1: There was going to be I think, on the cover.
46:56
Speaker 1: And she kept saying, this is not an interview, this
46:57
Speaker 1: is not an interview. And then about three weeks later,
47:00
Speaker 1: I read the exact verbatim stuff in Newsweek by Barbara
47:05
Speaker 1: grass Stark, another journalist, and I thought, did she want
47:09
Speaker 1: me to write about this or was she like audishiming
47:13
Speaker 1: people for who she was going to have this story,
47:16
Speaker 1: have it run in the biggest place. I mean, I
47:19
Speaker 1: would not have blamed her for not wanting it in
47:22
Speaker 1: the New York Post, clearly. But I do remember when
47:25
Speaker 1: I was at Vanity Fair, I took a lot of
47:28
Speaker 1: my Lenen tapes and I print We printed it in
47:31
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair, like the lost John Lennon tapes. And I
47:35
Speaker 1: remember Jan had put out his own lost John Lennon
47:38
Speaker 1: tapes and a book called that, and I remember him
47:42
Speaker 1: coming up to me somewhere and saying the lost Germ
47:46
Speaker 1: Lennon tapes and I went, uh, huh, mine my lost
47:49
Speaker 1: Germ Lennon tapes. But I never had a good relationship
47:53
Speaker 1: with Drawing start. I didn't like the way they treated women,
47:56
Speaker 1: and I didn't like especially that they had a chart
47:59
Speaker 1: of every and I wrote about that in This Girl's book.
48:02
Speaker 1: They had a chart of everyone Journey Mitchell slept with
48:05
Speaker 1: and they never did anything like that. Fanil young about
48:08
Speaker 1: Dylan and also how did he know? And that's fucked
48:12
Speaker 1: up anyway. That last book was called a memoir, but
48:17
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a memoir. I mean, I don't know
48:21
Speaker 1: how I could ever write a memoir would be an encyclopedia.
48:24
Speaker 1: I mean, this book I wrote about women is only
48:27
Speaker 1: forty women. Sort of the best stories that fit in
48:30
Speaker 1: these themes of abuse, fame, motherhood of sex, drugs, age,
48:35
Speaker 1: hair and makeup which is a bad image, which is
48:38
Speaker 1: my favorite chapter because it talks about how MTV changed everything.
48:43
Speaker 1: You know, all of a sudden you were seeing what
48:45
Speaker 1: the music was supposed to sound. Like and for those
48:49
Speaker 1: of us who just grew up with our eyes closed
48:51
Speaker 1: listening to the music imagining what it sounds like, that
48:55
Speaker 1: was not my thing anyway. Cool. Thank you for telling
48:59
Speaker 1: me stories. Well, we have talked for a very long time,
49:02
Speaker 1: and I'm sure this will be wildly edited down, but Rick,
49:05
Speaker 1: you know, between you and me, we could talk for
49:10
Speaker 1: three times if we had enough breath and our bodies
49:15
Speaker 1: could hold up. Thank you, Thank you getting them out
49:18
Speaker 1: of me. I appreciate it. Thanks to Lisa Robinson for
49:25
Speaker 1: chatting with Rick about her incredible career. Be sure to
49:28
Speaker 1: check out her new book, Nobody Ever Asked Me About
49:30
Speaker 1: the Grass. To hear more from Broken Record, you can
49:34
Speaker 1: subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash
49:37
Speaker 1: Broken Record Podcast, where you can find extended cuts of
49:40
Speaker 1: new and old episodes. Broken Record is produced with helpful
49:43
Speaker 1: Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and our
49:48
Speaker 1: new intern Jennifer Sanchez. Our executive producer is mil Lovell.
49:53
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries, and if
49:56
Speaker 1: you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and
49:59
Speaker 1: review our show on your podcast. Our theme musics by
50:02
Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond bass,